Online Series: Star Trek: Discovery - Topic II

[Pocket Hercules]

Lots of hipster complaining in this thread. Initially after watching the trailer, I had my doubts about the series, but in retrospect; they were confined to what they could show without giving away plot details, so now I understand. But so far I'm really digging the artistic license that the writers have taken with this series. Yes it has some minor writing issues, but what TV series doesn't? I guess we need to appease the pro-Roddenberry crowd and have episodes chocked with the old mundane and derivative formula of ST storytelling? Did I read that right where a poster was complaining about site to site transporting?....If that's one of your complaints, then you're really reaching.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Not warming up to the episode

 

[Caeldan]

I think the issue with site to site transportation is the calculations when a ship is in motion?

My biggest concern is how they work this story into existing canon, since this seems to be a significantly large point in Federation history and yet in 17 seasons of various Treks plus 10 movies... No mention ever of these characters or events.

So until otherwise proven wrong, I'm assuming this is the Section 31 origin story.

 

[Osprey]

Lots of hipster complaining in this thread. Initially after watching the trailer, I had my doubts about the series, but in retrospect; they were confined to what they could show without giving away plot details, so now I understand. But so far I'm really digging the artistic license that the writers have taken with this series. Yes it has some minor writing issues, but what TV series doesn't? I guess we need to appease the pro-Roddenberry crowd and have episodes chocked with the old mundane and derivative formula of ST storytelling? Did I read that right where a poster was complaining about site to site transporting?....If that's one of your complaints, then you're really reaching.

Actually, by putting down the "old, mundane and derivative" in favor of the new and progressive, you, by its very definition, are the one acting more like the hipster.

I think the issue with site to site transportation is the calculations when a ship is in motion?

That's a good point. That could be it. Until Voyager abused it, I don't think that Star Trek ever used it while the ship was in motion (outside of orbit and drifting).

 

[Ducks in a row]

I think the issue with site to site transportation is the calculations when a ship is in motion?

My biggest concern is how they work this story into existing canon, since this seems to be a significantly large point in Federation history and yet in 17 seasons of various Treks plus 10 movies... No mention ever of these characters or events.

So until otherwise proven wrong, I'm assuming this is the Section 31 origin story.

It's not a origin story of section 31 they had been around for a good while before Star Trek Discovery takes place.

 

[chicagoskycam]

Lots of hipster complaining in this thread. Initially after watching the trailer, I had my doubts about the series, but in retrospect; they were confined to what they could show without giving away plot details, so now I understand. But so far I'm really digging the artistic license that the writers have taken with this series. Yes it has some minor writing issues, but what TV series doesn't? I guess we need to appease the pro-Roddenberry crowd and have episodes chocked with the old mundane and derivative formula of ST storytelling? Did I read that right where a poster was complaining about site to site transporting?....If that's one of your complaints, then you're really reaching.

I think you need to look up the meaning of the word hipster. Yes, there are a lot of people in this thread that don't like poorly written characters combined with bad actors and stupid plots.

It can be dark with more conflict. That is a welcome change actually. How many episodes for this year by the way?

 

[Caeldan]

It's not a origin story of section 31 they had been around for a good while before Star Trek Discovery takes place.

Okay. So maybe not origin... Forgot they dropped that in Enterprise. But still could be about the black ops department still!

Or I guess at some point they just confirm that they're in the Kelvin timeline and then only have a couple movies worth of canon to worry about.

 

[Blender]

I think you need to look up the meaning of the word hipster. Yes, there are a lot of people in this thread that don't like poorly written characters combined with bad actors and stupid plots.

It can be dark with more conflict. That is a welcome change actually. How many episodes for this year by the way?

People love to bring up DS9 any time someone mentions Roddenberry's hopeful vision of the future, but they seemed to miss what DS9 was actually about. The hopeful vision of the future is still the same in DS9 and the Starfleet characters still embody it. The world around them is what's darker, not humanity. They are on the edge of Federation space stationed at a planet that was occupied and brutalized by the Cardassians for 50 years, they are on the front lines of two wars (Klingons and Dominion), and because the station is a key stop on the way to a new quadrant of the galaxy they attract all sorts of seedy people to the station. Beneath everything, there was still that streak of optimism that Star Trek has always had. Discovery has really been lacking that, although we've at least seen a few glimmers of it in the last two episodes. Stamets as a person sure doesn't act like what you would expect, but he has at least been saying the right things. Burnham in this episode could see right away that they were exploiting that creature and abusing it for gain, but she hasn't been believable as the moral compass and problem solver they used her as in the episode.

 

[Osprey]

People love to bring up DS9 any time someone mentions Roddenberry's hopeful vision of the future, but they seemed to miss what DS9 was actually about. The hopeful vision of the future is still the same in DS9 and the Starfleet characters still embody it. The world around them is what's darker, not humanity. They are on the edge of Federation space stationed at a planet that was occupied and brutalized by the Cardassians for 50 years, they are on the front lines of two wars (Klingons and Dominion), and because the station is a key stop on the way to a new quadrant of the galaxy they attract all sorts of seedy people to the station. Beneath everything, there was still that streak of optimism that Star Trek has always had.

Well said. DS9 was not as different in its core principles as people tend to make it seem. It was a spin-off of TNG, after all, so it shared a lot. It simply took the optimism and transported it to a more dangerous setting. The station was analogous to a frontier town in the wild west that managed to preserve law and order despite anything going just outside the city limits, with Sisko playing the role of sheriff or marshal. Seedy characters and conflicts came and went on the station, but, like the Earp brothers in Tombstone, the core crew of DS9 remained true to each other and Starfleet's tenets, proving that our values and order can endure in even the darkest, most chaotic places.

Starfleet crews, in general, whether on stations or on starships, have always been represented like families. The world may be falling apart around them, but the family stays strong, doesn't fall apart, itself, and endeavors to get through it all together. That's that basic optimism that I think that you're alluding to. When you take that away and you have crew members who act like individuals with their own motives, rather than as members of a family with a common goal, and there's in-fighting and visible contempt for one another, it's not really Star Trek. Star Trek is more than just starships, fancy technology and Klingons, as DS9 proved by having little of all three. It's about the spirit underneath (like the spirit of Christmas that the Grinch missed, if you like that analogy).

 

[Tawnos]

One of you two really needs to explain why a story can’t be about a ship in conflict where they develop that camaraderie over time. This is the core problem I have with your argument here. That somehow, the fact that some of the themes we know from previous Star Treks don’t already exist in this show means they won’t exist at all.

Discovery is a science vessel, crewed by a science crew, which has essentially been hijacked by the war effort. Also, there’s a war going on and all the tension that brings with it. I really felt that in the desperation of the crew to get to that colony and save as many people as they could. So you have tension, disillusionment and resentment.

The crew is disillusioned and resentful right now, which should be expected. They can’t get back to a level of camaraderie as they work through it?

The rest of the Shenzhou’s crew, aside from Saru and Burnham who were sniping at each other a lot, seemed in good spirits and like family in the brief little window we got from them, with their smattering of bridge banter, but that was a different time and a different ship in a different situation.

 

[Cloned]

I just read through some of the comments made by the producers at the NYCC. They say they're eventually going to reconcile how this series fits into the Prime Timeline 10 years before TOS. So even though I personally don't have a major issue with some of the canon/continuity issues, the producers are aware that some fans do and aren't oblivious to it.

 

[Osprey]

One of you two really needs to explain why a story can’t be about a ship in conflict where they develop that camaraderie over time. This is the core problem I have with your argument here. That somehow, the fact that some of the themes we know from previous Star Treks don’t already exist in this show means they won’t exist at all.

If that's your core problem with our argument, then you have a core misunderstanding, because that hasn't been a part of either of our arguments at all. If this crew builds up camaraderie over time and the dynamics get to the point where they feel familiar, then it might be good Trek. It's not right now and this is what we have to judge. You seem willing to give it all of the benefit of the doubt and withhold judgment because you're hopeful about what it may become, and that's your prerogative, but it's also our prerogative to judge what we've seen so far. We don't know where it's going. It might become what you're hopeful that it becomes and it might not.

I'm a little skeptical because most of the drama in the show, so far, has been based on interpersonal conflict and other things that don't feel very Trek-y. That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that the writers actually do understand Trek and are deliberately and methodically working towards it slowly. It makes storytelling sense to have the crew get used to each other and form some camaraderie over time, but will the writers eventually sacrifice the golden goose that their drama has relied on up to this point?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the writers build up the likability of the characters (such as Stamets) only to kill them off. We saw a glimpse of that with Landry, who seemed to have a tiny breakthrough in her relationship with Burnham, when she actually listened to and treated her a bit like a fellow colleague for once... just moments before she got knocked off. The writers might even do another reset after this season, similar to what they did after the second episode, in order to bring in new crew members with new distrust and attitude issues to start the cycle of Burnham proving herself all over again. In fact, that might end up being the one constant in however long this series lasts: Burnham continually having to prove herself to a revolving cast of characters that distrust her.

I'm not making any assumptions one way or the other about where the series is going. I'm simply judging it on what we've seen already, which is what we ought to be judging it on, IMO. If it gets better over time, it can and should be re-evaluated, just as previous Treks (TNG, especially) were.

 

[KirkOut]

I just am struggling to understand how it's going to fit into the timeline. I mean, somewhere Kang, Kor and Koloth are off making a name for themselves. They are nothing like these stupid Klingons. I hope they resolve this in a non-stupid way.

 

[Ducks in a row]

I just am struggling to understand how it's going to fit into the timeline. I mean, somewhere Kang, Kor and Koloth are off making a name for themselves. They are nothing like these stupid Klingons. I hope they resolve this in a non-stupid way.

I have hard time understanding as well. Alternate universe or alternative timeline is the only thing that makes sense for this show.

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

Sorry for interrupting the discussion, but I thought this was pretty neat.

This was posted in our Discovery thread on another board. Live Usenet reactions to Deep Space Nine (specifically the character of Benjamin Sisko) in 1994.

Sort of reminds me of some of the complaints about Discovery and its characters/premise so far, actually.

 

[Warden of the North]

I think even stupider then the way the Klingons look is the way they talk.

I dont remember Klingon speech being that horrible in and previous Trek.

 

[johnjm22]

In addition to the obvious problems this show has, there's other issues with it that are more difficult to articulate.

Moments that are supposed to be big and dramatic always seem to fall flat. It's like these moments seem to occur casually without proper tension build up or surprise. It's difficult to explain. The editing is jerky.

It's overstuffed visually, audio-wise, and plot-wise as well. For the big visuals to really hit the viewer, there needs to be more simplistic less cluttered visuals to contrast them against. If every visual is "stuffed" it becomes fatiguing. Same thing with the audio/music. Quiet moments can really build tension and be juxtaposed against the louder moments for greater effect. But no, in Star Trek Discovery there has to be constant noise and the visuals have to constantly be jam packed.

Every damn space shot is crammed with stuff like asteroids, glare, gases, nebulas, planets ect. You can't get one single clean space shot with the Discovery ship moving along at impulse power.

Also the some of the ship CGI is really bad. It looks like a cartoon.

 

[Blender]

I think even stupider then the way the Klingons look is the way they talk.

I dont remember Klingon speech being that horrible in and previous Trek.

It never has been. It's been horrible in Discovery, and the rubber faces and whatever teeth they are wearing must be the reason why. They can barely move their faces.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

Also, the notion that Klingons have been continually changed over 40 years is ridiculous. Their TNG form showed up in TMP and has stayed roughly the same since then.

 

[Blender]

Also, the notion that Klingons have been continually changed over 40 years is ridiculous. Their TNG form showed up in TMP and has stayed roughly the same since then.

Yup, they refined the look a number of times, but the basic design remained the same. As I said a few pages ago though, I'd forgive the visual changes a lot more if they acted like Klingons at all. Right now they are just garbled slow talking generic villains that are called Klingons.

 

[johnjm22]

Clean and realistic looking:



Messy:


upload an album

The makers of modern Trek don't seem to understand that space is literally space. There's not much in it. Having every space shot filled with flares or asteroids or nebulas ect. is totally unnecessary. It makes the visuals messy and unrealistic.

 

[Tawnos]

If that's your core problem with our argument, then you have a core misunderstanding, because that hasn't been a part of either of our arguments at all. If this crew builds up camaraderie over time and the dynamics get to the point where they feel familiar, then it might be good Trek. It's not right now and this is what we have to judge. You seem willing to give it all of the benefit of the doubt and withhold judgment because you're hopeful about what it may become, and that's your prerogative, but it's also our prerogative to judge what we've seen so far. We don't know where it's going. It might become what you're hopeful that it becomes and it might not.

I'm a little skeptical because most of the drama in the show, so far, has been based on interpersonal conflict and other things that don't feel very Trek-y. That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that the writers actually do understand Trek and are deliberately and methodically working towards it slowly. It makes storytelling sense to have the crew get used to each other and form some camaraderie over time, but will the writers eventually sacrifice the golden goose that their drama has relied on up to this point?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the writers build up the likability of the characters (such as Stamets) only to kill them off. We saw a glimpse of that with Landry, who seemed to have a tiny breakthrough in her relationship with Burnham, when she actually listened to and treated her a bit like a fellow colleague for once... just moments before she got knocked off. The writers might even do another reset after this season, similar to what they did after the second episode, in order to bring in new crew members with new distrust and attitude issues to start the cycle of Burnham proving herself all over again. In fact, that might end up being the one constant in however long this series lasts: Burnham continually having to prove herself to a revolving cast of characters that distrust her.

I'm not making any assumptions one way or the other about where the series is going. I'm simply judging it on what we've seen already, which is what we ought to be judging it on, IMO. If it gets better over time, it can and should be re-evaluated, just as previous Treks (TNG, especially) were.

“That’s not our argument. Here’s our argument. It’s the one I said it wasn’t.”

By the way, I’m not “hopeful.” I’m just willing to give it a chance to play out. There’s no point in criticism that might not hold any water once everything is played out.

Also, Rekha Sharma isn’t part of the cast. It’s not like killing off Yar.

Speaking of which, we haven’t even met Tyler yet. It is a little odd for a central cast member to have had no screen time in 4 episodes... or even two episodes in the actual show, although The West Wing did it.

 

[Osprey]

Every damn space shot is crammed with stuff like asteroids, glare, gases, nebulas, planets ect. You can't get one single clean space shot with the Discovery ship moving along at impulse power.

Of all the "nitpicky" criticisms, this must take the cake . Just kidding. I agree. I miss the wide shots of space. Dense shots can be dramatic when used sparingly, such as when the Enterprise arrived at Wolf 359 to find hundreds of pieces of Federation ships floating around as far as the eye could see.

I wouldn't hold out hope of ever seeing the Discovery moving along at impulse power, though. Now that it can instantly teleport anywhere, there's no need for the ship to ever be shown moving again. It might as well be DS9.

“That’s not our argument. Here’s our argument. It’s the one I said it wasn’t.”

You have a bad habit of putting words into people's mouths and basing your arguments on that, rather than on what they're actually arguing.

By the way, I’m not “hopeful.” I’m just willing to give it a chance to play out. There’s no point in criticism that might not hold any water once everything is played out.

That's a curious opinion. Why do you think that a show that gets better means that the early criticism didn't hold any water? By acknowledging that the show got better, you're acknowledging that some of the criticism was warranted. In fact, all of that criticism could be partly why a show ends up improving, since the writers realize that the fans aren't happy and try to address the main complaints.

Did the criticism of TNG's first two seasons end up not holding any water because it improved massively, starting with the third season? Of course not. To this day, people still criticize those first two seasons. In fact, the fact that the series got so much better after those two seasons actually highlights how mediocre they were and justifies the criticism. The early criticism actually ends up holding more water because the critics were right in how much better the show could be. The same thing is sure to happen with Discovery if it gets better. People, even folks like you, are liable to look back and recognize all of the problems with the first season that they were in denial about when it was new, since they'll have an improved series to compare it against.

 

[chicagoskycam]

My friend is telling me All Access version is a highly compressed 720P Or 420 version. Is this correct and are they kidding me.

 

[Ducks in a row]

Spoiler

So the next episode is supposed to have Harry Mudd in it. I wonder how he will be in this hopefully his character isn't ruined in this.