Oh they did. it was perfunctory and a bit nonsensical, but there weren't really any dangling threads.
Spoilers Strange New Worlds 1x02 - "Children of The Comet"
- Thread starter Mudd
- Start date
Oh they did. it was perfunctory and a bit nonsensical, but there weren't really any dangling threads.
Well, whatever. I'm just pointing out that we both do have hand-waves because the plot requires it. You might claim that yours isn't, but it is. Comets just don't come that large. The largest one ever recorded (C/2014 UN271) has a radius of 120km and that's 50 times the size of the average comet. If the one in the episode was Pluto size (a billion average comets), they would've pointed that out!
But my answer is a hand-wave too! We both came up with our own solution. They're on equal footing. And can both be happy. But they're both hand-waves.
And one thing you don't seem to understand is that I don't need to explain jack shit to you. I'm not going to go detailing imaginary answers to extreme levels because I'm not trying to prove my idea to you. I don't give a flying flip if you buy it or not. But me not providing what you deem satisfactory details doesn't make your answer any less of a hand-wave. That's a logical fallacy.
And being honest, that attitude of just letting people have their own ideas is something you should consider trying. You seem a bit too invested in proving that your answers are the correct ones. You come across as bit unhinged at times always having to "prove" that what said is correct even when it's just a matter of opinion. Just some free, helpful advice for you. You'll be happier if you can just relax and expect others to have different opinions!
They stuck the landing, but it was a bit wobbly! It even had some utterly beautiful moments in it.
Thanks. For some odd reason, I always get the two mixed up.
I was doubtful about the show from when it was announced, I enjoy Discovery but its always not felt fully like the Star Trek I grew up with and I accepted that. So now we get a Captain Pike show following on from his season 2 adventures in Discovery. And 2 episodes in and I'm happy with what I have seen so far. I like that its not an overall story arc throughout the show and feels like its going back to the normal, 1 episode, 1 story and move on. But still early days so we will have to see if there is an overall story arc in the end.
Glad we got an Uhura story early on, giving her a lot of development.
Glad we got an Uhura story early on, giving her a lot of development.
Which shrank it. The wall was farther back from the railings and Captain's chair in DSC and the turbolift doors were a little deeper into the background of shots.
MY sister gave me one of those reticular "3-D" mouse pads some years ago that shows the TOS Enterprise firing phasers, and they are red beams. Of course, I don't know the canon provenance of my mouse pad.
They were generally blue beams but early on they were both blue and red bolts. TOS is a magnificent show but the early effects were all over the map.
Then I can only suggest that you're not using that term correctly. You can call any argument you don't like a hand-wave, but it doesn't make it so.
Sorry, I'm not talking about how large they have been observed to be, but how large they are defined as being i.e. at which point does size make it not a comet, and what do you call it at that point. So far you've made no attempt to answer this, even though this would definitely prove me wrong.
I quite understand it. However you continue to claim that your explanation is as good as mine, when in fact I've explained how mine resolves the issue while you have not. And the fact that you keep responding to my posts shows that you're just as invested in this conversation as I am.
And in TOS S2 - "The Doomsday Machine" they were a darkest yellow. But yeah, sometime in S2 they created a stock Blue Phasers VFX shot that they started to use more consistently in later episodes.
This show's pretty fun!
Likes
Less-Than-Likes:
Observations:
Stray Thoughts:
Likes
- Celia Rose Gooding. Not sure I need to go into that more, really. Credit to the writers for giving her a good showcase.
- The Hemmer intro was more fun than I expected, and I’m happy Uhura got to have a little pushback. In general, this episode did a very fine job of seeding her talents and having them justified when used later in the story (i.e. they establish her singing when nervous and being a language prodigy). They said she was a prodigy in week one. In week two, they showed it, and it became a plot point. Good!
- The captain’s table vibe was a good one. Felt like a TNG poker game.
- I’m not making any judgments about Peck’s Spock just yet, but I’ve enjoyed it thus far, on SNW and DISCO. There’s a few moments where he really, really sounds like Nimoy. He also is very good at not-smiling. Very skillful Vulcan reaction work.
- I kind of really love that Sam Kirk, xenoanthropologist, is zapped unconscious immediately. Very Trek, and very funny that the man who is here specifically to solve alien riddles is rendered useless. That’s how you make plot happen. Also general like this glimpse at the character — I really like how he was playful and encouraged Uhura. Felt very pedagogical. Cool character, I think. Now I’ll really be sad when he goes to Deneva!
- Side note: My Star Trek fantasy was always to be, like, a cultural expert so it’s cool to see. Also cool to see that he's in the science division (not sure if he’s a cultural or physical anthropologist, and maybe those distinctions don’t exist by then). I suspect Starfleet officers like this are science when billeted for ongoing research and command when aboard for a mission-advisory role. Then again, wasn’t there a historian on TOS who wore red?
- Side-side note: Starfleet Diplomatic Corps onscreen when????
- I love — LOVE — that Uhura winced during transport.
- Don’t have much to say about the Shepherds except: 1) He was a practical effect/puppet, wow! And 2) What a great, very Trekish thing. Loved it.
- I hoped when Pike was, like, immediately dismissive of the Shepherds that they’d turn out to be right, and I’m glad they did, in a sense.
- Finally, some truly evasive maneuvers! Glad Ortegas is getting time to shine. In two episodes, I feel like SNW has built a pretty cohesive bridge crew/senior staff.
- “That’s the way the universal translator processed it, sir.” One of my favorite lines in a long, long time.
- Spock’s laugh. Yes! Good! Let him laugh!
- Pike’s reviewing the roll at the end was really good. Felt like the somber ending of a number of “90s Era” episodes. As others have said though: Federation privacy laws must suck, or Starfleet officers must have a lot of (potentially dangerous) power. I guess we already knew the latter, though.
Less-Than-Likes:
- Tragic backstories are common because they work. But … don’t need it, really. As many have said, Uhura can feel lost without loss.
- Spock’s shuttle mission felt a bit … major motion picture-ish, like they really felt they needed off-the-bridge action there. It’s fine, but not great.
- Also, just once, I’d like to see a crewmember who is a dedicated auxiliary craft pilot. I’m sure they’re around!
Observations:
- I like that their building the relationship between Pike and Number One, and I really like the idea of her being relentless in pushing her friend to not surrender — a perfect CO/XO thing, really. I suspect she’ll get some nice character background next week.
- On that note, I am optimistic that what we’re seeing now is the sense of hopelessness that Pike will overcome over the course of the show. If he continues to think being scarred and wheelchair bound is the end of his life, well then the writer screwed up. But I don’t think that’s what they’re building to.
- There’s some sense that disrupting the comet is a violation of General Order One. And … meh? Maybe? I think the “spirit” of the Prime Directive is to not alter the course of a society, not so much a planet. The UFP clearly has no problem terraforming, for example. To me the more interesting question this episode poses is whether interfering with the potentially sentient comet would be a violation. Anyway, I like the worldbuilding that the Prime Directive is still new, still controversial, and officers on the fringes of space don’t really care anyway. That’s in line with … all of Star Trek. Thinking of Janeway’s line about 23rd-century captains being slow to invoke the Prime Directive and quick to pull their phasers.
- La’an: Kind of a prick? Yes, but I think that’s the point. We’re two episodes in. If she starts being considerate and overcoming personal fears in one ep, it’s gonna be a long, boring series.
- Did we just see a harmonics planet on Prodigy? Either way, I love it!
Stray Thoughts:
- I enjoy the costume design on this show so far, and I think costume design, in general, as a field, is just incredible and difficult work. THAT SAID! (lol) There’s something about recent Trek where all the civilian outfits just look … like stuff people wear now? I know it’s always been (to some degree) and always will be the case in all sci-fi/speculative media, but it does bug me. I’m even willing to offer that the “90s Era” Trek did better in this regard, giving people just weirder civilian clothes. I think off-duty wear should look really strange to us, to be honest.
- Not to get too parasocial, but I have a crush on many of these characters.
- I really like seeing many parts of the crew each week. DISCO had long periods where I wished engineering or sickbay would get involved.
What it shows is that your reading comprehension is poor and you didn't follow the argument. We both made up an explanation that was not present in the episode itself to make the ending work for us. Yes, our two explanations are on par. It's actually funny that you think your made up answer is better than mine. No skin off my teeth. But you seem to get some perverse pleasure in thinking that yours is better.
I've explained why my explanation is better multiple times. Yours does NOT resolve the issue you brought up, while mine does, terminology -- the thing you're focusing on but that is completely unimportant -- aside.
Now you're just being intentionally dense. Advance alien tech can certainly affect the climate even if I haven't bothered to think about exactly how. It's science fiction, remember? D'oh!
Could be a running trope: Sam ends up flat on his back in every episode.
"I'm resigning my commission and leaving Starfleet, Captain. Going into civilian research on Deneva and taking Aurelan and Peter with me. Hoping it'll be a quiet life full of lab reports and subspace messages and little else."
I wonder if, instead of a different style of storytelling, it is really a cultural thing. As if, in the 1960s, it was expected that no one showed to be distraught for the death of a close relative. Showing of emotions was reserved for other things. I mean in Operation: Annihilate! after his brother died the episodes ends with Kirk making jokes about vulcan ears, but in Requiem for Methuselah he was so INCREDIBLY sad because he lost his robotic girlfriend.
I love the SNW characters so far, but, fair is fair, I think DSC also has very likeable characters—Saru, Culber, Tilly, Reno, Paul (there’s nothing wrong with grumpy, I can be grumpy too), Book (until he took a dent in s4), Detmer, Owo, Vance—and this is the show that gave us the three leads on SNW. Heck I also like Michael and I don’t care who knows it.
This maybe hits on something for me. While I’m enjoying SNW, there’s something not quite firing yet. Not for the first time I feel a little bit out of step with the opinion of mainstream Trek fandom. I think SNW is working for so many fans because it’s hitting a very Star Trek “mood” that feels very familiar and comfortable. It’s very much designed to do that I think. Whether the show will appeal to non-Trek fans I’m not sure (something I also wonder about Lower Decks). Maybe this will reinvent Trek for a new generation, and I hope it does. I just really hope it doesn’t end up feeling like VOY levels of “safe”, which isn’t really what I want in my Trek.
Maybe I’ll rewatch the eps. I’m feeling so ill this week that nothing is working for me in general.
Kirk's reaction to Sam's death was pretty good for 1967 Trek. In my head canon he weeps for him later after they return to the Enterprise. And he clearly carries Sam's death with him 20 years later in TFF.
