paramount+ Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

[Monica Dream]

The "too modern" thing is grating, but for now I'm willing to overlook it. Apart from that, the premier was solid.

 

[Beebo Brink]

And it had a good start, so let's see to where it will go from now on.

You trashed Picard, but love this series? Huh. That's a puzzler.

I was really hoping this new series would pan out, but I was incredibly disappointed. I found all aspects of it -- writing, directing and acting -- to be lackluster and boring. Mrs. Beebo flatly declared she'd seen enough by the end of the first episode and had zippo interest in watching any more. Had to agree with her.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Why is this so puzzling? Picard is just a badly writting pile of trash, full of logical holes, plot holes and then some. It makes not much sense at all. There are good reasons why that season has only an audience score of 29% at Rotten Tomatoes.

Picard should have been an hommage and modern ending to one of the most iconic characters of Star Trek ever, but instead it's just trashing that character away, making it a hollow shell of its previous glory.

Even if it would not be part of the Trek verse it would be still bad enough on its own. But that show simply cannot function without being Trek because Picard is a Trek character.

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

You trashed Picard, but love this series? Huh. That's a puzzler.

I was really hoping this new series would pan out, but I was incredibly disappointed. I found all aspects of it -- writing, directing and acting -- to be lackluster and boring. Mrs. Beebo flatly declared she'd seen enough by the end of the first episode and had zippo interest in watching any more. Had to agree with her.

My roommate and I are concerned that ST:BNW to be entirely too J.J.Abrams/Kelvin timeline-esque with ACTION! CAMERA TILT! BIG SHIPS! ACTION! and INSANE AMOUNTS OF UNNECESSARY LENS FLARE!! ... and then weak on the technology/philosophy/moral-quandry stuff that was kind of the core of earlier Star Trek.

But I'm sure I'll stick with it because of my ridiculous fetish for hot guys with pointy ears. Something that probably contributed to my frustration with Picard. They kept the increasingly irritating Raffe and dropped Elnor?! Grrrrrrrrr!!!!! (I still haven't watched the finale yet... roommate's out of town, so both shows are on hold at the moment)

 

[Beebo Brink]

But I'm sure I'll stick with it because of my ridiculous fetish for hot guys with pointy ears.

On that we can agree, the actor is a hunk. It's a challenging role -- the stoic facade covering a volcano of emotion -- and it took Nimoy more than a couple of episodes to grow into it. Hopefully this guy can get there, too. Part of me was thinking he's too pretty to be Spock... but hey, I'm not going to say no to eye candy. I also thought the young woman cast as Uhura was adorable.

I have a creative disagreement with their choice to make Pike aware of his fate. To my mind, it actually robs the show of tension rather than adding to the drama. Since a goodly portion of the audience is fairly knowledgeable about his backstory, I think the dramatic tension would be greater if Pike is blithely unaware of what will happen to him eventually. Viewers would recognize the pathos of the character without having it spoon-fed to them. It just seemed a lazy choice to me, but that's a subjective judgment in terms of what I would have done as a writer, rather than a criticism.

 

[Lexxi]

I thought the first episode had some boring moments, and at times leaned too heavily into the angst that killed my ability to watch Discovery, but overall thought the first episode was the best Star Trek tv episode I'd seen in a good long while.

Oddly enough I had kind of a similar "seen enough" vibe, but for opposite reasons (liked it instead of disliked it). I thought the first episode was good enough by itself and that I'd "seen enough" so didn't particularly want to have any future episodes appear to, most likely, kill my enjoyment of that first episode.

Had a similar plot to one of the Star Trek films. That one film wherein the natives worshipped Enterprise, which is how

Spoiler

this episode ended; basically

.

I've no real desire to see Sam Kirk and his story.

 

[Monica Dream]

I've no real desire to see Sam Kirk and his story.

I've gotta admit I feel the same way. The way that they seem to be going out of their way to cram as many TOS characters as they can into this show (not counting spock, obvs -he belongs here) is annoying af.

After DIS and PIC I don't have a lot of faith in the people making this; but we'll see. I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised by still enjoying it at the end of the season. Not counting on it, though.

 

[Ghost Pepper]

I have a creative disagreement with their choice to make Pike aware of his fate. To my mind, it actually robs the show of tension rather than adding to the drama. Since a goodly portion of the audience is fairly knowledgeable about his backstory, I think the dramatic tension would be greater if Pike is blithely unaware of what will happen to him eventually. Viewers would recognize the pathos of the character without having it spoon-fed to them. It just seemed a lazy choice to me, but that's a subjective judgment in terms of what I would have done as a writer, rather than a criticism.

I think that part was setup in Discovery before they decided to have a series with Pike in it. If so they got stuck with it.

 

[Monica Dream]

I think that part was setup in Discovery before they decided to have a series with Pike in it. If so they got stuck with it.

It was, but that doesn't mean they had to be stuck with it. They could mention later that it was resolved between the two series somehow (mind meld and memory tampering? )

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Well it's true that Discovery has no problem with ignoring Trek continuity on a big scale; so it's a nice change for a while that SNW cares about it to a certain degree.

We just have to remember Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, where Sybok offered all people redemption and to ease their pain. And all major cast members refused, because our pain is what defines us and makes us thrive. So this really is in sync with old Trek tradition.

Of course the more questionable thing are these time crystal thingies which DIS invented. Well, like a lot of stuff which happened in DIS and makes absolutely no sense.

 

[danielravennest]

The "too modern" thing is grating, but for now I'm willing to overlook it. Apart from that, the premier was solid.

The original Enterprise sets were built on a very low budget. For example, the upper "screens" around the perimeter were just static pictures. It only had to be good enough for 1966-era televisions. I first watched it in black and white, because color TV was for rich people. But for an 8-10 year old, it was "science-fictiony" enough to be awesome. There wasn't any reason to build set details the audience couldn't see.

Of course our expectations are higher now, given that we carry the equivalent of their communicator, tricorder, and ship's talking computer in our pockets.

 

[Sean Gorham]

I have no problem with SNW looking modern. The set and costumes feel like classic Trek. That's really all that matters. Everything is a remix, anyway.

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

I've watched the first episode, and it reminded me of the growing pains of first season TNG. I didn't think it was bad, but it wasn't great either. I think it has potential, but will need time to reach it...if it does. I liked the characters and actors for the most part. Uhura is especially adorable. Spock is a pretty-man. I could imagine the SNW T'Pring being the sort to pull of the stuff she did in the novel Spocks World, and she reminded me of the original actress. The character I didn't like was La'an, not sure why. I loved Ortegas line about how things happen when she's in the big chair.

The director needs to cut back on the wild camera tricks, maybe take some cues from The Cage and TOS. I also want slightly more TOS-y lighting and sound-effects. I like the costuming, the women's costumes reminded me of the ones they used in The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before. I don't think I heard any computer voice? But I hope they have enough phonemes of Majel's voice to synthesize a computer voice.

Finally, they need to use this during a fight scene, tradition:

 

[Free]

I don't think I heard any computer voice?

Maybe they're WORK-ING on it...

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

The original Enterprise sets were built on a very low budget. For example, the upper "screens" around the perimeter were just static pictures. It only had to be good enough for 1966-era televisions. I first watched it in black and white, because color TV was for rich people. But for an 8-10 year old, it was "science-fictiony" enough to be awesome. There wasn't any reason to build set details the audience couldn't see.

True. And this was also the reason to invent something as plot device to save lots on expenses, namely the transporter device. Because filming landings on planets was not possible with that small budget back then.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

And now you've witnessed the glory that is M'hanit!

It was a solid episode, this "children of the comet." What I liked most about it is that it finally gave Uhura some character background, which we never had before.

And what's not so great about it...

Spoiler

There's this big hulk of a space ship by the new alien race of the week, the shepherds. Where all scans told that it outlcassed Enterprise by several multitudes, and centuries. And then this advanced piece of overpowered space ship performs really bad in the fight against the Enterprise. Not so believable.

 

[Free]

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Yeah, Kirk had a PhD in being subtle as fuck.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Hemmer performing a miracle.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

So we are now in mid season - episode 5 out of 10 has aired.

If there's a complaint about it, then that it is feeling a little bit too cramped. Too much story going on in that tiny amount of time. Otherwise solid Star Trek entertainment, but again for me season 1 still has to deliver that one episode which stands out amongst all of the others so far.

So the Enterprise docks somewhere and the crew has a shore leave. The big underlying main plot though of this episode is understanding each other better.

So: Pike understanding what these aliens really want who the Federation wants as allies. Spock understanding his fiance better, and vice verse through

Spoiler

accidental body swap

. La'an and Una (aka the fun police) trying to figure out what fun really means to the crew, and more importantly how to have some fun because their idea of fun before was running the ship.

And really lots of comedy in this episode. Also La'an and Una playing bad cop good cop. La'an gives off the impression that she could make a male Klingon cry with ease. And I'm still not used to seeing Mystique as Number 1... mhmh. And M'Banga really needs more screen time.

Also the episode where the intro airs so far latest in the episode - around minute 16.