Star Trek Thread part 2: The Kurtzman Strikes Back

[Himu]

Your Trek broadcasts keep changing. First Disco was on Netflix, then Picard wasn't.

[chronovore]

Picard and Discovery both on Netflix Japan, if you peeps use a VPN at all…

[bluemax]

https://ew.com/tv/star-trek-lower-decks-next-generation/

Yup, there's another Star Trek show coming to TV. But this one’s different! Lower Decks is Star Trek in animated comedy form, marking the first time the venerated 56-year-old brand has launched a pure comedy (no, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier doesn’t count). Writer Mike McMahan says he pitched the concept to CBS All Access by saying, “I want to do a show about the guy who brings the yellow cartridge to the back of the food replicator so that a banana comes out the front.”

If that sort of sci-fi goofing on an animated series brings to mind Rick and Morty, as it so happens, McMahan is a former writer on the Adult Swim hit (which surely didn't hurt his pitch). The animation also looks slightly similar. Yet McMahan says Lower Decks clearly distinguishes itself in a couple of key ways. First, while Lower Decks is aimed at adults, the show is far more PG-13 than R-rated. "It's definitely not a kids show, but only because it's a little bit more complex than a kid show would be," he says. And then, there's the show's entire perspective. “The fun of Rick and Morty is that it breaks down sci-fi tropes and is told through Rick Sanchez, who has a very specific, chaotic, nihilistic lens,” he says. “Lower Decks treats mythological sci-fi things just as important as a regular Trek show, while finding new stories to tell — just from a different angle. It's not disassembling mythological sci-fi things. It's treating them as important for everybody on the starship as it would be in a regular star Trek show."

That angle focuses on the adventures of low-ranking crew members of Starfleet’s USS Cerritos (a name that sells us on watching this show as much as anything). The crew is assigned the less glamorous jobs on a city-size starship while the bridge crew led by a traditionally heroic captain does all the so-called “important” work. “The big stories are happening in the bridge crew and there's more kind of social-emotional stories happening to the Lower Deckers," he says. "So it's like their job and the world they're in get affected by these sci-fi stories. But the funny thing too is that whatever menial job you have to do in Star Trek, it might be something that they do every day, but it's still sort of a fascinating look into stuff that happens onboard that haven't been highlighted in another series. So instead of being on the turbolift — the elevators in Trek — our guys are repairing the turbolift. We also spend a lot of time in the bar. You'll also see the Lower Deckers go on away missions doing things that the bridge crew doesn't have to deal with."

While the focus is on the Lower Deckers, the bridge crew isn't kept entirely distant and anonymous. For instance, the crew sometimes interacts with the captain, Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis). "She is sort of trying to do this balancing act that all captains do, where they demand respect and are admired and trusted by the crew, but then they also kind of have to be the bad guy," he says. "And a thing we play with a lot is that the Lower Deckers don't always get all the information they're delegated to, but they don't get to have a voice and they don't get to know the context a lot of the time."

(Image removed from quote.)
(Image removed from quote.)

 

Yes Cerritos, Cerritos Auto Mall!

(Stupid radio jingle)

[Stoney Mason]

So I finished up Season 2 of the Orville.

I'm mixed on it like I am on the show in general. There is some good. There is some mediocre. And there are some bits that drag it down alot.
Spoiler warning also.

Let's start with the good. I think the structure of the season is much better than the first. In a modern show you have to build towards something. It can't just be x number of random episodes like its 1950. And this season does a much better job of that. It still has mostly a single episode focus but the season and episodes feel linked in a way that wasn't the case in the first season. It feels like we are building towards something even if that something isn't clear. And that's a big step in making the show feel cohesive and functioning for modern television. Individually that was the best improvement for me compared to anything in Season 2.

Next I think they did a good job replacing the security officer. I like her better than the original women they cast if I'm being honest. She's seems like the most competent person on the crew and she's doesn't feel like a goof character. She could slide in on any actual trek show and it wouldn't miss a beat which couldn't happen with a lot of other characters on the orville.

I think the cringe humour has been reduced. There were lots of moments in the first season where the humour didn't land and it felt like a forced family guy take on trek. There are still some broad gags like the Dolly Parton bit in the female Moclan planet but that wasn't so bad and in general they did a better job of letting the humour come from the universe and characters they've established instead of writing more forced joke gag bits.

And finally I'll say that I think the show is really earnest and some of that is endearing. It's kind of a backhanded compliment but I think they actually try to do a good job of making a star trek knock off which isn't the highest artistic ambition in the world but I think they take it as seriously as you can doing such a thing.


Now on the mixed or bad stuff. The show is a comfort food show. It's utterly safe and doesn't have one interest in challenging preconceived trek tropes or in general clearly established narratives tropes in sci-fi or entertainment in general. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that approach even if it isn't my personal favorite approach. But if that's the key to your show then you have to execute on it perfectly. You either gotta make it so entertaining I don't care or you gotta do something unique when you tackle a topic that has been handled a billion times before. And the orville on execution is all over the place. Sometimes it works and sometimes its so generic or not executed in an optimum fashion that its drags down the whole enterprise for me.

Lots of episodes in Orville Season 1 & 2 have this issue but to save time I'll pick the worst offender for Season 2 episode "Lasting Impressions". This is the trek trope of crew member falls in love with non-real entity and suffers heartbreak. Super common trek episode we've all seen a billion times. The moment this episode begins you know beat by beat minute by minute exactly how this episode is gonna play out. So you feel immensely tired the moment the episode starts because you know you are about to sit through 40 minutes of a ritual you've seen time after time. It's hard not to want to fast forward through this stuff. Because the execution is "okay" but its not like the acting chops of these people, the editing of the show, or the cinematography of the show are noteworthy or anything. So you just sort of sit through it hoping for some interesting spin on it and it never comes and then the episode ends and you feel like you wasted your time. Not because these are bad people or bad characters per se but the ambitions of the show is so low in these cases that its a bit depressing. It's like trying to do Romeo and Juliet and being so earnest about it that you don't realize nobody wants to see another take on Romeo and Juliet unless you have something unique to say within that framework. It's not enough just to redo Romeo and Juliet for the billionth time unless this is some kind of high school production training ground or a stage play and you have great actors doing it. That episode is a really bad example of it but Season 2 is littered with this stuff and that is still the biggest flaw with the show for me. I wish they were just more ambitious or had base level better writing. Either one would be fine but it needs at least one of them.

That's the biggest issue but here are my other nitpicks in no particular order. I'm so so done with the Ed and Kelly relationship stuff. It's too much. It always makes me end up liking the characters in general less especially Ed. And to be fair I think the execution of it in Season 2 is better than Season 1 where it was awful but I'm still done with it. They just go to that well too much when they could serve them so much better.

Another nitpick for me is that the plotting too often revolves around characters doing dumb stuff instead of having a better writing mechanic to advance the plot. There is lots of this that happens but one example that had me eye roll was the bit on the kaylon home planet where they discover a graveyard of billions of skulls. They are already suspicious of the kaylon at this point but pop down to the planet to have a friendly chat to immediately get taken hostage. I understand this is just a way to get the plot from Point A to Point B but on the orville they often take the dumbest route to do that instead of doing something slightly more clever. Like I said there are lots of stuff like this through episodes but I don't want to turn this into an individual episode nitpicking thing or I would be here all day. It's basically another version of better writing but on the moment to moment level versus a larger creative writing issue I had with the show.

I think that's a good place to stop for my random off the cuffs thoughts on Season 2. After both seasons I always find myself wishing I liked the show more. Not disliking it and happy that it exists to serve that sect of the audience that wants a very very traditional trek show. I don't really belong to that sect but I do like Trek so the Orville will always scratch a bit of that itch for me. As far as the standout episodes

"Nothing Left on Earth Excepting Fishes" was a good one. I find the relationship between Ed and the Female krill 20 times more interesting than anything they've done with Ed and Kelly.

"Deflectors" was good. The Orville's best morality episodes always feature the Moclan and the scene at the end where the security chief puts Klyden on blast was super good and cathartic.

I also thought the final two episodes of the season were pretty good. "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" & "The Road Not Taken". As a pair of episodes I thought they worked quite well together and are stronger than their individual parts. I thought the Road Not Taken was actually a potentially more interesting direction for the show than the actual show is. Darker and a little bit more dangerous.    

The Worst episode for me was "All the World Is Birthday Cake". That episode is dumb dumb dumb. I could write a whole thing about why that is the worst writing on the show all season.    

[MMaRsu]

Rumor has it patrick stewart isnt happy they turned jean luc picard into a golem

[chronovore]

Rumor has it patrick stewart isnt happy they turned jean luc picard into a golem

Picard should’ve been a limited series bridge to a spin off with that crew, either minus SirPat or dragging back Tom Hardy to play a younger, cloned Picard to redeem himself for Nemesis.

[D3RANG3D]

Rumor has it patrick stewart isnt happy they turned jean luc picard into a golem

Picard should’ve been a limited series bridge to a spin off with that crew, either minus SirPat or dragging back Tom Hardy to play a younger, cloned Picard to redeem himself for Nemesis.

I will only accept this if he has the Bane mask and does the voice. 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

And a sitcom based on those cheeky feckers the O'Romulans.

[close]

[MMaRsu]

Shit wrong thread

[MMaRsu]

Fuck yeah Scotty you the man

[Madrun Badrun]

[D3RANG3D]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[D3RANG3D]

[MMaRsu]

I think you could reverse those and it would work as well

Virgin quark has to help his mother
Kiss the grand nagus scepter
Barely any of his schemes work out
Is the joke of the ferengi community
Never gets a girl to love him

Whereas Odo

is a badass and can shapeshift into anything
Had sex with multiple females on the show
Almost always outsmarts Odo
Is in charge of the entire security on the station
Got with Major Kira
Doesnt have a mother

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

Odo:
 - has more than one episode with Lwaxana Troi

Quark:
 - never has an episode with Lwaxana Troi

as always the Lwaxana Troi coefficient is the decider

[chronovore]

Watched Shakaar episode of DS9… S3 e24

I’d had some rum but, Jesus, this show is fantastic. It’s is such an ensemble effort. I hate to drag TNG into this, but it’s my gold standard. And DS9 may surpass it. Regarding Shakaar, Nana Visitor kills it in every scene. I know Nurse Ratchet (Kai Winn) is supposed to be a great actress, but she’s hit or miss depending on the director.

[Madrun Badrun]

[MMaRsu]

Moar memes!

[Madrun Badrun]

[MMaRsu]

Scientists Are Starting to Take Warp Drives Seriously, Especially One Specific Concept

https://www.sciencealert.com/how-feasible-is-a-warp-drive-here-s-the-science

In layman's terms, the Alcubierre Drive achieves FTL travel by stretching the fabric of space-time in a wave, causing the space ahead of it to contract while the space behind it expands.

In theory, a spacecraft inside this wave would be able to ride this "warp bubble" and achieve velocities beyond the speed of light. This is what is known as the "Alcubierre Metric"....According to White, Alcubierre's theory was sound but needed some serious testing and development. Since then, he and his colleagues have been doing these very things through the Eagleworks Labs.

[Madrun Badrun]

[Madrun Badrun]

[MMaRsu]

S3 of discovery is out

I heard they go to the future so I checked it out

its just a melodrama show with Michael Burnham now

[D3RANG3D]

S3 is Andromeda. 

[Tuckers Law]

Ah yes, that’s what Discovery needed more of: more melodrama.

[D3RANG3D]

Dose Megaman Busters

[D3RANG3D]

https://twitter.com/bastard_spastic/status/1317109785028943873

spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://twitter.com/LeelouWitchyPoo/status/1314621325051297800

[close]

[MMaRsu]

https://shop.royalmail.com/special-stamp-issues/star-trek



  fuck that

[MMaRsu]

[benjipwns]

https://shop.royalmail.com/special-stamp-issues/star-trek

(Image removed from quote.)

  fuck that

https://twitter.com/WilliamShatner/status/1320443891632332800

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

He's Clem Fandango

[MMaRsu]

Episode 7 of the new discovery season is called Unification part III

[D3RANG3D]

We have a Non-Binary Wesley Crusher now...

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Tasty]

https://twitter.com/TheView/status/1220028276879568897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

They're making me watch Picard s2 and by extension Picard s1.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck

[MMaRsu]

Did Wesley Crusher create the Borg?

Thanks for the A2A, this will be Gospel according to Bill and by no means Canon. I have been a Trekkie since I was little and my mother brought me up watching reruns and then when we could afford a VCR and the tapes we bought the series and each movie as it came out. I actually really liked each of them for what they were at the time and can still watch any Trek with an eye of nostalgia forgiving the shortcomings that so many of my fellow fans pick apart. All this being said from the moment I saw the Borg arrive on my small screen I shouted V’ger!


For those of you who have not watched “Star Trek the Motion Picture” (first of all shame on you) the premise is (Spoilers) one of the early Voyager probes, specifically Voyager 6, launched with the simplistic commands to learn all that is learnable” and return that knowledge to its Creator. Voyager 6 was lost to deep space not long after its launch and passed out of mankind’s understanding.


The movie suggests that when it did Voyager 6 eventually wound up at a planet of sentient machines who saw it as a cousin of sorts and reading its directive provided it with the mechanism to fulfill that program. When that “new” entity attempts to return to its point of origin it has grown to a massively powerful and entirely non-biologic creature that translates everything it encounters into a kind of digital storage thus furthering its program. Fast forward to the Enterprise having penetrated into the heart of the cloud and reaching the central part of structure and discover the original Voyager 6 probe, they tried to send the command code from Enterprise but V’ger burned out the antenna purposely wanting the “Creator” to come in person and enter the command personally “to touch God”


Seeing the Borg at first glance I remembered this scene where Commander Will Decker “merged” with Ilia who had been co-opted by V’ger as a way to communicate with the Carbon Based units “infesting” Enterprise.


At first encounter the Borg Drones were not interested in the crew at all they only scanned the new Enterprise and did not interact with the crew until they tried to stop the Borg from taking data from the computers.

So My TLDR to did Wesley Crusher create the Borg is NO. Will Decker and V’ger did.

[bork]

https://twitter.com/theRx_/status/1329183944860844032

[chronovore]

Did Wesley Crusher create the Borg?

Thanks for the A2A, this will be Gospel according to Bill and by no means Canon. I have been a Trekkie since I was little and my mother brought me up watching reruns and then when we could afford a VCR and the tapes we bought the series and each movie as it came out. I actually really liked each of them for what they were at the time and can still watch any Trek with an eye of nostalgia forgiving the shortcomings that so many of my fellow fans pick apart. All this being said from the moment I saw the Borg arrive on my small screen I shouted V’ger!


For those of you who have not watched “Star Trek the Motion Picture” (first of all shame on you) the premise is (Spoilers) one of the early Voyager probes, specifically Voyager 6, launched with the simplistic commands to learn all that is learnable” and return that knowledge to its Creator. Voyager 6 was lost to deep space not long after its launch and passed out of mankind’s understanding.


The movie suggests that when it did Voyager 6 eventually wound up at a planet of sentient machines who saw it as a cousin of sorts and reading its directive provided it with the mechanism to fulfill that program. When that “new” entity attempts to return to its point of origin it has grown to a massively powerful and entirely non-biologic creature that translates everything it encounters into a kind of digital storage thus furthering its program. Fast forward to the Enterprise having penetrated into the heart of the cloud and reaching the central part of structure and discover the original Voyager 6 probe, they tried to send the command code from Enterprise but V’ger burned out the antenna purposely wanting the “Creator” to come in person and enter the command personally “to touch God”


Seeing the Borg at first glance I remembered this scene where Commander Will Decker “merged” with Ilia who had been co-opted by V’ger as a way to communicate with the Carbon Based units “infesting” Enterprise.


At first encounter the Borg Drones were not interested in the crew at all they only scanned the new Enterprise and did not interact with the crew until they tried to stop the Borg from taking data from the computers.

So My TLDR to did Wesley Crusher create the Borg is NO. Will Decker and V’ger did.

Add a link or at least quote tags if you’re gonna do that:
https://www.quora.com/Did-Wesley-Crusher-create-the-Borg

[chronovore]

[Great Rumbler]

why would someone make this

[chronovore]

It’s canon, you proletariat mind slave!

[Tasty]

Discovery s3 spoilers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvdU1uOzZfM

Well well well well well

Well.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I guess every franchise needs its own Crisis on Two/Infinite Earths now...

Still not gonna lie, pretty cool moment.

[close]

[MMaRsu]

[MMaRsu]

This is amazing

[MMaRsu]

I wish there were more The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 crossover episodes

It could be cool if the enterprise docked a few more times there

Also dont understand why Picard didnt apologize to Sisko when he told him they met in battle at Wolf 359

[Tuckers Law]

This is amazing

I can't stop watching this, and I'm dead sober.

I think I might know too much about Star Trek...

[chronovore]

Merry Christmas, fellow nerds!

[Tasty]

This was so fucking awesome.

[benjipwns]

"back off! back off!" and "fly her apart then!" are two of my favorite lines

[G The Resurrected]

Discovery has grown on me and after 3 seasons I’m feeling good about where they are taking the show. I just hope Picard season 2 is good. The first season was like a failed Mando S2 fanfest.

[D3RANG3D]

The only good thing about Discovery is the Terran shit.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The only character to get any meaningful character growth in this series is Phillipa.

[close]

[Tasty]

"back off! back off!" and "fly her apart then!" are two of my favorite lines

"FLY HER APART THEN" Until that point I never thought I'd call Sulu badass but he shot past Sisko with that one line.

[Great Rumbler]

"back off! back off!" and "fly her apart then!" are two of my favorite lines

"FLY HER APART THEN" Until that point I never thought I'd call Sulu badass but he shot past Sisko with that one line.

Reminds me of Captain Worf from First Contact:

[Tasty]

Aaaand now I'm watching Star Trek 6 again.

[Tasty]

"Don't believe them! Don't trust them!"

"They are dying."

"Let them die."

[Tasty]

Remember when Star Trek was good? Like really good? 

[D3RANG3D]

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

Remember when Star Trek was good? Like really good? 

the last thread got closed because people got mad that people were saying nu star trek is total shit and seemingly written by misanthropes who cannot comprehend the existence of human kindness or altruism, even as an aspirational target for humanity to reach

[Tasty]

I think it's better to reflect on what was good and why than denigrating and tearing down what's new. They could easily go hand in hand but I really feel like it's a huge disservice to Trek to just ignore what came before, and I'm at the point where I'm fine with nuTrek existing and people liking it.

I just still hold out hope that one day they'll crank down the action a little.

[MMaRsu]

Well Ive started another rewatch of DS9 and im friggin loving it. Its pretty damn good from the beginning tbh

[D3RANG3D]

Remember when Star Trek was good? Like really good? 

the last thread got closed because people got mad that people were saying nu star trek is total shit and seemingly written by misanthropes who cannot comprehend the existence of human kindness or altruism, even as an aspirational target for humanity to reach

[MMaRsu]

Miles O Brien or Julian Bashir?

Who is the better character

Id say Julian because he has a more interesting backstory, on the other hand he doesnt really develop all that much. But neither does O Brien