posted
Half the time it felt as if I was watching an Avengers movie. The tech has gotten even more outragous. They really should've chosen a different time if they don't like the constraints of the 23rd century. Also, it seems Discovery has gotten a lot bigger, or what was that elevator ride about?
I absolutely hated the sneeze joke. They should leave this sort of humor to "The Orville", which at least in my opinion is the superior Trek show currently on air.
The only beam of light in the episode was Pike.
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Bernd's review at EAS is gold, like always.
As for Sybok, because he is the child of Sarek and another woman, we can presume that he must be at least seven years older than Spock, and (but for the suggestion they spent time being raised together) as much as thirty years older.
He was also a prodigy, so could easily have been away to school younger than we might commonly do.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
Was the Hiawatha's class identifiable at all? It looked like it was quite long; I thought it was an existing class, and a quick bit of research suggests I was thinking of the Cardenas-class (like the USS Yeager), but that doesn't look long enough and I'm not sure it had four nacelles either.
Also, the registry means that by my reckoning it's one of about only 15 three-digit registries ever seen, not counting Kelvinverse ones like the USS Biddeford and the USS Kelvin itself - and who knows what's going on there with that extra '0' given it's a prime univers ship..!
I liked this episode, especially after the boatload of stupid that I felt the two-part Season 1 finale was. It's a course correction, moving more into more traditional Trek themes like exploration and even visually getting some uniforms that are far closer to something from the original series.
Yeah, the elevator ride visuals struck me as sitcomish in that I think we're supposed to assume that there are walls and rooms that we're just not seeing. Still, yeah, kind of odd.
I'm not shocked that there's no Sybok (yet), but I'd still like to have some kind of reference to him at some point, even if it's just a wink at the audience. I still maintain I'd love to see an April Fool's Day joke with "Yesteryear" edited to have Sybok and Michael in the background.
I think my favorite part of the episode was Tilly trying and eventually succeeding in snapping Stamets out of his funk. I don't think Stamets has decided to stay yet, but I think we'll see him eventually come around.
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I think Stamets will have some sort of experience where he encounters Spore-Hugh again, making him want to explore that more.
OK, so the Enterprise has been off on what it transpires was one of many five-year missions during the war, and missed all the fighting. And yet, despite Discovery having literally only just left Earth, they don't have the new uniforms but Pike's crew do? I can't come up with any explanation for that. What I do like is the sense that the Constitution-class ships are truly special, Sarfleet's purposed deep-space explorers and the epitomy of the purpose of Starfleet itself (see also Tilly's apiring to command one). Perhaps they're like the Explorer-class vessels in B5's EarthForce... which then makes me think of the nonsensical black Crusade uniforms, which made no sense given we only ever saw normal blue EF uniforms before, during and after Crusade, and on the one other Explorer-class vessel we ever saw too.
So... what? The Connies are SO special, they get to adopt the new uniform template before anyone else? And the colours are wrong anyway: it's supposed to be gold not banana yellow, the red is too dark, the blue, too... um... well, it's shade or two too light, certainly.
posted
I'm sure they spent dozens of seconds verifying the logic of the Hiawatha registry and old uniform colors before going with what they chose, and pondering the concept of how the update would work realistically. Dozens more were spent on the Sarek family dynamic and how it fits in with TOS et al.
Okay, maybe not dozens, plural, but still. We know they think of these things. They say so whenever they're brought up, and we can verify that by the fact they never make changes to the show. Nope, it is a solid vision, here, and their aim is true.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
The whole Hiawatha registry scene was cringe worthy. Saru was the only one able to "zoom in" to read it and then it was kind of that he inferred from the registry that it was a medical frigate.
I find their attempts to explain continuity problems kind of insulting. The "new uniforms" line makes no sense with the sophisticated replicators they have available. They could switch to a new uniform design within a day.
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Same goes for the "Klingons shave their heads in times of war" explanation.
Registered: Mar 2000
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And he also managed to earn the Carrington Award and the (Cardassian) Legate's Crest of Valor. *sigh* It seems they just randomly take stuff from Memory Alpha. And I guess Nhan's species was chosen in a similar way.
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Spike: And he also managed to earn the Carrington Award and the (Cardassian) Legate's Crest of Valor. *sigh* It seems they just randomly take stuff from Memory Alpha. And I guess Nhan's species was chosen in a similar way.
The Carrington Award does seem rather rediculous for Pike to have.
The Legate’s Crest? Eh, stretching it, but maybe. We don’t know the state of Federation-Cardassian relations during this time, do we?
I don’t see any issues with Nhan being Barzan, though. We know Starfleet admits non-Federation species.
Also, non-related but something I forgot earlier: I liked the little fortune cookie bit in this episode.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Same goes for the "Klingons shave their heads in times of war" explanation.
Except when they don’t. Which is most of the time.
Yeah, I get the impression they’re trying to run away from S1 very fast.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: I'm sure they spent dozens of seconds verifying the logic of the Hiawatha registry and old uniform colors before going with what they chose, and pondering the concept of how the update would work realistically. Dozens more were spent on the Sarek family dynamic and how it fits in with TOS et al.
Okay, maybe not dozens, plural, but still. We know they think of these things. They say so whenever they're brought up, and we can verify that by the fact they never make changes to the show. Nope, it is a solid vision, here, and their aim is true.
OK, we get it, you're not a big fan of this show.
Thing is though, we know they are aware of canon even if - as it may become increasingly evident - they are choosing to ignore it if it's inconvenient.
Some things I just handwave away. The differences in controls and consoles, well, I think that's just one of those things. It just wouldn't be feasible to show modern SF with 1960s buttons and screens.
Uniforms, well, I'm 50-50 on this. There are enough oddities in Trek uniforms through the ages to make expecting anything resembling consistency and coherence a pipe dream. Why was there ONE guy in a TNG uniform in a later-period DS9 ep? That sort of thing.
Ships... we saw so few in TOS. The Enterprise changes, well, I'd be able to chalk those up to cosmetic differences over the years. It's those refit nacelle pylons I can't get past though.
posted
My comments weren't any harsher than others. I even gave the show an "out" in response to the probably-tongue-in-cheek-but-I-answered-anyway Sybok question. Were I a hate-filled hatey hateful hater I'd be blasting them for it.
You additionally list consoles, uniforms, and ship designs. Let's take these one-by-one.
Consoles with buttons as anachronistic is a funny concept, to me. I deal professionally with some life-critical systems where touchscreen interfaces have been an option for a long time. Most people actually don't use that, though. Reasons vary, but even if the touchscreens were perfectly oleophobic the simple fact is that you ha e to be looking at it to operate it unless you have some positional reference. I don't have to see my phone touch keyboard right now because I am holding the thing so my thumbs 'know' where to go in relation to that. This is also why you can type based on feeling where the little nubs are on the F and other home key.
Similarly, the systems I deal with commonly involve folks needing to be able to look elsewhere, so interfaces with physical keys are preferred. Indeed, I would argue that touchscreen, almost buttonless phones are an indication of our current limitations more than anything. It's cheaper to build a buttonless slab than to put a ton of keys.
Beyond that, though, there's the fact that Enterprise did nicely show buttons mixed with limited touchscreens as futuristic, and Rogue One showed is that money could be made maintaining consistency with dinky old set design. Had the Discovery folks been creative in their approach, they might've had physical buttons that were reconfigurable as if by live 3-D printing.
Now as for uniforms, the Discovery garb is, to a degree, a matter of taste. There are pros and cons to aiming for futuristic spacesuits. The issue with Discovery's costuming was the seeming lack of evolutionary thought, now made all the worse by the garish painting-over of Disco uniforms with primary colors. If anything, the simpler TOS style uniforms could've been introduced as a nod to lesser resources available in or due to wartime. Instead, they've done a hackjob that makes no sense. Dropping the shiny bits, sure, but going to bright colors for a design created in wartime? What? And let's not forget the color-coordinated shiny flight suits from the "Brother" episode… which, unless they packed them, had to be made that way on Discovery intentionally.
And as for ships, oh my. I could've forgiven something new that was consistently applied, like the boxier triple-bussard motif, but even if we ignore the First Contact reject fleet from the pilot we don't have any internal or external consistency at all. That extends to the Enterprise herself, with the Discoprise absolutely not being the same structure as the TOS ship as she appeared both before and after the late 2250s. Even those who claim the TMP Enterprise would've had to be a new ship can at least acknowledge how close she is to the TOS ship, but the Discoprise shares almost no points in common . . . it's like putting a bow on the Defiant and calling it the Orville.
But that's just scratching the surface of my ship opinions. I appreciate the desire for a new Star Trek-branded show, but the existence of this very forum speaks to the fact that the minutiae mattered. The makers of the new CBS Canon don't seem to share that opinion, even in regards to their own show's internal consistency.
At least Kurtzman has placed it in a new, separate continuity.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
Well, just watched it and I thought it was thoroughly enjoyable. Was the fortune cookie’s reference to “a cage” a reference to The Cage?
Tilly was nicely done again. That snot (pun intended Ed) from the Enterprise was very obviously going to be disposed of.
The engineer from The Enterprise was Barzan?? Though it somewhat familiar. What are those face “tusks” supposed to be, anyway?
The bridge “role call” was a bit obvious given they hardly mentioned their names in season 1.
Btw, has there been a major “management” change for season 2? That explains all these shifts away from season 1??
Anyway. I liked it. I thought it cinematic and exciting and enjoyable. After all - despite the canon inconsistencies, isn’t that what we want in a good show??
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
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