Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

LD is like having the absolutely nerdiest people in the (galaxy) make a show because they Love Star Trek so much. like half the episode resolutions are 'we're starfleet, and starfleet intrinsically rules, so of course we can solve this!' it's cool

and i like that! but not so much the crossing over. i don't care how famous the SNW crew is, no one has that kind of insight into their 120yo heroes and i hate it.

it's absurd and awkward and i know it's an LD thing but i hate it. ensign boimler took it upon himself to tell spock to cool it? boimler/mariner trying to *comfort* pike about his doom? gtfo

it was funny, as would anything with a jack ryan scream be, but it wasn't ideal

ah well

did appreciate ransom big-upping his irl wife tho

but only underlined how I much I value the starchiness of live-action Trek as a decorous escape from animated banter

Yes, agreed. I like Lower Decks, but it's really the only one of the US animated shows I can stand anymore. They're too loud and I'm too old. Bloody kids, etc.

no one has that kind of insight into their 120yo heroes and i hate it.

This reminded me of Babylon, which I just watched the other night, and how the central sadness of that film is that all those 1920s silent stars thought they would live forever in celluloid and their exploits would be legendary, and -- spoiler alert! -- nobody remembers them now.

Speaking of legacy and name recognition in Starfleet, I'm sure someone in one of the Star Trek threads mentioned how embarrassed the writers must be now to have included a positive mention of Elon Musk.

and how the central sadness of that film is that all those 1920s silent stars thought they would live forever in celluloid and their exploits would be legendary, and -- spoiler alert! -- nobody remembers them now.

Interesting, this feels almost the opposite of what happened IRL - 1920's movie stars lived in a world without rep screenings, film preservation or home video, it was taken as granted that they'd be forgotten...and yet as recently as my childhood ppl like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton were still amongst the most recognizable figures worldwide (and I'm going to assume this is still the case as obv the passage of time stops at my birth and all my subsequent experiences representative of the Present).

1920's movie stars lived in a world without rep screenings, film preservation or home video,

I think a lot of them thought the films were the preservation, for a while at least. Anyway, there is maybe a better thread for chat about cultural memory, I don't want to derail SNW chat.

I'll crosspost to the silent film thread

like half the episode resolutions are 'we're starfleet, and starfleet intrinsically rules, so of course we can solve this!' it's cool

I don't mind this, as to me it's a corrective against the "Starfleet bad" stories from Disco/Picard that are told terribly.

vibe whiplash

bunny colvin is a klingon :D

Let’s get all of them in the show over time. (Well I suppose Idris did the one film.)

started watching the episode expecting it to be the musical episode so the tonal shift i had to suddenly make was jarring 9wait are we going to get a Klingon song - oh wait doubt a 'Butcher' gonna get a song - as dont think they would do a Sweeney Todd like song, etc)

this series is the best star trek thing since ds9 and i don’t think it’s close

otm

This ep reminded me of the early bits of DS9 where Kira had to really battle with herself to be around Cardassians.

And it gives the klingon war some backstory - I always felt like it was a little thinly dealt with on Disco but have I maybe just blocked S1 out of my head?lol

Let me rephrase that because I don't say this lightly

this series is the best star trek thing since ds9 and i don’t think it’s close

i may agree!

i too am inclined to concur

Yes.

Can't knock it. The argument that there isn't enough of it compared to 'regular' seasons in the Before Days is kinda counterbalanced by the fact that 1) we're getting it to start with and 2) without pretending every moment/frame lands, the ensemble vibes ride hard throughout and it generally just looks great too.

What "minor complaint" could there have possibly been to make it policy all veterans had to hang out with the ambassador?

yeah that is a deeply weird policy
…perhaps solely designed for maximum dramatic conflict in this very episode

i suppose dude himself complained to starfleet brass

I can't believe I didnt notice it was Bunny from the Wire.

i suppose dude himself complained to starfleet brass

The most generous interpretation is yes he did this, in a bid to suss out the person who knows his secret, but the way he reacts at the end doesn't work for that I don't think.

By pure coincidence after we watched this we fired up a TNG and it turned out to be the episode about the Romulan maybe-defector. No shade to SNW but TNG def did it better, so much more psychological depth to that character.

I I think Subspace Rhapsody might be an oddity among all the Star Trek Goes Camp! episodes in that it's entirely self-referential: everyone is aware of the singing, the problem is to stop it, the method is to obey the three-act rule - the only way out is through.

If Starfleet sings showtunes and the Klingons rap, of course I wanna know what the Romulans, Gorn, Tholians, etc. all do. If I stop to reconsider this season, I feel like many of the A plots resolve with some sort of "I got this/you got this" positivism, while the B or C plots have been more interesting. La'an is great. I wish the season was longer too. Now that the experimental stuff is out of the way, we can get on with some basic Five Year Mission action... for one more episode.

I just...WHAT an episode.

the B or C plots have been more interesting. La'an is great. I wish the season was longer too.

All true. Making this episode an actual big multi-arc resolver that worked in context was a real stroke of genius; if this had been a random one-off, it would still have been a treat but this was something else.

I have bunnies thoughts!

Not one but two Buffy refs in this, which made me laugh heartily ("will we pouf into bunnies" and "I have a theory" said a bit later).
Ethan Peck's mellifluous low voice. Yum.

But oh dear GOD, most of those songs were dreadful, and a lot of the lyrics, which I get the neccesary exposition, did so in a terribly slow repeaty manner at times which got me frustrated. "I'm the ex" I found especially clunky a line. The ones I did like was the first one - sounded like a Gotye song - and the "finale" which was joy. But the rest were terrible X Factor type autotunes and really Not My Taste.

But yeh overall it was lightweight fun.

I doubt we will be bunnies.

I do wish they’d referenced like Les Miz for this instead of Wicked

But it was fun! La’an’s song ruled

The Klingons bursting into K-Pop was fucking hilarious

this was Not My Taste either but at least there was good character stuff for la’an/spock/chapell/wristwatch

however, being sent off on a priority one mission just before what almost has to be a gorn episode does not bode well for captain batel and the cayuga

chapell/wristwatch

Hahaha!

Lmao

Did kirk's very presence on the enterprise cause the female crew to start wearing skirts or am I imagining that?

Nope, never ever watching that again.

It always walks a fine line of being too Whedony, this blew right past that.

There was definite fealty to the Whedonverse crowd, I do think. Which I personally don't mind, but I get why others would.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Once More With Feeling, and I love some musicals, but this was not for me. I found the whole thing cringey.

I was cracking up at one scene with Carol Kane because she was doing the “I am in a musical singing my ass off on stage” face

you know, the one where you’ve spent years hearing about how you have to really project your voice on stage

oh ffs, stopped watching after 5 mins

*looks up from listening to the soundtrack* Sorry, you all say something?

i'm with Ned, this was hugely entertaining, some songs were better than others but fun and a la Once More With Feeling used the musical to do a lot of character and plot advancement

I would really have loved a Gilbert& Sullivan-esque bit. I thought one was upcoming when there was a scene where Uhura and/or Spock rattled off a ton of rapid technobabble... imagine that in a G&S showtune! That would have been the tits. But no, we had to have 4 versions of "let it go" instead.

it was fun but it’s nowhere close to what Once More W Feeling did as far as songcraft. not to be a snob about it but i maybe set the bar too high expecting something like that.
i mean I listened to that OMWF soundtrack for ~years~. But this, i didn’t find v many of these songs enjoyable as songs in their own right at all, they felt too over crammed w info, sort of over-wordy idk.

but i loved uhura’z song & laans song and i did really enjoy the episode overall

love that we got more Laan & Kirk, that was really well done & v moving

have to admit that i largely skipped through the songs (to the point where i missed the k(lingon)-pop.) not into musicals apart from 'jesus christ superstar' (my mom had the album when i was little) although also 'wicked' made me cry a few years ago ;_;

but it's fine, whatever. never saw buffy. weirdly it never bothered me when 'the magicians' broke into song, perhaps because it was so very campy from the start

You know who should have done a musical episode? Justified.