Conference ljsrv1::tv_chatter

    
    Well, Voyager doesn't have to worry about this thing replacing it.
    Out here Voyager was prempted to another night.
    
    Those skirts were a real laugh. 
    
    

    
    	I saw it listed, and was going to watch it just to drool over
    	Morgan Fairchild.
    
    	But I quickly came to my senses and decided to watch a couple
    	episodes of "Moonlighting" instead.
    

    The robotics creature looked familiar in design. Is it a cast-off from
    some other show?
    

    Includes lots of spoilers below:
    
    
    The robot looked a slightly modified Number 5.  It only seemed to have
    two arm motions it could perform.
    
    While the CGI was pretty good, the actual space battles bothered me.
    In the beginning, I liked the fact that the laser hits on the mailship
    only sliced it up.  Not like some later shots where you would presume
    that the space station and other ships were built out of explosive
    materials.
    
    But anyone is going to be able to guide a laser with much more
    accuracy than they showed.  Particularly when the 5 ships were
    shooting at the Corvette, it would not have been able to dodge
    everything.  You can point a laser a lot faster than they can 
    change velocities.
    
    When they were behind the ships in the comet, why not fire all 4
    missiles at the 4 ships when you have surprise?
    
    Why did the 5 ships try to blast their way through the asteroid trap,
    instead of just swerving around it?
    
    What? No chairs at the duty stations?  You have to stand up during
    your watch?  No seatbelts, either?  Ridiculous.  Worse than the other
    SpaceRangers(?) series where they had the pilot lying facedown facing
    forward.  You can only hold your neck up like that for a few minutes
    at best.
    
    The sets looked ok, but were pretty spacious for a small crew.
    
    I DID like the fact that everyone wasn't all chummy, and that they
    did have the courtmartial and execution.  But that guy would never
    have given them the out by committing suicide.  He would have bet
    they couldn't carry out the sentence.  It was too neat to eliminate
    him.  Leaving him around would have added more tension to the later
    plot.
    
    And people seemed to be abandoning their posts during the later
    battles.
    
    I also liked their explanation that there is no faster than light
    communication.  Makes the decisions of the ship's crew more
    urgent.

    The slinky outfit Fairchild was in was her nightgown, I think.
    It was a practise drill during the night.
    
    I really don't believe the mini-skirt dress uniforms either.
    The ones they had later, during the courtmartial and funeral
    and the working outfits were more practical.
    
    VR instead of Holosuites is more believable too.
    
    White vs Black was really too much.

When I saw Chad Everett in the Captain's seat, I thought it was going to be
bad.  When I saw the mini-skirt uniforms, I thought it was really going to
be bad.  When I saw the unfortunately obligatory cute robot, I thought it
was going to be unwatchable.  When I saw Morgan Fairchild trying to act the
part of a tough officer (Okay, just trying to act, for that matter), I knew
it was a total waste.

Incredible, 'cause they just set their sights too high with this one.  They
were trying to live up to the quality of Plan 9 from Outer Space, and they
just weren't up to it.

If this is what the future will be like, I'm gonna sign up for Luddite 101
in the fall semester...

    RE .4  Some spoilers:
    
    
    I think the space station hits and later ship hits with explosions were
    Missile hits. I think they were fairly consistent with the effects of a
    laser hit vs the effect of a missile hit.
    
    As for the comet tail scene (ohh how convenient...there just happens to
    be a comet right when and where you need it), maybe they didn't shoot
    at all 4 ships because they only had 1 or 2 launchers with multiple 
    missiles for it (thats what it looked like when they showed it firing),
    and only one gunner station was crewed (the other gunner being dead, 
    and the gunnery control pod gone). Maybe the destroyed gunnery control 
    pod was necessary to coordinate the ships weapons to fire at multiple
    targets (remember Morgan Fairchild's comment on going there to increase
    their firepower) effectively. Anyways, they probably could have fired
    at all 4 ships sequentially with their 1 or 2 launchers, but maybe they
    were afraid that would give the battlecruisers time to lock onto them
    and return fire.
    
    All in all, the plot was pretty simplistic. After reviewing that
    action, one would wonder why they bother building bigger ships if
    corvettes are that effective. I did like the laser effects during the
    initial battle with the Surprise...it looked like the entire beam was
    appearing and disappearing rather than travelling across the TV screen
    (i.e. the laser beams were actually moving at lightspeed) though 
    they did show a brighter pulse travel along each beam.
    
    The costumes were dumb, and the sets even worse. One of the walls in
    one scene looked like plastic stacking cargo crates. Actually the only
    TV SF warship sets I like are those on the Saratoga in Space: Above and
    Beyond...it looks like a cramped warship with lots of bare steel
    exposed pipes etc. Star Command had the same plastic look as ST, only
    worse in design.
    
    -Eric