Review Updates

... Or the lack of them, rather. 

I didn't have much to say today about RPGs, and I took a break from watching Star Wars stuff, so instead I'll just mention some things I have previously reviewed that might need updates.

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Did finish the season, not many more laughs than already noted. The rating still stands: only watch if you really have nothing else to do and want new Star Trek.

Star Trek: Discovery

I know the new season started, and I watched one or two episodes, but haven't felt the need to watch more. I'll get around to it eventually.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Did finish the final season. It was one of the better seasons and I'm mostly satisfied with the way that ended. I don't think I'll change the rating of the series as a whole, however. It's a solid B, and that's nothing to sneer at.

Star Trek Reviews: Lower Decks

While I was working on my Trek reviews, the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks came out on CBS All-Access. I didn’t really have the time to finish my reviews, track down Star Trek Beyond, AND start watching a new series, so I decided to delay it for a while.

See the first review post for links to the other six reviews and an explanation of my letter-grade ranking system. The short version: C is average, something I have no strong feelings about one way or another. To avoid uncontrollable rage, please remember: Average is not Bad. It’s just average.

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Rating: C-

I had other reasons for delaying this review as well. For one, my reviews for all the other TV series and streaming series were written after I’d watched the entire series, not just a single episode. I’d need to wait until at least three or four episodes had been released in order to get a good sample of what the series was like.

Another reason to delay: it’s a comedy, not a dramatic series. I was way into Star Trek (original and animated) as a kid, and science fiction/fantasy in general, but one thing I probably watched more of was comedy. I saw at least one episode of just about every sitcom or sketch comedy show on American TV in the '70s or early ‘80s, even summer replacements or specials like The Bluffers or Keep On Truckin’. Maybe even Pink Lady and Jeff, although I may have hallucinated that one. And one thing I learned: the first episode of a comedy show, even moreso than dramas, is often garbage. They have to get a feel of their characters or their available talent before they know how to crank out good product.

So I definitely didn’t want to judge Lower Decks based only on its first episode. I would want to give it a fair chance of showing me how funny it could be. Especially since the clips I’d seen in the ads didn’t seem funny at all. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume either those clips were funnier in context or were the only clips they felt even stood a chance of making sense in a short clip.

Good thing for Lower Decks that I was so generous and watched a total of five episodes, instead of just the first, because the first episode was the worst of the five, based on one important criteria: I never laughed once when watching the first episode. That’s the kiss of death for comedy shows. You have to be funny, or you are just doing a terrible job.

I kept track of every time I laughed or even just chuckled for each episode. After a few minutes, I realized I would need to be more generous and keep a separate count of times something made me smile or at least mildly appreciate something, but those were actually rarer. Even with this much leeway, things were dire, averaging 1.2 laughs per episode.

The feel of the series reminds me a lot of Teen Titans Go! or Archer, neither of which I like much, but either one is way funnier. Most of the “humor” is pop culture references (usually Star Trek references, for Lower Decks.) Characters have two modes: “fast talking” and “shouty”. Comic situations are very broad and predictable: you will know how each scene will end at least a minute beforehand.

Worst episode was the first. Funniest episode was the second. If I were giving each episode a rating, they would be a D and a C, respectively, with the other episodes falling in between.

Funniest bits:

• The command training simulations which score officers on how many children are lost in each encounter (“Let’s try it again, adding more children!”)
• One character’s final ascension beyond the material plane.
• Another character’s attempt to keep his girlfriend by designing the ultimate “cool” wardrobe and persona.

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Star Trek Reviews: Star Trek Beyond

I was unable to find a way to watch Star Trek Beyond before I wrote my seven-part review of Trek media. Not without spending money I couldn’t really spare, at least. None of the services I have had it… Except one, which streamed it on a schedule, rather than on demand. I finally caught it at the right moment to watch it from the beginning.

See the first review post for links to the other six reviews and an explanation of my letter-grade ranking system. The short version: C is average, something I have no strong feelings about one way or another. To avoid uncontrollable rage, please remember: Average is not Bad. It’s just average. You might want to compare this review to those for the other two Trek Reboot movies

Star Trek Beyond

Rating: C-

I’ve had some people tell me Star Trek: Into Darkness is better than the first JJ Abrams movie and that Star Trek Beyond is crap. I’ve had other people basically say the opposite: Beyond is the good one, Into Darkness is crap.

I kind of wound up in the middle.

At first, the same thing happened as when I watched Into Darkness: I thought, “This is going better than the first Abrams Star Trek movie.” But then it went bad.

The plot and story of Beyond wasn’t as compelling as Into Darkness, but also it didn’t take as sharp a turn into badness near the end as Into Darkness did. Instead, we have continual low-grade storytelling mistakes. They all seem to fit the same pattern, though: the screenwriters had figured out a reason for each thing that happens in the movie, but they frequently don’t bother to tell us this reason until after it doesn’t matter anymore.

• We don’t know what Spock wanted to tell Kirk in the elevator or why he felt uncomfortable about it for almost an hour.
• We don’t know the dumb mcguffin at the beginning of the movie has anything to do with the rest of the movie until about halfway through, when we find out Kirk kept it and the bad guy wants it at the same time.
• We don’t know that the bad guy wants to attack the Federation until a little after that point, and we don’t know why or anything about him and his people until the very end.

The result is that we just see a string of events happening on screen and we don’t know why we should care about them, except on the gut level of “It’s danger!” And more importantly, the characters don’t know why they should care about what’s happening, either, until a good chunk of the movie is over. The characters are reacting on a gut self-preservation level, too.

This might still be salvageable if we cared about the characters, but after three movies, I still don’t feel that the new Kirk feels likable. He seems to have a personal arc in this movie, deciding in the end he doesn’t want to quit exploring, but I have no idea why. It could be “because he finally had an adventure”, but from what we could see at the beginning, he’s been having adventures all along.

So, in the final analysis, I ranked this the same as the other two “reboot” movies: just below average. Not worth recommending, and I’m certainly glad I didn’t pay anything extra, but also might be worth watching if it’s on TV and you have nothing else to do. I think I like Into Darkness the most of the three movies and the first one the least, but it’s all so very close, it might not be worth making a distinction.

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Star Trek Reviews: Streaming Trek

This is the seventh and final(?) review for all of the Star Trek shows and movies, split across several posts for each “stage” of Trek:

1. Early Trek (TOS, TAS)
2. TOS Trek Movies (ST MP through ST VI)
3. ’90s Trek TV (TNG, DS9, Voyager)
4. TNG Trek Movies (Generations through Nemesis)
5. Enterprise
6. Trek Reboot Movies
7. Streaming Trek (Discovery, Picard, Trek shorts)

See the first post for an explanation of my letter-grade ranking system. The short version: C is average, something I have no strong feelings about one way or another. To avoid uncontrollable rage, please remember: Average is not Bad. It’s just average.

This post is all about Streaming Trek shows available on CBS All-Access. It does not include Star Trek: Lower Decks. I’m holding off on watching that until at least three, possibly four, episodes are available, for reasons I’ll explain when I do that review.

Star Trek: Discovery

Rating: B

I watched Discovery’s first episode when it was available as a sneak preview, as a way to lure people into subscribing to CBS’s new streaming service. It looked well-crafted visually, but there was nothing in it that made me think “Man, I want to pay money to see more of this.” It wasn’t until Picard’s preview came out that I decided I’d be willing to pay for CBS All-Access.

This now seems like a big mistake on the part of CBS, because the first two episodes really don’t include the ship or many of the regular characters we’re actually going to see and care about in the series. It would be like, if the original series were coming out today, the sneak preview was “The Menagerie”, but what you paid to get was the series as it actually aired.

The series turned out pretty good once I actually got to see it, but there two things I did not like about it:

1. The mushroom drive. I’m sorry, but that just did not seem plausible. It broke my suspension of disbelief, and seemed a complete mismatch with the rest of Trek. They might as well have used the Infinite Improbabitity Drive instead. I was really tempted to lower my grade rating because of this, but didn’t.
2. The mirror universe plot arc. I am not fond of the mirror universe at all. It was OK as a one-off in the original series, but I really disliked all the DS-9 mirror universe episodes. An extended plot arc focused on the mirror universe was not something I was hoping to get from Discovery.

The best part of Discovery was probably Captain Pike, but it’s still strong enough that I’m willing to watch future episodes.

Star Trek: Picard

Rating: B+

I watched the first episode of Picard when it was a teaser/preview. Unlike Discovery, I thought the set-up was interesting. It was the series that made me decide to get CBS All-Access, which Discovery was unable to hook me into.

Picard has a strong multi-episode arc throughout its first season. You may have noticed by now that I tend to like those kind of Trek shows less than ones that are more episodic, with only an occasional short arc. Still, I like Picard a lot, certainly more than TNG or the TNG movies. I also liked that the appearances of Riker, Troi, and Data didn’t feel like fan service but actually helped complete their stories. And Seven of Nine’s treatment may seem harsh, but on further thought does fit as a possible evolution of her story after her return to the Alpha quadrant.

Some of the new characters felt a little weaker. I was less concerned about what happened to them or finding out more of their story. Honestly, I was more interested in Picard’s Romulan house servants. What was going on there? Not fully explained.

My first rating for this was A-, but that was when I still ranked TOS as an A. When I lowered TOS to A-, I lowered Picard one step as well to B+. It’s still just below TOS, but better than TNG, and I like it even better than DS9 or Voyager.

Short Treks

Rating: varies, but generally C+

These short films are all between 5 and 20 minutes long. They are all technically well-done, but vary in quality. Most of them fall in the C+ category: better than average, good for at least one watch, but they are kind of trivial. I haven’t looked into the background of how they were conceived, but a lot of them feel almost like Star Trek fanfic with a big budget and access to good actors and directors.

Take for example “Q&A”, which involves Spock’s first meeting with Number One. There’s nothing really wrong with it, but did it really add anything to the story of either character? Or was it just some fan’s homage to the first Trek pilot and expressing their enjoyment of those two characters?

Another example are the two animated shorts, “The Girl Who Made the Stars” and “Ephraim and Dot”. The first one isn’t even a Star Trek story, it’s just a story framed as being told to a Star Trek character by her father. The second is just someone having fun with some ideas taken from Trek. Both are entertaining enough, but basically just filler material while people wait for actual Star Trek episodes.

I’d rate “The Trouble with Edward” and “The Escape Artist” higher, at least a B. I liked those films for themselves, rather than as Trek-flavored filler. “Children of Mars” is either a B- or B. People have told me they really like “Calypso”, but I’m kind of baffled by it, so… maybe a B-, but maybe a C+?

What’s Next?

I originally only planned seven parts for this review, thinking I’d finish everything already released, and that no new Trek would come out for at least several months. However, Star Trek: Lower Decks came out as I was finishing this series, plus I was unable to find Star Trek Beyond on anything I already have access to, unless I pay extra just for that movie. I want to take a break from Trek for at least a week or two, so I’ll save those reviews for later.

I also haven’t watched much fan-made Trek. I know I’ve seen one “episode” about another starship (Excelsior, I think?) with an Andorian officer that everyone treated as a whipping boy. I also saw a really fancy fan episode about the Guardian of Forever and something like three or four versions of the Enterprise. I saw these several years ago, so I don’t remember much. I don’t think I’ll seek out too many fan-made episodes, but I do have some RiffTrax “Just the Jokes” tracks for two episodes of Star Trek Continues, so I will probably be reviewing those.

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Star Trek Reviews: Trek Reboot Movies

Part Six of my reviews for all of the Star Trek shows and movies, split across several posts for each “stage” of Trek:

1. Early Trek (TOS, TAS)
2. TOS Trek Movies (ST MP through ST VI)
3. ’90s Trek TV (TNG, DS9, Voyager)
4. TNG Trek Movies (Generations through Nemesis)
5. Enterprise
6. Trek Reboot Movies
7. Streaming Trek (Discovery, Picard, Trek shorts)

See the first post for an explanation of my letter-grade ranking system. The short version: C is average, something I have no strong feelings about one way or another. To avoid uncontrollable rage, please remember: Average is not Bad. It’s just average.

This post covers the Trek Reboot Movies, my name for the trilogy started by JJ Abrams. I expect there to be less controversy over my opinions on these because the films are already divisive. Everyone’s already heard strong opinions about these movies.

Star Trek (2009)

Rating: C-

Let’s get something out of the way first: I make a distinction between

1. What I don’t like about a film/show, and
2. What I think is bad about the way that film/show was made.

I base the letter grade on #2, but don’t factor in #1. This is why, for example, I gave DS9 and Voyager the same letter grade, but mentioned that I liked Voyager a lot more. I don’t like DS9’s heavier reliance on long plot arcs, but I acknowledge that these arcs are technically well-executed.

I have to say this because there are a lot of things I dislike about the 2009 Star Trek film that are *content-related *, like the way characters from the TV series who were decades apart are now suddenly all in the same class at the Academy, or the way these characters are promoted to random Starfleet ranks weeks after graduation because, hey, the ranks need to be the same as they were on TV. But these elements don’t lower the letter grade unless they are also style-related or story-related.

I don’t think ST 2009 has a very good story. The plot is OK, although frankly I am tired of time-travel plots. But the story is Not OK. It has two parts:

• Kirk is undisciplined and angry because he had no father to raise him; and
• Spock is too ashamed of his human side to form a friendship with Kirk.

In theory, we know Spock will become friends with Kirk both because of past media (TOS and the TOS movies) and also Ambassador Spock tells Kirk and his younger self this. And in theory, part of the resolution of Kirk’s story is based on Kirk learning self-control from Spock, via that friendship. But tell me the truth: if you had no knowledge of any other Star Trek media, if ST 2009 were the first and only Star Trek story and we judged it on its own merits, would you say that Spock is friends with Kirk at the end of the movie?

I certainly didn’t feel it.

And I certainly didn’t think Kirk learned anything by the end of the film.

Instead, what we have is a plot with no real story. The characters are introduced, events are set in motion, a bunch of stuff happens, and then we’re done. And what’s worse, all of this happens via some really poor stylistic choices: shaky cam, lots of lens flares for no reason, lots of camera tilt for no reason. I really don’t like looking at this movie, and the absence of a good story make the effort at looking at this ugly thing not really worth the trouble.

I also have to say that the whole “Kelvin Timeline” thing seems unnecessary. Not the time travel plot itself, but specifically making Spock (Leonard Nimoy) travel back in time to be part of the plot. The only reason to do this is to tie the events of ST 2009 into the previous Trek material so that it is part of “canon”. But why do that? I call this film a reboot, because that’s obviously what Abrams wanted to do: tell his own story using characters and background that kind of resemble the original characters and background.

But trying to come up with a canonical reason why the details of the 2009 film don’t match the details of the rest of the franchise just makes it a half-assed reboot, a reboot they couldn’t commit to. If they had kept the part about future Romulans traveling back to destroy Vulcan and Earth as retribution for losing Romulus in the future and ditched the part about Spock coming back, and if they hadn’t done such a bad job with the story as described above, this would have been a better movie.

Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

Rating: C-

I was expecting about the same from ST: Into Darkness, but I was immediately surprised that the story wasn’t as bad as the first reboot movie. It was actually compelling. I didn’t even mind the rather transparent use of Khan to manipulate fans into liking the film.

And then there were these random bits of bullshit half an hour before the end.

1. “McCoy, what are you doing to that tribble?”
2. “Uhura, get Ambassador Spock on New Vulcan on the phone.”

There was zero reason for McCoy to be doing anything to a tribble at that moment. He’s only doing things to a tribble to set up a deus ex machina moment later on. It’s cheap, bad writing.

There’s more of a reason for Spock to contact Old Spock to ask about Khan… but not in the middle of a fight . More crappy writing. Really ticks me off, because (again) I was engaged with the film up to that point, and then I shouted “What?” at the screen.

Plus, although they try hard to make Kirk the central figure of the reboot series, they’ve gone through two movies so far and he’s completely unlikable. Spock’s character is actually the better one in this film. He actually learns something, has a character transformation. Kirk? The speech at the end makes it sound like he’s different, too, but I didn’t really buy it.

Still, although there’s a lot of lens flare, there’s less shaky cam than the first movie, so it looks better. That’s worth something, right?

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

No rating on this one. I tried to find a way to watch this before I got to Part 6 of my Trek reviews, but no deal. However, if I figure out a way in the future, I’ll add a separate review.

Next Post: The streaming era begins.

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Star Trek Reviews: Enterprise

Part Five of my reviews for all of the Star Trek shows and movies, split across several posts for each “stage” of Trek:

1. Early Trek (TOS, TAS)
2. TOS Trek Movies (ST MP through ST VI)
3. ’90s Trek TV (TNG, DS9, Voyager)
4. TNG Trek Movies (Generations through Nemesis)
5. Enterprise
6. Trek Reboot Movies
7. Streaming Trek (Discovery, Picard, Trek shorts)

See the first post for an explanation of my letter-grade ranking system. The short version: C is average, something I have no strong feelings about one way or another. To avoid uncontrollable rage, please remember: Average is not Bad. It’s just average.

Quite by accident, there’s only one show to cover in this part, but perhaps that’s for the best, since there’s more nuance to discuss.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Rating: B-

I actually do rank Enterprise almost the same as Deep Space Nine, which is perhaps going to amp up the rage even more than my previous ratings. People love to hate on Enterprise, and a lot of fans rate DS9 very high, so how can they be nearly the same?

They kind of got to the same place by different paths.

While DS9 churns out a well-made show that I didn’t like as much as other shows, Enterprise started with a premise I liked better and made episodes I thought were generally better than DS9 – except nearly every episode would have one really, really bad scene that would ruin it. The most infamous example being the first decontamination chamber scene, with Trip and T’Pol endlessly slathering each other with jelly.

Then there’s the decision to have Captain Archer occasionally become uncontrollably enraged. And the decision to rush adding several features from other Trek series to what is supposed to be a prequel series. Including meeting the Borg, and meeting the Organians.

Plus, as I may have suggested before, I prefer less tightly-plotted extended story arcs. Enterprise does well on this for a couple seasons, but when they reach 3rd season, it’s all multi-episode plot arcs in a desperate attempt to keep people watching.

Something else I don’t like much: the temporal cold war storyline. I liked the Trek time travel episodes where it was an unusual event: an accident that is hard to duplicate, or the remnant of some ancient, lost technology. The more shows talked about temporal agents, the Temporal Prime Directive, and regular incursions and counter-incursions, the less interesting it became.

I also usually don’t like the “mirror universe” episodes, a major fault with DS9. But I think Enterprise did a reasonably good job with their two-parter. It’s the best of the mirror episodes.

The main thing I think about is how disappointing Enterprise turned out to be. Not just because of the way they ruined what would otherwise be good episodes, but because it had the promise of returning to that mysterious, huge, empty galaxy from those first ten episodes of TOS and then failed to deliver. Instead of mystery, we get humans as newcomers to a rather crowded, well-traveled region of space. They focused more on how humans met all the aliens we were already familiar with than on what it was like before space was as well-traveled as in the days of Kirk or Picard, when everything was still new.

Still, despite the disappointment and the poor decisions, Enterprise is still at least a B-, and despite the lower rating, I like it more than I like TNG or DS9.

Next Post: Star Trek gets a reboot.

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Star Trek Reviews: TNG Trek Movies

Part Four of my reviews for all of the Star Trek shows and movies, split across several posts for each “stage” of Trek:

1. Early Trek (TOS, TAS)
2. TOS Trek Movies (ST MP through ST VI)
3. ’90s Trek TV (TNG, DS9, Voyager)
4. TNG Trek Movies (Generations through Nemesis)
5. Enterprise
6. Trek Reboot Movies
7. Streaming Trek (Discovery, Picard, Trek shorts)

See the first post for an explanation of my letter-grade ranking system. The short version: C is average, something I have no strong feelings about one way or another. To avoid uncontrollable rage, please remember: Average is not Bad. It’s just average.

This post is all about the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies. I didn’t see any of these in the theaters, skipped most of them on TV for a long while. Spoiler Alert: I don’t regret that move in the slightest.

Star Trek: Generations

Rating: C+

Which is more surprising: me not giving ST Generations a D or F grade, or me giving it the same grade as The Wrath of Khan?

When I was filling in the gaps for Trek movies, I found that I didn’t like the pacing any more than I liked it in other Trek movies. This really does feel like a very long TV episode with a higher budget, probably all of which was blown on the stupid holodeck scene where they make Whorf walk the plank because it’s a tradition … which we’ve never seen before. But the thing most people hate about Generations is the thing that raises the entire movie above a straight C grade for me: Kirk’s “meaningless” death. Honestly, it was a pretty dangerous situation and someone dying isn’t far-fetched, plus if you think about it thematically, the Nexus is a stand-in for Heaven. Kirk basically died a meaningless death already. By getting the chance to come back briefly and prevent a madman from committing genocide, he made his death meaningful. It’s actually the best ending shown in TNG for a TOS character: McCoy gets a dumb cameo, Scotty gets his own space shuttle to do who knows what with. Spock at least gets a good story, but… well, more on that later.

Star Trek: First Contact

Rating: C+

I guess I can’t complain about Zefram Cochrane no longer being from Alpha Centauri. Even if I want to. I do think it’s stupid that he builds a warp-capable ship in what basically appears to be the Fallout universe, cobbling the thing together from scrounged parts. I also want to complain about the Borg being overused, but I know I’m alone in that.

I originally gave the movie a C grade, because I had no strong feelings for it. Yeah, I might watch it again, if I had a TV running and it happened to come on. But thinking about it a little more, I guess I do like it better than a lot of the TOS Trek movies and about as much as ST Generations. It’s worth a C+ grade.

Star Trek: Insurrection

Rating: C

I know I’ve seen it, although every time I watch it, I think “Have I seen it before?” It’s forgettable. But not to the point of being horrible. A so-so movie.

(After I had written that, I actually caught something like 40-50% of the middle of the movie and pretty much confirmed my previous feelings.)

Star Trek: Nemesis

Rating: C-

I couldn’t decide when I first rated the movies whether Nemesis should be a C or a C-. It’s certainly forgettable, but so is Insurrection, and so are most of the TOS movies. But there are some cinematography choices in Nemesis I don’t like. In fact, first time I watched it and saw the opening titles, my first thought was “I already hate the font.”

The dune buggy chase annoyed me. The long drawn-out scene where not only has everyone in the audience figured out the Romulan is really a human, but even the characters announce “We know you’re human, not Romulan, so why not reveal yourself?” It’s one of the least suspenseful moments in film.

Nevertheless, as dull and ugly as this movie is, I couldn’t justify giving it an actual D grade, so it stays at C-.

Next Post: Back to TV for a prequel series.

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Star Trek Reviews: '90s Trek TV

Part Three of my reviews for all of the Star Trek shows and movies, split across several posts for each “stage” of Trek:

1. Early Trek (TOS, TAS)
2. TOS Trek Movies (ST MP through ST VI)
3. ’90s Trek TV (TNG, DS9, Voyager)
4. TNG Trek Movies (Generations through Nemesis)
5. Enterprise
6. Trek Reboot Movies
7. Streaming Trek (Discovery, Picard, Trek shorts)

See the first post for an explanation of my letter-grade ranking system. The short version: C is average, something I have no strong feelings about one way or another. To avoid uncontrollable rage, please remember: Average is not Bad. It’s just average.

This post is all about ’90s Trek, the TV shows that aired mainly in the early '90s, although '90s Trek really begins in the late '80s with…

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Rating: B-

Again, there was an exciting announcement: Trek is finally coming back to TV! Not the Star Trek Phase II or whatever it was called that they once talked about, but a new crew on a new version of the Enterprise, farther in the future.

And again, there was a little disappointment. After watching the first few episodes of The Next Generation, I gave up on it for a long time. Came back just in time for “The Best of Both Worlds” and started watching regularly. The series was better by then, but it still had bad spells. I eventually saw the episodes I’d missed and realized I hadn’t missed much. A couple years ago, I started re-watching all the episodes, in order, more than once, to make sure I filled in all the gaps. And I still have mixed feelings.

I gave TNG a lower grade the first time I rated it. First, because the first two and a half seasons are generally bad, mostly C quality, some D quality, and only a few that rise above that. Second, because the pacing in so many episodes, even in good ones, is slow, sometimes plodding along until you scream “Just get on with it!” It’s a bad sign when most of your hour-long episodes could be compressed to fit a half-hour time slot and would actually be improved by the effort.

But let’s face it: there are a lot of B and A-quality episodes in TNG. Some of the best Trek episodes ever, like “Darmok” or “Tapestry”, are TNG episodes. The fact that it has more C and D episodes than any other Trek should lower the rating a little, but not drastically. It’s still a very re-watchable series.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Rating: B

I only watched the first one or two episodes of DS9 when it first aired. It didn’t “grab” me, so I gave up. I knew people who praised DS9 and claimed it was the best of Trek, but I couldn’t be bothered.

But when I filled in my gaps on TNG, I also watched all of DS9. I’m still not enthused about the series, although there are a couple episodes I like. But regardless of my feelings, I still recognize that it’s a very well-made series, especially in comparison to TNG. It does have longer, more carefully crafted plot arcs, although that’s a major reason why I don’t feel enthused. It takes too much effort to get into DS9 compared to something more episodic.

One thing I do not like is the space battles. My feeling about space battles is that, space being as big and empty as it is, tight formation space battles or attempts to barricade a space route are just ridiculous. And I’m just not the kind of person who likes lots of explody action. The space battles in DS9 and late TNG mark the point where I stopped liking a lot of the military conflicts in Trek.

Still, I rate DS9 as a B. Originally, I had it lower, but that was only because I sorted all the series into tiers, assigned TAS a C grade, and made all other ratings relative to TAS.

Star Trek: Voyager

Rating: B

When Voyager was announced, I had the same reaction as many: “It sounds depressing, like Lost in Space. Not very much like Trek at all.” But I watched the first few episodes, stuck with it longer than DS9. Missed some chunks of episodes, but I liked it better than DS9. When I went back and fill in my gaps later, I decided I liked it better than TNG, too.

It’s not a great series. It has fewer A-grade episodes than TNG and less plot development than DS9. It has some of the same pacing problems as the other '90s Trek shows. But here’s the thing: it’s more consistent in quality throughout the series run. Everything’s fairly close in quality. When you get to a bad episode, you don’t discover it’s the first in a long string of bad episodes. And honestly, if we’re going to have nerd fights about who the better captain is: Kirk is the more interesting captain, Picard is the more diplomatic, but Janeway is the best overall.

Next Post: Back to the big screen.

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Star Trek Reviews: TOS Trek Movies

Continuing my reviews for all of the Star Trek shows and movies, split across several posts for each “stage” of Trek:

1. Early Trek (TOS, TAS)
2. TOS Trek Movies (ST MP through ST VI)
3. ’90s Trek TV (TNG, DS9, Voyager)
4. TNG Trek Movies (Generations through Nemesis)
5. Enterprise
6. Trek Reboot Movies
7. Streaming Trek (Discovery, Picard, Trek shorts)

See the first post for an explanation of my letter-grade ranking system. The short version: C is average, something I have no strong feelings about one way or another. Anything I would seek out and re-watch gets an A or B.

Spoiler Warning: This is the post that’s probably going to shock people the most. When I did the quick version of these posts on Twitter and Facebook, people lost their minds over how I rated the movies. I don’t hate them, but I don’t really enjoy them all that much. I’m not sure what’s going to shock people the most: the fact that I don’t rate some fan favorites as highly as people think I should, or the fact that I don’t see as much difference in quality between the movies.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Rating: C-

Like Star Trek: The Animated Series, I was very excited at the news that there was going to be a Star Trek movie, with the original cast. And like the animated series, I wasn’t too disappointed at first. I mean, the new Klingons looked interesting, and that first scene with them had some pretty good music and special effects.

But yeah, even at first, I didn’t think it was a great movie. Not especially bad, but it’s kind of slow-moving, and basically it’s just “The Changeling” redone for the big screen, with a romance between two completely new characters that we never really cared about. And the new uniforms are pajamas.

When I first rated this movie a few months ago, I gave it a C, but I’ve lowered it to C- because yeah, it’s obviously at least a little below average. I’m in no rush to see it again.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Rating: C+

People lost their minds over my rating of this, but bear with me. A C is average, not bad. I have no strong feelings about a C-grade movie. I can watch it and be entertained. And a C+? That’s a little above average. So I’m not saying Wrath of Khan is a bad movie. And I liked it better the first time I saw it.

But…

Something noticeable in Khan and many Trek movies is that the characters are a little off and the stories are a little dull. They feel like really stretched-out hour-long TV episodes. And I’d compare the Kirk/Spock/McCoy relationships to those in the animated series: where the animated series made everyone seem angry at each other all the time, the movies seem to overcompensate and have them delve in to how much they care about each other. Yeah, they’ve been friends and colleagues for a long time, but that could have been worth a couple lines in a scene about something else. We already know these characters. We don’t have to explore stuff we already know, over and over. Just the new stuff.

ST II is a little better storywise than the other movies, so that’s why it’s a C+ instead of just a C. And it still has the best starship battle anywhere in Trek (other than “Balance of Terror”.) But I’ll explain that more elsewhere.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Rating: C

I know I’ve seen at least part of it, but did I even finish it? Why do I not care?

This is what I mean about a C rating meaning I have no strong feelings about a film or series. If it were on and I had nothing else to do, I might re-watch ST III. But I can’t muster the will to deliberately re-watch it. Even though Spock is my favorite TOS character, I don’t care about The Search for Spock.

Star Trek: The Voyage Home

Rating: C

This one I’m a little more certain I watched all the way to the end, but I’m still not 100% sure. I’ve definitely forgotten a lot about it. So, it’s in the same bucket as ST III. I just don’t care if they get a whale or not.

Star Trek: The Final Frontier

Rating: C

Definitely saw all of this. Definitely do not care.

Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country

Rating: C

Still don’t care. It’s especially dull at the beginning. They should really stop doing Starfleet meetings in Trek, because fleet procedures aren’t interesting.

I know this is shocking, because most people talk about either ST IV or ST VI being their favorite, or even claim that the even-numbered films are good and the odd numbers are bad. But really, aside from the first one being slightly worse and the second slightly better, they all feel the same to me and sometimes I get confused about which scene comes from which movie.

Next Post: New ships with new crews.

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Star Trek Reviews: Early Trek

Before I start my journey into the Star Wars, I should probably do some reviews of some other things I’ve binged recently, beginning with Star Trek. I’ll split this across a couple posts, one for each “stage” of Trek:

1. Early Trek (TOS, TAS)
2. TOS Trek Movies (ST MP through ST VI)
3. ’90s Trek TV (TNG, DS9, Voyager)
4. TNG Trek Movies (Generations through Nemesis)
5. Enterprise
6. Trek Reboot Movies
7. Streaming Trek (Discovery, Picard, Trek shorts)

But first, a brief look at my ranking system.

• A or B: Above Average, Worth more than one watch. Anything with an A rating is of exceptional quality, but B is pretty good, too.
• C: Average. It’s OK. Wouldn’t call it an essential re-watch.
• D: Below Average. Might be bearable at least an object of mockery, but otherwise, not something worth watching.
• F: Bottom of the Barrel. So badly made it can’t possibly be recommended except as an example of bad craft.

First time I rated Trek stuff on social media, I ranked each film and series (not individual seasons or episodes) relative to each other, then figured out which tier was “average” for me. I’ve tinkered with my ratings since then. Films start with a base letter grade and then get a + or - if it has a couple moments that really stand out as better/worse than the movie as whole. I rate a series as a whole, then give it a + or - if there’s a substantial number of episodes that are better/worse than the typical episode.

Spoiler Alert: I didn’t rank any Trek show or movie D or F, although judging by the rage I got on Facebook/Twitter, you’d think I had. I could give individual episodes a D grade, but no Fs. It’s actually pretty rare for me to give something an F. Even Ed Wood or Coleman Francis movies get at least a D.

Star Trek: The Original Series

Rating: A-

This is what I grew up with. I think I actually saw bits and pieces of TOS when it originally aired, but I was so young that all that stuck in my mind was the face of Balok at the end. But when it went into syndication, I was definitely watching, and I was a devoted fan.

I don’t watch it as much any more, and I’ll admit it sometimes feels a little creaky in places nowadays, which is why I’ve lowered it from my original A rating. But many of the episodes are solid TV and good storytelling that moves at a good pace. When we criticize TOS, it’s the hammy speechifying and some of the outdated attitudes that stand out, not the quality of the stories themselves.

I’ve said more than once that the first ten or so episodes stand out for me. They hadn’t established The Federation in their world-building, and not many alien races had been added yet. This is a human-dominated “United Earth Space Agency” that has traveled to the edge of the galaxy, but perhaps hasn’t explored 90-95% of the territory within their range. Most of the galaxy is a big mystery, and to a certain extent, the crew is out there alone. As later episodes filled out the background, adding the Federation, adding several alien races, adding trade routes and alliances, the galaxy seemed less empty. People famously refer to TOS as “Wagon Train to the stars”, but the earliest TOS episodes are more like Lewis and Clark than Oregon Trail.

There are a few inferior episodes: “Turnabout Intruder” is a D episode, worse even than the quintessential “bad” episode “Spock’s Brain”. People sometimes claim all of third season is bad, but there’s a couple A and B episodes in that season, like “All Our Yesterdays” and “Is There In Truth No Beauty?”

Star Trek: The Animated Series.

Rating: C

I remember being very excited when I heard the news: there was going to be a new Star Trek show! A Saturday morning cartoon! With the original cast!

And I enjoyed it as a kid, but looking back at it, it’s not so great. Certainly higher quality than most other Saturday-morning fare. But it’s the usual cheap animation. The character are also “off”: Kirk is more violent and Spock is more of a stubborn jerk, and the interaction between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy seems fueled more by anger than friendship.

The feel and tone of early Trek gets completely lost in TAS. They zoom from one end of the galaxy to the other regularly, even outside the galaxy, and there’s no real sense of scale. Fortunately, none of the later Trek offerings take the same approach.

The stories are mostly so-so, with a few good episodes like “Yesteryear”. The most amazing thing is that they accomplish more in half an hour than any of the hour format shows do. The quality actually doesn’t vary that much; it’s a fairly consistent series, with not many episodes outside the C+ to C- range. “The Practical Joker” is probably the worst episode, worth a D rating, but it does have the distinction of introducing the holodeck.

Next Post: We’re going to the movies.

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