Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Is Almost Upon Us! Discuss What You Want

[ART!]

I pretty much just want SNW to keep doing what it's been doing, but...just...more!

 

[Ryujin]

I'm thinking that something in the vein of Enterprise coming to the rescue of the Farragut, after it has been attacked by the hemoglobin eating cloud creature. Unfortunately I think that was Ensign Kirk who was involved in that, rather than Lieutenant Kirk, which I think is his current rank in SNW. A little fan service is a good thing and there have been a few breadcumbs dropped, along the way, regarding the TOS crew's backgrounds.

 

[billd91]

This thread reminded me that it is a truism in life that the things that an artist loves best are often the things the audience loves least, and vice versa.

That's something I remind myself of while I watch Thom Yorke grimace whenever someone shouts out, "Play Creep!" This is different than my experience ... it's not so much play as you're such a ....

There’s definitely some truth to that. I’ve seen several artists mention certain songs they wish they didn’t have to play I’ve anymore, and some don’t.

As I recall, King Missile palways plays “Detachable Penis” within the first 5 songs of their setlist, then tell the attendees who ONLY wanted to hear that song they can go home now.

And it's totally understandable if you look at each side's perspectives. For many people, that concert is going to be the audience member's ONLY realistic chance to see that artist in a long time (possibly lifetime), so they want to see the big songs they fell in love with by that artist. But for the artist, they play much of the same stuff every concert, so they're itching to move on to other stuff, more complicated and interesting (for them) stuff in their repertoire, etc.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

And it's totally understandable if you look at each side's perspectives. For many people, that concert is going to be the audience member's ONLY realistic chance to see that artist in a long time (possibly lifetime), so they want to see the big songs they fell in love with by that artist. But for the artist, they play much of the same stuff every concert, so they're itching to move on to other stuff, more complicated and interesting (for them) stuff in their repertoire, etc.

Agreed.

I remember seeing Elliot Smith ... live, and this was when he had a big (for "Elliot Smith" purposes of big) hit that summer locally with Waltz #2 off of XO.

And he resolutely would not play it. At the time, I was really unhappy- I loved (and still love) that song. I really wanted to hear it. I wish he had played it. But I went to see him, after all, not just his playing of a song that I had heard on the radio.

I think there are two things that I keep in mind-
1. There is something magical when a band plays "the hit(s)" and the whole crowd is energized. It's such an amazing feeling.
2. There is also something great when a band brings out a song that they haven't played in a long time, or is a rarity. Some while ago, I saw Neil Young and Crazy Horse. And when I went to see them, Neil hadn't played Ohio in years and years and years. But when he started the notes acoustically, the whole crowd erupted. Yeah, they knew the lyrics.*

*Like I said, a while ago.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

DS9 was still trying to find out what it was (but IMO the first two seasons were better than TNG).

I used to agree with that, but I rewatched DS9 over the Pandemic, and frankly, whilst it wasn't in as high gear as it eventually got to, it's not true that it was confused and the first two seasons are actually full of excellent episodes and there's a clear direction to it. It'd say it's actually slightly better than SNW season 1/2, despite loving Pike and his crew, because SNW, whilst a huge improvement from Discovery, still doesn't really like to actually "engage brain" and has had a few dumb and one offensively stupid episodes where the writers revealed they basically don't understand how certain aspects of the world works (the most egregious being the actually-offensive courtroom one, which I surprised you don't have words about, perhaps you have been so desensitized by many decades of truly terrible near-sighted US courtroom dramas - but there is zero possibility the Federation, of all organisations, would use the anti-justice, antediluvian and pernicious "fruit of the poison tree" legal doctrine - you might as well tell me the Federation opposes trans rights) and much worse, don't have the moral clarity and consistency of TNG/DS9 (even in darkness, DS9's moral clarity was remarkable - Sisko et al knew when they were doing the wrong thing for the right reasons or vice-versa).

But SNW is mostly killer, no filler, so far.

Mostly is a load-bearing word there. There's absolutely been filler. Not TNG levels of filler (let alone VOY or ENT!), but there have been episodes which really didn't have much to say. And I think if we were looking at 22 or 24 episode seasons we'd see about TNG levels of filler. But I'd still like that! Even the filler episodes tend to be good, like a lot of later TNG filler.

I guess I sound kind of down on SNW, but like, I'm actually down on hyperbole about SNW. It is, I think absolutely, the second-best first two seasons of a Trek show and was the first-best first season! What I'm hoping is it doesn't become the third-best third season and I think it'll be okay because, I also re-watched TNG during the Pandemic and... it still was kind of touch-and-go at times in S3 (where DS9 is absolutely full impulse).

I do feel there's a problem with the writing at times where the writers are sort of overconfident with some of the morals and points, and that's bad because they don't quite get the Federation (nor IDIC even) in the way that TNG, DS9, and weirdly, so weirdly, particularly The Orville gets it (also Lower Decks to a lesser extent). That they at times, are a bit too close to a sort of limp unreflective mainstream socially-liberal present-day centrist kind of politics, a sort of... Hamilton-brained kind of deal, rather than the distinctly more radical concepts of the Federation. Luckily, about 80% of episodes don't even touch on this stuff, only touching on the more typically relevant aspects of the Federation.

Again though, I criticise because I love here!

SNW is a great show. It's a 9/10 show. But there are some real discordant notes that, just so weirdly, The bloody Orville of all bloody shows managed to eliminate (by S3), whilst also playing considerably more dangerous and risky tunes than SNW has yet attempted.

(I don't think I will ever get over how much, by S3, The Orville had exceeded my expectations, particularly as a "Federation fan".)

 

[Deset Gled]

And it's totally understandable if you look at each side's perspectives. For many people, that concert is going to be the audience member's ONLY realistic chance to see that artist in a long time (possibly lifetime), so they want to see the big songs they fell in love with by that artist. But for the artist, they play much of the same stuff every concert, so they're itching to move on to other stuff, more complicated and interesting (for them) stuff in their repertoire, etc.

This is an explanation I would have accepted from some time around the 70s and earlier. In the earlier days of the music industry, there were people on the scene that had no way of knowing that their career would be defined by their early work, and had to live through the process of discovering how legacy works. But since the 80s or so, it feels more like an empty sob story.

In music, your name is your brand. You can choose to use your real name. You can choose a pseudonym. Or you can choose a band name. It's completely up to you, and - let's be 100% clear - it's a business decision.

If you have a hit with your brand name (whether your brand is your name, a band name, whatever), that's great. If you try to make money by using that brand later on in your life, you are literally marketing yourself based on your musical history. You are selling your brand to an existing market and fanbase. You are profiting off the memory of that music, and the knowledge of exactly what your fanbase wants to experience.

If you don't want to sell that experience any more, that's fine. Feel free to change your brand and move on. But if you're going to continue profiting off the brand and whine about feeling trapped by it? Sorry, I have very little sympathy. The problem isn't that you're shoehorned. You can always work under a pseudonym and play what your heart wants. The problem is you aren't making money doing that. Well, welcome back to the reality the rest of the world lives in. Sorry it isn't what you wanted.

Well, hopefully that's enough cynicism for today. But it's not even noon here, so we'll see.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is an explanation I would have accepted from some time around the 70s and earlier. In the earlier days of the music industry, there were people on the scene that had no way of knowing that their career would be defined by their early work, and had to live through the process of discovering how legacy works. But since the 80s or so, it feels more like an empty sob story.

In music, your name is your brand. You can choose to use your real name. You can choose a pseudonym. Or you can choose a band name. It's completely up to you, and - let's be 100% clear - it's a business decision.

If you have a hit with your brand name (whether your brand is your name, a band name, whatever), that's great. If you try to make money by using that brand later on in your life, you are literally marketing yourself based on your musical history. You are selling your brand to an existing market and fanbase. You are profiting off the memory of that music, and the knowledge of exactly what your fanbase wants to experience.

If you don't want to sell that experience any more, that's fine. Feel free to change your brand and move on. But if you're going to continue profiting off the brand and whine about feeling trapped by it? Sorry, I have very little sympathy. The problem isn't that you're shoehorned. You can always work under a pseudonym and play what your heart wants. The problem is you aren't making money doing that. Well, welcome back to the reality the rest of the world lives in. Sorry it isn't what you wanted.

Well, hopefully that's enough cynicism for today. But it's not even noon here, so we'll see.

I definitely agree with pretty much all of this but I would say I think the '80s is kind of too early a cut-off. It was certainly in the '80s that it began to be more common for artists to understand, conceptually, and even instinctually, how this all works, but I think there were still a lot of naive artists/bands in that era, and indeed, I think that continued into the '90s even. Present day though? I don't think any major artists are failing to comprehend this whole deal. I don't expect to hear fifty-ish Taytay or mid-40s Billie Eilish complaining about being "forced" to play their early hits by a cruel audience.

 

[Ryujin]

SNW is a great show. It's a 9/10 show. But there are some real discordant notes that, just so weirdly, The bloody Orville of all bloody shows managed to eliminate (by S3), whilst also playing considerably more dangerous and risky tunes than SNW has yet attempted.

(I don't think I will ever get over how much, by S3, The Orville had exceeded my expectations, particularly as a "Federation fan".)

Then I think you'll be glad to hear that "Orville" season 4 is supposed to start shooting this month.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

This is an explanation I would have accepted from some time around the 70s and earlier. In the earlier days of the music industry, there were people on the scene that had no way of knowing that their career would be defined by their early work, and had to live through the process of discovering how legacy works. But since the 80s or so, it feels more like an empty sob story.

In music, your name is your brand. You can choose to use your real name. You can choose a pseudonym. Or you can choose a band name. It's completely up to you, and - let's be 100% clear - it's a business decision.

If you have a hit with your brand name (whether your brand is your name, a band name, whatever), that's great. If you try to make money by using that brand later on in your life, you are literally marketing yourself based on your musical history. You are selling your brand to an existing market and fanbase. You are profiting off the memory of that music, and the knowledge of exactly what your fanbase wants to experience.

If you don't want to sell that experience any more, that's fine. Feel free to change your brand and move on. But if you're going to continue profiting off the brand and whine about feeling trapped by it? Sorry, I have very little sympathy. The problem isn't that you're shoehorned. You can always work under a pseudonym and play what your heart wants. The problem is you aren't making money doing that. Well, welcome back to the reality the rest of the world lives in. Sorry it isn't what you wanted.

Well, hopefully that's enough cynicism for today. But it's not even noon here, so we'll see.

I think that this is true.

I wrote a post about D&D and Hasbro and selling out in early 2021-

D&D 5E - Sell Out: Hasbro and the Soul of D&D

Well I know you can't work in indie games all your life But don't sign that paper tonight The lawyer said "But it's too late" The recent announcement that D&D had been promoted within Hasbro has been met with various degrees of happiness and/or skepticism; admittedly, "D&D" itself has not been...

www.enworld.org

And while I talked about how the concept of "selling out" pretty much died after the 90s, there were still a lot of people who just couldn't wrap their heads around the concept. In fact, they made the point (which was fair) that being able to complain about "selling out" was a luxury of people of a different era.

Or maybe it's just evidence of the way that we have internalized the world that we live in.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Then I think you'll be glad to hear that "Orville" season 4 is supposed to start shooting this month.

HOLY BALLS REALLY?

I thought for sure that had never happen. If they somehow improved as much from S3 to S4 as they did with every previous season, they'd be the best Star Trek show, which might just drive me insane, because it's already nigh-incomprehensible that what very clearly started as a Seth MacFarlane vanity project (very much fart-sniffing as @Snarf Zagyg so correctly put it) and had some really eyebrow-raising idiocy in S1 (but also hints of future greatness) is really "up there" with the best of TNG.

Even if they just maintain the quality of S3 that would be a hell of an achievement.

And there's so much about that show that makes me grind my teeth. The bad jokes/crude humour (a lot less of it in S3 than S2 which also had less than S1). The lack of visual style/panache. Seth MacFarlane casting himself as the main character (GRRRRR). But somehow... somehow...