https://www.darkhorizons.com/star-trek- ... irs-early/

New episode tonight!

And a musical episode coming soon....

Olorin wrote: Sat Jul 22, 2023 12:40 pm
And a musical episode coming soon....

Oh dear lord....why?

Whoever thinks these are a good idea? Nothing is more jarring than shoehorning song and dance into what is normally a drama series. Musicals also don't have nearly the broad appeal that some people think they do. I, in particular, hate them with a passion.

Never thought I'd purposefully miss an episode of Star Trek, but then I've already broken that rule by not bothering to watch a single ep of Discovery's season 4, and will do the same with 5.

Fringe had a musical episode and it was delightful. It was cast as a 1940s film noir, with the actors playing different variations on their regular characters. In a way, the last season strange new worlds episode where everyone was in a fantasy Kingdom was very much like it just without music. So while I'll grant that just on the face of it a musical sounds like a bad idea, it has the potential to be very cool, if they can pull it off.

Olorin wrote: Sat Jul 22, 2023 6:42 pm Fringe had a musical episode and it was delightful. It was cast as a 1940s film noir, with the actors playing different variations on their regular characters. In a way, the last season strange new worlds episode where everyone was in a fantasy Kingdom was very much like it just without music. So while I'll grant that just on the face of it a musical sounds like a bad idea, it has the potential to be very cool, if they can pull it off.

Sorry, you'll never convince me of that.

I can't suspend my disbelief because it pulls me completely out, knowing those characters would never act that way. Ever. Unless of course, they try to dress it up as some alien influence making them behave in some bizarre fashion that causes them to spontaneously burst into song at the drop of a hat—essentially what every musical is, silly and nonsensical, and not a reflection of reality in any way.

Still stupid. Hate the idea.

Well I've been waiting for an episode where Uhura sings. I just didn't realize everybody else would be singing also.

On the fringe episode, the whole episode plays out as a drug induced fantasy inside Walter's head, after he takes some particularly strong drugs when his son disappears. That could be another option for strange new worlds, that it's all from the viewpoint of one character. Not that I have any hopes anymore of convincing you that it might be OK. But I guess in a week and a half we will know, because I think it is going to be the ninth episode of the season.

So how did you like last night's episode, the fabled lower decks crossover? I thought it was cute, sometimes clever, and harmless fluff. I think I probably had more trepidations about it than you do about the musical episode, and I think it ended up being just fine. There was a moment or two where I laughed out loud.

https://www.tumblr.com/gabolange/723662254624702464

Prepare for full-on Glee!

Yep, that was about as vomit-inducing as I was predicting.

Pass.

And it seems I was also correct on the tried and true alien interference/subspace phenomenon causing the crew to act out of character. Sigh.

Lastly, do they really have so shoehorn Kirk into nearly every episode now? Feels like he spends more time on the Enterprise than the Farragut. They've taken an appearance that should've been a one-and-done special event and made it trivial and constant. Not impressed.

OK, I am with you on the Kirk issue, though I am cautiously optimistic about the musical thing. But yes, Kirk does not really need to be present every other episode. I can only guess that they're trying to establish him as having a relationship with the crew and the ship already, so he is the natural choice once pike leaves the ship. But take it easy, guys! A little goes a long way.

I am beginning to wonder at this point, and provided the numbers for SNW remain strong, if they're not thinking about a TOS revival in some shape or form.

They wouldn't be able to do much with the first three years of the five-year mission (essentially seasons 1-3), but there are the so-called 'lost years' of years 4 and 5 (TAS?), and the second five-year mission...

I finally got a chance to watch the trailer on my TV, and there are two Kirk/Ka'an smooch/pre-smooch scenes in it.


I had not thought about a reboot of the original series. Now that you mention it, that seems quite possible.

Jumping in to say I am still a bit behind but I have FINALLY started SNW season 2.

A lot to chew on in this video, and I can't say that I disagree with a lot of what is said. Perhaps it's just time to stop caring. and enjoy what we're given at face value?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYfU4IQWB3g

I didn't watch the whole thing, only about five minutes or so because it was pretty obvious where it was going, but they basically said in that episode that all the time monkeying had shifted Khan forward, had delayed that part of the timeline. That does not automatic translate into Spock having a sister or ships looking different or any of the other things that people like to quibble about. As far as I recall, I think it just addressed that one specific nagging issue. Is it a different timeline? I guess perhaps in the one specific sense, as pertains to Khan and the Eugenics Wars, yes. You know, according to quantum theory, when I got up this morning and decided to put on a dark colored shirt because I wouldn't be going out in the sun because of the heat today, instead of the light colored shirt I normally would've put on, I created a different universe. But pretty much everything else stayed the same, so I don't get too shook about those things, I guess. And if the notion that the Eugenics Wars shifted and that also means that Spock has a foster sister we never knew about, or the Klingons look different again, and that helps them accept the newer shows, I'm fine with that.

And yes, any inclination I ever had to nitpick every last thing to find out if it's consistent or not, I have given up on. Let's face it: the real world is going to hell in a handbasket. I watch Star Trek for enjoyment and escapism and I don't want to turn it into some sort of research project. I just want to enjoy it as long as it doesn't get too far out of bounds with what I expect. And as I mentioned before, I am glad that they retconned the Eugenics Wars and gave a reason for it, a reason consistent with what's already been established in essentially every Star Trek series after the original , that people are time traveling and causing problems. Because it not only makes the Star Trek timeline less inconsistent with the real world, but also smooths out various other things have cropped up over the years. For example, now when Khan says things like, "on Earth 200 years ago I was a prince," the math is no longer off as much as it used to be.

But honestly, when the narrator snarks about the fact that the episode took place in Toronto, where it was also filmed, it makes it clear to me that they just want to quibble over everything conceivable while trying to demonstrate how clever they find themselves. It just seems part and parcel of all the negativity that has seeped into pop-culture over the years: people complaining about non-white characters in Star Wars, people review-bombing shows or movies before they've even seen them to keep other people from watching them, and so forth. I don't mean to sound sour and I'm sorry if I do, but sometimes it is SO hard anymore just to kick back and enjoy something without somebody on YouTube or some other website trying to ruin it.

It's a pity you were turned off by the narrator's bias and didn't get all the way through... but I totally get that. The point being, if you can set that aside and focus on the other points, they do make sense and I honestly feel the guy is right, unfortunately, specifically the comments about that episode essentially explaining why the showrunners don't think that Star Trek fans have the ability to distinguish between reality and a TV show. To base an entire episode on explaining why the Eugenics Wars didn't happen in 1996 because they didn't happen in the real world yet either is... a shaky premise at best. But... I can sense this is not a conversation you wish to have, so I will bow out here. Apologies for posting the video, it wasn't my intention to irritate you.

I don't think it's a case of the writers not giving fans credit for having a clue. Part of it is, you have something that no longer makes sense and you come up with a clever way to explain it away, why wouldn't you? We all loved it when Enterprise explained why the Klingons went from ridgy to smooth. And it's not even that they think fans can't tell reality from fiction. They know, and in this they are quite right, that Star Trek fans tend to be encyclopedic resources of Star Trek lore, and can be very nitpicky when things are inconsistent. But beyond that, one of the "prime directives" of Star Trek, at least as producers see it at some level, is for it to be accessible and enjoyable for everyone who's never seen Star Trek, those hordes of potential fans who are kept away only by fearing they won't get it because it's too vast and impenetrable, or it won't make sense. How often in the TNG movies did Worf have to explain that he was a Klingon? And lowering the bar to entry for the great unwashed is way bigger than Star Trek. We'll never see a big budget movie adaptation of War of the Worlds because Hollywood believes that moviegoers won't buy into a story about Martians invading Britain at the turn of the 20th Century because in 2023 we know that a) there are no Martians and b) they didn't attack Earth in the early 1900s. So, given all of this, if someone comes up with an idea that unsnarls a part of Star Trek history that has become snarled and also removes any bars to credulity for newcomers, they'll run with it.

I wasn't annoyed at you for posting the video; I was just annoyed that people are still on the attack, despite how good SNW has been. I remember all too well the late 1980s and a lot of TOS fans derisively dismissing TNG as "Trek Lite" and never giving it a chance. Granted, it was pretty shaky the first two years but even then it was worth watching for Patrick Stewart. And Strange New Worlds has been the best new show of the modern Star Trek era. While some might find that a low bar to hurdle, the show is very popular and quite possibly on its way to being considered on par with the best of the Berman years. But, it's a cottage industry (literally...clicks make money) for people to post negative content. And yes, I get that you're saying they made some points that seem reasonable. But if they insist on low blows like mocking it for setting that episode in Toronto, then they are going to turn some people away before they ever get to the meat of it. There's a website called Screen Rant that often has interesting articles on pop culture offerings. But their YouTube channel is a series of videos on the theme of "Pitch Session for" (fill in the blank with the movie or show they're going to diss). The thumbnail always shows a character or two with their eyes photoshopped to look huge and googly, like Precious Moments figures. Look, if somebody doesn't like a movie, that's their prerogative, but don't try to draw people in by making the actors look ridiculous. I got so tired of seeing those thumbnails pop up that I blocked the channel.

Conversely, and in a totally different genre, there's a YouTuber I really like named Rick Beato. He's a music producer and he does videos on music theory and musicians. Granted, he'll do videos where he critiques today's popular music and tut-tuts over it, but he does many more videos where he dissects a song and explains why it is great. Very informative and makes me like a good song even more! And his recent memorial videos for Gordon Lightfoot and Tina Turner were wonderful. I'm hoping he does one on Sinead O'Connor. She wasn't around nearly as long, but she was extraordinary. Well, I'm way off topic now, and if I don't feed Jasmine soon, she's going to start gnawing my leg off, so that's it for now.

Regarding the Khan issue, I guess retconning age and all that doesn't bother me, because, to be honest, it wasn't like TOS seemed to have any focus on keeping things canon and consistent anyway, TOS was all about figuring things out as they went along.

And having Romulans on Earth on SNW, the way I keep it consistent in my head canon is this. Starting with TOS we are watching events in "real time" so to speak. So Romulans going back in time to mess around with Khan's timeline isn't effecting what was "present" for us. Just like when Kirk went back in time and messed with whales, didnt effect what we had already seen in TOS, as it already happened.

I guess my "head canon" was about the same as yours.

And yes, TOS was making it up as they went, regarding timeframe. Star Trek didn't really figure out when they were until they were doing the original cast movies.

And so the much anticipated/dreaded musical episode has come and gone, and generally I quite liked it. It was just a bit of cute, harmless fluff. If I were to pick any nits, it would not be that it was a musical, but rather for some issues that the show has overall. For starters, it was yet another episode with Kirk. Seriously, does he need to be in every other episode? Unless they have some long-range plan to explain how he became captain, I can only imagine that they are so beside themselves for casting the Vampire Diaries dreamboat that they feel the need to show him off as much as possible. And the other issue is that the language used is sometimes way too right-now trendy. Pike says, "That happened." I mean, does it get any more 2023 than that? Imagine if TOS had used "groovy." Things that sound so wonderful in the moment age like milk.

One thing I will say specifically about the plot, at the risk of making Val think I'm trying to convince him to watch it, is that the writers were clearly having fun with the idea of how silly a Star Trek musical was. And why do I say this? The name of the phenomenon that caused the singing: an improbability field.

I watched it.

I couldn't stand the thought that I might miss something important amidst all the fluff and silliness, and for that reason alone, I'm glad I forced myself to sit through it. In the end, it wasn't actually all that bad because it wasn't as if the entirety of the episode was a musical, but was particularly irksome is that I had to pay close attention to the lyrics as the content of nearly every song was in the form of actual dialogue.

The premise was, as I was suspecting, a tad ridiculous and contrived, but whatever... they made it work within the framework of the usual Trek technobabble we've come to expect. The real gold was to be found between the tunes, and there were two canon course-corrections that I caught that helped restore a lot of faith and hope in the writing of the show and where they are taking all this with regards to maintaining a healthy measure of respect for the TOS-and beyond-continuity. One was the reveal that Chapel will be leaving the ship soon and will meet Dr, Roger Korby, which will eventually result in an engagement (even if that goes nowhere), and the other was that Kirk is in a relationship with Carol Marcus and that she is already pregnant with David.

I don't generally care about romance between crewmembers, even if it's become more and more prevalent from TNG onwards (gotta appeal to the female viewership also), but I have to confess the Spock/Chapel thing was beginning to get on my nerves. I can only take so much of what are supposedly professional career officers, and adult ones at that, mooning and acting all angsty over one another, which is especially jarring in Spock's case. I'm not sure if it's ever been made clear what the rules are around fraternization with other members of the same crew, but I've seen far less critically important workplaces, where no decisions of life-and-death take place on a daily basis, have stricter rules around this sort of thing than the flagship of the fleet of a quasi-military organization like Starfleet. It stretches the bounds of believability that if rules exist, they are simply, frequently, and easily discarded for the sake of indulging the writers and fans that 'ship' these characters. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being puritanical here, and if it's to do with other characters, like T'Pring or Batel (who at least captains another starship), then it's perfectly fine, but it leaves me feeling conflicted about how loose discipline is aboard these ships. Don't even get me started on Discovery's rave and bodily-fluid exchange party. That was about as unbelievable as this whole trend of the Love Boat in space could get for me.

Anyway, Kirk... yeah, kinda sick of the guy at this point. They've overdone it by a mile because it seems they couldn't help themselves. Look, we get it, everyone loves Kirk, this guy at the front of the line... but this is not his show. He will have his time to shine, and I think this crew deserves it's own chance to breathe and grow without the constant shadow of a character like that. I'm fine with Spock, he's supposed to be there after all. Throwing Uhura in was a bit of stretch but she was so underserved in TOS that this is a good chance to let the character do something for a change. But do we really need Kirk and the cosmic shoehorn every other show? Does the captain of the Farragut have him on permanent leave? What gives with this guy that he's always conveniently around the corner? It's beyond silly at this point, and if he doesn't appear in all of season 3, I'd consider myself quite happy. For one, they've already blown Kirk's line in The Menagerie when he says he'd only met Pike once when he made Fleet Captain, and that's already happened. At least I hope... *I hope*... that him letting La'an down gently means that budding romance and storyline is justifiably dead, and that we can move on from her those two with the will-they, won't they nonsense. Maybe this will explain how and when La'an leaves the Enterprise? Maybe, unlike a few others, she was professional enough to know that it wouldn't be a good thing for her to remain serving aboard a ship when she's enamored with her new captain?

Of course, we all know that the relationship with Carol is doomed, which means Kirk will come waltzing right back in to La'an's life soon enough... they won't be able to help themselves. Please spare us all. Here I thought i was done with 80s'-style high school drama.

Edit: Forgot to add that the silliest and riskiest thing in the entire episode, the Klingons doing a K-pop boy band dance nearly made me die... in a good way. That made the entire episode worth it just for those few seconds. Aren't we odd creatures in that sense?

I'm glad that you more or less enjoyed it, or at least tolerated it. I figured that if you watched it, you would… But I was never going to say that ahead of time. I also thought the build of K-pop was the highlight of the show. And Yep, I don't mean Korea-pop.

Relaxing my white knuckles to type this…

Oh, cruel, cruel, cruel! More later after everyone has seen the episode.

I've watched it. Some thoughts later.

Forgot I was supposed to say something... hope you weren't waiting for me all this time.

Well, what can I say? First off, and I think this was shot well before the strikes came into place, but I'm super disappointed they went with a cliffhanger because, and again hindsight being 20/20, but it's already rumoured we could be waiting until 2025 at the earliest before we see Season 3.

That total bummer aside, I generally liked andit thought it was a very strong episode, even if... and you just know this is coming... I have some quibbles with it.

The first was the lack of tension in knowing that no matter what happens, a whole ton of those characters will be fine. Ortegas, La'an, and M'Benga got abducted by the Gorn? No problem, we know the doctor at least will make it, and likely by association, the other two will be fine as well. Chapel is missing and presumed dead? Hmmhmm... yeah, sure thing. Oh, what a surprise, there she is, alive and well! Speaking of Chapel, that whole plot line was a bridge too far for me in terms of stretching believability to the limits. A huge starship and you see no survivors except for her? Couldn't they at least have written in two or three more people that they then have to deal with rescuing, or at the very least that she finds, tries to treat, but then die? It was too much of an eyeroll situation for me, and of course, who should very conveniently be the only person that can place the thrusters onto the Cayuga's hull? Mr. Spock, of course, the lovestruck puppy himself. I get it makes for a lovely and exciting reunion but c'mon, at least try a little harder to make this believable and less contrived. Even supposing there were other survivors and there simply wasn't time to show them, the very fact that Chapel was found alive would dictate a high probability that others were as well. Yet no mention is made or thought given to the fact that they very casually hurtle the entire saucer section toward the planet. Sorry, Cayuga crew... we hardly knew ye. Bon voyage, don't forget to write!

Other than that, I enjoyed all the rest, including Scotty. Still not impressed with the Gorn updates, and the very blatant ripoffs of Alien, and now Alien 3. The moment that Gorn sniffed Batel and backed off, all I could see was Ripley in the same situation. They're clearly embracing this copycat thing and running with it now. It was interesting to see the adult Gorn finally, except for... why did it need a breathing mask? Enterprise established that the Gorn can survive in the vacuum of space. I think someone either forgot to do their homework or just got lazy for the sake of a thrilling zero-G fight scene.

Sadly, I guess we don't get to discuss Trek for quite some time now. I gave up on Discovery two seasons ago, I don't watch Lower Decks (yet), and the JJ-verse 4th movie seems deader than Khan in the Genesis Device detonation (which to me is also a good thing). For all the talk about Legacy, there's no chance we'll see any possible movement on that for a couple of years either at this rate, by which time if there's any hope that Patrick Stewart is going to be involved, it's going to center around the rest of the crew breaking him out of the old folks asylum.

PS - Nearly forgot the massive plus that negates all other negatives in the episode for me: NO BLOODY KIRK!!!

Well as a matter of fact, I was waiting for you, but no worries.

I had pretty much the same quibbles you did but I guess I've come to expect that there is going to be a certain level of laziness in the writing of modern Trek and I can either shrug it off or tune out, and so far I've shrugged it off.

I also caught the Alien 3 reference. But did you catch the Independence Day reference? That is to say, the huge Gorn ship emerging from a cloud as it came in over the settlement.

I also caught a huge real-world parallel. Strange New Worlds: Do not engage the Gorn. The colony is not part of the Federation. We can't risk a war with the Gorn. Real world: Do not engage Russia. Ukraine is not part of NATO. We can't risk a war with Russia.

I enjoyed the new Scotty. It's a first because it's the first time he is actually being portrayed by a Scot. Apparently James Doohan's Scottish accent was considered pretty atrocious, but actual Scots loved him nonetheless. https://www.polygon.com/23827204/star-t ... montgomery

Strangely enough, something occurred to me regarding Scotty that had not occurred to me with any of the other legacy character castings. They are to me taking on an enormous responsibility in introducing him, as they will now be providing his backstory. Somehow, that never struck me relative to the other characters, even though the backstories of some were a cipher and the responsibility would be huge with them also. But this was the first time it occurred to me. In any event, I hope they rise to the challenge and give such a beloved character a worthy backstory.

I was also bummed that it was a cliffhanger. That was a Star Trek tradition that for some reason I was not at all expecting them to revive. If memory serves, they are the first of all the new Treks to have a cliffhanger (not counting the weekly pseudo-cliffhangers of the serialized shows like Discovery and Picard). And at the time, it didn't even occur to me that the resolution will be even further delayed because of the strikes. I was just thinking that we'd be waiting about a year as the shows seem to take about a year. At least Akiva Goldsman has said that they have the broad outlines of the conclusion in mind, though it is not written yet. When TNG wrapped Part 1 of Best of Both Worlds, they had no idea where they were going.

As for Legacy, yes, the strikes push it even farther off. But I don't expect it to include Picard as a major character. At most, a walk-on appearance, ditto for the other Enterprise D crew. I get the impression it would be primarily Seven and her crew, with ongoing guest appearances from DS9 and Voyager crew members.

For Star Trek Day, Paramount is going to show the first two episodes of Season 1 on CBS. I guess that may help drive a few new subscriptions. It'll be interesting to see what else Star Trek Day involves, as the actors will be prohibited from participating due to the strike, I believe.

In any event, I've been meaning to post a reflection on Season 2. I think my primary emotion would be relief. Prior to Season 2, they said they were swinging for the fences this year and taking some big risks. That made me grit my teeth with worry, even more so later when I heard there was going to be a musical episode and a crossover with Lower Decks. But these fears were unfounded. I thought the two suspect episodes were pulled off as well as they could be, given the concept, and on the whole I thought the season was pretty solid. And that cliff-hanger, yikes. It's going to be a long, long wait to see the resolution of that. I felt something I hadn't felt since the summer of 90, when the Best of Both Worlds was unexpectedly a cliff-hanger. And we thought a summer was a long time to wait!

I'm still not sure how I feel about SNW making the Gorn a stand-in for Alien. Steal from the best, they say, and Alien is undoubtedly the best for that sort of thing. And I understand the desire to establish a Big Bad Nemesis for this crew, as the Borg was for TNG and the Dominion was for DS9. And it makes sense, perhaps, to grab an existing race and flesh out their backstory a bit. But to make them parasitic.... When does "homage" turn into "theft?" In any event, if they wanted to make them super-scary, they certainly succeeded.

In any event, at last we have an ongoing Star Trek series that feels like it may merit some degree of the esteem held by the Berman era shows. I think they still need to sharpen up their writing a bit, but they are on the way. Let's all keep our fingers crossed!

I'm still behind, but I've been getting through Season 2. I watched the Lower Decks crossover and I really enjoyed it, kept some of the cheesiness from Lower Decks but I felt it was a good storyline, also loved seeing Boimler live action with his purple hair, and almost died when he does the "Riker" sitting on the saddle