Presumably Soong knew he would eventually become a doddering old crackpot living alone in the jungle so I’d guess that functionality would be built into Data’s core programming
“Jean-Luc Picard is back”: will new Picard show eclipse Discovery?
- Thread starter Groppler Zorn
- Start date
It's really fucking hard to make a mainstream success show. There is just SO MUCH that has to work perfectly, plus so, so many things needed nobody has an influence on, it comes down to amazing talent + pure luck.
Star Trek has hit that point already twice in it's history. That's fuckin' unbelievable and amazing. And in my opinion Trek hís one of the unique properties that has the ability to hit that a third (or fourth) time again. Because the core concept of exploration and adventures between the stars is pretty much timeless, and will forever have an immense appeal to it.
It's just damn hard to get there. Because Trek is intrinsically hard to write for - it's a future that has LESS conflict than today, which makes it really hard to generate narrative conflict for a story, let alone for an entire season. But as soon as you start a major conflict (say, a war with the klingons), you kinda' move away from the core concept that made Trek so interesting to begin with.
It's like writing for Superman. It's damn hard. I'm super confident there will be a Superman movie in the future that hits all the notes perfecty - and is going to be a huuuge success overshadowing all other superhero movies. And it's almost a certainy such a perfect Superman movie will be made one day. But it's pretty impossible to guess when that will be - and we will have lots and lots of bad to mediocre Superman movies in the meantime. The same holds IMO true for Star Trek.. It's just too perfect a concept not be made perfectly one day, but it's nearly impossible to hit it right away, and there will be many misses - as in okay-but-not-perfect-trials - on the way.
You should check the numbers out. They're bonkers.
That's pretty much the gist of it. It's pretty good to have those "other Treks" to keep the franchise warm. They keep the interest in the brand and the money flowing. But one day they'll need another big headliner again. I don't know if the Picard show could be that - but who knows? If the chips fall perfectly, it could be the one that attracts all the people only vaguely familiar with Trek (or Picard meme faces) back. If they make it "just another Trek series", then - well - we'll have another Trek series. Not bad either.
I agree with that 100% about the difficulty with making a mainstream hit. And, given that, I think Discovery has done fairly well. Well enough to keep going itself and to launch the other series. Perhaps later seasons or one of the other series will hit that perfect note. Also, keep in mind that this was just Discovery's first season. TNG was pretty poor its first season yet went on to be the biggest ratings success. Also, GoT wasn't the juggernaut it was during its first season. So, some of it is giving Discovery time.
However, I also don't judge a series by whether it's a mainstream hit. I don't think a series needs to hit that mark to be excellent. For example, I love The Expanse. It's way better than Discovery, but it's nowhere near being a mainstream hit. Love love that show! And, in this day of niche streaming, that's really just fine. You only need enough viewers to sustain a series. The Expanse might never be a pop culture hit but that doesn't really matter. It is perfect for what it is.
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Nope. It was never canon.Really?
Huh who knew. I thought the whole point was that it tied into what happened just before ST09. But I suppose it was never seen on screen so it automatically fails on that criterion.
Now could be the chance to add it to the canon...
Ah cheers I’m with you now
In DISCO'S defense, the show was hamstrung in North America by being used as a selling point for yet another streaming service that really had no other significant selling points.
People that wanted to watch it, would figure out how to watch it. Even without subscribing to All-Access themselves.
It is available on Amazon Prime, and it may or may not be available on a certain site whose name rhymes with Schmailymotion.
I tried to get it on Amazon Prime here in the US and it is not available. Only through CBS All Access right now.
I love GoT to death, it's one of my all time favorite shows. But no, it didn't bring anything new to the table. It's "Rome" with dragons. You know what brought audiences to GoT? Gratuitous sex and violence. Which Rome also had plenty of, along with political maneuvering and killing plenty of characters. Rome's ratings were rising, and showed that audiences would totally go for a show set in a very different era. Unfortunately, Rome was a very expensive show to produce and so it got the axe.
I've heard that there's one that rhymes with Slower Moonies that may or may not be available as well.
In the post of mine that you quoted, I had originally thought of writing about how GoT brought something new to the table, but didn't in the end because I realized it didn't really bring anything new, either. It did manage to capture the public's attention with what it does and how it does it. That said, there's not much there that hadn't already been done elsewhere.
You can order All-Access through Amazon Prime. But you can't buy the individual episodes as of now.
Prior to 2009, my impression was that the average person only really remembered three STAR TREK movies: the one with Khan, the one with the whales, and maybe the one with the Borg. (And maybe they also remembered a few scenes from TSFS but falsely attributed them to KHAN.)
They were often surprised to find out that there had been ten STAR TREK movies to date.
Any Star Trek can become popular at any time as long as it's cultivated in the right environment. Disco wasn't, which was sort of my initial point.
"Carbon Unit" has a pretty firm place in the pop lexicon too. People know it's from a Star Trek movie; they just can't tell you which one.
For some reason, I can't think of that expression without remembering "Walking Freezer Unit" as well... which would likely never make it into a script today.
I too love GoT to death. I agree that it doesn't bring anything new to the table, but all possible story types have already been told. So, that wasn't a possibility to begin with.
What GoT did was to, of course, use the gratuitous sex and violence, but also executed the storytelling very well. You became interested in many characters and attached to them. These are characters and a world that we care about. Or, we love to hate! Either way, they're excellent and we want to see more. We also want to see how they're individual stories progress as well as the larger global story. GoT excels at that aspect.
The sex and violence just got people to watch the show in the first place. But, it's the high quality storytelling that kept those viewers keep watching over the years and made it the juggernaut that it is.
Like Rome
Like Rome
So...like Rome. As I said, Rome's ratings were going up, but was cancelled due to financial reasons. Had HBO toughed it out, they could've had another huge hit on their hands. Would it be as big as GoT? Well,, GoT has dragons, The Wall, flaming swords, etc, etc.
But beyond that, Rome already did most of what GoT has done. As I said, love GoT, but as a history buff, I also love Rome.
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