Risa

Am I the only one enjoying Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds as they come out then? 🙃

Yeah, but those J.J. Abrams movies were still terrible. Star Trek made by someone who doesn't like Star Trek. No.

Stamets, it's not like you to let the trolls get to you. I noticed yesterday but didn't feel like you'd appreciate that from a near stranger but it's even worse today.

You good, friend?

(Addendum for any reader; I know that culturally, pet names are seen as insulting in other parts of the world, but in my line of work and my part of the country, I had to delete like 10 "sugar," "honey," "darlin" and "love"s. Please keep in mind that it's meant well if you see someone like me slip up in the future.)

And then when I asked advice from people in Hollywood—I knew a handful of people, not many in those days—and I said to them, "Look, I've been offered this, what should I do? I've got plays lined up in London, I'm finally beginning to get a reputation in the West End playing leading roles." And they told me now, this is a six-year contract, don't worry about it. You cannot revive an iconic show like Star Trek, it cannot happen, you will be lucky to make it halfway through the season before it's canceled.

– Sir Patrick Stewart, on his decision to accept the role of Captain Picard

As a kid I remember hating TNG when it first came out because it was so different from TOS. I still struggle to watch Discovery (too dark) and JJ Abram’s trek (lens flares) but I am sure I will eventually give them another rewatch.

I've had this theory running around in my head about followups to any series. Every person has a slightly different take on what their favorite part of the show is. For OG Star Trek, maybe you liked the banter between Spock and McCoy. Maybe you liked Kirk's swagger. Maybe you thought Scotty was hot.

If a new production comes along years later and doesn't reproduce the specific elements you like, then you will hate it. The producers might have been ultrafans of the original with good writing chops, a solid cast, and high production values, but if it doesn't have those specific elements for you, then you'll hate it.

Those elements are different for everyone, though. The list of possible elements can be very long, and no new production can possibly check off even a significant fraction of that list. Therefore, any new production is bound to have a long line of haters regardless of its quality on its own merits.

Was Star Trek supposed to be about Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on a ship strutting around the galaxy? TNG changed that. Is it at least supposed to be about strutting around the galaxy? DS9 changed that. Should it at least be about interacting with the alien races we know? Voyager changed that. And so on.

JMS made a Star Trek pitch back in 2004. I like Babylon 5, but I don't think I would have liked his version of Star Trek. The outline focused on elements I didn't care about and just seemed meh to me in general.

This goes for any other long running series, of course.

Don't forget old was once new Trek and people didn't like it back then.

I've met people who watched The Original Series as teenagers in the 60s, loved it and never wanted to watch anything else again and say they will never watch any of the new stuff.

Personally I love it all ... warts and all.

There is just so much now and it's not easy to find the time to see it all.

My dream now is to see all of DS9 from beginning to end. I've only ever seen a handful of episodes in random order never from beginning to end.

My pet peeve is when people call (Disco and onward) "NuTrek" because that term was created to mock the "NuMetal" Kelvinverse films for their shallowness.

Now it's mostly used by people who complain about "wokeness" or "forced" diversity or what have you.

Mediocre TV Star Trek >>>> No TV Star Trek

2005-2017 were the real dark years.

So nutrek is an umbrella term for Discovery, Lower decks, SNW and Prodigy right? It's it common for people to hate all 4 with a passion? They're all sooooo different. I can get hating one, because they are all basically different genres.

I think people are afraid if they support one that they hate, then we'll get more of the same. So have a knee jerk reaction to be toxic when their hated show is discussed. The irony being that historically star trek is a show that seeks to show an example of interpersonal harmony. These people do want an outlet to discuss their grievances about the shows but mostly see that outlet when someone mentions the show because they love it.

If someone hates all 4, they must be pretty deep into some extreme ideology that somehow doesn't conform with all of Star Trek.

Maybe startrek.website needs a neutral zone that only allows constructive criticism but still provides an outlet for these feelings. 😅

Edit- I forgot Picard existed, whoops!

Telling people to "cope" has never felt very chill or positive. I dunno. But, I'm super grateful for new trek, especially lower decks and snw!

I remember people hating on voyager calling it "shitty nutrek" and now it is adored like TNG, TOS and DS9 are. Give it a few years and "nutrek" will be old trek and we will have a new set of trek series that "fans" will spit on.

Stamets: "Say something positive about Discovery!"

Anson Mount as Pike. Which was such a good idea it spawned an actually decent show.

"Say something positive about Picard!"

It's over.

:)

I just could not handle the "spore drive" in discovery. SNW is great though!

So true! I still remember when people heavily disliked DS9. I was a huge fan, but dare me saying it was perhaps my favourite Star Trek. Today there are more people open about liking DS9. (✿´꒳`)ﾉ

TOS never reached the high level of The Cage

I gave discovery a chance. I ended up quitting around the third season.

It wasn't just that it was bad. It was how it was bad. 90s trek did an extremely good job at discussing important and relatable concepts through the lens of sci-fi. It also did a great job of introducing us to fairly whacky and diverse ideas that made space seem vast and unknowable.

Discovery seemed to abandon a lot of that. It's kinda there on the surface, but under further inspection it falls apart. The discussion of serious topics was extremely shallow to the point where it felt low effort. The entire world seems to revolve around what the main characters are doing, which makes the entire setting feel small. A lot of the justification for this was spending that time on better character development, but when I stopped watching every character except Saru felt sort of underdeveloped.

Not to mention it does things that made me feel like that writers either didn't know or didn't care about previous star trek TV shows. Those Klingons neither looked nor acted like Klingons. Most of the discovery crew don't act like Starfleet officers. I finally lost it at the Burn. I guess it's technically canon, but it really doesn't feel that way. We saw multiple different types of FTL methods in 90s trek, and we saw Wesely grow dilithium as part of a high school science project. Plus the idea of there being one element the entire galaxy uses for Warp travel, again, makes the entire setting feel extremely small.

Finally, I feel like Discovery was being reviewed by people who were more interested in propagating the culture war than watching Star Trek. I remember reading articles gushing about how Burnham was the first black captain. Or how Tilly breaks the mold because all other major female characters in Trek were more stereotypical women. Or how the negative reaction to Discovery was from bigoted fans too fragile to watch a show that doesn't mostly consist of cis straight white men.

The last part was the most infuriating. It's incredibly obvious they were toning down a lot of what I star trek to appeal to the mass market. Fine. I've watched a lot of mid sci-fi. I watched all three JJ Abrams Star Trek movies, the first two sequel star wars movies, Dark Matter before it got good, etc. However it's infuriating being attacked for it.

Do I not like the new content because it's new and weird...? 🤔

No. I still liked DS9 and Voyager when I had grew up with TNG. I still liked Enterprise (although with some caveats mostly due to specific nerd shit that changed). I love Lower Decks and Prodigy.

What I can't get into with Picard and Discovery (haven't tried SNW yet) is the format. I really just prefer episodic content to serialized stuff. Especially when the good parts come slowly. So many people who do like these shows admit they don't get good until the 2nd or 3rd season, and I just can't slog through the first season to get that far.

DISC, Picard, and the cartoons just aren't my vibe, but I am glad they exist for those that love the shows.