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Big Mean Jerk posted:B-b-but the characters cry too much and actually show their emotions without being weird sanitized Gene robots! While I appreciate a good strawman from time to time, this is a disingenuous take on what most people don't like about all the crying. It's not that they sometimes cry. It's that it seems to happen in every episode in which [insert super big disaster that will kill everyone] is seconds away from happening, and it's all down to a couple of characters making a tough, emotional decision... and even as the computer audibly counts down to disaster, time seemingly stops so everyone can cry, tell each other how much they love and believe in each other, hug it out, cut to commercial break, come back from commercial, have another heartfelt discussion, dry their now happy tears, and then do the thing that we all knew they would do anyway because no matter how they tried to jack up the tension by having everybody hesitate at the worst possible time, it's obvious that they're not going to blow up the ship or kill all the main characters or whatever. The in-episode pacing is full of crap like what I just described, and the season-long pacing is even worse, with lots of action happening in the first two episodes, then nothing for several episodes, then a season's worth of development and action in the last one. Discovery had a lot of potential, but I don't think it lived up to it. It's better than Picard, and it's not all bad, but it should have been so much better.
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Feb 25, 2024 21:15
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swickles posted:Even before Disco there was a growing "Enterprise is actually good" movement. Even the staunchest defenders of it pretend the finale doesn't exist, though. It is helped by the fact that part of Enterprise's problem was that, like Voyager, it was promising a change in the formula that it didn't really deliver. That becomes less of a problem when you're further away in time from having fifteen years of episodes in a row using that general story style.
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Feb 25, 2024 21:24
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It's also because general opinion around enterprise solidified after the first couple seasons, and the Xindi arc was distasteful. The last season was better, but most people had simply given up on it by then. And unlike today, it was a lot harder to just pick and choose watchable episodes.
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Feb 25, 2024 21:28
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After the disappointments of Discovery and Picard I was skeptical about Strange New Worlds but after seeing it being recommended here and there I gave it a try and drat it's pretty good! That Elysian Kingdom episode is probably what sold me on the series: a fun romp of an episode that I'm sure was fun for all the cast too, really remiscent of some of those holodeck episodes. Loved that they just made an episode of Those Who Walk Away From Omelas (which I've never read but seen it referenced so often that I know when I see it) and an episode of Alien/Alien 3. Hopefully an Aliens episode is coming!
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Feb 25, 2024 21:55
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Der Kyhe posted:Star Trek has a habit of releasing something ever worse in the future, so that the older shows that used to be bad are now just considered mediocre. See also: Star Wars.
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Feb 25, 2024 22:09
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Gaz-L posted:The cleanest way to do this would be Spock. (Pelia or Number One also make some sense. How the gently caress long does an Illyrian live?) That's a good point, is Spock still alive/around at the time of Lower Decks? Did the JJ Abrams films specify when he went back in time, or does that still even count as a canon event?
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Feb 25, 2024 22:55
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Doctor_Fruitbat posted:That's a good point, is Spock still alive/around at the time of Lower Decks? Did the JJ Abrams films specify when he went back in time, or does that still even count as a canon event? Yes, season 1 of Lower Decks takes place in 2380, while the destruction of Romulus is in 2387. Spock disappearing from the prime universe would likely be a canon event.
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Feb 25, 2024 23:09
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I saw a rephrasing the other day of what I think the core problem of Disco and Picard's writing:quote:The problem the writers have, and with NuTrek they are entirely unaware of it, is that the nature of writing universe ending threats and recycling conflicts by definition makes the hawks always correct. The person who says the Romulans will always betray you is going to be right... Having presented season long arcs proving X, they have everyone spend ten minutes insisting the real dangers is believing X. Synthetics having speed dial access to robot tentacles that will wipe out organic life and a willingness to hit that button or not on a whim is a real problem. The Borg Queen is monstrously evil and probably hasn't had a genuine change of heart. Jack Crusher is monstrously evil and probably hasn't had a genuine change of heart. In all three seasons of Picard you are left at the end thinking 'wait, are they genuinely just going to let this go? That doesn't seem wise.' e: I think this also by contrast is a piece of why SNW is so good - despite being unafraid to trade on the fact that it's a prequel to TOS, there's no recycling conflicts or old material. It's all additive.
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Feb 25, 2024 23:13
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tarlibone posted:While I appreciate a good strawman from time to time, this is a disingenuous take on what most people don't like about all the crying.
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Feb 25, 2024 23:20
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Speaking of Romulans - I'm watching ep 7 of season 3 of Discovery, where they go back to Ni'Var. I know that it can be hand waved away by saying that the crew read up on historical records but I would have enjoyed it if at least one person of the crew when told about the Romulan/Vulcan reunification would have said "What the gently caress do the Romulans have to do with Vulcan?"
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Feb 26, 2024 00:16
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I like that Discovery decided that time travel had reached the logical point of absurdity then everyone collectively decided that they were done with it. No more time travel for anyone without exception, and if you see a time rift just forget you saw it.
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Feb 26, 2024 00:36
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Doctor_Fruitbat posted:I like that Discovery decided that time travel had reached the logical point of absurdity then everyone collectively decided that they were done with it. No more time travel for anyone without exception, and if you see a time rift just forget you saw it. I can totally buy that in the aftermath of fighting a temporal war everyone would go 'absolute taboo on opening pandora's box on that again' kinda like the taboo we have on nukes now, but that's not explored, it's all background to handwave away why they can't go back.
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Feb 26, 2024 00:41
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"Aftermath of a temporal war" is a fantastic oxymoron. 
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Feb 26, 2024 01:02
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The temporal war is/has ongoing/ended.
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Feb 26, 2024 01:13
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TuxedoOrca posted:The temporal war is/has ongoing/ended. 
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Feb 26, 2024 02:06
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I am deep into season 2 of Enterprise after watching Voyager for the first time. Enterprise is fairly consistent week to week in its mediocrity, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The show is exactly what it is, whereas Voyager had some genuine highs that make you pine for a show that never existed. But the lows of Voyager, good lord. Some of those episodes are morally repulsive, dreadfully boring, insultingly stupid, or a magic combination of all three. Enterprise has had a couple of distasteful trans panic jokes, but that's about as bad as it has gotten. I don't think I actually like anyone in the Voyager cast outside of the Doctor. At least with Enterprise I genuinely like Trip, Hoshi, Phlox, and T'Pol. I'm super neutral on Mayweather. Archer is at least interesting as a captain because he clearly has no loving clue what he's doing and that's at least interesting to watch playout. None of the wild swings of Janeway or absolute confidence in their various approaches that you see with Kirk, Picard, or Sisko. Reed needs to find his way out of an airlock though. Atlas Hugged fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 02:40
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Atlas Hugged posted:I am deep into season 2 of Enterprise after watching Voyager for the first time. Enterprise is fairly consistent week to week in its mediocrity, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The show is exactly what it is, whereas Voyager had some genuine highs that make you pine for a show that never existed. But the lows of Voyager, good lord. Some of those episodes are morally repulsive, dreadfully boring, insultingly stupid, or a magic combination of all three. Enterprise has had a couple of distasteful trans panic jokes, but that's about as bad as it has gotten. I think the bolded part is why I like ENT so much more than VOY. At least when the episodes are dull and derivative, there are some character beats with a little fun to them. Any given episode may not be any great shakes, but at least T'Pol gets to eyebrow at something. (and you've named my four favorites, so that helps)
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Feb 26, 2024 03:02
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Back in the Before Times VOY was always considered the worst series by almost every Trek nerd I know. ENT was just a huge product of its time so it's got that Gee-Dubya stink about it.
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Feb 26, 2024 03:07
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I do genuinely think Voyager is still “the worst Star Trek”. Not because it’s objectively bad in most senses, but because it rarely ever even tried to be more than just the reheated leftovers of the 90s Trek era. It’s watchable. I totally understand the appeal. I’ve even watched it multiple times all the way through. It’s just a total nothing of a show aside from the 2-3 characters where the writers and actors both miraculously gave a drat, and there’s 172 episodes of it. It’s the beigest of the beige. Enterprise started the same way, but then actually tried to do something with their season-long Xindi arc. It’s rough and extremely post-9/11 and aged as poorly as you’d think, but then they kept trying to do interesting things with the season 4 mini-arcs. And yeah, I am one of those freaks who thinks it eventually course-corrected into being Good. Disco is all over the place but it does try new things and it’s a very pretty show when it wants to be. Plus I’m convinced Saru will eventually be considered an all-timer when it comes to good Trek characters. And it gave us SNW, which imo has been genuinely good pretty much since the pilot episode. Picard is arguably a worse show than Voyager, however it’s also mercifully much shorter and you can pretty easily ignore it even exists.
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Feb 26, 2024 05:30
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We're going to have to start putting together Voyager watchlists so that we can help people who want to understand Lower Decks and Prodigy. Fortunately, we're looking at 2 dozen episodes at most.
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Feb 26, 2024 05:35
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I’ve been running a Trek rpg campaign for almost a year now and a couple players hadn’t seen much, if any, of the 90s shows. One of them wanted to start watching Voyager before the campaign but only had time for the highlights and it was a genuine struggle putting together a list for them.
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Feb 26, 2024 05:37
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Scorpion... uh, Shattered, the two episodes about the copycat matter?
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Feb 26, 2024 05:44
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Big Mean Jerk posted:Disco is all over the place but it does try new things and it’s a very pretty show when it wants to be. Plus I’m convinced Saru will eventually be considered an all-timer when it comes to good Trek characters. I'm in complete agreement, especially about Saru. He's written very well and Doug Jones is a loving great actor. I'm at the end of Disco S3 and I bet he was loving thrilled to record a few episodes without all the prosthetic makeup. edit: Big Mean Jerk posted:I’ve been running a Trek rpg campaign for almost a year now and a couple players hadn’t seen much, if any, of the 90s shows. One of them wanted to start watching Voyager before the campaign but only had time for the highlights and it was a genuine struggle putting together a list for them. I haven't played ttrpgs in literal decades but long ago my friends and I really enjoyed the FASA Star Trek RPG quite a bit. edit 2: lol the turbolift dimension GATOS Y VATOS fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 05:48
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GATOS Y VATOS posted:I haven't played ttrpgs in literal decades but long ago my friends and I really enjoyed the FASA Star Trek RPG quite a bit. If you're all dialed in to optimistic 90s trek and looking to simulate it together, the modiphius RPG is extremely serviceable
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Feb 26, 2024 06:17
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Kei Technical posted:If you're all dialed in to optimistic 90s trek and looking to simulate it together, the modiphius RPG is extremely serviceable GATOS Y VATOS posted:I haven't played ttrpgs in literal decades but long ago my friends and I really enjoyed the FASA Star Trek RPG quite a bit. Yeah, the Modiphius rpg is what we’re playing. It has its issues but it’s been pretty fun. We’ve been playing D&D for 4 years now and we’re all completely burnt out on 5e’s boring loving combat, so it’s been a nice transition to something a little more roleplay/puzzle/social focused. Not that we haven’t done combat in STA yet, but it’s way less complex and tedious than 5e.
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Feb 26, 2024 06:57
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Are you playing with the replaced rep/advancement system?
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Feb 26, 2024 07:27
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Now feels like a good time to revisit the original concept for Voyager, where they don't have infinite power and shuttlecraft and need to maintain the ship with whatever they can find. Disco's story-led, weightier feel would be perfect for it.
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Feb 26, 2024 12:55
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Doctor_Fruitbat posted:Now feels like a good time to revisit the original concept for Voyager, where they don't have infinite power and shuttlecraft and need to maintain the ship with whatever they can find. Disco's story-led, weightier feel would be perfect for it. Yes but the big letdown of DISCO is that they're completely unwilling to explore the situations they set up (see specifically; the Federation being a shadow of its former self, and DISCO being the only ship with reliable FTL travel)
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Feb 26, 2024 13:09
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I kept giving Disco a chance but I couldn't get passed the resolution to Season Three. It was just nonsensical and I came away from it with no interest in continuing to watch.
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Feb 26, 2024 14:11
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Over COVID I ended up introducing a friend to Star Trek through DS9, we watched almost all of it together but remotely (I think I may have skipped the Q episode because they weren't super into any Star Trek and really bounced off TNG), so the show that we went to next was Voyager. Which I started us off with a real strict watchlist because I didn't want them to bounce off that as well, in retrospect I should have been a little looser and as we went on I started including more in the future seasons, by season 7 we watched 20 out of 26 together. All told, given that experience, I'd say 75 out of 172 episodes would make a good 'complete' Voyager experience with enough of the arcs to work and cutting enough of the low point nonsense. We're currently on Enterprise (near the end of season 1) and all told I've built a watchlist of around 66 out of 98 for us to watch together. They've really warmed to Trek and have gone back to the ones we haven't watched but there have been a few episodes where I know it would hit their 'oh this is just creepy, lovely' of this character and they've come back to me and said 'yeah that was awful'.
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Feb 26, 2024 15:26
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Watch the entire shows, lunatics. The reason standout episodes stand out is because they have the rest of the show for context, character building, and world building.
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Feb 26, 2024 16:48
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Super Deuce posted:Watch the entire shows, lunatics. The reason standout episodes stand out is because they have the rest of the show for context, character building, and world building. The ENT S1 and S2 are so repetitive you really don't need to see all of the variations of "Archer or someone from bridge crew gets kidnapped by locals", "shuttle breaks down and crew is stranded" or "unknown enemy takes over the ship".
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Feb 26, 2024 16:55
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Super Deuce posted:Watch the entire shows, lunatics. The reason standout episodes stand out is because they have the rest of the show for context, character building, and world building. Frankly, it's this
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Feb 26, 2024 17:05
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Der Kyhe posted:The ENT S1 and S2 are so repetitive you really don't need to see all of the variations of "Archer or someone from bridge crew gets kidnapped by locals", "shuttle breaks down and crew is stranded" or "unknown enemy takes over the ship". "Okay, here's the pitch: Archer is captured and imprisoned in a futuristic space prison." "Love it. Can we make it a scrap metal dungeon, instead?" "Well, I figured Star Trek, futuristic--" "Did you figure how to pay for it, when we have a perfectly good scrap metal dungeon set in the warehouse?"
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Feb 26, 2024 17:11
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“Ok, and what band is playing on the ship at the end of the episode? We’re 50/50 on S Club 7 or Lifehouse.”
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Feb 26, 2024 17:35
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I think the only episodes of Trek I haven’t seen are the Irish village holodeck episodes from Voyager. I watched half of the “delete the wife” one and turned it off and there was another one that seemed to focus on it so I skipped that one as well. I haven’t watched season 3 of Picard either but I’ll force that swill down eventually I’m sure.
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Feb 26, 2024 17:44
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holefoods posted:I think the only episodes of Trek I haven’t seen are the Irish village holodeck episodes from Voyager. I watched half of the “delete the wife” one and turned it off and there was another one that seemed to focus on it so I skipped that one as well. I haven’t watched season 3 of Picard either but I’ll force that swill down eventually I’m sure. The first one also makes Janeway look really bad
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Feb 26, 2024 18:01
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Delete the wife is like a top 5 Janeway moment
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Feb 26, 2024 18:03
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An Only Irish Episodes Trek Marathon for St. Patrick's Day
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Feb 26, 2024 18:07
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Big Mean Jerk posted:I’ve been running a Trek rpg campaign for almost a year now and a couple players hadn’t seen much, if any, of the 90s shows. One of them wanted to start watching Voyager before the campaign but only had time for the highlights and it was a genuine struggle putting together a list for them. Man I would kill to have a Trek RPG group but my group has zero interest in doing a Star Trek and in fact we have started a Star Wars campaign.  If nothing else I did manage to browbeat everyone into letting me name our ship the Enterprise by virtue of being the group's pilot. It's actually been really fun but I keep thinking "man a Star Trek RPG where we crew a ship and do thinly veiled episode plots with lots of RP'ing would be really fun."
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Feb 26, 2024 18:58
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