Good idea. Do you want to correct the show title as well? The "Starfleet" part was part of the news story but not in the final show title.
Spoilers Star Trek: Scouts Discussion Thread
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
I just checked EAS to see if Bernd has posted his typical comically joyless reviews of this series. He hasn't.I love the fact that there is a Noodle Nebula page on Memory Alpha!This is definitely going to cause some debates and meltdowns in the future.
I scanned down through a few of the SNW reviews, and wow, some of them are rough! It makes me remember why I basically never read or watch reviews. While I do notice some of the issues they bring up in the reviews, and some of them do reduce my enjoyment of the episodes, fortunately it's nowhere near that much! It would be comical to see reviews of Scouts.
For what it's worth, his scores seem a little harsher than many because he considers 5/10 a truly "average" episode of Trek, which is mathematically sensible but not how people usually use those ratings in practice.
(For comparison, I recently gathered up the TrekBBS poll ratings on episodes from the last eight years out of curiosity, and the average rating given on a poll to a modern Trek episode around here is 8/10. IMDb data I've pulled gives 7.4/10 across all series.)
But if you primarily mean "rough" in terms of the actual text of the reviews, fair enough.
I haven't seen any of the third season of SNW, but I don't go by most reviews either. Most. If Jammer gives an episode three stars or above, I'll consider watching it down the line.
But my real test is my brother. He still watches SNW. As far as New Trek, I only like Discovery and Picard. Whereas he likes most of New Trek. If he sends me a message letting me know I have to check out an episode, that's my guide to letting me know if I might like something. He knows my tastes. And the more he annoys me about if I've seen something or not yet, the better it probably is. Or at least he thinks it is. Either way, at that point, I'll give something a watch to decide for myself.
He's bugged me about two episodes so far this season. I won't say which ones because of spoilers, but I know what I'll be looking at first when I eventually do.
With everyone else, it's a shot in the dark. I have no idea what most reviewers like in general, I have no idea if they're being harsh for the sake of being harsh or if they really mean it, and I have no idea how closely their views match mine.
Jammer's an exception because I've been reading his reviews for 30 years, I know where I agree and disagree with him, and I take where I disagree with him into account, making the reviews still useful.
Jammer's site is really the only review site I read, and it's because I've followed it from here for over 20 years. He seems to be fair (Though I think I disagree with him a lot on Voyager) and they are always a fun read.
I'm similar in that I use the whole rating scale, and I would consider a 5 to be an average episode of TV. I know it's personal preference, but I generally find I enjoy most episodes of Star Trek more than the average, so the large number of under 5 ratings seemed excessive. If I thought a show was that far below average, I would quit watching it!
My main comment was more about the reviewer being overwhelmingly focused on the negatives of the episodes, and seemingly unable to see positives in them. I didn't spend time to look too closely into their other ratings, but at a quick glance it seems they are often unnecessarily harsh on an episode due to nitpicks and perceived continuity issues.
I sometimes like to see what Jammer thinks about an episode too, although I'm the opposite and usually wait until after I've seen an episode and thought about it a bit. They usually have some interesting thoughts to share.
In my opinion SNW S3 is a step below the first two, but I still enjoy it overall. I can't say the same for Discovery and Picard, but maybe I'll have to do what you do and look through Jammer's ratings to see if there's any I should give a try!
The key is that he doesn't consider 5 to be an average episode of television; he considers it to be an average episode of Star Trek. In his own words:
https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/episodes/ratings.htm said:
Most places if I saw someone rate it a 5 I'd think they didn't enjoy it very much, but for Bernd he considers a 5 "delightful."
And, by definition, if 5 is "average" for Trek, roughly half of his reviews would be under 5, so it's not really a reason to quit watching. (Well, half not accounting for those that are exactly 5.)
Honestly, this type of thing is why I generally prefer a 1-5 rating over a 1-10 rating. I think people are more likely to be on the same page as to what it means. (Not suggesting TrekBBS change the polls though; long-term consistency tends to be better than coming up with an "ideal" system IMO.)
Definitely true sometimes. And I suspect, due to him being the type to notice and voice nitpicks, some of them come out more negative than he actually feels since nitpicks can add up in an otherwise-decent episode. But I don't think you're completely off-base either.
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