Mindwalker Posted December 18, 2020 Share Posted December 18, 2020 13 hours ago, RumHam said: The parts of the last two episodes not set in the mirror universe were alright. Hide contents They really should have had Georgiou's change to a basically good person happen more gradually over the season. The guardian said he was sending her to a time when the two universes were still close together. He didn't say he was sending her back to her time. So I have a little bit of hope that she's not going back to work with Ash Tyler. If they send her to a post-DS9 pre-Picard time I'll be a lot more interested in the show. But please, not to "Picard"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveSumm Posted December 18, 2020 Share Posted December 18, 2020 I really don’t see why that needed to be a two parter. It was just a long series of double crossing cliches in a universe I don’t care about, wrap that up in one episode surely. Agreed, sometime between TNG and PIC would be my preference. Although I still don’t get why evil Georgiou and Section 31 are anyone’s first choice of spin-off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RumHam Posted December 18, 2020 Author Share Posted December 18, 2020 16 minutes ago, DaveSumm said: I really don’t see why that needed to be a two parter. It was just a long series of double crossing cliches in a universe I don’t care about, wrap that up in one episode surely. Agreed, sometime between TNG and PIC would be my preference. Although I still don’t get why evil Georgiou and Section 31 are anyone’s first choice of spin-off. But she's not evil anymore because when given a second chance it took two coup attempts before she killed her daughter. ...right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted December 18, 2020 Share Posted December 18, 2020 1 minute ago, DaveSumm said: I really don’t see why that needed to be a two parter. It was just a long series of double crossing cliches in a universe I don’t care about, wrap that up in one episode surely. Agreed, sometime between TNG and PIC would be my preference. Although I still don’t get why evil Georgiou and Section 31 are anyone’s first choice of spin-off. I think the idea was "Michelle Yeoh is awesome", which is true: Michelle Yeoh is awesome when she has good scripts and a good director to work with. She often elevates the material without that. They also seemed surprised to keep her. I get the impression she was only going to do the opening two hours in Season 1 and enjoyed it and was happy to come back, to they scrambled to bring her back having killed her off, and were then stuck with ideas what to do with her on Discovery. I'm hoping they have now come up with a good idea for her own show (I liked the notion of her heading up a "good" Section 31 in the Mirror Universe dedicated to redeeming the Empire, but on second thoughts that wouldn't track with what we know of the history of the Mirror Universe), so we'll see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveSumm Posted December 18, 2020 Share Posted December 18, 2020 Just wanted to share @Werthead ‘s excellent rundown of the various timelines and continuities in Trek: https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/12/sf-questions-do-new-star-trek-shows.html?m=1 I think I’m a soft proponent of the Burnhamverse. That’s about as clean an explanation as you’ll get for Discovery. 25 minutes ago, Werthead said: I'm hoping they have now come up with a good idea for her own show I’m wondering now if the following bizarre timeline is possible: 1. Yeoh is surprisingly popular so they give her her own spin off. 2. This conflicts with their plan to abandon the 2250s, so they concoct an elaborate plan in Discovery’s second season to send her to the 31st century only to return her to (maybe) the 2400s alongside Picard. 3. They write Pike into the same season ... who is surprisingly popular so they give him his own spin off. Rendering all the other shenanigans pointless, and had they known, they may as well have left her in the 2250’s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 2 hours ago, DaveSumm said: Just wanted to share @Werthead ‘s excellent rundown of the various timelines and continuities in Trek: https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/12/sf-questions-do-new-star-trek-shows.html?m=1 I think I’m a soft proponent of the Burnhamverse. That’s about as clean an explanation as you’ll get for Discovery. Thanks! I never really understood why people got into such a tiswas about the timelines. Star Trek very, very rarely does parallel/alternate timelines. There was Parallels, there's the Mirror Universe and there's the Kelvin Timeline, and that's it. Every other time travel event in Star Trek's history involves rewriting/changing the Prime Timeline. So yeah, it's the Prime Timeline, but it's been changed by the Red Angel and by the Temporal Wars and that explains any inconsistencies. Things are still broadly the same but there's a few weird things that are different (the Klingons, the Enterprise being bigger, everyone's into holocommunicators etc). Move on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 If they had kept her as a villain they could have had Georgiou as the ultimate villain on a redemption arc of the Temporal Cold War, and done a show about that, with her effectively living hundreds of lifetimes in order to develop the pespective that would redeem her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arch-MaesterPhilip Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 4 hours ago, DaveSumm said: Just wanted to share @Werthead ‘s excellent rundown of the various timelines and continuities in Trek: https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/12/sf-questions-do-new-star-trek-shows.html?m=1 I think I’m a soft proponent of the Burnhamverse. That’s about as clean an explanation as you’ll get for Discovery. I’m wondering now if the following bizarre timeline is possible: 1. Yeoh is surprisingly popular so they give her her own spin off. 2. This conflicts with their plan to abandon the 2250s, so they concoct an elaborate plan in Discovery’s second season to send her to the 31st century only to return her to (maybe) the 2400s alongside Picard. 3. They write Pike into the same season ... who is surprisingly popular so they give him his own spin off. Rendering all the other shenanigans pointless, and had they known, they may as well have left her in the 2250’s. RE: #2 I think they're sending her to the TNG era, I imagine she rebuilds Section 31 and serves as above someone like Sloan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveSumm Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 6 hours ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said: I think they're sending her to the TNG era, I imagine she rebuilds Section 31 and serves as above someone like Sloan. I think I saw that Alexander Siddig was willing to come back to Trek, could be an opportunity there if you went to Picard era. And Sloan maybe ... I think he died in DS9 though. But didn’t he die once before? Fun fact: Siddig’s full name is Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abdurrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdul Karim El Mahdi. Also, finally, Lower Decks is coming to Prime January 22nd outside of the US. Be interesting to see how many people still care / didn’t pirate it already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightning Lord Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 I care. I didn't pirate it. I am out of the US. So. At least one. Spoiler My favorite part of the show is gone. She was a terrible person, but Yeoh played her so well that it was a very fun character to watch. I doubt that character would have held up helming its own show, anyway, so I guess it's not the worst. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveSumm Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 3 hours ago, Lightning Lord said: I care. I didn't pirate it. I am out of the US. So. At least one. Oh me too. I’ll be watching, it’s just been a long time since there was such a gap with a show like this. Last time I tried streaming stuff it wasn’t worth the insane amount of pop up ads you have to wade through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RumHam Posted December 24, 2020 Author Share Posted December 24, 2020 I haven't had a chance to watch the latest episode yet, but I doubt it's as entertaining as this: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightning Lord Posted December 25, 2020 Share Posted December 25, 2020 This made my Christmas. Glorious. It's not the booze talking.... or sure, it is, who the duck cares? Ducking TNG. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindwalker Posted December 25, 2020 Share Posted December 25, 2020 This season started out quite good and promising, but then the quality dropped and the writers make their usual mistakes, particuarly regarding characterization, character develpment, following through with story ideas and so on... I like Ketwolski's review of the episode: I think they are setting Saru up for a demotion (or stepping down) or worse. (Giorgiou's remarks about Burnham's awesome awesomeness last week were quite anvilish, too.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted December 26, 2020 Share Posted December 26, 2020 The logic tail-off to this episode was weird. Spoiler Can people just beam through shields now? Are space tentacles more effective than tractor beams? Why are people affected by space radiation one moment and then not the next? I couldn't really get a handle on the stakes and capabilities, which is annoying because the idea of someone being raised on a holodeck for their entire life and having to adjust to life outside it is potentially fascinating. The trajectory of each season of Discovery also seems to be going the same way: starts off promisingly, some good episodes and character work, and then the writers start having to embrace the worst plot contrivances possible to make the story happen the way they want it to rather than letting it flow organically. Season 3 has done rather better than Seasons 1 or 2 by this point though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted December 26, 2020 Share Posted December 26, 2020 I was convinced that Spoiler Osyraa wasn't actually there. I thought the holo program was somehow slipping beyond it's operating parameters and was affecting Discovery. We had the revelation that the survivor needed to confront his fears to get out of the program and I thought that was essentially happening with Tilly's fears. It didn't seem to make much sense that Osyraa could possibly be there that fast, spore jumps are virtually instant and travel via trans warp conduits is still a lot slower and they're a long way away. Add in the way Osyraa initially appeared as a Starfleet vessel only to reveal herself as Tilly decided that's who the ship was, the weird readings mentioned by the bridge officer, the way the Chain ship cloaked basically in sync with Discovery and it all just didn't seem real. Then we had Discovery shields being bypassed by the transporting Chain soldiers and I was just even more sure - Discovery was retrofitted and the Federation could hardly defend itself if the Chain were able to do that to all its ships. It also only happened after Tilly was intimidated into jumping away - at which point her fear would be that they'd be unable to and sure enough they weren't. All that weird tentacle shit didn't seem real either. Up to that point I was still feeling my theory was spot on as I didn't realize it was a 2 parter. Then the captured Discovery jumped away. And now I'm left feeling disappointed by all these issues that had convinced me it was a simulation. I guess it could still pivot back to that in the next episode and I'm going to feel chuffed if it does, but it's not looking at likely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted December 26, 2020 Share Posted December 26, 2020 8 hours ago, karaddin said: I was convinced that Reveal hidden contents Osyraa wasn't actually there. I thought the holo program was somehow slipping beyond it's operating parameters and was affecting Discovery. We had the revelation that the survivor needed to confront his fears to get out of the program and I thought that was essentially happening with Tilly's fears. It didn't seem to make much sense that Osyraa could possibly be there that fast, spore jumps are virtually instant and travel via trans warp conduits is still a lot slower and they're a long way away. Add in the way Osyraa initially appeared as a Starfleet vessel only to reveal herself as Tilly decided that's who the ship was, the weird readings mentioned by the bridge officer, the way the Chain ship cloaked basically in sync with Discovery and it all just didn't seem real. Then we had Discovery shields being bypassed by the transporting Chain soldiers and I was just even more sure - Discovery was retrofitted and the Federation could hardly defend itself if the Chain were able to do that to all its ships. It also only happened after Tilly was intimidated into jumping away - at which point her fear would be that they'd be unable to and sure enough they weren't. All that weird tentacle shit didn't seem real either. Up to that point I was still feeling my theory was spot on as I didn't realize it was a 2 parter. Then the captured Discovery jumped away. And now I'm left feeling disappointed by all these issues that had convinced me it was a simulation. I guess it could still pivot back to that in the next episode and I'm going to feel chuffed if it does, but it's not looking at likely. Spoiler To be fair transwarp conduits are extremely fast, the only reason Voyager's escape route one took a long time was because that was covering 30,000+ light-years, and even then it still did it in a few minutes. Covering a lesser distance almost immediately seems doable. It's just rather convenient that Osyyra was near a transwarp conduit when she worked out where Discovery was going (how again?). Also, if transwarp conduits are such a common thing, why is the loss of warp drive even a problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightning Lord Posted December 26, 2020 Share Posted December 26, 2020 Sigh. Such potentially excellent characters played by talented actors, doing random out-of-character stuff to advance an entirely contrived plot. The video review Mindwalker linked did a great job of explaining most of what I thought in a far more coherent manner than I could have. Spoiler Why does Osyrravan want the spore drive? Her ship can, seemingly, travel just as fast. It also has super+ sensors that can detect anything at any distance (but not a planet made of dilithium), plus tech that can: immobilize enemy ships, beam through enemy shields, and mind-control the sole person that can pilot the ship's drive that they don't need. Whisper-talking returned, along with unnecessary upside-down spinny camera angles. I concede that the shield/transport thing has always been a Trek issue, but I reserve the right to be outraged by it anyway I wanted to like this show. I love Star Trek. I am not sure I will be able to go beyond this season. I don't understand any of the decisions being made by the creative team. The plot seems to forced, despite ostensible season-long arcs. How can professional writers make characters so poorly developed? Do they need to just put a sheet of A4 in the writers' room with a list of traits for each character, just so they can at least try for consistency? It's so sad that as I was typing that sentence, I thought "Hey, at least the characters have some traits now," but realized we were only up to four characters with anything approaching a fleshing-out (Michael, Book, Saru, Tilly). And those four are all over the damn place from one episode to the next. Sigh. I think I have to accept that this show just isn't for me. I'll ride out the season, though. Karaddin - if you're right, I'll be thrilled. I hadn't thought of that at all and it's almost certainly better than whatever is coming up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denvek Posted December 26, 2020 Share Posted December 26, 2020 Spoiler I'm glad that Doug Jones got a chance to show what his actual face looked like, but the reason didn't make sense. If the holo is changing their appearance to make the survivor more comfortable, why would it make Saru look like not a Kelpian instead of making everyone look like Kelpians? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveSumm Posted December 26, 2020 Share Posted December 26, 2020 52 minutes ago, Denvek said: Hide contents I'm glad that Doug Jones got a chance to show what his actual face looked like, but the reason didn't make sense. If the holo is changing their appearance to make the survivor more comfortable, why would it make Saru look like not a Kelpian instead of making everyone look like Kelpians? Spoiler It was worse than that; in a classic Discovery case of “this nearly makes sense but let’s destroy that with a needless line”, Saru was literally human. He had a human heart that raced when he was high up. Why? Well, I guess this is an insanely advanced holodeck that rearranges your DNA? For some reason? Ugh. Such a struggle this season. It was so weird when you’ve watched practically every episode of TNG / VOY ever portray an away team beaming down somewhere dangerous. The split second the captain decided it needed to happen, they were gone. Cos this is fucking Starfleet, it’s what they do! But actually, this time, let wait an hour, have a tearful goodbye with your partner, and Tilly couldn’t possible take command without a pep talk from ... yea. Of course. I sincerely hope @karaddin ‘s theory is correct as that’s the only way to explain away the myriad of nonsense in that episode (but at the same time, spreading a fake out over two episodes is pretty cheap). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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