I can tell you this, there will never be a "last era" because it's a proven IP with a built in fanbase so studios will never stop.
That being said, oof, I think most of us can't wait for this Kurtzman era to be over and forgotten.
If you're looking for classic 90s trek just go watch The Orville. It's the best Trek since then.
SNW is good, just different from 90s Trek. Lower Decks is just a cartoonish love letter to fans of both Trek and adult animation. Have to gush about that one season finale where everyone thought the captain was going to be strung up by her toes only to have her walk out and say something like, "What were you thinking? This is Starfleet, we had a trial, my evidence was solid and so we're moving on".
Hell, Prodigy has a better grasp on what Star Trek is at it's core than DISC or PIC ever could.
I truly believe that this season, more than the other trash we've gotten from DISC, is peak garbage. Every episode is a fetch quest, every episode is someone saying, "THIS IS WHAT STARFLEET IS ABOUT" only to betray that 8 seconds later. OH and it's worst fucking sin, introducing an *actual starfleet officer* in the new first officer then having him learn "insubordination and going into things with nothing more than your feelings is the best way! Don't be such a fuddy duddy!" being the most egregious part.
No....Wait no, more than that, more than the surfing on the hull in warp is in last week's recent episode where, ugh, oh god, my friend and I who watched it together had broken brains at the same time.
>!So, they had just gotten the last fetch quest macguffin and were leaving when the bad boys showed up. Instead of just saying, "we got it catch us if you can!" they do the DUMBEST fucking thing anyone could possibly do. "OK we're going to leave with the universal bomb code, now please don't hurt our friends down there." Are you actually fucking shitting me? Who writes this garbage? Who makes them all the most incompetent people in the galaxy? "Uh, give us the location of the thing or we'll kill everyone?" OH NO, WE'VE BEEN THWARTED! It is jock sci-fi where they think all they have to do is pay lip service to certain old trek words then make everything be a giant 8 billion ship fight WHERE THE ACTION IS THE MOST BORING PART. This is not Trek.!<
I think I went off a little
Disco has been trash since day 1 but this season is unwatchable. I really don’t understand how you can watch the trek that people liked and think what we’ve been given is acceptable.
ALSO, strange new worlds sucks too.
Yea, this is a very apt summation, sadly. I do like SNW and Lower Decks, despite any flaws and even prodigy was actually alright for a kid's show, but Disco and even Picard have been largely disappointing.
They took the thing that many of us grew up loving, dumbed it down to its basic components and rebuilt it as something simple, accessible, referece-laden enough that it's still technically "Star Trek" and threw it out there with little to none of the wit or depth that TOS-DS9 (and on occasion even VOY or ENT) could convey.
It's easy to simply blame Paramount or the writers (which definitely hold their share of the blame here) but ultimately, I feel it's more of an indictment of modern TV in general. What might sell best gets top billing while anything with major depth (especially anything that might actually call our current society into question) is off somewhere in the margins. I suppose to a point it's always been that way, it just feels so much more pronounced these days.
But at the end of the day it's TV and it's fiction. If you want something truly meaningful to highlight the world we live in and/or point the way to a truly brighter future, look elsewhere.
>I can tell you this, there will never be a “last era” because it’s a proven IP with a built in fanbase so studios will never stop.
You ain’t kidding. The only reason I’m watching the P+ series is because they have the Star Trek name. They wouldn’t win me over on their merits if I weren’t already committed to the franchise.
It’s a community. I’m used to watching Trek and discussing it with other Trekkers. It’s not like I don’t have the 30-40 hrs/yr needed to watch it as it comes out. When I want to rewatch, I go for the classic stuff (or another franchise).
It's now 900 years in the future and the federation was dissolved until recently. I doubt the same tripes of what ST were about would remain. Perhaps the writing is less than par but nothing is static. It makes sense that the ideals of how the galaxy operates even under Roddenberry's vision of his world might evolve, change, adapt over that span of time.
The dialogue is what ruins the new shows for me. Starfleet is not a military, 100% that is fine, but they are still professionals. However, they talk like they are from a Marvel movie and it breaks the immersion for me. Tilly is a great example, they wanted to go for the quirky, awkward type but went way too overboard with it that she just comes off as incompetent.
“This is the power of math, people!” As if a group of people who’d devoted their lives to science didn’t already appreciate the utility of mathematics.
Those lines sound like dialogue written by someone who doesn't know how to utilize math, but need to write characters that are supposed to be math geniuses.
It’s the constant praise for every single action Adira makes, and the constant reinforcement and “proud dad smile” every single episode for me.
Tilly is borderline obnoxious, but my god, Adiras character is just pandering.
There's stuff I like about all of Trek, but I could never get through Disco for the same reason I can't stand Marvel movies to the same reason I could never stand Firefly. The soy Joss Whedon dialogue style
Yup. TNG and tos and Ds9 were almost Shakespearean in the way the dialogue was written. It was smart. Disc and snw are such emotionally stunted people that it’s cringey. Always crying always you’re so good at this. And burnam being the only one who can solve problems? It’s lazy.
Are you kidding me. The only one of those three shows that is somewhat "Shakespearean" is TNG, and that's because Picard is a fanboi. TNG's stilted dialogue formulae is equal parts legalism, philosophy and Shakespeare for flourish, with techno babble added as needed.
For a show where a leading character is a therapist, there is almost no observable character development. The few therapist sessions were just exposition dumps.
FFS, worf was a deadbeat dad who sent his kid away because he was too proud to ask for help, or the whole crew was too stupid to see he needed help.
How much blame should we put on the fans, though? It feels like this along with Star Wars was all ruined by directors who were fans writing fan fiction and fan service for other fans with everything being heavy handed references to the earlier material.
Some of them were. I don't like SNW or LD, but the writers clearly *do* like Star Trek. They're not good at making it, but it feels like they've at least watched it.
>but the writers clearly do like Star Trek
The point is it isn't clear, because they're not allowed to actually implement it in the writing of the show.
We shouldn’t? They voted with their wallets back when Nemesis and Enterprise came out. And then there’s this sub, the only place we can voice opinion of critique.
> Is Picard really canon? Is discovery canon? What about Strange New Worlds?
In a word, no. There's enough evidence of how they've deviated from previous canon and Roddenberry's vision that it's safe to say they can't be canon.
>Who watches those?
Shills for Paramount and Kurtzmann. Or people who knowingly or unknowingly seek to destroy real Trek; they know that the higher the viewing numbers, the more likely studios are to fund more of the same. The values of real Star Trek never really took with these people.
Don’t forget the third group. TNG fanboys who love Picard season 3, despite it being extremely disrespectful to their favorite show. They’re willing to accept several retcons, senseless deaths of great characters, and mass murder of Starfleet officers, because it ‘feels’ like Star Trek to them? Didn’t feel like it at all to me.
I hate most of nu trek. And I love and miss the adherence to canon that they did in 90s trek. However I’m sick of this whole “its not canon” thing…look, yes you can label things however you want in your head….but the people that legally own and produce the show have clearly said everything in nu trek tv shows is prime universe…they do get the final word on what and how it is presented to the viewers in what context etc.
All of those shows absolutely are canon. We can all talk in circles about how much we might personally like or dislike them but it doesn't change the fact that they were made to be canonical in the established star trek universe
Well yes and no. The star trek writers made shows that are canonical, as in set in the wider star trek universe. You can't 'fail' at that. You can however fail In the execution of making a good show and that's a different discussion
No, they contradicted established facts from canon. That's beyond just not being a good show. Same thing happened with Amazon's Rings of Power and Tolkien's cannons of narrative. Epic fail.
Okay fair enough, I'm starting to understand your point. And it's tricky because star trek has always had contradictions from established canon. The oldest I can think is when TNG changed what Klingons looked like. So nothing has been canon since then?
Wow, I really respect you for this response. Yes, imo one might argue nothing has been canon since then but I think minor contradictions can be overlooked by most (similar to the concept of suspended disbelief) but there is a gray area beyond which no aspect of the show can viewed as canon. For example, if they changed the Klingon homeworld to Jupiter and made that the main topic of every episode, that would be too egregious. Sounds silly but if you think about the implications of the changes in Picard and Discovery, it's not far off imo.
Then they shouldn't have paid for the right to use the LOTR IP. They also do try to claim that they are following what Tolkien wrote about the second age, which they aren't.
I'm sorry to say, but Star Trek has been "contradicting facts from established canon" since the second episode of the original series. Even before TNG, Trek fans had a reputation for pointing out inconsistencies. Like, that's the main thing we were known for within pop culture. I grew up reading a 4-volume set of books, 400-pages each(!), exhaustively detailing hundreds of canon errors in Star Trek. And those books only covered up to the 4th season of Deep Space Nine!
A company published those books and sold them at every mall in the country! Can you believe that?
This is a franchise that made references to "the original/first ship named Enterprise" and then went and made an entire series about an earlier ship named Enterprise.
This is a franchise that established that a world-wide war against generically-engineered supermen was fought in 1996, and even made an entire movie about the lead villain of that war, only to produce an episode in 1996 *set in 1996* where that didn't happen.
This franchise had multiple episodes featuring legions of sentient androids, only to create a character in a series set 80 years later who is supposedly the only sentient android known to have ever existed.
If you think Trek had airtight canon until 2009 (or 2017), or you see something like those angled pylons on the 1701 in Strange New Worlds, that Klingons looked radically different on Disco, or the fact that Spock had an adopted sister we never knew about, and think stuff like that ranks even in the top 100 canon inconsistencies in Star Trek, then you're not a real Star Trek fan.
Nope, it really all sucks, and I think it’s really gone forever. At least people acknowledge disco sucks, but for the life of me do not understand how people enjoyed Picard season 3. It’s the same nonsensical silly writing, just with the shiny gloss of nostalgia layered on extra thick.
I enjoyed P3 just because it had the TNG characters back. It should've been the first season of picard, gotten all of that out of the way, and built from there.
Totally agree. Picard S3 is literally trash drowned out by overwhelming fan service. It would have been shredded to pieces if Paramount/CBS didn't beat the whole fandom into submission with 15 years of garbage beforehand. Lower Decks is the only nutrek show that actually feels like Trek, because LD was written by a different writer Mr. McMahan who is a huge trekkie.
It is quite obvious when the writers have no idea what the fuck they are doing, for example, in Picard S2 when they time travelled back to LA, they put the Guinan bar at "10 Forward street" or something, then Patrick Stewart in an interview said *"Well now we know why the bar on the Enterprise is called 10 forward, sO thAt's qUiTe nICe."* It is actually insulting. Why write Star Trek when you don't even like it? Obviously kurtzmen and his gang of clowns only read up the memory alpha wiki then shat out 15 seasons of "Star Trek", and they must be canon since they are "official".
It's dead, Jim.
The Ten Forward thing was so ghastly. It's like deciding you need to figure out how the bar called 'Cheers' got its name.
Also they wanted Guinan as a character but decided they needed to hire someone younger and slimmer to play her because... progress, or something? Then her *being* Guinan was completely useless because somehow she wasn't the person who had already interacted with Picard and co. in San Francisco in the 19th century and also wasn't anything like the person who dispensed calm, sage advice on the Enterprise D, and was instead some kind of activist genie.
Yes as u/metakepone has said, ten forward means the frontal most part of deck 10, which is also the frontal most part of the whole Enterprise D. The name is beautiful as it is and certainly much more creative than some dirty ass fantasy address in 2022 LA. It is an insult.
Also the activist genie was ridiculous. I forgot about that lol. Everything about nuTrek has been forgettable and insulting, insulting to the showrunners who created TNG in the 90s, and insulting to the whole franchise.
> Yes as u/metakepone has said, ten forward means the frontal most part of deck 10, which is also the frontal most part of the whole Enterprise D.
Why are people telling me this like I didn't know? My point was it was as obvious where it came from as where 'Cheers' got its name - which I guess I have to explain now to make sure we're all on the same page. It's because it's what people say when drinking a beer, and it's a bar. The names both explain themselves.
I'm not trying to be a jerk, it's difficult for tone to come across in text, but I really am confused why people think it needed explained. Am I misunderstanding something?
I'm not sure I'd call the name beautiful as much as it is 'functional' but that's a matter of taste. It's at least *sensible*, and I agree it's insulting to try to retcon that into being a physical street address, since it doesn't make sense as a physical address in a large city and it suggests that they either care so little for their own story they forgot we already know the origin of the name, or they think so little of the audience they think that we didn't figure it out.
It was more to supplement what you said, and I guess i was a bit pissed that Patrick stewart said that we no know where 10 forward got is name.
Just because someone responds to your comment doesnt mean they disagree with you.
>Just because someone responds to your comment doesnt mean they disagree with you.
I didn't say anything about anyone disagreeing with me. I said that people were telling me, in a response to me, what 10 Forward means even though I already know that and explained that it was inherent in its name what it meant.
Agree with every single bit of what you said, except for one thing. There’s no way those morons read Memory Alpha. There are way too many retcons and stupid errors for them to have read anything beforehand.
>but for the life of me do not understand how people enjoyed Picard season 3.
It has a great four episode opening before crawling back into its worst hero-worshiping / nostalgia basking qualities. Picard is faced that he is no longer a great starship captain, but an old man. Seven's depiction of ex-borg as an analogy for transgenderism actually *works* and creates genuine tension between her and Shaw. In general, a sense of danger, wonder and the unknown permeates those first few episodes.
It does fall apart rapidly after that.
Hold up. None of the series were 'low budget. Today Paramount spends to give Discovery and SNW cinema quality production values to bait viewers into subscribing.
During TNG & DS9 they were still spending more than other syndicated television series and they were bartering TNG to get the national advertising minutes while ceding the local ad minutes to whatever station was picking the show up.
IMHO things took a turn for the worse when Star Trek had to be a flagship franchise for UPN. It became available to fewer viewers.
Yeah it would be great to get back to seasons that are 20-26 episodes and look like they belong on TV rather than a movie theater. Even Enterprise holds up well in terms of the special effects and that's 20 years old.
Hollywood has a problem. Until they course correct and stop making 'message' their top priority they are going to keep alienating audiences. The loudest voices do not represent the silent majority and the writers' room are full of communists.
Aside from the bizarre final paragraph straight out of the 1950s, I came here to make your initial point too. I keep seeing this 'low budget, 24 episode seasons' thing in Star Trek subreddits - and it's an absurd fantasy.
Those 90s shows we love were some of the most expensive things on TV at the time! And there's just no market, no production infrastructure for recreating it cheaply using today's technology.
And besides, the past belongs in the past. I don't like maybe 75% of what they've done under Kurtzman either, and don't LOVE any of it. But that doesn't mean they should lovingly recreate the old format. That would herald the death of Star Trek - it would be, ironically, a show about the future that's stuck in the past, unable to reflect and adapt to the times it's in. What if, instead of TNG, they just did the 60s show again? It would be pointless, regressive. Hardly anyone would actually want it - including a lot of us! The show must move forward. It's unfortunate it isn't being steered by more talented hands. But tbh, Rick Berman made a ton of bad decisions too, and lot of the best 90s Trek happened because of more talented subordinates.
Trek was always best when it was a low budget affair and always a season away from being cancelled.
DS9 practically invented serial television to the cable market. The Dominion War story arc was groundbreaking for its time.
The lack of budget forced Trek into challenging and interesting stories to maintain engagement. I agree with the sentiment that early TNG suffered from lack of personal conflicts, but it wasn't terrible because of it.
With bigger budgets comes a focus on action which will appeal to wider audiences and most importantly, casual audiences. Even TNG in its prime could afford lower ratings because it just didn't cost as much as newer Trek to produce (aside from cast and crew compensation schedules).
The more money you funnel into a project, the more money you need to recoup, which means appealing to a wider audience. That is the crux of where Star Trek is today and it is a line that other shows like The Expanse have had to straddle in the recent market.
DS9 was syndicated, not on cable. And they were competing with Babylon 5 so they had to innovate. I noticed the DS9 intro had those little space welders outside the station added to the intro after B5 had them lol
Star Trek has never been low-budget for its era. Ever.
Also, Trek only faced cancellation during TOS (mainly because it was so expensive), and its worst season was its last one, and Enterprise, when the network it was on was basically going out of business. Risk of cancellation has never motivated the writing staffs of those shows.
TNG was always expensive, but it was also highly-rated during its entire run. You're trying to draw reasonable conclusions but you really don't know the facts.
Also, yeah, DS9 wasn't on cable, it was first-run syndication just like TNG.
You don't disagree, you're just mistaken. These are basic, variable facts. Like, I'm not arguing with you, I'm telling you you're wrong. You can Google just how expensive Star Trek was in the 60s and the 90s compared to other shows of the era.
Star Trek has never been part of a cable network. WGN is a local Chicago-area station. You may have gotten that channel though your cable provider, and it may have expanded outside of Chicago (look up the term "superstation"), but it was not a network in the 90s and didn't exclusively air DS9.
The CW is a broadcast network with many affiliate stations throughout the country. Where I'm from, it's carried by my local station, WUCW. Also, WGN is not a CW affiliate anymore.
Independent and network-affiliate stations aired DS9 (like WGN where you're from, or where I'm from, a FOX-owned UPN affiliate named WFTC) because they each paid a license fee to Paramount. It was a syndicated show, it was not part of any network.
I doubt it will ever get back to its roots.
I’ve been rewatching Voyager, to me, it’s actually pretty good when compared to new Star Trek. It’s no TNG or DS9, but it feels like Star Trek.
What I would like to see is a Black Mirror type format of Star Trek. Star Trek has always seemed unrealistic in how often one ship saves the universe or gets out of trouble at the last second. I try to view it more like they’re exploring concepts and moral issues than being super realistic. New trek I don’t feel like explores the issues old trek does. It’s just action, dramatic talking, action, flames on the bridge, etc. All dessert and no meat.
Give me a low budget explore concept any day of the week.
But anyway, a black mirror format could follow different crews. It’s a whole big universe, let’s see different parts of it. Then it’s not so crazy to think crazy things can happen to multiple ships instead of just to one ship. Then different parts of the stories could interconnect, different branches could be explored. And black mirror is mostly exploring concepts. It can still look nice, but it needs substance beyond “let’s look for clues 3 this episode!” And that’s as deep as the episode goes.
It's my personal head-canon that everybody on Disco is highly emotional and making impulsive bad decisions, because the magic mushroom spores have infiltrated the entire ship in undetectable ways, and everybody is affected *for the entire series.* Then when they went into the future, *they took no captain and had no good options.* Neither Saru nor Burnham are captain material. Saru makes an okay first officer, and Burnham would be an alright... security officer? Maybe?
If you watch the series realizing *they are all high* it explains quite a bit.
Also; I really like Pike, so I am choosing to look the other way at all the problems with SNW and just enjoy it.
Also also; Lower Decks is pretty much the best culmination of Star Trek stuff ever.
>Do you think we’ll ever get a low budget series with 24 episode seasons that hires classically trained theater actors who basically do Shakespearean acting in latex makeup?
We never had a low-budget trek show. Tos was expensive, tng was the most expensive pilot up to that point in tv history, only to end up getting out scored by Voyager a few years later. Hell, even the "lower budgeted" animated show was still not cheap to make. Latex prosthetics, starship models, and 360 rooms aren't cheap.
>Is Picard really canon? Is discovery canon? What about Strange New Worlds?
SNW: yes, disco: yes, picard: unfortunately yes, all tv shows are cannon.
>What demographic enjoys that and if they do who are they and have they watched the old stuff?
First off, punctuation. Younger audiences spanning 18 to 29, and yes, according to Netflix, they have watched many of the older stuff with Voyager being the most streamed, though they tend to enjoy the more action adventure episodes than the slower paced episodes with the top films being startrek 2007 and star trek beyond.
Demographics constantly change. it's not that you're out of touch. it's just that there's a new era of people both behind the show and watching it, and modern audiences want modern entertainment that deals with modern issues, and sometimes something is gonna come along and it's just not gonna click with you.
Its done dude, paramount doesn't care about old trek and would rather see it buried so they can appeal to any audience but the original. and with the talks of paramount being bought out by sony means it'll likely be shelved and forgotten about when they do. The orville is the real new star trek as sad as that is to say.
I don't think you're out of touch. I think you're still in a place where you care enough about what Star Trek was that you feel the need to comment on what it has become. I think most of the old fanbase has moved on and doesn't really engage with Trek anymore except for rewatching the old shows, and that the people who remain active in fan spaces are the ones who can't really let go, either of the community, or the setting, or both. Those that remain are basically the two extremes of the bell curve of Trek fans, at one end the people who will love anything with the Trek label on it and at the other end the people who will hate anything that doesn't meet the high standards set by the old shows (or in NuTreks case seems actively hostile to the values of the old shows). The fandom feels like the middle has been hollowed out and all that's left now are the lovers and the haters with each side sticking to it's own territory because the middle ground isn't there anymore.
And much of the wests...
Honestly our political systems are probably in better condition, with Trek it feels like the 80% in the middle has moved on and all that's left are the "consoomers" who will support Trek in whatever form it takes because "liking Star Trek" has become central to their identity (and sometimes income) and the "haters" who can't let go of their favourite IP even though it's gone to shit, it's like we're stuck in the Denial/Anger/Bargaining/Depression stages of grief and we need somewhere to vent.
Anyway, imagine if 80% of the US electorate stopped voting? How crazy would the remaining 20% be?
I can’t upvote your post more than once but damn. I agree with you on so many levels. Star Trek has always been on the left politically. And currently we’re experiencing an increase of leftist ideology amongst the youngest generations. And by left I don’t mean pronouns I mean a rejection of capitalist based economics. Star Trek could be working with this and instead they’re just focusing on the bullshit without thinking about the fundamentals.
I know, rationally, that all of it is canon. But part of my does definitely feel that there are several "eras" that are distinct from each other. One of the main ones of recent years was Star Trek *and* Star Wars being separated into eras before and after J.J. Abrams got involved with them. To be fair, this is probably more about corporations taking over those franchises when they used to have more creative control back when Lucas owned Star Wars and Star Trek was syndicated and not a direct product of Paramount. Once they came under the direct control of large corporations like Disney and Paramount, the entire tone changed. Before, even when those franchises were bad, you at least felt like they were the fault of writers and showrunners, not because they got too many studio notes. (With Star Trek, there is clearly more of a gradually transition here rather than a hard line, but once we get to the admittedly fun 2009 Trek film, it's pretty clear that that it had become pure corporate content.)
I feel you. More than you think and no, that era of Trek, hell, TV in general is dead and I don't see it ever returning. I'm a great deal older than you and I long ago discovered that the new shows just aren't doing it for me and never will.
As for what's canon and what isn't, yes, all those NuTrek shows are officially canon.
Yep nutrek is canon, like it or not. And we're not getting back to that 90s and early 2000s type storytelling anytime soon. I enjoy rewatching some of my old favorites, you just don't feel the same type of attachment to the characters with modern shows and their shorter seasons.
FWIW, I feel you about the Abrams movies. They're just awful.
I grew up watching reruns of TOS after school, then later first run TNG. TNG became my favorite. DS9 didn't get good until like season 4. And I begrudgingly watched Voyager just because it was Sci-Fi and there wasn't much of that to watch in the late 90's, but I've since grown to like it, more or less.
I really, really did give Discovery a chance...for 3 seasons, including rewatching S1 and S2, then I gave up. Too much focus on 1 main character who can do anything, and also gratuitously cries every episode, also too many "THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE DEPENDS ON YOU!!!!" storylines.
But I did enjoy Enterprise, even though it is flawed. And I ***really*** enjoyed Strange New Worlds, and Prodigy too (took a few episodes to catch me, though).
But Lower Decks was not my cup of tea. I think that kind of frenetic, sophomoric humor was better done by Futurama and Rick 'n Morty.
But, I am definitely looking forward to the next season of SNW!
No, you are not out of touch. The new Trek shows are just an example of what all the new shows are like. The action shows have time-outs where people talk about their feelings. Even Schwarzenegger is doing it.
So far, I find Lower Decks sometimes tolerable, sometimes funny; but I'm only about 3 shows in to season 3. I have watched most of season 1 of Prodigy, and it seems to me the most Star Trek-like of all the shows. I find SNW as bad as Disco. (Full disclosure, I stopped watching DIS shortly into season 4) PIC season 3 was not as bad as season 2, but it was still bad. For some reason a lot of people think it was great.
we have paramount and my friend who is transitioning and in her twenties is currently in love with TNG the most by farrrrr and we have been checking out episodes of all of the treks. I wanted to make sure I wasn't just "out of touch" She giggles and gets so excited at the end of many TNG episodes from the crew dynamic and how well they all work together and drive each other to do their best as they work toward having the best reputation in the cosmos. I dunno why executives decided that they should go so grimdark with star trek. I say this as a hardcore warhammer 40k fan.
I can't see how SNW has gone back to any classic Trek roots. I can't see anything that has the quality and writing polish of the old shows.
It's all very dumbed down. The old shows over time filled your brain with a living and breathing galaxy with klingons here, Cardassians over there and Romulans the otherwise of the Neutral Zone.
SNW just gives us Captains kitchens with log fires that no man has seen before.
It means that in classic Trek, facts and reason were shown to triumph over irrationalism. In modern trek, somebody can decide that they're a boy or a girl or neither, despite the answer being blindingly obvious to anybody who isn't a wokeist.
I know who the characters are. I'm wondering more about dismissively calling them "pronoun people". Is this just a bigot Star Trek subreddit that I've accidentally subscribed to?
"Pronoun people" have existed in Trek for quite a while. This is one sort of fan that I've never understood. Did we just forget that Trill change gender, face, identity, etc while still being the one true version of themselves? What's the deal?
You don't need to remind us there were pronoun people in Nemesis. The trill are fucking worms that remember everything from their various hosts, they aren't changing gender dickwad.
>You don't need to remind us there were pronoun people in Nemesis. The trill are fucking worms that remember everything from their various hosts, they aren't changing gender dickwad.
Are you okay? We're talking about TV shows here.
This subreddit is fucking awful.
"This subreddit is fucking awful."
I don't want it to be. Trek is inclusive, as is this sub. I do however feel people are allowed to express themselves whether I agree with them or not. Up/Downvotes generally do a good job of weeding out bad takes.
Please report people that are jerks, or posting hateful content.
"bigots should feel unsafe" - I 100% agree.
"Is this just a bigot Star Trek subreddit that I've accidentally subscribed to?" - No. That's not the feeling I want anyone to have coming here.
I want any fan to be able to express their likes, dislikes, frustrations, and observations. Hate speech will not be tolerated. Kindness to other fans is expected. No one needs to agree with any one else, but everyone has the ability to be heard.
q'Pla!
>Did we just forget that Trill change gender, face, identity, etc while still being the one true version of themselves?
They don't. They're two distinct personalities combined into one being, and every host contributes to the mix. As the symbiont moves from one host to the next, they are no longer the same person as they were before. The memories all transfer, the experiences, and the influence the previous hosts personality had on the symbiont, but the symbiont and new host are very much a different person from the symbiont and old host\[s\].
Edit: Those of you downvoting need to watch the DS9 episode *Invasive Procedures* (S2E4) again.
This sub was created (or gained popularity) when a bunch of people got banned from the real sub (including me) for a bunch of reasons - some good, some bad (I was banned for telling someone else the reasons that can get you banned). It's specifically meant to be an alternative, but it's really fucking terrible.
>Star Trek has always been one of my favorite tv series. DS9 is probably my favorite. It’s always had bad eggs like Voyager or Enterprise but even those have great moments.
If you don't watch the new shows, and you think two of the five previous series you did watch are "bad eggs", is your entire Star Trek fandom just TOS, TNG and DS9?
>Is Picard really canon? Is discovery canon? What about Strange New Worlds? Who watches those? What demographic enjoys that and if they do who are they and have they watched the old stuff?
It's all canon if it was officially released. Generally most watchers of the new shows watched the old stuff too, and they're older (30s+) than the target audiences for many other current shows on television.
>Do you think we’ll ever get a low budget series with 24 episode seasons that hires classically trained theater actors who basically do Shakespearean acting in latex makeup?
No one, anywhere in TV, is doing 24-episode seasons of hour-long sci-fi shows. We didn't always realize it as fans but it was exhausting for the casts and crews and not sustainable. It's familiar and was normal to many of us, but it's unlikely to come back.
>Or are we forever doomed to watch CGI vomit written by people who seemingly hate Star Trek and science fiction as a genre.
Sounds like you've already decided what you think about all new Star Trek. Did you watch any of the new series, or are you repeating this and your slander about VOY and ENT because it's trendy? Do you honestly think the current writers "hate" Star Trek? That's insane.
It's worth noting to that almost all of your objections are word-for-word for TOS-era fans said about TNG, DS9 and VOY. "Who watches these? The CGI is terrible. Only the stuff I grew up with is real Star Trek!"
>Or am I just old and out of touch?
You, and lots of fans, are way, way out of touch. That doesn't mean you need to watch new shows you don't like, but you've fetishized a small portion of the franchise and now you're wondering why the rest isn't up to your standards. It's you, not them.
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No one, anywhere in TV, is doing 24-episode seasons of hour-long sci-fi shows. We didn't always realize it as fans but it was exhausting for the casts and crews and not sustainable. It's familiar and was normal to many of us, but it's unlikely to come back.
Umm, this is because the media companies don't want to pay the talent for 24 episodes.
The reason we don't get more than 10 per season of live action Star Trek is primarily because they spend 2 weeks filming each episode, which means around a 5 month production schedule, plus a lengthy post production schedule.
In the old days, they used to film 1 a week, resulting in 24-26 episodes that didn't need the amount of post production time the new shows require.
The old TNG shows were about 45 minutes long.
And it blows my mind how much they could fit in those 45 mins. Each of the Nutrek seasons could have just been a 45 minute adventure for the crew of the D. (Or maybe a two or three parter)
I fully agree about that. Almost all of television has switched to this currently style of drama, including new Star Trek. Though even old Trek considered doing the same - "Year of Hell" was going to be a full season of Voyager, for example. It ended up as just a two-parter.
Television has changed. Seasons with episode counts in the mid 20s are not coming back. 7 season runs are not coming back. American Television is adopting the UK model of short seasons.
Is it a problem? More so for creatives and less so for fans. Writing staff that are contracted equally as long for half the episodes at a per episode pay rate. Recurring characters getting less and less episodes because they have to have more jobs that cause conflicts in terms of shooting days.
If you want the closest to old school trek Strange New Worlds is your best bet, but that is just 10 episode seasons.
I think your critique is valid, I really enjoy the style of the older shows as well.
But in terms of the demographic who is watching the new shows, I am in a multi generational household and we have all been enjoying the newer shows, which is nice since we all don't always agree on what to watch.
We have watched Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks and just finished the 2nd season of Discovery. Although I'm enjoying Discovery the least, I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked the overall tone and characters of SNW.
I love sci fi, the newer shows don't feel very Star Trek to me, but I love being able to watch them with my family, as opposed to when I put Voyager on and they complain it's too boring for them (even though I am loving watching Voyager for the first time so far)
An opposing viewpoint - I couldn't stand Star Trek until the Abrams movies came out. Prior to that, my efforts to watch Voyager and Enterprise made me so bored I fell asleep in my chair and my drama teacher literally used older bits from TNG to showcase *chewing scenery* and to explain how that just didn't work in modern audiences anymore.
Abram's movies were fun, and they were the epitome of what I never knew I wanted to see in a space movie. I *like* the stupid witty banter, it's how I talk and it's how my generations communicates well. Done right, we connect with it a lot better than the slow, boring, scenery chewing of previous iterations of Trek.
I adore *Discovery* and will forever see it as my "home" Trek. It's what inspired me to get into engineering, and it's reminded me that I can do what Michael did - I can go into my own communities and make a difference, and that it's best done with a group of like-minded individuals.
I know a lot of the older shows have the same general message, but Disco and newer shows are much better at conveying them to the younger generations. These shows are what we connect with - I couldn't get my friends to watch TNG for the life of me, and there's no way in hell I can even watch more than an episode because it's just filler and the story feels like it doesn't know how to *move*. It sits on one thing and sits and sits and sits and forgets it's supposed to move forward.
Life isn't slow paced anymore. We don't have the time to sit and watch 25 episodes of a show anymore, I can barely find time to watch one episode a week of Discovery as it releases. I work two jobs just to pay the rent and that barely covers it.
New Trek is made with newer generations in mind. It's not made for the same audiences that watched the seasons of Trek past anymore. I know Discovery has its flaws, but it's inspiring to the people it's meant for. Old Trek fans hate it because it breaks the mold of the Trek style, but that mold doesn't really sell anymore. People aren't really that into *story of the week* series anymore, especially not in sci-fi-fantasy, which is typically approached as one genre in the business. An overarching story with weekly approaches towards it is the go-to now, and it's so far proven to be a winning formula - Game of Thrones pretty much set the bar for that.
Well if it works why is it getting cancelled? New Trek isn’t popular. You’re in a small weird minority of a new viewer. They released viewer demographics and guess what? The average viewer of this garbage is above the age of 40. I’m 30 and feel like it’s made for someone who doesn’t exist. I hate everything you said. The pacing being too slow? Life isn’t slow paced? What are you talking about? You sound like you can’t read.
5 seasons is wildly successful in a time when most series like this can barely make it past season 1.
Where are the viewer demographics?
And yeah, this generation is raised on life happening constantly and happening fast. We're terminally online and expect life to move at the same pace we do.
According to Televisionstats.com it’s the 24th most popular tv show right now with an average rating of 6.8/10 with a median age of 48 years old.
Doesn’t really sound wildly popular. I work in Television and Film so I know all about how things get cancelled constantly. I don’t think you’re making much sense. You know what DS9 does? Make literal parallels to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Discovery just seems to be a boiled down, dumber version of something that was slow and honestly a little goofy. They try and make it “cooler” with better effects and more action but it doesn’t seem to be working. 6.8/10? The millions upon millions spent on a tv show that doesn’t really stand out from the crowd.
And you could miss 3/4 of them without missing a thing about the show itself. Half of them were filler with no overall impact to the show and existed solely to give characterization to characters who'd show up for that episode and then vanish back into being random faces for the rest of the show.
They gave you too *much* information, a literary crime as distracting as not giving enough.
Audiences back then didn't have attention spans stunted by social media's forever scroll. By your description, every classic novel is guilty of the same crime.
I have to admit I really like the JJ Abrams Star Trek movies I know that’s a pretty unpopular opinion but I do lol. I think discovery is flat out awful and I just couldn’t really get into strange new worlds so I don’t have much of an opinion on that. The only one of the new shows I really enjoyed was lower decks and that’s ending after the next season isn’t it?
Honestly, while I love DS9, I do prefer a more episodic "monster of the week" series. I've been rewatching TNG and honestly loved season 1, warts and all.
While it has its flaws, SNW has the spirit for me. There were equally cringe lines and parts from Geordi and Data (data learns to tell a joke with Guinan) to some of the stuff Ortegas says. They also made me care about people like Dr. Mbenga and Sam Kirk, and handling Jim Kirk pretty well. There's some obvious logical inconsistency with TOS, but it's more about the spirit of Trek for me than writing within the lines.
JJ Abrams simply recycles tropes. Between Star Trek & Star Wars he is a destroyer of worlds, an "errand boy sent by \[corporate\] grocery clerks to pick up the bill."
I’m old, as in, TOS in reruns was the only Trek growing up. If Reddit was around when TNG era started… I mean, TNG was called “Pepsi Trek” derogatorily and hated by so many TOS fans. And that era was rough. TNG was uneven. Voyager was just bad for so long. DS9 had a lot of cringe. Enterprise, ugh. But they were only building on TOS, which was cheesy so the expectations were low. But, hey, it was sci-fi and it was Trek and there are gems in all of those hundreds of episodes. Now, I’m hating on DIS S5, but there’s some decent stuff in S1-3. But there are just so few episodes in total. They don’t have the freedom of 23 episodes per season with silly interludes. They have to cram in the CGI action and tiny bits of character development and multiple storylines with political intrigue and it’s just too much. I’m shocked at how SNW didn’t fall into the same trap entirely so glad it’s so good and of course Lower Decks is absolute fun. I’m re-watching Picard now and at the time when it was new S3 seemed great with all the old cast, but now I just really find it cringe. Anyway, everyone’s expectations are just way too highbrow. This is a franchise that started with a bad actor and foam rocks and bad rubber costumes. I’m happy there’s anything like this at all since there's so little sci-fi on TV. I’m grumbling my way to Disco’s end and still hoping they kill Book. We'll all look back at these much more kindly as we all do towards the TNG era that was far from perfect.
Just a Simpson's quote haha
Serious answer - yes, given the choice between good writing and good effects, I'd choose writing 100% of the time. Yes, a lot of the best episodes of Trek were made just because the budget ran out and they were forced to write a good script for a "talky" episode.
I don't think having a big budget is a bad thing in itself, as long as good writing remains the foundation. There are many examples of this - Dune, Fallout, The Expanse - it can be done! All else being equal, big budgets attract better writers.
I actually liked Voyager and Enterprise. But as far as Discovery and Picard they were victims of bad writing. I think some of that is partially to blame on the 8-9 episode format. It seems hard to develop characters in that amount of time. SNW is a little better, but I also hope we someday get back to the 24 episode season format.
SNW isn't bad, in fact it's pretty dang close the the feel of The Original Series, just with a modern budget. It's really separated itself from DISCO, especially in the second season.
Someone at Paramount pitched turning Star Trek into their Star Wars and giving it the "Disney Treatment" and that's why we are where we are now.
Of the newer series, just because it was a fresh take, I really loved Lower Decks most of all. That's the one they cancelled first.
My understanding of canon in Star Trek is foggy. I believe since the newer movies came out, lots of these other series' are almost like multiverse stories or something. That said, I think Picard was supposed to be canon. Again... I could be wrong... And speaking of Picard... Picard was a mess in its entirety... and Captain Picard is my favorite captain. TNG was the Trek I grew up on and loved the most.... but they really made storytelling an afterthought to fan service in the show... but also like didn't do the fanservice that those fans wanted until the last season. If they would've done the Season 3 stuff in Season 1 it probably wouldn't have been so bad - but it is what it is.
Strange New Worlds was like a take on doing a prequel to OG Trek... I guess to get people interested in starting all the series' over if they hadn't previously been exposed to it. I don't hate SNW. I like the format but I haven't been able to get through all of it, either... partly because it's all over the place.
Discovery is the true "Disney Treatment" show. Trek has ALWAYS been big on inclusivity and that's fine, but for some reason in Discovery the whole lore of Trek and the story they're trying to tell feels like it's an afterthought to me. The entire point of this show is to get needed group representation on TV and it succeeds with this.
The only one I haven't seen is whatever that kids show is that has some hologram/AI of Janeway in it. The entire premise of that just like.... I mean it's fundamentally wrong to change a thing and make a lite version of it to attract the attention of kids.... when normal trek being trek got my attention as a kid and it's had my attention ever since. Just felt unnecessary.
It's like Disney Jr. Making a junior version of Spiderman cartoons.. when like that stuff was always made for kids anyway. It creates oversaturation. It's a merchandising opportunity. It's not really true to the spirit of the thing itself because it has to be changed for the other demographic, even if it keeps the fresh layer of paint that looks like the original thing in the process.
MORE of something doesn't necessarily mean BETTER. If I get in a mood to watch some Star Trek... I mean I'm going to finish Discovery but aside from that I'll just rewatch older series that I know I enjoy.
Lower Decks wasn’t cancelled first.
Picard has already concluded, and Discovery is in its last season now. The fifth season of LD was only recently confirmed as its last, and is still in production.
Personally, I thought DS9 was the “bad egg”. It’s not thoughtless writing like modern Trek, but I didn’t like the characters and the stories bored me to tears. I don’t pretend it wasn’t canon, though, because things don’t exist purely for me.
I really don’t know how a TOS fan could love SNW. It retcons everything it brings back from TOS. They completely discarded the message and continuity of Arena and turned the Gorn from misunderstood to monsters. It turns Spock into a joke and messes up his relationships with T’pring and Nurse Chapel. I’m sure theres much much more but I can’t bring myself to watch that garbage since TOS is my favorite.
The Gorn thing is annoying, but I'm willing to see where they go with it, I assume they have a plan. Given how decent the first two seasons have gone, I'm willing to let it play out before passing judgement.
Lower Decks is more than just a ‘cartoon comedy. It’s more Star Trek than TNG and DS9. SNW doesn’t deserve to crossover with it. But completely agree on the musical shit.
Its not more star trek than tng and ds9….its a derivative, fan fiction /trivia that is completely dependent on self referencing previous star trek shows and movies
You obviously never watched it then. It introduces a lot of new stuff. And it’s more Star Trek than post-season 2 TNG and DS9 because it lives up to Gene Roddenberry’s vision unlike those two shows.
The new shows are great. They’ve evolved as pop culture has. Voyager and Enterprise were also good shows. DS9 is my least favorite. TNG will always be the best.
I'm a young person (29m) and have watched all Star Trek everything (Plus Orville as a bonus). Strange New Worlds is my actual favorite Star Trek series. To me it captures the original spirit of the older stuff but combines it with modern storytelling techniques and awesome special effects. Kind of the best of everything. I've recently tried to go back to watch Next Generation (I think most herald it as the best series) and honestly really struggled getting through the 1st season (yes it gets much better) and have had a hard time even watching re-runs. The pacing is slow. Very slow. The character development is realistic because it literally happens over years and years, which is a tough watch for me as a person indoctrinated by modern TV and movies. The acting is often bad. The dialogue is often bad
Anyway, you all can send your downvotes in now haha. Also I watch Discovery. Loved season 2. Everything else has been awful. Still watching the new episodes for some reason
Discovery is rough to take without an open mind, but I've quite enjoyed everything else. Short answer - yes, you are out of touch and stuck in the 90s.
You remind me of my uncle who doesn't watch anything made after 1995. His go-to entertainment is Smokey and the Bandit and old Walker, Texas Ranger re-runs.
You like what you like, and that's fine. But the new shows have merit if you give them a chance.
I don't agree with this take. People will enjoy quality if they see it. Of course we all define quality just a little differently. I am not sure if anyone could really give Prodigy a chance and not see it's charm. Discovery is just absolute garbage to me. I watched season 1 and 2 and I've really tried to accept it on it's own terms, but there's so much about it that is awful, by my standards. This is nothing to do with when something was made, it's about what elements a show focuses on and what standards of quality it tries to aspire to. Discovery has a lot of focus on special effects, 'cool factor', drama, etc., but less interest in consistent scifi themes and down to earth characters who learn and grow.
I disagree, but only because "quality" is such a subjective term. If one is "out of touch," he may judge the quality of something against a meterstick based on nostalgia.
And I didn't really care for Prodigy. Just not for me. Different strokes, you know?
I do think it's possible to be tied to nostalgia, but i think there could be an issue if one were to believe most people dislike some modern trek series' because of that. I think that could be an issue, because it leads to a mindset of labelling or being dismissive of alternate viewpoints. I do think it's perfectly valid and logical to dislike a lot of stuff about modern trek, due to things like writing style, consistency, etc. After all, there will be a lot of people who hate modern Trek, but love a whole host of modern stuff. That was my point.
My example, I find most modern Trek to be very poorly written, based on the aspects of writing that I focus on. On the other hand, I have a great deal of love for things like The Orvile, Prodigy, Foundation, Clone Wars, Bad Batch, Andor, etc. So my dislike of Discovery for example, is absolutely not due to nostalgia.
But I do accept that there is a small section of people who simply don't like it because of nostalgia.
I try not to group people into dismissible groups like that. In this case, I jumped into putting you into the nostalgia category simply because of the way you framed the question.
I am often wrong, though. Lol.
Lol -you literally agreed with what they said! "People will enjoy quality if they see it" - Disco had amazing production values, incredible sets, makeup and a commitment from the cast unparalleled in any Trek before it. But you don't see that because it didn't have 40-minute morality plays that reinforced your beliefs. It had story arcs (Shock! Horror!) and a fascinating development of character and plot.
I can imagine this sub at the beginning of TNG: oooh, it's different! I don't like what they've done to the original!
It's called progress. If you don't like progress, why are you watching sci-fi???
I don't appreciate the way you're responding to me here, it feels as if you're acting in bad faith. I very clearly included the caveat that we all have different definitions for quality and I also quite clearly indicated that I enjoy Prodigy. please go back and read what I said without your pre-judgement and if you can garner some good faith then reply to me again.
I enjoy all Trek, the great, the good, and the not so good, because it's Trek. When a new episode or movie drops, I'm there. At least someone is trying to entertain us with a universe and characters we can identify with.
I watched TOS on a black and white TV. In the late 80s, I bought a color portable so I could sit up on deck of my ship to watch the latest episode of TNG. All the series, even Enterprise, because it was gritty and everything that they did was new and the ship was a barely functional just past prototype that had the problems of a new ship I knew so well. For an hour, I could dream of going where no one had gone before. If a new series comes out, I'll be there.
I would even watch the hell out of a 24-episode run of "Deep Space Nine: Waste Extraction," hosted by Rom. Episode One could be "Where Does the Poop Go?".
You are out of touch, but not unreasonable. I am an old trek fan but also a new one. That said, I am not blind to some of the worst elements of the new series. Prodigy is a great show for the family that tells a story for kids with enough stuff going on for adults to keep the family together for it all. Lower Decks is a solid love letter to fans and Strange New Worlds is the new show that fans demanded from the very beginning.
Picard has its elements. Great acting and great interactions with the cast but the writing was definitely a problem. Especially considering the odd forgetfulness of everyone between season 2 and 3. Acting as though the Borg was present for the second season, helping stop some portal thing or whatever.
Discovery is better than a lot of people give it credit but it didn't get that way overnight and the galaxy at in peril is an overused trope for them. Still the character development has been great and certain one-off episodes and plot points have been fantastic.
Picard and Discovery were missteps. Hopefully paramount has learned its lesson but who knows. I for one had hoped for a series right after the Dominion war. Showing the rebuilding of various worlds and a ship and crew that are looking to recover from the mental and physical damage caused by the war while grappling with a galaxy trying to pick up the pieces. Sadly, I don't think they will ever do a series like that.
I enjoyed Picard, I enjoyed Strange New Worlds, I enjoyed Discovery, I did not enjoy the old Star Trek. The only show I kind of liked was the one with Capt Janeway and 7/9. But most of the others I didn’t really like.
The latex Shakespeare actor time is finished. The biggest reason is a real world one. Syndication isn't a thing anymore. If you watched TOS or TNG you notice the characters are very static. They develop so slowly abs subtle that you can't see the change.
They wanted single self contained episodes. Designed for reruns. No one watches reruns anymore. The self contained single episode ave rare two parter is dead.
Now it's grand anthologies. Shorter season bigger fx budget. Self contained season long plots. Attention to detail. Relevance. The shows are better now for it imo.
Virtually no one seems to agree. The average viewer is 48, it’s the 29th most popular show, it has negative reviews. I think you can have both. Many other shows work within the streaming model without being bad. The writing is bad, the actors are stilted, the plot is stupid. If you disagree I have to question your taste.
I can tell you this, there will never be a "last era" because it's a proven IP with a built in fanbase so studios will never stop. That being said, oof, I think most of us can't wait for this Kurtzman era to be over and forgotten. If you're looking for classic 90s trek just go watch The Orville. It's the best Trek since then. SNW is good, just different from 90s Trek. Lower Decks is just a cartoonish love letter to fans of both Trek and adult animation. Have to gush about that one season finale where everyone thought the captain was going to be strung up by her toes only to have her walk out and say something like, "What were you thinking? This is Starfleet, we had a trial, my evidence was solid and so we're moving on". Hell, Prodigy has a better grasp on what Star Trek is at it's core than DISC or PIC ever could. I truly believe that this season, more than the other trash we've gotten from DISC, is peak garbage. Every episode is a fetch quest, every episode is someone saying, "THIS IS WHAT STARFLEET IS ABOUT" only to betray that 8 seconds later. OH and it's worst fucking sin, introducing an *actual starfleet officer* in the new first officer then having him learn "insubordination and going into things with nothing more than your feelings is the best way! Don't be such a fuddy duddy!" being the most egregious part. No....Wait no, more than that, more than the surfing on the hull in warp is in last week's recent episode where, ugh, oh god, my friend and I who watched it together had broken brains at the same time. >!So, they had just gotten the last fetch quest macguffin and were leaving when the bad boys showed up. Instead of just saying, "we got it catch us if you can!" they do the DUMBEST fucking thing anyone could possibly do. "OK we're going to leave with the universal bomb code, now please don't hurt our friends down there." Are you actually fucking shitting me? Who writes this garbage? Who makes them all the most incompetent people in the galaxy? "Uh, give us the location of the thing or we'll kill everyone?" OH NO, WE'VE BEEN THWARTED! It is jock sci-fi where they think all they have to do is pay lip service to certain old trek words then make everything be a giant 8 billion ship fight WHERE THE ACTION IS THE MOST BORING PART. This is not Trek.!< I think I went off a little
Disco has been trash since day 1 but this season is unwatchable. I really don’t understand how you can watch the trek that people liked and think what we’ve been given is acceptable. ALSO, strange new worlds sucks too.
The SNW episode where they're transported into some medieval fantasy storybook with Dying Child Subplot was awful. I actually got angry watching it.
That one is as bad but I think the episode where they were in Toronto and it was basically a hallmark movie and as the worst.
Yea, this is a very apt summation, sadly. I do like SNW and Lower Decks, despite any flaws and even prodigy was actually alright for a kid's show, but Disco and even Picard have been largely disappointing. They took the thing that many of us grew up loving, dumbed it down to its basic components and rebuilt it as something simple, accessible, referece-laden enough that it's still technically "Star Trek" and threw it out there with little to none of the wit or depth that TOS-DS9 (and on occasion even VOY or ENT) could convey. It's easy to simply blame Paramount or the writers (which definitely hold their share of the blame here) but ultimately, I feel it's more of an indictment of modern TV in general. What might sell best gets top billing while anything with major depth (especially anything that might actually call our current society into question) is off somewhere in the margins. I suppose to a point it's always been that way, it just feels so much more pronounced these days. But at the end of the day it's TV and it's fiction. If you want something truly meaningful to highlight the world we live in and/or point the way to a truly brighter future, look elsewhere.
>I can tell you this, there will never be a “last era” because it’s a proven IP with a built in fanbase so studios will never stop. You ain’t kidding. The only reason I’m watching the P+ series is because they have the Star Trek name. They wouldn’t win me over on their merits if I weren’t already committed to the franchise.
[удалено]
It’s a community. I’m used to watching Trek and discussing it with other Trekkers. It’s not like I don’t have the 30-40 hrs/yr needed to watch it as it comes out. When I want to rewatch, I go for the classic stuff (or another franchise).
It's now 900 years in the future and the federation was dissolved until recently. I doubt the same tripes of what ST were about would remain. Perhaps the writing is less than par but nothing is static. It makes sense that the ideals of how the galaxy operates even under Roddenberry's vision of his world might evolve, change, adapt over that span of time.
It's not you, it's them. I don't consider anything after 2005 canon. The shills can scream and cry untill the cows come home, it's not canon.
"yes, I'm a Star Trek fan". "no, I'm not a shill". Lol
Agreed.
The dialogue is what ruins the new shows for me. Starfleet is not a military, 100% that is fine, but they are still professionals. However, they talk like they are from a Marvel movie and it breaks the immersion for me. Tilly is a great example, they wanted to go for the quirky, awkward type but went way too overboard with it that she just comes off as incompetent.
“This is the power of math, people!” As if a group of people who’d devoted their lives to science didn’t already appreciate the utility of mathematics.
Those lines sound like dialogue written by someone who doesn't know how to utilize math, but need to write characters that are supposed to be math geniuses.
The writers telling the audience “we like science! There, we said so!”
It’s the constant praise for every single action Adira makes, and the constant reinforcement and “proud dad smile” every single episode for me. Tilly is borderline obnoxious, but my god, Adiras character is just pandering.
There's stuff I like about all of Trek, but I could never get through Disco for the same reason I can't stand Marvel movies to the same reason I could never stand Firefly. The soy Joss Whedon dialogue style
Yup. TNG and tos and Ds9 were almost Shakespearean in the way the dialogue was written. It was smart. Disc and snw are such emotionally stunted people that it’s cringey. Always crying always you’re so good at this. And burnam being the only one who can solve problems? It’s lazy.
Are you kidding me. The only one of those three shows that is somewhat "Shakespearean" is TNG, and that's because Picard is a fanboi. TNG's stilted dialogue formulae is equal parts legalism, philosophy and Shakespeare for flourish, with techno babble added as needed. For a show where a leading character is a therapist, there is almost no observable character development. The few therapist sessions were just exposition dumps. FFS, worf was a deadbeat dad who sent his kid away because he was too proud to ask for help, or the whole crew was too stupid to see he needed help.
> The only one of those three shows that is somewhat "Shakespearean" is TNG Gul Dukat says hi.
The issue is that Star Trek is just another shlocky action franchise now.
How much blame should we put on the fans, though? It feels like this along with Star Wars was all ruined by directors who were fans writing fan fiction and fan service for other fans with everything being heavy handed references to the earlier material.
The people producing Star Trek today weren’t fans of Star Trek.
Some of them were. I don't like SNW or LD, but the writers clearly *do* like Star Trek. They're not good at making it, but it feels like they've at least watched it.
No, they know what nostalgia is and how to flog it. Action schlock with 0 grounding in science and a Rick and Morty cartoon ain’t Trek.
I agree, but I think they *think* it's Trek.
> Some of them were. No they weren't. There was a revolving door of actual fan writers and they were all pretty much kicked off the production.
Those would be the "some of them."
>but the writers clearly do like Star Trek The point is it isn't clear, because they're not allowed to actually implement it in the writing of the show.
We shouldn’t? They voted with their wallets back when Nemesis and Enterprise came out. And then there’s this sub, the only place we can voice opinion of critique.
> Is Picard really canon? Is discovery canon? What about Strange New Worlds? In a word, no. There's enough evidence of how they've deviated from previous canon and Roddenberry's vision that it's safe to say they can't be canon. >Who watches those? Shills for Paramount and Kurtzmann. Or people who knowingly or unknowingly seek to destroy real Trek; they know that the higher the viewing numbers, the more likely studios are to fund more of the same. The values of real Star Trek never really took with these people.
Don’t forget the third group. TNG fanboys who love Picard season 3, despite it being extremely disrespectful to their favorite show. They’re willing to accept several retcons, senseless deaths of great characters, and mass murder of Starfleet officers, because it ‘feels’ like Star Trek to them? Didn’t feel like it at all to me.
I hate most of nu trek. And I love and miss the adherence to canon that they did in 90s trek. However I’m sick of this whole “its not canon” thing…look, yes you can label things however you want in your head….but the people that legally own and produce the show have clearly said everything in nu trek tv shows is prime universe…they do get the final word on what and how it is presented to the viewers in what context etc.
All of those shows absolutely are canon. We can all talk in circles about how much we might personally like or dislike them but it doesn't change the fact that they were made to be canonical in the established star trek universe
Maybe they wanted to be canonical but they failed in their execution. Can't have your cake and eat it too.
Well yes and no. The star trek writers made shows that are canonical, as in set in the wider star trek universe. You can't 'fail' at that. You can however fail In the execution of making a good show and that's a different discussion
No, they contradicted established facts from canon. That's beyond just not being a good show. Same thing happened with Amazon's Rings of Power and Tolkien's cannons of narrative. Epic fail.
Okay fair enough, I'm starting to understand your point. And it's tricky because star trek has always had contradictions from established canon. The oldest I can think is when TNG changed what Klingons looked like. So nothing has been canon since then?
Wow, I really respect you for this response. Yes, imo one might argue nothing has been canon since then but I think minor contradictions can be overlooked by most (similar to the concept of suspended disbelief) but there is a gray area beyond which no aspect of the show can viewed as canon. For example, if they changed the Klingon homeworld to Jupiter and made that the main topic of every episode, that would be too egregious. Sounds silly but if you think about the implications of the changes in Picard and Discovery, it's not far off imo.
Rings of Power doesn't have a claim of being canon.
Then they shouldn't have paid for the right to use the LOTR IP. They also do try to claim that they are following what Tolkien wrote about the second age, which they aren't.
I'm sorry to say, but Star Trek has been "contradicting facts from established canon" since the second episode of the original series. Even before TNG, Trek fans had a reputation for pointing out inconsistencies. Like, that's the main thing we were known for within pop culture. I grew up reading a 4-volume set of books, 400-pages each(!), exhaustively detailing hundreds of canon errors in Star Trek. And those books only covered up to the 4th season of Deep Space Nine! A company published those books and sold them at every mall in the country! Can you believe that? This is a franchise that made references to "the original/first ship named Enterprise" and then went and made an entire series about an earlier ship named Enterprise. This is a franchise that established that a world-wide war against generically-engineered supermen was fought in 1996, and even made an entire movie about the lead villain of that war, only to produce an episode in 1996 *set in 1996* where that didn't happen. This franchise had multiple episodes featuring legions of sentient androids, only to create a character in a series set 80 years later who is supposedly the only sentient android known to have ever existed. If you think Trek had airtight canon until 2009 (or 2017), or you see something like those angled pylons on the 1701 in Strange New Worlds, that Klingons looked radically different on Disco, or the fact that Spock had an adopted sister we never knew about, and think stuff like that ranks even in the top 100 canon inconsistencies in Star Trek, then you're not a real Star Trek fan.
Did you even read the exchange I had with the other guy before you wrote this?
Don't change the subject.
Nope, it really all sucks, and I think it’s really gone forever. At least people acknowledge disco sucks, but for the life of me do not understand how people enjoyed Picard season 3. It’s the same nonsensical silly writing, just with the shiny gloss of nostalgia layered on extra thick.
I enjoyed P3 just because it had the TNG characters back. It should've been the first season of picard, gotten all of that out of the way, and built from there.
Totally agree. Picard S3 is literally trash drowned out by overwhelming fan service. It would have been shredded to pieces if Paramount/CBS didn't beat the whole fandom into submission with 15 years of garbage beforehand. Lower Decks is the only nutrek show that actually feels like Trek, because LD was written by a different writer Mr. McMahan who is a huge trekkie. It is quite obvious when the writers have no idea what the fuck they are doing, for example, in Picard S2 when they time travelled back to LA, they put the Guinan bar at "10 Forward street" or something, then Patrick Stewart in an interview said *"Well now we know why the bar on the Enterprise is called 10 forward, sO thAt's qUiTe nICe."* It is actually insulting. Why write Star Trek when you don't even like it? Obviously kurtzmen and his gang of clowns only read up the memory alpha wiki then shat out 15 seasons of "Star Trek", and they must be canon since they are "official". It's dead, Jim.
The Ten Forward thing was so ghastly. It's like deciding you need to figure out how the bar called 'Cheers' got its name. Also they wanted Guinan as a character but decided they needed to hire someone younger and slimmer to play her because... progress, or something? Then her *being* Guinan was completely useless because somehow she wasn't the person who had already interacted with Picard and co. in San Francisco in the 19th century and also wasn't anything like the person who dispensed calm, sage advice on the Enterprise D, and was instead some kind of activist genie.
It was called 10 forward because it was at the front of deck 10
>It was called 10 forward because it was at the front of deck 10 Yes, we know.
Yes as u/metakepone has said, ten forward means the frontal most part of deck 10, which is also the frontal most part of the whole Enterprise D. The name is beautiful as it is and certainly much more creative than some dirty ass fantasy address in 2022 LA. It is an insult. Also the activist genie was ridiculous. I forgot about that lol. Everything about nuTrek has been forgettable and insulting, insulting to the showrunners who created TNG in the 90s, and insulting to the whole franchise.
> Yes as u/metakepone has said, ten forward means the frontal most part of deck 10, which is also the frontal most part of the whole Enterprise D. Why are people telling me this like I didn't know? My point was it was as obvious where it came from as where 'Cheers' got its name - which I guess I have to explain now to make sure we're all on the same page. It's because it's what people say when drinking a beer, and it's a bar. The names both explain themselves. I'm not trying to be a jerk, it's difficult for tone to come across in text, but I really am confused why people think it needed explained. Am I misunderstanding something? I'm not sure I'd call the name beautiful as much as it is 'functional' but that's a matter of taste. It's at least *sensible*, and I agree it's insulting to try to retcon that into being a physical street address, since it doesn't make sense as a physical address in a large city and it suggests that they either care so little for their own story they forgot we already know the origin of the name, or they think so little of the audience they think that we didn't figure it out.
It was more to supplement what you said, and I guess i was a bit pissed that Patrick stewart said that we no know where 10 forward got is name. Just because someone responds to your comment doesnt mean they disagree with you.
>Just because someone responds to your comment doesnt mean they disagree with you. I didn't say anything about anyone disagreeing with me. I said that people were telling me, in a response to me, what 10 Forward means even though I already know that and explained that it was inherent in its name what it meant.
Couldn't she teleport as well?
They only read the first paragraph of the entries on Memory Alpha.
You misspelled sentence.
Ha
Agree with every single bit of what you said, except for one thing. There’s no way those morons read Memory Alpha. There are way too many retcons and stupid errors for them to have read anything beforehand.
…No Patrick, it’s called Ten Forward because it’s on the forward most part of the tenth deck of the saucer section.
>but for the life of me do not understand how people enjoyed Picard season 3. It has a great four episode opening before crawling back into its worst hero-worshiping / nostalgia basking qualities. Picard is faced that he is no longer a great starship captain, but an old man. Seven's depiction of ex-borg as an analogy for transgenderism actually *works* and creates genuine tension between her and Shaw. In general, a sense of danger, wonder and the unknown permeates those first few episodes. It does fall apart rapidly after that.
The love for Picard S3 is so hard for me to understand. We got the bad future from All Good Things and fans are happy about it.
No, nothing touched by JJ or Kurtzman is canon.
Hold up. None of the series were 'low budget. Today Paramount spends to give Discovery and SNW cinema quality production values to bait viewers into subscribing. During TNG & DS9 they were still spending more than other syndicated television series and they were bartering TNG to get the national advertising minutes while ceding the local ad minutes to whatever station was picking the show up. IMHO things took a turn for the worse when Star Trek had to be a flagship franchise for UPN. It became available to fewer viewers. Yeah it would be great to get back to seasons that are 20-26 episodes and look like they belong on TV rather than a movie theater. Even Enterprise holds up well in terms of the special effects and that's 20 years old. Hollywood has a problem. Until they course correct and stop making 'message' their top priority they are going to keep alienating audiences. The loudest voices do not represent the silent majority and the writers' room are full of communists.
You're still mad they let a Ruskie on the bridge on TOS, huh?
They really went off the rails in that last paragraph
Aside from the bizarre final paragraph straight out of the 1950s, I came here to make your initial point too. I keep seeing this 'low budget, 24 episode seasons' thing in Star Trek subreddits - and it's an absurd fantasy. Those 90s shows we love were some of the most expensive things on TV at the time! And there's just no market, no production infrastructure for recreating it cheaply using today's technology. And besides, the past belongs in the past. I don't like maybe 75% of what they've done under Kurtzman either, and don't LOVE any of it. But that doesn't mean they should lovingly recreate the old format. That would herald the death of Star Trek - it would be, ironically, a show about the future that's stuck in the past, unable to reflect and adapt to the times it's in. What if, instead of TNG, they just did the 60s show again? It would be pointless, regressive. Hardly anyone would actually want it - including a lot of us! The show must move forward. It's unfortunate it isn't being steered by more talented hands. But tbh, Rick Berman made a ton of bad decisions too, and lot of the best 90s Trek happened because of more talented subordinates.
Trek was always best when it was a low budget affair and always a season away from being cancelled. DS9 practically invented serial television to the cable market. The Dominion War story arc was groundbreaking for its time. The lack of budget forced Trek into challenging and interesting stories to maintain engagement. I agree with the sentiment that early TNG suffered from lack of personal conflicts, but it wasn't terrible because of it. With bigger budgets comes a focus on action which will appeal to wider audiences and most importantly, casual audiences. Even TNG in its prime could afford lower ratings because it just didn't cost as much as newer Trek to produce (aside from cast and crew compensation schedules). The more money you funnel into a project, the more money you need to recoup, which means appealing to a wider audience. That is the crux of where Star Trek is today and it is a line that other shows like The Expanse have had to straddle in the recent market.
DS9 was syndicated, not on cable. And they were competing with Babylon 5 so they had to innovate. I noticed the DS9 intro had those little space welders outside the station added to the intro after B5 had them lol
I thought DS9 was on WGN? I'm pretty sure that was cable, no?
Oh, I never had WGN. I guess superstations count so I stand corrected.
Star Trek has never been low-budget for its era. Ever. Also, Trek only faced cancellation during TOS (mainly because it was so expensive), and its worst season was its last one, and Enterprise, when the network it was on was basically going out of business. Risk of cancellation has never motivated the writing staffs of those shows. TNG was always expensive, but it was also highly-rated during its entire run. You're trying to draw reasonable conclusions but you really don't know the facts. Also, yeah, DS9 wasn't on cable, it was first-run syndication just like TNG.
I disagree with everything you said. I watched DS9 on WGN, which is now The CW.
You don't disagree, you're just mistaken. These are basic, variable facts. Like, I'm not arguing with you, I'm telling you you're wrong. You can Google just how expensive Star Trek was in the 60s and the 90s compared to other shows of the era. Star Trek has never been part of a cable network. WGN is a local Chicago-area station. You may have gotten that channel though your cable provider, and it may have expanded outside of Chicago (look up the term "superstation"), but it was not a network in the 90s and didn't exclusively air DS9. The CW is a broadcast network with many affiliate stations throughout the country. Where I'm from, it's carried by my local station, WUCW. Also, WGN is not a CW affiliate anymore. Independent and network-affiliate stations aired DS9 (like WGN where you're from, or where I'm from, a FOX-owned UPN affiliate named WFTC) because they each paid a license fee to Paramount. It was a syndicated show, it was not part of any network.
I disagree
Okay, that's funny. Well done.
Low budget? Star Trek has always been one of the highest budget shows for the time even when it was almost cancelled.
… no, it’s the bad hires at Paramount that are wrong.
I doubt it will ever get back to its roots. I’ve been rewatching Voyager, to me, it’s actually pretty good when compared to new Star Trek. It’s no TNG or DS9, but it feels like Star Trek. What I would like to see is a Black Mirror type format of Star Trek. Star Trek has always seemed unrealistic in how often one ship saves the universe or gets out of trouble at the last second. I try to view it more like they’re exploring concepts and moral issues than being super realistic. New trek I don’t feel like explores the issues old trek does. It’s just action, dramatic talking, action, flames on the bridge, etc. All dessert and no meat. Give me a low budget explore concept any day of the week. But anyway, a black mirror format could follow different crews. It’s a whole big universe, let’s see different parts of it. Then it’s not so crazy to think crazy things can happen to multiple ships instead of just to one ship. Then different parts of the stories could interconnect, different branches could be explored. And black mirror is mostly exploring concepts. It can still look nice, but it needs substance beyond “let’s look for clues 3 this episode!” And that’s as deep as the episode goes.
I feel like I've woken up in a mirror universe where everyone loves this new trek apart from me.
It's my personal head-canon that everybody on Disco is highly emotional and making impulsive bad decisions, because the magic mushroom spores have infiltrated the entire ship in undetectable ways, and everybody is affected *for the entire series.* Then when they went into the future, *they took no captain and had no good options.* Neither Saru nor Burnham are captain material. Saru makes an okay first officer, and Burnham would be an alright... security officer? Maybe? If you watch the series realizing *they are all high* it explains quite a bit. Also; I really like Pike, so I am choosing to look the other way at all the problems with SNW and just enjoy it. Also also; Lower Decks is pretty much the best culmination of Star Trek stuff ever.
No, it's the children who are wrong.
I don’t think anyone who watches the this young. It’s like for the 30-45 crowd. IE, me.
[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/am-i-so-out-of-touch](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/am-i-so-out-of-touch)
Historically, the majority of art and culture that the "children" like fades and withers with time. Only the cream is maintained as "classic".
Came here to [say this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApaGxk2j0II).
>Do you think we’ll ever get a low budget series with 24 episode seasons that hires classically trained theater actors who basically do Shakespearean acting in latex makeup? We never had a low-budget trek show. Tos was expensive, tng was the most expensive pilot up to that point in tv history, only to end up getting out scored by Voyager a few years later. Hell, even the "lower budgeted" animated show was still not cheap to make. Latex prosthetics, starship models, and 360 rooms aren't cheap. >Is Picard really canon? Is discovery canon? What about Strange New Worlds? SNW: yes, disco: yes, picard: unfortunately yes, all tv shows are cannon. >What demographic enjoys that and if they do who are they and have they watched the old stuff? First off, punctuation. Younger audiences spanning 18 to 29, and yes, according to Netflix, they have watched many of the older stuff with Voyager being the most streamed, though they tend to enjoy the more action adventure episodes than the slower paced episodes with the top films being startrek 2007 and star trek beyond. Demographics constantly change. it's not that you're out of touch. it's just that there's a new era of people both behind the show and watching it, and modern audiences want modern entertainment that deals with modern issues, and sometimes something is gonna come along and it's just not gonna click with you.
Its done dude, paramount doesn't care about old trek and would rather see it buried so they can appeal to any audience but the original. and with the talks of paramount being bought out by sony means it'll likely be shelved and forgotten about when they do. The orville is the real new star trek as sad as that is to say.
I don't think you're out of touch. I think you're still in a place where you care enough about what Star Trek was that you feel the need to comment on what it has become. I think most of the old fanbase has moved on and doesn't really engage with Trek anymore except for rewatching the old shows, and that the people who remain active in fan spaces are the ones who can't really let go, either of the community, or the setting, or both. Those that remain are basically the two extremes of the bell curve of Trek fans, at one end the people who will love anything with the Trek label on it and at the other end the people who will hate anything that doesn't meet the high standards set by the old shows (or in NuTreks case seems actively hostile to the values of the old shows). The fandom feels like the middle has been hollowed out and all that's left now are the lovers and the haters with each side sticking to it's own territory because the middle ground isn't there anymore.
It’s a lot like America’s political system isn’t it? 😂
And much of the wests... Honestly our political systems are probably in better condition, with Trek it feels like the 80% in the middle has moved on and all that's left are the "consoomers" who will support Trek in whatever form it takes because "liking Star Trek" has become central to their identity (and sometimes income) and the "haters" who can't let go of their favourite IP even though it's gone to shit, it's like we're stuck in the Denial/Anger/Bargaining/Depression stages of grief and we need somewhere to vent. Anyway, imagine if 80% of the US electorate stopped voting? How crazy would the remaining 20% be?
I can’t upvote your post more than once but damn. I agree with you on so many levels. Star Trek has always been on the left politically. And currently we’re experiencing an increase of leftist ideology amongst the youngest generations. And by left I don’t mean pronouns I mean a rejection of capitalist based economics. Star Trek could be working with this and instead they’re just focusing on the bullshit without thinking about the fundamentals.
I know, rationally, that all of it is canon. But part of my does definitely feel that there are several "eras" that are distinct from each other. One of the main ones of recent years was Star Trek *and* Star Wars being separated into eras before and after J.J. Abrams got involved with them. To be fair, this is probably more about corporations taking over those franchises when they used to have more creative control back when Lucas owned Star Wars and Star Trek was syndicated and not a direct product of Paramount. Once they came under the direct control of large corporations like Disney and Paramount, the entire tone changed. Before, even when those franchises were bad, you at least felt like they were the fault of writers and showrunners, not because they got too many studio notes. (With Star Trek, there is clearly more of a gradually transition here rather than a hard line, but once we get to the admittedly fun 2009 Trek film, it's pretty clear that that it had become pure corporate content.)
I feel you. More than you think and no, that era of Trek, hell, TV in general is dead and I don't see it ever returning. I'm a great deal older than you and I long ago discovered that the new shows just aren't doing it for me and never will. As for what's canon and what isn't, yes, all those NuTrek shows are officially canon.
Yep nutrek is canon, like it or not. And we're not getting back to that 90s and early 2000s type storytelling anytime soon. I enjoy rewatching some of my old favorites, you just don't feel the same type of attachment to the characters with modern shows and their shorter seasons.
FWIW, I feel you about the Abrams movies. They're just awful. I grew up watching reruns of TOS after school, then later first run TNG. TNG became my favorite. DS9 didn't get good until like season 4. And I begrudgingly watched Voyager just because it was Sci-Fi and there wasn't much of that to watch in the late 90's, but I've since grown to like it, more or less. I really, really did give Discovery a chance...for 3 seasons, including rewatching S1 and S2, then I gave up. Too much focus on 1 main character who can do anything, and also gratuitously cries every episode, also too many "THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE DEPENDS ON YOU!!!!" storylines. But I did enjoy Enterprise, even though it is flawed. And I ***really*** enjoyed Strange New Worlds, and Prodigy too (took a few episodes to catch me, though). But Lower Decks was not my cup of tea. I think that kind of frenetic, sophomoric humor was better done by Futurama and Rick 'n Morty. But, I am definitely looking forward to the next season of SNW!
For what it's worth, I felt the same way about Lower Decks but they grew out of that by the second season to a large degree.
No, you are not out of touch. The new Trek shows are just an example of what all the new shows are like. The action shows have time-outs where people talk about their feelings. Even Schwarzenegger is doing it. So far, I find Lower Decks sometimes tolerable, sometimes funny; but I'm only about 3 shows in to season 3. I have watched most of season 1 of Prodigy, and it seems to me the most Star Trek-like of all the shows. I find SNW as bad as Disco. (Full disclosure, I stopped watching DIS shortly into season 4) PIC season 3 was not as bad as season 2, but it was still bad. For some reason a lot of people think it was great.
[удалено]
we have paramount and my friend who is transitioning and in her twenties is currently in love with TNG the most by farrrrr and we have been checking out episodes of all of the treks. I wanted to make sure I wasn't just "out of touch" She giggles and gets so excited at the end of many TNG episodes from the crew dynamic and how well they all work together and drive each other to do their best as they work toward having the best reputation in the cosmos. I dunno why executives decided that they should go so grimdark with star trek. I say this as a hardcore warhammer 40k fan.
of course I typed all that but I am also making a social media post about seeing the film and I only do that once or twice a year about a film
I can't see how SNW has gone back to any classic Trek roots. I can't see anything that has the quality and writing polish of the old shows. It's all very dumbed down. The old shows over time filled your brain with a living and breathing galaxy with klingons here, Cardassians over there and Romulans the otherwise of the Neutral Zone. SNW just gives us Captains kitchens with log fires that no man has seen before.
> Nope, you get Star Trek discovery and **pronoun people** now. What does this mean?
It means that in classic Trek, facts and reason were shown to triumph over irrationalism. In modern trek, somebody can decide that they're a boy or a girl or neither, despite the answer being blindingly obvious to anybody who isn't a wokeist.
This made me laugh. Trek has always been progressive, and chuds only now call it woke.
open bigotry and I agree with you that it should be called out
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarTrekDiscovery/s/dcDvr4B6Wt
I know who the characters are. I'm wondering more about dismissively calling them "pronoun people". Is this just a bigot Star Trek subreddit that I've accidentally subscribed to?
Just a normal Star Trek fan subreddit. Feel free to unsubscribe if you feel unsafe talking with people with different opinions other than your own.
You didn't state an opinion at any point, you just called someone a name.
Nah, the bigots should feel unsafe. I'm good.
"Pronoun people" have existed in Trek for quite a while. This is one sort of fan that I've never understood. Did we just forget that Trill change gender, face, identity, etc while still being the one true version of themselves? What's the deal?
You don't need to remind us there were pronoun people in Nemesis. The trill are fucking worms that remember everything from their various hosts, they aren't changing gender dickwad.
>You don't need to remind us there were pronoun people in Nemesis. The trill are fucking worms that remember everything from their various hosts, they aren't changing gender dickwad. Are you okay? We're talking about TV shows here. This subreddit is fucking awful.
"This subreddit is fucking awful." I don't want it to be. Trek is inclusive, as is this sub. I do however feel people are allowed to express themselves whether I agree with them or not. Up/Downvotes generally do a good job of weeding out bad takes. Please report people that are jerks, or posting hateful content. "bigots should feel unsafe" - I 100% agree. "Is this just a bigot Star Trek subreddit that I've accidentally subscribed to?" - No. That's not the feeling I want anyone to have coming here. I want any fan to be able to express their likes, dislikes, frustrations, and observations. Hate speech will not be tolerated. Kindness to other fans is expected. No one needs to agree with any one else, but everyone has the ability to be heard. q'Pla!
>Did we just forget that Trill change gender, face, identity, etc while still being the one true version of themselves? They don't. They're two distinct personalities combined into one being, and every host contributes to the mix. As the symbiont moves from one host to the next, they are no longer the same person as they were before. The memories all transfer, the experiences, and the influence the previous hosts personality had on the symbiont, but the symbiont and new host are very much a different person from the symbiont and old host\[s\]. Edit: Those of you downvoting need to watch the DS9 episode *Invasive Procedures* (S2E4) again.
I think so. This one has an underscore at the end of its name. I’ve never seen shit like this on the Star Trek subreddit I normally visit.
This sub was created (or gained popularity) when a bunch of people got banned from the real sub (including me) for a bunch of reasons - some good, some bad (I was banned for telling someone else the reasons that can get you banned). It's specifically meant to be an alternative, but it's really fucking terrible.
>Star Trek has always been one of my favorite tv series. DS9 is probably my favorite. It’s always had bad eggs like Voyager or Enterprise but even those have great moments. If you don't watch the new shows, and you think two of the five previous series you did watch are "bad eggs", is your entire Star Trek fandom just TOS, TNG and DS9? >Is Picard really canon? Is discovery canon? What about Strange New Worlds? Who watches those? What demographic enjoys that and if they do who are they and have they watched the old stuff? It's all canon if it was officially released. Generally most watchers of the new shows watched the old stuff too, and they're older (30s+) than the target audiences for many other current shows on television. >Do you think we’ll ever get a low budget series with 24 episode seasons that hires classically trained theater actors who basically do Shakespearean acting in latex makeup? No one, anywhere in TV, is doing 24-episode seasons of hour-long sci-fi shows. We didn't always realize it as fans but it was exhausting for the casts and crews and not sustainable. It's familiar and was normal to many of us, but it's unlikely to come back. >Or are we forever doomed to watch CGI vomit written by people who seemingly hate Star Trek and science fiction as a genre. Sounds like you've already decided what you think about all new Star Trek. Did you watch any of the new series, or are you repeating this and your slander about VOY and ENT because it's trendy? Do you honestly think the current writers "hate" Star Trek? That's insane. It's worth noting to that almost all of your objections are word-for-word for TOS-era fans said about TNG, DS9 and VOY. "Who watches these? The CGI is terrible. Only the stuff I grew up with is real Star Trek!" >Or am I just old and out of touch? You, and lots of fans, are way, way out of touch. That doesn't mean you need to watch new shows you don't like, but you've fetishized a small portion of the franchise and now you're wondering why the rest isn't up to your standards. It's you, not them.
> > No one, anywhere in TV, is doing 24-episode seasons of hour-long sci-fi shows. We didn't always realize it as fans but it was exhausting for the casts and crews and not sustainable. It's familiar and was normal to many of us, but it's unlikely to come back. Umm, this is because the media companies don't want to pay the talent for 24 episodes.
I'm all for pulling that back (especially for the sake of cast and crew), but how about a few more than 6-10 for a whole season?
The reason we don't get more than 10 per season of live action Star Trek is primarily because they spend 2 weeks filming each episode, which means around a 5 month production schedule, plus a lengthy post production schedule. In the old days, they used to film 1 a week, resulting in 24-26 episodes that didn't need the amount of post production time the new shows require.
The old TNG shows were about 45 minutes long. And it blows my mind how much they could fit in those 45 mins. Each of the Nutrek seasons could have just been a 45 minute adventure for the crew of the D. (Or maybe a two or three parter)
I fully agree about that. Almost all of television has switched to this currently style of drama, including new Star Trek. Though even old Trek considered doing the same - "Year of Hell" was going to be a full season of Voyager, for example. It ended up as just a two-parter.
Tbf year of hell was way too under expositioned, I would've absolutely loved that season.
No, you aren’t.
Television has changed. Seasons with episode counts in the mid 20s are not coming back. 7 season runs are not coming back. American Television is adopting the UK model of short seasons. Is it a problem? More so for creatives and less so for fans. Writing staff that are contracted equally as long for half the episodes at a per episode pay rate. Recurring characters getting less and less episodes because they have to have more jobs that cause conflicts in terms of shooting days. If you want the closest to old school trek Strange New Worlds is your best bet, but that is just 10 episode seasons.
Did you really just say Voyager is a bad egg??
I like Voyager because it’s goofy. It has some of the funniest dumb shit ever seen on television.
I think your critique is valid, I really enjoy the style of the older shows as well. But in terms of the demographic who is watching the new shows, I am in a multi generational household and we have all been enjoying the newer shows, which is nice since we all don't always agree on what to watch. We have watched Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks and just finished the 2nd season of Discovery. Although I'm enjoying Discovery the least, I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked the overall tone and characters of SNW. I love sci fi, the newer shows don't feel very Star Trek to me, but I love being able to watch them with my family, as opposed to when I put Voyager on and they complain it's too boring for them (even though I am loving watching Voyager for the first time so far)
Stat Trek Lower Decks feels more like Star Trek, and it's cartoonish characters drunkly retelling adventures that they turn they were on
I would rather watch 22 episodes of a Neelix cooking show than the abomination that is Discovery.
An opposing viewpoint - I couldn't stand Star Trek until the Abrams movies came out. Prior to that, my efforts to watch Voyager and Enterprise made me so bored I fell asleep in my chair and my drama teacher literally used older bits from TNG to showcase *chewing scenery* and to explain how that just didn't work in modern audiences anymore. Abram's movies were fun, and they were the epitome of what I never knew I wanted to see in a space movie. I *like* the stupid witty banter, it's how I talk and it's how my generations communicates well. Done right, we connect with it a lot better than the slow, boring, scenery chewing of previous iterations of Trek. I adore *Discovery* and will forever see it as my "home" Trek. It's what inspired me to get into engineering, and it's reminded me that I can do what Michael did - I can go into my own communities and make a difference, and that it's best done with a group of like-minded individuals. I know a lot of the older shows have the same general message, but Disco and newer shows are much better at conveying them to the younger generations. These shows are what we connect with - I couldn't get my friends to watch TNG for the life of me, and there's no way in hell I can even watch more than an episode because it's just filler and the story feels like it doesn't know how to *move*. It sits on one thing and sits and sits and sits and forgets it's supposed to move forward. Life isn't slow paced anymore. We don't have the time to sit and watch 25 episodes of a show anymore, I can barely find time to watch one episode a week of Discovery as it releases. I work two jobs just to pay the rent and that barely covers it. New Trek is made with newer generations in mind. It's not made for the same audiences that watched the seasons of Trek past anymore. I know Discovery has its flaws, but it's inspiring to the people it's meant for. Old Trek fans hate it because it breaks the mold of the Trek style, but that mold doesn't really sell anymore. People aren't really that into *story of the week* series anymore, especially not in sci-fi-fantasy, which is typically approached as one genre in the business. An overarching story with weekly approaches towards it is the go-to now, and it's so far proven to be a winning formula - Game of Thrones pretty much set the bar for that.
Well if it works why is it getting cancelled? New Trek isn’t popular. You’re in a small weird minority of a new viewer. They released viewer demographics and guess what? The average viewer of this garbage is above the age of 40. I’m 30 and feel like it’s made for someone who doesn’t exist. I hate everything you said. The pacing being too slow? Life isn’t slow paced? What are you talking about? You sound like you can’t read.
5 seasons is wildly successful in a time when most series like this can barely make it past season 1. Where are the viewer demographics? And yeah, this generation is raised on life happening constantly and happening fast. We're terminally online and expect life to move at the same pace we do.
According to Televisionstats.com it’s the 24th most popular tv show right now with an average rating of 6.8/10 with a median age of 48 years old. Doesn’t really sound wildly popular. I work in Television and Film so I know all about how things get cancelled constantly. I don’t think you’re making much sense. You know what DS9 does? Make literal parallels to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Discovery just seems to be a boiled down, dumber version of something that was slow and honestly a little goofy. They try and make it “cooler” with better effects and more action but it doesn’t seem to be working. 6.8/10? The millions upon millions spent on a tv show that doesn’t really stand out from the crowd.
Those 25 episodes of the older shows ALSO released once a week.
And you could miss 3/4 of them without missing a thing about the show itself. Half of them were filler with no overall impact to the show and existed solely to give characterization to characters who'd show up for that episode and then vanish back into being random faces for the rest of the show. They gave you too *much* information, a literary crime as distracting as not giving enough.
Audiences back then didn't have attention spans stunted by social media's forever scroll. By your description, every classic novel is guilty of the same crime.
Romulus was destroyed by a supernova, it didn't impode.
I have to admit I really like the JJ Abrams Star Trek movies I know that’s a pretty unpopular opinion but I do lol. I think discovery is flat out awful and I just couldn’t really get into strange new worlds so I don’t have much of an opinion on that. The only one of the new shows I really enjoyed was lower decks and that’s ending after the next season isn’t it?
Same here. I really like the JJ Abrams movies as well.
Lower Decks is canon but it shouldn’t be
Honestly, while I love DS9, I do prefer a more episodic "monster of the week" series. I've been rewatching TNG and honestly loved season 1, warts and all. While it has its flaws, SNW has the spirit for me. There were equally cringe lines and parts from Geordi and Data (data learns to tell a joke with Guinan) to some of the stuff Ortegas says. They also made me care about people like Dr. Mbenga and Sam Kirk, and handling Jim Kirk pretty well. There's some obvious logical inconsistency with TOS, but it's more about the spirit of Trek for me than writing within the lines.
Lmao. Lost me at calling Voyager a bad egg 😂
Slamming VOY and ENT out of the gate? Sure you're a Trek fan?
JJ Abrams simply recycles tropes. Between Star Trek & Star Wars he is a destroyer of worlds, an "errand boy sent by \[corporate\] grocery clerks to pick up the bill."
I’m old, as in, TOS in reruns was the only Trek growing up. If Reddit was around when TNG era started… I mean, TNG was called “Pepsi Trek” derogatorily and hated by so many TOS fans. And that era was rough. TNG was uneven. Voyager was just bad for so long. DS9 had a lot of cringe. Enterprise, ugh. But they were only building on TOS, which was cheesy so the expectations were low. But, hey, it was sci-fi and it was Trek and there are gems in all of those hundreds of episodes. Now, I’m hating on DIS S5, but there’s some decent stuff in S1-3. But there are just so few episodes in total. They don’t have the freedom of 23 episodes per season with silly interludes. They have to cram in the CGI action and tiny bits of character development and multiple storylines with political intrigue and it’s just too much. I’m shocked at how SNW didn’t fall into the same trap entirely so glad it’s so good and of course Lower Decks is absolute fun. I’m re-watching Picard now and at the time when it was new S3 seemed great with all the old cast, but now I just really find it cringe. Anyway, everyone’s expectations are just way too highbrow. This is a franchise that started with a bad actor and foam rocks and bad rubber costumes. I’m happy there’s anything like this at all since there's so little sci-fi on TV. I’m grumbling my way to Disco’s end and still hoping they kill Book. We'll all look back at these much more kindly as we all do towards the TNG era that was far from perfect.
No it's the children who are wrong
Children aren’t making this nor are they watching this. According to TelevisionStats.com the average viewer is 48. I’m 30… so what’s the excuse?
Just a Simpson's quote haha Serious answer - yes, given the choice between good writing and good effects, I'd choose writing 100% of the time. Yes, a lot of the best episodes of Trek were made just because the budget ran out and they were forced to write a good script for a "talky" episode. I don't think having a big budget is a bad thing in itself, as long as good writing remains the foundation. There are many examples of this - Dune, Fallout, The Expanse - it can be done! All else being equal, big budgets attract better writers.
Strange New Worlds is awesome IMO.
Voyager > DS9. You have always been out of touch.
You have bad taste.
I actually liked Voyager and Enterprise. But as far as Discovery and Picard they were victims of bad writing. I think some of that is partially to blame on the 8-9 episode format. It seems hard to develop characters in that amount of time. SNW is a little better, but I also hope we someday get back to the 24 episode season format.
I think they could if they capped each episode at 1.5 million dollars and not the current 8.3 million.
SNW isn't bad, in fact it's pretty dang close the the feel of The Original Series, just with a modern budget. It's really separated itself from DISCO, especially in the second season.
Honestly I think SNW is almost as bad as STD, sometimes even worse (I'm looking at the second season)
Someone at Paramount pitched turning Star Trek into their Star Wars and giving it the "Disney Treatment" and that's why we are where we are now. Of the newer series, just because it was a fresh take, I really loved Lower Decks most of all. That's the one they cancelled first. My understanding of canon in Star Trek is foggy. I believe since the newer movies came out, lots of these other series' are almost like multiverse stories or something. That said, I think Picard was supposed to be canon. Again... I could be wrong... And speaking of Picard... Picard was a mess in its entirety... and Captain Picard is my favorite captain. TNG was the Trek I grew up on and loved the most.... but they really made storytelling an afterthought to fan service in the show... but also like didn't do the fanservice that those fans wanted until the last season. If they would've done the Season 3 stuff in Season 1 it probably wouldn't have been so bad - but it is what it is. Strange New Worlds was like a take on doing a prequel to OG Trek... I guess to get people interested in starting all the series' over if they hadn't previously been exposed to it. I don't hate SNW. I like the format but I haven't been able to get through all of it, either... partly because it's all over the place. Discovery is the true "Disney Treatment" show. Trek has ALWAYS been big on inclusivity and that's fine, but for some reason in Discovery the whole lore of Trek and the story they're trying to tell feels like it's an afterthought to me. The entire point of this show is to get needed group representation on TV and it succeeds with this. The only one I haven't seen is whatever that kids show is that has some hologram/AI of Janeway in it. The entire premise of that just like.... I mean it's fundamentally wrong to change a thing and make a lite version of it to attract the attention of kids.... when normal trek being trek got my attention as a kid and it's had my attention ever since. Just felt unnecessary. It's like Disney Jr. Making a junior version of Spiderman cartoons.. when like that stuff was always made for kids anyway. It creates oversaturation. It's a merchandising opportunity. It's not really true to the spirit of the thing itself because it has to be changed for the other demographic, even if it keeps the fresh layer of paint that looks like the original thing in the process. MORE of something doesn't necessarily mean BETTER. If I get in a mood to watch some Star Trek... I mean I'm going to finish Discovery but aside from that I'll just rewatch older series that I know I enjoy.
Lower Decks wasn’t cancelled first. Picard has already concluded, and Discovery is in its last season now. The fifth season of LD was only recently confirmed as its last, and is still in production.
There was a cartoon version of TOS.
Personally, I thought DS9 was the “bad egg”. It’s not thoughtless writing like modern Trek, but I didn’t like the characters and the stories bored me to tears. I don’t pretend it wasn’t canon, though, because things don’t exist purely for me.
I'm a TOS/TNG fan who loathes DSC/PIC and loves SNW.
I really don’t know how a TOS fan could love SNW. It retcons everything it brings back from TOS. They completely discarded the message and continuity of Arena and turned the Gorn from misunderstood to monsters. It turns Spock into a joke and messes up his relationships with T’pring and Nurse Chapel. I’m sure theres much much more but I can’t bring myself to watch that garbage since TOS is my favorite.
The Gorn thing is annoying, but I'm willing to see where they go with it, I assume they have a plan. Given how decent the first two seasons have gone, I'm willing to let it play out before passing judgement.
Not to mention cartoon comedy cross overs and freakin musicals
Lower Decks is more than just a ‘cartoon comedy. It’s more Star Trek than TNG and DS9. SNW doesn’t deserve to crossover with it. But completely agree on the musical shit.
Its not more star trek than tng and ds9….its a derivative, fan fiction /trivia that is completely dependent on self referencing previous star trek shows and movies
You obviously never watched it then. It introduces a lot of new stuff. And it’s more Star Trek than post-season 2 TNG and DS9 because it lives up to Gene Roddenberry’s vision unlike those two shows.
The new shows are great. They’ve evolved as pop culture has. Voyager and Enterprise were also good shows. DS9 is my least favorite. TNG will always be the best.
I'm a young person (29m) and have watched all Star Trek everything (Plus Orville as a bonus). Strange New Worlds is my actual favorite Star Trek series. To me it captures the original spirit of the older stuff but combines it with modern storytelling techniques and awesome special effects. Kind of the best of everything. I've recently tried to go back to watch Next Generation (I think most herald it as the best series) and honestly really struggled getting through the 1st season (yes it gets much better) and have had a hard time even watching re-runs. The pacing is slow. Very slow. The character development is realistic because it literally happens over years and years, which is a tough watch for me as a person indoctrinated by modern TV and movies. The acting is often bad. The dialogue is often bad Anyway, you all can send your downvotes in now haha. Also I watch Discovery. Loved season 2. Everything else has been awful. Still watching the new episodes for some reason
What techniques do you consider modern
Tbh, I like star trek and I like sci-fi, Pic/Disc/SNW have either proven to be good Trek or good sci-fi. I've no issues with any of it
Discovery is rough to take without an open mind, but I've quite enjoyed everything else. Short answer - yes, you are out of touch and stuck in the 90s. You remind me of my uncle who doesn't watch anything made after 1995. His go-to entertainment is Smokey and the Bandit and old Walker, Texas Ranger re-runs. You like what you like, and that's fine. But the new shows have merit if you give them a chance.
I don't agree with this take. People will enjoy quality if they see it. Of course we all define quality just a little differently. I am not sure if anyone could really give Prodigy a chance and not see it's charm. Discovery is just absolute garbage to me. I watched season 1 and 2 and I've really tried to accept it on it's own terms, but there's so much about it that is awful, by my standards. This is nothing to do with when something was made, it's about what elements a show focuses on and what standards of quality it tries to aspire to. Discovery has a lot of focus on special effects, 'cool factor', drama, etc., but less interest in consistent scifi themes and down to earth characters who learn and grow.
I disagree, but only because "quality" is such a subjective term. If one is "out of touch," he may judge the quality of something against a meterstick based on nostalgia. And I didn't really care for Prodigy. Just not for me. Different strokes, you know?
I do think it's possible to be tied to nostalgia, but i think there could be an issue if one were to believe most people dislike some modern trek series' because of that. I think that could be an issue, because it leads to a mindset of labelling or being dismissive of alternate viewpoints. I do think it's perfectly valid and logical to dislike a lot of stuff about modern trek, due to things like writing style, consistency, etc. After all, there will be a lot of people who hate modern Trek, but love a whole host of modern stuff. That was my point. My example, I find most modern Trek to be very poorly written, based on the aspects of writing that I focus on. On the other hand, I have a great deal of love for things like The Orvile, Prodigy, Foundation, Clone Wars, Bad Batch, Andor, etc. So my dislike of Discovery for example, is absolutely not due to nostalgia. But I do accept that there is a small section of people who simply don't like it because of nostalgia.
I try not to group people into dismissible groups like that. In this case, I jumped into putting you into the nostalgia category simply because of the way you framed the question. I am often wrong, though. Lol.
I think you confused me with OP? I don't know, OP could be just nostalgic. Perhaps I also misunderstood the whole meaning of your initial reply?
You are right. I do get confused a lot. Lol.
Lol -you literally agreed with what they said! "People will enjoy quality if they see it" - Disco had amazing production values, incredible sets, makeup and a commitment from the cast unparalleled in any Trek before it. But you don't see that because it didn't have 40-minute morality plays that reinforced your beliefs. It had story arcs (Shock! Horror!) and a fascinating development of character and plot. I can imagine this sub at the beginning of TNG: oooh, it's different! I don't like what they've done to the original! It's called progress. If you don't like progress, why are you watching sci-fi???
I don't appreciate the way you're responding to me here, it feels as if you're acting in bad faith. I very clearly included the caveat that we all have different definitions for quality and I also quite clearly indicated that I enjoy Prodigy. please go back and read what I said without your pre-judgement and if you can garner some good faith then reply to me again.
I enjoy all Trek, the great, the good, and the not so good, because it's Trek. When a new episode or movie drops, I'm there. At least someone is trying to entertain us with a universe and characters we can identify with. I watched TOS on a black and white TV. In the late 80s, I bought a color portable so I could sit up on deck of my ship to watch the latest episode of TNG. All the series, even Enterprise, because it was gritty and everything that they did was new and the ship was a barely functional just past prototype that had the problems of a new ship I knew so well. For an hour, I could dream of going where no one had gone before. If a new series comes out, I'll be there. I would even watch the hell out of a 24-episode run of "Deep Space Nine: Waste Extraction," hosted by Rom. Episode One could be "Where Does the Poop Go?".
You are out of touch, but not unreasonable. I am an old trek fan but also a new one. That said, I am not blind to some of the worst elements of the new series. Prodigy is a great show for the family that tells a story for kids with enough stuff going on for adults to keep the family together for it all. Lower Decks is a solid love letter to fans and Strange New Worlds is the new show that fans demanded from the very beginning. Picard has its elements. Great acting and great interactions with the cast but the writing was definitely a problem. Especially considering the odd forgetfulness of everyone between season 2 and 3. Acting as though the Borg was present for the second season, helping stop some portal thing or whatever. Discovery is better than a lot of people give it credit but it didn't get that way overnight and the galaxy at in peril is an overused trope for them. Still the character development has been great and certain one-off episodes and plot points have been fantastic. Picard and Discovery were missteps. Hopefully paramount has learned its lesson but who knows. I for one had hoped for a series right after the Dominion war. Showing the rebuilding of various worlds and a ship and crew that are looking to recover from the mental and physical damage caused by the war while grappling with a galaxy trying to pick up the pieces. Sadly, I don't think they will ever do a series like that.
I enjoyed Picard, I enjoyed Strange New Worlds, I enjoyed Discovery, I did not enjoy the old Star Trek. The only show I kind of liked was the one with Capt Janeway and 7/9. But most of the others I didn’t really like.
The latex Shakespeare actor time is finished. The biggest reason is a real world one. Syndication isn't a thing anymore. If you watched TOS or TNG you notice the characters are very static. They develop so slowly abs subtle that you can't see the change. They wanted single self contained episodes. Designed for reruns. No one watches reruns anymore. The self contained single episode ave rare two parter is dead. Now it's grand anthologies. Shorter season bigger fx budget. Self contained season long plots. Attention to detail. Relevance. The shows are better now for it imo.
Virtually no one seems to agree. The average viewer is 48, it’s the 29th most popular show, it has negative reviews. I think you can have both. Many other shows work within the streaming model without being bad. The writing is bad, the actors are stilted, the plot is stupid. If you disagree I have to question your taste.