Disco Season 3, "Genesis II", and "Andromeda"

And look how THAT worked out.

 

They rebuilt the Republic?
-Big Lebowski voice

 

Yeah...lasted for almost half of The Force Awakens.

 

As the American Revolution and French Revolution shows, you get a couple of false starts in these things.

 

Having an active republic doesn't make for as interesting a show most of the time.

In fact to go back to the topic here, Andromedia started to have issues after they reformed the confederation and I think a lot of that was because it was a different show with the andromedia being on their own vs being part of the confederation. It is a similar issue to the show with two leads in a will they or won't they situation. Once you finally put the characters together it changes the show and normally not in a good way.

 

Might be a coincidence but it's an interesting parallel: In Genesis II, there's a character "of the unisex persuasion", Harper-Smythe. Harper-Smythe considers "animal lust" to be "primitive" and thinks they're beyond the concept of male and female. Several citizens of PAX are said to be unisex. In DSC Season 3, we're going to have a character who considers themself non-binary. I wonder how many people consider themselves non-binary in the Federation or what became of it?

 

Counter-point: The vast majority of Star Trek works really well with a powerful, working political entity (the Federation) in the background.

It's just another type of story. Less wish-fulfillment/all-in/last hope for humanity/final hero stuff. And more "getting into the weeds"/debating details/fighting for everyday rights stuff.

I'm honestly more a fan of the latter (that's why I'm on a Trekkie board). But the former is the more wildly popular type, and the original Star Wars did that really well.

Honestly, my biggest problem with DIS so far is that the creators seem to want to tell this kind of story though, and I think Star Trek is just not the right medium for that. As a counter-point, this is also the reason why many people would describe Trek as "boring", and they obviously try to change that by raising the stakes.

 

Great post. Agree 100%.

I view it a bit harsher.

Star Wars is a movie. Trek is a TV show. The epic thing works better as a movie (once every couple years) than as a TV show (25-30 times a year).

In pursuing a wider audience (epic), the studios lost Trek's soul. They lost what made it cool in the first place (albeit to a smaller section of people).

I like to call it lowest common denominator Trek. JJ Trek. Action Trek.

It is a fine line, how to make it epic without losing it's essential character?

It has been done fairly well on the big screen. With seemingly different techniques.

Undiscovered Country had the fate of the Federation at stake. But Kirk's own personal issues (loss of his son) and larger issues of bigotry/acceptance were interwoven.

Voyage Home had the fate of the Earth at stake. Crew in unfamiliar time and with a Klingon ship. But Spock returning to himself was central to the story.

JJ Trek was initially successful by being 'action Trek'. But fizzled without the personal details to drive the story. It was just another action movie set in Trek universe.

Some of the weakest moments of the TNG movies were Picard as action hero, often action without epic (Insurrection).

Anywho, it has more of a chance of working on a movie screen. When you do it on weekly TV, it just seems like an action show set in Trek-verse. It can come off better (DS9 Dominion War), or not quite as well (Enterprise S3-S4), but in my view a bit of the soul of the show is lost.

And when you add in gaping plot holes (Disco S2), you are getting close to losing me. The show lost its soul AND its brains.

Hope S3 is better. Less epic. More internally consistent. Less plot holes. What VOY could have been.

 

Andorians are in season 3 and they have 4 genders. We never saw exactly who was who, or how that worked, but if asked I'm sure Shran would have told us it was none of our damn business.

 

We actually don't know if Andorians have four genders.

All we DO know is that their marriages typically require groups of four. Doesn't necessarily mean four sexes.

 

I agree with the observation. But this problem is not exclusive to Star Trek:

In the past, Superman often used his powers to stop bank robbers. Batman was solving murder mysteries. Spider-Man had to find out who's chasing him.

Nowadays all of them have to save the entire universe or multiverse in every single movie, comicbook or tv-show they appear in.

JJ Abrams and Kurtzman didn't try to "ruin" Trek. They gave their best. The only thing I can fault them for is not being cleverer then the competition, to buck trends, and do something truly unique. Instead they try to take what's been successful and proven everywhere else, and apply it to Trek.

I just don't think that works, or is the right approach. But already Rick Batman was very loudly complaining about how after a certain size of budget, you HAD to save the world. And that's definitely not gotten better since then...

 

------------SPOILERS FOR ANDROMEDA SCROLL PAST IF YOU DONT WANT TO KNOW------------------


I have seen the various arguments for and against an Andromeda style story line in Discovery S3, although I dont think that is the main issue, at the end of Andromeda Captain Dylan Hunt found out that one of the founding members of the Systems Commonwealth (Vedrans) werent really destroyed they hid themselves and entire planets to preserve a part of it all the while watching events unfold for Earth and the rest of the galaxy, Earth was enslaved by the Nietzscheans while the Magog used the rest as incubators for their young.

I get the feeling that Discovery wont go that way, its more likely that they will use the suit to undo it all by targetting the nexus points that culminate in the Federations fall, the fall may not have anything to do with the AI at all and instead be all about the Temporal Cold War which was never truly resolved.

It could all end up being a gigantic reset, thus preserving the ToS timeline we all know and paving the way for further shows before/after or alongside ToS.

If they did go the Andromeda route all the way then we would be entering First Federation/Preserver territory.

I am a bit surprised I still remember what happened in Andromeda as I havent watched it since the original run from 2000 to 2005, just had to remind myself of the species that hid themselves away (Vedrans) and the exact spelling of Nietzschean.

 

Last thing I have to add about Genesis II. Dylan Hunt is misled by Lyra-a who tries to make him side with the Tyranians (a new version of Humans whose ancestors were mutated by nuclear war). When Dylan Hunt realizes the Tyranians want him to be utterly loyal to them or become their servant, he helps PAX to undermine the Tyranians. Lyra-a, being half-Human, half-Tyranian, has feelings for Dylan.

I wonder if Book will be the Lyra-a to Burnham's Dylan Hunt? I kind of don't think so. But the Federation (or what's left of it) could be like PAX and everyone chasing after Burnham with their funky new handguns could be like the Tyranians. Also probably. I think they're probably more like a splintered off group of the Federation chasing after Burnham.

I think group of aliens (including "Morn") who are chasing after Burnham are the V'Draysh: what the Federation has become. I think the guy in the suit who said he kept waiting for an answer represents the Federation that was. He thinks of himself as part of the Federation, not the V'Draysh.

Just my theory.

 

When Picard found those Supermen in masterpiece society, it didnt seem like they were smarter, stronger, unageing or faster.

That Superwoman who was into Geoedie should have effortlessly picked him up with one hand, hoisted above her head, and carried him to a procreation nook... But she was either too shy or too weak to do that.

 

IDK that anyone on the Colony depicted in "The Masterpiece Society" was really a Transhuman or 'Superman' in any respect. Yes, they culled people with genetic defects they couldn't correct; and they modified what they could and trained each member for a specfic role at birth - but no one was really all that augmented.

 

That is what I said (indirectly).

I was wondering if they were completely blaise about heir super powers, or if they did not have them. The early seasons of TNG seem to have forgotten about the Eugenics war.

 

I don't know. If there's one thing SF teaches us, it's that nothing stays the same forever. Civilizations rise and fall and rise again, humanity mutates into another species, or is replaced by apes or robots or sentient cockroaches or whatever. Look at Asimov's FOUNDATION series or Herbert's DUNE or any number of books by H.G. Wells, Olaf Stapledon, Arthur C. Clarke, Theodore Sturgeon, etc. The future is forever evolving into something new and strange.

Doesn't mean that everything that happened before was "pointless." In STAR TREK, was all of human history rendered pointless by the Eugenics Wars or World War III? People still seem to remember Shakespeare and Dickens and old "Captain Proton" serials. Not to mention the U.S. Constitution and ancient Greece and Brahms and such. Who knows? Perhaps "the Federation" has become a myth, like Camelot, that inspires future generations. Was Camelot pointless just because the Round Table ultimately fell?

Of course not. Just because every generation has to face its own challenges, and that sometimes those involve rebuilding after a setback, doesn't mean that the struggles of past weren't meaningful to those who fought them -- or that their ripples won't be felt well into the future.

Nothing is permanent. Doesn't mean that nothing matters.

 

Exactly. It amazes how much in real life we want people to grow and change and develop despite challenges and struggles, but do not want familiar media to go through these changes. It's like wanting a best friend you've know since high school to be the exact same 20 years later. It is neither healthy nor reasonable.

 

Billy Joel has a theme for that psychosis.



I like to imagine it myself performed in the style of Boris Karloff (as most of Billy's love songs are at least just a little creepy).

 

This is a fine example of hyperbole, thank you. But seriously. No. No they don't.