Which 23rd Century is canon?

Yeah but how many seasons of Voyager are canon, Lynx?

 

To be honest, a lot of Disco is filled with fairly silly concepts that are crucial to the show. A spore drive that works by employing tardigrades? That red angel mentioned before? The burn that annihilates the Federation warp capability that is basically just a child's tantrum?

Doesn't necessarily make it a bad show, but it's certainly different.

I enjoyed it for wat it was, but I'm still not sure where to put it in the Star Trek universe.

 

Oh I'll agree with that. I'm so freaking sick of the "Mystery Box" style of television. If I never see a show where entire seasons, or even the whole show, is centred on a single "who dunnit"/"where are we"/"what/who is this entity" mystery plot,it will still be too soon.

 

All of them are supposed to be "canon".

OK, there's a certain episode which I think should be erased from the series in which there are events which I simply refuse to accept as "canon".

But I have at least the skill and decency to come up with a plausible explanation which corrects the stupidity in that episode without screwing up the actual "canon" and timeline too much.

And it's mostly TOS which is screwed up in the NuTrek movies and series like Enterprise and Discovery.

Personally I can't stand Discovery.
Not only for the screwed up established history and timeline but also because the characters are so uninteresting and the stories so bad compared to TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY.

 

You know something funny?

When you say those plot points like that, it really feels like DISCO should be a cartoon and LOWER DECKS should be live action.

 

Right next to "Where No One has Gone Before" and the Magicks of Megas-tu" with the literal devil.

 

Simple recasting is nothing. That happens all the time. Hell, I've seen a part recast in the same episode - in the first episode of HBO's "From the Earth to the Moon", astronaut Pete Conrad is played by two different actors (Peter Scolari and Paul McCrane).

This is...different. Logically speaking, how can any individual character be two completely different races? Wouldn't you have to pick one? It's either one or the other.

Although I do admit I'm all for throwing out at least one other bit from TAS - the Bonaventure. Supposedly the first ship with warp drive, and it looks exactly like the Enterprise? I find that wildly implausible.

So if I can be all in with DS9's version of the Bonnie - which looked nothing like its TAS version - I guess I'm OK with April as well.

And as I said, Adrian Holmes was great on 19-2.



(speaking of which, they used to have the full version of that clip on YouTube. It's 18 minutes long, and done IN ONE, UNINTERRUPTED TAKE. I've never seen anything like it.

 

Mileage will vary. To me, it's not different. Especially with an imagined future with supposedly plausible technology. I expect recasting to fit the time period in which it's made.

I don't know who that is or what that show is.

 

Adrian Holmes is the Robert April from SNW. Linky

And 19-2 is a TV cop show filmed and set in Montréal.

Interesting in that there are two different versions of the show, one in English and one in French. Holmes appeared in the English version.

 

True, but as already has been remarked, an isolated silly episode isn't quite the same as a silly core plot element to base an entire season or even series on.

 

Thank you. Good for him.

I don't see the difference. It's the same idea, only on a bigger scale. If it's a silly idea, small or big, it's still silly. "Where No One Has Gone Before" is amongst the silliest for Trek and yet gets treated as canon with no questions asked.

Well, I say I'll just discard it.

 

Agreed. But probably not in the way you meant it!

the thing is: is his race important? For April, I don’t think so.
If a future series they’d recast for example Sisko as white or McCoy as Asian it wouldn’t really work for me, as their ethical background is important to those characters.
But for example I wouldn’t have any issue with a Japanese 7 of 9, as it wouldn’t change the character more than making her a brunette.

 

Probably not but that's OK. To me, it's all Star Trek, canon status is basically assured. I don't treat it any differently because I don't like it, or disagree with the stories, or whatever. For me, that's a deeply silly standard, capricious at best. Let's say that I have a bad day at work and go to watch Star Trek. And, because of my negative frame of mind this Trek show just isn't landing right, and I treat the show horribly, calling it non canon, stupid, etc. etc. Then it gets discarged all because of an emotional frame of mind.

If that's the case, then I would discard many things from canon, and include things that people wouldn't. This includes, but is not limited to, Star Trek IV, Star Trek III, TMP, TNG Season 1-2, "Catspaw" and "Spock's Brain," among others. Is that reasonable?

 

I guess the only real problem I have here is how blasé we're all being about throwing away TAS. Yeah, it may be a cheap Saturday morning cartoon, but is it not still important? Why are we supposed to ignore it? What makes TAS so deserving of being tossed aside?

Oh well. Like I said, I'm OK with throwing out the TAS Bonnie, so I guess April is OK too. Whatever.

 

Well, I never said I disliked Discovery. Neither did I propose to decanonize it. (Yes, I know someone else did).

But watching an entire series based on some silly and nonsensical plot point makes me tire of that series a bit sooner than a series where the silliness is more limited to a few isolated episodes.

Then again, most of Trek is nonsensical in a sense. As it stands, it's highly unlikely we'll ever have warp drive and transporters as depicted, and universal translators that can translate unknown languages flawlessly from the first second of contact.

 

Thus far I am not discarding TAS at all as canon.

And that's completely fair, but tiring of something is an entirely different thing. But, again silliness will not disqualify a show for me. Actually, I usually prefer something more silly. Life is too serious, as am I.

 

I haven't seen enough of TAS to make a statement about the quality of writing.
But I think the horrible animation might play a huge factor for many people, it's definitely a reason I can't watch it.

But if you are specifically talking about the Robert April thing... I don't think it's just because the "white version" appeared in TAS.

It's more like...the character only appeared once. A long, long time ago. So it's okay to recast him with an actor who looks nothing like the animated character. Especially if it is to bring in more diversity.

I mean it's no different than changing the Trill make-up. The TNG Trills only appeared once.

 

Here’s a question. Is the young Asian-American actor playing Lt. Kyle in SNW supposed to be the same guy as John Winston’s white blonde British Lt. Kyle from TOS? Because that’s a bit more of a change from making Robert April black.

 

Yes, when the recast--as in the case of Catwoman--created a new character with no traits or referred history as the one with the established history. Basically its Catwoman in name only, yet lazy Greenway creators stopped caring by that point, so they just believed sticking another celebrity name in the role was going to sell with zero explanation for the change in character behavior / lack of character trait consistency. 54 years later, many Dozier/Batman fans still take issue with that lack of consistency.

"Playing" with no consistency creates the kind of discussions seen here. Content creators are dealing with an audience and one who knows what they are watching Its not fanfic never intended to be seen by / sold to the public as part of a franchise with alleged continuity throughout hundreds of episodes and a stack of movies.

Agreed, starting with TAS.

Well put.

 

I still think the greatest thing Strange New Worlds could do is have one episode set in the TOS aesthetic from the sets, to the costumes, to the ships. As for the reason behind it - historical records, alien hallucinogens, or alternate universe....who cares? It would at least be fun to see.