The Human Adventure Continues: Talking About Star Trek

[WisteriaHysteria]

I have to groan when people recommend the Orville. It gets a lot of the superficial trappings of Berman-Trek down. But:

1) 80% of the time it just straight up lifts plots directly out of old Trek shows without even pretending to hide it. It's nakedly creatively bankrupt. If you're just going to remake this episode of Voyager, why don't I just go rewatch that better episode of Voyager instead?
2) It gets the spirit wrong sooooo much of the time. Be it incessant toilet humor, or watching the Beverly Crusher character get raped by a goo monster, the captain constantly slut-shaming his first officer/ex-wife in front of the rest of the crew, it's frequently problematic and dismal.
3) I'm pretty sure Seth MacFarlane is a sex-pest.

I would say there are plenty of moments in the SNW pilot where the pace slows down, you can breathe in the atmosphere, and it's just two or a handful of characters just having a conversation. It just isn't that the *whole* episode and picks up the intensity of things when there's action or conflict on screen.

 

[ArugulaZ]

Crass and derivative sounds pretty on-brand for Seth MacFarlane, so I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised.

 

[chud_666]

I have to groan when people recommend the Orville. It gets a lot of the superficial trappings of Berman-Trek down. But:

1) 80% of the time it just straight up lifts plots directly out of old Trek shows without even pretending to hide it. It's nakedly creatively bankrupt. If you're just going to remake this episode of Voyager, why don't I just go rewatch that better episode of Voyager instead?
2) It gets the spirit wrong sooooo much of the time. Be it incessant toilet humor, or watching the Beverly Crusher character get raped by a goo monster, the captain constantly slut-shaming his first officer/ex-wife in front of the rest of the crew, it's frequently problematic and dismal.
3) I'm pretty sure Seth MacFarlane is a sex-pest.

I would say there are plenty of moments in the SNW pilot where the pace slows down, you can breathe in the atmosphere, and it's just two or a handful of characters just having a conversation. It just isn't that the *whole* episode and picks up the intensity of things when there's action or conflict on screen.

It still rules though. I dislike Seth McFarlane in general, but show was cool. And yes it's the superficial resemblance... But I don't care? It was nice to have this alternative take for a couple of years.

As for SNW.. I have no complaints, but it is very much the style of the time (now). A lot of complaints about nutrek is that it is stylistically dissimilar to the Berman era. And while I love that era, glad we've moved on.

In closing:
Orville:
Look: Yes / Spirit: No

SNW
Look: No/ Spirit: Yes

 

[Alixsar]

It's episodic, but in the new design and feel of NU. MCU quips, overly WIZ BANG wonder (i'm here for it, but none of that "TNG" feel: slower pace, debate based, chamber drama?)

So it's cool and I recommend - but if you want that early 90s trek feel, watch or re-watch Orville.

Okay cool, will pass. Give me slow paced morality plays or give me something else to watch

Orville...I never watched because I'd heard such wildly WILDLY mixed things about it, and some of that is already popping up in this thread. In general I'm not a fan of McFarlane, though I do know that he loves Star Trek and could see him wanting to do a good job, but the entire show's marketing campaign was "GET READY FOR POOP BALLS *fart* ON FOX" so like...even if that's just bad promoting, the fact that toilet humor is in there is really unappealing. I dunno, I can't be bothered.

 

[chud_666]

I think you should at least check SNW out. The story is a morality play. But if I can give one word to describe TNG's style it's "staid". This isn't that.

 

[Aleryn]

That was a relief. Spoiler zoned Strange New Worlds and came out of the first episode liking it a lot. Enjoyed Pike from the moment I saw him in DISCO, and that prolly counts for a lot. Spock too! I really really hope they don't botch Nurse Chapel (runaway fav so far,) I can hear her saying "but.. did you die? " after some nonsense relating to medical stuff and demand it, hehehe.

 

[JBear]

So I just watched episode 1 of this new Star Trek thing. I really liked it! It was initially a bit off-putting that it is very obviously in continuity with a show that I didn't watch (Discovery), but other than that, it was just... Star Trek. Too shiny, and maybe 20% more tongue-in-cheek than old Trek, but this is the first Star Trek property since Voyager ended that has felt like Star Trek to me.

 

[chud_666]

So I just watched episode 1 of this new Star Trek thing. I really liked it! It was initially a bit off-putting that it is very obviously in continuity with a show that I didn't watch (Discovery), but other than that, it was just... Star Trek. Too shiny, and maybe 20% more tongue-in-cheek than old Trek, but this is the first Star Trek property since Voyager ended that has felt like Star Trek to me.

Only thing you gotta know is

Spoiler

he sees his "The Menagerie" fate in an EP of discovery. And discovery shot into the future at end of disc S2.

And both of these things adequately explained in the EP!

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Yes, you don't actually have to have seen Disco.

 

[Alixsar]

I think you should at least check SNW out. The story is a morality play. But if I can give one word to describe TNG's style it's "staid". This isn't that.

I am still EXTREMELY dubious about it, but I looked into it and I guess they're gonna put the first episode up for free on Youtube tomorrow. They did the same thing for Picard's first few season 1 episodes. I don't wanna sign up for ANOTHER streaming service if I don't have to so I'll check it out sometime soon. Expectations are low! Will they be met??? Tune in next time to find out!

 

[chud_666]

DO IT

 

[Aleryn]

Just watch it, I'd say that episode will prolly summarize things well enough to determine your take. I've sure seen worse.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Also Episode 2 was pretty decent

 

[Alixsar]

I really like that one of the first things they establish is Yes, Spock indeed DOES fuck and also his actor is ripped

Then they get on the Enterprise and there's a throwaway line of dialogue where Spock is EXTREMELY CASUALLY like "I'm fine, but I must confess that my sister's death* is making me feel a lot of feelings" and it's like...he's VULCAN????? No Vulcan would ever say that?????????????????????? Like yeah they have emotions but their entire THING is that they never ever admit to it and do every single thing they can to pretend that they don't???? And he's just like "fuckin'...yeah man, I'm sad" just right off the batttt?!?!!?

???
??

?@?@?/??? QUESTION MARKKKKKKKKK

hahahahaha what the fuck, man. I guess they're trying to establish that Spock is comfortable enough with Pike that he's willing to admit that to him, but also, they're just like IN A HALLWAY so literally anyone could hear and it feels weird to have an extremely On Guard At All Times™ character just casually blurt out something intensely personal in, like, a hallway with people in it. But also I don't trust these writers at all so maybe I'm just putting more thought into it than they did? Who knows. I'm like 15 minutes in and it's so far Fine™ but the cracks are already showing that it is indeed NuTrek™, so my expectations remain extremely low. Okay back to it

(Also the theme song is boring MCU shit, petty I know but you can't start off with The Speech™ and then go into generic ass MCU shit, come on)

* Presumably something that happened on Disco

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

"I'm fine, but I must confess that my sister's death* is making me feel a lot of feelings" and it's like...he's VULCAN????? No Vulcan would ever say that??????????????????????

I don't trust these writers at all so maybe I'm just putting more thought into it than they did? Who knows.

No offense, but the writers thought about it a lot more than you did.

Spock is only half-Vulcan, and has pretty consistently described himself as having had more trouble managing his emotions while growing up versus full Vulcans.

Spock also canonically displays a lot of emotions in the original TOS pilot "The Cage". Behind-the-scenes reasons being that the idea of Vulcans at that time hadn't been developed fully yet to include no-emotions/only-logic attributes that they're now famous for.

So the writers, wanting to both reconcile and respect this incongruity in canon decided hey, let's not just retcon this and pretend it never happened, let's explore Spock in his youth before he had mastered his emotions. And show how we went from "The Cage" to TOS proper.

* Presumably something that happened on Disco

Disco's main character, Michael Burnham, was adopted into Spock's household as a child. Spock was very close with Michael early on, but as you can imagine, a household headed by Father of the Century Sarek ended up messy, so they were somewhat estranged until Plot Events forced the two to interact and reconcile in Season 2. Season 2 also saw a grey goo near-apocalypse started by Section 31 threaten the galaxy, and the crew of the USS Discovery found themselves being forced to escape the galaxy by jumping 900 years into the future. And since this was a Section 31 catastrophe, it all got listed as Top Secret. Written out, it admittedly sounds hilariously messy and ridiculous, and it is, but the emotional resonance of it all was pretty well done. There's a reason why SNW ended up getting made, because the Pike/Spock/Enterprise bits of Season 2 of DISCO was really, really good.

 

[ArugulaZ]

I'm a fan of Yesteryear from the Star Trek animated series, because it dives back into Spock's past and reveals what he had to go through as a child of mixed lineage, and the events that shaped him as an adult. The voice acting for child Spock is a little flat, and he's dressed like Astro Boy for some reason, but overall I think the episode brings a lot to the Star Trek mythos. The creators of the recent films must have agreed, because they borrowed from it liberally in their Spock's origin story.

 

[FelixSH]

Watched the first episode. To get it out of the way, the irritating stuff was:
- agreed with Alixsar on the intro, that song sounds so weirdly generic-action-y, I think? Whatever.
- I never liked, that Discovery used Spock, because I never could separate him from Nemoy. I still don't like it, and wished they hadn't used that character. BUT I was happy to see Nurse Chapel (surprisingly, as I never cared too much about her, in TOS) and even happier to see Uhura here (who never got the time she deserved, in TOS). So I guess that hang-up with Spock is just me.
- I'll probably never get to terms with the fact, that shows now all look kinda like big-budget movies. Maybe that just looks to me that way, because I don't really watch much big budget stuff, so? I simply miss how tv shows looked in the 90s, but that ship has sailed long, long ago.

These small gripes out of the way, I really, really enjoyed waht I saw. Loved the very first scene, showing the First Contact from the point of few of the aliens., and it all DID feel like classic Trek to me. Slow and heady enough for me. Very much looking forward to more, it was really a big surprise, how much I enjoyed what I saw.

I realize that, despite my gripes being small, there is way more of them than of me gushing about how much I enjoyed the episode. I simply have trouble putting it into words. It feels like Trek, in a way I haven't experienced in a long time, like DISCO and PICARD didn't, not even Lower Decks. It feels old school, in a way, I think? Point is, I loved it, and simply don't really have the words to explain it in any sensible way.

 

[Alixsar]

Okay well aside from one minor thing that I'm not even gonna mention, thankfully the rest of the episode was good? I liked it? We'll see???? It is a little quippy and Dreamworks smug grin-y at times but not as bad as I expected. The stuff I already complained about were my biggest complaints. Not having a handle on Spock and/or not liking this version of Spock is KINDA a big deal, but whatever. I still think that the whole idea of the security officer being a descendant of Khan's is pretty dumb...like you could've made that character's backstory (sole survivor/loner/trust issues type) with literally anyone, but instead they went with THAT because they were like "oh people will recognize that name". Does not inspire a lot of confidence in future endeavors, but we'll see. It's not a bad starting point but Trek is ultimately only as good as the ideas-of-the-week are and how they work character work into that, so lots of room to fuck up as well. Expectations are slightly higher but still quite low. It does feel more like Trek than Disco and MASSIVELY more so than Picard (good Lord...). So yeah, cautiously optimistic. I'll wait till it's done and then chip away at it.

And Felix I ALSO hate how "slick" and "big budget" it looks, but as you said that ship sailed ages ago. Pike has a fucking fireplace in his quarters, what the fuck is this?

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Pike has a fucking fireplace in his quarters, what the fuck is this?

Doesn't strike me as any more ridiculous than Picard having a fish tank in his office but ok.

 

[YangusKhan]

Pike has a fucking fireplace in his quarters, what the fuck is this?

Doesn't strike me as any more ridiculous than Picard having a fish tank in his office but ok.

This is why Archer is the best captain, because he keeps a beagle in his quarters.

 

[chud_666]

Is this and Disc after The Cage? I forget where this lands

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

The Cage: 2254
DIS S2: 2257-58
SNW: 2259
TOS: 2265
The Menagerie: 2267

 

[chud_666]

Much obliged!

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

 

[ArugulaZ]

Of course it would have to be Threshold.

What bugs me is that every male character looks like idealized cartoon Shatner. I don't remember the artwork in the Filmation series being that generic, but if I went back to it I'd probably notice...

 

[Büge]

It's perfect. The goofy alien crew, the stiff, repetitive animation, the canned music, the smudgy cels... They captured the aesthetic just right.

 

[ArugulaZ]

Also, their version of the Holodoc looks more like Ron Howard than Robert Picardo. They Filmation-ed out his large, weary eyes and his fishy Picardo lips!

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Did they ever animate Beverly's sexy candle adventure?

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

"Star Trek Day" was today. Another arbitrary (56th anniversary of the franchise's first broadcast) day to celebrate the franchise and announce new stuff. Among it was:

Another trailer of the Final Season of Star Trek: Picard including a wonky USS Titan-A. It's scheduled to start in mid February.

A teaser of an episode to come later this season in Star Trek: Lower Decks

A preview clip of Star Trek: Prodigy and an announcement of when the 2nd part of the first season will begin airing again. (October 27th; which should also be the same day as the Season 3 Finale of Lower Decks)

A preveiw clip of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds featuring what appears to be a Lt Ortegas centric episode.

They also announced a radio-drama style podcast of the Nicholas Meyers pitch for a new Star Trek show about Khan during his exile on Ceti Alpha V.

So all-in-all a fruitful day.

 

[Voncaster]

I started watching TOS. The first episode the Man Trap was pretty good.

I like the horror mystery vibe of the TOS. The overly dramatic score is charming in an old school television way.

However, the pacing feels slow compared to modern TV and Trek.