Sometimes I feel like my baseline belief that everything NuTrek does is a lesser version of a random DS9 subplot is too cynical. Other times, I watch an episode like SNW's "What is Starfleet?", which is just a longer, less effective, less courageous version of the root beer scene.
Agreed. When Discovery started, it was strong, but as NuTrek went on, it was clear they are completely afraid to do anytime raw or real... even through allegory, which Trek is famous for NuTrek has no real backbone. It's like they are afraid of being called woke now
The writing of Nutrek just constantly disapoints me. I remember watching the insanely straight-foward Omelas copycat episode in SNW and being so confused why they thought anyone watching Trek wouldnt already know what was happening from the getgo.
A lot of the time it felt like a show people were sending their nepo-children to to get writers credits on for hollywood points vs the ceberal scifi by accomplished writers it once was.
If I remember the behind the scenes lore correctly, the director of that one wanted it played without all the subtext, leading Shimerman or Robinson to give the writer a call. One doesn't want to imagine what could have been.
There’s before “In the Pale Moonlight” and after “In the Pale Moonlight”.
The root beer scene is the greatest scene in Trek history and I'll go to my grave thinking so
Kind of amazing how, in the space of a single hour, this episode manages to fail at both mounting a serious critique of Starfleet and refuting that critique.
Worst part? The actual story behind the mockumentary is something I can imagine in a TNG episode, and I feel like there could have been more complex commentary about Starfleet, the Federation, and the challenges of not being an empire in just telling it straight.
Squaring that one infamous line about Starfleet not being military with, well, everything else would be quite the coup for any writer who manages to pull it off.
I haven't seen a single pixel of SNW, mostly because after the let-downs of Disco and Picard and the absolutely horrible Section 31, I can't muster up enough enthusiasm to watch it. I feel like lately, "Make it a little bit stupid" is a mandate in all Trek writing rooms.
I liked most of seasons 1 and 2 of SNW, with the exception of anything involving the Gorn, but season 3 is just not any damn good. The best episodes so far have been just OK, with an unexpected reactionary scene or two waiting like a fish bone to make you choke on the whole episode.
I'm still not over the Enterprise crew being totally OK with killing baby Gorn on sight, but then later getting all sad when they accidentally killed a colony ship of space pirates because the pirates turned out to be human. Kirk even tells Pike he feels worse about it because they're human. Ugh.
The fact that this is a spoiler and it doesn't bother me to know it definitely means something. Seems like Trek's new owners are already morphing it into "Captain Whitedude bringing the 'Murican way to a godless galaxy at the barrel of a phaser."
the mockumentary episode is a lesser version of a Babylon 5 episode
(well, not quite but you know what I mean)
I thought that a lot when looking at Discovery S1 - not helped by I'd only recently watched DS9 to start with! So I could immediately compare it to the Dominion War and go "the nerdier, lower-SFX budget version was better"