tcmullet

Don't think it would work. ... But to do it every week would ... further hurt the believability of the series. The mirror concept (at least the idea that the *same* individuals have their counterparts) is really inplausible at least beyond a few years. That is' date=' once a major event happens to one person (like Archer being killed) that *affects* ongoing history, including all relationships with all people, which includes future marriages, children born, etc. ...[/quote'] The Ray Bradbury story 'A Sound of Thunder' was adapted (very loosely) to a movie by the same name. The changes in the story accumulated over tens of millions of years. 500 or 1000 years after the butterfly's death, there would have been no noticeable large scale change. After 200 years any divergence would not have been significant. Well, yes, in connection w/the death of simply a butterfly. And even 60 million years later, it only affected the syntax of English. But a *man* dying *certainly* affects the timeline with regard to human relationships pretty immediately. For example, Beverly Crusher dies before marrying. No Wes Crusher, and heck of a lot of events will be different. Get the point? Men (being sentients) are much more significant than mere insects. Perhaps one might say that in the world of butterflies, the relationships they have with each other might be affected. But the overall race of butterflys has little effect on the total ecosystem. And yes, Archer dying (for example) *might* not have much effect on mankind's total path for the following several centuries (even though I might beg to differ), but *certainly* a man's death will be significant with regard to those he relates to. So I stand by my position that significant diversions among sentients in the parallel (mirror) universes cannot allow for parallel identities, even in as little as 50 years in the future, let alone 200 years. And of course all this goes back to the issue of believability, for which Star Trek as a whole, and TOS in particular were known for. And hence my preference for the mirror episodes to be kept to a minimum.

Queenhank, thanks for your respectful and informative reply. I will give it some thought and respond when I get to it.

No am surely not; am an underemployed guy who's spending too much time recording and downloading video files. (And now am spending perhaps too much time writing in forums.) Fwiw, I used to be a professional computer programmer, but didn't keep up and became obsolete. I now have a parttime freelance weed-pulling business here in Fla. Got a B.S. degree in Comp.Sci. which is now useless to me. Am reporting this to show I'm not a 6th grade dork. Am apparently just different. Perhaps I'd make a lousy "Siskel and Ebert". Perhaps we should conclude that there truly are different perspectives. That is, maybe even a specific quality might be sincerely seen as bad by one, and good by another. Mateya, thanks for your support in the matter of characters dying. Yes, Voyager (yea, all of ST) is supposed to be exploration and diplomacy. I think of a friend who years ago responded to my query of why didn't starfleet start using the cloaking techno. that Kirk snatched in TOS. He (who had read of lot of Trek lore) said that cloaking was a military tool, and Starfleet was not a military operation; that's why they chose not to implement it in TNG. To all: We may have a discrepancy in what we mean by character development. In all your recent posts about it, you all kept talking about how this or that character CHANGED over time. That's not what *I* mean. *I'm* referring merely to the fact that over time we see the person's existing personality come out in the various things that happen to them. I'm saying that the *show* "develops" or DEFINES the character over time. Am not referring to instances of someone's characteristics CHANGING. (Although that certainly did occur, esp. 7of9.) A weakness of TOS was that the personalities weren't as well-defined as they could have been. There was so much techno-babble, and less focus on personal aspects. TNG was radically different. After a few months, and especially after about the 3rd season, we knew these characters very well. They were real people with real feelings and struggles; people we could identify with. To me, that's character development (the producers/writers "develop" the character), regardless of whether the individuals change over time at all. As far as a person's (character's) CHANGES over time, yes over 7 years, we'd expect and hope that a character, especially those under senior age, would be maturing and getting wiser, just like a person in real life hopefully is. But one of you said O'Brian didn't change much. That's okay; he was already pretty mature, being older (and more married) than most of the other characters. I don't think Picard changed much; we merely saw more and more of what he was really like all along. If I'm wrong on any of this, feel free to correct me anyone. I'm not too old to learn new things or be corrected.

You might find it interesting that the person I had in mind who disliked DS9 because it had Ferengi regulars and they were so harsh nasty and ugly, was a woman! Glad that as a woman, you found them to be funny. :)

Sorry, I guess I did miss it *partly*. Looks like you're saying that they cheated on the externals; when they could have shown an enemy weapon damaging the exterior of the ship, they instead showed all the shaking up inside. They actually did both, but you're right; they did a lot more of the inside stuff. That's an interesting observation. You've made me think. ... Not sure what the balance should have been. Problem w/always showing only indoor effects is it's boring. Problem w/outside effects is you don't see what happens to the people. (Unless they do both.) Perhaps they felt that what happens to people at the moment of attack is of more interest to the most viewers. I think I have to agree. However, I clearly (especially in Ent.) remember some *awesome* attack scenes from the outside. Perhaps more were in later incarnations as the spfx technology was better and cheaper to do than earlier. If the acting was better, the tension wouldn't look artificial. Maybe the good actors were getting bored themselves! Sorry it seems like that. (And sorry to rile you up.) Actually I do have some serious criticisms. I guess they're just not the same as, and not of the same magnitude of yours and most of the others. A lot of the 3rd season of TOS is quasi-hokey, especially Spocks' Brain. (And we know the reason for that is when a guy named Fred Freiberger got involved. He's been the death of more than one series I've heard.) But I still want every episode in my collection. TNG has a few episodes that make me want to scream my head off and seek to burn the master copy. But for most of each series, I've truly enjoyed every episode. True I liked some episodes less or even significantly less than others, but never enough to make me fail to watch it. Believe it or not, I've never been to a trekkie conference, I don't watch every episode when it's on (at least since taping all episodes), and I don't speak Klingonese or Vulcan to star trek friends. Gosh I hardly ever talk ST to anyone these days. And only a couple back during Ent. days. So I'm not being falsely and blindly loyal to the franchise. I'm actually exercising restrain in expressing my severe criticisms. But as I've said, it only applies to very small portions of the franchise. Not sure what you meant by that. Obviously Nemesis is ST10, which I've only seen once. But what are you referring to by "do a good quality search in"?

Sorry, I always get those two mixed up... no problem... :) and queenhank - i had gotten it into my head that Insurrection was 1996 it was actually 1998 so the timing would be tight....and it may have been Voyager season 3 or 4 even....but i don't think we'd get any clues from Voyager about the time of Insurrection.... Almost doesn't matter. Remember different quadrants. No connection w/each other's events til near the end. I enjoyed Barclay's involvement greatly.

Janeway was in Nemesis?? Damn.. I only saw Nemesis once... knew I needed to see it at least a 2nd chance. Been very busy w/problems... figured I could always get the DVD. Now I know Janeway was in it, I *know* I gotta see Nemesis again soon. (In the theater I was distracted by the girl I was seeing it with; shoulda seen it alone.)

Yes, but he was asking for it from the mistaken belief that canon order is the appropriate order to view it in. And for the sake of people's *best* enjoyment of ST, I cannot back down that basic production order is and forever shall be the best and most enjoyable order for a FIRST viewing. Yes, d_mmit, I forgot that; too many years since watching it. Was planning to watch it (and the rest of movies) within a few months. Yes, I remember that "ChECKhov..." snidely coming out of Khan's lips; Chekhov was merely responding to that. Heck, talk about mistakes... When I saw Generations (ST7), it was a glaring error for Scotty to see Kirk "die" when the 1701B was part blown away. I was INSTANTLY remembering TNG Relics where (here's another case where you HAFTA see the entire TOS before any of TNG) Scotty said "I'll bet Jim Kirk himself got the ol' Enterprise out of mothballs to come lookin for me". How could he have said that in TNG when he SAW Kirk die in ST7?? Yes, a mistake indeed. I personally like much of ST7, but I really hated so much of it as being illogical and impossible.

It's kinda shocking to find that there are fans of ST who never saw the entire TOS. Everything else was built on that. TNG is better, and the rest are probably better, too. But only due to the foundation. I have an unfair advantage that I started watching ST as a teenager, waited from '69 to '87 for ST on TV again (TNG), and have always had the 79 episodes in mind (and later the 1st six movies) when watching any newer trek. You all really really really ought to watch all 79 TOSs, then watch all movies and newer series to appreciate all of it better. Sometime soon, I'm going to re-watch all myself. In the 70's, I wore myself out (tv-wise) watching reruns of TOS (edited for more commercial time). Now that all is full circle (all 4 series are done), I should rewatch all of TOS as I'm suggesting to you all to do for the first time. As someone said, DON'T expect '90s spfx in a 60's show. Don't expect great character development. Do realize you're watching the most revolutionary TV series to that date. You should read the book "The Making of Star Trek" written after the 2nd season. Although it was 1.5 inches thick (I think), I read it in only two days, so fascinating was it. After you read it, you'll realize how incredible a show it was, either in or out of scifi. Read it if you can get it. You'll never watch ST the same way again. Btw, I'm ashamed that when I discovered ST during it's 2nd season, I was still immature enough to be watch that dorky Lost in Space and taking it seriously. Was so glad a friend told me to switch to NBC (and even w/only a b/w TV) watch ST. Been more or less hooked ever since.

Drat!! I want a movie where something happens to Sisko!! He's still in limbo and so am I. Yes, a movie where TNG/DS9/Voyager left off would be great, especially if Voyager (refurbished from 30 years in future) were at least partly involved. Something that at least gets Sisko out of limbo and back w/his family on DS9. Am not saying movie has to be primarily about DS9, but at least include it enough to allow resolution of the Sisko problem. Of course if they do, it would be great if they'd show the wormhole aliens as something other than quasi-gods. As Kirk once said, "We find the One true God sufficient" (paraphrased, and spoken by Kirk when Apollo wanted to be worshipped at a god in Who Mourns for Adonais). Kirk may have been an immoral fornicator (as all fornicators are), but at least he knew that there's truly only one supreme creator of the universe. I never did like the fact that the Bajorans considered the wormhole beings as "gods", so it would be nice if we could see them exposed at the mere created beings as they are. (Sort of like Q was exposed as such eventually.)

After "watch" order (being the main subject), yes knowing the canonical order is good. Thanks for your big list and for your efforts. As I've said, they were asking about what order to watch in, and with the mistaken notion that they should see in chrono. order. But nevertheless, your list is helpful as, no matter what order watched, we *do* need to know the chronology. I agree. To muddy the water a bit concerning watch order, one *might* make the case of watching TOS in original airing order. I don't know about the DVDs yet, but the published VHS and LDs had the original 1-min. teasers at the end of the episode and before the credits which showed the next episode *to be aired the following week in the 60's*. I don't think anyone would affirm that TOS should be watched in THAT order. The original aire order was dictated by the goons at NBC; probably one reason why Paramount decided in '87 to do TNG by syndication rather than thru a network; more control. So from '87 onward, Paramount generally aired them (with the silly rare exceptions mentioned) in production order, a good move. I've heard that, but I think it just a hokey excuse for genuinely careless mistake. Chekhov shouldn't have been the one to accuse Khan of attempting to kill the captain. Chekhov wasn't even in the mind of the writers until after the 2nd season. So someone else should have lashed out at Khan. Of course, maybe Chekhov simply read about the Space Seed incident in the ships logs. But he did get pretty emotional about it; like someone who lived thru it. I do remember reading somewhere that Paramount has never felt the stardates should be taken all that serious; that they feel trekkers have made too much of the thing. They should have thought of that when they were picking the dates throughout the last 40 years. When you're going to announce it at the beginning of each episode, you shouldn't make it a random number. I think Roddenberry *did* make a valient effort to make it work. (Of course we have to somewhat forgive the errors of AA vs TOS; in '69 they had no idea of what would happen to ST, and even in '70s w/AA, they were still under severe network control, hence the poor animation quality. And since AA, no way anyone could have imagined the blossoming of ST into the movies and 4 great series.

Thanks for responding. I know some who dislike TNG because it has Ferengi. My response is Yes they're nasty and unlikeable. And feeling that way is *supposed* to be a part of the overall experience of enjoying the show. Yes, they're nasty and yes I'm glad they were in it. I missed Bap's dislike of Neelix. But I can imagine. Maybe Neelix isn't desirable to be around, but the character exists in the story, so he should be tolerated. And as for your Bashir-dislike, don't you get it? Bashir was not a ladies man; he was a ladies-man *wannabe*! Surprised you missed that. Of course he has to be a skinny runt. That helps make his futile efforts so realistic. And it's also a part of why I think Faddil's acting was so good. It's hard for a normal guy to play a part like that. But it added greatly to the show, especially for so many trekkers who would probably identify with him. His eventually "success" probably gave hope to some male trekkers in similar boats.