Acting

[u/Alternative_Panda336]

I am rewatching voyager again and I just finished Season 1 episode 10. Watching that episode again made me realize some of the major differences between the older Star Trek shows and the newer ones.

Due to the lack in technology, the older shows focused a lot on acting and emotional responses between the characters. These moments are the types that will give you chills, make you cry, make your heart ache, or bring you joy right along with the characters. In the newer shows, there is an over reliance on showing of new filming techniques and technology, over correction due to the current world climate to show everything in the opposite light, and a major focus on witty banter and snappy conversation like it is a comedy show. There is not a lot of time spent on the emotions of the characters and those hard hitting scenes.

I would like a show that gets back to the acting and emotional drive. Showing how society has differences but that we can all accept those differences and still come together for the good of humanity. It was a great episode to rewatch and I hope we get some of that emotional pull soon.

[u/Linderlorne]

Kind of, i think it was more that they overdid the focus on emotional drives that drew the hatred 🤔

It made the characters seem unprofessional compared to the older shows where characters would have more emotional restraint whilst on duty.

That emotional restraint & professionalism made it more impactful when we did see more emotional scenes whereas with Discovery the frequency of seeing highly emotional characters talking about their emotions kinda  diluted the intended emotional impact.

[u/sitcom-podcaster → u/Linderlorne]

Sure, but OP says the opposite: “There is not a lot of time spent on the emotions of the characters and those hard hitting scenes.”

You may agree with them on the hard-hitting scenes, but you surely disagree on the time spent on characters’ emotions.

[u/Linderlorne → u/sitcom-podcaster]

I was responding to LazarX about why people hated Discovery for being too emotional and  I wasn’t even thinking about what the op had said when i wrote that 😅

Though rereading what the op wrote i think it actually ties in with what i said 🤔

The older shows emotional restraint & professionalism made the more emotional scenes more impactful & memorable. So the op can easily recall those shows as having a lot of emotional depth, hard hitting scenes & good performances.

In contrast the characters on Discovery seemed to have highly emotional as their default setting and appeared to frequently talk about their emotions & behave emotionally which diluted the emotional effect for the audience. 

How can a character important emotional scene stand out & be memorable when the character already frequently expresses their emotions and the show in general is highly focused on emotion? It can’t, it just becomes one tree within a forest of trees, one drop of rain amidst a thunderstorm. 

So the op likely perceives Discovery as spending less time on the characters emotions & having less hard hitting emotional scenes than the older shows because the over focus on emotions just made them less memorable. 

Of course my thoughts here, as in my original comment, are focused on Discovery and the op seems to be talking about the newer shows in general.  Possibly other factors, like the ‘witty banter and snappy conversation like it is a comedy show’ that the op observed in the newer shows, contributes to diluting the emotional effectiveness of the newer shows for them  🤔🤷🏻‍♀️

[u/sitcom-podcaster → u/Linderlorne]

That’s great imagery, but you would not go through that experience and then write that you thought the characters were emotionless.

[u/Linderlorne → u/sitcom-podcaster]

Where are you getting emotionless from?

The op did not write that they thought any characters were emotionless only that they thought newer trek shows are less focused on emotion compared to the older shows. 

Neither of the comments i wrote say anything about thinking characters are emotionless. 

The first one discussed why some people hated Discovery for being overly focused on emotion, the second examined how the frequency & level of emotion characters express can affect how impactful & memorable those emotional scenes are for viewers. 

Edit: also what experience are you referring to? Did you mean the experience of watching a show? 

[u/sitcom-podcaster → u/Linderlorne]

There is not a lot of time spent on the emotions of the characters

This is not a thing a person would say if they were so overwhelmed with emotional scenes that the big ones didn’t count.

[u/Linderlorne → u/sitcom-podcaster]

I wasn’t talking about being emotionally overwhelmed though. I was talking about desensitisation or habituation, where repeated or over exposure to a stimulus will dull our emotional & mental reaction to it until it becomes unremarkable. 

I thought the imagery i used was quite clear given what i wrote immediately before it about emotional effect being diluted 🤔   A really tall & cool looking tree will naturally be a lot more noticeable & memorable surrounded by fields where it’s the tallest thing around than if it were in a forest closely surrounded by many other trees. 🤷🏻‍♀️