New Star Trek series - 2017

[JRS]

Kurtzman has publicly stated that they are not interested in Trek except as a socio-political platform to get their influencer messaging across. Good writing, characters, story, etc is all secondary to that, and they really don't have capable people doing those jobs.

What, Trek as social commentary? Well, **** me sideways. I'm stunned. No such thing has ever happened before.

Oh, wait a minute...

Yes, it would be nice if they had great writers. I'd even settle for halfway competent ones But using Trek as a way of getting a message out there has been a thing since TOS and it's sometimes been just as hamfistedly executed as with STD. It's just that this time the messages aren't 'war is bad' or 'computers cannot replace people for everything' or 'we need to move beyond the accumulation of wealth to a more enlightened perspective', but are things like 'your own identity is rather more important than a quirk of biological fate' which is as divisive a topic now as anti-war statements were during TOS.

 

[Steampunk]

What, Trek as social commentary? Well, **** me sideways. I'm stunned. No such thing has ever happened before.

Oh, wait a minute...

Yes, it would be nice if they had great writers. I'd even settle for halfway competent ones But using Trek as a way of getting a message out there has been a thing since TOS and it's sometimes been just as hamfistedly executed as with STD. It's just that this time the messages aren't 'war is bad' or 'computers cannot replace people for everything' or 'we need to move beyond the accumulation of wealth to a more enlightened perspective', but are things like 'your own identity is rather more important than a quirk of biological fate' which is as divisive a topic now as anti-war statements were during TOS.

Yes, but it's not been nothing but messaging. There's been good dialogue, characters, and story. That's gone now. In past series, the messaging was gravy on top, now Trek is nothing but a bucket of gravy, instead of a whole meal.

 

[JRS]

Yes, but it's not been nothing but messaging. There's been good dialogue, characters, and story. That's gone now. In past series, the messaging was gravy on top, now Trek is nothing but a bucket of gravy, instead of a whole meal.

I know bud It was more your apparent incredulity that Kurtzman could possibly want to use Trek to advance a message or two when it was basically created for Gene to do exactly that!

People forget how heavily censored TV was back in the '60s. And sometimes the only way to get an idea out there that the suits would otherwise reject was to distract them with aliens, spaceships, rayguns and a pretty lady wearing almost nothing (God bless you Bill Theiss). They'd be too busy trying to get Gene and the Trek people to cover the lady's bellybutton (because a bellybutton implies that someone was born, which implies childbirth, which implies fornication!) that they'd forget to censor the anti-war message.

 

[Trig]

The writers suck, its that simple, imho...

I loved Sense8 for instance, yet Discovery, I dunno what they're trying to do...

 

[Neil79]

Stop coming to moan week after week if its that bad.

Week after week? I've only made two posts in this entire thread

 

[ChroniC]

I think many star trek fans are reluctant to give up on the franchise, despite how bad the latest iteration of it is.

There's no other space scifi out atm, I try to find what I enjoy but it's slim pickings. The only other thing is the expanse and that's a trillion times better than this. Picard was too similar and if anything worse than Discovery.
Why can't we have a TV show where no one's sexuality is brought up to make me feel guilty about apparently not caring.
If I have to watch Burnem fake smile with cor y dialogue anymore I will stop watching like he says.

 

[Trig]

There's no other space scifi out atm

The Expanse?

 

[ChroniC]

The Expanse?

Did you only read the first line?

 

[iamtheoneneo]

This show is mental.
Its like they are doing their best to just gloss over content that would actually be good to watch.

1. Why not spend multiple episodes on Michael being there for a year?
2. Why not spend multiple episodes on getting Discovery back up to flying, whilst they get help from the planet and learn more about the future they are in. Instead of magically being found at the right moment.
3. Why did Discovery just randomly decide to go to Earth without getting a hint of an info dump from Michael? Why didn't they spend at least an episode talking about the tech available to them, why didn't spend at least another episode acquiring some new tech before heading to earth and getting nearly blown up.
4. Why are the crew so immature, petty arguments and drama....they are supposed to be Star Fleet they are LITERALLY trained to be solid mentally and physically. Warping into the future shouldn't just make them conveniently depressed.
5. Where did the blonde ship mate suddenly come from? and why are they making out that she has been on the bridge all this time?

 

[steve5424]

1-4 story reason and season length.

5. She was the actress originally playing Ariam. However someone could have been on the ship a while and just been posted to the bridge.

 

[james.miller]

Lt. Nilsson. She replaced Airiam when the later died in season 2. The actress also played Airiam in season 1 like Steve said.

 

[Kainz]

What grinds my gears is this new fangled fashion to rapidly show everyones facial reactions if someone so much as farts on the bridge. It's like watching a sodding indian soap or X-Factor where the camera zooms in on someones face - it gets old fast. Detmer's bridge partner whatever her name is, is the worst for this. It's like watching a bunch of babies who should be mentally stable and trained for the rigours of space travel.

I know this show isn't aimed at us trekkies who have been here from the start, and is designed to capture a new breed of audience but keep your hands off those sodding transitions buttons!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TjeRtz_mao

 

[JRS]

1. Why not spend multiple episodes on Michael being there for a year?

In principle - yes, this is a good idea. In practice - more of the solo adventures of Michael Burnham, Galactic Idiot™? Eesh.

2. Why not spend multiple episodes on getting Discovery back up to flying, whilst they get help from the planet and learn more about the future they are in. Instead of magically being found at the right moment.

This would have been good.

Let me play this out:

• Disco crash-lands on the planet. Detmer controlled their re-entry well enough that it wasn't scrap, but a bunch of people still got hurt/died. Her PTSD arc starts.
• Federation settlers on the planet find the beached ship. They're amazed that a ship so old has spore drive tech - this is relatively recent innovation that came after the Burn (if we must have something so stupid in the story). Crew explains the inexplicable - sphere data, Control, Red Angel, dumb decision to go to the future etc. Ask re: Michael. No sign here.
• Several episodes of stitching the Disco back together. Detmer spends time coming to terms with her PTSD/survivor's guilt over those who got hurt/deaded in the landing (Owosekun and Culber help). Stamets spends time coming to terms with no longer being the special and unique flake of snow who's a spore drive interface - a non-living replacement has long since been available. Saru spends time coming to terms with being in command.
• Federation is intact but many races in the galaxy unhappy about how Federation, and Starfleet in particular, are only ones with spore drive. Everyone else making do with dilithium scraps, fusion reactors that limit them to low warp only. Piracy is rampant in outer worlds, Starfleet - even with spore drive - stretched thin.
• Disco re-launches, augmented with 'current' tech but still not exactly 100%. Returns to Earth and Starfleet Command for debrief where they meet back up with Burnham - she'd landed on Terralysium as planned, had to get the time suit working well enough to get herself into orbit again to be picked up by a Starfleet ship in the Beta quadrant. The dilithium the Disco was carrying is distributed to aligned worlds - like Klingons, Cardassians - who have their own small fleets with not nearly enough dilithium to function effectively. This helps get them back in the game.
• The existential threat now is the Tholians (I've got to figure that modern VFX could do justice to them) - who might be close to getting something like spore drive working. Tholians are infamously xenophobic and not at all reverent of things like 'territory' and 'borders'. Starfleet is investigating, adds the Disco to the team after refitting her up to code.
• Some hawks in Starfleet think a war is inevitable. Disco crew not long got done with one, aren't mad keen on repeating the experience, dig more. Turns out Tholians want to use spore tech to escape the galaxy and find somewhere completely unpopulated to live out their existence.
• Starfleet gives Tholians the info to make their version of the drive work. Tholians sod off towards another galaxy. Disco crew is commended. But what caused the Burn? New mission for next season - figure that **** out.

 

[Trig]

How about nby the end of the season the Borg come and wipe everyone out, they've been around long enough to have another tech that doesn't depend on dilithium and do us all a favour?

 

[Steampunk]

What grinds my gears is this new fangled fashion to rapidly show everyones facial reactions if someone so much as farts on the bridge. It's like watching a sodding indian soap or X-Factor where the camera zooms in on someones face - it gets old fast. Detmer's bridge partner whatever her name is, is the worst for this. It's like watching a bunch of babies who should be mentally stable and trained for the rigours of space travel.

Everything about the way STD is shot and scored is to try and makes something dull and boring into something that seems to be exciting. It's a thin veneer of paint over a crumbling building. If you want an exciting, gripping story, then it needs to be written that way. You can't just put zoomy camera angles, shakey-cam, and dramatic music, and expect it to make a boring story suddenly interesting. It's the JJ Abrams and Kurtzman style to try and hide the lack of substance.

 

[iamtheoneneo]

It's like watching a bunch of babies who should be mentally stable and trained for the rigours of space travel.

Honestly its my biggest gripe with it all. Its a ship full of mentally unstable people that want to cry about everything instead of getting on with their mission...I don't actually mind if they want to explore a bit about mental health in weird situations but no-one on that show has the acting chops to pull it off, and the writers certainly cant fathom how to inject it into the show with the class and care it needs.

Half of this show is 'who's going to do some dumb **** this week' , the other half are plots that could actually be good if they gave them a bit more room to breath.

I am staggered that after 2 episodes in the new season everything is basically back to normal .... they spent longer explaining and being in the mirror universe in season 1!

 

[ChroniC]

How about nby the end of the season the Borg come and wipe everyone out, they've been around long enough to have another tech that doesn't depend on dilithium and do us all a favour?

It may never have been mentioned so an easy way to disguise a significant flaw in this dilithium issue is that Romulan warbirds used a self sustained black hole/quantum singularity as a warp core.
I don't think it's ever been mentioned that they needed it.

I bet that although it central to this season it's never mentioned what cause it and why. Just to annoy viewers.

 

[JRS]

It may never have been mentioned so an easy way to disguise a significant flaw in this dilithium issue is that Romulan warbirds used a self sustained black hole/quantum singularity as a warp core.
I don't think it's ever been mentioned that they needed it.

Only we've no idea how much of the Romulan fleet is even still in existence. The nova that took out Romulus ahead of STP/the creation of the JJTrek timeline wiped out much of the Romulan population. They managed to get a fleet of a couple hundred warbirds together for the STP season finale, but that could quite literally have been all that they had. Unless they rebuilt the Romulan Star Empire at some point between the end of season 1 of STP (2399) and 'now' (3189) there might not actually be any warp-capable Romulan ships left anyway - and thinking about it, there can't have been any by the time of the Burn or they'd have taken over the galaxy. Romulans wouldn't be likely to sleep on an advantage like "being the only race left with a fully FTL-capable fleet"!

I bet that although it central to this season it's never mentioned what cause it and why. Just to annoy viewers.

I'm still holding out hope that it's as dumb as Burnham or her mother causing it with all the time jumping. That would truly be fitting for this show.

 

[Kainz]

I'm still holding out hope that it's as dumb as Burnham or her mother causing it with all the time jumping. That would truly be fitting for this show.

I'm expecting it to be something related to this but then again I was in the 'Control is BORG!' camp last season.

 

[Trig]

It may never have been mentioned so an easy way to disguise a significant flaw in this dilithium issue is that Romulan warbirds used a self sustained black hole/quantum singularity as a warp core.
I don't think it's ever been mentioned that they needed it.

I bet that although it central to this season it's never mentioned what cause it and why. Just to annoy viewers.

Ahh yes I remember that being mentioned before..
Something else that's been missed eh..

tbh could be the Romulans, the Borg, anyone, there are bound to be more races out there that have developed some sort of FTL without needing dilithium..