Missed opportunities in Season 1 and 2

[The Wormhole]

I think a lot of people mistake what motivated the Lorca arc (turning into a MU villain). To me, it was always clear that Isaacs had no intention of doing more than one season. So, they wanted to do something very unusual to take advantage of his limited commitment, like making the captain a frigging bad guy.

Ultimately, it's a ballsy and unique idea. Let's face it- it failed for many fans because the character was TOO damn likable / relatable.

Honestly, I think the fact that the Lorca Twist causes so much controversy confirms that it's pretty badass.

For me, the revelation that Lorca was from the MU stank of adherence to the "Roddenberry Box" that Michael Piller tried to enforce during TNG, in that the human characters must be squeaky clean with no flaws, and should any flaws arise there has to be a sci-fi explanation for them. So we have Captain Lorca, he's not a utopian nice guy. He's got rough edges, a blunt no-nonsense attitude and he chews people out when they try the "I'm an explorer, not a soldier" line that seems to fly with the rest of Starfleet. But rather than dare to have a battle scarred warrior be a heroic Starfleet captain, they go and make him be from the Mirror Universe to explain his gruff manner and adhere to the Roddenberry Box. Bleh.

It also didn't help matters that as soon as it's revealed he is from the MU, Lorca instantly becomes a cartoon supervillain and unsubtle commentary on a certain real world political figure with his desire to "Make the Terran Empire Great Again."

Did we every see Spock and Sarek interact in Season 2?

Interact? Not really. Sarek does walk into the Katric vault where Amanda was hiding Spock, though he talks solely to her and Michael, with Spock sitting there rambling the Vulcan Doctrines of Logic and the coordinates to Talos IV.

 

[drt]

I think mine echo others’ thoughts:

S1: I would have liked for Lorca to have not turned into Snidely Whiplash. I was ok with him being from the Mirror Universe, but I would have preferred if they turned that on its head and made him “good”, i.e. both Lorcas were sort of morally grey for their respective universe so they’re not all that different in each.

S2: I liked the way the first half of the season was going, they were setting up an interesting situation that obviously was torpedoed by the firing of Harberts and Berg. Like others, I look forward to the eventual book that describes the original plan for the season. It will be interesting if it was actually too expensive (one of the reasons for their firing) or the ultimate resolution was actually worse than the Section 31 storyline, which is why it was abandoned.

 

[Tuskin38]

I think a lot of people mistake what motivated the Lorca arc (turning into a MU villain). To me, it was always clear that Isaacs had no intention of doing more than one season. So, they wanted to do something very unusual to take advantage of his limited commitment, like making the captain a frigging bad guy.

IIRC it was Issacs that didn't want to play an ordinary starfleet captain.

 

[David cgc]

IIRC it was Issacs that didn't want to play an ordinary starfleet captain.

I remember an interview where the writers said the way things went was they started with Lorca being a military-minded hardass, and then the idea of him being from the mirror universe explaining why he was so well-suited to the Klingon War came after that.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I remember an interview where the writers said the way things went was they started with Lorca being a military-minded hardass, and then the idea of him being from the mirror universe explaining why he was so well-suited to the Klingon War came after that.

There's a strange idea that the Mirror Universe's psychopaths and pirates are better at being warriors than the Federation.

Which is dumb for reasons I'll have to turn to Star Wars to explain.

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It's why the Federation always beats the Klingons.

 

[Lord Garth]

I remember an interview where the writers said the way things went was they started with Lorca being a military-minded hardass, and then the idea of him being from the mirror universe explaining why he was so well-suited to the Klingon War came after that.

While I like the idea of Lorca not being who he says he is, I don't like it being the explanation for why he was so adept at fighting Klingons. Since they never outright say the Mirror Universe is why he's so good at fighting Klingons, I prefer to go with my interpretation that Lorca is simply not who he says he is, and drops all pretense after he's found out. It retroactively makes me enjoy "Lethe" all the more. But bear in mind I still overall prefer the idea of Lorca just being a hard-ass.

 

[Nenya]

For me, the revelation that Lorca was from the MU stank of adherence to the "Roddenberry Box" that Michael Piller tried to enforce during TNG, in that the human characters must be squeaky clean with no flaws, and should any flaws arise there has to be a sci-fi explanation for them.

Or Section 31.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Or Section 31.

The Roddenberry Box also doesn't make much sense with "Omega Glory" and other works where Roddenberry humans are jerks.

 

[Vger23]

The Roddenberry Box also doesn't make much sense with "Omega Glory" and other works where Roddenberry humans are jerks.

That's because the "Roddenberry Box" didn't come into existence until 1987. During TOS, he was just interested in making successful entertainment and holding down a steady job. During the mid-70's though...it became all about "philosophy" and "vision" and other barf-inducing self-congratulatory crapola.

 

[fireproof78]

The Roddenberry Box also doesn't make much sense with "Omega Glory" and other works where Roddenberry humans are jerks.

Like humanity in TNG Roddenberry evolved.

 

[eschaton]

S2: I liked the way the first half of the season was going, they were setting up an interesting situation that obviously was torpedoed by the firing of Harberts and Berg. Like others, I look forward to the eventual book that describes the original plan for the season. It will be interesting if it was actually too expensive (one of the reasons for their firing) or the ultimate resolution was actually worse than the Section 31 storyline, which is why it was abandoned.

There were rumors going around - secondhand things I heard from people who knew people involved in production - that Berg and Harberts planned to go all in on the "spiritual" mystery aspects of the Red Angel/mycelial network, along with making Pike an outright Christian. They might have been nervous about the damage going this route would do to a franchise which has always been pretty steadfast in its materialism.

 

[Charles Phipps]

There were rumors going around - secondhand things I heard from people who knew people involved in production - that Berg and Harberts planned to go all in on the "spiritual" mystery aspects of the Red Angel/mycelial network, along with making Pike an outright Christian. They might have been nervous about the damage going this route would do to a franchise which has always been pretty steadfast in its materialism.

I think Deep Space Nine crossed the "religion in the future exists and isn't a terrible thing" line. Mind you, I always thought Chakotay was supposed to show religion continued to exist for humans too but that got muddled by the fact Voyager's crew was taken in by a New Age conman and racist.

(Which Beltrane told them and they ignored)

 

[BillJ]

They might have been nervous about the damage going this route would do to a franchise which has always been pretty steadfast in its materialism.

Which shows how little they actually understand TOS.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Which shows how little they actually understand TOS.

I think someone said that Roddenberry came up with Star Trek but it should not be discounted it was expanded by dozens of geniuses, masters, and journeymen science fiction writers too.

 

[BillJ]

I think someone said that Roddenberry came up with Star Trek but it should not be discounted it was expanded by dozens of geniuses, masters, and journeymen science fiction writers too.

Definitely a collaborative process, but they weren't afraid of addressing religion. The Enterprise had a chapel.

 

[drt]

I suppose ultimately it falls back to how “supernatural” their resolution was going to be.

The Federation saw the Prophets as super-advanced, non-corporeal wormhole aliens. There’s nothing about the ending of RDM’s BDG that can’t also be attributed to super-advanced aliens, yet people freaked out about “God did it” because they weren’t spoonfed that it might have been advanced aliens.

 

[BillJ]

I suppose ultimately it falls back to how “supernatural” their resolution was going to be.

I'm not a religious person, but I don't mind stories that have religious components or overtones.

 

[Vger23]

There were rumors going around - secondhand things I heard from people who knew people involved in production - that Berg and Harberts planned to go all in on the "spiritual" mystery aspects of the Red Angel/mycelial network, along with making Pike an outright Christian. They might have been nervous about the damage going this route would do to a franchise which has always been pretty steadfast in its materialism.

That would have been vastly superior to the direction they ended up going in.


And I say that as a total Disco Fanboy.

 

[Gilora]

Discovery was acting autonomously, has the Spore Drive and would have eventually jumped away somewhere to never be found if the attack continued.

That's the REAL plot hole of the season. A spore jump seemingly cannot be tracked and has infinite range. They could have leapt a dozen galaxies away and Control would never ever find them, at least not for thousands of years or more.

They used up all the spores to make that supernova contraption.

 

[F. King Daniel]

They used up all the spores to make that supernova contraption.

They didn't need to even go that far if they'd remembered the scope of their spore drive earlier.