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**WritersPanic** · 07-03-2020, 03:55 PM

Originally posted by tumbling.dice

I'm a fan of TOS, but I'm probably older than most of the posters here. When I was growing up the original series is all there was. I had a hyper-religious step-mom (who I didn't consider my step-mom, merely "my dad's second wife") who would drag us all to church Sunday mornings. Star Trek showed on channel 17 from Atlanta at 11:00, which is when the service ended. So my brother and I would be in a hurry to get the hell outta there and back home, but "Sara" would want to stand around talking fundamentalist stuff to all the crazies. If we were lucky we'd get to see the last 20 minutes or so.

Anyway, my opinion of all the spin-offs range from "pretty good" to "meh", except for the new movies, or The Kelvin Timeline as it is referred to by Trekkies. I fucking hate it. They screwed up the timeline, destroyed Vulcan, Kirk's eyes are blue (William Shatner has brown eyes), the story lines aren't particularly good and the writers clearly have no idea how military chain of command works. Add to that lousy special effects and Star Trek has been seriously damaged. I have nothing good to say about it.

Any other Trek fans?

I too remember when it was new. For me it came on at 4PM on one of the 4 channels we could receive with a foil covered antenna.

When the first movie came out I thought it was well made. It was clearly lifted from one of the episodes (The Changeling), but that part was held back until nearly the end. I liked the Wrath of Khan as well, it was plausible and well made. Dragging whales across time from 80s San Francisco, was jumping the shark to the extreme.

TNG transitioned Star Trek into a soap opera, with phasers and a completely fake-ass "android". The movie spin offs were not so bad though.

I thought Enterprise, with Scott Bacula as the captain, with a beagle, was seriously challenged. It filled a gap, sure, but the contrived conflicts, especially the "Xindi", what a load of weird horseshit. A planet where insects, cetaceans and humanoids evolved into intelligence at roughly the same rate. It was like someone used darts and the plots of Dune, DarkStar, Babylon 5 and MASH mounted on walls to construct the story.

I liked the premise of Voyager and some episodes were really good. But it too was mired in the TNG soap feel. At least the remake of Battlestar Galactica was able to involve more than a few main characters and the space combat was so much closer to reality (though still a lot like ww2 dogfights, which will never happen in space).

When I was in the Navy the CIC operators had a tape of a game they nicknamed Star Wars because it didn't actually have a name. But it used all of our tactical combat display systems as game terminals. Sometimes there were more than a dozen players and if an officer walked in, it just looked like a simulation exercise. Unfortunately, it didn't keep score. Keep in mind this was a multiplayer live game using vector graphics at a time when Asteroids was the rage. There's nothing like playing a game like that on a real war ship!

**Vanilla Gorilla** · 07-05-2020, 11:54 AM

Trekkies are not as crazy as Star wars fans at least

TNG and Voyager are my favourites

I find 2/3 of the TOS episodes unwatchable

**Jessica** · 07-05-2020, 12:39 PM

i feel like i should be more into Star Trek than i am. i just don't watch a lot of television and it's one of those things i occasionally catch repeats of but haven't ever sought out to watch online.. The original series is enjoyable to me because as well as being okay itself, it's amateurishness makes it funny.

**tumbling.dice** · 07-05-2020, 12:55 PM

The first interracial kiss shown on TV (in the U.S.) happened on Star Trek in 1968...the year I was born. The producers were worried that it would cause an uproar but they didn't receive any negative mail, according to Nichelle Nichols.

Other things that happened in 1968:

MLK assassinated
RFK assassinated
The Chicago Democratic Convention went all to hell
My dad was drafted and sent to Vietnam

Pretty crappy year overall.

**WritersPanic** · 07-05-2020, 01:28 PM

Originally posted by Vanilla Gorilla

Trekkies are not as crazy as Star wars fans at least

TNG and Voyager are my favourites

I find 2/3 of the TOS episodes unwatchable

Unwatchable? What was so remarkable about Star Trek was the way they didn't have modern day (60s) crap strewn through the whole series. So many shows of the time are a mash of distorted "hippy" props and characters. In fact, it wasn't until the 3rd season when they actually did have hippies, but it was not a happy ending (The Way to Eden). I admit, Klingons were disappointing until TNG, but Star Trek managed to be over the top advanced for its time.

I remember in the pilot they made a point of zooming in on a communicator. You can plainly see it's just a mash of electronic parts in a configuration that would have done nothing (especially with a wafer switch as the central component). But it was decades ahead of its time and now we're beyond flip phones.

But the really fascinating thing was the social messages. No other show could pull this off during the cold war. And Star Trek made a mockery of communism while presenting something that looked like a version of socialism, but with capitalist trading.

With TNG currency became replicator credits. Everything else appeared to be free. But then, it was a military show and the military seems like that a lot. When you enlist, you give up a lot of your rights, that's as true as it ever was.

Gold pressed latinum? WTF??? Why did they do this? Gold is still gold. Duhhhhhhhh

**Vanilla Gorilla** · 07-05-2020, 07:58 PM

The one with the Oreo guy, that was played by the guy that was the Riddler in Batman. That one comes to mind

And the one with the Greek gods

There are some absolute stinkers

**tumbling.dice** · 07-05-2020, 09:13 PM

The only other show in the same genre at the time was Lost In Space, and it was horrible. Star Trek, if you can get past the cheap special effects, was way ahead of its time. True, many mediocre or bad episodes but some damn good ones too.

The Menagerie
City On The Edge Of Forever
Space Seed
The Tholian Web
Balance Of Terror
The Galileo 7
A Private Little War

Those are some of my favorites. It wasn't as preachy about the Prime Directive either. There was one episode of TNG in particular I thought took the PD way to far. I think Worf's brother was in it. A pre-industrial world was about to be destroyed and the Enterprise was going to sit back and do nothing because of the PD. Worf's bro took action and transported a tribe to the holodeck and helped them colonize a new world, pissing off Picard. WTF, they and their culture were about to be destroyed goddammit.

**Din Djarin** · 07-15-2020, 05:57 PM

TNG and Voyager are my favs too, it is what made me a Trekkie.

I was immensely displeased with how the Klingons look in the new timeline stuff... at first. I'm adjusted to the change now :P But still, Klingons have long hair in my book.

Discovery and the 3 new movies are among the best they made. Worthy Star Trek stuff for sure! I dig the new Kirk, Scotty, Bones etc. just fine and enjoyed and appreciated the stories and special effects too.

I never saw the original Lost in Space btw but I really like the remake.

Btw, Tumbling I had a milder but similar memory of me watching the first series of Star trek: grew up in a (reasonable but still) christian family and Star Trek TNG blew my mind when i just casually ran into it on TV. I sure never saw anything like it before (Scifi with very interesting themes).

**WritersPanic** · 07-15-2020, 07:18 PM

Originally posted by Vanilla Gorilla

The one with the Oreo guy, that was played by the guy that was the Riddler in Batman. That one comes to mind

And the one with the Greek gods

There are some absolute stinkers

So you're black on the right then?

**Amerijuanican** · 07-16-2020, 01:07 AM

I also was a Star Trek kid ("trekkie")

Used to love that blonde with her hair all done up on top (Janice?)

I've never got into the later versions of Star Trek, like Next Generation, and all that. Perhaps I'll actually watch them some day.

**Fun** · 07-16-2020, 01:31 AM

Saw a few of TOS recently and bits when little. Not awful, but I'm not really a sci fi lady anyway. It's my parents and H who are nuts about this stuff. I mean, I like space things, but not necessarily fiction. I dunno though. It grows on me. I have phases (No not phasers lol).

But my strongest memories were with TNG and Voyager. Not sure if there were others. I liked Data, and enjoyed one of the movies a lot, one of the later ones. Bad with names. I also remember my Dad had a ST computer game that he had to print out and laminate the controls guide to place over the keyboard. That was pretty cool, but I was too immature for the strategy game.

I did see, at least the first, of the new movies... I really didn't want to, I think that was the day I had a bad headache too. I don't remember much, except for the two Spocks and the cast.

Can't remember if there was anything else I wanted to say (got interrupted with the dinner cooking

)

Maybe just that Dad and H were both Lost in Space nerds. Lol But I never really saw those, that I can remember.

**Din Djarin** · 07-16-2020, 01:13 PM

I plan to take a free month of Prime Video soon so I can finally watch Picard

**Vanilla Gorilla** · 07-17-2020, 12:49 PM

Really hanging for another Stargate series, thats way past due

**Parakeet** · 07-25-2020, 04:28 PM

William Shatner was the man back then when the original Star Trek series came out. I was 13 when the original series came out. Not sure why we watched it (the father or the step mother made channel selections, not us kids). Parents were pretty strict about what we were allowed to watch.

Now, matured, he is a very learned man. Diverse, self educated, and has traveled all over the world. I liked him in Better Late Than Never to. A bunch of quirky old farts having fun. But Bill stood out. Less goofy than, say Terry Bradshaw, he often came up with history lessons for the guys where ever they traveled.

We also watched Lost in Space which was a quirky kind of sci-fi series. Ah, when life was so simple back then. Actually not, but comparing to the hard road I've traveled since then....

I used to like Star Wars but as I've gotten older, I only see the conflicts/fighting/wars. It seems the whole story line is centered around them. It's boring because you know who is going to win in the end. Special effects? Boring.

Ah but now my mind is wandering

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