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Star Trek: All Good Threads...


SpaceChampion

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4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

What does Cetaceans Ops… do?  They’re in blue which suggests science officers…

Navigation - they literally said that in the episode.

I think the idea is that dolphins being aquatic creatures are evolutionarily much better at navigating a course in 3D space than land-dwelling humanoids.

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So got a few DS9 season 3 eps to watch, and finished Voyager season 1. Albeit I only watched 3 eps (counting pilot as 1 ep).

Voyager suffered imho by integrating the Maquis so quickly. 
What would naybe have been interesting would be to have had the survivors of a Starfleet ship merge with survivors of a Klingon, Cardassian and Romulan ship, all having to travel on Voyager. Maybe make the ship itself the size of Galaxy Class.

But they clearly wanted back to TNG aesthetic to try and recapture those ratings, which DS9 never did. Unfortunately Voyager jist played it safe and never really engaged

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5 hours ago, Denvek said:

Navigation - they literally said that in the episode.

I think the idea is that dolphins being aquatic creatures are evolutionarily much better at navigating a course in 3D space than land-dwelling humanoids.

I don’t have Paramount+.  I’ll be waiting for the DVD release.

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On 10/14/2021 at 11:57 PM, sifth said:

I really enjoyed the season final for Lower Decks. This was always what I liked most about Trek, people working together to solve problems. The problem solving in this episode, really did feel like something right out of a really good episode of TNG.

I enjoyed it too, and it made me realise that I’m not really here for the comedy. 

Lower Decks is still a slightly odd experiment in whether a universe can accommodate its own parody, whether the overlap between ‘funny’ and ‘plausibly Star Trek’ is big enough to merit a whole series. I really felt it last week on the Vulcan ship, where the dialogue had to carefully tread that line; the Vulcans can’t say “OMG I just can’t even with your outbursts right now” to T’Lyn’s reasonable suggestions, because Vulcans can’t talk like that, even if it’d be funnier. They need to still sound like Vulcans, because it’s Star Trek.

In the first season, they forced that overlap a bit wider by making the Cerritos essentially a bad ship, with lower quality crew than we’re used to seeing, and fairly insubordinate crew members. Which I kinda got, as I just couldn’t see how else to be a parody and provide jokes week after week. But the second season, and particularly the finale, managed to dial that back (not entirely, I mean the Captain still forgot that there were crew members doing a space walk and abandoned them) and gave us essentially an animated, regular Star Trek show with some jokes as a bonus. And it felt really good to see a crew solving a problem with science instead of phasers.

I’m really hoping Strange New Worlds manages to be that show too, after the disappointment of Discovery and Picard.

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3 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I enjoyed it too, and it made me realise that I’m not really here for the comedy. 

Lower Decks is still a slightly odd experiment in whether a universe can accommodate its own parody, whether the overlap between ‘funny’ and ‘plausibly Star Trek’ is big enough to merit a whole series. I really felt it last week on the Vulcan ship, where the dialogue had to carefully tread that line; the Vulcans can’t say “OMG I just can’t even with your outbursts right now” to T’Lyn’s reasonable suggestions, because Vulcans can’t talk like that, even if it’d be funnier. They need to still sound like Vulcans, because it’s Star Trek.

In the first season, they forced that overlap a bit wider by making the Cerritos essentially a bad ship, with lower quality crew than we’re used to seeing, and fairly insubordinate crew members. Which I kinda got, as I just couldn’t see how else to be a parody and provide jokes week after week. But the second season, and particularly the finale, managed to dial that back (not entirely, I mean the Captain still forgot that there were crew members doing a space walk and abandoned them) and gave us essentially an animated, regular Star Trek show with some jokes as a bonus. And it felt really good to see a crew solving a problem with science instead of phasers.

I’m really hoping Strange New Worlds manages to be that show too, after the disappointment of Discovery and Picard.

There have been masses of Star Trek episodes which have been literal comedies, so all Lower Decks has done is take that approach and make it the norm without switching back to a different tone. Or, to put it another, this is what a live-action Star Trek would be like if every single episode was basically Qpid or In the Cards or Trials & Tribbleations, one after the other.

Oddly, Lower Decks is much funnier than The Orville, the actual live-action Star Trek satire comedic show.

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3 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I’m really hoping Strange New Worlds manages to be that show too, after the disappointment of Discovery and Picard.

I know and it's just sad. You can tell that Star Trek Lower Decks is a show made by people who love Star Trek, while Star Trek Discovery is made by people who wish to be working on anything, but Star Trek. The over use of violence to solve problems in seasons 1 and 2, was just insane. As I posted a few pages back, the show did tone things down in season 3, but not quite enough for my liking just yet. They also really need to stop over using Michael Burnham and start letting the other members of the crew solve their own problems without her help, from time to time. It would also be nice to not always have a universal ending threat each season, but that might be asking for too much. With just a handful of fixes, Discovery could be a really good show, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

Lower Decks however has been a show about what I always enjoyed in Star Trek; people living on a ship/space station, having random adventures and working together to solve problems. Sure it has comedy moments, but so did all of Star Trek from time to time. Heck even DS9 had one of my favorite comedy episodes in all of Trek, Who Morns for Morn and that show was considered the darkest Trek of the series, before Discovery came along and I recall that episode taking place during the Dominion War, the darkest story arc in 90's Trek. Discovery and Picard really should learn to just have fun from time to time. In terms of tone they have more in common with The Expanse and the BSG remake and less with Star Trek.

I mean Picard might be the worst Star Trek show I've seen before. It honestly felt like I was watching the Star Wars sequels, where they would bring back classic characters, have them do next to nothing and then kill them off violently......................because reasons. It also kind of rips off the plot of Mass Effect, but that's a whole other can of worms.

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The Lower Decks finale surprised me - in a good way. They're really going for a multiple-episode storyline now. I thought they'd stick to 2 episodes (TNG-style), but what they set up could easily take three or four episodes to resolve.
Not a fan of cliffhangers, but otoh I really like the plot. It's almost as if they were doing the very opposite of Discovery. No "universal ending threat" but diplomatic and political issues. Not one super-character, but a main cast of four, with well-fleshed out secondary characters. No big shows of violence or strength, but mostly science and cooperation.
I have to say, a few pages back, I didn't think that line by Boimler was targeting Discovery. I'm not so sure now. Behind the comedy, the writers of Lower Decks seem to be very deliberately avoiding what the recent Trek shows have done, and building on older shows instead.

I thought they'd jump at using at least one of the new characters they introduced. The Vulcans and the Cerritos doing some diplomacy with the Klingons to wrap things up. That's still likely to happen, only they'll have to do it to prove the captain's innocence.


They also developed all four major characters, giving each a new story and a moment to shine. Interesting choices.
This sets up a possibly excellent third season.

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17 hours ago, Denvek said:

Navigation - they literally said that in the episode.

I think the idea is that dolphins being aquatic creatures are evolutionarily much better at navigating a course in 3D space than land-dwelling humanoids.

So Spacing Guild are dolphins, not fetuses!

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17 hours ago, Denvek said:

Navigation - they literally said that in the episode.

I think the idea is that dolphins being aquatic creatures are evolutionarily much better at navigating a course in 3D space than land-dwelling humanoids.

They're also super horny, which I appreciated. Dolphinsex.org (archived) was the first "WHAT THE FUCK THIS CAN'T BE A THING" thing I read on the internet back in the AOL days. 

7 hours ago, sifth said:

They also really need to stop over using Michael Burnham and start letting the other members of the crew solve their own problems without her help, from time to time.

In the most recent season + the previous finale I swear they must have had four or five separate scenes of characters telling Burnham how amazing she is. Usually while saying goodbye. It was especially glaring when uuh... (I want to call her Kahn but I know that can't be right.) from the enterprise left after knowing burnham for like two weeks. You can't force this kinda thing, and the "this is emotional" score hurts more than it helps. 

It's weird but I actually like season one of Discovery the best. The show hasn't gotten worse but the first season had the mystery angle, and Lorca for Burnham to bounce off of. They wasted the setup but a lot of the setup is actually pretty ok. at least comparatively

 

 

 

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Have to say I didnt like the season finale of Lower Decks as much as the penultimate one, the latter seemed almost perfectly crafted while the former seemed a bit more hastily put together. Not sure if we are still doing spoilers for it, but some of the reactions from the crew members seemed a bit off to me..There were also some little vignettes in it that went nowhere, so I am wondering if it was something to do with the editing or if they will have something to do with season 3. Anyway, all in all it was a superb season.

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I really enjoyed this season of Lower Decks and can’t wait for more. Not sure what to expect with the new season of Disco - I thought season 3 was an improvement overall, but I really want to show to slow… down… and other than maybe Saru and Tilly I don’t really enjoy the characters. 

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On 10/29/2021 at 7:05 AM, RumHam said:

The first episode of Prodigy is out. Not much to judge it on yet but it seems like a decent The Clone Wars / Rebels type show. 

Agreed. In fact, with that droid chatter in the first few minutes it even sounds a bit like StarWars. :D

We have no idea what the plot(s) will look like, but the introduction has some stunning visuals.

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I haven't watched any more of Prodigy yet. Apparently they're going to do a mid-season break to make way for Discovery, which is annoying. I think I'll pause my subscription and come back when Lower Decks returns.

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