[Closed] Star: Trek: Discovery

I'm really starting to enjoy it quite a lot. Last night's was properly dark. It feels more like BSG than Star Trek.

Yeah got to agree, it's a pretty good stab at the alternate universe thing, care about the characters it's one of the better star trek spin offs

I think it's pretty good as a TV series, what drives me nuts though is the grain effect they've added. In UHD it's incredibly distracting (to me at least), I don't mind the Netflix grain effect crap too much on things like the Marvel series but in a spaceship you're expecting clean clinical lines and what you actually see is blurry/graininess does my head in.

I am more and more involved. Going to keep watching.

Yeah got to agree, it's a pretty good stab at the alternate universe thing

I am more and more involved

I'm amazed people can say these things.

It's ludicrous, contrived and laughably scripted. Jumped the shark not when they ended up in a different universe, but when that universe turned out to be populated by humans acting like Klingons. How deep 🙄

I must have been spoiled by high-quality hour-long TV dramas which take their time unfolding a complex story with rich characterisation.

These feel really rushed, fast-forwarding over huge plot points and using only broad brush strokes on most of the characters.

Exactly this.

The interstellar mycelium thing - that's not a bad idea if stretched somewhat, and how it was explored piece by piece was pretty good before Christmas. But they spent all that time getting to this particular point now it's like they're glad that serious stuff is over and they can go back to banal poor quality standard Star Trek Voyager bilge.

@molgrips ftw!

considering how long it took to get into production, the script is dire - and the throwaway swearing/gore/rape , for me , sometimes feel its for "sensationalism" to show its "more adult"

Yes I can hear you, [s]Clem Fandango[/s] Voq, son of none...
Looks as if it took half the season to get to where whoever made the pitch wanted to be at the end of the first episode.

pah , i just had a thought, as they turned a klingon into a total human (on the outside) are they going to macguffin in some sort of klingon/human hybrid that ties in with the original series where klingons look like humans?

thats about the only thing that could tie in, as lets face it , the tech in this series is better than the tech in the next gen movies - yet its set before KIRK IIRC.

disaster.
i would have had more respect if they had kept it "old tech" and copied KIRK era and just concentrated on script/story!

#holographicbloodycommsrubbish....

Jumped the shark not when they ended up in a different universe, but when that universe turned out to be populated by humans acting like Klingons.

You've not watched much Star Trek then I take it? The Mirror Universe has been a thing on and off since an episode in the original series.

Yes and it's absurd and as you correctly point out, cliched to death.

As absurd as FTL travel and that 99.9999% of all intelligent species are bipedal?*

* though IIRC this was addressed in one episode of TNG.

i would have had more respect if they had kept it "old tech" and copied KIRK era

It's a bit of a dichotomy. You can't make a show in 2017 that looks like it was filmed in the 60s. It might please the Trek nerds but outside of fandom it'd be watched by about six viewers. Yet it's a prequel, so should be lower tech. Enterprise suffered badly from this at times.

I can see how they could get away with scripting out some of the advanced tech. The spore drive will eventually be consigned to history as "far too dangerous to use ever again." It kinda makes a mockery of TOS boldly going where no-one has gone before though.

The question I have though is, why create a rod for their back in the first place by setting it ten years before TOS? There's little in Discovery to prevent it being set later in the timeline (so far at least), unless it's going to end up being an actual prequel / set-up for TOS.

"There's little in Discovery to prevent it being set later in the timeline"
thats a good point @Cougar - didnt think of it like that

the only way i can see the spore drive never coming into historical timeline is they all die and /or the ship is lost because so far only that ship has it and the Captain seems keen to keep it away from the federation.

thats assuming they dont transmit thier data/logs back to federation on how its all working of course, which would also be a bit ridiculous...

I was thinking that the mycelium network would somehow be destroyed as part of the plot.

(aside, I've edited the thread title to better reflect the discussion)

It always amazes me how Trekkies, despite watching a show, which, from the outset, has been packed with stuff mainly designed to save on production costs, have managed to turn all its weaknesses into some kind of mythology which transcends mere 'entertainment'. Sitting around for hours talking about moral dilemmas in TNG, good. Kirk knocking out/kissing various bipedal aliens, good. Slight misinterpretation of Klingon dialect - BURN HIM!

And then spend hours picking apart the relative plausibility of each variant.

I reckon Abrams blew up Vulcan just for shits and giggles with this in mind. Take that, Star Trek canon timeline!

I quite enjoy the latest one. Suspension of disbelief is a pretty obvious qualifier for Trek, though.

Loving the critics. It's Start Trek FFS, of course it's preposterous. Not nearly as contrived and unbelievable as Star Wars mind you. At least they've made some effort to explain/justify the tech and don't have all-powerful mystical forces enabling magic powers.

Anyway, I love it. Very much like the darker approach. Early on the klingons were somewhat annoying but this thing about Voq transforming himself into Tyler is properly sinister. They've done a superb job with Tilly too. They've also learned the lessons from TNG, DS9 and Voyager by not having a pompous 'rules are rules' federation zombie captain and Isaacs is brilliant as Lorca. The mycelium drive is ridiculous, but is it any worse than a Heisenberg compensator?

Take that, Star Trek canon timeline!

Yeah. It was a savvy way of ditching a load of baggage so they're free to do what they want without some poindexter whining that they're using phasers two years before they were invented or something.

Suspension of disbelief is a pretty obvious qualifier for Trek, though.

Suspension of disbelief is a requirement for any sci-fi show, but any show still has to be internally consistent. If it sets rules then it should follow them, otherwise it pulls you out of the viewing experience. (There are of course notable exceptions to this, Doctor Who and Red Dwarf jump to mind.)

It's Start Trek FFS, of course it's preposterous.

That's why I don't watch Star Trek generally. I started with this because it looked like it was going to be better, then I became very disappointed.

Not nearly as contrived and unbelievable as Star Wars mind you. At least they've made some effort to explain/justify the tech and don't have all-powerful mystical forces enabling magic powers.

Star Wars isn't sci-fi, it's fantasy, which is why it doesn't need to explain anything, and why it's actually better for not doing so and why the attempt in Ep1 was so egregious. See also Highlander 2.

At least they've made some effort to explain/justify the tech

No, they haven't.

For example - if, in an alternate universe, the course of history has diverged so much, and people with different qualities therefore succeed, why is the alternate ship still full of the same people?

The mycelium drive is ridiculous

Most plausible thing in it, to me.

As absurd as FTL travel and that 99.9999% of all intelligent species are bipedal?*

Much more so. Those things can be explained and extrapolated from principles or at least one chance discovery.

some poindexter

Did you watch Police Academy last night? 🙂

[i]Police Academy[/i]

well at least its written better than this show!

next trick in the book will be a looping time travel episode. oh no wait.....

Did you watch Police Academy last night?

Hah! No, I'm not quite sure where that came from.

Cougar - Moderator
I'm really starting to enjoy it quite a lot. Last night's was properly dark. It feels more like BSG than Star Trek.

That's always been my problem with this and the reboot films. It's all lost the essence of what Star Trek was and Roddenbery's vision.

I love the reboot BSG and darker style mature stories and arcs. STD could be Game of Thrones in space and I'd love that. Just not with the Trek name and characters.

How do you feel about the last two seasons of DS9?

it will probably:
a) get picked up for season 2 and then wobble along with ever poorer ratings
b) revamp some new sexier crew members and go more extreme to try and "crank up the drama"
c) cross/gather characters and plots for the other Star Trek series to pull in ratings
d) end S2 on some form of massive cliffhanger that "....will change the star trek universe for everrrrrrrrrrr...." (s2 ending promo trailer)
e) never get renewed after that

It's all lost the essence of what Star Trek was and Roddenbery's vision.

That happened after series 1 of original Trek, didn't it?

From what I read, much of Roddenberry's vision for the original series was endless parades of young women wearing not a great deal.

It's all lost the essence of what Star Trek was and Roddenbery's vision.

Three female starship captains so far in Discovery. Not sure that would chime with Roddenbery's 'vision'. 🙂

Are you forgetting Voyager?

Not at all, but to condemn this one (and the reboots) for losing this Roddenbery 'spirit of Trek' is like saying that the reboot of BSG lost the beautiful spirit of the original.

Cougar - Moderator
How do you feel about the last two seasons of DS9?

A fair point. Not so great.

martinhutch - Member
is like saying that the reboot of BSG lost the beautiful spirit of the original.

At least it was a plain reboot, not trying to fit into existing timelines while ripping everything up and not fitting in at all. Far better to just utterly ignore what was and start afresh, or set it way off in the future so everything can be funky new modern and different because everything's changed in the future.

Or just ditch the Trek name anyway and make the sci-fi that it really wants to be without the baggage of the name just to try to pull in audiences.

The films for example were really just a vehicle for JJ to do Star Wars. He didn't even like Star Trek, so made a reboot Trek that was Star Wars in style, and sure enough gets the job on Star Wars.

Or, George Lucas making Star Wars when really he wanted to make Flash Gordon but couldn't get the rights to it 😉

A fair point. Not so great.

Interesting. I thought they were probably ST's finest moment.

Or just ditch the Trek name anyway and make the sci-fi that it really wants to be without the baggage of the name just to try to pull in audiences.

It could quite easily have been reframed as something non-Trek. But as you say, there's an immediate audience draw if the name is involved.

Cougar - Moderator
Interesting. I thought they were probably ST's finest moment.

The ongoing story was good in general, although I think the show was never really designed for that kind of thing and the attempts to mix in some fun and distractions got tedious (Vic Fontaine, again!) or downright stupid (Quark stories especially the sex change one) or boring (bloody baseball episode). The ending was a bit meh.

A shame as I love DS9. No real dislike for them, just I though the show was stronger in earlier seasons. Also 6 was better than 7.

DS9 is the one Trek series I sort of missed. I missed a few episodes so the longer story arcs didn't work and I gave up on it.

Might revisit it on Netflix.

Interesting. I thought they were probably ST's finest moment.

Me too. The Dominion war was the best thing to happen to Trek since the Borg. It also was when Trek went down a darker more serious path and binned all the federation utopian moralising (I'm not a huge fan of the federation as you might have guessed). Voyager continued in this vein and it culminated in the epic 3rd series of Enterprise and the war with the Xindi (although the rest of it was shite). Seems to me Discovery is a natural extension of these plotlines in previous series.

I think it's getting good.

Might revisit it on Netflix

I've been watching it, it's terrible. A trekkie from work was also lambasting the new series so I decided to watch DS9 which I hadn't really watched before. I was halfway through S2 and gave up.

I couldn't give two hoots about canon or timeline blah blah blah. ST D has been entertaining, I look forward to each episode and whilst not perfect has eclipsed everything else ST that I've watched.

I decided to watch DS9 which I hadn't really watched before. I was halfway through S2 and gave up.

Yeah, the first season is tripe, and the second season isn't much better. It does improve though.

it culminated in the epic 3rd series of Enterprise and the war with the Xindi (although the rest of it was shite)

I stopped watching Enterprise a couple of episodes into the second series (IIRC). I didn't know about this - Is it worth persevering with then?

Anyone think that the mycelium drive sounded like the infinite improbability drive?

For the hard of thinking and googling (me) please tell me what channel it’s on, ya.

I have been in and out of ST for many years, watched intermittently all the series apart from Enterprise which passed me by for some reason. More of a Star Wars addict when younger. A few months ago I revisited Next Generation. God, that has not aged well. At least Discovery feels modern, and I wait for each new episode. Detractors can watch the older series if they need a Star Trek fix.

Im quite liking ST D something a little differnt if not samey

As for ST DS9 that was simply brilliant at times , Might have to go and relive "In the Pale Moonlight" < this was defining

I like the darker theme going on.

For the hard of thinking and googling (me) please tell me what channel it’s on, ya.

Netflix.

Ta.

so I decided to watch DS9 which I hadn't really watched before. I was halfway through S2 and gave up.

Aargh! you watched all the sh*t ones then gave up just before it got good! Start from the last episode of series 2 when they discover the Jem Hadar and the existence of the Dominion, skip any episodes that are about Jake Sisko (even more annoying than Wesley bloody Crusher!) and Major Kira (especially the tiresome ones about her and Odo later on) and you'll be fine 🙂

I didn't know about this - Is it worth persevering with then?

Yes, definitely. The entire series is one story line which is the war with the Xindi following an attack on earth by an unknown super-weapon. It starts with the last episode of Series 2. There are a couple of duff episodes but otherwise it's brilliant and they throw out all the starfleet regulations and go all wild-west.

All this talk of ST is making me want to repeat my TNG -> Enterprise start to finish view-a-thon. Took me 6 months last time. Not sure I could take many of the TNG episodes now*. Apart from the ones where Picard gets tortured* 😀

*As thomas says, it really hasn't aged well. Even the episode where they discover the Borg is a bit annoying. I think it's the cheesy background music

**And the one where they discover Scotty on a Dyson sphere which has to be the greatest TNG episode ever.

All this talk of ST is making me want to repeat my TNG -> Enterprise start to finish view-a-thon. Took me 6 months last time.

Really enjoyed the latest episode of Discovery.

you watched all the sh*t ones then gave up just before it got good!

This.

Even the episode where they discover the Borg is a bit annoying.

Isn't that the first episode?

I kind of agree Discovery doesn't really have much to do with Star Trek (or at least could have been entirely separate but was just loosely tied in for the extra viewers). Why did they change the Klingon look so much as well? It's not bad it's just strange (the Andorians and Vulcans look pretty much the same as in other ST series).

Isn't that the first episode?

No the first one was that hideous farpoint thing with alien that was being oppressed into being a space station, and Q putting humanity on trial which brought out the worst of picard’s federation moralising.

No the first one was that hideous farpoint thing with alien that was being oppressed into being a space station, and Q putting humanity on trial which brought out the worst of picard’s federation moralising.

I'm muddling the two then. They meet the Borg when Picard tells Q they're ready for anything, and Q goes "you reckon?" I thought that was Encounter At Farpoint, but now you mention it I remember the trial stuff.

It's a while since I watched it (though I do have it on Laserdisc...)

TNG takes a bit to settle in, though there are some early classics in the first few seasons. S4 onwards it gets good.

TOS on the other hand goes downhill after the first season (and certainly the third).

DS9, from when the Jem'Hadar are introduced gets good. A bit meh about the last two, certainly the last. Should have just gone all out with the one story the whole series and a much bigger ending, though I get the feeling they were hoping for a movie spin off.

VOY is consistently meh all along and some stinkers. Though it's averagely watchable. The Fair Haven stuff... good god, no! Worse than Vic Fontaine in repeated annoyance and pointlessness. Has a candidate for all time worst ever Trek episode as well, at least to me, 11:59. Zero to do with Star Trek and is at best a boring daytime telly snoozefest.

ENT - Only pre-JJ series I've not been interested in buying on DVD/Blu Ray and not re-watched. It got some good ones later on and had potential, but I just wish it had never tried to fit in as a prequel. It restricted it and didn't fit anyway. Maybe it will grow on me with a re-watch.

[quote=deadkenny ]VOY is consistently meh all along and some stinkers. Though it's averagely watchable. The Fair Haven stuff... good god, no! Worse than Vic Fontaine in repeated annoyance and pointlessness. Has a candidate for all time worst ever Trek episode as well, at least to me, 11:59. Zero to do with Star Trek and is at best a boring daytime telly snoozefest.

One word: Threshold. 😀

VOY is consistently meh all along and some stinkers. Though it's averagely watchable.

Objection. The Species 8472 plotline was great.

Though it's completely offset by Naomi Wildman and the rest of the rescued families they took on board. That was bilge.

Aside, have you seen Naomi Wildman these days? She's a bit, erm, well...

[img] [/img]

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retro83 - Member
One word: Threshold.

A fair point. It's ridiculous, though not unbearably watchable.

Cougar - Moderator
Objection. The Species 8472 plotline was great.

Briefly, then they turned them into shape shifters that can look human and all made friends. Star Trek always had a problem with truly nasty aliens, especially non humanoid. Though can understand they were a problem being worse than the Borg which diminished the Borg.

And yeah, Naomi now! 😯

Good point, well made. Was fun while it lasted though.

Dunno if anyone's pointed this out yet but I've just been informed the Ash character is actually Clem Fandango!

https://www.metro.news/clem-fandango-hits-warp-speed/819729/

Toast would make a hell of a Star Trek captain, eh?

Star Trek always had a problem with truly nasty aliens, especially non humanoid

I always thought the crystalline entity was an opportunity missed. Had it attacked earth they could have got at least half a series out of it.

Wasn't expecting that..!

(Just watched today's episode; 12, I think?)

Ep12, yes.

And, holy shit!

Yep, I've enjoyed the whole series without over analysing and sucking the fun out of it but ep12 was superb.

I said it earlier, but this is shaping up to be this decade's BSG.

Also, wasn't it so so pretty in places? The outer shots of the

And I dropped my Kobayashi Porcelain mug.

That was a cracking episode.

And I dropped my Kobayashi Porcelain mug.

You'll Maru the day you did that.

IGMC.

I'll just leave this here.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Defiant_(NCC-1764)

You'll Maru the day you did that.

Well played.

Original and the latest I like, the rest meh.

Nice twist 🙂
Nice to be kicking out the black and white morality, lots of internal conflict going on now

Gonna have to watch it again tonight as that episode was crazy. Too much to take in at the end. In fact I might just start again from the start.

Are we doing spoilers on here?

Gonna have to watch it again tonight as that episode was crazy. Too much to take in at the end. In fact I might just start again from the start.

Ditto - was thinking that just this morning!

Are we doing spoilers on here?

I'd prefer it if there wasn't!

one things for sure, these eps are not going to be a terrestial weekday rerun at 5pm for kids.....

Aye, wasn't expecting that at all!

>Wasn’t expecting that..!

yep, just watched it last night, cracking plot twist!

Are we doing spoilers on here?

I’m waiting to see the actual USS Defiant...I can imagine that when/if it does grace our screens, the Trek afficionados will be going nuts if it doesn’t look like the original Enterprise, equally if it does look a bit Fisher Price then there will be equal amounts of outrage.

Got to love Trek fans.

So I was just reading some stuff about psilocybin and it's potential benefits for people with mental illness and I randomly came across this 🙂

That took me a second...

And I thought I over-analysed star trek

Another great episode this week, although they seem to be in a hurry with the plot. They could have strung everything that happened this week into at least 3 episodes, and probably should have done. I had to watch the previous episode 3 times to fully register what the hell was going on, this one's going to need a repeat too.

There's one thing that's bugging me without actively trying to over-analyze, unless I did just miss something because everything is travelling at warp speed. How did Lorca infiltrate star fleet? Did he work his way up from the bottom over a period of fifteen years until he was captain? Got a fake ID? Killed his alternate self and took his place? I'm guessing the last is the only feasible answer.

Also what happened to 'mirror' Lorca and also mirror Burnham? Are they already dead (probably not I suppose).

can't edit my post above to remove Lorca comment...