Over the weekend Star Trek: Strange New Words was honored by the Hollywood Critics Association with a special award and executive producer Henry Alonso Myers was there to accept, where he discussed how the show honors the legacy of Star Trek. The Star Trek Universe was also nominated for a couple of HCA Awards, but didn’t pick up any wins for the night.
Myers honors Star Trek legacy
The HCA Legacy award was bestowed on Strange New Worlds for being able to take on “a beloved property… without relying on nostalgia,” the series was singled out for being a “respectful tribute to the past while modernizing it in a fun and meaningful way, delighting original fans and a newer generation of devotees.” Co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers was there to accept on behalf of the production and after acknowledging the stars and members of the creative team, Myers spoke about the show’s connection to Trek history, saying:
This award belongs to all of them, but it also belongs to Gene Roddenberry because it’s his legacy that this award is really all about, as well as the legacy of the many talented people who worked with him, like Nichelle Nichols, who we lost just a couple of weeks ago. In the first pitch document that we sent to the network… we opened with a question asking, “What if we just did Star Trek?” And they said, “Okay.” Every day in the writers’ room, we try to imagine how would Gene Roddenberry and his team make The Original Series if they were doing it today? They would use state-of-the-art visual effects. They would ask questions that deal with the politics of today. They would approach character thoughtfully like we expect from the best dramas. But most importantly, they would tell stories about the future that give us hope that there will be a future like this to look forward to.”
Strange New Worlds was also nominated for Best Streaming Drama but lost out to Severance. And Star Trek: Lower Decks was nominated for Best Streaming Animated Series but lost out to Arcane. A full list of HCA Awards of winners can be found at Deadline.
There are still more possible awards coming up for the Star Trek Universe shows, with five Emmy nominations and six Saturn Awards nominations this year.
Watch Henry’s speech
Find more news and analysis on Star Trek Universe TV shows at TrekMovie.com.
And THAT is why this series was beloved right out of the gate.
Great job, Henry Alonso Meyers! Heartfelt thanks from me and from legions of other Star Trek fans.
^
+1
Right!
Me too!
Bingo.
Indeed.
My god finally someone in the new TV management gets it. Put him in charge of producing the next set of movies. Not Kurtzman who was part of JJs screw ups and Discovery.
It was actually Bryan Fuller’s idea for Discovery, the new look Klingons, etc. Kurtzman tried to get them on the right track after the Fuller failure. That is why you have them in the future, no Klingons, etc.
That directive actually came from CBS, not Kurtzman. Kurtzman was already there.
Had Fuller brought the series in on time and on budget, he would still be there today and season 2 would have taken the show in a much different direction.
Lol, Fuller was a disorganized mess that Moonvies and Kurtzman had to clean up. Didn”t you see that American God’s crapfest?
You are living in a dream world.
I’m a Fuller fan. I still think Discovery would have been a much, much better show had he stayed/not been overworked by American Gods. My guess is that network interference had/has been a problem, too. It feels like a CBS show — and that’s not a good thing.
Some day, I’d like to learn how much Harberts and Berg (and Kurtzman) diverged from what he’d planned — and exactly what his show would have looked like. Maybe we’ll get a doc in 25 years, lol — I’d also like to find exactly how involved Nicholas Meyer was. .
Fuller’s comments in EW on his thoughts on the first episode (suggesting it was a very, very different show than he’d pitched/written): “What I can say is… my reaction was that I was happy to see a black woman and an Asian woman in command of a starship.”
But yeah, just guessing from Hannibal and American Gods – it would have been a much smarter, more visually compelling show.
American Gods was good, I thought – and it was successful and critically- acclaimed. It was a tough book to adapt.
To be honest, I’m happy Fuller left when he did. And I was one of the biggest Fuller supporters at the start. But after seeing what he did with Discovery, yeah kind of glad he’s gone. And I agree we would have a very different show today if he was still there but I don’t know if that would be a good thing. We would probably still have the Orc Klingons (ugh).
I’d understood that a lot of what Fuller had wanted (both visually and story-wise) was changed/abandoned after he left, so I don’t know if it’s fair to blame all the problems on him.
As per EW: “Some of Fuller’s ideas were tossed, however — from the more heavily allegorical and complex story line to his choice of uniforms (a subdued spin on the original series’ trio of primary colors).”
First of all, Kurtzman hired him. Second of all, Brian Fuller was brought in before Kurtzman.
Maybe try getting your facts straight next time, dude! lol
I remember Kurtzman being brought in ahead of Fuller and hiring the latter. I remember it that way because I thought, maybe K will step back and let F actually do his thing and it might not be a total disaster, after first thinking the whole enterprise was doomed owing to K being in control. (not that things went the way I had hoped, but regardless, K is where the buck always stopped.
Can anybody else confirm that history?
According to Wikipedia, the show was first announced in November 2015 (headed by Kurtzman and Heather Kadin). That initial announcement does not mention Bryan Fuller. Fuller was announced as showrunner and co-creator in February 2016. That would suggest he was brought in later but it’s also possible that he had been working on the show before his involvement was made public.
Absolutely! I can’t wait for it to return.
Just recycle all the old scripts and change the proper nouns. You will be legends.
“The Doomsday Machine” as a metaphor for social media… “The Trouble with Tribbles” a story about violent incels… “A Piece of the Action” but it’s a Stephen King novel instead of a history of American mobsters — which, hmm, makes it more In the Mouth of Madness, but still! If you’re going to
rip offbe inspired by the the best,rip it alllll the way offlet that inspiration carry you all the way through!Please shove it as far up your rear as possible
We’ll need to remove your head first in order to get clearance.
For a Vorlon, it ought to be easy to do, since it’s a shell and there’s nothing really inside your head.
“The Doomsday Machine” as a metaphor for social media
I must admit, this intrigues me more than it should. Though the Borg would probably be a better fit.
Donald Trump has entered the chat.
Trump couldn’t even spell chat, whereas TM actually contributed content. So as Nomad would say, ‘non sequitur – your facts are uncoordinated.’
I’m just happy to see corrupt Trump FINALLY getting his. The walls are closing in by the day on all sides and it’s obvious it’s only going to get worse for this disgrace of a man who has no one to blame but himself.
This guy should’ve never been anywhere near the White House.
Good luck in your primary today, Liz.
Which is shameful. She’s going to lose because she called out a guy who tried to create an insurrection on the country to stay in power, one that her colleagues admitted behind the scenes but then ignored it in public. This is HER party and this is how she is treated? For someone who doesn’t care about the rule of law or the Constitution. But judging by your response, you are still backing him. What is wrong with you people?
Agree 100%. She stands for the truth and doesn’t care if it jeopardizes her re-election, while the other GOP cowards will do anything just to have the support of the base because they can’t win without them. We all know politicians’ first priority is to be re-elected (on both sides of the aisle), but there should be a limit to what one will support. Integrity, and lack thereof, is what is being displayed here…
I don’t agree with a single thing politically that Cheney believes in but she has my complete respect because she simply doing what every one who supposedly takes an oath as a lawmaker is supposed to do which is to literally uphold the Constitution and hold anyone in contempt who defies it. That’s what they are all suppose to be doing and yet so many just want to look the other way because none of them wants to challenge the thin skinned egomaniac and his supporters.
They all know what a danger Trump is because anytime you turn on the news, it’s not just Democrats that are speaking out, it’s Trump’s own former staffers, cabinet members and supporters who worked for him telling the world what a danger he was when he was in office and could be again. But those people don’t have to worry about getting elected for their next jobs so they can be truthful.
The others will just stay cowards to stay on his good side and get votes. That party has turned into a cult losing all sense of identity, morality and basic rationality to prop up a guy who was famous for hosting Celebrity Apprentice and Miss Universe pageants until he ran for President. It boggles the mind.
One good thing though is he will be indicted when all of this is done. She’ll be out of a job but she will be able to hold her head high she was able to call out this POS and his scary plan to basically destroy Democracy in the process and now keeping classified information that can get him years in prison. Unbelievable but he’s a corrupt moron.
I’d been waiting to answer until I was certain you weren’t going to reply to my post a fourth and fifth time.
What does that even mean? And I responded to you literally hours ago. You’re the one who is mocking Cheney for just doing the right thing, not me. But let’s prop up the guy who had to pay up for running a fake university and got his own lawyer thrown in jail for silencing women he was having affairs with from campaign money his supporters donated to him among everything else. This is the guy Republicans are punishing Cheney over. Unbelievable lol.
It’s sad where that party has gone to prop up such a clown and a crook.
I know you’re just trolling, but did it ever occur to you to wonder why someone like Liz Cheney, who was an ultra-conservative Republican back in the days when Donald Trump (who actually doesn’t believe in anything besides grifting) was a registered Democrat, would trash her own political career to take down a man whose policies she voted for 95% of the time?
I was wondering if you were going to weigh in here. She has plenty of sins to atone for even without the megasins of her father, including years of what you mention in terms of her hewing to the demented Rep Party line, and (I believe) voting to confirm these liar-liar-pants-must-be-covered-in-napalm-because-the-burn-just-won’t-quit types for SCOTUS.
Somebody really needed to take Trump aside when he was a kid and tell him that Kirk speech from CHARLIE X, about there being a million things in the universe you can have and a million you can’t have. Then again, I guess it didn’t really work that well for Evans either, did it?
There is the possibility that she is part of the entrenched DC hierarchy that resents an outsider who did not get to where they are now by establishing relationships with special interests or lobbyists through spending time at local or state or federal level elected positions and represents the kind of politician that exists on all sides that many people are unhappy with. The insiders that hate Trump seem to mainly fall into that category. I would love to see a few thousand of those new IRS agents just be dedicated to investigating members of congress. I suspect people would be surprised at how evenly spread the slime is applied across all parties. Chaney’s worth increased 6 times while she was in congress. And that’s on the low end for these people.
@Tiger2 – Thanks for the fourth and fifth replies. Sorry about your loss, Liz. If you need more emotional support, just let me know with your sixth, seventh and eighth replies.
You haven’t even bothered to give an argument, so why are you here? You’re upset because I replied to you? You replied to me first genius, not the other way around. And calling me ‘Liz’ is like talking to someone in the sixth grade who can’t form an actual argument. You obviously can’t defend Trump because you know there is nothing to defend, just admit it or stop wasting my time then. You’re offended and hurt people are just telling the truth about this crook but then can’t tell anyone why they are wrong for calling him a crook. What does that say? ;)
This is the best you can do, right? Definitely a Trump supporter.
While I don’t disagree with your sentiment, like roaches, the orange man is remarkably durable. Until he’s actually in an orange jumpsuit, he’s going to remain a cancer on the land.
The loudmouth knows how to get the attention and support of his followers. Just repeat a lie often enough until people (some people) believe it, and make the lie so outrageous that they’ll think it has to be true… No one would fabricate such a lie! This by the way, is what Hitler was doing, for those knowledgeable about history.
I don’t even think a lot of his supporters believe him. I think they just use his rhetoric as justification for their own racist, ultra-conservative right wing beliefs and are more than happy to reinstate a two-bit, tin-plated would be dictator with delusions of godhood to get what they want. That’s the really sad and scary part for me and shows that as a society we’re not nearly as enlightened as we’d like to think we are.
Sad but true. This narcissistic man child sociopath will keep defying the laws and basic decency until someone indicts him on something. What’s sad is, it will literally take an indictment for him to see he can’t skirt around the law forever. But things are catching up to him. A week ago he pleaded the 5th 440 times in Iawsuit deposition because even he realizes there is a big difference between lying to the public and lying under oath. And the more he’s forced to answer under oath in the future as these cases gets stronger, the harder it’s going to be for him.
Kind of wish he’d been in front of the White House a few days back, when lightning struck. But there wouldn’t have been near enough suffering involved.
It’s funny how many times people have said “the walls are closing in” over the last 6 years. TDS sufferers are Wile E Coyote trying to catch the Road Runner. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
He was President then…he isn’t anymore and now can’t hide behind the office. That was literally one of the reasons Mueller cited in his own report that he wasn’t sure a President can be indicted under DOJ rules. I thought that was BS but whatever.
And most of these investigations started when he was out of office already, including the most obvious one of trying to overturn the election.
And what’s sad is you supporting someone who tried to stage a coup to stay in power among all his other crimes. You people sound like you are in a cult. You should be caring more about the Constitution and not this disgraced moron who tried to shit all over it. He lost for BEING disgraced in the first place.
It doesn’t matter. Clinton wasn’t charged because she was running for President essentially. Trust me. If something truly serious sticks I will be first in line to say indict him. Thus far, there has been nothing. The document thing is obviously bogus for a myriad of reasons.
I would never support someone who tried to stage a coup against the USA. That would be horrid. Please get your facts right on that. Of course I care about the constitution. That’s why I don’t like seeing it get abused.
Constant accusing people of being things they aren’t is the dangerous thing. I think the election result was valid but that being said, if people truly believe a candidate is as evil as Hitler and will do catastrophic damage to the republic then it becomes their moral imperative to do whatever they can to prevent that from happening. Including fabricating charges or even cheating to win elections. It doesn’t take many to believe that extreme to make it happen either.
This. Exactly this. They are clownishly sad, like a bunch of miniature Emmett Kellys.
The clown is the guy who thought he could keep 30 boxes of classified material and thought he wasn’t going to get caught. Well, he did. And again, the fact you guys IGNORE his crimes is shameful. So basically Trump can break any laws he want? Really? If I tried to stage a coup and stole boxes of classified information, I wouldn’t be free like this clown still is. None of us would.
This is the entire problem, Trump thinks because he was President, he was above the law. Unfortunately for him, that’s coming to an end.
You forgot to compare yourself to Abraham Lincoln. Maybe you could do that in your next dozen replies? I’ll wait.
“Good luck in your primary today, Liz.”
“I’d been waiting to answer until I was certain you weren’t going to reply to my post a fourth and fifth time.”
“@Tiger2 – Thanks for the fourth and fifth replies. Sorry about your loss, Liz. If you need more emotional support, just let me know with your sixth, seventh and eighth replies.”
Seriously, why are you here? Stop wasting my time then, Jesus. You haven’t said anything other than complain about people replying to you. You do know that’s how you talk to people on a message board right?
If you can’t defend Trump which you obviously can’t lol, then just troll someplace else please.
Got Troll?
Here here!
There’s a huge and noticeable difference between homage and lazy rip-off of others original ideas for which the writers of the source are not compensated or even acknowledged. It’s especially noticeable when you rip-off other sci-fi classics like Aliens, etc. without paying the source writers and claim it as your own original work.
Only during pilot season have a seen so much sub-standard, unqualified, plagiarized production quality and poor, unreasoned writing… even Marvel and DC don’t pretend to do that any more.
It’s shameful and it pisses me off… I never thought I could be more disappointed in Star Trek than the Abrams leaking sewage treatment plant – err – I mean Enterprise engine room – – but here it is!
The thing is if they just redue the original Star Trek and even modernize it. It will still be like watching rerun episodes. They need the write new series and episodes . Not updated reruns. Yes I know you want it to follow the time line. But the new Strange new world’s series should have a good run of series like most of the other ones. At least 5 years.They are new episodes. Don’t worry about the remaking of the old star trek series. With Captain Kirk unless you are going to make new series and new episodes We have been and still are watching those reruns Captain Pike does have to be injured the future is not written in stone it can be changed.Cause and Effect!
When you say the quiet part out loud…. Wow.
What did he say that you think should be quiet? It seems very straightforward advice for how to create a good modern Trek show, and they did.
“the quiet part loud” has a different meaning; not that it should be quiet. Simply that they couldn’t say it’s truth at the expense of other shows.
That SNW is ST is “quiet” as compared to DIS or PIC being pitched at “‘new!” “Exciting!”
What a moronic, obscure and dumbass term. Can I have the 30 seconds of life back that I spent on this sub-thread learning that term? lol
Phrases like this are useful and somewhat addictive. I guarantee you’ll think it if not use it at least twice in the next week. :)
Yeah, maybe I will. :)
After 4 or so shows that they apparently agree.. were NOT Star Trek
I just feels like it goes to show how far they’ve missed the mark with their current slate of Trek shows. Let’s sum up what they’ve produced before SNW: Star Trek but without the Trek, just war and crying (Disco). Star Trek but without smart storytelling, just a grim, convoluted mess of plot mysteries with no payoff (Picard). Star Trek but without taking itself seriously, just an endless grab bag of easter eggs (Lower Decks). Star Trek but basically just Star Wars for kids (Prodigy). It’s like wow, somewhere along the line they must’ve forgotten the show they’re supposed to be making. Thank god they listened to the fans for once and gave us a show about an honest to god hopeful group of good people exploring the cosmos. That is always what Star Trek has been about, always should be about. Not this save the entire universe nonsense. Not plodding, grim, depressing melodrama. But heroic people on a mission to be better every day. I’m so glad SNW exists.
I’m glad SNW exists too, but it is a near thing; if I had to choose between more SNW and more ORVILLE, I’d probably go for the latter (if you’d asked me this last week, I would not have said this, based on the first 3 eps of s3.) And ORVILLE seems to be growing in confidence; I was so pleased with how during Clare’s indignant charge through engineering that they resisted the urge to put a comical march underscore in, because the actress really did it all on her own (complemented by choices of camera angle and editing) w/o needing to resort to that kind of shoring-up gimmick.
The bad stuff on ORVILLE is mostly stuff that they could cut (like the excessive CG visuals and the scores that almost sound sampled from old Williams and Goldsmith, which were probably how he temp-tracked the shows) and the shows would improve, whereas the bad stuff in SNW is often show-wrecking or premise-undermining, so damage control says ORVILLE is the easier fix. Even if I was actually writing for SNW, I’d probably still think the same way, because I’m sure I’d get fired at an Ellisonian velocity for digging in against one kind of stupidity or another
Yes to all of that!!!
I’m through 4 episodes of New Horizons and while each episode I felt was uber-simplistic I do have similar reactions. They are long and I think a lot of that is with overly long establishing shots that don’t do anything but slow the story down. And while Berman supposedly claimed he wanted more low key scoring and many were unhappy with his “sonic wallpaper” after watching The Orville go the opposite I think I prefer sonic wallpaper. The show is also about as TNG as you can get without actually being TNG. It’s understandably why many feel this show is really “Star Trek” in disguise. I feel like it could easily be TNG season 8 or TNG: The Next Generation. Also, Seth can be quite the funny guy but he just isn’t a very good actor. I truly think his plan was to play serious starship captain from the get go but sold it to fox as more of a comedy with the idea he would transition to TNG seriousness as the show moved on.
That said I still find it better than anything Secret Hideout has done.
You forgot to name the show which is Star trek without Star Trek in its name. ;-)
“Enterprise” ?
Summing up Disco as “war and crying” is a clear indication that to you haven’t bothered to watch anything beyond Season 1 and that you are uncomfortable with emotions.
I feel sorry for you.
I lasted for 2 seasons and I’d agree as to DSC’s considerable limitations and failings. And I absolutely LOVE the old series CHINA BEACH, so you can’t accuse me of not being in touch with my feelings, either.
There literally hasn’t been a war since the first season and even then that was barely the focus. As for the crying…. people do that. Perhaps you would better served by a Vulcan-centric show since emotions apparently make you uncomfortable?
He just said he loves China Beach. I am still trying to wrap my head around the cognitive dissonance which allows you to cherry-pick multiple people’s posts to fit your pre-conceived opinions of them.
Can’t speak for kmart, but emotion sharing on the bridge of a starship under attack, or at inopportune times like interrupting a conversation to talk about a character’s feelings does make ME uncomfortable. As in, now is not the place and time to whine and this being at least a pseudo-military organization, it’s time to suck it up, shut up and do your goddamn job. You can cry afterwards.
There’s an appropriate time for big emotion on the bridge – when Kirk is raging at Daystrom as M-5 carves up a huge chunk of the starship fleet, that is absolutely justified, and as a tool, should have actually gotten through to the guy on an effective level.
But the way the characters on DSC were written, they simply don’t come off as professionals very often, which, coupled with other writing lapses/failings, makes everything less credible. I’ve got a free trial of plus still, and actually tried to watch the s3 recap of DSC at the start of s4 (haven’t watched since end of s2), and that alone was enough to make me give up on even trying to watch some more. And that’s with me even daring to give Ps2 a chance, and actually managing to watch the whole season without tearing all my hair out, so my view of DSC is extremely low, as in, why even bother trying when they don’t seem to be capable of doing so with what they present and how they present it?
That’s the thing – I am okay with making some overtures to today’s culture which places more value on self-care, therapy and honest expression of feelings. But the lengths the show goes to often take it into the realm of melodrama and contrivance. It feels manipulative and less genuine, in large part because these are supposed to be professionals in a quasi-military organization. Owo having an outburst on the bridge and then stopping Saru from beaming out in the middle of a life-threatening emergency so she can explain herself? Ridiculous. Burnham sending a recorded message to the crew telling them how much she loves them all? Landing on the alien planet that’s basically just made of feelings? I get it, but… eesh.
Sometimes Discovery works – Saru and T’Rina is a sweet relationship that has more weight and believability than Adira and Gray or Michael and Ash or Tarka and Whosits. Culber and Stamets started out well too.
In TOS to even the Abrams films, high emotion moments were weaponized more judiciously, though. Edith Keeler’s death. Spock dying. Picard and the four lights. Worf admitting he is Alexander’s father after K’heyler’s death and Duras’ murder. Odo inviting Garak to breakfast works because of their huge emotional interrogation. Sisko realizing adult Jake’s sacrifice. The EMH falling for Seven. T’Pol’s patient care for Archer in Twilight. These moments big and small are carefully earned and land for me whereas Discovery’s usually feel forced and often flat-out inappropriate.
Ian, yes. Your examples are spot-on! That’s precisely what I think too. I used to like Discovery (S1), but they went way off the edge of the world especially with S4…
Go watch the last scene at the end of MASH season 3 when Radar tells everybody in the OR what happened to their ex-CO’s plane. That elicits REAL emotion, legitimately earning the response. By comparison DSC was barely ever hitting the levels that most highschool plays would elicit during rehearsals. Maybe you need to peel some onions to learn the difference between real tears and crocodile ones?
Pierce: Radar go put a mask on!
Radar: Colonel Blake’s plane went down, over the sea of Japan. It spun in, there were no survivors.
Never forgot that one… precisely because it WAS real emotion!
Good example kmart.
That MASH scene is one of two TV moments that can make me cry just thinking about it (the other is from CHINA BEACH, when McMurphy is dancing with paraplegics.)
In movies, for me the big one comes when a main character gets shots near the end of THE CHINA SYNDROME.
And (you’re gonna laugh), near the end of the book CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, there’s a guy who broke the rules and did the right thing and saved lives but he got shot and is dying and is freaking out over how his family won’t have any way to get by and Jack Ryan just leans in and tells him it is a fact that all of his kids are going to get to go to college. Shoot, I just teared up writing about it!
It must be like how Holly Hunter feels in BROADCAST NEWS when she starts crying and frets about how terrible it is that a GUY making her cry — that’s how I feel about having my buttons pushed by a Tom Clancy novel! (but the other examples I cite really do earn it.)
‘Prodigy’ is what the franchise should do, reach out to younger audiences and not just going for a shrinking fan base.
and it was a lot of other franchises have done and it doesn’t mean it is dumb down in any way
Albatrossity – You hit it. The new shows, except SNW, have been garbage. Picard was by far the biggest letdown (I have high hopes for Season 3). It’s hard to believe that these shows made it on the air. Discovery season 1 may have been the worst season of Star Trek ever. Season 3, with “The Burn” was garbage, too, especially with how they tied that story off. There was so much potential for a trek set in the 3100s, and they squandered it.
As you said, Lower Decks is an endless bag of pointless easter eggs, and the characters are nothing like the Starfleet officers we have grown to know in the other Trek series (TOS, TNG, DS9, ENT, VOY) that count. It’s hard to even watch the show.
“What If We Just Did Star Trek?” should have been what the producers were thinking several years back when they decided to bring Trek back to TV. Instead, they produced crap for years.
LD is supposed to be fun and funny. No big deal and those eggs are enjoyed by many.
You made a good point but missed it at the same time. These shows DIDN’T make it to “air”. That’s the point. CBS wouldn’t let Star Trek go back on TV, because they didn’t even trust Discovery enough to pull in an audience in a standard broadcast time-slot with a built-in demographic – especially when you consider most of the broadcast viewing audience for CBS is 50+. Instead, they used it as one of their first tentpoles to try and establish a new streaming network because they figured they could at least get a few bucks off of several thousand people for a month or two, only for them to leave disappointed, but still contributed enough money to grow the concept.
I get that streaming is the way of the future, but network TV can still pull in a bigger and more diverse audience. But it requires commitment of the network to give a show a budget to make more than 10 episodes. I personally think CBS never fully trusted Discovery, and Picard was another stunt to make more money. But there’s a small part of me that wonders if SNW will eventually make it’s way to TV and grow the audience that they were always hoping to reach.
Yes, I know this all sounds a bit ridiculous, but there’s no question that streaming is much more segmented than broadcast. Without more solid and transparent viewership numbers, there may never be an equal comparison. But I can promise that the buzz over the latest episode of the “Bachelor” or the final episode of “This is Us” burned up the interwebs and got more eyes on the product than DIS, PIC, and LD combined.
Regarding Prodigy, I’m honestly a bit mystified at your characterization of it as “basically just Star Wars for kids”. The “for kids” part makes sense, but aside from it being computer animation, like several but not all Star Wars shows, what exactly about it is more like Star Wars than Star Trek? Just the fact that Dee Bradley Baker voices characters in both?
Actually I do see some similarities with Star Wars too but only in terms of the bad guys. The robotic villian is basically a not so subtle clone of General Grievous and the main bad guy had shades of Emperor Palpatine with his crooked appearance and voice mannerisms. Having said all this I do like Prodigy very much and it is a good and necessary show for Trek’s future but we should also be honestly tell the similarities between the two when we see them. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.
Nah, but nice rant.
I was reading something this morning with an art director or production designer on SNW where he mentions the ginormous and ludicrous sized Ent sets are the way they are largely (not entirely) because it means they don’t have to spend time floating walls to get the camera in for coverage. That may be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard a professional ever say in an interview, especially when the setting is a spaceship where space is at a premium.
I’ve interviewed a ton of film folk and while there are certain advantages to being on stage vs. location (not that there is a valid location to shoot spaceship exteriors currently), most filmmakers still choose not to float walls and to treat the faux environments the way they do fixed interiors in a practical locale, using smaller cameras and limber, determined camera operators who can make them work. You make a virtue of limitations, just like you do in all the crafts and arts of the filmmaking form. Instead here we have visual credibility sacrificed on an altar of production convenience, and/or for the sake of making dumb viewers feel pseudo-awe at how ‘nice’ this guy’s quarters look. That kind of non-think inspires crap like the brewery in Abrams and DSC’s DR WHO like turboshafts, which look like BILL & TED timetravel lanes.
Every time I see Pike’s
penthousequarters I keep thinking they need to have a little smoke stack coming out on the exterior shots for the stupid fireplace.I read the article as well but I took away something different. I don’t think he was saying they have large sets in order to avoid floating walls, but rather the large sets they prefer do away with the need for floating walls.
These aren’t simply painted walls, either. They filled with fragile tech.
Maybe I was just looking for something else to complain about. I’ve been very annoyed by all the art direction on the current Trek series, every aspect from the built-in lighting to the overkill of graphics.
Not at all. It’s easier (and cheaper) to work with large sets. Any military or exploratory vessel in the real world maximizes every last square inch available so your observations are spot on.
What I love about SNW is that for the first time since early seasons of Enterprise, I can just randomly throw on a live action episode and not have to figure out or remember what happened in the last previous episodes to enjoy it. It’s nice that it’s just fun standalone stories again. It’s fun comfort food Star Trek again dealing with first contacts, helping a colony, weird trippy anomalies and just exploring for the sake of exploring. I can watch it like I watch any random TOS, TNG or VOY episode and get (usually) a fun hour of people trying to solve a crisis together. And so far at least, not a single episode with a one note villain who has an unreasonable grudge against the Federation, story that involves wiping out the galaxy or waaaay too much melodrama with a lot of hugging and crying. Just fun adventure of the week stories again that let us see whats out there and I’m loving it!
SNW is also one of the rare Star Trek shows I fell in love with in its first season. It’s only this show, TOS, Voyager and Lower Decks that I loved from the start! I probably could include Prodigy but technically it’s not finished with its first season yet. But SNW is in a very small club so far so hats off to the makers and just getting back to basics again!
“What if we just did Star Trek?” Phew, in context he means “What if we just did The Original Series but again?” I was worried when I saw the quote that he was flirting with gatekeeping … or maybe even toxic gatekeeping in the manner of a fansplainer.
Lol
“What if we just did Star Trek but the captain is not-so-secretly more interested in cookin’ up some flapjacks and styling his hair in between doleful bouts of tragic temporal whatever?”
I like that Pike is a big cook. Keeps the tradition going after Sisko! Unfortunately it was never a knack Janeway picked up! But her and Pike can probably spend hours discussing their hairstyles though. ;)
Who’d have thunk that all we really wanted from Star Trek was that it was Star Trek.
But they’ve caught on at last and that’s all that matters.
Now theyve found the key time to kill off the awful Picard and Discovery.
Yes, I felt the same way. However, my favorite Star Trek show, DS9, is the most non-Star Trek show there is. So, I appreciate the creators to attempt a different take on the Star Trek franchise, it’s just that Disco and Picard did not stick. SNW is just re-doing TOS, which is great, but I would like a different take on it that works! Even Gene Roddenberry wanted TNG to be different from TOS.
So, I am happy for SNW, but I want a new take on Trek as well that I like. So far, I do not like Disco and only some of the Picard show. But I also love Prodigy and LD, so. I guess? (But then, I am not looking forward to the S31 or SF Academy shows).
We completely agree. DS9 is hands down my favorite Star Trek show as well and a big reason is because it is NOT like the other Trek shows. I like it because it is so different. Of course it’s an amazing show on its own but I think doing something unique showed that the franchise can do other things and be successful at it.
But I think SNW is really rallying fans because unfortunately PIC and DIS just did not replicate what DIS9 did IMO. They both tried to be different but probably in ways that just alienated some fans. And of course it really comes down to if the stories are good which for me anyway Discovery is a constant give and take. I know some really hate it, which is not me at all, but it’s frustrating as a show, especially one I really want to love. Picard has just been a total disappointment. Start off strong both seasons but by the end just felt like a mess. I thought season 2 was worse than season 1 although it had probably one of the strongest starts to any of the new shows, SNW included.
So yeah I would love to see something different and unique too. That’s never been my issue at all.
I find your description of other shows apply to SNW as well. It is very frustrating because I want to like it but every mistake they made was a mistake that did not need to get made. What I mean by that is certain situations are created to cause the story to happen or work. So in those cases altering your set up means the story you want to make won’t work. That is not the case with SNW. Every story in S1 they made would still be the exact same story without the mistakes they made. And THAT is what I find so very frustrating. I mean, if they had used the Gorn because they NEEDED the Gorn element to make their season long big bad to work (I don’t see how it could but for the sake of argument let’s say they might have had a need for them) then some steam would be taken out of the argument against them using the Gorn because in that case had they not used them they could not have done the story they wanted. Or even cutting them some slack, let’s say there may have been other options that just didn’t work as well as the Gorn. Kind of like killing Icheb was the best motivation they could come up with for 7. Sure, they could have found something else but it just wouldn’t carry the same weight as Icheb.
My point is it’s less that I’m a strict canon kind of fan and more that I would prefer they stick to it unless it’s a needed change for their storytelling purposes. The people who run SNW do not seem to have the creativity to even realize this. Hence my problem with the show.
Dude we agree about the Gorn, OK? But at some point you and some of the others just have to move on. I’m not trying to sound rude, but this is what they decided to do man. It would be different if this was the first time in Star Trek history they retcon a first contact in some way, it’s not. I have made this point to you in the past. Of course you can still not like it, but it’s done. We just have to see if violating canon was worth it or not?
But yes we’re in total agreement, they could’ve used any other species and nothing would’ve changed. Or even a better idea, come up with something NEW or something similar to the Gorn and that would’ve worked too. This really seems like your biggest hang up with the show to me. But I could be wrong on that.
There are things I could say to this but I think I’ll just stick with this… You are correct that using the Gorn is my biggest issue with the show. It’s just a gigantic mistake and tells me they never even watched the Arena episode and didn’t care to. There are other things that bug me like changing the Chapel character, having everyone know about T’Pring and even a few PD things but the Gorn thing bugs me the most. What that represents is just too huge to cut them one inch of slack. It makes me realize just how good Manny Coto was when he ran Enterprise.
Ah yes, everyone pick there fav Trek show right now, and let’s cancel all the others. – D. Trump.
I am so glad I didn’t vote for the guy who wants to cancel Star Trek.
Yeah I think they summarized the premise of show perfectly – what if Star Trek TOS was being made today instead of nearly 60 years ago? The answer: SNW.
Thanks to a huge budget, clearly the set design, VFX and all the production values overall reflect a show being made in the 21st century, not in 1966. And the casting and characters not only mirror a more global audience, but the multi-dimensional portrayal of the Captain is much more realistic for a show being made today.
I respect the desire of some for nostalgia and even an exact replica of TOS ala the fan films, but IMHO season 1 of SNW managed to pull off its goal nearly to perfection – what if Star Trek was being made today. Can’t wait for S2!
There is NOTHING realistic about this show.
If Paramount wanted to make Star Trek for 21st century production where every character’s whiny, hand-wringing soap-opera-backstory is more important than the episode story AND the whole thing is science and space travel fact-free, they shouldn’t pretend any of these people are in a disciplined service organization as explorers of the potentially deadly unknown, pseudo-diplomats, and first and foremost: military.
There’s no Captain in this show. He’s a UFP human resources rep in a space ship designed by a Fairy Godmother…
Your first paragraph applies to Discovery, not SNW, and for that I agree. Your second paragraph makes no sense. And by the way, realistic doesn’t come into play; you do know what science fiction is right?
What distinguishes SF from fantasy is that there is some credibility and extrapolation in the former … but TREK has not done very well in that area for decades. Remember David Gerrold’s analysis of TWOK’s sci? The movie is as scientifically accurate as the 1803 Farmer’s Almanac. So the issue of being realistic or credible is part of the question, even though we often look right past it when we’re enjoying ourselves (like how Indy held onto the sub’s conning tower for 3000 miles in RAIDERS.)
I remember almost giggling with joy when TWOK brought up 2-dimensional tactical thinking – even though 3-dmensional tactics weren’t actually used – it was really joyful to hear the idea of how StarFleet training pays off.
It’s frustrating that, especially with movies and large screen TVs, you can’t actually execute (using virtual camera movement) those concepts visually without making a fair number of people sick and dizzy.
It’s one way that the VFX industry is not moving forward that there is very little innovation and experimentation in finding a happy medium. Sadly, there’s just no profit available to go into that kind of R&D – they just keep retooling existing visualization approaches and just keep adding new twists – it’s all holograms with 2-dimensional thinking!
Mostly it’s the fault of the research Universities that have well funded VFX facilities. I think we’ve reached the limits of the virtual camera and that’s all they’re focused on. There’s just no Battleship Potemkin going on…
I hope Jon Favreau is getting money out of Disney to research stable foreground elements with extreme motion with the ILM Volume technology (or vise versa). That offers unexplored possibilities. It certainly isn’t going to come from Paramount and the crew from these Star Trek shows.
When we are enjoying ourselves we do tend to overlook the flaws. But I have to admit Indy holding on to the U-Boat did take me out of the fun movie for a bit. I even took the mine car sailing off the track and landing on all four wheels better than the concept of the U-Boat thing.
It’s a shame to admit, but I never even gave the U-boat thing a second thought till I saw Harlan Ellison mention it in a column years later. (maybe I had read the novelization or somebody else did and told me about how he lashed himself to the conning tower, I really don’t recall.)
You know what I think is most weird about RAIDERS? The scene where Indy threatens to blow up the ark and then can’t bring himself to do it (which is my fave bit in the whole series) must have been a very late addition. I bought a copy of Kasdan’s third or fourth draft in the mid 80s and found there’s a startling lack of dialog in it, much less than the finished film, plus the addition of action set-pieces that were later used in TEMPLE OF DOOM (the gunbattle with him hiding behind the gong, the mine car chase in much different context, and maybe something else.)
I think it was the first screenplay I bought, but as a template, it was useless, because there were PAGES with no dialog at all, just chunky paragraphs of description. It did have the stuff about Marion having to whore herself out to get by after Indy had ditched her, but it felt like the soul of the movie hadn’t even been unearthed yet. Makes me think I oughta do some research to find out when that got added and who suggested it. (I would have been able to ask Kasdan a couple weeks ago, when I was up for interviewing him about the new ILM doc series he made, but believe it or not, I couldn’t find an outlet that wanted the story, so I didn’t get the interview.
I disagree. It’s true when it comes to production design. But completely false when it comes to the writing. Which I find in most cases to be worse than what was on TV in the past. I realize that makes me sound like the old man who says “things were better in my day” but there it is.
Paramount has a gem in Strange New World. It’s like going back to its grass roots of the original.
I think we should just congratulate all the hard working people who made SNW become a reality. In fact, I’m thankful for all the new star trek we get. I hope this train never ends!
Congrats to the show on winning the HCA Legacy Award.
“What If We Just Did Star Trek?” Why did it take them this long to come up with this revelation? Is it any surprise that it has quickly overtaken Discovery and Picard in terms of popularity and buzz and largely become the flagship show at Paramount+?
SNW is easily the closest show in spirit to TOS, even moreso than the TNG era shows which in my opinion often were a little too self aware and evolved in their sensibilities for their own good.
They just need to work on the writing. The season finale was probably the best episode for me with good pacing, high stakes and a story that held my interest until the end. Half of that was just a nearly verbatim copy of Balance of Terror, but the original story parts were well presented and hopefully season 2 will build on that.
The finale was quite well done. But it was pretty much the only episode that was. I don’t know I guess that with these short seasons I expect a better ratio of good to bad episodes since they have more time and more everything to make them good. If the show had 20+ episodes it’s easier to forgive a number of bad or mediocre ones. Literally 5 of the 10 episodes in the season were bad. 4 were mediocre and one was good. That’s just not a good ratio for a short season. It’s not even a good ratio for a normal sized season.
Yeah, the other episodes were watchable and held my attention, but also not particularly memorable and quickly forgotten. Still, I’m trying to look at the glass as half full.
I do think the ‘what if we just did Star Trek’ pitch is a bit simplistic — as in ‘catchy but not descriptive enough’ — but it also reminds me of the never-named studio exec who unfacetiously suggested back in the 80s, “Why don’t we do THE WINS — but white?”
inda proves context really is king, perhaps to a degree the folks on DSC never really let themselves realize to the fullest (Fullerest?) extent.
Wow. Sounds like the HCA has either no knowledge of TOS or has never seen SNW. That show takes elements of TOS and just chucks away everything they don’t like. It’s anything BUT respectful.
Yet again seems like it must be said that if they wanted to do their own thing they should have just made it a complete reboot. Do Star Trek as if they thought the Pike pilot was sold and not be restrained by anything that was done on TOS. The sad part is things like this only cements the idea that they have been good caretakers of Trek. They haven’t been. Harve Bennett did a decent job with the features and Berman did a good job with the sequel shows. IMHO Coto was the best show runner they had since Coon. But Secret Hideout? No.
Lets just make Star Trek. Lol. So all they’ve done so far isn’t Star Trek until Strange New Worlds. I mean i was waiting for Disco to become Star Trek so i’m not going to argue with this. But its a bit simplistic and not really fair to the people acting in Disco its not their fault the bad writing. Or that they tried to make anything but Star Trek.
Coming very late into this thread, but wanted to see what the other Trekkers thought too.
For me this show is a revelation and it feels aimed exactly at me. I have never had that feeling with any other TV show let alone Trek.
For me, Trek is TOS. I have watched the franchise for fifty years and I understood the decisions that we done, the hits and misses of various prequels, sequels, and other not-Enterprises commanded by not-Kirks. Some of these were great TV, suspenseful, innovative, and what have you.
But SNW feels like getting new episodes of TOS, only with today’s craft. While it doesn’t feel overly tied down (as Kelvin Trek has been) or programmatic, it finally gives me what I’ve been missing: the sense that a bunch of us are on the Big E hopping planets having adventures every week. I missed it so much.
SNW has been Trek series I have enjoyed the most since Enterprise ended
some episodes were derivative of better Trek and I was not a fan of what they did with the Gorn in episode 9. Too derivative of Aliens and missed the point of the Gorn in Arena I felt.
I treat it as a separate universe to fit it in or else they have to have a mind wipe before TOS.
To be honest my main gripes has been the dialogue, it’s too modern and like you would hear on a more soapy teen show and to me that will date it but makes characters like Ortegas seem insorbdinate.
Since 2009 I don’t think they grasp the chain of command but it is good show from the Kurtzman era.
SNW and Lower Decks are the best under the Kurtzman banner.
I feel The Orville season 3 did the kind of storytelling I do miss from previous Trek, more thought provoking stories that invite debate.