What do people think of SNW (spoiler free please)

They literally just suffered casualties on an away mission. Of course there would be turnover.

Plus reassignments.

Plus retirements.

Etc.

Crew rotation shouldn't be remarkable over a couple of years. Careers progress.

 

Honestly the amount of turnover in five years between "The Cage" and "Strange New Worlds" is probably more realistic than the lack of turnover we typically see in ST shows.

 

And the turnover between the two Pilots and then the second Pilot and "The Corbomite Maneuver" is also stark. Everybody on the bridge in the first episode of the regular series is new except for Kirk and Spock and Sulu is transferred from the below decks and staff physicist to become the new Helmsman after Lee Kelso is killed. A lot of that is Pilot strangeness and no series having yet been greenlighted so they had no idea who a final bridge crew would be but still, in-universe there was a lot of bridge crew turnover between even 2265 and 2266.

 

Hell in the first season of TOS had a lot of 'crew turnover' from week to week. Crew members who came across like they had been a part of the crew for years, yet after that week's episode (assuming they survived); we never saw them again.

Lieutenant Bailey from TOS S1 The Corbomite Maneuver

Lieutenant Stiles from TOS S1 Balance of Terror

And a few starting TOS Season 1 background regulars like Kevin Riley and Janice Rand suddenly disappeared before the first 13 episodes aired.

My point? In what we saw on screen, during Pike's era of Command, there was plenty of observed crew member turnover. And it continued into the early era of Kirk's Command.

 

And Uhura wasn't there every week, either. Some weeks it was Lt. Lisa the blonde Communications officer. There was remarkable instability on that bridge with the exceptions of the Captain's chair and the Science station.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Season 1, finally got around to watching it. I had people who saw it going nuts about the impact on canon, including the season finale episode. However, I didn't think it was a problem, in fact I found the whole season to be well written with good action, effects, and acting. I love Mount's Pike, and new characters like La'an I really liked as well as Hemmer.

The one peeve I had was casting a scrawny Asian actor to play Chief Kyle, played by a tall white Celtic dude in TOS and movies. Frankly that really annoyed me. I had no issue with the actor who played Robert April, great actor btw, but that character was never seen on TOS just one animated show. Kyle was a semi-regular for 20 years.

 

No, he was a piece of scenery that happened to be played by an actor. He had no personality, no agency, no depth, no nothing to him. And if it bothers you that much, there's no reason not to assume the Kyle of SNW is not a different person from the Kyle of TOS.

 

Works for me. Kyle's a pretty common surname so why not? There must be service personnel of different ethnic backgrounds but the same surname who get assigned to the same modern day naval vessels. Roll with it.

 

And what do we know about Kyle? Nothing. Ok, so what's the issue? April had more distinguishing characteristics yet that's a nonissue?

This strange line of what is acceptable and what is problematic continues to baffle me.

Indeed.

 

Better than I expected, tbh. It felt like an honors the spirit of the franchise, even if the overall quality isn't quite reaching the same peaks as previous entries.

 

Now that the dust has settled, I still maintain that Strange New Worlds is the best new Trek series and if it stays the course, it could become one of my top favorite Trek series of all time.

How do I know it's been successful for me? It's one of only two new Trek series that I'm actually rewatching. (The other is Lower Decks.) Discovery and Picard, while they have many ups and downs for me, don't make me want to go through them again because of the commitment. Telling long-form stories hurts the rewatch value for me. I like being able to just watch a single hour of a show from any point in the season.

Strange New Worlds also has the best cast of the new shows, I think. Enough great things can't be said about Anson Mount's portrayal as Captain Pike. Even if he was playing someone else, he just oozes the charisma of a great, likeable Starfleet captain.

I also love that it's exploring an era of Enterprise history that I've always been curious to see. For ages, I always looked at The Cage and wondered what could have been. It's a lost era of Trek that I've always wanted to see played out on screen. While I do wish they would've leaned more into the crew from The Cage instead of bringing in Uhura and Chapel, it's still fine. The actors portraying them are really good.

I'm really looking forward to season two.

 

Looking back on SNW with a little separation to deflate some bias and emotion, I’d say:

POSITIVES:
-Overall, this is the most likable cast of characters amongst the new live-action shows (PRO takes the top spot if we include animated shows)
-The production values and designs are the best of any of the new series, and probably my favorites since the TOS films
-The tone and feel is really just like “what if they made TOS, but on the 2020’s”
-The re-casting of legacy characters is really good. Uhura and Chapel are really great, and M’Benga may be my favorite.
-I like the episodic format, with the fact that they carry certain threads through the series as well.

QUESTIONS/WATCH ITEMS:
-I’m not sure why the producers have decided to make T’Pring such an integral part of the series, but to me that was a miscalculation. I think the appearance in the pilot would have been sufficient.
-Along those same lines, doubling down on an awkward “love triange” soap opera concept with Spock, T’Pring, and Chapel is…meehhhhh.
-Number One needs to be given more to do.
-Consistency is key. With only 10 episodes, it’s harder to forgive silliness like “Spock Amok” or an outright bizarre mis-fire like “The Serene Squall.” I know they can’t all be winners, and the first season is always toughest…but I’d rather see more stuff like the first 4 episodes and even “New Eden” (the Pike-led episodic adventure from DSC S2) than episodes that just sort of go TOO far off the rails.

 

Meh, the SNW characters are way better than the 1964 characters.

"Disrespectful to canon" is not a thing.

SNW is the only current Trek I care for.

 

Which is why one wonders why they felt the need to link the SNW characters to their TOS counterparts in the first place. Kara Thrace is way better than TOS Starbuck, and they're not the same person.

Anyway, just finished the first season. Overall, I liked the show by judging it on its own merits rather than trying to make some foolish attempt to rationalize that it takes place in the same continuity as TOS. So I won't be comparing SNW Spock, T'Pring, Uhura, Chapel, M'Benga etc. to their TOS counterparts because that's just foolish. They are not even close to being the same people. But I do have some nitpicks:

-I found that I really like the Na'an character, but I'm completely baffled as to why they felt the need to make her Khan's descendant. It's not like she has any augmentations herself, and the link was brought up one time and then forgotten. And why would she even have that same surname after 300 years? And even if that was possible, why didn't she just change her name if she was that shameful about her family history? Her backstory about escaping from a Gorn breeding planet was sufficient enough; they didn’t need to link her to Khan too for no discernible reason.

-And on that note, so they decided to make the Gorn a mix of Ridley Scott's Alien and the Predator. That was just dumb. And I won't get into the whole 'All of Starfleet knew about the Gorn except for TOS Kirk who never heard of them' because as I said before, I'm not judging the show by any imaginary link to TOS. I just didn't want the Gorn to be a CGI Alien ripoff.

-I absolutely loved Hemmer, and they decide to kill him off just so that they can bring in DiscoScotty. Great. I suppose they’re going to kill Ortegas when DiscoSulu arrives.

-The only function that Sam Kirk seemed to serve was to act as a polar opposite to James Kirk in the treatment of Spock. Other than that, there’s really no reason why Kirk’s brother should be on the Enterprise. He seems to exist only to make Kirk look good.

 

Thankfully.

 

Frankly, lack of turnover among the crew has always been something that has bothered me with the Trek series. Riker staying a commander all those years after he was first offered a captains chair just isn't realistic. Promotions are very hard to achieve and they aren't something you can just turn down. Ditto with the rest of the crew members. With all their great accomplishments, promotions would have come in and Worf, Data, Troi, LaForge and Crusher would have either moved up in rank on the ship or moved up in rank and transferred off by the fourth season. It certainly would have happened after Wolf 359 and the fleet having to be replenished after all that destruction. And Riker certainly would not have been knocked back down to commander just because Picard was saved from the Borg.

 

Just finished watching season one on DVD last night.
I was a bit underwhelmed, after what I saw in Disco and with all the positive reviews for SNW, I guess I was expecting a bit more.
I actually liked the Gorn episode, despite the re-imagining of that species, it'll be interesting to see if they try to explain it or just ignore it.
I like Uhura, both the way the character is written and acted, Gooding is much better than Saldana IMHO.
And I'm warming to M'benga, wasn't sure I would since I always liked the character from TOS and and at first I wasn't too sure about a new actor taking on the role, but as I said, I'm coming around.
Having some cognitive dissonance with Chapel though, I actually like how the character is written and acted, but she's just not the same person as we saw in TOS, I think the writers should have just had a new character rather than trying to re-imagine yet another legacy character.
Ortegas is too flippant.
Spock says "indeed" too much.
I like the way the Enterprise is a blending of the the TOS TV version and the TOS Movie versions.

 

The blurb on the front cover of the DVD set is greatly exaggerated, but I like it so far.

 

What? It was certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

That's a sticker on the front cover.
I was referring to the one from "SlashFilm" (is "SlashFilm" anything like slash fiction?)