I liked older Star Trek for these reasons. Will I like newer Trek?

Cafe Society
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61

Ooh, I forgot about Very Short Treks.

“Worst Contact” was definitely garbage, as were most of the episodes of Very Short Treks. Most of them were like people who didn’t know Trek trying to do humor. They felt very mean spirited, and even anti-progressive.

However, the last two were a lot better, IMHO, as they were written by actual Star Trek people. My favorite is the penultimate episode “Holograms All the Way Down,” as it says something Trekkies have been saying for ever. But the final episode “Walk, Don’t Run” is decent in that it actually celebrates animated Trek, which was supposed to be the whole point of these. And it ends with a Star Trek message. And a song I enjoyed.

As canon, even those two would suck, but they fortunately are explicitly just comedy sketches.

62

I never even heard of this, but you are right - those were good. It’s OK that they aren’t canon - neither was SNL’s The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise, and it was good!

63

Thanks to this thread we watched Ep1 of SNW last night. We’ll be watching more. Thx!

64

By chance I just saw this article:

“We wrote nine episodes at one point and the network was like, ‘No, we don’t really understand this, it’s a bit too sci-fi, it’s a bit too in-Star Trek.’”

65

JFC, that all read like a monkey humping a football.

Terry Matalas: “A monkey humping a football? What a great idea for Picard Season 4!”

66

That reminds me of a review I read in the newspaper of the Leonard Nimoy production of Sherlock Holmes which complained that it was “too melodramatic”.

67

Just saw an excellent description of Star Trek: Disco in an article:

Other “Star Trek” shows always featured staunch, stone-faced diplomats in ultra-professional workplace environments. The “Discovery” characters, in contrast, are teens at a slumber party, if the teens were over-dramatic theater kids and the slumber party was held after they all lost the one-act-play competition. The crew of the U.S.S. Discovery openly discuss their feelings at all times and perpetually need shoulders to cry on. The professionalism of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” is long behind us.

If this sounds like something that you would like…you are not me.

68

It sounds like something I would not like. I like those staunch, stone-faced diplomats. Just because a character is a stone-faced diplomat doesn’t mean they can’t be interesting. DS9 is the perfect example. Sisko, Dax, Bashir, Odo, Kira, O’brien, Worf Mark II, even Quark and the various minor characters like Garak are all adults who don’t have any hang-ups about adulting. It’s just part of who they are. The only whiny kids are actual kids. TNG and TOS are also in the same boat, although the characters are a notch below DS9 on the interesting scale. IMHO that’s part of the charm of Star Trek. If I want over-dramatic teens, or even adults who still have hang-ups about adulting, Star Trek isn’t where I’m going to look.

69

I have just watched the pilot episode of “Strange New Worlds”. This seems the perfect thread to write into.

Will you like newer Trek? I’m 63 years old today. Attended some of THE earliest Star Trek conventions in Philly and South Jersey in the early 1970s.

I do not dress up, I do not attend conventions as an adult. I cannot speak in Klingon. And yet it is no exaggeration to say that the fundamentals, the underpinnings of what Gene Roddenberry proposed have guided my moral compass my entire life.

It is a good way to view the world. To view individual encounters and situations. I’m deeply flawed like all of us are, yet I do try. I try to be civil to all, to be empathetic and understanding. To try to see the good.

Those are the nuanced layers of the best of Star Trek. “Strange New Worlds” will fill your belly nicely if Star Trek and what is truly stands for is what you’re hungry for.

I sat with my young son in my lap and watched the pilot episode of “Next Generation”. Watched the saucer detach from the Engineering section below. Was suitably blown away by the newer tech and SPFX. But… that series maintained and expanded upon the best of Star Trek. Thus it succeeded.

Other series that have run their course left me cold for various reasons. Both Deep Space 9 and Voyager were of little interest to me. We need to binge the latest season of Picard. Good writing. Genuine Star Trek.

I’ve never had any interest in nit-picking over what is genuine, what is Canon, what is proper. Stick to the moral compass and let your imagination guide you. Thus, I’m happy to say that the J.J. Abrams re-boot Star Trek left me breathless with joy. It was a solid Star Trek. The next one, less so. The third re-boot was a mess for a variety of screenplay reasons. It’s not the third one that should have been made, but greedy is as greedy does.

Find the clarity in the writing, in the characters, in the motivations behind dialogue and plot lines. If it feels like Star Trek, you’ll know it by the end of the episode and you’ll genuinely enjoy it.

I very much enjoyed the pilot I literally finished watching 15 minutes ago. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds? Bring them on.

LLAP,

Cartooniverse

70

Since I last posted in here, I watched the whole series, and I have to add to the praise for Lower Decks. That is true trek! They put the hope back in there! Mariner (maybe? Tendi?), paraphrased “I don’t want to shoot things. I want to science things!” And the last episode was as good as All Good Things… maybe better.

It’s also funny as shit!

71

Agreed, SNW & Lower Decks really got Trek right.

I watch all of Discovery, but it was barely Trek and a lot of dreck.

72

I liked Star Trek: The Next Generation best—great storytelling, compelling characters, strong interpersonal dynamics, and just the right touch of humor. I also enjoyed TOS for many of the same reasons. It was groundbreaking when it first aired and really set the standard for sci-fi television. The humor came with Shatner’s hammy acting (not unlike Adam West’s Batman).

I gave the later Star Trek series a fair shot, but none of them really pulled me in. That said, I enjoyed most of the movies, though a few leaned a bit too hard into melodrama.

As mentioned upthread, I really liked The Orville (on par with TNG)—it captured the spirit of TNG while dialing the humor up to 11. Despite the jokes, the sci-fi storytelling stayed smart and well-crafted. McFarlane really nailed the balance.

73

Can I butt in with a ST question? Which variant of the series had them interacting with a planet/ universe that had the design esthetic of the old Flash Gordon (or maybe Buck Rogers) serials? The costumes and space ships resembled those old serials. It’s been bugging me.

74

That sounds like the Voyager episode “Bride of Chaotica!” – it largely took place on the ship’s holodeck.

75

I watched the first two seasons of Discovery but was not impressed. I watched the first episode of season 3 and quit. As you said, barely Trek and a lot of dreck.

76

While that is the episode that features The Adventures of Captain Proton the most, it first appears in the Voyager episode “Night,” and is a somewhat key part of that one.

It’s just the intro for “Thirty Days” to show it’s still there, and then gets like a fan nod in “Shattered” as it features interesting parts of different episodes.