It's a stunningly empty and irrelevant example in any event.
NCC -1701 (TOS).....
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Picard Season 3 - Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 90%
Strange New Worlds Season 2 - Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 75%
Last night, I rewatched "Ephraim and Dot," and I was reminded that it canonically shows some events of TOS, most notably from "Space Seed" but also with unambiguous references to several other episodes, with the Enterprise now recast in DISCO/SNW form. It even has the voices of Shatner, Montalbán, and Takei, taken from the original episodes.
Those numbers are subject to self-selection bias. They don't tell us how popular the shows actually are.
Yeah, I can't imagine at all that the current poster child for "NuTrek" wouldn't rate lower in what is essentially an online fan poll when compared to the fan wank that was Picard season 3. I can't imagine at all that those numbers haven't been juiced at all by the internet cry babies.
I'm talking streaming numbers. I seem to recall that SNW got onto the top 10 charts far more than Picard and even managed to climb slightly higher in the viewing numbers.
My point is that SNW is doing just fine following their own path. They don't need to emulate what Picard did.
They're talking about viewer numbers not viewer ratings.
SNW Season 2 had more viewed minutes according to Nielson than Picard Season 3.
That's also not entirely true. They had Pike be fleet captain for the episode where Kirk first meets him to match that line from The Menagerie.
And several things in the show match TOS aesthetically. Heck they still use data tapes and those square desktop computers.
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Didn't you get the memo? Kurtzman and Goldsman don't care at all about anything. Clearly this stuff looks nothing like The Original Series.
Clearly.
Hey! I've heard of this. You're being SARCASTIC!
So the same "internet cry babies" that gave SNW season 1 an 81% rating are juicing the ratings for season 2, while the same users that gave PIC season 2 a 30% score are jacking it up for season 3?
The Nielsen charts you're referencing measures total minutes viewed. For one thing, it's totally dependent on what else is on the air during the period the show is being streamed (e.g., Strange New Worlds aired over the summer when there's less competition, compared to Picard season 3 streaming during the spring). Also, just because you get a big number as far as total minutes viewed that isn't a measure of a show's quality or that viewership translates into strength of concept!!!
Strange New Worlds was consistently beaten on those charts by Disney+'s Secret Invasion. And no one at Marvel or Disney considers that series to be anything close to a success either on a popular or creative level.
Akiva Goldsman gave an interview back in June where he was asked about the Gorn in Strange New Worlds and the problems of lining up what they've done in Strange New Worlds with TOS's "Arena," and he gives an answer that indicates his interpretation of the Gorn is arguably the exact opposite of what TOS executive producer/writer Gene Coon intended with "Arena."
TREKMOVIE: So the question is: why the Gorn who have some tricky canon issues instead of using the opportunity to create your own whole new villain species?
AKIVA GOLDSMAN: Because for me, storytelling beats canon. And that may not be popular, but it’s the truth. So when they can go hand-in-hand, great. But when I was writing the pilot, I was looking for something that was just monstrous, that was Cthulhu-like. Something that was unthinking. Our shows are empathy generators and I wanted to have an element which was in relief of that. I wanted something that you couldn’t identify with, something that was utterly alien, something that was all appetite and instinct in ways that we couldn’t quite understand. And I also wanted to signal place and time in a way that personally I found interesting. So you should definitely blame me for this one.
Part of the twist of TOS's “Arena” is realizing the whole mess is a misunderstanding. The Gorn aren’t “unthinking.” They are not monsters, savages, animals or facehuggers on LV-426. They’re people making bad choices in a misunderstanding over defending their home. Instead of not being able to identify with the Gorn, the entire episode is built around a future where humanity is able to find empathy for something alien, even giant lizard men that have killed a bunch of colonists, in order to recognize that maybe the entire situation could be a giant mistake. Goldsman's use of the Gorn is the exact opposite intent of what Coon was getting at.
It would be like if SNW decided to rethink the Horta from "The Devil in the Dark" and say: "You know what? There are Horta on a lot of planets, and they've been terrorizing colonists, melting them in order to eradicate their presence." It would totally undermine the message of "The Devil in the Dark" to do that.
Nope.
It's like watching an episode of Crossfire.
This is a very good sentence.
Rewatching the episode after the Gorn in SNW and I still don't agree with this. McCoy and Kirk make this assertion but it never stops the Gorn. There's not rationalizing, no negotiating, no nothing. Kirk wounds him, then shows mercy and the Metrons are like, "Oh, cool." while acknowledging that the Gorn captain would not have done the same.,
If the Gorn were true “monsters” as in Goldsman’s vision, they wouldn’t give a shit about pleading their case for how their territory had been violated in “Arena.” Why make the claim to Kirk if they’re just vicious and “all appetite and instinct” towards their prey? They wouldn’t give a shit in that moment about explaining its rationale unless the rationale has some merit.
Also, if the SNW version meshed with TOS, neither Kirk or McCoy would consider it a possibility. They would think of them as monsters that murdered innocent people. But since it doesn’t, the episode treats it as a possibility because Gene Coon didn’t write them as monsters.
I’ve got a feeling that the ‘all appetite’ thing will be overturned in S03.
It’s a preconception voiced by characters who have yet to be made fully aware of the facts.
The Tricorder is the most appealing alternate design.
In other words, every second of every day on social media platforms...
Both show you'll never go wrong pandering to the nostalgia crowd. Which seems to be everyone of late.
Didn't you get the memo? Kurtzman and Goldsman don't care at all about anything. Clearly this stuff looks nothing like The Original Series.
Clearly.
Looks like an alternate universe take on the designs.
