Jump to content

Star Trek: Keeping Up With the Cardassians


RumHam

Recommended Posts

6 minutes ago, Maltaran said:

I have never heard the name Nilsson before. Is she the blond woman?

Yes. She was the actress who played Airam in the first season.

But that's all we have -- Nilsson, no first name, so they kind of signaled early on that she's there to fill space and not important to the story in any significant way, for whatever reason.

Anyways, doesn't make sense, beyond the writers wanting to make it so. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

If I didn’t come here every week and see the names written down, I honestly don’t think I could name a single crew member outside Saru, Burnham, Tilly and Stamets.

They've done a really bad job of communicating names. I know all of the bridge and engineering crews by sight, but not their names apart from those ones, Detmer (who got a fair amount of coverage in the two-part pilot) and Owosekun (and that's only because she got a semi-centric episode early on). Culber as well, of course.

Otherwise it's Generic Bridge Guys (Bryce and Rhys), Dino-Man (Linus) and Angry-Funny Engineering Lady (Reno).

Other shows also have trouble pairing names to characters, to be fair. That's something even The Wire struggled with for a while (and a lot of secondary and tertiary Game of Thrones characters for people who haven't read the books).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Reno would make a great XO. Of course, she's not a regular, and Notaro wouldn't have the time even if they wanted her.

But I agree the most practical and logical choice would have been a 32rd century person. In fact, more than one officer should be there. They are supposedly understaffed, they need people to help them adapt, they need counselors (even if Culber seems to step up to the job). And vice versa, engineers and others to familiarize themselves with the spore drive (assuming they want to implement it on other vessels).

Speaking of psychological issues... It's completely nuts to leave a pilot with heavy PTSD on duty. I get you don't want her off the ship, but at the very least make her take leave for as long as it takes!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It does occur that, assuming the ship operates on a normal 3x8 shift pattern, there's only 29 Discovery crewmembers on duty at any one time based on their current manpower.

That's...not a lot to run the ship, even assuming the refit automated and improved a lot of systems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess you could argue Tilly does have command experience, pretending to be her mirror self who was a captain. I assume it's common knowledge now that Georgiou is evil? Otherwise the WTF factor goes up a whole lot. 

51 minutes ago, Werthead said:

It does occur that, assuming the ship operates on a normal 3x8 shift pattern, there's only 29 Discovery crewmembers on duty at any one time based on their current manpower.

That's...not a lot to run the ship, even assuming the refit automated and improved a lot of systems.

I think we have to assume they took on some new personnel. You probably can't just say "here's programmable matter and detached nacelles and all this fancy stuff" and then not have someone there who knows how to use it.

I'm probably just giving the writers too much credit though and it's still the people from the past, and Adria who was not even Starfleet before this.

So they could very conceivably run into some Klingons and no one on the ship has any idea what the deal is with the Klingons in this timeframe. Which is ridiculous. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hope the Klingons look completely different from earlier STDMB. I didn't watch TOS, so the change in TNG didn't bother me. However, I loved the DS9 episode where they on-screen swept that under the rug.

C'mon DMB writers: do it again! Give them two heads or bat'leth-arms! And then, when Michael looks at them and almost brings it up, have someone just tell her they don't ask about it! They can't even hug each other after battle anymore - it's tragedy.

And then Michael and only Michael will solve the issue that has plagued the wisest Klingon scientists for the last 500 years. You see, it's because she once talked to a Klingon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/26/2020 at 3:35 PM, Tyria said:

Watched the latest ep of Discovery last night. This show is sadly just so meh. And the constant background music is suuuuper annoying, and sometimes overtakes the dialogue. I could barely pay attention to what was going on. I don't think I've ever watched a show where there is music throughout the entire episode. It's so pointlessly distracting. 

More cat is needed, though she really needs her own episode. But the endless overscoring grates on me too. It's very distracting and tends to undermine (or, you might say, overmine) the significance of dialogue on its own. I don't really get why it's necessary, particularly since that kind of wall-to-wall scoring is more like what you'd see on a CBS action drama than Star Trek... wait, CBS!

I *enjoy* Discovery, but the music is by far one of the weakest parts. The theme is okay, but Jeff Russo isn't especially good at melody. Goldsmith's Voyager theme this is not. For that matter, the underscore is usually "just there", and despite the received wisdom that Berman didn't want flashy music in 90s Trek, Jones, McCarthy, Chattaway, and later David Bell tended to keep things interesting.

But the overscoring really grates, especially when I think about how so many great scenes on DS9 (or many other shows!) stood on their own without any music. 

What I realized tonight is that, while Burnham had an interesting start in season 1, she's become more and more a Mary Sue. In fact, she's not much different than Rey in Abrahms Star Wars. Flawless, always right, heroic beyond all reason, given special powers. Motives beyond reproach. It's just kinda boring, even when we did get her demotion last episode. But then here she's just back to tagging along with Saru to meetings with Admiral Vance and once again gets most of the crucial moments. She should be down on Lower Decks with Boimler at this point. 

I don't mind Burnham's mom showing up, though how she ended up as a Romulan Bene Gesserit makes no sense (and we're probably better off with it left unexplained). The "N'Var" concept was interesting, and I did really like Saru's developing relationship with the Vulcan president. 

And even though this season has been better, we're still getting McGuffins as substitutes for story; c.f. "the Red Angel", "Control". This is probably because Kurtzman thinks that A Big Mystery in the Burn is far more tantalizing for viewers than the multitude of story opportunities offered from the semi-dystopian future setting (and they have been putting it to good use). 

On 11/27/2020 at 12:54 PM, Caligula_K3 said:

Still, what a performance in this scene:

 

Allamaraine!!! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Aemon Stark said:

More cat is needed, though she really needs her own episode. But the endless overscoring grates on me too. It's very distracting and tends to undermine (or, you might say, overmine) the significance of dialogue on its own. I don't really get why it's necessary, particularly since that kind of wall-to-wall scoring is more like what you'd see on a CBS action drama than Star Trek... wait, CBS!

I *enjoy* Discovery, but the music is by far one of the weakest parts. The theme is okay, but Jeff Russo isn't especially good at melody. Goldsmith's Voyager theme this is not. For that matter, the underscore is usually "just there", and despite the received wisdom that Berman didn't want flashy music in 90s Trek, Jones, McCarthy, Chattaway, and later David Bell tended to keep things interesting.

But the overscoring really grates, especially when I think about how so many great scenes on DS9 (or many other shows!) stood on their own without any music. 

Yeah, Berman-Trek had very "safe" music choices, but despite that they could cut loose when needed. The score for Best of Both Worlds helped make that episode.

Babylon 5 had a somewhat more experimental score that mixed electronics with traditional orchestral composing and that worked really well with way more memorable themes than any contemporary Trek (it helps if your composer is a former member of Tangerine Dream). It makes me wonder what they could have done without the musical direction for every Trek episode being "standard orchestral stuff."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wonder what Christopher Franke is doing these days. IMDB shows he scored a number of seasons of The Amazing Race, but does not seem to have scored the latest. Decided to retire? 

Would be interesting to see what he could do with a Star Trek score, IMO. 

Whatever became of the talk of an Empress-led Section 31 series? On the back burner?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, Ran said:

Wonder what Christopher Franke is doing these days. IMDB shows he scored a number of seasons of The Amazing Race, but does not seem to have scored the latest. Decided to retire? 

Would be interesting to see what he could do with a Star Trek score, IMO. 

Whatever became of the talk of an Empress-led Section 31 series? On the back burner?

Oh, I loved the B5 intro themes, at least s1 to 4.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

Oh, I loved the B5 intro themes, at least s1 to 4.

Yeah. And "Sleeping in Light" can still make me misty eyed:

ETA: Decided to look up the proper scene from the final episode and had the very sad realization that of the six actors entering the elevator, four of them have passed away. Has there ever been a show with as many performers to pass away while still relatively young?

To bring it back on topic, obviously there's iconic themes for some of the shows, with Voyager and Deep Space Nine actually doing very well with getting across a kind of majesty and wonder of space. And I'm fond of The Next Generation's theme, with its opening notes from Alexander Courage's iconic TOS opening and then Goldsmith's bombastic TPM theme.

 

Agreed that Discovery is over-scored and too intrusive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got around to watching the latest episode and agree with the general consensus that the soundtrack is very intrusive and Michael's continuing descent into dramatic whisper is irritating. This definitely felt like the weakest episode so far too. Oh dear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Ran said:

Wonder what Christopher Franke is doing these days. IMDB shows he scored a number of seasons of The Amazing Race, but does not seem to have scored the latest. Decided to retire? 

Would be interesting to see what he could do with a Star Trek score, IMO. 

Whatever became of the talk of an Empress-led Section 31 series? On the back burner?

I really like the B5 theme. I also enjoy The Amazing Race. I guess that works? 

I'm nearing the end of a DS9 rewatch - currently "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" which is the second of only three episodes spending any time on Section 31 during the show. It was always an interesting concept when it was a clandestine super secret almost unheard of organization - a Federation "deep state" if there ever was one. Discovery made Section 31 into Skynet (or, more accurately, the Replicators on Stargate: SG1) and also made it boring. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, Ran said:

Whatever became of the talk of an Empress-led Section 31 series? On the back burner?

Delayed due to COVID. It's still happening and the Cronenberg/Georgiou business is apparently setup work for it (I guess we'll see more of that as the season continues).

It sounds like Discovery Season 4, Section 31 Season 1, Picard Season 2, Lower Decks Season 2 (which has been in production already for a while), Prodigy Season 1 and Strange New Worlds Season 1 are going to be in production simultaneously, which is bananas.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/28/2020 at 2:26 PM, Werthead said:

They've done a really bad job of communicating names. I know all of the bridge and engineering crews by sight, but not their names apart from those ones, Detmer (who got a fair amount of coverage in the two-part pilot) and Owosekun (and that's only because she got a semi-centric episode early on). Culber as well, of course.

Otherwise it's Generic Bridge Guys (Bryce and Rhys), Dino-Man (Linus) and Angry-Funny Engineering Lady (Reno).

Other shows also have trouble pairing names to characters, to be fair. That's something even The Wire struggled with for a while (and a lot of secondary and tertiary Game of Thrones characters for people who haven't read the books).

I don’t know about you, but by the end of season 1, I remembered nearly everyone on The Wire. That show was amazing when it came to creating memorable characters. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Strange New Worlds casting starting -- some descriptions of the additional bridge officers here.

They're creating new characters, rather using established ones?  Where  is Yeoman Colt or, more importantly, Dr. Boyce?

I admit, I'm not a Discovery viewer, when is it supposed to be set initially again?  The Cage was supposed to be 13 years prior to Kirk on the Enterprise...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

They're creating new characters, rather using established ones?  Where  is Yeoman Colt or, more importantly, Dr. Boyce?

That was exactly what I was thinking. I'm not really caring all that much for most of the minor characters, but Dr. Boyce was a terrific character in the original pilot! Why the hell replace him of all people?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...