I generally agree, especially about Breaking Bad—haven’t seen Better Call Saul yet though.
One big example of winking at the audience with a meta-reference and pulling you right out of the movie is in First Contact: “And you people, you’re all astronauts… on some kind of Star Trek.” If they had cut that line, the scene would’ve worked very well without it. I still watch FC often, because it’s the best of the TNG films, but that line always tweaks me.
TNG fan service—you forgot about McCoy in Encounter at Farpoint. ”Well, she’s got the right name. You treat her like a lady, and she’ll always bring you home.” And the first regular broadcast episode, The Naked Now, was wholesale fan service based on the early TOS episode with the same plot.
I think you’re spot on about internal logic and organic storytelling. Whenever I go back to the Godfather films, they strike me as marvels of great cinema writing, and they got the screenwriting Oscars to prove it (I’m ignoring the third film—the less said about that one, the better). I’ve never seen Trek rise to that level, but I’ve seen it rise above itself numerous times. Measure of a Man and Inner Light spring to mind from TNG, and of course City, Errand, and maybe one or two others from TOS.
The broadest complaint about TOS that I can muster is that it so often was mired in 60’s-style TV melodrama, like Journey to Babel (albeit very good melodrama) or Conscience of the King (some of the most painfully contrived dialog of the whole series).
But returning to P3, I maintain that it’s been the best written of the three seasons (admittedly a low bar), and I find it very entertaining. Amanda Plummer chews the scenery overmuch, but what genre villain doesn’t? On the whole, I’ve found this season gripping and I want to see more.
I’m coming more and more to the conclusion that BETTER CALL SAUL is actually the, well,
better of the two shows. Deeper, more methodical, less dependent on crime-genre plots and action, and even more focused on characters and relationships. With a more subtle bag of writing tricks at its disposal, since Vince Gilligan and his crew had been honing their craft for years on the parent show. BB and BCS are a brilliant duology, and an achievement unequalled in the history of television.
There are people out there who have only watched and loved one show or the other (and it’s not strictly necessary to watch both to understand and enjoy both), but each show is one half of a greater whole. I like to think of it as one giant show that switched gears and focus halfway through, jumped back in the timeline, then jumped forward again to provide a brilliant coda and satisfying ending to both halves. Some of the best storytelling I’ve ever seen, and perhaps second only to STAR TREK in regards to my boundless love and admiration.
…and then there’s KurtzmanTREK, largely still drooling at the starting line.
Yeah, I think that meta jokes and references aimed at the audience, like that joke in FIRST CONTACT, should be used very, very sparingly, AND should be earned, AND should make logical sense, in-universe.
And I didn’t forget those early TNG examples. McCoy was never even named in the pilot, remember. And, in-universe, it’s not at all outside the realm of possibility that McCoy requested to tour the new ship bearing the
Enterprise name. I think they found just the right tone and balance for that cameo without being gratuitous and distracting. A passing of the torch via a surprise cameo without sailing over the top. Although it’s placement in the episode is a bit odd (a choice no doubt intended to cap off “Part 1” of the pilot with the cameo when the episode was cut in half for syndication).
And, of course, GENERATIONS later had Kirk, Scott, and Chekov aboard the
Enterprise-B as a sort of in-universe publicity stunt, so there’s an in-universe precedent.
As for “The Naked Now”, I see it less as fanservice than as a really lazy recycling of an old TOS plot in order to quickly establish the new show’s characters.
