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?
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All posts/comments must be thoughtful and balanced.
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Upcoming Episodes
| Date | Episode | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 11-28 | LD 5x07 | "Fully Dilated" |
| 12-05 | LD 5x08 | "Upper Decks" |
| 12-12 | LD 5x09 | "Fissure Quest" |
| 12-19 | LD 5x10 | "The New Next Generation" |
| 01-24 | Film | "Section 31" |
In Production
Strange New Worlds (TBA)
Section 31 (2025-01-24)
Starfleet Academy (TBA)
In Development
Untitled comedy series
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Obviously people can say whatever they want, but I personally don't see any value in dragging something down when instead I could be lifting the thing I do like up. Like, imagine going in to the job at the end of the week and saying, "Hell yeah, I love Fridays!" and some sad sack co-worker is all, "Yeah, but don't you just hate Mondays?" Buddy, why? What would be the point in being so negative, when instead you could be positive?
Or, let's give another example: I personally think "Picard" was a bad television series, which started out kind of a mess, and got worse with every season. I know other people really enjoyed season three, but I think it is the single worse season of Trek, and it's not even a contest. Now, imagine if every time someone made a post praising, some other series or new episode, I jumped in with, "Yeah, at least this one was better than season three of PIC." What am I actually contributing to the conversation?
Furthermore, I don't consider, "This doesn't feel like [X]," to actually be criticism. Critique is detailed analysis. "I don't like this because it's not what I want it to be," is just whining. Critique is an important aspect of art, but too many people confuse their hot takes as valid criticism. You brought up Shives, and while he and I disagree on a lot of things -- and agree on others -- regarding Trek, I would never say that he is not detailed in his videos. Biased, sure, but we all are. I can't speak to the specific example you gave, but I know that at least in his scripted videos he generally isn't dropping hot takes like that. Sometimes they make their way into his more off the cuff unscripted videos, but I would be staggered if he's ever released something that was solely focused on saying one show is good because it isn't as bad as another show he dislikes.
I can understand that. It's no fun to rain on someone else's parade. But I don't think there is no value, for example, in you expressing why you dislike Picard Season 3. You'd be dragging it down, but I don't think that's so wrong to do. It's okay to dislike things, and it's okay to say you dislike things. I think you agree with that.
The co-worker sounds like no fun to be around. But what if the conversation was this:
“Hell yeah, I love Fridays!”
“I'm with you on that, this week's been rough.”
The co-worker isn't trying to bring you down by reminding you of next Monday, they are trying to relate to you over your shared experience of the last week. You may dislike it, but I don't think it's the same as them going "but don't you just hate Mondays?", and I think that's more like what is happening when people talk about their dislike of some show.
Not much at all. But if you did it once, it wouldn't be fair for me to treat it the same as you doing it every time you reply to someone. I'm not suggesting you bring up your dislike of Picard in every conversation – I agree that would be annoying – but, if you have a point to make, I think it would be fine for you to on occasion bring up Picard's flaws to highlight the strengths of another show. I think it can even make your point stronger; instead of contextless praise, you can point to something specific to show how one thing is an improvement over another.
People do this with Voyager and Battlestar Galactica, where they praise BSG for commiting to the premise in a way Voyager didn't. I haven't seen Voyager and I haven't finished BSG, so I can't comment on whether I agree with that, but if someone agrees with that criticism and prefers BSG to VOY for that reason, I think they should feel free to criticize Voyager, to praise BSG, or to do both at the same time. Perhaps the contrast can be illuminating.
Sure, I agree with that. But if the criticism is bad, it's bad regardless of whether or not something else is being praised at the same time. It seems that you think it's worse to praise and to whine than to just whine.