The Batlord

Was there anybody in TNG other than Whoopi Goldberg who Patrick Stewart didn't make look like a hack just by being in the same scene with them?

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Unknown Soldier

Patrick Stewart met his match with David Warner an even better actor (just check his credits) when he played the Cardassian torturing him, a classic two-part story and one of my all time fav storys.

Another great actor to appear in Trek, DS9 in this case was Andy Robinson, didn't have a great role as a shopkeeper (wasted really) but he was fantastic all those years ago as the main villain in the first Dirty Harry film, but always reeks of quality whenever I've seen him.

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Pet_Sounds

I'll take The Wrath of Kaan over any one series in its entirety.

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Trollheart

No, not at all. What I'm saying is that NexGen adn DS9 all started out with poorly formed characters who grew and developed as the series progressed. Riker got the pole removed from his hole and relaxed, Deanna gotr rid of the tight bun hairdo and the sense of superiority and began to shine, even Data made more of an effort. Voyager began with poorly formed characters and after seven seasons ended with poorly formed characters. Can you even name one character who changed over --- oh wait. I asked that already. No answer...

I'm not denying some of the acting was woeful --- in all series --- but look at for instance someone like Nog in DS9. Started off as a little "naughty schoolboy" but after his experiences in the battle of whatever-it-was (Arnok Nor?) when he joined Starfleet he became far more mature, and attained real depth as a character. Of course, DS9 had Vic Fontaine, but then you can't have everything. Look at how the relationship developed between Bashir and O'Brien. Initially they hated each other and over time they became the best of friends and really looked out for each other. Nothng like that happened on Voyager. There were few if any proper relationships and, other than the Doctor and Seven, nobody moved the story along or changed in any way. You could look at season one and then go straight to season seven, and other than that everyone had put on a few years there would be no discernible differences in the characters. Contrast that with, for instance, Sisko in season one and Sisko in season seven of DS9, or even bloody Wesley in Nextgen!

My god that was an amazing episode wasn't it? "There are FOUR lights!" Warner is in a class all of his own.
Yeah, Garak brought a sense of fun and cloak-and-dagger to DS9, so much so that when he did something really evil, you were taken aback as you had sort of got used to him as sort of Sisko's pet spy.
Best of the Trek movies, no question.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Neapolitan

Well we can share in this oxymoron. I can be the oxy and you can be the errrrrrrrrrr......... nevermind.

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The Batlord

I've already acknowledged that DS9 was the only series with any serious character development from any large portion of the characters, which is one of the reasons why it is clearly the superior Star Trek series.

And Wrath of Khan is totally overrated. If it wasn't associated with Star Trek it would just be another B-rate sci fi movie that nobody but uber-nerds even remembered (just like pretty much all Star Trek movies).

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Neapolitan

Changing the personality of characters don't only happen in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Just look at Vastra, a Silurian, her personality is quite different from those Silurians they encounter underneath Cwmtaff, like Alaya and Restac. Well maybe that's not a good example. Maybe when Rory went from a dorky boyfriend to a fierce Roman soldier. Is that a better example? Talk about Silurians and all thing reptilian. Another example: they changed Godzilla personality from monstrous villain to protectorate of Japan.

I think the writers wrote Riker like that in the beginning to beg the question: "will he become a commander?" I guess they were thinking that if you had second in command always vying for power it would provide tension, and that friction would propel the arc of the story a bit. At first that type they think could be interesting but might feel they should move away from it, because it doesn't work. There could be different reasons why writers changed things around, they could've change the character in guise of maturing, but really did it because of fan input, or maybe after a while something like that just gets old.

I remember Jonathan Frakes saying that he always worried at the end of the season whether or not they will bring his character back for the next season.

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Unknown Soldier

Like the Khan story in the original Trek series, both are largely carried by Khan (Ricardo Montalban) and are nothing special.

It's a story that pops into my mind quite often, even though I haven't seen it in years.

The whole idea of Riker was to originally replicate the character of Kirk, as it was seen as being unlikely that a ship's captain would beam down to lead dangerous missions. So Picard was created to be a realistic captain whilst Riker would take the old Kirk role. Problem was that Riker was such a cardboard character, lousy actor and did well not to get written out of the series.

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Neapolitan

Whether it seem realistic or not, "that a ship's captain would beam down to lead dangerous missions" depends how you look at it. You can rationalize it and it probably wouldn't make sense at all. But if you look at it from the view point of when and how it was made and give it some leeway, it's something that isn't thought about much. Just like any sci-fi, Star Trek (tos) had its opportunity to create its own paradigm.

When Star Trek came out there was hardly any universal sci-fi/space mythology developed so there probably wasn't an unwritten that a captain shouldn't leave his spaceship for whatever reason. I think the original series borrowed from what was available at the time. Star Trek blended elements from James Bond movies, Westerns, Twilight Zone and even LotR. Besides being 007 & Captain Horatio Hornblower in outer space, Kirk was also like a sheriff, with Spock as his deputy, and Bones as the town doctor. Either on-board on an alien planet the action mostly centers around those main characters. And it was expected to see Kirk in the thick of it.

I asked my brother (who is more of a Trekee than me) about what you said and he said basically Picard stayed on board at the request of Kiker. But in movies Picard went down on every mission.

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Trollheart

Just to get the subject of Picard (who my sister always calls The Egg!) out of the way: it did make sense really for him not to beam down all the time. After all, he was the captain and although Kirk went on nearly every landing party he risked capture, injury or death in many of them. To compound matters, his second in command, Spock, often joined him. So if something happened and they got captured (as they often did) it meant that a large slice of the command structure of the Enterprise was out of commission. Riker often made the point that Picard's first duty was to the ship and crew, and indeed was reminded of same by Deanna later, in I think "Best of both worlds"? The captain had a responsibility and couldn't be just joyriding off with the boys whenever he felt like it. More realistic that way.

I also think Frakes really grew into the role of Riker from season two onwards. Remember "Frame of mind"?

Now, on to character development. Doctor Who is a good example of good character development --- what I've seen of it --- but the point I was making is not that other shows don't do this, not that NextGen or DS9 did it, but that Voyager did not. No one character, bar the Doctor and to some extent Seven of Nine, grew, learned or changed over the course of the series. I've already said it once, I don't think I need to repeat do I? Season one Voyager characters = season seven Voyager characters. Look at the difference in NexGen, Babylon 5 --- hell, Red Dwarf even by the end. If your characters don't grow and develop that's a combination of lousy acting (check) and crap writing (check).

Trollheart 1 Batlord 1


Oh, and Wrath of Khan? Great movie but definitely carried by Montalban, RIP. With apologies to Herman Melville, of course...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018