I watched an interview with Conan O'Brien years ago where he talked about the Marge vs. the Monorail episode of The Simpsons and he mentioned that it was originally written with Takei in mind, but he wanted them to change the script because he thought it made too much fun of public transit. Because he was a huge proponent of public transit, he ultimately backed out. That's when Nimoy was brought in to replace him.
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Turn up the good, turn down the suck!
I've started re watching Strange New Worlds to get ready for the season 3 premiere in a week. Though the show is episodic in nature, its nice to catchup. And also get a somewhat gut cleansing from the awfulness of discovery.
SNW really does borrow heavily from the formula that made the original series great and that the other series seem to have forgotten.
Like TOS this truly is an ensemble show with every character being strongly and I might say lovingly developed. The lynch pin, like Kirk is Pike, but if I was to rate the two while Shatner was excellent as Kirk, Mount has added an additional irrelevant nature and vulnerability as in season one the only real string pulling the episodes together is Pike's eventual fate, and his willingness to accept it.
The other thing that really works in this series is the writers really are willing to insert ridiculousness into the story. Stories that shouldn't work, moments that should be eye rolling just suddenly work, and its mainly due to the development of the characters and their growth into a crew that feels like a family. Discovery couldn't do this as most characters were furniture for Michael to sit on. Even Generations struggled as it eventually became the Picard and Data Show, DS9 Sisko at times overwhelmed the rest of the cast and outside stories became more important.
I've gotten to episode 8 of the first season and while all of the episodes are terrific, there are some that uttlerly stand out.
Memento Mori - A combination of a salute to Run Silent Run deep with a Wrath of Khan, and a good unseen enemy horror movie. By having Singh with experience with the Gorn, it sold them as a evil and terrifying hunter race. The writers resisted having any look at the Gorn themselves, but they were able to convey their brutality in a lot of different script moments. The battle in the Nebula with the use of "Sonar" gave it the run silent run deep feel as Pike and Singh work to outsmart the Gorn, and the special effects are completely spectacular. In the end, the crew escapes the Gorn, they don't beat them, giving the sense that the writers understand that Trek fans might be sick of the Romulans and Klingons as primary enemies and we're going to see a lot more of the Gorn.
Spock Amok - This would normally be a filler humorous episode before the roof falls in with tragedy. But this episode works so well in developing Spock's character. In this episode Spock puts duty over love, which to a Vulcan would be completely logical. However his fiance T-Pring (the casting of Gia Sandu knocks it out of the park) has problems with that. In an effort to figure things out, they decide to see things from each others perspectives and end up swapping bodies. Both Ethan Peck and Sandhu play each other in switched bodies and do it brilliantly. This cast is played for laughs but there's a serious under ton. The sub story of Singh and Number 1 cutting lose and playing enterprise bingo was a lot of fun.
Serence Squall - This one has a direct feel of the 60's series. As they bring pirates into play, and there is a betrayal that you can see miles away. This episode is really a Chapal episode and Jess Bush needs to be commended as she is a relative novice actor, but she has done exceptional work in season 1. The whole plot line is just simply fun and at times a bit ridiculous, the two primary guest stars Michael Hough as Remy the phony pirate kind just utterly chews the scenery as the stereo typical pirate, but the real star is Jesse Keitel who plays Dr Aspen before betraying the crew of the enterprise and becoming the sarcastic over the top evil pirate Captain Angel, and she does it with style and wit. The nice part of this is it fixed a bit of a plot hole with Star Trek 5, where we learn about Spock's half brother Sybok. The ending should have been cringe worthy with Pike sitting in the captain's chair doing to pirate talk. In other series it would have been heavily criticized, but it works here because of Ortega's reaction to it, as well as number ones who looks like she's going to burst out laughing. I wonder if this was Mount free lancing and they just kept it like an out take.
This series in the first year comes across as a labour of love, from the effects to the stories to the music to the way the cast just works and at the same time winks at the screen makes this what Trek fans have wanted for years. Something earnest and honest and fun to watch, where we don't worry about trying to route tachyons through the deflector array, but where we get very for the lack of better words human and simply solutions that left the cast shine over the special effects department.
Just one last note, usually when we watch Trek series, we always say, "DS9 started off awful and slow, but by the end man", or TNG - "the first two seasons are really unwatchable, but after that its great". With SNW, it starts with a bang and a ton of personality, now its up to them to build on that.
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You know...at least in TNG and VOY the floors were carpeted.
One would think that with the way your ships get bounced around all the time and the sheer consistency of crew being tossed about in conjunction with the obsolescence of seat-belts they'd consider cushioning the ground.
Like...make the Bridge more of a 'bouncy castle.'
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