I think I haven't laughed this hard in WEEKS. And I used to be a Trekkie. (I lost my Trekkiedom when they made fun of Capitalists and abolished money--that was way too lefty for me...)

Now that's good stuff. Well done.

I really LIKED Firefly...why did they cancel this great show while they keep renewing crap like Friends and Will & Grace? Ratings be damned...Big Daddy wants his Firefly back!

I always thought the most unrealistic thing about Star Trek wasn't the technology, but the fact that nobody was gunning for the next promotion. No Office Politics in the Future? Gimme a Break!

It's just a goddamned TV show, get a life! (Vulcan middle finger salute)

Re #2: I know nobody ever watched DS9, but the Ferengi knew exactly what holographic technology was for.

I'm a Trekkie, this f-ing made me rupture my spleen laughing.

And another thing, I've been a Trek fan since the first show until Enterprise, but I will say without any hesitation that Firefly was the best SF that ever showed up on my TV. Why they killed it with scheduling poison and little advertising I will never know. It had the same kind of fan fanaticism that ST did. But it was too clever to survive. The suits didn't understand it.

And how come every time they came upon an "advanced" race, they were always dour and dead serious? I would think that a truely advanced race would be happy, jovial, great guys to be around, not a bunch of pompous, self-rightous snobs.

Oh ya, something else unbelievable: the alleged "romance" between Riker and Troi. Give me a break!

I agree completely about Firefly. I also think it was the best SF show I've seen on television. It was smart, funny, had good characters, AND it portrayed a future that is at least plausibly realistic.

The whole Federation thing always bugged me. There's no need for money any more? Does that mean there's no scarcity? Can I have the Feds whip up my own starship for me? Or are there limits? If there are limits, who decides who gets what?

The political structure of Star Trek was silly. The portrayal of the future is totally unrealistic and flies in the face of what we know about human nature.

And you'd never see Picard kick a handcuffed bad guy into an engine intake.

The thing that alway bothered me about Star Trek was where and how they went to the bathroom. Seemed like none of them ever had to.

Yeah, the Feddies are a funny bunch. Who ever said that a primitive race should control the Federation and have so much power? The Klingons should have eiliminated the Federation back in the classic Star Trek...or even the Q continuum should have been able to abolish the Federation before Picard was ever born. Think about it.

I was going to leave a comment earlier, but I had to reverse the polarity on Netscape.

Well done.

Aye, aye, aye! ROTFLMAO on the comments!

Yeah- I did enjoy watching the Firefly captain kick that bad boy into the intake. I wonder what Geordie would have said about that. Do you think the reason all the doors were so WEEET'y was because of all that polarity reversing? Not to mention that would have made the Enterprise- and the Voyager- into intergalactic versions of a Rover P3, or maybe a Triumph TR4.

Good stuff. Indeed on the Holodeck!

On the subject of promotions, it amused me that, by the time STTNG ended, virtually everybody on the ship held the rank of Commander. And, yet, everybody pretty much continued to perform their same jobs. (This was as bad as the geriatric TOS crew in the movies all having the rank of Captain. . .but still performing the jobs they had as Ensigns.)

I've never seen Firefly but will have to look for the reruns. I really liked Babylon 5, though. A much more realistic view of humanity's future, I'm afraid.

Another thing I hate about Star Trek is they way they always sucking up to one another:

Warf: Captain, Admiral Whoosits is hailing us.

Picard: Woosits! He's the finest Admiral in the fleet!

Everybody, and I mean everybody, is considered the finest in their field. Nobody ever says "Oh, him? I remember him, he was a panty sniffer back in the academy! What an asshole!"

I also agree that Firefly was the best thing I've seen on TV for a long time. Anybody know if they will release the show on DVD?

Yes, Joss Whedon has said that Firefly will be released in the summer in DVD format, in widescreen. AND, the three unseen episodes that were in the can before cancellation will also be on the DVD.

And, he's still trying to keep FF alive. There are rumors of a movie deal in the works.

I sure hope so. That show deserves another chance.

And another thing about the Holodeck is it was always malfunctioning. It's all fun and games until you're trapped in a Holodeck with Jack the Ripper and the safety's off. And if it's not the Holodeck, it's the transporter sending you to an alternate universe, or the engines screw up and send you back in time. The last time MY car broke down, it didn't send ME hurtling through the space-time continuum. Hell, it seemed like these guys were going back in time every other week. Heaven forbid someone did a Holodeck simulation of a transporter during a tachyon storm, the clocks would look like something out of a Dali painting.

About the holodeck: Giordi would either reverse the polarity so what ever was on there would get sucked into space. Or they would just use the transporters
and oh that would be a whole new series: Garbage men of the Federation.

I laughed until I hurt. I feel so stupid. What channel did Firefly premiere on and of course the suits understood it; It wasn't PC. Anyone who understands command knows it is by committee.

Well, Dr. Who constantly reversed the polarity- usually of the nuetron flow and that show rules.

Dr Who reversed the polarity on NEUTRONS? Neutrons don't flow, and have no polarity! This is what you get when you let Brits do Sci-Fi. Oh, and Red Dwarf. You get that too.

A couple of other reasons to hate it:

1)Picard must have set a record for surrendering or considering surrendering the Enterprise. Of course, he's French, so must be in the genes.

2)I have always believed that the TOS Federation was sort of like the UN in Korea - lots of different nations under USA command fighting really bad guys. TNG was the UN in Bosnia - hapless, hopeless, and really clueless.

3)TNG never met a battle it couldn't duck out of - I really think for TNG they had "First, Do No Harm" engraved over the Star Fleet Academy gates.

Regards,
Dave

Well, I love Star Trek, and this list is s riot - (we won't talk about trying to not to pee ourselves...) but as for the best scifi show on TV that was cancelled this year? .... It wasn't Firefly (although that was a good show). Doesn't anyone around here watch Farscape? Now THAT was a good show and it's too bad the bean counters at Scifi screwed the pooch by cancelling it early.

Christopher Johnson-

The reason they never showed the bathrooms on the Enterprise was that it would be too disorienting for viewers. You see, Geordi had reversed the polarity of the artificial gravity and mounted the 'fixtures' on the new floor, which was actually the ceiling.

Why? So the crew of the Enterprise could go where no one had gone before.

---*running away really fast*---

dave

Thanks to Dave Mac for mentioning Farscape. I agree; it was the best SF show on tv. And it's not dead yet- Brian Henson and family just bought back all of the shows his dad owned (that the family foolishly sold to Vivendi a couple of years ago) and Farscape was on the list!! As soon as the transaction is approved by the board at EM-tv(about ten weeks), the Henson family will take over again. Yay!!
If you would like a chance to meet other Scapers and the Cast, go to www.bluelady.org and read about ScaperCon. This is not a professionally run Con but is run by the fans for the fans and is an enormous party. Farscaape Rocks!! Rock on!!

Mollbot:

They reversed the polarity of the neutron flow on The Real Ghost Busters all the time with good effect. And you can't argue with that.

Ha-larious!

Ensign Barclay had the right idea, "I AM THE GODDESS OF EMPATHY!"

I'm not a Trekkie, but this is some great stuff.

Out-STANDING! Somebody has finally given the most hackneyed, PC sci-fi show in history a proper bollicking.

Reminds me of Scott Adams in "The Dilbert Future", trying to explain why the holodeck would be the last invention the human race ever came up with. I bet the commonest use of phasers, transporters and McCoy's "anabolic protoplazer" would not be in the service of humanity, but by fraternities committing innovative pranks. Think of the things you could beam into the Dean's office. For example, things with their sphincters anabolically protoplazed shut.

You forgot one of Geordi's favourite solutions to engineering problems - "ejecting the warp core". Seems to me that if you are 500 light-years from home with nothing left but a box of AA Duracells and the Starfleet equivalent of a 2.5 horsepower outboard, ejecting the warp core would be the third-last thing you would consider, just above "abandoning ship" and "self-destruct".

By the way, the "self destruct" option? Never bought it. Can you imagine a modern (manned) warship or aircraft rigged to blow up on command? We spend enough time and money trying to figure out ways to keep them from exploding to build something in to do so on purpose. Why build in a circuit to do it for you? Especially with all those sparks flying around the bridge every time the Enterprise hits a rut in the space-time continuum. Of course, I can understand the rationale of having the computer do it. The only way to sink your own sub, for example, short of ramming something, is to purposefully detonate a torpedo or other weapon on board - and can you imagine what a crewman would say if the captain told him to drop a grenade in the inspection hatch in order to keep the Romulans from getting their hands on the ship? I can guess - it would be mostly one-syllable, anglosaxon words.

Finally, bravo on the "committee leadership" issue. Nothing stuck in my craw more than Picard getting second-guessed by tubbo Riker, or even (gasp!) Troi, the spandex psychologist. She would've been picking up more tha vague feelings of discontent from me, I'll tell ya. Picard should have posted the entire bridge crew to a Klingon cruiser for a few weeks' refresher training in "followership". I'd've paid good money to hear him tell Riker, "Look Will, shut yer gob or you'll be cleaning the heads with your toothbrush the next time Laforge reverses polarity".

Well done.

Ensign Barclay had the right idea, "I AM THE GODDESS OF EMPATHY!"

I guess that's why he was actually a lieutenant, eh? (grin)

I have to agree with all of these, especially the Firefly comments. And to the person who asked about Firefly coming to DVD, I read a lot of rumors recently that they(FOX) would be releasing all the aired and a couple of un-aired episodes on DVD in the near future. I hope so.

Good comments, all, but you're overlooking one obvious problem about the holodeck: scheduling.

Given 4 holdecks on an Enterprise-D, running 24/7/365, each crewmember is allocated less than one hour per week. Yet, Geordi, Data, Barclay (or whoever) always find a holdeck empty and available for their use.

More realistic: Geordi rushes to Holodeck 3 to recreate Leah Brahms again, only to find it already occupied, running a program called "Debbie does Deneba."

Two Words: Firefly sucks.

"Dr Who reversed the polarity on NEUTRONS? Neutrons don't flow, and have no polarity!"

Hey, when you can travel through space and time you can argue with the good doctor. Now have a jelly baby and go to your room.

Well OF COURSE it's unrealistic! Some of the commenters are saying that as if it was a bad thing. If you really want realistic turn off the TV and live your life.

Anyway, great list. Hilarious. I've been a Star Trek fan since the very beginning. It's certainly possible to recognize the problems and laugh at stuff like this list and still think it's a great show.

Troi: I don't need to be an empath to tell you how she feels about Mr. Data.

Picard: And I don't need Giordi's visor to see that camel toe showing through your spandex outfit.

A very good and very funny list, but incomplete:

1). The immaterial energy creature problem: 45% of all problems are caused by same.

1a). Said creature is never found by a standard sensor scan.

1aa). Now that I think of it, did a standard sensor scan ever pan out?

1b). Luckily, a modified tachyon burst would invariably take care of the problem.

Conclusion: LaForge should bite the bullet and install a Large Red Button on Picard's chair arm: when pushed, it would generate a modified tachyon burst at will. Picard could then assure himself of a dull tour of duty by pushing the LRB at the first sign of trouble, or, indeed, whenever bored.

Moe

PS: Oh, yeah, no pockets on the uniforms. That was a bright idea...

>>Hey look! The leg-bars worked as advertised! There goes Kirk's torso!"
TOO funny.
I read an interview with Troi one time, she was in a scene with Picard and said, "He's hiding something Captain." Patrick Steward yelled back
"Of course he's hiding something you stupid cow!"
She yelled back, "I don't write this crap. I just say it, don't yell at me you ass."

Considering how far-right some of the commentary is here, and how leftist, populist, and Humanist Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek's writers were, I'm surprised anyone here likes Star Trek at all.

So, to all you Ferengi here: Firefly was good. But Farscape was better. :)

The most unrealistic thing about ST is, there are no contractors. I work in the federal government, and nothing, absolutely nothing, gets built or done without contractors.

Hardly any lawyers either -

Yes, the 10 things I hate about Star Trek was very amusing. And, sadly, downright accurate.

But unfortunately, that's what happens when a sequel show (ST:TNG)that was supposed to be about some semi-utopian future is created in the era when Political Correctness was both embryonic and should be retroactively aborted. But, since time-travel is an impossiblity, a "retroactive abortion" would be moot.

I agree with the whole technobabble issue. I think that while the technobabble was good for the series (it gave it a sense that certain things did at least work on a starship), it may not necessarily have been a good thing for the TNG movies. The idea of a feature film on the big screen is to try and draw in the largest mainstream audience possible. The classic Trek movies got this right. Back then, the technobabble (herein referred to as TB) was non existent, except for the occasional mention of the warp or impulse engines, or phasers, or photon torpedoes. Very abstract. Very analog. Easy to understand. (hey, that almost sounds like an advertising slogan.)

The Next Generation movies on the other hand, while good for Trek fans, were chock full of TB goodness (sarcastic). Everything was rooted in precision. The common movie goer who may simply have been looking for a good escapist science fiction movie(and on the unlikely chance had never even heard of Star Trek) might find the NEXT GENERATION movies to be a bit overwhelming in the TB department.

To give a good example of the simple vs. complex nature of the classic films vs. TNG films, let us utilize a controlled setting here. A scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan as played out in the original version, and as it would be played out by TNG.

CLASSIC:

SPOCK: (scanning) Sporadic energy readings, portside-aft. Could be an impulse turn.

NEXT GEN:

DATA: (scanning) Sporadic energy readings in the tertiary EM band. Judging by the dissipation rate of plasma, I would say it was an impulse turn in the portside-aft arc.

I would think that the common movie goer would go for brand "A" in our Taster's Choice test here.

I don't know why I posted all this. Just putting in my two cents worth. For all it's worth, I have been, and always shall be a Star Trek fan, as long as I like the stories.

And, just for the record: I think the biggest problems with the first three Next Gen movies (despite the fact that First Contact was a great story) is that they ended up translating almost perfectly to the small screen, thus looking like overblown two hour episodes, instead of big screen epics. At least NEMESIS (my favorite of ALL the Trek films now) did accomplish this.

But enough of my rantings. How was your day?

Peace,
Martok2112 (Hi bouncycait)

So I can't help but keep reading through all of these and it suddenly dawns on me that all of the series mentioned allowed people to walk around on new planets without the breathing apparatus or other life sustaining gear. Give me a break, just in our galaxy there is only one planet we have found that we can just "beam down and roam about" on... Of course, the obvious answer is that they were genetically manipulating the crew for the atmosphere that is present, but you think they would have mentioned that.

Also in the holodeck arena, I think they would have come up with a Virtual Reality sized one to allow usage in the state rooms; but that is just me...

Very good. Here are some other points to ponder:

Seatbelts: They don't need seatbelts, they need artificial gravity that doesn't go on the blink all the time. Remember, they're IN SPACE. If the artificial gravity keeps them to the deck, it shouldn't matter how that deck is spun around, unlike on earth.

Noisy doors: Not only are the doors noisy, but on the original show they're BRIGHT RED! In fact the whole show had WAY TOO MUCH RED, to show off NBC's living color.

The Federation: Planet-wide? More like UNIVERSE-wide! The ultimate liberal big-government wet dream. The US and Canada are federations. That means the constituent units (states and provinces) are not sovereign entities (can't wage war, mint money etc.) Imagine a universe where your whole PLANET has to answer to bureaucrats in another galaxy! Yech!

funny stuff. But now I'm sure you're on a list somewhere with radical fundamentalist trekkies.

Ummm...it's fictional television. That's why they don't have money, Geordi can fix anything by reversing polarity, and no one hits the can: BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT MAKES GOOD TV. If it got ratings, they would cut scenes in the middle to pause for someone taking a leak. But it's not, so they don't.

Attention people of Trekdom: please do not analyze this show in any other context other than, "It's a fricken TV show."

Thank you.

The problem with technobabble isn't that it's techie, or complex, or even that it's gibberish.

The problem is that it is used as a big ole' crutch by lazy writers who have backed themselves into a scriptural corner.

It's nothing more than a space-ified version of Batman's utility belt. Just as all hope seems to be lost, and the dynamic duo is being lowered into the shark cage, it turns out that Batman has bat-shark repellent in his utility belt! Yay!

The thing is, on Batman it was a JOKE. It was intended to be high camp. On Star Trek, it was a way for sloppy writers to solve problems without having to think too hard. Blech.

I have met the God in the Machine, and he had very ugly sideburns.

Food made in a food processor probably has no fat content so the uniforms will always fit nicely, and it probably creates no waste products which is why we never see toilets. This theory explains why the Enterprise crew was so shocked when the Hillbilly's they were transporting started cooking food aboard, it wasn't the open fire they were freaked about.

The thing that always bugged me so much about Star Trek was that it was so freakin' easy to take over the Enterprise. Every other week, the bad guys were showing up and locking the crew out of their own computers (probably Windows ME). Then they'd lock all the doors while LaForge was busy trying to reverse polarity and, voila, the'd sail her off wherever they wanted to. You'd think they'd have invented better security after the eighth or tenth time!

Jeddings:

Ooh, look, it's Mr. Cold-Water-of-Rationality Man. You know what? I'll analyze whatever the hell I want to in whatever context I want. For instance, what's with the lack of popular culture? Everyone is a big Shakespeare or Boring Traditional Ten-Thousand-Year-Old Vulcan-Wedding-Song fan. As if. Where is the crappy pop music and lousy for-the-masses theater? (Whether televized, holodeckized, or whatever.)

I loved Star Trek and the List was a real hoot to boot. One of the things that was bother some about Star Trek is that in spite of it's claims to respect individuality, they lived in a Police State. More or less what the Feds did was waste time flying around all day and night looking for some sort of trouble and finding it. I would think a Star Trek future would be rather boring. Day afer day wearing spandex all the time. they never have a jeans day day either. certainly nothing comfortable. yeah and it seems the Borg were sucessful in killing every inventor of the seat belt. The rest are morons since no one has figured out that the chairs really could use restraints. I intertial dampers are supposed to do that but always seem to fail when you need them. The comment on the fuses is funny too. they always seems to be frying something on that ship.

Why would they have to go to the bathroom? Wasn't there a transporter in every bladder and colon?

too funny... ;-)

I have been a low-level trekkie for years (ie, like to watch the shows but don't dress up as one for sf cons) but this hits a lot of points dead-on. had me LOL.

That's one reason I like ST:enterprise better than any of the others. They don't pretend they can kick everyone's butt that hey meet and they are more realistic (so far) in not pulling magical fixes out of engineering. Archer is less of a dork than Picard or other captains. Even the opening theme and images are best.

Besides, Tupal is just hotter than anyone ever on any ST before, particularly in the decon chamber. ;-) (yes, even hotter'n 7-of-9, though close)

Too bad it'll be years before ST:Ent comes out on DVD. I have no interest in seeing the older ST's on DVD, but would buy ST:Ent today if it were available.

You forgot:

All serious problems can be solved or avoided with a trip into the Jefferies tubes. Seriously, if I had to get at whatever whachamagigit as often as they do, I'd put it right behind one of those wall panels - not in some god-forsaken place on deck 22.

In the future, buttons don't need to be labeled with helpful labels like "hail" or "fire torpedoes". The ensigns of the future will know what that button is for by it's number or placement on the board.

Isn't it kind of sad that the post getting the most comments isn't even remotely political? Oh well, gotta go, Star Trek is on.

As Sean points out, didn't they ever have casual-friday on Enterprise?

Or at least 'ditch-the-freakin'-spandex' thursday?

That stuff's gotta chafe... ;(

Oh G_d don't get me started on ST: Enterprise! Capt. Archer is dull. I prefer a cultured captain like Picard but a Don Juan space cowboy like Kirk is at least interesting. And T'Pal is NOT a proper Vulcan. She has far less control of her emotions than Spock who was half-human.

Was I going to calibrate the modulators... or modulate the calibrators? Damn Giordi, I can never keep that straight.

Oh...I almost forgot what I really came back here for. Regarding #2. Yes I do believe that people would recreate Sherlock Holmes mysteries and Old West saloons as well as a lot of other fantasies. And don't forget, there was that episode where Riker created his Perfect Woman, a sultry thing named Minuet. Remember this dialog? (might not be word-for-word correct):

Riker:"How real are you?"

Minuet:"How real do you need me to be?

I think it's pretty clear what was going on there, don't you?

And she never came back...

This is too funny. Remember the Star Trek parody that was on Dr. Demento? The USS Boobyprise. The toilets backed up into the warp drive and Scotty tried fixing it by sticking a wiener into the drive. It didn't fix the problem but Scotty was wondering if they had a "wee bit of mustard" on the bridge. Kirk looking for an alien to fall in love with before the end of the show. When the alarm went off it sounded...

"plot complication, plot complication"

It was a gas!

#4: Actually, you could stop at "Kirk and Spock beam down to the planet." The Captain and First Officer both off the ship in a possibly hazardous zone? No, you send Ensign Gomez and Spaceman First Class Dribble. If they happen to make it back, and found something really important, then you can let Spock go investigate. With a squad of Marines to make sure he gets back. But you don't leave the ship in the hands of Scotty unless it's docked at Starfleet.

Hello,

Whomever wrote this isn't as up to date on
things as he/she may think. Personally it sounds
to me that someone just likes to complain. It is
sad when someone also doesn't UNDERSTAND a genre;
nobody cleans the holodeck it cleans itself, the
panels erupt EVEN with circuit breakers as the
feedback of the powergrid is in gigawatt range
and will traverse any available conduit, obese
people are RARE in TREK as synthetic nematodes have been put into them. There are only 2 things I do agree with in this posting:
1. Yes, LaForge did invert polarities WAY too
many times. I look at the writers needing some
story ideas from current novelists.
2. Yes, "Firefly" is/was a good series. It died
way too soon for me, hell it was just starting to
really get going deep. Hopefully SCI-FI will pick
it up where the network fumbled the ball.

P.S. If the technobabble bothers you, a dictionary
would do you some good. Take a class in Latin.

Wow. Do your mom and dad let you post after 8?

Every time they encounter something unusual, the energy readings are "off the scale." Why don't the ever recalibrate the energy sensors sothat they're operating on a useful scale?

MyBoomStick:

* Star Trek is not a genre.

* The holodeck point is OK.

* In modern days, it doesn't take a gigawatt to power a console, as evidenced by the fact that they managed to power it to film things in real life and it didn't take a gigawatt. Only an idiot would consistently run gigawatts to consoles, over and over again, that have no use for that much power. And no, it won't traverse "any available circuit" or it would *always* blow out the instant it was turned on, it wouldn't wait for someone to stand in front of it while the ship was being shot at.

* Never heard of synthetic nematodes. Sounds like crap.

* Latin only helps you understand how incredibly crappy the technobabble is; it's just random latin things strung together and hung either on "tachyons" (physics has named them but they almost certainly don't exist) or something ending in "-ions" that also doesn't exist and follows no discernable rules. It's still crap.

I mention this because if the authors didn't think exactly the way people like you seem to, perhaps lists like this posting wouldn't need to be made. Which would be a pity in a wierd way, since they are pretty funny.

And let's not forget two of my favorites: "You know, that technology we discovered/invented last week would sure come in handy now, but it seems we've all forgotten about it, even Data." and "Gosh, the [technology] we had last week would have been sufficient to save the day but it seems that our technology's power dropped by 80% this week and now we can't save the world. Pity we can't wait until next week where the technology will suddenly be a thousand times more powerful... still not powerful enough to solve next week's problem but it sure would handily solve this week's..."

Some people need a life pretty bad i see

Love the list. If you've never seen the original Star Trek blooper reel, by the way, I envy you... because you get to experience it for the first time.

Seeing the generic engineer shoveling coal into the warp engines is simply hilarious.

Someone who's not as lazy as I am should make a Star Trek Technobabble Generator. Start with a verb: plus "the" and an adjective or modifier:

and a noun at the end:

Sort of like Mad Libs for dorks.

I can sort of understand that in the future that automated production has eliminated most scarecity. But, how do you motivate people to do the worst jobs without financial incentive. It's one thing to be Chief O'Brien on the Flagship of the Fleet, Enterprise. The Captain depends on you and you have the Esprit De Corps of the Federation Fleet. But what if you're the maintinence tech on Dirtball IV. How did the Federation get you to take that job, supervising the sewer 'bots, when the pleasure planet Ryza beckons. Is it like the Soviet Union, with internal passports to tie everybody to their planet of origin? Another thing, what do people do all day? Practically everything is automated. There is no commerce, insurance, banking, telemarketing. If most people in the Federation have become members of the leisure class, where is the output of their collective brain effort?

What if you create unique art that you refuse to let the Feds make a bazillion copies of with replicator technology? Will they punish you if you trade your art for something else of value?

I guess my chief complaint about Next Gen is they took the humanity out of Human society.

STG:NG was at times as unintentionally hilarious as its predecessor. Who can forget Data punching a touchscreen and saying "manual override does not work, Captain". What ever happened to real switches? Maybe if Geordie had a valve or two to turn down in Engineering, he wouldn't be trying to reverse polarities or dump the warp core.

There's lots more, but something about applying violence to a deceased equine springs to mind...

Hey, at least they finaly came up with the leg restraints. During ST:TOS they didn't even think to get Scotty up on the bridge with some drywall screws and a DeWalt and bolt the freakin' chairs to the deck!

The holodeck was entirely necessary though. What else were you going to do when the writers, who had decided that the Federation had abolished money, quit when the didn't get the raises they were expecting? Gotta have something that the associate producers could used to concoct a story line!

I like the costumes on Babylon 5 way better!

Eric: the bloopers are even more fun when you had Roddenberry there explaining them. The guy shoveling coal into the engines was executive producer Gene L. Coon.

And Scott: someone, I forget who, but someone released the actual Technobabble Generator they used on one of the Trek series. It was a "one from column A, one from column B, one from column C" arrangement, and it worked like a charm. I'd bet you can still get the book it was in...

Jeremy: preach it brothah. Whyinheck would anyone use anything more than about 5 volts DC for a control circuit?

Lastly: Firefly is the best science-fiction series that ever aired on television, period, and the Fox television network needs to DIIIIIIEEEEEE DIE DIE DIE SCREAMING BLOODY DEATH DIE DIE.

Ahem.

Thank you.

"The whole Federation thing always bugged me. There's no need for money any more? Does that mean there's no scarcity? Can I have the Feds whip up my own starship for me? Or are there limits? If there are limits, who decides who gets what?"

I would bet that you could run a capitalist society without money, as long as you had good enough portable, wirelessly networked computers and the right software. Your automated bartering software would calculate the optimum series of deals to turn what you have into what you want. Everyone else's would too.

The problem with barter is that it's slow and cumbersome. Let the computers handle it, and things run a lot more smoothly. You might even end up better off than if you were using money, since natural and politically induced fluctuations in the supply of whatever you're using for money would be eliminated.

"I can sort of understand that in the future that automated production has eliminated most scarecity. But, how do you motivate people to do the worst jobs without financial incentive."

A massively automated society with magic replicators still has uses for trade. Such a society would basically trade three things: energy, services, and intellectual propery (a category that includes replicator blueprints or autofactory programs). Copyright law would take on an importance that we primitives couldn't even imagine.

Posted by: Andrea Harris on May 12, 2003 04:11 PM

For instance, what's with the lack of popular culture? Everyone is a big Shakespeare or Boring Traditional Ten-Thousand-Year-Old Vulcan-Wedding-Song fan. As if. Where is the crappy pop music and lousy for-the-masses theater? (Whether televized, holodeckized, or whatever.)

---------------------------------------------------------------

There's no pop culture in Star Trek because of two reasons:

1) Modern pop culture intellectual property costs MONEY to acquire the rights to use it. (The only reason Garibaldi loved Daffy Duck cartoons in Babylon 5 was that B5 was owned and distributed by Warner Brothers.)

2) When TV writers attempt to create the "pop culture of the future," you generally end up with really cheesy stuff like "Buck Rogers In The 25th Century" or "Battlestar Galactica."

Though I like the cheese of Buck Rogers, I certainly don't want it stinkin' up my Star Trek. :)

*sigh* I sure do miss Firefly.

I heard that it will be released on dvd. And then I will own that dvd. Hah!

I didn't read every comment, so I hope this hasn't already been mentioned:

Regarding the Holodeck. . . it's "other uses" aside, how many times does that friggin' thing have to almost kill someone before people *stop* using it!?!

"A Star Trek quiz:
Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and 'Ensign Gomez' beam down to a planet. Which one isn't coming back?"

Rotflmao!! Thanks for that laugh. :-D

Glad to see some people standing up for the Time Lords. I should also point out that the 6th Doctor realized that, rather than reversing polarity, the secret was to "reverse the neutrality of the proton flow," which sounds pretty zen to me. So if you want the secret to traveling in time and space, there it is.

Unlimited rice pudding!

Regarding #4: Mad magazine pegged this way back. My dad had an old Mad Magazine from the 60's (I think) with a Star Blech parody article. Back then Mad's big schtick was to make everything a musical set to a semi-current song, and I still remember some of the lyrics to one of their songs (sung to the tune of "Aquarius")

"When your crew goes through the galaxy
To distant worlds, way past Mars
Be sure that your adventuring
Does no-ot kill off your stars
And you can do it with a crew that's dispensable, crew that's dispensable
Dispensable!

Minor actors that you bring on
Perish when you meet a Klingon!
One-time players not seen later
Vanish in a planet's crater!
Those of us who try to aid them
Fail because the script has made them
Dis-pens-i-ble! "

Good stuff.

""I can sort of understand that in the future that automated production has eliminated most scarecity. But, how do you motivate people to do the worst jobs without financial incentive.""

"A massively automated society with magic replicators still has uses for trade. Such a society would basically trade three things: energy, services, and intellectual propery (a category that includes replicator blueprints or autofactory programs). Copyright law would take on an importance that we primitives couldn't even imagine."

Ken,

In a land of plenty, what could they trade you for your unique artistic contribution? Fame?

Additionally, what about the worst jobs? The ones that can get you killed? The ones with the worst hours or working conditions? Why would anybody take those jobs? Anti-social loners and masochists have been weeded out of the gene pool, so where're your potential employees to come from?

Productivity drives progress. No reward = No productivity = No progress.

Never mind the inadequate safety provisions in the holodeck and transporter: In the 24th century even the occult secret of the Otis elevator brake has been forgotten. The turbolifts threaten to plunge down the shaft at the slightest provocation.

(I'll give them some credit: The use of the holodeck for holo-wanking was actually implied several times, if mostly in subtext.)

Absolutely hilarious!!!!
But what I've always hated most aboout Star Trek (or at least since TNG) is that Starfleet Academy is the most exclusive school in the Galaxy, but half it's graduates are human. I mean Wesley Crusher, supposedly a super genius, couldn't get in because they only took one applicant from whatever part of the galaxy he was in, and someone else did better on the entrance tests. Apparently their quota for Earth is many, many times larger. Wouldn't a UN-style bureaucracy like the Federation have some form of affirmative action? And how the hell did Worf get in? I doubt his strength was taking tests. It's like the UN being controlled primarily by the US, without anyone minding.
Another thing that bugged me is when a new treaty would hand control of a planet over to some empire, like the Cardassians. These people has lived in peace and freedom with Federation protections and now all of a sudden their planet is being given to a fascist military dictatorship with a history of brutally occupying alien planets (i.e., Bajor), and the Federation has no problem with this. Of course, the UN wouldn't either.

Okay, a pretty funny list and all, but I feel I must point out one vital fact about point number 5 (rule by committee). In the Firefly example you cite, the lines you attribute to 'captain' are in actual fact said by Jayne, the mercenary. In that particular scene, the first officer and captain were unavoidably detained, and the rest of the group were trying to decide what to do. Shortly after Jayne delivers that line, he's sedated by the doctor, specifically so that they *can* decide on their course of action as a committee. In fact, (IMHO) the crew of the Serenity are generally a lot less strict about the chain of command than any crew of any of the Enterprises- would Scotty or Geordi ever refuse to obey orders because their Captain made some sarcastic comments about how they'd look in a fancy dress? I doubt it!
Firefly is, without a doubt, the best sci-fi series on TV since Babylon 5, at the very least, and the gross incompotence shown by Rupert Murdoch's minions at Fox in cancelling this show should be considered a crime against humanity.

The Federation - a union of myriad worlds, cultures and technologies. The wealth of a large protion of known space and the wherewithall to build starships to traverse same.

So how come every two-bit first contact the Enterprise stumbles upon comes as close to blowing up Enterprise as a M.O.A.B. does to bringing the Stone Age back to Iraq instead of being blown out of space with Federation superweapons?

Every alien aggressor seems to have either far superior technology or roughly equivilant, yet somehow more deadly, means of destruction. The Federation is looking more wimpy every day.

And how Bugs Bunny stopped him by stealing the Illudium Q36 Space Modulator?

That's the Illudium Q36 Explosive Space Modulator. :)

here is a link to a book called "The Physics of Star trek" It has just about every comment above listed..plus a lot more...great book!!!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060977108/103-4299939-4622264?vi=glance

best line of the book:" The Main Mistake made on Star Trek is they split an infinitive every damn time: To boldly go....!"
tooo funny:-)

So I'm perusing the referrer logs, and I see that we've been linked by http://www.wilwheaton.net/.

Uh oh, thinks I. He's gonna be pissed about the "Captain, I'm just a punk" crack. But it turns out he actually thought the list was funny, and had some nice comments about it.

Wil Wheaton's a cool guy. From now on, he gets totally free access to Happy Fun Pundit!

The rest of you... PAY UP!

What I kept waiting to see was Dr. Crusher "coming to" and realizing that any injured part of a body, short of the head itself, could be replaced instantly by a 'medical replicator.' Just beam on a new arm to replace that mangled or burned one--from stored replicator info and surgery table coordinates.

This would end all the bigger penis spam as well. "Say Doc, as long as I'm here..."

I don't know. I am drunk, but I love ST: TNG. Beverly was fucking hot!

OMG-- I loved it!! I got every one of those does that make me a Trek geek??? ah who cares I love Star Trek!!!

BTW-- I reversed the polarity on my cell phone and the Aliens fom Area 51 would like to order a large cheese pizza, two 2 lieter cokes and 10 hot wings.

Y'all got low, low standards. Star Trek is like this enormous, swollen red balloon hanging in the air right in front of you just begging to be popped and the best the list can come up with is "they'd have used the holodeck for porn?". I can do funnier things with a hemmorhoid and a needle.

LOL

You know, that was SO much better than I thought it was going to be...

Wow, I haven't laughed that hard from something online in a VERY long time.

Thanks. :)
Jen

Another thing was the friggin' shields; they sucked. Two laser blasts and you were at the mercy of the borg. They would have been better off if they had covered the Enterprise in panty shields. Woulda saved money too.

Why did Giordi wear an automobile air filter on his head.

James T. Kirk: outerspace pimp.

Oh, and I believe Dr. Beverly Crusher's middle name was Ball.

That is a great list.

Also Sorry folks, while Firefly was good, Farscape was much better. I mean, who else can not only swap the character's personalities to the others' bodies, but also let them play with the newly acquired private bits? Come on, that is hilarious!!

I came over from Wil Wheaton's blog. Absolutely wonderful! #2 is most amusing.

The list was a hoot.
People, it's a freakin' TV show.
For those of you who analyzed, reanalyzed and over analyzed this-
Get. A. Life.
Your social retardation is showing.

one of the main things that has always bothered me about ST (any of them), is that if you can go warp 9, why the hell would you go warp 5? I'm no physicist, but once you're up to warp 9, can't you just shut off the engine and continue at warp 9 until the time comes when you have to slow down? Or does that whole "warp field" thing get in the way of inertia?

btw, the latter years of DS9 were the best ST stories ever, in my humble opinion.

"The Main Mistake made on Star Trek is they split an infinitive every damn time: To boldly go....!"

Contrary to what you may have heard in school... split infinitives are not necessarily wrong, and to avoid them often means introducing unnecessary awkwardness. Since about 1908 grammarians have been arguing that this is an out of date rule.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive

Do a google search for split infinitive if you don't believe me.

I've been a Trekkie since the original show aired in Primetime and this list is GREAT! I was also a Farscape, Firefly and Babylon5 fan, as well. I think I may have a problem; there are no "sci-fi fans anonymous" in my town. Thanx for a great site.
LLAP

Where is the Earth Shattering Kaboom?

To all those guys and gals who make the comments like 'its only a TV Show, Get a Life', I say 'Get a life' right back at ya - we're just having fun !! Know what that is - or are you too anal ?

I just peed in my Spandex, I laughed so hard. Where on this damn ship is the laundry room?

krome,

That is a very interesting observation. The short answer is probably to save on gas. However, what's really interesting is when they were doing warp 9 then went to a complete stop how come no one's guts plastered the view screen? We already know they don't wear seat belts. I mean, I myself have had some sudden stops, only once was I going over the speed of light and that was due to, um, cold medicine, but warp 9 to 0 that stop woulda been a mofo, if you know what I mean.

And how about the food replicator? I wonder if you could order chitlins or mountain oysters? Hmmm

"Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and 'Ensign Gomez' beam down to a planet. Which one isn't coming back?"

And what color shirt is he wearing? Red, of course!

I was always bothered because the rooms never had showers or toilets.

People keep making comments about the lack of Money on Star Trek. Hello what about Gold Pressed Latinum? I guess that was only used by races that couldn't make enough replicators.

Think about it though money would be pointless if we all had replicators. Just try to sell me something, i would tell you to piss off and replicate it once i got home.

You could also just replicate more money, it sort of confuses me why people didn't just replicate gold pressed latinum.

Another Wil Wheaton blog reader here. Say what you want about the guy's character on TNG but the man himself is hysterical. Therefore I trusted his opinion and came here...and promptly spit on my computer monitor from manaical cackling. Seriously there is Brisk all over the place now (missed the keyboard, thank a diety if you feel the need).

Firefly and Farscape (and many other cancelled shows that, admittedly, have their flaws) are the two best SF shows (or shows in general for that matter) that have ever graced my TV screen. Their creators, the evil Joss Whedon and David Kemper (both of whom i HATE in the best way possible), should seriously teach a class on how to write good TV. I mean even if Buffy is not your thing, you have to admit that 1) it is well written within its own context and 2) like most genre fiction, is a heck of a lot better than 90% of the rest of the frelling garbage on TV.

Oh no....I just used Scape slang in public...er sort of. Wait I did it again. I am a hopeless nerd who needs to get a life.

All these sci-fi shows take themselves too seriously for me. My favorite space TV show of all time was the short-lived QUARK (1978) with Richard Benjamin heading the intergalactic trash collection vessel. Who could not adore the "twins" Betty and her clone Betty? The way she (or she) would snap at plant-being Ficas "PLANT!"? Not for everyone, apparently.

One presumes that gold pressed latinum cannot be replicated, as Quark would have figured it out about six seconds after the Federation arriving on DS9 (Cardassian replicators are inferior creatures, as everyone knows).

The list was pretty funny. Especially the bit about fuses; I'd always wondered (even as a little kid) about the kind of people who'd arrange things so that every time a ship (with poor shielding and a crew exhibiting at best a variable willingness to actually shoot its enemies) got fired on, every console would explode.

Re: bathrooms? We've seen sinks and rooms with doors right next to said same (remember "Imaginary Friend"?).

And hear, hear re: everyone being captain and still having their same jobs. Almost as silly as Janeway's 7-year mission, in which no one got promoted at all. The only reason Naomi and Icheb got promoted in the alternate universe future place was that Chakotay and Janeway, obsessive-compulsive control freaks with a fixation on their own power over everyone else, were dead. It's not like she'd have to give them raises, after all (since there's no money in Starfleet, except when you want to buy fabric at Farpoint Station) At least we know that Scotty hung out on the Enterprise for decades because Kirk was cool and the Enterprise was the only ship doing anything interesting...

Analyzing this stuff is a blast. Especially considering the fact that most of America is content to analyze drivel like "Survivor: The Amazon" and "American Idol."

Last comment about all this. If the food replicator somehow got its polarity reversed, say by maintenance negligence by Giordi, and for a week all the crew had to eat for lunch and dinner was chili with beans, a side of boiled cabbage, a bran muffin for dessert, and hot black coffee and for breakfast there was only shredded wheat with prune juice, and hot black coffee. My guess is by day four without any restrooms on board, as pointed out by "the Nub", there'd be a crisis. The ship's gift shop probably couldn't handle the demand for toilet paper, adult diapers, and Glade Air Freshener. Yessir by day 7 you'd have a flying colostomy bag doing warp 9 for starbase 12 for the hoseout and the $500 detail.

Damn that's enough!

OK one other thing. Say what you like about the show Enterprise, but I would shag the points off T'Pau and put her in a wheelchair.

Troi was a waste of script lines.

SCENE: Alien on screen, eye bulging, steam coming out of his ears, spitting mad.

TROI: Captain, I sense anger here.
/End Scene

Besides her incredible insights, she was a nosy busy body, the Mrs. Cravitz of outer-space.

Another Wil blog reader here. Priceless List! I'm a bit of a Trekkie by marriage. Faboulous! ROFL!

Whenever the script writers were at a loss, they would screw around with time. You could count on at least 10 episodes a season where there were disruptions in the time-space continuum.

And why is that all aliens looked human except for funny foreheads?

"The Prime Directive.
How stupid is this?"

It isn't, perhaps one day when (if) you grow up you'll understand this.

firefly sucked. pure and simple, the ratings said tht too - thus it's being cancelled.

it was bad like stinky cheese in the heat.

don't blame fox, they put it on too remember? the whole series was rewired AFTER the pilot so it would suck less, it was doomed.

Damn thats funny. I still want to know how data did Tasha.

:)

Excellent list!

A couple of additions of my own:

1) Federation computers must be a hacker's paradise. Usual dilogue when someone tries to open a file they don't have access to:

Star Fleet Officer: Computer, open
Computer: Unable to comply
Officer: Computer, override authorization

2) When something malfunctions on the ship, Giordi's first response (before reversing polarity) is to run a Level 1 Diagnostic, which always shows everything is OK. Time to ditch the diagnostics, they never work.

You forgot one--"If you ever encounter an alien race, the vast majority (99%) will merely have a slightly bumpy nose or forehead--And dear GODS, they all wear spandex too!

Thus, the Great Fashion Atrocity of 3015...and clearly the only battle the Federation *lost*."

The top ten was pretty funny. Star Trek fan since I was kid in the 80s. I have to disagree that Firefly was the best SF show. If anyone mentions Farscape that was or is far the best SF show ever existed. To bad that it was raped and murdured by Scifi Channel. It still makes me mad to this day.

If you want to laugh your ass off some more, go to the Church of Shatnerology website:

http://www.shatnerology.com/

The best part is the list of 115 (or so) reasons Kirk was better than Picard:

http://www.shatnerology.com/kirk.html

Here's a quote:

"Kirk once made a cannon out of bamboo, sulfur, potassium nitrate and charcoal, and fired diamonds into the heart of his enemies. (Need we say more?)"

I always liked how the shields could only take 2 hits from an "inferior" vessel before they could barely hang on, but the Borq took hours to get through the modulated shields.

Also, what good were the transporters? They could beam 300,000 bodies a day from the ship to the surface of a planet, but could not ever lock on when needed to a person flying a shuttle craft less than 1 mile away...

While this is wonderful, in fairness to TNG, the special effects guys did stick a toilet into the core the Borg took out of the Enterprise in the first contact episode.

The one relating this also explained why there were so few space battles: they cost money to create. (Not that more would have been better, seeing as how badly scripted most in the show were.)

Coming late to the thread, and I don't know if it was mentioned, but why was every crew member on Star Trek an officer?

Where were the grunts, the swabbies, the seamen?

Too many clueless brass hats; no wonder the Enterprise was always getting taken over.

No wonder you don't like ST:TNG; you're all neo-cons. You can't see any motivation other than money or sex. God forbid someone give themselves to an organization for the thrill or challenge or prestige. If all your corporeal needs are met by replicators, what else is there for you to do? To prevent their society from degenerating into slothfulness, they instilled themselves and their children with a thirst for exploration and challenge, and strong work ethic.

Maybe there's a reason ST:TNG lasted for seven seasons and Firefly got killed after one: People don't want to see greedy, ignorant people in the future. They want to have hope that we'll grow beyond that.

Paco, thank you so much for coming here and educating us. Your wisdom and knowledge shine like the gold you must shit, unlike us moronic "neo-cons".

It must suck being you. You can't even enjoy a goofy discussion about Star Trek without being political. Go watch The West Wing or something and fuck off.

1. Technology and trade...
Dilithium miners. These guys are indispensible because all the matter/anti-matter engines are regulated thru the dilithium crystals.
2. Trade and commerce...
These dilithum miners are always looking for hot, drug-improved wives.

Who wants to watch a show about swabbies and seamen?
They did one episode about the young ensigns on the ship, 4 of them?
Bored the shit outta me!

Star Wars should devote less time to Jedis and more time to Jawas.

Alfred E. Neumann: This discussion was pretty much political from the outset- Right from the point where the author suggests that the thought of a world without poverty or bickering, infighting governments might in any way be construed as something other than progress. (That would be the third paragraph).

And Paco, it's actually pretty ironic that these guys all love firefly- Joss Whedon pretty much said right from the start that the Alliance represented America, sometimes being the good guys, like in WW2, other times, like Vietnam, not so much, and that Mal, being (metaphorically) Vietnamese, couldn't see that they were also sometimes good. Equally, the plan to set up a Soft Drink Company (Blue Sun) as the big bad couldn't possibly be interpreted as a metaphor for how capitalism screws up life for the working class, could it? And is it also not possible that the reason the show got mismanaged to death was related to the fact that show was on a network owned by a right wing warmonger, and that it portrayed America as a country who possibly doesn't always have the best interests of the rest of the world at heart, and capitalism as a system which isn't entirely perfect?

Oh, and as regards Farscape: It sucked, just admit it. It was never funny, their enemies were one dimensional at best, the characters were cliched. It lasted longer than the original series of star trek, and only got axed because the producers refused to take a budget cut. Get over it!

Ok, first of all --Quark rocked. I still miss it.

Second, ST:Enterprise is a dog. The writing is so bad it is embarrasing. I think they pick the scripts out of the trash behind the UPN studios. Or the stock file -oh, uptight Foreign/Alien Princess rescued by plucky American who "fall in love" (or skinny dip-same difference) before the third act. PUH-lease.

Third, the list is funny as all get out and I'm a WWdotNet referree.

Forth, it isn't Troi's fault that they wrote her part so badly. They still do. THe last movie was all Data (gee, maybe b/c he co-wrote it???) and almost zero Troi and Dr. C. Very poor form.

Fifth, there was one episode about the grunts and even then, they had to kill one off. See, if your job is all science, with no decision making, where is the drama in that? Oh, you are late with your space dust report!!! Ouch. Besides, they have too much staff as it is --don't the computers do/know everything by then?

Yet another Wil Wheaton blog reader here. This is freakin' hilarious. Especially the Star Trek Quiz. I can't wait to see what other stuff you post.

The best part about being Ensign Gomez was that, no matter the episode, the actor only had to memorize a single line of dialogue -

"Captain, I've found something...GAHHHHHHHH!"

I would like to second, third and fourth the comments on T'Pau's hotness; Dr. Crusher was definitely eye candy, but Troi in season 2 or 3 was smokin'! Was she really there as "Ship's Counselor?" "Physical Therapist" is more like it.

I always suspected that there were these 200' tall walls around Federation HQ in SanFran, manned 24/7 by Star Fleet Marines to keep the proles from breaking into their little utopia. All the talk about how great live on Earth was was pure propoganda, propogated by the elites; in reality, 99% of humanity toiled away in the spandex mines to provide uniforms for their betters.

You left out something from the original Star Trek: Captain Kirk; "Blow 'em all to hell." Crewman; "Are you sure that's wise, Captain?" Kirk; "Ok, let me beat the hell out of them first so I can look really manly and Spock can stand behind me quietly disabling all the baddies that try to sneak up on me."

M.Kahn:

Thank you , thank you, thank you, for injecting your own brand of poisonous invective into this fun thread! Gosh, I thought we'd be able to go 20 or 30 posts without someone funking up the place with your pseudo-intellectual name-calling

Oh, and as regards Communisim: It sucked, just admit it. It was never effective, their economics were one dimensional at best, the dictators were cliched. It lasted longer than the original Russian Empire, and only got axed because the Soviet Military refused to take a budget cut. Get over it!

Watched all ST even when I thought the money was wasted just because it was ST. Can hardly type from the tears streaming down my face! This is funny and dead-on.

For the record NEMESIS is WRATH OF KHAN -- why do so few see this? They only left out "The needs of the many..." line to completely rip-off the original.

FIREFLY & B5 (all but season 5) great!

Farscape, B5 (Season 5) create a large vaccuum!

Um, Regarding #5 on your list:

There was a chain on Farscape? Hmm... I must have missed that one.

g

Thanks for reminding me that Firefly was cancelled. *weeps uncontrollably*

There were two best SF shows on my tube this year, and they both began with F and they both were on Friday nights, and they both got canceled prematurely. Farscape and Firefly. I hope we meet again.....

You're all way off-base. The best SF show of recent memory was Futurama:

"When Zap Brannigan is in command, every mission is a suicide mission!"

Futurama also begins with an 'F'. Coincidence? I think not.

This is so unbelievably stupid written by someone who obviously thinks he's funny. Some free advise buddy... don't give up your day job.

10. Boy, I'm bustin' a gut with the wd-40 crack. I'd better like it, cause you keep using again and again...

9. Here you just look like a fool. They didn't abolish money. It's called "credits" and not "dollars".

8. Reverse the polarity. That one is so good, you should mention it more. oh ... wait a minute.

7. Do they have seatbelts in the command center of navy vessels? Think about it. Again... another stupid idea.

6. Have you ever been in an industrial setting where sparks might fly? Obviously not... you're sitting at home on your computer writing lame blogs.

5. There's no doubt, TNG was freaking stupid. Why you felt it necessary to come up with something equally stupid is beyond me.

4. Boy... this is funny. Ummm.. Gomez, right?

3. We can only wish you would reverse the polarity on your car battery.

2. The holodeck has always been a dumb idea. They created it because the writers on TNG were so awful they couldn't stay within the framework they had set up for themselves.

1. Get your reference right.

---

Also, that split infinitive comment which has been made. We are talking about English, not French, or Spanish, or Italian. Although English has taken a lot from latin based languages, it is not itself a latin based language. To split an infinitive is not poor English. This kind of comment is just brought up by language weenies who should really just, "Get a life".

---

The apparent communist society of Star Trek never bothered me. I've often thought that communism would only work in the Star Trek universe, where you apparently have 1) unlimited energy and 2) the ability to turn energy into any kind of matter. In other words, you no longer have the conflict of unlimited wants and limited resources.

It's hard to draw conclusions about the overall society in Star Trek when all you see is the most prestigious starship, populated by the most knowledgable and driven staff. For all we know, there might be 12 billion shiftless, lazy bums on Earth.

It's interesting to think what would happen in a world where one didn't have to work. Would there be billions of bums, or would people want to work out of boredom? One guess is that there would be a whole lot more untalented artists, writers, and actors in such a world.

My biggest complaint about Star Trek is the large number of (humanoid) races which have all developed societies, at the same time, within about 4000 years of human development, and most about level with Earth's development. What are the odds? You never see primitive hunters and gatherers, or a race significantly superior to humans. At least the all aliens are humanoid part was explained in one episode.

Having seen original Trek through today's (tho DS9 bored me no end and could NOT stand to watch for any length of time), this is a hilarious list!

Of all the SF-type shows on TV, Farscape was undeniably the best thing going. (How can you beat TB lines like 'Stand still or I'll fill you with ... little yellow bolts of light!') Hope Rockne, David & the Hensen mob get a chance to finish the arc of their incredibly imperfect universe.

Great list! One thing that always bugged me about the TNG show was the way they'd have some character give a completely unbelievable speech at the end of the episode. A classic example was the episode were Tasha Yar dies; fortunately she had recorded a holograph so she could say goodbye to each of the characters in turn. Or the one where the guy was using the holodeck to construct a fantasy life, and he comes up to the bridge to deliver this sappy, "Gee, I'm sorry" speech.

Ok, couple really important comments.

One - the all time best SF on TV was the original Twilight Zone. All the others were a distant second place at best.

Second- Space Above and Beyond was not bad, heavily into character.

Third - the points about the fuses and seat belts should be engraved on SF producer's forheads.

Fourth- I'd like to find a source for reasonably priced sugar babies.

Fifth - In any SF show where someone activates something, and the heros can't deactivate it, cause the villian bypassed the safeties, or locked out the controls - go to that junction box on the wall of every system that has ever been built, and flip off the main power switch, or open it and cut the wires, or take a hammer and knock it off the wall.
No computer in the world can lock out cut power leads.

Ok, couple really important comments.

One - the all time best SF on TV was the original Twilight Zone. All the others were a distant second place at best.

Second- Space Above and Beyond was not bad, heavily into character.

Third - the points about the fuses and seat belts should be engraved on SF producer's forheads.

Fourth- I'd like to find a source for reasonably priced sugar babies.

Fifth - In any SF show where someone activates something, and the heros can't deactivate it, cause the villian bypassed the safeties, or locked out the controls - go to that junction box on the wall of every system that has ever been built, and flip off the main power switch, or open it and cut the wires, or take a hammer and knock it off the wall.
No computer in the world can lock out cut power leads.

*snicker*

This'll get me flamed, I'm sure (which is why I won't bother reading the comment thread after this), but you know...I never liked Star Trek all that much. I saw enough of it to get the references that the author made, and to laugh my ass off at them. The thread, though, completely illustrates *precisely* why I never got interested in the genre.

It is. A. TV. Show.

It is not a religion.

Also, and it's called a sense of humor. Sounds like some people should get one!

Loved this list, very funny. Made the mistake of reading it at work. Everyone around me thought I had lost my mind.

BTW,
the best ST movie? First Contact.
the BEST scfi show EVER? Stargate-SG1.

"Wisdom" - The Prime Directive was stupid, or at least way too rigid. Capt. Kirk knew this and broke it in nearly every episode and even the generally straight-laced Capt. Picard bent it a little when necessary. The Prime Directive was nothing but a combination Leftist propaganda/stupid plot device.

Regarding aliens with bumpy foreheads, my all time worst ST pet peeve is the Klingons in TNG vs. the Klingons in the original. What happened there? Did the entire race mutate in less than 100 years? Did they decide to do some genetic engineering because they wanted to look scarier? Or are we just supposed to ignore the difference?

Uh, Pious? I'm trying to find a point somewhere in your post.... nope, still looking...can't find anything which remotely resembles addressing any of the points I actually raised. I'm actually quite proud that I can be deemed 'pseudo-intellectual' on the basis of a mere 5 paragraphs of light discussion of various science fiction TV shows, and that you deem my 'poisonous invective' sufficiently original to be described as 'my own brand'.
Now, fair enough, I may have been a bit harsh as regards Farscape, but the fact is, I'm only able to make such comments because I actually watched the show on a regular basis. It just pisses me off that people are making out that Farscape was this awesome, groundbreaking show, when ultimately, the most amazing thing about it was it's ability to be so consistantly average. It shouldn't have been cancelled, but it wasn't exactly a major tragedy that it was, and I think a lot of the blame for this belongs to the farscape producers themselves.
Oh, and by the way, what's with your bizarre rant about Communism? When did I ever express any kind of liking for, or belief in the principles of Communism? When did I even mention Communism?
Also, could you please explain the comment about namecalling? The only person I called anything resembling a name was Rupert murdoch, when I called him a right wing warmonger. Now I'm pretty sure that, were Rupert Murdoch here right now he'd be the first to admit his politics are basically fairly right wing, and as for warmonger (noun, One who advocates or attempts to stir up war), I'd say that Fox news and the Sun and various other organisations he owns could be perfectly legitimately described as having advocated the war. But I'm sure he appreciates your spirited rush to his defence against...completely accurate and inoffensive descripitions of him.

I love the "reversing polarity" stuff!

I always thought the biggest annoyance was all of these alien women that Kirk somehow managed to seduce. You're telling me that they all had the same genitals that humans have? I didn't see Kirk didn't carry around an adapter kit.

a will wheaton blog reader directed this way!
That list was funny as hell!!

now let us a take a moment of silence in the memory of ensign Gomez
..........
"swoooz' Who opened the damn door durning our moment of silence?

Uh, Messeur Kahn? Your points about Farscape may be well taken, it's a matter of opinion after all, I guess it just aggravated me that you felt in necessary to dump over people who obviously enjoyed and miss the show. You feel otherwise, and that's fine.

What I find "ironic" is that you see Firefly as a metaphor for the US and Vietnam, when thematically and stylistically it is obvious a fable about the aftermath of the Civil War. Mal was on the losing side of a war between a powerful federal government and an independence movement of aligned planets. As a consequence, he sets out for the wilderness, much like many Confederate soldiers headed west in the 1870s. So, Mal’s discontent stems more from a yearning for “State’s Rights” vs. Federalism, and a sort of right-wing planetary nationalism at odds with the pan-human soviet of the Alliance.

Oh, and by the way, what's with your bizarre rant about Communism? When did I ever express any kind of liking for, or belief in the principles of Communism? When did I even mention Communism?

Actually, it was when you started talking about how Blue Sun is a metaphor for how capitalism screws up life for the working class. You know, when you mentioned “capitalism” as “screwing up the life” for the “working class?” Maybe I’m wrong, and you meant some other class-struggle-based anti-capitalistic movement. Silly of me to jump right to “Communism.” Sorry about that.

Also, could you please explain the comment about namecalling?…completely accurate and inoffensive descriptions of him.

I don’t give a rat’s patoot about Rupert Murdoch, but you can’t tell me that the term “warmonger” is inoffensive. If it was, then it wouldn’t be plastered in big red letters under President Bush’s picture on every lefty-quasi-socialist-anti-masculinist-post-feminist placard carried by every third anti-war protester. That’s what I mean by name-calling.

We all clear now?

some ppl you know, don't like to be in the spot light, (although I'm definitly not 1 of them) the do exist besides wouldn't we have robots to do all the stuff we could get ppl to do? seems to me to be the smrt thing to do.
I lerned laten and I guat alaut owt off et.. all it does is make you see how stupid what they're saying really is. B5 weas the best si-fi show ever, (I didn't see the 5th year, we moved and don't have those channels ne more) I don't watch much tv now I like reading, but I still make time for ST. We had the greatest times sitting there making fun of farscape, they made it soooo easy to do it was almost (no, it was) pathetic.

Ok - the thing about never going to the washroom making for "good tv"... just once I'd like to see someone attack while a major crewmember was in the washroom...have to pull up his pants and rush to the bridge. Something "human", comedic without being over the top.

Like on Firefly. Damn I miss that show.

Sorry if its been said in one of the comments I didn't read, but the thing that always pissed me off about any Star Trek series (and, at least to my knowledge, almost any space-based sci-fi) was that space was planar. If you were moving along and encountered another ship, it was always in your plane or in a plane parallel to you. It never came at you from a perpendicular angle, never anything diagonal or the like. They were always right in front of you, facing you. Isn't space supposed to be 3-dimensional? *grin*

you bunch of sad nobodies. get a life and go back to what ever shit place you came from, twats!

Hermetic:Why don't they ever recalibrate the energy sensors so that they're operating on a useful scale?

Reminds me of my all time fav tech explanation:

Nigel : "It's very special, because, as you can see--the numbers all go to 11. Right across the board. Eleven, 11. . . . And most amps go up to 10? Exactly. Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder? Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not 10.

You see, most blokes are going to be playing at 10--you're on 10 on your guitar, where can you go from there? Where? I don't know. Nowhere! Exactly! What we do, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? You put it up to 11. Eleven. Exactly. One louder."

Marty: "Why don't you just make 10 louder, and make 10 be the top number, and make that a little louder?"

Nigel: "These go to 11."

IMHO-B5 was much more entertaining than the Uber-PC ST-TNG...Straczynski rocks. Another excellent scifi series that the suits didn't get. I bought Farscape on DVD...it's even better watched as a whole piece. Firefly was too smart to survive network TV.

One would think the suits would realize from DVD sales that there is a huge audience for Scifi...even cheesy scifi is more entertaining than reality show dreck.

>Also, what good were the transporters?<

I've sometimes wondered why they didn't transport a large nuc to just outside the enemys shield.
(A starship in combat must be shooting thru it's own shield somehow - so why not find a way to use the transport thru a shield?)
I suppose it's not PC.

"Dr Who reversed the polarity on NEUTRONS? Neutrons don't flow, and have no polarity!"

You might want to try telling that to the good folks at the Los Alamos Neutron Scattering Center (LANSCE). Unless you don't consider a beam of neutrons to be flowing. Also, neutrons do have a magnetic moment and a spin. Therefore they can be polarized (just like the polarized proton collisions at RHIC) and some people have actually done this.

Most of the words used in Star Trek individually do have some meaning, some of the phrases even do. Typically, though, the details of the words are tedious and mundane to the viewer. So I can't really envision use of technical jargon in a show meant to be entertaining that is any better than star trek. Lots of people watch sci-fi shows with a smug arrogant attitude of "i am so smart, I know this isn't real". In the case of neutron polarization, this person turns out to be an idiot. In fact, in the case of many things in sci-fi, the doubter turns out to be wrong eventually.
But this isn't really the point (well it is part of the point of sci-fi to foster creativity and imagination with regards to technology). But another reason to watch sci-fi is to use extreme situations that wouldn't occur in real life to examine something about human nature. How do we respond to aliens? Even though we don't respond to aliens everyday, we do have to interact with people who are not like us and who have motives we don't understand. Looking at the extreme cases through the use of sci-fi is important.
In conclusion, I've heard enough complaints about how fake e.g. star trek is(though satire is great: i found this page hilarious). The possibilities of technology presented by star trek are sometimes realistic and sometimes not. The important thing, though, is the possibiliities for our existence(as Q points out in the last episode of TNG).

1. Coming out of warp and not getting splattered on the view screen: The "Star Trek Technical Manual," a wonderfully nerdy/geeky "book" explained why that doesn't happen about six different ways. IIRC, the whole idea of "warp" isn't "going really fast" but "we create this 'field' that warps space to a point where Newtonian physics don't apply." Therefore, thermodynamics can just quietly excuse themselves since...they don't apply. MY question is guidance. In "Q-Who?" Picard mentions that they've only mapped about 11% of the Milky Way; yet whenever Picard wagged a finger at the viewscreen and said "Engage," the helmsman would hit the go-button and they'd fly off in a straight line at a pretty high rate of speed, right? If only 11% of the galaxy was mapped, there was a pretty high chance that they'd fly right into something, right? An asteroid, a comet, some little moon that didn't appear on long-range sensors.

2. Holo-wanking. Approaching this from a 21st century standpoint is missing the point. If holodecks had been invented 200 years ago, do you still think people would be spending *all* their time wanking? Like that old rumor about getting a job at an ice cream shop; the owner tells you "eat as much as you want for free." The first three days you gorge yourself on Rocky Road Fudge Ripple goodness, and then for the rest of your life the idea of a sundae makes you gag. I think that after years, decades of having holotechnology everyone would have basically *already* had every possible sexual holofantasy fulfilled.

3. Reversing polarity - Yeah, the TNG writers (and VOY) did depend on the 'ol "particle of the week" solve for the problem. "Shoot a beam at it. That'll fix 'er."

4. Officers. O'Brian was a Chief Petty Officer. That's why they called him CHIEF O'Brian. And they did have lower ranks; Picard in many episodes referred to some poor swabbie as "Crewman Gomez." But they *do* seem a little top-heavy. Of course, the argument could be made that the over-automation of the technology removed the need for enlisted men/women, leaving only "officer-type" jobs. After all, they don't need cooks, or janitors, or truck drivers. Basically everything out there that moved needed a "pilot" and those are officers. (RAF and pre-WW II USMC "flying Sergeants" excluded.)

5. No primative Cultures - "Who Watches the Watchers?" The Enterprise rushes to help a detachment of Federation anthropologists who are studying a proto-Vulcan civilization; they uncover Picard, worship him as a god, and prepare to sacrifice Troi to appease him. Should have let them off her. Could have saved years of "I sense [obvious emotion] Captain." Just once I'da liked to see Picard turn to her after she spouts her "line" and say, "No shit, Sherlock."

Just my $0.02

I can't believe they left out "some kind of." You know, some kind of energy field, some kind of spatial instability, some kind of particle weapon. This phrase is used so much on every Star Trek episode, it should be some kind of drinking game.

Other than the no currency thing, my other long time peeve has been the universal translator. It's never made sense to me. I've had conversations about it where we've gone round and round, and all it did was make my brain hurt!

Great list!

Something that always interested me was that whenever they found a new race of being, the beings were always humanoid. I think that it is pretty pompous for the creators of start Trek to think that all species would eventually evolve into humanoids.

Well, Pious, First thing I should point out is that the stuff about The Alliance=America, and that the Alliance, as America, being often morally ambiguous isn't my opinion. It's Joss Whedon's. I just couldn't find the exact quote anywhere, but I think I paraphrased him pretty accurately. The exact quote is:

"Sometimes the Alliance is America, this beautiful shining light of democracy. But sometimes the Alliance is America in Vietnam: we have a lot of petty politics, we are way out of our league and we have no right to control these people. And yet! Sometimes the Alliance is America in Nazi Germany. And Mal can't see that, because he was a Vietnamese."

I never actually stated that Firefly was in any way an allegory for Vietnam, I was just saying that the Alliance can be read as, and was probably intended as a metaphor for The United States, all the way through from the Civil War through to now. My point was that it was ironic for neo-cons to be so into a show which portrays America as morally ambiguous, if not actually bad.

Joss has also stated (again, I can't remember where the exact quote was from or what it was) that the Alliance are basically very definitely pro-big business. So I don't see where you're getting the 'pan human soviet of the Alliance' from, especially when there's at least one big business (Blue Sun) with a pretty big hand in how the government is run.
Also worth pointing out is that, as far as I'm aware, the actual politics of the Independents has never been stated, either in the show or in interviews. They could just as easily be anarcho-syndicalists who don't want to be taken over by the extremely pro-capitalist government of the Alliance. Which is not to say that i think they *are* anarchosyndicalists, just that they could be, for all the evidence there is. Fact is, all you can say about the Independants was that they didn't want to be part of the Alliance.

As for my comments about class in Firefly, here's Joss again: "I wanted to do a show about people who are not 'super,' just working-class people, the people history steps on."
So, given that Joss has stated explicitly that firefly is, at the very least, about the struggle of working class people, if not working class struggle per se, and that soft-drinks companies are frequently used as a metaphor for capitalism and America, I hardly see it as a giant leap of logic to suggest that Joss might be making a comment about the affects of capitalism on the working classes. Also, just becuase that's my interpretation of what Whedon intended (and it's hard to say where he was going with the Blue Sun plotline, given that all we really got was a little foreshadowning here and there) doesn't necessarily make me a communist.Or a Socialist. Or a Marxist. Or an Anarchist. Or a Maoist. Or an etc. For future reference, my political beliefs are actually a fusion of neosituationism, Ken Wilbur's Integralism, and Buckminster-Fuller's social theory. I'm okay with businesses, even big ones, I just think they need to learn to behave themselves.

And as for warmonger, I would accept that warmonger is generally used in a context of 'you're mongering war, and I disapprove of that' but the term itself is pretty neutral (see the dictionary definition I cited). Just because very few warmongers use the term as a badge of pride, doesn't make it an insult. And if he doesn't want to be called one, he shouldn't go around doing it.

There WERE noncoms in TNG, at least. I know Chief O'Brien was, at least initially (I didn't watch DS9), and there was at least one other Chief, some medical grunt, and Worf's adoptive father was a Chief.

My theory: Starfleet realized that the Chiefs are the ones actually running things on any ship, and that's why we hardly ever saw them. They were off getting things accomplished, usually in duty stations where they could beam someone into a wall and claim it was "ionizing defibrillator radiation".

The "Lower Decks" episode was about ensigns, who are officers, but on that part of the totem pole which is buried in the ground. No wonder they were boring.

Re: "reverse the polarity"- wasn't the original fixit line:
Scotty: "The dilithium crystals are completely drained!! We're doomed"

Spock: "We can use the dilithium crystals in our phasers to recharge the main engines"

Scotty:" Spock!! It just might wwwwork!!

Eddie Murphy: "Hey, that shit worked LAST week, didn't it?"

Seriously, loved the list and comments, I also watched from the beginning.

Yeah right... no news today? Of course, for the f$@#$ng narrow minded the ONLY news in the world were the "Sci-Fi War 1" in Afganistan (where's BinLadden?)"Sci-Fi War 2" in Irak (where's Saddam?). Get a life man, the list is hilarious, but cannot be forgiven is the fact of the "no news" factor. 75,000 people homeless 'cause of flooding in Argentina, dead people in Chchnia, SARS in China, EDUCATION (lack of) in the USA...
THINK DIFFERENT. Just THINK!

best scifi show, it was farscape guys! get a life!

K-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-h-n!

<shaking fist at sky>

Ok, I'm back, just keeping it grounded in the thread.

You've run rings around me logically. By quoting scripture (Joss himself) you've perforce stumped all my arguments.

Just by way of clarification, I wasn't actually intending to call you a communist, just trying to be cute. Your grasp on the definitions of your own politics are certainly firmer than my own. It's obvious that painting you with that kind of shit brush was unfair and indulging in the kind of name-calling I was accusing you of.

I wonder, however, how many neocons actually think that America is not morally ambiguous(or at least, has not been at points in the past). The SAME PEOPLE that were the good guys in WWII had to cut some pretty dishonorable deals and get involved with nasty stuff and make deals with unsaviory governments (enough euphanisms)in order to combat IntComm.

I do not include our support for the South Vietnamese among the unsaviory things, however. Their conquest by the North ushered in decades of poverty and misery for those people, and it's a crying shame. But, please, let's not open that up as a thread.

Peace.

The people who comment, "It's just a TV show, so quit analyzing it" obviously don't have high expectations of their entertainment.

I recall reading an essay by Mark Twain taking apart the works of some popular novelist of his day (James Greenleaf Whittier, I think). One wonderful line was, "The author shall not commit gross stupidities against his readers." Well, a novel is entertainment, just like a TV show. A good number of people don't like their entertainment to insult their intelligence.

But of course, if your idea of a great TV night is Survivor or American Idol, perhaps you don't have that problem. For example:

Some people need a life pretty bad i see -- joey (badboycutie@aol.com)

Some people need a course in punctuation and grammar, a real ISP, and a nick that would actually appeal to women who have graduated high school. (Come to think of it, maybe there's a reason Joey picked that handle...)

"Re #2: I know nobody ever watched DS9, but the Ferengi knew exactly what holographic technology was for." -Kevin McGehee

My whole family watched DS9 and we all miss it terribly, along with Farscape and Firefly!

Damn straight the Ferengi knew what the holographic technology was for, and they had the gold plated latinum to prove it!

No fiat-based Federation Reserve Credits for the Ferengis! Latinum talks (or whatever they do in the holodeck) and FRCs walk!

I was a Star Trekker from the first episode but got lost after DS9. Enterprise was rediculous! FIREFLY was definitely as good and creative series as the first Start Trek. Why the network took it on and then made it untenable is beyond me. I would LOVE to see it go to the movies.

hoot hoot!
man, that's some funny stuff!

almost as funny as the semi-literate techgeeks that try to defend it. Relax. It is JUST a show.

we now return you to your flamewar, already in progress.

I agree with Pious' remark. Does this mean that Gene Roddenberry was a sports announcer? Because the same bad habit haunts every sports event. "So-and-so is the greatest linebacker in the league." It's part of the script, no matter which teams are player or what week it is. Have you ever, ever heard a sports announcer say something like: "Well, Smith is a pretty mediocre second basemen, and the Astros would replace him in a heartbeat. They may fire their general manager, too, for trading away Alvarez to get Smith: Alvy is hitting .320 for the Mariners."

Star Trek is dead to me. I loved it when I was younger but now all that space-teck mumbo-jumbo just plays flat and boring. I just saw the new X-Men flick and kept thinking "it's that damned Pickard guy again," every time that Pickard guy was on-screen. It was better back when Kirk was running around the galaxy looking for some 'tang.

I watch Star Trek--but it's still fun to make fun of it. This was hilarious! Especially number four...

Hil. Goddamn. ARIOUS.

"Having to squeegee the Holodeck clean." We KNOW this. We all KNOW IT. And the crew is always just fricking walking IN on people's private sessions. What the heck is THAT about? Imagine if you were doing nasty kinky leather fetish-oriented nun-killing sex with a representation of the whole orgy-loving Bridge Crew and they walked in to fix the nonexistent fuse that Geordi reversed the polarity on? DUDE.

I'm thinkin' if Holodecks were real we'd ALL become fat spandex wearers who never, EVER left the damn Holodeck. And replicate me a triple-decker hot fudge sundae while you're at it, dammit.

Agent M

Pious, I wasn't at all offended at your implication that I was a communist. I've enjoyed this little debate, and I hope you have too, and I certainly don't want to get into a debate about the rights and wrongs of the Vietnam war, not least because it happened a decade before I was born, and in a completely different country (I'm in Scotland).
Equally, you may well be right about the neo-cons and America's moral ambiguity. But from my position, (which is, amongst other things, on entirely the wrong side of the atlantic) it doesn't seem like such a good time for people to point out that America might be anything other than a paragon of virtue, foreign-policy wise.
Peace to you too ;)
Sheer M. Kahn

In 1968,my family and I were given a tour of the Star Trek set by William Shatner, whom my parents knew from Montreal. My trekkie brother ask him why no seat belts?

Shatner's answer: "then we wouldn't be thrown around."

True story.

Honest

i m a Trekkie i love star-trek and nobody
will stop me maha ha ha ha ha

That was SO frickin funny! I love Star Trek, and I still laughed my butt off!

When did ST ever say they abolished money? I don't remember that. I just assumed that they let computers handle most of the tracking of it instead of using cash, except for things like the black market where the Ferengi were always using gold-pressed latinum.

You have to admit, with replicators, most forms of cash would be pretty easy to just replicate, so it'd make more sense to have a credit/balance account stored in computers except where you deal with other cultures (not in your ATM network) or with illegal transactions that you don't want to show up in the computer.

As far as Firefly, I thought the Alliance was pretty close to the Alliance described in some of C.J. Cherryh's books. (http://www.cherryh.com/www/chrona1.htm)

... and to think that the phrase "get a life" was popularized by: William Shatner, in a 1980's Trekkie convention sketch on Saturday Night Live.

Have we come full circle yet?

btw, speaking of funny, have you all seen Galaxy Quest? Makes fun of more than one scifi genre series ...

"But unfortunately, that's what happens when a sequel show (ST:TNG)that was supposed to be about some semi-utopian future is created in the era when Political Correctness was both embryonic and should be retroactively aborted. But, since time-travel is an impossiblity, a "retroactive abortion" would be moot."

-Actually, that would be birth control!

Loved your list. I'd like to add to the idea of the deux ex machina. Both TNG and the original series had supermen to deliver the crew from danger again and again: Spock and Data. How many time did the two of them win the day for the Enterprise?

My favorite TNG episode was when the crew started to de-evolve. [I was waiting for Data to turn into an abacus, but alas, the devolving thing didn't work on him.] In the end, there's a throwaway line that Data figured out to reverse the process, and get everyone back. Oh. Yeah. Good thing you had Data.

What was particularly funny about the Spock/Data theory was the episode where the Romulans lock Spock and Data together in a room. My friends and I were ROLF. Like those two weren't going to figure out how to escape and take over the planet ... don't federation enemies do intelligence before fighting the Enterprise, to wit: DON'T LOCK SPOCK AND DATA IN THE SAME ROOM. Get them off the planet and far away.

Yeah, I have some geek tendencies. Who wants to do something about it?

arr. just thought i'd add that i'm yet another wwdn reader--and that my favorite thing about the internet is how every human being who's connected to it is an accredited psychoanalyst: 'cause who on earth would be so presumptuous to tell people why they do the things they do, if they weren't qualified?

oh, and star trek blablabla. i'm a huge TNG fan. largely because of Wesley and Data and Geordi. screw logic.

SPOOOOON!!

The execs at Fox should be shot. Space: Above and Beyond was awesome. It was gritty and the chemistry between the characters was far better than 90% of the crap on television.

I always wondered why 90% of the critters they found were humanoid. Considering that on our little planet a very small percentage of the critters are humanoid, you would think a similar ratio would hold true universe-wide.

Ok ... the Enterprise could fly into the outer rim of an M class sun and stay there for hours, but it couldn't take a few blasts from an inferior laser?

I always wondered about shields that could take the pounding of multiple 500meg warheads per second but couldn't stand up to a gigajoule or so of energy.

Not to mention, they never saved the deus ex machina from the last episode or gave their on board security any decent training.

One thing I liked about B5 was that the security actually functioned sometimes.

On the other hand, if there is no scarcity and security guards take the job out of being bored, I guess you will get a pretty low quality.

As for the aliens appearance, they had two explanations, one that they were all seeded from the same genetic code and two, they had a budget limit for doing special effects.

Thanks, this was a great read, came here from Volokh Conspiracy.

I was going to leave a comment, too, but the committee ruled against it.

Can someone tell me how to reverse the polarity on my computer so I can undo my seatbelt and fix the noisy doors since noone has any money to pay to have it done the right way??????

When they are speeding at warp 9.7 and the helm mentions, "approaching scheduled coordinates", the captain says,"Take us out of warp!", like they'll be able to stop on a dime and be like right in front of the planet! What if the new ensign gets out of warp like a millisecond too late, "opps sorry captain I overshot our coordinates by about 1/2 a light year, hee, hee, sorry. I graduated second to last at the academy, hee hee!

And remember the Picard maneuver. That was a damn good maneuver! There have been so many other battles and no one has used the Picard maneuver!

Oh, and seven of nine on voyager, DAMN! Beam me up Scotty. I'm sure there had to be a couple takes on the set because of the "little captains" saluting through some of the actor's spandex pants!

I love star trek, it's a great reality break.

FC

Polarity?! What are you all talking about? I'll bet dollars to donuts that LaForge RECONFIGURED THE FORWARD SENSOR ARRAY *way* more times than he reversed the polarity of stuff! ;-D

The Federation, many similarities of U.N. to it : a pack of interfering blowhard nobodies uttering sweetnothings and creating havoc and mayhem.
In tandem with France, they would like to abolish money no doubt and dole everything out as they see fit - but that requires salevery , after all whose going to produce something for nothing.Its worthwhile to note, in star-tek capitalists and traders are regarded as the swill of the univese.
Klingons are noble for while evil, the are heroic warriors which reminds me : on the few episodes one has seen , it is capricious the Klingons have been denied repeatedly what they have been in aposition to do, several times over, blow the crap out Enterprise and is fag crew.

Whoever reversed the polarity on America really screwed it up.

Thank you for the original post. That was amazing. I have been having a lot of fun with Enterprise. It made me very happy to see that they had replaced counselor Troi with a dog.

Ok. This was hysterical, and I tried to read all the posts, but had to stop when I came to SPOOOOOOOOOOON by they Tick.

As far as Im concerned, Voyager was the best. But, what do I know.

I got here from Sgt. Stryker's site, (since we're all sharing), but I had to go check out Will's site after I saw it mentioned here.

We've watched Star Trek forever though I've been bothered by the whole....oh we've now evolved so that we know everything and there is no god.....attitude.

For your nerdish pleasure, little known lyrics to the original Star Trek theme:

Beyond the rim of the starlight
My love is wandering in starflight

I know he'll find in star clustered reaches
Love strange, love a star woman teaches

I know his journey ends never
His star trek will go on forever

But tell him while he wanders his starry sea
Remember me, Remember me

The story goes that Rodenberry wrote them to share in the royalties. I'm not sure that anyone every recorded it. But, they are really SO bad, (just try singing them to the theme yourself), that you have to love it.

Glenn Knight wrote:
>Have you ever, ever heard a sports announcer say something like: "Well, Smith is a pretty mediocre second basemen, and the Astros would replace him in a heartbeat. They may fire their general manager, too, for trading away Alvarez to get Smith: Alvy is hitting .320 for the Mariners."<

I'd pay good money to hear baseball announcers who weren't primarily concerned with maintaining their affectionate relationships with the management and players. I wince whenever I hear the words "team player" or "quick hands" or "comes through in the clutch" or "good with the pitchers" about a guy whose OBP is lower than his BA.

Gees,
Was that really William Shatner or was it Tim Allen pretending to be William Shatner? Who and What in the hell is "Fire Fly"? surely not another Marvel Super Mutant...

Someone suggested that everyone has nano-tech transponders in their bladders and rectums, so there's no need for heads on board. Great idea, except where does all that poo and wee end up? On one particularly unfortunate planet? Or at random locations throughout the time-space continuum. Might explain some of the restaurant meals I've had placed in front of me at times.

I all most read them all, my eyes are starting water. On last thought

What if....

Dr. Who and Star Treck had kids?

"I can sort of understand that in the future that automated production has eliminated most scarecity. But, how do you motivate people to do the worst jobs without financial incentive."

"A massively automated society with magic replicators still has uses for trade. Such a society would basically trade three things: energy, services, and intellectual propery (a category that includes replicator blueprints or autofactory programs). Copyright law would take on an importance that we primitives couldn't even imagine."

"Additionally, what about the worst jobs? The ones that can get you killed? The ones with the worst hours or working conditions? Why would anybody take those jobs? Anti-social loners and masochists have been weeded out of the gene pool, so where're your potential employees to come from?"

Everything is automated. Therefore, everyone was bored. It follows that everyone is in Star Fleet now.

Hello Kahn my old and dear friend, how nice to chat with you again.

In your last, you wrote:

But from my position, (which is, amongst other things, on entirely the wrong side of the Atlantic) it doesn't seem like such a good time for people to point out that America might be anything other than a paragon of virtue, foreign-policy wise.

I can certainly understand where you might have gotten this idea. It seems that a popular meme has crept into many media sources both in the US and in Europe and elsewhere, the idea that the “Suppression of Dissent” is rampant over here.

I’m just a regular guy from Florida (yes, 50/50 Florida) so I can only speak from my own experience. I’ve seen many people express their objections to the war in general and President Bush in particular, through their t-shirts, bumper stickers, at rallies, in newspaper articles, radio columns, and televised stories. These dissenters are certainly in a minority, but I’ve never seen them hustled into vans for a going over with rubber hoses or anything like that, and I’ve never heard them claim that they have.

What is happening, I think, is that for the first time regular people are listening to their views, and finding their rhetoric wanting, their logic faulty, their message tainted by invective. People see signs equating Bush and Hitler, and they know that there’s something wrong with the worldview of the person waving it, because despite what you may have heard about the lack of education in America, we know a murderous tyrant is different from an elected official that will be out of office in 6-8 years.

So, the message isn’t taking root, and people are actually confronting “dissenters” with arguments and opinions of their own. What most people might call the “free debate of ideas” dissenters characterize as “suppression of dissent.” Sure, there are people who get rough and violent in those confrontations, but those people are prosecuted by the law, not given a pass, which is after all what state-sponsored suppression of dissent would look like.

I mean, if a movement's message is to be judged solely by the actions of their basest parts, then Anti-Globo's are all arsonists that burn down McDonalds! ("You mean they aren't?" "Shut up, Neocon!" "Don't you suppress me!")

So, don’t worry about the neocons who express misgivings about America’s actions. But we appreciate your concern. ;D

Awesome! It had to be said, glad someone finally did. I'm a sci fi fan, so naturally I like Star Trek, but this shit always annoyed me. Nice to see someone finally pointed it out.

Remember that episode where Kirk and Spock land on the planet of nazis? They get captured and are put in jail with this ss storm trooper for a guard and then Spock farts and he and Kirk start giggling and, no wait ...ah ..hmmmm.... nevermind.

Why do the make-up people think that all you have to do to make someone look like an alien it stick a few knobbly bits on the nose or forehead (or both).

As funny and true as all that is, there is one thing to hate about Star Trek that hasn't been touched.

The Borg.

They were cool. They were scary. They HAD NO WEAKNESSES.

And then weaknesses and weird shit was introduced - having a Borg Queen controlling all Borg detracts from the original idea, especially with the way you only have to off her and all the Borg die/stop functioning.

I haven't seen much of Voyager but apparently it introduced the idea of a Queen in every Borg cube.

I've barely seen Enterprise, and apparently the Borg have shown up in that. Um, something like two hundred years before the recorded first contact with the Borg.

Bloody Borg. Now they're not scary, they're just annoying.

I think gold-pressed latinum was a valuable currency because it couldn't be replicated. Don't quote me on that, though, and certainly don't ask me to explain how it couldn't be replicated.

Call it like it was, technobabble, fantasy, mixed with some great messages about life and people.

Add a dash of sparks, lots of shapely women in SHORT skirts and tight cloths, a few aliens now and then, some discontent within the ranks...

Since my teenage years the holodeck and Minuet have been absolutely real ... at least in my mind (many times). Many of my earth dreams girls also visited the holodeck, they just did not know it...how that for reality.

and..just for clarification, the list was good, not great, and SCI-FI (including Star Trek) has brought as many innoventions that were foretold.
The endless question is are devices like the Microwave, PDA, cell Phone related to Sci-Fi, or is Sci-Fi a product of reality?

We need more dreamers....

And with all their high technology, they still don't have a cure for that chrome-dome Piccard's baldness??

I am a lifelong Trek fan and this list is frickin' hilarious (almost as hilarious as some of the unbelievably overwrought comments of some people who take this stuff WAY too seriously).

I have one to add: Why was everyone always hanging around on the bridge? It's the command center of the ship, not a social club. Bones, you're the doctor. Shouldn't you be in sick bay instead of loitering on the bridge trading jabs with Spock?

Every time the writers would run out of ideas and couldn't think of any polarites for Geordi to reverse, they would always resort to time travel... it was getting to the point where they should have renamed the show Time Trek.

And for all the people who came in here to tout Farscape as the best SF show ever made... you obviously haven't seen Stargate-SG1.

"And we also know what the worst job on the Enterprise would be: Having to squeegie the holodeck clean."

And remember, all of that err, umm, "organic material" would be dumped into Biomass Recycling... Special Sauce for everybody!
I know, I know, the replicators use transporter technology to break down the organic source material into its component atoms and reassemble it as sauce bearnaise. It's the thought of the Squeegee Guy carrying 5-gallon buckets from the Holodeck to the Organic Material Recycling Input Port...

"Regarding the Holodeck. . . it's "other uses" aside, how many times does that friggin' thing have to almost kill someone before people *stop* using it!?!"

I would have ordered Engineering to hard-wire Big-Ass Switches outside the Holodeck doors that would absolutely shut off all power except for basic life support to the Holodeck in question. I might even have such switches installed inside as well, with the HD circuitry physically disabled so that a simulation run amok could not hide it or block access to it.

"I'd've paid good money to hear him[Picard] tell Riker, 'Look Will, shut yer gob or you'll be cleaning the heads with your toothbrush the next time Laforge reverses polarity'."

I too would like to have seen Picard be a hard-ass:
"Mr. Worf! Beat him with a fencepost until he reveals the coordinates/disarms the trap/releases my crewmen/reverses the polarity/fixes what he sabotaged."

Scroll down to "Vows every Starfleet captain should take":
http://enphilistor.users4.50megs.com/hero.htm

Whoops, see also "The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Cliches:

http://enphilistor.users4.50megs.com/cliche.htm

I luv all dat bowsheat!

Oh yeah. Precisely. Ensign Gomez... just think, somewhere on the original Enterprise there must have been a HUGE room full of red shirts. "Here, try this one on for size, pal..." And did anyone ever calculate how many rolls of biffy paper you'd need for 400 crew for a five-year mission? Bet there's ANOTHER huge storage room down on deck 52 full of bog rolls.

Oh dear god i cant beilive ppl would just come here to insult a TV u ppl obivoiusly have no live AT ALL! i mean how sad are u! ROFLMAO i mean to come onto the internet just insult a tv is just SAD! so get a god dam life

Prime Directive too rigid? Good god, its interpretation changed almost as often as the Bush Administration's rationale for liberating Iraqi oil fields.

<<... I couldn't wait for Data to turn into a calculator ...>>
Or at least, start flailing his arms and shouting, DANGER! DANGER!

Another one I loved was in the "Lazarus" episode, about identical enemies, the one with this priceless bit of physics lore: if a particle meets its corresponding antiparticle, both universes will be destroyed.
No, that wasn't the bit I loved. Their guest wanders around the Enterprise unsupervised, sabotages something crucial, and is caught. Kirk solemnly tells McCoy, well, we will never leave him unguarded again... And then... immediately... Kirk and McCoy both just WALK AWAY. So their guest can wander around unsupervised, again, and sabotage something crucial, again.

Dean O,

You are so full of shit, your eyes are turning brown.

Another thing....

Check out "The Ensigns of Command", Troi has more camel toe in that episode than anyone has ever had in the history of camel toe. If it were not for the spandex, there would be no Troi camel toe!

It just came to me that I seem to remember an episode of TOS where some crew on a planet were screwed because the transporter had malfed... but nobody thought to just hop into a shuttlecraft and go get them. Ooops.

Oh, and by the way.. the best SF TV show ever was Fireball XL5. No, really. Full power!

"Hmmm... a box that goes 'vzzzt!' Just what I always wanted!"

"Oh dear god i cant beilive ppl would just come here to insult a TV u ppl obivoiusly have no live AT ALL! i mean how sad are u! ROFLMAO i mean to come onto the internet just insult a tv is just SAD! so get a god dam life"

Not nearly as sad by far as someone who a) came here anyway and did the same thing as the people he is criticizing, and b) is apparantly illiterate.

These comments are funnier than the jokes, and they were pretty funny!

Loved the list! Star Trek TNG ended when I was in 10th grade and I wore a black armband and communicator to school. I loved that show. But it's not one that I can go back and re-watch over and over.

As for the "Best Sci-fi show ever"... wow. There are so many shows out there that all had such different strengths and weaknesses. I didn't realize that genre fans had to pick one ;) I like just about all Sci-Fi shows I see, provided they are not boring (the worst thing entertainment can be!). Lately it's been B5 (intricate storyline, space battles!), Futurama (hilarious!), Farscape (cinematic no-holds-barred production, great acting) and early Stargate SG1 (military action/adventure). Get each expert to give us the "Best episode of --x--" and I bet they're all quite evenly matched. What sucks is that apparently there's not enough of us around to warrant more than one show at a time. We've got to pick a corner because that's what the TV producers do. (and yeah, I'm still bitter at the SciFi channel :( ).

Love the list, it sort of reminds me of the old Star Trek Writer's Construction Kit for Windows. (Do a google search, you will find it).

I was an avid Trekkie until Babylon 5 came around, that show rewrote the rules of what it means to create a 'hard core' sci fi show. IMHO it lead the way for two other great shows, Farscape and Firefly.

I shall leave now, before the Trek vs The Rest of Sci Fi Wars start. Lord knows I was around when the ST vs B5 war was raging on.

On the subject of artificial gravity:

Why, when they are traveling at ultra light speeds and pulling Mega-Gs with even the slightest course change does the artificial gravity always fluctuate just enough to toss them across the room, but not enough to turn them into paste when they hit the far wall?

... and how 'bout these perfectly compatible interfaces? Go and try downloading a database from a Unix machine to a Mac, then, imagine what it'd be like between computers from across the galaxy...

The list was funny, but the comments are hilarious. I hope most of you are kidding. Otherwise you're sadly missing the point: it's the future. They know things you don't. Think of all the findings and technology that no one would have believed in our recent past. People in the 16th century would have a really difficult time evaluating daily living in our current world. To think that electronics and office politics as you know them would be the same so far in the future is a bit silly.

Plus, the leftist humanistic themes in the Star Trek world are intended to represent progressive maturity in our race. Posts about who the hottest chick was, or how cool it is to see a captain abusing his power on another show completely illustrate the types of behavior humans would be evolving away from in this particular future. It suppose it depends too if you're looking at it as pure sci/fi or futurism.

Kelly

Roddenberry's stated reason why most ST aliens were humanoid was that most available actors were humanoid.

"Plus, the leftist humanistic themes in the Star Trek world are intended to represent progressive maturity in our race."

If this is true, then Gene Roddenberry was the biggest idiot not only in Hollywood, but the entire Goddamned world. Leftism is not progress. It is regress into tribalism. People are going to evolve away from noticing hot chicks and behaving properly as part of a military unit?

HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND?!

How DARE you bash Star Trek! Just who the heck do you think you are?

Hello again Pious.

Well, although I'd possibly agree that the 'supression of dissent' has perhaps been slightly overstated I think at the very least it qualifies as a 'Rather Stern Discouragement of Dissent'.
I mean, although there haven't been any cases of protesters being "hustled into vans for a going over with rubber hoses or anything like that" I'm still seeing a lot of stuff that I really don't like seeing in the Land of the Free. I mean I'm reading stories about The Secret Service interrogating schoolkids, ( http://www.kron.com/Global/story.asp?s=%20%201268949 ) about protesters getting shot *in the back* with rubber bullets, ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,12809,932145,00.html ) the case of Brett Bursey ( http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/030512/opinion/12john.htm ) (which is actually a point being raised by a conservative). I'm hearing about Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds, of all people, being called Anti-American (or should that be UnAmerican) for suggesting that some people might consider the whole USS Abraham Lincoln thing to be a partisan use of the military. Then there's this story of a restaurant being raided under the patriot act ( http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15770 ) . That's not even starting on the media - like the case when Bill O'reilly physically threated, cut the mike of, and started shouting 'SHUT UP!" at Jeramy Glick, an anti war activist and 9-11 family member, and the tale of how the 'spontaneous uproar' against the dixie chicks was actually orchestrated by the Republicans. ( http://www.utne.com/web_special/web_specials_2003-04/articles/10440-1.html ) . And that's not mentioning the whole general trend of seeing any criticism of American Foreign policy as 'Anti-American' or even 'supporting Saddam' (which is especially ridiculous, many on the left were criticising Saddam Hussain's brutal reigme way back when the British and U.S. were actually supporting him.)
I'm pretty sure there are more examples which I've forgotten, barely a day goes by without me reading of another example of American dissenters being mistreated (on www.thismodernworld.com especially, where all but one of the above links are shamelessly lifted from). And in many of these cases there are all manner of ifs and buts (the rubber-bulleted protesters, for example, were allegedly throwing stones at the (heavily armed and shielded) riot cops, but I still think shooting them in the back was something of an overreaction) but it all adds up to a bigger picture where people who criticise some elements of American government are automatically assumed by many to be traitors. Now I don't think this is equivalent to McCarthyism, but I certainly think it's a trend which could certainly lead in that direction.

Oh, and off topic, but how do you insert links and italicise here? Is it just like standard html?

Great List.

We forgot about the fact that no one ever dies. Kirk dies goes to Nexus, comes back.
Spock dies and is reanimated in fast motion.
Scotty dies and spends 80 years in a transporter beam before returning.
Data explodes then his dumb twin starts singing same songs.
Picard dies, goes back in time fights nausicans then comes back, no change.

What gives.

What I liked about the old show was when they beamed down to a "strange planet" and the only thing that distinguished that planet from another, was the blue or red or green party light shining up from behind the styrofoam mountain range.

I was gonna laugh but I reversed polarity and now I can't stop crying.

Kevin Smith would have done well with a riff about being a jizz-mopper on the holodeck...;->

as for all the conservatives blathering :THINK OF SOMETHING NEW. 'oh wait! Can't do that, I'm Conservative!' 8-P

and Firefly Rocked. Await the DVD and the possible movie. Zoe is one of the finest badasses this side of Ms Bristow and Kaylee, well....i'll be in my bunk.

WAHHH!! I miss Firefly. Give me good old Captain Tightpants over Kirk,Picard,whomever any day. Everytime we get a show that actually makes you think the suits with their miniscual I.Q.s cancell it. It must be because it makes their brain hurt. That is, one brain multitude of suits. I too eagerly await the DVD.

I also miss Farscape,Bab5,Lone Gunmen,oh hell anything by J.Michael Strazinsky,etc.

Holy cow. I laughed til I cried. I especially loved William Shatner's comment. haha

I hope I'm the first to post about the Great SF Paradox:

What happens when a bunch of clueless red-shirt "Ensign Gomez" types (guaranteed lifespan - three minutes from beam-down) meets a platoon of Imperial Stormtroopers (who can't hit a barn from inside it)?

Firefly R.I.P
Probably the best SF (if not the best overall) series of last year. I felt incredibly cheated when Fox canned it for the laughable 'John Doe'. Still, at 2 million an episode I guess Fox didn't think they'd make their money back. Skinflints.

Let's hope Joss Whedon finds a channel that will take it on - it's not as if there's that much new SF being shown at the moment. Except 'Enterprise' of course - which must win the award for "Worst Theme Tune Ever".

The real travesty in the Firefly fiasco was the fact that FOX aired the episodes out of order. They felt that the pilot episode wasn't engaging enough and changed the order.

As is demonstrated by Joss' other shows, he plots out the seasons in advance. They're going somehwere. Screwing around with the timeline screws the story.

Stupid FOX execs. I'm just afraid that if since the DVDs are coming out that there won't be any more new episodes.

As for the capitalist/totalitarian thing, it does seem pretty farfetched to us now that the Federation would work without currency. But many SF writers have adopted that into their fiction, and sometimes it is very interesting. However, if ST was going to claim they had a Utopian communist state, they should have at some point developed their setting. Instead they casually mentioned in one or two episodes, "we have no currency." Bad writing.

But before you condemn liberal or fascist SF, take a look at the work of Mack Reynolds. The ideas he developed were stolen in much of today's SF, particularly ST.

Regarding the humanoid aliens: They explained this in an episode...a higher alien race had gone around and seeded all these planets with humanoids that evolved into the 'current day' aliens (and humans). As I remember, the Ferengi refused to accept this, though the Klingons, Vulcans and Humans thought it was cool.

Why oh why couldn't they solve the Borg problem with a quick beaming of a photon torpedo into the middle of the Borg cube. Heck, the Borgs allowed them to send everything else!

You forgot the 'Run a level 5 diagnostic'

EVERYONE was always running level 5 diagnostics

"lol"

Reverse the polarity on that...Umm Still "lol"

10 things to love about star trek:

1) 7 of 9
2) 7 of 9
3) [well you get the point]

Everything in Star Trek is a grid, core or a matrix. What's up with that?

Brilliant. Thanks for cheering up my lunchbreak. I especially liked the fuses item.

Have just sat and read this whole page, has taken me a good few minutes i can tell you!

To the author of original top 10:
some oldies but all goodies very funny and well written!!

in short i laughed till both ends wobbled

To all the people who take this stuff too seriously and i have to make special refernce to pious and kahn (who have made parts of this read absoulute petty bitching over indulgent not to mention completly out of place torcher), urm the point, oh yeah.. just chill out, the only reason you all speak so fluidly and aggressivly on the subject is because you read something somewhere and chose to believe it was gospel, you both need to listen to the other guys opinion if you are gonna do it here. You need to admit that the worlds future hasnt yet been written and bitching about the accuracy of sci-fi portrails of that future is futile and annoying - it is the job of the worlds media to give us different stories and angles, its the duty of the best writers to dream up future science and ideals and its the duty of the scifi enthusiast to sit back and ponder the possibilities. You cant just say your right cos joss says so and you cant say your right because your favourit sci fi is more successfull with the public than someone elses.

Who gives a toss where joss's influences and insiprations of story writing come from, you give too much power to him for eating his shit, just watch the stories and leave it, the worlds best writers and artists don't sit around explaining themselves joss discredits himself by trying to make people draw realism to his fantastical writing, the dude aint no politician and although he is entitled to his opinions he already has his public medium, he'd do well to log in here and realise how much influnence he has over some of you jokers political views. Fool should run for president the way you guys hang off him.

chill..

47 things that never happened in Star Trek

The Enterprise runs into a mysterious energy field of the type it has encountered several times before.
The Enterprise goes to check up on a remote colony of scientists, who are all perfectly all right.
The Enterprise comes across a garden of eden like planet called Paradise where everyone is happy all the time. However, everything is soon revelaed to be exactly as it seems.
The crew of the Enterprise discover a totally new lifeform which turns out to be a familliar old lifeform wearing a funny hat.
The crew of the Enterprise are struck by a mysterious alien plague, for which the cure is found in the well stocked sick bay.
An enigmatic being composed of pure energy attempts to interface with the Enterprise's computer, only to find that it has bought the wrong leads.
A power surge on the bridge is rapidly and correctly diagnosed as faulty capacitor by the Enterprise's well trained and highly competent engineering staff.
A power surge on the bridge fails to electrocute the user of a computer panel due to a sophisticated, 24th century surge protection device called a "fuse".
The Enterprise ferries an alien VIP from one place to another without serious incident.
The Enterprise is captured by a vastly superior alien lifeform which does not put them on trial.
The Enterprise separates as soon as there is any danger.
The Enterprise gets involved in an enigmatic, strange and dangerous situation, and there are no pesky aliens they can blame it on in the end.
The Enterprise is captured by a vastly inferior alien life form which they quickly pacify by offering it sweeties.
The enterprise is involved in some bizzare time warp phenomenon, which is in some way unconnected with the 20th century.
Somebody takes a shuttle out and it doesn't explode or crash.
A major Starfleet emergency breaks out near the Enterprise, but fortunately some other ships in the area are able to deal with it to everyone's satisfaction.
The shields of the Enterprise stay up during a battle.
The enterprise visits the Klingon Home World on a bright, sunny day.
An attempt at undermining the Klingon Federation Alliance is discovered without anyone noting that such an attempt, if sucessful, would represent a fundamental shift of power throughout the quadrant.
A major character spends an entire episode in the holodeck without a single malfunction trapping him / her there.
Picard hears the door chime and doesn't bother to say "come".
Picard walks up to the replicator and says "Coke on ice".
Councillor Troi states something other than the blindingly obvious.
Mood rings come back in style, jeapordising Councillor Troi's position.
Worf and Troi finally decide to get married, only to have Kate Pulaski show up and disrupt the wedding by shouting "Did he read you love poetry? Did he serve you poisonous tea? He's mine!".
When Worf tells the bridge officers that something is entering visual range, no - one say "on screen".
Worf actually gives another vessel more then two seconds to respond to a call from the Enterprise.
Worf kills Wesley in the holodeck by mistake.
Wesley Crusher gets beaten up by his classmates for being a "smarmy git", and consequently has a go at making some friends his own age for a change.
Wesley saves the ship, the federation and the universe as we know and everyong is grateful.
The warp engines start playing up a bit, but seem to sort themselves out again without intervention from the boy genius Wesley Crusher.
Wesley tries to upgrade the warp drives and they work better than ever.
Beverly Crusher manages to go through a whole episode without having a hot flush and getting breathless when Picard is in the room.
Guinan forgets herself and breaks into a stand - up comedy routine.
Data fallls in love with the replicator.
Kirk (or Riker) falls in love with a woman on a planet he visits and isn't tragically separated from her at the end of the episode.
The captain has to make a difficult decision about a less advenced people which is made a great deal easier by the Starfleet Prime Directive.
An unknown ensign beams down as part of an away team and lives to tell the tale.
Spock or Data are fired from their high ranking position for not being ablt to understand the most basic nuances about one of the three sentences that anyone says to him.
Kirk's hair remains consistent for more than one consecutive episode.
Kirk gets into a fistfight and doesn't rip his shirt.
Kirk doesn't end up kissing the troubled guest female before she doesn't sacrifice herself to him.
Scotty doesn't mention the laws of physics.
Scotty isn't the only crew member not affected by a new weapon / attack by an alien race, etc due to his darn green blood or bizzare Vulcan physiology and thus cannot save the day.
The episode ends without Bones and Kirk laughing at Spock's inability to understand the joke, and he doesn't raise his eyebrow.
The computer has a general protection fault.

of course all the aliens look human. they were people. really weird looking aliens are cool but make them at a weekly rate? Star Wars is only 2 hours and is years in the making.

Lynn S - Remember when Praxis, the Klingon energy mining moon blew up? I think the radiation affected the Klingons... Worf said "We did not speak about this matter with outsiders..." Troi or somebody had asked him that...
This post was pretty hilarious.

Dem Kantianer, der die Disjunktion von Preis und Würde seinem Meister glaubte, war dies noch ein Wünschbares. Das brachte ihn um die volle Einsicht, welcher der große Schriftsteller so nahe rückte: daß der Würde ihre Verfallsform immanent ist: durchschaubar, sobald Intellektuelle der Macht sich anbiedern, die sie nicht haben und der sie zu widerstehen hätten. Gleiches läßt sich auch von Star Trek sagen. Am besten lesen Sie dazu das Schlußkapitel der Negativen Dialektik, wo selbst gestandene Marxisten immer weinen müssen, und was ich da über Science Fiction geschrieben habe. Echt krasses Zeug, und total passend.

As for why not go Warp 9 all the time: The faster they went, the more quickly the dilithium crystals wore out. I guess that is one more thing the replicators could not duplicate. Also, in an episode of TNG, they discovered that traveling at high warp caused damage to the fabric of the space/time continuum, and a Star Fleet/Federation directive was put into place to avoid high warp except in emergencies.

I have to agree that reconfiguring the sensor array has to rank right up there with reversing polarity.

Best SciFi right now is definitely Stargate-SG1, but I miss Farscape, Firefly, B5, Space: Above and Beyond, and many others not acceptable to the unwashed masses. Enterprise is okay, but Archer is too much of a pansy to my liking. And this week, he goes to welcome an unknown alien on board and gets shot and kidnapped. He should have sent Ensign Gomez of course.

Love [most of] Trek and others. And snickered when Enterprise snuck in a Tribble among the doctor's menagerie. Other than T'Pol, I don't think it is all that good a show - but it's better than Fear Factor, even if those ladies wear less.

To the eedjuts who don't see why we should analyse: where did you go to school that the concept of constructive criticism never came up?

And the few times the transporter was used for medical purposes got it backwards. Set it to destroy all cellular structures not having human[oid] DNA? A way to a slow death, we have a number of symbionts. But I've never seen an episode take the other approach: "I managed to isolate some of the microbes, and here is the data that will specifically match their makeup. Set the transporter to transport this molecule only, and send it a few miles off."

Good take with the Top 10!

I LOVED Galaxy Quest!, and YES I AM considered a "Trekker".
It's about TIME we look at the comical side of 'Trek', and others.
(My favorite character in G-Quest was the "un-named Crewman . . .What's his name again ?
. . .They shuttle down to the 'Hostile planet'
which looks a LOT like Arizona, and the 'Chief Engineer, in his INFINITE wisdom start to open the hatch. Our No-Name Crewman yells:
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!
IT'S AN ALIEN WORLD!!
IS THERE AIR ?
YOU DON'T KNOW!!"
Our 'Chief opens hatch, sniffs the "Air",
says "Smells OK" !!!
LROTG!!!
I laughed for 10 minutes on that one!)
**********************************
MY Fav is Voyager, with DS9 a close second.
As Purely Entertainment, they Rock!
As a 'Guide to Future Civilization' . . .
Hmmmm!......

It's GOOD to see Media examples of "Possibilities".
I look at ALL Sci-Fi as 'Scenarios' of what the Future COULD be!(Although B5 was probably CLOSER to OUR "possible future")

AS stated here (and by 'Doc Brown' in Back To The Future);
"The Future hasn't been WRITTEN yet!
No ONE's has!"
It's up to US, guys and gals.

IMHO truly GREAT Sci-Fi offers:
1.) Great Story Plot
2.) Strong Character(s)
3.) Great FX!, Battles, ships, weapons, tools, cinematography, etc... and
4.) An (Interesting) view of the Future!

I followed B5 and now have a NEW FAV - LOTR!

In regards to Life, and the 'Future', I quote
Frodo and Gandalf in "The Fellowship of the Ring":

FRODO: "I wish the Ring had never come to me.
I wish NONE of this had happened"

GANDALF: "So do ALL who live to see such times.
But it is NOT for them to decide.
All you (WE) have to decide is,
What to DO with the Time that is
GIVEN to you."

> See, Ponder and Enjoy! <

PS; Don't forget to LIVE life to it's FULLEST!!!

- A message from SPECIES 8472 (In a Galaxy, Far, Far AWAY! > " WE WANT 7 0f 9 !!!!" )

Well, here's my two cents' worth (at least until the Federation abolishes money):

On the one hand, we have people with waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time on their hands finding fault with one of the best sci-fi shows ever. Tell me one instance in the last 30+ years where YOU (that's right, YOU) didn't tune in to some OTHER TV show and DID NOT FIND one single reference to Star Trek? Or, tell me a time that YOU surfed the internet and DID NOT FIND at least one Trek-MENTIONING website?

If you can do that, I'll call you a liar and sic my killer Tribble on you.

On the other hand, we have other people with waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time on their hands actually DEFENDING one of the greatest sci-fi shows ever. They immediately take offense if someone DARE poke fun at their 'religion' (And, come one, folks, some 'Trekkies' actually get too carried away with Star Trek) and immediately call upon The Great Bird Of The Galaxy to cross polarities and come through the noisy doors and defecate on the offenders.

If one Trekkie can tell me that Star Trek doesn't rule his or her life, I'll call you a liar.

I've got plenty of cheese to go with all the whine going around.

For the record, I am a Star Trek fan (not a Trekkie, not a Trekker, not an overly zealous idiot living in my parents' basement who's never kissed a real girl) with a Real Life (thank you, William Shatner). I see the extremes being represented here, thus confirming the fact that the Trekkies (those that whine about someone poking fun at a TV show that has become their life) do need to "Get a REAL life". William Shatner's guest appearance on Saturday Night Live with his "Get A Life" skit should be required viewing for those 'people'.

And, for those of you poking fun at Trek (did you really think I wouldn't say something about them?), just take a look at everything in society today, and then tell me Star Trek hasn't influenced your life somehow, I'll call you a liar.

The Original Star Trek (1966-1969) was the designer for most (if not all) the neat little gadgets you take for granted EVERY DAY, such as that nice computer you're using right now (Trek had it...desktop displays), that nifty little cell phone you yak on while you're driving across town to pick up your kids from soccer practice (Trek had it...their communicators), the blood scanners you diabetics are using to monitor your blood sugar and the pneumatic hypodermic syringes your doctor uses today (Trek had it...the medical devices Bones used).

In a nutshell:

Those of you worshipping the Great Bird Of The Galaxy...get a life.

Those of you trashing Trek...get a life.

I do believe I'm one of the few true Trek fans who can appreciate BOTH sides of this debate, and laugh my ass off at the sheer stupidity of BOTH parties involved...

Then go inside and put on my Star Trek shirt and get my toy phaser and zap Klingons...after I've e-mailed all my friends, had the doctor check my blood sugar, and called my kids at soccer practice on my cell phone.

Sheesh.

Beeswax:

To all the people who take this stuff too seriously

My pointy stick-on ears perked up when you said that- I nearly spilt tea down my special limited edition spandex starfleet dress uniform! It's just like the ones in Star Trek:Generations!

and i have to make special refernce to pious and kahn...

Why shucks! You think I'm special...Wait, is that special as in K or special as in Olympics????

(who have made parts of this read absoulute petty bitching over indulgent not to mention completly out of place torcher),
Dude, you could always have, y'know, just skimmed past those bits if you didn't find them interesting. It's not torcher if you inflict it on yourself: it's masochism. And our sub-conversation did flow quite naturally from what went beforehand...

urm the point, oh yeah.. just chill out,
you sure you haven't chilled out maybe a little much? you seem to be having a few problems with your short term memory. You might do well to pass that doob on roundabout now.

just chill out, the only reason you all speak so fluidly and aggressivly
Well, I for one, actually achieve that aggressive fluidity by reaching a zenlike state of deeply focusssed calm through an intensive yoga regime. Your concern for my blood-pressure is noted, and appreciated.

on the subject is because you read something somewhere

Yeah, I read a thing once. I enjoyed it so much I then went and read another thing, and another until I'd read a whole bunch of things, and before I knew it I was actually moderately well informed, and I found myself forming opinions and evaluating other people's opinions and the facts they presented. It's a hellish, slippery slope, my friend, and I pray you never make the same mistake.

and chose to believe it was gospel,
Um, excuse me! I exercise just as much skepticism about what I read as the next guy (which to be fair probably isn't anywhere near enough, and is biased heavily in favour of stuff which supports my own belief system-just like the next guy). I take nothing as gospel...except of course "DIANETICS" by L. Ron Hubbard, which is the complete and unadulterated truth about everything in the universe ever....

you both need to listen to the other guys opinion

very true,in that listening to each other is necessary for some kind of discussion, but I'm pretty sure we *were* listening to each other. I certainly have no complaint with Pious on that regard, and I think I've addressed the issues he raised.

if you are gonna do it here.

Hey, hold on a sec. He seems like a nice guy and all, but he isn't really my type, you know? But your well intentioned, (if unsubtle to point of pornographic) attempts at matchmaking are appreciated.

You need to admit that the worlds future hasnt yet been written

I'll take it you aren't a fan of Nostradamus then?

and bitching about the accuracy of sci-fi portrails of that future is futile and annoying...
Huh? 1: we weren't. and 2: that's essentially what the first post in the thread was, which you said you liked! 3: Bitching about the accuracy of sci-fi portrails of the future can often be both humourous (like here) and inspire other sci-fi writers to Try Harder- for example there's no sound in space in firefly.

...its the duty of the best writers to dream up future science and ideals

Amongst MANY other things, not least of which are coming up with decent plots, characters, and some kind of theme or idea behind it all would go down a treat too....

and its the duty of the scifi enthusiast to sit back and ponder the possibilities.
Again, Amongst MANY other things, such as plot, character and theme, as stated above.

You cant just say your right cos joss says so

Well, when we're discussing what Joss's intentions were, I think it's perfectly valid, actually.

and you cant say your right because your favourit sci fi is more successfull with the public than someone elses.
Indeed. I'll assume that wasn't directed at me or Pious though, because neither of us have done so. But I haven't noticed very many other people saying anything like that in this thread....

Who gives a toss where joss's influences and insiprations of story writing come from.

You've never tried listening to your favourite musician's favourite musicians? Or reading your favourite writer's favourite books? You should- it's a great way to come across a lot of interesting stuff. It's how I've gotten into a lot of my favourite books and TV shows and bands.

you give too much power to him for eating his shit,

Hey, what me and Joss get up to in the privacy of our own kinky lovenest is our business, and I'd appreciate it if you and Rick Santorum (not to mention his dog) keep out of it!

just watch the stories and leave it,
So you're saying that there's no value in discussion or interpretation of fiction? That fiction doesn't gain it's importance through it's attempt to analyse people's behaviour and ideas, that writers should merely content themselves to merely telling 'ripping yarns'? In that case, I'd like to reccomend a book to you. It's called 'Animal Farm', and the author doesn't try to get above his station by discussing politics or anything like that: he knows his place, and is content merely to tell a good old fashioned fairy tale about farmyard folk. Also (in a vain attempt to bring this thread on-something remotely resembling- topic) what about that episode of trek with the half-white and half black guy and the half black, half white guy? What's that all about, eh?

the worlds best writers and artists don't sit around explaining themselves

They'd better not do, otherwise the guys who write the Cliff notes (and other study guides) would go out of business, and then they'd be pissed.

joss discredits himself by trying to make people draw realism to his fantastical writing,

Huh? I have no idea what you actually mean by this. But EVERY writer has an obligation to maintain some degree of realism ie, a good degree of internal consistantancy within the context of the established game-rules of the (fictional) universe, and realistic characters with consistant motivations, behaviour and development. Equally, it's perfectly valid, and indeed A Good Thing for a writer to try and provoke some kind of emotional response from his audience through the use of metaphors for and parallels with real life (or at the least the author's interpretation thereof). I hope either of these points go some way towards addressing whatever it was you were trying to say.

the dude aint no politician

Show's how little you know! He's actually president of a small chain of islands in the south pacific, including JossTopia and Jossistan.

and although he is entitled to his opinions he already has his public medium,

So what you're now saying is that he has a right to express his views via the medium of television scifi and fantasy- even though a moment ago you were criticising us for discussing the views he may be presenting via that medium? Colour me confused!

...he'd do well to log in here and realise how much influnence he has over some of you jokers political views.

Yes, you're absolutely right in that regard. My entire political belief system is founded purely on the basis of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and before I started watching that show I had no opinions whatsoever. For example, my mistrust of large government organisations is inspired purely by the portrail of the initiative, I only support gay rights because of Willow and Tara, and my cynicism regarding businesses and their greed is inspired purely by Anya. I am also rather concerned at the way mainstream politicians have avoided addressing the Vampire Issue.

Fool should run for president the way you guys hang off him.

Well, it could only be an improvement....

chill..

Okay, look I'm just going to apologise for this right now, save myself the hassle later on, because I have been a mite cruel, but hey, I thought it was funny!- and I do think you have been a little patronising at times, and that you're setting your standards as regard fiction, and the writing and interpretation thereof rather low... No (serious) offence intended...

You're all a bunch of hacks.......space 1999 was the best sf show ever..posers!!!!!!!

Loved Star Trek...hated Firefly...loved Babylon 5(best Sci-Fi EVER)

Holodecks - definitely used for wrong thing
Picard - too sexy
Number 1 - sucks
Borg - truly outstanding
And SEVEN of 9 - hottest chick around!

The wardrobe budget on the original Star Trek must have been outrageous. Not only did Ensign Gomez lose a whole uniform when he was incinerated by Landru, but Captain Kirk was always getting his shirt ripped while engaged in mortal hand-to-hand combat with some foam rubber monster. Sometimes you could even see that black girdle he wore to make himself look less tubby.

At least The Next Generation didn't have a huge wardrobe problem. The captain barely ever ripped his uniform in mortal hand-to-hand combat, and the likes of Troi did their best to fit their size 15 asses into size 5 spandex tubes. Way to make the wardrobe budget stretch a bit further.

By the way, the janitors wore purple uniforms. I saw a ships janitor at a convention once.

Spot-on. This was great. I like Trek, and still watch Enterprise looking for good episodes (with that damned opening power rock crap song on mute), but the best sci fi on TV in the past 15 years IMO was Firefly, Bab5, and Farscape (yes, I prefer muppets farting explosives and knock-out tongues to WEET doors and Counselor Cleavage).

Skimmed the rancorous debate, and it was about as amusing as your average cheesy TOS Kirk Fight or 1-2 season TNG Troi Feel A Thon. Embrace the kitsch! And keep it in perspective, y'all. Just. A. Show.

Everyone... just shut up!! Star Trek rules... especially Star Trek Deep Space Nine when Federation is at war against the dominion...

Star Treks Federation is what this world needs... or you maybe likte it better with the violence, the drugs and rapes and murders...

The thing that's forever vext me about StarTrek is: WHO BUILT THE KLINGON'S SPACESHIPS? It certainly could not have been them. Klingon Geeks? Klingons with slide-rules? (remember, they have a past also). Really, Imagine two Klingon engineers (that was tricky. still with me?)At a white-board, discussing a technical problem. I can't do it without blood being spilt. I imagine that all their technocrap is built by the REAL rulers of Kling, a race of teeny Gnomelike critters who are just too cool to get involved with running around the universe and the Klingons are their unwitting cattle. I'd like to meet them in some future Star Trek.

And can you stretch credulity more with the introduction of point-to-point transporting?

No longer did you even need to stand under the transporter to have your atoms disintegrated, put into the form of energy, and beamed somewhere. The transporter can now shoot its mystery ray through the ship to where you are and transport you from there.

Insane. Although it only took about 10 years to get better palm pilots than the guys in TNG used.

I remember watching the first episodes of Star Trek as a little girl. I'm laughing my butt off here at the list and at all the rest of the comments. Here's the only thing I know, you can debate all the finer points about the shows, but all I remember is that even at 8 years old, I knew I wanted Kirk to come in and save me and give me the lip lock! Nothing like a good old shot of testosterone to make a show successful

I thought this was brilliant with one glaring flaw - HOW COULD YOU FAIL TO INCLUDE "TACHION PARTICLES" IN YOR TECHNOBABBLE?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is it actually true that there's no money in Star Trek?... Seems to me they dealt in "credits," or was that only for trade with non-federation worlds? (i.e., the Trouble with Tribbles.) I always took it that people got so familiar with military-supply fixed prices, and e-commerce that they never squabbled with money. Just the computer removed 3 credits from Picard's account every time a computer confirmed it was his voice asking for Earl Gery tea. Of course, I don't know how they knew whether to charge the Cap'n presonal account.

Then again, maybe they just never have to deal with that s--t, after all, they also don't seem to have toilets on the Enterprise.

And what about Chekov's accent? No one else had such a thick accent. Okay, Scotty's brogue became much more pronounced when he drank too much Scotch, but still... What was this? Showing respect/empathy to the Soviets during the height of the Cold War?

Kapten Zoom rules
Galaxies in my pants....

I love ST. I stopped watching at Voyager becuse, give me a break, the Captain (or something) was an American Indian. All other religions and ethnicities on Earth have been abolish but Indians remain?! Too ridiculous. Furthermore, am I the only person to have seen "Space:Above and Beyond?" I liked that show alot. Perhaps I was the only person who saw it, because it was promptly cancelled.

Hi!
'Spec 84' here again!

A few of MY offerings on Star Trek IN-Consistancies:

1.) Timing.
Any time something "happens" to threaten the Federation, they always "manage" to have the time and resources to conquer it!
IE, in TNG when Enterprise'D hits the 'Quantum Fillament';
WHY did the Borg not attack then?
Klingons? Feregi? A Pulsing Quasi-Sqiud creature?
A Teddy-Bear type creature that traps you in a Black VOID of space?
PERFECT time to take over the Federation!
No main power, No Weapons, Spandex Troi in Command!
BTW - Ensign Ro Laren - (BABE!)

2.)The 'Fair Play for the Federation'/ Hands-Off policy approach by 'Alien vessels' toward Enterprise, Voyager, etc.
I recall Several times when Enterprise, Voyager, Defiant, etc. was vulnerable and COULD have been taken over by other ships, but wasn't!
First they try to blow them away, then Bam! Next scene they quietly fly off leaving the stricken Voyager, Enterprise, etc. to lick their wounds, regroup, run a 'Level 1,2,3,500 Diagnostic, un-freeze Scotty from Transporter Oblivion, Rescue Ambassador Spock, or analyze their meager Sensor scans to find a weakness in the Alien Ship's defenses, so they can "Meet again" and Pulverize them!
. . .
On the BRIGHT side:

The series(plural) have encouraged us to
1. Get along; 2. Work together toward a common goal; 3. Develop better technology
(BTW, how many find it odd that when the Original Series was on, and IF you were SEEN in public carrying something that LOOKED like a Star Trek "communicator" you'd be tormented with teasing . . .
NOW, almost ALL of (us) carry cellphones with the 'Flip' cover feature and PDA's (Palm Pilot) (P.A.D.D.'s) that look like the TNG devices!)
My, how times CHANGE!!
We're ALL Techno-geeks!- and COOL now!
Hey I was 'cool' when cool wasn't cool!??

********************************************

Star Trek's message has been to STRIVE toward a Brighter Future; to "make a difference"; to Eliminate Problems, (not sweep them under the Rug with a Government Program); To "better yourself", and ALL humanity, and other 'sentient species' as well; to fight for what is RIGHT, Just, Fair, etc.

Granted It's JUST T.V. folks.
It HAS to be Bought by networks and Paid For by Advertisers.
A TOTALLY committed message/program would have to be PRIVATELY-funded to eliminate the Politics of the TV/ Movie moguls, . . .

But Hey -

"That's ENTER-TAIN-Ment!"
(I LOVE the Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens' portrayal in TNG's 1880's San Fran > "Madame Guinan!"; also the Jack London guy was cool!)

-Species 8472- > Seeking: "Tertiary Adjunct of unimatix Zero-ONE" < A.K.A. 7 of NINE, Bay-Bee!!

..but 7of9, boy, wouldn' she go for a supermodel career on earth instead being part of a boring crew running a asexual spacecraft??

Shatner's Rug.
And the way. He Starts. And stops. For dramatic effect. Every. Time. He tries to mutter a coherent thought.

It was _always_ ment to be understood that the holodeck was for ALL kinds of recreation. ;-)

There was a line in Voyager when Tom Paris said something to the effect that "Now that I'm married, my days of rescuing slave girls as Captain Proton are over!"

Well of course the doors go "wheet!".
Doesn't any of you remember the episode where Enterprise is being attacked by ultra high velocity sound bursts coming from a Britney Spears concert unfortunately taking place at some ill choosen location where the time space continuum layers have interextrasuperpolated into violent vortexes of quantumtachyons?
Giordi's semi-monologue goes as follows:
"Well I could try to reverse the polarity of the whateverthingthatcouldpossiblysaveusfromthisridiculousshit device, but that would only make the universe implode (whew! close one Giordi). Instead I think I will interchange the wiring of the slidingdoorsshouldsoundlikefuckall device with the vampiricholodeckbitchhavinganorgasm device. Noone will notice."
Picard approves: "Good thinking Giordi. The vampire bitch in holodeck is dead anyway"
"With all due respect captain. You're a retard"
"Thanks Giordi. You're the finest of your kind."
And that's how the doors got their sound.

True

And with all their high technology, they still don't have a cure for that chrome-dome Piccard's baldness??

Cure it? Why the hell? Picard was hot!

if you had a holodeck..would you ever leave it? Think of star trek, and Q and the future as the matrix, and they being stuck in the system cuz space travel is impossible.

so realluy, all you have is a bunch ofplanets playing some mmorpg with eachother, that explains away every excuse you'll ever find..and if you dont believe it, question why Q could do as he wanted, and why in the new star trek, people are fighting some 'temporal' cold war..it's all there..

I am a Wil Wheaton Follower:

Ok-- First off-- "Driven ot Drink"--you are one funny and crazy person!!! You Rock I like the way you think....

--"Dudemac"-- Tasha and Data got it on because he was ah hemm "Equipped in mulitple techniques and the proper equipment--if ya get my drift" I am a Geek enough to Remember that Episode--
It's also the same episode where Wesley Has a power trip and rigged the Comunicator to put out false Announcments--- Bawhaahahaaa !! That was pricless ;)

OK, No one so far seems to have fallen upon my BIGGEST pet peeve. It's the freaking BORG. I mean, HOW MANY TIMES do we have to see these people destroyed to have them just COME BACK.

Picard killed them after he was Locutus. Then, we have Hugh, who gives them all individuality, but I guess it didn't take.

They were all over the place in Voyager. They show up in the First Contact movie (a convenient set-up for Enterprise), and Data kills the Queen, but she returns magically. Then JANEWAY kills them in the Voyage finale.

Well, I finally gave up on Enterprise when the Borg, whom Picard, Riker, Data et all were completely unaware when Q first sent them to the delta quadrant, showed up on the latest series. I mean, talk about a tool for lazy writers.

OK, I just reread this post and I am scared that I know all of this.

Hilarious, and oh so accurate! The part about reversing the polarity had me spitting all over my monitor with laughter. And the holodeck! What a dreadful invention--an excuse for lazy scriptwriters to send the crew back to Victorian England or wherever. Hated it!

But I'm delighted to see so many people here remember one of my favorites--Space: Above and Beyond. It was easily among the most underrated sci-fi shows ever. I loved it because it was only tangentially a sci-fi show. There was almost no technobabble, and hardly ever did a plot involve some scientific mumbo-jumbo. It was an attempt to do a drama about war. That it was in space was entirely secondary. Half the show's plots were inspired by events from previous wars. My favorite was the episode inspired by--of all things--the famous 1914 Christmas truce, when the combatants of WWI, without approval from high command, just stopped fighting on Christmas Day, crossed into each other's trenches, and celebrated the holiday. Next day, the killing resumed.

Now how do you write a story about that when the enemy are a bunch of aliens who certainly don't celebrate Christmas? Well, Space did just that, and in the process made one of the best dramas about faith, and hope, and Christmas that I've ever seen on TV. Absolutely astonishing stuff. So of course, they cancelled it. Bummer.

This post was the BEST!!! ROTFL! I think everyone has the "most heard thing" about the "reverse polarity"...what did we hear even MORE than that????

ROTATE SHIELD MODULATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(and they still got the shit knocked out of them!! :)

I don't care though, I still LOVE Star Trek (Except for the waste of film "Enterprise". PLEASE GIVE US A BETTER STORY THAN THIS!!! WHO CARES WHAT HAS HAPPENED ALREADY! PICK IT UP IN THE FUTURE AFTER VOYAGER HAS RETURNED!!!!)

Oh...by the way, BABYLON 5 is **still** my all time favorite Sci-FI

Woah-287 comments, now 288. I bet your mailbox is crammed!

Nonetheless, this is probably one of the funniest things I've seen you put on your site. It's great to know I'm not the only one who wondered why they didn't have seatbelts in the original Star Trek.

I think the main problem that they had with Firefly was that the last episode aired was the pilot. Is it me, or was that backwards (I have not read all of the posta, just the 1st 100 or so and no one mentioned that). I understood a lot more about the story after I saw the pilot.

And I have been a trekkie since way back when (I think I actually watched the original episode of the series). Why didn't they just name guys " Ensign Expendable"?

Head Writer at ST-TNG: "Well, doesn't ANYONE have an idea for a science fiction story this week?"
Anon Writer: "Umm, no, but I have this GREAT idea for a Western..."

And so the Holodeck saga would continue...

One thing I hate about all Sci-Fi series is the fact that space ships always fligh with that big RHOOOAR through the space.

Hey, get awake - you need AIR to hear sounds, and the space is totally silent.

I think the only time this was done right was in 2001 Space Odyssee.

Star Trekkin'
Across the Universe,
Boldly going forward....

There's klingon's on the starboard bow,
starboard bow,
starboard bow,
Klingon's on the starboard bow,
Scrape'm off, Jim

We come in peace....Shoot to kill...
Shoot to kill...
Shoot to kill...
We come in peace....Shoot to kill,
Shoot to kill men!

It's life Sir, but not as we know it,
Not as we know it,
Not as we know it,
It's life Sir, but not as we know it,
Not as we know it, Captain.

It's worse than that, He's dead Jim,
He's dead Jim,
He's dead Jim,
It's worse than that, He's dead Jim,
He's fuckin' dead, Jim!

Star Trekkin'
Across the Universe.
Boldly goin' forward, 'cause we can't find reverse!

Even in TNG, still America rules the world.

Therefore they would not be able to build a spaceship because they can't convert inches into cm, every fat woman would sue the clothing manufacturers and the computer would run windows 2498 NT XP SE. Even if they reached space (one third of the crew would have serious problems as smoking a cigarette outside the starship would be mandatory), they would not dare confronting the Clingons as long as Ossi's or Saddi's grandchildren are hiding in the desert.

KAHN MY SWEET PRINCESS:

kahn the point of my post was to try and encourage you to stop over analysing not to stop analysing, but you have still managed to continue your senselessly over analytical journey into my psyche

"and I found myself forming opinions and evaluating other people's opinions and the facts they presented. It's a hellish, slippery slope, my friend, and I pray you never make the same mistake."

your opening two or three bursts of abusive backchat and slating hardly came across as evaluating other peoples opinion kiddo, in fact quite the opposite, you'd do well to remember I came upon your "conversation" as an impartial viewer, and you came across as incredibly self-righteous and rude. If all your reading and exploration into life’s rich tapestry has resulted in your close minded and blinkered attitude problem then I am glad I never read beyond where’s Wally.

"Yeah, I read a thing once.BY JOSS WHEDON I enjoyed it so much I then went and read another thingBY JOSS WHEDON , and another until I'd read a whole bunch of thingsBY JOSS WHEDON , and before I knew it I was actually moderately well informedBY JOSS WHEDON
and anyone else that said anything i disregarded cos it wasnt indorsedBY JOSS WHEDON

I have to admit to not reading the rest of your post because it takes too long and the point of my post was to try and stop you from being so blinkered and the first couple of paras were more than enough to realise you live for this shit and blinkered is the only way you can get through the day. Leave Scotland, see some of the world, form your own opinions, the kind of life changing opinions that you cant read from someone else. you are exactly the kind of would be atheist that rejects religion because you wont be told what to do and you believe it to be below your intelligence and then follow your own reading like scripture. You reject even your own choosing to stay informed, how can you possible know if you are hearing two sides of an argument reading newspaper cuttings and published essays? LIVE IT BABY! dont read it."neocons" I mean where are you from? Advice one more time, turn off the telly stop reading asimov and think, today I am going to smell the air outside and try and find my own words to describe it, touch the grass and think of things and memories the smell reminds you of, you may like the fight with "neocons" whoever the fuck they are and you may love the knowledge you have acquired but try and be original.

Just as a plus if you are going to ignore me and leave the telly on watch "good will hunting" because there is a similar argument about reading and doing between williams and damon, which encapsulates the point quite beautifully, and when you can tell me what it smells like in the louvre I will listen to your point.

CAPTAINS LOG SUPLIMENTAL;-) You may want to try not having conversations at all but just post appendices of books you read once.

Nice one sister,

Peace im out.

I can't believe no-one's mentioned the single biggest bit of nonsense in ST. They find a new planet, they scan it for life-forms, they pick the biggest concentration of life-forms, beam down, and they ALWAYS find the united government of the entire planet waiting for them there or, at most, a couple of hundred metres away. Would this work on Earth? The largest number of different political movements they ever find on AN ENTIRE PLANET is two: the ones in power and the rebels. But, usually, there aren't even any rebels. And all the political leaders of the entire planet live in one small area of one city. Or even just a small town. I want to see them beam down and discover that there are at least three hundred different governments that they're going to have to deal with before they can get any sort of consensus and that the negotiations are likely to take at least sixty years. I'd also like to see someone scan the planet and say, "Captain, I'm picking up more than two thousand major population centres. Which one do you want to beam down to?"

"Dr Who reversed the polarity on NEUTRONS? Neutrons don't flow, and have no polarity! This is what you get when you let Brits do Sci-Fi. Oh, and Red Dwarf. You get that too."

HA! Red Dwarf rocks! I mean - come on - Arnold J. Rimmer? Dave Lister? Kryton? And The Cat... ahhh - yes - Cat. Aside from the dodgy yank accents on Kryton and Cat, this show was a fine piece of work. At least, it was when I was 19. You'll be running it on PBS soon enough - if it hasn't already... And Dr. Who scared the crap out of me when I was six dammit - don't you know how scary the Daleks are?

Add me to the chorus of people who love this list.

I watched the original ST for comic value - the campy acting and the dodgy sets still drag me back to reruns on rainy Saturday afternoons.

I watched ST:NG for escapism - they got to travel the universe, hang out with their friends, hook up with other life forms, beat the baddies, faced interesting philosophical dilemmas and Jean Luc was always there to be the authoritative, direct yet compassionate father figure/chief hero/whatever. Worth waiting up for late on Tuesday nights.

I stopped watching ST when DS9 came along. Like the earlier ones, it reflected the values of the era it was written in. Unfortunately it was the couch potato era, so they just stopped going anywhere, everyone came to them instead. Too much talk and inter-species politicking, not enough action.

ROTFLMAO! That is some seriously funny $hizn!t! I grew up watching all of the Startrek shows and movies, I guess you just learn to ignore all the little silly details.

Uhh.. Emma... actually, according to Robert Llewellyn, Kryten was done with a Canadian accent, eh?

"By Georrrge, Captain...I'm feelin' a little lubricated meself after laughin' so hard!"

I read somewhere that they used all of those dead tribbles by making key chains and fuzzy dice out of 'em. Somebody, for God's sake, alert the media.

I could see myself getting a pantload of tribbles and then walking by some klingon to set 'em off! Yeeeeeessssssshhhh!!!! Hey, if my girlfriend can ride the washing machine on spin cycle I'm entitled to a little indescretion.

Worf was actually a dog and the ship's pet. Worf Worf!

Hmm... my only problem with Firefly was that lame metaphysical bullshit they brought into it... with that Barney Miller character I think. That bit gave me the twitchies. They should have done a show with James Randi as a guest for a good ole debunking. The only change with regard to mental powers that will occur in the future is that finally people will see the Uri Gellers of the world for what they are... frauds.

But seriously, folks.. I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned Odyssey 5. Am I the only person that thinks that show doesn't completely suck? Am I just swayed by the presence of Peter Weller? Or was it that episode where a synthetic deadpanned right to Peter's face about a certain Rock'n'Roll Physicist who once said: "No matter where you go.. there you are"? Any show that makes a reference to the great Buckaroo is alright in my book! If you haven't caught it yet, you might want to... it looks pretty interesting.

On the subject of ST tech, I highly recommend that book "The Physics of Star Trek" by Lawrence M. Krauss. While some of the stuff may be theoretically possible in the far future, the whole concept of transporters, and other technologies based on them, such as replicators and holodecks, have problems that are, as they say, non-trivial. But they're fun to pretend with, aren't they? Like they say, it's just a TV show.

And all being said, ALL the Star Treks are great.. each in their own way. This is going to go over like a lead balloon... but IMHO Enterprise is the best ST since TOS. I'll watch an Enterprise episode long before I'll watch TNG, DS9 or even Voyager. Scott Bakula may not buckle a lot of swashes, but you know what? He's believable. He's the most believable Captain an ST series has ever had. I'll be looking forward to seeing Enterprise grow and improve over the next few years.

Remember: If you truly love something, you should be able to poke some fun at it!

Kira
The Intendant
Beverly
7 of 9
Troi (after season 3)
That vulcan chick from Enterprise
yum yum yum

Tho, for self contained story, Babylon 5 is the best, period.

Yeah. I'm already wailing over the dent in my finances that purchasing the 2nd through 5th season of B5 on DVD is going to make.

And you forgot T'Pring... Spock's fiancee. She was definitely spawnable.

Hi Kahn!

I feel like we're old friends now. How are things going with your new friend, beezwax? He sounds really cool, I hope you two are friends 4ever!

Jeeze, I step away for a couple of days, and you've gone and picked a fight with somebody else? I'm hurt, but not so hurt that I won't still write to you.

I have to say that your little fisking exercise rivaled the original 10-things post for drink-through-the-nose funnyness. Good show.

If you ever decide to "leave Scotland" or wherever, give me a call. I have a nice dark echo chamber where we can form new opinions, if you'd like. I'll even open the window so we can smell the outside smells.

One more thing: "An M.Kahn-ticle for Liebowitz" was a particularly tasty reference to one of my favorite books. Eat! Eat! Eat!

Oh, and in reference to your question, you can italisize by enclosing things in <I> ... </I>, but I don't know how to do links.

(still) Pious

Hey, the Science Fiction Forum on CompuServe used to have a crew of regulars who would take TNG apart on a regular basis. Picture a song parody called "It's a Trek World After All" to which David Gerrold contributed a verse. (OK, OK, I started it.)

As for the "You can't go warp 9 again" business, this was my contribution:

(to the tune of "Please Mister Please" by Olivia Fig Newton)

In the engineering hull there sits a warp drive,
With its matter in and out and pro and con.
Till there came another bumpy-forehead lady
Said the universe would blow to hell and gone.
Then she vaporized herself so we'd believe her,
Blew a hole in space from here to Timbuktu.
And we only could escape by going surfing!
What's a poor beleagured Captain gonna do?

Please Geordi please,
Don't go warp nine-point-nine.
It was top speed, it was our speed, but it's over.
Listen to me,
'cause my job's on the line.
We ain't never gonna go warp nine again.

So I guess I'll get ahold of the Ferengi,
And tell them 'bout the speed they've gotta do,
Call Gul Dukat and have him pass the message,
'cause I know those web-neck guys will slow down too.
It reminds me of that ancient oil embargo,
When the earthlings couldn't go but fifty-five,
And I wish I knew the Klingon word for turtle,
'cause I'm captain of the slowest ship alive.

Please Geordi please,
Don't go warp nine-point-nine.
It was top speed, it was our speed, but it's over.
Listen to me,
'cause your butt's on the line.
We ain't never gonna go warp 9 again.

It amazes me that Starfleet officers were always able to dodge out of the way when shot at by enemy phasers. Apparently reflexes will be faster in the 24th century - or maybe they learned how to do it at the Academy.

"It amazes me that Starfleet officers were always able to dodge out of the way when shot at by enemy phasers."

You'rte right, they learned it at the Academy from Morpheus and Neo.

man, you touched a nerve with this topic.

A few more gripes:

1) Why, in a completely artificial, climate-controlled environment, does every single group wear either A) big bulky ceremonial robes, or B) 1960's Tommorowland leisure suits. How about shorts?

2) Why do the advanced computer-controlled, sensor-assisted weaponry miss 90% of the time?

3) Why does every alien have something wrong with their nose? (OK, I know this one, actually - minimum makeup to give the idea of alien. Bah!)

40 Why does every single race everywhere have the same morals as 20th century Hollywood writers? Can't those guys actually come up with anything innovative?
Wouldn't you just love those smarmy PC Enterprisers to come up against a bunch of libertarian traders (from the anarchist world of Spooner) who sneer at the Prime Directive?

It never ceases to amaze me the degrees of disrespect the younger generations have for the forward looking beliefs of Gene Roddenberry, Look....transportation technology exists, albeit in data form only at this stage. Phasers exist, anti-matter exists. We're getting there. One day, who knows, we'll be able to get along without John Howard & Peter Costello.........Gods, I can but hope.

Yes, I'm a trekker.....as opposed to a trekkie. We like it but realise there's a real world to contend with.....they love it and want to know when the Enterprise is next going to beam down an away team to take them away from all this.

My own observations:

Picard must have the mental constitution of steel. He gets assimilated by the Borg, tortured my the God-like Q, zapped by a satellite and lives like 50 years as another person, plus having to make difficult decisions that have led to several crewmember's deaths. If I had survived even a fraction of that, I'd be ready for the looney bin, and totally unfit for command.

How come so many holodeck simulations, time travels, "ressurected people," and references are always Earth, usually around the 20th century, Western culture? You never see anything where Picard is sent back in time to Japan in 800 AD, find a mummy from 1300, or a holodeck simulation of the bad section of Detroit in 2135.

I never got the "system without money" thing, either. I mean, how are goods traded? How do you deal with limited supply issues? It seems the only vague references to this suggest a primative barter-like system.

They speak awfully good 20th century English in the future. Compare it to English 400 years ago. You can barely understand it. There's been no change in slangs, idioms, similies, metaphors, or even formalities in 400 years? Prithee, me thinketh this doth not bode well with the commoners....

Yeah, of course you all liked Fire Fly. It was the typical mindless violence filled with the senseless and horrible slaughter of men. The usual idiot show in which the so-called good guy is still a murdering SOB, only slightly better than those he/she dispatches with glee and little sense of what it means to kill/maim someone. Just about all you are capable of wraping your brains around, apparently.

I just remembered a Star Trek episode of TNG where they have to get a cure for a disease from a planet that detains Tasha and forces her to fight or some such. Anyway, after getting the sought-after medicine that will cure the disease, the set course for the stricken planet--at Warp 3.

Why start with Star Trek? What about the serials? Does anyone remember Flash Gordon in chains shoveling radium into the atomic furnace? What about the god awful radio science fiction shows? I'll quote parody from 1941:

Professor: Turn on the death ray, Tex, and let 'em have it.
Tex: I can't, Professor. The atomic-integrator-exhalator-condensor coil is busted!
Professor: Zounds! Jumping gyroscopes! What'll we do now?
Millicent: The Jupter fleet is bearing down on us at six thousand miles per second!
Tex: Gosh! Looks like we're done for.
Millicent: Wait, Professor - I think I can fix it!
Professor: Only seconds are left.
Millicent: There!
-- Sound of switch --
Millicent: How's that?
Professor: Ah! Fixed!
Tex: Great, Millicent! You have saved civilization! This means peace in our time! Just wait till I spray 'em with this death ray.
Professor: Get set, Tex.
Tex: I await your order, Professor.
Professor: Ready! Aim! Fire!
-- Sound of death ray --

Some things just don't change. Then, as now, guys date the space princesses but they marry the spunky gals.

At least Millicent didn't reverse the polarity.

ok it is cute-- but i'd have more respect for it if a) you didn't put scotty and GEORDI in the same ship (since that only occured in relics) and b)you spelled GEORDI's name correctly

Hey - people analyze Star Trek (and Buffy and Firefly) because it is a fun game - taking something that isn't serious seriously.

As to why the Aliens all looked like humans - I think the answer is because real aliens are too expensive to hire for a TV show.

In terms of the economy of Star Trek. I don't think it was a particularly socialist society. Sure everyone gets replicator rations - but I think that is just a matter of transaction cost - the same way you don't pay for streetlights by the lument. It is pretty clear that if you want goods or services not made my replicator or for that matter if you want stuff that requires more energy that the basic replicator ration convers - you need money. You can probably have the same living standard as a middle class American inhabitant of the 21st century without working in the Star Trek universe. Then again you can probably get the same living standard as 14th century serf in 21st century America without working. But it is not the goal of most people in either case.

All this has been said before(except the bits about Firefly, Farscape and B5) way back in the 80's.Any NEW complaints?
Money doesn't exist and is the reason society("civilization" on Planet earth) is in trouble. Until and unless we get rid of money and competion(including tv show ratings) we as a species are doomed. Some people can't get it.....

i'd rant in defence of Trek but
a. there's too many of you
b. its actually quite funny

Beeswax:

First up: Dude, I'm a Dude. That said, I'm more than willing to dress up like princess Leia in a gold bikini for you and be 'your sweet princess'- I consider bizarre sexual deviancy to be second only to obsessive overanalysis of science fiction in terms of my favourite hobbies.
As far as abusive backchat goes, in your first post you implied that I was gullible, petty, overindulgent, and a fecophiliac, and I found the tone in which you did so somewhat patronising, not to say incoherant. I never actually insulted you, just took the piss out of what you said, and I actually apologised afterwards- but it seems you didn't actually read that far. And the 'sweet princess comment was either sexist and patronising (if you genuinely believed I was female) or utterly childish and possibly homophobic (if you thought I was male).

As for *over* analysing, compared to what goes on in say, any University English literature course, my analysis of the central metaphors in Firefly was actually pretty superficial. If I was *actually* going to overanalyse the show I could start babbling on about Freud's theories of Oedipal Conflict and how they're represented in Jayne Cobb, or how the show can be seen as an attempt to reconstruct notions of American Identity and heroic virtue in the light of our ever-changing post-modernist value system, and 21st century attitudes to race and gender. But instead, I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader...

Actually, given that Beeswax has probably stopped reading by this point, should I actually continue? I mean, is there really any point in continuing discussing this with someone who'll write 7 paragraphs replying to a post they've openly said they haven't even read all of? Still I should be glad he took my advice to skip it if he found it torcherous. Ah well, I'll keep at it, I've always had a bizarre love of futile gestures... I am an anti-war protestor, after all ;D

Anyway, I'm still trying to be relatively polite here, so I'll try and be brief. As for the 'By Joss Whedon' counterfisking, as I said beforehand, (although you probably didn't read that far) It's perfectly valid to quote a writer when discussing said writer's intentions!!!
you also say I'm blinkered. Well, lalalalalala! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!!
'...reading Asimov' : Actually, I'm more of a Phillip K man myself, I'm a complete and total Dickhead.
As for the get out and live comment, that might actually be a good idea- I haven't exactly spent my entire life reading and getting into hearty discussions online- in fact, you're the first person I've ever fisked (was it as good for you as it was for me, baby?)- but that's not to say that maybe my life could benefit from getting up to some kind of antics....or even a caper!
I actually quite liked Good Will Hunting- I'm quite a big Kevin Smith fan (he co-exec produced it). I'm not going anywhere with that comment, but I just thought I'd mention it...
Anyway, I doubt there's anything more absurd than getting ito an argument about trying to break up an argument which wasn't even an argument and even if it was, was over by the time you tried to break it up, so I don't see much point continuing this, so let's leave it at this. I don't bear you any malice or anything, and I really don't see any point getting into this any further. Peace to you too.

Pious:

Thanks for the info on italicization, and I'm glad you liked the fisking, even though I actually really hate the term fisking, I quite like Robert Fisk myself. I think we should try and reclaim the term-he should get a *nice* thing named after him, like a sexual activity. But that's completely irrelevant, and I'm somewhat tired now, so it'd be best if I just Fisk off.

A heh. I remember an illustrated list of annoying things about ST. One was, "Too many DNA-compatible forehead appliance aliens.

"This is your son?"

"Yes. He's part Klingon, part Ferenghi, part Bajorran, part Romulan, and part Cardassian."

*KLUNK* as 6 year old does a face plant when he loses his balance and his head pulls him over.

TOS Klingons were geneticly fused w/ Romulans, btw, which is why they looked so much alike. TNG Klingons were geneticly pure. Or so I was told by the members of the fan club, "Harbinger of Doom," all of whom had Klingon personas. Which is no more weird or lame than Vampire: The Masquerade Live Action Role Play.

Michael Seven quoth, "Money doesn't exist and is the reason society("civilization" on Planet earth) is in trouble. Until and unless we get rid of money and competion(including tv show ratings) we as a species are doomed."

aHEH. And resources are not scarce, and everybody else considers your well more important than their own. Suuuuuuuuuuuure they do.

Money is a shortcut. You're given money in a free market economy for doing good things for your fellow man--things he so much likes and appreciates that he PAYS you for them, even if he doesn't like YOU. The more valuable the things you do for your fellow man are, the more you get paid.

And things are worth--get this--whatever somebody is willing to give for them. And it could be different for everyone. No way is a Bentley worth $80k + to me. But it's worth that much to some others.

I didn't read every single post above, so this might have already been said...but doesn't Lwaxana Troi cause anyone here to run away screaming? If anything is more annoying about Star Trek than everything on your great list, SHE is. Being married to the creator of ST is just not a good enough excuse for those 5 or six wastes of episodes.

Why? why? why??

God help me, I have read every post.

Miscellaneous thoughts and ramblings:

To establish my context, I watched TOS and TNG. DS9 bored me, and I never got into Voyager. Enterprise has been rather enjoyable – as long as you set your expectations appropriately. Well, I guess this could be said about each of the series…

They are what they are. No more, no less.

And while I’m on this rant – the people that criticize the shows for not always making perfect sense? It’s commerce, after all. The writers were merely trying to crank out thematic fodder to adequately fill a season. They did not always have the luxury of time to make sure each plot point fit well into both what went before as well as what was yet to come.

To those that want to make it into a sociopolitical battle between Liberal and Conservative, or whatever banner you happen to be carrying today? I’m sorry. I see it as entertainment. Even if it’s thought-provoking, I’m not going to turn any of this into a metaphorical debate on Vietnam, Iraq, or Corporate Globalization.

Re: references to Minuet: she was played by Carolyn McCormack – who can be found in Law & Order reruns as Dr. Olivet.

Favorite eps:

“The Inner Light,” where Picard lived an entire lifespan as an inhabitant of a dying world.

“The Perfect Mate,” where Picard (and every other male on the ship – but especially Picard) fell for Famke Janssen. Really – who could blame them?

“Amok Time,” where Spock counseled and cautioned Stonn to the effect that he may find that Having is not as good as Wanting.

“Star Trek: Insurrection” (the movie). I know, I know – what can I say? I liked the chemistry between Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Anij (Donna Murphy).

I have visited WWDN before, but I must have hit it at a low point – he was threatening to stop posting - and to be perfectly honest, at the time, he sounded EXACTLY like a whiny, immature Wesley. Who needs that s**t? Not I.

So I did not return – until today, when I found the link to the “Top 10” list. (thanks to Blissfully Bitter).

Thanks, Wil. I don’t know what this book thing is – but Good Luck all the same.

…and if you didn’t jump Ashley Judd when you had the chance, you’re a fool. :-)

Okay, almost done… please learn from the errant ways of previous posters:

Check your spelling.
Check your spelling.
Check your spelling.

Check your grammar.
Check your grammar.
Check your grammar.

You can write the most scathing, compelling, erudite post known to man – but if you make a glaring spel/gram error, your credibility is pretty much shot to hell.

Yeesh. Too much?

gb

I agree with Victoria on the best show on SF that was cancelled. It is definately Farscape, though i sadly missed parts of it so when i did come back to it, i was pretty confused about what exactly was going on. However i also love Stargate SG1. I loved the original movie and also the sequal and i was so excited when i first saw the series. Anyway, i thought the list was hilarous! I used to love watching STNG i grew up watching the original ST with my dad.

There was a Stargate sequel?

Huh? 1. The Reconstruction of Iraq is going terribly and 2. The economy isn't in any sign of repair.

LAME

"That's why they don't have money, Geordi can fix anything by reversing polarity, and no one hits the can: BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT MAKES GOOD TV."

Uh, no. There's plenty of good TV where they do have money, you have to actually work to fix something rather than flip switches and say impressive-sounding words, and bathrooms exist. Even in SF.

urk.

Finally made it to the end of the comments. Time to put in my 2 pesos' worth.

Hmmm... yeah, the split infinitive thing. I was casually perusing my copy of "Guide to Writing Effective English" the other day: the split infinitive is to be avoided, but when it is used, the separation should be minimal.

My gripe about Trek and its acolytes has been the rabid ferocity that certain fans deify Roddenberry. I've always maintained that Roddenberry was simply a hack writer that came up with an idea for a television show at the right time in the right place.

The best episodes were written by professionals. Of course, the pros were subject to the network-tv mentality: Matheson and Ellison had their stuff butchered by staff writers.

What else? TOS definitely was the Good Ol' US of A in Space. Old Glory reared its tattered head, the Shat had to remember "E plebnista" (how could he remember it? -- he went to school in Westmount), American Injuns in "Paradise Syndrome", get your grups bonk-bonked on the head in "Miri", Chicago mobs? Soup kitchens? Abe Lincoln in space? "I'm from Iowa, I only work in outer space" --

Now, why are most races that we see in Trek humanoid? It's because Kirk boinked practically half the galaxy in less than five years.

Also, just a comment about the Fram oil filter that Geordi wore: wasn't it a girl's hair band?

Lastly: I got a life. It sucks. Temporal anomolies exist only as convoluted plot devices.

PS: I was kissed by Grace Lee Whitney in the 70's. She's still a babe.

PPS: T'Pol is a babe. Hubbah hubbah.

Some things that bugged me:

Why does the Captain give commands and then someone on the bridge has to type it in? Doesn't the ship have voice recognition software? Why should anyone be typing at all?

Surely Data has some sort of interface to the computer, rather than typing and reading things on the screen? Can't he just download the information?

*hold sides*

Ohh it hurts to laugh so much!!!

I must confess I am a Treck fan . . . wild about the stuff!

But I so recognize the humor in the unbelievable situations!

Question . . . why does all of those buttons on all of those panells make so much dern noise? I am sure we have quieter pannel buttons now!

Well anyway that is just great stuff. . .
you just wont believe the times I have slapped my forehead when Giordi says "Captain, I think we should reverse the polarity."

Not much was mentinoed with reguard the REAL reason for the Holodeck because in the earlier shows the captian was too busy getting it on with ever feamale alian (and why where all of these so beautiful and so aparently HUMAN?) that they came accross . . . but just a little note there where several eppisodes that insinuated what the Holodeck was used for. ;-)

Thanks for the laughs on this Monday morning!

~ torri

:-D

Lumin -- if Data downloaded everything, we couldn't watch him do it. And part of the story is the command structure anyway.

What always bothered me about the post-TOS ST series is how the writers stripped "human" from humanity. An examination of literature from Homer to Shakespeare til now demonstrates a pretty consistent view of human nature. Even prayers found in the spring at Bath, England sound familiar ("please punish the one who stole my good glove from the cloakroom"). Many of the newer SF writers seem to strive to separate us from our past. I always found the first season of TNG the most galling. If I had been one of the poor bastards unfrozen into that future hell ("no money" "synthol") I would have jump right back into the freezer. Families aboard!!??? Where is the teen hangout and vandalism? The US is the wealthiest, most technologically advanced society ever, yet instead of studying the finer points of particle physics, our youth are found huffing butane from paper bags and striking matches to watch them burn.

"Futurama" is the only series that portrays a future I would want to live in.

I seldom watch network TV, but it sounds like I missed something special in "Firefly".

Point #2 is definitely true. Porn has co-evolved with the written word and has been at the forefront of every advance in communications technology. It is one of the major industries on the Net and in the American economy. Get bored with it? Right.

OMG! This is just too funny. I love the "typing the command into the console" remark, made me think of Sigourney Weaver's character in Galaxy Quest. "Captain, the computer says we have 5 minutes of air left!"
And the point about the writers placing human ethics on all alien races is right on. That's the way they've lived their lives for eons; what gives these Federation dolts the right to come in and force the human way of life upon them?
Of course, most forms of entertainment are practically non-existant in the Federation future; have you ever seen someone walking down the halls of a Federation starship with a Walkman on? Didn't think so!

This post was pretty funny, it took me a couple of hours to read through the whole thing, but one thing that I was disappointed in was the fact that Space: Above and Beyond didn't get enough recognition as a damn good series. Does no one remember that show? One of the best episodes of any series I have ever seen was Who watches the birds? (I think that's the episode's name) The lack of dialogue in that episode was one of it's best characteristics, and it made it an amazing story. It's a happy time when Scifi actually decides to add that on to their mid day line-up. Never got a chance to watch Firefly, and I got into Farscape during the third season, never cared for the first two. As far as for the political discourse between Pious and Khan, congratulations to you both, it's a sad time in this country when the majority of the population is so ignorant and callous that if you even try to share a different viewpoint than their own, they will ostracize you to no end. Perfect example.....two words; Freedom Fries. At the sake of lowering my intelligence for a split second, anyone that embraces that idea is an imbecil (alright, I was going to say retard, but I decided not to sacrifice my intelligence. Oops, guess I did.) Problem with the people in this country is that they figure that the world revolves around America, and any terrorist act is completely unheard of. Growing up in Spain with the ETA and Argentina with all of anti-semites and the remnants of the Peron government, what happened here is not a shock to me. I don't condone it, but, I think it should have been expected by the majority of the people. As I said, callous. Oh yeah, a link that sent me here that's an interesting read, http://www.therant.info/archives/000038.html

Oops, I forgot one thing; You want to talk about terrorist acts, look at the role of the United States during the whole Bosnia-Serbia affair.

I had a thing for Beverly, she was HOT!
Remeber the episode with her and Troi working out? I was really hopeing that scene would go a different direction?

ST is lame mental masturbation, but I love masturbation so I watch it all the time.

Great job on the list, hope you do more!

This...is too damn great! I have e-mailed this to several people since seeing it and all of them usually are dying laughing by the end.

The 1 thing I love about Startrek:
SevenOfNines way to dress

On the subject of artificial gravity:

Why, when they are traveling at ultra light speeds and pulling Mega-Gs with even the slightest course change does the artificial gravity always fluctuate just enough to toss them across the room, but not enough to turn them into paste when they hit the far wall?

That's actually an old Starfleet engineering tradition: they deliberately program the gravity generators to fluctuate whenever a battle or an ion storm or something provides an excuse. All the engineering lieutenants take turns at it, and they get graded on the quality of the havoc they wreak. The ultimate achievement is to send the Captain flying across the bridge (you'll notice that almost never happens). Other than that, scores vary according to: 1) rank of person thrown, 2) how much the engineering crew dislike said person, 3) distance flown, and 4) severity of resulting injury.

Of course, captains are always complaining to their chief engineers or to Fleet Engineering, asking, if they can't fix the gravity, can they at least install seatbelts? But the engineers always say, "No, there's no need for that, we've almost got it figured out." Games like this are what the engineers use to measure their job satisfaction, there being no money and all.

Now for my own pet peeve: what the hell was Riker still doing on the Enterprise? By the time TNG ended, he had been offered his own command, what, four times? Five? Hell, during the Locutus business, he was promoted to Captain and given command of the Enterprise. Then Picard comes back, and Riker just takes that fourth pip off his collar and goes back to being Jean-Luc's lapdog.

Riker was introduced as this hotshot officer, on the fast track to glory--the next Captain Kirk. But I guess I should have known he was really a wuss when I saw the way he goes through doors. Ever notice how he leads with his shoulder? I thought that was kinda cool, until I realized he was just afraid the door wasn't going to open. Of course, that was a valid concern, but you never saw Kirk flinch like that, did you?

Was "on screen" ever followed by anything other than "magnify". What did ensign somebody think "on screen" meant?

"Dr Who reversed the polarity on NEUTRONS? [in 1950ish] Neutrons don't flow, and have no polarity! This is what you get when you let Brits do Sci-Fi. Oh, and Red Dwarf. You get that too."

And Hitchhikers.. Don't forget Hitchikers. Hitch and Dwarf..and the opening for any other sci-fi. Tomorrow People, Sapphire and Steel. For God's sake. Sometimes it feels like the UK was creating this stuff before the USA was invented.

To the guy with the "Check your grammar" bullshit. Maybe you should learn to check your grammar also? It's pathetically sad. Dumbass.

I really, really hate Star Trek. All of the Star Treks. Always have. Always will. It's a sort of Geek-Socialist fantasy, eh?

If Star Trek was completely realistic, many of crew would have moved on to other ships. Riker would have been promoted to Captain for e.g. But the writers can't do that because part of the reason we watch the show is for the characters. So it's good the show wasn't too realistic. I just hated when they got preachy..."We're polluting the galaxy every time we go warp 5, but it's not too late for fix it"...can you shove that down my throat any farther

so very true, but you forgot to mention those other 9990 hateable things.

10. Noisy Doors
The door sounds are cool. I've been known to add the sounds to doors that are automatic but silent (including the "piped aboard" whistle), as well as make a Force gesture to open doors that are using proximity detectors. (One can get away with a great deal of bizarre behavior when accompanied by his children.)
What has always REALLY intrigued me about the doors is that they are not based on proximity, but on the intent of the person approaching the door. Watch carefully - you'll see episodes where someone walks up to a door, turns around to continue a conversation, then faces the door - the door only opens in the second instance.

9. The Federation.
Capitalism works because people are basically greedy. With some governmental oversight to prevent robbing the blind, it works very well. If you want to rip your customers off, someone is going to come along and not rip them off, and the non-ripoff-artist will soon be raking in the bucks. A society where people just work for the fun of it and always do their best? It's called Communism, and its a colossal failure because it presumes that mankind is basically good. (Whoa, that was a bit heavy and almost off-topic. I'll be better now, I promise.)

8. Reversing the Polarity
Word.

7. Seatbelts.
They do eventually use them in full-time combat ships. There's also an inertial dampening field that is supposed to handle such (I've read the tech manuals) - but it gets overloaded in less-than-logical ways. Actually, its the physics model that's off. Starships don't need seatbelts the same way battleships don't need 'em.

6. Fuses
Item #40 on my "Heroic Character List" (based on the Evil Overlord list): "My control panels will be designed so they cannot explode under any circumstances, nor otherwise threaten to kill or injure their operators." - http://www.wilcoxusa.net/forhire/heroOnly.asp

5. Rule by Committee
Court-martials are in order for just about everyone on the bridge crew(s), although part of this is Picard's own management style. He wants (some) reasonable input. Other captains aren't so accommodating. Kirk wouldn't have noticed - he'd still be stuttering out his orders while the crew did what was best to keep them from doom. Janeway's crew would have to directly disobey her orders to save the ship from her self-destructive tendencies.

4. A Star Trek Quiz
This is true of virtually every television program except _24_. But it is amusing. One of the Star Trek games even included the red-shirted, unnamed ensign for away missions, and Raven's Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force makes a nod to this by making the default multiplayer character name RedShirt.

3. Technobabble
Ironically, the scripts often just say, "[tech]" when they want technobabble from the actors. So you could go from _Star Trek_ to _Who's Line_ fairly readily, I expect.

2. The Holodeck
Well, we know what Quark's Holosuites on DS-9 are used for. ;)

1. The Prime Directive
I can't top that or add anything to it.

If I had one of those devices that healed up wounds quick like they had, I'd seal up some of my co-worker's mouths. And if I could transport people around like they do, and locate their heartbeat and life signs and DNA, I'd locate Osama Bin Laden, transport him into a bra, knickers, red mules and suspenders, and drop him down in the middle of times square on new year's eve. Now that's what I call science fiction.

Save the genre!
http://www.watchfarscape.com

Mga gago kayong lahat. Mamatay na kayo. Mga hindot. Wala kayong silbi.

Star Trek ? Whats That?

also came from will wheaton's site. Have to say a very funny site. Read my way through the comments and I have to say some people need to get a life, khan in particular.

Nobody has mentioned this (that I saw) but I always thought that voyager was the worst in regards to the prime directive. Janeway was far more buy the book then any of the other captains and she was on the other side of the gosh darned galaxy.

I'm a star trek fan and I pulled up this link expecting it to tick me off or something, but it was funny as shit...I haven't laughed that hard in a while...okay, so not since I saw Bruce Almighty the other night.
yeah, but you rock. *gives the vulcan thumbs up*

Yeah, it's just a TV show, but Voyager was an exquisitly elegant TV show. Perhaps, Enterprise is currently bringing our expectations back to earth and will get better. Perhaps.

wow. Fox fans, Joss Whedon fans, and Firefly fans.

No wonder you morons don't have anything better to do. I am sorry I stopped in this godforsaken corner of the internet.

Really enjoyed the list -made the mistake of reading it while eating and choked a couple of times.

Enjoyed some of the other comments until some people started complaining about each other's comments.

As far as other SciFi shows Babylon 5 was great and more realistic militarily. Blake's 7 portrayed the darker side of Federations. But, Doctor Who is the best. At least he knew that morally one must inferfer sometimes.

I grew up on Star Trek TOS and watched all of them. They all had elements of good stuff and plenty of bad. The show could have been more realistic and been better...but its only for diversion.

Everyone knows that the greatest science fiction show ever produced was Babylon-5!

There was a Stargate sequel other than the shows?

In regards to the seatbelts: I laughed my ass off after reading msot of this and then watching the DVD of Star Trek Nemesis and at the very end Picard gets a new Captains chair with restraints that come out at the push of a button and he says, "Its about time."

if ur a trekkie ur a geek with no life just to let you all know

My thing? I loved how from orbit, the Enterprise could pinpoint a location and place appropriate firepower to blast whatever needed to be blasted.

When calling in fire support, they would call in coordinates like "There's a little building up ahead that contains the enemy".

Then, the Enterprise, in planetary orbit, traveling an orbital velocity could avoid frying the team calling in the strike.

Thanks for the laughs; this is my new favorite site.

I feel I must stick up for Lwaxana Troi. She WAS annoying - true - but she could get to Captain Picard in a way that no one else could and that was fun to watch.

Has anyone else wondered why the TNG Federation does not have cloaking devices on its starships? Wasn't it James T. Kirk who swiped it from the Romulans in the first place?
Now, however, the Klingons and the Romulans have it, but not the Feds. What's up with that?
Did Giordi reverse the polarity on it and KABLOOOIE?

By the way, I loved the
"Trials and Tribble-ations" episode of DS9; didn't know Klingons lived so long.

"Live long and perspire..."

Great list, I loved the old trek. For those of you who haven't seen the new Enterprise, you might want to reconsider. The thing about Enterprise is... why does the ship look so much more high tech than the Enterprise, which is from a future century. Lol, just a little to into that, i await the "get a life" and "how dare you" comments. Star Trek was great, however, in the S/F universe, only one "series" could ever be king: STAR WARS. The original trilogy. I know

Another thing to add to this list - I got to watch Balance of Power (ST:TOS)again. I can't imagine the ST:TNG crowd ever handling that situation (cloaked Romulan ship across the neutral zone destroying Fed outposts; Tunaprize having to destroy it). I keep seeing Picard aimlessly pontificating about the Prime Directive and keeping the peace; Worf bellowing "They're Rommmmmulllaaaans. They are without honor." and the hapless Tunaprize C beaming out messages of peace and bleating about resolving their issues as the Romulans sneak home. ST:TNG - What a bunch of Pu**ies!

OTOH, the Klingon babes really rocked .

nobody watched DS9?!!! easily the best of any sci fi shows! they ended as crappily as most shows end, promoting, marrying and killing. oh so done! but it had some of the coolest characters ever: gul dukat, legit dumar, the whole obsidian order, the dominion, odo, quark, the grand negis, ...shoot, i'm not nerdy enough, names are escaping me. the effeminate kiss ass to the dominion who kept cloning himself. the leader of the klingons with the eye patch, almost all the cardasians that had a continuing presence. no show had cooler characters. ever!

You know what I don't like about the show? In the holodecks they have "saftey proticals". ?????? If it was a holodeck where everything was made of light and force fields why can they possibly hurt people. And also. If they can just turn off the "saftey proticals" why don't they create some sort of super army of holographic people?

A moment of silence please for William Marshall. He died June 11. A great, versatile actor, (and a fabulous Blacula) with one of the best voices in the business. But for our purposes, a guest star on the original, episode "The Ultimate Computer", as Dr. Richard Daystrom. He created the experimental computer M5 which was given control of Enterprise for a test of it's capabilities. Of course it starts killing people, and Cap'n Kirk has to save the day by convincing it to shut itself off.

Does anybody else out there embarrass themselves by identifying actors with "oh yeah, he/she was on ST once."?

i think they should go back to the old format they had with the original version. crew beams down to planet with a redshirt, who'll die, spock/mccoy/scottie get into trouble, kirk bails them out, fucks the brains out of some hot alien (who's only real alien qualities is the massive amount of vasaline on the camera lens), and saves the day. checkov or o'hora make brief cameos and make token minority comments that don't really progress the plot any, but make show seem more racially ecclectic.

Holy shit!! Even though I'm a Trekie (The Next Generation being my fave) I almost pissed my pants when I read this. This one's great!!! I don't remember the last time I laughed this hard. Oh, wait. Yeah I do. When the podium came apart in Wil Wheaton's hands at the Trek Expo in Tulsa. We still love u anyway, Wil!!!!!

Now admit it...wouldn't we all really like to be "Q", at least for a day?

So funny!! Well done!

I agree, the science should not have bowed to the producers in the space noises. The Federation agreed not to build a cloaking device in the treaty with the Romulans, and noisy doors are annoying and should be kicked.

ROTFLMAO - big time

Loved the list - I have one or two more to add where was the toilet on the Enterprise D ?

And as for the love of Shakespeare - thats an easy one - no copywright infringements - can you imagine if ST had to pay Shakespeare's decendants each time they used a quote ?

They love the classics in general thats also why they stear clear of modern popular music - no need to ask a star permission to use his music or pay royalties to anyone.

As regards number four - makes you wonder what would happen if Kirk/Spock and McCoy would make up the landing party

I don't watch the show, and never have. But this made me laugh. Thanks for brightening my day.

JC

Hey dunb asses. MAybe if you sat and thought about stuf before you criticised it maybe you'd realize Star Trek makes a lot of sense when you think about it. The technology and everything. Maybe you all are just to stupid to comprehend it, but most of todays technological ideas came from Star Trek. Most of the Sci-Fi shows you so love were inspired by Star Trek. So back and stuff your stupid down your throat so yuo know how it feels. If you're that babyish maybe some one should vaporize you!

"Hey dunb asses" - hoggle

Um.. it is dumb, not dunb, dumb ass.

Great list, but I love the comments even more.

About the B-room on the Ent D, if you saw the special shown right b4 "All good things," I know I have it on tape, you would see there is only 1 john on the entire ship. A little joke by the Art designers. lol

SO La Forge only has to work one toilet. Oh, and don't forget, if he was not reversing the polarity, he was adjusting the harmonics of something. Or playing with the Plasma manafold injectors.

As for Voyager, I don't know if this was said before, but the Torpedo count. Tovock said they had about 40, and could not get more. By season 3 or so, the were up to 56 shot or so. While I did not count every one, or any really, I did notice that they kept going well into season 7. And these are only the torpedos shot durring the TV episodes, what about the novel stories?!? lol

I find this lots of fun to talk about, I just wish that other ppl would stop bitching about us Sci-Fi fans, and let us be. As for the Federation, I agree, and I don't think I could stand to read one more of Khans posts, I sware.

One of you... Spelled Worf wrong... How dare you?!?!?!?? :D *jk* Some of that stuff is hilarious. Like the doors. I wish the doors would die. *jk* I like the doors... Do NOT Dis the doors. I would be dishonorable.. :D

Can't forget the episode where Data takes over the bridge to find his creator. Geordi and Co. in the Engine room say they can't turn off the engines.

This computer can fly the ship, answer abstract questions, create sentient holograms but can't figure out what a hot cup of coffee is.

man that is friggin hilarious, and commenting on the klingon chubby, pure gold

I am a die-hard Trekkie, damn! I busted a gut for ten minutes. You're right about Geordi and Scotty, and the seat belts. But as a die hard trekkie who know's everything about everything, I do know that the money system is used in credits, pretty much you only get paid for what you do. Its kinda like having a credit card or debit card without the card.

Puny humans!

You mock our great advesaries who sit at the prowel of the most glorious Enterprise?! Foolish earthlings! Yes, we are enemies of the Federation but true glory of battle is won when one's opponent is strong! You must have respect for combat to be honorable! Now you have awakened our wrath and shall feel the swift justice of our mighty Saber Lasers (or something like a saber-laser...you know what I mean)!

The Great Jet Turbo

Commander, Gorgolian Battle Cruiser
Gargolian Empire LLC

OK,let Vincent & Paracelsus from the Beauty & the Beast TV series slug it out aboard the Enterprise-D in which Mr. Parry is reincarnated in that time as a Borg. Vincent wins against him by grabbing a phaser rifle & shooting him dead.

Lot of people wrote about firefly...here's the news...

"Firefly" Glows Again
Thu Sep 4, 4:30 PM ET Add Entertainment - E! Online to My Yahoo!

By Lia Haberman

Fox's defunct series Firefly has scrapped itself off the network's windshield and will take flight again

• E! Online's Firefly factsheet
• News: Fox squashes Firefly
• News: Whedon bites off another new series

E! Online Photo

Creator Joss Whedon is taking his misunderstood sci-fi show to the big screen, teaming up with Universal to turn it into a feature film, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Whedon had incredible success with the reverse move when he turned his 1992 feature film Buffy the Vampire Slayer (news - Y! TV) into a long-running TV series, first on the WB and then on UPN.

He'll be doing an about-face adaptation with Firefly, which also marks his directorial debut. Production is due to begin early next year.

Universal will distribute after buying the rights to Firefly from 20th Century Fox Television, where Whedon's production company, Mutant Enemy Inc., has a TV deal.

Firefly chronicled the adventures of a band of space pirates aboard the ship Serenity. Set 500 years in the future, the series was part sci-fi fantasy, part old-fashioned western and all dud on TV--it averaged a measly 4.7 million viewers and ranked 98th in the Nielsen ratings when it was pulled in December.

The feature version is expected to incorporate mythology from the show but will reportedly take on a more epic feel. Whedon also hopes to reunite the original cast for the feature, as well as add new characters.

The prolific scribe, whose screenplay credits include Titan A.E., Alien: Resurrection and Toy Story, will produce through his shingle along with studio-based producer Barry Mendell. Mutant Enemy prez Christopher Buchanan is executive producing.

"Ever since the show went off the air, our fan base has grown even more, Buchanan told the Hollywood Reporter. "We've had tremendous outpouring from the U.S. and Canada as well as the U.K., which just finished a run of Firefly over there. Every comic book and sci-fi convention has had a Firefly presence since the show first aired."

Fifteen episodes of the show were produced last season, including a two-hour pilot, though three episodes never aired on Fox. The entire season is expected to be featured on the series' DVD release, due in December. In fact, the show's cult following caused DVD presales on Amazon.com to sell out within 24 hours, said Buchanan.

Meanwhile, Whedon's also expected to take a more active role in his remaining television series, the WB's Angel. The show's fifth season, which features Angel & Co. working from the offices of sworn enemies Wolfram & Hart, kicks off October 1.

Mishka rules !

Man, thats a great list and the comments are even better. I'm a huge closet trekkie, but I have lately been moving to other shows and while I agree that Firefly and to a lesser extent Farscape are some damn good Sci-Fi no one that I saw mentioned my absolute favorite series, LEXX.

Speaking of the "Picard maneuver," I'd like to see the T'Pol maneuver if you know wwhat I mean...

Bravo!!! That was the funniest thing I have read on the net. I laughed until I cried, please give us some more. I'll be waiting.

Is it ok if I use this for my show?

Get a fu(klng life!
Lame man, lame.

I just had a thought about the red shirted security. When you think about it maybe it's a Roddenberry-Shatner inside joke.
When everyone discusses Star Trek they always get to the 'UN' type world government. However, the only North American country that truly supports the One world government idea is Canada. And who in Canada wears red outfits and provides security? The R.C.M.P!!!
Anyway, it's just a thought

William Shatner, YOU GET A LIFE!

Good job on the seatbelts, holodeck, reversing the polarity and the noisy doors.

"The thing that alway bothered me about Star Trek was where and how they went to the bathroom."

Ah, yes. One of the better uses of teleporters.

I love this!!!!

I needed the good giggle!

You rock!

-Penny

yah, after reading this and practically pissing myself, and i do watch star trek. i have to say its all true. dude your a crack up. i dont know this ther show 'firefly' cause i live in australia(enough said). look forward to seeing it many ppl above agree its a good show.

Funny as hell!

PS)

Firefly DID rock.. that first episode where the captain gives one of the captives a speech.. something like "ITs better for all of us if you cooperate, we'll give the money back and you guys never bother us again".. the captive tells the captain to screw himself and that he plans to hunt the captain down for the rest of his life.. the captain calmly kicks the captive into a jet intake, instantly killing him, and turns to the next captive who spits out "RIGHT RIGHT.. Best thing for everyone.. never see us again.. got it!" heheh

PRICELESS.

Damn networks.. I LOVED firefly. I would watch it over startrek ANYDAY. really sucks that they killed it. Stupid FOX!!

Firefly rocked, but this list had me serching for my bathroom cuz my polarity evidently was reversed.

What are you a broken record you keep saying gordi reverse the polarity on this and that. and isn't better to not have to pay for any thing you'll never have to work another day in your life.

My big Star Trek annoyance:

the Captain and bridge crew leaving the ship to go on an away mission. Can you imagine the USS Nimitz steaming in the Persian Gulf off an unfriendly coast when a "situation" develops. The Captain calls CAG, the CIC OD, the Chief Engineer, the CMO and a squad of jarheads (plus that JAG guy) to hop a CH-46 and chopper in. I think not.

The original Enterprise had over 400 people onboard. The Enterprise of TNG had a compliment of over a thousand (maybe more...) from which they drew the hapless "Crewman #6" or "Ensigns Washington or Gomez" (notice it's almost always a minority in a redshirt... hmmmm) as away mission fodder. What the heck is everyone else doing? Holoporn? You'd think that Star Fleet Academy would have people trained for away missions and so the command crew could stay in orbit - preventing the Enterprise from being taken over.

Am I the only one who noticed how all the officers seem to also be experts in each others' disciplines? Geordi's not available, so we'll have Dr. Crusher fill in in engineering for a while. If your proctologist was on vacation, would you ask your mechanic to fill in for him?

This I am sure is just about the billionth comment originating from this post. Which tells me: This was an excellent post to have generated so many comments; The list was creative, thoughtful and funny as hell.

I don't own a TV but if in a hotel or at a friend's house and any of the Star Trek episodes are on (in any of their variations) when I have watched them I have always enjoyed them.

But what bothered me is: How did they get any work done surrounded by so many totally hot, camel toe-laden, buxom, and beautiful women around? The show always seemed that it was one step away from being a porno! I mean, if at any moment, the Captain or the crew said, "To hell with this, let's f*ck!" It would have been totally believable.

extremely astute and funny. thanks! : )

The only thing I hate about star trek is that they never have new introductions It's always, "Space..the final frontier. These are the voyages opf the starship Enterprise. It's continue emisson, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where noone has gone before." They never go, "Space...the final frontier, these are the voyages of the starship, you know and you know what our misson is, so let's get on with the show!"

A coward mistakes oppression for peace.

The biggest thing that bothered me really is why are some alien species genetically compatible for procreation?! Human + Romulan = Humulan what da hell. And these species are billions of years apart from thier so called genetic commonality yet they can still crossbreed with one another. And yet we still can't cross breed cats with dogs or Chimpanzee's and people (and they're the closest we have genetically). I find that even more unrealistic than the Prime Directive. It would be better if the Federation is ran by Right Winged ex Nazi patriots with Dark uniforms and lots and LOTS OF MEDALS. .. Long Live Fire Fly~

i love star trek, but that was just great!

Well that stupid thing about the Damm polarity seems to be a...um....whats the word for it.....retarded.... If you every watch star trek and they talk about the engines or crap, they try to make things sound sci-fi by ether adding onic or posi or sub or moclecular or just make up words that sound funny.

I hated star trek because in it Earth was some sort of marxist utopian civilization. And the Earth is unified into a single government, Earth uniting into a single nation is the least believable thing I can think of, it will never ever happen.

Why do the consoles explode all the time? Why don't they install a damm circuit breaker or something? How come you never see anyone repairing the consoles ever. I mean during a big battle all the ship consoles on the enterprise explode, but you never ever see a console that has been blown open or taken any damage from exploding, it seems a consoles can explode an infinite number of times and still work perfectly.

Just a Rant

"set phasers to stun............No!.......I mean set phasers to..um......mutilate...........yeah, thats right set phasers to mutilate!.......................................What, spock.....why shouldn't we kill them......................................okay......................than set phasers to................................Torture..........................Can phasers bet set to torture........... what do you mean the phasers don't have a turture setting..............................................What do you mean starfleet doesn't condone that...................................................Well is there a disfigure or maul setting on phasers....................................What, there are only 2 phaser settings stun and vaperoize...............................Well that takes the fun outta things"

"Has anyone ever noticed that the only difference between all the aliens on startrek is the shape of the ridges they have on there heads or they have goofy looking noses or something stupid."

"Why is it that in Star Trek, Earth is portrayed as the Canada of the universe. Earth's military sucks, just like Canada. With the exception of the poorest and smallest alien races, all alien civilizations can easily beat earth in a war, just like any country with the excpetion of the smallest and poorest could beat canada in a war. Earth has an extremely low defense budget. in several episodes of star trek. Earth almost developes a superweapon than throws it out. Like remember that thing with the funky cloaking device that lets them pass through matter? Just like Canada cancelled the Avro Arrow which if it had been developed would have easily become to most technologicaly advanced fighter aircraft of its time."

The phaser guns are genious though - didn't you ever want to kill someone with a remote control?

What about the chain of navigation commands? every maneuver goes through 27 people until someone actually pushes a button..

HELLO!! Has it ever occured to you that some of us still like Star Trek. I like the way it is, it is way better then the turmoil and caos we live in today. I mean like in Nemesis Shinzon the clone was a perfect look alike. I only watch TNG. BUT FACE the facts there are people who love Trek, are okay wit it, don't like it, and hate it! The chain of command is a good idea, and the phasor. PLUS they don't always talk a bout polarity. I mean LaForge says stuff such as we should put the force field up on the warp core drive before the battles. HE IS CHIEF ENIGINEER! I have to admit it though my favorite female Character is Deanna Troi played by Marina Sirtis and male Weasley Crusher played by Wil Wheaton. Just please don't diss Star Trek because to many it is a wonderful show. I can understand everyone has there own opinion but please it can hurt ones feelings if you diss something they like. Please can you stop doing that? I SAY ALL HANDS BATTLE STATIONS. This is the battle of the Echo over the Voice.

Sorry I spelled alot of stuff wrong!
HELLO!! Has it ever occurred to you that some of us still like Star Trek. I like the way it is, it is way better then the turmoil and chaos we live in today. I mean like in Nemesis Shinzon the clone was a perfect look alike. I only watch TNG. BUT FACE the facts there are people who love Trek, are okay wit it, don't like it, and hate it! The chain of command is a good idea, and the phasor. PLUS they don't always talk a bout polarity. I mean LaForge says stuff such as we should put the force field up on the warp core drive before the battles. HE IS CHIEF ENIGINEER! I have to admit it though my favorite female Character is Deanna Troi played by Marina Sirtis and male Weasley Crusher played by Wil Wheaton. Just please don't diss Star Trek because to many it is a wonderful show. I can understand everyone has there own opinion but please it can hurt ones feelings if you diss something they like. Please can you stop doing that? I SAY ALL HANDS BATTLE STATIONS. This is the battle of the Echo over the Voice.

Kellyds:
Yea we lefties want to abolish money.

How fucking stupid are conservatives?
A. Very stupid.

this is so funny but I had seat belts in the nemissis out takes.

Your getting awful worked up over a show you dont like. By the way, why are you watching it if you dont like it. It wasn't funny and I am not a trekkie.

I must admit I enjoyed reading your thoughts about the Star Trek shows :o)
One must rememeber that Star Trek is a science fictions show geared for entertainment and I have been throughly entertained by all of the Trek shows and movies. I have been a Trekkie since childhood and I don't see a cure in sight. I got a feeling that you may be suffering from withdrawal pains... ;o)

science>> FICTION <<
for those of you are abit too passionate about the subject, ease up you P'taks,
those of you criticising the communist ideals,
You're a set of dirty ferengis
Oh yeah Firefly sucked ass.. It was buffy in space if you ask me, Look out for the New Battlestar gallactica, now that rules..
oh and you're all intergallactic space muppets
Live long and prosper

I got a bad wrap, ok? If Kirk would have just let me go and kick some ass, I wouldn't have gotten stuck on this godforsaken planet. Damn you Kirk!! DAMN YOU!!

"explosion caused the guy at the nav station to fly over the captain's head with a good 8 feet of clearance"

If you've got 8 feet of clearance than obviously its not a pressing issue.

Farscape , you mean that Muppets in space show?
EEK . Talk about a bad show.
Firefly? Never heard of it . So i hav eno meaning on that show. Red dwarf slightly better than farscape. Andromeda seems promising . Though I keep running into porn trying to downloas it .lol Babylon 5 was good . Space above and beyond, Rosswell.weren't bad either . Oh i remember a show actually worse than Farscape . It was conceaved by Roddenberry . Even Maje Barret his wife had a tole in it . Can t remember the name though . Thats how bad it was . An oldie but a goodie V . Blakes 7 . Ooh ooh space 1999 . and of course Battlestar galactica with the very annoying robot dog Muffet . Come to think of it Buck Rogers!! Eeew . There s no accounting for taste .

Im not really ST fan but Enterprise 3rd season is starting to be really interesting . In my opinion.

Stardate 41799.7
A bad day. I had gone to the Holodeck to investigate reports that person or persons unknown had programmed in a Roman orgy populated by 53 sex-crazed Tasha Yars smothered in Golden Syrup. I actually found the damn thing programmed with a Barbara Cartland novel (I suspect Lt Worf may be responsible for this).

While I was in there, the bloody computer fucked up again and I spent the next seventeen hours being pursued by a chaste virginal blonde with moist quivering lips, and a sturdy broad-chested man with dark gypsy eyes and rough, masculine hands.

Eventually rescued by LaForge. He told me the Holodeck malfunction had been caused by electrical overload in Data's quarters. Have told Data that if he tries shagging the mains socket in his quarters one more time, I will personally see him demoted to latrine duty on the USS Obsolete!!

Stardate 41800.2
Bloody Q turned up again today. His latest "jolly wheeze" was to assume the form of a 20th Century alleged "comedian" named Bernard Manning and materialize in front of the Enterprise while we were bombing along at Warp 6! LaForge says it will take at least 37 days to get the dent out of the saucer section.

Stardate 41801.7
Visited Holodeck again. Somebody has programmed it with a Roman orgy populated by 53 sex-crazed Tasha Yars smothered in Golden Syrup!!! This is disgusting! Spent approximately six hours... er... clearing the mess up.

Toilets malfunctioned: it seems that only one loo is now operational... at least, that's what Riker said when I caught him sharing a cubicle with Wesley...

Stardate 41802.3
Caught Ensign Crusher coming out of the Holodeck covered in Golden Syrup and other suspicious stains. He insists that it was Riker who set up the Roman orgy program. Went to his quarters to sort this out, but he was occupied.

I must remind Riker that it is against Starfleet Regulations to have sheep in one's quarters... unless, of course, one is an Admiral.

Stardate 41803.3
Assembled whole crew and announced that I did not think it was at all funny to program the Holodeck with 53 sex-crazed facsimiles of the ship's security chief. Unfortunately most of the crew were unaware of this incident until I mentioned it and there was a stampede of all hands towards the Holodeck. None of them managed to get, though, because Lt Yar reached the Holodeck ahead of them and locked the door. Was witnessed leaving five hours later looking, "rather disheveled, but contented." Ah well, if we put up with the forms of dress adopted by certain members of the crew....

I wish to God I could have gone with him. Jammy sod!

Our big day - a tour of inspection by the 130 year-old Starfleet veteran, Admiral James T Kirk, who commanded the Enterprise cruiser 78 years ago.

It was an absolute bloody disaster.

Admiral Kirk beamed in with his rocket-propelled commode. For some peculiar reason, he wears a Tribble on his head. Spent entire visit desperately trying not to mention this and glaring at sniggering crew members.

Introduced the Admiral to some of my Bridge Crew. On meeting Counselor Troi he "accidentally" dropped his phaser down the front of her dress and insisted on retrieving it personally.

Five hours later, we began the tour.

Started in Engineering, where I introduced the Admiral to Lt Worf. Kirk flew into a hysterical rage, called Worf a '"Klingon Bastard" and raved about his son for the best part of an hour!

Well how was I supposed to know that his son got murdered by Klingons?!? Christ, it was 58 years ago - you'd think the stupid old git would've got over it by now!!

Stopped off in ten Forward. Admiral Kirk proceeded to eat the Kestari ambassador, who we were supposed to be transporting to Sentor V!! Riker suggests taking a lamb chop to Sentor V; after all, nobody can tell the difference. In fact, some people say you'd get better conversation out of a lamb chop.

Next stop - sickbay. I must say Beverley coped very well with the Admiral's phaser-down-the-blouse trick...

Showed Kirk round the Bridge. He wasn't impressed with Data - suggested we get "a sexy Vulcan instead," then demanded to know why female crew members weren't in mini-skirts and appeared to be doing non-menial jobs! I explained my belief in female equality.

Discussed the Prime Directive, which Kirk says was a lot simpler in his day. Apparently it used to read: "Shoot the slimy bastards before they shoot you!"

Noticing Wesley in his dress uniform, Kirk muttered: "In my day, men like that were gassed... unless they were in the command structure, of course."

Just as I thought nothing else could go wrong, Q materialized, dressed as Napoleon. He took one look at Kirk and said: "Hey, Picard, who's the ugly old fart with the Tribble on his head?" Admiral Kirk screamed the place down and jetted off the Bridge in a towering rage, saying this was the worst run, most ill-disciplined Starship he'd ever set wheels on and he would personally see me demoted to toilet attendant on the USS Obsolete.

Q buggered off before I could have a word with him - that entity has no conception of what is not acceptable behavior when we have guests.

Introduced the Admiral to Tasha. He "lost" his phaser again... Last I heard, he is still in Intensive Care at Starfleet Medical and hasn't regained consciousness yet.

end log .


Greets
Marc aka Skrell

Mmmm, pie. This is sooo true. Moo. MOO, MUTHAFUCKA!

You know the costume designers and makeup crew were having budget problems, when they can get away with sticking a decal or a sequin on an actor's forhead and passing him/her/it off as an "alien".

My theory is that the LOVE BOAT accidentally crossed into the Bermuda Triangle at the end of that series, and fell into a worm-hole, transported into the future and morphed into Star Trek TNG:
Capt Picard=Capt Stubing

Dr. McCoy= Dr. Adam Bricker

Cmdr Riker = Gopher

Ens Wesley Crusher = Vicky Stubing

Counselor Troi = Julie

Guinan = Isaac Washington

various klingons = guest stars and cameos by Ethel Merman, etc.

Very Entertaining, Highly Illogical

A Fascinating Read.... I was Convulsed With Laughter Until I Realized The Vulcan Nerve Pinch Works On Me too. Live Long and Hump Longer, You Little Klingons.....

well this was fun

good jokes, non of which going too far,

and agree with all u about the best shows all the star trecks, farscap, firefly, but the beter of the lot has to be stargate SG1,