They have a soap star for the soap episode, so they've got a bit of a better excuse. I'd have Carol Burnett on, and go full "As the Stomach Turns" with it, but that's me.
Exactly right. That's pretty much how I see it. I will always love TOS (especially the obvious theatrical cues like that magnificent stage lighting), and I can accept that its visuals are often out of date, a product of their time, and it doesn't lessen my enjoyment when SNW improves upon it. I liked M'Benga in the original series, and as far as I'm concerned, Babs Olusanmokun is a fantastic update of M'Benga. Yep, so it will be a bit gimmicky this week but like with the puppet episode, I am more than willing to give it a chance. Plus, I like Deirdre Hall and was a Days fan once upon a time.
Booker is too young to be the guy in the first place. That's what I'm saying... TOS is a recreation of the "actual" events. They got M'Benga's nephew to play him.
Finally got around to watching the Muppet episode. Holy shit I think that's the worst thing Star Trek has ever done (and I've seen all of Discovery and Enterprise, so that's saying something.) At first, seeing the Enterprise crew turned into puppets was pretty funny. Then you remember there are still 45 minutes left. I mean, I'll hand it to SNW... it's amongst my favourite Trek series but when it drops a giant turd it really doesn't fuck around. That was one epic pile of shit. I really want to know what the production team were thinking. Somewhere, Jim Henson is spinning in his grave and possibly asking for his lawyers.
Muppet Show had on Mark Hamill as himself and as Luke. Yeah. George Lucas let that happen, so it was canon. I just killed the Easter Bunny in front of you with my bare hands. How does that feel?
Yeah, the puppets themselves were very well done. I'm forever amazed how Jim Henson's Creature Shop can make puppets look like their actors, they're the best in their field, clearly. That said, the fun wore off pretty quickly. All of that aside, I do want a Pelia puppet.
Caught the first ten minutes of today's episode. I'm gonna need a drink or three before I can watch the rest, but I'm sorry... this is fucking retarded.
SNW S04E07, "Like Chronitons Through The Hourglass" Firstly, before I mention anything else, Spock as Sybok is hot. I mean, damn, Ethan. Wear that hair longer, please. Damn. Also, the leather. Damn. Secondly, this was a good episode. I wasn't thrilled with the soap opera approach, but they really did something wonderful with it. Instead of just playing off of the ham and cheese (which was fun), they actually dug deep into the emotional well-being of the principal characters. The discussion of what is and isn't real being all down to how we deal with that notion of reality is very relevant, especially now, when we're dealing with so many untruths and things to make us question our emotions and our sanity. Even if something isn't real to anyone else, but it is real to you, the emotions that come from that experience still matters, and they deserve to be acknowledged and resolved. There were plenty of fun scenes with the cameras, the music stings, the people behind the camera did an exemplary job emulating a soap opera, and I had a blast catching all of the tropes. I'd also like to say how wonderful it was to see Deirdre Hall being truly terrific in her role, knowing she has had years to finely hone that craft, and it was a pleasure to watch her in action outside of a conventional setting. Lastly, Anson Mount really nailed those last few scenes, too, and I found myself tearing up as well. That trauma is something we know Chris has clearly resisted working through. I genuinely liked the message of how it's okay to acknowledge and face those things in your life no one else really knows about but are important to you, because it is true that we all struggle with things no one else knows about, and what would seem like molehills to some are mountains to others. This one gets an 8/10 from me. Yeah, it's another somewhat silly episode, but while the premise is silly, the end result is very real. Also, SHAKY BOX! BUY IT WHERE YOU GET YOUR THINGS!
In isolation, most of these gimmick episodes would be fine...or fine-adjacent. But against the backdrop of only 10 episodes a season, this would not be my choice for one. I'm going to have to disagree with you about digging deep. Here's what we found out about our main characters IMO: Pike: He misses his other-life daughter. Not the whole other life, Batel, his son. His looming sacrifice and disability apparently is something that doesn't occur to him. Una: Literally nothing about her. Spock: Literally nothing about him, as he's comatose the entire episode. I guess we get La'an's perspective about how Sybok and Spock are alike, but what does she know, really? Also, how does she even know of the existence of Sybok? It's been a while since I watched STV, but wasn't his existence a surprise to the entirety of the crew? Uhura: She has daddy issues and abandonment issues from her family having died in a shuttle crash years ago. La'an: She apparently has mixed feelings about breaking up with Spock and wishes that there was a hotter, more emotional, slightly evil version of him. M'Benga: He on some level is suffering from SPACE MADNESS, having been in space so long, maybe not really. Chapel: Not really much except maybe that she continues to like her secret experiments Ortegas: She on some level also suffers ...SPACE MADNESS, but got over it with the help of her friends. (But again, I don't know if that is just a soap opera thing or is reflective of her actual life). I think what they had the characters do was fine, but not particularly deep. They could have put them through their paces on issues that had been raised in the past, even in recent episodes, such as Pike's wrestling with his fate, Una's Ilyrian nature, La'an's fearing that she is destined to follow in the footsteps of her superhuman ancestors, M'Benga being haunted by his warrior past. They could have given Uhura and Ortegas more backstory. (Personally, I think it would have made more sense for Ortegas to have been Pike's secret daughter and Uhura to be the one to explain to M'Benga that they can get by with the help of their friends, since Uhura seemingly has more friends, but eh).
I get you. It might be better to say deeper instead of deep, speaking in terms of this season's penchant for shallower, more surface level fare.
The soap opera episode cited to the musical episode, which reminds me of the OG musical episode, Buffy's Once More With Feeling. And putting aside the technical superiority of OMWF and such, what made that episode sing (sorry, couldn't resist) was that just about each character had an arc that was explored through song: Buffy's alienation and depression after being involuntarily brought back, Spike's love/hate relationship with Buffy, Giles' not knowing how to deal with Buffy's issues, Anya and Xander's mixed feelings about their upcoming marriage, Tara's being so in love with Willow, Dawn feeling overlooked. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to overdramatize and tell through soap opera tropes some of the deeper issues Our Heroes have here. They could have just had Ethan Peck do double-duty as Sybok and Spock and get more insight to both. They could have explored the love triangle-ish between Chapel/Spock/La'an or created one between Una/M'Benga/Chapel. (What soap opera doesn't have a good catfight? or love triangle?). There could have been a blackmail subplot about M'Benga's dirty secrets. If they were going to go this direction, there was a lot more they could have done.
Didn't Buffy crib that from Xena? Sybok vs Spock should have been the triangle with La'an to get that full lather. The fourth wall being transparent was kinda catchy... Either way, I still liked the puppet episode better. This season has been fun, but leaning hard into the every "episode is a bottle episode" isn't really good Trek.
So, two Guiness Stouts later... That was stupid. No, I'm sorry... that was just fucking stupid. And if you want to trace back to the flash point of the stupidity: it's the use of Trelane. It shouldn't have happened the first time, back last season; he should have stayed unique to TOS... but it's not the first time they've brought stuff from TOS back into SNW and probably won't be the last. The only for real part of this episode was at the very last... Pike dealing with the loss of his unreal daughter. That was human. The rest of this? It read like some shit a drama major sophomore would have been writing in his dorm room as a passion project. Man, fuck this shit. Last episode was something you couldn't take your eyes off... and they return to this mindset... I'm glad others found something of value in this abortion and that they're so easily amused.
More often than not this is eliciting from me a "FFS" The things I would normally pick apart (Sybok shouldn't be a twin of Spock) are basically explained by the premise (La'an hasn't seen Sybok so this is what she would imagine him to look like...I guess) but it still grates. So far the only thing that makes it tolerable is Pike being as frustrated about it as me. I'm not expecting it to get better.
Oops, looks like...I didn't know Xena had a musical episode. But the Internet tells me that it came out in 1997, whereas OMWF came out in 2001
Xena had two musical episodes. One with written Broadway style songs, and one that used jukebox rock like "Moulin Rouge".
I liked the first few acts of this episode, it was goofy fun. Pike being annoyed and confused as hell made it work with the rest of the characters. Then it lost the fun aspect and became boring. I lost interest and had to rewind it several times to catch up on what was happening. The last scene with Pike was a new side to him, never really seen him get that emotional and also means that he spent a lifetime where he didn't end up in the chair. Too bad it turned to be one of the weakest episodes yet.
… 5 minutes into this episode… before the credits drop. I had to cut it off. At this point I just have to accept that the producers of this show don’t understand or just don’t care about what I want from an episode of Star Trek. indeed, back on that bullshit.
Okay, so they addressed the appearance of Sybok and all that. Basically every scene here with Pike in it was anywhere from fine to very good. All the ancillary "lets do a soap trope" stuff was consistent with Trelane and yet still annoying. Redeemed only by Pike unexplained immunity to the shenanigans. I, for one, found the coda to me a major point of redemption to the whole episode. I said earlier that I didn't expect it to get better. I sit corrected. While I still find the gimmick annoying, it's much more to do with the fact that they've done so many gimmicks this season. If this had been the only one, I think I would have received it better. quick thoughts: Hall was fine and a nice understated contrast to the soap silliness. I'm forced to assume that the Trelane who fucked with Kirk was younger than this one and that Q just don't feel obliged to respect linear time. I'm annoyed this this makes it almost certain that they will never pay off the Sybok tease from S1 I still say that if they really really wanted to do puppets and they were open to bringing back Trelane they could have just done that all in one episode, but given the choice of making this one disappear in favor of that - Id swiftly choose to make the puppet episode disappear and keep this one.
I don't blame you and a lot of it was a slog but I'm glad I toughed it out. From the point where Juliet appeared it really redeemed itself (to the extent possible)
A consistent criticism of the show is that they so often walk right up to doing something bold and then back off, taking a more milquetoast and safe approach instead, and I tend to agree with it. I think they took solid swings in the first season, cut back some in the second, dropped the ball entirely in the third, and now they're just running out the clock doing their favorite things with the playground they have. I enjoyed the episode, but yeah, they could have really taken it to the hilt. I liked the puppet episode but that was one of my issues, it was all a dream. They almost went there and then backed off. Have you tried three Guinness stouts? One of these has to work.
In that Trelane is revealed early on, I'd have to say that I'd compare this to Q's Robin Hood construct. If that one was acceptable, so should this one be.
Has anyone considered that maybe, once the writers knew that SNW was only going to get a truncated 5th season, they just said "F it" and decided to go balls to the walls crazy? Like, "Why not do a puppet episode? What are they gonna do, cancel us?"
Definitely seems plausible. But if so, it's kind of messed up. Because just doing random gimmicky stuff is going to have an impact of other Trek series and on the writers' own ability to find and maintain work. Maybe they would rather have Wacky Hi-Jinx Episode #5 than Aggressively Mediocre Star Trek Episode #573 or even Serious Contender At Best of Trek #10 on their resume, and maybe they don't have much to care about the franchise once this gig ends. But it's sad how quickly they went from the excellence of S1 to where we are now, and how much I think they aren't making use of the talent at their fingertips (both their own and that of the actors).
My theory is now that they knew basically how they want to end this show, but the studio wanted a set number of episodes, so they dumped out the trash can in the writer's room and greenlit every rejected, shitty idea to pad it out.
I'm sure the writers of SNW will see the negative comments directed at season 4 and course correct for season 5. Oh wait...
As I look back on this season, I feel like each episode has an analog to a previous Trek incarnation. Valles Marineris - Future's End The Griffin Incident - Night Terrors Human Best Friend - 2 Days and 2 Nights A Case Of Chiarascuro - Profit and Loss Level 5 Transporter Accident - Rascals Off Hour - Disaster Like Chronitons - Q-Pid I don't think any of these have been any more ridiculous, honestly, than the ones I compared them to. And I think several of them were better.
Yes, there have been plenty of wacky hijinks episodes before. I don't think any of the episodes this season in a vacuum was bad, and in fact, most of them were good for what they were. The issue is the contrast. Even though such episodes as Trouble with Tribbles, Mudd's Women, I, Mudd and A Piece of the Action were all good and enjoyable (at least to me), a TOS season that was literally episodes of that ilk would present an issue.
Which i understand. And that's why I wonder if they didn't decide to just go all out with their wacky ideas based on their limited time left. I dint think that's the decision I would make, but I understated the thinking (of its true)
