CBS All Access Star Trek: Discovery - Official Thread

[Lou Sytsma]

This is where the show should have gone to from the get go. Now I can sit back and watch the show - even though it's a rehash of Andromeda - without all the annoying continuity issues raising my hackles.

I suspect the creative team is enjoying all the references they throw back in the audience's faces about Discovery tech being considered high value antiques.

What continues to amaze me is the money this show spends. Lots of pretty SFX shots that most of the time are frivolous.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Either we stop getting personal with those that have a contrary view from yours or I'm going to start issuing thread bans to regain posting civility in this thread. Any further such posts or challenging what I just stated would be met with disciplinary action.

 

[Bryan^H]

What continues to amaze me is the money this show spends. Lots of pretty SFX shots that most of the time are frivolous.

Yeah, and we are all the richer for it. Spend that money baby, spend it!!!

 

[Josh Dial]

Yeah, and we are all the richer for it. Spend that money baby, spend it!!!

Agreed. And I think the franchise has always tried to go in that direction, but it never quite had the money to do it on a regular basis. We would be treated with one or two beautiful shots per season of the previous shows. But DISCO is just dripping with production values.

 

[Sam Favate]

In any event, I enjoyed the second episode of the season. This was the first time in the series that we've had an hour devoted to the rest of the crew, besides Burnham. My biggest fault with this show is that the rest of the crew often gets the short end when it comes to screen time, development, etc. Star Trek has always been an ensemble show and Discovery needs more of that.

 

[Nelson Au]

I watched Patterns of Force last night. Not one of my favorite episodes so it was a little refreshing to see it. Because it’s not one I view as much it was kind of fun to watch. It’s fun to see Spock thinking and realizing the Rubindium crystals could be used to create a laser.

I liked again the reference on Discovery to the transtator and requiring Rubindium to repair it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I forgot to mention this earlier but I love the subtle tweaks to the title sequence for this season. Even while it was taking me time to warm up to the show at the start of its first season, I loved the theme music and title sequence from the beginning. It’s elegant, classy, in line with what has been done before and yet completely different at the same time. That’s a great little bit of design.

 

[DaveF]

I'm very hopeful for Season 3 of Discovery. The first two episodes are giving me the Star Trek I want right now. I loved Season 1, with the Mirrorverse. But Season 2, despite being a fan favorite, left me confused and frustrated; I didn't connect to with it as strongly. Season 3 is doing what I wanted from the start, which is to do new, "future" Star Trek, not "historical" Trek and the quagmire of "canon" and confusion of why is there a super-futuristic, post-Voyager ship amidst all the TOS Enterprise ships...and dumb retcons about holograms versus voice-only ship-to-ship communicators.

Ok. Season 3. Future Trek. 1000 years in the future. Awesome.

The Federation has fallen. Excellent. Because that is the way of societies. This is a good plot development and hopefully is mined for good story telling.

The overt depiction of the Federation as a secular religion was fascinating! I suppose it's always been there, but I don't recall it put so plainly on screen as at the conclusion of the first episode.

The "Burn" and the disruption of Di-Lithium crystals as the fundamental and essential fuel for warp transit across the galaxy? I'm still confused on what this means, what happened, and the role of dilithium circa Stardate 3000. Again, the opening episodes are making big promises.

There's a lot of more killing happening in these first two episodes than is usual for Star Trek, no? I'm not wild about this, but can accept it in story as "needs must". But then, in a kill-or-be-killed practicality, I was especially annoyed by episode 2's plot-driven "kill the subordinates but let the leader live" choice. That is asinine and backwards. You kill the leader and give the flunkies the choice of whether to escape their former lives. But you definitely don't let the leader live so he can appear in a future episode to cause you trouble. (This is an example of where Star Trek Discovery falters compared to The Expanse, as truly excellent, modern, mature story telling.)

Thrilled Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) is returns. Her and Stamets' professional antagonism is so much fun.

Lt Detmer. Another early mystery.

Fingers crossed the season lives up to the potential and promises of Season 3 premiere!

 

[DaveF]

Euphoric Michael Burnam is the best Michael Burnam!

"I have a friend. Red hair. You cannot give her this!"

 

[Nelson Au]

I’ve never seen or recall The Federation ever referred to as a secular religious entity before. And those Coridans to me didn’t seem to think of Saru and Tilly as religious entities. At least to me, but I can see how you could have interpreted that Dave. I just thought they were surprised and happy to meet someone from the Federation. I’ll have a repeat viewing tomorrow night and see how it goes in that regard.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Star Trek has always been a political show so it’s almost impossible to make this comment without mentioning the idea of politics in some way.

I think the legend of the Federation, and how a handful believe in its ideals while most are too busy trying to eke out a living is analogous to our time. I’m 37 and since I’ve come of age, the opportunities that were available to my parents have not been as readily available to me or my generation. None of my peers have had an opportunity to parent where only one of two partners needed to work. Job security is not what it once was. Health benefits that used to cover all expenses with no employee paid premium now only cover a fraction of the costs and require high premiums. Guaranteed pensions have been replaced with riskier 401k plans. Home ownership is out of reach for many. My peers and I all face struggles and tough decisions over things that our parents had easy access to and never thought twice about. When my parents and especially grandparents were my age, public works projects were springing up left and right. Now, it’s seemingly impossible to get a pothole fixed much less build a new bridge or highway.

That to me feels analogous to what the show is saying about the absence of the Federation. A lot of my peers aren’t even aware of what they’re missing out on; they just try their best to overcome the obstacles that keep getting thrown their way. And a select few do know history and do notice what chances they haven’t had and live in hope of a return to those opportunities where our societies and governments do more.

It often feels like we’re spending so much effort just trying to get by that the big picture gets lost in the struggle for survival. When I watch these new episodes the Federation’s absence and the reverence of those who remember it feels very much like a comment on today’s world.

 

[DaveF]

I’ve never seen or recall The Federation ever referred to as a secular religious entity before. And those Coridans to me didn’t seem to think of Saru and Tilly as religious entities. At least to me, but I can see how you could have interpreted that Dave. I just thought they were surprised and happy to meet someone from the Federation. I’ll have a repeat viewing tomorrow night and see how it goes in that regard.

Conclusion to S3 E01: Michael wasn't taken as a prophet or mystical figure. But everything about that sequence was a religion in exile. Aditya Sahil, the son of the son of the son, guarding a discarded flag. He has spent his life awaiting the return of those representing the true system, to inaugaurate him truly into office. That is not how people speak of a governmental body.

Adita is the ancestral priest, fulfilling the oath his father made, and his father before him. He has forsaken his life, his trade, his relationships, to wait in the shattered temple for the return of centuries lost disciples of the true faith. And when finally a true priest appears from the heavens, his greatest desire is to be baptized into the faith by the ancient priest. That fulfulled, he is now worthy to lay hands on the holy relic and display it once again above the altar.

Everything about that scene read as a religious experience to me. It evokes A Canticle for Leibowitz, where the post-apocalyptic preservation of lost technological knowledge becomes a religion.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

To a certain extent, Star Trek has always been about Roddenberry’s desire for a form of secular humanism to surpass organized religion as a way for humanity to unite. I don’t see it so much as religious reverence as it is the belief that we as people can do better for each other by looking to each other.

 

[DaveF]

Whether intentional or not, that scene depicted a religious experience to me, based on my personal experiences. It was...

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Maybe we’re saying the same thing without realizing it. I think the point is to show that we can look to ourselves, each other and our highest ideals to experience the kind of reverence and salvation that used to be the exclusive provenance of religion. We can do better because we believe we can do better.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The "Burn" and the disruption of Di-Lithium crystals as the fundamental and essential fuel for warp transit across the galaxy? I'm still confused on what this means, what happened, and the role of dilithium circa Stardate 3000. Again, the opening episodes are making big promises.

Having to acquire dilithium was also a plot point from time to time on "Voyager", being completely cut off from Federation supply lines. So it has long been established that dilithium is required to matter-antimatter reactions in warp cores, which in turn power the ships and make faster than light travel possible.

It was always a pretty rare and valuable substance; at one point in the second season Stamets stated that one of the reasons the spore drive was developed was to reduce or eliminate the need for dilithium, because of the ecological damage caused by mining for it. It sounds like the Alpha Quadrant's handful of dilithium sources simply ran out of easily extractable material sometime in the middle of the 30th century. Starfleet investigated alternative warp drives that didn't rely on dilithium, but couldn't find any solutions with the utility and reliability of dilithium. Then, at some point, the Burn happened and wiped out the Federation's active fleet.

It looks like the question of what caused the Burn is the mystery that is driving this season.

There's a lot of more killing happening in these first two episodes than is usual for Star Trek, no? I'm not wild about this, but can accept it in story as "needs must". But then, in a kill-or-be-killed practicality, I was especially annoyed by episode 2's plot-driven "kill the subordinates but let the leader live" choice. That is asinine and backwards. You kill the leader and give the flunkies the choice of whether to escape their former lives. But you definitely don't let the leader live so he can appear in a future episode to cause you trouble. (This is an example of where Star Trek Discovery falters compared to The Expanse, as truly excellent, modern, mature story telling.)

This always drives me nuts on the Arrowverse DC Comics shows, too. That being said, it made a certain amount of sense here: Mirror Georgiou prioritized the henchmen because they were the ones pointing weapons at her and her comrades. Saru, who didn't approve of any of the killing, didn't have a chance to intervene until the top baddie was the only one left. And by leaving the big baddie's fate up to the people who had been exploited by him, Saru is attempting to establish a reputation for the Federation in this new time period.

The moral and ethical dilemmas faced by Discovery are similar to the moral and ethical dilemmas faced by Voyager during its journey through the Delta Quadrant, in that they're all on their own with minimal to no backup. How far do they bend their code to survive in a time that is no longer easily compatible with their ideals? Or, alternatively, at what point do they choose to accept certain death rather than cross a line that they're not willing to cross?

 

[Josh Dial]

The Romulans don't use dilithium at all, right? So far we haven't seen signs of them (unless I missed it in the "city"). I wonder if they made it through the Burn relatively unscathed.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The Romulans don't use dilithium at all, right? So far we haven't seen signs of them (unless I missed it in the "city"). I wonder if they made it through the Burn relatively unscathed.

I guess we'll see in future seasons of "Picard", but it has been my impression that after the supernova the Romulans ceased to be a galactic power. Most of the population that survived were living as refugees on rustic settlements at the end of the 24th century.

And weren't the Romulans using the Remans to mine dilithium in Nemesis? If so, that would seem to point to them using dilithium in some way, even if they don't need it for the singularity reactors used in the Romulan warbirds. The singularity reactors also have the significant downside that, once activated, they could not be shut down. It makes sense that the militizaristic Romulans would accept that the occasional ship would just explode once the singularity reactor reached the end of its useful life, but I don't think the technology would meet the Federation's standards for reliability.

 

[TonyD]

Can someone remind me what the Burn is and when we saw it first in this series?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The Burn is this season‘s mystery.

Book told Burnham that about 120 years before he was born, all of the dilithium in the galaxy suddenly ignited without warning, leaving ships without fuel and leading to the breakdown of the Federation and long range space travel.