Gnizmo I love Adira and Grey so much because not only are they played by actors who match their identities, but their dialogue is bang on for how young Queer people tend to interact with each other. I've literally had those conversations with my queer friends, and it's great
Also because Hugh and Stamets basically adopting them is adorable
It is so authentic I have to assume the actors (is there a gender neutral term for this?) have had some say in it. I know I am an old in the queer community now but it definitely feels like an update version of the way we would talk once upon a time. It definitely matches the experiences that have been shared with me from the youth I work with as well as my son and his friends.
Oh man the beauty of doing it with Trill just hit me too! Wow do I miss stuff sometimes. Jadzia is definitely the best Trek had done exploring trans like experiences well ahead of the time. Almost certainly by accident, but still. What a touching way to honor that legacy in a very subtle manner. It definitely makes sense why they would want to make Adira a human as well to keep it from just being "aliens be weird" as tends to happen in sci-fi.
Yeah, I have to assume so too. The pronoun conversation is the exact one I've had with many people, except Adira dosent have to keep reminding folks to use they/them
Also I was kicking myself when I realized the S3 finalee was holodeck episodes, just played seriously
Burnham helping the butterfly people be better at trying to kill her mid murder attempt is just peak Star Fleet. I assume if I broke into a Star Fleet officers quarters to kill them and found myself without a knife they would show me how to make one using the replicator. Be helpful first and then think of the very obvious problem caused by being so helpful. So wonderful.
I am thrilled with the current Star Trek trend of using the Kobayashi Maru for what it was always meant to be. Bad things are going to happen so get used to it. It has also highlighted the flaws of the two Captains showing they are not prepared for the sacrifices that are yet to come. Prodigy hasn't paid that off yet, but I am guessing Discovery does before seasons end.
I am also jamming on Adira doing a Wesley like story. They are clearly brilliant, and even has justification beyond them being amazing. Their struggle being more internal adolescent self doubt leading to some minor head butting has been really nice.
I just wish there was more time in a season. I am just a dinosaur in that way I suppose. I much prefer 20 episodes to 10 even with the trade-offs that would entail. Such is life.
@Gnizmo I think a consistent piece of feedback on Disco has been it needed more time to breathe. It's something that two episodes in, Strange New Worlds has been fantastic at. They spent what, Ten minutes before they rolled the opening credits and most of that was dedicated to the Captain's Table scene and just.. getting to know the crew. It was great.
SNW in general is comming across like the everyone involved spent a long time going through the criticsms of Disco with a fine toothed comb and figuring out where the genuine issues were in pacing, character development, character spotlight. I've been very impressed (and hopefully, it speaks of good things for Disco season 5). Thoguh S5 of Disco is only getting 10 episodes (Same as SNW, seems to be their standard order. Boo!)
Gnizmo I think a consistent piece of feedback on Disco has been it needed more time to breathe. It's something that two episodes in, Strange New Worlds has been fantastic at. They spent what, Ten minutes before they rolled the opening credits and most of that was dedicated to the Captain's Table scene and just.. getting to know the crew. It was great.
SNW in general is comming across like the everyone involved spent a long time going through the criticsms of Disco with a fine toothed comb and figuring out where the genuine issues were in pacing, character development, character spotlight. I've been very impressed (and hopefully, it speaks of good things for Disco season 5). Thoguh S5 of Disco is only getting 10 episodes (Same as SNW, seems to be their standard order. Boo!)
SNW first episode was a big miss for me. Everyone seems to be enjoying it so I think I will keep most of my thoughts to myself. I haven't gotten around to trying the second episode yet. I will at some point, but I am enjoying Discovery way better so it is getting pushed back.
Gnizmo I think a consistent piece of feedback on Disco has been it needed more time to breathe. It's something that two episodes in, Strange New Worlds has been fantastic at. They spent what, Ten minutes before they rolled the opening credits and most of that was dedicated to the Captain's Table scene and just.. getting to know the crew. It was great.
SNW in general is comming across like the everyone involved spent a long time going through the criticsms of Disco with a fine toothed comb and figuring out where the genuine issues were in pacing, character development, character spotlight. I've been very impressed (and hopefully, it speaks of good things for Disco season 5). Thoguh S5 of Disco is only getting 10 episodes (Same as SNW, seems to be their standard order. Boo!)
SNW first episode was a big miss for me. Everyone seems to be enjoying it so I think I will keep most of my thoughts to myself. I haven't gotten around to trying the second episode yet. I will at some point, but I am enjoying Discovery way better so it is getting pushed back.
You did mention things that you liked about Discovery that seemed to be at odds with the critiques that a lot of people in the thread have had with the show in the past. I think part of Strange New World's mandate is pushing Trek that is a different direction than those things that you mentioned enjoying about Discovery (like season-long arcs, which a lot of folks find overbearing). Which is fine! Different strokes shows for different folks! We have five of them to choose from this year (six, if you count The Orville), so it's this embarrassment of riches of new Trek shows.
Gnizmo I think a consistent piece of feedback on Disco has been it needed more time to breathe. It's something that two episodes in, Strange New Worlds has been fantastic at. They spent what, Ten minutes before they rolled the opening credits and most of that was dedicated to the Captain's Table scene and just.. getting to know the crew. It was great.
SNW in general is comming across like the everyone involved spent a long time going through the criticsms of Disco with a fine toothed comb and figuring out where the genuine issues were in pacing, character development, character spotlight. I've been very impressed (and hopefully, it speaks of good things for Disco season 5). Thoguh S5 of Disco is only getting 10 episodes (Same as SNW, seems to be their standard order. Boo!)
SNW first episode was a big miss for me. Everyone seems to be enjoying it so I think I will keep most of my thoughts to myself. I haven't gotten around to trying the second episode yet. I will at some point, but I am enjoying Discovery way better so it is getting pushed back.
I also disliked episode 1 but really liked episode 2.
They've needed to retcon out the WW3/eugenics war backstory for forever, it doesn't play at all like it would have in the 60s, it sounds incredibly nihilistic and stupid in the 21st century. They now end up implicitly linking it to popular protests and political unrest which... is insanely dark. And acknowledging WW3 as a major plot point literally the week after Rios stays behind without ever mentioning it is nuts.
You don't get to show the audience video recording of everything and everyone they've ever loved being obliterated in an instant and still call yourself an optimistic, hopeful show. Get the fuck out of here.
Edit: I also just didn't think the plot/pacing was very good even though first contact gone awry is an inherently interesting story. Characters at least were neat so it was ok as a pilot I guess.
Also edit: I mentioned I liked episode 2 a lot more. No spoilers it's just solid Star Trek show formula, modernized and well done. Good stuff.
the worst case scenario finally came to pass, those damn maniacs blew us all to hell.
But humanity survived. It endured, and learned from the mistakes of the past, to come together and reach for the stars to do better and in fact, help others potentially avoid the mistakes we made.
That's optimistic af to me, looking at humanity as it is now.
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
TOS came out right smack dab in the middle of cold war tensions. It premiered only a few years after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
People were literally training kids to hide under their desks in case the very real possibility of a nuclear conflagration happened.
Part of Star Trek's optimism is tied to the fact that it took humanity nearly obliterating itself before it finally wised up. Things didn't just magically get better; people had to witness just had bad it could get before deciding on a different path, away from greed and bigotry.
Gnizmo I think a consistent piece of feedback on Disco has been it needed more time to breathe. It's something that two episodes in, Strange New Worlds has been fantastic at. They spent what, Ten minutes before they rolled the opening credits and most of that was dedicated to the Captain's Table scene and just.. getting to know the crew. It was great.
SNW in general is comming across like the everyone involved spent a long time going through the criticsms of Disco with a fine toothed comb and figuring out where the genuine issues were in pacing, character development, character spotlight. I've been very impressed (and hopefully, it speaks of good things for Disco season 5). Thoguh S5 of Disco is only getting 10 episodes (Same as SNW, seems to be their standard order. Boo!)
SNW first episode was a big miss for me. Everyone seems to be enjoying it so I think I will keep most of my thoughts to myself. I haven't gotten around to trying the second episode yet. I will at some point, but I am enjoying Discovery way better so it is getting pushed back.
You did mention things that you liked about Discovery that seemed to be at odds with the critiques that a lot of people in the thread have had with the show in the past. I think part of Strange New World's mandate is pushing Trek that is a different direction than those things that you mentioned enjoying about Discovery (like season-long arcs, which a lot of folks find overbearing). Which is fine! Different strokes shows for different folks! We have five of them to choose from this year (six, if you count The Orville), so it's this embarrassment of riches of new Trek shows.
Oh yes, absolutely. It is why I don't want to make a thing of it. I hope it is the perfectly perfect show that a lot of y'all have been craving. I am super thrilled with how much Trek there is flying around out there. I remember grudgingly going through Discovery, and eventually caving on trying that Seth MacFarlane fake Trek* because it had been over a decade since Enterprise. Now I can justify having a streaming service because it sure feels like we are going to start having a new Trek episode every week of the year. That is insane! Peak Trek before was 2 series at the same time! This is an embarrassment of riches I never want to end! There is more than enough space for us to have SNW for me to maybe reluctantly watch when I have free time and a new season of Picard for everyone else to hate while I fangirl out all super excited over everything it is doing. In the end, we will all be united by our shared love. Lower Decks!
*Once I got past my reflexive hatred of Seth MacFarlane I found the show extremely enjoyable. I just wanted to paint a picture of the landscape I saw at the time.
TOS came out right smack dab in the middle of cold war tensions. It premiered only a few years after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
People were literally training kids to hide under their desks in case the very real possibility of a nuclear conflagration happened.
Part of Star Trek's optimism is tied to the fact that it took humanity nearly obliterating itself before it finally wised up. Things didn't just magically get better; people had to witness just had bad it could get before deciding on a different path, away from greed and bigotry.
Yeah, i way prefer the SNW style of optimism where it's argument is "Despite things going bad, we can rebuild and do better". Fuck this grimdark everything is terrible humans are beasts run by their base instincts game-of-thrones esque bullshit. Show me how we can be BETTER
Also, yes, it is dark, but like... fuck the Jan 6 stuff was and is hella dark, and i dont even live in America. As to the picard point... i would argue that's more Picard being badly written (Sorry Gnizmo!) than anything else.
No need to apologize to me! I am used to people being wrong about the Star Trek I love. For example, Insurrection was the best movie if you ask me*. I have just learned to let people have different opinions and ignore their hatred. It won't change how I feel about anything. I just hope the venting makes the experience better for the person. Hate watching excepted. That just confuses me.
All seriousness, part of the reason Picard does nothign for me is it feels like it in general hinges on you caring about well, Picard. And having never watched TNG (I think my earliest trek exposure is a few random Voy episodes, then Galaxy Quest, then the abrams movies, and i only really started watching seriously with the advent of DISCO)... i have like no connection to the character, other than "Yeah, Patrick Stewart's a damn fine actor".
Burnham helping the butterfly people be better at trying to kill her mid murder attempt is just peak Star Fleet. I assume if I broke into a Star Fleet officers quarters to kill them and found myself without a knife they would show me how to make one using the replicator. Be helpful first and then think of the very obvious problem caused by being so helpful. So wonderful.
I am thrilled with the current Star Trek trend of using the Kobayashi Maru for what it was always meant to be. Bad things are going to happen so get used to it. It has also highlighted the flaws of the two Captains showing they are not prepared for the sacrifices that are yet to come. Prodigy hasn't paid that off yet, but I am guessing Discovery does before seasons end.
I am also jamming on Adira doing a Wesley like story. They are clearly brilliant, and even has justification beyond them being amazing. Their struggle being more internal adolescent self doubt leading to some minor head butting has been really nice.
I just wish there was more time in a season. I am just a dinosaur in that way I suppose. I much prefer 20 episodes to 10 even with the trade-offs that would entail. Such is life.
I am happy someone else agrees with me on the Wesley similarities.
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Right it all made sense as a light backstory when the show was made in the 60s and there was a larger feeling that nuclear war is inevitable. It, rightly, doesn't call great attention to itself in that context, because the show is about the 23rd century society, and is not really concerned with exactly how we got there. "The cold war got hot" as a minor part of some character's dialog doesn't really engender intrigue.
But now, it feels like a far way to fall so long after the cold war is over, even considering current conflagrations (which the writers wouldn't have known about when they were writing these shows). Holding to it is creating a mess because Star Trek cannot decide if its time travel stories want to live in our actual world or a made up one. I super don't blame Picard's writers for this because trying to grapple with the made up history of nuclear annihilation would be extremely distracting to the contemporary story and events they actually want to comment on. In the before-times any Star Trek outing that time traveled to the present was just simply set in that present, regardless of anything else. And that like... was never a problem. Because every random viewer knows what their own world looks like, whereas many less will know the Star Trek canon to the degree of knowing whatever was supposed to have happened - honestly even I'm not sure what the backstory actually is at this point, since it is already vague and retconned at some point after TOS anyway.
But I'm saying these ideas don't hold water anymore. They're minor details in terms of how the Federation actually exists on screen and should be adjustable with the times. Picard writers made the right choice to ignore it, because if they make Rios say that he doesn't want to live in 2024 because he faces imminent nuclear annihilation, or they have to move out to the woods or something, that is too fucking dark man and adds a huge extraneous element to an otherwise pretty ok story! Bringing this idea to the forefront as a major plot point for the pilot is just super depressing and awkward and it seems between the two shows the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.
Vontre on
+1
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I wanted to share the most recent SF Debris Star Trek review - of the TOS episode "Patterns of Force" - because it's just chock full of some great one-liners.
The Cold War might have ended, but it's not like we achieved world peace. The world continues to be divided, with it's premier country seemingly poised on the brink of collapse due to internal strife.
Sure, we're not pointing nukes at the Russians and having serious talks about armageddon on big phones, but that's because the nature of our conflict has changed and morphed. The enemy of the 21st century isn't the Soviet, but funny enough as Star Trek predicted in previous series, our lack of empathy for those less fortunate than ourselves. Everyday we are bombarded with messages that we are exceptional, that we will be great again, so long as we harden our hearts and shed the weakness of the other, shed the burden of empathizing with those who don't look and think like us.
The point of the timeline or our place in it isn't to be sacrosanct or to hold to the fictional future people 50 years ago thought things would be like 20 years ago, like some Back to the Future wink and nod. It's to demonstrate that times can get hard, and things can indeed get bleak and dark. We can be pushed to the brink of extinction as we would so richly deserve for trying to wipe out our own kind for no good reason, as we are exhorted to do everyday by people who want to push terrible and heinous philosophies. That shit still rings true. And what happens after that? We are given 1 more chance, one last saving grace to make things right, to reach beyond our humble, wrecked home, and see if among the stars, we can learn to live in peace with people so much more vastly different than us, that it would beggar the modern person to think about. And when we do this, when learn to live in harmony, we are freed from need and plague and oh so many things that we were told were necessary for us deal with because there was no other way. But by embracing hope, and empathy, and yes by conferring with alien people who can give us physics-breaking tech, we can grow old petty grudges And find new grudges to make! and spread the the word to others.
How is that not relevant to today? Who cares that the timeline bumps around a little cause they don't have literal oracles writing the show? The best sci-fi doesn't give a shit about rigorous fact-checking or monk-like adherence to whatever lore it's trying to tell, the point of good sci-fi is to talk about the human condition here and now, and how we can potentially make ourselves better as people to sail the stars, meet new life, and maybe not be so alone in this cold, cold universe. How is wanting that ideal, want to aspire to that and showing us the consequences of our folly now a bad thing? It's a harsh honesty, but it's hardly out of line for Star Trek to make this case in this manner.
Matev on
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
After the ending of Picard season 2 sit with me for a couple days, my thoughts: (is it still "current" enough that I should put this in spoilers?)
I think they had a bunch of good ideas for story points, that never really came or fit together all that well. For the main plot line of Picard coming to terms with his past enough to let someone love him, it seems at the end of the day that it was too similar to All Good Things... (Q testing Picard to see if he could change) and that they really didn't tread much new ground. Specifically, All Good Things... worked better as a journey for Picard had to change his own actions in the different timelines that echoed his internal changes. Here, it was mostly just Picard going back to his home (in the past) and which triggered the memories, but then just kinda had to work through them? This really didn't give us much in the way of much to watch happening with him, which I think is why the ending didn't land all that well to me, since the "act" to show us that he's changed was letting not-Laris go on a suicide mission, which is much more about giving up control than about letting someone in to your life, no matter how much that not-Laris speech tried to conflate the two.
The whole Q dieing was another potentially good idea, but because Q was actually not in the show all that much, he kinda just set the dominos falling, and kind of stayed in the background, till the end. And the parts where he did actively interfere, were to directly against Picard, and not seemingly any way that would really help him? Like in All Good Things, Q sets up the challenge/task, but along the way actually is helping Picard subtlety pointing him towards the solution, and along the way you always not quite sure what Q is up to. Picard figuring out that Q was dieing would have been much better than Q just blurting it out.
All in all, it was ... ok, I think? Tried to jam too many plot lines into too few episodes, and things came out rather half-baked I'd say.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
+4
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Hey, neat, I didn't know that the they got a visually impaired actor to play Hemmer.
As for Hemmer, Horak can’t reveal too much of what is in store for Season 1. When interviewed for TrekMovie.com, the actor disagreed with the interviewer’s assertion that the character was a “little cranky” and a “bit of a curmudgeon.” No, Horak countered, he is just always correct.
He said he took inspiration from something his engineer brother, Steve, once said.
“He gave me this great phrase, which was ‘as an engineer, there are only two things in the world I can’t fix: A broken heart and stupid.'”
I have a lot of friends who are engineers. A lot of us went on a holiday recently, and it's a sight to behold when there's a while group of people who think they're always right about everything.
And why wouldn't they be, would the do something that's wrong?
I was thinking of Bashir making an artificial brain for Vedek Berial and being like, "Well I guess I don't HAVE to give him a hyper intelligent galaxy brain but I'm going to be putting the same computer in there anyway."
Star Trek's optimism has always being tempered by the message that our current political reality isn't just not utopian but actively opposed to ST's version of it.
The Jan 6th footage fits into that vibe just as much as the post nuke war court TNG shows folks.
yeah, Trek history has both Humans and Vulcans deciding on their present courses after surviving a suicide attempt.
and realizing that the next one would probably succeed. so, uh, let's not do that.
I found the speech and imagery at end of SNW especially poignant given that every single day there is a threat of nuclear annihilation thrown about, because one old man is upset his attempted genocide is failing
yeah, Trek history has both Humans and Vulcans deciding on their present courses after surviving a suicide attempt.
and realizing that the next one would probably succeed. so, uh, let's not do that.
The main problem is that there are way too many people willing to Slim Pickens this bitch.
Hubris, whether it's a belief that they can win a nuclear war, or profit from constantly expanding militarism (and climate destruction), or are intentionally trying to bring on the End Times, and their hordes of minions backing them, make any lasting peace nigh impossible.
The problem with the Star Trek utopia, is the belief that the people most likely to ride out the suicide attempt, are going to enmasse change their perspectives, is naive. If the only survivors of this are Thiel, Bezos and Musk, at least one of them will be looking around for a rock to brain the other two.
Like Pike said, everyone in their hearts tend to truly believe that they'll survive these things, right up until the end. You say there'll be a 99% fatality rate, and they assume they'll be the 1%.
yeah, Trek history has both Humans and Vulcans deciding on their present courses after surviving a suicide attempt.
and realizing that the next one would probably succeed. so, uh, let's not do that.
The main problem is that there are way too many people willing to Slim Pickens this bitch.
Hubris, whether it's a belief that they can win a nuclear war, or profit from constantly expanding militarism (and climate destruction), or are intentionally trying to bring on the End Times, and their hordes of minions backing them, make any lasting peace nigh impossible.
The problem with the Star Trek utopia, is the belief that the people most likely to ride out the suicide attempt, are going to enmasse change their perspectives, is naive. If the only survivors of this are Thiel, Bezos and Musk, at least one of them will be looking around for a rock to brain the other two.
I don't think that's a problem with Star Trek's utopia. Because the background of how you get from today to Star Trek is not really relevant. It just kind of exists because something has to in exist there in your fake future-history. Star Trek has never really been about the transition because a bunch of 60s or 80s-90s-2000s or whatever TV writers don't know how to fix the world.
Star Trek just assumes it happens and goes from there.
Looked at another way, there are plenty of timelines where the Vulcan survey team clucks their tongues sadly while logging our solar system and the radioactive cinder that used to be the Class-M world third out from the star, and plenty more where that radioactive cinder doesn’t get cataloged at all because Vulcan, too, is a glowing tomb.
But we don’t spend much, if any, effort examining those timelines because there’s nothing much to learn about ourselves in them.
The problem is that once a work of fiction mentions something that happened in its past, people are going to want more details about it, and eventually to see it themselves.
Mention a war? People are going to want to know when it happened, how it happened, what kind of weapons were used, and so on.
Picking a date in the 90s was a pretty safe bet for TOS, no-one expected it to end up pushing them into a corner decades later when they had to explain it.
The problem is that once a work of fiction mentions something that happened in its past, people are going to want more details about it, and eventually to see it themselves. Mention a war? People are going to want to know when it happened, how it happened, what kind of weapons were used, and so on.
Picking a date in the 90s was a pretty safe bet for TOS, no-one expected it to end up pushing them into a corner decades later when they had to explain it.
On that subject, I've said I feel like they're heading towards some kind of Eugenics Wars thing, but... I still feel like we're owed an Earth-Romulus War after Enterprise got us all set up and then hit the fast forward button to the for the finale.
The problem is that once a work of fiction mentions something that happened in its past, people are going to want more details about it, and eventually to see it themselves.
Mention a war? People are going to want to know when it happened, how it happened, what kind of weapons were used, and so on.
Picking a date in the 90s was a pretty safe bet for TOS, no-one expected it to end up pushing them into a corner decades later when they had to explain it.
Yeah, but some fans always get overly obsessed with meaningless details of a fictional setting. That's why wookieepedia exists. You don't need to cater to those people, nor generally should you.
The problem is that once a work of fiction mentions something that happened in its past, people are going to want more details about it, and eventually to see it themselves. Mention a war? People are going to want to know when it happened, how it happened, what kind of weapons were used, and so on.
Picking a date in the 90s was a pretty safe bet for TOS, no-one expected it to end up pushing them into a corner decades later when they had to explain it.
On that subject, I've said I feel like they're heading towards some kind of Eugenics Wars thing, but... I still feel like we're owed an Earth-Romulus War after Enterprise got us all set up and then hit the fast forward button to the for the finale.
IMO, the Enterprise novels are as close as we're going to get. One more possibility/opportunity squandered.
The problem is that once a work of fiction mentions something that happened in its past, people are going to want more details about it, and eventually to see it themselves.
Mention a war? People are going to want to know when it happened, how it happened, what kind of weapons were used, and so on.
Picking a date in the 90s was a pretty safe bet for TOS, no-one expected it to end up pushing them into a corner decades later when they had to explain it.
Yeah, but some fans always get overly obsessed with meaningless details of a fictional setting. That's why wookieepedia exists. You don't need to cater to those people, nor generally should you.
And Star Trek mostly has an out on that.
"Most of the records from that time were lost, what little we know are the horror stories passed down by word of mouth."
While I love Avery Brooks, and he can do no wrong, doing the timetravel to the Bell Riots just felt like going into too much detail on something best left as a vague turning point of history.
A 'records were lost' excuse gets harder to believe as technology improves, though. Like, how would modern day records get destroyed? You'd have to start with planet-covering EMPs and/or a massive computer virus, then build from there. Also everyone who knows how to read and write dies.
The only way to make it plausible is to really go in on the level and scale of destruction, which ends up elaborating on the details you want to keep to a minimum in the first place.
I think Futurama covered it best: All digital records from that time were erased by the second coming of Jesus.
My point isn't that the obsessive fans beg for the details, it's that once you dangle it out there, pretty much everyone wants to know more on some level. Some of them are in charge of making the thing. We wondered what the Clone Wars were that Obi-Wan fought in, we kept hearing about the Time War that wiped out the Daleks except for all the ones it didn't.
A 'records were lost' excuse gets harder to believe as technology improves, though. Like, how would modern day records get destroyed? You'd have to start with planet-covering EMPs and/or a massive computer virus, then build from there. Also everyone who knows how to read and write dies.
The only way to make it plausible is to really go in on the level and scale of destruction, which ends up elaborating on the details you want to keep to a minimum in the first place.
I think Futurama covered it best: All digital records from that time were erased by the second coming of Jesus.
My point isn't that the obsessive fans beg for the details, it's that once you dangle it out there, pretty much everyone wants to know more on some level. Some of them are in charge of making the thing. We wondered what the Clone Wars were that Obi-Wan fought in, we kept hearing about the Time War that wiped out the Daleks except for all the ones it didn't.
I think it is more most records were lost. You get stories and tales. And some incomplete records.
Considering WWIII is a nuclear war this all plausible.
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Yeah, I have to assume so too. The pronoun conversation is the exact one I've had with many people, except Adira dosent have to keep reminding folks to use they/them
Also I was kicking myself when I realized the S3 finalee was holodeck episodes, just played seriously
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I am thrilled with the current Star Trek trend of using the Kobayashi Maru for what it was always meant to be. Bad things are going to happen so get used to it. It has also highlighted the flaws of the two Captains showing they are not prepared for the sacrifices that are yet to come. Prodigy hasn't paid that off yet, but I am guessing Discovery does before seasons end.
I am also jamming on Adira doing a Wesley like story. They are clearly brilliant, and even has justification beyond them being amazing. Their struggle being more internal adolescent self doubt leading to some minor head butting has been really nice.
I just wish there was more time in a season. I am just a dinosaur in that way I suppose. I much prefer 20 episodes to 10 even with the trade-offs that would entail. Such is life.
I had to pause the episode after that cause I was laughing so fucking hard.
Hemmer has had two scenes and has been very done with other people's bullshit for both of them
He is a genius.
@Gnizmo I think a consistent piece of feedback on Disco has been it needed more time to breathe. It's something that two episodes in, Strange New Worlds has been fantastic at. They spent what, Ten minutes before they rolled the opening credits and most of that was dedicated to the Captain's Table scene and just.. getting to know the crew. It was great.
SNW in general is comming across like the everyone involved spent a long time going through the criticsms of Disco with a fine toothed comb and figuring out where the genuine issues were in pacing, character development, character spotlight. I've been very impressed (and hopefully, it speaks of good things for Disco season 5). Thoguh S5 of Disco is only getting 10 episodes (Same as SNW, seems to be their standard order. Boo!)
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SNW first episode was a big miss for me. Everyone seems to be enjoying it so I think I will keep most of my thoughts to myself. I haven't gotten around to trying the second episode yet. I will at some point, but I am enjoying Discovery way better so it is getting pushed back.
I also disliked episode 1 but really liked episode 2.
You don't get to show the audience video recording of everything and everyone they've ever loved being obliterated in an instant and still call yourself an optimistic, hopeful show. Get the fuck out of here.
Edit: I also just didn't think the plot/pacing was very good even though first contact gone awry is an inherently interesting story. Characters at least were neat so it was ok as a pilot I guess.
Also edit: I mentioned I liked episode 2 a lot more. No spoilers it's just solid Star Trek show formula, modernized and well done. Good stuff.
But humanity survived. It endured, and learned from the mistakes of the past, to come together and reach for the stars to do better and in fact, help others potentially avoid the mistakes we made.
That's optimistic af to me, looking at humanity as it is now.
People were literally training kids to hide under their desks in case the very real possibility of a nuclear conflagration happened.
Part of Star Trek's optimism is tied to the fact that it took humanity nearly obliterating itself before it finally wised up. Things didn't just magically get better; people had to witness just had bad it could get before deciding on a different path, away from greed and bigotry.
Oh yes, absolutely. It is why I don't want to make a thing of it. I hope it is the perfectly perfect show that a lot of y'all have been craving. I am super thrilled with how much Trek there is flying around out there. I remember grudgingly going through Discovery, and eventually caving on trying that Seth MacFarlane fake Trek* because it had been over a decade since Enterprise. Now I can justify having a streaming service because it sure feels like we are going to start having a new Trek episode every week of the year. That is insane! Peak Trek before was 2 series at the same time! This is an embarrassment of riches I never want to end! There is more than enough space for us to have SNW for me to maybe reluctantly watch when I have free time and a new season of Picard for everyone else to hate while I fangirl out all super excited over everything it is doing. In the end, we will all be united by our shared love. Lower Decks!
*Once I got past my reflexive hatred of Seth MacFarlane I found the show extremely enjoyable. I just wanted to paint a picture of the landscape I saw at the time.
Yeah, i way prefer the SNW style of optimism where it's argument is "Despite things going bad, we can rebuild and do better". Fuck this grimdark everything is terrible humans are beasts run by their base instincts game-of-thrones esque bullshit. Show me how we can be BETTER
Also, yes, it is dark, but like... fuck the Jan 6 stuff was and is hella dark, and i dont even live in America. As to the picard point... i would argue that's more Picard being badly written (Sorry Gnizmo!) than anything else.
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*Don't try to change my mind. You won't succeed.
All seriousness, part of the reason Picard does nothign for me is it feels like it in general hinges on you caring about well, Picard. And having never watched TNG (I think my earliest trek exposure is a few random Voy episodes, then Galaxy Quest, then the abrams movies, and i only really started watching seriously with the advent of DISCO)... i have like no connection to the character, other than "Yeah, Patrick Stewart's a damn fine actor".
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But now, it feels like a far way to fall so long after the cold war is over, even considering current conflagrations (which the writers wouldn't have known about when they were writing these shows). Holding to it is creating a mess because Star Trek cannot decide if its time travel stories want to live in our actual world or a made up one. I super don't blame Picard's writers for this because trying to grapple with the made up history of nuclear annihilation would be extremely distracting to the contemporary story and events they actually want to comment on. In the before-times any Star Trek outing that time traveled to the present was just simply set in that present, regardless of anything else. And that like... was never a problem. Because every random viewer knows what their own world looks like, whereas many less will know the Star Trek canon to the degree of knowing whatever was supposed to have happened - honestly even I'm not sure what the backstory actually is at this point, since it is already vague and retconned at some point after TOS anyway.
But I'm saying these ideas don't hold water anymore. They're minor details in terms of how the Federation actually exists on screen and should be adjustable with the times. Picard writers made the right choice to ignore it, because if they make Rios say that he doesn't want to live in 2024 because he faces imminent nuclear annihilation, or they have to move out to the woods or something, that is too fucking dark man and adds a huge extraneous element to an otherwise pretty ok story! Bringing this idea to the forefront as a major plot point for the pilot is just super depressing and awkward and it seems between the two shows the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.
Sure, we're not pointing nukes at the Russians and having serious talks about armageddon on big phones, but that's because the nature of our conflict has changed and morphed. The enemy of the 21st century isn't the Soviet, but funny enough as Star Trek predicted in previous series, our lack of empathy for those less fortunate than ourselves. Everyday we are bombarded with messages that we are exceptional, that we will be great again, so long as we harden our hearts and shed the weakness of the other, shed the burden of empathizing with those who don't look and think like us.
The point of the timeline or our place in it isn't to be sacrosanct or to hold to the fictional future people 50 years ago thought things would be like 20 years ago, like some Back to the Future wink and nod. It's to demonstrate that times can get hard, and things can indeed get bleak and dark. We can be pushed to the brink of extinction as we would so richly deserve for trying to wipe out our own kind for no good reason, as we are exhorted to do everyday by people who want to push terrible and heinous philosophies. That shit still rings true. And what happens after that? We are given 1 more chance, one last saving grace to make things right, to reach beyond our humble, wrecked home, and see if among the stars, we can learn to live in peace with people so much more vastly different than us, that it would beggar the modern person to think about. And when we do this, when learn to live in harmony, we are freed from need and plague and oh so many things that we were told were necessary for us deal with because there was no other way. But by embracing hope, and empathy, and yes by conferring with alien people who can give us physics-breaking tech, we can grow old petty grudges And find new grudges to make! and spread the the word to others.
How is that not relevant to today? Who cares that the timeline bumps around a little cause they don't have literal oracles writing the show? The best sci-fi doesn't give a shit about rigorous fact-checking or monk-like adherence to whatever lore it's trying to tell, the point of good sci-fi is to talk about the human condition here and now, and how we can potentially make ourselves better as people to sail the stars, meet new life, and maybe not be so alone in this cold, cold universe. How is wanting that ideal, want to aspire to that and showing us the consequences of our folly now a bad thing? It's a harsh honesty, but it's hardly out of line for Star Trek to make this case in this manner.
The whole Q dieing was another potentially good idea, but because Q was actually not in the show all that much, he kinda just set the dominos falling, and kind of stayed in the background, till the end. And the parts where he did actively interfere, were to directly against Picard, and not seemingly any way that would really help him? Like in All Good Things, Q sets up the challenge/task, but along the way actually is helping Picard subtlety pointing him towards the solution, and along the way you always not quite sure what Q is up to. Picard figuring out that Q was dieing would have been much better than Q just blurting it out.
All in all, it was ... ok, I think? Tried to jam too many plot lines into too few episodes, and things came out rather half-baked I'd say.
https://calgaryherald.com/entertainment/television/new-frontier-calgarys-bruce-horak-becomes-first-legally-blind-actor-to-star-in-a-star-trek-series-with-strange-new-worlds
And why wouldn't they be, would the do something that's wrong?
Engineer: double owned
The Jan 6th footage fits into that vibe just as much as the post nuke war court TNG shows folks.
and realizing that the next one would probably succeed. so, uh, let's not do that.
The main problem is that there are way too many people willing to Slim Pickens this bitch.
Hubris, whether it's a belief that they can win a nuclear war, or profit from constantly expanding militarism (and climate destruction), or are intentionally trying to bring on the End Times, and their hordes of minions backing them, make any lasting peace nigh impossible.
The problem with the Star Trek utopia, is the belief that the people most likely to ride out the suicide attempt, are going to enmasse change their perspectives, is naive. If the only survivors of this are Thiel, Bezos and Musk, at least one of them will be looking around for a rock to brain the other two.
I don't think that's a problem with Star Trek's utopia. Because the background of how you get from today to Star Trek is not really relevant. It just kind of exists because something has to in exist there in your fake future-history. Star Trek has never really been about the transition because a bunch of 60s or 80s-90s-2000s or whatever TV writers don't know how to fix the world.
Star Trek just assumes it happens and goes from there.
But we don’t spend much, if any, effort examining those timelines because there’s nothing much to learn about ourselves in them.
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Mention a war? People are going to want to know when it happened, how it happened, what kind of weapons were used, and so on.
Picking a date in the 90s was a pretty safe bet for TOS, no-one expected it to end up pushing them into a corner decades later when they had to explain it.
On that subject, I've said I feel like they're heading towards some kind of Eugenics Wars thing, but... I still feel like we're owed an Earth-Romulus War after Enterprise got us all set up and then hit the fast forward button to the for the finale.
Yeah, but some fans always get overly obsessed with meaningless details of a fictional setting. That's why wookieepedia exists. You don't need to cater to those people, nor generally should you.
IMO, the Enterprise novels are as close as we're going to get. One more possibility/opportunity squandered.
And Star Trek mostly has an out on that.
"Most of the records from that time were lost, what little we know are the horror stories passed down by word of mouth."
While I love Avery Brooks, and he can do no wrong, doing the timetravel to the Bell Riots just felt like going into too much detail on something best left as a vague turning point of history.
The only way to make it plausible is to really go in on the level and scale of destruction, which ends up elaborating on the details you want to keep to a minimum in the first place.
I think Futurama covered it best: All digital records from that time were erased by the second coming of Jesus.
My point isn't that the obsessive fans beg for the details, it's that once you dangle it out there, pretty much everyone wants to know more on some level. Some of them are in charge of making the thing. We wondered what the Clone Wars were that Obi-Wan fought in, we kept hearing about the Time War that wiped out the Daleks except for all the ones it didn't.
I think it is more most records were lost. You get stories and tales. And some incomplete records.
Considering WWIII is a nuclear war this all plausible.