Starfleet Academy General Discussion Thread

[Starflight]

You're right about one thing that it's hard to get the correct viewership numbers nowadays, Netflix started this trend and every other streaming service followed suit.
I did find this though am not sure how valid or accurate they are: https://flixpatrol.com/top10/paramount-plus/

Yeah it's very challenging to see how the shows are actually doing - the few statements they've made are all obviously of the "this show smashed streaming records!!!" nature, but then you wonder why the services seem to be tanking and getting sold off, and why control of the franchise is being handed to a new party.

From the deepest dive I did into this months ago, I got the impression that Discovery was considered a huge success in that it kept getting people to subscribe to CBSAA every time a new season dropped, and the first season especially drew in a huge crowd (though exactly how many people subscribed, and if they stayed the whole run, is ambiguous), but whether or not Picard and SNW have performed well is much more opaque; Paramount said they were very pleased with SNW when it started but it does seem like by the very few metrics we have, it's started to lose steam.

Most of the positive indicators are things like "we're pleased with the show's performance" and "this show's debut caused a huge subscriber spike", both of which don't indicate a great deal.

 

[TRON JA307020]

Yeah it's very challenging to see how the shows are actually doing - the few statements they've made are all obviously of the "this show smashed streaming records!!!" nature, but then you wonder why the services seem to be tanking and getting sold off, and why control of the franchise is being handed to a new party.

From the deepest dive I did into this months ago, I got the impression that Discovery was considered a huge success in that it kept getting people to subscribe to CBSAA every time a new season dropped, and the first season especially drew in a huge crowd (though exactly how many people subscribed, and if they stayed the whole run, is ambiguous), but whether or not Picard and SNW have performed well is much more opaque; Paramount said they were very pleased with SNW when it started but it does seem like by the very few metrics we have, it's started to lose steam.

Most of the positive indicators are things like "we're pleased with the show's performance" and "this show's debut caused a huge subscriber spike", both of which don't indicate a great deal.

Yeah. Snw has definitely lost steam. Its a shame. The first sesson was pretty good. When they decided to go all out on comedy and spocks love life the show started to falter.

 

[Christmas Canon Spock]

Most of the positive indicators are things like "we're pleased with the show's performance" and "this show's debut caused a huge subscriber spike", both of which don't indicate a great deal.

Which is why the numbers are ultimately meaningless because we lack context at all. It has no bearing on audience choices unless people only watch what's popular...

 

[Starflight]

Popularity obviously doesn't affect the quality of the show but it is interesting - to me at least - to see if the strategy deployed by the showrunners and streaming platforms has worked.

They've gone for a sort of scattershot approach - they've tried to produce a Star Trek series for just about every target audience (kids with PRO, toddlers with Scouts, TOS fans with SNW, the prestige drama audience with DSC and PIC, Rick & Morty-type stuff fans with LDS, young adults/teens with SFA, etc), and in doing so tactically chose to spread the franchise's identity fairly thin in order to cover more bases.

I'm very interested to know if this actually works and translates into boosted cultural relevance and impressive economic success, or if it's ultimately counterproductive and dilutes the property's identity and shreds its USP, making it actively harder to market the franchise in the future. Or any outcome in between!

 

[Santa Kang]

Popularity obviously doesn't affect the quality of the show but it is interesting - to me at least - to see if the strategy deployed by the showrunners and streaming platforms has worked.

They've gone for a sort of scattershot approach - they've tried to produce a Star Trek series for just about every target audience (kids with PRO, toddlers with Scouts, TOS fans with SNW, the prestige drama audience with DSC and PIC, Rick & Morty-type stuff fans with LDS, young adults/teens with SFA, etc), and in doing so tactically chose to spread the franchise's identity fairly thin in order to cover more bases.

I'm very interested to know if this actually works and translates into boosted cultural relevance and impressive economic success, or if it's ultimately counterproductive and dilutes the property's identity and shreds its USP, making it actively harder to market the franchise in the future. Or any outcome in between!

What is its "identity"? Roddenberry defined it as "action-adventure" back in the 60s. And of course it's Science Fiction. Usually it is an hour-long live action drama. But it been a half hour animated show twice and two hour theatrical films, as well. We also have the "ideal" Star Trek where it has something profound to say.

 

[Christmas Canon Spock]

What is its "identity"? Roddenberry defined it as "action-adventure" back in the 60s. And of course it's Science Fiction. Usually it is an hour-long live action drama. But it been a half hour animated show twice and two hour theatrical films, as well. We also have the "ideal" Star Trek where it has something profound to say.

It's identity is whatever fans declare it is while ignoring the parts they don't like.

Actually, quite human.

 

[Turtletrekker]

People said the Next Generation wouldn't work because Kirk Spock and McCoy were part of Star Trek's identity.

People said Deep Space Nine wouldn't work because having a Starship go from planet to planet every week was part of Star Trek's identity.

People said Voyager wouldn't work because the Federation was part of Star Trek's identity.

 

[Starflight]

Identity is whatever it focuses on at the time - in 1967, that was Kirk, Spock, the Enterprise, Alexander Courage's theme, colourful neon-lit sets, anthology/episodic adventures, etc.

There was also a clear identity in 2017 when Discovery launched - Star Trek was now a rather dark "prestige"-tinged drama with dystopian and militaristic elements, and a focus on Burnham's character and psychology, with a clear aesthetic style.

As always on this site it feels like people read fairly neutral statements as attacks. It is straightforwardly true that the strategy of the current owners has been to make a whole range of wildly different shows to appeal to wildly different target audiences; there are certain commonalities between them (typically in the case of shared tropes and narrative styles) but Lower Decks, Discovery, and the new Scouts thing are very obviously distinct incarnations of the property aimed at totally different audiences.

Saying that this is the case, and that they've strategically chosen to pursue this policy over having a more concrete and consistent house style, isn't making any claims about whether that's good or bad, or what "real Star Trek" is, or disparaging any show or whatever, it's what I'd consider to be a pretty objective statement about the strategy they've used. I really wish people wouldn't react to every other statement as some kind of criticism that requires a bunch of reminders that people complained about TNG too or w/e.

 

[HollyJollyHotRod]

People said Voyager wouldn't work because the Federation was part of Star Trek's identity.

Well..... they were partly right about Voyager.

 

[Frostscape One]

Identity is whatever it focuses on at the time - in 1967, that was Kirk, Spock, the Enterprise, Alexander Courage's theme, colourful neon-lit sets, anthology/episodic adventures, etc.

There was also a clear identity in 2017 when Discovery launched - Star Trek was now a rather dark "prestige"-tinged drama with dystopian and militaristic elements, and a focus on Burnham's character and psychology, with a clear aesthetic style.

As always on this site it feels like people read fairly neutral statements as attacks. It is straightforwardly true that the strategy of the current owners has been to make a whole range of wildly different shows to appeal to wildly different target audiences; there are certain commonalities between them (typically in the case of shared tropes and narrative styles) but Lower Decks, Discovery, and the new Scouts thing are very obviously distinct incarnations of the property aimed at totally different audiences.

Saying that this is the case, and that they've strategically chosen to pursue this policy over having a more concrete and consistent house style, isn't making any claims about whether that's good or bad, or what "real Star Trek" is, or disparaging any show or whatever, it's what I'd consider to be a pretty objective statement about the strategy they've used. I really wish people wouldn't react to every other statement as some kind of criticism that requires a bunch of reminders that people complained about TNG too or w/e.

It's hard to classify DISCO as 'prestige' tv, though. 'Prestige' implies something was good. Except for the visual effects, it was terrible.

 

[Starflight]

I might be using it in an unusual way, but to me "prestige" isn't a marker of quality but rather a description of a set of trends that arose in television in the 2000s:
- often tonally downbeat, or cynical toward traditional storytelling tropes
- heavily serialised
- interested in graphic violence and sometimes-exploitative sexuality (both of which Disco was actually fairly light on, to its credit)
- often more tilted toward exploring the internality and psychology of characters than toward having event-based plots occur
- interested in the idea that a "complex" character is one who is flawed, and who is seen to constantly change in response to events

Some stuff that embraces these trends is good, some is absolutely abysmal, but either way I think Discovery was definitely responding to a lot of these and trying to align itself with them.

 

[Christmas Canon Spock]

Saying that this is the case, and that they've strategically chosen to pursue this policy over having a more concrete and consistent house style, isn't making any claims about whether that's good or bad, or what "real Star Trek" is, or disparaging any show or whatever, it's what I'd consider to be a pretty objective statement about the strategy they've used

I think it is consistent with what Trek did in the past.

 

[Starflight]

I think it is consistent with what Trek did in the past.

If you mean the films, I'd agree - the TNG films in particular were very clearly an attempt to expand into the summer blockbuster market and create a type of Star Trek that might appeal to a target audience who weren't necessarily big fans of the shows, albeit trying to hold brand cohesion together by using ostensibly the same characters. (If you mean the shows, there's a lot to talk about there - I think TNG, DS9, and VGR were all meant to have a lot of transferability between audiences, albeit each aimed at different tastes and core demographics.)

I do think I'm right in suggesting that this strategy has gone further than before in recent times, though; we've never had a situation that I can think of where so many entirely distinct target audiences were being aimed at simultaneously, and in such pronounced ways (like, we literally have a Cocomelon variant right now, which ran alongside an animated adult comedy which ran alongside a weird action-comedy-drama movie with Michelle Yeoh, just after Discovery finished, and while TOS-nostalgia-project SNW is still airing).

 

[Campe]

While I disagree with assertion of Scouts being a “Cocomelon variant” (my 3yo is actually watching Cocomelon right now, and my limited experience with Scouts does not match the Cocomelon storytelling style), I’m not certain if trying to spread to different audiences is a bad thing. The issue with focusing on a single audience (as you correctly suggest the Berman era did) is rather shortsighted in growing an audience.

 

[Starflight]

I’m not certain if trying to spread to different audiences is a bad thing

Me neither, which is why concrete metrics would be fascinating - on one hand, this approach has the potential to grow the viewerbase and diversify the franchise to expand what it's capable of in the future, while on the other it could dilute things to the point that the "Star Trek" name doesn't communicate anything to an audience, damaging brand recognition and audience trust.

Personally I suspect they have stretched things a bit too thin*, but obviously the reality of viewership/engagement statistics might show the polar opposite and that the strategy has succeeded.

*one thing that does strike me is that the era doesn't really have one central, franchise-defining character in the way Kirk obviously is overall and Picard debatably was for the Berman era - Pike and Burnham are both sort of jockeying for that position, but both feel quite modular and like they're from different incarnations of the franchise, despite sharing a show for a season!

 

[TRON JA307020]

It's hard to classify DISCO as 'prestige' tv, though. 'Prestige' implies something was good. Except for the visual effects, it was terrible.

It was so bad. Remember the fun house turbolift? Lol.

 

[Frostscape One]

It was so bad. Remember the fun house turbolift? Lol.

One of THE WORST scenes in the entire franchise. Calling it ludicrous and stupid is a monumental understatenent.

 

[SantaEddie74]

The funhouse turbolift may be THE single worst special effect in Trek history, and let's remember - this is a franchise that once had marionette puppets made out of pipe cleaner as shapeshifting aliens.

 

[Starflight]

The funhouse turbolift is the best thing in DSC and something that should be retconned into all previous Star Trek. All ships are 90% hollow inside the hull, just a few key rooms connected by a vast rollercoaster network.

Retcon the bit where Picard climbs through the turbolift shaft with the kids in "Disaster" to be them swinging across the rollercoaster tracks like monkey bars.

 

[Christmas Canon Spock]

do think I'm right in suggesting that this strategy has gone further than before in recent times, though; we've never had a situation that I can think of where so many entirely distinct target audiences were being aimed at simultaneously, and in such pronounced ways

You would be correct. With things so split up it is necessary to cultivate multiple streams of connection.