Overall I'm quite pleased with the pilot episode. The crew's likeable and they feel more real after one episode than DIS achieved for most of its cardboard crew during the 3 seasons I cared to watch.
Starshipwise we get a shuttle Stamets, a TOS-Miranda in Spacedock and a one-nacelled USS Archer NCC-627. The pylons look way to thin for my taste. And just how large is it with a crew of only 3? Una served aboard the USS (Martin Luther?) King Jr.
Now let's have a look at the continuity issues.
The Gorn have been retconned to an established enemy. La'an's family was killed by them when Una was a mere ensign.
Robert April has been retconned from a white Commodore to a black Admiral. That is if you consider TAS canon. I suppose the most elegant solution would be to remaster "The Counter-Clock Incident" but that's never going to happen.
There's a Chief Kyle and he's of Asian descent. He's supposed to be the Lt. Kyle from TOS and TWOK so that would be another race retcon. Could be another character though or maybe TOS-Kyle's husband?
Cmdr. M'Benga is the ship's CMO. That raises the question what he's going to do to get demoted. Or maybe he's the father of TOS-M'Benga.
The Starfleet Delta (as in DIS) is used fleet-wide. Capt. Batel, Adm. April and the Archer crew members wear it.
Lt. Samuel Kirk serves aboard the Enterprise. It was never explicitly said that he was not in Starfleet so there's wiggle room but this is yet another instance of Small Universe-Syndrome.
It takes a huge amount of suspension of disbelief to accept that Spock and Uhura failed to mention in "Space Seed" that they served with one of Khan's descendants.
The Eugenics Wars are merged into WWIII. In "Space Seed" the Eugenics Wars took place in the 1990s and were the last great conflict on Earth 200 years ago. This would've put TOS in the 2190s and clashed with World War III being the last great war. So basically this puts TOS in the 2260s but it effectively retcons the 1990s date.
The transporter is way more sophisticated than in TNG. It can change your clothes during transport.
Whoever is in charge of the uniforms did a terrible job.
Lt. Cmdr. Chin-Riley wears Cmdr. stripes Lt. Noonien Singh wears Lt. Cmdr. stripes Lt. Ortegas wears Lt. Cmdr. stripes The female OPS Lt. wears Lt. Cmdr. stripes Chapel (who is supposed to be a civilian wears Cmdr. stripes. She was an ensign in TOS, a Lt. in TAS and TMP and finally a Cmdr. in TVH).
Chapel is also unrecognizable from her TOS characterisation and seems way too overqualified to be a nurse.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
The TOS rank braids were always pretty basic, with very little granularity, and much of what there was of that was retconned I think. Multiple examples of ranks being all over the place back then, so I’m not going to stress about it too much.
Overall I enjoyed that much, much more than possibly anything else I’ve seen in the new era (and I don’t know whether the Kelvinverse can be counted as part of said new era, but I’m pretty relaxed about saying it’s the best Trek I’ve seen since Beyond).
If - gritted teeth - we can take “The Trouble With Edward” as any sort of precedent, then the idea of the Archer being a minimally-staffed science ship despite its (apparent) size isn’t too much of a stretch.
The Chapel thing is odd. Significant changes to her backstory and character. Maybe there’s more to it we don’t know about yet. Maybe she’ll have some sort of sobering experience that will cause her to leave the ship or Starfleet itself, until the circumstances behind “WALGMO?” causes her to return? After all they’re not finding opportunities to shoehorn in Scott, or Chief Botanist (?) Sulu, etc. - yet!! They appear to have put a lot of thought into this, so I suspect (and hope) they’re not going to indulge in anachronistic flights of fantasy lightly, not just in the name of fan service. The Samuel Kirk thing was a nice fake-out but let’s hope there’s more behind it than just that.
The scary thing is that however corny (like Lorca’s cringemaking namecheck of Elon Musk in DSC s1) the idea of an American Second Civil War (leading to a retconned Eugenics War and then WW3) is, with all that recycled footage of the January 6th insurrection, it still feels all too plausible with what’s going on right now!
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
I don't care what production crew says, none of this is in line with OG Trek. Too much has been changed to make the Discoverse anything but another AU. Worse, it's one like that created by a 14yo fanfic writer.
I tried to be excited. I was bored. I hated Pike's colloquialism. I hated bringing people who shouldn't be there onto the scene. It's such a try-hard. Like I said in the Picard finale thread, I never thought I'd ever say this, but after watching that & this....I think I might just drop any new stuff altogether. None of this is good. None of it is enjoyable. It's something different that lacks what OG Trek had. I think it's all the fucked-up retconning & destruction of previous worldbuilding. I just....I don't want to do this anymore.
Oh, also Star Trek/Letterkenny crossover #3 & 4: Admiral April, played by Adrian Holmes, was Gail & Rosie's other cousin Bradley; meanwhile, Captain Batel was Melanie Scrofano–Mrs. McMurray herself. Get that officer a cocksuckin' gin & tonic!
Posted by Brown_supahero (Member # 83) on :
I enjoyed it. Cowboys in space vibes. Let the gorn be big bads. Kyle is a NCO, let’s see how he gets commissioned. When will Sam go home and be a family man. Waiting for sulu and Scott to come on board.
Posted by Krenim (Member # 22) on :
I enjoyed this episode.
I think the real test will be how it goes from here, though. Even Picard (by far my least favorite New Trek show) has had strong season premieres. If this is truly an episodic show, maybe it'll find a way to avoid the pacing issues that have plagued both Disco and Picard.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
I'm kind of surprised they went with TOS tricorder designer. OTOH glad because in keeping with TOS, but the other, as I look at my Galaxy S21+ like... my smart phone looks like it can do more than that box with a tiny half inch screen. Meanwhile the transporter chief is beaming iris patterns on Spock's eye... like I don't even think O'Brien could have done that on the E-D.
It's got to be really hard to make something that looked futuristic in the 60s still look futuristic in 2022.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
I kept hearing people say it was better than the other new stuff, so I watched. Here's the comment I left there (and, trigger warning, I mention "original universe", so don't spaz out):
**************
2/5 ... Some of the actors are decent, but the pacing and writing, both of the original content and the treatment of the original Trek universe, were spotty. Pike was rendered almost unlikable as he outright refused to go save his first officer even after she was identified to him. Sure, the notion of Pike as haunted by his vision is quite interesting, on a character level. But, unlike the original universe Pike who was weary and self-doubting due to crew deaths, yet still willing to try to help those in need of rescue, this one is the opposite. He was unwilling to help his own XO (cough Menagerie cough), his desire to quit is selfish in origin, and his unwavering belief in that future (even as he changed his attitude about what it meant for his life) contrasts strongly with Trek's long-standing tradition, and almost knee-jerk character reactions, that the future isn't set in stone.
Pacing in the latter half left us with scarcely a moment's reflection (other than Pike's literal haunting ones). It was just constant expository talking in a similar near-monotone on each different subject, as if they needed a two hour pilot instead of this.
Finally, while many will have various continuity and tech notes for years to come, I'll simply note that, while J&G Reeves-Stevens intentionally-false warp bomb idea from the novels was interesting, this one falls flat. How would an Earth nation have built a nuke after merely seeing a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, for instance? What's a warp bomb's difference from a plain old antimatter weapon? It was the unexplained 'red matter' of this story, and unnecessary.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by Spike: The transporter is way more sophisticated than in TNG. It can change your clothes during transport.
This is a terrible idea for a mission like this. How do you know what's in what pocket? How do you even know where your pockets are?
And the eye thing . . . oy.
quote:Chapel is also unrecognizable from her TOS characterisation and seems way too overqualified to be a nurse.
The whole scene with the waking alien was weird. The civilian, new to the ship, chases him and bystanders don't assist. There was no call to security. The situation was identified with an in-joke between the new civilian and the ship's doctor, a joke the helm officer playing captain seemed to get, which just made it all odd and unnecessary as an in-joke against the audience.
Then the alien guy totally calms and forgets his panic based on sports talk. I get calming, but he went totally "yes I'm naturally walking out of this door as if I know where I'm going and it's natural for me to talk sports to an alien". Weird.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by Shik: I don't care what production crew says, none of this is in line with OG Trek. Too much has been changed to make the Discoverse anything but another AU. {...} Like I said in the Picard finale thread, I never thought I'd ever say this, but after watching that & this....I think I might just drop any new stuff altogether. None of this is good. None of it is enjoyable. It's something different that lacks what OG Trek had. I think it's all the fucked-up retconning & destruction of previous worldbuilding. I just....I don't want to do this anymore.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)