Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x02 - "New Eden"

[fireproof78]

I should be able to say that I don't like idiotic 'science' on Disco without having to list all the Voyager episodes I didn't like for that same reason (so about half of them) or be able to say that I don't like how Disco deals with religion or war crimes without having to preface it with how I didn't like how they dealt with those in DS9 either (and then have to fight rabid DS9 fanboys for eight pages on the Disco forum for daring to besmirch their beloved Saint Sisko.)

If you are equally critical of those elements then I see no problem. It's when I see it criticized in DSC but overlooked in all other Trek that I raise an eyebrow. And I feel the same way about the Kelvin Trek too. So much of what Kelvin Trek did could have fit in to TOS without a problem, but one is bad and the other is good?

 

[XCV330]

Also, does it strike anyone else as a bit odd that the writers chose to make Michael the hyper rational skeptic this season? Vulcans live by logic, but their own belief system contains a lot more mystical mumbo jumbo than Federation humans.

Vulcans can actually prove their mystic tendancies. They can put souls in jars, they are telepathic.

It allows someone like Spock to quite rationally say "You should be told the difference between empiricism and stubbornness, Doctor."

Honestly, between the actress's multiracial look, accent, ... wandered in off the set of The Expanse.

My kids had no idea they look like they wandered off the Expanse. They like the show. I'll let em know. Is Star Trek for Pure Blooded types now? Do advise.

 

[eschaton]

They are both filmed in Toronto, and Toronto is just about the most culturally diverse city on the planet, so you can expect that there will be accents showing up beyond the standard ones we are most familiar with.

True, but Trek historically hasn't been good with multiracial/international casting, and even Discovery's first season was very white bread anglo-American compared to The Expanse.

 

[Alan Roi]

To me, when someone is flat out writing off the entire show based on the first season, it makes me think of how many in the past did that with TNG, before that ended up blossoming into what it became in a season or two after, and how many seem to have forgotten that that show had a very shaky start. It’s not that DISCO should get a pass for what it delivered in the first season, but that fans should at least consider letting the show find its own voice before writing it off as a total failure. I was very mixed of the first season, but I had hope that a course correction would take place to make a more enjoyable show, and so far I’ve enjoyed the two S2 episodes more than the entirety of the first season, and look forward to seeing if they keep it up and improve more.

That is kind of mixing subjective with comparative, though, in an improving=more suited to my sensibilities way. For example, as a 13 year old I didn't think much of Dune, thought it was a mess and boring. When I re-read it at 23, I found it brilliantly constructed and rivetting. Did Dune somehow improve? Or was a different way of reading required to get the most out of it. Disco season one, I found does require a different mindset to appreciate than this episode or season so far, which is more akin to 'boys own adventure level Star Trek' than what we got last year.

 

[eschaton]

My kids had no idea they look like they wandered off the Expanse. They like the show. I'll let em know. Is Star Trek for Pure Blooded types now? Do advise.

Trek has historically attempted representation within an American sense of "diversity" but really has not given the impression that Humans in the Federation are actually a global culture - more like Space America with some token Brits mixed in. In contrast, the casting of The Expanse really makes it feel like white people and/or North Americans are in the minority. Basically it doesn't try and represent the present of the target demographic, but a future culture which may seem more alien to us. I find the latter not only more realistic, but more mature.

As I said up thread, I was deeply disappointed that in this episode they decided to continue the Trek trope of having a small colony of humans isolated for centuries which still had recognizable black and white people. Everyone should have been multiracial

 

[Alan Roi]

True, but Trek historically hasn't been good with multiracial/international casting, and even Discovery's first season was very white bread anglo-American compared to The Expanse.

True. And because of that Star Trek old-school California casting legacy, even with far less diversity than the Expanse has shown, Disco is earning a whole lot more flack from viewers for being 'too diverse'. Honestly as a TOS raised Trekkie, I'm tickled that Trek is filmed in the City I called home for 40 years and shows it. But again, I like new toys.

 

[Alan Roi]

As I said up thread, I was deeply disappointed that in this episode they decided to continue the Trek trope of having a small colony of humans isolated for centuries which still had recognizable black and white people. Everyone should have been multiracial

200 years is not really that many generations, You could reasonably expect people alive and as few as 3-4 generations removed from the originals where human biology is concerned (especially the priestess who most likely was born to a relatively early generation). And 8-10 at the maximum is not likely to completely homogenize a population that may have started out pretty diverse to begin with.

 

[XCV330]

Trek has historically attempted representation within an American sense of "diversity" but really has not given the impression that Humans in the Federation are actually a global culture - more like Space America with some token Brits mixed in. In contrast, the casting of The Expanse really makes it feel like white people and/or North Americans are in the minority. Basically it doesn't try and represent the present of the target demographic, but a future culture which may seem more alien to us. I find the latter not only more realistic, but more mature.

As I said up thread, I was deeply disappointed that in this episode they decided to continue the Trek trope of having a small colony of humans isolated for centuries which still had recognizable black and white people. Everyone should have been multiracial

True after two hundred years one would imagin that. There are something like 10,000 people living there so everyone should be related by then to some degree, unless they mostly moved apart into seperate communities, apart from New Eden. The syncretic religion, and no apparent racial attitudes seem to show otherwise. My apologies. Misread the context of your post.

 

[Alan Roi]

True after two hundred years one would imagin that. There are something like 10,000 people living there so everyone should be related by then to some degree, unless they mostly moved apart into seperate communities, apart from New Eden. The syncretic religion, and no apparent racial attitudes seem to show otherwise. My apologies. Misread the context of your post.

Interestingly enough, a scifi series I read from the 70s by British writer Brian Stableford (The Deadalus Mission) where a ship was being sent out to help out earlier colonies which had been abandoned by Earth for a few hundred years in the past, posited that a diverse population had a better chance for survival as they would be forced to confront their differences and work to overcome them and make use of divergent views as a survival tool, where as a homogeneous group of colonists would arrive with all of their prejudices and reduced diversity of thought intact and reinforced, and therefore be less able to handle what unexpected things their new world might throw at them. So I myself didn't see the shedding of racism and combining religions as all to unlikely.

 

[cooleddie74]

Science in all incarnations of Trek is often very shoddy and even laughable. The J.M. Dillard novelization of Star Trek V explains how Sybok and his followers modified the Enterprise-A's warp engines so that the ship could reach the center of the galaxy and the Great Barrier so quickly but the movie touches on absolutely none of this. The novelization explanation isn't realistic hard science but it's a fair sight more believable in-universe than the Enterprise-A getting there within a day or two of leaving Nimbus III.

Transporters. Light from the Veridian star going dark as soon as Dr. Soran's trilithium probe reaches the surface. Using modified photon torpedoes to remove lethal radiation from a planet's atmosphere in a matter of minutes or even seconds. The Genesis Device. Trek is full of incredible science that walks a fine line between "Maybe? Someday if we're lucky?" and downright ludicrous, but they usually work for audiences because the drama is so strong and the fictional stakes of the story are so high.

 

[Alan Roi]

Vulcans can actually prove their mystic tendancies. They can put souls in jars, they are telepathic.

It allows someone like Spock to quite rationally say "You should be told the difference between empiricism and stubbornness, Doctor."


My kids had no idea they look like they wandered off the Expanse. They like the show. I'll let em know. Is Star Trek for Pure Blooded types now? Do advise.

Yes, its amazing you hear a pronouncements about Star Trek when, generations ago now, Star Trek presented us with its cornerstone on day one, a character called Spock.

 

[Michael]

So, I'll be more clear. Apologies.

1. I didn't like being "highlighted" (strike "singled out"...I didn't realize we were being so literal) for doing something that is neither against forum rules nor, at its core, intended to do what you are blaming me for, particularly given that it almost literally happens once an hour on this board throughout its longstanding history. I think my response to your criticism was a perfectly reasonable position to take, especially if you're going to publicly highlight and criticize a post I've made.

And yes, consistency actually DOES matter.

2. Your criticism isn't invalid. It's just misguided, since you've completely misinterpreted what my point and purpose are. I'm sorry if the approach taken by myself or others like @fireproof78 frustrates you. But that doesn't make it inappropriate or wrong. It just means you're frustrated by it. I get frustrated by people out here all the time. Such is life.

I hope that helps clarify my frustrations and disagreements with the comments you've been making.

Thanks for trying to clarify. And again, I didn't want to give the impression that I was trying to highlight your post specifically. It was just one of the more recent examples from this thread, as I have no time to go back looking for all the earlier posts with similar instances.

I still think that it creates a needlessly unwelcoming atmosphere when criticism about the show is met with unprompted references to similar criticism about the earlier shows. You are right, it's a behavior that frustrates me, as it comes across like an unfair attempt at invalidating that criticism. It's that frustration that – as a reader and participant in this forum – led me to point out that observation in the first place. This is not about forum rules or anything – I'm not writing this as a mod, but as a regular poster – it's just about me being honest about how I feel about you guys reacting this way to criticism of the show.

Look, I don't really think you or others are trying to create this vibe on purpose. (Although I do find it interesting that your argument of “it happens all the time around here” makes it sound like you are basically agreeing with me that it's a somewhat misguided behavior.) But please believe me when I'm saying that this is how it comes across. Make of this what you will.

Well, most of that criticism on DS9 is spot on. What I find it frustrating about 'but X Trek Show did it too' is that it just leads to pointless tangents about whether the thing in the other show was really comparable, and if it was how the poster felt about that. I should be able to say that I don't like idiotic 'science' on Disco without having to list all the Voyager episodes I didn't like for that same reason (so about half of them) or be able to say that I don't like how Disco deals with religion or war crimes without having to preface it with how I didn't like how they dealt with those in DS9 either (and then have to fight rabid DS9 fanboys for eight pages on the Disco forum for daring to besmirch their beloved Saint Sisko.)

This is essentially what I'm talking about as well. Just because one is saying they don't like a thing about Discovery doesn't mean they did like a similar thing in earlier Trek. No-one should be required to preface their Discovery criticism with how they feel about the earlier shows' handling of the same criticism. I think it's preposterous to assume everyone who voices a dislike about something in Discovery automatically liked that same thing in the earlier shows.

If you are equally critical of those elements then I see no problem. It's when I see it criticized in DSC but overlooked in all other Trek that I raise an eyebrow.

What makes you think people are overlooking these things in the other Treks, though? Going back to your example earlier, did those people who complained about the handling of Connelly's death in “Brother” really say they were always fine with how earlier Trek handled it? I mean, it's actually a pretty common criticism of much of the earlier Star Trek shows to say they mishandled the death of minor characters. So why shouldn't people be able to point out the same criticism about Discovery?

 

[Succubint]

Minor and slightly OT aside but NZ has 3 official languages: Te Reo (Maori indigenous) in 1987, NZSL (New Zealand sign language) in 2006 and English.

English was the last of the three to be officially recognized, just last year.

 

[Lord Garth]

In the first season, my attitude towards DSC going in was that anyone who wasn't Michael Burnham could die. Unless they had to make it to TOS. This season, I go in expecting: anyone can die who's not in the opening credits or who has to make it to TOS.

I think sneezing on Connelly and having him be an asshole sets him up to be the annoying person who gets killed. I can't call it mishandled because I think the way he went out is black humor. I get that other people don't like how it was handled, but Pike had to lose someone to add to the danger so he could say, "We can't lose anyone else!" Connelly was the sacrificial lamb.

The worst handled death, I maintain, is from TNG's second season episode "Where Silence Has Lease". Someone else is at the helm when normally it would've been Wesley, and then he gets killed right off! The only reason the writers put him there was so Wesley wouldn't be killed. Otherwise, he would've been there. Stupidest death in Star Trek I've ever seen. The death in "Brother" on the other hand, with Connelly, is with someone on the away mission where it makes sense that, since it's dangerous, this person could potentially be killed. Pike, Burnham, and the other two went into that mission knowing something could happen. It's expected that something like this is exactly what might happen.

That poor helmsman in TNG wasn't expecting anything, the only reason he's there is so Wesley isn't there at just the wrong time and, worst of all, it's the "Kill the black guy!" trope. Down to a T.

 

[Alan Roi]

This is essentially what I'm talking about as well. Just because one is saying they don't like a thing about Discovery doesn't mean they did like a similar thing in earlier Trek. No-one should be required to preface their Discovery criticism with how they feel about the earlier shows' handling of the same criticism. I think it's preposterous to assume everyone who voices a dislike about something in Discovery automatically liked that same thing in the earlier shows.

I think if you have a criticism of Star Trek in general and that Disco is a continuing example of this franchise wide argument then its not unreasonable for people here, all well steeped in Star Trek history, to expect that to be the ideal way approach such a critique.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

Well, the actor played the role well.

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I was being polite about one of the reaons why I think there was a possiblity of other places being saved.

The writers chose Richmond, Indiana as the location of the church. Richmond, Indiana is located in rural Indiana. Rural America is not known for its diversity of beliefs. Yet, we are shown a wide range of beliefs, many of which would not be known to a resident of Richmond.

The city has a population of about 40,000 in a county with a population of 70,000.

And why was Richmond attacked? There are no major military bases near there.

 

[Greg Cox]

Well, most of that criticism on DS9 is spot on. What I find it frustrating about 'but X Trek Show did it too' is that it just leads to pointless tangents about whether the thing in the other show was really comparable, and if it was how the poster felt about that. I should be able to say that I don't like idiotic 'science' on Disco without having to list all the Voyager episodes I didn't like for that same reason (so about half of them) or be able to say that I don't like how Disco deals with religion or war crimes without having to preface it with how I didn't like how they dealt with those in DS9 either (and then have to fight rabid DS9 fanboys for eight pages on the Disco forum for daring to besmirch their beloved Saint Sisko.)

Fair enough. Again, a lot depends on whether the criticism actually compares it to the earlier shows or not.

If you want to say, "the science in that episode was sloppy," that's a perfectly valid criticism that, yes, doesn't require you to acknowledge every bit of sloppy science in every previous STAR TREK project.

But if you say "DISCO is way more sloppy about science than classic Trek," then you're inviting comparisons and counter-examples.

Then again, if you want to argue that we should hold DISCO to a higher standard than previous Treks . . . well, yeah, that's where things get interesting when it comes to comparisons. It's not a double standard, I admit, if someone admits up front that they're holding DISCO to a higher standard because it's 2019 and TV is more sophisticated these days.

As opposed to insisting that the "STAR TREK never did THAT in the good old days" . . . aside from the seventeen times they did.

 

[Alan Roi]

Well, the actor played the role well.

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I was being polite about one of the reaons why I think there was a possiblity of other places being saved.

The writers chose Richmond, Indiana as the location of the church. Richmond, Indiana is located in rural Indiana. Rural America is not known for its diversity of beliefs. Yet, we are shown a wide range of beliefs, many of which would not be known to a resident of Richmond.

The city has a population of about 40,000 in a county with a population of 70,000.

And why was Richmond attacked? There are no major military bases near there.

The attack takes place 35 years in the future. Basic demographic trends of the US as a whole would suggest Richmond Ind. will be likely more diverse when it is zapped away than it is today, as are most towns and cities compared to 35 years ago, not even considering that diversity in the US is accelerating and has been for some time.

 

[Longinus]

I didn't particularly like Connely's death because he was a smug douche whose only purpose was to be killed in a jokey way. If he had, despite his initial douchiness, died heroically trying to help Burnham escape the asteroid or something like that, it would have been better. Not a huge deal at all, but I don't think it was handled particularly well.

 

[Kane_Steel]

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He saw the L'Rell nudity scene from Season One.