I thought Ira Behr's and Anton Mount's comments were interesting.

Yeah. Not a big fan of the recent shows. I watch, but I skip some episodes and they're not great, generally.

Yeah I did in 2005 honestly let it rest for a bit and have them try again without Kurtzman and JJ sticking their fingers into it

I grew up watching reruns of the first series, and have enjoyed various stretches & episodes of the later series, but honestly, it wouldn't be any great tragedy to me if the franchise died a natural death.

I mean, as we've come to learn, the whole premise was an interesting thought experiment, but hugely flawed. Roddenberry in no way 'practiced what he preached' in real life, and space travel is almost certainly complete pie in the sky nonsense from multiple angles. I won't bother going in to the current existential & sustainability threats that will render it unlikely, but there's also this massive problem.

Going somewhat against my own opinion above is the fact that some of the later series drifted in to grittier, more unpleasant directions, and that does seem appropriate for where the world is now. That said, such is not particularly in line with ST's naive optimism that ran through the first few series. It's not on brand, for whatever that's worth.

Other than marketing, finances, and studios recycling absolutely everything they can if it's projected to make money, it seems completely appropriate for some other series to have a say, altho I imagine it being darker and more apocalyptic.

I still love aspects of the earlier series (and books... there were some fine novels), but I just don't care about the franchise continuing on, anymore.

Just let it pass on. Star Trek ended with Voyager.

If you want to make space shows, that's fine, just don't bother calling it star trek.

Or do, I don't care. It's not going to change how I live.

It is turning int o WH40K.

I couldn't disagree more. Roddenberry is just some guy, Star Trek has always been so much larger than him. And as The Orville demonstrates, there is no justification for a 2020s star trek to be grittier than a star trek that aired between the Korean and Vietnam war, with the second red scare with the existential threat of nuclear warfare.

Its utopian vision of the future has a backstory of humans fighting each other to near extinction in the Eugenics War and WW3, because that seemed where things were headed. The present has always been gritty, but Star Trek used to be about zooming out past the horrors of the present day to imagine a brighter future.

The franchise has simply switched hands from being propaganda by a bunch of left-leaning weirdos to being propaganda for huge corporations and the state they wear as a trench coat.

It is entirely possible to write Star Trek today that is as left-wing (relative to its time) and utopian as it used to be. The owners of the IP simply will not permit that.

Roddenberry is just some guy

He was indeed assisted by a brilliant, resourceful team of production people and actors, but yeah... okay. Lol.

Anyway, I'm glad you still find something to like, but I really couldn't give a toss about more ST.

The best reason to keep cranking out new ST shows is to give some future Lower Decks type show something to reference.

Yeah I thouroughly enjoyed this new generation helmed by Kurtzman but I'm also ok with letting it sit, and not trying to force the next MCU or whatever.

I love this, because it's exactly the same sentiment "fans" when TNG premiered.

dare I ask... gritty? If anything the new series (except Picard arguably) were a hyper hug fest compared to TOS, DS9 and Voyager

Yeah I liked some of it. Only issue I had with it in general was it has very low rewatchability with it being so serialized vs how ds9 did it where they found the perfect blend of serial and epistolic.

Yup, I had the exact thought when it premiered. I was proven wrong.

Then they made a bunch of crappy movies, and a bunch of crappy shows. It really has run its course.

Heck DS9 and Voyager could also have been a pass for me, but they definitely had their moments.

I have rewatched lower decks a lot

Have you seen our lord and savior, Lower Decks?

Yes. Star Trek is a good example of when a studio decided they had a “franchise” that they’d milk forever remorselessly regardless of whether anyone had a compelling idea for it or not.

While I agree with what you said it also took me like ten years before my first DS9 rewatch so I'll withhold judgement for a while

In its current hands, the next "new" Star Trek is going to be an alt-right/GQP mess. And it's going to kill the Star Trek franchise forever.

And if the Paramount/WB merger happens, it's going to kill DC Comics as well. It's gonna suck big time!

Yeah that is the exception to the rule of new trek but also one of the few that really is epistolic strange new worlds also kinda of falls under that for the first 2 seasons.

Well I hope your rewatch goes well. I have a star trek playlist that I just put on shuffle so far ds9 holds up to the shuffle so i feel like that is a good test.

Yeah, I don’t get this complaint. By the end of Discovery, my partner started referring to the episode wrap ups as “Care Bears moments” because of how saccharine they could get.

Disco and Picard both got pretty dark in their first seasons, but that’s a decade ago, and not appreciably darker than DS9 was known for.

Picard S1 was quite a bit darker than other Trek. Pointless death in just about every episode, even an on-screen eye pull moment.

I love Star Trek old and new, but I sincerely hope the writers who killed off Hugh and Icheb are never allowed near the franchise again.

Honestly nothing in Disco comes anywhere close to "Chain of Command". Either they mean something else by "gritty" or they didn't watch the actual shows and just watched youtube reviews.

Honestly, the eye gouging didn't hit me all that hard. I'll have to do a rewatch someday and see how I feel. But sure, if it were 2020 I wouldn't really bother arguing against the "gritty" description. Looking back at this point, only about 10% of the Kurtzman era had that kind of tone.

Picard's torturer engaging in a "take your child to work day" exercise like it's a normal 9 to 5 is so chilling.

Gritty, even!

When TNG came out, all we had was 3 seasons of TOS and 2 of TAS.

People didn't like TNG because it was new and different.

People don't like Trek post Voyager, because it sucks and it's bad.