Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

We got a Kirk sighting

‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Finds Its James T. Kirk With Paul Wesley https://t.co/5TYFp8XYMe

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) March 15, 2022

Okay, premiere episode today! Which I haven't seen yet but soon enough.

My natural scepticism kept me from fully enjoying the fan service bits. It was fine, I guess. Better a low-key opener that turns into something solid than an amazingly flashy and promising first episode that turns into me giving up on the show after a season and a half.

need a history of star trek sideburns

Yeah "low key opener" is a good way to describe it, it was fun and straightforward enough and got a reasonable amount of info dumping done. More than anything I absolutely think this nails the 'what if 1960s Big Ideas Optimistic Trek with 2020s production values' mode, so I'm already in for the rest of the season.

A little heavy handed toward the end but a solid B+, just happy to have a Trek episode where the survival of all existence doesn’t hinge on that 45 minutes.

ned otm

it succeeded in trying to do what TOS sometimes did, referring to current events but in a way that ~comforts~ the viewer, like trying to provide a modicum of hope as a mixer with the escapism & i appreciated the attempt because idk i kind of needed it right now? i finished the ep feeling like yes, this is how it should feel. i am a cornball though too so ymmv

it feels rooted in the past in ways that arent just fanservice so i hope that continues to pay off bc man i really love this cast

Feels good to be hyped for next week's ST episode instead of wondering which kind of terrible it will be this time.

also La’an Noonien Singh/Christina Chong is A+

total Camina Drummer from Expanse vibes, freaked out for a minute bc i thought it was the same actor lol

xpost otm

My mom texted me to ask if that was Drummer and if their alien modifications were supposed to make them look like Buffy vampires.

lol <3

there’s something about forehead appliances in effects makeup, maybe bc they often widen the space between the eyes, it is SO easy to veer into that Buffy look, it’s weirdly common like i think ppl just accept that its an ok look. i kinda wish we could get away from it myself. it even happens in cgi.

the spock/t’pring scenes were great

worried about la’an’s surname(s), because enough already

anson mount’s hair is v. tall

Hmm, could have handled this differently.

https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-ukraine-protest-footage-1848888151

worried about la’an’s surname(s), because enough already

I get Noonien-Singh and Noonien-Soongh mixed up sometimes. I had to check which one this was. I do hope it's just a nod to tradition and it's not going to be A Thing.

Roffle

pic.twitter.com/0mgRGzBRSU

— joegross (@joegross) May 7, 2022

omg totally! same energy as the kids would say

Glad I'm not the only one thinking that was the Drummer actress. Was a bit surprised it wasn't when I looked at Imdb.

Quite fun 1st episode I guess.
Didn't quite get how much earlier it is.

i thought this was good and so regretfully suppose i will continue paying paramount plus their trek tax for the next couple of months

spent probably a little too much time yesterday mentally workshopping convoluted scenarios whereby chris pike might avoid his melty fate, which probably means that i like the character

omg that's my friend dan!!

i really like that they introduced it so early on in Discovery, because it allows Mount to do more acting-wise with the character imo

Yeah it has to be a given we know his fate, right? They cant fuck with that fact at least. Surely.

It’s canon a couple times over, and if they try to timey wimey it people will be pissed.

I thought this was fine and is a welcome change from Disco and Picard nonsense, but the limits of Trekian optimism butting heads with trying to comment on contemporary ills really showed some strain and the resolution felt way too easily gotten.

anson's gonna melt, but it's like a decade away

somewhat awkward in that, while he talks about foreseeing his death, the melting won't actually kill him

this has not gone over well with disabled trek fans

just hope these characters can do something/anything better than being diverse and talking a lot. already like that one officer complaining about shit happening on her watch

yeah we can only hope

i think that aspect adds dimension

ie pike seeing the future & ~interpreting~ it as his death

yet we know that isnt the case

No I think he knows its not his death! He said something like "I saw my death... well, the death of me as I know me" or similar, suggesting what was left might as well have been dead? Which I can see disabled people having an issue with tbrh

As for me, I cant get past thinking of it like this.

https://morbotron.com/meme/S04E12/541823.jpg?b64lines=IEdvIFsgQmVlcCBdIHlvdXJzZWxmLg==

This was good: https://thatshelf.com/star-trek-discoverys-depiction-of-captain-pikes-disability-is-a-betrayal-of-roddenberrys-utopian-vision

"Betrayal" is a bit strong (I'm not sure Roddenberry had significant enough morals to betray) but the piece makes some good points without falling into fannish entitlement

Oh and nu-Chapel seems great and I loved T'pring's retro-futurist makeup.

Nu-Chapel seemed very familiar but then I realized it was just the Phoebe Bridgers hair, pretty sure I've never seen her in anything else.

I mean really, someone who is so disabled they cant move or speak and have to control a wheelchair with their mind and are just basically a floating head, doesnt sound like a life, disability advocacy is one thing but cmon. This isnt "the mere act of sitting in a wheelchair".

I rather liked this new episode, had the exact setup of a classic one-off but with plenty of its own distinct touches and interactions between characters.

only 5 minutes into this new ep but just dropping in to say that Christopher Pike's high hair is doing a LOT of important work on this show

already know more about pike's bridge crew than i've learned in four seasons about discovery's

take sides: pike's hair vs. spock's sideburns

i do think it's been well done so far, but i hope the entire season/series isn't haunted by pike's ~fate~. after all, he does love this job

this show is a real pleasure so far - absolutely nailing it but in an almost understated way

yep I reckon the character work is great (especially vs Disco) - that early scene in Pike's quarters had me grinning - feels like they have uncovered some ancient wisdom from a lost civilisation that "likeable characters that you wanna spend 1hr/week with" is a good TV formula

I've found the 'haunted by future' aspect quite interesting so far - feels like they might be building it into a slow burn plot development rather than just brooding about it? as you say mookieproof, it has been done with a fairly light touch thus far - I'm sure the device must have been used before? but it definitely adds something here, and I think stops Pike from being a bit one dimensional... and dare I say even adds a touch of profundity to the whole thing?

Some very bad CGI this week, not a big deal but the Shepherd captain on the view screen looked baaaaaad.

Some very bad CGI this week, not a big deal but the Shepherd captain on the view screen looked baaaaaad.

Some very bad CGI this week, not a big deal but the Shepherd captain on the view screen looked baaaaaad.

kept getting an error in Safari, oops.

tbf he was probably actually clint howard in prosthetics

no need to bang on about it milo jeez <3

Rob Bricken with a solid rave for the show that hits a lot of good points we've mentioned in the thread and elsewhere:

https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-tv-paramount-plus-pike-spo-1848923327

i just noticed spock’s sideburns have a slightly arty curve to them & i hate it

pike’s hair however is majestic & i am here for it

really enjoyed this ep,

I am hoping his hair gets higher every episode.

I kept thinking of this
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/41/84/67/418467cb44c622620a11d8186fa94fdb.jpg
except I was remembering it as going up wards as well as forward.

Maybe memory incorporating bits of one or both of these which are of a similar vintage I think. Certainly saw them a couple of decades back
https://cdn.onebauer.media/one/empire-tmdb/films/45145/images/tTagCxKrhFlM5N0TEHQLqrnnf7V.jpg?format=jpg&quality=80&width=960&height=540&ratio=16-9&resize=aspectfill

i just noticed spock’s sideburns have a slightly arty curve to them & i hate it

That's how he shows emotion. When pon farr hits they turn into majestic whorls.

lmao

I thought the editing was a little slack, but as stated making these characters believable people with real personalities is a welcome change of pace from Disco.

I'm warming up to Peck, I'm pretty sure that his "I apply rigorous logic to defuse tension" was meant as a joke and his little look of disappointment at Uhura not acknowledging it was a small treasure.

yeah i loved that

i think peck is great, but i was a fan from the off when he first showed up in Disco

Mad Men should have made this a full episode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKgPTkIulEI

Yeah I don’t think I ever wanna see that episode again but I’m glad it exists

I'm not into musicals (I have a very hard time concentrating on story delivered through lyrics) but I did like Chapel's swing number. I wish there were more dancing though!

Anyone clock Sam coming after Pike's crown for highest hair?

Any surprise that Laan was the biggest Belter of the cast?

does not bode well for captain batel and the cayuga

I refuse to believe anything bad will happen to Captain Dimples.

Even before the finale, this season is already guaranteed to be the most consistently good season of Star Trek ever. The first episode I would say was bad, and the memory loss episode was a mixed bag, but everything else has been great.

The Gorn episode of S1 was the worst episode of that season. Just a dreary episode, with that silly TOS monster being given a story that's far too dark for Trek. Hope they do a better job with the Gorn in this finale.

I didn't really get this either - I guess I just don't like contemporary musical theatre.

Bad hot take: is an episode like this to a US audience like watching Eurovision is for Europeans - there's some other levels you have to "get".

Thought it was awful sorry - hey, if you like Star Trek, you’ll probably love these mediocre songs written by unknowns for actors to try to sing. I love when they play with stuff a bit or lean into the camp, but expecting me to sit thru generic songs for half the episode was just dire.

Anyway all you haters above are wrong but more on that later.

But as for the new one: whew, not having kept track of all the series I can't say for sure but this definitely felt like the biggest 'to be continued...' since, you know, "Mr. Worf, fire." I should have guessed when those transporter signatures looked a little different near the end but figured out that we were heading to waiting on season 3 within the last minute. Now we wait...for longer than usual given the strikes. But in the meantime, one more piece of the TOS puzzle in place!

Holy crap, I never saw one of those in Stars Hollow before.

kinda wonder how many other people might have been alive when the cayuga smashed into the planet

"Hey look a ship has come to save us! Wait where are we going."

More fuel for the folks who think that Spock is basically a big jerk

that was cool - albeit in a pretty tonally conventional season finale kind of way

I wish these seasons were longer - like, not the old 26 eps but could definitely have handled another 4-5 hours of this

tbf spock is, canonically, kind of a jerk (but not *really*)

this spock is not yet that hard, but still ready to call the shot, as in the season 2 premiere

i don't feel like this was a great episode, and i wasn't into the musical, but i still think this series is easily the best exploration of these characters, TOS included

i'm not sure yet if it's good or bad that we (theoretically) already know their fates, but it remains possible that working within that framework will be great. i'm . . . cautiously optimistic(?) about it for the first time in forever

also i'm sorry but i'm flat-out gonna say it

ethan peck > leonard nimoy

He's great in the role! Leonard will always have it for me on the nostalgia level and more, but Peck's sharp in his own way.

exciting episode but maaaaan fuck to be continued finales I HATE WAITING

love leonard (although tbf he was no rollin hand) but like, often enough he just had to wear purple eye-shadow and lift an eyebrow while shitting on mccoy

there's half a century of lore now and peck absolutely does it justice while also expressing a much wider spectrum of emotions than leonard was ever called upon to do

feel like chapel/jess bush was the breakout star of the season, and, well, roger kirby will have to be extremely impressive. you know, before that other stuff

Still deeply impressed with her accent work. I don’t think I’ve heard it slip once.

Mm idk, I love Ethan Peck's Spock but this series is heavily leaning into his "human side" in the writing, and thus Peck's performance. Most of these two seasons so far, Peck seems to be a hormonal teenager barely keeping a lid on his explosive emotions, rather than Nimoy's extreme-blasé approach. Nimoy's Spock has a vibe that reminds me of a cork bulletin board on the wall of a corridor at a university. Peck feels more like a nerd having a late-onset puberty

And one interpretation of the character being older/more experienced than the other...I mean, works for me.

loved it when Spock shows that adult Gorn who is the boss in what was a cracking cliffhanger finale. I think I can vaguely remember seeing the og Gorn episode when I was a kid. I like the way these brutal egg laying nazi lizards communicate their terms with simple diagrams. I was looking up their st history and saw something about an unused scene from one of the movies shot for Riker's bachelor party which featured a Gorn who was a guest there as one of Worf's friends. Obv they used to be a bit more verbal and were socially polite enough not to lay eggs in fellow guests.

Making the Gorn a proto-Borg is kind of trite (and I guess the writers really want a race where Starfleet can kill without moral compunction, maybe they'll serve in part 2 but I have my doubts, since I didn't think the Klingon episode had much depth to it either), and the BOBW hook was frustrating more than anything for me.

I was thrilled (on this episode as with others) to see the crew on the bridge functioning as a unit, contributing to tactics and functionality, instead of the typical ways that problems have been historically resolved:

1. Captain orders x to press a button
2. Captain orders y to press a button
3. Captain orders z to press a button
4. Captain gets frustrated, doesn’t ask for help
5. Spock/Data/Wesley offers a solution

1.1 (visual representation of astronomical phenomenon roughly the size of a golf ball at a 20-meter distance)
1.2 enhance!

xpost Yeah that absolutely struck me as well, this last episode showcased the idea of a team functioning and everyone doing their roles to the best they could depending on where they found themselves. Smart!

Catching up and the episode with the Klingon general was totally a M.A.S.H ep

pretty sure that hawkeye never butchered his (enemies)? can't quite speak to him dealing with a half-assed yet righteous defector, although TNG did

Detailed interview with SNW cinematographer Benji Bakshi.
https://filmmakermagazine.com/122716-interview-cinematographer-benji-bakshi-star-trek-strange-new-worlds/

this is cool but also i don't think 'Each Episode is Like Its Own Movie' is really what people want?

i mean i would happily take shittier graphics or whatever for 15-20 episodes rather than ten

same with 'foundation' et al

bottle shows can be good

I agree, but also one of the things I love about this show is how lush it looks. I am tired of all my shows (Warrior, Perry Mason, even the SATC reboot) deteriorating to the point where they don't even have full-room sets, and everything is just people standing on a tiny set in front of a shitty green screen. Strange New Worlds has somehow always managed to look expensive, and I do want an element of that. Some sort of happy medium.

Trying to imagine this show with TNG/Voyager's "fluorescent office lighting" cinematography.

Yeah it looks gorge and that’s part of the appeal for me.

Absolutely agreed on this. It’s remarkable and great.

pike's hair is of course the most impressive special effect but the rest of it isn't far off, the quality of the cg often surpasses movie-quality - it's a remarkable achievement on a tv budget

still not entirely sold on the shiny black bridge tho tbh, doesn't feel properly trek in a way that the rest of the show absolutely does

maybe they’ll have an episode where they install carpet on the bridge

it's the one move the gorn couldn't possibility anticipate

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F5yysJ6XkAABk73.jpg:small

I...didn't expect this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txQqpGr1qQw

The other one before it ("Skin a Cat") is also hilariously stupid.

skin a cat was v silly but it made me lol

Same!

Only recently finished this season and Leee OTM - though I thought less of the borg than of Alien and the millions of video game monster races inspired by same, also designed to be killed without moral compunction.

SNW is without a doubt the best of the current Trek series but there's a certain militaristic streak that wasn't there as much in older Trek, despite the navvy structures and etc. Just a general development in American genre stories maybe.

The tape warble on the opening animated theme is a great touch, tho I think the frame-dropping is the only retro element they didn’t quite land.

True, the direct antecedent of SNW-Gorn are the xenomorphs. What really struck me is that killed a juvenile and I expected some kind of on-screen hand-wringing -- but no, I don't think that ever happened.

On the militaristic thing, it's always been there, albeit sporadically -- and I hate to say it but DS9 probably established SF-as-a-military in wider Trek.

Yeah it's always been in the mix but I feel like it's encroached more and more. One difference is I think the almost total focus on the trauma of war as experienced by "our guys", with the other side usually reduced to an anonymous threat. Ds9 still cared far more for its Cardassian characters, and even for the Jem Hadar.

Yeah, DS9 was really good at the whole horrors of battle thing, with what happened to Nog and Kira's war trauma and Garak's dark past as a possible torturer/assasin (??). I feel like in DISCO and SNW the baddies are often pretty one-dimensional and "bad". Like OK there was mirror Lorca and Georgiou, but they're neither of them a Dukat.

And its prob been said here many times but that is the problem with modern TV! Shows don't get a chance to fucking flesh out characters. We barely had time to grow fond of Hemmer and then he was gone. I can't even REMEMBER that character in Disco that appeared and disappeared within like 2 episodes.

pic.twitter.com/rR60zfkZ78

— Star Trek Minus Context (@NoContextTrek) October 3, 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzR5KOilk8c