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

I was in the midst of trying to rediscover a link to this via a Reddit forum when I stumbled across your post. This image you've given us here is indeed what I was referring to.

The founder of that Reddit thread also surmised the way the route could be mapped onto a composite image of the nearby UFP spaces. Your distance travelled - and mine as well - will certainly vary as the images we're looking at don't account for Z-axis travel distance yet.

 

Exactly.

 

Not if *who they are* isn't important to the story being told. The positions, however, still have to be manned, and if its the same shift as the main characters are active, then they are going to be on the bridge. Which, I will admit, is more realistic than most Trekkies are used to. If you haven't guessed yet, this series' story is not about the bridge crew.

 

Only if the story is about them. And in this case, it isn’t.

 

Those characters weren’t in every episode though. They really were minor characters. Discovery’s bridge crew are in most if not all the episodes, and two of them are sitting in the front row.

Of course I prefer ensemble shows and didn’t really like the big three approach of the original. What I did like was the characters being great characters. I don’t think the discovery characters are at that level, yet. Pike is adding a lot to the dynamic though.

 

And then there's Hadley and Leslie -- the two interchangeable guys who usually sat in Chekov's seat all first season and when Chekov wasn't there for the other seasons.

Interesting fact: Eddie Paskey as Mr. Leslie has more TOS Credits to his name (60 episodes) than either Walter Koenig (36 episodes) and even George Takei (52 episodes), and only six fewer than James Doohan.

Bill Blackburn as Lt. Hadley was in 68 episodes, many uncredited, and Frank Davinci played Lt. Brent in 53 mostly uncredited episodes.

 

How about that? I've learned a new trick! Thanks!

And, yes, I guess "six quadrants" doesn't make much sense. Where the heck is a copyeditor when you need one?

 

Like Yogi Berra might have said, copyediting is 90% mental; the other half is physical.

 

As Jackson Roykirk pointed out, Leslie appeared more times than Sulu. Also, Morn appeared in something like 95 episodes over three different series. (Aside from DS9, Morn appeared in TNG Birthright part 1 and Voyager Caretaker part 1.)

 

On the flip side, debates arise when people assume their personal preferences and priorities are not just personal but objective standards of quality--and assume that what bothers them has to bother others.

"This show sucks because it's doing that thing that bugs me! How can any fan like this show when it's not visually consistent with the previous stuff? Why don't you care about this vital issue?"

At which point, others may feel obliged to point this is not such a big deal (for them).

What gets lost on both side of the discussion is the "for them" part. So you have people arguing that, say, "canon" is all-important (for them) while others fire back that "canon" is overrated (for them).

If somebody states categorically that DISCO sucks because it doesn't look like TOS, as opposed to saying it doesn't work for them, I'm probably going to argue the point. And this is especially true if somebody asserts, as folks too often do, that they're speaking for all "true fans" or "the fanbase" or older fans or whatever.

 

i can't recall any zulu in tos

 

Morn was an in-joke, and a very good in-joke. He also had an episode I wasn't particularly fond of, but that's another thread. There's a big difference between Morn and anyone who works on the bridge, like the person who actually flies the ship. Of course there was the rotating crew of TNG navigators, but again, they are not in every episode.

 

How many episodes did it take for Uhura, Sulu and Chekov to become better known?
And how far along are we with DISCOVERY's final episode count?

One would assume if we are only part way through the shows entire run, that there will be more than enough time for the minor characters to get fleshed out.

 

Exactly. It feels like Sulu and Uhura and Chekov were fully-fleshed out characters now because they were around for decades, but TOS was hardly an ensemble show back in the day. Just because somebody is onscreen every week doesn't mean they need to get the full regular treatment. I mean, sure, it's possible that Detmer will be the next Miles O'Brien and eventually star in her own spin-off, but that's not mandatory. We shouldn't get too prescriptive about what a STAR TREK show should do just because that's how they did it back in the nineties, a couple of decades ago. New century, new Trek, new rules.

Meanwhile, I'm amused to see that the real Twiggy was named a Dame last month. So she is now "Dame Twiggy."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiggy

 

That's basically all I can hope for. I've actually been happy that Detmer and Owosekun have been more invovled this season and I hope that continues. I get they are minor characters but they are still part of the bridge crew and are clearly visible each week. Having Joann on the away mission in New Eden made me really happy because it was a sign that yes, maybe we will see more of the bridge crew. Heck, I still think an interesting storyline could be learning about Airiam, even though having a different actress in the role kind of dampened my interest in such a story. I still want to know more about her/it though, and the Actress did say we were going to get something more.

As for Uhura, Sulu and Chekov, I was actually introduced to them by the movies and they got plenty of things to do in the movies. The movies made the original cast an ensemble, so when I found out that the minor characters weren't used as much when I finally saw all of the original, I was disappointed by that.

 

Just an observation, it's a bit strange that they have a Hand Drawing of her there, instead of a photo.
She was (and is) a prominent model, there must be at least one pic they could have used.

 

This is from a recent interview article...

• "Deverell promised that fans “will learn a lot more” about Commander Airiam, adding “she is a fascinating character and her story will be revealed, a little bit.”

 

Good to know. I'm looking forwards to it.

 

A digression: Am the only person who remembers Dracutwig, which was a paperback vampire novel put out in the sixties to cash in on Twiggy's popularity? I still love the cover blurb:

"The body of Twiggy! The soul of an unearthly fiend!"

 

Heh ...
Missed that one, I was too busy anyway, admiring (i.e. drooling over) Ms Emma Peel & Karen Carpenter.