Wasn't exactly blown away by the first episode. It wasn't bad by any means and there were some really great shots in there with some all around decent production design and presentation. However it felt like it was just going through the paces in terms of Star Trek media and treading some very well tread ground without bringing anything all that new or interesting to the table so far. Cold logical Vulcans, firey warlike Klingons, and so on.
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Star Trek: Discovery |OT| To Boldly Stream Where No One Has Streamed Before
- Thread starter berzeli
- Start date
Well, if Captain Georgeiu knew a better procedure on how to deal with them she didn't bring it up. Again, this might just be because all I know is these first two episodes, but even if we know that the Federation dealt with Klingons before, it's my understanding that the vulcan interaction is the most recent and/or informative because that's how the show seems to present it. All Georgeiu can say is that they haven't talked with them in a hundred years, then it seems to me that the Vulcan interactions remain the best reference source they have.
The knowledge that the federation has met and dealt with Klingon's before is great, but whatever those ways were, they're not presented as something the chracters here know about. And it seems to me that's largely because no one expected to make contact with them, which I think is reasonable since the Klingons were all the way out on the edge not bothering anyone for a hundred years. So the Vulcan ways are the best data they have, it seems.
You'd think all ships of the federation would have like a reference book for it or something tho.
Those aren't whiny piss baby trekkies tho, those are just the alt-right shitters you already mentioned. No one disagreed with that! I think there's plenty of room for people who approach this as a Trek show, love the diversity, love the production values, but are a bit baffled at how extreme it is in terms of wanting an edgelord lead who is completely unlikable. It's super divisive for good reason, ignoring alt-right garbage crap that we won't waste time even entertaining.
Imbarkus
As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
I've been avoiding the Orville. If I watch it, it will be after Discovery.
I'm curious what that was like.
Tal Shiar Agent
Member
I actively dislike what I watched and simultaneously do not want this show to exist at all.
Trek has been falling backwards since Voyager ended. We were lucky that seasons 3 and 4 of Enterprise were as good as they were. The show still had to step on eggshells in regards to canon. Beyond was the closest that Abramsverse got to being Star Trek, Into Darkness was a total mockery.
I don't get why we just can't get another series set after a time jump? TNG was set in the 24th century to give it breathing room from TOS and establish it's own identity. Discovery is just TOS 0.9. There was a perfect opportunity to explore a brand new reality in the 25th century after a devastating war and the destruction of one of the major powers in the galaxy. But no, we got another prequel series that adds nothing to Star Trek .
Show turns into Prison Break with Malfoy getting inside Star Trek Rikers Island.
Then he dies during the escape she becomes Captain.
Schnozberry
Member
I think the reinvention of the Klingon's as race of religious zealots is pretty different from their previous interpretations.
I'm not sure how to feel about the first two episodes being a prologue, though. Presumably there are quite a few characters that we haven't seen in the first two hours. I'm guessing the USS Discovery is a much larger and more capable ship militarily.
JonnyDBrit
Member
Well, the Vulcan method only particularly makes sense if it's from before they helped found the Federation, because from then on they had Starfleet for that. The Vulcans are one of the four founding species of the Federation - T'Kuvma lists them off alongside the humans, tellarites, and andorians.
Yes, those are the alt-righters. I was responding to:
So that was to illustrate what I meant when I said it was getting review bombed by alt-righters, and that there is a clear contingent of them.
The other group is the "This doesn't conform 100% to my notion of what Trek is even if the show is good therefore 1 star", or "Too much lensflare, 1 star".
I wasn't dismissing any and all criticism, I was specifically talking about the review bombing.
It's because appealing to nostalgia is much easier to sell to producers than making a brand new show with a brand new vision. Also Star Trek is entirely about war and revenge now.
Yep. Doing prequel series just makes it that much harder to tell interesting stories without messing with established series history. Make a new series set a 100 years into the future where we can encounter new alien races, see crazy new technology, and not have to worry about when the first Klingon cloaking device was created.
Yeah, a single flashback and two scenes prior isn't enough to make Michael's choice have any resonance. I get the desire to skip to the whiz-bang stuff, but if you imagined DS9 trying to do the Dominion War in its first season, you would have got stuff like thispunches that whiff on impact because we don't really know the characters well enough yet.
Tal Shiar Agent
Member
Its a big reason why this show makes me so ornery.
It feels like Star Trek has left me behind.
Stallion Dan
Member
I'm not sure I understand the distinction. Why does them being Federation make a difference? The Klingons come off as generally xenophobic, particularly disliking the idea of existing alongside other aliens peacefully. So I can see why they'd have a particular distaste for the Federation as a concept, but it seems like it's a staple of their culture to react to other species by assessing what kind of threat they present themselves as. So, why would the Klingon's diplomacy tactics change based on whether they're Federation or not?
I've explained this repeatedly, I'm talking about the review bombing. But if you want to count yourself in that group go ahead.
Schnozberry
Member
I don't mind one Star Trek series in a handful taking place in a War. It's a good platform to explore the blurred moral and ethical boundaries of our own reality. It also means it won't replicate some of the mistakes of the TNG Era. There was a lot that was great about those shows, but they often felt like they didn't have anything at stake, because they were written for syndication and wrapped up a tidy story in one episode. Often times, there were no consequences from one episode to the next, and you wouldn't even have known any time had passed, barring cast changes forced by off screen circumstances.
KojiKnight
Member
Probably more people upset by the fact that they have to subscribe to a specific service.
I made my wife watch it with me on a CBS 2 day trial. She had her phone on her because she was expecting to be bored (her words). Instead at the end she turns to me and says "so how are we going to watch it from now on if this was just a trial?"
High praise from my wife. She's mostly not into scifi except for DS9 which she still hasn't even finished.
As a long time Trek fan, I enjoyed the first two episodes far more than I enjoyed the new movies and I see a lot of potential here... but my problems with it are still the same as I feared going in. Klingons are played out. The original series era is played out. There are so many more interesting stories and ways the series could play out post TNG. The borg collective collapsing from the inside, a federation civil war, an invasion of unknown species from the Beta quadrant, etc.
I've had so many interesting ideas about 'what could be' over the last 2 decades, it's a real shame that instead we just get the same ol' same ol'.
That's why I was always interested in a post-NEM TV show. You could focus on different characters but explore what it would be like to have your utopian society nearly destroyed in a war. You don't have to jump hundreds of years into the future to tell different stories; DS9's focus on the Dominion War proved that.
I don't understand the idea of canon as shackles. Go watch any other short-run sci-fi series, then. What is the point of wanting Star Trek that is not recognizably Star Trek?
JonnyDBrit
Member
My point is that the Vulcans would not have a peace with the Klingons unique to them from whatever time they were within the Federation. They were no longer a separate nation state. It's nothing to do with the Klingon approach, but when Vulcan would have deal with defending against the Klingons for themselves, instead of leaving it to their actual military - Starfleet - as part of the Federation.
Stallion Dan
Member
Tell me the difference between scoring it bad because you don't like it and 'review bombing' because you don't like it?
How do you identify the difference looking at a metatotal score?
Kirk wasn't exactly fit for the captain's chair after the shit he's done through the various stories and versions. I'll take deeply flawed characters over someone boring.
gundamkyoukai
Member
I feel the same way .
Anoregon
The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
Not at all; they are banking on it being good/popular and using it as the main drive to get people to sign up for their stupid service.
Mark Andrew
Member
No, although I agree with you. I think eventually this service will die off or have to significantly change its business model.
Imbarkus
As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
I was pleasantly surprised to see a callback/update of The motion's Picture's spacesuit flight scene. Certainly didn't expect it, found it thrilling.
I do wish any radiation-based time limits were about shields or armor failing, and not about the time limit before your DNA completely unravels, because if it's only 99% unraveled then sickbay can re-ravel it for you?
Does this series have a chief medical somebody? Star Trek doctors and sci-fi medical drama are a unique facet of the shows in the past. Doesn't look much like this series will have a place for it. I guess we'll see.
I do wish any radiation-based time limits were about shields or armor failing, and not about the time limit before your DNA completely unravels, because if it's only 99% unraveled then sickbay can re-ravel it for you?
Does this series have a chief medical somebody? Star Trek doctors and sci-fi medical drama are a unique facet of the shows in the past. Doesn't look much like this series will have a place for it. I guess we'll see.
I think the toughest leap the audience has to make is Burnham's kill decision. She could have averted a war, but instead she chose revenge. Insubordinate though she was, up until that point her intuition had been correct. They would've been better off firing on the Klingons immediately, and they would have been a LOT better off taking the leader as a prisoner - which Burnham suggested in the first place.
Very strange decision. The writers have a lot of legwork ahead of them if they want to make this work. At this point I think it's too early to write Burnham off as irredeemable, but I understand that some people are unwilling to maintain a subscription service for a single program.
Very strange decision. The writers have a lot of legwork ahead of them if they want to make this work. At this point I think it's too early to write Burnham off as irredeemable, but I understand that some people are unwilling to maintain a subscription service for a single program.
Red Arremer
Member
Finished watching the first two episodes.
It looks gorgeous.
Major gripes so far:
- Way too much wisecracking and joking around given the fact this is supposed to be a military vessel.
- Why make the Klingons speak entirely Klingon? So much of the acting is lost by the actors struggling to pronounce this made up guttural language, and so much of the visuals are gone because of the viewer having to read the subtitles. It would have been perfectly fine to leave the introductory scene in Klingon and then have them perform in English afterward.
- The lighting in this show in general feels really off to me. It's all so dark.
What I liked:
I love the design of the uniforms. They could've done a bit more to differentiate the rank colours of gold, silver and bronze/copper, but I love the idea.
The robot bridge officer was really cool.
It looks gorgeous.
Major gripes so far:
- Way too much wisecracking and joking around given the fact this is supposed to be a military vessel.
- Why make the Klingons speak entirely Klingon? So much of the acting is lost by the actors struggling to pronounce this made up guttural language, and so much of the visuals are gone because of the viewer having to read the subtitles. It would have been perfectly fine to leave the introductory scene in Klingon and then have them perform in English afterward.
- The lighting in this show in general feels really off to me. It's all so dark.
What I liked:
I love the design of the uniforms. They could've done a bit more to differentiate the rank colours of gold, silver and bronze/copper, but I love the idea.
The robot bridge officer was really cool.
There was a bunch of reviews posted before the show even aired talking about how the show wasn't Trek or how it was SJW propaganda.
Yet again, if you don't feel like you're in that group you don't have to lump yourself with them.
I guess I can see what your saying, that Starfleet would have records and protocols for how to deal with Klingons.
But Michael was suggesting what she was suggesting by using those policies to give her captain an understanding of Klingon psychology: That the Klingon's don't care about being at peace with you unless they think you can kick their ass if pushed. It still feels like relevant information, because Georgeiu was trying something that wasn't going to work with their cultural values.
Like I said, with this information, it feels like Georgeiu should have some kind of handbook she can reference as to how to deal with Klingon's on ship. In a big box that says "In cast of Klingon, break glass" But apparently, they don't. So like I said, the show presents the Vulcan interactions as the most representative sample of Klingon psychology, so...that's just what I have to go with.
And for what it's worth, it doesn't seem like there's a reason that this interaction would have changed once Vulcan became part of the Federation. The only difference would be that, united with the other alien species, the Federation just became a lot more badass than a Vulcan military alone would be, so in practice, the Vulcans just got a bigger stick, or atleast got a friends with a way bigger stick. Either way, Klingon interaction and psychology seems like it'd remain the same.
MHWilliams
Member
The problem there is the show isn't about this crew. Episode 3 is technically the real start of the show, with the actual cast.
The poster clearly already noted what they consider review bombing:
Why is the first "Why isn't this more realistic" and the second "Why isn't this more like a TV show?" Why would Klingons speak English in their own ships, other than for the conceit of a television show?
VincentMatts
Member
so canadians, is this not playing on spacetv or was that only for the first 2 episodes?
JonnyDBrit
Member
In which case... that's actually a fault of the writing really. Because even within the text of the two episodes by themselves, the Federation logically must have had its own interactions with the Klingons that superseded what the Vulcans had to do, even if it was the same method of 'get in our sights and we will shoot you'. In the wider context of the Trek franchise - its place in which has been heavily emphasized prior to the release of this show - it becomes more glaring because audiences have seen some of those encounters, and yes they did at times involve diplomacy.
Honestly thinking about it, it's a copious lack of detail for what is perhaps the most vital scene of the first episode. Burnham's decision making, whether you agree or disagree, is rooted in the information in that scene.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
I assume it's going to be weekly on Space the same day that it's supposed to go up on All Access in the US.
radios shipping overview
Member
The introduction we got to Michael's character with these episodes is a bit like Sisko at the battle of Wolf 359, except told in realtime and with all the necessary context-setting that TNG already did for DS9.
I'm trying to reserve judgment on a lot about this show until I get a better idea of what it's doing.
I'm trying to reserve judgment on a lot about this show until I get a better idea of what it's doing.
Caught the first two episodes and going in, I kept my expectations low and came out with an overall good impression. I want to see where this show goes.
Yeah, I actually appreciated that touch, it wasn't hard to follow either. Especially when the great houses showed up, the klingon speech was very much my Star Trek moment of the show.
Yeah, I actually appreciated that touch, it wasn't hard to follow either. Especially when the great houses showed up, the klingon speech was very much my Star Trek moment of the show.
Like I said, I got the impression that things were moving on a relatively fast timeline and they haven't dealt with Klingons in so long that procedure is buried somewhere deep where people have forgotten it....but that just doesn't work in the information age where the Federation should have it's own wikipedia database that can reference this stuff. Georgieu should have some way to get an idea of what she's dealing with here.
So I guess I agree, but it doesn't bother me too much because, like I said, I haven't been given any reason to doubt that Michael's assessment of Klingon psychology is what they typically do. Maybe I shouldn't trust the word of Captain Edgelady Hardkill, since she apparently made a deliberate decision to kill, but I just haven't been shown she's wrong in any meaningful way regarding the Klingons thus far.
KojiKnight
Member
Federation isn't a traditional military, they are afterall primarily explorers. This was a vessel who's main purpose was to audit some sensor buoys. I'm sure their environment was a lot more relaxed than, say, the fleet admirals.
Eh just feels like I've seen this style of Trek story many many times before and even outside of Trek at this point. I'm not looking for a total reinvention of the wheel here but it just feels like we're getting old Star Trek with a nicer coat of paint. I'm hoping it comes intimate its own at some point but it doesn't really feel like it's boldly going where no man has gone before and just giving us what's expected at this point.
Games aren't weekly aired TV shows. People have the whole game to experience as soon as they purchase & start playing it. Some people have 10 hours to play daily, some only have 1. In the case of games, it's good to hide spoilers because not everyone advances at the same pace even from people who buy & start playing something day 1 and thus might want to participate in the discussion.
TV shows are different. It's one weekly episode of 20-60 minutes for traditional TV. It's reasonable that no spoiler tags are required after an episode airs. And like I already pointed out, if it's something like a Netflix show that has all 10+ episodes of a season dropped at once, those DO have timed restrictions on spoilers because some binge watch that shit as soon as it hits Netflix, others watch it more slowly. People who can't watch immediately can just wait to jump into the discussion until they can. It's been that way with every show, there's no need to make this any different.
You can wait for 12-24 hours & until you can watch the most recent episode before jumping into a thread if spoilers are so scary to you. Shouldn't be too hard for anyone with the patience of a 5+ year old. If you want impressions, maybe find out some Trekkie sites or something that do spoiler free impressions.
radios shipping overview
Member
I'm still trying to reconcile the idea that Klingons haven't been encountered by the Feddies in 100 years with the idea that there was a Klingon attack on a Vulcan settlement of some kind within the past 30 years, and the idea that a founding member of the Federation wouldn't have shared a key tactic they adopted for dealing with a dangerous foe.
In reality, yes, it's probably just sloppy writing, but when you claim to be telling a story set in existing continuity, that's a commitment to a certain level of consistency.
In reality, yes, it's probably just sloppy writing, but when you claim to be telling a story set in existing continuity, that's a commitment to a certain level of consistency.
JonnyDBrit
Member
Well, therein lies the crux of it. As a work within itself that scene evidently works better, but Discovery's place in a wider canon puts it up against established expectations and knowledge of the setting. The difference in perspective is understandable, and I guess will actually be pretty interesting to watch as the show unfolds.