What are your favorite peculiarities of the Star Trek series or individual peculiarities of certain characters?

Oh my gosh, I cannot believe your #1 answer is that! Every single time I see a crewman flying around the bridge, I can’t help but say, “See, seat belts save lives!” I’ve got it down to a magnetic coupling which turns on when battle happens and turns off when no significant event is going on (or when a button is pushed), to allow crewmen the flexibility to do their job but to also be safe and able to attack if the bridge is taken.

One big thing that irked me in Voyager was Janeway’s wishy washy upholding to the Federation guidelines and rules. I mean, she had no problem destroying the array at the beginning, but then throughout the series she wavers here and there and second guesses herself…

Oh, how about sounds in space? Gotta love that one.

I also hate every time the Borg is shown to be stupid, such as in the entire plot of First Contact.

I was frustrated at the technical jargon and the lack of meaning any of it actually had. It sure wasn’t consistent across the entire franchise, and many times it feels like the writers simply created a solution for why the ship was malfunctioning via some simple word game: the [equipment with a suffix of -lator, -sister, -ion] is [some descriptive word, usually related to damaging] the [protons/neutrinos/particles or add anti to any of that].

I have to say I really approved of Battlestar Galactica’s realism levels (I mention BSG because of Ron Moore’s involvement), but its dialog sucked. With Star Trek I almost feel it’s the opposite, the dialog and plot was (for the most time) good but the realism was one step back from where it could have been.

William shatners speech impediment

I cannot watch the Original Series for just that reason, @allen_o. I still haven’t seen it and I doubt I will, although the odds are higher since they’ve remastered the episodes with new CG.

I’ve read the U.S.S. Enterprise Technical Manual and actually used parts of it in reports. Those technical writers were clever. The descriptions and method of operation of the warp drive is brilliant.

I admire Spock’s ability to PERFECTLY (or almost perfectly) separate his emotions from his intellect. I try to do that, in fact, when I make management decisions.

@dynamicduo- the next generation is the best

@allen_o I really enjoyed DS9 and Enterprise, but TNG has a special place in my heart.

The “heisenburg compensator” in the transporters (The Heisenburg principle states that it’s possible to know the direction or the position of a particle, but never both, which renders transporters impossible at the theoretical stage).

Flying around a sun somehow makes you travel through time – both forward and backwards.

The insane number of abilities of phasers (everything from micro-surgery to heating rocks for a fire, to disintegration).

The insane number of accidental abilities of the transporter (making people younger, combining two people into one, separating one person into two emotionally unstable halves, creating a fully-functional clone, beaming through a micro-wormhole, crossing parallel universes, etc)

The old “his DNA is being rewritten!!” line that instantly causes a person to change shape and abilities.

Going faster than Warp 10 somehow evolves us into lizards (Thanks, Voyager!)

Something I always wondered about in Voyager is why Captain Braxton didn’t take back the mobile emiter the Doctor had after the whole adventure in 1990’s Earth. Wouldn’t it mess up the timeline if 24th century people had 29th century technology?

Can trill women who have symbiants get pregnant? Isn’t all that extra space taken up already? On a related note, how did Benjamin Sisco feel about seeing his old friend in three different incarnations? I would have liked to see that addressed…

Cardassians would not be able to breed with Bajorans! Cardassians are clearly reptilian in nature and Bajorans are clearly mammalian. How can they breed????

@KatawaGrey Yup, the whole mobile emitter poses a huge timeline conundrum – there’s no doubt that the Federation would want to reverse engineer the technology so as to use it elsewhere. Just think, the ship could have holographic human-sentries! No more intruders casually walking around the ship! Of course, that changes the entire timeline regarding that technology. I highly doubt the writers thought this much in advance, the temptation of giving the doctor mobility was just too great, plus it was used as a plot device later on. It’s safe to say Star Trek does not approach time travel logistically at all – that’s being kind, I would say they outright butcher it.

@dynamicduo: Star Trek kinda sucks on the whole time travel thing. Of course, Janeway is always mucking up the timeline, as a different version of Captain Braxton said…

It’s all very confusing.

I liked all series in the following order

1) TNG
2) ENT
3) DS9
4) VOY
5) TOS

Too bad seasons 5 – 7 were killed for Enterprise. Jonathan Archer and T’Pol are wonderful characters and Scott Bakula and Jolene Blalock are great actors.

@KatawaGrey – Can trill women who have symbionts get pregnant? Well, can women like Nadya Suleman get pregnant with octuplets? We all know the answer is yes. So I guess in the case of a trill woman there’s plenty of room left ;-)

1) TOS
2) TNG
3) DS9
Regardless of the cheesy sets and costumes, and the fact that the science of the 60’s is substandard to current knowledge, any good series is going to have good story telling. Good story telling needs to be relevent and confront issues that we find important.
Good story telling is also going to have strong characters, and as actors, the chemistry needs to be there.
I find TOS the best in this regard. I love how they dealt with controversial issues that censors wouldn’t normally allow, but Roddenberry and crew got past them with grand displays of allegorical symbolism.
For example, “Let This Be Your Final Battleground” was awesome. Everyone remember the two aliens with black and white faces? Of course it was dealing with prejudice and class issues but I got suckered into the ploy that these were two of the same race, as Kirk said, “You’re two of a kind!”
But one was white on the RIGHT side, while the other was white of the LEFT!
I didn’t notice that at all until it was pointed out! But shouldn’t it be that way in real life? Should color be so noticeable, or take precedence over who we are as people?
For myself, I’ve never understood bigotry, but I felt that episode, and many others had a grasp on social issues that the other incarnations of TREK didn’t quite get (all the time).

On another note, I love the ensemble of the triad between Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
“You, you’re a great one for logic,” Kirk said to Spock. “Me? I’m always barging in where angels fear to tread. Reality is probably somewhere in the middle.”
Toss in the irascable Doctor (he’s a doctor, not a referee!) with his sometimes volatile outbursts of emotion, and you got some great chemistry there (I’m smiling now just thinking of the various scenes where this shines through).

I like the idea that they explore strange new worlds; every episode of all the TREKS were fresh and alive because it was a totally blank check every week. You just didn’t know what to expect. Sure, there were copy cat episodes from previous incarnations, but they ususally involved variations of a theme.

TREK is so inspirational that I even got around to writing my own humble attempt. I called it STAR TREK: The New Era… 100 yrs after the time of Picard and crew.

That’s a good question to Fluther I think! I shall do that next!

Also:
Kirk! Doesn’t! Have a! Speech! Impediment!
That’s just good drama! : )

TNG was the only one I liked, and I love it. I have all the seasons on DVD and watch them frequently.

Isn’t it interesting how so many of their problems were solved by sending an inverse tachyon (sp) pulse to the deflector dish? LOL…

I didn’t really have too many questions about the series; it’s been drilled into me since I was very, very young. I was practically raised on TNG. Everything’s usually explained pretty well… such as the aforementioned inability of Data to use contractions.

the next generation universe is good
the borg, Q, time travel
star trek 4 was kool

The apparent lack of toilets on the Enterprise. I have these official published blueprints (very nerdy, I know) I bought long ago of the Enterprise I don’t remember there being bathrooms. Perhaps they just “beam” the waste out.

TOS rules, btw.

Two things:

1. The sliding doors, for the simple reason that I first saw them on ST and was amazed at how the doors know when to open. When I first saw real ones at an airport (still a child) I kept jumping on and off the rug that operated them (there was a huge button on the floor, as opposed to the motion sensors we have today). Got spanked of course, but it was worth it.

2. Spock’s inability to lie. I have the same problem. My lawyer recently told me there was something I should not say (when interrogated) and I said “ok, I won’t mention it, but if the guy asks me a straight question, I can’t deny it”. Sure enough, he did ask me, and my answer made it sound even worse than what it really was. I’m so bad at lying, that people think I’m lying even when I’m telling the truth.

for those of you wondering whether I killed someone: I was going to be asked whether I had had sex with someone, which is not a crime anyway, was irrelevant to the case, and I could have denied it. Our relationship is not even sexual, but since there is tenderness between us, when they guy asked “were you sentimentally attached to this woman?” I said “yes”. Which he took as the two of us doing nothing but shagging.

@TheKNYHT – I was a 15-year-old kid when TOS first came to Germany. It was awesome. I couldn’t wait till it was Saturday to watch the next show. Maybe it was the first time in my life when fell in love with science fiction. Given the time frame 1966 – 69 the series was a true quantum leap. Roddenberry was a remarkable visionary. TOS sci-fi concepts also influenced TNG. Many ideas were repackaged. On the other hand TOS developed the show further and I’m not talking about superior 3-D rendering. The introduction of a counselor on a starship bridge was very innovative. The approach that many problems can be solved without firing photon torpedoes which eventually became a problem because parts of the fan base love wars and blood. The idea of the Borg was a huge success. Anyway, the order of my list is just how I feel about a comparison today. TOS is still great. Greater than any Star Wars story will ever be. In my opinion. I know how many people love Star Wars. It also wrote science fiction history. No doubt about that.

I tend to go with the character driven _Trek_s.
1)TOS
Big gap
2)DS9
3)Enterprise
4)Voyager
5)TNG

Am I the only person in the world who likes Voyager the best?

@KatawaGrey No, I had an ex-girlfriend who felt the same way, and considered Janeway a role model.

@MrItty: I hope that’s not why she’s you ex-girlfriend.

I kid, I kid.

@KatawaGrey—Voyager was my second favorite! TNG was my favorite because it’s what I got started on. Voyager came next because it was the first one I started watching from day one. TOS is third because it’s so LOLariously awful. DS9 was okay. And I never even watched any of Enterprise, so I have no opinion of it.

@MacBean: Enterprise was an embarrassment to Gene Roddenberry’s name. Had he been alive when it began, it would have killed him.

Apologies to all the Enterprise fans, but I stand true to my humble opinion.

@KatawaGrey I humbly disagree. This isn’t contributing to the question, and I admit it took some time to get into, and some of the characters were a bit annoying at first (Trip, in particular, and even the Captain), it wasn’t the best of them – but it was still an interesting run. Especially the whole idea of it being before the others and the discovery of warp. Having said that, I think my chosen avatar speaks for itself: NG was the best written and best acted of them all. Right Trekkers?

The often disregard they show for science.

@AstroChuck – Star Trek is science fiction not hard science fiction.

Oh, I know. You’ll go nuts if you over analyze the physics of Star Trek.
I still love it, though.

@AstroChuck – Have you read the books The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss and The Ethics of Star Trek by Judith Barad and Ed Robertson?

I have The Physics Of Star Trek, but I’m not familiar with the other book.