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Tyyr wrote:Because I can't quite get through the disappointment to flat out hate. There are still the occasional episodes that I enjoy. Maybe part of me wants to like it so bad that I can't make it past apathy to hate.

I've actually gone from hate to apathy, it's not the shows fault it failed, it's B&B's (with help from the network). It's the same thing with VOY, potential totally destroyed by poor management and writing.

Sad but true. Apathy is a worse comment on the show than hate.

Mikey wrote:Sad but true. Apathy is a worse comment on the show than hate.

I know it is to me. When I write something I'd rather hear that someone hates it than that they just don't care about it. I'll take a negative emotional response over none.

Aye. At least if you hate it then the show's getting a reaction. If you just sit there for the entire episode and just feel bored, it's failed spectacularly.

Personaly, my hatred of the show stems from how they fucked up something so promising.

IMO opinion it was never promising, at most it could just be just ok. Rehashing the past is boring...

Teaos wrote:IMO opinion it was never promising, at most it could just be just ok. Rehashing the past is boring...

I see your point; you know the series ultimately has to end with the formation of the Federation. But history can be fun; I like watching The History Channel, for example. And even though I know the Allies won WWII if I learn something I did not know then I am entertained.

What made me hate the series was many of the reasons mentioned by others (i.e. asshole Vulcans, not feeling like a prequel, the Akiraprise, etc.) but if they had at least given me characters I could give a damn about perhaps I could have forgiven some of those terrible, terrible flaws. But other than Hoshi-who never got to do much after the difference in languages thing became too cumbersome for B&B to deal with-the rest of the characters were either really boring or really annoying. And I think if Hoshi had been a guy he would have fallen into the "boring" category.

I think the premise did have promise; but the idea had too many dangers to work when handled as carelessly as it was.

Mikey wrote:I think the premise did have promise; but the idea had too many dangers to work when handled as carelessly as it was.

Good point. And "carelessly" is a good word to sum up B&B's approach to the series.

I honestly think it could have done great. There is a lot of early Trek history we know next to nothing about. To top it off the show could have used the low tech, for Trek, setting to do something very different with the show in that they couldn't just warp to a new planet every week. Instead it followed the typical TNG format of a new planet constantly. It used Trek's weakest trope, time travel, all the time constantly to start the show, then tried to recapture the DS9 magic by inventing a major war no one has ever mentioned before.

If they had the right attitude going in and had been willing to break from the traditional Trek mold it could have been great. They just couldn't get away from phasers, photon torpedos, shields, a new planet every week and no language problems. They tried to make TNG in a time period where it doesn't work and the show sucked for it.

It's the whole reason I have the disclaimer at the start of my Trek stories, "I don't own Star Trek, but the people who do probably shouldn't either."

Well put. Even in better hands, though, I still believe the very idea of a prequel is one which could still have easily fallen to some of those same flaws you mention.

If they had respected canon, made it more realistic with the expected period technology and made constant references to previously established canon, it would have been much higher in my books. So much potential, it could really have lifted that grey cloud over the early period. But it didnt. There was a great opportunity later on (if it lasted) to bring in the NX vs. Daedalus conflicts. But no.

Mikey wrote:Well put. Even in better hands, though, I still believe the very idea of a prequel is one which could still have easily fallen to some of those same flaws you mention.

Oh, that's almost inevitable. Doing a prequel like that virtually guarantees that at some point you're going to screw up something. The difference is if its an occasional minor oops it forgivable as opposed to the full on screw canon and everyone who cares about it that B&B gave it. And its Trek, at some point they'll have a time travel episode that makes no sense.

A trek series without time travel is utterly shocking

Ok, Dear Doctor might make me hate Enterprise. I hate that episode.

Dear Doctor, the one where Archer approves of genocide, right? Yeah, that one sucks so hard Earth was dragged from it's orbit the night it first aired.

"I'm going to obey a prime directive that does not exist yet."

And Phlox coming up with that bullshit theory on the fly without any proof, without any intense study. I remember the heady days of TNG where Crusher berated a fellow doctor about her lack of ethics:

"You scare me, doctor. You risk your patient's lives and justify it in the name of research. Genuine research takes time, sometimes a lifetime of painstaking, detailed work in order to get any results. Not for you - you take shortcuts, right through living tissue. You put your research ahead of your patient's lives and as far as I am concerned, that's a violation of our most sacred trust. I'm sure your work will be hailed as a stunning breakthrough. Enjoy your laurels, doctor. I'm not sure I could." - Crusher to Russell.

Phlox is an idiot.