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Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x04 - "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry"

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With only 4 episodes in, with exception to Cpt Lorca, the characters of Discovery come across somewhat like they are trapped by a war they did not want or feel suited to take part of. With the sense that defeat was around the corner, they are fighting their own selves, with each other, and yet they all have their own ambitions, ideas and struggles in the backdrop of deep space where only their posterity in TOS/TNG were able to explore and impress their ideas on without having to routinely draw blood.

I realize it's still early, but aside from Burhnam all of the Discovery main cast are at this point archetypes, not characters:

Lorca - Victory at any cost
Saru - Apprehension and caution
Stamets - Resentment that things get in the way of his research
Tilly - Socially awkward

Every single character beat they are given reinforces these singular character traits rather than deepen the characters. For example, we could have had a single scene of Lorca "calling home" to his wife and kids to humanize him a bit. Or find out Tilly is an amazing kareoke singer. Things like that make the characters seem more three dimensional and less cardboard cutouts.

Burnham is being given character development, but arguably it's one note given much of her character centers around her being conflicted and inconsistent. I can't even describe the individual personalities of the Klingons yet - I guess Voq is mopey and doesn't do much?
 
ST: Enterprise for much of the 4 seasons resorted to plots of the Enterprise fighting every race that Berman can shoehorn in to inject drama into a series that had nothing to say.
That was true in the beginning, yes, which is why the "Temporal Cold War" that started a tad-bit later was supposed to be an "allegory" on the post-911 War on Terror. The Suliban was a thinly-veiled analog to the Taliban (hence the intentional similarity of the names - the very definition of "contrived"), you have Trip Tucker's sister get killed by the Suliban in their terror weapon sphere satellite attack on Florida and the rather ham-fisted finger-wagging about islamophobia, as it applies to Trip's hatred for their whole race (cause, y'know...his sister) and the many "they're not all bad" episodes that were written during the course of 2nd and 3rd seasons. Oh, yeah...and Space Nazis again - 'cause everyone hates the Nazis, right? That'll boost ratings! Oy vey!

They tried to say something, but the method by which they used to communicate that message didn't really resonate too well with the viewing public, which made it the first Trek series since TOS to get cancelled before its own time. Manny Coto tried to save it in S4 by fixing the Vulcans that Berman and Braga totally screwed up in S1-3 and finally moving into Romulan War territory, but by then it was too late and the ship was almost sunk.
 
The way you put it makes way more sense than the way the show did: “My people were biologically determined for one purpose alone: to sense the coming of death. I sense it coming now."

Death is an event. It doesn't "come" anymore than a flat tire comes for you.

And it's not as though everyone else on the ship is unaware they're in danger when he drops that line. But maybe Saru is just the dramatic sort.

That was only part of what he said...
 
That was true in the beginning, yes, which is why the "Temporal Cold War" that started a tad-bit later was supposed to be an "allegory" on the post-911 War on Terror. The Suliban was a thinly-veiled analog to the Taliban (hence the intentional similarity of the names - the very definition of "contrived"), you have Trip Tucker's sister get killed by the Suliban in their terror weapon sphere satellite attack on Florida and the rather ham-fisted finger-wagging about islamophobia, as it applies to Trip's hatred for their whole race (cause, y'know...his sister) and the many "they're not all bad" episodes that were written during the course of 2nd and 3rd seasons. Oh, yeah...and Space Nazis again - 'cause everyone hates the Nazis, right? That'll boost ratings! Oy vey!

They tried to say something, but the method by which they used to communicate that message didn't really resonate too well with the viewing public, which made it the first Trek series since TOS to get cancelled before its own time. Manny Coto tried to save it in S4 by fixing the Vulcans that Berman and Braga totally screwed up in S1-3 and finally moving into Romulan War territory, but by then it was too late and the ship was almost sunk.
The Suliban may have been named after the Taliban, but they were named as such before 9/11. The "Temporal Cold War" was the plot of the pilot episode. The Vulcans in season 4 were not "fixed," but made into crazed basket cases seething with anger. Every Vulcan in season 4, including Soval, and especially T'Pau spoke their lines through gritted teeth between occasional emotional outbursts. Maybe they've been hanging out with too many humans.

And not every series needs to be about war. Enterprise wasn't canceled because of quality. It was canceled because it was uber expensive and had poor viewership ratings, even though it had many good reviews, won many awards, and was UPN's highest rated series.
 
I realize it's still early, but aside from Burhnam all of the Discovery main cast are at this point archetypes, not characters:

Lorca - Victory at any cost
Saru - Apprehension and caution
Stamets - Resentment that things get in the way of his research
Tilly - Socially awkward

Every single character beat they are given reinforces these singular character traits rather than deepen the characters. For example, we could have had a single scene of Lorca "calling home" to his wife and kids to humanize him a bit. Or find out Tilly is an amazing kareoke singer. Things like that make the characters seem more three dimensional and less cardboard cutouts.

Burnham is being given character development, but arguably it's one note given much of her character centers around her being conflicted and inconsistent. I can't even describe the individual personalities of the Klingons yet - I guess Voq is mopey and doesn't do much?

I think it is a little premature to say that they characters are one note, when most of them have been in only 2 episodes (except Burnham and Saru who have been in a grand total of 4) and they are an ensemble cast (if not as "ensemble" as in TNG or DS9). Plus, as an example, look at Stamets: we have seen him talking to his friend from the Glenn where he showed jealousy of his friend's success and longing for their old working relationship and when the tardigrade was communicating with the spores, he showed true interest in and love for the science of it all. Saru was cautious in the first two episodes, but has been more commanding in 3 and 4, has also shown disapproval and a little scorn for Burnham, respect for her capabilities, protectiveness of his captain as well as a dislike for Lorca, etc. The characters are being revealed slowly, but not unreasonably so given we are only 4 episodes in.

...The Suliban was a thinly-veiled analog to the Taliban (hence the intentional similarity of the names - the very definition of "contrived"), you have Trip Tucker's sister get killed by the Suliban in their terror weapon sphere satellite attack on Florida and the rather ham-fisted finger-wagging about islamophobia, as it applies to Trip's hatred for their whole race (cause, y'know...his sister) and the many "they're not all bad" episodes that were written during the course of 2nd and 3rd seasons...

As Prax said, the Taliban was named before 9/11. And the Suliban did not attack earth, the Xindi did. And in fact, Silik and the Suliban helped us against the Xindi in the early going.

...The Vulcans in season 4 were not "fixed," but made into crazed basket cases seething with anger. Every Vulcan in season 4, including Soval, and especially T'Pau spoke their lines through gritted teeth between occasional emotional outbursts. Maybe they've been hanging out with too many humans.

And not every series needs to be about war. Enterprise wasn't canceled because of quality. It was canceled because it was uber expensive and had poor viewership ratings, even though it had many good reviews, won many awards, and was UPN's highest rated series.

For me, I thought season 4 did a good job "fixing" the Vulcans. Though they didn't do a great job at it, I did appreciate the arc from "not as emotionless and logical as you would expect" mid-22nd century Vulcans to the logical and cold 23rd century Vulcans.

I think ENT was cancelled in large part due to quality. There obviously is a big factor related to marketing such that if the marketing isn't there and isn't good, your audience might not show up (see Star Trek Beyond) and thus the show could be cancelled. But the other major factor in a show's cancellation is the quality: if the quality is high, it is logical that more people will like it; if more people like it and watch it, more advertising revenue (and other ancillaries) will come and thus you can support a higher cost show. You can't separate quality and cost; its like a ratio: Q/C -> success.
 
But the other major factor in a show's cancellation is the quality: if the quality is high, it is logical that more people will like it; if more people like it and watch it, more advertising revenue (and other ancillaries) will come and thus you can support a higher cost show. You can't separate quality and cost; its like a ratio: Q/C -> success.

I don't think quality had anything to do with it. Lots of poor shows end up succeeding while good shows end up cancelled. I think it was more just oversaturation of the market. There was too much Star Trek, too close together. Then there's the fact it was on a crumbling UPN, constantly pre-empted in many major markets due to sports contracts.

It was simply destined to get cancelled. If it was TNG in its place, with the hurdles and so much product like it to compete with... it would have failed too.

Enterprise was a decent show (not great, not terrible, had some memorable moments), at the absolute wrong time in the franchises lifespan.
 
I don't think quality had anything to do with it. Lots of poor shows end up succeeding while good shows end up cancelled. I think it was more just oversaturation of the market. There was too much Star Trek, too close together. Then there's the fact it was on a crumbling UPN, constantly pre-empted in many major markets due to sports contracts.

It was simply destined to get cancelled. If it was TNG in its place, with the hurdles and so much product like it to compete with... it would have failed too.

Enterprise was a decent show (not great, not terrible, had some memorable moments), at the absolute wrong time in the franchises lifespan.

I can see what you are saying, and yeah competition and timeslot and that kind of stuff all contributes. I was lumping timeslot in with marketing (how you sell/deliver the product), but there are lot of subtleties that can be expanded in a fuller discussion (e.g., more competition could mean you need higher quality to attract the same share of viewers, etc.).

I don't know that you can say TNG would have been cancelled in ENT's place. There is just no way to shift it forward like that. It is so much a product of its time (but also timeless in many ways), it inspired and showed viability for all the later genre stuff, etc. Yeah, just on quality grounds you could say that it wouldn't have survived seasons 1 and 2 in the early 2000s, but outside of it being a totally different show if designed, cast, and written 13+ years later, again it just comes back to sufficient quality to survive in the marketplace.

But for me, as anecdotal evidence, it was definitely a quality issue with ENT. Then, and now, I would check out and watch any Star Trek that is put on the air, provided it is good. I wavered in ENT season 1 and decided to give it two seasons to "get good" but ended up bailing partway into season 2. I caught back up sometime in season 3 as I heard it was getting better (I didn't really enjoy season 3) but found season 4 to be what I felt had been missing in this supposed prequel series. If ENT had been better, I would have definitely watched more of it as it aired.
 
This may be obvious, but if the empire at large were aware of the L'rell and co on the sarcophogus ship and were in contact with them, why didn't they just supply a dilithium processor? Even if it meant taking one of their own ships out of action surely the payoff would have been worthwhile to have a cloaked behemoth at their disposal, with or without its leader?
 
This may be obvious, but if the empire at large were aware of the L'rell and co on the sarcophogus ship and were in contact with them, why didn't they just supply a dilithium processor? Even if it meant taking one of their own ships out of action surely the payoff would have been worthwhile to have a cloaked behemoth at their disposal, with or without its leader?

These Klingons are obviously a little slow on the giddyup.
 
This may be obvious, but if the empire at large were aware of the L'rell and co on the sarcophogus ship and were in contact with them, why didn't they just supply a dilithium processor? Even if it meant taking one of their own ships out of action surely the payoff would have been worthwhile to have a cloaked behemoth at their disposal, with or without its leader?
Why do that when you have one mysteriously left in an abandoned Starfleet ship right next door?
 
The Klingon lady should have talked him into salvaging the part yesterday. by putting it off, he screwed himself over. He was a day late and a dollar short. Voq is such a procrastinator... This is not the way of Kahless! You slacker!

Btw, did anyone notice that the "House of Mokai" is a reference to Voyager?
 
The Klingons are becoming more interesting characters. Once they move past the rhetoric, and the audience starts to recognize the people behind the armor, and the desperation of their own situation, they're becoming compelling characters on their own.
I'm starting to tolerate the Klingons a little more, though I still don't think it was necessary to do such an extreme makeover on them. I do like some of the looks, particularly L'Rell and Kol, with his red war paint. Nice nod to the House of Kor too with him.
 
I think it is a little premature to say that they characters are one note, when most of them have been in only 2 episodes (except Burnham and Saru who have been in a grand total of 4) and they are an ensemble cast (if not as "ensemble" as in TNG or DS9). Plus, as an example, look at Stamets: we have seen him talking to his friend from the Glenn where he showed jealousy of his friend's success and longing for their old working relationship and when the tardigrade was communicating with the spores, he showed true interest in and love for the science of it all. Saru was cautious in the first two episodes, but has been more commanding in 3 and 4, has also shown disapproval and a little scorn for Burnham, respect for her capabilities, protectiveness of his captain as well as a dislike for Lorca, etc. The characters are being revealed slowly, but not unreasonably so given we are only 4 episodes in.

No, as I said, I know it's early, and things may change. But we really only see two types of interactions with the Discovery crew:

1. Interactions with Burnham (Essentially all of Tilly so far, and most of Saru).

2. Interactions which further along the main plot (Lorca/Stamets disagreements, seeing Lorca in command).

That is really it. I can't remember if Saru has even had a conversation with Lorca on screen at the moment. Or if Tilly has talked to anyone other than Burnham (I think Stamets once?).
 
Why do that when you have one mysteriously left in an abandoned Starfleet ship right next door?
Abandoning Shenzhou is at least somewhat understandable. It was a badly damaged old ship so hauling it from the contested territory might have been more trouble than it's worth and it probably did not contain any important military secrets or tech. On the other hand abandoning the only known working cloaking device for six months is completely absurd; certainly obtaining it, or failing that, destroying it, should have been a top priority to both sides.
 
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