JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Lots of the things Discovery does can be justified in-universe. Why is Michael an emotional wreck? Well, it's her Vulcan upbringing. Why are the uniforms so different right up on the cusp of the TOS era? Well, we've seen different eras of Starfleet uniforms coexist before - just recently in Lower Decks, but also in "Charlie X" there's a freighter captain wearing the sweater uniform from "The Cage" while the Enterprise crew are wearing the classic jammies. Why are there holograms? Well, the TOS Enterprise was supposed, in the show notes, to have a whole holodeck that we never got to see because they weren't sure how to pull off the effects in 1967. Why do Klingons look different? Well, they've looked different before; maybe it's a different sub-species or tribe or whatever.
None of these things are a big deal individually, but it's just like, why. Why is so much attention and money being lavished on making different Klingons (with prostheses that make it impossible to act in) and different uniforms and so little time being spent establishing characters? Why does the drama center on a relentless march from one nervous breakdown to another? Why is the editing so aggressive and the pacing so off? The show's issues are almost all real-world issues, not Star Trek issues.
I'll be honest: I always really enjoy Star Trek Discovery while I'm watching it.
I finally got around the watching the first episode and I was impressed enough to keep going, it actually was pretty good in fact until the final act where it got incredibly stupid*. It's got a way better budget than Picard ever did though, which pisses me off.
*Vulcan nerve pinching the captain cause you don't agree with their call is insane and basically comes out of nowhere.
None of these things are a big deal individually, but it's just like, why. Why is so much attention and money being lavished on making different Klingons (with prostheses that make it impossible to act in) and different uniforms and so little time being spent establishing characters? Why does the drama center on a relentless march from one nervous breakdown to another? Why is the editing so aggressive and the pacing so off? The show's issues are almost all real-world issues, not Star Trek issues.
It's a reimagining the showrunners didn't want to admit was a reimagining. Maybe they thought doing so would delegitimize its Star Trek credentials, but then why go out of their way to do exactly that by design? And it's obvious they didn't think it paid off in the end since they tried to backpedal their Klingon redesign by S2.
At its core though, the characters just don't work very well. And by that I mean they don't work well with each other. For example, even if you liked Saru or Tilly, the chemistry among the crew is still uneven at best and making Michael a central driving force has proven time and again to be a miscalculation. As a stand-in for the audience or even just a protagonist we're supposed to root for, she's just not particularly relatable or likable and the amount of melodrama they infuse into her dialogue borders on parody. Trek to me always works best when the cast operates more as an ensemble rather than following the life and times of one specific character. Lower Decks understood this and that's why it was fun to follow along with whatever the characters were up to. It also helped that these were optimistic, hopeful personalities. At her very worst, Mariner was still someone trying to look out for people and show them a good time. And as the season finale should've driven home by now, the show was never only about her.
I'm really not getting that with Discovery. My reaction to that security officer and then to Stamets at the beginning of S1 was "These are embittered, mean-spirited assholes and I don't care what happens to them." The in-setting explanations concerning their motivations might provide context but that's not really going to change how I feel about them.
Imagine if instead of the hero, Michael served more as a springboard to the wider setting and cast of characters. Imagine if her adoption by Vulcans mattered more than just a clumsy attempt to eventually force a Spock connection. Maybe she was adopted and brought up by a different, more martial Vulcan family whose philosophy affected her deeply since Vulcan emotions are supposed to be stronger than those of humans and so their extreme rigidity had a profound effect on her humanity. Maybe it made her more stoic and distant to those around her. And instead of some all-weather Swiss army knife scientist/adventurer, imagine if she was chief of security. Known to excel in weapons and tactics but not so much in diplomacy and kind of a loner who only the captain sits with in the mess hall. She could be a woman of few words whose backstory would remain mostly a mystery until later in the season or even followup seasons when we the audience finally learn about her actions at the Binary Stars.
And meanwhile we get to know more about the rest of the crew and their stories, with Michael showing up more intermittently and less in the foreground all the time. I feel that would've gone a long way in making her more enjoyable as a character. Someone who would admittedly be a bit of a cypher at first, and who we would just assume is the hammer the captain has to keep dropping whenever diplomacy fails, which would at least make her fun to watch until she's revealed to have more depth as series develops.
+4
HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
Lots of the things Discovery does can be justified in-universe. Why is Michael an emotional wreck? Well, it's her Vulcan upbringing. Why are the uniforms so different right up on the cusp of the TOS era? Well, we've seen different eras of Starfleet uniforms coexist before - just recently in Lower Decks, but also in "Charlie X" there's a freighter captain wearing the sweater uniform from "The Cage" while the Enterprise crew are wearing the classic jammies. Why are there holograms? Well, the TOS Enterprise was supposed, in the show notes, to have a whole holodeck that we never got to see because they weren't sure how to pull off the effects in 1967. Why do Klingons look different? Well, they've looked different before; maybe it's a different sub-species or tribe or whatever.
None of these things are a big deal individually, but it's just like, why. Why is so much attention and money being lavished on making different Klingons (with prostheses that make it impossible to act in) and different uniforms and so little time being spent establishing characters? Why does the drama center on a relentless march from one nervous breakdown to another? Why is the editing so aggressive and the pacing so off? The show's issues are almost all real-world issues, not Star Trek issues.
this is everything i've been trying to say about Discovery for 3 years but struggling with how to put it. I think there are also major problems with the scripts, and etc etc, but just this whole "why" thing is such a huge miss that it magnifies all the other issues I have with the the first 2 seasons of Disco (and honestly the first season of picard)
edit - @Glyph that was also a really insightful follow-up, meant to quote you too. I get why they wanted, at least in season 1, to make a Star Trek show with a protagonist that followed 1 character around but I think it ended up being a massive miss, espeically since I don't think they effecitvely explain anything Michael does in the first half of season 1. The fact she's now managed to basically be the XO on the ship is bananas.
It's not the first time they've tried to make a non-captain the central character.
Supposedly they originally intended Riker to be the main protagonist of TNG. But they cast Patrick Stewart as the captain, so that was never going to happen.
It's not the first time they've tried to make a non-captain the central character.
Supposedly they originally intended Riker to be the main protagonist of TNG. But they cast Patrick Stewart as the captain, so that was never going to happen.
Huh. I think Frakes could have carried a show, though he was pretty young originally. Just not anywhere that has Stewart near by.
Patrick Stewart was born old. I mean, he was ripped like Hugh Jackman so nobody told him that to his face, but it's still true.
My understanding was the original intention was to split Kirk into two distinct people - Picard was the Kirk who could sell a bluff like no other, who could craft a moving speech, and convince Hitler himself to embrace Federation ideals. Riker got to punch people and have sex with alien women. This is why, for example, Riker was only the first officer and didn't have a dual role like Spock did as science officer.
Always felt to me like they did a good job with that until the movies.
I'm sort of resigned to it...if you're going to have a senior bridge officer pull a move like that in the first episode, where it's basically telling you that this main character will suffer no repercussions for a completely heinous act, so expect some handwaiving plot incoming. That's a pretty good telegraph of what's to come.
I'm sort of resigned to it...if you're going to have a senior bridge officer pull a move like that in the first episode, where it's basically telling you that this main character will suffer no repercussions for a completely heinous act, so expect some handwaiving plot incoming. That's a pretty good telegraph of what's to come.
I mean... there are not no repercussions. I don't know how to talk about it without spoiling the rest of the season for you, but it is a major plot point and mark against the character moving forward.
Seson three episode one. The first few minutes are really grating but it gets better as it goes on, I think.
The combination of Michael screaming and crying and laughing with Sooo much shaky cam is so hard to watch.
It gets better when Book shows up.
The scenes with the sanctuary and the Liason are super cheesy but I take it.
Bit of an silly afterthought: Your whole family waas federation officers, but your Dad never bothered to commission you?
I wasn't even aware there were any, I was just looking up how many there were for the first batch to make sure I'd seen them all as I couldn't remember having seen Runaway from the first batch, which made some things at the end of S2 a little confusing.
Anyways, something I noted with S2 that is also in Short Treks Second Batch First Episode (Ensign Spock meets Number One), is that turbolifts operate in a LOT of empty space. I knew they moved laterally sometimes instead of straight up or down, but had no idea that so much of the interior of the ship is just empty space. Seems like a waste.
Was this always canon, or is this just an explanation?
Not saying everything needs to be packed tightly, but what's the point of Jefferies tubes if you can just have empty space on the other side of walls, floors and ceilings?
Also makes the whole "gotta pack the ensigns into wall alcoves" in Lower Decks seem incredibly unfair. You don't have space to give them even a couple dozen square feet to each ensign, but you can have a a massive amount of unused open space in your ship?
I wasn't even aware there were any, I was just looking up how many there were for the first batch to make sure I'd seen them all as I couldn't remember having seen Runaway from the first batch, which made some things at the end of S2 a little confusing.
Anyways, something I noted with S2 that is also in Short Treks Second Batch First Episode (Ensign Spock meets Number One), is that turbolifts operate in a LOT of empty space. I knew they moved laterally sometimes instead of straight up or down, but had no idea that so much of the interior of the ship is just empty space. Seems like a waste.
Was this always canon, or is this just an explanation?
Not saying everything needs to be packed tightly, but what's the point of Jefferies tubes if you can just have empty space on the other side of walls, floors and ceilings?
Also makes the whole "gotta pack the ensigns into wall alcoves" in Lower Decks seem incredibly unfair. You don't have space to give them even a couple dozen square feet to each ensign, but you can have a a massive amount of unused open space in your ship?
We've always known that the Enterprise D was mostly empty but I always had the impression that people were packed in like sardines in the TOS Enterprise
The D wasn't empty for turbolifts, though, it was empty slots where rooms and facilities could be dropped in, like the new Stellar Cartography room it had in Generations. The Dominion War era version had even more space, reflected in the blacked out arboretum, but again it was empty so that after the war they could be refitted for normal operation.
Turbolifts had discrete shafts, mostly vertical with horizontal segments to navigate the irregular shape of the ship. Most decks only had 2-4 stops, with dedicated stops for key facilities like the bridges and engineering.
Hevach on
+5
MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
The D is also expected to be able to pull off like, colony-scale evacuations at the drop of a hat. You'd be able to bring aboard thousands of people before having to think about replicating sleeping bags for the main cargo bay. (Which we've never seen the interior of as designed, it's like multiple football fields large)
It also wasn't at full crew. It's *crew* capacity is 1,000-6,000 depending on mission. It's evacuation/transport capacity is 15,000.
It's hard to emphasize just how much space was in the ship. The Enterprise-D had four times as many people as Voyager, but ten times the floor space, meaning it could have fit 2,500 people and still had them spaced out as well as Voyager. It was so much larger than the Defiant that even at that maximum 6,000 person crew, everyone had more than twice as much living and working space as a crew member on the Defiant, and during a full evacuation with life support pushed to the limit, it was only slightly more cramped than the Defiant on a regular Tuesday.
it's all moot because the Short Trek in question is supposed to take place aboard the Connie Enterprise, no bloody A B C or D, that we've had blueprints for going on 40 years now.
I forget, when was that Short Trek about Discovery abandoned in the future? Have they passed it? Is Discovery going to be fully sentient by the time they get back to her?
I forget, when was that Short Trek about Discovery abandoned in the future? Have they passed it? Is Discovery going to be fully sentient by the time they get back to her?
Calypso from S1Shorts.
The USS Discovery has held position in space for a thousand years, and its computer system "Zora" has become sentient. She retrieves a passing escape pod carrying a man named Craft. Zora keeps Craft aboard the ship and begins to fall in love with him, but eventually lets him take Discovery's last shuttle to return to his family on Alcor IV.
Plan to rewatch all the Shorts this weekend, if I can manage it, before moving on the 3x02. Just in case something there is relevant.
I forget, when was that Short Trek about Discovery abandoned in the future? Have they passed it? Is Discovery going to be fully sentient by the time they get back to her?
god i fucking hope it is.
0
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Still no sign of Short Treks season 2 on UK Netflix. Get your shit together, guys.
Now that CBS and Paramount have agreed to merge again, I would expect the international distribution of these shows to get better. I think part of the problem was how they split the IP between the 2 companies.
Posts
None of these things are a big deal individually, but it's just like, why. Why is so much attention and money being lavished on making different Klingons (with prostheses that make it impossible to act in) and different uniforms and so little time being spent establishing characters? Why does the drama center on a relentless march from one nervous breakdown to another? Why is the editing so aggressive and the pacing so off? The show's issues are almost all real-world issues, not Star Trek issues.
William Riker
I finally got around the watching the first episode and I was impressed enough to keep going, it actually was pretty good in fact until the final act where it got incredibly stupid*. It's got a way better budget than Picard ever did though, which pisses me off.
Took me a moment to realize Dark_Side meant the first episode of the first season.
I was like "Wait, I don't remember that happening in the opening of season three."
It's a reimagining the showrunners didn't want to admit was a reimagining. Maybe they thought doing so would delegitimize its Star Trek credentials, but then why go out of their way to do exactly that by design? And it's obvious they didn't think it paid off in the end since they tried to backpedal their Klingon redesign by S2.
At its core though, the characters just don't work very well. And by that I mean they don't work well with each other. For example, even if you liked Saru or Tilly, the chemistry among the crew is still uneven at best and making Michael a central driving force has proven time and again to be a miscalculation. As a stand-in for the audience or even just a protagonist we're supposed to root for, she's just not particularly relatable or likable and the amount of melodrama they infuse into her dialogue borders on parody. Trek to me always works best when the cast operates more as an ensemble rather than following the life and times of one specific character. Lower Decks understood this and that's why it was fun to follow along with whatever the characters were up to. It also helped that these were optimistic, hopeful personalities. At her very worst, Mariner was still someone trying to look out for people and show them a good time. And as the season finale should've driven home by now, the show was never only about her.
I'm really not getting that with Discovery. My reaction to that security officer and then to Stamets at the beginning of S1 was "These are embittered, mean-spirited assholes and I don't care what happens to them." The in-setting explanations concerning their motivations might provide context but that's not really going to change how I feel about them.
Imagine if instead of the hero, Michael served more as a springboard to the wider setting and cast of characters. Imagine if her adoption by Vulcans mattered more than just a clumsy attempt to eventually force a Spock connection. Maybe she was adopted and brought up by a different, more martial Vulcan family whose philosophy affected her deeply since Vulcan emotions are supposed to be stronger than those of humans and so their extreme rigidity had a profound effect on her humanity. Maybe it made her more stoic and distant to those around her. And instead of some all-weather Swiss army knife scientist/adventurer, imagine if she was chief of security. Known to excel in weapons and tactics but not so much in diplomacy and kind of a loner who only the captain sits with in the mess hall. She could be a woman of few words whose backstory would remain mostly a mystery until later in the season or even followup seasons when we the audience finally learn about her actions at the Binary Stars.
And meanwhile we get to know more about the rest of the crew and their stories, with Michael showing up more intermittently and less in the foreground all the time. I feel that would've gone a long way in making her more enjoyable as a character. Someone who would admittedly be a bit of a cypher at first, and who we would just assume is the hammer the captain has to keep dropping whenever diplomacy fails, which would at least make her fun to watch until she's revealed to have more depth as series develops.
this is everything i've been trying to say about Discovery for 3 years but struggling with how to put it. I think there are also major problems with the scripts, and etc etc, but just this whole "why" thing is such a huge miss that it magnifies all the other issues I have with the the first 2 seasons of Disco (and honestly the first season of picard)
edit - @Glyph that was also a really insightful follow-up, meant to quote you too. I get why they wanted, at least in season 1, to make a Star Trek show with a protagonist that followed 1 character around but I think it ended up being a massive miss, espeically since I don't think they effecitvely explain anything Michael does in the first half of season 1. The fact she's now managed to basically be the XO on the ship is bananas.
Supposedly they originally intended Riker to be the main protagonist of TNG. But they cast Patrick Stewart as the captain, so that was never going to happen.
Huh. I think Frakes could have carried a show, though he was pretty young originally. Just not anywhere that has Stewart near by.
My understanding was the original intention was to split Kirk into two distinct people - Picard was the Kirk who could sell a bluff like no other, who could craft a moving speech, and convince Hitler himself to embrace Federation ideals. Riker got to punch people and have sex with alien women. This is why, for example, Riker was only the first officer and didn't have a dual role like Spock did as science officer.
Always felt to me like they did a good job with that until the movies.
I'm sort of resigned to it...if you're going to have a senior bridge officer pull a move like that in the first episode, where it's basically telling you that this main character will suffer no repercussions for a completely heinous act, so expect some handwaiving plot incoming. That's a pretty good telegraph of what's to come.
I mean... there are not no repercussions. I don't know how to talk about it without spoiling the rest of the season for you, but it is a major plot point and mark against the character moving forward.
It gets better when Book shows up.
The scenes with the sanctuary and the Liason are super cheesy but I take it.
Bit of an silly afterthought: Your whole family waas federation officers, but your Dad never bothered to commission you?
I'm glad to see Trek keeps pushing the envelope in more ways than one.
They just crashed a car driving on a straight road at regular speeds, they can stand to be taught a LOT of things.
It's the longest episode delay... in the world.
I wasn't even aware there were any, I was just looking up how many there were for the first batch to make sure I'd seen them all as I couldn't remember having seen Runaway from the first batch, which made some things at the end of S2 a little confusing.
Anyways, something I noted with S2 that is also in Short Treks Second Batch First Episode (Ensign Spock meets Number One), is that turbolifts operate in a LOT of empty space. I knew they moved laterally sometimes instead of straight up or down, but had no idea that so much of the interior of the ship is just empty space. Seems like a waste.
Was this always canon, or is this just an explanation?
Not saying everything needs to be packed tightly, but what's the point of Jefferies tubes if you can just have empty space on the other side of walls, floors and ceilings?
Also makes the whole "gotta pack the ensigns into wall alcoves" in Lower Decks seem incredibly unfair. You don't have space to give them even a couple dozen square feet to each ensign, but you can have a a massive amount of unused open space in your ship?
like using a brewery for Engineering.
We've always known that the Enterprise D was mostly empty but I always had the impression that people were packed in like sardines in the TOS Enterprise
Turbolifts had discrete shafts, mostly vertical with horizontal segments to navigate the irregular shape of the ship. Most decks only had 2-4 stops, with dedicated stops for key facilities like the bridges and engineering.
It's hard to emphasize just how much space was in the ship. The Enterprise-D had four times as many people as Voyager, but ten times the floor space, meaning it could have fit 2,500 people and still had them spaced out as well as Voyager. It was so much larger than the Defiant that even at that maximum 6,000 person crew, everyone had more than twice as much living and working space as a crew member on the Defiant, and during a full evacuation with life support pushed to the limit, it was only slightly more cramped than the Defiant on a regular Tuesday.
Damn this is the best Trek series this side of DS9, and the best Trek season 1 ever. The finale had me in stiches. I'm really excited for season 2!
I would fire ten of them purely out of principle, tbh
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Calypso from S1Shorts.
Plan to rewatch all the Shorts this weekend, if I can manage it, before moving on the 3x02. Just in case something there is relevant.
god i fucking hope it is.
Now that CBS and Paramount have agreed to merge again, I would expect the international distribution of these shows to get better. I think part of the problem was how they split the IP between the 2 companies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxmmtzzYqcc
This is literally why we can't have nice things.
I just finished watching the video. It's so much worse. It's literally a shit flinging match between the 2 creators.