I agree with you on that last part, but the thing of it is for me, that they aren’t doing anything with the characters to offset that lacking … if anything, the character stuff is even more offputting than the lack of SF, like FIREFLY, but minus both brain and heart.

Yes indeed, well put. S1 of Prodigy should be arriving on DVD from Amazon today, looking forward to adding it to my collection.

Agreed, I think we’ve seen this show go as ‘deep’ as it’s going to. For true sci-fi, look elsewhere.

F-bombs rarely detonate with any force for me, because it is just human nature, nothing special. There are times in contemporary films when things don’t ring true because it isn’t used, so if anything I think it is under-employed.

Sometimes what can seem like overuse is just being true to character … Treat Williams in PRINCE OF THE CITY has one scene where he uses it over and over and over again and it actually made me laugh in the theater, even though it was probably exactly like what a guy with his background would be reduced to, articulation-wise. (Similarly, SHARKEY’S MACHINE has a scene where Burt Reynolds’ digits get cut off and he sweats monumentally, and it triggered a laugh because, however true that response, it looked like something out of the movie AIRPLANE!)

The last time I was actually ‘shocked’ by the use of an F-bomb (only time ever, actually), was in the movie TRUE CONFESSIONS, when delivered by Robert DeNiro’s Catholic priest character — and it is quite deliberate and totally appropriate.

(I’m so happy that is on blu-ray now, cuz I get to rewatch it at proper definition every year … very few ‘I can watch it just for the acting’ movies on my big list of greats, but this one has always been there … plus as a bonus it has lustrously honest cinematography that I’ve often described as ‘THE GODFATHER minus the Golden Hues’ … DP Owen Roizman had a stretch running more than a decade that demonstrated enormous versatility, ranging from THE FRENCH CONNECTION to TOOTSIE, from THE EXORCIST to TAPS, tho this remains my fave of them all.)

Except for Gordon Willis and Conrad Hall, I think Roizman is the only cinematographer whose presence on the poster was enough to get me to the theater just on its own. Roizman and Jerry Goldsmith may have been the biggest off-camera draws for me, even above most directors.

As someone forced to engage with community theater on a regular basis as part of my job, I believe your opinion on Peck’s acting to be both inaccurate and unfair. There is lots of bad acting in front of crowds across the U.S. and it is on a level you would likely find incomprehensible.

Spock was written so well (and taken much more seriously as a character) in Season 2 of DISC. That’s how Ethan Peck came to own the character more credibly than Quinto had. But that good writing is gone and he is fast losing credibility.

Yes, I had such high hopes for SNW. Some of those hopes were fulfilled during the first season, but the first half of the second has been a major disappointment!

Still unsure why anyone finds this episode polarizing lol. None of the reasons cited here sound sane or rational.

It’s a fun, light hearted sci-fi premise. Well written and delightfully acted. Wonderful stuff.

Season 2 has been solid but not spectacular, let down mostly by comparisons to the truly stellar first season.

Still better than PIC S3 that everyone explodes over for no good reason.

The only versions of Star Trek that censored the swear words were broadcast on network TV or syndication. All others, such as movies and streaming services, don’t have that limitation.

I just think it’s too late. Several people have pointed out that other message boards and comment sections (e.g. Reddit) have a lot more people singing SNW’s praises. I feel like TM has a base of more long-term fans who have higher expectations when it comes to the franchise and science fiction. Right now, I don’t think the powers that be are too concerned about either of those concepts, and I feel like the way SNW is going is the way it will stay until it’s gone. Sci-fi just isn’t a big part of the show. I’m pretty sure that’s by design.

Yep, it’s way out of control. He’s becoming the Neelix of SNW, and that’s not good.

I know Spock was played for laughs a few times in TOS and obviously in Star Trek IV, but at least in TOS it felt earned and ST:IV had them ALL looking like idiots at times. Right now, it just feels like SNW Spock is the primary comedic device for the whole show, and I’m not liking that at all.

So true about comparing it to PIC season 2. But as for the comparison to Spock Amok, I actually liked this one a little better since T’Pring was not a central character in the story. Having less of her this time helped in my opinion, but also having her be more on Spock’s side was also more enjoyable as well. But the fact that they’ve already done TWO “Spock Gone Wild” stories in LESS than 20 episodes is a little concerning. TOS did have “The Naked Time” and “This Side of Paradise” within the same season, but Nimoy seemed to do a little better job or balancing the two sides of Spock. They also seemed to have better plot devices and felt different since multiple members of the crew were effected. SNW just seems to have decided that the Spock character is just a great comedic device, and that part is getting old….

I’m with you on this one. I feel a little guilty for liking it. But after the time travel episode, I’ve pretty much decided that SNW is not connected to TOS, and maybe that’s why I’m enjoying it a little more. This one still had plenty of issues, but if I disconnected and just enjoyed it for what it was, I thought it was very entertaining. Probably the first one this season that didn’t just feel like there were points of wasting time to just waste time. But as someone has already mentioned, maybe people will probably dislike it.

…that’s been bothering me as well. Especially this season.

The hell? I mean, I guess there is always that one doctor out of ten, but still. Very strange reaction.

I been watching Trek since the late 70s…I just block that episode from my own brain. ;)

You never watched the TOS episode of “Spock’s Brain”, did you? Or some of the episodes of the first season of TNG…

You’ll be happy with this ep. Sam Kirk is in quite a lot of it.

Not that I’ve seen any of those (at least that I remember), but the trilogy episode idea works budgetarily as well.

I spent a number of years trying to work up an antiTrek space show that was basically working-class space (a decade ahead of FIREFLY), and for a short while I had a writing partner who agreed with my assessment that creating what were essentially feature length stories that would play out as three-episode arcs was the way to go when it comes to spending money, because you get an immediate return on larger investments, like a particular group’s spaceships and architecture. Also, with the latter, you have created more basic forms that can be redressed or mangled into something else that go into your scene dock for future shows that aren’t made from tissue paper and shadows, so you have more options that maximize production value in that way too.

Another takeaway here is that you can actually get into the details of people and culture in 2-1/4 hrs a lot more deeply than in 46 minutes (at least in theory, though a lot of writing in current Trek comes off like padding to fill out the season.)

This is also how I recall De Kelley saying he thought Trek should be done in the late 70s, with a series of 7 or 8 90-min to 2hr movies per season, a la the NBC MYSTERY MOVIE that rotated between MCCLOUD, MCMILLAN&WIFE, COLUMBO and a series to be cancelled later.

Outside of the first two, I’ve only seen the others once as well.

If that final scene is one of the “big swings” they all keep mentioning then they can keep the rest. Oof.

Lol. Yes, PIC season 2 was the worst. I’ve never rewatched any of the episodes( a first for me)

Spock Amok is still a step up for me but I thought this was fun overall though. But I have to agree, the season so far has been more disappointing when compared to season one at this point but still enjoying it. Just close your eyes and think about Picard season 2 again and this feels like a masterpiece lol.

Too bad the series isn’t going to get a third season, since the SAG strike is going to lead to it being canceled.

Which, naturally, means you can’t STFU about them (us?) not being able to STFU.

Wow, I’m sorry to hear that. And of course I understand.

I feel almost wrong for saying this now, but I thought it was OK at least. But I’m not really debating your points too much. There is some sketchy stuff in this one for sure and Peck probably went a bit overboard lol but you didn’t think it was at least a little fun?

I agree about the Vulcans though. They all come off as pure assholes these days. It’s stunning that first contact happened with them at all the way they look at humans. And do we REALLY smell that bad lol.

I generally like the comedy episodes though, but I know a lot of them can be divisive and this definitely will be. But I still think this is waaaaay better than other bad comedic episodes like Spirit Folk or Profit or Lace.Those are just painful to watch for me.

I disagree about the production quality of DSC stacking up to Star Wars. A couple of years ago my flatmate and I would watch a Disco episode followed by a Mando one. The latter was a breath of fresh air, bright, clean and crisp cinematography and sharp visuals. Disco is a dark, blue/amber mess with blurry and poor quality visual effects.

I’m not sure I’ve ever rewatched “Faces,” but my memory of it is that Roxann Biggs-Dawson showed us her acting chops in that episode. Peck, on the other hand, seems to have regressed to middle-school-drama class level acting. If that.

I stayed up late to watch it because afterwards, I had a middle-of-the-night conference call with folks in a time zone far away.

The conference call was the best part of my evening.

Why they even felt the need to introduce this character is beyond me. Yes, Gia Sandhu channels some of the original character well. A big part of the allure of T’Pring was her mystery, that she was betrothed to Spock 30-odd years earlier and not heard from since. Having them fuck like bunnies, and setting up a contrived love triangle with Chapel, and idiotic dinner rituals with equally idiotic customs like mothers-in-law insulting the future couple…I just can’t fathom what the hell this writer’s room is thinking.

The thing is, I have no problem with the occasional bit of profanity coming from humans or Andorians or whatever.

But Vulcans? It’s not that they lack emotions: it’s that they *master* them. Profanity would be taboo for them.

Even if you can accept the bullshit (sorry, I’m just not in a mood to be eloquent after this crappy episode) premise that Spock could magically become human, that doesn’t mean his entire life experience prior to that moment evaporates into thin air. He’s a stoic and has spent his whole life practicing as such.

DNA isn’t destiny. Remember the film LION? If you’re an Indian orphan and adopted out to an Australian family, you don’t lose your Australian culture the moment you set foot in India once again.

It’s so sad that a fan production like STAR TREK CONTINUES could portray Spock having a relationship with a human woman so tenderly and organically, and supposedly professional writers give us this dreck. Pike shows zero leadership in trying to hide the situation.

0.5/10, and that’s probably being generous.

…and to think that the first six episodes were supposed to be the good part of the season. I shudder to think what we’re in for in the home stretch.

Oh, and another thing. The wife of a good friend of mine died today. I’m in zero mood for stupid mother-in-law stereotypes this evening, even if they were done well, which is the opposite of what we saw here.

Yes. TATV had some redeeming qualities (and Riker sounds like a better chef than Pike). This was “Threshold” level bad, or “The One in Which Lwaxana and Alexander take a Mud Bath” (can’t remember the name) level bad. The “DNA as magic” science was about on the level of Threshold.

Ethan Peck appears to have spent some time on Rigel VII in real life, because he’s forgotten whatever acting lessons he took since high school, if not before.

I get that Vulcans can act arrogantly, but this was beyond parody. The only saving grace was that I got a chuckle out of T’Pring’s dad, who professed to enjoy Pike’s cooking before being scolded by his harpy-like wife. I probably *shouldn’t* have gotten that chuckle, because he’s probably in an abusive relationship, but what the hell.

I just…am speechless. I don’t know where to begin, and I don’t want to waste 20 minutes of my time writing a more substantive review.

Enterprise is a great show, especially compared to the likes of Discovery and most of Picard.

Smart Trek is out. Lowest Common Denominator Trek is in.

It’s pretty funny people are giving you a hard time for this comment but yeah the actors are actually only 11 years apart from each other…and looks it.

It’s like you already watched it Will. ;)

C’mon worse than TATV? That’s saying something.

I watched a YouTuber give a review on this season weeks ago and the two episodes he said that will probably divide fans the most would be episode 3 and 5…and yeah I see what he means now lol.

I have to say, I kinda liked it though. :)

I gave up at the 28 minute mark. Do I have to go back and finish it?

Yeah, some heads might explode.

F’ing amen, sister! So F’ing sick of their F’ing obsession on this. Just FUBAR all the way! WTF? Stop the mind-F, P+.

It this wasn’t so sad I would LMFAO. Yeah, this obsession is F’d up, and I wish they would just STFU here regarding this. But there is no F’ing way that’s going to happen any F’ing time soon in this F’d up world we live in. F’ing eh, sister…F’ing eh.

Scotty, for F’s sake, beam me off of this cluster-F, F a Duck planet?

I clearly said “prefer,” so I how is it that I am violating what I said here?

Well, it’s not entirely pointless here given it’s soooo out of character and that’s the whole point of having him say it. Admiral Clayton and Tilly on the other hand, the “F” bombs didn’t really factor into the story as much.

You are ignoring the nearly identical themes of estranged father and son, in the death star/borg cube at the end, using special powers to overthrow the Emperor/Borg Queen, while simultaneously: (1) Lando/Data are piloting the D/Falcon into the center of the Borg Cube/Death Star and (2) the away missions with Seven/Solo is doing a critical away mission that also culminates in parallel in the final moments as well.

They freaking copied the entire plot, not just one thing. It’s the same freaking story, man. We can quibble over minor differences, sure, but it’s like 80% identical.

Indeed, the trilogy episodes were brilliant. Live broadcast length had also been gradually cut away at for more commercial so much so over the decades that a single Enterprise episode lost a whole Act as compared to TOS. It’s like they were 4-act stories on Ent instead of 5-act. Anyways, the trilogy approach really let the contained stories “breath” a lot more and permitted more character moments and addressed the dwindling weekly runtime due to more advertising.

Is that still on the air?

Andor is lightyears ahead of anything Trek has done in terms of writing, acting, cinematography, everything. Mando similarly far ahead too. I love both franchises equally, but it’s no surprise Star Wars got 23 noms, the quality is far higher than Trek atm.

Agreed regarding Andor and Kenobi — the only Trek series that comes close in terms of production quality would be the first three seasons of DSC. Mando is a little weaker though.

Why? Why is the F word so important? These new Trek shows seem obsessed with it for some reason, even though Trek got along fine without it.

I could not disagree more — I love the character and the scenes she in — which she usually steals the show on.

Well said.

I like Lower Decks, that can be great. Funny but with heart.

I give credit to DIS for at least trying to push the franchise forward, but the characters and their personalities are so awful, it doesn’t much matter.

Strange New Worlds can be good, though I haven’t really enjoyed any episode this season yet.

Picard is a mess.

Huh???

Don’t forget Shakeaspeare in Love winning over Saving Private Ryan.

Succession sucks. Better Call Saul all the way!

I don’t remember which eps they were but there were eps of DS9 and Enterprise that both had fake societies of holograms and the funny thing is both starred René Auberjonois 

To be fair, Star Trek has been copying itself for decades now. And sometimes, the copy is better than the original.

Lol! Great comment. I didn’t think of that.

While SNW is more serialized than some of the early hype let on, movie-style stories would require more serialization. Personally, I think Manny Coto hit the nail on the head with his series-of-trilogies approach.

I’m glad you mentioned that because that’s something that gets glossed over by ST fans. The fact is, a lot of people think ST is geeky, but “lame geeky” rather than “cool geeky”.

 It’s well written, intriguing and compelling

As much as I have enjoyed streaming Trek in general, I do kind of long for a series as well-put together as Andor. For whatever reason, no seems to want to make that kind of ST.

Although this does sound like Faces, I suspect it’s more about the producers wanting another Spock Amok. The basic elements are similar: hilarity ensures as, for whatever reason, Spock is not himself and has to find a way to not only get back to normal, but also deal with his girlfriend and manage an Important Event at the same time.

I mean, it worked before, so, why not?

OK fair enough. I really like her personally but she really shouldn’t be on this show at all. But it’s a little too late for that. ;)

Much stiffer competition this year. “Yellowjackets” is a bit of a stretch for me, though.

Agreed! But some folks just want to make noise, be the contrarian and poke the bear.

And as much I enjoy Rocky, it beat out Taxi Driver, All the President’s Men AND Network. The Oscar went to the crowd pleaser, not necessary the best film released that year BUT at least all of the nominees deserved to be nominated that year.

I agree. The Sting‘s win followed films like Midnight Cowboy, Patton and two Godfather movies. The Sting was a throwback and the last film of its kind to win Best Picture.

She is a completely pointless character used for melodrama. I would rather see Sam Kirk who hasn’t appeared yet in S2

“The Ultimate Computer,” possibly the last great TOS episode put on film

Well, that’s a provocative take! What about “Day of the Dove” and “The Enterprise Incident”?

I would actually be against re-casting TNG; it was more a thought exercise than a serious proposal.

I do a head-canon casting of political figures in each presidential election, too!

I agree that Kirby does have a Vulcanesque visage.

Fair enough of course.

that’s why I prefer that we don’t engage with each other

I must say, you have a singular definition of “not engaging” with Tiger2, since I count at least three responses to him in this thread, even assuming the “Abbott and Costello” reference was to someone else.

I went through [the Star Wars analogy] with you point by point weeks ago and you refused to acknowledge and obvious analogies…

I don’t recall discussing this particular point with you, specifically, on Trekmovie. Forgive me if I’m mis-remembering; shockingly, Star Trek, as much as I like it, isn’t the entirety of my life.

On the Reddit thread you cited, I’d hardly call it “massive”; it’s all of seven posts. Setting that aside, the sole complaint (judging from a meme) is that the Enterprise-D did a lateral run alongside, or inside, the Borg cube, much as Luke did alongside the Death Star.

With all due respect, that’s quite small potatoes. For one thing, it was, even if a finale, still one scene in one episode out of ten. For another, I can think of any number of other Star Trek episodes that had similar scenes: “Relics” in TNG, most memorably, but also INSURRECTON and “The Pegasus” and “Zero Hour.” No doubt there are others; these are simply top-of-mind examples.

Of course, I don’t doubt that Star Wars — and really, it’s the original movie more than RETURN OF THE JEDI, but set that aside — inspired some of these kinds of special effects, both in Star Trek and other works, such as TOP GUN 2, which I mentioned above.

Still, a scene where “small vessels stage a lateral attack against a fortress” means that the entire production is a “blatant rip-off” of Star Wars is a wild exaggeration.

You might as well say that STARGATE is a “blatant rip-off’ of Star Trek because the former used the concept of “beaming” in later seasons. Or for that matter, you might as well say that HENRY V is a “blatant rip-off” of the Iliad because they both feature besieged fortresses. Few of Shakespeare’s plays were entirely original.

No serious literary scholar is ever going to claim that a work stands entirely alone. Even postmodernists who seek to deconstruct the canon will grudgingly concede that an understanding of Shakespeare is necessary to analyze works omitted from the canon.

Frankly, the *real* complaint ought to be that RETURN OF THE JEDI’s climax was a near-duplicate of that of STAR WARS, with Ewoks thrown in. There have really only been a couple of good Star Wars movies out of the many we’ve seen. Oddly enough, aside from A NEW HOPE, they mostly seem to be the second movie in each trilogy. But that’s another discussion.

Ironically that’s why I liked Prodigy so much. It was using a lot of concepts other shows used too but it felt more fresh due to its premise and characters. If it was a live action show, it may be in a very different place right now.

SNW is basically just more TOS/TNG/VOY etc but updated. But that’s WHY it’s popular lol. But tit can still stand a little more on its own IMO.

LOL!

An interesting idea — perhaps they should create a new award for “best regular cast.”

Agreed that they all gave career best performances, including Spiner, who was basically playing a new character.

This is certainly true as well. I do like watching the features stuff. But thanks to YouTube a lot of that usually ends up there now if you just want to watch behind the scenes stuff and audio commentary. I listened to both the First Contact and Insurrection there a few years back. Obviously it’s not guaranteed for anything to show up there and it won’t be everything. But it’s where I have seen a ton of extras there over the years.

But it will be nice to own it directly.

All true. And while we have so much content today at our finger tips, as you said there are still tons of movies and shows out there that still doesn’t show up on a lot of these services, especially older stuff like Miami Vice.

And then it’s very weird a movie will show up on a streaming site for a few months or something but then it disappears and it’s nowhere to be found again unless you rent or buy it. I just don’t get how a lot of it works. Like why does one movie stay on a site for literally years and others will come and go in a few months? I know part of that is just a demand for more than others but it’s odd how these things can just totally disappear off of everything while others never goes away? And I don’t mean stuff they own directly like Disney and Star Wars (although as this conversation proves,that doesn’t even matter anymore) but third party licensing?

BTW, I ordered the first set of TOS movies in 4K. Decided to just do the movies first. In a few weeks I’ll get the TNG movies next and then finally the Kelvin movies after that. I probably won’t watch a single one of them any time soon, but as said it’s mostly for peace of mind. So the process has officially begun!

Ugh, why do they want to replicate lousy Voyager episodes.. move on from the snoozefest TNG, it wrecked Enterprise, don’t wreck SNW.
Learn from Pic S3, ignore the TNG, bring on the movie era TOS type stories, ships, etc. PIC sucked until David Marcus Picard showed up with the neo-Connie.

This is just not right!

Score another win for mediocrity over quality.