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Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

Sisko is interesting because in many ways he's actually the most back-seat of all the captains within the narrative of the setting. There's a lot of episodes where he's very much like the head teacher at a school - he's there and important, but off doing something somewhere and thus everyone else has to pull weight in the day to day running of things.

However when he is there we get hit with huge events that really make him a very central character. It's in part due to really strong writing and in part due to really great acting.


In contrast Kirk, Picard, Janeway, the guy in Enterprise (I forget his name) - are all very central and appear as not just key characters, but often a or the key focal point for most episodes. Voyager did do a bit more stepping back than Original series of TNG, but in general even Janeway holds a good lions share of camera and story time.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/21 00:11:23


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I never got into Enterprise, but from the few episodes I did watch it seemed to have very much the same problem as Discovery has now, with the show being centered on Captain Archer and the rest of the crew being cardboard cutouts in the background.

Voyager I think did a reasonable job of spotlighting each of the crew in the earlier seasons. Once 7 of 9 came along it seemed to focus in more tightly, alternating between 7 and Janeway, and 7 and the Doctor.

 
   
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Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I think Enterprise started well, but the problem was they jumped into the whole Temporal War thing which I felt was just a story way for "we want to write a new war but don't actually want to change the setting's storyline so we'll just have a temporal one that ultimately means nothing" Which to me was unsatisfying because I always felt that Enterprise should have been a big quest to show us how the Federation got started; meeting key races; dealing with the fact that vulcans back there were near elf-like mythical creatures; that subtle elements of most races backgrounds were unknown (even within allies of the Federation). They had that in buckets in the first season, but it seems that they didn't intend to maintain it.

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 Overread wrote:
Sisko is interesting because in many ways he's actually the most back-seat of all the captains within the narrative of the setting. There's a lot of episodes where he's very much like the head teacher at a school - he's there and important, but off doing something somewhere and thus everyone else has to pull weight in the day to day running of things.

However when he is there we get hit with huge events that really make him a very central character. It's in part due to really strong writing and in part due to really great acting.


In contrast Kirk, Picard, Janeway, the guy in Enterprise (I forget his name) - are all very central and appear as not just key characters, but often a or the key focal point for most episodes. Voyager did do a bit more stepping back than Original series of TNG, but in general even Janeway holds a good lions share of camera and story time.


Well, there were so many versions of Janeway throughout any given season. They had to keep the camera coming back to her to show which personality was in charge that week.

Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
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Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

insaniak wrote:I never got into Enterprise, but from the few episodes I did watch it seemed to have very much the same problem as Discovery has now, with the show being centered on Captain Archer and the rest of the crew being cardboard cutouts in the background.


Archer, Tucker, and T'Pol were more or less the center of everything while the rest of the crew felt like hangers-on.

Hoshi had an extra serving of suck because early seasons portrayed her as riddled with phobias and hang-ups that made it really questionable that she was on the crew at all (latter season basically dumped these traits without comment). Travis maybe had it even worse than Harry Kim as a character with a lot of potential who just never really got to do much of anything. Phlox had a few good episodes, but was otherwise a deus-ex machine who would solve most of the crisises of the week on a timer or ensure no one died of whatever was going on. Reed was appropriately characterized as this enigmatic figure no one knew much about cause we never learned much of anything about him.

Overread wrote:I think Enterprise started well, but the problem was they jumped into the whole Temporal War thing which I felt was just a story way for "we want to write a new war but don't actually want to change the setting's storyline so we'll just have a temporal one that ultimately means nothing"


I've been rewatching it the past few weeks, and honestly, the Temporal Cold War is probably the least problematic part of the series. If anything, it's biggest issue is how little it impacts events outside of episodes explicitly about it. It only rears its head when the time comes to rear its head when it really should be having broader impacts.

The bigger problem is that the writing just isn't good. Example, The Communicator. In the episode, one of the characters forgets their communicator on a pre-warp planet on the brink of civil war. It's a good premise. They go back and get caught and have to struggle with what to say or do in response, what would cause more damage to these people? Well, I have at least one idea of what could cause more damage; claiming your a genetically engineered supersoldier created by an enemy nation with prototype particle weapons and stealth systems... Seriously wtf how is that better than just admitting the truth? It's such a boneheaded decision that it boggles the mind and a lot of episodes of Enterprise are kind of like that. They start off with a cool idea or premise, but then they shoot themselves in the head by having the characters do the potentially dumbest thing possible.

Which to me was unsatisfying because I always felt that Enterprise should have been a big quest to show us how the Federation got started;


Agreed, and the episodes along this line were some of the show's best. The conflict between the Andorians and the Vulcans and the role humanity plays in forming a glue that holds multiple disparate species together was exactly what Enterprise should have been about. The birth of the Federation. The show was clearly moving in that direction, and by season 4 was setting up for the Earth-Romulan War (one of the events that helped ferment the Federation's creation) but it got canceled cause it was too little too late by then.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/11/21 03:09:28


   
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So apparently nothing is going to be behind the anomaly this season.
It's supposed to be an allegory for a pandemic and what we will see is people dealing with it in good and bad ways

5000pts 6000pts 3000pts
 
   
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Its always a good sign when they have to explain what the allegory is beforehand.

Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
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SoCal

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So apparently nothing is going to be behind the anomaly this season.
It's supposed to be an allegory for a pandemic and what we will see is people dealing with it in good and bad ways


That feeling of hopelessness with no solution or resolution is what I come to fiction for.


No wait.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/22 00:53:55


   
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Powerful Ushbati





United States

So I finally bit the bullet and procured a copy of Picard to watch.

All I can say is wow. I after giving STD a chance for three seasons, I said to a friend "Well, it can't get any worse than this."

I was so very, very wrong.

   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




A thought.

Star Trek was a show that benefited greatly from having B and C plots with TNG, DS9, and VOY. TOS kind of predates the A/B+ plotlines in tv shows. Those three series all were semi-serial at most as well so that and having 20+ episodes a year meant that they could focus on secondary plotlines and thus the crew extensively. In this new world of 8-12 episode long seasons where everything is heavily serialized you can't necessarily afford to spend time on secondary plotlines that don't tie into the primary threads, but I would dare to say that it is those elements that give a series its flavor.

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USA

There's lots of shows that still have B and C plots. I'd say the big issue with Discovery and Picard on that front is their overwhelming focus on spectacle with no substance. There's no time to build characters when everything is simply building to the next setpiece, but even the setpieces aren't that good. I can't think of any that don't become the subject of a dozen youtube videos lampooning how low effort they are or little sense they make.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/07 05:28:00


   
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United States

 LordofHats wrote:
There's lots of shows that still have B and C plots. I'd say the big issue with Discovery and Picard on that front is their overwhelming focus on spectacle with no substance. There's no time to build characters when everything is simply building to the next setpiece, but even the setpieces aren't that good. I can't think of any that don't become the subject of a dozen youtube videos lampooning how low effort they are or little sense they make.


Consider that Riker shows up (on your left) in the end of Picard Season one with 200 ctrl+v silly looking "star ships" in a scene that literally looks almost identical to the one in Star Wars where lando shows up (on you left) with 200 random starships, in a scene that was very reminiscent of Falcon bringing all the heros (on your left) to fight Thanos.

It's all about money. They want a billion dollar blockbuster IP just like all these other shows and they don't care how it's done.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/07 10:27:32


 
   
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Decrepit Dakkanaut





 Togusa wrote:


It's all about money. They want a billion dollar blockbuster IP just like all these other shows and they don't care how it's done.


I think this statement is definitely true (and not just of this IP), but would it be safe to say that for THIS IP in particular, the "safe" play is to not play it safe?

I mean, ITT we have mention of all the on/over the edge stuff that trek producers have put into previous series that were major gambles, and the fans absolutely LOVE it. Of course, there are some risks that weren't great (Neelix, looking at you), or things that seemed like risks, but if you dig into it, really was the safest play to make, and thus it gets kinda washed up among all the other stuff available.



Like, I thought Disco, at first glance, coulda been one of those major gambles: just what does the Federation at war look like, on screen? (I mean, much of the dominion war happened off screen in DS9, so you don't really deal with the tip of the spear stuff that often). There really was a ton of stuff on offer, opportunities to explore darker themes that Trek rarely deals with. But we seemingly get "Deux ex Wesley" in every episode, or every other episode in the form of Burnham.
   
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SoCal

A real risk would be a show entirely composed of B and C plots. Like, only show us the space battle via explosions outside the window behind the doctor’s jazz recital.

   
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USA

I think that was part of the appeal of the Lower Decks premise, and while the series does have bits of that, truthfully it is in many ways balanced more like a traditional Trek show than the TNG episode from which it takes its name.

While I enjoy the animated series, I do think a more faithful to the premise series could be very good. No fate of the universe stuff, or even fate of the ship. Just make Star Trek: The Office, where it's a bunch of officers fulfilling their mundane tasks and all the stuff in between and occasionally the lights turn red and stuff starts exploding;




But Star Trek.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/08 00:32:34


   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

See I think that could work and shows like the Office or Parks and Recreation show that not everything has to be saving the universe or anything.

I think the problem is that too many, esp in sci-fi/fantasy - get hooked on the idea that the challenge has to keep rising and rising. As a result you quickly go from a group saving a village now and then to suddenly saving all creation. The problem is once you do that saving all creation storyline you can't really follow it up very easily. Going back to saving villages feels like a step back; whilst if you try and push forward suddenly you're saving all creation and the multiverse then the multi-multivers and then you get into saving all time and - yeah things just keep going up and up and the higher up it goes the more convoluted the story becomes

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Pretty much the story arc of Supernatural’s decade long run there.

 
   
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Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I only left out the lack of character evolution

Don't get me wrong its a nice series but about where god and the devil are having arguments over loud music in a secret bunker was kinda where it felt like the writers had utterly no clue what they were doing and were just winging it. They really should have done the Wizard of OZ Spin-Off series!

But yeah Supernatural is a prime example of where the threat gets more and more insane each time and the more insane it got the more you had to suspend disbelief until at some point the writing starts to not matter.


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 Overread wrote:
See I think that could work and shows like the Office or Parks and Recreation show that not everything has to be saving the universe or anything.

I think the problem is that too many, esp in sci-fi/fantasy - get hooked on the idea that the challenge has to keep rising and rising. As a result you quickly go from a group saving a village now and then to suddenly saving all creation. The problem is once you do that saving all creation storyline you can't really follow it up very easily. Going back to saving villages feels like a step back; whilst if you try and push forward suddenly you're saving all creation and the multiverse then the multi-multivers and then you get into saving all time and - yeah things just keep going up and up and the higher up it goes the more convoluted the story becomes


Basically what happened to Stargate.
   
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SoCal

I think it both hurt and helped Stargate. The show never took itself overly seriously, and by the last two seasons they were nearly at Team Four Star levels of self-aware mockery…at least in the good episodes. They also started to rely on almost sitcom levels of bouncing actors off each other and special guest stars in wacky situations. I find that much more agreeable than the misery-porn serious-drama Buffy tried to become in its last two seasons.

   
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But Buffy had that musical episode that was just ace

(They got the mustard out!)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/09 22:31:08


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UK

 Flinty wrote:
But Buffy had that musical episode that was just ace

(They got the mustard out!)




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 Flinty wrote:
But Buffy had that musical episode that was just ace

(They got the mustard out!)


It was the best episode of the season. It was also pretty damn miserable. All the characters get to sing about how they wish they were dead (metaphorically and sometimes literally).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/10 01:07:41


   
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Tara doesn’t. Poor Tara…

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*All statements reflect my opinion at this moment. if some sort of pretty new model gets released (or if I change my mind at random) I reserve the right to jump on any bandwagon at will.
 
   
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So, Star Trek! This week’s episode of Discovery. Not-Vulkan is set to rejoin the Federation. Not-Vulkan president finds out her political backers are going to require special exemptions if they’re going to allow her to join up. She secretly sends a message to the Federation President warning her about this ambush at their meeting. Federation President knows her political backers won’t allow this special exemption. Lies to Burnam to get her to come, with orders she’s just supposed to stand there and look official, because she knows Burnam will promptly ignore her orders and interfere to try and fix the situation, which she of course does. After much round a bout cajoling, because Fed Pres continues to refuse to tell Burnam the truth about what’s going on, and a bunch of flirting between Saru and the Not-Vulkan Pres, they eventually decide only Burnam can save this. She alone can act as a special mediator between the Not-Vulkans and the Federation because she comes from Not-Vulkan nine hundred years ago when it was still Vulkan so she can be non-biased despite the fact she’s been incredibly pro Federation this entire episode insisting Not-Vulkan needed to join.

Meanwhile Tilly gets to be a special guest teacher for some Cadets on a routine scanning mission. Their shuttle is hit by a random gamma wave, crashes, and the pilot dies in her arms. They’re chased by monsters who are immune to phasers and just barely get saved at the last second. She decides this was a rewarding experience and quits Discovery to go teach full time.

 
   
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they eventually decide only Burnam can save this


Every episode of Discovery could simply have this as a synopsis


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
 Flinty wrote:
But Buffy had that musical episode that was just ace

(They got the mustard out!)


It was the best episode of the season. It was also pretty damn miserable. All the characters get to sing about how they wish they were dead (metaphorically and sometimes literally).


Its an awesome episode woth some really good songs - IIRC Dawn, Anya and Xander don't want to die....nor does Giles - Buffy just wants to go back to heaven

Stargate once they hit their stride is so good - sad that it ended with the rubbish that was Universe.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/10 08:41:09


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 Mr Morden wrote:

Stargate once they hit their stride is so good - sad that it ended with the rubbish that was Universe.


Honestly though, Universe once it got past trying to be a drama about people back home really got its stride. It definitely was going in the right place in season 2 at least
   
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SoCal

 Jadenim wrote:
Tara doesn’t. Poor Tara…


Tara’s first song: Willow, you’re the only good thing in my horrible, horrible life.

Tara’s second song: Willow, you’re a monster I need to escape.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mr. Morden, Dawn doesn’t get a song that I remember, other than her “I don’t want to be a forcible child bride duet.” Anya and Xander get their “the characters you love get nothing, and you will watch them suffer” appetizer song, and the series fully follows through in the threat to ruin two of the most fun characters. Giles sings about how he has to ruin his relationship with Buffy because she needs her second father figure to abandon her so she can grow up or something, his “This will hurt me more than it hurts you” song.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/11 00:00:59


   
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It's odd that anyone that disagrees with the main characters instantly dies
   
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USA

 BlackoCatto wrote:
It's odd that anyone that disagrees with the main characters instantly dies


My favorite part of season 1 is when Lorca's who-cares-what-her-name-was security officer (or whatever she was) gets herself killed in the most dumbfeth way possible, just so Burnham could look intelligent by virtue of not being suicidally stupid.

It actually beat out Tucker's death at the end of Enterprise for the 'death so utterly pointless and nonsensical the only explanation is the writers really wanted to kill someone for the hell of it' award.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/12/11 04:25:52


   
 
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