Star Trek General Discussion

[pseudoreality]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Lower Decks... you have to be a turbo fan to latch onto it IMO, but it is a premium quality Trek property. SNW is definitely the pinnacle of the new batch, I am extremely excited for S2. Wait until you fully judge it until end of season... i am actually envious that you are about to watch the finale for the first time, it is fantastic.

I don't know if you have to be a turbo fan to enjoy Lower Decks, but it helps if you are a fan of the right era. For me, I came of age and fell in love with TNG. I enjoyed DS9, but my interest tailed off with Voyager and Enterprise. Lower Decks is primarily a TNG spoof. So I love it.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby

I think Discovery has gotten 'better' but it's generally still not my cup of tea. At least they've settled the BTS showrunner drama a few years ago so at least it feels consistent.

I short of hate ragging on Disco though. Because it's just not really my thing but if you say anything negative in some circles folks assume you're an incel chud.

Why? Because the show sucks? That seems quite the leap.

At least those people would be doing you a favour by informing you of all the reasons not to associate with them right up front.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Locke

Why? Because the show sucks? That seems quite the leap.

At least those people would be doing you a favour by informing you of all the reasons not to associate with them right up front.

I think it's because when it came out folks were talking about how it wasn't real star trek and general Fandom Menace type talking points. But this could likely be more a niche online fandom spaces thing, which I generally try to avoid.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by pseudoreality

I don't know if you have to be a turbo fan to enjoy Lower Decks, but it helps if you are a fan of the right era. For me, I came of age and fell in love with TNG. I enjoyed DS9, but my interest tailed off with Voyager and Enterprise. Lower Decks is primarily a TNG spoof. So I love it.

I can see where he's coming from though,

Personally, Lower Decks has identified how lacking my TOS knowledge really is, and I'm okay with that. I get most of the TNG and DS9 jokes.

What I find is really good about Lower Decks is that you can enjoy it largely at face value, but as your level of knowledge and fandom is hit by the jokes you can enjoy it more and more.

Its like a layered show. Anyways, Lower Decks is goddamned fantastic and amazing Trek IMO, but frankly...SNW is the show we deserve right now.

Anson Mount, Ethan Peck and Co. took that show and just knocked it out of the park. That is the Trek everyone has been clamoring for since forever.

Disco and Picard are something else. They're not going out and discovering strange new worlds and solving problems, they're...who the hell knows what they're doing.

SNW is phenomenal.

[Yeah_Baby]

I think SNW knows that type of show it wants to be, which is like slightly elevated fun schlock.

Whereas Disco and Picard to date are the same schlock but trying to be Prestige TV and thus falling on their face and stepping on rakes.

[CaptainCrunch]

So why do I like Lower Decks?

Its simple. Because after years of Star Trek shows usually being filled with virtuous warrior diplomats that inevitably do the right thing the right way. Lower Decks is kinda refreshing.

When in the other Star Trek shows you have aholes, they're intentional villains. Do you have incompetent officers, sure occasionally but in the end they technobabble through it.

I mean how many times have they had to make off the books modifications to Star Fleet equipment.

Yeah we're going to fire an inverse red tachyon beam through the main deflector array. Something that if it was designed to do it would come with it already or have a ready made software patch.

but not bliggity Bangidy, they do these changes in minutes rarely testing their theory or opening up the design documentations to see if it works.

Just once, once in the history of Star Trek I wanted to see where they reversed the phased coils in the warp field to solve some problem that O'Brien or Geordi or Scotty came up with, and the Camera panned back and we see this huge explosion as the Warp Nacelles are flung to the opposite ends of the sector. And then we zoom in on a face palming Picard or Kirk or Sisko.

Just once.

But with Lower Decks, we see that there are intentional and blisteringly flawed people serving on Star Ships or bases. We see when these off the book solutions don't work. We see cowardice, bad ideas, drunken jerks. Truly gross womanizing men and predatory woman.

And we love those characters for the flaws. I mean having a intelligent robot that turns out to be manipulative, cowardly and equivalent to a Enron executive getting a whole episode is great.

Seeing a highly trained Star Ship Captain being outfoxed or beaten by a race of idiots is brilliant.

It reminds us that the Federation isn't all perfection and good people doing what seems like an easy job in a luxury setting.

I mean in Generations even Ensigns basically had a two bedroom apartment with a double bed and their own washroom. Same in Deep Space 9 and Voyager. The last time we really saw something close to Lower Decks was Star Trek 6 with the room for the junior officers that had like 10 bunk beds and some lockers.

In short, Lowerdecks brings out the imperfections in Star Trek that we kind of knew were there. But were never shown.

Except for Barclay, but he's a terrible character and gross.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Except for Barclay, but he's a terrible character and gross.

Lieutenant Brocolli is sad to hear that. He was the original lower decks character and since I was a kid, he was the real star of TNG. Being gross is the fault of the writers who made his first story about Holodeck fantasies. Plus he's howlin' mad Murdoch.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Lieutenant Brocolli is sad to hear that. He was the original lower decks character and since I was a kid, he was the real star of TNG. Being gross is the fault of the writers who made his first story about Holodeck fantasies. Plus he's howlin' mad Murdoch.

Realistically he should have been transferred to DS9 and become Quark's best Holosuite customer until the day came where his addiction got the better of him and he couldnt pay his Holosuite tab anymore and ends up having to work for Quark cleaning the Suites after customers.

Now there is where Star Trek takes a dark turn.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Locke

Why? Because the show sucks? That seems quite the leap.

Some people feel that if a show is making a big push on social issues while having a cast and characters that are very diverse with a lot of visibility, it must be immune to criticisms for the story and content.


This is obviously ridiculous and we can applaud them for carrying on Roddenberry's dream of diversity in the face of racism, transphobia and homophobia while also acknowledging that the writers are also ####ing awful and don't know what to do beyond that diversity.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Some people feel that if a show is making a big push on social issues while having a cast and characters that are very diverse with a lot of visibility, it must be immune to criticisms for the story and content.


This is obviously ridiculous and we can applaud them for carrying on Roddenberry's dream of diversity in the face of racism, transphobia and homophobia while also acknowledging that the writers are also ####ing awful and don't know what to do beyond that diversity.

For many the fight for liberation ends with diversity in their corporately produced media.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Some people feel that if a show is making a big push on social issues while having a cast and characters that are very diverse with a lot of visibility, it must be immune to criticisms for the story and content.


This is obviously ridiculous and we can applaud them for carrying on Roddenberry's dream of diversity in the face of racism, transphobia and homophobia while also acknowledging that the writers are also ####ing awful and don't know what to do beyond that diversity.

Has Star Trek ever really had good writing? It seems to me they previously had the good fortune of having incredible actors that could take awful dialogue and turn it into gold. Nobody on Discovery is close to that caliber of an actor. SNW actually has good dialogue.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

Has Star Trek ever really had good writing? It seems to me they previously had the good fortune of having incredible actors that could take awful dialogue and turn it into gold. Nobody on Discovery is close to that caliber of an actor. SNW actually has good dialogue.

I think it has. Duet from DS9 and Tapestry from TNG come to mind. I think All Good Things is a better script than Generations and would have made a better movie.

[timun]

Amusingly "All Good Things..." and Generations were both written by Ron D. Moore and Brannon Braga.

In fact both were nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and "All Good Things..." won.

The problem with Generations was studio edicts that they work in the storyline with Kirk, a central big baddie (Malcolm McDowell), Klingons, and destruction of the Enterprise-D. With TNG the writers had pretty much free reign to do whatever they wanted, within budgetary constraints.

The problem with Picard is the man himself: Patrick Stewart. He's an executive producer and basically put his foot down saying "I want to do the stories I want to do, with Picard characterized the way I want him characterized, and if the writers and everyone else aren't on-board then I'm out."

[direwolf]

Picard S3 started tonight. I enjoyed that first episode. It felt more like classic Trek than either of the first two seasons, and the story so far is intriguing. Also, I love the design of that new Titan ship.

[Wormius]

I think the Excelsior style starship is kind of growing on me.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by timun

Amusingly "All Good Things..." and Generations were both written by Ron D. Moore and Brannon Braga.

In fact both were nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and "All Good Things..." won.

The problem with Generations was studio edicts that they work in the storyline with Kirk, a central big baddie (Malcolm McDowell), Klingons, and destruction of the Enterprise-D. With TNG the writers had pretty much free reign to do whatever they wanted, within budgetary constraints.

Exactly, and it's kinda wild they were writing them essentially at the same time.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby

Exactly, and it's kinda wild they were writing them essentially at the same time.

And filmed back to back.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

And filmed back to back.

Season 2 of Picard and Season 3 were also filmed back to back.

But I heard what happened is all the crappy producers and writers left to do the other properties and basically told Terry Matalas he could do whatever he wanted with S3 (he had no control over S2). He started out working on Voyager/Enterprise and it seems like he actually cares about the legacy of the show compared to the others who just wanted to put their desperate housewives writers stamp on it (check the writing credits for season 2)

I'm loving it so far. The music is all Jerry Goldsmith/James Horner sounding and it feels like a TNG movie. I am getting a bit tired of our legacy characters being treated like garbage by younger members of Starfleet though.

[CaptainCrunch]

It was ok, but usually first episodes are ok.

Spoiler!

From a filmography why do nu trek shows all have to be filmed in darkness. I mean everything was low light. Its kind of annoying.

But really this episodes were all about callbacks, and a bit of fan service.

Why do you need a pump action phaser, that was weird.

Did we get a hint on why Picard hadn't talked to Bev in 20 years. Did he knock her up and lose her number?

Clearly that ship at the end followed the lines of the Narada from the Pineverse movie.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

It was ok, but usually first episodes are ok.

Spoiler!

From a filmography why do nu trek shows all have to be filmed in darkness. I mean everything was low light. Its kind of annoying.

But really this episodes were all about callbacks, and a bit of fan service.

Why do you need a pump action phaser, that was weird.

Did we get a hint on why Picard hadn't talked to Bev in 20 years. Did he knock her up and lose her number?

Clearly that ship at the end followed the lines of the Narada from the Pineverse movie.

Spoiler!

technically the Narada would a prime universe ship that though the singularity or whatever helped create the Kelvinverse, but yeah I hear you.