Spoilers Affliction/Divergence ignored by Discovery: Thoughts?

[Timo]

Funnily, this two-parter is the only instance of the virus ever actually being mentioned or alluded to in any fashion, aside from the gag in "Trials and Tribble-ations".

And this sort of necessarily follows. After all, the point in the gag is that Julian Bashir, the medical genius with a very personal degree in Genetic Augmentation, is out like a tauntaun on the issue of smooth-foreheaded Klingons. So when ENT comes up with an "explanation", it must be an explanation nobody in-universe is subsequently aware of!

It is not within the ENT mandate to show how the knowledge of the "explanation" is lost, alas. It might in theory be within the DSC mandate, to be featured in the second season or perhaps later on. Or it might happen after the TOS era, in-universe...

Every other incarnation of Trek never plays with the idea that the Klingons ever looked different because Trek had mostly trusted its audiences to suspend their disbelief over the makeup change. The fact that the very first episode of Enterprise opened with a ridge headed Klingon basically said to me "Klingons always looked like this", and that what we saw of them in TOS was simply exclusive to that show.

Then again, Klingons always looked different in TOS already - Kor and Kang could be from different species in terms of how TOS makeup works. So it's not so much an issue of suspension of disbelief as it is one of accepting change as a constant. And specifically as regards Klingons and Tellarites, while the Vulcan, Andorian and Orion makeups did remain constant.

Certain early novels and comics took this studio feature and ran with it, turning it into an in-universe feature (multiple races of Klingons, Klingons experimenting with fusing of species to nefarious purposes, the different Tellarites being different halfbreeds). Amusingly, the studio then basically followed the lead, confirming time and again that Klingons look different from Klingons, and ultimately introducing a "reason" as well.

Personally I feel ENT for its part could also have tackled the Tellarite issue, with a different story. Their makeup is perhaps superior in quality to all of the TOS experiments, but not quite as interesting in all the details. And the Pigs in Spaaaaace! do deserve our attention - they are adorable in DSC, now with really nice tusks.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Discofan]

Worf's look has changed dramatically between the beginning of TNG and the end of DS9.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Worf's look has changed dramatically between the beginning of TNG and the end of DS9.

His hair got longer, for all the jokes about having a chief of security with a pony-tail.

But thank fuck they didn't make him lose every follicle on his head altogether. Like a Klingon on chemo.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Impossible. Discovery shows a lengthy Federation-Klingon war in 2256-7, whereas Kelvin's Admiral Marcus says in 2259 that the Klingons have only fired on Starfleet ships a half dozen times since they were first encountered. Marcus fears a war is coming, but it obviously hasn't happened yet.

And Discovery makes a big thing out of there being no contact with the Klingons for a century, which doesn't fit with there being a battle at Donatu V according to "The Trouble with Tribbles" 23 years before 2267.

Besides, the Kelvin Enterprise was under construction in Riverside in 2255 and launched in '58. How would they know they'd need a new one years before the old one was "lost?"

There's actually nothing onscreen in the film to suggest that's the Enterprise Kirk is looking at is there? The teaser trailer doesn't count. Fleetyards like that could be an assembly line. The ship might not receive a name on the hull, until it needs one.

Plus, the producers have only told us a million times that, yes, this is a Prime show and it fits with Prime continuity even when it doesn't seem to.

I wish I could believe them... but deciding to bring the U.S.S. Enterprise in now, is either only going to be let down, or infuriate the situation. The way I see it, if the direction of the show suddenly made sense for it not to be Prime, then that's what would happen. And having seen the first season now, it wouldn't bother me if they changed their minds...

Many of the Starfleet ship designs in the show look like intermediate steps between the NX class and the Miranda or Constellation class.

Perhaps I should've specified that is the sets and starship designs which I see as disconnected to TOS. They could conceivably be intermediate steps following the NX class, but for me not 10 years prior to TOS. The decision not to have the familiar cylindrical nacelles on Starfleet vessels established as going right back to the 2150's, and even before to Cochrane's Phoenix, drives me utterly crazy. Yeah, I know it shouldn't... because the Enterprise refit in TMP loses them, and those rectangular designs had to come from somewhere... but still.

Are you kidding? Discovery's referenced a number of things from Enterprise. Their Mirror Universe storyline was heavily dependent on the events of "In a Mirror, Darkly," and of course the name "Terran Empire" debuted in IaMD. The idea that the Empire was human-dominated and intolerant of aliens is based on the IaMD version as well. The backstory of "the Vulcan hello," with Vulcan making first contact with Klingons 250 years in the past and taking an uncharacteristically aggressive approach, reflects what ENT established about the Vulcan High Command in the pre-UFP era and the fact that Vulcans were already familiar with Klingons at the time of "Broken Bow."

Those examples are commendable. If only they had applied the same level of importance to the Augment virus and shown a bit more variety to Klingon appearance. They could've had their cake and eaten it... as in, here are our Klingons for Discovery - who are part of a certain house and who'll be causing all the trouble - and here are a few ENT/TNG/DS9 style whenever others on the High Council are shown, plus some weak forehead guys lurking in the shadows. Instead of a wholesale accept ours as the only kind deal.

I'm not crazy about that choice either, but I recognize that it's just artistic license. It's a more radical design change than we've had since TMP, but it's the creators' prerogative to make that change. Yes, the previous producers tried to keep the look more consistent, but they're not making this show! The people creating a work are the ones who get to decide how they approach it. And their aesthetic philosophy is to update things. I'm not happy with a lot of the results, but I respect that it's their right to make their own creative choices, and to make them differently than other people would. That's what having your own show means.

Then I wish somebody else was working on the design drawing boards, and the guys approving what they come up with were different obviously. Somebody who recognises when the look of all things Klingon, or the shape of the nacelles on the ships, is way too much of a departure. A ban on anything that's the inspiration behind those creative decisions, and nothing but a diet of TOS reruns, their movies and ENT as it prefigures the show. Do that. Not plywood fan-film recreations of, but clearly inspired by ENT/TOS graphic design and use modern materials to produce the end product, and you end up with the same reverence to the source material and a continuation of the same universe, that Star Wars achieved.

 

[Christopher]

His hair got longer, for all the jokes about having a chief of security with a pony-tail.

But thank fuck they didn't make him lose every follicle on his head altogether. Like a Klingon on chemo.

You're forgetting that Worf got an entirely new forehead design between seasons 1 & 2. That's a hell of a lot more drastic than growing out his hair. Also, Michael Westmore continuously refined Worf's facial makeup over the run of the series, adding more complex coloration and shading to Michael Dorn's face. He did the same with all his regular characters and species, refining the designs gradually over the years, either to simplify the process of applying them (e.g. removing the U-shaped top piece from Bajoran nose ridges) or to refine the details of the appearance. Prosthetic makeup is artwork, and artists always try to refine and improve their work, not just slavishly do the exact same thing for 7 years or more.

And Discovery makes a big thing out of there being no contact with the Klingons for a century, which doesn't fit with there being a battle at Donatu V according to "The Trouble with Tribbles" 23 years before 2267.

Discovery mentioned Donatu V in its second episode (in T'Kuvma's speech to rally the High Council). The pilot's line about no contact in a century was an exaggeration even within the context of the rest of the pilot, since of course Michael Burnham's whole backstory was built around a Klingon raid on a Federation colony a couple of decades earlier. It was clarified in later dialogue to mean that there had been no diplomatic contact, little or no face-to-face interaction, just periodic raids and terrorist strikes. So, no, they did not "make a big thing" out of it. They had one throwaway line about it that they quickly made a point of walking back.

I wish I could believe them...

And I think it's a really jerky thing to assume people are lying without evidence. Besides, "believe" is a silly word to use here. We're talking about a fictional construct, an imaginary thing that exists only in people's minds. Different people have different perceptions of what Trek canon is. So creators and fans won't always agree with each other's interpretations of Prime continuity. So the fact that some details of these producers' interpretation of Prime canon don't exactly match with yours does not mean they aren't trying to be consistent with Prime canon the way they understand it. It just means that this is a work of imagination and has no single, absolute "right" way of being done.

 

[Timo]

And Discovery makes a big thing out of there being no contact with the Klingons for a century, which doesn't fit with there being a battle at Donatu V according to "The Trouble with Tribbles" 23 years before 2267.

See above. An exciting Federation/Klingon adventure or three is permitted during that interval - and the show actually hints at one, with Admiral Cornwell in "The War Without/Within" stating that Archer and the crew of NX-01 walked on Qo'noS "nearly" a century prior to the show's events. That's beyond the actual scope of ENT, some time after "Terra Prime" (but before "TATV", as the specific ship would not have been involved past that date, and her crew being involved without the ship would be convoluted).

There's actually nothing onscreen in the film to suggest that's the Enterprise Kirk is looking at is there? The teaser trailer doesn't count. Fleetyards like that could be an assembly line. The ship might not receive a name on the hull, until it needs one.

When Kirk and McCoy leave for the Academy on Pike's shuttle, the camera reveals that NCC-1701 is already painted on the nacelles of the ship under construction. It may be difficult to spot due to the fade, but you don't quite need freeze-framing for it.

I wish I could believe them... but deciding to bring the U.S.S. Enterprise in now, is either only going to be let down, or infuriate the situation. The way I see it, if the direction of the show suddenly made sense for it not to be Prime, then that's what would happen. And having seen the first season now, it wouldn't bother me if they changed their minds...

"Changing minds against Prime" sounds a bit unlikely as a development in the process of making a Trek spinoff. If anything, all the spinoffs have gyrated towards more references to the old and greater continuity with the established.

Now, I could well see the heroes discovering that they are on the wrong track somehow - and, unlike the Abrams movies, then dedicating their efforts to returning to Prime, being ultimately successful. It's the exact sort of nostalgia move that the current set of writers would want to go for if cornered about continuity.

But we had the "hey, this isn't right" plot already, with the "lead character" of the show turning out to be a villain and a guest star until things were fixed...

Perhaps I should've specified that is the sets and starship designs which I see as disconnected to TOS. They could conceivably be intermediate steps following the NX class, but for me not 10 years prior to TOS.

Then again, the spinoffs (movies as well as shows) have already forced us to think that everything in Prime aesthetics can change in 10 years, inside and outside...

The decision not to have the familiar cylindrical nacelles on Starfleet vessels established as going right back to the 2150's, and even before to Cochrane's Phoenix, drives me utterly crazy. Yeah, I know it shouldn't... because the Enterprise refit in TMP loses them, and those rectangular designs had to come from somewhere... but still.

What's curious is that Eaves supposedly was specifically told to stick to the boxes... Difficult to think of any other reason but the creating of sharp contrast with the ENT/TOS shape, which then makes a return in the season finale. A deliberate attempt to establish Kirk's (Pike's) ship as representing the past in the 2250s already?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Discofan]

His hair got longer, for all the jokes about having a chief of security with a pony-tail.

But thank fuck they didn't make him lose every follicle on his head altogether. Like a Klingon on chemo.

I'd hate to think what Klingon chemo could be like, it must be something horrible that would make you wish you were dead.

 

[Ethros]

The fact that the very first episode of Enterprise opened with a ridge headed Klingon basically said to me "Klingons always looked like this", and that what we saw of them in TOS was simply exclusive to that show.

Well everytime we see a statue, picture, painting or whatever of an anceint Klingon in TNG, DS9 & VOY it was always a traditional foreheaded looking one. So just to say it's not like ENT did anything but follow their lead

 

[Discofan]

Well everytime we see a statue, picture, painting or whatever of an anceint Klingon in TNG, DS9 & VOY it was always a traditional foreheaded looking one. So just to say it's not like ENT did anything but follow their lead

We must consider TOS, TNG, DS9... etc... Not as the real thing but as stories about the real thing. Just as the stories about Sherlock Holmes are just Watson's recollections and that's why they are flawed and sometimes contradictory.

 

[Phaser Two]

When DISC runs out of steam, which could be sooner rather than later, we'll all mentally recon it as having taken place in another timeline/universe. (Barring, on both counts, some massive changes like respecting frigging canon.) So I figured I'd get a jump on that. DISC had nothing, but nothing, on S4 ENT.

 

[Discofan]

When DISC runs out of steam, which could be sooner rather than later, we'll all mentally recon it as having taken place in another timeline/universe. (Barring, on both counts, some massive changes like respecting frigging canon.) So I figured I'd get a jump on that. DISC had nothing, but nothing, on S4 ENT.

Let's compare what's comparable and wait for S4 DSC before making that assessment.

 

[Phaser Two]

Let's compare what's comparable and wait for S4 DSC before making that assessment.

Not my point. ENT is generally not as well-regarded as some other series, but its first season was miles better than DISC. S4 of ENT is outstanding and the comparison isn't even close. Also, on its current course I don't think DISC will have an S4.

 

[Christopher]

When DISC runs out of steam, which could be sooner rather than later, we'll all mentally recon it as having taken place in another timeline/universe.

That's what some fans have said about every new Trek incarnation since the original movies, and they've always, always been wrong. It's the height of folly to think this time will be any different. People always assume they're the first people ever to think of certain things, but usually they're just blindly re-enacting the same patterns as earlier generations. Which is the reason for the saying "those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

The thing is, fans fixate on minutiae of continuity and assume they're somehow binding on the creators of future fiction. But the actual creators recognize that continuity is just one more imaginary pretense along with everything else about a fictional universe, and it bends to serve them rather than the other way around. By a truly strict reading of continuity, none of the prior Trek TV or movie series are fully compatible with each other, and they frequently contradict themselves, but later creators and audiences have always glossed over the inconsistencies and pretended they fit anyway. And the fans who insisted that "this time" people would have to agree it was an alternate universe have just been forgotten.

 

[Phaser Two]

No one ever said that about DS9 or even Voyager. Why would they have done so? It was pretty clear that each was a part of the TNG era. And folly? Hardly. Discovery's first season was that disappointing. If they don't right the ship fast, the show will have a short run, and to the extent that anyone thinks about it at all, they'll dismiss it as not part of the "prime" timeline. Finally, even if it were true that "everyone said this before, this is tired, etc.," no one ever had a movie series using the Trek name out there before which series explicitly divorced itself from canon.

 

[Discofan]

Not my point. ENT is generally not as well-regarded as some other series, but its first season was miles better than DISC. S4 of ENT is outstanding and the comparison isn't even close. Also, on its current course I don't think DISC will have an S4.

It's a matter of opinion now, but it won't be in three years.

 

[Garth Rockett]

Discovery's first season was that disappointing. If they don't right the ship fast, the show will have a short run, and to the extent that anyone thinks about it at all, they'll dismiss it as not part of the "prime" timeline.

Substitute "Enterprise" for "Discovery" and you would have exactly what a lot of people were saying in 2001-2002. Or substitute "TNG" and you're right back to 1987-1988.

Finally, even if it were true that "everyone said this before, this is tired, etc.," no one ever had a movie series using the Trek name out there before which series explicitly divorced itself from canon.

Assuming you're talking about the Kelvin timeline films, I would say they explicitly tied themselves directly into canon, by having the alternate timeline created by time travel from the Prime timeline, and reinforced it by having Leonard Nimoy appear in not one but two of the films. They bent over backwards not to divorce themselves from canon.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Not my point. ENT is generally not as well-regarded as some other series, but its first season was miles better than DISC. S4 of ENT is outstanding and the comparison isn't even close. Also, on its current course I don't think DISCOVERY will have an S4.

I'm currently revisiting the first season of ENT, and frankly it's about as flawed as DISC but for a variety of different reasons. Thankfully the show got better as it went along, but you could say that for pretty much all the Trek shows aside from TOS which had the opposite outcome.

Just compare the first seasons of TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT to what came after. It's generally agreed that those are some of the weakest seasons of their respective shows. Who's to say DISC can't find it's footing either? This is why I'm not outright dismissing the show because after what we've seen in past Trek it's only fair I should also give DISC a chance to grow. TNG's first season is generally regarded as one of the worst seasons of all Trek, and yet what came after made it into one of the most beloved shows in sci-fi. That's not to assume DISC will achieve that same kind of status, it's only to illustrate that things change. There's more than enough reason to see how the show can improve.

That's what some fans have said about every new Trek incarnation since the original movies, and they've always, always been wrong. It's the height of folly to think this time will be any different. People always assume they're the first people ever to think of certain things, but usually they're just blindly re-enacting the same patterns as earlier generations. Which is the reason for the saying "those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

The thing is, fans fixate on minutiae of continuity and assume they're somehow binding on the creators of future fiction. But the actual creators recognize that continuity is just one more imaginary pretense along with everything else about a fictional universe, and it bends to serve them rather than the other way around. By a truly strict reading of continuity, none of the prior Trek TV or movie series are fully compatible with each other, and they frequently contradict themselves, but later creators and audiences have always glossed over the inconsistencies and pretended they fit anyway. And the fans who insisted that "this time" people would have to agree it was an alternate universe have just been forgotten.

It honestly amazes me how much fans forget how polarizing each new show was when they first premiered. I was way too young to see TNG's first season (had trouble learning how to use a remote at nine months old), but I vividly remember how ENTERPRISE was thoroughly beaten to the ground by fans during its first season on the internet. So many calls by fans for its cancellation. The pairing of names "Berman & Braga" was practically considered the scourge of Trek fandom. So when fans today start holding up ENTERPRISE favorably compared to DISCOVERY, I have to wonder if they never thought that this kind of thought was expressed in 1993:

"TNG is generally not as well-regarded as TOS, but its first season was miles better than DS9. S4 of TNG is outstanding and the comparison isn't even close. Also, on its current course I don't think DS9 will have an S4."

This is actually Phaser Two's post with Trek names swapped, but I wouldn't be surprised if this accurately reflected the sentiments of some fans from that time. I think after literally seeing FOUR Trek spin-offs IN A ROW improve over the years, it's hard to convince me that DISCOVERY does not have that same chance.

 

[Phaser Two]

Again, no one - literally no one - said that DS9 and Voyager were so bad that people would look back and think or prefer to think that they took place in an alternate universe.

Also, I was around in 1993. The criticism of DS9 mostly revolved around the fact that the station was, well, stationary, and that the show therefore lacked the element of exploration so necessary to Trek. Not many people thought the writing was so bad that it should never have been made. And by the Homecoming/Circle/Siege trilogy, the critics began to quiet down, which is neither the same thing as wanting to disown the show entirely (as many people want to do with DISC at this point) nor ever accepting it as your favorite version of Trek.

And on edit, even if it were true that tiresome people trotted out axiomatically shopworn critiques of TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT, and are now doing the same for DISC, there's a difference shared with DISC only by ENT. If you're going to set a series in the past of its own universe - and particularly between the eras of two previous shows - it has to honor what came before, or it's just claptrap. For the most part I think ENT did a pretty decent job with this though I understand that some disagree. DISC, set 90 years closer to TOS than ENT, has been utterly, inexplicably horrible regarding this fundamental (even existential) aspect.

So far, DISC is a massive disappointment. I hope it improves but there will need to be some tectonic shifts in writing and the overall approach to the material. It would probably help if its defenders start discussing the flaws or offering some rebuttals to the criticism, instead of dismissing all such criticism as some warmed-over, inevitable phenomenon that necessarily afflicts every new Star Trek show.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

I see, so your concern is also about visual consistency with past Trek productions. That wasn't even occurring to me when writing my post, because I generally do not care about such things. My only concern is the quality of writing and execution of that. Whether something like the Enterprise looking like what we saw in TOS or not is such a non-issue to me because all I want out of this show is for it to tell a good yarn. I can't let trivial things like production design get in the way.

 

[tomswift2002]

I remember when Enterprise’s Borg episode came out, and people were, and even now still pick about it being out of continuity with future Treks (especially because the Borg “We are the Borg” was cut by the producers to try to cram it in to say that they never heard the Borg name was ridiculous. Really the Borg were starting their spiel before Enterprise had picked up the phone or even sent it to voicemail—-if it had been sent to voicemail I could understand, as I tend to get those computerized messages that start playing as soon as your recorded message starts and the message only gets partially recorded.)