Question Star Trek Discovery

....Don't incite me to NR. I've been there, and it was a dark, dark place. Let's just say that Alex Kurtzman;s terrible writing resulted in me buying my Dad a new TV, and a unsolicited trip to the dump with the old one. I've only just gotten over the pain of this new show's unwanted and stupid debut, and I'm still in a total state of shocked rage six moths later. You do NOT know how much I'm restraining myself from ranting about it right now. You should see the picture of alex kurtzman I decided to attack with a blowtorch, some sulphuric acid and some jumper cables. Sorry, make that three photos. I'm so frakkin mad with the Peta'q that I had a massive nervous breakdown. Not kidding. I spent three weeks off work and uni becuase I couldn't stop sobbing. It was worse that when they cancelled Firefly. Way worse. Goddamm, I still have nightmares about the board meetings they must of had to come up with this piece of crap:

"Oh hey guys, err, why don't we try and boost sales for our new streaming show by making a new star trek. That'll bring in the trekkies!!!"

"Wow!! We could, like, make it so terrible that people can't bear to watch it, but bribe the critics so that a new audience of sheeple come to watch it!!!"

"Yeah!!! we won't have to deal with those trekkies any more!!! We can make it for everyone BUT the incredibly devoted fanbase!!! It'll be Great!!!"

"Hell yeah!!! I know, Let's hire that guy who just ruined the Mummy!!! Alex Kurtzman!!! Yeah!!! He worked on, like, those three trek movies!!! He knows everything!!!"

Urrgh...makes me wnat to be sick. 50 odd years of canon and excellence (and yes, I'm including Enterprise (which was better that this shitheap)) down the drain, all for some streamin service that doesn't have much content, and is only avaliable in the US!!! Netflix still has the new Trek here in Australia, but I've coded a third-party plugin for my browser that stops the image and item from loading. It's that painful to look at.

Also, sorry for reviving a dead topic. I'm just that depressed about that show right now.

No, I feel your pain. At least I have hope that Dave Filoni will save Star Wars from Kathleen Kennedy and the flaming retards that seem to be in charge these days. It's sad to think that Rogue One was the best of these three steaming piles.

Oh god...Magical pixie-dust powered starships that turn into fidget spinners when they activate their mushroom engines...??? Forget being on one or two drugs, these writers were on EVERY drug at the same time!!! I mean, how stupid do you have to be to write stuff like this!!! Even Twilight of all things was written better...no....Oh Khaless's Nipples...

Even.

My Immortal (!!!!!)

Was written better

Than

This.

This is officially the worst franchise death since Firefly. That was tragic. But a show as beloved and ingrained as Star Trek??? How could they!!! It's like they murdered one of my beagles right in front of me. As much as I love my two dogs, I have loved Star Trek for longer than they've been alive. I've been a fan since I was six. That was more than fifteen years ago!!! I was watching when Enterprise was on air, though my heart belongs to The Next Generation. I have a entire storage unit FULL of all the memorbillia I can't fit into my apartment, and refuse to throw away. I've got a DVD boxset of TNG season five SIGNED BY PATRICK STEWART!!! Hell, I have a copy of Leonard Nimoy's autobiography signed by the man himself!!! Admittedly, that was a hamidown from my dad, but still!!! I've got realms of comic books, plastic models, reference books, tee-shirts, Coffee mugs...Hell, I own the prop captains chair used in the filming of Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis. It was sold off when they disassembled the set of the Enterprise E, and it found it's way to me after being passed between a few people. My uncle gave it to me as a birthday present back in 2012!!! I would show you a photo, but my camera's bust, and my phone just met watery doom in my Cousin's swimming pool, so I'll try and get it to you when I have a functioning image capturing device. Admittedly, it's not that major. It's currently in my bedroom in my apartment. My roommate rigged it up with functioning buttons, so when you press the place where the intercom control would be, it plays the open channel sound from TNG. Hell, he rigged the base with lights!!!

Getting back to the point, I butchered my Dad's TV with a remote after viewing the third episode. I missed the premier due to uni assignments, but when I finally sat down with a tub of popcorn, and started watching, I went through several noticable reactions (according to my dad). First, my upper eyebrow started twitching uncontrollably. Then, my foot began to spasm. Finally, after the goddam reveal of the spore drive in episode 3, I lost it. I picked up the TV remote, yelled 'F**K THIS!!!" and threw it into the screen. Utter nerd rage. Of course, this did not go down well with my parents, and in hindsight, it was a pretty shitty way to express anger other something that anyone else would consider minor. After that, I spent three weeks denying that there was even such a thing as STD. I was incessantly roaming the internet, trying to find the email address of CBS to complain about 'nothing', and in complete shock. Then came the anger, and the sobbing and finally the depression that has laster now for five months. I'm getting better, but I have never felt so utterly enraged in my entire life. The worst part??? It premiered three days after my birthday, and I watched it for the first time six days after that. Trust me, worst. Birthday. Present Ever

I was going to point out that things could be worse, using Marvel's recent Iceman run as an example.

But "My Immortal" bad is pretty freaking horrific.

The acronym says it all really. Tais series is about as muoh fun as an STD. what did they do to the Klingon? To me they look like Jem'hadar.

Reboot? I think they didn't even go digging in the correct grave yard for the parts they used for this Frankenstein's monster!

If they had done it without the Klingons that looked like the illegitimate love-children of a Jem'Hadar and a velociraptor, the Shroom Drive, and the trip to the Mirror Universe, It could have been good. It also would have been 30 minutes long.

Plus the whole thing of the Enterprise looking wrong for the period between 'The Cage' and the beginning of The Original Series.

The problem is that STD is NOT in the spirit of trek. Trek is about finding peaceful resolutions to violence, about taking joy in discovering new worlds and new civilisations, about bringing forth the best of humanity, not the worst, about a utopia. DS9 alleviated some of this, but that simply showed that the Federation could go to war, and at the same time hold onto it's core principles of reducing the amount of bloodshed that all the species would have to endure.

In fact, can you name one Star Trek character from a previous series who has been racist in the extreme? I don't mean historical figures, I mean starfleet officers. Not ONE person has shown the stupidity, racism and ignorance that Michael Burnham has so far displayed. She is the epitome of what this new trek has turned the honourable name of the show into: Just another cookie-cutter sci fi setting. People have argued that the way that all the other Star Trek shows worked couldn't possibly be popular in a modern day setting. My answer: you call yourselves Trekkies??? Even though Enterprise was "terrible" (and I admit it was bad despite having some great parts) it still felt like Star Trek AND had a better audience rating that STD!!!

If you then argue that that was 17 years ago, I will simply name one show: The Orville. While the critics say it is bad, the audience ratings have made fox renew it for another season. This wonderful show has talent from the actual Star Trek series starring and writing it, and it is a show I have adopted as a offical Star Trek series. It is everything that Gene Roddenberry made out of Star Trek, and keeps up the feel and appearance with modern-day special effects. It also doesn't entirely take itself seriously, which showcases the amount of effort the writers put in.

The biggest thing you can do to mess up a entire franchise is to make drastic changes to the canon. Star Trek Discovery quite literally chucks the canon out the window. We see holographic communicators before DS9 (when the technology was in experimental phases) and being used instead of the ubiquitous viewscreen. We see Starfleet officers in high command positions mutinying and causing war. We see intolerance, racism and hatred in a series renowned for the first interracial kiss on television. We see bulls**t technology that isn't even scientifically possible being used in such a way that it partially invalidates a entire series of the show. We see the production company hiring people who have no experience with Star Trek as a TV show, and most of whom are stated to be ignorant of the show, and definitely not people who cherish it. They hire a showrunner whose greatest achievement was f**king up The Mummy reboot, and whose only connection to Star Trek is that he was a writer for two of the worst trek movies ever. Which aren't even set in the canon universe.

The only tangible connection to any other series of Trek is the name. Nothing else. They may bring back characters from TOS, they might put off-hand references in, but essentially this hot mess they call television is badly written, completely OOC for the Trek Universe, and is actually a huge heartbreaker for me. I cried for three weeks about this. I haven't done that for any other TV show, not even firefly. At the same time, I raged so badly that my roommate left the house and went to a friend's place while I vented. I'm not usually a person to throw tanturms like this. In fact, I'm rather ashamed of my behaviour during those three weeks. But this is possibly the worst thing anyone could do to such a cherished and beloved franchise. They completely ruined it. My boxset collection of every single episode of the show has gone untouched for the last six months. I haven't been able to look at the DVD's, and I've kept them in a storage locker alongside every other star trek memorabilia item I couldn't fit into my apartment for those months. Those bean counters and drug-addicts at CBS did all they could to distance me from Trek. It's not just me

Although it may seem very different, and although there are varying opinions online, at least 57% of the entire fanbase is disendowed by the new show. Over half the audience for the show is of the opinion that it is crap. With that, I can safely say that The Great Green Bird of the Galaxy himself, Gene Wesley Roddenberry, is rolling so hard in his grave, he's tunnelling through the earth.

The Federation didn't build Battleships for exploration..So yes they were quite a fleet and had used those ships on a few occasions. Some on screen other times not so much.

Peace always has a cost. And in reality, I'm not complaining near as much about that focus as about some of the other things that sort of jump out as stuff that would invalidate earlier (or later in the timeline) canon. Some may complain about focusing on a battle ship, but I won't. Still this seems to have been stitched together from something other than Rodenberry's vision.

Peace is a lie (rather like this series) there is only passion.

And the only passion this pile of steaming slop instills in me is the desire to find something else to do. Like watch paint dry. This isn't Star Trek.

I rather liked it, actually. I mean, it wasn't the best, but I've certainly seen worse. I guess that puts me apart from most of you, but then again, I AM guilty of the heresy of stating that Firefly wasn't as good as people claim.

Sure, Discovery had its fair share of problems. I don't think that the war between the Federation and the Klingons was one of them. It seems to me that the premise of that point was that there was never going to be a diplomatic solution at the Binary Stars. The Klingons were there to fight, and nothing Starfleet could do would have changed that. You can't talk peace with those who does not want peace.

The cap'n part? I did not see that coming. I liked it, despite my usual loathing of Trek's time and interdimensional travels.

So it's not like TOS (pile of trash) or TNG (Awesome!), it's not Star Trek Voyager or DS9, I know. But I sometimes think that people put those shows on undeserved pedestals. They were not always as intelligent, well-written or good as people make them out to be.

I've seen better offerings of Trek, or even SciFi in general (Farscape is my all-time favorite), but it wasn't bad and it certainly got better a couple of episodes in.

Greatdingo wrote: I rather liked it, actually. I mean, it wasn't the best, but I've certainly seen worse. I guess that puts me apart from most of you, but then again, I AM guilty of the heresy of stating that Firefly wasn't as good as people claim.

If it's heresy to say that Firefly wasn't as good as people claim, then what is it if you say it was bad? Because I say that Firefly was bad, unwatchably bad.

People's tastes aren't uniform, and thank Murphy for that. Lots of people liked Firefly, but not enough when it was first run to avoid cancellation. Lots of people dislike Discovery, but apparently enough people like it to keep CBS from pulling the plug.

Back in the Nineties, there was a sort of holy war between Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine fans. I liked both. People raved about Lost and 24, and there was such a hype around Heroes. I dropped all three of them (24 around the 10th episode, and the other two sometime in the second season). I shocked a bunch of friends of mine when I remarked that the original Star Wars didn't have much of an impact on me, when I watched it around... ten? Eleven? Maybe twelve? I can't even remember when I watched it, that's how little impact it had. But then, I was already reading hard sci-fi by then, and compared to, say, Asimov, Lucas is all flash and no substance -- I find it entertaining but not really worthy of diving into the fandom, to the degree that I still didn't find the enthusiasm for reading E.E.Nalley's fanfics, despite liking the author.

I have this relative who's all about stratospheric-high culture (he actually has a Ph.D from the Sorbonne on something pretty esoteric related to Arts), and he can't wrap his mind around the fact that I not only haven't watched a single Bergman, Fellini or Pasolini movie, I don't really want to. But we get along quite well nevertheless. And I am thankful that there are people who like stuff I don't, because that means that all those different genres and styles keep being developed and cross-pollinating with each other.

Valentine wrote: Because I say that Firefly was bad, unwatchably bad.

How so?

I only got through the first two episodes of Firefly. In several places, I thought I was watching Days of Our Lives in Space, it was that slow. But the main problem for me was the aesthetic, why are people in space dressing like they came from the 18th century? What is textiles technology going to regress or something? And whats with the villains all not having toothbrushes? It just doesn't make any sense.

Maybe they just think it's easier to let the teeth go bad and replace them all once a decade than it is to brush them every single night. Hell, you're supposed to brush them twice a day! Who has time for that?

More seriously though, there is a lot of wealth and tech disparity in Firefly. Much of the series takes place in the outer areas, which are the poor ones, and one of the recurring themes is medical shortages. There are a few visits to higher class areas where we get to see shiny future cities and more typical sci-fi apparel. In the poor areas, though, they rely on a lot of older tech because it's cheaper to make and simpler to maintain, and shipping in fancier stuff from the core worlds is expensive.

Not unlike the situation in real-world Africa.

There's a difference between high-tech stuff existing and it being readily available. Africa, as Kettlekorn pointed out, is a good example. Another interesting one is The Tale of the Adopted Daughter, one of the mini-arcs inside Heinlein's Time Enough for Love. It has some considerations on living on the bleeding-edge frontier -- briefly, you can't count on any technology you can't fix yourself with no spare parts. Even if a trader comes by, prices will be high, and you might not have enough spare harvest to pay for it. But low-tech stuff can be sourced locally and tends to be more affordable.

I'm one of those people who will actually defend the three-movie arc of the Star Trek film reboot. It has an excellent take on Kirk and Crew's growth in the modified timeline where military threats cause the Federation to teeter between the Trek we know and love and the origins of the Terran Empire. It had subtly that Discovery lacked. It was an undertone, and not a major plotline.

Because, let's face it, goatees or the inability to handle bright light are...well...a joke these days.

In the movie timeline, the Federation was routed by a mining ship. And by the second film, you see how some of their leadership overreact. By the third, you see why the Federation moved away from a military strategy that in the reboot movie timeline, threatens to return from paranoia and hotheadedness. Fighting had only caused suffering, where diplomacy and sharing of skills and information allowed them to succeed.

Kettlekorn wrote:

Valentine wrote: Because I say that Firefly was bad, unwatchably bad.

How so?

The main cast was unlikeable, the stories came across as dumb, and it was boring.

Kristin Darken wrote: That is so far from the Firefly I know and love that I have to wonder if you aren't thinking of something else. I don't know how that could happen... that maybe you somehow saw a couple episodes of Lex and thought they were Firefly... or something bizarre like that.

Train robbery with a spaceship, right?

Valentine wrote:

Kristin Darken wrote: That is so far from the Firefly I know and love that I have to wonder if you aren't thinking of something else. I don't know how that could happen... that maybe you somehow saw a couple episodes of Lex and thought they were Firefly... or something bizarre like that.

Train robbery with a spaceship, right?

Oh you watched it on US TV? Blame Fox, they made them make the train robbery episode then they showed it first and the other episodes out of order, since Firefly actually does matter with the order of the episodes its understandable you got confused and upset over it.

The true first episode introduces and explains the setting and all the characters, making the rest of the series make sense.

...You can't keep the sky from me

God, I loved that show. One of the saddest TV cancellations ever, as the show had so much potential, and so much of that good vibe that it was almost a crime when fox shut it down. Speaking of which, I really hope they don't do the same with the Orville, because unlike STD, I'm actually watching that, and enjoying it. It now holds the same position with trekkies as Galaxy Quest did: Honorary Star Trek. At least, as far as me and my friends at the lab are concerned.

To be honest, I don't recall being impressed by Firefly's plot. I loved the characters, the aesthetic, and the humor. The plot, meh. It wasn't a constant status quo series, but it was still pretty episodic. I prefer structures more like what the Marvel Netflix series use, where each episode is like a chapter in a book, not a series of short-stories. So it's not that I think the plot was bad, just that it was simultaneously too concentrated when it comes to the individual episodes, and too watered down when it comes to the overall series. So while I still enjoyed the series a lot thanks to the other elements, I can understand if people object to the stories it was telling.

It's not really fair to judge a series by an episodic-versus-arc structure just by its first half-season. Those first episodes have to introduce the universe (quite literally in this sort of Sci-Fi series), and there's not much room to build up overarching plots. Consider, for instance, Babylon 5 -- a heavily arc-oriented series; the first season, however, appears to be rather episodic, because there are all those characters and races and technologies to be presented to the viewer. It's only towards the end of the first season that it becomes clear that things will not keep pretty much the same from week to week.

In the Marvel Netflix series, in contrast, there's a lot you can count on the viewers already being familiar with, so they can hit the ground running. Also, there are the different business models -- Netflix pretty much designs the series to be binge-watched, while Firefly was done in broadcast, one-episode-per-week-or-two format. In streaming binge-watch, you don't have to worry much about viewers jumping in the middle of the arc.

I actually had almost no background knowledge for the Marvel series. I'd never heard of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, or Iron Fist. I'd heard of Punisher but knew nothing about him, and all I knew about Daredevil was that he was blind. I enjoyed them anyway, with the exception of Iron Fist.

I realize it's not fair to compare Netflix to broadcast TV. But I'm not trying to say that it's bad for a series to be episodic, just that I personally don't care for it. It's the TV equivalent of short stories vs. novels. Equally valid art forms that appeal to different sorts of audiences.

I didn't mean that the Netflix series producers could assume that the public knew the characters -- that would be stupid, comic readership is tiny compared to TV public. What I meant is that the general setting is familiar. It's set in New York, present day, the broad strokes of the fictional world are pretty much the same they have seen in dozens of other "action" series and movies set in New York. Yes, there are superheroes, but, even if the viewer is not familiar with that particular character, they are familiar with the general idea of superheroes and they for the most part know going in that it will be about superheroes, so the series doesn't have to explain it. They can concentrate on the characters themselves and the plot. A sci-fi series has a lot more to explain about the setting, build backstory etc. So diving directly into a major arc is... harder.

Sir Lee wrote: I didn't mean that the Netflix series producers could assume that the public knew the characters -- that would be stupid, comic readership is tiny compared to TV public. What I meant is that the general setting is familiar. It's set in New York, present day, the broad strokes of the fictional world are pretty much the same they have seen in dozens of other "action" series and movies set in New York. Yes, there are superheroes, but, even if the viewer is not familiar with that particular character, they are familiar with the general idea of superheroes and they for the most part know going in that it will be about superheroes, so the series doesn't have to explain it. They can concentrate on the characters themselves and the plot. A sci-fi series has a lot more to explain about the setting, build backstory etc. So diving directly into a major arc is... harder.

Additionally, the fact the Netflix shows are considered a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe ( In so far as they reference the events in the movies, and characters from them ) People that have seen those will catch on fairly quickly.

I just finished bingeing Discovery on two international flights and I've been avoiding this thread until I could really process it. It's been awhile since I really sat with a ST show. I think I left Voyager about halfway through and barely touched Enterprise. In the 90's TNG reruns were the highlight of my weeknights in high school and while I really enjoyed when things heated, the slow, thoughtful pace of the more heady episodes were great.

...but that was the 90's. In today's world we are SATURATED with content from networks to streaming networks to even Facebook, who is getting in the game soon. There seems to be a sense or need to shoot your load too soon and keep it going more and more. I really enjoyed this series' arc approach. Our fav series in the past few years have been LOST, Dexter, Breaking Bad, Westworld, True Detective (S1), Stranger Things, and Master of None. These days, dramas are taking the short road and stretching the arc until the last 7 minutes of an episode when things turn on their heads for a cliffhanger. They are so afraid to lose an audience by slowing things down and it's exhausting, especially when bingeing.

I liked Discovery, even with the Klingons and the far fetched arc. It still felt like Star Trek but perhaps Star Trek on steroids.

After seeing the season 2 trailer from SD Comic Con, I don't think it will slow down any time soon. Not sure how I feel about Pike but hey, I'm hooked and I'm in. They can at least take credit for that.

marie7342231 wrote: I just finished bingeing Discovery on two international flights and I've been avoiding this thread until I could really process it. It's been awhile since I really sat with a ST show. I think I left Voyager about halfway through and barely touched Enterprise. In the 90's TNG reruns were the highlight of my weeknights in high school and while I really enjoyed when things heated, the slow, thoughtful pace of the more heady episodes were great.

...but that was the 90's. In today's world we are SATURATED with content from networks to streaming networks to even Facebook, who is getting in the game soon. There seems to be a sense or need to shoot your load too soon and keep it going more and more. I really enjoyed this series' arc approach. Our fav series in the past few years have been LOST, Dexter, Breaking Bad, Westworld, True Detective (S1), Stranger Things, and Master of None. These days, dramas are taking the short road and stretching the arc until the last 7 minutes of an episode when things turn on their heads for a cliffhanger. They are so afraid to lose an audience by slowing things down and it's exhausting, especially when bingeing.

I liked Discovery, even with the Klingons and the far fetched arc. It still felt like Star Trek but perhaps Star Trek on steroids.

After seeing the season 2 trailer from SD Comic Con, I don't think it will slow down any time soon. Not sure how I feel about Pike but hey, I'm hooked and I'm in. They can at least take credit for that.

...[sigh]...
STD is...it's just not Star Trek. Try watching The Orville with Set McFarlane (who is actually a former Star Trek alumni (he was a cremember on Enterprise), as well as Penny Jonhson Jerrald (who played Cpt. Sisko's love interest Cassidy Yates on DS9), scott grimes, and a whole bunch of other great actors. It's intelligently written (unlike a certain show which has a f**king spore drive for pete's sake) and balances serious action with lighthearted comedy.

So don't watch this hot mess. Watch The Orville, due for season 2 at New Years Eve

I've been watching a few people on youtube talking about Star Trek. Aside from an uncomfortable amount of whining about alleged social justice warriors, one the of the recurring themes has been that Discovery doesn't look like TOS. It looks far more advanced, modern, techy, whatnot.

To that argument, I say only this; Bovine Fecal matter!

Of course it was going to look like a show made today. And I feel confident enough to assert that if Roddenberry and Co. had the same options back in the day, they would have made it look like that as well.

To the idea that Discovery isn't Star Trek. I understand that a significant part, a very significant part, has been exploration, meeting new species and making discoveries.

I understand.

But another show like that? I'm afraid that would just be regurgitating the same, quite frankly old, premise again. It's not a bad concept to build a TV show around, not at all, but it has been done before, at least four out of five times.
Hell, it's what The Orville, as has been mentioned, is built around. I like The Orville, it's fun, engaging and entertaining. But aside from quite frankly superficial changes, it's a lot like TNG. Again, not necessarily a bad thing. I love TNG, I dare say quite a bit more than many of my friends who are actual "trekkies" for the simple reason that without it, I would not have been as big a sci-fi fan as I am today. My interest and history with Science Fiction can be directly traced back to TNG and Picard's intro monologue.

Time for something new, a rejuvenation of Star Trek, I say. I liked Discovery, but I'll agree that it at times seemed a bit odd. The Spore drive? That's a little weird, but okay, I've seen worse.
But I stand by my previous post. Discovery is built around the war with the Klingon Empire. Detractors will say the Federation should have done more to negotiate. Two things occur to me. 1; They tried and failed. The Klingons were there to fight and were not going to be persuaded otherwise. It was a foregone conclusion. I kind of like the idea that Burnham realized that before it even started. She may have gone about it the wrong way, but she was the only one willing to face the truth, the only one who realized that it was inevitable, no matter what they did.
2; Star Trek: First Contact. "We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats. They invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again! The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!" - Jean-Luc Picard. (I left out the "And I will make them pay for what they've done!" on purpose. It's an awesome line, but not relevant to my point.)
That movie was all kinds of awesome. My point is, in relation to nr. 1, when the enemy does not want to negotiate, when they want to fight and don't care about your peaceful nature, it just doesn't make any sense that you'll want to try and continue negotiating.

Also, those who's claiming this is the worst piece of shit ever? Clearly, you've never seen Star Hunters or Cleopatra 2525!

Erh, I'm very tired and rambling, so I may not make as much sense as I would like.