TNG gets away with it because they don't spend 13 episodes establishing, researching and defeating the universal disaster. You get like 20 episodes of other stuff before they spend 2 episodes on the great big threat. There was what? Seven borg episodes total, plus the movie? Maybe a handful more that deal with the preamble and response to the borg.
Also TNG stuck the landing on this shit, more often than not, which Discovery has failed to do for three seasons now.
TNG stuck the landing on Q, an abstract concept, deciding that Picard going against the ideals of the federation and killing 3 versions of himself is correct.
I absolutely get the critique of Disco but also like, holy shit this TNG ending is literally some 'it's all a dream' garbage. It's only good by virtue of the characters. Which isn't saying much because these characters would be good in anything.
Not meaning to call you out by any means, but what to you mean by Picard going against the ideals of the Federation? It certainly feels fitting with their ideals for a ship and its crew to be willing to lay down their lives to save the rest of the galaxy.
As for the difference between TNG and Disco, while the stakes of All Good Things are all sentient lives in the galaxy, or at least the quadrant, that was the highest the stakes ever rose, and it was for the finale of the entire series. Discovery had all life in every possible parallel universe being in jeopardy for their mid season one cliffhanger. They escalated above TNG's highest stakes before they were half way done with the first season, and just in general has to have some fate of the whole universe plot every season.
I think Albino Bunny is intentionally misrepresenting people for ... some reason
Most of Disco is about the fate of THE WORLD, THE GALAXY, THE UNIVERSE, ALL OF TIME AND SPACE, THE MULTIVERSE, etc.
TNG's finale is about the fate of the human race (the Q weren't going to let anti-time unmake reality, HUMANITY was on trial). TNG as a series is mostly about individual stories because it isn't a serialized drama in the same way
You can make Serialized Space Show about The Fate of Everything, but you can only really do that once before it wears thin
I mean, the reason is a joke, literally acknowledged above you.
Also it's a funny joke because TNG's finale robs Q of his character to return him to ominous judge and turns picard into the saviour of literally all humanity. Y'know, like the season 1 situation everyone agrees is bad.
It's the stuff that makes disco bad wrapped in fan service about where characters wind up in 25 years.
TNG does it once, in the finale of the entire show.
Discovery does it constantly, has never stopped, and shows no sign of doing so.
If you don't grasp the difference, I'm not sure we have anything to talk about.
TNG does it once, in the finale of the entire show.
Discovery does it constantly, has never stopped, and shows no sign of doing so.
If you don't grasp the difference, I'm not sure we have anything to talk about.
I agree there is nothing to discuss if you want to re-iterate a point made last page where I pointed out it was a bit.
The prevalence of "bits" needs to get reduced forum wide. It's sincerely difficult to parse people doing a bit, people who's entire account is a bit, and people's honest opinions.
I miss the days when you could mute individual accounts.
The prevalence of "bits" needs to get reduced forum wide. It's sincerely difficult to parse people doing a bit, people who's entire account is a bit, and people's honest opinions.
I miss the days when you could mute individual accounts.
Bits frequently grind me the wrong way because of how often it turns out it isn't a bit, it's someone throwing out vitriol and covering it with clown makeup (combined with my incredibly poor ability to tell the difference between gentle joshing and mockery in the first place)
I am not saying that's what this is, but it is a frequent online phenomenon
I think if you wanna talk about how jokes are less notable in text it’s not a Star Trek topic.
But if you wanna do that to pretend you absolutely read the now multiple points where I said it’s a joke and you responded to it seriously afterwards to save face by all means.
Like either you’re straw manning me, not reading what I post or claiming this entire forum is incapable of humour as part of the discussion of a sci fi show.
Everyone thinks their story is so deep and nuanced that they really need 8-10 hours to explore every facet of it when the vast majority of them could be a tight 3 parter with the rest of the series telling us more about the characters and the place they live in in a more serial format.
That's not even the problem imo. The problem is they rarely have anything else to put meat on those bones. A long running story-arc that takes up like 12 episodes is fine. You just have to have more then that or it needs to be 12 hours of actually compelling material. A like 10 45 minute episode season is like the length of a movie trilogy and those can work just fine. But they are never written that tightly.
I always think of shit like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A show that in it's best seasons managed 22 45 episodes a season with a long-running story arc that culminated in an exciting finale. Or Babylon 5 with the same. This shit is eminently doable with heavy serialization and fucking twice the episodes most of these shows have now. You just have to have something compelling to fill the time with.
The problem with these shows is not the format. It's that they can't use it well.
Daredevil or Jessica Jones, especially season 1 shows how much you can get away with in terms of tight writing and short seasons.
As an alternative, you can look at a show like Burn Notice where every episode but a couple was "random thing of the week" but managed to advanced the plot on the season/series wide overarching thing, and also was shorter seasons.
+4
Options
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I think if you wanna talk about how jokes are less notable in text it’s not a Star Trek topic.
But if you wanna do that to pretend you absolutely read the now multiple points where I said it’s a joke and you responded to it seriously afterwards to save face by all means.
Like either you’re straw manning me, not reading what I post or claiming this entire forum is incapable of humour as part of the discussion of a sci fi show.
All are laughable.
Chillax, dude.
Like, if you feel you were misunderstood, that's fine. You can take another run at what you wanted to say. I don't think going into a crouch is helpful here.
Daredevil or Jessica Jones, especially season 1 shows how much you can get away with in terms of tight writing and short seasons.
As an alternative, you can look at a show like Burn Notice where every episode but a couple was "random thing of the week" but managed to advanced the plot on the season/series wide overarching thing, and also was shorter seasons.
Those are not the examples I would use. The Marvel Netflix shows are I think often the posterchild for the issue. Shows that have like 8 episodes of material stretched over 13 episodes and which have seemingly lost the old school TV ability to pad out the rest of that time with compelling single-episode stories and so instead just stretch the material they have super thin.
I'll admit I stopped watching Discovery after season two, so I can't say with certainty that things didn't improve, but having such short seasons they had no time to develop any of the characters you have to rush through plot, plot, plot at all times. To the point that after two seasons, of the bridge crew, I can remember the names of 2, the job descriptions of maybe 3 and a couple character traits of maybe as many. There's Saru the first officer, best explored of the bridge crew, species is a Kelpian, herbivores afraid of everything until they go through their species' puberty and get head spike things and become more aggressive in the one episode that remembered that trait. The...I think conn officer called Uru who's from a Luddite colony. You have the Freeza looking cyborg lady who got a ton of character development about being a human fully converted into a cyborg and has to upload her memories every night to avoid overloading her RAM, then they killed her. There's the red head who sits next to Uru with a cybernetic thingie on her head who Freeza talked to about accepting her cybernetics. Beyond that there's the Asian guy who I think is on either comms or science and the black guy who I'm pretty sure was tactical?
I wish they'd ease back on all the very pretty and very expensive special effects and use the money they'd save to have a couple bottle episodes to let us get to know some of the characters. For all I know they did in season 3, but as I said, kind of worn out by the whole universe having to explode all the time forever to continue following the show.
+1
Options
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I thought Daredevil season 1 was pretty tight, all in all; JJ considerably less so.
But yeah, mixing serialization with standalone stories that flesh out the world and explore the characters shouldn't really be that hard. Plenty of shows in the pre-prestige era managed it; there's no reason modern programs can't too, save that there seems to be a conscious drive to make everything as "water cooler" as possible by taking screentime that could be used for quieter, character-focused scenes and turning them into teases, red herrings, protracted action scenes, or superfluous plot beats.
Latest Voyager Episode: Kes turns two, Neelix doesn't trust her, the ship folds in on itself so no one can get to any part of the bridge and comms go down!
I really liked seeing Tuvok in charge. He quickly assessed the phenomenon, decided to act, and moved forward. It was cool to see Vulcan logic in command.
I am in the business of saving lives.
0
Options
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Latest Voyager Episode: Kes turns two, Neelix doesn't trust her, the ship folds in on itself so no one can get to any part of the bridge and comms go down!
I really liked seeing Tuvok in charge. He quickly assessed the phenomenon, decided to act, and moved forward. It was cool to see Vulcan logic in command.
By that point in time, Tuvok has had time to create a master plan to handle any situation:
1. If Neelix is in sight, vaporize Neelix.
2. Save the ship.
3. Save some of the crew.
Latest Voyager Episode: Kes turns two, Neelix doesn't trust her, the ship folds in on itself so no one can get to any part of the bridge and comms go down!
I really liked seeing Tuvok in charge. He quickly assessed the phenomenon, decided to act, and moved forward. It was cool to see Vulcan logic in command.
By that point in time, Tuvok has had time to create a master plan to handle any situation:
1. If Neelix is in sight, vaporize Neelix.
2. Save the ship.
3. Save some of the crew.
And on point 3 he already had the whole crew ranked by how mad Janeway would be if they died, like a pet owner who secretly knows which cat they're going to grab first in a fire.
+7
Options
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Latest Voyager Episode: Kes turns two, Neelix doesn't trust her, the ship folds in on itself so no one can get to any part of the bridge and comms go down!
I really liked seeing Tuvok in charge. He quickly assessed the phenomenon, decided to act, and moved forward. It was cool to see Vulcan logic in command.
By that point in time, Tuvok has had time to create a master plan to handle any situation:
1. If Neelix is in sight, vaporize Neelix.
2. Save the ship.
3. Save some of the crew.
And on point 3 he already had the whole crew ranked by how mad Janeway would be if they died, like a pet owner who secretly knows which cat they're going to grab first in a fire.
Tuvok's plan hinges on the notion that Janeway has mysteriously died during the disaster in a way that can't possibly be linked to him.
Latest Voyager Episode: Kes turns two, Neelix doesn't trust her, the ship folds in on itself so no one can get to any part of the bridge and comms go down!
I really liked seeing Tuvok in charge. He quickly assessed the phenomenon, decided to act, and moved forward. It was cool to see Vulcan logic in command.
By that point in time, Tuvok has had time to create a master plan to handle any situation:
1. If Neelix is in sight, vaporize Neelix.
2. Save the ship.
3. Save some of the crew.
And on point 3 he already had the whole crew ranked by how mad Janeway would be if they died, like a pet owner who secretly knows which cat they're going to grab first in a fire.
Watching the Stargazer episode of TNG (season 1) and once again, Wesley saves the day (sort of) but this time gets zero recognition and calls out the "ladies" on it! Also, what another great episode to set up the Ferengi! Yes, they're evil but only in the sense that they put profit above all else, who does that sound like?!? (seriously this is gold)
Anyhow, the children are still captivated and even some of the straw in these episodes is turned to gold. Like, clearly the personal log from Picard is doctored. How could he have made that when they had to abandon ship and ride around on shuttlecraft for however long?
Daredevil or Jessica Jones, especially season 1 shows how much you can get away with in terms of tight writing and short seasons.
As an alternative, you can look at a show like Burn Notice where every episode but a couple was "random thing of the week" but managed to advanced the plot on the season/series wide overarching thing, and also was shorter seasons.
Thing is, I feel like Discovery is using the Burn Notice model more often than not. Burn Notice tended to have short bits at the beginning, middle and end about the season-long plot, with the rest devoted to random person in need of the week. Then you got two episodes at the end where the main arc took over.
Discovery feels like it's doing the same thing; they're following the season long plot, find a problem of the week (crashed ship with survivors, alien lifeform in need of help, etc), solve the immediate problem and hopefully gain a little bit more information on the big thing, resume following the season plot.
And if we want to talk about escalation, it's gone up and down. War, threat to all life (and they did cover that one with a two-parter), one season long threat to all life, then a disaster that was a threat to interstellar travel more than existence.
And now a wandering Gravity Thing that's undoubtedly serious, but considerably less than an existence-ending threat unless it starts growing (and I admit it might just do that).
In the middle of all those, they've had recognisably Trek plots that have been the majority of the episodes.
For all we complain, I just want to acknowledge that we've never had so much Trek at one time, and I'm honestly glad of the variety. Voyager was the closest thing we got to 'let's just do TNG again', and people dumped on it for that.
Now we've got Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks and Prodigy, with Strange New Worlds soon and maybe the Section 31 show if they ever actually look like making it happen (I have my doubts).
They're all very different from each other, and it's hard to find at least one of those that you don't like.
Daredevil or Jessica Jones, especially season 1 shows how much you can get away with in terms of tight writing and short seasons.
As an alternative, you can look at a show like Burn Notice where every episode but a couple was "random thing of the week" but managed to advanced the plot on the season/series wide overarching thing, and also was shorter seasons.
Those are not the examples I would use. The Marvel Netflix shows are I think often the posterchild for the issue. Shows that have like 8 episodes of material stretched over 13 episodes and which have seemingly lost the old school TV ability to pad out the rest of that time with compelling single-episode stories and so instead just stretch the material they have super thin.
It's a bit of a trap as far as that season length goes I think. You're locked in to delivering 13 episodes with a serialized season long arc, but if you can't match your seasonal arc to the number of episodes you don't have enough episodes in the season to give you the freedom to have a standalone do something unrelated to the seasonal arc episode. Not with the generally intense nature of the season long story that most of these shows are telling. Jessica Jones S1 probably should have been ten episodes in length, but they had to do 13 (even though it was only on streaming) and the nature of the story meant that having a couple of episodes that were her doing a client of the week or whatever would have felt weird.
I don't think this is something that can't be overcome with better writing, but I do think that it is a tricky problem that 25 episode seasons don't have to deal with.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
It's been a while since I saw them, but I always felt that the Marvel Netflix series fell down with respect to keeping up the intensity. They had little to no understand of how to structure the tension so it works with the format. In all honesty, I think their chances would've been better if they had planned a season-length arc but about half the episodes would've focused on episodic stories, and both sides of the equation could've been stronger for it. Episodic content can be great for character development and world building, and the premise would've easily allowed for standalone episodes (Jessica's a PI, so do some individual cases, the way Veronica Mars did! and the same would work for Daredevil), yet instead we got flabby serialisation with little sense of form. The serialised content of pretty much every Marvel Netflix series could've been taken care of in half the running time of each season.
To be honest, I don't really get the whole complaint that all of this is due to series trying to ape prestige TV, because prestige TV at its best doesn't make these mistakes. The best HBO series have plenty of quiet moments, they have an understanding of how to structure their narratives, that the Marvel Netflix series simply did not have. If they failed because they tried to be prestige TV, they had zero understanding of what makes prestige TV.
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
It's been a while since I saw them, but I always felt that the Marvel Netflix series fell down with respect to keeping up the intensity. They had little to no understand of how to structure the tension so it works with the format. In all honesty, I think their chances would've been better if they had planned a season-length arc but about half the episodes would've focused on episodic stories, and both sides of the equation could've been stronger for it. Episodic content can be great for character development and world building, and the premise would've easily allowed for standalone episodes (Jessica's a PI, so do some individual cases, the way Veronica Mars did! and the same would work for Daredevil), yet instead we got flabby serialisation with little sense of form. The serialised content of pretty much every Marvel Netflix series could've been taken care of in half the running time of each season.
To be honest, I don't really get the whole complaint that all of this is due to series trying to ape prestige TV, because prestige TV at its best doesn't make these mistakes. The best HBO series have plenty of quiet moments, they have an understanding of how to structure their narratives, that the Marvel Netflix series simply did not have. If they failed because they tried to be prestige TV, they had zero understanding of what makes prestige TV.
I mean, yes, that's literally the complaint. They are trying to ape prestige TV but aren't good at it. It's CargoCult Prestige Television.
Thing is, other than serialisation I don't see anything there that strikes me as particularly prestige - and one of the biggest early prestige TV series, The Sopranos, was way more episodic than any of these. Their idea of prestige television, if that's what it is, is akin to those medieval etchings of what is supposed to be an elephant. Four legs, something vaguely trunk-like, and that's about where the similarity ends.
Compare this to J.J. Abrams' cargo-cult approach in Super 8 - there are various levels on which he does a fairly competent Spielberg pastiche.
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Except for the Gray stuff. I don't really care for either character, and Im also kind of bummed they've put all the LGBTQ folks into one family unit bubble thing. It's like they've sort of compartmentalized them all? I'm torn because I loved Culver and Stamets being dads, but something just isn't working right.
Also, how does a hologram sense anything? Makes no sense...but eh. Start trek.
Watching Voyager and the most immediate thing is how much more time is spent to the idea of intercrew issues, paranoia and talking more openly about violence as a thing.
Also Seska is cool and I hope next time that adorable little fascist spy shows up it's in full Cardassian garb.
I thought Daredevil season 1 was pretty tight, all in all; JJ considerably less so.
But yeah, mixing serialization with standalone stories that flesh out the world and explore the characters shouldn't really be that hard. Plenty of shows in the pre-prestige era managed it; there's no reason modern programs can't too, save that there seems to be a conscious drive to make everything as "water cooler" as possible by taking screentime that could be used for quieter, character-focused scenes and turning them into teases, red herrings, protracted action scenes, or superfluous plot beats.
Netflix' new series Arcane is the best recent example of amazing worldbuilding and a serialized plot that doesn't lose focus on the characters
It sits down and lets the characters breath a lot early on, but never disappears, even the very last episode has a solid 10 minutes of characters just existing in each other's presence, also making a season essentially 3 3-episode long "mini-arcs" was a great decision. I think the best thing is that it doesn't even feel like a serialized "arc", it just feels like this is the world and these things are happening in it and the people living in it (like early GOT)
Honestly pretty much every genre show could learn something from it I'm that impressed by it
Also every character's motivation is understandable, even as they drive everything towards escalating conflict - we want the characters to be friends and put aside their grievances because their should be common ground but their worlds are just too far apart and it's so good
I thought Daredevil season 1 was pretty tight, all in all; JJ considerably less so.
But yeah, mixing serialization with standalone stories that flesh out the world and explore the characters shouldn't really be that hard. Plenty of shows in the pre-prestige era managed it; there's no reason modern programs can't too, save that there seems to be a conscious drive to make everything as "water cooler" as possible by taking screentime that could be used for quieter, character-focused scenes and turning them into teases, red herrings, protracted action scenes, or superfluous plot beats.
So what you’re saying is, we need a series that understands how to be stand alone with its episodes and yet… complex to work serialization into the works to create a whole that both carries forward a continuous plot yet gives room to breathe outside of it..
I thought Daredevil season 1 was pretty tight, all in all; JJ considerably less so.
But yeah, mixing serialization with standalone stories that flesh out the world and explore the characters shouldn't really be that hard. Plenty of shows in the pre-prestige era managed it; there's no reason modern programs can't too, save that there seems to be a conscious drive to make everything as "water cooler" as possible by taking screentime that could be used for quieter, character-focused scenes and turning them into teases, red herrings, protracted action scenes, or superfluous plot beats.
So what you’re saying is, we need a series that understands how to be stand alone with its episodes and yet… complex to work serialization into the works to create a whole that both carries forward a continuous plot yet gives room to breathe outside of it..
Except for the Gray stuff. I don't really care for either character, and Im also kind of bummed they've put all the LGBTQ folks into one family unit bubble thing. It's like they've sort of compartmentalized them all? I'm torn because I loved Culver and Stamets being dads, but something just isn't working right.
Also, how does a hologram sense anything? Makes no sense...but eh. Start trek.
I'm assuming 32nd century hologram projections are probably advanced enough that they can supply other sensory data beyond visual.
It was already kind of questionable why the Doctor needed a physical kit rather than just including the devices in his matrix, but we've already seen far more advanced hologram tech than him in Discovery including functional ship components so I'd imagine giving a hologram tricorder eyes would be a standard library include.
Hevach on
0
Options
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Latest Voyager Episode: Kes turns two, Neelix doesn't trust her, the ship folds in on itself so no one can get to any part of the bridge and comms go down!
I really liked seeing Tuvok in charge. He quickly assessed the phenomenon, decided to act, and moved forward. It was cool to see Vulcan logic in command.
By that point in time, Tuvok has had time to create a master plan to handle any situation:
1. If Neelix is in sight, vaporize Neelix.
2. Save the ship.
3. Save some of the crew.
And on point 3 he already had the whole crew ranked by how mad Janeway would be if they died, like a pet owner who secretly knows which cat they're going to grab first in a fire.
Actually I think Harry is Janeway's favorite pet, and she certainly wouldn't let him die in a fire. Be burned and suffer permanent and painful damage, oh yes that would be perfect, but dying would make her less able to torment him.
This is why Seven ranks last, she is the least likely wriggle piteously upon being poked with a stick and therefore deserves death.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Oh Star Trek France, which is owned and run by the English.
Europe was largely depopulated in WW3. The war basically erased all borders and nations. It reset culture back to 0. History was largely forgotten The Picards survived and helped repopulate France. Instead of a flourishing vineyard, they found an irradiated wasteland filled with mutants and monsters. It took generations to reclaim the land from the post atomic horror show that Europe had descended into.
Europe emerged from the aftermath under a unified government that eventually formed the basis of United Earth and the Federation (It's a show of restraint for an American produced science fiction setting to have the capitol be in Paris), so even what borders remained were the first ones erased as Earth unified following first contact.
Posts
I mean, the reason is a joke, literally acknowledged above you.
Also it's a funny joke because TNG's finale robs Q of his character to return him to ominous judge and turns picard into the saviour of literally all humanity. Y'know, like the season 1 situation everyone agrees is bad.
It's the stuff that makes disco bad wrapped in fan service about where characters wind up in 25 years.
Discovery does it constantly, has never stopped, and shows no sign of doing so.
If you don't grasp the difference, I'm not sure we have anything to talk about.
I agree there is nothing to discuss if you want to re-iterate a point made last page where I pointed out it was a bit.
It's weird you're re-iterating it honestly.
I miss the days when you could mute individual accounts.
Bits frequently grind me the wrong way because of how often it turns out it isn't a bit, it's someone throwing out vitriol and covering it with clown makeup (combined with my incredibly poor ability to tell the difference between gentle joshing and mockery in the first place)
I am not saying that's what this is, but it is a frequent online phenomenon
But if you wanna do that to pretend you absolutely read the now multiple points where I said it’s a joke and you responded to it seriously afterwards to save face by all means.
Like either you’re straw manning me, not reading what I post or claiming this entire forum is incapable of humour as part of the discussion of a sci fi show.
All are laughable.
That's not even the problem imo. The problem is they rarely have anything else to put meat on those bones. A long running story-arc that takes up like 12 episodes is fine. You just have to have more then that or it needs to be 12 hours of actually compelling material. A like 10 45 minute episode season is like the length of a movie trilogy and those can work just fine. But they are never written that tightly.
I always think of shit like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A show that in it's best seasons managed 22 45 episodes a season with a long-running story arc that culminated in an exciting finale. Or Babylon 5 with the same. This shit is eminently doable with heavy serialization and fucking twice the episodes most of these shows have now. You just have to have something compelling to fill the time with.
The problem with these shows is not the format. It's that they can't use it well.
As an alternative, you can look at a show like Burn Notice where every episode but a couple was "random thing of the week" but managed to advanced the plot on the season/series wide overarching thing, and also was shorter seasons.
Chillax, dude.
Like, if you feel you were misunderstood, that's fine. You can take another run at what you wanted to say. I don't think going into a crouch is helpful here.
Those are not the examples I would use. The Marvel Netflix shows are I think often the posterchild for the issue. Shows that have like 8 episodes of material stretched over 13 episodes and which have seemingly lost the old school TV ability to pad out the rest of that time with compelling single-episode stories and so instead just stretch the material they have super thin.
I wish they'd ease back on all the very pretty and very expensive special effects and use the money they'd save to have a couple bottle episodes to let us get to know some of the characters. For all I know they did in season 3, but as I said, kind of worn out by the whole universe having to explode all the time forever to continue following the show.
But yeah, mixing serialization with standalone stories that flesh out the world and explore the characters shouldn't really be that hard. Plenty of shows in the pre-prestige era managed it; there's no reason modern programs can't too, save that there seems to be a conscious drive to make everything as "water cooler" as possible by taking screentime that could be used for quieter, character-focused scenes and turning them into teases, red herrings, protracted action scenes, or superfluous plot beats.
I really liked seeing Tuvok in charge. He quickly assessed the phenomenon, decided to act, and moved forward. It was cool to see Vulcan logic in command.
By that point in time, Tuvok has had time to create a master plan to handle any situation:
1. If Neelix is in sight, vaporize Neelix.
2. Save the ship.
3. Save some of the crew.
And on point 3 he already had the whole crew ranked by how mad Janeway would be if they died, like a pet owner who secretly knows which cat they're going to grab first in a fire.
Tuvok's plan hinges on the notion that Janeway has mysteriously died during the disaster in a way that can't possibly be linked to him.
"Smellycat, Smellycat.
Harry!"
"Obviously not their favorite pet.."
Anyhow, the children are still captivated and even some of the straw in these episodes is turned to gold. Like, clearly the personal log from Picard is doctored. How could he have made that when they had to abandon ship and ride around on shuttlecraft for however long?
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
Thing is, I feel like Discovery is using the Burn Notice model more often than not. Burn Notice tended to have short bits at the beginning, middle and end about the season-long plot, with the rest devoted to random person in need of the week. Then you got two episodes at the end where the main arc took over.
Discovery feels like it's doing the same thing; they're following the season long plot, find a problem of the week (crashed ship with survivors, alien lifeform in need of help, etc), solve the immediate problem and hopefully gain a little bit more information on the big thing, resume following the season plot.
And if we want to talk about escalation, it's gone up and down. War, threat to all life (and they did cover that one with a two-parter), one season long threat to all life, then a disaster that was a threat to interstellar travel more than existence.
For all we complain, I just want to acknowledge that we've never had so much Trek at one time, and I'm honestly glad of the variety. Voyager was the closest thing we got to 'let's just do TNG again', and people dumped on it for that.
Now we've got Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks and Prodigy, with Strange New Worlds soon and maybe the Section 31 show if they ever actually look like making it happen (I have my doubts).
They're all very different from each other, and it's hard to find at least one of those that you don't like.
Good news!
It's a bit of a trap as far as that season length goes I think. You're locked in to delivering 13 episodes with a serialized season long arc, but if you can't match your seasonal arc to the number of episodes you don't have enough episodes in the season to give you the freedom to have a standalone do something unrelated to the seasonal arc episode. Not with the generally intense nature of the season long story that most of these shows are telling. Jessica Jones S1 probably should have been ten episodes in length, but they had to do 13 (even though it was only on streaming) and the nature of the story meant that having a couple of episodes that were her doing a client of the week or whatever would have felt weird.
I don't think this is something that can't be overcome with better writing, but I do think that it is a tricky problem that 25 episode seasons don't have to deal with.
To be honest, I don't really get the whole complaint that all of this is due to series trying to ape prestige TV, because prestige TV at its best doesn't make these mistakes. The best HBO series have plenty of quiet moments, they have an understanding of how to structure their narratives, that the Marvel Netflix series simply did not have. If they failed because they tried to be prestige TV, they had zero understanding of what makes prestige TV.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I mean, yes, that's literally the complaint. They are trying to ape prestige TV but aren't good at it. It's CargoCult Prestige Television.
Compare this to J.J. Abrams' cargo-cult approach in Super 8 - there are various levels on which he does a fairly competent Spielberg pastiche.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Also, how does a hologram sense anything? Makes no sense...but eh. Start trek.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
The sense of loss and grief of Picard towards Data was so beautiful. Decades later and all he wants to do is play poker with his old friend
Also Seska is cool and I hope next time that adorable little fascist spy shows up it's in full Cardassian garb.
Netflix' new series Arcane is the best recent example of amazing worldbuilding and a serialized plot that doesn't lose focus on the characters
It sits down and lets the characters breath a lot early on, but never disappears, even the very last episode has a solid 10 minutes of characters just existing in each other's presence, also making a season essentially 3 3-episode long "mini-arcs" was a great decision. I think the best thing is that it doesn't even feel like a serialized "arc", it just feels like this is the world and these things are happening in it and the people living in it (like early GOT)
Honestly pretty much every genre show could learn something from it I'm that impressed by it
Also every character's motivation is understandable, even as they drive everything towards escalating conflict - we want the characters to be friends and put aside their grievances because their should be common ground but their worlds are just too far apart and it's so good
So what you’re saying is, we need a series that understands how to be stand alone with its episodes and yet… complex to work serialization into the works to create a whole that both carries forward a continuous plot yet gives room to breathe outside of it..
Yes Babylon 5 was very good
/eyeballs you all
I think Arcane is the best show of 2021.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Actually I think Harry is Janeway's favorite pet, and she certainly wouldn't let him die in a fire. Be burned and suffer permanent and painful damage, oh yes that would be perfect, but dying would make her less able to torment him.
This is why Seven ranks last, she is the least likely wriggle piteously upon being poked with a stick and therefore deserves death.
Europe was largely depopulated in WW3. The war basically erased all borders and nations. It reset culture back to 0. History was largely forgotten The Picards survived and helped repopulate France. Instead of a flourishing vineyard, they found an irradiated wasteland filled with mutants and monsters. It took generations to reclaim the land from the post atomic horror show that Europe had descended into.