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ST: SNW Finale
Finally watched it.
In fairness, it's a perfectly decent episode. But it represents something that I really didn't want to see, so I'm not loving it was a finale.
Basically: like![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adriennefae says, it really sucks that the powers that own Trek right now seem like slaves to the nostalgia factor. I don't know whether it's their preference or whether they think it's what the fans want, but I dislike it strongly. One of the joys about the ST universe is that there are always new characters to know and love. But this latest round of shows (DSC, Picard, now SNW) seem to think that new characters are only here to be introduced for a short time and then discarded for the sake of old characters, and I hate this.
I don't want Hemmer to die just so we can have Scotty. I didn't need the protagonist of ST to be a sister of Spock's we'd never heard of before. I don't need James Kirk showing up on SNW at all. I definitely didn't need all the characters on Picard being written off so that the cast of TNG can come back! I like the new characters!!! I want more of them!!!
Pike, Number One, and M'Benga are of course reinvisionings of characters from TOS, but we never got a chance to know those characters on TOS, so it seems reasonable to build a show around them and flesh them out more fully. I'm fine with having Spock and Uhura on SNW. I think it's very weird to call this character (who I like very, very much aside from the Spock plotline!) "Nurse Chapel" when she's clearly a completely different character. And for god's sake can we please have more La'an and Erica and M'Benga and Una and also bring Hemmer back from the dead???
And now we have Kirk who's going to be a big part of S2, which I do not need! Especially as played by Paul Wesley! He seems like a very nice man whereas Shatner has always seemed like an asshole, but this very nice man has none of Shatner's charm. Whatever kind of person Shatner is in real life, his Kirk is warm and dynamic and even when he tips into just the slightest bit smarmy, you still like him. I've said a million times that I don't think that anyone could ever have the same ~vibes~ that Mr. Nimoy brought to the role of Spock, and Ethan Peck does not. He is, however, at least playing a character that I can enjoy on its own terms. But Nu!Kirk? Is BORING.
[Aside: Along those same lines, the actor they had playing the Romulan commander is no Mark Lenard. I know Lenard is more widely appreciated for playing Sarek (and he's great in that role!), but he brings such a lovely presence to this one-episode character that this nameless Romulan officer is one of my favorite one-off characters in ST. The actor they chose for this episode is...not him. That's all I'll say.]
So here's my conclusion about this first season of SNW: the first half was great, the second half was pretty good, but the writers seem determined to head in directions that will anger me. I will probably give season 2 a chance, but I am really hoping that they bring in some writers who aren't so hung up on endlessly revisiting characters from the past when they have truly fantastic characters right in front of them. JUSTICE 4 HEMMER!!!!
Oh, and it also wasn't long enough. There is zero reason this needed to be a 10-episode season. Star Trek, like a lot of older iconic TV shows, has always benefited from room to sprawl. It means we get a lot of mediocre episodes in between the really good ones, but it also means that we get so much time to explores characters. There is simply not that time when there are so few episodes.
In fairness, it's a perfectly decent episode. But it represents something that I really didn't want to see, so I'm not loving it was a finale.
Basically: like
adriennefae says, it really sucks that the powers that own Trek right now seem like slaves to the nostalgia factor. I don't know whether it's their preference or whether they think it's what the fans want, but I dislike it strongly. One of the joys about the ST universe is that there are always new characters to know and love. But this latest round of shows (DSC, Picard, now SNW) seem to think that new characters are only here to be introduced for a short time and then discarded for the sake of old characters, and I hate this.I don't want Hemmer to die just so we can have Scotty. I didn't need the protagonist of ST to be a sister of Spock's we'd never heard of before. I don't need James Kirk showing up on SNW at all. I definitely didn't need all the characters on Picard being written off so that the cast of TNG can come back! I like the new characters!!! I want more of them!!!
Pike, Number One, and M'Benga are of course reinvisionings of characters from TOS, but we never got a chance to know those characters on TOS, so it seems reasonable to build a show around them and flesh them out more fully. I'm fine with having Spock and Uhura on SNW. I think it's very weird to call this character (who I like very, very much aside from the Spock plotline!) "Nurse Chapel" when she's clearly a completely different character. And for god's sake can we please have more La'an and Erica and M'Benga and Una and also bring Hemmer back from the dead???
And now we have Kirk who's going to be a big part of S2, which I do not need! Especially as played by Paul Wesley! He seems like a very nice man whereas Shatner has always seemed like an asshole, but this very nice man has none of Shatner's charm. Whatever kind of person Shatner is in real life, his Kirk is warm and dynamic and even when he tips into just the slightest bit smarmy, you still like him. I've said a million times that I don't think that anyone could ever have the same ~vibes~ that Mr. Nimoy brought to the role of Spock, and Ethan Peck does not. He is, however, at least playing a character that I can enjoy on its own terms. But Nu!Kirk? Is BORING.
[Aside: Along those same lines, the actor they had playing the Romulan commander is no Mark Lenard. I know Lenard is more widely appreciated for playing Sarek (and he's great in that role!), but he brings such a lovely presence to this one-episode character that this nameless Romulan officer is one of my favorite one-off characters in ST. The actor they chose for this episode is...not him. That's all I'll say.]
So here's my conclusion about this first season of SNW: the first half was great, the second half was pretty good, but the writers seem determined to head in directions that will anger me. I will probably give season 2 a chance, but I am really hoping that they bring in some writers who aren't so hung up on endlessly revisiting characters from the past when they have truly fantastic characters right in front of them. JUSTICE 4 HEMMER!!!!
Oh, and it also wasn't long enough. There is zero reason this needed to be a 10-episode season. Star Trek, like a lot of older iconic TV shows, has always benefited from room to sprawl. It means we get a lot of mediocre episodes in between the really good ones, but it also means that we get so much time to explores characters. There is simply not that time when there are so few episodes.