Star Trek: Discovery

[ChrisIII]

I'm guessing we'll get an explanation as to why Discovery can't go back as well, although previous Treks have established 30th century Trek has normalized time travel thing. I'm guessing it's disappearance is a "Fixed point".

[Anthony W]

I'm guessing we'll get an explanation as to why Discovery can't go back as well, although previous Treks have established 30th century Trek has normalized time travel thing. I'm guessing it's disappearance is a "Fixed point".

What did everyone think of the "Let's not talk about it" when it comes to Burnham? I find it hard to believe that Bones wouldn't blurt that out at some time. Didn't Bones mind meld with Spock before he died the first time? Or am I remembering it wrong?

[Pinsir]

What did everyone think of the "Let's not talk about it" when it comes to Burnham? I find it hard to believe that Bones wouldn't blurt that out at some time. Didn't Bones mind meld with Spock before he died the first time? Or am I remembering it wrong?

Bones then would also know that he has a brother named Sybok, which I'm pretty sure he didn't.

[Ying Ko]

This show is one of my favourites currently, really liked the 2nd season... Might even become my favorite show now that GOT is concluding and TWD pretty much blows without Rick.

I would be really interested in seeing the rumoured Pike/Spock show if it gets made. I hope they do it, even if it's 6 episodes or whatever.

[ChrisIII]

I'm guessing the whole Fal-Tor-Pan thing in Star Trek III pretty much extracted all of Spock's memory from McCoy.

[ChrisIII]

So the whole Enterprise uniform thing is a bit confusing continuity wise I guess. They go from the Cage turtleneck, to pretty much the main TOS uniforms, back to the turtlenecks when Kirk takes command in Where No Man Has Gone Before, and then back to the regular TOS ones?


Then again the Uniform continuity has never really made that much sense anyway (Just look at Generations, where the characters switch back and forth between the TNG and DS9/VOY looks for no apparent reason, and I guess the Red movie outfit was so popular it lasted for many decades before they retired it prior to TNG to return to the color coding system). Maybe that's why the online game just said "screw it" and allowed the player to pretty much choose any starfleet uniform.

[Sammael]

I'm really looking forward to discovery in the far flung star trek universe future. That is my idealized time since it's not tethered to what came before. That is kind of the point of star trek, to see something new and explore, not just rehash the old.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

One thing that's been irking me quite a bit during talks about the show: people not knowing what was intentional from the start. Deep during development the showrunners made no secret that this was to be the Michael Burnham show -- even Wiki and Entertainment Weekly cite her as the central protagonist. Yeah, we can complain that she gets too much attention to the detriment of everyone else on the show (I like the character, but I'm definitely in this camp -- the other bridge crew need work), but there should be no surprise that she's the star. Whether it's executed well or badly is a different topic than what the premise is all about. But saying that "It feels too much like the Michael Burnham Show" would be a complaint if the showrunners advertised the usual Trek ensemble; rather, the showrunners were upfront about Burnham getting the majority of screen time. It's like complaining that Voyager is too far from Starfleet to be a good Star Trek show -- being isolated from Starfleet *is* the show. Is the idea executed well? That we leave up to discussion. Whether it *works* for Trek, if it works well in general or at all, is a different conversation.

The first half of the season didn't even establish a traditional bridge crew -- we had a captain in a supporting role, the engineer, and the XO, and they all revolved around Burnham. The main cast didn't list the senior positions we're accustomed to in Trek, like the MD, operations, or tactical. To me it means they wanted to do something different but didn't know how to go about it, so now we're reverting to a more traditional crew composition. After all, DS9 wasn't totally on the station, but the overall premise still revolved around it.

To that end, I'll go along with a show's premise and accept it as fact. The primary concern then is if that show sticks to its premise or executes that premise well, so that's opinion -- it's certainly done the former, but imo certainly too much to the detriment of the latter. And the show's own internal confusion means it wants to eat its cake and have it, too -- the show putting all that focus on Burnham means no focus on supporting cast, but no concern for the supporting cast means you can't care for them, whereas the show *really* wants us to care for them without doing the work to establish them. So I can accept that the show is "The Adventures of Michael Burnham," but the show revised itself to be "And Co." without really building that part up.

tl;dr: Saying the show is all about Michael Burnham isn't really a critique because that's what it always was. Whether or not the show handles it well *is* a critique.

I think one of the biggest problems Discovery has had is that it has never been clear about what kind of show it actually is thanks to its revolving door of showrunners.

All Star Trek shows have gone through some behind the scenes tinkering, DS9 in particular benefited greatly from the revamping it got by bringing Worf on as a major character. Discovery is no different, but the creative whiplash has been particularly jarring.

That said, I don't think any post-TOS Star Trek show has been as strong as the first two seasons of this show have been, despite feeling like a kids with ADHD telling you a crazy new story each week

[Bored at 3:00AM]

So the whole Enterprise uniform thing is a bit confusing continuity wise I guess. They go from the Cage turtleneck, to pretty much the main TOS uniforms, back to the turtlenecks when Kirk takes command in Where No Man Has Gone Before, and then back to the regular TOS ones?


Then again the Uniform continuity has never really made that much sense anyway (Just look at Generations, where the characters switch back and forth between the TNG and DS9/VOY looks for no apparent reason, and I guess the Red movie outfit was so popular it lasted for many decades before they retired it prior to TNG to return to the color coding system). Maybe that's why the online game just said "screw it" and allowed the player to pretty much choose any starfleet uniform.

The continuity is never going to match up completely, but that's pretty much been explained by the show itself by establishing that the entire show is a retcon caused by Burnham's parents experiments in time travel.

Add on that the Temporal Cold War stuff from Enterprise and Star Trek: First Contact already mucking with time, I think all of that would explain why Star Trek continuity is a bit messy.

[Anthony W]

You know who really got screwed over in all of this?

Captain Janeway.

:: Captain Janeway upon being promoted to Admiral finds out about Spore Drive::

Janeway: Oh, Hellllll Nawwww! (Throws coffee cup across the room)

[Cyke]

What did everyone think of the "Let's not talk about it" when it comes to Burnham? I find it hard to believe that Bones wouldn't blurt that out at some time. Didn't Bones mind meld with Spock before he died the first time? Or am I remembering it wrong?

No, he really did have Spock's memories even those his mind was a jumbled mess (understandably so).

Edit: Though I would love a remastered scene in TSFS where Bones starts shouting out all these true Spock facts that just make him seem crazy at the bar. "Spock has a sister! Her name is Michael!" And Starfleet MPs arrest him saying, "Yeah, okay doctor, whatever you say."

Imo, the whole "let's not talk about it" thing is both wayyy too unbelievable and yet on par for Starfleet's general messiness. The Omega Directive is similarly messy (and not a great episode -- I think someone brought that up earlier?).

Whatever. Starfleet's usually run by the most incompetent or corrupt admirals anyway.

Bones then would also know that he has a brother named Sybok, which I'm pretty sure he didn't.

Right. But maybe the "let's not tell anyone" approach is Spock's go-to trump card for all his family business. Maybe that's why every time we find out he has a relative, there's always some kind of dramatic shock from the others.

Then again the Uniform continuity has never really made that much sense anyway (Just look at Generations, where the characters switch back and forth between the TNG and DS9/VOY looks for no apparent reason, and I guess the Red movie outfit was so popular it lasted for many decades before they retired it prior to TNG to return to the color coding system). Maybe that's why the online game just said "screw it" and allowed the player to pretty much choose any starfleet uniform.

I liked the two uniform styles in Generations. In my own head it meant Starfleet was trying to implement the DS9/VOY uniforms fleetwide and so personnel had a choice, plus I like seeing different eras like that. But that's not explicitly said on screen, either.

The last time something like that happened was in DS9 when the vast majority of personnel wore the First Contact uniforms but a couple (honor?) guards wore the red TNG collared uniforms.

I think one of the biggest problems Discovery has had is that it has never been clear about what kind of show it actually is thanks to its revolving door of showrunners.

Yep, no argument from me there. You can almost feel the tone shifts with the changes of showrunners.

You know who really got screwed over in all of this?

Captain Janeway.

:: Captain Janeway upon being promoted to Admiral finds out about Spore Drive::

Janeway: Oh, Hellllll Nawwww! (Throws coffee cup across the room)

"Oh great, now I have to go to another nebula to get more coffee!"

Though, in another universe, I'd like to think that Captain Ransom and the USS Nova wrecked the mycelial network and all its inhabitants to try to get back home.

[Anthony W]

Though, in another universe, I'd like to think that Captain Ransom and the USS Nova wrecked the mycelial network and all its inhabitants to try to get back home.

I don't think Ransom or Janeway would have access to that information as Captains. By the TNG era that information is probably only known by the admirals. I can see Janeway gaining access to that info after she reached the rank of Admiral when she got back with her crew, which is hilarious.

::Admiral Janeway address cadets at Starfleet Academy::

Janeway: A lot of people say that the journey is just as important as the destination. You will as well, until you come home after so many long hard years alone in space to discover that someone has a device that would have allowed you to make the journey in...like...a week an sh*t, saving you from all kinds of trauma. Then you're all like "what da' f**k?". Any you cadets want to grab this coffee run it down to the replicator and Irish it up for me?

[ChrisIII]

I think the initial idea for the DS9 uniforms were that they were utility uniforms or space station exclusive, as the station was still a bit of a wreck after being abandoned by the Cardassians.

It was intended to debut new costumes for Generations that looked like an interesting mix of the various costumes to that point, with the basic TNG design, but the movie style tunics, and the TOS style arm rings. The concept even made it to the first batch of action figures, probably confusing some people when the movie came out with no sign of those. I guess they couldn't make the new uniforms so they just threw in some spare DS9 uniforms (Apparently they didn't fit too well on some of the cast-Riker for example I think is wearing Avery Brook's outfit and it's clear it's a weird fit). When Voyager went into production looks like they did pretty much the same thing, gave them the DS9 look.


Of course First Contact eventually gave us a fixed TNG movie look and DS9 followed (Although it looks a bit like the DS9 look, just not color-coded but grey and paddy); Voyager stuck to the DS9 look though even when they were able to communicate with Starfleet again and seemed to have working replicators most of the time.

[Cyke]

I don't think Ransom or Janeway would have access to that information as Captains. By the TNG era that information is probably only known by the admirals. I can see Janeway gaining access to that info after she reached the rank of Admiral when she got back with her crew, which is hilarious.

::Admiral Janeway address cadets at Starfleet Academy::

Janeway: A lot of people say that the journey is just as important as the destination. You will as well, until you come home after so many long hard years alone in space to discover that someone has a device that would have allowed you to make the journey in...like...a week an sh*t, saving you from all kinds of trauma. Then you're all like "what da' f**k?". Any you cadets want to grab this coffee run it down to the replicator and Irish it up for me?

Well, hence another universe. Infinite universes means there's at least one universe where this is likely. No verdict yet if their Enterprise-D appeared when Worf Prime was traipsing through the fabric of the multiverse, though.

----

But speaking of TNG, here's another showerthought: Picard knows about Discovery because he mind-melded with Michael Burnham's foster dad.

[G. Boney]