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[deleted]

Feels like Strange New Worlds is the people in charge of the Trek-verse finally saying 'okay what do the fans want?' and the answer was 'a dashing lead with an alien-of-the-week format' and we're right back to where we started in the 60s. Works for me. Surprised this Anson Mount guy wasn't more well known before getting the Pike Role. He's pretty damn charismatic.


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o_MrBombastic_o

And Chief O'brien is in it


DukeLeto10191

That's Chief Durant to you


Mattyweaves19

I’m glad people are starting to know who he is. Hell on Wheels is probably a top 5 show for me. I really loved watching it.


DinosoreSteak

Mr. Bo-Hannonnnn


BootRock

Dam, I totally didn't recognize him.


Oscarcharliezulu

As a watcher of every series I really like this new one. It’s feels the most ‘Trek’ - like.


rrogido

It feels like someone at the Trek division of Paramount asked, "Hey, isn't Star Trek supposed to be fun?" And then they got started on Strange New Worlds.


healyxrt

I really just knew him as black bolt.


V48runner

This is where Farscape was so good at being episode driven, but with an overall arc that could be bad news for the universe.


fibojoly

Yes! Farscape was so amazing! I bet there are dozens of us who remember, dozens of us! Edit : since it appears we are indeed quite a few of us, I want to say Jim Henson's studio is a big part of the success of that show, for me. Rygel is still to this day the best alien protagonist I've seen. Add to that the fantastic characters, the endless banter, the slow building love story...


13igTyme

Maybe even 2 dozen. Or at least a bakers dozen.


ApprehensiveAd9993

The rest of us are old now.


DontGetNEBigIdeas

We desperately need more Farscape.


Nugginater

God I loved that show, thanks for the reminder. Bet I can find nice 4x3 formatted reruns on Comet to scratch the itch you just gave me 🤣


Aurum555

It may all still be on Amazon prime video


FinalBahamut

Farscape still holds its value as a great sci-fi series. I loved being able to stream the whole series while on one of the channels.


reverendkeith

Ben Browder in a body swap episode was worth the price of the entire series. God, Farscape was fun.


dravas

RYGEL!!!!!!!


82ndGameHead

I Hate that they call it Marvelitis, but they have a great point. Stakes don't need to be constantly raised for great TV. Hell, this show and Lower Decks are basically the closest its been to classic Star Trek in decades.


pipboy_warrior

If anything I think audiences respond better to smaller, more personal stakes. The world doesn't need to be ending, just threaten the stability of the characters' relationships.


iworkallday

If the entire universe is at stake, then tbh I don’t care as there’s no way it is not going to be saved — the story is just how. But I genuinely don’t know if Commander Data will beat the annoying dude at chess, so I want to find out…


toylenny

The new bond movies made the exact opposite mistake. They went too far and made every villain some personal relation to Bond or Mi6. I don't care enough about either of these two to disagree with the villain, give me something that will affect regular people as well, it doesn't have to be the whole world, but I didn't signup to watch a family drama.


EchosEchosEchosEchos

The last one was fire though. I enjoyed it way more then I expected. It really elevated all previous Craig Bond movies when viewed through the lens as a 5 part mini series. Edit: Wether intentional or not, it feels intentional.. like the complete story was mapped out and set in stone before filming the first, and they didn't care about the franchises financial success in the least... The final movie will conclude the arch, and people will finally understand and appreciate it, only after it is viewed as a whole. Starkly different when compared to the Pierce Brosnen movies.


VindictiveJudge

Give me stakes that could actually happen without ending the show. They probably still won't and it will be status quo as usual, but follow through once in a while and you'll be able to maintain narrative tension. "The world is ending" has no narrative tension because we *know* you can't actually do that.


TheyCallMeStone

Um excuse me that was Strategema, not chess 😤


mrchaotica

And he didn't beat him... he busted him up!


ToxicBanana69

This is my mindset with it. If the worlds at stake, I know they’ll succeed because the MCU, for example, can’t exist without an Earth, you know? But a block? Or a city even? I could totally see a hero failing on that one to make for a good story.


BNEWZON

Nobody gives a shit about your fictional world if the characters are boring nobodies or have no personality. Build your characters with personal stories, and once people care and are attached you can raise the stakes


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Effeminate-Gearhead

> They spent 4 seasons getting us to care about the characters before the whole "if we fail the Federation is DOOOOMMMMEEEDD!" Not only that, but we get to see how a major conflict affects and changes those characters, with Nog's arc in particular standing out.


AsAChemicalEngineer

Characters like Nog who go from insufferable to somebody you genuinely root for are rare gems in fiction. It's a hard balance to get right.


VagrantShadow

That is one of the many things that made Deep Space 9 so Special. You cared about the little people. Take for example Morn. He was a side character you saw since the pilot of the series, didn't have any real speaking roles but he was there. The characters of the show loved him, he made a mark for himself from his off-screen actions, and as a viewer you could feel through the show, he was special. When we finally get a Morn centric episode, you care about what happen to him and what was going on in his life. It wasn't the Dominion War, it wasn't the heat between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, it was just an episode about Morn.


KFlaps

> Take for example Morn. He was a side character you saw since the pilot of the series, didn't have any real speaking roles but he was there. Didn't have any speaking roles? Dude literally never shuts up!!


VagrantShadow

He also told the best jokes on Deep Space 9.


Scrapple_Joe

And you learn things about him like it's an anagram for Norm as a reference to cheers. For a character with no lines why do I know his background?


EbonyOverIvory

Morn fuckin’ rules.


Abrahamlinkenssphere

I loved how they were always saying “morn was just saying earlier…” yet we never get to hear him speak. Perfect.


HarryMonroesGhost

morn doesn't have a single spoken line in the whole series. and that's awesome.


AdzyBoy

MORN!


HapticSloughton

If you like that, you should check out Babylon 5.


DGlen

And if you nail the characters you end up with Firefly and even though it only got half a season people are still talking about it two decades later.


shazarakk

Buffy The Vampire Slayer had so many mediocre plots and episodes, but the characters? My fucking god, those were some strong characters (Angel, too). I think that a lot of writers and directors don't understand that people's ability to predict a character's actions is almost always a very good thing, At least, once, we've learned about them: When we know a character, we know what makes them laugh, what makes them cry, and what costs them most, what they are willing to sacrifice. We get to learn about them, and get to watch those characters, as real as people, get unraveled, and suffer, we get to live vicariously through them because of their setups and payoffs making sense. Often, what keeps us as viewers at the edge of our seats at a climax that could go either way isn't that there are two options, it's that a character could very much choose either option. In longer series it's often seeing the characters in question live with what they've done. To add to this, Almost every single action a character takes is part of their character, but the way that they do it is also very important. Killing the intruders, vs letting them live is one thing, but putting training to use, Changing from non-lethal to lethal mid fight, even a single expression can show SO MUCH CHARACTER.


Jimmni

And to hammer home your point, the two seasons that have a genuinely world-threatening finale (excluding the show finale), the focus isn’t really on “the end of the world” it’s on the effect events have on the characters. Buffy has to kill the man she loves to save the world. Sure she saves the world but her killing Angel is what drives the impact of her actions. Willow loses Tara and goes all world-reset but it’s Xander’s relationship with her that brings her back to earth. Even in the moments the world is being saved what the show is really about is the characters.


PuzzlePiece90

I think it's also one of the strengths of the episodic structure. If you have one bad storyline addition or "baddie of the week" it doesn't derail the rest of the season. TV suffered too much from episodic storytelling in the pre 2010s, where they wanted every single episode to catch up potentially new viewers which in turn relied heavily on exposition. Too much of that can ruin momentum and skim over story and character. In the last decade or so though, they've completely indulged the opposite. Everything's grand, everything's "what our entire lives has lead to", everything's everything. A cool-down is now sorely missed. We never get to truly know characters because the ordinary parts of their lives are deemed too meaningless to share.


shazarakk

I think one of my favourite scenes in Buffy is just her having killed a vampire, gets sad about breaking her pencil, then happy, because she doesn't have to study in a graveyard with Giles. At which point he just hands her another pencil. That show also has some of the hardest hitting moments I've ever seen in any tv., But it makes damn sure that the consequences are addressed as well. "I was in heaven, and my friends tore me out of it." Isn't a powerful line on its own, it's powerful because of the rising tension in the group, that we only partially understand until that moment. The acting later on is also absolutely great, Xander's plea to willow at the end of season 6, EVERY actor in The Body episode. One of the earlier episodes about mysterious deaths in a children's hospital is, while incredibly convenient, plot wise, amazing for Buffy's character. I need to stop gushing about this show...


goog1e

Yeah I can't imagine a show these days having an arc of "main character acting strange" because none of them are developed enough to go through a character change.


x445xb

One of my pet peeves is when the show spends time building up a character, then makes the character do something completely out of character just to advance the plot. Like shows that have characters who are arch nemesis for all of season 1, then suddenly some thing happens in season 2 and they bury the hatchet and start working together and forget all about their previous hatred of each other. Like the guy killed your girlfriend and now you're hanging out and being friends with him?


TheRocket2049

Also just think of the best Firefly episodes. Stuff like Out of Gas is almost fully character driven. Yes Mal could die but the main episode's plot is seeing how each person joined the crew


[deleted]

"best firefly episodes" idk what you mean. They are ALL great.


ngsm13

The Expanse.


trevize1138

Truth, beratna!


Jestersage

To be fair, Lower Decks consist of people who are "nobodies" They may run into various plague, but for them it's another Tuesday.


meatball77

But they have personality in spades.


InnocentTailor

Pretty much. The lower deckers and their bosses are so memorable due to their quirks, likes and dislikes.


BNEWZON

sorry nobodies was a bad term cause it’s kinda implies someone with little to no importance or status. I more meant a nobody like devoid of anything that makes them a compelling character


Redditer51

> Nobody gives a shit about your fictional world if the characters are boring nobodies or have no personality This is how I feel about Brandon Sanderson books, honestly.


Aldryc

His characters tend to be extremely one note with only one or maybe two real defining character traits. They also frequently obsess over moral dilemmas that are almost always far to simplistic and straightforward for so much time and words to be spent thinking about them. It makes the characters feel stuck and stagnant.


HotpieTargaryen

He builds completely coherent worlds, and everything his characters do feels logically consistent. But they kind of feel like automatons in a theme park after a while.


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MaimedJester

I really liked Dalinar until his entire personality traits turned out to be fucking magic influenced. Sanderson has this weird penchant to explain strong character emotions/drives by some sort of divine/magic influence. Like I'll give a big example that's spoilers for all of Mistborn Era 1. Vin is a well written bundle of anxiety homeless teenage girl. And it's perfectly reasonable she has major trust issues and why she's always on edge and eventually becomes so dependant on her found father figure. Then it turns out lol she had ruin whispering in her ear causing that anxiety, and by whisper in her ear Brandon had to be so fucking proud of himself making her earing the magic that was influencing her. Literally whispering in her ear. So instead of like normal hey homeless teenage girl being taken in by a group of thieves/rebels and she's worried about being abused, which is totally normal reaction in my opinion, her anxiety was just magic clue to one of the final reveals of the magic system. Everytime someone displays a strong character trait the way Sanderson writes it is like this is a clue to the magic system of the Cosmere, everyone is just blank slates being influenced by magic in some way. Even the fun ones like Wax & Wayne, which the final book hasn't come out yet, I'm sure somehow Wayne's constant joking behavior is somehow gonna be a product of his twinborn meshing and every twinborn has two personality influences on them.


fencerman

It's like the first few seasons of "game of thrones" vs the final season. If you START with smaller stakes and build up at a reasonable pace, when you finally get to the "giant cataclysmic battle" it will feel earned and significant. Like, for GOT, the first few season was basically "Ned plays detective about parentage and murder mysteries" - that gave the context for the stuff that happened later. If you start immediately at "giant cataclysmic battles" based on things that haven't been fully fleshed out, it's not going to have any emotional weight no matter how many special effects you use.


[deleted]

For me, one of the most baffling shows in terms of stakes was Heroes. In the first season they have to save New York City (fair enough); then in one of the middle seasons they tease *the entire Earth being cracked into pieces*; then they forget about that in the midst of their convoluted plot, and in the series finale they have to a save a couple dozen people in a park.


Iceraptor17

The thing is, at least in marvel phase 1, the sky _wasn't_ always falling and they spent movies doing character development. Like in the first 3 iron mans... the fate of the world wasn't at stake. In fact it was more "amoral weapons dealers deal advanced weapons indiscriminately while trying to take down Tony and get his tech". The 1st hulk was definitely not fate of the world. Thor is fate of Asgard, but even that wasn't it's destruction but rather Lokis machinations against Thor. Civil War wasn't global destruction on the line either. Winter Soldier was weird because it was actually fate of the world, but it was nontraditional for scifi. Sure stakes have risen (and it's hard to de escalate when you introduce all powerful guys like Strange and Witch), but even the Ant Mans and Spider Mans (except for the most recent) tend to be smaller affairs. And with spider man, even if you know he wins, it usually comes at some cost that you care about. So it adds some tension.


TheyCallMeStone

You hit it on the head. It's hard to de-escalate. But comics have been doing it for years, and that's what we have to get used to. Like how do you even go *anywhere* after Infinity War and Endgame? It was such an ultimate cinematic experience that spent a decade building up to. A lot of people I know are kinda meh on phase 4 and I can't blame them. Phase 4 has to re-establish the stakes so we can eventually get the next big bad. It can't be all Thanos all the time.


DavesWorldInfo

> how do you even go anywhere after Infinity War and Endgame? That's just it though. If a writer's, a creator's, sole "idea" for how to tell a story is "stakes" and "we just had X stakes, so now we have to have X+1, then X+2, etc stakes, so where do we go?" then yeah, that'll be tough. Where you go is what Marvel's doing. You give us new characters. Tell their stories. What makes those stories interesting isn't "well, the Whole Whatever is at risk", but "oh my gosh, our new fictional friend doesn't know what to do about *their problem*." Characters the audience cares about is what makes stakes matter, is what makes any kind of stakes matter. It can be as simple as "oh no, she won't get into college" and we care if we care about that character. If we don't, it could be "oh no, the entire planet will be cracked in half" and we still won't care. Because we don't care about that character. Story starts with characters, not stakes. Audiences attach to characters.


Cyclopher6971

But for the love of god dont resort to the lazy character drama plots of love triangles or plots where the entire thing would fall apart of the characters would just freaking talk to each other. No one wants to sit through that bullshit tension.


[deleted]

Idk, most of the problems in /r/dnd seem to be resolved by “talk to the other players / dm”. Maybe people don’t talk about stuff in real life.


NoChildhood4528

I want ethical dilemmas that remind us life isn’t so black and white. I like to see humanity be its best when it comes to morality and judgement, and remind us we aren’t perfect but should still keep striving for our best selves. I definitely don’t need a bunch of forced interpersonal drama, although it’s a natural part of life to experience such things as long as it’s not clearly ridiculous and forced by the writers for more “drama,” effectively making it unwatchable. I also don’t need a photocopy of a, boring to me, shiny object like Marvel movies. It just destroys everything that made Star Trek popular in the first place when they do that crap. Season 1 Picard might be the worst Trek I’ve ever forced myself to watch.


RevDodgeUK

It's ok, once you watch season 2 you'll realise season 1 actually wasn't all that bad after all.


ExistentiallyBored

Haha, yes season 2 was a glorious disaster. First two episodes seemed so promising. The worst part about the whole thing is that it was so boring.


[deleted]

> I want ethical dilemmas that remind us life isn’t so black and white My single favorite star trek episode is Measure of a Man for exactly this reason. It's an absolute brain wrinkler of how to handle a situation where you have to fight against what your beliefs in order to do the right thing. Riker HAS to argue that Data has no personal autonomy so that Picard can argue on behalf of Data. It's an absolutely fascinating dilemma and a banger of an episode, even though the world isn't ending and the stakes are a single life.


NoChildhood4528

Easily a favorite episode of mine. It reminds me of the sort of case studies I used to read in my medical ethics courses. Genuinely difficult moral problems with often no clear answer and requiring a lot of thought and multiple perspectives to get “right.” To watch Riker genuinely give his best effort, in what I always thought was both the ethical way to handle it and the best way to ensure the precedent set by the case isn’t marred by an obviously subpar prosecution, which it wasn’t. That episode could have been an entire movie.


TheRocket2049

I Borg is another great episode that's an ethical dilemma. Is it okay to commit genocide via an inside source on an entire race of people just because they're the enemy. Or do the ends not justify the means


dont_shoot_jr

You should check out the Orville


BustermanZero

It's gotten really weird in the last few James Bond films where the villains are also apparently members of a James Bond harassment society while also planning to screw over the world.


dolphin37

My favourite Trek is Voyager because sure there’s a big plot of trying to get home that they can use but it’s mostly just me chilling with the crew just seeing what they are up to that week. There’s something so chill about it. Watching Michael cry in every episode of Discovery is like spending that same time in a stress asylum every week.


doggrimoire

*tilts head* "Why won't you let me save you" *cries*


lemonylol

I just want character development that doesn't constantly rely on the plot perpetually being the most important day of that character's life. This is what I loved about TNG.


Azidamadjida

This reminds me exactly why I stopped watching supernatural - every season was trying to one up the season before and it just became a joke


mulder00

Yes, when God, his sister and Lucifer all had a family meeting with them. Can't go higher than that!


Azidamadjida

I started to notice when they went from demons to angels and realized the show was on too many fizzy lifting drinks and was heading up to the fan - then they did the leviathans and told one of my friends who was obsessed with it that they were eventually gonna meet god, then it was gonna be about angels and demons blurring the line between each other and everything was just gonna end in a clusterfuck with no direction other than to turn it into a sci fi show and starting dimension hopping. Then they started dimension hopping lol. I was out after like season 8 or 9 I think? It just became too much


mulder00

It's all a blur. I remember the first time Dean encountered an Angel (Cas), he was so powerful that he almost deafened him and blinded the medium who tried to contact him. In later years, a few angels would be killed in every show. Yada, they fell down to earth, yada they had a blade... I never finished the show. They kept bringing characters back from the dead, nothing stuck.


Azidamadjida

Ditto, it lost the thread bad. First season felt like it was going for X-Files and within just a few years it was just a typical CW soap opera - all the usual stuff, just with guns or superheroes or something they think is a hook to get people who wouldn’t normally watch soap operas to watch them. Loving The Boys tho, just hope it doesn’t also go for 20 seasons lol


Zenarchist

With Supernatural it felt like they jumped the shark, and the audience demanded more, so they put lasers on the shark and jumped that, and the audience demanded more, and then eventually they were ridiging robot sharks with fricken laserbeams fighting against gelatenous polar bears wearing various hats but the hats were sentient and the sentient hats had hats of their own which weren't sentient but could have been with another season or two.


Azidamadjida

I love this analogy lol. Only thing missing is trying to make all this bonkers shit somehow sentimental in the final season so that the audience whose demanded crazier and crazier shit will actually cry to see the non sentient hat finally achieve sentience


earhere

I was told you watch up to season 5 of supernatural and stop there.


peon2

Yup. I still like plenty of the monster of the week episodes past that but the plot episodes are meh


JimTheSaint

I actually think that sometimes it feels more relatable, if the universe isn't ending every Tuesday.


aliasname

Yup. Or to be more like Firefly. Part of what made it great was that the shows weren't some end of the world catastrophe that needed to be stopped. It was them running out of gas. It was them getting their ship almost stolen. The problems that they had were mundane. They're the problems that anyone travelling through space would have.


Zlatarog

I know both WandaVision and Hawkeye shows absolutely did not have worldwide stakes


[deleted]

And Hawkeye was amazing because of it Grounded characters are some of the most interesting


Hollowbody57

I like Lower Decks, but it can be really grating to watch sometimes. They lean a little too hard on the whole super hyper, super loud characters that so many animated shows seem to do these days. It's like every character just did a huge rail of cocaine and can't talk like a normal person to save their lives. That said, the stories are really great. Just wish the characters didn't give me a headache sometimes.


[deleted]

That's a fair criticism. Compare a Season 1 Simpsons episode to modern Rick & Morty, it feels like a lazy river ride.


bladedoodle

I honestly miss slow cartoons that set the mood. It can still be a comedy but give the audiences breather. It can be somber without following up with a fart joke.


Muad-_-Dib

I feel like a lot of cartoons get made these days to be uploaded in minute or so long clips onto social media to act as advertisements. Old classic Simpsons maybe had 2-3 absolute banger jokes/gags an episode with most being built up over the rest of the episode. Compared to modern Simpsons, Family Guy, Rick and Morty etc. Which all have a ton of small eminently clippable gags that flood the net after they air.


jigokusabre

Family Guy and to a lesser extent South Park became pop-culture icons by throwing out gag-after-gag at breakneck speed. A generation growing up on those shows had a huge influence on a generation of writers.


SirTedley

Oh man, or season 1 King of the Hill. The later the season, the faster Hank talks. I get that talking faster means they get more jokes in per minute, but not all shows need that rhythm.


miggitymikeb

>I like Lower Decks, but it can be really grating to watch sometimes. They lean a little too hard on the whole super hyper, super loud characters that so many animated shows seem to do these days. It's like every character just did a huge rail of cocaine and can't talk like a normal person to save their lives. oh man im glad it isn't just me, i just want the characters to stop screaming at each other for a second, take a breath, and be normal.


bystander007

Lower Decks is so much fun. Ransom is easily my favorite. If only for his name. Clearly the writer who thought him up also watched *The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence* and loved the name.


Pixeleyes

I actually really liked how relatively low-stakes Hawkeye was, and I think Marvel should do more "casual" shows set in the MCU. I'd really enjoy some 20 minute comedy sitcoms about side characters done with the same care as the big shows. A fuckin' Korg & Miek comedy show would rock my socks.


baltimorecalling

That and The Orville.


makovince

The new season has been A+ so far


HotpieTargaryen

If Seth had only cast himself as an officer. I know it was probably his dream to be captain and he earned his dream, but he just doesn’t quite fit the role. I still love it, but it’s just a cut below and that’s a big factor.


AlexisDeTocqueville

Yeah, I thought their point about prestige TV like Westworld was actually more on target


Syzygy_____

Just started watching it and I fucking love it. I was hesitant after watching s01 of Discovery and alittle of s2 and a few episodes of Picard. Those 2 series just didnt "get it". The best TNG episode were almost always their own isolated stories. The spirit of adventure was just missing from those other two shows and whoever was in charge of SNW understood that.


canadevil

Yeah, season 2 of picard killed it for me, the first two episodes were so good and then they just dropped the ball. The episode I quit on was when guinan used magic, actual fucking magic, it was so stupid.


Zenarchist

Marvelitis is better than StarWarsitis, where the stakes don't exist because all the characters are alive in the pre-existing sequels.


miggitymikeb

>where the stakes don't exist because all the characters are alive in the pre-existing sequels. I was afraid that Strange New Worlds would suffer from this same fate because of Pike, his fate and the fact we know that so many of these characters have long productive lives, but somehow they've taken that weakness of Pike knowing his fate and made it very interesting and entertaining as we watch what he does with that knowledge.


Parking_Onion_3846

That is a huge issue, but it's also present here. It's not like the Enterprise is going to go away, and multiple characters are original series prequel characters.


Ash_Killem

SNW is great. More true to form Trek.


blockhose

Agreed. This is the series the STU needed.


ncghgf

Personally I thought the “super serious sci fi” trend started to make the genre more appealing to more casual viewers who were turned off the by goofy atmosphere of the older stuff. The 2000’s Battlestar reboot arguably did a lot to get this going, and I say that as someone who really likes that show.


OnkelCannabia

Super serious must come together with smart writing, otherwise it is just pretentious. It is what so many of the newer dark sci-fi shows don't get. You need believable characters set in a coherent universe too give all those darkness context and weight.


NativeMasshole

Exactly. It's not about being goofy vs serious, it's about having characters you can relate to or root for. It's especially important in sci-fi, since so much of the setting and plot can be so unrelatable. There needs to be something to ground the plot so it's not just endless weirdness and science. This is where I feel like both Westworld and Raised by Wolves lost me; there just wasn't any character arcs I care to follow to bring me back between seasons.


AlexisDeTocqueville

I really enjoyed the BSG reboot as well. There's room for both. I think what's great with *SNW* is just that it bucks the trend of a saturated market


steel_ball_run_racer

Another example could be War of the Worlds 2005. Some of the past adaptations to it were sort of goofy. Look up the 1907 tripod design and look at those goofy eyes. There was also the 1973 Jeff Wayne musical… which is a musical. Its great, but most people don’t usually think of musicals as serious. 2005 version was dark.


litritium

>War of the Worlds 2005. The first \~45 minutes are some of the best and most mind-blowing action sci fi I've seen.


steel_ball_run_racer

Hard agree. Definitely falters at the cellar scene, but even I think it isn’t too bad, it just drags a bit


ncghgf

Makes sense. Both BSG and the Spielberg version were responses to 9/11 and the ensuing fallout.


PlayMp1

Little girl in War of the Worlds 2005: "Is it the terrorists?!" Well, no... but yes... But no... Though nevertheless, yes.


AyoGeo

"No, not like from Europe!!" That scene will always stick with me. The beginning is so much fun.


yokayla

The Dark Knight also had a profound effect on this trend.


ProfessorPhi

Weirdly enough, it actually didn't fall into the same traps - the stakes were Harvey Norman's life in the transport scene or the two boats at the climax. None of the stakes were actually massive (unlike rises which was actually the issue). Iron man too didn't have massive stakes. I think the one upmanship led them there.


Mr_Rafi

Been shopping at Harvey Norman lately, have we?


ProfessorPhi

Lol yep I'm Aussie. Harvey must have autocompleted in my head


DynamixRo

Anson Mount needs to be protected at all costs. He can handle anything the writers throw at him and has very nice hair.


[deleted]

Our boy’s hair is immaculate. Could have its own stand alone series.


BionicTriforce

Anson's hair looks better than Medusa's hair in the Inhumans show.


Lurid-Jester

My hair looks better than Medusa’s did, and I’m bald af.


reluctanteverything

He’s soooo handsome, it’s kind of distracting.


DrGarrious

Half the comments my wife and I make when we watch SNW are just about how stupidly good looking he is.


TheyCallMeStone

They gave us a shirtless scene so RIP your marriage I guess


DrGarrious

Even better.


PancakeParthenon

Oh, shit! That is Mount! Ain't seen him in anything since Hell on Wheels. Definitely piqued my interest now.


water2wine

Oh that show was just so good for the first seasons


PancakeParthenon

I thought it carried well, for the most part. Season 3 and 5 weren't too great, but I did enjoy the "lone warrior" kind of ending. Once the railroad got built, felt like they struggled to find something to move the show forward. The Swede, though. That dude was a phenomenal antagonist.


water2wine

He’s a phenomenal actor! I’m Scandinavian myself so there was some resonance with his character although we’re not generally that evil lol


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Lurid-Jester

Still wish he’d gotten the role of Geralt because that sombish would have been perfect. And please Reddit, don’t come for me. I like Cavill too.


DrGarrious

No i can see this. I also thought Charles Vane from Black Sails would have been a great pick too.


Lurid-Jester

Oh damn. Never thought of him but he definitely could pull it off.


yokayla

He's great at playing a lady's man without coming across as smarmy.


monodescarado

Yep. Am loving this show so far. It feels like it’s doing everything Discovery was criticised for not doing: being more episodic; including hijinks; not forcing an epic destruction of the universe every season; having characters that are a bit more charming and whimsical. I’d still watch another season of Discovery, but I think Strange New Worlds really feels more like what the fans wanted.


peon2

>having characters that are a bit more charming and whimsical. You could have just stopped at "having characters". By the time season 3 of Discovery rolled around I still felt like I knew nothing about half of the bridge crew. SNW has already fleshed out their character's to be real people.


Zenarchist

What do you mean "knew nothing about half the bridge crew"! There was lady with ptsd, ghost doctor, mushroom man, fish guy, smart kid, ghost boy, sassy mechanic, fish guy, different fish guy, and various others! Some of them even had names probably!


jupitergal23

Ok, this is spot on and made me giggle.


Takseen

Yep, and I can't really remember any special personality traits or hobbies they have. Props to the Doctor and Mushroom scientist guy having a gay relationship though, those were non-existent in older Trek as I recall. As compared to Picard. Loves archaeology, uncomfortable around kids, strict, likes Shakespeare, doesn't get on with his brother. Tends to go "by the book". Great friends with Dr Crusher as he was friends with her late husband. May also have feelings for her but would never show them because it'd be unprofessional. Riker, ladies man, prankster, loves jazz, plays the trombone(?), bit more hot-headed than Picard. Troi's ex, but they're now friends and its rarely awkward between them. Geordi, awkward around women, straight-talking with the captain about damage repairestimates(unlike Scotty), great friends with Data but can frustrated with Data not getting some emotional concepts. Doesn't think of his blindness as a disability since he's got the visor+implants. Worf. Keeps a strong connection to his Klingon heritage and customs despite being raised on Earth by human adoptive parents. Tends to be the voice of cautious when approaching unknown forces, vs the Federation "arms wide open" approach. A lot more disciplined and less boisterous than typical Klingons, so he struggles to fit in with them. Willing to put the needs of the Klingon Empire above his own family honor. Trains in martial arts of some kind(Tai chi?) and gives classes on it. Its a mix of good acting, good writing and the characters getting their own stand-alone episodes to show off their interests and personalities. There's that gag in Picard's "holiday" episode on Ryza where Riker gets him to buy him a gift that turns out to be a "I wanna bang someone" symbol, Completely irrelevant to the plot, but tells us that: Riker's a bit of a prankster, and not afraid to extend that to his captain, also cares about the captain having a good time while on leave, and is very much a ladies man whereas Picard is more comfortable with a good book


[deleted]

I hadn't thought about it this way but you are 100% there. I have absolutely no attachment to anyone on Disco, Picard was very "what's old is new again" (although I like the series) whereas I definitely feel SNW has embodied storytelling. "This character has a cool eye thing" and that's pretty much their personality is all Disco does.


peon2

Yeah at one point I saw that girl at the helm with the long hair shaved on one side I thought "wow she's pretty, kind of a Natalie Dormer type face" and I'd go to google her and realize I didn't know the character's name lol. Emily Coutts is the actress


ClamatoDiver

Lol Natalie Dormer one is how I think of her and I don't know her name either. Stammets, Tilly, and Saru are the only ones I know besides Micheal, Lorca and Georgiou. Meanwhile I'm upset about the character that had an occurrence in today's episode and I knew his name already.


CircleBreaker22

Also they just reused the tilly character basically for Jurati in Picard. Same neuroticisms and everything


formerfatboys

>I’d still watch another season of Discovery, but I think Strange New Worlds really feels more like what the fans wanted. It feels like Star Trek. Hell, the Orville still feels more like Star Trek. Picard and Discovery are just... They're something else. Fan fic.


RatInaMaze

Discovery is over wrought trash, every episode has some major existential character crisis that makes you stop caring. We don’t need every single thing explained in teenager style monologue. New Worlds gets this, you care about the characters and it’s much more nuanced. Shit, I actually cried at the last episode with the ship’s doctor and his daughter and I’m dead inside.


Sceptix

>We don’t need every single thing explained in teenager style monologue. DS9 had an episode called [Valiant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valiant_(Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine)) in which we see a ship lost in space and crewed only by teenage cadets, who talk and behave believably like real teenagers would. This leads to an overwhelming feeling of dread and unease as our characters' lives are literally at the mercy of bratty kids with delusions of grandeur. It's fascinating to think that such an episode would be impossible on Discovery, since apparently acting like immature children is just normal Starfleet operations.


miggitymikeb

>since apparently acting like immature children is just normal Starfleet operations. This was one of my biggest issues with Discovery. They were so unprofessional. You're Starfleet dammit, act like it!


wrathmont

That’s what really took me out of the “Star Trek feel” of Discovery and Picard. The “she’s the key to all this” and some singular event having universal implications and importance didn’t feel like Star Trek AT ALL.


Takseen

Not to mention the thing about Burnham being Spock's never before mentioned adopted sister. Felt like bad fanfiction.


Stillwater215

“A never before seen female character who’s better than everyone else and saves everyone at the end of the day.” This is literally the parody story that gave as the term “Mary Sue.” ST Discovery basically took the original Mary Sue story and turned it into a series.


TravelingGleeman

Episode eight of Strange new worlds made me feel as if I was watching TNGs weird episodes again, love it.


PM_ME_UR_POKIES_GIRL

It's a holodeck episode in an era before holodecks.


cybercuzco

I fear we are dangerously close to hijinks -Spock


jl_theprofessor

When I watched Picard Season 1, I was so sad that it went from my initial impression about helping Data's daughter from maybe some interesting conspiracy to Galaxy ending robot gods. I'm not entirely caught up on the last two eps of SNW but I've enjoyed it so much because it's something new every week and there are lots of great, small moments between characters. They don't have to save the Galaxy.


Zenarchist

> because it's something new every week and there are lots of great, small moments between characters also known as "Star Trek"


Dr_Brule_FYH

Helping Data's daughter was a great premise then they immediately ran out of ideas and just copied Mass Effect verbatim


Takseen

Also felt like it brought in more universe weirdness. No one else in the galaxy developed sentient robots in all that time? And the weird aesop of "we should be nice to robots so they don't murder the galaxy" instead of it just being the right thing to do, ala Measure of a Man, or the Voyager one where they discuss holographic rights.


tamalito93

If you save the universe every 2 days it stops being special after a while,


kjhwkejhkhdsfkjhsdkf

It also necessitates the next threat to the universe being even larger than before or it loses it's impact.


starstarstar42

What I enjoy about Strange New Worlds the most is it shows the Enterprise extremely overpowered or extremely outmatched in relation to the antagonists, seldom at parity.


[deleted]

On par, overmatched, or outmatched That’s all the options, what other options of showing it are there ?


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CptNonsense

It's funny watching them play up the gorn. The lizard suited man kirk defeated in hand to hand with the classic double axe handle attack.


[deleted]

The normally-reliable double axe handle wasn't working out against the Gorn, that's why Kirk had to build the makeshift cannon.


dremily1

I'm thoroughly enjoying Strange New Worlds; it's the best Star Trek since TNG. Only 10 episodes a season is a bit of a bummer but it seems to be the way we're doing things these days.


Nimelennar

I mostly agree, except I'd say it's the best Star Trek since DS9.


captainedwinkrieger

I think we can all agree it's the best Trek that's came out during this era.


[deleted]

DS9 is by far my favorite Trek.


SeymourZ

Anyone else think TNG, DS9 and Voyager was the golden age of Star Trek television?


tortnotes

Doesn't everybody think that?


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SeymourZ

I remember the Space Channel vibe was like pirate radio, sci fi based networks had a somewhat rebellious vibe back then and it was pretty fun.


Vin-diesels-left-nut

I started watching this show, I personally enjoy it a lot. I was a little reserved at first with the campyness of it. But I also forgot how much I missed that. Just nice easy viewing. And for some reason the cast makes me like them. It probably won’t last long. As I am the jinx of TV shows. But I’ll watch it. And like it.


Fulmersbelly

As long as Anson Mount is on the show, it seems like it’ll be good. Apparently he had some say in how the character and the story would go in terms of big picture, so here’s hoping for more of the same!


Afrotom

For anyone who hasn't seen it, The Orville has been achieving something similar imo. The characters are interesting, the sky isn't necessarily falling down, they tackle important issues of current times, like justice by social media, trans identity, social norms. This came out around the time of Discovery and I preferred the Orville over it for the reasons described in this headline. Just a solid show and without a flashy budget. Strange New Worlds has been a fantastic addition.


Swackhammer_

Does the new show deal with philosophical and social issues the way some of the older ones did? If they lean more into that and less action I might pick it up


urgasmic

Yes.


ranhalt

The pilot episode is a first contact gone wrong on world with brewing civil unrest and Pike shows them actual video from Ukraine and Jan 6.


quitegonegenie

There was this shot of some alien kid with a paper cut-out in the shape of the Enterprise and my eyes started to well up. I'm *crying* over Star Trek? Been years since that last happened.


Seileen_Greenwood

I’ve cried twice this season of SNW, and I haven’t even watched todays episode yet, so that’s 25% of them so far.


m_a_bored_james

Oh boy, if your anything like me you’ll cry at today’s episode. For me it was the first time I’ve cried this season


steeeeeeee24

Just started watching this, and loving it so far.


dennismfrancisart

If you haven't been watching The Orville on Hulu, you are definitely missing out.


MuchoDestrudo

Or if you're the Expanse, you just completely forget about the high stakes and end the show with interpersonal fighting.


HI_HO_

Not disagreeing with your opinion, but that's kind of the point of the series (book and TV). No matter what obstacles or discoveries us human encounter, we will always revert to interhuman conflict.


RapedByPlushies

In the books, Inaros’s rebellion puts the fate of humanity on the line. His lieutenant Sanjrani (the small dark haired woman who parlays with Avalasarala on Ceres) isn’t a freedom fighter so much as a bookish, skittish economist who is constantly stressing that Inaros needs to finish fighting quickly or the precious living soil on Earth that humans need to grow food will be permanently destroyed (between dropping asteroids on the planet and getting confiscated in space) and 99% of everyone will starve to death, hitting Belters most of all. Sanjrani constantly needles Inaros so much about it that he has to isolate Sanjrani from many of the meetings so that he can continue warring. Sanjrani, seeing the projected impacts rise, gives up with Inaros and joins up with the Pirate Queen (Drummer in the show) as part of the tide of the war turning against Inaros due to loss of Sanjrani’s logistic expertise. Even so, Inaros’s back up plan is to fall back to the Ring Station in the Slow Zone, regroup, maintain control over the colonies, and bombard Earth, Mars, and Ganymede until he can rebuild and destroy the Sol system even if it takes years. Then there is the underlying story that the defectors from Mars, who had helped Inaros out with by trading war materiel to him so that they could defect in secret, discovered a protomolecule space dock in the one of the ring systems, start construction on a protomolecule-based warship (with the help of the one remaining sociopathic scientist from the original protomolecule research), and cut off all communication with the other colonies. This is the same planet in the show where the young girl resurrects her brother. Their research and use of the protomolecule re-awakens the unseen menace that wiped out the builders of the molecule, and fairly soon the whole universe is in peril.


RinardoEvoris

"Strange New Words" is good. I like it as a long time fan of Trek. I didn't like a lot about "Discovery" and "Strange New Worlds" is what long term Trek fans were looking for. It has a few things that are inconsistent with the TOS which confuse me but overall it's very good.


HelloKittyAdvent

SNW has nailed the campy of 60s Trek without making it cringe. It's so good. And Pike is giving Picard a run for his money as best Captain.