Spoilers Strange New Worlds General Discussion Thread

[Boris Skrbic]

Nope.

I mean, I know this is your favorite hobby horse, but nope.

Star Trek doing the unexpected with characters is a hobby horse? Ok.

Why? Spock is one of the most popular characters in Trek history. As a character he has featured as part of advertising. To what end would it serve?

It leaves more time for whatever new characters are created to be written so well as to become just as iconic, if not more so. Sure, Spock would still be there to interpret sensor readings and make the odd comment on logic or humanity, but we would become so preoccupied with those new characters that he would end up being the known quantity by comparison.

Bald fell out of fashion with the dishonor of Chang.

There is nothing on the show to suggest this is some kind of a rule for all Klingons and war in general, as opposed to merely the orthodox followers of T’Kuvma and maybe that particular day and age. There are even comments in the recent art-of book to the effect that S1 went too far with the uniform look, and the intent was originally just to show even more diversity among Klingons.

 

[fireproof78]

leaves more time for whatever new characters are created to be written so well as to become just as iconic, if not more so. ,

I'll wait fir these more iconic characters with bells on.

There is nothing on the show to suggest this is some kind of a rule for all Klingons and war in general, as opposed to merely the orthodox followers of T’Kuvma and maybe that particular day and age. There are even comments in the recent art-of book to the effect that S1 went too far with the uniform look, and the intent was always just to show even more diversity among Klingons.

Twas s joke. But, thanks for the clarification.

 

[Tuskin38]

So with SNW being officially in production, can we get it's finally it's own section on these forums, just like the other Paramount+ shows?

We don't get subforums until shortly before the show airs usually.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

I'll wait fir these more iconic characters with bells on.

I mean, sure, SNW seems to be going the Batman route of digging into the tried and true, but every once in a while you get a new character like Harley Quinn, who (I think) is much more of a fan favorite on BTAS than the Joker, and now she’s even had a fairly successful feature film.

 

[Tim Thomason]

To summarize, besides the triumvirate of Pike - Una - Spock returning from DSC s2, only new bridge officers have been confirmed.
Their roles have not been officially identified.
Crew seen in Short Treks and DSC s2 may or may not return.
The inclusion of uptime TOS crew characters is probable.

Yep, pretty much. They officially released a video announcing five of the new actors hired for the show, and that's it.

Somehow, magically, this means all the actors (except Mount, Romijn, and Peck) must've been fired and no explanation will ever be given. Which is a nonsensical extrapolation, but some people see drama everywhere, I guess.

 

[Tuskin38]

Somehow, magically, this means all the actors (except Mount, Romijn, and Peck) must've been fired and no explanation will ever be given. Which is a nonsensical extrapolation, but some people see drama everywhere, I guess.

Who is doing this?

 

[fireproof78]

I mean, sure, SNW seems to be going the Batman route of digging into the tried and true, but every once in a while you get a new character like Harley Quinn, who (I think) is much more of a fan favorite on BTAS than the Joker, and now she’s even had a fairly successful feature film.

And that could happen. I just don't see reducing Spock's role.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Who is doing this?

It's an exaggeration of the sentiments supposed consistently by @DigificWriter and others partially for and against them regarding the status of the five new actors and what roles they may or may not play and what this means for the background supporting players that were introduced to us in Such Sweet Sorrow and the SNW Shorts.

He speculated that they are all gone or at least not regular cast, without evidence,, and I speculated that they will all be back in a manner similar to the Discovery co-stars, without evidence. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

@The Wormhole said it best:

We don't know if anyone from Such Sweet Sorrow is coming back or not and we won't be able to say one way or another until we at least find out details about the characters these actors are playing. It's perfectly possible and in the realm of reason that these announced actors will be the main cast, with the ones from SSS being support cast much like characters like Detmer, Owo, Bryce and Rhys on Disco.

I mean, aren't you the one usually lecturing everyone else not to jump to conclusions until an official announcement? How about practicing what you preach?

 

[Jayson1]

I wonder how much or any changes they make to the bridge. Now that it's part of a ongoing series instead of a set built for a couple of episodes I assume some alterations will be made. Especially if they plan to light it differently. Jason

 

[fireproof78]

The bridge looked fine.

 

[1987SpaceGuy]

We don't get subforums until shortly before the show airs usually.

Thanks for the heads up.
Hope there aren't gonna be many loose SNW threads all over the place until then.

 

[Lord Garth]

Thanks for the heads up.
Hope there aren't gonna be many loose SNW threads all over the place until then.

This is going to become the de-facto SNW Forum for a little while, just like it was the de-facto PIC Forum in the second half of 2019.

They opened up the DSC Forum in the fall of 2016, thinking the series would premiere in January 2017. Then it got pushed back to September. I don't think they want to make the same mistake again. Especially nowadays, with Covid throwing off the schedules of everything.

Honestly, I'll be surprised if there's a Strange New Worlds forum before the beginning of 2022.

 

[eschaton]

I used to agree with the assertion that Burnham and Ash's convo in Point of Light implies that the war with the Federation is the reason that the Klingons in DSC Season 1 were hairless, but I've since changed my mind because such a conclusion doesn't actually make sense.

Yeah, witness the first episode of Discovery, where T'Kuvma's flashback to his adolescence has himself, and the Klingon boys beating him, all bald as well.

My own take though is that while what happens in Trek is canon, what's shown onscreen isn't always. I mean, we understand for example the universal translator doesn't fix people's mouths so that it matches the translated speech. And we don't think recast characters get plastic surgery. Discovery was a show that wanted to depict the Klingons as more threatening, so they upped the alien factor in their depiction. That is all.

 

[historypeats]

I'd really like to see titular strange new worlds, but I hope they'll put quality over quantity. I'd rather see one or two planets and their societies portrayed in-depth, as multi-faceted cultures, and avoid the boring mono-cultures that virtually all previous Trek species were. Coupled with some good character development this could be a reallygood show. Or maybe they're gonna do something completely else. Who knows.

The streaming model actually lends itself very well to Final Reflection / Spock's World / Worlds of DS9-style explorations of various cultures and societies. I'd argue that the first two attempts at such explorations - Discovery's Klingons and Picard's Romulans - fell a bit flat, but not for lack of trying. (See, for example, Chabon's infrequently released "Notes on..." series on Medium.) Maybe Strange New Worlds will do a better job, although its announced emphasis on episodic storytelling makes me doubt the show will focus on such things.

 

[Lord Garth]

The simplest explanation regarding Klingon Hair (or lack thereof): The Klingons used the end of the war as an excuse to change their style. Styles change with the times all the time for any reason. Witness our own culture.

Hell, here's an easy one: Most guys over 20 and under 40 seem to have beards now. Full beards at that. 5-10 years ago, that wasn't the case. Circa 2010, it would've either been clean-shaven or that stupid barely-there chin-strap thing that was going on for a while.

 

[DEWLine]

Or the end of his known story. But, one way or another, I think Talos IV will figure into this series.

Emphasis on "his known story" appreciated.

 

[DigificWriter]

SNW is almost guaranteed to be Episodic and a return to a more classic style of Star Trek storytelling and presentation.

 

[DaveyNY]

Several things:
1) The Q&A Short Trek is set in 2250, so Amin being in that means absolutely nothing with regards to Strange New Worlds

2) Having one character be substituted for with a different character - as in the case of the Nilsson/Ina thing - is entirely different than an entire bridge crew of speaking recurring characters being replaced; the former is a small-enough shift that it doesn't necessarily require a specific in-narrative explanation (although we did get a more general comment earlier in the season that accounts for the Nilsson/Ina thing when we learned that nearly 90 people stayed onboard Discovery when it went into the future), whereas the latter is a much larger change and therefore warrants being commented upon within the narrative in a specific way

3) The fact that the producers of current Star Trek offered an in-universe explanation for the Klingons having hair in DSC Season 2 is a key example of the fact that they care about internal narrative consistency and continuity

THEY only really seem to "care about it" when a moderate to large part of the vocal Trek Fandom raise a stink.

 

[The Wormhole]

2) Having one character be substituted for with a different character - as in the case of the Nilsson/Ina thing - is entirely different than an entire bridge crew of speaking recurring characters being replaced; the former is a small-enough shift that it doesn't necessarily require a specific in-narrative explanation (although we did get a more general comment earlier in the season that accounts for the Nilsson/Ina thing when we learned that nearly 90 people stayed onboard Discovery when it went into the future), whereas the latter is a much larger change and therefore warrants being commented upon within the narrative in a specific way

And the Enterprise has over 200 people aboard it at this time. Is it really too much to just assume if the SSS gang aren't on the bridge they're somewhere else on the ship, if not transferred off the ship entirely? Does it really need to be spelled out explicitly why one-shot guest stars from another show aren't showing up on this one?

Can we at least hope (against hope?) that SNW won’t be anything like what we’d expect?

1) Suppose that with Burnham gone, the time spent on Spock is minimal, since there would be no ‘triumvirate’ here. Spock would be like Chekov, basically.

2) Suppose the focus really is on “strange new worlds”, in that scientific consultants are hired to come up with interesting planetary exploration scenarios based on what we know or suspect today, with rarely seen interpretations of alien life.

3) By extension, suppose the five-year mission is taken seriously when Pike continues to restate what we now know is ‘the captain’s oath’, so that we never see Earth, rarely a starbase and almost never a colony or another scientific expedition.
…

SNW is partially inspired due to positive fan reactions to Ethan Peck's Spock. There's no way his presence is going to be minimal or Chekov-like. Indeed, he's probably going to be third billed actor after Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn.

And SNW has been promoted all along as "traditional Star Trek." Which means we'll be getting the Enterprise visiting planets and getting into an adventure with the local, probably humanish looking inhabitants and there will be visits to colonies, starbases and even Earth itself mixed in accordingly.

 

[DigificWriter]

The Enterprise bridge crew from SSS were chronologically first introduced in John Jackson Miller's novel The Enterprise War (which Canonically explains the ship's absence from the Klingon War), so the fact that SNW didn't bring them back is narratively significant and is likely going to be explained.

Whether or not such an explanation is "needed" isn't the point.