As was pointed out, definitely true after the second season, when the cast got some experience under their belt and got more comfortable with their characters and the writers started to really become familiar with the characters. Some of the first two seasons is painfully awful. And well, there are some crappy episodes later on as well. Profit and Lace comes to mind when Quark impersonates a female ferengi. The sexism for humor aspect of it is very awkward. [/nerd]

As for best characters, yes, this side of Picard and Spock though perhaps the two cardassians (Garak and Dukat) are equal.

I wouldn't say any of it is painfully awful, but obviously some of it is going to be less good. Some of the early seasons of TNG and Voyager are pretty bad too, it's just par for the course for that kind of show.

Yeah, I'm not saying that they aren't. TNG's first two seasons were definitely full of bad episodes and well, Voyager is pretty damn awful even in the later parts of the show. Perhaps that's overstating it, but there's a whole lot of snoozers in there.

Voyager was a massive step down, it's true. I've read some interviews about what went on behind the scenes and it's not very surprising that it turned out like it did. The writers just didn't really know what they were doing, and squandered the unique opportunities offered by the setup in favor of returning to the TNG formula.

Janeway was a really remarkable female character for the mid 90's, though.

Sure, she was remarkable in that she was 100% in charge, didn't take crap from anyone, and at the same time was middle-aged and not remarkably attractive (i.e. not a bimbo). However, the writers squandered most of her potential, because they never really explored the ramifications of Voyager essentially becoming a society unto itself - normally Starfleet crews are operating within the much larger society of Starfleet, and get regular leave/correspondence/general contact with other crews to reinforce that fact. In the Delta quadrant, they're 100% cut off from everyone else - which means Janeway isn't just the captain, she's going to be the unelected queen for 40 years, running not just their professional lives but also their personal lives. She'd probably want to try to maintain the status quo as much as possible, but especially given the Maquis they integrated into the crew, I'm sure there would be people calling for a more democratic way of running the ship (and their lives). Janeway seems to be from the Picard school of "Prime Directive comes first" thought, so there could have been some interesting conflicts there - threat of mutiny, tempers flaring between people who don't like each other being stuck together in close contact for too long, the necessities of keeping the ship running while being 40 years from the nearest Starfleet repair/resupply depot - they just didn't really handle any of that. Instead the ship ran fine most of the time, the crew were calm and got along OK, hell, their uniforms even looked crisply ironed at all times.

It was just a big waste, and the writers shied away from really taking advantage of the situation. It would have been pretty sweet to see the community in Voyager just totally break down, with factions fighting for control of the major sections of the ship. Like, if you don't want to drop out of warp and never get home, you have to make sure to keep sending food to the guys in charge of the warp core. If you don't want to get your ass blown to pieces the next time there's a fight, you have to keep the tribe in charge of maintaining the photon torpedo bays happy. That might be a little darker than Star Trek normally likes to get, but Voyager played it safe and nobody liked it as much as DS9 and TNG as a result.

Just played around with the RGB curve on photoshop and damn this is fuckin' sick on so many levels!

A former classmate of mine died yesterday. Car accident. Still shocked by the news. Me and a friend of mine will go over to his family's house to give our condolences.

I'm seeing a burned-in triceratops head in the first pic, but flipped like it is in the second. I probably worded that badly, but I'm basically seeing a solid head and a flipped version of it (looks like an orange-er outline).

That's so harsh man...



Yea, basically the editing revealed a representation of devil's skull. I think AiC is playing a trick again with fans.

It is. I don't think I'll go to his funeral. I don't want to remember the guy as an immobile piece of meat in a box.

Very sad thing indeed...best wishes for his family.



That "devil" skull would look far more menacing or shocking if the top part of the triceratop's skull between the horns didn't resemble penises...

They don't seem like penises to me.

Good for you, because you can't unsee them once you notice...I won't tell you how to spot them, but I guess that spending so much time browsing Cracked.com articles has affected me somewhat.

Mate, they don't look like penises. You may be feeling starved of cock right now, but that doesn't give you the right to go all prehistoric-bestiality-necrophile on us.

Obviously, you don't know cracked.com.

I know cracked.com, I just don't go looking for dongs everywhere I go.

3===o

3 is not equal to 0. :/

Killjoy

I'm sort of a dong-hipster - I look for penises where others may not see them.

MUSHROOM TIPS

The Varg thread just went full retard(s)

Discussions like that are sad on another level. When you have such an extreme or rare opinion like that, then pretty much everything you say gets automatically discredited. So, sometimes, worthwhile thoughts get ignored because of everything else going on.

Ooooh, those poor little subtoughts, don't even get considered because the person expressing them is a complete moron. Such loss.

Hey, you never know what you're missing. I'm just saying that serious arguments should be rationally considered, regardless of the source.

What the fuck? Geomancy? I though that shit was video game exclusive O.o

I'm curious if there are any Scientologists on this board. If any of your kind read this, how do people take you seriously?

That diagram is spot on.

Is "rolfing" what I think it is?

I'll save that diagram. It'll probably come in handy at some point.

(not to scale)

That diagram is brilliant, Morri.

Country Girl's post is bordering on creepy. Please don't call them Layne and The Chains, it's as awful sounding as Acca Dacca or Fooies.

''I don't want to hurt them! I want to honour them.''
Yes....of course...

Well, looks like we've started the somberlain93 bingo game. The rules are if he says something bigoted towards a group of people, tick it off your list.

I've got sexism and racism down. Once we get homophobia, handicapism and anti-feminism we've got it all!

Glad I'm not the only who felt a bit creeped out when reading that.

I think full blown misogynism is a safe bet there.

So Burning Sea festival in Croatia this June has been canceled/cancelled (why can I never work out how this damn word is spelled?). Christ man what a kick in the face hearing that this morning. There goes King Diamond for me, unless I go to the Tuska fest, but too many poo bands at that one. I still ordered two effen' King Diamond shirts this week for the blimmin' thing. Also 'lost' a court case this week, which was a total farce beginning to end. Now I have a two thousand dollar fine to pay, too. Anyhurdles, if anyone wants to recommend any fest in Europe this summer, please go ahead. Not keen on massive ones like Hellfest or the ultra-shit Bloodstock. Guess I better check out the gig forum in earnest, too.

'Layne & The Chains'. I like it.