Spoilers Star Trek: Short Treks 1x02 - "Calypso"

The 80s cartoon Ulysses 31 was a great scifi adaptation of the material.


This short reminded me a bit of Still Treads the Shadow with the ship and computer.

 

I loved Ulysses 31 when i was little, I need to see if it's on DVD

 

Thank y'all!
Now that you spelled it out for me, I remember again (though i absolutely, 100% wasn't aware anymore that the nymph was called Calypso - knowing that it's pretty on the nose! )

Incidentally, this was also the part I least liked about the original Odyssee: "Oh, hurr durr, Odysseus was SO brave, took 10 years to travel back home and everything". Like, dude, he was banging another chick for 7 frickin' years of that time!

 

4: Zora was lying to herself and to him. Craft called her on it.
5: Maybe she named herself. She had her own concept of what she would look like, as a human. Maybe she decided to give herself a name and picked Zora "Dawn" for personal reasons. Or maybe that's just the current build name of her operating system.
7: He's crafty, maybe? Perhaps there were certain style giveaways, or the old starfleet logos, that would have been like a 4th century AD Roman legionary seeing an old Republic era helmet and realizing he was looking at an old antique.

Interestingly, Romans did not regard Odysseus as a hero, unlike the Greeks. They thought he was sneaky, deceitful and dishonorable. They probably wouldn't have cared much for the idea that he spent 7 years as a love addicted man ignoring his familial duties, either.

 

I didn't get that impression. The conflict seemed between two factions of Antos IV. If Craft people was at war with the Federation, I doubt the A.I. would have been so helpful. I also got the impression the Federation itself may have collapsed as he referred to it as part of the past that the faction he was fighting against wanted to keep alive.

 

Yeah, Odysseus definitely wasn't a moral guy by todays standards. Interesting to learn he wasn't even by Roman ones! I didn't knew that!

On the other hand, I'm also a fan of stories with a "guile hero". Especially some of his adventures on the journey definitely fall into that category, I always like it more if the hero is clever and not just an honorable brute.

It's always funny to remember the Odyssee was escapist fiction back then as well - "wouldn't it be AWESOME to just KILL all your wife's admireres?" "Hell yeah!" - basically "The Punisher - ancient edition".

 

Back to topic:
I really find it interesting how much more I liked Zora's voice, than the computer vice of season 1. In my opinion, the computer voice of the Discovery of season 1 was a big problem: She seemed uncaring, cold, almost authoritarian. Like you would expect the computer of "The Empire" sound, or from the Alien universe. Contrast with Majel Berret's computer voice, which (while matter-of-factly) always was had a more friendly, "Federation-y" tone.

I really hope whoever voiced "Zora" will become the new computer voice of the Discovery in the following seasons!

 

I immediately thought of Andromeda and Rommie.

 

and it had an awesome theme song (like, you know, most 80s cartoons). If I remember correctly, the theme was played in discos and clubs all over France during that time and inspired Daft Punk to become...Daft Punk

 

What if "Craft" was also a ship?

His name is a bit of a giveaway.

 

Matt Smith Doctor Who crossover CONFIRMED

 

I finally remembered to watch this today, and I really, really enjoyed it. It was very well written and acted, with a good story. A little more context might have been nice, but since it's a short it's understandable that it's not going to go into a ton of detail.
I was avoiding spoilers, so I hadn't heard that Craft's enemy was the Federation. That's definitely an interesting twist.
I wonder if this is a completely standalone story, or if it will tie to some kind of future story down the line, either in more Short Treks, Disco itself, or maybe even it's own series?

 

The creator of the episode already confirmed that Craft's enemy where the Federation.......

 

It was confirmed his enemy was the Federation. Take a good look at his life pod.

 

Even if DSC isn’t, the writer is working on the Picard show

 

What does it say about Trek that it's "best episode" reminds everyone of Black Mirror? It reminds me very much of Next Gen's "The Inner Light" being heavily praised when it wasn't like Trek at all, just some movie about someone growing old with a seperate Trekkish B-plot.

 

I agree. The beauty of Trek is it's a format that lends itself to anything. Trek can be action-adventure, hard sci-fi, spy thriller, romance, western, high farce, costume drama, message piece. You name it, Trek has done it. Hell, the original conception of TOS was essentially "anthology show with an unchanging cast"

If Trek really has a core, it's basically about a positive examination of the human condition. Most typically, this is done through allegorical settings or through a "character drama." Calypso was both. The entire episode was an allegorical retelling of part of The Odyssey, and the entire focus on the plot was on the interactions between Craft and Zora.

I also really appreciated that this episode had zero fanwank (it was just on Discovery to save the producers money). Trek of course has fanwank, but it's not typically about fanwank. That's why I think Calypso felt much more like Trek even though it lacked the extensive callbacks that Discovery Season 1 had - because the fanwank was really the only thing that seemed Trekkian about Discovery's first season. Take away the setting and it would just seem like a generic sci-fi property. In contrast, Calypso succeeded in feeling like Trek even though the actual references to canon were so limited that you cannot figure things out without off-camera explanation from Chabon.