Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x01 - "Kobayashi Maru"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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Um...NCIS is CBS MOST POPULAR show hands down. It's been on the air since 2003 - 19 seasons and running. Yes, it IS more popular than Star Trek has EVER been, period.Star Trek Discovery is currently the No. 3 show on Paramount+:
Star Trek Discovery lost its second place to NCIS.
These are not some Paramount+ exclusive NCIS episodes.
These are the already broadcasted and archived episodes of NCIS from CBS.
More people are watching old episodes from a generic, run-of-the-mill, low-budget police drama than episodes from the high-budget, high-profile, high-end (supposedly) flagship show from Paramount+.
And no, I'm not a fan of the show but I know 3 people who are; and they all signed up for CBS All Access as soon as they knew NCIS was on it with all past seasons because it allowed them to see episodes they had missed in the earlier years it was on the air.
Honestly, early NCIS is a lot of fun and made All Access easily worth it, over Star Trek content.
To add to the dog pile, NCIS has accumulated more episodes as a franchise, currently at 869, in less than 20 years than Star Trek has in over 55, currently at 817.Star Trek Discovery is currently the No. 3 show on Paramount+:
Star Trek Discovery lost its second place to NCIS.
These are not some Paramount+ exclusive NCIS episodes.
These are the already broadcasted and archived episodes of NCIS from CBS.
More people are watching old episodes from a generic, run-of-the-mill, low-budget police drama than episodes from the high-budget, high-profile, high-end (supposedly) flagship show from Paramount+.
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Yes but do their fans obsess over continuity like we do?
The season opener gets a 7/10 from me. I liked the high-budget visuals and the story was captivating too. There were quite a few different story threads though, some more important than the others, which made following a bit too segmented at times. The stakes are of course high, but I want to see where the story goes from here. I like the opening two-parter of Season 3, this does not reach that high yet, but well see about the second episode today.
Finally got to watch this on Pluto and... it wasn't worth the wait. A disappointing and awkward sprint through Star Trek clichés that didn't give much, if anything, to sell season 4. A brave new world a thousand years on with a whole new landscape post burn to explore and what do we get? More dewy eyed self important applauding. Shield percentages, the transporters are down because tech, here come the bridge rocks. What's changed in a millennium? Not much it seems. A one dimensional rescue story that would fit in any mid season filler episode of Voyager if not for the flashier budget. To begin, a lift from STID, and to end, another round of that well trodden Star Trek storyline about the captain who can't face death.
Not great, after season three's much stronger opening. Let's hope there's better to come. I really hope that they actually do something this time with Burnham's identified flaw, instead of her being proven right regardless again.
Not great, after season three's much stronger opening. Let's hope there's better to come. I really hope that they actually do something this time with Burnham's identified flaw, instead of her being proven right regardless again.
Just more pandering. With also the Space Stations version of Morn.
It's kind of an odd reference, in-universe. Archer was President (maybe...) a thousand years ago. You don't see a William the Conqueror Shipyard off the coast of England being built today.
He was also one of the most famous starship commanders and explorers in Starfleet history. He wasn't just one of the Federation's first Presidents but he was also the man who helped found the Federation itself.
Archer was involved in founding the Federation. It makes sense for Federation 2.0 to invoke his name.
I mean, I don't think so. It makes it referencing the Federation and Starfleet's founding in this new era.
Yeah, but having Rhys implied to be the XO is exactly the problem here, and just symptomatic of a larger problem. Discovery almost goes out of its way to not identify key personnel or duties or structures. Who is the XO? We don't know because they have Burnham go out of her way to not do what captains do even when everyone is already aware of who the XO is: namely clearly state who is in charge as they depart the bridge. Who is the CMO? We don't know even in situations where the Captain (or acting captain) is getting a major, mission-critical briefing about medical conditions. Who is the Chief Engineer? We don't know (though it might be Reno this year, eventually), and so during a crisis which would call for engineering intervention in "Kobayashi Maru", instead we get the captain calling down to a science officer in charge of the spore drive development.
It seems like Discovery is going out of its way to not identify these Chiefs. It feels like they are hedging their bets for some reason, as if they thought "who knows, we might want to introduce a character who is the Chief of X?" But they keep not doing that. They could just promote Culber to CMO (but based on Cruz's answers in interviews, he is not) but they don't. Other actors don't even know their roles in the ship (see Blu del Bario's resent answer in that same interview about, maybe, being a science officer). Discovery could also be trying to keep the focus away from the "senior staff" as was the supposed original perspective of the show when it was pitched. But when you have Burnham as the captain now and who has always been the primary focus of the show, it kind of defeats the idea of keeping any "lower deck" focus. Not to mention that the bridge crew are kinda/sorta treated as secondary main characters (though they basically get no development - which is an annoying disparity). So now, in all the times where we should be seeing the XO gets his due, or the chief of a given operational section theirs, instead we generally see a main character who doesn't have the qualifications and/or doesn't have the duties.
The show should either promote our main characters to the duties they are effectively performing on the ship, or clearly reference who are the chiefs. That would avoid these unnecessary and distracting incongruities. Yeah, sudden promotions would lack drama, vindication, or catharsis for our characters and the audience, but it would bet better than the void of context and the logical errors we currently have. Alternatively, having new characters as senior officers could provide the opportunity for some drama between the our main characters and their superiors (e.g., if there were a difference of opinion on a course of action - does Burnham go with the more experienced officer or with the person she, and we the audience, knows better who has an innovative idea?). Also we would then have the potential (and context) for our characters to be advanced either through an untimely death, a timely transfer, or a well-earned promotion - anything is better than just leaving these awkward questions hanging out there. Given that Discovery came to the 32nd century with a skeleton crew of officers 900-years out of date with Starfleet protocol, science, technology, and Alpha-quadrant cultures, politics, and history, maybe this would be a perfect reason to staff up with some new section heads from 32nd century Starfleet?
But as a different reviewer pointed out, that I have to agree with, Discovery's production staff and writers don't seem to be interested in exploring what it really means to be in the 32nd century - it is treated as just a different drama setting where the Federation is rebuilding (free from the "shackles" of existing Star Trek canon; it could be practically any timeframe) as opposed to an interesting new sci-fi setting with implications to explore for everyone. The personal and ubiquitous 32nd century transporter tech should have made this episode's central dramatic bit with Burnham completely anachronistic, but nope. And frankly, Discovery was never really be interested in exploring what it really meant to be set 10 years before TOS. [And before that, Star Trek Enterprise, until season 4, wasn't really interested in what it meant to be set 100 years before any previous Trek - outside of a few standout episodes like "Carbon Creek" or "First Flight".] It's mostly just a new time setting with the same old Trek story tropes.
Obviously, these are sore spots of mine, even if they are not catastrophic failings for the show.
Well, I applaud the honesty at least.
Because Star Trek: Discovery is not actually about the senior staff of the ship. It's about a particular set of officers aboard the ship, some of whom are part of the senior staff and some of whom aren't.
When the particular identity of the USS Discovery's executive officer becomes relevant to the story, it will be established.
I don't think that's the case. I think you're just so stuck on the traditional Star Trek formula that you're interpreting different creative choices as being a contradiction to the formula rather than a departure from the formula.
I would suggest that the focus is on the main title characters, and that thinking it's either primarily about the senior staff or about the lower decks, as though it must adhere to some binary, is a mistake.
They're more like secondary recurring characters than secondary main characters.
There's no reason to say the show "should" show the XO or the chief engineer. The show has no obligation to focus on senior staff.
I think the main characters have all earned major promotions many times over by now. I'm not bothered by the show not depicting, for example, the chief engineer, but I also don't think it would be at all lacking of drama, vindication, or catharsis if Paul were to receive that promotion.
I do agree that that could make for some compelling drama if they chose to go that route.
This is a self-contradictory statement. The Federation's ongoing recovery from the Burn is the very essence of what it means to be in the 32nd Century.
Why? A setting in which technology never fails is a setting devoid of dramatic tension. They made it very clear: The transporters did not work because the impacts from the extremely large amount of debris that was impacting on them at high velocity due to the gravitational anomaly had damaged the Heisenberg compensators.
Don't agree here at all. Hell, most of the complaints against DIS are that it's too big of a departure from ST tropes.
I mean, earlier shows have been somewhat guilty of this as well. Like, why the heck was Harry Kim involved in so many aspects of Voyager - including sitting in on command meetings - when there were a lot of extras who outranked him?
That said, it has gone to a new level with Discovery - and is honestly in some ways hard to grok, because just assigning the main cast as chiefs would solve one of the issues of the show - which is giving everyone something to do. The show has at times bent over backwards, for example, trying to find something plot-relevant for TIlly, twisting her role into something unrecognizable from the beginning of the series in order to ensure she stayed in the spotlight. She shifted from being Michael's roommate/one of Stamets's many assistants, to being the person who knew more about the spore drive than anyone other than Stamets, to faking the identity of her MU alter, to being a command track ensign, to being an XO...etc.
In general I feel like the Discovery writer's room has been negatively impacted by the seeming absence of anyone with a military background. It seems notably sloppy when considering issues from chain of command to basic concepts like supply/logistics. I mean, Trek has never been military SF - and I'm one of those people who doesn't think Starfleet is a true military - but it clearly developed out of military tradition, and some understanding of the background would be helpful. Discovery just plays it a bit too sloppy overall - something which has held through from the grimdark Season 1 to the lovefest of today.
I don't think the show "should" show any position due to rank or title and I agree that Discovery wants to be all about a specific subset of the crew regardless of their rank or position. What I object to is what eschaton pointed out above: the show wants to focus on character X, so it contrives a reason (or just jumps to that character for no reason) to get them involved. Or, for no reason ignores the logical character who should be involved in the situation. Why have Burnham leave the bridge twice without identifying her XO? There was a whole storyline last season dedicated to trying to find one. Why leave the role heavily implied but not stated? That is the perfect, in story, reason to highlight it. That is the perfect time to give whatever character who was chosen last year their moment in the spotlight - to bask in a moment where we see who was deemed worthy to be second in command. Why call to Stamets for an engineering solution? He isn't an engineer. He knows some stuff about engines and power systems because of his work with the Spore Drive, but he isn't probably even in the top 10% of crew on the ship in terms of general engineering knowledge. The sole reason he is involved in that scene is because he is a main character for the show. You wouldn't call up Culber for an engineering solution just because he is a main character and hasn't gotten a scene recently.
If the show wants to have X character in a scene they need to 1) write problems for which that character already has the skill set or knowledge to solve or 2) show that character getting the skill or role for which you are writing these problems, either through training or promotion. The whole reason that Trek shows tend to involve the standard "classes" of characters (engineers, scientists, doctors, commanders, diplomats, etc.) is that the shows tend to write engineering, science, medical, leadership, or communications issues. It's the show being stuck using existing Trek tropes but not wanting to use the appropriate characters that causes the mismatch. If your chosen main characters (from a story perspective) don't have the skills or roles that allow them to logically solve the problems your writers are writing, you need to write different problems.
But the show isn't interested in the science fiction part of the equation. They only care about the fall of the Federation storyline (which is agnostic of time period; they could have set it after the end of the Dominion War, basing it on a longer-term collapse of infrastructure from the war, or a contagion that spread due to poor food/medical accessibility), they don't actually care about the 32nd century setting. They don't care about "what future technologies might address/eliminate older Trek challenges?" They don't care about what future technologies might exacerbate or mitigate the impacts of the fall of the Federation or it's reconstruction. They don't care about the science fiction, only the drama portions of the setting. The same thing happened in Enterprise; they had all the same gadgets (phase pistols and polarized hull plating), and problems "solved" the same way - except in rare instances - and you could have placed a large portion of Enterprise episodes in any other timeframe with no appreciable differences. That is what it means to not care about the science fiction part of the setting.
I agree, if there were no problems that couldn't be easily addressed, or if the technology always succeeded, there would be no tension. There is no problem with clarity (other than the problem as stated makes no logical sense). The problem is the execution. Practically the only new technological development that has been shown with any appreciable effect on how things operate in the 32nd century is the ubiquity of transporter technology. Characters don't even need to walk anywhere on a starship anymore if they don't want. But the first major incident of the season and the transporters fail in exactly the same way they would have an any other Trek setting in the past, and in a way that is illogical and contradictory to precisely the way this technology has been shown to operate now. It is almost like they chose the one new technology and said "what if we revert it to the way it was in the past, so we don't have to worry about it being different anymore? So, we can just use all the old tropes and storylines and won't have to think of anything new or actually consider the future setting at all. It will be so much easier this way."
I think the main criticisms have been in 1) the visuals of the show: elements looking different than they have in the past for no appreciable story reason, just that new designers are involved and because they can, and 2) differences in tone or a focus on "darkness" and "grittiness" which goes against the core elements of Trek - belief in a better, optimistic future with a focus on improving humanity itself, and 3) general lack of quality (individual mileage may vary).
I would love for (and do love when) Discovery does something new (no more "dang, all the transporters are out again"), but when they do something old I would like them to do it right.
Just thought, a cool story beat would have been something like:
1: the unprecedented gravity anomaly prevents the transporters from working, and prevents comms/drones from operating
2: the 32nd century transporter technology literally hasn't had a single failure in 200 years, so no 32nd century Starfleet officer has ever had to do an EVA, Starfleet literally doesn't even have EVA suits, and all the 32nd century officers are ill-equipped to address the situation.
3: because the Discovery is from the past and Burnham has done a lot of EVA missions, that makes her uniquely qualified to go on the dangerous rescue mission.
This would have been more logical and character/setting appropriate. But, Discovery isn't really invested in doing those things, so we get a non-sensical transporter failure and the captain deciding she should go on a dangerous EVA mission despite being the captain.
I mean, I can't argue at all but it also is Star Trek and the captain is always doing that stuff. I'm guessing it's annoying because it had been done before?
I'm not feeling this episode that much. I like the stuff between Burnham and the President. But I thought the opening part was too much the "Aliens are stupidly unreasonable" cliche. And the planet killing weapon stuff just isn't that interesting a teaser for the season, especially blowing up a character's homeworld just for the emotional cudgel.
So far it seems like they're falling back on cliches and easy drama.
So far it seems like they're falling back on cliches and easy drama.
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