Official Star Trek Thread

I dont mind a less 'legendary' character, but I get where you are coming from; they need great depth. All the characters you mentioned have incredible depth and versatility to their characters. We know a great deal of what really makes them tick, and who they are, even if they surprise us at times.

I question how several characters on Discovery even ended up in Starfleet in the first place. Then again, their idea of Starfleet is an integrity-deprived crappy colonialist force, so :facepalm:
 
It’s interesting to see how Star Trek actors are pricing themselves on Cameo.
  • Riker and Seven swing for the fences at $350 a pop.
  • Data is close behind at $300.
  • Troi asks for $210.
  • Dr. Crusher takes it down to $190.
  • The Doctor and Q cost $160 each.
  • Tom Paris asks for $130.
  • Tasha Yar, Tuvok, Harry Kim, and Hoshi Sato all come in at $110.
  • Beckett Mariner, Travis Mayweather, and Hugh Culber (Discovery) step it down to $100.
  • L’Rell (Discovery) is $85.
  • Kira and Hugh (TNG, Picard) each charge $80.
  • Young Alexander Rozhenko is $70.
  • Saru and Elnor (Picard) are $65.
  • Ezri Dax is $60.
  • Raffi Musiker (Picard), Keyla Detmer (Discovery), D. Nhan (Discovery), and Tuvix are $55.
  • Michael Jonas (Voyager) is $45.
  • Moriarty is $41.
  • Commander Shelby and Gray Tal bring up the rear at $31 each.
Granted, some of these actors had exposure outside of Trek which could up their asking price.

For me, the surprises are Tasha and Kira being noticeably lower than their contemporaries, and Mayweather, Culber, and L’Rell trying to charge as much as they do.

Personally, I’d never spend more than $40-50 on something like this, and only for a superfan.
 
I dropped $75 on a Cameo once, and it went very well. But again, it's a very narrow window. I wouldn't, despite being a superfan, want a cameo from any of those folks. Especially not Travis, he sucks. I am surprised that Doug Jones is so low. He's been in so much iconic and famous media (admittedly, under a mask).
 
I caught up on Disco S4.1 and imo the show is continually improving. I like that the villain is basically a planet eating, intelligent singularity, of what we know of it so far. That sort of thing is pure Rodenberry.

I'm surprised to see some fans dismissing it and giving up on it so early on. Granted season one was a mess but you can say the same for nearly every other Trek series. It's kind of tradition that Trek shows find their feet in season three and Discovery holds that trend. I'm looking forward to the second half of the season.

Speaking of new Trek we're getting a boatload this year. There hasn't been this many Trek shows ongoing simultaneously in the show's history and I for one am not complaining.
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Well, Discovery season 4 was another giant turd. The finale didn’t actually wrap anything up, and apparently even though Kirk was able to fly the original NCC Enterprise through the galactic barrier successfully, Starfleet has made exactly zero progress on the issue in 900 years, and it’s now even more dangerous to make the attempt, for unexplained reasons. The show has completely regressed into paper-thin plot strands that are only used to segue between scenes of characters melodramatically feeling shit at each other with only the most tenuous hints of emotional control. None of them are believable as career Starfleet officers.

They also had a character leave the ship, and it was treated like a significant thing; but even though I think the person has been on the show from the beginning I couldn’t tell you the character’s name or anything about them. So, yeah.

Much more interested in Strange New Worlds, and to a lesser extent the second season of Picard. It’ll be interesting to see if they decide to involve T’Pol in SNW in some way, since she’d be ~150 in that timeframe, and it would be a way to lay a thread between all of the Trek shows to date.
 
Well, Discovery season 4 was another giant turd. The finale didn’t actually wrap anything up
My bad, I forgot that Discovery’s seasons are longer than 10 episodes (unlike all the other recent Trek shows), so it’s not actually over yet. While episode 11 was a slight step up, we got yet another permutation of the communication through emotion idea. I think that horse died quite a while ago.

Picard season 2 is off to a pretty good start — hopefully it will surpass the uneven season 1.
 
Yeah, I liked the first episode of Picard S2. I liked that they actually seem to have listened to the criticisms, and I like that all the characters seem to have mostly moved on into more stable places. It seems like the season will do things to change that, but that's fine because I like the story concept so far.
 
Yeah, I will finish Discovery S4 .. if anything because I have some weird thing about finishing pretty much everything I start .. but it is a chore. Think Picard started off better than S1 .. but in general, they need to be looking for some new people to run this. I have hopes for the Pike series based on the actors .. but the writing and stories need to be a lot more interesting
 
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I’ll give credit where credit is due, I think this most recent episode of Discovery was as close to a good episode as they’ve had in a long while. The 10-C’s communication method was interesting, and they had to spend enough time on the plot that they had fewer opportunities for the cringey “emotional exposition” scenes (though they still squeezed in a couple).

One issue with the show having leapt so far forward in time is that they’re at least a hundred years past the latest temporal cold war and time authority eras, so in theory all of that very specific time travel technology should be available to them. Whatever temporal accords exist, it’s a bit hard to believe that people wouldn’t be bending those rules, or at least using equipment to analyze the past, to address things like The Burn or the DMA.
 
The problem with all seasons has been an interesting start .. bunch of dull in the middle .. then decent to a good ending.
 
…and then they drop the ball again for the Discovery finale.
Relentlessly predictable and trite, with potential consequences laid out and then promptly eliminated. Discovery has to forfeit their spore drive to escape the orb, leaving them stranded outside the galaxy with only warp drive — so the 10-C make them a wormhole to return right away. Booker would obviously have the, er, book thrown at him, a guaranteed life sentence for his recklessness that almost destroyed two planets, but instead he gets community service helping people displaced by the DMA! Burnham breaks down crying on the bridge when she should have just quantum torpedoed the fuck out of Booker’s ship as soon as she was in range, and the president of the Federation instead decides she’s finally proven herself to be captain material.

And then the absolutely bizarre choice to cast Stacey Abrams as the president of United Earth. I mean, that’s just a middle finger to anyone right of center who might still be watching the show. Why do it?

Thankfully the other 3 modern Trek shows are all better than this one, and hopefully Strange New Worlds will be, too.
 
Since I just finished a long-term rewatch of all the Trek shows from TOS through Enterprise, and I’m up to date with the newer shows, and everybody loves lists, then why not rank them?

1. Deep Space Nine - Higher lows and arguably higher highs than TNG, with meaningful meditations on religion, race, ethics, and the human condition. The final four seasons of the show encompassing the Dominion War saga are probably the most consistently great run of Trek out there, and Sisko is still the only captain to destroy an inhabited planet to call someone’s bluff.
2. The Next Generation - Had a relatively weak start, but by the third season it really found its groove and became just as iconic as the original series. Many excellent episodes over its run, and almost always high quality in its later seasons.
3. The Original Series - Hammy theatrics and a low budget only added to the charm of the one that started it all. Iconic characters and many excellent, thought-provoking episodes, as well as some purely fun ones, though it did have a number of clunkers, too.
4. Enterprise - Unfairly maligned and debuting at exactly the wrong time for its subject matter (a show about naive optimism arriving in the shadow of 9/11 and rolling back to the 22nd century after almost 15 years of 24th century shows), this show had a much better cast than Voyager (except for Travis, who sucks), and spent its first couple of seasons in wide-eyed optimism before bringing the hammer down with the Xindi attack and forcing the crew to wake up and get serious. I think the show was always pretty good, but by its fourth season it was legitimately very good, and spending more time with the founding species of the Federation who all started off hating each other, and seeing Earth’s role in helping to clean that up, was pretty cool. Yes, there was some silly T&A, and some of the Vulcans were too emotional, and Travis sucked, but seasons 5-7 could have been pretty special if the show had continued.
5. Lower Decks - Sometimes a little too manic for its own good, but this animated comedy series set after Nemesis is consistently funny and full of in jokes for Trek fans, along with some fun guest appearances.
6. Voyager - Got off to a weak start with a so-so cast (except for The Doctor), an indefensible decision from the captain that left them stranded, lame adversaries in the Kazon, and an apparently inexhaustible supply of photon torpedoes and shuttlecraft. Don’t get me started on all the lame holodeck and magic reset button episodes, or the silly T&A when Seven arrived. In its later years almost every story revolved around Janeway, Seven, and/or The Doctor, and they never satisfactorily explained why the Borg were still a thing after Picard killed their queen, but whatever. All of that said, there were a number of very good episodes peppered throughout the later seasons, even if this was the weakest of the live action pre-Paramount+ shows.
7. Picard - Expectations were high for this show, but the execution has been a bit tepid to date. Patrick Stewart unfortunately shows his age as he stumbles through some of his line readings. The cast is pretty good, as are some of the story ideas, but it never seems to fully stick the landing.
8. Prodigy - Definitely aimed at tweeners, but still watchable by adults, this computer-animated show starts off with almost no connection to the Trek mythos, but gradually finds its way there over the course of its first 10 episodes, tying in most directly to Voyager. I believe the show takes place at roughly the same time as Picard, but in a different part of the galaxy. A little too early to judge it well, but it has the potential to be interesting, as a group of misfits get their hands on a Federation starship with no context other than a hologram of Captain Janeway to give them information and guidance.
9. Discovery - What began as a grimdark reboot of Star Trek set 10 years before the original series, served up as canon while including elements that made it nearly impossible to actually be canon, gradually got more and more awkwardly emotional, and eventually punted on the canon problems by jumping 900(!) years into the future. Every season after the first one has had a season-long arc with an existential threat, so the stakes are always too high, which makes the painfully unprofessional emotionalism even more inappropriate. I couldn’t tell you the names of most of the bridge crew or secondary cast, because the only characters they seem to care about are Burnham, Saru, Tilly, Stamets, and Culber, along with one or two others depending on the season. While the show occasionally has its moments, it’s largely become a train wreck, with the long-term guest appearance of Captain Pike in season 2 as one of the few bright spots. Hopefully his new show Strange New Worlds will fare better.
10. The Animated Series - Set immediately after the original series, this poorly animated show benefits from most of the original cast reprising their characters, and some original series writers contributing stories, but most of the episodes are pretty lame. Chekov is gone, a cat person and a three-armed guy are now on the bridge, and Majel Roddenberry, James Doohan, and Nichelle Nichols all provide poorly disguised voice acting for the secondary characters. They didn’t even reuse the music from the original series for this. One episode about Spock’s childhood is pretty good, but most of the rest is pointless.
 
I mostly agree with that so far, although I am thoroughly enjoying Picard Season 2 so far. I haven't watched enough Lower Decks to give it a proper rating. Not sure if I'd put TAS above or below Discovery at this point.
 
So, Picard season 2 was almost entirely pointless, IMO. A MacGuffin-fest from start to finish, with yet another dystopian alternate future and an utterly botched trip into the past. Some actors from season 1 were reused in different roles like some bad 1950s sci-fi flick, Brent Spiner played what I believe is now the fourth human member of the Soong family tree spanning 5 centuries who looks identical to all the others (at this point they should probably just come out and say the Soongs have been exclusively cloning themselves to reproduce), Picard’s newly invented childhood pathos wasn’t very interesting or enlightening, and pretty much every plot “twist” was completely predictable (minus the Wesley ex machina business, which I hope to god isn’t a backdoor pilot for a traveler / watcher series). The cameos were fun, and I guess there were 3-4 character moments spread across 10 episodes that were worth something, but otherwise this felt like a somewhat insulting waste of my time. Hopefully season 3 with the entire TNG bridge crew joining the cast will finally deliver a season actually worthy of the series’ concept.

Thankfully, Strange New Worlds is off to a very promising start. Anson Mount’s Christopher Pike is the best thing to come out of this recent spate of Star Trek shows, and so far it looks like this won’t be the never-ending psychotherapy session that Discovery has devolved into. The use of younger versions of familiar characters is fun, and I got a good chuckle out of teasing the arrival of “Lieutenant Kirk”, only to have it be James’s older brother Sam instead. The portrayal of Nurse Chapel seems off, but we’ll have to see how the character develops over time. It’s also a little weird that transporter chief Kyle is suddenly Asian, and Robert April is now black, but whatever. They probably should have created different characters if they wanted more diversity, since this is theoretically in the prime universe, and we’ve already seen canon depictions of these two as white men, but they were pretty minor characters so it’s not that big of a deal.
 
It’s also a little weird that transporter chief Kyle is suddenly Asian, and Robert April is now black, but whatever.
For reference, it's a different Kyle - the Kyle on TOS was a Lieutenant, not a chief. So if he gets a battlefield commission, maybe, but right now they're listed as separate characters. And April's sole on-camera appearance was on The Animated Series, which has sort of a funny place in canon - anything in TAS is canon until it's contradicted on screen.
 
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I loved Picard S2 and found the ending to be surprisingly emotional. I'm disappointed that we won't see Rios or Agnes again but those characters seemed to serve their purpose. Am definitely looking forward to S3 and the return of the TNG crew.

SNW episode 1 was also wonderful. It will be interesting to see Trek return to an episodic format in the streaming era. I had no problem with the race swapping of some minor characters as that sort of thing doesn't offend me.
 
Strange New Worlds continues to be the best of the newer live action Trek shows by a mile. Getting back to episodic storytelling, having a strong cast, and making more of an effort to lean into Trek canon has really paid off.

Also, kudos to them for actually acknowledging Sybok in the latest episode, as well as his pirate girlfriend! It sounds absurd on paper, but it totally works — and I hope those seeds will be sown as the show continues.
 
Good to hear. Going to start watching it. Discovery and Picard have been massive disappointments
 
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I've been pondering why Picard has landed so poorly, despite both seasons opening with promise, and I think it's because the people responsible for the show misunderstand the character, and why people were attracted to him - and that includes Patrick Stewart, since he reportedly signs off on every portion of the show. I'm not really interested in this broken Picard trying to figure out who he is. I liked the confident man who knew his place in the galaxy and was able to negotiate on the edge of a knife, or outwit those who were after him. Yes, the episodes where he is broken down and overcomes are excellent - but as an arc for 10 episodes, it would be tiresome and boring and bland.

Picard is a moral force and this show turned him into a bit of a farce.
 
I've been pondering why Picard has landed so poorly, despite both seasons opening with promise, and I think it's because the people responsible for the show misunderstand the character, and why people were attracted to him - and that includes Patrick Stewart, since he reportedly signs off on every portion of the show. I'm not really interested in this broken Picard trying to figure out who he is. I liked the confident man who knew his place in the galaxy and was able to negotiate on the edge of a knife, or outwit those who were after him. Yes, the episodes where he is broken down and overcomes are excellent - but as an arc for 10 episodes, it would be tiresome and boring and bland.

Picard is a moral force and this show turned him into a bit of a farce.
Agree, if they started him off somewhat broken and he got his mojo back, that would have been good. I think being on some kind of Starfleet ship (not the Enterprise) would have helped too. I had some real high hopes for this show .. but it has been a real disappointment when it could and should have been awesome
 
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