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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ve never got on with Enterprise. No affinfity for any of the characters.

Might look up its mirror eps and watch those in isolation though,

Oh its hugely over the top if you like that sort of thing - I do

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ve never got on with Enterprise. No affinfity for any of the characters.

Might look up its mirror eps and watch those in isolation though,

Oh its hugely over the top if you like that sort of thing - I do

That and the theme song and opening credits changed for the 2 parter.

Loved it!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ve never got on with Enterprise. No affinfity for any of the characters.

Might look up its mirror eps and watch those in isolation though,

If you've not seen them, you need to see the episodes featuring Shran (played by Jeffrey Combs) and the Andorians.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ve never got on with Enterprise. No affinfity for any of the characters.

Might look up its mirror eps and watch those in isolation though,

Oh its hugely over the top if you like that sort of thing - I do

Honestly, the whole season 4 of Enterprise is one of the best seasons in all of Trek, easily tied with other outstanding seasons like DS9 4 or 6, Voy 4, TNG 6th. I'd add SNW season 1 to the list as well and maybe Lower Decks Season 3. Honorable mention to both Prodigy seasons, because they had the best continous writing of New Trek.
So, if you don't want to watch all of it, maybe watch the pilot and then season 4 of Enterprise. But even the worst parts of Enterprise are sill leagues above anything Discovery where it's hard to find even a single good episode, I think the very first one is okay because of the nice klingon speach.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
To be honest? I’m willing to give Starfleet Academy a fair shake.

Disco going to the far future irritated me, because it felt like a cop out when they realised Absolutely Nobody Asked For Another Prequel. And then they horribly botched it, because the design aesthetic was ridiculous (programmable matter is silly. Your result floaty nacelles are silly. A crew used to now frankly archaic tech just….not having a problem catching up was silly).

But.

Doing a further forward future setting of course removes a lot of baggage compared to prequel and contemporaneous sequels in terms of Established Events and having to negotiate your plots around strongly established canon.

So the writers have greater freedom, which we can only hope (and/or pray if that’s your jam) they put to good use.

This is actually why I (not you, Into Darkness) give the J J Abrams ones a softer time. They at least had the sense to be a separate timeline, freeing them up somewhat.

Also encouraging is the focus being on Cadets, we can move past The Michael Burnham show and All Action All The Time and get back to Light Weight Philosophy Which Sometimes Does Heavy Weight Really Well.

No, that's true. It definitely better to be in the far future than the far past prequel era. I didn't have a problem with the far future setting (other than magnetized nacelles - that's stupid) it actually freed up the writers to do interesting things with the species we know. I guess I'm just hesitant becasue this really puts it in the Disco-verse. However, SNW succesfully escaped the Disco funk so you never know.

While Enterprise and Voyager were very frequently not very good, at least they seemed to understand Star Trek. Generally, they tried to keep to the essence of Trek, but often failed due to bad writing or, in Enterprise's case, an attempt to crowbar in the Temporal Cold War far too often.

In Voyager's case, my biggest problem is the missed opportunities in dealing with the tension between Starfleet's principles and the need to get home. Yes, there's a few episodes where it comes up but I always felt the resolutions were complete cop-outs. Speaking of cop-outs, making "Year of Hell" a couple of episodes instead of an entire season was one of the biggest misses of the whole series.

With Discovery, I always felt it just didn't understand Star Trek. It didn't try. You could transpose it to any generic SF universe and it would still work (i.e. be just as bad). Trek was always an ensemble show, even when the focus was mainly on Kirk, Spock and Bones. Discovery rapidly became tiresome and never recovered, even after it seemed to realise its mistakes.

I’m going to be a bold old Sosig, and suggest Star Trek is now defined by TNG more than TOS.

That’s the one I grew up with. That’s the one that has the really excellent episodes which ask interesting moral questions in sane and considered ways. And actually explores them.

And that, more than TOS, was an ensemble. Not a single main Bridge Crew character goes without often significant character development.

Discovery had its moments (Mirror Universe, Tilly’s over excited and unexpectedly sweary reaction to some cool new solution). But they’re very few, and incredibly far between.

Academy will, I’m sure we all hope, be a proper ensemble. A class of new recruits begs for that, as they get used to each other and what each brings to the table.

I don't think that's a bold take at all.

TNG, DS9, Voyager and honestly also Enterprise all followed very similar themes, concepts and styles.

The first 3 really cemented a style of true Trek.

TOS always stood as an outlier because cheaper budgets; less serious stories; far less continuation elements of story telling etc....

Heck I would say that Lower Decks is actually the only real time that something major in the ST continuity has tried to really bridge the Original Series into more main-line trek elements at large. The rest of the time you get the very odd throwback episode (eg the Tribble one in DS9) and some references; but predominantly a lot of TOS stuff is quietly ignored.
Not in a snide way just in a respect that whilst it established a lot it was also generally just a different style.

I grew up watching vhs copies of the Original Series (that and Peter Davidson Dr. Who).

I still go back and watch TOS (it's on TV 6 nights a week)... but I have trouble with the newer Star Trek series.

I just can't get into Discovery/SNW. I'm not like a lot of people who can't get past the giant USS Discovery (why is it bigger than the Enterprise-E?) - or the fluctuations in size of the Enterprise... that's all just nitpicky redditisms.

My issue is that the writing didn't feel like Trek. It felt like a generic shoot-em-up mobile game where the developers picked up the Star Trek license at the last moment and slapped some pretty Trek graphics on top and pushed it out on an unsuspecting fan base.

To me, the best written Trek, was Season 2+ of the Orville. Once the balance between humor and seriousness was balanced a little better, the show came into its own and told some really good Morality plays. Which at its heart is Roddenberry Star Trek.

Oh it’s definitely not fair to judge TOS by TNG standards.

Not only did you have much better budgets and effects? Sir Patrick Stewart just had no contemporary in TOS’ cast.

He’s an Actor, through and through. And so willing and able and I understand it actively encouraging more nuanced plots and moral quandaries.

Which is also why I like Picard, the series. I see it through the lens of Picard being as much a relic at that time as Kirk would’ve been in TNG. Both the Captains and personalities needed at the time, but very much of their time. And when The Federation and Star Fleet moved on? There just wasn’t the same call for their skill sets.

Kirk was more a man of action, one to whom the ends justifies the means.

Picard was a man of ethics, and would use that to guide him and his crew, and be able to articulately defend their actions, again based on ethics. The spirit, rather than the letter of the law.

Sisko is still my favourite Captain though,

Picard series suffers from the same problem the 7th Jedi film suffers from - all the changes to Picard/Luke happen "off screen" in a long time jump.


So a huge chunk is trying to reconnect to character who has changed. It's just like going to find an old friend from a few decades ago - yes they are still the same person but loads has changed and shifted.

Yeah I see that.

The first season was a bit of a waste to be honest, as that should’ve focussed more on Picard and what he’s lost.

Instead we get a not terribly convincing story of everyone just suddenly trusting Romulans in position of power, and secret paranoia over Androids. Despite not a single Romulan ever trying to specifically target Data in the past. Which you’d think would be top of their list?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The other thing?

Modern Trek has the same problem as Modern Dr Who. Both are trying to be different shows.

Whilst of course classic Dr Who has plenty of utter guff? It’s still noted for paced, serialised story telling, often with a history listen bent and some kind of moral message.

Modern Dr Who is more about building to a big (inevitably unsatisfactory “oh, he reset the universe. Again”) Grand Finale.

And honestly? Modern Trek is doing the same thing. Sod the individual episodes and actual lasting character development, when can we do the massive shoot out?

Picard Season 1 had some interesting stuff, characters and ideas - it also had some awful stuff - Oh look another super powerful robot alien race that might destroy the Federation - whats that about 30 of them who never interact with each other.

Agreed - they tried to create a new ST background and make a dark Federation - but not the Mirror Universe - although at least that's still there and Discovery did not suck all the fun out of it - not quite.

And it also introduced one of the most awful ST characters - Raffi.

The end episode was a great disappointment - especially the - hey you are old and dying - lets remake you in a robot body and give you all the awful side effects of ageing etc - thanks....

Season 2 limped along - sadly bringing back Raffi to ruin every episode she was in - seriously Seven - is your taste in women that bad! To make matters worse it bought back Guinan - another character I hate and the stupidly dumb idea that her race - who were assimilated by the Borg are somehow a threat to the Q.....

Did not watch S3

Do give S3 a try. I’m not gonna promise you’ll love it, but for my money it’s the best of the three.

Series 1 is the dark side of the Federation that we got a hint at in DS9

Series 2 is a move to wrap up Q, the Borg (for about the 3rd time) and Data in one go. My only complaint is that after cleaning up the Borg we don't revisit them in season 3

Series 3 is basically the fan-service one that everyone kinda wanted the first time around.


Also 3 ends with Seven flying off as a captain and I freaking want that to happen as a series.

The biggest issue is that Paramount was so desperate for a Picard show to hoover up hype spending that Patrick Stewart gave them a long list of demands that he fully expected to be shot down, and then they just flat out weren't.

It wasn't to be a TNG reunion show, Picard wasn't going to be wearing a uniform as his main costume, some other stuff that escapes me but is in Sir Patrick's autobiography.

And the studio was just like "Yeah OK man hurry up and get on set so we can start".
The story was still abysmal but it didn't start in the right place and it wasn't unit S3 that Patrick loosened the noose and ok'd the nostalgia fest.

If we'd had a series or even a few episodes between the end of Nemesis the film and Picard Season 1 I think it would have gone over smoother.

I still really enjoyed it, but I also fully accept that there's a lot of story gaps that you have to fill in and that there's a huge amount of off-camera change.
Heck even Picard just living with two romulans and building up to a relationship with one is a massive change of character.

It's not impossible, we just miss the connecting dots at the onset of the story. It also then is compounded by the fact that he's decades out of starfleet; he's much older and he's not the hero we recall from the TNG days.
So for a lot of people who just wanted a nostalgic trip it doesn't deliver.

That's not inherently a bad thing but yeah we should have seen his rise as Admiral and then all the fallout for the Romulans first hand followed up by him walking away. That would have made a killer season/twoseason series ending on a powerful low-note to then charge into "decades later" with the Picard series.


And yeah sometimes when you're asked to create something you need a healthy amount of pushback on ideas to sound off. I recall some hints that this was a problem with George Lucas and the newer starwars films he worked on. That everyone was afraid to challenge him; whilst with the original first 3 there was a lot more back and forth and pushback.

Yeah. I genuinely applaud the decision to have a real world time gap in Picard’s life twixt Nemesis and Picard S1.

Yes, they somewhat fumbled it, but I do think it provided more narrative room to explore the changes. They just should’ve done that sooner.

Soonger? I’ll get me cost.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yeah. I genuinely applaud the decision to have a real world time gap in Picard’s life twixt Nemesis and Picard S1.

Yes, they somewhat fumbled it, but I do think it provided more narrative room to explore the changes. They just should’ve done that sooner.

Soonger? I’ll get me cost.

We did get a comic book and a novel that filled in the gaps pretty well. They made the series a lot easier to enjoy right from the start.

Honestly I think going for older jaded Picard is absolutely fine, given the age Patrick Stewart is and all that.

It also did one thing I thought was done almost to perfection with his degenerative disease similar to dementia. That hit real close to home and the scenes where we see him at his most vulnerable are brilliant.

I think the main problem was that literally everyone we met was absolutely dog dirt miserable, not just Picard. The Rikers? Dead kid. Rafi? Depressed with substance abuse problem. Seven? Depressed because her pseudo-child got murdered. Rios? Depressed for reasons I can't remember. Jurati? Depressed because her lover is dead or something. The Romulan ninja is the only cheerful bugger among them and he's a bloody Romulan.

I'm not saying don't tell sad stories, it needs to happen, but hells horses pick a few not literally all of them all in one go.

Let me put on the asbestos suit before I say this but...

Disco gets better after the time jump and season 4.

Not quite good, but so much better.

I can see why folk enjoy those seasons more. Certainly the other crew get a bit more to do, and they’re free of the shackles of Established Occurences.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I can see why folk enjoy those seasons more. Certainly the other crew get a bit more to do, and they’re free of the shackles of Established Occurences.

And they don't need to try and worry about their huge fething supership that can outclass anything the galaxy can throw at it.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Let me put on the asbestos suit before I say this but...

Disco gets better after the time jump and season 4.

Not quite good, but so much better.

ALL of Disco's problems would have been solved by having it START there. It certainly would have prevented all the resentment that fomented due to it breaking canon left and right.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Let me put on the asbestos suit before I say this but...

Disco gets better after the time jump and season 4.

Not quite good, but so much better.

Those seasons are better, but in the same way going from smoking non filtered cigarettes to light cigarettes is sort of healthier.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Let me put on the asbestos suit before I say this but...

Disco gets better after the time jump and season 4.

Not quite good, but so much better.

It totally does. I actually think the worst ST Series is Picard. I guess that's my hot take.

No hotter than my distaste for Lower Decks, and outright refusal to watch The Orville.

Yeah, but you’re A Fool.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
No hotter than my distaste for Lower Decks, and outright refusal to watch The Orville.

Not just hot but the spiciest of takes. That is 4chan levels of delusional contrarianism and I, for one, am here for it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
No hotter than my distaste for Lower Decks, and outright refusal to watch The Orville.

But you watched Section 31 and Discovery. Those trainwrecks are the worst sci-fi things released in a very long time.

The Orville was written and directed and starred a good chunk of Star Trek alumni. And was a better show than any Trek I've seen in a long time.

And then Prodigy. Which people discounted, "cause its a cartoon, hur, hur..." and missed out on a very cool series.