Originally published December 30, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1102
Seeing Star Trek Generations (no, this isn’t another review) pointed out for me, in stark relief, some of the major differences between Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) and Trek of the Next Generation. So I thought I’d point them out to you, too.
1) In “Classic,” when they encountered something with a formidable destructive potential, it invariably had a cool name. “The Doomsday Machine.” “The Genesis Torpedo.” “Planet Killer.”
What sends them shaking in their boots in Generations?
The Ribbon.
There’s a name to conjure with—that’ll send chills down your spine.
I mean, granted, the Doomsday Machine (for example) looked kind of stupid. To be precise, it looked like a giant killer Corn Bugle. But at least it had a cool-sounding name.
The Ribbon, conversely, looks cool—but that name—jeez…
“The ribbon! The ribbon! Oh, no! Run! The ribbon’s coming to get us!”
Yes, from the people who gave you an episode in which the Enterprise 1701-D was menaced by “the string” comes “The Ribbon.”
Suggestions for future ST:TNG movies: The Lace; the Bow; the Hankie; the Bangles; the Doilies; the Tinsel; the deflated Balloon; the Wet Noodle; the Slinky; the Pop Tart.
2) If you want it discussed, get Picard. If you want it done, get Kirk.
This might stem from the respective decision-making processes. Consider, for instance, a typical TOS scene in the briefing room, compared with a TNG scene in the more wimpy sounding “conference lounge” (from the creators of “The Ribbon.”)
The sample topic: Should the Enterprise get involved in a situation in which the lives of those on the planet below are at stake?
Briefing room: Spock coldly states that the Prime Directive clearly forbids it. McCoy angrily says, “You cold-hearted thinking machine! We’re talking about human lives!” Kirk considers a moment, then says, “Mr. Spock, you’re absolutely right—but I can’t turn my back on these people. Uhura, notify Starfleet that we’re going to interfere. I take full responsibility. Scotty, I’ll need everything the engines can give me to pull this off.”
“Aye, sir, she’s barely holding together, but I’ll give ye what ye need.”
Everyone exits except McCoy who says to Kirk, “Jim, you’re making the right decision—but you’re taking a big chance.”
“Risk is our business, Doctor.” Fade out.
Conference lounge: Data explains the situation. Riker talks. Crusher talks. Deanna makes a self-evident statement. Worf glowers and says a couple of words at most. Geordi explains a lengthy technobabble option that “just might work.”
Picard says, “Make it so.” Fade out.
Whereas Picard’s presence inspires interest, Kirk inspires confidence. Picard is the man, but Kirk’s The Man.
There’s one point in Generations that summarizes this perfectly.
On a creaky bridge, Picard faces off against the evil Dr. Soran. And the audience wonders, “Wow, what will happen now?”
At a later point, in an identically framed shot, Kirk faces off against the evil Dr. Soran. And the audience cheers. The viewers’ perception is clear: “Soran’s gonna get his butt kicked now.”
If the eternal question of “Who’s the better captain?” factors in who audiences have more intrinsic faith in, then Generations has settled it for all time. Picard might be a greater leader—but Kirk is a greater hero.
3) In TOS, villains wanted to conquer worlds. Defeat the Federation. Destroy the Enterprise. Humiliate, defeat, and kill James T. Kirk.
In Generations, the villain wants to go to a happy place where he can live in pleasant fantasy for ever and ever and ever….
Whereas Khan or the Klingons—typical TOS villains—are the embodiment of pure scheming vindictiveness, Dr. Soran—a typical ST: TNG villain—is kind of a demented Fred Rogers.
4) In TOS, starships were a lot more durable. You could kick the snot out of them. You could render them utterly lifeless, kill every crewmember aboard. And the ships remained in one piece.
I think of the severe beating the Enterprise took in “Balance of Terror,” in which our heroes were rocked by a close-proximity bomb, courtesy of a Romulan warbird. The method in which we were visually informed that the ship was injured was priceless: the optical was tilted so that the ship hung in space at a 45-degree angle.
It was a ludicrous concept. There’s no up or down in space except in relation to a planet’s surface. There was no planet around, so showing a tilted starship shouldn’t mean anything. But we didn’t care. We sat there and said, “Wow, the Enterprise is really banged up! Look! It’s listing!”
Taking on water, no doubt.
If a starship was destroyed, it was with an objective. One was blown up to put the Doomsday Machine down for the count. Another was detonated for the purpose of wiping out a Klingon raiding party.
Throughout the history of Next Gen, however, the Enterprise 1701-D, along with her crew, was blown up—what—100 times? 200? They were caught in time warps where they blew up. They were caught in time warps where they watched themselves blow up. There was an episode where an Enterprise from another dimension blew up. In one episode, they hauled out Enterprises from the past, present and future and blew them up.
The Enterprise in The Wrath of Khan got clobbered, but held together effortlessly. With the Enterprise 1701-D, all you have to do is sneeze real hard and you’ve got a warp core breach. I mean, in the old days, Scotty seemed capable of keeping the ship running with a bottle of Elmer’s Glue and some packing tape. You’d think the ships would have gotten sturdier in eight decades.
You could argue that today’s auto industry reflects the same changes. You’d be right. But isn’t planned obsolescence for a starship just a touch wasteful?
5) On TOS, they could call up star charts and plot projected courses on the viewscreen of the main bridge, usually in about a minute and a half.
In Generations they needed an entire set called “Stellar Cartography,” and about ten minutes of interminable dialogue.
6) In TOS, the only characters who got to have much to do were the captain, the science officer, and the doctor.
In Generations, the only characters who got to have much to do were the captain and the science officer.
7) In TOS, discussions between the doctor and non-human science officer about humankind would lead to spirited arguments and cutting remarks. In the world of Generations, discussions between the doctor and non-human science officer about humankind would lead either nowhere or, most recently, to a sight gag.
8 ) In TOS, a woman could take the navigation station (as Uhura once did) and calamity wouldn’t strike.
9) Not only is Kirk’s fantasy life more interesting than Picard’s, his real life is more interesting than Picard’s fantasy life.
This hearkens all the way back to the respective TOS and TNG episodes of “Shore Leave” and “Where No One Has Gone Before,” in which we see physical incarnations of the crew’s respective fantasies. In “Shore Leave,” Kirk subconsciously conjured up Ruth, his long lost love—and his old tormentor, Finnegan, so he could beat him up. In “Where No One…,” Picard subconsciously conjured up—his mother.
In Generations, we see the latest incarnation of that mindset. In the wish-fulfilling Nexus, Picard isn’t able to come up with a single moment in his life that even came close to a real, stable relationship. Instead he has to manufacture a saccharine Christmas eve, with wife and children garbed in 19th century ensemble. Considering that Patrick Stewart’s affinity for A Christmas Carol is well-known, one can grant the moment a certain irony.
But whereas Picard’s life is so barren of joy that he has to dip into utter anachronistic fantasy to find happiness, Kirk need look no further than a few years back to find a romance worth rekindling. And that was just off the top of his head. (Actually, a terrific opportunity was missed, as several people have suggested. Where Kirk should have been was New York in the 1930s, with Edith Keeler. After all, Joan Collins—who portrayed her in “City on the Edge of Forever”—is still around and looking good. Imagine the heart-rending good-bye scene we could have had in that fantasy scenario.)
10) Kirk cares about his people. Picard cares about his officers.
No one in Next Gen is remotely Picard’s peer, with the possible exception of the occasionally-appearing Guinan. As a result, the relationships are somewhat skewed. With Kirk everything was a two-way street. Picard, fittingly French, is a cul de sac.
When Spock, for example, was having emotional fits in “Amok Time,” one sensed that Kirk was concerned about his friend. When Data is experiencing similar difficulties in Generations, Picard’s first concern is his requirement for Data’s particular skills as science officer. When he does discuss Data’s emotional problems, he winds up once again egocentrically dwelling on his own concerns as much as, if not more, than Data’s. Kind of like the old gag, “Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?”
Kirk, in moments of grief, looks if his heart has been cut out. Picard, in moments of grief, sobs briefly but then goes on to discuss the lineage of his family name and ponder his place in the cosmic scheme of things. Ponder indeed. More like ponderous.
Picard’s usual distance and aloofness (his lip service to the crew being a family in the series-ending “All Good Things…” notwithstanding) also affects how the crew interacts with him. If Kirk had a problem, McCoy would show up with a bottle of booze, and they’d sit in Kirk’s quarters and hash it out man to man. Picard’s usual sounding boards are either Guinan, pouring drinks with no kick—or, in Generations, Deanna Troi, who just shows up and sits there. Picard allegedly has a “special relationship” with her, but one gets the feeling that the main reason Picard unburdens himself to her is that otherwise she’ll just sit there forever, gathering cobwebs.
Picard and the Enteprise 1701-D might have more humans—but Kirk and the original Enterprise had more humanity.
In summary, then, we move to the following observation. Take it for what it’s worth.
11) Star Trek was about Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Star Trek: The Next Generation, for better or for worse, was simply about—Star Trek.
(Peter David, writer of stuff, wishes to second Mark Evanier’s comments about the Broadway Beauty and the Beast, although—when he saw it—he couldn’t help but think of Paul Dini’s comment about the entire endeavor. Namely, that such a show just didn’t seem “right” if it wasn’t on ice.)
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Yeah. In a nutshell and then some.
I think the reason they blew up more ships in TNG was because the effects technology had progressed to the point where they could make it look sufficiently cool.
Michael P. beat me to it. If TOS had TNG’s VFX budget, they would have blown up the Enterprise every other week in order to entice viewers to tune in for the pretty fireworks.
In Bob Justman and Herb Solow’s book, Inside Star Trek, they mention, iirc, that funds were so tight that when Ted Sturgeon wrote “Shore Leave”, they had to rewrite most of the cool bits because they’d wind up blowing the entire effects budget for the whole season. Ted’s script called for a flock of pterodactyls landing on a lake like ducks, and that was the first shot. TNG had money TOS didn’t have, but to quote Chili Palmer, sometimes you do your best work when your back’s against the wall.
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If you compare “The Cage” with any episode of TNG, you’ll see obvious similarities. Kirk the Space Cowboy wasn’t what Gene wanted, but he did work out better. I honestly can’t imagine Picard getting into a dustup with, say, Commander Kor. Or Geordi and Wesley slugging it out with Lieutenant Korax and a dozen other Klingonese troopers because Korax called the Enterprise a garbage scow.
Maybe not Geordi and Wesley, but I could see O’Brien doing it in a heartbeat — and in fact did, if memory serves. That’s why I have a much softer spot for DS9 in the long term.
Most of these comparisons aren’t even between TOS and TNG, but between TOS and Generations, which is unfair.
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That said, you forgot one of the most important differences: TNG starred a great Shakespearean actor; TOS starred… William Shatner.
I’ve said for a loooooong time that the writers were the biggest difference between the original series and Next Gen. For the originals, you had Harlan Ellison. Robert Bloch. Real SF writers. Throw in a couple good tales from Fontana and Gerrold. For Next Gen, you had…who? Sure, the Next Gen writers knew all the characters’ personalities and quirks. Next Gen felt like Cheers in Space sometimes. It was comfortable. Where was the exploration? Like my mom said on more than one occasion, they never left the ship. Kirk said once that risk was their business. (Didn’t someone else use that line…?) After the first season, Next Gen had some cool stories, but there was no sense of risk, of wonder most times. No sense of scale. The ship got big, the galaxy got small.
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When I wrote the script for what ended up as Dearly Departed, I wanted to do one thing that the original series did well. I wanted the characters to get into a situation that IS scary. Something you can’t technobabble out of. But more, I wanted a Strange New World. I wanted to show a New Civilization. I wanted weird. I wanted scary. I wanted the person watching(ended up “the person reading”, but whatever) to say, “Holy crap, what would I do?” Now, I have to admit, I thought a lot of the Klingon episodes were pretty cool. Still do. But show me something NEW. Show me a combination of the Samurai code with Mafia influence taking over a solar system to send out hot women to start an empire. STOP PLAYING IT SAFE.
Well, that was due to a basic decision about the roles of the Enterprise. In TOS, it was one of twelve ships of its class and Kirk was just another top-level captain (OK, the coolest of all such, but still…). It had a five year mission to get out there and explore, seek out, etc. To go where no one had gone before (well, except for all the various new civilizations and entities they encountered out there).
In TNG, the Enterprise was Starfleet’s flagship. Being its captain was the peak position prior to being taken out of ship command, and being assigned to it was a high honor. It was *not* an exploratory vessel; you had kids on it, almost all the time it was shuttling various diplomats around, and unless tossed out of it by Q, it spent its time safely traveling within the Federation with the occasional visit to the Klingon homeworld.
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“It was *not* an exploratory vessel; you had kids on it, almost all the time it was shuttling various diplomats around, and unless tossed out of it by Q, it spent its time safely traveling within the Federation with the occasional visit to the Klingon homeworld.”
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I’m not sure that’s 100% true. They did explore. They responded to calls of distress and they went looking for trouble more than a few times. Also, the original crew did its share of VIP shuttling as well.
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As to staying in Fed Space… Yeah, well, Fed space was bigger by then.
Peter, use this if you want, but it bears a resemblance to New Frontier, so you prolly won’t… but…
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I had an idea for another spinoff, involving Capt. Morgan Bateman and the crew of the U.S.S. Bozeman; the series title would’ve been Star Trek: Bulldog. Give Kelsey Grammer his own series playing the fish-outta-water captain, and give him and his crew the crap jobs that nobody thinks are important. Let him get up to his eyebrows in trouble every week.
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The problem is that now it’s about ten years too late for it. TNG is long gone. And Bulldog shoulda been spun off before Generations got made.
Sean, they had some other big names that worked on Trek in the first two seasons as well. Ted Sturgeon was part of a writer’s group called The Green Hand, which included Jerry Sohl, William Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. In fact, I think that was all of them. Jerry Bixby and John Meredyth Lucas did some good stuff for Trek, too.
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For Next Gen, you had Michael Cassutt, Melinda Snodgrass, David Bischoff… all good writers, but largely staffers like Dorothy Fontana and Gene Coon were during the old days. No Sturgeon, no Bixby. No Bloch. And Harlan wouldn’t have come within ten galaxies of Trek.
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We got him and Peter for B5, along with Neil Gaiman. So I think we Babylonians win on points.
Yeah, I knew there were more, but when I posted that I’d just come off 11 hours of working, an hour on the road, and then an hour on my other job. I was beat! Still, I hang my hang my head in shame…
Valid points. I remember the folly of getting into an online argument with a fellow espousing the superiority of Trek Tech against all others. When it was pointed out that the Enterprise’s shields seemed to go down on a regular basis, he said that it was a “testamanet to Starfleet’s construction” that the ship still remained intact after each battle. I countered that it was more of a testament to the SCRIPT because the ship HAD to survive for next week. If the show was called “Klingon Empire”, trust me, you’d see Federation ships getting blown out of the sky on a regular basis.
He didn’t like it.
Robert I think some of Peter’s comparisons using Generations may seem unfair nearly two decades after the film’s release, but at the time it just made the differences between the two series more obvious because Generations put TOS and TNG in sharp relief. I think most of his comparisons are still well made.
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As far as I’m concerned, the difference between Kirk and Picard had nothing to do with the actors or their acting ability. It was the characters. Picard is a Gentleman. Kirk is a Guy. There’s a scene near the end of TNG where Picard bemoans the fact that he never sat down to play poker with his officers even though he was always welcome. That emotional detachment really exemplifies Picard. With Kirk on the other hand, I could definitely picture him playing poker with the guys, even bringing along a bottle of Romulan ale and keeping an extra ace up his sleeve just to annoy Spock.
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As for the The Next Generation as a series, much as I liked a number of elements, there were certain ‘rules’ that were always inexplicable to me. Just about every script had to be stuffed with nonsensical techno-babble thart really served no dramatic purpose whatsoever. I have never heard a viewer say, ‘Gosh, what a lovely chunk of meaningless technical dialogue!’ and yet the writers seemed hëll-bent to put it in. There were even behind-the-scenes stories about script writers leaving gaps in the script for techno-babble to be inserted later. This is the reason why I think later episodes such as ‘Lower Decks’ were much more successful: viewers wanted to see stories about relationships not meaningless words. Oddly enough, a lot of those decisions seemed to be laid at the feet of Gene Roddenberry, as though it was something he had created in the original series and the producers on TNG were just carrying on his legacy, which really wasn’t true at all.
As for the The Next Generation as a series, much as I liked a number of elements, there were certain ‘rules’ that were always inexplicable to me. Just about every script had to be stuffed with nonsensical techno-babble that really served no dramatic purpose whatsoever.
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Actually, here was the reason for that, as I was told by my sources on the show. If an episode was running short by, say, a minute, the writers would throw together some technobabble for Geordi to say. And Burton hated the technobabble, so he’d motor through it in about thirty seconds. So they’d pile on another thirty seconds of technobabble to make up the shortfall.
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PAD
Peter, remember what LeVar told Jimmy Doohan? You had it in Jimmy’s book… Jimmy asked him about the technobabble, and said, I halfass quote, “Real engineers don’t talk like that, why do we?”
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“Because that’s what Rick Berman wants.”
““Real engineers don’t talk like that, why do we?”
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I know an engineer who talks like that. He can fill half an hour with an explanation of why this tool is better than that tool, or why this course of action is better than that.
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If you point out he is simply rambling and not really saying anything, he’ll extend it to 45 minutes by adding in why it is important that the rest of us listen to his educated opinion.
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And, this includes opinions that have nothing to do with engineering. Like political positions, economic concepts, books he hasn’t read, tv shows he hasn’t watched, etc.
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And, he wonders why we don’t come over to play board games as often as we used to.
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Theno
We have an engineer at work that suffers from a similar malady. A message from a normal engineer would read “Here’s the problem, I fixed it.” An e-mail from John will read approximately 47,000 words and include the phase of the moon, the geneology of every tool, and at least one “Thank heaven I was called for this because no one ELSE could have unplugged the deck and reconnected it.” I’m only slightly exaggerating.
I prefer TNG to TOS, mainly because TNG actually has a structure to both the Federation and the universe as a whole, which TOS tended to lack. (Vulcans can’t lie — but Spock is half-Vulcan, so it’s cool. Kirk can beam a message about the dreaded Corbonite explosion and an enemy ship will flee the nigh-crippled ENTERPRISE, apparently without considering it might be a bluff (“hey, never saw that before! Or heard of it, for that matter.”) or, y’know, scanning to see if there’s an explosion or following the ENTERPRISE when there is no explosion.)
In a sense, it reminds me of this quote from The Tick: “Arthur, you have no historical perspective. Science in those days worked in broad strokes. They got right to the point. Nowadays, it’s all just molecule, molecule, molecule. Nothing ever happens big.” In the original series, Kirk and co. could charge across the universe, pretty much doing whatever they wanted and acting like epic heroes. (Heck, we learned on TNG that Scotty would double the time he said it would take to get things done so he’s seem like a miracle worker.) TNG had a universe that’s more complex and subtle. The Prime Directive was first, not an annoying rule to be ignored. Other species had their own laws which couldn’t be casually disregarded.
One strength that TOS did have over TNG was dislike. Everyone on TNG was friends with each other (with the brief exception of Dr. Polaski and Data) and the most conflict was Riker not wanting Picard to go on away missions. On TOS, not only did Bones and Spock bicker and argue constantly, but Spock often told Kirk how illogical he was behaving. It was a little more realistic than a ship full of buddies. (And many years later, we had the borderline dysfunctional command structure of the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.)
Kirk is a Warrior.
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Picard is a Soldier. And a good one.
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Warriors win battles.
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Soldiers win wars.
Kirk not only won wars, he started them and THEN won them.
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PAD
Yeah, but who gets the ratings and the fan base? Warriors or soldiers?
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On the other hand… who can act? I think a lot of Kirk’s character came from the fact that while Nimoy and Kelly seemed eminently capable of any of a number of characterizations and roles. Shatner was able to do… Shatner. Oh, he was the best at doing Shatner, hands down. But still… would Roddenberry or the other writers have had more to work with if it had been Jeffrey Hunter in the center seat?
I read somewhere that when developing TNG someone (Gene R or the producers) though that a Captain shouldn’t be going down on away missions so they created the captain/firt officer structure. Kirk was splited in two, Picard is the leader and Riker was the action hero.
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I have to agree with James Lynch that I liked TNG more because to me it defined the fictional Star Trek univere (and DS9 ran with it). It is probably the geek in me but I like the structure as James put it (I am not calling you a geek James).
No worries calling me a geek: Were it asked for, I could supply more than enough geek credentials. But anyway…
Yeah, I think the away teams were definitely handled better on TNG. If an away team met with a lethal ambush on TNG, the Enterprise would more than likely lose its First Officer, Chief Engineer, maybe Science Officer, maybe Chief Medical Officer, maybe Security Chief. Bad, but the ship would continue.
If an away team met with a lethal ambush on TOS, the Enterprise would lose virtually its whole command crew (unless Scotty was working on repairs), and Fred the Janitor would become the new Captain by default.
While I will always love TNG, you have made me realize that TOS has more merits than I originally gave it credit for. (Big New Frontier fan, BTW)
Peter David: In TOS, a woman could take the navigation station (as Uhura once did) and calamity wouldn’t strike.
Luigi Novi: I’d specify a female command officer, since I’m sure there were plenty of female extras at the navigation and helm in NextGen. It’s only when the ship’s counselor did so that calamity struck, and even then, that wasn’t really her fault.
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Peter David: Throughout the history of Next Gen, however, the Enterprise 1701-D, along with her crew, was blown up—what—100 times? 200? They were caught in time warps where they blew up. They were caught in time warps where they watched themselves blow up. There was an episode where an Enterprise from another dimension blew up. In one episode, they hauled out Enterprises from the past, present and future and blew them up.
Luigi Novi: If TOS had the budget and FX technology, I’m sure they would’ve done the same.
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Peter David: No one in Next Gen is remotely Picard’s peer, with the possible exception of the occasionally-appearing Guinan.
Luigi Novi: Untrue. Troi, Crusher and Riker were all his peers, either by way of high rank, personal rapport or history, or the fact that he was known to seek counsel at times from each of them.
Peter David: No one in Next Gen is remotely Picard’s peer, with the possible exception of the occasionally-appearing Guinan.
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Luigi Novi: Untrue. Troi, Crusher and Riker were all his peers, either by way of high rank, personal rapport or history, or the fact that he was known to seek counsel at times from each of them.
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I’ll grant you Crusher, but I’d challenge the other two. Picard’s attitude towards Riker was often somewhat paternal — certainly his “what the hëll are you still doing here?” during BOBW was good evidence of that. I think the age difference there was pretty profound. As for Troi … your argument seems to be that one can only seek counsel from peers, and I don’t think that’s true in the slightest.
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PAD may have overstated his case a tad, but I think you’re confusing “peer” with “confidant.”
I don’t think you can be someone’s confidant without being their peer, certainly not in the sense that Picard and Riker were. I’m thinking specifically of how Riker counseled Picard in “Time Squared”, when Picard was wracked with self-doubt.
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Picard sought Troi’s counsel in ship matters on numerous occasions, a point he himself admitted in “The Drumhead”.
As far as the peer thing goes, from the first episode of TOS with the regular cast, you got the feeling that they’d known each other for a while and were comfortable with each other. With TNG, Picard knew the Crushers, Riker knew Troi, and that’s it. With the exception of my wife and me, instant rapport doesn’t really happen like that.
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And, Luigi, of COURSE Picard sought her counsel. That was kind of her job.
In other words, she was his peer.
Who knew each other in the pilot has nothing to do with this, nor does having an “instant rapport”.
In other words, she was his peer.
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Um. Okay. I think it’s time to conclude that we have exceptionally different definitions of the word “peer” and move on from this.
They were both shows that fit their specific times. The original Star Trek was a product of the pioneering space age spirit of the ’60s. That’s why there was more gung ho heroics. TNG was a product of the ’90s, which was supposed to be a gentler time that was more sensitive to complex issues (whether it truly was or not is up for debate). Thus, there was more diplomacy.
Aside from personally always preferring Kirk, I always liked this explanation for comparing them.
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If the chips are down, I want Kirk.
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But if I want someone to make sure the chips stay up in the first place, I’ll take Picard.
VERY nice. Did you create that one?
Yes, but I was very drunk at the time.
Pfffft. Sheridan the Starkiller has it over both Kirk AND Picard.
I agree. John Sheridan is the best sci-fi captain ever.
Captain maybe, but the one I want in charge? William Adama, played by the man himself. Edward James Olmos.
TAC
Since M’k’n’zy is mentioned and he appears solely in novels, then I’d throw Lensman Kimball Kinnison into the fray to determine the best captain in SF. True, he spend a lot of time off n his own doing the Lensman thing, but he does start out in command of the Brittania, off on a nearly impossible mission which he does bring to a successful conclusion.
“I mean, granted, the Doomsday Machine (for example) looked kind of stupid. To be precise, it looked like a giant killer Corn Bugle. But at least it had a cool-sounding name.”
Yeah, though according to episode writer Norman Spinrad it was a wind sock dipped in concrete. Have you seen the remastered version and, if so, what do you think of that incarnation? Still the shame general shape, but looks meaner, somehow. And one doesn’t see background stars through the body of the thing.
For me, Picard commanded loyalty and lived up to the following quote by the time the STTNG series ended (All Good Things..) Kirk, IMHO, always abided by it.
Gen. Eric K. Shinseki said, “You must love those you lead before you can be an effective leader. You can certainly command WITHOUT that sense of commitment, but you cannot LEAD without it. And without leadership, command is a hollow experience, a vacuum often filled with mistrust and arrogance.”
Well, in fairness, that famed trip to Farpoint Station was the Enterprise-D’s shakedown cruise – everyone there had been newly assigned, and the only two who were prior acquaintainces were apparently Picard and Crusher. It took some time to get to know his crew, and treat them as Gen. Shinseki advised.
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Kirk, on the other hand, started off his series already in command of his Enterprise, and familiar with her crew – with some hints that he might have known his first officer and ship’s surgeon even before that. They all had the opportunity to mold themselves into a real crew before we ever met them.
Your point is well-received all I would add is that both (as others posted) had different attitudes about command mostly centered around their personalities and the time in which they served Starfleet. Picard was came across as more ‘aristocratic’ and certainly he was more ‘seasoned’ than his staff – so much so – that when he wasn’t acting in character, or had a girlfriend on board, or starting singing in Ten Forward, it was either painfully awkward, funny or a clue that he’d been switched by an alien imposter.
And while we didn’t see him command the Stargazer, I would venture a guess his approach to command wasn’t any different. Again, I would blame the times 24th vs 23rd century. If anything cured him (from being Kirk-like) it was that dagger to the heart by the Norsican.
Which is why, for me, that scene of Picard entering Riker’s(?) cabin to play poker with his senior staff (All Good Things) was a big deal, an intimate moment – not only for them – but for Picard.
Kirk showed he was tough and disciplined but he never seemed too aloof (in part because – as you mentioned – of his prior relationships with some of his crew) and he was also either younger or the same age as many of his staff.
Yeah, John Sheridan could beat Kirk and Picard, since he combines the qualities of both. He’s got the charisma and the fire of a Kirk, but he had to learn how to be a politician too, by virtue of living in a less utopian world than Trek’s. So he’s like Kirk, but more manipulative and mature.
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Adama I think is a terrific leader, but his track record includes a few mutinies, and his own son turning against him repeatedly. He was a tad too authoritarian. Then again, he lived in an universe even more dystopian than B5’s.
Mackenzie Calhoun kicks all their áššëš.
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Not that I’m biased, you understand.
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PAD
Well, there’s always Malcolm Reynolds….
Even Katherine Janeway? I think she had a bigger pair than Archer, Kirk, Sisko, and Picard combined…
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But I cannot express enough how much I enjoy Captain Calhoun’s adventures – TOP HAT, SIR!!!
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…Yeah, he kicks Janeway’s ášš too.
My issue with Janeway, and the cast of Voyager in general (Except for the Doctor), is that every single one of them could have been assimilated by the Borg, and I wouldn’t have noticed.
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Their personalities were so…. BLAH.
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TAC
The best bumper sticker I ever saw was, “I am Dyslexic of Borg. You will be ášš laminated.”
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PAD
Kirk, Picard, Calhoun, Janeway…how many of them have a ship that’s bigger on the inside than the outside?
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None.
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Just saying. Maybe if one of them had a screwdriver and a robot dog, they’d kick a little more butt, y’know? 🙂
My problem with Picard was that he never really solved anything. He’d get his staff in, get an explanation of what was going on, ask for courses of action – then choose among the options presented.
Kirk got the staff together, asked for information and then used the information to come up with a plan.
Classic example – Wrath of Khan. Spock says Khan is smart but not experienced, he thinks two-dimensionally. Kirk then orders the ship to dive 10,000 meters and then rise again to come up behind the Reliant.
Spock does not say, Khan thinks two-dimensionally, I recomend that you dive 10,000 feet and rise again so as to come up behind Khan.
Think about it? How many plans did Picard come up with? I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t. Maybe you guys out there can name a time Picard actually came up with a plan on his own.
Er, the Picard Maneuver? Which a certain unnamed author to the contrary didn’t consist of the way he tugged at his uniform when he sat down, but the way he used a micro warp burst to make his ship (the Stargazer?) momentarily appear to be in two places at once, thus confusing the enemy. I believe they stated it was still being taught at the Academy.
In canon, the Picard Maneuver was indeed that micro-burst of high warp. However, the other maneuver is the one that was first named the Picard Maneuver (by the cast of the show), so I don’t really have a problem with the unnamed author using that as a gag (I understand unnamed authors love their in-jokes…). 🙂
Unless the crew was naming the costume bit the Picard Maneuver VERY early, the warp-burst came first — it was referenced and used in TNG’s “The Battle,” which is fairly early in season 1. (It’s also, in my opinion, quite possibly the only episode of TNG to ever make me think the Ferengi could be a remotely plausible menace.)
Peter, reading this, I’m betting it must have been a blast for you to work on the Trek Comics. Did you like working in the movie universe or would you have liked to done storys set in the TOS time?
I did one. It was called “The Rift.” And several of the Trek annuals I wrote had sequences during the time of the series, and even before.
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PAD
Particularly the “Scotty’s lost love” annual — still one of the best done-in-one stories around. Dave, if you haven’t read that particular annual (#3, I think), you should do so.
One thing that always struck me as the difference between the two was their backstories. Picard was (among other things) a noted archaeologist, diplomat, noted linguist, inventor of the Picard Maneuver (and so on). Kirk, on the other hand, was a starship captain.
(and I always thought the real reason that Picard refused to play poker with his officers should have been “Poker ? With a telepath/empath ? I believe I’ll pass on that, thanks Number One.”)
I can’t ever imagine Picard flying leg-kicking a bad guy the way Kirk would. 🙂
Yeah, because Picard preferred fighting moves that didn’t end with him causing himself to fall on his duff.
Luigi,
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I’m watching the Planet of the Apes TV series on DVD, and in both “The Gladiators” and “The Trap” Pete Burke does the flying kick that causes him to fall on his duff. So it wasn’t just Kirk. Maybe it was standard combat training for astronauts (I suppose, technically, Kirk was an astronaut).
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Or maybe the same stunt coordinator worked on both Star Trek and Planet of the Apes. Or maybe whoever worked on Planet of the Apes saw such a move on Star Trek, thought it looked cool, and had James Naughton do it.
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Anyway, I recalled your comment about the respective fighting styles of Kirk and Picard when watching those episodes, and thought you might be amused to know it wasn’t just Kirk who did cause yourself to fall on your duff move.
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I wonder if it’s possible to do the flying kick, somersault, and then land on your feet?
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Completely off topic, but speaking of leaps, I watched the trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes the other day, and there’s a scene where a gorilla leaps at a hovering helicopter. Other movies have had similar scenes. Does he make it? We don’t know from the trailer; but if he does, there’s something wrong with that pilot. He should move the helicopter. Let the gorilla fight Mr. Gravity.
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Rick
“In Generations, the villain wants to go to a happy place where he can live in pleasant fantasy for ever and ever and ever….”
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And after being denied the Nexus, Soran managed to send himself back in time, change his name to Rourke, and opened up “Fantasy Island.”
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“In TOS, a woman could take the navigation station (as Uhura once did) and calamity wouldn’t strike.”
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Lesson learned from the TNG movies: Never let a woman drive. Or at least, not a half-Betazoid empath. First she crashes E-D in Generations, then she crashes E-E in Nemesis. (Granted, in the latter, she was ordered to do so… but still. One has to wonder if Picard gave that command in order to play to her strengths as a helmsman…)
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Hëll, for all we know that is what his life in the Nexus was all about.
“Star Trek was about Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Star Trek: The Next Generation, for better or for worse, was simply about—Star Trek.”
I think that one really sums up the difference. I was very excited when TNG was coming out, and I tried to like it for quite a while. But every episode felt the same. Something would happen, and the crew would talk about Trekish things for forty minutes or so…then it seemed someone remembered the show was going to end and there was a quick wrap up. I could almost here a Spike Jones “da-da-da-DA-DA-dum -DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” musical ending each time.
“Star Trek was about Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Star Trek: The Next Generation, for better or for worse, was simply about—Star Trek.”
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I thought about this one and I disagree with it. TOS and TNG were both about Star Trek. Both had character moments (and TNG had more in the SHOW, TOS had more in the movies) but it was ultimately about the society they were in.
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DS9 is the only real “character show” in Star Trek. Sisko had a story and an arc. I can’t really say Kirk had an arc through TOS. Again, you can argue he had more of an arc in the movies.
“Both had character moments (and TNG had more in the SHOW, TOS had more in the movies) but it was ultimately about the society they were in.”
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It was? Really? During the original series, what did we even know about the society in which they lived? How was it structured? Was there a central government on planet Earth? Beyond the vague “credits,” what was their monetary system like? Did they have private industry? Did they have religion? We saw a chapel once, but it was devoid of any symbols, and we never actually saw ceremonies being conducted. What year did the series take place in? Give me a decade. Give me a century. Supposedly mankind had moved beyond war. How did they manage to accomplish that since war has been part of humanity since there WAS humanity? How much did society change during the intervening centuries to bring that about? If humanity no longer had interest in war, why were they packing weapons and why was Starfleet a paramilitary organization? (Kirk even called himself a soldier.) If they believed so firmly in non-interference, why did Starfleet always give Kirk a pass every time he wiped his butt with the Prime Directive?
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In point of fact, we knew little to nothing about the society in which they lived, and what we did know was vague and contradictory. It was largely a tabula rasa to serve as a backdrop for the adventures of Kirk, SPock and McCoy.
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PAD
PAD said, “During the original series, what did we even know about the society in which they lived? How was it structured? Was there a central government on planet Earth? Beyond the vague “credits,” what was their monetary system like? Did they have private industry? Did they have religion?”
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Here’s another question. Given the existence of transporter technology, what limits are there, if any, on where a person would send their kids to school? Right now, depending on the laws in a particular community, if someone has children enrolled in public schools, the children either have to go to the nearest public school, or the parents can send them to another school somewhere outside that area (but probably not more than a few miles away). But in a society where transporter technology exists, could and would someone send their kids to a school in another state?
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I think they would, if the school were considered one of the best in the country; but could they, under the law? And then how would the schools be funded? If you live in Baltimore and send your kids to school in Santa Fe, do you pay taxes to both districts (assuming property taxes would pay for local public school in this future era)? For that matter, wouldn’t residents of Baltimore (and other cities) have to wait until Santa Fe residents had enrolled their own kids in the Santa Fe Public Schools?
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Switching gears to another show for a moment, I’ve also wondered what society on Gallifrey would have been like, given the existence of regeneration. Unfortunately, during visits to Gallifrey during the original run of Doctor Who we never saw a young actor playing, say, a Time Lord in what was explicitly stated as his or her 12th incarnation (in fact, in “The Invasion of Time” an old man played a Time Lord in his 10th incarnation.). So the production people missed opportunities there. But what would it mean for Gallifreyan society when a Time Lord in his 12th incarnation might look like a human in his mid 30s, and another Time Lord, in his first incarnation might, say, look like a human in his 70s? If regeneration were introduced into what had previously been a society of one life per person (like our own), what sort of upheavals were caused, and how long did it take for matters to stabilize again?
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Rick
“If humanity no longer had interest in war, why were they packing weapons and why was Starfleet a paramilitary organization? (Kirk even called himself a soldier.)” Ummm … would that be the first Romulan War? Even if Earth had turned its back on war within, running into a warlike race such as that might have made them reconsider having pleasure yachts on the front lines.
Rick – Given the (at least Class 1000 in Marvel Games terms) technologies wielded by the Time Lords, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that their physical appearance was a matter of choice. I’d expect that, on top of their built-in regeneration, they probably had access to medically-induced rejuvenation.
Mr. Keating and Mr. Wolf–excellent points.
Many of my friends are Whovians, and we sometimes ponder the “ins” and “outs” of Gallifreyan society. In one discussion, we noticed Romana went through regenerations on a whim, while the Doctor saved his for the proverbial rainy day.
We concluded that perhaps Romana’s generation had more built-in regenerations, while the Doc’s was limited to the traditional twelve.
I liken that to our society…where the older generation would save surgery for serious health problems—while the younger is seemingly adddicted to face-lifts.)
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I think that has more to do with sloppy writing and/or not having a set rule that gets invented later. There are several stories during the first three Doctor’s runs where we see the faces that the Doctor had before and each time we see “Doctors” that existed prior to Doctor #1. The concept of regeneration wasn’t a day one part of the Doctor’s biography and the rules of regeneration stayed in flux for a long time.
One could argue, Jerry, that they still are in flux. Or, more accurately: they’re whatever the hëll the writer wants/needs them to be.
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After all, the 4th Doctor fell a few dozen feet and regenerated immediately. Where as the 10th Doctor fell from a much higher height, and yet could still do Companion Reunion Tour 2009.
“After all, the 4th Doctor fell a few dozen feet and regenerated immediately. Where as the 10th Doctor fell from a much higher height, and yet could still do Companion Reunion Tour 2009.”
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Yeah, I thought having him fall from that height, go through the stain glass (and likely reinforced) sunroof and then getting up a few minutes later and bouncing around like nothing happened was pushing it more than a little bit. The only way I rationalized it was that we have seen Time Lords refuse regeneration, so maybe they can stall the full effect for a bit. I base this on his wiping his face a few minutes later and healing the cuts and bruises. He started regenerating and slowed the process down a bit since he wanted to stay around as long as he could.
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It would also be a way to explain why his regeneration was so explosive. Maybe Time Lords can hold the process back a bit, but the energy feedback from doing so is dangerous to anyone or anything around them. Baker’s Doctor wouldn’t have held back the process because people were around him. Of course, his was also unique in that he merged with himself to become the next Doctor. That was… weird.
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Still, that’s just my way of making that dûmbášš fall work in my head. Who knows at this point?
My point is that TOS and TNG are equivalent in how they treated society and their characters. I continue to disagree with your analysis. In my opinion TOS and TNG were platforms for Roddenberry to make statements about society and humanity. Don’t take this to mean I don’t love both shows.
Jerry said, “There are several stories during the first three Doctor’s runs where we see the faces that the Doctor had before and each time we see “Doctors” that existed prior to Doctor #1.”
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Actually there aren’t. You may be thinking of “The Brain of Morbius,” a fourth Doctor story in which the Doctor and Morbius engage in a mental battle. We see eight faces (actually members of the production crew) after Morbius asks the Doctor “how long have you lived?” But at no point during the first three Doctors’ eras do we see faces of the Doctor other than Hartnell, Troughton or Pertwee. Nor is there any hint that the Doctor had a pre-Hartnell incarnation.
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I’ve actually been watching all of the existing episodes of Doctor Who since around Labor Day last year (and listening to the audio versions of those that have surviving soundtracks). I just started episode one of “The Ark in Space” this morning.
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As to “The Brain of Morbius”, while the suggestion is that those eight faces are pre-Hartnell incarnations of the Doctor, I think we should reject that as a fact because it’s been established elsewhere that Hartnell’s Doctor was the first. In “The Three Doctors”, which pre-dates “Brain of Morbius” by three years, one of the Time Lords refers to him as “the earliest Doctor.” In both “Mawdryn Undead” and “The Five Doctors” the Fifth Doctor explicitly refers to himself as the fifth. In “Human Nature” “John Smith’s” journal has drawings of 10 faces. In “The Next Doctor”, the images the Doctor shows Jackson Lake are of just 10 Doctors. In “The Lodger”, the Eleventh Doctor states that he’s the 11th.
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The eight unknown faces of “Brain of Morbius” aside, all evidence points to Hartnell’s Doctor being the first. Which is fine by me. While an argument could be made that most of the familiar trappings of Doctor Who, especially aspects of the character that many incarnations have in common, began with Troughton, it’s Hartnell who made the show a success to begin with. Sure the Daleks gave it an early boost, but Hartnell carried it for three years.
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Speaking of “Brain of Morbius”, there was an article about regeneration a few years ago in Doctor Who magazine, and the matter of the eight faces seen in the psychic battle came up. If not the Doctor’s, whose faces are they? As I recall, one suggestion (a bit of retroactive continuity, referring to the novel Lungbarrow) is that they were incarnations of “The Other.”
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Also, as I recall, that article about regeneration pointed out that had those eight faces been pre-Hartnell incarnations of The Doctor, it would have made Hartnell’s Doctor the Ninth and Davison the 13th, which might’ve explained Davison’s Doctor saying he wasn’t sure if he’d regenerate. Interesting idea, but I still reject the notion of a pre-Hartnell Doctor.
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My own feeling is that if the Doctor was calling up those images, they were either faces he dreamed up, or those of people he knew. Either way, he was trying to make Morbius believe he had lived more lifetimes than he had.
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As to the 13 regeneration limit, that has also been firmly established. First mentioned in “The Deadly Assassin” (as opposed to the harmless assassin, I suppose), and reiterated in both “Mawdryn Undead” and the TV movie (and possibly elsewhere; I don’t recall off the top of my head). But does it still hold true when the Doctor is the last of the Time Lords? Even long before the Time War, then-producer John Nathan-Turner pointed out in an interview that the Master had been offered a new regeneration cycle, and that (paraphrased) “if they can do it for the baddie, they can do it for the goody.”
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In short, 13 lives as a limit or not, if Doctor Who remains successful when the actor playing the 13th Doctor is ready to move on, there will be a 14th Doctor. If I were the producer at that time, when I announced that we’d be looking for a 14th Doctor, I’d say something like “yes, we know Time Lords only have 13 lives. So does the Doctor. He is, therefore, more than a little surprised to find himself regenerating into a 14th body.”
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As to Romana’s regeneration, I suppose her ability to “try on different bodies” can be retroactively explained by the revelation, in “The Christmas Invasion”, that Time Lords have some degree of flexibility in the first 18 hours of their regeneration cycle. In the Doctor’s case, he’s able to re-grow his hand.
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Keep in mind also that Romana apparently regenerated because she wanted to, not because she needed to. In theory, maybe the Doctor could have “tried on” different bodies, too, had he the luxury.
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Craig J. Ries said, “After all, the 4th Doctor fell a few dozen feet and regenerated immediately. Where as the 10th Doctor fell from a much higher height, and yet could still do Companion Reunion Tour 2009.”
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And the Sixth Doctor regenerated as an apparent result of the Rani shooting down the TARDIS, while Mel was only knocked unconscious. To my way of thinking, John Nathan-Turner and then-script editor Andrew Cartmell missed a golden opportunity. What if season 24 had centered around the Seventh Doctor and Mel trying to figure out why the Doctor regenerated while Mel was barely injured? What if they’d discovered some TARDIS logs had been erased, suggesting their memories had been, too?
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Oh well. Too late now. Unless the “true” circumstances of the Sixth Doctor’s regeneration was addressed in one of the books.
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Rick
I believe it was Napoleon who said he preferred lucky generals to smart ones.
That’s the difference between Kirk & Picard.
In TOS Klingons was devious and untrustworthy; Romulans had a sense of honor. (This was especially true in the novels of the 70s.)
In TNG Klingons had honor and Romulans were devious and untrustworthy.
As far as Picard’s relationship to his crew, he said on many occassions that he believed in keeping his distance until the final show. The command crew was his professional peer but Kirk’s command staff was his personal and professional peers. (Gunian was a personal peer but she wasn’t part of the staff and Crusher was the only one that was legitimately both.) The most personal relationships we saw with Picard was between him and Wesley, then with Data and both of those relationships were more “father and son” than personal peers/friends.)
Sorry, no. People who value honour don’t develop cloaking devices which then allows them to attack an essentially helpless enemy.
Except that the Klingons decloak before attacking, thus giving time to their enemies to raise their shields, while Romulans don’t decloak, which really make their enemies sitting ducks. On the other hand, I never understood the prohibition on Earth-made cloaking devices, while the other two races involved in the Kithomer (sp?) treaties were allowed to keep theirs.