I don't understand the hate Disco gets / still gets.

I'm pretty sure most can agree that the creator and showrunner getting fired due to the budget getting nearly wiped, the writing and production staff leaving r, their replacements also leaving, a completely different FX company getting hired on at literally the last possible moment and the premiere date getting postponed three times would qualify as "trouble."

*Realizes who I'm quoting.*

Oh, yeah, I guess you would see it differently.

 

I don't see it differently, actually.

 

Da fuq? You literally said

To which I made my sarcastic drive-by in response, and now you're saying you agree with the interpretation that this is defined as "troubled"?

 

Well, if people want to say that production troubles don’t mean something is troubled that’s up to them. I’ll continue to define the words I type as they are defined in the Dictionary and leave it at that.

Then why die on a hill that you're not even standing on?

 

I finally see how the hatred works and why it shifts over time. It's all very simple. You just have to compare Star Trek to Star Wars and Star Trek Fans to Star Wars Fans.

Roddenberry-Created Star Trek Series = Original Trilogy Star Wars
Berman-Created Star Trek Series = Prequel Trilogy Star Wars
Kurtzman-Created Star Trek Series = Sequel Trilogy Star Wars

Look at it through that lens and it all makes sense. It really can't get any simpler than this three-way division in both franchises.

 

If you view fans as a monolith, sure.

 

I don't. Just the "haters". They think in monolith. It's what I've observed first-hand from the 1990s to the 2020s.

[EDITED TO ADD: And no, for the 10 millionth time, people who are just critical aren't the same as "haters".]

It goes like this:
Stage 1) "It sucks!"
Stage 2) "At least it didn't suck as much as what's out now!'
Stage 3) "Maybe I was too harsh on it."
Stage 4) "It'll never be my favorite, but I like parts of it."
Stage 5) "It's okay."
Stage 6) "This is real Star Trek/Wars."

Stage 6 doesn't mean it has to be their favorite (although it can be), it just means they accept the series in general.

Some of them move through this cycle more quickly than others, but that's the direction I've observed.

DS9 and VOY are at Stage 6.
ENT is at Stage 5.
Kelvin is at Stage 4.
Early-DSC is at Stage 3.
Current DSC is at Stage 2.
Apparently PIC S2 is at Stage 1.

SNW is an exception, it seems. Looks like it's at Stage 6 to begin with. Being more old-school has a lot to do with it. "But it's good!" It is, but it's not "Every episode is a 9 or 10!" good. I also think DSC and PIC are good, despite what others might think. So I don't agree with the narrative that's trying to be spun that SNW is good and DSC and PIC aren't. And some SNW Fans are trying to spin that narrative and are trying to force it onto the rest of us. No dice. I like all three.

Anyway, "Haters" are really more like "late-adapters", while the rest of us have to wait for them. Having been through this a bunch of times already, and having actually been on both sides, I'm getting bored with this process now. I want to say, "Can we just not do this again and say we did? Thanks!"

 

I don't know if that's a sign of people coming around on something, or just different people being louder over time. I mean Enterprise or TNG hating YouTubers aren't going to get anywhere near as much traction in 2022 as Disco haters who love both the series.

I definitely haven't noticed any of the people who once criticised the Star Wars prequels or Enterprise coming around on them over time because they dislike the newer stuff. They just put both of them at the bottom of their rankings.

 

I was pretty harsh on VOY and ENT for a while, then backed off from it. Then eventually found things that I liked about them even though, like I've said, they'll never be my favorites. I was mixed on TNG, it depended on the episode, but re-watching it before PIC (most of it for the first time since high school), made me more of a fan of it.

On the opposite end, I was a huge DS9 Fan in the '90s. Nowadays, I can't bring myself to want to re-watch it. Once the series ended, my interest in it evaporated. I don't dislike the show, but once it was over, it was over. For whatever reason, I can't get hooked back into it.

 

I have. And even if rankings don't move much, the attitude changes. The way the show is talked about is more accepting, more willing to include elements from it.

 

Wouldn't that make Strange New Worlds the Favreau/Filoni/Mandalorian of Star Trek?

 

I think SNW is broadly more popular partially because its goal is to capture the feel of TOS with a modern sensibility, partially because doing episodic television makes it stand out from the crowd these days, and partially because it has a cast of very appealing actors...

... and, to be frank, partially because it is a show with very "cisheteronormative" writing (meaning, cisgender heterosexuality is depicted as the default setting for sentient life), five of the nine cast members are white, and a cishet white guy is the captain and main character.

 

SNW's not nearly as retrograde as Enterprise was, but it does have a bit of that "oh, did we freak you out with Voyager and DS9/Disco and Picard a bit? Sorry" vibe.

 

I'd go so far as to outright say SNW is to ENT as DSC/PIC are to DS9/VOY.

The only differences are: 1) It's all happening at the same time, and 2) I like SNW a Hell of a lot more than ENT.

 

I mean, I think there's room in modern Star Trek for shows that are both highly serialized and a bit deconstructionist (a la DIS and DS9) and shows that are episodic and that reaffirm the traditional ST paradigm (a la SNW and TNG/TOS). I don't think that having both is necessarily a "sorry for DIS/PIC" thing -- I think when you're trying to do a new ST episode every single week all year long, then you need that kind of variety. But, yeah, the fact that the show is very white, very straight, and stars a cishet white guy is clearly also a factor in its popularity. I think that's more on the audience than on SNW per se (though SNW ought to have a higher percentage of non-white folk in its cast).

 

Amazing, the current producers of Star Trek have finally made a live action Star Trek show that doesn't constantly feel like its wanting to desperately run away from being a Star Trek show and its working. Who would've thought it!

 

I suppose somewhere there's a Hawaii Five-O forum with a bunch of people complaining about the 2010s series overwriting canon and having all those serialized soap opera elements and just not being enough like the 1970s version.

 

Indeed.

A show that has true diversity instead of tokenism, has the Federation & Allies vote to communicate with truly alien life rather than attack it, finally reasons with said alien life, and ends with the antagonist who had good intentions being sentenced to actually helping the galaxy he wanted to save, shows an enlightened society that represents the best parts of Gene's Vision in its best light.

Discovery Season 4 is more Star Trek than any other Star Trek made after TMP.

 

Season 4 did a great job with that Trek feeling.

 

Just as I imagine there are those who made similar complaints about the recent Magnum PI or are making them about the current Walker.