Star Trek: The Wrath of Fans

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I do find the debates over what the true Trek tone should be to be interesting, especially since DS9 was considered to be too unTreklike in its day and since it could also be criticized for drawing on older shows to sell itself: seasons 1-2 in particular are full of characters from TNG. There also seems to be a lot of contradiction in the criticisms of Discovery, as being on the one hand too nostalgia driven (T'KUVMA!!!) but on the other too much doing things that make it not Trek. I can see how both criticisms can co-exist, as someone who watched Discovery season 1 but didn't love it; but I do wonder if there's any Trek that could be made that would please all fans.

So, the original series looked a bit naff. Then when TNG and The Motion Picture rolled around, Roddenberry had this idea that it didn’t really look like that, it looked like this. Klingons had ridges, things looked generally less shit. You’ll see fans point to this as an example of how Trek has always been fluid, that it changes all the time.

But then, crucially, this was abandoned. There were many examples of 90’s Trek reinforcing the old style (we see the bridge in Relics, obviously all of The Trouble with Tribbles) and from 1987 to 2005, we had a visually consistent universe that went to great lengths to make the TOS aesthetic fit. The entire production of Enterprise went into painstaking detail coming up with sets, props, costumes, ship design, that could believably evolve into what we see with Kirk and Spock. There’s a whole multi episode arc just to explain Klingon’s foreheads.

Then Discovery just bulldozed over this whole concept. It shoehorned its way in to a period that literally no fan had ever requested as a setting, and destroyed the visual continuity that had been set up. I know it sounds like a petty hill to die on, but damn it I was fond of that continuity, and the option was wide open to just leave it alone. Set Discovery 20 years after Voyager and be done with it.

So that’s my main beef with Discovery. The more common one is probably ‘thinky/explodey’. Old Trek was thinky, now it’s explodey.

[felice]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

I tried Blake's due to Farscape being heavily inspired by it, but bounced off the first episode. I think that was a middle of the night attempt though and not really a proper try like I gave to B5 so might be worth a proper try.

The first episode of B7 is very atypical, though I'm not at all confident that you'll appreciate the rest either. Is there any TV SF substantially older than Farscape that you do enjoy?

[karaddin]

8 minutes ago, felice said:

The first episode of B7 is very atypical, though I'm not at all confident that you'll appreciate the rest either. Is there any TV SF substantially older than Farscape that you do enjoy?

Other than DS9 which on the whole and some of TNG/Voyager I'm drawing blanks. I thought of myself as liking Sci Fi when I started watching some of Voyager as a teen when it aired but maybe that came more from the anime/cartoons and SF movies rather than any TV. And books for that matter.

I enjoyed SG1 enough to watch it when it's on but missed huge chunks of it as well and never went back, but that's a contemporary of Farscape anyway. Technically Lexx was before FS

I do have a weird thing with really disliking media (applies to music as well) that I perceive as being from shortly before "my time" which is probably part of the problem here. When I really like something I can get past it, but it's a barrier to entry. It's frustrating but on a subconscious level so hard to just override and ignore.

What are some other shows that you're thinking of? Definitely can't go near old Dr Who, but that's not really my wheel house even with the new seasons.

[karaddin]

Tried looking some up - I was leaving out Earth based Sci Fi as a completely separate bucket. Quantum Leap was on when I was actually young rather than a teen but I liked what I saw of it. Watched a fair bit of the X Files and enjoyed that too. Thought SeaQuest DSV was really good and is closer to space by being under the sea - I suspect I'd struggle with that one if I tried watching it again though. Never had any interest in Sliders.

I think that's it, so yeah I think you're actually on to something there.

[felice]

37 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I do have a weird thing with really disliking media (applies to music as well) that I perceive as being from shortly before "my time" which is probably part of the problem here. When I really like something I can get past it, but it's a barrier to entry. It's frustrating but on a subconscious level so hard to just override and ignore. What are some other shows that you're thinking of?

Hmmm... how about Quatermass? That's a lot before your time. Only the first two episodes of the original serial exist; it was broadcast live, and they gave up recording it after the second episode had a bug crawling around the screen they were filming off. The second and third serials do exist in full, and it's interesting seeing the improvements in production quality. Aside from early DW (you've tried Hartnell?) I'm not sure what else to suggest that wouldn't come across as too shortly before your time.

[karaddin]

15 minutes ago, felice said:

Hmmm... how about Quatermass? That's a lot before your time. Only the first two episodes of the original serial exist; it was broadcast live, and they gave up recording it after the second episode had a bug crawling around the screen they were filming off. The second and third serials do exist in full, and it's interesting seeing the improvements in production quality. Aside from early DW (you've tried Hartnell?) I'm not sure what else to suggest that wouldn't come across as too shortly before your time.

That's because its an irrational irritation that is extremely poorly defined haha. Its kinda like an itch that just sits there undermining any enjoyment. Even the earliest of DW trips it up because of early childhood memories of my oldest brother watching it, so the song gets stuck with the association. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing is just all part of a rebellion against him  he's very capitalist and tried to sway me, it didn't work lol.

[felice]

3 hours ago, karaddin said:

I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing is just all part of a rebellion against him  he's very capitalist and tried to sway me, it didn't work lol.

Good! Though DW doesn't tend to be very pro-capitalist as a rule. Not much SF is, really; you tend to get horrific corporate dystopias (I'm currently playing Outer Worlds, which falls very much into that category), or post-capitalist utopias like the Federation (to get back on topic) who aren't overly impressed with the Ferengi way of doing things.

[karaddin]

28 minutes ago, felice said:

Good! Though DW doesn't tend to be very pro-capitalist as a rule. Not much SF is, really; you tend to get horrific corporate dystopias (I'm currently playing Outer Worlds, which falls very much into that category), or post-capitalist utopias like the Federation (to get back on topic) who aren't overly impressed with the Ferengi way of doing things.

The unfortunate consequence of subconscious association haha, it doesn't care that the music isn't remotely Randian, he liked it and her liked her - therefore bad!

[Werthead]

The older Star Trek shows were as guilty, if not far moreso given the insanely huger number of episodes, as the new ones of not making sense, having a selective approach to continuity, having ridiculous asspulls, siblings showing up out of nowhere and talking about peace and diplomacy and then pulling out the phasers and blowing shit up (TNG was a huge outlier there in the number of times there was a peaceful solution to a problem). The nostalgia goggles are strong here.

That's not to excuse Discovery and Picard for not being better than they are, or as good as they could be. We've seen a lot of shows come strong out of the gate with excellent first seasons and there's no reason they couldn't have been like that, and there's certainly no reason for Discovery to have been a prequel. But there's a ridiculous amount of hate for two shows that have been heavily flawed but have not yet produced a season as shite as TNG's first two (remember the Outright Racist episodes, or the one with the Jogging Aryans, or the Outright Sexist ones, or the Exploding Head one?), or half or more of Voyager and Enterprise. Although I think both shows also do have the problem of trying to find new stories when there have been eight hundred hours of Star Trek exploring almost every conceivable combination of ethical/military/moral/scientific/medical dilemmas in space. At least Doctor Whos premise has much greater flexibility built into the concept, and they can completely reboot the show almost from scratch every five years or so.

I did decide to watch Lower Decks and it's much better than expected. Despite the fast pace (understandable in a 22-minute show) and occasionally zany humour, it does feel relatively TNG-era in tone and it uses is humour to highlight Star Trek tropes rather than just lazily take the mickey out of them. The "movie" episode is excellent for simultaneously riffing on both JJ-Trek (Iensflare! Everywhere!) and The Motion Picture (the extremely overlong shuttle flypast of the ship) and noting that the films have decidedly more plotholes than the TV shows ("It's a movie! You can beam whatever you want how far you want! It doesn't have to make sense!"). I also liked the idea that almost every Starfleet ship is getting into crazy hijinks every week but for some reason it's the Enterprise that gets all the publicity, and they even seemed to get a dig in at the Picard finale ("All the ships we see look the same!"). And of course all the fight scenes consisting of Shatner double-fist punches and kicks. They even got a reference in to the Chief O'Brien Waiting for Godot webcomic, and the idea that every ship they encounter of the same class as the Cerritos gets destroyed almost instantly (riffing on TNG and DS9 where the sole purpose of another Galaxy-class showing up is to get blown up).

[sifth]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The older Star Trek shows were as guilty, if not far moreso given the insanely huger number of episodes, as the new ones of not making sense, having a selective approach to continuity, having ridiculous asspulls, siblings showing up out of nowhere and talking about peace and diplomacy and then pulling out the phasers and blowing shit up (TNG was a huge outlier there in the number of times there was a peaceful solution to a problem). The nostalgia goggles are strong here.

 

Yes, but at least all of the other shows had the decency of only keeping the asspull sibling around for one or two episodes. They were never a main character or used as a means to start up a new show. Like I said in another post, Burnham is the equivalent of Janeway being Riker's long lost sister of Sisko being Geordi's long lost brother. I personally think it's better for a main character stand on their own two feet and not live in the shadow of someone else, but maybe that's just me.

Imagine if a knew Trek's show pitch was, "come see the amazing adventures of Captain Picard's cousin" or some crap like that. That's literally what Discovery is to me.

[Caligula_K3]

2 hours ago, sifth said:

Yes, but at least all of the other shows had the decency of only keeping the asspull sibling around for one or two episodes. They were never a main character or used as a means to start up a new show. Like I said in another post, Burnham is the equivalent of Janeway being Riker's long lost sister of Sisko being Geordi's long lost brother. I personally think it's better for a main character stand on their own two feet and not live in the shadow of someone else, but maybe that's just me.

Imagine if a knew Trek's show pitch was, "come see the amazing adventures of Captain Picard's cousin" or some crap like that. That's literally what Discovery is to me.

I know this is a slightly different situation, since it's not about being related, but isn't this exactly how DS9 starts? You're meant to be invested in Sisko from the start because Picard-Borg-Robot-Cube had killed his wife. Trust me, as someone who hadn't seen TNG, I was incredibly confused by all this- it was clearly meant to draw in TNG viewers, as was O'Brien being a main cast member, Worf joining in season 4, and the many, many cameos (including that episode where Riker's twin brother showed up for some reason). There are even some characters in DS9 who were in The Original Series (like old warrior Klingon dude).

I mean, when I watched Discovery a few years ago, I thought it was probably pretty weird and weak that Burnham was related to Spock somehow, but having seen DS9 now, it doesn't strike me as being that different from how Trek seems to have usually operated. And unlike DS9, the connections to past Trek series on Discovery were laid out more organically than a lot of the "hey, it's Q!" stuff in early DS9.

I think I'm with Wert on being bemused by the hate Discovery gets. Again, I didn't think season 1 was amazing or anything, but having now seen the first season of DS9, which I hear is usually considered the best first season of any Trek show since TOS, I would much rather rewatch Discover season 1 over that. Minus a few great episodes like Duet, of course.

 

[Jaxom 1974]

24 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I know this is a slightly different situation, since it's not about being related, but isn't this exactly how DS9 starts? You're meant to be invested in Sisko from the start because Picard-Borg-Robot-Cube had killed his wife. Trust me, as someone who hadn't seen TNG, I was incredibly confused by all this- it was clearly meant to draw in TNG viewers, as was O'Brien being a main cast member, Worf joining in season 4, and the many, many cameos (including that episode where Riker's twin brother showed up for some reason). There are even some characters in DS9 who were in The Original Series (like old warrior Klingon dude).

I mean, when I watched Discovery a few years ago, I thought it was probably pretty weird and weak that Burnham was related to Spock somehow, but having seen DS9 now, it doesn't strike me as being that different from how Trek seems to have usually operated. And unlike DS9, the connections to past Trek series on Discovery were laid out more organically than a lot of the "hey, it's Q!" stuff in early DS9.

I think I'm with Wert on being bemused by the hate Discovery gets. Again, I didn't think season 1 was amazing or anything, but having now seen the first season of DS9, which I hear is usually considered the best first season of any Trek show since TOS, I would much rather rewatch Discover season 1 over that. Minus a few great episodes like Duet, of course.

 

I don't hate Discovery. I find it's premise and story to be out of place and not really Trek.  Like JJs stuff, at best, it's an alternate universe in my head. 

[sifth]

1 hour ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I know this is a slightly different situation, since it's not about being related, but isn't this exactly how DS9 starts? You're meant to be invested in Sisko from the start because Picard-Borg-Robot-Cube had killed his wife. Trust me, as someone who hadn't seen TNG, I was incredibly confused by all this- it was clearly meant to draw in TNG viewers, as was O'Brien being a main cast member, Worf joining in season 4, and the many, many cameos (including that episode where Riker's twin brother showed up for some reason). There are even some characters in DS9 who were in The Original Series (like old warrior Klingon dude).

 

Not sure how Picard murdering Sisko's wife and Spock getting an asspull sister are even remotely related. As seen in The Best of Both Worlds part II Picard/Locutus killed thousands, possibly millions of people during the Battle of Wolf 359. Therefore it perfectly stands to reason that one of them could be Sisko's wife. Both Spock and his parents were prominent characters in Trek. The fact that out of nowhere they have a human sister/ward, just feels weird and lazy in comparison.

I'd argue the call backs on Discovery were handled much worse then DS9, since they kept them around for more then one episode, unlike Q and Riker's clone who were only around for one episode each; same with Picard. We get the Mirrior Universe introduced, just as we're getting to know the main characters still half way through season 1. On top of that, they completely asspull stuff like humans in the mirror universe have a hard time seeing in light places. I mean since when. We had mirror universe characters come into our reality on plenty of other occasions without this ever being a thing. Pike and Spock are main main characters in season 2......................because why not. I will say Pike is probably the best thing about New Trek and the only character that feels like a Star Trek character, so I'm alright with him, I just wish he wasn't a memberberry. That being said, they refused to even make the Enterprise look the same on Discovery, because apparently it no longer looked cool, so we get a knew model for one of the most iconic ships in science fiction just because Kurtzman thinks he can do better.

[RumHam]

The 'Burnham is Spock's sister' thing bothered me in season one, because it seemed like her story could have worked with any emotionally distant Vulcan parent. They justified it with season two I guess, though I thought season two on a whole was worse than one. (still the best two opening seasons of any Star Trek show)

I like Wert's suggestion a few pages back that the time travel has created a slightly different universe and in the main universe she died when she ran away on Vulcan. Much better than how they ended season two making Spock promise to never mention her or her ship again. That was a huge eyeroll moment. 

Pointlessly redesigning the most iconic alien race and making them look much worse bothers me more. Especially since if Worf shows up in Picard he's going to look normal. I'm over it, but if they went back to TNG klingons in season three for consistency with the other shows I'd be happy. Just please no arc explaining the change. 

 

[Werthead]

6 hours ago, sifth said:

Yes, but at least all of the other shows had the decency of only keeping the asspull sibling around for one or two episodes. They were never a main character or used as a means to start up a new show. Like I said in another post, Burnham is the equivalent of Janeway being Riker's long lost sister of Sisko being Geordi's long lost brother. I personally think it's better for a main character stand on their own two feet and not live in the shadow of someone else, but maybe that's just me.

Imagine if a knew Trek's show pitch was, "come see the amazing adventures of Captain Picard's cousin" or some crap like that. That's literally what Discovery is to me.

DS9 used a glorified extra from TNG to try to entice TNG watchers to watch the show. Voyager tried to use a very minor character from a TNG episode as its anchor point, until they realised they'd have to pay the writer a lot of money, so kept the actor and everything about the character and just changed his name. Tying one show into another is a thing they keep doing.

Quote

I like Wert's suggestion a few pages back that the time travel has created a slightly different universe and in the main universe she died when she ran away on Vulcan. Much better than how they ended season two making Spock promise to never mention her or her ship again. That was a huge eyeroll moment. 

I was pretty sure that's what they were going for with that storyline, but they didn't quite pull the trigger on it. I assume if it was their plan, they'd make much more of a song and dance about it, but who knows, it may have been their one concession to subtlety.

[sifth]

25 minutes ago, Werthead said:

DS9 used a glorified extra from TNG to try to entice TNG watchers to watch the show. Voyager tried to use a very minor character from a TNG episode as its anchor point, until they realised they'd have to pay the writer a lot of money, so kept the actor and everything about the character and just changed his name. Tying one show into another is a thing they keep doing.

Having a character on one show come over from another and asspulling a sibling out of existence because you want to tell the amazing stories of Spock's mysterious human sister, are two very different beasts.  Plus neither The Chief or Tom were the main characters on their shows. Sure they got episodes that centered around them, because back in the day Trek was allowed to have episodes that focused on other crew members. That being said Voyager was very much Janeway's show and DS9 was very much Sisko's show.

Maybe I would like Discovery more if every episode didn't focus on Burnham. Trek always worked better as an ensemble cast. DS9 was the master at this, giving us a Dominion episode one week and then a fun Quark episode the following week, followed by a slightly darker episode about Worf and the Klingon the week after that and so on.

[Aemon Stark]

Burnham is okay, but she's a very reactive character. She had a strong introduction but has always seemed very passive ever since. The Spock connection always seemed distracting and unnecessary. It also never made much sense and felt like a retcon. The bigger problem with Discovery and, ultimately, Picard was how scattershot the writing was. Redesigning the Klingons is all well and good, but long scenes of subtitled dialogue isn't, and the makeup made the actors seem to disappear. Imagine if Gowron had looked like that! 

[Werthead]

The first episode of Discovery S3 was reasonable (although its late segue into a Tuf Voyaging pastiche - complete with a cat! - was unexpected). They revisited the mission statement of the Federation, had some impressive visuals (the alien starport was either way over-designed for its 5 second appearance or they're coming back to it later on) and shed the remaining Season 2 storyline bits with appreciated haste. The location shooting was also among the best they've ever done. A reasonable start for a third season (bearing in mind almost every Trek show barring TOS and Voyager got dramatically better in their third season, so Discovery has some precedents to fulfil on this year).

This article was interesting. It doesn't impact Season 2 but the cost of COVID-proofing the franchise for the next few shows has worked out at around $300,000 an episode, which is bonkers. It makes you wonder how shows that don't have a budget of $7 million+ per episode like Discovery can cope.

[DaveSumm]

I’m intrigued by the concept of a warp-less Federation, but I’m a bit confused as to what they were doing to get back to his sanctuary ... it looked pretty fast whatever it was. Did he mention slipstreaming earlier in the episode? How far was this planet?

 

[Lord Varys]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

(although its late segue into a Tuf Voyaging pastiche - complete with a cat! - was unexpected).

I don't think that was an intentional reference. Could be wrong, though.