(TV) Star Trek: Discovery

[segara82]

My big complaints about S1 were basically "why redesign Klingons? At all? C'mon" and "this spore drive is hella stupid and the giant tardigrade is dumb". Both are, so far, absent in S2 (though there's notes that they'll be going back to spore drive at some point).

I'd guess that the current producers/showrunners/decision-makers found them not alien enough, so their added physical trade-marks from 1987 (they had nearly no distinguishing marks in 1966) got further boosted. Bigger heads, more ridges, sharper teeth and fingernails. To misquote the 6-million-dollar-man: Gentlemen, we can rebuild them. We have the technology and the budget. (I'll refrain from using the rest of the quote)

As for "this spore drive is hella stupid and the giant tardigrade is dumb" ... isn't trying out new whacky things a trademark of Star Trek? Technology and what it can do is, if you go solely by the tv-shows, rather flexible and new things and new ways how to use old things constantly gets seemingly invented only for that one episodes sake. Far too often for my taste did the old shows stumble into the 'Reed Richards is Useless' trope because rarely was there a large overlaying story-arc and therefore the necessity for lasting changes.
DS9, VOY and now DIS profit from not adhering to the old monster/problem-of-the-week writingstyle. Hell, in TOS and TNGs earlier season it hardly matters in which order you watch the episodes, recurring characters and/or lasting consequences were few and far between.

[Elim Garak]

1> Wiseman has a round face and she's not a size zero. She isn't "fat" in any sense at all.

2> The Federation isn't primarily a military. They serve that function by default, in the absence of any other military, but it's an exploratory/scientific/diplomatic organization, first and foremost.

3> A narrow interpretation of a person's value based on superficial aesthetics runs pretty firmly contrary to Earth's ideals in this era.

All three apply.

1. She has like 20 extra pounds, that's fat.
2. Fail to see the relevance. Every smart fat person wants to get lean, they have the technology in Star Trek. Tilly's supposed to be smart. She's fat. Doesn't compute.
3. Being overweight is hardly just aesthetics, not to mention superficial. The ideals of the Earth of that era is self-betterment. You start with the body... even in our era.

[kendro1200]

The one thing I don't get is why Tilly is fat in the perfect future of humankind... how does she pass her physicals? What do the doctors say about such poor handling of the body? Why aren't they fixing it?

EDIT:
Oh, and I remember seeing a crew member casually rolling in a wheelchair... what the fuck was that about?

Back in TNG someone asked Geordi a similar question: Why don't all Starfleet personnel have a visor like his, if his vision is superior to normal vision? I forget the response, but I'm pretty sure it follows on the same line of thought of Piccard talking about the more evolved morals and ethics of the time, and the pursuit of becoming better not perfection itself. There is also the fact that Scotty in the original was in no means anywhere near physically healthy to be doing any kind of cardio, even before they were doing the movies.

Starfleet is not a military organization, it is basically a more organized and authoritative U.N. Not all of the nations in the U.N. have their own military and thus require the resources of the U.N. to solve problems, and usually through attempts at diplomacy first. The U.N. does not have a standard physical guidelines to be applied to all employees/members. Starfleet is very much a meritocracy, people are moved up and down the chain of command based off their merit. Also while the Academy is the main method of entering Starfleet and does very military school'ish, we've seen examples of other ways people can get inducted into Starfleet.

Honestly what should bother anyone in this show is that the Klingons should be looking more human at this point, as was established back with Enterprise to explain why the Klingons looked more human in TOS. What should also bother people is anyone that looks remotely android'ish, as Data was a huge deal back in TNG because he was the first android inducted into Starfleet.

I have found Discovery to be an enjoyable sci-fi show to watch, but it definatly isn't a good Star Trek show. It shares some of the setting aspects, but it has veered too much in the space fantasy spectrum that JJ Abrams introduced in his movies. Sadly I think as far as keeping continuity and sticking to hard sci-fi ST: Enterprise is better than ST: Discovery, which is kind of scary because I thought Enterprise was really pushing it a lot of the time.

[Skulltaker]

Back in TNG someone asked Geordi a similar question: Why don't all Starfleet personnel have a visor like his, if his vision is superior to normal vision? I forget the response, but I'm pretty sure it follows on the same line of thought of Piccard talking about the more evolved morals and ethics of the time, and the pursuit of becoming better not perfection itself. There is also the fact that Scotty in the original was in no means anywhere near physically healthy to be doing any kind of cardio, even before they were doing the movies.

Starfleet is not a military organization, it is basically a more organized and authoritative U.N. Not all of the nations in the U.N. have their own military and thus require the resources of the U.N. to solve problems, and usually through attempts at diplomacy first. The U.N. does not have a standard physical guidelines to be applied to all employees/members. Starfleet is very much a meritocracy, people are moved up and down the chain of command based off their merit. Also while the Academy is the main method of entering Starfleet and does very military school'ish, we've seen examples of other ways people can get inducted into Starfleet.

Honestly what should bother anyone in this show is that the Klingons should be looking more human at this point, as was established back with Enterprise to explain why the Klingons looked more human in TOS. What should also bother people is anyone that looks remotely android'ish, as Data was a huge deal back in TNG because he was the first android inducted into Starfleet.

I have found Discovery to be an enjoyable sci-fi show to watch, but it definatly isn't a good Star Trek show. It shares some of the setting aspects, but it has veered too much in the space fantasy spectrum that JJ Abrams introduced in his movies. Sadly I think as far as keeping continuity and sticking to hard sci-fi ST: Enterprise is better than ST: Discovery, which is kind of scary because I thought Enterprise was really pushing it a lot of the time.

Pretty well said. There are some aspects I like about discovery. It's interesting to see some of the TOS designs with modern effects, and I like their take on Klingon culture. The visual design... not so much. I always feel like for every good idea they have, they immediatly spoil it with something obnoxiously dumb. Not to mention the continuity problems.

[Diaspar]

How’s Anson Mount? I was a big fan of Hell on Wheels and thinking about checking this out for him.

I think he's an excellent Captain Pike! He's got the sass and the demeanour of the Cpt. Pike from the recent Star Trek movies, and it really fits.

After watching the first episode of season 2, it's pretty damn likely that the mysterious aliens are Iconians.

[Ryme]

I feel like if Burnham died and this caused Tilly to get her act together, at least somewhat, the show would be in a fantastic place excusing the endless shitting over established cannon.

I like Tilly, I enjoy the comic relief, but she's so skittish it irks me that it's not called up on more being aboard one of the most strategically valuable assets in Starfleet.

As for Burnham, I think she is probably the least interesting character since Harry Kim, why the show seems determined to focus around her I have close to no idea.

[Skroe]

My big complaints about S1 were basically "why redesign Klingons? At all? C'mon" and "this spore drive is hella stupid and the giant tardigrade is dumb". Both are, so far, absent in S2 (though there's notes that they'll be going back to spore drive at some point).

The visual continuity of Star Trek between TNG and Enterprise were soley due to the fact that at the upper levels you had Rick Berman (after season 2 of TNG) running everything once the studio sidelined Gene Roddenberry, and in the senior levels of the art team you had (mostly) the same people. And starting around Season 3 of TNG, Star Trek started to build the backbone of it's writers branched out with DS9 and Voyager (once TNG ended), and then had the Voyager branch continue with Enterprise. The new writers they added along the way were indoctrinated, and when it came time for them to become big players in shows, they were adherents to what "Star Trek" was.

But here's the thing. Rick Berman and many of the early staff of TNG that he brought in after Gene Roddenberry and his crew left kind of hated TOS. Berman in particular. They resented being stewards of this entire fictional universe that was essentially someone elses idea, but was branded "Star Trek" despite it being very different than TOS. This hostility continued for many years. Even as late as Enterprise, Berman and Braga largely avoided TOS races and kept creating new aliens-of-the-week that might as well have been from the Delta Quadrant, because maintaining continuity (visual or otherwise) with a 40 year old show at that point, wasn't something they were interested in. That's why they did the Xindi War, not the Romulan War or something. That's why they did Barbarian Klingons on Enterprise, not something more TOS like (until Season 4, when Manny Coto took over the show and they were sidelined by the studio).

I think the same thing happened with Bryan Fuller and Discovery. He worked on Voyager. It was a mixed experience for him. In the decade and a half after, his career got way bigger. He came back to Star Trek and did a "Rick Berman" on it. It is known that the redesigned and bald Klingons were something he pushed (the original art was something closer to the Berman era look). The new Klingon ship look too, was a Fuller thing. He did want ToS like uniforms... the current look came from the people who took over form him (who have since been dismissed). Another fuller thing: the look of Discovery era nacelles on Federation ships. he wanted the angular-thin look with weird front. And not TOS tubes.

This is all an artist putting his own spin on it, rather than picking up where Rick Berman and co left off. To a degree I understand it of course. But I also badly disagree with it. Dan Curry, one of Star Trek's long time artists, likened Star Trek to a 'period piece', and I wholeheartedly agree. There is a way things should look like, and a way things don't, and the redesigned Klingons isn't one of those things.

I'm really curious how the Picard show is going to work. Discovery's Executive Producer, Alex Kurtzman, has a terrible, gaudy taste in how things look and the pacing of stories, in almost everything he does. Is the Picard show going to have TNG like Cinemetogragy? Is it going to have the set design quality of the TNG movies? Is it going to be a damn action show? This is actually one of Star Trek's core conflicts, because TOS WAS an action-adventure show that sometimes asked big question, and while TNG and DS9 certainly did that, there was a lot more acting, character development and, well, thinking. They were "slower" shows. Discovery is very much like TOS in that sense, and that's something the writers were absolutely going for. But an entire generation of Star Trek fans grew up on something like TNG.

Picard is a dangerous show for Kurtzman and co, because unless they drop Picard on a planet where they can add only their own creations, it pretty much means means they're going to be slavishly recreating the Berman era, or they're going to put their own spin on it. I certainly hope we don't see Worf with four nostrils and purplish skin.

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The Klingon-Federation-War is finally over and we go to exploration, mistery and new toys. So far S2 Ep1 Brothers is off to a good start.

And i somehow don't get the, well, hate ST: D gets. I mean, just rewatching the first season of TNG ... boy, they were lucky that there was no internet back then. Some of the episodes were just ... wow, you would get publically crucified for some of the (racist) shit they did back then.

IMO it is nice that they finally have the money and tech to make the aliens really look more alien (not just the Klingons, but Saru and others). Anyone remember the red russians in space they originaly were? Or how it were bodycolour and glued-on elf-ears? Even TNG and DS9 had such limits for budgetary and technical reasons. Cardassians most likely got the bulk of that budget, they at least looked far more alien than the Bajorans with their ... nosebridges?

I'll continue to give them the benefit of doubt until season 3 before i slam them like some like to do.

Hell with every Star Trek show, you pretty much skip Season 1 and 2.

TNG went through an enormous production change. Look at the sets, Cinemetography, story lines. Gene Roddenbery and his TOS-legacy team were out. New people were brought in. How the actors acted changed. The script structure changed.

DS9... Season 1 and 2 weren't working and the ratings sunk bad. So they made a course correction.

Voyager... more than just adding 7 of 9 at the end of Season 3, moving Voyager out of the original area of the Delta Quadrant, away from the Kazon, Vidiians and all that, and into Borg space, was coupled with again a complete change in plots, pacing and characterization.

Enterprise went through extremely dramatic changes to save itself. Season 3 almost didn't happen because Season 2 was such a dud. Season 3 got the Xindi War, and that got the very different from Season 1 and 2, Manny Coto run Season 4.

I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of Season 2, when Pike goes back to his ship and Burnham is named Captain or something, if the last scene has them all in the "new" TOS uniforms that the Enterprise crew was sporting. And then we refer to Season 1 and 2 as those weird early seasons where they all had those strange military-like blue Uniforms... just like TNG and the... ummm... revealing... Season 1 and 2 suits, #ManBulges.

[segara82]

DS9... Season 1 and 2 weren't working and the ratings sunk bad. So they made a course correction.

Voyager... more than just adding 7 of 9 at the end of Season 3, moving Voyager out of the original area of the Delta Quadrant, away from the Kazon, Vidiians and all that, and into Borg space, was coupled with again a complete change in plots, pacing and characterization.

Yeah, Voyager i never managed to watch in its entirety, and DS9 took me a second run till i made it into season 3.
That's why i'll wait what DISC will bring. But the first episode of S2 looks good. And those snazy 'new' uniforms ^^

[Skroe]

Yeah, Voyager i never managed to watch in its entirety

Voyager's problem is that the crew wanted, essentially, what Battlestar Galactica was a decade later, but Berman and Braga didn't have guts to go that "un-Star Trek". Simultaneously Voyager was the flagship show on the then new UPN Network, and Paramount executives wanted Voyager to be basically TNG 2.0. They wanted a TNG-feel without the contracts of the TNG cast.

Much of the cast were promised things that never happened because the network wouldn't let the showrunners turn their evergreen, episodic show into a serialized one where big things carried over week to week. Tom Paris getting demoted was a "big deal" for the show. Robert Beltran was particularly aggrieved at the fact that the promised Chakotay role and the written one were completely different.

Voyager and Enterprise also saw the showrunners try to repeat lightning striking twice in another way. With Michael Dorn and Levar Burton, TNG got young actors who turned out to be pretty great. With Voyager and Enterprise, the guy who played Ensign Kim and the guy who played Travis turned out to be terrible every time.

Discovery has had it's bad moments. It's hard to beat Ensign Kim moping about his family. Or Travis being the guy who moves the NX-01's stick.

[FuxieDK]

Let me say this in the nicest way possible: ST: DIS is a horrible piece of shit..

My ranking: ENT > VOY > DS9 > TNG > TOS > TAS >>>>>> Any StarWars movies >>>>>>> ST: DIS..

I'm a Trekkie.. Always was, always will be... But I'd rather see SW:The Farce Awakens for 24 hours straight with my eyes taped open, than watching ST: DIS season 2...

Don't people get why some call it STD for short? Because it's AIDS!!

[fakaroonie]

Let me say this in the nicest way possible: ST: DIS is a horrible piece of shit..

My ranking: ENT > VOY > DS9 > TNG > TOS > TAS >>>>>> Any StarWars movies >>>>>>> ST: DIS..

I'm a Trekkie.. Always was, always will be... But I'd rather see SW:The Farce Awakens for 24 hours straight with my eyes taped open, than watching ST: DIS season 2...

You are toxxie, a very toxic person, not a trekkie, and people should tell you this more often. I recommend meditation as a stress reliever.


I also recommend watching the episode again, this time with the screen On, and subtitles maybe.

[FuxieDK]

You are toxxie, a very toxic person, not a trekkie, and people should tell you this more often. I recommend meditation as a stress reliever.


I also recommend watching the episode again, this time with the screen On, and subtitles maybe.

I'm not toxic in any way... ST: DIS is toxic.. Gene Roddenberry would turn over in his grave, if he had seen how much the brand is disgraced by calling ST: DIS a part of ST universe.

[Diaspar]

Long essay by Skroe

Wow, that's very insightful, I had no idea about all the things happening behind the scenes. I was aware of there being dislike over Berman and Braga, but wow, looking back on their ST shows/seasons it really is obvious how much they wanted to distance themselves from what Roddenberry envisioned.

[cuafpr]

last episode was the best in the series and still just "ok" .. i'm not a fan of Pike taking over command really, but he is the best character on the show.

[Vilendor]

The one thing I don't get is why Tilly is fat in the perfect future of humankind... how does she pass her physicals? What do the doctors say about such poor handling of the body? Why aren't they fixing it?

EDIT:
Oh, and I remember seeing a crew member casually rolling in a wheelchair... what the fuck was that about?

Do i really have to spell it out? Progressive acceptance agenda wrapped in ST coat. Like the whole show...

On topic: This show isn't completely horrible, but it has nothing to do with Star Trek. Rename it to something else, drop the forced references and i'll keep watching it.

[Skroe]

Wow, that's very insightful, I had no idea about all the things happening behind the scenes. I was aware of there being dislike over Berman and Braga, but wow, looking back on their ST shows/seasons it really is obvious how much they wanted to distance themselves from what Roddenberry envisioned.

That's actually just the tip of the iceberg.

Vulcans were a relative rarity on TNG because Vulcans were the alien "face" of Star Trek due to Spock. And the powers that be (TPTB) wanted nothing to do with that. They wanted to create distance. That was true of the TOS races. The use of Klingons and Romulans grew as time went on, but episodes were few and very far between.

The overbearing, manipulative and somewhat sinister of Vulcans in Seasons 1 and 2 of Enterprise were the same thing. TPTB being passive aggressive to a canon they inherited.

Ever wonder why we never say ANY Constitution class Starships until the DS9 30th Anniversary episode and then again in Season 4 of Enterprise? Or why we never saw any Constitution-refit ships, despite the fact they had the studio model on hand, and used lots of Excelsior class, Oberth class, and Miranda-class variants? It's because that's the TOS Enterprise's shape, and they wanted none of that. They had no qualms about using other Galaxy classes, or even (on DS9), the Excelsor-refit. But Kirk's ship? Nope. And here's the fun part.... Picard's old ship, the Stargazer and the USS Bozeman (Kelsey Grammar's ship) were supposed to be Constitution class. Until TPTB nixed that.

Ever wonder why there was no TNG mirror universe episode? Or a return to the Guardian of Forever? The same reason. TPTB (Berman and Braga) didn't want to rehash a TOS idea.

Even within the shows of the same era there was a weird dynamic. Voyager became the flagship show. DS9 became the syndicate spinoff that was allowed to do it's own radically different thing. So not only did it go deeper than ever into Klingons and Romulans, and have a war and a near Federation Coup, but it did have the Mirror Universe, and it did have the Constitution class, and a lot of the things TNG didn't. Meanwhile the Berman and Braga ran Voyager had none of that.

Voyager got the Borg. DS9 got the classic races TPTB didn't want. DS9 couldn't do the Borg (they discussed it).

They also hated sharing sets. Despite standing together for six years, DS9 used the Voyager sets exactly once. Voyager never used DS9 sets after the pilot. Voyager sets were also redressed for the Enterprise-E sets for First Contact and Insurrection. However Nemesis came after Voyager wrapped, so it had its own sets (and consequently, the Enterprise-E's most elaborate and detailed by far).

[Skulltaker]

Let me say this in the nicest way possible: ST: DIS is a horrible piece of shit..

My ranking: ENT > VOY > DS9 > TNG > TOS > TAS >>>>>> Any StarWars movies >>>>>>> ST: DIS..

I'm a Trekkie.. Always was, always will be... But I'd rather see SW:The Farce Awakens for 24 hours straight with my eyes taped open, than watching ST: DIS season 2...

Don't people get why some call it STD for short? Because it's AIDS!!

You are rating Enterprise and Voyager above TNG and DS9, and you honestly want us to believe you care about Star Trek? Yeah, nice try there.

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Ever wonder why there was no TNG mirror universe episode? Or a return to the Guardian of Forever? The same reason. TPTB (Berman and Braga) didn't want to rehash a TOS idea.

Been a while since I watched, but didn't they beam the Mirror Universe Riker over?

[Skroe]

You are rating Enterprise and Voyager above TNG and DS9, and you honestly want us to believe you care about Star Trek? Yeah, nice try there.

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Been a while since I watched, but didn't they beam the Mirror Universe Riker over?

No. That was a duplicate of Riker created during a Transporter accident 10 years prior during the mission that made his career. Basically there was a technobabble problem beaming him back up to the ship, but they got through a storm in the atmosphere, but the signal duplicated. So one Riker went up and one Riker went back down. The Enterprise visited the planet 10 years later to find the duplicate Riker by accident living there the whole time.

[Skulltaker]

No. That was a duplicate of Riker created during a Transporter accident 10 years prior during the mission that made his career. Basically there was a technobabble problem beaming him back up to the ship, but they got through a storm in the atmosphere, but the signal duplicated. So one Riker went up and one Riker went back down. The Enterprise visited the planet 10 years later to find the duplicate Riker by accident living there the whole time.

Oh, I always assumed he was Mirror Universe Riker... never watched TNG entirely. Thanks!

[fakaroonie]

I have to say Star Trek fans are sooo "this is not my Star Trek" waah *crying* waah, probably a bit worse than Star Wars fans.

Star Wars fans actually had a point though.

You don't. Arguments like : X character is fat? Political agenda? It's a show, you sit back and enjoy.

I'm a Stargate fan myself, and I don't have your luxury of watching my childhood series renewed again. Why? Because of crybabies who said SG Universe sucks and they don't like it.