Merryprankster, are you thinking of a different Stargate perchance? That’s a fair description of SG1 but Universe was deadly serious a la BSG. I liked it quite a bit (though I wouldn’t rank it above DS9) but I think we might be talking about different shows.
SGU was pretty light. I remember the story arc from season 1 in which Jack pretended to be gay so he could continue to room with two girls who were just his friends.
I’m not saying SGU is lighthearted, it’s just not overwrought like some other recent Sci-fi shows cough BSG cough. It’s just a good old fashioned adventure on a spaceship that is pretty well done. (except for those lame-o communication stones that got waaaaay over used.)
Sure there are some attempts to get “deep” but it never took it too far into the quagmire of bullshit.
SGU was really good, had some fantastic characters (and actors) and managed to produce some really good sci-fi tales amid the survivalist drama.
I was just teasin’. I actually rather liked SGU.
Sounds like you’re dismissing the BSG comparison based on the later season antics. I’m talking about the early show, where factionalism and scarcity are just as dangerous (if not moreso) than the external pressures they face.
Or he’s just trolling, which he’s admitted to previously on these sort of topics.
OK, I’ll agree with that. I very much enjoyed the first season of BSG. My evaluation of BSG is based on the series as a whole, and I think the majority of it is pretty awful. I do admit that had they stopped after season one I would probably hold it up there somewhere with Firefly.
Ummm…yeah I might have been taking a cheap shot.
How does one Trek and yet not move?
“to boldly go, uh, nowhere”
OK, the Hivemind wins. I just finished up DS9, and I have to grudgingly admit it is one of the better Sci-fi shows out there. Grrrrrr…
While I do maintain that it doesn’t “feel” like a Star Trek, I actually think it’s a better show than a traditional Star Trek show.
My version of this was “to boldy sit where no one has sat before!”
Glad you enjoyed it. Though I don’t know about the Hivemind being right. After all, us DS9 fans didn’t even win this poll. Look at the top of this page. We needed to convert about 11 TNG people to DS9 to change the winner.
Btw, wasn’t the 10 episode arc that ended the show great? I even liked the beginning of the seventh Season where they actually spent some time integrating the new Dax. I remember that caused a lot of fans to get very impatient with the show at the time. But I think at its core, DS9 was so good because of the relationships between the crew, not just because of the Dominion arc or Cardassian arc or the Bjoran arc. And integrating the new Dax and exploring her relationship to the crew was important after what happened in Season Six.
Thinking about the discussion here made me realize what my problem with the new Abrams Trek movies is. I’ve been listening to some back issues of StarTalk Radio, and a lot of people talk about how Star Trek inspired them to become scientists, or just inspired them to believe in the future (Whoopi Goldberg citing Uhura, for example). Maybe it was a more innocent time, or maybe there were other factors that promoted scientific advancement (cold war, etc), but there’s definitely a sense of inspiration and wonder to the old series. The Roddenberry Box may have been a bit of a buzzkill, narratively, but he really wanted to address these issues.
But the Abrams movie doesn’t even try to address that aspect of the franchise. So it isn’t even the sloppy science that bothers me, it’s the action-movie bombast and cynicism.
So I started watching Enterprise and I have decided to change my vote to that as best Star Trek series based completely on the Vulcan shower scene from episode one. Who cares about things like great story when you can have hot Vulcan chicks getting blue slime rubbed on them :D
I also just finished episode two, where the translator lady releases a foreign, possibly invasive, snail to a planets ecosystem. Strangely hot Vulcan chick who seems to have a problem with everything they do takes no issue with the possible destruction of a worlds ecosystem. Perhaps she was taking another bath in blue slime…
It took its time fleshing out the characters, even the minor ones. One of my favorite episodes is “It’s Only a Paper Moon”. I mean how many other shows have eps focusing almost entirely on secondary characters that you’ve not only grown to love at this point, but can be so compelling besides? That’s one of the things I love most about the show. A character like Garak, originally a one-off, can just become a force of nature because they took the time to let us get to know him, as well as so many other characters. I mean they had a whole episode named after an ancillary character that never says a word, “Who Mourns for Morn.” I LOVE that.
I want to know who the eight people who chose Voyager are. Because they’re weird.
Yeah, I like the amount of time that was spent bringing the background cast to life as well. Especially Garak, who is one of the best characters in the series. He plays really nicely (as do the Ferangi) against the moral absolutism of the federation. I wasn’t real crazy about Dax 2.0, I just didn’t see what story purpose having her come back served, and I think the loss of a few main characters would have driven home those “casualty reports” Cisco kept commenting on. Still that’s splitting hairs a bit.
My only real complaint was the culmination of the Pah Wraiths and all that. I just didn’t think it was necessary and I preferred when that whole Prophets thing was a bit more removed from “reality”.
I chose Voyager. It aired when I was working on my Thesis in college and it was on at like 1am. I used to watch it as a “night cap” after putting in 8-10 hrs of thesis work a day.
Kate Mulgrew
Robert Beltran
Roxann Dawson
Robert Duncan McNeill
Ethan Phillips
Robert Picardo
Tim Russ
and apparently merryprankster