How can these episodes (from TNG, DS9, and ENT) be canon any longer?

You said “sitting atop of CBS”, but even if we go down to Kurtzman, there are in fact showrunners who simply wouldn’t do Star Trek without full creative control and reasonable notes from the studio. As for listening to the fans, that just isn’t done: you listen to yourself and your writers, follow it through step by step and hope that many other people agree, otherwise the show will just be pulled in all directions.

If we look at the showrunners CBS has been hiring and firing, there is a distinct sense of trying to move away from Berman but being very careful and therefore making do with whoever you can get, realizing it’s not working then hiring someone else, as opposed to just saying, “Well, RDM knows Star Trek and then he made nBSG, why not simply hire him and see what he’d do alone?” And if it’s not that simple, for financial or other reasons, fine, but as a fan I can ask for it because there are other shows where it works; it’s not impossible.

 

Why should it be better? Should implies a standard as well as the fact that the CBS powers are producing a substandard product and know it. That seems like a rather ridiculous assertion.

Secondarily, at least for me, if I go in to a production going "Whelp, that could have been better" then I'm not engaged with it at all. I'm judging from the word go, without any appreciation of the work done. And I'm not just talking hypothetical. I did it (and probably still do) with the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. But, you know what? I have the utmost respect for Lucas doing the films he wanted to do. So, I can enjoy the PT as they are.

It's a weird place, I know.

By the way, a reasonable note from the production team will never be "Spend more money!" Again, it's not our money to demand that they spend more of.

 

But it’s so easy to know it. Is it Game of Thrones or Mad Men or Breaking Bad? No, so it could be better, done.

As noted, fans shouldn’t engage with CBS because CBS shouldn’t listen to fans. It’s not a show by committee or the fans’ money to spend, but fans can want what they want and need not accept the status quo if they can watch something else. What’s the point of overanalyzing the work done? Most fans are not critics or showrunners themselves, and the actual showrunners shouldn’t (and legally cannot) listen to suggestions.

The SW prequels fall under the category “do something original, and maybe you’ll fail, which is OK”. I mentioned earlier that it is always a possibility if someone just isn’t that good (in areas). Was anyone telling Lucas what to do? No. Was Lucas listening to the fans? No. Was I disappointed by TFA far more than with the prequels? Yes, because unlike Lucas, Abrams was riffing on the original, even if the former could’ve used some help with the scripts, filmed above HD and relied on fewer greenscreens.

 

I have my issues with the show, but I don't think that they (Kurtzman and CBS) are making a subpar show just to piss me off. It is silly for any fan to think they are intentionally producing subpar products.

I don't want Star Trek to be any of those things, if I want to watch those shows, I can just go watch them. I don't want Trek to be Battlestar Galactica, La Femme Nakita or The Handmaid's Tale. I appreciate when Trek is Trek (generally optimistic sci-fi action adventure), for good or ill. Just like I'm underwhelmed by the idea of a Section 31 series. Spy shows with morally dubious characters are plentiful, and I don't think that they are a fit for what Trek is.

 

Star Trek is none of those things. False equivalency.

 

Intention is irrelevant: whether someone is phoning it in while someone else is doing their best under the circumstances, I as a fan am interested in the final product, and even showrunners can say (and often do) if they’re happy with the way a show is turning out.

It’s about the approach, not subject matter. Hire a competent showrunner and give them a show to build from beginning to end, without second-guessing the choice every season or dealing with inevitable consequences of ill-considered decisions.

 

Star Trek can build up word of mouth, coverage in mainstream media and accumulate awards same as any other show.

 

Yes it can. It doesn't do that by copying other shows. It does it by putting confidence in their showrunners, which Star Trek is still in the process of doing with Kurtzman. It's a false equivalence because what CBS set out to do originally with Discovery changed multiple times from Fuller and forward.

So, let's not pretend that it's the exact same situation or that throwing more money at it would have solved the problems. That is a highly reductionist point of view of production.

 

Nobody said anything about copying other shows, only about becoming highly competitive, and one aspect thereof is not making U-turns and changing showrunners, which DSC has done twice so far. Money won’t solve all problems, but it’s a part of getting someone with a proven track record.

 

That's why they hired Kurtzman. They are doing what you want them to do. It just took them time to do it. Like many businesses do.

 

Canon is the live action body of work. They are all canon, though the only ones who are obligated to follow it are folks working on tie-in material.

 

Newest production usually trumps what has come before.

 

Discovery is barely fucking it up

 

It's all canon. I may not agree with everything Discovery is doing but its as canon as the rest of them.

How one choses to engage with it (alternate timeline, reboot, ignore it, etc) is up to them.

 

That's not why Disco keeps changing showrunners. Bryan Fuller was fired because he was basically dicking around and not doing any work, which resulted in the show's premiere date being postponed twice. And while dicking around and not getting any work done, he somehow nearly bankrupted the show's rather impressively sized budget. And since leaving Disco, he's been fired from two other shows for similar reasons. Harbert and Berg were fired because they were physically abusive to the other writers on staff.

1) Ron Moore currently has his own show he's working on.
2) At this stage in his career, I doubt very much he'd even want to return to Star Trek, even as showrunner.

Most fans don't. I'm critical of Disco and don't think a good majority of the decisions made are necessarily the right ones. But that's irrelevant. The fact is there are enough people who are willingly handing over money to subscribe to All Access, Netflix or get the Space channel through their cable provider in order to watch Disco, and it is successful for all three sources to prove to TPTB they're doing something right. If Disco were any kind of a failure, people would not be voluntarily watching it.

One thing CBS is getting right with their planned Star Trek spin-offs is having each one be something different, a different facet of the franchise. Disco is more or less "traditional Star Trek," Picard is basically character oriented drama, Section 31 espionage and spy intrigue, Lower Decks a comedy, and the other animated show something for kids. Regardless of what one may think of these ideas, I believe there is merit to doing something different for each show. When you get down to it, the period of 1966-2005 is basically the same premise: adventures of a starship. Variations of the theme include the starship 100 years in the future or 100 years in the past, the ship that is stranded in a distant region of the galaxy, and the one that is in fact a space station instead. As much as I like Anson Mount, that's basically my issue with Pike series a majority of fandom are clamoring for: it's just going to be more of the same and doesn't have anything new to bring to the table.

Meh, let me know when the thread starts posing a threat to turtles.

 

You're right, of course.

 

Just commenting because I felt like killing a kitten.

 

It's okay, the kittens are from TNG, DS9 and ENT and thus no longer canon.

 

Because Disco retconned them into more modern looking kittens. Which I guess means they now have smart phones and tablets or something.