Paramount+ Star Trek: Discovery - Official Thread (2 Viewers)

[Josh Steinberg]

It’s always nice to have something to look forward to

 

[David Weicker]

Hard to decide to place this news in the Discovery or Picard thread. The new Paramount + promos have appeared on Trekmovie. I haven’t gone there yesterday and just saw this. Captain Pike is featured in both promos. And Picard’s voice can be heard.

Watch: Pike And Spock From ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Join Paramount+ Promos

Patrick Stewart narrates them too.

trekmovie.com

Well considering Jeff Probst is leading the march, I doubt both Pike and Picard will finish. One of them will be voted out.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Well considering Jeff Probst is leading the march, I doubt both Pike and Picard will finish. One of them will be voted out.

I don’t understand what you are saying.

 

[Nelson Au]

Good one David! . Though there is Tom Selleck and Stephen Colbert too.

 

[Nelson Au]

Hey guys, I just finished re-visiting Star Trek DS9.

I could not help but think about how DS9 might have been more an influence on Discovery and Picard then the other Star Trek series just in terms of how the story builds. As we all know, DS9 is the first series to tell a serialized story. But that’s not what’s so new, but the way the last 9 episodes of DS9 were one continuous storyline that was building and building to the resolutions. Seems that Discovery has amped that up each season when they build up to resolve the mystery MacGuffin.

I felt more invested in the DS9 finale. The Discovery resolutions are getting better and I’m liking these characters. Maybe because DS9 has been around and I’ve had a chance to rewatch the series a few times to be more invested in it.

 

[TJPC]

I guess I have less of an attention span these days, but I get so bored by a continuous several episode “story ark”. I don’t mind references to earlier events. We just groan when we are enjoying a police type show and suddenly the main character “refers to her mother’s death and how she wants to fin the murderer some day”

 

[Jason_V]

I guess I have less of an attention span these days, but I get so bored by a continuous several episode “story ark”. I don’t mind references to earlier events. We just groan when we are enjoying a police type show and suddenly the main character “refers to her mother’s death and how she wants to fin the murderer some day”

I wouldn’t say less of an attention span. Maybe you’re just more of an episodic vs. serial series kind of person. And there’s nothing wrong with that, honestly.

 

[DaveF]

I've had a hard time havinng the time / energy to discuss TV shows the past year. Which is a bummer for me, since I've caught up and watched all the Trek the past 10 months on CBS, and watched Disco S3 in real time, along with Lower Decks. And caught up on Trek Shorts. But I've missed much of the discussion here.

And some of it is the dawning acceptance, for me, that Discovery isn't great.

I'm glad to have Trek back. And I'm enjoying watching all the Treks.

But after loving S1, being disappointed by S2, and hoping that S3 was going to get back on track by being in the future where it belonged...I ended with an ambivalence. Discovery isn't bad TV. It's good. It's fun.

But the "Star Trek"-shaped hole in my heart for brilliant, intense, inspiring scifi is filled by The Expanse (the best scifi on TV now and possibly the best since 2004's Battlestar Galactica). And from the view of building on a 60 year old legacy, Disco is so far lesser than The Mandalorian, it's hard to compare them. If Disco were the debut of the new streaming scifi, circa 2015, I'd possibly have a higher opinion. But compared to its direct peers, it's mediocre.

Is it me? Is it modern Star Trek suffers the bankruptcy of ideas that killed Trek 20-some years ago? Is it as good as it ever was, but now TV is even better? I personally think it's them, not me. But that's hard to suss out.

I love the characters. Saru and Michael and Tilly and Stamets and Hue. I enjoy the dynamics of the crew, their interactions, the growing relationships. I enjoy the more emotionally-driven stories; it's an interesting and welcome adapation of Star Trek for 2020. I like the meta-feel: the diversity, the women, the updates for current time. I have a Badgy pin for my work lanyard. I've got a Disco T-shirt that I've wanted since I saw it on Season 1. I like Trek culture and enjoying being in it.

The Burn was the emotional outbursts of a stunted man-child in a scifi-magic dilithium environment? It was unexpected. But, unsatisfying in the end. And didn't really give me anything usefully revelatory. The promise, the arc a stronger show would have taken, would have been an environmental-management tale with ongoing consequences. But this...don't abandon babies in dilithium factories. And now there's plenty of dilithium to spare, so we hit the Star Trek reset button.

Michael Burnam arguing with Vulcans in a logic-death match...using nothing by emotional outbursts with no bearing on the matter at hand. That story just sucked.

The ship-repair robots. Star Trek doesn't have robots. It has androids. But not to my recollection robots. And definitely not cloyingly cutesy robots that have break with Trek aesthetics. Gah. So awful.

Detmer was setup for a potent reveal or character shift. Something ranging from severe PTSD to actually having remnants of the Core in her. Instead, she just needed a pep talk and was good to go.

The negotiation between the Federation not-a-president and Chain-leader Osyraa had no sophistication or nuance. If this is the quality of Federation leadership, it deserves to die.

Lots of build up for The Federation being less than it used to be, of actually being a cruel and oppressive organization, having lost its way over the centuries. And that was seemingly abandoned.

I'm glad to have Trek back. But I wish it was great Trek, and not merely ok Trek. And I might move S4 out of "big screen appointment viewing" to "small screen, background during dinner" viewing.

 

[BobO'Link]

I guess I have less of an attention span these days, but I get so bored by a continuous several episode “story ark”. I don’t mind references to earlier events. We just groan when we are enjoying a police type show and suddenly the main character “refers to her mother’s death and how she wants to fin the murderer some day”

I wouldn’t say less of an attention span. Maybe you’re just more of an episodic vs. serial series kind of person. And there’s nothing wrong with that, honestly.

I was talking with my son over the weekend and mentioned that I'd finally seen S1 and S2 in their entirety and, based on comments in this thread, had hoped for better than what I got, especially with S2. While they at least explained why none of the events of those 2 seasons is ever mentioned in any of the shows it just felt hollow and mostly pointless. I felt like the majority of time in S2 was spent simply to clean up the mess that was S1. And S2 *was* much better than S1.

The episodes I enjoyed most were the few mostly stand alone episodes. The series long arcs just didn't work for me with it playing far too much like a sci-fi soap opera for my tastes. Not that I mind that type of story telling, when it's done well, just that, for me, it didn't work in the Star Trek universe. He commented that I was likely an "episodic" rather than "serial" kind of person. He's not too far wrong, even though there have been several sci-fi series that *were*serialized that I greatly enjoyed (Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica to name a couple). For me, it just doesn't work that well, at least the way it's currently being done, with Star Trek.

It remains at the bottom of the heap for me. If it comes up for sale inexpensively enough I'll likely purchase S3 (for no other reason than it's Star Trek) but I'm in no hurry to continue with this series.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Is it me? Is it modern Star Trek suffers the bankruptcy of ideas that killed Trek 20-some years ago? Is it as good as it ever was, but now TV is even better? I personally think it's them, not me. But that's hard to suss out.

I think it’s you. And I don’t mean that as a critical or mean spirited thing. I think your expectations and interests in what you want to see from a show today are different than what the Trek people are trying to do. (Correct me if I’m wrong, but I recall you being underwhelmed with Picard as well.)

You’ve talked before about The Expanse being your current gold standard in TV sci-fi and I think that’s where the disconnect lies. I’ve never been able to get into The Expanse, either in book or TV form. I’m not trying to say it’s bad; it’s just not what I’m looking for in sci-fi. From what I’ve seen/read, it’s more war story set in space than sci-fi or exploration; it’s more of anti-heroes trying to solve problems that’ll help their own ends rather than noble officers working for the betterment of all. To me, it feels like a story that could have been told in any genre, and that the sci-fi/space setting is more window dressing than motivating factor. Now that’s obviously with the caveat that I haven’t gotten very far into it and my impressions may not hold over the bulk of the work. But I think that my overall takeaway, that it’s not a Trek-like show at all, probably holds.

When I watch these new Trek shows, I believe that they exist in the same vein as the earlier Trek without issue but I also appreciate that they take advantage of some more modern conventions. I like that they focus on continuing stories instead of resetting the status quo at the end of each episode. But I also like that the show aspires to be a beacon of positivity. The overriding message of this latest season seemed to me to be twofold: that it’s not enough to simply accept an imperfect present with the hope that someone else will make the future better, but also, that it’s never too late to try to make the world a better place.

The thing you didn’t like - that the Burn was an accident and unanticipated consequence caused by the unintentional neglect of a helpless child - I think is key to this theme. I think it really speaks to the allegory they were going for, something Trek has often been since it’s inception. Today’s society, despite its interconnected-ness, still often acts as if we’re all individuals with no collective responsibility to each other, and that we’re above our environments rather than part of them. We’re told that when dilithium started running out in the future, before the Burn, that everyone started looking out for themselves rather than working together to solve the problem. The science ship was written off as unimportant and that set the stage for the unintended consequences that followed. We do the same thing today: we write off large groups of people around the world and act as if that will have no consequence, and then act utterly shocked when it does. But I also think it was important to show that a lot of the posturing and unwillingness to think big could be overcome and broken through, because we see so much decision paralysis in our current real world that it becomes important to show that we can be more than the moment we’re in. And I think it was important to the story being told for it to be resolved this season and for the resolution to be something beyond more fighting and war.

As to the window dressing stuff about whether there are little robots on the ship or whatever - they had already been established so I didn’t blink an eye. I think you just kinda have to accept that new Trek is going to incorporate present day technological trends into its vision of the future, and not simply stay at a “this is what they thought the future would be in the 1960s/1980s” aesthetic. We rely on automation in the 21st century; why wouldn’t that continue in the future?

But that all gets me back to what I’ve been trying to express. I don’t think this show is bad, or mediocre, or not a top echelon production. But I do think the media landscape has changed so much and so many different types of things are now on offer that it’s possible both for this to be a fantastic show and not what you’re looking for in a show. Just like The Expanse is probably a fantastic show but just not what I’m looking for. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

 

[TonyD]

I was waiting for those robots to show up all season.
Aren’t they or haven’t they been in the opening credits since s3 ep1?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I believe so. They were also in one of the Short Treks before the season.

 

[jayembee]

You’ve talked before about The Expanse being your current gold standard in TV sci-fi and I think that’s where the disconnect lies. I’ve never been able to get into The Expanse, either in book or TV form. I’m not trying to say it’s bad; it’s just not what I’m looking for in sci-fi. From what I’ve seen/read, it’s more war story set in space than sci-fi or exploration; it’s more of anti-heroes trying to solve problems that’ll help their own ends rather than noble officers working for the betterment of all. To me, it feels like a story that could have been told in any genre, and that the sci-fi/space setting is more window dressing than motivating factor. Now that’s obviously with the caveat that I haven’t gotten very far into it and my impressions may not hold over the bulk of the work. But I think that my overall takeaway, that it’s not a Trek-like show at all, probably holds.

Don't want to de-rail the thread by making it about The Expanse (and I did appreciate your comments about Discovery here), but just to comment on the part I highlighted...

That's not at all the case. The heroes of the story, the crew of the Rocinante, are neither anti-heroes (well, except maybe Amos) nor working for their own ends (except perhaps incidentally). Exactly the opposite. If anything, they are constantly putting themselves in situations that are exceedingly bad for them to stop mankind from being royally screwed over. And it's because no one else seems to be willing to do so.

To me, James Holden is my favorite kind of hero, same as Buffy Summers, or John Sheridan, or John Crichton or Malcolm Reynolds (who admittedly is more mercenary than the others): one who endeavors to do the Right Thing, regardless of the personal consequences, because it is the Right Thing.

The odd thing here is that one of your comments about Trek applies equally well to The Expanse:

"Today’s society, despite its interconnected-ness, still often acts as if we’re all individuals with no collective responsibility to each other, and that we’re above our environments rather than part of them."

The tendency toward tribalism, and the problems that that tendency engenders, is a major theme of The Expanse. I think there's much more in common between Trek and The Expanse than you are willing to credit. The differences are more superficial: the context of an orderly military organization versus a ragtag bunch of working-class joes. That, and that Trek leans more to the "explore strange new worlds" and The Expanse doesn't (which seems to have been a sticking point for some people regarding the current season).

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I definitely was nowhere far enough into Expanse to offer a definitive appraisal of it. It was more a matter that I began the first book and never finished it, and watched maybe the first episode or two and didn’t feel that it was speaking to me at the time. I’m not opposed to giving it another shot one day and I didn’t intend to misrepresent it. I appreciate the context and additional detail that you’ve shared about it. It’s interesting that you mentioned Firefly. I didn’t love that show either and I know I’m supposed to. I’ve watched it in it’s entirety several times. I merely like it.

 

[DaveF]

The Expanse is hard sci-fi. It’s literal science fiction. It’s grounded on how space actually works, extrapolating current technology and socio-political concerns to the near future, and tells a story from there. It’s Asimov-ian, but with good dialog.

Star Trek is sci-fi with wholly imagined science and fictional physics used to tell stories. Including FTL and Time Travel and Worm Holes. It is also classic sci-fi at times in the vein of “What if such a technology existed? What happens then?”

Star Wars is sci-fi, in the vein of “If it has trees, it’s fantasy; if it has rivets it’s science fiction”. It’s a space western with laser guns.

No judgement. All are great. Just different forms and variants in the broad, diffuse genre.

 

[DaveF]

I think it’s you. And I don’t mean that as a critical or mean spirited thing. I think your expectations and interests in what you want to see from a show today are different than what the Trek people are trying to do. (Correct me if I’m wrong, but I recall you being underwhelmed with Picard as well.)

I can accept my tastes have changed; I’m sure they have. But I’m pretty sure it’s also the writing and production on circa-2020 Trek good, above average, but are not masterful, not in the ways that the recent masterclass shows have been. And I’m hungering for a masterful new Star Trek show. TNG was the best in 1989. I want a Trek that is the best in 2021.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

All I can say is, for me these new shows are that - Picard in particular was stunning and very moving, and much of Discovery has had a similar effect on me. No show in 2020 moved me as Picard did.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I find both "Discovery" and "Picard" to be flawed, but they don't suffer from the issue most of the revivals have faced: simply trying to do what was done before. "Picard" is on one extreme of that, with the first season telling one story over 10 episodes. "Discovery" is an interesting hybrid between the classic episodic approach and the heavily serialized storytelling of "Picard". The third season of "Discovery", in particular, did a really good job of giving us engaging and interesting standalone stories that each also contributed in significant and meaningful ways to the overarching story of the season.

A big advantage these new series have is that they know their episode orders will be respected. TOS, TNG, Voyager, and (to a lesser extent) DS9 always had to have a certain degree of reset. These shows can keep moving the characters forward.

The one thing I do miss, and hope we get with "Strange New Worlds", is really strong science fiction quandaries. Back in the TOS days, each visit to a new planet was chance to ask "What If?"

 

[DaveF]

The one thing I do miss, and hope we get with "Strange New Worlds", is really strong science fiction quandaries. Back in the TOS days, each visit to a new planet was chance to ask "What If?"

Agreed.

I miss the “puzzle box” storytelling of TNG (and later, Stargate SG1, and more recently, Black Mirror). I was really feeling it at times that DIsco was doing very little classic Star Trek “quandaries”, as you put it. There were a couple. One of them I super liked...early in Season 3, I think, but it’s escaping me now.

 

[DaveF]

I appreciate and enjoy that CBS is experimenting with Trek. We’ve got Picard, Disco, Lower Decks, and the upcoming Strange Worlds. There was also the Short Treks.

And shout out to Short Treks. Its first episode about the little girls was very moving. The Trouble with Edward was some good comedy, and added some unexpected “canon” to Star Trek lore, explaining an important detail I didn’t know needed explaining!

I’m looking forward to Strange Worlds, because Michelle Yeoh as Georgio Phillipa is like having this old British dude as French-born captain and marveling how awesome is this unexpected casting!