Star Trek Strange New Worlds (Season 2)

[CharlesPhipps]

The Orville was the Trek replacement. Now we'll have to find something else.

I initially liked the Orville but grew to hate it when it stopped trying to be funny.

[Madner Kami]

I and a lot of other Trek-Fans simply have moved on. This isn't Trek, it's just a mockery of what we grew up with and what we're looking for in SciFi. Shows like The Expanse have become our bread and butter. This rehashed nonsense is for a generation that is happy to grow up with what some 60 years old CEO thinks they are happy with, because the nerds back then were happy with, supported by a network of writers and showrunners who can't come up with anything new by themselves if you'd put a gun to their heads, but still somehow insist on inflicting their narcisstic god-complex on everyone and everything.

The Expanse illustrates the problems I've got with too many programmes these days. It's no Trek replacement. I gave up on it after finding it full of unlikeable characters who are all busy trying to stab each other in the back and generally be unpleasant, with another lump of misery coming along every time it looked like something positive might happen, all getting in the way to the much more interesting sci-fi stuff that mostly seemed to be there as a backdrop for depressing politics and depressing characters.

I didn't use the word replacement for a good reason. And though I don't agree with you, I understand your concern. We're lacking a show that deals with a humanity that left their violent past behind and tries to maintain a Utopia in a universe of adversity, a humanity that tries to find and follow an enlightened path, despite the inner demons. What we get is a humanity being faced by their very live-action cartoon parody characters, while having to pretend it's all serious and real and a show about moral quandries and debate, sliding into a musical.

[Frustration]

I initially liked the Orville but grew to hate it when it stopped trying to be funny.

I loved it, although I did miss the humor when they diminished it in favor of drama. But it was *good* drama, intelligent and thoughtful, even when I disagreed with it.

Star Trek has taken the opposite track of making crazy assertions and then (implicitly, or sometimes explicitly) declaring that anyone who doesn't agree is a monster.

[SiskosMuthaFknPmphnd]

Nice to see Strange New Worlds is following the fine Star Trek tradition of the writers not knowing what the fuck deuterium is. Lets save the deuterium aliens by blowing up a deuterium refinery right in the middle of the highly volatile deuterium rich nebula. I'm sure that won't end badly.

[clearspira]

I initially liked the Orville but grew to hate it when it stopped trying to be funny.

I loved it, although I did miss the humor when they diminished it in favor of drama. But it was *good* drama, intelligent and thoughtful, even when I disagreed with it.

Star Trek has taken the opposite track of making crazy assertions and then (implicitly, or sometimes explicitly) declaring that anyone who doesn't agree is a monster.

The drama that we got with The Orville was what we would have gotten if Star Trek hadn't ended in 2005 and had actually lasted into 2023.

The Like/Dislike world, the 21st century smart phone that they found in a time capsule that led to one of the crewmembers falling in love with a holo-recreation of the photos, getting a second chance with a younger version of your wife, the girl from the all-male planet being forced to have a sex change.

Sigh. The Orville is a real tragedy of our time. It was kicked in the balls by Covid and then shot in the heart by Disney. We could easily have had five seasons of this show. Time to file it away in that sad archive of sci-fi shows cancelled before their time alongside Firefly and Space Above and Beyond.

And the irony. The effing irony of being born in the universe where The Orville got serious not long before ''Pike'' and ''Spock'' and the rest of the ''Enterprise crew'' were singing and dancing. Bet no one expected that when Seth McFarlane was pratting around in The Orville's pilot episode.

[clearspira]

I and a lot of other Trek-Fans simply have moved on. This isn't Trek, it's just a mockery of what we grew up with and what we're looking for in SciFi. Shows like The Expanse have become our bread and butter. This rehashed nonsense is for a generation that is happy to grow up with what some 60 years old CEO thinks they are happy with, because the nerds back then were happy with, supported by a network of writers and showrunners who can't come up with anything new by themselves if you'd put a gun to their heads, but still somehow insist on inflicting their narcisstic god-complex on everyone and everything.

The Expanse illustrates the problems I've got with too many programmes these days. It's no Trek replacement. I gave up on it after finding it full of unlikeable characters who are all busy trying to stab each other in the back and generally be unpleasant, with another lump of misery coming along every time it looked like something positive might happen, all getting in the way to the much more interesting sci-fi stuff that mostly seemed to be there as a backdrop for depressing politics and depressing characters.

I didn't use the word replacement for a good reason. And though I don't agree with you, I understand your concern. We're lacking a show that deals with a humanity that left their violent past behind and tries to maintain a Utopia in a universe of adversity, a humanity that tries to find and follow an enlightened path, despite the inner demons. What we get is a humanity being faced by their very live-action cartoon parody characters, while having to pretend it's all serious and real and a show about moral quandries and debate, sliding into a musical.

I saw a video on Youtube earlier pointing out the big problem with Henry Cavill's Superman: the hero famous for his compassion, his warmth, his endless optimism; is now a brooding asshole who wears dark colours, puts thousands of innocent lives in jeopardy through collateral damage, and murdered Zod when he could have sent him to the Phantom Zone. And we all know what Snyder's ''vision'' for the Man of Steel sequel was by now: Superman turning evil and murdering the planet just because Lois died.

I bring this up because the justification for turning Superman evil from Snyder and co is that people just do not want traditional superheroes post 9/11. I'm serious. The ''Superman Returns'' Superman was even kind of like that too with the darkened colours and abandoning his kid. This is the era of ''24'' torturing people, the reboot Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Universe and Christian Bale's Batman. Star Trek clearly fell into the exact same trap.

And if this sounds like the plot to Superman V The Elite you are right.

But I would argue the exact god damn reverse. We NEED hopeful heroes now more than ever. To show that in our dark world there is light. We need hopeful Superman just as we need hopeful Star Trek. I had hoped Strange New Worlds would be a step in that direction after the dark as F Star Trek Picard but it isn't. Plenty of Gorn eating people from the inside out though - y'know, that race that was created as a parody of racism and forgiveness of one's enemies? Yeah...

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Captain America is still on the roster.

[Frustration]

Captain America died of old age after going back to his own time - the time he was suited for, not the modern age he (very politely and patiently) hated.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I will admit that SNW did the Gorn dirty. I still like it overall and think that its strengths outweigh its flaws, and I still liked the singing episode. Calling it the final straw is a bit dramatic.

I'd also say there's been a tension between the Federation as a Utopia to aspire to and the Federation as a lens for critiquing our dominant culture since DS9.

[clearspira]

I will admit that SNW did the Gorn dirty. I still like it overall and think that its strengths outweigh its flaws, and I still liked the singing episode. Calling it the final straw is a bit dramatic.

I'd also say there's been a tension between the Federation as a Utopia to aspire to and the Federation as a lens for critiquing our dominant culture since DS9.

Execution is everything. TOS gave us ''black on one side, white on the other''. TNG gave us ''Measure of a Man''. Deep Space Nine gave us ''Far Beyond The Stars'' and the sanctuary districts. And Strange New Worlds gave us... footage of Trump voters and how they were responsible for World War 3!

One of these is not like the other one.

Politics has always been part of Trek, absolutely, no question. But it was done with just a little bit more skill than the ideologues who are writing it today.