Star Trek: Thread Space 9

[Adami]

Forgot I actually had a paramount plus subscription on Prime. So I watched episode 1 of Disco season 4 (on episode 2 now).


Yea….it’s not good. Not insultingly bad like season 1 or Picard but not good and just blah. I’m sure you’re all shocked by my opinion. 

[gmillerdrake]

Yea….it’s not good. Not insultingly bad like season 1 or Picard but not good and just blah.

Yeah.....this show 'could' be really good. Clearly they have the $$$ behind it for production and the premise lends itself to a pretty large canvass to write from......it's just not good writing. Period. I'll keep watching because I like scifi stuff but it's not overly compelling at all. I'm having a hard time buying in on any of the characters, and that's an issue for a show.

[Adami]

I did face palm a bit at how they dealt with the reaction to the Deus Ex Machina of Picard.

"Looks like someone tried to use this technology with someone named....picard?"
"So now everyone has an immortal perfect synth body and death is no longer a concern?"
"Oh no, turns out it was a bad idea so everyone just moved on....NEXT!"

[gmillerdrake]

I did face palm a bit at how they dealt with the reaction to the Deus Ex Machina of Picard.

"Looks like someone tried to use this technology with someone named....picard?"
"So now everyone has an immortal perfect synth body and death is no longer a concern?"
"Oh no, turns out it was a bad idea so everyone just moved on....NEXT!"

Yeah.....that was really bad. Cringeworthy bad.....

[gmillerdrake]

I don't know that I can keep wasting time on watching Discovery. I'm gonna give it another episode or two but man, this show is really bad.

[El Barto]

In my rewatch I've picked up quite a few things that I hadn't picked up before. It's been interesting. For one thing, season six is nowhere near as good as it's often made out to be. That said, there's about a 12 episode run to end five and begin six that's probably better than any other run in the franchise. Children of Time up to Cordially Invited, save for one stinker, are all excellent. Part of it's because the of the war, but even the non-war stories are excellent during that run. I think season six suffers a great deal because there had to be a letdown from how good it had been. There are still some excellent episodes to round the season out, including the standout Pale Moonlight, but also a lot that just don't interest me much, and plenty that fit into the oddball category.

I've been paying more attention to the music, of late. I'd never noticed how bad a lot of it was. If you've ever watched soap operas you'll recognize plenty of it when they're dealing with family dynamics. Particularly Dukat and his daughter. Once I noticed it I was unable to unhear it, and it was just awful. At the same time there are a couple of episodes where it stood out to me as very good. One Little Ship has a "tiny ship" fanfare played in the highest register of a trumpet that was a brilliant idea. And the Barberesque score to Siege of AR-whatever was fantastic. It moved away from the typical ST "scene by scene" scoring and just served to set a mood throughout. An excellent quality of good storytelling.

There are a few episodes that I always thought were pretty decent, but not great. I've come to realize that there's a mini-story arc going on with Jake and Nog about their concepts of heroism and cowardice that's really very well done. While they're perfectly good episodes in their own right, if you take Nor the Battle to the Strong, Valiant, Siege, and Paper Moon as chapters in a much larger story it really makes them far better. Again, some excellent story-telling, in this case spanning three different seasons. M-A suggests that they were going for a Hemingway sort of things with NtBttS, and while they kinda-sorta got that, all of the episodes together absolutely hammer it.

And just a side note, Sisko's Vulcan rival is really a hoot. Certainly the best example of Vulcan arrogance depicted, and it would have been awful to be a part of for 25 years.

[Orbert]

Mrs. Orbert and I are continuing our first-time watch of Discovery, and just reached the Season 1 mid-season finale, where Lt Stamets says "just one more jump" and kisses Dr roommate/boyfriend/husband and then something horrible happened because of course it would.  But damn, hopefully the Klingons are gone for a while because they sucked.

And I'm still working through DS9, also first time through.  Just finished Season 4, Odo is no longer a changeling, Gowron apparently is, and war with the Klingons is apparently coming.

Discovery does some cool stuff, different stuff, but also gets some things wrong tonally that I really don't like.  It seems to be trying too hard to be fancy and shiny and cool, when instead it should just be fancy and shiny and cool and not try to show it off all the time.

And are you telling me that after 50+ years of storytelling, they haven't figured out how stupid and insulting expository dialogue is to the viewer?  Tyler and Burnham are going to sneak over to the Klingon ship.  They figure out where to beam in, how it's all going to work.  Then just before they go, Tyler activates a little thingy on his belt and Burnham does the same and Tyler says "These gadget thingies will mask our human life signs."  Are you fucking kidding me?  So either Burnham went through all the prep for the mission and it didn't occur to her that they'd need to do this... no, because she has one as well.  So they did discuss it and Tyler thinks she's an idiot so he reminds her of it while she's activating hers but she forgot what it did so it's good that Tyler reminded her.  Or it's actually for the audience's "benefit" because we're the idiots and this needs to be explained to us, so we get them saying something out loud that no one in the room actually needed to hear.  Anyway, that takes me right out of the scene and I hate that shit.

DS9 however is getting really good.  The war I've heard so much about is heating up, everybody seems to be pissed at everybody else (Federation, Klingons, Cardassians, Dominion of course, plus the ever-pesky Maquis), and best of all it all makes perfect sense how they've built it all up.  Still a few (mostly) one-off episodes along the way, but getting more and more serialized as we go, and taking full advantage of the shift in tone and approach.  Very nicely done overall and I'm digging it.

[Adami]

Season 4 of Discovery continues to be a snoozefest. What happened this season? I feel like they had a few ideas on note cards and bumped into the guy carrying the notecards from Picard season 1, didn't sort them out and just went with it.

"What does that one say?"
"Secret Romulan ninja convent that says 'please choose to live"
"Alrighty, throw it in! What does the next one say?"
"Something about a synthetic body that can stave off death? Seems odd..."
"Yea...but throw it in! Use it for that dumb Trill character. Next?"
"The entire universe is going to end..."
"Hmmm, sounds familiar, but go with it!"

Also they just seem to not understand Star Trek at all.

"The Trek fans seem to like people talking about politics"
"True! So let's do that by having Vulcan...or whatever....demand that they can leave the federation whenever they want or else they won't rejoin, and the federation can say that people can leave the federation whenever they want....AND they will deny the Vulcan's request, despite just saying that they were fine with it."
"Why?"
"So Michael can solve the problem by........making a suggestion."
"BRILLIANT! THIS IS WHAT STAR TREK IS!"

And they had a character leave the show...quite randomly....and my response was "meh, okay whatever." I Feel that's a bad sign.


And lastly, this has been bugging me..........why are the crew of Discovery seen as anything other than relics of a by-gone era? Remember when Scotty showed up on TNG and could barely understand how any of that tech worked? And that was after like 70 years or something. Yet someone people who worked BEFORE Scotty, show up 700 years later and somehow are able to understand everything perfectly? Einstein would have no clue how be a modern day computer technician, nonetheless the smartest human being from 1300AD.

[YtseJam]

This show is hot garbage. I'm struggling to enjoy it or even make sense of wtf is happening half the time. I hear all of these people watching it with captions on so they know what is happening.

[gmillerdrake]

This show is hot garbage. I'm struggling to enjoy it or even make sense of wtf is happening half the time. I hear all of these people watching it with captions on so they know what is happening.

At this point I watch just to see how they decide to make me face palm each episode

[soupytwist]

Not been watching due to the issues with the rights being stripped from Netflix outside the US - gotta wait for Paramount Plus to arrive in the UK 
But I've been keeping an eye on Jammer's site and he hasn't been keen on the first 3 episodes.

[DoctorAction]

I'm not looking forward to it, following season 3.

[DoctorAction]

I stumbled into it on Prime. Even though Paramount+ isn't available in the UK yet you can buy it from Amazon so bought S04E01 and .......




It's horrible. Such a shame. Everything feels unnatural and forced/rushed. The opening sequence had everyone being super-smirky and smug. And later there's the scene where Michael is stunned that the president could call her flawed, even though that's (for better or worse) kind of been the point of the show from the start.

It's looks absolutely beautiful. And the actors are terrific but the bigger-picture whole of it has not settled since season 2 (which I enjoyed overall) but that's when they really started to try and play these big emotional scenes that they hadn't earned in the audience at all.

It doesn't flow or make sense. I know I waved the flag hard for it earlier on but I'm out.

Looking forward to LD season 3 and hoping that SNW is good but not going to carry on watching Disco and wishing i liked it more than i do.

[YtseJam]

I feel exactly the same. It reminds me of the walking dead already. What happened after season 2? Somebody changed the recipe.

[Samsara]

I just finished my third full watch of all seven DS9 seasons. I purchased it in 2003 (after only catching a few episodes here and there when it was on-air in the 90s), watched it that summer. I watched it again about six years ago, and again the last few months. It remains one of my favorite shows of all time, and certainly my favorite Trek series. The perfect balance of war/politics/faith. I find something more to like about it every time I go through it.

I will say that for me, season 7 has some arduous episodes for sure. But it also has some incredible ones. Seasons 4-6 are really just all out brilliant storytelling. Like many, I assume, while they did a good job moving from Jadzia to Ezri, I really felt that was a mistake in retrospect. If Jadzia would have just died and they would have had an episode where the symbiont was able to communicate Jadzia's feelings to her crewmates after the fact, I think it would have been better. Ezri had potential, and in the novels that follow season 7, she obviously was expanded on. But for the show, I wish they hadn't have done it.

But all in all, I'm a DS9 fanboy and proudly display my collection of stuff from the show in our family room. Just great sci-fi drama about timeless topics. My 13 year old now wants to start watching it. 

Happy Holidays all.

[El Barto]

Since there's somebody watching through for the first time, you might want to spoiler-proof that.

My problem with the Ezri thing was that they didn't have time to do it right. It was rushed because the whole thing was coming to an end. The idea of her being all screwed in the head because she wasn't prepared was a great one. I'd have like to see a bit more of her as a basket-case before really coming to terms with it all.

[Samsara]

Since there's somebody watching through for the first time, you might want to spoiler-proof that.

My problem with the Ezri thing was that they didn't have time to do it right. It was rushed because the whole thing was coming to an end. The idea of her being all screwed in the head because she wasn't prepared was a great one. I'd have like to see a bit more of her as a basket-case before really coming to terms with it all.

Done. Sorry about that.

Yeah, her character certainly was rushed. No way around that. That's why I thought perhaps she just wasn't needed.

[Orbert]

Thanks.  I'm getting pretty good at sensing when conversations might get spoilerish (for me) and skimming past them, and I was safe this time.

[gmillerdrake]

Good lord…..Discovery is reaching epic cheese factor and cringe worthy levels. I honestly don’t know why I continue to watch it. It’s more like a sick type of entertainment now rather than expecting anything actually good or interesting to happen.

[Orbert]

I just reached the end of Season 1 of Discovery, and just when I thought they were kinda getting good (not consistently good, but getting there), they pull a turd out of a hat and call it the Season 1 Finale.  Seriously, WTF?  I've heard that Season 2 is probably the best, then it goes downhill again from there, and right now I'm wondering if it's worth it to stick around.  From many accounts, Season 4 is the most WTF of all.

[gmillerdrake]

I just reached the end of Season 1 of Discovery, and just when I thought they were kinda getting good (not consistently good, but getting there), they pull a turd out of a hat and call it the Season 1 Finale.  Seriously, WTF?  I've heard that Season 2 is probably the best, then it goes downhill again from there, and right now I'm wondering if it's worth it to stick around.  From many accounts, Season 4 is the most WTF of all.

S2 was good….and when I say good I mean it was at least worth watching. This show has so much potential yet they consistently just give us very rudimentary writing and storylines. It’s pretty tough to see.

[Orbert]

I think Discovery has a lot of potential, but they completely painted themselves into a corner by placing it 10 years before Kirk and Company yet insisting that it takes place in the same timeline.  The graphics and tech are light years ahead of TOS.  They've introduced new species and concepts that are nowhere in TOS.  The species that do exist (Klingons) look nothing like they do in TOS.  And sometimes the writing is just plain dumb.

I'll probably start Season 2, but I'm also working through DS9, and it's amazing how a show 20+ years older is so much better than any of the "new" shows.

[ReaperKK]

I can forgive them for the tech and Klingons, it wasn't like the TOS fell inline with the canon of the future series. Also in season 2 of Disco they sort of bring back the old tech with the re-introduction of the Enterprise.

[gmillerdrake]

I can forgive them for the tech and Klingons, it wasn't like the TOS fell inline with the canon of the future series. Also in season 2 of Disco they sort of bring back the old tech with the re-introduction of the Enterprise.

I thought they did a good job in S2 of righting the ship so to speak and setting up the series from then on. Then....well, IMO since then they've dropped the ball in every aspect of storytelling. Except visually....the production is top notch. But the writing/acting/storyline has been REALLY tough to like.

[El Barto]

I think Discovery has a lot of potential, but they completely painted themselves into a corner by placing it 10 years before Kirk and Company yet insisting that it takes place in the same timeline.  The graphics and tech are light years ahead of TOS.  They've introduced new species and concepts that are nowhere in TOS.  The species that do exist (Klingons) look nothing like they do in TOS.  And sometimes the writing is just plain dumb.

I'll probably start Season 2, but I'm also working through DS9, and it's amazing how a show 20+ years older is so much better than any of the "new" shows.

There are actually 3 timelines, rather than two. The original, the Bad Robot, and the Bad Robot alternate created in ST2009. When they say "prime" timeline or universe they simply mean that it's not the one altered by that Nero guy where Vulcan was destroyed. While they sort of imply that it's the original timeline, it's not, both for legal and creative reasons.

[Orbert]

So that leaves us with what, a bunch of stories set in a "similar" universe where most people and things are the same as what we've been watching for 50 years, except for whatever's different, in which case it's just different and we should just deal with it?  Why the fuck even bother?

[DoctorAction]

Watch season 2 then let it go, is my advice. If only to get some red hot Captain Pike action.

[gmillerdrake]

Watch season 2 then let it go, is my advice. If only to get some red hot Captain Pike action.

The bummer part is the mishandling of Discovery has me really doubting the Cpt. Pike series that they're doing. I was pumped for it but have zero reason to believe they'll execute it well.

[DoctorAction]

Fair enough. However, from what I've read, they are aiming at a classic Trek type of show for Strange New Worlds. They're clearly NOT aiming for that with Discovery.

[Adami]

Fair enough. However, from what I've read, they are aiming at a classic Trek type of show for Strange New Worlds. They're clearly NOT aiming for that with Discovery.

There seems to be very little overlap between their expressed intentions and their executions.

[Orbert]

Discovery seems to be trying to do new things, be a different kind of Trek, etc.  And there's nothing wrong with that, but the show still has to be good.  I don't care if it's edgy or dark or has the first Trek F-bomb or the first Trek gay marriage or the first Trek naked Klingon boobs, I care if the show is good.  If it ain't good, I ain't watching.










(naked Trill boobs, maybe)

[El Barto]

So that leaves us with what, a bunch of stories set in a "similar" universe where most people and things are the same as what we've been watching for 50 years, except for whatever's different, in which case it's just different and we should just deal with it?  Why the fuck even bother?

Because they're raking in money and the reality is that most people won't even care, and the people who do already hate it anyway. It's basically a reboot. They just never wanted to call it that because they wanted the original Trekkies to come aboard with it. Some did, but mostly they're catering to a newer audience.

[soupytwist]

Haven't been watching Season 4 of disco because it's not available in the UK right now, but I'm keeping an eye on the reviews of the individual episodes.   The latest episode 'Stormy Weather' seems to being hailed of something of a classic and Discos best episode yet.

[DoctorAction]

Discovery seems to be trying to do new things, be a different kind of Trek, etc.  And there's nothing wrong with that, but the show still has to be good.  I don't care if it's edgy or dark or has the first Trek F-bomb or the first Trek gay marriage or the first Trek naked Klingon boobs, I care if the show is good.  If it ain't good, I ain't watching.










(naked Trill boobs, maybe)

 

I'm in alignment with everything in this post.

[chknptpie]

Fell asleep halfway through the latest Discovery episode last night. I think the formula of "The Universe is at risk and you're the only ones who can save it" is getting a little old. I am interested in the sentient computer though.