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SPOILER (maybe) about the ending of ST:Voyager in this post.
Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospam com> wrote:
> I liked Voyager, but it did suffer from "Gilligan's Island" syndrome -
> ie, eventually they have to get "off the island" (ie, get home) so
> there's not much room for variation in the story.
How the Voyager go to the other end of the galaxy was a bit of a Deus ex
Machina, but it was justifiable. After all, if the whole idea is that they
get stranded, they have to get there *somehow*, and in the Star Trek universe
the only possibility is some Deus ex Machina solution to that problem.
What I feared through the entire series was that they would get home the
same way, making all of what happened in all the 7 seasons pointless. In
other words, they spend 7 whole seasons trying to get back home, traveling
through the galaxy and fighting obstacles on the way, only to get teleported
back to home in the same way as they got there in the first place? That would
have been a downer.
At least the writers didn't make that mistake, and instead had them find
their own means to get back home. (Of course the actual solution was still
a bit of a stretch and somewhat a Deus ex Machina solution, but at least
it had *some* good ideas in it, and wasn't such a big downer.)
> I don't know that Seven saved the show, though; I thought Kes was a much
> more interesting character, and it was a shame that she left. With Seven
> you basically had another Data-like character who had to learn what it
> meant to be human. Been there, done that, and I think Brent Spiner did a
> much better job of exploring that idea.
I don't think was so much about the character development which was
decisive here... :P
--
- Warp
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> the stories in general aren't about the technology.
*Usually* not. Occasionally they are. Of course, McCoy's distaste for the
transporter is all about the technology. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!
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Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> the stories in general aren't about the technology.
>
> *Usually* not. Occasionally they are. Of course, McCoy's distaste for
> the transporter is all about the technology. :-)
Typically it's "hey, there's this technology that can do X. Man, what
would that mean for civilisation?"
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> the stories in general aren't about the technology.
>>
>> *Usually* not. Occasionally they are. Of course, McCoy's distaste for
>> the transporter is all about the technology. :-)
>
> Typically it's "hey, there's this technology that can do X. Man, what
> would that mean for civilisation?"
And that's exactly what science fiction is all about. Now if it's actually
feasible that such a technology could be invented, then it's "hard" science
fiction. :-)
Anything else is space opera.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!
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>> Typically it's "hey, there's this technology that can do X. Man, what
>> would that mean for civilisation?"
>
> And that's exactly what science fiction is all about. Now if it's
> actually feasible that such a technology could be invented, then it's
> "hard" science fiction. :-)
>
> Anything else is space opera.
Typically the Star Trek episodes tend to end with "but we're leaving
this planet now" or "this device is too dangerous, so we're going to
destroy it". I guess that's one way to return to equillibrium.
That's kind of the problem with a series. Every episode has to end with
roughly the same situation as it started, so that the next one can begin
from the same premise. (Although occasionally you'll inherit a new
character permanently, or a new capability or something.) Makes it kind
of predictable.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> That's kind of the problem with a series. Every episode has to end with
> roughly the same situation as it started, so that the next one can begin
> from the same premise. (Although occasionally you'll inherit a new
> character permanently, or a new capability or something.) Makes it kind
> of predictable.
It's only a particular type of series which fits this format (would it
be called an episodic show?). There's plenty of shows in which the plot
follows an arc from beginning to end of the entire series.
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On Thu, 14 May 2009 14:39:55 -0400, Warp wrote:
> At least the writers didn't make that mistake, and instead had them
> find
> their own means to get back home. (Of course the actual solution was
> still a bit of a stretch and somewhat a Deus ex Machina solution, but at
> least it had *some* good ideas in it, and wasn't such a big downer.)
True, in all counts. But that is kinda what I mean by the "Gilligan's
Island" syndrome - the whole idea has to be that ultimately they have to
get home, or what's the point? And the limited setting in both
programmes does make it necessary to depend on the strength of character
development.
When you do that and you don't do good character development, then it
becomes a bit of a loss. The addition of Seven, I guess, could be said
to add some character development because of her need to grow and to
understand what it means to be human. That may well, in retrospect, have
"saved the show" even though it could've been done better.
Many of the other characters had already stopped being developed and were
fairly predictable. Tom was always going to be "the risk taker",
Chakotay was always going to be "the spiritualist", Janeway was always
going to be "the decider", Neelix was always going to be "the outsider",
etc. There wasn't a lot of growth for those characters, especially
during the final few seasons.
That doesn't mean I enjoyed it any less, though.
>> I don't know that Seven saved the show, though; I thought Kes was a
>> much more interesting character, and it was a shame that she left.
>> With Seven you basically had another Data-like character who had to
>> learn what it meant to be human. Been there, done that, and I think
>> Brent Spiner did a much better job of exploring that idea.
>
> I don't think was so much about the character development which was
> decisive here... :P
Yeah, that's more or less my point. No doubt sex sells, and Jeri Ryan is
not hard to look at at all. I just wish they had not strayed into such
shallow waters to make it work.
Jim
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On Thu, 14 May 2009 12:55:26 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> the stories in general aren't about the technology.
>
> *Usually* not. Occasionally they are. Of course, McCoy's distaste for
> the transporter is all about the technology. :-)
Well, even in the technologically-driven stories, there always seemed to
be a slant towards the ethics/morals of the technology. That's something
that McCoy's distaste of the transporters was always about - he thought
it was just wrong to take people apart at that level and put them back
together somewhere else.
And of course IRL that point of McCoy's has spawned (and been included
in) discussions of modern technological advancement, such as with regards
to cloning and (for some) embryonic stem cell research.
Jim
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>>> I don't know that Seven saved the show, though; I thought Kes was a
>>> much more interesting character, and it was a shame that she left.
>>> With Seven you basically had another Data-like character who had to
>>> learn what it meant to be human. Been there, done that, and I think
>>> Brent Spiner did a much better job of exploring that idea.
>> I don't think was so much about the character development which was
>> decisive here... :P
>
> Yeah, that's more or less my point. No doubt sex sells, and Jeri Ryan is
> not hard to look at at all. I just wish they had not strayed into such
> shallow waters to make it work.
If you want to point out plot holes, why *does* a Borg drone need such
considerably developed mammary glands, exactly? :-P
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Kevin Wampler <wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> > That's kind of the problem with a series. Every episode has to end with
> > roughly the same situation as it started, so that the next one can begin
> > from the same premise. (Although occasionally you'll inherit a new
> > character permanently, or a new capability or something.) Makes it kind
> > of predictable.
>
> It's only a particular type of series which fits this format (would it
> be called an episodic show?). There's plenty of shows in which the plot
> follows an arc from beginning to end of the entire series.
Staying in the SF genre, Babylon5 is one of the superior examples of this. It
begins with an episodic format much like Trek, exploring the show's universe
and developing the characters, then starts introducing the greater story arcs,
until by the final season the governments and equilibria that were described in
the earlier seasons have been transformed by the events of the story. Cracking
stuff.
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