ST Strange New Worlds - Starships and Technology Season Four Discussion

[Mark_Nguyen]

Season 4 is expected in 2026! Let the speculation begin:

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I'm liking how we see a starship doing, you know, good old exploration stuff. I'd love for there to be a bit more fleet action this year, it's funny to consider that in TOS the Enterprise was always running into other Connies but for all of SNW (and DSC for that matter) the Connie has been a rare sight, with only the USS Cayuga and the erstwhile Sombra-class to be counted, even with multiple visits to Starbase 1 have been made.

Mark

 

[Dukhat]

I’m expecting that half the people will love the puppet episode, and half will hate it.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I expect we're going to have a field day trying to explain the science of it, while enjoying it immensely.

SNW has leaned into the weird part of sci-fi this whole time, while this whole production era of Trek has established quite firmly that weird stuff is happening to starship crews all the time. When SNW said that there's a universe out there that lived and breathed musicals, and we just accepted it and moved on. We'll get over this eventually too.

The real question is, will Pike's puppet hair be as hard to maintain as his human hair?

Mark

 

[Ithekro]

Muppet Trek has been a long time coming. That we get peak puppet Pike hair will be worth everything.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

When SNW said that there's a universe out there that lived and breathed musicals, and we just accepted it and moved on. We'll get over this eventually too.

Maybe you did!

I still personally think that's the stupidest thing Star Trek has ever done, even worse than the reverse time dimension and the mushroom dimension.

Though the puppet thing will be worse if the explanation is anything other than "the crew have been drinking Orion hurricanes again".

 

[Tuskin38]

I still personally think that's the stupidest thing Star Trek has ever done,

Not even in the top 10

 

[Henoch]

Not even in the top 10

I thought Discovery has more than 10 episodes.

 

[matthunter]

Puppet Particles. Natch.

 

[knightgrace]

Doing a musical in SNW, was one of the funniest episodes ever. This was the staff of writers saying 'Get over it. ' plus the players got to do something a bit different than the usual...

 

[Mage]

the stupidest thing Star Trek has ever done

Watch more Star Trek, you'll find that's definitely not the case.

DS9 crew stuck in a dumb game, even the cast thought it was dumb. Spock's Brain. Janeway and Paris have lizard children, because evolution means going backwards. Klingon boyband is far less stupid.

 

[FredH]

To misquote I forget which Western, “No matter how stupid y’are, there’s always something stupider…”

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Watch more Star Trek, you'll find that's definitely not the case.

DS9 crew stuck in a dumb game, even the cast thought it was dumb. Spock's Brain. Janeway and Paris have lizard children, because evolution means going backwards. Klingon boyband is far less stupid.

I'm very happy to include Subspace Rhapsody alongside Move Along Home, Spock's Brain and Threshold in the list of worst episodes in Star Trek history. But at least those episodes were about technology doing a thing.

Move Along Home's game was a device built into the Wadi ship. We don't know exactly what it did, but transporters, holodecks etc. are all established technologies so kidnapping people to put them into a game isn't that implausible.

Spock's Brain had someone do some unauthorised organ transplant so they had to rig up a device to maintain life functions. It's weird, but it doesn't break reality.

In Threshold they go fast enough to be literally everywhere and this mutates them into salamander, but not so much that they couldn't just fix the DNA afterwards. This is next level stupid. This is one of the most ridiculous ideas Star Trek has ever had, and I'm not going to defend it at all.

But in Subspace Rhapsody they forgot they were even making Star Trek, came up with something that Buffy or Legends of Tomorrow would easily explain with 'literal magic', and tried to blame it on an implausibility field linking them to a dimension where everyone sings, or something like that. It doesn't make any sense on the surface, if you dig a little deeper it makes no sense, nothing about it works for Star Trek.

They broke reality just to make a middle of the road episode of Legends of Tomorrow and then patted themselves on the back for how creative and imaginative they were.

 

[HotRod]

they forgot they were even making Star Trek

and tried to blame it on an implausibility field linking them to a dimension where everyone sings, or something like that

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

View attachment 53317

Only if Star Trek is shit, and I maintain that it is not.

Look, if Star Trek did this all the time, you wouldn't be able to cope with all the bitching I would do, so it can't be true.

 

[fireproof78]

Spock's Brain and The Children Shall Lead are far dumber than anything SNW has done. I don't care for puppets or the musical episode but it isn't a shit choice. It's art not science.

 

[Mage]

Spock's Brain and The Children Shall Lead are far dumber than anything SNW has done. I don't care for puppets or the musical episode but it isn't a shit choice. It's art not science.

Exactly this. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's dumb. It's just not your thing.
I work in a place where we sell A LOT of whisky. I love it when people say 'I love whisky but not the smokey stuff, that's bad whisky'. No. It's very well made whisky, it's just not your flavor profile. Some people seem to not understand the difference.

These people will now try and proof me wrong by listing at least ten things that make the episode bad. To be able to do this, you need to have seen the episode several times. Meaning that by trying to proof me wrong, they are admitting to having watched the musical episode several times even though they claim to hate it. Makes perfect sense.

 

[Atomic_Monkey]

How did fans react to the TNG episode where the crew became Robin Hood characters? That's just as goofy as the SNW's crew singing. (For the record, I loved both episodes.) Granted, puppets are bit more of stretch than singing, so I can understand the trepidation, but I'll go into it with an open mind.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

How did fans react to the TNG episode where the crew became Robin Hood characters? That's just as goofy as the SNW's crew singing. (For the record, I loved both episodes.) Granted, puppets are bit more of stretch than signing, so I can understand the trepidation, but I'll go into it with an open mind.

It's not a favourite and often considered to be the worst episode of season 4. But it comes after a bunch of Q episodes, so if someone was okay with Encounter at Farpoint and Hide and Q (and maybe Squire of Gothos), then it's just more of the same. It's basically a holodeck story and could've been achieved with similar technology.

The musical episode doesn't have an intelligence behind it, so it makes no sense that people are hearing actual songs and feeling compelled to come up with lyrics and dance routines on the fly. They're puppets but there's no puppeteer. It's basically just magic, and Star Trek doesn't work by those rules.

 

[HotRod]

It's basically just magic, and Star Trek doesn't work by those rules.

Except when it does. Let’s be honest, Q and his powers are magic in every way but name. Yes, I’m aware of Clarke’s Third Law, but Q pushes it to the point where the distinction between advanced science and magic stops meaning anything.

 

[Atomic_Monkey]

Except when it does. Let’s be honest, Q and his powers are magic in every way but name. Yes, I’m aware of Clarke’s Third Law, but Q pushes it to the point where the distinction between advanced science and magic stops meaning anything.

But that's exactly what Clarke's Third Law says: you reach a point where the distinction between advanced science and magic stops meaning anything.