Star Trek: Classic or Dud?

I'm intrigued as to whether there is an agreed shark jumping point for Discovery or if one should just pooh pooh it from the get go. Like

Ups and downs in the first two seasons; second season is better but won't make much sense without watching the first. Third seasons starts well but then I gave up. Suggest watching the Pike/Spock/Number 1 episodes and pooh-poohing the rest.

The first season is like a season-long "Naked Now" -- everyone acts weirdly out-of-character before you get a chance to know what they're actually like (although what they're actually like isn't much of an improvement). Not sure it was a good idea to launch the first new series in a fifteen years totally in media res.

I think I'll give up on Discovery, I haven't grown to like any of the characters too much, in fact I'm getting increasingly sick of some of them. I don't want to be one of those negative fan people but this and Picard have been hugely disappointing - the latter quite depressingly so. Stewart should have said no, as it turns out.

On a brighter note, Lower Decks is back soon!

Strange New Worlds is great if you've not seen that

I watched the first two episodes and liked them - I think ST still works better as an episodic series, really

Agree about Picard and Disco, and I'm indifferent to the cartoons, but Strange New Worlds is a total gem.

Discovery jumped the shark immediately but there were occasional signs of life in the first couple of seasons - the doctor (sometimes), Jason Isaacs and Michelle Yeoh are fun to watch and stand out because everyone else sucks all the energy and joy out when they're on screen.

DISCO kind of is two different series, the first two seasons, and the last two. The first two seasons are overly grimdark, with a lot of gore that felt gratuitous and meant simply to shock. As for the last two season, I've been struggling to articulate why I find it to be so bad. I think it's wildly inconsistent main characters, complete indifference to secondary characters, and bad long-term storytelling where characters suddenly have some interest/ability/backstory meant to only serve the immediate story beat (Saru and Michael start out as rivals with a bunch of resentment and then suddenly become BFFs, as just one example), and just really shabby sci fi writing (admittedly that's kind of Trek tradition, but it's not always been so sustained).

PIC just gets into some aimless plots and is too caught up in allegory and then "DO YOU SEE?" of it all.

Sometimes I kind of feel that DISCO and PIC both took all the wrong lessons from DS9.

I did find the first two seasons of Discovery invigoratingly ambitious with its bug-eyed determination to show it wasn’t your grandpa’s Star Trek anymore. It totally failed to land this ambition and ended up pleasing nobody, but the attempt was a wild ride. Agree the Pike/Spock stuff was good fun.

Season 3 set-up was kind of interesting? But then you could feel the energy fading as the season went on. Season 4 felt like one of those later seasons of Voyager where the franchise only existed because there kind of had to be a Star Trek show and everything felt tired and defeated.

have never felt the slightest urge to watch Picard! nothing i have seen on here or elsewhere is making me reconsider.

Yeah I'm more of a DISCO fan than many but it was really up and down.

- Klingon war plot: bad and confusing (and that FONT)
- Michelle Yeoh and Jason Isaacs: good
- mirror universe baddies: awesome
- Stamets and the spore drive plot: started off annoying, got really iteresting esp when Culver "died"
- red star/Spock/Pike section: engaging and interesting story
- Section 31/Control plot: this needed a lot more expanding. Needs a spin off! What the hell was all this about, it seemed important then just went pffft
- initial jump to future: some fun bits with the nasty courier dude and Books story
- the rest: it just... sort of went all over the place. The Burn's cause was stupid, the planet destroying black hole or whatever was stupid, the constant feelings an crying and whispering was stupid. Tarka had potential but ended up annoying. Gah!

Oh I forgot all about the Ash plot! I liked him.

klingons themselves were also pretty wtf for a while in Disco too

but yeah i think i was
s1 first half: uhh no?
s1 2nd half: wait, ok YES
s2: Hell Yes!
s3: wait. this? no.
s4: please stop with this.

like they just kept doubling down on everything that annoyed me or so it seemed lmao

i do still like the characters tho?
i just want them to get to do more like, missiony story stuff and less therapy. or how about NO therapy

I have completely blanked out on how the planet destroyer super alien edge of the galaxy plotline shook out

The future jump would have been a perfect moment for them to switch gears into episodic adventures - what better situation for a lot of non-universe-in-the-balance problems and how the only spore drive ship in existence can help solve them!

Tie for worst scene: weepy eulogies for Space Hitler vs. "I feel seen"

That “I feel seen” was a low point of not just Star Trek but all human cultural activity ever

That and "you got this".

Maybe I'm being cantankerous but I thought the Mirror Universe stuff was bad fanservice! (Same goes for PIC even though I think technically what we saw wasn't MU.) They should've just left it as a goofy one-offs like DS9 did, not whole season-long arcs.

mirror universe was what finally got me onboard iirc

MU stuff went on too long but it started off pretty funny - dominatrix Tilly lol

give her the respect she deserves, it's KILLY

mirror universe was fun at first, and i suppose you have to go there if that's your endgame with lorca

absolutely no need to go back in s03 tho

IMO MU is worse in DS( (Im watching DS9 at the mo). Kira's MU version is SO hammy.

Worse in DS9 that should have said.

Love hammy Kira

the DS9 mirror episodes are all kind of goofy, at least, unlike 'let's teach space nazi a two-episode lesson in flashback and then have everyone mysteriously mourn her'

also everyone -- kira not at all least -- does a nice job of chewing every bit of scenery in sight

DS9 did a weird job of MU, but the Benny episodes and the actual time traveling to California are great

Those who really like MU Tilly and, oddly, Chase Masterson’s character should try playing Star Trek Online where they’re all over the place

RIP Nichelle Nichols

RIP wonderful lady <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs4mbHLAFuU

Damn. RIP. And I was just thinking of rewatching the execrable ST V, featuring Uhura's insane fan dance. And oh crap, David Warner is in that one, as well, isn't he?

The doc about nichele nichols & integration of nasa space program- Woman In Motion - is on paramount plus & well worth a watch

drunk history version if u dont have p+
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-uJOzkrJV4

smithsonian posted a photo of her red uniform & i lost it

https://www.instagram.com/p/CgsHKsRPgoJ/

"Damn. RIP. And I was just thinking of rewatching the execrable ST V, featuring Uhura's insane fan dance. And oh crap, David Warner is in that one, as well, isn't he?"

He was also in VI - in which Uhura has to flip through a Klingon-English dictionary in order to answer a Klingon hail, despite the fact that (as Nichols herself pointed out to the director) she was the head of communications on Starfleet's flagship.

The films didn't utilise her very well. Even when communicating with the baddies was the focus it was done by Kirk or Spock, e.g. in The Motion Picture, where Spock works out that V'Ger is using a NASA code at a high frequency.

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/enterprise_rollout_at_palmdale_w_star_trek_crew_sep_17_1976_0.jpg?itok=h2O-JhNy

had no idea about this which is kind of amazing

She often recalled how Martin Luther King Jr. was a fan of the show and praised her role. She met him at a civil rights gathering in 1967, at a time when she had decided not to return for the show’s second season.

“When I told him I was going to miss my co-stars and I was leaving the show, he became very serious and said, ‘You cannot do that,’” she told The Tulsa (Okla.) World in a 2008 interview.

“‘You’ve changed the face of television forever, and therefore, you’ve changed the minds of people,’” she said the civil rights leader told her.

She definitely was mis- and under-used a lot both in the show and the movies, but she was able to be memorable when actually given the chance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPQvVBaOx2E

I’m curious how much Celia Rose Gooding’s role on SNW has been structured to attempt to balance that out

Can't find a YT of it, but Nichelle Nichols has a small, but memorable part in Mister Buddwing - a 1966 film where amnesiac James Garner wanders the streets of Manhattan in search of his identity while a hip Kenyon Hopkins soundtrack plays.

she also plays the villain in the fun Isaac Hayes film Truck Turner

Got the hyperfancy boxset of the updated Motion Picture cut and no regrets. But even the basic one will get you the new commentary from the production team (aka the ones who worked with Wise on the original director's cut as well) and some good short documentary stuff and more deleted scenes/behind the scenes/technical stuff.

stumbling upon this (already ten year old) rememberance from my buddy bob greenberger reminded me that i was at the 1st star trek convention. i am the "cohort" he mentions; we were in the same grade in school.
https://www.startrek.com/article/celebrating-40-years-since-treks-1st-convention

The modern Star Trek family now includes an ongoing series for every taste: Discovery for those who enjoy the high stakes and high drama of the modern feature films, Strange New Worlds for those who prefer the classic format and a lighter touch, Lower Decks for die-hard, trivia-loving Trekkies, Prodigy for young newcomers looking for an introduction to the universe, and Picard for… someone, theoretically.

https://www.polygon.com/23345284/star-trek-tv-show-best-start

Discovery for those who enjoy the high stakes and high drama of the modern feature films

psh, I like the Abrams Treks but Discovery is still pretty much unwatchable

Hello — so I finished all 7 seasons of NextGen : D

I am more of a fan of the series (and understand more references on Lower Decks now) but I will say that as a whole it felt kinda unsatisfying- not enough arcs? like i **loved** any of the klingon arcs, or what little they did w the borg but sooooo many one-off faffing about episodes got a bit tedious personally.

that being said i get why people love it & why there’s such a diehard fanbase but i think for TNG ~for me~ it may also come down to a “you had to be there”? there’s not a lot of visual charm. hotel conference center chic doesn’t really do it for me interior-wise, having lived through the 90’s i dont have nostalgia for that specifically lol

but inject Whoopi’s Guinan into my veins, i love her forever obv

And now… onto Voyager.
http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0575/8445/1743/products/plateshimmer_3_1200x1200.gif?v=1630002099

(i assume you’ve already watched ds9?)

voyager is not great but it has its moments, most of which involve either the doctor or seven of nine (and the latter only shows up in season four)

brad dourif tho

also you can and absolutely should skip the two ‘holodeck irish village’ episodes, because good lord

I have to say that out of all the previous Treks, I think Disco shares the most with Voyager in terms of writing and not really laying down the basis for interesting characters. It was also corny in a way that couldn't abide by.

> voyager is not great but it has its moments, most of which involve either the doctor or seven of nine

"this creature has an exoskeleton"

yes i’ve already seen DS9 a couple of times (that was the first series I ever fully dug into start to finish when it first came out on dvd & they had those cool season box sets)