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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

Post by Sparky Prime »

andersonh1 wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 6:12 pmIt all feels far too technologically advanced for the era it's supposed to be a part of, and I think the writers need the technology to write themselves out of fixes they get the characters into, so it's a bit of a crutch.
This was one of the biggest complaints they got from viewers during season 1 and 2, and is probably why they ended up moving the show to the 32nd century. Although, I feel they're underutilizing the technology they should have by that century... They really should have set Discovery post-Nemesis.
I found the direction for the first episode visually confusing and the characters hard to keep up with, except for Tilly, Saru, Burnham and Pike. Everyone else feels interchangeable, just "random Discovery crewmember". The special effects are very good, I'll give them that.
That's one of the odd things about Discovery, they don't write it as an ensemble, despite having an ensemble cast. I believe Kurtzman even said in an interview near the end of season 2 that they were surprised that fans liked getting to know the cast of characters when they actually gave one of the side bridge officers some characterization... and then killed that character off.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

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Strange New Worlds season 1 episode 4
Spoiler
The Enterprise is headed to a planet to deliver a nuclear powered air filter, but when they arrive, they find the population is missing. An away team quickly discovers they'd been attacked. Enterprise encounters a ship in orbit and quickly beam the away team back, but it turns out to be some of the survivors. They aren't aware of who attacked them or why. Docking with the ship, a little girl is afraid the monsters are still after them and tells Lt. Noonien-Singh about the clicking noises they made. She tells the bridge to scan for polarized EM signals, and they detect a ship hiding within a hologram over a nearby moon. It's a Gorn ship, who were using the colonist ship as a bait to capture more prey. Unable to raise shields with the docked ship, Enterprise takes heavy damage before they're able to hide within the clouds of a brown dwarf that's being swallowed up by a nearby black hole.

Crew members become trapped in parts of the ship, dealing with problems in those areas caused by the damage they've taken, while at the same time the Enterprise has to avoid/destroy an enemy chasing after them. Despite being shown how Number One's immune system can instantly burn out a virus and radiation last episode, apparently she doesn't heal as miraculously from injuries. Of course, we don't actually see any Gorn in this episode because canonically, the first official contact with the Gorn doesn't happen until TOS "Arena". Thanks to using the navigational sensors as a means to detect the Gorn ships movement within the clouds, Enterprise manages to destroy the first Gorn ship by dropping their only surviving photon torpedo on them. Would have been better if they'd actually shown us the impact rather than just telling us the Gorn ship had been destroyed. But it is a short lived victory, as they quickly detect three more ships after them, one of which is much larger. Enterprise manages to destroy one by going into lower into the brown dwarf causing the smaller ship to implode, and another by tricking their mothership into firing on it. Apparently the Gorn communicate between ships with flashing lights like Morse code, which Lt. Noonien-Singh is able to remember her brother had figured out during her own captivity thanks to the help of a mind meld with Spock. Kinda think any species intelligent enough to have warp drive would have more sophisticated means of communication than this.

Uhura and Hemmer manage to repair the damaged nuclear powered air filter, but are too late to prevent it from going critical. Pike decides to slingshot the Enterprise around the blackhole, jettison the nuclear air filter and use the resulting Doppler shift to confuse the Gorn mothership into thinking the explosion is the Enterprise being destroyed. Something Lt. Ortegas says will probably be known as the Pike maneuver. And hey, they actually got the science behind this maneuver right! Got to hand it to the VFX team, it was a great looking sequence as well. The Gorn fall for it and leave, allowing the Enterprise to limp away.

Don't like how they're portraying the Gorn. The little girl in this episode mentioned they make clicking noises, but previous series had the Gorn make growling noises. TOS also explained the Gorn only attacked a Federation colony because they felt their territory was being invaded. Here, they're making the Gorn out to be this big bad that often attack Federation ships and colonies to use anyone they capture as food on hatchery planets. Even though in "Into Darkness", Bones said he performed a Caesarean section on a pregnant Gorn, and that they bite.
This episode was reminiscent of DS9's "Starship Down" and TNG's "Disaster". It's good that they're taking inspiration from previous Star Trek series, but two weeks in a row borrowing plots from previous Star Treks? Don't get me wrong, this was a really good episode, I just hope this doesn't become a crutch for them.
Last edited by Sparky Prime on Wed Jun 01, 2022 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

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Discovery is better than I expected, despite my problems with continuity and the tech. I just finished I think the 9th episode of the season, "Project Daedelus" and things are moving right along. I really enjoyed the episode where they revisit Talos IV, "If Memory Serves", especially the clips from "The Cage" at the beginning setting up the story, and then some of the same sound effects as the old episode when Burnham is on Talos and when the Talosians create their illusions. I thought it was a nice sequel to that story, and just when I was wondering if Pike would get to see Vina, he does. We even got the singing plants again.

I like Ethan Peck as Spock. He's not a lot like Leonard Nimoy, but he's giving a good performance and capturing the essence of the character well enough, and I like that he's showing some emotion, as Spock did in The Cage.

However, it drives me crazy that everyone and their brother knows about Section 31 when it's supposed to be top top secret, doing ultra classified dirty work that only a few top Admirals are privy to. They're misusing it badly in Discovery.

I still don't think I'll be looking for more Discovery after I finish this season. I'm in it for Pike and Spock, and the sequel to the Cage was a nice bonus. But I have enjoyed it for the most part.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

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andersonh1 wrote: Sat May 28, 2022 7:54 pmHowever, it drives me crazy that everyone and their brother knows about Section 31 when it's supposed to be top top secret, doing ultra classified dirty work that only a few top Admirals are privy to. They're misusing it badly in Discovery.
Yeah, this was a complete misuse of Section 31 on the writers/producers part. There's just no way to reconcile that this super secret covert organization that no one is supposed to know exists, from what we saw in Enterprise and DS9, is also a group that everybody knows about and can even easily recognize because they have their own unique Starfleet badges (not to mention, a fleet of their own starships) in Discovery. And what's the point of having both Starfleet Intelligence and Section 31 if they are both a publicly known, legitimate operations under Starfleet Command? They're essentially the same thing at that point.

I've seen a lot of people defend this by saying 'Starfleet can just classify all of it so no one knows about them again by DS9'. But frankly, I think that's insulting to the intelligence of the audience. You can't classify something that is wide spread public knowledge. And there's no way everyone would simply forget they existed.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

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I agree, there's no way to reconcile section 31 here with Section 31 in DS9.

Finished the season. The end doesn't quite line up with Strange New Worlds, with Pike and crew wearing the Discovery-TOS uniforms and ready to get on with exploration, while SNW starts with Pike brooding over knowledge of his future, Spock off on Vulcan getting engaged, the Enterprise finishing repairs and refit after the torpedo damage, and Number One in a first contact gone wrong, with the redesigned TOS style uniforms (which I like better, having seen them both now) rather than the Discovery TOS uniforms. At the end of Discovery it looks like the characters are all fine and ready to move on, while SNW has them experiencing fallout from the events of Discovery. So it doesn't line up 100%, you have to squint a bit to make it work.

By and large I did enjoy the season, though that space battle in the finale felt more Star Wars than Star Trek. Still, my main gripe with Discovery remains that it just doesn't feel like a prequel, it feels more advanced than Voyager. I guess if I look at it as a third continuity all it's own, somewhat parallel to the original rather than the Kelvin timeline, I can make it work. It's not a bad Star Trek show, it just doesn't fit where it's supposed to fit. At least they don't have holodecks!!
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

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andersonh1 wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 2:16 pmAt least they don't have holodecks!!
Well there was one episode in season 1 of Discovery... "Lethe" where Captain Lorca and Lt. Tyler ran a holographic battle simulation on some sort of a holodeck.
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Re: Star Trek

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Strange New Worlds season 1 episode 5
Spoiler
Enterprise returns to Starbase 1 for repairs following their encounter with the Gorn in the previous episode. It's noted this is the oldest Starbase and is newly repaired following the Klingon war... Which raises a few continuity issues. This Starbase looks nothing like the "Starbase 1" that was shown in Discovery. Discovery also stated that Starbase 1 was 100au from Earth, which would place it well outside the solar system, but this starbase is shown to be in orbit of Jupiter. Discovery had showed it in orbit of what appeared to be an M class planet, which given the dialogue was ridiculous. And why would it only just now be noted to be newly repaired? Enterprise docked here at the end of the first episode.

At any rate, the crew is able to take shore leave. Spock meets with his fiancée T’Pring, and is concerned he isn't Vulcan enough for her. After a diplomatic assignment runs over causing Spock to miss dinner with her, and a chat with nurse Chapel, they undertake a Vulcan ritual to share their katra's, but end up trapped in each others bodies. And forces them to carry out each others job. Number One and Lt. Noonien-Singh catch some ensigns playing "Enterprise Bingo", and decide to play it themselves, after Dr. M'Benga had let it slip Number One's nickname is "Where Fun Goes to Die" (I think they could have come up with something better) earlier in the episode. The last thing on the list is to sign "the Scorch", the oldest piece of hull on the Enterprise... Which is on a section of the forward saucer that got blown up in Discovery. They also project a forcefield around themselves in order to walk out there with out space suits, which I feel is a little too advanced for this era. And Pike concludes the diplomatic session by realizing they negotiate by seeing things from the other parties perspective, so he looks at it from their concerns, which apparently gets them to align with the Federation.
Overall, this was a fun light-hearted episode. I'm not sure if the writers of this episode were trying to fix some of the shoddy writing from Discovery in regards to Starbase 1. It makes much more sense in this episode than it did in Discovery at any rate, but it causes some dis-continuity between the shows. And for the 3rd week in a row, we sorta get an episode that evokes a previous series episode... This episode being "Spock Amok" calls back to "Amok Time". Albeit not to the same degree as the previous 2 episodes did.... But we get a pretty long kal-if-fee sequence at the start of the episode. I guess they're sorta setting up why Spock's relationship with T’Pring eventually ends the way it does in TOS, but then they end up understanding each other better than ever by the end of the episode, which sends some mixed messages.
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Re: Star Trek

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Fallen a bit behind. Been in Hawaii for a week. :D

Strange New Worlds season 1 episode 6
Spoiler
The Enterprise is on a mapping mission at the edge of Federation space when they get a distress call. Saving the shuttle from their attackers, Pike is surprised to find it's the same woman he's saved from another shuttle when he'd been in this system as a lieutenant years ago. Along with a kid and his father, someone is trying to kidnap the kid. Making sure the kid is alright in sickbay, M'Benga is surprised by their medical technology. Investigating the crashed cruiser, they find a coin suggesting it to be one of the guards for the kid (so... where were these guards during the attack? And how did he get back to the home planet when the ship crashed on a moon?) They're able to apprehend the guard in question, but things aren't adding up.

M'Benga believes the medical technology these people have could cure his daughters illness, but the boy's father says their laws do not allow them to share their technology with outsiders. Pike decides to keep them safe in sickbay, but the father decides they need to leave to attend the boy's ascension ceremony, only for them to get beamed off the Enterprise's tranporter, and the father is returned moments later. The kidnaper's ship attempts to flee but is accidentally destroyed by the Enterprise's tractor beam. But turns out the kid was actually beamed to an empty cargo container on the Enterprise. Pike holds the father while the kid is returned to the planet. But the ascension ceremony turns out to be plugging the kid into a device that uses his brain to control their technology, which will eventually kill him. Pike attempts to stop it, but is knocked out. When he wakes up. he's told no body knows how the device works, but it will only work with a child's brain, and because of the Prime Directive, he's unable to do anything. Pike begrudgingly leaves, while the kid's father offers to help M'Benga develop a treatment for his daughter.
The plot of this episode felt a little sloppy and disjointed at times. It was odd how the aliens in this episode looked down on the Federation because they have superior medical technology, and frankly have a bit of a superiority complex in general... Problem is, it doesn't feel earned, as the Enterprise was clearly more advanced in other areas. Nor do they understand a vial piece of their own technology by their own admission. They also compare their policy of not sharing technology to the Prime Directive, except the point of the Prime Directive is so as not to harm the natural development of a culture. But these people are simply isolationists that don't want to share their technology with outsiders, regardless of their technological development. The ending was somewhat abrupt. In the end, the Enterprise saves the day, but in a way things also don't work in their favor when they realize what they're doing and the Prime Directive prevents them from doing anything else about it. There was an interesting plot in this episode... it just felt like the writers didn't execute it very well.
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Re: Star Trek

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Strange New Worlds season 1 episode 7
Spoiler
Enterprise is on its way to help some colonists on the edge of Federation space. They discover debris from two of the colony ships, and believe they may have been attacked by pirates that have been reported in the area. They detect an unknown warp signature leading out of Federation space. Spock reports it'd take two days for a message to reach Starfleet given their distance from subspace relays, and they have to have permission from Starfleet to leave Federation space (uh... since when? What is the Enterprise exploring?). Pike ignores the regulation and orders they follow the warp signature. Finding the third colonist ship in an asteroid field, it turns out to be a trap. The Enterprise is captured, and it turns out the doctor that came to them for help is actually their captain.

Contacting Spock's fiancée (what happened to it taking 2 days for a transmission to go that far?), T’Pring, the pirate captain wants a specific Vulcan prisoner released (who is at a facility to help turn Vulcans who've embraced emotions back to the path of logic) in exchange for Spock. She arrives (seemingly in a matter of minutes) but when Spock tells her he's been having an affair with Nurse Chapel, the T'Pring calls off the trade. Pike meanwhile has caused a mutiny on the pirate ship and taken control of it, allowing them to retake the Enterprise. However, the pirate captain is able to escape. Spock apologizes to T'Pring for the ruse, but she says he has no need, as she realized it was a lie immediately. Later, Spock thanks Nurse Chapel, and she asks who the prisoner Captain Angel wanted released was... Spock explains he believes it to be his half brother, Sybok.
Other than some confusing lines about it taking 2 days for communications to get back to the Federation, and then that not being an issue later in the episode, and that apparently the Federation doesn't like starships leaving Federation space, begging to question what they explore if not unknown space... This wasn't a bad episode. I don't understand the reason the prisoner goes by an alias though, other than trying to hide his identity to surprise the audience at the end, which I feel is a lazy writing technique. But still, I'm curious to see what they'll do to develop this, since the end of this episode is clearly setting up for them to revisit it later.

I'm starting to wonder when we'll get episodes that focus on Erica Ortegas, Hemmer, and George "Sam" Kirk. I don't think we've even seen Sam Kirk since he nearly died in the second episode. Hemmer wasn't in the last three episodes. And Ortegas, other than quipping at Pike's orders, really hasn't done anything.
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Re: Star Trek

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Strange New Worlds season 1 episode 8
Spoiler
The Enterprise has just completed a survey of a nebula and is attempting to leave... but the warp engines wont engage. Spock recommends impulse until they've completely cleared the nebula, which only causes the ship to violently lurch forward for a moment, still dead in its tracks. M'Benga is called to the bridge when Ortegas hits her head on the console but finds himself in the story he reads to his daughter (apparently written by Benny Russell, Sisko's alter ego in some visions during DS9) while he has her out of the transporter, and he is the only crew member to retain his memories, as the rest of the crew begins to act as characters in the story.

Eventually M'Benga realizes two of the characters never meet each other in the story, yet claim to know each other very well. How his daughter would like to interpret the story. Finding his daughter is no longer in the transporter buffer, he and Hemmer (who thanks to his telepathic abilities was able to remain himself as well) locate her in his quarters and are confronted by an entity in the nebula that speaks through Hemmer. Finding that the entity has cured his daughter, he's forced to choose between putting her back in the transporter buffer, as her disease will re-emerge once they're away from the nebula, or leaving her with the entities. He decides to leave her with the entities, and she rapidly ages with them. Reappearing as an adult, she thanks and tells her father he made the right choice by letting her go.

The Enterprise is restored to normal but M'Benga is the only one that remembers the past 5 hours.
Bittersweet story. And while it was a good story in and of itself... I have to say I'm disappointed by it. What happened to the potential treatment for M'Benga's daughter that Gamal offered to help him with just a couple episodes ago? Given M'Benga said it could be the first step towards a cure, I got the impression that this would be a long drawn out endeavor, where it would take the combine medical technologies of several different species to develop a cure for her. You know, showcase what Federation ideals of sharing and working together can ultimately achieve that one (or the few) can't achieve on their own. But nope. Instead they just completely cut that plot off here. With how many episodes touched on it, it was not a satisfying end just to have it magically taken care of by an all powerful being. There's very little pay off for it this way and makes it feel like the writers just decided to quickly wrap it up.
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