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The Human Adventure Continues: Talking About Star Trek
- Thread starter Johnny Unusual
- Start date
I've been really enjoying The Greatest Generation's Voyager podcasts. I almost quit listening to the pod when they got to DS9 because it really didn't click with them for a while (which is fine) and it seemed to keep them from having a discussion of the show other than "I wish this was TNG" (which is, to me, just not interesting to listen to). But they seem to really get Voyager, with really thoughtful pods on panned/hated episodes like Threshold, The Thaw, and Tuvix that avoid the pitfalls of the received wisdom about the series.
I will say that their TNG era has a very crass running joke about a lot of kind of weird accidentally suggestive scenes between Wesley and Picard that I also laughed at and joked with my husband about when I saw the show for the first time, totally independently of their podcast, before it even existed. While I thought it was funny because it was something that also stuck out to me, it was a joke they stopped doing upon request of their listenership. So, not for everyone due to that reason, but on the other hand if that's not an instant turn off they really clearly love the show and are great at talking about it.
DS9 era is IMHO also good but picks up once they get past their resistance to the show. The pod began basically as a "two friends who like TNG watch TNG" show, and continued because it was accidentally successful. There were growing pains in adjusting to become more than that.
Voyager has neither of those problems, in my opinion. If you want to hear two guys joke about Star Trek for an hour a week but also taking it pretty seriously, it's worth a try to see if it clicks.
edit: Also, my opinion is that Threshold is basically just an average episode of 90s Trek with an outsized reputation and Tuvix is great, probably one of my favorites.
DS9 era is IMHO also good but picks up once they get past their resistance to the show. The pod began basically as a "two friends who like TNG watch TNG" show, and continued because it was accidentally successful. There were growing pains in adjusting to become more than that.
Voyager has neither of those problems, in my opinion. If you want to hear two guys joke about Star Trek for an hour a week but also taking it pretty seriously, it's worth a try to see if it clicks.
edit: Also, my opinion is that Threshold is basically just an average episode of 90s Trek with an outsized reputation and Tuvix is great, probably one of my favorites.
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zonetrope
(he/him)
I love Greatest Gen and am a financial supporter on MaxFun, but it's worth noting that they're very much not shy about blue humor, in case that's a turn-off. But they're smart, quick-witted guys with actual experience in film, and I really like when they bring that knowledge into their analyses.
So I gamely *tried* to watch the season premier of Disco through Paramount+, but after getting nothing but unknown errors like ten times in a row I threw up my hands and downloaded it. This was with a brand new download of the P+ app to my TV too. Ugh.
Episode was great though! Although that ending after the earlier setup there was a real unsubtle knife twist, oof.
Episode was great though! Although that ending after the earlier setup there was a real unsubtle knife twist, oof.
Kirin, if you have Amazon Prime, get P+ as a channel through that instead and watch it through their interface. It's a lot easier to not have to deal with P+'s dumb interface/player.
If they subscribe to P+ as a standalone or through their own Amazon account, you wouldn't be able to watch it on your Amazon.
FIRST EP OF DISC 4 - VERY GOOD. Didn't love the cold open, reminds me of similar scenes in Into Darkness and Beyond. But rest was killer. I like the President a lot. HOWEVER where is Jet Reno? I NEED MORE TIG NOTARO
Less caps: I'm almost caught up on prodigy. I'm basically watching for Janeway. Show is weird. So internet tells me takes place more or less same period as LD, but why would Jankom not know about the federation. If he knows he is Tellarite, and references Tellar specific tech, culture... WTF
My thoughts is it may actually be at some point in future. Anyway - not crazy about this show. My son likes it though?
Less caps: I'm almost caught up on prodigy. I'm basically watching for Janeway. Show is weird. So internet tells me takes place more or less same period as LD, but why would Jankom not know about the federation. If he knows he is Tellarite, and references Tellar specific tech, culture... WTF
My thoughts is it may actually be at some point in future. Anyway - not crazy about this show. My son likes it though?
zonetrope
(he/him)
I think Prodigy is the first Trek show where I'm just going to accept that I'm not part of the target demographic and move on. It seems decent for what it is, but it's not the type of show I would watch if it didn't have Kate Mulgrew or the Trek branding. Which is fine, not everything has to be made for me.
Bit the bullet and subscribed to P+ via Amazon channels to get an actual working player. (Unsubbed Hulu, where we'd caught up on WWDitS, to keep just below the line of "paying for way too goddamn many streaming services at once".) Anyway, Disco continues to be awesome. Loving it. Also watched Wil Wheaton's talk thing which is included just for some more time with Sonequa. (Though as a tech geek who's worked in AR and tracking stuff, seeing the fucking enormous tracked video wall they built as a better-than-green-screen getting put together was also pretty fun.)
For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, this is the segment I believe Kirin is talking about:
Yeah 2nd episode didn’t hit on all cylinders like the first one did, but it was still generally a good time. I really like the Stamets/Book pairing actually. Stamets has been through a lot of shit and has mostly come out the other side by now. So it’s really wonderful and compassionate that he is willing to just be there and help Book by just being there for him in ways people who have never felt loss as acutely can’t do as intuitively. I’m very excited for where the show is going, can’t wait to see tonight’s episode at midnight.
It was tremendous! A little overly saccharine at times, but I thought poignant and the themes here relatable and useful.
I'm not entirely convinced there wasn't a better path open to the main guest character that didn't involve killing her friends and colleagues, but I do see the potential pitfalls in other options. I guess it would be hard to trust that the Federation could be totally discrete even if they were benign, but still.
Also I'd been meaning to post - Wist, weren't you complaining a while back about there not being more interspecies characters in future-timeline Trek? Cardassian/Bajoran/Human president of the Federation is quite a step forward there. Seems like we'll be seeing more of that going forward.
Also I'd been meaning to post - Wist, weren't you complaining a while back about there not being more interspecies characters in future-timeline Trek? Cardassian/Bajoran/Human president of the Federation is quite a step forward there. Seems like we'll be seeing more of that going forward.
That was never a "complaint" of mine. At most an observation. The showrunners said at the beginning of S3 that their goal with that season was to move things forward in time, but that they'd mostly keep the aliens we saw recognizable so that fans could have a softer transition into the 32nd Century. A 'some things change, some things stay the same' approach. Reading between the lines, they've clearly learned over the course of making the show that there's loud, vocal chunk of the fandom that has a very conservative mindset and cares more about aesthetics and maintaining a comfortable throughline with the setting and visuals than they do about actually exploring new concepts and ideas. And those fans need to be placated and handheld so they don't freak out and wet themselves just because you changed the way Klingons look a little bit. They also said that after S3 being an adjustment period, that they planned to feature and reflect more of the changes and syncretic nature of how the Federation has evolved over the 800 year gap.
Discovery is a lot of things, and whether or not it meets your personal expectations is ymmv. But one thing it's always been, is a show that has very openly communicated its intentions through supplementary media since day one, re: interviews, featurettes, youtube clips, etc. They've tried their hardest to explain to fans in very direct ways what they're doing and trying to accomplish regarding themes, structure, and how they're attempting to leave their stamp on this fictional universe. Go back to some of the first interviews with Sonequa Martin-Greene, and it's clear from even before the show began, the intention was always to show her character grow and evolve into someone who will one day take over the center chair, and as the main focal point of the show. They've so consistently told the truth regarding telegraphing what they're doing in the show broadly and within any given season, that I've come to trust when they tell us stuff, including their intentions on showing more interspecies characters as the show goes on. Ni'Var and "Unification III" was their test case in S3, and that was probably the best episode of the entire show to date. I assume that gave them the confidence to more fully pursue that direction going forward.
Speaking of the UFP President, I really really like them. They're very obviously playing on the audience's built in distrust of politicians with her, but so far she's been very level headed and wise. It's not hard to see why and where they're going with this. S3 played with this idea a little, but S4 seems to be embracing it as one of their main themes - the idea of trust in institutions and the good faith of our politicians. The show isn't necessarily saying we should trust OUR politicians, but rather showing us how things *should* be or *ought to* be. And so far it's fantastic. Because this is really how things ought to be in an enlightened and evolved future. I've read several opinions recently along the lines of the fact that one of the bigger draws of Star Trek is that it's, "competency porn" - in that it shows a workplace and society where people are just generally good at what they do, and things work as intended, and there's no bullshit workplace drama, or people who failed upwards, or nepotism, or whatever source of incompetence everyone endures in everyday life. And this is kind of more of that, but from the political angle. This is what politicians should be doing, how they should be acting, this is how government should represent and work for the people, etc. I love it. It's incredibly Star Trek, and lives up to the lofty ideals of the Federation and Gene's mega utopia that often get a lot of lip service and praise from fans, but we never really are afforded persistent looks at. (What with the primary setting of most Star Trek things being exploring the far reaches of space, far far away from Federation borders.)
Edit: To tie all of what I just said into what you said, Kirin:
It's also, IMO, a little moral parable about extremism. She was inclined to approach the situation from an extreme position and to take extreme measures precisely because she belongs to an extremist order whose practices and worldview teach that these kinds of actions are necessary. Within the context of the 24th Century Romulan society, we saw in TNG and Star Trek: Picard why the Qowat Milat and their version of extremism be necessary as a reactionary force against the extremes of normal Romulan society. But in the 32nd Century when Romulan society has been tempered and moderated by their shift in culture and worldview by integrating into Vulcan and the Federation, they're potentially an obsolete relic.
Discovery is a lot of things, and whether or not it meets your personal expectations is ymmv. But one thing it's always been, is a show that has very openly communicated its intentions through supplementary media since day one, re: interviews, featurettes, youtube clips, etc. They've tried their hardest to explain to fans in very direct ways what they're doing and trying to accomplish regarding themes, structure, and how they're attempting to leave their stamp on this fictional universe. Go back to some of the first interviews with Sonequa Martin-Greene, and it's clear from even before the show began, the intention was always to show her character grow and evolve into someone who will one day take over the center chair, and as the main focal point of the show. They've so consistently told the truth regarding telegraphing what they're doing in the show broadly and within any given season, that I've come to trust when they tell us stuff, including their intentions on showing more interspecies characters as the show goes on. Ni'Var and "Unification III" was their test case in S3, and that was probably the best episode of the entire show to date. I assume that gave them the confidence to more fully pursue that direction going forward.
Speaking of the UFP President, I really really like them. They're very obviously playing on the audience's built in distrust of politicians with her, but so far she's been very level headed and wise. It's not hard to see why and where they're going with this. S3 played with this idea a little, but S4 seems to be embracing it as one of their main themes - the idea of trust in institutions and the good faith of our politicians. The show isn't necessarily saying we should trust OUR politicians, but rather showing us how things *should* be or *ought to* be. And so far it's fantastic. Because this is really how things ought to be in an enlightened and evolved future. I've read several opinions recently along the lines of the fact that one of the bigger draws of Star Trek is that it's, "competency porn" - in that it shows a workplace and society where people are just generally good at what they do, and things work as intended, and there's no bullshit workplace drama, or people who failed upwards, or nepotism, or whatever source of incompetence everyone endures in everyday life. And this is kind of more of that, but from the political angle. This is what politicians should be doing, how they should be acting, this is how government should represent and work for the people, etc. I love it. It's incredibly Star Trek, and lives up to the lofty ideals of the Federation and Gene's mega utopia that often get a lot of lip service and praise from fans, but we never really are afforded persistent looks at. (What with the primary setting of most Star Trek things being exploring the far reaches of space, far far away from Federation borders.)
Edit: To tie all of what I just said into what you said, Kirin:
That's the whole point of that storyline, and it ties perfectly into what I was just saying. She didn't trust the Federation authorities to help, and thus a cavalcade of preventable tragedies ensued as a result. And maybe the pre-Burn, or immediate post-Burn Federation would have lived up to her poor expectations, but as Saru said in the first episode to his own peoples - this is a new era. And we can't keep dragging our old baggage along into the future because it'll just keep weighing us down. Had this rogue Qowat Milat approached things better, this tragedy might have been averted. And hopefully in the future, this even will engender more trust in the Federation and its institutions, so long as they keep being good faith stewards of this galactic society.
It's also, IMO, a little moral parable about extremism. She was inclined to approach the situation from an extreme position and to take extreme measures precisely because she belongs to an extremist order whose practices and worldview teach that these kinds of actions are necessary. Within the context of the 24th Century Romulan society, we saw in TNG and Star Trek: Picard why the Qowat Milat and their version of extremism be necessary as a reactionary force against the extremes of normal Romulan society. But in the 32nd Century when Romulan society has been tempered and moderated by their shift in culture and worldview by integrating into Vulcan and the Federation, they're potentially an obsolete relic.
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I'd like so see 32nd cent Klingons.
Gone from really devious and Taciturn Klingons, to T'Kuvma's traditionalist extremism, back to cold war Klingons, seemingly ending with death of Chang, then the powerful, but decadent society of 24th century, which vainly props itself up as warrior culture and honourable, but is in decline.
WHAT'S NEXT
Gone from really devious and Taciturn Klingons, to T'Kuvma's traditionalist extremism, back to cold war Klingons, seemingly ending with death of Chang, then the powerful, but decadent society of 24th century, which vainly props itself up as warrior culture and honourable, but is in decline.
WHAT'S NEXT
The writing was on the walls for this for a while now, but still sucky to see it happen:
trekmovie.com
All 5 Classic Star Trek Series Leaving Amazon Prime Video USA In January
But there's good news for 'Picard' and Prime International.
trekmovie.com
Yeah, like I said, writing has been on the walls for a while. It's probably less "finally gotten around to it" and more "patiently waiting for current contracts to expire before not renewing them".
This is just in the US for now. Crave will still get distribution rights in Canada for the foreseeable future, as long as Canadian law keeps nuTrek on Canadian distribution channels. I imagine they'll want the EU to follow suit eventually, but it'll be a while until they can get the rights and infrastructure set up in the EU to even merit a shift like this.
This is just in the US for now. Crave will still get distribution rights in Canada for the foreseeable future, as long as Canadian law keeps nuTrek on Canadian distribution channels. I imagine they'll want the EU to follow suit eventually, but it'll be a while until they can get the rights and infrastructure set up in the EU to even merit a shift like this.
I’m on someone else’s subscription, but that’s a bonus for a lot of folks.
FelixSH
(He/Him)
Yeah, I really hope the old Trek shows stay for some more time on Netflix here. I'm really not interested in needing another service for that.
