cde

I have no idea what TV shows you're referring to. Back in the late 80s-early 90s when I was watching STNG that was *all* there was. At any rate, I'm criticising Trek for the things I didn't like rather than the things I did like, such as the fact it was mostly entertaining and didn't usually treat its audience like fools.

tezby

The worst is how they forgot everthing by the next episode. Remember ST:Next Gen when the away team was infected by an urber virus and how they cured them by using the copy in the transporter buffer to restore them back to the healthy version they were before they beamed down? A means to cure every disease maybe even old age and it's never mentioned again? Come on!

If you want a tv show that's nothing but reset button try "7 Days." Every episode was Mr. Parker backstepping to fix something bad. Or how about Quantum Leap? Every episode was the god like being using Sam to reset some error...

Wait, did I just justify the "reset button"?
The shiny candy like reset button?

IchabodCrane

I liked the original Trek but TNG tried to take it a lil too serious and blah blah blah is all that really came across..

Darkweave

grenacia

What do you want, hardwood floors? Ceramic tile?

No, I see your point, but I don't agree with it and can't help poking fun at it.

grenacia

grenacia

taxbaby

As far as the overuse of certain elements in Science Fiction, I see two main reasons for it. 1)It's what science fiction fans expect(or what the producers think we expect), 2)There's not enough creative talent to do anything else.

TheSciFiDude

Hart

How about a tv show that was nothing but reset button, remember "7 Days"? Something bad happens and Mr. Parker backsteps to fix it. Or "Quantum Leap." That show was all about some God-like being using Sam to reset things.

IchabodCrane

Mr. Jellytree above hits the nail on the head... the ST universe was more about people and relationships and less about the sci-fi. In an interview with Nichelle Nichols, she made the comment that while reviewing the script for "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" she approached Gene and told him that he was producing morality tales. (Sad that it took her almost 3 years to figure it out.)

My simple point is this: in any sci-fi story, if you cannot buy into the characters, you don't care about the story. From reading the above posts, it's easy to see that each person posting connects to a greater-or-lesser extent with the various characters listed. Poor plot lines, the "reset" button, etc... are subjective issues to the core issue: Can I believe these characters and their motives or not?

Of course, my reality is not your reality and what I just wrote could be total poppycock. Why call it sloppy writing to use the "reset" when all I want are characters I can understand, a good 40 minute story I can believe in with a minimum of suspension of disbelief and with a hot female in a skin-tight uniform?

After all, this is not Farscape... which also used the reset button.

nacho69

I'm not going to argue any particular point except that reset buttons are fun, and Star Trek pokes fun at its own inconsistencies by stating several times throughout the various series' that temporal mechanics is everyone's least favorite subject at Starfleet Academy.

How many other shows are willing to comment so obviously on its self?

miticis

Bah! One of Star Trek's greatest strengths is its humanity and character dynamics. Without that going for it, there's not much that sets it apart dramatically from other milieu-based sci-fi franchises. Why critizice a show for doing what works when there are plenty of other options for the hard sci-fi fan.

MrJellytree

Annalee Newitz

Macloserboy

Most of the time, ST was a war analogy, either the Vietnam/Cold War of ST and STNG, the Balkans/Middle East in DS9, and everything else in Voyager. The writers also loved to concentrate on "character" driven stories that effectively boiled down to soap opera in space. Instead of a speculative story about cross species characters, you'd get utter soap bilge about Tom and whatsherface's romance!!! {Here draling, let's have a picnic in a shuttle and watch the stars!]

The ST franchise's greatest reset sin was the "oops it's a parallel time stream, better fix things!" plot device that ruined the end of STNG and Voyager and was used many, many times throughout the various series. And what made even more annoying was that they'd stolen it from "Slaughterhouse 5".

tezby

Falconfire

Taed

X-Files?

MrJellytree

PVIII

STNG: The Borg.
STDS9: The Dominion War and killing off Dax
STV: Er... the whole show, unlike Gilligan's Island they got home.

Every scifi show has hit the reset button at least once. I defy you to name one that hasn't.

exlawyer

Tim Faulkner

doctor_cos

Charlie Jane Anders

Thank God somebody finally came out and said that the emperor has no clothes. I've always maintained that the resaon why most SF shows don't break out to a wider audience is because most people associate them with the lazy crappy writing and "reset" plot devices, yet most of my fellow SF fan friends always insist that it's because "Oh, Trek, (Dr. Who, et al,) are too intelligent for most people"

REALLY? So investing an hour's worth of my time (or 3 in the case of LoftTL) only to find that, "hey everything's back to the way it was at the begiining of the show!" is a mark of well-crafted storytelling and intelligence? REALLY? Um, I don't think the casual fans are the dumb ones here.

I've been disappointed with the past season of Dr Who on this score, and I suspect that's part of the Tennant backlash recently. Its really more a function (or a dysfunction) of the scripts that they have had recently (though the "Don't Blink" episode was some of the best SF on TV I've seen in my life) than Tennant as the Doctor (Full disclosure: I still liked Ecclestone better)

KingEdRa

I stand corrected. There is no good televised Sci fi.

Hekkashesh

Hekkashesh

Falconfire

Those doors though I agree.. though you have to understand about the bipedal thing was that when most of Trek existed, CG was still a VERY new and expensive thing. Come Voyager they started delving into non-bipedal species more often.

Falconfire

It's because there's so much really BAD science fiction out there, FF.

Hekkashesh

Hekkashesh

But best of all were the magical mind reading doors.
Just remember, someone walked up to a door on the Enterprise, and the door opens if they were going to go in the room.
But if they weren't going in the room, they could walk right up to the door & it wouldn't open.

Greasy Thumb Guzik

MarsFlyer

Oh, and I'm absolutely digging the DS9 love. It really was the best Trek.

thefunnyone

Annalee Newitz

Nicholas Carlson

Tim Faulkner

Max46

poploser

Didn't B5 do the reset when Sheriden nuked the dark ones city and himself? Only to be magically saved by some godlike being?

FrankenPC

Falconfire

braak

fritosforlunch

Macloserboy

It was extremely awesome.

braak

+ Watch video

"So what'll happen?"

"That's just it. We don't know. Maybe something bad. Maybe something good. I guess we'll never know, 'cause you're going to guard it. You won't touch it, will you?"

"Oh, how long can trusty Cadet Stimpy hold out? How can he possibily resist the diabolical urge to push the button that could erase his very existence? Will his tortured mind give in to it's uncontrollable desires? Can he withstand the tempatation to push the button, that even now, beckons him ever closer? Will he succumb to the maddening urge to eradicate history, at the mere push of a single button? The beautiful shiny button. The jolly candy-like button. Will he hold out, folks? Can he hold out?"

Spiral

@fritosforlunch: Nice.

CmdrHunt

fritosforlunch

I was so enamoured with B5 that IO had nothing but hate for most of Voyager.

I'm over it now, though I still think it's the weakest trek.

What consequences did Year in Hell have?

Seth L

Even more bizarre, I had a college professor show us that TNG episode in reference to our study of the ChuangTzu and the Tao Te Ching. But that, however, is a different kind of medieval poetry.

Spiral

But I wasnt bashing B5s reset, just pointing out that the comment that your hard pressed to find it used beyond Trek is false, EVERYONE uses it, even non-scifi shows abuse the premise,

Falconfire

Nothing gives me warm fuzzies like a TNG episode.

Even the horrible ones:

[www.televisionwithoutpity.com]

Seth L

moff

Annalee Newitz

Frozen-Tex

twreckx

Seth L

Annalee Newitz

Which is odd, as every other TV show refuses to have consequences for its characters as well, except like, the few and far between 'good' tv show. Shockingly, some of those are sci-fi shows as well.

As for the story aspect of Doctor Who, well, seeing as we haven't seen any more eps of Doctor Who, we don't really know how the story aspect affects it.
We have seen Martha and Jack post 'the year that never was' and while Jack is unaffected, Martha definitely seems to have realized that she can handle herself, which she didn't seem to know before. And fighting off the end of the world all by yourself would probably do that.
Course, the Doctor will be unaffected, because he's ended and seen the end of thousands of worlds, so this was just one more adventure.

aspiringexpatriate

What can I say? "This is dumb, and you suck" generally fails to amuse me.

92BuickLeSabre

PriorMarcus

Sure, ultimately these stories have no concequence, and we kind of know that going in. So it's hard to worry about the outcome.
But these stories also serve another purpose, they show us events and characters that we'd never see otherwise. In the case of Voyager (my least favorite of the Treks), it shows how the crew would sacrifice themselves for the greater good. What would happen to the ship and crew under different circumstances. It's not a reset button, it's a 'What if?' button. With this, they can tell stories and show circumstances that they could never do in regular storytelling because they can't deal with the ultimate outcome.
Sometimes (as is often the case in Voyager) the stories aren't necessarily worth telling. Other times (in the case of Marvel's Secret War) it's just for pure shock value. But occationally it leads to actual character development and story development you wouldn't see otherwise (in the case of Dr. Who).

AaronZ

PriorMarcus

Personally I think this place has picked up a lot, so I commend it, but if he wants to voice his disappointments let him.

Oh, and yes, the Doctor Who series finale was awful. Most series use the reset button at some point or another, but I've never seen such a blatant use of one in a finale!

PriorMarcus

Everybody is aging years by the minute, and people/robots die or generally fall apart. Then suddenly, poof everybody's back to their young self and standing in the bridge of the hero ship.

The villain ship was "off by 1 degree" so they're gone forever.

I think 2 factors were in play: First, it would be hard to end the movie with a bunch of old dudes dying of old age in their ship to end a comedy. Second and most importantly, I think the producers of the relatively low budget film probably ran out of money and settled for the "Zap, here we are!" ending.

SundaySunday

Wait. Let me guess. It turns out in the end that it wasn't a square he was dancing, but a rhombus, and so Data's quest to be human must continue.

The_Real_Quiet_Desperation

Or does it not count because that is the most awesome movie on the face of the planet?

Punty

Ed Grabianowski

Rusty626

And I'm not even counting the freaking recaps done as if anyone needs to be reminded this show exists.

Macloserboy

You *totally* win the thread. :-)

As for godlike beings, if handled well they can be OK. I always liked "Q" from ST-TNG, although much of that can probably be attributed to John de Lancie handling of the character.

wingbatwu said, "I admit it would've been cool if, for the next star trek series, they'd destroy the ship and crew halfway through the season and start over with another ship and crew."

Take it a bit further. I've advocated a Star Trek anthology series for a long time now. It's about the only thing that would get me interested again. Every story would take place somewhere different and with different people. You could revisit characters and situations that fans particularly liked, of course, but it would be an anthology much like Twilight Zone and Outer Limits were.

The_Real_Quiet_Desperation

moff

njudah

That said, be careful. Arguing with such positions is usually "stupid to be begin with."

92BuickLeSabre

wingbatwu

I think the problem is that the show exists.

Seth L

Charlie Jane Anders

Annalee Newitz

Charlie Jane Anders

And itf you're talking about Lorien, that was once in five years, and the actions had consequences.

Voyager was the absolute worst for reset-buttons.

@fritosforlunch:

Someone pee in your cereal?

Seth L

B

moff

Macloserboy

Charlie Jane Anders

Charlie Jane Anders

PVIII

2. The episodic nature of most of it. Most every episode is self contained and doesn't really carry over any implications to the next episode. This is why DS9 became my favorite with the dominion war. At least there was a continuing plotline. They tried this with enterprise with the temporal cold war, but was lame.

CaptainCynic

@sandmanfvr: I sometimes imagine Charlie hugging reams of Star Trek fanfic to her chest with one arm as she types these posts with her free hand, muttering, "'Not for us, but we thank you for your efforts,' my ass, Viacom."

moff

SeanOHara

allnamesused

PriorMarcus

Or why do many scifi fans enjoy crapping in their own pants in order to complain about the crap in their pants?

Tim Faulkner

Falconfire

I love this article and the person who wrote it.

Moeskido

krazykarot

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

grimmtooth

Lampbane

sandmanfvr

But back on topic. I agree that these plot devices are used to a sickening degree in scifi television and are generally found in shitty episodes.

Metropolis

deckard97

Even I didnt realize now re-watching Enterprise on SciFi was how many Enterprise aliens who where not meant to be ones we have seen before happened to NOT be forehead aliens but completely off the wall types. Perfect example would be the Xindi aquatics, with their whale bodys and fluid filled ships.

Falconfire

joemono

i'll agree that the ending of LotTL sucked.

fritosforlunch

Another button of sort: All the characters magically forget that crappy plotline we wrote!

SVreader

And how could you include Vanishing point yet forget to include Twilight which was one of the second best usages of the reset button behind Year of Hell.

Is it a plot devise thats overused? Yeah probably. But lets face facts here, sometimes a story CANT be told using red shirts, and in that case how do you tell the story, without killing off your castmemebers, breaking their contracts, pissing off your audience, and possibly destroying your entire show?

Falconfire

Davies might be a big atheist, but that was like watching Doctor Who act out "The Secret".

Star Trek has sucked since they started having star ships with carpeting.

shudderstep

mitchel_stevens

Seriously, one of the worst thing Star Trek did to science fiction was the "hot alien babe with forehead accoutrement." I know it's no different from original Trek's green chick, but 20 or 40 years later we don't have the excuse of it being the naive 60s.

SeeingI

I'm inclined to also mention Stargate SG-1 for its uses of both "we fixed time!" sort of timelines and its use of the "Ancients" as a sort of godlike being, but who are unable to directly interfere.

Mircea Suciu

fritosforlunch

SVreader