The weirdly small and empty universe of Discovery
- Thread starter eschaton
- Start date
I don't know that we've seen anything on the map that gives clear indications of scale, but that's just me.
You're assuming the scientists on board would also operate in shifts. That is not a safe assumption. Astronauts and science specialists in oceanographic ships pretty much schedule their tasks around when their experiments need to get done vs. when they need to eat, sleep, rest, exercise and poop.Discovery has a crew of 134. If they operate 3 shifts, that's 45 people on duty per shift and 34 if they operate 4 shifts.
Big (750m vs TOS' 300m), empty (134 vs 430) ship.
Ah, the Thermian Argument. The showrunners could easily have set the crew compliment at 1000 and filled the sets with extras if they wanted to, but for some reason they didn't. Why? Does it serve the show in any way besides saving money?
I've never been a known a show that is this divisive lol.
The way I see it is, they have a dense plot that, even with a 15 episode season necessitates very fast paced storytelling.
This has left little room for elements that we are used to in Star Trek. That being said, I have personally been impressed with the breadth, variety, and even downright weirdness of this incarnation's depiction of the trek universe. There are a broad variety of aliens, many of them not remotely humanoid (the spore network being Exhibit A).
Likwise, the few planets that have been depicted have been quite different from each other.
And finally the amount of new starship types introduced... I have a good sense of USS Discovery being part of a much larger fleet.
With only eleven episodes aired, I've been quite happy with the way the Star Trek universe has been depicted. After what I hope will be many seasons of Discovery, I have a lot of confidence that the galaxy will seem broad/complex enough to satisfy most Star Trek fans - and this is coming from a natural pessimist haha.
The way I see it is, they have a dense plot that, even with a 15 episode season necessitates very fast paced storytelling.
This has left little room for elements that we are used to in Star Trek. That being said, I have personally been impressed with the breadth, variety, and even downright weirdness of this incarnation's depiction of the trek universe. There are a broad variety of aliens, many of them not remotely humanoid (the spore network being Exhibit A).
Likwise, the few planets that have been depicted have been quite different from each other.
And finally the amount of new starship types introduced... I have a good sense of USS Discovery being part of a much larger fleet.
With only eleven episodes aired, I've been quite happy with the way the Star Trek universe has been depicted. After what I hope will be many seasons of Discovery, I have a lot of confidence that the galaxy will seem broad/complex enough to satisfy most Star Trek fans - and this is coming from a natural pessimist haha.
They are experimental; but in the third episode, it was stated these Class ships are mostly Science Vessels with a number of science labs aboard. Also, I don't think they've been shown as "Armed to the teeth" per se - their use of the Spore Drive allowed them to pop in - do a quick strike - and pop out before the Enemy could bring it's full firepower (often with multiple ships) to bear on the Discovery.
If the Discovery only had standard Warp Engines - it likely would have been destroyed multiple times already trying to escape such a situation VS multiple foes.
All valid observations I believe. Having said that I also believe, and this will probably anger everyone, this incarnation of Star Trek is fundamentally different from all that came before. This is serialized, "Peak-TV" made for an audience that knows what Game Of Thrones is. That is all they care about. That focus. This isn't TNG and they're not going to show the Bynars hijack a galaxy-class starship out of a starbase. It's just not the same Star Trek. The same rules do not apply anymore, for good or ill. Whether that pisses people off or they embrace this change is up to them.
It is very ship oriented and very core cast oriented. That seems rather at odds with the concept of 'discovery' until you realise the discovery (mycelial network/spore drive) is also in ship. Even now in another universe the brief moment on a planet was confined mainly to a meeting, otherwise we are back safely to the ship sets. Costumes have really defined the difference between the two universes.
I think it's hilarious that Tilly was talking Saru into being in charge of Stamet's care. Now keep in mind he is not only a valuable crew member but he is the key to the ship's drive system. Heaven forbid we see the CMO. I mean excuse my language, but for f**k's sake, what kind of skeleton crew idiocy is that?? When those two other medical officers ran in like extras I was shocked. Did they get the actors off the street or something? One is not used to seeing fresh faces. (I wonder if they'll put different uniforms on those two and use them in other scenes, lol).
It felt really small in the last two episodes when we hear from other ships, see weapons fire from their ships but don't see the ships themselves.
No. JJ is not the reason for every bad thing in Star Trek!
This. They are on the frontier and dealing with highly classified tech (There are only two like her in the fleet! Sorry, Kirk).
I don't even understand the complaint that Cornwell was on the ship of the dead. Where else was she supposed to be after being captured and delivered to the guy flying around on the ship of the dead? Similarly, we see Mudd a second time because he was after revenge, just like he told Lorca when he was abandoned. This isn't TNG where the "captured admiral" plot gets wrapped up in 44 minutes, or where an adversary is in one episode and then might show up in another season.
It also seems odd to complain that we see the same crew members again and again, or that we only see them in the places that the characters spend time like the mess and bridge. Having a stable set of minor bridge characters makes a lot more sense than the usual random nameless extras we get.
It also seems odd to complain that we see the same crew members again and again, or that we only see them in the places that the characters spend time like the mess and bridge. Having a stable set of minor bridge characters makes a lot more sense than the usual random nameless extras we get.
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You mean besides every other Star Trek series?
The size of the Enterprise itself stayed the same in the rest of TOS as it was in The Cage. in the rest of TOS it had a crew of 400. 130 is nearly three hundred less than 400.
Sometimes, people clearly just want to be nitpicky for nitpicking sakes. And yes, I do realize the irony of that statement coming from me.
I'll admit guys that some of my critiques about the same recurring characters implausibly showing up over and over again is a bit unfair, since most shows do this. On the other hand, most shows take place in a city or town, not an area spanning tens of light years.
Similarly, even though I hate it, I didn't talk about how the main characters do everything, because every Trek has had that stupid trope. Although I have noticed that after the third episode, Discovery did stop sending expendable extras (red shirts, without the red shirt) on the away missions.
True. But it would also take weeks to months to get to your destination.
This is a dumb reason to have a tiny cast, few guest actors, and limited extras though. Game of Thrones is well known for having loads and loads of characters, extras numbering in the hundreds in many shots, and on-location shooting. It feels epic. Even a much lower budget show like The Expanse has a much more "full" seeming world than Discovery.
I'm less informed about "Peak TV" outside of speculative fiction (I don't watch much non-genre fictional TV, it bores me) but to the extent I know about it, extended casts with lots of recurring characters are more the norm now than a half dozen characters who do virtually everything.
But the discussion of Game of Thrones also gets back to another issue with the show - the showrunners couldn't decide what they wanted it to be.
On one hand, they seemed like they wanted to set it up to be a tight character study on Micheal Burnham - focusing the show on a small cast, keeping it mostly confined to the ship, etc. The show could have been amazing if they kept it to these limited stakes - just following one disgraced former XO as she works towards redemption during a Klingon-Federation war. After all, all compelling stories are ultimately about the characters - get that right, and "small stakes" are big enough to care.
But at the same time, they felt the need to make the series "epic" and wide ranging. They gave Burnham a unique backstory of not only being raised by Vulcans, but Spock's adoptive sister. They made her the first mutineer in Starfleet history. They made her the cause for the war - or at least, had her widely believed to be the cause. And then once she hit bottom, they gave her a berth on the most advanced ship in the Federation, which was testing an advanced drive system never used by the Federation before (and never heard of after). Discovery became integral to turning the tide of war. All of this suggests a swashbuckling space opera.
But for all we're told about how special Burnham and the Discovery are, we aren't really shown all that much on the screen that seems epic. The show is actually very limited - almost claustrophobic feeling - in its view on the Klingon war. It's just this weird in-between space, at least for me.
Similarly, even though I hate it, I didn't talk about how the main characters do everything, because every Trek has had that stupid trope. Although I have noticed that after the third episode, Discovery did stop sending expendable extras (red shirts, without the red shirt) on the away missions.
True. But it would also take weeks to months to get to your destination.
This is a dumb reason to have a tiny cast, few guest actors, and limited extras though. Game of Thrones is well known for having loads and loads of characters, extras numbering in the hundreds in many shots, and on-location shooting. It feels epic. Even a much lower budget show like The Expanse has a much more "full" seeming world than Discovery.
I'm less informed about "Peak TV" outside of speculative fiction (I don't watch much non-genre fictional TV, it bores me) but to the extent I know about it, extended casts with lots of recurring characters are more the norm now than a half dozen characters who do virtually everything.
But the discussion of Game of Thrones also gets back to another issue with the show - the showrunners couldn't decide what they wanted it to be.
On one hand, they seemed like they wanted to set it up to be a tight character study on Micheal Burnham - focusing the show on a small cast, keeping it mostly confined to the ship, etc. The show could have been amazing if they kept it to these limited stakes - just following one disgraced former XO as she works towards redemption during a Klingon-Federation war. After all, all compelling stories are ultimately about the characters - get that right, and "small stakes" are big enough to care.
But at the same time, they felt the need to make the series "epic" and wide ranging. They gave Burnham a unique backstory of not only being raised by Vulcans, but Spock's adoptive sister. They made her the first mutineer in Starfleet history. They made her the cause for the war - or at least, had her widely believed to be the cause. And then once she hit bottom, they gave her a berth on the most advanced ship in the Federation, which was testing an advanced drive system never used by the Federation before (and never heard of after). Discovery became integral to turning the tide of war. All of this suggests a swashbuckling space opera.
But for all we're told about how special Burnham and the Discovery are, we aren't really shown all that much on the screen that seems epic. The show is actually very limited - almost claustrophobic feeling - in its view on the Klingon war. It's just this weird in-between space, at least for me.
I'm still waiting for death threats against Kurtman and Co.
TOS is set 10 years later than the show for all we know in 10 years time the Discovery could have a crew similar in size to Kirk's Enterprise. All we can do to be fair is compare the size of the crews to known figures for the time period the show is set in. i.e circa Pike's Enterprise
Wasn't the bridge module replaced with a smaller one, and a second row of windows added to the saucer to indicate a bigger ship?
