Star Trek: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations

[Lichfield Dean]

Haven't seen it yet, but everybody seems to be freaking out over this week's Picard episode. I'm expecting The Last Of Us episode 3 levels of brilliance now having read all the glowing tweets!

[MaVilla]

im too young to have appreciated the Original series.

My early teens were TNG, which i loved, what a series, also...and this may sound stupid, but there is a genuine thing around that Picard was like a father figure to many young kids, in terms of morals, beliefs, self belief, dealing with issues and failure, handling success and dealing with others etc etc, and tbh i kind of count myself as one of those, i really looked up to Picard and how he handled himself........im a bit more old and cynical now though lol (so sad to see what the recent series have done to Picard), the final double episode of the series was an all time classic also, brilliant.

DS9 was brilliant also imo, i really like the politics, machinations, cold war type vibes of it, a bit of a darker trek and i really enjoyed it, i thought Sisko was a great character, add to that Terry Farrell (Jadzia) was just stunning...... , also........Garak.....what a character he was, i also found the Vorta really good characters, Weyoun was brilliant, dome of his scenes were brilliant writing and acting.

I found Voyager ok, good, but not great, some great episodes, some really poor, ok characters, nothing special, but ok.

Enterprise.....urrrm.....similar to Voyager, maybe not quite as good.

Everything after that just nosedived off a cliff, i cant believe how they have done their best to completely destroy Star Trek over recent years, its a pity tbh, although i cant say im surprised, they are doing it with many franchises, including Star Wars.

Edited March 3, 2023 by MaVilla

[Rds1983]

7 hours ago, MaVilla said:

im too young to have appreciated the Original series.

My early teens were TNG, which i loved, what a series, also...and this may sound stupid, but there is a genuine thing around that Picard was like a father figure to many young kids, in terms of morals, beliefs, self belief, dealing with issues and failure, handling success and dealing with others etc etc, and tbh i kind of count myself as one of those, i really looked up to Picard and how he handled himself........im a bit more old and cynical now though lol (so sad to see what the recent series have done to Picard), the final double episode of the series was an all time classic also, brilliant.

DS9 was brilliant also imo, i really like the politics, machinations, cold war type vibes of it, a bit of a darker trek and i really enjoyed it, i thought Sisko was a great character, add to that Terry Farrell (Jadzia) was just stunning...... , also........Garak.....what a character he was, i also found the Vorta really good characters, Weyoun was brilliant, dome of his scenes were brilliant writing and acting.

I found Voyager ok, good, but not great, some great episodes, some really poor, ok characters, nothing special, but ok.

Enterprise.....urrrm.....similar to Voyager, maybe not quite as good.

Everything after that just nosedived off a cliff, i cant believe how they have done their best to completely destroy Star Trek over recent years, its a pity tbh, although i cant say im surprised, they are doing it with many franchises, including Star Wars.

Agree with so much in this post and feel like I could've written it. 

Edited March 3, 2023 by Rds1983

[Rolta]

7 hours ago, MaVilla said:

im too young to have appreciated the Original series.

My early teens were TNG, which i loved, what a series, also...and this may sound stupid, but there is a genuine thing around that Picard was like a father figure to many young kids, in terms of morals, beliefs, self belief, dealing with issues and failure, handling success and dealing with others etc etc, and tbh i kind of count myself as one of those, i really looked up to Picard and how he handled himself........im a bit more old and cynical now though lol (so sad to see what the recent series have done to Picard), the final double episode of the series was an all time classic also, brilliant.

DS9 was brilliant also imo, i really like the politics, machinations, cold war type vibes of it, a bit of a darker trek and i really enjoyed it, i thought Sisko was a great character, add to that Terry Farrell (Jadzia) was just stunning...... , also........Garak.....what a character he was, i also found the Vorta really good characters, Weyoun was brilliant, dome of his scenes were brilliant writing and acting.

I found Voyager ok, good, but not great, some great episodes, some really poor, ok characters, nothing special, but ok.

Enterprise.....urrrm.....similar to Voyager, maybe not quite as good.

Everything after that just nosedived off a cliff, i cant believe how they have done their best to completely destroy Star Trek over recent years, its a pity tbh, although i cant say im surprised, they are doing it with many franchises, including Star Wars.

I agree with all of this. Original Picard really is definitely an influence on my moral compass. I maybe have even less respect for Enterprise though, even if I weirdly sing the theme tune in my head every time I feel myself thinking about some conviction.

Star Trek is so full of potential and literally everything they've done since Abrams and Kurtzman got their hands on it has been an abomination. Star Trek shouldn't be made by idiots, and those two and everyone who got involved afterwards are idiots.

And, yep, same with Star Wars—except Andor, which is really good!

Edited March 3, 2023 by Rolta

[Lichfield Dean]

I rewatched Enterprise recently and thought it was great actually. Better than Voyager.

I see Disco has just been cancelled too. One more series and that's it. I managed to keep plodding through series 3 but just gave up at that point when it turned out that all Federation starships had been destroyed by a child that was sad one time, and only Michael Burnham from hundreds of years in the past could figure that out and start the Federation up again and blah blah blah... I hoped it would start afresh in season 3 after the time jump, but somehow it was exactly the same as before with slightly better transporters.

Anyway, looking forward to episode three of Picard tonight, supposed to be awesome. Although Jammer's Reviews does not seem to agree.. was only given another "good" rating there.

[desensitized43]

7 minutes ago, Lichfield Dean said:

I rewatched Enterprise recently and thought it was great actually. Better than Voyager.

I see Disco has just been cancelled too. One more series and that's it. I managed to keep plodding through series 3 but just gave up at that point when it turned out that all Federation starships had been destroyed by a child that was sad one time, and only Michael Burnham from hundreds of years in the past could figure that out and start the Federation up again and blah blah blah... I hoped it would start afresh in season 3 after the time jump, but somehow it was exactly the same as before with slightly better transporters.

Anyway, looking forward to episode three of Picard tonight, supposed to be awesome. Although Jammer's Reviews does not seem to agree.. was only given another "good" rating there.

It's known in the community that all ST shows take 2 seasons minimum to really get going and find their feet. Enterprise was no different. The first 2 seasons of that were passable but nothing more than that but season 3 was some of the best story telling they'd done since DS9 and 4 was pretty good as well. It's a real shame that it was cut down just when it was starting to get into the founding of the federation.

Quite happy Discovery is being cancelled as it's been very disrespectful to the continuity and general "feel" of a ST show. Strange New Worlds first season was pretty spectacular.

[Rolta]

20 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

It's known in the community that all ST shows take 2 seasons minimum to really get going and find their feet. Enterprise was no different. The first 2 seasons of that were passable but nothing more than that but season 3 was some of the best story telling they'd done since DS9 and 4 was pretty good as well. It's a real shame that it was cut down just when it was starting to get into the founding of the federation.

Quite happy Discovery is being cancelled as it's been very disrespectful to the continuity and general "feel" of a ST show. Strange New Worlds first season was pretty spectacular.

Spectacularly unwatchable? I couldn't get past the second episode. It definitely did a better job at pretending to respect Star Trek, but it felt incredibly stupid.

(actually, maybe I already ranted about that on here)

I'm tempted to try Picard again with season 3, but I'm just anticipating another off-tone, overly violent shitfest. "Dr Crusher is not the Dr Crusher you remember—now she's action Dr Crusher..." very predictable. The only good thing about Picard is listening to the Red Letter Media reviews.

[GarethRDR]

6 minutes ago, Rolta said:

Dr Crusher is not the Dr Crusher you remember—now she's action Dr Crusher

I'd give them some leeway there at least, Dr. Crusher was always a better name for a Batman Villain than a Star Trek character.

[GarethRDR]

Besides, casual-robo-racist Dr. Pulaski was the better character anyway.  Though I really feel like they missed a trick not killing her off by having her fall down a turbolift shaft.

 

[Lichfield Dean]

31 minutes ago, Rolta said:

Spectacularly unwatchable? I couldn't get past the second episode. It definitely did a better job at pretending to respect Star Trek, but it felt incredibly stupid.

(actually, maybe I already ranted about that on here)

I'm tempted to try Picard again with season 3, but I'm just anticipating another off-tone, overly violent shitfest. "Dr Crusher is not the Dr Crusher you remember—now she's action Dr Crusher..." very predictable. The only good thing about Picard is listening to the Red Letter Media reviews.

Season 3 of Picard is definitely much better. The tone is still more nu-trek than TNG, and your point about Action Crusher is valid in the first two episodes, but at least so far it is watchable and the TNG characters are showing signs of being their old selves (a tiny bit at least).

I don't expect miracles... But I do think it will prove to be the best season any nu-trek so far (which isn't exactly a high bar).

[Lichfield Dean]

18 minutes ago, GarethRDR said:

Besides, casual-robo-racist Dr. Pulaski was the better character anyway.  Though I really feel like they missed a trick not killing her off by having her fall down a turbolift shaft.

 

Everybody hated Pulaski, but I thought she was great. Really antagonistic and awkward and was a great foil for the rest of crew.

And it was funny how much she hated Data.

[desensitized43]

3 hours ago, Lichfield Dean said:

Season 3 of Picard is definitely much better. The tone is still more nu-trek than TNG, and your point about Action Crusher is valid in the first two episodes, but at least so far it is watchable and the TNG characters are showing signs of being their old selves (a tiny bit at least).

I don't expect miracles... But I do think it will prove to be the best season any nu-trek so far (which isn't exactly a high bar).

I'm finding all of the memes about the ships being so dark really funny. It's so true. In order to make the whole thing 'more edgy' they've turned out the lights.

[VBM]

4 hours ago, Rolta said:

Spectacularly unwatchable? I couldn't get past the second episode. It definitely did a better job at pretending to respect Star Trek, but it felt incredibly stupid.

(actually, maybe I already ranted about that on here)

Strange New Worlds is easily the best best Trek since DS9 and a proper return the monster of the week episodic format. A couple of the later episodes in the series are weaker but it is an actual return to real star trek for me. 

[nick76]

7 hours ago, Rolta said:

And, yep, same with Star Wars—except Andor, which is really good!

Slightly off topic but I didn’t rate Andor at all, I struggled to get through it.  I agree with everything else though re ST and SW.

[rjw63]

2 hours ago, nick76 said:

Slightly off topic but I didn’t rate Andor at all, I struggled to get through it.  I agree with everything else though re ST and StarWarzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Indeed. 

[desensitized43]

8 hours ago, Rolta said:

Spectacularly unwatchable? I couldn't get past the second episode. It definitely did a better job at pretending to respect Star Trek, but it felt incredibly stupid.

(actually, maybe I already ranted about that on here)

I'm tempted to try Picard again with season 3, but I'm just anticipating another off-tone, overly violent shitfest. "Dr Crusher is not the Dr Crusher you remember—now she's action Dr Crusher..." very predictable. The only good thing about Picard is listening to the Red Letter Media reviews.

I disagree about SNW but each to their own! Early days with Picard season 3 but it’s definitely an improvement on the complete abortion of the first couple of seasons but it still doesn’t feel like they’ve got Picard right as a character which is pretty unforgivable really.

[Lichfield Dean]

5 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

I disagree about SNW but each to their own! Early days with Picard season 3 but it’s definitely an improvement on the complete abortion of the first couple of seasons but it still doesn’t feel like they’ve got Picard right as a character which is pretty unforgivable really.

There were flickers of the Picard we know in episode 2. Particularly in the scene where he was talking to Jack in the brig. Maybe the character will slowly return over the course of the series.

[Rds1983]

6 hours ago, desensitized43 said:

I'm finding all of the memes about the ships being so dark really funny. It's so true. In order to make the whole thing 'more edgy' they've turned out the lights.

Seems to be a common theme with shows just making it dark and hard to see what's going on.

[Rds1983]

What's the best place to watch Strange New World's? Don't have a Paramount subscription (is it worth getting one?).

[Lichfield Dean]

Well, Picard ep. 3 was good by Picard's standards, but... it was still completely off tone. Picard has regressed back to being completely annoying. Some of the dialogue was incredibly clunky, and every other line had to be a quip, many of which really didn't land (particularly Worf's). It was unremittingly dark and bleak and violent, which I could live with if it was an occasional thing and was extremely well written (see The Wrath Of Khan) but unfortunately everything in nu-trek seems to have the same note (except Lower Decks which I absolutely love).

I don't know... I didn't hate the episode but it certainly was nowhere near the level of the best of the classic Trek episodes. And it definitely wasn't as good as many people seem to be claiming on the internet.