I enjoy SFA, but it has a few problems, similar to Discovery - that there is too much focus on one character, even episodes focusing on the rest of the crew (which are great!) are still too...
I enjoy SFA, but it has a few problems, similar to Discovery - that there is too much focus on one character, even episodes focusing on the rest of the crew (which are great!) are still too focused on overall plot.
Star Trek is supposed to be about the crew, and while it does a much better job than say early Discovery, it still falls into the problem of having a specific catered story for one or two specific characters, and not stories about their adventures.
Not only this, but that 'specific focus' is hardcore, where everything hinges on the story of Caleb, they spend the vast majority of the first two episodes on him, his mother, and the chancellor, and then just... sort of drop it. It's the same problem they had with DISCO, where they focused too much on one character for extended amounts of time, built up a lot of emotion and then just sort of ignored it, before inevitably diving back into it. Rinse and repeat.
And if you really want to say "Yes! It does focus on the rest of the crew!", you would be sort of right. But all of these characters have one BIG episode catered to them, and it resolves all of their problems in one go, no character development, no major changes, just "Oh hey, this character hangs around the main characters... they have a BIG SECRET! they are ASHAMED of it! oh... it's actually not that bad? everyone likes them now because they /understand/ immediately, and there is no hard feelings against them. They now love each other, and it was all just a big misunderstanding".
If you look at TNG, TOS, VOY, etc, they explored all of the deep parts of the different characters over-time, and often in tandem. Sometimes, the characters just barely 'get along' after going through something together. But, at the very least, it makes all their dynamics different and interesting when pared off, not just the same character and emotional throughput copy+pasted onto each one with a slightly different backstory for seasoning.
The limited episode count, the focus on the 'main characters', the need for a 'universe destroying seasonal force' severely hampers that sort of character building, and I know this is possible even with the shorter seasons - go watch Vikings! Incredible, multi-faceted, multi-character story arches, and they had only eleven episodes a season up until the fourth one (and even then, the fourth season is just two seasons stuck together).
Plus, the only character that felt like 'mattered' was Nus Braka, and that's only because Paul Giamatti is one of the greatest actors of all time. What is SFA without him? His story is cleared up practically by the end of the first season, and do we really want a Star Trek where the only interesting character is a guy who is so violently against the federation he will destroy the entire universe because of it?
They wanted to make Star Trek edgy, and dark with DISCO, and that extended to SFA, because what I can only understand from Kurtzman and team, is that "People like Star Trek because its dark" without realizing Star Trek was only dark because of old televisions and less-than-stellar lumens when filming pre-2000s.
There are some incredible, very Star Trek moments, but they only appear when giving moral speeches, not in the actual day-to-day actions of the show.
I say all this, and I am someone who loved watching the show.
Well that's a relief, for some time I thought that the tastes of Trek fans just completely degenerated. Perhaps the recently announced (though with no date yet) season 4 of The Orville will unite...
Well that's a relief, for some time I thought that the tastes of Trek fans just completely degenerated. Perhaps the recently announced (though with no date yet) season 4 of The Orville will unite us again.
I have dreamed of this for too long, I was just about to give up and hadn't heard anything about this. As of earlier this month, “Seth MacFarlane: Season 4 Is Written”. Incredible.
Season 4 of The Orville
I have dreamed of this for too long, I was just about to give up and hadn't heard anything about this.
I thought it was okay, and was willing to see it get better, but also knew that it wasn't long for this world being an internet chud lightning rod and active during a merger who would have "their...
I thought it was okay, and was willing to see it get better, but also knew that it wasn't long for this world being an internet chud lightning rod and active during a merger who would have "their own take" with the franchise and want to have a clean slate.
Yes, I watched the show. No, I won't apologize for expressing a negative opinion about a TV show. I am allowed to do that. Perhaps you should take a break from the internet, since you are looking...
Yes, I watched the show. No, I won't apologize for expressing a negative opinion about a TV show. I am allowed to do that. Perhaps you should take a break from the internet, since you are looking for people's histories to fight about a TV show.
This isn't my Trek! But also, I never watched Academy, so I have no thoughts. My good will was destroyed with Discovery and Picard. I'm not fighting with people online about Trek, but Discovery,...
This isn't my Trek!
But also, I never watched Academy, so I have no thoughts. My good will was destroyed with Discovery and Picard. I'm not fighting with people online about Trek, but Discovery, Picard and Section 31 are "not my Trek". They keep pumping this garbage (in my opinion) out so I assume there must be some people out there who like it.
Ending a show after two seasons, well really after one, is kind of everything wrong with modern TV. I love TNG, but the first season was pretty mid. In today's world that show gets cancelled too. A show needing to be a hit in the first season with only 8-10 episodes almost guarantees failure and is not in Star Trek's favour in my opinion.
I think the issue is more with modern streaming. With earlier television, airtime had to be filled with something. They didn't want different hour blocks just filled with reruns or shows purchased...
Ending a show after two seasons, well really after one, is kind of everything wrong with modern TV.
I think the issue is more with modern streaming.
With earlier television, airtime had to be filled with something. They didn't want different hour blocks just filled with reruns or shows purchased from elsewhere. As such, they likely had a strong reason to keep a show going (since they would otherwise have to create something completely new to replace the cancelled show). I also think that networks start to develop an identity (as the network that "has that show") which would be hindered if they kept on churning and only creating new shows.
With streaming, there are no "hour blocks". They can release as many or as few shows as they want whenever they want with any season length they want. If something is cancelled, they don't have a need to "fill that time slot" at any point and they can just proceed to create new things when they want and if they want. As such, they don't seem all that attached to any one thing unless it is obviously successful.
I also feel that the older shows were at least able to create a season, gather feedback, and then use that feedback to make the next season better. I'm not a fan of "they shot 2 seasons" and then they "cancelled the show at the end of season 1" since it would require them entering season 3 before they would be able to use any feedback to make the show better. I don't know how much current streaming shows react to audience feedback (or if they even have any new episodes to film after the shows "starts to stream"...
It would likely help shows that are "cancelled" to just immediately enter (release) their "season 2" without being "renewed yet" to see if people warm up to the shows before a final "cancellation" decision is made. If season 2 is far better, it is likely far too late to "un-cancel" the series to make season 3 (since the scenery would likely be disassembled, etc.).
I also find it a bit disappointing that a "cancelled in season 1 show" like this is not given the opportunity to make "a final episode" (2 part episode optionally) to wrap things up. That would at least make this sort of "new weird cancellation" thing feel less disappointing (since this would avoid any cancelled shows ending in cliffhangers). While people wouldn't be happy that a show is cancelled, they would wonder how things would be wrapped up...
I'm sure what you mention is part of it to some degree for sure. I had never thought about that, but it makes total sense. It does make me worried. Most of the shows I love were given time to...
I'm sure what you mention is part of it to some degree for sure. I had never thought about that, but it makes total sense. It does make me worried. Most of the shows I love were given time to develop and improve and it just seems like no show is given that today regardless of intention.
I also agree that if the second season is already shot, just release it. Cancelling it before doing so guarantees failure. I assume a lot less people will show up to watch when they know it has been cancelled.
This is hard to judge objectively because we have the benefit of seeing the whole of TNG (or DS9 or Voyager) in retrospect and we don't see into the internal decisions to keep going or cancel...
Ending a show after two seasons, well really after one, is kind of everything wrong with modern TV. I love TNG, but the first season was pretty mid. In today's world that show gets cancelled too. A show needing to be a hit in the first season with only 8-10 episodes almost guarantees failure and is not in Star Trek's favour in my opinion.
This is hard to judge objectively because we have the benefit of seeing the whole of TNG (or DS9 or Voyager) in retrospect and we don't see into the internal decisions to keep going or cancel shows (now or then), but from my point of view TNG and something like SFA just aren't the same thing.
TNG had some bad episodes at the beginning, Riker was kind of annoying before growing his beard and other characters weren't exactly settled yet either, but at the same time there were some brilliant episodes in the first season as well, the show clearly had lots of great ideas and there was a ton of interesting work already done even in things like set design - the bridge, the new computer interfaces, the visual language of the Enterprise as a whole.
All of those foundations were present in the first season and indicated the potential that TNG could reach if the characters and stories built upon those foundations settled successfully, and that was already realized in some of the excellent first season episodes. I don't see this kind of creative and no doubt hard earned foundations in most of the NuTrek shows. Maybe the execs would cancel the shows even if they were present, but from my point of view they aren't, so I don't see it as the same thing.
If I remember the late 80s and early 90s correctly, having whole series, like every single episode, be rather bad artistically was not that abnormal. So in that sense TNG first season wasn't...
If I remember the late 80s and early 90s correctly, having whole series, like every single episode, be rather bad artistically was not that abnormal. So in that sense TNG first season wasn't really "bad" compared to almost everything else that was going on at the time.
Nowadays, we have thousands of options, a disturbing amount of them well made. I could literally be watching only 8+ imdb scored things for the rest of my life's free time.
I basically agree with everything you said. Maybe I was over simplifying it. I am predisposed to assume Academy is bad, so I cannot objectively judge if the foundations were there. I guess I just...
I basically agree with everything you said. Maybe I was over simplifying it. I am predisposed to assume Academy is bad, so I cannot objectively judge if the foundations were there. I guess I just wanted to use the situation to rant about how fast most shows get cancelled these days.
If Paramount wants to make gritty science fiction, they can use any other IP. Or make a new one. Why pretend it's Star Trek, but choose a completely different tone and retcon existing story and...
If Paramount wants to make gritty science fiction, they can use any other IP. Or make a new one. Why pretend it's Star Trek, but choose a completely different tone and retcon existing story and behavior in the universe? Fans are annoyed because it feels cheap to use the Star Trek name for an unrelated kind of show.
It's a shame for the people who liked it, but personally I can't be sad about it. SFA is easily one of the worst Star Trek shows I've ever seen in my opinion. I'm still hoping we'll get a great...
It's a shame for the people who liked it, but personally I can't be sad about it. SFA is easily one of the worst Star Trek shows I've ever seen in my opinion. I'm still hoping we'll get a great Star Trek show again some day, until then Strange New Worlds will have to suffice.
Disappointing, but not entirely surprising. I think it had a rough start, which might have slowed any chance for it to gain momentum and viewers. The recent Skydance/Paramount merger probably...
Disappointing, but not entirely surprising.
I think it had a rough start, which might have slowed any chance for it to gain momentum and viewers.
The recent Skydance/Paramount merger probably didn't help. They're probably looking to cut everything that isn't actively bringing in new subscribers, while also trying to identify which shows they can cancel without losing too many customers.
[...] the future of the franchise remains uncertain. At the time of this publishing, no new shows have been announced as being in development. Paramount is said to remain very high on the “Star Trek” IP, however, with a new “Star Trek” movie currently in development.
I would love to see them do some Star Trek stories focused on non-humans and non-Federation centers. Give me a story set on Vulcan that has nothing to do with the Federation. Give me a story set...
I would love to see them do some Star Trek stories focused on non-humans and non-Federation centers. Give me a story set on Vulcan that has nothing to do with the Federation. Give me a story set on Kronos that’s about intrigue in the Klingon Empire. Hell, give me one of those seedy police procedurals that Boimler was addicted to when they visited Ferenginar.
Have you tried Prodigy? The story takes place largely outside of Federation space, and the main crew is composed entirely of alien species. It's animated and aimed at young adults, but it's not...
Have you tried Prodigy? The story takes place largely outside of Federation space, and the main crew is composed entirely of alien species. It's animated and aimed at young adults, but it's not half bad.
I did yeah, the first season was good and the second season was only available on France for awhile during some kind of negotiation deal with Netflix and then I forgot about it.
I did yeah, the first season was good and the second season was only available on France for awhile during some kind of negotiation deal with Netflix and then I forgot about it.
I recommend the novel Spock's World by Diane Duane. Unfortunately it is not entirely Vulcan, but it is very Vulcan. The Enterprise bits are entertaining enough and there is also shockingly little...
I recommend the novel Spock's World by Diane Duane. Unfortunately it is not entirely Vulcan, but it is very Vulcan. The Enterprise bits are entertaining enough and there is also shockingly little Spock in the book. But it is very good.
Very interesting. One of my favorite episodes of Trek was the TNG episode Who Watches The Watchers, set on Mintaka. I like how it explores how Vulcans might've been before they became who they are...
Very interesting. One of my favorite episodes of Trek was the TNG episode Who Watches The Watchers, set on Mintaka. I like how it explores how Vulcans might've been before they became who they are now.
I'll have to rewatch that now. After Spock's World, if you're still in the mood for some Vulcans in print, Sarek by A. C. Crispin is a remarkable take on Spock's father. It goes deep in Vulcan...
I'll have to rewatch that now.
After Spock's World, if you're still in the mood for some Vulcans in print, Sarek by A. C. Crispin is a remarkable take on Spock's father. It goes deep in Vulcan psychology and emotion. It is very touching, if I wasn't such a robot I would have cried at one point (perhaps I'm a Vulcan myself). There is also a whole other plot involving the Federation with the usual characters. It is entertaining and well written, but kinda annoying for me at the time because I was only really interested in Vulcans. I'm not sure full Vulcan novels exist.
I have a few possibly outsider theories about why they don't allow the stories not to have some sort of connection to humans and humanity, but I think it's down to writers believing that the core...
I have a few possibly outsider theories about why they don't allow the stories not to have some sort of connection to humans and humanity, but I think it's down to writers believing that the core idea of Star Trek is that the Federation in general and humans in specific are meant to be special among all other structures and species for some reason.
Sometimes I just want to explore the neat lore and see the sights. I don't need to see how awesome the Federation is 24/7, sometimes I just want to go play in the sand on Vulcan...
I really liked SFA and had high hopes for its future. I'm very sad it's cancelled. :( I recommend anyone who has not seen the full show watch Star Trek: Starfleet Academy: Does It Make the Grade?...
I really liked SFA and had high hopes for its future. I'm very sad it's cancelled. :(
I recommend anyone who has not seen the full show watch Star Trek: Starfleet Academy: Does It Make the Grade? by Steve Shives. It gives a breakdown of its plot and characters and gives a reasonable summary of its strengths and weaknesses.
I enjoy SFA, but it has a few problems, similar to Discovery - that there is too much focus on one character, even episodes focusing on the rest of the crew (which are great!) are still too focused on overall plot.
Star Trek is supposed to be about the crew, and while it does a much better job than say early Discovery, it still falls into the problem of having a specific catered story for one or two specific characters, and not stories about their adventures.
Not only this, but that 'specific focus' is hardcore, where everything hinges on the story of Caleb, they spend the vast majority of the first two episodes on him, his mother, and the chancellor, and then just... sort of drop it. It's the same problem they had with DISCO, where they focused too much on one character for extended amounts of time, built up a lot of emotion and then just sort of ignored it, before inevitably diving back into it. Rinse and repeat.
And if you really want to say "Yes! It does focus on the rest of the crew!", you would be sort of right. But all of these characters have one BIG episode catered to them, and it resolves all of their problems in one go, no character development, no major changes, just "Oh hey, this character hangs around the main characters... they have a BIG SECRET! they are ASHAMED of it! oh... it's actually not that bad? everyone likes them now because they /understand/ immediately, and there is no hard feelings against them. They now love each other, and it was all just a big misunderstanding".
If you look at TNG, TOS, VOY, etc, they explored all of the deep parts of the different characters over-time, and often in tandem. Sometimes, the characters just barely 'get along' after going through something together. But, at the very least, it makes all their dynamics different and interesting when pared off, not just the same character and emotional throughput copy+pasted onto each one with a slightly different backstory for seasoning.
The limited episode count, the focus on the 'main characters', the need for a 'universe destroying seasonal force' severely hampers that sort of character building, and I know this is possible even with the shorter seasons - go watch Vikings! Incredible, multi-faceted, multi-character story arches, and they had only eleven episodes a season up until the fourth one (and even then, the fourth season is just two seasons stuck together).
Plus, the only character that felt like 'mattered' was Nus Braka, and that's only because Paul Giamatti is one of the greatest actors of all time. What is SFA without him? His story is cleared up practically by the end of the first season, and do we really want a Star Trek where the only interesting character is a guy who is so violently against the federation he will destroy the entire universe because of it?
They wanted to make Star Trek edgy, and dark with DISCO, and that extended to SFA, because what I can only understand from Kurtzman and team, is that "People like Star Trek because its dark" without realizing Star Trek was only dark because of old televisions and less-than-stellar lumens when filming pre-2000s.
There are some incredible, very Star Trek moments, but they only appear when giving moral speeches, not in the actual day-to-day actions of the show.
I say all this, and I am someone who loved watching the show.
Well that's a relief, for some time I thought that the tastes of Trek fans just completely degenerated. Perhaps the recently announced (though with no date yet) season 4 of The Orville will unite us again.
I have dreamed of this for too long, I was just about to give up and hadn't heard anything about this.
As of earlier this month, “Seth MacFarlane: Season 4 Is Written”. Incredible.
Must admit I was uncommonly excited for a new The Orville. I have trepidation that they end up ruining it though. Hopefully not.
I thought it was okay, and was willing to see it get better, but also knew that it wasn't long for this world being an internet chud lightning rod and active during a merger who would have "their own take" with the franchise and want to have a clean slate.
They completely alienated the fanbase while trying to appeal to an audience of young adults seeking Star Trek romantasy that never materialized.
Yes, I watched the show. No, I won't apologize for expressing a negative opinion about a TV show. I am allowed to do that. Perhaps you should take a break from the internet, since you are looking for people's histories to fight about a TV show.
This isn't my Trek!
But also, I never watched Academy, so I have no thoughts. My good will was destroyed with Discovery and Picard. I'm not fighting with people online about Trek, but Discovery, Picard and Section 31 are "not my Trek". They keep pumping this garbage (in my opinion) out so I assume there must be some people out there who like it.
Ending a show after two seasons, well really after one, is kind of everything wrong with modern TV. I love TNG, but the first season was pretty mid. In today's world that show gets cancelled too. A show needing to be a hit in the first season with only 8-10 episodes almost guarantees failure and is not in Star Trek's favour in my opinion.
I think the issue is more with modern streaming.
With earlier television, airtime had to be filled with something. They didn't want different hour blocks just filled with reruns or shows purchased from elsewhere. As such, they likely had a strong reason to keep a show going (since they would otherwise have to create something completely new to replace the cancelled show). I also think that networks start to develop an identity (as the network that "has that show") which would be hindered if they kept on churning and only creating new shows.
With streaming, there are no "hour blocks". They can release as many or as few shows as they want whenever they want with any season length they want. If something is cancelled, they don't have a need to "fill that time slot" at any point and they can just proceed to create new things when they want and if they want. As such, they don't seem all that attached to any one thing unless it is obviously successful.
I also feel that the older shows were at least able to create a season, gather feedback, and then use that feedback to make the next season better. I'm not a fan of "they shot 2 seasons" and then they "cancelled the show at the end of season 1" since it would require them entering season 3 before they would be able to use any feedback to make the show better. I don't know how much current streaming shows react to audience feedback (or if they even have any new episodes to film after the shows "starts to stream"...
It would likely help shows that are "cancelled" to just immediately enter (release) their "season 2" without being "renewed yet" to see if people warm up to the shows before a final "cancellation" decision is made. If season 2 is far better, it is likely far too late to "un-cancel" the series to make season 3 (since the scenery would likely be disassembled, etc.).
I also find it a bit disappointing that a "cancelled in season 1 show" like this is not given the opportunity to make "a final episode" (2 part episode optionally) to wrap things up. That would at least make this sort of "new weird cancellation" thing feel less disappointing (since this would avoid any cancelled shows ending in cliffhangers). While people wouldn't be happy that a show is cancelled, they would wonder how things would be wrapped up...
I'm sure what you mention is part of it to some degree for sure. I had never thought about that, but it makes total sense. It does make me worried. Most of the shows I love were given time to develop and improve and it just seems like no show is given that today regardless of intention.
I also agree that if the second season is already shot, just release it. Cancelling it before doing so guarantees failure. I assume a lot less people will show up to watch when they know it has been cancelled.
This is hard to judge objectively because we have the benefit of seeing the whole of TNG (or DS9 or Voyager) in retrospect and we don't see into the internal decisions to keep going or cancel shows (now or then), but from my point of view TNG and something like SFA just aren't the same thing.
TNG had some bad episodes at the beginning, Riker was kind of annoying before growing his beard and other characters weren't exactly settled yet either, but at the same time there were some brilliant episodes in the first season as well, the show clearly had lots of great ideas and there was a ton of interesting work already done even in things like set design - the bridge, the new computer interfaces, the visual language of the Enterprise as a whole.
All of those foundations were present in the first season and indicated the potential that TNG could reach if the characters and stories built upon those foundations settled successfully, and that was already realized in some of the excellent first season episodes. I don't see this kind of creative and no doubt hard earned foundations in most of the NuTrek shows. Maybe the execs would cancel the shows even if they were present, but from my point of view they aren't, so I don't see it as the same thing.
If I remember the late 80s and early 90s correctly, having whole series, like every single episode, be rather bad artistically was not that abnormal. So in that sense TNG first season wasn't really "bad" compared to almost everything else that was going on at the time.
Nowadays, we have thousands of options, a disturbing amount of them well made. I could literally be watching only 8+ imdb scored things for the rest of my life's free time.
I basically agree with everything you said. Maybe I was over simplifying it. I am predisposed to assume Academy is bad, so I cannot objectively judge if the foundations were there. I guess I just wanted to use the situation to rant about how fast most shows get cancelled these days.
If Paramount wants to make gritty science fiction, they can use any other IP. Or make a new one. Why pretend it's Star Trek, but choose a completely different tone and retcon existing story and behavior in the universe? Fans are annoyed because it feels cheap to use the Star Trek name for an unrelated kind of show.
It's a shame for the people who liked it, but personally I can't be sad about it. SFA is easily one of the worst Star Trek shows I've ever seen in my opinion. I'm still hoping we'll get a great Star Trek show again some day, until then Strange New Worlds will have to suffice.
Disappointing, but not entirely surprising.
I think it had a rough start, which might have slowed any chance for it to gain momentum and viewers.
The recent Skydance/Paramount merger probably didn't help. They're probably looking to cut everything that isn't actively bringing in new subscribers, while also trying to identify which shows they can cancel without losing too many customers.
I would love to see them do some Star Trek stories focused on non-humans and non-Federation centers. Give me a story set on Vulcan that has nothing to do with the Federation. Give me a story set on Kronos that’s about intrigue in the Klingon Empire. Hell, give me one of those seedy police procedurals that Boimler was addicted to when they visited Ferenginar.
Have you tried Prodigy? The story takes place largely outside of Federation space, and the main crew is composed entirely of alien species. It's animated and aimed at young adults, but it's not half bad.
I did yeah, the first season was good and the second season was only available on France for awhile during some kind of negotiation deal with Netflix and then I forgot about it.
I recommend the novel Spock's World by Diane Duane. Unfortunately it is not entirely Vulcan, but it is very Vulcan. The Enterprise bits are entertaining enough and there is also shockingly little Spock in the book. But it is very good.
I’ll have to see if I can track it down, thank you for the recommendation.
A large part of the novel tells the story of the formation of the Vulcan species since pre-historic times. It is extraordinary.
Very interesting. One of my favorite episodes of Trek was the TNG episode Who Watches The Watchers, set on Mintaka. I like how it explores how Vulcans might've been before they became who they are now.
I'll have to rewatch that now.
After Spock's World, if you're still in the mood for some Vulcans in print, Sarek by A. C. Crispin is a remarkable take on Spock's father. It goes deep in Vulcan psychology and emotion. It is very touching, if I wasn't such a robot I would have cried at one point (perhaps I'm a Vulcan myself). There is also a whole other plot involving the Federation with the usual characters. It is entertaining and well written, but kinda annoying for me at the time because I was only really interested in Vulcans. I'm not sure full Vulcan novels exist.
I have a few possibly outsider theories about why they don't allow the stories not to have some sort of connection to humans and humanity, but I think it's down to writers believing that the core idea of Star Trek is that the Federation in general and humans in specific are meant to be special among all other structures and species for some reason.
Sometimes I just want to explore the neat lore and see the sights. I don't need to see how awesome the Federation is 24/7, sometimes I just want to go play in the sand on Vulcan...
I really liked SFA and had high hopes for its future. I'm very sad it's cancelled. :(
I recommend anyone who has not seen the full show watch Star Trek: Starfleet Academy: Does It Make the Grade? by Steve Shives. It gives a breakdown of its plot and characters and gives a reasonable summary of its strengths and weaknesses.