So true! I still remember when people heavily disliked DS9. I was a huge fan, but dare me saying it was perhaps my favourite Star Trek. Today there are more people open about liking DS9. (✿´꒳`)ﾉ
I’ve had this theory running around in my head about followups to any series. Every person has a slightly different take on what their favorite part of the show is. For OG Star Trek, maybe you liked the banter between Spock and McCoy. Maybe you liked Kirk’s swagger. Maybe you thought Scotty was hot.
If a new production comes along years later and doesn’t reproduce the specific elements you like, then you will hate it. The producers might have been ultrafans of the original with good writing chops, a solid cast, and high production values, but if it doesn’t have those specific elements for you, then you’ll hate it.
Those elements are different for everyone, though. The list of possible elements can be very long, and no new production can possibly check off even a significant fraction of that list. Therefore, any new production is bound to have a long line of haters regardless of its quality on its own merits.
Was Star Trek supposed to be about Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on a ship strutting around the galaxy? TNG changed that. Is it at least supposed to be about strutting around the galaxy? DS9 changed that. Should it at least be about interacting with the alien races we know? Voyager changed that. And so on.
JMS made a Star Trek pitch back in 2004. I like Babylon 5, but I don’t think I would have liked his version of Star Trek. The outline focused on elements I didn’t care about and just seemed meh to me in general.
This goes for any other long running series, of course.
I gave discovery a chance. I ended up quitting around the third season.
It wasn’t just that it was bad. It was how it was bad. 90s trek did an extremely good job at discussing important and relatable concepts through the lens of sci-fi. It also did a great job of introducing us to fairly whacky and diverse ideas that made space seem vast and unknowable.
Discovery seemed to abandon a lot of that. It’s kinda there on the surface, but under further inspection it falls apart. The discussion of serious topics was extremely shallow to the point where it felt low effort. The entire world seems to revolve around what the main characters are doing, which makes the entire setting feel small. A lot of the justification for this was spending that time on better character development, but when I stopped watching every character except Saru felt sort of underdeveloped.
Not to mention it does things that made me feel like that writers either didn’t know or didn’t care about previous star trek TV shows. Those Klingons neither looked nor acted like Klingons. Most of the discovery crew don’t act like Starfleet officers. I finally lost it at the Burn. I guess it’s technically canon, but it really doesn’t feel that way. We saw multiple different types of FTL methods in 90s trek, and we saw Wesely grow dilithium as part of a high school science project. Plus the idea of there being one element the entire galaxy uses for Warp travel, again, makes the entire setting feel extremely small.
Finally, I feel like Discovery was being reviewed by people who were more interested in propagating the culture war than watching Star Trek. I remember reading articles gushing about how Burnham was the first black captain. Or how Tilly breaks the mold because all other major female characters in Trek were more stereotypical women. Or how the negative reaction to Discovery was from bigoted fans too fragile to watch a show that doesn’t mostly consist of cis straight white men.
The last part was the most infuriating. It’s incredibly obvious they were toning down a lot of what I star trek to appeal to the mass market. Fine. I’ve watched a lot of mid sci-fi. I watched all three JJ Abrams Star Trek movies, the first two sequel star wars movies, Dark Matter before it got good, etc. However it’s infuriating being attacked for it.
They do fit well together, but they are very much not the same show. They are like two differently shaped puzzle pieces.
Closer to the end TNG did get more character development, though. I wonder how much of that is thanks to Babylon 5. I remember the end of TNG, beginning of DS9, and B5 all being very close together.
The plot revolves around a wargames scenario. There is for some reason an alien race that is really good at war strategies. There is an advisor from that race on the enterprise.
The advisor is a massive dick. However he’s also somewhat legit. He beats data at some strategy game.
The enterprise is set to fight a decommissioned federation ship. Half the crew comes over there. It’s led by Riker. Wesely is also over there. He snuck his dilithium science project aboard. He tells Riker about it. Riker is happy, because it’s enough dilithium to give him like a second of warp. He thinks he can use it in a surprise attack.
The science project itself isn’t super complex. LaForge was mildly impressed when Wesely told him about it, in a way that made it feel like he’s smart for his age. He started the entire project like two weeks ago.
Anyway in the middle of this the ferengi show up. This is one of the times they aren’t complete jokes. They start attacking Riker’s ship because they think it’s valuable or something. The enterprise can’t easily stop them because they are carrying dummy rounds. Riker ends up using the Dilithium is some sort of bluff to beat the ferengis.
The episode ends with Data and the alien strategist playing the game again. The strategist gets upset and rage quits. It’s revealed that Data realized that last time he was playing to win, so this time he was playing to not lose. He basically got the alien into a stalemate.
There are also a million other reasons why the Burn doesn’t make that much sense. The Klingons use Trilithium. The Romulans used a contained singularity. In Voyager we saw a number of potential non-dilithium alternatives. One of them was a glorified slingshot.
There’s also just the thematic implications. Star Trek has always been portrayed as this big diverse galaxy. There are a ton of alien races running around doing weird things that we only grasp the surface of. There are even more alien races we’ll never meet. There are races that have technology beyond our comprehension, and races that are effectively Gods.
I think the writers handwaved the entire thing away so that the Burn technically doesn’t break canon. Just like La’Rell winning the chancellorship is canon. However it feels almost antithetical to what we know about the setting.
The plot revolves around a wargames scenario. There is for some reason an alien race that is really good at war strategies. There is an advisor from that race on the enterprise.
Ah, that would be “Peak Performance”, in which Wesley has an experiment that has something to do with high-energy plasma reactions with antimatter, and nothing whatsoever to do with growing dilithium. Swing and a miss.
The Klingons use Trilithium.
Strike two - trilithium is an unstable explosive that is used in the engines of exactly no one. The Klingons do use tritium as an intermix, but as you are aware, that simply replaced the role that deuterium plays in Starfleet designs - it has nothing to do with dilithium.
The Romulans used a contained singularity.
This is the closest you’ve come to having something. Of course, there’s exactly zero information on how those drives operate or are manufactured, along with the pesky fact that the Romulans have enslaved an entire race to mine dilithium for them, which is…not something you typically do to obtain a substance that you don’t need. We’ll call it a foul ball.
In Voyager we saw a number of potential non-dilithium alternatives. One of them was a glorified slingshot.
What did we learn about how these alternatives are powered, particularly considering that several of them were plugged into Voyager’s warp core without too much trouble? You get bonus points if you can identify the one that was specifically described as “not antimatter,” which is most likely (but not guaranteed) to exclude dilithium.
So far we’ve got two strikes and two fouls. You’re still at bat.
Look you’ve clearly made up your mind. I don’t think there’s anything anyone could do to convince you. You’re talking to me in a way that’s condescending and disrespectful, so I certainly don’t want to be the one to try.
You’ve made up your mind about being a condescending asshole. You used a baseball analogy to “grade” my comment. Then you had the gall to imply that you’re giving me one more chance to convince you, presumably so you could get one more jab in.
It’s not what you’re saying, it’s how you’re talking to me. You’ve approached the entire conversation from an adversarial standpoint. You’ve acted as if you were the ultimate arbiter of truth despite getting your facts wrong, and expected me to keep going with the conversation despite showing complete disrespect for me. Every single comment is dripping with this condescending attitude, and written in a way that makes me feel like the overwhelming majority of your sofial interactions are through either Lemmy or Reddit.
If you tried this in real life, I would have just awkwardly agreed with you and changed the subject. If you did this on a regular basis I wouldn’t hang out with you. Yet for some reason this kind of snarky antisocial behavior is not only common, but in fact rewarded.
By all means, enlighten me. I admire your dedication to tone policing, but it’s starting to feel just a little bit like you’re doing everything you possibly can to avoid addressing the topic at hand.
That couldn’t possibly be it, though.
If you did this on a regular basis I wouldn’t hang out with you.
That bit about Burnham had me double-checking myself because I’m an affliate Trekkie at best but I remember a character named Sisko who was black and some kind of commanding officer. And I haven’t even watched 20% of available Star Trek content.
I don’t know if you’re joking but yes. Benjamin Sisco was a black captain. Janeway was a female captain. You also had other women and minority bridge officers acting in a variety of different ways.
While some elements of the female characters were problematic, I’d argue every single female bridge officers was less of a stereotype than Tilly. I’ve seen some form of the “adorkable nerd who is written as a Mary Sue because she’s clearly a stand in for one of the writers” archetype just about everywhere these days.
Nah, I honestly couldn’t remember. I’ve seen like random episodes from Picard and Kirk-era Trek and recently The Lower Decks. I’m an affliate because even though I don’t consume most Star Trek media, I enjoy what it brings to the culture and community of sci-fi.
It’s absolute jokes when people pave over existing examples, so they can be close to the center of the class photo for the new “thing”.
“We’ve devised this new way of consuming bread: by cutting it into thinner layers!”
The older star trek also usually had one story in each episode, and just a little bit of an overarching plot, so much of the time of the episode was actually used to tell a story.
Discovery adopted this soap-like storytelling, where there is one long story broken up into episodes. Each episode has something interesting at the start, then just a lot of filler, and when it finally starts to get interesting again the episode is over and they spoil half of the next episode with the “coming next” segment.
So instead of making something people want to watch because its interesting, they just manipulate you to watch it because they string you along.
Picard does the same, but at least they have some interesting content in the middle of an episode sometimes.
Yeah I think their insistence on a low episode serial format is a huge part of the problem. DS9 is a great example of how narrative storytelling can work in Star Trek, but it only came after they did years of character development and world building.
I think SNW S2 has done a good job taking a step back and just having individual episodes that let the setting and character grow. “Under the Cloak of War” was one of the best Trek episodes of all time.
It may have a lot of the stylings of adult swim, but I think that lower decks is far more focused. Obviously it all comes down to taste, but you should really give it another go and definitely try strange new worlds. Strange new worlds is classic trek done so well.
Well, I watched first few episodes before forming that opinion, I think it’s just the usual “cynicism pushed to grotesque” thing many adult-oriented shows do that puts me off. But it’s been a while and I don’t really remember it well so I suppose another chance wouldn’t hurt.
And thanks, I’ll look into Strange New Worlds then.
And then when I asked advice from people in Hollywood—I knew a handful of people, not many in those days—and I said to them, “Look, I’ve been offered this, what should I do? I’ve got plays lined up in London, I’m finally beginning to get a reputation in the West End playing leading roles.” And they told me now, this is a six-year contract, don’t worry about it. You cannot revive an iconic show like Star Trek, it cannot happen, you will be lucky to make it halfway through the season before it’s canceled.
– Sir Patrick Stewart, on his decision to accept the role of Captain Picard
Let me see if I can explain it to you: Nerds don’t have a problem with women; they have a problem with change. I’ll give you an example: Nerds are upset at black stormtroopers in the new Star Wars movie. Do they have a problem with stormtroopers being black? No. They have a problem with you changing their definition of a stormtrooper. I’ll be a little clearer: If the first time you introduce oatmeal to a nerd it has maple syrup in it, it better have maple syrup every fucking time, or it’s not oatmeal.
– Larry Wilmore, on the closed-mindedness of sci-fi fans.
I remember people hating on voyager calling it “shitty nutrek” and now it is adored like TNG, TOS and DS9 are. Give it a few years and “nutrek” will be old trek and we will have a new set of trek series that “fans” will spit on.
I was twelve when Voyager started and didn’t really enjoy it. I don’t recall my parents having a bad opinion of it and they watched it regularly. I don’t really remember it getting hate, but with no internet that’s not abnormal.
I have enjoyed all of the recent Trek I’ve seen (Kelvin and Picard S1/S2 very much included). I’m really looking forward to watching Discovery when I can.
Media that has a different style is most enjoyable, I do not want to see the same style all the time, and seeing a different angle can be a breath of fresh air even if it is not to my taste.
Do I not like the new content because it’s new and weird…? 🤔
No. I still liked DS9 and Voyager when I had grew up with TNG. I still liked Enterprise (although with some caveats mostly due to specific nerd shit that changed). I love Lower Decks and Prodigy.
What I can’t get into with Picard and Discovery (haven’t tried SNW yet) is the format. I really just prefer episodic content to serialized stuff. Especially when the good parts come slowly. So many people who do like these shows admit they don’t get good until the 2nd or 3rd season, and I just can’t slog through the first season to get that far.
SNW is probably what you want. There are some longer arcs, but for the most part, you can take things episode by episode.
The streaming era is favoring shows with long arcs, though. Just the opposite of where we were in the 90s, where missing one episode of Babylon 5 meant you might not understand what’s going on, and VCRs were clunky and hard to setup right.
X-Files when it started vs X-Files when it ended. I feel like the episodic/short story formats focus on the sci fi aspects or specific situations in a way I like more.
Discovery and Picard are just bad shows to me, especially Picard. It annoys me when people try to reduce criticism to just not liking something new. The Abrams movies and Discovery depart from previous iterations in some really important ways to the point that they don’t feel like the same franchise anymore.
Also really annoys me when people bring up some of the TNG movies to “prove” that old trek did some of the same annoying things, when those movies are also bad and widely criticized.
I do like SNW though. Better than Enterprise and probably Voyager as well.
Meh. TOS was so bad it got cancelled halfway through its third season. Didn’t even get to finish.
More seriously, with all the whining people do about DSC and whatever, it’s obvious they haven’t seen TAS or Enterprise. I mean, really. TAS was - except for Mudd and Tribbles - awful. But no, let’s focus on whining instead of all enjoying Lower Decks together.
Which makes me wonder how many people have actually seen the TNG episode LD is based on? 🤷
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go have a transporter accident.
Disco was hot garbage except for that one episode where they ran out of budget and told a decent groundhog day story. Pike carried me through the second season though. And the only interesting character was the spidey-sense alien dude. Didn’t bother with season 3.
Picard. Well… I only lasted ten minutes into the first episode. Noped out when the motorbike helmet Romulan ninja killed the roommate with a knife. Guess they couldn’t afford stun mode on a phaser or something.
Strange New Worlds is great. I’d rank it better than Voyager but not quite original series quality. Not yet anyway. And when Jack Quaid popped out the other side of the portal, that’s when I thought I’d give Lower Decks a chance.
Just watch the last season of Picard. Forget the other two seasons and pretend they don’t exist. You don’t need them, the final seasons stands on it’s own.
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