We already have a parody of Star Trek called The Orville.
Ironically The Orville started as parody and pretty quickly became a relatively straight TNG “reboot”. It is more Trek than Discovery and Picard have been.
Looks good - I’ll watch it for sure. Some of Star Trek’s best moments have been when it’s not taking itself too seriously. I’m happy to see that they’re doing a full-blown comedy using the IP.
Hard disagree. The Orville is a comedic homage but doesn’t stretch all the way to parody. That show is a love letter to Star Trek.
Right. And this was Seth McFarlane’s plan all along. He even mentioned that the network told him to add more funny parts to the show in the 1st season (which ended up being some of the parody elements).
Except for the large percentage of things that used to be goofy or at least light that now take themselves seriously or are full-on grimdark.
Agreed. If I never encounter a grimdark version of something inherently silly again, it will be too soon.
Sincere doesn’t mean Grim Dark. Star Trek shouldn’t be Grim Dark. It means you care about the material and take it seriously even when the moments are light hearted.
Thanks for beating that straw man for us!
So, if it wasn’t called Star Trek, I think I’d be more interested. I like Star Trek, and I like Rick and Morty. A Rick and Morty-esque show about the crew on a Trek-inspired ship could be fun, poking at the ludicrous elements of the original shows.
I would love to see a Star Trek show about some of the Starfleet crew on a spaceship, but this seems like it’s going to be a parody takedown. We already have the “serious” Star Trek shows which don’t feel like Star Trek. I’d rather see another good Star Trek show rather than another parody.
It’s a problem I’ve had since Jar Jar Abrams took over in 2009. If these people don’t want to make Star Trek, then why are they making Star Trek? Go make your other show that you really want instead of diluting what was good about Star Trek!
You could always think of it as a TV show FOR starfleet personnel.
Imagine little Wesley Crusher sitting down next to the replicator and watching an episode while having his cereal and juice. Laughing at those wacky starfleet adventures while preparing for another long day of annoying the Enterprise crew.
No, Ellison is dead.
I have no idea what you are talking about. I was clarifying what I meant by “sincere”.
And nobody was saying sincere=grimdark.
I think that’s what bugs me about the ‘parody within the same universe’-concept: it involves acknowledging or calling out the tropes of Star Trek as tropes. But in-universe, they’re not tropes, they’re just how things work, or happen, or whatever. It puts an additional layer of fictionalization between the original Star Trek and the viewer, while trying to put itself behind it, which I’m not sure will work.
Comedians like Jerry Seinfeld do a lot of work showing things as they really are, whilst highligting the fact that looked from another angle they’re truly bizarre. Lower Decks could easily just be 24th century Seinfeld.
Well, not to belabor the point, but that’s still on different levels of fictionality—Seinfeld is a show in the real world, but with Lower Decks, you’d have both the original and the parody ostensibly occurring at the same level of (show-) reality, thus the tropes that describe reality according to, say, TNG being satirized by Lower Decks, while both ostensibly just depict reality as per the Star Trek universe.
I realize this may just be my idiosyncratic complaint, and doesn’t have to bother anybody else, and I’m determined to give Lower Decks a fair chance (and who knows, it might simply be good TV), but it’s a dissonant note for me.
Good point. I don’t think people were suggesting that it could be regarded as a parody or satire (of Star Trek and its tropes) within the Star Trek universe, just that it could be a comedy within the universe. If you do think of it as a “parody within the universe” your objection is IMHO valid.
I’m with you on this (and totally willing to wear my “unreasonable curmudgeon” badge).
It makes me think about Galaxy Quest, which was an excellent movie that captured a lot of what is great about Star Trek while also pointing out some of the sillier bits.
As soon as Star Trek itself starts poking fun at the prolific and regular loss of Red Shirts, or of the over-the-top heroics of the bridge crew, it stops being Star Trek and becomes a show about Star Trek.
A new clip
