Discovery and Picard moved the bar so far down that I found myself not hating this.

After the HBO Perry Mason finale on Sunday, I subscribed to CBS All Access in order to investigate the original series. Today I saw one episode of Picard, and about half an episode of Discovery. I guess they could develop into something, especially Picard, but right now, I think I'd rather watch Perry Mason.

I WILL watch Lower Decks, but it probably won't last. Jokes about Star Trek lore are fun and all, but so far the episodes are more sitcom than sci-fi. Futurama and Rick and Morty are crazy and cartoonish, but at bottiom the stories are SciFi stories, and that makes them memorable. Episode 2 of Lower Decks, about the white male protagonist being shown up by his colleague, a woman of color, and being sad about it, has some sci-fi details, but the main story seemed like a retooled premise from The Brady Bunch, or Gomer Pyle USMC.

Anyway, deal with it, Trekkers. Star Trek is a classic, and classics get remade, and most remakes are bad, and the ones that are good, are good in a DIFFERENT WAY. When someone made my favorite children's book (THE CAT IN HAT!!) into a piece of shit movie, I mean, a REAL PIECE OF SHIT, it didn't ruin my childhood. If there is a valhalla for creative types, and the spirit of Gene Roddenberry is unhappy with CBS, he should ask the spirit of Victor Hugo how he liked the Disney cartoon of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

So the writing to this is as lazy as I thought it would be.

This is Kurtzman cancer.

Everything that man touches gets cancer.

Did not watch. Will not watch.

Supernova levels of cringe.

What I really hate is how almost every American animated project for TV and for "adults" looks like this now, the default is "animated sitcom". Sometimes it's in a "fantastic" setting, other times it's some nonsense about animal-people doing mundane, boring activities, or some barely-animated workplace comedy about dead-eyed office drones.

The aggressively bland character design for "animated sitcoms" in many cases it is on purpose, because the people making these shows aren't animators, they aren't cartoonists, they're TV writers and comedians with no interest in the medium, in many cases they see animation as "beneath" them and they can't wait to write for "real" shows one day, or they see a cheaply animated sitcom as a vehicle for their "awesome" fourth-wall breaking jokes, feeble attempts at cringe humor, and lots of noise, or even worse, they see themselves as people who have come to "elevate" the medium with their characters spouting psuedo-philosophical babble about how being sad is sad or how miserable life is or how hard it is to adult.

I've seen more than one person who works in the field talk about how they have heard, from the people behind in-development animated series, a lot of variations on "we don't really want the visuals to be part of the joke, we just want a bland deadpan look so people can laugh at our one-liners without being confused by funny designs or acting" without saying it that clearly, just dancing around the issue.

Meh, have not watched it but the whole thing seems to be

"Haha, the nerd gets hurt!"

Hans Moleman in the Simpsons is funny because he shows up sporadically in small doses. He is not part of a main focus or cast and exists for one-off gags. It would be nice if they evolved whats-his-name like they did with Moral Oral or something but they aren't going that deep. So he will forever be the one dimensional dude that falls into a bin of sehlat shit to a laugh track. Star Trek's Meg.

Lasted 5 minutes.

I was hoping this would have a Red Dwarf feel.

Star Trek (and Superman) were products of an ascendant, optimistic culture and time. Neither could be done now without being ironic, or kitsch, and part of their essential appeal was the lack of irony or kitsch.

There's never going to be a good Star Trek (or Superman) again; just get used to it.

For a first episode, I'll give it a "It's ok."
Needs to get the committee out of the room and let the writers write.