Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x02 - "New Eden"

[El Maestro]

Enjoyed the episode. For me, this season is a big improvement in characterization. It’s nice getting know people and even see growth (especially in Burnham) from last season to now. I also appreciated the nuance in Pike. The bridge crew is a lot of fun and for the first time in a long while I was enjoying watching a Trek crew as people as opposed to devices moving the plot along. In particular, Detmer’s and Tilly’s joy in their work is a lot of fun for me. The cast is very likable.

I know the production design is controversial for some fans but I really enjoy the look (and sounds! Lots of Easter egg sound effects from the whole franchise) of the show. I keep saying to my wife, “man, look at Star Trek with a budget!”

From an atmospheric perspective this felt like Star Trek and really drew me in in a way my 40-year old self hasn’t felt since watching Trek as a kid. Star Trek just plain old made me happy these last two weeks.

 

[Captain Shaw]

To this day we still don’t know what caused World War III. Probably just escalating tensions with certain countries.

Wonder if Trump pressed the button by mistake

 

[Stephen!]

I wonder if it was intentional to name a character "May Theresa"
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/May_Ahearn

May Theresa Ahearn was a Human female who lived in the mid-23rd century.

 

[Nyotarules]

Just watched it. I give it a ten cos it engaged me, I did not care about looking for plotholes. I am glad they left Jacob on the planet it would to be too Trekkie to have them take him from the planet. And thank you writers for using Joanna, hope the other bridge officers get a look in as well. I am going to watch it again!And Stilly is growing on me.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

From an atmospheric perspective this felt like Star Trek and really drew me in in a way my 40-year old self hasn’t felt since watching Trek as a kid. Star Trek just plain old made me happy these last two weeks.

I agree. It was a thoughtful, well acted, and very Trek-like story. Nice episodic mini-story (with a fine resolution and great scene at the end between Pike and Jacob) while still advancing the season story arc, and advancing the characters as well.

The only negative thing about the episode (and I mentioned it before) was the jarring fast-cuts in some of the episode. It was mainly near the beginning and middle of the episode, especially during the bridge scenes.

However, for most of the last half of the episode, the director and/or film editor calmed down a bit, and we were allowed to have a camera angle remain for more than two seconds.

 

[Tosk]

Also, if Joann is tagging along because of her Luddite specialty, shouldn't she be given a few sentences to say about stuff?

I had the same thought. She still ended up really just being a prop. I'm guessing they just chose her 'cause they wanted a third character who looked human and Tilly was busy in her B plot.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Since Spock's line came first, TNG and ENT are the retcons. No one prior to Encounter at Farpoint could have watched Space Seed and thought World War III happened in the mid-21st Century. The plain meaning of the dialogue was that the Eugenics Wars were WWIII or possibly IV.

Or, using modern fan logic, we could say that TNG is noncanonical because it contradicts established canon.

For everyone who complains about Discovery retconning things, I think it's important to remember this. I hated that TNG made WWIII a nuclear one, because in the Trek universe this was supposed to have been avoided.

- I hope we return to "New Eden"

Give it 15 years, and we'll have "Star Trek Discovery: The Wrath of Jacob".

(just kidding -- I loved the episode)

 

[Tuskin38]

otoh, I still don't like the Religous-Fundamentalist-Captain-Pike thing that seems to develop here

I don’t think that’s it at all. He’s just respectful of other people’s religions. Maybe because his father taught comparative religion, he may have grown up with his father telling him about all of them.

 

[Tuskin38]

because in the Trek universe this was supposed to have been avoided.

Where was this ever stated?

 

[Campe]

I don’t think that’s it at all. He’s just respectful of other people’s religions. Maybe because his father taught comparative religion, he may have grown up with his father telling him about all of them.

Again, if they end up showing Pike as the religious type, that does not mean he will be a fundamentalist. I think showing him in that light would be a huge mistake. I also think its a mistake to go with Roddenberry's notion that faith and religion is dead in the future. If they show him as a measured man of faith, I for one don't see the problem there.

 

[Vger23]

I think it's safe and fair for me to say this:

If you didn't like any of S1, and you also didn't like this episode...it's time to cash your chips in. If you didn't like this either, you just don't like Discovery. There's nothing to wait on, there's nothing to hope for. You're all done.

And that's ok. Nothing wrong with that.

But it's absolutely true.

 

[Vger23]

Again, if they end up showing Pike as the religious type, that does not mean he will be a fundamentalist. I think showing him in that light would be a huge mistake. I also think its a mistake to go with Roddenberry's notion that faith and religion is dead in the future. If they show him as a measured man of faith, I for one don't see the problem there.

I don't remember Roddenberry ever saying that (not that I don't believe you, I just genuinely never heard that).

If it were the case though, it would be extremely hypocritical and insensitive given what Star Trek is supposed to be about.

 

[Campe]

I don't remember Roddenberry ever saying that (not that I don't believe you, I just genuinely never heard that).

If it were the case though, it would be extremely hypocritical and insensitive given what Star Trek is supposed to be about.

According to Ron Moore, "Gene felt very strongly that all of our contemporary Earth religions would be gone by the 23rd century." Moore does go on to say that they chose to avoid Earth religions on the series he worked on.

 

[Vger23]

According to Ron Moore, "Gene felt very strongly that all of our contemporary Earth religions would be gone by the 23rd century." Moore does go on to say that they chose to avoid Earth religions on the series he worked on.

I hate to throw something controversial out there...it's really not my style...but isn't this kind of like saying "Gene felt that there would be no gender identity anomalies by the 23rd century" or "Gene felt that any sense of unique Asian culture would be gone by the 23rd century?"

I mean...wtf sometimes? Let's just discount something that ~80% of the world's population believes in or derives value from in some way

 

[GeorgeKirk]

Saru is gonna be a damn good captain.

Saru is a damn good Captain.

 

[eschaton]

This is a minor aside, but a letdown about the episode continuing something we saw elsewhere in Trek (like The Ensigns of Command).

This is a colony of transplanted humans - all of whom are descended from a population of Americans small enough to fit into a single medium-sized church. The population expands for 200 years.

Why are there still black people and white people? With such a small population, the entire colony should be mixed race. There's no way the black people would just keep interbreeding with the other black people, and vice versa. Not without some sort of nasty racialized caste system in place.

 

[Campe]

I hate to throw something controversial out there...it's really not my style...but isn't this kind of like saying "Gene felt that there would be no gender identity anomalies by the 23rd century" or "Gene felt that any sense of unique Asian culture would be gone by the 23rd century?"

I mean...wtf sometimes?

Sadly, there are people who would agree with some of your hypotheticals. I got into an argument with someone online about the gender identity thing, well before Disco premiered, and he thought that the idea of no conflict and that all were accepted within humanity would mean the homogenization of all things -- meaning if you were LGBTQI? You would be "fixed." Needless to say I ceased the conversation right after that.

I think its a mistake to suggest that all of these things can't exist even into the future. The idea is that we become accepting of all of our differences not that we try to fix them or push them into oblivion. I don't care if that's homosexuality, religion OR Asian culture. That, in my opinion, should be the future Roddenberry speaks of. But apparently, Gene might have disagreed with me on a few of those points.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

According to Ron Moore, "Gene felt very strongly that all of our contemporary Earth religions would be gone by the 23rd century." Moore does go on to say that they chose to avoid Earth religions on the series he worked on.

Yet Star Trek had quite a bit of religious ovetones (TMP, "Bread and Circuses", "Where No Man Has Gone Before", etc.)

 

[Lord Garth]

I like that the other crew had more to do. We get to see more of their range.

I also like that Pike's father was a scientist who was also religious. It means DSC is probably going to take the same evenhanded approach between science and faith that DS9 did. Or in Jacob's case: faith in science.

You could say this was more in the style of TOS/TNG, but I actually think "New Eden" is more of a DS9-style approach. The Defiant could've found New Eden in the Gamma Quadrant. Kira with her faith and Sisko being the Emissary would've been the characters who serve as the moderating anchor between science and religion. How they handle religion here is very Post-Roddenberry, so I don't see it being done in the first two series.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

According to Ron Moore, "Gene felt very strongly that all of our contemporary Earth religions would be gone by the 23rd century." Moore does go on to say that they chose to avoid Earth religions on the series he worked on.

At the end of Bread and Circuses, Uhura points out to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy that they are mistaken in their belief that the planet's slaves were pagan "sun" worshipers; rather she explains that they were worshiping the Son of God.

At that point, our heroes all come to an "a ha" moment, reconsidering the events of the episode in hindsight. However, that "a ha" moment looked a bit too understanding to be coming from characters who have no attachment whatsoever to religion. That didn't seem to be coming from characters of a planet that had abandoned religion, and it seemed (at least to me) more than just an unattached recognition of the similarities to Earth's history regarding Romans and Christians.

Maybe Gene Roddenberry himself felt that Earth would abandon religion by the 23rd century, but that does not really jibe with what he presented on screen. And what Roddenberry presented on screen is more relevant to this discussion than what he might have personally felt.