Review: Star Trek Discovery

The Garage
#82

Discovery has made no attempt to slot in with TOS or Enterprise - it’s clearly aligned toward an Abrams-type universe. Never mind if the tech is totally ill-fitting when compared to the franchise’s history.

I’d hazard a guess that any time that Patrick Stewart said - “Yes my dear, Ok, I will do it - I will reprise Picard” - CBS or whoever would have jumped on it.

As it turns out, it’s got bad timing for Discovery.

Personally, the only way I want to see Picard is in the continuous timeline from TNG. If they essentially do as Discovery has, and set the new show in the Abrams timeline… I’ll be quite disappointed. I realise that Picard will presumably be set some 20 years after Nemesis… but I want a strong sense of continuity from the Picard that we know and love.

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#83

I watched a recent interview with Patrick Stewart, maybe a week or two ago, and he said that over the years, he’s been approached a couple of times about reprising Picard. He said no each time because the character hadn’t changed enough (or at all) in those pitches, and he felt like he was done with the Picard he played for more than 20 years.

He agreed to come back this time because the Picard we meet 20 years after the events of Nemesis will apparently be a very different man, and indeed, might not even be someone we’ll like. I think Stewart himself is very protective of the character, but I do worry that a lot of fans won’t get this, and I might not either. But I’m willing to trust Stewart initially.

I feel like I can read between the lines here and I think CBS finally had to bring a script/concept to Stewart he would do BECAUSE Discovery is flailing. Good enough to have sparked demands for more Trek, not good enough to keep that attention its own. They needed something and they needed it fast, and going to Stewart and saying, “Okay, what’s it going to take” and so that’s what they’ve done.

I heard rumors of a third series in the planning too, which I believe (in fact I believe there are several ideas, not just one), even a Starfleet Academy idea might be in the offing, but I’m sooooo invested in my own ideas of what that would look like (if it wasn’t the characters from The Best and The Brightest) that I bet I’d find fault with whatever they do with it.

#84

Concerned here…

His last line

“Jean-Luc Picard is not in the world that we left him in…”

Could simply be a way of saying - he’s not the man we last saw… But…?

#85

If you are implying that it’s not Prime, I think you don’t have to worry about that. This is not the interview I saw, the one I saw, Stewart was a bit more firm and… direct? Not specific, but direct.

It will take 20 years after Nemesis and really actually be 20 years after Nemesis. It seems to concern the re-alignment of the Milky Way post-Dominion War and post-Romulan Empire collapse, and the things Picard has seen or been involved in during those years. It seems very heavily implied that things went very wrong. Perhaps a new war broke out, or perhaps Starfleet was tasked with intervening in civil wars (cough cough), occupations (cough cough), etc. Leading to a weary, tired, jaded Picard who made a series of choices he now regrets and lost his idealism. Probably similar to the Picard in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” only much older.

#86

My only concern with Picard is that Stewart might drop off the perch before the series can ever get a grip on the public… and if he doesnt, how long can he go on? He seems pretty healthy but he is approaching 79 and can he do a whole season, let alone several? I think we will find its a limited series in many ways.

IN the meantime, back on topic… I like Discovery. Sure, its not the same as the existing ST series’ but it has a life of its own, now, for me, and if you approach without expecting it to be exactly like the old stuff, there should not be any issues. Its getting better and better.

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#87

Watching Stewart in the above interview… he certainly shows his age, so I appreciate the concern about just how much longer he could perform. I haven’t followed the Xman stuff, so not sure from that whether we can be expecting Picard to be bouncing off walls like old…

And I certainly would agree with your sentiment about Discovery @Kyte, given I’ve still not watched about 1/4 of S1… It does have a life of its own, but took a while to get there.

#88

WIt will be sad. Stewart risks destroying his legacy with the same sad, overwrought California hippy shit like Discovery.

I can’t watch recent episodes of Discovery. It’s starting to get too stupid for words. I keep falling asleep.

Discovery isn’t Star Trek. It wears Trek clothes to give it credibility, then uses those clothes as toilet paper.

#89

@Entropy are you also a female Dr Who hater?

#90

“overwrought California hippy shit”?

You’ve seen Star Trek, right? I mean Let That Be Your Last Battlefield is an episode about the stupidity of racial hatred and violence and tit-for-tat escalation to the point of total social destruction. And that’s just one of many episodes that dealt with social issues. Most of them were parables of some sort or another.

The original bridge crew included a Black woman, an Asian man, a Russian (during the high-point of the Cold War), a half-alien, etc. And let’s be honest, Sulu (played by a gay man) was probably gay. I’ve been rewatching the original series and Sulu is pretty queer, in my view. But it was the 1960s and nobody could think about it in those terms. Mad Men had an entire gay character that, to our modern eyes, was OBVIOUSLY gay before he was outed, but none of the other characters noticed. With Star Trek, other queer people probably noticed, but straight folks didn’t.

Trek has ALWAYS been “overwrought hippy shit.” It has always been social justice oriented. That kind of criticism of Discovery misses the mark. My problem with Discovery is not that Michael’s identity is complex, or that Tilly is neuro-atypical and not “Hollywood attractive” or that Stamis’s relationship is overt and on-screen versus the implications or hints we’ve had in other series, etc etc.

My problem with Discovery is that I don’t feel the narrative structure, pacing, and visual style is in keeping with past Star Trek series. As I have said before Enterprise took place before TOS, and while visual effects and quality had changed dramatically, it still looked like pre-TOS, post-20th century technology. Discovery looks post-TNG/DS9/VOY, it’s not episodic, it doesn’t have any fun episodes or wacky episodes (which are some of my favorite), etc. etc.

But social justice hippy shit? Without that, it’s not going to be Trek anyway.

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#91

SPOILERS!!! Do not watch this if you are not fully caught up:

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I doubt this fan theory is correct, but I have to say if it is even 70% correct, it sure as hell would explain an awful lot.

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#92

Dunno, I lost interest with Dr Who and stopped watching it before the latest doctor.

Discovery though is shitting all over Star Trek.

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#93

I am all on board with the outward facing, even evangelical, unified manifest purpose of the original trek.

From TNG days, increasingly whenever they visit an idealised diluted, they inevitably work in communal gardens, live in adobe dwellings, and wear hemp clothes. It’s that kind of thinking that I call California hippy shit. Because California hippy shit does not give you the future, it gives you cultural senescence. It requires magical thinking to believe you could live that lifestyle and have modern medicine, or launch probes for example.
To think when I was young and naive I liked that series five TNG episode “the inner light”. No I know it was contemptible.

#94

My childhood home was an adobe dwelling. We had, and have modern medicine. This is the area where the US tested rockets and built the atomic bomb in the Manhattan Project. There’s even a (not being used, unfortunately) spaceport in the area now. You can find plenty of agriculture, even though it’s the desert. The economy isn’t great, but there are racial/ethnic economic disparities that go back centuries. After all, there is a large population of indigenous peoples in the area. You’re Australian, I don’t need to tell you about that narrative.

But it isn’t California. It’s New Mexico.

#95

I’m just catching up on Discovery. I have to say the Bowie moment brought actual tears. Isn’t it funny how a very small moment of an episode can resonate more than the entire rest of the series. The first three eps of the season were boring as BS but these most recent ones were at least more interesting and entertaining.

#96

The issue with the latest Dr Who is not the fact that she is a woman, it is the fact that the scripts are utter rubbish.

#97

I know that. what I also know is that there are bazillions who hate the idea of The Doctor being a female. The scripts have been ridiculous. almost as if the writers want it to fail.

#98

I have no problem at all with a female doctor and though the first episode worked quite well but it went rapidly downhill from there - as you say it’s almost like they want it to fail.

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#99

Loved the latest ep of Discovery, which harks right back to the very beginning of Star Trek. Guest Actress Melissa George was just wonderful.

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#100

She hasn’t been in much of late, I thought she’d mostly disappeared.

The intro was amazing and very well done. I read an article that talks about how this was conceived: the idea came up well into post-production, as they couldn’t find a good way to explain the backstory to the (casual?) viewer. They then had to get in contact with every performer from TOS/TOS pilot (or their estate) to get permission to re-use the footage.

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#101

So I watched the Talus IV episode. You are all right, it was good.

Haven’t watched for a few episodes, so it took a bit to work out what was going on on the ship, which to be a bit critical seems like some really bizarre soap opera, and honestly I would have preferred a lot more Melissa George.
Here’s hoping she returns in later episodes.