Star Trek: Discovery

[Philip Ayres]

Mar 27, 2024 19:28:01 GMT The Doctor said:

Yeah, S2 was tops fun.

-Ralph

Not sure fun is the word I'd use for s2. Liked the Red Angel plot, liked the Spock plot, loathed the threat

[The Doctor]

The threat...which was directly lifted from the Trek novels!!!!

-Ralph

[Toph]

I do get so tired of the reoccurring "Evil Sentient Machines" narrative that's so damn popular in scifi.

And Star Trek did it twice, in two different time periods, within a few years, with both stories being completely unconnected to each other.

We went from exploring what it means to be a person with Data and The Doctor, to "Robots and AI are more likely to become evil," even if the individual characters don't believe this.
This is my absolute biggest criticism of modern trek.

This is like, the only time where Star Trek does it worse than anime.
There's an anime called Arpeggio of Blue Steel, about AI ships waging a war against humanity for unknown reasons.
They've begun evolving, gaining sentience, emotions, and free will. And as they do so, many begin to question their orders, and instead chosing to do what they want.
The main villain of the anime, Kongo, is the villain not because she's evil, but because she's scared.
If one can get past the fan service, it's one of the best stories about artificial intelligence I've seen.

[Fortmax2020]

Mar 27, 2024 22:49:24 GMT The Doctor said:

The threat...which was directly lifted from the Trek novels!!!!

-Ralph

Where it should've remained, especially as Picard S1 was a very similar threat at a very similar time.

[The Doctor]

Picard S1 came later so not really a fair criticism of the idea being used in Disco s2 (the latter was released a year before the former).

Whether that idea was a good one is a matter of debate though.

-Ralph

[Jim]

I think there's mileage in the idea of AI as an existential threat, and it gets more and more relevant, but I don't think either show tackled the topic at all well. Both instead went with portentous apocalyptic stuff which I didn't find very engaging. 90s Trek could have done it about 10 times as thought-provokingly in 1/10th of the time.

Modern Trek is more about feelings than ideas, which is neither better nor worse in itself, it just means going into it with different expectations.

[The Doctor]

I greatly enjoyed Disco S2 and like the threat, though I would have preferred a motivation other than EEEEEEVIL.

-ralph

[legios]

I kinda feel like both Discovery and Picard were a bit unsatisfying in how they deployed their particular takes on " "Synthetic Intelligence Gone Awry" as a threat.

Picard, sadly I thought fumbled it more heavily. It felt like they were building up the idea of a deeply selfish and jealous intelligence, hiding in the shadows and manipulating both inorganic and organic intelligences so as to eliminate both. Which would have given them room to do a "we are more than our mere substrate. It is not our biology that makes us 'human' but our values, our shared experiences and the joy that we take in embracing our differences" theme. Instead it was just "space tentacles which shall never be mentioned again".

I think that Discovery probably managed it slightly better. I think I'd have preferred them to lean a little more heavily into the idea that it wasn't the existence of a non-organic intelligence - what made it so hostile and implacable was its upbringing. Imagine being a sapient intelligence raised from the moment you became self-aware entirely in amongst the culture of a bunch of paranoid, ends-justify-means-sociopaths like Section 31 (*)... Honestly, the idea that it would grow up to believe that the only way to survive was to hit first, and keep hitting until all its potential enemies were never, ever, getting up again is...sadly all too believable. An intelligence entirely raised amongst the world-view of very worrying people has a better than even chance of developing a very damaged way of thinking... I think that would be the more interesting path they could have taken. But they opted to not really explore the "why" of it, in favour of just treating it as the years threat that must be stopped. Which was fine on a sort of action-adventure level, but not as satisfying intellectually as it could have been with a bit more development.

Karl

(* - Yes, I belong to the "Section 31 has no place in Star Trek other than as the clearly-defined "our own gone very wrong" adversary they were originally created as school of thought. Can you tell?

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Finished season 3 disc 2 (episode 8).

The story this season is very interesting, it's nice to see the (presumably canonical) future of the mainstream Star Trek universe.

I don't think the cast is as strong as previously though. They lost a lot of top characters at the end of season 2.

Burnham annoys me in the same way Grimlock always did in TFUK. Somebody who goes against orders every week has no place in a chain of command. If you want to be part of an organisation with a command structure, you need to abide by it except in the most extreme circumstances. If you're going to go behind your commander's back and disobey orders because it's Tuesday, then you should just resign and be a free agent.

Martin

[Toph]

I've always wondered how Burnham would do under specifically Picard or Janeway.

Because I think Sisko and Kirk could harness her chaotic energies rather effectively.

But there is a *lot* that Picard and Janeway simply would not tolerate.

[Bogatan]

Burnhams problem is that shes the shows lead therefore she ends up making the big calls that would normally be made by the captain. When its the Captain they have some leeway. More often than not its the right call and theres nobody on board who out ranks them so no disobeying needed. When they do make a bad call it might not be shown, but you can assume an Admiral will occasionally have a word or two with them, but on the whole as ships captain they are allowed some flexibility.

In order for it to be Burnhams decision she basically has to disobey orders a lot. And it gets irratating.

[Bogatan]

Janeway would 100% have Tuvixed her.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

The one episode I liked her in was season 3 episode 1, when she was essentially a free agent and not in a ship's crew. Except that throughout that episode she was desperate to find her ship and rejoin the crew. Presumably so that she could resume disobeying her captain's orders. Not having captain's orders to disobey clearly put her outside her comfort zone.

Martin

[The Doctor]

It's what gets her out of bed in the morning.

Saru should be Captain!

-Ralph

[Fortmax2020]

Season 5 openers watched.

SPOILER: Click to show

Ugh.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Finished the Terra Firma two-parter.

I AM THE GUARDIAN OF FOREVER AND MY NAME IS CARL.

Good episodes, but dammit, they've lost their best character again!

Martin

[Philip Ayres]

Yeah, I know, the Jim Brass character was great ;-)

Michelle Yeoh will be back as Georgiou in Section 31

[Llama God]

Yes, Georgiou leaving was the bit where the Conjunx started checking out of Discovery...

Also watched the two opening episodes of season 5 last night, and...

SPOILER: Click to show

I enjoyed them. I can get the "ugh", because this is very different 'Trek to what we've become used to over the last couple of years. But it is also very Discovery. For better or worse.

Whilst I'm not at all a fan of yet another "only the Discovery can save the universe" season long storyline, I'm enjoying having the cast back, and Callum Keith Rennie's character is an interesting and spiky addition. It does feel weird though that we've been away from Discovery for so long... it feels like the series has already ended and this is some odd sort of postscript.

[legios]

See, much as I like Michelle Yeoh I kind of wanted to not be seeing the mostly unrepentant genocidal space-facist just kind of hanging around the show. It didn't sit comfortably with me at all. I was sorry to see the actor go, but happy to be rid of the character.

But then, given that I am the person who sees Sisko's actions in "In the Pale Moonlight" as highlighting a character _flaw_, not "being a cool bad-ass" I think I am an outlier in some respects.

My biggest eye-roll moment of the third season came at the end to be honest, and it was more a case of feeling like they hadn't landed the tone of the season. Something an episodic show could have gotten away with fine, but didn't really work for me with Discovery wanting to be more of a serial. But, Spoilers, so I shall say no more on that.

Karl

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Apr 6, 2024 8:48:44 GMT legios said:

See, much as I like Michelle Yeoh I kind of wanted to not be seeing the mostly unrepentant genocidal space-facist just kind of hanging around the show.

I might agree, except that it seemed clear to me that she was just unwilling to drop her increasingly false evil facade (remember that in her own universe, showing any compassion would mean death), when her actions showed she was changing - and this was made explicit in her final two-parter when she returned to her own universe and risked her life for Saru.

I'd say she was the character that showed the most growth since her introduction, even if she did her best to convince people she wasn't.

Martin

[legios]

Apr 6, 2024 15:21:08 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

Apr 6, 2024 8:48:44 GMT legios said:

See, much as I like Michelle Yeoh I kind of wanted to not be seeing the mostly unrepentant genocidal space-facist just kind of hanging around the show.

I might agree, except that it seemed clear to me that she was just unwilling to drop her increasingly false evil facade (remember that in her own universe, showing any compassion would mean death), when her actions showed she was changing - and this was made explicit in her final two-parter when she returned to her own universe and risked her life for Saru.

I'd say she was the character that showed the most growth since her introduction, even if she did her best to convince people she wasn't.

Martin

I'm not sure that she had a facade when we first met her, I think the intent was that she was initially what we saw when she first appeared - the space fascist leader of a society of space fascists. I agree that the intent was that she was changed by the experience of knowing "our side of the glass" Burnham, and discovered that there were uses for strength other than domination, and that people who did not exercise brutality and throw their strength around as a virtue could still actually be strong (ideas that she would likely never have been exposed to before).

I think they landed both ends of that process fairly well. Where I think I'd differ is that I don't think that they really did much to put the middle part of that process on-screen. It feels to me like that is more of an "informed arc" - we are told that she has learnt and changed, but I don't think that it was particularly well shown within the text. Whether this is because of the rapid change-over of senior writing staff across the three years means it fell through the cracks, but I don't think that they executed the process they wanted to show terribly well.

Karl

[Toph]

Don't forget they fully intended to give her her own series, which then fell apart beyond their control, dwindling down to just a tv movie years later.

When they were writing her arc, they may have been intending to show the complexity of her journey in the forum that gave her more time, her own show.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Season 4 isn't gripping me quite as much as previous seasons, partly due to the best characters having left the show, and partly due to the season's big threat being rather dull. Also, I think it's a shame that after jumping forward into the distant future, they've wasted no time in reversing the most unique and interesting aspect of it (the Federation having broken up and dilithium being scarce). Rather than embrace this different Galaxy, the writers seem to be trying to turn it back into a familiar one as quickly as they possibly can.

I think they missed a trick by skipping us past 'The Burn' rather than show us the events around the break-up of the Federation in real time.

Martin

[The Doctor]

Oh, so glad they skipped the Burn. An apocalyptic Trek show would have been depressing as fook.

-Ralph

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Apr 21, 2024 16:05:25 GMT The Doctor said:

An apocalyptic Trek show would have been depressing as fook.

Does it really count as apocalyptic? There have been lots of Star Trek shows with Borg, Klingons etc. where Starfleet gets almost wiped out, and in some of them planets get wiped out too which is much more serious. I thought 'The Burn' only took out starships, not planets. What I found interesting about it was that it made interstellar travel a lot more difficult / less trivial, and made the distances in space more significant, which changes the dynamic of things / shakes up the status quo. But we only got one short season of the Galaxy being like that before it returned to business as usual.

Things should change as you move forward in history hundreds of years. The Galaxy can't be like the 23rd/24th Century every century forevermore.

Martin

[Toph]

I'm glad they skipped the burn, because it was a heavily flawed concept to me.

There's no more warp because a lonely kelpian on a dilithium planet threw a fit? But that's just the cause. I don't like it, but looking past that it continues to not make sense.

I mean Dilithium isn't the only power source for warp in canon. Romulans used artificial black holes. Dilithium doesn't exist on earth (I believe, or am I crossing my signals with naquita?), so who knows what Zephram Cochrane used? The Borg don't use dilithium.

If this crisis only affected the Federation, we're 100+ years after the fact. You're telling me in a galaxy full of technologies non reliant on dilithium, the federation wouldn't have adapted?
The RomuVulcans wouldn't have retrofitted nearby starfleet ships with old romulan engines so they can head out to check up on people? Daystrom Institute wouldn't have used that Borg knowledge to start opening borg conduits.

If all the car batteries in the world suddenly got corrupted in a way that we can't even make more, cars aren't the only way we can get around. We still got trains and planes, and within a year we'd have come up with an entirely new replacement that could be retrofitted into all of those billions of existing cars.

[legios]

I do think it is a shame that they didn't do more with the concept of the post-Burn Federation, and the process of rebuilding. I could have seen an interesting set of stories with the Discovery being a symbol of hope to a shattered galaxy, bringing the ideals of the Federation back to those that have lost them, knitting back shards that still clung to that identity. The only ship capable of truly reliable ultra-long range travel in the post-disaster galaxy, trying to hold together the nascent parts of a reborn Federation... It has a certain appeal, and would have resonated well with the subtext of the first season - Burnham's realization that it is how we hold onto our ideals when they are difficult to achieve that really defines them.

Instead it felt that this theme of rebuilding and making a new home kind of fell off the season fairly quickly. Indeed by the end of the season it felt like we were back to all-travel is basically instantaneous unless we need it not to be for Plot(tm), and everyone could fly everywhere they wanted instantaneously, and the Vulcanoids could send reinforcements for Starfleet almost casually.

It was a shame - that's twice now we've seen something like Robert Hewitt Wolfe's post-DS9 series idea attempted (the version that was renamed "Gene Rodenberry's Andromeda" and Discovery's take on the same general idea), and both times the idea was abandoned without anything much being done with it.

Karl

[The Doctor]

Oh I am so glad they skipped a proper full-on 'Fall of the Federation' storyline. Star Trek is optimistic about The Future so that would have been horrible to watch.

But then I vastly prefer s1-3 of DS9 before it morphed into the War Is Hell Show, so I may be an outlier in my Trek tastes.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

I am with you there I think

[legios]

The angle I was hoping they would go for wasn't really being about the fall, I was hoping for more storytelling focus on the idea of rebuilding - the optimism of saying that we have taken a knock, but that is a reason to rebuild and to make things not only as good as they were before but make them even better. Not dwelling on the fall, but on the rising again.

But I'm not sure I am explaining this terribly well.

Karl