Topic: Ten Forward - The Star Trek Topic

This week's Discovery was pretty decent, other than the needless redesign of the Talosians.

There really is such good promise there for what the series could have been in a different guise.

Shame really. I do hope the ongoing Tardigrade lawsuit ends with CBS being chastised; it's certainly looking that way after the last update.

@KALofKRYPTON also they brought time travel into it (which they said they wouldn't be doing but anyway) so i wonder if history is going to get changed, changing history would allow them to soft reboot either Discovery or the entire franchise especially as we know that all timelines continue to exist (TNG Season 7 Episode 11 Parallels, Star Trek 09) so it still wouldn't wipe out the rest of the series and yes this does mean there is a timeline where the Borg overtook everything (First Contact) and where the probe wiped out all life on earth (STIV) or where the Nazis won WWII (City on the edge of Forever) which i personally think is the Mirror Universe by the way

@FullbringIchigo I don't think they'll reboot it now, and they'll probably, defiantly, remain steadfast that Discovery is prime timeline canon and just continue as they are... though without mentioning tardigrades, having Stamets and Culber break up (and the latter shave too).

Side note, while checking on Dr Culber's name just now, I noted that he was Enrique in My So Called Life!! Possibly the best teen angst show I watched in my decidedly un-angsty teens!

@KALofKRYPTON sorry by soft reboot i meant either changing Discovery to better match up to the rest of the franchise visually OR changing the rest of the franchise to match the look of Discovery EG: if a Klingon shows up in the Picard series it would look like a Discovery Klingon or history will change and suddenly Discovery Klingons will look like TNG ones

@FullbringIchigo Walking talking Jesus! Don't say that kind of stuff out loud! CBS will hear and just do the last bit!

Sooo...

The Picard series. Like Discovery, 3rd party merchandisers aren't interested in taking any licenses unless the designs change and Netflix isn't interested unless some of the show's elements change.

This is going to be worse Trek than Discovery. Mark my words 😢

@KALofKRYPTON Where are you getting this news from, if you don't mind me asking? I can't find any major headlines on any of my regular news outlets.

@RogerRoger In fairness, just a couple of YouTubers.

One of which was bang on the money about Discovery though and digs up pretty detailed information most of the time. Check out the Midnight's Edge channel; if nothing else, his breakdown of how the rights and licensing works in relation to the prime timeline is very interesting.

Even without him, there's not much about Picard that I'm particularly excited about. Being Kurtzman, I wouldn't be surprised to find that it'll take half a season for Picard to even become recognisable as the character we know.

@KALofKRYPTON Cool, thanks for the pointers. I'll widen my intake.

I remain hopeful, but only because Picard (and TNG in general) was and still is such a fundamental part of my core existence. If they foul it up, I might swear off new Trek forever.

@RogerRoger It very much feels like they'll never really get it right.

I actually lay a bit of the blame for that with The Orville; what would exec's go for seeing what they were doing other than the antithesis of it?

Obviously, mostly it's the showrunners, writers and CBS themselves to blame.

I do need to try and ease of the YouTube stuff, it just makes me dislike Discovery even more. The last one I watched (search for Start Trek Discovery Unearned Legacy) pretty much destroyed the show in ways I'd considered, but tried not to dwell on too much

@KALofKRYPTON I've been having a similar experience this week. I've watched Solo: A Star Wars Story three times, am listening to the soundtrack now and have totally fallen in love with it (even purchased and constructed a LEGO set from it) and yet I know that there's an entire internet of frustration, criticism and borderline hatred for it out there, so I'm just not even looking. I'll just build more LEGO and loop the soundtrack again.

Having said that, accepting things at face value only goes so far. There are still plenty of moments in everything, no matter what it is, where I'll wrinkle my nose and inwardly wish that they'd gone in a different direction. I just hope that they can limit them in the Picard show, and Patrick Stewart's involvement is what I'm holding on to the most.

But then that's the eternal problem with giving a rat's backside.

@RogerRoger Solo's solid film. TLJ did for it more than anything. I'd dig a little Lando & L3 mini series.

With Stewart, I dunno... It's been a long time for him and he said he'd only go back for something different. They probably have him drinking the Koolaid.

@KALofKRYPTON

To both bits.

Aaaaaaaargh!
Sorry, had to let that out. I'm very close to being lost for words at the season finale of Discovery. This show just keeps on getting more convoluted, messy, canon-breaking and down right nonsensical with every episode.

This week's really is a culmination of all of terrible ideas, mediocre plotting and not quite technically prime timeline for this shipwreck of a show.

You could fly the sodding Vengeance surfing the Nexus through the plot holes this week.

As for the pacing and editing...

... At least the Star Wars trailer looks though... 🤞🏽😂

@KALofKRYPTON Not going well, I take it?

I still plan on watching the whole season once it's finished (there's one episode left, apparently). My expectations will be super-low, given everybody's comments about it thusfar, so I might end up oddly enjoying it in some respects, because I always do when I leave things for a while and expect rubbish (recent examples including Solo, Star Wars: Rebels, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, etc.) but the little bits and pieces I have heard don't exactly fill me with confidence.

@RogerRoger is there one more?!

That'll be a messy blast I'm sure.

It's still a pretty well made show in many respects. It's just awful Star Trek, wilfully so. Knowing more about how the licensing breaks down makes setting it pre-Kirk all the more vexing.
Plenty of what they've put together would work perfectly well post-Nemesis. Better in most ways actually and without breaking canon.

@KALofKRYPTON Yep, and I'm now seeing a lot of people complain that this week was so disjointed and failed to deliver proper resolutions to anything, and that as a result the finale is gonna be overloaded and convoluted and nightmarish to unpick and sort out.

So best of luck with that, then!

I did see a shot of the redesigned Enterprise bridge and... actually didn't hate it. I haven't seen it in action yet, but the picture made it look pretty sweet. What did you think?

@RogerRoger Honestly, it really is an awful narrative, but the whole season so far has been. I make the massive assumption that its down to trying to use as few references to the tardigrade as possible, so they had to write on the fly.

As for the Enterprise... Well, other than the painfully obvious set re-dressing of the corridors (because Discovery only has one cross section and one corridor type 🙄) - it's... Alright. That is to say, it is well done in context of Disco, but I also really hate what it represents. It really is as if JJ actually had designed the TOS bridge.

If they'd have done the Enterprise and Pike and Number 1 the way they have straight off the bat and just asked us to run with it, I wouldn't mind so much. Anson Mount as Pike has been the best thing about the whole of Disco so far, he is the most Star Trek character in the whole thing.

@KALofKRYPTON Yeah, that whole lawsuit will have them super-nervous going forward. And rightly so; one of the most blatant bits of plagiarism I've seen in a long while.

My reaction to the shot was probably because I expected far worse, to be honest. But you're right, in the context of re-introducing those classic elements as "fan service" after breaking continuity so many times before, it's jarring. Good to hear praise for Anson Mount, though. I've heard nothing but all the way through regarding his Pike, so that'll be something to look forward to, at least. Same with Jason Issacs and Michelle Yeoh in the first season; they lit up every scene, even the poorly-written ones.

@RogerRoger

It's very in keeping with the show's aesthetic, with a few tokens thrown in and allusions to a different design language seemingly only for the Enterprise mentioned here and there over the course of the season.

On the whole, the cast do very well with what they're given, with a few brighter sparks. Dialogue is usually fine, the stories are just... bad.
The kilingons throughout the first season are tragic; you wouldn't want to be next in line at a drive through while they're trying to knock out a big order!

The majority of the bridge crew remain largely under developed; and there's rarely an episode where Burnham isn't the main focus, which is a real shame - as she's the weakest thing about the show. A cynical, unimaginative and contrived character who is almost only ever stoic or incredibly upset.

Also, one of the Doctors was in My So Called Life - took me ages to place him - and that show was very much Portishead obsessed teen-angst-me's jam! So he gets a pass!