Strange New Worlds Is an Unconvincing Cover of 1990s Star Trek | The Backdrop

I guess put it on the large stack of shows I'll never watch. That's sad. I really enjoyed tng, ds9, and parts of Voyager. Regardless, great and interesting video!

Well, playing Devil's Advocate, I do have some notes... 1) SNW was explicitly sold as a return to an old format, so it does make sense that it rams through what it cans of old linear TV in order to fulfill its mission statement. I remember it being received as a direct reaction to fans being unhappy with Trek having evolved into darker, serialized streaming material. So one could argue that while it's "using technology as a rearview mirror", that was also the point. Secondary hero characters not really having room to evolve and gimmick episodes surviving while "filler" episodes get cut then becomes either a clear-cut triage in the reality of streaming, or a "homage" towards the original series, where the bridge crew didn't really have a lot of great character episodes, either. 2) If we go back, Discovery and Picard both tried something "so radically new" that Trek fans didn't really embrace it. Discovery then introduced Pike and the Enterprise, which was such a fan-favourite concept that it led to SNW; and it went to the far future, where you'd be busy having ship names reference Voyager and DS9. Picard then gave up and just did a new TNG movie with all the crew - and somehow, the Enterprise-D returned. This development came parallel to the parody loveletter Lower Decks, which did all of its references in a comedy cartoon format - important distinction, it did not take its fandom seriously. If we go farther back, the Abrams films establish an idea that Star Trek is that cultural phenomenon from the 60s which can be remixed, but has to be treated as an icon. In the first movie, Kirk is sitting in the Chosen One chair. In the second, it's "I guess we have to do Khan". The third movie responded to fan criticisms and went for a "more traditional" Trek approach. Plus: the first movie's approach plays all sides by being very faithful, not hindered by faithfulness, and so comedic it's sometimes a self-parody, especially in redefining the Kirk character to what wider audiences thinks he is, and then playing that for laughs. If we go farther back, Enterprise has some interesting ideas for a prequel show but probably just isn't great enough to convince creators and audience to break out of the mold. The third season tries to go "current TV" with serialization; but it's the last season that's referred to as "when the show finally became good" with fans, as there's plots referencing concepts and even actors from the previous shows. A fifth season would apparently have included a ship refit that would have made it look more like the cassic Enterprise configuration. Bottom line, I'm not sure if SNW gazing too many navels is anything new. It's a symptom of a franchise that has become a bit too specific, a bit too defined by itself. And that has to deal with having been a cultural phenomenon twice already. How do you top that without defacing your memorial? 3) And if we look at other franchises, we see these cutoff points over and over again. Parody, Something New, Back To the Roots. James Bond, Doctor Who, Star Wars, I guess even Harry Potter now, although I'm not sure if it had a proper self-parody phase (Maybe with the Scamander character who then got sidelined? I never watched those). The X-Files is great because it did all of that in a nutshell. Thanks to Darin Morgan's success the show embraced comedy and gimmick episodes, eventually tried to return to a more serious tone including "the main characters are at odds whenever we need that", tried a horror movie sidestepping the mythology, and eventually returned for a legacy continuation nostalgic for both myth arc and comedy episodes. And then we take a look at David Bowie or Johnny Cash, and how those were redefined at the end of their careers. Forget the missteps, here's a record cover playing on the Heroes single, he's back! In short, I think what's happened with Trek and SNW is something that larger franchises and brands always went through. Maybe it's inevitable if something exists long enough.

Stargate not only pulled the documentary gimmick off, 'Heroes' was among the best 2 episodes of the whole show in my opinion. It's like you said, cargo cult shit - they see something and don't get why it works or are unable to make it work.

We recently watched the Lower Decks episode because, well, we're watching Lower Decks. It was the first time I actually watched Strange New Worlds beyond a trailer, and I kept wondering if this was really a proper show, or something they'd created as the ultimate elaborate gag for Lower Decks.

"Looking back into the future but retreating into the past." Well said, Darren🧡.

The show has so many problems, the biggest of which is probably the least addressed: The basic screenwriting skills necessary for a TV show are simply not present. Dialogue is uniformly clunky, plot beats are awkward or stupid, characters routinely say and do nonsensical things. Episodes routinely make someone The Main Character instead of having the team work together. Then there's the worldbuilding. Starfleet apparently has no rules; anyone's allowed to do whatever they want (up to and including ignoring direct orders and Starfleet regulations) if they make an impassioned speech. The handwavey science stuff doesn't even bother inventing plausible explanations for things, they just pluck the first three words they see on a Wikipedia article and string them together. "Strong force neutrinos," sure. And the biggest flaw? This show does precisely *none* of the things that made people like Star Trek to begin with.

I stopped watching this just a couple episodes into season two. Please tell me there’s no borg episode. 🥺