Brannon Braga Rocks

[Chilli]

Yes, I felt cramps going through my fingers when typing those words - hard not to, after 7 years of wondering "WHAA????" about Voyager, and after 3 years of Enterprise just seeming beyond boring, from the occasional bits and pieces I bothered to follow.

But rewatching TNG, for the fist time in a decade, it was a bit surprising for me to see that .. some of the most awesome TNG episodes go in his name. Not necessarily the best social commentaries ever (though TNG often sucked when trying to give those), but the coolest Twilight-Zone-ish quirky Sci-Fi stories that most of us must have loved at the time, before we associated his name with the travesty that followed.

Cause and Effect
Frame of Mind
Timescape
Parallels
All Good Things...
First Contact

... so what the hell happened? Intellectual burnout? Berman's evil influence? Pure lazyness?

I also find his interviews on the bonus features kind of funny. The way how he's talking about what the fans think of him, obviously fighting with hurt feelings, like a vexed child or something ...

.. other random observations about TNG, in retrospect:

* GKE is absolutely right - Riker is cool. I never appreciated him when he was younger, but he does generally seem like the only member of the crew that actually gets the whole Star Trek thing.

* Troi - er..??? "You must come to terms with your grief..." "The boy must face the loss of his parents.." "Are you sure you are happy with this?" "Bla bla bla...." .. honestly, if I ever had to go to a councelling session with her, I'd have to fight hard not to yell at her. How the hell could they keep up her "emotional" crap for 7 years?? (Though to compensate for how annoying she is, I'm fairly sure one can see her private parts squeezing through her suit on many occasions. The small joys of life...)

* With how annoying the Klingons got on Deep Space Nine, I completely had forgotten that they had actually been kind of cool, at one point.

 

[GKarsEye]

Damn right Riker is cool. Cool enough to put up with Troi's vicously annoying blabbing to nail her repeatedly.

Bragga is a great writer, as was a Berman a producer. They didn't get to control the franchise by accident.

It seemed that Bragga was the clever story construct guy, while others had to handle things like character development and franchise canon. But those things are, quite frankly, boring.

It's just that, yes, there are only so many stories to tell.

We got burned out by Klngons in DS9 and burned out by the Borg on Voyager.
And burned out by Trek in Enterprise.

 

[Recoil]

We got burned out by Klngons in DS9 and burned out by the Borg on Voyager.
And burned out by Trek in Enterprise.

Well said.

 

[Chilli]

It's just that, yes, there are only so many stories to tell.

In the context of a "classical" trek show, yes, in which you need to have stories that are done with in 42 minutes. Sooner or later, it will become hard to kick up 24+ good stories a year.

DS9 did fine in spite of the dried up wells (if season 7 of TNG was really as daft as I remember it - not quite tehre yet), but then, I never considered it Star Trek really, but an awesome show that happened to use the mythology established by Trek as a backdrop.

We got burned out by Klngons in DS9 and burned out by the Borg on Voyager.
And burned out by Trek in Enterprise.

Also, Voyager killed the cool of Q. Not sure I will ever forgive them for that ...

Which reminds me .. it seems strangely fitting, in retrospective, that Q decided to give Riker a chance to join the Q continuum, while never letting Picard have a moment of rest. As unlike Picard, Riker already got Q's message (from All Good Things) from the start - that they're not "exploring strange new worlds" for the purpose of cataloging species and to chart star maps. Hell, Riker will attempt to shag random alien women even if he doesn't know what kind of genitals they have.

 

[Recoil]

That's because Riker was the closest thing in TNG to Kirk. This is why I liked him so much. He was a breath of fresh air in a show with somewhat "stale" characters.

 

[GKarsEye]

Frankly I can't even watch any Trek but TOS any more.

 

[darth_librarian]

Frankly I can't even watch any Trek but TOS any more.

I gave up halfway through Voyager and have not tried since. Nemisis was so poor it ruined TNG for me. Its a shame, as I loved DS9 and some TNG stories.

 

[Chilli]

I have not gotten that far yet myself. I probably will pretty soon - which is why I'm going through TNG now while I still "can".

It has some quite awesome stories (and some quite horrible ones), but it's all just so .. clean and hygenic. And "feely". Honestly, imagine Troi on Kirk's Enterprise, giving her usual pathetic whiny uneducated "advice". And now try to imagine Kirk, Spock and McCoy thinking that her advice is "valuable", and coming to her for "advice". It just doesn't work.

TNG was the show Gene Roddenberry had "really wanted", which kind of makes me appreciate the fact that he had people to stop him from having full creative control in the old days.

I have not touched Voyager for years now, and I have no idea if I really will again.

 

[vacantlook]

I think my favorite Troi-centered episode was (I think it was called) "Face of the Enemy". She was abducted and surgically altered to look like a Romulan and forced to assist them in enabling the defection of several Romulans to the Federation.

 

[Chilli]

I think my favorite Troi-centered episode was (I think it was called) "Face of the Enemy". She was abducted and surgically altered to look like a Romulan and forced to assist them in enabling the defection of several Romulans to the Federation.

Oh yes .. I loved that one.

It's generally the "psychology" plotlines (and BAD dialogue) they give her that bothers me so much. I don't think the people writing Troi's dialogue had ANY grasp on psychology, which makes her advise so bothersome, it's offensive at times.

I also loved Troi in First Contact.

 

[vacantlook]

I also loved Troi in First Contact.

"Timeline! This is no time to argue about time. We don't have the time. What was I saying?"

Yeah, I think Troi, perhaps, was best when she wasn't being "Councelor" Troi. I liked whenever a story had her having to put her foot down and be strong and whathaveyou. The closer she got to "I sense..." or "I feel..." the more her character would become annoying.

 

[GKarsEye]

"Timeline! This is no time to argue about time. We don't have the time. What was I saying?"

Yeah, I think Troi, perhaps, was best when she wasn't being "Councelor" Troi. I liked whenever a story had her having to put her foot down and be strong and whathaveyou. The closer she got to "I sense..." or "I feel..." the more her character would become annoying.

Right- Troi got more tolerable when they completely changed her character to be different than what they originally intended her to be.

 

[Chilli]

I also appreciated Captain Jellico's order to make her wear standard starfleet uniforms in Chain of Command - and the fact that she stuck to it afterwards too. Her "special" clothes just were so bloody campy.

I can't stand the trek sex suits, in any case. (Troi, Seven of Nine, T'Pol) As much as I appreciate the sight of female flesh - duh - those kinds of outfits are just so porn B movie or something. Someone should have told the makers that it is actually possible to have an outfit be elegant AND sexy...

 

[PillowRock]

I could have kinda accepted Seven choosing the skin tight jump suit (and it being an reasonably in-character choice on the grounds of sleek efficiency with nothing to catch in ships moving parts or whatever) if ...... *IF* ...... they had given "sensible" shoes to go with it. Shoes that you could run, climb, whatever in.

When they put those heels on her shoes, they lost me with respect to believing that this character would choose to wear this outfit.

 

[Recoil]

I could have kinda accepted Seven choosing the skin tight jump suit (and it being an reasonably in-character choice on the grounds of sleek efficiency with nothing to catch in ships moving parts or whatever) if ...... *IF* ...... they had given "sensible" shoes to go with it. Shoes that you could run, climb, whatever in.

When they put those heels on her shoes, they lost me with respect to believing that this character would choose to wear this outfit.

Wait a sec, you actually noticed what SHOES 7 of 9 was wearing? I could never get below her belt line...

 

[PillowRock]

You've never noticed that women move differently (when walking, running, etc.) when they're wearing high heals than they do when wearing gym shoes (or something similar)?

Your eyes never need to get any lower than her butt (and often don't even need to get that low) to know that she's wearing heels.

And in the longer distance shots (when you see whole body forms rather than parts of bodies), the way her legs move make it obvious that she's in heels.

 

[vacantlook]

Yeah, the heels were flat (I think there's a pun in there somewhere) stupid.

 

[Chilli]

Plus, I just don't think "cold and unemotional" = "sexy". Something the Trek makers must have gotten firmly embedded into their head at some point, considering how they utterly sexed up a Borg (!) and a Vulcan (!!!!!) ...

 

[Chilli]

A new Question that popped up in my mind ..

Cost of Living - WTF???

Is it me, or is TNG just dreadful at dealing with anything youth-related?

Wesley Crusher, The Bonding, Suddenly Human, Hero Worship, Cost of Living .. an entire sub-genre of TNG that is just pure PAIN.

 

[PillowRock]

Plus, I just don't think "cold and unemotional" = "sexy". Something the Trek makers must have gotten firmly embedded into their head at some point, considering how they utterly sexed up a Borg (!) and a Vulcan (!!!!!) ...

On the other hand, "predominantly logical and analytical" doesn't necessarily equate to prudish or anti-sexual either.

(Also, it is worth noting that the Borg in question *was* Human. She spent most of her life in the Collective and was used to approaching problems in that manner. However, she was Human, and absent the hive mind subjegating her own, was still subject to having all of the feelings etc. implied by being Human.)