Should there be more every day life on Discovery?

[PicardSpeedo]

All of the Star Trek shows up to this point have skirted around the everyday issues that most human beings experience at some point. I think Discovery should buck this trend and sprinkle the little things that make daily life what it is and help build suspension of disbelief. I'm thinking specifically of things like:

- Someone has a cold for no explained reason
- Someone is late for a shift because their kid was being terrible or the turbolift was tied up.
- Someone calls out of work because they have explosive diarrhea.
- Thinking about the last item, actually showing bathrooms and people having to go to them once in a while.
- Random uniform fails or malfunctions, like normal people have with their wardrobes.
- Paycheck discrepancies

What do you all think?

 

[Long Syntax]

I guess it's a creative idea, but I don't think it would sell well. Picard going to the head wouldn't have gone over well in the 80's/90's either. The closest we got was ST:ENT and Trip explaining how they recycle everything including human waste.

 

[SPCTRE]

I want to see Number One doing her taxes, which is either

a) a complete chore or
b) utterly trivial

in a Future Without Money (tm)

 

[CorporalClegg]

c) The mark of a good leader.

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

When you have an hour or less to tell a story, dwelling on minutiae tends to disrupt the pacing of the narrative. Unless you're talking about Seinfeld, where dwelling on minutiae was the narrative.

 

[Tim Thomason]

All of the Star Trek shows up to this point have skirted around the everyday issues that most human beings experience at some point. I think Discovery should buck this trend and sprinkle the little things that make daily life what it is and help build suspension of disbelief. I'm thinking specifically of things like:

- Someone has a cold for no explained reason
- Someone is late for a shift because their kid was being terrible or the turbolift was tied up.
- Someone calls out of work because they have explosive diarrhea.
- Thinking about the last item, actually showing bathrooms and people having to go to them once in a while.
- Random uniform fails or malfunctions, like normal people have with their wardrobes.
- Paycheck discrepancies

What do you all think?

People have been shown in TNG (notably Worf) arriving late for their shift.

And we also know where the head is on the Ent-D bridge, and have seen plenty of crewmembers go into that room.

And plenty of cast and crew from Sisko to Geordi to Picard himself have worn the wrong pips or uniform or uniform incorrectly on occassion.

I want to see Number One doing her taxes

In the Future, all income is taxed 100%. The Federation government is out of control!

 

[Lowdarzz]

Honestly, the first thought that came to mind when I read the OP was:

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

If I wanted to watch stuff about real life I'd pay attention to what I was doing. I want exploration, discovery, battle, science, and philosophy, not minutiae.

 

[BillJ]

No.

 

[F. King Daniel]

.
- Random uniform fails or malfunctions, like normal people have with their wardrobes.

"Lieutenant, I can see your... nipular area."

 

[Tenacity]

We should see every day stuff going on from time to time, these people live their lives aboard starships and we need to see their lives.

The little slices of life make the characters into well rounded average folks.

 

[OpenMaw]

Just as long as it doesn't become the crutch of the show, like Enterprise and it's ****ing eating scenes. Every five minutes, cut to: messhall, where someone is feeding their facehole some more reprocessed protein.

I wouldn't mind seeing sonic sinks or something being used in a bathroom as someone steps out, or showing someone in their actual off duty clothes reading. But I don't want it to be that weird way it was sometimes on TNG where people would go to sleep in their uniform or other weirdness that cropped up on occasion. Those bits should feel very very grounded, and low key... and they should be well placed, to give us reminders that these are real people doing real stuff in a real future.

 

[Tenacity]

In Babylon Five, there were a couple of scenes of principal characters delivering exposition while peeing in the men's room.

 

[Vger23]

Nice, another "should" thread. Can't get enough of these!!

 

[Mudd]

No to the OT.

 

[SPCTRE]

what STD needs also are child custody hearings

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I'd like to see some of what we got in DS9, crewmembers having lunch or gossiping on the bridge during the quiet moments, picking out little instances of 'normal' life in amongst all the action and drama (such as when Kira and Dax are discussing the fact that Odo had a woman in his quarters all night, or O'Brien saying about sniffing around Worf and commenting on the hint of lilac). I'd say more banter that shows them to be people who live and work together in a confined space for long periods of time.

 

[F. King Daniel]

what STD needs also are child custody hearings

...IN SPAAAACE!!!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

All of the Star Trek shows up to this point have skirted around the everyday issues that most human beings experience at some point. I think Discovery should buck this trend and sprinkle the little things that make daily life what it is and help build suspension of disbelief. I'm thinking specifically of things like:

- Someone has a cold for no explained reason
- Someone is late for a shift because their kid was being terrible or the turbolift was tied up.
- Someone calls out of work because they have explosive diarrhea.
- Thinking about the last item, actually showing bathrooms and people having to go to them once in a while.
- Random uniform fails or malfunctions, like normal people have with their wardrobes.
- Paycheck discrepancies

What do you all think?

- Turbolift traffic jams? /gritty realism

- How about turbolift traffic jams caused by turbolift crashes? They could have a continuity porn episode/Treknological Mystery Tour about how the Discovery engineers invent the turbolift routing procedures used in all future incarnations of Star Trek. The lion's share of the episode can be canonically establishing the deck plans of the whole ship! (Something for everybody!) In the episode's epilogue, they invent the standby car for high-volume terminals, to reduce waiting. Freeze-frame end-credits on the engineers' high-five to each other on coming up with that!

- You could take it to the next level with turbolifting under the influence. We can end that one with a sermon about how drugs make you feel good and on top of the world. But it's artificial.

 

[SPCTRE]

- How about turbolift traffic jams caused by turbolift crashes? They could have a continuity porn episode/Treknological Mystery Tour about how the Discovery engineers invent the turbolift routing procedures used in all future incarnations of Star Trek. The lion's share of the episode can be canonically establishing the deck plans of the whole ship! (Something for everybody!) In the episode's epilogue, they invent the standby car for high-volume terminals, to reduce waiting. Freeze-frame end-credits on the engineers' high-five to each other on coming up with that!

okay I thought this was too much pandering but you really sold me with the freeze-frame ending

 

[BillJ]

I'm boycotting if I don't know what brand of toilet paper Discovery's Horta crewmembers are using.