r/trektalk

POLYGON: "One of the smartest choices made in Strange New Worlds is refusing to treat the arrival of James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) as inevitable. Prequels often struggle with this problem. If audiences already know where everyone ends up, characters can start to feel predetermined rather than human. But Strange New Worlds consistently pushes against that idea. [...]

https://www.polygon.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-the-original-series-kirk/

If we're being honest, The Original Series was never really about deep character studies or the relationships between those characters.

Looking back, the Enterprise often feels less like a place where humans (and aliens) lived together and more like a set piece where epic stories happened. The crew worked side-by-side, respected one another, occasionally revealed deeper bonds, and then moved on to the next mission. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has subtly changed that. [...]

This version of Kirk isn’t introduced like a legendary figure entering the stage. He’s capable and charismatic, but still figuring things out. In season 3, episode 6, “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail,” Kirk is given his first opportunity to command in a stressful situation — and he screws it up. It’s only with the help of Spock (Ethan Peck), Scotty (Martin Quinn), and Uhura that he grows and evolves.

SNW never treats Kirk like destiny. That’s because Pike’s Enterprise already has its own identity. By building a crew that feels emotionally connected before Kirk takes command, Strange New Worlds reframes what comes later. Kirk no longer reads as the beginning of the story. He's just the next chapter.

Going back and watching The Original Series after spending time with Strange New Worlds, the dynamic shifts. Kirk’s confidence feels more earned. Spock’s reserve seems more intentional. The relationships feel deeper because viewers now understand the environment these characters came from. That may be the show’s most surprising accomplishment.

Strange New Worlds doesn’t rewrite The Original Series or replace it. Instead, it reminds us that before Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise became legends, they were simply people sharing meals, figuring things out, and becoming the people history remembers."

Terry Terrones (Polygon)

Full article:

https://www.polygon.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-the-original-series-kirk/

What did you think of Gates McFadden voicing mother Askani?

SCREENRANT:

"On Bluesky, Mike McMahan responded to a fan that he "couldn't be prouder" of Star Trek: Lower Decks' five seasons, but Mike announced, "I had at least two seasons more in me." McMahan then lists many great ideas future Star Trek: Lower Decks seasons would have explored, including the USS Cerritos going to the Delta and Gamma Quadrants, and even meeting "a weirdly nice leftover Weyoun (Jeffrey Combs)." Read Mike's post below:

>Couldn't be prouder of the five we made, but I had at least two seasons more in me. Wanted to hit up the Delta and Gamma quadrants. One more Vindicta holodeck movie. Meet a weirdly nice leftover Weyoun, more stories with the whales and Kayshon, T'Lyn and Ensign Olly. Lots of stuff.

As per Mike McMahon's ideas, the USS Cerritos visiting the Delta and Gamma Quadrants would have let Star Trek: Lower Decks tell more loving odes to Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as would meeting a "weirdly nice" Weyoun, the cloned servants of the Dominion. Another Vindicta story would've capped off a trilogy of holodeck movies within the show.

Star Trek: Lower Decks fans would certainly have appreciated more stories about fan-favorite supporting characters like T'Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz) and Kayshon (Carl Tart), as well as Kimolu and Matt, the talking beluga whale lieutenants who help navigate the USS Cerritos from Cetacean Ops.

McMahan's desire for more seasons would have equaled the seven-season run of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a fitting number since Star Trek: Lower Decks is TNG's animated successor. However, as an animated comedy, Star Trek: Lower Decks didn't necessarily have a ceiling beyond what was decided by Paramount+. Star Trek: Lower Decks could have run 10 seasons or more if the streamer allowed. [...]"

Full article:

https://screenrant.com/star-trek-lower-decks-more-seasons-ideas-mike-mcmahan/

Source:

Star Trek on Instagram

Link:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DNV9FzZsB2m

Larry Nemecek:

"But first: If it seems crazy that there are so many Star Trek ideas floating around out there—well, we've been here before.

Sixty years of Star Trek have had the peaks—and the valleys. The survival of Gene Roddenberry's baby has always been thanks to passionate fans who even in fallow studio times felt compelled to make their own Trek at home: from fan fiction to fan films. And a lot of those fans work IN the industry— Trek veterans and Trek wannabes alike — and that's who's flooding the zone right now with all these pitches. You never know who’s listening—maybe even the next overseer of the franchise! Remember: When the same public pitch frenzy bloomed in the 10-year Trek desert after Enterprise, one of those “public pitchers" was one Bryan Fuller.

https://whatculture.com/tv/x-other-star-trek-pitches-out-there-and-where-theyre-at

But for now, while all these series and film ideas may be a blur, let's get some clarity: that term “pitch” you hear out in the blabosphere could be anything from just a cool idea to a full treatment prepped for a studio meeting, to a finished script, to an actual pilot or show order, or even one hot and then later abandoned.

Oh — and what’s the source of this “pitch” news? A studio announcement, in the trade papers? A writer-producer on social media? Rumors from a shady Tuber? ...

One thing we do know: Whether new or old, this is hardly the last list of new Star Trek wanna-bes we'll see in the coming months. But by year’s end, after all the parties for Star Trek’s 60th have come and gone, we’ll likely know a lot more about who is and is not calling the shots, the tone that Ellison & company want for Star Trek — and hopefully, whether any of these very public pitches for big or smaller screens are seriously a part of it.

13 Star Trek Pitches Out There (And Where They're At)

• STAR TREK: "UNCONNECTED"

>Well, “Unconnected” is my term, at least, for the yet unnamed Star Trek film project announced in November with the movie duo behind the popular Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and Spiderman: Homecoming, among others: John Francis Daly (who will always be Lindsay’s little brother Sam Weir to me! —shoutout to Freaks and Geeks) and producing partner Jonathan Goldstein. They’re officially tasked to write/produce/direct the only actual confirmed new Trek project of any kind. Yes, really.

>I’m calling it “Unconnected” because, as Deadline first reported, the premise is “a completely new take on the Star Trek universe and not connected to any previous or current television series, movie or prior movie development projects.”

>So, different characters and different eras … ? That’s what I’ve been wanting for 25 years! Finally got it with Enterprise; finally got it with Section 31 (though I wish we’d gotten a good story along with it.)

>The rest of the movie list is easy, because it’s all vaporware from here on.

>Status: : GREEN-lit script

---

• STAR TREK 4 (KELVIN)

>Status: DEAD

• TARANTINO TREK

>Status: EXTREMELY DEAD

• STAR TREK: "SPACE VIRUS" BY NOAH HAWLEY

>Status: VERY DEAD

• STAR TREK: ORIGINS BY Toby Haynes & Seth Grahame-Smith

>Status: JUST DEAD

• "ONE MORE PICARD" MOVIE

>Status: FADING, if ever serious. Maybe a future novelization?

• STAR TREK: LEGACY, aka CAPTAIN SEVEN

>Really, Legacy was nothing more than the closing scenes and characters of Picard that showrunner Terry Matalas devised, setting up (as often happens) a gimme spinoff in case anyone in the studio C-suite cared. No actual pitch packet or meeting, but before you knew it, boom: fan campaigns, petition drives, marketing, graphics, all based on a love of those characters, trekking aboard a new Enterprise.

>There was also the chance to get the Next Generation elders back for the occasional guest spot. Sure, fan demand had led to Anson Mount’s Pike and Strange New Worlds, but that was a streaming eternity ago. Four years later, the Trek tarmac taxiway was already full, just as the runways were being cut back to two series, not five.

>And yet, stranger things have happened. Terry and team love the characters even as career moves pull them elsewhere, so: not any time soon for Legacy, but — never say never?

>Status: HAPPY TALK

• STAR TREK: UNITED

>Talk about diving even further into the stockpile of Trek characters! What’s been hot in the past year since Legacy is a trial balloon for former Voyager and Enterprise writer Mike Sussman, hatched almost as a lark. Working with actor and Captain Archer himself, Scott Bakula, on another project, Mike floated the idea of a President Archer, post-Enterprise series that he’d been toying with for years — since he’d thrown that factoid into the quickie Prime Archer bio-screen barely glimpsable in In a Mirror, Darkly. ...

>What’s great is his idea combines my longtime yen for a series set in the unknown Trek era midway between Archer and Kirk, and/or another I have long dubbed Star Trek: West Wing. That would be a political intrigue set on Earth among the various Federation Council delegates and exploring their cultures, but with hotspot-hopping capacity any time a crisis breaks out across the quadrants. Mike’s idea actually combines those two, setting it when Archer is supposedly an early Federation President after his NX-01 days, complete with family, aides, and regular ambassador characters. Who knows, maybe Star Trek would FINALLY make its first onscreen visit to Tellar Prime?

>We know Mike and Scott did formally have a meeting with Secret Hideout and Paramount, but so far back that United was seen as a confusing duplication of the themes of Starfleet Academy. But it’s ironic that as tired as Enterprise was perceived to be among fans, the holler has really arisen for United this past year.

>Status: NO SALE (FOR NOW)

• Tawny Newsome & Justin Simien’s STAR TREK SITCOM

>I think thanks to Lower Decks breaking the 24th Century comedy barrier, far more fans were in the zen zone of a Trek sitcom than they would have been, say, even five years earlier.

>What’s wild is how this broke news about a series that was not actually a done deal yet; hardly the textbook Paramount PR way. But we learned the initial take, with Tawny among the cast, would feature Federation outsiders serving a gleaming resort planet “who find out their day-to-day exploits are being broadcast to the entire quadrant.“ The format was later reported to have been tweaked a bit, but what we do know is that multiple scripts were prepped and the whole package was formally submitted to Secret Hideout just before the 2025 holidays—just in time to sit until future Trek’s big picture is settled.

>If there’s anyone I’d love to see pioneer a Trek comedy, single or multi-camera, it’s Tawny and Co. But again, the “Trek Sitcom” is a submitted pitch — waiting for when or if whoever's in charge can decide on it.

>Status: IN AN INBOX, SOMEWHERE

• STAR TREK: YEAR ONE

>Back in 2018, Anson Mount's visiting Captain Pike on Discovery became such a hit that a series built around his crew blew up the existing bullpen of future Treks, and moved quickly to the front of the line. But Peak Cinematic TV was a fading memory by the time of that San Diego Hall H moment in 2025, when Goldsman revealed the show title while at the same time asking fans to mount another support campaign to demand Kirk's crew and Year One. His live appeal met with a muted reaction that day, however, as if many fans were either confused or already in support of Legacy, knowing the Trek series pipeline was clearly narrowing.

>Since then, Goldsman and Henry Alonzo Myers, his Strange New Worlds co-EP, have said they’ve formally pitched Year One direct to the new Paramount regime earlier this year. Fair to say, though: those Enterprise sets and assets in Toronto have all been struck and are being auctioned off in batches. Just sayin.’

>Status: FATE UNKNOWN, LOOKING DIRE

• A JANEWAY LIVE-ACTION SERIES?

>Voicing Janeway for Prodigy was eye-opening for Mulgrew, and it's clear now she's embraced the idea of returning in live-action—but only if it was “something pretty great” and still brought the Star Trek mix of hope, promise, excitement, and danger. "And Janeway’s mind is the mind of somebody who can go anywhere at any moment, on a dime," she explains. :"I’d like to go back to that, but only if it’s excellent.”

>On one hand, this is exactly how Kurtzman’s Secret Hideout team approached a skeptical Patrick Stewart about doing a live-action Picard series of some kind — and overcame his reservations after more than one pass at it. On the other hand, Secret Hideout's unclear contract renewal status by fall means any iteration of a Janeway series is just as uncertain.

>Status: TALKING STAGE — AMONG CURRENT TALKERS FOR NOW

• STAR TREK: TRAVELERS

>Blink and you missed it! Again, back in 2024: an informal but sincere idea mentioned online in passing — though judging by TrekCulture viewers, a sure-fire winner.

>We’re talking, for starters, about Prodigy Season 2 writer Jennifer Muro's post, well after that series bowed on Netflix with a plot arc that featured Wil Wheaton back as Wesley Crusher in scruffy Traveler mode. Muro tweeted that if Prodigy didn't get a Season 3 renewal she’d love to create an animated “Star Trek: Travelers” series so a Doctor Who-like Wesley could do more of the same—with her deserving friend Wil and “endless stories” possible. ...

>And if we want to keep the Picard set-up of Kore as a companion (ahem), producing in animation would likely now be key. With her career skyrocketing, actress Isa Briones' starring turn on HBO's The Pitt (plus any ongoing Broadway musical roles) mean she'd find voice actor studio mode a lot easier to squeeze in on her crowded calendar.

>Meanwhile, I checked in with Jennifer to update her tweets of 2024: the Wesley idea remains atop her list but no, it has not been formally developed — for now. Wait until the dust settles for a clearer picture with all things Paramount over the next year, she says — and there's a break from her current work on the animated Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 over at Netflix.

>Status: UNPITCHED, BUT POPULAR

• THE ANIMATED PITCH YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT! (By Prodigy EP Aaron Waltke)

>You read right.

>There’s one more pitch that's even more overlooked by anyone not following Trek creator social channels. But amid the early hubbub over United in August 2025, Prodigy co-executive producer Aaron Waltke let slip he had a pitch of his own in an online comment thread that some of us picked up on. ...

>He told me that for now, here, he'd call it Untitled Adult Animation Anthology Series or thereabouts. We’ll have to leave it there, unless you can entice him into some “sly allusions” for clues to it on his socials, when he takes a break from Wings to come up for air.

>Whatever the format, this sounds like a no-brainer— and especially when animation is used to present any time era, without the budget stress of period sets/costumes/props of live action.

>Status: UNPITCHED, BUT STAY TUNED

The truth is that the TV side of Trek is in stasis, and nothing new will be decided until Kurtzman’s expansive 2021 Secret Hideout franchise-runner contract renewal is decided late this summer. ..."

Read more:

https://whatculture.com/tv/x-other-star-trek-pitches-out-there-and-where-theyre-at

REDSHIRTS:

"From the opening minutes, "The Menagerie, Part I" hangs on some deeply disturbing images: Mr. Spock, the most logical, regulation-minded officer in the franchise, hijacks the USS Enterprise, abducts a severely injured Christopher Pike, and locks out his current captain. [...]

In 2026, when we’re used to antiheroes telegraphing their justifications, watching Spock simply accept guilt and push forward for reasons we don’t yet know is compellingly stark."

https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/star-trek-original-series-menagerie-part-1-review

Even before the big revelations of “Part II," “The Menagerie, Part I” works as a mood piece and a mystery. The starbase sets, Pike’s eerie, blinking chair, and the understated score all give the hour a somber, almost funereal tone. There’s very little action; instead, the suspense comes from locked doors, rerouted control circuits, and the uncomfortable spectacle of a trusted officer manipulating his ship under everyone’s nose.

Structurally, it’s doing something ambitious for 1966: juggling three timelines at once. You have the present-day hearing and hijacking, Pike’s original Talos IV mission playing as “evidence,” and the hinted at future of what might await Pike if Spock succeeds.

That cross-cutting keeps the episode feeling larger than a standard bottle episode, and it rewards attentive viewing even now. You can watch it as a legal drama, as an ethical puzzle, or simply as the moment Star Trek decided to fold its own unaired past into the present and trust the audience to keep up.

60 years later, “The Menagerie, Part I” remains one of the most rewatchable chapters in Star Trek's history: a 1966 gamble that turned budget pressure and leftover footage into a haunting story about loyalty, law, and how far one Vulcan will go for the captain who came before."

Calvin Townsend (RedshirtsAlwaysDie.com)

Full review:

https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/star-trek-original-series-menagerie-part-1-review

Something unusual is happening in sci-fi right now. Three of the genre’s biggest franchises — Star Trek, Doctor Who and Stargate — all find themselves in limbo at the same time.

Star Trek has slowed after years of rapid expansion across Paramount+. Doctor Who is being reassessed following its recent Disney+ era. And Stargate, after finally appearing poised for a comeback, has once again been put on hold. Different studios and circumstances, but the same strange reality.

Of course, this isn’t new territory for these franchises. Star Trek fans once waited 10 years to see Kirk and the Enterprise return after the original series ended in 1969, with that drought ending in 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture; Doctor Who endured its “Wilderness Years” between 1989 and 2005 and Stargate has now been off the air for 15 years. So what’s going on?

Suggests Doctor Who historian Richard D. Carrier, “Things are more expensive now anyway and the standard of television that people demand since the streaming era has come in… that’s the expectation, especially for a science fantasy show.”

But bigger budgets don’t necessarily mean better storytelling. “Some of the best Doctor Who stories, even in the modern era, have been the cheapest ones,” Carrier notes. “Sometimes the necessity to do something under certain constraints actually forces you to be creative.”

That feels especially relevant to Star Trek. The original series became iconic despite limited budgets and often primitive effects. What mattered was the writing, the characters and the ideas, and the same may apply now across legacy franchises.

Darren Sumner of GateWorld believes studios may be drawing the wrong conclusions about what audiences want. “You look at what’s been happening with major franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars and Doctor Who,” he says. “The newer shows and films certainly have their audience. They’ve found viewers, but apparently it’s not enough for whatever studio is producing those projects.

“It feels like they’re deciding that the problem is the audience,” he adds, “when, in fact, my opinion is that the problem is, by and large, with the content.”

Carrier sees a similar issue with Doctor Who. “They relied a bit too much on that fan-service kind of approach,” he says. “It starts to eat its own tail a little bit when you get too self-referential. But in a way, I think the pause is probably a good thing.”

And he points to Star Trek as proof. “Star Trek had to go away and come back again and be successful.”

Concurring with that point is writer and fan Jacqueline Lichtenberg, one of the main players in the letter writing campaign that resulted in the original Star Trek being renewed by NBC for a third season. “The concession from NBC was grudging,” she notes, “and despite Roddenberry’s best efforts, the third season bombed But thanks to that letter-writing campaign, Star Trek went into syndication and then — only then — the audience exploded.”

Which may be the real takeaway. None of these franchises feel finished as they’ve survived long absences before and reinvented themselves. For now, the fans have to wait, but as Carrier jokingly puts it, “People aren’t very patient with these things, are they?”

If you’re interested in an expanded version of this article, just do a search for the headline “Why 3 of the Best Sci-Fi TV Shows Are Suddenly on Hold: ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Stargate’ along with womansworld .com. 

COMICBOOK.COM:

"While he was resurrected for a Star Trek comic recently, William Shatner hasn’t been on-screen in a Star Trek project since he was unceremoniously killed off in crossover movie Generations. But would the Star Trek legend be willing to return? Speaking to TVInsider, the original Captain Kirk is more open to a return than you might expect, and when asked what might get him to consider returning, he said:

>WILLIAM SHATNER: “It’s easy to say money, but you know, the longer I played Kirk, I was allowed to put various shades of character in there. I think Captain Kirk — as the captain of the deadly instrument of war, as well as a ship of peace — could reside in somebody like me very well. I mean, I still have the aggression and the instinct for battle, and I’ve gotten myself into very dangerous things. But there is a planing, a smoothing of all those heights and peaks of attitude and activity that comes with age, as [opposed to] aggression, which is sort of a youthful characteristic. Even at 95, I think Captain Kirk would be a really good captain of a spaceship capable of war and peace.”

[...]

It turns out Strange New Worlds already tried to bring Kirk back, but Paramount wouldn’t meet his demands. The idea was a mirror universe episode that would have brought Kirk back as his “Emperor Tiberius” alter ego, which now ranks as one of the finest Star Trek pitches that never came to be. It now won’t happen in Strange New Worlds, of course, because the final season has been filmed, but that doesn’t mean the idea can’t be revisited or reframed for the potential Kirk spinoff. Having the younger Kirk presented with a Dickensian warning of what he could become if he were to turn to evil would be particularly interesting, and would give Shatner something to really have fun with. We didn’t get to see enough of the Mirror Universe version of Kirk, and allowing him a late villain turn would be a lot of fun.

The alternative is a little difficult to conceive of: Kirk was killed off definitively in Generations, and while not every Star Trek fan was impressed with that decision, undoing his death after this amount of time would be a strange move. There’s always the possibility of another multiversal version of Kirk – like the Spock Prime who turned up in the Kelvin Universe, played by Leonard Nimoy, of course – but something tells me Shatner would have more fun hamming it up as a bigger, grander caricature of his most famous character.

Shatner was also asked what he thinks gave Star Trek its longevity: “Kiddingly, I used to say, well, it’s me. You know, I’ve been around, and it turns out, of course, it isn’t me, but it doesn’t seem to be any individual either. It seems to be the general concept that, 400 years from now, not only will we humans still be around on Earth, but we’ll be thriving, and the possibilities are there.” "

Simon Gallagher (Comicbook.com)

Links:

https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/william-shatner-officially-reveals-whether-hed-return-to-star-trek-32-years-after-generations-killed-him-off/

https://www.tvinsider.com/1273293/william-shatner-star-trek-60th-anniversary-kirk-return-video-interview-exclusive/

What did you think of commander Ro Laren?https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ro\_Laren

What is Lura Thok's starfleet service officer rank because one picture says commander but the other one says lieutenant commander.

INVERSE:

"This year would, in theory, also make the aesthetics of SNW more closely align with TOS, which is what a hypothetical Year One show would be about: a direct lead-in to The Original Series, with SNW vibes. And that would be best accomplished with an animated show.

If Star Trek: Year One were animated, the challenge of integrating the styles of SNW and TOS would be easier. Animated sets could pay homage to both styles at once, and the uniforms could subtly change as episodes went by. Even the likenesses of the characters could be a blend of TOS and SNW styles; a kind of merging of Paul Wesley and young William Shatner, with Wesley providing the voice. Ethan Peck voicing an animated Spock would also work perfectly, without us having to worry too much about him looking exactly like Leonard Nimoy in TOS.

Year One couldn’t really become an ongoing series anyway, simply because The Original Series exists, and eventually, you’ll start running into the canon of those episodes (arguably, SNW already has this problem). So, a limited animated series that uses the voice talents of the SNW cast, with some artistic, canon-combining flourishes, would literally be the best of all worlds.

Will this happen? Like the hypothetical live-action version, probably not. But if we’re going to dream, we might as well dream logically."

Ryan Britt (Inverse)

Full article:

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/star-trek-year-one-rumors-animated-series

JAMIE RIXOM:

"Star Trek bosses can literally do nothing right as they bring back a character for Strange New Worlds seasons 4 and 5 that I absolutely hated. [...] I'm not surprised at all that Patton Oswalt is going to be coming back to Star Trek Strange New Worlds season 4 and 5. He said he's doing more than one episode. He said episodes "as the Vulcan Doug."

https://youtu.be/w_WC6VLBeU8?si=OR9ffQ0Wwfej76v1

Bloody Doug. Now, this was supposed to be funny. He was supposed to be a Vulcan that was obsessed with human culture and actually not very Vulcan-y in some ways. He also had a sordid love affair with Number One and she couldn't keep her hands off him ...

Now, this was supposed to be funny.

But just like lots of examples of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, I'm thinking about Pike when he was pretending to be a f'n pirate. Argh. And and on the bridge, I'm like, "It's not very Captain Pike." Or all of Starfleet Academy. All of it.

It's just not funny.

All right, they they go for funny, they miss the mark, and they hit stupid bullseye. I mean, just this like twang, bullseye, stupid. That character Doug and the whole relationship with Number One, the whole thing about being obsessed with humanity, I didn't mind too much, but the stuff he kept saying was just stupid.

It wasn't funny, it was creepy.

And it was just one more reason why season 3 was rubbish. Now, I don't really know what the fan reaction to his character was. And I look at very straight up, I'm saying this is not Patton Oswalt's fault even a bit. He's great. He had a character in Agents of Shield that I thought was brilliant. And to be honest, he's led all loads of characters over the years in little bit parts of things that I thought was brilliant. And he's a very funny guy.

So, I have no problem with the actor appearing in Star Trek. I just have a problem with Doug. [...] The fact he's coming back to more than one episode, obviously thinks that Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, etc. obviously think that his character went down a bomb. And they want to do more with him. Why? Why? I don't understand it. And to be honest, if they hadn't have already made a hundred thousand million billion mistakes, I mean a squillion of them, over the years under Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, etc. then I would seriously sort of go,

"Oh, well, I mean this is this is a mistake, but never mind. I like the actor and maybe second time round they'll do a bit better with it."

But because of the billion squillions stupid mistakes over the years, I'm just looking at it and going, "No, [laughter], they're going to do it again." I'm already not looking forward to seasons 4 and 5. I'll just be honest with you, I'm not. I I look at the puppets episode and I just want to cry. [...]

Um, these episodes were actually written like 2 years ago. There's been massive delays getting this series onto our screens. So, they didn't write these episodes for this year. That basically means none of these episodes were written with the 60th anniversary in mind. So, we're not getting anything for it. I think the original plan was for season 5 to drop around the 60th anniversary. [...]

Now, I've heard some people talking about how they're going to learn from their mistakes of season 3, which is immediate just bull crap. Because, um, again, these were written and filmed before season 3 dropped. So, how can you learn from something the fans hadn't seen yet? So, that whole theory is just debunked. Season 5 they could learn from it, but season 4, no, they can't.

So, there're going to be just as many silly, quirky, stupid episodes as season 3, season 2, season 1 to be honest. It won't be a change in the way they're delivering Strange New Worlds. Every episode that Patton Oswalt is in is going to have a big chunk of this in there. And unless they have some sort of miracle, right? Unless Akiva Goldsman and the other writers and other people in charge of Strange New Worlds have had brain implants ala bloody Spock, this is going to suck.

It's going to miss funny, hit creepy, and just stupid.

And they can't help themselves. They can't. I don't know how to help these people. I want to go along and just say, "Right, okay, everything you think we want, do the opposite."

Okay, uh you want to do a musical? - No. You've I don't know what the the the opposite of a musical is. Do the opposite. You want K-pop Klingons? Sorry. And I'm like, "Okay, do it as opera. Don't do it as bloody K-pop. Don't do them all in gold dancing in the background. Do it as opera because at least fans would go, 'Well, at least that makes sense a bit.'"

Everything you think, do opposite.

"I've got this really funny idea about one of the characters swallows their combadge." - Punch that writer in the face. And then don't do it.

Oh god, right. I was actually saying something about Rod Roddenberry recently, and he's admitted that he's there and they ignore everything he says. He's supposed to be there as like the Star Trek gatekeeper. He's supposed to be there to sort of like go, "Oh, that's not really Star Trek enough." But they clearly just ignore everything he says. Really, he's just there to put Roddenberry Entertainment or whatever the company is on the you know, the title card and go: "Look, look we're including Roddenberry. Please don't be angry at us."

And I'm like, well, for the first couple of seasons things I didn't even know he was involved. So you clearly ignored him which just makes us more angry even though I'm not sure how much really I would listen to him anyway. I've seen him in a few interviews and I'm like, "Hmm. I'm not sure that you're, you know, I'm not sure the apple has fallen quite close to the tree there. I think it fell, rolled down a hill. But you know, I don't know the guy. I've seen him in a couple of interviews. But they ignore him.

I just think there needs to be somebody there that actually knows Star Trek, loves Star Trek and when writers come in going swallow the combadge just goes "No, get out of my office!" There isn't that person there. So they keep doing these stupid things. And I'm just going to say it now: those episodes are going to suck. It's not Patton Oswalt's fault. It's Akiva Goldsman and the other writers. [...]"

Jamie Rixom (Tachyon Pulse Podcast)

Full video:

https://youtu.be/w_WC6VLBeU8?si=OR9ffQ0Wwfej76v1

Source:

"Star Trek & Chill #206" (Virtual Trek Con)

with Ryan T. Husk, Malissa Longo, Matt Bordman

Link (YouTube):

https://www.youtube.com/live/0jRFwy14VxU?si=5-yR_8i1ml5SvqOV

For context:

[SFA Reactions] Virtual Trek Con: "The edgelords are just a hair worse than the toxic positivity bunch." - "You can't even say in a constructive way that something didn't work for you and they're just like: You're a hater!" - "The haters actually influence everybody else to like things more."

I really liked fleet admiral Elizabeth Shelby.

GIZMODO:

"The potential criticisms of the episode are obvious. Rather than dealing with gay characters explicitly, it deals with a textually straight romance. Soren is played by a cis woman, removing any potential discomfort at the illicit relationship. Jonathan Frakes, who played Commander Riker, criticized the episode in following years, saying that “Soren should have been more evidently male.”

The oppressors here are not really heterosexuals, but rather queer-seeming genderless persons, largely without individual characters. Where Soren’s feelings come from and what exactly they mean, besides a romance with Riker, is vague. She speaks of others who harbor the same feelings as her, though viewers never witness any of them. It’s almost comically palatable to a presumed straight audience.

https://gizmodo.com/over-30-years-ago-star-trek-the-next-generation-accidentally-cut-to-the-heart-of-trans-rights-2000779239

But in the current context, “The Outcast” feels persistent and resonant. Soren is not a metaphorical gay man, but a textual trans woman. Riker takes her at her word, accepting her as a woman without questioning (a fact that, admittedly, would be more moving if she were played by a male actor). When she is outed and set to undergo conversion therapy, he risks his career to try to rescue her. When Riker tries to cover for her, Soren defies him, stating that he never manipulated her. She declares, “I have had those feelings, those longings, all of my life. It is not unnatural. I am not sick because I feel this way. I do not need to be helped. I do not need to be cured.” It is easy to imagine a trans person making such a defense in a legislature or courtroom today.

But the episode has one more layer of biting, if likely unintentional, critique. Utopian visions of genderless futures often subtextually, or explicitly, make femininity itself out to be a regressive force which must be quashed. In her book A Short History of Trans Misogyny, Jules Gill-Peterson describes, “When movements claim to act in our name, or use our image as their rallying cry, it is often to imagine a world where trans womanhood is implicitly obsolete, no longer needed in gender’s abolition…The cavalry in the global gender wars line up on their opposing sides, cannons ablaze, but each agrees not to admit the premise they share: trans femininity is not integral to the future they are fighting for.” It is in this context which “The Outcast” resonates.

Soren fights for being a woman with tooth and claw. She refuses to apologize for it. “The idea of gender, it is offensive to my people…We have been taught that gender is primitive,” Soren explains to Riker. He responds, “There’s a lot to be said for an experience that’s primitive.” This is a big claim, one a little too large for an essay like this. But womanhood is older than patriarchy. Many things associated with womanhood are obvious goods. While “The Outcast” is frustratingly unspecific, it taps into that truth.

[...]

“The Outcast” is an awkward, but powerful, fable, one which holds an accidental power that many, more deliberate, works about transness cannot touch."

Grace Benfell (Gizmodo)

Full article:

https://gizmodo.com/over-30-years-ago-star-trek-the-next-generation-accidentally-cut-to-the-heart-of-trans-rights-2000779239