Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x07 - "Light and Shadows"

[Alan Roi]

When you put it that way, it makes it sound like a goddamned comic book plot full of superheroes. Which makes it a lot less appealing. Part of what I always loved about Star Trek is by and large the characters are "regular Joes" - basically just above-average professionals doing the best they can.

What show have you been watching the last 50 years? Most of the main cast of the franchise have been exceptional human beings, superior aliens, cyborgs and androids with the odd genetically enhanced hybrids or chosen of alien gods thrown in for good measre. The only people who are 'regular joes' are some people they meet and some of their subordinates, the vast majority of whom have been wet blankets by and large by comparison. Star Trek isn't 'average joes' in space and never has been. They are a group of people that are humanish, but are still able to save the galaxy every other week if needs be. Not even The Orville is that mundane, even if the crew can be pretty dumb at times to appeal to their audience and due to the limitations of Seth's abilty to write. The only scifi space show of note that even qualifies under that banner is maybe Red Dwarf, IMHO.

 

[Timo]

Hmm. Kirk only ever had one celebrity to his crew - the Ambassador's Son. And even that guy kept his candle under a pretty airtight bushel. Nothing exceptional about the rest. Or their equipment, or anything. It really was the antithesis of "space is cool!", a show about the bluecollars of space exploitation dealing with the absurd as if it were mundane.

Picard commanded a celebrity ship, so obviously he had a celebrity crew, too. Mostly a crew of celebrities as opposed to superbeings, though: nobody appreciated the abilities of Data until Picard came along, only his rarity value, and nobody appreciated the abilities of Worf until, well, Sisko came along. The Ambassador's Offspring this time was underused as anything else, and explicitly termed a half-wit insofar as her species' superpowers went. The one resident superbeing spread his wings and left eventually.

Sisko commanded a station of misfits. No superheroes there, either, by any species' standards. Quite to the contrary, really.

Which one of Janeway's crew was a superhero? The serial killer, perhaps? The Maquis traitor (that is, the guy who moved from betraying the UFP for the Maquis to betraying the Maquis for the UFP)? The Eternal Ensign? The.. Well, the bottom line is that nobody was actually credited with special abilities as far as Starfleet personnel went, even though the violent Replacement Chief Engineer worked some impressive miracles.

So would it be Archer who worked with exceptional human beings? Which ones?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pindar]

One of the downsides of Netflix is we don't get the previews for the next episode, so having now seen it I can't wait for next week.

I hope that Kaminar was out of range of the temporal wave from the explosion at the end of the episode.

While I was watching I did think the future stand off that Pike saw in the shuttle would be because somehoe the time rift would reach back and Voq would briefly be in control again.

 

[Pindar]

Which one of Janeway's crew was a superhero? The serial killer, perhaps? The Maquis traitor (that is, the guy who moved from betraying the UFP for the Maquis to betraying the Maquis for the UFP)? The Eternal Ensign?

Surely 7 of 9 qualifies.

 

[Rahul]

Sorry, but that is simply blown out of proportion and patently not true. Where is that serious problem? Who is related to everyone? Nobody. Who knew everyone before the show started? Nobody. Who has single-handedly saved everyone every single time? Nobody. Who is special in a physical way and stands out beyond humanity (i.e. has been enhanced and is okay with it without suffering long-lasting consequences as far as we can tell)? Paul, my darling. He saved the ship more often than everyone else put together, because he is awesome. Saru evolved and drastically changed the fate of his entire planet. Spock is the one connected to the Red Angel, not Michael. Tyler is the one-of-a-kind hybrid. Tilly is the one who got kidnapped by a fungus so she could help save an entire species. Culber came back from the dead. Lorca was from the MU. Pike has man-pain because he sat out the war. Airiam got affected by the computer virus.

Almost none of that is connected to Michael herself beyond anything plausible. She is there. She does things. She's driving Spock to Talos IV, but he's the one with the connection. Do you want her to lock herself in her room and not interact with anyone?

Where are you people getting this impression from, anyway? It's just so artificial.

Also, come on. Fiction always connects characters to each other and to events so that we actually feel invested. Otherwise, we might really watch the irrelevant non-adventures of Captain John Everyman on the USS Nondescript.

It's completely fine if a character on a show has a special relationship, that everytime this plays into the plot, this special character is invoked. For example Stamets has this relationship to the spore-drive because of plot reasons. Thus it's entirely logical and good storytelling that, everytime the spore drive plays a major role in an episode's plot, Stamets should be involved. Even if some of the plots are more ridiculous than others - that's how it should be.

What's not good is forcing every major player in the multiverse to have a personal, intimate backstory with the main character (Spock, Sarek, MU Georgiou & Lorca, Leland, ...) - all of which are unconected, independant and completely arbitrary from each other. At this point, I'm glad that Admiral Cornwell isn't Burnham's "real" mother that gave her away for adoption as achild and L'Rell turns out to be Burnhams Klingon childhood friend from the crib... That's un-organic, forced story-telling.

Good Burnham examples are her relationships to Tilly, Saru and Pike - they worked together, and now these relationships have developed into deep, honest friendships. If in a coming episode either of them is in grave danger - it makes absolute sense for Burnham to be personally, emotionally involved in their well-being. I dont need Tilly to be revealed as Burnham's long lost half-sister for that.

The show should really put it's focus on the relationships it already naturally introduced, instead of retro-actively trying to put everything together as "aleady always having been related" via complicated backstory that is retro-actively info-dumped on the viewer.

 

[Alan Roi]

Hmm. Kirk only ever had one celebrity to his crew - the Ambassador's Son. And even that guy kept his candle under a pretty airtight bushel. Nothing exceptional about the rest. Or their equipment, or anything. It really was the antithesis of "space is cool!", a show about the bluecollars of space exploitation dealing with the absurd as if it were mundane.

Picard commanded a celebrity ship, so obviously he had a celebrity crew, too. Mostly a crew of celebrities as opposed to superbeings, though: nobody appreciated the abilities of Data until Picard came along, only his rarity value, and nobody appreciated the abilities of Worf until, well, Sisko came along. The Ambassador's Offspring this time was underused as anything else, and explicitly termed a half-wit insofar as her species' superpowers went. The one resident superbeing spread his wings and left eventually.

Sisko commanded a station of misfits. No superheroes there, either, by any species' standards. Quite to the contrary, really.

Which one of Janeway's crew was a superhero? The serial killer, perhaps? The Maquis traitor (that is, the guy who moved from betraying the UFP for the Maquis to betraying the Maquis for the UFP)? The Eternal Ensign? The.. Well, the bottom line is that nobody was actually credited with special abilities as far as Starfleet personnel went, even though the violent Replacement Chief Engineer worked some impressive miracles.

So would it be Archer who worked with exceptional human beings? Which ones?

Timo Saloniemi

Well that was entertaining.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

Michael doesn't even know Mirror Georgiou all that well. Her counterpart knew her and Lorca. Lorca's dead, so one to go.

The point is that you can apply this kind of fine-comb analysis to basically every book or show or movie and come away with similar results; if that's your goal. The results will often be identical.

In the end, it's a matter of how any of us wishes to perceive something within a narrative. To me, Michael is no more connected to anything than Kirk ever was. She's along for the ride and has some personal bonds, just like everyone else. She's one of the mains. We need her to have connections. They all do. That's how I see it.

We can debate this ad nauseam and ad infinitum, but I don't think the results will change.

 

[XCV330]

Surely 7 of 9 qualifies.

Godlike-Powers Kes as well, and the Hologram Doctor who eventually can beam across the galaxy, survive hundreds of years in data storage, take over 7 of 9's body to have romance wine and cheesecake, and has technology hundreds of years too advanced for the current timeline on his holographic shoulder. I think the ship Voyager qualifies as well since no matter what is done to it, it looks clean and fresh the next episode.

 

[Greg Cox]

now i had to gOOgle nancy, too

... don't forget i'm german

I did forget you were German. So Nancy Drew is less known overseas? Fascinating. She's been a staple of American kidlit, not to mention movies and television, for close to ninety years now . . ...

 

[Pindar]

I did forget you were German. So Nancy Drew is less known overseas? Fascinating. She's been a staple of American kidlit, not to mention movies and television, for close to ninety years now . . ...

I read Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys as a kid in the UK.

 

[Timo]

...For some reason, Nancy Drew never made it to Finland. That is, we certainly got the books, but it's Paula Drew there solving those mysteries. Absolutely no idea why that happened - Paula is a Finnish name where Nancy is not, but that's no excuse because Drew remained Drew.

The Famous Five were partially renamed, too - Georgina became another Paula because Pauli, another national-international name, is an intuitively clear masculinization of the name for the tomboy character while both Georgina and George would have been a bit too alien to the readers who were already struggling with their Anglicana. The Hardy Boys avoided any such fate, thankfully enough.

Generally, we get "raw feed" as regards names in fiction, although I understand some countries have altered some Star Trek names, too...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[oberth]

I read Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys as a kid in the UK.

no need to translate them, right? i bet you never read nesthäkchen, though (that particular book wasn't reprinted later)

 

[SJGardner]

Godlike-Powers Kes as well, and the Hologram Doctor who eventually can beam across the galaxy, survive hundreds of years in data storage, take over 7 of 9's body to have romance wine and cheesecake, and has technology hundreds of years too advanced for the current timeline on his holographic shoulder. I think the ship Voyager qualifies as well since no matter what is done to it, it looks clean and fresh the next episode.

Don't forget Harry who's actually a doppelgänger of the original, Neelix who died and was resurrected by Seven, or B'Elanna who's apparently the mother of the Klingon Messiah and also had to defuse a Cardassian WMD with a state of the art self-aware AI that she had reprogrammed herself and just so happened to be brought into the Delta Quadrant at the same time as Voyager was. Or the recurring cast that includes another doppelgänger from the same incident as Harry, a deep undercover Obsidian Order agent (who was infiltrating a Maquis cell that was also infiltrated by a deep undercover Starfleet Intelligence operative at the same time) and a teenager who was genetically modified into an anti-Borg superweapon.

 

[Pindar]

no need to translate them, right?

Nope.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Maybe Spock needs one of these.

View attachment 8443

He needs a pair of these:

Jeez guys, Spock gets picked on enough, don't you think?

 

[SJGardner]

Jeez guys, Spock gets picked on enough, don't you think?

Must have something to do with that childhood incident with that mechanical rice picker.

 

[Tuskin38]

Wow, Ex Astris gave this 7, his first score above 6 this season.

I've noticed that for most episodes this season, his episode polls, people have voted mostly 8s

His audience outside of social media seems to enjoy Discovery

 

[Noname Given]

Wenn ist das Nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beierhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!



*dies*

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[Noname Given]

When you put it that way, it makes it sound like a goddamned comic book plot full of superheroes. Which makes it a lot less appealing. Part of what I always loved about Star Trek is by and large the characters are "regular Joes" - basically just above-average professionals doing the best they can.

So, Dr. Bashir, the genetically enhanced super intellect (outed in DS9 S5), must have really dragged down DS9's popularity among Star Trek fandom over the years since...oh, wait...

 

[fireproof78]

So, Dr. Bashir, the genetically enhanced super intellect (outed in DS9 S5), must have really dragged down DS9's popularity among Star Trek fandom over the years since...oh, wait...

I mean, I hated him so much...oh, wait...he actually was one of the few characters that kept me going through DS9 at first.