What can be improved for season 2?

[Farscape One]

Emma Peel was before my time (I'll be 40 in June), but she was an excellent character. Smart, sassy, confident, and very sexy. I have only seen a handful of episodes, but she was exceptional. The actress had a great screen presence, in addition to being gorgeous. I also loved her on GAME OF THRONES.

Diana and Patrick played extremely well off each other, from the episodes I have seen.

 

[BurnhamAll]

Damn, we must have read all the same books as kids...

How about "Stuart Little", "A Phantom Tollbooth" and all the Unabridged versions of "Doctor Dolittle"?

Phantom Tollbooth yes. The others, no. "Indian in the Cupboard" was another favorite series, when I was around 10 or 11.

 

[Greg Cox]

Damn, we must have read all the same books as kids...

How about "Stuart Little", "A Phantom Tollbooth" and all the Unabridged versions of "Doctor Dolittle"?

I think I was the only kid on Earth who couldn't get into "A Phantom Tollbooth." Bounced off that one as a kid. But I read all the original Oz novels (including the one where the heroic boy character is revealed to be a girl in the end), the "Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators" books, Encyclopedia Brown, The Black Stallion books, "The Call of the Wild," tons of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Wrinkle in Time, the original Sherlock Holmes stories, and, yes, of course, lots of H.G. Wells.

I think "The War of the Worlds" was the first grown-up novel I ever read, and not because there were any strong male role models in it, but because there were cool Martian war machines destroying civilization . . . .

 

[Jadeb]

WotW has one of the greatest opening paragraphs ever written. The rest of the book is pretty good, but that paragraph is close to perfect.

Edit: Also, the George Pal movie is amazing. It gave me some terrible thrills.

 

[Tuvix5675]

Why can't male fans identify with strong female characters, or strong robot characters, or strong assexual grasshopper characters?

Speaking as a male fan, I've never understood this weird idea that male fans need a male hero to keep their interest. Even as a kid, I read Pippi Longstocking and Tom Sawyer, I watched Cinderella and Pinocchio, I thought John Steed and Emma Peel were seriously cool, I watched Batman and Wonder Woman, I read Conan and Red Sonja . . . .

If women can watch and enjoy hundreds of years of movies and TV shows about cool male heroes, I think men should be able to watch Discovery or Doctor Who or whatever without fretting about where the dudes are.

Maybe it has something to do with how we are culturally programmed. I admired Janeway's courage but could never see her as a role model. Unfortunately, I don't really find any of the Discovery characters as role models, maybe someone else does though. I also disagree with the poster that said something about not needing role models because he was too old. I think role models are important at any stage of life.

 

[BurnhamAll]

Maybe it has something to do with how we are culturally programmed. I admired Janeway's courage but could never see her as a role model. Unfortunately, I don't really find any of the Discovery characters as role models, maybe someone else does though. I also disagree with the poster that said something about not needing role models because he was too old. I think role models are important at any stage of life.

No, it has to do with how YOU were culturally programmed.

 

[Tuvix5675]

No, it has to do with how YOU were culturally programmed.

Not just me, but yes me.

 

[Kor]

What can be improved for season 2?

Make it less joyless.

Kor

 

[Tuskin38]

Make it less joyless.

Kor

That seems very likely.

 

[Greg Cox]

Maybe it has something to do with how we are culturally programmed. I admired Janeway's courage but could never see her as a role model. Unfortunately, I don't really find any of the Discovery characters as role models, maybe someone else does though. I also disagree with the poster that said something about not needing role models because he was too old. I think role models are important at any stage of life.

Role models are fine, although I don't think characters have to be role models to be interesting or compelling.

But why should be it matter if they are male, female, or none of the above? Should I prefer Hercules to Xena just because he's a dude, even though Xena is ten times cooler? Or The Six Million Dollar Man to The Bionic Woman just because Steven Austin has a Y-chromosome in his DNA?

 

[BurnhamAll]

That seems very likely.

I like the balance they seem to be striking with the promos for Season 2. I really hope that's the extent of the "lightening up" they'll do. I enjoyed season 1, and while I agree it crossed over into "grim dark" territory a bit too many times, I would scarcely call it "joyless."

Though I never did subscribe to Trek when it was light, airy, and joyful. I like my Trek serious.

 

[fireproof78]

Maybe it has something to do with how we are culturally programmed. I admired Janeway's courage but could never see her as a role model. Unfortunately, I don't really find any of the Discovery characters as role models, maybe someone else does though. I also disagree with the poster that said something about not needing role models because he was too old. I think role models are important at any stage of life.

Well, I've looked up to as role models men, women, alive and dead, fictional and not. Role models can come in a variety of shapes and mean different things to different people. To my mind, it is a bit presumptuous to state that because there are no role models DSC needs to change that, because I think both Burnham and Saru are people I could look up to and use as role models.

Though I never did subscribe to Trek when it was light, airy, and joyful. I like my Trek serious.

I agree. As much as I enjoyed TOS my first foray was "Balance of Terror" hardly the light and joyful air used to describe Trek nowadays. I think Trek can do a good job with a serious tone, as demonstrated by episodes like "City on the Edge of Forever" "Best of Both Worlds" "Scorpion" and the like.

Discovery really isn't the first show to do this tone.

 

[Kor]

I like Trek on TV to be thoughtful and deliberately paced, like TOS at its best. I don't enjoy the frenetic feel of much of contemporary television, in which so much stuff is happening at once, but nothing of substance ever really happens.

Kor

 

[Jadeb]

^That was my reaction to season 1 — don’t mind that, it’s just the war.

 

[BurnhamAll]

"I hate this thing and everything about it, so I will spend hours of my day ranting about it!!"

 

[Jadeb]

^it’s a better use of time to snipe at people who criticize a TV show?

 

[fireproof78]

I like Trek on TV to be thoughtful and deliberately paced, like TOS at its best. I don't enjoy the frenetic feel of much of contemporary television, in which so much stuff is happening at once, but nothing of substance ever really happens.

Kor

Too much like real life perhaps?

 

[Vger23]

WotW has one of the greatest opening paragraphs ever written. The rest of the book is pretty good, but that paragraph is close to perfect.

Edit: Also, the George Pal movie is amazing. It gave me some terrible thrills.

I watch the George Pal movie every year around Halloween. Great flick.

I like the balance they seem to be striking with the promos for Season 2. I really hope that's the extent of the "lightening up" they'll do. I enjoyed season 1, and while I agree it crossed over into "grim dark" territory a bit too many times, I would scarcely call it "joyless."

Though I never did subscribe to Trek when it was light, airy, and joyful. I like my Trek serious.

I like Trek when it's serious too. I don't mind small dips into funny, but I like drama, mystery and suspense far better. I'm a child of TMP or TWOK...that's my preferred Star Trek tone. Conversely, TVH is my least-favorite TOS Trek movie. Not to say I don't like it...but it just doesn't draw me in either.

 

[Mudd]

^it’s a better use of time to snipe at people who criticize a TV show?

It is certainly no more productive.

 

[DaveyNY]

It is certainly no more productive.

Is anything we discuss around here actually "productive"?

I see it all as just another form of mildly amusing entertainment.
Something along the lines of a rather wordy video game.