Teaser for the next season of Strange New World.....personally enjoyed the first season more than I thought I was going too.....
Maybe not... Picard Showrunner Talks His Idea for a Star Trek: Voyager and DS9 Sequel Series Some spoilers if you aren't up to date with Picard, but the showrunner wants to make a series with callbacks from each show. Might be promising if the execs don't **** it up.
Lol I guess it's like a Rorschach test then. I didn't get any kind of vibe like that. It's been bad ass and I was like this at the end of episode 9 Let's hope they stick the landing in episode 10!
That's a sign that they are doing it right. The themes are there, but they aren't really hitting you over the head with it so they don't alienate any portion of the audience that wouldn't agree with those themes. For example, the Borg have always represented the "evil" of communism or collectivist ideology, erasing the individual in service of the collective. You don't have to realize that for them to work as villains, but it's an extra layer if you do. The Borg silently manage to infiltrate the highest level of society with changelings.....those who outwardly look like allies but are actually enemies in disguise in order to secretly infect ....using a sort of "mind virus" that converts those under 25 into mindless drones for their ideology. Like I said, all of the themes are there, but you can completely ignore that and just enjoy the story. It's a sign of good writing.
Yeah, but I was hoping for series that have longevity - like one that would hang around for 8-10 years. These shows are "here today, gone tomorrow". To me, Picard was an "ok" show the first couple of seasons and, based upon what people are saying, the 3rd season is good, but it's done. Discovery was action-packed and pretty enjoyable its first four seasons, and now the fifth season will be its last and that won't be here until sometime next year. It's like both series seemed to just be getting started and they get killed off. Who knows how long Strange New Worlds will last.
The ending of Picard was nice and will likely secure good numbers. I hope they greenlight that proposed spinoff sooner than later. I didn't like the first two seasons of Picard and Discovery and I wasn't surprised to find out Kurtsman came from those Star Wars Trek movies. SNW is more to what I'm expecting and is pretty faithful. This season of Picard gave fans what they wanted with a decent enough story to deliver fan service. Anyhow, studios are straying from the "old days" of 24 hr long episodes in hopes for syndication or DVDs (with grueling hours for the actors). Now it's eye-ball or engagement time with 8-10 episode seasons for streaming. If the numbers deem it worthy, then another season is greenlit. This discourages episodic formats or one-offs that allow the writers to explore the characters or settings creatively as a clunker makes the "investment" expensive (1 bad ep out of 8 instead of 1 out of 24). It also gives the repetitive feeling for lower quality shows that the seasonal format for streaming channels are really like two movies blended together (M-shaped) or one long convoluted mess with random fillers or "character lobotomies" to draw out playing time (N-shaped). The first (or 1.5) seasons of the 90s Treks were mostly mediocre or below average, just like a lot of broadcast shows of that era. The bar is definitely higher now, so the streaming networks overpay "creative talent" in hopes of getting a great first impression with the appropriate budget. It's like a JJ Abrams effect, but as we've seen with that guy, these shows can turn out to be a flashy premise, but no overall execution for giving the viewers a proper payoff for watching 3-7 years. It's Netflix's right to kill a series but they should at least dump 50 million to cap all the mysteries with a movie rather than pretending they're keeping it in cold storage to reboot 5 years later. It discourages me from wasting time on their shows until there's 3 good years worth to watch or it's self-contained in one season.
Using Discovery as an example, it almost seemed like they built up, built up built up, then ... *poof* ... end of show. It wouldn't hit me as hard if it had been to an more episodic show, but this is more like the chapters of a book where you get through chapters 1-4 and then abruptly end for some reason at chapter 5 when you have maybe 5 more chapters of plot out there. Maybe I overestimated the show, but I loved it. Spoiler They left their timeline, landed in the future, attacked a threat for about a season, and ... that's about it. No idea what's going to happen in the last season, but it almost like there was a lot of stuff that led to the actual beginning of the series (a new start in a new age), aaaand... "we're gonna hafta wrap this up". I hope they do something for DS9 ... that show's ending was ok, but somehow felt like "wait... but there's more...." later in the timeline. Voyager seemed like it ended with its finale. It seemed like an appropriate and final ending. To me, anyway.
Spoiler Discovery felt all over the place and it seemed like the writers were playing with characters and themes out of their element to create something new and edgy without feeling a need to build upon past lore and evolve it. Liked the Georgiou and Enterprise arcs, but seemed like they missed a good opportunity going into the deep future. Felt like the writers were saying "future is future...no need to explain differences until we need it as a plot device." So it created a "Dark Age" of sorts between 23-24th century with the 31st century because their 900yr old mushroom drive was still the only alternative "clean engine" in town. Sounds a bit unbelievable. Their supporting characters were also bland or annoying ranging from the "genius" trans character who promotes social messaging over personality or Tilly who ****s up and kills crewmembers from her bumbling decisions but is "A-OK because trying and feeling good is fundamental" towards fostering her personal excellence. Yeah, so not a fan over heavy handed messaging that is more aspirational than realistic (even dangerous or negligent for leaders facing real consequences) or 'splaining when these writers snipped off morality plays/dilemmas or nuance that could've added weight when stretching out their 3 hr movie plot. The visual effects were nice. I think there was lens flare...the shaky zoom focus shot in an action sequence was there from time to time... DS9 is a great series but definitely a challenge since Rene passed away and not sure if Avery Brooks can be brought back. He claims he was blacklisted by Hollywood.
No Odo for me wouldn't be that huge since it can be explained away he was nowhere near the rest of the characters, but no Avery Brooks? Nah... wouldn't be the same. Show may still be good, but ... wouldn't be the same. And ok, Odo annoyed me. lol.
There is a Starfleet Academy show and If you watch the ending of Picard (and the end credit scene), you know what the next show will be.
I thought they really hit it out of the park, I really enjoyed the season from start to finish. Great way to send off that cast.....
Finally decided to use my "free month" and binge watch the entire 10-episode season in about 3 or 4 days. That was pretty good. It's like the 3rd season was a completely different series from the first 2. The action isn't quite as great as Discovery, but the story was pretty good. I think that was mostly because of the connection with the "TNG" crew most people watching it will have. They kind of made Worf goofy, but whatever. Only one hint : watch all the way through the credits for the final scene - don't turn it off as soon as the credit start rolling. lol. Spoiler Gen Z almost destroyed the galaxy! They kind of did a lot of "he's dead, buuuuuut not really..." throughout this that kind of killed the plot a bit. For example, how many times are they going to kill Data off only to have him "return"? And Q is dying? Awww.... but wait... he's back because "you humans are so linear!" Wth. Amanda Plummer played a pretty good Vadic... even as a chain-smoking alien. lol. When it seemed like the Changelings were the main antagonist, I was disappointed because I thought it just had to be the Borg for a TNG reunion. Of course it ended up being both in a way. The final battle was kind of good, but not great. They brought Shelby back, but couldn't find anything for O'Brien anywhere in there? Come on ... I liked them bringing back Ro Laren, but was hoping she escaped the explosion at the end. Maybe she did... who knows. These people seem to have more lives than a comic book superhero. Also, maybe I missed it, but wth happened to the "guardians at the gate" Borg queen that was the human scientist in season 3? Did everything from the first 2 seasons just not happen in Season 3? It's like she didn't exist. Also loved how they left the ending kind of open-ended for a future series (Star Trek : Legacy?). I hope it comes to fruition.
From what I’ve seen of the new star treks I’m not sold on them enough to get Paramount Plus. I watched the free first episode of Stange New Worlds in YouTube and thought it was meh. I was annoyed by the preachyneas of captain Pike lecturing the Aliens about the dangers of civil war. It reminded me of some of those episodes from the first two season of TNG where Picard et al would be insufferable at times with moral superiority.
