Starfleet Academy show should feature a lounge featuring a Klingon boy band.
Random executive, probably.
Random executive, probably.
Spoilers Strange New Worlds General Discussion Thread
- Thread starter NewHeavensNewEarth
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It was inspired by this conversation I recently had, in which I made this statement:
And then obviously exaggerated for comedic effect.
The Bermaga Beast who ruined Star Trek. It traveled back in time to even ruin things the Braga half had no hand in.
The musical was the silliest of them all, and has become my new "worst episode of all time". It's the only episode of Star Trek that is actually painful to watch. I'll watch "Threshold" or "Spock's Brain" any day over that. I'll give the acknowledgement that I despise musicals in general, so the episode was basically purpose-built for me to hate it.
Three out of 10 episodes that were silly, the musical, HumanSpock, and the Lower Decks crossover. (The Lower Decks crossover being the best one, i'll give it to them there, that was actually good.)
30% of the episodes being silly seems like too much. In a 10 episode season, do 1. Maybe 2.
SNW really isn't bad though. Don't take that away from this. I just feel that S2 wasn't up to the quality of S1. Beyond the silly episodes, I found some of them to just fall flat. Let me run them real quick...
The Broken Circle - I'll give it a "fine". Nothing great, nothing terrible.
Ad Astra Per Aspera - Best episode the series.
Tommorowx3 - Above average? A decent enough episode with a striking revelation and one of the most impactful episodes to the overall Trek lore... that also oddly seems to be somewhat ignored.
Among the Lotus Eaters - I loved this one. Solid, solid episode.
Charades - Boring, uninteresting. Resounding meh.
Lost in Translation - "Fine". Forgettable... I have to admit I completely forgot about this episode and as I type this, I can't remember what happens.
Those Old Scientists - Yeah. This one was cool. Props for that.
Under The Cloak of War - Good episode overall, but kind of a character assassination for M'Benga.
Subspace Rhapsody - No.
Hegemony - Not bad. Not sold on nuScotty. Hard to judge for real until Part 2.
So I guess in the end for S3, 3 Great episodes. 2 "Fine" episodes. 3 Kinda meh episodes. 2 bad episodes. I guess by and large, that's not a horrible season.
The infamous timeline change has overshadowed everything else about this episode. It's probably my favorite episode of S2 and it spotlights my least favorite SNW character. But it just fires on all cylinders.
This was one of the few "Let's do a Star Trek adventure" episodes this season. (They did five. I will grudgingly include The Broken Circle even though it was motivated by the end of Season 1 and leading up to Ad Astra Per Aspera.) And it was (like Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow) a nice balance of a lot of emotions as well as a reasonable amount of fun. Under the Cloak of war was good but pretty dark. For one episode that's fine.
So on balance, I really enjoyed this one and one of my faves this season. I will point out that as much as I adored SNW Kirk this season - after not liking him at all in season 1 - that while I loved Tx3 because it had Kirk, I love Lost in Translation anyway and Kirk just happens to be in it. Different things. Please continue to use him sparingly. (Ok. "Ohhhh, you're friends with SAM." is just one of my favorite lines.)
Doctor Who had the same problem during the Matt Smith Moffat years. They were either setting up or finishing off an arc. So there were fewer "run of the mill" episodes.
You say it was a "bad" episode. But I gather you (and others) object to the entire project. Is there any version of a Star Trek musical (caused by whatever unobtanium reacting with impossibilium in the hoodehoo drivers) that you would say was good?
Me? If the lyrics were better I'd make it required viewing even for non-Star Trek fans.
I've actually been thinking a lot about @Nerys Myk 's take that it's another iteration of The Naked Time.
If we all ignore it maybe it'll go away! That's what I'm hoping anyway.
Hey I want to write about all the episodes too.
- The Broken Circle *** - A very average episode of SNW, spoiled a bit for me by the focus on the Spock/Chapel relationship and the Enterprise doing barrel rolls. Very very average.
- Ad Astra Per Aspera *** - Making a guest star the protagonist is always tricky, making the episode about fighting a 'prejudice' that is still accepted by our most moral heroes a hundred years later is kind of bizarre actually.
- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow **** - It tries to be SNW's City on the Edge of Forever and arguably succeeds. It definitely feels more like a movie than most stories and it really sold me on La'an. In fact it somehow sold me on the new Kirk actor too, which is bloody impressive.
- Among the Lotus Eaters ** - Not a bad premise, but the main plot didn't entirely work for me and the plot on the ship was almost parody. Ortegas remembers that she flies the ship! Also the memory loss sound was almost physically painful and I ended up muting the sound and watching with subtitles only.
- Charades ** - Spock hijinks! I didn't buy the premise that Spock would have trouble controlling his emotions and remembering how to act Vulcan, I didn't care about the 50s sitcom plot, and I don't like 'fun with DNA' stories in general.
- Lost in Translation **½ - Let's give the woman suffering from hallucinations a lethal weapon and let her wander the hallways unsupervised!
- Those Old Scientists **** - Nailed it... mostly. I'm not going to nitpick.
- Under the Cloak of War ****½ - This was a fantastic episode and I'm amazed they just made a main character a murderer who covered it up to save his own ass. I'm amazed I didn't have a problem with it! The episode is too good.
- Subspace Rhapsody ** - I'm not against the idea of a Trek musical, the Buffy one was pretty much the highlight of its 6th season, but episodes need to convince me to suspend my disbelief and this failed at that, badly. There was no chance of me enjoying the story when I didn't even believe that it was happening. All I saw was actors on sound stages doing karaoke. That said I still have three of the songs in my head, despite the awkward lyrics, so it can have a couple of stars for the soundtrack.
- Hegemony *** - This was always going to have an uphill battle to impress me as I don't like the Gorn, and sadly the battle was lost. And what the hell did they do with Scotty? The writers know that the Simon Pegg version is from another reality, right?
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The crazy part is? This change has been in place since TNG. But since nobody talked about the Eugenics Wars being specifically in 1996 since then (or the EWs much in general) we never noticed!
Maybe it will go away by never mentioning the EWs ever again.
Sounds good to me.
It was a musical.. so yes?
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I love how even episodes you don't like still rate two stars.
Honestly, I went back and forth on that a bit in my head. I rarely ever rate things in stars and I'm not entirely satisfied with what I came up with.
But I just went though a Trek marathon that included episodes like The Alternative Factor, Code of Honor, Masks, Threshold and Two Days and Two Nights, so my scale has been calibrated by that.
So...those get mentioned but we can't mention other things?
Got to take the good with the baboon.
MUCH more sparingly. Kirk shows up way too often. I don't love this new Kirk, but I don't hate him either and I find him to be... acceptable. But at the same point, this isn't Kirk's show or Kirk's ship. We don't need so much Kirk.
Doubtful. The entire project was a bad idea. It was a bad premise for an episode and it was bad. I really don't see any possible way where a musical episode works, save for... limiting the amount of the musical aspect. If maybe like, one character was affected and couldn't help but sing, or perhaps the crew encounters a new race that communicates exclusively through song and the crew needs to adapt to initiate successful first contact. But... the entire idea is still absolutely terrible.
Which was the best possible way to handle it. It happens, it is referenced from time to time but... we can leave that up to the audience to deduce how exactly it all went down. I've done that myself and have a whole-ass timeline for Eugenics Wars plural, because... they call them Wars, not War. The tl;dr version is that there are two... the 90's one that lasted a few years that featured Khan and set the stage for more conflicts... the Second American Civil War broke out over the issue of Augments (I have an Augment President being elected, which causes a massive division), which then spills out beyond the USA and becomes a larger conflict that is seen as an extension of the Eugenics Wars (there were more Augments, biding their time), which by the end of it all, just flows into a proper World War III.
I've seen shows try to do 'half a musical' episode before. They're terrible concepts full of tonal whiplash and even worse musical chops than the average tv musical episode. You would still hate it, the only difference would be most others would hate it, too.
When it comes to musicals, you either do the full story or just a single scene. Nothing in between is going to work.
I could probably live with a single scene.
The rest would be lethal.
The majority would disagree with you
The majority doesn't make it good.The majority would disagree with you
‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Showrunners Talk “Crazier” Season 3, Plans To “Drive Right Into” TOS
Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers also talk Scotty, Una, Roger Korby... and Sybok!
trekmovie.com
