Spoilers Can we itemize PIC S2 canonical mistakes.

[F. King Daniel]

This is an article from the National Enquirer, a tabloid.

Is there any other article besides an article from a tabloid about the backlash against TNG?
For some reason this is the only article NuTrek apologists bring up to show that TNG was supposedly rejected by (a large group) of Star Trek fans.


This is what amplifying singular/outsider voices completely out of proportion looks like.
This was written before the first episode aired, people who prejudged TGN didn't know what they were talking about.
NuTrek is in its fifth year and the backlash not only continues, the rejection increases.


The article states, that the write-in campaign is spearheaded by a woman. People who reject NuTrek are sometimes called "toxic". Would you call this woman a "toxic Star Trek fan"?

Here's Interstat. Have a read, you'll find everything trashed from the animated series to the classic movies to the unmade 1991 academy movie concept and finally the Next Generation

Fandom hasn't changed one bit, except now any old idiot can rant and rave from the shitter instead of needing to take time to write and post a letter.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The idea that Trek fans just sang the praises of TNG (or TMP) from the word "go" is hilarious.

 

[The_Baroness]

The idea that Trek fans just sang the praises of TNG (or TMP) from the word "go" is hilarious.

I remember being in a video rental shop when I was about 7 with my nan and overhearing a full grown adult ranting about how awful TNG was just from looking at a poster advertising the vhs release of encounter at far point

Back then in the UK the vhs tapes came out before the series aired (unless you had satellite) and there were no clips aired on TV and no Internet to g8ve any info.

He was literally just kicking off at a picture of the cast on a poster.

 

[fireproof78]

I remember being in a video rental shop when I was about 7 with my nan and overhearing a full grown adult ranting about how awful TNG was just from looking at a poster advertising the vhs release of encounter at far point

Back then in the UK the vhs tapes came out before the series aired (unless you had satellite) and there were no clips aired on TV and no Internet to g8ve any info.

He was literally just kicking off at a picture of the cast on a poster.

No way!

I have it on good authority that TNG is considered the greatest and accepted immediately.

By top men.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I was a tiny little baby when TNG came out and even I know that the internet was invented so that people could argue about the show.

 

[Dukhat]

It is unfortunate that you seem happy that your antagonism aspired to provoke a negative emotional response.

It's hardly a "tantrum" to list the ways in which this show is flawed. But it seems clear that such frustration was your and a few other people's goal.

And you, for a moment, provoked the response you wanted. You successfully heckled somebody who knows the show is bad to tell you to your face that the show is bad and tell you why.

But even if you are going to choose to be antagonistic. I'm not going to play into that any further. I made a civil topic about Picard criticisms and you and some people like you wanted to make me into a Bond villain for daring to criticize the show. Rather than, like responsible adults, saying "hey maybe I shouldn't hang out in a topic about criticisms if I can't handle hearing criticisms" or entertaining the idea that people could have a different opinion than you.

Anyway, I said my piece, I'm not going to argue further. As I said before, you and a few people like you should look in the mirror and see if this kind of antagonism is really something you think is a good use of your time. Or if perhaps there was a more healthy way to handle hearing criticism of Picard.

I didn't invade your topics, you came into a criticism topic only to fight the idea that criticism could exist. So congrats, you've defended your echo chamber with rudeness.


I agree, they have a job they are unqualified for or not interested in doing well. And that you compare Picard writers to Van Gogh or Picasso shows how deluded in favor of this show that you apparently are. Van Gogh and Picasso don't have glaring errors that BAs in Art can identify. Nutrek writers/showrunners do. You act like them having the position they have somehow would imply they are above criticism. This is a logical fallacy and makes no sense.

I need to leave. This is getting beyond silly. Like I said, you defended your echo chamber with nonsense and bad arguments, congrats. I'm going to go the the 99.9999999999% of the rest of the world that is willing to acknowledge that STPIC is not the Picasso of Trek. I regret that some of you were so invested in antagonism rather than just allowing for criticism to exist or avoiding it if you were not capable of tolerating hearing it. And one last time, I apologize to the people who were civil and not antagonistic that those among you who are invested in this kind of childish provocation successfully derailed this topic.

Bye.

I find it incredibly ironic that you bitch and complain about people being rude to you, when the reality is that you’re the only one being rude here. But you’re leaving, so your persecution complex isn’t our problem anymore.

Bye!

 

[Nerys Myk]

I find it incredibly ironic that you bitch and complain about people being rude to you, when the reality is that you’re the only one being rude here. But you’re leaving, so your persecution complex isn’t our problem anymore.

Bye!

So Joe took his ball and ran home?

 

[Char Kais]

https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/a776td/not_bad_but_it_isnt_star_trek_the_internet/

In this Reddit thread are links to TNG reviews from 1987.

These are not reviews. These are printouts from an online forum where a bunch of dudes discuss what they didn't like about the pilot and "The Naked Now".
We are talking about a dozen dudes criticizing TNG. What a massive fan revolt. WOW!


https://twitter.com/trekdocs/status/839672221085929472

Here someone is complaining in 1987 that "The Naked Now" is a rehash of "The Naked Time".

Sell, he was right. This is what people wrote years later:

Several reviewers re-watched the episode after the end of the series. Keith DeCandido reviewed it on behalf of Tor.com, comparing it to "The Naked Time" and stating that "there's nothing in this episode as entertaining as Sulu bare-chested with an epee, and Wesley being nerdy in the engine room is nowhere near as much fun as Riley singing.
James Hunt wrote about "The Naked Now" for the website Den of Geek, stating that he could not understand why someone would want to show the characters acting out of character in only the second episode (not counting the pilot) of the series, before the viewers had a baseline from which to understand why the characters' behavior was abnormal.

The initial reaction of some fans was dismay, as there were concerns that The Next Generation would continue to lift stories from The Original Series. Staff writer Maurice Hurley said of "The Naked Now," "I didn't like that show at all. It just wasn't very good.

 

[Nerys Myk]

These are not reviews. These are printouts from an online forum where a bunch of dudes discuss what they didn't like about the pilot and "The Naked Now".
We are talking about a dozen dudes criticizing TNG. What a massive fan revolt. WOW!

So, the youtube of the 80s?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Here's what a guy from the NYTimes had to say in 1987

That's not likely, at least judging from the special two-hour premiere being shown at 9 o'clock tonight on WPIX, Channel 11. Directed by Corey Allen, ''The Next Generation'' is set in the 24th century, about 85 years after the era of Captain Kirk and Dr. Spock. There's a whole new slew of characters. The Starship Enterprise is bigger and better. And the executive producer is Gene Roddenberry, creator of the original series. But on this initial voyage, the Enterprise and its new crew simply fail to take flight.

Dead on in his evaluation Troi

At moments of crisis, it falls to Troi to look troubled and deliver weighty pronouncements. ''Pain, loneliness, despair,'' she intones in her lighter moments.

 

[Dukhat]

I didn’t care for TNG when it premiered. I thought it was sort of silly and mostly just an ‘80’s retread of TOS (especially since the TOS films felt completely different from TNG but took place before it.) But it was the only Star Trek on tv at the time, in a time when new Trek on tv was a huge deal. So I kept watching it, and it eventually got better. But what I wasn’t doing was nitpicking silly little mistakes, because

1. There was very little continuity at the time to nitpick, and

2. There wasn’t an internet to speak of where any Tom, Dick or Harry could post every little thought they had to an audience of other Toms, Dicks or Harrys. And I certainly wasn’t making stupid home videos where I’m bitching and complaining to some nebulous internet audience about a show that I hate because I have nothing better to do with my time. How far we’ve come.

Do I have gripes about 3rd generation Trek? Yes I do. And sometimes I even come here and talk about them. But I’m not making pointless statements like it’s not ‘True Trek’ or some other bullshit. There are people here who like VOY but don’t like TOS. Who am I to tell them that VOY isn’t ‘True Trek’ or tell them that they should be watching TOS instead?

 

[Char Kais]

What kind of story are you people trying to conjure up?

That TNG was received badly?
That there was a massive fan backlash from Star Trek fans against TNG and that TNG was rejected by large numbers of the Star Trek fanbase?
And then people saw the error of their ways and started to love TNG?

And all you people have to show this is an article from a tabloid, printouts from an online forum from 1987 where dozen people discussed TNG, a TOS fanzine, and anecdotes? WOW!

That never happened.

TNG was a huge hit, only a tiny minority rejected TNG, and some of the early criticism of TNG for seasons 1 and 2 is justified.


We know that TNG was a huge hit because we have Nielsen ratings:

The show was broadcast on both 98 independent stations and 112 network affiliates. In several locations, including Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle and Miami, the stations which were broadcasting "Encounter at Farpoint" gained higher ratings than the four major networks during prime time. Overall, it aired to an audience of 27 million. The show was immediately called the "highest-rated syndicated one-hour drama series on television".

The Next Generation's average of 20 million viewers often exceeded both existing syndication successes such as Wheel of Fortune and network hits including Cheers and L.A. Law.

The ratings, after a small season 2 dip, increased.

Yes, you will find people who didn't like TNG.
Whether these are people who wrote letters to Paramount, discuss it on Usenet, CompuServe forums, or other online forums, write about it in Fanzines, or professional TV show critics who write for Newspapers/Magazines, these are singular opinions from people who are in the absolute minority. They did not represent the broader fanbase.

The narrative that many people here seem to have that,
1) Star Trek fans in large numbers in the 80s (probably out of ignorance or small-mindedness) originally rejected TNG, but then changed their mind and embraced TNG and now see it as the Star Trek show, is wrong,
2) and the same thing will happen to NuTrek is wishful thinking.


We are almost five into the era of NuTrek TV shows and there is no sign that people change their minds and start to like NuTrek. But on the contrary.
People still reject NuTrek. NuTrek is not popular and people dislike it more and more.

Unlike in past eras, we don't have Nielsen ratings for the US market for the current season and Paramount is not publishing viewership numbers. We have to infer the popularity of NuTrek from other data points.

And all the data points show the same trend: Downwards

Canada:
Not a single episode of Discovery season 4 or Picard season 2 was in the Numeris Top 30 charts.

US:
CBS did broadcast the first season of Discovery in 2020. It had the lowest Nielsen ratings of any scripted show not just on CBS but among the big four networks (ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX).
I don't mean "lowest" figuratively. Discovery had literally the lowest Nielsen rating of a scripted show among the big four networks:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtpJz98XAAEuZJZ?format=png&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtpJ0BnWQAQNMMP?format=png&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtpJ0DEXUAA5lmN?format=png&name=orig

Germany and UK:
Germany and UK are the second and third largest market for Star Trek.

Star Trek Discovery on Netflix in 2021 in Germany is ranked 76 in the Top TV shows, one rank below Supergirl, and in the UK ranked at 109.

This is the popularity of Star Trek Picard S1 VS S2 on Amazon Prime in DE and the UK. Downward trend:

Another downward trend on Rotten Tomatoes:

Discovery S1: Critic Ratings: 373 User Ratings: 9124 (49%)
Discovery S2: Critic Ratings: 209 User Ratings: 3138 (36%)
Discovery S3: Critic Ratings: 34 User Ratings: 1095 (40%)
Discovery S4: Critic Ratings: 15 User Ratings: 661 (20%)

Picard S1: Critic Ratings: 253 User Ratings: 3043 (53%)
Picard S2: Critic Ratings: 92 User Ratings: 588 (29%)

The situation on IMDB is similar.
The ratings go down, and the count of ratings goes down.

Downward trends across the board.

 

[Nerys Myk]

What kind of story are you people trying to conjure up?

That TNG was received badly?
That there was a massive fan backlash from Star Trek fans against TNG and that TNG was rejected by large numbers of the Star Trek fanbase?
And then people saw the error of their ways and started to love TNG?

And all you people have to show this is an article from a tabloid, printouts from an online forum from 1987 where dozen people discussed TNG, a TOS fanzine, and anecdotes? WOW!

That never happened.

TNG was a huge hit, only a tiny minority rejected TNG, and some of the early criticism of TNG for seasons 1 and 2 is justified.


We know that TNG was a huge hit because we have Nielsen ratings:

The ratings, after a small season 2 dip, increased.

Yes, you will find people who didn't like TNG.
Whether these are people who wrote letters to Paramount, discuss it on Usenet, CompuServe forums, or other online forums, write about it in Fanzines, or professional TV show critics who write for Newspapers/Magazines, these are singular opinions from people who are in the absolute minority. They did not represent the broader fanbase.

The narrative that many people here seem to have that,
1) Star Trek fans in large numbers in the 80s (probably out of ignorance or small-mindedness) originally rejected TNG, but then changed their mind and embraced TNG and now see it as the Star Trek show, is wrong,
2) and the same thing will happen to NuTrek is wishful thinking.


We are almost five into the era of NuTrek TV shows and there is no sign that people change their minds and start to like NuTrek. But on the contrary.
People still reject NuTrek. NuTrek is not popular and people dislike it more and more.

Unlike in past eras, we don't have Nielsen ratings for the US market for the current season and Paramount is not publishing viewership numbers. We have to infer the popularity of NuTrek from other data points.

And all the data points show the same trend: Downwards

Canada:
Not a single episode of Discovery season 4 or Picard season 2 was in the Numeris Top 30 charts.

US:
CBS did broadcast the first season of Discovery in 2020. It had the lowest Nielsen ratings of any scripted show not just on CBS but among the big four networks (ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX).
I don't mean "lowest" figuratively. Discovery had literally the lowest Nielsen rating of a scripted show among the big four networks:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtpJz98XAAEuZJZ?format=png&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtpJ0BnWQAQNMMP?format=png&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtpJ0DEXUAA5lmN?format=png&name=orig

Germany and UK:
Germany and UK are the second and third largest market for Star Trek.

Star Trek Discovery on Netflix in 2021 in Germany is ranked 76 in the Top TV shows, one rank below Supergirl, and in the UK ranked at 109.

This is the popularity of Star Trek Picard S1 VS S2 on Amazon Prime in DE and the UK. Downward trend:

Another downward trend on Rotten Tomatoes:




The situation on IMDB is similar.
The ratings go down, and the count of ratings goes down.

Downward trends across the board.

I quoted the New York Times, myself.

What are you trying to prove and to who?

Either people like the show and will continue to watch, Or they don't like the show. All your charts and graphs don't mean shit to them. Nor should they. Paramount/CBS/Viacom will decide if and when to pull the plug. And their data is what matters. They're happy enough to give all their Trek shows pick ups.

 

[F. King Daniel]

And all you people have to show this is an article from a tabloid, printouts from an online forum from 1987 where dozen people discussed TNG, a TOS fanzine, and anecdotes? WOW!

I forgot you only speak in charts and diagrams, my bad.

 

[Dukhat]

Funny how the louder he is, the less people hear him.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The idea that Trek fans just sang the praises of TNG (or TMP) from the word "go" is hilarious.

Exactly. As a newbie discovering Trek fandom via TMP, I was shocked how many new people I met throughout 1980 who couldn't wait to tell me how terrible TMP was, and if only I had been around TOS at the start I would realise they were right. I would never be a "true fan".

A few years later I was the local club's President and had access to all of the old back issues of the newsletter, back to 1972. I found quite a few "letters to the editor" predicting doom and gloom, now that Trek was turning into "a kiddie cartoon". Really negative stuff before they'd seen any of it.

 

[WarpTenLizard]

I don't much care about the actual plot-holes too much. But for a season that already had a very confusion storyline, and that was already referencing past "Star Trek" characters heavily, I find the following choices very odd:

Spoiler

1.) Giving Picard's ancestor the same name as his nephew, with no intention of making a connection. When Queen Jurrati finally mentioned "Two Renes, one who lives and one who dies," I thought the "dead Rene" was referring to J.L.'s nephew Rene that died in a fire. (These writers keep needlessly killing Picard's family members, in attempts to make him more interesting.)

2.) Casting an actor almost identical to Dr. Bashir's actor as Papa Picard. When he first appeared, I said to myself, "Ooooh, Bashir! Random, but cool cameo nonetheless!" Eventually I realized it wasn't Bashir, it was Gaius Baltar from "Battlestar Galactica." I'm pretty sure even the actors themselves have pointed out how eerily similar their looks and mannerisms are. James Callis is a fantastic actor, but he should only ever have been cast in "Star Trek" as a relative of Dr. Bashir, or a replacement for Alaxander Sidding if such a thing was ever needed for some reason.

 

[Vger23]

"Can we itemize PIC S2 canon mistakes?"

Sure we can! But we can also assault our own genitals with a rusty hacksaw and a blunt toffee hammer. Seems like both undertakings are equally as painful.

 

[Dar70]

So, the youtube of the 80s?

These are not reviews. These are printouts from an online forum where a bunch of dudes discuss what they didn't like about the pilot and "The Naked Now".
We are talking about a dozen dudes criticizing TNG. What a massive fan revolt. WOW!


https://twitter.com/trekdocs/status/839672221085929472

Here someone is complaining in 1987 that "The Naked Now" is a rehash of "The Naked Time".

Sell, he was right. This is what people wrote years later:

Haha. Good stuff. At least they admitted it may be pre-sour grapes feeling...lol
Thanks for sharing that. Never saw it before.

I remember when the show first came out there was a lot of mixdd reviews. I seem to remember two things that some reviewers did not like or mentioned that was different from TOS. A bald middle aged captain and the "ski" suit uniforms. Lol
I personally enjoyed the first episode. The pacing may have been a bit off but it was interesting. I did not love it but didnt hate it either. I grew to like the characters pretty quickly during that first season. Never missed an episode the entire 7 seasons. Being In syndication the previous weekends episode was repeated the day before the new ep would air, if I remember correctly. Good times....

I have to say though comparing my initial experience of TNG to Discovery/Picard. Two totally different things. I never really have come to like Discovery. There are some aspects of the show i really like. Characters and some story ideas. But beyond that it has fallen flat for me. Picard....Well it reused lots of old characters/ideas and doesnt feel like a totally new show like TNG did. Also not loving the 10 hour episodes of either show.
Another difference today and in 1987 is...there was no new live action trek for almost 20 years when TNG came out. Only 4 movies in 18 years. And ten of those years nothing but the Animated series. When Discovery and Picard came out there was only 13 years without episodes but only a 4 year stretch without any new live action trek. Since 2009 we have had Trek for the last 13 years with only the gaps between the Kelvin movie releases.

 

[XCV330]

technically there are no canon mistakes. Where there are changes the new canon replaces the old.