StillPaisleyCat
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website
- Comment on Interview: ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Director Talks Challenges Of Shooting Kirk’s First Time In The Big Chair 8 hours ago:
I can agree that they’re doing a brilliant job of what they’re doing.
For those of us who’ve been wondering about Pike since The Cage was first put back together and released in the 1980s, it’s been a bit disappointing.
Too much Spock, Uhura, M’Benga and Chapel, not to mention Kirk, too soon rather than a focus on Pike, Number One and the ensemble that preceded Kirk.
- Comment on Star Trek: Lower Decks Wins Two Hugo Awards, Celebrating Series Finale and 'Warp Your Own Way' Graphic Novel 18 hours ago:
I didn’t expect the graphic novel to be able to so accurately capture the voice, tone and humour of the show.
It’s exceptionally good right down to the fine print footnotes on the bottom of several pages.
- Comment on Interview: ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Director Talks Challenges Of Shooting Kirk’s First Time In The Big Chair 18 hours ago:
I had wanted a Pike and Number One focused show but the showrunners and Paramount seem determined to make this show about laying the backstory for TOS.
While I still love the show, I agree that it’s still frustrating that the opportunity to focus more on the unexplored characters.
- Comment on Simon Pegg Developed Star Trek Spinoff Movie About Jaylah; Wanted Archer’s Dog In ‘Beyond’ 19 hours ago:
President of the Federation by all accounts, or past President.
Bakula is pitching a series Star Trek United. It seems everyone’s personal project to revive a character or run a show or movie is coming out of the woodwork.
- Comment on Interview: ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Director Talks Challenges Of Shooting Kirk’s First Time In The Big Chair 19 hours ago:
I’ve got a rewatch upcoming with my spouse so I’ll take another look at if from that angle.
Perhaps that can help sort out whether the episode might have been handled better by another director.
Interestingly, I find it’s the Trek actors turned directors that manage mixed and shifting tones well. Frakes in directing First Contact, Dawson in directing The Andorian Incident, Robert Duncan McNeill directing Body and Soul are examples.
- Comment on Interview: ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Director Talks Challenges Of Shooting Kirk’s First Time In The Big Chair 1 day ago:
Yes, I’m not saying she’s not a capable director, but she doesn’t seem to have been the right choice for this episode.
Looking across the distribution of directors used for SNW, as well as Discovery and Picard, there definitely seems to be particular ones that are consistently asked back for specific tones.
Maja Vrvilo directed the season 2 finale Hegemony Pt I and the season 3 one New Life and New Civilizations. In season 1, she directed Children of the Comet.
Jordan Canning directed Charades last season. This season she was given Wedding Bell Blues and Four and a Half Vulcans.
- Comment on Interview: ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Director Talks Challenges Of Shooting Kirk’s First Time In The Big Chair 1 day ago:
I wasn’t positively impressed by the direction from Valerie Weiss in this episode.
Others have remarked about the tone being all over the map in this episode.
That’s a fair assessment in my view but it’s not a fault in the writing per se. Comic levity in the midst of intense drama goes back to Shakespeare and even Greek theatre, and certainly isn’t uncommon in episodic Trek.
But somehow it felt like the great pieces of the episode just didn’t quite come together. It doesn’t feel like the fault was in the editing or writing.
Paul Wesley’s portrayal of Kirk was excellent but at this point, I’m going to give the actor the credit over the director.
This is just the second episode directed by Weiss. The previous one was Ad Aspra Per Aspera which was a very different challenge for a director. What they needed was a director like Frakes who can do both the comic and the serious.
- Comment on About Star Trek Starfleet Academy blacklash 3 days ago:
Discovery became increasingly hopeful and positive as it went on.
Worth watching through season two at least if you haven’t already done so.
I liked seasons three and five a lot.
Season four has a really great classic Trek premise but the constraints of the COVID protocols led to some dialogue that’s over drawn out (Picard season two suffers the same).
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 3x06 "The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail" 3 days ago:
It’s fairly clear, from the tales of the Destroyer/scavengers that Uhura and the others recount, that these humans do not care who they are attacking or killing to gain resources and technology.
They are known to attack and raid colonies and destroy entire planets. While some were populated by alien species, others were human colonies.
They surely knew from previous seizures of ships that some were human crewed, by the bodies if not through language.
They had become a voracious pirate culture.
It’s not obvious that communication could have turned them away from destroying the populated planet that they were on course for.
The outcome of Kirk’s decision is that the Federation didn’t get the opportunity to try to communicate with them before destroying them as a last resort.
- Comment on David Ellison Shows Off His New Throne at Paramount, With ‘Top Gun 3,’ ‘Star Trek’ and ‘World War Z’ Called Priorities 5 days ago:
At least Ellison senior is giving is kids ‘loose change’ to cut their teeth on managing businesses before they need to take over.
As bizarre as that sounds, it’s better for the employees and investors than the alternatives.
Sumner Redstone fought to keep control until he was incapacitated, severely damaged the value of his legacy instead of letting his daughter learn to manage it.
- Comment on David Ellison Shows Off His New Throne at Paramount, With ‘Top Gun 3,’ ‘Star Trek’ and ‘World War Z’ Called Priorities 5 days ago:
Ellison seemed to be making an effort to reassure many of their longtime creative partners that they want them to stay with them.
He definitely isn’t looking to cannibalize and raise cash the way the Redstones were doing since the remerger. He’s determined to hang on to BET which I read as a significant signal.
One has to wonder what role Redstone’s desire to sell off pieces played in reintegration and failure to find synergies.
It also seems that Ellison has a personal vision of what he wants to do with legacy media that goes beyond just treating IPs as cash cows. I don’t think we’ve seen everything he intends and it sounds as though he’ll be very hands on in making sure the vision is realized. It will be interesting to watch.
- Comment on About Star Trek Starfleet Academy blacklash 5 days ago:
Many of us used to say the same about TNG, DS9 and Voyager bringing fans to TOS, TAS and the TOS movies.
But others of us just tried to give each show a chance to become favourites on their own merits.
In terms of the GenZs in our household, who had seen all the classic series by the end of middle school, the new shows have superceded their old favourites. One’s really into animated Trek, another loves Discovery. Star Trek Online has also played a role in retaining interest in the franchise.
- Comment on About Star Trek Starfleet Academy blacklash 5 days ago:
I’d rather talk about reactions to a show that’s actually happening — even if they are based only on a trailer and pre promotional interviews — than endless hyping and speculation about projects that aren’t happening.
Now that it’s no longer the officially sanctioned con, STLV’s panels seem to be set up to encourage producers and actors to hype projects that never even got to the development he’ll’ stage let alone any consideration for being greenlit. These include Tarantino’s bat-sh*t movie idea, Captain Worf, Legacy and the recently revealed Unity proposal.
- Comment on About Star Trek Starfleet Academy blacklash 5 days ago:
‘Fans’ fundraised to pay for full page advertisements in major US newspapers as a campaign to persuade NBC not to broadcast TAS even after its season one production was almost complete.
- Comment on Robert Picardo Talks Getting “Dramatic” On ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’; ‘Discovery’ Actors Want In Too 6 days ago:
I’m still frustrated that none of the Canadian cast got good development.
Almost all of them have significant awards within Canada. Most have other shows, films or are producing themselves.
While many of them took these roles for steady work, it was clear that they weren’t intended by the executives be more than regular wallpaper. It’s unfortunate.
I feel the same about Mitchell in SNW.
- Comment on How CBS Studios & Paramount TV Studios Are Divvying Up Streaming Series Slate: From ‘Reacher’ & ‘Cross’ To ‘Murderbot’ & ‘Clueless’ 6 days ago:
However, he has made Skydance profitable unlike another famous billionaire by inheritance who repeatedly went bankrupt.
It seems that his father’s approach is to let his heirs learn to run companies on their own with injections of capital that are staggering for others but just a couple years earnings on the family’s wealth.
- Comment on How CBS Studios & Paramount TV Studios Are Divvying Up Streaming Series Slate: From ‘Reacher’ & ‘Cross’ To ‘Murderbot’ & ‘Clueless’ 6 days ago:
It’s confirmed but after a second read, I think that’s clear.
Interesting that Skydance Studios television, which was a prestigious brand, will sublimate under the Paramount Television Studios name. It does show a certain commitment to the merger on David Ellison’s part.
- Comment on How CBS Studios & Paramount TV Studios Are Divvying Up Streaming Series Slate: From ‘Reacher’ & ‘Cross’ To ‘Murderbot’ & ‘Clueless’ 6 days ago:
Is there information where the Skydance television production will go?
Is that with the Paramount side?
It wouldn’t make sense to have three television/streaming production arms.
- Comment on Fans (and some Picard cast) won't let the Legacy concept die 1 week ago:
My brain isn’t firing on all cylinders today.
Yes it’s Michelle Hurd who played Raffi.
Also, yes I am bitter that Ro Laren was killed off and even more ticked that Picard played it as though there had been a romantic tension between them rather than a mentor-mentee one.
- Comment on Fans (and some Picard cast) won't let the Legacy concept die 1 week ago:
And it sounds as though Paladin in Vision Quest will be another version of the same character but as a Mandalorian analogue.
- Submitted 1 week ago to startrek@startrek.website | 10 comments
- Comment on Tawny Newsome Gives Live Action Star Trek Comedy Update, Talks Injecting Canon Into ‘Starfleet Academy’ 1 week ago:
Tawny as the principal character as well as co-creator and EP is very interesting.
The fact that she’s been able to state publicly that she would be the lead suggests that the proposal was as advanced as it could be until the new ownership and team could make decisions.
Setting it in the late 24th to early 25th century will also provide the kind of ‘legacy’ opportunities that many Berman-era fans and actors are hankering for while satisfying the apparent executive demands that legacy characters be included for marketing purposes.
Frankly, having legacy characters come to a single planet would be a lot less unrealistic than Matalas’ concept of having the Enterprise G travelling around to visit legacy characters and locations. Production costs and staging would be manageable.
If this is intended to run as a true 22-30 minute comedy, I really hope that Paramount’s streamer greenlights an initial double season as Netflix does. It really takes about 8 episodes for a half hour show to take off.
- Comment on What to watch next after ST: Voyager? 1 week ago:
Star Trek Prodigy is the sequel to Voyager.
It’s not just for kids, although intended for a family audience.
- Comment on How ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Used a Murder Mystery to Pay Homage to Shatner, Roddenberry and the Original Series: ‘We Didn’t Have Any Adult Supervision’ 1 week ago:
My partner and I had a blast watching it.
- Comment on Puppets Explained, Sybok Teased, TAS Episode Scrapped, And More ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ SDCC Reveals 2 weeks ago:
I wanted both.
But with a truncated 5th season and the very long lead time required for animation, I can see why it ended up being dropped.
- Comment on Everything Star Trek Revealed at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 2 weeks ago:
Treklit - both comics and books gets short-shrift in promotion.
No idea why, but it’s definitely a longstanding and worsening trend.
- Comment on 'Star Trek: Starfleet Academy' first look welcomes cadets, Paul Giamatti's alien 3 weeks ago:
We’ll have to see whether David Ellison reorients the scheduling strategically. It’s hard to imagine he will not.
5 years ago, as the transition was happening after the remerger, the demographic statistics I saw showed that CBSAA/P+ had the best range of demographics. And it had the best youth/teen/kids audience after Disney+.
Unlike, NBC Universal’s problem with Peacock and Discovery+, which had two very different demographics with little interest the content the other offered, Paramount+ launched with a broad and diverse base.
But the programming and production choices of the past five years have brutally squandered that. It seems that the millennial, middle age Bro, and older male audience has been the target — live sports, Taylor Sheridan everything etc.
It already feels as though P+ has been reprogrammed to make the current US administration happy, pushing a certain kind of American exceptionalism, but that’s not a successful global business strategy.
It’s really only the content coming in from CBS linear and Star Trek that’s kept the balance on the platform.
We keep hearing about content being produced in Paramount’s South American studios or in agreements with partners in Spain and France, but none of that richness in offerings are making it to the North American platform. Netflix remains dominant in offering high quality content from outside Hollywood.
- Comment on 'Star Trek: Starfleet Academy' first look welcomes cadets, Paul Giamatti's alien 3 weeks ago:
I agree. The more we see, the more enthusiastic I am.
The concept of an Academy show was in development hell for so long - basically, since the hiatus after Discovery’s first season.
And we know that it was originally kicked around before TNG went into production.
So, this seems to have been a hard one to make work. The cost to produce a high quality VFX-rich show that appeals to a teen and young adult demographic, requires that the show must also be rich enough elements to draw the wider Trek base.
I’m hopeful that, as with Prodigy, Starfleet Academy may be one of the rare shows that satisfies a mass demographic despite the streaming era.
The risk is that, like Prodigy, Paramount may not promote it broadly enough.
However, with A-listers heading the cast, one can hope that it will get a lot of promotion beyond the genre media.
- Comment on 'Star Trek: Starfleet Academy' first look welcomes cadets, Paul Giamatti's alien 3 weeks ago:
Commodore should be abbreviated to Cmdre (Canadian Navy), CDRE (former US Navy) or CMDE (several including India).
But given all the oddities of NCOs in Trek, this a weird acronym for Commodore seems on-brand.
- Comment on Live ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Performance Experiences Coming To San Diego Comic-Con 3 weeks ago:
That makes sense. Something like this would need a lot of runway and would involve contractual obligations that could not be easily terminated.