Spoilers Does "Light and Shadows" contradict "Journey to Babel"?

[F. King Daniel]

Star Trek doesn't take place in any world. It takes place in our imaginations. And that means it can be freely reimagined

It is of course up to each individual watcher what level of change is too much. To me:

Visuals
Technology
Continuity
Characterisation
Tone/attitudes

All being altered at the same time as they have on Discovery, means it's as much TOS' universe as Smallville is Superboy's, regardless of CBS' party line.

Without the same visuals, tech, attitudes, continuity and characterisations, TOS is only the vaguest outline in the future of Star Trek: Discovery, much like the Christopher Reeve Superman movies are the future both Smallville and Superboy are very vaguely leading towards.

 

[fireproof78]

This attitude is appreciable. However, with the number of changes over the years I've seen with Trek I have become more concerned over the characters and events, rather than the tech side of things.

 

[The Wormhole]

No... They honored the existence of that limitation but found a way around it when the time came. The Doctor reached the end of his 13th life and expected to die, but through extraordinary means was granted a new cycle of lives.

Actually, yeah. RTD and Moffat admitted they were trying to ignore the regeneration limit and pretend it didn't exist. RTD even went so far as to say the Doctor can regenerate over 500 times in SJA. Including the limit in Time of the Doctor was a late-stage re-write brought on because of Eccleston refusing to do Day of the Doctor. Originally, there was something on Trenzalore preventing the Doctor from regenerating, which the Time Lords would lift at the end of the episode. Then Eccleston refused to do Day of the Doctor leading to the creation of the War Doctor, Moffat realized if you count Tennant's hand job regeneration from Journey's End then Smith is the Thirteenth Doctor, and therefore decided to rewrite Time of the Doctor so that the Doctor doesn't have regenerations left, thus providing a reason he can't regenerate which has canonical precedent.

 

[Christopher]

Actually, yeah. RTD and Moffat admitted they were trying to ignore the regeneration limit and pretend it didn't exist.

What they tried to do and how the story developed along the way doesn't matter. Every story goes through a process of trial, error, and change, and every story leaves behind a trail of ideas and possibilities that were considered and discarded. The only ones that count are the ones that end up getting used in the final product. So yes, they considered dropping the limit, but they ended up not doing so, and thus it doesn't count.

And even if they had dropped the limit, it's not like there'd be anything wrong with that. Doctor Who continuity has always been flexible, and regeneration itself is a reinvention. They "dropped" the original claim that "renewal" was part of the TARDIS, for one thing.

 

[XCV330]

if you count Tennant's hand job regeneration .

That one must not get out of the Tardis very often

 

[Yistaan]

Dr. Who should just become Time Lord President again, abolish the limits on Time Lord regenerations by adding a new power source from, uh, dark energy and dark matter, then run away again.

Now that Dr. Who's a woman, can they bring back Susan and Romana as men? Will they keep the same names? Maybe Romana can be called Romano, don't know about Susan.

 

[BillJ]

Exactly. One need only study Greek mythology and how the Greeks interpreted those stories to see how a culture reimagines facets of their stories.

So then we're all on the same page that Discovery is a reimagining of the universe.

 

[fireproof78]

Now that Dr. Who's a woman, can they bring back Susan and Romana as men? Will they keep the same names? Maybe Romana can be called Romano, don't know about Susan.

Never heard of "A Boy Named Sue?"

So then we're all on the same page that Discovery is a reimagining of the universe.

Your definition of reimagining and mine are two different things. So, IDIC and all that stupid stuff

 

[Noname Given]

Now I remember that in the TOS, Captain Pike was a sexist too. I remember vaguely on how his opinion about women in "The Cage".

What opinion? When he said "Sorry Number One..." when he didn't include her in the Landing party it was because he:
- Trusted her experience.
- Felt that after him, she was the ship's most competent officer.
^^^
One thing I'd infer from that would be if there was one thing Pike isn't, it's a misogynist.

Later in the cell after Number One and Colt were beamed in - Pike seemed more surprised when the Talosian revealed Colt had possible romantic feelings toward him -- the only inference there was she was good at hiding them and Pike never picked up on anything.

I don't really see anything in Pike's behavior in "The Cage"/"The Menagerie" that you could label as misogynistic.

 

[The Wormhole]

Dr. Who should just become Time Lord President again, abolish the limits on Time Lord regenerations by adding a new power source from, uh, dark energy and dark matter, then run away again.

Now that Dr. Who's a woman, can they bring back Susan and Romana as men? Will they keep the same names? Maybe Romana can be called Romano, don't know about Susan.

You do realize the character's name isn't actually Doctor Who, right?

 

[Yistaan]

You do realize the character's name isn't actually Doctor Who, right?

The Gunfighters

MASTERSON: Doctor Who?
DOCTOR: Yes, quite right.

The War Machines

WOTAN: "Doctor Who is required"

Canon. What's also canon is Dr. Who tried to pretend these instances never happened and insisted his name was just the Doctor.

 

[The Wormhole]

Yeah, let's use the two times that he was addressed as that vs the over 800 times he/she's addressed as simply the Doctor.

 

[Yistaan]

Yeah, let's use the two times that he was addressed as that vs the over 800 times he/she's addressed as simply the Doctor.

Relax, it's just a tv show and I even put a winky emoticon. I'm not marching outside the BBC demanding they canonize the 'Who' name.

 

[fireproof78]

Yeah, let's use the two times that he was addressed as that vs the over 800 times he/she's addressed as simply the Doctor.

It's a joke...we do that

 

[Hythlodeus]

 

[JoeZhang]

Canon is something that Doctor Who isn't that bothered with - consistency (the Doctor doesn't sell drugs to children) yes but canon ? No.

 

[XCV330]

It's established that the character's name is both The Doctor and Doctor Who, inasmuch as canon matters on that increasingly silly show.

Its like saying Luke Skywalker's name is Luke because he was only called Luke Skywalker a few times.

 

[Christopher]

It's established that the character's name is both The Doctor and Doctor Who, inasmuch as canon matters on that increasingly silly show.

Neither is really his name, at least not his birth name. The Doctor is the title he's adopted for himself. His incarnation during the Time War (John Hurt), despite being referred to as "the War Doctor" out-of-story, renounced the title "Doctor" and didn't use it during that incarnation, which is how it was possible to retcon in a extra past incarnation without changing the number of "Doctors." And even in "World Enough in Time" when Missy claimed Doctor Who was his "real name" (while the Doctor denied it and insisted she was just making it up, so it can't be presumed to be truthful), she still said he "chose it himself, you know, trying to sound mysterious."

None of which has anything to do with "canon." Canon is not individual details, it's the whole overall body of stories from the original creators or owners. It's more climate than weather -- the overall whole, no matter how much things may fluctuate on the small scale.

 

[Yistaan]

To be honest, I'm more curious about what Number One's name is than Dr. Who's. Dr. Who's name would be in Gallifreyan and won't mean anything to us.

They never revealed what Spock's real unpronounceable Vulcan name is either. And at this point it doesn't matter because we see even his Vulcan father calls him Spock. Even Vulcans speaking Vulcannese in the Motion Picture during Kolinahr call him Spock.

 

[Christopher]

They never revealed what Spock's real unpronounceable Vulcan name is either. And at this point it doesn't matter because we see even his Vulcan father calls him Spock. Even Vulcans speaking Vulcannese in the Motion Picture during Kolinahr call him Spock.

That's not his "real" name, it's just the family name (as Amanda points out in "Journey to Babel" when Kirk tries addressing her as "Mrs. Sarek"). Spock is his given name. In the West, we're used to people being formally addressed by their family name/surname, so "Mister Spock" would seem like the equivalent of "Captain James" instead of "Captain Kirk." But there are societies where the given name is the primary one to use even in formal address, e.g. in Arabic or Vietnamese.