# Star Trek Discovery not getting any better I fear.



## Mage of Spellford

Had hopes for the new season of Discovery as I have been a major Trekker since I first watched the original series in the '60s. This is only my opinion so take it with a grain of salt but the show runners have somehow managed to make Star Trek almost unwatchable.

Michael continues to add to her resume: now in addition to being the best pilot and best science officer, she also has a complete understanding of engineering systems. And the direction--just terrible, I can't remember when I last watched a show with so many people standing around doing literally nothing while the protagonist literally does everything. Standing with concerned looks on their faces, hands hanging loosely at their sides the other officer's body language was cliche and consistent with innocent bystanders waiting to be saved.

Finally what is with the continued cursing by everyone and what happened to any semblance of respect for the chain of command or higher-ranked officers? Guys and Gals (writers or directors) although Star Fleet isn't a military for pete's sake even the crew on a cruise ship or a freighter don't voice whatever flippant thought that pops into their heads and ignore direct orders or contravene them like the crew of the Discovery does.

Although it is out of context Jack Nicholson had it right (especially aboard a ship in deep space): "we follow orders or people die". In my opinion it should be a rare and meaningful moment that a crew member chooses to disobey a direct order not business as usual.

Nope. Didn't like it. Not at all.

My gauge for Star Trek is pretty simple: Would I be excited to visit the world being presented in the stories. Honestly--not at all.

MK


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## Jhaelen

Given that I rather enjoyed Discovery, I'm not sure it matters that it didn't get any better.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Morrus

I enjoyed the new episode immensely. Pike was perfectly cast, the Enterprise was gorgeous (shame we won’t see much of it) and the plot has me hooked already.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully

Pike was awesome, and it was an episode pretty much entirely about exploration and mystery, which is great. 

I didn't care much for that action landing sequence, though. On the other hand, that was one of the only few "tense" moments in the episode, so I guess it wouldn't have worked without something like that, but the sequence specifically wasn't that great.

Now I have to wait a whole week for the next episode. Meh.


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## Morrus

I felt Pike was a better Kirk than Chris Pine.


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## MarkB

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Pike was awesome, and it was an episode pretty much entirely about exploration and mystery, which is great.
> 
> I didn't care much for that action landing sequence, though. On the other hand, that was one of the only few "tense" moments in the episode, so I guess it wouldn't have worked without something like that, but the sequence specifically wasn't that great.
> 
> Now I have to wait a whole week for the next episode. Meh.




It's not really that the action landing sequence was bad, just that we've seen dozens like it. It's pretty much a rip-off of Kirk and Khan's EVA in Star Trek Into Darkness, and there've been plenty of similar sequences. They did at least subvert the "redshirt dies first" trope, but it felt like that was half the reason they made the sequence.

Also, I'm not sure why the pods' tails kept spinning. Was the spinning helpful in some way?


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## Mustrum_Ridcully

MarkB said:


> It's not really that the action landing sequence was bad, just that we've seen dozens like it. It's pretty much a rip-off of Kirk and Khan's EVA in Star Trek Into Darkness, and there've been plenty of similar sequences. They did at least subvert the "redshirt dies first" trope, but it felt like that was half the reason they made the sequence.
> 
> Also, I'm not sure why the pods' tails kept spinning. Was the spinning helpful in some way?




I say "gyro-stabilization", but I really think: "CGI bovine excrement".


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## Hussar

I liked the episode. Fun. Trekkie. Cool. And some bloody gorgeous scenes. 

But yeah. The spinny tails were stupid and distracting.


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## Aeson

Tig Notaro and her "kids" made a great entrance. Pike was better than I expected. If the rest of the season is as good as the first episode then I look forward to it. Oh hell, I'll watch it even if it sucks.


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## Derren

I give it a few more episodes but I have no interest in Star Trek: Burnham. I hope the other characters will get more spotlight and are allowed to do things besides applauding to Mary Sue. Also, more sensible logic, less pod races please.
I wonder if they only brought in Linus for that awful sneeze "joke". Apparently there are no manners in Starfleet...


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## Hussar

Why is Burnham a “Mary Sue?”  Umm she hasn’t done anything that any other Star Trek bridge officer can’t do.


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## Morrus

Guys, let’s steer clear of yet another thread derailed by that godawful “she’s a Mary Sue” thing.


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## Aeson

Red text. Fleee!!!!!!

If it matters to anyone, Jonathan Frakes directed tomorrow's episode.


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## Mallus

Besides the asteroid sequence running on too long, I really liked the season 2 premiere. Felt like the writers were making it clear they'd addressing weaknesses in the first season, like when Pike calls for a roll-call on the bridge. Hopefully this will be more of an ensemble show from now on. 

Loved the lighter tone, Pike, Jet Reno (a Cowboy Bebop name in Star Trek? I'll allow it), the engineer who can totally read a book about doctoring, the Tilly & Stammets Show, and the general impression the show runners are going to use the 2009 film as a touchstone.


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## Zardnaar

Need to rewatch it think I fell asleep. Due to being shattered not the show itself.


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## Aeson

To me this episode was a lot like older Treks. An away mission, techno babble solution to crisis, Prime Directive. I thought it deepened the red angel story and moved it along also. 

I have to stop watching this guy on Youtube. He has a channel where he critiques The Orville and Discovery. He loves The Orville and hates Discovery. He seems to be unable to find anything positive to say about Discovery. Maybe unwiling is a better word. My first experience watch Anson Mount was Inhumans. I suppose not the best vehicle for him. I am liking him as Pike. The Pike/Burnham pairing is what I kinda would have liked from Janeway/Chakotay. In the end it seems, no matter how much they try to be more like traditional Trek, people are going to hate it more. I'm enjoying it more.


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## Morrus

I really enjoyed this one. 

I think the only thing I wish is that they update the uniforms to the ones Pike was wearing when he arrived.


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## Mage of Spellford

Hi All,

I found this weeks episode to be much more entertaining and balanced. The writers still have the unfortunate habit of trotting out the 'disobey a direct order' trope. It is fast becoming a cliche which completely negates the purpose of a chain of command especially when in all instances the commander is in error. 

One of the things I remember from the original star trek writers handbook was a passage where Gene Roddenberry advised the writers that one of the most important precepts of the show was that events despite their fantastical milieu should be logical and feel true. I believe that the litmus test he used was take the situation strip away the fantastic elements and it should still work on the bridge of a modern warship. This was extremely savvy of the Great Bird of the Galaxy and I think is why the stories and situations are still entertaining on multiple watches. Verisimilitude. 

Discovery has definite potential I just wish the writers would apply this rule. How much better the stories might be.

This week was worth the time.


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## Ryujin

Current rumours, based on Twitter posts by Anson Mount (Christopher Pike), are that Discovery is to be cancelled. At least one Youtuber (Nerdrotic) is claiming inside information with respect to this.

I think he's wrong and is banking everything on Mount's comments that he was unemployed, that to me just sounds like Pike is a one season character arc, and it's going to continue production for a season 3. I make no bones about not liking the show, but misconstruing one tweet to bury a show is ridiculous.


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## Aeson

Nerdrotic is the Youtube channel I said I needed to stop watching. His level of hate for the show seems excessive. I saw the video that you're talking about. I agree that you can't put much faith in his views on the tweet. Last season it was Lorca. This season it's Pike. Next season it'll be someone else. 

I did like the theory he mentioned. The one about the red angel is Spock trying to fix the time line. Even if it's not Spock I hope that's what it is. Maybe it's Sam from Quantum Leap.


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## Hussar

Aeson said:


> Nerdrotic is the Youtube channel I said I needed to stop watching. His level of hate for the show seems excessive. I saw the video that you're talking about. I agree that you can't put much faith in his views on the tweet. Last season it was Lorca. This season it's Pike. Next season it'll be someone else.
> 
> I did like the theory he mentioned. The one about the red angel is Spock trying to fix the time line. Even if it's not Spock I hope that's what it is. Maybe it's Sam from Quantum Leap.




Ties in nicely with Enterprise.


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## CapnZapp

Mage of Spellford said:


> Had hopes for the new season of Discovery as I have been a major Trekker since I first watched the original series in the '60s. This is only my opinion so take it with a grain of salt but the show runners have somehow managed to make Star Trek almost unwatchable.
> 
> Michael continues to add to her resume: now in addition to being the best pilot and best science officer, she also has a complete understanding of engineering systems. And the direction--just terrible, I can't remember when I last watched a show with so many people standing around doing literally nothing while the protagonist literally does everything. Standing with concerned looks on their faces, hands hanging loosely at their sides the other officer's body language was cliche and consistent with innocent bystanders waiting to be saved.
> 
> Finally what is with the continued cursing by everyone and what happened to any semblance of respect for the chain of command or higher-ranked officers? Guys and Gals (writers or directors) although Star Fleet isn't a military for pete's sake even the crew on a cruise ship or a freighter don't voice whatever flippant thought that pops into their heads and ignore direct orders or contravene them like the crew of the Discovery does.
> 
> Although it is out of context Jack Nicholson had it right (especially aboard a ship in deep space): "we follow orders or people die". In my opinion it should be a rare and meaningful moment that a crew member chooses to disobey a direct order not business as usual.
> 
> Nope. Didn't like it. Not at all.
> 
> My gauge for Star Trek is pretty simple: Would I be excited to visit the world being presented in the stories. Honestly--not at all.
> 
> MK



I gave up and didn't even finish the first season.

Only came back to see it when I heard Michelle Yeoh was cast to play Evil Emperor.

Will stick to Orville until her new show is aired.


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## Morrus

Why is this set as a wiki thread? [MENTION=21576]Mage of Spellford[/MENTION], that means anybody can edit your original post. Did you intend to do that?


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## Ryujin

Aeson said:


> Nerdrotic is the Youtube channel I said I needed to stop watching. His level of hate for the show seems excessive. I saw the video that you're talking about. I agree that you can't put much faith in his views on the tweet. Last season it was Lorca. This season it's Pike. Next season it'll be someone else.
> 
> I did like the theory he mentioned. The one about the red angel is Spock trying to fix the time line. Even if it's not Spock I hope that's what it is. Maybe it's Sam from Quantum Leap.




I was wondering if that might have been the channel you referenced. He is a bit... extreme. I try to keep my opinions to why I dislike a thing, rather than trying to convince others to dislike it too


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## Aeson

Ryujin said:


> I was wondering if that might have been the channel you referenced. He is a bit... extreme. I try to keep my opinions to why I dislike a thing, rather than trying to convince others to dislike it too




That's exactly what he seems to be doing. 

I rewatched New Eden this morning. One complaint was the fast edits in scenes. I noticed it more the second time around. Other than being noticed, it had little impact on me or the story. I think it was a way to squeeze some characters in and get reaction shots to what was being said or happening. I'm ok with that. You have a group of people on a sizeable stage, you'll have to move a bit to get them in.


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## Mage of Spellford

Hi Morris,

My mistake, somehow I clicked the wiki checkbox. It's fixed. Thanks.




Morrus said:


> Why is this set as a wiki thread? [MENTION=21576]Mage of Spellford[/MENTION], that means anybody can edit your original post. Did you intend to do that?


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## Aeson

[video=youtube_share;8rvMqRrtmkY]https://youtu.be/8rvMqRrtmkY[/video]

The full episode is available to watch.


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## ccs

Well, since I really liked season 1, I guess season 2 not getting much better isn't the worst thing in the world. 

That said, I'm still not going to sign up for thier streaming service.  I'll just wait patiently & let my cousins get me the dvd next Christmas....


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## Morrus

ccs said:


> Well, since I really liked season 1, I guess season 2 not getting much better isn't the worst thing in the world.




I liked s1, and s2 is even better. There aren’t many shows I eagerly await each week, but this is one.


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## Morrus

I like the look of the Klingons in this episode, but I’m finding them really hard to understand. I need subtitles!


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## Aeson

My mom might need subtitles also. If she has trouble with Brits speaking English, she'll have trouble with the Klingons.

The Klingon story line was good. My complaint is they tried to fit too many stories into the episode. Keep the Klingons, but drop one of the others. You could always pick it up the next week. I figure there will be a Tilly centered episode anyway, because I don't think alien May is finished with her. 

The statement was made on Nerdrotic that Discovery has ruined the Spock character. Anyone agree? Is crazy homicidal Spock something that could have happened? I think his commitment was part of his investigation, not a result of it.


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## Hussar

I think it is way too early to tell. Who knows what the Spock storyline is going to be?  

But that won’t stop folks from cluttering up YouTube to tell all and sundry how bad the show is.


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## Aeson

Most of them think they won after Anson Mount's tweet. They're absolutely giddy thinking the show is cancelled. I will be disappointed to find out the show is cancelled. I might even start one of campaigns where you flood the CBS offices with letters and stuff. Should we start mailing Spock ears as a sign of support?


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## Morrus

Aeson said:


> The statement was made on Nerdrotic that Discovery has ruined the Spock character.




They haven’t seen Spock’s character.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Aeson said:


> Most of them think they won after Anson Mount's tweet. They're absolutely giddy thinking the show is cancelled. I will be disappointed to find out the show is cancelled. I might even start one of campaigns where you flood the CBS offices with letters and stuff. *Should we start mailing Spock ears as a sign of support?*




That sounds more like a threat being delivered by an interstellar organized crime family.  Just sayin’.


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## Aeson

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That sounds more like a threat being delivered by an interstellar organized crime family.  Just sayin’.




We are making them an offer they can't refuse.


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## Mallus

Ryujin said:


> I make no bones about not liking the show, but misconstruing one tweet to bury a show is ridiculous.



Discovery seems to have built up a very vocal anti-fandom who are determined to spread any bit of bad news about the show, real or otherwise. Not sure if that says anything about the show itself or just the state of fandom(s) on social media today. Then again, there's real-world money in negative hot takes, so maybe that's all there is to say about that. 

Here's my quick rating of the season 2 eps:
1. Very Good
2. Great
3. Bad Game of Thrones Episode in Space (so still pretty good for TV...)
4. Very Good (but Saru ? Burnham 'death' scene went on too long, lost impact)


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## Mustrum_Ridcully

The title of this thread is definitely getting further from reality with every new episode. Oh, well, maybe not, because it's about someone's fears, not reality. 

Loved Episode 4. Maybe a bit too packed. Only weakness in my opinion was the Burnham/Saru scene, it didn't feel as earned as the standing bridge crew scene. Maybe Mallus describes it good with too long as well. Still, great episode.

So far the show is living up to my personal hype for the second season.


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## Morrus

Another good episode, but I’m getting impatient for Spock.

And is that two episodes in a row Tilly was taken over by an alien entity?


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## Mallus

Aeson said:


> We are making them an offer they can't refuse.



An offer that's _illogical_ to refuse.


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## MarkB

Morrus said:


> And is that two episodes in a row Tilly was taken over by an alien entity?




Yeah, but it's not like alien-possession-of-the-week. She's just having trouble shaking off the one entity.


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## Hussar

Now THAT was a Star Trek episode.  Sure, the death scene might have dragged a bit, but, still, that hit all the high notes for a ST episode.  They really seem to have picked up the ball and run in season 2.


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## Aeson

My girl had a nano second of screen time. I do love the dark hair. Hopefully Rebecca Romijn gets more time later. That part could have been any actress if that is all the screen time. 

I was amused by the translator malfunction. That could not have been an easy scene to shoot.


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## Hussar

Yeah, the scene with Number One was fantastic.  They even got an actress that kinda looks the part.  There's is more than a passing resemblance:







Very cool.  Looks like this season is going to be a nerdgasm fest.


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## CapnZapp

Mallus said:


> Discovery seems to have built up a very vocal anti-fandom who are determined to spread any bit of bad news about the show, real or otherwise. Not sure if that says anything about the show itself or just the state of fandom(s) on social media today. Then again, there's real-world money in negative hot takes, so maybe that's all there is to say about that.



You seem surprised or confused.

What aspect about how taking a beloved and quite unique show and then using that name for a very different show that doesn't care to value those unique traits can trigger a negativity backlash do you not understand?


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## Morrus

CapnZapp said:


> You seem surprised or confused.
> 
> What aspect about how taking a beloved and quite unique show and then using that name for a very different show that doesn't care to value those unique traits can trigger a negativity backlash do you not understand?




Case in point.


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## Zardnaar

I'm enjoying it, its not great as such but I like it. Its not as good as my favourite shows (Stargate Atlantis/SG1, Babylon 5) but its not to bad.

 Kind of helps there is a lack of a great sci fi show atm. This and Orville are about the best that is available. At least until when season IV of The Expanse lands.

 Its better than say the worst of the new Battlestar Galactica, not as good as the best of BSG.


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## Zardnaar

CapnZapp said:


> You seem surprised or confused.
> 
> What aspect about how taking a beloved and quite unique show and then using that name for a very different show that doesn't care to value those unique traits can trigger a negativity backlash do you not understand?




Are you saying you finally understand the backlash against 4E then?


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## CapnZapp

Zardnaar said:


> Are you saying you finally understand the backlash against 4E then?



As someone who played 4th Ed until I concluded its place was on the garbage pile of history, I'd hazard a "cautious yes" to that question


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## Zardnaar

CapnZapp said:


> As someone who played 4th Ed until I concluded its place was on the garbage pile of history, I'd hazard a "cautious yes" to that question




 Its basically the same stuff. If you're a fan of a franchise (whatever it is), drastic change can often be bad. Star Trek for example is a bit more cerebral than say Star Wars. The key to a clever take on it is somewhere in the middle where you capture new fans without alienating the old ones. Doesn't matter if its Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Batman or even Coca Cola.


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## CapnZapp

So hooray for the next edition of Star Trek?

(I don't dare think you suggest the Orville being the 5th edition of Star Trek? )


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## Hussar

Zardnaar said:


> Its basically the same stuff. If you're a fan of a franchise (whatever it is), drastic change can often be bad. Star Trek for example is a bit more cerebral than say Star Wars. The key to a clever take on it is somewhere in the middle where you capture new fans without alienating the old ones. Doesn't matter if its Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Batman or even Coca Cola.




That's your takeaway?

Mine is that in every fandom, there is a segment that is so toxic that they ruin anything they come in contact with by making sure than anything that doesn't appeal to them gets buried under unrelenting negativity and childish tantrums.  This segment of fandom has climbed so far up its own ass that it is incapable of understanding that their tastes are not everyone's tastes and, well, even if they could recognize that fact, are so selfish and self absorbed that they simply don't care. 

If it isn't tailored specifically to their tastes, then it's crap and must be unrelentingly attacked at every possible turn to make sure that all and sundry know just how much that segment of fandom is unhappy.

We see this with pretty much every fandom - Star Wars, Star Trek, D&D, whatever.


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## Aeson

You just described everyone with a Youtube channel.


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## Morrus

Hussar said:


> Mine is that in every fandom, there is a segment that is so toxic that they ruin anything they come in contact with by making sure than anything that doesn't appeal to them gets buried under unrelenting negativity and childish tantrums.  This segment of fandom has climbed so far up its own ass that it is incapable of understanding that their tastes are not everyone's tastes and, well, even if they could recognize that fact, are so selfish and self absorbed that they simply don't care.
> 
> If it isn't tailored specifically to their tastes, then it's crap and must be unrelentingly attacked at every possible turn to make sure that all and sundry know just how much that segment of fandom is unhappy.
> 
> We see this with pretty much every fandom - Star Wars, Star Trek, D&D, whatever.




Yup. It’s friggin tiresome.


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## Zardnaar

CapnZapp said:


> So hooray for the next edition of Star Trek?
> 
> (I don't dare think you suggest the Orville being the 5th edition of Star Trek? )




 I love Orville but its good and on Fox so I expect it to get cancelled.


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## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> That's your takeaway?
> 
> Mine is that in every fandom, there is a segment that is so toxic that they ruin anything they come in contact with by making sure than anything that doesn't appeal to them gets buried under unrelenting negativity and childish tantrums.  This segment of fandom has climbed so far up its own ass that it is incapable of understanding that their tastes are not everyone's tastes and, well, even if they could recognize that fact, are so selfish and self absorbed that they simply don't care.
> 
> If it isn't tailored specifically to their tastes, then it's crap and must be unrelentingly attacked at every possible turn to make sure that all and sundry know just how much that segment of fandom is unhappy.
> 
> We see this with pretty much every fandom - Star Wars, Star Trek, D&D, whatever.




 I think those fans are a very small minority just very loud. Flip side of the coin though sometimes a revolt against a product seems to hit critical mass where the casuals agree with the hard core and then a franchise can often be in trouble.


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## Sadras

CapnZapp said:


> So hooray for the next edition of Star Trek?
> 
> (I don't dare think you suggest the Orville being the 5th edition of Star Trek? )




Well, the next edition of Star Trek will include Jean Luc Picard. 

As for Discovery, I want to like it, but...I'm just not sold on the characters of Burnham and Tilly. It is a pity that Sonequa Martin-Green is almost type-cast playing characters with much angst having come from The Walking Dead which show was in the process of dying a really painful death during her time on it.

The above and some poor writing and sci-fu in Star Trek Discovery have decreased the entertainment value for me. Hoping they can turn it around, but given the substandard drivel so common these days coming out of Hollywood, I don't expect much improvement.


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## Jester David

I'm enjoying this season a lot more than the first.

The premier was rocky. But Pike was amazing and it seemed to go out of its way to address complaints people had with the series: acknowledging the different uniforms, a focus on saving lives and morality, and giving the bridge crew names. It did suffer from over use of CGI. This show has a budget and really, really wants you to know. The asteroid race went on three times too long and the turpolift shot was hilariously bad. And the exploding cargo bay was over the top. 
But, generally, it felt like the show was trying to say they listened to the fans and heard their complaints and concerns.

And that second episode was excellent. The Prime Directive and an away team. A bridge officer gets backstory and a purpose. A heroic move from Pike. People obeying orders they disagree with. All gold. 

The third episode was okay. It really focused on the fallout of last season, which made it awkward to watch with my wife who skipped season one after the pilot. And who HATES the new look of the Klingons. This wasn't as bad. The new Klingon design works so very, very much more with hair. But the bald ones are still ridiculous and look like the malformed offspring of a Klingon and a Xenomorph.
This episode had its own problems with the crazy cameras. It felt like someone got a new crane or camera hoist and wanted to use it for every single transition. Ick.

The fourth episode... decent. Too much too fast to really get a feel for the scale of the problem. But the new engineer killed it every scene. 
Given how many shock/twist deaths we had the first season, I did wonder if they were going to kill Saru.
d


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## Zardnaar

Kinda like Sari, Like is good but I liked the old captain as a villain as well. 

 Overall it could be better here and there but generally like it. Did not see Enterprise or Voyager so the last Trek I watched was Nemesis and early DS9.


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## oni no won

I'll wait til season 2 is over so I can splurge watch (why I love Netflix so much!).


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## Jester David

Hussar said:


> That's your takeaway?
> 
> Mine is that in every fandom, there is a segment that is so toxic that they ruin anything they come in contact with by making sure than anything that doesn't appeal to them gets buried under unrelenting negativity and childish tantrums.  This segment of fandom has climbed so far up its own ass that it is incapable of understanding that their tastes are not everyone's tastes and, well, even if they could recognize that fact, are so selfish and self absorbed that they simply don't care.
> 
> If it isn't tailored specifically to their tastes, then it's crap and must be unrelentingly attacked at every possible turn to make sure that all and sundry know just how much that segment of fandom is unhappy.
> 
> We see this with pretty much every fandom - Star Wars, Star Trek, D&D, whatever.



I'd expand the fandom to other activities. There's a lot of "toxic fandom" in sports as well. And there's no shortage of toxic music fans/ band groupies. 
The takeaway is that people are jerks. 

Fandom in general pushes people to that, because to be a fan of something intrinsically means you are passionate about that. And passion is an intense emotion that is inherently illogical. Passion always pushes people to do dumb things. Hence the innumerable stupid romantic gestures. 
(When you get down to it, stalking is basically toxic fandom of an individual.)


There's a very fine line in people getting upset and complaining about franchises. There's a very slight distinction between valid complaints and childish tantrums. And, of course, when pushed by people who disagree, it's easy for a valid criticism to become a childish tantrum. Because passion. 

Entitlement comes into it as well. And understandably so: people like stuff they like, and want to like new versions of stuff they previously liked. Fandom is made up of fans. And if you're not targeting the key fans of the franchise… who are you targeting? 
Obviously, franchises need to grow, and few forms of media have a large enough base to be sustained entirely by hardcore fans. You need to appeal to general audiences while trying to grown the fandom. But that's still appeal to a _theoretical_ audience (people who might be fans) versus the known audience. So expansion works best incrementally or supplementally. (Or, alternatively, maintaining the happiness of fanbase can be the purpose of the supplemental media.)

It's like when a band you love releases a new album and they completely change in sound. Doubly so if the new sound is more pop, so it feels like the band catering to mass markets. 

_Discovery_ is tricky and really ran into problems with this. It was trying to relaunch Trek on TV and there is a particularly diverse audience of fans. But there wasn't a lot of alternatives: it was like it or disengage with the franchise. For those fans that felt it wasn't "Star Trek" enough, there wasn't another show or the sign of a new movie on the horizon. Unlike, say, _Deep Space Nine_ that always had TNG or _Voyager_ running as alternatives. 
Rather than trying to relaunch the franchise with a safe bet, like _Star Trek: the Lost Era_ about the Enterprise-B and a show that really feels like Trek and hits all the tropes, they went with something that was "Star Trek" almost in name only. If that show was around, people would have been much more willing to overlook some of the elements of _Discovery_. But when it's the only show and the options are "watch DIS or stop watching new Trek" then that's a crap choice. 
Yeah, I can just go and rewatch TNG… but I've done that already. Multiple times in the 24 years since it ended. DIS was the new Trek show people had been waiting and hoping for for twelve years. And to then have that not being something you like is beyond disheartening. 
Being excited that some stranger on the internet that you don't really know likes it isn't much of a comfort.


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## CapnZapp

I don't consider myself particularly toxic when I point out that Discovery (and movies) give me close to zero "trek" feeling.

If they wanted to avoid justified criticism they should have made movies and shows about some new ship in an entirely different universe.

As long as companies both want to have cake and eat it too - reuse existing licenses in name only - fans will keep pointing this out in any outlet or forum to counterbalance more positive commentary.


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## Zardnaar

I don't mind discovery, the new Klingon look was confusing. Worf and the 80's Klingons is kinda how I view the race, I had to be told in season 1 they were actually Klingons (I had my suspicions but damn). 

 Grognard in me always prefers old, kinda like Star Trek but not really passionate about it. With geek culture its really on Star Wars and D&D I care about, maybe a handful of sci fi shows. Kinda explains why I couldn't get into Stargate Universe over the other 2, an ensemble cast playing lost in space didn't cut it for me. If I don't care about the characters why should I care about your show/movie?

 I didn't watch Voyager or Enterprise, I barely remember TOS or TNG.


----------



## Morrus

CapnZapp said:


> As long as companies both want to have cake and eat it too - reuse existing licenses in name only - fans will keep pointing this out in any outlet or forum to counterbalance more positive commentary.




If you're posting just to further an agenda, rather than to contribute to a discussion, please find some outlet other than this forum for it.


----------



## Morrus

Zardnaar said:


> I had to be told in season 1 they were actually Klingons (I had my suspicions but damn).




Well, so did everybody. That's why they kept calling them "Klingons".


----------



## Zardnaar

Morrus said:


> Well, so did everybody. That's why they kept calling them "Klingons".




 I know, I didn't really go for the new look that much. Not a trekkie as such but would have preferred a tweaked older look of the Klingon's. Watching DS9 and 4 episodes in I like it more than Discovery because I like more of the characters. Discovery is basically all about Burnham and I prefer the more ensemble approach I suppose. I like Cisco and Quark, Dax, Odo, Kira etc. 

 Orville is also great because of the characters, when Gordon is your least favourite but you still like him they're doing something right. Its basically why I liked SG1 and Atlantis over SGU.


----------



## Hussar

Just watched the latest Ep.  

Daaaamn.  That's about as Trek as it gets.  Between this one and the last one, that's some fine story telling.  And I love how Section 33 is no longer just the boogeyman black and white version of DS9.  Much more nuanced.

Very, very cool.


----------



## Aeson

I'd like to think they're listening to fan feedback. They're adding in the elements the fans expect but are still telling the story the way they want. I see first season like the DM that doesn't listen to his players. They want something else but he had his "vision" and no one was going to mess with it. Now the DM is taking in feedback from players and allowing them to add their twist to his vision. On a micro scale it's easier to make everyone happy. Star Trek is too macro for that. Not everyone is going to be happy, but it's moving in the right direction. I am happy with the direction at least. Now I want to see where they want to take me with the story. All that to say I enjoyed this one also.


----------



## Hussar

I have to admit, I'm pretty lenient about Star Trek first seasons.  Other than maybe the original series, every first season of any Star Trek series has ranged from pretty darn bad to godawful with writing and acting kinks still being worked out.

They came out of the gate with Disco pretty heavy handed, taking a firm stand on a lot of stuff and that annoyed a lot of people.  But, now that all that stuff's established, they don't have to keep hammering away and they can just use it.

And, let's not forget, that these are the shortest seasons Star Trek has ever seen.  They only have a dozen or so episodes to establish stuff instead of the 20-24 they had previously.  There's really only so much you can do in the time they have, so, a lot of questions are going to have to wait for a next season.


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> I have to admit, I'm pretty lenient about Star Trek first seasons.  Other than maybe the original series, every first season of any Star Trek series has ranged from pretty darn bad to godawful with writing and acting kinks still being worked out.
> 
> They came out of the gate with Disco pretty heavy handed, taking a firm stand on a lot of stuff and that annoyed a lot of people.  But, now that all that stuff's established, they don't have to keep hammering away and they can just use it.
> 
> And, let's not forget, that these are the shortest seasons Star Trek has ever seen.  They only have a dozen or so episodes to establish stuff instead of the 20-24 they had previously.  There's really only so much you can do in the time they have, so, a lot of questions are going to have to wait for a next season.




Beats me how Trek gets weak season 1s do often.
 Takes time for metaplot to kick in I suppose. Sci fi shows often peak season 3 or 4 I suppose.


----------



## Sadras

As life would have it, after my post about how I'm not really enjoying the show as much as I'd like to, episode 5, for me, was really good.


----------



## MarkB

Interesting title for today's episode, and I'm not sure how much to read into it. Taken from a classic science fiction short story, the prototypical crushing-a-butterfly story about the repercussions of changing the past, and it opened with images of butterfly-like creatures flitting between flowers, yet for all the talk about the Red Angel's potential time-travel capabilities there was no apparent use of time travel within the plot.

Overall, the story felt a little forced and one-sided. We get barely a glimpse of the Ba'ul's side of this culture's divisions, and the decision to facilitate the Kelpiens' transformation is made with no knowledge of either its long-term psychological effects or the potential side effects of artificially inducing it upon Kelpiens before their natural maturation. It's a ridiculously reckless move to make with two entire species' survival at stake.

Also, the Red Angel is a humanoid in an advanced time-travelling mechanical super-suit? If it turns out to be Michael Burnham I'm going to have to take back every argument I ever made against the popular view of her as a Mary Sue character.


----------



## Aeson

My first thought was the suit seemed to be feminine in shape. SYFY Wire had a list of it might be. Kirk, Picard, 
future Spock, Pike, Thelonians (sp) The aliens from The Cage, Lorca. Last on the list was Burnham. I hope it's not her either. 

I think the title could be a foreshadowing. Choices made now will be revisited later after the effects are felt. I still found the over all episode was better than The Orville this week.


----------



## MarkB

Aeson said:


> My first thought was the suit seemed to be feminine in shape. SYFY Wire had a list of it might be. Kirk, Picard,
> future Spock, Pike, Thelonians (sp) The aliens from The Cage, Lorca. Last on the list was Burnham. I hope it's not her either.




Well, it is the *Red* Angel. My second guess after Burnham would be Tilly.

Third would be Spock.


----------



## Aeson

Oddly Tilly wasn't on SYFY's list. I could see it being her. My money is on Spock. In the movie he still needed a ship to travel in time. So it must be an even more future Spock than the one in the movie. I know, I know, the movie and series are not connected.


----------



## Ryujin

MarkB said:


> Well, it is the *Red* Angel. My second guess after Burnham would be Tilly.
> 
> Third would be Spock.




If it's Spock then we're probably talking Red Matter, so Kelvinverse.


----------



## Morrus

Ryujin said:


> If it's Spock then we're probably talking Red Matter, so Kelvinverse.




Trek is known for having only one item of each colour.


----------



## Ryujin

Morrus said:


> Trek is known for having only one item of each colour.




Making logical extensions from known lore isn't exactly science, but nor is it voodoo.


----------



## Hussar

Interesting watch.  Good show.  Establishes nicely that this is not exactly the Federation we're used to - they're a bit faster and looser with Executive Order 1.  

My money is on Spock being the Red Angel.  OTOH, that's a pretty obvious idea.  I'd probably be a bit disappointed if it is.  

Maybe it's Q.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

MarkB said:


> Interesting title for today's episode, and I'm not sure how much to read into it. Taken from a classic science fiction short story, the prototypical crushing-a-butterfly story about the repercussions of changing the past, and it opened with images of butterfly-like creatures flitting between flowers, yet for all the talk about the Red Angel's potential time-travel capabilities there was no apparent use of time travel within the plot.
> 
> Overall, the story felt a little forced and one-sided. We get barely a glimpse of the Ba'ul's side of this culture's divisions, and the decision to facilitate the Kelpiens' transformation is made with no knowledge of either its long-term psychological effects or the potential side effects of artificially inducing it upon Kelpiens before their natural maturation. It's a ridiculously reckless move to make with two entire species' survival at stake.



Is it really _ridiculously _reckless?
It might be reckless, but consider that you have to compare this recklessness with non-intervention being agreeing that regularly murdering Kelpians that get old enough, no questions asked, no chance given, and trap them forever in ignorance and fear of their eventual fate of being culled. 
I mean if the Ba'ul would have been willing to negotiate, it could have been avoided, but they weren't, so the choices were basically finding a way to force the issue, or let them keep murdering innocents for the forseeable future. 

The entire situation on the planet is overall not that bad - the Ba'ul presumably live a safe and good life in their own enclaves, and the Kelpian had a neat little life as well - except for the regular murdering of adult Kelpians, of course. Removing the murdering does not mean peace becomes impossible, in fact, it is actually a requirement for _genuine _peace.

We also have an example of what at least some Kelpian do when they find peace from their constant state of fear -  they try to protect that state. That's what Saru did on Pahvo. He was willing to fight aggressively for it - but remember he fought for his peace, not for dominance, revenge, sports or hunting. The Kelpian people are likely going to do the same. And since the Ba'ul maintain the technological advantage, anything else would likely be fruitless, if not outright counter-productive. 
And the Federation stands ready to help them negotiate a peace.


----------



## MarkB

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Is it really _ridiculously _reckless?
> It might be reckless, but consider that you have to compare this recklessness with non-intervention being agreeing that regularly murdering Kelpians that get old enough, no questions asked, no chance given, and trap them forever in ignorance and fear of their eventual fate of being culled.




But it's not just a choice between "act now, immediately, without hesitation" and "never interfere or intervene ever".

They know from the sphere's historical database that the Kelpiens nearly wiped out the Ba'ul previously. They know that Saru has undergone both physical and emotional changes that are still ongoing. For all they knew, for all they still know, the conclusion of that transformation could be a vicious, bestial personality with which there is no reasoning or peace. They had exactly zero examples of a living Kelpien who had completely finished his transformation process into apex predator, and no idea what that would really look like, and they unleashed that unknown across an entire planet.

Plus, they had no idea what effect the transformation would have on a Kelpien who had not yet reached a sufficient state of maturity to undergo it naturally. It could kill them, or cripple them for life, or drive them insane.

Waiting long enough to determine the answers to these questions would have cost the lives of Saru and his sister, possibly their entire village, but beyond that they could still have gone ahead with saving the rest of the Kelpien species _if_ they knew that their plan would actually do that.


----------



## Mallus

I don’t think ‘liberating’ the Kelpiens was any more reckless than Kirk ending the virtual war between Eminar VII and Vendicar in “A Taste of Armageddon”. The Enterprise crew could of just escaped and left the system. Instead they introduced the nontrivial chance that two civiliazations would serve each other a 7-course Armageddon using real fusion bombs. In both episodes, the Federation instigates a sudden massive change, then skips out with no more than a “they’ll work it out, probably”.

Though I am somewhat converned (and intrigued) by the metatextual evidence offered by the episode title. Will the DISCO writers really try to navigate the minefield of turning a species deliberately described as oppressed (subject to culling, even) into a future existential threat?

I’m  actually a fan of taking a bad idea & running with it in art, but even Spock and Data working together couldn’t calculate all the ways that could go wrong.


----------



## Mage of Spellford

Sigh. Last episode I thought they were finally getting away from the continually disobeying a 'direct order' but no this week...there it is again. IMHO that is very lazy writing, one wonders how starfleet holds together at all with the crew blithely ignoring any order because of 'feelings' or 'introspective' or 'pretty much any other excuse'. 

Discovery:

Capt: lock on to the enemy vessel and fire phasers
Crewperson1: Captain you need to provide me with a reason a context to fire upon the vessel. And what does the definition 'enemy' actually mean anyways?  Is it...
Crew person 2: Captain the other vessel is locking on with weapons.
Crew person 1: .....maybe because they have a different perspective than us. Are we justified in using deadly force in this particular case...
Crew person 2: Captain they are firing weapons...
Crew person 1: ...Maybe we just need to look at it from their perspective it would be wrong for us to assume that just because we believe locking on weapons is a hostile act that they view it the same way...
Capt: What?!?
Crew person 1: Sorry Captain I can't in all good conscience follow the order to fire the phasers when I have this personal quandary to solve."
Capt: What?!?
Crewperson2: Whoops enemy vessel firing! Shields at 5% and falling....

Yeah. So far we have one episode this season where a starfleet crew person didn't disobey a direct order from their ranking officer..

C'mon writers this is pretty basic stuff. Star Fleet is supposed to be a hierarchical organization. Back to unimpressed..

MarkK


----------



## Morrus

Mage of Spellford said:


> Sigh. Last episode I thought they were finally getting away from the continually disobeying a 'direct order' but no this week...there it is again. IMHO that is very lazy writing, one wonders how starfleet holds together at all with the crew blithely ignoring any order because of 'feelings' or 'introspective' or 'pretty much any other excuse'.
> 
> Discovery:
> 
> Capt: lock on to the enemy vessel and fire phasers
> Crewperson1: Captain you need to provide me with a reason a context to fire upon the vessel. And what does the definition 'enemy' actually mean anyways?  Is it...
> Crew person 2: Captain the other vessel is locking on with weapons.
> Crew person 1: .....maybe because they have a different perspective than us. Are we justified in using deadly force in this particular case...
> Crew person 2: Captain they are firing weapons...
> Crew person 1: ...Maybe we just need to look at it from their perspective it would be wrong for us to assume that just because we believe locking on weapons is a hostile act that they view it the same way...
> Capt: What?!?
> Crew person 1: Sorry Captain I can't in all good conscience follow the order to fire the phasers when I have this personal quandary to solve."
> Capt: What?!?
> Crewperson2: Whoops enemy vessel firing! Shields at 5% and falling....
> 
> Yeah. So far we have one episode this season where a starfleet crew person didn't disobey a direct order from their ranking officer..
> 
> C'mon writers this is pretty basic stuff. Star Fleet is supposed to be a hierarchical organization. Back to unimpressed..
> 
> MarkK




It’s almost like you’ve never seen Star Trek before!


----------



## Mage of Spellford

Morrus said:


> It’s almost like you’ve never seen Star Trek before!




Cheeky but true!


----------



## Mallus

Mage of Spellford said:


> IMHO that is very lazy writing, one wonders how starfleet holds together at all with the crew blithely ignoring any order because of 'feelings' or 'introspective' or 'pretty much any other excuse'.



Starfleet crews also never lock the shuttle bay door & leave the keys in the shuttlecraft. This drove my wife crazy when we were watching TNG a few years back. 



> Star Fleet is supposed to be a hierarchical organization.



It's complicated.


----------



## Zardnaar

I'm not even a trekkie but ignoring the prime directive is part and parcel yes?


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Zardnaar said:


> I'm not even a trekkie but ignoring the prime directive is part and parcel yes?



Yes. I'd say it's really a bit like other laws or convention in all fiction - the interesting stories involve people breaking the laws or convention of the setting. 
Extreme Example: Murder is illegal, but someone on a revenge trip because they killed they killed his dog is interesting. 
Sometimes the story is about why the law is important, sometimes about why it's wrong, sometimes about why it might not always fit, sometimes it's just about how difficult it is to violate it...


----------



## Ryujin

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Yes. I'd say it's really a bit like other laws or convention in all fiction - the interesting stories involve people breaking the laws or convention of the setting.
> Extreme Example: Murder is illegal, but someone on a revenge trip because they killed they killed his dog is interesting.
> Sometimes the story is about why the law is important, sometimes about why it's wrong, sometimes about why it might not always fit, sometimes it's just about how difficult it is to violate it...




Thing is that it seems they've played with what the Prime Directive actually is, over the years. In the TOS days it was about not messing with less advanced (non star-faring) cultures so as not to alter their independent growth and development. Screwing with the Eminiar VII-Vendikar war wasn't mentioned as a Prime Directive issue, because they were both developed cultures. In later years it morphed into not interfering with *any* cultures, developed or otherwise.


----------



## MarkB

Ryujin said:


> Thing is that it seems they've played with what the Prime Directive actually is, over the years. In the TOS days it was about not messing with less advanced (non star-faring) cultures so as not to alter their independent growth and development. Screwing with the Eminiar VII-Vendikar war wasn't mentioned as a Prime Directive issue, because they were both developed cultures. In later years it morphed into not interfering with *any* cultures, developed or otherwise.




The Prime Directive was always about not interfering with pre-Warp cultures. The Federation also avoids interfering in the internal affairs of other powers, but that's not part of the Prime Directive.


----------



## Hussar

MarkB said:


> The Prime Directive was always about not interfering with pre-Warp cultures. The Federation also avoids interfering in the internal affairs of other powers, but that's not part of the Prime Directive.




Yeah, I was going to say.  They more or less defined the Prime Directive as not interfering with pre-warp cultures, which Eminiar VII-Vendikar certainly were.  Never minding that world they go to where everyone is stuck in 1930s Chicago.  

But, yeah, breaking the Prime Directive is hardly something new.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

MarkB said:


> The Prime Directive was always about not interfering with pre-Warp cultures. The Federation also avoids interfering in the internal affairs of other powers, but that's not part of the Prime Directive.




In TNG, they seemed to have extended that, however. IIRC, Picard explicitely mentions that due to the Prime Directive, they can't interfere in the Klingon Civil War. (Only when the Romulans became involved they could interfere). This doesn't sound like it would have been a Prime Directive case in TOS. 
I'd say it had become a bit overzealously applied in the later series. (Though maybe one of the most offensive cases of it being applied was in ENT, where the Doctor refused to save a dying species. Though in that case, it wasn't the Federation's Prime Directive, it was only a Denobulan thing, so it's not quite the same.)


----------



## Ryujin

Hussar said:


> Yeah, I was going to say.  They more or less defined the Prime Directive as not interfering with pre-warp cultures, which Eminiar VII-Vendikar certainly were.  Never minding that world they go to where everyone is stuck in 1930s Chicago.
> 
> But, yeah, breaking the Prime Directive is hardly something new.




"Pre-warp cultures" was never mentioned until the TNG days.

In "A Piece of the Action" there was an effort to try and mitigate prior interference, caused by the book "The Gangs of Chicago."


----------



## Mallus

And season 3 is a go! Bring on Captain Saru and his new aggression ganglia with deluxe spike-throwing action.

re: the Prime Directive - I like to think of as aspirational. Or maybe propagandistic. It's either who the Federation *want* to be or who the Feds tell themselves they *are*, despite that frequently -- and entertainingly -- not being the case.


----------



## Mallus

Ryujin said:


> "Pre-warp cultures" was never mentioned until the TNG days.
> 
> In "A Piece of the Action" there was an effort to try and mitigate prior interference, caused by the book "The Gangs of Chicago."



In "Armageddon" the Enterprise is transporting that jerky diplomat whose whole mission is to open official relations with the isolationist Eminiari (sp?). No mention of pre-warp.


----------



## Aeson

I got scooped. I was going to post the show was renewed. Also Section 31 is expected to premiere after season 3. I can hear Nerdrotic and Geeks & Gamers crying in their beards now.


----------



## Ryujin

Mallus said:


> In "Armageddon" the Enterprise is transporting that jerky diplomat whose whole mission is to open official relations with the isolationist Eminiari (sp?). No mention of pre-warp.




No mention of the Prime Directive that I can recall either, though I haven't seen that episode in a while.


----------



## Aeson

I think it's because of mishaps with Enterprise they create The Prime Directive. It's done either during the shows run or shortly after. Captain Archer didn't have the same limitations since in some cases he was the first to do them.


----------



## MarkB

So, The Search For Spock is over, but Spock's Brain still has some assembly required. And now they're going to Talos IV, some time in advance of the Enterprise's scheduled first visit.

Not much else stood out for me about this episode. Time anomaly was timey-wimey, Section 31 was gratuitously evil, pretty standard stuff.


----------



## Hussar

MarkB said:


> So, The Search For Spock is over, but Spock's Brain still has some assembly required. And now they're going to Talos IV, some time in advance of the Enterprise's scheduled first visit.
> 
> Not much else stood out for me about this episode. Time anomaly was timey-wimey, Section 31 was gratuitously evil, pretty standard stuff.




I agree with this.  Although it does move the plot forward nicely.  

I do think that the whole Section 31 is "the evils" is a bit lazy.  The fact that the captain was lying about the memory extractor was unnecessary.  Why can't we stick with morally ambiguous without going full on mustache twirling evil?  Sigh.


----------



## Zardnaar

Captain Pike actor is the same guy that was the lead in Hell on Wheels. Didn't notice lol, means he is good at his job.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Vulcan was gorgeous. I wish we could spend more time there.



MarkB said:


> So, The Search For Spock is over, but Spock's Brain still has some assembly required. And now they're going to Talos IV, some time in advance of the Enterprise's scheduled first visit.



No, the first visit of the Enterprise has already happened. Discovery plays after _The Cage_, but before the events _The Menagerie_.
My guess would be that the "some assembly required" might be conducted by the Talosians, but it could be that they are actually involved in the Red Angel stuff. We'll see.


----------



## Aeson

That was one of the theories mentioned on SYFY, talosians being involved. How folks got to that point before Talos IV was mentioned, I'm not sure. This episode is the first time they mention Talos IV, right?


----------



## MarkB

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Vulcan was gorgeous. I wish we could spend more time there.
> 
> 
> No, the first visit of the Enterprise has already happened. Discovery plays after _The Cage_, but before the events _The Menagerie_.




Really? I don't recall that having been referenced in the show. If it's the case, shouldn't the shuttle have flared up massive "*Destination Prohibited On Pain Of Death!!!*" warnings the moment Burnham tried to lay in a course?


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

MarkB said:


> Really? I don't recall that having been referenced in the show.



No one so far has reason to mention events of The Cage. It's just one of many missions the Enterprise under Pike went on. 



> If it's the case, shouldn't the shuttle have flared up massive "*Destination Prohibited On Pain Of Death!!!*" warnings the moment Burnham tried to lay in a course?



That depends on when exactly the prohibition was instituted. It seems it wasn't mentioned in the Cage that the planet would be off-limits now. There isn't really a good reason at the end of _The Cage_, and the travel ban to Talos IV only seems to exist to create some dramatic stakes in _Menagerie_. We might actually learn this season why it became off-limits, since the events of _The Cage_ seem to give no good reason for it. The situation is resolved, the aliens and humans had an understanding, and everyone went on their merry way.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Talos, so we meet again. Very neat to provide them of the "Previously on Star Trek" segment, highlighting the events of _The Cage_.

Ethan Peck is doing a good job with Spock, IMO. The scene revisiting the conflict beteen young Burnham and young Spock was also well done.
I am really worried about Culber. I wonder if he really had a catharsis moment in his conflict with Tyler. But interesting, turning back from the dead is rarely so hard in Star Trek.


----------



## Hussar

This episode was AWESOME.  Great stuff.  They are certainly winning a lot of goodwill and faith from me this season.  

Nice that my predictions came true - wobbly first season with season 2 hitting the stride and off to the races.

Only thing I'd like to see is a couple of one off planet exploration episodes.  But, with such a short season, I doubt we'll get that.


----------



## Aeson

They seem to have forgotten.

To seek out new life, new civilization. To boldly go where no Burnham has gone before.


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> This episode was AWESOME.  Great stuff.  They are certainly winning a lot of goodwill and faith from me this season.
> 
> Nice that my predictions came true - wobbly first season with season 2 hitting the stride and off to the races.
> 
> Only thing I'd like to see is a couple of one off planet exploration episodes.  But, with such a short season, I doubt we'll get that.




It's one of the better episodes. Watching DS9, and are at the point its all new to me. 

 STD is more about Burnham, DS9 is more ensemble. Not a trekkie but DS9 seems to have better characters, STD the villains and dark characters seem more interesting. STD is getting better but I wouldn't call it great maybe not even good. And then there's The Orville.


----------



## Jester David

I was quite happy with this episode.

It took eleven or twelve episodes, but Tyler FINALLY had to deal with some consequences for cold blooded murder. 
Plus they had some fall out for the resurrection. 
And Saru is trying to figure himself out again.

Plus, I loved (LOVED!) what they did with Vina. It adds a whole other layer to The Menagerie; before, Pike was just dumped on Talos to lead a so-so life that was better than the one in the chair while Vina settled for life with someone who had no choice but to be with her. 
The scenes in this episode between her and Pike make it clear he actually cared for her and wanted to be with her. But, like Kirk, he couldn’t give up Starfleet. 
This really adds a touching aspect to The Menagerie. It’s not just “Pike gets to walk again.” It’s that they finally get to be together.

However...

Let's face it, the "stakes" of the season are non-existent. Someone is time traveling to prevent a future incident where Earth and other planets are killed. Which very likely ties into the _Calypso _short. However, the fact there's three lengthy and beloved series set after (and more incoming) means this future is unlikely. Success is guaranteed, so there is no drama. 
Plus then you have to wonder what incident that happens that the _U.S.S. Discovery_ is vital to that will change this future this much. And if it could have been any ship, why the _Discovery_, rather than, oh, going ten years later and tasking Kirk.

Plus, it really looks like the "bad guys" in said future are squidy AI robots, which is far more _Matrix _than Trek.


----------



## Zardnaar

The blue and grey skinned lady is she a robot, cyborg or some Alien species I'm not familiar with.


----------



## Morrus

Zardnaar said:


> The blue and grey skinned lady is she a robot, cyborg or some Alien species I'm not familiar with.




You've seen as much as we have. All of the above? I guess we'll find out soon, since it looks like she's the spy.


----------



## Zardnaar

Morrus said:


> You've seen as much as we have. All of the above? I guess we'll find out soon, since it looks like she's the spy.




I haven't seen the new movies. Didn't make that connection with her eyes the other night.


----------



## Morrus

Zardnaar said:


> I haven't seen the new movies. Didn't make that connection with her eyes the other night.




This has nothing to do with any movies. It’s all new.


----------



## Zardnaar

Morrus said:


> This has nothing to do with any movies. It’s all new.




Just asking I didn't know but there was a similar looking character on one of the movies posters or shots iirc. Not really a trekkie last watched it in the 90s currently watching DS9.


----------



## Morrus

Zardnaar said:


> Just asking I didn't know but there was a similar looking character on one of the movies posters or shots iirc. Not really a trekkie last watched it in the 90s currently watching DS9.




Was there? I don’t recall that, but this is a totally new character to this show.


----------



## Zardnaar

Morrus said:


> Was there? I don’t recall that, but this is a totally new character to this show.




Can't find the picture now. Just thought she was an interest g looking character and wanted to know more. 

 It's the main thing I don't like about Discovery two seasons in and very little character development and only a few of the crew seem to matter. It's quite noticible with DS9 which has a Quark episode a Dax episode etc.


----------



## Hussar

I do rather hope she is a cyborg of some sort.  Data as the first "android" in Star Fleet is a rather established bit of canon.  Although, to be fair, TOS had all sorts of advanced androids that certainly could have been considered sentient.

Maybe this is why you don't have cyborgs in later Star Treks - the chance of being "hacked" is considered a security risk?


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> I do rather hope she is a cyborg of some sort.  Data as the first "android" in Star Fleet is a rather established bit of canon.  Although, to be fair, TOS had all sorts of advanced androids that certainly could have been considered sentient.
> 
> Maybe this is why you don't have cyborgs in later Star Treks - the chance of being "hacked" is considered a security risk?




I think the Borg are the Trek cyborgs. They don't seem big on half machine/organic normally. Could be wrong my knowledge of Trek is limited but you don't see Alot of things other Sci fi has.


----------



## Morrus

Zardnaar said:


> It's quite noticible with DS9 which has a Quark episode a Dax episode etc.




I find that episodic structure kinda formulaic and boring these days, but we all like different things.


----------



## Hussar

Zardnaar said:


> I think the Borg are the Trek cyborgs. They don't seem big on half machine/organic normally. Could be wrong my knowledge of Trek is limited but you don't see Alot of things other Sci fi has.




Yes, we haven't really seen a whole lot of "cyborg" stuff in Star Trek.  About the only character that comes to mind with any sort of prosthetic is Geordie from TNG and his visor.  Data was full on android and not human at all.  

It is a missing element really.  They explain why genetic manipulation isn't a thing (Eugenics War - Khan) but, they've never really delved into why no one in Star Fleet is sporting any technological enhancements.


----------



## Zardnaar

Morrus said:


> I find that episodic structure kinda formulaic and boring these days, but we all like different things.




I can go either way but make it good. If you're running a serial there are better ones than STD in the Sci fi genre. The Expanse comes to mind. Episodic seems to be a Trek thing though and thing like Babylon5 also did it better in terms of serial.

 And STD is apparently really expensive as in Game of Thrones expensive. The thread title is dated its at least getting better.


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> Yes, we haven't really seen a whole lot of "cyborg" stuff in Star Trek.  About the only character that comes to mind with any sort of prosthetic is Geordie from TNG and his visor.  Data was full on android and not human at all.
> 
> It is a missing element really.  They explain why genetic manipulation isn't a thing (Eugenics War - Khan) but, they've never really delved into why no one in Star Fleet is sporting any technological enhancements.




It's just a thing. Star Wars doesn't really have nano tech and the old Legebds had damn near everything including zombies.


----------



## Hussar

Zardnaar said:


> Can't find the picture now. Just thought she was an interest g looking character and wanted to know more.
> 
> It's the main thing I don't like about Discovery two seasons in and very little character development and only a few of the crew seem to matter. It's quite noticible with DS9 which has a Quark episode a Dax episode etc.




Again, it's more about the number of episodes per season.  Remember, the first season of DS9=2 Seasons of Discovery.  Well, close enough anyway.  That gives you a heck of a lot of space to add in a bunch of character detail.  Plus, DS9 only really had one over arching plot (well, a couple anyway) that ran for the entire series.  That's a 176 episodes.

Disco is telling a different story every season (apparently) without a lot of crossover between the seasons.  Which means that every season will likely be very different.  Certainly more different than what we got across seasons of any other Trek.  

Again, speculating here, but, likely Pike won't be captain next season.  He'll likely head back to the Enterprise along with Spock.  Which means Season 3 would be wide open for what they could do.  But, it is a different sort of story telling than we've seen from Star Trek in the past.  It's not episodic like TNG or TOS, but, it's also not an ongoing plot line like DS9 or Voyager.  

That does make it hard to make comparisons between the shows.


----------



## Hussar

Zardnaar said:


> It's just a thing. Star Wars doesn't really have nano tech and the old Legebds had damn near everything including zombies.




Well, no nanotech, but, considering their main bad guy for the first three movies was a cyborg, it's certainly a thing in Star Wars.  

Heck the good guy had a prosthetic hand for much of the series too.


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> Again, it's more about the number of episodes per season.  Remember, the first season of DS9=2 Seasons of Discovery.  Well, close enough anyway.  That gives you a heck of a lot of space to add in a bunch of character detail.  Plus, DS9 only really had one over arching plot (well, a couple anyway) that ran for the entire series.  That's a 176 episodes.
> 
> Disco is telling a different story every season (apparently) without a lot of crossover between the seasons.  Which means that every season will likely be very different.  Certainly more different than what we got across seasons of any other Trek.
> 
> Again, speculating here, but, likely Pike won't be captain next season.  He'll likely head back to the Enterprise along with Spock.  Which means Season 3 would be wide open for what they could do.  But, it is a different sort of story telling than we've seen from Star Trek in the past.  It's not episodic like TNG or TOS, but, it's also not an ongoing plot line like DS9 or Voyager.
> 
> That does make it hard to make comparisons between the shows.




Might blow up in their faces though. I'm not a Trekkie but even I know it's more towards the episodic thing. 

 Different is good of course but not so radically different the fans turn on it.


----------



## Hussar

But that's the point [MENTION=6716779]Zardnaar[/MENTION] - While TNG and TOS were episodic, DS9 and Voyager weren't.  So, it's hard to say which style is more suited.


----------



## Morrus

Zardnaar said:


> If you're running a serial there are better ones than STD in the Sci fi genre.




I think STD is excellent. It’s the only show other than Gotham that I get excited about each week right now, and probably will be until Game of Thrones returns. 

It’s important to understand your personal tastes are just that. They are not shared by everybody.


----------



## Zardnaar

Morrus said:


> I think STD is excellent. It’s the only show other than Gotham that I get excited about each week right now, and probably will be until Game of Thrones returns.
> 
> It’s important to understand your personal tastes are just that. They are not shared by everybody.




True but a lot of Trekkies don't like it. 

 We used to watch Gotham but wife pulled the plug on it season 3 or 4. I understand it got better with Dominic portraying the Joker. We liked his character in Shameless.


----------



## Morrus

Zardnaar said:


> True but a lot of Trekkies don't like it.




And a lot do. But who cares? 

We can only talk for ourselves about what we enjoy, and I have to admit that I really struggle with your remorseless negativity. Can’t we just talk about the cool stuff we like, rather than constantly tearing stuff down? We’re 120 posts into the thread. We must be past the ”STD boo!” stage by now.


----------



## Zardnaar

Morrus said:


> And a lot do. But who cares?
> 
> We can only talk for ourselves about what we enjoy, and I have to admit that I really struggle with your remorseless negativity. Can’t we just talk about the cool stuff we like, rather than constantly tearing stuff down?




It's more interesting to complain online. Mostly happy with 5E or whatever doesn't leave much room for discussion. Also context of the thread title. Season 1 fair enough season 2 is improving.

 I may also be a cynical pessimistic reactionary.


----------



## Hussar

Zardnaar said:


> True but a lot of Trekkies don't like it.
> 
> We used to watch Gotham but wife pulled the plug on it season 3 or 4. I understand it got better with Dominic portraying the Joker. We liked his character in Shameless.




Define "a lot".

We're only halfway through the season and they've already greenlit season 3.  Must be doing okay.


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> Define "a lot".
> 
> We're only halfway through the season and they've already greenlit season 3.  Must be doing okay.




Never claimed it was gonna be canceled.


----------



## Hussar

Zardnaar said:


> Never claimed it was gonna be canceled.




No, but, you are claiming that it isn't very good.

If it wasn't very good and a lot of trekkies don't like it, then why is it getting renewed this early?  Seems like a pretty big risk for something so expensive to produce if it's not doing very well, nobody is watching it and everyone is switching to the Orville or The (recently cancelled) Expanse.  

I'm leaning a lot harder on the idea that it's a bunch of butthurt comic book guy fans who have nothing to do than produce 49 minute Youtube videos of how much Disco sucks.


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> No, but, you are claiming that it isn't very good.
> 
> If it wasn't very good and a lot of trekkies don't like it, then why is it getting renewed this early?  Seems like a pretty big risk for something so expensive to produce if it's not doing very well, nobody is watching it and everyone is switching to the Orville or The (recently cancelled) Expanse.
> 
> I'm leaning a lot harder on the idea that it's a bunch of butthurt comic book guy fans who have nothing to do than produce 49 minute Youtube videos of how much Disco sucks.




IDK I'm not a comic books guy, only own a few Star Wars ones. 

 I said season one wasn't very good, season 2 is better. 

BTW Expanse is coming back.


----------



## Jester David

Hussar said:


> Yes, we haven't really seen a whole lot of "cyborg" stuff in Star Trek.  About the only character that comes to mind with any sort of prosthetic is Geordie from TNG and his visor.  Data was full on android and not human at all.
> 
> It is a missing element really.  They explain why genetic manipulation isn't a thing (Eugenics War - Khan) but, they've never really delved into why no one in Star Fleet is sporting any technological enhancements.



They can also regrow organs. Like we saw in the episode Worf was paralyzied. And Nog’s artificial leg.


----------



## Jester David

Hussar said:


> No, but, you are claiming that it isn't very good.
> 
> If it wasn't very good and a lot of trekkies don't like it, then why is it getting renewed this early?  Seems like a pretty big risk for something so expensive to produce if it's not doing very well, nobody is watching it and everyone is switching to the Orville or The (recently cancelled) Expanse.
> 
> I'm leaning a lot harder on the idea that it's a bunch of butthurt comic book guy fans who have nothing to do than produce 49 minute Youtube videos of how much Disco sucks.



Because only good shows get reviewed?

(Plus, several years of _Voyager_ and _Enterprise_ demonstrate Trek fans will watch shows even if they think they’re bad.)


----------



## Jester David

Hussar said:


> I do rather hope she is a cyborg of some sort.  Data as the first "android" in Star Fleet is a rather established bit of canon.  Although, to be fair, TOS had all sorts of advanced androids that certainly could have been considered sentient.
> 
> Maybe this is why you don't have cyborgs in later Star Treks - the chance of being "hacked" is considered a security risk?



It’s cute that you think Discovery cares about canon like that...


----------



## Jester David

Zardnaar said:


> The blue and grey skinned lady is she a robot, cyborg or some Alien species I'm not familiar with.



We don’t know. They’ve given almost zero backstory to anyone. 
(Heck, the one alien we got backstory—Saru—has their nature retconned.)

That fact you can’t even recall their name is kinda informative for how much attention thye’ve been given.


----------



## Aeson

Amazon is producing a 4th season of The Expanse. Another reason to sign up for Amazon Prime?


----------



## Hussar

Very very cool.  Didn't know the Expanse got picked up.  Fantastic.  Excellent show.


----------



## Zardnaar

Jester David said:


> We don’t know. They’ve given almost zero backstory to anyone.
> (Heck, the one alien we got backstory—Saru—has their nature retconned.)
> 
> That fact you can’t even recall their name is kinda informative for how much attention thye’ve been given.




I'm crap with names in general though. I struggle with doctor whatshisname in DS9.


----------



## Hussar

Jester David said:


> It’s cute that you think Discovery cares about canon like that...




People keep talking about how Disco jettisons canon, but, frankly, I don't see it.  I mean, the Klingons are rolling back to the Klingons we know from TNG (not, it should be said, TOS).  Very little of Disco actually directly contradicts canon in any way that can't be explained.  Well, presuming by the end of the series we get a reason why the Spore Drive doesn't work.  And, let's be honest, considering what we've seen of spore drive, that shouldn't be too hard.  



Jester David said:


> We don’t know. They’ve given almost zero backstory to anyone.
> (Heck, the one alien we got backstory—Saru—has their nature retconned.)
> 
> That fact you can’t even recall their name is kinda informative for how much attention thye’ve been given.




How was Saru retconned?


----------



## Jester David

Hussar said:


> People keep talking about how Disco jettisons canon, but, frankly, I don't see it.  I mean, the Klingons are rolling back to the Klingons we know from TNG (not, it should be said, TOS).  Very little of Disco actually directly contradicts canon in any way that can't be explained.  Well, presuming by the end of the series we get a reason why the Spore Drive doesn't work.  And, let's be honest, considering what we've seen of spore drive, that shouldn't be too hard.



The key phrase there being “that can’t be explained”. 
Yeah, you can fan wank an explanation for most of the changes. That doesn’t mean they’re not changes. The fact that we have to explain it ourselves because they can’t be bothered is an issue and example of them not caring. 

Heck, even something as firm as “first android in Starfleet” can be justified. “Oh, that mean first androids creased by a Federation member,  not non-members” or “Data was the first android created by humans” or “she’s more of a robot than an android”. 
But the fact remains is they’re just making stuff up as they go along and leaving it for the fans to fit it into continuity rather than trying t make it work.



Hussar said:


> How was Saru retconned?



His “one interesting thing” was that he belonged to a prey species that could sense death. That was unique: we’d never seen that before. Then they replaced that aspect of the character and forgot to add anything new. Now he’s a predator, like half the intelligent species we’ve seen...

Which just makes the life cycle of his species weird. They’re wolves, who don’t actually become predators until middle age and are dependant on the rest of the pack for that time.


----------



## Mallus

Zardnaar said:


> I'm crap with names in general though. I struggle with doctor whatshisname in DS9.



The name's Bashir, Julian Bashir.


----------



## Zardnaar

Mallus said:


> The name's Bashir, Julian Bashir.




Sorta remembered his last name. As I said terrible.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Jester David said:


> But the fact remains is they’re just making stuff up as they go along and leaving it for the fans to fit it into continuity rather than trying t make it work.



It seems to me that at this point, the fans are making stuff up that they than try to fit continuity trying to make it work.

In the show, Airiam 's nature has not been discussed, and specifically, no one has called her an Android. 

Last year the statements by writers was she's a cyborg, but that has also not made it to the screen, so it could have been changed. (Last year, they also said we wouldn't meet Spock, so you defintiely can't take anything for granted that wasn't explicitely stated on screen - plans can change.)

Anyway, at this point, people are of course free to find a way to fit an Android in Starfleet in the 23rd century into the continuity, but ... they don't have to, because we don't know what Airiam is yet. For the same reason, it's premature to get angry about Discovery putting an Android into 23rd century Starfleet.


----------



## Sadras

Zardnaar said:


> True but a lot of Trekkies don't like it.




I find I'm also pretty critical of the show when taking each episode in isolation, but re-watching the episodes back-to-back, one tends to be a lot more forgiving, at least that is my experience. 

Interestingly enough I'm also rewatching DS9 and enjoying that too.

EDIT: This thread title


----------



## Hussar

Y'know [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION], I had the same experience.  DS9 really does improve on rewatch (although I still think the show went very, very downhill after Terry Farrell left the show.  The whole last season was a grind for me, both the first and second times through.

But, yeah, Disco does seem to hold together much better when you watch it like a regular streaming show - two or three episodes back to back.


----------



## Zardnaar

Morrus said:


> I felt Pike was a better Kirk than Chris Pine.




The actor is very good. He was in Hell on Wheels which is worth a watch along with Colm Meaney from DS9.
 Think new one is tonight or tomorrow on Netflix here.


----------



## Morrus

Zardnaar said:


> The actor is very good. He was in Hell on Wheels which is worth a watch along with Colm Meaney from DS9.
> Think new one is tonight or tomorrow on Netflix here.




It’s on Fridays on Netflix. Thursdays in America on their channel, I think.


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> Y'know [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION], I had the same experience.  DS9 really does improve on rewatch (although I still think the show went very, very downhill after Terry Farrell left the show.  The whole last season was a grind for me, both the first and second times through.
> 
> But, yeah, Disco does seem to hold together much better when you watch it like a regular streaming show - two or three episodes back to back.




Binge watched 6 episodes of DS9 Sunday. Just finished season 2 cliffhanger and have gone further than when I watched in the 90s.


----------



## Zardnaar

Morrus said:


> It’s on Fridays on Netflix. Thursdays in America on their channel, I think.




Sounds about right. I don't usually pay  attention to the days shows land.


----------



## Morrus

Zardnaar said:


> Sounds about right. I don't usually pay  attention to the days shows land.




Days, names, facts... it’s all good!


----------



## Zardnaar

Morrus said:


> Days, names, facts... it’s all good!




Awww it hurts. Good at recognising faces usually takes a while for names to sink in. Probably using the phone doesn't help.


----------



## Jester David

Hussar said:


> Y'know [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION], I had the same experience.  DS9 really does improve on rewatch (although I still think the show went very, very downhill after Terry Farrell left the show.  The whole last season was a grind for me, both the first and second times through.



Yeah, the first half of season 7 is rough. Not that interesting cliffhanger. Forced new character. Lot of spinning wheels while the wait for the final stretch. But that's probably also as a result of comparing it to the previous two seasons: it's still probably a tighter half season that anything _Voyager_ did... (And doing a "best of TNG" rewatch with my son, I also ended up skipping all of season 7 save 2-3 episodes: after a while the characters are just done.


----------



## Jester David

Oof... that was a rough episode. 

We finally find out about our cyborg, and she is a cyborg, and the whole episode tries really hard to make us care about her so the ending matters. But it doesn't. As it does too often, _Discovery_ tries to TELL us there's an emotional connection or something matters rather than actually SHOWING us. 
This episode would have worked so very much better had we seen Airiam and Tilly regularly interacting before. If we'd have been given a reason to care. If Airiam had been given scenes with the other cast members prior. Instead, it just tries to retcon an attachment. 

And what the eff was up with the security guard? We see her watching Airiam. She knows something is up. And she does nothing. Worst. Head of Security. Ever. 

Plus, watching that fight was groan worthy. Why didn't the security officer put on her helmet? You'd think her personal suit would have her own atmosphere. And having your security chief disabled so effortlessly seems like a terrible design flaw. 
Meanwhile, my wife and I were both going "why don't they beam them back?!" The ship is literally watching the fight happen and nobody thinks to just beam Airiam into a transporter room full of a dozen red shirts with primed phasers set to stun. 


Just like the Section 31 controller, which seems like the Big Bad. The evil AI that goes crazy and kills everyone. We've heard them drop "threat assessment" a few times before, but they haven't really emphasized that it's based on an AI. 
Trek has done killer AIs a couple times before. There's Nomad in _The Changeling_ and M-5 in _The Ultimate Computer_. The best example is still V'ger. But the "killer AI that destroys all life" feels like a pretty hackneyed science fiction trope I've seen a dozen times before. 
I hope they pull a twist and that's not the case. The "evil AI that turns on their creator" isn't interesting anymore by itself. I need a twist.


----------



## Jester David

Something else in this episode rubbed me the wrong way. And I think I finally figured out the other issues I have.

First, the biggest problem with season one was how it teased the questioning of Starfleet values in war and if taking hard action was necessary if it meant winning the war. Embodied by Captain Lorca. And then it took the easiest way out of that by just making him a cartoonishly evil wannabe dictator from a universe of jerks. So it never had to actual answer any of the hard questions or deal with any fallout of his morally grey actions. 
Torture? Leaving a civilian to be tortured in a POW camp? Betraying an admiral? Human experimentation. Nope. All cool now. Medals and promotions for everyone!!

This season has been edging on a similar idea: what role does Section 31 play in Starfleet following a war. A decent question that also would have applied following DS9. Does the organization need to be restrained now the war is over? Should it be forced to answer for its actions during wartime? This is an interesting theme about the military industrial complex. That's kinda neat.
But, nope, Section 31 is controlled by an evil AI out to destroy all life in the galaxy. Moral quandary averted. 

They did the same damn dodge... again. 

And, hey, after Control is destroyed, Section 31 will be trying to find its place in this new galaxy while rebuilding and proving its need. And, wow, conveniently, there's a Section 31 show in development. So this whole season is setting up a spinoff. 



Which also makes me question the plotting of the red angel stuff. 
If the story of the season is about Section 31 vs Starfleet and a rogue AI created by bother... why mix in time travel and visions of the future and weird signals? That just adds an unnecessary layer of complexity to the story. 
Really, the Starfleet vs Section 31 storyline is strong enough on its own. Bringing in the future and extinction of every living thing just feels forced. Like the writers weren't confident enough that people would care about the stakes. 
(Given the _Calypso _mini episode, I'm undecided if the Red Angel is going to be revealed to be Aldis Hodge's Craft or the AI of the _Discovery_ itself. But those are my bets.)


Also... why wait until now to show us the Spock murder footage? Having seen that early on would have made the search for Spock and hunt for answers that much more dramatic. That should have been something we saw early on. Waiting until now feels weird. We already know it's fake by that point, so there's no drama in watching him execute people.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

I really enjoyed this episode, and I think that it worked great. 
Sure, it seems a bit cheap to only really tell us more about Airam when she's about to die, but: We already wanted to know about her since Season 1, Episode 3, when she first appeared, and the interest only grew. And in the mean-time, she has become a familiar sight. And I would disagree that they tell, and not show - we see her interactions with others, several scenes specifically from her perspective. We see a lot about her internal feelings just because we know which memories she archives and which she deletes.


----------



## Hussar

Heh.  Talk about different reactions.

I watched this and thought, damn, now there's a Star Trek episode.  Hit all the notes just right.  We care about the character that's going to die.  Don't need to spend hours building up the character - get to the point and off we go.  

I have to admit [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] - I had pretty much the completely opposite reaction that you did.

Although, I have to agree, why didn't they just beam her off the ship?  That would seem like the easiest solution.

Otherwise though, yup, this was pretty excellent Trek.


----------



## Morrus

Hussar said:


> I have to admit  [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] - I had pretty much the completely opposite reaction that you did.




Me too. I loved it. I have come to realise that [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] is the anti-me.


----------



## Jester David

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I really enjoyed this episode, and I think that it worked great.
> Sure, it seems a bit cheap to only really tell us more about Airam when she's about to die, but: We already wanted to know about her since Season 1, Episode 3, when she first appeared, and the interest only grew. And in the mean-time, she has become a familiar sight. And I would disagree that they tell, and not show - we see her interactions with others, several scenes specifically from her perspective. We see a lot about her internal feelings just because we know which memories she archives and which she deletes.



It’s a little like the TNG episode, _The Lower Decks_. Where we get a bunch of new characters, are given an hour to care about them, and then tragedy.
Only instead of someone introduced just for this episode, they fleshed out an extra.



Hussar said:


> I watched this and thought, damn, now there's a Star Trek episode.  Hit all the notes just right.  We care about the character that's going to die.  Don't need to spend hours building up the character - get to the point and off we go.



Which was the problem. I didn’t care. It was too obvious. 

They might as well have had her say it last day before retirement.

[video=youtube_share;MOk4hQXbGDs]https://youtu.be/MOk4hQXbGDs[/video]

It’s like a twelve episode season. If they did any planning in advance they could have set that up sooo much better. Two or three minutes easy episode. A couple shots of her interacting with Tilly and the helmswoman. 

I gave Discovery a chance. And it’s improved in a lot of ways. But, man, it still feels like the showrunner is half making it up as they went along. 
I know they have yet another showrunner taking over next year. So it could continue to improve. But I’m really not sure I care enough about this show to keep watching.


----------



## Zardnaar

Jester David said:


> It’s a little like the TNG episode, _The Lower Decks_. Where we get a bunch of new characters, are given an hour to care about them, and then tragedy.
> Only instead of someone introduced just for this episode, they fleshed out an extra.
> 
> 
> Which was the problem. I didn’t care. It was too obvious.
> 
> They might as well have had her say it last day before retirement.
> 
> [video=youtube_share;MOk4hQXbGDs]https://youtu.be/MOk4hQXbGDs[/video]
> 
> It’s like a twelve episode season. If they did any planning in advance they could have set that up sooo much better. Two or three minutes easy episode. A couple shots of her interacting with Tilly and the helmswoman.
> 
> I gave Discovery a chance. And it’s improved in a lot of ways. But, man, it still feels like the showrunner is half making it up as they went along.
> I know they have yet another showrunner taking over next year. So it could continue to improve. But I’m really not sure I care enough about this show to keep watching.




Had that discussion around episode 2 or 3. My wife is "Life is to short for below average TV". We are watching DS9 and yeah characters you care about helps.


----------



## Mage of Spellford

I have to say that in true Star Trek fashion many things in the episode were overly dramatic, but having said that this was bar-none the most enjoyable episode of Discovery so far. The characters were on point, Pike was freaking awesome and that admiral is very cool. I started this thread to express my disappointment but imho the show has slowly morphed into something worth watching. Worth my time.

MK


----------



## Hussar

One thing that did jump out at me as I watched was, DAMN, this show is GORGEOUS.  It really, really is.


----------



## Morrus

Hussar said:


> One thing that did jump out at me as I watched was, DAMN, this show is GORGEOUS.  It really, really is.




Yeah. It strikes me every week. You can see every penny of the budget. The set design alone is incredible.


----------



## MarkB

I felt that they did enough to give Ariam an emotional connection, but I do agree with Jester David's points about them missing some obvious solutions. Not only did I think that the security officer could easily have put her helmet back on, I found it silly that any of them took their helmets off at all, given the hostile location.

I did like the Spock / Burnham scenes, where Spock essentially called Burnham out on her whole centre-of-the-universe martyr complex. Also his interactions with Stamets.


----------



## Zardnaar

Decent episode, was interested in Ariam sigh.


----------



## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


----------



## Janx

Morrus said:


> Yeah. It strikes me every week. You can see every penny of the budget. The set design alone is incredible.




Yep.  One thing I noticed was the super-retracty helmets.  Aside from they didn't have those in Wrath of Khan, I recall the super-lame half-rollback helments in Stargate SG-1 because they couldn't afford the FX that the movie had.  Now, 20 years later, there it is on Discovery.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Janx said:


> Yep.  One thing I noticed was the super-retracty helmets.  Aside from they didn't have those in Wrath of Khan, I recall the super-lame half-rollback helments in Stargate SG-1 because they couldn't afford the FX that the movie had.  Now, 20 years later, there it is on Discovery.




It seems that is now the new future-tech sci-fi standard, though. Marvel uses it a lot, too. Detachable helmets are obsolete.


----------



## Sadras

[MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] makes some pretty decent points, but personally I'm ok with montage-like input about characters.
I'm just a little tired of the focus on Burnham and her angst, frustration and anger, although this episode worked well with Spock countering her drama.

Loving Pike as well as his interchange with Saru about the mess hall fight and the crew's immediate support for him to go rogue.


----------



## Morrus

I’m gonna miss Pike next year.


----------



## Jester David

Sadras said:


> [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] makes some pretty decent points, but personally I'm ok with montage-like input about characters.
> I'm just a little tired of the focus on Burnham and her angst, frustration and anger, although this episode worked well with Spock countering her drama.
> 
> Loving Pike as well as his interchange with Saru about the mess hall fight and the crew's immediate support for him to go rogue.




Burnham is pretty unlikable. I don't think the writers know what to do with her. It doesn't help that she's meant to be logical, cold, and a genius after having been raised by Vulcans but because of the needs of the story she keeps making incredibly stupid and emotional decisions again and again. 
Another instance happened last episode where Burnham was risking everything to spare Ariam. Including ignoring a direct freakin' order. When being able to sacrifice a crewmember and order one to their death is a prerequisite of graduating from the Starfleet command program: if you try to save everyone all the time, you will end up killing everyone and losing the ship. 
She's a terrible Starfleet officer. 

The writers in general seem incapable of writing the Roddenberry/TNG "friendly professionals" dialogue, and continually have everyone yell and snap at each other. They're regularly acting in ways I couldn't get away with to coworkers or my boss, let alone a superior officer in a military setting. It was particularly obvious when Pike was snapping at the admiral in front of the entire bridge crew. (In TNG that would have been a one-on-one scene in the Ready Room preceded by Picard asking "permission to speak freely, Admiral?")
Which feels like the sole reason Spock is so emotional: because they couldn't make the character work as an emotionless Vulcan based on how they write dialogue and plan interactions with the crew.


----------



## Ryujin

For the people who are still watching Discovery: Would you say that they are stepping back from their original "darker, edgier" mission statement prior to season 1 and going back to what might be termed more traditional Star Trek?


----------



## Morrus

Ryujin said:


> For the people who are still watching Discovery: Would you say that they are stepping back from their original "darker, edgier" mission statement prior to season 1 and going back to what might be termed more traditional Star Trek?




I don't know what "traditional Star Trek" is? every show has bene very different. I love Discovery, and my favourite Star Trek is the TOS movies II-IV trilogy, if that helps. The main problem with the show is avoiding the hatewatchers.


----------



## Ryujin

Morrus said:


> I don't know what "traditional Star Trek" is? every show has bene very different. I love Discovery, and my favourite Star Trek is the TOS movies II-IV trilogy, if that helps. The main problem with the show is avoiding the hatewatchers.




Presumably not something "dark and edgy" that they were pushing so hard prior to its release?


----------



## Morrus

Ryujin said:


> Presumably not something "dark and edgy" that they were pushing so hard prior to its release?




I don't really know what they were pushing hard prior to its release. DIdn't see much promotion. Sorry; not much help!


----------



## Hussar

Y'know, sometimes it's an advantage being so far away from all the hype machine.  I saw virtually no promotional material for Star Trek.  Heck, I see very little promotional material for nearly anything unless I go looking for it.  Means I get to judge things based on my own views.

Nearly all the criticisms that [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] brings up really don't bother me.  I don't judge shows based on other shows.  I don't want a retread Star Trek that's the same as the previous Star Treks.  I don't.  The writers just can't win.  Do something new and the haters come out of the woodwork claiming they're disrespecting tradition.  Stay the path and they get hammered for being unoriginal and boring.

Why watch something you don't like?  Good grief, there are THOUSANDS of shows on.  You have to actually PAY to watch this.  What kind of masochist watches something they don't like just to then go and bitch to all and sundry about how they don't like it?


----------



## Aeson

Hussar said:


> Why watch something you don't like?  Good grief, there are THOUSANDS of shows on.  You have to actually PAY to watch this.  What kind of masochist watches something they don't like just to then go and bitch to all and sundry about how they don't like it?



The Youtube folks will tell you it's their job as *critics* "We do it so you don't have to." I hope I never reach their level hate. 


I wonder if the studios that produce the shows, and movies have any idea what fandom is. Fans will still buy merchandise, even toys no matter their age. Despite this they feel they have to change things to appeal to new audiences. I watch Star Trek because my parents watched it when I was a kid. If I had children they would have  watched it too. Season 2 seems to be more appealing to the established fan base. If they continue to listen to fans, which I like to believe was done with S2, S3 will be even better.

It'll be sad to see Pike go but I still look forward to season 3. I wonder who the new captain will be. I'm not sure Saru is the one, but I'd like to see a non Vulcan alien. The captains have all been humans thus far. That's speciest. There should be more alien representation on TV.


----------



## Jester David

Hussar said:


> I don't want a retread Star Trek that's the same as the previous Star Treks.



Yes. How *DARE *I want a Star Trek show to be like Star Trek. How completely unreasonable is it that I want something advertised as belonging to an established franchise to feel like it's consistent with that franchise and not an unrelated TV show with the "Star Trek" name slapped overtop. 

I also expect coffee I buy to taste like coffee and not tea. Rock music to sound like rock and not soft jazz. Hot dogs to taste like pork and not chicken. 
D&D to be a roleplaying game and not a tactical miniature wargame. 



Hussar said:


> Why watch something you don't like?



In this instance, because I'm emotionally invested in Star Trek, having been a fan of the franchise since I was eight years old, and prior to the premier of _The Next Generation_. Because in the past a major part of my self identity was "a Star Trek fan". Because I've wanted a new Star Trek show for over a decade and was anxiously awaiting _Discovery_ since it was announced.
Because I _want _to like it. But I can't because I'm not going to lie to myself just because it's pretty and has a budget.

Again, I liked a lot of this season. I loved what they did the episode before last. What they did with Pike was amazing, and fixed a major problem with _The Original Series_ and made his ending a truly happy one. It was touching and lovely and a great homage to the past that didn't feel too forced or much like fan service while still remaining undeniably _Discovery_.
But, man, after that last episode I'm really tempted to just walk away. 

With two episodes left, I might keep watching. Because I hate leaving things undone. It nags at my soul. But unless the ending blows me away I'm likely done with the series. And very possibly a franchise...



Hussar said:


> You have to actually PAY to watch this.



Canadian. It's on the cable channel I already pay for. It costs me zero extra. 

(I couldn't subscribe to CBS All-Access even if I wanted.)



Hussar said:


> Good grief, there are THOUSANDS of shows on.



Sure. 
Name *ONE *other show that's a long lasting franchise with decades of history, tight continuity, and a generally consistent tone.

One other series that is equivalent in Star Trek in terms of legacy and canon.



Hussar said:


> What kind of masochist watches something they don't like just to then go and bitch to all and sundry about how they don't like it?



Because, and here's the kicker, I WANT IT TO GET BETTER. Already, based on feedback from fans, season 2 improved. I was very positive about the beginning of the season. Because it improved and they seemed to be taking criticism from the fans and adjusting the show based on that. 

So why complain? Because I believe the show could get better still. Because I believe there's a happy medium that would satisfy both groups of fans.

But clearly I'm doing it wrong and should just give up right away the second something I love disappoints me, and should stop expecting quality from genre television.


----------



## Hussar

Jester David said:


> Yes. How *DARE *I want a Star Trek show to be like Star Trek. How completely unreasonable is it that I want something advertised as belonging to an established franchise to feel like it's consistent with that franchise and not an unrelated TV show with the "Star Trek" name slapped overtop.
> 
> I also expect coffee I buy to taste like coffee and not tea. Rock music to sound like rock and not soft jazz. Hot dogs to taste like pork and not chicken.
> D&D to be a roleplaying game and not a tactical miniature wargame.




Hrm.  Coffee that tastes like coffee.  Would that be Kenyan, Vietnamese, Arabica, or one of the thousand variations of coffee that taste very, very differently.  Hot dogs that taste like pork?  Yuck.  Gimme beef hotdogs any day of the week.  Or goat.  Goat hotdogs are actually surprisingly good.  



> /snip
> 
> 
> Because, and here's the kicker, I WANT IT TO GET BETTER. Already, based on feedback from fans, season 2 improved. I was very positive about the beginning of the season. Because it improved and they seemed to be taking criticism from the fans and adjusting the show based on that.
> 
> So why complain? Because I believe the show could get better still. Because I believe there's a happy medium that would satisfy both groups of fans.
> 
> But clearly I'm doing it wrong and should just give up right away the second something I love disappoints me, and should stop expecting quality from genre television.




Thing is, your better is my worse.  You want Roddenberry era Star Trek?  Blech.  First three seasons of TNG suck.  And suck badly.  TNG didn't get good until they ejected Roddenberry.  But, if you want "classic" if that's the word, Star Trek, you've got several hundred hours of watching.  Why can't I get several hundred hours of what I want to watch?  

Why does "quality" mean, "things [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] likes"?  I liked the first season.  I liked the darker aspects.  I liked that they were telling Trek stories that weren't sanitized pablum where Star Fleet is always on the side of angels.  We've had decades of that.  Howzabout a bit more depth of story telling where no one is always the white hats?  

Your version of quality is anything but.  It's a solid show, set in a believable universe with a pretty decent storyline.  "Oh, but, it's not living up to thirty year old canon of Episode 86 of whateverdahell Star Trek is the "good" Star Trek because I happen to like it".  It's ludicrous.

If you don't like something, great.  You don't like it.  But, punishing yourself by spending, well, now presuming you watched season 1 and season 2, twenty some hours watching something you don't like seems really, really strange.  I will never understand fans who seem to feel they have ownership over a property.  It's just mind blowing the self entitlement that fans profess.


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> Y'know, sometimes it's an advantage being so far away from all the hype machine.  I saw virtually no promotional material for Star Trek.  Heck, I see very little promotional material for nearly anything unless I go looking for it.  Means I get to judge things based on my own views.
> 
> Nearly all the criticisms that [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] brings up really don't bother me.  I don't judge shows based on other shows.  I don't want a retread Star Trek that's the same as the previous Star Treks.  I don't.  The writers just can't win.  Do something new and the haters come out of the woodwork claiming they're disrespecting tradition.  Stay the path and they get hammered for being unoriginal and boring.
> 
> Why watch something you don't like?  Good grief, there are THOUSANDS of shows on.  You have to actually PAY to watch this.  What kind of masochist watches something they don't like just to then go and bitch to all and sundry about how they don't like it?




We watch it on Netflix. We're already paying for Netflix and ran out of other sci fi shows to watch and to binge watch.

 Also started watching DS9. STD looks amazing but the lighting is dark so it kind of sets the tone of the show. Not a Trekkie just treating it like a sci fi show. Seen worse seen a lot better. 

 It has some problems a big one being the characters, none of them are overly likeable. It's chalk and cheese say compared with DS9 where I like Quark, Odo and Dax. My wife likes Odo. 

 Had a decent pilot but some episodes it's been really hard to watch. Unlike say The Orville or The Expanse. 

 I would put it ahead of season 10 Doctor Who, the last episode was quite good,  overall it's hit and miss. Sense 8 was also better.


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> Hrm.  Coffee that tastes like coffee.  Would that be Kenyan, Vietnamese, Arabica, or one of the thousand variations of coffee that taste very, very differently.  Hot dogs that taste like pork?  Yuck.  Gimme beef hotdogs any day of the week.  Or goat.  Goat hotdogs are actually surprisingly good.
> 
> 
> 
> Thing is, your better is my worse.  You want Roddenberry era Star Trek?  Blech.  First three seasons of TNG suck.  And suck badly.  TNG didn't get good until they ejected Roddenberry.  But, if you want "classic" if that's the word, Star Trek, you've got several hundred hours of watching.  Why can't I get several hundred hours of what I want to watch?
> 
> Why does "quality" mean, "things [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] likes"?  I liked the first season.  I liked the darker aspects.  I liked that they were telling Trek stories that weren't sanitized pablum where Star Fleet is always on the side of angels.  We've had decades of that.  Howzabout a bit more depth of story telling where no one is always the white hats?
> 
> Your version of quality is anything but.  It's a solid show, set in a believable universe with a pretty decent storyline.  "Oh, but, it's not living up to thirty year old canon of Episode 86 of whateverdahell Star Trek is the "good" Star Trek because I happen to like it".  It's ludicrous.
> 
> If you don't like something, great.  You don't like it.  But, punishing yourself by spending, well, now presuming you watched season 1 and season 2, twenty some hours watching something you don't like seems really, really strange.  I will never understand fans who seem to feel they have ownership over a property.  It's just mind blowing the self entitlement that fans profess.




It's because people get emotionally invested in something and franchises have a certain feel. I like D&D and Star Wars. TFA and Rebels feel like Star Wars TLJ didn't. One edition of D&D didn't do it for me.

 I'm not a massive Trekkie but enjoyed the older movies, early DS9 and some of TOS. 

 DS9 for example it's different than TOS and TNG but is still feels like Trek. STD big problem is mostly the feel and the characters.

Change is only bad if you lose the old fans and fail to get new ones. Juries still out on STD but 3 series of trek had 7 seasons each.

 Similar things happen with bands eventually they make a dud album.


----------



## Hussar

Zardnaar said:


> It's because people get emotional ly invested in something and franchises have a certain feel. I like D&D and Star Wars. TFA and Rebels feel like Star Wars TLJ didn't.
> 
> I'm not a massive Trekkie but enjoyed the older movies, early DS9 and some of TOS.
> 
> DS9 for example it's different than TOS and TNG but is still feels like Trek. STD big problem is mostly the feel and the characters.
> 
> Change is only bad if you lose the old fans and fail to get new ones. Juries still out on STD but 3 series of trek had 7 seasons each.




The problem is, "that certain feel" is far more in the mind of the fan than in anything real in the show.  You can point to all sorts of elements that aren't part of the "feel", but, apparently, we're not supposed to look at those things.  We're only supposed to like the same things and we're all supposed to keep liking the same things so the franchise can keep pumping out the same thing over and over and over again so it doesn't lose the old "fans".

Good grief.

Look, I'm a HUGE theater fan.  Love it to pieces.  I've seen Romeo and Juliet done a dozen different ways from traditional all the way to street theater featuring classic hot rods instead of swords.  The idea that we have to keep doing the same thing over and over and over just so we can please the "old guard" is baffling to me.

You mentioned The Expanse.  Fantastic show.  But, let's not forget, we're only three seasons in.  Now, imagine the Expanse universe has hundreds of hours of shows under its belt.  (heh, no pun intended)  Do you really want to keep watching an Expanse that is STILL dealing with the same politics as in Season 1?  

It's like those American dramas that just keep going and going and going, like the X Files.  They can never actually resolve anything because that would mean that the show would actually have to do something new.  No thanks.  I have zero interest in those kinds of shows anymore.  Gimme solid, self contained stories any day of the week.


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> The problem is, "that certain feel" is far more in the mind of the fan than in anything real in the show.  You can point to all sorts of elements that aren't part of the "feel", but, apparently, we're not supposed to look at those things.  We're only supposed to like the same things and we're all supposed to keep liking the same things so the franchise can keep pumping out the same thing over and over and over again so it doesn't lose the old "fans".
> 
> Good grief.
> 
> Look, I'm a HUGE theater fan.  Love it to pieces.  I've seen Romeo and Juliet done a dozen different ways from traditional all the way to street theater featuring classic hot rods instead of swords.  The idea that we have to keep doing the same thing over and over and over just so we can please the "old guard" is baffling to me.
> 
> You mentioned The Expanse.  Fantastic show.  But, let's not forget, we're only three seasons in.  Now, imagine the Expanse universe has hundreds of hours of shows under its belt.  (heh, no pun intended)  Do you really want to keep watching an Expanse that is STILL dealing with the same politics as in Season 1?
> 
> It's like those American dramas that just keep going and going and going, like the X Files.  They can never actually resolve anything because that would mean that the show would actually have to do something new.  No thanks.  I have zero interest in those kinds of shows anymore.  Gimme solid, self contained stories any day of the week.




Its hard, D&D kinda has the same problem as you have certain expectations.

 I'll use Star Wars as an example as I know the franchise a lot better than say Star Trek. I' deeper into DS9 now than what I watched back in the day  but still don't know enough on Trek overall.

  With any show I need to like the characters. or hate them if they are a villain. The franchise needs to pay attention to whatever made the franchise interesting to watch in the 1st place. With Star Wars a lot of it is the force, good vs evil, space battles, etc. TFA for example was a bit to formulaic but after the prequals I can understand them playing it safe. TLJ rolls around and its like they didn't pay attention to TFA or the originals. The Darkside is the quick and easy path, or you just be Rey its even quicker. Finn can't pilot in TFA, a few hours or days later in TLJ he can things like that.

 So you don't need Jedi/Sith in everything Star Wars. It helps but you have a lot of room to play with and a lot of stories to tell. They also have plenty of example from the old Legends that didn't work. They could do a game of thrones type political drama set in the Star Wars Universe, they cold go back in the ancient past and have the Jedi and Sith go at it in numbers. They could do a war is hell type show a'la Tour of Duty or something focusing on pilots a'la Top Gun/Rogue Squadron. I would like them to get away from bigger and better super weapons, a new darksider, more powerful ships its really just rehashed 90's storylines of the week, its also what made Thrwan so compelling as a character (compelling enough to bring back in the new canon).

 The Skywalkers and Palpatine don't have to be the most powerful force users ever but if you top them you need a good story, if its set in the past why is that force user not more famous? Basically internal consistency in that franchises universe. A decent amount of world building.

 In the Expanse for example they have opened up new parts of the galaxy so they can leave the Sol system. That is a logical progression, see how it plays out. 

 I can use Stargate as another example. SG1 lays down the ground work. Atlantis kinda similar but they are in another Galaxy. In universe they went from a small team to an ensemble cast with no other Alien species and they are stuck in space a LOOOOONG way from home. Didn't really feel like the 1st two Stargates, there was no metaplot I could tell/care about established early on (episode 1 in SG1 and SG:A). And I didn't care about any of the characters so I stopped watching during season 2 and then the show got cancelled as I was not the only one.


----------



## Morrus

Oh, god, here we go again. Does it ever stop?

I’m think I’m just going to bow out of discussing this show and enjoy it quietly.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Morrus said:


> Oh, god, here we go again. Does it ever stop?
> 
> I’m think I’m just going to bow out of discussing this show and enjoy it quietly.




No, the beatings will continue until morale improves.


----------



## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


----------



## Ryujin

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> No, the beatings will continue until morale improves.







(DRAT! Animated GIF failure)


----------



## Jester David

Hussar said:


> Thing is, your better is my worse.  You want Roddenberry era Star Trek?  Blech.  First three seasons of TNG suck.  And suck badly.  TNG didn't get good until they ejected Roddenberry.



You're wrong there. 
Roddenberry was really the big cheese for the first half of the first season. Do you remember a huge uptick when he passed the reins to a different head writer for the second half? Meanwhile, he was still there as a producer until season 5, giving feedback on scripts and such.
What changed was they brought in different head writers. That's the thing, the show didn't just get better for no reason. They had four or five different head writers over the first three seasons. But until they brought in someone good it didn't improve. The writing changes in TOS and TNG and DS9 have everything to do with good writing and good editing.

But the new writers still kept his vision and ideas. They still worked with him until he got ill.



Hussar said:


> But, if you want "classic" if that's the word, Star Trek, you've got several hundred hours of watching.



Yeah, all of it cheesy and dated and with messages and social commentary aimed at the world of twenty to thirty years ago. 

Look, a different take on _Star Trek_ is a good idea. But this is the first _Star Trek_ show in a decade. You don't launch with something different and strange. You launch with something safe and earn the audience's trust. Then you go new directions and do new things, when you've earned the trust.
You _don't_ start by alienating and pushing away the core fanbase. 
The _Discovery_ showrunners haven't earned that trust. They haven't shown me they can reliably handle the baseline ideal of _Star Trek_, so I have zero faith that they know what they're doing when they try and subvert it. 



Hussar said:


> Why can't I get several hundred hours of what I want to watch?



See above. 

But right now, there's an eff-tonne of dark TV shows. Everyone is doing dark. Everyone is doing post apocalypse of twisted futures. Zombies. Alien invasions. Nobody is doing optimistic. We _need_ an optimistic reminder of the future that has messages for today.

Dark is a crutch. It's a lazy way of not having to commit to an ideal. It's a sign they're afraid of the show being able to stand on its own and so it has to look like everything else on TV. 



Hussar said:


> Why does "quality" mean, "things [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] likes"?  I liked the first season.  I liked the darker aspects.  I liked that they were telling Trek stories that weren't sanitized pablum where Star Fleet is always on the side of angels.  We've had decades of that.  Howzabout a bit more depth of story telling where no one is always the white hats?



If I want dark, gritty science fiction, I can watch _the Expanse_. In fact, I DO watch _The Expanse_, in part for that reason. I recommend it. It's excellent.

If I want to watch optimistic, uplifting science fiction, I go to _Star Trek_. A dark, gritty, pessimistic version of the future isn't really _Star Trek_. _Star Trek_ has always been about finding the positive. Even in _Deep Space Nine_, they were hopeful. And when they do cross a line it feels like it matters. 

But... even in _Discovery_ Starfleet is still always white hats. 
Here's the thing. _Star Trek Discovery_ is terrible as a dark show. 
Dark means people doing questionable things for selfish reasons and horrible consequences for actions. But _Discovery_ is pretty much a consequence free zone. The worst of the bad stuff being done is conveniently being done by someone outside of Starfleet (mirror double and generic evil AI). It dodges having people feel bad by not having the main characters be held responsible for the actions. There's no fallout for poor choices. And then everything works out at the end as the standard "Star Trek Reset Button" is pressed. 

_Discovery_ isn't dark. It has the illusion of darkness. It's a junior high edgelord version of dark, with lots of posturing and posing but no real substance.

There are so many better ways to tell a dark _Star Trek_ show. But they'd actually have to KNOW _Star Trek_ to do that. 

One episode (the episode before last) was the only one that really bothered to show the fallout of actions. But they didn't follow up on that and maintain the inertia. And with two episodes left, there's not a lot of time to continue that either. There's likely be left unresolved. 



Hussar said:


> Your version of quality is anything but.  It's a solid show, set in a believable universe with a pretty decent storyline.  "Oh, but, it's not living up to thirty year old canon of Episode 86 of whateverdahell Star Trek is the "good" Star Trek because I happen to like it".  It's ludicrous.



They did it just fine in '87. And that was 20 years after _The Original Series_. 
They looked at what worked and kept it. They looked at what didn't work and ignored or changed it. But they kept the tone and attitude. It seemed to have a strong respect for the original. 
Why can't they do that again? 

Heck, the freakin' _Orville_ nailed it out the gate. And did it while managing to invent its own canon. 
Why can't we get a _Star Trek_ show that's a serious version of the _Orville _but with the sets and budget of _Discovery_?



Hussar said:


> If you don't like something, great.  You don't like it.  But, punishing yourself by spending, well, now presuming you watched season 1 and season 2, twenty some hours watching something you don't like seems really, really strange.  I will never understand fans who seem to feel they have ownership over a property.  It's just mind blowing the self entitlement that fans profess.



For the exact same reason fans get upset when their sport team has a line-up change and begins playing poorly. Or a favourite band changes their sound. Or an edition of a game changes into something you don't want to play. 
You want things to evolve and grow, but it needs to be recognizable, or it loses something that drew you to that in the first place. It still needs to be enjoyable.

Fans are emotionally attached. And losing something they're emotionally attached to hurts. By definition. 
Some fans do take it too far. The equivalent of stalking or emotional abuse. They take the "ownership" too far and become toxic fans. 
But, at the risk of going No True Scotsman... if you're not emotionally invested, are you really a *fan*? Or are you just a *viewer*? After all, a lot of people just watched the movies, but never got into the shows, are they _really_ fans? I'd hardly qualify everyone who watches the Batman or Marvel movies as "comic book fans". That feels like someone just watching the Superbowl: are they really a _fan_ of football, or just watching the big event? 


I complain because I think the show can/could get better. As every _Discovery_ supporter tripped over themselves saying last season, TNG and DS9 got better as they went on. That could happen here too. 
And season 2 did look better. The trailer was good, and the first couple episodes were good. But, man, that middle was just weak and full of poorly thought out ideas. And that last episode was a masterclass on unsubtle emotional manipulation and forced tragedy. And it looks like they're doing the same damn dodge as last season, by brushing off all the bad things Section 31 did to apprehend Spock as the will of an Evil AI rather than Starfleet.


----------



## Morrus

I've started a [+] thread for those who want to talk about what's happening in the show. 

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-Discovery-(Fan)-Thread&p=7581224#post7581224


----------



## Mallus

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> No, the beatings will continue until morale improves.



What do we have to do to get the criticism to improve? Harder beatings... perhaps employing some form of metallic pipe? 

The thing I find both funny and frustrating about the conversation around Discovery are the fans who don't notice (or admit to noticing) the differences between the previous Star Trek series. Little things like being set on a starship (TNG vs. DS9) or the perfectibility of human nature (TOS vs. TNG).


----------



## Diljit Dosanjh

I liked first few episodes at first but later dropped it.


----------



## CapnZapp

Morrus said:


> Oh, god, here we go again. Does it ever stop?



I guess the thread title remains relevant...


----------



## Hussar

Jester David said:
			
		

> You launch with something safe and earn the audience's trust. Then you go new directions and do new things, when you've earned the trust.
> You don't start by alienating and pushing away the core fanbase.




ROTFLMAO.

I see.   We're going with the "what I like is the definition of core fanbase" argument.  Snort.  Giggle.  Gimme a break.

Hrm, most popular show on CBS's streaming service, responsible for huge upticks in sign ups, rates about 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, critically successful.  

But, you hate it, so, everyone must hate it.  

Look, I get it.  You don't like it.  You like the Orville.  Great.  We both win.  You have a show you like, I have a show I like.  Why can't I have a show I like without having folks like you jumping in and telling me why I'm wrong every single week?

What is this persistent need to tell people why they are wrong for liking something?  It's utterly, utterly beyond me.  Why waste your time?


----------



## Ryujin

Perhaps the same reason that people feel the need to post positively about a programme in a thread that was clearly and decidedly negative about it


----------



## Hussar

Ryujin said:


> Perhaps the same reason that people fee the need to post positively about a programme in a thread that was clearly and decidedly negative about it




Fair enough.


----------



## Diljit Dosanjh

true, Agreed.


----------



## trappedslider

Hussar said:


> It's like those American dramas that just keep going and going and going, like the X Files.  They can never actually resolve anything because that would mean that the show would actually have to do something new




*Ahem* Side bar...X-files problem was the fact that no one including Chris Cater had any idea as to where he wanted to go...https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheChrisCarterEffect


----------



## Ryujin

trappedslider said:


> *Ahem* Side bar...X-files problem was the fact that no one including Chris Cater had any idea as to where he wanted to go...https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheChrisCarterEffect




Yeah, I skipped the last few seasons of "X-Files" and didn't bother with the second of the new seasons. "Lost" was also one of the shows that suffered from this. By the third episode I already thought that I had figured out what was going on (proved to be right at the end of the series) and, with all of the crap going on circling, but not actually touching on that premise, I tired and stopped watching early in the second season.


----------



## Zardnaar

Ryujin said:


> Yeah, I skipped the last few seasons of "X-Files" and didn't bother with the second of the new seasons. "Lost" was also one of the shows that suffered from this. By the third episode I already thought that I had figured out what was going on (proved to be right at the end of the series) and, with all of the crap going on circling, but not actually touching on that premise, I tired and stopped watching early in the second season.




I gave up at the end of season 1 of lost. Star of season 3 for Prison Break.

 Some shows are really only good for a season or 2.


----------



## Derren

This episode has some gigantic plot holes. The dialogue wasn't good either.


----------



## Mallus

Derren said:


> This episode has some gigantic plot holes.



Like what? I thought it hung together fairly well for a plot involving catching a time traveler using a Reverse Grandfather Paradox Gambit.



> The dialogue wasn't good either.



It was in the scene where Spock comforts Burnham.


----------



## Derren

Mallus said:


> Like what? I thought it hung together fairly well for a plot involving catching a time traveler using a Reverse Grandfather Paradox Gambit.




The identity of Burnham as Red Angel was confirmed again and again with all tests they had. And yet in the end it turned out to be someone else.
So if the biosignature matches, Burnham must be her own mother. Or a clone.

Not to mention why everyone is discussing the plan for capturing Burnham in front of her. Because that will totally work



> It was in the scene where Spock comforts Burnham.




And it wasn't when Tully again bumbles into a meeting or when the whole "I don't love you anymore" plotline was on.


----------



## Mallus

Derren said:


> So if the biosignature matches, Burnham must be her own mother. Or a clone.



Or *both* Burnham and her mother use the Red Angel time-suit at different points in their timelines. It was Burnham in it when the one scan was taken. It was her mom in the trap on Essof IV. 



> Not to mention why everyone is discussing the plan for capturing Burnham in front of her. Because that will totally work.



The trap is a paradox. As long as Burnham is willing to die, then it works. Willingness to commit suicide, ie the Reverse Grandfather Paradox Gambit is a pretty foolproof way of defeating your future self.



> And it wasn't when Tully again bumbles into a meeting or when the whole "I don't love you anymore" plotline was on.



I admit Tilly's dialogue may be an acquired taste, but the Stamets & Culber stuff is great. Especially the "Why are you so angry? That's a really good question, Paul" exchange a few episodes back.


----------



## MarkB

Mallus said:


> The trap is a paradox. As long as Burnham is willing to die, then it works. Willingness to commit suicide, ie the Reverse Grandfather Paradox Gambit is a pretty foolproof way of defeating your future self.




But she and Spock only came up with that late in the episode. Meanwhile everyone was perfectly happy to let Burnham know exactly how they were going to capture her in the future.


----------



## Aeson

Mallus said:


> I admit Tilly's dialogue may be an acquired taste, but the Stamets & Culber stuff is great. Especially the "Why are you so angry? That's a really good question, Paul" exchange a few episodes back.



I really liked that exchange. Stamits seemed to have true pain when he asked the question. I wanted to say I felt this has been one of the better portrayals of a gay couple I've seen, but I think it's one of the better portrayals of a couple I've seen. Normally it's not my kind of thing, but I'm actually hoping to see them get back together. 

As for Tilly, I love her. Her geeky awkwardness speaks to me. I stammer and ramble when I'm nervous. Talking to superiors tends to make me nervous. I get it. I think she needs to out grow it for her character to grow as she moves up in rank. She may find herself a Lt. Barclay type if she's not careful.


----------



## Mallus

MarkB said:


> Meanwhile everyone was perfectly happy to let Burnham know exactly how they were going to capture her in the future.



But they didn't know *exactly* how they were going to capture the Red Angel/Future Michael. 

They resolve to do it (with Burnham present), start working on some tech to facilitate capture (without Burnham), then head to Essof IV to charge up their new plot device. There really isn't a plan for capturing her. They don't even know how to track future her. The plan doesn't solidify *until* Burnham and Spock decide to use the risk of her death as bait.

I mean, weaponizing the Grandfather Paradox against future-you is pretty clever. It's never going to make perfect sense when causality-violation is on the line.


----------



## Derren

As the other thread is apparently for blind admiration only I post this here:

So they really go with "Our absolute certain 100% double and triple checked test we mentioned so often are absolute unfailable were wrong". Right....

And now we also have pseudoborg. Hopefully they won't go into the "Control created the Borg" direction, but the way the writing is it wouldn't surprise me.
Deleting the data is impossible? With that much at stake there are ways to delete the data 100% the physical way. Especially when they can freely move the data around.
Stopping a transmission is also possible easily by destroying or disconnecting hardware.
But where should the drama then come from?


----------



## Hussar

Derren said:


> As the other thread is apparently for blind admiration only I post this here:
> 
> So they really go with "Our absolute certain 100% double and triple checked test we mentioned so often are absolute unfailable were wrong". Right....
> 
> And now we also have pseudoborg. Hopefully they won't go into the "Control created the Borg" direction, but the way the writing is it wouldn't surprise me.
> Deleting the data is impossible? With that much at stake there are ways to delete the data 100% the physical way. Especially when they can freely move the data around.
> Stopping a transmission is also possible easily be destroying or disconnecting hardware.
> But where should the drama then come from?




Well, to be fair, the only way those tests could be wrong is if the pilot was someone who had been confirmed as dead for the past 20 years, so, yeah, I'm not really going to take them to task for discounting the possibility.  "Yes, our test is really freaking accurate.  It's you Michael.  Unless, of course, contrary to all the available information, somehow your dead mother is in that suit" isn't really going to come up, is it?

I do agree with the notion that "Control created the Borg" would be a terrible direction to go.  Complete crap and I would be very disappointed.  Granted, since none of the other doom and gloom predictions have come true (Michael is in the suit being one that comes to mind), I'm willing to give the writers the benefit of the doubt for now.

And, yeah, it did occur to me, why not just pull the hard drive and jump and down on it?  Ok, you cannot erase the data, sure, but, surely you can pull the memory where it's stored.  Total plot hole, and no argument from me.  And, again, I agree, why didn't they just shoot that transmitter?  Georgiou turns it off, but, doesn't break it?  Seems a bit stupid.

And the whole "Section 31 has stealth ships" is a load of ballocks.  It's a really weak point.

See, boys and girls,  it's not hard to criticize a show.  There's a difference between criticism and hate watching.  And, it's possible to like a show without liking everything.


----------



## Aeson

At first I was thinking Oooo Borg!! Then during the fight I started thinking meh Terminator. 

Spock: I like science.


----------



## Derren

Hussar said:


> Well, to be fair, the only way those tests could be wrong is if the pilot was someone who had been confirmed as dead for the past 20 years, so, yeah, I'm not really going to take them to task for discounting the possibility.  "Yes, our test is really freaking accurate.  It's you Michael.  Unless, of course, contrary to all the available information, somehow your dead mother is in that suit" isn't really going to come up, is it?




Or it could have been one of Burnhams descendants. It is from the future after all.
But gene testing from the future should be accurate enough to detect the difference between persons instead of only being accurate to the family line especially as in the episode before they never said that they only have scans of the mitochondrial DNA but instead talk about bioneural signature which would definitely not be the same between mothers and daughters. So why can't they tell the difference between 2 persons?


----------



## MarkB

Hussar said:


> And, again, I agree, why didn't they just shoot that transmitter?  Georgiou turns it off, but, doesn't break it?  Seems a bit stupid.




That part, at least, isn't a plot hole. The relay was also a bomb, one powerful enough to breach the containment field and destroy the suit once the transmission was complete - probably a small antimatter charge. That's not something you want to shoot.


----------



## Derren

MarkB said:


> That part, at least, isn't a plot hole. The relay was also a bomb, one powerful enough to breach the containment field and destroy the suit once the transmission was complete - probably a small antimatter charge. That's not something you want to shoot.




She could have removed it when she was convinced that Leland was up to no good instead of leaving it so that it can be restarted by a single press.
But either way, the Discovery could have simply stopped the transmission by unplugging their communication array.
They could have also destroyed the data by transferring it into a shuttle, PADD, whatever and disintegrating that. Piece by piece if for some reason only a futuristic 20 year old suit has enough memory for it as the data somehow can be partitioned and copied (duplicated+deleted) just fine.


----------



## MarkB

Derren said:


> She could have removed it when she was convinced that Leland was up to no good instead of leaving it so that it can be restarted by a single press.
> But either way, the Discovery could have simply stopped the transmission by unplugging their communication array.
> They could have also destroyed the data by transferring it into a shuttle, PADD, whatever and disintegrating that. Piece by piece if for some reason only a futuristic 20 year old suit has enough memory for it as the data somehow can be partitioned and copied (duplicated+deleted) just fine.




Or, if it really came to it, evacuated the Discovery and destroyed it.

I do have to wonder, if the Sphere data's self-preservation protocols were so strong, whether their plan really had any serious chance of working in the first place. It seems entirely likely that it would have happily allowed itself to be copied and propagated far and wide, but would then have disabled the protocols that would delete the original.


----------



## Derren

MarkB said:


> Or, if it really came to it, evacuated the Discovery and destroyed it.
> 
> I do have to wonder, if the Sphere data's self-preservation protocols were so strong, whether their plan really had any serious chance of working in the first place. It seems entirely likely that it would have happily allowed itself to be copied and propagated far and wide, but would then have disabled the protocols that would delete the original.




We will see if it comes up in the next episode if the Destiny still has the complete data or just the 45% or so that is left.
That reminds me, if the data was deleted on the Destiny because it was copied, wouldn't that mean that some data is already lost as when Georgiou disabled the transmitter device some data did land inside the suit?


----------



## Hussar

Derren said:


> She could have removed it when she was convinced that Leland was up to no good instead of leaving it so that it can be restarted by a single press.
> But either way, the Discovery could have simply stopped the transmission by unplugging their communication array.
> They could have also destroyed the data by transferring it into a shuttle, PADD, whatever and disintegrating that. Piece by piece if for some reason only a futuristic 20 year old suit has enough memory for it as the data somehow can be partitioned and copied (duplicated+deleted) just fine.




Well, no, they couldn'T download it into a shuttle or PADD, because it's too big.  They did make a point about the suit having massive memory (they used quantum.  hehe.  solves everything) and thus could actually contain the sphere data.

I think they're strongly hinting that the sphere data is somewhat intelligent.  It certainly reacts when threatened, so, that's not totally out there.


----------



## Derren

Hussar said:


> Well, no, they couldn'T download it into a shuttle or PADD, because it's too big.  They did make a point about the suit having massive memory (they used quantum.  hehe.  solves everything) and thus could actually contain the sphere data.
> 
> I think they're strongly hinting that the sphere data is somewhat intelligent.  It certainly reacts when threatened, so, that's not totally out there.




And yet it was easily possible to partition the data as otherwise Control couldn't have escaped with part of it.
So you do not have to transfer the data in one big piece, you could have copied and destroyed it piece by piece. Besides, why would a 20 year old suit have less memory than a shuttlecraft (or the datacores of multiple shuttlecraft linked together)

Was it ever explained how Leland ended up strapped on the table anyway or did hologram Control somehow magically move him there? And why do their retina scanners have spikes anyway?


----------



## Hussar

Heh.  Now that's fair.    Really strong nanites?    Never mind how he got onto the chair, where did the chair come from?  It wasn't there when he went into the room.


----------



## Aeson

Hussar said:


> Heh.  Now that's fair.    Really strong nanites?    Never mind how he got onto the chair, where did the chair come from?  It wasn't there when he went into the room.




Nanites built it. Replicators anyone?


----------



## Hussar

Aeson said:


> Nanites built it. Replicators anyone?




Yeah, that's not really going to work.  It's not like they have replicators in the middle of the room. 

I gotta admit, I tend to gloss over stuff like this, mostly because it's Star Trek and if I wanted attention to detail, I would watch Star Trek.  I'd be rewatching The Expanse instead.  OTOH, it is a point.  The needle in the retina scanner I can kinda see - after all Control had a hand in building Section 31's ships, I would assume, or at least could get it's fingers into the pie, so, I could see it adding all sorts of secret booby traps like that.

And, since Control is time traveling too, it's pretty hard to claim what Control can and cannot do.  After all, at the same time it was taking over Aririam, who knows what else it was doing.  One of the convenient things about time travel is you can be really inconsistent.  Just look at Doctor Who.  

But, the "twenty year old suit" was specifically stated to have "quantum" memory which was virtually limitless, for some reason, so, it does make sense that you could store the Sphere data on the suit.  Maybe you cannot partition the data?  Sure, it has to be sent from one to the other, but, maybe it has to all be sent as once giant file?  That's a stretch.


----------



## Aeson

I was going more for the Replicators from Stargate SG1.


----------



## Hussar

Aeson said:


> I was going more for the Replicators from Stargate SG1.




Been a very long time since I watched the show.  Weren't those the bug things?


----------



## Aeson

Yes. I think they started as nanites. They eventually became complex enough to appear humanoid.


----------



## Kaodi

I like watching this show and it appears and feels good but at the same time the show is kinda garbage because time travel is garbage and it just does not make any sense to me that twenty five years before TOS a tiny subset of Starfleet created a piece of tech VASTLY more powerful than most of the things in ANY ST series and merely the size of a small exosuit. Like, Temporal Starfleet is supposed to be some 29th Century , right? But unlike with the Spore Drive, there is absolutely no supporting information or storyline about why it works. Like, how is a Time Crystal formed? How do you "mine" it? How does it allow space travel possibly faster than warp 10 and dampen that inertia? How does the suit provide sustenance to the wearer? How is all of this tech so miniaturized?


----------



## MarkB

Kaodi said:


> I like watching this show and it appears and feels good but at the same time the show is kinda garbage because time travel is garbage and it just does not make any sense to me that twenty five years before TOS a tiny subset of Starfleet created a piece of tech VASTLY more powerful than most of the things in ANY ST series and merely the size of a small exosuit. Like, Temporal Starfleet is supposed to be some 29th Century , right? But unlike with the Spore Drive, there is absolutely no supporting information or storyline about why it works. Like, how is a Time Crystal formed? How do you "mine" it? How does it allow space travel possibly faster than warp 10 and dampen that inertia? How does the suit provide sustenance to the wearer? How is all of this tech so miniaturized?



One thing to bear in mind is that the first thing the suit did was travel into the far future. A lot of its other functions may have been added later, based upon technologies that Dr Burnham found there.


----------



## Sadras

Kaodi said:


> I like watching this show and it appears and feels good but at the same time the show is kinda garbage because *reasons*




Bold emphasis mine. This is my frustration with it. 
I'll keep watching it, but frak it is annoying.


----------



## Derren

The plot holes continue.
Why exactly are they still trying to send the data into the future? If they cant delete the data from the Discovery, for whatever reason because last episode that was apparently possible, then they would lose the ship either way and if they can transfer the data into something else, why not destroy whatever it is transferred into? Why still plan to send the data into the future? And why not jump to the Enterprise or to Earth/other Federation planet instead of doing what they plan to do while in Klingon space (not that it will work)?

But at least it looks like that the information that Burnham is the Red Angel will prove correct, because with time travel back in the game and how Burnham is in the centre of everything she time travelling and causing the signals will probably be how the season will end.

The saddest thing is, they really seem to go for the Borg origin story as a big effect to distract from their terrible writing.


----------



## Hussar

Not seeing the borg tie in, but, it's possible I suppose.  The line about being perfect after getting the sphere data kinda sounds borg(ish)?   

But, yeah, the plot holes in this one were a bit glaring.  Hrm, the one lone survivor of the ship just happens to still be alive when Burnham and co arrive.  So, huh, Control's plan is, delay one ship from reporting, hope that Ash will give that information to Burnham in time, hope that Burnham will be allowed to leave the ship by herself to travel to the delayed ship, and then kidnap Burnham?

That's a bit convoluted.  

Never minding, hrmmm, you just beamed over the sole survivor from a ship and perform next to no medical checks?  When you KNOW that your enemy can possess people?  Spock should be ashamed.  

OTOH, the Pike stuff was well done.  Love the tie in with the TOS storyline.


----------



## Derren

Hussar said:


> Not seeing the borg tie in, but, it's possible I suppose.  The line about being perfect after getting the sphere data kinda sounds borg(ish)?




We already have seen Borg like behaviour in the last few episodes, the resemblance of Controls speech to the iconic "resistance is futile", the general similarity of controling persons through nanobots and when Ash discovered that Leland was controlled the pattern on his face resembled what a Borg infection does.
And in this episode the Control technology have taken on the same green colour normally associated with Borg.


----------



## Hussar

Derren said:


> We already have seen Borg like behaviour in the last few episodes, the resemblance of Controls speech to the iconic "resistance is futile", the general similarity of controling persons through nanobots and when Ash discovered that Leland was controlled the pattern on his face resembled what a Borg infection does.
> And in this episode the Control technology have taken on the same green colour normally associated with Borg.




Meh.  I'll buy it when I see it.  These are all pretty much standard tropes in the whole "computers are going to kill us" stories.  There's as much connecting this to the Borg as the Matrix, or, as was mentioned, Star Gate.  I mean, sure, it could be.  But, they'd have to do some serious retconning here.  The Borg are considerably older than the Federation.  Like, by thousands of years.  So, our time traveling Control would have to time travel back tens of thousands of years, to the Gamma Quadrant and set itself up.  Then it would have to completely forget about humanity or the Alpha Quadrant, again, for tens of thousands of years, until Q launches the Enterprise thousands of light years away from the Alpha quadrant.

Yeah, it could happen, but, man, that's stretching a lot of stuff and so far, while Discovery hasn't been too concerned with continuity, they haven't outright broken anything yet either.


----------



## MarkB

Hussar said:


> Meh.  I'll buy it when I see it.  These are all pretty much standard tropes in the whole "computers are going to kill us" stories.  There's as much connecting this to the Borg as the Matrix, or, as was mentioned, Star Gate.  I mean, sure, it could be.  But, they'd have to do some serious retconning here.  The Borg are considerably older than the Federation.  Like, by thousands of years.  So, our time traveling Control would have to time travel back tens of thousands of years, to the Gamma Quadrant and set itself up.  Then it would have to completely forget about humanity or the Alpha Quadrant, again, for tens of thousands of years, until Q launches the Enterprise thousands of light years away from the Alpha quadrant.
> 
> Yeah, it could happen, but, man, that's stretching a lot of stuff and so far, while Discovery hasn't been too concerned with continuity, they haven't outright broken anything yet either.




Yeah, if there's any Borg connection, I'd expect it to be that these nanites are reverse-engineered from Borg tech that Section 31 got their hands on, possibly left over from the First Contact incident.


----------



## Zardnaar

Missed the last 2 episodes. Been binge watching DS9, first time I have seen the entire run. Almost finished season 5.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Zardnaar said:


> Missed the last 2 episodes. Been binge watching DS9, first time I have seen the entire run. Almost finished season 5.



Now the real fun parts begin! I think. I haven't been able to keep my rewatch lately and don't remember the exact beginnings of various events. It's possible the real fun has already begun.


----------



## Derren

More plot holes.

Again, no one gets the idea of jumping to the beta quadrant planet with the church where Leland would need decades to reach to so that they can plan their next move. Or jump to Earth and inform Starfleet directly.
And they could rebuild the suit the whole time? So why not transfer the data there and blow it up? Speaking of blowing up, why can't the Enterprise not penetrate the shields of the discovery? Or use the same trick they used in the Khan movie?

But at least we now know why the Voyager never ran out of shuttles. Where do they store all those things?


----------



## Hussar

LOL.  That was a LOT of shuttles.  Someone has been reading their Star Fleet Battles I think before writing this episode.  Really draws straight from how the old game played out a lot of times.  At least, that's how we played it.

As far as using the Command Codes go, well, that was something of a massive plot hole that they added into the show.  I mean, there were numerous TOS episodes where, if you have the command codes of another federation ship, the plot would have been resolved a lot easier - The Ultimate Computer, for example.

And, since this show is set decades before Khan, it's possible that command codes hadn't been instituted on ships.  In fact, I could see this incident as the reason why command codes were added to Star Fleet ships, in order to prevent something like this from happening in the future.

At least the death scene with Burnham in the future vision didn't look at all like a borg death scene.  That was an angry AI.  

But, on the other hand, of COURSE they are putting Burnham in the suit.  Sigh.  Really?  It makes all the hand wringing and emotional goodbye scenes ring so hollow.  We know she isn't going to die.  We know she isn't going to be lost forever.  It dragged on and ate up so much run time, and, frankly, I just didn't care.  I found the death of Airiam to be far more impactful.  Oh noes, Burhnam is going off to certain death... again... at the end of this season... snore.

I really, really hope they do the whole "lost in space" thing though next season.  Let Discovery actually do some fairly bog standard Star Trek one off episodes for a season.  Just for a change of pace if nothing else.


----------



## MarkB

Hussar said:


> But, on the other hand, of COURSE they are putting Burnham in the suit.  Sigh.  Really?  It makes all the hand wringing and emotional goodbye scenes ring so hollow.  We know she isn't going to die.  We know she isn't going to be lost forever.  It dragged on and ate up so much run time, and, frankly, I just didn't care.




The goodbye scenes weren't about Burnham dying, they were about her leaving - which is still happening.

I am worried that they're setting up next season to be Star Trek Voyager, with Discovery and the core cast lost in space and time, trying to find home.

On the other hand, if they happen to pop out of their time-jump just next to space station Deep Space Nine at the end of the Dominion War, I will have no complaints whatsoever.


----------



## Kaodi

I would not be surprised if they get stuck in the future permanently. It would be a convenient way to explain why none of these characters ever show up or get mentioned ever in TOS. In fact, though I would kind of hate this, I would not be surprised if the next season ties somehow into Temporal Starfleet. Because either they make it to 900 years in the future and Temporal Starfleet exists or has already been destroyed or they come up short and are the genesis of Temporal Star Fleet. Of course - time travel is stupid and the great scourge of established universes.


----------



## Erekose

Minor point but I remember when the series was first discussed and a point of difference was that the main character wasn’t the captain. Is it just me or does it feel like Burnham might be the new captain? Saru pointedly ducked Pike’s question.


----------



## Derren

Erekose said:


> Minor point but I remember when the series was first discussed and a point of difference was that the main character wasn’t the captain. Is it just me or does it feel like Burnham might be the new captain? Saru pointedly ducked Pike’s question.




That would be the final nail on Discoveries coffin.
Not that it would change much, Burnham is already the most important thing in the universe as everything revolves around her anyway.


----------



## Sadras

Discovery would probably improve if they replaced their Mary Sue with Jar Jar Binks.


----------



## MarkB

Derren said:


> That would be the final nail on Discoveries coffin..



Why?


----------



## Sadras

MarkB said:


> Why?




Because arguably the greatest characters in the Discovery series have been the various captains - Pike, Saru, Lorca, Philippa Georgiou. If you remove that component well...


----------



## Erekose

Sadras said:


> Because arguably the greatest characters in the Discovery series have been the various captains - Pike, Saru, Lorca, Philippa Georgiou. If you remove that component well...




While I agree they are the best characters, IMHO, if you think about it Burnham would be the obvious choice for a promotion (albeit leap frogging Saru as current first officer) given that the Universe revolves around her and she has the answers to all important problems facing the crew . . . only slightly tongue in cheek!


----------



## Sadras

Erekose said:


> While I agree they are the best characters, IMHO, if you think about it Burnham would be the obvious choice for a promotion (albeit leap frogging Saru as current first officer) given that the Universe revolves around her and she has the answers to all important problems facing the crew . . . only slightly tongue in cheek!




Mary Sue upwards and onwards...
The writers have completely destroyed that actress for me.


----------



## Erekose

Sadras said:


> Mary Sue upwards and onwards...
> The writers have completely destroyed that actress for me.




Just checking - I imagine you mean the character rather than the actor!


----------



## Sadras

Erekose said:


> Just checking - I imagine you mean the character rather than the actor!




No...Sonequa has now played two angst-filled characters back-to-back having come from The Walking Boring. So nevermind the angst-baked Michael Burnham character, the ST writers made her Mary Sue as well. Right now, I cannot imagine I will like any character she plays from here on out.


----------



## Hussar

I'm still utterly baffled by this whole "Mary Sue" criticism.  I really am.  What has she done that merits this?  Is she a better fighter than anyone?  Well, no, she routinely gets her ass handed to her.  Is she a better pilot?  Well, no, Lorca and Pike as well as others are better pilots.  Smarter?  Nope.  Solves every problem when no one else can?  Nope.  Better engineer maybe?  Nope, there are several engineers ahead of her on that one.  

So, what is it?  Is it because she has more screen time?  Or that in the first season most of the plots placed her at the center?  That's not a Mary Sue, that's just a protagonist.  Is it because she's the focus of much of the show, whereas previous Star Treks focused so much attention on the captains?  

Let's not forget here, by yesteryear's standards, we're not even through a single season yet.  Yup, the show focuses on Burnham.  That's true.  She's the lead character, whereas previous Treks put the Captain in the lead.  Again, still not a Mary Sue.  

It would really strengthen people's criticisms if they could avoid using such loaded shorthand that really doesn't apply here.


----------



## Zardnaar

Burnham I don't think is a Mary Sue just a horrible character but she is the protagonist. Agree with previous comment about the captains being the most interesting characters.


----------



## Sadras

Hussar said:


> I'm still utterly baffled by this whole "Mary Sue" criticism.  I really am.




Here is a first season primer.
Can't wait for Season 2 recap.



> So, what is it?  Is it because she has more screen time?  Or that in the first season most of the plots placed her at the center?  That's not a Mary Sue, that's just a protagonist.




They need not be mutually exclusive.



> It would really strengthen people's criticisms if they could avoid using such loaded shorthand that really doesn't apply here.




I think that may be subjective.


----------



## Sadras

Zardnaar said:


> Agree with previous comment about the captains being the most interesting characters.




Seriously? 
Let us look at Deep Space 9 since you're currently watching that. Sisko is awesome, but is he REALLY the most interesting character?

What about Voyager? You're saying Janeway topped the Doctor and/or Borg in interest? REALLY?


----------



## Zardnaar

Sadras said:


> Seriously?
> Let us look at Deep Space 9 since you're currently watching that. Sisko is awesome, but is he REALLY the most interesting character?
> 
> What about Voyager? You're saying Janeway topped and/or the Doctor or Borg in interest?




The comment was about the Discovery captains.

 Haven't seen Voyager just reached season 7 DS9. Siskos not the most interesting imho, probably Dax/Quark overall.


----------



## Sadras

Zardnaar said:


> The comment was about the Discovery captains.




Apologies, I thought you were referring to Hussar's comment about previous Treks, where the Captains were the most interesting as seen in his quote below.



> Is it because she's the focus of much of the show, whereas previous Star Treks focused so much attention on the captains?


----------



## Sadras

nvm


----------



## Zardnaar

Sadras said:


> Apologies, I thought you were referring to Hussar's comment about previous Treks, where the Captains were the most interesting as seen in his quote below.




All good. DS9 has to many great characters. Odo, Garak, Nog, Ferengi in general. Loving it.


----------



## Sadras

Zardnaar said:


> All good. DS9 has to many great characters. Odo, Garak, Nog, Ferengi in general. Loving it.




Yeah, the characters were written well (from what I have seen). I'm a few seasons behind you but the show still holds up well. It doesn't have the sleek beautiful set and clothing gear of Discovery but what it lacks in budget, it more than makes up for in the writing.


----------



## Zardnaar

Sadras said:


> Yeah, the characters were written well (from what I have seen). I'm a few seasons behind you but the show still holds up well. It doesn't have the slick beautiful set and clothing gear of Discovery but what it lacks in budget, it more than makes up for in the writing.




I'm all about story over pretty visuals. Rewatched Babylon 5 and the special effects are terrible but the characters and plot hold up well. 

 Not every character needs to be likeable but protagonists need to.


----------



## Hussar

Sadras said:


> Seriously?
> Let us look at Deep Space 9 since you're currently watching that. Sisko is awesome, but is he REALLY the most interesting character?
> 
> What about Voyager? You're saying Janeway topped the Doctor and/or Borg in interest? REALLY?




Most interesting?  Dunno about that, but, there's no doubt that the series definitely places him at the center of the story lines.  As it does with Janeway as well.  Is there any real doubt here that either character is the main protagonist on the show?

Here are two characters that get the most screen time overall, and whose decisions and actions drive the plot for pretty much every episode.  Sure, there are a few episodes every season where the captain isn't at the centre, but, that's because you'Ve got 24 (ish) episodes per season.  You can afford to have that.

And that youtube video was pretty much a selection of bog standard clips about the protagonist in a Star Trek serial.  You could make identical, almost scene for scene clip collections for Kirk or Picard.  Youngest captain ever.  Top of his class.  Most decorated Star Fleet captain ever.  Loved by every alien female.  Oh, but, Kirk's not a Mary Sue.  Picard is pretty much in the same boat as well.  Best captain.  Moral center of the universe.  Never mistaken.  

Look, I get criticizing Discovery, I really do.  But, these Mary Sue things are bizarre considering what we're comparing Burnham to.  It really does ring rather false.

IOW, "I don't like the character of Burnham, I find her unbelievable, flat, two dimensional and kinda boring" is an arguable, but, understandable point.  "I don't like Burnham because she's a Mary Sue" just invites all sorts of counter arguments that reveal that no, she really isn't.


----------



## Derren

Hussar said:


> I'm still utterly baffled by this whole "Mary Sue" criticism.  I really am.  What has she done that merits this?  Is she a better fighter than anyone?  Well, no, she routinely gets her ass handed to her.  Is she a better pilot?  Well, no, Lorca and Pike as well as others are better pilots.  Smarter?  Nope.  Solves every problem when no one else can?  Nope.  Better engineer maybe?  Nope, there are several engineers ahead of her on that one.
> 
> So, what is it?  Is it because she has more screen time?  Or that in the first season most of the plots placed her at the center?  That's not a Mary Sue, that's just a protagonist.  Is it because she's the focus of much of the show, whereas previous Star Treks focused so much attention on the captains?
> 
> Let's not forget here, by yesteryear's standards, we're not even through a single season yet.  Yup, the show focuses on Burnham.  That's true.  She's the lead character, whereas previous Treks put the Captain in the lead.  Again, still not a Mary Sue.
> 
> It would really strengthen people's criticisms if they could avoid using such loaded shorthand that really doesn't apply here.




Well she is the one attempting the assassination in the pilot episode instead of a security officer and comes out alive, didn't fare bad at all in the mirror universe and was able to hold out against the Pseudoborg. Who is a better fighter than her?
And she was the test pilot of those pods used in the season 2 pilot and, of course, saves Pike while everyone not following her order dies. And she often rudely interrupts her superior officers because she has a better idea than them. That is of course in addition to her now being the only person who can wear the suite and thus the entire reason season 2 even happened and generally everything important happening somehow being related to her actions or even just genes.


----------



## Morrus

Hussar said:


> IOW, "I don't like the character of Burnham, I find her unbelievable, flat, two dimensional and kinda boring" is an arguable, but, understandable point.  "I don't like Burnham because she's a Mary Sue" just invites all sorts of counter arguments that reveal that no, she really isn't.




I think we know what it's really about.


----------



## Derren

Morrus said:


> I think we know what it's really about.




And that is?


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> Most interesting?  Dunno about that, but, there's no doubt that the series definitely places him at the center of the story lines.  As it does with Janeway as well.  Is there any real doubt here that either character is the main protagonist on the show?
> 
> Here are two characters that get the most screen time overall, and whose decisions and actions drive the plot for pretty much every episode.  Sure, there are a few episodes every season where the captain isn't at the centre, but, that's because you'Ve got 24 (ish) episodes per season.  You can afford to have that.
> 
> And that youtube video was pretty much a selection of bog standard clips about the protagonist in a Star Trek serial.  You could make identical, almost scene for scene clip collections for Kirk or Picard.  Youngest captain ever.  Top of his class.  Most decorated Star Fleet captain ever.  Loved by every alien female.  Oh, but, Kirk's not a Mary Sue.  Picard is pretty much in the same boat as well.  Best captain.  Moral center of the universe.  Never mistaken.
> 
> Look, I get criticizing Discovery, I really do.  But, these Mary Sue things are bizarre considering what we're comparing Burnham to.  It really does ring rather false.
> 
> IOW, "I don't like the character of Burnham, I find her unbelievable, flat, two dimensional and kinda boring" is an arguable, but, understandable point.  "I don't like Burnham because she's a Mary Sue" just invites all sorts of counter arguments that reveal that no, she really isn't.




 Sisko doesn't seem to get that much screen time though at leat in main plot points of the show, DS9 seems to be truly an ensemble cast. Odo and Quark seem to get a lot of attention as well, DS9 doesn't seem to be so focused on Sisko. Sisko also makes mistakes and violates his principles to serve the greater good, he comes across as less preachy etc than say Kirk/Picard. 

 Not sure about Voyager, but TNG and TOS Picard and Kirk were the main characters IMHO. 

 Burnhams not such a mary sue IMHO the two main problems are she isn't very likeable and they haven't put much effort into developing anyone else or showcasing anyone else. Comparing with DS9 they have multiple characters that are interesting/likable including the villains like Gul Dukat. Bashir is the least interesting character and I even like him, just less that the others. I thought the cyborg was potentially interesting but by the time they developed her they killed her off in the same episode. 

 Discovery also doesn't have interesting support characters once you get away from the main ones. There is no real equivalent of Nog, Garek, Rom, Gul Dukat, or in jokes like Morn. Go back to the older Treks if you don't like Kirk/Picard who about Scotty, Spock, Data, Worf etc. 

 Also since the 90's I think people like characters to be a bit more complex with some flaws. A bit darker (Breaking Bad, Sopranos, Game of Thrones, DS9, B5, etc). Even the Rock/Stone Cold Steve Austin lol which were around during DS9/Voyager. Batman as well. We're 2 episodes behind in STD as DS9 (has been so good by comparison and we have been binge watching that. My wifes not a Trekkie (even less than me I know the basics), but she has enjoyed DS9 as well.


----------



## Nagol

Burnham is less a Mary Sue (though her competency is wide-ranging and generally top tier) and more a Chosen One.  She's multiple Chosen Ones.  First, Chosen because of her mirror-universe analogue's history with the former captain and empress of the mirror universe and now because of her mom and time travel stuff.  Whatever the situation, she ends up having a special relationship to its heart that requires her deep involvement.


----------



## Hussar

Zaardnar said:
			
		

> Burnhams not such a mary sue IMHO the two main problems are she isn't very likeable and they haven't put much effort into developing anyone else or showcasing anyone else. Comparing with DS9 they have multiple characters that are interesting/likable including the villains like Gul Dukat. Bashir is the least interesting character and I even like him, just less that the others. I thought the cyborg was potentially interesting but by the time they developed her they killed her off in the same episode.
> 
> Discovery also doesn't have interesting support characters once you get away from the main ones. There is no real equivalent of Nog, Garek, Rom, Gul Dukat, or in jokes like Morn. Go back to the older Treks if you don't like Kirk/Picard who about Scotty, Spock, Data, Worf etc




Now, this, this I can largely agree with.  But, again, we have to not forget run time.  A single season of TOS was three seasons of Discovery.  Even later Star Treks usually had about 20-25 hours per season.  

When you're running such shorter seasons, you simply don't have the time to develop characters like Nog or Garek or Morn.  

But, to me, that's a pretty reasonable criticism.


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> Now, this, this I can largely agree with.  But, again, we have to not forget run time.  A single season of TOS was three seasons of Discovery.  Even later Star Treks usually had about 20-25 hours per season.
> 
> When you're running such shorter seasons, you simply don't have the time to develop characters like Nog or Garek or Morn.
> 
> But, to me, that's a pretty reasonable criticism.




Ok DS9 Season 1 or shorter shows like Game of Thrones, Orange is the New Black, Sense 8 or Humans. You can do it, STD just doesn't have great writing.


----------



## Derren

A weak finale for a weak season.

So Starfleet ships consist out of shuttles (why was that never used in the Klingon war?) when instead they should be made out of bulkheads as those things seem to magically neutralize explosions.
And the explanation how the events of Discovery fit into the canon are completely bogus.

[sblock]
Why did they have gone into the future anyway? With Lelands death Control is destroyed. Somehow. For no reason.
And the Chancellors days should be numbered because of Taylor being allowed on the bridge for some reason, proving her to be a liar.
Why did the Admiral had to sacrifice herself when you have transporter technology which you use just a few minutes later, proving it to be functional?
[/sblock]

Hopefully this was the last episode of Discovery and we get a Pike series instead.


----------



## Sadras

Derren said:


> Hopefully this was the last episode of Discovery and we get a Pike series instead.




Pike series will be equally crap if they use/borrow Discovery writers or any like them.


----------



## Jester David

Hussar said:


> Now, this, this I can largely agree with.  But, again, we have to not forget run time.  A single season of TOS was three seasons of Discovery.  Even later Star Treks usually had about 20-25 hours per season.
> 
> When you're running such shorter seasons, you simply don't have the time to develop characters like Nog or Garek or Morn.
> 
> But, to me, that's a pretty reasonable criticism.



Not really... 

Rewatching the “best of” DS9 right now. Based on this site’s recommendations:
https://medium.com/maxistentialism-blog/star-trek-deep-space-nine-in-82-5-hours-10acde591fd2

In the 23 combined episodes of season 1 and 2, said characters get more time and attention than almost any character in _Discovery_.


----------



## Jester David

Still haven’t gotten back in. But heard about the finale. 
So... the _Discovery_ is 900 years in the future? 

Do you think they’ll get background their “present”? 
Or do you think it’s an excuse to move the series to an undetailed era so they no longer need to worry about canon?


----------



## Hussar

My guess is that they'll stay in the future.  That way they can do new stuff, not have to worry about gaggles of complaining "fans" who want to do nothing but pick holes in things, and can actually move forward.  New stuff to explore and all that.

Destroying Leland did not destroy Control [MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION].  Control was destroyed by Star Fleet HQ at the end of the show.  All they destroyed was a local instance that was controlling (heh) the fleet.  Can't pilot all those ships remotely with all the subspace relays down now can they?

And, I'm sorry, but that fight scene was AWESOME.  

Sure, the bulkhead thing was lame, but, let's not forget, they did actually tell you that with the bulkheads closed, they'd still lose a big old chunk of the ship - which they did.  With the bulkhead open, the whole ship would be lost.  Does make you wonder what they make the bulkheads out of.  

And, as far as the shuttles go, I would assume that they did have the shuttles - they did just fight a major war against the Klingons.  Every Star Fleet ship would still be geared up for that.  Which means lots of shuttles.  That's not even breaking canon if you're a Star Fleet Battles fan.  As far as using it against the Klingons, how often did we actually see a battle with the Klingons after the first episode.  A couple of engagements, but, nothing serious.  And, again, they did say that they were converting all shuttles and pods to make fighters.  Nice to see them actually use the technological capabilities of the ships for once instead of ignoring it. 

The question you should be asking is, if Enterprise D or any later ship had replicators to the extent that they do, why didn't they ever do this tactic before?  Makes pretty much zero sense that they didn't.  DS9 had an entire station at its disposal and never bothered making so much as a skiff.  The Runabout's were delivered from Star Fleet.  Why didn't they just fabricate a couple of thousand of those to deal with the Dominion.

Oh, right, we're supposed to talk about Discovery plot holes... all the other enormous plot holes in other Trek's we're supposed to ignore because Discovery sucks and all the other Trek's were examples of perfection.


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> My guess is that they'll stay in the future.  That way they can do new stuff, not have to worry about gaggles of complaining "fans" who want to do nothing but pick holes in things, and can actually move forward.  New stuff to explore and all that.
> 
> Destroying Leland did not destroy Control [MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION].  Control was destroyed by Star Fleet HQ at the end of the show.  All they destroyed was a local instance that was controlling (heh) the fleet.  Can't pilot all those ships remotely with all the subspace relays down now can they?
> 
> And, I'm sorry, but that fight scene was AWESOME.
> 
> Sure, the bulkhead thing was lame, but, let's not forget, they did actually tell you that with the bulkheads closed, they'd still lose a big old chunk of the ship - which they did.  With the bulkhead open, the whole ship would be lost.  Does make you wonder what they make the bulkheads out of.
> 
> And, as far as the shuttles go, I would assume that they did have the shuttles - they did just fight a major war against the Klingons.  Every Star Fleet ship would still be geared up for that.  Which means lots of shuttles.  That's not even breaking canon if you're a Star Fleet Battles fan.  As far as using it against the Klingons, how often did we actually see a battle with the Klingons after the first episode.  A couple of engagements, but, nothing serious.  And, again, they did say that they were converting all shuttles and pods to make fighters.  Nice to see them actually use the technological capabilities of the ships for once instead of ignoring it.
> 
> The question you should be asking is, if Enterprise D or any later ship had replicators to the extent that they do, why didn't they ever do this tactic before?  Makes pretty much zero sense that they didn't.  DS9 had an entire station at its disposal and never bothered making so much as a skiff.  The Runabout's were delivered from Star Fleet.  Why didn't they just fabricate a couple of thousand of those to deal with the Dominion.
> 
> Oh, right, we're supposed to talk about Discovery plot holes... all the other enormous plot holes in other Trek's we're supposed to ignore because Discovery sucks and all the other Trek's were examples of perfection.




DS9 ( had self replicating cloaked mines in it they manufactured. DS9 also had an awesome cast with interesting characters, up to series 7 now final 10 episodes or so. It was never hinted that they had replicators big enough to replicate starships in DS9. That is a new add on that the writers of STD thought was a great idea but didn't think through. That is on them not the DS9 writers.


----------



## Jester David

Catching up. Just watched _Red Angel_.

Some good moments. Nice scenes. Spock had some great lines. 

But HOLY EFF were there some plot holes. 
The big one was the idea that they needed to keep Burnham filled in so they could trap her future self. Ummm. No. It's the opposite. It's her from the future. They can't trap her if she remembers it's a trap. They should have assumed they needed to keep her out of the loop. Heck, they didn't even need to really killer her: just trick her into believing she's about to die. 

Also... time crystals?!? What the eff.
Overlooking that Starfleet had Time Suits apparently as early as 2220, that makes you wonder why Picard couldn't travel through time a little easier. 
But time crystals? That's the laziest name they could have come up with for the MacGuffin power sourced. 
They might as well have named it "magic pixie dust" for all the thought they put into rationalizing it and explaining how it works.


----------



## Jester David

Hussar said:


> My guess is that they'll stay in the future.  That way they can do new stuff, not have to worry about gaggles of complaining "fans" who want to do nothing but pick holes in things, and can actually move forward.  New stuff to explore and all that.



The quotation marks around "fans" and implying that we're not fans because we like continuity is an unnecessarily provocative statement. That's just a gauntlet throw down. 
Why not just insult my mother while you're at it?


----------



## Zardnaar

Your mother smells like elderberries. I can't remember the quote lol.


----------



## Sadras

I think I figured it out, the writers were too "story now" focused with "fail forward" challenges, they hadn't done enough prep hence the plot holes and continuity issues.


----------



## Derren

Sadras said:


> I think I figured it out, the writers were too "story now" focused with "fail forward" challenges, they hadn't done enough prep hence the plot holes and continuity issues.




Not enough prep is certainly true.
Noticed how the ending with Burnham creating the signals one after anoter, the last one several months after the rest, doesn't fit the initial premise of 7 signals appearing at the same time?


----------



## Nagol

Jester David said:


> Still haven’t gotten back in. But heard about the finale.
> So... the _Discovery_ is 900 years in the future?
> 
> Do you think they’ll get background their “present”?
> Or do you think it’s an excuse to move the series to an undetailed era so they no longer need to worry about canon?




Probably.  After watching the finale, I got my hopes up it was the series finale, but alas, it is only the season's.  I expect next season (and probably any after that) will remain in the future so as to not constrain the writers.


----------



## Nagol

Sadras said:


> I think I figured it out, the writers were too "story now" focused with "fail forward" challenges, they hadn't done enough prep hence the plot holes and continuity issues.




Nah, the writers simply had an story that felt interesting and fun to them.  It's just a pity that it wouldn't fit within the constraints of the universe, so they ignored the constraints that they felt interfered with the precious story and/or the cinematic awesomeness.


----------



## MarkB

Jester David said:


> Still haven’t gotten back in. But heard about the finale.
> So... the _Discovery_ is 900 years in the future?
> 
> Do you think they’ll get background their “present”?
> Or do you think it’s an excuse to move the series to an undetailed era so they no longer need to worry about canon?




The new Discovery season will be set in the far future - but that doesn't mean nobody from the show will return to the current timeline. Michelle Yeoh is going to be in the Section 31 series, and her character went into the future with Discovery.


----------



## Jester David

Nagol said:


> Probably.  After watching the finale, I got my hopes up it was the series finale, but alas, it is only the season's.  I expect next season (and probably any after that) will remain in the future so as to not constrain the writers.




Probably for a bit. 
It's frustrating that they're doing a Star Trek series but seem wholly uninterested in actually making it a Star Trek series. 

It feels like advertising a television show as a World War 2 series and then redesigning all the Allied Forces and German uniforms, completely changing the design of tanks and planes, giving the Japanese U-boats. And then having the show focused around a squad that has built a stealth bomber. 

The weird thing is 900 years is a ridiculous length of time. 200 or 300 years would have been enough. That's like someone from 1119 coming to the modern world. Simple things should be magic. 
Especially with the way technology advances. Really, 250 years from now should look very different than Star Trek. 1000 years is almost beyond imagining.


----------



## MarkB

Jester David said:


> The weird thing is 900 years is a ridiculous length of time. 200 or 300 years would have been enough. That's like someone from 1119 coming to the modern world. Simple things should be magic.
> Especially with the way technology advances. Really, 250 years from now should look very different than Star Trek. 1000 years is almost beyond imagining.




I do find that a concern. It should make things so different as to render the characters entirely irrelevant.

The only ways I could see it working are either if it takes place at such a far remove as to not involve any of the current races - we're talking about a different galaxy there, for practical purposes - or for there to have been some massive collapse of civilisation from which the galaxy is only just recovering. Both approaches would pose serious issues - the first would make it effectively a different setting, with no familiar cultures or races, while the second would mean visiting an apocalypse upon the setting, which would alienate a larger portion of the audience.


----------



## Ryujin

Jester David said:


> Probably for a bit.
> It's frustrating that they're doing a Star Trek series but seem wholly uninterested in actually making it a Star Trek series.
> 
> It feels like advertising a television show as a World War 2 series and then redesigning all the Allied Forces and German uniforms, completely changing the design of tanks and planes, giving the Japanese U-boats. And then having the show focused around a squad that has built a stealth bomber.
> 
> The weird thing is 900 years is a ridiculous length of time. 200 or 300 years would have been enough. That's like someone from 1119 coming to the modern world. Simple things should be magic.
> Especially with the way technology advances. Really, 250 years from now should look very different than Star Trek. 1000 years is almost beyond imagining.




From the beginning this has been an exercise in leveraging a brand, rather than continuing a legacy.


----------



## Jester David

Looks like it will be in the future for a while:
https://io9.gizmodo.com/alex-kurtzman-talks-the-motivation-behind-that-moment-i-1834190233

Still, what will they do when they don’t have nostalgia to fall back on as a crutch?


----------



## Zardnaar

It will be be new to and better though.


----------



## Morrus

Just popped in after a few months ... man, this thread. A bunch of people hatewatching a TV show they don't like and making sure everybody knows it. It's the most depressing thing I ever saw. God, why flagellate yourselves like this?


----------



## Zardnaar

I don't hate it but have fallen 3 or 4 episode s behind due to DS9 binge watch. It started off alright and has a few decent to good episodes.

 There's not much else on ATM in sci fi genre. Humans, The Expanse, Altered Carbon are between seasons and are better shows. Average sci fi is still better than no sci fi. STD is a bit hard to watch sometimes and my wife likes DS9 more as well so we watch that. 

 Last 4 episodes though so we'll catch up on this and some other shows.

 STD doesn't compare very well to the good new sci fi shows or 90s trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Stargate SG1 etc.


----------



## Nagol

Morrus said:


> Just popped in after a few months ... man, this thread. A bunch of people hatewatching a TV show they don't like and making sure everybody knows it. It's the most depressing thing I ever saw. God, why flagellate yourselves like this?




Wasn't the whole point of the (+) and (-) thread designations to specifically stop posts like this?  Nice personal attack on everyone participating. :-/


----------



## Richards

Morrus said:


> Just popped in after a few months ... man, this thread. A bunch of people hatewatching a TV show they don't like and making sure everybody knows it. It's the most depressing thing I ever saw. God, why flagellate yourselves like this?



A few months?  You posted in this thread five days ago.

I personally have no stakes in this thread - I don't watch the show, mostly because I refuse to pay a TV network for "special content" they refuse to air on their regular network (it seems like a bad precedent to set) - but it seems like allowing those who want to vent about this show here in this thread at least keeps it localized.  Didn't you build a "positive comments only" thread about the show, specifically to keep the complaints here and not there?  So why not let them vent here, where you should be able to safely ignore them?

Johnathan


----------



## Morrus

Nagol said:


> Wasn't the whole point of the (+) and (-) thread designations to specifically stop posts like this?  Nice personal attack on everyone participating. :-/




Fair. I just don’t get it. I just don’t watch things I don’t like. But you’re right; I’ll leave you to it.


----------



## CapnZapp

Jester David said:


> It's frustrating that they're doing a Star Trek series but seem wholly uninterested in actually making it a Star Trek series.



This.


----------



## Derren

Someone is really salty that people don't ignore all the flaws in his beloved show...

By the way, you still haven't explained "What it (the criticism) is really about...."


Morrus said:


> I think we know what it's really about.


----------



## Hussar

[MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION], you’ve now spent two years doing nothing but complaining about how bad this show is. At what point does hate watching become pathological?

It’s not about not criticizing the show. We’ll all do that. But when a “fan” feels the need to take a weekly constitutional on every single episode, week in and week out without a single positive thing to say, well, at that point you become what Tor.com calls a fangoober.


----------



## Nagol

One thing about the dénouement of the season finale confuses me.  In addition to time suits and time crystals, Spock recommends erasing Discovery and its spore drive from the records in order to prevent a recurrence of Control.

Why? The spore drive had no bearing on the discovery of time travel or Control so knowledge of its existence should do no harm.  Did I miss some foundational relationship?

Indeed, its been established that if the mycelium network dies, all life in the galaxy will perish.  Even if the drive is found to be mostly useless, requiring as it does a genetically altered human to operate, wouldn't it be prudent to maintain study of the network to detect if another civilization (in this dimension or a nearby one) is poisoning the network?
How does one go about hiding a foundational element of the universe anyway?  There was something that caused it to be detected.  That something isn't going to go away with anything less than Q-level power.


----------



## CapnZapp

Hussar said:


> [MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION], you’ve now spent two years doing nothing but complaining about how bad this show is. At what point does hate watching become pathological?
> 
> It’s not about not criticizing the show. We’ll all do that. But when a “fan” feels the need to take a weekly constitutional on every single episode, week in and week out without a single positive thing to say, well, at that point you become what Tor.com calls a fangoober.



Maybe start a new thread if you wish to discuss Derren rather than the show (and its flaws)?


----------



## MarkB

Nagol said:


> One thing about the dénouement of the season finale confuses me.  In addition to time suits and time crystals, Spock recommends erasing Discovery and its spore drive from the records in order to prevent a recurrence of Control.
> 
> Why? The spore drive had no bearing on the discovery of time travel or Control so knowledge of its existence should do no harm.  Did I miss some foundational relationship?




Discovery is a missing ship. The best way to stop people from pulling on that thread is for it to have never existed.


----------



## Hussar

Nagol said:


> One thing about the dénouement of the season finale confuses me.  In addition to time suits and time crystals, Spock recommends erasing Discovery and its spore drive from the records in order to prevent a recurrence of Control.
> 
> Why? The spore drive had no bearing on the discovery of time travel or Control so knowledge of its existence should do no harm.  Did I miss some foundational relationship?
> 
> Indeed, its been established that if the mycelium network dies, all life in the galaxy will perish.  Even if the drive is found to be mostly useless, requiring as it does a genetically altered human to operate, wouldn't it be prudent to maintain study of the network to detect if another civilization (in this dimension or a nearby one) is poisoning the network?
> How does one go about hiding a foundational element of the universe anyway?  There was something that caused it to be detected.  That something isn't going to go away with anything less than Q-level power.




You're presuming that the decision to erase Discovery and the spore drive from the records is based on any sort of in universe reason rather than pandering to the whiniest branch of fandom.  Squeaky wheels and all that.


----------



## Zardnaar

I doubt is Hussar, the fact the federation isn't using spore drive ships in later Treks indicates the technology never became standard for whatever reason. 

 They would need to remove it, alternate universe it, or wipe out 50 odd years of Trek lore.

 Part of the mess is apparently the way they split the Star trek license so the new movies and STD use separate licenses.


----------



## Umbran

Nagol said:


> Wasn't the whole point of the (+) and (-) thread designations...




There is no (-) thread designation.


----------



## Zardnaar

That's splitting hairs Umbran. Morrus has been somewhat aggressive with splitting threads and intolerant if differing views lately. Throw in the insinuations as well and blocking people. 

 If you want ENworld to be an echo chamber just say that or change the rules and be clear what's permissible.


----------



## Umbran

Zardnaar said:


> That's splitting hairs Umbran.




No.  It is informing folks that putting a "-" sign on a thread title does not change the rules that apply to posts.



> If you want ENworld to be an echo chamber just say that or change the rules and be clear what's permissible.




Dude, he wants to be able to discuss a bit of media now and then without having it swamped by the same old arguments time after time.  That's not "intolerant of differing views", that's not wanting to listen to the same trash talk 17 times over.  It gets old.


----------



## Zardnaar

Fair enough but he also implied we're all sexist if we don't like TLJ or STD got called on it twice. Comes across as an attempt to shut down dissenting views.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...tudy-says-not-exactly/?utm_term=.a0dbbb42d52e

 Sure there's an element of it but it's around 10% apparently.  Doesn't bother me if people don't agree with me at all and yeah I am a bit reactionary with the two franchises I care about but I have never insulted or implied anything about you or Morrus on a personal level?

4E ,Star Wars, Trek the main problem is when new takes on things don't seem to care about, respect or like what came before. Change is fine as long as you don't destroy what was appealing about whatever in the first place.


----------



## Derren

Umbran said:


> That's not "intolerant of differing views"




That I am now suddenly blocked from the other Star Trek thread and also Star Wars threads as Morrus put me on block doesn't help your case.

Too bad Morrus never explained what he meant with "I think we know what it's really about." for everyone to see.


----------



## Zardnaar

I'm blocked as well lol.


----------



## MarkB

I did notice the last time that Morrus did his housekeeping on the Star Wars IX thread, several posts were disappeared from it and not added to the Episode VIII thread. I tried to reply to one, then found that it had disappeared.


----------



## Hussar

Zardnaar said:


> I doubt is Hussar, the fact the federation isn't using spore drive ships in later Treks indicates the technology never became standard for whatever reason.
> 
> They would need to remove it, alternate universe it, or wipe out 50 odd years of Trek lore.
> 
> Part of the mess is apparently the way they split the Star trek license so the new movies and STD use separate licenses.




ROTFLMAO.

See, this is what blows me away.  This insistence to use canon as a club to beat people into submission while at the same time completely ignoring canon.

Let's take Deep Space 9 as an example.  You talk about how they didn't have the capability of building ships.  Really?  Two class 4 industrial replicators rebuilt an entire planet - Bajor - after the occupation.  12 would have allowed the Cardassians to rebuilt their entire industrial base in a matter of weeks.  They added hundreds of topedo launchers to DS9.  They couldn't add a single replicator?  Or heck, a Class 3 one and a crew to assemble the pieces?

Or, no spore drive... huh... Transwarp drives... Soliton Wave drive... etc.  I mean, it's all well and good to complain about holes in Star Trek, but, good grief.  Star Trek has more holes in it than you could could.  Always has.  Giant, gaping plot holes.  

Let's take Klingons.  TOS gave us klingons in face paint to show they were aliens.  Then ST:The Motion Picture comes along, and it has a bigger budget.  Suddenly klingons are completely (and I mean completely) different.  But, that's okay.  We apparently don't mind completely ejecting canon then.  Fast forward to Discovery.  Again, Star Trek is big budget.  They've got lots of money.  So, they redesign the Klingons again.  Make them more alien and a hell of a lot scarier.

Oh, noes, they've destroyed Star Trek.  The horror, the horror.

Or, we go from a captain that is the youngest captain ever, decorated numerous times, violates the Prime Directive more times than we could count, is never so much as reprimanded (heck, they make Kirk an admiral), STEALS a star ship, gets that destroyed, and poof, he's the captain again.  But, a character does pretty much the same sort of stuff, and oh noes, she's a mary sue character that's totally unbelievable.  Horror upon horror.

Look, I get criticising the show.  That's fine.  I'll do that too.  But, holy crap.  To spend two years watching a show you hate, only to then take the time to come onto a forum like this and, on a weekly basis, bitch about how much you hate the show.... well.... wow.  That's a level of dedication that I just cannot fathom.

Hey, guess what, I don't like Game of Thrones.  Never got into it.  Watched a couple of episodes and gave up.  Same goes for Walking Dead.  I watched about the first two seasons and then realised I didn't like it anymore.  Oh, and I did the same thing for Battlestar Galactica as well.  Totally dropped it in the third season.

You know what I didn't do.  Spend hours and hours pissing and moaning about a show I hate.  When do folks just move on and let those of us who actually like something, like it in peace.

BTW, I didn't think mods could block people.  I know we can't block them.


----------



## Zardnaar

Season 3 of Battlestar was weak.  I would guess using a fabricator to make industrial machinery is different to cranking out starships. Also we have seen Star ships under construction in Trek iirc in the movies.

 Not familiar enough with the other treks.   I don't hate STD either it's had some decent episodes but it's weaker than DS9 for example and lacks compelling characters relative to DS9.  It also has a game of thrones level budget and with shows like that,  Breaking Bad etc expectations of TV shows are higher now I'm home.  Golden Age of Television have you heard that term?


----------



## Sadras

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] I think the posters were blocked from the various threads not from Morrus himself.

As for GoT, TWD and Battlestar Galactica -  they don't have the history of a show like ST with 5 series and a dozen motion pictures. The ST following is big...so people will watch it because they're ST fans.

Some will obviously complain of continuity.
Some of just poorly thought out storyline. 
And others of both. 
The protagonist exacerbates the issue since she is not likeable.


----------



## Hussar

Sadras said:


> [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] I think the posters were blocked from the various threads not from Morrus himself.
> 
> As for GoT, TWD and Battlestar Galactica -  they don't have the history of a show like ST with 5 series and a dozen motion pictures. The ST following is big...so people will watch it because they're ST fans.
> 
> Some will obviously complain of continuity.
> Some of just poorly thought out storyline.
> And others of both.
> The protagonist exacerbates the issue since she is not likeable.




Now, that last bit?  Yeah, I won't really argue with you there.  I'm not really a fan of the character either.  The whole, "Well, I'm a convicted criminal, sentenced to life in jail, but, hey, all that gets forgiven even though I started a war that killed billions. "  Like I said, I'm not a huge fan of Michael as a character.

But, the continuity arguments I never really understood.  Never minding that they've now answered pretty much all of them.  IOW, had folks just waited a bit, the writers would have backfilled the holes just like Trek has always done.  

What annoys me though, is this notion that just because I happened to like this or that Trek, that somehow I'm owed something by the writers and the show.  I mean, heck, I wasn't exactly a fan of Enterprise, although the final season (ignoring the series finale) was great.  Voyager blows large chunks after about the third season and isn't even remotely concerned with continuity within its own show, never minding the larger Trek universe.  DS9's final two seasons were, frankly, painful to watch.  Pretty much everything after Jadzia Dax dies is just not very good, with an occasional gem saving the season.  First two seasons of Next Generation?  Sure I loved them when they were first on.  I was 12 years old.  Of course I loved them.  Rewatching them now?  Eugh, thats some really, really garbage TV.  Whahoo another scene of a bunch of folks sitting around a conference table discussing their plans in a board room.  

See, to me, it's fans who hatewatch shows are the same kinds of fans that wear "Shut Up Wesley" T-shirts while asking the teen age actor to sign an autograph.  Trek fans made Wil Weaton's life a living hell.  It's the same kinds of fans that drive actors off their Twitter pages with lengthy hate screeds about how they've destroyed Star Wars.  It's THOSE fans that I wish would find some other hobby instead of constantly bringing tons of negativity to mine.


----------



## Sadras

Hussar said:


> But, the continuity arguments I never really understood.  Never minding that they've now answered pretty much all of them.  IOW, had folks just waited a bit, the writers would have backfilled the holes just like Trek has always done.




I can only speak for myself here - for me it depends on the continuity argument. I didn't mind so much with Discovery because I felt that the writers would have had a plan eventually. Personally I didn't like the new Klingon look with their monstrous hands (how the hell did they build anything with that) but I was willing to forgive that for the storyline purposes.   



> What annoys me though, is this notion that just because I happened to like this or that Trek, that somehow I'm owed something by the writers and the show.




This feels like a tricky concept and I'm not going to do this justice...but the short version being people buy into something, spend hours invested in it and I guess they feel betrayed when the creators decide to go in an unexpected direction. It is human nature.



> See, to me, it's fans who hatewatch shows are the same kinds of fans that wear "Shut Up Wesley" T-shirts while asking the teen age actor to sign an autograph.  Trek fans made Wil Weaton's life a living hell.




Wow, that is rough. I didn't know about any of that. 



> It's the same kinds of fans that drive actors off their Twitter pages with lengthy hate screeds about how they've destroyed Star Wars.  It's THOSE fans that I wish would find some other hobby instead of constantly bringing tons of negativity to mine.




Despite the crap I write about Burnham and maybe some other issues I'm unsatisfied with, there is plenty to like about Discovery too. Maybe we are getting old and more critical.


----------



## Zardnaar

It not just the though bits more or less any franchise that lasts a few decades. Coke, D&D, car companies (Ford for lyfe etc). 

 They way to do it right is be respectful of the last (TNG, 5E etc) while you put a new spin on it.  The blow it up approach/radical change approach doesnt tend to go down well. 

 Same idea with food. Get a great steak you tell a few people about it, get a bad one everyone's gonna know about it.


----------



## Hussar

Zardnaar said:


> It not just the though bits more or less any franchise that lasts a few decades. Coke, D&D, car companies (Ford for lyfe etc).
> 
> They way to do it right is be respectful of the last (TNG, 5E etc) while you put a new spin on it.  The blow it up approach/radical change approach doesnt tend to go down well.
> 
> Same idea with food. Get a great steak you tell a few people about it, get a bad one everyone's gonna know about it.




Battlestar Galactic shared virtually nothing with the old series.  Yet did extremely well.  Doctor Who shares very little with old Who and yet is more popular today than it ever was.  The Transformers movies did fantastically well, despite ejecting nearly all lore.  

The notion that you have to adhere to canon to satisfy fans just isn't born out by what happens.  Granted, lots of properties do poorly when they "fail to be respectful".  OTOH, sure, I'll give you 4e as blowing stuff up, and raise you a 3e which took virtually all of D&D and chucked it out the window.  

The trick isn't to be "respectful".  The trick is to actually write a good story and then produce that good story.  Get that part right and pretty much everything else goes away.

Usually.


----------



## Ryujin

The funny thing about the Klingon change from TOS to the movies, is that third parties managed to shoe-horn reason into it. The old FASA Star Trek RPG managed to plausibly explain not only that, but expand it to another Klingon "hybrid" race and, along with the Four Years War, it was considered canon at the time. Of course Enterprise had to shoot that in the foot.


----------



## Zardnaar

BSG was a reboot done well it didn't have the pop culture impact other things had. Only had one season as well of which only the pilot was good.

 Even in the cool kids thread though they want a Pike spin off.  He's a more compelling character along with Georgia iirc her name. New Spock seems decent.

 You're right about the story though but some of the excuses offered up are stupid. There's not enough byime to develop characters the seasons are shorter but GoT pulls it off.  Just finished DS9 though would give that a 8 or 8.5, STD maybe a 6 or 6.5.
 New Doctor who has been going downhill for a while as well.  Since late Matt Smith or Capaldi it was getting rough.


----------



## Hussar

I’ll take your word on game of thrones. Don’t watch it at all. But, again, comparing it to other Treks is not unreasonable. First two seasons of TNG is painful. Never minding Yar’s character being essentially a cardboard cutout. 

And again, I found the last two seasons of DS9 just painful. I had to force myself to watch just because I wanted to know how the story ended. 

Tastes are different.


----------



## Zardnaar

Haven't seen TNG except for bits of what was probably season one. I'm not a trekkie but even I know the first two season of TNG are considered trash. 

 DS9 did go downhill at the end but it didn't fall off a cliff.  Just finished season 7 yesterday or day before. Watched DS9 first as I wasn't sure my wife would watch some trek starting with TNG.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

The "disrespectful" argument is something I can see as a subjective thing, but I see a lot in Discovery that shows a great respect for Star Trek. Every time they reference some obscure lore and give it a use in the story. 
Enterprise and Discovery finally told us what happened to the USS Defiant. If you don't care about Star Trek, and "disrespect" it, no one would drag out that old chestnut. 
And now the second season gave us Christopher Pike and basically enshrined him in canon as far more than a character from a failed pilot and a clip show. 

Of course, there is also an element of the show-runners changing and altering their priorities, but the fact that it happened and how it happened means that Star Trek means a lot to the people involved. And accusing them of disrespect seems disrespectful in turn, because you literally disrespect their effort in fitting the show into canon and enrich canon with new facets of the world.

And in the end, everything new - prequel or sequel - has to do something new and different from what exited before - it always risks alienating people. 


I know I am quite scared about the time jump. While the writers basically now seemingly have carte Blanche, they will also need to make decisions that alter canon forever (well, until the next temporal trickery.), because whatever canon was at the end of VOY or Nemesis or the Hobus event, it lead to whatever Discovery encounters in the future.
For example, while the concept of and Andromeda type storyline is cool, I kinda don't like as the future of canon, because it seems to unmake the efforts of our past "heroes".
But admittedly, I dislike the ENT/VOY "Temporal Starfleet" and "Temporal Cold War" as well, I don't think the stories you can tell with that are all that relatable. It works with Doctor Who, because it's often more personal and its not like he and his companions are a formal organization systematically trying to repair the timeline.


----------



## Ryujin

Zardnaar said:


> BSG was a reboot done well it didn't have the pop culture impact other things had. Only had one season as well of which only the pilot was good.
> 
> Even in the cool kids thread though they want a Pike spin off.  He's a more compelling character along with Georgia iirc her name. New Spock seems decent.
> 
> You're right about the story though but some of the excuses offered up are stupid. There's not enough byime to develop characters the seasons are shorter but GoT pulls it off.  Just finished DS9 though would give that a 8 or 8.5, STD maybe a 6 or 6.5.
> New Doctor who has been going downhill for a while as well.  Since late Matt Smith or Capaldi it was getting rough.




If you're talking about the 2005 BSG reboot series then it had four seasons, not one. The BSG reboot spin-off prequel series, "Caprica", had only one season.


----------



## Jester David

Morrus said:


> Just popped in after a few months ... man, this thread. A bunch of people hatewatching a TV show they don't like and making sure everybody knows it. It's the most depressing thing I ever saw. God, why flagellate yourselves like this?



For me there are a couple different reasons. 

One, is that I write a lot of stuff for a Star Trek Adventures fansite (https://continuingmissionsta.com/) and keeping up with Star Trek is part of that voluntary "job", in case I want to stat out new ships or races or technology.

Second, I have a compulsive need to "finish" things. I can't start TV series halfway through, and once I've started I need to finish seasons. I can count the number of series I've walked away from and not seen through to cancellation or completion on one hand. 
Not finishing the season nags at my brain as something undone, like having left the stove on. 

The final is that I identify as a "Star Trek Fan". I've been a Star Trek Fan since I was eight years old. I've been a Star Trek Fan for longer than I've liked D&D or Doctor Who or even music. And almost as long as I've liked superheroes and Star Wars. A lot of my self identity is wrapped up in being a "Star Trek Fan".
I've been waiting for a new Star Trek show since the last one ended, and followed the development of _Discovery_ closely. And I want to like it. Because having a Star Trek show and not watching or enjoying it causes an identity crisis in how I perceive myself and my actions. 

In much the same way as a football (either gridiron or soccer) will cheer and champion one team and will continue to do so even when they have a crap roster or are on a losing streak. 

I *want* to like _Discovery_. And this season started fairly strong, with a few good episodes and a lot of reasonable changes that seemed designed to address criticisms of the show. And unlike the first season, it was a singular vision and it was not attempting to balance the outline & scripts of the original fired writer with that of the replacement showrunners. There was the hope that the series could be more consistent and tell a less jumbled and problematic story.


----------



## Zardnaar

Ryujin said:


> If you're talking about the 2005 BSG reboot series then it had four seasons, not one. The BSG reboot spin-off prequel series, "Caprica", had only one season.




No the original BSG, it had 1 season and a follow up season with different characters and a different setting. 

 It wasn't good, rewatched it a few years back.


----------



## Ryujin

Zardnaar said:


> No the original BSG, it had 1 season and a follow up season with different characters and a different setting.
> 
> It wasn't good, rewatched it a few years back.




That would be "Battlestar Galactica" and "Galactica 1980." The original was very much a creature of its time and the esthetic shows it. Remember, this was the end of the disco era and that doesn't age well. It was pretty great at the time.


----------



## Zardnaar

Ryujin said:


> That would be "Battlestar Galactica" and "Galactica 1980." The original was very much a creature of its time and the esthetic shows it. Remember, this was the end of the disco era and that doesn't age well. It was pretty great at the time.




 FOr sure I liked it as a kid but don't remember much until I rewatched it around 2008. Of Galactica 1980 I remember flying bikes and super jumps, that is about it.


----------



## Ryujin

Zardnaar said:


> FOr sure I liked it as a kid but don't remember much until I rewatched it around 2008. Of Galactica 1980 I remmebr flying bikes and super jumps, that is about it.




... and Cylons being screwed up by microwave ovens, and Super Scouts.


----------



## Sadras

Jester David said:


> ...I identify as a "Star Trek Fan".
> 
> /snip
> 
> I've been waiting for a new Star Trek show since the last one ended, and followed the development of _Discovery_ closely. And I want to like it. Because having a Star Trek show and not watching or enjoying it causes an identity crisis in how I perceive myself and my actions.
> 
> /snip
> 
> I *want* to like _Discovery_.




This. 
I do not like Star Wars, at least the representation of that universe on the big screen. I'm very much in the Star Trek camp.

I think a large part of my disappointment with the show will ebb away if they changed it more to an ensemble cast rather than the focus on Burnham. There is hope that given that Michael has dealt with all her backstory issues now, the format of the show will change, which is something I can look forward to.


----------



## Zardnaar

Last few episodes we're better, end was good.  Burnham was also better, actor is decent.

 Treks kind of new remember TOS, TNG, and DS9. More in the Star Wars camp but liked some trek episodes and movies when younger. Quite enjoyed DS9. 

 It's more expectations, you have a show with GoT level budget but it's not as good as Trek from 25 years ago. 

 There's so much quality around and over the last 20 odd years you expect more IMHO.


----------



## Hussar

Again, I'll stack up the first two seasons of TNG, DS9, Voyager or Enterprise vs the first two seasons of Discovery any day of the week.  Or, if we're comparing apples to apples, the first two seasons of Discovery vs the first season of those four shows.  Same number of episodes after all.  

No contest as far as I'm concerned.


----------



## Sadras

Hussar said:


> Again, I'll stack up the first two seasons of TNG, DS9, Voyager or Enterprise vs the first two seasons of Discovery any day of the week.  Or, if we're comparing apples to apples, the first two seasons of Discovery vs the first season of those four shows.  Same number of episodes after all.
> 
> No contest as far as I'm concerned.




I dunno, T'Pol is all levels of hot


----------



## Hussar

Heh. You could always tell when ratings needed a boost. “Quick T’pol, strip down and oil up!”


----------



## Jester David

Hussar said:


> Again, I'll stack up the first two seasons of TNG, DS9, Voyager or Enterprise vs the first two seasons of Discovery any day of the week.  Or, if we're comparing apples to apples, the first two seasons of Discovery vs the first season of those four shows.  Same number of episodes after all.
> 
> No contest as far as I'm concerned.




You're right. DS9 wins. 

The first four episodes of DS9 are amazing. _Emissary _is the best pilot of any Star Trek show, setting up the conflicts and personalities of all the cast. You walk out of that not just knowing what the story of the series will be, but the interactions, dynamics, and motives of the cast.  
_Battle Lines_ (episode 13) is a dramatic shake-up for Bajor that has lasting consequences, building off the growing focus on Bajoran politics. _Duet_ (episode 19) is a masterpiece and one of the best episodes of the series. And the finale, _In the Hands of the Prophets_, is dramatic and tense without having to rely on explosions and gratuitous SFX, with the tension being the characters you have grow to care about while facing an enemy that can't be defeated by punching it in the face. 

The first season of DS9 is rough, but it's also set-up. They're slowly building the universe. It's super apples-to-oranges compared to the one-and-done series of _Discovery_ where the entire plot changes every dozen episodes. But even then, the first season if DS9 is still very different than later seasons, as the tone really focuses on being on a broken and under-equipped station. 
And it deals with issues facing the real world. Religion in schools. Rebuilding after wars. Military assistance overseas. Loss of culture. It has a maturity of storytelling simply not displayed by _Discovery_.


It's also curious why you didn't include TOS in that list...


----------



## Zardnaar

I thought DS9 season one was decent, IDK if I should do TNG or Voyager next. I remembered enjoying early DS9 a long time ago along with First Contact.

I would have to watch TNG, I saw bits of it a long time ago, and watched episode one, STD had a better pilot perhaps. Right now DS9 is also quite relevant its aged very well IMHO except maybe the special effects and they're not to bad. Think we were binge watching over a season per week its all we watched, finished STD today as we gt 4 weeks behind stupid DS9 (got behind on everything lol).


----------



## Kaodi

I am generally happy after the finale but the space battle was all kinds of weird. I certainly like how they addressed the fact that Spock's sister is never ever mentioned ever again, but also that Michael planted the idea that he needed someone like Kirk. I have never seen all of TOS but it would be interesting to watch trying to keep Discovery's exposition on Spock's past in mind, and also the other movies and shows where Spock and Sarek show up. It also makes Amanda's death in the reboot more intense, because Spock has already had to say goodbye forever to someone loved.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Kaodi said:


> I am generally happy after the finale but the space battle was all kinds of weird. I certainly like how they addressed the fact that Spock's sister is never ever mentioned ever again, but also that Michael planted the idea that he needed someone like Kirk. I have never seen all of TOS but it would be interesting to watch trying to keep Discovery's exposition on Spock's past in mind, and also the other movies and shows where Spock and Sarek show up. It also makes Amanda's death in the reboot more intense, because Spock has already had to say goodbye forever to someone loved.




Everyone says she's referring to Kirk, and that might be the intention, but I am really thinking of McCoy. Because he's very emotional.


----------



## Jester David

It’s probably telling that following the big explosive season finale and huge status quo change... what most people are calling for is a Pikerprise series.


----------



## Janx

Speaking of Spock and TOS relative to what we saw on Discovery.

It looks like this season explains why the Feds don't have AI handling everything.

However, knowing what Spock knows from the end of Disco, when Dr. Daystrom shows up with the M5 computer to do everything on the Enterprise, wouldn't he have more objection or concern?  Heck, he should be paranoid if some fragment or record of Control's code was obtained by the Daystrom institute, it's Terminator: Genisys Planet all over again.


----------



## Hussar

Jester David said:


> /snip
> 
> 
> It's also curious why you didn't include TOS in that list...




Personally, I found the first season of DS9 to be middling at best.  Far better than the original season of TNG, true, but, that's a pretty low bar.  IMO, it took a season for DS9 to hit it's stride and it peaks about season 4 and then trails off after that, limping to a boring ending.

But, about TOS, I thought about adding it to the list, but, since there's only three seasons of TOS and the first is quite often presented as the strongest of the three (does anything think Spock's Brain season is the best  )  I left it off.  Additionally, so many truly original ideas and the fact that everything they were doing was new grants them a lot of leeway IMO.  

For example, there's a shipload of inconsistencies in TOS as they were actually trying to cement what things actually were.  Is it Star Fleet or Space Command?  Prime Directive or General Order 1.  So on and so forth. 

And, really, like you say about DS9 and Discovery, comparing a 1960's TV show to a modern one is difficult.  Do we ignore the... ummm... artifacts of the time TOS was made or not?  Enterprise was criticized for looking too "modern" but, should Discovery use fifty year old sets?  Are we doing some sort of future Steampunk?  So on and so forth.  So, yeah, I'll leave TOS off the list for the simple fact that I don't have a good answer to any of those questions.  It's like comparing Golden Age pulp SF to modern SF.  Do we focus solely on plot or should we include the blatant racism and misogyny of the time?  

Is a show still great if it makes me cringe every time it comes on?


----------



## Hussar

I never understood the criticism about why Spock never mentioned a sister.  In the other series, Spock never mentions his parents until they are standing right beside him.  He never mentions that he's married until he is forced to go back to Vulcan by biological issues.  He never mentions a brother until, again, that brother is standing right beside him.

Spock has never, ever been forthcoming or an open book with anyone.  Why would having a human sister that he never talks about be surprising.  Of all the things folks found to complain about, this one seemed just way out in the weeds.


----------



## Kaodi

I, uh, totally forgot Spock had a brother. How does he not come up AT ALL in Discovery?!


----------



## Jester David

Hussar said:


> And, really, like you say about DS9 and Discovery, comparing a 1960's TV show to a modern one is difficult.  Do we ignore the... ummm... artifacts of the time TOS was made or not?  Enterprise was criticized for looking too "modern" but, should Discovery use fifty year old sets?



*Of course they shouldn’t use fifty years old sets!!!*

But that doesn’t mean the design aesthetic shouldn’t be similar. Which later episodes of _Discovery_ seem to do quite well, updating the classic bridge better than the movies did. The revamped bridge was AMAZING. 

Had they should similar care updating the Klingons or designing the _Discovery’s_ bridge to not being generic A.F. a lot more people would walked into the show with more open eyes. 

They showed up the potential of a prequel series set in the 2250s with characters we LIKE. But that’s not the show we’re getting. We get more Discovery with it’s cast on antagonistic unlikable s set in the far future where the writers don’t have to include any Star Trek in their Star Trek Show. And then the planned Section 31 spin-off starring Space Hitler

50 year old sets. Jeez...
That’s such a disingenuous argument. Rather than actually countering arguments on the terrible writing or Borg Cube sized plot holes so you have to pull out that old BS gem to knock down and then claim victory in the debate.


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## GreyLord

I enjoy Discovery, but I'd say I enjoyed TNG season 1 FAAAAAR more.  I'm not sure why people want to say it's so bad.  I thought it was great at the time and still think it is great.

DS9 also had a decent opening season.

I could see Discovery being better than Enterprises first season, though I'd say they are more about equal.

TOS season 1 also is far better than Discovery.  

On the otherhand Voyager had a killer premiere which was outstanding (probably the best first set of episodes of any of the series) but the season that follows I'd rank as the worst of any of the Star Treks (including the Animated Series).



Jester David said:


> For me there are a couple different reasons.
> 
> OThe final is that I identify as a "Star Trek Fan". I've been a Star Trek Fan since I was eight years old. I've been a Star Trek Fan for longer than I've liked D&D or Doctor Who or even music. And almost as long as I've liked superheroes and Star Wars. A lot of my self identity is wrapped up in being a "Star Trek Fan".
> .




I've actually been a Doctor Who fan longer than any of the others.


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## Ryujin

Jester David said:


> *Of course they shouldn’t use fifty years old sets!!!*
> 
> But that doesn’t mean the design aesthetic shouldn’t be similar. Which later episodes of _Discovery_ seem to do quite well, updating the classic bridge better than the movies did. The revamped bridge was AMAZING.
> 
> Had they should similar care updating the Klingons or designing the _Discovery’s_ bridge to not being generic A.F. a lot more people would walked into the show with more open eyes.
> 
> They showed up the potential of a prequel series set in the 2250s with characters we LIKE. But that’s not the show we’re getting. We get more Discovery with it’s cast on antagonistic unlikable s set in the far future where the writers don’t have to include any Star Trek in their Star Trek Show. And then the planned Section 31 spin-off starring Space Hitler
> 
> 50 year old sets. Jeez...
> That’s such a disingenuous argument. Rather than actually countering arguments on the terrible writing or Borg Cube sized plot holes so you have to pull out that old BS gem to knock down and then claim victory in the debate.




Enterprise, for all of its missteps, managed to have ship sets that were at once more advanced and less advanced than TOS. It can be done, with a little thought about the design.


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## Zardnaar

Jester David said:


> It’s probably telling that following the big explosive season finale and huge status quo change... what most people are calling for is a Pikerprise series.




Well if you are a fan of the actor who played Pike check out Hell on Wheels. 1 its good, 2 it also stars Colm Meany in it.

Pike and Phillipa have kinda stolen the show though.


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## Hussar

I’d point out that there’s a reason no one is calling for the next season of Discovery. 

We already have it.  Season three is already green lit.

People are calling for Pikerprise because we don’t have that.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully

Janx said:


> Speaking of Spock and TOS relative to what we saw on Discovery.
> 
> It looks like this season explains why the Feds don't have AI handling everything.
> 
> However, knowing what Spock knows from the end of Disco, when Dr. Daystrom shows up with the M5 computer to do everything on the Enterprise, wouldn't he have more objection or concern?  Heck, he should be paranoid if some fragment or record of Control's code was obtained by the Daystrom institute, it's Terminator: Genisys Planet all over again.




The project is somewhat different. M5 was not a project for operational planning. This could have been a major factor in Control - he knew too much and had too great responsibilities and power. 
M5 was an attempt to merely automate a single ship. Since Control already could do this with the Section 31 ships, it is possible that the technological background was quite different to limit M5 more, so that Spock saw a possibility of it to work. 
However, the Enterprise might have been chosen as a test specifically because Spock (and other crew members left from the Pike era) was familiar with the dangers of AI.


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## Hussar

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The project is somewhat different. M5 was not a project for operational planning. This could have been a major factor in Control - he knew too much and had too great responsibilities and power.
> M5 was an attempt to merely automate a single ship. Since Control already could do this with the Section 31 ships, it is possible that the technological background was quite different to limit M5 more, so that Spock saw a possibility of it to work.
> However, the Enterprise might have been chosen as a test specifically because Spock (and other crew members left from the Pike era) was familiar with the dangers of AI.




Shame on you sir.  That's not how this game is played.  You must react with righteous indignation to any perceived inconsistencies in the canon by posting lengthy screeds about how the writers have no respect for the past, couldn't write their way out of a paper bag and smell badly as well.

Being reasonable and coming up with plausible explanations?  You are not allowed to do that.


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## Richards

Hussar said:


> Being reasonable and coming up with plausible explanations?  You are not allowed to do that.




But that's how Marvel's "No-Prizes" work.

Johnathan


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## Jester David

Watched the finale. Because I need to "finish" things.  

I was amused by Philippa Georgiou's defeat of Control. Because I've been repeatedly referring to her as "Space Hitler" this whole season. Cause she is. Being the former leader of a fascist state responsible for innumerable deaths and the genocide of several people. 
And then she beats Control by locking him in a "gas chamber". 

Also, watching the show awkwardly try and explain why no one ever mentions Discovery, the Spore Drive, and Michael Burnham again was super awkward. Especially as we don't really NEED a reason why Spock wouldn't mention his sister. Because he also never talked about his brother. (Which just becomes more weird, as you'd think Sybok would have appeared at least once in the childhood scenes. Or been mentioned once. They could have done some interesting stuff, where it's Michael's influence that makes him emotional.)


I'm a little surprised by the praise the final battle got. It was basically SFX porn. Shot after shot of myriad lasers filling the screen but nothing really happening. Innumerable explosions outside the hull of _Discovery _and _Enterprise_, but no real sign of it having an impact on the hulls of the ship. Because there were ridiculous numbers of tiny fighters, it was impossible to track anything, and there was never really any sense of scale, or how badly the opponents were doing. If they were suffering fighter losses or not. 
That whole battle could have been much more effective had they not turned it into _Battlestar Galactica _with needless fighter wings piloted by faceless mooks (literally, as we never see any) and just had three or four Section 31 ships against _Discovery _and _Enterprise_, so you could get a sense of the scope and damage. While we get a continual rundown of the damage and shield status on the hero ships, we never get told anything of their opponents. And there's so much going on, you can't tell if any of them are exploding or not.


So the season is over. Oh man... soooooo many plot holes. 

There were several episodes of "We can't delete the sphere data! The data won't let itself be destroyed!" But that's problematic as there are so many ways to blow up a starship. 
The data is in the computer core: go there with a hand phaser and blow it up. Fill the interiour of the ship with photons and remote detonate. Overload the warp core. Fly the ship into a sun. 
That's the show in a nutshell. The plot says X but the the writers can't be bothered to really justify it, so they try two simple things and  give up. Everyone becomes really stupid. Like a campaign on the rails, where nothing the PCs do will have any impact. 

Then there was the time limit, as Leyland was getting nearer and nearer. Which, again, is terrible plotting. Because the Discovery can spore jump 51,000 light years (oh, to say, New Eden) and leisurely charge the time device during the 150 years it would take Control to arrive. Or, y'know, just spore jump the Sphere Data into deep space beyond the galactic barrier where Control can't reach it. 

Plus... how was Control defeated exactly? It operated multiple people before, puppeting Leland and the other officer. And it was in the computer of the Section 31 ship before it animated Leland. Why would it transfer all of itself into Leland and let itself die with him? 
Why wouldn't it have made full copies in all the Section 31 ships as well as a few remote back-up locations?


The final episode also provided the perfect example of how the show fails to capture the tone of Star Trek.
Everyone is running around engineering building the new time suit. They're replicating away and being absolute jackasses to each other. They're sniping at each other, insulting each other, and generally being super mean. 
Seriously?! 
These aren't high schoolers preparing a parade float. These are trained military officers and members of an elite organization. They should be demonstrating some degree of professionalism rather than taking pet shots. Every single person in that scene needed to be written up for disciplinary action.


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## Jester David

I doubt I'll watch season 3 of Discovery. 
I gave it two chances. And while it improved in a lot of ways on season 2, the writers just don't seem to know their Star Trek and the plotting and characterization is just terrible. It's a terribly, terribly planned show. It was excusable in the first season, with all the chaos behind the scenes and the showrunner being fired. But this season was a muddled mess of ideas. Just endless concepts thrown wholesale at a wall to see what sticks. 

Plus, the series is jumping 800 years farther ahead than Nemesis and far beyond anything we've seen. Which feels like an excuse to pay even less attention to the canon. It's dropping any pretenses of trying to be a Trek series. 

Having Discovery be the far future Trek show in name might be fine. It gets to keep its fans and still do what it's doing, while the Picard series can appeal to fans of the shared universe era of the '90s. But after the mess that was this season, my expectations aren't high.
Plus, it's not like Discovery will stay in the future. Georgiou needs to come back for the upcoming Section 31 series, likely staring Ash Tyler.

--edit--

Since I need to get it out, I'll explain what iI mean by "terribly, terribly planned show".

Let's stop and actually LOOK at the story and plot of Discovery and evaluating it as a series.



The first season is about a man from a Mirror Universe who is pretending to be his Good aligned doppelganger. And going completely undetected for months despite a radical shift in behaviour, likely not being able to guess any of his doubles passwords, and an absence of all Starfleet procedure and protocol despite being a captain. 
He's trying to get back home and has decided the best way is to partner with the doppelganger of a scientist he has a passing relationship with, who is creating a new drive system. Despite the drive not working, only being theoretical, and having no known connection to the mirror universe, the evil mirror captain believes the spore drive can get him home.

He gets the drive working and instead of immediately seizing control and going home he pauses to half win a war. Despite this, he really wants to get back to the universe where he's Public Enemy number one, because if he can get himself arrested and sent to a pain chamber for torture (rather than being immediately executed by a fickle, unpredictable empress) there's a chance he can escape and rally an army. Assuming his co-conspirators haven't been executed in the intervening months.


Meanwhile, this is all told from the perspective of a starfleet officer who committed mutiny and was locked away before the Klingons started a war on the Federation. A war that said officer is blamed for, despite being in the brig when the firing started.
Because, despite all the Mirror Universe stuff going on, the real story is about the war with the Klingons, which Starfleet is badly losing. 


Season two is all about an evil AI (because is there any other kind?) taking control of Starfleet's black ops division because it plans on wiping out all intelligent life in the galaxy. To do so it needs data from a giant alien sphere.... for reasons. Because despite being able to impersonate Starfleet officers, replicate itself, and turn entire crews into nanite powered zombies it needs the sphere data to win.

But this story doesn't really start until nine episodes into the season. 


Prior to that, the first two thirds of the season is about a series of signals that Starfleet declares a major emergency for no real reason. 
(Yeah, Spock received a vision of the signals and the end of all life, but that was prior to anyone seeing the signals and no one really believed him.)

Meanwhile, the signals are tied to the appearance of a Red Angel that everyone immediately believes is from the future given the advanced technology at display. But really it's twenty year old technology that Discovery could build in about five hours. And no one from Section 31 mentions that the Red Angel is their design for several weeks. 
But even following the revelation of Control, everyone pauses to capture the Red Angel at great risk because the fate of Starfleet is at risk, instead of actually doing anything about Control. Because the Red Angel might be a threat… for no real reason.



In both cases, there's a lot going on that is largely unrelated and actually gets in the way of the story of the season. 

The big Mirror Universe arc in season one just puts the brakes on the Klingon War arc for a quarter of the season. And negated the story arc of the PTSD captain by making him comically evil instead of traumatized and tortured.

This season has even more going on. Tilly's imaginary friend. Saru learning everything he knows is a lie. A dying giant all-knowing planet-being. Then added to that is the giant red herring of the signals and red angel with time travel. Stamets and his dead/undead husband. But all that is really irrelevant to the story of Control and Section 31 going rogue. It feels like they had two unrelated story ideas for both seasons and rather than trying to find a way to make them mirror each other and run in parallel they just kinda smashed them together. 


The season could have been a lot tighter had they dropped the time travel angle. (And angel.) 
They could have focused on Discovery working with Section 31 for side missions while the fleet was being rebuilt, unknowingly gathering elements Control needed to become sentient. 
And given the last third of the season is about resurrected corpses animated by nanites, couldn't Hugh Culber have been an early test, having him be a villain instead of magical spore clone? With the impetus to find a way to "cure" him and thus save him. 


I'm not trying to say people can't like the series. It's big and grandiose and pretty. There's a lot of fancy explosions and big special effects. There's a lot of spectacle. 

It's okay to like bad shows. I love Legends of Tomorrow, which is a super dumb show. And I continue to have a fondness for trash like Xena: Warrior Princess. Or the shallow violence-porn (and actual porn porn) of Game of Thrones. 
But be honest and don't kid yourself that the show is "good". 


Discovery is poorly written trash with a budget. They threw all their money into big special effect scenes and then likely had fumble a way to connect the random plot. 


There's so much murkiness in the plot. 

Why did the captured Red Angel have to be Burnham's mother? Wouldn't it have been easier to just have it be future Burnham, giving them knowledge that they fail and thus breaking the loop?
Why did the Red Angel appear to adult Spock, driving him mad? 
How did Starfleet know about the seven signals? They all appeared slowly over the season and for a purpose. How did they know about all 7 at the start? Why could they not locate them ahead of time? 
What were the Red Signals? How did the suit make them? 
Why did the Enterprise stop working at the beginning of the season while investing the signal? 
Why did Gabriel Burnham save people from WW3 to move them to Terra Nova? How? (Ostensibly to have a safe habour in the future... but how does that help her?)
If Gabriel Burnham could travel back to the 2050s to save people, why not erase Control when it was first programed? Insert a virus or backdoor in its early days.
How did Control know about the Sphere data? What did it hope to gain from the Sphere that it didn't already possess?


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## Aeson

I didn't think it warrants it's own thread. The new Picard series will be distributed globally by Amazon not Netflix.


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## Zardnaar

Apparently Netflix paid a lot for season one, less for season 2 and now doesn't want it.

 Started watching Voyager, finding it hard but loved DS9. STD was hard to watch as well so mixed bag for me as I don't consider myself a Trekkie. Voyager's idiot alien cook annoys me


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## Aeson

Nelix was annoying but I still found him endearing. His relationship with Tuvok was fun to watch sometimes.

I haven't heard if Netflix will carry Discovery season 3 or not.


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## Ryujin

Aeson said:


> Nelix was annoying but I still found him endearing. His relationship with Tuvok was fun to watch sometimes.
> 
> I haven't heard if Netflix will carry Discovery season 3 or not.




I think that Nelix redeemed himself somewhat, toward the end of the series, but I also found him hugely annoying. The "Tuvix" episode was particularly good, or at least much better than much of the rest. On second watch I also started to see past the "Borgwatch" aspects of Seven of Nine, and realized that they were using the character to tell some pretty compelling stories. Overall, though, Voyager is my second least favourite of the Trek series, leaving Disco right out of it.


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## Zardnaar

Stick with Voyager or switch to TNG season 1?


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## Hussar

If canon is important to you and you don't like it when the writers ignore stuff, then, do NOT watch later Voyager.  I'm really not a canon guy (shock, surprise), but, even I am looking at the last couple of seasons and going, "WTF?"


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## Zardnaar

Canons not super important as long as it's not wtf levels of madness. I can barely remember TOS or TNG.


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## GreyLord

Zardnaar said:


> Stick with Voyager or switch to TNG season 1?




I like Voyager, but TNG is better.

Voyager had a stellar pilot and than season 1 was dross (as in very boring).

It picks up a LOT in season 4.

However, TNG I feel is better in all ways.


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## Mallus

Zardnaar said:


> Stick with Voyager or switch to TNG season 1?



The only thing really worth watching in TNG season 1 is the opener, "Encounter at Farpoint". No, make that 'required viewing' for the way it bookends the series finale "All Good Things", which is one of TNG's best episodes. 

Here's the thing about Voyager: it has some excellent episodes, but also some of the worst in the franchise. If I were starting cold with VOY, I'd watch the first few eipsodes to get a handle on the characters and premise, then read a few 'top 10/best of' lists and run through those.


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## Ryujin

Mallus said:


> The only thing really worth watching in TNG season 1 is the opener, "Encounter at Farpoint". No, make that 'required viewing' for the way it bookends the series finale "All Good Things", which is one of TNG's best episodes.
> 
> Here's the thing about Voyager: it has some excellent episodes, but also some of the worst in the franchise. If I were starting cold with VOY, I'd watch the first few eipsodes to get a handle on the characters and premise, then read a few 'top 10/best of' lists and run through those.




I'd say that's good advice. That way you'll likely avoid the episodes in which virtually the entire crew should have been spaced for mutiny.


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