Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

[NakedMoleRat]

Why even bother with a sick child in the pattern buffer, just to resolve it 6 episodes later?

It would have more impact if we’d seen this going on for a few seasons and his desperation growing more and more with each failure.

And why let an 8 year old make such an irreversible life decision like that?

 

[kalkamel]

Why even bother with a sick child in the pattern buffer, just to resolve it 6 episodes later?

It would have more impact if we’d seen this going on for a few seasons and his desperation growing more and more with each failure.

And why let an 8 year old make such an irreversible life decision like that?

UKDangerman made a good point about the resolution with the sick kid returning as an adult being too soon and should have been delayed till later episodes or even seasons.

 

[Cephus]

Why even bother with a sick child in the pattern buffer, just to resolve it 6 episodes later?

It would have more impact if we’d seen this going on for a few seasons and his desperation growing more and more with each failure.

And why let an 8 year old make such an irreversible life decision like that?

It was their sad attempt at character development. They did that. He's supposedly empathetic now. They can get rid of the trappings, at least until they need a story idea down the road, after which she'll just show up again.

 

[Gregatron]

...geez, the KENOBI thread looks way worse than this one. Yet with many of the familiar refrains: "Let people like what they like" "You just want to hate everything", etc.

Doing the math, here...if KENOBI (part of the STAR WARS brand, which still inexplicably has some pull) pulled in around 3 million viewers when it debuted, and STD only pulled in some 1.7 million viewers (at best) when it was run on free TV, then how do you think SNW (part of the STAR TREK brand, which is far more of a niche franchise) is doing behind a paywall on a failed streaming service? Are we talking CW/BATWOMAN (300-400 or less) numbers, ya think?



Oh, and great job on splintering all of these fandoms, Abrams, Kurtzman, et al.

 

[Lightning]

It was bad. I just kept wondering, didn't that alien explain how to cure the kid a couple of episodes ago? Did they forget about that already?

He was only able to give him the theory behind that medical tech. They weren't allowed to actually cure her. What he shared with M'Benga is explicitly not a cure, just a path to develop one. M'Benga has run out of time to pursue that line of research further

 

[Cephus]

...geez, the KENOBI thread looks way worse than this one. Yet with many of the familiar refrains: "Let people like what they like" "You just want to hate everything", etc.

Doing the math, here...if KENOBI (part of the STAR WARS brand, which still inexplicably has some pull) pulled in around 3 million viewers when it debuted, and STD only pulled in some 1.7 million viewers (at best) when it was run on free TV, then how do you think SNW (part of the STAR TREK brand, which is far more of a niche franchise) is doing behind a paywall on a failed streaming service? Are we talking CW/BATWOMAN (300-400 or less) numbers, ya think?



Oh, and great job on splintering all of these fandoms, Abrams, Kurtzman, et al.

I didn't even watch it, I don't give a crap about Star Wars anymore, but I posted a video from Nerdrotic and they all collectively crapped themselves, prediction what he had to say while denying that they were going to watch the video at all!

It's like talking to 2-year olds. It's really pathetic.

 

[asalaw]

Why even bother with a sick child in the pattern buffer, just to resolve it 6 episodes later?

It would have more impact if we’d seen this going on for a few seasons and his desperation growing more and more with each failure.

And why let an 8 year old make such an irreversible life decision like that?

As Drinker might say, it was inevitable and necessary because reasons. Why? Don’t know. Even in child custody cases, where the wishes of the child regarding which parent to live with are taken into account, the overriding standard the courts must follow is the welfare of the child. That’s the rule everywhere, at least in the US.

The writing on this show is inexcusably bad. It’s not even up to a professional standard. It’s just outcome-based wish fulfillment. By contrast, I just took delivery of The Godfather Notebook, which contains Coppola’s copy of the novel with all his handwritten notes, scene summaries (with more notes), and other documents which attest to his incredibly thorough level of preparation.

I’m not saying TV writers should try to prepare so extensively for their stories—TV schedules don’t permit anything close to that. But somewhere between Coppola’s graduate course in thorough prep and Strange New Hair’s writers just phoning it in, there has to be a workable happy medium that can yield a better level of storytelling. These woke-message-uber-alles shows and films are flopping one after another, so it’s clearly shaping up to be an unsustainable approach.

EDIT—Correction to the above, I think the actual operative phrase is best interests of the child, not welfare. Sorry, Family Law was like 20 years ago…

 

[pengbuzz]

As Drinker might say, it was inevitable and necessary because reasons. Why? Don’t know. Even in child custody cases, where the wishes of the child regarding which parent to live with are taken into account, the overriding standard the courts must follow is the welfare of the child. That’s the rule everywhere, at least in the US.

The writing on this show is inexcusably bad. It’s not even up to a professional standard. It’s just outcome-based wish fulfillment. By contrast, I just took delivery of The Godfather Notebook, which contains Coppola’s copy of the novel with all his handwritten notes, scene summaries (with more notes), and other documents which attest to his incredibly thorough level of preparation.

I’m not saying TV writers should try to prepare so extensively for their stories—TV schedules don’t permit anything close to that. But somewhere between Coppola’s graduate course in thorough prep and Strange New Hair’s writers just phoning it in, there has to be a workable happy medium that can yield a better level of storytelling. These woke-message-uber-alles shows and films are flopping one after another, so it’s clearly shaping up to be an unsustainable approach.

If they keep flopping, maybe someone will think they're beached fish and throw them back.

 

[Gregatron]

I think Paramount made a wise choice, back in the day, to say that only the STAR TREK TV shows and movies counted. There were a ton of novels and comics, some good and some bad, but to try and juggle all of that and make it fit would have been a nightmare.

STAR WARS is a bit of a different story, with its different levels of canon. The EU was generally accepted as canon, but the movies always were the top dog (and even occasionally referenced elements from the books and comics). It was sort of a “you can generally accept the spin-off materials as canon, or choose to take them or leave them" situation.

Nowadays, of course, canon has been smashed with a hammer, and the people producing the live-action material have exceeded the worst of the worst novel/comic writers, because they can’t even get the most basic elements of the universe and the characters right.


Imagine a “canon” line, if you will. Writers lined up for jobs, in the hopes that their stories will be deemed canonical. The lucky ones are at the front of the line to write TV and movies. The next group gets to write spin-off novels and comics. At the back of the line are the fanfiction writers, followed by shippers and slash-fiction writers…and worse.

Somehow, people from the very back of the line—or who were just driving past the line—saw all the hubbub, wanted a piece of the action for themselves, and were able to skip right to the front of the line, with no problems or dissent. And everyone else was told to go home.

 

[pengbuzz]

I think Paramount made a wise choice, back in the day, to say that only the STAR TREK TV shows and movies counted. There were a ton of novels and comics, some good and some bad, but to try and juggle all of that and make it fit would have been a nightmare.

STAR WARS is a bit of a different story, with its different levels of canon. The EU was generally accepted as canon, but the movies always were the top dog (and even occasionally referenced elements from the books and comics). It was sort of a “you can generally accept the spin-off materials as canon, or choose to take them or leave them).

Nowadays, of course, canon has been smashed with a hammer, and the people producing the live-action material have exceeded the worst of the worst novel/comic writers, because they can’t even get the most basic elements of the universe and the characters right.


Imagine a “canon” line, if you will. Writers lined up for jobs, in the hopes that their stories will be deemed canonical. The lucky ones are at the front of the line to write TV and movies. The next group gets to write spin-off novels and comics. At the back of the line are the fanfiction writers, followed by shippers and slash-fiction writers…and worse.

Somehow, people from the very back of the line—or who were just driving past the line—saw all the hubbub, wanted a piece of the action for themselves, and were able to skip right to the front of the line, with no problems or dissent. And everyone else was told to go home.

This is because standards have basically been thrown out the window. And I believe that's the core of the issue now with ST: SNW as well: all the trappings and external effects are there, but the standards which gave it all form and substance have been annihilated. And if anyone complains about it, the woke crowd just attempts to shout them down over it.

Canon (imo) should serve as a type of framework upon which other stories can be built and serve to expand the body of work in any genre or franchise. But like any structure: if you wreck the foundations, the rest is going to sway and heave until it comes down. And this is what has happened with SW and ST, sad to say.

 

[asalaw]

This is because standards have basically been thrown out the window. And I believe that's the core of the issue now with ST: SNW as well: all the trappings and external effects are there, but the standards which gave it all form and substance have been annihilated. And if anyone complains about it, the woke crowd just attempts to shout them down over it.

Canon (imo) should serve as a type of framework upon which other stories can be built and serve to expand the body of work in any genre or franchise. But like any structure: if you wreck the foundations, the rest is going to sway and heave until it comes down. And this is what has happened with SW and ST, sad to say.

I’d settle for a writing staff that showed some skill and talent.

Incidentally, my morbid curiosity got the best of me again with Chato’s review of episode 8. For some reason he seemed to focus at first on the episode being a bottle show (an episode shot entirely on existing sets), which I think is the least important thing about it. Some of TOS’s best episodes were bottle shows; Journey to Babel, Is There in Truth No Beauty?, and The Changeling spring to mind. Restricting an episode to your standing sets doesn’t mean your episode is automatically going to be bad.

He also thought it was “fun” that the actors got to step broadly out of character and chew the scenery; does someone need to remind him that actors are paid to play their roles, and they’re not the audience for the show? Only at the very end does he finally mention that the episode is terminally silly (I would say embarrassingly so). He should have led with that. I have yet to hear him discuss the quality of the writing, which a network executive should be very concerned about—assuming, of course, that he cares about producing a quality product that will keep earning money after the initial run is over.

Man, Rod Serling would fire every one of these knuckle draggers.

 

[pengbuzz]

I’d settle for a writing staff that showed some skill and talent.

Incidentally, my morbid curiosity got the best of me again with Chato’s review of episode 8. For some reason he seemed to focus at first on the episode being a bottle show (an episode shot entirely on existing sets), which I think is the least important thing about it. Some of TOS’s best episodes were bottle shows; Journey to Babel, Is There in Truth No Beauty?, and The Changeling spring to mind. Restricting an episode to your standing sets doesn’t mean your episode is automatically going to be bad.

He also thought it was “fun” that the actors got to step broadly out of character and chew the scenery; does someone need to remind him that actors are paid to play their roles, and they’re not the audience for the show? Only at the very end does he finally mention that the episode is terminally silly (I would say embarrassingly so). He should have led with that. I have yet to hear him discuss the quality of the writing, which a network executive should be very concerned about—assuming, of course, that he cares about producing a quality product that will keep earning money after the initial run is over.

Man, Rod Serling would fire every one of these knuckle draggers.

Frankly, if it's true that the dead roll over in their graves concerning stuff like this, poor Rod would be a dynamo!!!

 

[NakedMoleRat]

Sadly. much like a McDonald's 'value meal' these series, while cold and limp, also never rot and are not likely to be thrown away but kept perpetually under heat lamps.

 

[asalaw]

Hollywood used to be very hostile to “message” stories. There’s an old Hollywood cliché: “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.” Which should tell you how longstanding that wisdom was, before they threw it away. I think the first place I encountered that aphorism was in Adventures in the Screen Trade, by William Goldman. He wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride, and Misery, so he probably had a clue…

 

[Mottrex]

Thursdays Ep..
I can see what they are trying to do. Trying to slot in a show around the era of OG Trek with similar tones but revamped for a modern age viewer who wants Action Action SFX.. You can see they are plucking stories from all over the shop, sometimes it works sometimes not so..
It's certainly IMO better than Discovery and Picard(Groan I hated half the cast) and at the very least takes you on a journey for 45 minutes or so..

 

[Gregatron]

SO therapeutic.

 

[asalaw]

SO therapeutic.

What game is that?

 

[Gregatron]

What game is that?

I believe it’s a mod of BRIDGE COMMANDER.

 

[NakedMoleRat]

Just got an email that I auto paid for next month’s Paramount Puss membership. I totally forgot to cancel it.

 

[asalaw]

Just got an email that I auto paid for next month’s Paramount Puss membership. I totally forgot to cancel it.

Make sure you catch The Offer before you do that. It’s not to be missed.