Star Trek show runners should be wary of using “their interpretation” of things

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds need to keep their egos in check.

The first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was a hit. Season two still had its fan base, but critics and fans were less inclined to enjoy it. Part of the reason why season one was so wholly embraced was due to the “back to basics” approach for the season. Part of the reason season two stumbled was the showrunners getting away from that.

Instead of giving us compelling stories, the producers went with gimmicks. Musicals, crossovers, it felt more like a CW show trying to be trendy than a Star Trek show trying to be good. The moral dilemmas were gone this season, for the most part, instead, we were giving brow-beating rhetoric and half-hearted complexities that were wrapped in mysteries. See “Lost in Translation”.

The decline in satisfaction as a whole is marked notably by the “big swings” that the producers took this year. While it sturred a frenzy with the Twitter-folks, most fans were not as warm to them, notably the musical episode is the 2nd worst scored on IMDB for the franchise.

A lot of this has to do with the hubris of the showrunners. They’re failing to remember this show is ours, not theirs. They come and go with each new series, but we’re here through it all. Many fans aren’t liking the direction they’re going and it is only going to get worse.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds showrunners need to reign in their egos

Speaking to Inverse, Akiva Goldsman makes it clear that what came before will never matter to them. While Strange New World is a prequel to The Original Series in canon, the showrunners don’t care about what came before. This is their show, with Goldsman saying

"You will never see the Gorn like that. This is the Gorn as we perceive them… This is our version of the Gorn. It’s an interpretation. In the same way, the transporter room on the Enterprise is never gonna look like the transporter room looked in TOS, right? It’s our interpretation of it."

And listen, we freely admit that the new Gorn work, it destroys the timeline and makes “Arena” an episode that no longer makes sense or works functionally, but it’s a good change. That said, this is the same company that thought the Nu Trke Klingons were a good idea. Again, the show’s own “interpretation” of how they see Klingons.

That didn’t work and it got the show overhauled due to the complaints.

While fixing some things that didn’t work before is fine, remember to read the room. Showrunners are not bigger than the fandom. Listen to what they’re saying before you start making changes that damage your franchise forever.

Be less like Star Wars, and more like how Star Trek used to be.