Spoilers Tig Notaro Interview (possible spoilers)

What we know about the character so far:

Reno was stranded on a planet when her ship crashed, where she saved a “bunch of people”.

She did not know at first that the war was over: “Hear that Valentine, the war is over.”

She is also able to perform heart surgery. “Valentine took a piece of shrapnel to the left aortic valve, needed a donor and couldn’t find a transplant, so I piggybacked his heart on a dead Bolian to keep it ticking.”

 

Pretty good for an engineer.

She described Valentine as a weird creature, so they are probably an alien.

 

Huh. Guess acting is apparently a different thing these days. Also, researchinga role. That or...the real acting is in these interviews when they act intentionally less clever than the acting role they have just been paid for was going on.
Though she does indeed resemble Tom Cruise.

 

A lot of Star Trek actors have complained about the technobabble. This is nothing new.

 

Sometimes, I had the same feeling then.
A lot of times it feels like someone pretending not to know about something, because the something is geeky and uncool, and then not long after comes the hidden moment where they forget themselves and are caught quoting Darmok or something. Like to survive as A general actor, they have to be careful not to reveal that actually it’s not that bad, and playing up how hard it is just makes them sound funnier or cooler. Cho is obviously doing that with his Star Wars gag for instance.
Some of the Trek actors, sensibly, have pointed out it’s closer tos Shakespeare. There can be a bunch of stuff with words we don’t really know or understand, but once you have the rhythm down, and a basic understanding, it’s easy...and it is. Ninety percent of Treknobablle is basically ‘the lightbulb is blown, so I am changing the lightbulb’ just with a made up word in place of lightbulb, and a different degree of urgency as to whether it’s just a hallway bulb or one currently lighting an operating table during open heart surgery. It’s really not hard for a decent actor.
Trek itself is so established that it has a bunch of words that should just be in the actors vocabulary as soon a s they go for the job. Hence cho not bothering to joke with dilithium, but did so with warp, because it’s a real word and so he can do that easier on the spot.
We know the words aren’t that hard (as opposed to say learning a ew or fictional language for a role) because even if we are saying ‘inverse tachyon beam’ there’s either a follow on line in the script to explain it, or it’s already functional enough in context for an audience to get it.
Anyone who really gets stuck on technobabble is basically like Catherine Tates Nan character when she can’t understand what a dark-skinned but otherwise perfectly English speaking person says...I.e being deliberately obtuse.

 

I do think the casting for Discovery has been absolutely spot-on, in fact there's probably no other aspect of this show that has been handled as well as the casting has... but ugggghhhhh do I seriously dislike Tig Notaro as an actress. She really rubs me the wrong way.

Hopefully in context on Discovery I'll enjoy her more than I have in the past.

 

I think you’re over thinking this.

 

Got two sketches confused. Scottish lady. The Indian chap was the Christmas special.

 

It’s more a recurring thought that cropped again watching this tbh.

 

SPOILER!

In the cocoon will be...

Spoiler: the cocoon

I have no idea, you clicked this for nothing.

 

This is true.

 

Well (actual spoilers if you didn't follow the Comic-Con panel)

Spoiler

Mary Wiseman said at SDCC that she crawls out of a cacoon at some point

 

You're almost certainly mistaken here.

And yeah, technobabble is that bad. It's gibberish that has to be memorized and then delivered with conviction, despite the fact that it has no inherent emotional or thematic content and - on Trek - is usually nonsense these days.

"Throw-away jargon" used in TV and movies is generally just that - but on Star Trek, technobabble has grown to be way too time-consuming and significant a part of the dialogue. Ron Moore rather memorably mocked the extent to which whole Voyager episodes depended upon it.

 

If I can do it, I am sure they can.

 

No

 

They can’t? Good that’s settled then

On a more semi-serious note, I bet the parents in the cast are better at the technobabble, and I bet the parents that are also used to Shakespeare are the best.

 

Even the original casts complained about the Tachnobabble. LeVar Burton has commented on it once or twice.

I don't see your point.

 

You do realize that her whole shtick is low-key, belied bewilderment, right??

 

Actually not. I believe this may be my first exposure to anything other than her name and a photograph. Funnily enough we have a male comedian over here, looks a lot like her, who also goes in for that shtick. I wonder if they’ve ever performed together.
Thing is, as pointed out, it’s the first time I’ve heard the ‘oh it’s so hard’ technobabble interview story either. It’s just the latest instalment.

 

If you want to be in Star Trek, you gotta own it.