Spoilers SDCC season 3 news thread!

[Phoenix219]

i'm not sure how i feel about the franchise as it stands right now, but i actually didn't see the star trek: picard trailer for the rank nostalgia it could've been. star trek is itself so guilty of just keeping people in stasis because it doesn't matter how old shatner gets, we gotta stuff him in his starfleet uniform, etc. this feels like an attempt to move the characters along, even if we are returning to ones we knew 20-30 years ago. but it's an ongoing franchise and a living, breathing fictional world. picard looks to be pulling in threads from the long dormant prime universe, hitting a few nostalgia buttons, and also forging ahead with a new story. we'll see how it goes, but i was left thinking maybe CBS-AA should've started with this.

I only wish they had EVER done this, even ONCE!!!

 

[Cake]

Lets put that to the test
Michael Burnham- English last name played by an American woman of African descent.
Gabriel Lorca- Spanish last name. Played by a English-Jewish actor (Main character for the first season)
Paul Stamets- Germanic last name played by an American man of Northern European background
Ash Tyler- English last name. Played by an Anglo-South Asian actor
Sylvia Tilly- Anglo-Norman last name. Played by an American woman of Jewish descent
Hugh Culber- Surname of unknown origin. May be a variation of Culbert. Puerto Rican actor.
Joann Owosekun- Nigerian last name. Actor is also Nigerian
Gen Rhys- Welsh surname. Japanese first name. Canadian Actor of of Chinese background.
RA Bryce- Celtic last name. Actor is a Canadian of Afro-Caribbean background.

Michael Burnham, Paul Stamets, Ash Tyler (though he might be more Klingon than really human), Sylvia Tilly, Hugh Culber, Christopher Pike sound all to my ears like names of U.S. Americans without a recent migration background. The last three on your list are not even really supporting characters. They are background decorations and don't count one way or another.

The actors have varied ethnicities, but with their characters English sounding names and no mention of other cultural backgrounds, it just comes across like they are orignally from the USA or a future place just like it. I just don't think the world is really properly represented on DIS. Where are the Chinese and Indians for example? They make up about a third of the population nowadays. I think it is obvious that the series in mainly made with the U.S. audience in mind and therefore human characters who appear to come from other places have hardly any important roles. Considering that Hispanics are a quite big minority in the USA, even Gabriel Lorca might have been named with only the U.S. audience in mind and less so with Spanish speaking countries.

Now DIS in season 1 and 2 is not super far in the future, but season 3 will be and I thought that humans then should be even more intermingled in all ways. So naming their character Cleveland Booker feels like a particular missed opportunity and again like they only had the representation of today's U.S. Americans in mind with the character.

 

[eschaton]

Michael Burnham, Paul Stamets, Ash Tyler (though he might be more Klingon than really human), Sylvia Tilly, Hugh Culber, Christopher Pike sound all to my ears like names of U.S. Americans without a recent migration background. The last three on your list are not even really supporting characters. They are background decorations and don't count one way or another.

The actors have varied ethnithicies, but with their characters English sounding names and no mention of other cultural backgrounds, it just comes across like they are orignally from the USA or a future place just like it. I just don't think the world is really properly represented on DIS. Where are the Chinese and Indians for example? They make up about a third of the population nowadays. I think it is obvious that the series in mainly made with the U.S. audience in mind and therefore human characters who appear to come from other places have hardly any important roles. Considering that Hispanics are a quite big minority in the USA, even Gabriel Lorca might have been named with only the U.S. audience in mind and less so with Spanish speaking countries.

It's such a weird missed opportunity because Discovery was the first Trek series to premier globally essentially simultaneously as well.

Again, it contrasts very strongly with The Expanse. I remember in the end of season 2/beginning of season 3 there was a subplot on that show that involved Bobbie Draper, Chrisjen Avasarala, and Cotyar Ghazi attempting to get off of Jules-Pierre Mao's space yacht. So you have four different characters - none of them white, and none of them recognizably American (though Cotyar has a North American accent) dominating an entire subplot. I dunno if I've seen that on an American/Canadian SF production before. It really helps drive home that the world of The Expanse is the future of all of mankind, not "Space America."

 

[Cake]

It's such a weird missed opportunity because Discovery was the first Trek series to premier globally essentially simultaneously as well.

Again, it contrasts very strongly with The Expanse. I remember in the end of season 2/beginning of season 3 there was a subplot on that show that involved Bobbie Draper, Chrisjen Avasarala, and Cotyar Ghazi attempting to get off of Jules-Pierre Mao's space yacht. So you have four different characters - none of them white, and none of them recognizably American (though Cotyar has a North American accent) dominating an entire subplot. I dunno if I've seen that on an American/Canadian SF production before. It really helps drive home that the world of The Expanse is the future of all of mankind, not "Space America."

I didn't get to watch The Expanse yet, but I really should give it a try!

 

[DEWLine]

The first three seasons of The Expanse have definitely been worth my time.
And yeah, Toronto is good as a hub for this kind of casting for more realistic space adventure shows.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Michael Burnham, Paul Stamets, Ash Tyler (though he might be more Klingon than really human), Sylvia Tilly, Hugh Culber, Christopher Pike sound all to my ears like names of U.S. Americans without a recent migration background. The last three on your list are not even really supporting characters. They are background decorations and don't count one way or another.

Not sure what is meant by "US Americans" since those names could occur in Europe or anywhere European languages are spoken. Pike is a legacy character from the 1960's, so I'm not sure why he's on the list.
Yeah, they were "decoration" in the first season, but much moved beyond that in the second. They are the human faces we see most often. And they and the mains pretty diverse. At least four are women. And six are people of color. That might be more important than names.

The actors have varied ethnicities, but with their characters English sounding names

And what does "English" mean here? Are we talking language, nationality, geography, ethnically?

I just don't think the world is really properly represented on DIS. Where are the Chinese and Indians for example? They make up about a third of the population nowadays. I think it is obvious that the series in mainly made with the U.S. audience in mind and therefore human characters who appear to come from other places have hardly any important roles.

Most production don't look at the world's population when creating characters. I'm sure shows made in other countries skew their casts/characters towards their own people as well. Would a Chinese show feel obligated to cast Indians in a large number of roles? But a conscious effort to do better would be nice.

 

[Rahul]

It's such a weird missed opportunity because Discovery was the first Trek series to premier globally essentially simultaneously as well.

Again, it contrasts very strongly with The Expanse. I remember in the end of season 2/beginning of season 3 there was a subplot on that show that involved Bobbie Draper, Chrisjen Avasarala, and Cotyar Ghazi attempting to get off of Jules-Pierre Mao's space yacht. So you have four different characters - none of them white, and none of them recognizably American (though Cotyar has a North American accent) dominating an entire subplot. I dunno if I've seen that on an American/Canadian SF production before. It really helps drive home that the world of The Expanse is the future of all of mankind, not "Space America."

Huh, it's funny. I only ever hear good things about "The Expanse", and really every single thing people praise about the show (around here, as well as people I met in real life) is stuff I absolutely agree on. And yet.... I never could get through the very first episode. It just seemed so.... cheap(ly made)? Like, I absolutely loved the concept, but I couldn't get over how much it, well, felt like a television show (kinda' like Babylon 5, whereas stuff like "nuBattlestar Galactica" had problematic characters to get into, but right from the very first scene felt "real"). Also, how long and dragged out the dialogue scenes felt. Especially the main detective character was IMO very low-brow generic crime show material.

Is that really only the first episode? I guess this is the type of show that's really opening up and getting more excited once you're familiar with it and into it?
(Kinda' how I would describe ENT - takes a LOT of good-will to get into, but once you watch it, it offers a lot of great stuff, especially the 3rd and 4th season)

Because everything I hear verbally about it makes me really want to check it out further, but I found it really hard to get invested in during the first episode.

 

[Alan Roi]

Huh, it's funny. I only ever hear good things about "The Expanse", and really every single thing people praise about the show (around here, as well as people I met in real life) is stuff I absolutely agree on. And yet.... I never could get through the very first episode. It just seemed so.... cheap(ly made)? Like, I absolutely loved the concept, but I couldn't get over how much it, well, felt like a television show (kinda' like Babylon 5, whereas stuff like "nuBattlestar Galactica" had problematic characters to get into, but right from the very first scene felt "real"). Also, how long and dragged out the dialogue scenes felt. Especially the main detective character was IMO very low-brow generic crime show material.

Is that really only the first episode? I guess this is the type of show that's really opening up and getting more excited once you're familiar with it and into it?
(Kinda' how I would describe ENT - takes a LOT of good-will to get into, but once you watch it, it offers a lot of great stuff, especially the 3rd and 4th season)

Because everything I hear verbally about it makes me really want to check it out further, but I found it really hard to get invested in during the first episode.

The Expanse did have a mediocre 1st ep. But it has steadily improved since then, in concert with that low-brow generic crime show material you didn't like fading to vacuum. Honestly, I felt a little cheated that the likes Jared Harris and Shohreh Aghdashloo had to play background for the less interesting main cast for the first season, since they really do dominate whatever scenes they are in, but the show steadily improved to deserving most of the praise it gets.

 

[jaime]

Huh, it's funny. I only ever hear good things about "The Expanse", and really every single thing people praise about the show (around here, as well as people I met in real life) is stuff I absolutely agree on. And yet.... I never could get through the very first episode. It just seemed so.... cheap(ly made)? Like, I absolutely loved the concept, but I couldn't get over how much it, well, felt like a television show (kinda' like Babylon 5, whereas stuff like "nuBattlestar Galactica" had problematic characters to get into, but right from the very first scene felt "real"). Also, how long and dragged out the dialogue scenes felt. Especially the main detective character was IMO very low-brow generic crime show material.

Is that really only the first episode? I guess this is the type of show that's really opening up and getting more excited once you're familiar with it and into it?
(Kinda' how I would describe ENT - takes a LOT of good-will to get into, but once you watch it, it offers a lot of great stuff, especially the 3rd and 4th season)

Because everything I hear verbally about it makes me really want to check it out further, but I found it really hard to get invested in during the first episode.

The Babylon five comparison is fair. I gave up as fast as you did because it was glacial and boring (actually, it most reminded me of Outland...it’s clearly inspired but that kind of late seventies to early eighties SF production) and not in a ‘low attention span’ way, but in a ‘I don’t actually care even a little bit for these characters...at least...not enough to keep watching. I keep wanting to like it...even the books...but....it’s just so flipping boring and not fun. Maybe it’s because I have already sat through or read a lot of SF, to the point where I need more of a hook in there. I mean...stranger things would be boring if it didn’t have that eighties thing to it, that level of homage, and actors and characters who give it some life. The same is true of DSC and Orville...Orville I eventually got through because it’s fun to see the characters, and it’s fun to see which bits of what they have thrown into the mix (yaphet being Jabbas palace security was fun) and how. DSC is an effing slog...because of its never ending soliloquy’s and tendency towards slowing its pace. It’s characters are just not fun enough to keep me coming back (the ones I start to like get sidelined fast this year.) and I only come back because it is Trek. (Thank god for Picard. Proper excitement for that.)

But I just can’t do the Expanse.

Because it, like DSC is just too much like other things, with less to actually give a monkeys about.
I mean, would we even be worried about the names of the characters in DSC if we had anything else to hang on to in the characters? We focus on about four. And we have very little to keep us interested in them or their adventures. The episode I managed to pull myself through most recently was the Voyager tribute hour....messed up Vulcan now we finally met Spock (reminded me of several Tuvok scenes and a dash of what little ENT I saw) and the ‘we are stuck in a temporal anomaly’ thing. The character notes were the same notes they have already been hammering at, Tilly continues to be a weird anomaly, and the stories were...things we have seen before. The Spock stuff dragged. And dragged.
I hate S31, past it’s original couple of episodes in ds9 (where I just didn’t like it much) and I abhor the concept for control (from pre-ordering the books it originated from to wondering if it’s too late to get refunds on books going back years, since the control thing made them utterly pointless before they get retconned by Picard.) and it’s just another thing we have seen before. And of course this is after the inner light concept lift (though it’s more like that weird genome thing in the books.) and...
Well.
At least when Orville lifts stuff there’s some likeable, interesting people dealing with it. Plus bonus points for doing stuff new with tired concepts (letter to younger self is reversed, high stakes small detail version of Timeless.)
Maybe this new season will be better. But maybe it will just be Andromeda.

 

[Rahul]

The Babylon five comparison is fair. I gave up as fast as you did because it was glacial and boring (actually, it most reminded me of Outland...it’s clearly inspired but that kind of late seventies to early eighties SF production) and not in a ‘low attention span’ way, but in a ‘I don’t actually care even a little bit for these characters...at least...not enough to keep watching. I keep wanting to like it...even the books...but....it’s just so flipping boring and not fun. Maybe it’s because I have already sat through or read a lot of SF, to the point where I need more of a hook in there. I mean...stranger things would be boring if it didn’t have that eighties thing to it, that level of homage, and actors and characters who give it some life. The same is true of DSC and Orville...Orville I eventually got through because it’s fun to see the characters, and it’s fun to see which bits of what they have thrown into the mix (yaphet being Jabbas palace security was fun) and how. DSC is an effing slog...because of its never ending soliloquy’s and tendency towards slowing its pace. It’s characters are just not fun enough to keep me coming back (the ones I start to like get sidelined fast this year.) and I only come back because it is Trek. (Thank god for Picard. Proper excitement for that.)

But I just can’t do the Expanse.

Because it, like DSC is just too much like other things, with less to actually give a monkeys about.
I mean, would we even be worried about the names of the characters in DSC if we had anything else to hang on to in the characters? We focus on about four. And we have very little to keep us interested in them or their adventures. The episode I managed to pull myself through most recently was the Voyager tribute hour....messed up Vulcan now we finally met Spock (reminded me of several Tuvok scenes and a dash of what little ENT I saw) and the ‘we are stuck in a temporal anomaly’ thing. The character notes were the same notes they have already been hammering at, Tilly continues to be a weird anomaly, and the stories were...things we have seen before. The Spock stuff dragged. And dragged.
I hate S31, past it’s original couple of episodes in ds9 (where I just didn’t like it much) and I abhor the concept for control (from pre-ordering the books it originated from to wondering if it’s too late to get refunds on books going back years, since the control thing made them utterly pointless before they get retconned by Picard.) and it’s just another thing we have seen before. And of course this is after the inner light concept lift (though it’s more like that weird genome thing in the books.) and...
Well.
At least when Orville lifts stuff there’s some likeable, interesting people dealing with it. Plus bonus points for doing stuff new with tired concepts (letter to younger self is reversed, high stakes small detail version of Timeless.)
Maybe this new season will be better. But maybe it will just be Andromeda.

You know what? I agree a lot. I disagree a lot. But that was just goddamn entertaining to read!

 

[jaime]

Spock didn't murder anyone. S31 doctored those videos.

For the rest, I've posted on bulletin boards for 23 years. I've seen it all. I count on certain people not liking DSC. Especially if I've historically disagreed with them. It gives equilubrium. It wouldn't feel right if I was on the same side as them.

Well. That’s an effing spoiler. A predictable one I suppose.
I only just met bearded Spock.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

Well. That’s an effing spoiler. A predictable one I suppose.
I only just met bearded Spock.

Awkward.

 

[jaime]

Unfortunately, Control in the novels was handled much better than what we got from the $10 million dollar an episode Discovery.

That worries me.
Because I cannot begin to properly put into words how much I fucking hated that book. It was awful.
And I have a flipping Masters Degree in Creative Writing (I don’t use it much on here do I? Typos galore and keyboard malfunctions and brain farts xD) and I cannot find the words to describe how much I loathe that book and how it finally killed my interest in Trek Lit. (Though god knows the DS9 relaunch novels had really been taking some knives to that interest. And the VOY books were a shining light that suspiciously began to look like they were going to hide the murder weapons and betray my trust.)

 

[jaime]

Awkward.

I blame myself.

Though mostly I blame the show writers.
Because they could have made me want to watch it much sooner.

 

[jaime]

Why not? My name is Anglicized Hebrew. I've never been to England or Israel.

Anglicised Hebrew? Is there like a middle name? Like...surprise? Cruel cruel parents.

But nice to meet you...can I call you Ang for short as long as I don’t mention the surname? I don’t want to be forced to join the Labour Party...

 

[Nerys Myk]

Anglicised Hebrew? Is there like a middle name? Like...surprise? Cruel cruel parents.

But nice to meet you...can I call you Ang for short as long as I don’t mention the surname? I don’t want to be forced to join the Labour Party...

I go by "Cid"

 

[jaime]

Stand by it - Seriously? To say either the season will suck, or the writing staff sucks because 1000+ years later, they still use familiy naming conventions in use for thousands of years previously?

(Also, I guess by your comment you take umbridge with my expression an opinion about someone else's opinion? - Interesting.)

I once had a tutor complain about a script I wrote for an SF radio play because I had a character celebrating a birthday, and they felt that wouldn’t happen in the future.
I was unhappy.
Not half as unhappy as I was when the Short Trek Calypso was so fucking close to my scripts ideas that I would have thought about suing if I wasn’t fairly sure my script had never been seen by enough people to leak.

 

[jaime]

I go by "Cid"

Never met a Cid I didn’t like.

Maybe the oglop one.

 

[Lord Garth]

Well. That’s an effing spoiler. A predictable one I suppose.
I only just met bearded Spock.

Shit. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. My apologies. While there's a six-month spoiler policy for new episodes of DSC everywhere else, it's only two weeks in this forum.

 

[Alan Roi]

Not half as unhappy as I was when the Short Trek Calypso was so fucking close to my scripts ideas that I would have thought about suing if I wasn’t fairly sure my script had never been seen by enough people to leak.

Imagine how mad Homer must have felt that that hack Michael Chabon stole his sequence from the Odyssey for that episode, and then waggled it in the blind bard's face so obviously even he could see his story was being ripped off.