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.
No, gatekeeping is about people, not things.
"I hate these fucking kids with their Cheesy Gordita Crunches. They're so stupid and they're ruining Taco Bell. Also, some of them are black!" is gatekeeping.
"I wish Taco Bell still sold Spicy Chicken Soft Tacos" is not.
Now, before someone gets notions, I am well aware that gatekeeping is a legitimate problem in many fandoms and Trek is no exception. However, nobody here is unaware that Discovery and Picard have fans or that for some of those fans those might be their favorite shows. Nobody here blames the fans of those shows for liking them, and nobody blames them for the fact that those shows aren't doing it for us.
But nobody is obligated to support Star Trek™, multimedia octopus, through thick and thin no matter what regardless of whether or not they enjoy it. If people feel like the fundamental identity of a thing has changed beyond their ability to continue enjoying it, it's okay for them to say so. CBS decided to make a Star Wars or MCU-like action show and pasted the Trek logo on it. They could have just made a new sci-fi franchise, but they specifically wanted to hook in existing fans and people who were vaguely familiar with the name, so those existing fans do get to say if they feel like they were bait-and-switched. If they release a new COLUMBO show but instead of a rumpled detective with an impish wit it's actually just a reskin of Baywatch, it's not gatekeeping or rude or unfair for Columbo fans to be like "wtf?"
Of course it's ok for people to not enjoy various flavors of Star Trek, and to comment or complain about the aspects that they dislike. I don't believe anybody has said otherwise.
What's odious is the "what a real fan likes about Star Trek is..." kind of talk. No matter how you try to spin it, that kind of talk is a form of gatekeeping.
That wasn't what was said, though. "Real fans" never came up. Casual can speak for himself if I've got the wrong end of the stick here, but I am very very sure that if you re-parse his post, he's saying "Discovery was not made for people who had a preexisting idea of what 'good Star Trek' is," eg, it was made for a new audience of people who had a passing familiarity with/curiosity about the brand.
This.
I can relate to feeling a bit salty about the fact that, as a life long star trek fan, the first flagship star trek show in over a decade is not made for you, but thems the breaks. Shows that cater to an ever shrinking pool of mega fans are doomed to eventual extinction because catering them drives out everyone else, and they're basically impossible to please anyway. We can take some comfort in the fact that CBS are trying to do all worlds, we're heading into another golden age of trek, if you don't like disco maybe you'll like one of the five other shows in the works. If you don't like any of them, maybe you just don't like star trek as much as you thought you did?
The entire "blow up Romulus" plot is stupid to begin with. But I don't blame Picard for that. The JJ films are responsible for that crap. Though they should have just ignored it.
This just in, Tholian and Borg and Dominion(just go with it) homeworlds and moons all blow up for one reason or another, necessitating peace with the Federation. The galaxy enjoys unity for the next hundred years while everyone cleans up.
The entire "blow up Romulus" plot is stupid to begin with. But I don't blame Picard for that. The JJ films are responsible for that crap. Though they should have just ignored it.
The show wanted a metaphor for Brexit, that was chosen.
So was it supposed to be pro Brexit? Like, the EU is blowing up and we need to Brexit out of here sort of thing?
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Funny. ST:VI had a similar premise, where a disaster causes the capital of the Klingon empire to become uninhabitable (or something like that, didn't seem that bad when they went there in TNG), but the movie used that to explore two enemies having to make peace. Picard (or JJ Abrams, I'm always glad to point fingers at him) blew up Romulus and... AI-Cthulhu space flowers robutts?
Actually the Praxis explosion caused environmental damage that would cause Ko'nos to become uninhabitable in a few decades unless massive resources were poured into environmental restoration. The fact Ko'nos is fine in the TNG era is because the restoration, following the peace treaty of STVI, worked.
Interesting, Praxis Explosion has it's own Wiki entry for the shockwave FX used for the Excelsior scene. It's funny though, the writers decided that the planet's freaking moon would explode with enough force to create a shockwave light years across, and the impact it would have on the planet was 'Deplete the oxygen in 50 years.' I'll dog on Abrams for having no concept of scale, but he does come by it honestly.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Funny. ST:VI had a similar premise, where a disaster causes the capital of the Klingon empire to become uninhabitable (or something like that, didn't seem that bad when they went there in TNG), but the movie used that to explore two enemies having to make peace. Picard (or JJ Abrams, I'm always glad to point fingers at him) blew up Romulus and... AI-Cthulhu space flowers robutts?
Actually the Praxis explosion caused environmental damage that would cause Ko'nos to become uninhabitable in a few decades unless massive resources were poured into environmental restoration. The fact Ko'nos is fine in the TNG era is because the restoration, following the peace treaty of STVI, worked.
Interesting, Praxis Explosion has it's own Wiki entry for the shockwave FX used for the Excelsior scene. It's funny though, the writers decided that the planet's freaking moon would explode with enough force to create a shockwave light years across, and the impact it would have on the planet was 'Deplete the oxygen in 50 years.' I'll dog on Abrams for having no concept of scale, but he does come by it honestly.
heh, this is the franchise where one planet = one village of a few hundred people and like 10 buildings. Skewed scale is baked into Trek's DNA.
The entire "blow up Romulus" plot is stupid to begin with. But I don't blame Picard for that. The JJ films are responsible for that crap. Though they should have just ignored it.
The show wanted a metaphor for Brexit, that was chosen.
So was it supposed to be pro Brexit? Like, the EU is blowing up and we need to Brexit out of here sort of thing?
Anti-Brexit. Picard is angry because the Federation urned heir backs on he Romulans because of racism. he show is on Picard's side.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Did a writer confirm they were going for a Brexit metaphor? Because that's a pretty god awful attempt at one when the possibility of Earth leaving the Federation is right there. Romulus is more of a refugee crisis thing.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
The plot of Picard would make more sense if it was about Cardassians and not Romulans, if Cardassia was destroyed, especially given how war-ravaged their empire is, it would definitely lead to a refugee crisis and they haven't exactly been kind to bordering Federation worlds
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.
No, gatekeeping is about people, not things.
"I hate these fucking kids with their Cheesy Gordita Crunches. They're so stupid and they're ruining Taco Bell. Also, some of them are black!" is gatekeeping.
"I wish Taco Bell still sold Spicy Chicken Soft Tacos" is not.
Now, before someone gets notions, I am well aware that gatekeeping is a legitimate problem in many fandoms and Trek is no exception. However, nobody here is unaware that Discovery and Picard have fans or that for some of those fans those might be their favorite shows. Nobody here blames the fans of those shows for liking them, and nobody blames them for the fact that those shows aren't doing it for us.
But nobody is obligated to support Star Trek™, multimedia octopus, through thick and thin no matter what regardless of whether or not they enjoy it. If people feel like the fundamental identity of a thing has changed beyond their ability to continue enjoying it, it's okay for them to say so. CBS decided to make a Star Wars or MCU-like action show and pasted the Trek logo on it. They could have just made a new sci-fi franchise, but they specifically wanted to hook in existing fans and people who were vaguely familiar with the name, so those existing fans do get to say if they feel like they were bait-and-switched. If they release a new COLUMBO show but instead of a rumpled detective with an impish wit it's actually just a reskin of Baywatch, it's not gatekeeping or rude or unfair for Columbo fans to be like "wtf?"
Of course it's ok for people to not enjoy various flavors of Star Trek, and to comment or complain about the aspects that they dislike. I don't believe anybody has said otherwise.
What's odious is the "what a real fan likes about Star Trek is..." kind of talk. No matter how you try to spin it, that kind of talk is a form of gatekeeping.
That wasn't what was said, though. "Real fans" never came up. Casual can speak for himself if I've got the wrong end of the stick here, but I am very very sure that if you re-parse his post, he's saying "Discovery was not made for people who had a preexisting idea of what 'good Star Trek' is," eg, it was made for a new audience of people who had a passing familiarity with/curiosity about the brand.
This.
I can relate to feeling a bit salty about the fact that, as a life long star trek fan, the first flagship star trek show in over a decade is not made for you, but thems the breaks. Shows that cater to an ever shrinking pool of mega fans are doomed to eventual extinction because catering them drives out everyone else, and they're basically impossible to please anyway. We can take some comfort in the fact that CBS are trying to do all worlds, we're heading into another golden age of trek, if you don't like disco maybe you'll like one of the five other shows in the works. If you don't like any of them, maybe you just don't like star trek as much as you thought you did?
First off, I disagree that the Star Trek formula is bad, given the number of people in this very thread who have or are watching the old series for the first time and enjoying them. Second, I think that's exactly what they're trying to do anyway!
Picard was practically tailor made to appeal to old fans for crying out loud, it's just bad at it! The entire thing is end to end nostalgia made, seemingly, by people who don't much care for the original product.
I'm trying to wrap my head around how a series featuring a bunch of old people who were in an old TV Show, that is literally named after one of said characters and features him at the lead, isn't trying to "cater to an ever shrinking pool of mega fans"?
What I want is an optimistic sci-fi show set in the future that tackles current social issues using science fiction situations with a likeable cast with good chemistry. I'm not sure what about that premise only appeals to a doomed, shrinking demographic of people. What I don't want are shows that are trying to slap some old IP onto a product that is very much trying to copy the appeal of billion dollar hollywood franchises, even as those franchises are trying to reinvent themselves to stay fresh
After the first episode of Picard I thought it was going to have something to say about immigration and the responsibility of rich nations, and then it turned into the plot from Mass Effect. All my glasses pushing continuity issues would mean fuck all to me if it had stuck with that and actually said something
I watched all of Picard and didn’t see that ship with the weird grill one time - was that the Third Copypasta Fleet at the end or something? It looks ...not great.
The real tragedy of Picard S1 in my mind is still that amazing new Enterprise-D that was built, textured, lightmapped, etc. for exactly one beauty shot. Give Us More Ent-D Beauty Shots You Cowards. e: autocorrect: the real My Enemy, My Ally
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
i think if you look at the actors for TNG and DS9 you start to see there was something special about a few of them which elevated the rest of the cast. Voyager, Ent, and Disco relegated their real stars to secondary roles. Picard missed the mark on a few things, namely the romulans in the beginning.
Sonequa Martin-Green shines brightly in Discovery. She's a real star on that show.
I think she's a good actor saddled with bad writing and direction.
Yeah, I like Sonequa Martin-Green a lot and am very excited by the prospect of seeing her in literally anything else.
The only reason I'm interested in the new Space Jam is to see what kind of actress she is when she isn't ask to cry constantly
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.
No, gatekeeping is about people, not things.
"I hate these fucking kids with their Cheesy Gordita Crunches. They're so stupid and they're ruining Taco Bell. Also, some of them are black!" is gatekeeping.
"I wish Taco Bell still sold Spicy Chicken Soft Tacos" is not.
Now, before someone gets notions, I am well aware that gatekeeping is a legitimate problem in many fandoms and Trek is no exception. However, nobody here is unaware that Discovery and Picard have fans or that for some of those fans those might be their favorite shows. Nobody here blames the fans of those shows for liking them, and nobody blames them for the fact that those shows aren't doing it for us.
But nobody is obligated to support Star Trek™, multimedia octopus, through thick and thin no matter what regardless of whether or not they enjoy it. If people feel like the fundamental identity of a thing has changed beyond their ability to continue enjoying it, it's okay for them to say so. CBS decided to make a Star Wars or MCU-like action show and pasted the Trek logo on it. They could have just made a new sci-fi franchise, but they specifically wanted to hook in existing fans and people who were vaguely familiar with the name, so those existing fans do get to say if they feel like they were bait-and-switched. If they release a new COLUMBO show but instead of a rumpled detective with an impish wit it's actually just a reskin of Baywatch, it's not gatekeeping or rude or unfair for Columbo fans to be like "wtf?"
Of course it's ok for people to not enjoy various flavors of Star Trek, and to comment or complain about the aspects that they dislike. I don't believe anybody has said otherwise.
What's odious is the "what a real fan likes about Star Trek is..." kind of talk. No matter how you try to spin it, that kind of talk is a form of gatekeeping.
That wasn't what was said, though. "Real fans" never came up. Casual can speak for himself if I've got the wrong end of the stick here, but I am very very sure that if you re-parse his post, he's saying "Discovery was not made for people who had a preexisting idea of what 'good Star Trek' is," eg, it was made for a new audience of people who had a passing familiarity with/curiosity about the brand.
This.
I can relate to feeling a bit salty about the fact that, as a life long star trek fan, the first flagship star trek show in over a decade is not made for you, but thems the breaks. Shows that cater to an ever shrinking pool of mega fans are doomed to eventual extinction because catering them drives out everyone else, and they're basically impossible to please anyway. We can take some comfort in the fact that CBS are trying to do all worlds, we're heading into another golden age of trek, if you don't like disco maybe you'll like one of the five other shows in the works. If you don't like any of them, maybe you just don't like star trek as much as you thought you did?
First off, I disagree that the Star Trek formula is bad, given the number of people in this very thread who have or are watching the old series for the first time and enjoying them. Second, I think that's exactly what they're trying to do anyway!
Picard was practically tailor made to appeal to old fans for crying out loud, it's just bad at it! The entire thing is end to end nostalgia made, seemingly, by people who don't much care for the original product.
I'm trying to wrap my head around how a series featuring a bunch of old people who were in an old TV Show, that is literally named after one of said characters and features him at the lead, isn't trying to "cater to an ever shrinking pool of mega fans"?
What I want is an optimistic sci-fi show set in the future that tackles current social issues using science fiction situations with a likeable cast with good chemistry. I'm not sure what about that premise only appeals to a doomed, shrinking demographic of people. What I don't want are shows that are trying to slap some old IP onto a product that is very much trying to copy the appeal of billion dollar hollywood franchises, even as those franchises are trying to reinvent themselves to stay fresh
After the first episode of Picard I thought it was going to have something to say about immigration and the responsibility of rich nations, and then it turned into the plot from Mass Effect. All my glasses pushing continuity issues would mean fuck all to me if it had stuck with that and actually said something
I feel like you read the part of the post you highlighted then started typing very fast without reading the rest.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
I can relate to feeling a bit salty about the fact that, as a life long star trek fan, the first flagship star trek show in over a decade is not made for you, but thems the breaks. Shows that cater to an ever shrinking pool of mega fans are doomed to eventual extinction because catering them drives out everyone else, and they're basically impossible to please anyway. We can take some comfort in the fact that CBS are trying to do all worlds, we're heading into another golden age of trek, if you don't like disco maybe you'll like one of the five other shows in the works. If you don't like any of them, maybe you just don't like star trek as much as you thought you did?
this is a weird take
What if instead I just like shows with good writing? Luckily I enjoyed Lower Decks very much but I think Disco and Picard were straight up bad and there was no reason for them to be and it's not cause they "aren't Star Trek", it's cause they are not written well. (obvs this is my opinion)
I can relate to feeling a bit salty about the fact that, as a life long star trek fan, the first flagship star trek show in over a decade is not made for you, but thems the breaks. Shows that cater to an ever shrinking pool of mega fans are doomed to eventual extinction because catering them drives out everyone else, and they're basically impossible to please anyway. We can take some comfort in the fact that CBS are trying to do all worlds, we're heading into another golden age of trek, if you don't like disco maybe you'll like one of the five other shows in the works. If you don't like any of them, maybe you just don't like star trek as much as you thought you did?
this is a weird take
What if instead I just like shows with good writing? Luckily I enjoyed Lower Decks very much but I think Disco and Picard were straight up bad and there was no reason for them to be and it's not cause they "aren't Star Trek", it's cause they are not written well. (obvs this is my opinion)
Since you did like one of the shows that was made you can consider yourself exempt from the above statement.
I must have worded that post poorly because it seems to have been misinterpreted. I'll try to piece it apart to prevent further confusion.
Firstly I said in the post I was talking about Disco, not Picard, and it was in a string of conversation about disco so I don't know how it's being taken as a comment on Picard.
Secondly the point I was making is, given there is now five(?) Star Trek shows being made there's obviously a multi pronged approach being taken here, lower decks and Picard are the shows that obviously ARE aimed at people with previous Trek experience, since 90% of the stuff in lower decks wouldn't land if you didn't get what they were referencing and the entire concept of Picard isn't going to mean much to someone with no prior experience of the character. Disco is MCU style star trek aimed at a general audience, a lot of fans are not loving that the flagship primary show of the new age of trek is not made with them foremost in mind, since making something that resonates heavily with long time viewers is hard to balance against accessibility for new viewers. If you don't make your long running show accessible to newer viewers you end up in the late 80's Dr Who situation (and arguably current day as well but that's another discussion).
As for the "maybe you don't like trek as much as you thought you did" comment maybe I'm being presumptuous, I guess it's perfectly possible they could make five separate star trek shows at once and they could all suck, but we've only seen three of them so far and all of them are still in relatively early days (with the possible exception of Disco YMMV). Even with the three we already have at least one of them seems to be scratching someones itch. If you end up hating all five, given that they intentionally seem to be trying to make something to make everyone happy there's a strong chance that you may just be really difficult to please.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I wholly dismiss the notion of Discovery or Picard being huge duds for me and entirely underwhelming overall because they aren't "Trek" enough or that I've got my standards too high. I've been watching Trek my whole life and I probably couldn't give more than vague outlines for what makes "good" Trek; I can enjoy ToS as much as DS9, despite the obvious gulf in quality. I also enjoy wildly different space shows when they come up; The Expanse is different in basically every way, yet I enjoy that a bunch because it's a good show. The Mandalorian was a blast, and Star Wars is more fantasy than scifi.
Discovery and Picard just aren't good shows. And unlike, say, TNG, they don't have anywhere near the heart or the overall strength of premise to help make up the difference. They're so caught up in being flashy and modern that they can't be bothered to be interesting, and they don't even do flashy and modern very well. I'll watch something from those and spend the whole time thinking that I could just watch Orville instead which, despite technically being a comedy, still actually fucking bothers to regularly explore scifi concepts and stories instead of trying to use every moment to crank up the drama of whatever the current mega-threat is.
Lower Decks is, sadly, the only one that actually seems to get the point. And I only say "sadly" there because it's just not my thing but at least it's definitely Trek instead of something unrelated with the Trek name slapped on.
But if Discovery and Picard want broader recognition, they should try being good shows first. They aren't going to suddenly be seen as a hidden gem a decade from now or something, if they can't even draw much attention now when they expend so much effort trying to appeal to current viewers.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
100% agree with @Ninja Snarl P @Casual I get what you're saying but I just think you're wrong. The reason a lot of people here don't like Disco isn't because it's being made for a 'broad audience', it's because it's not being made well, full stop.
I would say that I’m 100% on board with the role you lay out for DISCO (“an MCU-ish Trek for Today’s Viewer™”, roughly paraphrased) but that I’m only 60% convinced with the execution of that plan. There is a lot about Discovery that I like. The new visual aesthetic works for me, with a few exceptions. The characters are great, and the writers do in fact understand the DNA of Star Trek - my go-to example is the moment in S2 when Pike is fetching the time crystal thing and he has to decide whether or not to accept the fate he is shown and he fights through the revulsion and fear he feels by reminding himself that his highest calling is to act out of love, that even knowing the personal cost he would still choose to save those cadets from the explosion out of love for his fellow sentients.
You cannot tell me that the person who wrote that scene doesn’t understand the core message of Star Trek. Stamets/Culber, Reno, the entire bridge crew, all the places that aren’t touched by the hand of whoever is driving the series-sized story beats and decisions are Trek down to the styrofoam rocks.
I think the main things I want to see Discovery grow out of are 1) delivering the emotional stakes, tension, and release entirely by twiddling the “Make Sonequa Martin-Green cry on camera” and “dramatic music” sliders and 2) thinking that because the primary narrative driver of the MCU’s First Era was “Thanos wants to kill half the universe, succeeds, un-succeeds” that the stakes of a Trek season also have to involve all life in the galaxy.
Maybe the show-runners don’t feel it’s possible to de-escalate; how do we find them and tell them that a full season of buddy-cop adventures with Admiral Vance as the tough-but-fair chief, Saru and the Discovery-A as the straight-laced beat cop promoted to detective, and Michael/Book as the streetwise vice team who are tolerated because they get results is exactly what we want? Because holy shit, that laid over the bones of Star Trek is exactly what I want out of S4/S5.
I'm in the weird position of agreeing with you that Disco is a bad show, but anecdotally knowing both casual Trek viewers and first time Trek viewers who like it. It's hard for me to say to them "you are wrong to like this thing that I don't". I don't like the MCU either for the most part, but I can accept that me not liking a thing is different from the thing being objectively bad. For something like the MCU where it is literally the most profitable movie franchise of all time it becomes churlish to say my opinion of it being bad is worth more than the millions of people repeatedly buying tickets to see these things.
The proof will be in the pudding I guess, Disco is four seasons deep now, if it makes it past the point they gave up on ENT we may have to accept perhaps there is an audience for it and it just isn't us. I don't actually know whether it's already a profitable show or not, I'll hold my hands up to not being fussed enough to research the figures. I've made my peace with Disco being meh and have no grudge against other people enjoying it for what it is.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
I'm in the weird position of agreeing with you that Disco is a bad show, but anecdotally knowing both casual Trek viewers and first time Trek viewers who like it. It's hard for me to say to them "you are wrong to like this thing that I don't". I don't like the MCU either for the most part, but I can accept that me not liking a thing is different from the thing being objectively bad. For something like the MCU where it is literally the most profitable movie franchise of all time it becomes churlish to say my opinion of it being bad is worth more than the millions of people repeatedly buying tickets to see these things.
The proof will be in the pudding I guess, Disco is four seasons deep now, if it makes it past the point they gave up on ENT we may have to accept perhaps there is an audience for it and it just isn't us. I don't actually know whether it's already a profitable show or not, I'll hold my hands up to not being fussed enough to research the figures. I've made my peace with Disco being meh and have no grudge against other people enjoying it for what it is.
you have to remember that the numbers for network TV are very different than the numbers for a streaming platform. It's very difficult to compare enterprise to disco and talk about why one was cancelled while the other wasn't.
Unless something insane happens I can't think of any reason that Disco wouldn't get a S5 at this point
I'm in the weird position of agreeing with you that Disco is a bad show, but anecdotally knowing both casual Trek viewers and first time Trek viewers who like it. It's hard for me to say to them "you are wrong to like this thing that I don't". I don't like the MCU either for the most part, but I can accept that me not liking a thing is different from the thing being objectively bad. For something like the MCU where it is literally the most profitable movie franchise of all time it becomes churlish to say my opinion of it being bad is worth more than the millions of people repeatedly buying tickets to see these things.
The proof will be in the pudding I guess, Disco is four seasons deep now, if it makes it past the point they gave up on ENT we may have to accept perhaps there is an audience for it and it just isn't us. I don't actually know whether it's already a profitable show or not, I'll hold my hands up to not being fussed enough to research the figures. I've made my peace with Disco being meh and have no grudge against other people enjoying it for what it is.
you have to remember that the numbers for network TV are very different than the numbers for a streaming platform. It's very difficult to compare enterprise to disco and talk about why one was cancelled while the other wasn't.
Unless something insane happens I can't think of any reason that Disco wouldn't get a S5 at this point
For sure but that doesn't change the point. Enough people are paying to see this to make it worth making more. Unless we're saying Disco is some kind of tax write off.
Saying Disco is designed in a way that does not appeal to us, it's also haphazardly and poorly written, but enough people like it anyway to make it viable can all be true at once.
I think it just gets exhausting when people can't seem to dislike one of these shows without it being, "Completely awful!", and, "Nobody likes it! It's a complete failure!". Where everything is either amazing or awful with no in between, and apparently anyone who enjoyed Disco S2 and S3 were just wrong? With some of the same talking points being repeated again and again, I genuinely feel like I watched a different S3 than some of y'all.
You're allowed to not enjoy the show, or the direction it's gone in. But holy crap, the endless, "I don't like it, therefore it's objectively awful and a failure", is just needlessly tiring, and just leaves no room for conversation. I think I'm going to take a break from this thread for a while.
This conversation reminds me of being told the reason I didn't like the last 2 seasons of Game of Thrones is because they're not from the books like
can't I just not like them because I think they're bad?
Same: The Hobbit
To be fair to Disco though, I think season 3 was much better than season 1 and 2, I actually watched the entire thing and unironically was interested in it - instead of just watching because it was something to do like season 1&2
I hope Season 4 continues this trend, but I am sick to death of end of the world plots
They're fine when used correctly, The Expanse has an end of the world plot in season 1 and I love it, but The Expanse's entire deal (for the first few books/seasons) is that humanity is always on the brink of annihilation, that a series of incredibly delicate systems make life possible and that any mistake can cause a cascade failure in the meta-organism that is Humanity
Season 3 Disco's best parts are when it acts like a science-fiction show about a troubled future and explores the lie that individualism is strength, and its worse parts are when it's the final fight scene from Black Panther with slightly better CGI. I want more of the former and less of the latter in S4 - none of this has anything to do with how "star-treky" it is
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
I'm in the weird position of agreeing with you that Disco is a bad show, but anecdotally knowing both casual Trek viewers and first time Trek viewers who like it. It's hard for me to say to them "you are wrong to like this thing that I don't". I don't like the MCU either for the most part, but I can accept that me not liking a thing is different from the thing being objectively bad. For something like the MCU where it is literally the most profitable movie franchise of all time it becomes churlish to say my opinion of it being bad is worth more than the millions of people repeatedly buying tickets to see these things.
The proof will be in the pudding I guess, Disco is four seasons deep now, if it makes it past the point they gave up on ENT we may have to accept perhaps there is an audience for it and it just isn't us. I don't actually know whether it's already a profitable show or not, I'll hold my hands up to not being fussed enough to research the figures. I've made my peace with Disco being meh and have no grudge against other people enjoying it for what it is.
you have to remember that the numbers for network TV are very different than the numbers for a streaming platform. It's very difficult to compare enterprise to disco and talk about why one was cancelled while the other wasn't.
Unless something insane happens I can't think of any reason that Disco wouldn't get a S5 at this point
For sure but that doesn't change the point. Enough people are paying to see this to make it worth making more. Unless we're saying Disco is some kind of tax write off.
Saying Disco is designed in a way that does not appeal to us, it's also haphazardly and poorly written, but enough people like it anyway to make it viable can all be true at once.
lots of people like shows I don't think are particularly good. I'm not sure what argument you're actually making at this point but regardless I think Disco and Picard were badly written and would have no problem with MCU Star Trek if it at least had a good plot.
I think it's both true that shows like Discovery are made to try and attract a larger audience via what the people making it thinks will make it popular and slapping the Trek name on it and that they just aren't very well made for reasons other then that.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
The thing that I find interesting is that the new shows do action really well. Or at least, to a standard much higher than their predecessors. Everything from the space battles to the hand-to-hand combat is significantly better. Which, admittedly, isn't a high bar when being compared to the infamous Kirk vs. Dinosaur scene or Riker using that weird double-hammer strike and knocking someone out.
But it's like all that stuff came at the cost of the actual story. Which is ironic because the reasons the old shows were so popular in spite of their terrible action scenes was because the action itself was secondary to the narrative and characters. We overlooked that stuff because it wasn't the most important part of the show.
One of my favorite scenes is when Data takes over command of one of the ships in the Federation blockade during the whole "Suddenly, Tasha Yar's Daughter Appears!" arc:
There's so much tension here that was built up over the episode, with just a few lines of dialogue. But there's no preening or crying or over-dramatization. It's a very normal interaction with very clear undertones. Hobson is racist, but not in a way that you can "catch him in the act". Data catches on but tries to focus on the mission. Things come to a head when Data needs something done, Hobson refuses to do it for invalid reasons, and then Data is forced to bring him to heel all while under fire from Picard for not following his own orders.
The action in this scene is shooting a glorified probe. The show goes out of its way to point out that the torpedoes will not do any damage. And yet whether or not those things hit something is hugely impactful. You are holding your breath not just because of the wider implications to the larger war, but because of the very personal consequences to a character you care about - Data. If they don't find their mark he has not only countermanded a direct order himself but threatened the career of a subordinate.
If this episode were ever to air for Discovery, it would never be allowed to breathe. It would immediately be "upgraded" to an actual ship-to-ship or god forbid fleet-to-fleet battle. Data and Hobson would be yelling at each other the whole time while "the fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance". Red alert klaxons would be keening all the while the camera would be swooping in nauseating patterns. But we'd get a pretty cool ship battle.
I don't really think it's that noteworthy honestly. TV has just gotten better at that kind of thing. It's become easier and cheaper and the industry is more experienced at it. It's sorta like how even the shittiest wannabe-Prestige-drama television can look super expensive these days while still having dogshit writing and direction.
The thing that I find interesting is that the new shows do action really well. Or at least, to a standard much higher than their predecessors. Everything from the space battles to the hand-to-hand combat is significantly better. Which, admittedly, isn't a high bar when being compared to the infamous Kirk vs. Dinosaur scene or Riker using that weird double-hammer strike and knocking someone out.
If the double-axe-handle is good enough for pro wrestlers and DBZ characters, it's good enough for Riker!
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited April 2021
It's a lot easier to do decent action scenes when the broadcast standards of the time aren't actively crippling the portrayal of action scenes so society won't be "encouraged" towards violence (ToS was not allowed to show realistic fighting, it wasn't just a campy old TV thing).
The average person these days is also immensely more aware of what convincing fighting looks like, simply by consuming the media we consume.
the only reason anyone would question the efficacy of the double-axe-handle is because they have no understanding of Ambojitsu, the ultimate evolution of martial arts
i think if you look at the actors for TNG and DS9 you start to see there was something special about a few of them which elevated the rest of the cast. Voyager, Ent, and Disco relegated their real stars to secondary roles. Picard missed the mark on a few things, namely the romulans in the beginning.
Sonequa Martin-Green shines brightly in Discovery. She's a real star on that show.
I think she's a good actor saddled with bad writing and direction.
I 1000% agree with this. She's had some great moments but I feel like, while she's good she's been put in some terribly inconsitent scenes. Meanwhile, some of the other actors have killed it with equally terrible dialogue or situations. Saru seems far and away the best alien they've had on the show in a long time. Tilly evolved from a ridiculously tropey character to someone that felt real. Stamets went from being the guy that everyone should punch to maybe slightly less punchable! Also, give me more Owosekun and Reno! Now that i write this out, maybe the problem is there are too many secondary characters with not enough less-serious episodes for the characters to come alive.
The short seasons on Discovery are a disservice, since you rarely ever get to sit with the characters and hash out some fun conflicts and personality quirks. It's always PLOT PLOT PLOT and then a rush to end. I like shorter, more focused series as much as anyone else (Wandavision comes to mind), but with an ensemble cast, I feel like you need more episodes to stew and relax with the ensemble.
The villain of Disco S3 (i cannot remember her name) was such a weird character. Usually the confrontation shows the villain as very clever or very powerful or very devious but I didn't really get that from any of the scenes she is in. I think the writers attempted to show that with the (spoilering just in case)
hijacking discovery
but it felt unearned and just illustrated how bad starfleet was rather than how dangerous the villain was.
i definitely miss 26 episodes in a season. i'd take 20 decent to great with 6 bad to decent episodes over discos 13-15 episodes with maybe half being decent to great?
The villain of Disco S3 (i cannot remember her name) was such a weird character. Usually the confrontation shows the villain as very clever or very powerful or very devious but I didn't really get that from any of the scenes she is in. I think the writers attempted to show that with the (spoilering just in case)
hijacking discovery
but it felt unearned and just illustrated how bad starfleet was rather than how dangerous the villain was.
i definitely miss 26 episodes in a season. i'd take 20 decent to great with 6 bad to decent episodes over discos 13-15 episodes with maybe half being decent to great?
I liked where they went with her big plan a lot, I thought that was a good direction to go with it, though a lot of the details of how she went about carrying it out didn't make much sense.
the part of Disco S3 I liked the most was the old guy with the glasses interrogating the empress
It was just two good actors, nailing their parts and bouncing off each other in a relatively quiet moment.
I want the series to have the confidence to just. breath. and do more stuff like that
Despite being iffy about the whole "we're okay with and like having this empress around who is cool with doing literal genocides" stuff, I actually really enjoyed where they went with her send-off.
It felt like a classic mirror-universe type story with everyone getting to ham it up as their evil selves but also reaffirmed the whole starfleet values thing in a nice way. Even though she was still Evil Empress she couldn't help but want to make her society more like the one she saw in the Federation when she could've easily just done what was best for herself instead. The root beer was growing on her, etc.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I don't think Masks is that weird!
I mean, it has a weird vibe, but that's intentional. In that sense it kind of hearkens back to TOS in a way that I like, with that creepy, Twilight Zone feel. TNG does a lot of great things in its run but it has a shortage of creepy episodes.
The plot is just "warring AIs possess Data and the computer and try to use the Enterprise to recreate their civilization," which isn't that...unusual? It's a very sci-fi 101 plot. It's like one of those TOS episodes with an evil computer ruling a planet except instead of one computer there are like ten.
The real-world reasoning (I think someone at memory alpha literally says this) "hey, Brent Spiner loves playing different parts, let's give him like six different parts to play in the same episode."
I don't think the episode super works due to budget issues and running out of time - it feels like it stops just as it's getting going - but if it's a failure, it's an ambitious failure, which I always like better than being meek and playing it safe and boring.
The writer, Joe Menosky, is one of my favorite Star Trek writers and one of the most underrated, imo. All his episodes take big swings without doing violence to the integrity of the characters or the setting.
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
The villain of Disco S3 (i cannot remember her name) was such a weird character. Usually the confrontation shows the villain as very clever or very powerful or very devious but I didn't really get that from any of the scenes she is in. I think the writers attempted to show that with the (spoilering just in case)
hijacking discovery
but it felt unearned and just illustrated how bad starfleet was rather than how dangerous the villain was.
i definitely miss 26 episodes in a season. i'd take 20 decent to great with 6 bad to decent episodes over discos 13-15 episodes with maybe half being decent to great?
The shorter seasons combined with more serialized plotting and storytelling is a big plus for Discovery for me.
My wife and I have been getting our kids into Trek, and we watched through all of TOS with them during quarantine. We're now about halfway into S1 of TNG and moving steadily along. While I do very much agree with some that more time with some of Disco's side characters would be nice, I'd rather it came via less action sequences or less time spent on Michael repeating the same kind of mistakes over again and time spent dealing with the fallout from her actions yet again. Not through adding more episodes. Shorter seasons with less filler has been possibly the single best thing about the modern era of prestige tv. It's been a boon to television in general, and Star Trek is no exception.
I mean, it has a weird vibe, but that's intentional. In that sense it kind of hearkens back to TOS in a way that I like, with that creepy, Twilight Zone feel. TNG does a lot of great things in its run but it has a shortage of creepy episodes.
The plot is just "warring AIs possess Data and the computer and try to use the Enterprise to recreate their civilization," which isn't that...unusual? It's a very sci-fi 101 plot. It's like one of those TOS episodes with an evil computer ruling a planet except instead of one computer there are like ten.
The real-world reasoning (I think someone at memory alpha literally says this) "hey, Brent Spiner loves playing different parts, let's give him like six different parts to play in the same episode."
I don't think the episode super works due to budget issues and running out of time - it feels like it stops just as it's getting going - but if it's a failure, it's an ambitious failure, which I always like better than being meek and playing it safe and boring.
The writer, Joe Menosky, is one of my favorite Star Trek writers and one of the most underrated, imo. All his episodes take big swings without doing violence to the integrity of the characters or the setting.
Probably my most watched episode of TNG is Night Terrors, I really love the light horror vibe in TNG format. Scared the shit out of me when all the corpses sat up in the cargo bay with the musical sting.
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This.
I can relate to feeling a bit salty about the fact that, as a life long star trek fan, the first flagship star trek show in over a decade is not made for you, but thems the breaks. Shows that cater to an ever shrinking pool of mega fans are doomed to eventual extinction because catering them drives out everyone else, and they're basically impossible to please anyway. We can take some comfort in the fact that CBS are trying to do all worlds, we're heading into another golden age of trek, if you don't like disco maybe you'll like one of the five other shows in the works. If you don't like any of them, maybe you just don't like star trek as much as you thought you did?
This just in, Tholian and Borg and Dominion(just go with it) homeworlds and moons all blow up for one reason or another, necessitating peace with the Federation. The galaxy enjoys unity for the next hundred years while everyone cleans up.
So was it supposed to be pro Brexit? Like, the EU is blowing up and we need to Brexit out of here sort of thing?
Interesting, Praxis Explosion has it's own Wiki entry for the shockwave FX used for the Excelsior scene. It's funny though, the writers decided that the planet's freaking moon would explode with enough force to create a shockwave light years across, and the impact it would have on the planet was 'Deplete the oxygen in 50 years.' I'll dog on Abrams for having no concept of scale, but he does come by it honestly.
heh, this is the franchise where one planet = one village of a few hundred people and like 10 buildings. Skewed scale is baked into Trek's DNA.
Anti-Brexit. Picard is angry because the Federation urned heir backs on he Romulans because of racism. he show is on Picard's side.
First off, I disagree that the Star Trek formula is bad, given the number of people in this very thread who have or are watching the old series for the first time and enjoying them. Second, I think that's exactly what they're trying to do anyway!
Picard was practically tailor made to appeal to old fans for crying out loud, it's just bad at it! The entire thing is end to end nostalgia made, seemingly, by people who don't much care for the original product.
I'm trying to wrap my head around how a series featuring a bunch of old people who were in an old TV Show, that is literally named after one of said characters and features him at the lead, isn't trying to "cater to an ever shrinking pool of mega fans"?
What I want is an optimistic sci-fi show set in the future that tackles current social issues using science fiction situations with a likeable cast with good chemistry. I'm not sure what about that premise only appeals to a doomed, shrinking demographic of people. What I don't want are shows that are trying to slap some old IP onto a product that is very much trying to copy the appeal of billion dollar hollywood franchises, even as those franchises are trying to reinvent themselves to stay fresh
After the first episode of Picard I thought it was going to have something to say about immigration and the responsibility of rich nations, and then it turned into the plot from Mass Effect. All my glasses pushing continuity issues would mean fuck all to me if it had stuck with that and actually said something
The real tragedy of Picard S1 in my mind is still that amazing new Enterprise-D that was built, textured, lightmapped, etc. for exactly one beauty shot. Give Us More Ent-D Beauty Shots You Cowards.
e: autocorrect: the real My Enemy, My Ally
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The only reason I'm interested in the new Space Jam is to see what kind of actress she is when she isn't ask to cry constantly
I feel like you read the part of the post you highlighted then started typing very fast without reading the rest.
What if instead I just like shows with good writing? Luckily I enjoyed Lower Decks very much but I think Disco and Picard were straight up bad and there was no reason for them to be and it's not cause they "aren't Star Trek", it's cause they are not written well. (obvs this is my opinion)
Since you did like one of the shows that was made you can consider yourself exempt from the above statement.
I must have worded that post poorly because it seems to have been misinterpreted. I'll try to piece it apart to prevent further confusion.
Firstly I said in the post I was talking about Disco, not Picard, and it was in a string of conversation about disco so I don't know how it's being taken as a comment on Picard.
Secondly the point I was making is, given there is now five(?) Star Trek shows being made there's obviously a multi pronged approach being taken here, lower decks and Picard are the shows that obviously ARE aimed at people with previous Trek experience, since 90% of the stuff in lower decks wouldn't land if you didn't get what they were referencing and the entire concept of Picard isn't going to mean much to someone with no prior experience of the character. Disco is MCU style star trek aimed at a general audience, a lot of fans are not loving that the flagship primary show of the new age of trek is not made with them foremost in mind, since making something that resonates heavily with long time viewers is hard to balance against accessibility for new viewers. If you don't make your long running show accessible to newer viewers you end up in the late 80's Dr Who situation (and arguably current day as well but that's another discussion).
As for the "maybe you don't like trek as much as you thought you did" comment maybe I'm being presumptuous, I guess it's perfectly possible they could make five separate star trek shows at once and they could all suck, but we've only seen three of them so far and all of them are still in relatively early days (with the possible exception of Disco YMMV). Even with the three we already have at least one of them seems to be scratching someones itch. If you end up hating all five, given that they intentionally seem to be trying to make something to make everyone happy there's a strong chance that you may just be really difficult to please.
Discovery and Picard just aren't good shows. And unlike, say, TNG, they don't have anywhere near the heart or the overall strength of premise to help make up the difference. They're so caught up in being flashy and modern that they can't be bothered to be interesting, and they don't even do flashy and modern very well. I'll watch something from those and spend the whole time thinking that I could just watch Orville instead which, despite technically being a comedy, still actually fucking bothers to regularly explore scifi concepts and stories instead of trying to use every moment to crank up the drama of whatever the current mega-threat is.
Lower Decks is, sadly, the only one that actually seems to get the point. And I only say "sadly" there because it's just not my thing but at least it's definitely Trek instead of something unrelated with the Trek name slapped on.
But if Discovery and Picard want broader recognition, they should try being good shows first. They aren't going to suddenly be seen as a hidden gem a decade from now or something, if they can't even draw much attention now when they expend so much effort trying to appeal to current viewers.
@Casual I get what you're saying but I just think you're wrong. The reason a lot of people here don't like Disco isn't because it's being made for a 'broad audience', it's because it's not being made well, full stop.
You cannot tell me that the person who wrote that scene doesn’t understand the core message of Star Trek. Stamets/Culber, Reno, the entire bridge crew, all the places that aren’t touched by the hand of whoever is driving the series-sized story beats and decisions are Trek down to the styrofoam rocks.
I think the main things I want to see Discovery grow out of are 1) delivering the emotional stakes, tension, and release entirely by twiddling the “Make Sonequa Martin-Green cry on camera” and “dramatic music” sliders and 2) thinking that because the primary narrative driver of the MCU’s First Era was “Thanos wants to kill half the universe, succeeds, un-succeeds” that the stakes of a Trek season also have to involve all life in the galaxy.
Maybe the show-runners don’t feel it’s possible to de-escalate; how do we find them and tell them that a full season of buddy-cop adventures with Admiral Vance as the tough-but-fair chief, Saru and the Discovery-A as the straight-laced beat cop promoted to detective, and Michael/Book as the streetwise vice team who are tolerated because they get results is exactly what we want? Because holy shit, that laid over the bones of Star Trek is exactly what I want out of S4/S5.
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The proof will be in the pudding I guess, Disco is four seasons deep now, if it makes it past the point they gave up on ENT we may have to accept perhaps there is an audience for it and it just isn't us. I don't actually know whether it's already a profitable show or not, I'll hold my hands up to not being fussed enough to research the figures. I've made my peace with Disco being meh and have no grudge against other people enjoying it for what it is.
you have to remember that the numbers for network TV are very different than the numbers for a streaming platform. It's very difficult to compare enterprise to disco and talk about why one was cancelled while the other wasn't.
Unless something insane happens I can't think of any reason that Disco wouldn't get a S5 at this point
For sure but that doesn't change the point. Enough people are paying to see this to make it worth making more. Unless we're saying Disco is some kind of tax write off.
Saying Disco is designed in a way that does not appeal to us, it's also haphazardly and poorly written, but enough people like it anyway to make it viable can all be true at once.
You're allowed to not enjoy the show, or the direction it's gone in. But holy crap, the endless, "I don't like it, therefore it's objectively awful and a failure", is just needlessly tiring, and just leaves no room for conversation. I think I'm going to take a break from this thread for a while.
can't I just not like them because I think they're bad?
Same: The Hobbit
To be fair to Disco though, I think season 3 was much better than season 1 and 2, I actually watched the entire thing and unironically was interested in it - instead of just watching because it was something to do like season 1&2
I hope Season 4 continues this trend, but I am sick to death of end of the world plots
They're fine when used correctly, The Expanse has an end of the world plot in season 1 and I love it, but The Expanse's entire deal (for the first few books/seasons) is that humanity is always on the brink of annihilation, that a series of incredibly delicate systems make life possible and that any mistake can cause a cascade failure in the meta-organism that is Humanity
Season 3 Disco's best parts are when it acts like a science-fiction show about a troubled future and explores the lie that individualism is strength, and its worse parts are when it's the final fight scene from Black Panther with slightly better CGI. I want more of the former and less of the latter in S4 - none of this has anything to do with how "star-treky" it is
lots of people like shows I don't think are particularly good. I'm not sure what argument you're actually making at this point but regardless I think Disco and Picard were badly written and would have no problem with MCU Star Trek if it at least had a good plot.
It was just two good actors, nailing their parts and bouncing off each other in a relatively quiet moment.
I want the series to have the confidence to just. breath. and do more stuff like that
But it's like all that stuff came at the cost of the actual story. Which is ironic because the reasons the old shows were so popular in spite of their terrible action scenes was because the action itself was secondary to the narrative and characters. We overlooked that stuff because it wasn't the most important part of the show.
One of my favorite scenes is when Data takes over command of one of the ships in the Federation blockade during the whole "Suddenly, Tasha Yar's Daughter Appears!" arc:
There's so much tension here that was built up over the episode, with just a few lines of dialogue. But there's no preening or crying or over-dramatization. It's a very normal interaction with very clear undertones. Hobson is racist, but not in a way that you can "catch him in the act". Data catches on but tries to focus on the mission. Things come to a head when Data needs something done, Hobson refuses to do it for invalid reasons, and then Data is forced to bring him to heel all while under fire from Picard for not following his own orders.
The action in this scene is shooting a glorified probe. The show goes out of its way to point out that the torpedoes will not do any damage. And yet whether or not those things hit something is hugely impactful. You are holding your breath not just because of the wider implications to the larger war, but because of the very personal consequences to a character you care about - Data. If they don't find their mark he has not only countermanded a direct order himself but threatened the career of a subordinate.
If this episode were ever to air for Discovery, it would never be allowed to breathe. It would immediately be "upgraded" to an actual ship-to-ship or god forbid fleet-to-fleet battle. Data and Hobson would be yelling at each other the whole time while "the fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance". Red alert klaxons would be keening all the while the camera would be swooping in nauseating patterns. But we'd get a pretty cool ship battle.
That guy was David Cronenberg btw
If the double-axe-handle is good enough for pro wrestlers and DBZ characters, it's good enough for Riker!
The average person these days is also immensely more aware of what convincing fighting looks like, simply by consuming the media we consume.
what the hell just happened
Did Data have a fever dream and project it onto everyone else including me the viewer
the Greatest Generation Podcast episode about that episode is hilarious.
i definitely miss 26 episodes in a season. i'd take 20 decent to great with 6 bad to decent episodes over discos 13-15 episodes with maybe half being decent to great?
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I have a feeling there was a massive gas leak in the studio that week.
I liked where they went with her big plan a lot, I thought that was a good direction to go with it, though a lot of the details of how she went about carrying it out didn't make much sense.
Despite being iffy about the whole "we're okay with and like having this empress around who is cool with doing literal genocides" stuff, I actually really enjoyed where they went with her send-off.
I mean, it has a weird vibe, but that's intentional. In that sense it kind of hearkens back to TOS in a way that I like, with that creepy, Twilight Zone feel. TNG does a lot of great things in its run but it has a shortage of creepy episodes.
The plot is just "warring AIs possess Data and the computer and try to use the Enterprise to recreate their civilization," which isn't that...unusual? It's a very sci-fi 101 plot. It's like one of those TOS episodes with an evil computer ruling a planet except instead of one computer there are like ten.
The real-world reasoning (I think someone at memory alpha literally says this) "hey, Brent Spiner loves playing different parts, let's give him like six different parts to play in the same episode."
I don't think the episode super works due to budget issues and running out of time - it feels like it stops just as it's getting going - but if it's a failure, it's an ambitious failure, which I always like better than being meek and playing it safe and boring.
The writer, Joe Menosky, is one of my favorite Star Trek writers and one of the most underrated, imo. All his episodes take big swings without doing violence to the integrity of the characters or the setting.
The shorter seasons combined with more serialized plotting and storytelling is a big plus for Discovery for me.
My wife and I have been getting our kids into Trek, and we watched through all of TOS with them during quarantine. We're now about halfway into S1 of TNG and moving steadily along. While I do very much agree with some that more time with some of Disco's side characters would be nice, I'd rather it came via less action sequences or less time spent on Michael repeating the same kind of mistakes over again and time spent dealing with the fallout from her actions yet again. Not through adding more episodes. Shorter seasons with less filler has been possibly the single best thing about the modern era of prestige tv. It's been a boon to television in general, and Star Trek is no exception.
Probably my most watched episode of TNG is Night Terrors, I really love the light horror vibe in TNG format. Scared the shit out of me when all the corpses sat up in the cargo bay with the musical sting.