So, for reasons known only to themselves, Paramount has posted the entire first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds to view for free on Youtube. Don't know how long this will last, but I highly recommend if you don't have Paramount+ and haven't seen this series yet to give it a watch.

Here's the first episode

Strange new worlds is SUPER good.

I PERSONALLY prefer Lower Decks, but it’s a pretty close call.

I also suggest Prodigy, if you can handle it being a more kid friendly show.

I’m one of the weirdos who actually kinda likes Discovery, though the first two seasons were definitely...not great.

Still gotta finish Picard.

LAST EDITED ON Oct-11-24 AT 11:46 PM (EDT)
 
>I PERSONALLY prefer Lower Decks, but it’s a pretty close call.

I watched a couple episodes of this, and my reaction to it was... weird. I thought it was funny, but at the same time kind of didn't like it. Part of that's the art style, I think. It looks very much (for obvious reasons) like another animated show I Really Didn't Like™, so I think that sets the "no thank you" bit in my brain before I've even seen it.

(Also, my Fist of Correction is frustrated that it cannot punch the smug kissass guy. :)

Weirdly, this "meh" reaction is in spite of the fact that I started a TNG fanfic way back when I was at WPI that had almost exactly the same premise. It starred various members of GweepCo as the most junior officers aboard the Enterprise circa Stardate 43000. I remember there was a running gag that that version of me got killed in each "episode", a joke I shamelessly stole from Derek Bacon's Universal Science Fiction Parody (in which Wedge Antilles dies in each and every battle scene Rogue Squadron participates in). Much as with USFP Wedge's serial immortality, this was never explained. He just died in some typically Starfleety way each time, and was back at the beginning of the next adventure as if nothing had happened.

I say "weirdly" because you would think that would make Lower Decks a slam dunk for me, but it's just... not. (shrug) The skull-meat wants what it wants sometimes...

--G.
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Ditto the recommendation. It is really good, and in tone, it's more like TOS or TNG (or possibly ENT, but I'm not overly familiar with that one) with some more modern flair and vastly higher presentation values. The first episode is one of those classic Trek plots that just ends perfectly for the series' ethos. SNW ranges from fun, light-hearted episodes with a serious side ("The Elysian Kingdom") to space horror, with stops on high drama, classic Trek space adventure, ethical conundrums, thriller, etc. - it's episodic and the episodes vary in what they deliver. Take 'em or leave 'em as you like, but I do heartily recommend giving it a try.

I'm not sure which I prefer between SNW and Lower Decks, if either, but I've enormously enjoyed both of them. They're two different offerings that hit different notes, and I tend to like them in somewhat different moods, but they both are very much Star Trek and they get it. In general, both shows feature characters who are generally in space and in Starfleet because they want to be there, doing a job they love (whatever they might say) and living the adventure.

A particular scene in the latest episode made me think that The Illogics need a K-Pop band to open for them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjy6idrqHqo

>A particular scene in the latest episode made me think that The
>Illogics need a K-Pop band to open for them:
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjy6idrqHqo

I think I missed this somehow. Not only is the thing about the Illogics absolutely true, now that I've started watching the show, I might have to skip directly to this episode. Holy cow.

--G.
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I finally got around to seeing the first episode just now, and I quite liked it. Not entirely sure about the whole "Pike knows what's going to happen to him" thing, but they seem to be making an arc out of it, so I guess I'll see where it goes.

I wonder if the opening sequence was a deliberate reference to every single Cold War action movie that involved the feds helicoptering up to the hero's remote cabin to draft him for One More Job? I feel like it had to be. Which reminds me, it's been ages since I last watched Firefox. I should really do something about that.

--G.
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>I finally got around to seeing the first episode just now, and I quite
>liked it. Not entirely sure about the whole "Pike knows what's
>going to happen to him" thing, but they seem to be making an arc out
>of it, so I guess I'll see where it goes.

I won't spoil more than to say it's a plot thread that sticks around until it gets paid off in the season finale, then gets almost no reference in the second season.

>I wonder if the opening sequence was a deliberate reference to every
>single Cold War action movie that involved the feds helicoptering up
>to the hero's remote cabin to draft him for One More Job? I feel like
>it had to be. Which reminds me, it's been ages since I last
>watched Firefox. I should really do something about that.

Also another convoluted "Enterprise is the only ship in Starfleet" plot.

>>I wonder if the opening sequence was a deliberate reference to every
>>single Cold War action movie that involved the feds helicoptering up
>>to the hero's remote cabin to draft him for One More Job? I feel like
>>it had to be.
>
>Also another convoluted "Enterprise is the only ship in
>Starfleet" plot.

Well, there is at least the justification that the emergency-of-the-week involves members of his own crew. Starfleet seems to put a far higher priority on keeping crews together than any real-world navy.

--G.
Spock, calmly: "Captain, the pain. It is unbearable. HYEAAAAAGGGGGHHHH"
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Also, I like that the main cast includes at least two completely different characters who were originally played by Majel Barrett. That's not something you see every day. (Even if Chapel's look in this one keeps making me think she's Carol Marcus.)

--G.
and I can already tell that Dr. M'Benga has seen some shit
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>Not entirely sure about the whole "Pike knows what's
>going to happen to him" thing, but they seem to be making an arc out
>of it, so I guess I'll see where it goes.

Yeah, that was something of a leftover from one of the weird plot lines from Discovery S2, but that that one of that shows better moments despite that, and they don't run it as much into the ground as I feared.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

The TL;DW of the “Pike knows” is that he subbed in during Discovery season 2 for Reasons, and there was a lot of time travel shenanigans during which he saw he fate. It’s been some months since then and he apparently hasn’t taken it amazingly well after the whole crisis that was happening around that revelation calmed down. (The climax of which was hinted at in this episode.)

I think you’d like at least PARTS of Discovery, especially once it gets past the ‘first season curse’ of Star Trek. (I think SNW escaped it largely because it’s essentially a Discovery spinoff.)

I also think you’d dig Lower Decks and Prodigy, if you haven’t already seen those.

>I think you’d like at least PARTS of Discovery, especially once it
>gets past the ‘first season curse’ of Star Trek.

I'm trying out season 2, mostly because I enjoyed Anson Mount's performance enough in SNW episode 1 that I'm interested to see his Pike's full arc, as it were. There's a bunch of stuff in the first episode I don't really get, because it's clearly carried on from season 1, but I can get most of it from context.

--G.
"I was expecting a red thing. Where's my damn red thing?"
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>I'm trying out [Disco] season 2

oh shit, I love the crusty engineer in this first ep. I hope they keep her on.

--G.
"You're an engineer, not a surgeon." "Body's just a machine. And I read."
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>The TL;DW of the “Pike knows” is that he subbed in during
>Discovery season 2 for Reasons, and there was a lot of time travel
>shenanigans during which he saw he fate.

He saw the accident and chair (Which got the benefits of updated makeup techniques... Yaaay?) He did not see the pain free retirement that came after that, although given their expansion on the character, that's still more of a mixed happy ending.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

I love how this show is set, what, 10 years before TOS, and everything in it is distinctly higher-tech. That was less obvious with Enterprise because of the different "flavor" to the production design, but with a show set on the same ship in nearly the same time period it's way more obvious. I guess even without the multi-decade gap between productions, that'd still be what you get if you spend as much on one episode as the entire series cost back in the day. :)

--G.
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>I love how this show is set, what, 10 years before TOS, and everything
>in it is distinctly higher-tech. That was less obvious with
>Enterprise because of the different "flavor" to the production
>design, but with a show set on the same ship in nearly the same time
>period it's way more obvious. I guess even without the multi-decade
>gap between productions, that'd still be what you get if you spend as
>much on one episode as the entire series cost back in the day. :)

I don't know if they've ever been asked about why the look of the Enterprise in SNW is so totally different from TOS, but I imagine the answer given would be a version of that offered by Roddenberry when asked about Klingons suddenly having forehead ridges in The Motion Picture, i.e. "They were always meant to look like that but we just didn't have the budget."

There's some mentions that because of the temporal wars talked about in Enterprise the timeline may not be quiiiite the same as shown in TOS. Which is kinda brilliant, making an in universe reason for updating things like the sets or having to shift some dates around.

>"They were always meant to look
>like that but we just didn't have the budget."

Oh yeah, speaking of which, open question for the floor: What the heck is goin' on with the Klingons in Discovery? Not only do they not look like the Klingons from any other series, they don't even all look like they're members of the same species in any given crowd scene. Some of them are green. ???

--G.
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>Oh yeah, speaking of which, open question for the floor: What
>the heck is goin' on with the Klingons in Discovery?
>Not only do they not look like the Klingons from any other series,
>they don't even all look like they're members of the same species in
>any given crowd scene. Some of them are green. ???

*sigh*

The creative crew for DIS decided to come up with a whole new mythos for the Klingons as a species and as a culture, made a whole bunch of changes that pissed off the fans, and then tried to correct their mistakes in season two. And then went the extra mile in SNW and just pretended all the visual changes in DIS never happened and the Klingons always looked like they do by the time of TNG.

>>Oh yeah, speaking of which, open question for the floor: What
>>the heck is goin' on with the Klingons in Discovery?
>
>*sigh*
>
>The creative crew for DIS decided to come up with a whole new mythos
>for the Klingons as a species and as a culture, made a whole bunch of
>changes that pissed off the fans, and then tried to correct their
>mistakes in season two. And then went the extra mile in SNW and just
>pretended all the visual changes in DIS never happened and the
>Klingons always looked like they do by the time of TNG.

I reckoned it was probably something like that. Ah well, I cannot in good conscience claim that I've never done anything similar. Although I am at least not operating on the scale of a multi-gajillion-dollar television(? can we still call it that?) show. :)

--G.
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I’m of the general opinion that Discovery doesn’t deserve most of the hate it gets - especially from the special contingent of fans who are perpetually mad that people who aren’t cishet white males exist as more than objects of hate and ridicule - but yeah, the Season one DIS Klingons aren’t....good.

>the special contingent of
>fans who are perpetually mad that people who aren’t cishet white
>males exist as more than objects of hate and ridicule

It's darkly funny how much those people especially have no business being into Star Trek in the first place. I mean, call me a gatekeeper, but I tend to think that if you're not into, or at the very least indifferent to, capital-D Diversity, that particular sci-fi franchise is Exactly Not Your Thing.

On the other hand, as that quintessential thespian Wesley Snipes teaches us, some motherfucker's always tryna ice-skate uphill.

--G.
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The most charitable thing I can say about them is that their values haven’t changed from that of a horny middle aged 1960s-era liberal cishet white man.

Which is a really friggin low bar.

Also, unintentional comedy moment:

>but yeah, the Season one DIS Klingons aren’t....good.

Calli's pre-stream loading screen was running in the background as I was typing my previous response, with the aforesaid Klingons still in mind since that's what we were originally talking about. Part of that loading video, which is soundtracked to a montage of audio clips from her old streams, includes her asking in a slightly-too-calm voice, "OK, guys, two questions. Number one, what the fuck am I looking at?"

I can't remember what that was actually about, but it fits my reaction to the Disco Klingons (as opposed to the K-pop Klingons) perfectly. :)

--G.
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>I’m of the general opinion that Discovery doesn’t deserve most of
>the hate it gets - especially from the special contingent of
>fans who are perpetually mad that people who aren’t cishet white
>males exist as more than objects of hate and ridicule - but yeah, the
>Season one DIS Klingons aren’t....good.

I've seen several Trek/scifi commentators make the same argument, that if you're accusing Trek of having "gone woke," then you were never a fan to begin with. I have at least one criticism for each of the NuTrek series and anything to do with "woke" does not appear anywhere among them.

On that note, my biggest criticism of DIS is that it's lazy Mary Sue fanfiction. They set themselves the task of writing a series with a central viewpoint character...and then decided that meant that the entire universe revolved around her. It has nothing to do with her race or gender, it's that she's just a poorly written character.

>I reckoned it was probably something like that. Ah well, I cannot in
>good conscience claim that I've never done anything similar. Although
>I am at least not operating on the scale of a multi-gajillion-dollar
>television(? can we still call it that?) show. :)

You've also (as far as I can tell) avoided making huge, sweeping changes simply for the creative equivalent of a dog pissing on a spot to mark its territory.

To make things worse, Alex Kurtzman (NuTrek's exec producer) then tried to brush off the DIS Klingons as a "regional variation," something he used in PIC to explain the visual differences between the smooth brows of TOS Romulans and the ridged ones of TNG Romulans.