Early LD may have leaned a bit heavily that way, but as it went on, they do explore and occasionally tackle issues. Not to mention, Trek from TOS has gag humor and family content. It’s always been silly.
Prodigy, while family friendly, starts off much more serious. By the 10th episode, it becomes the best of the newer series. If you can “find” it, give it an honest try.
That’s an ask. That’s a bit over 4 hours, and to me exemplifies one of the biggest problems of modern T.V. - you can’t jump into it where it gets good without missing important stuff.
When I introduced my partner to TNG, we started with season 3, and they LOVED it.
Later on I was doing a rewatch and was part way through season one or two and they sat down on our couch “oh, nextgen. Nice.” And was silent for about 15m and then said “what is this shit and why don’t I remember it?” And later after another early episode and discussion “good thing you didn’t try to get me to watch season 1, I would have noped out of the show before they got good.”
I don’t want to slog through 10 episodes of shit to get to the good stuff…and, for me anyway, discovery would do exactly that over and over. 8 episodes of shit and 2 or 3 good ones…and for me, needing to invest that much time into a show for such a poor reward is very… disenfranchising.
Unfortunately, every Trek variation is like that. TNG is literally the reason the phrase “grew the beard” came into being. By season 2, when Riker gets rid of the baby face, the show comes into its own. Voyager by 4 and DS9 by the end of 3. Those are hour long, 26 episode seasons. A block of 10 episodes at 22 minutes is peanuts.
They’re all a commitment of time and patience, especially with DS9. As the first serialized attempt, it’s a slow burn, but worth it for the character building. If that’s not for you, that’s just fine. Certainly no shortage of other media to consume these days.
I didn’t feel that way about DS9, tbh. Voyager, yeah - but again, it was mostly episodic and you don’t need to watch the shit in order to enjoy the good stuff.
If you skip any Disco episodes then you are missing story and/or character development.
I kinda wonder in retrospect if they shouldn’t have done Voyager and Enterprise the other way around, make Enterprise first, then do the stranded far from home thing.
Voyager’s premise lends itself to being told as one continuous story, because…it IS. One trip, back from the Delta quadrant. Except in the late 90s they still wanted to make adventure of the week episodic TV. Especially early in the show, they ignored the premise almost entirely.
Enterprise’s premise is a return to the weekly adventure format; a ship named Enterprise wanders around and encounters shit, now with 38% more obvious thirst. That’s suited to episodic adventures, but it’s the early-to-mid 2000s, the era of TiVo and DVD box sets, the heyday of binge watching. Serialized TV was soon to become all the rage, Paramount knew it, which is why they tried to have not one but two overall plots. The first two seasons had the “temporal cold war” which I’m still convinced someone in a writer’s room blurted out without thinking through what it meant. The resulting plot was a bad guy and a good guy kept showing up to explain to Archer why they couldn’t explain to him what they were doing. That wasn’t working so they went full Starship Troopers. “I’m from Pensacola, and I say KILL EM ALL.”
The prequel Enterprise would have done better in the late 90s and the stranded far from home Voyager would have done better in the 2000s.
I feel as though that was a comparison made by someone who has never actually been forced to watch Family Guy, and is just using it as a byword for “mainstream comedy they don’t like” because wow… no.
The more apt comparison would be Rick and Morty, because they took one of its writers. Really comes through in the first season, which thankfully got toned down.
Yeah, they for sure owe a great deal to the revolution in adult animation that R&M brought out. Like you say, after the first season I’m glad they moved away from it and forged their own identity.
I didn’t even mean it as a value statement, just a reference to tone.
Regardless of whether Lower Decks is good or not, or is Family Guy-esque or not, it’s still just tonally what I personally am looking for from a Star Trek show. If others are, that’s great, I hold no illusion that my opinion is the only one or more valid than anyone else’s, but I can only speak of and to my own opinion. For me, I love gags in my Star Trek, but I don’t want it to be a vehicle for gags first.
Into which you are reading too much. I regularly enjoy slumming in other ways/fields/regards. I am making content suggestions, yes, but boiling it down to simply value is reductive.
I suppose this is a semantic difference - in my experience, slumming used non-ironically describes poor or impoverished behavior or actions (or rather, ones that are stereotypically associated with the poor and impoverished in the culture they’re drawn from), so from several directions you’re making a quite literal value based statement here.
I’ll give you the first season of Lower Decks relies too much on gag humor but as the show goes on it gets a lot better. It’s a lot less laughing at Star Trek and much more laughing with Star Trek fans. Like when whole plots from TNG turn into a joke because now they can solve the problem easily and it’s just an inconvenience to the crew now. Really thought it’s about Merriners (sp) growth from a screw up officer, through her imposter syndrome and anxieties about responsibility to become a stand up officer.
That’s fine, and I see the value in reveling in the fandom. But imo that’s something I want from fandom spaces, not Star Trek itself. It is okay if this is not how you feel or what you want from Star Trek, but I can only speak for myself.
That was only explicitly so half of season 1. It gets much better. And the possible advantages of rhythm and speed were very much showcased in the crossover episode of LD with SNW.
Yes. I am not saying the two are literally interchangeable, but both are irreverent adult animation comedies. Someone said I should have said Rick & Morty but Jesus fucking Christ they’re the same kind of show and you people are splitting hairs.
Yes, LD has a more or an arc while FG is episodic gags, but the point is that they’re both irreverent adult animation comedies.
Hey, you’re the one who said “family guy style gag humour”
FG and LD are nothing alike save both being animated. The comedic styles, tone, joke matter and targeting are completely different. LD doesnt and wouldn’t have a four hour chicken suit fight, rape jokes or a character literally eating shit.
You made a bad comparison to an incredibly lowbrow and offensive show, don’t throw your toys out of the pram when people challenge it as a consequence
Counterpoint: Lower Decks and Prodigy.
Imo if we have to slum to family content or Family Guy-style gag humor, what are we even doing here?
Early LD may have leaned a bit heavily that way, but as it went on, they do explore and occasionally tackle issues. Not to mention, Trek from TOS has gag humor and family content. It’s always been silly.
Prodigy, while family friendly, starts off much more serious. By the 10th episode, it becomes the best of the newer series. If you can “find” it, give it an honest try.
While I get what you’re saying here,
That’s an ask. That’s a bit over 4 hours, and to me exemplifies one of the biggest problems of modern T.V. - you can’t jump into it where it gets good without missing important stuff.
When I introduced my partner to TNG, we started with season 3, and they LOVED it.
Later on I was doing a rewatch and was part way through season one or two and they sat down on our couch “oh, nextgen. Nice.” And was silent for about 15m and then said “what is this shit and why don’t I remember it?” And later after another early episode and discussion “good thing you didn’t try to get me to watch season 1, I would have noped out of the show before they got good.”
I don’t want to slog through 10 episodes of shit to get to the good stuff…and, for me anyway, discovery would do exactly that over and over. 8 episodes of shit and 2 or 3 good ones…and for me, needing to invest that much time into a show for such a poor reward is very… disenfranchising.
Unfortunately, every Trek variation is like that. TNG is literally the reason the phrase “grew the beard” came into being. By season 2, when Riker gets rid of the baby face, the show comes into its own. Voyager by 4 and DS9 by the end of 3. Those are hour long, 26 episode seasons. A block of 10 episodes at 22 minutes is peanuts.
They’re all a commitment of time and patience, especially with DS9. As the first serialized attempt, it’s a slow burn, but worth it for the character building. If that’s not for you, that’s just fine. Certainly no shortage of other media to consume these days.
I didn’t feel that way about DS9, tbh. Voyager, yeah - but again, it was mostly episodic and you don’t need to watch the shit in order to enjoy the good stuff.
If you skip any Disco episodes then you are missing story and/or character development.
I kinda wonder in retrospect if they shouldn’t have done Voyager and Enterprise the other way around, make Enterprise first, then do the stranded far from home thing.
Voyager’s premise lends itself to being told as one continuous story, because…it IS. One trip, back from the Delta quadrant. Except in the late 90s they still wanted to make adventure of the week episodic TV. Especially early in the show, they ignored the premise almost entirely.
Enterprise’s premise is a return to the weekly adventure format; a ship named Enterprise wanders around and encounters shit, now with 38% more obvious thirst. That’s suited to episodic adventures, but it’s the early-to-mid 2000s, the era of TiVo and DVD box sets, the heyday of binge watching. Serialized TV was soon to become all the rage, Paramount knew it, which is why they tried to have not one but two overall plots. The first two seasons had the “temporal cold war” which I’m still convinced someone in a writer’s room blurted out without thinking through what it meant. The resulting plot was a bad guy and a good guy kept showing up to explain to Archer why they couldn’t explain to him what they were doing. That wasn’t working so they went full Starship Troopers. “I’m from Pensacola, and I say KILL EM ALL.”
The prequel Enterprise would have done better in the late 90s and the stranded far from home Voyager would have done better in the 2000s.
DS9 is about the only 80s/90s Trek series with an almost completely watchable 1st season, though.
I’ll admit I haven’t tried any Prodigy. Maybe I’ll give it a shot based on this recommendation.
I despise Family Guy, yet I will fight you over Lower Decks.
I feel as though that was a comparison made by someone who has never actually been forced to watch Family Guy, and is just using it as a byword for “mainstream comedy they don’t like” because wow… no.
The more apt comparison would be Rick and Morty, because they took one of its writers. Really comes through in the first season, which thankfully got toned down.
Yeah, they for sure owe a great deal to the revolution in adult animation that R&M brought out. Like you say, after the first season I’m glad they moved away from it and forged their own identity.
I didn’t even mean it as a value statement, just a reference to tone.
Regardless of whether Lower Decks is good or not, or is Family Guy-esque or not, it’s still just tonally what I personally am looking for from a Star Trek show. If others are, that’s great, I hold no illusion that my opinion is the only one or more valid than anyone else’s, but I can only speak of and to my own opinion. For me, I love gags in my Star Trek, but I don’t want it to be a vehicle for gags first.
Dude, you described it as slumming.
Into which you are reading too much. I regularly enjoy slumming in other ways/fields/regards. I am making content suggestions, yes, but boiling it down to simply value is reductive.
I suppose this is a semantic difference - in my experience, slumming used non-ironically describes poor or impoverished behavior or actions (or rather, ones that are stereotypically associated with the poor and impoverished in the culture they’re drawn from), so from several directions you’re making a quite literal value based statement here.
If you’re familiar with the concept of “prestige tv,” I think Old Trek is vastly more similar to “prestige” than Nu-Trek. That’s what I meant.
There are countless “prestige” shows I think are terrible, and likewise countless low-brow shows I think are tremendous.
But again, what I personally want from Trek is more on the prestige side. That’s it. That’s all I meant.
I’ll give you the first season of Lower Decks relies too much on gag humor but as the show goes on it gets a lot better. It’s a lot less laughing at Star Trek and much more laughing with Star Trek fans. Like when whole plots from TNG turn into a joke because now they can solve the problem easily and it’s just an inconvenience to the crew now. Really thought it’s about Merriners (sp) growth from a screw up officer, through her imposter syndrome and anxieties about responsibility to become a stand up officer.
That’s fine, and I see the value in reveling in the fandom. But imo that’s something I want from fandom spaces, not Star Trek itself. It is okay if this is not how you feel or what you want from Star Trek, but I can only speak for myself.
That was only explicitly so half of season 1. It gets much better. And the possible advantages of rhythm and speed were very much showcased in the crossover episode of LD with SNW.
Legit question: have you ever actually watched LD or family guy?
Yes. I am not saying the two are literally interchangeable, but both are irreverent adult animation comedies. Someone said I should have said Rick & Morty but Jesus fucking Christ they’re the same kind of show and you people are splitting hairs.
Yes, LD has a more or an arc while FG is episodic gags, but the point is that they’re both irreverent adult animation comedies.
Hey, you’re the one who said “family guy style gag humour”
FG and LD are nothing alike save both being animated. The comedic styles, tone, joke matter and targeting are completely different. LD doesnt and wouldn’t have a four hour chicken suit fight, rape jokes or a character literally eating shit.
You made a bad comparison to an incredibly lowbrow and offensive show, don’t throw your toys out of the pram when people challenge it as a consequence