The quality of Star Trek in 1997 was an embarrassment of riches. Some of the best parts of the Dominion War on Deep Space Nine, Scorpion and Year Of Hell on Voyager, and First Contact in theaters. It was a great year to be a Star Trek fan!
The quality of Star Trek that I’ve seen this year has been giving me similar feelings, watching them hit it out of the park every week, wondering how they are going to top the last one then watching them do it, again and again. Is it just me?
I think Strange New Worlds is the best ST in a long long time. I really hope the strike doesn’t derail what I see as a true return to the ST format. Discovery is more like a mini series run since it tends to focus on a singular topic for an entire season.
I don’t want to be that guy, but given the state of the industry, and series being cancelled without warning, it feels more like 2004 to me.
And no, it’s not a perfect comparison.
IMO, the cancellation and disrespectful streaming removal of Prodigy is enough of a black mark to keep it out of that category. Regardless of if you like/care about Prodigy, the show got completely screwed and deserved better.
SNW S2 so far has been hitting hard on standard Star Trek stories. Everyone’s behaving as if they’re in Starfleet, the stories have been a good combination of character-driven and interesting sci-fi, and I haven’t found myself wanting to take any back to the draft table and re-write them (with the exception of the special green strong boy juice in “The Broken Circle” which I felt could have been accomplished with a less silly phaser fight and maybe M’Benga punching a Klingon or two.)
Similarly, I’ve said elsewhere that I really liked Picard S3 for the character-driven narration, even if there wasn’t a lot of sci-fi to it, and I’d love to see a Star Trek: Legacy to see how Matalas tackles individual stories and such.
And Lower Decks is fantastic, full stop - always a treat to watch.
Honestly, I’m hoping for this season of SNW to finish out like it’s been going, just returning to “basics of Star Trek”, and then with a solid footing and understanding they can start branching out to larger ongoing plotlines and such. So maybe not 1997 yet… But I feel like the groundwork is being laid, and I’m optimistic.
The fact that so much highly rated Trek is out now is vaguely enticing but overwhelming for someone not familiar when anything in the current generation. How is the new stuff supposed to be attacked? I also was not into the Abrams movies that I saw, I’d always preferred the more mundane and cerebral stuff in TNG and the slow paced world building and character development in DS9.
