Usually contracts have to be negotiated after five seasons. Especially after the strikes last year, studios are committed to never budging an inch on contracts or residuals, even if it means losing money in the short term. To them, it’s worth it to cancel even a successful or popular show if it means keeping their workers in a perpetual state of gig work and at a disadvantage for contracts on new shows.
Judging by Nacelle’s website, it looks like once again these will be expensive display figures that kids can’t play with.
As a parent of young Star Trek fans, the fact that this is the worst-merchandised franchise in the world is incredibly annoying
I usually skip the intros unless I’m really in the mood, but for LD my daughter and I always skip to the nacelle-eating alien (we named him Yum Yums), yell “YUM YUMS!”, and then skip to the end.
Actually this brought up a completely buried memory for me. For a few years I lived in the same neighborhood as him – at the time, cool guy that I was, I had a Starfleet badge on my coat, and one day I was at the grocery store and had an awkward moment with him where our carts got sort of wedged together negotiating the too-narrow checkout lanes. He saw my pin and gave me a Vulcan salute as he moved into his lane. He seemed nice and a bit sheepish. The staff at the coffee shop I used to go to told me he was extremely lovely.
Totally, thank you. Star Trek is goofy as hell sometimes. I think if the Kelpian kid had been a plot device isolated to a single episode, no one would have batted an eye if it were on TNG or VOY. But as the reveal of a season long mystery, it was a big woof for a season and a concept that I was really into.
That said, season 4 really picked up that briefly dropped ball. I think the last two episodes of S4, plus the one with the debate at Federation HQ, will go down as Trek classics once Disco ages a bit.
If Locarno had kidnapped like Harry Kim or Geordi or some shit and put them on that viewscreen like he did Mariner, we would have had a full episode’s worth of them interminably trying to find a way to play along and send a secret message out and agonizing over the situation, when just yelling “this guy’s an idiot and his plan is stupid” is genuinely a vastly better plan.
I have definitely been proven wrong by Star Trek things that look terrible at the outset, but…this looks terrible. I mean I guess we’re getting a Deltan, so that’s fun? And a chameloid is a bit of a deep cut? But jesus, I could not want to see this less. I hope I’ll be proven wrong!