Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 5x06 - "Whistlespeak"

Speculation: Rayner was developed, in order to create drama on the Discovery, because so much location shooting was planned for Burnham.

 

Greetings from post 319.

 

Technology to replicate small craft cheaply and quickly has been around since (Space: ) 1999.

 

It's late in the thread now, so I think we can get away with this...

Yeah, I know. That's probably one of my most controversial of Controversial Opinions here. "What the Hell are you thinking?!" I'm a mutant freak. That's what I am.

I ranked all the TNG Movies, PIC Seasons, and "The Best of Both Worlds" together recently, and I went into why I ranked them where I did.

Poll - Rank the Picard Seasons | Page 7 | The Trek BBS

Eventually, after the dust has settled, maybe a year from now, I'll do the same with all five seasons of Discovery. After I've really had a chance to hash it out in my brain.

I think I'm already pretty solid on where I have S1-S4. It's S5 that's the wild card.

 

It's like the ancient game of Ulama played by the Maya and Aztecs where the winning team was sacrificed!

 

I think you can be consistent in your own ratings. I try to be with mine. But of course everyone has their own rating system. I almost never give 10s because for me that means there is literally nothing to complain about!

A 7 is decent passable entertainment. I wasn't bored but it was nothing stellar or unique. Much of DIS S5 has been 7s for me. Although this episode was an 8.

With a 6, I would be somewhat bored at least some of them.

 

Yeah, this is why I don't mess with numbers. If I were to do it such a scale it would be something like this:
9-10: Excellent
7-8: Above Average
5-6: Average
3-4: Below average: this is were boring would land.
1-2: poor

Again, all approximations but to me if boring is used, it ain't hitting a 6 or 5.

 

Or they could've, you know, developed the background characters like Rhys, Owosekun, Nillson, Detmer etc. In a way it feels worse than 'These are the Voyages' honestly, at least those bridge crew cast all had a chance to shine.

 

For me at least, 6 is just where boring starts but the episode isn't a complete waste! It has some redeeming value. If a series consistently reaches a 5 at best, I stop watching!

I suspect that even if we used labels as you suggest, we'd still have differences. Is it average for star trek. Average to all shows. Or average to only the shows you watch, including ST.

At any rate, I rate mainly for myself and it's really just part of the discussion.

 

Average maybe to Star Trek, at best. Comparing to other shows is a fools errand, in my opinion. It's like going to a steak house and complaining that they don't have pizza.

 

That's true, but I wouldn't be surprised if some people use that approach though. And there is some logic to it.

And I'm not really thinking in terms of complaints. But if you like pizza better than something else, it wouldn't be surprising to see many pizza dishes with higher ranking in your list of all food rankings.

 

But that's different than going in and saying that this steak house sucks because it doesn't have pizza. It's not a fair comparison.

Which is how different shows feel to me. Shows are just different-they're not the same, even within genre. I thoroughly enjoy Star Trek, but Stargate would seem to be more highly rated by me because most episodes I would rate higher than average.

I don't know. I guess I'd just rather look at a show on its own merits than say, "Well, that's ok but it's no Stargate." Feels a tiny bit absurd, all in my opinion.

 

My threshold is 6. If I'm giving too many 6's and I'm always like, "It was kind of okay, it killed some time," there's no excitement and I start drifting away. Even if I'm not rating the episodes, I can tell when a series is just a time-killer and I don't dislike it, but I also don't really care.

Kind of okay and I'm going to kind of stop watching...

Whereas the more I like something, the more I'm going to be forgiving of things and look the other way. Which is how we get me being okay with PIC Season 2 (because I like Picard) but not ENT Season 2. It's how I can look at SNW and say, "That's not TOS!" but then look at DSC S1-S2 and be like, "Totally fine! Who cares if everything's different?" Our biases inform everything. I'm just honest about it.

 

The difference is the Bridge Crew in Enterprise were main character/focus characters from the start. The Discovery Bridge crew have always been been secondary, even tertiary characters. Why is this so hard to grasp?

 

Well, you're putting a different spin on it than what I'm meaning. I'll tend to favor pizza over spaghetti, but that's just me. If I rate a pizza and spaghetti dinner, the pizza is just going to be higher. It's nothing against spaghetti, it's just not for me. However, I could find my top rated spaghetti dinners still by looking back at the past ratings. I can still prefer pizza but have a list of the best spaghetti.

But I'm not saying it's the best way. That's for each to decide. I think I'm actually thinking mainly of other ST series and episodes when rating a new episode. So, we're probably on a similar page.

 

Yeah, I can see that. At that point, it's like, what else do I have going on, do I need something to fill the time, etc? At 6 I'd start questioning that at least if it was the best it could do on a consistent basis. 5 is more of a slam dunk it's not worth it.

In the end, it only matters how much you like it. I actually really liked ENT as the time and still do. I know many thought it was boring (which is valid for them) but I loved seeing Earth starting to explore the galaxy. PIC season 2 not so much but it wasn't terrible by any means. I definitely found some aspects to enjoy. I thought the ending was particularly moving.

I actually find it interesting how people react differently to the same thing. Seeing the opposite reactions, particularly when they're well explained, can be really eye opening even if I ultimately don't agree.

 

Yeah, I just look at each thing as its own thing. Pizza against pizza, spaghetti against spaghetti, Discovery against Discovery, Original Series against Original Series. At least for ratings.

When it comes to things being annoying if its happened in Trek in the past then I am far more forgiving of it in current Trek.