I don't like this news about SNW season 3 from Screen Rant

[Mudd]

Star Trek has never qualified as "hard sf;" few of the classics do for some pretty basic reasons.

Trek is exactly as fantastic as Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, and Harry Potter.

All of these establish their narrative plausibility via familiar sets of tropes. Trek frames its inventions with sci-tech terminology, which separates it some from the other examples.

 

[JLA]

The Trouble With Tribbles is one of the silliest episodes of Trek, yet is pretty much loved by all. The cascade of tribbles falling on Kirk. The snarky back and forth. The pompous bureaucrats. The comical trader. Barfight set to humorous music. The bad pun at the end.

I don't like Trouble With Tribbles. I even tried watching it again recently sure I'd probably change my mind. I didn't.

 

[BillJ]

I don't like Trouble With Tribbles. I even tried watching it again recently sure I'd probably change my mind. I didn't.

I watched it last night, for probably the 50th time in my life. Still had a great time.

No one’s right, no one’s wrong. It just comes down to individual taste.

 

[JLA]

I watched it last night, for probably the 50th time in my life. Still had a great time.

No one’s right, no one’s wrong. It just comes down to individual taste.

Of course.

 

[Greg Cox]

Something influencing behaviour, inhibiting REM sleep, causing hallucinations, that's all pretty easy to believe. You don't even need a space anomaly to mess with a person's mind, you can do that on Earth.

Making someone sing their innermost thoughts, that's trickier, but if Charlie Evans can make Spock recite poetry it's not impossible. Making them come up with proper lyrics on the fly that other people join in with, that's definitely a step above. Especially with actual choreography. But also not impossible for those folks from Plato's Stepchildren, if they'd written it out in advance and did a bit of rehearsal with their friends to figure out how it would work. And of course anyone can compose and play music, that's well within our technology even today.

Right, so what we need is powerful telekinetic psychics with a bit of prep time and a music system. Did the episode have that? No. Did it at least have an intelligent nebula with an interest in kids fantasy story books? No. Talosians? No.

I don't buy it.

I think that you're falling into the trap of thinking that bad science equals bad episode, as though dubious technobabble is somehow a mortal sin that automatically invalidates an episode, regardless of how engaging, entertaining, dramatic, or compelling it might otherwise be.

In a franchise where, as noted, technobabble has often been used to justify some pretty farfetched plots.

You couldn't suspend disbelief where this particular plot device is concerned. Fair enough. But, as Corporal Captain sagely noted, trying to split hairs between this ep and any number of other episodes that also push the limits of strictly scientific plausiblity strikes me as a lost cause. It's a distinction without a difference.

And, beyond that, getting back to my main point, implausible technobabble is hardly a hanging offense in my book. It's not the sole criteria that determines an episode's artistic value.

Heck, THE WRATH OF KHAN is full of plot holes, coincidences, and iffy science, but it's still the best TREK movie ever because it works on a dramatic level.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

For some reason the following quote from Spock comes to mind: If I were human, I believe my response would be... "go to hell." If I were human

I didn't dislike Angel for being non-binary, I disliked Angel for being a smartass pirate. I don't like characters like that. Yeah, they do have their place, but I just didn't like the attitude. The sex of the character is irrelevant to me.

And while I can't say I'd shed a tear if Angel never appeared again, I admit I'd kinda like to see the real Dr. Aspen. Probably would regale the crew with tales of getting in some good skiing while awaiting rescue.

As for the musical, God knows I didn't like that either, but at least they had the balls to give a reason (technobabble though it may be) for having one.

Still wish they'd have had the Klingons do opera instead of K-Pop.

 

[David cgc]

The idea of an alternate dimension that operates on musical theater rules honestly seems more plausible to me than that the same people keep pairing off and having children in the murder-and-treachery universe as they do in the normal one, even when things are deliberately pushed further out of sync.

Still wish they'd have had the Klingons do opera instead of K-Pop.

I like the twist for making me think the episode had screwed up. The Klingons would love living in the Opera Universe, so I was put off by them acting horrified by what was happening... and then we find out exactly what they're being forced to sing. If you were going to have the Klingons singing opera, you probably could rewrite the episode fairly easily with just a couple pick-up shots or alternate lines of dialog (they're coming to the anomaly to blast it open and spread its glory throughout the universe, they're annoyed when Pike shuts it down so Spock has to beam over and get hammered with them to smooth things over), but the way it is is probably better.

There are a couple things I missed, though. I like sea shanties, so I was disappointed there wasn't one after La'an teased it (I guess there's always The Expanse), and while the acapella version of the opening theme was... fine... they blew what was probably the best chance the franchise will ever have to actually use "Beyond the Rim of Starlight" in an episode and justify the existence of Roddenberry's lyrics. Maybe if there's a "Subspace Rhapsody II: The Reprise of La'an."

 

[Firebird]

Something influencing behaviour, inhibiting REM sleep, causing hallucinations, that's all pretty easy to believe. You don't even need a space anomaly to mess with a person's mind, you can do that on Earth.

Making someone sing their innermost thoughts, that's trickier, but if Charlie Evans can make Spock recite poetry it's not impossible. Making them come up with proper lyrics on the fly that other people join in with, that's definitely a step above. Especially with actual choreography. But also not impossible for those folks from Plato's Stepchildren, if they'd written it out in advance and did a bit of rehearsal with their friends to figure out how it would work. And of course anyone can compose and play music, that's well within our technology even today.

Right, so what we need is powerful telekinetic psychics with a bit of prep time and a music system. Did the episode have that? No. Did it at least have an intelligent nebula with an interest in kids fantasy story books? No. Talosians? No.

I don't buy it.

You're twisting yourself in twenty different directions to avoid admitting that the episode clearly wasn't for you. That doesn't automatically translate to something being bad - you just weren't the audience for it.

 

[BillJ]

I think that you're falling into the trap of thinking that bad science equals bad episode, as though dubious technobabble is somehow a mortal sin that automatically invalidates an episode, regardless of how engaging, entertaining, dramatic, or compelling it might otherwise be.

Would there be any "good" episodes out there, if we based everything on the science?

 

[Greg Cox]

Would there be any "good" episodes out there, if we based everything on the science?

Honestly, the idea that a red-blooded, iron-based human can produce viable offspring with a green-blooded, copper-based lifeform defies reason, but would any of us sacrifice Spock because of that?

And note that TOS never offered any sort of technobabble explanation for how Spock was conceived.

(And, yes, I know that there's a common assumption that extraordinary biomedical measures were involved, but this is strictly fanon. It was never stated onscreen in TOS.)

 

[Mudd]

Someone pointed out years ago that, biologically speaking, the notion that a human being and a very human-appearing alien could conceive children together is astronomically less likely than that a human being could successfully mate with a sea sponge.

 

[drt]

Honestly, the idea that a red-blooded, iron-based human can produce viable offspring with a green-blooded, copper-based lifeform defies reason, but would any of us sacrifice Spock because of that?

And note that TOS never offered any sort of technobabble explanation for how Spock was conceived.

(And, yes, I know that there's a common assumption that extraordinary biomedical measures were involved, but this is strictly fanon. It was never stated onscreen in TOS.)

I remember one of the Pocket novels described a fairly major genetic engineering project to conceive Spock, but that was sort of swept under the rug when the genetic engineering ban was canonized later.

 

[Greg Cox]

I remember one of the Pocket novels described a fairly major genetic engineering project to conceive Spock, but that was sort of swept under the rug when the genetic engineering ban was canonized later.

And note that the vast majority of movie and TV viewers are unaware of that novel, and yet have had no trouble embracing Spock in a big way -- for nearly sixty years now.

As far as I know, nobody has ever denounced TOS as a "bad" show because two species with completely different blood chemistries managed to crossbreed anyway.

 

[Yistaan]

Honestly, the idea that a red-blooded, iron-based human can produce viable offspring with a green-blooded, copper-based lifeform defies reason, but would any of us sacrifice Spock because of that?

And note that TOS never offered any sort of technobabble explanation for how Spock was conceived.

(And, yes, I know that there's a common assumption that extraordinary biomedical measures were involved, but this is strictly fanon. It was never stated onscreen in TOS.)

Not only is it fanon, it's basically contradicted when Sela is conceived by her mother getting r---- by a Romulan. Unless the Romulan actually did force Tasha into some biogenetic hybrid engineering project for some reason...

 

[The Wormhole]

it's basically contradicted when Sela is conceived by her mother getting r---- by a Romulan.

Before then even. Simon Tarses in TNG The Drumhead had a Romulan grandfather who impregnated his grandmother non-consensually.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I just wondered in here out of bordem. It's a good thing I didn't see this threat sooner.

Holy shit.

 

[fireproof78]

I just wondered in here out of bordem. It's a good thing I didn't see this threat sooner.

Holy shit.

Threat management achieved?

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Star Trek has never qualified as "hard sf;" few of the classics do for some pretty basic reasons.

Trek is exactly as fantastic as Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, and Harry Potter.

All of these establish their narrative plausibility via familiar sets of tropes. Trek frames its inventions with sci-tech terminology, which separates it some from the other examples.

It's always been weird to me how a significant a number of fans treat trek as if it is hard SciFi, all the while being fine with the ships making sound in space and being flown two dimensionally like aeroplanes.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It's always been weird to me how a significant a number of fans treat trek as if it is hard SciFi, all the while being fine with the ships making sound in space and being flown two dimensionally like aeroplanes.

They've no idea what hard SF is.

 

[Victoria]

The science is there as

"Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.” Pooh-Bah: The Mikado: WS Gilbert.

It adds richness to a STORY. If the story, the writing and the acting aren't good, no amount of Real World science is going to save it. Equally, a good story can be enjoyable even if Real World facts contradict it - because it's a STORY.

If you want facts: read non-fiction.