[Brad]

Originally Posted by 709 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is either good or it’s just so comforting that I don’t care

Oh yes. That review nails it.

I also loved this part:

Both shows [Discovery and Picard] repeatedly fail my imagined, Trek-specific version of the Bechdel test—two characters have a conversation, it isn't about a reality-destroying super-threat, and it's not because they both believe they are about to be killed in their quest to stop the reality-destroying super-threat.

Originally Posted by 709 but I grew up on TOS so you all have made me very curious. 🖖

Originally Posted by psmith2.0 Every article or review I’ve read about this show has been along these lines, which is why I asked what I asked upthread (is this show looking back to the original source material, keeping things tight and punchy.

Unlike Discovery, Strange New Worlds (so far) seems to be an honest, decent effort at a modern prequel to the original Star Trek.

It's an immediate prequel to TOS, too. It's literally Kirk's USS Enterprise, but it's about five or six years before Kirk took the center seat (following the old "five year mission" line). Several classic Trek characters that everyone knows are there including Spock and Uhura, but there are plenty of new faces to keep it from being a simple rehash.

They're not taking the typical Abrams+Kurtzman approach of completely reimagining and reinventing everything, though. It's modernized and maybe an extra 10-20% different in some places to keep it feeling fresh, but that's all. It feels like someone just answered the question "what if TOS was filmed in the 2020s instead of the 1960s?"

It seems to be doing a good job of borrowing from the source material while expanding with new episodic scenarios that feel a lot like good TOS and TNG material. Like most classic Trek, they seem to be following the formula of:

1. Go to some new planet.
2. Observe a mystery or moral dilemma.
3. Perform a sci-fi investigation or debate or some light action. Probably some combination of the three.
4. Sprinkle in a little bit of character development for the main crew.
5. Wrap up the dilemma and fly off for a brand new adventure next week.

Originally Posted by psmith2.0 Now that it’s mentioned, most shows these days - networks, cable, streaming - are sprawling and serialized, to where if you miss an episode or two you’re up a creek. … Entertain me for an hour, and then leave me alone. I don’t need homework or pop quizzes on my TV viewing.

Yuuup. Among other problems, I suspect the highly serialized nature of Discovery and Picard have ruined their re-watch value, too. You can't just pick up in the middle of the arc (though Discovery and Picard make heavy use of five minute "previously on" recaps each week), and once the MacGuffin mystery box problem is solved at the end, there's little point in going back because there's no other fun to enjoy.

So far, Strange New Worlds has side-stepped that trap. There is a distinct character development thread that will likely evolve through the season, but that's hardly a B story (more like a C story), compared to the entirely episodic adventure-of-the-week A stories.