Ranters room

[tch]

I've enjoyed all Treks ( except Enterprise and that JJ Abrams thing) but just enjoyed that DS9 seemed to be trying to tell one big story of the war, rather than the 'bunch of episodes' of Next Gen.
Both were fun, just different.
Next Gen boldly goes, DSP boldly...stays in one place.

Love the Next Gen crew, I want to be as bad **** as Patrick Stewart when I'm 60 and Doctor Crusher...sigh...sorry, where was I...?

[The Cloaked One]

I'm more than half way through season one. Very nice so far, the first four episodes introduce both the Q and the Ferengi! Very awesome!

Only a comments and a few notes on creative differences.
I love Q, I love the Borg (what little I've seen in Voyager), very good villains. For a series, I would have villains like these to be the 'big bad guys.' I would save them for the premise (which indeed Q was used for), halfway points (on occasion), and season finales. These are the guys who take over the ship, who kick the crew around, who are the serious bad guys.

However, the crew seems to get incapacitated by some means every single episode. I know that the lead actor(s) need to show up every episode and they prefer larger roles, but I would be tempted to have the lesser villains be... well lesser villains. Perhaps miniature arcs would help, otherwise all the villains and problems seem to balance out and threats are equalized.

This is not a problem in Doctor Who, but it just seems a giant piece of lint is capable of stopping and halting everything.

The crew is also evenly distributed with strengths and knowledge. Picard is just as venerable to a situation as Worf and Data. Wesley is just as/sometimes more knowledgeable about the ship and its functions as Geradi and Data. Data sometimes shows super strength, but usually only dealing with minor inconveniences. I would work on giving the individual members specific strengths that define them along with their winning personalities. It feels a bit like several of the characters are interchangeable. I know Worf takes over as Security Chief which helps define him better, but I don't know how they'll better distinguish between the three techies. Wesley, although a prodigy, might be a source for ideas, but I would have some of his applications prove faulty due to inexperience. Geordi is chief engineer I think, something like that, but he spends a lot of time at the helm of the ship which should be just fine with Data being there.
An interesting mix... I'll have to see where they go.

[tch]

It's a good series, but the first season is all over the place as they try and figure things out and everybody's relationships.
You do wonder why they ever use the holo-deck, as something goes wrong every time.

Q is a great character, the couple Trek novels where he shows up are a lot of fun, especially as there's no effects budget in a book and the writer can just go nuts with his powers.

[The Cloaked One]

Sounds like a good read. XD
I'm in season 2 now.
The holodeck is amazing, it really catches the imagination. Though, it is really hard to work with as a writer because its danger makes it so that it should never have been put on a ship. How many vessels have been lost/nearly destroyed by said Holodeck?
I'm of the opinion it should've been left on Earth as some sort of national wonder for the technology that went behind it. So far, the best use of it was in episode 11001001 where it the hologram was used as a diversion and not a threat.

Most of the episodes are great, I really enjoyed Q's reappearance. Lore was okay, though evil brothers/twins is a bit common. The Neutral Zone was fun.
'The Child,' though, has struck me as one of the worst episodes I've ever seen. Starting off with a light entity with properties of electricity going in and raping/impregnating Troi, a brief discussion on abortion, the child being born and deciding to suicide itself at the end to save the crew in the span of an episode. While there were other messages, many of them could have come in without... this... happening.

[Who dat?]

The holodeck has safeties built in that will not allow anyone to be seriously or fatally injured. They can be turned off however but it takes the approval of two command officers.

[MCH]

The safeties malfunctioned once and was nearly fatal. Let me see, was it the one where Moriarty took over the ship?

I didn't like "the Child" either. I think everyone was too ok with what that entity did. Especially Diana. So what if it was a "new life form" just being curious.

That reminds me that Amy Pond just had a kid. Yes, the misadventures of Pond needs to go now. That story arc took how many episodes? Well, kind of an arc within an arc mixed with little timey wimey bits. OY my noggin!

[The Cloaked One]

The first episode where the holodeck is explored, really explored, is where Picard is playing a detective and a mobster comes by and shoots a member of the crew. Picard is shocked that the person is wounded and they attempt to get him back to Sick Bay.
I can understand having a mode to turn off 'safety', for training purposes, but instead of having one holodeck with safety on/off, they ought to have divided the holodeck in two places so that the mode will not be toggled, or left the holodeck being completely safe for recreation and had some other method for training purposes, a different type of room.
Voyager confused me in the season I saw, they used dynamite from the holodeck to blow holes in the ship... my brain began hurting at that point. At the very least, the ship should have an auto lockout that the ship cannot take any damage from the holodeck. There should also be a lot more safety protocols and procedures in dealing with the holodeck. There should be records of said room going haywire and causing problems on other ships, let alone prior experience with mishappenings.

Oh well. Thinking about it too much hurts the brain. I'm almost through season two. Just finished Q Who, I really enjoyed the introduction of the Borg and Q's acting was fantastic. I just wish the Q and Borg episodes were not so far and inbetween, contrary to what I said earlier. Kind of like the Dalek mania, these are the episodes I most look forward to and now I've got a 17 episode buffer to the next Q episode and a 30 something to the next Borg one.

I'm not saying the inbetween are dull or anything, it's just not as exciting. Part of the appeal to Q and Borg is that they form arcs of sorts which the rest of the series does not. I'm not too bothered about spaced arcs, but having mini arcs in between certainly would help.

Tis why I liked old who. Each serial was equivalent to a mini arc giving more time for idea development and to work material. Not so much character development unless the writers wanted it. Also, a bit more consistency with characters because there are fewer writers. Worf goes from being really calm and tactical to brute emotions, Data goes from being cold and more robotic, to very human from episode to episode, etc. This is not exactly bad, the range, but definitely inconsistent.

A good Who exampled would be Sarah Jane's introduction in Pertwee's final season to her time with Tom Baker. Starting with Robot was a distinct change in personality that she kept until the end of her run with Tom. I'd have to check to see if the writers changed, but more likely it was the influence of the changing of the producer and lead actor that led to a redefining of her role. She changed again in the introduction of the Sarah Jane Adventures, definitely due to new writers. The biggest change though, was the writers causing her knowledge and experience to be dwarfed so that the kids could shine. I'd have rathered that the kids be shown to be exceptional, perhaps a tad less relatable to the audience by telemarketer standards, by having them constantly studying and reading books, over her past reports. An episode could even begin with them discovering something amiss in one of her reports and have a follow up on it. This would have them rise to meet her level rather than her lowering to meet theirs. My example is extending too far, you guys get the point.

[Who dat?]

I agree that the serials taken in some of the new Dr. Who, and other sci-fi shows, don't quite measure up to the grand old days. Take season 16 as an example. The search for the key to time is the entire season! It's surely the season I've seen the most times and I'll watch it a hundred more times.

[tch]

That'd be a cool thing for the new show to try, a whole season where the story arc isn't a sub-plot, but some kind of quest, like the 'Key to time' or maybe something like 'The Chase.'

Or they could just do a 'Key to Time' sequel, all that messing with reality is bound to have an effect and maybe the Guardians need the key to set things straight again.

[The Cloaked One]

Would be cool to see the Key to Time again, though the fifth Doctor did destroy it in the audio adventures by throwing it into the chaos pool.

The Key to Time was a fun arc, I initially really disliked the ending to it, but whenever I need a good laugh, I just pop on the last three minutes of Armageddon Factor. Tom Baker makes a number of hilarious jokes there.

A simple over arcing plot for a season, or several mini arcs like Old Who with spaced out arcs like the Timelords would be nice. I'm still waiting for the Celestial Toymaker though, he's one of my favorite Doctor Who villains.