Have you ever given up on a Trek series? If so, what was the last straw for you?

[The Salt Umpire]

^ ohh, he IS pissed if no calendar is wanted.

If Trek falls into the clutches of fascist media, then it should die, because they will prevert it beyond recognition*

* another thread, I know

 

[fireproof78]

All good things.

 

[Toril Toran]

^ ohh, he IS pissed if no calendar is wanted.

If Trek falls into the clutches of fascist media, then it should die, because they will prevert it beyond recognition*

* another thread, I know

They already have.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I watched every rerun of TOS and TAS that I possibly could during the 1970s and well into the 80s, until one Saturday afternoon when my sister and her husband were coming over because his father had died. The episode coming on was "And the Children Shall Lead," and I knew it would have children crying because their parents had died. Also, in my view it was the worst episode of the series by far. So I as an unspoken courtesy, I turned off the TV. I had never done that before, voluntarily skipped an episode. Nobody noticed, but it felt good. I was a man of great decency.

Then of course I resumed watching every rerun whatsoever, for some time to come. I went to every movie. I watched every episode of TNG, DS9, and VOY in first run. And then came ENT.

I liked ENT at first, but (to me at least) the cast had no charisma. Archer had no edge, or he had insufficient stage presence, or he was too "generic." Something was off about him. I found Trip and Reid distinctive but annoying. T'Pol was hot, but they gave her unflattering hair, and she had so little spark. Why did she have to play a Vulcan?

Worse: it got wearying to always be the weaker ship in every battle. This starship was a lemon. Anyway, I watched at least the first two seasons of ENT in first run, but at some point I stopped caring and walked away. The story arc that killed me was something about a temporal war, or insectoid aliens, or something gross. It was murky and stultifying. True, I didn't like Voyager pushing the reset button after every big episode, but this was worse. Second time in my life, I walked away from Star Trek. To this day I haven't seen all of ENT.

I watched the pilot episode of Discovery as broadcast on CBS, and that was enough of that. Repulsive Klingons speaking Klingon with no subtitles for what felt like the first 20 minutes. Jesus. I saw an episode or two of Lower Decks and liked it, but otherwise I have sat out the streaming era. I stayed with The Orville until it left broadcast TV for richer pastures. It was a good knock-off, and possible my last "new" Trek. Bring out my TOS Blu-rays!

 

[Dukhat]

This is kinda similar to the ‘when did you stop watching a Trek series’ thread, but I’ll take a stab. The first time I walked away from Trek was when I decided that I would stop watching ENT once its second season ended. Prior to that, I had never missed an episode of TOS, TNG, and VOY, and was not expecting I would ever actively stop watching a Trek show. But once I realized ENT was just TNG/VOY Jr., and I had zero connection to the characters and did not care what happened to them, then I realized Trek was done for me for the first time ever.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

This is kinda similar to the ‘when did you stop watching a Trek series’ thread, but I’ll take a stab.

Thanks. I don't frequent the General forum and should have searched.

 

[1001001]

Merging with the original thread.

 

[The Salt Umpire]

Merging with the original thread.

Begin saucer realignment procedures.

 

[Manticore]

To answer the thread title:

Picard Season 3. My husband and I found it absurdly fanwanky and the plot twists asinine. The last episode that we watched was the one with the cliffhanger where the Rikers were kidnapped. Everything I heard about the rest of the season did nothing to make me feel like we made the wrong call.

 

[Mechanoid1]

Yes, I didn't care for Enteprise xindi/temporal war arc. (Stoped watching S3). Came back for the final season. For me it was much better, until the finally. This was the first series that I actually stopped watching Star Trek.
Unfortunately for me, the only series (since ENT) I've tolerated watching completely, was SNW season 1.
So the final straw? It's no longer the future I enjoy nor desire to see.

 

[maneth]

I've never voluntarily stopped watching a Trek show, but I'm in Finland, and the network that broadcast DS9 and VGR stopped both in the middle of the fourth season (!) I assume because the ratings weren't good enough to continue. That said, while I'd watched every episode I could of DS9, I was less committed to VGR. At the time Kes was my favorite character, and I was about done with the show when they replaced her with Seven. At the time I absolutely detested the character because I saw her as nothing more than a pretty face and a curvaceous body they brought in to attract the young male demographic who might be put off by a female captain, and I resented that enough that I didn't miss the show when they canceled it.

I caught all of DS9 in a rerun/first broadcast on a cable sci-fi channel some time later, but didn't bother with VGR. When my husband and I started dating, he had VGR on DVD and that's the first time I saw the show from beginning to end, and I still resented Seven of Nine.

During the last few years we've been introducing our son to our favorite sci-fi shows, and when we watched VGR a couple years ago, I finally managed to let go of my resentment and to enjoy the show for what it was. Hardly ground-breaking sci-fi but it did have some interesting stories, even if it also completely defanged the Borg as an enemy.

The only recent Trek I've seen is Picard. I liked it, although the haunted and traumatized Picard was a bit much at times to watch. I loved Data's arc, though, as I've never been able to completely forgive Nemesis for killing him off. That said, my favorite was the third season because I loved seeing the TNG crew again, as well as the newest generation. The biggest irony here, given my initial reaction to the character, is that if they ever decide to make a sequel to Picard with Seven as the captain of the Enterprise-G, I'd absolutely want to see that.

I currently have no interest in seeing DSC, SNW, SFA, or the new animated shows.

That said, the third season of The Orville made me happy in the same way that Trek at its best has done, even if it isn't a part of the Trek franchise.

 

[Riley]

I never gave up on TOS, the TOS films, the TNG era, and the TNG films, even at the lowest times.

However, I now have a head canon that ignores much of the TNG era as filmed and completely ignored all Kurtz Dreck with the exception of the third season of Picard. After watching, I immediately regretted it and negated it from my head canon as well.

 

[Starflight]

However, I now have a head canon that ignores much of the TNG era as filmed

At this point I think every episode of every series takes place in its own continuity and I'm not even joking.

 

[Cicero]

At this point I think every episode of every series takes place in its own continuity and I'm not even joking.

You have a point, though I think some episodes of TOS episodes actually work better if they're in the same universe, e.g. "Amok Time" as a sequel to "Operation––Annihilate!"

 

[fireproof78]

Time travel and Temporal Wars make timelines rather meaningless. In TOS it's a relatively new way to be able to view history but now you have Temporal agents changing everything.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Time travel and Temporal Wars make timelines rather meaningless. In TOS it's a relatively new way to be able to view history but now you have Temporal agents changing everything.

Yeah. In TOS, they consider time travel to undo McCoy having a bad drug reaction, but in JJ-Trek it never occurs to them that they could go back and save the entire planet Vulcan. WTF? [Unless that movie takes place before The Naked Time, and nobody knew how to time travel yet in JJ-Trek.]

Time travel at will would make every consequential story meaningless. Not to mention it creates paradoxes, and it would undermine the existence of civilization because villains could go back to whack us before we invent the wheel.

Time travel produces the occasional gem like City on the Edge of Forever, Yesterday's Enterprise, and Trials and Tribbleations, but I have to silo those stories like @Starflight suggests, or the whole ST universe is at risk.

 

[Riley]

Yeah. In TOS, they consider time travel to undo McCoy having a bad drug reaction, but in JJ-Trek it never occurs to them that they could go back and save the entire planet Vulcan. WTF? [Unless that movie takes place before The Naked Time, and nobody knew how to time travel yet in JJ-Trek.]

Time travel at will would make every consequential story meaningless. Not to mention it creates paradoxes, and it would undermine the existence of civilization because villains could go back to whack us before we invent the wheel.

Time travel produces the occasional gem like City on the Edge of Forever, Yesterday's Enterprise, and Trials and Tribbleations, but I have to silo those stories like @Starflight suggests, or the whole ST universe is at risk.

This is one of the many reasons I have come to despite First Contact over the years. The idea that the Borg would use time travel to just go back to the late 20th century instead of even just a century earlier makes zero sense. The worst offense might be how casually Geordi is able to send them back.

 

[fireproof78]

Yeah. In TOS, they consider time travel to undo McCoy having a bad drug reaction, but in JJ-Trek it never occurs to them that they could go back and save the entire planet Vulcan. WTF? [Unless that movie takes place before The Naked Time, and nobody knew how to time travel yet in JJ-Trek.]

My take was given how messed up the Kelvin timeline was I can appreciate the reticence of trying time travel if they knew how to make it work.

Time travel at will would make every consequential story meaningless. Not to mention it creates paradoxes, and it would undermine the existence of civilization because villains could go back to whack us before we invent the wheel.

Yup. It functions poorly and is why timelines are rather mute points because factions can go back and alter things. It's the ultimate reset button like Voyager.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Time travel at will would make every consequential story meaningless. Not to mention it creates paradoxes, and it would

Most time travel doesn’t. Voyage home for example. Or Past Tense. Or things darker, or trials and tribulations. They go back in time either accidentally or to get information /whales which won’t interfere with the flow of time, which overrides the butterfly effect in the trek world.

In fact I can’t think of many episodes where the crew go back in time to prevent something which happened in Their timeline (rather than going back to prevent a change like times arrow, or being in a time loop like cause and effect)

Endgame comes to mind, but that wasn’t the narrative characters going back in time, it was future people. Either way I don’t like that type of travel. And year of hell again with the reset button. And time and again.

 

[thribs]

I stopped watching Prodigy after the first two episodes because I clearly wasn’t the target audience. Was nothing negative—just didn’t hold my interest. Have watched all the rest, though.

It does get more Trek like later on. So much so I would class it the second best of the new trek shows after Lower Decks