Indeed. There is a lot of room inside of Trek to, um, trek through.
Indeed, yes. And, the only way humanity "learned" was to go through another World War before becoming better. How wonderful...
CBS Trek
- Thread starter Admiral Jean-Luc Picard
- Start date
The difference between Discovery and Picard is razor thin for me. To tell you the truth, it's really a photo-finish. I like them about as much as each other, but for different reasons.
I still like Lower Decks, just not as much as DSC and PIC.
Short Treks very much depends on the short.
I still like Lower Decks, just not as much as DSC and PIC.
Short Treks very much depends on the short.
Especially one who would probably have been #MeToo'd into the ground if he were alive today?
Maybe it was less about those who survived the war, but rather those who didn't. And this is where the improvements came from, the absence of people who's best interests were serve by play Humans against each other.
Much easier to see each other as a essentually one people, when those who aim was to divide us into little group and play us against each other were gone.
Your group and my group became our group.
I don’t think the message of Dis and Pic is any more anti-utopian than DS9 or late TNG even.
It’s the same message Quark told Nog in Siege of AR559. Humans are wonderful when their belly is full but get scary when they’re pushed. T’kuvma’s warning against “We come in peace” is no different than Eddington’s speech about cultural assimilation. And other things are no different than Sisko and Garak’s decisions in Pale Moonlight.
The only real difference is the tone is less balanced out by lighter stories in between.
It’s the same message Quark told Nog in Siege of AR559. Humans are wonderful when their belly is full but get scary when they’re pushed. T’kuvma’s warning against “We come in peace” is no different than Eddington’s speech about cultural assimilation. And other things are no different than Sisko and Garak’s decisions in Pale Moonlight.
The only real difference is the tone is less balanced out by lighter stories in between.
Nope, it's not.
Yeah, I think serialization adds to the effect. We still get the message at the end, but now it takes 13 episodes to get there.
That said, there is also the matter of how the show fills those episodes. Discovery season 1 gave us war, rape, torture, murder, drug use, the eating of sentient beings, and relished in a quippy Space Hitler. It was ugliness of a volume and explicitness that I found foreign to the traditional Trek franchise. At a certain point, if you choose to devote your time to the ugly and spend very little on the uplifting, I will assume that is where your real interest lies.
Thankfully, season two struck a better balance. I hope three continues to trend in that direction.
I got the impression they only ate sentient beings because they were marooned in space with no food. But yeah, I agree the show can have exhausting intensity and needs more pace breaks,
Don’t forget we got a double dose — both from the Klingons and that adorable evil emperor.
It's not like we hadn't seen such things before. And I never found the emperor "adorable" or that we were supposed to find her sympathetic.
During DS9, Kor spoke of eating the heart of a defeated enemy.
It's not that those things, individiually, were entirely alien to the franchise over its 50+ years, but they were presented with a volume and explicitness and (in some cases) tone I found offputting and very un-Star Trek. The show wasn't even interested in addressing most of those things -- they were just there for tawdry appeal. It's like trying to call the Friday the 13th movies morality plays because they take a strong stand against teen sex.
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If only I saw the tawdry appeal instead of just tapestry...I don't know at this point. Probably just a mileage thing in terms of how off putting it is.
And I've never seen a Friday the 13th film so that analogy is lost on me
I got mixed feelings about CBS Trek. I love the special effects and production values-better than many of the pre-Kelvinverse Trek films, and I’m glad that Star Trek is back again, and that it is expanding. However, I can’t say I’m always jazzed about the creative decisions that have been made-especially when it comes to Star Trek: Picard.
I grew up in, and on, the Berman era of Trek, and while I did find Voyager bland and Enterprise stale (until the third and fourth seasons), I’m looking back at Enterprise now-from season one-and I feel I misjudged the series. I’ve also looked at some Voyager on Netflix and while I’m still not a Voyager convert, I did enjoy the nostalgia of Berman Trek.
With CBS Trek I want to like it more than I actually do. I’m rooting for DISCO in large part because I really like Sonequa Martin-Green. I think she’s a good ambassador for the series and for Trek overall, and I also like many of the actors (and to a few of the DISCO characters), but I think the serialized approach has hurt DISCO and especially Picard. When looking at the Berman era, with their longer seasons, there was enough time to give almost every character an episode so that the audience could learn something about them, and we rarely-if ever-got that with DISCO and Picard, which led to underdeveloped characters and then just outright exposition dumps. The nature of the streaming business, to go for that instant, watercooler hit, has put game changing-or attempted game changing moments over world building and character development and that’s left me a bit cold to the DISCO characters. With Picard, despite the warning that it wasn’t going to be a TNG sequel, still didn’t adhere enough to what came before. With Picard, I felt like I was looking at Sir Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Marina Sirtis than the characters they played. I also thought they turned Seven of Nine into Furiosia just because that was like the in thing to do. And the lack of careful worldbuilding-IMO in Picard-hurt that series even more than DISCO because of how it was now depicting the Federation as a declining dystopia when the last we saw of Picard and crew there was no hint of that, and I wanted to know how we got there. I get why they didn’t put out more books and comics, something, to set up the world of Picard but I still felt that absence.
DISCO gave itself a different challenge. It wasn’t so much a worldbuilding issue with DISCO-though the changes with the Klingons did need more explanation IMO-but them shoehorning themselves into a time period too close to TOS-one veteran fans already had glimpses of in “The Cage” and then expecting the notoriously nitpicking Trek fandom to just go with so many of the aesthetic changes that were made, as well as Spock having a surprise adopted sister who was so important to his development. All those things could work, however I don’t think DISCO did the best job of laying it out to the audience. Certainly, new fans might not care, but CBS wasn’t just going for new fans, they would not turn down old fans’ money, and also would benefit from veteran fans spreading the DISCO and Picard gospel on social media, etc. And the vet fans might be the first to go to when it comes to selling merchandise. Old fans are very important, and so I felt the at times too cavalier approach to canon or canonical aesthetics, without enough explanation, put CBS Trek already on a bad foot with some of those fans. It’s not always about pleasing a shrinking, aging, and sometimes intolerant fanbase, though I don’t think it has to be an either/or deal either. There were going to be fans, or ‘fans’ opposed to DISCO because of its diversity, and both DISCO and Picard because of its politics, but I’m not talking about those fans really. I’m talking more so about the ones-like me-where I want things to square up more aesthetically-than they did.
I’m not advocating that DISCO look just like “The Cage” or TOS, but take the tack of Enterprise (which I didn’t like at the time as much to be honest, but appreciate more today) of making their series work for contemporary audiences but design the starships and uniforms in a way that acknowledges it’s a prequel series.
Picard was the worst for me. I had no problem with its politics for the most part-though it is interesting that both DISCO and Picard’s first seasons were redemption stories and were largely solved by some speechmaking. Picard was the worst because just felt so off from TNG, which is my second favorite series behind DS9-though the TNG crew is still my favorite. I didn’t like the cursing, I didn’t care for the gratuitous violence, I thought the Romulan and Borg storylines were way more interesting than the android/synths story, and I didn’t care for how the veteran TNG/Trek characters were handled. Why even bring Hugh back to do him like that? The Picard cast isn’t bad, but woefully underdeveloped and I can’t say I’m that interested in seeing them go on adventures. With Picard, I’m still intrigued about the world around the failing Federation than I am with Jean-Luc. For DISCO, thought Season 2 was a mixed bag-a weaker story but better character development-and the Berman era series often got better in their third seasons. Perhaps it will all come together for DISCO in Season 3. They are no longer shackled to the prequel concept and can write their own ticket. I just wish I felt better about that based on the first two seasons’ worth of writing.
I’ve only seen the first episode of Lower Decks and though I was anticipating I would hate it, I actually liked it, and it felt the most like a Berman series that can provide the kind of character development and a Berman-like tone that I do miss. The Short Treks are also a mixed bag. I liked some quite a bit. I do like the Short Trek concept and hope they do more. I do think it would be a great way to catch up with Trek characters, storylines from across the franchise.
Though I should be warier, I’m still looking forward to Strange New Worlds. I like the core of actors and I’m liking the professed return to more episodic storytelling, but we’ll just have to see how it all comes together whenever that series premieres. I have no thoughts really about Prodigy.
I grew up in, and on, the Berman era of Trek, and while I did find Voyager bland and Enterprise stale (until the third and fourth seasons), I’m looking back at Enterprise now-from season one-and I feel I misjudged the series. I’ve also looked at some Voyager on Netflix and while I’m still not a Voyager convert, I did enjoy the nostalgia of Berman Trek.
With CBS Trek I want to like it more than I actually do. I’m rooting for DISCO in large part because I really like Sonequa Martin-Green. I think she’s a good ambassador for the series and for Trek overall, and I also like many of the actors (and to a few of the DISCO characters), but I think the serialized approach has hurt DISCO and especially Picard. When looking at the Berman era, with their longer seasons, there was enough time to give almost every character an episode so that the audience could learn something about them, and we rarely-if ever-got that with DISCO and Picard, which led to underdeveloped characters and then just outright exposition dumps. The nature of the streaming business, to go for that instant, watercooler hit, has put game changing-or attempted game changing moments over world building and character development and that’s left me a bit cold to the DISCO characters. With Picard, despite the warning that it wasn’t going to be a TNG sequel, still didn’t adhere enough to what came before. With Picard, I felt like I was looking at Sir Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Marina Sirtis than the characters they played. I also thought they turned Seven of Nine into Furiosia just because that was like the in thing to do. And the lack of careful worldbuilding-IMO in Picard-hurt that series even more than DISCO because of how it was now depicting the Federation as a declining dystopia when the last we saw of Picard and crew there was no hint of that, and I wanted to know how we got there. I get why they didn’t put out more books and comics, something, to set up the world of Picard but I still felt that absence.
DISCO gave itself a different challenge. It wasn’t so much a worldbuilding issue with DISCO-though the changes with the Klingons did need more explanation IMO-but them shoehorning themselves into a time period too close to TOS-one veteran fans already had glimpses of in “The Cage” and then expecting the notoriously nitpicking Trek fandom to just go with so many of the aesthetic changes that were made, as well as Spock having a surprise adopted sister who was so important to his development. All those things could work, however I don’t think DISCO did the best job of laying it out to the audience. Certainly, new fans might not care, but CBS wasn’t just going for new fans, they would not turn down old fans’ money, and also would benefit from veteran fans spreading the DISCO and Picard gospel on social media, etc. And the vet fans might be the first to go to when it comes to selling merchandise. Old fans are very important, and so I felt the at times too cavalier approach to canon or canonical aesthetics, without enough explanation, put CBS Trek already on a bad foot with some of those fans. It’s not always about pleasing a shrinking, aging, and sometimes intolerant fanbase, though I don’t think it has to be an either/or deal either. There were going to be fans, or ‘fans’ opposed to DISCO because of its diversity, and both DISCO and Picard because of its politics, but I’m not talking about those fans really. I’m talking more so about the ones-like me-where I want things to square up more aesthetically-than they did.
I’m not advocating that DISCO look just like “The Cage” or TOS, but take the tack of Enterprise (which I didn’t like at the time as much to be honest, but appreciate more today) of making their series work for contemporary audiences but design the starships and uniforms in a way that acknowledges it’s a prequel series.
Picard was the worst for me. I had no problem with its politics for the most part-though it is interesting that both DISCO and Picard’s first seasons were redemption stories and were largely solved by some speechmaking. Picard was the worst because just felt so off from TNG, which is my second favorite series behind DS9-though the TNG crew is still my favorite. I didn’t like the cursing, I didn’t care for the gratuitous violence, I thought the Romulan and Borg storylines were way more interesting than the android/synths story, and I didn’t care for how the veteran TNG/Trek characters were handled. Why even bring Hugh back to do him like that? The Picard cast isn’t bad, but woefully underdeveloped and I can’t say I’m that interested in seeing them go on adventures. With Picard, I’m still intrigued about the world around the failing Federation than I am with Jean-Luc. For DISCO, thought Season 2 was a mixed bag-a weaker story but better character development-and the Berman era series often got better in their third seasons. Perhaps it will all come together for DISCO in Season 3. They are no longer shackled to the prequel concept and can write their own ticket. I just wish I felt better about that based on the first two seasons’ worth of writing.
I’ve only seen the first episode of Lower Decks and though I was anticipating I would hate it, I actually liked it, and it felt the most like a Berman series that can provide the kind of character development and a Berman-like tone that I do miss. The Short Treks are also a mixed bag. I liked some quite a bit. I do like the Short Trek concept and hope they do more. I do think it would be a great way to catch up with Trek characters, storylines from across the franchise.
Though I should be warier, I’m still looking forward to Strange New Worlds. I like the core of actors and I’m liking the professed return to more episodic storytelling, but we’ll just have to see how it all comes together whenever that series premieres. I have no thoughts really about Prodigy.
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There seems to be mixed feelings on Star Trek's return via CBS All Access. How about a poll? If yes, which show or shows are you enjoying? If no, please express your frustrations.
So far, Discovery is my favorite but I think Picard is the best. I like Lower Decks too.
Discovery is my favorite.
Picard was OK, but didn't focus on the Romulans as much as I wanted.
Lower Decks was pretty fun overall. I think the character of Mariner is probably one I want to explore most.
I like CBS Trek because it offers so much more variety than what I felt with 90s era Trek.
Picard was OK, but didn't focus on the Romulans as much as I wanted.
Lower Decks was pretty fun overall. I think the character of Mariner is probably one I want to explore most.
I like CBS Trek because it offers so much more variety than what I felt with 90s era Trek.
Yes, I like it. I give it a B+ so far. Some glaring flaws but overall tells a good story with likable characters I am invested in and contributed to make the universe better.
I like them all to varying degrees. I appreciate how different each series is from everything that came before. I like that it’s not overly similar to the previous series.
I hope they didn’t goof up what I enjoyed about DSC by changing the setting so drastically. I’m looking forward to Thursday
I hope they didn’t goof up what I enjoyed about DSC by changing the setting so drastically. I’m looking forward to Thursday
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