It's been a long road ...

On Sat, 20 Sep 2003, OM wrote:

On Sat, 20 Sep 2003 11:11:30 GMT, "Bruce Sterling Woodcock"
wrote:


"The Other James" wrote in message
...
Hallerb wrote:

It's been a long road ...

True some enterprise episodes werent very good, but that was true of all
of the
series.

Even TNG had some bombs.

"Masks".

"Masks" was pretty bad (Something is wrong with Data!
Again!) but I think the two worst episodes were "Sub Rosa",
a Twilight Zone ghost story masquerading as Star Trek, and
"Night Terrors" which involved the well-trodden ground of
the various crewmembers losing their mental faculties, the
Enterprise being stuck dead in space, an unknown alien
presence, and Troi getting mysterious telepathic visions
that most of the audience figured out right away but which
took the crew another 30 minutes to decipher.

...And then there was the episode that no other Trek series ever
attempted again - "Shades of Grey", aka "So It's Come To This: A TNG
Clip Show!" That one's considered *the* worst TNG episode by far.

The reason that "Shades of Grey" and other subpar episodes wound up in
TNG's second season (it was also several episodes short of normal as well)
is largely the effect of the writers' strike that was affecting all of the
entertainment industry at that time.
-Mike

In message .edu, Mike
Dicenso writes


On Sat, 20 Sep 2003, OM wrote:

...And then there was the episode that no other Trek series ever
attempted again - "Shades of Grey", aka "So It's Come To This: A TNG
Clip Show!" That one's considered *the* worst TNG episode by far.

The reason that "Shades of Grey" and other subpar episodes wound up in
TNG's second season (it was also several episodes short of normal as well)
is largely the effect of the writers' strike that was affecting all of the
entertainment industry at that time.
-Mike

Didn't several series resort to the flashback formula to get round the
strike?
At least "Shades of Grey" gave UK audiences the chance to see that guy's
head explode - the scene was cut from "Conspiracy" but censors are never
the sharpest knife in the box.
Why did they use the British spelling, BTW?
--
"Forty millions of miles it was from us, more than forty millions of miles of
void"
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"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote
in message ...
In message .edu, Mike
Dicenso writes


On Sat, 20 Sep 2003, OM wrote:

...And then there was the episode that no other Trek series ever
attempted again - "Shades of Grey", aka "So It's Come To This: A TNG
Clip Show!" That one's considered *the* worst TNG episode by far.

The reason that "Shades of Grey" and other subpar episodes wound up in
TNG's second season (it was also several episodes short of normal as
well)
is largely the effect of the writers' strike that was affecting all of
the
entertainment industry at that time.
-Mike

Didn't several series resort to the flashback formula to get round the
strike?
At least "Shades of Grey" gave UK audiences the chance to see that guy's
head explode - the scene was cut from "Conspiracy" but censors are never
the sharpest knife in the box.
Why did they use the British spelling, BTW?

"Grey" really isn't the "British spelling" anymore.... it's used quite
often in American English. (Personally I think it looks nicer.)

But don't expect us to start using "colour", "armour", or Heaven
forbid, "manoeuvre" anytime soon.

Bruce

Bruce Sterling Woodcock wrote:


"Grey" really isn't the "British spelling" anymore.... it's used quite often in
American English. (Personally I think it looks nicer.)

But don't expect us to start using "colour", "armour", or Heaven forbid,
"manoeuvre" anytime soon.



Chocolate-Chip "biscuits" anyone?
I guess Troi liked 'em...

- George Gassaway

"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote
in message ...
Didn't several series resort to the flashback formula to get round the
strike?
At least "Shades of Grey" gave UK audiences the chance to see that guy's
head explode - the scene was cut from "Conspiracy" but censors are never
the sharpest knife in the box.

I really don't know if any episode can be more revolting than "Conspiracy".
In fact I had to look it up to make sure that was the title, since you
mentioned heads exploding... The bug crawled into that guy and they phasered
him, and at that point everyone in my household agreed that we would turn
off the TV and pretend that this particular episode never happened. I would
imagine that the fan reaction was decidedly negative, and honestly I haven't
heard anything about it since it aired.

In message k.net,
Terrence Daniels writes
"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote
in message ...
Didn't several series resort to the flashback formula to get round the
strike?
At least "Shades of Grey" gave UK audiences the chance to see that guy's
head explode - the scene was cut from "Conspiracy" but censors are never
the sharpest knife in the box.

I really don't know if any episode can be more revolting than "Conspiracy".
In fact I had to look it up to make sure that was the title, since you
mentioned heads exploding... The bug crawled into that guy and they phasered
him, and at that point everyone in my household agreed that we would turn
off the TV and pretend that this particular episode never happened. I would
imagine that the fan reaction was decidedly negative, and honestly I haven't
heard anything about it since it aired.

I'm not enough of a Trekkie to dig for it, but I'd guess that the plan
was to make those bugs the bad guys in future episodes - the end of the
ep is the most blatant "we'll be back" line I've ever seen.
Fan reaction was then highly negative, and they went for the Borg
instead.
--
"Forty millions of miles it was from us, more than forty millions of miles of
void"
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

On Sun, 21 Sep 2003 09:27:17 +0100, Jonathan Silverlight
wrote:

I'm not enough of a Trekkie to dig for it, but I'd guess that the plan
was to make those bugs the bad guys in future episodes - the end of the
ep is the most blatant "we'll be back" line I've ever seen.
Fan reaction was then highly negative, and they went for the Borg
instead.

....It wasn't so much that fan reaction was bad, but that reaction
within the TNG team internally wasn't that much in favor of crawdads
taking over the Federation. Mike & Rick are lurking out there, and
were present when this happened, and might be able to fill us in a bit
better. In any case, it's pretty much accepted that the crawdads were
retooled into the Borg, which wound up being a better kind of villain
overall.

I mean, seriously - could you see a Seven of Nine catsuit on one of
those creepie crawlies?


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

"OM" om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote
in message ...
In any case, it's pretty much accepted that the crawdads were
retooled into the Borg, which wound up being a better kind of villain
overall.

U*1.5, where U = Understatement.

There's a reason that gross-out horror movies don't have huge audiences...
The average person doesn't want to spend their Saturday evenings watching
giant bugs crawl into people's mouths. Any writer who thought that they
could keep ratings up and build an enjoyable family-friendly storyline
around that was immature, delusional, on drugs, or all three.

I mention "family friendly" because despite the fact that the popular image
of a Star Trek fan is a fat greasy nerd who lives in mom's basement &
dresses up as a Klingon at cons, Star Trek is a family show IMO. Most
everybody I know who watched it, watched it with their family.

On Sun, 21 Sep 2003 15:41:37 GMT, "Terrence Daniels"
wrote:

I mention "family friendly" because despite the fact that the popular image
of a Star Trek fan is a fat greasy nerd who lives in mom's basement &
dresses up as a Klingon at cons, Star Trek is a family show IMO. Most
everybody I know who watched it, watched it with their family.

....This applies to the first-run episodes for the most part. The
sexless greasy nerd living in mom's basement tends to develop when the
show gets into reruns.

CIP: Take a look at the few shots from the Burbank protest in '68,
where hundreds of students politely protested against TOS'
cancellation. Few, if none, looked like your average Comic Book Guy
type. They looked like normal, nice kids circa 1967-9. Not a freak,
hippie, geek or slob in the bunch. However, if you look at photos from
Trek cons from '72 on, you'll notice that the slob/nerd/geek ratio
increases dramatically over the years, peaks just prior to ST-TVH,
balances out to about a 60-40 ratio from TNG on to the middle of
Voyager, and then goes to a 75-25 ratio as the more "normal" fans
start turning away from Star Trek out of disgust for their
surroundings as well as in their perception of the show itself(*)

....I've been working on a sociological theory on this for a number of
years now, but haven't touched it in quite some time. Might be
interesting to drag it out of the files and polish it off, especially
since there's four Trek series in syndication now.

(*) Much of which is fueled by so-called critics whining about how bad
the show is, when all they're really doing is talking loudly enough
out their asses to make it seem like they're being logically critical.
"Enterprise" was and is nowhere near as bad as they're claiming. And
yet, because they're in print, quite a few are being gullied into
believing the show stinks. If anything, the only reason it has any
real stench about it is that Rick Sternback's not working on it :-P




OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

On Sun, 21 Sep 2003, OM wrote:

CIP: Take a look at the few shots from the Burbank protest in '68,
where hundreds of students politely protested against TOS'
cancellation. Few, if none, looked like your average Comic Book Guy
type. They looked like normal, nice kids circa 1967-9. Not a freak,
hippie, geek or slob in the bunch. However, if you look at photos from
Trek cons from '72 on, you'll notice that the slob/nerd/geek ratio
increases dramatically over the years, peaks just prior to ST-TVH,
balances out to about a 60-40 ratio from TNG on to the middle of
Voyager, and then goes to a 75-25 ratio as the more "normal" fans
start turning away from Star Trek out of disgust for their
surroundings as well as in their perception of the show itself(*)


Actually on that note; the conventions I went to around the mid-70's,
early-to late 80', and early 90's had a very small percentage of the
so-clled "slob/nerd/geek" quotient, and often very few of the
stereotypical cosplaying, "Get a Life Trekkie". Often I was annoyed how
the news media visiting SF or Trek cons would go out of their way to
ignore the "normal"/"mundanes" who made up the vast majority, and focused
almost exclusively on the costume wearing nutcases. When you saw the final
highly edited piece run on the 10 o clock newscast, you'd think that only
that type of person made up the Trek fanbase.
-Mike