“Jean-Luc Picard is back”: will new Picard show eclipse Discovery?

[Rahul]

Honestly, I've seen bigger lava fields on the discovery Channel.

A whole bunch of Volcanoes like this could do that indeed, obscure the sun and create the equivalent of a nuclear winter. But one volcano... I am not sure.

BTW, it's impossible that anything could survive where Spock was. The temperature must have been around a thousand degrees Celsius there. For one thing, his suit should have been bright yellow from the heat! and him.. an incandescent piece of charcoal.

TBH, I'm not sure about that. One volcano could definitely be enough for that type of catastrophic event, but it would need to be a monster volcano. I'm no geologist, so I can absolutely not tell you if the volcano as depicted on screen would fit that type, but I remember it being bigger than any volcano I have ever seen in real life (the volcanoe - not the lava field. The important part is the pressure under the surface, not the size of the opening). I vaguely remember a science analysis of Into Darkness, where they said the volcano scene was mostly alright (except the fusion bomb) - but I honestly don't remember the details that good anymore.

 

[BillJ]

Sure. It's just rather odd to be, as Jinn put it, constantly being told "Think for yourself!!!!" and "CBS lies!" only for authorial intent to be used to slap down arguments.

What argument has been slapped down? Why is it wrong for one side to finally start pointing out author intent after having the other side constantly cram "CBS says so!!!" down our collective throats for more than a year now?

It sounds more like the "CBS says so!!!" crowd doesn't like having it pointed out when author intent go against them more than anything.

I still believe people should watch the show and determine for themselves how it all fits together. YMMV.

 

[BillJ]

More seriously, I had a big issue with the shushing Klingon in the third episode, which no one else on the forum did. Basically considering it's not even a universal sign in anglophone countries (Brits put a finger to the side of the nose) it is inexplicable that a Klingon - part of an empire who had not been in contact with the Federation for a century - would also do that.

Discovery is still an American show, made mainly by Americans, for American audiences. So it is still going to do things that are "American", easily recognizable by American audiences. A show has to have certain conceits towards the audience it is aimed at.

That was my favorite scene of season one.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

I still believe people should watch the show and determine for themselves how it all fits together. YMMV.

Agreed.

Would it be fair to say that any explanation of the differences between DSC and TOS would be insufficient at this point? As in, nothing they could come up with could satisfy everyone/anyone?

Or if they did a timeline reset or some such, would that be acceptable to people who go with the authorial intent approach insofar as “cbs says it so that’s what I believe”? My worry is that such a scenario might be categorised as fanservice.

 

[BillJ]

Would it be fair to say that any explanation of the differences between DSC and TOS would be insufficient at this point? As in, nothing they could come up with could satisfy everyone/anyone?

Personally, I was never interested in Discovery as any kind of extension of the Prime universe. I want it to have the freedom to do its own thing without having to put the toys back in the box the way they found them when they are done.

I wanted Star Trek to feel fresh again, where you didn't have notions of what the ultimate outcome is going to be.

 

[dahj]

I wanted Star Trek to feel fresh again, where you didn't have notions of what the ultimate outcome is going to be.

What outcome? There's a Federation and there's the Enterprise flying about is pretty much all we know.
Who knows what this crew and this ship are going to get up, nothing about them is set in stone.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Personally, I was never interested in Discovery as any kind of extension of the Prime universe. I want it to have the freedom to do its own thing without having to put the toys back in the box the way they found them when they are done.

I wanted Star Trek to feel fresh again, where you didn't have notions of what the ultimate outcome is going to be.

Fair point. I would have preferred something similar as well to be honest.

What outcome? There's a Federation and there's the Enterprise flying about is pretty much all we know.
Who knows what this crew and this ship are going to get up, nothing about them is set in stone.

That’s true, yes. But we also know that the federation isn’t going to be destroyed or that there won’t be some kind of political chasm that spilts the UFP into factions, or that there isn’t going to be some ecological disaster that ruins subspace for thousands of lightyears which would affect the whole federation society etc.

It lowers the stakes of things like “it’ll destroy the whole multiverse” when you know going in that the multiverse is going to be just fine.

That being said, there are ways to write compelling prequels. I don’t think DSC is quite there yet, but fingers crossed for s2 and beyond.

 

[BillJ]

Who knows what this crew and this ship are going to get up, nothing about them is set in stone.

Unfortunately, they haven't done anything to make me care about this crew on that kind of personal level.

Maybe they will in the future. But, right now? They rank slightly above JT Estaban and the crew of the Grissom.

 

[dahj]

It lowers the stakes of things like “it’ll destroy the whole multiverse” when you know going in that the multiverse is going to be just fine.

C'mon, you always kinda know it's gonna be just fine in those cases.

I don't see how this is different than when TNG had the similar universe deleting threat in All Good Things, and everyone was aware there's a TNG movie coming out and a new season of DS9 in the Fall.

 

[eschaton]

Honestly, I've seen bigger lava fields on the discovery Channel.

A whole bunch of Volcanoes like this could do that indeed, obscure the sun and create the equivalent of a nuclear winter. But one volcano... I am not sure.

BTW, it's impossible that anything could survive where Spock was. The temperature must have been around a thousand degrees Celsius there. For one thing, his suit should have been bright yellow from the heat! and him.. an incandescent piece of charcoal.

I mean, the Siberian Traps in the Permian did almost wipe out all complex life on Earth at the Permian-Triassic boundary. That said, it took something like 60,000 years.

 

[Greg Cox]

C'mon, you always kinda know it's gonna be just fine in those cases.

I don't see how this is different than when TNG had the similar universe deleting threat in All Good Things, and everyone was aware there's a TNG movie coming out and a new season of DS9 in the Fall.

Good point. To a certain degree, we know, deep down, that the heroes in most TV shows and movies are going to save the day in the end. And that applies to any number of stories set in the "past" where we already know what the future brings.

I mean, has anybody ever complained that RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK doesn't work because we all knew going in that the Nazis weren't going to win World War II?

 

[BillJ]

I mean, has anybody ever complained that RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK doesn't work because we all knew going in that the Nazis weren't going to win World War II?

But Raiders of the Lost Ark really isn't about the war. Discovery was about a war that there could be no other outcome than the Federation wins. If Discovery had been about the Federation and Klingons looking for some kind of technology, then you have a story that could have an interesting conclusion that isn't preordained.

I hate to bring up Star Trek: Vanguard again, but they really did "get it right", where a prequel is concerned. It leads into things we know, but does it in an interesting way with the Taurus Reach and meta-genome, and made me care about the characters.

 

[eschaton]

But Raiders of the Lost Ark really isn't about the war. Discovery was about a war that there could be no other outcome than the Federation wins. If Discovery had been about the Federation and Klingons looking for some kind of technology, then you have a story that could have an interesting conclusion that isn't preordained.

Discovery's first season wasn't about the war really. I mean, it was really muddled what it was about, but I think it was supposed to be about the personal arc of Burnham. I mean the MU arc had nothing to do with the war. The time loop episode has basically nothing to do with the war. For the most part the war just acted as backdrop. This really only changed in the last two episodes, and even there the real conflict was between Burnham and MU Georgiou - which is very clear given no new Klingon antagonist is introduced.

But yeah, they fucked up the final act so, so badly that it hurts my brain. The writers didn't seem to understand that we as an audience could be captivated by Burnham's story without raising the stakes till Earth itself was threatened. They didn't seem to understand that you don't need to make every other character an idiot to make your protagonist smart. I can't wait for Season 2 to start so that I can stop thinking about how many missteps they made there.

 

[BillJ]

The time loop episode has basically nothing to do with the war.

It was driven by Mudd wanting to sell the Discovery to the Klingons. IIRC. So it was driven by the war plot.

 

[Noname Given]

Honestly, I've seen bigger lava fields on the discovery Channel.

A whole bunch of Volcanoes like this could do that indeed, obscure the sun and create the equivalent of a nuclear winter. But one volcano... I am not sure.

BTW, it's impossible that anything could survive where Spock was. The temperature must have been around a thousand degrees Celsius there. For one thing, his suit should have been bright yellow from the heat! and him.. an incandescent piece of charcoal.

Wait, they can create energy shields that nullify anti-matter damage; make engines that warp spacetime but they can't design a suit to survivce a Volcano?

 

[eschaton]

It was driven by Mudd wanting to sell the Discovery to the Klingons. IIRC. So it was driven by the war plot.

Just barely as framing. The plot was really "Mudd's revenge" and could have worked just as well without his plans to sell the spore drive to the Klingons. Or hell, he could have done the same thing in peacetime.

If you stretched things further, there are a lot of elements of the season - Pahvo, rescuing Sarek, etc - which didn't require the war. Hell, the spore drive, the tardigrade, and all of that stuff didn't require the war. The war seems to have been required in order to set Burnham's arc up (the fall before rising again).

 

[BillJ]

If you stretched things further, there are a lot of elements of the season - Pahvo, rescuing Sarek, etc - which didn't require the war. Hell, the spore drive, the tardigrade, and all of that stuff didn't require the war. The war seems to have been required in order to set Burnham's arc up (the fall before rising again).

I agree with you on this.

They created a war, and then didn't know what to do with it.

 

[Noname Given]

I agree with you on this.

They created a war, and then didn't know what to do with it.

They tried (unsuccessfully IMO) to do a full misdirection at the start. When Frakes mentioned the MU episode he was directing, a lot of people thought that was going to be another side diversion; but it was the MAIN plot point for the season 1 story and what they were concentrating on. The 'Klingon War' was the actual side story/diversion here (after it was used to set up Burnham's story arc for the season); and felt like it - to the story's detriment.

 

[BillJ]

They tried (unsuccessfully IMO) to do a full misdirection at the start. When Frakes mentioned the MU episode he was directing, a lot of people thought that was going to be another side diversion; but it was the MAIN plot point for the season 1 story and what they were concentrating on. The 'Klingon War' was the actual side story/diversion here (after it was used to set up Burnham's story arc for the season); and felt like it - to the story's detriment.

I think the show would've been better if they had come up with a different reason for Michael Burnham going nuts. The Prime Directive... toilet clogged... replicator can't make a good Plomeek soup... anything other than going to the Klingon well yet again. For me, it made the show feel stale right from the get-go.

 

[Noname Given]

I think the show would've been better if they had come up with a different reason for Michael Burnham going nuts. The Prime Directive... toilet clogged... replicator can't make a good Plomeek soup... anything other than going to the Klingon well yet again. For me, it made the show feel stale right from the get-go.

IDK - IF they'd done a better job portraying the actual war (IE Make the tactics by both sides make a little more sense and seem more coordinated), I would have liked it more. I didn't mind going back to the Klingons here because it IS supposed to be the TOS era; and they were the main enemies of that era.