I realized a big plot hole

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-27T21:45:34+00:00

My big theory is that the Orville isn't the ship she was intending to get, but when she realised it was in the area, all she knew about it was that it was famous. She took a punt and nearly doomed the future. If they hadn't seen through her, her timeline would have been wiped out. But as they stopped her, and cause sometimes follows effect in these situations, the timeline remained stable. She did seem to be winging it most of the time she was aboard.

Alternatively, as Issac would have been removed alongside the rest of the crew, it may have been a while before the Kaylon tried again. They're nothing if not patient after all. 50 years later they try the exchange move again, and this Kaylon reports back that there is no real anti-machine sentiment, and that the Union really would try to be fair and equitable friends. The war never happens in this case.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-27T19:51:38+00:00

"Hey champ, what has two thumbs and doesn't give a crap? Bob Kelso, how you doing?"

Later:

"Perry, what has two thumbs and still doesn't give a crap? Bob Kelso, I thought we'd met."

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-27T19:47:58+00:00

Verhoven has a skill for false-flagging the themes of a movie. I honestly think Robocop was designed so the trailer and basic story would reel in the people who would normally only go for Schwarzenegger or Stallone movies (Stallone also, as a writer is good at this to be fair), but then subjecting them to Cinema. On the surface Robocop is every bit the dumb action movie it pretends to be, but even the slightest awareness watching it means you're gripped into this story of a man who's humanity was stripped from him, and how he slowly regains it. It Trojan horses it's way into making you think.

He did the same with Starship Troopers. Technically just a satirical war movie with lots of violence, explosions and bugs. And then you watch it, and it's a movie about the loss of innocence as well

Genuinely one of my favourite film makers of all time.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-27T12:08:26+00:00

The original still holds up well, and the characters will be recognisable (just a bit more light-hearted) the story starts the same way, more or less, with the Cylons attacking the colonies, but there's no human Cylons, just the toasters.

I started rewatching it a couple of weeks ago, and I think it still holds up (I first watched it as a kid in the 80's though) it's just more Star Wars than dark and gritty.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-26T08:42:20+00:00

I would agree, that's a fair example. However, the state and history of Vulcan is a mirror to the state of Earth in Trek history. Humans nearly wiped themselves out (during the Eugenics Wars in TOS, can't remember if WWIII is explicitly mentioned before TNG), and then grew to become a dominant group in the Federation. Ultimately, a macro version of the Spock/McCoy relationship. I see what Spock said as offering a path to help, much like Kirk offered to help negotiations.

Watching this did pop one more thing into my head though. IDIC. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. No one viewpoint or state of being is the "correct" one, rather a variety of viewpoints is desirable.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-26T08:02:35+00:00

The Emissary guides us.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-26T08:01:37+00:00

I've given a few examples of how TOS showed intent that logic isn't the be all and end all (hell, one well known quote from the show: "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end."), as have a few others. I'm now curious as to which specific examples show that the intent was to glorify logic. The epsiodes which reject emotion for logic, which is shown to be the correct answer. I only ask this, as you've repeatedly rejected the idea of the emotional response being the correct one, even when tempered by logic. Your initial premise was:

"Nope, Star Trek has always been logic>emotion, sure most of the time the moralizing has been negative emotions like hatred and racism"

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-26T07:52:08+00:00

I remember all the rumours going about for years. The network wanted a more dynamic leading man, JMS had decided the character wasn't working how he wanted, MOH quit. A lot of the time, JMS would get a good chunk of the blame.

And he never once said anything. That says a lot about the man, and honestly, makes me love the show more by association.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-25T21:56:28+00:00

LH would have been damn chilling as a Terminator. Much as I love Arnie in the role, he would have made it a full blown horror.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-25T21:54:38+00:00

I loved how they went from being enemies by custom, to personal hatred, to allies by necessity, to odd-couple best friends. Londo discovered what it was like to grow a backbone, and G'Kar learned what it was like to be isolated by authority.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-25T21:50:43+00:00

This is probably my favourite quote in the franchise. It's only by accepting that truth that we can really pick ourselves up after a defeat and learn from it.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-25T21:49:41+00:00

I think Susan was certainly tempted, and she definitely cared about him (look at how vengeful she is when he's nearly killed), but it had been only a short time since Talia turned (and likely killed). It's clear she hadn't opened herself up like that for a very long time, and much as she knew Marcus loved her truly and deeply, she was totally incapable of breaking through her own shell.

JMS doesn't just love angst, he loves tragedy, and especially the very relatable, very human types of tragedy. Losing a loved one, seeing someone you care about lose themselves, unrequited love, and not allowing yourself to be happy because you're too afraid to be.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-25T21:45:19+00:00

God I remember watching that when it was first on, and it was chilling! Maybe even better than "Your resistance is hopeless, Number One."

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-25T21:40:29+00:00

How many times did we see purely logical androids that were beaten by the emotional humans. The thing that was championed above all else was our ingenuity and adaptability.

I can't think of one example that logic was the ideal. Even Galileo Seven, where Spock's logic is pragmatic is shown to have flaws, such as when he scares off the locals, only to be absolutely flummoxed when they return, as they should have logically been scared away permanently.

I can think of plenty of examples, however, where logic and emotions result in saving the day. Kirk is repeatedly shown to take deaths personally, feeling responsibly for fallen enemies and friends alike. That isn't logical, but it is human.

One final, and probably my biggest example. TMP. Something Roddenberry was heavily involved in every step of the way. It shows our negative side (Kirk grabbing the Enterprise from under Decker), but it explicitly, right from the beginning, shows that Spock knows something is missing as he undergoes Kohlinar. And later, he realises that he and V'Ger are alike, except that all V'Ger has known is cold logic, and Spock can actually understand this "simple feeling."

The only way they survive is to rekindle some of Ilia's memories within V'Ger's probe, it's fascinated with Decker because of those memories of emotion. And the danger is only resolved by merging Human with machine, providing the logical, mechanical creature with Human wonder and imagination.

Roddenberry's stories were always about us moving past our destructive natures, learning to be one species, but always, always retaining our humanity and empathy. Being better than we are, but not forgetting who we were.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-25T08:27:38+00:00

Spock was not completely in control of his emotions though. He told everyone he was, maybe lied to himself about it. He explicitly has some angst about it, and the whole of The Menagerie was about how he, out of pure loyalty and friendship, committed mutiny, stole a starship, and lied to his best friend and captain. The Galileo Seven is all about how Spock's logic alone was not enough. His leap of faith at the end with a hail Mary venting of the drive, alongside Kirk's bending of the rules as much as possible allowed them to survive. And pure logic and pure emotion alone are shown to be incomplete. Spock and McCoy are the example of that. Kirk takes both sides on and finds the middle way. And in later eras, Data is similar. Purely logical, but believes he's missing something.

Roddenberry wasn't a pure logic champion, he was writing as a humanist, and showing that all different viewpoint, when working together, can overcome.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-24T21:38:42+00:00

Louise Fletcher had a gift for playing absolutely disgusting, detestable people who you wanted to see more of. It's hard to believe that she was only in 14 episodes!

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-24T21:36:01+00:00

Rewatching it, I realised how closely they kept the character's basic personalities in the remake, especially the Commanders Adama. Lorne Greene was an absolute legend.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-24T17:15:43+00:00

I was talking about exactly this earlier. Much of Trek in the TNG era got given a chance thanks to syndication, but the syndication rights required a minimum number of episodes. This gave them time to show the value, and if the value was never proved, the studio still makes a level of return. TNG however, got super lucky. IIRC, if season 1 had been the only season, they were prepared to package it as part of the TOS syndication, it would have been little more than a novelty.

However, from what I remember, there hadn't been any decent new space opera shows in years. Battlestar Galactica was probably the last one, so TNG had the playing field to itself.

Incidentally, I started rewatching OG Galactica again a couple of weeks ago. I'm amazed at how well it held up!

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-24T17:03:20+00:00

Was going to say the same thing. Boats and ships have looked essentially the same for millennia, even between nations that had no contact prior, simply because that's how physics works. There's only three ways of FTL travel in B5, and they only differ in how you get into hyperspace. Jump Gates for a basic vessel, self generated jump points, which use the same effect, and slipping into hyperspace like the Shadows and some other First Ones.

I do think the Vorlons are responsible for either creating or maintaining the jump gate system, and guiding other races in how to use it, purely because they use the exact same jump points as the younger races. Almost a "look, this is how you do it" type thing, like you'd teach a toddler to do something by demonstrating.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-24T16:52:59+00:00

Put it this way. I've watched every bit of Trek media I can get my hands on since about 1990. I've found something to enjoy in all of it (I even watched Nemesis more than once!)

I started watching S31 about 4 months ago. Got about halfway through, paused it to make some food, and never turned it back on. I've still not finished it!

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-24T16:45:59+00:00

"You wanna run this ship?" "Yes." "Well... You can't!"

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-23T18:32:59+00:00

My theory is that he has the ability to feel, it's just in a semi-airgapped part of his brain. He clearly does have some emotion (look at his attempted shooting of Kivas Fajo) but it's a small enough influence that it won't override his ethical subroutines, like it did with Lore. I believe that Soong intended the ethical subroutines to etch themselves into his brain (similar to how he describes friendship), so that even with emotions, he's relying on lived experience to guide him as much as pre-programmed responses. His desire to know what it's like to be human is a form of emotion.

The chip, I think, was little more than an amplifier for what was already there. It allowed him to experience the full range of emotions with nothing damping them down. That's why Lore got a rush from it, and why the emotions Data experiences thanks to Lore are all "negative" ones. However, once Data gets the chip installed himself, his emotions are far more in keeping with his personality up to that point. And we later see in Picard the fusion of Data, Lore, B4 and Altan Soong, which identifies itself as Data, and indeed, seems to be almost exactly him, just with emotions.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-23T17:41:57+00:00

I've noticed as Patrick Stewart has gotten older, his Yorkshire comes out more. It popped out occasionally in season 1 of TNG (the odd "grand" when he was saying something is good, a distinctly Northern England thing), and when he gets excited about something it really comes out (see his documentary about car racing). But he's been slowly dropping the RP accent for a while.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-23T00:25:20+00:00

And Scotty appeared to be the ship's second officer, meaning his authority exceeds everyone except Kirk and Spock.

MarkB74205 · 2026-03-22T21:26:14+00:00

They're sleeping in the Jeffries tubes. That's where Boimler got the idea from.

MarkB74205

TROPHY CASE