Paramount+ Star Trek: Discovery - Official Thread (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Could very well be. He’s also Canadian and then shoot in Canada so that probably made it easier for him to do a cameo.

He's also been doing more work in front of the camera lately. He just signed onto Shudder's new season of its Slasher anthology, "Flesh & Blood".

Similarly, I spent the episode thinking that I knew the actor playing Lt. Villa. She seemed so familiar. Her name (Vanessa Jackson) in the credits didn't ring a bell, and I had to look her up in the IMDb. I'd only seen her in a couple of things before (an episode of Titans, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix) and in both cases her role was so minor that I couldn't remember her in them.

It took a little while until I realized that she kinda sorta resembled Michelle Rodriquez (Avatar, Lost, etc.)

Until I checked the end credits, I was certain that she was Eve Harlow.

Speaking of Lt. Villa, it's strange how few regular guest stars this show has. Usually "co-starring" credits are reserved for bit roles with only a couple lines of dialog, but this show uses the "co-starring" credits for actors/characters with lots of dialog and sometimes whole storylines centered around them.

For several years now -- in shows across the board -- there seems to be an in-between "rank" between regular cast and recurring cast, where "regular cast" members get billing in the main credits whether they appear in a given episode or not, and "kinda sorta regular cast" members who are considered regular cast members but only get billing in episodes they actually appear in.

And then there are the shows on The CW, where all of the series regulars get credited on every episode, but some of them are contracted for fewer episodes than the full season in order to save money. Willa Holland was in that situation for the last few seasons before she was written out altogether on "Arrow", and Carlos Valdes is in that situation now on "The Flash".

The weirdest one for me was Don Johnson on HBO's "Watchmen"; he was only credited on the episodes in which he appeared, and for those episodes he would sometimes be credited as a series regular and other times be credited as a guest star. And there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for why he would get which credit for which episode.

I think that’s more about how good your agent is. It’s the new equivalent of the credit you’d see in movies where they’d list all of the cast and then at the end it would say “And featuring (So-and-So Actor) as (Supporting Character)”. Historically that kind of extra prominent billing has been given out as a trade-off when there hasn’t been the money to pay the actor more than a certain amount. The old, “We can’t pay more than that for this role but I can get you a credit above the regulars”

It also probably depends on where you are in your career. If you're a new actor climbing the ranks, name recognition is really important and leverage to demand more money is limited. If you're further along in your career, it's more likely to be all about the Benjamins.

 

[TJPC]

I really enjoyed this episode, although we guessed right away that the threat to split up the crew was only a “tension increaser”, we found it a nice set up for the rest of the season.

 

[Nelson Au]

Speaking of credits, I watched the titles this week and actually read them. It’s amazing on modern TV shows today how many Executive Producers there are. What are they all doing, particularly Rod Roddenberry and his colleague! Maybe they read the scripts and comment. The other executive producers names I recognized as writers. Perhaps it’s just a fancy title. Back on TOS it was only one executive producer, Gene Roddenberry.

 

[Harry-N]

The credit of Executive Producer these days is a vanity credit, negotiated by agents, just like the acting credits.

On most modern shows, you'll often see one or more of the main stars listed as Executive Producer. It's probably about as important as having their own parking space or special coffee cup or trailer.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks Harry, I figured there’s a degree of it being an honorary title. In the case of Discovery, it looks like mostly they are tasked to creative input and maybe some are doing the budgetary stuff. I’m not sure who the actual show runner for Discovery is as Kurtzman seems to be the highest mucky muck. Maybe Michelle Paradise is the new show runner.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

When it comes to the writers, co-executive producer and executive producer are very specific credits, basically signally each writer's rank and level of responsibility on the show. The showrunners are always executive producers, and the co-executive producers are more senior than the staff writers but less senior than the top writers on the show. It's also a way of getting the writers more compensation outside of the WGA framework.

 

[Josh Dial]

To buid on what Adam correctly noted: there are also co-executive producers who are not involved in the writing process. While the "ranking" system of producer titles is absolutely used to get around guild restrictions, there are people are legitimately "just" co-executive producers. Those people absolutely "outrank" even the top writers from the production side of the ledger.

 

[joshEH]

Thanks Harry, I figured there’s a degree of it being an honorary title. In the case of Discovery, it looks like mostly they are tasked to creative input and maybe some are doing the budgetary stuff. I’m not sure who the actual show runner for Discovery is as Kurtzman seems to be the highest mucky muck. Maybe Michelle Paradise is the new show runner.

She is, yeah — Bryan Fuller was the original showrunner but got fired back when Season 1 was still in development, and was replaced by Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg. However, during pre-production on Season 2, they were both fired by CBS due to accusations of fostering an abusive work-environment, and Michelle Paradise took over as lead-showrunner, a position she’s held ever since.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Kurtzman is the co-showrunner as well. He stepped in after Berg and Harberts were fired for cause and elevated Paradise in the process. By all reported accounts, it’s been a much smoother, more professional environment since then.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks guys for the additional producer info. it’s an odd term. Of course we all remember the early days and the shuffle of producers. It’s good the series has settled down now.

 

[Nelson Au]

I was folding laundry and listening to an All Access Star Trek podcast from Trekmovie. First time I ever listened to their podcast and they discussed Die Trying.

Something occurred to me. I had no good theories about the mystery of The Burn. I then had an idea for a potential theory. Maybe The Burn refers to Michael Burnham. The Burnham. But then it makes more sense that the hope for Michael is she finds her mother. And her mother did do a ton of jumps through time. Maybe she made a stop a few years earlier and did something to destroy all the dilithium. Plus last season they thought Michael was the Red Angel, but it turned out to be her mother. Though it was Michael after all. So just a thought. I’ve never tried to have theories for mysteries because I’m not good at it. But this one seemed on the nose, maybe too on the nose.

I look forward to viewing this epsidoe a second time tonight. Theres a lot of thoughts from people about the fan service in this episode. as they entered Starfleet and saw all the ships. The Voyager J I saw, but I didn’t notice the Nog. So I’ll look for it. I’m glad the Enterprise wasn’t shown as I think it has to have its own special moment. Plus I was to re see the segment with Cronenberg and Georgiou. There’s something going there, is he Section 31? Is he from the Mirror Universe? Is he the President of UFP as the Trekmovie guys postulated?

 

[TonyD]

I’ve been thinking the “Burn” could have a connection to a Burnham too but can’t figure out why Mom would kill so many people.

 

[Nelson Au]

Maybe there is a connection to the Time Travel ban. Maybe it’s connected to the temporal Cold War and Michael’s mother accidentally got involved? it’s a good point Michael’s mother wouldn’t do something to get people hurt or killed.

 

[Nelson Au]

I saw a promo about one of the actors in the new ABC series called Big Sky being promoted as the first non binary character on Prime Time TV. I guess even though Discovery was first, they can say a first for Prime Time network TV.

 

[Yee-Ming]

The credit of Executive Producer these days is a vanity credit, negotiated by agents, just like the acting credits.

On most modern shows, you'll often see one or more of the main stars listed as Executive Producer. It's probably about as important as having their own parking space or special coffee cup or trailer.

If anything, I thought main stars often have "producer" credit these days, not just "executive producer"? E.g. offhand I'm pretty sure Mark Harmon is a "producer" on NCIS, possibly Scott Bakula on NCIS: NO as well. And a "producer" credit suggests to me actual hands-on work in putting the show together, rather than a mere vanity credit.

 

[AlexF]

I saw a promo about one of the actors in the new ABC series called Big Sky being promoted as the first non binary character on Prime Time TV. I guess even though Discovery was first, they can say a first for Prime Time network TV.

Until the character is clearly non-binary on screen... then it just comes across as a publicity stunt.

Unfortunately.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I saw a promo about one of the actors in the new ABC series called Big Sky being promoted as the first non binary character on Prime Time TV. I guess even though Discovery was first, they can say a first for Prime Time network TV.

As new episodes of "Discovery" drop at 3 AM Eastern/Midnight Pacific, it technically isn't a primetime show. Primetime shows debut between the hours of 8 PM and 11 PM Eastern.

Until the character is clearly non-binary on screen... then it just comes across as a publicity stunt.

Unfortunately.

In the case of Adira, a complicating factor apparently was the fact that the actor wasn't out to their family yet. The producers agreed to use female pronouns for the character while the performer was still using female pronouns in real life.

In story terms: It's always been my understanding that the gender of the joined entity comes from the host, not the symbiont. Therefore, it's likely that Adira identified as non-binary prior to the join. The traumatic circumstances of the join resulted in the joined entity, Adira Tal, not having access to any of the memories of Adira the host nor Tal the symbiont from before the join.

She basically came out of the procedure with complete amnesia about her life/lives prior to the join. The medbot that performed the operation would have addressed her as female based on her female anatomy, and she would have had no recollection of anything to counter that identity.

Once the rite on Trill allowed the join to finally complete successfully, she would have had access to both Adira's memories from before the join and all of the memories of Tal's previous hosts. But by that point, the crew of Discovery would have known her as female. And since the visit on Trill, a lot has happened, so there probably weren't any organic opportunities to bring up pronouns. If she doesn't like being referred to using "she" and "her" that will have to be a conversation.

On one hand, there's an argument that having the first non-binary character be a joined Trill is a cop out, since gender for that race works more like gender for the Time Lords in "Doctor Who". But the opposing argument is that joined Trill had previously provided the most nuanced focal point for Trek's explorations of gender identity and the complexities that come along with it.

 

[Nelson Au]

Yes, I wasn’t more clear in my post, Discovery is streaming. And Big Sky is going to be on a network in Prime Time. The point was they wanted to say they were first. Splitting hairs.

 

[jayembee]

As new episodes of "Discovery" drop at 3 AM Eastern/Midnight Pacific, it technically isn't a primetime show. Primetime shows debut between the hours of 8 PM and 11 PM Eastern.

Well, it's also not (at least in its "first run" on CBSAA) a "network" show. While the nomenclature gets skewed, the convention still seems to be that a "network show" is one that runs on an over-the-air broadcast network. If it's on a cable network, it's a "cable show". If it runs on a streaming platform, it's a "streaming show".

Sure, it's a holdover term, just like "taping" is still used to mean "recording" even when no tape is involved.

 

[Nelson Au]

I saw two more episodes from the first season. It’s interesting to watch as the Mirror universe episodes really only fully take up two episodes. Faster then I remember. And also interesting to see Georgiou’s arc. The Prime Georgiou dies in the second episode, and the Terran Georgiou takes command in the second to the last episode of the first season.

Anyway, looking forward to tonight’s episode. I accidentally saw on YouTube, a video not realizing it’s a clip from today’s episode and some some stuff I would have preferred to see in context. It wasn’t anything super spoiler-ry but I stopped it anyway.