this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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Risa
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Serious answer. TNG has a lot of shit like this. Leftover plot hooks that completely lack follow-up. Far too many to wrap up in one season of modern prestige TV.
It's just how TV was back then. You wrap the story up in 45 mins. Maybe some things get revisited, if the writers and producers don't forget about them and the actor is available. Serialized stories were the exception not the rule back then.
Honestly I feel like this makes the Star Trek universe seem bigger. Every character has a lot going on and not everything that happens to them revolves around one storyline. There's a whole galaxy out there full of things constantly happening! A lot of these would be followed up in books. Iirc it's mentioned in one that Worf and Jeremy exchange letters regularly and he does visit on occasion. We just accept that this happens off-screen because Worf has a life beyond the brief glimpses into it we see. Modern TV is too tidy, with everything tied to one or two storylines and everything being wrapped up tidily with maybe one or two cliffhangers. It makes fictional settings cough Star Wars cough seem small and insuler.
This is probs one of the reasons Star Wars always felt like a small galaxy cpompared to Star Trek. Everyone was so easily linked, found and plots tied up that it made it feel small.
same thing happens with time, the standard example being how bethesda thinks 200 years is actually about 50 years.
like no, people aren't going to be living in mostly-intact buildings 200 years after the apocalypse, that shit is going to be worn to hell and covered in plants. Like if you've ever walked through a european forest you've probably found some old stone ruins covered in moss, THAT is what 200 years of time looks like.
IMO Fallout 3 had it's time frame shifted at some point in its development. I mean take Little Lamplight, it'd make sense if it were 5-10 years after the war, as would all the relatively pristine ruins everywhere. It'd also explain why getting fresh water was such a urgent priority... despite the wastelanders managing without for 200 years.
However, I'm guessing the "less then a decade after the war" didn't square with the aesthetic and lore they wanted to do, so the time frame of the game shifted several centuries forward, leaving odd bits of "just after the war" lore and set pieces.
Apparently the time frame was shifted to shoe-horn the Brotherhood of Steel into the game. Originally their roles was going be filled by just the reminants of the national guard or something. Needed that brand recognition!
that doesn't explain why fallout 4 is more of the same
The plants were mostly burned away and irradiated in fallout.
except there's clearly living plantlife in fallout 4 lol, and regardless a lot of stuff would survive and repopulate, plants like moss and lichens are pretty much unkillable on a large scale.
You last sentence has filled me with more envy than you can imagine. I hate you a little bit now ;)
Very good point Kojak.
Well put.
TV before streaming (notably the last ten years), episodes stood alone. You may get a little continuity in the characters, but not in story arcs.
This made it all a (as you put it so well) a "glimpse into each character's life", leaving the viewer the opportunity to ponder "what else is/could there be", which I find far more satisfying than having the answer provided for me.
I must say, I see this as significantly a generational difference (with some personality difference in there too, I know a few boomers who like the tidy story approach).
I agree, but one must also consider the nostalgia element, and that maybe that generational difference can be attributed to that to an extent
Interesting point!
I think a big part of this is because of the internet. Nowadays, if the writing isn't 100% polished you will get people screaming loudly about inconsistencies, plot holes, or hooks left hanging and I'm sure this has an impact on the showrunners.
That said, I think you can have highly professional/polished writing, and still make the universe seem big and complex. The high quality dramas (Sopranos, etc.) have shown this. Not something Star Trek has every really been good at though.
I think late DS9 and now SNW balance it well enough. You just have to mix episodic and serialized story-telling. I agree on the Internet being a problem though. Can you imagine if something like cinimasins was around nitpicking TNG when it was on air?