Comment by throwatdem12311
8 days ago
The benefit of it being animated is that if it sucks we can just ignore it, if it’s good we can embrace it.
If they went the full live-action route there’s a higher chance it tarnishes the legacy of the original.
I didn’t like Star Trek: Lower Decks but it didn’t make me feel like Trek has been ruined like Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy did.
Without getting involved in the flame war, SNW and SFA are good shows. Strange New Worlds is the closest to one of the classic shows out of the new ones, though it has some quality issues in the more recent season which Trek show didn't? And Academy is just something different, but that doesn't make it bad. It should be okay for a property to have a show or two that is a different genre than the others. And for what it's worth, the themes are classic Trek at their core.
Came for the Firefly. Stayed for the Trek flame wars. Anyone else feeling all warm and cozy like its the 90s again?
If you didn't like Lower Decks you probably really never liked Star Trek. Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy also happen to be better than... a significant portion of the classics (DS9 will never be surpassed and that's okay).
Lower Decks in traditional Trek fashion had a rough season 1 but was stronger later. SNW an Academy had probably the best two season 1 performances of any Star Trek shows ever produced. There's one gripe about Academy that you can grant: The theme song sucks. Other than that, perfect.
There's some legitimately challenging writing decisions in Discovery and Picard, but if the three shows you mentioned ruin Trek for you, you never got it in the first place.
I love Lower Decks but it’s not like TOS at all. It’s more like a love letter to TOS. Strange New Worlds is VERY much like TOS.
If I had to stack rank:
(1) TOS (1) TNG (2) lower decks (3) the animated series?
But, I watch it for the science fiction. The other series were hardly the same genre.
DS9 was trying to be babylon 5 / sanctuary moon half the time. The lack of science research on voyager still works my spouse into a rage.
2 replies →
Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy are different than a significant portion of the classics. If you think they're better, than it might be you who never really liked classic star trek. Which is okay, once you phrase it as a preference rather than an objective standard that everyone has to agree with.
There's taste and there's product quality. I don't like Game of Thrones, but it's well-produced.
I actually like Discovery, but I can also point out a bunch of problems with it. Disappointing mystery boxes, questionable commitment to canon continuity, so much focus on a single character that many of the most interesting characters get no screen time. The fans often had better ideas about where the story is going than the writers did.
I also really like DS9, TNG, and Voyager, but you can easily also admit seasons 1 and 2 of each are... on the weaker side. They take time to warm up to the quality SNW and SFA nailed in their very first seasons. And bear in mind, we're working with ten episode seasons now, so even Strange New Worlds is barely past it's "season one" in classic show terms. Go find a single episode of Strange New Worlds or Starfleet Academy that's "Code of Honor"-worthy bad. You won't find one because there isn't one.
Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds, and Starfleet Academy are vastly better shows than Discovery or Picard. But more than that, LD, SNW, and SFA are some of the most classic-style Star Trek content you can get. We're talking largely episodic shows which heavily draw from TNG and TOS storylines and plot design, and often focused on discussing the very core of what Starfleet, and Star Trek in general, is about. If people are still griping about the Star Trek produced today, it's because they aren't watching it.
The weird part is these criticisms if pointed at Discovery or Picard might have held weight! But it's directed at shows which are a complete non sequitur for the claims made.
1 reply →
I couldn't get into Lower Decks. And I love Star Trek, so maybe you don't understand the full range of Star Trek fans. I personally love NG but couldn't get into DS9 or Voyager. I disliked Discovery but I love SNW. There are all kinds of Star Trek fans.
DS9 is a good litmus test for determining what kind of Star Trek fan you are. It broke a lot of the optimism and continuum of how Star Trek had worked previously, where hyper-competent people just always seem to come out okay. It smashed reality into the faces of sci-fi fans by building an actual war-narrative into the character arc (an episode of DS9 deals with GWOT PTSD better than almost any other network TV show did) and so it's not really surprising that DS9 was a little controversial when it aired. I stopped watching Discovery after "the burn" event because it didn't make any sense, and it was obvious the writers wanted to start from scratch. Space fungus powers the ship? A character has a panic attack and any ship with a warp drive is blown up? Not a serious sci-fi show and one of the worst entries into the Star Trek catalog. I hope Paramount takes a pause and we don't get any new Star Trek for 5 years, so the writers can grow up.
2 replies →
Keep up with the grade a gatekeeping, lest someone not really liking it watches some of it.
Academy deliberately set out to "be different" and fans of Star Trek are reacting accordingly. The show sucks, its set design and writing are trash, and all Paramount is doing here is counting on actual Star Trek fans watching the back-catalog on Paramount+ to juice the value of the other actual Star Trek IP (ugh Academy is bad, I'm going to re-watch DS9 for the 15th time, or maybe Voyager).
Academy is so bad that I have to wonder if there are people involved who deliberately want to destroy Star Trek so they can "re-boot" it from scratch later.
All of this is fundamentally wrong enough you can just say your blogs said it was too woke so you didn't watch it.
The recent Star Trek shows have their problems, most often whiffing the delivery of a satisfying conclusion to the season arc. (Discovery and Picard both had terrible mystery box seasons where the mystery ended up being dumb and disappointing.) Academy nailed it. The characters, the conclusion, the resolution to different subplot threads, all extremely solid.
Like, you can generally like or dislike a given show, but there are valid criticisms and then there are very invalid ones. And it's very clear you did not actually watch the series.
5 replies →