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I'm pretty impressed that the second half of PRODIGY's first season sets up a situation where Admiral Janeway is going to be hunting down the kids as terrorists, only to quickly ascertain that the kids are all survivors of slavery and child labour who have blundered into a bad situation and are in desperate need of help.
I don't remember Janeway being written this well on VOYAGER, but she should have been.
The moment in PRODIGY where the Janeway hologram is horrified to discover her programming has been co-opted by an outside intelligence and that her entire run of stewarding the kids to become Starfleet cadets has been to execute an attack on Starfleet that she's not even aware of -- it just broke my heart on every level. It destroyed me.
regarding Prodigy & Netflix:
That's disappointing but not necessarily surprising. As ireactions has said, this show wasn't promoted very well, and even strong Trek fans might never give it a chance.
is Star Trek Next Generation: Generations happening? Matalas' desired follow-up to Picard? I thought I heard something about that supposedly at ComicCon. Or maybe I read it wrong.
I don't think there's been any news on that. ireactions might know more than me.
I'm not aware of any new developments on the hypothetical STAR TREK: LEGACY series. My guess is that each season of PICARD was progressively more expensive and LEGACY is a difficult financial proposition. It wouldn't be called PICARD, and as a new show, all the actors and creators would be negotiating new contracts, seeking to more than what they were on PICARD while the studio would use the LEGACY title to declare that it's a new show and starts at a lower rate. This push and pull, in addition to Paramount's financial troubles, has them investing in new shows and new creators that won't negotiate for more just yet.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin … 235969843/
Paramount is completely imploding. They just closed down their television studio division, in LA. The CEO had them write off nearly $6 billion loss, due to the loss in valuation for its TV apparatus, as part of the Skydance merger. Thus, it's tough to say what plans the Alex Kurtzman-led Paramount+ Trek will have beyond what's already announced for 2025.
Seeing paramount's struggles has been ashame because they have some decent IP. But not all studios can.have their own streaming services. And all the disparate apps makes for a crappy user experience. A lot of time spent is going to YouTube and tiktok.
There was a time when I was so angry at Jerry O'Connell for so many failures and betrayals.
But I think, if I'm being more honest with myself: I was angry with him because his existence and his public persona were a constant reminder of an unchangeable truth. A fact that I didn't like to acknowledge or admit. A reality that William Shatner touches on in his song, "Real":
I have saved the world in the movies
So naturally there's folks who think
I must know what to do.But just because you've seen me on your TV
Doesn't mean I'm any more enlightened than you.I'd love to help the world
and all its problems.
But I'm an entertainer,
and that's all.So the next time
there's an asteroid
or a natural disaster
I'm flattered
that you thought of me
But I'm not the one to call.And while there's a part of me in that guy you've seen
Up there on that screen,
I eat and sleep and breathe and bleed and feel.I wish I knew the things you think I do
I would change this world for sure.Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm real.
I'm looking forward to the finale of Lower Decks, a show I both love and struggle with.
Silliness
On one hand, I think an animated comedy in Star Trek doesn't work. I think the show means too much to too many people to make the show a joke. It's okay when the Orville does it, but it's different when the show is making fun of itself. We can do a parody of Sliders on Funny or Die to let Jerry O'Connell be silly, but Quinn shouldn't be silly.
Then ireactions said something that resonated with me - Trek has always been silly. Trek always took itself seriously, but the show is silly. It's funny. It's ridiculous. The stuff that happens to people on Lower Decks has already happened to people in the "serious" shows and that stuff happened in canon. Lower Decks can make fun of Tuvix but that stuff happened. Lower Decks can joke about a virus that causes someone to evolve and devolve at the same time, but that stuff happened. The show is making fun, but it's all stuff that works in canon.
And the characters are sillier than normal Trek characters, but for the most part, the show doesn't make non-silly Trek characters much sillier. The closest was Riker, but Riker is a bit of a silly character on TNG and the movies. He's a bit of a jokester, and maybe as captain of the Titan (without Picard there to ruin all the fun), he was a bit sillier.
And of course some people in Trek would be silly. Maybe someone would make a big statue for Miles O'Brien. I'm sure there would be collectables for Voyager. All of that makes sense once you understand that we're all supposed to be in on the joke.
Self Awareness
After you get passed the silliness, there's the fact that these characters know way too much. For the jokes to work, they have to make references to past Trek shows. They have to know about specific things that happened on the other shows.
But "Those Old Scientists" (the crossover with Strange New Worlds) sorta made that work. These are huge nerds who love Starfleet - maybe they would know stuff. I would assume that everything that happens on these starships (outside of classified things) is public record. Every one of these characters does a personal log and an official log - that has to go somewhere, and people must be able to access some of them. Maybe they all go to a database that people are allowed to read or listen to. And I'm sure there are people that track that stuff and "report" on them. Journalists or just super-fans probably track all the missions that happen on all the ships.
And you gotta think that super weird stuff gets around. "Did you hear what happened to Barclay?" "You gotta hear what happened on Deep Space Nine." "You'll never guess what Worf did" - these are people, and I gotta think Starfleet is a bit of a small world. These guys serve with each other and know each other, and I gotta think gossip happens.
There's also the whole "what is entertainment in the Star Trek universe" - and maybe it's Starfleet stories. Something weird happens and maybe it gets around. Or is turned into a holo-novel or even some sort of animated show.
Final Thoughts
So when you get passed those criticisms, Lower Decks is just a consistently funny show that both treats longtime fans of the show and moves the story along. Lower Decks belongs not just as a part of the legacy of the show but as part of the canon. I would love for Boimler or Mariner or Freeman or any of these characters to show back up in live action someday. These are sillier characters than we're used to, but they absolutely belong.
And I think you can make a case for Lower Decks, as short as it was, being the best Trek show from beginning to end. It was consistently great, and you really can't say that about any other Trek show.
LOWER DECKS is good. I'm disappointed that it's ending so soon. It looks like the show has hit a point where it's brought in all the new subscribers it can, and they need to shift to a new show to bring in new subscribers.
The original STAR TREK was a very silly show at the start and at the finish, but with some over-serious grimdark misery in the middle. TNG began the trend of TREK becoming Serious Science Fiction, albeit with some straight-laced humour. But it's not until Season 4 of ENTEPRRISE and the 2009 STAR TREK rebootquel that goofy humour came back into the series. DISCOVERY was grimdark too, but LOWER DECKS and STRANGE NEW WORLDS finally brought comedy back into full force.
Yeah I guess there's a difference between silly and comedy. Lower Decks is funny and silly. I don't think the other shows have tried for silly until something like the musical episode of Strange New Worlds. As you pointed out, there are tons of silly moments (like Janeway turning into a salamander), but I don't know how much of that was intentional 
The 2009 movie where Scotty nearly drowns in the watercooling pipes after a transporter mishap struck me as the moment when STAR TREK seemed to re-embrace comedy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSGV2kFhZvU&t=348s
The moment where STRANGE NEW WORLDS seemed to re-embrace comedy on TV for me was the Enterprise Bingo segment in Season 1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH4GjcAIvV8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p27sDWHBksg
Lower Decks was tremendous. Sadly this is what you get with streaming services, they cancel everything early. The model is completely awful. Would love to see it revived somewhere else. Paramount is also in a financial crunch, and that has affected everything. SNW is the lone continuing series now, with a move towards a full on Trek sitcom, including being written by Tawny Newsome from LD.
They're still doing Starfleet Academy, right? Lower Decks characters could hypothetically end up on that, which I would love.
Lower Decks got 5 years which is longer than most. Although it has way less episodes than TOS because of shorter seasons. And less episodes than Enterprise or Discovery. But more than Picard or Prodigy.
Oh right, Academy mehhhhh. It's also well beyond even Discovery's time period.
I see we continue our habit of judging and dismissing a series sight unseen.
I see we continue our habit of judging and dismissing a series sight unseen.
I have never wanted to see any attempt at "Starfleet Academy." It's a subject which Paramount have looked into many times since the late 80's. Never appealed to me. You're not on a starship, which has been the premise of Star Trek. You're not leading some grand mission. Yes, DS9 was not "on a ship" most of the time, but that was a serialized series where they did often go on missions and fought battles, etc. Academy screams teen misadventures. MEHHHHHHHHHHH. And they have a great cast with Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti playing some kind of roles, who are both legends. It will go (on my docket) where Prodigy has gone, unwatched.
I mean, I'd mostly like to see STAR TREK: LEGACY, but from a marketing standpoint, it makes sense for a franchise as old as STAR TREK to court a younger audience even as it reaches out to older fans with STRANGE NEW WORLDS and such.
I too would love a continuation of the 90's Trek characters. Not sure if that will ever happen, again due to the flailing Paramount + environment.
I finally got around to watching the Section 31 trailer. It's effectively some kind of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, on steroids. Many ppl are not happy. Not sure what they were expecting?
Well, Section 31 is a rogue, black ops division that operates outside Federation law and Starfleet to eliminate anything they deem a threat to the Federation, doing so violently, savagely, ruthlessly, covertly and quietly, answering to no one and nothing. Effectively MISSION IMPOSSIBLE but without the morality. So fans were probably expecting a dark, morally questionable espionage drama, and this SECTION 31 film appears to be... I have no idea what it is, but it's not selling itself as a spy drama.
I guess I'm just surprised they opted for a bombastic action film replete with a high degree of CGI, given it's only a streaming release. The writer and director are sci-fi pro's who have worked on Discovery for years, so it's in good hands.
I guess that's what's weird to me. What is the point of doing a SECTION 31 movie if it isn't about the shadowy, espionage-noir intrigue of Section 31? Why do it at all?
And the DISCOVERY team completely mishandled Section 31, writing them as a totally generic spy organization within Starfleet that just happened to be called Section 31. Section 31 as established in DEEP SPACE NINE is an off the books, black-ops division that officially does not exist and is not acknowledged by Starfleet or Federation authorities. They answer to no one and nothing and do all the dirty work that the Federation doesn't admit to and flat out pretends doesn't happen. But DISCOVERY treated Section 31 like the NSA or CIA when Section 31 is more like the KGB but with no official sanction or existence.
Discovery gave Section 31 special combadges to identify themselves. I agree they completely ruined what they're supposed to be. I have very little interest in the Section 31 movie, but I'll give it a shot.
The "Kurtzman" era has not been afraid to retcon whatever it likes. The abomination they called Klingons was worst of all.
Kurtzman didn't become hands on with DISCOVERY until the middle of Season 2 when Aaron Harberts and Gretchen Berg were fired for allegedly abusive behaviour. Kurtzman oversaw the Klingon makeup going back to something more familiar. And for the most part, my recollection is that Section 31 in DISCOVERY was more Akiva Goldsman than Kurtzman. Goldsman has a tendency of writing generic concepts and applying mythic names to them.
Goldsman wrote a generic spy agency and called it Section 31 to make it seem vital rather than make it a less generic spy agency. Goldsman created a generic lizard monster race for STRANGE NEW WORLDS and called them Gorn to make them seem important rather than make them more distinctive characters.
Goldsman is a decent writer at crafting plots and character arcs, but when it comes to enemies and concepts, Goldsman has a tendency to use an interesting name to liven up an uninteresting idea.
One thing I've come to realize in television, is that you can't really point to certain things and say, oh, that one is responsible for this or that. It's a collaborative process, and unless you're in the writers' rooms, we'll never know. Occasionally those secrets come out in commentary tracks, which rarely get done anymore, especially on a streaming show. The war amongst Star Wars fans about WHO makes decisions over there is proof of that.
But Kurtzman has had top EP billing the entire run. He's the Rick Berman of this era, and Rick was significantly involved in every major decision to be made by Paramount Television on Trek during his reign. They gave the production design, effects and makeup people a "clean slate" when the series began. I'm not faulting them for doing so, given that was the first Trek TV series in well over a decade, and they wished to differentiate from those (initially) and the Abrams films.
Sorry, my recall was wrong. I thought Akiva Goldsman was working on DISCOVERY in Season 2 when Section 31 showed up, but Goldsman stopped working on DISCOVERY day to day after Season 1, but returned to the franchise for STRANGE NEW WORLDS. He did use the Gorn name for a generic monster on STRANGE NEW WORLDS, but he isn't responsible for the generic Section 31 on DISCOVERY.
What's dumb is that Section 31 really only had one thing we knew about it - it didn't exist. And basically everything they did with it is wrong.
Now would Starfleet need an on-the-books counterintelligence department? Almost certainly. Would stories there be interesting? I think so. And instead of co-opting Section 31, they could've done something new and creative. And the annoying thing is that Section 31 is a pretty deep cut as far as Trek stuff goes - a true fan had to have given them the concept and just allowed it to be bastardized.
What's weird is that I don't really have a headcanon for how Section 31 goes from open in the Discovery time to a complete secret in DS9. It's like Han Solo never believing in the Jedi when he was a teenager when they all were killed off. Maybe there is a good reason that can be created, but I can't think of it.
Massive galactic mindwipe... ?
It's possible, but Discovery-era Section 31 is so out in the open. It would have to be a massive galactic mindwipe along with erasing them from all databases. It would need to be some combination of Dr Strange's spell in No Way Home and the Clean Slate program from the Dark Knight Rises. And then all the Section 31 ships and combadges and stuff would need to be destroyed or repurposed or whatever.
I guess it's not too farfetched for Star Trek. Q could do that pretty easily. Let's say the official head canon is that the head of Section 31 in the Discovery era became a Q somehow and made it a secret to make the organization more effective.
Continuing with this supposition... what if Section 31 found the power to kill or control a Q, and the only way that Q could deal with it was to erase Section 31 from reality? Except that if Section 31 didn't exist, someone would simply create it...
I guess a simpler explanation might be that the DISCOVERY version of Section 31 is totally destroyed, except the absence of Section 31 simply causes new clandestine agents to take on black ops work on behalf of the Federation as per Article 31 of the Federation Charter and use the Section 31 name for a new organization that has no official ties to Starfleet and operates independently, becoming the Section 31 we see in DEEP SPACE NINE. Again, if Section 31 ceased to exist, someone else would simply create it.
I guess a simpler explanation might be that the DISCOVERY version of Section 31 is totally destroyed, except the absence of Section 31 simply causes new clandestine agents to take on black ops work on behalf of the Federation as per Article 31 of the Federation Charter and use the Section 31 name for a new organization that has no official ties to Starfleet and operates independently, becoming the Section 31 we see in DEEP SPACE NINE. Again, if Section 31 ceased to exist, someone else would simply create it.
I guess the problem with this is that there'd be a record of Section 31 that Bashir would've been aware of. It would be like if Trump disbanded the FBI and then 100 years later a rogue agency called itself the FBI. Someone from the future wouldn't know that the FBI still existed, but they would know that the FBI once existed.
I think your "Section 31 captured a Q" is a great idea.
Or perhaps, a Trelane! Although few could replace the wonderful William Campbell.
Section 31 in DISCOVERY seems integrated into Starfleet, but it's still a top secret division. The black comm badges are presumably not used in actual covert missions. The end of Season 2 orders that all Section 31 involvement be redacted from all official records. I would say that, despite Section 31 being integrated into the chain of command, it's less like the FBI (a public facing agency) and more like the Impossible Missions Force in the M:I movies. I freely admit that this is a stretch and it would have been best if the spy agency in DISCOVERY had been called "Starfleet Intelligence" or even "Section", a distant affiliate of Section 31.
I'm not sure what happened with the SECTION 31 movie, but it went from a potentially interesting TV series to a single streaming film.
The resulting film is so narratively bland and devoid of life or purpose that I don't understand why they made it. I didn't find it offensive, but there wasn't a single memorable line of dialogue, not one standout character, not one stirring setpiece. Alex Kurtzman said the SECTION 31 TV show would explain why Section 31 on DISCOVERY was so public and overt back when it was still intended a TV show.
The movie, presumably the first 1 - 2 scripts reworked into a single film, does not offer any explanation. The depiction of Section 31 is flamboyant rogues who are completely overt, attention seeking and devoid of the covert, low-key, subdued, secretive Section 31 of DEEP SPACE NINE. The continuity gap with Section 31 in DISCOVERY not matching DS9 is not filled, but widened even more.
I didn't hate it, but it wasn't good or meaningful and it would have better to just write this project off and move on.
The resulting film is so narratively bland and devoid of life or purpose that I don't understand why they made it.
My guess is trying to capitalize on the fact that they had an Academy Award winning actress. I assume if "Everything everywhere all at once" didn't exist, this movie wouldn't either.
I'm like 20 minutes in, and I don't think anything has happened? I'm not sure I remember where Georgiou ended up on Discovery. I know she was dying because she switched times and universes, and the Guardian helped her. But I guess they just sent her back to the original Discovery time period? Wouldn't it have been more interesting to put her back in the Mirror Universe and have a movie set there?
Rachel Garrett's presence and youth actually situates this shortly after THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY.
I watched the whole movie and nothing much really happened. I am not sure why Georgiou is even the star of a SECTION 31 movie. One would think that the lead of a Section 31 film should be someone idealistic and innocent (like Dr. Bashir) being manipulated by a twisted, morally compromised mentor like Georgiou.
There is one arc I could see for Georgiou in a Section 31 series format: Georgiou is pressganged into running spy missions for the Federation and thinks this universe is full of spineless weaklings. But then she comes to admire and respect the Federation and begins to use her tactics to do all their dirty work that they can't bear to do to protect them from threats they otherwise can't fight. Her conversion to Federation ideals causes her to double down on her own in service of them. I could imagine that being the arc of the 10 episode series that got cut down to one streaming movie.
Ultimately, I find the whole thing almost... offensive. Section 31 already has a brand identity in STAR TREK: amoral black-ops agents without official sanction acting on behalf of the Federation without any morals or scruples regarding their methods. Section 31 is not a spy agency within Starfleet like James Bond's outfit or a gang of misfits and rogues like the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Section 31 is a loose group of operatives who recruit and co-opt resources and individuals as needed for each mission and are prepared to frame and assassinate and torture in order to protect the Federation. And anyone who doesn't want to tell stories about this agency should just use a different name and title.
Anyway. I'm going to assume that some gimcrackery with the Universal Translator is why no one speaks of Section 31 by Dr. Bashir's time.
I watched it. It wasn't really bad. It was just...nothing. I don't think I gained anything by watching it, and I don't understand what the point was even if this went to series. If we wanted a "spies but Star Trek", we could do Starfleet Intelligence. Especially if these guys are supposed to be mostly good guys. If there's Starfleet oversight into Section 31 to make sure they don't do anything Starfleet wouldn't approve of, then there's literally no point in Section 31.
What the Georgiou movie should've been
This movie shouldn't have taken place in the Prime universe. Georgiou should've been sent back to the mirror universe and should've tried to get back to her position of power, only to uncover a plot to take over the Prime Universe. And she should've had a change of heart and decided to thwart the plan. To stick with canon, I imagine she couldn't have regained her power, but maybe she ends as some kind of 3rd party mercenary doing some good. I don't know. But "MIRROR UNIVERSE STARRING OSCAR WINNER MICHELLE YEOH" would've sold as well as Section 31:the Movie. Maybe better.
What is Section 31?
I think Section 31 is mostly entertaining, but it fails in a couple ways. It does nothing to help us understand Section 31, either in this era or trying to mash it into something that fits in the DS9 era. I'm pretty good at headcanon, and I still can't think of a great way to fix this. And I truly hate new Trek's way of "here's a deliberate screw up of canon and we'll write a way around it later"
I would've rather had new Trek do that thing where they invent a dark ops Starfleet division, and then at the end of it, Section 31 shows up and shuts it down because *they're* the real dark ops Starfleet division. Make it one of those things where it looks like they don't know their canon - have it called "Darkfleet" or something stupid like that - and then at the end, two guys dressed like Sloan show up and shut it all down. Or recruit whoever into the real Section 31. Basically retcon it like they did the Mandarin in the MCU.
But this watered down Section 31 that's out in the open just doesn't jive with what we've already seen. And this movie doesn't help that in any way.
I just didn't think this movie needed to be made the way that it was, and I think they need to stop with Section 31 unless they're going to do a Q-level mindwipe of the entire galaxy. I love ireactions' idea of "Section 31 captured a Q somehow" - that could be a really cool story. And if it ends with the Q forcing Section 31 to go deep deep underground, then...sure. But outside of that, leave the whole thing alone. You've done enough.
I've always thought that Mirror Georgiou and Section 31 seemed like two separate TREK properties that didn't necessarily have anything to do with each other. Yes, Mirror Georgiou fits right into the DS9 version of Section 31, but that's clearly not the Section 31 of DISCOVERY, and the lack of contrast between Georgiou's morality and the morality of black-ops work means there's no real conflict. Back when SECTION 31 was expected to be at least a two season series with 20 episodes planned, I thought Georgiou would have been a regular but not necessarily the lead, much like how Captain Holt is vital to BROOKLYN NINE NINE but not the star of the show.
Apparently, COVID-19 and Michelle Yeoh's post-pandemic schedule made that 20 episode series unworkable. The resulting SECTION 31 movie seems to be the result pulling various elements from the scripts and story outlines for those 20 episodes, using whatever preproduction work had been done to produce something so as not to completely write off whatever assets had been bought and paid for before the TV series was shut down, and then assembling and filming whatever could be made with the scraps and scrapings of the planned SECTION 31 series.
The fact that the movie is blandly professional but utterly devoid of anything memorable or distinctive is mildly impressive, but there's still nothing interesting about the final product. And it makes no sense. Despite Kurtzman's claim that SECTION 31 would explain the discrepancy between DISCOVERY and DS9's contradictory versions of Section 31, the movie has Starfleet lieutenant Rachel Garrett assigned to prevent the S31 agents from doing anything amoral, and Section 31 remains within Starfleet by the end of the film.
In terms of continuity... I agree with Slider_Quinn21. The opportunity to use a SECTION 31 series or film to transition from the DISCOVERY version of Section 31 (Starfleet's spy branch) to the DS9 version of Section 31 (a rogue operation unsanctioned by Starfleet) has passed. It would be best to just leave it alone for awhile.
I definitely like the idea of the Section 31 we saw in this movie being shuttered and dismantled with the general view being that Section 31 is no more, only to reveal that the Section 31 we've seen in DISCOVERY and SECTION 31 is an offshoot of the real Section 31, brought into existence specifically to be shut down, disassembled and brought to an end so that the actual Section 31 can continue their work without oversight from the Federation.
I'm not so sure any more about the idea of Q retconning Section 31, although I can see why Slider_Quinn21 likes it. I'd probably go with the Univeral Translator being reprogrammed across the Federation to replace "Section 31" with "Starfleet Intelligence" and the name Section 31 going out of use by the time we get to TNG.
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