Mourning Trek

[Nerys Myk]

It's not the ship itself. The whole layout in the different scenes looks like something out of some doom-and-gloom movie from the recent years. I see no resemblance at all to TOS anywhere.

You'll have to be more specific. The layout of what in which scenes? Which "doom and gloom" movies? And what exactly is a "doom and gloom" movie?

And the Klingons still looks like evil Ninja Turtles who had been better suited for a 24th century series with a new enemy from the Andromeda Galaxy or so.

Why would they be better suited for the Andromeda of the 24th Century? What does time or location have to do with make up design?

 

[Greg Cox]

Thank goodness never did TOS did "doom and gloom," aside from, okay, the Talosians torturing Pike in the first pilot, Kirk having to kill his best friend in the second pilot, and McCoy discovering that his lost love has been killed and replaced by a Salt Vampire in the first-aired episode . . ..

How dare DISCOVERY begin with bad things happening!

(I swear to God, if "City on the Edge of Forever" debuted today, half the internet would be complaining "Where's the hope? Where's the optimism? The REAL Kirk would never let an innocent woman die!")

 

[uniderth]

(I swear to God, if "City on the Edge of Forever" debuted today, half the internet would be complaining "Where's the hope? Where's the optimism? The REAL Kirk would never let an innocent woman die!")

No, people would be laughing at the 1960's aesthetic.

 

[2takesfrakes]

STAR TREK: The Next Generation is Gene Roddenberry's masterpiece. As we all know, it enjoyed high ratings and proved, beyond doubt, that TOS was not the only way STAR TREK could be envisioned. Having said that, I'm still very fond of TOS. To me, The Classic Series was always like watching a televised Live Theatre presentation. Like watching Hamlet on PBS, or something like that. No budget ... cheesy, jury-rigged special effects (model kit of Enterprise from a store representing the ship, as seen out the starbase window in the Tribbles show, the Korob & Sylvie marionettes, strings and all in Catspaw ... etc., etc.) ... atrocious acting (!!!) ... cardboard sets and props. For all of that, TOS, like Live Theatre, invited the audience to participate because of its shortcomings. "We all know the Mugato is a Man in a gorilla suit, but play along, anyway! Be concerned that Captain Kirk's in danger! Get into the spirit of the show and let STAR TREK entertain you, anyway!" So much of the charm of The Original Series is bound up in that. And, honestly, I kind of wish, sometimes, that TNG didn't do everything "for" you. The bigger budgets, the updated FX, all of that just kind of created a certain distance with the audience, it feels like. "Don't worry about having to 'play along,' just sit back and watch!" The first couple seasons of TNG had the "fake" planet sets, so there was that, at least, where it's obviously not filmed outside Los Angeles, in some wooded area. The charm of TNG isn't in its cheap effects, but rather, in its characters, solely. But it would've been nice just to see a Gorn outfit sneak in there, somewhere ... silver, unblinking eyes and all ...!!!

 

[KelisThePoet]

Well, everything I've heard about Discovery dissuades me from watching it.

But I agree with what seems to be the general vibe of this thread, from Discovery enthusiasts and skeptics alike. The wonderful thing about Star Trek is its varied breadth of content.

Eventually, I lose interest in smaller, narrower franchises, unless they give me something new that I enjoy. But with Star Trek, there's just so much content that even my most favorite episodes are episodes I've seen only a handful of times. There are quite a few episodes that I've watched only once and even a few of the movies that I've seen only once or twice. And there are still a handful of Next Generation episodes I've never seen. So, even if I never watch any new Star Trek, there will be plenty to entertain me for a while. And besides, I most likely will watch new Star Trek, because I like the Kelvinverse movies, of which there will hopefully be a few more, and there will probably be something else new, sometime in the future, of interest to me.

The other problem with smaller, narrower franchises is that their sequels, prequels and reboots can too easily sour the taste of the entire franchise for me, if I dislike them. Again, Star Trek is different. Suppose I hate Discovery. It's not going to much change my perception of characters like Janeway or Odo, whose adventures unfold in a different century of the fictional timeline; or of characters like Shatner's Kirk, who has his own ship, not to mention his own show, with its awesome, completely different 60s aesthetic; or of characters like Pine's Kirk, who exist in a completely different universe or reality.

 

[TheStumps]

If what dictates the definition of a fan is the quantity of Star Trek they appreciate, then I would probably not be considered to be much of a fan of Star Trek.
I don't enjoy DS9, VOY, ENT, and DSC is another palette than what I'm looking for in Star Trek.
That doesn't mean these are or poor or good quality.
Quality is to me not the same as taste, and most of the library of what exists now for Star Trek is comprised of material that I'm just not interested in.

I probably don't matter to consumer demographics, so it's not as if my claim that DSC is the wrong taste for me is equal to an expectation that it will fail to connect with an audience.
It may do very well in connecting with audiences - Wrath of Khan did and that tops my list of Star Trek films that I really don't enjoy watching, meanwhile TMP is right at the top next to STID.

I like the talking more than action approach for TV show Star Trek, and I like it to be more about a concept rather than the characters; I like the characters to be more of a rebound element which delivers information to us about the concept being explored that episode.
I've never thought about how Kirk or Picard felt existentially, and I've never wanted to see their interpersonal relationships explored more.

The films are different, and in general I don't think Star Trek works very well for films because the medium of film requires the story to be character driven and a character driven plot to be incredibly linked to the story arc of the film in general.
This rarely, for me, works out well in Star Trek films as I'm only really interested in character exploration when the characters involved are icons of concepts and the concept is expressed via those characters (STID, for example), or where the film is void of much in the way of character investment and subsequently seems distant and slow to most audiences (TMP, for example, but to me...I like that style pretty well).

However, I'm not mourning anything...but that's because I lost hope that I would see new Star Trek that was up my ally decades ago when DS9 writers made it clear that they were changing the form and focusing more on the characters and writing serialized plot lines.
That's when I put down the popcorn and tuned into something else.

Maybe one day I'll see a Star Trek that's less emotional and more cerebral again, but I'm not holding my breath...especially since most folks appreciate the more emotional flavor and think I'm some diminutive quality of consumer due to my tastes. *shrug*

For now, I've got The Librarians which mostly satisfies the want for what I once got out of Star Trek...mostly.

 

[Greg Cox]

Maybe one day I'll see a Star Trek that's less emotional and more cerebral again, but I'm not holding my breath...especially since most folks appreciate the more emotional flavor and think I'm some diminutive quality of consumer due to my tastes. *shrug*

For now, I've got The Librarians which mostly satisfies the want for what I once got out of Star Trek...mostly.

Not to argue, just curious, but you don't think THE LIBRARIANS is character-driven or emotional? I've always thought that the character's quirky personalities and interactions were a big part of the show's appeal. I think of it as a very warm-hearted, often unabashedly sentimental show--and I mean that in a good way. I was just rewatching the last few eps of Season Three the other day and there was tons of emotion and character stuff: the heart-tugging farewell to Jane Curtin's character, all the angst over Flynn's impending sacrifice, Jenkin's genuine anger when Baird appears to betray them, Stone's torment when he think he's going to have to kill the Monkey King, Baird giving Cassandra a much-needed pep talk when she's freaked-out over her new abilities, etc.

(I'm actually working on the third LIBRARIANS novel tonight, and I'm definitely playing up the funny banter and friendships between the regulars, while trying to get them emotionally invested in the guest-characters as well.)

At the risk of channeling of my inner Doctor McCoy, "cerebral" is not enough. The best stories engage the heart and gut as well as the brain. IMHO.

 

[Lynx]

You'll have to be more specific. The layout of what in which scenes? Which "doom and gloom" movies? And what exactly is a "doom and gloom" movie?

Why would they be better suited for the Andromeda of the 24th Century? What does time or location have to do with make up design?

If you look at the horrible "Stargate Universe", NuBSG and that movie I recently saw (can't even remember the name) where people on some ship was trying to find a new home for humanity since everyone on Earth was dying or something like that, you will see that everything is dark. The corridors, the quarters, dark, dark, dark. There's also a sense of conflict and depression in the interaction between crew members and it all reeks of an atmosphere of hopelessness. That's what I call a typical doom-and-gloom scenario.

As for the Klingons, why couldn't they keep the Klingons we saw in the TOS movies, in TNG, DS9 and Voyager? Why did they make them look like evil Ninja Turtles? These new "Klingons" don't look like Klingons at all. They look like some sort of alien monsters.

Therefore I think that they could be more suited to show up in some 24th century Star Trek series as new villains. Because they have no resemblance at all to Klingons.

 

[Sophie74656]

Just because something is dark doesn't make it bad. Star trek and sci fi in general tends to be drama, not comedy. Watch The Orville if you want something "lighter"

 

[fireproof78]

I think the Klingons might work better in context of the show too.

 

[Kemaiku]

I however am celebrating Trek on the big and little screens still going after all these years.

 

[TheStumps]

Not to argue, just curious, but you don't think THE LIBRARIANS is character-driven or emotional? I've always thought that the character's quirky personalities and interactions were a big part of the show's appeal. I think of it as a very warm-hearted, often unabashedly sentimental show--and I mean that in a good way. I was just rewatching the last few eps of Season Three the other day and there was tons of emotion and character stuff: the heart-tugging farewell to Jane Curtin's character, all the angst over Flynn's impending sacrifice, Jenkin's genuine anger when Baird appears to betray them, Stone's torment when he think he's going to have to kill the Monkey King, Baird giving Cassandra a much-needed pep talk when she's freaked-out over her new abilities, etc.

(I'm actually working on the third LIBRARIANS novel tonight, and I'm definitely playing up the funny banter and friendships between the regulars, while trying to get them emotionally invested in the guest-characters as well.)

At the risk of channeling of my inner Doctor McCoy, "cerebral" is not enough. The best stories engage the heart and gut as well as the brain. IMHO.

The Librarians has character development and emotion...just far lower than most shows currently running.

That's why I said "mostly", because it's not exactly a right fit for my taste of Star Trek, but it's pretty close given the present vacuum of cerebral shows caused by the presence of an overwhelming saturation of character (hyper) focused dramas.

I know I'm an odd-duck-out, but frankly I'm pretty tired of being asked to care, yet again, about some character's emotional well being.
I'm not against character arcs and development, but quite honestly the ratio of dwelling on character emotions to episode or world-plot movement on most shows currently seems to be quite lopsided to ohhh...somewhere around 3:1 to 5:1.

I actually even spend about a third of an episode of Game of Thrones twiddling around on my phone just waiting for some boring amount of conversation about how someone feels, yet again, betrayed, wronged, traumatized, guilty, (insert how they negatively feel here), to be over with. I put down my phone when people start talking about actual plans to DO something (schemes, etc...), or when people actually start DOING something. This basically means every time Sansa Stark, most of the Lanister to Lanister conversations, and John Snow's emo pouts pops on the screen, I check out.

There's an adage in film that TV, at least currently, doesn't seem to be attending to...Don't tell me; Show me.
A heck of a lot of shows right now have characters just talking to each other about their feelings a LOT.

Anytime some character asks another character some variation of "How are you?"...that's my queue to refill my snacks and coffee.
Having characters pour out their hurt and worried emotions in dialogue all over the place doesn't grab my interest...it pushes me away.
In many cases, it's just nonsense.
I stopped watching SHIELD, for example, because it made absolutely no sense at all that people faced with such world altering stakes imminently...as in, the scene you're currently watching is one in which physical imminent massively lethal threats abound, would be taking a moment to talk about their "feels". And this became par-for-the-course in that show; to regularly juxtapose massively high stake world threats right along with interpersonal emotional crises.

Take something fun and rompy like Castle...this doesn't get any simpler.
Here you have a buddy-cop show where jokes and puns are abundant because we take a guy and make him a wimp and the gal a badass. We make the guy a writer who annoys the crap out of the hard-nosed badass gal cop, and the hard-nosed badass cop regularly hurts the writer in physically humorous moments.
Simple, roll tape.
And yet, they absolutely collapsed that show in on itself because they moved from episodic light and fun joking around murder mysteries, and went serialized and deeply character driven melodramas to a ridiculous point that didn't even make sense - reshaping plausibility just to keep the "will they/won't they hook up", and then they topped that off with making the characters become more and more haunted, flawed, and traumatized and more and more vigilantes on on-going story-arc missions. It absolutely suffocated the show OUT of the show.
It's something akin to watching a show, laughing and having a good time and then all of a sudden a character whips out a gun, shoots the other in the head, and then the remaining seasons spend their time exploring how that moment of sudden betrayal makes everyone feel and how their screwed up feelings influence their actions from that point on....ugh....no.

These are just quick examples, but there's tons of these around. I'm not against character driven stories ... that's kind of what most writing is ... however, at the moment on Television it feels a bit like an invasive species that's way out of control and taken over everything else going on in a show, and when ratings slip a tad the dial for character's blabbing away about their feelings, or the possibility of yet another traumatic experience occurring so everyone has even more emotions to talk about, shoots way up.

 

[-Brett-]

I lost interest when they revealed that the lead was Spock's long lost sister. That trope screams "fanfic garbage" at the top of its lungs.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I lost interest when they revealed that the lead was Spock's long lost sister. If there's one trope that screams "fanfic garbage", that's it.

Long lost? When did he lose her?

 

[Balok's Decoy]

I lost interest when they revealed that the lead was Spock's long lost sister. That trope screams "fanfic garbage" at the top of its lungs.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

Thank goodness never did TOS did "doom and gloom," aside from, okay, the Talosians torturing Pike in the first pilot, Kirk having to kill his best friend in the second pilot, and McCoy discovering that his lost love has been killed and replaced by a Salt Vampire in the first-aired episode . . ..

How dare DISCOVERY begin with bad things happening!

(I swear to God, if "City on the Edge of Forever" debuted today, half the internet would be complaining "Where's the hope? Where's the optimism? The REAL Kirk would never let an innocent woman die!")

Ugh, people have such selective memory. Things past have this holy status with people and anything new is blasphemous.

 

[Nightdiamond]

I lost interest when they revealed that the lead was Spock's long lost sister. That trope screams "fanfic garbage" at the top of its lungs.

Yeah, these are the things that makes me wonder me about Discovery, let alone the franchise. Resorting to these old gimmicks, it's like falling back to franchise fatigue era. Why feel the need to create another long lost relative, or connect the show to a famous character from another show... . I say just try to create and introduce interesting, fascinating new characters.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

Yeah, these are the things that makes me wonder me about Discovery, let alone the franchise. Resorting to these old gimmicks, it's like falling back to franchise fatigue era. Why feel the need to create another long lost relative, or connect the show to a famous character from another show... . I say just try to create and introduce interesting, fascinating new characters.

We don't even know the context of any of this yet.

 

[DimesDan]

We don't even know the context of any of this yet.

Who needs context when fanatical righteous anger is in play!

 

[1001001]

The Librarians has character development and emotion...just far lower than most shows currently running.

That's why I said "mostly", because it's not exactly a right fit for my taste of Star Trek, but it's pretty close given the present vacuum of cerebral shows caused by the presence of an overwhelming saturation of character (hyper) focused dramas.

I know I'm an odd-duck-out, but frankly I'm pretty tired of being asked to care, yet again, about some character's emotional well being.
I'm not against character arcs and development, but quite honestly the ratio of dwelling on character emotions to episode or world-plot movement on most shows currently seems to be quite lopsided to ohhh...somewhere around 3:1 to 5:1.

I actually even spend about a third of an episode of Game of Thrones twiddling around on my phone just waiting for some boring amount of conversation about how someone feels, yet again, betrayed, wronged, traumatized, guilty, (insert how they negatively feel here), to be over with. I put down my phone when people start talking about actual plans to DO something (schemes, etc...), or when people actually start DOING something. This basically means every time Sansa Stark, most of the Lanister to Lanister conversations, and John Snow's emo pouts pops on the screen, I check out.

There's an adage in film that TV, at least currently, doesn't seem to be attending to...Don't tell me; Show me.
A heck of a lot of shows right now have characters just talking to each other about their feelings a LOT.

Anytime some character asks another character some variation of "How are you?"...that's my queue to refill my snacks and coffee.
Having characters pour out their hurt and worried emotions in dialogue all over the place doesn't grab my interest...it pushes me away.
In many cases, it's just nonsense.
I stopped watching SHIELD, for example, because it made absolutely no sense at all that people faced with such world altering stakes imminently...as in, the scene you're currently watching is one in which physical imminent massively lethal threats abound, would be taking a moment to talk about their "feels". And this became par-for-the-course in that show; to regularly juxtapose massively high stake world threats right along with interpersonal emotional crises.

Take something fun and rompy like Castle...this doesn't get any simpler.
Here you have a buddy-cop show where jokes and puns are abundant because we take a guy and make him a wimp and the gal a badass. We make the guy a writer who annoys the crap out of the hard-nosed badass gal cop, and the hard-nosed badass cop regularly hurts the writer in physically humorous moments.
Simple, roll tape.
And yet, they absolutely collapsed that show in on itself because they moved from episodic light and fun joking around murder mysteries, and went serialized and deeply character driven melodramas to a ridiculous point that didn't even make sense - reshaping plausibility just to keep the "will they/won't they hook up", and then they topped that off with making the characters become more and more haunted, flawed, and traumatized and more and more vigilantes on on-going story-arc missions. It absolutely suffocated the show OUT of the show.
It's something akin to watching a show, laughing and having a good time and then all of a sudden a character whips out a gun, shoots the other in the head, and then the remaining seasons spend their time exploring how that moment of sudden betrayal makes everyone feel and how their screwed up feelings influence their actions from that point on....ugh....no.

These are just quick examples, but there's tons of these around. I'm not against character driven stories ... that's kind of what most writing is ... however, at the moment on Television it feels a bit like an invasive species that's way out of control and taken over everything else going on in a show, and when ratings slip a tad the dial for character's blabbing away about their feelings, or the possibility of yet another traumatic experience occurring so everyone has even more emotions to talk about, shoots way up.

I lost interest when they revealed that the lead was Spock's long lost sister. That trope screams "fanfic garbage" at the top of its lungs.