Soap Opera episode

WTAF. Enough with the damn genre exercises already.

This one looks like a Quelane episode, so I think it's pretty fitting.

Perhaps, if every other episode wasn't already a gimmick genre swap. Trelane and/or Q worked fine in plain science fiction where they were the wacky trickster element in and of themselves.

I'd really prefer this show to take a chill pill and focus on telling solid stories rather than doing cleverpants narrative gymnastics.

I haven't seen any of the latest season yet so maybe they've gotten too quirky, but I really liked the sporadic weird episode in S1-3. I'm kind of a musical episode hater but I thought the musical episode was actually really fun, and I greatly enjoyed watching people enjoy creating something. It's like the pseudo comedy episodes of SG1 or something where the writers and cast are clearly just having fun. I enjoy that in moderation. Did S4 overdo it?

Seems like that's straight-up the plan for this entire season. Sigh.

Every episode is weird in S4. Some wouldn't stand out much usually, but most of them would.

My thoughts on this are lengthy, complicated, and probably a little bit self-contradictory, but I think some of the accusations of "gimmicks" are a tad overblown. But also a tad not overblown?

"Valles Marineris" - A pretty standard Trek episode IMO, albeit one with time travel and a twist.

"The Griffin Incident" - A horror episode, but not really a gimmicky one. Star Trek does those all the time.

"Human Best Friend" - Definitely pulling from a specific comedy genre, YMMV.

"A Case of Chiaroscuro" - I won't argue with accusations of "gimmick" here, but I thought its use of the genre was in service of a pretty damn good Star Trek story. And DS9 in particular went to the noir well a few times over the years.

"Level Five Transporter Accident" - perfectly normal, nothing to see here.

"Off-Hour" - Pretty standard Trek.

But they definitely do a lot of genre play, and recent interviews with the showrunners indicate that it's completely intentional, and unlikely to change any time soon.

I've been reconciling it by focusing on each episode as its own thing, independent of the others, and hot damn, it's surprising how hard that's become for me.

Without Lower Decks it's like they decided SNW needs to be the silly Trek now.

But they definitely do a lot of genre play, and recent interviews with the showrunners indicate that it's completely intentional, and unlikely to change any time soon.

It's certainly intentional, I just wish they'd keep their hands on the wheel instead of following every inane impulse that crosses their mind.

As for changing, well — the show is going to end after next season, so there's a very definite change.

Aw, man.

Difference is, there were straightfaced Star trek series airing when Lower Decks started. Now, the only show running (well, there's Academy as well) is doing high camp every week.

I'm enjoying the genre surfing. Most or all of the episodes are traditional Trek stories and they're just viewed with the lens of a different genre, if that makes sense. Like, trying to get a culture out from under an enemy's control without seeming to be involved has happened in Trek a hundred times, they just filmed it like a film noir this time. I'm having fun with it.

I haven't watched any of the latest season yet but I get the impression that the writers are going out on a "do what we always wanted to do" note like in Enterprise S4.

It's kind of weird how Strange New Worlds is turning out to me more of a joke series than Lower Decks was. Lower Decks was hilarious but it always put being Star Trek as the top priority. It was clearly made with love for the history of the show.

Hell, the literal Strange New Worlds/Lower Decks crossover episode felt more serious than this later SNW stuff.

Why is every episode some weird take on a different genre. We had a B&W Casablanca episode, a puppet episode and now a soap opera episode. We've also had murder mystery's and musicals. Can we just have some less experimental episodes? Some have been okay, or even good, but others have been awful. None have really been great.

Complaining isn't really going to help though I guess as all the episodes have been filmed and the show cancelled anyway.

Jesus Christ, what a joke. I know people have been enjoying strange new worlds, but come on.
I just want a star trek show for grown ups, with boring talking and the most action is how riker sits down on a chair, is that too much to ask for 🙈

Hey, you're in luck: soap operas aren't watched by kids, and aren't exactly known for their high octane action either 😉

And what’s going on with the Gorn already??

I think that was a last season let's try different things

Wow… How about fuck no?

Oh, the XenoGorn? Gornomorph? Let's workshop that name a bit.

They are also not known for their high concept philosophical debates, either. 🤦
Comparing TNG to soaps is exactly the kind of problem we have with shows like strange new worlds. But then again, maybe I am the old man yelling at clouds 🤷

Also had a "Dude where's my shuttle" episode

This series went to shit with the musical episode and only got worse.

I’m really not trying to compare TNG to anything. I just didn't think your comment matched the teaser, or SNW in general. It's really not the most action-oriented show around. I don't think it's even the most action heavy Trek show we've had.

Now, if your complaint was regarding high school level romance subplots, that's something SNW has definitely overindulged in previously that's also likely to come up in a soap opera episode. We'll just have to wait and see.

The answer requires an essay. But the cruxt of it is that the studios think this is only type of writing that people are willing to watch. They’ve concluded that society is too adhd now to watch long format drama.

Yes, season 4 every episode is a quirky/gimmicky episode.