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that the series is more about the stars than it is about the story. The characters rarely change from season to season (although the actors' comfort with the characters markedly improves with each season) and the writers and producers are so damn resistant to change anything that would threaten the Trek dynamic.
After three series totalling nearly twenty years of history of the Federation, I can look at ST:Nemesis and see pretty much the same Federation as there was during "Encounter at Farpoint". The only major difference is the characters are a little bit older, and the ships look a little bit new.
The technobabble got way out of hand during the newest incarnations of Trek, too. When the writers lack the know-how to realize that the surface of a planet simply cannot be "negative six kelvin" (See TNG's "The Royale") there's something wrong. I know that instance is a nitpick, but far too many of the episodes in TNG and Voyager relied on technical solutions far too often. Perhaps that's why DS9 was better; they didn't rely on the technical rescue as often.
Star Trek has shown some major signs of brilliance. TNG's "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1" was their finest hour. From the first screenshot of the Borg Cube hurtling towards the Enterprise with Picard saying "Send a coded message to Starfleet. We have engaged the Borg" to the final line of the episode, when Riker tells Worf to open fire on his former captain...that gave me chills. I was actually thinking that they'd actually lose one or two of the main characters. No such luck. After that, I didn't expect any major changes to TNG, and I was right. I grew disillusioned with TNG at that point, I must admit.
To me, good Science Fiction must be like any story. I have to care about the characters. I have to wonder if they'll survive the current dilema they're in. I have to cheer at their triumphs and cry at their lossess. I want consistency from episode to episode, and season to season. I'd like longer stories that are seeded throughout the series to reward me for watching from a long time ago. Episodic series get kind of boring after a while. And devoting an entire year to a single story arc was kind of contrived, considering the producers of Enterprise trumpeted it all the time: Look! See? We're being innovative. (Completely ignoring the fact that another series did long story arcs much more effectively.)
DS9 showed the most promise of all the new Treks. They tried to make it "grittier" (although the station looked as clean as a starship) and succeded on several levels. Being on the "frontier" of the Federation, there should have been a little more intrigue than what existed on that station. The premise for Voyager was...interesting, but I found it odd that after 7 years away from any spacedock, the ship looked as nice as it did in the pilot episode. (Again, there's that not wanting to change the status quo.) And Enterprise introducted too many new elements, like the Suliban that were not part of the Star Trek timeline. Only after three years (and who the heck were the Xindi? They were never mentioned in any of the series that chronologically follow Enterprise) did the writers decide to focus on things that actually were a part of Trek history. Too little, too late, I say. They should have been doing this from the beginning. (And don't get me started on that Borg episode. Completely nullified what Guinan told Picard after they met them in TNG)
That's why I'm disappointed with Trek. I've seen good sci-fi on TV, and right now, Trek isn't it.
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