I'm a Trek fan but when this series came out I was truly disappointed with the boring drama and bad acting. The actors are not what I expected. They don't act professionally like other star trek crews. The stories are boring and I lost interest within the first 5 minutes. As the series progressed, the show got worse, more drama and more boring stories. Not to mention the singing musical show. Just not at all what I expect in Star trek. Discovery was a great series and I was sorry to see it end. I had really hoped Strange new worlds would be exciting like Discovery.
Strange New Worlds disappointment
- Thread starter just2wicked
- Start date
I think neither Disco or Snw are better than the sum of their parts. Still, give me a Trek show that focuses on its entire main cast instead of relegating all but one as the focal point of each season's plotlines. It's what annoyed me about Voyager after season 3: it often was the Janeway/Seven/Doctor show.
It's turned into drivel, but in a different type of drivel to Discovery.
I love the SNW cast and still do, and I felt it started off competently in season one. But it's been a decline since then.
I think the biggest issue is: fear. The writers are afraid to write. To make new characters, to make new situations, to form new concepts, to have an opinion. They want to stay in the safe sandpit of what they know, rather than step outside of it. Where are our Qs? Our Borg? Our 8472s? Our Duets? Our Visitors? Shelby is like decades later from one appearance, who is the Shelby of this series?
It's like a pen being written on the same spot of paper over and over again, until the paper wears thin.
They hold on (mostly) to characters that they know through shows like TOS. I known Kirk is the main man eventually, but they use him like a crutch as they have the template of him. The have their picture and they're colouring it in.
A character like M'Benga who is for the most part 'new', gets left on the sidelines most of the time. They did some early legwork with his daughter, but gave that up quickly.
Beyond that, they aren't creating or fleshing out new characters that broaden the show's tapestry.
Then when it comes to the stories, it's again fearful. It retreads old ground of Trek, or copies and emulates other shows to great degrees. Now, I know all shows ultimately can take inspiration from others - there's very few truly unique ideas. But SNW copies ideas as again it means not having to think. We've had holodeck episodes. Zombies have been done in media to death.
The musical you mention - done before, Buffy did it for example.
The huge difference is that Buffy's writers had taken the characters on massive arcs of character development, and the musical was this explosion of storytelling that was rewarding because they had put so much work into the backstory. It was years in the making.
In SNW they don't get that. They think they can make them sing, and for it to mean something. That the singing is the thing. But it's not. It means nothing, as they hadn't put in the legwork.
Picard was similar. Insular, scared. The writers more interested in commenting on what was on their doorstep (almost literally) and undoing TNG/the movies so they could erase stories of loss. Again, using the toolkit that other writers gave them.
It's sad though... again SNW has a great cast. Good production values. The universe is their oyster. But they don't want to take it. Because it's DAMN HARD WORK creating new stories and characters.
I love the SNW cast and still do, and I felt it started off competently in season one. But it's been a decline since then.
I think the biggest issue is: fear. The writers are afraid to write. To make new characters, to make new situations, to form new concepts, to have an opinion. They want to stay in the safe sandpit of what they know, rather than step outside of it. Where are our Qs? Our Borg? Our 8472s? Our Duets? Our Visitors? Shelby is like decades later from one appearance, who is the Shelby of this series?
It's like a pen being written on the same spot of paper over and over again, until the paper wears thin.
They hold on (mostly) to characters that they know through shows like TOS. I known Kirk is the main man eventually, but they use him like a crutch as they have the template of him. The have their picture and they're colouring it in.
A character like M'Benga who is for the most part 'new', gets left on the sidelines most of the time. They did some early legwork with his daughter, but gave that up quickly.
Beyond that, they aren't creating or fleshing out new characters that broaden the show's tapestry.
Then when it comes to the stories, it's again fearful. It retreads old ground of Trek, or copies and emulates other shows to great degrees. Now, I know all shows ultimately can take inspiration from others - there's very few truly unique ideas. But SNW copies ideas as again it means not having to think. We've had holodeck episodes. Zombies have been done in media to death.
The musical you mention - done before, Buffy did it for example.
The huge difference is that Buffy's writers had taken the characters on massive arcs of character development, and the musical was this explosion of storytelling that was rewarding because they had put so much work into the backstory. It was years in the making.
In SNW they don't get that. They think they can make them sing, and for it to mean something. That the singing is the thing. But it's not. It means nothing, as they hadn't put in the legwork.
Picard was similar. Insular, scared. The writers more interested in commenting on what was on their doorstep (almost literally) and undoing TNG/the movies so they could erase stories of loss. Again, using the toolkit that other writers gave them.
It's sad though... again SNW has a great cast. Good production values. The universe is their oyster. But they don't want to take it. Because it's DAMN HARD WORK creating new stories and characters.
I feel the show hasn't quite lived up to it's potential (really I wanted that series everyone did picking up after the 2009 movie, and this is kinda that), but I enjoy it for what it is. The highs are decent, the lows are the drizzling shits.
The endless revisiting of old concepts is what's killing it for me, even more than the botched comedy episodes. That, and the fact that especially over the last season, there's just so much Discovery-style psychodrama and adolescent relationship troubles.
Plenty of people have said it in better ways than I can, but it's so preoccupied with revisiting and wallowing in Star Trek's cultural legacy that it ends up feeling extremely artificial - it doesn't feel like a classic Star Trek series so much as it feels like a product designed to reinforce and reshape Star Trek's brand identity around a few key characters and ideas, specially formulated to appeal to what people supposedly like about the franchise.
The problem is that it's like if I asked you what you like about pizza, you said "cheese I guess", and then I shot you in the face with a concentrated blast of ultra-processed liquid American cheese from a firehose while earnestly reassuring you that I'm giving you the best pizza of your life.
Plenty of people have said it in better ways than I can, but it's so preoccupied with revisiting and wallowing in Star Trek's cultural legacy that it ends up feeling extremely artificial - it doesn't feel like a classic Star Trek series so much as it feels like a product designed to reinforce and reshape Star Trek's brand identity around a few key characters and ideas, specially formulated to appeal to what people supposedly like about the franchise.
The problem is that it's like if I asked you what you like about pizza, you said "cheese I guess", and then I shot you in the face with a concentrated blast of ultra-processed liquid American cheese from a firehose while earnestly reassuring you that I'm giving you the best pizza of your life.
This season has been uneven, but it's still better than large swaths of BermaTrek. The musical episode was genius.
Define "everyone"...
While wearing a Vulcan fake ears going "This is logical."
I have no problem with people liking it and this question is not to dispute that. I didn't hate it, but felt it lacked clout. But I am interested to see how you think this classes as genius-level writing. They made the characters sing. It's not new. It didn't progress the story. It was derivative. How is it genius?
The central problem with what SNW has evolved into is it's not a Star Trek show, it's a show about Star Trek. Virtually every story is now either built on established Star Trek tropes, or serving up memberberries to us like we're pigs at a trough.
The problem is, the all-time best Trek stories were essentially never built on returning to well-treaded ground, but on surprising the audience with new, bold directions. Obviously TOS came first, and was trailblazing in every way, though as it developed its own format, it lost steam. TNG only really got its mojo when they stopped using recycled TOS scripts and the like and developed a new identity. DS9 became the most critically acclaimed Trek series over time because it intentionally cut against the format that TNG established, right from the beginning. And then VOY and ENT were partial failures because the studio wanted them to be nothing other than "moar TNG."
Paramount got spanked hard by some of the failures of early DIS and PIC, and has gotten progressively less and less adventurous with Trek as time passes. We're being given the TV equivalent of cheesy fries with gravy now - cheap calories which might appeal to the widest potential audience, but aren't ever going to be Zagat rated.
The problem is, the all-time best Trek stories were essentially never built on returning to well-treaded ground, but on surprising the audience with new, bold directions. Obviously TOS came first, and was trailblazing in every way, though as it developed its own format, it lost steam. TNG only really got its mojo when they stopped using recycled TOS scripts and the like and developed a new identity. DS9 became the most critically acclaimed Trek series over time because it intentionally cut against the format that TNG established, right from the beginning. And then VOY and ENT were partial failures because the studio wanted them to be nothing other than "moar TNG."
Paramount got spanked hard by some of the failures of early DIS and PIC, and has gotten progressively less and less adventurous with Trek as time passes. We're being given the TV equivalent of cheesy fries with gravy now - cheap calories which might appeal to the widest potential audience, but aren't ever going to be Zagat rated.
Those are my bottom tier Trek as well.
By the end of season 2, I was of the opinion that SNW has had several good, even very good, episodes, but I was still waiting for it to have its great episode. The one that puts it on the map in the way that Measure of a Man or Duet did for earlier shows. I largely like the look of the show, I largely like its actors, and I felt that it was only a matter of time before it finally found its footing and reached those heights as well.
After season 3... I'm not sure I'm as optimistic. If I had to describe this season, I would say that the writers are writing for characters first and foremost. They decide that it's time for a Spock episode, or a Kirk episode, and they write the character's arc through the episode first, then craft the rest of the episode around that. That's not a wrong way to make an episode, persay, but I think it does lead to the "Strange New Worlds" feeling like an afterthought. I like Star Trek for the interesting scenarios that only a science fiction program can provide, but the show this last season has lost that interesting spark for me. I think even at its worst I like it a hell of a lot more than I liked Discovery or Picard, but with season 4 being filmed already, I suspect the show will continue down this path for the majority of its remaining run.
After season 3... I'm not sure I'm as optimistic. If I had to describe this season, I would say that the writers are writing for characters first and foremost. They decide that it's time for a Spock episode, or a Kirk episode, and they write the character's arc through the episode first, then craft the rest of the episode around that. That's not a wrong way to make an episode, persay, but I think it does lead to the "Strange New Worlds" feeling like an afterthought. I like Star Trek for the interesting scenarios that only a science fiction program can provide, but the show this last season has lost that interesting spark for me. I think even at its worst I like it a hell of a lot more than I liked Discovery or Picard, but with season 4 being filmed already, I suspect the show will continue down this path for the majority of its remaining run.
Me and about 5 other people.
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