Someone hasn't watched TOS.
Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 5x01 - "Red Directive"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
A very solid 8 from me. I could maybe agree with it being the best of the 5 season premieres. I think it would be neck and neck with S4.
I love that they are using “The Chase” as a base for the season. I’ve always liked that episode. Always thought it easily could have been a 2-parter (maybe instead of The Gambit) or even the plot for a TNG movie.
liked Rayner (especially when he was so pleased about being right about the explosive). Book says as much but it’s fun to see Burnham butting heads with someone that is like her.
good to know that had it not been for a poor movie plot, Data would have survived for at least 800 years post TNG.
Curious to know the time difference between the end of S4 and start of S5…Saru and T’rina seem to be moving pretty quick if it’s only been a few months.
I wonder if Stamets worrying about his legacy is setting him up to make the ultimate sacrifice at the end of the season.
I love that they are using “The Chase” as a base for the season. I’ve always liked that episode. Always thought it easily could have been a 2-parter (maybe instead of The Gambit) or even the plot for a TNG movie.
liked Rayner (especially when he was so pleased about being right about the explosive). Book says as much but it’s fun to see Burnham butting heads with someone that is like her.
good to know that had it not been for a poor movie plot, Data would have survived for at least 800 years post TNG.
Curious to know the time difference between the end of S4 and start of S5…Saru and T’rina seem to be moving pretty quick if it’s only been a few months.
I wonder if Stamets worrying about his legacy is setting him up to make the ultimate sacrifice at the end of the season.
After looking at my sleepy post from yesterday I can confidently say I had the same feeling when I was awake and after I saw both episodes.
Where my recent rewatch of season 4 had higher concept scifi, measured tones, and quiet asides aplenty possibly brought on by covid filming, season 5 is brash and bold, no-excuses storytelling on a scale hitherto unimagined in TVTrek.
Oh there still might be some high concept, the future episode trailer suggests this, but for now these 2 establishing episodes are monuments to big budget simplicity.
Red Directive IS a simple tale. It is certainly derivitive of, and unapologetic for using other franchise's in this story: this includes Lucas' two main ones as well as the original TNG episode.
The question really is if it can do them well and still remain true to some of the franchise's most developed characters and I think the answer must be: Yes!
All of the usual characters get their due, and really give this a Star Trek flavor around the framework of action.
Stamets will be interesting in lieu of developing his lifetime's work. Could he be less absorbed into it and more into Culver and others? Maybe.
Burnham avoids her usual character flaw by talking Rayner down. She is really is Kirk on a sandspeeder here. She makes good decisions but still likes that adrenaline rush.
Saru is just awesome. While Discovery has mostly turned him into a philosophical personality, he still can command and in later in episode 2 he shows he can still use his abilities for the physical.
Please tell me Kovich turns out to be a Supervisor from TOS/Picard. Or something. His character deserves more than exposition and he's so enigmatic.
Rayner is a crusty old captain from the Burn era. He's had a hard life. Luckily he's just stubborn but not an asshole like Shaw. Major pluses there.
The new antagonist characters are all interesting and I look forward to seeing more from them. They're not evil but do have an agenda.
The Production is a head above the other Trek shows, it is really astounding to watch it in comparison to The Chase which has a lot of other things going for it but budget isn't one of them. A good portion of recent Picard was filmed on two tiny, noticeably cramped ship sets. Red Directive felt like it was stretching its arms and didn't think small.
Lingering questions:
What the Hell is a Pathway Drive? Slipstream on steroids? My guess is it's more practical than Spore Drive though the performance is lesser than.
Which 4 planets are we going to? Trill is one.
What is the tech that gives life? I guess its more elaborate than we were led to believe?
Will there be a wedding episode?
Is the season 5 premiere better than the SNW season 2 and Picard season 3 premiere? YES! I know that one.
My grade 9 1/2 out of 10. Trek BBS grade 10 out of 10.
Now don't think I missed the Indiana Jones score Jeff Russo. Special mention. Indy is still riding on that sandspeeder.
Where my recent rewatch of season 4 had higher concept scifi, measured tones, and quiet asides aplenty possibly brought on by covid filming, season 5 is brash and bold, no-excuses storytelling on a scale hitherto unimagined in TVTrek.
Oh there still might be some high concept, the future episode trailer suggests this, but for now these 2 establishing episodes are monuments to big budget simplicity.
Red Directive IS a simple tale. It is certainly derivitive of, and unapologetic for using other franchise's in this story: this includes Lucas' two main ones as well as the original TNG episode.
The question really is if it can do them well and still remain true to some of the franchise's most developed characters and I think the answer must be: Yes!
All of the usual characters get their due, and really give this a Star Trek flavor around the framework of action.
Stamets will be interesting in lieu of developing his lifetime's work. Could he be less absorbed into it and more into Culver and others? Maybe.
Burnham avoids her usual character flaw by talking Rayner down. She is really is Kirk on a sandspeeder here. She makes good decisions but still likes that adrenaline rush.
Saru is just awesome. While Discovery has mostly turned him into a philosophical personality, he still can command and in later in episode 2 he shows he can still use his abilities for the physical.
Please tell me Kovich turns out to be a Supervisor from TOS/Picard. Or something. His character deserves more than exposition and he's so enigmatic.
Rayner is a crusty old captain from the Burn era. He's had a hard life. Luckily he's just stubborn but not an asshole like Shaw. Major pluses there.
The new antagonist characters are all interesting and I look forward to seeing more from them. They're not evil but do have an agenda.
The Production is a head above the other Trek shows, it is really astounding to watch it in comparison to The Chase which has a lot of other things going for it but budget isn't one of them. A good portion of recent Picard was filmed on two tiny, noticeably cramped ship sets. Red Directive felt like it was stretching its arms and didn't think small.
Lingering questions:
What the Hell is a Pathway Drive? Slipstream on steroids? My guess is it's more practical than Spore Drive though the performance is lesser than.
Which 4 planets are we going to? Trill is one.
What is the tech that gives life? I guess its more elaborate than we were led to believe?
Will there be a wedding episode?
Is the season 5 premiere better than the SNW season 2 and Picard season 3 premiere? YES! I know that one.
My grade 9 1/2 out of 10. Trek BBS grade 10 out of 10.
Now don't think I missed the Indiana Jones score Jeff Russo. Special mention. Indy is still riding on that sandspeeder.
Since they couldn't solve the biological navigator part, yes.
"Fred Directive" -- A long-term Romulan plan to flush out and destroy the last Synth.
Is "Fred" a nod to Fred Freiberger, I wonder?
Great question!!!
Maybe it's a giant transporter system that breaks down ships into digital signals and sends them through artificial wormholes.
Is "Fred" a nod to Fred Freiberger, I wonder?
Great question!!!
Maybe it's a giant transporter system that breaks down ships into digital signals and sends them through artificial wormholes.
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I didn't say TOS tried to avoid it, now did I?
I found the near-constant focus on Captain Kirk in TOS a bit more forgivable for several reasons, though.
- Due to the different dramatic styles of the time, the danger Kirk put himself in on away missions didn't seem as dire.
- There was seldom, if ever, a sense that the Enterprise was in danger when Kirk wasn't on the ship.
- They were still making shit up as they went along - Spock wasn't even authoritatively the XO until the second season, I think?
- Immersion is all relative when dealing with 1960's era special effects.
I also think it kind of sticks in my craw because a lot of Michael's arc from Season 3 (and 4) was realizing that she couldn't be that free-spirited adventurer; that leadership required her to take on a different role. Yet in the end, she's still taking on the same role, more or less. She orders "the ship" to do things, but addresses the other main characters without the distance of command.
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"Hey let's put together a landing party consisting of the CO, the XO, CEO and the CMO".
Makes sense to me.
Indeed. Kirk is constantly in the thick of it, saving the president snd dealing with a power problem. He is always on the forefront of the action."Hey let's put together a landing party consisting of the CO, the XO, CEO and the CMO".
I just find it pretty ironic that a show that started with a complete, radical redesign of the famous Klingons - striping away the entire visual identity beyond all recognition - now in its final season is the same show that brought back the most fabulous, funky 80s Romulan shoulder pad uniform 
See, if I didn't like anything about Discovery in season 3, I wouldn't have watched season 4, let alone a season 5. If I couldn't get through the opening scenes once I sure as hell wouldn't have bothered two more times. That's two more times I could be watching something I actually enjoy.
TOS treats Kirk like the leader of a NASA astronaut mission, or an Explorer like Thomas Cook - the commander, but also the most experienced person in the field, himself an expert who leads the team to do the stuff on site.I didn't say TOS tried to avoid it, now did I?
I found the near-constant focus on Captain Kirk in TOS a bit more forgivable for several reasons, though.
Regardless, the Great Bird himself realized it wasn't plausible how much Kirk went off galivanting, which is why his original conception for TNG was that Picard would stay on the ship, and Riker would become the "man of action." That was modified over time as they realized how popular Patrick Stewart was, but still, he had a Captain's office - I don't think I can remember a single scene where Michael has addressed crew from her office (Lorca had an office, so I presume it's still there, somewhere).
- Due to the different dramatic styles of the time, the danger Kirk put himself in on away missions didn't seem as dire.
- There was seldom, if ever, a sense that the Enterprise was in danger when Kirk wasn't on the ship.
- They were still making shit up as they went along - Spock wasn't even authoritatively the XO until the second season, I think?
- Immersion is all relative when dealing with 1960's era special effects.
I also think it kind of sticks in my craw because a lot of Michael's arc from Season 3 (and 4) was realizing that she couldn't be that free-spirited adventurer; that leadership required her to take on a different role. Yet in the end, she's still taking on the same role, more or less. She orders "the ship" to do things, but addresses the other main characters without the distance of command.
TNG treats Picard like the Captain of a modern day aircraft carrier, or the dean of a university. Not a man of action, but a strategic leader, choosing whom to send on which mission.
Both depictions make a lot of sense in their own right. But one of them is definitely more exciting for prime time entertainment.
Janeway and Picard usually only left the ship in diplomatic capacity, or (Janeway more often) when the situation was supposed to be "safe" (and only later turned dangerous).
Kirk quite often put himself in all type of unknown and potentially risky situations. But he never intentionally went to fight bare-chested for his life - that just happened as a result of an unpredictable situation.
(Pike so far also falls here mostly)
Archer & Sisko (& nuKirk & Burnham) however are some absolute dumbasses who leave their command duties and ships in danger to beam down into the mud to shoot some mooks with a phaser rifle.
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I feel like Sisko played desk jockey more than any other captain, but that might only have been because whenever there was an episode focused on another cast member (like say a Ferengi episode) he kinda just popped in to glower at someone over his desk for three minutes.
Archer makes perfect sense given he commanded some of Earth's very first true deep space missions and had a crew of only 83 people for much of his time on the NX-01 and even after the MACOs joined the ship during the Xindi Crisis was working with barely 100 people.
You don't hire Bakula and Mulgrew to have them sit on their hands. They learned that lesson with Stewart.
Especially when Bakula was THE center of the action in almost every episode of Quantum Leap over five seasons.
Hey now...I'm having a hard time thinking of when Sisko went off half-cocked like that. His spending a lot of time at his desk was actually a plot point several times.
I gave it a 2. 1 for the nods to the TNG epoliside The Chase and 1 for showing us TNG era romulan uniforms. Funny how they never honor TOS with proper uniform call backs.
Lower Decks does
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