There’s another community on another instance apparently run by the same people who run r/startrek on Reddit and they can be…zealous to say the least.
Is this community going to allow people who don’t like some bits of Star Trek?
Media criticism is welcome here, so long as everyone is respectful. Art is inherently subjective - people are going to like different things for different reasons, and it’s okay to say you didn’t enjoy something.
I’d discourage low effort discussion though. Instead of saying “Voyager sucks” let’s try “Voyager didn’t work for me because it was too episodic” (not a criticism I personally have, just an example).
I’d suggest reviewing the posting guidelines in the sidebar, and if anyone gets nasty or you see harassment feel free to file a report or shoot me a DM.
Well said Preston! I am here too to help out how I can. I would also like to tag onto this and reiterate what @king_dead@beehaw.org said so well: A lot of online negative discourse surrounding Star Trek is based on the franchises choice to be inclusive and diverse. Any homophobia, racism, sexism, etc will result in your comment being removed (as this is the Possum Patio’s general standard).
There is infinite diversity in infinite combinations in this universe. We choose to celebrate diversity instead of shy away from it, and hope that any discourse follows this guideline.
There are tons of things to dislike about Star Trek, just as there are tons of things to love about it. I’m curious, though, what don’t you like?
I’m not a fan of Discovery or Picard and that “flavor” of new Trek. If you had criticisms or negative comments about anything it could get you banned on r/startrek if you didn’t go above and beyond to justify it.
Go take a look at https://startrek.website/post/225 and see how the admin reacts to comments they don’t agree with.
To me, there’s a very striking difference between say The Next Generation and Discovery, namely, how they handle exposition.
The senior staff of the Enterprise-D gathers in the conference room off the bridge, one character presents new information, then the department heads give their take on what they just learned. Maybe Crusher will point out the humanitarian angle, Worf will provide savage pragmatism, Troi will ask if the space dust is sentient, and Picard will synthesize all that into his decision. But the other purpose of these scenes is to bake exposition into natural character dialog.
On the Discovery, three characters stand in front of a console taking turns giving a single thread raw exposition, then comment on how cool science is.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think Discovery is unwatchable trash.
This is very well put. I don’t hate discovery but it isn’t trek to me (although neither is tos).
I just want an hour of philosophical debates.
Also Picard must the be the best boss ever. When there is a difficult decision he lets every commanding officer state their opinion, listeners intently, then he makes the decision and rally’s everyone to get behind it.
The original series does this too, it just ends up being less formal. But this is the basis of the famous Kirk-Spock-McCoy dynamic: Spock presents a cold, rational take on things; McCoy presents a brash, sympathetic take (and makes racist comments about Spock); then Kirk chooses what he’s gonna do. But as others have said, this is the core of Trek: professional adults making difficult choices.
Probably the biggest issue with the original series is just how many monsters of the week it had. The Next Generation isn’t immune, though it toned it down: a lot of episodes unnecessarily have anomalies of the week, to create pointless tension.
Probably the biggest issue with the original series is just how many monsters of the week it had.
Nope. Most TOS episodes were primarily about the clash of philosophies. Everybody got to explain their reasons, even Klingons and Nazis.
I was just talking about how season 1 of TNG and DS9 sucked. As long as its not like that sort of gamergate “ugh, theres a new character that isnt a white guy and I’m really upset about this for some reason”, it should be fine. I definitely think a big part of the star trek fandom is removed about star trek
I think both TNG and DS9 S1 were more uneven than outright sucking. You’ve got some great episodes like Measure of a Man and Duet in there.
That’s fair, there are definitely good episodes in the bunch. But the sheer volume of filler episodes really weigh both down
Maybe not as much as you think, take a look at these graphs:
https://www.imdbgraph.org/ratings/tt0092455 https://www.imdbgraph.org/ratings/tt0106145
They definitely skew towards the low end but it’s not that far from the rest of the series. Also I was mistaken Measure of a Man is a S2 episode. That being said outside of Code of Honor and Angel One most of the episodes are decent to good. There is the weird this seems like TOS and it doesn’t quite fit but it’s also fun to see the goofiness on a rewatch aspect.
The first 17 minutes of Picard S2E1 was awful. And I couldn’t skip thru it like I normally would have because I thought it might have set something important up. Nope. I could have skipped it easily.
So long as it doesn’t become a pile-on, which it had turned into on reddit, which is why I backed the moderation on r/startrek. Criticism is fine, but when it drowns out everything else, that becomes a poor experience for people who come to discuss a show they like. If you don’t like it, it’s fine to list your criticisms or back those who already have, but if somebody has already talked about those criticisms, nobody wants to hear people repeating the same tired whines over and over. Maybe find a better way to pass your time than dwelling on what you don’t like.
