Is it time to put Star Trek to rest?

[Campe]

Universal acclaim is impossible, but it can definitely appeal to more viewers - old and new - than the streaming-era stuff ultimately seems to have as a whole.

To go back to yesterday, no, Streaming Trek is not perfect. Lots of flaws. (Same thing could be said about all iterations of Trek.) But there have also been some really good moments in it. Some have chosen to give up on it and have missed those moments of excellent Star Trek. At the end of the day, that’s their right of course.

 

[camdudetenger2018]

Welcome to The Trek BBS.

where anything can happen in the forums aka message boards

 

[Starflight]

To go back to yesterday, no, Streaming Trek is not perfect. Lots of flaws. (Same thing could be said about all iterations of Trek.) But there have also been some really good moments in it. Some have chosen to give up on it and have missed those moments of excellent Star Trek. At the end of the day, that’s their right of course.

The subjective quality of the shows isn't what's in question here though, it's the cultural reach and impact they've had.

I'd welcome any evidence that suggests anything about that either way; the impression I get is that they've largely failed to land (suggested by the scant few viewership figures we have, such as the ones for SFA).

 

[The Salt Umpire]

People generally reacted positively to SNW at first and there was substantial enthusiasm for it, so possibly not as much as we might think.

I was very enthusiastic about SNW at the beginning, and the front loaded good writing drew me in. I'm more hopeful/dreading that S4 will be good/bad than anything else. There's a non-zero chance that S4 will be a trainwreck with 1-2 good episodes. YMMV.

I think either the TNG fanbase or TOS fanbase has to give. It's probably not possible to meet both of their expectations.

But I don't think the size of the existing franchise is a problem in terms of exhaustion. It's a bigger issue that the last 500 or so episodes of television have mostly been bad.

Quantity, though, does act as a deterrent to new viewers (I spoke to a young movie fan the other day who'd avoided Star Trek because "there's just so much of it").

I can understand that. There's been so much Star Wars product that I deliberately avoid the Star Wars forum here because I don't have the time to catch all the way back up and I don't want to be a Kurtzman when discussing stuff.

Perhaps all of us will welcome new, different Trek after a five year hiatus. We have become satiated to the point of insensibility

I can't speak to your imagination in particular, but that it was done the way it was is a feature of incompetence.

Definitely a feature. TPTB want progressive voices silenced. "The devil, that proud spirit, cannot abide to be mocked."

 

[Campe]

The subjective quality of the shows isn't what's in question here though, it's the cultural reach and impact they've had.

I'd welcome any evidence that suggests anything about that either way; the impression I get is that they've largely failed to land (suggested by the scant few viewership figures we have, such as the ones for SFA).

I wish I could provide any kind of evidence. But like you say any information is limited. I will say that six series is probably a sign that there was likely SOME level of success. Although I’ll admit that Academy (and Prodigy) sure didn’t draw in an audience.

 

[Starflight]

Yeah it's all very opaque, the SFA stat might be the most explicit they've ever been about viewership. For SNW I know that there were early signs of success but the Paramount+ Top Ten charts had it falling off early in the third season and then never reappearing.

This is obviously anecdotal and very weak evidence, but I've never come across for much enthusiasm for DSC/PIC/SNW out in the wild. I worked at a trading card shop a few years ago and we also sold a lot of pop culture merchandise, and we had a lot of Star Trek things. It was all Kirk, Spock, and Picard, never Burnham or Picard-era-Picard. You might expect TOS/TNG to remain the merchandising juggernauts, but you'd think there'd be some merch of the new stuff - I'm not a Star Wars fan so I don't know the details, but afaik Baby Yoda is a new creation and t-shirts and toys of it were all over the place.

Newer Trek just doesn't really seem to have made much of an impact. The best counterpoint I can think of is that DSC reportedly experienced immediate high viewership and resulted in the vaunted "subscriber spikes" (at first, anyway, iirc it fell off as it went along), but it seems to have been something people watched and then largely forgot about.

 

[Firebird]

Using any sort of measurable "impact" on current culture for the Trek franchise as a measuring stick for the Kurtzman era is a bit of a dead end, because we're in a different media landscape now. You gotta be something on the level of Star Wars or Stranger Things to have that crossover appeal, something Star Trek never had.

 

[Dar70]

To go back to yesterday, no, Streaming Trek is not perfect. Lots of flaws. (Same thing could be said about all iterations of Trek.) But there have also been some really good moments in it. Some have chosen to give up on it and have missed those moments of excellent Star Trek. At the end of the day, that’s their right of course.

Though I have not been a fan of most of it. There were indeed some bright spots to streaming Trek.

 

[Farscape One]

Though I have not been a fan of most of it. There were indeed some bright spots to streaming Trek.

True.

And for all of Kurtzman's faults or decisions that just didn't work, he DID have a good goal in trying to draw in all different types of fans by having shows that were mostly designed for different types of fans or viewers.

(Arc driven fans/viewers: DISCO and PICARD. TNG era audience: LDS and PICARD. Younger audience: PRODIGY and SFA. More standalone-ish: SNW.)

A lot didn't work out, but I'll credit him for giving it a shot with a wide variety.

 

[BillJ]

Interesting video. Not Trek but could easily be applied to it.

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[Shawnster]

Given I planted two flats of 72 pepper plant starts yesterday so...no.

72 pepper plants?

Now we know the story behind your user name.

 

[Set Harth]

I worked at a trading card shop a few years ago and we also sold a lot of pop culture merchandise, and we had a lot of Star Trek things. It was all Kirk, Spock, and Picard, never Burnham or Picard-era-Picard. You might expect TOS/TNG to remain the merchandising juggernauts, but you'd think there'd be some merch of the new stuff - I'm not a Star Wars fan so I don't know the details, but afaik Baby Yoda is a new creation and t-shirts and toys of it were all over the place.

Disney infamously didn't really have anything ready for Christmas 2019.

 

[cooleddie74]

The first Baby Yoda toys weren't in stores until 2020. It wasn't quite the infamous Early Bird Mailer Kit situation with Kenner in late 1977, but there was no way to get Baby Yoda merchandise into big box and other retailers until around the time the global pandemic was underway.

 

[The Wormhole]

Mostly because Disney wanted Baby Yoda to be a complete surprise when he first showed up on The Mandalorian.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Mostly because Disney wanted Baby Yoda to be a complete surprise when he first showed up on The Mandalorian.

And they knew they would be biting the merchandising bullet that holiday season. I actually admire their restraint.

 

[korblborp]

where anything can happen in the forums aka message boards

where the rules are made up and the points don't matter

 

[camdudetenger2018]

where the rules are made up and the points don't matter

and opinions is sometimes nuts depending on the topics

 

[TedShatner10]

I think the US entertainment industry since the turn of the 2010s is getting dragged under by ensh*ttification after the corpos, when they decided to merge into just two or three megacorps today, and now everything is grinding to a halt (when there's far less incentives for innovation between smaller competitors and far more pererse incentives for extractive renterism).

 

[Lynx]

If this is so, then your observation that there is “no where to move on to” becomes difficult to understand.

Because as it is right now it's hard to "move on" in a cage, even in a golden one.

OK, I can watch old episodes of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, NCIS, Stargate etc.
But it would be nice with something new and interesting now and then.

 

[Campe]

Because as it is right now it's hard to "move on" in a cage, even in a golden one.

OK, I can watch old episodes of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, NCIS, Stargate etc.
But it would be nice with something new and interesting now and then.

It surprises me greatly when we live in a world where more content than ever that is created on a yearly basis that anyone can say this. There have been some amazing shows through streaming that have showed up. Try your hand at free trials on these and just look to see what you can find.