I loved all three trailers and will watch all those anyway. I really do not get the hate that much of this franchise gets. We should be thankful, that so much Trek exists, that we can chose what to watch. Not everyone has to like everything they put out.
I'm still very much content. Picard still has potential, Lower Decks is great, and maybe Disco will have something good, too.
I*d rather have 1,5 good and 1,5 bad Trek series running than 0 Trek series running.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I loved all three trailers and will watch all those anyway. I really do not get the hate that much of this franchise gets. We should be thankful, that so much Trek exists, that we can chose what to watch. Not everyone has to like everything they put out.
It was helpful to me to realize that every Trek series after TOS was passionately hated by some section of the fandom. Either it's too close to the original and therefore just a copycat, or it's too different and therefore "not real Trek." It's just humans not liking when things are different from what they remember, especially if what they remember came from their childhood before they had much exposure to much televised fiction at all.
I will relish in 10-20 years when Disco, Picard, and Lower Decks become "What Trek is really like" and someone trying to make something more inline with TOS or TNG turns out to be "not real Trek" because of the kids/teens who only really know about the new shows and never got around to watching "old fashioned" tv.
But this is just not true.. I've been watching trek from before TNG was airing on TV in germany for the first time, and my general perception of the shows hasn't changed very much at all
Here's my perception of the shows as they were aired, and on my currently latest viewing, outside of TOS, which was older than me, and which I enjoyed, but found quirky
Tos: First viewing: I was a babby. 4th viewing: Campy, but mostly awesome,especially in the context of its time
TNG: First viewing: Awesome as hell. 5th viewing: Still awesome
Voyager: First viewing, Enjoyable, but a load of stinkers and some good episodes that basically only showed all the missed potential (year of hell). 3rd viewing: ONLY tolerable with a viewing guide
DS9: First viewing: Criminally was on a.. I think 1 or 2pm slot on German TV, which was a time I wasn't allowed to watch TV or run the VCR, so in barely watched it. 5th viewing: Super awesome!
Enterprise: First viewing: Ehhh.... Space Nazis from Outta Time, okay. Show ended when it was starting to get better. 2nd viewing: Same
Disco: First viewing: Enjoyed the start and thought its potential might get something to do. It didnt, and everything I thought might make it better didn't happen, and almost everything the people doomsaying about it DID happen. So... Eh
Picard. First viewing: I had some fun with it, But there was much squandered potential. Not as much as Disco, maybe Voyager-Level squandered potential
Lower Decks: First viewing: Slow burn at the start, but super good 1st season.
So... I really don't think I'll be liking Disco in ten years, unless it becomes better in the coming seasons, which is a possibility.
Or maybe the following series are even worse, so people look back on Disco as "the time when the franchise was still salvageable" one day..
You won't like Disco in 10 years. A lot of people on the earth right now are considerably younger than you, and Disco might be their first Trek series, and having the enthusiasm of youth on their side they will almost certainly see things to like about it that older farts like us cannot see. If you don't believe me, let me remind you that there are people living in the world today who's platonic idea of Star Wars is the prequel trilogy.
My experience was a little different from yours: TOS was almost religion in our house. When TNG came out I was about 12 and felt irked by it and thought it was dumb (to be fair, the first season was pretty dumb!) then the show "Grew the beard" and I liked it. I loved DS9. I religiously watched Voyager despite its flaws. I never could get into Enterprise very much though I tried, it clearly had a feeling of "this Trek isn't for Star Trek fans, ok?" In any case I certainly remember the backlash to TNG when it came out, the concentrated hate for a bald man trying to take Kirk's place.
Currently I haven't felt any motivation to watch Disco, though perhaps I am doing it an injustice. I liked Picard a lot. I love Lower Decks. Like you, Disco will never be "classic Trek" to me, but I guarantee that in 10-20 years there will be some person who was a 10 year old when Disco came out for whom Disco is the Platonic ideal of Star Trek.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Plus I'd like to know how much of the hatred for TNG and DS9 was for the first season and then died down as the shows started to suck less. It's a bit of a joke/meme, but the Riker beard and Sisko goat are a thing for a reason.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Plus I'd like to know how much of the hatred for TNG and DS9 was for the first season and then died down as the shows started to suck less. It's a bit of a joke/meme, but the Riker beard and Sisko goat are a thing for a reason.
TNG was well regarded during it's run for sure.
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
I loved all three trailers and will watch all those anyway. I really do not get the hate that much of this franchise gets. We should be thankful, that so much Trek exists, that we can chose what to watch. Not everyone has to like everything they put out.
It was helpful to me to realize that every Trek series after TOS was passionately hated by some section of the fandom. Either it's too close to the original and therefore just a copycat, or it's too different and therefore "not real Trek." It's just humans not liking when things are different from what they remember, especially if what they remember came from their childhood before they had much exposure to much televised fiction at all.
I will relish in 10-20 years when Disco, Picard, and Lower Decks become "What Trek is really like" and someone trying to make something more inline with TOS or TNG turns out to be "not real Trek" because of the kids/teens who only really know about the new shows and never got around to watching "old fashioned" tv.
I'm not sure Enterprise's reputation has risen much at all over the years. Voyager if anything feels like it gets dunked on more then it did when it aired.
I'm not sure the idea that everyone will totally love these series a decade or two from now really holds.
The perception of Voyager is much more positive than I recall when it aired. I couldn't even finish the first season, and none of the Trek fans I knew back then stuck with it all the way through.
Personally, I think Disco is the best Trek has been in a long time even despite the glaring writing problems at times. I would prefer the new season to not have yet another massive threat driving the entire season, but at the same time I do think the change to more serialized storytelling is a major reason why I find Discovery so refreshing. I just wish the writers would be a bit more creative in how they drive that serialized storytelling.
I think the early reviews for TNG were pretty unimpressed, generally. I dunno how Trekkers received it, but the initial mainstream critical reception wasn't great.
I loved all three trailers and will watch all those anyway. I really do not get the hate that much of this franchise gets. We should be thankful, that so much Trek exists, that we can chose what to watch. Not everyone has to like everything they put out.
It was helpful to me to realize that every Trek series after TOS was passionately hated by some section of the fandom. Either it's too close to the original and therefore just a copycat, or it's too different and therefore "not real Trek." It's just humans not liking when things are different from what they remember, especially if what they remember came from their childhood before they had much exposure to much televised fiction at all.
I will relish in 10-20 years when Disco, Picard, and Lower Decks become "What Trek is really like" and someone trying to make something more inline with TOS or TNG turns out to be "not real Trek" because of the kids/teens who only really know about the new shows and never got around to watching "old fashioned" tv.
But this is just not true.. I've been watching trek from before TNG was airing on TV in germany for the first time, and my general perception of the shows hasn't changed very much at all
Here's my perception of the shows as they were aired, and on my currently latest viewing, outside of TOS, which was older than me, and which I enjoyed, but found quirky
Tos: First viewing: I was a babby. 4th viewing: Campy, but mostly awesome,especially in the context of its time
TNG: First viewing: Awesome as hell. 5th viewing: Still awesome
Voyager: First viewing, Enjoyable, but a load of stinkers and some good episodes that basically only showed all the missed potential (year of hell). 3rd viewing: ONLY tolerable with a viewing guide
DS9: First viewing: Criminally was on a.. I think 1 or 2pm slot on German TV, which was a time I wasn't allowed to watch TV or run the VCR, so in barely watched it. 5th viewing: Super awesome!
Enterprise: First viewing: Ehhh.... Space Nazis from Outta Time, okay. Show ended when it was starting to get better. 2nd viewing: Same
Disco: First viewing: Enjoyed the start and thought its potential might get something to do. It didnt, and everything I thought might make it better didn't happen, and almost everything the people doomsaying about it DID happen. So... Eh
Picard. First viewing: I had some fun with it, But there was much squandered potential. Not as much as Disco, maybe Voyager-Level squandered potential
Lower Decks: First viewing: Slow burn at the start, but super good 1st season.
So... I really don't think I'll be liking Disco in ten years, unless it becomes better in the coming seasons, which is a possibility.
Or maybe the following series are even worse, so people look back on Disco as "the time when the franchise was still salvageable" one day..
You won't like Disco in 10 years. A lot of people on the earth right now are considerably younger than you, and Disco might be their first Trek series, and having the enthusiasm of youth on their side they will almost certainly see things to like about it that older farts like us cannot see. If you don't believe me, let me remind you that there are people living in the world today who's platonic idea of Star Wars is the prequel trilogy.
My experience was a little different from yours: TOS was almost religion in our house. When TNG came out I was about 12 and felt irked by it and thought it was dumb (to be fair, the first season was pretty dumb!) then the show "Grew the beard" and I liked it. I loved DS9. I religiously watched Voyager despite its flaws. I never could get into Enterprise very much though I tried, it clearly had a feeling of "this Trek isn't for Star Trek fans, ok?" In any case I certainly remember the backlash to TNG when it came out, the concentrated hate for a bald man trying to take Kirk's place.
Currently I haven't felt any motivation to watch Disco, though perhaps I am doing it an injustice. I liked Picard a lot. I love Lower Decks. Like you, Disco will never be "classic Trek" to me, but I guarantee that in 10-20 years there will be some person who was a 10 year old when Disco came out for whom Disco is the Platonic ideal of Star Trek.
I mean, yes, but nostalgia colors a lot in a favourable light. I don't think it will help Disco that much, mostly because the internet is an opinion machine, so a lot of "Disco is bad" stuff might become more of a meme, making the show basically unwatchable outside of ironic viewings later on.
And it all depends how trek continues. If the coming seasons and shows are more like Disco, and enough people watch that and more like it follows, then Disco might be some day "the grandfather of my star trek" to someone in a few decades.
I hope not, because I wouldn't be watching it, but it is possible
I think the early reviews for TNG were pretty unimpressed, generally. I dunno how Trekkers received it, but the initial mainstream critical reception wasn't great.
That's what I recall as well. But afaik it was well regarded before it was off the air. Perceptions turned around within a few years. It didn't take a decade off the air or anything.
I haven't seen the RLM video about Picard because their thing isn't really my thing, but I did read that they didn't buy Picard would do all that for Data because they weren't really close and that struck me as a truly fucking dumb take. Picard in Picard felt like a decent depiction of the character, once age and disappointment had taken its toll.
It's not really that, it's that in Picard, he talks like Data was his best friend, when he wasn't any more his best friend than anyone on his crew (who he famously didnt even play cards with until 7 years into their service together)
I don't know if they couldn't get LeVar Burton or if they just don't know that Geordi is Data's best friend but it felt shitty that Picard would be like "nah I aint going to bother Geordi with this" - when Data was literally Geordi's best friend
I loved all three trailers and will watch all those anyway. I really do not get the hate that much of this franchise gets. We should be thankful, that so much Trek exists, that we can chose what to watch. Not everyone has to like everything they put out.
It was helpful to me to realize that every Trek series after TOS was passionately hated by some section of the fandom. Either it's too close to the original and therefore just a copycat, or it's too different and therefore "not real Trek." It's just humans not liking when things are different from what they remember, especially if what they remember came from their childhood before they had much exposure to much televised fiction at all.
I will relish in 10-20 years when Disco, Picard, and Lower Decks become "What Trek is really like" and someone trying to make something more inline with TOS or TNG turns out to be "not real Trek" because of the kids/teens who only really know about the new shows and never got around to watching "old fashioned" tv.
I'm not sure Enterprise's reputation has risen much at all over the years. Voyager if anything feels like it gets dunked on more then it did when it aired.
I'm not sure the idea that everyone will totally love these series a decade or two from now really holds.
The perception of Voyager is much more positive than I recall when it aired. I couldn't even finish the first season, and none of the Trek fans I knew back then stuck with it all the way through.
My perception as that Voyager was on average seen as just .... fine. With a lot of variance within that average. Over time it seems like dunking on Voyager has become more and more popular though.
I don't think he talks like Data was his best friend. He talks like someone who was Data's close friend, who knew his great value and for whom Data sacrificed his own life. YMMV.
MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
To be clear I don't hate Picard S1, though I have problems with it, especially the last couple episodes
I very much hate what they're apparently doing for S2, because that story was done. There's no need to add more to it. It ended pretty much perfectly on pretty much the best episode of the franchise. I felt the same way about, for example, The Last of Us Part II; there's no need for this, and continuing this story can only compromise what came before.
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
The most memorable thing about Voyager when it aired was the stunt casting of Jeri Ryan's breasts when they got Seven on the crew. The fact that she didn't suck was secondary to the obvious desperation and/or pandering in hiring her. It cemented, for me, the idea that things hadn't been going well up until that point and needed to spice things up. The initial plots with the Kazon and that Cardassian lady and whatnot didn't really help either.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
The most memorable thing about Voyager when it aired was the stunt casting of Jeri Ryan's breasts when they got Seven on the crew. The fact that she didn't suck was secondary to the obvious desperation and/or pandering in hiring her. It cemented, for me, the idea that things hadn't been going well up until that point and needed to spice things up. The initial plots with the Kazon and that Cardassian lady and whatnot didn't really help either.
yeah, it is a testament to Ryan's acting that she overcame that suit and managed to bring gravitas to a character basically dressed in a fetish outfit.
Unfortunately, that had been going on in Star Trek basically since the start.. Theiss was the costume designer for TOS and some of TNG, and wikipedia has this to say:
In the course of his career, Theiss was most famous for creating alluring female costuming that censors typically could not credibly forbid, employing what came to be called the "Theiss Titillation Theory": "The sexiness of an outfit is directly proportional to the perceived possibility that a vital piece of it might fall off.
Edit: Not to say that his other work wasn't good, the TOS/TNG uniforms became iconic after all.
But .. T&A as a marketing thing wasn't new to trek through Voyager
autono-wally, erotibot300 on
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HerrCronIt that wickedly supports taxationRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I really like all the new Trek shows. It'll be fun in ten years when the internet starts pretending it always loved Discovery—mostly so they can use it to bash whatever's being produced at that time.
The rehabilitation of Voyager continues apace.
I'm not sure if Enterprise will ever get the same treatment, but I wouldn't be fuckin' surprised.
Picard wasn't bad because of the character's characterization, but because it abandoned any message it may have had about:
A refugee crisis
Growing isolationism and fascism
Examining whether or not we've abandoned our stated ideals
Things that are kinda relevant to the world in 2019, 2020, 2021, etc.
For a really stupid story about how the Romulans have been secretly trying to stop robot Cthulhu for eons and android shenanigans with a surprise Soong running around. So, not only did Picard abandon its premise for nonsense, it (to me) did so out of cowardice.
I don't hate Picard S1 I just... don't enjoy it, really much at all, that's without getting nerd angsted about all the plot holes which I am fully capable of doing if I liked the show more
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I mean, yes, but nostalgia colors a lot in a favourable light. I don't think it will help Disco that much, mostly because the internet is an opinion machine, so a lot of "Disco is bad" stuff might become more of a meme, making the show basically unwatchable outside of ironic viewings later on.
I almost want to put a $20 spot on it or something, except that I likely won't remember the bet in 10 years to collect.
I feel like I've lived through enough TV and film surprise turnovers that to me it's inevitable. Even if you put in a concerted effort and were the king of making good memes, I don't think you could stop it.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Picard wasn't bad because of the character's characterization, but because it abandoned any message it may have had about:
A refugee crisis
Growing isolationism and fascism
Examining whether or not we've abandoned our stated ideals
Things that are kinda relevant to the world in 2019, 2020, 2021, etc.
For a really stupid story about how the Romulans have been secretly trying to stop robot Cthulhu for eons and android shenanigans with a surprise Soong running around. So, not only did Picard abandon its premise for nonsense, it (to me) did so out of cowardice.
yeah the messages it looked like it was going to have just kind... a fart in the wind
I felt the same way about Picard in the end that I feel about Far Cry 5 - a game that skirted around the lip of evangelical conservatism, American cult mentality, and post millennial dispensationalists - but then had nothing to say about anything just "lol guns go brrrr". Both of them were pretty and well put together
Best Trek are the ones where we are left examining our beliefs, feelings, and prejudices and have to ask hard questions. Second best Treks are some zany sci-fi thing is going on. Way down the list is when Trek tries to talk about the importance of dancing. (just kidding those have some great stuff in them). Worst trek are odd, they linger too much on death and rehash something that another episode or movie did better.
It just came to me thinking about the plot of Picard, but it’s kind of strange that in a season centred around themes of tolerance of different people and how the bad actions of a few shouldn’t be used to condemn an entire race they have the head of Starfleet security be a Romulan spy infiltrating the Federation to undermine it from within. Feels like an inversion of the Drumhead.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited April 2021
I don't think modern Trek shows are fated by the hand of God to be liked in ten or fifteen or twenty years or whatever. How many SeaQuest DSV stans are out there right now? Who can forget the millions thronging the streets to demand the return of Relic Hunter?
The conversations about Disco, Picard, et al are happening almost entirely within Star Trek fandom. These shows are getting some new fans, but it's nothing like the ubiquity enjoyed by programs that aired in most of the major markets in the English-speaking world thirty years ago when television was a much more central part of most people's lives. And there's no reason to suppose that these new fans are going to carry the torch forward when there is such an unending barrage of new things to watch; in fact, if the last 10-15 years have taught us anything it's the astonishing speed at which things can be forgotten once they're no longer in the zeitgeist. Remember Heroes? I barely do.
The whole argument presupposes that all of these things are the same from some kind of objective quality standpoint and that it's just old people being mean about new things. That's certainly a factor, but I think for that argument to really hold water they'd need to be better shows than they are. TOS, TNG, and DS9 aren't just well-thought-of by Trek fans, they're well-regarded by normal people. People whose job it is to watch film and TV rank them among the best TV shows ever made. The movies are beloved by millions who would never dream of strapping on a phaser and Spock ears.
You can say that's arbitrary and they "just happened" to be popular, but time is a hell of a curator. The things we still love from the 1960s or other past eras aren't a random sampling of what was actually available back then. Nobody's out here stanning Trek contemporaries like ABC's The Young Lawyers (1970), or fellow sci-fi shows of the time like Space 1999. The things that stick with us tend to be the things that either had some fundamental element of quality or which brought something unique to the table that keeps them relevant over the years. And when you step back and look at Disco and Picard, what exactly are they bringing that's going to make them endure? I honestly don't see it. Their storytelling and filmmaking fundamentals are wobbly. They have lovely casts of talented people that we want to root for, but so have lots of other programs that ended up down the memory hole.
It's also worth remembering that whatever prominence they enjoy is somewhat inflated by being the flagship product of a C-tier streaming service. CBS spends a lot of money trying to put these things in front of eyeballs. Would they even fare as well as they have if the network wasn't there doing that for them? I mean, maybe they would! I don't know. But it's something to think about.
I'm not trying to drop a deuce on people who liked these things but I honestly, legitimately feel no loyalty to Star Trek™, the would-be global multi-leveraged transmedia phenomenon. I'm loyal to the things I love about the shows and movies I love - the way they were made, the kinds of stories they told, the values they promulgated - and if products with the little pointy arrowhead logo stop delivering, then I'm gone. :shrug:
Jerri Ryan got done dirty by the writers using her as eye candy but it was nothing... nothing compared to how dirty they did Jolene Blalock. I was 14 in 2001, prime hormonal teen boy territory, and even I felt incredibly awkward every time they contrived some reason to get her naked. I'm squirming in my seat right now remembering the sexy decontamination gel rub down scene. It was just so gratuitous and so in your face it felt somehow dirtier that actual porn. I just felt bad for her and still do because she was one of about three actors in the entire show that didn't suck terribly. If she had been in any other show we would probably think of her more like Jeri Ryan or Nana Visitor.
Like, Chiana in Farscape is frequently found literally fucking someone in the middle of the hallway and it feels less lewd and infinitely less gross than whatever the fuck those decontamination scenes were. I know that fucking Brennon Braga was just sitting there, leering during each shoot of that scene, spending hours pouring over the footage, it makes me feel like a I need a shower just thinking a about how they actually shot those scenes with what we know of the man
If the show wants to have tits, just have two characters hook up and show tits. A show like Star Trek absolutely 100% does not need to be horny, but if you're going to do it don't fucking convolute a stupid reason and make it weird. At least Chase Masterson on DS9 knew that she was applying to play a character who would be wearing tight skimpy outfits, in such cases I don't feel dirty watching it, if I'm communicating what I'm feeling correctly, ya know?
Whenever Jolene Blalock's character is forced into a weirdly sexual situation I feel like I'm watching a tabletop game with an RPGhorrorstories DM describing the tentacle monster stripping the only female PC in the party with a big smile on his face
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I don't think modern Trek shows are fated by the hand of God to be liked in ten or fifteen or twenty years or whatever. How many SeaQuest DSV stans are out there right now? Who can forget the millions thronging the streets to demand the return of Relic Hunter?
You can't really compare a long-standing franchise like Trek to Seaquest or whatever Relic Hunter is. The things you have that are comparable are: Star Wars and Dr. Who. I'm not even sure there is a third one for such a list... MSU might be such a one someday but you have to recall that their "legendary" filmed strain started with Iron Man, and not with the animated X-men, even though animated X-men came first. Because what I'm referring to are shows that had an cult-like impact from their first strain (A New Hope or TOS) and the cultural shift and permeation that occurred because of that original masterpiece. That's also why I can't really add Battlestar Galactica to the list, because I don't think the original BSG had the sort of cultural currency that a TOS has.
I'm talking about how most people know about things like a vulcan nerve pinch even if they haven't watched TOS, how Tom Baker's Dr. Who scarf is fairly recognizable, how everyone knows what a lightsaber is. Seaquest doesn't have that currency. It's because of that currency that I think that regardless of quality, if you have the basic ingredients of a Star Trek series, it will be someone's favorite Star Trek series even if it's, perhaps, not of high quality. I know a guy my age who loved Enterprise. Just as I know adults my age who think The Phantom Menace is the shit. It does seem at some level incomprehensible because I think from a quality standpoint those are both quite bad. But I theorize that the legendary brand gives those things a gravitas they wouldn't otherwise have.
In a way, it's a smaller and humbler version of how we see an old ruin of a roman house and think how beautiful those crumbled piles of stone are, without knowing how the Romans may have viewed the original house. Maybe the house, in Roman times, was tacky and tasteless. Maybe it was the equivalent of a Las Vegas strip club back in the day. We don't know nor do we care, the ruins still are beautiful to our modern eyes. Thus it is with long-running series that carry cultural impact: we see all the imperfections of a show like Disco. As time passes, nostalgia and a different set of tastes will see the attraction and retro-kitsch of "20s television", the perfections of its imperfections, perhaps the ways it was accidentally "modern" to a 2040s audience in ways the writers couldn't have known about. The Roman house gets to be sanctified by time even if it used to be a brothel. The Star Trek series gets a similar sanctification. It's not me saying "this show is secretly very good and you all are all chumps for not realizing it!", because I don't think Disco is very good right now.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
The problem with these theory is that I see no evidence that "shit on during it's runtime, praised in it's aftermath" is any sort of consistent pattern here.
Like, TNG started a bit mixed in terms of perception perhaps but it was still in the middle of it's run when it was considered "Good TV" and it's reputation has stayed I'd say pretty consistent. Meanwhile something like Enterprise lacked anything like that perception of quality or cultural prominence and over time has basically remained that way. Like, I'm not seeing a pattern here.
The T'Pol thing is even more skeevy when you remember that the character is Vulcan, and that they don't really have sex outside of their every 7 year cycle. It's like watching some people heavily petting a space nun or something, with the camera (and music) trying to make it sensual, but only making it that much more unsettling.
ha, well...
Spock was incredibly sexualized during and shortly after the show's original run. Not so much by the show (though they did have him stripped to the waist almost as much as Kirk) but by the fandom, who found so many ways to get around that inconvenient seven-years thing.
ha, well...
Spock was incredibly sexualized during and shortly after the show's original run. Not so much by the show (though they did have him stripped to the waist almost as much as Kirk) but by the fandom, who found so many ways to get around that inconvenient seven-years thing.
The Romulan affiliation with Rome was a big one - logically, as the precursor species, Vulcans would be Greece. And there's two things everyone knows about ancient Greece and Achilles is only one of them.
If I wanted to take a moment to be fair to Disco: there are many aspects of the show that it does really well, in some cases exceptionally so. The cast of actors are really likeable, there are some stand-out characters that would be great additions to any Trek show (Saru, Culber for instance). Especially in season 3, many of the visual effects are legitimately incredible. I think the fight choreography has been consistently good. It has consistently great production values.
It's just that the thing is that many of the areas where you could argue it really excels are not things that define "Good Star Trek", and the areas where it consistently fails (writing, plotting, pacing) are things that are absolutely necessary for something to be "Good Star Trek".
I think in a decade or so we will probably look back on Discovery the same way we look back on Voyager or Enterprise: It's Star Trek, the series has some legitimate virtues and some good episodes if you dig for them, but it's ultimately flawed and a lot less than it could have been.
One thing I'll say in Discovery's favor. While this is super subjective, I feel like it's improved significantly each season. Season one, aside from a few sporadic moments, there's not much I have any real desire to go back to. Season two, I would re-watch, maybe skipping a few bits here and there. Season three, while not without its flaws, I had a good time with, and would watch again in full.
I would really like them to drop the 'super high stakes at almost all times!' plotting, and give the show a bit more breathing room, but it already feels like it's improved a great deal.
Discovery, if they could make the overarching season thing more background noise until the last episode or two (see Burn Notice for doing this well) per season, and letting each episode mostly stand as it's own thing, it would be SO MUCH BETTER. S3 kinda started doing this.... kinda., which is why it was so much better.
ha, well...
Spock was incredibly sexualized during and shortly after the show's original run. Not so much by the show (though they did have him stripped to the waist almost as much as Kirk) but by the fandom, who found so many ways to get around that inconvenient seven-years thing.
I mean yeah
THE original "slashfic", the first one and name giver of the whole thing, was "Kirk/Spock"..
If I wanted to take a moment to be fair to Disco: there are many aspects of the show that it does really well, in some cases exceptionally so. The cast of actors are really likeable, there are some stand-out characters that would be great additions to any Trek show (Saru, Culber for instance). Especially in season 3, many of the visual effects are legitimately incredible. I think the fight choreography has been consistently good. It has consistently great production values.
It's just that the thing is that many of the areas where you could argue it really excels are not things that define "Good Star Trek", and the areas where it consistently fails (writing, plotting, pacing) are things that are absolutely necessary for something to be "Good Star Trek".
I think in a decade or so we will probably look back on Discovery the same way we look back on Voyager or Enterprise: It's Star Trek, the series has some legitimate virtues and some good episodes if you dig for them, but it's ultimately flawed and a lot less than it could have been.
I don't think Disco is made for anyone with any conception of what "good trek" is. I'm not saying this to be pretentious or anything, I'm just making the statement of fact that it's a star trek branded show made with total mass market appeal in mind. It's not intended for the fans of the series to be spoonfed fan service and references. They're saying hey, people like star wars and marvel movies right? Let's make that but star trek for people who only know the basics and want to be entertained.
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
If I wanted to take a moment to be fair to Disco: there are many aspects of the show that it does really well, in some cases exceptionally so. The cast of actors are really likeable, there are some stand-out characters that would be great additions to any Trek show (Saru, Culber for instance). Especially in season 3, many of the visual effects are legitimately incredible. I think the fight choreography has been consistently good. It has consistently great production values.
It's just that the thing is that many of the areas where you could argue it really excels are not things that define "Good Star Trek", and the areas where it consistently fails (writing, plotting, pacing) are things that are absolutely necessary for something to be "Good Star Trek".
I think in a decade or so we will probably look back on Discovery the same way we look back on Voyager or Enterprise: It's Star Trek, the series has some legitimate virtues and some good episodes if you dig for them, but it's ultimately flawed and a lot less than it could have been.
I don't think Disco is made for anyone with any conception of what "good trek" is. I'm not saying this to be pretentious or anything, I'm just making the statement of fact that it's a star trek branded show made with total mass market appeal in mind. It's not intended for the fans of the series to be spoonfed fan service and references. They're saying hey, people like star wars and marvel movies right? Let's make that but star trek for people who only know the basics and want to be entertained.
Nah, this talk about "good Trek" is just gatekeeper bullshit. It might not be what you want from Star Trek, but there are numerous Trek fans on these forums who enjoy it and clearly enough people watching it that they've opted to not only continue to make more of it but to make spin-offs and other new Star Trek shows.
For me, interesting characters that are well-portrayed by good actors is probably the single most important hook for a Star Trek series. It doesn't matter how good your plotting or pacing are if I don't want to see most of the characters on screen. Syndicated TOS got me started on Trek, along with the associated movies. When TNG launched I did not love it, but the cast/characters carried me though a lot of bad writing and I ended up sticking with it to the end. Voyager, DS9 and Enterprise couldn't manage that - though DS9 did come closest. The small number of interesting characters those shows had were completely drowned out by bland or actively irritating characters that I had no interest in watching week after week. Discovery's crew had me interested right from the start - interested enough to keep with it despite some abysmal writing.
I’m absolutely baffled to be living on a world where there will be, at a minimum, four Star Trek shows in tv at the same time. Four! And maybe even five or six!
It’s very, very strange.
But I loved that Lower Decks trailer. And the Picard one carried their more thoughtful, contemplative tone very well. Discovery brought more bombast than I’d like, but it’s still feeling more like a ship with a crew, more like a Trek show to me, with every episode.
Only one of them is good though, and it's the cartoon
The Picard one jumped me straight past disappointment into anger. Imagine having the sheer fucking hubris to think you can add anything meaningful to that story.
Like fuck me sideways, can we fire Kurtzman and get some people in there that have any idea what makes Star Trek work? Is Ira Behr available?
Not for nothing, but Michael Chabon wrote Picard. He’s a top notch sci-fi writer, a top notch literary writer, and according to some interviews he did a while back, a massive Trek fan. If anyone’s going to add to that story, I think he’s a fine choice.
You can argue that the story didn’t need extending, but I think there’s something to be said for the contemplative, look back from the bottom of the hill of your accomplishments, melancholy style tale they went with.
The last episode or so went a bit “Oh crap we get another season?” though.
But then, I’ve really enjoyed all of the Trek from the last year. Different strokes, I guess. The Mrs can’t be doing with Picard, will fight to the death for Tilly/Georgiou/Stamets but is ambivalent on the shouter bits of Disco, and fell over laughing with Lower Decks.
The point is, I guess everyone’s not going to like everything, but I love the diversity of what we have now. IDIC.
The last episode of Picard kind of ruined the whole thing they were going for, I'm going to pass on future seasons.
Picard's second season I think has my interest - the first season definitely had some great ideas at the start, that fell by the wayside with the strange bent the AI story took which kind of felt like the writers thought they had pushed this post-TNG era experiment a little too far. However Q and 'the trial never ends' feels like they might go back to pick up those loose ends with one of the themes being "Now, with all that you have seen - can you still tell me that humanity/he federation is worth saving, when they've betrayed you and their own principles. Especially now that you're not entirely part of either.". I reckon they'll slip in the same way they did last time though, and probably won't even replace the lifeless mini-mall they call a spaceship.
Discovery's fourth season - I'll watch it. I did prefer Discovery to Picard when I first watched the first season of each at the same time. It can get a bit much at times, but I think I'd definitely choose to watch more Discovery than Enterprise (having only seen the first couple of seasons).
Lower Decks - no question. It had worked itself out after two weak first episodes, just disappointed no one grew a beard around episode 3 or 4.
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I'm still very much content. Picard still has potential, Lower Decks is great, and maybe Disco will have something good, too.
I*d rather have 1,5 good and 1,5 bad Trek series running than 0 Trek series running.
You won't like Disco in 10 years. A lot of people on the earth right now are considerably younger than you, and Disco might be their first Trek series, and having the enthusiasm of youth on their side they will almost certainly see things to like about it that older farts like us cannot see. If you don't believe me, let me remind you that there are people living in the world today who's platonic idea of Star Wars is the prequel trilogy.
My experience was a little different from yours: TOS was almost religion in our house. When TNG came out I was about 12 and felt irked by it and thought it was dumb (to be fair, the first season was pretty dumb!) then the show "Grew the beard" and I liked it. I loved DS9. I religiously watched Voyager despite its flaws. I never could get into Enterprise very much though I tried, it clearly had a feeling of "this Trek isn't for Star Trek fans, ok?" In any case I certainly remember the backlash to TNG when it came out, the concentrated hate for a bald man trying to take Kirk's place.
Currently I haven't felt any motivation to watch Disco, though perhaps I am doing it an injustice. I liked Picard a lot. I love Lower Decks. Like you, Disco will never be "classic Trek" to me, but I guarantee that in 10-20 years there will be some person who was a 10 year old when Disco came out for whom Disco is the Platonic ideal of Star Trek.
TNG was well regarded during it's run for sure.
The perception of Voyager is much more positive than I recall when it aired. I couldn't even finish the first season, and none of the Trek fans I knew back then stuck with it all the way through.
Personally, I think Disco is the best Trek has been in a long time even despite the glaring writing problems at times. I would prefer the new season to not have yet another massive threat driving the entire season, but at the same time I do think the change to more serialized storytelling is a major reason why I find Discovery so refreshing. I just wish the writers would be a bit more creative in how they drive that serialized storytelling.
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I mean, yes, but nostalgia colors a lot in a favourable light. I don't think it will help Disco that much, mostly because the internet is an opinion machine, so a lot of "Disco is bad" stuff might become more of a meme, making the show basically unwatchable outside of ironic viewings later on.
And it all depends how trek continues. If the coming seasons and shows are more like Disco, and enough people watch that and more like it follows, then Disco might be some day "the grandfather of my star trek" to someone in a few decades.
I hope not, because I wouldn't be watching it, but it is possible
That's what I recall as well. But afaik it was well regarded before it was off the air. Perceptions turned around within a few years. It didn't take a decade off the air or anything.
It's not really that, it's that in Picard, he talks like Data was his best friend, when he wasn't any more his best friend than anyone on his crew (who he famously didnt even play cards with until 7 years into their service together)
I don't know if they couldn't get LeVar Burton or if they just don't know that Geordi is Data's best friend but it felt shitty that Picard would be like "nah I aint going to bother Geordi with this" - when Data was literally Geordi's best friend
My perception as that Voyager was on average seen as just .... fine. With a lot of variance within that average. Over time it seems like dunking on Voyager has become more and more popular though.
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I very much hate what they're apparently doing for S2, because that story was done. There's no need to add more to it. It ended pretty much perfectly on pretty much the best episode of the franchise. I felt the same way about, for example, The Last of Us Part II; there's no need for this, and continuing this story can only compromise what came before.
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yeah, it is a testament to Ryan's acting that she overcame that suit and managed to bring gravitas to a character basically dressed in a fetish outfit.
Unfortunately, that had been going on in Star Trek basically since the start.. Theiss was the costume designer for TOS and some of TNG, and wikipedia has this to say:
Edit: Not to say that his other work wasn't good, the TOS/TNG uniforms became iconic after all.
But .. T&A as a marketing thing wasn't new to trek through Voyager
The rehabilitation of Voyager continues apace.
I'm not sure if Enterprise will ever get the same treatment, but I wouldn't be fuckin' surprised.
A refugee crisis
Growing isolationism and fascism
Examining whether or not we've abandoned our stated ideals
Things that are kinda relevant to the world in 2019, 2020, 2021, etc.
For a really stupid story about how the Romulans have been secretly trying to stop robot Cthulhu for eons and android shenanigans with a surprise Soong running around. So, not only did Picard abandon its premise for nonsense, it (to me) did so out of cowardice.
I almost want to put a $20 spot on it or something, except that I likely won't remember the bet in 10 years to collect.
I feel like I've lived through enough TV and film surprise turnovers that to me it's inevitable. Even if you put in a concerted effort and were the king of making good memes, I don't think you could stop it.
yeah the messages it looked like it was going to have just kind... a fart in the wind
I felt the same way about Picard in the end that I feel about Far Cry 5 - a game that skirted around the lip of evangelical conservatism, American cult mentality, and post millennial dispensationalists - but then had nothing to say about anything just "lol guns go brrrr". Both of them were pretty and well put together
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The conversations about Disco, Picard, et al are happening almost entirely within Star Trek fandom. These shows are getting some new fans, but it's nothing like the ubiquity enjoyed by programs that aired in most of the major markets in the English-speaking world thirty years ago when television was a much more central part of most people's lives. And there's no reason to suppose that these new fans are going to carry the torch forward when there is such an unending barrage of new things to watch; in fact, if the last 10-15 years have taught us anything it's the astonishing speed at which things can be forgotten once they're no longer in the zeitgeist. Remember Heroes? I barely do.
The whole argument presupposes that all of these things are the same from some kind of objective quality standpoint and that it's just old people being mean about new things. That's certainly a factor, but I think for that argument to really hold water they'd need to be better shows than they are. TOS, TNG, and DS9 aren't just well-thought-of by Trek fans, they're well-regarded by normal people. People whose job it is to watch film and TV rank them among the best TV shows ever made. The movies are beloved by millions who would never dream of strapping on a phaser and Spock ears.
You can say that's arbitrary and they "just happened" to be popular, but time is a hell of a curator. The things we still love from the 1960s or other past eras aren't a random sampling of what was actually available back then. Nobody's out here stanning Trek contemporaries like ABC's The Young Lawyers (1970), or fellow sci-fi shows of the time like Space 1999. The things that stick with us tend to be the things that either had some fundamental element of quality or which brought something unique to the table that keeps them relevant over the years. And when you step back and look at Disco and Picard, what exactly are they bringing that's going to make them endure? I honestly don't see it. Their storytelling and filmmaking fundamentals are wobbly. They have lovely casts of talented people that we want to root for, but so have lots of other programs that ended up down the memory hole.
It's also worth remembering that whatever prominence they enjoy is somewhat inflated by being the flagship product of a C-tier streaming service. CBS spends a lot of money trying to put these things in front of eyeballs. Would they even fare as well as they have if the network wasn't there doing that for them? I mean, maybe they would! I don't know. But it's something to think about.
I'm not trying to drop a deuce on people who liked these things but I honestly, legitimately feel no loyalty to Star Trek™, the would-be global multi-leveraged transmedia phenomenon. I'm loyal to the things I love about the shows and movies I love - the way they were made, the kinds of stories they told, the values they promulgated - and if products with the little pointy arrowhead logo stop delivering, then I'm gone. :shrug:
If the show wants to have tits, just have two characters hook up and show tits. A show like Star Trek absolutely 100% does not need to be horny, but if you're going to do it don't fucking convolute a stupid reason and make it weird. At least Chase Masterson on DS9 knew that she was applying to play a character who would be wearing tight skimpy outfits, in such cases I don't feel dirty watching it, if I'm communicating what I'm feeling correctly, ya know?
Whenever Jolene Blalock's character is forced into a weirdly sexual situation I feel like I'm watching a tabletop game with an RPGhorrorstories DM describing the tentacle monster stripping the only female PC in the party with a big smile on his face
You can't really compare a long-standing franchise like Trek to Seaquest or whatever Relic Hunter is. The things you have that are comparable are: Star Wars and Dr. Who. I'm not even sure there is a third one for such a list... MSU might be such a one someday but you have to recall that their "legendary" filmed strain started with Iron Man, and not with the animated X-men, even though animated X-men came first. Because what I'm referring to are shows that had an cult-like impact from their first strain (A New Hope or TOS) and the cultural shift and permeation that occurred because of that original masterpiece. That's also why I can't really add Battlestar Galactica to the list, because I don't think the original BSG had the sort of cultural currency that a TOS has.
I'm talking about how most people know about things like a vulcan nerve pinch even if they haven't watched TOS, how Tom Baker's Dr. Who scarf is fairly recognizable, how everyone knows what a lightsaber is. Seaquest doesn't have that currency. It's because of that currency that I think that regardless of quality, if you have the basic ingredients of a Star Trek series, it will be someone's favorite Star Trek series even if it's, perhaps, not of high quality. I know a guy my age who loved Enterprise. Just as I know adults my age who think The Phantom Menace is the shit. It does seem at some level incomprehensible because I think from a quality standpoint those are both quite bad. But I theorize that the legendary brand gives those things a gravitas they wouldn't otherwise have.
In a way, it's a smaller and humbler version of how we see an old ruin of a roman house and think how beautiful those crumbled piles of stone are, without knowing how the Romans may have viewed the original house. Maybe the house, in Roman times, was tacky and tasteless. Maybe it was the equivalent of a Las Vegas strip club back in the day. We don't know nor do we care, the ruins still are beautiful to our modern eyes. Thus it is with long-running series that carry cultural impact: we see all the imperfections of a show like Disco. As time passes, nostalgia and a different set of tastes will see the attraction and retro-kitsch of "20s television", the perfections of its imperfections, perhaps the ways it was accidentally "modern" to a 2040s audience in ways the writers couldn't have known about. The Roman house gets to be sanctified by time even if it used to be a brothel. The Star Trek series gets a similar sanctification. It's not me saying "this show is secretly very good and you all are all chumps for not realizing it!", because I don't think Disco is very good right now.
Like, TNG started a bit mixed in terms of perception perhaps but it was still in the middle of it's run when it was considered "Good TV" and it's reputation has stayed I'd say pretty consistent. Meanwhile something like Enterprise lacked anything like that perception of quality or cultural prominence and over time has basically remained that way. Like, I'm not seeing a pattern here.
Spock was incredibly sexualized during and shortly after the show's original run. Not so much by the show (though they did have him stripped to the waist almost as much as Kirk) but by the fandom, who found so many ways to get around that inconvenient seven-years thing.
The Romulan affiliation with Rome was a big one - logically, as the precursor species, Vulcans would be Greece. And there's two things everyone knows about ancient Greece and Achilles is only one of them.
It's just that the thing is that many of the areas where you could argue it really excels are not things that define "Good Star Trek", and the areas where it consistently fails (writing, plotting, pacing) are things that are absolutely necessary for something to be "Good Star Trek".
I think in a decade or so we will probably look back on Discovery the same way we look back on Voyager or Enterprise: It's Star Trek, the series has some legitimate virtues and some good episodes if you dig for them, but it's ultimately flawed and a lot less than it could have been.
I would really like them to drop the 'super high stakes at almost all times!' plotting, and give the show a bit more breathing room, but it already feels like it's improved a great deal.
I mean yeah
THE original "slashfic", the first one and name giver of the whole thing, was "Kirk/Spock"..
I don't think Disco is made for anyone with any conception of what "good trek" is. I'm not saying this to be pretentious or anything, I'm just making the statement of fact that it's a star trek branded show made with total mass market appeal in mind. It's not intended for the fans of the series to be spoonfed fan service and references. They're saying hey, people like star wars and marvel movies right? Let's make that but star trek for people who only know the basics and want to be entertained.
Nah, this talk about "good Trek" is just gatekeeper bullshit. It might not be what you want from Star Trek, but there are numerous Trek fans on these forums who enjoy it and clearly enough people watching it that they've opted to not only continue to make more of it but to make spin-offs and other new Star Trek shows.
For me, interesting characters that are well-portrayed by good actors is probably the single most important hook for a Star Trek series. It doesn't matter how good your plotting or pacing are if I don't want to see most of the characters on screen. Syndicated TOS got me started on Trek, along with the associated movies. When TNG launched I did not love it, but the cast/characters carried me though a lot of bad writing and I ended up sticking with it to the end. Voyager, DS9 and Enterprise couldn't manage that - though DS9 did come closest. The small number of interesting characters those shows had were completely drowned out by bland or actively irritating characters that I had no interest in watching week after week. Discovery's crew had me interested right from the start - interested enough to keep with it despite some abysmal writing.
The last episode of Picard kind of ruined the whole thing they were going for, I'm going to pass on future seasons.
Same, my choice of words there was pretty deliberate. All the fate of the galaxy stuff just screams "Thanatos".
Discovery's fourth season - I'll watch it. I did prefer Discovery to Picard when I first watched the first season of each at the same time. It can get a bit much at times, but I think I'd definitely choose to watch more Discovery than Enterprise (having only seen the first couple of seasons).
Lower Decks - no question. It had worked itself out after two weak first episodes, just disappointed no one grew a beard around episode 3 or 4.