Star Trek Discovery

[Pepper]

Maybe they'll retcon all of the past Star Trek series, & movies, by erasing & digitally replacing the Klingons with the current Discovery version. Could you imagine the uproar if they actually tried something like that?

What, are they gonna hire George Lucas for that job?

And yeah. This most recent Orville is the best anything I have seen on TV in a long time.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

What, are they gonna hire George Lucas for that job?

And yeah. This most recent Orville is the best anything I have seen on TV in a long time.

It really was excellent television.

 

[DialgaChampion]

The show imo keeps getting better.

Tonight's episode was well done.

I watched it and I would probably use the phrase "best of the worst", comparing it against the previous 6 episodes. It was essentially a copy of TNG's "Cause and Effect", except with Mudd destroying the ship in a time loop for revenge, instead of a naturally-occurring unexpected subspace anomaly. Which I guess was alright, but there were parts of it that I didn't really like.

For instance, the opening sequence when everyone was having a party in the mess hall. There was rap music playing in the background, there were Starfleet crew members playing beer pong, other members aggressively groping and making out with each other (like that woman helm officer with the robotic metal piece over her eye), and it also looked like Tilly was half drunk. On top of all that, you have the new security officer making a toast to remember the people who have died in the war... all while the disco lights and the rap music were still going -- kind of lacked sincerity and felt out of place, even a little bit disrespectful, if you know what I mean.

All of this felt like some kind of sexed-up college fraternity/sorority party, happening in the public mess hall of a starship that is supposed to be militaristic in nature. And Moonves is going for the 18-29 demo, so I understand why the writers did this, but for someone like myself who is used to the more... how should I put it... civilized nature of TNG... with classical music, the officers acting mature, everyone in dress uniforms... I wasn't a big fan of it.

Now for the rest of the episode that focused primarily on the time loop, they did speed it up in comparison to TNG's "Cause and Effect". The only part that didn't really make a whole lot of sense was when that engineer Stamets came up with the argument that he didn't want to watch anyone die anymore (even though technically no one was dying because they were still stuck in the time loop), so he told Mudd the secret of the mushroom spore drive. That was stupid and made no sense whatsoever, because there wasn't even anything at risk.

Those two complaints aside, the rest of the episode was alright. At least no 'f' or 's' words this time. And surprisingly, the episode did not end in a cliffhanger. It was literally a standalone episode, going against what the writers were arguing in favor for months ago, which was to heavily serialize the whole series itself. It worked, but only because they were 80% duplicating one of the best standalone episodes from a previous Star Trek series.

 

[Foxbat]

...so he told Mudd the secret of the mushroom spore drive.

I have not seen any but the first hour episode on CBS and the Sarek dying in space episode while helping my friends set up CBS All-Access on their AppleTV. I heard something about a "spore drive" and thought I misheard. Obviously TOS didn't have anything like this. Is it really biological in nature? Although from what I've read here maybe all these episodes are actually hallucinations caused by mushroom spores. That sounds more likely than all of this advanced technology disappearing before Kirk and Spock start off on their five year mission.

 

[DialgaChampion]

I heard something about a "spore drive" and thought I misheard. Obviously TOS didn't have anything like this. Is it really biological in nature? Although from what I've read here maybe all these episodes are actually hallucinations caused by mushroom spores. That sounds more likely than all of this advanced technology disappearing before Kirk and Spock start off on their five year mission.

Put simply, the Discovery series does not take place within the prime timeline of the Star Trek universe, despite what the writers have said. It's either an alternate universe, or a rebooted JJ-Abrams-universe series. That's the only way to explain how the Discovery and Shenzhou have technology more advanced than what's supposed to be the flagship of the fleet, the original Enterprise-1701 itself. Site-to-site transporters, a spore drive warp engine that can instantly make the ship appear anywhere in the entire galaxy at a moment's notice, a holodeck, an advanced computer that somehow has all the functions of the Enterprise-1701-D, even though the Enterprise-D wouldn't be launched until over 100 years later (Discovery's supposed to be in the 2250s I think, and TNG was somewhere in the 2360s).

The specifics of how the "spore drive" works are about as vague as how the main character can somehow have a Jedi-like mind-meld with Sarek even though she's light-years away from him. Something about how the Tardigrade's DNA is connected to the universe or something, allowing it to instantly-appear anywhere. And don't get me started on the logic behind how the engineer Stamets injected himself with the creature's DNA so he could all of a sudden warp the ship anywhere himself.

A lot of this show doesn't make sense and defies logic, physics and simple brain power. I mean, I know there were some aspects of other Trek series that went beyond logic, into more of a "supernatural" feel, like Q himself, but previous Trek shows had about 90% logic associated with them, more grounded in known science than anything else. Discovery, on the other hand, is about 90% just believing whatever happens is possible, because... magic is real and anything can happen even if it's not supposed to.

 

[dare2be]

A lot of this show doesn't make sense and defies logic, physics and simple brain power. I mean, I know there were some aspects of other Trek series that went beyond logic, into more of a "supernatural" feel, like Q himself, but previous Trek shows had about 90% logic associated with them, more grounded in known science than anything else. Discovery, on the other hand, is about 90% just believing whatever happens is possible, because... magic is real and anything can happen even if it's not supposed to.

I imagine that if you shut your brain off for the 48 minutes of each episode, then you might actually enjoy it.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I imagine that if you shut your brain off for the 48 minutes of each episode, then you might actually enjoy it.

Star trek has never asked us to shut off our brain during an episode. Quite the contrary,

If I have to do it to tolerate Discovery, then it is a total fail.

 

[jevans64]

Most 18 to 29-year-olds don't have brains to shut off, so it is all good with this new Star Trek. I wonder if the feelings from older Trekkers will change over time? I remember when the Original Trekkies were up in arms over The Next Generation but eventually warmed up to the series and were some of its biggest fans by season 4. As I've said before, the only real thing keeping me from watching this new series is the fact that I have to pay extra on top of all the other services I pay for to watch it. I just don't want to support this type of shake-down from the networks/studios. I'm even hearing that MGM wants to do the same thing with the new Stargate series... putting it exclusively on an MGM streaming service for $20 a month.

 

[dare2be]

I was in the 18-29 demo when TNG aired. I was too young to appreciate TOS, but I have grown to enjoy roughly a couple dozen episodes (the rest are too campy and shallow for me). Same can be said about each series that followed, with the highest percentage of enjoyable episodes for me in the TNG and VOY series. ENT would have been better if they hadn't wasted an entire season on the whole Xindi/Temporal Cold War arc.

Based on others' reviews here, I won't pay for Discovery, but I'm sure I'll get a chance to see the entire season at some point and make my own assessment. As soon as I see elements that point to this being an alternate universe/reboot, I'm done.

 

[primestar31]

I really like TNG, and watched every episode back when they aired. However, I can't watch them anymore, it's just embarassing. They seemingly have become MORE dated than TOS.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I really like TNG, and watched every episode back when they aired. However, I can't watch them anymore, it's just embarassing. They seemingly have become MORE dated than TOS.

What is embarrassing about TNG? Sure its 30 years old. But still great stories.

 

[TheKrell]

However, I can't watch them anymore, it's just embarassing.

Them's fightin' words, Primestar! So, don't watch the embarrassing episodes. Don't you like any? My personal favorite TNG show was called, "Remember Me" about the warp bubble with Crusher stuck inside.

 

[dare2be]

I really like TNG, and watched every episode back when they aired. However, I can't watch them anymore, it's just embarassing. They seemingly have become MORE dated than TOS.

Dated or not, TOS and TNG were ground-breaking for their respective times, tackling issues that were pretty much taboo at the time. I guess in later series, there really wasn't much more ground to break.

Aside from the obvious favorites with the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians and Borg, I'd say the time-travel episodes were my favorite (Time's Arrow, Cause and Effect, Yesterday's Enterprise), plus Rascals, Lower Decks...there are too many to mention here.

 

[dare2be]

Regarding the unwatchable claim, I went through the list of TNG episodes and determined which ones I would look forward to watching again in their entirety, leaving out the others I could do without. Here's what I got for each season:

Season 1: 10 of 26 episodes
2: 12 of 22
3: 20 of 26
4: 18 of 26
5: 20 of 26
6: 15 of 26
7: 12 of 26

So only season 1 and season 7 had more "embarassing" episodes than watchable ones to me. Seasons 3, 4 and 5 had the most quality episodes overall.

 

[primestar31]

I'm not sure I can fully explain it, but enough of them now just go over bad to me that every time I try to watch one, I turn it off early.

I doubt I could watch Voyager at all anymore, and I never could watch Ds9 past the second season. So I've seen all of the series, every episode, EXCEPT I have never seen DS9 from season 3 to whenever it ended. I didn't like the constant fighting on that one, at that time.

 

[osu1991]

I know I'm in the minority, but I still prefer the Original series and Enterprise over any of the others.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I still love the original Star Trek series and still watch it on Metv on Saturday nights. Also own the entire series on Dvd. Also like the Next generation and Voyager with Kate Mulgrew as Captain. I could never really like Deep Space 9 ,but I watched some of the series anyway. Enterprise I watched with Scott Baccula as Capt. Archer ,but that show seemed out of time to me. The ship looked more futuristic than the original Star Trek show ,even though it was supposed to have happened further in the past. That lack of continuity always bothered me. Watched the first episode of Discovery on CBS and I wasn’t that impressed at all. Maybe because CBS pisses me off with their greedy attitude about making us pay even more just for this one show. No thanks, I’ll wait till it’s on either tv for free or Netflix.

 

[osu1991]

I thought they did a better job with Enterprise making it look close to the timeline it was occupying and not going overboard with a more modern look. Discovery they made no attempt at that. Still I like it for what it is.

 

[dfergie]

Another good one, only one more before they take a break...

 

[osu1991]

I'm two weeks behind now. Just too busy to watch, gonna wait and catchup over Thanksgiving