Exactly so. Some times these nits seem to be done specifically like a straw man just to knock DSC down.
Spoilers General Disco Chat Thread
- Thread starter Lord Garth
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i love red letter media, plinkett's reviews are legendary and half in the bag is often right on mark.
but their discovery reviews have been so lazy. they cleary watched this show with a mind toward criticizing the hell out of it. it's not a perfect show, but they're criticizing it for shit they simply missed or didn't understand.
I don't know. Some of the things are rather elementary. I mean Pike says that the seven signals were seen simultaneously from different planets of the federation but at the same time, he says that they have no idea where they came from and that is just stupid. Anyone who's done a little astronomy knows that if you see a celestial phenomenon from two different points in space you should be able to pinpoint its position in the galaxy. They even said as much in the series itself!!! So just by combining the data from two different planets, they should be able to know the exact position of each signal!
The total system failure of Enterprise is never explained. It seems like a gratuitous plot point.
The total system failure of Enterprise is never explained. It seems like a gratuitous plot point.
Season 3 might film in Iceland
http://trekcore.com/blog/2019/07/is-star-trek-discovery-heading-overseas-for-season-3/
http://trekcore.com/blog/2019/07/is-star-trek-discovery-heading-overseas-for-season-3/
Climate change story in the works? It would be nice.
I (and others) have posted this before, but it seems pretty obvious that when they changed show runners midseason that a lot of plot elements got changed. Some day I hope we find out what the original plan was in a book or something.
I found the resolution of the story to be unsatisfying. The Crux of the season, for me, was investigating the red signals, signals Spock has known about for a six months before they happen.
These are essentially psychotic symptoms that get Spock committed, voluntarily. Before proven true, Amanda and Michael look through Spock's history with the Red Angel. They both feel responsible for how much pain is in. This is contrasted by Burnham, who sees the Red Angel, and she hides it for fear it may be an angel, God, and betray her belief in science. Again, running into a mycellial network organism from the dark matter asteroid, May inhabits Tilly as she is training to become Captain. This is analogous to Spock's quest for the Red Angel, and shows the consequences of Spock's decisions, why she is trying to commit himself, and leave the Enterprise.
Section 31, knowing Spock is right, attempts to gain access to him by framing him for murder, setting off another round of hand-wringing by Burnham and Amanda. Amanda finds Spock, broken and crazy, and they take him to Talos so that he can be normal, again. Able to think, Spock informs Pike and crew something will destroy all life in the Galaxy in 950 years. Spock rejects Burnham's attempts at help, and they spar over their relationships and who they are. The rest of the season is trying to stop AI Control from attempting to gain sentience and destroy all life in the Galaxy. As Burnham fails, Spock helps her pick up the pieces. The resolution has left bitterness in my mouth. Outside of fleshing the Baul (who, it would be cool if they were advanced Kelpians, not another race), and the Church episodes we're obviously meant to flesh out characters, which drives much more of the time in Discovery, than plot.
7 signals appear in the sky. What does it mean for Burnham? Amanda? Spock? Pike? Stamets? Tilly? And how they all relate. If they tie every plot device together, Star Trek would sound a lot like Next Generation, which has been ripped to shreds by the same people who hate Discovery.
We, as American, want plot. Discovery does theme and character. "No one gets left behind." All season they spend time rescuing each other only to take the ship into the future, and leave an entire ship behind, both doing it together, and informing their sacrifice.
Star Trek has never been perfect. Just saying. And, to be honest, I watched the majority of the season three months ago in a week tempest. My analysis is from memory.
These are essentially psychotic symptoms that get Spock committed, voluntarily. Before proven true, Amanda and Michael look through Spock's history with the Red Angel. They both feel responsible for how much pain is in. This is contrasted by Burnham, who sees the Red Angel, and she hides it for fear it may be an angel, God, and betray her belief in science. Again, running into a mycellial network organism from the dark matter asteroid, May inhabits Tilly as she is training to become Captain. This is analogous to Spock's quest for the Red Angel, and shows the consequences of Spock's decisions, why she is trying to commit himself, and leave the Enterprise.
Section 31, knowing Spock is right, attempts to gain access to him by framing him for murder, setting off another round of hand-wringing by Burnham and Amanda. Amanda finds Spock, broken and crazy, and they take him to Talos so that he can be normal, again. Able to think, Spock informs Pike and crew something will destroy all life in the Galaxy in 950 years. Spock rejects Burnham's attempts at help, and they spar over their relationships and who they are. The rest of the season is trying to stop AI Control from attempting to gain sentience and destroy all life in the Galaxy. As Burnham fails, Spock helps her pick up the pieces. The resolution has left bitterness in my mouth. Outside of fleshing the Baul (who, it would be cool if they were advanced Kelpians, not another race), and the Church episodes we're obviously meant to flesh out characters, which drives much more of the time in Discovery, than plot.
7 signals appear in the sky. What does it mean for Burnham? Amanda? Spock? Pike? Stamets? Tilly? And how they all relate. If they tie every plot device together, Star Trek would sound a lot like Next Generation, which has been ripped to shreds by the same people who hate Discovery.
We, as American, want plot. Discovery does theme and character. "No one gets left behind." All season they spend time rescuing each other only to take the ship into the future, and leave an entire ship behind, both doing it together, and informing their sacrifice.
Star Trek has never been perfect. Just saying. And, to be honest, I watched the majority of the season three months ago in a week tempest. My analysis is from memory.
If I have to choose, I prefer character. However, this American would like both.
The problem with the Discovery team is the lack of planning ahead. They introduce things without having the slightest idea of what they're gonna do with them and often they simply forget about them. Like what caused the break down of Enterprise? Why was Spock framed for murder? by whom?Who killed the people he was accused of killing? If the red angel transported people across the galaxy, why couldn't it also divert the meteors that were about to cause a nuclear winter? (just transport them elsewhere!!!)...
When Michael called Spock a "weird half-breed", it was twenty years before and so that means that she and Spock haven't spoken for all that time. How can Spock say that he "needed" Michael to keep his balance or whatever when he spent the last twenty years of his life, IE nearly all of it, without even talking to her? Where is the logic in that?
When Michael called Spock a "weird half-breed", it was twenty years before and so that means that she and Spock haven't spoken for all that time. How can Spock say that he "needed" Michael to keep his balance or whatever when he spent the last twenty years of his life, IE nearly all of it, without even talking to her? Where is the logic in that?
It's not logical. It is very human.
I beg to differ. There are people that I've intentionally not seen for many years but I'll never say that I need those to keep my balance. In fact, I will be very happy if I never see them ever again.
Of course, that makes sense, especially If the relationship is unhealthy. But, it makes equally as much sense for human beings to need certain people in their lives for healthy relationships. Human beings are highly relational beings, and require intimate relationships (not just romantic or sexual) in order to function well. The research is still being unpacked in terms of the implications of humans and mental health, but it's there, showing that deep, primal, need.
And, sadly, humans don't recognize it until adulthood. Because we were not taught any different.
Spock's statement makes perfect sense to me.
I'm starting to see a bigger picture. I'm beginning to see the source of where disagreements are about the show. No one ever says, "I like a show because I think it sucks!" (unless they're treating it like a B-movie, in which case that's the whole point) Everyone wants the show to be good. It's just the definition of "good" that we don't agree with. It's also the different takeaways each viewer gets and sometimes one takeaway is starkly different from another.
If you don't like the characters, it's the story that determines if you like an episode or season. If you do like the characters and are willing to watch them in something no matter what the story is, then the story of the episode or the season won't make such a pronounced difference. To take Discovery out of the equation: I can sit through bad TOS episodes (unless it's "And the Children Shall Lead", that one's just painful). I'm much less forgiving of bad TNG.
If you want to just experience an episode, then you're going to be swept up in it. If you're analyzing, you're not going to be as swept up. I'm swept up, then analytical. So I analyze what I experienced after the fact. I'm analyzing an experience some people didn't share.
Michael Burnham is a Human raised by Vulcans. She's extremely emotional. But she was raised to be logical. How does what she was taught mesh with who she is? She becomes extremely emotional about what she thinks is logical. Her thought process is similar to mine. Which draws me to the character.
If you don't like the characters, it's the story that determines if you like an episode or season. If you do like the characters and are willing to watch them in something no matter what the story is, then the story of the episode or the season won't make such a pronounced difference. To take Discovery out of the equation: I can sit through bad TOS episodes (unless it's "And the Children Shall Lead", that one's just painful). I'm much less forgiving of bad TNG.
If you want to just experience an episode, then you're going to be swept up in it. If you're analyzing, you're not going to be as swept up. I'm swept up, then analytical. So I analyze what I experienced after the fact. I'm analyzing an experience some people didn't share.
Michael Burnham is a Human raised by Vulcans. She's extremely emotional. But she was raised to be logical. How does what she was taught mesh with who she is? She becomes extremely emotional about what she thinks is logical. Her thought process is similar to mine. Which draws me to the character.
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I am drawn to Michael's earnest heart in a cruel world. She embodies the best of Starfleet--curiosity, intelligence, imagination, compassion, comradery--and is challenged on that basis. Her background is that of an orphan, so the world has been cruel for her for a long time. She finds strength in helping, but thinks too much of herself in doing it. She has made mistakes, and punishes herself because of her past. She tragic.
It is funny, isn't it? It's like you can see people just posting the video thinking it's so powerful and damning that it just vindicates them immediately to leave it in a thread with no associated comments.
To me, it very much feels like they are making an attempt at Trolling anybody who likes the show.
Fortunately, most of us know better than to fall into that kind of trap.
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This is exactly what I have been thinking, honestly. For me, many times when a show has characters that I engage with I am fully engaged in that show, regardless of weaker aspects of plot or story. This is why Kelvin Trek draws me in, and even more so, this is why DSC draws me in. I am fascinated (no pun intended) by Spock's history, by his relationships. I think Michael is a highly dynamic character who is one that I want to know more and more about. I think I have similar feelings around Michael that many had around Lorca early on (I personally was less interested in him but I see the engagement there).
So, characters make it or break it. It's that simple. If you're not engaged with the characters then the show will slow down for you, and the analysis starts.
For me, I see the criticisms of unearned emotion and the like. I personally do not agree but I am engaged with the characters and empathize with their emotions from the characters POV.
I'm firmly convinced that a lot of Discovery's issues across both seasons come down to one single thing: Too many people being involved, with no particular central creative vision backing up the show.
As I've said in the past, one of the strongest characteristics of quality television is having either a single showrunner or a pair who work closely together. They might not write all of the episodes, or even most of the episodes, but they are coordinating things, understand the characters, and (if the show is serialized) often have a longer-term plan (subject to change of course) about the endpoint of the destination.
Discovery did not have this. Fuller was fired from the project before a single scene was shot - and before anything other than the first two scripts were broken. If Discovery wasn't an established franchise that the network wanted to revive, the project would have been canned then and there. But CBS wanted more Star Trek, and so passed it along to Berg and Harberts - two people hired into the writer's room largely because of their past work with Fuller, but who lacked the extensive knowledge of Star Trek he had. Various aspects of Fuller's original vision for the show began being rejected by the network before he was even fired, and we don't know how much of the first season arc was more or less a hasty rewrite of the original plan. Then they ended the season with an episode which - among other flaws - seemed to exist in part to just clear the table of most of Season 1, which is a curious choice for a serialized show to make.
Then, in the second season, Berg and Harberts get fired, but in this case after the first five episodes had been filmed. Again, we don't know exactly what they intended, and how much of it ultimately ended up onscreen. But there were enough threads from the earlier episodes that either seemed to be entirely unanswered by the end of the season or were answered in a very slapdash fashion that it assuredly looked like they intended to tell a different story. Near the end of the run it was announced that yet another showrunner would be taking over, and they decided to end on an even clearer "reboot" in the finale than in the first season.
Basically I feel like Discovery is in a certain sense a "zombie show" - The main reason it continues to exist is because CBS intends to revive Star Trek as a franchise, but there's really no one at the helm who actually has any ideas about what to do with the series which seem to stick. Which is of course not the first time this happened in Trek history - the first two seasons of TNG were not particularly good. Let's hope Michelle Paradise is today's Michael Piller.
As I've said in the past, one of the strongest characteristics of quality television is having either a single showrunner or a pair who work closely together. They might not write all of the episodes, or even most of the episodes, but they are coordinating things, understand the characters, and (if the show is serialized) often have a longer-term plan (subject to change of course) about the endpoint of the destination.
Discovery did not have this. Fuller was fired from the project before a single scene was shot - and before anything other than the first two scripts were broken. If Discovery wasn't an established franchise that the network wanted to revive, the project would have been canned then and there. But CBS wanted more Star Trek, and so passed it along to Berg and Harberts - two people hired into the writer's room largely because of their past work with Fuller, but who lacked the extensive knowledge of Star Trek he had. Various aspects of Fuller's original vision for the show began being rejected by the network before he was even fired, and we don't know how much of the first season arc was more or less a hasty rewrite of the original plan. Then they ended the season with an episode which - among other flaws - seemed to exist in part to just clear the table of most of Season 1, which is a curious choice for a serialized show to make.
Then, in the second season, Berg and Harberts get fired, but in this case after the first five episodes had been filmed. Again, we don't know exactly what they intended, and how much of it ultimately ended up onscreen. But there were enough threads from the earlier episodes that either seemed to be entirely unanswered by the end of the season or were answered in a very slapdash fashion that it assuredly looked like they intended to tell a different story. Near the end of the run it was announced that yet another showrunner would be taking over, and they decided to end on an even clearer "reboot" in the finale than in the first season.
Basically I feel like Discovery is in a certain sense a "zombie show" - The main reason it continues to exist is because CBS intends to revive Star Trek as a franchise, but there's really no one at the helm who actually has any ideas about what to do with the series which seem to stick. Which is of course not the first time this happened in Trek history - the first two seasons of TNG were not particularly good. Let's hope Michelle Paradise is today's Michael Piller.
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Yup. Which is why I have such confidence for season 3 and the future of the franchise. Season 2 was good, in my opinion, and I enjoyed Season 1 a whole lot, despite the uneven pacing at times.
Honestly, despite my misgivings of Star Trek going forward (I'm not convinced this franchise needs to continue) having Michelle Paradise and Kurtzman as long term producers gives me confidence.
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