Spoilers There will never be Ferengi in DISCO

[fireproof78]

Unusually I reverse the polarity.

 

[Sci]

Have to disagree on every point. Minor continuity mistakes in a production and totally ignoring previous continuity to create something new just because you want to is where the line between something you write off vs. something that you can't ignore lies.

Okay, but TOS broke that standard on at least two occasions.

1) In early TOS, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 is identified as a "United Earth Starship," and the space service operating the ship is referred to as the United Earth Space Probe Agency. In later episodes and in the TOS films, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 is identified as a United Federation of Planets starship, and the space service operating the ship is referred to as the Federation Starfleet.

This is not a minor continuity error. The question of just who is sending out these starships into outer space, of who these characters work for, is fundamental to the series. In particular, the question of whether the Enterprise is a United Earth starship or a Federation starship has consequences for the character of Mister Spock; if it's a Federation starship, then a man from Vulcan serving aboard the Enterprise alongside people from Earth is no more remarkable than a man from California serving aboard a U.S. Navy vessel alongside people from Texas. But if the Enterprise is a United Earth ship rather than a Federation starship, then Mister Spock is by definition a foreign national, and his situation is more akin to that of, say, someone from (for example) Japan or Brazil serving aboard a U.S. Navy ship.

No explanation has ever been offered for the change from United Earth/UESPA to the UFP/Starfleet. The writers of TOS, to use your words, "totally ignored previous continuity to create something new just because they wanted to."

2) The change of the Klingons from the TOS makeup to the TMP makeup, and then the change from the TMP makeup to the TSFS makeup. The TMP makeup was a radical redesign of the entire Klingon design aesthetic; they went from a racist Fu Manchu-esque anti-Asian stereotype, to an original design featuring a single, narrow ridge running down their foreheads from the backs of their spines. The TSFS redesign was less dramatic, but it was also a notable change -- instead of a single, narrow ridge running down the forehead from the back of the spine, instead the foreheads themselves would be bumpy.

Absolutely no explanations for these changes were ever offered by the creators of TMP or TSFS. Nor by the creators of TVH, TFF, TUC, TNG, DS9, GEN, VOY, FC, INS, or NEM. In fact, twenty-six years would pass between the release of TMP and ENT's "Affliction/Divergence." To put it another way: an entire generation of people were born and grew up into adulthood before ST finally contrived an explanation for their retcon. I'm one of them. I was born six years after TMP was released, and I was a fully-grown adult before "Affliction/Divergence" aired.

The creators of TMP and TSFS both, as you put it, "totally ignored previous continuity to create something new just because they wanted to."

Discovery has its own minor continuity mistakes and you ignore them. But if between this season and next, in the middle of a two part cliffhanger season ending story, for no other reason than because they want to, they redesign the Discovery and the uniforms and everything else but just continue the story, you would notice and go WTF.

1) That's not a very good comparison. ENT went off the air in 2005. DIS premiered in 2017. Twelve years had passed between the shows. Twelve years and two presidents! It's not like ST was in the middle of continuous production and they just changed things between episodes. As another posted noted before, almost all of the production assets that Paramount had put into continuous use between 1979 and 2005 were gone, and it was an entirely new production crew.

2) DIS did, in fact, change the Klingon makeup design again between S1 and S2 (L'Rell's makeup is notably different), and the Discovery and ship's uniforms were changed as a result of plot developments in S3, and the uniforms are changing again for S4.

That is how I feel with them inserting this between The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before.

*shrugs* I mean, "The Cage" has so many discontinuities between what it establishes in its worldbuilding and what later episodes established, that I just decided I'm okay with ignoring the look of the ship and pretending it looks like it did in DIS S2, just like I'm okay with ignoring:

• Jose Tyler's claim that the "time barrier" had been broken
• The Enterprise being referred to as an "Earth ship"
• Spock smiling and yelling and generally being emotional
• Pike's claim that the presence of women aboard the bridge is unusual
• The incredible sexism of everyone agreeing that it's better for Vina to live among the Talosians in the illusion that she's beautiful rather than come back to Human society because she's no longer sexy

"The Cage" has a lot of things that don't make sense, so I figure I might as well just mentally substitute the DIS S2 Enterprise in the exterior shots too.

Of course, that's only when I'm playing the mental game of trying to reconcile "The Cage" with later continuity. Obviously the actual text of the episode contains no such explanations; "The Cage" is just later contradicted, with no explanation.

Frankly my opinion of Discovery is based on the first season.

Then you don't know what you're talking about.

They set it there because the Axanar fan series was going to do exactly what they started out doing.

No, they set it there because Bryan Fuller wanted DIS to be a season anthology show a la American Horror Story where the setting and characters would change with each season, and S1 would cover the previous conflict between the Klingons and the Federation alluded to in "Errand of Mercy" and "The Trouble with Tribbles." Then Fuller was fired because he wasn't good at time management (he was trying to showrun American Gods at the same time), and the entire series was reconceptualized as following the setting and characters of what would have originally only been the S1 cast/setting.

The fact that Fuller and the Axanar guys both had the idea of showing us the previous UFP/Klingon conflict alluded to in TOS is incredibly, incredibly predictable and boring. People have used that basic idea as a springboard for decades.

Have you seen Prelude to Axanar?

I have. It was amusing in a "I'm watching someone imitate a Ken Burns documentary" way, but it wasn't an actual story.

All Discovery did was set the war 10 years later and add the spore drive.

And actual characters. And an actual story with a beginning, middle, and end.

So yeah, CBS was in this for profit

Hold on there. Saying the studio is making the show in order to earn a profit is an entirely different claim than saying that a specific creative decision was only made for the purpose of earning a profit.

1) Every single studio and production company that has ever produced a Star Trek series or film was doing so to earn a profit. This is because the United States is (regrettably) a capitalist country, and Star Trek has never been produced by a non-profit organization. Desilu, NBC, Paramount, the stations TNG and DS9 were syndicated to, UPN, CBS? They were all in this for profit.

2) You have yet to explain why studio executives would believe that changing the Klingon makeup design would earn them a larger profit than using the Westmore-era design.

and ruined the fan productions as a result.

The Axanar folk ruined it for themselves when they started openly trying to make money off of a giant corporation's intellectual property. If you want to earn money off someone else's intellectual property, you gotta keep that shit on the downlow. Alec Peters shot himself in the foot.

Anyway, it is a reboot

No, it is not. It is set in the same universe as the rest of the ST shows, and we know this because its creators say so.

and fans who care about continuity and canon know it

You cannot "know" something that is factually false.

There's nothing wrong with wanting modern artists to be creative and do their own thing. But that's not always a guarantee that the end result will be a hit. It's kind of like how when The Force Awakens came out, one of the valid criticisms is why a lot of elements were copied from the earlier films,

Which, between that and people still whining that the creators of DIS are "insulting the fans" by not slavishly re-creating the original design aesthetic, just proves that the guys making this stuff can never win with certain elements of fandom: Any creative decision they make, in either direction, will be pounced upon and denounced by someone.

It's true that many bands like to tweak stuff when they do a cover, because obviously doing the exact same thing is not ideal. But if you change too many things, the song no longer sounds the same.

I love covers that totally change things. Especially when the song has become a totally different genre. Ever see Postmodern Jukebox? They're great. They take modern songs and transpose them into genres that were popular in the mid-20th Century.

With DIS, I feel like the cast is really good and some of the newer concepts are good too - just not how they're being executed with a degree of haphazardness. If Ariam suffered injuries similar to those Pike eventually sustains, and the technology exists to repair her, why wouldn't that tech be available to help him?

I mean, Pike's medical condition in "The Menagerie" already doesn't make much sense from the perspective of modern medical technology. We have to assume that gamma radiation did a whammy on him way worse than even what happened to Ariam.

By the same token, I don't get why the pre-TOS Klingon monks on Boreth have a cache of literal time crystals that would seem a huge boon to the Empire itself, yet their descendants in the 24th century don't have access to them?

Who's to say that the monks who grew Kahless II were the same monks who had the time crystals? It's an entire planet; there could be more than one monastery.

And why would Pike taking a crystal mean his future damage was unavoidable?

Well, the Doylist answer is that the audience knows Pike's eventual fate, and not addressing that creates an unresolved tension in the audience's minds.

The Watsonian answer is that by taking the time crystal, Pike committed himself to a series of choices whose long-term consequences would eventually lead to him becoming horribly disfigured and disabled, like a line of dominoes. It cemented that Pike was a guy who had grown beyond his impulse in "The Cage" to abandon his responsibilities; Pike had committed himself to being the kind of person who will try to make a difference, always.

To me this is just sloppy writing.

I don't see sloppy writing. I see DIS S2 taking this character who in "The Cage" had wanted to run away from his responsibilities and was even tempted to engage in sentient trafficking, and showing him moving into a position of altruism and compassion, even at the cost of his own future. I see a character arc.

I admit, I've never really liked the mushroom drive concept and I consider it one of the sillier (and seemingly random - maybe there's a context I'm less aware of). I sort of wish it didn't exist, but that's just me.

I mean, it's no worse than the idea that magic crystals will let you go faster than light.

My only problem with the idea behind the spore drive is that it undermines the premise of VOY, since it begs the question of why Starfleet didn't use the spore drive to rescue Voyager. DIS S2 did provide an explanation, but I found it contrived... almost as contrived as ENT's explanation for why the Klingon foreheads changed.

Having some glaring design flaws (like the turbolift caverns on both the Discovery and the Enterprise and the seemingly open space that doesn't fit the exterior hull) doesn't help, IMO. YMMV of course.

*shrugs* The turbolift caverns don't really become a problem until DIS S3 -- and by the 32nd Century, we know from ENT's "Future Tense" that the Federation has figured out how to put hammerspace into its ships.

Also, Star Trek has a long tradition of its interiors and exteriors not quite matching up. The 1707 Enterprise bridge rather famously has to be facing something like 20 degrees port in order for the rear turboshaft to fit the model. The Enterprise-D's models didn't quite match, and Ten-Forward doesn't fit in the 6-foot model. The interior of the Delta Flyer doesn't really fit into the exterior, and the Delta Flyer itself shouldn't really fit into Voyager's shuttle bay. The Enterprise-D should have been way larger when it docked with Deep Space 9 if those windows on the DS9 Ops level are supposed to match what we see in the interior sets. And God help you try to figure out how long the Defiant is.

So let's have Picard and all humans have antlers now, and offer no explanation for this change

Like when TNG gave the Romulans bumpy foreheads for no reason? Or when DS9 totally changed the design and the concept for the Trill? Or when FC changed the Borg with no explanation, and VOY depicted pre-TNG Borg using the FC design? Or when ENT changed the Nausicans?

and also NOT have antlered humans in any of the other shows. This is a look to be featured in Picard only.

I mean, live-action Klingons haven't appeared in PIC yet, so this part isn't a very good analogy.

It's a stylistic choice, after all.

Well, no, because Humans are real. It's Klingons who are make-believe.

Didn't Picard offer an explanation as to the bumpy foreheads depending on which region of Romulus they were from?

Sort-of but not really. PIC featured the first use of smooth-headed Romulans since 1991's Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and it established that bumpy-headers come from the north of Romulus and smooth-headers the south. But that's still not an explanation for why bumpy headers are present -- Vulcans and Romulans only separated into distinct gene pools about 1500 years prior, and that's not enough time to speciate or for major anatomical differences to emerge. The Afro-Eurasian and Indigenous American Human gene pools had been separated for tens of thousands of years when the Columbian exchange began, but it's not like either side had such major anatomical differences.

Anyway, even that half-explanation took 32 years and five presidents for the ST canon to come up with.

This is a serious change, just like with Klingons in TOS. You have a point here. However, the Trill were featured in one episode of TNG and a forgettable one at best. It's a huge deviation but it's not very jarring simply because that one episode wasn't impactful to TNG, or to the franchise. That's not an explanation...but the original Trill design, being featured just once in the entire franchise, isn't really that comparable to the Ferengi.

I mean, if that's how you feel in terms of your subjective reaction, that's fair. But that's also just a subjective reaction: An extensive retcon didn't bother you in this instance because you don't attach importance to the original version.

That's fine, but it's a very subjective experience. There are inherently going to be people who attach no more importance to the Westmore-era Klingon design than you do to the "Host" version of the Trill.

I just hope they have an in-story explanation. Like that this Disco Ferengi has lineage from another species giving it pointy ears and whatnot.

I really, really don't think that needs a Watsonian explanation. Like, the differences between dog breeds are bigger than the differences between this new Ferengi dude and the ones we met in TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT. The DIS variations are extremely minor and are entirely within the realm of plausible phenotype variation between members of the same species.

While I didn't like it, I feel like the Klingon change made some narrative sense at least, because the intent of Season 1 was to show them as alien/hostile, which I think would have been lost with Berman Trek Klingons, which have grown to be somewhat lovable over the years.

Exactly!

I interpret it to be that we're seeing the Klingons through the lens of Michael, who sees them as the monsters who brutally killed her father (and - she believes at the time - her mother as well).

I like that interpretation!

Some of the other alterations just seem like change for change's sake. I really don't see why every single alien race needs to have super-detailed textured fiddly bits now. Is it just because TVs have higher resolution.

It's probably a combination of the new artists having their own sense of aesthetics, and the need for makeup designs that will withstand UHD and 4k screen resolutions that the old designs just can't hold up to.

Great, then change everything. <SNIP> Bring back Worf but have him look like a Disco era Klingon. Bring back Quark with those pointy ears. Have Vulcans be transparent. Trill with seven arms. Bajorans without the nose ridges but instead put ridges on their chins.

It’s just art so it doesn’t matter.

Art does matter. As eschaton pointed out, for instance, there is a compelling artistic reason to redesign the Klingons for DIS S1 -- the need to make them scary again after they had become too familiar and lovable in the Berman era.

And just having different aesthetics is also a totally valid artistic motivation. Especially when the changes are relatively minor, like having slightly differently-shaped ears on Ferengi.

I think it's interesting, @brandnewfan , that you construct your entire argument on the basis of an a priori assumption that for something to "matter," it has to not change.

Since I’m being unreasonable in my dislike of what Discovery has done, then where do we all draw the line exactly?

Well, I think a really good way to think about it is this: If you had to explain your feelings about the topic to somebody whose approval you wanted but who is not emotionally invested in the topic (maybe it's your grandparents; maybe it's a college professor you admire; maybe it's an attractive person you want to go on a date with -- whoever!), would you feel mildly embarrassed in explaining why you feel angry to them? That's the standard I try to use when I gauge my own reactions to works of art. If trying to explain why I'm angry about a creative choice in a TV show makes me feel a little embarrassed, then I usually try to step back and assume that I might be over-reacting.

Well, chronologically speaking, the last time we saw the Klingons prior to The Vulcan Hello was at the end of the Enterprise duology that explained the smooth foreheads.

At the end of that story, it was speculated that reconstructive surgery of foreheads was going to become a big thing in the future of the Klingons. What's to say that by the Discovery era Klingons weren't getting very creative with their entirely cosmetic and voluntary reconstructive surgeries? Maybe the look of the Klingons in the 2250s is nothing more than a fashion statement that ends when the augment virus rears its ugly head again a decade later.

I really like that idea!

Can you still recognize that it's a Ferengi? Yes or no. The answer's yes. You can still recognize it.

I'm not thrilled with the way the Ferengi look in DSC either (as I said upthread), but I was never a fan of the Ferengi to begin with and, unlike some of you, I recognize that they're not going to be a major focus. You all are blowing this up out of proportion and getting mock-outraged over nothing.

But, yes. I stand by what I said. The fact that Niners love DS9 so much means that you're more likely to give it a pass. Things you'd beat DSC to death with if it did the same things. Don't even try to say that's not true.

I mean, I'm always puzzled when I see Niners attacking DIS, because DIS strikes me as being a direct descendant of DS9 in terms of its creative impulses.

 

[Lord Garth]

I mean, I'm always puzzled when I see Niners attacking DIS, because DIS strikes me as being a direct descendant of DS9 in terms of its creative impulses.

It puzzled me for quite a while too because it's not something that's immediately obvious why. It's something that has to be contextualized and then once you see it, you'll realize, "Why didn't I notice that before?" There actually is a bigger picture.

It would take too long to get into now, so I'll do it later.

 

[eschaton]

There are some similarities and some differences between DS9 and DIS, but on the whole PIC reminds me more of DS9.

The similarities: Darker tone, serialized structure, and (in the first season anyway) a war-focused arc.

There are three big differences however, differences which IMHO help explain why some people like DS9 but don't like DIS:

First, Deep Space Nine was primarily character-focused writing. Probably half of the total runtime of the series is set aside for "what happens if we put character X in scenario Y?" There are of course big arc episodes as well - along with "message" episodes - but these play second/third fiddle across most of the series. In contrast, most of Discovery is plot-focused writing. There are exceptions (Saru's two episodes in Season 2, Forget Me Not in Season 3) but most of the time the writers seem to come up with a scenario first, and then figure out what the characters will do, instead of trying to come up with a scenario which actively tests the limits of the characters.

Second, Deep Space Nine was an ensemble show, while Discovery is a heavily lead-focused show. This is an important distinction, because it meant DS9 had huge versatility, eventually having entire episodes led by effective guest characters. If you pared down DS9 to 10-15 episodes a season, and had all of them focus on Sisko (his status as the Emissary, relationship with Jake, etc.) it may have been a good show still, but many fantastic episodes would never have been made.

Related to the second point, DS9 veered widely in terms of tone from episode to episode. Even in the darkest portions of the Dominion War, there was time for screwball lighthearted plots about playing baseball games or robbing from a holo-casino. In contrast, Discovery is kinda samey from episode to episode.

To be honest, the latter two may just be a side effect of the short season structure - and I can see the argument that one should just expect that stuff to come from other Trek series, since there are so many now in production. But the first is a bit less excusable in my opinion. Hell, I'd argue that Lower Decks has done a better job putting together coherent character arcs for its supporting characters than Discovery has, despite having episodes half as long.

 

[fireproof78]

The arcs are less engaging for me. The style of LD is great but the characters are a different level of engagement.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Has anyone mentioned DS9's "first set of ears" mention yet? Could be that DSC's are what an older Ferengi looks like.

Although of course IRL it's just an update to look less rubbery.

 

[at Quark's]

Has anyone mentioned DS9's "first set of ears" mention yet? Could be that DSC's are what an older Ferengi looks like.

Ah, I suppose Grand Nagus Zek (DS9) was a spring chicken after all.

 

[Weyoun 251]

Looking at some images if GNZ - the wrinkliness seen on the Ferengi captain is there but without the jagged bits.

Wouldn't be out of the realms of possibility that those bit are simple battle scarring or something. Let's be honest, closest Zek ever came to death was if he pissed off Moogie.

 

[JRoss]

I mean, all they have to do is add the brow ridge back in. They'll fix it in season five, like how they fixed the Klingons (mostly) in season two.