DIS: “Will You Take My Hand?”

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Well yeah, I read about how TNG started out trying to follow in the footsteps of TOS with a regularly expected away team, but kinda shifted things around a bit and that shook up the dynamics.

I watched Voyager in order, then watched it a second time in mostly randomized fashion, just picking episodes based on which character they're focusing on (wikipedia was helpful for that). It's a hit.

With this show, yeah they pumped some money into it for sure. I agree with Chuck that the show is devoid of joy. It's hard to tell for sure, but with a character like Michael, she really needs a lot more showing than telling. That includes dialog of her own.

[Karha of Honor]

Well yeah, I read about how TNG started out trying to follow in the footsteps of TOS with a regularly expected away team, but kinda shifted things around a bit and that shook up the dynamics.

I watched Voyager in order, then watched it a second time in mostly randomized fashion, just picking episodes based on which character they're focusing on (wikipedia was helpful for that). It's a hit.

With this show, yeah they pumped some money into it for sure. I agree with Chuck that the show is devoid of joy. It's hard to tell for sure, but with a character like Michael, she really needs a lot more showing than telling. That includes dialog of her own.

Than they have to drop the raised by emotionless Vulcans part or she needs to evolve quick...

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Well yeah, I read about how TNG started out trying to follow in the footsteps of TOS with a regularly expected away team, but kinda shifted things around a bit and that shook up the dynamics.

I watched Voyager in order, then watched it a second time in mostly randomized fashion, just picking episodes based on which character they're focusing on (wikipedia was helpful for that). It's a hit.

With this show, yeah they pumped some money into it for sure. I agree with Chuck that the show is devoid of joy. It's hard to tell for sure, but with a character like Michael, she really needs a lot more showing than telling. That includes dialog of her own.

Than they have to drop the raised by emotionless Vulcans part or she needs to evolve quick...

I just remember her being like a wide-eyed cat in a lot of scenes. She has confidence when she escalates a war of course, but there's always this weird sense of unease with her that I didn't feel was necessary. A bit of mixed signaling, but even that wouldn't have been an issue if they kept her hands busy more.

[bluebydefault]

I have to say for me this show already had a strike against it for being a prequel. I still gave it a shot and couldn't finish it. I have even more disappointment for show runners and executives that think most trek fans can't get away from earlier shows or that we only want fan service and references. It really bugs me because it stifles any attempt to grow this universe. Honestly, they could have spent half the money and as long as it was well written I would have been happy. Nice special effects are like extra frosting on a cake. It makes it a bit sweeter. But you can't spread it on a turd to make it taste any better.

And set it in the damn future already! Nothing seems right when prequels look nicer than TOS. They clearly wanted to have a special effects extravaganza so why set it at a time in this universe where all that is pretty limited (i.e no button and knob consoles and the holograms) Especially if this is part of the main continuity and not Kelvin (which kinda gets a pass for all that cause its seperate)

I mean set up your characters let them fly on their own and then in like the second season have a fun fan service episode with Admiral Picard or Captain Riker or Captain LaForge. Maybe we can see that B4 has evolved and is like Data but different. But don't let them out stay their welcome! I know if I was a writer I would feel trapped thinking that everything I did had to be directly referencing something or couldn't stray too far from this or that. They really don't realize that while we love Kirk, Spock, Picard, and the Enterprise we love the universe its set in too. It's appealing and it feels like the thing that has been forgotten the most.

[Enterprising]

Joyless is definitely the biggest issue with STD, there's very little in it to get excited about, in part due to the lack of any decent characters beyond Lorca, and a couple of others in occasional flashes. The chaos and disjointedness behind the scenes likely a big factor in that as well. When the number of producers and executive producers are well above the number of cast members, you know there's going to be a lot of problems.

I just don't even get what it is they're going for here, and what they want the show to be, or be about. TOS was wagon train to the stars, STV was exploring the unknown while finding a road home, STE was showing how the foundations got laid. Mileage will vary on how well or not those got executed, but at least the very core premise of them were clear.

If you took out the insignia and the TOS sounds used, you wouldn't be able to tell from watching that it was even a Star Trek show. If even feels like they really grudge using the visual and audio that they do just to confirm to folk that this is indeed meant to be a Star Trek show that's running. Changing or refreshing things is fine, to the point where it is almost completely unrecognisable isn't. It just comes across as doing you're own thing, and using Star Trek as "brand recognition" to ensure at least some people will watch it.

After repeatedly saying beforehand we wouldn't ever see Spock or the Enterprise in STD, we of course are now, and that tells me the powers that be are getting quite desperate for more people to watch it. "Come watch our show now please, we've put Spock and Pike in it now, it must be your Star Trek!"

I'm completely dismayed CBS is tripling down on all of this, and throwing huge pots of gold into it in the process. Enterprise under the stewardship of Coto at 5x the budget gets me excited at the mere thought of it. In contrast, the thought of flash in the pan Kurtzman being given a free hand and blank cheque gives me a migraine.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

and there is also the fact that Spock never mentioned his adoptive sister. and I hope the creators never use Spock not mentioning Sybock till he showed up in the fifth movie as a precedent because that would be dumb.

[Karha of Honor]

I have to say for me this show already had a strike against it for being a prequel. I still gave it a shot and couldn't finish it. I have even more disappointment for show runners and executives that think most trek fans can't get away from earlier shows or that we only want fan service and references. It really bugs me because it stifles any attempt to grow this universe.

I think they need to forge their path and create great drama if it grows the universe or not.

[SuccubusYuri]

and there is also the fact that Spock never mentioned his adoptive sister. and I hope the creators never use Spock not mentioning Sybock till he showed up in the fifth movie as a precedent because that would be dumb.

Star Trek V: The Special Edition:

"I have a half brother. And an adopted sister. And a second cousin who's part Andorian. And a golden retriever named Max. And a timeshare on Ferengenar. Jim, I thought we were friends?"

[TheLibrarian]

Don't forget, they recently announced another animated series in addition to Lower Decks. Lower Decks is (as I understand it) supposed to be more adult while the other series will be either aimed to kids or at least kid friendly.

CBS really does seem to be in a "throw it all at the wall and see what sticks" mode regarding Trek.

Any studio or production company that owns IP is doing this now. The viewership pie is being cut into ever more thinner slices, the traditional advertising revenue streams are drying up, the number of streaming services on offer are forcing people to make hard choices, kids seem to prefer watching YouTube goofballs or playing battle-royale games to television right at the age where traditional media locks in fans for life, adult fans are too busy juggling multiple jobs and worrying how they're going to make rent to buy a lot of merch. The only major studio that's thriving in all this is Disney, through its Expanded Universe/keep-remaking-nostalgia-properties model. That's why everyone else is playing copycat.

I mean you could probably call Orville as fanficy in the same vein as The Force Awakens.

It's worse. Neither Michael nor Rey are Mary Sues, since there's no one with any creative control on those projects they could possibly be author self-inserts of. But Ed Mercer is 110% a Mary Sue.

I'm highly speculative on whether Orville has better writing than Discovery.

It didn't. Discovery had a writers room trying to juggle:

• the need to respect canon to avoid pissing off the hardcore Trekkies (always a losing proposition)

• having to do that while making a prequel to TOS that overlapped with established TOS backstory

• try and expand Trek's appeal to the non-hardcore fanbase

• acknowledge that TV writing has changed a lot since the 90s syndication boom and most viewers are going to bring that baggage with them

• launch a streaming service for a TV network that in over two decades hasn't managed to sustain any series that wasn't a police/legal/medical drama or Chuck Lorre sitcom, much less touch anything genre and

• acknowledge that Trek has been coasting on TOS' reputation as the flagbearer of the progressive utopian future while successive Trek series have lagged way behind the rest of mainstream American culture in that regard

...and with all the troubled behind-the-scenes issues besides. Yeesh, it's lucky to have even been made.

The Orville meanwhile, had 3/4 of its episodes penned by a middle-aged nerd writing self-insert TNG fanfiction with bad comic timing and pop-culture references 15-20 years out of date. But maybe there's hope for it, since episodes 2 and 3 of the new season suggest that if they keep McFarlane away from the scripts and off-camera as much as possible, there's actually a decent show in there.

That aside, is the bomb still on the Klingon homeworld years later?

Someone probably found it and hid it in a place where nobody would ever find it and it couldn't harm anybody in the future: Praxis.

OK, it's early, but I think this wins the internet for this week.

[bluebydefault]

I have to say for me this show already had a strike against it for being a prequel. I still gave it a shot and couldn't finish it. I have even more disappointment for show runners and executives that think most trek fans can't get away from earlier shows or that we only want fan service and references. It really bugs me because it stifles any attempt to grow this universe.

I think they need to forge their path and create great drama if it grows the universe or not.

Its gonna grow the universe regardless.