Spoilers Does it feel to anyone else that SNW is cynically mining Trek's past glories?
- Thread starter zzz
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I don't know. I kind of feel like if anyone was cynically mining past glories it was Picard S3. For me, SNW is fresh takes on some classic sf (and sometimes specifically Trek) tropes with characters we want to know more about. Cuz we lurve them.
No.
(And neither did ENT S4 - which was overall an EXCELLENT season of Star Trek.)
(And neither did ENT S4 - which was overall an EXCELLENT season of Star Trek.)
I thought it was the worst and kinda for the OPs reason.
The only episode of Enterprise S4 that I felt was very reminiscent of a previous Trek episode was "Home," which obviously played similarly to "Family" from TNG.
The rest came across as very original. Especially the 3-part arcs and 2-part stories. I felt Enterprise S1 and S2 were creatively bankrupt and mining past Trek a bit too often (it seems Braga and Berman agree on the Ent commentary). By S4, the Vulcan reformation arc, the Augment arc, the Romulan arc, Terra Prime, etc all felt very fresh. Just a little too late for the show.
The rest came across as very original. Especially the 3-part arcs and 2-part stories. I felt Enterprise S1 and S2 were creatively bankrupt and mining past Trek a bit too often (it seems Braga and Berman agree on the Ent commentary). By S4, the Vulcan reformation arc, the Augment arc, the Romulan arc, Terra Prime, etc all felt very fresh. Just a little too late for the show.
Modern Trek is an exercise in nostalgia. Even The Orville was a exercise in nostalgia. It's a take it or leave it thing, and I quite like the warm fuzzy feelings recalling the shows of my youth.
There's a lot to be said for any audience or fandom that the highest-rated episode of SNL in perhaps the last ten years or even longer was one where Eddie Murphy came back and revived old sketch characters from the 1980s. People like familiarity and knowing that material will be reliably entertaining.
It's a double-edged sword but human nature rarely lies.
It's a double-edged sword but human nature rarely lies.
In thirty years time there'll be a thread about the newest Trek series complaining that it relies too heavily on Strange New Worlds.
"This episode is just "Children of the Comet"! The writers are getting lazy!"
"This episode is just "Children of the Comet"! The writers are getting lazy!"
It would be essentially impossible for writers to make new stories for a half century spanning franchise and not write stories with some superficially similar elements. If these episodes aren't sufficiently different enough for you, that's a bummer, but I think most people don't mind seeing a new series tackle familiar themes.
I mean, you can come up with something completely different or at least a fresh and different approach.
but then the very special fans would cry "This isn't Star Trek anymore!"
but then the very special fans would cry "This isn't Star Trek anymore!"
A Trek series produced in the 21st century actually tried an approach that was radically different in every respect from what came before or since and used a modified pop song (originally sung by none other than Rod Stewart and written for a Robin Williams film) as its opening theme. And many fans since haven't stopped complaining. 
the problem with ENT wasn't that it was radically different, it was that it was radically the same with different window dressingA Trek series produced in the 21st century actually tried an approach that was radically different in every respect from what came before or since and used a modified pop song (originally sung by none other than Rod Stewart and written for a Robin Williams film) as its opening theme. And many fans since haven't stopped complaining.
I said the theme music was radically different. 
Yeah, the show itself was just a VOY sequel in a prequel skin. And I love said prequel series. But it was just more of the same.
Yeah, the show itself was just a VOY sequel in a prequel skin. And I love said prequel series. But it was just more of the same.
Funny that you mention "safe vs. risky/daring":
Because for me, DIS & PIC have been almost cynically, by-the-numbers following all clichés and tropes of "successful streaming shows":
Heavy serialisation, dark colour palette, excessive gore/violence, focus on broken characters & drama, going all-in on scale (Monstrous villains going to destroy the multiverse/all life/...) And absolutely short-changing plot-logic, Sci-fi angles if they don't lead to action, in favour of character drama and BIG EMOTIONS ALL THE TIME.
SNW for me is the more risky approach: A big budget, bright and colourful, episodic tv, trying to be both optimistic and funny, but still serious drama. Not enough action to be like "The Mandalorian". Surprisingly low stakes. High concept episodes with a lot of talking.
All of that has been done in Trek before - but, like, in the 60s and 80s.
NOTHING about that screams "guaranteed success" to modern producers.
It's not an Action show or what passes as "serious drama". It's a talk-y, plot heavy Sci-fi show with funky visuals. I'm absolutely amazed something like that got produced in the modern age - and IMO only because the "safe", cynical approach has failed twice before.
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That's safe? I guess I don't watch enough streaming programming to find that safe because that's what I want.
Yup. That feels extremely safe to me, especially in Star Trek.
Count me in the category that finds SNW the most risky of the recent Trek ventures. While I've liked to some degree all of the 2017- era of Trek (except Picard S3), all the live-action shows have worked within general expectations for contemporary serialized television drama. And most of this era seem to me to have a clear sense for how Star Trek works, and to work within that pattern. As much as I like Discovery, even Season 3 and 4 feel highly calculated to keep things within certain Star Trek boundary lines. That's not a criticism, just an observation.
SNW is not patterned to look or unfold like most contemporary big-budget television dramas, in my eyes. It's a throwback, and that in itself is the risk. But it is also happy to revise and adjust things about what Star Trek is and does. It delights in small dramas and domestic scenes, and it adds places and interactions to the world that have some of that weird, experimental quality the franchise hasn't had since TOS. It may use many familiar characters, but they have a verisimilitude and sense of freshness and authenticity that defies, rather feels beholden, to the past. SNW alone among this era feels like it isn't held back by Trek's baggage.
For me, though I respect TOS, I have no nostalgia for it. Yet SNW is the most I've loved a Trek show in probably ever. It's doing something different.
SNW is not patterned to look or unfold like most contemporary big-budget television dramas, in my eyes. It's a throwback, and that in itself is the risk. But it is also happy to revise and adjust things about what Star Trek is and does. It delights in small dramas and domestic scenes, and it adds places and interactions to the world that have some of that weird, experimental quality the franchise hasn't had since TOS. It may use many familiar characters, but they have a verisimilitude and sense of freshness and authenticity that defies, rather feels beholden, to the past. SNW alone among this era feels like it isn't held back by Trek's baggage.
For me, though I respect TOS, I have no nostalgia for it. Yet SNW is the most I've loved a Trek show in probably ever. It's doing something different.
STD was 'safe'? The main focus was on the First Officer (not the ship or it's Captain <-- at least untuil the 4th season after numerous fan complaints over the years.)
And as for 'monstrous villain' - remind me again who the villain is of the Star Trek film still considered to this day to be the "best" Trek film...a character who conquered 1/4 of Earth, Bombed whole populations out of existence and worked to get a weapon that could remake but in the process destroy existing life on a Planet.
Exactly so.
