Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x04 - "An Obol for Charon"

[seigezunt]

The use of "Space Oddity" made me shed tears I didn't think I still had. It touched me to the breaking point.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

To paraphrase Linus, "Pop music of the future sucks!"
There probably aren't any tunes one can sing and identify with. Music will have evolved beyond recognition with the near infinite musical catalogues from all the worlds in the Federation and beyond.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

i wonder whether the ba'ul (we haven't seen them yet) are ganglia-less kelpians and those they 'take' are not for the sunday roast but the next to evolve into ba'ul.

i don't remeber the words exactly but i think it was about they are taken to sustain the ba'ul. ba'ul might no longer be fertile ...

the empress just had them as roast because she believed that stuff.

I like this theory but I feel like Georgiou would have known this if she was aware of the Ba'ul? Which implies that Starfleet itself knows the Ba'ul whether or not if they have any diplomatic relations, and if so, I'm sure Saru would have looked them up to at least see a picture of his predators.

The situation with the Kelpiens and the Ba'ul is so ambiguous, and given how they are taking their time to give us payoffs for little things (Short Treks, throw away details like Saru's language skills), I fully expect this to get fleshed out.

 

[eschaton]

So I'm wondering - considering we can see Doug Jones's real teeth, but his lips are totally covered by that beaklike prosthetic - if all his lines are overdubbed like the Klingons.

 

[cultcross]

This thing with Tilly feels like a distraction from the main storyline at a time when the show doesn't have the luxury of telling such "filler"-type stories, and the "A" and "B" plots were things we've seen done - and done better - before

Filler? I think this storyline will be the conclusion to one of the show's primary arcs, the spore drive.

 

[Kor]

ID had a few songs especially made for the movie (versions of which played in the Scotty/Keener club scene in different markets). I think that's maybe our first look at music that's supposed to be current in the Trekverse.

Other than the Klingon metal in VOY: "Real Life"

And that Talarian electro-rock from TNG "Suddenly Human."

Kor

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

...The evil blob is dumb as hell...

I don't think "evil blob" is a good description since I highly doubt it is evil. It/they just don't like the fact that Discovery is hurting them and causing harm to their space with each jump.

 

[Jadeb]

Indeed. Saru and Burnham weren't even speaking at the start of season 1, but "there will never be judgment between us"....
But the way they resolved the Saru plot was interesting, and tied the Short Trek into the episode nicely.

They've done a much better job planting seeds and letting them grow this season. Several small details have paid off nicely. It feels much more organic, and less like we're racing from plot twist to plot twist.

 

[Amaris]

Your sound is off since I never said it or implied it.

I don't know how the TOS music came across to its audience in the 1960's but at least the writers made the effort to make something up (whether its good or bad). In the Eden episode, the Federation hippys did not go around singing Nat King Cole or whatever was popular back then in the real world. Uhura in Conscience of the King sang a song which in universe was probably very popular. To my modern ear it sounds old but at least they tried. Other fans would prefer they not bother and stick to what is in universe old stuff and what to us is in living memory, I prefer they make the effort e.g the VOY Klingon music scene with the doctor being an example of what I mean, that scene made sense in universe, and in real life, it sounded alien to me.
Tilly having Bowie (or any other 20th century artist) as a favourite song does not make sense to me. Stamet's Uncle Beatle's cover band, had my eyes rolling, the Prince comment had my eyes rolling down my face and on my lap.
In the Star Trek future the only music that survives is either jazz, European classical music, or the US/UK old top 40 hits ..yeah ok

The hippies sang a 60s style protest song. Your modern ear is wrong because it’s a 21st century ear attempting to place a 23rd century sound and failing. Your enjoyment of Klingon opera is just opera with heavier gutterals. This is the music you want? Pastiches of current and past folk pop music with 23rd century labels? Seriously?! That’s the 23rd century alien sound you want?

Well you’re welcome to it, but I would rather have an emotional connection with the people I’m watching here in the 21st century.

 

[Aeolusdallas]

I'm wondering if the ganglia aren't actually parts of the Kelpiens at all, but are instead some sort of parasite the Ba'ul implant on Kelpiens to make them docile.

I was thinking this as well...Or maybe the Baul are Kelpians who have managed to move past the loss of the Ganglia......

 

[DaveyNY]

I have a feeling that anybody who still enjoys playing a piano even 200 years from now, is going to be very interested in Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert as well as Jerry Lee Lewis, Duke Ellington and Elton John.
Popular music doesn't die or fade away, it just waits for someone to come along to "reDiscover" it.

 

[Kor]

If the ganglia were parasitic (and/or symbiotic) organisms, it seems that medical exams over the course of Saru's career would have revealed this somehow.

Kor

 

[KirkusOveractus]

I have a feeling that anybody who still enjoys playing a piano even 200 years from now, is going to be very interested in Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert as well as Jerry Lee Lewis, Duke Ellington and Elton John.
Popular music doesn't die or fade away, it just waits for someone to come along to "reDiscover" it.

Indeed. The TOS characters were quoting Shakespeare, TNG did the same (as well as have the works of Arthur Conan Doyle and 1940's Film Noir and pulp detective stories represented!)

 

[cultcross]

They've done a much better job planting seeds and letting them grow this season. Several small details have paid off nicely. It feels much more organic, and less like we're racing from plot twist to plot twist.

I definitely agree, I don't feel that the plot is hanging on Shocking Revelations (which are predicted months before) this year - I'm already much more sold on this year's plotlines.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

I won't miss the fear ganglia. The sound they make as the emerge from Saru's head reminds me of watery fangs unfolding from giant spiders. Creeps the hell out of me!

 

[Aeolusdallas]

But what happened to those humans wasn’t natural as well. They were taken from their planet by some alien force.

The humans in New Eden were not from Earth. Their ancestors 200 years ago were. They had in the interim build their own unique culture Telling them about the fate of Earth or even worse taking them their would destroy it. It would destroy their way of life, religion etc... That is precisely what the Prime Directive exists to prevent.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

All the talk about music reminded me that I didn't share my thoughts on Tilly and Stamets singing David Bowie's Space Oddity. I loved it, I've always been a bit annoyed that all of Trek's culture references were from 2 or 3 hundred years ago today, so it was nice to get some modern references for once.

There is a Star Trek trope that I call the "Rule of Threes". Often times when a Star Trek character lists three things, this list goes as follows:
1. An example from our relatively distant history.
2. An example from more contemporary times.
3. An example that does not yet exist and is ostensibly from our future.

Example:
1. Genghis Khan
2. Abe Lincoln
3. Colonel Green

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

I won't miss the fear ganglia. The sound they make as the emerge from Saru's head reminds me of watery fangs unfolding from giant spiders. Creeps the hell out of me!

You and Pike both! (spiders, I mean)

 

[Awesome Possum]

I wonder if the Kelpians are actually meant to shed the ganglia like baby teeth in humans. But they’ve been conditioned to believe they are dying just so they can offer themselves up for sacrifice. Saru no longer felt fear, maybe the Ba’ul pick that point so they face no resistance. Without that it would just be a natural part of their life cycle.

 

[CorporalClegg]

The hippies sang a 60s style protest song. Your modern ear is wrong because it’s a 21st century ear attempting to place a 23rd century sound and failing. Your enjoyment of Klingon opera is just opera with heavier gutterals. This is the music you want? Pastiches of current and past folk pop music with 23rd century labels? Seriously?! That’s the 23rd century alien sound you want?

Well you’re welcome to it, but I would rather have an emotional connection with the people I’m watching here in the 21st century.

Yup. The 'futurism" and "alienism" of it all is pretense: pretense that's completely unnecessary and I'm glad Disco people are dropping the pretense.

It's no different than the pretense of the 'future technology.' Just about any future tech in TOS or TNG - that wasn't based on space magic - already comes off as antiquated. How does a PADD stand up next to an iPad? Not well. So the Disco people - like the Kelvin people - decided to stick to a style derived from already established ideas and concepts instead of trying to extrapolate 'what might be' and not end up having Scotty opening an engineering station and its guts looking a lot like a 1960s soundstage circuit board.

The 'future technology' has always been a product of its time. And so has the future music.

The Klingon opera heard on DS9 had a lot in common with 90s European prog metal. It being 'futuristic' or 'of aliens' was pretense.