Star Trek: The desk is key

By delta_ass February 10, 2012 1 Comments

Oh yeah, another thing I hate about Insurrection: They fucked up with the ready room desk. 

For seven seasons, we were treated to this ready room. It felt comfy and warm and inviting. But most importantly, it was sparse. There was the goldfish tank and the model of the Stargazer and not much else. The desk had one of those LCARS displays and sometimes a single rack of data cards. That was it, that was all it had. The desk was mostly empty. It wasn't cluttered up with junk. Star Trek was about the future, and how technology would make our lives so much easier. So even though as Captain, Picard would still have to fill out paperwork, he could at least do it from a single display that would efficiently and effortlessly take care of everything. Every once in a while, someone would walk in with a PADD for him to check out. But never a desk in disarray. This was not the future that Star Trek envisioned.

But then we got to the movies. 

What the Christ? What the hell happened here, Picard? What are you, a two year old? Hasn't anybody taught you how to clean up after yourself? Why in God's name do you have dozens of PADDs and all kinds of crap all piled up here? Why is your desk so damn cluttered and messy? Is this the same side of you that enjoys off-road racing? I just don't... I really uh, don't know what to make of this. Why would you need so many different PADDs? Couldn't you just navigate through various data with a single PADD? There's amazing things people are doing with iPhones and iPads today, surely they'll be even better and more efficient in the future. Again... Star Trek is about how great the future is going to be. This looks like a goddamn bureaucratic nightmare. 
 
Now, on a different subject... um, just rewatching some Voyager episodes lately... I've really gotta say that I hate some of the characters. Not because the actors are horrible people, but because they're just written so badly and boringly. Like.. Tuvok. What the hell is there to Tuvok? We had Spock, and he was a Vulcan, and that meant he didn't really have any emotions, but there was still so much to the character. Spock was still so interesting and captivating and could elicit a lot with just a raised eyebrow. He even turned out to be the most popular character during TOS's run.

Yet we've got Tuvok, and he's also a Vulcan, but... there's just nothing there. When he says something in this flat emotionless voice, that's it. It's just this flat dialogue and there's nothing to the character. He might as well be wallpaper, standing back there in that alcove. He fades from memory because he's just so darn boring and unmemorable. What went wrong here? Spock was great but Tuvok is awful. I haven't seen Tim Russ in anything else, so I dunno if he's terrible in other roles. But probably not? I hope it's just the material he was given.

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