Spoilers Bonus scene from Season One Finale

[Lord Garth]

Nerd-Rage over "Fanwank" is the most ironic thing ever. Fans getting mad over things they think are too fannish, and acting just like the fans they claim not to be like in the process.

Out of everything in the scene, the only thing people can talk about is still "OMG!!! SECTION 31! NOOOO!!!!! ROAR!!!!!!!!11111 FANWANK FANWANK FANWANK!!!!! ROARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!" That's what this looks like. Yeah, I know some of you are going to deny it. But take a long hard look in the mirror. I get not liking Section 31 but some of these reactions are way over the top.

What about the acting? What about the lighting? What about the directing? What about the characters? What about dialogue (besides the Section 31 line that makes people go so apeshit)? What about the composition? What about the set design? What about the overall feel? What about anything else in the scene?

It's a cool scene. But so many of you are so hung up on them daring to have Section 31. It's like you can't get passed it at all. Come on.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Fanwank is only bad when it's over done or done badly. I like shows referencing past shows and movies.

 

[Dijeirusan]

That same scene where the Section 31 agent explicitly stated, "Because I'm not Starfleet"?

We've seen them already physically within Starfleet, complete with matching style uniform. I interpreted that line to mean we're above/apart from Starfleet protocols and procedures, but still associated.

 

[fireproof78]

a Trek show should have a lot of fanwank. More fanwank please!!! We are going to see TOS uniforms next season, at least for the Enterprise crew. And Section 31. Can't wait.

Same here.

 

[Tosk]

What about the acting? What about the lighting? What about the directing? What about the characters? What about dialogue (besides the Section 31 line that makes people go so apeshit)? What about the composition? What about the set design? What about the overall feel? What about anything else in the scene?

They were all fine.

 

[Donker]

Nerd-Rage over "Fanwank" is the most ironic thing ever. Fans getting mad over things they think are too fannish, and acting just like the fans they claim not to be like in the process.

Fanwank is shit because what makes it fanwank is that it's a cynical shallow attempt to pretend "SEE THIS IS STAR TREK" while in every other way absolutely disrespecting what came before or the setting/franchise.

Keeping visual and aesthetic or setting consistency isn't fanwank. Not giving a shit about the setting or franchise, then going "OH LOOK A TRIBBLE, I CLAPPED BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT IT IS" is Fanwank.

 

[Avro Arrow]

But take a long hard look in the mirror.

I tried that, but then when I eventually left, my reflection hung around in the mirror for a bit afterwards, and it freaked me the hell out.

 

[fireproof78]

They were all fine.

Indeed

 

[cooleddie74]

Section 31 by definition would be a part of Starfleet, at least during the ENT timeframe. Harris specifically mentions that the Article of the founding charter containing Section 31 comes from the Earth Starfleet charter. There's no Federation as of yet so it can't be a wholly separate civilian government agency.

 

[Vger23]

Fanwank is shit because what makes it fanwank is that it's a cynical shallow attempt to pretend "SEE THIS IS STAR TREK" while in every other way absolutely disrespecting what came before or the setting/franchise.

Keeping visual and aesthetic or setting consistency isn't fanwank. Not giving a shit about the setting or franchise, then going "OH LOOK A TRIBBLE, I CLAPPED BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT IT IS" is Fanwank.

There's a lot of cynical and shallow shit going on alright, and it ain't about what was in that bonus scene.

Ironic use of words to be sure.

 

[fireproof78]

There's a lot of cynical and shallow shit going on alright, and it ain't about what was in that bonus scene.

Ironic use of words to be sure.

The difficulty simply lies in the cynical assumption of malice that the production team must have in order to create something that is not consistent with personal expectations of "Star Trek."

By that arguement, TNG was "shit" because it didn't respect what came before, because humanity wasn't "evolved" in TOS.

 

[Vger23]

The difficulty simply lies in the cynical assumption of malice that the production team must have in order to create something that is not consistent with personal expectations of "Star Trek."

By that arguement, TNG was "shit" because it didn't respect what came before, because humanity wasn't "evolved" in TOS.

The minute I see arguments like that, I find it easy to dismiss the person it is coming from.

The producers and writers don't hate the show they are working on. That's absolutely stupid.

It just shows that the person saying that is so chagrined and inwardly focused that there can't be any other explanation than someone purposefully trying to sabotage things.

 

[Nerys Myk]

What about the acting? What about the lighting? What about the directing? What about the characters? What about dialogue (besides the Section 31 line that makes people go so apeshit)? What about the composition? What about the set design? What about the overall feel? What about anything else in the scene?

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[lawman]

What about the acting? What about the lighting? What about the directing? What about the characters? What about dialogue (besides the Section 31 line that makes people go so apeshit)? What about the composition? What about the set design? What about the overall feel? What about anything else in the scene?

It's a cool scene.

In all fairness, the whole point of the scene is contained in one line: "Welcome to Section 31." All the rest is just setup.

But for the heckuvit? The acting was serviceable, but not great. The guy playing Leland seems like a standard-issue TV heavy, and I'm in the camp that thinks Michelle Yeoh has not been doing good work on this show. (Although she did at least have an interesting eyeroll whilst he was speechifying while, for some reason, facing away from her.) The lighting was the usual crap lighting we've seen all through DSC. The directing was so-so; it included odd choices like the way the above exchange was blocked, for instance, which was conspicuously unrealistic inasmuch as real people — especially when they're in a noisy place like a bar, and even more especially when they're trying to keep something on the DL — simply don't stand ten feet away from their interlocutor, face away, and declaim their purpose toward the opposite wall. Nor do real people do the thing where they start to leave a room, pause in the doorway, glance back over their shoulder, and issue a dramatic parting line. It was all very hammy. The characters I'd be happy not to see again at all, for reasons I've previously mentioned, but it looks like I won't be so lucky. The dialogue was conspicuously unnatural and expository, which is to say, in line with much of the writing for DSC so far. The set design was the same Orion bar we saw in the season finale (with the same male dancer, as far as I could tell), or one just like it, and as such was chock full o'cliche. The overall feel seemed stagey and artificial.

IOW, on most every count, it was a forgettable scene that, unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll be allowed to forget.

 

[Lord Garth]

In all fairness, the whole point of the scene is contained in one line: "Welcome to Section 31." All the rest is just setup.

But for the heckuvit? The acting was serviceable, but not great. The guy playing Leland seems like a standard-issue TV heavy, and I'm in the camp that thinks Michelle Yeoh has not been doing good work on this show. (Although she did at least have an interesting eyeroll while he was speechifying while, for some reason, facing away from her.) The lighting was the usual crap lighting we've seen all through DSC. The directing was so-so; it included odd choices like the way the above exchange was blocked, for instance, which was conspicuously unrealistic inasmuch as real people — especially when they're in a noisy place like a bar, and even more especially when they're trying to keep something on the DL — simply don't stand ten feet away from their interlocutor, face away, and declaim their purpose toward the opposite wall. Nor do real people do the thing where they start to leave a room, pause in the doorway, glance back over their shoulder, and issue a dramatic parting line. It was all very hammy. The characters I'd be happy not to see again at all, for reasons I've previously mentioned, but it looks like I won't be so lucky. The dialogue was conspicuously unnatural and expository, which is to say, in line with much of the writing for DSC so far. The set design was the same Orion bar we saw in the season finale (with the same male dancer, as far as I could tell), or one just like it, and as such was chock full o'cliche. The overall feel seemed stagey and artificial.

IOW, on most every count, it was a forgettable scene that, unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll be allowed to forget.

That's the kind of criticism I respect. Along with the question I've seen elsewhere and elsewhen, "Is Section 31 in keeping with Gene Roddenberry's vision?"

It's too bad so many of the threads from the first several years of TrekBBS have been pruned. Anything before 2007 is rare. Because of this thread, I tried to see if I could find anything from the ENT Forum in 2004-2005 to see what the reaction to Section 31 appearing in that series was at the time. But it looks like everything over there is from after the fact.

 

[cooleddie74]

Forget Section 31 on ENT. T'Pol's intitial makeup reveal before the launch of the series in 2001 was enough to annoy and enrage some fans.

I should know. I was one of them.

#EyebrowRage #CatsuitHate

 

[Lord Garth]

Forget Section 31 on ENT. T'Pol's intitial makeup reveal before the launch of the series in 2001 was enough to annoy and enrage some fans.

I should know. I was one of them.

Okay. You're someone I trust. Did they call the appearance of Section 31 "fanwank"? And are people who call it "fanwank" now people who didn't call it that back then?

 

[cooleddie74]

Uhhh. Probably. I mean, it was just five and a half years after the last appearance of Section 31 on DS9 but memories were still fresh, and ENT wasn't exactly the most beloved Trek series to begin with. We probably had posters who thought it was stupid to have a 24th century Federation organization show up on 22nd century Earth before the Federation even existed. You didn't have to scratch very deep to come up with a fan who'd say that ENT had raped the legacy of TOS and the other series that came after.

So, yeah. It likely happened.

 

[lawman]

That's the kind of criticism I respect. Along with the question I've seen elsewhere and elsewhen, "Is Section 31 in keeping with Gene Roddenberry's vision?"

When it comes to that last part — or, more broadly, consistency with Trek's longstanding themes and ideals, even beyond Roddenberry — I think it was said about as well as could be by Cultcross a few pages back:

...post DS9, Section 31 have been instead moustache twirling bad guys with the subtlty of a nuclear bomb, and there has also been ... implication that s31 goes right to the top, and is not a small group of devious fanatics but the very framework of the federation. That, I have no interest in at all. I'm the first to point out where we oversell Gene's Vision™ but I don't want all the ideas of an optimistic future to be a facade for a silent government by terror and assassination.

I quite sincerely think that everything that needed to be said about ends vs. means in the Federation (at least for a while) was said by the conflict over Georgiou between Burnham and Cornwell in the season finale. It wasn't executed particularly well — in fact, it was downright anvilicious — but it's done and over with. It's time to move on, not revisit the same theme again using one of the same characters(!) wrapped in another layer of cliché courtesy of Section 31.

 

[Refuge]

In all fairness, the whole point of the scene is contained in one line: "Welcome to Section 31." All the rest is just setup.

But for the heckuvit? The acting was serviceable, but not great. The guy playing Leland seems like a standard-issue TV heavy, and I'm in the camp that thinks Michelle Yeoh has not been doing good work on this show. (Although she did at least have an interesting eyeroll whilst he was speechifying while, for some reason, facing away from her.) The lighting was the usual crap lighting we've seen all through DSC. The directing was so-so; it included odd choices like the way the above exchange was blocked, for instance, which was conspicuously unrealistic inasmuch as real people — especially when they're in a noisy place like a bar, and even more especially when they're trying to keep something on the DL — simply don't stand ten feet away from their interlocutor, face away, and declaim their purpose toward the opposite wall. Nor do real people do the thing where they start to leave a room, pause in the doorway, glance back over their shoulder, and issue a dramatic parting line. It was all very hammy. The characters I'd be happy not to see again at all, for reasons I've previously mentioned, but it looks like I won't be so lucky. The dialogue was conspicuously unnatural and expository, which is to say, in line with much of the writing for DSC so far. The set design was the same Orion bar we saw in the season finale (with the same male dancer, as far as I could tell), or one just like it, and as such was chock full o'cliche. The overall feel seemed stagey and artificial.

IOW, on most every count, it was a forgettable scene that, unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll be allowed to forget.

There was that sexy little bit at the beginning...