Star Trek: Keeping Up With the Cardassians

[DaveSumm]

26 minutes ago, red snow said:

I read somewhere online that there was a trek episode where scientists were playing with dilithium and the ensuing explosion tore up space/time making it impossible to warp?

I think that was Omega particles from Voyager.

[williamjm]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

I remember they detached the space tardigrade and could use it with a human subject. I believe by the end of Season 2 they'd gotten to the point where they could use it safely at will, but it's been a while.

Wasn't there also an issue about it potentially causing some environmental damage to some other dimension when they used it so they were reluctant to use it except in emergencies? Or did they solve that as well?

7 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I’ve been stuck in some boring jobs before, I kind of imagine that some semblance of an ‘official’ job title existed and he was technically just turning up to work everyday with fuck all to do. But as was mentioned, they really needed to show him doing something other than staring eyes forward at his desk. Maybe a Lester Freeman style miniature doll house hobby, or some sort of Desmond from Lost situation where he has to check the scanners every few hours to confirm that, nope, still no ships.

It was a bit weird, although I guess it's maybe comparable to something a religious hermit might do.

I suppose he probably had some things to do maintaining the station since the interior seemed in good repair unlike the exterior.

 

[Werthead]

22 minutes ago, williamjm said:

Wasn't there also an issue about it potentially causing some environmental damage to some other dimension when they used it so they were reluctant to use it except in emergencies? Or did they solve that as well?

I think travelling through time means they can use it again since whatever damage they did before would have repaired itself by now. One of the reasons using it before was do problematic is because they were using it a lot, to jump and surprise attack Klingon fleets all over the place. More measured use should be fine.

[Werthead]

This scene - which is a holodeck simulation Boimler is running to practice for his appraisal with the captain, but one of his coworkers reprograms it to be "more exciting" - is excellent because it simultaneously riffs on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek IV (when the Enterprise-A is unveiled) and the JJ Abrams movies (leeeeeensflaaaare!). They even get the composer to pay tribute to James Horner's Star Trek II and III soundtracks at the same time.

Later on someone utters the immortal phrase, "Well, it's a movie, you can do all sorts of crazy stuff with the transporters that you normally can't get away with. Just go with it."

[karaddin]

10 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

It was widely agreed at the time that it was a lame attempt to suddenly catch up on a season and a half of character development, so that we cared when she died ... but nobody did. It wasn’t the same actress from Season 1 as she didn’t get on with the prosthetics, and I think that actress replaced her on the bridge as a different character? Or something like that? At least she finally got to proudly take her place as a background extra with no lines like the rest of the bridge.

Yeah, the original actress plays the new bridge character that replaced her. Even as someone that tries to look at what the show does charitably that death was far too transparent and any feels were unearned.

I'd been hoping they'd finally start fleshing out more of the characters, so I definitely don't want this season to just be the Michael Burnham hour. I'll be very surprised and disappointed if they keep them all separate most of the season. Given her hair in the trailer is very long I'm expecting a couple of episodes like this then another time jump to Discovery arriving, although I guess they could keep them separate if they alternated stories and used the opportunity to give more to the rest of the crew.

I'll be very very disappointed if more time shenanigans are the solution to the current situation, they're in the future now and need to live with it. The future seems very negative on time travel too.

[RumHam]

Second episode was better than the first, I thought.

 

I'd forgotten Mirror-Georgiou was still on the ship. Nice. reaaally hope they're not suggesting Control somehow escaped into Dentmer's implant.  But the previously on "this isn't over!" bit strongly suggests that they are. 

I also read somewhere they're filming seasons two and three of Picard back to back. It was news to me that it was getting a third season. When you think about it they're just filming 20+ episode seasons like the old shows would and then splitting them in half. 

[DaveSumm]

31 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Second episode was better than the first, I thought.

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I'd forgotten Mirror-Georgiou was still on the ship. Nice. reaaally hope they're not suggesting Control somehow escaped into Dentmer's implant.  But the previously on "this isn't over!" bit strongly suggests that they are. 

See, this is why I never watch the recaps. They always ruin it by telling you exactly which plot points are going to come up. You’re probably right though, from my perspective it was just the annoying trope of ‘crew member should clearly just tell everyone they don’t feel right FFS’.

Spoiler

I thought I’d be happy to see the ship back, but I preferred last weeks episode I think. The bar stuff was fun, but ultimately they crashed and then got rescued. I can’t remember why on Earth Georgiou gets to be in on all the staff meetings? And the scene with Stamets was weird, they tried to inject some tension into it but I wasn’t really clear what the stakes were. The music told me I should feel tense because ... why? Was the jeffreys tube going to collapse imminently? 

Looking forward to next weeks though, when everyone can catch up and we get a better picture of where the seasons headed.

 

[RumHam]

15 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

See, this is why I never watch the recaps. They always ruin it by telling you exactly which plot points are going to come up. You’re probably right though, from my perspective it was just the annoying trope of ‘crew member should clearly just tell everyone they don’t feel right FFS’.

  Hide contents

I thought I’d be happy to see the ship back, but I preferred last weeks episode I think. The bar stuff was fun, but ultimately they crashed and then got rescued. I can’t remember why on Earth Georgiou gets to be in on all the staff meetings? And the scene with Stamets was weird, they tried to inject some tension into it but I wasn’t really clear what the stakes were. The music told me I should feel tense because ... why? Was the jeffreys tube going to collapse imminently? 

Looking forward to next weeks though, when everyone can catch up and we get a better picture of where the seasons headed.

 

Yeah, I really shouldn't watch them either. If I remember right very few people know Georgiou is from the mirror universe (it probably helps that her eyes are fine, thanks to the magic of shitty writing.) Tilly and Saru know, and she told Pike just before he left. I believe everyone else still thinks she's the legendary captain Georgiou and they're all probably wondering why Saru is in command. 

 

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

See, this is why I never watch the recaps. They always ruin it by telling you exactly which plot points are going to come up. You’re probably right though, from my perspective it was just the annoying trope of ‘crew member should clearly just tell everyone they don’t feel right FFS’.

  Hide contents

I thought I’d be happy to see the ship back, but I preferred last weeks episode I think. The bar stuff was fun, but ultimately they crashed and then got rescued. I can’t remember why on Earth Georgiou gets to be in on all the staff meetings? And the scene with Stamets was weird, they tried to inject some tension into it but I wasn’t really clear what the stakes were. The music told me I should feel tense because ... why? Was the jeffreys tube going to collapse imminently? 

Looking forward to next weeks though, when everyone can catch up and we get a better picture of where the seasons headed.

 

I guess the drama was that the ship might get crushed by the ice if Stamets didn't fix the system, although if it was so crucial maybe someone more able-bodied should have be sent to fix it.

 

Again, it was an enjoyable episode where it's probably best not to think too much about some of the details of the plot. I did like the planet design with the floating islands.

 

[Corvinus85]

Second episode had its moments and its issues. 

Spoiler

I liked that in the previous episode the Temporal Wars were mentioned, so it's nice to see that there are people who will quickly catch-up that these guys are from the past. The "where are you from" trope can get old really fast.

 

2 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

 

  Hide contents

And the scene with Stamets was weird, they tried to inject some tension into it but I wasn’t really clear what the stakes were. The music told me I should feel tense because ... why? Was the jeffreys tube going to collapse imminently? 

 

 

14 minutes ago, williamjm said:

 

  Hide contents

I guess the drama was that the ship might get crushed by the ice if Stamets didn't fix the system, although if it was so crucial maybe someone more able-bodied should have be sent to fix it.

 

Spoiler

The Stamets scene was ridiculous and I burst out laughing. They made this big deal about simply removing a panel, taking out one piece of equipment and switching out a circuit. Easier than replacing hardware in a computer. Stamets could have done it with his eyes closed, but we needed the dramatic play-by-play of the engineer lady, whose name I don't remember. A junior cadet could have done that job.

I bet the planet suffered a massive dilithium explosion. And so far the most unimaginative part of the 3rd millenium are the weapons.

[williamjm]

2 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

And so far the most unimaginative part of the 3rd millenium are the weapons.

It's also nice to see that even in the 3rd (or is it 4th?) millennium mining settlements will still have bars that look like they came from a Western.

[Jaxom 1974]

Finally watched the finale of Lower Decks and I have to say I enjoyed it immensely.  Particularly once Riker, Troy, and the Titan shows up (props to the design team that the essentially used the design for Titan that was released with the novels when they started a series of original stories in print).  

It really came together and allowed a hard-core Trekkie like me to fully revel in the silly side of the Trek Universe.  Is this canon, yeah...but it won't really matter if they ever really reference anything from this show in Picard or a future movie.  They're playing in the Trek sandbox, but they're actually paying attention to canon but they're also having their commentary on it.  

I think I actually like this show.  I'll like it more if they have Frakes and Sitting back in season 2 some to allow them to enjoy the sillier side of Trek...

[Werthead]

13 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Finally watched the finale of Lower Decks and I have to say I enjoyed it immensely.  Particularly once Riker, Troy, and the Titan shows up (props to the design team that the essentially used the design for Titan that was released with the novels when they started a series of original stories in print).  

It really came together and allowed a hard-core Trekkie like me to fully revel in the silly side of the Trek Universe.  Is this canon, yeah...but it won't really matter if they ever really reference anything from this show in Picard or a future movie.  They're playing in the Trek sandbox, but they're actually paying attention to canon but they're also having their commentary on it.  

I think I actually like this show.  I'll like it more if they have Frakes and Sitting back in season 2 some to allow them to enjoy the sillier side of Trek...

I think it's canon in broad terms (planets, ships, ship classes, characters etc) but certain elements played for laughs might not be canon (the Star Trek universe probably doesn't rest on the shoulders of a koala with a mysterious knowing smile, although you might argue that was the guy not processing what he was actually experiencing correctly and just shouting out gobbledygook).

[Jaxom 1974]

5 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think it's canon in broad terms (planets, ships, ship classes, characters etc) but certain elements played for laughs might not be canon (the Star Trek universe probably doesn't rest on the shoulders of a koala with a mysterious knowing smile, although you might argue that was the guy not processing what he was actually experiencing correctly and just shouting out gobbledygook).

Yeah.  It was my primary concern calling this a canon show, that it would do things that caused significant retconning or hand waving to work.  Instead, they've applied the broad strokes to the universe and, so far, have made it work.   

I think it also helps that it's animated, meaning they can go back to not long after Nemesis, as they have, and continued on that way...

[DaveSumm]

Really takes me back to my youth, hearing about US shows that have yet to air. Any danger of Lower Decks making it to UK tv? Or streaming?

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

Really takes me back to my youth, hearing about US shows that have yet to air. Any danger of Lower Decks making it to UK tv? Or streaming?

Nothing announced so far. There's some thought that CBS are negotiating a deal with Amazon UK for both Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds in one package, which would make sense (I'm starting to think at this juncture that Section 31 isn't happening).

I just VPNed it at this point, which was a pain in the butt but better than the alternatives.

[DaveSumm]

44 minutes ago, Werthead said:

(I'm starting to think at this juncture that Section 31 isn't happening).

I’d forgotten about it until she appeared in this week’s Discovery, but yea I hope not. I was never that invested in her as a character, don’t care that much about Section 31, and can’t see any plausible way she gets back to the 23rd century alone (and she doesn’t seem that desperate to leave either). Inevitably she won’t end up as evil by the end of this season as she was as the Empress in Season 2, it’ll be too tempting for the writers to gradually redeem her.

[RumHam]

34 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I’d forgotten about it until she appeared in this week’s Discovery, but yea I hope not. I was never that invested in her as a character, don’t care that much about Section 31, and can’t see any plausible way she gets back to the 23rd century alone (and she doesn’t seem that desperate to leave either). Inevitably she won’t end up as evil by the end of this season as she was as the Empress in Season 2, it’ll be too tempting for the writers to gradually redeem her.

I was thinking she'd want to go back, not to in time but to the mirror universe.

I hope we do get to see future-mirror-universe. I have a feeling they're going to be real cagey about what they reveal re: the major alien races from the old shows, to avoid boxing in Picard or any other shows set before this. It'd be nice to a least see what happened to the mirror versions. (also I still want to see mirror-borg who are super nice and helpful!) 

Edit: also meant to say that I took her line in the last episode about how they would have made her head of Section 31 and she would have died of boredom as a joke about that show not happening. 

[williamjm]

3 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Really takes me back to my youth, hearing about US shows that have yet to air. Any danger of Lower Decks making it to UK tv? Or streaming?

There's also the second batch of Short Treks which I don't think have showed up here yet.

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I’d forgotten about it until she appeared in this week’s Discovery, but yea I hope not. I was never that invested in her as a character, don’t care that much about Section 31, and can’t see any plausible way she gets back to the 23rd century alone (and she doesn’t seem that desperate to leave either). Inevitably she won’t end up as evil by the end of this season as she was as the Empress in Season 2, it’ll be too tempting for the writers to gradually redeem her.

What would be interesting is if she was semi-redeemed, went back to the Mirror Universe and founded/took over their version of Section 31...which of course would be an undercover organisation devoted to good and justice.

Ha, that might even be interesting.