Yeah, they used the songs well to pack huge amounts of character work into one episode for most of the cast. Clever move in a ten episode a year TV landscape.
It’s funny to think that the return of Trek in 2016 had Klingons eating captured Federation officers and Starfleet commiting war crimes out the gate in the first episode and now we’re getting an animated comedy series and musical episodes. Trek shouldn’t be afraid to be a bit silly and camp sometimes and I’m glad it’s free to be again.
I was pretty sure they were going to nail this as soon as it was announced. Treks always played around with music and characters with musical aptitude so this was inevitable eventually.
I’m not really a musical fan unless it’s something I’m already interested in like this or, say, Pick of Destiny, thought this was great though, simple sci-fi justification, then all in on the concept. Thought the songs and “musical rules” were a good way of packing an episode with dense character work across the whole cast in an era when you only have ten episodes a year to play with.
I’d disagree that all the 90s series were too serious, they all took time out for more wacky stuff but they were hidden in 24 episode or more series. DS9 for example had loads of Ferangi family sitcom stuff, the bond episode, the baseball one, the heist, worfs wedding, all the mirror universe episodes, the TOS crossover, etc all within the backdrop of the bajoran restoration and then the dominion War.
Quite so actually. Trek has always had music as an element, whether than be Spock’s lute, the Enterprise-D crews stuffy classical obsession, the DS9 crews lounge music, Seven and the Doctors singing lessons in Voy, Mariner and Tendis shared love for Klingon hardcore punk, etc. A full episode seems like it was inevitable.
A few years ago Dan Abnett managed to pull of a musical issue of his gritty space western comic Lawless set in the Judge Dredd universe, complete with a recorded cast track to listen to while reading. If that worked, Trek can totally do it.
I think you’re going to have an issue in that the kind of people who come online to discuss a show are also the kind of people to consume all new entries ASAP after their release.
I tried an issue or two of Squirrel Girl and absolutely hated it. I read his recent Secret Invasion and Fantastic Four and it’s like a completely different writer.
Dr Who’s visual continuity on the other hand is pretty strong when bringing back old creatures. Daleks still look like they did in 1965, the Sontarians as they did in 1973, the Zygons as they did in 1975, etc. The only race that got a major change was the Cybermen which was explained by being an alternative universe version. Even they eventually cycled round to their original 1966 look by the end of Capaldis era.