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So how important is canon, then?

...I give MacFarlane credit for not going to CBS/Paramount and begging them to make it a Trek comedy show. Instead, he said "I'm going to do my own thing."

And made a Trek comedy show. Not exactly seeing your point?

EDIT: I'm a big The Orville fan.
 
There are people I work with who have no idea how many siblings I have, if my parents are alive or if I have children.
I have friends who also don't know my sibling count. My best friend, whom I grew up with probably knows the most.
 
Randomly, out of context? No.

But as we all seem to agree, it is a fiction. A talented writer could create a believable context. Look at everything they went through to make "Trials and Tribble-ations" believable in the context of TOS. It's a beautiful episode which could have been screwed up, very easily, by staff who were assigned to do it rather than doing it as a labor love.
 
Just to have a name drop? I'm pretty critical of Discovery, but I'm glad they didn't go down this road.

And as I said upstream, how much better would it have been to just avoid having her be a sister? A neighbor, a colleague's daughter, so many other options...
 
And as I said upstream, how much better would it have been to just avoid having her be a sister? A neighbor, a colleague's daughter, so many other options...

While I am not a fan of Michael Burnham nor her connection to Spock, I think they could've won me over with better writing. Conceptually, it doesn't violate anything but fan assumptions, and one TOS writer who is no longer with us. From a canon or continuity perspective, her existence and her connection to Spock doesn't violate either.

At the end of the day, it wasn't my decision to make.
 
I concern myself with whether they're insulted only to the extent that I perceive them as having a love of the franchise, as opposed to the money and prestige being involved with the franchise brings. As I've said many times upstream, clever, talented writers can solve, say, 80% of their issues with just a little thought and creativity.
Your perceptions are specious . People come to work on Star Trek for various reasons. Some love the franchise. Some are just looking for work. Some were sought out by owners past and present. I doubt "prestige" figures much into it, especially these days. Guys like Chabon, McMahan and even Kurtzman have proven their bona fides.
It's rather presumptuous to assume writers, past and present, lack talent, creativity and thought because they didn't drop some fan service factoid into a script to satisfy the obsessions a small group of fans.

They want to call it Star Trek because, let's be honest, it has a built in audience. As much as I dislike Orville, I give MacFarlane credit for not going to CBS/Paramount and begging them to make it a Trek comedy show. Instead, he said "I'm going to do my own thing."
There was no begging involved, IIRC. The idea started as an animated show and developed into a comedy.
 
At the end of the day, it wasn't my decision to make.

I'm fairly certain that this wasn't your intent, but it almost sounds like you're saying "...and it's wrong to criticize them."

I think my exasperation phase with Michael Burnham burned out in 2017. :rofl:

It's interesting to see the things we disagree on. I have no use for Lower Decks, but I found STD to be tolerable.
 
But as we all seem to agree, it is a fiction. A talented writer could create a believable context. Look at everything they went through to make "Trials and Tribble-ations" believable in the context of TOS. It's a beautiful episode which could have been screwed up, very easily, by staff who were assigned to do it rather than doing it as a labor love.
It's lovely, but pure fan service. As a story, there's little to it beyond that.
 
It's rather presumptuous to assume writers, past and present, lack talent, creativity and thought because they didn't drop some fan service factoid into a script to satisfy the obsessions a small group of fans.

Granted, I can't claim anything for all of them with any certainty. I've met several dozen of the behind the scenes folks, however, and none of those I've met could be called gracious.

And yes, Star Trek has a cache in the entertainment industry. There's a reason why well-known actors, and even non-actors, ask to be included.
 
I'm fairly certain that this wasn't your intent, but it almost sounds like you're saying "...and it's wrong to criticize them."

Nope. It is my realization that if CBS wanted shows made with my input, they would call. Since they haven't, they likely are happy with the product currently being made.
 
Granted, I can't claim anything for all of them with any certainty. I've met several dozen of the behind the scenes folks, however, and none of those I've met could be called gracious.
It unfortunate that you've had a bad experience. But their graciousness has little to do with their talent. Harlan Ellison's public persona was less that stellar but he was a talented man.

And yes, Star Trek has a cache in the entertainment industry. There's a reason why well-known actors, and even non-actors, ask to be included.
It's cache isn't what it was. But seems to be ticking up.
Some of that comes from people having grown up watching one or more incarnation.
 
TL;DR: Continuity is fine as a bonus, but it's not the be-all, end-all. Discontinuities can almost always be rationalized. Discontinuities are justifiable if they enhance the quality of the story and are not justifiable if they detract from the quality of the story.

Full thoughts:

Continuity is great when it increases verisimilitude.

Continuity is terrible when people act like it's the only thing that matters.

Discontinuities are fine if they increase the quality of the story.

Prime example: The use Suliban cloaking devices in the 2150s in ENT and of Klingon cloaking devices in the 2250s in DIS clearly violate continuity, since TOS "Balance of Terror" explicitly established that the Federation Starfleet had never before encountered practical invisibility cloaks. However, nobody actually complains about Suliban cloaking devices, and people only rarely complain about DIS Klingon cloaking devices. Why? Because cloaking devices are an effective dramatic tool that does a great job of increasing the tension in action-adventure stories, and people will find ways to rationalize discontinuities if the discontinuity increases enjoyment of the story.

But discontinuities are bad if they do not increase the quality of the story.

Prime example: Early on in VOY's run, we learned that the USS Voyager only had a limited number of photon torpedoes and shuttlecraft. In spite of this, later episodes depicted Voyager as deploying (and losing) far more photon torpedoes and shuttles than they could plausibly have had when the series began. Now, fans can certainly rationalize it if they want; but the fact of the matter is, this is a discontinuity that detracts from the quality of the story being told, since utilizing both plot devices without regard for previously-established scarcity decreases the tension of an action-adventure story rather than increases it.
 
Prime example: The use Suliban cloaking devices in the 2150s in ENT and of Klingon cloaking devices in the 2250s in DIS clearly violate continuity, since TOS "Balance of Terror" explicitly established that the Federation Starfleet had never before encountered practical invisibility cloaks. However, nobody actually complains about Suliban cloaking devices, and people only rarely complain about DIS Klingon cloaking devices.

If talking about a single universe, I think Cloaking Device use hurts Discovery more than it did in Enterprise. In "Balance of Terror", we have a Spock who would've been part of the Klingon war just a decade prior. Since it appears Klingons were using the Cloaking Devices everywhere to the point they had pushed the Federation deep into their own territory. That information would be hard to keep quiet, which makes Spock ten years later and unreliable narrator to events he's taking part in.

In Enterprise, we have the cushion of a century where they could've fallen into the cracks if Starfleet encountered less and less of them.

They can be a good dramatic device, I just think they were the wrong device for Discovery as it relates to "Balance of Terror".

Of course, everyone's mileage will vary.
 
Bland and lacks any kind of imagination, over reliant on nostalgia. Casting was well done, I felt like the writing let them down. Others disagree.

I would agree with most of that (yeah, we have common ground :lol: ). It just doesn't bother me as much as other shows do.
 
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