Poll Do you consider Discovery to truly be in the Prime Timeline at this point?

[fireproof78]

As soon as you've seen the Ceti Eel drill into Chekov's Ear, you've gone through The Official Rite of Passage.

That's terrible...but better that poke with a pain stick.

 

[Lord Garth]

"Today, I am a Warrior. I must show you my heart. I travel the river of blood!"

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[jaime]

The entire first season is an examination of identity diffusion and foreclosure set against (or perhaps in response to) the classic nature v. nurture dilemma. And if you want to get really meta about it, one could argue that, if the Kelvin films are anything they are strictly a classic nature v. nurture dilemma. But there are also elements of body integrity identity disorder. Both of which are struggles Fuller - and other prominent members of the staff - probably battled in their lives.

In terms of allegory The Bible (or rather Dante and Milton's interpretations of the Bible) factor much more prominently than Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But I think the story is meant to reflect religion as a whole, as Micheal plays a prominent role across all three "major" religions. It should also be noted that all three have always depicted Micheal as a white male, but Fuller specifically cast a black female, which directly relates to the themes listed above.

I think a good simple example from Paradise Lost's Wiki page is

Insert Stamets and Tilly for Adam and Eve as needed.

There are similar examples relating to Micheal's story in Inferno to the MU arc, but I can't be bothered to look them up. But suffice it to say Micheal slays Satan, who if I remember correctly (It's been since Junior High.) had been presenting a false face to him. In modern storytelling contrivance, they just used a red herring: That is the arc angel Gabrial, Micheal's trusted ally.

It could be argued that identity foreclosure is the leading cause of the prescribed social dysfunction - or Peter Pan syndrome - that's become prevalent in the younger generations. People are starting to realize at a much younger age that the old social pigeon holes are total bullshit. Yet they can't reconcile this newfound revelation because of societal pressures to function and survive, Micheal's journey is an exploration of this. She's a human who thinks she's a Vulcan trying to fit in with Starfleet and endlessly struggles until she thrust into a world that is both a figurative and literal reflection of all that she thought was true and realizes the only thing she needs to be is herself. Voq-ler experiences a similar journey, albeit a much more literal - and infernal - one. (And here again, I should point out they deliberately made him an albino Klingon.)

There is a more cynical take here as well: that is the whole journey is meant as a reproach against pray the gay away.

As another note, Leviticus is littered with references to hooven grazing animals or cattle as being the barometer (Can ganglia also predict the weather?) of what is "clean" and "pure." Leviticus has, of course, more recently become infamous for its other proclamations of cleanliness and purity.

I think all this religious allegory is important considering that religion represents the largest conceived purveyor that is given charge to those social archetypes. They invoke a prominent religious figure, send her through storylines echoing her counterpart all to ultimately assert all of the "lessons" those old tales are meant to teach are wrong -- or at least should be taken as absolute.

And, as one more point of note I'll mention that Alice similar experiences an identity crisis that she ultimately remedies through the manipulation of numbers (or playing cards) like any good Vulcan might. Yet Carroll, despite being an advocate for reasoning and logic and mathematics was, at the end of the day, a man of the cloth.

Ouch.
I am an absolute king of stretching for symbolism in a given text, but are you sure you didn’t pull a muscle here?
For a start, Fuller was jettisoned after a few episodes....which means one of the lynchpins to that whole analysis is gone.
Michael doesn’t work as any kind of warrior of god symbolism...her backstory contradicts it. If anything, to crib from your references, Fiery the Angel Fell, because Michael falls (down a rabbit hole, hence mudds andorian mask, through Stamets the caterpillar, and Georgiou the Red Queen.) and Lorca falls. It just doesn’t work...especially because so many of the archetypes in DSC are Trek character beats, not religious or mythological archetypes. Stamets as Adam and Tilly as Eve? Where? There’s not a single match up, symbolically speaking, with any of the things you mention.
There’s a lot of identity stuff around Tyler...is he a butterfly dreaming he’s a man? ...but a lot of it is fumbled. There’s a lot of ‘be true to yourself, but make sure you know who you are’ which is neatly wrapped in a ‘we are starfleet’ bow, but it’s also fumbled through things like Burnham rescuing the Empress.
You also have a misunderstanding about Carroll and to an extent religion. Logic, reason, Mathmatics...why would being a man of the cloth have any bearing on those? Many priests, Anglicans in particular, were also men of science. Some of them even helped Darwin with his Origin of the Species, or worked as palaeontologists when the science was still somewhat new. Which brings us neatly onto your nature or nurture paradigm...Burnham does not represent that struggle (except in the most basic of senses that the show concentrates on her defaulting to human...the Vulcan stuff is there as her superpower set and to give her a canon tie in) because she is first nurtured by humans, then Vulcans, then humans again...she does have a somewhat literal ‘born again’ moment, with Treks own brand of spiritualism...the Katra transfer...but there’s a real lack of religious symbolism in the show. Probably intentionally.
Frankly, there’s more religiosity in TMP (ok...unfair, that ones full of it..let’s choose another) in Wrath of Khan than there is in DSC.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the way you think...but...whatever Fullers plans may have been, this kit and caboodle just ain’t there.

 

[Vger23]

Woah...what just happened here!?

 

[cooleddie74]

Nerds just happened.

 

[Lord Garth]

Pain Sticks, Ceti Eels, it always comes in threes. We need something else.

It needs to be torturous.

 

[cooleddie74]

"TATV..."

 

[Discofan]

I think they should've wasted the time, honestly. Doing something so close to Spock's storyline without putting in the effort to differentiate from it makes it feel like a pale copy.

Of course, everyone's mileage will vary.

I don't know. Spock never was stripped of rank and publicly humiliated. If anything, Worf's story resembles Burnam's more than Spock's does.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

I don't know. Spock never was stripped of rank and publicly humiliated. If anything, Worf's story resembles Burnam's more than Spock's does.

to be fair when Spock mutinied it turned out to be all a dream...

Well, a Talosian illusion.

I agree there is a parallel with Worf in Michael - outsider raised by aliens with a different culture whose biological parents were killed in an enemy attack who is then shunned by their own society because of a choice they made.

That’s actually a fairly close parallel when you look at it like that. Personally I think Worf’s story was executed better (no pun intended), and personality-wise, Worf becomes a lot more like Michael particularly in DS9.

 

[Rahul]

The entire first season is an examination of identity diffusion and foreclosure set against (or perhaps in response to) the classic nature v. nurture dilemma. And if you want to get really meta about it, one could argue that, if the Kelvin films are anything they are strictly a classic nature v. nurture dilemma. But there are also elements of body integrity identity disorder. Both of which are struggles Fuller - and other prominent members of the staff - probably battled in their lives.

In terms of allegory The Bible (or rather Dante and Milton's interpretations of the Bible) factor much more prominently than Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But I think the story is meant to reflect religion as a whole, as Micheal plays a prominent role across all three "major" religions. It should also be noted that all three have always depicted Micheal as a white male, but Fuller specifically cast a black female, which directly relates to the themes listed above.

I think a good simple example from Paradise Lost's Wiki page is

Insert Stamets and Tilly for Adam and Eve as needed.

There are similar examples relating to Micheal's story in Inferno to the MU arc, but I can't be bothered to look them up. But suffice it to say Micheal slays Satan, who if I remember correctly (It's been since Junior High.) had been presenting a false face to him. In modern storytelling contrivance, they just used a red herring: That is the arc angel Gabrial, Micheal's trusted ally.

It could be argued that identity foreclosure is the leading cause of the prescribed social dysfunction - or Peter Pan syndrome - that's become prevalent in the younger generations. People are starting to realize at a much younger age that the old social pigeon holes are total bullshit. Yet they can't reconcile this newfound revelation because of societal pressures to function and survive, Micheal's journey is an exploration of this. She's a human who thinks she's a Vulcan trying to fit in with Starfleet and endlessly struggles until she thrust into a world that is both a figurative and literal reflection of all that she thought was true and realizes the only thing she needs to be is herself. Voq-ler experiences a similar journey, albeit a much more literal - and infernal - one. (And here again, I should point out they deliberately made him an albino Klingon.)

There is a more cynical take here as well: that is the whole journey is meant as a reproach against pray the gay away.

As another note, Leviticus is littered with references to hooven grazing animals or cattle as being the barometer (Can ganglia also predict the weather?) of what is "clean" and "pure." Leviticus has, of course, more recently become infamous for its other proclamations of cleanliness and purity.

I think all this religious allegory is important considering that religion represents the largest conceived purveyor that is given charge to those social archetypes. They invoke a prominent religious figure, send her through storylines echoing her counterpart all to ultimately assert all of the "lessons" those old tales are meant to teach are wrong -- or at least should be taken as absolute.

And, as one more point of note I'll mention that Alice similar experiences an identity crisis that she ultimately remedies through the manipulation of numbers (or playing cards) like any good Vulcan might. Yet Carroll, despite being an advocate for reasoning and logic and mathematics was, at the end of the day, a man of the cloth.

Ouch.
I am an absolute king of stretching for symbolism in a given text, but are you sure you didn’t pull a muscle here?
For a start, Fuller was jettisoned after a few episodes....which means one of the lynchpins to that whole analysis is gone.
Michael doesn’t work as any kind of warrior of god symbolism...her backstory contradicts it. If anything, to crib from your references, Fiery the Angel Fell, because Michael falls (down a rabbit hole, hence mudds andorian mask, through Stamets the caterpillar, and Georgiou the Red Queen.) and Lorca falls. It just doesn’t work...especially because so many of the archetypes in DSC are Trek character beats, not religious or mythological archetypes. Stamets as Adam and Tilly as Eve? Where? There’s not a single match up, symbolically speaking, with any of the things you mention.
There’s a lot of identity stuff around Tyler...is he a butterfly dreaming he’s a man? ...but a lot of it is fumbled. There’s a lot of ‘be true to yourself, but make sure you know who you are’ which is neatly wrapped in a ‘we are starfleet’ bow, but it’s also fumbled through things like Burnham rescuing the Empress.
You also have a misunderstanding about Carroll and to an extent religion. Logic, reason, Mathmatics...why would being a man of the cloth have any bearing on those? Many priests, Anglicans in particular, were also men of science. Some of them even helped Darwin with his Origin of the Species, or worked as palaeontologists when the science was still somewhat new. Which brings us neatly onto your nature or nurture paradigm...Burnham does not represent that struggle (except in the most basic of senses that the show concentrates on her defaulting to human...the Vulcan stuff is there as her superpower set and to give her a canon tie in) because she is first nurtured by humans, then Vulcans, then humans again...she does have a somewhat literal ‘born again’ moment, with Treks own brand of spiritualism...the Katra transfer...but there’s a real lack of religious symbolism in the show. Probably intentionally.
Frankly, there’s more religiosity in TMP (ok...unfair, that ones full of it..let’s choose another) in Wrath of Khan than there is in DSC.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the way you think...but...whatever Fullers plans may have been, this kit and caboodle just ain’t there.

You know what!
This is great. This is the stuff I come here for.

While I agree much more with @jaime's rebuttal than @CorporalClegg 's original assessment - I simply like the thoughts that went into it.

I was just happy that the show had some type of theme - and that it wasn't Moby Dick again. Now, I have to be honest, I never really understood "Alice in Wonderland" beyond the obvious, and I never really read into the larger meanings behind it. Also, I think, it was a theme that didn't really fit with the first season's arc, as it turned from a story of wonderous exploration to two(!) competing war story arcs, each with an overly simplistic ending.

Generally, I liked the idea of having an "Alice in Wonderland" theme much more than the execution that ended up on screen. he weirdness is IMO perfect for a Star Trek show. And that it is so unique and hasn't been done before makes it so much better.

The main problem I had is that the references never matched with the storyline itself. DIS' first season was, by all accounts, "safe". There was not a hint of originalism in there, every single plotline, arc and character was one that we already had seen on Trek, and oftentimes in a much more finished and thought out execution.

But the "Alice in Wonderland"-theme, much like having a central character and a loosely connected arc, are the things where I see at least a hint of creativity still shining through all the mess that S1 was. One of the reasons why I still think this show has potential, and not yet have fully given up on it.

I wish they continue that, and delve a lot deeper on it.

And I absolutely want to read more interpretations like your's two on it here! Even if I disagree - that's amazing stuff.

 

[jaime]

You know what!
This is great. This is the stuff I come here for.

While I agree much more with @jaime's rebuttal than @CorporalClegg 's original assessment - I simply like the thoughts that went into it.

I was just happy that the show had some type of theme - and that it wasn't Moby Dick again. Now, I have to be honest, I never really understood "Alice in Wonderland" beyond the obvious, and I never really read into the larger meanings behind it. Also, I think, it was a theme that didn't really fit with the first season's arc, as it turned from a story of wonderous exploration to two(!) competing war story arcs, each with an overly simplistic ending.

Generally, I liked the idea of having an "Alice in Wonderland" theme much more than the execution that ended up on screen. he weirdness is IMO perfect for a Star Trek show. And that it is so unique and hasn't been done before makes it so much better.

The main problem I had is that the references never matched with the storyline itself. DIS' first season was, by all accounts, "safe". There was not a hint of originalism in there, every single plotline, arc and character was one that we already had seen on Trek, and oftentimes in a much more finished and thought out execution.

But the "Alice in Wonderland"-theme, much like having a central character and a loosely connected arc, are the things where I see at least a hint of creativity still shining through all the mess that S1 was. One of the reasons why I still think this show has potential, and not yet have fully given up on it.

I wish they continue that, and delve a lot deeper on it.

And I absolutely want to read more interpretations like your's two on it here! Even if I disagree - that's amazing stuff.

The...I suspect unwitting...upshot of the Alice stuff (the book is waved about on screen, in case we miss the references...) is that the war stuff becomes ‘tweedledum and tweedledee are going to have a battle, for tweedledum said tweedledee had broke his nice new rattle’. In other words, a pointless fight between two virtually identical groups over a likely false premise. I’m not saying it works either, simply that it’s there. I prefer the Christmas Story that is TMP.

 

[Blamo]

I consider it to be slightly divergent from prime, but only slightly. To be honest, most of the franchise spin-offs are slightly divergent, including TNG.

 

[Terok Nor]

I consider it to be slightly divergent from prime, but only slightly. To be honest, most of the franchise spin-offs are slightly divergent, including TNG.

Are they though? Spock, Sarek, Scotty, Bones and Kirk were part of TNG. Likewise the Defiant travelled back in time to TOS era and Tuvok served with Sulu so that also ties DS9 and Voyager into the same continuity. If you want to go further the events of Star Trek : First Contact are followed up on in Enterprise.

 

[Jinn]

Are they though? Spock, Sarek, Scotty, Bones and Kirk were part of TNG. Likewise the Defiant travelled back in time to TOS era and Tuvok served with Sulu so that also ties DS9 and Voyager into the same continuity. If you want to go further the events of Star Trek : First Contact are followed up on in Enterprise.

Well Sarek and Amanda are a part of Discovery, as well as Mudd and soon we'll have Pike and Spock added to that list, so I don't think there's a real distinction between DSC and the other post-TOS series.

 

[Terok Nor]

Well Sarek and Amanda are a part of Discovery, as well as Mudd and soon we'll have Pike and Spock added to that list, so I don't think there's a real distinction between DSC and the other post-TOS series.

Only visually so far. As I said, it's all in the same continuity until it isn't. Discovery is Prime...for now.

 

[Lord Garth]

I equate TOS characters showing up in DSC to TNG characters showing up in DS9 or VOY. To me, it's the same thing. They're characters in the same time and space (or at least whenever they cut back to the Alpha Quadrant in Voyager's case).

 

[BillJ]

I wish they would just cut TOS out of it all.

 

[jaime]

Well Sarek and Amanda are a part of Discovery, as well as Mudd and soon we'll have Pike and Spock added to that list, so I don't think there's a real distinction between DSC and the other post-TOS series.

A big part of it was the actors returning. That’s not really possible for DSC, granted, but working the other way, you can change a shedload of visuals around them, but if you have the same actors, in the same roles, basically in the same costume, you can sell a lot of production changes. (Red Dwarf is currently exemplifying that, with retro nineties sets that are not actually the original sets) You get a cgi Shatner in DSC, with the actual Shatner doing the voice, and a whole lot of wrinkles will start smoothing over. You throw a time travel episode with half the TNG cast showing up, and even more cracks will be papered over. I am not a fan of ENT, but it’s basically what all of season 4 does...Brent Spiner as a Soong, TOS sets for a couple of episodes etc etc...that’s sort of what ties a franchise together, and why DSC has had such a vocal kickback from fandom. Sometimes you can’t just say ‘it’s the same’ you have to find a way to show it, and the phaser/laser handweapons ain’t enough. The changes to the enterprise were too much to use it to fill the cracks...they filled they hole, but they used the wrong filler.

 

[Rahul]

A big part of it was the actors returning. That’s not really possible for DSC, granted, but working the other way, you can change a shedload of visuals around them, but if you have the same actors, in the same roles, basically in the same costume, you can sell a lot of production changes. (Red Dwarf is currently exemplifying that, with retro nineties sets that are not actually the original sets) You get a cgi Shatner in DSC, with the actual Shatner doing the voice, and a whole lot of wrinkles will start smoothing over. You throw a time travel episode with half the TNG cast showing up, and even more cracks will be papered over. I am not a fan of ENT, but it’s basically what all of season 4 does...Brent Spiner as a Soong, TOS sets for a couple of episodes etc etc...that’s sort of what ties a franchise together, and why DSC has had such a vocal kickback from fandom. Sometimes you can’t just say ‘it’s the same’ you have to find a way to show it, and the phaser/laser handweapons ain’t enough. The changes to the enterprise were too much to use it to fill the cracks...they filled they hole, but they used the wrong filler.

Yeah. As much as it has become a cliché, the "accomplished Star Trek actor makes cameo in opening episode of new series" is a useful one. Because not only shows it directly to the viewers the creators respect the original material and the universe established by it, it also eases the viewer into this new iteration. I believe if DIS had a cameo by one of the ENT actors during it's opening episode(s), it would have been accepted by fans much faster.

 

[BillJ]

I believe if DIS had a cameo by one of the ENT actors during it's opening episode(s), it would have been accepted by fans much faster.

You mean the show that was cancelled due to low viewership? And I like Enterprise.

If you can't get people to accept the show with Klingons, the Mirror Universe, Mudd, and Sarek and Amanda in the first season, T'Pol or Archer wouldn't have moved the needle at all.