Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

[Lithos]

They went ahead and made a second video, based on everyone's favorite Voyager episode.

 

[Flexo]

The whole show is nothing but cheap drama and generic inspirational monologue, it's shocking really.

I genuinely do not understand how anyone could watch this crap, I mean, really watching it, not just as background noise while doing chores, and still enjoying it.
The plot is incoherent as fuck, it's thematically and narratively retarded, the characters are shit, the plot makes no sense. All you get is really cheap use of insanely vapid and generic tropes. You can replace all the "emotional" character moments with a giant white square of paper with "Drama goes here" for how blatant it is. They do not tie into anything, are based on off-screen stuff or make no sense whatsoever.
Same with the "inspirational" speeches, that are actively hurting my brain and make me bleed from the ears for how utterly crap they are. Especially that whimsy tone in Picard's voice is pissing me off, since you could literally read a shopping list and it would have the same effect.

It's not just Trek nowadays, it's freaking everything.

Like take Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2. It really bugged me at the end Yondu's whole "he wasn't your daddy" line to Starlord because there nothing to justify or set that up in either of the two films previously but they throw in a whole montage that's about 10 seconds long right at that moment to try and retcon this whole idea in. But hey! We have the heartwarming music playing so you know this is where you're supposed to be having all the feelz.

I mean my only theory now is that social media has literally trained people to have the memory span of goldfish - so when watching something act 1 doesn't really need to relate to act 5, the audience is going to forget about it anyway by the time you get there, if you put "drama goes here" then they'll all clap and cry like trained seals because the audience just does what they're told.

We got a younger bot down at the factory, when we're doing movie lunches I'll notice he's often on his cell phone and barely looks up at the screen. I guess that's how it is for the youth now. It was a "good" movie or TV show for the 3 minutes they looked up and actually watched. That's certainly the impression I get when I see one of those YouTube clip channels for Picard and read the comments on it.

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

I rewatched the DS9 episode "The Visitor" and I think it's one of my all time favorite episodes of Trek just for how emotional it is to watch Jake end up throwing away all of his dreams so he can focus on finding a way to save his father. Tony Todd gave an amazing performance as an aging Jake Sisko. His old man makeup was some of the most convincing they've ever done, too.

"Jake, you didn't have to do this! Not for me!"

"For you, and for the boy that I was. He needs you, more than you know. Don't you see? We're going to get a second... chance."

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

We got a younger bot down at the factory, when we're doing movie lunches I'll notice he's often on his cell phone and barely looks up at the screen. I guess that's how it is for the youth now. It was a "good" movie or TV show for the 3 minutes they looked up and actually watched. That's certainly the impression I get when I see one of those YouTube clip channels for Picard and read the comments on it.

This is also my theory. These new shows hinge on the audience being distracted some of the time, so the audience will assume that whatever's going on only doesn't make sense to them cause they didn't pay full attention.

If there's suddenly a shot of Picard dancing the Mambo dressed as Harley Quinn with leFUNNEH music, they look up, chortle at the absurdity, assume there was something preceding this scene to explain why it exists and go back to posting selfies or photos of their food or whatever. Or when there's action. Or when there's an emotional moment.

You have storytelling that replaces showing and demonstrating with straight out stating things.

And the worst thing is that the audience seem not even to care. These programms are just background noise. People do not expect them to really make sense start to finish and for things to carry on logically from one scene or episode to the next. It's simply surreal, how terrible the writing of these shows is and people still lap it up.
As Jay Baumann said, franchises have taken the place of actors.

In the past, you'd have been an Arnold Schwarzenegger fan, so you watched his movies and enjoyed them, even if they were subpar. But now people are fans of franchises and they enjoy them, no matter how terrible they are.

I don't wanna sound like an elitist snob, there is plenty of garbage stuff I watch as guilty pleasures, but for fuck's sake: How can you watch nuTrek without being a total moron?

 

[WhatIsThePunchline]

I also think one issue can be scale.

Like if you looked at a youtube video when youtube was still useful, if it had 50% dislikes, it was atrocious. Bad as all hell. But that means even with atrocious youtube videos half the people who bothered clicking on the thumb liked it.
Even with something like a ten percent ratio of likes. As long as that is a percentage, that means if you can just apply it to a large enough population you can still have a fanbase.

Even if only 1% of a population would be dumb enough to enjoy your garbage tier story, if you can push that story out to a billion people that's still ten million potential customers.

And thanks to the internet, you can.

 

[Flexo]

This is also my theory. These new shows hinge on the audience being distracted some of the time, so the audience will assume that whatever's going on only doesn't make sense to them cause they didn't pay full attention.

If there's suddenly a shot of Picard dancing the Mambo dressed as Harley Quinn with leFUNNEH music, they look up, chortle at the absurdity, assume there was something preceding this scene to explain why it exists and go back to posting selfies or photos of their food or whatever. Or when there's action. Or when there's an emotional moment.

You have storytelling that replaces showing and demonstrating with straight out stating things.

And the worst thing is that the audience seem not even to care. These programms are just background noise. People do not expect them to really make sense start to finish and for things to carry on logically from one scene or episode to the next. It's simply surreal, how terrible the writing of these shows is and people still lap it up.
As Jay Baumann said, franchises have taken the place of actors.

In the past, you'd have been an Arnold Schwarzenegger fan, so you watched his movies and enjoyed them, even if they were subpar. But now people are fans of franchises and they enjoy them, no matter how terrible they are.

I don't wanna sound like an elitist snob, there is plenty of garbage stuff I watch as guilty pleasures, but for fuck's sake: How can you watch nuTrek without being a total moron?

I think there might be some blank canvas storytelling too where our hypothetical audience here is filling in the story they missed with their own imagination and so then it "makes sense."

It then becomes maddening trying to have any conversation with them because you're like "that wasn't in the movie!" (At least when I had a discussion on here with someone about Interstellar we were able to discuss the actual film and things that were on screen.)

And like you point out, there's some kind of weird thing now where like feelings justify stuff and if they liked it, it must be Oscar worthy! I admit all the time I love stuff that is in no way high quality. Likewise that stuff can be good which I don't like. (Probably one of the worst internet fights I was involved in was when I said the Wire was a good show, but I personally couldn't stand or enjoy it.) People really need to work on separating themselves from their feelings.

 

[Ishtar]

This is also my theory. These new shows hinge on the audience being distracted some of the time, so the audience will assume that whatever's going on only doesn't make sense to them cause they didn't pay full attention.

If there's suddenly a shot of Picard dancing the Mambo dressed as Harley Quinn with leFUNNEH music, they look up, chortle at the absurdity, assume there was something preceding this scene to explain why it exists and go back to posting selfies or photos of their food or whatever. Or when there's action. Or when there's an emotional moment.

You have storytelling that replaces showing and demonstrating with straight out stating things.

And the worst thing is that the audience seem not even to care. These programms are just background noise. People do not expect them to really make sense start to finish and for things to carry on logically from one scene or episode to the next. It's simply surreal, how terrible the writing of these shows is and people still lap it up.
As Jay Baumann said, franchises have taken the place of actors.

In the past, you'd have been an Arnold Schwarzenegger fan, so you watched his movies and enjoyed them, even if they were subpar. But now people are fans of franchises and they enjoy them, no matter how terrible they are.

I don't wanna sound like an elitist snob, there is plenty of garbage stuff I watch as guilty pleasures, but for fuck's sake: How can you watch nuTrek without being a total moron?

Unpopular opinion, but this is a downside of serialization. It means the audience can be forgiven for not having paid attention watching one episode. They can either play it over again or ask anyone who also watches it what happened if they weren’t paying attention.

Plot of the week TV forces you to pay attention if you actually are watching. If you aren’t, then you won’t see it again until either re runs or it comes out on DVD.

I know some people will disagree, and yes good serialized TV requires you pay attention, as much as not more-but it punishes you even harder if you aren’t, because you’ll have no idea what’s going on.

Bad serialization on the other hand allows the audience to disengage their faculties, on the presumption that whatever their seeing has some logic or basis behind it in the narrative. After all it’s part of an overarching plot right? So why not look at your phone when it isn’t doing spectacle.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Unpopular opinion, but this is a downside of serialization. It means the audience can be forgiven for not having paid attention watching one episode. They can either play it over again or ask anyone who also watches it what happened if they weren’t paying attention.

Plot of the week TV forces you to pay attention if you actually are watching. If you aren’t, then you won’t see it again until either re runs or it comes out on DVD.

I know some people will disagree, and yes good serialized TV requires you pay attention, as much as not more-but it punishes you even harder if you aren’t, because you’ll have no idea what’s going on.

Bad serialization on the other hand allows the audience to disengage their faculties, on the presumption that whatever their seeing has some logic or basis behind it in the narrative. After all it’s part of an overarching plot right? So why not look at your phone when it isn’t doing spectacle.

Wouldn't this be more of an issue of VOD-streaming vs. TV though?

 

[AnOminous]

Yea Patric stuart is a cunt and a stage actor to boot he demanded he get's more monologues and speeches as part of his contract for reviving the roll (along side a dump truck of cash) to make use of his full "Range" they are just sensless shite that can be made up on the fly as Red Letter Media proved, all the saccerine with all the depth and meaning of of a Glory Hole.

So he was basically just like Shatner in these regards?

 

[ditto]

He showed in Dr. Strange that he can still act and not sound like a worn out old man

Those Marvel movies are coated in CGI Vaseline so there's a good chance his whole performance has been digitally enhanced. Picard doesn't have that kind of money since it's all going to Sir Patrick's wallet.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

I'd buy the "they know the audience doesn't care" theory if it wasn't for how obsessive fandoms are. If you don't follow "stans" or fandoms in general, you should because these people are not normal. And the studios know it.

The thing is that they know how to please them. They throw some progressive narrative at them and they can focus all their attention on that to consider it good quality. That's why they rarely obsess over the old content that they claim to love. They don't like She-Ra, they love the new improved gay She-Ra. They don't mind about TOS or TNG, they only care about the new product featuring queer characters.


Ah, today I saw Jeri Ryan in SVU, as a lawyer defending pedophiles rights to being pedos. It hurt.

 

[Great President of McHell]

Unpopular opinion, but this is a downside of serialization. It means the audience can be forgiven for not having paid attention watching one episode. They can either play it over again or ask anyone who also watches it what happened if they weren’t paying attention.

Plot of the week TV forces you to pay attention if you actually are watching. If you aren’t, then you won’t see it again until either re runs or it comes out on DVD.

I know some people will disagree, and yes good serialized TV requires you pay attention, as much as not more-but it punishes you even harder if you aren’t, because you’ll have no idea what’s going on.

Bad serialization on the other hand allows the audience to disengage their faculties, on the presumption that whatever their seeing has some logic or basis behind it in the narrative. After all it’s part of an overarching plot right? So why not look at your phone when it isn’t doing spectacle.

The other downside is serialization doesn't require the writers to craft a good self contained story for each episode, they can just string the audience along until the unsatisfying payoff for the season then forget it all and move onto the next one.

 

[UnKillFill]

Unpopular opinion, but this is a downside of serialization. It means the audience can be forgiven for not having paid attention watching one episode. They can either play it over again or ask anyone who also watches it what happened if they weren’t paying attention.

Plot of the week TV forces you to pay attention if you actually are watching. If you aren’t, then you won’t see it again until either re runs or it comes out on DVD.

I know some people will disagree, and yes good serialized TV requires you pay attention, as much as not more-but it punishes you even harder if you aren’t, because you’ll have no idea what’s going on.

Bad serialization on the other hand allows the audience to disengage their faculties, on the presumption that whatever their seeing has some logic or basis behind it in the narrative. After all it’s part of an overarching plot right? So why not look at your phone when it isn’t doing spectacle.

What you're describing isn't a flaw of serialization, it's a flaw of shitty writing.

Still, I don't think you're entirely wrong.

 

[Ishtar]

The other downside is serialization doesn't require the writers to craft a good self contained story for each episode, they can just string the audience along until the unsatisfying payoff for the season then forget it all and move onto the next one.

What you’re describing sums up the last four seasons of game of thrones.

 

[Great President of McHell]

What you’re describing sums up the last four seasons of game of thrones.

many such cases.

 

[Captain Syrup]

The other downside is serialization doesn't require the writers to craft a good self contained story for each episode, they can just string the audience along until the unsatisfying payoff

Ira Behr just dug a grave for himself for the sole purpose of turning over in it.

 

[Ishtar]

In the same vein as GOT, the audience can always be promised that whatever the nonsense or poor writing they’re seeing, it will all make sense and work out in the end. So long as the audience is convinced the showrunners and writers have a plan, and there are episodes left to see, they can be fooled into accepting garbage if they are told they’ll get a diamond at the end of it.


A self contained episode doesn’t have this problem-it stands or falls on its own. You can’t say “but the end of the season will vindicate it!” to cover your ass.

The inverse is true as well-a good episode in an otherwise poor season is marred by being associated with crap. You can’t simply appreciate the episode if the overall story it’s in sucks(at least not as much anyway).

Episodic TV doesn’t have this problem.

 

[kūhaku]

In the same vein as GOT, the audience can always be promised that whatever the nonsense or poor writing they’re seeing, it will all make sense and work out in the end. So long as the audience is convinced the showrunners and writers have a plan, and there are episodes left to see, they can be fooled into accepting garbage if they are told they’ll get a diamond at the end of it.


A self contained episode doesn’t have this problem-it stands or falls on its own. You can’t say “but the end of the season will vindicate it!” to cover your ass.

The inverse is true as well-a good episode in an otherwise poor season is marred by being associated with crap. You can’t simply appreciate the episode if the overall story it’s in sucks(at least not as much anyway).

Episodic TV doesn’t have this problem.

This is why I like the later seasons of DS9 so much, they benefit from both being episodic while having an overarching story

 

[Tasty Tatty]

GoT ended in a big massive cope. "Just because our theories didn't happen, doesn't mean it wasn't good." Those "theories" being simple storytelling.

That's an important aspect of new shows too, and I blame youtubers. For them, it's enough to have enough material to sperg and craft elaborate ideas that are never gonna happen but that viewers will consume. It makes them money and that's good enough. Then they cover their disappointed with "well, we know it wasn't going to be just as we wanted, but it was fine" because their e x p e c t a t i o n s were s u b v e r t e d.

It makes money for the critics too: Critical Drinker, Quartering, Cullen, etc. That's why these terrible shows never end and they keep producing them (and that's why I say we shouldn't even watch them, good or not). I honestly think they cancelled Batwoman not because it was bad, but because nobody was talking about it.

 

[White Devil]

GoT ended in a big massive cope. "Just because our theories didn't happen, doesn't mean it wasn't good." Those "theories" being simple storytelling.

That's an important aspect of new shows too, and I blame youtubers. For them, it's enough to have enough material to sperg and craft elaborate ideas that are never gonna happen but that viewers will consume. It makes them money and that's good enough. Then they cover their disappointed with "well, we know it wasn't going to be just as we wanted, but it was fine" because their e x p e c t a t i o n s were s u b v e r t e d.

It makes money for the critics too: Critical Drinker, Quartering, Cullen, etc. That's why these terrible shows never end and they keep producing them (and that's why I say we shouldn't even watch them, good or not). I honestly think they cancelled Batwoman not because it was bad, but because nobody was talking about it.

Can't spread The Message (tm) if no one's listening to it.