Star Trek Social Club
r/startrek: The Next Generation
Star Trek news and discussion. No slash fic...
Maybe a little slash fic.
New to Star Trek and wondering where to start?
Rules
1 Be constructive
All posts/comments must be thoughtful and balanced.
2 Be welcoming
It is important that everyone from newbies to OG Trekkers feel welcome, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, religion or race.
3 Be truthful
All posts/comments must be factually accurate and verifiable. We are not a place for gossip, rumors, or manipulative or misleading content.
4 Be nice
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5 Spoilers
Utilize the spoiler system for any and all spoilers relating to the most recently-aired episode. There is no formal spoiler protection for episodes/films after they have been available for approximately one week.
6 Keep on-topic
All submissions must be directly about the Star Trek franchise (the shows, movies, books, etc.). Off-topic discussions are welcome at c/Quarks.
7 Meta
Questions and concerns about moderator actions should be brought forward via DM.
Upcoming Episodes
| Date | Episode | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 08-28 | SNW 3x08 | "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans" |
| 09-04 | SNW 3x09 | "Terrarium" |
| 09-11 | SNW 3x10 | "New Life and New Civilizations" |
| 01-15 | SFA 1x01 | TBA |
| 01-15 | SFA 1x02 | TBA |
In Production
Strange New Worlds (TBA)
Starfleet Academy (2026-01-15)
In Development
Untitled comedy series
Wondering where to stream a series? Check here.
view the rest of the comments
I do like Strange New Worlds and feel that it captures the style and tone of classic 90s Star Trek, that most fans love, best. However, I think the number of whimsical episodes relative to the overall length of the season compared to the length of seasons from the 90s tips the balance too far. I haven't crunched any numbers for this comparisons, it's just vibes but even if the ratio was the same, in a shorter season I feel you need more serious episodes to maintain plot tension and character empathy.
To be fair, SNW only gets a 10 episode season, so based on ratio, 1 silly episode of SNW is equal to ~2.5 episodes of TNG; it doesn't take a lot of silly episodes to make it seem like a huge amount of silly in SNW.
I know we probably can't go back to 25 episode seasons because those were always very taxing to work on, but I think 15 episodes is a good compromise. I think SNW would have really benefited from a season of about that length; even 12 episodes would be nice.
Heck, as convoluted as Discovery could get, from what I watched of the show (up to a few episodes into S4), it somewhat benefited from a longer season in the sense we had plenty of time for multi-episode plots, which are harder to develop in a 10 episode season balancing episodic and linear storytelling. However, I don't think they used that time the most effectively, as season 3 often felt like death by subplots - the episode would take on so many subplots that, although each of them individually may have been good ideas, none of them ended up being particularly well-executed. It's especially weird because they didn't really need to do that; there was more than enough episodes to, say, have one subplot as an A plot and another as a B plot, then continue the B plot next episode as an A plot and have another B plot.
I'd take any number of additional SNW episodes. It's the best of the new series alongside lower decks.