Also, the new engineer (Pelia) feels like she walked off of another show and clashes in every scene she's in (feels like a "poochie"). I don't know who instructed her to use that raspy Eastern European voice, but it sounds appropriate to play Baba Yaga, and doesn't match with the pretty understated costuming of her character.
Following up on this: What's wrong with having an Eastern European accent?
Discovery season 3 wasn't much of a shining example of anything good storywise. (Warp drive is the only long distance transportation tech we successfully developed in 900 years???)
IIRC, DIS S3 establishes the exact opposite. We literally see them using FTL tech that isn't standard warp drive. Rather, what DIS S3 establishes is that every form of FTL that's been deployed on a large scale uses dilithium.
I am not interested in Pelia. She is a character with a mystery box past. Mystery boxes should be hanged, drawn, and quartered.
I don't think there's much of a Mystery Box there. She's from a culture of people whose lifespans last for centuries and hid themselves amongst Humans previously but are now publicly known. That's interesting, but it's not a Mystery Box. There's not a puzzle about her past that needs to be solved.
It has become so obnoxious that now there is talk about re-doing the ending of The Empire Strikes Back, so we, the audience, can know how Luke's lightsaber got into the possession of the alien lady in The Force Awakens and how his hand had a role in the plots of evil people in the Star Wars universe.
Talk from whom? Do you just mean random fan speculation? Because fans always talk and usually none of it means anything.
The only part of the episode that did bother me was the writers seemingly taking the "Vulcans cannot lie" idea at face value. It's never been true, and it's only an interesting idea when we see all the ways characters believe it even as Vulcans bend, spindle, and mutilate truth.
I don't care because of any continuity-related reasons, but because it takes an idea filled with subtext and flattens it out.
I think you misread the episode. Spock is propagating that stereotype for his own purposes, but the narrative isn't endorsing the idea that Vulcans don't lie. Hell, part of the entire point of the Spock/Christine arc is that Spock was lying to himself about his own feelings until recently.
Having said that, I still can't get over the fact that they reintroduce all these TOS characters - clearly intended as fanservice - but then don't actually service the fans by keeping them consistent with what we know.
I would posit to you that the decision to bring back legacy characters is
not "clearly intended as fanservice" if you define the word "fanservice" as "giving fans more of something familiar."
I would, rather, posit to you that the creative intent in bringing back legacy characters was to find ways to interpret and depict them that are new and unexpected. To reinterpret and find new depths.
Much as I like Jess Bush's performance itself, her Chapel is still the worst offender in this category. Who is this person and why is she the namesake of Majel Barrett's character?
Who cares? Her version is better.
But I think one can make a good case that the show - now as throughout season 1 - is too jokey, too setpiece-oriented. Kind of the series equivalent of a modern tentpole movie.
Well, that's just
Strange New Worlds's baseline style. Just like
Lower Decks is an animated adult sitcom and
Discovery is an action-adventure drama. If you don't like its fundamental style, then either it must change what it fundamentally
is, or you're not gonna be able to get into it. Personally, I'd rather evaluate how well it executes its style. Objecting to that seems like objecting to
When Harry Met Sally being a romantic comedy or to
The Godfather being a crime drama.
There was no reason at all for M'Benga to have the superhero juice in his pocket - except that the producers thought "it would be cool" to have these guys have hand-to-hand combat with 25 Klingons. In order to get there, you need to sacrifice characterization and logic.
No you don't. It makes perfect sense. M'Benga knew there were Klingons on the planet, he knew there was a chance he'd be captured, he knew he would probably not be able to smuggle a weapon, but he also knew he could take the serum and give himself a temporary hand-to-hand combat advantage based on his experience in the war.
As for the overly lighthearted tone: Carol Kane's character. MORE comic relief in a show that is already 40% comic relief?
1.
Strange New Worlds is not 40% comic relief.
2. The style of
Strange New Worlds compliments the style of
The Original Series, which famously featured episodes like "The Trouble With Tribbles," "Shore Leave," "A Piece of the Action," and other light-hearted pieces.
3. You are projecting your memory of Carol Kane's other characters onto Pelia. While Kane is clearly giving a more light-hearted performance, her character is not actually comedic. She doesn't tell jokes and the performance is not over-the-top slapstick or broadly-drawn in the manner of, say, Mariner on
Lower Decks. Having a raspy, Eastern European-accented voice does not actually make her Smika from
Taxi.
I'll wait and see where it goes, but I worry. Her performance as such was NOT. GOOD. Don't kid yourselves here with nostalgia for some previous role she played. I didn't know her before, and what I saw here was a person struggling with every single line.
If her performance didn't work for you, it didn't work for you. But the fact that you subjectively did not enjoy it does not mean she was struggling. She was making clear and confident acting choices, and you just didn't like them. That's your prerogative, but that doesn't mean she didn't know what she was doing.
A woman cannot punch like that without breaking her hands. Even though it is my fave Chapel it is ridiculous.
It is a standard convention of American action cinema and television that characters can punch and kick without breaking their hands. You might as well complain about every action show on the air today.
I watched this last night. I think it was written by AI maybe.
No. Jesus, can't people dislike something without insulting the writers' professionalism?
They stole from Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Expanse and previous Star Trek shows.
The drinking scene was a clear tip-of-the-hat to
Raiders; clear allusions are not "stealing."
Star Trek has done "characters violate orders to save the day" a million times. But I don't particularly see how they "stole" anything from
Return of the Jedi or
The Expanse.
The 'thermal detonator' scene and the enhancement drugs I didn't care for. Klingons would know better you would think.
Why? These guys are miners and business guys and organized crime dudes, not trained soldiers.
Don't know if it's been mentioned here, but I found it interesting that Pike and Una put a lot of emphasis on the SHE they were trying to get represent Una's case. Certainly seems like it's going to someone familiar (actor or character). I'm putting my money on a certain pointy eared first officer coming out of retirement
Nah. For one, I don't think Jolene Blalock is ever coming back to the acting world. She hasn't been in anything in a million years, and her husband is the CEO of LiveNation -- meaning, he's one of the richest and most powerful people in the entertainment industry. She doesn't need the money. These days, her day job is running the family philanthropic foundation.
Secondly... even from an in-universe perspective, why T'Pol? She wasn't a lawyer. Her background was as a science officer and security service agent.
Finally, the preview for the next episode strongly implied that this lawyer is someone who's not native to a standard M-Class atmosphere.
Spocks current emotional troubles could be the writer's way of trying to explain his emotionalism in The Cage.
Well, it's unclear yet what year S2 is set in, but S1 was set in 2259 -- five years after "The Cage." So something that happened to Spock in 2259 wouldn't explain his behavior in 2254.
Didn’t Pelia say she first revealed who she was to a Vulcan on Earth? I could see that being our favorite catsuit wearing Vulcan not Una’s lawyer.
No, she said that Spock's mother, Amanda Greyson, was one of the first people she "came out" to.
and why is the “go to warp” phrase all of a sudden a big deal in nu-Trek. First Saru and Tilly workshopping something. Then Freeman and some ensign doing the same thing. Then hiding what Seven says, now this little exchange with Spock. It’s a weird thing to make a big deal of.
I am begging everyone: Let
Star Trek have some whimsy. Please.
4. Nonsensical conspiracy plot that "Star Trek Into Darkness" would be proud of
It's not that nonsensical. The people running the mines were making a lot of money during the war selling dilithium to both sides from 2256 to 2257. Now it's 2259, and sales are down because shipbuilding is down, since neither side needs nearly so many replacements for ships the enemy destroys. The cartel wants to re-start the war to go back to selling to both sides, so they attempt a false-flag attack. Pretty simple.
5. Why is it so important that Spock have a love interest? I love Chapel. I love Spock. I don't see their "relationship" as plausible right now.
I mean, if a given couple doesn't interest you, then they don't interest you. Chemistry is not actually something that can be objectively defined or required. But the producers -- and most of the audience -- clearly see chemistry between Spock and Christine, and they want to explore how a Vulcan navigates the kinds of relationship entanglements real people experience.
I understand what you mean, but I also think that it's not just that they fought, it was how they fought.
Action sequences should - like all choices in storytelling, be rooted in the characters. So, for example, a "direct" character should fight in a straightforward fashion, while deceitful one feints in combat. Or how Batman in most depictions (other than Zach Snyder, who didn't understand him) doesn't kill.
Other than starting with M'Benga's supersoldier juice (which arguably is somewhat rooted in medicine) nothing we see about their combat seems rooted in any way in the characters being medical professionals,
Probably because both M'Benga and Christine are more than just medical professionals, and because, well, combat is combat. You might as well ask why O'Brien's style of playing darts wasn't defined by his being an engineer.
The bad element of the conspiracy was the motivation of those still onboard the ship made no sense. They were on a suicide mission; the Bird of Prey would have blown them up.
Seems pretty obvious to me that they would have gotten themselves beamed back down to the planet before the ship was destroyed.
Honestly, the way the Klingons acted in this episode (other than the captain of the ship in the closing scenes) don't act Klingon-like at all. I can partially excuse that with the understanding they aren't Klingon warriors, just normal schlubs,
Then what's the issue? Species are going to have a wide range of personality types. It's unrealistic to expect all Klingons to act the same.
but still, there was little pressing reason (other than trying to tie into the thinly-explained PTSD of M'Benga) to have the antagonists be Klingon.
Having the antagonists be Klingons meant they got to establish stakes ("The war will resume if we don't stop them!") and meant they got to have fun with Klingons. There have literally been fans upset that
Star Trek hasn't featured Klingons since
Discovery Season Two.
But even the regular Joe Klingons are all die-in-battle wannabes aren't they? It's cultural.
That idea has never made sense. A culture cannot function if everyone wants to die in battle.
The values of the Klingon ruling class are not necessarily the values of all of Klingon society, as the Klingon lawyer in ENT "Judgment" established. Think of it this way: modern American culture may deify military service and glorify war, but most Americans don't want to serve in the military.
And maybe they had no intention of being caught? Or maybe those on board had been tricked into believing they wouldn't be the first to be sacrificed if something went wrong. Or maybe, they were going to launch and fake attack remotely but M'Benga and Chapel's interference upped the stakes and messed with the timing. I can supply lots of plausible reasons it works. That didn't seem an issue to me. Greedy people can always find other greedy people to do the dirty work.
Very true!
If so, then they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, and why isn't their Popeye-juice standard issue throughout the fleet? Didn't seem to have any ill effect on them, and they wiped up an entire ship full of Klingons.
We don't know that it didn't have any ill effect; the episode moved too fast to go into that kind of detail.
The easiest solution to this one is de-canonize the ST, destroy every copy in existence, and for Disney to sell SW back to GL. But that is a topic for another thread.
You can pry my copy of the greatest
Star Wars film ever made,
The Last Jedi, from my cold, dead hands.
Who says it moved? There is still a 'Jupiter Station' mentioned in all the Berman era 24th century series. Maybe it just was renamed/re-designated at some point in the intervening 100 years.
Yeah, the fact that Jupiter Station and/or Starbase 1 weren't immediately visible in "The Last Generation" doesn't mean they weren't there, at a different orbital altitude or orbiting on the other side of the planet from where the cube was hiding.
Also, the station orbiting Earth has usually been refered to as "Earth Space Dock" or "ESD". I don't think it's even been referred to as "Starbase 1".
Though it would make more sense for Starbase 1 to be in orbit of the Federation capital planet, and for the capital planet of each Federation Member State to have a Starbase X in orbit for both planetary defense and Starfleet logistical operations.
Two reasons.
1. Because that is how the character was originally portrayed and developed. So what if she was pathetic? A lot of people are- that's life.
2. Using old characters in a prequel restricts what can be done with them. At least, as long as the studio insists this is the actual, no-shit TOS timeline and not some derivative of it.
No. You can also just reinterpret the character. Captain Jack Harkness is different in
Torchwood than he is in
Doctor Who because
Torchwood is (at least nominally) a show for adults instead of children, but they're still the same character.
Someone else nailed the point: if you don't want the internal consistency with these characters to start with, why use them at all?
To add new depths to them. To transform them into something new. To rearrange that which is familiar into that which is unexpected. It's the same reason artists cover or remix old songs instead of just releasing the old recordings; it's the same reason Shakespeare plays get reinterpreted with different settings/costumes instead of just repeating the traditional settings/costumes; it's the same reason films get remade; it's the same reason new adaptations of ancient myths are produced.
Because this isn't expanding someone's backstory. This is completely changing someone's characterization with new backstory.
In this context, there's no difference between the two. And this version is far superior to the original.
Just like when they say they just wanted to expand on the Gorn concept ... Well completely changing is not expanding.
Yes it is. And the original Gorn concept -- like the original Chapel character -- was so lacking in detail that almost any attempt to expand would also read to someone else as completely changing it.
Never said that. But if you want to use legacy characters in order to name drop, my opinion is that the writing has to be believable that Strange New Worlds Chapel will become TOS Chapel. And I don't buy that based on this. I don't buy that for Strange New Worlds Spock and TOS Spock either.
Do yourself a favor: Don't look up
Orson Welles's production of Macbeth. He set it in Haiti. You'd hate that.
I honestly cannot stand Pelia's voice.
Infinite diversity in infinite combinations!
So when we eventually get to the TNG prequel show that shows Mot the Barber as a Bolian supersoldier before he started cutting hair that'll completely make sense?
Absolutely nobody gives a shit about Mister Mot, but if they decided to give him an
actual personality, I'd be all for it.
Also, giving a woman agency, confidence, and a personality is not nearly as ridiculous as your words here imply.
Why not? They already showed Jean-Luc the winemaker as a human soldier gunning down Borg and joyriding dune buggies on pre-warp planets before he started making wine.
People are more than just any one thing in their lives.
Well... M'Benga was played by Booker in his late twenties in TOS. Babs is late 30s, which might be fine except he's supposed to be almost a decade younger than Booker's version. Then add in that he's got a ten year old daughter in SNW and you'd have to make M'Benga even older unless he was a teen dad. When you crunch the math down, M'Benga probably should be pushing 50 in TOS if not older under the new timeline but that doesn't match anywhere near what he looks like in TOS.
Actors don't have to be the same ages as their characters.
Have you seen TOS??? It never met a plot it wouldn’t steal.
Yep! In fact,
The Original Series was itself a pastiche of
Forbidden Planet, Westerns, and colonialist adventure stories like
Horatio Hornblower.
