Fine. You and everyone else, I get the message. You don't want me to go and why I was leaving was making a mountain out of a molehill. Five days later, I see that. But, yes. The ENT Forum in the early-2000s was pretty bad. So was the VOY Forum during the Turn of the Millennium. This is nothing compared to either of those. I can't say about the Kelvin Timeline Forum, because I was barely posting, if at all, when those films were released. But it probably wasn't too different.
I can speak to Kelvin especially. Before I was here I was on the official Star Trek boards, as well as around sites around the web. To say that Kelvin universe was treated poorly was to put it mildly. It wasn't just directed at the films themselves but constantly tearing Abrams apart in a very personal matter, and demanding him be put on trial, etc. Do I think Discovery is worse? No, I don't. Largely because I saw how ENT and Kelvin was treated and I know that many are painting it over with rose colored glasses on in creating that picture. Discovery simply is occurring at a time when outlets are widely available.
For one example, when the Romulans had cloaking devices in ENT: Minefield that produced quite the shitstorm on the board and beyond regarding its alleged disrespect of TOS.
I was debating whether or not to say anything about this, but I should. A lot of people were telling me, "Don't go! We need defenders of DSC!" and stuff along those lines. Yes, there should be posters on both sides of the argument, pro and con, and obviously I'm "pro", but more of you should step up instead of just having so much land on me. This gets exhausting after a while, even for me, believe it or not. For anyone who wants to step up and defend DSC but is afraid to take it from detractors of the show: When I first started posting on bulletin boards, I was 17 years old, standing up to some of the nastiest people the Internet had to offer. They were twice, three times my age. I felt nervous at first, worried, but I held my ground, and then I realized, "That wasn't so bad." If I could do it, even back then, you can do it now. You don't need me. You never did. I'm not saying go all in, like I have, but don't be afraid to speak up. Don't let them intimidate you. Add your voice and bring something to the table. What's the worst that can happen? Someone disagrees with you? Someone flames you? If they flame you, they broke the rules. If they disagree with you, that's just how it goes.
Very easily could have had 8 or 9 Noms, but well this is peak TV and all these genre shows and almost 600 series out in the current landscape gets kind of crowded, so voters tend to go with the current, mass popularity series like Marvel and SW. Still, they had a few very good noms. RAMA
Remember that thing you said about making a mountain out of a molehill? You're doing it again. Critics of the show are not the evil empire oppressing you, and you are not the brave and plucky rebels fighting a desperate battle for freedom. No one is bullying or intimidating you or anyone else from expressing your appreciation of the show. The sheer numbers of fans versus detractors (including especially vocal ones) makes that impossible. I have seen people tell critics to shut up or go away numerous times, however. At the end of the day, it's just a show. You're not being shipped off to war, so you don't need to rally the troops to your cause. Try and take things just a little bit less seriously. This is not a call for you to leave or anything like that. I and others appreciate your perspective. But don't act like you're burdened with being some lone defender of the show in the wilderness, because you're not, and that's weird.
I greatly appreciate your perspective, having a bit more history than I. I also am one who usually doesn't say too much because, well, it doesn't strike me as causing much change. But, you know what, I get tired of the same old garbage slinging sometimes. So, speaking up is a good idea. You and me both. I mean, it is still just a show and we should relax
The opening theme for MST3K is something we should all heed when it comes to debating Trek. "Just repeat to yourself it's just a show. I should really just relax." And there's something about bosses launching employees into space to use as guinea pigs for experiments because they're unpleasant and villainous, but we won't go there.
I enjoy Disco. It ain’t perfect but it’s fun. I certainly don’t expect everyone to agree with me. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion. Just be respectful of everyone else and we can all be cool.
For me it veers between near-sublime Trek and just loud, overproduced and shiny without the content it should have. A handful of episodes are amazing and a lot are just forgettable or downright disappointing.
For anyone who doesn't think there was reactionary criticism of shows like Sent, I present Stewey: https://www.trekbbs.com/posts/721565/
I have been posting on the TrekBBS since ENT was in its first or second season, and lurking in online ST spaces since DS9 was airing, and I would just like to add my voice to the chorus noting that ENT and VOY definitely got as much or more negativity thrown their way as DIS and PIC. (Also, they deserved it more than DIS or PIC.) Nope. They may not always hit a home run, but compared to most of VOY and the first two seasons of ENT, they're goddamn masterpieces. DIS and PIC are consistently character-focused stories with thematic resonance and actual consequences, with dynamic characters that have depth and meaningful flaws. By contrast, VOY and early ENT had shallow, cardboard cutout characters that never evolved, made constant use of plot-focused stories without meaningful consequences that hit the reset button at the end of every episodes, and rarely any meaningful sense of theme or meaningful flaws in their characterizations. Give me the worst episode of DIS any day of the week over even the best episode of VOY. That scene worked well. That is not how kids talk these days. And it's also a very wholesome use of fuck. I enjoyed the scene and noticed that it represented an important milestone in Stamet's relationship with Tilly, since it was an example of them connecting as human beings over a scientific accomplishment. It's also an example of how DIS has improved the franchise. One of Star Trek's longstanding flaws was its depiction of language -- everyone talking in this unrealistically prescriptivist formal English, at all times. That's not how real people talk. Real people use informal language, they swear, they use slang, they use idioms, have more accents than just "American Midwestern" and "British Received Pronunciation," and generally just do not communicate the way ST had the communicating in the Berman era. I am actively glad that DIS has characters whose use of language is much more organic and realistic than the vaguely classist way Berman-era characters spoke.
"Opinions!" I'm very glad you love Discovery so much. I don't see it very often. I finally watched the first couple of episodes of season 3 last night and whilst the first one was pretty good, the second made me want to throw my remote through the tv. If it wasn't putting a critically ill (and insufferable) character in charge of saving the ship for some bizarre reason, it was Saru's tediously sugary sweet principles they like to beat us over the head with in response to the trainwreck of season 1, or the filmed in an afternoon showdown with the bad guy with zero charisma. I hope the writing improves. This "burn" sounds interesting to be fair. And you know the F bomb in season 1 was done for headlines because that was literally the only example of it in that whole season (show?). Like with most things on Discovery (in my opinion), it felt forced and unnatural.
It felt a little more natural than Romulans using modern day earth slang and cusses on Picard. I do like the show's more casual way characters talk but they also do sound sometimes like they are modern day people. Battlestar Galatica was better at this in that it felt contemporary but it had just enough differences that you knew they were not present day humans.
A TV show using the word fuck is not newsworthy and will not generate headlines. TV shows have been using fuck literally for decades now. Literally nobody making DIS is so sheltered or naive that they would erroneously believe using fuck would get them headlines. I mean, Romulans speaking English is already a dramatic conceit -- we're clearly seeing a non-realistic representation of what they are saying in Romulan within the fictional universe of the show. And if we can accept the conceit that aliens would speak English, why not use a version of English that people actually speak instead of only using formal prescriptivist English?
All it did was have some people whining about it. A show saying "Fuck" is no longer news any more. used to be but that ship has sailed. So, what headlines would that possibly generate the year Discovery came out? "Star Trek finally comes in to the 21st century and uses fuck."
To me it just felt a little off but not a big issue. The only eye rolling moment in Picard was the alien Soji was on a date with who said something like her replicator was tragic or something like that. I mean if your going to use earth slang at least use the older classic stuff. Like fuck and shit is almost timeless at this point. Stuff that sounds like only Millennials or younger would say is when you get more into eye rolling territory.
I mean, I get the logic behind that, but if I google "star trek tilly fuck"* I immediately get four headlines from well-known media outlets (one from ew.com!), so clearly it was. Inverse.com even claims that Disco made history with it (which is ridiculous). This shows that there is a big difference between "newsworthy" and "generating headlines" *I also didn't get any porn sites, so that's a relief!