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The TV and Streaming Thread: Pilot Week


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33 minutes ago, Amentep said:

although I've also heard rumors of some production conflicts regarding the last season there as well (been awhile since I read it, so I don't recall the details).

I recall reading that the actor who played MacGyver was a complete ass on and off the set and everyone working on the show hated working with him.

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1 hour ago, uuuhhii said:

hope for more episode than the second season

Trailer says 9 episodes. :p

I can't see this as season "3" -- they clearly split season 2 into two parts for some reason (development time?).

"only when you no-life you can exist forever, because what does not live cannot die."

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6 hours ago, Amentep said:

Production companies have traditionally wanted to get shows to at least 100 episodes for syndication purposes (this is less necessary in this day and age, though). 

Supposedly 88 is the modern 'magic number', so four full seasons rather than 5. More is definitely preferred though, and some fairly recent series have had getting to 100 as a contributing factor to a renewal such as Person of Interest* which got a half season renewal for S5 and 103 episodes total.

Series with niche appeal were always a bit more exempt from it too, though Magnum or MacGyver (reboots) likely wouldn't qualify on that basis**. Probably the most famous of them is Star Trek, but also Battlestar Galactica (original/'80) and even The Prisoner (original; with only 17 episodes).

*probably a good indicator of how much streaming influences things too; we don't actually have syndication here but PoI has been available uninterrupted for streaming almost continuously since its last episode- it just swaps which service it's on every couple of years (TVNZ on demand --> Netflix --> Neon (and its parent Sky pay TV) currently). WB is still making money off of it in ways they couldn't have 10+ years ago.

**though who knows, I have still have a soft spot for the original series of both so maybe in 30 years the reboots will be seen as classics too, and we'll get reboots of them.

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48 minutes ago, Raithe said:

I will say, having watched the first 3 episodes of Picard, I don't like the title sequence.  I liked Discovery and Strange New Worlds okay (I haven't seen SNW the show, but did watch the title sequence).

I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

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I have tried. Really hard. Tried. Then paused, tried again. Tried harder. I can't. I'm just dead inside, and while I wish I could share some of the more positive impressions I've read here, but it took me all of 15 minutes to switch playback to 2x speed just to get it over with.

Yes, I mean to say that I've watched the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. For half the episode I even took notes on the things I hated, until I realized that I just hate them because I finally arrived at the point where Mike from RLM is too. I just hate watching Star Trek by now, and nothing they can do will ever be good enough for me to not poke holes at everything and complain about every ridiculous minutiae.

Recently I watched a couple of episodes of Star Trek Voyager, and in the second episode of the series they encounter a silly space anomaly, a quantum singularity, and Voyager punches a hole in its event horizon to escape it. That's the sort of stupidity I'd complain about in nuTrek, but in Voyager it was a minor quibble in an otherwise decent episode mostly about crew interactions and tensions between the Maquis and the Federation crew. Plus some really fun moments with Bob Picardo as the doctor. Yes, punching a hole in an event horizon is silly, but that's only, like, the final part of an otherwise interesting concept.

And, as a caveat, until Star Trek Enterprise came out, I considered Voyager to be the least of all the Star Trek series, by far and large because the writers never figured out what they wanted to do with the characters, especially Janeway who ended up being a bipolar schizophrenic in a captain's chair. She should get treatment for that, but hey, nope, she's captaining the Voyager. Then there's Chakotay, every fan's favorite racist native American stereotype, and some other really pointless and bad episodes, including the infamous Threshold where Paris transforms himself and Janeway into degenerated lizards and makes babies with her. Anyway, enough about Voyager.

Back to my notes, I'll just put them in spoilers because they are:

Spoiler

Captain Pike is suffering from PTSD, but halt, in a twist, it's from having a glimpse of his future back in Star Trek Discovery. On a show that spent a whole lot of time travel episodes showing that the future is not immutable in it. Hello writers, given that Pike now knows what's coming, surely he can address that, right? Or are Voyager's time cops going to show up and correct that? Are we pretending to stick to canon now, or what?

There are wind turbines in snow swept Montana. Wind turbines. On Earth. Wind turbines. At a time where mankind travels the stars and has access to fusion and matter/anti-matter reaction generators. Why are there wind turbines in Montana, did you dweebs not find a location without anachronistic tech to shoot? I mean, hey, even the greatest films have production problems at times, but those are usually more like roman Trumpeteers wearing wrist watches or cameras being visible in reflections, not giant, immovable, unmissable wind turbines slowly rotating in the center of your shot.

Spock's getting married and has the most painful Star Trek 'sex' scene of all time, and that includes the awkward rape of Deanna in Star Trek: Nemesis. Even Spock seemed happy when Pike called him out of bed and onto the Enterprise before anything truly untoward happened. Also, T'Pring my dear, you really should look for someone else. Like, really. Oh, wait, she actually does, in Amok Time. Oh my.

There's a crewmember whose last name is Noonien-Singh, because why not, and we are five by five for warp. What? Does the warp drive read your inputs loud and clear?

Poster's note: This was the point where I switched the episode to twice the regular playback speed.

Turned it back to go over the scene where Pike hands over the 'conn' to his Number One. Three times. I could swear he's saying you have the comm, not conn, which is even worse than... never mind.

The Enterprise gets hit by plasma torpedoes which Pike says is 21st century technology. I'm not entirely sure, but I think Kirk would disagree with that assessment when the Romulans almost destroy the Enterprise using plasma torpedoes in, like, what timeframe are we talking about here, anyway? Ten or eleven years or so.

Nurse Chapel shows up, because of course she does, we're talking about the Enterprise and she has to be on it, even if this plays 10 years before Kirk takes over, and she injects the three people selected to go down to the planet with some DNA changing gizmo that alters the crew's looks but doesn't work out all right for Spock, who for some stupid drama reason still goes in spite of being a time bomb, because why not we need drama and fisticuffs. Anyway, on the fly, reversable gene-editing that changes crew appearance, Doctor Crusher would be jealous of that tech way back in the 24th century. Wait a moment, what? I mean way forward, silly Crusher, preparing prostheses for the crew when needing disguises. Should've used some fancy ass 23rd century tech.

The, uhm, planet they go to managed to reverse engineer a matter/anti-matter reactor from observing Discovery's departure and the fight between Control and the Federation fleet in Discovery's second season. THEY GATHERED ENOUGH DATA TO REVERSE ENGINEER A REACTOR, What'sherface said. No, really. They looked at a space battle and reverse engineered an energy source from that, and proceeded to build a WARP BOMB because of COURSE we build a WARP BOMB. Hello guys, they maybe built an anti-matter bomb, but... never mind.

Yeah, so, this episode was probably not nearly as bad as it felt for me, or could have been, I guess, but really, no. Just, no. Wish I could say I'm done with this crap, but apparently I'm not. Oh glorious joy, how many episodes will this steaming pile of excrement get in this season?

 

Edited by majestic
Wow, like half the post had missing words and whatnot. Should not post while tired and angry.
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No mind to think. No will to break. No voice to cry suffering.

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Funnily enough, I think my experience with Picard and Discovery actually led to me liking SNW more which is kind of the complete opposite. It's not that there aren't flaws, but they're a lot less (at least so far, after the grand total of one ep) than in the predecessors.

I also tried hard to remember the vast quantities of handwavium required for many plots, even well regarded plots, in the classic treks. That 'goodwill' can only last so long when the shows lack the strengths that the classic treks had though, and if SNW becomes a chore it'll get dropped too.

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32 minutes ago, majestic said:

I have tried. Really hard. Tried. Then paused, tried again. Tried harder. I can't. I'm just dead inside, and while I wish I could share some of the more positive impressions I've read here, but it took me all of 15 minutes to switch playback to 2x speed just to get it over with.

Yes, I mean to say that I've watched the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. For half the episode I even took notes on the things I hated, until I realized that I just hate them because I finally arrived at the point where Mike from RLM is too. I just hate watching Star Trek by now, and nothing they can do will ever be good enough for me to not poke holes at everything and complain about every ridiculous minutiae.

Recently I watched a couple of episodes of Star Trek Voyager, and in the second episode of the series they encounter a silly space anomaly, a quantum singularity, and Voyager punches a hole in its event horizon to escape it. That's the sort of stupidity I'd complain about in nuTrek, but in Voyager it was a minor quibble in an otherwise decent episode mostly about crew interactions and tensions between the Maquis and the Federation crew. Plus some really fun moments with Bob Picardo as the doctor. Yes, punching a hole in an event horizon is silly, but that's only, like, the final part of an otherwise interesting concept.

And, as a caveat, until Star Trek Enterprise came out, I considered Voyager to be the least of all the Star Trek series, by far and large because the writers never figured out what they wanted to do with the characters, especially Janeway who ended up being a bipolar schizophrenic in a captain's chair. She should get treatment for that, but hey, nope, she's captaining the Voyager. Then there's Chakotay, every fan's favorite racist native American stereotype, and some other really pointless and bad episodes, including the infamous Threshold where Paris transforms himself and Janeway into degenerated lizards and makes babies with her. Anyway, enough about Voyager.

Back to my notes, I'll just put them in spoilers because they are:

  Reveal hidden contents

Captain Pike is suffering from PTSD, but halt, in a twist, it's from having a glimpse of his future back in Star Trek Discovery. On a show that spent a whole lot of time travel episodes showing that the future is not immutable in it. Hello writers, given that Pike now knows what's coming, surely he can address that, right? Or are Voyager's time cops going to show up and correct that? Are we pretending to stick to canon now, or what?

There are wind turbines in snow swept Montana. Wind turbines. On Earth. Wind turbines. At a time where mankind travels the stars and has access to fusion and matter/anti-matter reaction generators. Why are there wind turbines in Montana, did you dweebs not find a location without anachronistic tech to shoot? I mean, hey, even the greatest films have production problems at times, but those are usually more like roman Trumpeteers wearing wrist watches or cameras being visible in reflections, not giant, immovable, unmissable wind turbines slowly rotating in the center of your shot.

Spock's getting married and has the most painful Star Trek 'sex' scene of all time, and that includes the awkward rape of Deanna in Star Trek: Nemesis. Even Spock seemed happy when Pike called him out of bed and onto the Enterprise before anything truly untoward happened. Also, T'Pring my dear, you really should look for someone else. Like, really. Oh, wait, she actually does, in Amok Time. Oh my.

There's a crewmember whose last name is Noonien-Singh, because why not, and we are five by five for warp. What? Does the warp drive read your inputs loud and clear?

Poster's note: This was the point where I switched the episode to twice the regular playback speed.

Turned it back to go over the scene where Pike hands over the 'conn' to his Number One. Three times. I could swear he's saying you have the comm, not conn, which is even worse than... never mind.

The Enterprise gets hit by plasma torpedoes which Pike says is 21st century technology. I'm not entirely sure, but I think Kirk would disagree with that assessment when the Romulans almost destroy the Enterprise using plasma torpedoes in, like, what timeframe are we talking about here, anyway? Ten or eleven years or so.

Nurse Chapel shows up, because of course she does, we're talking about the Enterprise and she has to be on it, even if this plays 10 years before Kirk takes over, and she injects the three people selected to go down to the planet with some DNA changing gizmo that alters the crew's looks but doesn't work out all right for Spock, who for some stupid drama reason still goes in spite of being a time bomb, because why not we need drama and fisticuffs. Anyway, on the fly, reversable gene-editing that changes crew appearance, Doctor Crusher would be jealous of that tech way back in the 24th century. Wait a moment, what? I mean way forward, silly Crusher, preparing prostheses for the crew when needing disguises. Should've used some fancy ass 23rd century tech.

The, uhm, planet they go to managed to reverse engineer a matter/anti-matter reactor from observing Discovery's departure and the fight between Control and the Federation fleet in Discovery's second season. THEY GATHERED ENOUGH DATA TO REVERSE ENGINEER A REACTOR, What'sherface said. No, really. They looked at a space battle and reverse engineered an energy source from that, and proceeded to build a WARP BOMB because of COURSE we build a WARP BOMB. Hello guys, they maybe built an anti-matter bomb, but... never mind.

Yeah, so, this episode was probably not nearly as bad as it felt for me, or could have been, I guess, but really, no. Just, no. Wish I could say I'm done with this crap, but apparently I'm not. Oh glorious joy, how many episodes will this steaming pile of excrement get in this season?

 

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"Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman run the 21st century version of MK ULTRA." - majestic

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Sometimes I think there should be a Star Trek thread. ;)

Noticed Netflix had a k-drama/musical (short series, 6 eps. I think) called The Sound of Magic, with Ji Chang-wook in a role. He hasn't been in a show I've truly liked yet, since he finished his army duty, but still an insta-click if I see his name.
I didn't realize it was a musical initially but didn't take long to figure that out. There were maybe a couple songs per episode? Sometimes three? Sadly for me they were all of the slow, schmaltzy, sorta ballad type, which isn't my thing. They were sung well tho.  Ji Chang-wook's chr. reminded me a tad of the movie Benny and Joon and not just because of the outfit. The female lead was the kdrama cliched "super poor downtrodden student" sort.

It was overall ok, with good performances, falling into that "inspirational/live your life" type of tale, but not something you'd likely watch repeatedly. Edit: oh, also, while a musical, it's a little on the darker theme side for (really young) kids. I don't think they've marketed it to children ala Disney.

Edited by LadyCrimson
“Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.” – Alan Watts
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On 5/2/2022 at 10:24 AM, Amentep said:

Yeah, Katsumoto been pretty unlucky compared to the rest of the cast.  A

Magnum's not renewed for Season 5.  They haven't gotten to the magic 100 yet, and ratings haven't changed significantly since last season, so I think the odds are in favor of its renewal.

So I imagine we're not going to get a hookup this finale.  Guess we'll find out on Friday.

Proving I'm not Nostradamus, Magnum's been cancelled.

Mind you, Jay Hernandez kind of telegraphed it saying he didn't think Magnum and Higgins would hook up until the last episode of the last season, and that happened, so guess we can't be too surprised.

I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

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Strange New Worlds, episode two.

Spoiler

Please, don't write any casual get togethers. Just, you know, don't. I generally love that kind of thing in any show, anywhere, any time, but... no. Just no. Also we're playing save the primitives now? Hey, Prime Directive? Or General Order One, at least, was a bing thing last episode. Like, really big.

I love this job. Yeah, captain. You sure waffled from being semi-depressed over your coming accident in ten years to loving this job in like 20 seconds. Good job.

Wow, these people are in life and death situations and they crack jokes, don't pay attention to their surroundings, start touching things willy-nilly and simply start going on extended smalltalks IN THE MIDDLE OF A GOD DAMNED CRISIS THAT MAY AS WELL KILL THEM AND THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE THEY'RE TRYING TO SAVE.

What the hell is wrong with you? Are you Starfleet's finest, or are you lot stupid ass teenagers yapping about? Man, seriously, you make Scotty starting fights over insults to the Enterprise look professional, and the crew (and Scotty) got dressed down over it.

Also, erm, did everyone except Pike and his first officer forget how to act or is the direction (for the actors, scene composition and camerawork is fine so far, at least) in this show even worse than it was in Discovery?

edit: Unneeded action scenes, and Uhura has a dark and troubled past because of course she does. Yeah, no. Ugh.

Edited by majestic
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3 hours ago, majestic said:

Strange New Worlds, episode two.

Wow, these people are in life and death situations and they crack jokes, don't pay attention to their surroundings, start touching things willy-nilly and simply start going on extended smalltalks IN THE MIDDLE OF A GOD DAMNED CRISIS THAT MAY AS WELL KILL THEM AND THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE THEY'RE TRYING TO SAVE.

What the hell is wrong with you? Are you Starfleet's finest, or are you lot stupid ass teenagers yapping about? Man, seriously, you make Scotty starting fights over insults to the Enterprise look professional, and the crew (and Scotty) got dressed down over it.

Honestly, I blame Joss Whedon and people growing up watching his shows for this phenomenon, which seems to infect every single show with any pretension towards 'smart' dialogue. Everyone seems to want to write wise cracking ensembles, even when it isn't appropriate to (and they aren't good at it).

The social gathering managed to remind me of Arnold Rimmer being invited to dinner with the officers in Red Dwarf; though that was meant to be cringe inducing. Guess at least Uhura didn't ask for her Gazpacho to be reheated.

Quote

Also, erm, did everyone except Pike and his first officer forget how to act or is the direction (for the actors, scene composition and camerawork is fine so far, at least) in this show even worse than it was in Discovery?

It's not worse than Discovery. I wouldn't usually give such a blanket and unequivocal statement, but typical Discovery acting made me think the actors were aliens having human emotions explained to them via an earpiece. SNW acting is just... a bit wooden, which is at least more appropriate than the 'smartass' dialogue.

Episode was OK, but nothing more than that. Again there was a kind of interesting kernel there, obscured by the requirement of having at least 5 minutes worth of pointless action scenes*. The science really doesn't work either, but I'm kind of loathe to criticise that too much given how seldom the science actually works in any Trek.

*also, both episodes have had fairly long disconnected from the rest of the episode character introductions/ vignettes. While that may be a good way to introduce the characters it does mean the actual time dedicated to plot is significantly reduced.

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14 hours ago, majestic said:

Strange New Worlds, episode two.

Having watched SNW's first episode (because P+ put the first ep on YouTube), I wanted to say re: your spoiler...

Spoiler

...the writers don't seem to understand the Prime Directive/General Order 1, so not surprising its not realized properly in the second episode either.  While not as egregiously bad as Picard's position on letting a planet die to preserve the Prime Directive in Homeward  (a position which made no sense from either the POV of the character of Picard or the Prime Directive), the writers in the case of SNW should have realized that situationally the Prime Directive didn't apply, so that it is presented as an issue that requires debate (and subsequently one that Admiral April has to pull strings so there are no consequences, no less), makes no sense.

Once Pike recognized that the contamination from Starfleet had already happened, the Federation in this case must be obligated to mitigate the harm they caused - even if, in this case the harm was unintentional (ie, from a past Trek basis, the situation was like that in "Pattern of Force" where the 'violation' of the Prime Directive had already happened).  So the brief debate on the Prime Directive ending with Pike saying "screw the Prime Directive" was pointless dramatics (or at the very least, instead, should have ended with Pike arguing they had a duty to fix the violation that had already been made and then Admiral April affirming his decision in the epilogue.  But this gets back to my throughts of the SW influence on ST and how for the SW crowd, the rules of Starfleet are a hindrance to be overcome by our heroic rebels).

I think Keith R. A. Candidio probably summed up how I think the Prime Directive should be viewed in his criticism of Homeward: "The point of the Prime Directive is to avoid imperialism, basically—to keep from contaminating two cultures (the ones being interfered with and the ones interfering). But the equivalency between that level of protection (and self-protection) and letting an entire culture die for no good reason that this episode postulates is appalling. There is something seriously wrong with your Star Trek episode when your theoretical heroes are trying to kill people (well, okay, let them die, but it amounts to the same thing) and your antagonist whom the script desperately wants to paint as the bad guy is the person who’s actually saving lives."  To argue that the Prime Directive applies in the scenario of the SNW 1st episode is to make a worse argument about the impending destruction of the culture than Homeward since the destruction was entirely Starfleet's fault (even if, again, it was unintentional).

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the episode (which is more than I can say for Homeward), but their use of the Prime Directive in the first episode was a cheap way to generate theoretical stakes that were unnecessary; that they'd then ignore the Prime Directive so they can tell a different story in episode 2 can't be that surprising.  They're treating it as a mutable story element, and not an aspect of the setting itself.

 

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I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

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**** it, hot take time. The Prime Directive has always been bull**** used to justify some incredibly questionable writing in regards to inaction.

"Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman run the 21st century version of MK ULTRA." - majestic

"you're a damned filthy lying robot and you deserve to die and burn in hell." - Bartimaeus

"Without individual thinking you can't notice the plot holes." - InsaneCommander

"Just feed off the suffering of gamers." - Malcador

"You are calling my taste crap." -Hurlshort

"thankfully it seems like the creators like Hungary less this time around." - Sarex

"Don't forget the wakame, dumbass" -Keyrock

"Are you trolling or just being inadvertently nonsensical?' -Pidesco

"we have already been forced to admit you are at least human" - uuuhhii

"I refuse to buy from non-woke businesses" - HoonDing

"feral camels are now considered a pest" - Gorth

"Melkathi is known to be an overly critical grumpy person" - Melkathi

"Oddly enough Sanderson was a lot more direct despite being a Mormon" - Zoraptor

"I found it greatly disturbing to scroll through my cartoon's halfing selection of genitalias." - Wormerine

"I love cheese despite the pain and carnage." - ShadySands

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18 hours ago, Amentep said:

Proving I'm not Nostradamus, Magnum's been cancelled.

Mind you, Jay Hernandez kind of telegraphed it saying he didn't think Magnum and Higgins would hook up until the last episode of the last season, and that happened, so guess we can't be too surprised.

CBS was the last of the networks making good decisions on their shows. Now they too are ****. This show had solid ratings and a loyal fanbase, and yet they screw us over. Meanwhile they bring back the crappy CSI reboot? :(

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So did a quick readup of the CBS cancellations; they canceled a whole bunch of shows. Apparently they had five dramas with outside licenses that needed to be renewed, and the license-holder was asking a high price. They could only afford to renew four out of the five, and Magnum got the boot. Since the other four shows (three 'FBI' shows and Equalizer) are all shows I know nothing about and have no interest in them, I'm so pissed my only drama show still left on network TV got the axe.

Since it had strong ratings and dominated its timeslot, I wonder if someone else will be open to picking it up?

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1 hour ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

**** it, hot take time. The Prime Directive has always been bull**** used to justify some incredibly questionable writing in regards to inaction.

i don't think the Prime Directive is the problem there, though, but the writing.  It makes sense to me that an organization like Starfleet would basically say "if a new species warps into your space, deal with them since they're of a technological level we'll have to deal with them eventually anyhow, but don't go to a planet and give your favorite caveman a phaser".  Particularly considering the Vulcans are there and it sounds very much like how they'd approach things.  

To me the problem in Homeward isn't the Prime Directive, for example, but the moronic use of it to make Picard the villain of the story.

 

 

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I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

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1 hour ago, Amentep said:

i don't think the Prime Directive is the problem there, though, but the writing.  It makes sense to me that an organization like Starfleet would basically say "if a new species warps into your space, deal with them since they're of a technological level we'll have to deal with them eventually anyhow, but don't go to a planet and give your favorite caveman a phaser".  Particularly considering the Vulcans are there and it sounds very much like how they'd approach things.  

To me the problem in Homeward isn't the Prime Directive, for example, but the moronic use of it to make Picard the villain of the story.

 

 

The Prime Directive is a product of that writing. I think that don't give cavemen tech weapons is one thing, but the refusal to make contact or help out is another. Perhaps it doesn't make as good storytelling, but it seems mean spirited to deny helpful technology to people that could really use it. I mean, if there was an alien organization like Starfleet irl that knew about out planet and didn't help us out with our apocalyptic predicament(s), they would be top tier ****.

But I also think the Mauquis were right.

8 minutes ago, Raithe said:

https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/actors/frank-langella-net-worth/

I would much prefer to have $5 mil in the bank instead of the very American reality of working too much for too little. The "cancelled" guys need to get some perspective.

"Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman run the 21st century version of MK ULTRA." - majestic

"you're a damned filthy lying robot and you deserve to die and burn in hell." - Bartimaeus

"Without individual thinking you can't notice the plot holes." - InsaneCommander

"Just feed off the suffering of gamers." - Malcador

"You are calling my taste crap." -Hurlshort

"thankfully it seems like the creators like Hungary less this time around." - Sarex

"Don't forget the wakame, dumbass" -Keyrock

"Are you trolling or just being inadvertently nonsensical?' -Pidesco

"we have already been forced to admit you are at least human" - uuuhhii

"I refuse to buy from non-woke businesses" - HoonDing

"feral camels are now considered a pest" - Gorth

"Melkathi is known to be an overly critical grumpy person" - Melkathi

"Oddly enough Sanderson was a lot more direct despite being a Mormon" - Zoraptor

"I found it greatly disturbing to scroll through my cartoon's halfing selection of genitalias." - Wormerine

"I love cheese despite the pain and carnage." - ShadySands

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3 minutes ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

The Prime Directive is a product of that writing. I think that don't give cavemen tech weapons is one thing, but the refusal to make contact or help out is another. Perhaps it doesn't make as good storytelling, but it seems mean spirited to deny helpful technology to people that could really use it. I mean, if there was an alien organization like Starfleet irl that knew about out planet and didn't help us out with our apocalyptic predicament(s), they would be top tier ****.

But I also think the Mauquis were right.

There's examples in TOS of Starfleet helping planets that don't appear to be warp capable* because they need the help (or initiating contact because the planet has something they need, so they want to create an mutually beneficial relationship, or to mitigate the damage of an earlier contact).  The problem is you then have something like Homeward where Picard goes on about the planet that has a 'destiny to die' that is just stupid.  I don't think that we ever are given the sense that Stafleet from TOS just leaves planets to their fate if they knew about it and had the resources to help. 

So I put the out-of-whack Prime Directive stuff*** on TNG (unless I'm not remembering a TAS episode correctly).  TNG's Homeward is even stupider than most of their Prime Directive stuff since doing what Rozhinko does in it is exactly what Picard does in INSURECTION later without batting an eye, as I recall, so they're not even internally consistent with their 'argument'.

*Off the top of my head**:

  • Miri (prewarp society on the verge of collapse due to virus)
  • The Return of the Archons (planet with no self-determination due to control by extraterrestrial being)
  • A Taste of Armageddon (two planets fighting a war by computer - I believe they are pre-warp but capable of space flight)
  • Friday's Child (negotiating a treaty with a pre-warp planet w/Klingon interference)
  • A Piece of the Action (a mission to mitigate the effect of a pre-Federation, pre-Prime Directive contact)
  • A Private Little War (countering the Klingon's interference in a pre-warp society)
  • Patterns of Force (mitigating the effect of a Starfleet historian on a pre-warp society)
  • The Omega Glory (mitigating the effect of a Stranded Starfleet officer in a tribal war)
  • The Paradise Syndrome (trying to save a pre-warp planet from an asteroid)
  • For the World is Hollow and I've Touched the Sky (saving a pre-warp society traveling in a space-ship asteroid that they don't know is a spaceship anymore)
  • Bread and Circuses (mitigating the effect of a Stranded Starfleet officer on a planet - dammit, Starfleet stop stranding people on planets! You're screwing up Alpha Quadrant!)

**Don't @ me I've forgotten the details of an ep, been awhile since I've seen TOS

***Excepting of course, every single ****ing time some ****ing Stafleet officer or Federation historian gets stranded on a ****ing planet.  What the hell, Starfleet?

 

I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

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