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Title: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on March 09, 2022, 07:58:22 PM
Red alert for me at least:

1) Akiva Goldsman, famous hack destroyer of franchises as showrunner
2) "Khan's relative is a major cast member and Khan might appear in later seasons"


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: HaemishM on March 10, 2022, 07:07:21 PM
Both of those things would be a big ol' NOPE from me even if it wasn't Star Wars. Goldsman is the twat that took whatever potential Titans might have had and just let it turn to utter shit.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Typhon on March 13, 2022, 02:46:32 PM
Isn't this Star Trek?


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: HaemishM on March 13, 2022, 02:54:31 PM
Sorry yes, Star Trek. Is there a difference?  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on May 07, 2022, 06:24:35 AM
First episode is surprisingly good. Feels like TOS but also more interesting at the same time. Even the Khan's-relative character is pretty interesting actually.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Tale on May 07, 2022, 07:53:55 AM
Hearing nothing but rave reviews. Going to give this a look.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on May 07, 2022, 12:25:25 PM
I was very prepared to dislike it; I haven't liked most of this season of Picard and Discovery is just a fucking mess. But this felt really assured, really confident, and genuinely interesting.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Ruvaldt on May 07, 2022, 03:22:42 PM
I deeply dislike Discovery, and had to read a little primer on season 2 to get a better handle on what was going on with Pike. After that though, this feels like really good Star Trek. I'll definitely watch this week-to-week. I'd prefer season 3 of The Orville...but that's coming soon, too.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Ragnoros on May 07, 2022, 09:03:10 PM
Show looked fantastic. Like on par with the JJ movies for production values. Yet, I don't understand how you can get A grade professionals in every role, vfx artists, set designers, cinematography, actors, etc., and then hire writers where all the dialogue and story beats feel off.

For Noonien-Singh's character we got what felt like an entire season of character development messily crammed into one episode. Meanwhile every motivation and story beat was punctuated with some weird proverb or folksy saying.

I'm annoyed that they seem to be 95% of the way there, and then tripped at the finish line on a great show. I get that everything can't be on par with The Wire, or True Detective for narrative excellence. However it seems like the writing should be the easy part to nail down on a multi-million dollar production. So I'm left wondering why that keeps not being the case for so many projects.

Fingers crossed it slows the hell down and finds its footing in future episodes.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Velorath on May 07, 2022, 09:10:25 PM
Looking forward to 3/4 of the way through the season when they all of a sudden do some time travel bullshit or something.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on May 08, 2022, 05:54:23 AM
Yeah, that's what I'm dreading: this group of showrunners have some kind of collective ADHD.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Riggswolfe on May 09, 2022, 10:25:02 AM
I'm still on the fence about signing up for Paramount+ to try this out. Having a character that is a descendent of Khan just feels like a really bad sign to me on top of my other previously mentioned concerns.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Surlyboi on May 15, 2022, 05:31:16 PM
We’re not sure if she’s a descendant yet. She could be a relative.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on May 16, 2022, 02:12:30 PM
Yeah, listening to her story I was thinking they have room to make her relationship to Khan be more direct--it's not clear that the "colony ship" she described was either 23rd Century or something like the Botany Bay. But as with other things in the post-JJ TV versions of Trek that are supposedly back in the old show timeline, there's a few things that don't quite match up to TOS/TNG continuity. Some of them are expected/necessary: it's clear that they're making a big move to relocate the Eugenics Wars to the mid or late 21st Century along with WWIII (and using Vulcan first contact + Europa expedition to explain how Earth was able to bounce back ecologically and economically). But Kirk's Enterprise acted as if the Botany Bay was the first sleeper ship the Federation had ever heard of and yet here's Pike's crewmember talking very unguardedly about being the sole survivor of what might be a similar kind of ship. It's possible that's a conscious misdirect--that she's chosen not to disclose that she is a Eugenics War survivor from a sleeper ship. (Also, Kirk says in "Arena" that the Gorn attack on Cestus III was the first contact between the Federation and the Gorn, but nobody questioned her about who these "Gorn" people in her story are. Maybe the Feds have heard of them but never met them.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Riggswolfe on May 17, 2022, 05:58:31 AM
I watched the pilot episode on Youtube. I enjoyed it for the most part though that Gorn story did stand out to me as a potential warning sign that they're not being careful with continuity. I do like the character but think she'd be just fine without the surname that has a lot of loaded meaning to some viewers and could result in shenanigans with the timeline.

I also enjoyed that Fox news whined about the scene that showed January 6th as the start of World War 3 essentially.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Tale on May 17, 2022, 06:54:17 AM
I'm still on the fence about signing up for Paramount+ to try this out.

1883 is a damn good western, one of the best shows of the year for me so far. Had me in tears twice. Worth the sign-up for that alone (8.8 average on IMDB, 87% Rotten Tomatoes). I'm signing back up for Strange New Worlds.

(I'm not a Yellowstone fan - they're not alike despite 1883 being a prequel about ancestors.)


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Riggswolfe on May 17, 2022, 08:28:03 AM
I'm still on the fence about signing up for Paramount+ to try this out.

1883 is a damn good western, one of the best shows of the year for me so far. Had me in tears twice. Worth the sign-up for that alone (8.8 average on IMDB, 87% Rotten Tomatoes). I'm signing back up for Strange New Worlds.

(I'm not a Yellowstone fan - they're not alike despite 1883 being a prequel about ancestors.)

I poked around a bit to see if it had other good stuff to raise the value.

So far it seems like Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks are worth it. Discovery, I guess it depends on if I can get over the Klingon changes they made (I find it almost impossible to call them Klingons.) Picard I hear lots of mixed things about and I've heard nothing but bad about Halo.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: MahrinSkel on May 17, 2022, 08:32:40 AM
Paramount is mandatory in my house for Paw Patrol, but the sci-fi (Halo, Lower Decks, and now Strange New Worlds) is a nice bonus. I just can't be arsed to finish Discovery or Picard, the previous seasons just seemed...overwrought.

--Dave


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Ruvaldt on May 17, 2022, 08:38:27 AM
The second episode (Children of the Comet) is probably the most recognizably Star Trek thing I've seen since they started making this new run of shows in 2017.

And I've started watching Lower Decks since I resubbed a few weeks ago. It's a lot of fun. Paramount+ seems like something I'll sub to for a few months and come back to every year when there's another run of good shows.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on May 17, 2022, 12:56:18 PM
Lower Decks is good fun.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Surlyboi on May 19, 2022, 12:26:31 AM
I watch Halo in anticipation of various fanboys' head exploding.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Riggswolfe on May 28, 2022, 08:00:27 AM
So I broke down. It helps that I had a deal for a free month of Paramount+. Strange New Worlds is my favorite Star Trek since DS9 though I haven't seen Discovery or Picard. I have no intention of ever seeing Picard to be honest, I'm terrified it'll retroactively tarnish TNG to be honest.

They seem to be doing really well with the show and have surprised me by not utterly chucking away canon yet. I thought for sure in the last episode they'd show off the Gorn a decade before Kirk and his crew were the first ones to actually see one in the flesh but nope, they didn't do it. This last episode was also one of my favorite types of Trek action episodes. "We're doing a submarine movie in space."

So far it's a great show and I don't regret watching it. I've checked out the first episode of Lower Decks as well but nothing else yet.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Ruvaldt on May 28, 2022, 09:52:24 AM
Yeah, the gorn episode reminded me a lot of Balance of Terror from TOS. They're getting this right.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on May 28, 2022, 03:35:33 PM
It's almost too much a remake of Balance of Terror (which is a remake of The Enemy Below) but it was a good remake. Lot of familiar tropes given some fresh feeling.

I like all the characters a lot. Including Chapel even though she is most definitely not the Chapel of TOS.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Riggswolfe on May 28, 2022, 07:06:28 PM
It's almost too much a remake of Balance of Terror (which is a remake of The Enemy Below) but it was a good remake. Lot of familiar tropes given some fresh feeling.

I like all the characters a lot. Including Chapel even though she is most definitely not the Chapel of TOS.


In fairness the defining trait of Chapel in TOS is *gazes longingly at Spock*. I think most fans would be hard pressed to remember anything else about her.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on May 29, 2022, 05:19:52 AM
She didn't really get much else, yeah, except for the episode where she's in touch with her fiancee and he turns out to have become a creepy android. (Also her former professor who started sleeping with her while she was a medical student, which is I guess didn't seem such a big deal in the late 1960s...)


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on July 06, 2022, 10:09:17 AM
I've generally been enjoying this a lot even when I know full well what they're swiping (sometimes TOS, sometimes other SF that is adaptable to old-school Trek, like the LeGuin story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"). But this last one crossed a line for me with the rip-off of Alien and Aliens. It was just too slavish a steal which in turn made it all too predictable. Plus it makes the Gorn kind of boring, to be honest. (The one twist on Aliens is the whole "they have to battle each other to be the Alpha", I guess.)  Having Newt-Trek be such a direct copy of Newt visually and then having La'an be Ripley was just, come on guys. Plus having the acid spew also be sperm (from baby Gorn, notably) is just kind of "do we really have to go through the 'oh noes the tricorder can't read the Gorn because something something' bad plotting.

I guess I appreciate the homage of having the obvious redshirts be obvious at the beginning of the episode without being redshirts exactly, only I'd actually like this show to be "everything you liked about TOS without being everything that we kind of make fun of because it was cheesy".  I'm enjoying the complex prequel version of Spock's love life, I love Mount's version of Pike, etc. I even liked Hemmer and La'an; I suppose La'an may reappear. I'd rather this enrich and complicate rather than slide into being cheesy re-enactment of the cheesiest elements of TOS. But I'd also appreciate if they'd at least try to do something slightly original when it comes to plots.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Reg on July 06, 2022, 11:08:36 AM
I want the Salt Monster prerelease version.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Riggswolfe on July 08, 2022, 07:56:53 AM
So, this has been really good. I'd give season 1 a 9 or 10 out of 10. It might objectively deserve slightly lower but I'm giving it bonus points for feeling like good old school Star Trek and the really great acting across the board IMO.

I liked the season finale a lot as well. I even really liked Pike's thoughts about why those events happened.



Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on July 08, 2022, 02:38:12 PM
Yeah, not as charismatic, but then early Kirk was a more serious character in demeanor than we remember now because later on Shatner really Shatted it up a big notch. I think the general take is that imitating Shatner will come off as high camp, so you have to do something different.

I liked this episode fine. Pike moves between being a very empathetic, social captain and being brooding and introspective, and I love that range. It's clear that the visit from the bad future is also going to change that bad future in a more subtle way in that he's going to find a way to get Una out of prison.

(The additions of the Ilyrians is one of the really great bits of building up the Trek universe in all of the newer range of shows.)

re:additions to the continuity, not sure how I feel about Sybok being in continuity--I was hoping they'd just plain decide that Star Trek V never happened.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Riggswolfe on July 09, 2022, 08:59:18 PM


re:additions to the continuity, not sure how I feel about Sybok being in continuity--I was hoping they'd just plain decide that Star Trek V never happened.

It was a bad movie but they wouldn't just write it off as never existing though I will admit I figured it'd never ever get mentioned ever again. I suppose it's a bit of hair splitting really. Perhaps they figure Sybok is a character with potential if used right? It'd be interesting if they somehow redeemed the character in viewer's eyes. There is literally nowhere to go but up.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on July 10, 2022, 06:24:40 AM
Spock certainly has a complicated family life.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Riggswolfe on July 11, 2022, 05:37:47 AM
Spock certainly has a complicated family life.

I've never watched Discovery but I do remember rolling my eyes when I found out the main character was his sister. I guess though that with Sybok out there it shouldn't be a surprise though I had forgotten about Sybok until SNW if I'm honest. I saw Star Trek V once, late at night on cable and still felt ripped off.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on July 11, 2022, 09:39:25 AM
The interesting thing is that Sarek is very nearly as explored a character as Spock and yet there's a ton we don't know that arguably this series could explore via Sybok, since it doesn't have to change what we do know.

Sarek's grandfather was the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth. Presumably that's where Sarek's interest in/fetish for humans developed. He married a priestess and then divorced her and the child of that marriage became deeply opposed to Vulcan ethics. We now know that child (Sybok) was treated for his emotionality by T'Pring, which raises all sorts of interesting questions. Why did Sarek leave his first wife? Or did she leave him because he had some kind of weird fixation on humans that she only discovered after marriage? Did he already know Amanda Grayson at that point? Was he already involved with her? I mean, if Star Trek V is in continuity, I guess Enterprise is too, at which point we know that Sarek isn't the only Vulcan who has gotten sexually involved with a human. Sarek always tries to claim later that marrying Amanda was pure logic, etc. but if instead it was emotional/sexual in some fashion, it would explain why Sarek is so intensely focused on Spock being a good Vulcan--because he knows that he himself has not been. This might also end up explaining why T'Pring cools so much on Spock--if she finds out in the course of treating Sybok that there's something kind of squicky in Spock's family history and that most of Sarek's respected peers know about it, she might not especially want to get involved in it all.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Reg on July 25, 2023, 08:47:08 AM
Episode 7 of season 2 just aired a couple of days ago and so far every season 2 episode has been fantastic. Episode 7 was the crossover with Lower Decks. I had no idea that Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome looked so much like their animated characters.

Anyway, just reviving this dead thread to remind people the show is still out there going strong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=molkZhrxqqc&ab_channel=TVLine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=molkZhrxqqc&ab_channel=TVLine)


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on July 25, 2023, 03:25:41 PM
Season 2 hasn't hit a false note yet. In fact, if you look at me pearl-clutching in the first message, the crew member related to Khan has been great and Khan himself did appear and that was great too. I feel like they're swiping stuff less and beginning to stretch their legs and live into the show's possibilities.

I would honestly be perfectly happy if this continued into the TOS era and retold the best TOS episodes with some modern twists and sensibility while adding new episodes and adventures. Introduce Ben Finney, Kevin Riley and Janice Rand as characters while Pike is still Captain. Give us a half-season of Kirk as Captain with Gary Mitchell. Show M'Benga and Chapel adjusting to McCoy (both of them are on the Enterprise still into Kirk's era). Make Janice Rand a more interesting character a la Chapel and introduce her while Pike is still Captain. etc. Maybe give us *two* crews--one with Una as captain and La'an as her first officer with Ortegas as navigator and do follow-up episodes on relationship with the Gorn and the Tholians involving them. Follow Pike's life after he goes back to Talos IV: maybe there's a complicated after-story that's more than him just living in a mental world.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Surlyboi on July 30, 2023, 09:02:27 AM
Tawny and Jack look exactly like their characters. The SNW crew were apparently the biggest proponents for the crossover and they hit it out of the park. Watching two in-universe fans fanboying and girling about their heroes and fretting about possible shit that could have happened to each other was spectacular.

What they've done with Chapel and Mbenga has been spectacular and the actors playing them have been fucking marvelous.


Title: Re: Strange New Worlds
Post by: Khaldun on July 30, 2023, 11:33:04 AM
I mean, fucking amazing. That last Klingon War episode was just breathtakingly good and remarkably subtle in various ways. (For example, we didn't need to get a scene of Chapel using the drug after the Klingons broke the line, but it's plain from another episode this season that she did, and maybe not just that one time.) If there's any justice, this should vault Olusanmokun way up the acting hierarchy--he's delivering maybe the most complicated and nuanced acting in the history of Star Trek.