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Re: DSC S3: People of Earth
@Yanks
“She didn't sabotage Discovery per se, she inhibited the inspectors from beaming back out” — “They didn't assume she was buying time, she told them that”.
Adira sabotaged to inspectors’ personal transporters by abusing the ship’s deflector. Minutes later, the raiders attack, the inspectors want to beam out but can’t. Moreover, if the sabotage be removed, Discovery’s shields would go down, making her helpless against the attack. The most obvious interpretation is that Adira must be in league with the raiders. Yet Stamets
jumps to the conclusion “Maybe, she was buying herself some time” (30:30). Then they talk to her about the spore drive, which is so highly classified that Starfleet had kept it secret for 930 years.
“Suru states they "need to have a conversation" because HE thinks there needs to be a decision made between the two”
I think that is correct, but the question arises why Saru wants the discussion in the first place. He was First Officer during S2 and has filled the rôle of Acting Captain several times, and particularly since the time jump. No one else has a claim to the Central Seat. The entire scene is only there to convince us that Burnham is no longer overambitious but a modest, supportive team player.
But here is the thing: When Saru asks Burnham “for a conversation” (7:30), I had absolutely no idea what he was going for. Burnham’s serene-smiling answer “Oh, no no no no no, there is no need” made really no sense to me because I truly considered the issue on who is captain clear by that point. Nᴏᴛ ꜱᴏ Bᴜʀɴʜᴀᴍ, who (correctly, as it turned out) assumed Saru would offer her captaincy. That she considered that a real possibility either speaks volumes about her ambition or rank-fixation, or is just bad writing.
@Yanks
“She didn't sabotage Discovery per se, she inhibited the inspectors from beaming back out” — “They didn't assume she was buying time, she told them that”.
Adira sabotaged to inspectors’ personal transporters by abusing the ship’s deflector. Minutes later, the raiders attack, the inspectors want to beam out but can’t. Moreover, if the sabotage be removed, Discovery’s shields would go down, making her helpless against the attack. The most obvious interpretation is that Adira must be in league with the raiders. Yet Stamets
jumps to the conclusion “Maybe, she was buying herself some time” (30:30). Then they talk to her about the spore drive, which is so highly classified that Starfleet had kept it secret for 930 years.
“Suru states they "need to have a conversation" because HE thinks there needs to be a decision made between the two”
I think that is correct, but the question arises why Saru wants the discussion in the first place. He was First Officer during S2 and has filled the rôle of Acting Captain several times, and particularly since the time jump. No one else has a claim to the Central Seat. The entire scene is only there to convince us that Burnham is no longer overambitious but a modest, supportive team player.
But here is the thing: When Saru asks Burnham “for a conversation” (7:30), I had absolutely no idea what he was going for. Burnham’s serene-smiling answer “Oh, no no no no no, there is no need” made really no sense to me because I truly considered the issue on who is captain clear by that point. Nᴏᴛ ꜱᴏ Bᴜʀɴʜᴀᴍ, who (correctly, as it turned out) assumed Saru would offer her captaincy. That she considered that a real possibility either speaks volumes about her ambition or rank-fixation, or is just bad writing.
Re: DSC S3: People of Earth
So, DIS S03 starts both intriguing and flawed. I am tempted to write “It has happened before and it will happen again”.
The story idea of a post-apocalyptic future with technology becoming partly unavailable and political structures crumbling into a Balkanic mess is both brilliant and trite, depending on the ʜᴏᴡ (take ‘Mad Max’ on the brilliant side, and ‘Andromeda’ for a more asinine approach). By now, we are pretty much in a StarWarsy territory (original trilogy), with a bunch of planets that make their own rules. This could be interesting.
We also have a Mystery™ that our heroes must solve, which was certainly innovative in 2000 but is less so now. No one, however, brought up the obvious idea to ask Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po (who is both the queen and the twin sister of a planet that seems to been composed mostly of dilithium). Either the writers forgot about her, or she will show up a a surprise trump card that will surprise no one. i am shocked, however, how bad the mystery was handled: When Burnham was confronted with the disaster, she was curious to learn details and asked about it (‘The Hope is You, 19:17), while Saru was curiously uninquisitive about the lack of dilithium and did not even ask what “The Burn” was (‘Far from Home’, 36:24). That’s obviously because while he did not know about it, he knew that the audience already knows and would be bored by a second explanation. Good writers could have given two complementary explanations that make sense in the story and provide different parts of the puzzle to the audience. Instead, we get another piece of explanation at beginning of ‘People on Earth’ that informs that all *active* warp cores exploded — since the warp core gets rarely shut down in a starship, this means probably the overwhelming majority of the fleet. In that light, when Saru (21:45) explains “We were not at warp”, this should make no sense to Ndoye, but she buys it nevertheless.
This small example shows that the writing still sucks. Instead of the characters acting according to the level of information they are established to have, they are relegated to plot pawns. Another example is Adira. I know she is a likeable character because it was announced so before on the media. But where do Tilly and Stamets get this information? That tween or teen menace (¿?¿) had sabotaged the ship immediately before an attack, but no one connects that. Rather, they go for a completely unexpected route and assume she is a nerd girl buying some time, and brief her on the spore drive to open her up, which turns out the right move. Because the script wants it so.
Rather, the script focuses on Emotional Moments™, most of which range between hollow and unnatural. Again, the worst offender is Burnham; she stayed pretty clear of this in “The Hope is You”, but as soon as she sees a Discovery crew member, she falls back to her old ways. This soured the somewhat awesome end scene in “Far from Home” (sure, your friends are in peril, and you waste time by telling them how you like them), and it becomes pervading in her dialogues with Tilly and especially Saru in ‘People of Earth’. Seriously, she allows Saru to become captain? By what authority? She promotes herself to Number One (stating her potential future disobedience right in the process)? And everyone sobs in joy?
There is still a decent story that could be told decently. But my hopes are dwindling. This show will be remembered as “a high-budget prestige show that went intellectually outclassed by a goofy 20-min cartoon show”. And I am StarTrek fan enough that I hope I am wrong.
So, DIS S03 starts both intriguing and flawed. I am tempted to write “It has happened before and it will happen again”.
The story idea of a post-apocalyptic future with technology becoming partly unavailable and political structures crumbling into a Balkanic mess is both brilliant and trite, depending on the ʜᴏᴡ (take ‘Mad Max’ on the brilliant side, and ‘Andromeda’ for a more asinine approach). By now, we are pretty much in a StarWarsy territory (original trilogy), with a bunch of planets that make their own rules. This could be interesting.
We also have a Mystery™ that our heroes must solve, which was certainly innovative in 2000 but is less so now. No one, however, brought up the obvious idea to ask Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po (who is both the queen and the twin sister of a planet that seems to been composed mostly of dilithium). Either the writers forgot about her, or she will show up a a surprise trump card that will surprise no one. i am shocked, however, how bad the mystery was handled: When Burnham was confronted with the disaster, she was curious to learn details and asked about it (‘The Hope is You, 19:17), while Saru was curiously uninquisitive about the lack of dilithium and did not even ask what “The Burn” was (‘Far from Home’, 36:24). That’s obviously because while he did not know about it, he knew that the audience already knows and would be bored by a second explanation. Good writers could have given two complementary explanations that make sense in the story and provide different parts of the puzzle to the audience. Instead, we get another piece of explanation at beginning of ‘People on Earth’ that informs that all *active* warp cores exploded — since the warp core gets rarely shut down in a starship, this means probably the overwhelming majority of the fleet. In that light, when Saru (21:45) explains “We were not at warp”, this should make no sense to Ndoye, but she buys it nevertheless.
This small example shows that the writing still sucks. Instead of the characters acting according to the level of information they are established to have, they are relegated to plot pawns. Another example is Adira. I know she is a likeable character because it was announced so before on the media. But where do Tilly and Stamets get this information? That tween or teen menace (¿?¿) had sabotaged the ship immediately before an attack, but no one connects that. Rather, they go for a completely unexpected route and assume she is a nerd girl buying some time, and brief her on the spore drive to open her up, which turns out the right move. Because the script wants it so.
Rather, the script focuses on Emotional Moments™, most of which range between hollow and unnatural. Again, the worst offender is Burnham; she stayed pretty clear of this in “The Hope is You”, but as soon as she sees a Discovery crew member, she falls back to her old ways. This soured the somewhat awesome end scene in “Far from Home” (sure, your friends are in peril, and you waste time by telling them how you like them), and it becomes pervading in her dialogues with Tilly and especially Saru in ‘People of Earth’. Seriously, she allows Saru to become captain? By what authority? She promotes herself to Number One (stating her potential future disobedience right in the process)? And everyone sobs in joy?
There is still a decent story that could be told decently. But my hopes are dwindling. This show will be remembered as “a high-budget prestige show that went intellectually outclassed by a goofy 20-min cartoon show”. And I am StarTrek fan enough that I hope I am wrong.
Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks
@Trent: No, the exocomp thing is just a disposable C plotline.
The „mass slaughter“ refers probably to the loss of the U.S.S. Solvang, a California-class ship that gets blown up with all hands by a combination of Pakled pirates and her captain’s spectacular stupidity (which is played for laughs just seconds before the Pakleds show up). That incident takes place just at the beginning of the 1ˢᵗ act, yet the Cerritos arrives later in that place and has to deal with the Pakleds; at the end, the Cerritos crew manages to destroy the really big and impressive Pakled vessel (again, with all hands on board).
TNG probably would have spent some time with the crew of of the Enterprise showing shock and compassion about that massive loss of life; in the more hectic and hypertachic (is that a word?) LD format, there is no time for such somber moments. It did feel somehow jarring, but I don’t consider it a big problem. At the end, we also get a short memorial ceremony for a lost crewmember, so the episode has not forgotten that life is valuable.
@Trent: No, the exocomp thing is just a disposable C plotline.
The „mass slaughter“ refers probably to the loss of the U.S.S. Solvang, a California-class ship that gets blown up with all hands by a combination of Pakled pirates and her captain’s spectacular stupidity (which is played for laughs just seconds before the Pakleds show up). That incident takes place just at the beginning of the 1ˢᵗ act, yet the Cerritos arrives later in that place and has to deal with the Pakleds; at the end, the Cerritos crew manages to destroy the really big and impressive Pakled vessel (again, with all hands on board).
TNG probably would have spent some time with the crew of of the Enterprise showing shock and compassion about that massive loss of life; in the more hectic and hypertachic (is that a word?) LD format, there is no time for such somber moments. It did feel somehow jarring, but I don’t consider it a big problem. At the end, we also get a short memorial ceremony for a lost crewmember, so the episode has not forgotten that life is valuable.
Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks
So then, this is the finale “No Small Parts”. I found it great. Great enough to be a very good TNG episode, which is more than I thought possible for the 27 minute animated format.
The episode is thrilling, epic and violent — we start with a mass casualty and end with the loss of a main character. There are high stakes, and this does not always mix well with the comedy. So, LD suffers from the same problem as the first season of The Orville, and while both shows have managed to find a better balance over their first seasons, it’s still a fly in the ointment spoiling a small part of the otherwise excellent season finale.
There is a TOS reference (“those old scientists” — LOL!), Mariner’s family secret is blown by a stupid Boimler, we see Starfleet’s most incompetent captain having her ship blown apart by a group of menacing rogue Pakleds, Badgey is back (and still as evil as Clippy ever was), and the never-seen-before U.S.S. Titan commanded by William Freaking Riker (who is of course friends with Mariner, because how could it be elsehow) saves the day while being scored with the TNG theme song. That alone would have made a good episode.
The subplot with the sentient exocomp did not work at all for me, another fly that unfortunately wastes a lot of screentime. Came out of nothing, did nothing, went into nothing — why should I care? And frankly, there are better TNG episodes that “The Quality of Life” to follow on.
Yet what makes the episode great instead of good was the character development, because everyone except Tendi gets a boost. Mariner and her mother come to terms and appreciate each other’s strengths. Boimler gets what he always has wished, though he should remember the saying “Whom the gods want to destroy, to him they grant his wishes”, I feel there is something approaching to haunt him in season 2. This is also a crucial episode for Rutherford, although I am not sure I like the direction.
Looking back, i see that much of the season was carefully crafted to lead into the finale. Mariners relation to Freeman, which was frustratingly meandering for the most part of the season, now enters a new phase; on the other side, the two had been at nearly that point before (“Moist Vessel”), and then reverted back to Unhealthy Normal. Yet the last two episodes cooperated nicely to bring them to a better understanding of each other. It felt natural and earned.
I particularly appreciate that after all the bloody action sequences, the episode devotes more than 5 minutes of its precious screen time to reflection and discussion and consequences (sort of BoBW and Family in one, although not nearly at that level). The character pieces there were particularly effective.
I am not at all a NuTrek fan — I found the first two movies really bad, and the third just entertaining. I am an outspoken critic of DIS, although I plan to watch again next week, if only out of curiosity what they are going to f…up this time. PIC I did like in parts, but there is still a lot to criticize. With LD, I just hope the next season arrives soon, an will be longer. I have faith in the heart regarding this production team.
So then, this is the finale “No Small Parts”. I found it great. Great enough to be a very good TNG episode, which is more than I thought possible for the 27 minute animated format.
The episode is thrilling, epic and violent — we start with a mass casualty and end with the loss of a main character. There are high stakes, and this does not always mix well with the comedy. So, LD suffers from the same problem as the first season of The Orville, and while both shows have managed to find a better balance over their first seasons, it’s still a fly in the ointment spoiling a small part of the otherwise excellent season finale.
There is a TOS reference (“those old scientists” — LOL!), Mariner’s family secret is blown by a stupid Boimler, we see Starfleet’s most incompetent captain having her ship blown apart by a group of menacing rogue Pakleds, Badgey is back (and still as evil as Clippy ever was), and the never-seen-before U.S.S. Titan commanded by William Freaking Riker (who is of course friends with Mariner, because how could it be elsehow) saves the day while being scored with the TNG theme song. That alone would have made a good episode.
The subplot with the sentient exocomp did not work at all for me, another fly that unfortunately wastes a lot of screentime. Came out of nothing, did nothing, went into nothing — why should I care? And frankly, there are better TNG episodes that “The Quality of Life” to follow on.
Yet what makes the episode great instead of good was the character development, because everyone except Tendi gets a boost. Mariner and her mother come to terms and appreciate each other’s strengths. Boimler gets what he always has wished, though he should remember the saying “Whom the gods want to destroy, to him they grant his wishes”, I feel there is something approaching to haunt him in season 2. This is also a crucial episode for Rutherford, although I am not sure I like the direction.
Looking back, i see that much of the season was carefully crafted to lead into the finale. Mariners relation to Freeman, which was frustratingly meandering for the most part of the season, now enters a new phase; on the other side, the two had been at nearly that point before (“Moist Vessel”), and then reverted back to Unhealthy Normal. Yet the last two episodes cooperated nicely to bring them to a better understanding of each other. It felt natural and earned.
I particularly appreciate that after all the bloody action sequences, the episode devotes more than 5 minutes of its precious screen time to reflection and discussion and consequences (sort of BoBW and Family in one, although not nearly at that level). The character pieces there were particularly effective.
I am not at all a NuTrek fan — I found the first two movies really bad, and the third just entertaining. I am an outspoken critic of DIS, although I plan to watch again next week, if only out of curiosity what they are going to f…up this time. PIC I did like in parts, but there is still a lot to criticize. With LD, I just hope the next season arrives soon, an will be longer. I have faith in the heart regarding this production team.
Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks
#9 (“Crisis Point”) really hits the high notes. Its has the obligatory Easter Eggs and fan commentary (“It's a movie. You can beam whatever you want” is my favourite), it has a lot of fun, cartoony over-the-top action, character analysis and even character development. And most surprisingly, it achieves all this inside the holodeck (which doesn’t malfunction this time). The episode was outstanding, and I don’t think a 25-min animated show can do much better.
This was highly refreshing after 8 episodes that oscillated between “somewhat amusing” and “somewhat offensive”. #9 would have made a good finale, especially with all the autographs (did you notice the i dot on ‘Boimler’? Well chosen). On the other hand, it also could have come earlier, to give all the holodeck-analysis time to diffuse into the real life.
With only one episode left, I wonder about the timing. The first 8 episodes did not show much progression for Mariner and her severe character problems, and none at all for Boimler. Now, penultimate the the season, we get a deep analysis for/of/by Mariner, which gives reason to hope that she will find some healing in the finale. Unfortunately, this leaves no space to do anything with Boimler, who more and more seems even more troubled a personality than she (and he does not even realize it). I see no hope for him, at least in this season.
#9 (“Crisis Point”) really hits the high notes. Its has the obligatory Easter Eggs and fan commentary (“It's a movie. You can beam whatever you want” is my favourite), it has a lot of fun, cartoony over-the-top action, character analysis and even character development. And most surprisingly, it achieves all this inside the holodeck (which doesn’t malfunction this time). The episode was outstanding, and I don’t think a 25-min animated show can do much better.
This was highly refreshing after 8 episodes that oscillated between “somewhat amusing” and “somewhat offensive”. #9 would have made a good finale, especially with all the autographs (did you notice the i dot on ‘Boimler’? Well chosen). On the other hand, it also could have come earlier, to give all the holodeck-analysis time to diffuse into the real life.
With only one episode left, I wonder about the timing. The first 8 episodes did not show much progression for Mariner and her severe character problems, and none at all for Boimler. Now, penultimate the the season, we get a deep analysis for/of/by Mariner, which gives reason to hope that she will find some healing in the finale. Unfortunately, this leaves no space to do anything with Boimler, who more and more seems even more troubled a personality than she (and he does not even realize it). I see no hope for him, at least in this season.
Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks
@Startrekwatcher
i do agree that the first season of TNG does an excellent job to inspire a sentiment of awe and wonder about the things that populate the cosmos, and it also succeeds to give an impression of what the 24ᵗʰ century looks like. Visually, the season combines the soundstage aesthetics of TOS with impressive panoramic views. That is something that only a first season can do, and there is success.
But when we come to individual episodes, most don’t work at all. I have, unlike most reviewers, quite a high opinion about both the premiere and the finale, but there isn’t much in between. Sure, “11001001” is great because it uses interesting aliens to tell an interesting story. “Conspiracy” sticks to the mind because it is so unexpected. Honourable mention goes to “Heart of Glory” and “Home Soil”, but that’s it; the rest of the season falls flat for me, being either pedestrian or deep basement level (“Angel One”, “Code of Honour”, “Justice”). So I’m speaking that ¾ of the season is unremarkable or worse.
The main culprits are simplistic stories and weak characters. Troi is a pain to watch, Riker is social and gets the girls, Worf mostly lacks humour, Geordi is nice, Beverly is sweet and Wesley sucks. Yar was set up to be interesting but, alas, left the show. Picard behaves aristocratically, a leader distanced from his subordinates, and opens up only when alone in the Holodeck. This leaves us with Data as the only character of interest in that really large ensemble.
When it comes to the stories, than pretty much of it boils down to two types: Either, the human crew teaches some aliens or non-crew-humans (and the audience) a lesson; or the crew (and the audience) learns a lesson from some super-evolved aliens. That’s not a bad concept in principle, but the lessons are often one-note and trite, and the story bends around the morale it wants to tell; moreover, that concept cannot make an entire season go. Several episodes try to do better, but fail in execution (“Datalore”, “Hide and Q”).
Lower Decks, on the other side, has some good characters; they are mostly defined by one or two traits, but I think that is a typical problem for animated shows. There are some signs of character growth, in particular for Mariner, who for the first time eschews her dickishness in #6 and even discusses this amazing change with Boimler. The jokes are very often simplistic (like they were in early Orville episodes), and there is a lot of fan pandering, but then, I am a fan.
I think there is no chance that LD could ever come close to the great TV in later seasons of TNG (3–7). This is very much Star Trek light, but (for me) quite successful on this term. In contrast, I find the dark and hyperemotional StarTrek shown in DIS abhorrent, despite some good episodes in S2. With PIC, I still withhold judgement, for there was so much light and so much shadow in its S1.
@Startrekwatcher
i do agree that the first season of TNG does an excellent job to inspire a sentiment of awe and wonder about the things that populate the cosmos, and it also succeeds to give an impression of what the 24ᵗʰ century looks like. Visually, the season combines the soundstage aesthetics of TOS with impressive panoramic views. That is something that only a first season can do, and there is success.
But when we come to individual episodes, most don’t work at all. I have, unlike most reviewers, quite a high opinion about both the premiere and the finale, but there isn’t much in between. Sure, “11001001” is great because it uses interesting aliens to tell an interesting story. “Conspiracy” sticks to the mind because it is so unexpected. Honourable mention goes to “Heart of Glory” and “Home Soil”, but that’s it; the rest of the season falls flat for me, being either pedestrian or deep basement level (“Angel One”, “Code of Honour”, “Justice”). So I’m speaking that ¾ of the season is unremarkable or worse.
The main culprits are simplistic stories and weak characters. Troi is a pain to watch, Riker is social and gets the girls, Worf mostly lacks humour, Geordi is nice, Beverly is sweet and Wesley sucks. Yar was set up to be interesting but, alas, left the show. Picard behaves aristocratically, a leader distanced from his subordinates, and opens up only when alone in the Holodeck. This leaves us with Data as the only character of interest in that really large ensemble.
When it comes to the stories, than pretty much of it boils down to two types: Either, the human crew teaches some aliens or non-crew-humans (and the audience) a lesson; or the crew (and the audience) learns a lesson from some super-evolved aliens. That’s not a bad concept in principle, but the lessons are often one-note and trite, and the story bends around the morale it wants to tell; moreover, that concept cannot make an entire season go. Several episodes try to do better, but fail in execution (“Datalore”, “Hide and Q”).
Lower Decks, on the other side, has some good characters; they are mostly defined by one or two traits, but I think that is a typical problem for animated shows. There are some signs of character growth, in particular for Mariner, who for the first time eschews her dickishness in #6 and even discusses this amazing change with Boimler. The jokes are very often simplistic (like they were in early Orville episodes), and there is a lot of fan pandering, but then, I am a fan.
I think there is no chance that LD could ever come close to the great TV in later seasons of TNG (3–7). This is very much Star Trek light, but (for me) quite successful on this term. In contrast, I find the dark and hyperemotional StarTrek shown in DIS abhorrent, despite some good episodes in S2. With PIC, I still withhold judgement, for there was so much light and so much shadow in its S1.
Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks
Six episodes in, I still find this show surprisingly palatable. It actually feels like Easter, with all the eggs lying around. Most recent example is “[the Holodeck] is not just for hanging with Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood and Sigmund Freud and Cyrano de Bergerac and Einstein and da Vinci and Stephen Hawking and Socrates”; it took me some time to solve the last reference, because I had memory-wiped myself after watching “Darkling”.
I was not too enthusiastic about #1 (“Second Contact”), but the worst offender was clearly #5 (Cupid’s Errant Arrow)— I get Mariner is somewhat driven to paranoia by her many adventures (how old is she really?), and she is helicoptering around Boimler’s head to protect him, but if anyone ever says “Yeah, I mean he is a dork, but he’s my dork” about me, I should never want to see that person again.
Today (#6, “Terminal Provocations”) was inoffensive reasonably entertaining, though. This makes it the fourth enjoyable episode out of six, which is definitely better than TNG season 1 (something I’ll never ever going to say about DIS). I get that “Lower Decks” is basically a backport of “The Orville” into the StarTrek universe, minus the body part jokes plus a lot more of irresponsible and reckless behaviour by everyone plus half an isoton of fanservice per episode. This sort of works for me.
Six episodes in, I still find this show surprisingly palatable. It actually feels like Easter, with all the eggs lying around. Most recent example is “[the Holodeck] is not just for hanging with Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood and Sigmund Freud and Cyrano de Bergerac and Einstein and da Vinci and Stephen Hawking and Socrates”; it took me some time to solve the last reference, because I had memory-wiped myself after watching “Darkling”.
I was not too enthusiastic about #1 (“Second Contact”), but the worst offender was clearly #5 (Cupid’s Errant Arrow)— I get Mariner is somewhat driven to paranoia by her many adventures (how old is she really?), and she is helicoptering around Boimler’s head to protect him, but if anyone ever says “Yeah, I mean he is a dork, but he’s my dork” about me, I should never want to see that person again.
Today (#6, “Terminal Provocations”) was inoffensive reasonably entertaining, though. This makes it the fourth enjoyable episode out of six, which is definitely better than TNG season 1 (something I’ll never ever going to say about DIS). I get that “Lower Decks” is basically a backport of “The Orville” into the StarTrek universe, minus the body part jokes plus a lot more of irresponsible and reckless behaviour by everyone plus half an isoton of fanservice per episode. This sort of works for me.
Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks
I liked the second episode a lot more than the first, which seemed a little mean-spirited to me. But in “Envoys”, the characters are much more likeable; but in the second, really no one behaved dickish (except Boimler at the end, which was probably Mariners plan all along). I saw the twist coming and really liked it — in this single scene, Mariner has shown more loyalty and compassion (at the cost of looking not cool) than another lead of 3ʳᵈ generation Trek in two seasons. She grows on me.
The fan service was adorable and genuinely funny (I particularly smiled at the Vendian in the Andorian bar). I laughed at most jokes, because they were either in-jokes for fans (err, my weakness) or arose from the characters. Fortunately, most of the slapstick elements in episode one are gone.
However, thy hyperactivity remains; I watched the video at 75% speed and still considered some of the dialogues too fast, while only a few had become unnaturally slow. I wonder what they snort in the production team, or maybe I am a Pakled by heart?
I liked the second episode a lot more than the first, which seemed a little mean-spirited to me. But in “Envoys”, the characters are much more likeable; but in the second, really no one behaved dickish (except Boimler at the end, which was probably Mariners plan all along). I saw the twist coming and really liked it — in this single scene, Mariner has shown more loyalty and compassion (at the cost of looking not cool) than another lead of 3ʳᵈ generation Trek in two seasons. She grows on me.
The fan service was adorable and genuinely funny (I particularly smiled at the Vendian in the Andorian bar). I laughed at most jokes, because they were either in-jokes for fans (err, my weakness) or arose from the characters. Fortunately, most of the slapstick elements in episode one are gone.
However, thy hyperactivity remains; I watched the video at 75% speed and still considered some of the dialogues too fast, while only a few had become unnaturally slow. I wonder what they snort in the production team, or maybe I am a Pakled by heart?
Re: ORV S2: The Road Not Taken
@ Dave in MN
On my laptop, I have just a regular English keyboard, but I have predefined special keystroke sequences for extra characters like accented Latin characters, non-Latin alphabets and various other symbols that I need regularly. This is done via the X11 Compose mechanism (which, AFAIK, is difficult to emulate outside of Linux).
BTW: I am not young but ‘Gerontius’ is still a little bit exaggerated.
@ Dave in MN
On my laptop, I have just a regular English keyboard, but I have predefined special keystroke sequences for extra characters like accented Latin characters, non-Latin alphabets and various other symbols that I need regularly. This is done via the X11 Compose mechanism (which, AFAIK, is difficult to emulate outside of Linux).
BTW: I am not young but ‘Gerontius’ is still a little bit exaggerated.
Re: ORV S2: The Road Not Taken
@Dave in MN “are those Greek letters or symbols”
In the Golden Wood, we use keyboards with as many keys as there are leaves on a Mallorn trees, and we sing Σαπφώ's immortal songs while typing. Serious, I don’t know what you mean by “letters or symbols”; I just used the same letters that would be employed for writing any Greek text, ancient or modern. But the very same letters would also be used for any formula like sin(α), where they function as symbols.
@Quincy “They flew into the event horizon of a fucking black hole”
Sure, light could not escape from there, but to those having faster-than-light flight capabilities, that might be just a minor inconvenience. This did not cost me must suspension of disbelief.
I found it funny, though, how both Discovery and Orville casually used a black hole in their latest season, and basically rendered it the same (realistic light paths but no Doppler). Three years earlier, this would have been a real moment oft crowning awesomeness, but now everyone just yawns. Did the Interstellar team release their rendering software to the public?
@Dave in MN “are those Greek letters or symbols”
In the Golden Wood, we use keyboards with as many keys as there are leaves on a Mallorn trees, and we sing Σαπφώ's immortal songs while typing. Serious, I don’t know what you mean by “letters or symbols”; I just used the same letters that would be employed for writing any Greek text, ancient or modern. But the very same letters would also be used for any formula like sin(α), where they function as symbols.
@Quincy “They flew into the event horizon of a fucking black hole”
Sure, light could not escape from there, but to those having faster-than-light flight capabilities, that might be just a minor inconvenience. This did not cost me must suspension of disbelief.
I found it funny, though, how both Discovery and Orville casually used a black hole in their latest season, and basically rendered it the same (realistic light paths but no Doppler). Three years earlier, this would have been a real moment oft crowning awesomeness, but now everyone just yawns. Did the Interstellar team release their rendering software to the public?
Re: ORV S2: The Road Not Taken
@ΟΘΔΦ
Funny how our cross-posted comments (I hadn’t read yours before typing mine) address pretty much the same issues, though apparently we differ with respect to the prison escape sequence (I come from a country where concentration camps are not considered a respectable workplace).
@ΟΘΔΦ
Funny how our cross-posted comments (I hadn’t read yours before typing mine) address pretty much the same issues, though apparently we differ with respect to the prison escape sequence (I come from a country where concentration camps are not considered a respectable workplace).
Re: ORV S2: The Road Not Taken
@SlackerInc “I have steadfastly resisted single-timeline time travel; […] those kinds of stories […] are basically BS.”
I agree that this kind of story is hard to tell convincingly, although Trek has shown that they can be often used as a vehicle for efficient drama (“The City on the Edge of Forever”, STVIII “First Contact”, “Yesterday’s Enterprise”) and also comedy (STIV “The Voyage Home”, “Troubles and Tribble-ations”, “Relativity”). Failure, however, is more common (“Little Green Men”, “Tomorrow is Yesterday”, “Time’s Arrow”, “Paste Tense”, “Future’s End”), although some of these succeeded at least in parts.
The most astonishing time-travel episode ever was in Babylon 5 (“Babylon Squared”, “War Without End”). The time-travelling story made a lot of sense and avoided internal contradictions, and moreover it was a crucial turning point in the story arc.
@GG “can't decide if it's a show with serious sci-fi stories or an homage/comedy”
This argument is often heard, but frankly I don’t understand it, as there is no need for pidgeon-holing everything into a fixed number of mutually exclusive of categories. Did anyone complain that GoT does not know whether it want to be a heroic fantasy tale, a political intrigue drama or a soft-porn flick?
@all
I keep surprised that so many people like the Birthday Cake episode. For me, it was easily the worst of the season, and perhaps of the show: A relentless race for the idiot ball being as widely distributed as possible:
(α) The aliens prove megastupid by imprisoning members of highly advanced races (“Sure, they have an FTL drive, but that does not imply their weapons are any better than slingshots, right?”)
(β) However, the Orville crew works on the same level by not pointing out the obvious: „Yes, their birthday jubilee falls into your month of BS this year, but this is necessarily true for everyone born on a planet with a different rotation period of yours, in some years. Nor does it imply anything about their actual dates of birth, which are decades past, and even if it did, it would be pointless ’cause our constellations are different.”
(γ) Yet this is all dwarfed by the gigastupidity of Union Government. Halsey should have said “Ed, tell them we want our officers back. If they refuse, drill them a nice 5-km-crater in some desert, and then increase pressure steadily; remember, you’re the cat and they are all mouse. However, be diplomatic and offer them we’ll never make any contact again unless they desire otherwise”.
(δ) Hard to believe, this is still topped by the script than employs a ‘solution’ that wouldn’t have fooled even the ancient astronomers on Earth because of parallax. Yet these aliens are convinced within half a second and change their entire single-hatted society immediately.
This gets ½ a point for the intended message and ½ a point for Kelly and Bortus going serious on the concentration camp guards, which at least show that someone has some sense left.
@SlackerInc “I have steadfastly resisted single-timeline time travel; […] those kinds of stories […] are basically BS.”
I agree that this kind of story is hard to tell convincingly, although Trek has shown that they can be often used as a vehicle for efficient drama (“The City on the Edge of Forever”, STVIII “First Contact”, “Yesterday’s Enterprise”) and also comedy (STIV “The Voyage Home”, “Troubles and Tribble-ations”, “Relativity”). Failure, however, is more common (“Little Green Men”, “Tomorrow is Yesterday”, “Time’s Arrow”, “Paste Tense”, “Future’s End”), although some of these succeeded at least in parts.
The most astonishing time-travel episode ever was in Babylon 5 (“Babylon Squared”, “War Without End”). The time-travelling story made a lot of sense and avoided internal contradictions, and moreover it was a crucial turning point in the story arc.
@GG “can't decide if it's a show with serious sci-fi stories or an homage/comedy”
This argument is often heard, but frankly I don’t understand it, as there is no need for pidgeon-holing everything into a fixed number of mutually exclusive of categories. Did anyone complain that GoT does not know whether it want to be a heroic fantasy tale, a political intrigue drama or a soft-porn flick?
@all
I keep surprised that so many people like the Birthday Cake episode. For me, it was easily the worst of the season, and perhaps of the show: A relentless race for the idiot ball being as widely distributed as possible:
(α) The aliens prove megastupid by imprisoning members of highly advanced races (“Sure, they have an FTL drive, but that does not imply their weapons are any better than slingshots, right?”)
(β) However, the Orville crew works on the same level by not pointing out the obvious: „Yes, their birthday jubilee falls into your month of BS this year, but this is necessarily true for everyone born on a planet with a different rotation period of yours, in some years. Nor does it imply anything about their actual dates of birth, which are decades past, and even if it did, it would be pointless ’cause our constellations are different.”
(γ) Yet this is all dwarfed by the gigastupidity of Union Government. Halsey should have said “Ed, tell them we want our officers back. If they refuse, drill them a nice 5-km-crater in some desert, and then increase pressure steadily; remember, you’re the cat and they are all mouse. However, be diplomatic and offer them we’ll never make any contact again unless they desire otherwise”.
(δ) Hard to believe, this is still topped by the script than employs a ‘solution’ that wouldn’t have fooled even the ancient astronomers on Earth because of parallax. Yet these aliens are convinced within half a second and change their entire single-hatted society immediately.
This gets ½ a point for the intended message and ½ a point for Kelly and Bortus going serious on the concentration camp guards, which at least show that someone has some sense left.
Re: ORV S2: The Road Not Taken
Last week, I complained that the show fails to surprise and stays on trodden paths to much. I also predicted that the timeline issue would never come up again as the season finale is likely to involve Kaylons. My Mirror should have told me better, and I happily confess I was wrong by a 50%.
Alternate time-line stories have a tendency to suck, because we have no reason to invest in characters that are pretty much guaranteed to get erased by the end of the story. Worst offender is “Storm Front”, followed closely by “The Visitor” (yes, I know, I am mostly alone with that judgement). Rarely, this can be overcome by making the Alternate versions compelling enough (“In a Mirror, Darkly”) and more commonly by bringing in Prime characters that have to solve something important for the Prime Universe. Yet the latter approach carries the risk of treating the Alternate natives as plot tools (“Carpenter Street”, “Timeless”, “Endgame”) and this is bad unless it becomes an issue in-episode (“The City on the Edge of Forever”).
The Modus Operandi of The Orville is pastiche plus heart. So we relive the look-and-feel of DS9’s shabby mirror universe, get a shadow of Star Wars and loads of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (a really good example of Alternate Timeline plot). On the second point, everyone is thoroughly likeable (Ed flirts by the same goo-goo eyed technique as in the Prime Timeline), characters haven’t changed much and the Alara cameo was a nice touch.
Yet there is something to this episode which distinguishes it from everything I have seen on Trek (if I am wrong, please provide example): Everyone here actively and consciously works towards their own obliteration to create a better world which they are not a part of, and their heroic struggle will never become known to those who benefit from their sacrifice. This degree of selflessness may be considered old-fashioned, but I found it refreshing. This also removes the issue of using cohabitants of the timeline as pawns, because (almost) everyone is in on the plan, and fully embraces it.
And, speaking of heart: I cheered when Alara appeared in the shadow of her base. Not because she was important to the plot (she wasn’t), but because it indicates that the Orville team is not a Bunch of Bickering Bastards in real life that mobbed her away, but it rather allows me to maintain my hope that the team is a good-natured as the characters they play.
Of course, the plot does not make too much sense: The capabilities of the Kaylons follow plot requirements (really, not the worst jerks but the worst shots in the galaxy). Viewers asking after “Identity” why the Kaylons are not interlinked will not enjoy the revelation that they are. Bortus makes an excellent majordomo. The visuals of scarred Earth look great but should be much more fiery and dusty, or the atmosphere should have gone completely. The solution employed was simplistic, and Claire’s vanishing into thin air looked cheesy. The Big Elephant, however, is Kelly who apparently warned nobody about the Kaylons though the was willing to draw other advantages from her previous knowledge of thing to come.
I’d probably pan The Other Show™ mercilessly for these plotholes. But strangely, they don’t affect me as badly in this show. Maybe I am a hypocrite, but more likely there is something to The Orville that The Other Show™ simply lacks, and that I value very much.
Last week, I complained that the show fails to surprise and stays on trodden paths to much. I also predicted that the timeline issue would never come up again as the season finale is likely to involve Kaylons. My Mirror should have told me better, and I happily confess I was wrong by a 50%.
Alternate time-line stories have a tendency to suck, because we have no reason to invest in characters that are pretty much guaranteed to get erased by the end of the story. Worst offender is “Storm Front”, followed closely by “The Visitor” (yes, I know, I am mostly alone with that judgement). Rarely, this can be overcome by making the Alternate versions compelling enough (“In a Mirror, Darkly”) and more commonly by bringing in Prime characters that have to solve something important for the Prime Universe. Yet the latter approach carries the risk of treating the Alternate natives as plot tools (“Carpenter Street”, “Timeless”, “Endgame”) and this is bad unless it becomes an issue in-episode (“The City on the Edge of Forever”).
The Modus Operandi of The Orville is pastiche plus heart. So we relive the look-and-feel of DS9’s shabby mirror universe, get a shadow of Star Wars and loads of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (a really good example of Alternate Timeline plot). On the second point, everyone is thoroughly likeable (Ed flirts by the same goo-goo eyed technique as in the Prime Timeline), characters haven’t changed much and the Alara cameo was a nice touch.
Yet there is something to this episode which distinguishes it from everything I have seen on Trek (if I am wrong, please provide example): Everyone here actively and consciously works towards their own obliteration to create a better world which they are not a part of, and their heroic struggle will never become known to those who benefit from their sacrifice. This degree of selflessness may be considered old-fashioned, but I found it refreshing. This also removes the issue of using cohabitants of the timeline as pawns, because (almost) everyone is in on the plan, and fully embraces it.
And, speaking of heart: I cheered when Alara appeared in the shadow of her base. Not because she was important to the plot (she wasn’t), but because it indicates that the Orville team is not a Bunch of Bickering Bastards in real life that mobbed her away, but it rather allows me to maintain my hope that the team is a good-natured as the characters they play.
Of course, the plot does not make too much sense: The capabilities of the Kaylons follow plot requirements (really, not the worst jerks but the worst shots in the galaxy). Viewers asking after “Identity” why the Kaylons are not interlinked will not enjoy the revelation that they are. Bortus makes an excellent majordomo. The visuals of scarred Earth look great but should be much more fiery and dusty, or the atmosphere should have gone completely. The solution employed was simplistic, and Claire’s vanishing into thin air looked cheesy. The Big Elephant, however, is Kelly who apparently warned nobody about the Kaylons though the was willing to draw other advantages from her previous knowledge of thing to come.
I’d probably pan The Other Show™ mercilessly for these plotholes. But strangely, they don’t affect me as badly in this show. Maybe I am a hypocrite, but more likely there is something to The Orville that The Other Show™ simply lacks, and that I value very much.
Re: DSC S2: Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2
@ Alan Roi “We all know enough about Hitler to know that there's not enough to know about Georgiou to know, but we do know so far she isn't literally Hitler. its not even close.”
We have seen her destroying half a planet (“The Wolf Inside”, 46:20), feasting on a Kelpien (“Vaulting Ambition”, 12:50), executing her advisors (ibid., 18:10), bragging of turning Qo’noS into a blackened mass of dust (“The War Without, the War Within”, 31:42) and of blowing the Talosians and their stupid singing plants off the face of their planet (“If Memory Serves”, 51:37). Maybe I missed some.
While two genocides, a war crime and a few murders perhaps don’t yet fully qualify for the Hitler level, I am pretty sure that she has not told everything about her activities as a Mirror Universe Empress. Most likely, not even 1%.
@ Alan Roi “We all know enough about Hitler to know that there's not enough to know about Georgiou to know, but we do know so far she isn't literally Hitler. its not even close.”
We have seen her destroying half a planet (“The Wolf Inside”, 46:20), feasting on a Kelpien (“Vaulting Ambition”, 12:50), executing her advisors (ibid., 18:10), bragging of turning Qo’noS into a blackened mass of dust (“The War Without, the War Within”, 31:42) and of blowing the Talosians and their stupid singing plants off the face of their planet (“If Memory Serves”, 51:37). Maybe I missed some.
While two genocides, a war crime and a few murders perhaps don’t yet fully qualify for the Hitler level, I am pretty sure that she has not told everything about her activities as a Mirror Universe Empress. Most likely, not even 1%.
Re: DSC S2: Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2
Sorry Booming and Artymiss, your excessve feature requests are unfeasible. I just piped the HTML file through a pipe that counts the number of posting head lines and reformats it properly. Your desired weighting by posting length would require much more extensive work.
wget -O - https://www.jammersreviews.com/st-dsc/s2/such-sweet-sorrow-2.php | grep -i view.all.com | cut -d\" -f6 | cut -d' ' -f5- | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | sed -e 's/^ *//' -e 's/\([^ ]*\) \(.*\)/\2 (\1)/' -e 's/$/, /' | xargs | sed 's/, *$/./'
Sorry Booming and Artymiss, your excessve feature requests are unfeasible. I just piped the HTML file through a pipe that counts the number of posting head lines and reformats it properly. Your desired weighting by posting length would require much more extensive work.
wget -O - https://www.jammersreviews.com/st-dsc/s2/such-sweet-sorrow-2.php | grep -i view.all.com | cut -d\" -f6 | cut -d' ' -f5- | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | sed -e 's/^ *//' -e 's/\([^ ]*\) \(.*\)/\2 (\1)/' -e 's/$/, /' | xargs | sed 's/, *$/./'
Re: DSC S2: Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2
@Mertov: “Wow, almost 200 comments in little less than three days since the finale aired? I bet about a 100 were by about 6-7 commenters”
At present, it is 206 comments by 71 authors, the most prolific of which are Alan Roi (23), Booming (17), Artymiss (11), Tim C (7), Boura (7), Chrome (6), axiom (6), Trent (5), Quincy (5), OmicronThetaDeltaPhi (5), Daya (5), wolfstar (4), Kinematic (4), Galadriel (4), Cody B (4), Brian Lear (4). The top 7 commenters amount to 80 posts.
@Mertov: “Wow, almost 200 comments in little less than three days since the finale aired? I bet about a 100 were by about 6-7 commenters”
At present, it is 206 comments by 71 authors, the most prolific of which are Alan Roi (23), Booming (17), Artymiss (11), Tim C (7), Boura (7), Chrome (6), axiom (6), Trent (5), Quincy (5), OmicronThetaDeltaPhi (5), Daya (5), wolfstar (4), Kinematic (4), Galadriel (4), Cody B (4), Brian Lear (4). The top 7 commenters amount to 80 posts.
Re: DSC S2: Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2
@Alan Roi: Actually, the source was tor.com — some of the commenters (who seem insiders) dropped ominous hints (which, to be fair, I might have misunderstood or exaggerated in meaning, or they might be bogus at all). They also announced an article on the production history of S2 for next Friday, which will hopefully solve the question. In any case, we will see. https://www.tor.com/2019/04/19/the-director-of-your-opponents-fate-star-trek-discoverys-such-sweet-sorrow-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-800646
Your very special talent never ceases to amaze me, and I marvel at the multiple examples that you give. Yet, you are right — as I told before, I have always been a Spock fan, and I found the level of contradictions some people can handle (and, indeed, consider normal) far too much for my own ganglia.
In any case, I am happy you could put your unique talent to professional use as ghostwriter. I did so too, becoming scientist.
@Alan Roi: Actually, the source was tor.com — some of the commenters (who seem insiders) dropped ominous hints (which, to be fair, I might have misunderstood or exaggerated in meaning, or they might be bogus at all). They also announced an article on the production history of S2 for next Friday, which will hopefully solve the question. In any case, we will see. https://www.tor.com/2019/04/19/the-director-of-your-opponents-fate-star-trek-discoverys-such-sweet-sorrow-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-800646
Your very special talent never ceases to amaze me, and I marvel at the multiple examples that you give. Yet, you are right — as I told before, I have always been a Spock fan, and I found the level of contradictions some people can handle (and, indeed, consider normal) far too much for my own ganglia.
In any case, I am happy you could put your unique talent to professional use as ghostwriter. I did so too, becoming scientist.
Re: DSC S2: Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2
I once read a collection of humorous short stories from the olden days when nobility still abounded and the noblemen’s children would get in-house education by a private tutor. The exams were a challenge for the teacher, because a young Prince could never be wrong, and the tutor’s job was to justify every answer given by the examinee. This would play out like the following:
“How long did the Thirty Year War last?” — “Seven Years.” — “In those days, no fighting occurred during the nights, nor on sundays and holidays. Moreover, there were ceasefires and negotiation breaks. Taken together, all of those reduced the warring time to seven years, as correctly stated by the Prince.”
I think we are come to that point, and Alan Roi would make a perfect tutor (get me right, this was considered a great career then). Some head-canon indeed is needed all across Star Trek, and perhaps in SF generally; TOS was quite an offender here, and since I have seen it as a teen, I have also developed some skill to fill gaps in a story (“wasn’t mentioned because known to everyone in-story”), discard obviously botched statements by the characters (“laymen’s talk”), invent workarounds for blatant errors (“inside joke”) or come up with excuses for missing consequences of misdeeds (“was never reported to admirals”). This makes episodes like “The Galileo Seven” or “Plato’s Stepchildren” watchable, because they contain good substance which can still be enjoyed despite obvious flaws.
However, there are limits. I found no way of mind-bending that could inject any degree of sense into “The Alternative Factor” (no doubt Alan Roi can, and I am the same time awed and envious and appalled). However, I never expected there would ever be someone who spends a hundred megadollars for producing a 13-episode remake of “The Alternative Factor” or “Threshold”. Nor did I expect half of the world applauds to such an enterprise and praises the multiple lensflares, the diverse cast, the emotional journey of the protagonists, the audacious cinematography and the kewl SFX. It has happened because we live in a crazy world. And yes, I know a few people who still defend “Lost”, because even if it ended nowhere, it was a great ride, they say (“sunk cost fallacy” in my opinion)
Having done some research on the web, I found indications that indeed the main storyline of the season was changed in mid-production, meaning that the Seven Signals had different properties and meaning for the characters in the early episodes; the mystery solved in the end was therefore different from the mystery posed in the beginning. Characters paid lip-service to what they had said before, but acted according to the changed scenario, resulting in huge inconsistencies. No doubts, the next days or weeks will bring new leaks and insight and revelation.
Think of a murder mystery story where a girl is found drowned in a bathtub in chapter one. At the end of the novel, the investigator solves the case by stating that the victim, a 50 yo professional wrestler, was suffering from prostate cancer and hanged himself, planting hints that implicated his former associate. Would anyone be satisfied with that?
Now, my head-canon: Discovery season 2 is an offshoot of the weapon devised by Data and Picard in “I, Borg”: No matter how you look at it, no sense can be made of it, it rather drives you crazy when you think about it. Some time-travelling AI from the 24ᵗʰ century used it to infect Kurtzman's brain in an attempt to eradicate humanity by reducing our intellectual level to that of half-rotten industry-made custard.
I will say no more, at least for now.
I once read a collection of humorous short stories from the olden days when nobility still abounded and the noblemen’s children would get in-house education by a private tutor. The exams were a challenge for the teacher, because a young Prince could never be wrong, and the tutor’s job was to justify every answer given by the examinee. This would play out like the following:
“How long did the Thirty Year War last?” — “Seven Years.” — “In those days, no fighting occurred during the nights, nor on sundays and holidays. Moreover, there were ceasefires and negotiation breaks. Taken together, all of those reduced the warring time to seven years, as correctly stated by the Prince.”
I think we are come to that point, and Alan Roi would make a perfect tutor (get me right, this was considered a great career then). Some head-canon indeed is needed all across Star Trek, and perhaps in SF generally; TOS was quite an offender here, and since I have seen it as a teen, I have also developed some skill to fill gaps in a story (“wasn’t mentioned because known to everyone in-story”), discard obviously botched statements by the characters (“laymen’s talk”), invent workarounds for blatant errors (“inside joke”) or come up with excuses for missing consequences of misdeeds (“was never reported to admirals”). This makes episodes like “The Galileo Seven” or “Plato’s Stepchildren” watchable, because they contain good substance which can still be enjoyed despite obvious flaws.
However, there are limits. I found no way of mind-bending that could inject any degree of sense into “The Alternative Factor” (no doubt Alan Roi can, and I am the same time awed and envious and appalled). However, I never expected there would ever be someone who spends a hundred megadollars for producing a 13-episode remake of “The Alternative Factor” or “Threshold”. Nor did I expect half of the world applauds to such an enterprise and praises the multiple lensflares, the diverse cast, the emotional journey of the protagonists, the audacious cinematography and the kewl SFX. It has happened because we live in a crazy world. And yes, I know a few people who still defend “Lost”, because even if it ended nowhere, it was a great ride, they say (“sunk cost fallacy” in my opinion)
Having done some research on the web, I found indications that indeed the main storyline of the season was changed in mid-production, meaning that the Seven Signals had different properties and meaning for the characters in the early episodes; the mystery solved in the end was therefore different from the mystery posed in the beginning. Characters paid lip-service to what they had said before, but acted according to the changed scenario, resulting in huge inconsistencies. No doubts, the next days or weeks will bring new leaks and insight and revelation.
Think of a murder mystery story where a girl is found drowned in a bathtub in chapter one. At the end of the novel, the investigator solves the case by stating that the victim, a 50 yo professional wrestler, was suffering from prostate cancer and hanged himself, planting hints that implicated his former associate. Would anyone be satisfied with that?
Now, my head-canon: Discovery season 2 is an offshoot of the weapon devised by Data and Picard in “I, Borg”: No matter how you look at it, no sense can be made of it, it rather drives you crazy when you think about it. Some time-travelling AI from the 24ᵗʰ century used it to infect Kurtzman's brain in an attempt to eradicate humanity by reducing our intellectual level to that of half-rotten industry-made custard.
I will say no more, at least for now.
Re: DSC S2: Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2
Discovery is frustrating to me, and I think I now know why: Because it forces a specific perspective on the viewer. Jammer once said “This show wants me to feel something”, and hardly anyone can deny the truth of this and its flip side: that the show does not want me to think. Yet this is only half of the problem, because the show also wants to guide my feelings towards specific people (who are usually connected to Burnham). Take the redshirting of Airiam as an example: That “robot girl” served mostly as bridge furniture, and I don’t remember a single line of her in the whole of S1 (her name was spoken on screen exacly five times). In S2, she did speak a few words, including a semi-private conversation with Tilly. In her death episode, however, a lot of dialogue and screen time was given to just to force viewers to care fo her inevitable death. That’s guided emotion, which some may call manipulation, and I find it distasteful.
Cut to the current episode and the fistfight in the rotating tunnel. Three people fight viciously: A Controlled™ section 31 agent, an exiled Empress with a taste for Kelpien threat ganglia, and a security officer. Whom shall we feel with? The script decides: It’s the Empress (undoubtedly, because of her connection to Burnham), and therefore Nhan is basically discarded of after that scene (we don’t even know whether she survived). The two people that mysteriously appear out of nothing and then literally go to nowhere at 37:08 don’t matter, either. The audience must follow the lead provided by Burnham and her clan.
Compare that to TOS: For me, it was always the Show with Spock™. Kirk was often cool, but he seemed the secondary character to me. No doubt other viewers preferred Kirk, or maybe McCoy, or even Chekhov. The show supported multiple points of identification, and that’s why it became popular. Similarly, I found Kira the primary character of identification in DS9, probably a minority choice. But all these shows left the choice of personal focus, emotional investment and perspective to the viewer. Discovery has a more authoritarian approach, and thus I could never get warm with it. I don’t like being kept on the leash.
Moreover, the script is written in a way that actively discourages viewers from thinking about it. Take Tyler: Last time we saw him, he beamed from Discovery to Enterprise together with Pike (“Part 1”, 45:30) asking him to get away. Now we know that he contacted the on-call Klingon Cavallery Service, probably by shuttle, enabling L’Rell to save the day with a Klingon icebreaker of sorts. However, there are major problems: (α) he could not have left, because the enemy armada showed up immediately after his talk to Pike (β) the time is insufficient, as there can be no more than an hour of time between him leaving the stage an returning with the Klingon Flagship Icebreaker and (γ) he cannot reveal himself to any Klingon without undermining Chancellor L’Rell.
Now, concerning (α) I can probably convince myself that there was a little more time than shown on the screen, and concerning (β) that ships moving with the speed of the plot are not unheard of in Star Trek. But what about (γ)? In “Valley of Shadows”, 9:42, L’Rell says explicitly “If it were discovered that […] you were still alive, the Klingon Empire would be vulnerable to sedition” because she had personally called him a traitor and presented a fake head to the Council (“Point of Light”, 44:31). Yet standing next to her on her flagship (which he himself has requested to go to war) is OK? This show spends millions on CGI, but cannot afford writers worthy the name.
I also noted that a similar dilemma is planted for the Empress. Last time we hear from her (53:57) she is in Discovery’s Engineering, and the whole ship will jump to the 31ˢᵗ century exactly one minute of show time later (the time between is spent with melodramatic crap). Yet rumour says she will appear in a Section 31 spinoff show set in the 23ʳᵈ century. Question: How many Empresses do they have?
I will not go to Siranna’s quick training as a fighter pilot in a quickly united Ba’ul and Kelpien fleet. Nor to Spock’s beaming aboard Enterprise during the battle while shields are up. Nor to the useless time jump after Control has been disabled (with a lot of crew that might have preferred to remain in the 23ʳᵈ century even if a time jump is deemed necessary to eliminate the threat forever). Nor to the torpedo-proof glass window. Nor to Spock and Burnham discussing sibling matters while people died by the dozens every minute. You see where this all leads to. Alan Roi’s claim that “Discovery demands more from the viewers than any other ST show” has haunted me for a week. Maybe the demand is to hinder my brain throwing exceptions whenever the writers plunder. Can anyone come up with a Braga-era WTFery like this?
Challenge to Alan Roi: Spock seems to be surprised by the location of the 7ᵗʰ signal in the Beta Quadrant. How is that possible as he himself has drawn the Seven Signals in their correct locations months before (“New Eden”, 1:48)? And who told him, BTW? It can’t have been Burnham sen., because she knew nothing of the Seven, nor Michael, as she cannot time-travel after arrival (“Part 1”, 25:25). But then, how could she plant the Seventh Signal anyway, and how could she promise to do it before leaving? Also, we have seen the 3D galactic map with all the signals couple of times early in the season; yet by what kind of time-bending shenanigans could all of this vanish, so that no character in the show remembers it, but all have to wait for the signals to manifest themselves after they had all been recorded by Federation sensors before the actual start of the season (“Brothers”, 12:11)? Which demand did I not meet to miss the central element of the whole season?
I am a Trekkie, and that is quite an addiction. So I shall probably watch future seasons because every junkie knows cut drug is better than no drug. But I shall not invest any emotional or intellectual resources into it, unless the show convinces me not with baits (that have no nutritional value) and promises (that are never kept) but with actual delivery. Yet, reading to Kurtzman interview linked to above (that, correctly, calls the finale “shocking”) I feel very pessimistic.
I want my Star Trek “cerebral” because I am an analytic person. There is no cerebrum in this show. Rather, I think of another anatomical region that, by chance, is contained in the word “analytic”.
Discovery is frustrating to me, and I think I now know why: Because it forces a specific perspective on the viewer. Jammer once said “This show wants me to feel something”, and hardly anyone can deny the truth of this and its flip side: that the show does not want me to think. Yet this is only half of the problem, because the show also wants to guide my feelings towards specific people (who are usually connected to Burnham). Take the redshirting of Airiam as an example: That “robot girl” served mostly as bridge furniture, and I don’t remember a single line of her in the whole of S1 (her name was spoken on screen exacly five times). In S2, she did speak a few words, including a semi-private conversation with Tilly. In her death episode, however, a lot of dialogue and screen time was given to just to force viewers to care fo her inevitable death. That’s guided emotion, which some may call manipulation, and I find it distasteful.
Cut to the current episode and the fistfight in the rotating tunnel. Three people fight viciously: A Controlled™ section 31 agent, an exiled Empress with a taste for Kelpien threat ganglia, and a security officer. Whom shall we feel with? The script decides: It’s the Empress (undoubtedly, because of her connection to Burnham), and therefore Nhan is basically discarded of after that scene (we don’t even know whether she survived). The two people that mysteriously appear out of nothing and then literally go to nowhere at 37:08 don’t matter, either. The audience must follow the lead provided by Burnham and her clan.
Compare that to TOS: For me, it was always the Show with Spock™. Kirk was often cool, but he seemed the secondary character to me. No doubt other viewers preferred Kirk, or maybe McCoy, or even Chekhov. The show supported multiple points of identification, and that’s why it became popular. Similarly, I found Kira the primary character of identification in DS9, probably a minority choice. But all these shows left the choice of personal focus, emotional investment and perspective to the viewer. Discovery has a more authoritarian approach, and thus I could never get warm with it. I don’t like being kept on the leash.
Moreover, the script is written in a way that actively discourages viewers from thinking about it. Take Tyler: Last time we saw him, he beamed from Discovery to Enterprise together with Pike (“Part 1”, 45:30) asking him to get away. Now we know that he contacted the on-call Klingon Cavallery Service, probably by shuttle, enabling L’Rell to save the day with a Klingon icebreaker of sorts. However, there are major problems: (α) he could not have left, because the enemy armada showed up immediately after his talk to Pike (β) the time is insufficient, as there can be no more than an hour of time between him leaving the stage an returning with the Klingon Flagship Icebreaker and (γ) he cannot reveal himself to any Klingon without undermining Chancellor L’Rell.
Now, concerning (α) I can probably convince myself that there was a little more time than shown on the screen, and concerning (β) that ships moving with the speed of the plot are not unheard of in Star Trek. But what about (γ)? In “Valley of Shadows”, 9:42, L’Rell says explicitly “If it were discovered that […] you were still alive, the Klingon Empire would be vulnerable to sedition” because she had personally called him a traitor and presented a fake head to the Council (“Point of Light”, 44:31). Yet standing next to her on her flagship (which he himself has requested to go to war) is OK? This show spends millions on CGI, but cannot afford writers worthy the name.
I also noted that a similar dilemma is planted for the Empress. Last time we hear from her (53:57) she is in Discovery’s Engineering, and the whole ship will jump to the 31ˢᵗ century exactly one minute of show time later (the time between is spent with melodramatic crap). Yet rumour says she will appear in a Section 31 spinoff show set in the 23ʳᵈ century. Question: How many Empresses do they have?
I will not go to Siranna’s quick training as a fighter pilot in a quickly united Ba’ul and Kelpien fleet. Nor to Spock’s beaming aboard Enterprise during the battle while shields are up. Nor to the useless time jump after Control has been disabled (with a lot of crew that might have preferred to remain in the 23ʳᵈ century even if a time jump is deemed necessary to eliminate the threat forever). Nor to the torpedo-proof glass window. Nor to Spock and Burnham discussing sibling matters while people died by the dozens every minute. You see where this all leads to. Alan Roi’s claim that “Discovery demands more from the viewers than any other ST show” has haunted me for a week. Maybe the demand is to hinder my brain throwing exceptions whenever the writers plunder. Can anyone come up with a Braga-era WTFery like this?
Challenge to Alan Roi: Spock seems to be surprised by the location of the 7ᵗʰ signal in the Beta Quadrant. How is that possible as he himself has drawn the Seven Signals in their correct locations months before (“New Eden”, 1:48)? And who told him, BTW? It can’t have been Burnham sen., because she knew nothing of the Seven, nor Michael, as she cannot time-travel after arrival (“Part 1”, 25:25). But then, how could she plant the Seventh Signal anyway, and how could she promise to do it before leaving? Also, we have seen the 3D galactic map with all the signals couple of times early in the season; yet by what kind of time-bending shenanigans could all of this vanish, so that no character in the show remembers it, but all have to wait for the signals to manifest themselves after they had all been recorded by Federation sensors before the actual start of the season (“Brothers”, 12:11)? Which demand did I not meet to miss the central element of the whole season?
I am a Trekkie, and that is quite an addiction. So I shall probably watch future seasons because every junkie knows cut drug is better than no drug. But I shall not invest any emotional or intellectual resources into it, unless the show convinces me not with baits (that have no nutritional value) and promises (that are never kept) but with actual delivery. Yet, reading to Kurtzman interview linked to above (that, correctly, calls the finale “shocking”) I feel very pessimistic.
I want my Star Trek “cerebral” because I am an analytic person. There is no cerebrum in this show. Rather, I think of another anatomical region that, by chance, is contained in the word “analytic”.
Re: ORV S2: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
I liked it. There are weaknesses, but this episode does a lot of things right when it comes to time-travel (like, acknowledging the absurdity of it), it has great humor (“I was a real bitch” — “Been there” is more funny, honest and heartfelt than literally everything in two seasons of some other contemporary SF show, because it flows from the characters as established), and it feels so warm, humane and friendly that I start melting away. It was a pleasant surprise that everyone gave Kelly² a warm welcome and no character showed any sign of jealousy or avoided her out of an this-is-awkward-feeling.
Really, the episode is about character growth, which mirrors the entire show: With the exception of Claire and (arguably) Kelly, everyone was pretty much infantile in 1x01, and this has mostly changed (only Talla is still pretty much a blank slate, owing probably to the circumstances). Even Mercer has grown from his boy-feigning-adultness-attitude in 1x01, though most charmingly it reappears whenever he tries to flirt.
I cannot stress enough how much I loved the bar scene at the beginning. The Orville is a place where I would like to work because everyone comes well along with everyone else. Compare that to The Other Show™: The only time I can remember people laughing in a bar there was in the episode when one of the laughing people got killed later — a character that had spoken less than a dozen lines in 20+ episodes before. That’s what I call cynicism.
‘The Orville’ cannot be accused of being cynic, but it has previously often shown a tendency toward predictability and simplism. The current episode amply demonstrates this weakness. Pretty much everything up to the failed bed scene comes as expected. Pleasant surprises: Ed’s honesty to Kelly¹, when he sought her permission to pursue Kelly². I didn’t expect that from the guy who took a shuttle to spy on his ex-wife. Also, Kelly¹ handled that scene admirably.
I really hoped they would not push the reset button and send Kelly² back. Would she really like to forget the days on Orville? I understand she had a satisfying social life back then, but living at a later time involves increased opportunities, and I feel she should have changed her name to Shelley and live on with a career of her own. Yet this was the simple choice (for the writers, not the characters) and therefore the expected one. Chance missed.
The end leaves questions open. It seems the time loop is not consistent — in the beginning, Ed was surprised when Kelly¹ told him she was pissed about his call, and that does not fit to what we see in the last seconds of the episode. So the scene did play differently, and Kelly² will live a life different from that of Kelly¹. This might be a Red Herring, or a setup for a second part that may finally surprise me.
Yet I do not expect we see Kelly² again, and the reason is Kaylon. For 3 episodes after the epic battle, we haven’t heard anything of them, and Isaac has been given hardly any line since. Now he is back, and so are they, and if this means anything, then we are going to end the season with a Kaylon cliffhanger (which would also be a good starting point for a possible 3ʳᵈ season), and I don’t see how the Kelly¹·² issue could be brought into such a storyline.
Just in case Mr. McFarlane reads this board: Please, surprise me.
I liked it. There are weaknesses, but this episode does a lot of things right when it comes to time-travel (like, acknowledging the absurdity of it), it has great humor (“I was a real bitch” — “Been there” is more funny, honest and heartfelt than literally everything in two seasons of some other contemporary SF show, because it flows from the characters as established), and it feels so warm, humane and friendly that I start melting away. It was a pleasant surprise that everyone gave Kelly² a warm welcome and no character showed any sign of jealousy or avoided her out of an this-is-awkward-feeling.
Really, the episode is about character growth, which mirrors the entire show: With the exception of Claire and (arguably) Kelly, everyone was pretty much infantile in 1x01, and this has mostly changed (only Talla is still pretty much a blank slate, owing probably to the circumstances). Even Mercer has grown from his boy-feigning-adultness-attitude in 1x01, though most charmingly it reappears whenever he tries to flirt.
I cannot stress enough how much I loved the bar scene at the beginning. The Orville is a place where I would like to work because everyone comes well along with everyone else. Compare that to The Other Show™: The only time I can remember people laughing in a bar there was in the episode when one of the laughing people got killed later — a character that had spoken less than a dozen lines in 20+ episodes before. That’s what I call cynicism.
‘The Orville’ cannot be accused of being cynic, but it has previously often shown a tendency toward predictability and simplism. The current episode amply demonstrates this weakness. Pretty much everything up to the failed bed scene comes as expected. Pleasant surprises: Ed’s honesty to Kelly¹, when he sought her permission to pursue Kelly². I didn’t expect that from the guy who took a shuttle to spy on his ex-wife. Also, Kelly¹ handled that scene admirably.
I really hoped they would not push the reset button and send Kelly² back. Would she really like to forget the days on Orville? I understand she had a satisfying social life back then, but living at a later time involves increased opportunities, and I feel she should have changed her name to Shelley and live on with a career of her own. Yet this was the simple choice (for the writers, not the characters) and therefore the expected one. Chance missed.
The end leaves questions open. It seems the time loop is not consistent — in the beginning, Ed was surprised when Kelly¹ told him she was pissed about his call, and that does not fit to what we see in the last seconds of the episode. So the scene did play differently, and Kelly² will live a life different from that of Kelly¹. This might be a Red Herring, or a setup for a second part that may finally surprise me.
Yet I do not expect we see Kelly² again, and the reason is Kaylon. For 3 episodes after the epic battle, we haven’t heard anything of them, and Isaac has been given hardly any line since. Now he is back, and so are they, and if this means anything, then we are going to end the season with a Kaylon cliffhanger (which would also be a good starting point for a possible 3ʳᵈ season), and I don’t see how the Kelly¹·² issue could be brought into such a storyline.
Just in case Mr. McFarlane reads this board: Please, surprise me.
Re: DSC S2: Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2
As expected, the critizism here generally falls into the spectrum between “disappointed”, “vitrioic” and “nuclear”. I didn’t like everything, and emphatically dislike a lot, but there is also something reasonable to praise.
@Karl Zimmermann “Spock telling Michael how damn special he was to him during the scene where he was stranded in the shuttlecraft was laying it on a bit thick” I agree with that, but that is Discovery’s trade mark despite not making any sence, even for humans and less so for Vulcans. Tear-soaked farewell scenes abound everywhere, and while action sequences are always superfast (and confusing, more on that below), the characters easily find time to give longish private and emotional speeches that drag forever, drenched in saucy scores that want to evoke some human connection between the characters and the audience, but fails.
@Rahul “The spore drive has been destroyed along with Control and nobody is to speak of this whole thing again unless they want to be charged with treason. I think Spock even established some kind of temporal directive” If he really established such a thing, he would become the worst offender to his own rule later. Such a “Don’t meddle with Time” rule actually makes a lot of sense, but I don’t see how it extends to the spore drive, which as we have learned in “Saints of Imperfection”) is harmless to use, and is not in any way connected to the Control fiasco. It’s also irresponsible from the security angle: What if the Romulans come up with something similar, or even the Jem’Hadar?
@Rahul “Cornwell sacrificing herself to contain the torpedo blast was weird” Actually, nonsensical (the blast door even had a glass window (or transparent aluminum?) yet con contain an explosion that ripped out an ⅛ slice of the saucer. Moreover, logically Pike should have stayed behind, because (α) Cornwell can order him (β) he has only a wheelchair to lose and (γ) the time crystal should have protected him (to avoid being called a liar).
@mosley “the hilarious plot oversight that they actually didnt need to go to the future anymore because control was destroyed” yeah, this was weird, especially since Saru knew it and could have aborted the Time Jump, or at least delayed, since even if some Control was still somewhere, there was no immediate threat to the ships. BTW, it seems odd that Discovery was pretty much full manned when Jumping. Are there so many people willing to give up their present lives for an uncertain future?
@Baron Samedi “I feel like the Discovery writers would have made the head Xindi scientist Archer's long-lost alien stepfather” I fear Saint Michael Fucking Burnham (© MadManMUC) is going to meet a descendant of her unborn twin sister somewhere in the future.
@Brian Lear “don't feel that the show ever really convinced me that the data in that sphere could reasonably be expected to allow an advanced AI to obtain consciousness” I can imagine that this sphere thing was a quite different life form, one that operates more like an AI and can thus better serve as a model for an AI wanting to evolve than the completely messed-up Humans (or Vulcans). Of couse, the question why Control wants to become “sentient” (whatever that means, I have never understood that term in any ST show) and why it would turn destructive still remains open. Perhaps, Control read the script and decided to play along.
@Brian Lear “is anybody else sick of the fact that only female characters can solve problems” No, I am not. I have grown up with an overdose of TV that shows problem-solving males and damsels-in-distress that I still need antidot (BTW, I am male). Besides, Pike and (less so) Saru have also proven capable.
@John Harmon “It really bothered me how much the show reveled in the sadism of [Leland’s] death” We see that scene from the point of view of an Evil Mirror Universe Empress, who had previously said (‘Such Sweet Sorrow 1’, 09:00) “On the other hand, I look forward to hunting Leland down to the ends of the galaxy so I can watch every piece of technology exit his skin bit by bit”. In that scene, Burnham critisized her sadism, so it is strange and untrekky that she got her wish fullfilled.
@wolfstar “The only reason Burnham knows where to send the signals from... is because she did it in the first place. How does original Burnham in any timeline learn why she needs to send the signals from those points?” That ontologic paradox is inherent to time travel stories. I can imagine a physical mechanism that would produce such an effect, although it needs two two coordinates: One in which the action takes place, and a second one in which the loop reates itself; in the beginning, the loops are inconsistent and will play differently in every iteration, but over (second) time, a consistent loop is reached that obeyes causality in the first time. By some statistical argument, we see only the final converged result. There are weak analogies for such a mechanism in Quantum Mechanics.
@wolfstar “Burnham has never worn this suit before. How does she fly it through space?” There was a manual attached to it, in the form of logs from Burnham sen. (“Perpetual Infinity”, ≈15:00). Probably the suit has some propulsion, even if only navigational thrusters, otherwise Burnham sen. would not have been able to land anywhere.
@Chrome “And of course 1 million points for Control not being the Borg” Didn’t you notice the word “Beta Quadrant” at the end (the location of the 7ᵗʰ signal)? I already get Borg vibes for season 3, and I don’t like the idea. I pretty much disliked everything Borgy in VOY after the “Scorpion” two-parter (does not extend to the character 7of9, because I considered her well-written), for the reason that I prefer my Borgs competent and menacing and with fangs.
@Booming “The very same engineer probably thought: Ok, emergency lever on the wrong side. The only thing this blast door now needs is a window” — “Georgiou highlights the problem that shows or movies who make everything dark often have: You start to like the bad guys/gals because they are the only ones who have fun” ☺☺☺
Some own thought will come in a separate post. Yet I have to comment on the visuals, which are both terrific and terrible at the same time. They look astounding, reak of a lot of money spent, and would make great wallpapers, but they contribute only to the coolness factor, not to the narrative. John Harmon called it “Star Wars prequel white noise”, and that is as fitting as can be.
So we have fighters now (never been seen before in the ST universe). No one explains how they operate, what they can do and how they come there. It not even shown whether they are manned or not (some dialogue seems to indicate they are, but there is not one shot how they look like insde). The design is unfamiliar to the viewer, and they fight an equally novel foe. How am I supposed t see who is who? Or should I not care and just marvel at the explosions? I fear it is the latter, and that makes me sick (“style over substance”). Compare this to the epic battle sequence in Orville’s Kaylon two-parter, which managed to look great and tell the story by itself, for it was mostly clear what happens and what motivation the ships have to do what they do.
Alan Roi famously said in another thread that Disco is more demanding to its viewers than any other Star Trek show. Maybe he is right, and I can’t pick up visual, verbal and acoustic clues at high enough speed. Not an English speaker, I am challenged enough parsing the muffled, highly contracted and occasionally ungrammatical speech drenched in too much score. Very often, I have to rewind a scene, sometimes several times, to reparse a highly informal English sentence against the background noise without missing some inconspicuous but important background visual. For example, in a madly fast-cut sequence someone says “The bayonet joint on this oxygen sensor’s wide open” which took me three reruns to realize “sensor’s” is not a possesive case.
Or, take the opening sequence that moves (with a weird shaky-cam effect) from Saru asking something from Owosekun, to Owosekun answering (she sits next to him on the Bridge of Discovery) to Pike. At that moment, my brain threw an exception, and only after stopping the player and inspecting the background props I came to the conclusion that Pike is where he should be, i.e., on Enterprise. Maximum confusion for confusions sake seems the directional mantra. Feeding the audience with conflicting information and forcing them to reevaluate their interpretation of what happened a few seconds before may be demanding. But it is not what Trekkies like me want most and what was famously called “cerebral” more than 50 ears ago.
The “cerebral” remark leads to plot issues, which I will treat in another post.
As expected, the critizism here generally falls into the spectrum between “disappointed”, “vitrioic” and “nuclear”. I didn’t like everything, and emphatically dislike a lot, but there is also something reasonable to praise.
@Karl Zimmermann “Spock telling Michael how damn special he was to him during the scene where he was stranded in the shuttlecraft was laying it on a bit thick” I agree with that, but that is Discovery’s trade mark despite not making any sence, even for humans and less so for Vulcans. Tear-soaked farewell scenes abound everywhere, and while action sequences are always superfast (and confusing, more on that below), the characters easily find time to give longish private and emotional speeches that drag forever, drenched in saucy scores that want to evoke some human connection between the characters and the audience, but fails.
@Rahul “The spore drive has been destroyed along with Control and nobody is to speak of this whole thing again unless they want to be charged with treason. I think Spock even established some kind of temporal directive” If he really established such a thing, he would become the worst offender to his own rule later. Such a “Don’t meddle with Time” rule actually makes a lot of sense, but I don’t see how it extends to the spore drive, which as we have learned in “Saints of Imperfection”) is harmless to use, and is not in any way connected to the Control fiasco. It’s also irresponsible from the security angle: What if the Romulans come up with something similar, or even the Jem’Hadar?
@Rahul “Cornwell sacrificing herself to contain the torpedo blast was weird” Actually, nonsensical (the blast door even had a glass window (or transparent aluminum?) yet con contain an explosion that ripped out an ⅛ slice of the saucer. Moreover, logically Pike should have stayed behind, because (α) Cornwell can order him (β) he has only a wheelchair to lose and (γ) the time crystal should have protected him (to avoid being called a liar).
@mosley “the hilarious plot oversight that they actually didnt need to go to the future anymore because control was destroyed” yeah, this was weird, especially since Saru knew it and could have aborted the Time Jump, or at least delayed, since even if some Control was still somewhere, there was no immediate threat to the ships. BTW, it seems odd that Discovery was pretty much full manned when Jumping. Are there so many people willing to give up their present lives for an uncertain future?
@Baron Samedi “I feel like the Discovery writers would have made the head Xindi scientist Archer's long-lost alien stepfather” I fear Saint Michael Fucking Burnham (© MadManMUC) is going to meet a descendant of her unborn twin sister somewhere in the future.
@Brian Lear “don't feel that the show ever really convinced me that the data in that sphere could reasonably be expected to allow an advanced AI to obtain consciousness” I can imagine that this sphere thing was a quite different life form, one that operates more like an AI and can thus better serve as a model for an AI wanting to evolve than the completely messed-up Humans (or Vulcans). Of couse, the question why Control wants to become “sentient” (whatever that means, I have never understood that term in any ST show) and why it would turn destructive still remains open. Perhaps, Control read the script and decided to play along.
@Brian Lear “is anybody else sick of the fact that only female characters can solve problems” No, I am not. I have grown up with an overdose of TV that shows problem-solving males and damsels-in-distress that I still need antidot (BTW, I am male). Besides, Pike and (less so) Saru have also proven capable.
@John Harmon “It really bothered me how much the show reveled in the sadism of [Leland’s] death” We see that scene from the point of view of an Evil Mirror Universe Empress, who had previously said (‘Such Sweet Sorrow 1’, 09:00) “On the other hand, I look forward to hunting Leland down to the ends of the galaxy so I can watch every piece of technology exit his skin bit by bit”. In that scene, Burnham critisized her sadism, so it is strange and untrekky that she got her wish fullfilled.
@wolfstar “The only reason Burnham knows where to send the signals from... is because she did it in the first place. How does original Burnham in any timeline learn why she needs to send the signals from those points?” That ontologic paradox is inherent to time travel stories. I can imagine a physical mechanism that would produce such an effect, although it needs two two coordinates: One in which the action takes place, and a second one in which the loop reates itself; in the beginning, the loops are inconsistent and will play differently in every iteration, but over (second) time, a consistent loop is reached that obeyes causality in the first time. By some statistical argument, we see only the final converged result. There are weak analogies for such a mechanism in Quantum Mechanics.
@wolfstar “Burnham has never worn this suit before. How does she fly it through space?” There was a manual attached to it, in the form of logs from Burnham sen. (“Perpetual Infinity”, ≈15:00). Probably the suit has some propulsion, even if only navigational thrusters, otherwise Burnham sen. would not have been able to land anywhere.
@Chrome “And of course 1 million points for Control not being the Borg” Didn’t you notice the word “Beta Quadrant” at the end (the location of the 7ᵗʰ signal)? I already get Borg vibes for season 3, and I don’t like the idea. I pretty much disliked everything Borgy in VOY after the “Scorpion” two-parter (does not extend to the character 7of9, because I considered her well-written), for the reason that I prefer my Borgs competent and menacing and with fangs.
@Booming “The very same engineer probably thought: Ok, emergency lever on the wrong side. The only thing this blast door now needs is a window” — “Georgiou highlights the problem that shows or movies who make everything dark often have: You start to like the bad guys/gals because they are the only ones who have fun” ☺☺☺
Some own thought will come in a separate post. Yet I have to comment on the visuals, which are both terrific and terrible at the same time. They look astounding, reak of a lot of money spent, and would make great wallpapers, but they contribute only to the coolness factor, not to the narrative. John Harmon called it “Star Wars prequel white noise”, and that is as fitting as can be.
So we have fighters now (never been seen before in the ST universe). No one explains how they operate, what they can do and how they come there. It not even shown whether they are manned or not (some dialogue seems to indicate they are, but there is not one shot how they look like insde). The design is unfamiliar to the viewer, and they fight an equally novel foe. How am I supposed t see who is who? Or should I not care and just marvel at the explosions? I fear it is the latter, and that makes me sick (“style over substance”). Compare this to the epic battle sequence in Orville’s Kaylon two-parter, which managed to look great and tell the story by itself, for it was mostly clear what happens and what motivation the ships have to do what they do.
Alan Roi famously said in another thread that Disco is more demanding to its viewers than any other Star Trek show. Maybe he is right, and I can’t pick up visual, verbal and acoustic clues at high enough speed. Not an English speaker, I am challenged enough parsing the muffled, highly contracted and occasionally ungrammatical speech drenched in too much score. Very often, I have to rewind a scene, sometimes several times, to reparse a highly informal English sentence against the background noise without missing some inconspicuous but important background visual. For example, in a madly fast-cut sequence someone says “The bayonet joint on this oxygen sensor’s wide open” which took me three reruns to realize “sensor’s” is not a possesive case.
Or, take the opening sequence that moves (with a weird shaky-cam effect) from Saru asking something from Owosekun, to Owosekun answering (she sits next to him on the Bridge of Discovery) to Pike. At that moment, my brain threw an exception, and only after stopping the player and inspecting the background props I came to the conclusion that Pike is where he should be, i.e., on Enterprise. Maximum confusion for confusions sake seems the directional mantra. Feeding the audience with conflicting information and forcing them to reevaluate their interpretation of what happened a few seconds before may be demanding. But it is not what Trekkies like me want most and what was famously called “cerebral” more than 50 ears ago.
The “cerebral” remark leads to plot issues, which I will treat in another post.
Re: DSC S2: Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 1
Count me among those who don’t understand Burnham’s Vision. But those who claim they do maybe can answer two questions: How many torpedoes did Enterprise really fire at Discovery? And why did Burnham stop Pike from firing another (first? second? third?) round of torpedoes (I don’t see any danger in firing them)?
BTW, in this scene we see a young blonde woman in red (who also has a line of dialogue at 17:50). She somehow looks like Yeoman Colt, but the ‘The Cage’ she wore blue. Funny no one commented on that.
@Alan Roi: I agree that Discovery somehow challenges the viewers. But it is not the kind of challenge that I remember fondly from old Star Trek episodes, where viewers would be invited to reflect on the meaning of a plot, or at the decision of a commanding officer, or on an ethical dilemma. The challenge is to understand the plot, because it moves so fast. Contrarily, any reflection on what happened and why ends in another enigma. I don’t know why there are seven signals in the first episode, although by the penultimate episode, only five have appeared. And I don’t understand why we need five episodes to delete a file. IT security must be terrible in the 23ᵗʰ century, they cannot even shred a hard disk (or erase it by dynamite); instead, they have to fly the ship into the future, with the entire bridge crew, a queen and an ex-emperess on board.
There might be a 10% chance that everything will make sense after the season end. I called DIS a sort of fast food before — fast, tasty, shiny but neither nutritious nor filling. Jammer nailed it with the verdict “This show wants me to feel something”. But it does not want me to think about something. Compare that to masterpieces like ‘Amok’, ‘Balance of Terror’, ‘All Our Yesterdays’, ‘The Tholian Web’, ‘Chain of Command’, ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’, ‘The Inner Light’, ‘Duet’, ‘In the Pale Moonlight’, ‘Trials And Tribble-ations’, ‘Homefront’, ENT’s Vulcan trilogy and many more. In all these episodes, problems were well stated and solved, and far more interesting things happen than just a failed file delete, Most tellingly, they are still sources for many inspired discussions. Do you really feel the same will be true of any DIS episode? I doubt it.
BTW, I considered ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ an adorable piece of intelligent pop art. The premise ‘Pretty teen girls fight against monsters’ might sound wacky, but the show managed to do everything quite right, from great actors via nuanced scripts and well-developed characters to an almost perfect execution.
Count me among those who don’t understand Burnham’s Vision. But those who claim they do maybe can answer two questions: How many torpedoes did Enterprise really fire at Discovery? And why did Burnham stop Pike from firing another (first? second? third?) round of torpedoes (I don’t see any danger in firing them)?
BTW, in this scene we see a young blonde woman in red (who also has a line of dialogue at 17:50). She somehow looks like Yeoman Colt, but the ‘The Cage’ she wore blue. Funny no one commented on that.
@Alan Roi: I agree that Discovery somehow challenges the viewers. But it is not the kind of challenge that I remember fondly from old Star Trek episodes, where viewers would be invited to reflect on the meaning of a plot, or at the decision of a commanding officer, or on an ethical dilemma. The challenge is to understand the plot, because it moves so fast. Contrarily, any reflection on what happened and why ends in another enigma. I don’t know why there are seven signals in the first episode, although by the penultimate episode, only five have appeared. And I don’t understand why we need five episodes to delete a file. IT security must be terrible in the 23ᵗʰ century, they cannot even shred a hard disk (or erase it by dynamite); instead, they have to fly the ship into the future, with the entire bridge crew, a queen and an ex-emperess on board.
There might be a 10% chance that everything will make sense after the season end. I called DIS a sort of fast food before — fast, tasty, shiny but neither nutritious nor filling. Jammer nailed it with the verdict “This show wants me to feel something”. But it does not want me to think about something. Compare that to masterpieces like ‘Amok’, ‘Balance of Terror’, ‘All Our Yesterdays’, ‘The Tholian Web’, ‘Chain of Command’, ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’, ‘The Inner Light’, ‘Duet’, ‘In the Pale Moonlight’, ‘Trials And Tribble-ations’, ‘Homefront’, ENT’s Vulcan trilogy and many more. In all these episodes, problems were well stated and solved, and far more interesting things happen than just a failed file delete, Most tellingly, they are still sources for many inspired discussions. Do you really feel the same will be true of any DIS episode? I doubt it.
BTW, I considered ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ an adorable piece of intelligent pop art. The premise ‘Pretty teen girls fight against monsters’ might sound wacky, but the show managed to do everything quite right, from great actors via nuanced scripts and well-developed characters to an almost perfect execution.
Re: DSC S2: Perpetual Infinity
@ Daya
No, there was no such discussion. In particular, no one asked the question whether capturing the Angel might harm her. I felt strange about that lack of ethics, too, but then this is Star Trek for the generation that has been socialized with shows like “24” since their cradle, so perhaps small wonder no one cares.
However, the entire Angel trap plot was nonsensical.
α) It relies on the supposed motivation of the Angel not to let Burnham die. The Angel, however, knows about the outcome of the setting if it does not intervene. Therefore, the trap should have been constructed in a way that guarantees Michael’s death if the Angel remains absent. Why should the Angel save her if she will get revived eventually? You can’t bluff an entity from the future.
β) Even if the Angel were Burnham, there is no need for her to save Prime Burnham if the Angel is Burnham from another time line.
γ) As it turn out, the Angel is not Micheal, and has seen Michael die in many time lines before. So why, then, did the trap work? I can think only of one reason: Gabrielle read it in the script.
@ Daya
No, there was no such discussion. In particular, no one asked the question whether capturing the Angel might harm her. I felt strange about that lack of ethics, too, but then this is Star Trek for the generation that has been socialized with shows like “24” since their cradle, so perhaps small wonder no one cares.
However, the entire Angel trap plot was nonsensical.
α) It relies on the supposed motivation of the Angel not to let Burnham die. The Angel, however, knows about the outcome of the setting if it does not intervene. Therefore, the trap should have been constructed in a way that guarantees Michael’s death if the Angel remains absent. Why should the Angel save her if she will get revived eventually? You can’t bluff an entity from the future.
β) Even if the Angel were Burnham, there is no need for her to save Prime Burnham if the Angel is Burnham from another time line.
γ) As it turn out, the Angel is not Micheal, and has seen Michael die in many time lines before. So why, then, did the trap work? I can think only of one reason: Gabrielle read it in the script.
Re: DSC S2: Perpetual Infinity
@ Daya:
In “The Red Angel”, approx. 0:13:00
Saru: As the Angel travels through time, she opens a micro-wormhole along with the possibility that a future A.I. will follow her.
Leland: We can't let that happen again.
Burnham: Agreed. Which is why we have to stop her from traveling back and forth. We have to capture her. Me.
Pike: So, how do you propose we trap her?
@ Daya:
In “The Red Angel”, approx. 0:13:00
Saru: As the Angel travels through time, she opens a micro-wormhole along with the possibility that a future A.I. will follow her.
Leland: We can't let that happen again.
Burnham: Agreed. Which is why we have to stop her from traveling back and forth. We have to capture her. Me.
Pike: So, how do you propose we trap her?
Re: ORV S2: Blood of Patriots
A little bit of “The Wounded” plus almost all of “Past Prologue” — this episode was a huge letdown from previous week.
On the plus side, I loved the medal ceremony at the beginning, Yaphit has very much become a person to me, and that’s a long way from the comical relief character he was introduced as. It’s a strength of The Orville to show how initial perceptions can be wrong, playing with our xenophobia that would not allow us to take a green slime ball as a serious character.
The rest of the episode was, however, pretty meh. Malloy channeled Kira from “Past Prologue” almost exactly, and I feared this would happen from the moment on when Oren pressed him so hard; by the time he shot Keyali in the Shuttle Bay, all suspense was already gone. The custom clearance scene was painful to watch; I note that Keyali still has not become much of a character, she just fills the Alara plot slot without being Alara.
Isaac has only one line of text in this episode, I guess they save his arc to the next episode(s), which is fine for me. The signing of the Contract was so fast that it came out of nothing, and open questions remain: How did the Krill accept the solution, with no proofs available? Was the girl delivered to a Krill interrogation? What is the actual content of the Contract?
Makes two stars for me: Soso execution of a soso plot.
A little bit of “The Wounded” plus almost all of “Past Prologue” — this episode was a huge letdown from previous week.
On the plus side, I loved the medal ceremony at the beginning, Yaphit has very much become a person to me, and that’s a long way from the comical relief character he was introduced as. It’s a strength of The Orville to show how initial perceptions can be wrong, playing with our xenophobia that would not allow us to take a green slime ball as a serious character.
The rest of the episode was, however, pretty meh. Malloy channeled Kira from “Past Prologue” almost exactly, and I feared this would happen from the moment on when Oren pressed him so hard; by the time he shot Keyali in the Shuttle Bay, all suspense was already gone. The custom clearance scene was painful to watch; I note that Keyali still has not become much of a character, she just fills the Alara plot slot without being Alara.
Isaac has only one line of text in this episode, I guess they save his arc to the next episode(s), which is fine for me. The signing of the Contract was so fast that it came out of nothing, and open questions remain: How did the Krill accept the solution, with no proofs available? Was the girl delivered to a Krill interrogation? What is the actual content of the Contract?
Makes two stars for me: Soso execution of a soso plot.
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