Why are the ranks so top heavy?

[MakeshiftPython]

I’m still not seeing why all senior/bridge officers NEED to be main cast members other than because that’s what the Rick Berman era did. Detmer isn’t a regular on the show, so there’s no need to have her do anything beyond just being a functional crew member if she isn’t even a main cast member. Kim and Mayweather likewise would have served better as recurring characters too and nobody would complain about them being ssuch blank as characters.

 

[Succubint]

They don't need to be. It's just what some fans are used to if they watched Berman era Trek the most. I agree that Kim and Mayweather were examples of characters which shouldn't have been regulars in the first place. Even Reed was borderline, they just couldn't seem to write him anything decent.

That's the danger in just casting a crew according to their role on the ship, rather than creating characters to serve the story you actually want to tell. Then you are stuck with characters who you have to write something for to justify their regular status.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

They don't need to be. It's just what some fans are used to if they watched Berman era Trek the most. I agree that Kim and Mayweather were examples of characters which shouldn't have been regulars in the first place. Even Reed was borderline, they just couldn't seem to write him anything decent.

That's the danger in just casting a crew according to their role on the ship, rather than creating characters to serve the story you actually want to tell. Then you are stuck with characters who you have to write something for to justify their regular status.

Yup. The reason I brought up DS9 as a prime example is because through the evolution of that show their posts were not as important in the stories like other shows would emphasize. Dax was introduced as the science officer, yet later on she also served as the helmsman of the Defiant. Why? Because the writers wanted her character there, no matter if it didn’t make too much sense in universe, rather than introduce a new red shirt character they wouldn’t likely use much of. It’s putting emphasis on who they are as people in the stories rather than “this is the science officer”.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I’m still not seeing why all senior/bridge officers NEED to be main cast members other than because that’s what the Rick Berman era did. Detmer isn’t a regular on the show, so there’s no need to have her do anything beyond just being a functional crew member if she isn’t even a main cast member. Kim and Mayweather likewise would have served better as recurring characters too and nobody would complain about them being ssuch blank as characters.

Exactly. The main characters of Berma-Trek were all created more or less to check off a box on a list (Captain? Check. First officer? Check. Doctor? Check. Chief engineer? Check...) rather than fulfill a story purpose.

Discovery is more like the original series in that it's less of an ensemble and instead focuses on a core group of characters. And in a break from traditional Star Trek, the captain is not one of those characters. Where the original series focused on the "big three" of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, Discovery focuses on a "core four" of Burnham, Tilly, Stamets and Saru.

The ship's captain, while an important character in both seasons so far, seems to be designed as a rotating character, and therefore not part of the "core four".

Detmer, Airam, Rhys and the rest are the equivalent of what Sulu, Uhura and Chekov were on the original series. Regular and familiar characters for the audience to recognize, but not intended to be the center of the show. That said, I do think we'll get some development on those characters as the show moves on.

 

[Tuskin38]

I guess this is another thread about the "inferiority" of "Discovery" in compare to the other Trek show?

There's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Tim Thomason]

I’m still not seeing why all senior/bridge officers NEED to be main cast members other than because that’s what the Rick Berman era did. Detmer isn’t a regular on the show, so there’s no need to have her do anything beyond just being a functional crew member if she isn’t even a main cast member. Kim and Mayweather likewise would have served better as recurring characters too and nobody would complain about them being ssuch blank as characters.

Emily Coutts is a co-star, the same as George Takei throughout TOS, and Detmer receives about the same level of characterization in every episode that Sulu did on average.

Discovery and the Original Series both feature a large crop of recurring co-stars filling the main bridge roles. Yet, TOS's co-stars have somehow ascended to Main Character ensemble status (possibly because of the movies), whereas everyone is still complaining about Discovery's equally-short-shrifted bridge characters as if it was a new thing and betrayal of the franchise.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I guess this is another thread about the "inferiority" of "Discovery" in compare to the other Trek show?

I don't believe The Wormhole is framing it in that way and from what I can recall is a fan of the show. You can criticize aspects of the show and still enjoy it, or god forbid, just make an observation without an unnecessarily hostile reaction.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Something that's been getting to me for a while now, and given this week we learn Naan is now Disco's chief of security (despite being an engineer on the Enterprise, but that's another discussion).

Not to derail, but I have a thought on this. I figure everyone in Starfleet is crosstrained on other specialties, and like you have a major and minor in college, you can major in engineering but minor in security. Especially if the science position is already filled by an equivalently ranked officer on Discovery. Tuvok served as chief of security, but is there any doubt he could have been the science officer just as easily?

Disco is a ship with a very high-ranked crew. Naan herself is a full commander, as was Landry. Curiously enough, Tyler was able to hold the chief of security position in this ship despite only being a Lieutenant. In engineering, we have Stamets who is now a Lt. Commander, Reno, a full Commander helping out, which would mean the chief engineer is likely a Commander as well, sine Reno is taking orders from him/her. In sickbay, Culber was (is?) a Lt. Commander, the space whale specialist was a full Commander, and one presumes the CMO is almost certainly a full Commander. And on the bridge, Saru and Michael are both Commanders, with Ariam a Lt. Commander.

So what's the deal here?

I figure Discovery, as a classified experimental science vessel, has the pick from the best and brightest of Starfleet rather than just being assigned personnel, and so Lorca schoolyard picked officers who were already well known and accomplished in their respective fields. Unfortunately sometimes the department heads and senior officers will get more credit when there are also skilled or qualified junior officers and enlisted personnel.

 

[cultcross]

Travis Mayweather

Who?

I've noticed myself the very highly ranked crew of Discovery. Now on a science vessel, I might expect to see more highly ranked specialists than on, say, DS9 or Voyager. They may not be part of the ship's chain of command per se but instead are experts in their field (like Troi was for most of TNG). That can explain Stamets, and depending on the types of science being conducted, maybe high ranking medical personnel like Culber too. It certainly wouldn't be unheard of for a doctor to combine clinical work with research.

Burnham was given her old rank back for dramatic reasons but doesn't appear to be in the chain of command that we've seen so far, so she may also fulfill some kind of specialist role. Although the Enterprise combined XO and science officer by Kirk's time, it doesn't mean this was standard practice or would happen on a dedicated science vessel.

Nahn is definitely over ranked - head of security has been seen to be a position for a Lt (Yar, Worf) or Lt Cmdr (Worf again, Eddington, Tuvok). Especially as it doesn't appear to be combined with tactical officer in this time period, she is simply head redshirt. Lt would be fine.

We haven't met the CMO or Chief Engineer yet but can reasonably assume that's two more Commanders at minimum (Jet was chief on a much smaller vessel and was full commander). The CMO might even be a Captain.

Is the expression "Too many chiefs..." considered problematic these days?

 

[Crewman6]

Yup. The reason I brought up DS9 as a prime example is because through the evolution of that show their posts were not as important in the stories like other shows would emphasize. Dax was introduced as the science officer, yet later on she also served as the helmsman of the Defiant. Why? Because the writers wanted her character there, no matter if it didn’t make too much sense in universe, rather than introduce a new red shirt character they wouldn’t likely use much of. It’s putting emphasis on who they are as people in the stories rather than “this is the science officer”.

You're actually making my point for me with this comment. Yes, they had Dax flying the Defiant because she was a regular character and they wanted to give her an important job rather than have just some rando do it.

However, on Discovery, those important jobs are indeed filled by randos.

My point is that there's no reason they couldn't have shifted things around a bit so that Tilly was the helmsman or something. Or that they bothered to create one more interesting character instead of giving us just a blank face.

TNG didn't spread the wealth around in terms of storylines evenly at all. Yet we still knew the personalities of the secondary characters, a bit about their backstories, etc. In DSC, a season and a half in, they're still non-entities.

And I dont' care about TOS comparisons since it's a show from a different era and, yeah, I agree that the core crew got very little character development over the years. But we can do better than that. As I said in another thread, you wouldn't have a scene from another show with needless extras seated in positions of prominence. Just take the time to do something with these folks is all I ask.

Though I have some nitpicks with discovery here and there, most of the main characters are great and I'd like them to apply those same skills to fleshing out the other officers. It's not hard

 

[MakeshiftPython]

You're actually making my point for me with this comment. Yes, they had Dax flying the Defiant because she was a regular character and they wanted to give her an important job rather than have just some rando do it.

However, on Discovery, those important jobs are indeed filled by randos.

My point is that there's no reason they couldn't have shifted things around a bit so that Tilly was the helmsman or something. Or that they bothered to create one more interesting character instead of giving us just a blank face.

TNG didn't spread the wealth around in terms of storylines evenly at all. Yet we still knew the personalities of the secondary characters, a bit about their backstories, etc. In DSC, a season and a half in, they're still non-entities.

And I dont' care about TOS comparisons since it's a show from a different era and, yeah, I agree that the core crew got very little character development over the years. But we can do better than that. As I said in another thread, you wouldn't have a scene from another show with needless extras seated in positions of prominence. Just take the time to do something with these folks is all I ask.

Though I have some nitpicks with discovery here and there, most of the main characters are great and I'd like them to apply those same skills to fleshing out the other officers. It's not hard

You may need to get used to the idea that DISCO is just returning to the old TOS concept of co-stars like Sulu and Uhura, with the core cast only consisting of Burnham, Saru, Stamets and Tilly getting actual stories. In fact we just witnessed Wilson Cruz’s Culber get upgraded to main cast status, so he’ll likely get more story material this season. Perhaps other co-stars will eventually get a promotion to main cast? That’ll depend on whether the writers/producers feel its necessary. Given these seasons have less episodes than the previous spin-offs, that might not be likely.

Were you upset when TNG never gave Ensign Gates a semblance of a personality? After Wesley left, it was it understandable that the TNG producers opted not to introduce a new main character for helmsman because the cast was already as large as it was, and losing both Wesley and Yar gave more room for other characters. Closest replacement was Ensign Ro, but she was originally set up to be a possible character for DS9 until Forbes turned it down, after which she was practically dropped from TNG until the penultimate episode that gave her a farewell to that show like Wesley earlier.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The idea that the bridge crew must be "main characters" is indicative of how some fans just can't let go and are looking at the past through rose colored glasses.

 

[Longinus]

I don't think that the bridge crew need to be the main characters, but I have to say that the total absence of the CMO and the chief engineer is getting a bit weird. There have been many situations where they realistically should have been involved or at least consulted, yet we have never even seem them. It just seem dumb, because the show will inevitably have engineering and medical related plots, so you might as well make the characters you're gonna use anyway chiefs of those departments.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

McCoy and Scotty will be revealed as the CMO and chief engineer, the explanation for why they never appeared was because they were too busy getting shitfaced.

 

[The Wormhole]

Why isn't Culber CMO? Why isn't Stamets Chief Engineer?

Stamets isn't chief engineer because he isn't actually an engineer. He's a mushroom scientist with an engineering post because of the spore drive.

Culber isn't CMO because of the idea this show had of not wanting the senior staff to be the focus of the show. While I understand that desire and agree with it in principle, they did kind of screw things up in regards to Culber. They gave him a rank CMOs typically have and made him the only medical authority during the first half of season 1, only to have a throw-away line establishing he's not the CMO that served no purpose other than establish he isn't a senior officer.

Likewise the CMO's absence is rather ridiculous, given how often in the first season we see plenty of times in which the presence of Lorca or Saru (when he was acting captain) was required in sickbay. If the situation warrants the presence of the captain or acting captain, it warrants the presence of the CMO. To say nothing of the fact that when Dr. Pollard ran out of options regarding Voq Tyler, the only other option was to get L'Rell to perform surgery. I should think the CMO should be consulted before a POW. And before anyone suggests Pollard is the CMO, I think we can safely assume she's not. Her rank is only Lieutenant JG, which makes her the second lowest ranking officer on the ship, above only Tilly. There's no way she'd be CMO and have two higher ranking doctors on the staff, although the show this season seems to be treating her as the only medical authority on the ship anyway like Culber was last year.

well, except when Dee and Lee got together, but that was by writer fiat; I'm pretty sure they'd never shared a scene before the writers decided they'd be attracted to each other at the beginning of the second season

IIRC, wasn't that the result of Jamie Bamber and/or Kandyse McClure requesting the two characters develop a relationship, knowing that Billy (Dee's original love interest) was going to be written off?

(That would be the what-not-to-do example from nuBSG, where they wanted to avoid being too Star Treky, so they had the doctor and engineer off-screen. The doctor thing didn't last, because a main character had a chronic medical condition and it helped for her to have a person to talk to about it, but they went from having throw-away mentions of an engineer in the first couple episodes to forgetting there was supposed to be one and giving Tyrol the job near the end of the show. My fanwank is the engineer was killed (or a participant) in the mutiny, but I digress.)

I remember when they introduced Commander Garner on the Pegasus, who was established to have been the chief engineer prior to taking command. Ron Moore was hesitant to make him an engineer because he was that dead-set against featuring one, but conceded anyway since according the US Navy, the chief engineer would be the next one to take command after the Captain and the XO. Even then, he went out of his way to make sure the engineering scenes were as different from Star Trek as possible with the engineer solving the problem by beating a pipe as opposed to teching the tech.

And just because Mayweather and Kim were crappy characters doesn't mean that you HAVE to make your bridge officers crappy characters.

Well, no, but I think the statement is if you know you don't have story material for the characters, don't make them part of the main cast like Mayweather or Harry. They don't need to be in the main cast just because of their bridge station.

Now granted, Disco has screwed up on this one by making what are essentially background characters like Detmer and Ariam be so eye-catching and noticeable that the audience is drawn to them anyway. And with the prosthetic work done on the actresses, the show is spending a lot of time and money on background players who aren't important to the show. Especially in the case of Detmer, given Emily Coutts spends more time getting her prosthetics applied than Doug Jones does.

Not to derail, but I have a thought on this. I figure everyone in Starfleet is crosstrained on other specialties, and like you have a major and minor in college, you can major in engineering but minor in security. Especially if the science position is already filled by an equivalently ranked officer on Discovery. Tuvok served as chief of security, but is there any doubt he could have been the science officer just as easily?

Yeah, I thought about that and there's certainly precedent in the other Treks. O'Brien had a background in tactical and Starfleet's infantry division, then moved on the engineer where he eventually became a chief engineer and ultimately taught engineering at the Academy. And when Jellico took command of the Enterprise D he transferred half the engineering staff to security. What I don't get is why they bothered to introduce Naan as an engineer in the premiere to begin with. She didn't really do anything engineering related there anyway, and the next time we see her, they establish the Enterprise's chief engineer is someone else, only to go on to establish Naan is now a security officer in her third appearance. Why didn't they just introduce her as a security officer in the premiere to begin with?

 

[Turtletrekker]

McCoy and Scotty will be revealed as the CMO and chief engineer, the explanation for why they never appeared was because they were too busy getting shitfaced.

Georgiou drank them under the table.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Georgiou drank them under the table.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Why isn't Culber CMO? Why isn't Stamets Chief Engineer? Why are both Michael and Saru alternatively the Science Officer?

When the series started, Discovery was an experimental craft -- a working laboratory for the Spore Drive. Stamets was one of the lead scientists from Starfleet who led up the experiment into the spore drive, along with his friend/colleague on the Glenn.

The war pushed the "experimental laboratory" ship into service, and likely the resulting loss of ships from the war keeps her there -- but I think Stamets is still seen and the lead scientist working on spore technology, not necessarily the engineer of the ship.

 

[Crewman6]

The idea that the bridge crew must be "main characters" is indicative of how some fans just can't let go and are looking at the past through rose colored glasses.

For me anyway it has absolutely nothing to do with looking to "the past." I'm plenty critical of all previous Trek series, there is plenty of total garbage in the long history of Trek, some of which Discovery handily is better than without question.

It's a matter of making smart choices in the production of your TV show.

Take any show, from "Mad Men" to "Brooklyn 99". Both shows have plenty of literal background extras to make their respective workplaces look and feel like real places, but you'd never see a couple of extras in the middle of an important staff meeting with the rest of the characters who do nothing but nod along and exchange glances whenever the main characters are talking.

By the same token, you're stuck with having those bodies on the bridge, so it's just stupid not to use what you already have. It's a major waste to have to have bodies who are prominently places in your set every week and not use that for storytelling purposes. I'm not saying they need to dominate the show or even get their own episodes (Troi and Crusher got usually one episode each a season to be the focus and that was back when 22-24 episode seasons were the norm.)

Were you upset when TNG never gave Ensign Gates a semblance of a personality? After Wesley left, it was it understandable that the TNG producers opted not to introduce a new main character for helmsman because the cast was already as large as it was, and losing both Wesley and Yar gave more room for other characters. Closest replacement was Ensign Ro, but she was originally set up to be a possible character for DS9 until Forbes turned it down, after which she was practically dropped from TNG until the penultimate episode that gave her a farewell to that show like Wesley earlier.

Actually, yeah. It was absolutely a mistake on TNG's part not to cast a new series regular to be at the conn. They could have come up with any kind of interesting, dynamic character to take that role. Ensign Ro would have been awesome as a series regular. (She was not created for DS9.) They can and should have added to the cast instead of just having a rotating group of extras to just sit there, push buttons and (more often than not) nod when given orders instead of having actual dialogue (since that would have upped their pay scale.) Without Wesley and Yar, they certainly had room to give us another bridge character who could have added some color and dynamism to show.

DISCO has really only four to five main characters, they certainly have room to add someone else or flesh out those glorified extras. Jet Reno is a great addition to the series, even though she's only recurring. Give us a Jet Reno at the conn, a character who has a personality and a point of view and can enliven the show instead of just nodding and pressing buttons.

It's amazing to me that so many people on this thread seem inexplicably opposed to making the show more interesting. Shrug.

 

[Nerys Myk]

For me anyway it has absolutely nothing to do with looking to "the past." I'm plenty critical of all previous Trek series, there is plenty of total garbage in the long history of Trek, some of which Discovery handily is better than without question.

It's a matter of making smart choices in the production of your TV show.

Take any show, from "Mad Men" to "Brooklyn 99". Both shows have plenty of literal background extras to make their respective workplaces look and feel like real places, but you'd never see a couple of extras in the middle of an important staff meeting with the rest of the characters who do nothing but nod along and exchange glances whenever the main characters are talking.

By the same token, you're stuck with having those bodies on the bridge, so it's just stupid not to use what you already have. It's a major waste to have to have bodies who are prominently places in your set every week and not use that for storytelling purposes. I'm not saying they need to dominate the show or even get their own episodes (Troi and Crusher got usually one episode each a season to be the focus and that was back when 22-24 episode seasons were the norm.)



Actually, yeah. It was absolutely a mistake on TNG's part not to cast a new series regular to be at the conn. They could have come up with any kind of interesting, dynamic character to take that role. Ensign Ro would have been awesome as a series regular. (She was not created for DS9.) They can and should have added to the cast instead of just having a rotating group of extras to just sit there, push buttons and (more often than not) nod when given orders instead of having actual dialogue (since that would have upped their pay scale.) Without Wesley and Yar, they certainly had room to give us another bridge character who could have added some color and dynamism to show.

DISCO has really only four to five main characters, they certainly have room to add someone else or flesh out those glorified extras. Jet Reno is a great addition to the series, even though she's only recurring. Give us a Jet Reno at the conn, a character who has a personality and a point of view and can enliven the show instead of just nodding and pressing buttons.

It's amazing to me that so many people on this thread seem inexplicably opposed to making the show more interesting. Shrug.

You're still not getting. Being on the bridge in "prominent" position doesn't mean they should be treated the same as main characters. Those people are the background characters you see on shows like Brooklyn 99. They aren't Amy and Perralta or even Scully and Hitchcock. They get lines when they need to get lines.