Were Discovery's early misteps actually Bryan Fuller's fault?

[The Wormhole]

In another year or two, when you search D7, guess whats gonna pop up?

Probably still the original.

Removing the D7 would be a canon violation, changing its look to fit a modern style, is not.

Thing is, there was no reason to call this ship a D-7. They could have easily called it a D-6, D-8, D-9, or hell any made up Klingon word. Or even an English word, in Enterprise there was a Klingon Raptor class. If you're going to use the name of an established design, use that design. If you're going to use a new design, create a different name.

Besides, the D-7 design was considered appropriate enough for modern audiences that even Abrams used it in his movie with minimal changes, so there's no real reason it couldn't be used here. If it's good enough for a theatrical movie in 2009, it's good enough for a TV show in 2017.

 

[Gepard]

Given Fuller's record of creating very offbeat, unconventional, weird shows, it would be incredibly out of character for him to want to write a Trek show that worked exactly like TOS. The claim is utterly unbelievable.

Considering that the Klingon redesign was apparently his idea this seems unlikely.

Correct. I've seen some of the scrapped work from their time on the VFX team. The problem was NOT that it was "exactly like TOS."

 

[Christopher]

Correct. I've seen some of the scrapped work from their time on the VFX team. The problem was NOT that it was "exactly like TOS."

So? Fuller wouldn't have actually made the FX shots himself. I'm talking about the conceptual end of the process. Naturally the decision of what the show should look like would be made in the initial design phase, with concept art, and would be settled before any actual production work was done.

And I'm not saying I believe the claim about the "exactly like TOS" thing. As I've said, anyone who knows anything about Bryan Fuller's work over the past 15 years can see how obviously ludicrous it is to suggest that he would ever want to do anything in a conventional and old-fashioned way. His whole career post-Trek has been about pushing the envelope, defying convention, and going to weird, quirky places. So if, conjecturally, he wanted anything to be done in a TOS-like way, the only thing it possibly could've been was some aspect of the production design, because the claim that he wanted to write a show exactly like TOS is utterly nonsensical. If people have gotten that impression from something they heard, they must've misconstrued something.

 

[Rahul]

Don't give too much on the "writer's credit" for the first three episodes. There are WGA-rules who has to mentioned in what order. Since Fuller was clearl the creator of the characters and the concept, he had to be mentioned. That doesn't mean some unnamed writer didn't "polished" the script and basically changed every single line.

Courtesy Variety, an industry publication of, ah, some standing.

Tip of the ice berg.


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Yeah, I have the feeling what Fuller was trying to do was massively different from whatever we had before. I'm not sure whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing. But I strongly have the feeling many of those producers are people who inserted themselves into the show with vetoes, notes and orders to change certain things.

IMO, I think the entirety of Burnham's "mutiny" would have shaken out completely different in Fuller's version, with her actually being at fault for something. And then some of the producers came in with notes like "our main character can clearly not do this thing" or "that has to be changed".

I'm not a fan of many things that were clearly "Fuller", for example the klingon re-design, or the fact that the entire show is a prequel (in-between-quel?) in the first place, and I don't think serial storytelling on this level is a good fit for Star Trek - I'd have preffered more singular plots as part of an over-arching arc, à la DS9 or ENT season 3 & 4. Star Trek MOVIES have always been the weak point of Trek, it worked much better as episodic tv, so I don't really see the benefit in trying to basically do a 13-hour movie.

This show, at the moment, is clearly the brainchild of very different approaches. And it shows. Some things fit seamlessly, other's are completely out of hand. But I think already Fuller's basic premise was a bit incoherent - some things very close to previous Trek (he wanted the original tri-color uniforms, using TMP-concepts for the main ship), OTOH the atrocious klingons are very obvious his brainchild as well - and I hate them, as much as the idea of the "klingon-Federation" war overall. I don't think it adds anything to the mythology, is a very by-the-numbers execution of a WW"-type conflict in a science fiction setting like we have seen a thousand times in different sci-fi shows before.

But the characters themselves are also Fuller's idea, and I think they are one of the highlights of the show. So who knows? But, just at looking at the finished product, it's obvious the behind-the-scenes-trouble was WAY bigger than it seemed at first, and a lot more conflict about the basic direction of the show than only about time-conflicts with his other show.

 

[Rahul]

With the exception of TOS, DSC is frigging LIGHT YEARS ahead of where the other Trek series were at this phase of their lifecycle.

Naw, I wouldn't go that far. Early TNG, DS9 or VOY, while now very shoddy in retrospect, were very much on the level or even way above the regular television series competition of their times. DIS is not a big exception. If you compare it to other high-quality products at this very time - GoT, Stranger Things, Marvel Netflix - DIS is not noticeably better or worse than those. It's just that television as a medium has advanced a lot since the last Trek series. But compared to the direct competition, DIS is nothing that really stands out in the current television landscape. Something that TNG, warts and all, quite was at it's time.

 

[Gonzo]

Hard to say who is responsible for what really, we know the CBS execs were heavily involved and that there was a lot of drama behind the scenes during development.

To be honest it sounds like a case of too many cooks in the kitchen.

 

[Vger23]

Naw, I wouldn't go that far. Early TNG, DS9 or VOY, while now very shoddy in retrospect, were very much on the level or even way above the regular television series competition of their times. DIS is not a big exception. If you compare it to other high-quality products at this very time - GoT, Stranger Things, Marvel Netflix - DIS is not noticeably better or worse than those. It's just that television as a medium has advanced a lot since the last Trek series. But compared to the direct competition, DIS is nothing that really stands out in the current television landscape. Something that TNG, warts and all, quite was at it's time.

Marvel Netflix is utter shit.

Also, y'all can't have your cake and eat it too. People bitch and moan about how DSC is too different, trying too hard, and straying too far...and in the next post, we are criticizing it for not keeping up with modern television sensibility.

I think we need to let it find its way.

 

[Rahul]

Marvel Netflix is utter shit.

Also, y'all can't have your cake and eat it too. People bitch and moan about how DSC is too different, trying too hard, and straying too far...and in the next post, we are criticizing it for not keeping up with modern television sensibility.

I think we need to let it find its way.

At least Daredevil and Jessica Jones are a lot better than DIS, both quality- and content-wise. And I say that as a very die-hard Trekkie who will continue to watch DIS.

Also: "trying to be different" and "keeping up with modern sensibility" is neither the same nor mutually exclusive. You can make a very modern television series that still visually fits in the Trek universe. IMO that's the one biggest strenght of the JJ-Abrams movies.

 

[Christopher]

Don't give too much on the "writer's credit" for the first three episodes. There are WGA-rules who has to mentioned in what order. Since Fuller was clearl the creator of the characters and the concept, he had to be mentioned. That doesn't mean some unnamed writer didn't "polished" the script and basically changed every single line.

Of course the entire staff contributes to every single episode, because that's how TV writer's rooms work. But you're misunderstanding how the credits are allocated. The credited writers of the script are the ones who contribute the most to its final content. If someone proposes an idea that's then completely rewritten by the staff -- like John Ordover and David Mack on DS9's "It's Only a Paper Moon," say -- they'll get a story credit, but not a teleplay credit. Fuller does get a teleplay credit on the first episode, along with Akiva Goldsman, so certainly a significant amount of it is his work.

Yeah, I have the feeling what Fuller was trying to do was massively different from whatever we had before.

That assumption doesn't track with the fact that the new showrunners, Gretchen Berg & Aaron Harberts, are Fuller's protegees. They worked with him on two prior shows and he's the one who brought them aboard before he left. The reason they were the ones who took over when he left is because they were already the ones closest to him.

 

[Amalak]

Yeah I think sometimes people forget that the showrrunners were picked by Fuller

 

[eschaton]

What "missteps"?

I began the whole paragraph with "personally" I don't want to re-litigate the first two episodes, because it will take this entire thread off track. I felt they worked very poorly, not only as episodes of Trek, but as entertaining hours of television. They were boring.

Which scenes in particular did you find extraneous, and why?

Let's see. The Klingon scenes in there entirety - nothing but T'Kumva being on the viewscreen was needed for story purposes (and the scenes themselves were dreadfully plodding). The flashbacks to Micheal's childhood and beginnings on the Shenzou. The dumb "Katra vision" scene with Sarek. The EVA scene was visually cool, but unneeded for story purposes.

What dialogue did you find terrible and why?

The opening scene with Georgiou was a great example. A captain and a first officer who worked together in some manner for seven years wouldn't have spoken with each other in such a stilted and formal manner as if they never met before. The dialogue was an infodump for the viewer, not for the characters.

How was Burnham's arc botched?

They should have established her as a hero before setting her up for a fall. My own personal view is they should have began with episode 3 and slowly revealed the important parts of the prologue via flashback.

 

[eschaton]

Fuller is admired because of all the stuff he's done since Trek -- Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, and Hannibal, as well as playing a significant role in the first (and only good) season of Heroes. He was just starting out when he did DS9 and VGR; he's come quite a long way since then. Judging Fuller's career solely by his previous Trek work is like judging Gene Roddenberry's career based solely on Have Gun -- Will Travel.

I have to say I've never seen a single episode of any of these shows, and barely even heard of them honestly. I basically stopped watching television when I was in college around 2000 or so. Still don't have a TV, but I got on the streaming train and watched via my computer a few years back. I mostly watch science documentaries or old Trek. I have watched a few newer series like GoT and the Expanse since I read the books. I have no real interest in watching dramatic television which isn't in a speculative fiction setting.

 

[Mudd]

Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg were his "number ones" and learned directly from him, so they know what his writing sensibilities are and are talented enough, based on their individual bibliographies, to mimic said sensibilities.

They 're running the show, not him, and they're working for and must satisfy CBS rather than him. There's no reason that they would "mimic" anything.

 

[Christopher]

I have to say I've never seen a single episode of any of these shows, and barely even heard of them honestly. I basically stopped watching television when I was in college around 2000 or so. Still don't have a TV, but I got on the streaming train and watched via my computer a few years back. I mostly watch science documentaries or old Trek. I have watched a few newer series like GoT and the Expanse since I read the books. I have no real interest in watching dramatic television which isn't in a speculative fiction setting.

Except for Hannibal, all of Fuller's shows have been speculative fiction, usually fantasy or magic realism. Wonderfalls was about a young woman that started getting cryptic messages from inanimate objects and thereby being divinely or cosmically guided into helping people. (It's better than it sounds.) Dead Like Me was about a dead woman who got a job as a grim reaper. Pushing Daisies was a sweet but macabre fairy tale about a piemaker whose touch could resurrect the dead, with some serious catches. Heroes was a supposedly "grounded" take on superheroes, although it was quite fanciful and ended up becoming incredibly stupid and incoherent after Fuller left. Fuller has also worked on failed pilots including an animated adaptation of a Mike Mignola comic, a movie-length science fiction pilot about a lunar colony (which was terrible), and a darker reimagining of The Munsters.

 

[zar]

No, it doesn't, because DSC's holograms are just transparent, intangible images like the ones in Star Wars, not solid forcefield constructs that can interact physically with their environment. The term "hologram" is a misnomer for either one (they're really volumetric images), but especially for the 24th-century variety, which are something much, much more complex than holography.
...
The difference in the forcefield technology is mainly a matter of depiction -- the fields in TOS were invisible, the fields in Berman-era Trek were normally invisible but scintillated when touched, and the fields here have a visible energy structure. That's just an advance in FX techniques and budgets, a matter of depiction rather than function. The only real functional inconsistency is that the hangar bays have permeable "pressure curtain" fields of the type first seen on the TMP Enterprise, while the TOS ship had to vent its hangar bay to launch or receive a shuttle.

Yes. The real technology behind depicting holograms and forcefields has advanced, which leads some people to see them as more advanced, though in-universe it can only be the opposite. Obviously, holograms (or "holograms") that are indistinguishable from physical people are lightyears more advanced than DSC's lightshows, and invisible barriers are probably more advanced than visible ones too (assuming they perform exactly the same). But it's easy to film perfect holographic representations of things (i.e. actual unedited things) and invisible things (i.e. nothing).

I don't think the designers are going about this blindly, either. In episode 4, we have the holo-display on the suitcase with Georgiou's will. From the opposite side, it's a mirror image, like a flat transparent display would appear. So this is only pseudo-3D, suggesting that the portable version is even more basic, which it should be!

 

[Rahul]

Of course the entire staff contributes to every single episode, because that's how TV writer's rooms work. But you're misunderstanding how the credits are allocated. The credited writers of the script are the ones who contribute the most to its final content. If someone proposes an idea that's then completely rewritten by the staff -- like John Ordover and David Mack on DS9's "It's Only a Paper Moon," say -- they'll get a story credit, but not a teleplay credit. Fuller does get a teleplay credit on the first episode, along with Akiva Goldsman, so certainly a significant amount of it is his work.

I'm pretty sure most of the first episode is directly what Fuller wrote. Except some special scenes. I'm pretty sure that for example the mutiny-scene was completely re-done. Simply for the fact that it doesn't make much sense, and seemed very "softened", while all characters later pretended Burnham was somehow at fault for how the war started. IMO in Fuller's sript she most likely really started the war. That's what the entirety of the first season arc (that Fuller mapped out) depended on. And it's also the perfect example where producers might come in and say "our main character isn't allowed to do this!". And as a result Fuller had to change only one scene -the rest was more or less the same - but because it was such a crucial scene, in endeffect the entirety of the storyarc was somewhat changed/undercut.

That assumption doesn't track with the fact that the new showrunners, Gretchen Berg & Aaron Harberts, are Fuller's protegees. They worked with him on two prior shows and he's the one who brought them aboard before he left. The reason they were the ones who took over when he left is because they were already the ones closest to him.

Oh yes. Those are Fuller-picked producers, they work from Fuller's guidelines. BUT. They are probably a lot more likely to incorporate the notes from the producers and change what Fuller intended to do to fulffill their demands - since they don't have as much devotion to the original material than the guy who created it in the first place.

And with so. fucking. many. credited producers, I'm guessing most of those mentioned in the opening sequence have inserted themselves at some point into the production. Leaving to a production where constantty everything is in flux. Hell, the tardigrade was supposed to be a bridge officer - that means the entire Tardigrade-subplot that dominated the first few episodes was a very late addition. IMO it's no wonder a lot makes no sense if everything needs to be constantly changed to satisfy the latest demands of yet another producer. And the more troubled the production seemed, the more producers probably inserted their own opinions on how to fix it, leaving to the somewhat messy story arc we now have.

The silver lining is - now that things actually are in production, there is a more stable creation process with less interference, and the feedback mostly comes from audiences, and not producers anymore. Leaving (hopefully) for more creative freedom for the writers down the line, so they can fix their future storylines earlier and have more times to smoothen the bumps.

 

[DigificWriter]

They 're running the show, not him, and they're working for and must satisfy CBS rather than him. There's no reason that they would "mimic" anything.

As noted, Fuller left DSC only because he couldn't adequately juggle the duties of showrunning two massive projects, not because of clashes or friction with CBS. He also do-developed the concepts and characters for the series and co-wrote the Pilot. There's little reason why CBS would demand or even suggest that his stylistic sensibilities and influence be minimized or deviated from.

 

[Saul]

Apparently the script for episode 3 was changed completely. https://trekmovie.com/2017/10/20/is...-sharma-talks-lorca-love-and-possible-return/
Since episode 3 is considered a second pilot that might be where Fuller's influence ended.

 

[The Wormhole]

Apparently the script for episode 3 was changed completely. https://trekmovie.com/2017/10/20/is...-sharma-talks-lorca-love-and-possible-return/
Since episode 3 is considered a second pilot that might be where Fuller's influence ended.

IIRC, Episode 3 was originally meant to be written by Nicholas Meyer, but since he wasn't credited at all in the aired version, it would seem his script was thrown out entirely.

 

[David cgc]

Hell, the tardigrade was supposed to be a bridge officer - that means the entire Tardigrade-subplot that dominated the first few episodes was a very late addition.

No, it doesn't. The concept for the creature design originated as an alien Starfleet officer, yes, but our hypothetical Lt. Water Bear didn't have anything but appearance in common with the Ripper we ended up with. There could always have been some sort of creature planned to be used as part of the spore drive, and once they realized they couldn't build the tardigrade puppet they wanted to make it a practical background character, they decided they still liked the look and used it for Ripper, instead. It happens all the time developing movies and TV; a character (or whatever) is cut, but they like the design, so they apply it to a different one that's still around.

It's like saying that since Yar was going to be named Macha Hernandez and played by Marina Sirtis and Troi was going to be played by Denise Crosby until they switched them around in pre-production, everything involving them in the first few episodes of TNG was a last-minute addition. Which, to be fair, might explain "Haven" and "Code of Honor..."