Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

We got a Kirk sighting

‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Finds Its James T. Kirk With Paul Wesley https://t.co/5TYFp8XYMe

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) March 15, 2022

Okay, premiere episode today! Which I haven't seen yet but soon enough.

My natural scepticism kept me from fully enjoying the fan service bits. It was fine, I guess. Better a low-key opener that turns into something solid than an amazingly flashy and promising first episode that turns into me giving up on the show after a season and a half.

need a history of star trek sideburns

Yeah "low key opener" is a good way to describe it, it was fun and straightforward enough and got a reasonable amount of info dumping done. More than anything I absolutely think this nails the 'what if 1960s Big Ideas Optimistic Trek with 2020s production values' mode, so I'm already in for the rest of the season.

A little heavy handed toward the end but a solid B+, just happy to have a Trek episode where the survival of all existence doesn’t hinge on that 45 minutes.

ned otm

it succeeded in trying to do what TOS sometimes did, referring to current events but in a way that ~comforts~ the viewer, like trying to provide a modicum of hope as a mixer with the escapism & i appreciated the attempt because idk i kind of needed it right now? i finished the ep feeling like yes, this is how it should feel. i am a cornball though too so ymmv

it feels rooted in the past in ways that arent just fanservice so i hope that continues to pay off bc man i really love this cast

Feels good to be hyped for next week's ST episode instead of wondering which kind of terrible it will be this time.

also La’an Noonien Singh/Christina Chong is A+

total Camina Drummer from Expanse vibes, freaked out for a minute bc i thought it was the same actor lol

xpost otm

My mom texted me to ask if that was Drummer and if their alien modifications were supposed to make them look like Buffy vampires.

lol <3

there’s something about forehead appliances in effects makeup, maybe bc they often widen the space between the eyes, it is SO easy to veer into that Buffy look, it’s weirdly common like i think ppl just accept that its an ok look. i kinda wish we could get away from it myself. it even happens in cgi.

the spock/t’pring scenes were great

worried about la’an’s surname(s), because enough already

anson mount’s hair is v. tall

Hmm, could have handled this differently.

https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-ukraine-protest-footage-1848888151

worried about la’an’s surname(s), because enough already

I get Noonien-Singh and Noonien-Soongh mixed up sometimes. I had to check which one this was. I do hope it's just a nod to tradition and it's not going to be A Thing.

Roffle

pic.twitter.com/0mgRGzBRSU

— joegross (@joegross) May 7, 2022

omg totally! same energy as the kids would say

Glad I'm not the only one thinking that was the Drummer actress. Was a bit surprised it wasn't when I looked at Imdb.

Quite fun 1st episode I guess.
Didn't quite get how much earlier it is.

i thought this was good and so regretfully suppose i will continue paying paramount plus their trek tax for the next couple of months

spent probably a little too much time yesterday mentally workshopping convoluted scenarios whereby chris pike might avoid his melty fate, which probably means that i like the character

omg that's my friend dan!!

i really like that they introduced it so early on in Discovery, because it allows Mount to do more acting-wise with the character imo

Yeah it has to be a given we know his fate, right? They cant fuck with that fact at least. Surely.

It’s canon a couple times over, and if they try to timey wimey it people will be pissed.

I thought this was fine and is a welcome change from Disco and Picard nonsense, but the limits of Trekian optimism butting heads with trying to comment on contemporary ills really showed some strain and the resolution felt way too easily gotten.

anson's gonna melt, but it's like a decade away

somewhat awkward in that, while he talks about foreseeing his death, the melting won't actually kill him

this has not gone over well with disabled trek fans

just hope these characters can do something/anything better than being diverse and talking a lot. already like that one officer complaining about shit happening on her watch

yeah we can only hope

i think that aspect adds dimension

ie pike seeing the future & ~interpreting~ it as his death

yet we know that isnt the case

No I think he knows its not his death! He said something like "I saw my death... well, the death of me as I know me" or similar, suggesting what was left might as well have been dead? Which I can see disabled people having an issue with tbrh

As for me, I cant get past thinking of it like this.

https://morbotron.com/meme/S04E12/541823.jpg?b64lines=IEdvIFsgQmVlcCBdIHlvdXJzZWxmLg==

This was good: https://thatshelf.com/star-trek-discoverys-depiction-of-captain-pikes-disability-is-a-betrayal-of-roddenberrys-utopian-vision

"Betrayal" is a bit strong (I'm not sure Roddenberry had significant enough morals to betray) but the piece makes some good points without falling into fannish entitlement

Oh and nu-Chapel seems great and I loved T'pring's retro-futurist makeup.

Nu-Chapel seemed very familiar but then I realized it was just the Phoebe Bridgers hair, pretty sure I've never seen her in anything else.

I mean really, someone who is so disabled they cant move or speak and have to control a wheelchair with their mind and are just basically a floating head, doesnt sound like a life, disability advocacy is one thing but cmon. This isnt "the mere act of sitting in a wheelchair".

I rather liked this new episode, had the exact setup of a classic one-off but with plenty of its own distinct touches and interactions between characters.

only 5 minutes into this new ep but just dropping in to say that Christopher Pike's high hair is doing a LOT of important work on this show

already know more about pike's bridge crew than i've learned in four seasons about discovery's

take sides: pike's hair vs. spock's sideburns

i do think it's been well done so far, but i hope the entire season/series isn't haunted by pike's ~fate~. after all, he does love this job

this show is a real pleasure so far - absolutely nailing it but in an almost understated way

yep I reckon the character work is great (especially vs Disco) - that early scene in Pike's quarters had me grinning - feels like they have uncovered some ancient wisdom from a lost civilisation that "likeable characters that you wanna spend 1hr/week with" is a good TV formula

I've found the 'haunted by future' aspect quite interesting so far - feels like they might be building it into a slow burn plot development rather than just brooding about it? as you say mookieproof, it has been done with a fairly light touch thus far - I'm sure the device must have been used before? but it definitely adds something here, and I think stops Pike from being a bit one dimensional... and dare I say even adds a touch of profundity to the whole thing?

Some very bad CGI this week, not a big deal but the Shepherd captain on the view screen looked baaaaaad.

Some very bad CGI this week, not a big deal but the Shepherd captain on the view screen looked baaaaaad.

Some very bad CGI this week, not a big deal but the Shepherd captain on the view screen looked baaaaaad.

kept getting an error in Safari, oops.

tbf he was probably actually clint howard in prosthetics

no need to bang on about it milo jeez <3

Rob Bricken with a solid rave for the show that hits a lot of good points we've mentioned in the thread and elsewhere:

https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-tv-paramount-plus-pike-spo-1848923327

i just noticed spock’s sideburns have a slightly arty curve to them & i hate it

pike’s hair however is majestic & i am here for it

really enjoyed this ep,

I am hoping his hair gets higher every episode.

I kept thinking of this
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/41/84/67/418467cb44c622620a11d8186fa94fdb.jpg
except I was remembering it as going up wards as well as forward.

Maybe memory incorporating bits of one or both of these which are of a similar vintage I think. Certainly saw them a couple of decades back
https://cdn.onebauer.media/one/empire-tmdb/films/45145/images/tTagCxKrhFlM5N0TEHQLqrnnf7V.jpg?format=jpg&quality=80&width=960&height=540&ratio=16-9&resize=aspectfill

i just noticed spock’s sideburns have a slightly arty curve to them & i hate it

That's how he shows emotion. When pon farr hits they turn into majestic whorls.

lmao

I thought the editing was a little slack, but as stated making these characters believable people with real personalities is a welcome change of pace from Disco.

I'm warming up to Peck, I'm pretty sure that his "I apply rigorous logic to defuse tension" was meant as a joke and his little look of disappointment at Uhura not acknowledging it was a small treasure.

yeah i loved that

i think peck is great, but i was a fan from the off when he first showed up in Disco

the first two seasons series are grebt!

i did see they were online. but itvx...

Just finished s3 and agree with trishyb on the finale.

The normie life shit went on foreeever and unlike with Picard it was instantly clear what was going on and what we were being expected to feel. Anyway Pike is on a countdown to disaster and we STILL need to give him A Dead Wife? Is that about conforming to some previous canon, or did they just let Christopher Nolan write the script?

wish pelia didn't have a ridiculous accent, although i suppose that may simply be how carol kane rolls despite her character having presumably spoken english for literally centuries

agreed

Looks like filming on the final season is now complete, per this post from Jess Bush:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DSWCH7TER42/

Be sure to click through all the images; the third one is a video clip of her and some of the other cast members doing wonderfully peppy/goofy dances during a break in filming for that Wham! sequence last season.

And here’s the final time the core crew were on set together. Spock looking a little shaggy there…

https://www.instagram.com/p/DSc0YqxEVpB/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Got ourselves a trailer for season 4:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FaPm2QTy5w

And one further trailer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85nfSzEho68

Anyway we are, like, So Back. Thought it was a good way to kick off the season, just a couple of seeds sown for the future here and there but otherwise a proper self-contained thing with both high stakes and some good funny moments.

So Star Fleet is basically a Vulcan's safety school in case they don't get in the Vulcan Science Academy?

HIja'

Love how old-school the Martians looked, like full operatic Ming the Merciless vibes

And series-wise there is nothing funnier than when they let Pike improvise & he puts his foot in it
“uh…why don’t you … come aboard..?”
Crew: WTF DUDE

Kind of hated the resolution, the message I got from it was "it's OK to stand by and watch a genocide happen because time travel reasons", which gets compounded by the glibness of the debrief, "we could've stopped two mass extinction events from happening but didn't, did we do the right thing nm we get a night off yippee."

Yeah but it had to happen or theyd cease to exist, right?

Loved this ep. La'an punching a dino in the face especially. Someone on reddit made a good point that Pike could have comiserated with the Martians by saying they'd been thru the same thing (the xindi).

Also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri6_EDyxvC4

Yeah Trayce that's what the episode sez, but it smacks of "gosh the genocides HAVE to happen so let's stand by and do nothing," which given what's going on in Gaza, is an incredibly sour note. The fact that there's no further reflection on this point beyond the officers telling Pike he was right, and then because the captain lets them have a night off, tells me that the writers here have some unexamined beliefs that probably need calling out.

I mean if you're gonna take that approach, the entire franchise needs to question itself. Which it sort of did in that ep in the last season with Ortegas' brother and his embedded journalism thing.

It seemed a little classic reductionist Star Trek but the OH moment was supposed to be the “65 million years” moment combined with Pike’s flicker of recognition when they mentioned the fifth planet, meaning this has happened and it solved a classic earth question about the origins of a big rock. I think it could have used a little thinking through but time correcting itself meant any agency they’d have in the moment could mean a worse outcome. Unless you believe in messianic predestination or w/e current events aren’t applicable

the entire franchise needs to question itself

I fully think it does!

Ceasing to exist is old-school sci-fi.

Now they’d create a dimensional branch where the insectoid planet doesn’t get blowed up and we have a SNW season of Enterprise exploring long, long ago but not far, far away. And maybe trying to get back to their own timeline.

it would have turned SNW's Enterprise into the Enterprise from... Star Trek: Enterprise

the temporal asteroid paradox

Should I watch S3 before S4? I bailed on it after the initial episodes were all nostalgia bait.

Given various twists and turns and things, yes!

Meantime, today's new episode really did successfully creep me the fuck out more than once.

"appearances can be deceiving" says imperious alien with shit grammar

New episode was GR8 & creepy af and surprisingly a little bit gross :D

Heard rumors about a Klingon singer soon, but no idea if it's true.

Gotta get the 90s emo band Romulan singers in first.

Star Trek: Event Horizon

One early vote in favor of a Division 12 spin-off

Make that two

3!

TreX-Files is a much better idea for a dark spooky Trek than “what if Starfleet adopted Space Hitler.”

This is too scary. I don’t like it.

x-files episode with cigarette smoking man as space hitler was pretty good though:
https://i.ibb.co/B5zdjQh4/image.png

Interestingly my horror-loving partner really didn't like this episode. I'm not remotely a horror fan and I enjoyed it.

- we both immediately spotted and did the Dicaprio pointing.gif at the TV when Spock went into the sickbay and the body bags moved. "One of them is gonna sit up now" B said, and lo! It did. Took a while to recall where we'd seen that before (TNG ep "Night Terrors").
- the Event Horizon homages were clear. Was not expecting the extent of the actual gore, not sure what I feel about that.
- I dunno about a TreX-Files. Section 31 was such a fucking shermozzle, I don't trust paramount not to just make an overcommercialised hash job.

What didn’t your partner like about it, Trayce?

Not really sure! Maybe he thought it hit a lot of horror cliches?

Or just that it's not "Trek" would be the other reason. And I kinda get that. Even though they've done this a ton before.

My most hated version of which is that Enterprise ep with the zombie/aggro vulcans, because it had massive amounts of strobing and I cannot deal with that.

Yeah, it’s basically not what I watch Trek for.

I have read that reaction & I can appreciate it; I guess from a writing standpoint I enjoy that they aren’t confined by, “well this is Star Trek there are things we can’t do.” I kinda love that they tried it anyway? I found it quite fun (in a somewhat gross and very creepy way)

And I like that while it’s mostly a bottle episode & doesn’t affect anything much storywise , there is still this long tail of all of La’an’s own ghosts, including this one now literally, and what that means for her character / stability etc.

8 episodes into first series and they are already doing alt-universe fantasy wank. come back janeway, all is forgiven.

i'm glad this seeem to be improving because the reviews put me off trying the third season entirely. loved/enjoyed the first two

I feel like TNG would try the goofier ideas from the original series but they'd often kind of fall flat because it was a different show that could be goofy, but in a different way. SNW is kind of a modern, higher-budget show that has the influence of all the prior ones (including Lower Decks!) and they can tackle goofy in a way that's more pure to the original

Finally watched latest episode, and as a bonafide scary cat, I found this mostly boring, a couple jump scares aside. To be reductive, I'm just not interested in another iteration of a genetics-as-fate Laan story.

The gore put me of, too.

I think there's some merit to a TreX-Files / Division 12 mini series if it had the Trek p.o.v... It wouldn't be a horror series but would certainly tilt spookier more than boldly going. If we're already into advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic, why not advanced consciousness being indistinguishable from being haunted. I mean just invite some Scalosians on board.

As noted, the current Trek custodians would never let something interesting like that happen. OTOH, it's not as impossible of a fantasy object as the Frederick Wiseman James Bond movie

This week's episode: HIJINKS. (Loved it.)

mmmm i’m not sure I was on board, the jinx were too high. pun intended!

I liked it but some of the hijinks felt like bad hi-key improv from audience prompts lol

But the Klingon karaoke was chef’s kiss

Very unpleasant episode.