Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x06 - "Scavengers"

And let's not forget Andrea!

 

and how many decades ago was the last transporter malfunction episode? Beside, we never had two of those in a row...

(apart from Lower Decks, were deconstruction of classic Star Trek tropes is a main point, of course)

 

Well, we get two Burnhams flying around in "angel suits", and they just happen to be named Michael and Gabriel...

(I gather our protagonist could also have been named Rachel, but that's going deep apocryphal. And that Rachel would have been a male name exclusively anyway.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

Of course, it's a weapon. What did you think it was? Plus you don't keep the peace if it ends up harming you more than a clear conflict would. If the Russians had said to the Americans "We will leave you in peace if you all become communists." should the Americans have accepted? Sometimes the price of peace is too high.

 

Wrong

verb (used without object), cried, cry·ing.
to utter inarticulate sounds, especially of lamentation, grief, or suffering, usually with tears. to weep; shed tears, with or without sound.

Crying is the shedding of tears (or welling of tears in the eyes) in response to an emotional state, pain or a physical irritation of the eye.

A real life example would be that a baby is said to be crying despite it having the inability to shed tears.

 

Such a phrase in wikipedia only deserves to be labelled citation needed. Besides, I do not know if this is due to the English language, but in many other languages, no one will describe increased eye tearing as crying if it is caused by irritation. Crying is an emotional reaction.
Besides, I have one question. Is welling of tears in the eyes also considered crying when they are artificial tears? Because according to this definition it should. And so, because of my computer work, I cry more often than Burnham according to fandom menace.

With these definitions, there was only one scene that fits them. The one on the death of Airam.

 

So now we’re on “defining” crying. Since the issue has come up independently with several persons, many of which don’t watch any Star Trek related YouTube videos or aren’t in online ST communities perhaps there is something to it...?

 

I would like to see fanboy message boards when Picard cried in 'Family.' I seriously doubt that people wanted to quit watching the show or get rid of the character.

 

Or when he found out his brother's family, including his beloved nephew, burned to death in a fire in GEN.

What a pussy.

 

Stop wasting my time.

 

Who care how often Michael has cried? IMO, Discovery has worst problems that Michael crying.

Every Trek has had emotional moments and every Trek has had characters that cried. The only real difference is that Discovery tends to perhaps highlight the emotional moments a bit more. Discovery tends to dial up the emotions a bit more. But that's more to do with the writing and directing that tries to stir emotions from the audience.

 

When people keep getting kicked in the junk every week (sometimes every day) and can't get a break from it, everyone will eventually crack, just stop to step back and hit their own personal reset button. For some, that involves crying. Because, human, y'know?

 

I have chronic dry eyes from a variety of pollen allergies and I have to use eye drops, or, medically speaking, artificial tears every day to ease the irritation. Therefore, by Fandom Menace's reasoning, I am a giant crybaby. Not to mention my tendency to tear up during movies. I must be a wreck.

 

Are we comparing the prevalence of technological errors to the prevalence of human emotions? Those aren't comparable things.

I've said it before, but I'm glad this show depicts people being sad or scared frequently. It's space. They probably would be. And good riddance to the unhealthy stoicism of prior Trek, which as a model for people today to follow is rather awful. Evolved humanity or not, we don't need to teach people that they need to be Vulcans. Better that the show teach people that they can be sad and still be successful.

 

So, if it happens in a row it's bad? I'm just trying to understand the underlying logic here.

Indeed, yes. This insistence that any sort of emotional expression is to be reserved for special occasions is disturbing to me.

 

This conversation is making me cry...

 

Hey, not something I came up with, I was just responding.

The logic is that if something -anything- is done over and over it gets diminished. But perhaps it’s not me, personally I don’t like listening to music where everything is soloists doing 1 thousands notes per minute all the time (*or* the opposite, where it’s all “ambient” and there is almost no melody all the time), series where there are always big battles in every episodes or series where every episode is always a character piece, nor series where nobody grows emotions or the opposite, when you must have a huge heartbreaking moment in every episode.

Above Gebirg mentioned Family, but what makes Family special is exactly that it’s something that happens once in seven years, not every week. And perhaps he’s not aware of the resistance that episode met with te producers, that originally mandated a SF b-plot because Star Trek didn’t do character pieces in its format (glad the idea was dropped, as it’s a great episode as it is).

 

I'm not heavily invested in this, but the issue is not that Michael cries sometimes. It's that she arguably breaks down too much, which results in the breakdowns losing their emotional impact.

The reasons that Picard's breakdowns stand out is there were so few of them across the many seasons of TNG (and the movies). He was not the most stoic of Trek characters, but he was typically very composed. So when you get a situation like Family, or Chain of Command, where he totally breaks down - it's a big effin deal.

With Michael, I now kinda just shrug when it happens, because I've come to expect it. This is bad, dramatically speaking. While you want characters to be true to themselves, you also want to be able to surprise the audience from time to time.

The only time this season gave me the feels is Forget Me Not, and perhaps not uncoincidentally, the focus of emotional turmoil was decidedly not on Michael.

 

Exactly. Precisely. By all means.

 

At this point I'll just say that it hasn't lost its impact upon me. So, mileage will vary?

Because I don't feel like it is happening "All the time!" even if it is occurring in each episode. There's a difference, if even a small one.

No, I don't. This is one of the few times were I will say that consistency is what I want from characters, not surprises.