this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
360 points (97.1% liked)
Risa
6900 readers
7 users here now
Star Trek memes and shitposts
Come on'n get your jamaharon on! There are no real rules—just don't break the weather control network.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
My two-cent hot-takes on that list of shows:
(* The original BSG is a hot mess of amazing-for-the-time effects, cool characters, great concepts, and bad studio interference. Best enjoyed using mind-altering substances because that's clearly what the writers were doing)
Original Galactica: Somehow makes TOS feel mature and grounded.
Reimagined Galactica: The original grimdark reboot. It's one of the few works that did "grimdark reboot" well because at the time "it had the virtue of having never been tried."
This is what Ronald D. Moore did in response to being replaced on Star Trek Voyager for trying to make it the exact same kind of show but was told to make it light-hearted and episodic like TOS or walk. So he walked.
Fuck you, Rick Berman.
Galactica 1980: We don't talk about Galactica 1980.
The Galactica take got me rolling for some reason.
Babylon 5 and Galactica are the ones people have pushed me the hardest to watch. I've been meaning to but haven't gotten around to it. Babylon 5 probably pushed harder on me because I don't like DS9 and everyone keeps saying that B5 is DS9 but better. Just keep rewatching the same few things over and over again. Eventually I'll get to it and hate myself for not having started it sooner.
Personally, I think the problem with Galactica nowadays is that the world is generally far more depressing than it was when the show came out. I can take dark and gritty, but it was more fun then. Now, I prefer something more lighthearted.
Like the flashback episode of SNW, where we saw Chapel and M'Benga during the Klingon War. My first though was "this is awesome, I could watch a whole show like that", but shortly afterwards, I realised "nope, that would be way too much, bring back Captain Daddy making jokes about how flipping the communicator open is better than tapping a commbadge.
Or maybe I'm just more of a miserable bastard than I was 20 years ago. IDK.
But hey, for any sci-fi fan, I'd certainly recommend at least watching the miniseries that kicks it all off. Get a feel for the characters and the universe they're in.
I've never watched Babylon 5. Everyone always raves about it, but I don't know if I could get past the extremely dated looking effects.
Plus there's so much new content coming out. I can't criticise anyone who doesn't want to watch older stuff, because who has the time to watch it all?
That being said... you have seen Firefly, right?
Iirc There's a remaster floating around that revamps the super dated CGI. It's no SNW but if you can stand TNG & DS9 you'll be OK.
There's a lot of fighting between DS9 and B5. The story goes that B5 series creator J. Michael Straczynski had shopped the series bible around, including to Paramount. They weren't interested, but when they heard it got picked up by WB, they rushed their own space station based Star Trek series forward. With people coming over from TNG, they get a pilot ready faster than JMS can create a series from scratch.
Since they had the B5 series bible, there's long been allegations that DS9 is a ripoff of B5. Indeed, there do seem to be some elements stolen out of it. For example, the pilot of B5 has a "changeling net" technology that lets people impersonate each other, which had apparently evolved out of an early draft of a changeling species, which DS9 copies outright.
What Paramount studio execs did was definitely underhanded. They were deliberately pushing out a show to make sure B5 wouldn't get to the same level of popularity as Star Trek. They probably did steal elements from the B5 bible and pushed Berman and Piller to use them.
However, fans make more of the similarities than are really there. Berman and Piller were almost certainly unaware of why the studio was pushing certain ideas and where they got them from (and JMS said as much at the time). Most of the stolen elements are ultimately superficial. The way the central conflict unfolds is very different, the characters are very different, and the technology is all different. B5 doesn't center around a planet coming out of a long term colonial authoritarian government, and DS9 doesn't have humanity crawling out of a war that nearly destroyed it and which ended for mysterious reasons. B5 doesn't have an excellent father-son relationship, and DS9 doesn't have a wisecracking ambassador who's very likeable despite doing some incredibly fucked up things.
They are both excellent shows, and well worth your time.
Battlestar Galactica’s miniseries (episode 1) is just so mind fucking blowing crazy good that just by itself it excuses the lower ratings episodes later on. And there are some, it’s not all 8+. But when it hits, oh boy does it hit.
I’m not sure how it would be on a rewatch, since I watched it from season 1 as it was coming on air, and half the fun was basically spending hours on forums discussing theories about the show between episodes.
Oh man, that takes me back
So - I swear I tried to google this yesterday and came up empty. I have a weird question.
Was there a third Sci-fi series that aired around the same time as Babylon 5 and DS9? It may have had a plot thread that involved genetically engineered space spies? Like telepathic central intelligence officers? Or am I thinking of B5?
I was in college at the time (mid 90s) and didn't have the free time to watch much TV. I caught an episode here or there and would occasionally talk about shows with my friend Spencer. I'm definitely not thinking about DS9 because I've seen that in its entirety fairly recently.
Babylon 5 had the Psi Corps, a branch of the military that was made up of people with telepathic powers. I'm guessing that's what you're remembering.
That must be it. Thanks
Stargate: like Star Trek except without any of the interesting ideas, there is a cool scene where the U.S. military bros hold up a sub machine gun and say how it is so cool compared to a lame alien staff weapon. Best moment in sci-fi to some people apparently. It’s fine, but it is an action hero show about war and it rarely even remotely approaches the thoughtfulness of the better Star Trek episodes. I like the characters, I have had fun watching it but Stargate can fade away into obscurity and shrug meh.
Battlestar Galactica: yawnnnnn sorry what oh yeah I fell asleep to the monotonous drone of grimdark, military space war scifi. I am sure it is good but again Star Trek is on a whole different level because of its broadness of vision, ideas, and focus on humanity.
Babylon 5: haven’t seen this one in ages, isn’t it another space war scifi?
Star Trek is great because somehow it managed to escape the fly trap that all sci-fi shows/books seem to go to of grimdark space war scifi where everyone is a miserable f^%k. I’m fine with grimdark space wars, I don’t want 100% of my sci-fi to be about grimdark space wars because then you have idiots like Elon Musk who grow up injecting this stuff directly into their veins and they develop an absolutely shockingly tiny worldview. If they had just read some damn fiction that actually challenged their perception of reality like Virginia Woolf or something…. well they probably still be a&$holes but maybe a tiny bit less?
I have heard Red Dwarf is pretty good.
Red Dwarf is good, but I find it leans on the laugh-track a little too hard sometimes. It does a good job of poking fun at sci-fi of the day, and is a great counter-point to BBC sci-fi like Trek and Dr. Who. They may have even shared some of the same sets and props with the latter.
Hyperdrive is in the same vein and has some really great moments. It sits in my head as the midway point between Red Dwarf and The Office. You could even say it was the much lower-budget BBC predecessor to The Orville.