By the way, I didn’t hate this episode. I didn’t love it, but it gave a lot of background to SAM that made her more interesting than “the weird hologram girl”. And I loved the DS9 references, including the appearances from Jake. And we find out that Dax is on the faculty?! I hope that wasn’t a throwaway, and she becomes a regular character (plus I think the actor did a good job).
I loved DS9, for me it ranks 3rd after Strange New Worlds and Enterprise. There aren’t that many references to it in later shows, so seeing the love in this episode was great.
I also liked that Avery Brooks gave his blessings to this episode, and gave permission to use his voice toward the end.
Holy shit, I did not recognize her with that stuff on her face. No wonder I liked her. I remember Tawny from one episode of SNW (the crossover with Lower Decks) but I also watched her on Space Force. Yet I didn’t recognize her at all.
My problem is not that the show is fixated on aiming for the tween and teen demographic, but that their approach to it is so formulaic: of course the usual romance and rivalries, insecurity and belonging, but even more that each character is working so hard on defining themselves in relation to, and individuating from, their generally dysfunctional families of origin. So this goofy cute one is SAM’s dealing with her overbearing “parents”, last week Jay-den’s parental disapprovals, Admiral’s daughter big daddy issues, fish boy can never be good enough, Betazoid kids dealing with … parental expectations, and of course idealized absent momma.
I suspect many teens are not all that drawn to these issues as enough to keep them coming back without actually moving a good story in each ep.
Seems like they’ve found it’s cheaper to produce dreck than gold, and the ideal ratio for both profit and audience retention is 50/50 of each. So maybe watch every other one now that you’re in sync with their cadence?
Heh, yeah, thanks for reminding: TOS and TNG had quite their own share of “cringe” even when viewed in first run so there are benchmarks for both the high and the low bar.
I kind of liked 5. Like Discovery, the series’ biggest flaw is its own self-seriousness, and this was a silly little episode from the point of view of a silly character. Besides, it honored the best - yet most ignored - Trek series. I enjoyed it more than the Klingon episode, which was like being hit with a sack full of anvils.
As for 6, it was the best episode so far, but like the rest of the show, it was over-directed. The writing was decent and the acting was good; the director needed a shot of Ritalin. Trek can and should be campy at times, but this show feels unintentionally campy, which isn’t a good thing.
At the beginning of episode 7 (Ko’Zeine, or the Spring Break episode), an overhead announcement from the “digital dean of students” mentioned a galactic meteor shower. (“Don’t miss it!”) What; a meteor shower that could be seen across the galaxy? And then, as some of the cadets are beaming to their home cities, Jett Reno said to one of them about their destination, “Duluth. Can I talk you out of this?” Nice insult.
Speaking of transportation, a species having a point-to-point long-distance wormhole generator kind of like an Iconian gateway would have been a pretty useful thing to share around, especially during the burn.
I don’t know if any SF TV show/movie has ever addressed comets/meteor showers/“asteroid fields” in a non-stupid way. Maybe The Expanse with actually having the asteroid belt extremely widely spaced comes closest.
