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Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x04 - "A Space Adventure Hour"

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Except it is, because they say it is. When you own Star Trek, you can make those choices. Until then, you're playing in their sandbox and they make the rules.
Arguing with the "alternate reality" people is no different than arguing with flat earthers. They don't care about things as they actually are, they make up their own reality on the fly everyday. Their views should always be filtered through that fact.
 
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Not the best episode, not the worst. had a bit of fun, but I do wish if they were going to do a "Holodeck" Episode, that the Holodeck part was good. No real mystery, the characters hamming it up was funny, especially Anson, but if one remembers, the Tng one with Picard and Dixon was nominated for a Peabody.. This was just a cheap knockoff.

As for Spock, it wasn't "Out of nowhere", they were dancing with each other 2 episodes ago.

But do agree, they have kinda jumped the shark abit, already 2 episodes of "Fun or Trippy" and we still haven't gotten to the Puppets.
 
One aspect of this that I think people are missing is the scenario was based upon a series of mystery books La'an read as a child.

Mystery is, by nature, a pretty formulaic genre (similar to romance), and not a "style" genre like SF or fantasy. And if she was also reading mysteries which were meant to appeal to young readers, I wouldn't expect too deep of a story.
That kind of thinking honestly somewhat baffles me (and you’re not the first to bring it up in this thread either): Are you saying that because in-universe we would expect the holo-adventure based on pulp mysteries for kids (or whatever) to not be super deep and and well-written that we also have to accept that the episode itself is not super deep and well-written? Are you saying the whole murder mystery is kinda bad and uninspired because that’s what it has to be in-universe? You say “people are missing this” and I wonder what you’re even trying to say. :confused:

I think the holo-adventure could (and really should) have been clever, funny, original and unexpected in the way it’s presented to us as viewers of this show — and still be meant to be schlocky pulp for the people inside the Trek universe who experience the adventure.

By the way, am I the only one who after kissing Spock in the end half-expected La’an to say “computer, end program”? :lol:
 
I was wondering one thing. Where is spock during this episode? Is he in his quarters? Is he in engineering? Because he's not on bridge or in holodeck.
In the bathroom. Let's just say there's another biological imperative that strikes Vulcans every seven years that has to be dealt with Right the Fuck Now when it comes on...
 
That kind of thinking honestly somewhat baffles me (and you’re not the first to bring it up in this thread either): Are you saying that because in-universe we would expect the holo-adventure based on pulp mysteries for kids (or whatever) to not be super deep and and well-written that we also have to accept that the episode itself is not super deep and well-written? Are you saying the whole murder mystery is kinda bad and uninspired because that’s what it has to be in-universe? You say “people are missing this” and I wonder what you’re even trying to say. :confused:

I think the holo-adventure could (and really should) have been clever, funny, original and unexpected in the way it’s presented to us as viewers of this show — and still be meant to be schlocky pulp for the people inside the Trek universe who experience the adventure.

Because the point of the episode wasn't to have a clever murder mystery. That would have gotten in the way of the comedic tone they were going for, the actors hamming it up, the whole fake TOS set, etc. Tonally it would have just been a giant mishmash.

To give an analogy, remember Our Man Bashir? The actual plotline of that episode was pretty hackneyed and lame. But it didn't matter, because it was meant as a pastiche/spoof of the earlier, cheesy James Bond movies, and a chance for the regular cast to mug for the camera. The actual drama is because the RL characters are in jeopardy, while the plot within the holodeck is a disposable joke, other than the twist at the end, where Bashir decides to "lose" in order to save everyone within the simulation.

The stakes within the "stories within stories" in the holodeck should never be taken seriously, because they're not even taken seriously by the characters. They're fun diversions, except insofar as they involve some level of peril for the ship/main cast. Yet the peril itself seldom if ever is actually related to solving the story scenario within the holodeck.
 
Now when Geordi and Scotty first go into the turbolift in "Relics(TNG)" the scene will hit a little differently. :)

Geordi: "Wait'll you see the holodeck!"
Scotty: "Ye dug that out of the vault and messed around with it some more? Almost lost La'an in an experimental one."
Geordi: "Who?"
Scotty: "....never mind, Lad."
 
Because the point of the episode wasn't to have a clever murder mystery. That would have gotten in the way of the comedic tone they were going for, the actors hamming it up, the whole fake TOS set, etc. Tonally it would have just been a giant mishmash.

To give an analogy, remember Our Man Bashir? The actual plotline of that episode was pretty hackneyed and lame. But it didn't matter, because it was meant as a pastiche/spoof of the earlier, cheesy James Bond movies, and a chance for the regular cast to mug for the camera. The actual drama is because the RL characters are in jeopardy, while the plot within the holodeck is a disposable joke, other than the twist at the end, where Bashir decides to "lose" in order to save everyone within the simulation.

The stakes within the "stories within stories" in the holodeck should never be taken seriously, because they're not even taken seriously by the characters. They're fun diversions, except insofar as they involve some level of peril for the ship/main cast. Yet the peril itself seldom if ever is actually related to solving the story scenario within the holodeck.
I understand and I appreciate your response. Interesting way to look at it. Thinking about your specific example I would say that with “Our Man Bashir” I didn’t really feel that they did the spy movie genre all that bad. Plus, it was clever in the way they subverted some of those expectations that come with the genre (like Bashir in the end saving the day by actually destroying “the world”), whereas I didn’t detect much subversion of Murder Mystery tropes in “A Space Adventure Hour”. It just seemed to play them kinda straight.

Although I will admit that a lot of this in the end just comes down to how well each one of us individually think the humor works in any given episode. The Murder Mystery bits in “A Space Adventure Hour” largely felt devoid of any actually funny moments in my view. So I guess I would have just appreciated if at least the whodunnit itself would have been clever.

Different topic, but didn’t it feel kind of ironic also when Uhura-as-the-agent talked about how their Trek stand-in show used science-fiction trappings to cleverly tell stories full of meaning and topical commentary that it was said during an episode of Trek that didn’t really have much to say about anything really? At least the Holodeck story felt that way to me.
 
I understand and I appreciate your response. Interesting way to look at it. Thinking about your specific example I would say that with “Our Man Bashir” I didn’t really feel that they did the spy movie genre all that bad. Plus, it was clever in the way they subverted some of those expectations that come with the genre (like Bashir in the end saving the day by actually destroying “the world”), whereas I didn’t detect much subversion of Murder Mystery tropes in “A Space Adventure Hour”. It just seemed to play them kinda straight.

Although I will admit that a lot of this in the end just comes down to how well each one of us individually think the humor works in any given episode. The Murder Mystery bits in “A Space Adventure Hour” largely felt devoid of any actually funny moments in my view. So I guess I would have just appreciated if at least the whodunnit itself would have been clever.

One thing worth mentioning is one of the cowriters of this episode is Kathryn Lyn. She came into Trek after doing the fantastic second season episode of Lower Decks wej Duj. She clearly has great comedic chops, and is also extremely fannish (T'lyn was essentially based upon a cosplay character she did at conventions). Lower Decks hired her for Season 2, and she was a cowriter on both Charades and Those Old Scientists. Farce is pretty clearly her wheelhouse, and I expect that Episode 7 (What is Starfleet?) will also be a pretty comedic outing as a result.

Edit: I also think it's important to note La'an's confusion regarding why she had to do a holodeck murder mystery at the beginning of the episode. This is a classic case of lampshading - the story is explicitly calling out how ridiculous the premise is in order to make the audience less upset regarding the ridiculous premise. It's done in comedy all the time.
 
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So we're the bloopers actual bloopers, or were they staged to be presented as bloopers? I felt like they were planned, written and acted to appear as bloopers. So to me they were clever but not funny .
 
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