Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x04 - "An Obol for Charon"

C'mon Merry Mike, it doesn't happen that often.

 

Yeah, I think the transporter operators started putting on weight. Not much to do in between beaming except snack and watch the viewer offerings. And yes, crumbs in the slider control...

 

Crumbs in my slider is why I can't keep a relationship going.

 

americans have 'sliders'?

 

Take two mini-cheeseburgers and call me in the morning.

 

Another bad episode.

It starts out promising and feels more grounded, but soon falls apart.

The quippy dialog isn't funny or cute. It's just dumb and immature; kills the verisimilitude. The juvenile aspects of this show continues to be a problem.

The twist with Kelpiens was a good idea. The moment with Saru and Micheal at the end was reasonably well written and acted, but it wasn't earned. This show never invested enough in their relationship for that scene to carry any real weight.

The sphere is an interesting concept, but the STD writers aren't talented enough to make it compelling without "humanizing" it. There's also tons of pseudo-science-fiction nonsense in this episode as usual.

4/10

 

Classical music appreciation is either a required course, or an easy course to keep your GPA up at the academy.

Although there's maybe at this early point in Starfleet, still a class taught called something-like Time Travel for Dummies 101, which is at the very least about using popular media to identify which decade you're in.

 

Adults do talk like this. Not everything needs to be serious all the time. It's realistic.

 

Sure, that's an option. Go for it if it satisfies you. I don't care for it, myself... it would most likely result in me simply not watching DSC, inasmuch as the show I unreservedly love and respect is the one made back in the '60s.

But the other thing is (and I won't dwell on this, as I know it's been argued to death before, but still), Trek is not about a future extrapolated from "right now." It's about a future extrapolated from the 1960s. (Or how did you enjoy those Eugenics Wars?... and wasn't it exciting last year when space travel finally moved beyond that outdated sleeper ship tech?...)

A science fiction show that was really extrapolated from present day science, technology, culture, and politics would be very different. It might be very good and entertaining (and probably a lot more cynical)... it might be a lot like, say, The Expanse (which I think is awesome)... but it wouldn't be anything like Star Trek.

 

Example?

 

TOS yes, but the later movies and TNG were inspired by the eras they were created in.

 

so, you didn't like tng, ds9, voy or ent either?


... do we have a hardcore forum for tossers (spelling?)?

 

I love quippy dialogue. It's entertaining and realistic. In real life, people crack wise, make jokes, and kid around, even in tense situations. (Or at least most of the people I know do.) Gotta assume the same applies on starships three hundred years from now. I'll take snark over solemnity and technobabble any day . . . as is probably obvious from my posts.

Lord knows there was plenty of humorous banter on TOS. Colloquial dialogue and quips make the characters more human and believable, not to mention more fun to watch.

 

Only TOS. TNG is future extrapolated from 80s, DS9 and VGR from 90s and ENT from 2000s. Look at the computer devices in these series.

 

Star Trek is only limited to retrofuturism of the 60s if one psychologically needs it to be. Same goes for James Bond, Doctor Who, Planet of the Apes and a whole slew of ideas that were born in that era or any era of the past, really.

Essentially, the Eugenic Wars were the near future to the people watching Star Trek in 1966 and the distant past to the crew of the Enterprise. What exactly does it matter if the Eugenic Wars are still in our near future if they are still in the distant past to those in Star Fleet? Does a few decades here or there really make an important difference to what you are watching if they are still ancient history to the characters in the show?

 

Kirk could have used that class, since he didn't recognize "Clark Gable" when Edith Keeler mentioned him.

 

I like how @Greg Cox ignored the post about when and where the Eugenics Wars took place.

A real pro.

 

Or maybe I have nothing more to say about it having written two whole books on the subject.

 

at least you don't wave them in front of the camera right now

 

I didn't say anything of the sort. I simply made the point that TOS is my favorite by far. If I have to choose between it and another Trek property for some reason (and DSC seems to force that kind of choice annoyingly often), I'll pretty much always choose the original.

FWIW, DS9 is my favorite among the latter-day Trek shows. I think TNG had a few good seasons (3-6), ENT had one (4), and VOY was pretty consistently worthless from beginning to end.