You know I genuinely can't remember it not feeling normal that Spock always had a human foster sister anymore. Everything DSC and SNW has added in their capacity as prequels just fits in the rich tapestry of the continuity for me.
Honestly, Sybok bothers me more. Plus Spock looking like a distant cousin but no one noticing as he ages.
Adding an example of one of the most universally reviled eposodes in the franchise doesn't help your case of overusing using nostalgia.
Terra Prime is reviled?
I'll give any show a pass on having a character from its predecessor series up to do a "sendoff." That one's just a freebie.
Beyond that, I guess I judge nostalgia in a TV series differently depending on the setting — whether it's part of a work where the nostalgia is part of the point, or whether it's getting shoehorned into something that ought to be charting new ground — and on whether it fits or is completely gratuitous and nonsensical.
Discovery — On the whole not that overdone. I personally would not have chosen to make Michael Burnham be Sarek's adopted daughter; the character's backstory would work just as well with another Vulcan, and choosing Sarek just makes the universe seem very small. Plus I didn't enjoy the Spock storyline all that much. But once you get past, there are huge chunks of the series that don't reference other pieces of Trek canon at all.
Picard — Nostalgia out the wazoo, but that was the whole point. The audience for this show was ... well, me. Middle-aged Trekkies who grew up on TNG and wanted to see the gang get back together again. Was it blatant fanservice to spend the entirety of Season 3 collecting TNG cast members one at a time, show us a big ol' space battle under the command of Admiral Shelby, then engineer an excuse to put everybody about the reconstituted Enterprise-D and play Jerry Goldsmith's fanfare while panning slowly around every last inch of the bridge set? Hell yes. Do I care? No. (On the other hand, Worf saying he has to teach a class in Mugato meditation was just silly.)
Lower Decks — The whole damn thing was references to past series, but that was the point.
SNW — The entire premise was that it was a show about Pike's Enterprise, so it gets a complete pass on having Pike, Number One, Spock, Chapel, Uhura, and M'Benga. On the other hand, things like having La'an be a descendant of Khan go back to making the universe smaller than it needs to be.
Starfleet Academy — No objections whatsoever to having the Doc as a major character and to the occasional gag like "Medical tricorder." The Easter eggs did get ridiculous in the beginning, but they tapered off later on.
Beyond that, I guess I judge nostalgia in a TV series differently depending on the setting — whether it's part of a work where the nostalgia is part of the point, or whether it's getting shoehorned into something that ought to be charting new ground — and on whether it fits or is completely gratuitous and nonsensical.
Discovery — On the whole not that overdone. I personally would not have chosen to make Michael Burnham be Sarek's adopted daughter; the character's backstory would work just as well with another Vulcan, and choosing Sarek just makes the universe seem very small. Plus I didn't enjoy the Spock storyline all that much. But once you get past, there are huge chunks of the series that don't reference other pieces of Trek canon at all.
Picard — Nostalgia out the wazoo, but that was the whole point. The audience for this show was ... well, me. Middle-aged Trekkies who grew up on TNG and wanted to see the gang get back together again. Was it blatant fanservice to spend the entirety of Season 3 collecting TNG cast members one at a time, show us a big ol' space battle under the command of Admiral Shelby, then engineer an excuse to put everybody about the reconstituted Enterprise-D and play Jerry Goldsmith's fanfare while panning slowly around every last inch of the bridge set? Hell yes. Do I care? No. (On the other hand, Worf saying he has to teach a class in Mugato meditation was just silly.)
Lower Decks — The whole damn thing was references to past series, but that was the point.
SNW — The entire premise was that it was a show about Pike's Enterprise, so it gets a complete pass on having Pike, Number One, Spock, Chapel, Uhura, and M'Benga. On the other hand, things like having La'an be a descendant of Khan go back to making the universe smaller than it needs to be.
Starfleet Academy — No objections whatsoever to having the Doc as a major character and to the occasional gag like "Medical tricorder." The Easter eggs did get ridiculous in the beginning, but they tapered off later on.
Which is funny because he didn't always have one.
She originally died in the Vulcan desert when Spock was a kid.
I was referring to "THESE ARE THE VOYAGES...".
(But, like you it seems, I think of "TERRA PRIME" aa their finale instead of that awful other one.)
I thought Colonel Green appeared in Demons and Terra Prime not TATV?
So did Spock
Better times.
You could always headcanon one of the parallels Worf visited was a permutation of the Therin timeline. Then it can live on forever for you, don't give up hope.
I have no idea if this is true, but I always had the notion that Ensign Ro was supposed to be the 'connective tissue' character introduced in Next Generation to be the bridge to Deep Space 9, but that Michelle Forbes was not available, and they instead used O'Brien as the 'bridge' and Kira Nerys as 'the Bajoran POV character', folding Ro's roles into two different characters.
Discussions in The Making of DS9 and the early treatment show that both Ro and O'Brien were intended to carry over from TNG. Early notes suggest Ro's final TNG episode would have been titled Lieutenant Ro.
A more than solid ending to season.
There's requisite action, but there was a lot of emotional moments that hit harder than I expected.
As the second half of the season seemed to be an exercise in saving money, this was too, feeling somewhat cramped, rather than expansive, but I think it worked to it's advantage.
I think this story was a continuation of the contemporary Trek shows pondering if everything we accepted is true with the Federation and it's benevolence, and I find it very important to question this! Discovery did it several times, and SNW at least 3 times. It's a very good, healthy sign for the franchise.
9 out of 10
There's requisite action, but there was a lot of emotional moments that hit harder than I expected.
As the second half of the season seemed to be an exercise in saving money, this was too, feeling somewhat cramped, rather than expansive, but I think it worked to it's advantage.
I think this story was a continuation of the contemporary Trek shows pondering if everything we accepted is true with the Federation and it's benevolence, and I find it very important to question this! Discovery did it several times, and SNW at least 3 times. It's a very good, healthy sign for the franchise.
9 out of 10
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