Poll: Star Trek (Voyager mostly)

[Laughing Man]

Patrick Stewart holds a special place in my heart, and he represents the ethical soul of Starfleet

I actually forgot to vote in my first post but yeah Patrick Stewart is the man and not just because of roles like the 4 lights and this is the line and no further but also because he then went on to do this. Yup that's the ethical soul of Starfleet singing about liking little girls, awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBZ5OLy2EDg

 

[malestrithe]

Janeway is evil. Other captains violate the prime directive a lot. Janeway does something different and uses the prime directive to her advantage whenever possible. She also kills people on her order. Tuuvix is one example. Her friends were dead and Tuvix is a new life. She also allowed several alien races to die when she was captain.

 

[saintdane05]

I liked Voyager the most. Please don't kill me...

 

[Da Orky Man]

SISKO ISN'T A CAPTAIN HOW DARE YOU PROFANE THE CANON

HOW DARE YOU PROFANE FALSE CANON!

At first, Sisko was merely a commander. He later got promoted to captain, as enshrined in episode 26, season 3, "The Adversary".

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Adversary_(episode)

Yeah, I'm just that nerdy.

Bah, I was like seven when DS9 finished, too many other things to remember between now and then. XP

I was 5 when it finished. You have no excuse.

 

[senordesol]

I remember being utterly baffled by a lot of Janeway's decisions; two stick out in my mind.

The first is when the crew is on a planet full of telepaths and Be'lanna has a passing aggressive thought that seems to spread like wildfire (causing some aliens to start killing each other. While they aren't even sure that it will accomplish anything, the aliens want to lobotomize Be'lanna, and Janeway basically agrees (lucky that Tuvok was able to prove her innocence in time).

The other bit that confused the hell out of me was when Janeway got all pissy with the crew and Cap of the science vessel that was also trapped in the DQ who was under constant attack from inter-dimensional beings that they had once used as a fuel source. She was ranting and raving about their using a species (which they had no possible way of knowing were sentient) as a fuel source, yet this comes from the same Captain who willingly infiltrates some oppressive government for...some sort of space supplies...or something.

I really DID love the Voyager Ep where Chakotay is press-ganged into an alien army and effectively brainwashed to hate their enemy. It was really interesting both in themes of 'limited perception' and the fact that they bothered to change the speech patterns of the humanesque aliens to something...almost poetic -the first time in Star Trek I've really seen it done.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

snip

Enterprise wasn't so much ruined by poor writing as it was by a crappy choice of actors. Some plots had potential like the previous series, but seemingly hiring exclusively ten-a-penny American Hollywood action heroes with heavy American accents really broke the mood for me.

The same sort of happened with their choice of actor for Sisko in DS9. Brooks is just uncapable of playing anger or strong emotions realistically. Nice for a stage play, but not for a series. Which is made even worse if cameras, completely by the book, zoom in to give an even better view of how Brooks makes unlogical facial expressions and can't really get into the role.

Kind of a big deal as the 'captain' character is the leader and it's ussually when they make the captain get angry, something big's going on. You saw a good example of that in the First Contact movie when Picard gets worked up over the Borg and says that the line must be drawn here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3RNsZvdYZQ], and then the plot tips when they abandon ship. If such a moment comes across as fake acting, it just breaks the mood.

While I admit that Brooks could be uneven at times, I have to disagree that he couldn't convey anger. When he was pissed, or when he wanted to sound threatening, then holy shit, stay away from his rage.

My personal favourite episode is from series 6 of DS9, In The Pale Moonlight. Sisko's speech at the end where he admits to lying, deception, murder, and cover-ups, and then says he'd do the whole damn thing all over again if he had the choice. Sisko is the only captain I can see leading a fleet in times of war. (Kirk would solve it himself with a fist-fight, Picard would talk everyone down, Janeway would faff for 40 minutes, then use completely unheard of tech to save the day, never watched enough Enterprise to know what Archer would do)

Archer was /very/ warlike. You know how there was an episode of TNG where Picard was tortured by the Cardassians and the whole point was that torture was a bad idea? Well, Archer tortured an alien scientist for information and got it. That right there sums up why I don't like the series.

 

[Vuliev]

I was 5 when it finished. You have no excuse.

I take it you've actually watched the series since then--I haven't.

 

[Sixcess]

Patrick Stewart holds a special place in my heart, and he represents the ethical soul of Starfleet

I actually forgot to vote in my first post but yeah Patrick Stewart is the man and not just because of roles like the 4 lights and this is the line and no further but also because he then went on to do this. Yup that's the ethical soul of Starfleet singing about liking little girls, awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBZ5OLy2EDg

This is even better

Spoiler

It's the delivery that makes it so brilliant. Every line spoken with the sincerity and gravitas of a Picard speech. I think it's the best self parody performance I've ever seen.

 

[El Danny]

NO!

I accidently voted for Kirk, Picard is the far superior captain.

You only think that. Deep down you know Kirk is the greatest and your subconscious guided your vote.

Kidding aside, we do seem to have a lot of Picard fans here. I never took to him until TNG was in reruns, though in hindsight that has less to do with Picard and more to do with Series 1 and much of Series 2 of TNG being really really bad - though S2 has some standout episodes like "Q Who" and "The Measure of a Man" (aka best Riker episode ever)

Picard has far more character than Kirk, Riker is basically Kirk with some character development and a bit more tact. Kirk is to Star Trek what Adam West is to Batman, a lot of fun, just hard to take as seriously as his successors.

Pocard also has a Shakespearean edge that's quite rare, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=632q94e2zm8 the way he spits those last words out. That cene is one of the very best in Star Trek, sadly I can't find the whole clip.

The best episode in TNG is after Picard gets tortured by the alien for days at a time, and at the very end when asked how many lights he saw (even though he saw four); Picard yells back "THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS". Just refused to be broken, even when he was. That sir, is why I voted for Picard!

And lets not forget it's also a tip off to one of the best books ever written.

Kirk is to Star Trek what Adam West is to Batman, a lot of fun, just hard to take as seriously as his successors.

Different era, different style. The campiness and larger than life performances of TOS was something I really missed when TNG aired - Picard seemed so wishy washy after Kirk, and the show did take quite a while to find its own voice. I recall reading that a lot of the early TNG drew on repurposed material for the 'phase 2' revival they'd planned before the movies came along, so you had 80s/90s actors handling 70s scripts. God, Season 1 was bad.

It's as well they did move on though. I can't imagine Picard getting into punch ups with monsters and teaching alien space babes about "this... thing... we call... love."

While I love TNG, some of the early plots were terrible.

Let us not forget these things ether: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Neural_parasite_(24th_century)

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

I like how both Sisko and JANEWAY got more votes than Kirk.

 

[lunavixen]

Janeway was my favourite, followed extrememly closely by Picard, and not just because Janeway is also a woman. Voyager had to go through more exenuating circumstances than Enterprise ever did, especially being 90,000 light years from the Alpha Quadrant, she would have had to learn to bend the rules eventually, and yes, while Mulgrew's character was inconsistently written, a Starfleet Captain (well, really, any captain) should have a stable presence along with the ability to lead, Janeway has that. I think because of the long journey to get back to the Alpha Quadrant, some of Janeway's inconsistencies would have been from her having to try and maintain respect from the crew as a captain, but still be there for them because they have pretty much no where else to go.

Jeri Ryan, while not bad, would not have been captain material i don't think, she's more eye candy than anything else, and she wouldn't have been taken seriously as a captain.

I've never seen all of Deep Space Nine, it just couldn't hold my attention, so I can't make an educated opinion on it. My biggest issue with The Next Generation is that the story remains fairly static, there is very little character development (certainly less than in Voyager), but it gets points because i like Deanna Troi and Patrick Stewart.

 

[Dirty Apple]

I voted for Picard, because he's a text book Star Fleet Captain. He defines the archtype. That being said, I've always had a soft spot for Sisko. If Picard is the unattainable ideal, than Sisko is the real world application of that ideal.

...and includes one of the best episodes in Trials and Tribble-ations...

As fun an episode as that one was, THE best episode is "In the Pale Moonlight." A turn of true magnificence.