Paramount and WBD in merger discussions

[Citiprime]

I kind of want to see this argument now.

Anyone who does, you can't have it all rely on "Under the Cloak of War".

Of any of the shows, I think the overall outlook of Strange New Worlds comes the closest to depicting space as dangerous and full of "monsters," instead of species to be understood and reasoned with.

La'an lays it out when she describes the Gorn in season 1's "Memento Mori."

LA'AN: "The Federation teaches that if we can find a way to empathize with an enemy, then they can one day become our friends. They're wrong. Some things in this universe are just plain evil. Have you ever seen eyes that are both dead and hungry at the same time? To them, humans are just walking feed bags of flesh, bone, and jelly. The Gorn trigger a primitive, ancient terror in warm-blooded species. We are prey. And when they hunt, they're unrelenting. The truth is, plenty of people have seen the Gorn. They just don't live long enough to talk about it."​

And even though they admittedly use Spock's dialogue in "Balance of Terror" as the springboard to do it, "A Quality of Mercy" basically revolves around the idea that a civilized approach which offers mercy and seeks peace and understanding with the Romulans is both naive and wrong. That sometimes the right choice is killing your retreating enemies for the greater good.

If you then throw in that in season 2 Strange New Worlds argues the Federation practices systemic segregation and discrimination of the genetically engineered, where Deep Space Nine's view is (in my opinion) much more even-handed in how it deals with the problems around the issue, I think it presents a much more muddled view of how positive the Federation and Starfleet are.

 

[Lord Garth]

Of any of the shows, I think the overall outlook of Strange New Worlds comes the closest to depicting space as dangerous and full of "monsters," instead of species to be understood and reasoned with.

La'an lays it out when she describes the Gorn in season 1's "Memento Mori."

LA'AN: "The Federation teaches that if we can find a way to empathize with an enemy, then they can one day become our friends. They're wrong. Some things in this universe are just plain evil. Have you ever seen eyes that are both dead and hungry at the same time? To them, humans are just walking feed bags of flesh, bone, and jelly. The Gorn trigger a primitive, ancient terror in warm-blooded species. We are prey. And when they hunt, they're unrelenting. The truth is, plenty of people have seen the Gorn. They just don't live long enough to talk about it."​

And even though they admittedly use Spock's dialogue in "Balance of Terror" as the springboard to do it, "A Quality of Mercy" basically revolves around the idea that a civilized approach which offers mercy and seeks peace and understanding with the Romulans is both naive and wrong. That sometimes the right choice is killing your retreating enemies for the greater good.

If you then throw in that in season 2 Strange New Worlds argues the Federation practices systemic segregation and discrimination of the genetically engineered, where Deep Space Nine's view is (in my opinion) much more even-handed in how it deals with the problems around the issue, I think it presents a much more muddled view of how positive the Federation and Starfleet are.

Okay, not bad.

 

[fireproof78]

, I think it presents a much more muddled view of how positive the Federation and Starfleet are.

I would agree except I saw these elements as far back as TOS. Maybe SNW handles it differently or with a different emphasis but it isn't darker; it acknowledges what was always there, the good and the bad.

 

[Farscape One]

I think lying to the Romulans about the Dominion to plunge them into a war and Starfleet Command turning a blind eye to Section 31 attempting genocide on the Changelings (and very nearly succeeding) puts the level of darkness in the series on a macro scale.

Looking beyond the macro, if we ran through the list of DS9 that are "dark" and compared them to a list of episodes from other series that are "dark", then -- proportionately -- it would come out the most.

I was talking on a series (and season) level. Not an individual episode level. I'm fully aware that TOS had dark episodes, but that's not representative of the entire series, and not what most people think of when they think of TOS.

BTW, I'm surprised "A Taste of Armageddon" wasn't mentioned when Kirk was prepared to use General Order 24 on Eminiar VII.

I guess Admiral Necheyev's direct order to Picard in "Descent" to use the next similar opportunity to eradicate the Borg doesn't count as ordering a genocide?

Or Picard not attempting to save any of the Boraalans in "Homeward"?

Or Admiral Pressman going against the Treaty of Algeron and developing the phasing cloak, which very clearly had the support of many in Starfleet due to how much was covered up?

Or Admiral Kennelly in "Ensign Ro", who secretly was attempting to get rid of a Bajoran group using Ro as a go-between?

(I was going to use "A TASTE OF ARMAGEDDON" as an example, but as I mentioned in my post, I only listed a few examples because the post would be too lengthy.)

And of course TOS will have fewer dark episodes in their count than other shows... until the current era, it had the fewest episodes compared to the other shows period. (TAS being the exception, but even if you combine those episodes with TOS, they still had the fewest except for ENT, and only by 4 episodes.)

Now, I'll agree that certain seasons had a darker tone overall, like ENT season 3, but you're talking about an existential threat to survival. Can't exactly have morality if no one is left alive to have morals.

 

[Lord Garth]

I guess Admiral Necheyev's direct order to Picard in "Descent" to use the next similar opportunity to eradicate the Borg doesn't count as ordering a genocide?

Or Picard not attempting to save any of the Boraalans in "Homeward"?

Or Admiral Pressman going against the Treaty of Algeron and developing the phasing cloak, which very clearly had the support of many in Starfleet due to how much was covered up?

Or Admiral Kennelly in "Ensign Ro", who secretly was attempting to get rid of a Bajoran group using Ro as a go-between?

(I was going to use "A TASTE OF ARMAGEDDON" as an example, but as I mentioned in my post, I only listed a few examples because the post would be too lengthy.)

And of course TOS will have fewer dark episodes in their count than other shows... until the current era, it had the fewest episodes compared to the other shows period. (TAS being the exception, but even if you combine those episodes with TOS, they still had the fewest except for ENT.)

When did I say TNG didn't have any dark episodes at all? I was talking about on a season and series level, not on an individual episode level. I've said that twice already in the thread before this.

Now, I'll agree that certain seasons had a darker tone overall, like ENT season 3, but you're talking about an existential threat to survival. Can't exactly have morality if no one is left alive to have morals.

Okay, we all know I don't like ENT. But that's with the series in general, not because of darkness in Season 3. "Dark" doesn't mean "bad". And I agree with the argument "Can't exactly have morality if no one is left alive to have morals." That's why I've defended Starfleet's reluctant choice at the end of DSC S1, even though I'm glad Burnham found another way.

 

[Farscape One]

When did I say TNG didn't have any dark episodes at all? I was talking about on a season and series level, not on in an individual episode level. I've said that twice already in the thread before this.


Okay, we all know I don't like ENT. But that's with the series in general, not because of darkness in Season 3. "Dark" doesn't mean "bad". And I agree with the argument "Can't exactly have morality if no one is left alive to have morals." That's why I've defended Starfleet's reluctant choice at the end of DSC S1, even though I'm glad Burnham found another way.

And Sisko bringing in the Romulans occured in one episode. (Which had the lasting effect of the Romulans staying in the war until the end of the series, but it was still a single episode.)

DS9 (and ENT season 3) was much more arc driven than TOS and TNG, so of course actions like that will have lasting repercussions.

Counting the amount of episodes with dark stuff in them, it's going to be more dark than light in almost any given season of TOS and TNG. So if there are that many episodes with dark threads in them, how can anyone reasonably say it wasn't part of the show?

(And I am not saying dark is bad, I'm simply pointing out that it's always been there with each series.)




Lord Garth, given that I'm straying pretty far from the thread topic, I'm going to leave it at that. I'll hop on a thread about this subject if it is created.

 

[Lord Garth]

Counting the amount of episodes with dark stuff in them, it's going to be more dark than light in almost any given season of TOS and TNG.

More dark than light? I don't agree with that, but we'll table this for now, and agree to disagree. I don't want to go through every episode at the current moment. You probably don't either.

So if there are that many episodes with dark threads in them, how can anyone reasonably say it wasn't part of the show?

I didn't say it wasn't part of either show, I said it wasn't representative of them as a whole.

EDITED TO ADD: ^^ I didn't see the end of Farscape's post, before I made the replies above. ^^

Lord Garth, given that I'm straying pretty far from the thread topic, I'm going to leave it at that. I'll hop on a thread about this subject if it is created.

Nah. It's all good. I think we both got sucked into this thanks to Jayson. Thanks Jayson!

 

[Farscape One]

More dark than light? I don't agree with that, but we'll table this for now, and agree to disagree. I don't want to go through every episode at the current moment. You probably don't either.


I didn't say it wasn't part of either show, I said it wasn't representative of them as a whole.

EDITED TO ADD: ^^ I didn't see the end of Farscape's post, before I made the replies above. ^^


Nah. It's all good. I think we both got sucked into this thanks to Jayson. Thanks Jayson!

I'm perfectly happy to agree to disagree, too.

And I think you are right... we both got roped in.

 

[kkt]

Saucer, nacelles, phasers, Starfleet? Any 3 out of 4 of those and it’s Star Trek. Really not any more complicated than that.

Prime Directive.

 

[TerryTrek]

Star Trek will always either continue or come back. I didn't, for one second, think Star Trek was totally done in 2005. Likewise for when the plug is eventually pulled on the last Kurtzman Era series standing. Which I don't think will be for a while. Though the people who want it to end must be salivating. They can't wait. You can see it in their posts.

I think we're passed the peak of 2021-2022, but that's as far as I'll go.

Star Trek isn't going anywhere. If Star Trek goes under WB this year, new people and fresh faces will come up with new ways of doing it.

I don't think it will be an IP that Zaslav would bury. Too much potential cinematically. Especially now amidst the current limbo and mismanagement of the Star Wars films, there's room for a Trek film franchise to stand out.

 

[The Wormhole]

Prime Directive.

The Prime Directive is violated more often than it's upheld. I mean, by TNG S4 Picard had nine Prime Directive violations on record.

 

[Ovation]

Prime Directive.

Meh.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Prime Directive.

It's a plot device.

 

[Jayson1]

What's funny bout DS9 being seen as the dark Trek is it is also the one with the most humor. At least since TOS. Not counting Lower Decks of course. The characters didn't just hate each other though they sometimes got into conflict but often the conflict just led to banter. Stuff that didn't surpass Kirk/Spock/Bones but it was in that territory. Odo/Quark and Bashir/Chief O'Brien and Quark/ROm and Garak/Bashir and Sisko/Dax and so forth. It also had the best father/son stuff in Sisko/Jake and the most realistic marriage in Chief/Keiko. Their is lots of humanity in the show.

As much as I love TNG it could be kind of sterile in how the characters interacted. I forget which writer said but a character always needed a excuse to jut pop by and hang with a friend. They had to do crew evaluations or something like that. The chemistry from that show came I think from the actors just like performing with each other due to how well they all got along. Which is kind of funny because on DS9 you get the feeling it was just work for many of the actors and they were more, just get down to business while doing the show.

 

[fireproof78]

And I am not saying dark is bad, I'm simply pointing out that it's always been there with each series.)

Can I just say this is my point in general. Hell, Prodigy has child slavery in it, and that's a kid's show. Let's not pretend that Kurtzman invented darker themes in Trek. It's built right in to the franchise.

That won't change no matter who owns it.

 

[kkt]

The Prime Directive is violated more often than it's upheld. I mean, by TNG S4 Picard had nine Prime Directive violations on record.

I'll take your word for the count. But the point isn't that they always live up to it perfectly, the point is that it's their law and their goal. When it's violated we expect some consequences, even if it's just a verbal warning that the audience doesn't see.

 

[fireproof78]

Maybe once.

After Nemesis, no.

 

[The Wormhole]

When it's violated we expect some consequences,

Which there never are. Like I said, Picard had nine violations on record as of TNG S4. The consequence? Admiral Satie used it as part of her rant against Picard to prove he's unfit for command, which another admiral walked out on her during, therefore destroying her entire argument.

 

[Citiprime]

Although it's reported to NOT be related to any possible merger talks, there's an interesting wrinkle between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery.

As of January 1, all 10 of the pre-Kelvin Universe Trek films (TOS and TNG) have been removed from Paramount+. Those films are streaming exclusively on Max within the United States and will air on HBO.

As of January 1, 2024, the six TOS-era Star Trek movies (The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home, The Final Frontier, and The Undiscovered Country) and four TNG-era movies (Generations, First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis) are streaming exclusively on Max in the USA. This includes the new 4K Directors Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The Star Trek feature films have also started airing on HBO. This is a bit of history repeating itself. In November 2022 the same 10 movies jumped from Paramount+ for HBO Max (now just Max), returning in July of 2023. The three Kelvin-era movies (Star Trek 2009, Into Darkness, and Beyond) are still available on Paramount+.

It is unknown how long HBO and Max will have the exclusive license for the 10 Star Trek feature films this time.​

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

How the crap does the streaming home of Star Trek not have (certain) Star Trek??? Unless this deal was made 5 years ago or something, which I guess it probably was. But still.