DS9 - Rejoined

[Darth Wedgius]

Also, I REALLY hope Chuck is not comparing people's bigotry to same sex relations, which are seen as 2 consent adults and pedophilia, an adult taking advantage of a child as equal subject matter

As far as the characters' feelings go, they can be compared, IMHO.

In ancient Greece, pederasty between adult men and boys in their teens was seen as natural. So was slavery. Tell someone from that culture that pederasty was wrong, and they'd feel the same kind of outrage as you would if being told that pederasty was a great idea.

And it was the characters' feelings and mores being compared, and the penalties they might face, not Chuck's feelings on the subject, nor your feelings, nor mine.

[Darth Wedgius]

I thought I remember the crew revolving around the sun at 7 point something to travel back in time. All I remember though is that the Bird of Prey barely handled it in Voyage Home. I don't remember how Enterprise held up to it in TOS.

Wasn't the scale redefined somewhere between TOS and TNG?

It was. I think there was an edict from Roddenberry that Warp 10 was the ultimate speed, maybe because TOS had episodes where the Enterprise was doing Warp 13 or such and he wanted to get away from people writing in higher and higher speeds.

So the creators made Warp 10 infinite speed, and made Warp 9 = 9^(10/3)c, and drew an asymptotic curve between them so speeds can be arbitrarily fast between in the Warp [9, 10) range. Warp 9.999 is much much faster than Warp 9.99, even though that seems like a little change. There's no formula for the speeds between Warp 9 and Warp 10, though; it's a hand-drawn curve.

Then they decided that Warp 10 turns you into a lizard. Not sure there's a formula for that one, either.

There were some iffy bits with the TNG scale. I think someone said in "The Naked Now" that instruments showed them passing Warp 10 (explainable as instrument error I suppose, though it's a weird speedometer that even has a spot for the needle that's past infinity), and in "All Good Things" I think the future Enterprise D traveled at Warp 13. Either Starfleet had redefined the scale again in the future time, or that third nacelle was hella impressive.

[RobbyB1982]

It's only "more obvious" if you think a super tame TV kiss with absolutely no other action and zero nudity looks like porn.

But then, the idea that two women kissing is more pornographic than a man and a woman kissing is another issue surrounding the portrayal of same-sex relationships.

While locking yourself away in a room behind a closed door, away from your inlaws? Yeah its not a super intense sexy scene but it doesn't need to be under the circumstances.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Part of the joke was that it was a reverend and his wife, conservative maybe, but orthodox religious more probably. It's a pretty unflattering situation.

[Freeverse]

It's only "more obvious" if you think a super tame TV kiss with absolutely no other action and zero nudity looks like porn.

But then, the idea that two women kissing is more pornographic than a man and a woman kissing is another issue surrounding the portrayal of same-sex relationships.

While locking yourself away in a room behind a closed door, away from your inlaws? Yeah its not a super intense sexy scene but it doesn't need to be under the circumstances.

I'm just pointing out that there's a double standard at play. Sure, things can seem worse than they are when it looks like you're hiding something, but do you really think he'd be worried if it were, say, Kira and Bareil?

I'm not blaming Chuck, it's not his fault that this double standard exists. But it does exist, and it can be frustrating.

[Riedquat]

Well, depends if there was an understanding about whether nakedness/lesbianism was part of the role when hired. In all honesty, the way GoT developed, it was fairly obvious that all actresses could be asked to do a nude scene.

Definitely true, but what we don't want is for anyone to feel they have to if they want their career to get anywhere.

What about lesbian and gay actors who have been doing straight sex scenes since, I dunno, Hollywood started? Where, unlike straight actors, they were almost never asked and it was a simple fact of the business? There was no risk that "they felt like they had to", they literally had to or they'd be unemployed and unemployable. And that's still in effect.

What about them? Are you assuming that I think that's OK?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Did you guys forget that that was the conclusive undertone of the trill focused TNG episode with Crusher? I've brought it up on the forum before, but nobody's ever made an issue of it. Granted I gotta see Chuck's review, though it's possible he didn't make a stink of it.

[GreyICE]

Well, depends if there was an understanding about whether nakedness/lesbianism was part of the role when hired. In all honesty, the way GoT developed, it was fairly obvious that all actresses could be asked to do a nude scene.

Definitely true, but what we don't want is for anyone to feel they have to if they want their career to get anywhere.

What about lesbian and gay actors who have been doing straight sex scenes since, I dunno, Hollywood started? Where, unlike straight actors, they were almost never asked and it was a simple fact of the business? There was no risk that "they felt like they had to", they literally had to or they'd be unemployed and unemployable. And that's still in effect.

What about them? Are you assuming that I think that's OK?

I'm not assuming anything. Have you ever once commented that it wasn't okay before on these forums though? There's a certain heteronormative bias that tends to get applied.

Like you're worried not that actors are being forced to show affection for someone of the same gender, because Terry Farrell wasn't, but that actors might feel forced to show affection for someone of the same gender and say yes even when they weren't comfortable. A hypothetical so far out there that it's desperately stretching. That instead of Terry Farrell being comfortable acting and appreciating the message (like she said) she felt forced to do it. Which is doubly funny because she has spoken about sexual harassment on set so she doesn't have a problem being vocal about it (it was Rick Berman, naturally). Or maybe you're saying it's being applied generally, but again, where?

Meanwhile even coming out is still a great way to crater your career in movies, and limit your appeal as a television actor, and there's still plenty of roles that will only go to you if you're willing to play heterosexual.

[clearspira]

Did you guys forget that that was the conclusive undertone of the trill focused TNG episode with Crusher? I've brought it up on the forum before, but nobody's ever made an issue of it. Granted I gotta see Chuck's review, though it's possible he didn't make a stink of it.

The TNG trills are so different to the DS9 trills that they have either been retconned or are a completely different species altogether. They might as well be Goa'uld. Tbh I would be a bit scared to trust one even if this particular Jaffa was closer to a Tok'ra in consent.

The thing about the moral dilemma at the end of the episode though is that nothing has changed in 2020 no matter far trans rights have come. If your boyfriend (a large, hunky brick of a man BTW) suddenly became a petite woman in the span of a few hours most would react exactly the same. You cannot choose your sexuality no matter what those tossers who peddle conversion therapy believe. What do people who criticise Crusher here honestly expect her to do? Take one for the team?

[Freeverse]

Did you guys forget that that was the conclusive undertone of the trill focused TNG episode with Crusher? I've brought it up on the forum before, but nobody's ever made an issue of it. Granted I gotta see Chuck's review, though it's possible he didn't make a stink of it.

The TNG trills are so different to the DS9 trills that they have either been retconned or are a completely different species altogether. They might as well be Goa'uld. Tbh I would be a bit scared to trust one even if this particular Jaffa was closer to a Tok'ra in consent.

The thing about the moral dilemma at the end of the episode though is that nothing has changed in 2020 no matter far trans rights have come. If your boyfriend (a large, hunky brick of a man BTW) suddenly became a petite woman in the span of a few hours most would react exactly the same. You cannot choose your sexuality no matter what those tossers who peddle conversion therapy believe. What do people who criticise Crusher here honestly expect her to do? Take one for the team?

There's no reason that Crusher couldn't have spent some time getting to know the new host, after making it clear that she's not interested in sex or romance. Not that she's obligated to do so, but it was almost like chasing away a family member of a loved one; understandable given how she was feeling at the time, but still kind of cold.

It's been a while since I've seen the episode, and I could be remembering it wrong, but Crusher came off pretty badly, not because she wasn't interested in resuming the relationship, but in how she treated the other person pretty dismissively. On the other side of things, we have yet another TNG alien who completely fails to imagine that other cultures do things differently from them, which is an annoying trope of the era. I think it would have been a really strong ending if the two of them had commiserated over everything that had happened, but ultimately gone their separate ways, instead of what we ended up with.

I don't know how harshly other people may have criticized Crusher for this, but for me it's just a bit disappointing that she seemed to lose some of the compassion that makes her a great character. And it's frustrating to have this kind of problem in one of the few Crusher-centric episodes we did get.