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Star Trek: Original Series • Discovery • Picard • Lower Decks • Prodigy • Strange New Worlds

Liked DS-9. Took 'character-driven' about as far as it's going to get in a genre TV melodrama. But I respect that tastes vary....

The evil apostate Kai Winn got roasted in the end, you gotta love that! :D
 
don.

first off, let me apologize for misunderstanding your klingon comments the other day. i had made the false assumption they had returned to the TOS style, which would make logical sense, in spite of the silliness of walnut head explanation that came with TNG.

as for the slow-talking -- yes, truly annoying, but i am glad it is keeping the opera coaches employed on the side. what truly confused me was that whole exchange of power scene where the albino guy (who looked like the game of thrones zombie leader villain) took charge by way of a polite suggestion. wtf? it's quite an accomplishment to present a vapid show with little intellectual or artistic complexity and then manage to confuse a viewer like me who scrutinizes every detail.

DS9: i really liked the feel, which in many ways surpassed TNG, but captain sisko was simply awful and held everything back in a big way. even though many may not want to admit it, the whole secret of star trek is in the captain.


vuk.
 
vuk said:
don.

first off, let me apologize for misunderstanding your klingon comments the other day. i has made the false assumption they had returned to the TOS style, which would make logical sense, in spite of the silliness of walnut head explanation that came with TNG.

as for the slow-talking -- yes, truly annoying, but i am glad it is keeping the opera coaches employed on the side. what truly confused me was that whole exchange of pwer scene where the albino guy (who looked like the game of thrones zombie leader villain) took charge by way of a polite suggestion. wtf? it's quite an accomplishment to present a vapid show with little intellectual or artistic complexity show and then manage to confuse a viewer like me who scrutinizes every detail.

DS9: i really liked the feel, which in many ways surpassed TNG, but captain sisko was simply awful and held everything back in a big way. even though many may not want to admit it, the whole secret of star trek is in the captain.


vuk.
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I was remiss in assuming everybody knew we had all-new Klingons on our hands....

In this Klingon social structure, it seems a polite suggestion can have the effect, if properly phrased and timed by the lowly underling, of transforming the social situation--if the rules say it may. Sort of like a pawn making it to the 8th row on a chessboard and saying 'may I please be a queen now?'

IMHO, Sisko wasn't so much awful as offbeat. He mostly didn't flash the hyper-competent-striver persona one expects of starfleet officers. Instead he was intended to be amiable, hip, and spiritually deep. He spent half the time in trouble with Starfleet--initially, command of DS9 was presented as a sort of punishment detail--and half the time being their golden boy. The only explanation for the later is the writers were on his side.
 
don.

just to clarify on the sisko front, my complaint isn't so much about the character as with limitations of the actor. that said, i'll dare to argue how a fundamental part of star trek appeal, in spite of socialist and ethnic diversity window-dressing, is ultimately rooted in a western imperialist fantasy, complete with freudian defense mechanisms like projection, embodied in the idea of evil aliens.

given our current social/perceptual expectations, this still works best -- or perhaps most easily -- with a traditional, authoritarian white male as the lead. if a director wants to challenge that, he needs to cast a guy like samuel l.jackson or mahershala ali. otherwise, put forth something totally new and more convincing / interesting,

NEXT:

Joe P said:
None of the Star Trek series should be judged by the first episode. Whether it's The Man Trap from the original series,* Encounter at Far Point from next generation, Emissary from DS9, and so on, they've all been a bit meh, but the series improves a lot several episodes or seasons in. Just look at the chasm between The Man Trap and The City of the Edge of Forever. It's infinite.

That said, the premiere of Discovery is arguably the strongest first episode yet. If the show improves from there I'll be thrilled. If it's little more than battles in space like the reboot movies, I'll grumble a lot and only buy the series on blu-ray and eventually 4k, but I will not make the show part of the fabric of my life.

Joe

* OK, technically it was The Cage or Where No Man has Gone Before, depending on your definition of premiere.
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joe.

that is some weak-a$$ $hit and you know it. you are welcome to come by a few years from now and we can argue over it watching the uncut, gold-edition purple-ray box set on my tiny TV.



vuk.
 
We had an oppressed white Klingon and an all powerful black Klingon elite so I assumed Michael was going to turn out to have been originally male and had transitioned but liked her birth name.

My Trek knowledge is not the best but weren't the Romulans the ones with cloaking devices rather than the Klingons?
 
matthewr said:
We had an oppressed white Klingon and an all powerful black Klingon elite so I assumed Michael was going to turn out to have been originally male and had transitioned but liked her birth name.

My Trek knowledge is not the best but weren't the Romulans the ones with cloaking devices rather than the Klingons?
Click to expand...

No, The Romulans also. In fact they had arguably superior cloaking technology and were much sneakier in the way they used it.

It was in fact the Romulans that shared their cloaking device with the federation in DS9, despite it being the Klingon empire that eventually went into alliance, through Worf and Sisko.

BTW, stop all the Sisko bashing you lot, or he'll be getting some prophets or some such onto your collective butts! Remember the Dominion fleet...
 
At risk of being fired from a photon torpedo tube, I thought DS9 was dire-nothing more than a soap in space make-up/costumes.....I know that's probably unfair but I just couldn't get into it at all. I'm still pondering the actions of Federation officers in ep2....
 
Ep2? I had to look it up on memory alpha to remind myself. I thought it a clever episode, quite complex compared to TNG.

It's true the federation is depicted as less utopian at its outer reaches, no different from Nimbus III. I thought DS9 showcased some of Ron Moore's finest writing, which we glimpsed in TNG and saw in all it's glory in Battlestar Galactica.
 
Thought the second part was better. Especially once the annoying (and crap) captain threw a 7.

Looks like it's going to be a serial rather than individual (albeit loosely related) individual stories.
 
cooky1257 said:
Ep2 'Discovery' Alan.
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Ah. Got you, thought you were still on DS9. My bad.

You may carry on... ;)

Star Trek Disco' has a lot to prove yet. Whether there is any writing talent being one aspect. As Joe P said, not a terrible starting point. I'm sure the writers are all fans of Trek, but it may not always be the best idea to let bright eyed fans write the story.
 
At the nerdy fan expo I attended earlier in September the captain of Discovery (bloke in blue hat) and Saru (the lanky bloke) both said they we're ginormous fans of the original series. That gives me considerable hope that the new series won't be like the reboot movies.


I think it's too early to conclude anything, but the series' starting point is the strongest yet.

Incidentally, I'm the one in the audience not making any woop-woop noises. If you listen carefully, you can't hear me.

Joe
 
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Good sci-fi should explore that fantastic question - what if the universe is just like it is, but with just this one little twist. It is what makes good sci-fi short stories. It is what makes good episodic TV shows.

If you don't do that - pack up and go home.

Then you can add in the story acs, characters, will-they-or-won't-they stuff. Characters you like requires writers working well together with a unified purpose. And some pretty people who can talk without stuttering.

Good writing teams also allow a consistent universe to be built with rules, boundaries and preferably no weapon of the week that defeats monster of the week rubbish.

The first two Discovery episodes had the usual problems evident - there were clearly multiple creative visions competing in the one show. The original show creator, the new new show creator, the directors, the writers learning about working with each other - and no doubt the studio executives, audience testers, script doctors and maybe even advertisers elbowing in.

The result is actors without clear characters, rushed dialogue, weird style of cinematography and generally trying to cram in everyone's notes on vision, style, look, feel, culture, message et al in. In time this will settle down and we'll get to see how good the writing is. Which will define how good the show is.
 
Makes you wonder how the very best television manages to hit the ground running e.g. Breaking Bad, Parks & Recreation, Fargo (season 1).
 
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