Christopher Caldwell

I have nothing about Gates McFadden but I found Pulaski infinitely more interesting than Crusher. They never seemed to do anything with Crusher and when they did it just felt empty. Pulaski didn't get much in terms of character focus but she got some great dialogue and character interactions.

Less discussion here than I was hoping but this one has got to get a reaction. I like Jellico. You heard me. He was the Captain and he was trying to get his ship and crew ready for a potential war, he needed to get stuff done, he was direct but I don't think unfair or rude, in fact he spent quite a bit of time explaining himself to others, also respect for getting Troi into a uniform.

Humble Bundle has launched an 18 item bundle of Star Trek books and magazines. Decent price and you get to help charity. https://www.humblebundle.com/books/all-i-need-to-know-i-learned-from-star-trek-books?hmb_source=&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=mosaic_section_1_layout_index_2_layout_type_threes_tile_index_1_c_allineedtoknowilearnedfromstartrek_bookbundle

So I thought this might be a fun little discussion. What is your most unpopular opinion about Star Trek? Perhaps something you like that everyone else hates or visa versa? Mine would be the final episode of Enteprise 'These Are the Voyages...', so many people seem to hate it but I think it's great. I thought it was smart doing a time jump, Enterprise didn't feel ready to end with where they had got at that point in the show and it allows for stories to take place both before and after the episode. I thought having it be a holodeck activity for Riker was clever for three reasons: - Firstly it gave everyone the opportunity to have some meaningful screentime, not an easy feat considering it was a regular length episode. - Secondly I like that Riker was inspired by the Enterprise crew to do the right thing. - Thirdly, combined with the time jump it makes it easy to pick up stories before or after, it's a holodeck program, it's not going to be 100% accurate so you can explain away any plot holes either with the episode itself or created by any other stories. Picking up on that second point, TNG is pretty much the seen as the standard bearer for Star Trek. Where as some see it as disrespectful to the Enterprise cast and crew I saw it as a great tribute, the Enterprise crew inspiring Riker to do the right thing and the reverence that Riker and to some degree Troi showed towards the Enterprise crew and their role in what would ultimately become the Federation. It connected Enterprise to the larger Star Trek family and in-universe showed how all those that came after them were inspired by the adventures of the NX-01. It was also the first time in all of Enterprise and much of Star Trek where I was actually worried about what would happen to a character. Trip is far from being my favourite Star Trek character, Archer isn't near the top of my list either but the episode did a great job of building suspense and making me think one or both of their lives were actually at risk.

I know this is an old thread but it's an interesting topic so hope no one minds me chiming in? My biggest criticism of Star Trek TV shows has been where they haven't fulfilled their potential. I like all of the different Star Trek shows but they are all flawed in their own way, some more than others. I don't 'hate' any of the shows and I think my negative views about them come from a good place, a desire to see them be the best they can be. Enterprise (wasted premise) I loved the premise of Enterprise and I really enjoyed the start of the show, I liked the fact that they were clearly new to what they were doing, they didn't have all the procedures and rules in place, they were still developing the technology that's taken for granted in the rest of the Star Trek shows. For me the execs ruined this one, I still enjoyed it but I think they pivoted away from the original premise, far too quickly they basically became TNG-lite with a sprinkling of DS9 for the long season arc with the Xindi. You aren't going to out-TNG TNG and you aren't going to out-DS9 DS9 and as a result Enterprise lost it's uniqueness which was a lot of the appeal to me. I also didn't really like the characters as much, I don't mind flawed characters but things like Archer not being able to say sorry because his dog wasn't well as an example was just infuriating, I'm a dog lover, I've loved my dogs more than most people but come on. Voyager (wasted premise) Now I know this is an unpopular opinion. As with Enterprise, great premise, as with Enterprise, premise basically abandoned almost immediately. Two crews with differing agendas, stranded the others ide of the galaxy, no support, finite resources. Outside of Caretaker and Equinox we barely got to see that. There was rarely any drama between the Starfleet and Maquis and whilst they kept going on about having finite resources they actually had infinite resources. How many times did Voyager just give some needy or hostile aliens all their food and all their supplies and it cause them no issues? Occasionally they turned off some of the lights or mentioned rationing, they never seemed to face any really difficult choices because they could always have it both ways. Stargate Universe had it's own flaws but that did a far better job of being stuck far from home with limited resources. Discovery (designs) I kinda get the thing about the technology looking too advanced. It's not necessarily that it looks too advanced it's that it doesn't fit stylistically, the design language is way off. This is where Strange New Worlds does a better job, it's clearly inspired by TOS era but a modern and bigger budget interpretation of it. I think there were too many design decisions where people decided let's make our stuff look different from the rest of Trek, I get wanting to make something your own, I get putting your own stamp on things, I have no issue with that but Star Trek fans like continuity and Star Trek features so many iconic designs that changing them, seemingly arbitrarily is just going to upset people. I don't hate the redesigns of the Andorians, Klingons or Tellarites, I get the logic behind the designs and they do make them look far more alien which might be more 'realistic' but I feel they could have just as easily updated the designs to account for more modern effects and a bigger budget without transforming them so much which would have kept more fans onside. This is where I feel Star Wars does a much better job, when you look at something like Rogue One you see a movie that looks incredible and modern yet everything look consistent with the original trilogy, you can have it both ways. Discovery (writing) Sorry Discovery. I recently started a re-watch of Discovery. I could probably point to numerous examples but 'People of Earth' from season 3 is a great example. Look I'm not a professional writer the people that write Discovery are, they're better than me at writing, I'm not disputing that but I hate how manufactured some of the drama is and how poor some of the dialogue is. Examples include: Burnham and Book stealing the dilithium without telling Saru what they were planning, it wasn't a complex plan they could have conveyed it within seconds. Earth and Titan fighting each other because Earth refuse to communicate and Titan never thought to explain their situation. The number of times the word 'advanced' is used. "Some kind of advanced sensors." "Some kind of advanced shields." "They're targeting us with advanced phasers", you're about 800 years in the future, I think everyone knows that the tech might have moved on a little. There's also little details, like they jump to outside Earth's scanning range, they're nearly a thousand years more advanced than you how are you going to sneak up on them? I imagine their long range sensors are pretty damn long range. I know it sounds nit-picky but it's the frequency of these little things that all add up. Picard (tone) I like me some gritty realism don't get me wrong but I think Picard goes to gritty unrealism. Did everyone forget to pay the electricity bill and why is everyone in the universe just a complete git? I get following the attack on Mars things are a bit different but by the time Picard actually takes place quite some time has passed and Starfleet actually seems to be doing alright for itself (so much so that it can have a giant space parade). I think they could have shown a darker side of Star Trek without everything being so dark all of the time, it just felt draining to watch at times and the pacing further exacerbated this. Picard (Patrick Stewart) Sir Patrick Stewart is an incredible actor and I think a genuinely interesting person, I am not trying to take anything away from him. 20 years is a long time and Picard in Encounter at Farpoint was very different to Picard of All Good Things or the movies. I'm sure we're all very different people than we were 20 years ago and I don't mind that he's different and that, after leaving Starfleet, he's lost a step but for so much of the show I don't see Jean-Luc Picard, I see Patrick Stewart and it really takes me out of the show. Picard (just no) The Enterprise D should never handle like Tony Hawk. Easy fix, saucer separation! It would still have been crazy but at least a tiny bit more believable and we'd have got to see an awesome saucer separation.

I know this is an older thread so apologies in advance for the bump but I absolutely loved the Coda trilogy and I'd definitely recommend it to Trek fans looking for a good read although I do think to really get the most out of it, you probably do need to have read the rest of the books from the 'relaunch'. I know that with Star Trek, the books aren't classified as canon but I feel this was an elegant way of wrapping up the aligned 'relaunch' novel continuity and doing so in such a way that the post-Nemesis era it created doesn't contradict with what we now see onscreen with Picard. For me it was bittersweet though, the trilogy told a great story but I was genuinely sad to see this book continuity come to a close, it featured some fantastic stories featuring new as well as established fan favourite characters and it was great to get to see characters from different franchises getting to interact with one another. I'm very much hoping in the future that the novels inhabit a shared universe like this.

I know it's an old thread but just wanted to chime in. For sure the real world explanation would be due to budgets but I suspect there was also maybe some degree of "Spock is the alien" and not wanting to undermine that or confuse audiences, but the Rise of the Federation novels (which I'd recommend if you are looking for Trek books to read), does a pretty good job of giving an in-universe explanation for the lack of diversity seen in the TOS era. Essentially, when the Federation was founded each of the founding races had very different technology and each race already had it's own space divisions. This made it difficult to integrate everything so each race essentially took on a different duty within Starfleet, the Andorians focusing on defence for example. As a result, most ship crews were predominantly single species. This also nicely explains the references to the United Earth Space Probe Agency (UESPA) made in Star Trek, the Enterprise NCC-1701 was a Starfleet ship but was operated by UESPA.