Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x03 - "Point of Light"

sure?

 

I find this assessment quite flawed, although I guess that's understandable if you skipped watching ENT.

Under Berman and Braga, ENT did much the same as you ascribe to DSC, and was accordingly mercilessly flayed for it by nitpicky fans with unreasonable expectations—and I have to admit to being initially among them, but I was only sixteen when it started, so allow me to plead the stupidity of youth in my defense—exactly as ST'09 was, and as DSC is being now:

"Some people have complained it looks more futuristic than Voyager does. It looks more futuristic than Kirk's ship...well, that is absolutely true. You could view that as a continuity error, or a continuity defiance. But the only way to have addressed that would have been to make a ship that looked like something out of 1950s science fiction, and I just don't think 99 percent of the audience would have bought it. So you need to take some license and say, 'We're going to make it look like a ship that would be a hundred years more advanced than something today, 2002,' rather than say, 'We're going to make it look like something that's a hundred years before a show that was done in the 1960s.' That's definitely a creative license that we took. But I think those kind of things are necessary."

-Brannon Braga, Star Trek Communicator #139, pg. 51, November 2001​

They did seek to give us introductions to several of the most important and familiar pieces of Trek tech, such as the (not so) universal translator, transporter, and phase pistols/cannons (precursors to phasers) in "Broken Bow" (ENT) and "Silent Enemy" (ENT), and the force field in "Vox Sola" (ENT). And they foreshadowed the origins of the Prime Directive in "Dear Doctor" (ENT), etc.

Yet, while there were plenty of nods to TOS in many aspects of the designs, Berman was open about the fact that they also sought to "marry a little bit of contemporary technology with what we know is going to be coming and take some poetic license" and also to incorporate cues from the film era and beyond. (For instance, the phase pistols evoke the assault phasers from STV-VI much more than they do the TOS iteration—whereas the DSC version looks right at home in between the pilot and series versions—and as Doug Drexler said of the NX-01: "Rick and Brannon wished to borrow from the original Enterprise, the motion picture Enterprise, and some elements from other ships in the movie series.")

They updated the Andorian and Tellarite makeup to about the same degree that DSC has, similarly thwarted expectations and preconceptions of Vulcan culture, showed cloaking devices, had Archer and others lose some of their starry-eyed optimism to become edgier and more militant after the Xindi attacked Earth in a season-long serialized 9/11 allegory, and so on.

It wasn't until Manny Coto took over the bulk of showrunning duties for S4 that the series began to indulge itself in overtly fanwanky stuff like the Klingon story (which I personally agree was a nadir) and recreating TOS uniforms and sets (with some subtle refinements and a few additions peppered in) for the mirror episodes (which were a ton of fun, but pure schlock). And even then, outside of those examples, the extent of the effort to "show how everything led into eventually looking like TOS" in a visual sense basically amounted to little more than changing a few paintjobs. (The transporter was given a more psychedelic scheme, doors repainted blue in a nod to "The Cage," and the NX-02 made a lighter grey than the NX-01, with Bussards that spun more regularly, reminiscent of the way the TOS Enterprise's did. That's about it.)

Whether one finds it a favorable or unfavorable comparison, I see a lot more in common between the overall approaches of ENT (at least for its first three seasons) and DSC (at least up to now), and among the ensuing reactions in fandom, than I do stark contrasts. As ever, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

-MMoM

 

Ironically, while I find immense pleasure watching DSC, I found ENT nigh unwatchable. But that is primarily due to the how it utilized the worst elements of how Voyager was written and combined that with such a regressive rendition of the franchise that it makes the original look progressive in comparison when watched side by side, complete with a country tune its theme song and Archer+Tucker as 'good ole boys' in space. You want a Star Trek for the red state crowd, that's how you do it.

 

And now you see why despite not liking ENT, I put as much distance between myself and ENT Bashers as possible. Besides their behavior. A lot of people were initially thrown off by the way ENT looked, and so was I. Some people got over it, other people didn't. I got over it, but the series still wasn't my cup of tea. B&B just aren't my style. The writing, the way it was put together, it all felt stale to me by then.

This also being two years after Ron Moore quit VOY, it was still in the back of my mind that Ron Moore should be involved. BSG was the answer to everything I was sick of about Star Trek at the time. And that's why I'm glad Discovery feels more like Battlestar Galactica.

You'd be surprised at what I'm willing to go along with if I like a series. And a lot of people probably were surprised, when it comes to how much I like DSC. Others probably thought, "Ha! I knew it! Deep down Garth really was one of us all along!"

This was what I was trying NOT to say, but this too. I'm from Massachusetts, and definitively a Yankee. I can't figure out for the life of me why T'Pol would've wanted to stay on the NX-01. Archer and Trip would drive me nuts.

 

No, the Borg were going to be in The Neutral Zone episode. They had nothing to do with Conspiracy...

 

As I posted upthread, they (the "Conspiracy" parasites) were originally supposed to have something to do with the Borg:

At the time the episode was written, this was apparently intended to lead to the introduction of the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation's second season. The Borg connection was dropped before "Q Who?" (TNG) was written, and the truth about the parasites remains a mystery.

-Michael and Denise Okuda, Star Trek Chronology (revised 1996), pg. 290​

-MMoM

 

*cough*FREEDOM CLASS*cough*

 

I never get why people hold onto that line about women starship commanders like a pit bull. Janice Lester was insane. Easy peasy.

 

Who the Hell was FRANK LIN that they named a starship after him?


Hummmnn.... Even from the front it look like that...




Just to note, the actual spacing on the hull of the ship doesn't have that big a gap between the K and the L.

 

Especially in light of Number One being a first officer on a deep space mission. One that could require her to take command for weeks or months if something were to happen to the ship's captain.

 

The prop department did that on purpose without Justin's knowledge IIRC.

Fun fact, Justin Lin kept the original prop.

 

Director Justin Lin's dad.

Seriously.

 

Ahhhhhhh...
A bit of nepotism sneaking in.

(not like THAT has ever been done before ... KELVIN)
<snicker>

 

i always assumed those two were named after him and him - i did know, though that a certain planet was not named after him

 

The first episode of Season Two I actually managed to enjoy. For a brief time, "Discovery" got its Season One edge back. However, I wonder how long I will have to wait to witness that edge again.

 

The Kelvin was also named after Abrams Grandfather, and the Registry number is his Birthday.

The Franklin's registry is Leonard Nimoy's birthday.

 

Especially now that we've seen not only Georgiou as a Captain on DSC (set over a decade before the events in "Turnabout Intruder(TOS)") but also Captain Erika Hernandez commanding one of the two most advanced spacecraft yet built by Earth in ENT (more than a century before that).

Janice Lester was clinically insane and dangerous. Her words are about as reliable a reflection of Starfleet command policy as they are a recommendation for good Mexican food.

 

I don't know. But that's more reason why I look forward to the Section 31 Series. There's zero chance they'll try to make it a more traditional Trek series.

 

Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

Seems to me that Lester was referring to the inability of captains to hold a permanent relationship. Her context in that rant wasn’t tha she wanted to be a captain, but that she wanted to be with Kirk.

I don’t see anything to argue against a hypothesis that being a captain and having a relationship are compatible. Sisko managed a relationship for a couple of years, but that was on a station by a starship, involved sending his partner to jail, and he acted impartially on more than one occasion (with the marquis and the Klingons at least)

Who knows what happened to Riker and Troi after riker became captain, and I cant think of any other starship captains in a long term relationship in any era.


Here are the lines.

JANICE: The year we were together at Starfleet is the only time in my life I was alive.
KIRK: I never stopped you from going on with your space work.
JANICE: Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women. It isn't fair.
KIRK: No, it isn't. And you punished and tortured me because of it.
JANICE: I loved you. We could've roamed among the stars.
KIRK: We'd have killed each other.
JANICE: It might have been better.