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I believe it was shown just as they left the bridge and entered the turbolift. There was definitely a transition of scenes within the ship implying it was the turbolift in use. The first time made me wonder what the heck I was seeing, and yes, I think it was used as they were en route to the pods. Not the second time. The whole thing looks incredibly stupid. It's a medium-size starship with limited space and logical construction, not an enormous and cavernous Borg cube! :rolleye:
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Well... that was simultaneously cool and deeply unsatisfying, mainly because it failed to answer my number one burning question: what is the reason for General Order 7? I could be wrong but the departure from Talos IV felt very final, meaning I don't think we will be revisiting it ever again on this show. So, all that remains is that Section 31 was so cheesed off at how the Talosians duped them that they convince all of Starfleet to impose the harshest penalty possible if one goes to that planet?!?
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OK, so many things to say about this episode. Let's see if I can remember all of them and put them into some sort of cogent exposition. For some reason, it won't play on my computer and on my phone it doesn't even list the episode. I'm not going to run back and forth between the living room and the computer room, so I guess I'll rely on memory.

I thought the callback teaser at the beginning was pretty cool. The way it was styled was a little cheesy, and not even in the same way that TOS was cheesy, but the idea and the clips selected were good.

I thought there were some funny lines in the episode. First, the exchange between Saru and Pike about the Tyler/Culber fight was pretty funny, with Saru's quip about how the rule book didn't cover such a situation. And Georgiou's comment about blasting the Talosians and their stupid singing plants tickled me. I didn't even realize those plants were called that until I started googling all things Talosian after last week's episode.

Now to weightier topics. First, the return of Dr. Culber. I suppose the angel on one of my shoulders says this is realistic, that if you went through what he went through, you couldn't just resume your old life like nothing had happened. You'd have a lot of things to work out. The devil on the other shoulder wonders if the show is going to turn into a soap opera. Last season we had the star crossed love of Tyler and Burnham, and apparently we are now going to have the star crossed love of Stamets and Culber. Let's not drag this out too long, folks.

Tyler's personality.... Last season I really liked Tyler, and felt pain when I realized the rumors were true and he really was a Klingon that had been grafted over with Tyler's skin and personality, and seeing the difficulties he went through. Again, that'd have to change a person (no pun intended), but I just don't care for his attitude now. I didn't ever feel sorry for him when Pike confined him to quarters, unjustly.

And lastly, let's talk Talosians. Like I've mentioned, I'd always hoped that Star Trek would revisit this race. I suppose I was thinking/hoping it would be a real raising of the ante, with them and their powers being even scarier than the first time around. Obviously, that is not what we got. But upon further analysis, I don't think Discovery erred in showing kinder, gentler Talosians. For starters, at the end of The Cage, the Talosians realized they just couldn't work with humans because our hatred of captivity was too great. And they even appeared as benevolent in letting Vina not only keep her illusion of beauty but also giving her an illusion of Pike at her side. So, it would have been inconsistent with their newly enlightened mindset to revert to holding humans against their will to live vicariously through them. Instead they simply barter Spock's restoration for a juicy painful memory from Burnham. But it was a choice. Burnham could simply have walked away. But in spite of the fact that the kinder, gentler Talosian makes sense, I couldn't help but be a bit disappointed that the stakes were not higher in going there. (Yet at the same time, I dreaded the thought of them ensnaring Burnham and abusing her. I guess my wants and needs are not very logical.)

Was it just me, or was their cure of Spock off-handed and essentially off-screen?

Talos was indeed the same quarry as used for the rebel planet in the Mirror Universe last season. However, they wonderfully used the same sound effect, which comes from the singing plants. I loved hearing that sound again! It was so alien and other-worldly, and bringing it back helped bring back a bit of the feel of Talos, in spite of the bright skies. Those plants now look a lot spiffier than they did in 1964. I suppose this is because this time they were in bloom, whereas first time they were not.

I thought it was odd that they have now erected an illusion of a black hole to deter ships from visiting. Why would they do that? They will get no visitors, whose memories they might otherwise get to relive. Do they fear some sort of reprisal from Starfleet for having held Pike and several other crew members captive? Starfleet could have nuked their planet from beyond the range of their illusion power (if they could determine that range), so hiding behind the black hole was not much of a protection. But I thought it was cool that they used the same up-to-date visual depiction of what a black hole should look like, as was used in Nolan's Interstellar.

And speaking of the range of their illusions, we see that it is at least several light years. First, we now know that Starbase 11 is 2 light years from Talos. And of course they were able to give Kirk an illusion of the Commodore's presence with him even as he prepared to leave the Starbase to go to Talos. On a side note, it now makes sense that Kirk was able to make that trip in only a shuttle craft instead of requiring a much longer-range ship. Second, they project images of Vina, themselves, Burham, and Spock to Discovery, which is however far away at that point. So, I suppose kudos to the writers for remembering/reinforcing the long-distance illusion power from The Menagerie. Another side note: I suppose this was a precursor of the long-range Force image powers shown in The Last Jedi.

Lastly, I come to Val's point, disappointment that we didn't clearly see the genesis of General Order #7. The shuttle computer did tell Burnham that the Talosian system was restricted, but there was no mention of the death penalty, so GO 7 has not yet been enacted (unless the writers have decided to retcon TOS and pretend that Starfleet is too enlightened to have a death penalty). Will it be enacted simply from Section 31's spite over being outfoxed by the Talosians? That would be cheap and unsatisfying. So, my hope is that we will still come back to Talos at some point, and see what provokes the order. Of course, that hope is no guarantee it will happen. But will we be any worse off than we were before, when we simply assumed it was due to what happened to Pike?
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By the way, when did Vulcan become a temperate rainforest world? Did it go through a transformation, from desert to wet to desert, like Arrakis in the extended Dune series? Last week we saw the setting of Sarek's house, with trees and rain. OK, Vulcan would have to have some wet areas, or no race remotely resembling us could have evolved there. But the adjoining forest also adjoins/is part of the Forge? In Enterprise, the Forge was presented as the most inhospitable part of Vulcan. Bad homework on the part of the writers of these past two Discovery episodes!
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Thanks for putting my feelings into words, re: the return to Talos and the lack of high stakes, Obviously setting Spock's mind right was critical to a very important plot point, but the Talosians themselves, with our only memory of them being as villains, did not quite live up to what I was expecting/hoping for. I also agree that it totally made sense how they were depicted, but that realization didn't stop the fact itself from being a tad disappointing.

Culber/Stamets: I think they are going somewhere with this, more than we are picking up at the moment. You can return a man to life, but can you bring back his soul? Something dangerous and dark is lurking under Culber's skin...

Tyler: Get him off the ship, please. They're just going to retread season one's relationship because apparently people on Discovery are unable to move on and form new ones...?!?

Vulcan: Yeah, not sure what they were thinking. We have so many years of established facts about this planet and have been there several times, so why is it so hard to get the simplest details right? As you said, trees, while a bit incongruous, should not come as a shock. Neither should the odd bit of rain, but an entire rainforest setting? Sigh. Next they'll put a moon in the sky, or Delta Vega, or whatever stupid innovation they want to come up with.
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Further thoughts. I missed the creepy androgynous voice of the original Talosian leader. Also, in upgrading the Talosian design, they went from brow ridges to a vertical ridge on the forehead. Not sure why they did that.

The AV Club had a review of the episode and let's just say that person hated it. I gathered they didn't like prequels, which is a valid point, but then they castigated the show for trying to connect the dots of past Treks instead of all-new stories. I think Discovery's two seasons have been like the four seasons of Enterprise, in having a stretch where it is all new stuff, and a stretch where it is all call-backs. And fan consensus was that the latter was better! They also complained you had to know too much about Star Trek to get anything out of this episode. OK for starters, is anyone watching this show who isn't a Star Trek fan??? Beyond that, I'd say the opening scenes from The Cage told you all you needed to know before seeing this episode. They also thought Anson Mount was the perfect choice to follow "charisma-vacuum' Jeffrey Hunter. OK, I agree Hunter had no charisma in the role. You only rooted for him because he was the main characgter and you were supposed to root for him. But I really like Anson Mount and will be sorry to see him go at the end of the season.

In general, I thought that reviewer was simply trying to show how cool he or she was, by hating everything.
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Valkrist wrote: Fri Mar 08, 2019 3:27 pm Next they'll put a moon in the sky, or Delta Vega, or whatever stupid innovation they want to come up with.
DId you not notice the very bright moon shining over the courtyard where Michael and Spock had their argument? I thought it a bit odd as it looked quite a bit like our moon. But as far as the "Vulcan has no moon" bit, I'm prepared to overlook that. That concept was discarded in ST:TMP, when Vulcan was shown as having an enormous moon, which the novelization or a novel named T'Khut. It even played on the no-moon thing, saying it was true Vulcan had no moon, it had a nightmare, because T'Khut appeared so large in the sky. http://old.trekipedia.com/file/tkhut/ https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Vulcan_system

In any event the moon shown in Discovery looked nothing like T'Khut.

BTW, I just rewatched the episode and like all Discovery episodes, I liked it much better/very well the second time.
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Yeah, I did notice it but was being sarcastic. I guess Vulcan just morphs into whatever each specific writer and series wants, which is completely idiotic in terms of trying to maintain continuity. Also, moving Delta Vega halfway across the galaxy because you think it's a cool easter-egg misses the point by a thousand kelicams and shows how little you understand fans. :rolleye:
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Thread's gone quiet for a while...

Any comments on the last few episodes? Here are my observations:

So, where is my prize for predicting that Tyler and Burnham would be resuming their relationship, or at least show very obvious signs of it going that way? Again, this show seems stuck on not bucking convention and playing it safe. Yeah, I get that two people in their position would likely do exactly what they are doing, but it feels contrived when the writing of the show so obviously maneuvers them into that position with a series of scenarios that all somehow magically work to bring them back together again.

What the heck was that exchange between Georgiou and Culber in front of Stamets? Did I miss something? It almost felt somehow that she was implying that he was behaving like his mirror counterpart, but didn't the writers affirm that Mirror Culber did not exist when the Prime version first died? Or was she just trying to get under Stamets's skin because... why exactly? Georgiou is growing on me, though I still think a series based on her is reaching, but she seems to just like to stir the pot for personal kicks.

Talos IV came and went, we're not going back, and no answer to the General Order 7 mystery. Guess they didn't have the gonads to come up with something controversial enough that would bring about such a drastic measure on the part of Starfleet?

Majorly disappointed that this mega-threat from the future that results in the destruction of all life in the galaxy is something as uninspired as a Section 31 Control AI gone rogue. Really? I hope there's more to this than is being let on because right now a 10 year-old could write a better villain that doesn't come across as so utterly cliched. How many computers with delusions of godhood has Star Trek had now? I'm beginning to think you can't go to warp in the Alpha Quadrant without tripping over one.

Seems like George Lucas has taken over as tech consultant. Even when Burnham was a child, which would be about 40 years before Kirk taking command of the Enterprise, there's already little floating drones that perform tasks for you. I know they can't and shouldn't make this show like it was made in the 60's, but at the very least the level of technology should remain consistent with what we've come to know. This universe already looks far more advanced than anything they had in ST: Nemesis, which was our last glimpse of the current timeline (if you don't count Spock's brief appearance in the reboot.) ST; Enterprise was able to pull this off convincingly and with respect for its predecessors, so why can't these guys seem to be bothered? Is continuity a four-letter word in the offices of Discovery's writing staff?

During the fight against Airiam on the Section 31 station, Cmdr. Nahn gets her breather knocked off and begins to suffocate, clearly shown as collapsing as she fails to reach the fallen apparatus. Meanwhile, Burnham spends five minutes talking and being conflicted about Airiam without sparing a moment to help a dying crewmember, or at the very least take two seconds to check on her?!? Good thing Nahn somehow managed to get the brether off-camera without Burham's help as she is show as being alive and ok at the end of the scene. Zero marks for the direction of this scene. To add insult to injury, the very next episode Nahn praises and thanks Burnham for her courage. My reaction would have been more like "Yeah, thanks for leaving me to die. Your compassion is overwhelming."

Can someone please tell Sonequa Martin-Green to stop over-emoting in every scene? I like her as an actor but it's becoming a little hard to endure the constant open-mouthed, faraway stares. Also, her continued attitude and conduct with Pike (and just about anyone else) would have had her spend the remainder of the series on the brig if this were any previous Star Trek show. I get that Discovery is a product of a more evolved time where strong female leads are given centre stage to promote a long overdue equilibrium, but it shouldn't come at the cost of overlooking that there is still a chain of command and professional behaviour to be observed in this particular setting. An organization like Starfleet would never survive if it continuously indulged behaviour like hers. She walks around half the time looking like she wants to punch someone, and the other half she just yells at people or disobeys orders anyway. I know I'm not alone in this observation: 90% of the comments I read on other sites about this show reveal that she is the least-liked character on the series. When more people are crying for Pike to take over than the eventual prospect of Burnham commanding Discovery. that has to say something and that something is not about gender, but rather Burnham's complete and utter lack of charisma and likeability as a person.

Sounds like I'm really hating the show, uh? Not quite. I did enjoy the reveal of the Red Angel being Burnham's mother if only because it took Burnham's superiority complex down a notch or two when it was confirmed she wasn't the self-appointed saviour from the future. I'm also enjoying Spock more now that every scene isn't revolving around him, even if the revelation that he's dyslexic throws another retroactive wrench into everything we thought we knew about this 50-year old character.

Overall though, I'm disappointed that the spirit of what made Star Trek great, which was exploration and braving the unknow, seems to be completely gone from this iteration. It kind of reminds me of how the previous series always differed from the movies in that regard: the movies, due to a 2-hour runtime, were forced to deal with a driving threat that could be resolved before the credits rolled. With a series, the opportunity is here for them to bring back the sense of wonder and discovery (see what I did there?) that TOS and the others had, but instead we get yet another season with complicated inner-politics, a mega-villain bent on destroying the galaxy, and convoluted storylines in a prequel setting that leaves the writers scrambling to explain why there's no mention of these massive events in what we know is to come - assuming they even bother, and my vote is on no, they don't.
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That was quite a post! ;)

My biggest complaint is that the show feels so choppy that by the end of it, I’m asking, wth happened tonight?

My biggest fear for this season is that Control is going to be the genesis of the Borg.

But in general I’m not forming too much of an opinion. I’m going to have to binge watch it after the season ends.

Season is ending mid-April.
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The moment I saw Leland's bloodstream being invaded by what looked suspiciously like some form of nanites, I began to have the feeling the jig might be up and Control is the granddaddy Borg.

I've had that suspicion ever since that probe came back from the future, but it went away for a while when it seemed clear Control's eventual goal is to destroy all organic life. Since the Borg (or at least the version we know) are at half organic, this would seem to be a self-defeating strategy and not really in line with their goals of total assimilation. So, I'm still holding out a bit of hope that in their hubris, the writers don't make a colossal mistake here.
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I don't know if Borg ever crossed my mind when the probe appeared. With its tentacles and multiple red eyes, all I could think was a sentinel from The Matrix. But the second Control said something to Leland about needing a real body, I knew it was going to possess him somehow and when I saw the needle coming, I said, he's going to be assimilated.

It's true, in past Star Treks the Borg's mission has never been to eliminate life, but to assimilate it. But also in past Star Treks, missions change. Nomad's mission was to find new life, but its merger with Tan Ru altered that mission to destroy life. So I think it's still eminently possible that something will happen to Control somewhere along the line that causes its mission to change.

I just hope that in their promise to tie Season 2 more closely to established Star Trek canon, the producers don't do so by doing things like making Control the genesis of the Borg. It's one thing to tie to canon (Enterprise did it super-successfully when it answered the question of the Klingons' missing forehead ridges) and another to do it haphazardly and connect dots that shouldn't be connected.

But my real hope is that the Picard show is the Star Trek we want. They've said recently that its tone will be totally different from Discovery, and it's been suggested it will focus much more on Picard's interest in archeology. How that plays with the post-Romulus storyline, I don't know. But in any case, I'm hoping for a more thoughtful, nuanced show.

Am I being too naive?
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It wasn't so much the probe's physical appearance, but the way it was invading/infecting the shuttle's systems by physically attaching itself like a viral organism. It was very reminiscent of the Borg's environmental alterations as they begin to take over parts of the Enterprise in First Contact.

Anyway, yes, the possibility did cross my mind that the Borg could definitely change their purpose in some way, but it really seems like a needless and non-sensical retcon at this point, one done only to try and show us how much they listen and that this is true 'Trek' by establishing these connections. If that's the case, then they really just don't get it. No one is asking them to re-invent the wheel; just show us that the wheel was invented by the right people the first time around.

As for the Picard show, I'm beginning to question a little as to what the appeal will be for me, personally. The original lures were the return of a beloved character, the Star Trek setting, and the advancement of the Prime timeline at long last. However, if the latter two considerations are mostly incidental and we are given essentially an old Indiana Jones in space and his team of sexy, roguish young professionals, then my interest is mostly gone. If the show disconnects too much from the universe it is set in, then I really don't care whether Picard is in it or not, and if that's the case, I'm not really sure who was asking for this show anyway. It would be like watching a show about Kirk being a cook at a truck-stop diner on some remote planet every week, with no real connection to anything before expect that it's... Kirk?
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I read one review of Thursday's episode where the reviewer assumed without question or doubt that Control is the Borg. I hope he/she is wrong.

It's way too early to judge the Picard series, though obviously we all have our wants for what it should be and shouldn't be. I guess I am putting my faith in Patrick Stewart to help craft something worthy of Picard's history.
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Sorry... I have been watching but I was out of town for work and got back to my regular routine today.

I can pretty much say I echo the sentiments of Val and Olorin.

Overall, I am enjoying the show, but I can definitely nit pick it to death! I love Pike and Spock. I would love to have a show about them.
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Well this week we got a very poignant preview of what we know lies in wait for Chris Pike. I'm not sold on/sure on these "time crystals" and their purpose and effects, but even if they were only just a Macguffin to show us Pike's horrible accident, I guess it was worthwhile.

So how did folks feel about Pike's decision to embrace this future? Was it believable, that is, did Anson Mount pull it off? Or do you think Pike simply went along with it just to get the crystal, not really believing it would be his future?

I thought the whole sequence of Michael's struggle with her assimilated former crew member was very tense and scary.

Why doesn't Spock trim those two points of beard on his cheeks? Obviously, everybody's facial hair growth patterns vary a bit, but those just look odd. Was that what Michael was referring to a couple of episodes back when she said, "How's the beard working for you?" In general, I like the beard, as the old image of Spock with Moe Howard hair cut seems so dated compared to longer hair and a beard. Of course, I have no doubt that when Spock returns to the Enterprise, he'll be clean-shaven and trimmed up. And since there are only two more episodes left, that'll come all too soon. Already we saw in next week's preview that Pike is back in his Enterprise gold uniform.

At the risk of being fashion cop, I thought L'Rell's outfit looked awful. Also, I think the new Klingon look just about looked worse than ever this week, hair notwithstanding. It just looked like plastic to me.

We also see Saru back in command again. Of course we know eventually Michael will be the captain, so...Saru: always a bridesmaid, never a bride?
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I really liked the Pike moment. Anything that ties back to the old Star Trek we know in a faithful and respectful fashion is always a win for me. I also think Mount sold it well, I don't believe he had any reason to doubt that what he saw won't come to pass. Of course, like anyone else going through such an experience, there's always the hope that one can somehow change their fate, so he might have felt it was worth taking the risk, regardless of the ultimate outcome. Dealing with time travel and the Red Angel must have encouraged Pike on some level to believe that perhaps the future is not set in stone. What makes it poignant for us is that we already know what he doesn't: he will never avoid his ultimate fate. In the end, that scene made the character all the more noble in my eyes, knowing now that he was shown his fate ahead of time and chose to embrace it.

The time crystals: meh. To me, they are just like the spore drive - yet another extremely powerful plot device that somehow we've magically never heard of in 50 years of Trek history. It's become abundantly clear with each successive episode that the writers don't care one bit about introducing elements into this universe that should have had a massive effect in subsequent events, yet there is no mention of them. Yep, the problem with prequelitis again.

Yeah, the shape of Spock's beard is super irritating but I've learned to look past it. I guess everyone goes through a 'phase', :laugh:

The look of the Klingons on the series seems irredeemable, no matter what they try. The costumes are awful, the prosthetics are goofy, L'Rell's glowing cat eyes are off-putting, etc. The addition of the hair was a tiny improvement but why is it that every other Klingon seems to have blue skin now? I feel like I'm watching Stargate Atlantis all of a sudden. They really should have just eaten some crow, and along with their excuse that the hair is shaved in war time (funny how they never did the multiple times Klingons were at war in the other shows) and say that they also take some of form of enhancing drug, or Klingon 'steroid' that alters their appearance somewhat. Now with the war over, they could slowly transition back into something that resembles the standard Klingon look a little more.

The show also seems to be leaning more and more heavily into the big reveal that Control is the genesis of the Borg. I'm still hoping there is some course correction on this and that perhaps the connection is tangible in some way only, but that hope is fast fading. Guess they've ignored the fact that the Borg have already been in existence in the Delta quadrant for centuries at this point, and their attempt to wipe out humanity in the past in First Contact would have resulted in their own immediate extinction? Utterly stupid.

Then there's the sudden appearance of an entire Section 31 fleet with dozens of ships. How fast does Starfleet crank out ships anyway? They were just in a war and about to get wiped out, and much is made of the fact that the Enterprise sat out, yet somehow they had a ton of ships just hanging around? If Section 31 is ostensibly meant to protect the Federation, where was all this might during the war?

As for Burnham taking command of Discovery, yeah... that's inevitable. I may just quit watching the show at that point as I find her insufferable enough as is without having her in the command seat. She sure enough already acts like it. Sadly, it's going to happen as no one really believes the Discovery is about to self-destruct. Talk about fake suspense. :rolleye:

Still, it would be funny if Pike just said: "Blow her up, I don't care. I'm outta here anyway!" :crazy:
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Spock's beard...there's a latter-day prog band by that name. I imagine they took it from the goatee Spock sported in the Mirror Universe.

I'm surprised you haven't leapt at this, but Control plus time crystals equals genesis of the Borg in the past.

Good idea about having the Klingons quit taking their war steroids. You should probably email that idea in to the writers. They've got to know the new look isn't popular with the fans, and this is a semi-graceful way to back out of it.

How fast can Starfleet build a starship? Well, remember that time lapse of the construction of the new Enterprise at the end of Star Trek: Beyond? ;) But yeah, it's almost like not only do big plot points in this show not have consequences many years or decades later, they don't even have them in the next season!

I am definitely going to miss Pike. I wish instead of doing a Section 31 series, they would do a Pike series. They've already got Pike, Spock, and Number One; they'd only have to cast a few more parts. By the way, did you catch Pike giving the order to contact "the executive office of the Enterprise?" Not "Cmd. So-and-So." The character has never been named, and somehow our powerful new writers had a moment of humility and didn't give her a name.

But anyway, Pike. I think I mentioned before that the cranky Pike in The Cage/The Menagerie I cheered for only because he was the main guy. Otherwise, he was just annoying, and at the risk of characterizing an actor based on one performance, it seemed like Jeffrey Hunter must have gone to the Russell Crow Scowl, er, School of Acting, where he either looks angry, or on the verge of angry because he can't figure out if the thing he just put in his mouth was a piece of chocolate or a piece of cat crap. I vastly preferred the Pike of the Abrams movies: seasoned, wise, and avuncular. And say what else you like about the Abrams movies, they at least gave Pike and Kirk a relationship, and a good one. In the prime universe, I think the only time Kirk and Pike ever met was when Pike was promoted and Kirk was given command of the Enterprise. Plus, any opportunity to see more of the fantastic Bruce Greenwood is a good thing. And I think Anson Mount has done a great job of carrying on in the Greenwood tradition, and also made the part his own. This iteration is a bit younger than the Greenwood iteration, so he comes across more like a friend vs. a father figure, but he seems like he'd be a good guy to work for.
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I dig Spock's beard. As a fellow bearded man, I support the fellow beardmen :).

I am glad I am not the only one that finds Michael to be off putting to say the least.

Not that we saw every waking moment and conversation of Spock's life in the previous Trek series/movies, but ya think a mention of an adoptive sister along with a time traveling Red Angel would have come up, or a spore drive. But I guess those are symptoms of the prequilitis that Val mentioned. Maybe the deus ex machina of this series will be the time crystals and somehow these will let us have some sort of resolution that erases all of this, so this series is all for nothing?

Can we just get this Pike series please?
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Yeah, I almost feel at this point that if they screw up too badly, the time crystals will be their escape clause/nuclear option to realign this bizarro universe with the old Star Trek. Of course, hubris and arrogance are pretty much equivalent to staring at the sun. Just ask Phillipa Boyens or Rian Johnson.

Olorin, yes, the thought did cross my mind that Control could end up being sent into the past, and thus the Borg thread will resolve that way. Still hoping that's not the case, but to paraphrase Gandalf, it's only a fool's hope.
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BladeCollector wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 4:09 am I dig Spock's beard. As a fellow bearded man, I support the fellow beardmen :).
Me too. But I think they should look cool, not goofy. He just needs to trim off those points on his cheeks.
BladeCollector wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 4:09 am I am glad I am not the only one that finds Michael to be off putting to say the least.
I guess I remain sufficiently inoculated by 7 years of Janeway, not to be bothered by Michael. I guess if there's a good actress in a part that's important for Star Trek and represents an inclusive future (first female captain, first black female lead), I can put up with a lot.
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Valkrist wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 7:25 am Yeah, I almost feel at this point that if they screw up too badly, the time crystals will be their escape clause/nuclear option to realign this bizarro universe with the old Star Trek. Of course, hubris and arrogance are pretty much equivalent to staring at the sun. Just ask Phillipa Boyens or Rian Johnson.

Olorin, yes, the thought did cross my mind that Control could end up being sent into the past, and thus the Borg thread will resolve that way. Still hoping that's not the case, but to paraphrase Gandalf, it's only a fool's hope.
Well you know, they've been saying for months that by the end of the second season, the show would align much better with canon. They've also implied the season finale will be a hum-dinger in some one. There's a fan theory that Discovery will be thrust into the future. Given that one short Trek featured Discovery a thousand years in the future, I'd definitely say anything is possible.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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BladeCollector wrote: Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:30 pm Just a quick comment... But GIVE ANSON MOUNT HIS OWN SHOW!!!
If only, BC, if only...

Olorin, on your comment of Janeway paving the way for having tolerance for Burnham: Janeway was the captain, which gave her plenty of latitude in not only having her cake, but eating it too. Burnham walks around like she owns the universe and that talking down to admirals and challenging your captains is acceptable behaviour. The issue for me is 100% not inclusion, but the degree of arrogance and lack of discipline that the character constantly displays, which is totally irrespective of gender or colour of skin. I know she's written that way, which is to say none of this is on Martin-Green, who is an excellent actor, but even Kirk on his worst day was mindful of the consequences of defying authority. Burnham has no such compunctions because the only time she suffered consequences was in the pilot, a vehicle used to tell us her past story. We are then shown she learned nothing and the show simply goes on.

Moving on to this past episode.

Well, looks like the prediction of the Discovery going into the future is certainly shaping up to a reality, If not, that was a whole lot of dramatic setup for nothing. Considering the episode spent roughly 75% of its runtime on overly long, mushy goodbyes, they'd better go through with this now. At first it was super irritating because I kept thinking "Can you please just get on with it? We know you're not going anywhere and will all be laughing about this in an episode or two," but then the longer it went on, the more I began to realize they might actually be serious and these were real goodbyes.

Removing the ship from this timeline would certainly 'fix' a lot of things, but there's just no way they can take Spock with them. I'm guessing something is going to happen during that final battle against the Section 31 ships that causes him to go over to the Enterprise to save it, a la Wrath of Khan. During the flashforward visions, much is made of an undetonated torpedo getting stuck in the Enterprise's hull and I bet that's Spock's cue to leave and go fix the problem. Certainly it makes sense that he would want to accompany his foster sister on this venture, but his loyalty to Pike and the Enterprise could make him sacrifice even that if it means saving all the lives aboard the NCC 1701. Totally guessing here, but I'm not seeing how else he would leave Discovery at this point, and there's just no way he can go with them without breaking Star Trek in its entirety.

Sending Discovery away neatly resolves the issue of the Spore Drive, though I find it hard to believe that the blueprints for that tech aren't sitting in a computer somewhere within Starfleet anyway. It will also really complicate this Borg Genesis theory, but I'm sure that Control will be an ongoing McGuffin for this series now.

One thing I found overwhelmingly positive was the thorough look at the Enterprise's bridge at last. Wow... just wow. What an awesome way to pay huge respect to the original while modernizing things and bringing the design into line with the current aesthetic, all the while without overdoing it. That bridge, the corridors, even the turbolift, was everything the JJ reboot should have been and wasn't. No glaring whites, no lens flares, and no feeling like the bridge is crewed by Apple geniuses trying to sell you the latest iPhone, while a bunch of hipsters are brewing beer down in the engine room. So glad that travesty is over. Massive kudos to the design team on this show by giving us an Enterprise that looks like it should.

Lastly, the coy dithering over who was taking command of the Discovery wasn't lost on me, and the look on Saru's face could best be described as embracing the inevitable that it won't be him, while Michael's look was one of "C'mon, do you really have to ask? Me, of course!" :rolleye:
This Space for Rent

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My biggest complaint about the episode is a plot hole big enough to fly a Galaxy-class starship through. They have to take Discovery to the future because otherwise Control will always catch up with them? BS! They can use the spore drive to go anywhere in the Universe in an instant. Even in the late 24th Century, standard warp drive technology requires 70 years to cross the Galaxy, so there's no way Control could catch up with them...even if they knew where they went.

I also question (to a lesser extent) the premise that the Sphere archive is so integrated in Discovery they can't remove it. Doesn't this ship have a "reset and restore to factory defaults" setting? If I can do that on my 10 year old iPod, why can't a starship do it? I guess we're just going with it.

Lastly, I'm a bit skeptical by Control's lust for the Sphere data. It seems to me that Control is already fully self-aware and a full-blown AI. What does it need the Sphere data for?

Random thoughts. I never for a second thought they would not go to the future, once the idea was voiced. Remember, one of the Short Treks had Discovery 1000 years in the future. Isn't this also about where Michael's mom should be? So it never crossed my mind that they won't go. Obviously, Spock will have to stay behind. Or, they will have to return to the mid-23rd century at some point. But if they go and stay there, it still doesn't resolve any canon differences. Everything we've seen to date will still have happened. Only if the time crystal causes them to be transposed into an alternate timeline will any canon problems go away. But then, we were never in the prime universe to begin with, despite all the producers' assurances.

Though I fully believe they'll go to the future, I think they'll come back. Thus far, Discovery's story arcs have been for one season each. I suspect the third season will be in the far future, and they'll somehow realized they can return. Otherwise, the show will in essence have become Voyager, except that it is completely cut off from the Federation and all our favorite alien races. I can't seem them doing that.

I also liked the Enterprise design, even if Philippa didn't.

Once upon a time, Michael asked a superior officer for "permission to speak freely." It was granted, and she didn't realize it didn't mean "always."
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Thus we see that once again, the Deus Ex qualities of the spore drive rear their ugly head once more.

The writers. in their desperate rush to come up with something so cool that would set this ship apart from all else that has come before, utterly failed to see how this device would so easily sabotage a host of future storylines for them. To put it into simpler terms, the damn thing is just way too powerful, and they were too stupid to realize this when they stuck it into the show. Now they're forced to come up with increasingly fantastical ways to create believable obstacles for the ship and crew to overcome, and in the case of Control, they are being defeated by their own internal rules by failing to explain why the spore drive can't be used to get the ship out of Control's reach. So now we have these time crystals that we've never heard of before, but apparently have just been lying around the whole time. I guess people liked using the Guardian, calling up Gary Seven, or sling-shotting around the sun just for an extra challenge? The problem with this show is that they want to use all the cool stuff that they didn't invent, like the Mirror Universe, or possibly the Borg, but can't be bothered to use what was pre-established about these things, and just break the rules and make up stuff as they go along, heedless of the impact that causes on events that have yet to happen in Trek continuity. This show is turning into a massive retcon.

Much of what made previous series interesting was that there were always limitations. Voyager couldn't return home because it was very far away. If Q decided to fling the Enterprise across the galaxy, they were well and truly screwed. And if someone decided to muck with time, they had to get very creative and risk a lot to fix things. There were serious boundaries, and there were limitations to how to get around them. But hold on, now we have the magical ship Discovery, with its own version of Trek, and loaded with a crew of ultra-geniuses, that allows it to easily hop across the galaxy, jump to alternate universes, or skip 1000 years into the future without breaking much of a sweat.

Please.
This Space for Rent

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OMG... where to even start with what I just saw.

I know you won't be replying for some time, but here goes anyway:

I felt exhausted after watching that finale, and for all the wrong reasons. In fine Abrams tradition, Star Trek has fully joined the Star Wars universe in that every Starfleet ship is basically a Star Destroyer, carrying hundreds of combat drones and several squadrons of combat shuttles. So much for an organization that is ostensibly about science and exploration. Not only that, like the stupid rollercoaster turbolifts that make another appearance, it seems no one that writes this show has any concept of how space and volume works. Discovery and Enterprise have a finite size, yet they are able to disgorge hundreds of smaller ships because.... huh? How? Where are they keeping all this stuff? The Enterprise's engineering hull alone would have to be a vast hollow cylinder to house that much hardware believably. Guess she doesn't need engines. Also, where is all that stuff when Kirk takes over in just a few years? And again with the cutesy repair and cleanup bots... is George Lucas secretly a consultant on this show?

As for the rest of the space battle, I really miss the grandiose spectacles of the TNG and DS9 days when stately starships traded fire in a reasonably measured pace. Now we have a cacophony of flashy visuals and hard to follow action that seems to be competing with itself for how many lights and explosions and fast-moving objects we can have on the screen all at once. The gazillion fighter ships on both sides was just silly overkill, and about as far away as you can get from a Star Trek space battle as you can. Don't even get me started on the Kelpians going from peace-loving, planet-bound dwellers, to expert fighter pilots in a matter of days. At least they got a couple of things right: the Klingons are finally flying the D-7 cruisers, and the Enterprise was firing proper phaser beams, not staccato SW turbo laser battery fire. Yay.

Then there's all the absurdities in the plot and marvellous (not) coincidences in the plot. A blast door that can only be manually operated from one side? Ok... convenient. Stamets gets impaled right on cue so that Culber can have his moment of epiphany and stay behind? Yep, never saw that coming in a show that never sticks to the decisions it makes. So all it took to defeat the powerfully godlike AI than can remotely control an entire fleet was a... magnet? You're telling me these geniuses can figure out spore drives and time travel space suits, but they couldn't think of shoving Control into a magnetic chamber before? Also, if the point of taking Discovery into the future was because it was the only way to get it out of Control's reach, why did they still bother going through with it once Control was neutralized?!? Did I miss something super obvious here? The whole point was to get away from him!!! Supposing for one moment that Control is not 100% neutralized, then why would take the threat with you when the idea was to get so far away that you have to go to the future? They should have at least jettisoned the nanites into space, scattering them apart with a transporter or something. What an incredibly stupid series of plot holes!

Of course, then we have Georgiou going into the future with them. Isn't she supposed to be getting her own show? Since I doubt that will be set in the future also, they've already given up an important plot point that, A) either Discovery comes back at some point, or B) she gets bored with the whole thing and steals the time suit and comes back alone.... or with Leland? Or perhaps she takes Leland to the past and orchestrates the rise of the Borg herself? If true, this is a show that is stretching connections and fan-service well past the breaking point. Who knows, and I'm not sure I care at this point as a show based on that character was always a stupid idea. The writers seem so enamoured with the Terran Emperor and Section 31 in making them appear cool, edgy, and full of wit, that they completely gloss over the utter atrocities and horrors that they have engaged in. I guess we should shrug and recognize how adorable Georgiou is because she can deliver clever zingers, all the while just forgetting about the fact that she is a genocidal maniac with a taste for sentient species?!? Man, this is some evolved thinking that is beyond me.

Then there's the massive retcon of the century to discuss. The whole season's been leading to this moment where the writers and producers deliver Mea Culpa on their colossal short-sightedness with this series and attempt to rectify things by sweeping the USS Discovery under the galactic carpet. Anyone that claims that this was their plan from the start is a liar of Donald Trump proportions. They were in a corner with Burnham's existence and the spore drive and they knew it, so season 2 was designed around correcting those mistakes... because making a series that was set in the future to begin with was so very hard, wasn't it? Well, they made an admirable effort to fix things, except now we are expected to believe that the reason we've never heard of these people or this ship was because the crew of the Enterprise did a group pinky swear to stay quiet and lie to their superiors? Fine, I can go along with that given that Pike alone has the charisma to invoke that kind of loyalty, and Spock's logic is hard to beat.... except that all they are covering up is the fact that Discovery was destroyed rather than go into the future. Again, did I miss something here? The ship leaving the current timeline did not erase it from ever having existed, so what gives? Is all of Starfleet retconning itself by never mentioning that crew, Burnham's existence, or the ship and its spore drive? This is just beyond baffling to me. The whole thing sounded clever at first, but quickly falls apart when you shine even a little bit of light on it. I can see the meeting at Starfleet's top brass going something like this:

"Well, the USS Discovery was lost in battle with all hands. Time to hit delete."

"Say what?"

"It's our new policy here. You really should come to all the staff meetings. Any time one of our vessels meets an untimely demise, we henceforth completely and utterly expunge our databases and personal memories of any and all traces of its existence, and the crew... well, they never happened either. Makes it more neat and tidy that way, and we don't have to pay the record keepers overtime sorting all this stuff anymore. Oh, and send the memo to Mr. Atoz at Memory Alpha. We all know what a keener that guy is when it comes to this sort of stuff."

"Ok, I see... I think?"

:rolleye: :barf: :horse:
This Space for Rent

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I'll post some quick comments since I'm on my phone, but I enjoyed it. Yes it has it's flaws, but I thought it was wrapped up nicely. Sweeping discovery under the rug and erasing it from existence (for now, don't know what the future holds for it) doesn't surprise me.

I have no doubts military cover ups happen all the time in real life. How else would the clean up the spore drive, time stone, Spocks sister etc?

Side note, I think I prefer bearded Spock :)

Unfortunately, this type of story telling is what sells now, big flashy battles, mushy love fests, etc. Us old school trek fans like it TOS-DS9 style, but to bring in new fans... I guess this is what is needed?
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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OK, some thoughts on it. I agree with pretty much everything Val said. For starters, the crazy Space Mountain interior of Discovery makes no sense. It must be like Hermione's bag or the stomach of Goose the Flerken. They need to retcon that away but no promises to a mysterious admiral can do that.

Speaking of such, who was debriefing Pike et al and why was this set up like a big mystery? It's like the buildup to revealing Sela in TNG. And one assumes it'll be at least two years before we find out. While I think the jaunt to the future will only last a season, I also assume we'll be solely in the future and there will be no "meanwhile, back home" interludes. Though admittedly if that's the case, then we have no Tyler in 3rd season.

One review I read commented on the failed effort to build up some bond between Number One and Cornwell when it becomes clear the latter is going to sacrifice herself. And why was she on the Enterprise anyway? I don't recall that being explained. And while I wasn't crazy about the character, I didn't think they should kill her off.

Uh, special effects. Special effects have never been this series' strong suit. And having 20 times as many as the typical episode doesn't make them better, but rather, probably the contrary. At least as has been said, the Enterprise phasers looked like they should. I didn't have too much of a problem with the number of ships or shiplets. Plans for the Enterprise always suggested the deck below the hanger deck stored a fair number of shuttles, and who knows what's in Discovery's mysterious innards. And Leland's ships could use nanotech to come up with all sorts of drones. But I agree, George Lucas must've designed some of those workbots. Kidding aside, he did direct a scene of Season 8 of Game of Thrones.

And Leland.... Agree, if Control is neutralized, why go into the future? Except, I guess, they have to. For starters, Control can't be neutralized by wiping out one person, if it's even a fraction as smart as malware of our time. It's probably copied itself onto many systems throughout Starfleet. Beyond that, I think we have a paradox situation here, or something like that. The threat from Control of the future is what drove the entire season. If there had been no future Control, there would have been no Matrix-like probe attacking Discovery's shuttle, and no visitations from the Red Angel, including the one that saved young Michael's life. So, I think Control may still be lurking somewhere, like the creepy critters of Conspiracy. (Sometimes I cannot resist the allure of alliteration.)

And I definitely think they will come back from the future. Not only have their previous story arcs only been a season each, which was the original announced structure of the series, but also like Val says, Georgiou must come back. I can't imagine her on a Section 31 show set in the 33rd Century.

The blast door...I never even thought about the manual controls being only on one side. I was too hung up on, a blast door has a freaking window in it! Transparent aluminum? Must be transparent neutronium to withstand even a small antimatter blast.

Stamets and Culber.... what to say? Back in the day when people used to call out for Star Trek to better represent the diversity it claimed to embrace , by having gay characters, I don't think anybody was asking for their story to be a flippin' soap opera. They should have had the two characters, had them be partners, have episodes that featured one or both, and that was all that was needed. To make them star-crossed lovers is, at best, silly.

Georgiou. Yes, I guess we're forgetting she's a genocidal maniac. Easy to do when they give her juicy lines, and she delivers them in that delicious voice, at least for me. But may she perhaps have a long, slow arc of redemption, where she sees the error of her ways and realizes the Federation may be a better path than Empire? We can hope, I suppose. If Game of Thrones can make us care about characters who were as despicable as Theon Greyjoy and Jamie Lannister, anything is possible.

Spock without the beard, yeah not good. They didn't get the sideburns right. They need to be thinner and more to a point. What we have instead is proto-Asimovian sideburns. And besides, with the beard and longer hair covering most of his face, you could overlook that this guy doesn't look much like Leonard Nimoy. Now that he's back to a regulation appearance, he could be any Vulcan. Compare and contrast Anson Mount vs. Jeffrey Hunter: when they had that quick cut from the prologue of the Talosian episode to the main story, it was easy to buy Mount as an older version of Hunter.

In other news, Alex Kurtzman is aware of the fan clamor for a Pike series and is intrigued by it. If they do it, hopefully it will be longer on substance and shorter on whizz-bang, like the Picard show (as they have implied).

As far as the season in general, I thought it was much more disconnected, ill-explained, and hurled at our eyes than the first season. This may be in part a reflection of the fact I've only watched it once so far. I understood and appreciated the first season far more after I binge-watched it after it concluded. I'm hoping that will be the case with Season 2.

My grousings may make it sound like I don't like the show, but I do. The problem is that it is really failing to deliver on the promise of a short season presented via streaming vs. on a broadcast channel. Other than the dropping of a few F-bombs and the gory mangled bodies on Discovery's ill-fated sister ship, they really haven't done anything that couldn't have been done on broadcast TV. They certainly have not equaled the story-telling of TNG, DS9, or Enterprise. And all those shows were written one episode at a time, 22-26 episodes in a row, without the luxury of months of doing nothing but sitting in the writers room to break a season-long arc and flesh it out. They really haven't brought their A-game yet, or if they have, we're in trouble. I guess we just need to remind ourselves that TNG was pretty darned lame its first two seasons. I stuck with it, hoping it would get better, while some fans jeeringly called it Trek Lite. Unfortunately I think Discovery may just be Trek Lite. Heading into its 3rd season next year, It may be make it or break it time. For this show to be the flagship of a new Star Trek empire on TV, I would hope for it to be so much stronger.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Well here's some really sad news about Kenneth Mitchell, who played three different Klingons in Discovery:

https://people.com/health/star-trek-dis ... t-anymore/

This is very sad. ALS is a horrible thing, and what the article doesn't mention is its a death sentence. True, if you're young like Stephen Hawking was when he developed, you're better able to fight it and may last a good long while, but Mitchell is already into middle age. The two people I knew who developed were in their 50s or older, and only lasted a few years.

Again, so sad.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."
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