Star Trek: The Wrath of Fans

[sifth]

Discovery is such a strange show; it almost feels like this is the series second attempt at rebooting itself. The first was in season 2, when they basically ignore all the events of the first season; I mean the war with the Klingons hardly ever gets brought up, let alone the fact that the Federation was nearly destroyed. So now we have reset point number two, to look forward to, by having the ship and all its characters getting stranded in the future; which to be honest, is probably where the show should have taken place to begin with.

In some ways, Discovery sort of reminds me of the Disney Star Wars films, where each new movie tries to retcon the one that came out before it.

[red snow]

It doesn't help that they change creative directors so frequently either. Picard had the same issue. Like you say a bit like Disney star wars where the main priority is getting product out and sometimes being too eager to adress "loud" fan criticism.

I'd like one great star trek show over 6 messy ones but i think CBS is more keen on having a continuous amount of content to keep subscribers around.

I'm glad they've jumped forward as i never liked the prequel setting (the tech was too advanced) and going this far forward means they don't have to worry about Picard continuity. I think it could free the show to be what it wants. My main thing is to see the expanded cast put yo use instead of sarek tilly and stanek

[sifth]

17 hours ago, red snow said:

My main thing is to see the expanded cast put yo use instead of sarek tilly and stanek

I couldn't agree with you more on this issue. It almost feels like Discovery's bridge crew consists of some of the most well paid extras in the business. It kind of reminds me of The Hobbit trilogy, where only 3 or 4 dwarves were given character development and story arcs, while the rest were just along for the ride. I mean this is especially painful, when you compare them to The Fellowship in the first trilogy and how well fleshed out those characters were.

When it comes to the bridge crew on Discovery though, they almost feel like an inside joke, like Morn was on DS9.

[red snow]

18 hours ago, sifth said:

I couldn't agree with you more on this issue. It almost feels like Discovery's bridge crew consists of some of the most well paid extras in the business. It kind of reminds me of The Hobbit trilogy, where only 3 or 4 dwarves were given character development and story arcs, while the rest were just along for the ride. I mean this is especially painful, when you compare them to The Fellowship in the first trilogy and how well fleshed out those characters were.

When it comes to the bridge crew on Discovery though, they almost feel like an inside joke, like Morn was on DS9.

And oddly their design makes them quite interesting/appealing to me. We've had small hints eg the cyber woman (which i enjoyed until she became evil and died) and there was the black woman who went on an away mission and had an interesting background.

I'd even started to wonder whether they were part of the production crew and aren't actually actors meaning they are stuck with being unable to expand their stories without recasting.

I imagine season 3 will focus more on new characters rather than expand on existing ones though. It's a shame as a staple of all other trek shows (besides Picard) has had a core cast of 10 or so all of which get a spotlight per season

[Heartofice]

I always assumed they discovered those actors couldn’t really act so scaled back their participation to just looking cool in the background 

[RumHam]

It's weird, the cyber-woman (Airiam) barely did anything the first season. But then for the second season they gave that actress another bridge character and recast Airiam with another actress and actually gave her something to do before killing her off. The new character then took Airiam's spot on the bridge. 

[red snow]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I always assumed they discovered those actors couldn’t really act so scaled back their participation to just looking cool in the background 

Surely you'd redshirt them in that case?

 

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

It's weird, the cyber-woman (Airiam) barely did anything the first season. But then for the second season they gave that actress another bridge character and recast Airiam with another actress and actually gave her something to do before killing her off. The new character then took Airiam's spot on the bridge. 

That's really bizarre but maybe fits with the "can't really act/involved in production"

Edit: And another thing - having recently watched "toast of london" I'll never be able to see Ash in the show without saying "Clem Fandango"

[sifth]

What I don't understand is, why are the bridge crew even characters, if they don't plan on doing anything with them. These people honestly should be a bunch of faceless extras in the background, who are constantly being replaced. If you have a cast of recurring and supporting characters actually use them in your story, don't just treat them like wallpaper. DS9 should be considered the gold standard for using recurring characters right. By the end of that show I honestly cared about Garak, Martok, Nog, Rom, Vic and several other supporting characters just as much as the main cast.

Emily Coutts has been in nearly every episode of the show and has probably only spoken about ten times. The fact that one of the first things Pike does in season 2 is have a role call for each person on the bridge, almost felt like a joke by the producers saying "crap, we've really done nothing with these characters have we".

 

[Werthead]

Season 2 of Discovery did a few things better than the first, but it did seem to get sidetracked by casting Anson Mount as Pike and Ethan Peck as Spock and them both being so good they ended up taking over the show. That was beneficial in some respects, like dialling back on Tilly and Stamets who had both been wildly overused in the first season, but it also had negative ones, like at certain points it felt like all of Tilly's character development in Season 1 had gone out the window and she'd reverted back to how she was at the start of the series (having an ensign seemingly incapable of talking to the captain due to nerves was an odd choice).

The central storyline had promise, but it then got a bit weird and overly-convoluted mid-season. Star Trek storylines are often (or at least more-often-than-we'd-like) batshit and don't withstand basic scrutiny, but they're usually over in 44 minutes and you're onto something else. Having them spread across 14-15 episodes makes it more obvious when the central thesis is heavily flawed. That space battle at the end of Season 2 with apparently infinite fleets of shuttles pouring out of both ships was also crap.

The secondary cast not being fleshed out more is definitely a weakness, and also an unnecessary one. With 8 or 9 episodes like a lot of streaming shows, that lack of character development of secondary castmembers would be more understandable (if still not inevitable) but with 15, they didn't really have any excuse for not more with them. Airiam seems to have been chosen to have an episode about her because she was the most distinctive character on the bridge (although perhaps the fact she had the most expensive prosthetics may have also had an impact).

[Caligula_K3]

I'm not really a Trekkie (though I am watching DS9 for the first time now - up to season 5 - and really enjoying it) but Discovery lost me sometime in season 1, when it turned out that Lorca was EVIL LORCA from EVIL UNIVERSE and then he died and nobody seemed to care that their captain this whole time was an evil doppleganger.

The many Klingon scenes done in Klingon also didn't help... There's only so much "T'KUVMA!" I could take. The Klingons in DS9 aren't my favourite either, but at least they can be funny.

[red snow]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

Season 2 of Discovery did a few things better than the first, but it did seem to get sidetracked by casting Anson Mount as Pike and Ethan Peck as Spock and them both being so good they ended up taking over the show. That was beneficial in some respects, like dialling back on Tilly and Stamets who had both been wildly overused in the first season, but it also had negative ones, like at certain points it felt like all of Tilly's character development in Season 1 had gone out the window and she'd reverted back to how she was at the start of the series (having an ensign seemingly incapable of talking to the captain due to nerves was an odd choice).

The central storyline had promise, but it then got a bit weird and overly-convoluted mid-season. Star Trek storylines are often (or at least more-often-than-we'd-like) batshit and don't withstand basic scrutiny, but they're usually over in 44 minutes and you're onto something else. Having them spread across 14-15 episodes makes it more obvious when the central thesis is heavily flawed. That space battle at the end of Season 2 with apparently infinite fleets of shuttles pouring out of both ships was also crap.

The secondary cast not being fleshed out more is definitely a weakness, and also an unnecessary one. With 8 or 9 episodes like a lot of streaming shows, that lack of character development of secondary castmembers would be more understandable (if still not inevitable) but with 15, they didn't really have any excuse for not more with them. Airiam seems to have been chosen to have an episode about her because she was the most distinctive character on the bridge (although perhaps the fact she had the most expensive prosthetics may have also had an impact).

That and she looks like nebula from guardians/avengers. Her and the other character with cybernetic implant both could be used to explore the issue of cybernetics and at what point do you stop being human which is becoming more revelant in the real world. Again, it's been hinted at but they could do so much more with it. Have Tilly consider getting some for an edge or suggest a division between humans and emerging post humans. I guess they could have cybernetics banned in future which could give that character something to do other than look at the camera once per episode 

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, red snow said:

That and she looks like nebula from guardians/avengers. Her and the other character with cybernetic implant both could be used to explore the issue of cybernetics and at what point do you stop being human which is becoming more revelant in the real world. Again, it's been hinted at but they could do so much more with it. Have Tilly consider getting some for an edge or suggest a division between humans and emerging post humans. I guess they could have cybernetics banned in future which could give that character something to do other than look at the camera once per episode 

Alex Kurtzman couldn't spell 'emerging post humans' let alone listen to the words in a pitch about Star Trek. It's a show about explosions and action sequences that look like school shootings. Didntcha know?

[red snow]

19 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Alex Kurtzman couldn't spell 'emerging post humans' let alone listen to the words in a pitch about Star Trek. It's a show about explosions and action sequences that look like school shootings. Didntcha know?

that's very true. Sorry, I couldn't hear your sci-fi concept for the lens flare

[karaddin]

I actually liked the heavy drone utilisation of the battle at the end of S2 in isolation, the problem is that its the one case of the tech in the prequel being better than later on that actually feels like a plot hole rather than just a result of improving visual effects. Its an extrapolation of how battle might proceed from where we are now. If they'd committed to handwaving it by having the battle at the end of Picard featuring drone swarms then I'd probably be able to ignore it myself, but that dropped back to just a whole bunch of big ships all facing off with zero drones.

As a result it feels like it needs an in universe explanation for why the Federation backed away from drone warfare, whether its another AI related explanation or something else. Because outfitting the TNG era Enterprise as a drone carrier doesn't seem like it would need to take away from any of its other functions, in fact the drones can easily be multipurpose and serve its exploratory and science roles just as much as its military one, while making it far more effective as a combat vessel. Maybe even just a throwaway line about shield tech reaching a level drone weaponry can't deplete them would be sufficient. Because DISCO S2 Enterprise from that last fight would have shredded the Romulan ships that give TNG Enterprise a lot of stress without even breaking a sweat.

[red snow]

3 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I actually liked the heavy drone utilisation of the battle at the end of S2 in isolation, the problem is that its the one case of the tech in the prequel being better than later on that actually feels like a plot hole rather than just a result of improving visual effects. Its an extrapolation of how battle might proceed from where we are now. If they'd committed to handwaving it by having the battle at the end of Picard featuring drone swarms then I'd probably be able to ignore it myself, but that dropped back to just a whole bunch of big ships all facing off with zero drones.

As a result it feels like it needs an in universe explanation for why the Federation backed away from drone warfare, whether its another AI related explanation or something else. Because outfitting the TNG era Enterprise as a drone carrier doesn't seem like it would need to take away from any of its other functions, in fact the drones can easily be multipurpose and serve its exploratory and science roles just as much as its military one, while making it far more effective as a combat vessel. Maybe even just a throwaway line about shield tech reaching a level drone weaponry can't deplete them would be sufficient. Because DISCO S2 Enterprise from that last fight would have shredded the Romulan ships that give TNG Enterprise a lot of stress without even breaking a sweat.

We're on the same page regarding this. The actual scene with the drones was cool and should be something we see more often in SF nowadays as an extrapolation of our current tech. I'm trying to remember whether "the expanse" uses them? I know they have pre-programmed manuever and weapons algorithms as opposed to it all being down to human skill (although they design the algorithms still). It's just that it creates the plot hole you mentioned for every other trek show except for "enterprise" in that there's no reason (yet) why such useful combat tech isn't used.

As you say it could be an "energy" limitation where shields and overall ship performance were more important. Or it's that the AI/drones can be hacked and are unreliable - if this was in the battlestar galactica world it would make sense that humans don't use drones. 

To be fair besides the odd episode (I think during the dominion war) where the transport shuttle were use as weapons it doesn't really make sense how TOS/TNG era starships don't at least have some smaller manned vessels for fighting like modern day aircraft carriers. Again this could be due to the energy required for effective shielding and smaller vessels just not being able to achieve the same level.

Like you say if this had been used in Picard I wouldn't have had any problem and would be pleased to see more modern tech incorporated.

[Toth]

1 hour ago, red snow said:

We're on the same page regarding this. The actual scene with the drones was cool and should be something we see more often in SF nowadays as an extrapolation of our current tech. I'm trying to remember whether "the expanse" uses them? I know they have pre-programmed manuever and weapons algorithms as opposed to it all being down to human skill (although they design the algorithms still). It's just that it creates the plot hole you mentioned for every other trek show except for "enterprise" in that there's no reason (yet) why such useful combat tech isn't used.

As you say it could be an "energy" limitation where shields and overall ship performance were more important. Or it's that the AI/drones can be hacked and are unreliable - if this was in the battlestar galactica world it would make sense that humans don't use drones. 

To be fair besides the odd episode (I think during the dominion war) where the transport shuttle were use as weapons it doesn't really make sense how TOS/TNG era starships don't at least have some smaller manned vessels for fighting like modern day aircraft carriers. Again this could be due to the energy required for effective shielding and smaller vessels just not being able to achieve the same level.

Like you say if this had been used in Picard I wouldn't have had any problem and would be pleased to see more modern tech incorporated.

I feel like the drone suggestion falls into the very same problem as the fighter craft suggestion: Phasers and shields are gamebreakers in the Star Trek universe. Phasers have an incredibly long range, are very precise, very hard hitting and can fire pretty much as quickly as you need them to be by adjusting the power output of the individual bursts. Shields meanwhile are pretty much impenetrable to everything but weaponry of similar sized ships. So you stand before the problem that your drones need capital ship weaponry to be effective, but also need appropriate shielding to not just be swatted like a fly. I still remember vividly that one TNG episode where the Enterprise crew got brainwashed into fighting someone else's war, they were attacked by a swarm of starfighters and they basically just laughed it off and vaporized them within seconds.

There were several attempts in the old Trek canon to accomplish small fighting craft though. DS9 introduced bulky starfighters that did basically nothing except die in droves. The only feasable concept was the Multi-Vector-Assault mode of the Prometheus class in Voyager and that whole concept did indeed revolve around the idea of turning your ship into three sizeable ships that can overwhelm an enemy that has to direct shield energy to three different directions.

I'm pretty sure thanks to replicator technology you could churn out a ridiculous amount of small drones very quickly, but I feel like you'd run very fast into an efficiency problem: Just how much energy do you have to expend to have enough drones of enough power to make any kind of difference? Wouldn't it be significantly easier to just put that energy into your phasers instead? In fact, I feel like the drones became only a viable option in Star Trek after J. J. Abrams turned phasers into turbolasers from Star Wars because he's an idiot.

And of course, Discovery gets the added problem that they shouldn't have replicators at this point in the timeline, so they would have to prefabricate the damn things...

[Werthead]

6 hours ago, karaddin said:

I actually liked the heavy drone utilisation of the battle at the end of S2 in isolation, the problem is that its the one case of the tech in the prequel being better than later on that actually feels like a plot hole rather than just a result of improving visual effects. Its an extrapolation of how battle might proceed from where we are now. If they'd committed to handwaving it by having the battle at the end of Picard featuring drone swarms then I'd probably be able to ignore it myself, but that dropped back to just a whole bunch of big ships all facing off with zero drones.

As a result it feels like it needs an in universe explanation for why the Federation backed away from drone warfare, whether its another AI related explanation or something else. Because outfitting the TNG era Enterprise as a drone carrier doesn't seem like it would need to take away from any of its other functions, in fact the drones can easily be multipurpose and serve its exploratory and science roles just as much as its military one, while making it far more effective as a combat vessel. Maybe even just a throwaway line about shield tech reaching a level drone weaponry can't deplete them would be sufficient. Because DISCO S2 Enterprise from that last fight would have shredded the Romulan ships that give TNG Enterprise a lot of stress without even breaking a sweat.

I always felt drone technology in a far future setting made less sense because the enemy could hack your drones and turn them against you, and then people would invent anti-hacking measures and people would come up with better hacking etc until you just don't bother having drones or have manually piloted ships again.

[red snow]

well, it looks like we're all coming up with good excuses for them. They need to address it in either S3 of Discovery or S2 of Picard. It'll take take no time at all for them to include it. 

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, red snow said:

well, it looks like we're all coming up with good excuses for them. They need to address it in either S3 of Discovery or S2 of Picard. It'll take take no time at all for them to include it. 

I mean, between them the original series, movies and The Next Generation did generate three brick-thick books called A Nitpicker's Guide to Star Trek (the only reason there weren't more is because Paramount kicked up a fuss about them using a painting of the Enterprise-D on the cover). Massive plotholes is something all incarnations of Trek have in common, so I see the new series following in that grand and honourable tradition.

[Caligula_K3]

Yeah - I mean, again, I'm pretty new to all thinks Trek, but I recently watched The Trials and Tribble-Lations episode of DS9 and learned that Klingons apparently were originally just slightly big and mean humans. The message of that episode seemed to be "don't take this kind of stuff too seriously" and that's probably going to be the best approach to Star Trek as a whole, from what I've seen.

Now, please no spoilers for the end of DS9 in case he dies, but out of all the new Trek shows, how is there not a Garak series being floated out there? He's just the best idea I've ever seen in Trek, and he elevates every episode he's in. Screw Picard, give me older Garak as a tailor spy with his buddy Bashir along for the ride!