Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

[SavoirFaire]

Can’t believe how easy you all fall for such basic bait:
-low criticism that clearly demonstrates someone that doesn’t even watch the show
-people jump on it
-critic plays victim

OT: latest episode I groaned when they did “past fling” in the preview but damn did they do a good job on this episode, and that is following up on an excellent episode about empathy in 3 different threads.

Does the show have flaws? Minor ones, sure, but it’s been a long time since I’ve double watched each episode on a new show. Only 4 more left? What a shame.

[gamz247]

I still don't know where they're going with La'an. With Spock, Uhura and Nurse Chapel still on the Enterprise at the time of "Space Seed", why didn't any of them say, "Oh yeah, one of your descendants used to work here."?

Overall though, miles ahead of Discovery and Picard.

[Infinity Cubed]

I still don't know where they're going with La'an. With Spock, Uhura and Nurse Chapel still on the Enterprise at the time of "Space Seed", why didn't any of them say, "Oh yeah, one of your descendants used to work here."?

Overall though, miles ahead of Discovery and Picard.

Yeah, there's just no way around it. They can't even use the (completely ridiculous) excuse of her being "super ultra top secret and we're not allowed to talk about her" that they're using to explain away Spock's sister. Mostly because Spock (and Uhura, and Chapel, and almost definitely fucking Kirk himself given he's going to be on the show next season) acted completely ignorant about everything relating to Khan. 'Course they were also ignorant about the Eugenics Wars in general, even though it's clearly common knowledge (as it should be since, you know, it was such a huge event from history).

There better be a spectacular reason for including her on the show, else they really should have just given her literally any other name.

[Twdft]

Putting whatever actor or scene in a show and not making a big deal out of it = fine
Putting an actor or scene in a show to check off an inclusivity box and making sure it's featured in other media to score points = bad

But they are not checking off any boxes, Star Trek did this from literally day 1.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

I think I'm benefitting from not really knowing anything about TOS (only watched the original movies) and mostly being a DS9/TNG fan. Makes it easier to ignore continuity stuff if you don't know about it

[SavoirFaire]

just curious why people seem to praise it so much or what is it you enjoy about it?

You may do better posting in the Orville thread to get an answer there. I’ve been meaning to give the Orville another chance (only tried the first 3 episodes years back). Then I had a bit of Seth Macfarlane fatigue so that likely clouded my enjoyment of the show.

[Infinity Cubed]

I just started watching The Orville a few weeks ago and I'm about halfway through season 2 and I just don't understand why people say it's good?

It's closer to the 90's era of TNG/VOY than anything that's come since (until now with SNW, which is even closer to TOS than that). That's literally the only reason it's "good." Oh, and because people really like to pretend that if they like something that's even slightly less mainstream than what's popular, that makes them cool and interesting people, even if that something is mediocre at best. Which The Orville definitely is; mediocre and hokey, and just an inch away from non-stop bathroom humor.

[Glorious Leader]

I caught up. An entire episode directed to diplomatic efforts and interpersonal development. And fly fishing! NO KUNG FU KICKS. This is star trek.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

The Spock ep got some great char development. Best one so far, I think!

[P for Pancetta]

Seth Macfarlane fatigue

Got hit real hard by that one after watching a million ways to die in the west.

I caught up. An entire episode directed to diplomatic efforts and interpersonal development. And fly fishing! NO KUNG FU KICKS. This is star trek.

There was this Kung Fu Punch though, great ep.

[Koriani]

I just started watching The Orville a few weeks ago and I'm about halfway through season 2 and I just don't understand why people say it's good? I mean there are some aspects I enjoy but overall I find the stories preposterous, the locations are pretty bland, the writing isn't great, and it's not even particularly funny. I grew up with Next Generation so it's not that I don't like Star Trek or this type of show I'm just curious why people seem to praise it so much or what is it you enjoy about it?

Some things aren't for everyone.

I too tried two full seasons of Orville with hubby and, at the end of two seasons, gave up watching because we just 'didn't get' what was 'so good.' We also both grew up on TNG (so for us that's the 'original trek' lol) and while we didn't 'mind watching' Orville, and thought it was 'fine' - it also didn't make us want to start Season 3. All I remember being the main reason we stopped watching was more to do with just not giving a shit what happened to any of the characters. We just weren't invested, even after two full seasons. So at that point - we just stopped trying.

Other people love it, and that's fine. But its not gonna be for everyone - and that's ok too! You, like us, clearly gave it more than enough chance - just some shows don't hit for everyone.

Whereas - both of us - like ST:SNW - for sure. Investment there. We're in. We also both still watch Picard and DISCO btw (for varying reasons - not saying either are great Trek either). But SNW is definitely the best of the offerings from Paramount+ so far. This and "Lower Decks" - way funnier and better than Orville.

[Mace]

Actually this has been fairly enjoyable since I started watching it. Didn't strike me as interesting as say TNG or DS9 or even Voyager, but still interesting.. knowing Pike's end doesn't help. They need to push past that..somehow

[Ersula]

I just started watching The Orville a few weeks ago and I'm about halfway through season 2 and I just don't understand why people say it's good? I mean there are some aspects I enjoy but overall I find the stories preposterous, the locations are pretty bland, the writing isn't great, and it's not even particularly funny. I grew up with Next Generation so it's not that I don't like Star Trek or this type of show I'm just curious why people seem to praise it so much or what is it you enjoy about it?

The comedy interjected inside a standard Trek show is nice: The problem is the show isn't very original or smart. Character-focused episodes of Orville are good, when it tries to do political commentary its extremely bad. It's not even progressive compared to the Original Star Trek series, instead orville just both-sides every topic. Or it just doesn't make any sense.

(The worst example being the "What if twitter was our judicial system" episode, where a woman asks them how their judicial system works on earth & McFarlane explains the electoral system? Its was the most "wtf did these writers ever take a civics class?" moment of the show)

[Mace]

The comedy interjected inside a standard Trek show is nice: The problem is the show isn't very original or smart. Character-focused episodes of Orville are good, when it tries to do political commentary its extremely bad. It's not even progressive compared to the Original Star Trek series, instead orville just both-sides every topic. Or it just doesn't make any sense.

(The worst example being the "What if twitter was our judicial system" episode, where a woman asks them how their judicial system works on earth & McFarlane explains the electoral system? Its was the most "wtf did these writers ever take a civics class?" moment of the show)

Because Orville is being realistic, it's smart comedy, taking the piss out of our current tropes and political ideals in a funny way. Star Trek is trying to message. It is laden with ideology and socio political preaching. IT has always done anyway, which is why I like SNW regardless. I would say Orville is more entertaining, it's not Star Trek, but then Star trek is not what it once was. I still really like Discovery, and like SNW, Picard Season 2 -- eek, Season 1 was much better..until i found out where it went - that was just rubbish - what happened to Picard.. AND SEASON 2, I STOPPED WATCHING AT EPISODE 2, HALFWAY THROUGH.

[Myradin]

Honestly the only real problems with SNW comes down to it being a prequel, making it much easier to create issues with later canon, especially 50 year old canon which kind of made things up as it went along.

If it wasnt a prequal and the rest was the same, it'd be great. I hope discovery season 5 becomes like this show.

[Infinity Cubed]

Honestly the only real problems with SNW comes down to it being a prequel, making it much easier to create issues with later canon, especially 50 year old canon which kind of made things up as it went along.

If it wasnt a prequal and the rest was the same, it'd be great. I hope discovery season 5 becomes like this show.

At some point you just have to assume that most new series coming out are taking place in alternate universes.

There's just no way SNW can fit into the original TOS series without a massive reset button that not only wipes La'an out of existence (and thus fundamentally altering any and all stories she took part in), but goes even further back and wipes all knowledge of the Eugenic Wars from the memories of the general public. It's otherwise impossible to reconcile the events of this series with Space Seed without this being an alternate universe/timeline.

Once you accept that, it's a lot easier to take the suspense and drama more seriously. Especially in scenes with most of the cast that we know survive into TOS and beyond. "Oh no, Uhura might have got sucked out into space and died! Oh wait, no, she couldn't have. <yawn>"

[everydaygamer]

I kept thinking how Pike sounds very similar to Seth McFarlane's character in the Orville and I was curious if that was intentional. Like is that just how Star Trek captains normally talk in these shows?

It's hard to explain so I'm not sure how clear I'm being.

[Infinity Cubed]

Considering Pike is channeling Kirk and the usual "cowboy in space" trope, I very much doubt they were "inspired" by Seth McFarlane.

That said, I was a bit disappointed by Pike almost completely being a clone of Kirk in that regard. Both live on a ranch in the Midwest, both love to ride horses, etc. It would have been nice to see them do something different for Pike. Like have him be a city boy from a rougher part of town (23rd century-ily speaking), or even just a hardworking farmer or something if they wanted to stick with the Midwest feel.

[everydaygamer]

Considering Pike is channeling Kirk and the usual "cowboy in space" trope, I very much doubt they were "inspired" by Seth McFarlane.

That said, I was a bit disappointed by Pike almost completely being a clone of Kirk in that regard. Both live on a ranch in the Midwest, both love to ride horses, etc. It would have been nice to see them do something different for Pike. Like have him be a city boy from a rougher part of town (23rd century-ily speaking), or even just a hardworking farmer or something if they wanted to stick with the Midwest feel.

Well no in this case I was wondering if Seth was intentionally channeling something from Star Trek.

[molliewoof]

Another good episode, the lack of formality on the bridge annoys me a little but is growing on me, it's just a little jarring.

I know there was talk on here about there being a trans person and some didn't like it, this boiled down to Spock and chapel talking about a new guest they were going to meet, and chapel says something like ' yes they are supposed to be brilliant' that's the worst paraphrase ever and definitely wrong but that is how it was said, the actor (not sure how to gender that sorry) was really good, there were allegories made but I won't spoil the episode and I thought it was done eloquently.

I'm enjoying this series and look forward to it weekly, I can't remember the last time I wanted a ten episode series to be twenty odd as used to be standard