Strange New Worlds has apparently made a bunch. Lower Decks did fine too.
They are making money even with the whiffs at bat.
I just don’t know where I even want them to go from here?
I am ill-placed to offer a solid opinion, so I’ll just blather.
Like Cracker Barrel, they need to attract new young viewers while not offending the 70yos who watched ST as kids.
Tall order. IMO nearly impossible. We’ll see.
And the Gen-Xers and Millennials who grew up on TNG.
Good point. All of whom are geezers from the POV of today’s teens. Which is not a dig at today’s young people; it’s been that way since before the dawn of human history.
I don’t think it’s possible anymore to be “Everybody’s Star Trek”. That’s why I don’t begrudge them trying things like Starfleet Academy even though it wasn’t my cup of tea. A wise man (don’t remember who) once said. “It doesn’t always have to be your Batman - sometimes it needs to be someone else’s”.
Indeed. To a great degree SNW and Lower Decks captured a lot of the spirit of TOS/TNG.
Meanwhile Picard delighted many AND pissed off many.
But an important thing has been mentioned. Does the audience want it to go anywhere in particular? Or will they say to the rights-holders, “pleasantly surprise me”? And do we have a situation now in which like the real-life carriers Enterprise, there MUST be one either running or at least on the drawing board getting pitched at any given time? Or can the whole edifice afford to take a breather?
After it became established you could have multiple concurrent Star Treks plus multiverses, that created openings for niche properties for specific demographics, but that in turn risks brand dilution issues AND riles up the gatekeepers. Me, I can live with picking and choosing which Treks to make mine w/o deprecating others’ choices (OK, except: Cumberbatch, Khan? REALLY?)
My preference would be for going back what worked in the old days. I’d like to see an adventure of the week series. Basically a TNG style show in the (admittedly short) time period after DS9 but before the supernova of the Romulan sun, when the Federation was at its peak. They should go back to the way it was before JJ Abrams got a hold of the franchise and ruined Gene Roddenberry’s vision.
As a Star Wars fan, I didn’t know I wanted Andor, but it ended up being the best thing the franchise produced in decades. So the latter, I suppose. Make something good and we’ll watch it.
I know that I don’t want formulaic. And I don’t enjoy when it isn’t formulaic but they are still trying to follow a formula? Must have character to represent demographic A and B …
Part of Andor that for the most part it appreciated the universe was big and has room for different stories. Yeah that story did end up being a universe altering one but for a while it wasn’t that, and IMHO, that was that series at its best.
Lower Decks was mostly that, with humor and allusions for the long time fans as bonus
And that’s one more thing to bear in mind. After patient wait you get something like Andor. But not that long before, you got Solo.
Oh yeah, that… waaay back somewhere here I posted that, no, please don’t give me Ensign Token, and don’t give me a Very Special Episode. Bring up issues in a manner organic to the worldbuild.
I feel like such an idiot that I only realized today that Caleb’s mom on this show was She-Hulk.