I would agree, '09 was alright. I enjoyed it. It is a fanfic. 'I’m gonna do MY thing with these characters."
I haven’t seen any Trek made since, official first-party fanfics signal to me the end of a franchise. My understanding of the franchise since has been:
Into Darkness: Attempt to redo Wrath of Kahn because Nemesis worked so well.
A third Chris Pine TOS era movie: I think they made one?
Discovery: What if Star Trek, but the crew are all immature adolescents who don’t deal with a single goddamn thing like mature adults?
Below Decks: What if Star Trek, but it’s Rick and Morty?
Discovery started really poorly, but after they abandoned the prequel idea and went to the far future in S3 it picked up but will never be great due to some fundamental choices in the writing and tone.
Lower Decks betrays how good Star Trek it actually is with it’s style. Yes it has humour, but it has heart rather than Rick and Mortys endless nihilism. It’s commitment to canon and Trek ethos is top notch.
Picard was two awful series, followed by an amazing one that felt like a fifth TNG film and capped off those characters and hanging threads from that era nicely.
Strange New Worlds has just been great from the start, Episodic Trek as it should be with a much more likable cast than Discovery and the bravery to push the boat out a bit creatively.
Prodigy, a solid gateway series for younger people to get into the franchise but not so watered down you can’t enjoy it as an adult. It’s like Star Wars Clone Wars or Rebels series in that way.
So yeah, I’m fairly happy with where the franchise is now as an old school fan, but there were some dark years there.
I would agree, '09 was alright. I enjoyed it. It is a fanfic. 'I’m gonna do MY thing with these characters." I haven’t seen any Trek made since, official first-party fanfics signal to me the end of a franchise. My understanding of the franchise since has been:
Have I missed anything?
Discovery started really poorly, but after they abandoned the prequel idea and went to the far future in S3 it picked up but will never be great due to some fundamental choices in the writing and tone.
Lower Decks betrays how good Star Trek it actually is with it’s style. Yes it has humour, but it has heart rather than Rick and Mortys endless nihilism. It’s commitment to canon and Trek ethos is top notch.
Picard was two awful series, followed by an amazing one that felt like a fifth TNG film and capped off those characters and hanging threads from that era nicely.
Strange New Worlds has just been great from the start, Episodic Trek as it should be with a much more likable cast than Discovery and the bravery to push the boat out a bit creatively.
Prodigy, a solid gateway series for younger people to get into the franchise but not so watered down you can’t enjoy it as an adult. It’s like Star Wars Clone Wars or Rebels series in that way.
So yeah, I’m fairly happy with where the franchise is now as an old school fan, but there were some dark years there.
My favourite of the trilogy. Which is to say, I didn’t turn it off.