Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread

Yeah, I said it much earlier in this thread, previous jaunts to "the past" may have been meant to be nostalgic trips back, but Discovery was living in that time period, and the modern perception of "what the future looks like" does not match the sixties portrayal. Of course there would be visible differences, and yes, of course that was going to include the Enterprise bridge. They kept enough for it to be recognizable without sacrificing the look of Discovery, which was built with our present, late 2010s ideas of what the future will look like.

Also, as pointed out by Christopher, in every prior return to the 23rd century designs shown by TOS proper, they also had to match footage. The only exception to that was the appearance of the Defiant in "In A Mirror Darkly," which was, again, a nostalgia trip by its very nature.

 

Not just match stock footage, but reuse existing resources. As I understand it, every time they did an episode looking back on TOS, they built more extensive set replicas, and they kept what they had, so they were able to add even more the next time. So in "Relics" they borrowed the chairs and helm console from a fan reconstruction and built just the turbolift alcove and one wall console. Then in "Tribble-ations" they built the whole bridge, some corridors, etc. And so in "Mirror" they were able to add to those and extend the sets even further. It was that additive process that let them afford to rebuild more of the sets each time, and thus they had to keep the look consistent.

Ultimately, though, what it comes down to is that production design is an artistic creation, and different artists take different approaches to the same material. A different artistic approach isn't "wrong," just different. One painter might depict a model in a realistic style that looks just like them, while a different painter might render the same model more impressionistically. It's the same underlying entity, but interpreted through different styles.

 

In Mirror they borrowed the tactical scope from the 'New Voyages/Phase 2' fan series.

 

Well... someone's ideas of what the future will look like. I wouldn't be so casual with the word "our" there.

 

Obviously individual production designers and concept artists will have their own takes on things. The point, though, is that they're trying to depict the future in a way that would be credible to a modern audience, and modern audiences would not expect the future to look like the sets in a 1960s TV show, but rather something that would have more advanced displays, touchscreens, holograms, etc.

 

I'm actually not that worried about needing an explanation why the TOS Enterprise bridge looks different from the Disccovery version. There's 50 years real world years in between them, and design aesthetics and the capabilities of set design and construction have changed a lot in that time. Now, if the bridge of one of the other show's ships had changed that much between seasons or episodes, then I'd want an explanation.

 

^Like the instant recarpeting the TNG bridge did occasionally, or the computer bank being replaced with a hallway on Discovery?

 

The TNG bridge did change considerably between seasons 1 & 2 -- new conn and ops seats, a new bridge engineering station, gratuitous blinky lights on the side panels, etc. That's easy enough to explain as a tech upgrade.

But there are other changes that can't really be explained in-story, like when the entire Enterprise-D changed proportions and details when they introduced a new miniature, or when Worf got a completely new forehead in season 2. Or, of course, when an actor is recast. Some changes aren't meant to be explained in-universe. Some changes are part of the actual narrative and recognized by the characters; others are external to the narrative and recognized only by the audience. The former are a function of what story is being told; the latter are a function of how the story is being told. Sometimes you can rationalize the latter as if it were the former, but it isn't necessary or desirable to do so in every case.

 

I was thinking of more dramatic changes, like going from the Galaxy class bridge to the Intrepid or Sovereign class bridges, but still having them on same ship.

 

There have been a number of shows that completely redid or replaced key sets between seasons, though there's generally an in-story explanation for it (though not always, e.g. all the different versions of the TARDIS console room in classic Doctor Who).

 

Finally caught up with Season Two of Discovery. I'm actually pleasantly surprised at how well DIS S2 gels with the novelverse. Section 31: Control already established both that Section 31 has been established and abolished several times in Federation history, and that Control/Uraei has the A.I. equivalent of multiple personality syndrome. I can easily see the Control personality seen in DIS S2 as being a rogue personality that Uraei was eventually able to purge from its systems before getting Starfleet to formally abolish Section 31. (And then of course reviving it in the 24th Century at some later point.)

 

A notable example of this off the top of my head is the MASSIVE redesign of the set of the Command Post in the short lived kids show Space Cases (created by Peter David) between the two seasons - the first season finale had trashed the set to serve as the devastated version of the ship's sister vessel, and though subsequent design alterations were at least justified in the second season's premiere itself, there's a pretty jarring shift to the design of the set all the characters are standing in in between what are, in universe, supposed to only be a few minutes tops of the first season ending and the second season beginning.

They also changed the engine room from what looked like the interior of a heart to something more like what's under a car hood, though that could be passed off as using a different room and the two engine areas coexisting. The point being, tweaks, redesigns, and even dramatic set changes happen, and you can't always justify it in universe, especially during breaks in production, but even just generally - even Best of Both Worlds had some lighting, hair, and makeup differences between the end of part one and the start of part two.

Production. You can learn to roll with it or get so hung up on the little details and miss what's going on. I choose the former.

 

The Defiant had a completely different bridge in The Search than it did in all other episodes.

 

I don't think it did?

 

I just checked The Search Part 1, Meridian, and What We Leave Behind, and it did change some, but I don't think it was that drastic.

 

Was the whole idea of "bridge modules" ever canonized?

 

Yeah, the most drastic change I recall is the change in design to the control panels at Sisko’s chair. Not that that was the only one, just the most obvious one that I caught.

 

Well, sure. In any narrative, there are diegetic elements and non-diegetic elements. It does bug me, though, when someone responds to a complaint about a diegetic inconsistency (i.e., something in-story) by offering a non-diegetic explanation (i.e., external to the story) — e.g., you can't really explain "why do the Klingons look different" with "the makeup budget increased."

Long story short, if I'm talking about the narrative I want explanations that make sense in that context, and if I'm talking about the production I want explanations that make sense in that context, and as a general rule the two are not interchangeable. (And this applies to pretty much any kind of fiction, not just Trek.)

Beyond that, it's just interesting what different people notice. For instance, I can see the difference between Ent-D models if I look at pics side-by-side, but I swear I never noticed it at all when I was originally watching the show.

 

Except the change in the Klingons' appearance is not diegetic except in "Trials and Tribble-ations" and "Affliction"/"Divergence." Every other time it's happened, it hasn't been mentioned or had any effect on the story. When Kor, Kang, and Koloth showed up in "Blood Oath" with ridged foreheads, nobody in the story remarked on it; it was treated as the way they'd always looked. That's a textbook example of a change that isn't part of the narrative.

After all, many Trek aliens have changed their appearance under different makeup designers -- not just Klingons, but Andorians, Tellarites, Romulans, Gorn, and others. Sometimes they've changed under the same makeup designer, like when Michael Westmore added sharper cheekbones to the Ferengi or stripes to the Bolians, or when the Borg design got a major upgrade for First Contact, or when the Trill and Ktarian makeups were massively simplified. The three aforementioned Klingon episodes are the only times in Star Trek history that a change in alien makeup design has been mentioned within the narrative. Every other time, it's been non-diegetic. That's the rule, not the exception.

 

Course, a lot of the others (not all, e.g. Trills) are close enough to be chalked up to racial variants and the like. ILR humans have a lot of variation within the template. (Imagine aliens seeing footage of us and insisting that the "makeup changed" because of Asian and European people have different shaped eyes.)

The Borg are tech-based, so I don't see how the redesign breaks things, like it would the reiventions of the Klingons or Trill.