Strange New Worlds disappointment

[Tomalak]

I'm genuinely surprised they are moving this quickly. That's uncommon these days.

It's not that unusual. Post-production takes so much longer now with the demand on VFX houses, that principle photography often wraps well over a year before the series gets to air.

They've done exactly the same thing with Starfleet Academy. The final season of Stranger Things started filming in January 2024 and won't be released until the end of November.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

It's not been strange or new enough this season, very uneven and fairly unoriginal.

 

[ichab]

Done to death in DISCO.

I stopped watching disco during season 2 so......

 

[fireproof78]

I stopped watching disco during season 2 so......

That was from Season 2

 

[Sketcher]

I'm kinda for a SNW mirror universe episode. It'd be nice if they do it like Enterprise and there aren't any characters crossing over. Feel like they'd use the episode to show how Mirror Kirk took command from Mirror Pike.

 

[cooleddie74]

Which we know from TOS happened through assassination.

 

[Tomalak]

Likely supported by Spock, as it was logical.

 

[aquova]

I agree with much of the sentiment here. I found this to be the weakest season of SNW by far, but it still was better than all of DISCO and PIC for me.

I like this website as it plots the user ratings (I think from IMDB?) on a plot, so you can get a sense of the general consensus about a show. It's not a perfect metric, especially for comparing between shows, but it gives a good sense for which episodes are the most and least liked within a series

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022-) ratings - Rating Graph

Graphs about ratings and trends of the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds TV show based on 142641 user ratings.

www.ratingraph.com

Four of the bottom five (actually six, since #5 is a tie) episodes were in season 3 -- What is Starfleet?, A Space Adventure Hour, Wedding Bell Blues, and Four-and-a-Half Vulcans, with only season 1's The Elysium Kingdom being more disliked. Funnily enough, I'm not sure these are my bottom four of the season, but I do understand the sentiment. On the flip side though, The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail is currently tied for the 5th best received episode, so there's that.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

Imdb users dont like comedy it seems

 

[eschaton]

I went back and reviewed my feelings for other recent seasons of Trek, and I don't think the dropoff for SNW was as bad as in LDS's final season, which was pretty mediocre until we got to the very end of the season.

 

[Tosk]

Imdb users dont like comedy it seems

Or IMDb users like comedy just fine but found those episodes to be bad comedy.

 

[fireproof78]

Imdb users dont like comedy it seems

Comedy is highly subjective.

 

[Mudd]

Feel like they'd use the episode to show how Mirror Kirk took command from Mirror Pike.

That is the first good idea and reason to do an MU episode since "Mirror, Mirror."

Bet it's already been shot for season four.

 

[FederationHistorian]

That was tremendously apparent in Season 2. No matter what one thinks of Discovery the negativity created reticence.

What I clearly meant was that SNW strayed from the worldbuilding that Discovery and Short Treks did. So much that was mentioned has been abandoned. Section 31 operating openly, Harry Mudd family drama, the temporal arms race with the Klingons, the fallout from the “loss” of Discovery by those who had family on Discovery, the various new worlds from Discovery (New Eden, Pahvo, Xahea, Kaminar). Though that last one might be me being influenced by TNG and DS9 revisited select worlds (ex. Earth, Qo’noS) several times.

Even with fallout from the Klingon War, it has not dealt with Chancelor L’Rell’s reign. Or Spock dealing with the role his sister played in how the war started in the first place, despite other characters still carrying scars from that conflict. Or the successes of Captain Lorca in the war potentially leading to more ethically questionable captains like him in Starfleet.

Even Short Treks brought up Tholians and Tribbles as points of interest and it been met with radio silence.

Meanwhile, Discovery built off the world building of the first two seasons after jumping to the 32nd century, and even acknowledged the Short Trek “Calypso” in the finale.

The backlash towards Discovery did not seem to extend beyond the Klingon redesign, Discovery’s advanced tech, Spock having a secret sister, or being dark R-rated story. The audience did not seem to hate the worldbuilding at all.

 

[eschaton]

What I clearly meant was that SNW strayed from the worldbuilding that Discovery and Short Treks did. So much that was mentioned has been abandoned. Section 31 operating openly, Harry Mudd family drama, the temporal arms race with the Klingons, the fallout from the “loss” of Discovery by those who had family on Discovery, the various new worlds from Discovery (New Eden, Pahvo, Xahea, Kaminar). Though that last one might be me being influenced by TNG and DS9 revisited select worlds (ex. Earth, Qo’noS) several times.

Even with fallout from the Klingon War, it has not dealt with Chancelor L’Rell’s reign. Or Spock dealing with the role his sister played in how the war started in the first place, despite other characters still carrying scars from that conflict. Or the successes of Captain Lorca in the war potentially leading to more ethically questionable captains like him in Starfleet.

Even Short Treks brought up Tholians and Tribbles as points of interest and it been met with radio silence.

Meanwhile, Discovery built off the world building of the first two seasons after jumping to the 32nd century, and even acknowledged the Short Trek “Calypso” in the finale.

The backlash towards Discovery did not seem to extend beyond the Klingon redesign, Discovery’s advanced tech, Spock having a secret sister, or being dark R-rated story. The audience did not seem to hate the worldbuilding at all.

While I do wish a bit more was done with the postwar Klingon state, I am glad we haven't gone back to any of the "Discovery planets." There's already enough small universe syndrome/self-referential stuff in Trek. The more Trek just references old things, rather than show us new things, the less it feels like a big wide-open galaxy and the more it feels like a small town.

 

[cooleddie74]

The Xaheans (Po's people in DSC and Short Treks) show up again in Season 1 of PIC, but yeah, there's almost no returning to worlds visited by Discovery.

 

[eschaton]

The Xaheans (Po's people in DSC and Short Treks) show up again in Season 1 of PIC, but yeah, there's almost no returning to worlds visited by Discovery.

I completely blocked how goddamned stupid Xahaea looked in DIS.

One of the things I really don't like about modern Trek is it seems like the science consultants aren't really allowed to consult with the VFX department at all, which does whatever the hell it wants.

 

[fireproof78]

The backlash towards Discovery did not seem to extend beyond the Klingon redesign, Discovery’s advanced tech, Spock having a secret sister, or being dark R-rated story. The audience did not seem to hate the worldbuilding at all.

But that's not necessarily what production teams took away from negative commentary.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I agree with much of the sentiment here. I found this to be the weakest season of SNW by far, but it still was better than all of DISCO and PIC for me.

I like this website as it plots the user ratings (I think from IMDB?) on a plot, so you can get a sense of the general consensus about a show. It's not a perfect metric, especially for comparing between shows, but it gives a good sense for which episodes are the most and least liked within a series

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022-) ratings - Rating Graph

Graphs about ratings and trends of the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds TV show based on 142641 user ratings.

www.ratingraph.com

Four of the bottom five (actually six, since #5 is a tie) episodes were in season 3 -- What is Starfleet?, A Space Adventure Hour, Wedding Bell Blues, and Four-and-a-Half Vulcans, with only season 1's The Elysium Kingdom being more disliked. Funnily enough, I'm not sure these are my bottom four of the season, but I do understand the sentiment. On the flip side though, The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail is currently tied for the 5th best received episode, so there's that.

I have no issue with the comedy or musical episodes per se, just that with only 10 episodes, they take up a little too much of the time we get each season.

I find 10 episodes per season disappointing, especially with what I think of as the best of the latter day Star Treks (and I like them all).

 

[Smear-Gel]

Its not the common take here, but SNW season 3 disappointed me enough that I would say its now worse than Discovery. At the very least, if we're taking the final season of Discovery vs SNW S3, I'd watch Discovery season 6 over SNW S4 in a heartbeat.

Discovery knows what it is and I can approach it on its terms. I dont think SNW knows what it is at all and seems more interested in Trek as an out of universe brand rather than an in universe world at this point.

And the disappointment hits because i never thought it was the best thing anyways, its always been worse Lower Decks, but even then this one lost me.