Star Trek - Favorite Captain (poll) and Moments

[MitchMar]

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[TexRex]

No wrong choices here people. Except for Archer.

 

[Robin]

I thought Archer was a great captain under the circumstances seeing as they didn't know what the hell they were doing bumbling around space half the time.

But I love DS9 and I think Sisko was brilliant more as a tactician and a diplomat rather than a traditional captain. Plus he delivered one of the best scenes in Star Trek....

 

[Famine]

Plus he delivered one of the best scenes in Star Trek....

Not that scene though. This one:

"You hit me! Picard never hit me!"
"I'm not Picard."
"Indeed not. You're much easier to provoke. How fortunate for me."


Although that's not even Sisko's best. That's the entire season six episode "In the Pale Moonlight".

 

[Robin]

Not that scene though. This one:

"You hit me! Picard never hit me!"
"I'm not Picard."
"Indeed not. You're much easier to provoke. How fortunate for me."

Although that's not even Sisko's best. That's the entire season six episode "In the Pale Moonlight".

I did say one of the best, it's personally my favourite, Sisko delivered a lot of great moments as did most of the DS9 cast here and there.

 

[MitchMar]

I thought Archer was a great captain under the circumstances seeing as they didn't know what the hell they were doing bumbling around space half the time.

But I love DS9 and I think Sisko was brilliant more as a tactician and a diplomat rather than a traditional captain. Plus he delivered one of the best scenes in Star Trek....

omg this is amazing

 

[Danoff]

I thought Archer was a great captain under the circumstances seeing as they didn't know what the hell they were doing bumbling around space half the time.

But I love DS9 and I think Sisko was brilliant more as a tactician and a diplomat rather than a traditional captain. Plus he delivered one of the best scenes in Star Trek....

Yup, great scene for sure (reminds me of the end of the final episode of TNG actually). But this is one of the best scenes in Star Trek...



Picard is about to break in true 1984 fashion. The show goes on to explain that afterward. This whole episode is one of my favorites.

Edit:

I do think that DS9, as a whole, was better than a lot of people realize. Definitely 2nd best star trek incarnation (even ahead of the current movies, and ahead of spok/kirk).

 

[Robin]

Yup, great scene for sure (reminds me of the end of the final episode of TNG actually). But this is one of the best scenes in Star Trek...



Picard is about to break in true 1984 fashion. The show goes on to explain that afterward. This whole episode is one of my favorites.

Edit:

I do think that DS9, as a whole, was better than a lot of people realize. Definitely 2nd best star trek incarnation (even ahead of the current movies, and ahead of spok/kirk).

I actually saw that episode recently by chance on TV, Stewart is so damn good at what he does.

DS9 is underrated and undeservedly so, people say it was boring but it had great story arcs and brilliant moments. Kira interrogating Gul Darhe'el was another amazing ST moment.

 

[Danoff]

DS9 is underrated and undeservedly so, people say it was boring but it had great story arcs and brilliant moments. Kira interrogating Gul Darhe'el was another amazing ST moment.

Feel free to post it. I'm not remembering it specifically. In fact, if this thread becomes something of a tribute to the star trek shows, that seems like a good new life for it.

 

[Famine]

Picard is about to break in true 1984 fashion. The show goes on to explain that afterward. This whole episode is one of my favorites.

Even my wife gets that reference.

I do think that DS9, as a whole, was better than a lot of people realize.

DS9 is underrated and undeservedly so

The final season of DS9 is I think the best Trek has got - and that last seven episode arc even more so. I do like the season six episode "In the Pale Moonlight" as mentioned above though.

The religious stuff is what puts a lot of people off DS9, but reframe it as the prophets/p'ah wraiths being incredibly powerful and non-corporeal aliens and the problems go away. What, Q, the Caretaker, that glowing guy from TNG Transfigurations, and space-dwelling turds and manta rays in Tin Man and Galaxy's Child are all fine, but you've got an issue with Nurse Ratched as the Space Pope to the wormhole aliens because they gave her a Space Bible?

Feel free to post it. I'm not remembering it specifically. In fact, if this thread becomes something of a tribute to the star trek shows, that seems like a good new life for it.

In that episode, Darhe'el (Harris Yulin) is a Cardassian war criminal who'd died some years before, but is apparently alive and well.

 

[Robin]

Feel free to post it. I'm not remembering it specifically. In fact, if this thread becomes something of a tribute to the star trek shows, that seems like a good new life for it.

This is pretty much all of the scene but without the whole episode it might be slightly out of context, it's a decent face to face piece.

 

[Danoff]

I do like the season six episode "In the Pale Moonlight" as mentioned above though.

Watched it over lunch. I remember that one, one of the stand-out episodes.

This is pretty much all of the scene but without the whole episode it might be slightly out of context, it's a decent face to face piece.

Oh yea! That's great stuff.

 

[TexRex]

This doesn't pertain to captains but seems a reasonable place to ask; wasn't there a TNG episode that revolved around the "ear bug" that was used in one of the movies?

I distinctly recall having the crap creeped out of me on two separate occasions.

 

[Famine]

wasn't there a TNG episode that revolved around the "ear bug" that was used in one of the movies?

The Ceti eel from Ceti Alpha 5 (Wrath of Khan)?

No - the Ceti eel was only in that film. The Centaurian Slug in the first reboot movie was pretty much the same thing. TNG used bugs on a couple of occasions, with probably the unnamed parasites in Conspiracy as the most memorable.

 

[Liquid]

Picard. He's the boss.

Kirk is like Roger Moore's Bond; he is great but it's a bit of a time capsule performance which can't hold up against other interpretations.

Spoiler

I do like Voyager too. There are three ways of doing things:

The right way
The wrong way
The Janeway

 

[Famine]

Picard. He's the boss.

Kirk is like Roger Moore's Bond; he is great but it's a bit of a time capsule performance which can't hold up against other interpretations.

Spoiler

I do like Voyager too. There are three ways of doing things:

The right way
The wrong way
The Janeway

Bart: Isn't that the wrong way?
Homer: Yeah, but faster!

 

[Liquid]

Bart: Isn't that the wrong way?
Homer: Yeah, but faster!

Yes. You really could have ended Voyager in the first episode and had them home in time for supper with no Delta diversions but... that's the Doyleian answer instead of a Watsonian one, I guess.

 

[Slapped]

Personally I was quite taken with captain Lorca - especially when he turned out to be the bad guy.

As to the moment that I find the most memorable:

Kirk: Khan, you bloodsucker! You're gonna have to do your own dirty work now! Do you hear me? Do you?
Khan Noonien Singh: Kirk! You're still alive, my old friend!
Kirk: Still, old friend! You've managed to kill just about everyone else, but like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target!

That's stuck with me since I was a kid

 

[TheCracker]

Voyager Star Trek is best Star Trek. It's long been a late Sunday afternoon guilty pleasure served with a side order of tea and toast.

But Janeway is beaten into first place captainship by Picard, even if TNG has aged quite badly, IMO. Also, IMO, DS9 is the worstest Star Trek. It's like Starfleet Babylon 5. Space-based SciFi that revolves around the daily goings on of a space station just turns into a situational soap opera. Cosplay Albert Square if you like. Space-based SciFi is about spaceships and space exploration not the mundane.

 

[Famine]

Voyager Star Trek is best Star Trek.

Pfft. After two seasons of simmering Maquis/Star Fleet conflict and the mole rat and his two-year old girlfriend they got bored, junked the best character (Seska; although quite why the Kazon were still following the Warp 9.95 ship out of their territory after two years was still a mystery. Or how, even given that Janeway kept stopping to explore), ditched the girl and brought in some tits and Borg.

Once the tits were in (and don't get me wrong, I appreciated them), it became the Doctor and Seven show. With some Janeway every now and then. Time travel, Borg, tits, doctor, lather, rinse, repeat. But then frankly, thank **** for that. Between the mole rat's kitchen, Torres rage-quitting, Naomi chuffin' Wildman, anything with Harry Kim* in it and Chakotay's incessant vision quests, I'd have let Lon Suder stab me in the spine with a warp coil. And I just realised I'd forgotten Tuvok even existed.

I quite enjoyed Counterpoint though.

*And why the bastard was Harry Kim an ensign the whole damn time? Paris got demoted and repromoted in less time than it took Kim to scan for lifeforms.

Also, IMO, DS9 is the worstest Star Trek. It's like Starfleet Babylon 5. Space-based SciFi that revolves around the daily goings on of a space station just turns into a situational soap opera.

The alien-of-the-week format was getting tired. DS9 managed to firmly anchor the plot in the Alpha Quadrant detente, but the wormhole brought the alien-of-the-week to the station rather than the other way about, when necessary. Plus they had the Defiant if exploration was the plot for the week. And the Sao Paulo/Defiant 2. It also, like the Borg in the Delta Quadrant, gave scope for a new big-bad from the other side of the wormhole - which I think they played rather well in the end.

Granted, the first three seasons were a bit hit and miss. Worf was a badly needed addition, Keiko O'Brien was a badly needed deletion and there was way too much Q and Mirror Universe (I do wish that would sod off). Jadzhia's death was one of the worst scenes ever committed to Trek - and I don't mean heart-wrenchingly worst, but shoehorned and phoned in...

... but Garak was absolute fantastic. Best Trek character ever.

 

[Liquid]

If we're talking shoehorns, when the Doctor & Seven show became the Chakotay & Seven show... it was time to pull Voyager off the air.

asspull, n.
The Chakotay & Seven Show

actor's ransom, n.
The Chakotay & Seven Show

 

[TexRex]

The Ceti eel from Ceti Alpha 5 (Wrath of Khan)?

No - the Ceti eel was only in that film. The Centaurian Slug in the first reboot movie was pretty much the same thing. TNG used bugs on a couple of occasions, with probably the unnamed parasites in Conspiracy as the most memorable.

👍

"Conspiracy" was definitely the TNG episode I was remembering (having looked it up and found stills--can't bring myself to see video), and while I didn't recall the name of the bug in Wrath Of Khan, I'm sure that's the one seeing as I can visually associate it with Khan so vividly.

*shudder*

Bugs don't get me in real life, but they're so often used to great effect in film and television.

 

[Danoff]

Best Trek character ever.

That's a tough call. The holographic doctor was a pretty good character.

 

[Famine]

That's a tough call. The holographic doctor was a pretty good character.

When he wasn't being reprogrammed because he felt guilty over triage, or because he was full of opera music, or because the Equinox crew needed him to bypass his ethical subroutines, or because his daydreams were interfering with his daytimes (didn't we see that one with Data in Phantasms?)...

... but I loved Garak. This is Garak's entire character in one 80-second clip:



Both good actors too - Robert Picardo didn't exactly need Trek to launch his career, and Andrew Robinson's debut role was the Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry.

 

[TheCracker]

I think we can all agree that any Star Trek episode the revolves around a holodeck trip back to some point in earth's recent history (by our, errrrr, stardate) is going to be a season's worst episode.

 

[Danoff]

When he wasn't being reprogrammed because he felt guilty over triage, or because he was full of opera music, or because the Equinox crew needed him to bypass his ethical subroutines, or because his daydreams were interfering with his daytimes (didn't we see that one with Data in Phantasms?)...

... but I loved Garak. This is Garak's entire character in one 80-second clip:



Both good actors too - Robert Picardo didn't exactly need Trek to launch his career, and Andrew Robinson's debut role was the Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry.

Actually, you're right. I probably should have called out McCoy if I was going to name a doctor.

Spock would obviously get lots of love as favorite character too. Garak doesn't have enough depth to him for me to consider him best character. I do like Q, not sure I liked everything they did with him, but it was a good character concept... not exactly a ton of depth there either.

Worf would obviously get a ton of love too, but he was a bit... stiff for me (that came out wrong).

Dax was a fantastic character concept, but not as effectively executed as I'd have liked.

Ok, I give up. Picard. There's a ton of depth there, whether it's arguing with his brother or living out his life on a doomed planet - wrestling with the memories of the destruction of star fleet. Plus super well executed. Wow, that was a boring pick.

 

[Robin]

I think we can all agree that any Star Trek episode the revolves around a holodeck trip back to some point in earth's recent history (by our, errrrr, stardate) is going to be a season's worst episode.

 

[Famine]

Garak doesn't have enough depth to him for me to consider him best character.

He's a tailor (and a really very good one) who also happens to be ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼ (and a really very good one), literally the son of ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼, the former head of ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼, who excommunicated him from his entire society as a traitor (his own father - who believed his exile would be richly deserved torture for Garak), lives on a station with no other members of his species but plenty of people who his species had recently engaged in a decades long war and occupation with (and thus hate him), personal enemy of Gul Dukat - to the point that Garak's very existence winds him up beyond reason - spends an entire episode talking about his own childhood best friend who ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼, and who spends most of his free time baiting Odo (to a point Quark could only wish to reach) and baffling Julian with an entirely fluid approach to truth and lies. The episode "Improbable Cause" is brilliant, and not just for the scene above. Odo's exposition is great too

He tells so many contradictory stories that no-one knows what's actually true - or if any of it is. Nobody trusts him, everybody hates him, and yet he's one of the most reliable characters (he will always do what you don't expect, even if you expect that, and not necessarily even act in his own best interests, despite largely trying to stay alive). And everyone needs him (he's crucial to the plan in In the Pale Moonlight, for example). And he has claustrophobia.

Garak's also an interesting character in that he's pretty much the only fully fleshed-out Cardassian. Cardassians tend to be militarily led fascists, brutal and largely uncaring; they conquered and occupied Bajor and put the Bajorans into 50 years of slavery. They have a well-developed secret police and spy agency in the Obsidian Order, broadly equal to the Romulan Tal Shiar and a knack for torture and filing. They're basically East Germany as aliens, complete with Stasi.

Garak isn't, and he's the first Cardassian to be displayed as more than that - even Gul Dukat (who was fun) was basically just a power hungry dick, but we did learn more and more about ordinary Cardassians later, who lived in fear of the Obsidian Order and the military. Garak lives for Garak, but also to confuse, obfuscate and just get through every day without being killed for being a bad Cardassian by Cardassians or for being a good one by Bajorans. And yet he still demonstrates a fondness for Bashir, Sisko and particularly Odo (The Die is Cast).


I've redacted some of the above, because the reveals are brilliant

 

[Hun200kmh]

Voted Picard, but …

... deserves a mention. And, possibly, a series

 

[Liquid]

The person who deserved their own series was Captain Sulu and the USS Excelsior.

Seven series with those uniforms? God yes.