Discovery Series

[dvatreknerd314]

All signs point to Shazad Latif and Javid Iqbal being the same person.

There's also been at least one subtle hint dropped that this may be true, and the more I look at both Voq and Ash Tyler, the more they look like they might be played by the same guy.

 

[CABAL]

There's also been at least one subtle hint dropped that this may be true

"You fight like a Klingon"

 

[Majestic]

I'll just leave this here.
http://fav.me/dbrlwr4

 

[CABAL]

Someone at Trekyards replaced the DSC D7 with the classic D7 for a scene.

With just that change you could say that the new flying triangle is a dedicated prison ship.

 

[LordChicken]

...I have no words...

 

[dvatreknerd314]

...I have no words...

No words that express your excitement or your dismay?

 

[LordChicken]

No words that express your excitement or your dismay?

Dismay

 

[SciFiFan]

Last week's episode was the best to date although the bar is set pretty low.

 

[Hellkite]

Disgusting , sinking and poor taste

 

[Majestic]

Last week's episode was the best to date although the bar is set pretty low.

I agree mate. It was a step up but as I tell my son it's hard to get worse so naturally they can only get better right?

 

[Archonon]

I'm not seeing the series, cause I'm not gonna pay CBS to stream one show, hell no, but I was planning to eventually buy the series when it came out on Blu Ray.

However from what I continue reading in each episodes synopsis as the weeks go buy, this show just continues its steady stream of terrible. Just wow.

Look fellas at ABC, if you are gonna serialize the season with one arc, then do that. If you are gonna give me stand alone adventures of the week (Like old Trek) then do that. Don't try this in between stuff, cause it just feels disjointed. Just choose one.

Reminds me of those God awful DS9 episodes. Last week we discussed how 10,000 people a week are dying in the Dominion War, we lost 30 ships in a massive assault, but hey this week we have to have our biggest trial yet...a baseball match against Vulcans in the holodeck...or saving some holographic lounge singer from holographic mobsters...cause yeah, it's the future but you can't hit the off switch.

 

[LordChicken]

I'm not seeing the series, cause I'm not gonna pay CBS to stream one show, hell no, but I was planning to eventually buy the series when it came out on Blu Ray.

I won't buy it on Bluray, but I'm in the same boat.

Reminds me of those God awful DS9 episodes. Last week we discussed how 10,000 people a week are dying in the Dominion War, we lost 30 ships in a massive assault, but hey this week we have to have our biggest trial yet...a baseball match against Vulcans in the holodeck...or saving some holographic lounge singer from holographic mobsters...cause yeah, it's the future but you can't hit the off switch.

Hey, without those episodes how would we know how bad Starfleet is at baseball or that they love their holograms like real people? I mean these are really important for the war story plot.

 

[Archonon]

Lol, why LordChicken...just...why?

I do hope that STD (Love calling it that btw) makes a turnaround and gives some sort of magnificent second half season. But to be honest, I don't believe it will.

And are they going to follow through with their "originality" now that the series has been picked up for a season 2 and have a brand new arc and a totally different crew? Or are they going to backpedal now and just keep the same folks and continue to butcher the TOS timeline?

And man, as much as I enjoy those two guys on Trekyards and Fleetyards, their whimsical explanations hoping that everything about STD will make sense by the end of the season cause it's taking place in the mirror universe...cause some idiot's image stayed frozen in a mirror, so of course that means it's the mirror universe, we need to be so on the nose or fans won't decipher the clues...just makes no sense. If this was the mirror universe there would be no Federation folks, not even a mention of it; it would be the Terran Empire, the uniforms, logos, everything would be different. But don't let details or facts get in the way, we're retconning TOS as we go anyway. I do agree with the older guy though, Burnham doesn't seem like the most root-able character.

If they do give us new characters for season 2, I hope we get more likeable characters...or in the very least, interesting ones. I'm not saying I need Star-Lord or Mal Reynolds, but at least give me a character with an arc like John Sheridan, whose story evolves and grows as the narrative goes on. For all my Trekkie brothers, I'd settle for another Picard-like character or a Sisko (I mean in personality, man, woman, any race). Not another Kirk though, Kirk is unique and my fave ST captain, I'm hoping for a new ST movie next year. I'd be happy with that.

 

[Majestic]

Lol, why LordChicken...just...why?

I do hope that STD (Love calling it that btw) makes a turnaround and gives some sort of magnificent second half season. But to be honest, I don't believe it will.

And are they going to follow through with their "originality" now that the series has been picked up for a season 2 and have a brand new arc and a totally different crew? Or are they going to backpedal now and just keep the same folks and continue to butcher the TOS timeline?

And man, as much as I enjoy those two guys on Trekyards and Fleetyards, their whimsical explanations hoping that everything about STD will make sense by the end of the season cause it's taking place in the mirror universe...cause some idiot's image stayed frozen in a mirror, so of course that means it's the mirror universe, we need to be so on the nose or fans won't decipher the clues...just makes no sense. If this was the mirror universe there would be no Federation folks, not even a mention of it; it would be the Terran Empire, the uniforms, logos, everything would be different. But don't let details or facts get in the way, we're retconning TOS as we go anyway. I do agree with the older guy though, Burnham doesn't seem like the most root-able character.

If they do give us new characters for season 2, I hope we get more likeable characters...or in the very least, interesting ones. I'm not saying I need Star-Lord or Mal Reynolds, but at least give me a character with an arc like John Sheridan, whose story evolves and grows as the narrative goes on. For all my Trekkie brothers, I'd settle for another Picard-like character or a Sisko (I mean in personality, man, woman, any race). Not another Kirk though, Kirk is unique and my fave ST captain, I'm hoping for a new ST movie next year. I'd be happy with that.

I just don't get why the Captain always has to be Human, time for an alien Captain if you ask me.

TBH STD has already lost, despite the renewal for season 2 most fans who grew up with 20th century Trek just don't like it as it ain't faithful to what came before.

I only watch it as I get it for free on Netflix.

 

[CABAL]

What bugs me is that it's actually really close to being a great show, but they botched so many things so early on that I'm not sure it's really salvageable.

Lorca is a great character and Isaacs nails the role, the idea of Klingons afraid of losing their culture to the Federation starting a retaliatory war is a fantastic premise, the spore-drive is interesting as a potential explanation for the Guardian of Forever and the Iconian gateways, having a character who wants to be less human is a refreshing change of pace, etc.

On the other hand, the Klingon redesign (the ships and weapons included) is terrible, the ideology on the Klingon side was dropped immediately when Kol took over, Sonequa Martin-Green just isn't ready to be the lead on a major show yet, making Burnham related to Spock is lazy writing and reeks of bad fan fiction (especially when people keep talking about how amazing she is when she really just comes across as a mediocre officer), and the tech is often out of place for the stated time period, even taking into account that the Discovery is newer than the Enterprise.

Some of those can be fixed, but you can't just take back a lot of them. The show has potential, but I'm not sure how they could reach that potential.

I just don't get why the Captain always has to be Human, time for an alien Captain if you ask me.

One thing STO did that I liked was making the captain of the Enterprise an Andorian. It was a great change of pace for me.

And why do they keep introducing new species in prequels? Saru's a Kelpian. They're apparently Federation members. Why have we never seen or heard of one before? ENT had the same problem with the Suliban, Xindi, Denobulans, and even the Temporal Cold War. Don't introduce new species in a prequel unless you're prepared to provide an explanation for why they were never mentioned before, especially when they're supposed to be a major power in the region, like the Suliban and Xindi.

 

[SciFiFan]

The Xindi went into a state of isolation after the incident. I do believe they even mentioned it in the show (Enterprise). If I am not mistaken, the Suliban were without home and on the verge of extinction which is what made them a prime puppet for the Temporal Cold War. After the events of Enterprise, it is not hard to imagine they were relegated to a very minor nomadic species.

In regards to Saru, when I seen the preview, I honestly thought he was Rigellan.

 

[CABAL]

The Xindi went into a state of isolation after the incident. I do believe they even mentioned it in the show (Enterprise).

But still, we never saw them or heard them mentioned. They cut a giant gash on the Earth in the largest terror attack in the history of humanity, forward and back, beating out the Breen attack during the Dominion War by a huge margin, and the entire conflict is just never mentioned? They got closer to the extinction of the human species than anyone other than the Borg, assuming you count the complete assimilation of a species to be extinction.

 

[Majestic]

And why do they keep introducing new species in prequels? Saru's a Kelpian. They're apparently Federation members. Why have we never seen or heard of one before? ENT had the same problem with the Suliban, Xindi, Denobulans, and even the Temporal Cold War. Don't introduce new species in a prequel unless you're prepared to provide an explanation for why they were never mentioned before, especially when they're supposed to be a major power in the region, like the Suliban and Xindi.

You nailed it here. Prequels have restrictions that they don't seem willing to stick too. It's why prequels have been a bad idea since the start of ENT. They should've moved forward where they have the creative freedom they seem to want. I just don't understand the interest in a prequel when they have the 25th century onwards to explore.

 

[SciFiFan]

Prequels wouldn't be bas as long as they keep to the established content. The constant retcon of lore and canon does nothing but drive away fans. The overall series arc for Enterprise should have been the Earth-Romulan war. Imagine if it was the Romulans that attacked Earth as oppose to the Xindi. With Discovery, I like that it is a Federation-Klingon war but everything else is wrong.

 

[dvatreknerd314]

And why do they keep introducing new species in prequels? Don't introduce new species in a prequel unless you're prepared to provide an explanation for why they were never mentioned before, especially when they're supposed to be a major power in the region, like the Suliban and Xindi.

The Suliban and Xindi were major powers in the 22nd century. That doesn't mean they still will be by the 23rd or 24th centuries. Other races introduced in Enterprise could possibly have ended up as members of the Federation, or conquered by other races. Not much imagination required here, people.

 

[Archonon]

I think the argument is not so much that the prequel races lost their prominence in the galaxy in the years after but that they're never seen or mentioned again at all. Now in the real world this is simple, they don't appear because they had not been invented in the earlier shows which took place in the future. But in retroactively retconning them into canon, it is a big continuity problem. Unless every member of the prequel series died out or went into complete isolation, there is no excuse for them to all just disappear or never be mentioned again, especially if they held an important place in galactic affairs.

I get the production team's desire to design weird new aliens and to show things that have never been seen before. But this has not been handled efficiently. Same as technology on STD. Heck they even got the timeline for the Klingon-Federation War wrong. The Four Years War (Fed-Kling War) was from 2247-2250, STD begins the war at 2256. Given that the producers specifically mentioned that this war is the Klingon war previously alluded to in canon, it is in fact the Four Years War. There's no reason to change the timeline, practical nor narrative-wise, they just did it cause they wanted a catchy tagline that said: "10 years before Kirk's 5 year mission", nothing else. It's the same as that absurd notion that Burnham is the long lost never mentioned ever adoptive sister of Spock.

When the Breen destroy San Francisco, for all purposes, it should have been mentioned that it was the worst alien attack in Earth's history since the Xindi but the Xindi hadn't been invented yet, so it was never mentioned. To this day we discuss achievements or tragedies that befell ancient societies in our own history, from Rome all the way back to Sumeria, going back 1000s of years so it's not a measure of just "oh the Xindi attack happened 200 years ago, so it just wouldn't be mentioned". It's sloppy to retcon such a massive event such as an almost cataclysmic near extinction level event which is casually never recognized again in the timeline. Of course, the JJ movies and STD can recognize these events, so if you want to argue that ENT, JJ-verse and STD are a different parallel universe, then that makes much more sense.

Character-wise the constant glorifying of Burnham is a problem, her actions display that she's mediocre at best and incompetent at worst. It makes her character appear even weaker and less likeable. If you want to have a flawed character then use that develop the character. Use the flaws to show growth and evolution, don't just tell me the whole universe agrees: "This person is legendary" and then have that character commit one idiotic decision after another. As stated, Lorca is a great example of a flawed character who is interesting.

As I mentioned, if you are going to serialize a season-long arc, stick to it, don't just turn it into the old detached exploration of the week formula two episodes later. I don't mean make every episode a shooting fest with the Klingons, but if there is a war actively going on, then this needs to be represented in the world. DS9 had this same issue with the Dominon War arc, too many episodes made it seem like there wasn't a war going on cause everything was casually business as usual or they focused on trivial things, their love of holograms for instance, lol. STD is doing the same. Take a look at how Babylon 5 handled their arcs for the Shadow War or the Earth Civil War, once the fighting broke out, even if the episode didn't directly deal with action in battle, the wars loomed heavily over the atmosphere of the episode because it was what was happening around them and it affected the characters and the environment. There were blockades, embargoes, civilians being slaughtered, evacuations, off screen battles, news reports of engagements, all of it independent of the series' cast, and that in turn affected life on the station, prices went up, people had a difficult time traveling through a war zone, materials became scarce, communications didn't always go through, you know an actual galactic war that spanned beyond just what the protagonists did to save the world every week.

 

[kjc733]

The other thing about B5 is that you never new what was going to be important. The random Alien of the week episode might a season down the line suddenly become a critical part of the storyline.
(btw B5 is starting on Pick in the UK on Monday!!!)
The thing that I truly don't understand is this. If they want to change ships, uniforms, history and invent new aliens and introduce jump drives then why not just create a new SciFi series - cos they clearly don't want to play in the Trek universe. It's not because it's attractive to the fan base, because by doing it they're alienating the existing fans. And as for refreshing it to attract new fans, the new fans don't care if its a Klingon or a Pogling from the planet Zorg.

 

[Majestic]

You'll find very few series are thought out like Babylon 5. It's still up there as my favourite series.

All valid points @Archonon

I have thought about this as well @kjc733 it should've been a non-Trek series, would've worked a lot better, they already had the main Aliens fleshed out, just change the name and language from Klingons.

 

[SciFiFan]

I may be in the minority in this but, I don't have a real problem with Burnham. She is full human trying (and failing) to be Vulcan. She tried to make a logical decision wrapped in emotion which resulted in mutiny. Also as for her being an adopted daughter of Sarek, raise your hand if you knew of Sybok before ST5. Regardless of how terribad the movie was, it is still canon. I agree the time frame is wrong, The Klingon are wrong, their ships are wrong, and the spore drive is horrendous. All this retcon nonsense need to stop.

 

[CABAL]

I may be in the minority in this but, I don't have a real problem with Burnham. She is full human trying (and failing) to be Vulcan. She tried to make a logical decision wrapped in emotion which resulted in mutiny.

Burnham's actions so far aren't terrible or anything, but the frequency with which she is praised as being an exemplary officer is annoying, mostly since she hasn't displayed any exemplary behavior. It's like in TNG when they kept saying how caring, kind, and compassionate Pulaski was when that never came across in her actions.

Also as for her being an adopted daughter of Sarek, raise your hand if you knew of Sybok before ST5.

Yeah, but nobody likes Sybok or how he was introduced. Replicating something that was never liked wasn't a good idea. And I'll admit that it could potentially be an interesting thing to do, but if they're never going to get into her relationship to Spock or anything then why do it? Even Sarek's role so far could have been filled by any random Vulcan. And if they really wanted to use Sarek, there is a more subdued method they could have used. Namely, rather than having Sarek adopt Burnham, they could have had him mentor her while she was in the Academy. She's on the command track so she presumably had to take some sort of diplomacy course given what Starfleet captains do, which would have been a great way for them to meet since Sarek is a diplomat.

And we're seeing that Burnham is already being encouraged to be more emotional, which is a retread of something that's been done to death in Star Trek. I was really hoping for the reversal. That one's definitely just the show not living up to my preconceived expectations, though.

My biggest problem though is probably that I just don't think Sonequa Martin-Green is a strong enough actor to be the lead on a show. I was never impressed with her on The Walking Dead and I'm still just not impressed with her on DSC. She's not bad or anything, she just seems very... average. This could partially be that she's being overshadowed by Irons, though. He's far and away the best actor on the show and she got paired with him a lot in the first few episodes so that may be skewing my perception of her acting ability. Either way, if your show has a particular lead instead of an ensemble, then the lead needs to be the best of the regular cast, if only because the camera is going to be on them the most.

 

[Archonon]

I remember Sybok vividly, I saw ST V in the movie theater. And look, weakest of the OT films as it is, I didn't outright hate the movie not Sybok. But the way he was put into the world felt so shoehorned that it doesn't work. The same is the case of Burnham being Sarek's ward. Now, the absolute only way this works is if by season's end, Burnham is dead. Then that explains her never being alluded to to a slightly more palatable degree. Sarek never cared for Burnham nor Sybok, never mentioned them in TOS nor TMP, because they didn't exist. Now all of sudden there they are and then only as long as you watch those specific films. You can't go back to TOS and magically have Sarek say: "My children" or "Your sister/brother" to Spock in "Journey to Babel".

That's continuity, like most of the biggest problems in the show. But the awesomification of Burnham is another problem..."She's excellent at this", "She's top officer that"...no, she's not. She's not even Barclay level competent. And having others marvel at her while she continues to make bad decisions or be rather unremarkable make the character just plain unlikable. I'm not rooting for Burnham and I'm sure that's not the intent the series was supposed to have. At this point focus on Saru or even Yeoman Sparkles (The bubbly redhead), at least I don't groan when they come onscreen.

If you want the freedom to create new things during already established history in the canon, do a JJ, make a whole new reality for it, then we can say, cool, it doesn't affect canon. Otherwise as Majestic has said, make it a brand new universe that is not ST.

We NEED good sci-fi and it doesn't need to be an existing brand in order to be worthy. The Expanse is a fairly interesting show which has surprisingly held its own amidst the horrible stream of low budget movies and series that have plagued Syfy after its conversion from the much superior Sci-Fi Channel. Ah the years when they had originality and took chances!!! Farscape, Stargate SG-1, Dune Miniseries, Battlestar Galactica, good God at least they tried to go for quality back then, even their reruns were B5, Voyager, Firefly. Good stuff. Now it's just Mega-Cr0c vs Dino Shark, Sharknado 7, Z-Nation and Winona Earp, dear God why?

I agree that Sonequa can't carry the series. She is by no means a bad actress, she was fine in TWD, but she is not a fit for series lead or this type of character. She can't sell a tortured soul that's flawed and still make me care about her. Now, speaking of B5, if Claudia Christian (Ivanova) circa 1997 had been playing Burnham, she would have nailed it and I'd be glued to the series. She could sell gravitas, vulnerability, determination, tenderness and humor. But Sonequa, no, sorry, she can't sell everything the character needs, especially next to Jason Isaac's superior Lorca. He is a very intriguing character and has an actor up to par for the portrayal.

B5 is also one of my favorite series of all time, I've been re-watching the whole thing and man, yeah, the writing is so good. The acting, the crew, everything about it was perfect. I used to hate it until I gave it a chance, they showed it twice a week (rerun and new ep) in the mid-90s. I saw "A Distant Star" as my first episode (That was the rerun) and then the new episode was "Severed Dreams" that same week, after that I was hooked and went back and saw the whole thing. That was serialized storytelling.

I think the best thing for STD to do is go back to the drawing board for season 2. Clear the current crew, and maybe the ship, and start from scratch. If it's still before TOS Kirk then make it fit with that. If you're gonna serialize, then stick to your main arc with minor subplots peppered for character development. If you're going back to the exploration of the week, then stick to that, with the occasional 2 parter. But do not open a season long arc and then leave huge gaps in events while we make jolly romps exploring the galaxy, only occasionally give us some random shootout episode to remind us "There's a massive war going on remember?". And jeez, give me a more interesting crew and, especially, a better lead.

 

[CABAL]

Yeoman Sparkles (The bubbly redhead)

If Tilly dies, we riot. Or I do, anyway. You all are free to join.

 

[Jetfreak]

So there's a wealth of new information regarding the Disco era fleet ships...

http://trekcore.com/blog/2017/11/star-trek-discovery-battle-of-the-binary-stars-armada-identified/

I can definitely see the ENT influences with the designs, and one of em' suspiciously looks like the A2 repair ship! They're still are ugly af though and you can tell there was a lot of compromise built into them. The nacelles want to be a TOS/TMP hybrid, with dome bussards but flat surfaces.

There seems to be a strong case favoring the TOS Enterprise being the outlier now.

 

[LordChicken]

I know how Discovery can be fixed. We hear Data's voice say "Computer End Program" and then it pans to him and Geordi walking towards the exit of the Holodeck with Geordi saying something like... "Perhaps you should try sticking with actual history next time Data" and then they continue a conversation along the lines of how Data is trying his had at creating holo-novels and was trying out alternative history fiction. Or something.

Or better yet, its Barclay and Data says to try again.

 

[Majestic]

If Tilly dies, we riot. Or I do, anyway. You all are free to join.

I'll join

So there's a wealth of new information regarding the Disco era fleet ships...

http://trekcore.com/blog/2017/11/star-trek-discovery-battle-of-the-binary-stars-armada-identified/

I can definitely see the ENT influences with the designs, and one of em' suspiciously looks like the A2 repair ship! They're still are ugly af though and you can tell there was a lot of compromise built into them. The nacelles want to be a TOS/TMP hybrid, with dome bussards but flat surfaces.

There seems to be a strong case favoring the TOS Enterprise being the outlier now.

If they had TOS style nacelles or even ENT nacelles they would've fit a lot better.

I know how Discovery can be fixed. We hear Data's voice say "Computer End Program" and then it pans to him and Geordi walking towards the exit of the Holodeck with Geordi saying something like... "Perhaps you should try sticking with actual history next time Data" and then they continue a conversation along the lines of how Data is trying his had at creating holo-novels and was trying out alternative history fiction. Or something.

Or better yet, its Barclay and Data says to try again.

They did it for ENT's last episode STD really deserves this treatment imo.