Star Truck: Discovery

[maybeagnostic]

I've never been a big Star Trek fan but I heard some really positive things about the new show so I decided to check it out. Just going off the first two episodes, it seems very promising. It seems like it will be a lot more serialized than previous Trek shows to the point where the starship Discovery doesn't even make an appearance in the first two episodes. The space shots are gorgeous and stress the lack of a common coordinate system in a pretty cool and subtle way. The actors for the three main Starfleet officers work really well together and there is good buildup of their relations in just a few episodes. The only part that left me dissatisfied were the Klingons- I find their makeup a little goofy and it seemed to interfere with their acting. That last bit only stood out to me because Doug Jones (+ makeup and/or CGI people?) did such an amazing job.

About the conflict in the actual episodes

Spoiler:

The show is very relevant to the current political climate which seems like a good place for Trek to be.
I'd be really curious to see what they do with the idea of a conflict between the Federation, a force of multiculturalism and inclusivity, and the Klingon Empire who stress national identity and independence.

If I had to describe it in just a few words, they would be "trekified Expanse but in a good way."

[Liri]

I'm excited to watch it. Deep Space 9 was also quite serialized, especially by the last couple seasons.

[pogrmman]

Enterprise was also serialized, though not as much as DS9.

I’m excited to see the new series. I don’t have particularly high expectations, but it’ll be fun to see (this is coming from somebody who has seen the vast majority of every Star Trek series).

[Chen]

It's supposedly set in the same "Prime" universer (pre TOS by about a decade) but it looks very Abrams universe like which is throwing things off a bit for me. The weird holograms to communicate is also strange since we never saw things like that in the "future" shown in all the other shows. Also really not sure why the Klingons look so different. None of this is really an issue it's just jarring from a continuity point of view.

For episodes 1-2

Spoiler:

They really better have a good way to show Burnham getting onto another ship. Hopefully a fairly decent time jump with her actually being in prison for a bit. Otherwise its going to feel like the Abrams movies where Kirk suddenly gets command of his ship again after being relieved of it 2 scenes before.

[maybeagnostic]

Apparently reviewers got access to the first three episodes so I got a bit of a spoiler about what's coming up in the next one before I started watching the show.

Spoiler:

The review gave me the impression that Burnham spends a while in prison then gets pulled onto a somewhat shady ship as unspecified lower rank which is why she isn't credited as Commander Burnham in the show.

I've never watched DS9 but I would hardly call the season I watched of Enterprise serialized. There is certainly some continuity but swapping the order of episodes around would be quite difficult to notice.

[Zohar]

DS9 is very serialized, and very good. I think the show ends with a series of 8 directly-connected episodes or so, and that's not a rare occurrence.

I'm really curious about the show but I'm hesitant to sign up for CBS All Access for one show - I'll have to see what else is around.

[Chen]

DS9 is very serialized, and very good. I think the show ends with a series of 8 directly-connected episodes or so, and that's not a rare occurrence.

I'm really curious about the show but I'm hesitant to sign up for CBS All Access for one show - I'll have to see what else is around.

Re-watching DS9 it's really not as serialized as I remembered or am used to in current television. There's clearly more serialization to it compared to TNG or TOS but its rarely more than 2-3 episodes in a row. There's LOTS of filler there. A lot of it is good filler though (though some HUGE stinkers in there too coughQuarkpretendingtobeawomancough)

[pogrmman]

Apparently reviewers got access to the first three episodes so I got a bit of a spoiler about what's coming up in the next one before I started watching the show.

Spoiler:

The review gave me the impression that Burnham spends a while in prison then gets pulled onto a somewhat shady ship as unspecified lower rank which is why she isn't credited as Commander Burnham in the show.

I've never watched DS9 but I would hardly call the season I watched of Enterprise serialized. There is certainly some continuity but swapping the order of episodes around would be quite difficult to notice.

The first and second seasons aren’t really serialized much, but after that they are. The second has I think one or two short multi-episode plots (that is 2 episodes), while the first doesn’t really have any. In the last two seasons, there are lots of 3 or 4 episode story arcs. There were a couple longer ones (like the whole Xindi thing) too. Admittedly, the order of most of the short story arcs wasn’t all that important.

That’s why I say it’s a lot more serialized than the likes of TOS, TNG, or VOY.

Re-watching DS9 it's really not as serialized as I remembered or am used to in current television. There's clearly more serialization to it compared to TNG or TOS but its rarely more than 2-3 episodes in a row. There's LOTS of filler there. A lot of it is good filler though (though some HUGE stinkers in there too coughQuarkpretendingtobeawomancough)

DS9 certainly isn't super serialized, but it is the most for Star Trek. At least the episode where Quark pretended to be a woman wasn’t absolutely terrible (coughThresholdfromVoyagercough). I’d definitely put DS9 at the top of all the Star Trek series though — especially once out get past the first season and a half (which wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t as good as the rest of it).

[Chen]

Sure Threshold on Voyager was bad but that Quark episode was way up there too. Or the one where the crew gets transported into a video game somehow by accident. Its pretty fair to say that all the Star Treks had their massive stinker episodes.

[pogrmman]

Sure Threshold on Voyager was bad but that Quark episode was way up there too. Or the one where the crew gets transported into a video game somehow by accident. Its pretty fair to say that all the Star Treks had their massive stinker episodes.

I admit that it is way up there. I tend to like episodes with Zek though, which is probably why it isn’t quite as terrible for me. The Allamarain episode (video game) was terrible. I personally didn’t like the Risa one either. You’re totally right that all of them have a few really bad episodes.

Admittedly, I do kind of have it out for Voyager because they could’ve done so much more with the concept. They didn’t really explore the Maqui/Starfleet dynamic past the first four of five episodes. They didn’t explore the whole being short on resources beyond “we’re short on resource x, so we went to species y and got caught up in event z”. There wasn’t nearly as much character development as I would’ve liked either. Also, most of the episodes were just ok. At least DS9 has a good number of great episodes to balance out the mediocre ones.

[rmsgrey]

Voyager could really have done with being in a position to copy ideas from the Battlestar Galactica remake like DS9 benefited from having Babylon 5 to take inspiration from.

As for Discovery, I'm not in any rush to pay for the privilege of watching it...

[maybeagnostic]

So I take it Discovery is not on Netflix in the US?

[Zohar]

It's on CBS's platform.

[Liri]

Voyager could really have done with being in a position to copy ideas from the Battlestar Galactica remake like DS9 benefited from having Babylon 5 to take inspiration from.

As for Discovery, I'm not in any rush to pay for the privilege of watching it...

One of the writers for Voyager (and TNG and DS9) went on to make the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

Edit: Moore mostly wrote for TNG and DS9, but point stands.

[sardia]

No love for The Orville? It's been dueling with Discovery for a while now. It's not what I expected from Seth Macfarlane. The reviews so far have been it's Next Generation, but less serious/uptight.

[Soupspoon]

Voyager could really have done with being in a position to copy ideas from the Battlestar Galactica remake like DS9 benefited from having Babylon 5 to take inspiration from. it...

IIRC, B5 was '93ish to '98ish, DS9 '93ish to '99ish.

Yes, DS9 got its story arcs, but I'm not sure how much was "our rival is doing that, let's now start doing that ourselves" and how much was merely adopting the same sort of paradigm. It wasn't as apparently entirely pre-planned as Straczynski's whole vision, but it was a function of the Boldly Staying Still Where Nobody Had Sat Still Before setting, such that TOS's Wagon Train setting, TNG's overwhelming Littlest Hoboness, Voyager's inverted Monkey/Journey To The West thing (maybe some Kung Fu?), and (later) Enterprise attempting the prequel (umm Sarah Connor Chronicles? ...Muppet Babies?).

You know, I've still got loads of celephane-wrapped Voyager VHS tapes, in a cupboard upstairs. I wonder if they're worth more or less than I actually paid for them, with or without inflation..?

[Flumble]

No love for The Orville? It's been dueling with Discovery for a while now. It's not what I expected from Seth Macfarlane. The reviews so far have been it's Next Generation, but less serious/uptight.

Would you expect people to suddenly bring up The Orville in a thread dedicated to a Star Trek series? I suppose we do.
So anyway, since you named it, I gave it a try and I'm not happy with the forced uncomfortability/bad acting (I can't tell which it is). Perhaps I'm missing a laughing track to fill the void after a joke. I'm definitely missing a sense of wonder and futurism –not only is mr captain ignorant about his officer's egg-laying habits, he's weirded out by it.
I enjoyed Galaxy Quest more. Seth should've asked to make that into a series.


STD has been quite a smooth ride so far. The characters so far work together well (as can be expected of working together for years), though they seem a bit lacking in the communication department. I really hope the possible klingon war will be background rather than the topic of half the episodes.
And surely the opening is a work-in-progress, right?

[rmsgrey]

Voyager could really have done with being in a position to copy ideas from the Battlestar Galactica remake like DS9 benefited from having Babylon 5 to take inspiration from. it...

IIRC, B5 was '93ish to '98ish, DS9 '93ish to '99ish.

Yes, DS9 got its story arcs, but I'm not sure how much was "our rival is doing that, let's now start doing that ourselves" and how much was merely adopting the same sort of paradigm. It wasn't as apparently entirely pre-planned as Straczynski's whole vision, but it was a function of the Boldly Staying Still Where Nobody Had Sat Still Before setting, such that TOS's Wagon Train setting, TNG's overwhelming Littlest Hoboness, Voyager's inverted Monkey/Journey To The West thing (maybe some Kung Fu?), and (later) Enterprise attempting the prequel (umm Sarah Connor Chronicles? ...Muppet Babies?).

The whole Defiant/White Star thing makes sense as a consequence of the setting - particularly as both shows break out into galactic warfare - but there are other "coincidences" (like both shows breaking out into galactic warfare) that suggest that DS9 was following the grand genre tradition of adopting any good idea that comes along. Babylon 5's nature meant it was much less able to adopt new ideas on the fly, so most of its idea-theft came from earlier works (there's a lot of Tolkien in there)

[maybeagnostic]

No love for The Orville? It's been dueling with Discovery for a while now. It's not what I expected from Seth Macfarlane. The reviews so far have been it's Next Generation, but less serious/uptight.

I gave it a shot but I have no love for The Orville at all. It doesn't take itself seriously, the CGI looks like something from twenty years ago, its parody runs only skin deep, it seemingly has nothing interesting to say and worst of all- it isn't funny. I'd be surprised if anyone actually tried to compare Orville and Discovery as despite the tenuous Star Trek connection, the two shows couldn't be more different. The Orville is more like Big Bang Theory in space or Futurama with all the smart and funny sucked out.

[ObsessoMom]

I thought the Discovery pilot (or half-pilot, since I only watched Episode 1) was pretty good...although it was a little heavy-handed with the whole "ooh, that guy is discriminated against among the Klingons because he's a minority skin color, which would never happen on the more enlightened, inclusive Federation ship" thing. Did they really feel they needed to dumb it down that far for us, or we'd miss the message? (Then again, considering who the current POTUS's base is, perhaps they had cause to feel that this was necessary.)

[Edited to say: Upon further reflection, my saying "which would never happen on the more enlightened, inclusive Federation ship" is unfair, because

Spoiler:

actually the matter of Federation-affiliated people using racial or cultural profiling was brought up rather unsubtly several times in that first episode--such as in the scene with the self-righteous admiral dressing Michael down with his one-sentence lecture "You of all people should know better than to..." (judge people by their race--I don't remember the exact phrasing), followed by Michael's ignored reply about culture, and throughout the episode there were several comments about the risk-aversion of the science officer's species, including one from him about how his species had evolved as prey, with accompanying survival instincts.

So I retract what I said about that.]

Someone really needs to tell The Orville writers that sex jokes aren't automatically clever and funny just because penis = ha ha ha. Maybe they're aiming for that coveted (?) twelve-year-old boy demographic, but if so, they can have it--they certainly won't have me anymore, after that stinker of a pilot. The problem isn't just the bad writing and acting. The real deal-breaker is that I watch science fiction for escapism, and the current real-life political situation is way too close for comfort to The Orville's premise: a completely incompetent white guy being put in charge of something vitally important, and gosh darn it, isn't it amazing how he manages to bluff his way through again and again, despite being repeatedly way out of his depth?

Why, exactly, is this lightweight of a captain, with no discernible leadership or technical qualifications other than being a reasonably good-looking white guy, the only person available for a position of this importance and authority? (I'm referring to The Orville, if that's not clear.) Is it union seniority rules or something? Seriously, this buffoon is the best that a pool of talent several planets large can do? That's not funny, that's depressing.

I agree that The Orville doesn't seem to know if it's a parody or a serious attempt at presenting a sci-fi show. Currently, it falls between two stools. And I'll leave it there.

[charliepanayi]

Someone really needs to tell The Orville writers that sex jokes aren't automatically clever and funny just because penis = ha ha ha.

But that's the writing on all of Seth MacFarlane's TV shows/films!

[Thesh]

I enjoyed Galaxy Quest more. Seth should've asked to make that into a series.

They should do a reboot of the original Galaxy Quest TV show.

[ObsessoMom]

STD has been quite a smooth ride so far.

Unfortunate acronym, isn't it?

[Flumble]

I thought the Discovery pilot (or half-pilot, since I only watched Episode 1) was pretty good...although it was a little heavy-handed with the whole "ooh, that guy is discriminated against among the Klingons because he's a minority skin color, which would never happen on the more enlightened, inclusive Federation ship" thing.

All I got from it is "this klingon has survived and climbed up the ranks despite having a deformity (AFAICT he's albino rather than 'white' memory alpha claims he's albino) and not coming from an old house, yet dares to defy tradition during these unusual circumstances and the others buy into it".
The one thing missing from that scene was a fight between Voq and another klingon who wants to be torchbearer to decide who's worthy. They are a warrior race after all. (Though, it would only be in good taste if Voq isn't presented as the underdog, and even GoT struggles pulling that off –see Theon's recent fight.)

It's unfortunate how racism is brought up in a series set 200 years from now. I don't recall it occuring in any other star trek series (perhaps apart from Enterprise, but there it kind of fits since the crew is littered with present-day americans). Burnham was being impulsive and the admiral had a reasonable counterargument without having to drag race or politics into it.

The Orville is more like Big Bang Theory in space

An apt comparison.

I enjoyed Galaxy Quest more. Seth should've asked to make that into a series.

They should do a reboot of the original Galaxy Quest TV show.

Damn, I thought the show only existed in-universe, but there's even a documentary about it!

[Thesh]

Seriously, though, I think it would be amusing if they really did make a Galaxy Quest TV show but with all cast and crew instructed to always act off set as if they are in the Galaxy Quest movie universe, completely unaware of what occurred to the actors in the movie, whenever they are talking about the show - they should reference original series episodes that were never mentioned, talk about their favorite characters, technical aspects of the original TV series, etc.

[Soupspoon]

STD has been quite a smooth ride so far.

Unfortunate acronym, isn't it?

I suspect it'll sit in the accepted list of abbreviations (of TOS (*fnar!*), TAS (often forgotten), TNG, DS9, Voy and Ent) as "Dis".

Unless you think we shouldn't dis it like that!

[eSOANEM]

I'd definitely prefer DISCO to DIS even it is longer than any of the other abbreviations.

[Soupspoon]

(Have you ever seen the Go Jetters kids edutainment animation, with the disco-dancing spangly-suited unicorn in charge of the crew of a mothership travelling the world to deal with the habitual 'villain' and his mostly oblivious near-destruction of famous natural and historical landmarks... That's what I'd call "Star Trek: Disco", almost. )

[Thesh]

I prefer DSC, which I've seen in use elsewhere.

[Liri]

Sticking with three characters is optimal. I still haven't watched the pilot.

(Apparently Enterprise started getting good in its last season? I've only seen a couple episodes from the first.)

[Soupspoon]

Sticking with three characters is optimal.

At least until we start approaching 36³ separate Trek franchises. ("Yeah, I quite liked the flashback-crossover episode from season 5 of BUM that used recycled and edited footage from KOK, W33 and 5UC, but they completely missed the chance to feature several scenes from ZZZ…")

(Apparently Enterprise started getting good in its last season? I've only seen a couple episodes from the first.)

I got the impression that they were just about on the way to explaining away the various Chronology issues between Ent, TOS and TNG+ in various ways, much as they dealt (sort of) with the whole Klingon phenotype issue. Which I don't think you'll have seen, as I think that was a few more episodes in, maybe even a later series...

Anyway, whether that made it "better" depends on whether you like the possibility of such shoehorning, but I actually quite liked the whole thing. Not that I'm the best benchmark for majority appreciation of a product, and sometimes quite the opposite! But I let it flow over me and it worked, with the added frison of it looking like there'd be a clever plot-twist to adequately explain away the other common complaints from the continuity-complainers (which I can be, on occasion), amongst the others. Or such was my own headcanon.

[Diadem]

The Trailer of Star Trek: Discovery was pretty much one of the worst trailers I've ever seen. It gave off the impression of having nothing at all to do with Star Trek, either the old and the rebooted franchise. It looked like just another grimdark sci-fi universe. The characters looked boring, the plot looked boring, the effects looked boring. The only thing that really stood out were the Klingons, which just looked terrible.

Then I watched the first two episodes...

And it confirmed that everything I feared based on the trailer was correct. The show is generic grimdark sci-fi. The characters were cliched and stupid. The plot was boring. The Klingons do look terrible. They also sound terrible. In DS9 Klingon always sounded awesome. Here it's just weird and annoying. It wasn't all bad, but there's so many good tv shows out there these days, being thoroughly mediocre just doesn't cut it anymore. There was one character I really liked, but based on the ending of the 2nd episode they do not appear to be a regular crew member. The show's main character seems to be its most boring and cliched one. Shame.

Of course we haven't seen a lot of the main cast yet. I'll keep following the show at least until we've seen more of the them. But so far the show is just trash.

[Liri]

Sticking with three characters is optimal.

At least until we start approaching 36³ separate Trek franchises. ("Yeah, I quite liked the flashback-crossover episode from season 5 of BUM that used recycled and edited footage from KOK, W33 and 5UC, but they completely missed the chance to feature several scenes from ZZZ…")

Except Star Trek: BUM won't be an acronym.

[Jorpho]

I'm mostly happy with it so far. DS9, Voyager, and especially Enterprise were getting kind of weird and inbred, and it's nice to see something fresh. I remember when Enterprise came out and there were all kinds of cries of, "How can this more primitive technology look more advanced than what was featured in TOS?" They seem to be completely ignoring such concerns now, which is fine enough, really.

But there are some dangerous signs of fridge logic. Like,

Spoiler:

Why would Burnham be shouldered with the blame of starting the war and killing 8,000 people? It's not like she necessarily did anything wrong – sure, she knocked out her superior officer, but she got right back up again before anything could happen. She did kill T'Kuvma when she presumably could have stunned him and taken him prisoner which was kind of the whole point of the exercise for which the captain died, so I guess she can be faulted for ... getting murderously angry in the heat of the moment? Or maybe it's because she accidentally killed that one Klingon to begin with? It would be quite in keeping with Trek if there was a time-travel episode where she got to go back and see how things might have played out differently, but I think multiple timelines are getting seriously overdone now.

And then in the last episode, she gets this telescope, which I guess ... someone thought to pick up while abandoning the Senzhou? Why, exactly?

[Flumble]

Ooh, the rest of the season has started. If you've never heard of tardigrades before, you sure will during episodes 3 and 4. Ugh, 12-year-old me wouldn't have all this knowledge baggage that hold me back from enjoying the series.

She did kill T'Kuvma when she presumably could have stunned him and taken him prisoner which was kind of the whole point of the exercise for which the captain died, so I guess she can be faulted for ... getting murderously angry in the heat of the moment?[/spoiler]

Yes, that was exceptionally retarded and not only Starfleet but especially the Vulcan Academy should denounce her for it.

Like Enterprise, I don't like the primitive behaviour of high-ranking characters (e.g. "I rather have our ship blow up so we can't do the rescue mission –nor any other ever– than arriving too late for the rescue mission!"). Yes, it creates drama, but it's cheap and doesn't match with the 'future society' I recall from old Star Treks.
Then again, who am I to recall older STs? I watched it as a child mostly, so by now any stupid behaviour or lack of subtlety has faded from memory.

I'll keep watching STD for the space porn and lack of better series ...perhaps this is the moment to fire up DS9.
Also time to play Artemis. I can do better than Lorca.

[maybeagnostic]

Episodes 3+4 weren't as good as I was hoping but they weren't too bad. I just find the larger story is moving a bit too slowly and there isn't anything else of interest going on in the episodes.

What's the issue with the tardigrades?

I am also not quite clear on why everyone is blaming the war on her. Seems to me that they made a connection between Michael's mutiny and generally aggressive behavior and Starfleet's failure to deescalate the situation. Perhaps we are left to assume Starfleet ran a smear campaign that set her up as primarily responsible for instigating the conflict (killing the Klingon) and escalating the confrontation (trying to shoot at the Klingon ship which they apparently detected).

[rmsgrey]

I'll keep watching STD for the space porn and lack of better series ...perhaps this is the moment to fire up DS9.

I recommend Babylon 5

[maybeagnostic]

Sixth episode was pretty nifty and managed to balance an interesting episode story with important development for three of the main characters. Also it apparently casts a new light/plays a cool twist on some TOS episode that I either never saw or have totally forgotten.

[eSOANEM]

Just watched the latest episode and I'm so excited that they're doing old-school style episodes. It was super fun and I absolutely loved it.

[charliepanayi]

I'm traumatised that Wyclef Jean's music has survived well into the 23rd Century.