https://www.engadget.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-breaks-into-song-130044077.html
The musical episode doesn't disappoint..
The musical episode doesn't disappoint..
I hate musicals mostly. I think the original Annie was the only one I liked (because I was a kid and didn't know better :P). I find musicals are a sign that the writers are running out of ideas and it's the last season but this episode blew my expectations all away. It felt like an episode with singing, and not singing to skate by for an episode.
I hate musicals but I liked it. I laughed a lot at the Klingon bit, not everything in Trek needs to be super serious.
I like Star Trek and I like musicals, but I don't want the two to mix. I audibly groaned when I saw the description of this in Paramount+, and it seems like a thing where the cast wanted to do it regardless of whether it genuinely makes sense in the context of the show. All I thought was, "Yes, this seems like the kind of thing I would expect in Alex Kurtzman's Star Trek."
Maybe they thought they needed a lighter episode to follow "Under the Cloak of War."
I haven't watched it yet, though. I'll follow up after I do.
OK, I watched it. I really enjoyed it as a musical, but as expected, it didn't feel like Star Trek—especially when the Klingons showed up at the end and it basically became a parody. I think I could have bought it more as something like Q influence, but they couldn't do that yet.
Aside from that, La'an's actress has a set of pipes on her, wow. She could be a professional singer. There's plenty of talent all around, though.
Buffy did it first, and that episode had way better lyrics and "character voices" in the writing, but there was no comparison on vocals. Buffy just had better characters in the first place, and more history when it got to its musical episode (it was during the show's sixth season).
I don't like musicals, at all, and I wasn't looking forward to this. I wouldn't say I think it's a good episode ... but I enjoyed it all the way through, except that I think the music got a bit boring in the second half.
On the klingon moment, they apparently had two versions, and the other was more operatic and in keeping with what some of us might have been expecting or hoping for. Hopefully it comes out at some point. The version we got, while stupid/silly, had me laughing pretty hard.
Actors for La'an, Uhura and Number One can all sing. Actor for Uhura is from broadway and has a Grammy, and actor for La'an started off in musical theatre.
Generally this season has kinda been about messing around with what star trek can be while trying to stay true to its spirit, much like lower decks. Saying it's more "Kurtzman Trek" is unfair I think, because it's a totally different vibe (personally I suspect Kurtzman doesn't have as much control over this show as he did Discovery, probably for obvious reasons)
You're right that Kurtzman has less creative control than he did on Discovery (where he was sole showrunner for a time), so it was a bit unfair. Introducing Pike and the Enterprise appears to be Akiva Goldsman's idea from the outset in Discovery, and it seems that he and Kurtzman were the main co-creators of the series. Goldsman is evidently the main showrunner.
Nevertheless, Kyrtzman created this iteration of the universe with Discovery, and my issue with it is that a show like TOS or TNG would never be made in this universe. Picard is the clearest example of this, where it didn't even feel like TNG in any way until season 3 when it got a new showrunner after going completely off the rails. I enjoyed that immensely, but it still felt like an extended TNG movie layered on the best TOS movies. The movies for both crews felt very different from their respective series.
Likewise, SNW is not TOS despite the trappings, although it's less egregiously different than the first two seasons of Picard. It turned down the dial of the incessantly quippy dialogue of Discovery at least.
You're right that they're trying to bend what Star Trek is, and I'm fine with that to a point, but my perception is they feel like there's something wrong with Star Trek that they need to fix: it's too staid, too boring, not enough punchy dialogue, not enough emotion, whatever.
That said, I like more episodes of this than I do of the other recent shows. I just wish they had shelved this script in favor of one with a big idea, or barring that at least went with the operatic Klingon version instead...
I had to think of Buffy too. Maybe it was too early for a musical, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. Especially that Spock was the first to sing. And in the last song he was the first to act normal which was very Spock-like. I think the characters came through in the songs.