Star Trek : Strange New Worlds

Engadget's preview of the series.

In summary - the usual modern Trek issues spoiling what could be a winner:

Engadget said:
And having now seen the first half of the first season (a second is already in production) I can say that Strange New Worlds will be a frustrating watch for fans. Frustrating because there are the bones of a really fun, interesting Star Trek series buried deep inside Strange New Worlds. Sadly, it’s trapped in the usual mix of faux-melodrama, clanging dialogue and dodgy plotting with the usual lapses in logic. Many writers are blind to their own flaws, which is why it’s so amusing that this is what Kurtzman and co. feel is a radical departure from their own work.

Maybe I’m being unfair, but this is the seventh season of live-action Star Trek released under Kurtzman’s purview. The three lead characters all had a full season of Discovery to bed in, too, so it’s not as if everyone’s starting from cold. But despite the gentlest of starts, the show still manages to stumble out of the gate, trying to do too much and not enough at the same time. The first four episodes, especially, feel as if someone’s trying to speed-read you through a whole season’s worth of plot in a bunch of partly-disconnected episodes.

A lot of these episodes don’t properly resolve themselves either, which is the standard problem for any 50-minute TV show. It’s hard to build a new world, flesh out new characters, establish and resolve their problems in the space of two episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. But at least three episodes feature conclusions that either aren’t clear or take place entirely off screen, explained away with a line of dialogue. I don’t know if it was a production problem, or if a majority of the show’s 22 (yes, twenty-two) credited producers signed off on it, but it feels a hell of a lot like cheating. It's almost as if the writers wanted to provoke surprise in the subsequent scene — how did this get resolved!? — over concocting a satisfying emotional and narrative catharsis on-screen.

In fact, I’m going to harp on about this one particular episode because it’s not content with just dropping one major character revelation. The episode basically stops 10 minutes early in order to – shock horror – drop another Kinda Dark Secret About A Crewmember You Barely Know. One thing I said when Discovery started was that if you never get to know the characters in their default state, it’s not valuable to see their bizarro-world counterparts straight away. It’s the same here, Strange New Worlds refuses to do the painstaking work of filling in these characters before they start changing as a result of their experiences together.

That said, this is at least sounding a hopeful note:

Engadget said:
Remember when I said there was promise? There really is, and you feel like if the writers could get out of their own way, things could improve massively. There’s one episode you could easily describe as the (actually fun) comedy romp of the season and it’s great. Every Trek fan knows that The One With The Whales is the most financially successful Trek property ever made. And yet whenever a new Trek property is made, it’s always with the promise of more grimness, more darkness, more grit, more realism. Yet here we are, with the fun episode reminding you why you watch Star Trek in the first place, and making the characters fun people to hang out with. If the series could continue in that slightly slower, more relaxed groove, then Strange New Worlds could be brilliant.
 
just read that Paramount+ will launch in the uk on June 22th it will cost £6.99 a month or £69.99 per year. so as paramount+ is launching at the end of next month i suspect that ST:SNW will be held back for showing on Paramount+
 
Other sources it is. If its garbage I won't bother. Would rather rewatch old series.

Shame all the new star treks are worse the the worst older ones.
 
Actually quite enjoyable. Pike is a classic captain for sure and it somehow feels like a hybrid of old Trek and something more modern - The politics references today's civilisation and where we stand and the message about collaboration to excel rather than fight each other. Kinda cliche but the message is sound at the same time. I can see that now the baseline/foundation has been laid, we are in for proper Trek adventures, something that a few episodes of Discovery did well, although it did the gender politics and all that personal side of things too much of and muddied the waters so to speak.

This feels like old skool Trek with a modern touch. I like that.
 
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To put minds at ease, it is very different to Discovery, which I know many hated for its constant pandering to the character's feelings lol. Where Discovery had a light shining for it in various episodes (and more later in the series toward the end), Strange New Worlds feels like it kicks off with that light but has to set the baseline first over a couple of episodes.

It's kinda self explanatory really as it's in the title of the series!
 
22 producers, what is it they say about cooks and broth?
Or are we thinking that those producers have just given Kurtzman a wristy in the broom cupboard just to get 'producer of Star Trek' on their CV's.....?
 
Actually quite enjoyable. Pike is a classic captain for sure and it somehow feels like a hybrid of old Trek and something more modern - The politics references today's civilisation and where we stand and the message about collaboration to excel rather than fight each other. Kinda cliche but the message is sound at the same time. I can see that now the baseline/foundation has been laid, we are in for proper Trek adventures, something that a few episodes of Discovery did well, although it did the gender politics and all that personal side of things too much of and muddied the waters so to speak.

This feels like old skool Trek with a modern touch. I like that.

how are you watching it?
i did not think they released it anywhere yet
 
Good to hear @mrk but I still worry for @JRS's blood pressure :p.

Hey, I'm a model of restraint ;)

22 producers, what is it they say about cooks and broth?
Or are we thinking that those producers have just given Kurtzman a wristy in the broom cupboard just to get 'producer of Star Trek' on their CV's.....?

I think I mentioned this in one of my STD snarks, that producers were beginning to outnumber the damn cast...
 
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