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Post by Generic Poster on Feb 14, 2018 14:39:40 GMT -5
I guess now I can sign up for the free week of CBS' Dumb Streaming Service and burn through all 15 eps.
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Post by Lt. Broccoli on Feb 15, 2018 10:27:44 GMT -5
This episode also had colonies on the Moon, and they mentioned Mintaka III, and several other references...so, once again, clearly someone involved knows and loves the Star Trek canon, but also once again that's not really being put to good use when everything else is so infuriating.
...it's still cool to see the old-style Enterprise though.
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Post by Generic Poster on Feb 21, 2018 10:41:19 GMT -5
I got the free week and burned through this. I found that I enjoyed it during the moments I could ignore that this is supposed to be a prequel. I eventually just decided to treat it as yet another alternate timeline (which the show gives some support for). It's totally baffling to me why they went the prequel route. This would have worked just fine as a post-TNG/VOY series, and you wouldn't have had the issues with the totally new technologies. You wouldn't have been able to use the Klingons as antagonists, but since the "Klingons" in STD were nothing like the Klingons we've seen before anyway, I don't see why that would matter. Just make the enemy Gorn, or Breen, or Tholians, or someone new. I guess you also wouldn't have been able to have Michael's Vulcan/Spock connection, but I don't see that that added anything to the story.
Out of curiosity, I also watched the mirror universe eps from Enterprise which STD referenced (I stopped watching ENT about 5 episodes into S1). Those terrible episodes did make me appreciate STD more.
Also, where the fuck did the "mirror universe guys need sunglasses real bad" thing come from? I don't recall that from any of the other mirror episodes.
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 21, 2018 12:05:13 GMT -5
I don't know why this just occurred to me (and I am broadly in agreement with what you say here, to be clear), but technically kinda, sorta they can't set anything post-TNG/Voyager because that timeline was obliterated by the events of Star Trek 2009, and 2009 went out of its way to position itself as a direct post-TNG continuation and thus have those movies be the extension of the story that we've been following since The Cage. If you want to do anything approaching a consistent continuity or canon (I really, genuinely don't care about canon one iota, so this is full Devil's Advocate mode here), then setting Discovery before TOS means that the events here are technically playing out in the Prime Timeline, but also unaffected by the events of 2009. To set a show in the post-TNG/Voyager era would actually involve a lot more continuity wank than any causal viewer should have to put up with (or indeed any long-term viewer).
If for one moment I believed that was intentional, I'd be impressed. But I'm not. So I'm not.
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Post by Generic Poster on Feb 21, 2018 12:11:33 GMT -5
I don't know why this just occurred to me (and I am broadly in agreement with what you say here, to be clear), but technically kinda, sorta they can't set anything post-TNG/Voyager because that timeline was obliterated by the events of Star Trek 2009, and 2009 went out of its way to position itself as direct post-TNG continuation and thus have those movies be the extension of the story that we've been following since The Cage. If you want to do anything approaching a consistent continuity or canon (I really, genuinely don't care about canon one iota, so this is full Devil's Advocate mode here), then setting Discovery before TOS means that the events here are technically playing out in the Prime Timeline, but unaffected by the events of 2009 so not part of the Abramsverse. If for one moment I believed that was intentional, I'd be impressed. But I'm not. So I'm not. I don't see why setting it in the future would cause any problems. The show wouldn't need to directly address any of the events of TNG/DS9/VOY, or the destruction of Vulcan. Even if they did, we have no reason to believe that Picard et al. don't exist in the Abramsverse in basically the same way they did in the Prime timeline. Plus, they could explicitly set it one continuity or the other - the Abrams-verse was pretty explicit in saying it was a parallel timeline that didn't destroy the original one. Also, the destruction of the Kelvin occurred well before the events of Discovery, right? So Discovery still suffers from "which timeline are we in?" to the same extent any future-set show would. In other words, the future can avoid continuity-wanking by simply not referencing the past, whereas a prequel is by definition bound by the continuity. |
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 21, 2018 12:34:30 GMT -5
I'm drinking at work, so I may be forgetting the details, but I thought the Kelvin was slightly later than Discovery's time, though you may well be right.
Probably the point I ought to be making is that this series is absolutely shit when it comes to dealing with Star Trek continuity, and I shouldn't be trying to invoke more of it...
And, again, I wholeheartedly agree that that almost all of the continuity fuck-ups of Discovery would be solved by having it post-Voyager (post-Nemesis I suppose), but I also maintain that the continuity issues in Discovery are the very least of its problems (while still totally understanding why they bug long-term fans).
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Post by Generic Poster on Feb 21, 2018 13:51:58 GMT -5
I'm drinking at work, so I may be forgetting the details, but I thought the Kelvin was slightly later than Discovery's time, though you may well be right. Isn't Discovery supposed to be 10 years before TOS? If so, the Kelvin took place well before that, since Kirk was born during that incident. |
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 21, 2018 17:09:07 GMT -5
Oh you are 100% right and I am 100% wrong. Apologies.
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Post by Generic Poster on Feb 21, 2018 17:49:51 GMT -5
Oh you are 100% right and I am 100% wrong. Apologies. Don't let it happen again! |
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 22, 2018 3:41:51 GMT -5
*hangs head in shame*
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2018 8:09:25 GMT -5
I got the free week and burned through this. I found that I enjoyed it during the moments I could ignore that this is supposed to be a prequel. I eventually just decided to treat it as yet another alternate timeline (which the show gives some support for). It's totally baffling to me why they went the prequel route. This would have worked just fine as a post-TNG/VOY series, and you wouldn't have had the issues with the totally new technologies. You wouldn't have been able to use the Klingons as antagonists, but since the "Klingons" in STD were nothing like the Klingons we've seen before anyway, I don't see why that would matter. Just make the enemy Gorn, or Breen, or Tholians, or someone new. I guess you also wouldn't have been able to have Michael's Vulcan/Spock connection, but I don't see that that added anything to the story. Out of curiosity, I also watched the mirror universe eps from Enterprise which STD referenced (I stopped watching ENT about 5 episodes into S1). Those terrible episodes did make me appreciate STD more. Also, where the fuck did the "mirror universe guys need sunglasses real bad" thing come from? I don't recall that from any of the other mirror episodes. Why set it as a prequel? Because they aren't confident they can get a viewership without having dumbass fanservice seep it's way into the show. |
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Feb 22, 2018 8:24:59 GMT -5
The problem here (and that similarly affected ENT) is that you cannot make "Star Trek Fanservice: The Next Generation" and expect everyone to be amicable towards it simply because it knows the lore but is otherwise hollow.
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 22, 2018 12:10:30 GMT -5
That's exactly the problem with Enterprise - it's the first Trek that is primarily written from an angle of "keep the fans happy" rather than it being aimed at a broader audience, and it's an absolutely fatal mistake, both in terms of creativity and viewing figures. Enterprise apologists will point out that S4 demonstrates the show getting better, which it technically does, but Enterprise's best season still doesn't come close to Voyager S3/4/5, DS9 4/5/6 or TNG 4/5/6 in terms of overall quality, and that tendency to write towards the fans is part of that. All branches of the franchise have suffered from it at some point, and it was for example very damaging to the end of TNG's run, when it became "The Data And Picard Show" but Enterprise is the first show that has that built-in as part of its premise (Doctor Who did something similar in the mid-80's and ended up with the same result - cancellation).
What's odd about the fan-service on Discovery is just how badly it's done. It's all very slathering everything in those damned Starfleet chevrons - the whole show literally opens on a massive one being drawn in the sand, which should have told us something - but that doesn't actually achieve anything except seeming to point at fans and say, "See! This is the same show you're used to watching!" when in fact the characters and storytelling should make that obvious without draping everything in that symbol. Similarly, if you're going to go for fan service (and remember, this is a show that devoted two episodes out of a fifteen-episode season to Harry Mudd, not exactly a well-known name outside of fan circles) you might as well get it right. Yet as many have pointed out we have pre-TNG holodecks, a previously-unmentioned feature of MU characters (the light sensitivity) that's entirely reveal-the-plot-convenient... there are myriad examples, and I wont list them all out, but it's a strange aspect for Discovery to have whiffed quite so badly.
I'll again assert that making this a post-Nemesis show would solve a lot of the continuity issues, but the continuity issues are honestly the least of Discovery's problems (very annoying though they are).
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Post by Generic Poster on Feb 22, 2018 13:00:44 GMT -5
They didn't even get the "damned Starfleet chevrons" right. In TOS, each ship had its own symbol - the one on Kirk's shirt didn't become THE Starfleet symbol until after TOS. See, e.g. Matt Decker:  And Jerk Captain from the Awful Reading the Constitution Episode:  However, if you're counting TAS as canon, the Enterprise had a holodeck on the cartoon. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 22, 2018 14:28:37 GMT -5
I don't know why this just occurred to me (and I am broadly in agreement with what you say here, to be clear), but technically kinda, sorta they can't set anything post-TNG/Voyager because that timeline was obliterated by the events of Star Trek 2009, and 2009 went out of its way to position itself as a direct post-TNG continuation and thus have those movies be the extension of the story that we've been following since The Cage. If you want to do anything approaching a consistent continuity or canon (I really, genuinely don't care about canon one iota, so this is full Devil's Advocate mode here), then setting Discovery before TOS means that the events here are technically playing out in the Prime Timeline, but also unaffected by the events of 2009. To set a show in the post-TNG/Voyager era would actually involve a lot more continuity wank than any causal viewer should have to put up with (or indeed any long-term viewer). If for one moment I believed that was intentional, I'd be impressed. But I'm not. So I'm not. Yeah, no, as Generic Poster kind of gets at, there is no problem with making it set after DS9/VOY. The 2009 movie doesn't obliterate the prime timeline. It says that the star that Romulus orbits went supernova, destroying that system. And then Spock used his magic techy stuff to try to stop it, but it didn't work, and Spock ended up thrown back in time, and the villain chased him through that time warp. So, the only thing that sits in future continuity is that the Romulan sun blows up. I distinctly remember this part because it really pisses me off. Moreso than almost anything else in the entirety of Trek. There is absolutely no reason for any of that to have happened. The 09 movie posits that the Romulans knew their star was going supernova, and their ONLY plan was to ask Spock to develop some magic tech that could save them. They had DECADES of notice on this. Realistically, everyone in TNG-era Trek would have known that the Romulan sun was dying and would probably go supernova. But apparently, they all died because Spock couldn't save them at the last minute? WTF??? Furthermore, not all of the Romulan Empire is contained in one star system. So the 2009 plot set up is entirely bullshit. I'd fully support setting a show in that future Prime timeline which reveals that this didn't really go the way the 09 movie said it did. The Romulans are liars. Just say they weren't really fully relying on Spock and had already evacuated most of their people. And this stupid mining ship captain wasn't at a need-to-know level, so he just chased Spock across time for nothing. Sure, the star would still go supernova. But there is no reason any Romulans had to be there when it happened. Edited: Also, they absolutely could have a similar Klingon war story if it were set post DS9/VOY. The ending of DS9 leaves the entire quadrant a mess. The Klingon Empire has a new Chancellor, a commoner not from a Great House. The Federation and Klingons took massive losses in that war. The Romulans took losses. Cardassia is nearly destroyed, and will be requesting aid, no doubt. I see no problem with saying the Klingons have devolved into factional infighting. And anyway, DSC didn't really care about it being Klingons. It was essentially fan service. |
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 22, 2018 15:08:04 GMT -5
And Vulcan is destroyed in the past, which would surely affect the future? I can imagine that having a significant impact, not just in terms of how many Vulcans we might subsequently have on the shows (I do hope Tuvok was off-world...), but in terms of the way the Federation might view threats and how they might develop different policies and approaches to dealing with those threats. Yeah this is bullshit, and I say that as someone who's generally fairly well-disposed towards the Abramsverse movies. Supernovae can be predicted centuries in advance, so the idea that this one was going to happen as if someone had flicked a switch on a great big bomb is total bullshit. I know Star Trek isn't always the most scientifically accurate show in the world but still, this is a pretty basic Thing To Get Right. Just hand-wave it - they were attacked by... oh I don't care, the Borg, or Species 8472, or some Founder weapon, or some secret Cardassian weapons program... Or the fucking device Soran developed in Generations, that would do it! Anything! Me too! In fact, I'd support a show that just picked a goddamned side! I've alluded to this elsewhere, but just tell us when this is set - the Prime Timeline, the Abramsverse Timeline, or something else, it's all good. Discarding known continuity and just playing with what works? Fine, if that's what you want to do! But tell us! Stop hedging your bets in a way that a casual audience doesnt care about and which long-term fans only get annoyed by. Aargh! There's absolute no reason not to... unless they're going to go for a big ta-da! moment and have a later reveal that this isn't the Prime Timeline (hence the pre-TNG holodecks etc). Except that's not really going to work now, because they've dragged it out too long. Either we expect the big ta-da moment as way of papering over how badly they've handled continuity or they've just really badly handled continuity, which could easily have been fixed by making it post-Voyager/Nemesis (or post the first ten minutes of 09, I suppose). Generic Poster - I have to say I always assumed the fact that the likes of Decker didn't have the chevron was because it was a rank thing, rather than ships having different symbols. He was senior to Kirk so had a different thing on his shirt to denote that, rather than just the sleeve stripes. But you may be right indeed. And I admit I'm in full Devil's Advocate mode here (because it's fun!) but even if you take TAS as canon (and I generally don't care about canon one figgin) then TAS is set after TOS. Discovery is ten years prior to TOS, so that means TAS is approximately thirteen to fifteen years in Discovery's future (assuming you take each season of TOS as approximating one year). Sooooo it's possible for the holo technology in Discovery to still be anachronistic even if TAS is canon. Also on the pointless continuity debate, what constitutes supremacy in canon? TNG tells us the holodeck is brand-new technology in Encounter At Farpoint, but TAS has them established in a much earlier timeframe. Which has canonicity dominance? They can't both be right... |
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Post by Generic Poster on Feb 22, 2018 15:24:53 GMT -5
TNG tells us the holodeck is brand-new technology in Encounter At Farpoint, but TAS has them established in a much earlier timeframe. Which has canonicity dominance? They can't both be right... Oh, yeah? I didn't remember that at all. And the shows obviously trump the cartoon. I'm totes right on the chevron thing, but that's a detail even I don't actually give a shit about. I will give the Enterprise mirror universe eps credit for getting this right - when they were wearing the Defiant's uniforms, they all had a unique chevron (unique to the Defiant, I mean). Similarly, I wouldn't care about them completely ignoring dumb 60s artifacts (women can't be ship captains because they'll start crying!). But the super-advanced tech, the spore drive, Spock's heretofore unmentioned adoptive sister,* etc., are all a bridge too far. * I did kind of like how they gave more nuance to Sarek's pissyness at Spock going with Starfleet - he threw Michael under the bus for nothing! |
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 22, 2018 16:51:59 GMT -5
TNG tells us the holodeck is brand-new technology in Encounter At Farpoint, but TAS has them established in a much earlier timeframe. Which has canonicity dominance? They can't both be right... Oh, yeah? I didn't remember that at all. And the shows obviously trump the cartoon. I'm totes right on the chevron thing, but that's a detail even I don't actually give a shit about. I will give the Enterprise mirror universe eps credit for getting this right - when they were wearing the Defiant's uniforms, they all had a unique chevron (unique to the Defiant, I mean). Similarly, I wouldn't care about them completely ignoring dumb 60s artifacts (women can't be ship captains because they'll start crying!). But the super-advanced tech, the spore drive, Spock's heretofore unmentioned adoptive sister,* etc., are all a bridge too far. * I did kind of like how they gave more nuance to Sarek's pissyness at Spock going with Starfleet - he threw Michael under the bus for nothing! Yeah Encounter At Farpoint makes a huge deal out of the holodeck, how it's new technology and how super-duper-wonderful it is, despite apparently existing solely to give Data somewhere to practice his whistling and humiliate Wesley. And The Big Goodbye (the first holodeck-gone-wrong story) makes a play about how it's unfamiliar technology so they don't know quite how to shut it down (I think it's fairly low in the mix there though). You win the chevron argument! |
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Feb 22, 2018 18:13:18 GMT -5
What I find even weirder is that in early season one TNG there’s a pretty strong implication that the holodeck really is just a big replicator that puts whole environments—or even living things—into storage (I haven’t seen “Code of Honor” since it cycled through reruns when I was in elementary school, because I don’t hate myself, but from what I recall even the opponents aikido training simulation were real, even if they weren’t actually people, thus the idea of holodeck safeties). When they updated the system with Dixon Hill and Riker’s holo-jazz lady having actual, interactive people was treated as a massive new step forward, which was why you had a malfunction. And IIRC with the Dixon Hill episode they were still going with the replication route, only it wasn’t real matter but “holo-matter” that needs to remain in the holodeck to be stable, because otherwise it would get too weird. It’s only later that TNG-era holograms=3D projections with some stuff (e.g. water, food) being replicated.
Has fuck all to do with Discovery but I always found that kind of weird and interesting.
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Post by Lt. Broccoli on Feb 25, 2018 7:20:22 GMT -5
And Vulcan is destroyed in the past, which would surely affect the future? I can imagine that having a significant impact, not just in terms of how many Vulcans we might subsequently have on the shows (I do hope Tuvok was off-world...), but in terms of the way the Federation might view threats and how they might develop different policies and approaches to dealing with those threats. Vulcan is only destroyed in the alternate timeline (in the Kelvinverse or Abramsverse or whatever we're calling it), due to Nero and Spock accidentally travelling back through time because of [technobabble]. |
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Post by Generic Poster on Feb 27, 2018 14:07:28 GMT -5
And Vulcan is destroyed in the past, which would surely affect the future? I can imagine that having a significant impact, not just in terms of how many Vulcans we might subsequently have on the shows (I do hope Tuvok was off-world...), but in terms of the way the Federation might view threats and how they might develop different policies and approaches to dealing with those threats. Vulcan is only destroyed in the alternate timeline (in the Kelvinverse or Abramsverse or whatever we're calling it), due to Nero and Spock accidentally travelling back through time because of [technobabble]. Plus, the destruction of Vulcan is only a story issue if the writers choose to make it one. TNG was pretty light on Vulcans, but Vulcan was still around. We know a large number of Vulcans survived, so you could have them in the future-set show regardless, without ever mentioning it. Just like how Spock never mentioned his human adoptive sister. Even when she's a famous mutineer, and he mutinied to take Captain Pike back to Ass-Head Planet.  |
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Post by Lt. Broccoli on Feb 27, 2018 15:47:42 GMT -5
Hey was that MU Stamets literally in the mirror that one time? I just realized that.
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 28, 2018 4:38:10 GMT -5
Vulcan is only destroyed in the alternate timeline (in the Kelvinverse or Abramsverse or whatever we're calling it), due to Nero and Spock accidentally travelling back through time because of [technobabble]. Plus, the destruction of Vulcan is only a story issue if the writers choose to make it one. TNG was pretty light on Vulcans, but Vulcan was still around. We know a large number of Vulcans survived, so you could have them in the future-set show regardless, without ever mentioning it. Just like how Spock never mentioned his human adoptive sister. Even when she's a famous mutineer, and he mutinied to take Captain Pike back to Ass-Head Planet. I suppose Star Trek V: What Does God Want With A Starship pulled the same trick, wherein we found out Spock had a completely unheard-of half-brother. So sure, let's use ST:V as our template for things to be good! |
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Mar 9, 2018 5:42:46 GMT -5
Finding out Rob Liefield wrote some stuff in DIS explains an awful lot.
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 20, 2018 4:59:33 GMT -5
Desert Dweller Huh, I so I guess I do have an opinion of Fuller after all, and it’s a favorable one! “Threshold” is weird and bad, but it’s so weird that it’s—not quite compelling, but not impossible to watch either. The real Voyager feat of strength is “Parturition.” Seconded on "Parturition", it will come as no surprise to discover. And mostly signing off on Jean-Luc Lemur's list of episodes as well (and anyone that gives Roxann Dawson love wins my heart, because she is absolutely fucking awesome, and a real contender for the most under-appreciated actor in all of Trek). |
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Mar 20, 2018 13:37:33 GMT -5
Prole Hole The fact that Voyager was the launching pad for her now-very-successful TV directing career is also nice.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Mar 24, 2018 23:59:11 GMT -5
If you all haven't seen the Deleted Scene from the S1 Finale the ST:Discovery team released today, I highly recommend you go check it out. I am not sure I can adequately describe it. This was tweeted out with SPOILER ALERT. And the actor involved indicated on Twitter that he will be in S2. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r04XSf6UGsThis character he plays approaches Michelle Yeoh's character in the club on Kronos. He appears to be a Trill. She calls him a Trill. He is trying to recruit her to join him in something. She calls him out as lying. He then taps himself to *remove the Trill spots*. He leaves her a box and says "Welcome to Section 31". Inside the box is the black badge we've seen crew members wearing on the Discovery. This means 1. This guy used Trill spots as a disguise 2. Section 31 members wear visible black badges |
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Mar 25, 2018 11:49:41 GMT -5
For no good reason at all I just skimmed some comments on the last page here despite not having seen the show, and just wanted to chime in thatI'm 95% sure that TAS is technically not canon. I think?
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Post by Lt. Broccoli on Mar 25, 2018 14:47:15 GMT -5
If you all haven't seen the Deleted Scene from the S1 Finale the ST:Discovery team released today, I highly recommend you go check it out. I am not sure I can adequately describe it. This was tweeted out with SPOILER ALERT. And the actor involved indicated on Twitter that he will be in S2. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r04XSf6UGsThis character he plays approaches Michelle Yeoh's character in the club on Kronos. He appears to be a Trill. She calls him a Trill. He is trying to recruit her to join him in something. She calls him out as lying. He then taps himself to *remove the Trill spots*. He leaves her a box and says "Welcome to Section 31". Inside the box is the black badge we've seen crew members wearing on the Discovery. This means 1. This guy used Trill spots as a disguise 2. Section 31 members wear visible black badges What the...zuh? This is a great example of the "sounds pretty cool but actually makes no sense" aesthetic of this show. |
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Mar 25, 2018 14:59:25 GMT -5
Rob Liefield you guys, I’m telling you...
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