Star Trek: The Wrath of Fans

[Jaxom 1974]

3 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I’d always assumed it was canon since it was announced, although I can’t find a source now. 

It being canon isn't exactly an issue.  It's how it treats the canon It's part of.  Playing with existing story parts and such to examine the humor of them...i.e. playing up transporter incidents that create duplicates or send you to another universe?  That's (probably) good writing.  Dping something with the trope that doesn't jive with what already exists like switching minds/genders for laughs? Probably not.  

I think that makes sense...

2 hours ago, Rhom said:

So I would presume than that we consider the JJ-verse to be a part of the canon along the lines of the Mirror Verse and the Enterprise C timeline?  

Technically JJs vision is canon...rot him.  That he had Prime Spock transport to another universe is one reason, but then having the Picard series pick up and use the whole Romulan homeworld being destroyed just gave it too much validity.  If not for Picard, the JJverse could likely have been quietly forgotten...

[john]

Lower Decks looks and sounds just like Final Space to me. I was surprised that shows creator wasn’t involved. Apparently it’s a Rick and Marty staffer running it.

[Werthead]

18 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Hmmmm...hadn't considered the Canon question.  I suppose that could impact how I view this show. 

However, in a wider Trek universe, where there is the seriousness of TNG and DS9, can there be room for a comedy show set in that universe?  The Orville is an interesting take on the concept, but the earliest episodes that seemed to want to focus on the humor, and not the substance, weren't as good.  Once MacFarlane decided to balance the comedy by making it an element of the show, rather than a driving force, the show found its footing. 

TNG had episodes like Justice and Genesis that were so awful as to be borderline unwatchable (and blatantly racist in Justice's case) yet they're still counted as part of the canon. DS9 had outright comedy episodes - Little Green Men, the James Bond pastiches, most of the Mirror Universe episodes, Trials and Tribbleations - that could have had laughter tracks. The humour is a little broader and more exaggerated but it's not like Trek has ever been po-faced and miserable for any consistent period of time.

[Jaxom 1974]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

TNG had episodes like Justice and Genesis that were so awful as to be borderline unwatchable (and blatantly racist in Justice's case) yet they're still counted as part of the canon. DS9 had outright comedy episodes - Little Green Men, the James Bond pastiches, most of the Mirror Universe episodes, Trials and Tribbleations - that could have had laughter tracks. The humour is a little broader and more exaggerated but it's not like Trek has ever been po-faced and miserable for any consistent period of time.

You mean, "Code of Honor" as the blatantly racist episode, right?  I mean, "Justice" is blatantly anti Wesley, and anti material for guest star clothing, but racist...?  

And yeah, comedy exists in Trek.  I never meant to imply it wasn't. But it isn't the core of Trek.  (Trek without it in some facet of the general makeup isn't as good, in my opinion.)  Inwas positing if you could do a proper sitcom in the universe of Trek.  And could said comedy exist within the existing cannon...?

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

You mean, "Code of Honor" as the blatantly racist episode, right?  I mean, "Justice" is blatantly anti Wesley, and anti material for guest star clothing, but racist...?  

And yeah, comedy exists in Trek.  I never meant to imply it wasn't. But it isn't the core of Trek.  (Trek without it in some facet of the general makeup isn't as good, in my opinion.)  Inwas positing if you could do a proper sitcom in the universe of Trek.  And could said comedy exist within the existing cannon...?

I suspect the best thing to do is for the show to simply not do anything canon-relevant at all and not really deal with the question.

The original animated series was surprisingly serious (or about as serious as TOS itself was), so they didn't really have that tonal issue to deal with.

[RumHam]

Genesis is weird as hell, but it probably wouldn't crack my top ten of terrible TNG episodes. It's no "Beverly fucks a candle ghost" or most of the first two seasons. 

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

Genesis is weird as hell, but it probably wouldn't crack my top ten of terrible TNG episodes. It's no "Beverly fucks a candle ghost" or most of the first two seasons. 

Season 7 is surprisingly weak. It has a few good episodes on a par with the show's golden period (Lower Decks, The Pegasus, maybe the finale, although for more its enthusiasm than content) but it's really not that far behind Seasons 1 and 2 in the weak-as-hell stakes. A whole ton of mediocre and forgettable episodes with the odd gem (Parallels is okay as well, and Gambit is dumb fun). Also a few episodes they tried to do something different which just didn't work (the one with Data and the crazy masks, the one where Troi gets turned into a cake). You could tell they were running on fumes by that point.

[RumHam]

I wonder was part of that because writers had moved on to DS9 and pre-production on Voyager? Or just normal running out of steam / ideas. 

[Jaxom 1974]

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

I suspect the best thing to do is for the show to simply not do anything canon-relevant at all and not really deal with the question.

The original animated series was surprisingly serious (or about as serious as TOS itself was), so they didn't really have that tonal issue to deal with.

That's a fair assessment.  You, I, and a number of folks around here are quite capable of separating the two things, actual canon and a comedy playing in the canon's sandbox.  I want to believe most Trek fans are better than other Fandoms, but you know the first time another show's episodes are referenced or a TNG character appears, some canon nut is going tontry to ensure it makes sense in the realm of what exists and ruin the overall enjoyment of the whole thing for everyone.  :p

[Aemon Stark]

50 minutes ago, RumHam said:

I wonder was part of that because writers had moved on to DS9 and pre-production on Voyager? Or just normal running out of steam / ideas. 

I don't really know whether there's a good explanation. TNG was always sufficiently episodic that it didn't really maintain many long story/character arcs. This was particularly an issue by later in Season 6 after which they'd seemingly finished off story threads or characters like the Borg or Lore. It suffered similarly because of the absence of recurring characters like Guinan, O'Brien (gone to DS9) and Ro Laren (apart from one fairly strong episode near the end), no ongoing arcs like Season 4's Klingon/Romulan intrigue, and generally a lot of weirdness. Aside from Masks, there's stuff like Emergence, variably successful family-based character episodes for Geordi, Data, and Picard/Crusher (all fairly forgettable), melodrama (Eye of the Beholder, Liasons ("Love me!!!!"), an episode about Picard's fake son (zzzz), out-of-the-blue Worf-Troi romance, on-the-nose-but-unsuccessful allegory (Homeward, Force of Nature, Journey's End), and scifi schlock (Genesis, Sub Rosa). 

There are a few nice quiet episodes, though, like Thine Own Self (Data in Renaissance town = Frankenstein) and Dark Page (surprisingly effective Lwaxana episode), and a few standouts as mentioned (mainly Parallels, The Pegasus, Lower Decks, Preemptive Strike, and of course All Good Things). But somehow it never really comes together, and in retrospect suffers a lot next to DS9's Season 2 where the characters really started to gel and which introduced more dimensions and story threads involving Bajoran *and* Cardassian politics/society, recurring characters (Garak!), the Bashir/O'Brien friendship, the Mirror Universe, the Maquis, Klingons from TOS, and capped it all by showing us the Jem'Hadar and the Dominion. It was a meaty and arguably foundational season. While I really have enjoyed watching Discovery and Picard, I really miss that kind of dense character writing and storytelling in Trek. Though, to be fair, we haven't really had it since What You Leave Behind. 

[karaddin]

I was hoping that the new status quo for Discovery was going to give them more time to take a step back and settle in with the bridge crew etc, but I guess with what we know of peoples situation at the start of the season that's probably less likely.

On TNG running out of steam, I guess that's one of the advantages of more serialized story telling - DS9 didn't have to come up with as many completely original stories since the main (and most compelling) story lasted for basically the entire show. I'd say S7 of that qualifies as going out on a high. It probably would have run out of steam had it continued after that point though, its also a nice demonstration of knowing when you've finished telling your story. Trying to reset and tell a smaller story after building that over 7 seasons is a really hard pivot to pull off.

[Werthead]

 

13 hours ago, RumHam said:

I wonder was part of that because writers had moved on to DS9 and pre-production on Voyager? Or just normal running out of steam / ideas. 

Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor had already decamped to Voyager. DS9 mostly had a lot of freelancers who hadn't contributed to TNG for years, so it was less of an issue. Moore and Braga were distracted by the movie and were much less hands-on in the S7 writer's room, which I think was a problem: Moore had a very strong bullshit filter (at least he did before BSG Season 3 came around) and often shot down "standard Star Trek bullshit" episode ideas before they had a chance to percolate (so did Behr, so between him and Moore on post-S2 DS9 they were able to stop almost every single cliched script idea getting through, although the odd one did), and Braga tended to back him up, although as we see on Voyager he was pretty capable of releasing that kind of bullshit on his own.

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It probably would have run out of steam had it continued after that point though, its also a nice demonstration of knowing when you've finished telling your story. Trying to reset and tell a smaller story after building that over 7 seasons is a really hard pivot to pull off.

Or even four, as Babylon 5 can attest.

[Derfel Cadarn]

14 hours ago, Werthead said:

Season 7 is surprisingly weak. It has a few good episodes on a par with the show's golden period (Lower Decks, The Pegasus, maybe the finale, although for more its enthusiasm than content) but it's really not that far behind Seasons 1 and 2 in the weak-as-hell stakes. A whole ton of mediocre and forgettable episodes with the odd gem (Parallels is okay as well, and Gambit is dumb fun). Also a few episodes they tried to do something different which just didn't work (the one with Data and the crazy masks, the one where Troi gets turned into a cake). You could tell they were running on fumes by that point.

Crusher and her female ancestors being seduced by a ghost was presumably the point the fumes ran out...

[RumHam]

https://www.startrek.com/news/introducing-a-fully-functional-star-trek-tricorder

Personally I'll hold out for the fully functional replicator and just make my own. 

[Aemon Stark]

Just saying, but do they realize the, um, double entendre inherent to "fully functional" ("programmed in multiple techniques")?

[DaveSumm]

“Star Trek: Prodigy”

Apparently what this franchise needs is a second animated show, on the lawless fringes of the Federation (like Picard) but with teenagers? Colour me ... not particular intrigued.

[Aemon Stark]

Too many shows at once...

Also, isn't "Star Trek: Prodigy" basically "Star Trek: Wesley Crusher"?

[Heartofice]

What numbers are they using to understand the apparent huge appetite for Star Trek shows? 
 

To be fair I haven’t been paying attention to how well Discovery or Picard have been doing but I gave up on both quite early after realising they were not good. 
 

Are they trying to get as much milk out of the ST cow before they shoot it? 
 

I’m wondering if the Trek Universe is really all that interesting, the latest iterations of it don’t really appear to jump out at me as something I’d want to explore more of 

[RumHam]

I guess oversaturation can be a problem, but I bet it's overstated. Especially when it comes to content on streaming services that many of us are binging through in a week or so. (or wait, all access releases them one at a time don't they.) 

If the shows are good by all means give me as many as you can. The problem has been they're not very good. At some point Kurtzman will be juggling so many shows his input on some of them has to decrease, and that can only be a good thing. 

I am very interested in season three of Discovery though. I love the cast and when it works it can be quite enjoyable. 

Edit: I just really hope they're in the future and it's not some "oh no we have to go back and prevent this timeline" thing. 

[Werthead]

CBS All Access has been unexpectedly successful, with subscriptions being way ahead of what they were projecting, and apparently their market research has said that new Star Trek stuff is the reason, so they're just reinforcing that approach.

I don't think this kind of oversaturation is going to be helpful in the long run though, and there's already signs of fatigue even among fans of the new material (in particular, nobody seems interested in Section 31 as a series, even a mini-series). There's also some signs that overseas sales have become harder to come by, with Lower Decks still without a UK transmission partner several weeks out from US transmission (although to be fair, the show was moved dramatically up the production schedule and it sounds like foreign sales had not been looked at by that point).