The quality of Star Trek in 1997 was an embarrassment of riches. Some of the best parts of the Dominion War on Deep Space Nine, Scorpion and Year Of Hell on Voyager, and First Contact in theaters. It was a great year to be a Star Trek fan!
The quality of Star Trek that I’ve seen this year has been giving me similar feelings, watching them hit it out of the park every week, wondering how they are going to top the last one then watching them do it, again and again. Is it just me?
Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks (?) will have to be really really really good to compensate for the embarrassment that was Picard. And so far SNW is just OK, so I don’t think 2023 on average is gonna be that good, although maybe better than almost all recent years.
I agree SNW is just OK, I loved season 1 but so far I’m finding season 2 a bit of a let down.
However, I found season 3 of Picard to be the best Trek in a long time, better than all the new shows and new movies. Sure it was massive fan service banking on nostalgia, when Picard was announced I was all in for a new look at an older Picard but after the steaming turd they delivered for 2 seasons it was a nice send off for the original crew while keeping that time period open for more Trek.
Yes, I would agree that season 3 of Picard was the best but that’s more of a criticism of the first two seasons (mostly the second). The problem with it that it was almost exclusively nostalgia. The main idea that the Borg biologically manipulated Picard and made a comeback that way was not bad, but the details of the story were a hot mess.
I say Lower Decks is the best of recent Trek.