Re: star trek thread

[halfwise]

Oh that's what was going on? I couldn't stick with it long enough to figure that out.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{Far as I can tell its basically the DS9 format for the main series- individual story episodes but glues together with a through arc of a big war. In DS9 that was the war with the Dominion, and it produced some of the best ST in its entire history- see In the Pale Moonlight for example.
This series seems to be similar- only its got a two episode prequel setting up the war whereas the beginning of the war in DS9 rose naturally out of events over the course of a series or two. }}}

[Forest Shepherd]

Heya, relevant RLM video:

[halfwise]

That was remarkably engrossing. I didn't expect I'd want to watch more than a few minutes of it, but it was a very well-informed and pertinent conversation.

I also learned that starting with the second "pilot" episode may have skewed my opinion; the first pilot looks far more interesting.

[Forest Shepherd]

The guy on the left often brings Star Trek into other movie conversations, so I think they were both quite happy to have the opportunity to actually talk about Star Trek.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{Ok saw ep 3 of STD (really bad name choice guys ) and its an odd one- its a lot better than the pilot. It has some more interesting characters, its a better plot and sci-fi drama- unfortunately its shit ST. Its got no ST feel, its all way too dark, literally in the scene lighting, in the tone overall, the dubiousness of certain characters and way to much gore for ST- it ain't game of thrones people!!  Its feels more like Battlestar or something than it does any ST. }}}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Watched ep4 of STD, basically same as before- its got good scifi, some interesting characters, the klingons didn't bore me for once in this one but its still not ST- its still dark in look and tone, what the Discovery is doing is basically dark in tone; its a ST warship essentially. And there is till too much gore for ST.
I fell in love with ST TOS aged about 6/7 watching it with my Dad every Wednesday at 6pm on BBC2- see it meant so much I can remember when we watched it- if I had a 6/7 year old I wouldn't want them to be watching this with me- not only because I find its look to dark, gritty and violent, but because I dont see it offering a youngster anything in the way of an optimistic, hopeful future or people in that future. And thats a problem I think for ST.

Also watched the latest episode of the Orville- now it feels and looks exactly like St and it was a good character developing episode too for the secondary cast. But it too is still suffering from my original complaint- the actual plots are all too familiar- so far excluding the pilot we have had aliens capturing folk for their zoo, a moral dilemma court room episode and this latest one, a huge advance vessel containing a biosphere with population who have forgotten they are on a ship at all. It would work if they were using these old sci-fi plot lines and doing something new with them, but with the exception of dropping more everyday characters into the scenario and playing that for a few laughs it does nothing new with the ideas or material.
Setting totally ST. Characters, fun, engaging and enough to develop on in the future. Plots old, cliched and hackneyed with no new ideas added.
They sort the plot problem out though Orville will probably win out as the more ST of the two shows.}}}

[halfwise]

Yeah, the original series already was recycling ideas ad nauseum. Seen one parallel development of a historical earth period, seen'em all. Yawn. Need something fresh. TNG largely gave us that.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{Um, well....watched the latest episode of ST Discovery- the episode when ST finally died in concept entirely.
Why? The following exchange- and yes this actually occurs in an episode of ST.

-You guys, this is so fucking cool. I'm so sorry.
-No, cadet. It is fucking cool.

This is ST now?   Who are they aiming this at? }}}

[halfwise]

One channel here gives us episodes of each of the trek series one after another each night. I'm only watching classic Trek, but the dearth of interesting storylines is so sad. The ship, the society, the characters were good, but the writers just had no sense of storyline. TNG figured that out, but only got the characters halfway right.

[Eldorion]

-You guys, this is so fucking cool. I'm so sorry.
-No, cadet. It is fucking cool.

Yes, Captain, this is indeed the shit.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{Thankfully we still have ST Continues- though not for long- the first part of the finale to it has been put up online- and I loved it, well written, an interesting concept that cleverly and intelligently connects the end back to Kirks beginning in his pilot episode (and even nicely explains why Gary got Kirk's middle name wrong on the gravestone in that episode!). Well worth a watch, as like all of the real TOS you can jump in at the start of any episode in any order and it will make sense. Enjoy! }}}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{{ I watched the two latest episodes of ST Discovery and of Orville, and I want to talk about them both together because I feel these two episodes demonstrate whats going on rather well.
Spoilers for both episodes ahead.

I will start with the Orville- it continues to do what it has been doing- take a standard well trodden scifi premise and throw this crew with its humor and quirks at it- which has been entertaining but not enough in itself as they have not done anything worthwhile with those classic scifi plots.
We get another classic scifi plot here- a world very much like earth in which rule is dictated by popular vote done through forms of social media and television. Everyone wears a badge and you can tap it to upvote or downvote someone, and get enough downvotes and you will be arrested- get a lot and you get put on 'trial'- which in this case involves a 'publicity tour' of tv shows on which self righteous hosts get offended on behalf of everyone and the downvoted person tries to appeal to the masses to get voted back enough to avoid punishment- punishment being a correction procedure leaving you lobotomized.
This idea and variants of it can be found as recently in series 10 of Doctor Who, Smile, or in recent series of Black Mirror- but you can go back to at least Huxley and Brave New World or even the Sex Olympics to see this set up in one form or another.
What marked this episode out for me as the best episode of The Orville yet is that for the first time the show has something of its own to add to this, something to say about it relevant to current time- it doesn't equivocate on which side it comes down on- the idea of rule by popular opinion alone is roundly rejected,opinion without knowledge to base it on has no value. Not all opinions are equal. It might not be a popular thing to say but it makes its case well, attacking social media, the press, fake news and the culture of outrage and how easily it can be manipulated.
And its not overdone- one of the most hard hitting comments come near the end when in order to sway public opinion from correcting one of their crew they flood the internet equivalent with false information- cute baby pictures of him, a fake heart tugging video of him as a soldier coming back from tour to be greeted by his dog. And when one person comments that 'wont it be a problem if anyone tries to corroborate it the native to the planet present simply say not worry, as no one will.
Its a simple but effective damning of the social media culture.
And its exactly the sort of thing, had Rodenberry created ST now for the first time, that he would have been writing about.
Oh and one other thing, how this episode ends- it ends with the native of the planet returning to her life, only when she wakes in the morning for work as usual this time she chooses not to vote up or down on the morning tv show- in short it ends on a gentle optimism, that the start of a better future may be happening for this planet.
Just bear that ending in mind.

Ok onto Discovery. It likewise continues to do what it has been doing- making something that's not actually bad but not actually star trek either. The plot here is straightforward- Sarek, father of Spock and adoptive father of Michael Discovery's main character, is on a mission through a nebula in his shuttle when his copilot turns out to be a Vulcan terrorist who doesn't want logic tainted with human emotions and tries to assassinate Sarek, the attempt is thwarted, the assassin dispatched but the ship is damaged and Sarek badly wounded and he passes out into delirium.

Meanwhile on board Discovery Michael is bonding with Tilly the annoying sidekick and only cheerful person on the entire ship as far as I can tell and the Admiralty are finally turning up to check on the Captain as to why nothing on this ship seems to follow Star fleet values or morals, or regulations- well ok she really turns up to check on why the captian keeps doing his own thing and ignoring or failing to ok things with Star fleet first.
Now there are lots of problems here- Sarek can apparently connect to Michael telepathically over vast distances because she shares his soul in some fashion- Vulcan mysticism has always been left a bit vague but this is taking it to a new level of convenient for plot. Also Sareks means of defending his memories from Michaels intrusions is to violently attack her. Coupled with previous episodes where we learn Vulcans deal with Klingons by shooting first and asking questions never its odd that they are portrayed as pacifists in all other St media.
Also shooting at Klingons does not make them run away- maybe Discovery Klingons who have displayed a weird liking for talking things through and not being confrontational- have the writers seen ST before?

Anyhow back to the plot for worse is to come- another problem with Sarek is he cares a lot for his human adopted daughter Michael and shows an affection for her that is completely at odds with everything we see of the character throughout TOS and TNG and his relationship with Spock. Its like two completely different people with two completely different outlooks on humanity and Vulcans- and thats a problem because they talk about Spock here, who has already gone to Starfleet and is serving aboard the Enterprise at this very time under Captain Pike. If you are going to name drop and draw attention to it in the actual script then you can't have Sarek acting and thinking and holding a different philosophical opinion than what we already have seen in TOS and TNG.

What follows is even worse- you see the Captain of Discovery is more than a bit bad at filing reports, he appears to be nuts, homicidally nuts. This occurs to the Admiral, and his old friend after a few drinks and she has slept with him (yes this is still supposed to be ST) and then he nearly violently tries to phaser her head off in the middle of night when she accidentally wakes him up by stroking his back as he sleeps.
This finally makes her release that maybe he is a bit more than a little rogue and possibly is unhinged- she tells him she will recommend he gets help and be relieved temporarily of his command.
At which point they rescue a wounded Sarek, discover he was on a secret diplomatic mission to broker peace between Federation and Klingons and the Captain volunteers the Admiral to take Sarek's place, knowing full well its probably lethal.
She goes off,everyone gets slaughtered by Klingons, she gets captured and the Captain doesn't go to rescue her but instead decides not go rogue as usual but to go through channels and contact Starfleet first, knowing by the time he gets orders she will be long gone and with her the threat to his captaincy.
This episode of Discovery ends on the Captain of a Starfleet ship effectively subjecting his friend and Admiral to rape (as established last episode Klingons to do this to prisoners) torture and eventual murder and her remains eaten (yes Klingons do that now too) in order to secure his position.

Remember that Orville ending? That note of optimism? That small chink of light that the future maybe should, and can be better than the present if we all as individuals take personal steps to change it? Well dont expect it in Discovery.

And this is why Orville is carrying the flame of Rodenberry's ST even if it doesn't bear the name, and Discovery is doing its damnest to piss that flame out.  


additional trivia- the discovery episode seems to have taken 'inspiration' from two much better TOS and TNG episodes both involving Sarek on diplomatic missions to broker peace, in TOS its a ship full of feuding diplomats and cold war tactics and murders, and in TNG Sarek is gravely ill and Picard has to take his place to complete the treaty whilst sharing his mindmeld.}}}

[halfwise]

I'm glad Discovery is on pay for view so I can't catch it by accident.

[Forest Shepherd]

Sounds like STD is the proper name for it after all!


One thing I heard in the video I posted, and is cropping up in Petty's commentary, is the idea that Star Trek has been pretty thoroughly exhausted. Petty says that The Orville is rehashing old Star Trek and is therefore lame, but also that STD is changing things and doing new stuff and is therefore pissing on Rodenberry, so to speak.

Isn't this a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation? It seems like STD has to try something very different and new if it is to justify its own existence.

[Pettytyrant101]

Petty says that The Orville is rehashing old Star Trek and is therefore lame - Forest

{{{Not lame. I think Orville is decent ST style tv- my issue with it up till now is that it hasn't done anything new with those old ideas, not given them its own twist. The last episode was the first time I felt it did successfully do this.

STD is changing things and doing new stuff and is therefore pissing on Rodenberry, so to speak- Forest

{{Its not because its different or new that its pissing on Roddenberry- its because its dark, miserable, unrelentingly pessimistic and conflict driven that it pisses on Roddenberry.

And in my view there is scope to do new and different things with ST- just they choose to do stupid things instead. Prime among them they choose to set this 10 ten years before Kirks time instead of after the DS9/Voyager time period. As it is new stuff- like the Spore Drive instead of warp drive are stupid and dramatically dead ends as we know they have to fail somehow before the end because that tech does not exist outside of this one ship anywhere in ST so it either has to fail or be classified top secret for some reason and forgotten about- had they set the series in the future of ST rather than its past then we the viewer would have no idea if the spore drive would work, be good or bad, or be successful and replace warp, but they didn't and we know it doesn't, so whats the point of it save as cheap plot device?
Setting it when they have only gives them huge issues in the writing and presentation- everything on Discovery is clearly way more advanced than it was on TOS, the writers say they have to incorporate advancements based off modern tech as thats what original St did- which is fair enough, but not if you then try to slot it into the timeline before TOS- they want better tech, they want holographic displays everywhere ect, spore drives and what not- set it in the future of ST all those problems are instantly solved. Making it a prequel is inexplicably stupid.

But its main issue is with the tone- it seems to be going for a sort of dark, gritty, desperate at war Battlestar Galatica vibe which is totally at odds with the ST vibe. }}}

[halfwise]

spore drive?

[Pettytyrant101]

{{{ Yeah its actually an idea sort of based on quantum entanglement plus an imaginary species of ancient fungi that somehow makes use of this on an intergalactic scale.
As not a bad concept in and of its self as a scifi idea, but it feels all wrong in ST }}
It also looks really stupid when it happens! }}

[halfwise]

Doesn't belong in a Star Trek prequel, that's for sure.

Bringing in mold spores and quantum entanglement throughout the galaxy is not something that can be ignored going into the future.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{Indeed- hence my head scratching at the thought process that led to them making this a prequel to TOS by only 10 years. None of it fits comfortably.

Had they set it after Voyager, say by another 50 or 100 years (the same sort of gap between TOS and TNG) then they could have come up with whatever new tech they liked.

Mind you that wouldn't help with the issues of tone and characters, but at least it would resolve a whole lot of smaller niggling script issues. }}}

[azriel]

[halfwise]

Can't quite figger what was going on there.

[David H]

I think they're using their tricorders for electric razors

[azriel]

Close Dave, they are using phazers

[azriel]

1965. first model of the Enterprise & the men who made it.