And yet TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT all began their runs with entirely new casts (with the exception of O’Brien) that had almost no direct ties to their predecessors.

Sam dies in TOS, episode ‘Operation - Annihilate’ and Dr. M’Benga appears in two episodes of TOS, so both of them have plot armor.

How so? Its still officially the same timeline (despite some fans’ refusal to acknowledge this).

I think that the idea that there’s an audience for these shows that isn’t versed in Trek history is well-taken, but I also think that the shows can’t have it both ways. The Abrams/Kelvinverse movies made the specific decision to set their stories in a separate timeline, which gave them the freedom to tell stories…

I agree. SNW is great, but with the limited number of episodes + commitment to episodic format, there aren’t going to be any radical paradigm shifts.

The Star Trek “formula” is what made TNG a syndication mainstay. Many shows followed that formula like Stargate, X-files, Farscape, etc.

I am so damn sick and tired of modern Trek killing original characters.

“Pike and Batel did little to no leading of the crew”

But the bigger issue is that from common sense (and the trailers) we knew Number One was going to get out of jail - and the two episodes spent on how she did so just weren’t worthwhile on their own. The same went for the La’an-LT Kirk and Spock-Chapel storylines, which the show essentially devoted three episodes as…

Poor Ortegas is never going to go on another away mission after this.

I think it’s unfair to do a cliffhanger like that in the streaming era, the reason things like Best of Both Worlds worked is because you knew that in 3 months you’d get a resolution. We don’t know when SNW is coming back, especially now that the Writers Strike is happening. Was the cliffhanger effective? Sure, but…

I, too, have issues with the treatment of the Gorn when introducing a new species might have been a better call. 

Hey, they can always threaten one of this new Scotty’s fingers.  Doohan lost one in WW2 to friendly fire.

Thank for the opportunity to remark on that word, which I will always insist exists for one reason: so a Star Wars movie didn’t have to include the words “kill all the children”.

I’m baffled why they cast Carol Kane and gave her zero chance to rise above the one note, kooky performance. She takes me right out of the story every time.

Of course knowing the main characters will survive is par for the course. There are some genres that are exceptions, but Star Trek generally is not one of them.  Speaking of Gorns, did we watch to see whether Kirk would survive or that extremely sketchy blunderbuss would work? Of course not. That isn’t the point.

One more thing... the word”YOUNGLINGS” is irksome. Couldn’t they have said like “I’m reading 3 juvenile Gorn on the whathaveyou.” Or hatchlings or something. Younglings makes me think Anakin is going to show up and behead the lot of them.

I feel like a pure, unadulterated “I absolutely love Strange New Worlds” comment has a place here, at the end of the show’s second season. This is the first time I’ve truly felt like a kid watching Star Trek since the end of Voyager. I am so happy to have it back in a form like this.

Holy shit, they actually got a real Scotsman to play Scotty this time? Not that anyone west of Ireland would know but it’s a nice thing to find an actual proper Scotsman.

I enjoyed the episode, but I couldn’t help but keep thinking about how almost none of the characters in peril could die due to existing continuity with TOS. Obviously Chapel was fine, plus on the away mission we knew Pike, M’Benga, and Sam Kirk would live (leaving only Ortegas and La’an, though given their recent…