While I'm definitely going to give this a chance, I'm not going to get my hopes up. Firefly was a perfect storm--it was the combination of Wheadon, Tim Minear, and the entire cast. Personally, I think the writing is what made Firefly work, and without Wheadon or Minear, I don't know if it will rise to the same level.
Moreover, I felt Serenity was a good conclusion to the original mythology (River, Alliance, etc.). If they introduce a new mythology arc, it might not quite have the same resonance. And if they just do a bunch of monster-of-the-week episodes, it won't be enough.
But I don't want to criticize what I haven't seen. They know way better than I do, and even if the only result of this is that the original actors have a lot of fun, then I'm all for it. They deserve to take a shot.
Without getting involved in the flame war, SNW and SFA are good shows. Strange New Worlds is the closest to one of the classic shows out of the new ones, though it has some quality issues in the more recent season which Trek show didn't? And Academy is just something different, but that doesn't make it bad. It should be okay for a property to have a show or two that is a different genre than the others. And for what it's worth, the themes are classic Trek at their core.
If you didn't like Lower Decks you probably really never liked Star Trek. Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy also happen to be better than... a significant portion of the classics (DS9 will never be surpassed and that's okay).
Lower Decks in traditional Trek fashion had a rough season 1 but was stronger later. SNW an Academy had probably the best two season 1 performances of any Star Trek shows ever produced. There's one gripe about Academy that you can grant: The theme song sucks. Other than that, perfect.
There's some legitimately challenging writing decisions in Discovery and Picard, but if the three shows you mentioned ruin Trek for you, you never got it in the first place.
The 2nd worst thing about the series is seeing those clips. The first worst thing is, of course, disambiguating the machine's gender. Until the live action show this was the only popular book series I'm aware of where a reader could project and never glitch. For both the gender and the show, enabling our projection is a key conceit and device.
Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy are different than a significant portion of the classics. If you think they're better, than it might be you who never really liked classic star trek. Which is okay, once you phrase it as a preference rather than an objective standard that everyone has to agree with.
There's taste and there's product quality. I don't like Game of Thrones, but it's well-produced.
I actually like Discovery, but I can also point out a bunch of problems with it. Disappointing mystery boxes, questionable commitment to canon continuity, so much focus on a single character that many of the most interesting characters get no screen time. The fans often had better ideas about where the story is going than the writers did.
I also really like DS9, TNG, and Voyager, but you can easily also admit seasons 1 and 2 of each are... on the weaker side. They take time to warm up to the quality SNW and SFA nailed in their very first seasons. And bear in mind, we're working with ten episode seasons now, so even Strange New Worlds is barely past it's "season one" in classic show terms. Go find a single episode of Strange New Worlds or Starfleet Academy that's "Code of Honor"-worthy bad. You won't find one because there isn't one.
Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds, and Starfleet Academy are vastly better shows than Discovery or Picard. But more than that, LD, SNW, and SFA are some of the most classic-style Star Trek content you can get. We're talking largely episodic shows which heavily draw from TNG and TOS storylines and plot design, and often focused on discussing the very core of what Starfleet, and Star Trek in general, is about. If people are still griping about the Star Trek produced today, it's because they aren't watching it.
The weird part is these criticisms if pointed at Discovery or Picard might have held weight! But it's directed at shows which are a complete non sequitur for the claims made.
I couldn't get into Lower Decks. And I love Star Trek, so maybe you don't understand the full range of Star Trek fans. I personally love NG but couldn't get into DS9 or Voyager. I disliked Discovery but I love SNW. There are all kinds of Star Trek fans.
DS9 is a good litmus test for determining what kind of Star Trek fan you are. It broke a lot of the optimism and continuum of how Star Trek had worked previously, where hyper-competent people just always seem to come out okay. It smashed reality into the faces of sci-fi fans by building an actual war-narrative into the character arc (an episode of DS9 deals with GWOT PTSD better than almost any other network TV show did) and so it's not really surprising that DS9 was a little controversial when it aired. I stopped watching Discovery after "the burn" event because it didn't make any sense, and it was obvious the writers wanted to start from scratch. Space fungus powers the ship? A character has a panic attack and any ship with a warp drive is blown up? Not a serious sci-fi show and one of the worst entries into the Star Trek catalog. I hope Paramount takes a pause and we don't get any new Star Trek for 5 years, so the writers can grow up.
DS9 raised the bar so high that it's past the Oort cloud. I've watched everything up to Enterprise and I will say that I enjoyed all of them despite their flaws. I tried watching the newer trek series: lower decks, discovery and picard. Lower decks was an instant turn-off and I fell asleep on the first episodes of the other two, twice. The free month of paramount ran out before I bothered trying to watch them again. I should give them a go one day.
Glad someone else felt the same. Discovery started well but the whole "burn" thing was... stupid. There are a million narrative devices you could use to break the ability for ships to travel via warp and they chose the least sciency of them all.
Academy deliberately set out to "be different" and fans of Star Trek are reacting accordingly. The show sucks, its set design and writing are trash, and all Paramount is doing here is counting on actual Star Trek fans watching the back-catalog on Paramount+ to juice the value of the other actual Star Trek IP (ugh Academy is bad, I'm going to re-watch DS9 for the 15th time, or maybe Voyager).
Academy is so bad that I have to wonder if there are people involved who deliberately want to destroy Star Trek so they can "re-boot" it from scratch later.
All of this is fundamentally wrong enough you can just say your blogs said it was too woke so you didn't watch it.
The recent Star Trek shows have their problems, most often whiffing the delivery of a satisfying conclusion to the season arc. (Discovery and Picard both had terrible mystery box seasons where the mystery ended up being dumb and disappointing.) Academy nailed it. The characters, the conclusion, the resolution to different subplot threads, all extremely solid.
Like, you can generally like or dislike a given show, but there are valid criticisms and then there are very invalid ones. And it's very clear you did not actually watch the series.
Academy is a show about incompetent people being drug along by the plot. It is diametrically apposed to TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY. In just the first episode of Academy, one of the characters eats her communicator, and then the show moves on as if this is something normal that goes on. Does this sound like the usual competence porn that the prior iterations of Star Trek were known for?
It certainly does not to me. This is supposed to be, ya know, the academy that the best of the best enter into in order to commission into Starfleet. The rest of Academy is one incomprehensible plot hole after another, followed by awful (and at times disrespectful) callbacks to prior shows.
Can you link some blog posts? I'd like to read them. Not on social media these days as I gave it up for Lent a decade ago and never went back, so I'm probably missing some more comprehensive criticisms of Academy.
So your gripe is that a barely recurring character is used in a joke, and you didn't find it funny. Gotcha! Unfortunately, not every joke lands for every person.
It's important to understand that generally speaking, Academy standards are probably a lot lower than they used to be, the show, actually goes into this a couple times! Because, you know, the destruction of a large part of society and such. It is a school, and if the characters didn't need to learn something, they probably wouldn't need to be there.
You're generally going to find competency in the command staff/professors, and you generally do. Captain Ake is in at least one episode, orchestrating the entire episode behind the scenes, and in the following one, it doesn't say it explicitly, but it is most plausible that she also did as well. Episodes where the senior staff don't know what's happening, it's clear they know something is up, they just haven't determined what yet. I am not positive I can think of a spot where the officers in the show were anything but incredibly competent, and the show also avoids classic tropes like "the admiral is a jerk/evil", Starfleet is, in fact, led by an extremely competent and reasonable admiral.
I don't want to watch a science fiction show about children. That's what Academy is, a show about children. It should have been a show about young adults getting ready to be officers.
It's fine that you think this is entertaining science fiction, and are grafting perceptions of "competence" on characters in this show. I don't want to nitpic everything in your response, except for this:
>Academy standards are probably a lot lower than they used to be, the show, actually goes into this a couple times!
The explanation for this makes no sense. This is the 32nd century (allegedly). The amount of advanced technology one would need to understand to be functional in this environment is extreme.
As an aside, and maybe this is the best way to explain my aversion to this show, the ship design is awful and makes absolutely no sense. I forget which "tech the tech" explanation there was for this, but every starship in Academy is a) hideous because the warp nacelles just float out in space for some reason, and b) makes no sense canonically. Star Trek used to actually respect engineering. Academy says "nah, fuck it, it's all magic now".
TNG suggested kids in elementary school were learning calculus but honestly I'm not sure that's a reasonable thing developmentally. Just because the technology improves doesn't mean humans get smarter faster. The cadets here are college students, and generally speaking, pretty competent ones. (God, college kids were dumb everywhere I went to school.) Also technical talent and emotional development are separate topics. I'm also not sure I agree technical understanding has to continue to grow with technology.
Computing technology is much further today than it was twenty years ago, but kids these days understand less about them because the technology is abstracted away better. (People use iPads now with no idea how a file system works.) In the 32nd century stuff feels magical, a lot of people probably don't need to know how it works to use it.
Floating nacelles make plenty of sense if they're independent drive units with all necessary components in the nacelle, consider they create a warp bubble around the entire assembly, but you can obviously wirelessly control a separate structure and the ships can manipulate them with force fields and such. Think about how many times a ship in earlier shows scraped a nacelle and exploded, separation is good design if technology now allows it. And remember... this is like many hundreds of years after Starfleet had timeships that could beam a person to and from any place in space and time. If anything the technology in this series feels a bit not magical enough for the time period.
Agree, Whedon's script is essential to the popularity. I'd love it happen tho if they can do a good enough job. As well as River etc, I'd like to Shepherd Books back story.
Lets be real - Firefly was very good. But the reason it holds "magic" status as far as series goes is mostly because of its rarity, and the final movie where a major likable character was killed off, with everyone wishing for a sequel.
Its same with anything really - car enthusiasts obsess over limited runs of older cars because they are rare, not because they are good, and people were lining up at McDonalds when they re-released Szechuan sauce (which is literally soy sauce and ketchup).
If they would have done Season 2,3, and so on, it wouldn't be held in such a high regard as it is now.
> Lets be real - Firefly was very good. But the reason it holds "magic" status as far as series goes is mostly because of its rarity, and the final movie where a major likable character was killed off, with everyone wishing for a sequel.
Strongly disagree. The Firefly series was always exceptional. I watched it on DVD around the time it came out (maybe just after it was cancelled) and waited for the movie. The movie was actually a net negative, in my opinion, for killing off Wash (Tudyk), who was essential to the chemistry they had going.
I actually think the movie killing him off (and to a lesser extent, killing Book) hurt the momentum for further movies or other follow-ups.
> If they would have done Season 2,3, and so on, it wouldn't be held in such a high regard as it is now.
It's always possible that it could have gone off the rails. But the original Star Trek only ran for three seasons and spawned countless other shows and movies. I think if it had gone for two more seasons with the same cast, crew it, and general quality level it could potentially have been another Star Trek.
I never got the impression there was much momentum for any more sequels anyway, Serenity felt like the bone they were willing to throw. This was a time before show revivals (rather than remakes/reboots e.g. BSG) were common, it was very surprising when they did it for Family Guy.
Firefly has a rabid fan base, but it's not very large. The movie did... okay. Enough to pay for itself, but not enough to interest anyone in making more content in that universe.
When the show was first released it was cancelled after half a season because it was expensive to make and couldn't compete in the ratings with slap-dash, almost free to produce "reality TV".
I agree with you. Star Trek TOS only had two good seasons. Season 3 was widely panned. And it still spawned a massive franchise.
Plus there have been dozens of one-series sci-fi shows (Almost Human, Terra Nova, Space:Above and Beyond, etc.) and none have the same pull as Firefly.
Interesting that all those you specifically named aired on Fox, which is where Firefly aired.
Other science fiction shows Fox killed after not more than one season were The Lone Gunman, Harsh Realm, Minority Report, Second Chance, and John Doe.
Others did make it past the first season but not past the second, such as Dark Angel and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Even shows that make it longer often have trouble on Fox. Futurama for example was put in terrible time slots that often got preempted by sports which made it hard to grow its audience, and most of the time the creators had no idea if the current season was going to be their last. They had to keep trying to write season finales that would also be good series finales if they got cancelled between seasons.
They also do this to shows in other genres. Lucifer for example got cancelled after 3 seasons, with season 3 having ended on the biggest possible cliffhanger there could be for that show. That was very annoying.
My rule has now been for a long time that I will not watch any new scripted series on Fox that has any kind of ongoing story. If there are enough good reviews and word of mouth to make me want to watch it I'll wait until complete seasons are available on streaming, and then only if there exists some N such that if I watch to episode N and stop there won't be any cliffhangers or important ongoing story arcs open.
We can't really rate any art something as exceptional, because beyond good it all comes down to personal preference. For example for music, people can agree that some composition, whether its rock or dubstep is well produced, but individual style and preference will make someone either like it or not like it.
Beyond that, its called hedonistic adaptation, and its a real effect. If you get something good in a small amount, you are going to inflate how good it is. If you get that good thing in larger amounts, its going to seem less good.
I think you almost have it, one of the big reasons why Firefly has such an exalted status is that it only had one season. But it's not a rarity thing, it's that they spent that season doing some interesting world building that caught people's imagination then didn't have an opportunity to totally fuck it up in subsequent seasons.
Loved the show, I have no expectations for this. It's just too easy to not be "right" for all sorts of incompatible different definitions of "right".
But, the animated series a good idea and smart.
First, it lets Nathan and Morena participate considering they're pretty busy with their prime time series.
Second, there's no reason to "jump ahead 20 years". They can pick right up from where they left off after they figure out how to dig Wash out of the ground. The animated characters don't have to age. They can do a prequel, they have a lot of flexibility which helps to not pigeon hole it.
And, ideally, the animated series can be less expensive, making it perhaps more of a chance for success and continuing (I have no idea how much modern animated show development costs compared to sets and CGI etc.).
I have not seen it, but I understand that The Clone Wars is a pretty successful series, so maybe that's an inspiration.
I watched "Lower Decks" episode just to see how they portrayed Deep Space 9, how actors pick their old roles. While they did good job, visuals were giving me this feeling it's a distant memory that fades away. Weird thing to say but same thing happen when I pick that "Babylon 5: The Road Home" - it's like the show you were watching but it's not the same.
And I risk saying that perhaps media that become iconic shouldn't be touched no matter what happened during production or screening. Because if you start fiddling around it even in a good faith that charm may be gone forever.
"Firefly/Serenity" for me is from same shelf as DS9 or rebooted BSG - a closed story that doesn't need any continuation. These titles got rather bitter than sweet ending; there are questions and that's good. Not everything has to be wrapped up with a picturesque idyllic scenery, where everyone "lived happily ever after".
But at the same time, I don't mind if they roll animated "Firefly". And I give them my thumbs up, will be happy if they manage to success but I don't have big expectations either.
If there’s any chance at success, animated is probably it. Alternatively they could remake the show with a different cast portraying some other crew with a whole new storyline. Of course that’s not a reboot but it could capture the same kind of magic the first did with the right writers and cast. It could even be set before, after, or contemporaneously with the original. It would be a big expensive gamble though.
> I have no idea how much modern animated show development costs
Animation costs are all over the place. It can be dirty cheap, it can be more expensive than a highly-produced live action. You can notice the difference, but it's not what actually matters for the show's success.
ST:TAS had some surprisingly good scripts for something that was somewhat a 70’s kids cartoon. Very much enjoyed how animation allowed them to run wild where practical effects wouldn’t have been possible (for better or worse at times, lol).
I adored Lower Decks. It was the right way to approach fan service for a franchise as I hate seeing fan service awkwardly ham fisted into every corner of nutrek. Some of the later seasons were a bit awkward, or rushed?, but overall I adored it. Terrific character development and overall really told that story of that period between being a bunch of green academy grads and being adaptable, competent professionals.
My wife used to fall for every Firefly season 2 hoax on social media in the past because she wished it to be true. It was very funny when I could come to her to announce there will be a season 2.
Mixed feelings about it being animated. The older I become, the more I have trouble relating to painted characters, no real clue why, so I couldn't even enjoy things I should have enjoyed like Arcane.
Also, of course, no Shepherd Book :-(
Anyway, I hope I'll like it. Really loved season 1.
The way I see it: I'd rather have animated characters than everyone looking like a fossil. Really put a damper on Star Wars Ep. 7 for me (among other things), but Harrison Ford didn't look or feel like Han Solo. I'm glad they're not doing the played-out "aging crew" trope with Firefly. If it's animated, the characters can still run as far and jump as high as they could 20 years ago.
I agree with most of the other comments so far, the "magic" of the show is going to be hard to replicate.
My bull case for this is that Nathan Fillion and crew have had 20 years of exposure to this fact and likely know what they're getting into and how to do it right. The only question is if they'll be able to execute. I'm excited!
Say what you will about Joss Whedon, but his use of a colorful
character palette & quirky, punchy style of dialog have gone from niche to mainstream in the 30+ years since Buffy. Mostly thanks to Whedon’s and his imitators’ escalating success with that formula: The Avengers, for example, took Marvel from a series of above-average superhero hits to total cultural dominance.
There’s plenty of writing talent out there that grew up wanting to emulate Buffy and Firefly, so if hearts and budgets are in the right place, recapturing that part of the show should be eminently feasible.
I'm a little nervous about this affecting it negatively. Back when Buffy and Firefly were on the air, they felt so unique due to the dialogue style. But now that'll just seem like every single generic superhero movie. Hopefully it can buck that feeling somehow.
I feel like Buffy doesn’t work so well in the modern era, unlike animated firefly? Not entirely sure why though. Maybe part of the charm of Buffy is the setting?
The announcement on instagram is here in case anyone wants to see it directly. Pretty well done. Nathan did a bunch of teasers with the other stars earlier. Kinda funny and goofy.
I am... cautiously optimistic without Whedon being involved. But also very curious how this will work since it doesn't seem like it's a reboot, unless I missed something.
Tara Butters from Dollhouse being involved makes me a feel a bit better, since I love Dollhouse (actually rewatching it right now). Now I can only hope this actually succeeds and maybe Dollhouse can get similar treatment.
I am sure some will be upset that it's animated, but if that is what it takes (and it turns out good) I'm fine with it.
Okay so a little bit of out of universe trivia on Dollhouse: It was planned for 5 seasons. With the risk of cancellation, the second season and the two Epitaph episodes were a severely compressed telling of 4 seasons of plans. And, personally I think it worked well. Something similar happened to Babylon 5, Manifest, Jericho (IIRC), Firefly (Serenity was the original ending that would have played out over multiple seasons), and the Escaflowne anime: the main plots towards the end got compressed to create a faster pace at the climax while ensuring the story could be finished (though I wasn't a fan of how Manifest ended).
My concern about original writers being involved in reboots is if they want to fill out the story they couldn't tell the first time around and end up with a more standard pacing that's less exciting, and end up getting cancelled before finishing. Then we end up with things like Tru Calling and Dark Matter, which had planned plots they couldn't finish.
I think it worked well with the Epitaph episodes being as short as they were. I don’t think I’d have enjoyed that much darkness for many seasons. They were great though, to show sobering consequences of what they were toying with.
My best guess based on another good series with a similar 5-season arc, the 3rd season would have been when the main characters realize Rossum's larger plans (Topher's breakdown when he puts together schematics from the individual Dollhouses, or the visit from one of the execs using Victor's body, for two examples that did make it into the series), 4th season would have been the dark one when everything goes to crap, and 5th season would have been the hopeful restoration of Epitaph One / Two.
The only thing I remember reading for sure is, the 2nd season would have largely been about exploring what was happening to Echo because of what occurred in the 1st season aired finale (episode "Omega") - which did happen, but it I don't remember it dominating the season. Didn't sound like it would have been a dark season, but looking back on it seems like it would have been painfully slow.
It is a little weird that these two events were so close to each other.
My tinfoil hat tells me Someone Important didn't want two shows from the same creator resurrected simultaneously and potentially competing with each other, but I put the hat back in the cupboard because even if it were true, that person's opinion would be stupid. Coincidences happen, and people can be fans of more than one thing.
Personally, I have high hopes for this Firefly venture. And for those who were hoping for a live action continuation, that's still not off the table! This may be how we get there.
It's too bad Whedon won't be a part of it. I wonder if there's a way to sufficiently un-cancel someone like him. Like sit him down and say, we're going to give you another chance but you need to be on your best behavior or you're out for good.
I’m not sure how well it would work out either way. One isn’t the same person twenty plus years later, and also in absolute terms he’s in his sixties now.
I am honestly baffled by how much people love firefly. I don't get it. It's a slightly campy western-style scifi. It's not bad but it's not 'still talking about it for the next few decades' material IMO. Theres a zillion littl scifi channel series with essentially the same quality as far as I can figure.
Do you have some examples? Because honestly I put Firefly very high on my list of shows I like.
The setting is great, the writing is top-notch, and the acting is wonderful. The characters have great chemistry. It's funny.
The general universe is well done too. It lacks endless implausible human-shaped aliens and is light on space magic, which is nice. Overall it feels lived-in and there is some interesting history.
Honestly it's hard to think of another space-western style series that I'd rate so highly. I guess parts of the Mandalorian fit the bill, but I wouldn't rank it up there with Firefly.
Good drama, good humor, good characters, and a very cozy feel in those quiet moments on the ship between things.
In contrast to the sibling comment, I fell in love with the series before I knew it had been canceled. When I finished season 1, I immediately went in search of season 2. When I couldn’t find it, I went to find out when it was going to be released. Discovering what had happened to it was tremendously disappointing.
It's because it was killed before it's time, and there was a known plan for the overall story arc (which was at least semi-satisfied by Serenity). It had developed a fan base that were hungry for more, and then it was cancelled, leaving a great thirst.
Had it lasted three seasons (or even only two), and still been 'cancelled before it's time' it would have faded from memory more quickly because the itch would have been scratched more satisfyingly.
It was good for it's time, and since it was cancelled it's locked within that time. How it translates against modern television is yet to be seen. However, the popularity of The Mandalorian means there is still a market for the Sci-fi Western.
(I liked parts of The Mandalorian, but it went downhill pretty fast in terms of ... everything. I like the sci-fi western thing - it's not serious, but it can touch serious-ness. The Expanse was serious, and touched some Western/Frontier sci-fi)
Before SyFy self-imploded a decade ago it had multiple “ragtag rogues adventure across a sci-fi setting with frontier elements” - Dark Matter, Killjoys, Defiance. Feels like the subgenre Firefly occupied is well-settled by now.
Not for me. It scratches a very specific itch that hasn’t been replicated since. Which is probably a good indication it won’t work for this show either.
Firefly has memorable characters, great acting/actors, and good chemistry and good writing. And it's especially memorable because the show got fucked over so people can imagine a lot more greatness than was delivered.
A cartoon is cool but a continuation using original actors where possible and recast versions WITH ai video generation is something that can also happen in the future too.
In theory it can be close to the real actors continuing it in early 2000s
You don't need to watch the live-action version that's ideally difficult to distinguish between a real-actor version. But I'm sure it will eventually be available for those that want it.
While I'm definitely going to give this a chance, I'm not going to get my hopes up. Firefly was a perfect storm--it was the combination of Wheadon, Tim Minear, and the entire cast. Personally, I think the writing is what made Firefly work, and without Wheadon or Minear, I don't know if it will rise to the same level.
Moreover, I felt Serenity was a good conclusion to the original mythology (River, Alliance, etc.). If they introduce a new mythology arc, it might not quite have the same resonance. And if they just do a bunch of monster-of-the-week episodes, it won't be enough.
But I don't want to criticize what I haven't seen. They know way better than I do, and even if the only result of this is that the original actors have a lot of fun, then I'm all for it. They deserve to take a shot.
The benefit of it being animated is that if it sucks we can just ignore it, if it’s good we can embrace it.
If they went the full live-action route there’s a higher chance it tarnishes the legacy of the original.
I didn’t like Star Trek: Lower Decks but it didn’t make me feel like Trek has been ruined like Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy did.
Without getting involved in the flame war, SNW and SFA are good shows. Strange New Worlds is the closest to one of the classic shows out of the new ones, though it has some quality issues in the more recent season which Trek show didn't? And Academy is just something different, but that doesn't make it bad. It should be okay for a property to have a show or two that is a different genre than the others. And for what it's worth, the themes are classic Trek at their core.
Came for the Firefly. Stayed for the Trek flame wars. Anyone else feeling all warm and cozy like its the 90s again?
If you didn't like Lower Decks you probably really never liked Star Trek. Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy also happen to be better than... a significant portion of the classics (DS9 will never be surpassed and that's okay).
Lower Decks in traditional Trek fashion had a rough season 1 but was stronger later. SNW an Academy had probably the best two season 1 performances of any Star Trek shows ever produced. There's one gripe about Academy that you can grant: The theme song sucks. Other than that, perfect.
There's some legitimately challenging writing decisions in Discovery and Picard, but if the three shows you mentioned ruin Trek for you, you never got it in the first place.
I love Lower Decks but it’s not like TOS at all. It’s more like a love letter to TOS. Strange New Worlds is VERY much like TOS.
If I had to stack rank:
(1) TOS (1) TNG (2) lower decks (3) the animated series?
But, I watch it for the science fiction. The other series were hardly the same genre.
DS9 was trying to be babylon 5 / sanctuary moon half the time. The lack of science research on voyager still works my spouse into a rage.
Hey! Dont try and mandela effect sanctuary moon into existence, you almost had me.
The 2nd worst thing about the series is seeing those clips. The first worst thing is, of course, disambiguating the machine's gender. Until the live action show this was the only popular book series I'm aware of where a reader could project and never glitch. For both the gender and the show, enabling our projection is a key conceit and device.
Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy are different than a significant portion of the classics. If you think they're better, than it might be you who never really liked classic star trek. Which is okay, once you phrase it as a preference rather than an objective standard that everyone has to agree with.
There's taste and there's product quality. I don't like Game of Thrones, but it's well-produced.
I actually like Discovery, but I can also point out a bunch of problems with it. Disappointing mystery boxes, questionable commitment to canon continuity, so much focus on a single character that many of the most interesting characters get no screen time. The fans often had better ideas about where the story is going than the writers did.
I also really like DS9, TNG, and Voyager, but you can easily also admit seasons 1 and 2 of each are... on the weaker side. They take time to warm up to the quality SNW and SFA nailed in their very first seasons. And bear in mind, we're working with ten episode seasons now, so even Strange New Worlds is barely past it's "season one" in classic show terms. Go find a single episode of Strange New Worlds or Starfleet Academy that's "Code of Honor"-worthy bad. You won't find one because there isn't one.
Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds, and Starfleet Academy are vastly better shows than Discovery or Picard. But more than that, LD, SNW, and SFA are some of the most classic-style Star Trek content you can get. We're talking largely episodic shows which heavily draw from TNG and TOS storylines and plot design, and often focused on discussing the very core of what Starfleet, and Star Trek in general, is about. If people are still griping about the Star Trek produced today, it's because they aren't watching it.
The weird part is these criticisms if pointed at Discovery or Picard might have held weight! But it's directed at shows which are a complete non sequitur for the claims made.
I'm not sure what you're responding to, but it's certainly not anything that I said.
Keep up with the grade a gatekeeping, lest someone not really liking it watches some of it.
I couldn't get into Lower Decks. And I love Star Trek, so maybe you don't understand the full range of Star Trek fans. I personally love NG but couldn't get into DS9 or Voyager. I disliked Discovery but I love SNW. There are all kinds of Star Trek fans.
DS9 is a good litmus test for determining what kind of Star Trek fan you are. It broke a lot of the optimism and continuum of how Star Trek had worked previously, where hyper-competent people just always seem to come out okay. It smashed reality into the faces of sci-fi fans by building an actual war-narrative into the character arc (an episode of DS9 deals with GWOT PTSD better than almost any other network TV show did) and so it's not really surprising that DS9 was a little controversial when it aired. I stopped watching Discovery after "the burn" event because it didn't make any sense, and it was obvious the writers wanted to start from scratch. Space fungus powers the ship? A character has a panic attack and any ship with a warp drive is blown up? Not a serious sci-fi show and one of the worst entries into the Star Trek catalog. I hope Paramount takes a pause and we don't get any new Star Trek for 5 years, so the writers can grow up.
DS9 raised the bar so high that it's past the Oort cloud. I've watched everything up to Enterprise and I will say that I enjoyed all of them despite their flaws. I tried watching the newer trek series: lower decks, discovery and picard. Lower decks was an instant turn-off and I fell asleep on the first episodes of the other two, twice. The free month of paramount ran out before I bothered trying to watch them again. I should give them a go one day.
Glad someone else felt the same. Discovery started well but the whole "burn" thing was... stupid. There are a million narrative devices you could use to break the ability for ships to travel via warp and they chose the least sciency of them all.
Academy deliberately set out to "be different" and fans of Star Trek are reacting accordingly. The show sucks, its set design and writing are trash, and all Paramount is doing here is counting on actual Star Trek fans watching the back-catalog on Paramount+ to juice the value of the other actual Star Trek IP (ugh Academy is bad, I'm going to re-watch DS9 for the 15th time, or maybe Voyager).
Academy is so bad that I have to wonder if there are people involved who deliberately want to destroy Star Trek so they can "re-boot" it from scratch later.
All of this is fundamentally wrong enough you can just say your blogs said it was too woke so you didn't watch it.
The recent Star Trek shows have their problems, most often whiffing the delivery of a satisfying conclusion to the season arc. (Discovery and Picard both had terrible mystery box seasons where the mystery ended up being dumb and disappointing.) Academy nailed it. The characters, the conclusion, the resolution to different subplot threads, all extremely solid.
Like, you can generally like or dislike a given show, but there are valid criticisms and then there are very invalid ones. And it's very clear you did not actually watch the series.
Academy is a show about incompetent people being drug along by the plot. It is diametrically apposed to TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY. In just the first episode of Academy, one of the characters eats her communicator, and then the show moves on as if this is something normal that goes on. Does this sound like the usual competence porn that the prior iterations of Star Trek were known for?
It certainly does not to me. This is supposed to be, ya know, the academy that the best of the best enter into in order to commission into Starfleet. The rest of Academy is one incomprehensible plot hole after another, followed by awful (and at times disrespectful) callbacks to prior shows.
Can you link some blog posts? I'd like to read them. Not on social media these days as I gave it up for Lent a decade ago and never went back, so I'm probably missing some more comprehensive criticisms of Academy.
So your gripe is that a barely recurring character is used in a joke, and you didn't find it funny. Gotcha! Unfortunately, not every joke lands for every person.
It's important to understand that generally speaking, Academy standards are probably a lot lower than they used to be, the show, actually goes into this a couple times! Because, you know, the destruction of a large part of society and such. It is a school, and if the characters didn't need to learn something, they probably wouldn't need to be there.
You're generally going to find competency in the command staff/professors, and you generally do. Captain Ake is in at least one episode, orchestrating the entire episode behind the scenes, and in the following one, it doesn't say it explicitly, but it is most plausible that she also did as well. Episodes where the senior staff don't know what's happening, it's clear they know something is up, they just haven't determined what yet. I am not positive I can think of a spot where the officers in the show were anything but incredibly competent, and the show also avoids classic tropes like "the admiral is a jerk/evil", Starfleet is, in fact, led by an extremely competent and reasonable admiral.
I don't want to watch a science fiction show about children. That's what Academy is, a show about children. It should have been a show about young adults getting ready to be officers.
It's fine that you think this is entertaining science fiction, and are grafting perceptions of "competence" on characters in this show. I don't want to nitpic everything in your response, except for this:
>Academy standards are probably a lot lower than they used to be, the show, actually goes into this a couple times!
The explanation for this makes no sense. This is the 32nd century (allegedly). The amount of advanced technology one would need to understand to be functional in this environment is extreme.
As an aside, and maybe this is the best way to explain my aversion to this show, the ship design is awful and makes absolutely no sense. I forget which "tech the tech" explanation there was for this, but every starship in Academy is a) hideous because the warp nacelles just float out in space for some reason, and b) makes no sense canonically. Star Trek used to actually respect engineering. Academy says "nah, fuck it, it's all magic now".
TNG suggested kids in elementary school were learning calculus but honestly I'm not sure that's a reasonable thing developmentally. Just because the technology improves doesn't mean humans get smarter faster. The cadets here are college students, and generally speaking, pretty competent ones. (God, college kids were dumb everywhere I went to school.) Also technical talent and emotional development are separate topics. I'm also not sure I agree technical understanding has to continue to grow with technology.
Computing technology is much further today than it was twenty years ago, but kids these days understand less about them because the technology is abstracted away better. (People use iPads now with no idea how a file system works.) In the 32nd century stuff feels magical, a lot of people probably don't need to know how it works to use it.
Floating nacelles make plenty of sense if they're independent drive units with all necessary components in the nacelle, consider they create a warp bubble around the entire assembly, but you can obviously wirelessly control a separate structure and the ships can manipulate them with force fields and such. Think about how many times a ship in earlier shows scraped a nacelle and exploded, separation is good design if technology now allows it. And remember... this is like many hundreds of years after Starfleet had timeships that could beam a person to and from any place in space and time. If anything the technology in this series feels a bit not magical enough for the time period.
Yes, I understand that you have ways to convince yourself that Academy is a good Star Trek show. I'm old at this point, and, for me, it's bad.
Agree, Whedon's script is essential to the popularity. I'd love it happen tho if they can do a good enough job. As well as River etc, I'd like to Shepherd Books back story.
Lets be real - Firefly was very good. But the reason it holds "magic" status as far as series goes is mostly because of its rarity, and the final movie where a major likable character was killed off, with everyone wishing for a sequel.
Its same with anything really - car enthusiasts obsess over limited runs of older cars because they are rare, not because they are good, and people were lining up at McDonalds when they re-released Szechuan sauce (which is literally soy sauce and ketchup).
If they would have done Season 2,3, and so on, it wouldn't be held in such a high regard as it is now.
> Lets be real - Firefly was very good. But the reason it holds "magic" status as far as series goes is mostly because of its rarity, and the final movie where a major likable character was killed off, with everyone wishing for a sequel.
Strongly disagree. The Firefly series was always exceptional. I watched it on DVD around the time it came out (maybe just after it was cancelled) and waited for the movie. The movie was actually a net negative, in my opinion, for killing off Wash (Tudyk), who was essential to the chemistry they had going.
I actually think the movie killing him off (and to a lesser extent, killing Book) hurt the momentum for further movies or other follow-ups.
> If they would have done Season 2,3, and so on, it wouldn't be held in such a high regard as it is now.
It's always possible that it could have gone off the rails. But the original Star Trek only ran for three seasons and spawned countless other shows and movies. I think if it had gone for two more seasons with the same cast, crew it, and general quality level it could potentially have been another Star Trek.
I never got the impression there was much momentum for any more sequels anyway, Serenity felt like the bone they were willing to throw. This was a time before show revivals (rather than remakes/reboots e.g. BSG) were common, it was very surprising when they did it for Family Guy.
Firefly has a rabid fan base, but it's not very large. The movie did... okay. Enough to pay for itself, but not enough to interest anyone in making more content in that universe.
When the show was first released it was cancelled after half a season because it was expensive to make and couldn't compete in the ratings with slap-dash, almost free to produce "reality TV".
I agree with you. Star Trek TOS only had two good seasons. Season 3 was widely panned. And it still spawned a massive franchise.
Plus there have been dozens of one-series sci-fi shows (Almost Human, Terra Nova, Space:Above and Beyond, etc.) and none have the same pull as Firefly.
Interesting that all those you specifically named aired on Fox, which is where Firefly aired.
Other science fiction shows Fox killed after not more than one season were The Lone Gunman, Harsh Realm, Minority Report, Second Chance, and John Doe.
Others did make it past the first season but not past the second, such as Dark Angel and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Even shows that make it longer often have trouble on Fox. Futurama for example was put in terrible time slots that often got preempted by sports which made it hard to grow its audience, and most of the time the creators had no idea if the current season was going to be their last. They had to keep trying to write season finales that would also be good series finales if they got cancelled between seasons.
They also do this to shows in other genres. Lucifer for example got cancelled after 3 seasons, with season 3 having ended on the biggest possible cliffhanger there could be for that show. That was very annoying.
My rule has now been for a long time that I will not watch any new scripted series on Fox that has any kind of ongoing story. If there are enough good reviews and word of mouth to make me want to watch it I'll wait until complete seasons are available on streaming, and then only if there exists some N such that if I watch to episode N and stop there won't be any cliffhangers or important ongoing story arcs open.
We can't really rate any art something as exceptional, because beyond good it all comes down to personal preference. For example for music, people can agree that some composition, whether its rock or dubstep is well produced, but individual style and preference will make someone either like it or not like it.
Beyond that, its called hedonistic adaptation, and its a real effect. If you get something good in a small amount, you are going to inflate how good it is. If you get that good thing in larger amounts, its going to seem less good.
I think you almost have it, one of the big reasons why Firefly has such an exalted status is that it only had one season. But it's not a rarity thing, it's that they spent that season doing some interesting world building that caught people's imagination then didn't have an opportunity to totally fuck it up in subsequent seasons.
Loved the show, I have no expectations for this. It's just too easy to not be "right" for all sorts of incompatible different definitions of "right".
But, the animated series a good idea and smart.
First, it lets Nathan and Morena participate considering they're pretty busy with their prime time series.
Second, there's no reason to "jump ahead 20 years". They can pick right up from where they left off after they figure out how to dig Wash out of the ground. The animated characters don't have to age. They can do a prequel, they have a lot of flexibility which helps to not pigeon hole it.
And, ideally, the animated series can be less expensive, making it perhaps more of a chance for success and continuing (I have no idea how much modern animated show development costs compared to sets and CGI etc.).
I have not seen it, but I understand that The Clone Wars is a pretty successful series, so maybe that's an inspiration.
I watched "Lower Decks" episode just to see how they portrayed Deep Space 9, how actors pick their old roles. While they did good job, visuals were giving me this feeling it's a distant memory that fades away. Weird thing to say but same thing happen when I pick that "Babylon 5: The Road Home" - it's like the show you were watching but it's not the same.
And I risk saying that perhaps media that become iconic shouldn't be touched no matter what happened during production or screening. Because if you start fiddling around it even in a good faith that charm may be gone forever.
"Firefly/Serenity" for me is from same shelf as DS9 or rebooted BSG - a closed story that doesn't need any continuation. These titles got rather bitter than sweet ending; there are questions and that's good. Not everything has to be wrapped up with a picturesque idyllic scenery, where everyone "lived happily ever after".
But at the same time, I don't mind if they roll animated "Firefly". And I give them my thumbs up, will be happy if they manage to success but I don't have big expectations either.
I have exactly the same feeling. Lower Decks is one of my favorite star trek shows, and I normally don't click with animated series.
So, I hope for some of that magic with firefly, they've earned it by keeping that series relevant for 20+ years.
If there’s any chance at success, animated is probably it. Alternatively they could remake the show with a different cast portraying some other crew with a whole new storyline. Of course that’s not a reboot but it could capture the same kind of magic the first did with the right writers and cast. It could even be set before, after, or contemporaneously with the original. It would be a big expensive gamble though.
Yeah, I don't think it would ever work with a different cast.
>They can pick right up from where they left off after they figure out how to dig Wash out of the ground.
The animated show is set between the original series and the movie, presumably because of Wash's character.
It’s sad that Ron Glass is no longer with us and can’t reprise his role as Shepherd Book.
I liked him in Barney Miller, so he and I go way back...
Oh man, Barney Miller, Night Court, WKRP,... golden age of US TV dramedy.
I recently tried watching the new Night Court reboot.
Didn’t really interest me.
> figure out how to dig Wash out of the ground
My understanding is that it fits between the series and the movie, so there will be no need to rename the land known as His Grave.
> I have no idea how much modern animated show development costs
Animation costs are all over the place. It can be dirty cheap, it can be more expensive than a highly-produced live action. You can notice the difference, but it's not what actually matters for the show's success.
Star Trek animated is pretty good and so is Lower Decks.
I usually don't like cartoons but I'm hopeful.
ST:TAS had some surprisingly good scripts for something that was somewhat a 70’s kids cartoon. Very much enjoyed how animation allowed them to run wild where practical effects wouldn’t have been possible (for better or worse at times, lol).
I adored Lower Decks. It was the right way to approach fan service for a franchise as I hate seeing fan service awkwardly ham fisted into every corner of nutrek. Some of the later seasons were a bit awkward, or rushed?, but overall I adored it. Terrific character development and overall really told that story of that period between being a bunch of green academy grads and being adaptable, competent professionals.
If only ST:TAS hadn't given us the Holodeck... IMHO TNG would have been better without the holodeck episodes.
My wife used to fall for every Firefly season 2 hoax on social media in the past because she wished it to be true. It was very funny when I could come to her to announce there will be a season 2.
Mixed feelings about it being animated. The older I become, the more I have trouble relating to painted characters, no real clue why, so I couldn't even enjoy things I should have enjoyed like Arcane.
Also, of course, no Shepherd Book :-(
Anyway, I hope I'll like it. Really loved season 1.
They can probably get a Shepherd Book voice actor much easier than a Ron Glass doppelgänger for a live show.
With AI they good probably replicate it perfectly. For good and bad.
Just bad imo. No reason to do that when there are many talented voice actors out there who will do just fine.
The way I see it: I'd rather have animated characters than everyone looking like a fossil. Really put a damper on Star Wars Ep. 7 for me (among other things), but Harrison Ford didn't look or feel like Han Solo. I'm glad they're not doing the played-out "aging crew" trope with Firefly. If it's animated, the characters can still run as far and jump as high as they could 20 years ago.
I just call it "The Season" because there was no Season II.
There wasn't even a whole season 1 :(
> will be
This is just an announcement that they want to make it. Nobody has signed up to make even the pilot. It's not even a kickstarter.
I agree with most of the other comments so far, the "magic" of the show is going to be hard to replicate.
My bull case for this is that Nathan Fillion and crew have had 20 years of exposure to this fact and likely know what they're getting into and how to do it right. The only question is if they'll be able to execute. I'm excited!
Say what you will about Joss Whedon, but his use of a colorful character palette & quirky, punchy style of dialog have gone from niche to mainstream in the 30+ years since Buffy. Mostly thanks to Whedon’s and his imitators’ escalating success with that formula: The Avengers, for example, took Marvel from a series of above-average superhero hits to total cultural dominance.
There’s plenty of writing talent out there that grew up wanting to emulate Buffy and Firefly, so if hearts and budgets are in the right place, recapturing that part of the show should be eminently feasible.
Some of the skill (imo) was creating characters who naturally set up opportunities for those dialog trees. That at least is already done for firefly
I'm a little nervous about this affecting it negatively. Back when Buffy and Firefly were on the air, they felt so unique due to the dialogue style. But now that'll just seem like every single generic superhero movie. Hopefully it can buck that feeling somehow.
The Buffy revival was just canned this weekend, so I wouldn't get too optimistic here.
I feel like Buffy doesn’t work so well in the modern era, unlike animated firefly? Not entirely sure why though. Maybe part of the charm of Buffy is the setting?
The announcement on instagram is here in case anyone wants to see it directly. Pretty well done. Nathan did a bunch of teasers with the other stars earlier. Kinda funny and goofy.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DV6Js56jT3F/
♫♪♪ Burn the land, boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me ♫♪♪
The hero of canton the man we call Jayne
May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one. ~ Captain Malcolm 'Mal' Reynolds
I am... cautiously optimistic without Whedon being involved. But also very curious how this will work since it doesn't seem like it's a reboot, unless I missed something.
Tara Butters from Dollhouse being involved makes me a feel a bit better, since I love Dollhouse (actually rewatching it right now). Now I can only hope this actually succeeds and maybe Dollhouse can get similar treatment.
I am sure some will be upset that it's animated, but if that is what it takes (and it turns out good) I'm fine with it.
Okay so a little bit of out of universe trivia on Dollhouse: It was planned for 5 seasons. With the risk of cancellation, the second season and the two Epitaph episodes were a severely compressed telling of 4 seasons of plans. And, personally I think it worked well. Something similar happened to Babylon 5, Manifest, Jericho (IIRC), Firefly (Serenity was the original ending that would have played out over multiple seasons), and the Escaflowne anime: the main plots towards the end got compressed to create a faster pace at the climax while ensuring the story could be finished (though I wasn't a fan of how Manifest ended).
My concern about original writers being involved in reboots is if they want to fill out the story they couldn't tell the first time around and end up with a more standard pacing that's less exciting, and end up getting cancelled before finishing. Then we end up with things like Tru Calling and Dark Matter, which had planned plots they couldn't finish.
Oh wow, I really enjoyed Dollhouse but I didn't know that! I was always confused why Season 2's plot went by so quickly. Thanks.
I think it worked well with the Epitaph episodes being as short as they were. I don’t think I’d have enjoyed that much darkness for many seasons. They were great though, to show sobering consequences of what they were toying with.
My best guess based on another good series with a similar 5-season arc, the 3rd season would have been when the main characters realize Rossum's larger plans (Topher's breakdown when he puts together schematics from the individual Dollhouses, or the visit from one of the execs using Victor's body, for two examples that did make it into the series), 4th season would have been the dark one when everything goes to crap, and 5th season would have been the hopeful restoration of Epitaph One / Two.
The only thing I remember reading for sure is, the 2nd season would have largely been about exploring what was happening to Echo because of what occurred in the 1st season aired finale (episode "Omega") - which did happen, but it I don't remember it dominating the season. Didn't sound like it would have been a dark season, but looking back on it seems like it would have been painfully slow.
Interesting timing, considering that the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot was canceled by Hulu yesterday.
It is a little weird that these two events were so close to each other.
My tinfoil hat tells me Someone Important didn't want two shows from the same creator resurrected simultaneously and potentially competing with each other, but I put the hat back in the cupboard because even if it were true, that person's opinion would be stupid. Coincidences happen, and people can be fans of more than one thing.
Personally, I have high hopes for this Firefly venture. And for those who were hoping for a live action continuation, that's still not off the table! This may be how we get there.
It's too bad Whedon won't be a part of it. I wonder if there's a way to sufficiently un-cancel someone like him. Like sit him down and say, we're going to give you another chance but you need to be on your best behavior or you're out for good.
I’m not sure how well it would work out either way. One isn’t the same person twenty plus years later, and also in absolute terms he’s in his sixties now.
Shiny.
This page has an alert popup that directs me to a malware site:
“There was a problem loading the page please click OK to learn more.”
https://archive.ph/KTIGX
I hope xkcd does a comic about it
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Source?
It’s just conjecture
I am honestly baffled by how much people love firefly. I don't get it. It's a slightly campy western-style scifi. It's not bad but it's not 'still talking about it for the next few decades' material IMO. Theres a zillion littl scifi channel series with essentially the same quality as far as I can figure.
Do you have some examples? Because honestly I put Firefly very high on my list of shows I like.
The setting is great, the writing is top-notch, and the acting is wonderful. The characters have great chemistry. It's funny.
The general universe is well done too. It lacks endless implausible human-shaped aliens and is light on space magic, which is nice. Overall it feels lived-in and there is some interesting history.
Honestly it's hard to think of another space-western style series that I'd rate so highly. I guess parts of the Mandalorian fit the bill, but I wouldn't rank it up there with Firefly.
Good drama, good humor, good characters, and a very cozy feel in those quiet moments on the ship between things.
In contrast to the sibling comment, I fell in love with the series before I knew it had been canceled. When I finished season 1, I immediately went in search of season 2. When I couldn’t find it, I went to find out when it was going to be released. Discovering what had happened to it was tremendously disappointing.
It's because it was killed before it's time, and there was a known plan for the overall story arc (which was at least semi-satisfied by Serenity). It had developed a fan base that were hungry for more, and then it was cancelled, leaving a great thirst.
Had it lasted three seasons (or even only two), and still been 'cancelled before it's time' it would have faded from memory more quickly because the itch would have been scratched more satisfyingly.
It was good for it's time, and since it was cancelled it's locked within that time. How it translates against modern television is yet to be seen. However, the popularity of The Mandalorian means there is still a market for the Sci-fi Western.
(I liked parts of The Mandalorian, but it went downhill pretty fast in terms of ... everything. I like the sci-fi western thing - it's not serious, but it can touch serious-ness. The Expanse was serious, and touched some Western/Frontier sci-fi)
Before SyFy self-imploded a decade ago it had multiple “ragtag rogues adventure across a sci-fi setting with frontier elements” - Dark Matter, Killjoys, Defiance. Feels like the subgenre Firefly occupied is well-settled by now.
Not for me. It scratches a very specific itch that hasn’t been replicated since. Which is probably a good indication it won’t work for this show either.
like which ones, let's get concrete here
Like what? Maybe I'm missing some great shows.
Firefly has memorable characters, great acting/actors, and good chemistry and good writing. And it's especially memorable because the show got fucked over so people can imagine a lot more greatness than was delivered.
What are the sci-fi channel series?
A cartoon is cool but a continuation using original actors where possible and recast versions WITH ai video generation is something that can also happen in the future too.
In theory it can be close to the real actors continuing it in early 2000s
> recast versions WITH ai video generation
Eww, absolutely not.
You don't need to watch the live-action version that's ideally difficult to distinguish between a real-actor version. But I'm sure it will eventually be available for those that want it.
There is no such thing as a “live action” with AI generated video, it is impossible by definition. It’s just CGI.
Nothing can replace actual actors.
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Honestly, I think in the next year or two, you'll be able to feed an LLM the animated show and have it convert it to pseudo-liveaction.
For better or worse.