Journal AmiMoJo's Journal: Strange New World and The Orville 4
The first season of Strange New Worlds just ended on a high note, and I wanted to write a bit about it and The Orville season 3 which is on-going. No spoilers for SNW, some for The Orville.
SNW has just had the best first season of any Trek show ever. Going in I was a little apprehensive, especially as I felt that Ethan Peck as Spock didn't have the quiet confidence that Leonard Nimoy brought to the role, but here is nailed it. The other cast are excellent as well, especially Anson Mount as Pike. His portrayal of the captain is perfect. Likeable and not remote, with authority that comes from his willingness to listen and his track record.
The other modern Trek shows, Discovery and Picard, suffered from pacing issues which were in part down to their having season long story arcs. SNW is episodic, not completely devoid of on-going arcs like most of the TNG shows were (with the notable exception of DS9), but with self contained stories that were resolved satisfyingly in an hour. No galaxy-ending stakes either, which make the peril that the crew faced that much more engaging as it was the characters who stood to lose, not off-screen galactic citizenry.
SNW also nailed the prequel thing. A lot like Wrath of Khan, which was a sequel to the TOS episode Space Seed, SNW didn't rely on the viewer knowing all the canon, or on fans gushing over all he Easter eggs. Wrath of Khan is a great film even if you have never seen Star Trek before, and so is SNW. Concentrating on just telling good stories and doing its own thing is what makes it great.
The sets and effects on SNW deserve a special mention. They are fantastic, the best work on any Trek show.
Overall 10/10 for the first season. Some episodes are instant classics, easily top 5 Trek episodes ever. Memonto Mori really stands out, but there are no bad ones.
The Orville has gone through some changes in its move to Hulu, and mostly for the better. This season is more serious and a definitely improvement on previous ones. My main issue with The Orville has always been that it's too much like TNG, afraid to really take a stance on anything and mostly just recycling well worn sci-fi tropes.
This season The Orville has started to overcome that. It still suffers from being a Trek knock-off at times, both in terms of having lots of off-brand technology and dialogue, and in terms of posing interesting philosophical questions but then avoiding any controversial outcomes. TOS never shied away from controversy, in fact it would have gone a lot further if Roddenberry had had his way.
Season 3 seems to be a bit bolder. You could say it's gone woke. One episode directly condemned Republican attempts to force people seeing abortions into traumatic situations, such as seeing the foetus or holding a funeral for it. Another came out clearly in favour of the rights of children to determine their gender, even if one of their parents objects. It's still a little bit half hearted, both parents could have objected, but it was still a big improvement on the season 1 episode to which it was a sequel. In that season 1 episode the show deferred to authority in the end, refusing to have the crew take a moral stance in the face of it.
I'm hopeful that The Orville can keep improving. I love TNG but it was of its time, and The Orville would do well to move beyond it. The best episodes are the original ones that aren't just rehashes of classic Trek. Not that revisiting ideas is necessarily bad, SNW did it a couple of times but made it interesting through different outcomes, unexpected twists and by giving the characters person growth through those events rather than being mostly passive observers. The recent time-travel episode of The Orville is a good example, the plot didn't change any of the characters or have any lasting effects on them.
Looking forward to the future of both of these shows. SNW has wrapped up production on season 2 already.
Thanks! (Score:2)
Appreciate the commentary minus any spoilers, as I'll be watching the last 2 eps this evening.
And yes, SNW brings back something episodic of the original series to Trek, and that's a good thing. Picard was pretty good up until the last 2-3 episodes of the 2nd season, where they tried to cram in about twice as many tie-ins to other series as they had any business doing.
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Picard had some major pacing issues in season 2. It could really have been a 2 hour episode. The writing was quite poor as well, not sure what went wrong there. Season 3 was filmed back to back with it so already in post-production, too late to learn from any mistakes.
It's a shame because the first season was quite promising, despite some flaws. SNW though... Give that writing team the next season of Discovery please.
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Jesus Harcourt Fenton Mudd Christ on a fucking pogo stick, I am so pissed off I could just spit.
No. More. Fucking. Time. Travel. Plots.
Next to last episode was Mmm, OK. The last one just left me cold.
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Technically it wasn't time travel... But okay, I guess you must be even more enraged by The Orville.