Has there been a single sci-fi series (movie or TV) reboot, update, or whatever that the existing fans have actually been happy with?

I’m struggling to think of one.

I'm not sure how Star Trek La Sirena was ever going to look given that it's not a Federation, let alone Starfleet vessel. It deliberately doesn't look like a Star Trek hero ship.

poprock wrote:

Has there been a single sci-fi series (movie or TV) reboot, update, or whatever that the existing fans have actually been happy with? I’m struggling to think of one.

You're not a real fan unless you hate the new stuff with a passion.

How far you going back?  BSG is the obvious one.  People liked Force Awakens.  Some people liked Star Trek 2009.  Does Nu-Who count?

I'm never sure how many people genuinely dislike the new Trek.  Look on Twitter and it seems like most people like it.

Doctor Who had a comeback that the old guard liked.

BSG original definatly feels like Blakes 7 to me.

I doubt the original BSG even had much of a fanbase, so they could get away with doing what ever they wanted.

Diluted Dante wrote:

BSG original definatly feels like Blakes 7 to me.

Wot you saying about Blake's 7 there buddy?

Little Franklin wrote:

I doubt the original BSG even had much of a fanbase,

Whoa there, yes it did. I was a massive fan as a kid. Could never afford the plastic toy Galactica, which was a source of much dismay.

poprock wrote:

Whovians hated the ‘new Who’ when it started. Ecclestone and Piper were not popular with the true fans. They came around eventually, though.

I mean are we counting temporary and actually not entirely unreasonable misgivings? Doctor Who was genuinely a bit wonky in Series 1 - Eccleston was still bedding into the role and one of the directors misunderstood the show and screwed up the tone of three of the episodes.

Would count Doctor Who as one of the wins myself.

poprock wrote:

Has there been a single sci-fi series (movie or TV) reboot, update, or whatever that the existing fans have actually been happy with? I’m struggling to think of one.

Tron Legacy. I loved that. I was also quite pleased with The Force Awakens.  AFAIK the  Dark Crystal series was well received. The new Battlestar Galactica series was aces. TNG of course was superb. All we need now is a Seaquest DSV reboot.

That’s just bizarre. Clooney as a Buck Rogers fan. The mind boggles.

I think I was six when it opened. I would have loved it.

Lot of gifs here so I put them behind spoilers

Heart of Glory (S01 E20)
Worf finally gets something to do. Get emotionally manipulated by some Klingon terrorists. He comes across as quite pitiful here, being basically led astray by the some of the only Klingons he's ever met. The terrorists, initially not revealed as such, want to live as true Klingons and are on the run from the Klingon Empire. Lots of talk about wanting the old Klingon ways back, fighting, conquering, screaming, the blood of their enemies on their hands, the wind in their hair, free from the constraints of peace treaties. They're Brexit Klingons basically. And Worf is the great British public, easily duped and emotionally manipulated into indulging their wild fantasy. 

His loyalties aren't actually really tested here. There's a scene that looks like they will be but that fizzles out. Then the Centrist Keir Starmer Klingons show up and Worf gets respect from them, has to kill one of the Tory Klingons and he's sad about it. 

It's fine. First time they've done anything with the Klingons so there's a fair amount of exposition to wade through.  
Arsenal of Freedom (S01 E21)
God this is good. Really good. There's three strands to the episode - Picard and Crusher on a planet stuck down a hole, Yar, Riker and Data on the surface fighting for their lives against laser drones, and LaForge left commanding the Enterprise in a fight against an invisible spaceship. It's the last one that's where the real action is. The first two serving as breathers and unintentional comic relief from the first-rate nail-biter playing out in space. 

Some deserted planet, previously home to weapon-selling maniacs, might have some Federation survivors crash landed or something. Top-tier That Guy action (the man who was the ghost on the subway from the film Ghost) as an automated, holographic weapons salesman. They beam down. The automated weapon systems go into shop demo mode, start attacking the away team on the surface, and the Enterprise in space and chaos reigns. 

Anyway, up in space, the ship comes under attack and Chief Engineer Dickface comes in and tries to pull some outranking shit on Geordie. Laforge tells him to fuck off and risks it all on a spread of phaser fire against the assailant. It fails, they have to retreat, leaving the away team stranded on the surface. It genuinely seems like LaForge has fucked it here. But no, he digs deep, separates the saucer section from a safe distance, puts Chief Engineer Dipshit in charge of that and goes back with a new plan. 

Crusher and Picard are trapped below the surface with That Guy trying to sell them guns. Yar, Data and Riker are getting hammered by drones on the surface and LaForge is now back and bossing it in orbit. The drones apparently keep learning and coming back stronger everytime. They look pretty fucking shit if you ask me. They hover about a bit and fire off the odd laser. Picard works out that if he agrees to buy some weapons the demo will stop. But LaForge has still got this cloaked space drone to deal with so pulls some slick move to pull the drone into the atmosphere so they can see its turbulence, pinpoint its location and bust it up. Really good.


Symbiosis (S01 E22)
One planet has been buying a narcotic from a neighbouring planet for 200 years under the false belief that its a treatment for plague. The Enterprise ends up in the middle of an argument about a shipment of the drug. The junkie planet are all addicted and confuse withdrawal symptoms for plague symptoms. They say people are dying from not getting the drug. But it's a bit confused because it's also central to the plot that, if they don't get the drug, they'll be free of the addiction.   

The other planet, living parasitically off the suffering of the less fortunate, stress that they must be paid in order to recoup their investment and ensure smooth and continued production. Bloody space Tories again. Yar has to give a painfully wooden anti-drugs lecture to Wesley, in what I assume is some kind of Nancy Reagan mandated insertion. 
It's a really strong idea but you can't poke at the plot too much. Picard is caught in a Prime Directive dilemma and the resolution to that is really clever and makes the whole thing. And it's left admirably open if he's got a win or a loss here. So that's all obviously quite good and mature. But it's still dull and wooden first season TNG. It's not properly at the point where it can handle this slower-paced thoughtful stuff. Patrick Stewart knows what he's doing. No one else does. 

Skin of Evil (S01 E23)
Yar gets killed by an evil puddle. Riker gets sucked into the puddle and then spat back out. Troi counsels the puddle. Picard beams down and tells the puddle off. Maudlin funeral scene. The End. 

A shame Denise Crosby didn't want to stick it out. Every cast member has probably had at least one long, dark night of the soul during the production of some of these episodes. But she was the one who jumped and it's a pity because she was decent enough. She got more of the action in the early garbage-fire episodes but then became under-utilised like everyone except Picard, Riker and Data. 

Ridiculously, Worf's first act as new Head of Security is to refuse to go down with the away team to engage the puddle that's just killed one of the crew so he can stay on the ship and do science stuff. Complete non-event of an episode apart from the obvious. Smacks of being quickly chucked together to get Yar out of there. 


We'll Always Have Paris (S01 E24)
An episode about time distortion that coincidentally seems to drag on for four hours. Picard encounters 'the one who got away' and runs through every old flame cliche in the tv writer's manual. Some light Crusher jealousy. It hots up for literally about 60 seconds right at the end where Data has to do some time stuff and meets two other time-displaced versions of himself. 

The One Who Got Away's husband is a time science genius with an experiment gone awry spilling out time problems. It's all very vague with some half-soaked time shenanigans and long and dull Picard romantic plodding. Obvious parallels between the sci-fi time plot and Picard's ruminations about the past but they aren't brought together. Presumably some poor writer's decent work got hatcheted up by Rodenberry, leaving behind this mess.

Conspiracy (S01 E25)
Resolution of a dangling plot thread from episode 19 (Coming of Age) where some old Admiral pal of Picard's talks about mysterious enemies inside Starfleet. Spoilers - it's brain weevils. They burrow into your head and turn you into a dick. That old Admiral. He's back. He's got one now and it gives him super strength and he wants to give one to Riker. Leading to this.
It seems like it's trying to be epic enough for a season finale. Really badly paced, highly stupid but otherwise entertaining. They spend so long messing around with setting the pieces in motion that they get to Earth and it all kicks off straight away. 

The needlessly antagonistic inspector from the same previous episode, the one on the receiving end of Riker's debut chair hop. He's back too. He's the mother weevil apparently. He gets properly fucked up. They do this to him. 
And then this happens.  The Neutral Zone (S01 E26)
Going out with a whimper. Three 20th century people are found frozen in space. They did the cryogenics 'fad' and ended up in deep space, erm, somehow. Not good. The defrostees are some old Country & Western singer who keeps wanting a drink, a housewife who misses her kids and another old Tory who wants to contact his bank and find out about his money. Meanwhile they keep teasing this juicy Romulan encounter they're on their way to in the Neutral Zone. But these 20th century fucks keep bursting in and hijacking the suspense. 

And the Romulan one, despite them building it up so much, fizzles out to nothing. A comms chat where one of them announces "We're back." and then they fly off. The whole thing seems meant as a light set up for next season - more adventures, the Romulans, this mysterious threat that's been wiping out colonies in the Neutral Zone. Doesn't really work.  

Apparently this was going to be the start of a three-parter that brought back the Romulans and introduced the Borg (the ones wiping out the colonies but just referred to here as an unknown force, more powerful than either the Feds or the Roms). But a writer's strike meant they had to go with a first-draft of a standalone episode. It really shows. The two plots keep fighting against each other and neither get going. Just poor. 


And that's it. I knew nothing about the production issues behind season 1 until recently. A lot of it makes sense. Plenty of stories with a good idea but then Rodenberry wades in, guts the script and replaces it with nonsense.


Season 1 Wrap up
Good
The Battle - not actually good but I enjoyed it.
Arsenal of Freedom - hilarious and brilliant
Symbiosis - getting there

Some ok stuff mixed in with the bad
Encounter at Farpoint - There's a good bit with Riker coming aboard the Enterprise and having to manually dock the saucer to earn his stripes (or dots).
The Last Outpost - decent Ferengi ship stand-off at the beginning
Datalore - Spiner hams it up
11001001 - Binars hijacking the ship is quality. The holodeck parts are definitely not.

Burn with fire, flush down toilet and delete from existence
Code of Honour - racist dumpster fire
Justice - sex twat embarassment
The Big Goodbye - wretched 'Holodeck gone wrong' shite

Aye, thoroughly enjoying these reviews Monkey. Top stuff