Star Trek

Sure, except no matter how frequently Star Trek has used 'omniscient alien did it' as a story beat, it generally doesn't descend into Lovecraftian horror, as it's all either undone, or it's the answer to a fairly small scale mystery.

A guy accidentally broke the universe and killed billions of people, and ot stayed broken for a century or so and that remains true...is the stuff of horror. More Warhammer 40k or Lovecraft then Star Trek to my ear...

And, though I tend to agree with you on the protagonists...it does mean there's a century or so when I guess no one in Starfleet was blessed with audience focus and so this was an unsolvable problem until then. Or there's some more substantive explanation, I'm summarizing an argument, as I'm unfamiliar enough with the Burn to have a solid opinion.

ETA: Now the horror elements have always been there, they just don't actually effect the setting much...which isn't true in the far future of the burn era.

It's not, from my limited understanding, that it violates canon, but rather that it changes the tone/genre somewhat.

Edited by ECD on Apr 9th 2024 at 8:18:50 AM

It's worth noting that part of the problem was being unable to localize the origin point of the Burn.

Ni'var was running a warpgate test at the exact time it happened, and they buried the data in case it was their fault.

Without that data, figuring out where the Burn came from,and that it had a distinct origin at all, would be nearly impossible.

It's a matter of presentation more than the details. Discovery has had an issue with every season being world ending stakes, which gets exhausting, but also that the cast is not very well developed. Burnham, Stamets and Saru get the bulk of screen time every episode. Detmer, Owoyukun, Nhan and Culber most often fade into the background to let the others talk. Even after Adira got a big introductory story they went on to just be Stamets sounding board. So it is less "The Crew comes together to figure out a solution to the problem" but "Burnham, Saru and Stamets resolve everything from leadership decisions to scientific analysis."

Note that I actually consider season three to be their best season so far, precisely because seeing a changed galaxy and them trying to fit into it was interesting.

I feel like it would have been accepted just fine if it had turned to be, I dunno, a Halo.

Leftover weapon technology or, even funnier, a kind of other ancient object that someone activated improperly.

But that's Complaint #1.

Complaint #2 is, "In no way do I believe a space fairing civilization wouldn't just rebuild itself because I don't believe in societal collapse."

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 9th 2024 at 10:30:18 AM

But it's not societal collapse though? Like, if it were portrayed that way, sure. But every planet's government is otherwise intact. It's just the Federation who took a beating as a political entity. Ngvar is fine. Earth is fine.

Edited by Ghilz on Apr 9th 2024 at 2:20:25 PM

I mean it seems pretty typical After the End.

The US no longer exists but city-states like NCR, New Vegas, and so on exist.

Tropes, as this site notes, are not bad. Nor are they necessarily good.

"The protagonists can solve any problem easily, no matter how difficult, and non-protagonists can't solve any problem, no matter how simple" may be a standard trope, but just because it's common doesn't make it good writing or realistic worldbuilding.

Individual tropes can, indeed, be bad — or at least require a great deal of talent and effort to pull off. DSC doesn't have that level of writing talent involved, I'm sorry to say.

Its still powered by a Warp Core.

Does anyone remember that Short Trek where this guy found himself aboard Discovery and it was deserted, and the only person there was Zora, and she was apparently waiting for the crew to return, and had been waiting for quite a while? Was that supposed to fit into canon somehow? Because I can't figure out how it could possibly have ever occurred.

Calypso. Ever since the time jump forward I don't think it really can be canon. Unless they pull a rabbit out of their hat this season but since they didn't know it was going to be the final season until they done it...

Edited by dcutter2 on Apr 12th 2024 at 10:43:05 AM

Where is Rayner from? He's got pointy ears, but he's not Vulcan or Romulan.

Thanks for asking for the year Jinaal. It's 3191. I'm just writing that down so I can remember.

I did enjoy the reference to the Breen still being a thing, and also the acknowledgment that when this riddle quest started, the galaxy was hip-deep in the Dominion War.

Also, saw a Ferengi barkeeper aboard the Discovery.

Supposedly Calypso is still canon and will come up this season.

He's Kellerun, they showed up in the DS 9 episode with the Harvester chemical weapon, Armageddon Game.

Edited by Zendervai on Apr 12th 2024 at 10:35:53 AM

And Lower Decks is the next victim of Paramount's BS.

There goes the best Trek show.

When Jinaal said "it was in the middle of the Dominion War", shouldn't Michael be like: the what?

Anyway. This video of Trek Culture is pretty spot-on.

Exploring things like what happened to the Dominion after the Burn, especially to all those Jem Hadar that got isolated, did they died without access to Ketracel White or some of them even developed naturally a cure?

Or what about the Voth form “Distant Origin”? Maybe after 900 years their scientists convinced them finally of their Earth origin and now they want to became allies of the Federation but there are still religious fundamentalists that oppose violently.

I think this is what makes DISCO so frustrating sometimes for following the typical Netflix serialized format, as all this could be self-contain episodes on another show like Lower Decks or SNW, but DISCO can't handle them because neither of this plots can be used because they’re not part of the overall season plot (not to mention seasons nowadays are shorter).

I really hope Star Trek Academy is episodic and not serialized. Star Trek works much better on that format.

I personally liked the idea of an Academy-based show tho I thought it was on Picards’ time. Still I’ll give it a chance.

Edited by TVGuy on Apr 12th 2024 at 12:34:45 PM

They've been in the future for a while now. They've probably had all sorts of education on the history they've missed.

Nothing Jinaal said requires precise knowledge of the DW anyway. "There was a war on and we thought the tech was misused" is pretty universally understandable.

There's no way the Academy show's going to be episodic in it's very nature lends to a season/semester/school year long arc.

etA: lol, whut? What BS? Five seasons is a respectable run and the announcement is clear it's on and going to stay on P+, it's not getting Prodigy-ed. I just hope they knew going into writing/producing the fifth season it would be the last.

Edited by dcutter2 on Apr 12th 2024 at 8:54:19 PM

In somewhat better news, Strange New Worlds has been renewed for a fourth season. Season 3 is in production and will be released sometime in 2025.

I don't really consider 5 seasons great if the "seasons" are only 10 half-hour episodes.

In Ye Goode Olde Days seasons were 22 episodes long and a show wasn't considered a success unless it lasted more than 7, which gave us soooo much to bingewatch.

But nowadays having more than 3 seasons of 10 episodes long is generally consider good. Above average even.

Is just how it is. Probably because production costs are higher now too.

And also I assume they want the shows to look high quality and big budget, which is a shame because forcing them to do a Bottle Episode or two and a 90s style spit between arc and standalone episodes really did give them more scope to do interesting and weird and wacky episodies.

It's like, I like T.O.S and Subspace Rhaposody on SNW but I hate they're 1/5 of a season and time that could have been spend on Ortegas or Number One or anyone really rather than a Boimler episode. If the season had 22 plus episodes that would be entirely a non-issue.

Edited by dcutter2 on Apr 12th 2024 at 9:29:33 AM

The only thing I won't miss is the Clip Show

But yes, although I'm feeling like episodic shows are kind of coming back, the more popular shows in most streamings are often old syndicated shows like Seinfeld, Friends and The Office or old sci-fi shows.

Edited by TVGuy on Apr 12th 2024 at 2:39:24 AM

I was thinking, Garak was always telling Bashir about how to be duplicitous and stuff, and the lessons in spycraft were a big help during Bashir's dealings with Section 31, but Bashir was also hiding his status as an augment. However I don't think this ever came up in any episode where Bashir spoke with Garak. I would think he'd be proud of Bashir for hiding this big secret from everyone for most of his life.

Everyone wants their favorite show to last forever, and I recall the creative team said they were hoping for the traditional seven seasons. Five seasons cannot be considered anything but a success, though I do hope there is enough time for them to do their own "All Good Things..." Grand Finale.

Thing is that the show came with a built-in end-point where the characters become seasoned officers but, unlike Voyager where the path home can be prolonged as long as needed, the necessary character arcs needed that progression at key points otherwise it will become stale. This last season having them earn promotions basically made the show an Artifact Title.

I think the change from serial to episodic is less about newer trends as much as the biggest cable channel/premium channel/streaming service shows since about 2008 were all dark, edgy and serialized (Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things) and Discovery and later Picard were just trying to ride that vibe while using the Star Trek name. But the issue was never really the edgy serialization itself but that it became more concept and tone before character and story. I think Strange New Worlds is lighter and episodic in part to be distinct from DSC and PIC, but they've proven more than capable of darker content if they wanted to. Picard season three is also no lighter or less serialized than the previous seasons, the more positive reception is one-part fanservice and two-parts actually locking in the story and characters.

The underlying issue with streaming shows is that the financial recoupment is significantly more complex than network shows, as there you can calculate people watching and charge commercial ads accordingly. Streaming shows is more about having a constant collection of popular content and exclusive content year round so that people maintain their subscription, but you have two Killer Apps at the same time the subscription benefits are split between them. That's why they settled on fewer episodes to lower costs. Prodigy had a network deal and that's why they felt more comfortable with more episodes.

I'll just add that show can be in some middle point.

Not every show has to be a Monster of the Week self-contain episode completely independent of the rest, nor one were every episode ends on a cliffhanger like a 10 hour movie clumsily cut every 50 minutes.

Some shows are somewhere in between more on one side or the other. Game of Thrones is serialized but most episode are relatively self-contain and I can watch lets say my ten favorite episodes of GOT without having to watch the whole season they are in. Whilst Babylon 5 is episodic but they have an over-arching plot per season.

65-Episode Cartoon has been a thing for a long time, though that was tied to broadcast syndication, and 50 or so seems to be the new 65. So it's not terribly surprising, just disappointing.

Ghost In The Shell Standalone Complex did it the best IMO. There were 'Standalone' episodes with a contained plot and 'Complex' episodes for the seasonal plot, the words appeared behind the title cards too so you knew what the episode is going to be.