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

[joshEH]

A lot of people seem to be making the assumption that S02E01 will pick up immediately after the ending scene of S01E15.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the episode picks up as the two ships part ways, having concluded their face-to-face off screen during the season hiatus, or maybe even later than that, with Discovery's arrival at (or departure from) Vulcan to pick up their new Captain.

I seriously doubt we'll be meeting any TOS characters (or, certainly not any of the ones who appear in the reboot films) on Discovery.

I think that final scene was just a "wink" to the fans and not necessarily any kind of set-up for a Season 2 arc.

I think fandom would be rightly outraged if it turned out to be just a fakeout. Season-finale cliffhanger endings usually do set up the next season, and it would be seen as a cheap move if they didn't follow through with at least one episode featuring the Enterprise.

As for meeting TOS characters, if you mean main-series characters, the only one who'd be part of the crew at this point is Spock. If we saw anyone other than Pike and Spock, it'd probably be Number One, Boyce, Tyler, Colt, etc., or maybe new crew that have come aboard in the three years since "The Cage."

Besides, we don't even know if there's really going to be a new captain. This diversion could be a plot device to send Discovery off on some new mission that keeps them from ever getting to Vulcan, and requires Saru to remain as acting captain.

 

[Nelson Au]

Does anyone remember the days when Brannon Braga was considered the Devil incarnate? He was savagely beaten up for his comments that he’d never seen a TOS episode. Of course he was asked not to by Roddenberry. Not that I’m trying to defend him. I’m just painting a picture of what I suspect Alex Kurtzman could be. When he and Roberto Orci wrote Star Trek 2009, my impression was he didn’t know TOS and it was Orci who was the expert. So I never trusted what he was going to do as I learned he is involved in Discovery. That said, on last week’s After Trek, Kurtzman said he envisioned the first season to end with the Enterprise on screen. Maybe that was his main contribution and they worked the storyline out and found a good reason to have her show up.

Maybe she’s there for their weekly pick-up of Jose’s Prime Chili beans. A Priority One distress call is pretty serious, so it sounds like the Enterprise might have some serious business with the Enterprise. Maybe Pike is the new Captain and he’s taking over and Robert April is taking the Enterprise over.

 

[Yee-Ming]

IIRC April was the Enterprise captain before Pike, while Kirk took over from Pike. So that would be back to front?

 

[Nelson Au]

You are right of course, April was first, then Pike, then Kirk. I guess I was thinking it could be kind of cool if Pike did take over the Discovery then became Fleet Captain. But then Kirk does take command of the Enterprise from Pike. So never mind.

 

[Sam Favate]

Discovery is taking place at the same time at Pike's command of the Enterprise. The series premiere is pegged at 2256, while The Cage took place in 2254 (which means Spock should be on that ship). Robert April's command of the Enterprise was from 2245-2250, at least according to Memory Alpha and other online databases.

 

[joshEH]

Discovery is taking place at the same time at Pike's command of the Enterprise. The series premiere is pegged at 2256, while The Cage took place in 2254 (which means Spock should be on that ship). Robert April's command of the Enterprise was from 2245-2250, at least according to Memory Alpha and other online databases.

Yup, and once they got back from the Mirror Universe, we were now in September or October, 2257 (due to the nine-month timejump), and it's assumed that the Season 2 premiere will likely pick up almost immediately from the closing moments of the Season 1 finale.

 

[Hanson]

Word is they're starting filming in April, so if it's a 9 month gap between the start of filming and airing the first episode, then we're looking at a Jan 2019 premiere.

 

[Carabimero]

I just bought the CD soundtrack of DISCOVERY. I think it's decent. I haven't listened to it enough on its own to really have a considered opinion, but I like it. I'm glad it was released on physical media. I fear the day when I go to buy a Star Wars or Star Trek soundtrack and the best I can get is a compressed download.

I fear the day is coming before I leave this earth.

Until then, I am going to enjoy my new Star Trek CD soundtrack. These don't come out every day.

 

[benbess]

anticlimactic. Adjective. (comparative more anticlimactic, superlative most anticlimactic) Lacking climax, disappointing or ironically insignificant following impressive foreshadowing. Example: After all the build up, the ending of the story was an anticlimactic letdown.

implausible. Adjective. (of an argument or statement) not seeming reasonable or probable; failing to convince. Example: It's highly implausible to believe a superior ruthless enemy who lives for conquest would, after a year of warfare, and being on the brink of victory, simply turn all their divided forces around and call off the war because their home is being threatened.

laughable. Adjective. something so ludicrous that one chooses to laugh rather than be angry. Example: when an officer rightly convicted of treason is given their rank back.

fractured. Verb. Something broken or splintered so as to no longer function properly. Example: When a TV series with a huge budget and no strict production time limit can't decide what their series should be about but go ahead and write and shoot it anyway, then have to undo everything they never should have done in the first place so they can try and gain their credibility back next season.

untrustworthy. Adjective. Not able to be relied on as trustworthy or truthful. Example: When show runners make promises to audiences and don't deliver, it becomes hard for audiences to believe in the integrity of the carrot being dangled in front of them as an enticement to pay for another season.

This says a lot of what I feel about Discovery, which has been a deep disappointment.

I'll just add some overlapping thoughts....

-The time-frame was wrong. Only the most talented and deeply steeped in Trek could have pulled off a show set right before TOS. These people who wrote this show demonstrated only a very limited understanding of Star Trek as it has been developed since 1964.

-They had too much money. Star Trek has sometimes seemed a bit on "the cheap side." But be careful what you wish for. Discovery clearly had lots of money to squander on special effects, sets, etc. But rarely did they get much from spending so much money. Mainly they tried to use flashy fx to hide the weak stories and character arcs. It didn't work.

-Moving away from "wholesome Trek" was a mistake. I like Game of Thrones and Westworld, but the nudity and violence in those shows are integrated in an essential way into their plots and character arcs. Here, not so much. But having extreme violence and (some) nudity did weaken the Trek brand imho.

-Killing off Dr. Hugh Culber, wonderfully played by Wilson Cruz. What??? This was like killing off Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the first season of TOS. Made no sense at all imho. The first gay couple in Trek destroyed? Why? What a waste.

I've cancelled by CBS subscription. Yes, I'll probably resubscribe if and when the second season comes out, but...As a Trek fan since 1972, I'm deeply disappointed.

Let me put it another way. Since the original series debuted in 1966, more or less half of the episodes of all 5 of the previous live action Star Trek shows have been good, while the other half have been duds. In other words, to be brutally honest, in prior Trek series we've had about a 50% success rate.

But I'd say all but 2 of the episodes of Discovery were duds. 14 duds compared with 2 good episodes....That's the lowest success rate of any Trek series. Star Trek Discovery has had a less than 15% success rate imho.

They need to focus on the writing. Specifically, they need to write better good characters, and focus on good character arcs—not on the FX, and not on the "shock surprises."

 

[joshEH]

Haha:

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[Josh Dial]

Haha:

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Aaaaaaaand purchased.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

-Killing off Dr. Hugh Culber, wonderfully played by Wilson Cruz. What??? This was like killing off Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the first season of TOS. Made no sense at all imho. The first gay couple in Trek destroyed? Why? What a waste.

Because it was totally unexpected? I must say, I certainly didn't see that coming. Likeable as the character (and actor) is, I just have to say a gutsy move on the part of the producers, killing off a regular so matter-of-factly in the show's first season like that.

 

[Carabimero]

Because it was totally unexpected? I must say, I certainly didn't see that coming. Likeable as the character (and actor) is, I just have to say a gutsy move on the part of the producers, killing off a regular so matter-of-factly in the show's first season like that.

The upside is, it lets the audience know that virtually anyone can die on this show at any time, which is very a good thing. That said, in this case, IMO, I think more was lost than gained, especially in the long run.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

The upside is, it lets the audience know that virtually anyone can die on this show at any time, which is very a good thing.

Exactly. I guess the only character we can presume as 'safe' (barring any contract negotiations) is Michael.

That said, in this case, IMO, I think more was lost than gained, especially in the long run.

I'm sure there can be a new character to fill that particular void. I bet a lot of people just naturally assumed that as this was the first gay couple in the regular cast, they'd both be safe. They also probably made assumptions about

Spoiler

Lorca

as well. It's a nice surprise (dramatically speaking) that we should never make any assumptions on who is "safe" and who is not with this version of Star Trek.

 

[Carabimero]

I'm sure there can be a new character to fill that particular void.

It's easy to get a new character to fill the void. But it's not easy to generate relationships from scratch. IMO, a great weakness of this show is destroying its relationships for the simple sake of surprise. It's nearly always a bad trade-off in the long run, particularly when your season order is so short.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this show trades down way too much.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I honestly was worried about Dr. Culber from when he first appeared or at least when it was revealed that he and Stamitz were a couple, for a simple reason that had nothing to do with anything that happened onscreen. He was listed as a guest star in the end credits, rather than appearing in the main titles. If you have a couple where one person in the relationship is a series regular, and the other is a guest star, that doesn't bode well. Sometimes shows can telegraph these things unintentionally just by how people are billed.

 

[BobO'Link]

^Then you have those situations like Jonathan Harris being billed as "Special Guest Star" on every episode of Lost in Space with the implication being that he'd be killed off at at some point... and he was turned into the goof-of-the-week character, surviving until the last episode.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

I honestly was worried about Dr. Culber from when he first appeared or at least when it was revealed that he and Stamitz were a couple, for a simple reason that had nothing to do with anything that happened onscreen. He was listed as a guest star in the end credits, rather than appearing in the main titles. If you have a couple where one person in the relationship is a series regular, and the other is a guest star, that doesn't bode well. Sometimes shows can telegraph these things unintentionally just by how people are billed.

Good point. I'd never noticed who was who in most of the roles, so something I didn't pick up on. Many of these 'new' faces are people I don't know by name, and I didn't read the end credits anyway, so kept me from being 'spoilered'. If they'd had his name in the credits over the show as a guest star with his charcter's name below, I'd have probably figured things out.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Sometimes showrunners can even use that to subvert expectations. There was one Joss Whedon show where a main cast member's character fell in love with a guest star, and that guest star recurred for about three years. You'd worry about the relationship sometimes because of the guest star status of the actor. The actor was finally added to the main title sequence, and the fans finally took a sigh of relief - the character and relationship must finally be safe! But it was just Whedon playing tricks on the audience, because the character died in the very same episode that the actor was added to the main title sequence for.

 

[TJPC]

How about the theme of Gilligan’s Island which had “the movie star, and the rest” for the first year or so, until it was changed to “the professor and Marie Anne”.