Star Trek: Keeping Up With the Cardassians

[Lightning Lord]

I kind of want to use DMB as a non-example of plot development and characterization. I honestly and seriously think most of them, if tasked with watching the series critically, would identify many of the issues and inconsistencies that have been paraded across our screens.

My students are middle schoolers whose first language isn't English. And I really, truly think that if I asked them to find examples of plot nonsense and characterization gone awry.

I don't know where the issue is. I do not believe professional writers could perform their jobs so poorly. And I have read multiple Xanth novels and some Sword of Truth.

[felice]

4 hours ago, RumHam said:

Osyraa wanting an alliance is the worst plot twist I can remember since the end of season one of The Killing (the only season I watched.) It exists purely to be a shocking twist and doesn't jive with what came before at all.

I thought the idea of a morally dubious rival power offering the Federation a very useful alliance was potentially a lot more interesting than the mindless shooting that surrounded it. I agree it doesn't jibe with what came before, but I think altering what came before would have been a better solution.

Quote

And to make it worse they have the lie detector hologram there to remove any nuance or tension from the negotiations.

Yep, but given how badly the setup was handled, I can't imagine how anyone could even consider trusting her without it.

[Werthead]

10 hours ago, Lightning Lord said:

I would love for Lower Decks to get on Netflix here. I love Trek but I think I have to give up on DMB. It doesn't work for me.

Lower Decks Season 1 should hit Amazon Prime worldwide on 22 January.

 

[Mr Fixit]

19 hours ago, Werthead said:

I think there's a combination of factors. They do have some pretty good writers, but they're all under the thumb of Kurtzman, who is absolutely useless as both a writer and producer. So you have a reasonable stream of good ideas, which then get degraded or not thought through properly. Kurtzman I think should either downgrade himself so he's working on just one of the shows as a jobbing writer or he should back the hell off and act as a general overseer with other writer-showrunners below him with more autonomy, like Berman did.

Berman was an absolutely shit writer and, as we've found out since, a misogynistic scumbag who basically stood to one side and let Maurice Hurley fire Gates McFadden for no reason other than he didn't like her (nearly sparking a cast rebellion in the process), bullied Terry Farrell into quitting and decided to fire Jennifer Lien solely so they could replace her with an actress who was hotter. But he did know when he had Michael Piller, Ira Steven Behr and Jeri Taylor as his showrunners that he could back the fuck off and not interfere with the writing because they knew their stuff (and he did, probably correctly, judge that Brannon Braga wasn't good enough to be left unsupervised and intervened to "help out", although that was a mistake). One of the problems with Enterprise is that Berman and Braga were smart enough to back off and let Manny Coto do his thing, but they weren't smart enough to let it go entirely, and kept butting in and of course co-wrote that awful finale.

So if Kurtzman could be more like mid-period Berman, just without the arsehole tendencies, that'd be a reasonable development. Otherwise CBS should consider the merits of just firing his arse and replacing him with someone else: Coto is younger than I thought he was, he's only in his fifties and still working. Ron Moore is probably too busy with Outlander and For All Mankind (which also has a bunch of other DS9 and BSG writers), but ex-TNGer Naren Shankar should be free after next year when The Expanse wraps. 

The one thing Nu-Trek has done really well is Lower Decks, which I was in no way expecting to be as good as it is. Season 2 is something I'm really looking forwards to.

Kurtzman is one of those Hollywood types that I'm always amazed they have so many jobs lined up. I am no math wizard, but from what I can tell, the guy has around 15 movies and shows in production, pre-production or announced and he is involved in some sort of writing capacity with at least 5 of those. He must be Einstein-level genius to pull it all off. I am baffled by how he manages to produce and secure funding to all the things on his resume, considering the vast majority of it is utter mediocrity.

I don't think Trek is going to change for the better with him at the helm. Looking at Discovery, it's not only that scripts leave much to be desired, everything about production is subpar, to say the least. Direction and editing are too chaotic and, to put it mildly, inelegant. Set design is underwhelming considering the amount of money that presumably went into it, with everything looking uniformly sterile, metallic, and bluish. People often say that the visual effects at least are outstanding, but are they really? They certainly poured a lot of money into CGI, but just like sets it's very artificial-looking, with no sense of underlying reality or heft. The music just drones on and on and on and on from one exclamation mark to the next. And the costumes! Almost everyone is in a variation of black leather, be they Ni'Varans, Book, Michael in protocol-breaking mode, Osyraa and her thugs, or Georgiou. Frankly, when compared to The Expanse and The Mandalorian, it's astonishing how... not exactly the right word... how cheap this show looks!

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Mr Fixit said:

Kurtzman is one of those Hollywood types that I'm always amazed they have so many jobs lined up. I am no math wizard, but from what I can tell, the guy has around 15 movies and shows in production, pre-production or announced and he is involved in some sort of writing capacity with at least 5 of those. He must be Einstein-level genius to pull it all off. I am baffled by how he manages to produce and secure funding to all the things on his resume, considering the vast majority of it is utter mediocrity.

I don't think Trek is going to change for the better with him at the helm. Looking at Discovery, it's not only that scripts leave much to be desired, everything about production is subpar, to say the least. Direction and editing are too chaotic and, to put it mildly, inelegant. Set design is underwhelming considering the amount of money that presumably went into it, with everything looking uniformly sterile, metallic, and bluish. People often say that the visual effects at least are outstanding, but are they really? They certainly poured a lot of money into CGI, but just like sets it's very artificial-looking, with no sense of underlying reality or heft. The music just drones on and on and on and on from one exclamation mark to the next. And the costumes! Almost everyone is in a variation of black leather, be they Ni'Varans, Book, Michael in protocol-breaking mode, Osyraa and her thugs, or Georgiou. Frankly, when compared to The Expanse and The Mandalorian, it's astonishing how... not exactly the right word... how cheap this show looks!

I think it's something to do with knowing how to work the system and schmooze studio execs, which often trumps writing talent.

A good example is JJ Abrams, who got where he is on the back of his family connections. He's certainly a competent or even above-competent director, but he's a mediocre and often poor writer, and he's at his worst when allowed to write and direct. His main writing strength is setting up great ideas but he's terrible at executing a satisfying resolution.

If you look at his career highlights - creating Alias, screwing it up, leaving, creating Lost, leaving, directing a few indifferent movies (Mission Impossible III and Super 8), creating Fringe, leaving, resurrecting Star Trek, screwing it up, resurrecting Star Wars, screwing it up - it's baffling his career has been as successful as it has been. You can't even say it's the luck of creating the biggest show on television for several years with Lost, because he'd gotten the Mission Impossible III gig before that and he was already getting criticism for stringing Alias along and burning out the goodwill of fans.

If you look at the projects he's been involved with which have turned out reasonably well - Lost (although that was haphazard to say the least), Fringe and The Force Awakens - he's basically either left fairly early on and let other, better writers take over, or he's had much better co-writers who've kept him from indulging in too many Abrams-isms. Left to his own devices he's a mess.

Kurtzman, if anything, is even less deserving of his success, and his CV is even thinner, with some real howling clunkers on there. The only thing I think which propelled his career was his involvement in the Transformers films which, despite being utter shit, did make a lot of money, which is more attractive to studios then, y'know, being able to write.

[IlyaP]

On 1/9/2021 at 8:46 PM, DaveSumm said:

My memories of the the first two seasons are basically “that was problematic, but Lorca / Pike was cool”.

I feel like we missed a really interesting story opportunity by not introducing Prime 'verse non-evil Lorca. As this show clearly has taken more than a few notes from Fringe (which Kurtzman worked on), why not go that one step further? 

[Lightning Lord]

15 hours ago, Werthead said:

Lower Decks Season 1 should hit Amazon Prime worldwide on 22 January.

 

Ooh. That's good to know. Thanks!

I hope that sates my Trek thirst. I was able to give up on Enterprise once I realized I wasn't enjoying watching it. I hope I am strong enough to cut the DMB cord, too. Lower Decks as a patch could help greatly.

[IlyaP]

3 hours ago, Lightning Lord said:

I was able to give up on Enterprise once I realized I wasn't enjoying watching it.

You've even tried Season 4? (It's the only season of that show that I've honestly enjoyed - excluding the final episode, which I simply pretend never happened.)

[Werthead]

9 hours ago, IlyaP said:

I feel like we missed a really interesting story opportunity by not introducing Prime 'verse non-evil Lorca. As this show clearly has taken more than a few notes from Fringe (which Kurtzman worked on), why not go that one step further? 

Well, they can't now, but Strange New Worlds can.

Shadows of bringing in Martok on DS9, revealing he was a changeling, killing him, regretting it, then realising they could just bring in the original good guy Martok, which they did to tremendous success.

[Derfel Cadarn]

19 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Well, they can't now, but Strange New Worlds can.

Shadows of bringing in Martok on DS9, revealing he was a changeling, killing him, regretting it, then realising they could just bring in the original good guy Martok, which they did to tremendous success.

Always wondered what happened to Martok’s son, Drax.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Always wondered what happened to Martok’s son, Drax.

Drex (named for TNG and DS9 production assistant Doug Drexler). He's mentioned a couple of times in later episodes and it's revealed he is one of several children of Martok and Sirella's. He was supposed to come back in Season 7 but they cut down on the storyline featuring him for time. He plays a major role in Star Trek Online.

The actor who played Drex, Obi Ndefo, had both his legs amputated after a hit-and-run accident in LA last year.

[SpaceChampion]

I thought Prime Lorca was dead?

 

[Denvek]

58 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

I thought Prime Lorca was dead?

 

Even if he is alive, he's still in the Mirror Universe. And if they didn't bring Prime Lorca into the Mirror Universe two-parter this season they're not going to do it in a spin-off.

[RumHam]

Prime Lorca should be dead, since he should have switched places with Mirror Lorca and died on the Buran very confused. 

[IlyaP]

49 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Prime Lorca should be dead, since he should have switched places with Mirror Lorca and died on the Buran very confused. 

It's Star Trek. We can hand-wave it away with...handwavium. 

[Lightning Lord]

17 hours ago, IlyaP said:

You've even tried Season 4? (It's the only season of that show that I've honestly enjoyed - excluding the final episode, which I simply pretend never happened.)

Oh, I walked away well before that. I got through 14 episodes and only really liked the dog, so I gave up. I have given DMB a bit longer because it teased me with enjoyable tertiary characters and I kept hoping that teasing would pay off. Alas.

Glad Enterprise improved. Could I reasonably just skip to that without 2.5 earlier seasons?

[sifth]

12 minutes ago, Lightning Lord said:

Oh, I walked away well before that. I got through 14 episodes and only really liked the dog, so I gave up. I have given DMB a bit longer because it teased me with enjoyable tertiary characters and I kept hoping that teasing would pay off. Alas.

Glad Enterprise improved. Could I reasonably just skip to that without 2.5 earlier seasons?

The opening episode of season 4 ends the series main story arc. After that point, it's mostly self contained episodes, like normal Star Trek.

[Lightning Lord]

8 minutes ago, sifth said:

The opening episode of season 4 ends the series main story arc. After that point, it's mostly self contained episodes, like normal Star Trek.

Cool. Something to do when I finish up Voyager. Thanks!

I don't know what the series arc is, but judging from episodes 1-13, I'd guess it is "Archer has had a massive inferiority complex about and intense hatred of Vulcans. Now he finds redemption and realizes his love for T'pol."

[IlyaP]

8 hours ago, Lightning Lord said:

Cool. Something to do when I finish up Voyager. Thanks!

I don't know what the series arc is, but judging from episodes 1-13, I'd guess it is "Archer has had a massive inferiority complex about and intense hatred of Vulcans. Now he finds redemption and realizes his love for T'pol."

Honestly, season 4 is wonderful. 

Just...ignore the very last episode, it's...not good. At all.

But the rest? Interesting stuff involving the Singh family, Andorians, Klingons, etc. And Peter Weller shows up too and eats all the scenery. 

[DaveSumm]

I preferred Season 3, if you were gonna jump back in I’d start there.