Star Trek: Keeping Up With the Cardassians

[Denvek]

Discovery is set after The Cage - Memory Alpha says The Cage was in 2254 and Discovery travelled to the future in 2258, so if they say that Enterprise ended one 5-year mission in that time and started the next one that can justify however much crew turnover they want.

[Werthead]

Jeffrey Combs did say he'd happily audition for the role of Dr. Boyce.

But yes, based on the timeline there's no particular reason why Boyce would still be on board (or why he wouldn't for that matter).

[DaveSumm]

It’s pretty damn strange that Roddenberry made a pilot in 1964 and it’s getting picked up in 2020. That’s gotta be some kind of record.

[Jaxom 1974]

2 hours ago, Toth said:

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?

Non canon material also gives one the idea that Bryce was a confidant of Pike's...

[Toth]

15 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Non canon material also gives one the idea that Bryce was a confidant of Pike's...

Not really non-canon material, we had that scene with Pike and Bryce drinking, with Pike opening up about his distress about loosing redshirts under his command and insecurities in regards to the burdens of command. I was fairly disappointed to hear that Discovery apparently never bothered to pick up on how much of a byronic hero archetype Pike was supposed to be.

[sifth]

I just hope Strange New Worlds is a return to stand alone adventures on a ship. I don't mind story arcs, but I prefer them to the way DS9 made them.

[Toth]

2 minutes ago, sifth said:

I just hope Strange New Worlds is a return to stand alone adventures on a ship. I don't mind story arcs, but I prefer them to the way DS9 made them.

Don't count on it...

[Werthead]

The writers have repeatedly said that Strange New Worlds will have episodic storytelling but serialised character arcs, making it a bit more like non-Dominion War-focused episodes of DS9 and Voyager (and S1 and S2 Enterprise).

Whether that holds once the show gets underway, we'll see.

I'm also waiting for the inevitable fan singularity implosion since they moved Discovery into the distant future because half the fans with bitching about it being a prequel but simultaneously the other half wanted more Mount as Pike, so they've ended up in exactly the same situation that led to sending Discovery to the future anyway: a prequel that's going to fall into more canon traps as they go along.

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

It’s pretty damn strange that Roddenberry made a pilot in 1964 and it’s getting picked up in 2020. That’s gotta be some kind of record.

That's a great point

[Jaxom 1974]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Jeffrey Combs did say he'd happily audition for the role of Dr. Boyce.

But yes, based on the timeline there's no particular reason why Boyce would still be on board (or why he wouldn't for that matter).

Jesus...I totally misread that as Jeffrey Hunter for a moment thinking, "that would be an interesting play on casting", only to go, "Wait...Jeffrey Hunter is long dead..." and then I reread the post and then the article...

I need a nap.

[sifth]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The writers have repeatedly said that Strange New Worlds will have episodic storytelling but serialised character arcs, making it a bit more like non-Dominion War-focused episodes of DS9 and Voyager (and S1 and S2 Enterprise).

Whether that holds once the show gets underway, we'll see.

I'm also waiting for the inevitable fan singularity implosion since they moved Discovery into the distant future because half the fans with bitching about it being a prequel but simultaneously the other half wanted more Mount as Pike, so they've ended up in exactly the same situation that led to sending Discovery to the future anyway: a prequel that's going to fall into more canon traps as they go along.

That's a great point

The reason people felt Discovery worked better in a future setting, is because about 90% of the shows problems could have been solved if that's where the show started. Everything from the Klingons new look, to Star Fleet using holograms to communicate, to heck even the spore drive itself, would have worked much better in a post Voyager setting, instead of a Pre TOS setting. I know for some daft reason the creative team has a crush on Spock and wanted him to appear on the show in some way, but Kurtzman and his team refused to respect the time period the show was set in and it showed. I often tell my friends, that Discovery is the Sci-Fi equivalent of a show set in the 70's, yet for some strange reason everyone has a cellphone and a smart tv.

This is particularly painful, when you compare it to the DS9 episode where Sisko meets Kirk and Enterprise as a whole. I'm not a huge fan of the TOS era, but if you want to have a show that takes place there respect the time period. I mean heck we couldn't even get a constitution class starship that looked right, on Discovery.

[Mindwalker]

Well, now we know how to cure

Spoiler

PTSD: Just do your highly dangerous, high-pressure job, and it'll all work out!

 

[Werthead]

That one was better.

Spoiler

 

Detmer had something to do and we had some character relationship development between Saru/Tilley and Culber/Stamets/Adira. Burnham was relatively low-key in the episode.

The distinction between the Discovery attacking the Emerald Chain's ship and sending out an "unsanctioned alien ship" to do the same thing seems a bit thin though.

 

 

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

That one was better.

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Detmer had something to do and we had some character relationship development between Saru/Tilley and Culber/Stamets/Adira. Burnham was relatively low-key in the episode.

The distinction between the Discovery attacking the Emerald Chain's ship and sending out an "unsanctioned alien ship" to do the same thing seems a bit thin though.

 

 

To be fair

Spoiler

The Emerald Chain seemed to agree with you. I suspect the Admiral is going to as well.

I really appreciated the stuff between Stamets, Culver and Adira this week.

 

 

 

[Plessiez]

I don't think I disliked last week's episode as much as most people posting here.  It wasn't my favourite episode of the season, but I thought it was basically fine; if nothing else, it was a nice change to have an episode in which people resolved a problem by talking about it rather than shooting a lot of unnamed extras.  (I mean, yes, the actual execution of the plot was a bit clumsy and some of the writing was pretty awkward, but ... that shouldn't be a surprise at this point?)

This week's episode though, I just thought was incredibly dull.  It's the first episode this season where I actually got bored halfway through and went to do something else (and the second half, when I watched it, wasn't any better).

[RumHam]

1 hour ago, Plessiez said:

This week's episode though, I just thought was incredibly dull.  It's the first episode this season where I actually got bored halfway through and went to do something else (and the second half, when I watched it, wasn't any better).

I had the same problem at points. 

There was a whole scene of the bad guy feeding the previous bad guy to an alien "trance worm" that was supposed to hypnotize him and make it painless. But then it just devoured him violently. I guess that established that she was evil and ruthless but I dunno she didn't make much of an impression. 

At least they gave Detmer something, even if it was just "fly manually" (so the thing that was stressing her out before was using the autopilot?)

They shouldn't have used the same "captain tries to come up with their own version of 'engage' when going to warp" joke as Lower Decks.

"Federation help always comes with strings"  The idea the Vance might not be as noble as he seems is interesting, and I hope the show follows up on it. 

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

 

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I really appreciated the stuff between Stamets, Culver and Adira this week.

 

Same. It felt human and real in a way that this show isn't great at. I wish they'd slow down and spend time with the characters more often. 

and hey they managed to elicit emotion without a swelling musical cue. 

 

[Ran]

That was an okay episode. Well-directed, I thought, but Frakes is a very dependable pro these days and does a good job with it.

Spoiler

Have not watched Lower Decks but I can't blame them if Discovery does it as well, I doubt they were looking at what each show as writing.

The fact that Ossyra did not buy that the ship that came out of Discovery and was piloted by a Discovery crewmember was not the responsiblity of Starfleet was shocking to me. As it was, apparently, shocking to Saru. 

 

[RumHam]

39 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

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Have not watched Lower Decks but I can't blame them if Discovery does it as well, I doubt they were looking at what each show as writing.

 

I don't blame Discovery's writers but Isn't Kurtzman supposed to be overseeing both shows?

The joke worked a lot better on Lower Decks. Here it just makes Saru seem silly. 

 

 

[Werthead]

7 hours ago, RumHam said:

 

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I don't blame Discovery's writers but Isn't Kurtzman supposed to be overseeing both shows?

The joke worked a lot better on Lower Decks. Here it just makes Saru seem silly. 

 

 

The joke was actually more subtle and more complex (!) on Lower Decks.

Spoiler

Ramsey spends several episodes moaning about not having her own cool version of "Engage!" (trying out "It's warp time!" before admitting that's rubbish), but it's actually the fake Ramsey in the holodeck "movie" version of their adventures who later comes up with her own version: "Time to take this puppy off its leash! Warp me!" This is the same scene that simul-rips on The Motion Picture and the 2009 Abrams film.

Although I think the joke is a bit off-target. "Engage" wasn't Picard's thing, it was what every Starfleet captain said. Picard's personal thing was "Make it so." Captain Styles of the Excelsior did use "Execute!" instead in Star Trek III, but he was a prat, so it never caught on.

[RumHam]

TNG Era Time Soldier - Star Trek Discovery - YouTube

Clip from next week. 

 

Looks like they're sending Georgiou back to go do the Section 31 show. I guess I can still hope something will go wrong and she'll end up in the TNG era? I don't know that we need Section 31 and Brave New Worlds set in the original Discovery time.

Took me a minute to realize the "romulan mining ship" was Nero's.

[Lightning Lord]

I don't have strong feelings about this one, but I think I liked it overall. I am going to try to focus on the positives.

Spoiler

 

On the one hand, clever (sigh, given past evidence, I am calling this clever) writers acknowledged that a brutal crime syndicate isn't going to calmly accept the "haha, it wasn't a Federation ship" technicality.

I fully expected Michael to be the solution to the space locusts, using a magical Vulcan mind technique to personally solve the problem. It was nice to see that she just had an idea and others executed it.

It's cute that Stamets has basically adopted Adira. The two actors have good chemistry and I think the writers did a good job presenting a teenager who could use someone reaching out to them because they are too hesitant to make that reach themselves. Stamets also gets a Basic Human Decency point for unquestionably accepting their pronoun.

On the other hand, Saru is now the comic relief and an outright idiot for thinking "Huh, the brutal crime syndicate is totally going to accept that we just crewed and released the ship, but it was totally not us."

 

There was less whispering this week, though Book took up some of Michael's slack. Who whispers when they're alone in a forest? Maybe if it's snowing...but not when it's all open and airy. Them's shoutin' times.

Most of the episode moved to develop characters other than Burnham. She still got to shine, though. Good stuff.