Online Series: Star Trek: Discovery - III - Spock's Beard

[Howler Scores]

That was an amazing episode. This season is a lot better than last IMHO. I liked Pike but hated the season plot.

 

[Jussi]

LOL.

This show is so desperate.

11th generation. Before that they showed the newest Constitution class models. The whole scene was one of the best in Trek history. Pure starship porn.

Overall, probably the best episode of the whole series. Sticking to the ideals of the Federation/Star Fleet, no matter what.

Also, I'm still stunned that there are people on Youtube complaining about the representation of the crew covering all sectors of life. I mean, have these people not gotten the idea of Star Trek at all? It is a liberal utopia fantasy world. A universe where people who complain about such things, basically the anti-sjws, don't exist. Fecking morons.

 

[Tawnos]

11th generation. Before that they showed the newest Constitution class models. The whole scene was one of the best in Trek history. Pure starship porn.

Overall, probably the best episode of the whole series. Sticking to the ideals of the Federation/Star Fleet, no matter what.

Also, I'm still stunned that there are people in Youtube complaining about the representation of the crew covering all sectors of life. I mena, have these no gotten the idea of Star Trek at all? It is a liberal utopia fantasy world. A universe where people who complain about such things, basically the anti-sjws, don't exist. Fecking morons.

One of my favorite complaints I ever saw on that topic, before the show even came out and we just knew about the cast, was “Diversity would never make it into space.”

After what I thought was a rough season premiere, the last few episodes have been really good.

 

[Osprey]

Also, I'm still stunned that there are people in Youtube complaining about the representation of the crew covering all sectors of life. I mena, have these no gotten the idea of Star Trek at all? It is a liberal utopia fantasy world. A universe where people who complain about such things, basically the anti-sjws, don't exist. Fecking morons.

None of us exist in Star Trek's world. It's a future in which everyone has put aside differences, politics, blaming one another and calling people "fecking morons." It's one for all of us to aspire to. That's a big reason why people from all walks of life fell in love with Star Trek. It's not "liberal" to dream of a future in which everyone gets along and sickness and money are no longer concerns. We all share that dream. What's perhaps more debatable is whether lots of rules, regulations, policing the galaxy and colonialism (i.e. the United Federation of Planets) represent "liberal utopia."

The point is that there's something in Star Trek for everyone... or, at least, there's supposed to be. STD has gotten rid of a lot of what appeals to people about Star Trek. It presents a depressing future, the allegorical aspect is gone, Discovery doesn't explore the galaxy or keep the peace, Burnham never obeys rules or regulations, problems are often overcome by Burnham going off on her own or through her superior talents, crew members are abrasive toward one another and so on. It's virtually unrecognizable as the Star Trek that Gene Roddenberry created. The only aspect that's recognizable is the representation, but there's more to Star Trek than just that and I imagine that there'd be less criticism if there were seemingly more to the show than that.

 

[Guardian17]

Spoiler

View attachment 376222

USS Nog

 

[LeafalCrusader]

Haven't had the fortitude to watch season 3 yet. Show still crap?

 

[Canadiens Ghost]

Haven't had the fortitude to watch season 3 yet. Show still crap?

Maybe a little less crap. If you didn't like Burnham before, I don't think you will like her more now. The latest episode was somewhat decent but they still try to force on us these emotional moments that just seem awkward.
I'm still in a state of mind that I cannot watch this show unless I don't consider it Star Trek but just rather another sci-fi show.

 

[Jussi]

None of us exist in Star Trek's world. It's a future in which everyone has put aside differences, politics, blaming one another and calling people "fecking morons." It's one for all of us to aspire to. That's a big reason why people from all walks of life fell in love with Star Trek. It's not "liberal" to dream of a future in which everyone gets along and sickness and money are no longer concerns. We all share that dream. What's perhaps more debatable is whether lots of rules, regulations, policing the galaxy and colonialism (i.e. the United Federation of Planets) represent "liberal utopia."

The point is that there's something in Star Trek for everyone... or, at least, there's supposed to be. STD has gotten rid of a lot of what appeals to people about Star Trek. It presents a depressing future, the allegorical aspect is gone, Discovery doesn't explore the galaxy or keep the peace, Burnham never obeys rules or regulations, problems are often overcome by Burnham going off on her own or through her superior talents, crew members are abrasive toward one another and so on. It's virtually unrecognizable as the Star Trek that Gene Roddenberry created. The only aspect that's recognizable is the representation, but there's more to Star Trek than just that and I imagine that there'd be less criticism if there were seemingly more to the show than that.

You didn't watch this week's or last's episode...? They literally did the latter last week already and are going to be doing the former from now on.

 

[Osprey]

Haven't had the fortitude to watch season 3 yet. Show still crap?

While it's less about Burnham (which is a good thing), Pike is sorely missed and the rest of the characters are uninteresting or even annoying. The writers continue to experiment to try to find something that works by altering characters' personalities (ex. Stamets is now timid and Tilly more assertive) and swapping characters (ex. a side character since Season 1 left the crew last episode to make room for a new character). In fairness, other Trek series had similar growing pains in their first two seasons, but they generally started to figure it out by now. There's no indication that STD is figuring it out.

Also, as Canadiens Ghost mentioned, they've really dialed up the schmaltz this season. It's even more sentimental than previous seasons, probably partly because the Federation almost doesn't exist at this point in time. There is a lot of dialogue about Starfleet values (some of it from Miss Mutiny, herself), constipated looks (and exclamations of "that's impossible") when they hear how bad the situation is and swells of emotion when something goes right. Also, crew members lash out at each other so that they can be super contrite later. It feels like emotions are one extreme or the other and makes me wonder how the ship even runs with such an emotionally unbalanced crew.

 

[Jussi]

While it's less about Burnham (which is a good thing), Pike is sorely missed and the rest of the characters are uninteresting or even annoying. The writers continue to experiment to try to find something that works by altering characters' personalities (ex. Stamets is now timid and Tilly more assertive) and swapping characters (ex. a side character since Season 1 left the crew last episode to make room for a new character). In fairness, other Trek series had similar growing pains in their first two seasons, but they generally started to figure it out by now. There's no indication that STD is figuring it out.

Also, as Canadiens Ghost mentioned, they've really dialed up the schmaltz this season. It's even more sentimental than previous seasons, probably partly because the Federation almost doesn't exist at this point in time. There is a lot of dialogue about Starfleet values (some of it from Miss Mutiny, herself), constipated looks (and exclamations of "that's impossible") when they hear how bad the situation is and swells of emotion when something goes right. Also, crew members lash out at each other so that they can be super contrite later. It feels like emotions are one extreme or the other and makes me wonder how the ship even runs with such an emotionally unbalanced crew.

Nhan joined in season 2.

 

[peate]

I don't know if I'd say it's better this season. Not as bad may be more accurate.

 

[The Nemesis]

I finally started watching the season.

Episode 2 was so much better than episode 1 and the major difference is that Burnham is nowhere to be seen until the end.

I don't think that's a coincidence.

 

[Osprey]

I finally started watching the season.

Episode 2 was so much better than episode 1 and the major difference is that Burnham is nowhere to be seen until the end.

I don't think that's a coincidence.

I said the same thing: "The episode was a big improvement over the first because there was no Burnham in it until the very end."

I haven't watched an episode since this thread was last bumped, I think, so I'm three behind at this point. It takes so much willpower to watch an episode.

 

[The Nemesis]

I said the same thing: "The episode was a big improvement over the first because there was no Burnham in it until the very end."

I haven't watched an episode since this thread was last bumped, I think, so I'm three behind at this point. It takes so much willpower to watch an episode.

I've just had them sitting on the PVR since the season began because I had this idea in my head like "I can not watch the season and hope it gets better or I can actually turn it on and find out I'm depressingly wrong."

Mostly I'm just killing time for the Pike spinoff because that actually looks interesting and would have fun characters.

EDIT: I'm now about 3 minutes into episode 3, muddling my way through Burnham's exposition dump log and it's just so painfully bad. Full of the kind of ridiculous faux philosophical garbage that's meant to make us think that she's this amazing strong warrior poet but instead comes across like a bad fanfiction writer trying desperately to seem smarter and deeper than they are.

Honestly, the best thing they could do for the series is have some big emotional climax to the season where Burnham dies and they play it off like the grandest sacrifice of the most saintly person ever. I'd hate that moment but at least afterwards the show might be more entertaining/tolerable. But that'd never happen because Mary-Sue Space-Jesus is the unequivocal center of this universe.

 

[The Nemesis]

I'm probably going to spam this thread as I continue to watch episodes, but I think I'm on the 4th episode now (I can't honestly even remember anymore)

1) It opens with Doctor What's-his-name's log, except it's "Chief Medical Officer's log" which implies it's the duty log, not his personal one. And yet he spends the entire time waxing philosophical about their current situation. If it was a personal log that would've been fine and all they would've had to do is change the opening line to "what's-his-name's personal log".

2) In the previous episode when we discovered that the new person is a Trill. Or a human carrying a Trill. Burnham and Saru have a conversation about Trills that makes it sound like they're not necessarily a widely known species. Particularly as if Burnham hadn't heard of them. But when they discuss taking them to the Trill homeworld at the start of the next episode half the conversation sounds more like at least that one other nameless doctor is familiar. It's weird and oddly conflicting.

3) They keep calling the trill symbiant "a squid". But if you watched DS9 for like 10 minutes you'd know it's more like a worm.

4) Doctor That-Guy decides to abdicate his medical responsibility of escorting New-Trill-Person to their planet in favor of foisting that duty on Burnham because she's super-special-awesome. Great. It's back to fawning over the amazingness of Burnham again. Yay.

5) New Trill person has been carrying the symbiant (which it feels like sometimes the show is pronouncing as "Symbiote" inconsistently) with no concession given to the fact that the whole plot of "The Host" was that humans simply couldn't do so without a whole lot of medical support and a lot of pain and eventual death in the short term. So why is Adira so special that she's exempt from this?

6) The Trill remark that they are in trouble because most of the joining-capable members of the species died in The Burn. It was established early in DS9 that being capable of joining was only possible for a small minority of Trill, but then there was a season 7 plot that revealed that the percentage is actually much higher than had been traditionally cited, and it was artificially suppressed to keep the demand for symbiants down. Surely in the instance of a massive social upheaval that killed off a significant portion of what they believed to be the only people capable of supporting symbiants would necessitate going "hey, uhhh... so it turns out that more people can join than we thought, so we can find ways to keep our way of life going in the face of this. So that's cool." But nerp, we're just going to dodge that because we need to manufacture even more drama beyond the literal life-and-death peril of the character.

7) For a show that's trying desperately to be progressive and all that, the message that Adira, a human, is somehow the savior of the Trill way of life by being one of the rarest things: a returning being joined to a Trill symbiant, is kind of... troublesome? In spite of all the forward momentum they're gathering on making Star Trek more inclusive and representational on matters like gender, sexuality, history, etc, it's some pretty A+ backwards thinking that a special human has to be the one who swoops in and saves the other species through their specialness. They could've made Adira an allegedly non-joinable trill and all of this would've had the same potential impact in-universe.

8) I'll at least grant the writers not taking the easy way and making the symbiant they found be Dax or Odan because YAY FANSERVICE!

 

[Ducks in a row]

Season 3 sucks so far I wish this show had never been made. Not 1 episode in all of current Trek is good enough that I would have any interest in rewatching over and over again.

 

[Osprey]

You made me finally watch Episode 6 @The Nemesis. Thanks a lot.

It starts out with classic Burnham not having learned anything in three seasons.

Much of the middle of the episode reminded me way too much of the start of The Running Man (which I love, but don't just rip it off).

Despite those things, the episode had two of my favorite moments of the entire series: Tilly throwing Burnham under the bus and Burnham getting chewed out.

 

[The Nemesis]

You made me finally watch Episode 6 @The Nemesis. Thanks a lot.

It starts out with classic Burnham not having learned anything in three seasons.

Much of the middle of the episode reminded me way too much of The Running Man.

Despite those things, the episode had two of my favorite moments of the entire series: Tilly throwing Burnham under the bus and Burnham getting chewed out.

I'm here to help.

I will say that through 4 episodes of this season it is a marginal improvement over the previous two years worth of the show. Maybe it's because Burnham is slightly less annoying without that stick-up-her-ass fake Vulcan affectation (so that she's merely only "really annoying" on account of her savior complex, endless shilling, and smug moral absolutist know-it-all-ism.) and maybe it's because we've focused a bit more on the rest of the Discovery crew instead of just mostly her with them there to support her and tell us all how cool she is.

Kinda sucks we're losing the Barzan security officer lady though. She was kinda cool. Though at the same time she was never integrated into the cast enough to really make her departure all that impactful like if she had been here for the entire series right after they killed the original security officer in episode 2 or 3 or whatever it was of season 1 (which is a shame because I really liked her actress. The original one. The Barzan one I don't know anything about beyond this show).

but of course trying and failing to mine significant emotional response from the death/departure of characters we've never had sufficient time to bond with is a proud part of Discovery's tradition (I'm looking at you, writers who massively wasted the potential of Lt. Airiam for a 1 episode backstory dump and then *boom* dead)

I guess that does continue to be perhaps my gripe: all the secondary senior staff officers are kind of trapped in a limbo between being full-fledged characters we know and care about and nameless seat-fillers there to do jobs, press buttons, and say "aye captain" and nothing else. They're clearly a step above characters like the regular TOS background people like Lt. Kyle, Lt. Leslie, and the like, but a step below being on the level of a Sulu/Chekhov/Uhura. They're even a step below someone who was presented but underutilized like Yeoman Rand (who they at least had the excuse of the fact that they wrote her out of the show on account of Grace Lee Whitney's personal issues). At least TOS/TNG/Voyager had the good sense to just have a rotating cast of nametags and "aye, sir"s sit in the navigation/communication/whatever else chairs for when they didn't have a regular, important cast member on duty. Because here we are in season 3 and we now know a little bit about Detmer, basically 1 thing about the conn officer lady (that she grew up in a luddite collective) and nothing at all about the communications guy or the other background bridge guy (the Asian one. Like the doctor, I can't even remember his name. Hell, I don't remember communications guy either for that matter.)

I suppose this is the problem with a serialized show that has every episode move its plot forward. There are no "off days" in which to give us some background on them. This show could really use a good break and a maybe a mini-arc of "Lower Decks" style episodes (The TNG one, not that ridiculous cartoon) that just let us get to know all these people we see every episode but know nothing about.

 

[Osprey]

I suppose this is the problem with a serialized show that has every episode move its plot forward. There are no "off days" in which to give us some background on them. This show could really use a good break and a maybe a mini-arc of "Lower Decks" style episodes (The TNG one, not that ridiculous cartoon) that just let us get to know all these people we see every episode but know nothing about.

It's interesting: Discovery is the first fully serialized Star Trek and The Mandalorian is the first procedural Star Wars (in live action, at least). A common criticism of Discovery's episodes is that they don't feel self-contained enough and a common criticism of The Mandalorian's episodes is that they often feel too self-contained. I often think about how I kind of wish that it were the other way around: that Discovery were more procedural (like classic Star Trek) and The Mandalorian were more serialized.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Off-topic, but speaking of Trills - in season 4 of DS9, there was a great episode called "Rejoined". Jadzia met her ex-spouse from several generations back. Trill society forbids the revisiting of intimate relationships, with the penalty being exile from the home world (and, effectively, the death of the symbiont). (The episode was intended to be, at least partially, an allegory for homosexuality).

Yet in season 7, Ezri was in a relationship with Worf (Jadzia's widowed husband). From what I recall, none of those concerns were raised.

Am I missing something, or is it just bad writing?

 

[Tawnos]

Off-topic, but speaking of Trills - in season 4 of DS9, there was a great episode called "Rejoined". Jadzia met her ex-spouse from several generations back. Trill society forbids the revisiting of intimate relationships, with the penalty being exile from the home world (and, effectively, the death of the symbiont). (The episode was intended to be, at least partially, an allegory for homosexuality).

Yet in season 7, Ezri was in a relationship with Worf (Jadzia's widowed husband). From what I recall, none of those concerns were raised.

Am I missing something, or is it just bad writing?

Well, Ezri wasn't in training to be a host, so her allegiance to those ideals wasn't as firmly ingrained as Jadzia's was. Also, she wasn't really ever "in a relationship" with Worf, in the sense of revisiting an intimate relationship. They slept together that one time, but it didn't turn into anything more. Both before and after that, their relationship really isn't much different than her relationship with Sisko. Good friends who knew Dax's previous host.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

Off-topic, but speaking of Trills - in season 4 of DS9, there was a great episode called "Rejoined". Jadzia met her ex-spouse from several generations back. Trill society forbids the revisiting of intimate relationships, with the penalty being exile from the home world (and, effectively, the death of the symbiont). (The episode was intended to be, at least partially, an allegory for homosexuality).

Yet in season 7, Ezri was in a relationship with Worf (Jadzia's widowed husband). From what I recall, none of those concerns were raised.

Am I missing something, or is it just bad writing?

I believe it was Ira that said they really wanted to do a homosexual episode, but it was considered way to risque by the studio. They ended up going with this instead.

 

[Cas]

Off-topic, but speaking of Trills - in season 4 of DS9, there was a great episode called "Rejoined". Jadzia met her ex-spouse from several generations back. Trill society forbids the revisiting of intimate relationships, with the penalty being exile from the home world (and, effectively, the death of the symbiont). (The episode was intended to be, at least partially, an allegory for homosexuality).

Yet in season 7, Ezri was in a relationship with Worf (Jadzia's widowed husband). From what I recall, none of those concerns were raised.

Am I missing something, or is it just bad writing?

Happened all the time in Star Trek, probably because the writers didn't have encyclopedic knowledge of the series or a wiki, or didn't care about it as much as writing a single good script or at best a good story arc.

 

[Jussi]

Happened all the time in Star Trek, probably because the writers didn't have encyclopedic knowledge of the series or a wiki, or didn't care about it as much as writing a single good script or at best a good story arc.

We don't like to talk about weird/crazy stuff that happened in previous Trek shows that could possibly make Discovery seem good. Things like Trek science/tech creating an issue that ends being resolved by more Trek science/tech. No, we must complain about Discovery doing that.

 

[Osprey]

We don't like to talk about weird/crazy stuff that happened in previous Trek shows that could possibly make Discovery seem good. Things like Trek science/tech creating an issue that ends being resolved by more Trek science/tech. No, we must complain about Discovery doing that.

He was talking about Trek shows that were written before there were wikis to check this stuff and that made up for their mistakes with good scripts and good story arcs. I don't see how that makes Discovery look good.