Not to pick this apart, but nostalgia is a poor foundation as a set up for a brand new show.
No, they won't.
Spoilers Star Trek Discovery Season 1: Overall Review Thread
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They already did with the Mudd story.
for me the main let down was the character of Michael Burnham i just found her really wooden.
They are completely different - at least as different as the DSC uniforms are. It is an impressive bit of cognitive dissonance to say one is a perfectly natural progression of 3 years, and the other isn't in ten.
Agreed. With the traditional TOS color scheme, the TMP uniforms look like a good evolution. And making the turbolift doors red also help.
Yeah, if you completely recolour them, they look fairly similar, but that wasn't the uniforms used. TMP was all grey and beige, and didn't have black collars or trousers. If you recolour the DSC uniforms, as others have done, you have the same similarities. Re-colour Kirk's admiral's tunic there and you'd have something very similar to a DSC uniform. The enlisted jumpsuits in TWOK are literally the same uniforms as TMP, redyed, according to the Star Trek Costumes book, and yet they serve as a totally different uniform design - the colour is quite a crucial aspect here.
I'm an unapologetic fan of TMP but to say that the disco belt buckle pajamas used for most of the uniforms in the film are remarkably similar to the TOS uniforms is a stretch on the level of calling Kanye West the genius voice for a generation. And at least Kanye has people who will inexplicably agree with him when he repeatedly says that.
The round collars have a downward-pointing border and the shoulder epaulets have a modified version of the TOS rank braids inscribed or embossed on them, but other than that the two uniform designs are completely different beasts and arguably the most glaringly different, unique and unusual of all the Federation-era Starfleet uniforms.
The round collars have a downward-pointing border and the shoulder epaulets have a modified version of the TOS rank braids inscribed or embossed on them, but other than that the two uniform designs are completely different beasts and arguably the most glaringly different, unique and unusual of all the Federation-era Starfleet uniforms.
I've noticed that too. It's weird, because virtually every single episode of the week thread has had a plurality of fans vote 10 out of 10. I guess a fair number of those people don't actually read the rest of the forum.
It is because the overarching story really doesn't work, and in a serialised show that is a huge problem. There were many interesting set ups that ultimately went nowhere.
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Don't set out to make a serialized show unless you either have it all worked out beforehand (e.g., base it on a book) or are willing to let the plot flow organically from character interactions without a planned end result in mind.
Or, it's a serialized show and I'm not willing to rate it until I see the whole thing.
What is the point of keep saying that you do not like the show in every episode thread?
I believe the episodic threads are usually populated by people who enjoy the show, even slightly, and like to talk about it.
Two comments:
1. I found the ending of the Klingon War incredibly easy and lame. The Klingons are within minutes of attacking Earth, with their foot on the neck of the the Federation, and then "oh, never mind." That's about the most un-Klingon thing I've ever seen. And L'Rell threatening to blow up THE KLINGON HOME PLANET in order to unify the Klingons? Really? If a human threatened to destroy the Earth unless they were declared President of the Federation, I think we would look pretty unkindly upon that person.
(1.a. Klingons are so into species purity that they allow the Orions to have their own community on Qo'nos? And humans can walk around on Qo'nos and its not a big deal? If there were Klingons walking around on Earth I think that would be an immediate call to security forces, and the Federation is much more "species inclusive.")
2. From the beginning I never really felt like this was Star Trek. I can't even tell you specifically why, it just doesn't fit for me. This really solidified for me at the end, when the Enterprise appeared, I just had this overwhelming feeling of "that doesn't belong here." Not because of design change or whatever, but just a mismatch in my mind, the same as if [pick a random ship from another sci-fi show] had appeared.
1. I found the ending of the Klingon War incredibly easy and lame. The Klingons are within minutes of attacking Earth, with their foot on the neck of the the Federation, and then "oh, never mind." That's about the most un-Klingon thing I've ever seen. And L'Rell threatening to blow up THE KLINGON HOME PLANET in order to unify the Klingons? Really? If a human threatened to destroy the Earth unless they were declared President of the Federation, I think we would look pretty unkindly upon that person.
(1.a. Klingons are so into species purity that they allow the Orions to have their own community on Qo'nos? And humans can walk around on Qo'nos and its not a big deal? If there were Klingons walking around on Earth I think that would be an immediate call to security forces, and the Federation is much more "species inclusive.")
2. From the beginning I never really felt like this was Star Trek. I can't even tell you specifically why, it just doesn't fit for me. This really solidified for me at the end, when the Enterprise appeared, I just had this overwhelming feeling of "that doesn't belong here." Not because of design change or whatever, but just a mismatch in my mind, the same as if [pick a random ship from another sci-fi show] had appeared.
My take was that Klingons are into Klingon superiority. Nothing wrong with an Orion ghetto for Klingons to go slumming it in. (Even if T'Kuvma wouldn't have liked it, his ideology hasn't triumphed yet.)
While there have been a few episodes that I've really liked (for example "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" and "Into the Forest I Go"), I think the first season was really weak with not much of a Star Trek feel to it. It feels to me as an emulation of Star Trek, as if the producers really wanted to make another Sci-Fi series but got order to slap Star Trek onto it.
The series diverges far too much from 40+ years of Star Trek. A few examples:
* The first example is a minor one that I cite a lot from the TOS and TNG writer's guides: "It [the viewscreen] is not a window." That the viewscreen is just that and not a window has been consistent since the inception of Star Trek. That the '09 movie onwards showed them as windows should not have influenced this production to make them as such. It's just sloppy and an annoyance.
* The mycelium network and the spore drive. Where to begin? This is the worst nonsense of the show. This has never been mentioned and even if the technology was mothballed by Starfleet, would they have mothballed such a revolutionary technology for over a hundred years? I really don't think so. I also think it stretches belief that the crew of the Voyager wouldn't have tried to find a way to use the mycelium network to get back home. It would've been better to place this series in time after Voyager (preferrably many decades after).
* The use of holograms as a means of communication. We don't see extensive use of holograms (and it's depicted laughably dumb in the first episode of the show). Another reason to place the show in the further into the future.
* The Klingons. There was no need to redesign them. The new masks are far too stiff to read anything into them. Also no need to redesign the Klingon ships (though it's good to see more ship types).
* The Enterprise. Another thing that didn't need to be redesigned. It's just shouting: "Hey, we got CG and can do everything better now!". Hrm, no...
* The atrociously bad and lazy writing (the last episode with the end of the Klingon war and a solution never heard about again is an example of that).
Overall, I rate it a 4.
EDIT: I think I actually rated it a 3 when I voted yesterday, but between 3 and 4.
The series diverges far too much from 40+ years of Star Trek. A few examples:
* The first example is a minor one that I cite a lot from the TOS and TNG writer's guides: "It [the viewscreen] is not a window." That the viewscreen is just that and not a window has been consistent since the inception of Star Trek. That the '09 movie onwards showed them as windows should not have influenced this production to make them as such. It's just sloppy and an annoyance.
* The mycelium network and the spore drive. Where to begin? This is the worst nonsense of the show. This has never been mentioned and even if the technology was mothballed by Starfleet, would they have mothballed such a revolutionary technology for over a hundred years? I really don't think so. I also think it stretches belief that the crew of the Voyager wouldn't have tried to find a way to use the mycelium network to get back home. It would've been better to place this series in time after Voyager (preferrably many decades after).
* The use of holograms as a means of communication. We don't see extensive use of holograms (and it's depicted laughably dumb in the first episode of the show). Another reason to place the show in the further into the future.
* The Klingons. There was no need to redesign them. The new masks are far too stiff to read anything into them. Also no need to redesign the Klingon ships (though it's good to see more ship types).
* The Enterprise. Another thing that didn't need to be redesigned. It's just shouting: "Hey, we got CG and can do everything better now!". Hrm, no...
* The atrociously bad and lazy writing (the last episode with the end of the Klingon war and a solution never heard about again is an example of that).
Overall, I rate it a 4.
EDIT: I think I actually rated it a 3 when I voted yesterday, but between 3 and 4.
The opening season of TNG was dire. STD has yet to find its feet.
It needs more time to mature and find direction. I would liked to have seen more of the background characters; I hope they will get more screen time next season.
The show was on the back foot from the start. Numerous delays; the show runner got the boot. Fuller's departure was fortuitous. STD came alive later in the season. Fuller almost makes me miss Braga and co... almost.
It needs more time to mature and find direction. I would liked to have seen more of the background characters; I hope they will get more screen time next season.
The show was on the back foot from the start. Numerous delays; the show runner got the boot. Fuller's departure was fortuitous. STD came alive later in the season. Fuller almost makes me miss Braga and co... almost.
I really feel like DISCO is judged so harshly without enough information.
Now that its first season is over with, isn't it time to stop excusing Discovery by saying "Oh, the first season of TNG was wretched too"?
James Lileks, an amusing writer since Minneapolis-in-the-1980s and a 5x-per-week blogger since 1998 or so, and obviously a longtime Trek fan, has a concise and snarky analysis of the series; scroll down to "If you will bear with me, this is the last I will say about this.": http://lileks.com/bleats/archive/18/0218/021518.html
James Lileks, an amusing writer since Minneapolis-in-the-1980s and a 5x-per-week blogger since 1998 or so, and obviously a longtime Trek fan, has a concise and snarky analysis of the series; scroll down to "If you will bear with me, this is the last I will say about this.": http://lileks.com/bleats/archive/18/0218/021518.html
No.
Two other points I ought to have included in my other post (with thanks to both posters for the reminders):
Agreed. I swear too much myself to be concerned about it in whatever I watch, but as a means to make Discovery more "real", "edgy", "different" or whatever it was they were going for, dropping f-bombs was about as puerile a way to go about it as can be imagined. More like kids trying out swear words in the playground than demonstrating how "mature" (or whatever) these people are / this show is than what came before it.
Agreed again. Hopefully at some point there'll be a detailed, credible (set of) reason(s) why the spore drive stopped being used, why it cannot ever be used again, how all knowledge of it was completely and permanently deleted from all Starfleet / Federation records, and how those in the know were persuaded to never, ever mention it to anyone anywhere. Given we know it's never even mentioned in the other shows, much less used, those reasons / means had better be something damned good.
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