[star trek] I don't even know how to begin talking about my disappointment with Strange New Worlds,I guess I shouldn't have let last season get my hopes up.
In the first episode, Spock pretty casually steals the Enterprise and is let off as is it's NBD when we know for a fact that when he does it later, for pike's sake, it's actually A HUGE DEAL with consequences that require a double episode.
Gosh. I've found it delightful so far, though I admit Spock stealing the enterprise did seem a bit out of character for him. This Kirk is... Paul Wesley's demeanor is so different from Shatner and Pine that I can't get a read on what he's aiming for tbh. But overall I am just endlessly pleased by it. I hope this season turns it back around for you, too!
I mean they did explain why they didn't go harder on Spock in the first episode. That could also be the setup for why he did it the other times later in his life. There were no consequences.
And like Paul pointed out in The Ready Room Interview, he didn't want his Kirk to be a character of Shatner, espeically since current pop culture sees Shatner as some kind of combination of 60s Shatner, Movie Shatner, Denny Crane, and Zapp Brannigan.
Fair point re Menagerie, I'm just tired of retreads and high stakes etc. I don't need them to steal the enterprise. I don't need M'Benga to be a physical badass.
Babs is a black belt in Brazilian Ju-Jitsu and they wanted to use that. But you figure after fighting a years long war Klingons you're going to have to know how to fight. Starfleet is still somewhat military.
It's just not what I, personally, want from this show. But maybe it's not for me, like the majority of Trek today. I want Kirk to at least be slightly charismatic. I want M'Benga and Chapel to use their charm/wits. I want "let's steal the enterprise" to be a much harder decision to make.
And this is definitely not a case of me wanting him to be Zapp Branagan. that's not how I see him, either. And I'm not the authority. But it's not like I've spent no time thinking about him.
The two Kirks so far (01x10 and 02x03) are not this Universe's Kirk. So like the Mirror Universe counterpart he isn't going to be the same, he hasn't had the same experiences as the Kirk that we know. We only saw the Kirk we know for about a minute and a half. When he wanted to give La'an dirt on his brother and buy her a drink both of which seem like
And I mean in the 60s, M'Benga and Chapel didn't do much. They couldn't as a woman and a black man. Even though Star Trek was fairly progressive for its time you still had to contend with all of that race and sexism. Now they're making them fully fleshed out characters that have their own experiences and life.
I understand it's possible to justify all of it. I'm also allowed not to like it, and my conception of Kirk is very, very different. That doesn't make me right, and I don't need you to like it less, but I'm allowed to be disappointed? Because I loved season 1. And this isn't what I wanted?
And I get that chapel and M'Benga are basically new characters, I just would have preferred a different take. That's all. Because this far they've been my favorites.
I feel that Modern-Trek's doing a much better job presenting a society that's closer to the Utopia Rodenberry wanted in the 60s than TOS did because of society at the time, and Rick Berman ever did?
I'm more attached to Kirk than almost any other fictional character ever. Again that doesn't make me right, but it makes it harder for me, having lived and breathed him for so many years.
I genuinely liked Kirk in the Balance of Terror Re-do. I felt like he needed to be there for the SNW watchers that did not see the original. And La'an was interesting too, because you never heard about Khan's family that weren't the augments that we know.
He just felt nothing like Kirk to me. And I know he's a different universe, I know it's a different year. I get all that. Theres still an essential character that I obviously don't agree with the writers and actor on
Luke Skywanker
: yeah m'benga is one of the things i looked forward to! ive read tos novels with him in it and really like him. i was also excited for t'pring, but the spock/tpring stuff in episode 1 really annoyed me
Yesterday's episode made totally arbitrary charges to the timeline that make no sense for reasons of, IMO, unearned emotion.