Agreed. I did love the Tom Paris and Harry Kim classic sci-fi episodes… Those always cracked me up.
Also, I appreciate spoilering tagging spoilers for Discovery… some people in this thread haven’t been doing that.
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How about putting a spoiler blur on that for the people who haven’t seen it. Regarding your point, all they could charge him with was breaking into the ship since the timelines with his crimes were erased. I agree it was overly convenient ending and the worst part of the episode, but they were constrained by the fact that Mudd had to be tooling around the galaxy by the time of TOS.
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You’re welcome. It’s just common courtesy but apparently escapes some people.
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Have you ever seen a really dramatic and enjoyable prequel?
ST: Enterprise had only a couple of bright spots:
-The 3rd season when it became a semi 9/11 parable
-The “Mirror Universe” episodes
-The “Terra Prime” episodes
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Personally, my biggest complaint with Discovery has been its use of off-the-wall technologies that really don’t seem to belong in the Trek universe and, in fact, would probably be more interesting on The Orville.
I’ll skip the whole Magic Mushroom Drive (a concept that would definitely merit a few good drug jokes from Malloy and LaMarr) but mention the easily-defeated breath lock as the lamest biometric security device in the 23rd Century. At least on The Orville, they’d get a laugh out of it by having someone swig a beer and be recognized as Lt. Malloy.
Rain Wilson’s portrayal of Harry Mudd has been mentioned as one of Discovery’s bright spots. I agree, but now wonder how, in 10 years, the character goes from being downright diabolical and homicidal to being little more than comic relief?
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I thought Damage was one of the best episodes in all of Trek. It shows that the Kirk ideal that there’s always another option doesn’t always apply and Archer becomes morally compromised by the choice he’s faced with.
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Sure thing!
Outside of Discovery amd Enterprise (which I enjoyed with some faults) we got:
Films:
Godfather Part II
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Xmen First Class
Wonder Woman (2017)
Kong: Skull Island
TV:
Better Call Saul
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Spartacus Gods of the Arena
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The same way the skirts get super short and and the tech designers adopt retro-futurism as a decor ideal?
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THE ORVILLE’s on Hulu, b/c it’s a Fox show.
…FOR NOW!!!
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OK, I’ll bite too: they’re both fine, and I’m actively looking forward to the next seasons of each. Saying that one is “better” than the other is a clickbait tactic (which I clearly fell for); they each have good parts and bad parts and neither of them is close to perfect.
Both shows have taken the same basic idea (that the Federation can’t just be all the “brightest and best”) but have decided to explore them in different ways. Personally, I find it interesting that I can imagine both sets of crews in each others stories and how differently they might have turned out.
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I love The Orville! It’s like a whole ship full of Barklays running into Galaxy Quest.
While I also adore most things Trek, I’m just not paying more money to see a show my friends have labeled “STD.”
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What is it with all the gloom and doom these days? To be edgy, hip, or cool, entertainment has to be grim and dark now. Whatever happened to just having fun? I get enough dark and grim from the daily news.
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If that is all you think DSC is then you are missing out. The same wonder, exploration and “fun” of Trek is all there. We just happen to also be in the middle of a war with the Klingons. Would you consider the later seasons of DS9 to be nothing but gloom and doom?
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I would say Despite Braga it works.
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The Sicily/Little Italy scenes in Godfather Part II are fascinating as heck, but not overly dramatic.
I don’t consider Wonder Woman or Kong Skull Island to be prequels. Wonder Woman had virtually no relation to the plot or story of the previous works except the existence of the character. Kong is a full-on reboot that only tangentially relates to Gareth Thomas’s Godzilla at the very end.
Both are glimpses to a pre-existing milieu
Xmen First Class wasn’t even explicitly related to the prior X-men films until the sequel.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom only avoids being the worst of the series by the existence of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
As for TV:
Better Call Saul has to play around with dramatic tension since we know the fates of most of the major characters. Its a great character study.
Spartacus Gods of the Arena was really kind of a production stopgap to figure out how to replace the lead actor. Same issues with BCS when it comes to dramatic tension
Star Wars: The Clone Wars was such a mixed bag when it came to its mini arcs. I found the best ones were when the Republic battled living foes (and usually got trounced for it).
But when you know who is going to survive the series regardless of what happens, it deflates the drama a bit.
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I am surprising surprised by the Orville.
I am not a Seth fan, and have never watched his other shows and I think is the weakest actor in this show.
Strangely I was going to binge watch STD but now I find I can only do that if I pay CBS for the show. Is it available anywhere but CBS paid streaming?
Orville I feel has the most fun with its fleashed out characters even the guy from Daft Punk as a synthetic life form ( TNG Data?) in his first speaking roll.
Even Orville’s “Worf” is a Rainbow of fun, married to another male having a child with him. ( no spoilers, but a very non Star Trek episode about the Child)
The kick ass Security chief is a sweet diminutive young woman.
I find I cannot guess the rest of the show before the first commercial and I am happy surprised by that.
Play long, and prosper.
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All of your responses are quite subjective in nature. You only asked me what I felt were good dramatic prequels.
That may be, but that is a personal taste for you then. I welcome a well done prequel that gets us more time with characters we love. Even better when the new pieces of the puzzle they put in make things we have already visited even better. For instance in DSC ‘Lethe’ We learn much more about Sarek and what help lead to Spock denying his fathers desires and joining Starfleet. He failed Micheal by choosing Spock instead and then that choice was made worse by Spock denying the position. Makes for an even deeper and more interesting meet up with Sarek come ‘Journey to Babel’
But ymmv. IDIC indeed.
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Fair enough. Yes, its all a matter of taste. It is entirely subjective on my part.
But for the life of me, I really don’t like prequels very much. Its like watching a film series (with actual character arcs between them) out of order on purpose.
There are usually far too many shortcuts taken for plot and characterization for the sake of callbacks, then there is the constraint of prior continuity. They are decent for character studies, “what made ____ the way they are”. But for me they are not as fun as “What will happen next?”
My problem with DSC, what I’ve seen of it so far, is that it feels too much like STAR TREK: ZACK SNYDER - lots of underlit rooms, an overreliance on “artsy” muted-color CGI, and an overall air of “Life Sucks, and Then You Die - as badly as possible”. Sometimes that can work, as with the reimagined Harry Mudd (when they have the courage to go there!) - but even DS9, “dark” as it could be, was about essentially good if flawed people fighting against, and ultimately triumphing over, the Very Bad Things the Universe threw at them.
THE ORVILLE, by contrast, feels like a good TREK fan production - closer to James Cawley’s STAR TREK: NEW VOYAGES, but with the serial numbers sorta-kinda filed off. The scripts play like shout-outs to TREK episodes you remember, only with Seth Mcfarlane writing SEINFELD references & practical jokes around the margins - and unfortunately, Mcfarlane himself cosplaying Kirk as a bit of a dope. (Yes, I get he’s The Middle of The Middle as PU Captains go, but even for that he lacks any air of command - if he runs his ship like a frat, he needs to be The Frat President… which he’s not.)
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Prior continuity is the reason why prequels can be a silly and lazy idea from a writing and production design POV. It could easily have just been a continuation or even a reboot and not have to deal with the myriad of issues the creators made for themselves here.
