ABz B👹anaz
Grandfathered In
This country is (now less of) a shitshow.
Posts: 1,899
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Jun 6, 2024 8:47:23 GMT -5
Well Discovery is finished. Thank goodness for that. I managed to struggle through the end of the last season but the back half was definitely a hate-watch - I'd come this far, I was going to get through it, but god this was a simply rubbish season of television. The quest was completely impossible to care about, everything of course revolved around Michael, and even her "oh I'm so full of doubt and despair" moment was about as convincing as listening to Trump talking about how much he believes in democracy. The eighth and ninth episodes managed to scare up some interest, and the library was a great concept that Discovery wasn't best placed to deal with but at least it's actually there. Everything else just felt so tired, like nobody could really invest anything into the stories, so didn't. It's hard to screw up a quest storyline but there's also no interest derived from it - there's no doubt that Our Heroes are going to be able to assemble all the pieces. And right enough, they do. You could argue that it's not just about whether they get all the pieces but how they get all the pieces, and that would be fair if the "how" was in any way interesting or engaging but it isn't. Callum Keith Rennie as Rayner was a welcome addition to the cast but is also the sort of character that should have been there from the get-go - the sort of character that can be occasionally used to just cut through stuff so we can get on with things. But for the rest? Just the same old same old. Everything stops so there can be lots of feels. Nothing really develops any actual momentum. Not enough Tig Notaro, who's been utterly wasted in this season (and indeed the whole show). The Breen are reduced from a blank, unknowable threat to Just Another Bad Guy. And on it goes. Urgh. I mean, the representation is great and the show is genuinely progressive in some ways that are incredibly worthwhile but it's all just so dull. Ultimately, the problem with Discovery isn't that it's "woke". The problem is that it isn't anything else. I agree with almost all of that. Like I've said on here, I watched Discovery mostly for the characters because the plot was not great. The IDEA of this quest was neat, and I loved tying it to the Progenitors from TNG who they never mentioned again after meeting them, but I knew from the start that nothing was going to actually HAPPEN with them. At the very least I thought they MIGHT use the power to resurrect L'ak so he and Moll could be together somehow, but even that thread just petered out. "Nope, sorry, enjoy your jail time."
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jun 7, 2024 21:04:39 GMT -5
Scott McNulty has a Trek podcast called "Random Trek" where he invites guests on to talk about an episode that is essentially randomly generated by a number generator. I listen to these if the episode that comes up is particularly discussable, either really bad, really good, or with a crazy story.
Today a new episode popped up on my feed. The random episode generator chose ENT "These Are the Voyages". His description contains the following: "Topics include how bad this episode is on many levels."
This is a good time to mention that when I did my full ENT watch a few years ago, I didn't actually watch this episode. I was dithering about whether I should watch it or not, and then all of Trek vanished from Netflix and I didn't have a Paramount+ subscription, so I figured fate made that decision for me.
Anyway, Scott and his guest do a bit of an intro about their familiarity with ENT, and then Scott attempts to start his episode recap. "This episode... takes place in the middle of a TNG episode." They both again gripe about this. Scott finally sighs and says, "I don't understand how anyone thought this was okay".
Yeah. What else is there to discuss? That is the only discussion point, really. How the hell did this happen?
Anyway, this is all to say, as silly as modern Trek's season finales have been, they will never beat that. I haven't seen DSC's series finale, but I am quite sure it isn't as bad as that. I thought PIC's season 1 finale was dumb, but it still wasn't that bad. The PIC series finale had stifling levels of nostalgia, but at least it was about those characters, and didn't pretend it was all a holodeck simulation during a TNG episode.
I know Berman/Braga said that they'd had this idea for a previous season, but never worked it in. And they didn't know this was going to be the series finale.... But, you knew it was a SEASON finale, right? Why were they even invited back to do this? Didn't everyone learn their lessons with ENT's S3 finale, which flung them all back in time to confront alien Nazis? How did that not revoke their right to work on any Trek season finale ever again?
Sigh.
In conclusion, I now have a free month of Paramount+ and I think I'm still not going to watch the ENT finale. (Though I am going to try to finally watch SNW season 2.)
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Post by Ben Grimm on Jun 11, 2024 18:20:43 GMT -5
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jun 12, 2024 1:23:44 GMT -5
Ugh, I had minimal interest in that show, and now this may get me to watch it. Love Giamatti so much.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jun 13, 2024 3:12:33 GMT -5
So my fella and I have now made it through TNG. Not every single episode but the majority that qualify as good, watchable, or at least not dull (so Sub Rosa got watched, for example, because it really does need to be seen to be believed). It was wonderful to watch it with someone who had pretty much no exposure to the series and love to be able to share one of my life-long loves with the love of my life. Anyway, after it was done we went through the process of compiling a Top 20 list of episodes. Mine looked liked this... (these are in order)
1 The Best of Both Worlds 2 Chain of Command 3 All Good Things… 4 Yesterday’s Enterprise 5 The Pegasus 6 The Offspring 7 Starship Mine 8 Face of the Enemy 9 Lower Decks 10 Sarek 11 Conspiracy 12 The Inner Light 13 The Most Toys 14 Clues 15 Disaster 16 Future Imperfect 17 Parallels 18 Time Squared 19 Remember Me 20 Timescape
(With Darmok and The Quality of Life hovering just outside).
His looked like this:
1. The Survivors 2. Data’s Day 3. Yesterday’s Enterprise 4. The Offspring 5. Clues 6. All Good Things 7. Chain of Command 8. Future Imperfect 9. The Best of Both Worlds 10. Lower Decks 11. Disaster 12. Face of the Enemy 13. The Inner Light 14. Dark Page 15. The Pegasus 16. Conundrum 17. Cause and Effect 18. A Matter of Perspective 19. Remember Me 20. The Most Toys
We have now started both DS9 and Voyager. It took two attempts to get through "Emissary" (which is fair, because it's crap) and breezed through "Caretaker". Two episodes in and the opinion is that DS9 might have better characters (specifically, Kira, Odo, and Quark at this stage) but Voyager is a more fun, watchable show. Let's see how things go!
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Jun 13, 2024 17:14:09 GMT -5
Prole Hole I really like your fella’s list, not because it’s mine but because it’s almost all strong, distinctive, emotionally-grounded episodes that are almost all worthy of “favorite” but don’t necessarily make it to “best of” lists. I have a real soft spot for “The Survivors” because I’ve passed by the house a few times—you get a good view on your way to the hike to Escondido Falls. I went on its street once to get a better look but it didn’t shake out as hoped. ![](https://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season3/3x03/the_survivors_hd_055.jpg) (Actually it’s just mostly hidden by a big green wall—I thought the street would provide an alternate path to the falls trail but it turned out to be one of those many Los Angeles-area cases where Google directs you up pathways that are private-access only.)
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