O.K. - TNG, DS9, or VOY?

[Michael]

That's simple, I think. DS9 is an original. As is TOS. TNG, VOY and ENT are just clones of TOS. (Nethertheless I love a great portion of TNG and ENT.)

 

[OldManDax]

The Cutest of Borg said:
Much of TNG was the antithesis of Star Trek. They rarely showed conflict among the crew, alot of the stories were bland, and the Federation was just one big happy family. Roddenberry's utopian Starfleet may have been a nice place to live, but it made for boring television.

Just curious - other than McCoy's criticisms of Spock's ultra-logical attitudes, in what way did "conflict among the crew" exist on TOS?

DS9 learned from those lessons, and told stories about flawed people whose ideals were challenged by the realities of war. Could the Federation hold true to its principles while the Dominion was infiltrating and invading their worlds? While it was nowhere near perfect, I think DS9 was the closet to the original concepts of Star Trek.

In terms of asking questions, or merely showing "flawed people" whose ideals were challenged by war?

And do you think TOS ever seriously tackled the idea of whether the Federation members could hold on to their principles or at least had to fight to do so, or did TOS just assume "we were already there"?

 

[OldManDax]

Good Will Riker said:
TNG seasons 1 and 2 still carried the spirit and style of TOS. Will Riker was still the Jim Kirk of the show. Exploring outerspace, action adventure, social commentary, and allegories were present throughout the early TNG episodes.

Maybe I need to go rewatch early TNG again, cuz' I generally find the characters dull and its execution clumsy. I guess you can count me as one of the persons who prefer TNG seasons 3-7 (or at least what I've seen of it anyway) over the first two.

By contrast, TOS has most of its best stuff in its first two seasons.

Kirk's would-be-successor began and ended with Will Riker during seasons 1 and 2 of TNG. To put it kindly and euphemistically, Janeway was a psycho.

A little erratically and schizophrenically written perhaps, but a psycho? That's a very serious accusation.

Tuvok was a good Vulcan, but he doesn't hold a candle next to Spock. Torres was well-written, but like most VOY characters, was extremely under-utilized. The EMH was just plain cranky and stopped being a hologram exploring the human condition once the writers gave him that mobile emitter. A big mistake, because that took away so many challenges you could have set up for this potentially unique character.

Agreed pretty nuch 100% - although I still found Torres and the EMH pretty interesting throughout. Several of the series' best episodes, including "Lineage" and "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy" involve the two in a major way.

To put it simply, if I were to use a fictional boxing analogy, TOS is Rocky Balboa and VOY is Tommy Gunn. They may wear the same trunks, but only one of them has the support of the people as the people's true champion, while the other is just a poser. :thumbsup:

Who's Apollo Creed then?

Moreover, I thought I saw some of the use of classic TOS allegorical, theatrical and social commentary elements in episodes like "The Thaw", "Memorial","Tsunkatse", "Critical Care", and the like. And could not explicit parallels be made between the "Year of Hell" two-parter and say, "Balance of Terror"? Or "Blink of an Eye" and, well, "Wink of An Eye"?

Complete hack jobs. For those fans who complained about TNG's "The Naked Now," those VOY episodes you mentioned above just added more fuel to the fire of mediocrity (unoriginality).

[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry, but this response comes of as more than a little off-the-cuff and hyperbolic. You're telling me you see NOTHING of redeeming value, no parallels to original Trek in "Critical Care" (EMH takes on uncaring alien medical establishment) or "The Thaw" (Fear is anthromorphized as a crazy, bizarro world carnival when Janeway rescues some humans who have been in stasis)? That "Blink of An Eye" is merely a hack job (a bit predictable and by the numbers, yes, but a hack job?)? That Year of Hell 1 & 2 is no good at all???

You know, I love the TOS, but I don't think it necessary to treat the TNG movies as if they have no value at all.