Boldly Watch for the Rest of Your Life

March 8, 2011 6:24 PM

We consider it our duty to provide every episode of Star Trek ever made totally free. It should be too good to be true. But it's not.
posted by Glibpaxman (130 comments total)

OMG
posted by humannaire at 6:27 PM on March 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Evil Kirk is upset that his agent didn't obtain royalty rights.

And thought I thank them for their service, this duty is already being served by bit-torrenting.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:30 PM on March 8, 2011

DMCA takedown in 5...4...3...2...1
posted by miyabo at 6:30 PM on March 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Do we have to do the copyright versus "those bits didn't leave Paramount, it's not stealing" versus Geeks want it t obe free thing or can we just skip straight to deletion?
posted by cavalier at 6:30 PM on March 8, 2011

Imma gonna take a hit of this and dream of Gilese
posted by The Whelk at 6:31 PM on March 8, 2011

Internet 1
Cable providers 0
posted by Redhush at 6:32 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Damn it, I wanted to sleep!
posted by jadepearl at 6:36 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

No download links?
posted by DU at 6:37 PM on March 8, 2011

Awesome, maybe I can watch some Enterprise now that I can skip past that ridiculous horrifying abortion of a theme song.
posted by lumpenprole at 6:40 PM on March 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Oh man, they may have to move the site again. I've been a big fan of these folks for a while, but they've moved .coms once already. I hope it stays up, but if it doesn't, I thank for them a wonderful year.
posted by fuq at 6:41 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Seems like a classic internet scam. Repackage someone elses content or find someone else hosting it illegally, link them through your own site, put up ads and profit.

Regardless, posting links to those sites on highly trafficked forums like this one increase the chances that they'll get skittish and move or busted and shut down.
posted by ZeusHumms at 6:42 PM on March 8, 2011

so, i click the link WOW, gold. thanks for this.
posted by clavdivs at 6:43 PM on March 8, 2011

So deleted.
posted by Avenger at 6:43 PM on March 8, 2011

Huh, there are Star Trek shows after The Next Generation? Has anyone here seen any of them and are they any good? I mean, is Picard in them?
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 6:44 PM on March 8, 2011 [16 favorites]

I figured the secret was out as soon as it showed up on the Star Trek wiki under the where to watch section. At that point just let everyone know and enjoy for as long as possible.
posted by Glibpaxman at 6:44 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I still want my TNG-like 100-year pushed forward series with the Borg as allies, a fractured Federation and unreliable warp drives.
posted by The Whelk at 6:46 PM on March 8, 2011 [10 favorites]

Netflix is picking up CBS's library of the various Star Trek franchises for streaming next month.
posted by birdherder at 6:49 PM on March 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Either we're going down… or they are.
posted by unliteral at 6:49 PM on March 8, 2011

These are Ukranian-sourced episodes, so it's totally legit.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:49 PM on March 8, 2011

Once I found that certain reels were available on the side, I never really worried about finding television online again.

Has anyone watched the Capt. Pike era original pilot? Doesn't it feel much harder sf wise than the entire rest of the every subsequent show? Teching the tech doesn't count
posted by Chekhovian at 6:51 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

DU: No download links?

A little program called Ownload-day Elper-Hay seems to find some download links there.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:52 PM on March 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

I still want my TNG-like 100-year pushed forward series with the Borg as allies, a fractured Federation and unreliable warp drives.

SOMEONE MAKE THIS NOW PLEASE.
posted by emjaybee at 6:53 PM on March 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

It's my understanding that site policy is fairly lenient on copyright-skirting posts as long as the source is reasonably clean (i.e., no malware, mystery meat downloads, etc.) and there's something really compelling about the content (i.e., no SLYTs to the latest Hollywood blockbuster just because). Which is a good thing -- many of my best posts (Dune Encyclopedia! Online game emulation! Craig Ferguson puppet jamz!) would not survive a strict application of the DMCA, and I assume that's true for a lot of other posts here, too.

So unless the site actually goes down -- which is by no means a given -- could we maybe discuss the content (or just FIAMO) instead of grousing about takedown notices and thread deletions?
posted by Rhaomi at 6:54 PM on March 8, 2011

I still want my TNG-like 100-year pushed forward series with the Borg as allies, a fractured Federation and unreliable warp drives.
posted by The Whelk at 6:46 PM on 3/8
[+] [!]

You're a writer! Make it happ- er, make it so!
posted by Avenger at 6:54 PM on March 8, 2011

Aren't the Borg humans from the future? Or did I just imagine that.
posted by Ad hominem at 6:55 PM on March 8, 2011

Seems like a classic internet scam. Repackage someone elses content or find someone else hosting it illegally, link them through your own site, put up ads and profit.

Are there ads on the site? I don't know because I have adblock. And, really, so should you.

Anyway, hotlinking to someone Else's pirated content isn't illegal. And neither is watching it, as far as I know. It's only if you download it and share it with someone else (such as with a P2P app) that you actually break any laws.

Since the videos seem to be hosted in other countries, there may not be that big of a problem. The .com name could get taken down but they could buy a domain name from some cc TLD.
posted by delmoi at 6:56 PM on March 8, 2011

Aren't the Borg humans from the future? Or did I just imagine that.

The borg assimilate other races into their electronic collective. They have managed to assimilate some random humans from time to time.
posted by delmoi at 6:56 PM on March 8, 2011

I still want my TNG-like 100-year pushed forward series with the Borg as allies, a fractured Federation and unreliable warp drives.

I WANT TO BELIEVE
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 6:57 PM on March 8, 2011

I don't know if unreliable warp drives would make for very interesting plot points. I mean. The ships would just get stuck, and then what? Just sit there?
posted by delmoi at 6:58 PM on March 8, 2011

filthy light thief: "A little program called Ownload-day Elper-Hay"

Also since this is Star Trek we are talking about, the nerdy way to do this is using the shell if you are on a Linux system: the flash plugin will create a file named /tmp/Flash<gibberish>. When the video is fully buffered in the player, you can move that file to "coolmovie.flv" (probably best to put it in a directory other than /tmp), and any decent movie player will be able to play that file.

If you are using an ext2 or ext3 file system, you can actually move and rename the file to another location on the same filesystem, and the download will continue as long as the flash widget continues downloading.
posted by idiopath at 6:59 PM on March 8, 2011

Oh man, I'm gonna violate me some serious copyright.

The Best of Both Worlds, Parts I and II, here I come.
posted by killdevil at 7:00 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

In my head, the Borg have (it's assumed there was some horrible war) cleaned up their act by making assimilation "voluntary" and tolerating a touch more individuality - but spreading it out like nodes . They're a big mass hive mind that's SO FRIENDLY. The Hive is about peace, tranquility, stability and sustainable growth cause of that unmentioned nasty war thing that left everyone hurting and the experimental warp jumps ruined subspace enough that going into warp is kind of a dare and lots of systems have spent a decade or so now with only the occasional traffic - kind of like Europe in the Dark Ages - and The Federation is the Holy Roman Empire, loose, grand, always there yet oddly intangible. Mostly fussing about a few core planets while the rest of the galaxy is slowly emerging out of the silence and hysteria of that Really Really Big Unmentioned War Seriously Don't Talk About It.

Cause well, there is a reason there are no more Vulcans.
posted by The Whelk at 7:02 PM on March 8, 2011 [29 favorites]

The borg assimilate other races into their electronic collective

Yeah, I Imagined that the Borg we extreme post humans, after pushing human cybernetics as far as possible the start to incorporate other races into their experiments and become the Borg. Do they ever show non human based Borg ?
posted by Ad hominem at 7:03 PM on March 8, 2011

keep typing whelk
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 7:04 PM on March 8, 2011 [12 favorites]

Cause well, there is a reason there are no more Vulcans.

In the middle of a really really bad war the insufferable know it alls would be the first to go.
posted by Glibpaxman at 7:05 PM on March 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Wow, Paris was more haggard-looking than I'd remembered.
posted by blucevalo at 7:11 PM on March 8, 2011

This is the first time I've seen TOS with the upgraded graphics. I haven't had any luck searching this site to see if there is a thread discussing the issue. Does anyone know of one off hand?
posted by Trochanter at 7:14 PM on March 8, 2011

In my head, Bajor, of all the people, ends up the big power in the Quadrant.

And Klingons end up DOMINATING the diplomatic corps of the fractured starfleet. Seriously they know every ritual, every honorific, it's insane.
posted by The Whelk at 7:15 PM on March 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

Stonestock Relentless: "Huh, there are Star Trek shows after The Next Generation? Has anyone here seen any of them and are they any good? I mean, is Picard in them?"

Who's this Picard person you speak of? Star Trek only had 79 episodes and six movies. Somebody told me that there was some sort of pastel colored follow up series in the eighties with a boring bald captain who never got into fist fights or slept with any alien women but I didn't believe them.
posted by octothorpe at 7:16 PM on March 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

I think the over-under on takedown is Monday 3/14 9am EDT. (EDT? Already? THE HELL?)
posted by andreaazure at 7:17 PM on March 8, 2011

the question "are they any good" relies on the question "well, how much do you like Star Trek stuff?"
posted by The Whelk at 7:17 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh he slept with alien women. He just doesn't need to go bragging about it.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 7:17 PM on March 8, 2011 [7 favorites]

My wife's going away for a few days. Don't think I'll be lonely.
posted by Dasein at 7:18 PM on March 8, 2011

Well, I wasn't going to to post this here, but if Star Trek is not your thing, how about Every Episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway? Both US and UK Version (US episodes first, the site got its graphic season headers removed but the videos are still there; it also links to an archive of The Drew Carey Show if you want to refresh your memories of before Craig Ferguson became awesome)
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:38 PM on March 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

Don't discount DS9 as quality post-TNG Star Trek. It wasn't always on its game, but when it was, it was good television.
posted by dry white toast at 7:55 PM on March 8, 2011

OMFG
posted by zarq at 8:02 PM on March 8, 2011

dry white toast, I really loved DS9. It covered a lot of themes that didn't pop up in sci-fi again until Battlestar Galactica, such as the moral ambiguities in rebel movements or the role of religion. The implications of Odo's race of near-immortal/near-omnipotent beings was quite interesting too.

Really, DS9 was most memorable to me for the harrowing episode Hard Time; that was the first real understanding I had of what long-term imprisonment and brutality might do to someone, and what PTSD might look like.
posted by emjaybee at 8:03 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ok I am convinced I should watch DS9.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:04 PM on March 8, 2011

More DS9 love from me. It was the first series I watched with such long story arcs, and I felt like I was watching a new approach to television coalesce as the show matured. There weren't as many single episodes that stood out for me as there were in the Next Generation, but the series as whole had a greater impact because it was really building something beyond the "interesting crisis of the week" format.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:08 PM on March 8, 2011

The longer story arcs and character development of DS9 added to the moral ambiguity was what made the show for me. Garek was the best example of this but pretty much everyone on the show had their own ethical code that they lived by instead of some set of rules given to them by the Federation. I thought that made them more like real people and it gave the show so many more areas to explore than TNG ever allowed. All of the main characters started in Season 1 with severe flaws and the show spent the next 7 seasons working them through their own development.

Oh, I also think that TNG's triumphalist themes are a little too post Cold War at times, especially early on in the series. But maybe thats just me.
posted by Glibpaxman at 8:14 PM on March 8, 2011

Metafilter: keep typing whelk
posted by stratastar at 8:20 PM on March 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I would really appreciate it if someone could suggest some good starter DS9 eps. I tried to get into it a long time ago and kind of failed, but I feel like everyone deserves a second chance, right?
posted by prefpara at 8:23 PM on March 8, 2011

MUST WATCH ... ALL ... EPISODES ... :)

The world needs more Star Trek, regardless the series. If we all learned to think like people in the 23rd century, our world would get their faster.
posted by patcii at 8:23 PM on March 8, 2011

Oh, we had it good for so long. TNG, Babylon 5, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Andromeda, Firefly, the Stargate shows and Battlestar Galactica. Always a space opera show on the air (Or two, or three!) Always something really cool and interesting to watch. Shows that ran for seven years or more. Now there's nada.
posted by Kevin Street at 8:24 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

All this talk of take down made me think "if I could olny pick one...." and it had to be Trials and Tribble-ations, from season 5 DSN
posted by Redhush at 8:26 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, they're certainly not worth paying for.
posted by Ratio at 8:29 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I just started watching DS9 (first I tried Babylon 5, but MAN that's dated; the graphics from the original Wing Commander games is better than the CGI in the first season of that show),

Alot of people say watch it all, (at least starting from the second season, watch the first and last episode of the first season), but here's a list of episodes to AVOID that someone wrote up. Can't exactly vouch for it...
posted by stratastar at 8:30 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Another DS9 fan here.

My roomate and I watch a lot of b-movies in a "LOL, it is so bad it is good" way, and we started watching DS9 thinking it would be like a whole series full of joyously bad Sci-Fi. The First two seasons mostly lived up to our expectations, and were laughably bad on a regular basis (with several great exceptions). But eventually, to our surprise, it matures into what I'd probably consider the best Trek series.

In most Trek shows you are on a ship and each episode you zip into a new place, face a problem, make your choices, them zip out never to return (and see the long lasting results of your choices). But on DS9 the fact they were essentially stationary meant they faced problems, made choices with how to deal with them, but them were stuck dealing with the aftermath of those choices. Eventually they even started doing long 6+ episode story arcs which was something very new for the Trek world.

Since they didn't always feel the need to introduce a new nation/species/colony every episode they had more ability to develop the recurring characters (especially the secondary characters and villains) which I thought added to the feel greatly.

Finally, another plus was that it was far more ambiguous with its morality, and more human in its conflict, then any other trek series. Roddenberry laid down rules for his vision of the Trek franchise that refused to allow any real conflict between the starfleet characters, nor any ambiguity about the utopic nature of the federation. Once he passed away they were finally able to start dealing with meatier issues.
posted by Jezztek at 8:30 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Kevin Street, yeah I was just thinking, HOW THE HELL did these shows get made?! There must have been some really rich geeky benefactors to tv sci-fi in the 20th century.
posted by stratastar at 8:32 PM on March 8, 2011

prefpara,

a great start would be the 3 parter beginning with the final episode of the second season called "The Jem'Hadar." Then theres some good episodes definitely worth watching but if you want to get the flavor of the series skip ahead to "Improbable Cause" & "The Die is Cast" toward the end of Season 3. I guarantee you will be addicted to the plot by the end of those five episodes and you can go back and watch the filler, characterization stuff later.
posted by Glibpaxman at 8:36 PM on March 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Trials And Tribble-ations is a great episode of DS9, and very much part of Star Trek, since it depends upon previous continuity.

I also love Far Beyond the Stars, although its a very atypical story for the series.
posted by Kevin Street at 8:37 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

The longer story arcs and character development of DS9 added to the moral ambiguity was what made the show for me. Garek was the best example of this but pretty much everyone on the show had their own ethical code that they lived by instead of some set of rules given to them by the Federation. I thought that made them more like real people and it gave the show so many more areas to explore than TNG ever allowed. All of the main characters started in Season 1 with severe flaws and the show spent the next 7 seasons working them through their own development.

Oh, I also think that TNG's triumphalist themes are a little too post Cold War at times, especially early on in the series. But maybe thats just me.

Quoted in its entirely for being the 100% gospel truth.

Also, why is it that MetaFilter is the only place I ever find a significant grouping of DS9 fans? Pretty much anywhere else in my life where I run into ST fans they are either TOS or TNG fans, and I know a few people who actively hate DS9. But as a second generation ST nerd, I have to say I think it stands head and shoulders above the other series, for all the reasons Glibpaxman said.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 8:45 PM on March 8, 2011

I had my own TNG movie I used to daydream about making. I mean that totally seriously: I daydreamed about producing a script, going to conventions, circulating it among fans, starting a fan-based movement to get it made, etc. Sure, it was totally ludicrous, but I enjoyed imagining that someday I might see this movie.

I could go on at great length about it but that feels like GYOB-ish behaviour, so I'll restrain myself. (I have great portions of it mapped out and could write for an hour about it). But the gist was that when Picard arrives on the bridge at the beginning of the film, there's already a Picard there, played by Sean Connery, and in fact all the cast has been replaced by celebrity actors.

Sean Connery rants at Patrick Stewart about how the movies need marquee names and has him thrown in the "brig" - a costumes room - with the rest of the regular cast.

Then we cut to Jonathan Frakes driving to the set, late, in a hurry, with a metal briefcase next to him in the passenger seat. The briefcase contains his beard, which he dons while giving himself a little pep-talk, before marching onto set.

Matt Damon, who was to replace Frakes, is also late, so the celebrity cast decides to use him. From this point on, Frakes is more or less in character, and a "regular" star trek story progresses, although the Captain is increasingly drunk (ordering whiskey from the replicators instead of tea) and the rest of the crew generally incompetent and more interested in relaxing. (I think at some point they coat the bridge in sand and play beach volleyball).

Meanwhile, the regular cast is using Geordie's visor to emit a tachyon pulse to deactivate the forcefield holding them prisoner, etc. They sort of drift in and out of cast/crew realities as needs be.

Riker is clueing in that something is amiss, though he isn't sure what. He's having a hard time thinking clearly because he's always either drunk or hungover from trying to keep up with the Captain. He finally starts faking drinking (replicating booze-scented gum) to clear his head and is beginning to suspect that they're all imposters when Matt Damon finally arrives. Sean Connery orders him to take Riker to the brig with the others.

On the way there, Frakes convinces Damon that "the real Riker would never fight against himself" (Damon: "That doesn't even make any sense"). At first Damon is reluctant, but he wins him over. They spend the rest of the movie shadowing each other and saying their lines in sync. This is identified by title card as "THE RIKER SINGULARITY".

The celebrity crew goes after them, a merry chase ensues, and finally at the end Sean Connery confronts them in Engineering, dressed in the weird American Gladiator sport get-up thing from the episode with Riker's father. He tells Riker that he is his father in Vader-esque tones. Damon and Frakes have a lightsaber-esque fight around engineering with Sean Connery, who ends up felling Damon with a mortal blow.

As Damon/Riker lays dying, he instructs Frakes/Riker to take his beard and use both their beards together. At first afraid of the power contained therein, Riker recognizes the necessity, and adds Damon's beard to his own (now wearing it upside down so that the like mustache/chin part is across his forehead).

Upon donning the second beard, Riker's shirt explodes with his expanding muscles, and arcs of energy from the warp core begin streaming to him. He handily dispatches Sean Connery just as the regular crew arrives and they enjoy a Scooby-Doo type laugh.

I have been thinking about this film for over a decade and it makes me impossibly happy. And I've left out vast swathes of it, in which Sean Connery takes over the effects production since they blew their budget on actors, and their encounter with his homemade, terrible Warbird models.
posted by neuromodulator at 8:46 PM on March 8, 2011 [41 favorites]

-and The Federation is the Holy Roman Empire, loose, grand, always there yet oddly intangible. Mostly fussing about a few core planets while the rest of the galaxy is slowly emerging out of the silence and hysteria of that Really Really Big Unmentioned War Seriously Don't Talk About It.

Didn't Roddenberry already do that version of Trek? Only wasn't it called "Andromeda" for some reason?

and the experimental warp jumps ruined subspace enough that going into warp is kind of a dare-

Well that will make a good final when the series gets canceled:

"Captain, there's something wrong with the warp dri-"
*SILENT EXPLOSION*
And then the remaining 45 minutes of the time slot can be spent on a Soloflex infomercial.

The problem with making FTL a risky proposition is that means you're either confined to a single star system (in which case why bother calling it Star Trek?), or it quickly becomes a non-threat, because you're not going to kill off the cast in an accident. Even if it's something that just causes the ship to break down, well, you get one episode out of that, then it's boring.
posted by happyroach at 8:54 PM on March 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Didn't Roddenberry already do that version of Trek? Only wasn't it called "Andromeda" for some reason?"

Actually, it was produced by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who was one of the really great writers on Deep Space 9. From Roddenberry's notes, but with many alterations. I loved that show for two seasons, then they fired Wolfe and it fell apart.
posted by Kevin Street at 8:59 PM on March 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

And because I can't stop writing for some reason, the big thing that made DS9 different from the other Star Trek shows was the showrunner Ira Steven Behr. On the other series, from TNG to Enterprise, the man in charge was always Rick Berman. We have Berman to thank for the TNG movies, too.
posted by Kevin Street at 9:02 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I like how the sound of science back then was WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO
posted by Sebmojo at 9:08 PM on March 8, 2011

Oh, we had it good for so long. TNG, Babylon 5, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Andromeda, Firefly, the Stargate shows and Battlestar Galactica. Always a space opera show on the air (Or two, or three!) Always something really cool and interesting to watch. Shows that ran for seven years or more. Now there's nada.

We were lucky. A lot of them came out of a golden age of syndication, the rise of small networks like UPN and the WB, and the golden age of the Sci-Fi Channel. Now there's no patience any more to build anything. There have been many promising shows neutered by a writer's strike here, a network's cowardice there, and sometimes plain lack of imagination and patience.

At least there's Doctor Who.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:42 PM on March 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

I just watched the Red Letter Media guy's take on the Star Trek movies. He's reserved a special place in hell for Rick Berman.
posted by stratastar at 9:42 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Maybe some kind of streaming thing on the Internet will produce the next great space opera series. Purchasable one episode at a time on iTunes, Netflix and Amazon, or something like that.
posted by Kevin Street at 9:48 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

DS9 fundamentally changed the way I looked at digital entertainment. (When I was a kid, I just said "the way I watched TV.") Long, long arcs... and a kid who was a kid and wasn't "Super Wesley Crusher"!
posted by andreaazure at 9:53 PM on March 8, 2011

In any great and adoring thread about Star Trek, there needs to be a reference to this song.
posted by Night_owl at 10:15 PM on March 8, 2011

I consider it my duty to provide every episode of 'Poochinski' ever made totally free.
posted by mazola at 10:16 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, why is it that MetaFilter is the only place I ever find a significant grouping of DS9 fans? Pretty much anywhere else in my life where I run into ST fans they are either TOS or TNG fans, and I know a few people who actively hate DS9. But as a second generation ST nerd, I have to say I think it stands head and shoulders above the other series, for all the reasons Glibpaxman said.

This is just one more reason to love metafilter.

Also Elilm Garak. As if you needed another.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:43 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Given how much of Babylon 5 mysteriously migrated into DS9 its a shame the standard B5 treatment of small cute children didn't make it over too. It was either murder in a religious ritual by his parents or dead after a disease wiped out his species...Wesley Mary Sue Crusher, you would have been the perfect guest star!

This space adventure drought has to end. At this point I'd even watch CSI: International Space Station, as much as it pains me to admit that.
posted by Chekhovian at 10:49 PM on March 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Wow no more watching star trek on you tube for me. Awesome post man!!!!!

List of all time favorite TV Sci-fi series

1) TNG/DS9/X-files (Three way tie for first place. Can you tell I came of age in the 90's?)

2) Battlestar Galactica

3) Voyager (had so much potential and could have been 100 times better than it was)

4) Firefly

5) Babylon 5

6) TOS

7) Battlestar Galactica 1979

8) Doctor Who (1970's 80's version)

9) Blake's 7

10) Stargate SG1
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:49 PM on March 8, 2011

On the way there, Frakes convinces Damon that "the real Riker would never fight against himself" (Damon: "That doesn't even make any sense"). At first Damon is reluctant, but he wins him over. They spend the rest of the movie shadowing each other and saying their lines in sync. This is identified by title card as "THE RIKER SINGULARITY".

YES

Only Trek I like is Original Series. I like my sci-fi weird, dumb, and unscientific
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 12:32 AM on March 9, 2011

I just wanted to add my voice to the DS9 fans - I really love the series, & I especially loved the recurring characters, like Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun, Andrew Robinson as Garak (especially his "romance" with Bashir), Marc Alaimo as Gul Dukat, & J.G. Hertzler as the magnificent Martok. It was a series that loved its guest actors & gave them more life than your average Trek "guest of the week."

(I didn't much care for most of the Ferengi episodes, I confess, though I appreciate the effort to give Quark, as a Ferengi on a Starfleet base, a sort of depth not normally found in that cartoonish race.)

Back in the day, my nerdier friends would always tell me that DS9 was a rip-off of Babylon 5, & I truly tried to watch that show, but I was put off by how awful the acting was. Did anyone else have that experience? Even the worst episodes of the later Trek (DS9, Voyager, Enterprise) had decent acting, but the several episodes of Babylon 5 I forced my way through had actors who delivered their lines & missed their marks like they had failed Theatre Arts in college. That was so uncomfortable to watch. & Avery Brooks ain't no John Gielgud, but he certainly made the role work.

I wish DS9 had had enough of a following to make some stand-alone movies like the cast talked about around the seventh season. Sigh.
posted by dickenbock at 1:24 AM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just get them on DVD, you piratey bastards!
posted by Harry at 1:32 AM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

oh my god how did i miss a trek thread i am so ashamed of myself
posted by Mizu at 2:04 AM on March 9, 2011

No animated series? Incomplete.
posted by Shohn at 7:04 AM on March 9, 2011

prefpara: "I would really appreciate it if someone could suggest some good starter DS9 eps. I tried to get into it a long time ago and kind of failed, but I feel like everyone deserves a second chance, right?"

Season One:
* Duet

Season Two:
* Necessary Evil
* Shadowplay
* The Wire (Garak-centric episodes usually were excellent -- this one was brilliantly done.)
* The Jem'Hadar

Season Three
* Improbable Cause
* The Die is Cast

Season Four
* The Visitor (This is the episode I usually suggest to introduce people to DS9. Guest star Tony Todd turns in an wonderful performance, and is a relatively low-key, poignant and extremely moving father and son episode.)
* The Way of the Warrior (perhaps just for this scene.)
* Hard Time. (According to Ronald Moore on the AOL forums, there was a standing joke amongst the writers that each season had an "O'Brien Goes Through Hell Episode." Hard Time is one of the best of the lot.)

Season Five:
* Nor the Battle to the Strong
* Trials and Tribble-ations (It's really a silly story, but brilliantly done.)
* Things Past (I like this one a lot, but I don't know if it's for everyone.)
* In Purgatory's Shadow and By Inferno's Light
* Children of Time
* In the Cards (This is a nice stand-alone, quite funny Jake/Nog story, penultimate to the season finale. Worth seeing just for the "Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy" scene.)

Season Six:
* Far Beyond the Stars
* In the Pale Moonlight
(These two episodes repeatedly come up as "Fan Favorites" in polls. They're excellent.)

Season Seven:
The entire season is one long arc, and there might be too much happening in any one episode that doesn't make a lot of sense without knowing what's happening in the rest of the series. As a baseball fan, I'm partial to "Take Me Out To The Holosuite" because it's silly and fun. Odo makes a great ump.

If I had to recommend two episodes that you can watch and not be totally spoiled, I'd say: The Seige of AR-538 and its follow-up, It's Only A Paper Moon. Paper Moon is another of my favorite episodes.

I loved DS9. The acting wasn't always fantastic, but the writers really cared about what they were writing, and weren't afraid to show the Trek universe in grittier, darker terms. Seasons One through Three were a bit of a slog. But Seasons Six and Seven were definitely worth it.
posted by zarq at 7:36 AM on March 9, 2011 [25 favorites]

Animated series is actually being streamed at various places, including StarTrek.com.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:37 AM on March 9, 2011

,,,I'm the only one who liked Farscape then?
posted by The Whelk at 7:38 AM on March 9, 2011

Thanks, zarq! Just in time for spring break.
posted by prefpara at 7:41 AM on March 9, 2011

Season Two:
* Necessary Evil
* Shadowplay
* The Wire
* The Jem'Hadar

Ah ha. The Wire. I've seen people recommending that on twitter for the last couple of years, it must be good.
posted by jaduncan at 7:43 AM on March 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just get them on DVD, you piratey bastards!

Episode to episode, season to season, series to series, Star Trek is one of the priciest shows I've ever seen on DVD.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:45 AM on March 9, 2011

I've been watching the first few episodes DS9 (for the first time!) on this site over the last couple of weeks. Why can't there always be a decent NEW Star Trek series going on, every year? Aren't there enough fans?

There outta be a law.
posted by callmejay at 7:54 AM on March 9, 2011

Well with the reboot we've got new continuity, so you'd have to make sure it plays nice with the movie.

I'm still holding out for a It's Always Sunny In Engineering type comedy. Not everyone gets to be bridge crew. Someone has to clean the toilets.
posted by The Whelk at 7:59 AM on March 9, 2011

Back in the day, my nerdier friends would always tell me that DS9 was a rip-off of Babylon 5, & I truly tried to watch that show, but I was put off by how awful the acting was. Did anyone else have that experience?

I never watched B5 back in the day, but a few years ago, after suffering through the drought that is (the lack of) contemporary TV sci-fi, I decided to give it a shot, largely on the recommendation of people here on MetaFilter.

Ugh. I am right with you on the acting. Terrible. I could kinda see how the story arcs were all going someplace and might be interesting, but the acting was soo, soo bad that I really just did not care about any of the characters. Seriously, they could have all been obliterated by the giant spider-spaceships for all I cared.

So moral of the story: good acting and relatively interesting characters can carry you through weak story lines, but good story lines cannot overcome wooden acting and boring characters.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 8:02 AM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Whelk: "Not everyone gets to be bridge crew. Someone has to clean the toilets."

Voyager did a couple of episodes that focused on non-essential crewmen. They were kinda awful, as I recall. Then again, the series itself wasn't exactly must-see tv.
posted by zarq at 8:05 AM on March 9, 2011

prefpara: "Thanks, zarq! Just in time for spring break."

You're welcome!
posted by zarq at 8:06 AM on March 9, 2011

Got to join in on the DS9 love! Thanks to Ira Steven Behr it seems, but I just read that he was the writer for all the Ferengi episodes which IMO were the worst. Did anyone actually like those episodes??
posted by meta87 at 8:36 AM on March 9, 2011

Also did you peoples that gave up on Babylon 5 make it past the first season? It is truly awful at first but gets so much better later on.
posted by meta87 at 8:38 AM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Did anyone actually like those episodes??

Me! No, really, you can still find Ferengi fanfic I wrote when I was 14 if you google right. As a teenager, I really appreciated Nog's character arc about a boy rejecting his family's values to succeed, particularly when held up against Jake Sisko's character arc. I liked that the teenagers on DS9 were like real teenagers, as opposed to Wesley Crusher. Now, I can see how the Ferengi eps were kind of goofy, but I still appreciate what was done there.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:43 AM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

You're definitely right about Nog. He was a lot cooler than Jake and a good character. I didn't remember him being a focus in many of the Ferengi episodes. It was kind of hard to swallow how quickly he jumped up in the ranks of the federation. I remember him going on a solo mission with the captain at one point.
posted by meta87 at 8:47 AM on March 9, 2011

I always felt the Ferengi episodes were (intentionally) classic-style broad comedy with a hint of theatrical, '60s, Mad Mad Mad Mad World-ness. Whether that fits into a Trek series is certainly debatable, but
A- I like that type of comedy
B- they had to do SOMEthing with the Ferengi
C- those episodes could have been so very much worse.
posted by AugieAugustus at 8:50 AM on March 9, 2011

Well, he figured pretty heavily in some of the earlier Ferengi-centric eps (ex: The Nagus). I think what I like about the use of the Ferengi on DS9, even aside from the Rom stuff, is that you get to see their society change as a direct result of the interactions with the Federation. Women earning the right to wear clothes, and all of that, even as the episodes themselves are essentially comedic. It's rare in Trek to see these kinds of development firsthand, the movement from first contact to integration. There's an interesting philosophical underpinning there, of the sort of inevitable impossibility of the Prime Directive and all of that but honestly I haven't had enough coffee yet today to form a properly geeked-out thesis about something Trek related.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:05 AM on March 9, 2011

Er, the Nog stuff, rather.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:07 AM on March 9, 2011

filthy light thief: "A little program called Ownload-day Elper-Hay"

Also since this is Star Trek we are talking about, the nerdy way to do this is using the shell if you are on a Linux system: the flash plugin will create a file named /tmp/Flash. When the video is fully buffered in the player, you can move that file to "coolmovie.flv" (probably best to put it in a directory other than /tmp), and any decent movie player will be able to play that file.


And for those of us on Windows 7?
posted by Ber at 10:02 AM on March 9, 2011

The Whelk: I'm the only one who liked Farscape then?

No way! I liked it so much, I even bought the t-shirt.
posted by fight or flight at 10:20 AM on March 9, 2011

Also did you peoples that gave up on Babylon 5 make it past the first season? It is truly awful at first but gets so much better later on.

No, I made it about part way through season 4 before I finally gave up. I tried, I really did, it just sucked. Like I said, I could tell the story lines had promise, I just could not get past the awful, awful characters and acting.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 11:12 AM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I liked that the teenagers on DS9 were like real teenagers, as opposed to Wesley Crusher.

I was actually just thinking the same thing the other day, while listening to Wil Wheaton on the Nerdist podcast. It's clear in retrospect that the writers on TNG just had no idea what to do with a teenager, so they made him this dorky, do-gooder uber nerd that annoyed absolutely everyone, whereas on DS9 they actually managed to make Jake Cisco feel like a real person, and Nog too, for that matter. I don't know if that's attributable to learning from mistakes, or to the overall different feel of DS9 from TNG, or what.

Also yes, in general the Ferengi episodes are annoying, but they did at least work hard to make Quark a real character, rather than a caricature.

At the end of the day, though, any episode with Lwaxanna Troi needs to be nuked from orbit. I know everybody loved Magel and all, but seriously that character was waaay more annoying than Wesley Crusher, because she invaded multiple ST series!
posted by DiscourseMarker at 11:20 AM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm the only one who liked Farscape then?

Not at all. I'm just sitting here watching people make their little lists and omit Farscape, also known as the best space opera ever, but include Stargate, also known as the fucking Egyptian Macgyver show, and Firefly, also known as the Asian future with no Asians show. Then I make a list about them.
posted by Errant at 11:25 AM on March 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm still holding out for a It's Always Sunny In Engineering type comedy.

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY
posted by word_virus at 11:43 AM on March 9, 2011

This is brilliant. It's a shame I can't get any of the videos to play. :( Nothing but a dead white box for me.
posted by perilous at 12:35 PM on March 9, 2011

Lwaxanna Troi Oh god yes! Worst character by far. I mean counselor Troy is bad enough, but her mom is annoying x10.
posted by meta87 at 12:36 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

The thing about Lwaxanna is theres always, always, always a role for the producer's wife. (Apparently even after the producer is dead!)
posted by Glibpaxman at 12:44 PM on March 9, 2011

I'm the only one who liked Farscape then?

I liked it too. It belongs in my F-list, Firefly-Farscape-Futurama, all good shows. Unlike Star Trek, it's not friendly to people just drop in at random. There are good starting points, and bad starting points. Most of Star Trek is self-contained enough that they can be seen out of order, and still make some sense.
posted by ZeusHumms at 1:16 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

The thing about Lwaxanna is theres always, always, always a role for the producer's wife. (Apparently even after the producer is dead!)

The allegations about shenanigans behind the scenes are legend.
posted by ZeusHumms at 1:18 PM on March 9, 2011

Wow I never knew she was Rodenberry's wife! It all makes sense now.
posted by meta87 at 1:25 PM on March 9, 2011

",,,I'm the only one who liked Farscape then?"

Ack! Don't know why I forgot Farscape. Yes, that was another great space opera show.
posted by Kevin Street at 1:40 PM on March 9, 2011

Paris began as a character of another name from next generation, the actor was in it, and he was a colleague of Mr. Crusher in the academy, but less scrupulous than Paris; they were going to bring him literally back, but he was not as redeemable as what they envisioned (Paris), so they renamed/altered him, and kept the actor. Weird. rite?

The galaxy took a first step towards artificial intelligence with the advent of Binary processing, the next step was Genution, the Quaternary processor of DNA, not simply, On/Off, One/Zero, but GCAT, with augmentations of 'on', and 'off', 'expressed', non 'expressed'. When humans learned to control this, they unexpectedly brought forth a new paradigm. It would be centuries before 'quantum' computing could be viable, but it really wasn't needed, for the genetic basis of Genuters allowed for essentially the growing of ships, devices, and formerly mechanical tools. From thinking machines to Canadarm replacements, all that was needed was a Gen-Tech level Five, a growth medium, and some resources to feed the beast. And that was the name of the first living ship; the Beast, well, that was the nickname, you see, people actually feared the 1.11% possibility that this living ship could develop a taste for the energy rich crew... the timeless metaphorically proverbial fear of a White Whale, swallowing whole those who sought to control the forces of nature.

They were wrong (well except for the USS Montgomery; but that is classified; all 100 crew members were lost, it was one of the first deep space voyages, and while exploring an x-ray fountainhead, rapid cancerous cell division occurred and the ship essentially grew out of control, crushing the contingent of scientists and explorers inside, but that is backstory. Later ships integrated and adapted techniques from Water Bears [Tardigrades] to protect from all but the most intense spatial phenomena.)

Silly whelk, I mean lets team up. Where I say Q, or traveling between galaxies slowly; instead, swap in the reformed Borg [meta-recursive-to-first-contact-several sweedish folks joined this alliance of 'cyborg-posthumans', and thoroughly continue their traditions, both inside their linkable, individualistic by default minds and outwardly], and their TransWarp technology is what is used, their cultural distinctiveness is not distinct enough to escape the assimilation power of the StarFleet and Federation Empire. Peace.

Reprisal:
The story opens sweeping into, around, and over top of the milky way, a little static fuzz, we realize it is a screen (prolly made of glass or something like that), we see puzzled Archer, he is examining the timeline using the device Mr. Daniels left behind; [we realize he has just realized that he was the one who made q; a verifiable manifestation (body-suit?) of Chaos; in otherwords he really made things bad, worse bad, all of the time jumping, particularly the distance of jump, (because if time travel is to be real world, it is either energetically really hard to jump long distances like to today, by feature creep every cell phone on stardate 40441944 would be a time traveler, but also it is like a bungee cord... if you have a large weight, and you extend it to a really extended stretch, or too many stretches; it is able to snap, despite a normally high tensile strength. This isn't a ripples on a pond, metaphor we are often treated to in time travel tales, but waves... sea, &c. thing, we see Archer gazing at the species and their territories on a sweet galactic map, zooming in towards species that are in known galaxy, alot of humanoid aliens tobias sure.

A
nd so It begins with an Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and lately Delta quadrant consensus (with either a little, or a lot, depending on the audience pandering to making points about how we react to crisis in real life in the face of factual consensus, but political opposition [like... do many vulcans, or which humans decide to stay put, or lash out, violent, hostile and peaceful movements alike, the interplay of various ideological reasons for staying or going makes for a million stories in and of itself. Despite the danger, perhaps 10 percent to spite the danger; because they are tied to their spatial reality [read, home, lifeway, there would be many, even as relates to known characters, in the filmed universe, who would stay, whether dispassionately studying the dying phase in our home sectors, or living out the dying stages of our old age phases]), a deep realization that just as earlier humans (us, and up to the immediately post WWIII) realized our home system, one day, but our planet 'could' one day die, and this spurred our species to venture forth [a similar urge to the one that pushed humanity to averge apocalyptic nuclear war, and saw each side use the previously expended energy to push forward], rather, upward, to timidly seek out new worlds... no matter how lovey we are to 'the environment', it will one day be unable to host us, or will lie shattered in the wake of an asteroid, or simply the geological furnace of our core stops operating (seems to have happened to Mars) sure, our ever-present-resident human cynics will hopefully jump at the chance to say their opinion that humans suck, and "yeah, but we will be long gone by then, so who cares". Spoiler alert; we do make it there (then?)... we just don't make it then (there?) here. As our system will dissapear, or randomly be struck, and to our crying faces a contorted, distorted shrieking death knell... so too will our galaxy reach this fate. We must, if we are to be bold, to rise up as a species, grown wise, growing old; seed the universe, travel between galaxies, if we are to teach the lessons of humanity to the universe (the lessons are varied and many... if you cannot think of the valuable human lessons learned, non solely via science/exploration, but also in tragedy, and in vengeance, in hatred, in ignorance. Overcoming failings, overcoming corruption, bigotry, hatred or vengeance. Leveling inequalities, not by dropping the standards of all to how the abused are treated, but rather, elevating all to the potential offered by privilege, a position from which individuals may begin, rather than scrabbling to rise to a rarefied pedestal... each begins with a vista view of the landscape, and ventures forth from there. Exemplified in the spirit of the first child of KKK loving people to oppose their upbringing and fight ignorance, intolerance, irrational fear and hatred. From one place where a truly, truly bigoted individuals' hatred grows, like coral reefs another beings' compassion, willingness to step up and defend their fellow beings builds up in a lasting way. The hatred is only in that one individual... and what is left behind is not a building block, and is not lasting, it will dissipate, while the opposition to ignorance is, as noted, like coral, over time forming a solid and stable base for a society to reach onwards and push upwards.


Anyway, as they say; Galaxies mash up, sectors come and go and one day 'we' will come to see that there is a massive "loose matter" problem... see, just as dust accretes in places where it lights up and wow's our telescopes today (like a nebula), it also does so in the darkness between galaxies... in fact there is a pattern through the universe that roughly maps this Infra-Galactic patter of pathways, and on the boundaries of our galaxy; basically, whichever generations humans having developed massive 'flashlights', and once again we can peer dimly into the vast dark expanses... which are not so dark, each cluster containing a massive scale of what we eye, blood for oil, some hydrogen clumps, perfect fuel for a metareactor, a system building blocks, for the second universal federation of clusters. So we come to see our own end heralded, like the glassy eyed narrators of a thousand burning books. It is like the Sol system asteroid belts... but billions of scales larger. This pattern of linkages, stretching across the universe, actually forming pathways, every once in a while a new system sparks into existence, instigated by a new species joining the Trans-Galactic community. Creating an artificial sun, a new system, and staking a claim in this wild-lands of the formerly dark, but universe spanning pathways of matter in the darkness.

Danger comes to a fearful humanity:
With the rotation of the galaxy, every once in a while our galaxy is put in the path of such a matter-accretion point. While the universes' life has plenty of "logical minds", and masterful binary style bifurcating brain styles... humanity, you see, is unique, possessing the spectral potential (think Monists [the many are at essential; one], Dualist [the one is at essence both being and nothing, Mind and Body]; and lastly, the new class of Specrist [the one is composed of the many, not in a manner that delineates distinctive "this", and "that", an understanding in which seperation is less easily defined, ex. I]) to consideration, not good, nor bad... the third way. Bringing grey into a universe of black and white stippled stars shines... Mind and body not as unique, but as points on the spectrum of Being and Existence. Our inter-galactic cousins (those taken off of earth long ago, and incorporated into the Universal-Authority need us [and we, they] after they contact us to warn of impending danger, the events are set off, and StarFleet is about to become an Inter-Galactic Federation, its citizens members of a universe spanning community).

49 20 66 6f 72 20 6f 6e 65 20 77 65 6c 63 6f 6d 65 20 74 68 65 20 66 69 72 73 74 20 49 6e 66 72 61 67 61 6c 61 63 74 69 63 20 46 65 64 65 72 61 74 69 6f 6e 20 6f 66 20 52 65 70 75 62 6c 69 63 73 20 61 6e 64 20 73 79 73 74 65 6d 73 2e

I am swerving between having it begin with Picard shouting to Q, laconically lamenting aside that he is there when he isn't wanted, but never there when he is needed. Picard offers to Q the opportunity to send a fleet to a neighbouring galaxy, in exchange for the many troubles Q has caused... or alternately, a flat out awesome BSG rip off, wherin a small fleet (thinking maybe 100 ships, a handful of Enterprise size, some mean looking war-ships, like a sleekly armored Voyager)... and a sense of adventure; rather than getting a boost from Q, just ripping on at full warp, showing a generation passing, and the settling of a homeworld, seeding of several systems along the way... but really considering that this would basically be "possibly the last humans", they would be more militaristic, like in Enterprise, when they realize that it isn't just a small backyard, but a bustling metropolis, and having a big ship can mean the difference between every small aggressor becoming an enemy or an ally.
One mans 'imperialist-colonialist interventionist" is another's protector and ally, when bullies, raiders, pirates, corporate creations, groups of people, unions, alliances, families; intersect with the needs of the few, prevension of provision of aid to the needs of the many. This has always been an arena of tension in this series... it is a really fascinating intersection of ideas, in terms of the "who cares of looking at pop culture, weather as phenomena of social nature, or for pure mindbrain=off.

Where is the line between sticking up for a neighbor, and being an aggressor force who needs to be stopped? (not wanting to answer this, or call the "story" propaganda or anything ugly like that, I actually think it is hugely valuable to see people discussing this, and stories about it to put it in metaphorical context, and to allow for the playing out of "ad infinitum" arguments, and hypotheticals, just pointing out how this question [very topical to students of the history of military intervention] the tension that arises on how far to go (some argue 'if at all') in protecting a 'weaker' interlocutor. Will it be the Meek or the mighty inheriting the Earth. Then again, it seems like one man's 'meek' can be another mans liberator and freedom fighter. Depends on the tools they use to achieve their ends.

It could be what Enterprise promised, where no on has gone... allows for an escape from the "all aliens are variations of people people"... and allows for exploration of intergalactic politics (in the world we have seen in Star Trek, it is difficult to imagine no life in other galaxies, and further, no structures or political bodies arching across galactic planes... then again, seeing humans try to build this kind of system onto a really messy intergalactic chaos, and pirates and pillaging idea...

Oh, but I am also imagining a reboot wherein it starts with Janeway, alone on a top secret mission, time traveling as usual (her understanding of temporal mechanics, both practical and theoretical are unmatched) going to earth, 20th century, Roddennbury apartment... essentially, the theme is we must "create the star trek universe", only speeding it up, it was because of temporal incursions that we fought WW3, and to prevent it, star trek needs to be created. It is titled like MetaTrek, or something, you might not have heard of yet, it is basically a team of writers as they interpret the outlines for stories, but most of the focus is on the process, labelling, mockup creation, edit process, windows xp, and microsoft office and excel spreadsheet applications.

It is split into a few sections, either interspersed, or as distinct blocked 'chunks', there is that "past" part, then a "present", where we do cool sci-fi exploration-y stuff, then a future, where we reunite with what we know... differently. Reboot metastyle. It is also what I will to do with Star Wars, this is going to be like a franchise, taking classic things and making metatextual stories about-about them. It likely should be the first option, with interspersal of the various time points, because the part about the hipster writers would get boring if it was presented as a long chunk.

In the end, it turns out that humans left earth long before, in fact representative members of every potentially sentient creature are selected and populations are seeded to worlds apart, and allowed to flourish, and as was done with both octopi, and dogs, when the seeders of the infragalactic republic and federation of Members; by honest, non-cruel trial, encouraged to evolve to full potential, [aside; no longer under the thumb of humans breeding their numbers for human purposes, dogs reached sentience before Octopi, but were beaten by Pigs, Dolphins, Crows, and the Ontologically recapitulated features of the Bird-dinosaurs first created in 2022 [nearly feather free, systematically identical dentition, redaction of the beak, scales, enlarged talons (generally cut by early owners of the first genetically altered pet [the later flying version was hugely popular with atmosphere gatherers, think dragons with leather scale-feathered wings).

Of course, I like enterprise for time traveling reasons I made up, but didn't have to, possibly should have admitted that in a comment before this comment, opps, no, really, I know what people don't like about it, it's ok, really, it is, judge me if need be, but know that there are people who feel the exact same way you do about enterprise, but about your favorite ephemeral pop culture (or 'indy', hip, not-as-popular) icons... so there's that reason to disregard me as I forever return Star Trek to the Universe as it is in my head, your mileage may very, for varying definitions of varied check google not the universe that we need BTW, the federation are the bad guys, not simply exploring, and non-intervening... but rather shaping the reality of the species they contact, the people they interact with. You know who else went into space to fight piracy! Joking. But it is a serious question that has affected humans since the dawn, up to this week and beyond, where, when, how, why, and at what cost, can/should/could/ought a power intervene into affairs of others... Can we intervene if people are killing each other? If people are abusing each other? If people are discriminating against each other? Threatening others? What can we do? Wag our fingers? Talk Sternly? Fight? Preempt aggression? React to aggression? Interact with aggressors? Blockade them? Give aid? Teach? Ignore? Learn from? Or must we be as a silent statue, gazing outwards, standing still, and giving in to chance, and giving up our self determination, afforded by our living nature, either existing when the ravages of time have passed, or not. Don't kill me before I finish my space opera, I am only a clown asking questions, which, someone should make a movie like that. A space opera. Like those old Serials.

One more thing; all ships have dinosaur skeleton holographic replicas, shifting from appearance as estimated by retrieved genetic material, and skeletal appearances; this is on a promenade type gathering space... some ships are also named for extinct species, or have dinosaurs drawn on their hulls.
-with great apologies if this specufictive meta-narrative-inverse-recursive expostulation is too long, or bears too many tangents or discovered inconsistencies or is deemed weird. This is maybe not a story about star trek; for some reason this story was something I was thinking about in the last couple of days, and it was fun while it lasted.
posted by infinite intimation at 1:48 PM on March 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I AM KIROK!!

nuff said.
posted by Trochanter at 2:13 PM on March 9, 2011

: I think what I like about the use of the Ferengi on DS9, even aside from the Rom stuff, is that you get to see their society change as a direct result of the interactions with the Federation. Women earning the right to wear clothes, and all of that, even as the episodes themselves are essentially comedic. It's rare in Trek to see these kinds of development firsthand, the movement from first contact to integration.

It's true. DS9 is the only Trek series where the front lines are on display. The other series were very busy going places and dealing with Big Issues. DS9 gets into local politics and the interpersonal dynamics of people who are just trying to live their lives and do their jobs while the universe spins around them. Yes there are Big Issues-- racism, biological warfare, genocide, religion-- but the characters deal with them because they have to, not because Life is a Grand Adventure.
posted by zennie at 2:26 PM on March 9, 2011

I thought Lwaxana was decent comedic relief

Lwaxana Troi: Mr. Homn is my valet. He doesn't say much.
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: [under his breath] How can he?

It could be that I am just easily amused.
posted by Ber at 3:00 PM on March 9, 2011

Plus, there was that episode where she's stuck in the elevator with Odo and has to hold him in her skirt and she shows him what she looks like with her wig off. Always thought that was kind of sweet.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 3:22 PM on March 9, 2011

The Whelk: ",,,I'm the only one who liked Farscape then?"

Loved the show. But they probably heard my howls of outrage at the way the series ended (spoiler alert!) all the way in New Zealand.

Peacekeeper Wars was a great movie, but not enough, dammit.
posted by zarq at 4:04 PM on March 9, 2011

Man I haven't even read that infinite intimation but yer getting a slow clap now for sheer determination.
posted by The Whelk at 4:14 PM on March 9, 2011

Awesome, maybe I can watch some Enterprise now that I can skip past that ridiculous horrifying abortion of a theme song.

A non-Trekfan friend of mine remarked, when the show first came out, that that theme (Diane Warren's, IIRC) sounded "like a GM commercial." Yup. No mute button ever made is fast enough.
posted by Philofacts at 7:01 PM on March 9, 2011

A non-Trekfan friend of mine remarked, when the show first came out, that that theme (Diane Warren's, IIRC) sounded "like a GM commercial." Yup. No mute button ever made is fast enough.

The theme was just the first of so many things that were wrong with Enterprise.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 9:01 PM on March 9, 2011

> Paris began as a character of another name from next generation, the actor was in it, and he was a colleague of Mr. Crusher in the academy, but less scrupulous than Paris; they were going to bring him literally back, but he was not as redeemable as what they envisioned (Paris), so they renamed/altered him, and kept the actor. Weird. rite?

I thought it was because they didn't want to pay the writers of The First Duty royalties for each episode with Locarno.

Also, huge DS9 fan here. I also don't understand why some hate it.
posted by ego at 6:53 AM on March 10, 2011

I'm still holding out for a It's Always Sunny In Engineering type comedy.

Red Dwarf starts with this premise.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:23 AM on March 10, 2011

Oh man, I still remember watching the "To Be Continued..." series finale of Farscape live (it wasn't that long ago) and knowing that it was the end. At that time, there was no talk of the Peacekeeper Wars movie or anything. Of all the Sci-Fi tv shows that I love, this is the only one that I felt compelled to convince my wife to sit through all of, and she had to admit, even if it starts off decidedly low-budget, it gets pretty interesting once Scorpius enters the scene near the end of Season 1.
posted by mysterpigg at 11:32 AM on March 10, 2011

Do you know what I have learned from this thread? I have learned to never discuss Star Trek, or Babylon 5, with Mefites. Apparently I have the worst taste ever. Also I love all those bands that you hate.
posted by Mizu at 3:55 AM on March 11, 2011

What I've learned is that after three days, the top linked site seems to have disappeared.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:04 PM on March 11, 2011

I just tried a random episode and it's working for me, ZeusHumms. Is the entire site down for you or were you just unable to load a particular video?
posted by Rhaomi at 3:28 AM on March 12, 2011

Huh, there are Star Trek shows after The Next Generation? Has anyone here seen any of them and are they any good? I mean, is Picard in them?

Funnily enough Picard and Kirk are in the best Trek, Deep Space 9. In ways that don't suck like in the movies.
posted by juiceCake at 7:00 AM on March 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Did the site move again? It won't load for me. Anyone else having the same problem?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:22 PM on March 12, 2011

So it was working a few hours ago. Then right now, in the span of about 5 minutes its gone from up to down to back up. Maybe they're doing site maintenance?
posted by Glibpaxman at 12:31 AM on March 13, 2011