sum1

I finished SNW season 1. The show has a likeable cast, a dose of good characters and some good episodes, but when I take it in as a whole I dislike it. On the surface, by pursuing the episodic format of the old Trek, it follows classic Star Trek form and on the surface it's not so dark as Discovery. But in its foundation it has that same claustrophobic, negative, dark, threatening feel as Discovery.

Just as Discovery made the Klingons much darker and less relatable, SNW took the Gorn (a dangerous species that Kirk was the first to encounter, at odds with SNW's version of events, and with whom he made some sort of peace), and made them far more savage, with them eating humans and laying their eggs in them. Basically they were turned into a version of the Xenomorph aliens from the Aliens series of films. And what's with all this eating people? Discovery had the Klingons doing that too. Is this some fetish of Alex Kurtzman's?

Showing the same negativity, SNW has a captain doomed to be destroyed, who is haunted by that knowledge, and when he tries to get around that we're treated to a season finale in which we're basically shown he's not up to his job. That's got to be a first for Star Trek. And while I enjoyed the endorsement of Kirk, I hated Paul Wesley's performance as Kirk. He was far too subdued, with none of Kirk's trademark vigour. Bad casting. Negative casting, too. Kirk's vigour powered TOS and also the Kelvin movies. Its absence when Kirk is supposedly present shows how far these new shows have fallen from the heights of classic Trek.

When I think of Discovery and SNW, I think of space, endless night, dark and threatening, closing in around claustrophobic spacecrafts and full of dangers out there. When I think of classic Trek shows I think of bright light shining in the interiors of inviting starships (or a space station in the case of DS9). Classic Trek is optimistic and upbeat, those two new shows are not. The two new shows' approach is artistically valid, but not for Star Trek.

And when I think of the Picard show, I think of sunlight shining on the surface of planets. For all its dark elements, Picard has a positivity at root that the other two shows don't have. It's much more true Trek, picking up where classic Trek left off. It's evolved Trek, more intelligent and mature then the other Trek shows around now, but it's also very much Trek.