CharlesPhipps wrote: ↑Sun Jul 29, 2018 9:29 pm
Honestly, it is the most progressive show in Star Trek. Albeit, just barely. Black female lead, a gay married couple (of course that couldn't stand), and Phillipa. But it's 2018 so it doesn't feel that progressive. I wish they'd genuinely gone and had Tilly be autistic for example.
I think the problem with the show is that it's characters haven't established themselves well enough to bounce off one another so we care. Part of this is the heavy emphasis on Michael who is an odd choice to be the emotional lead because she's an unemotional reserved character. As such, we can't quite bond with her the way we would Kirk.
The other characters are fine but all of them have other issues in being likable. There's only one everywoman and that's why Tilly is the most popular so far.
Lorca's PTSD and ruthlessness made him intriguing but they shot that in the foot as well.
No, DS9 had a pansexual genderfluid character and a sexless blob who developed his own gender identity and sexuality out of whole cloth in his backstory and a gay couple living right there on the station (one in his tailor shop and the other in the infirmary), they just weren't allowed to discuss most of that because Burnham.
STD KILLS a lot more non-straight white people. And yeah. It is 2018. Trek should be the most progressive show on TV--instead, Supergirl and Black Lightning are doing better simply because they didn't bury their gays. And those are from the CW!
Lorca ties into the biggest problem with the show--STD is where potential goes to die.
clearspira wrote: ↑Sun Jul 29, 2018 10:11 pm
It doesn't feel progressive because in 2018 there is NOTHING SPECIAL about being progressive. Every other show now has gays and POC and ''strong'' women and yet for some reason people still act as if they are breaking new ground every time they include one of these groups. Patting yourself on the back for these things instead of focusing on the plot is detrimental because we have seen it all before.
Star Trek basically missed two decades of progression. Mind you, I appreciate the fact it isn't falling into the pattern other works are in retrograding.
I think that's a little unfair. In the 1980s-2000 era we still had a black captain, a woman captain, a blind man, multiple ethnicity crewmembers and men in skirts implying that we have moved beyond certain gender roles. In fact, I would argue that these examples were better done than STD as they didn't crow about it at every opportunity. They were just there, side by side with everyone else without fanfare.
Basically this.
I wouldn't have minded a little discussion of diversity and social justice issues on classic Trek (and they DID try a few times), but at the same time it's the future.
Also classic Trek wasn't under the control of Alex Kurtzman, who couldn't write a coherent script if he literally copy-pasted Shakespeare. At this point, I would rather have BRANNON BRAGA than Kurtzman in charge.
Mebius wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 1:54 am
I think the biggest thing with Discovery and it's new venue, and possibly most of how trek comes off now a days, is how much louder it is when it does things. Tilly can't just say that F-word, she has to say it and then have Stamets comment and follow it up. They can't just have interspecies sex in Discovery, it has to be full on frontal klingon sexual assault or if it's just sex between two humans, it has to be sex under false pretenses, and must end with a phaser in someone's face or a harsh betrayal (has anyone noticed that all the sex in Discovery is under some kind of coercion or with someone who isn't who they say they are?) Michael Burnham can't just be super logical because she was raised by vulcans, she has to do something to remind you of this fact and that it wasn't just any vulcans that raised her, it was mother fucking Sarek, and that she's the stepsister of the most famous vulcan of all time.
I think this wears on people and you can even hear it in chucks voice during the review when Michael is talking to Ash after he starts figuring out who or what he might be.
It's loud, it's stupid, and it's not as smart or as novel or as creative or as diverse as it thinks it is, and it's written by idiots who pretend they have a plan while pulling literally everything out of their asses.
Hang on, I'm going to copy-paste the alternate version of the show that I wrote on AH.com over here.
OK, so I'm gonna take a stab at re-doing STD, I'm Alex Kurtzman, brought in last-minute to fix the show because Alex Kurtzman's only talent is producing product--any product--last-minute on the cheap.
I have the bulk of Fuller's two-parter to work through, but everything after that I can do as I like. The money for the big effects shots (Burnham's space trip, the battle, the space scenes) is already spent.
OK, then.
-----
Personalities for some of the bridge furniture and a couple of lower-decks recurrers:
Security Chief Lieutenant-Commander Ellen Landry (Reka Sharma): A Human of mixed Bengali, French-Canadian, and Anglo-Canadian heritage from the Aldebaran IV colony, Landry has a harsh attitude towards criminals due to her serial-offender father; she thinks that most criminals never change and trying to help them is pointless. Very concerned with proper procedure and strictly following the law.
Helmswoman Lieutenant Keyla Detmer (Emily Coutts): A Human with a Denobulan grandmother from Ireland, hates Burnham because her wife was badly injured and nearly killed by the war that Burnham started, and Detmer herself was scarred badly in the initial battle. Initially adversarial relationship with Burnham with a potential for resolution and apologies. Prickly in general because of her anger but we see her call her wife and she's loving and gentle underneath.
Communications officer Lieutenant JG R.A. Bryce: A Human from Alpha Centauri of African-American extraction, Bryce's initials stand for Robert Anthony, but he was born Roberta Alexandra. Friendly enough, but reserved; doesn't mind Burnham all that much and lets her sit near him at meals (and is willing to listen to her talk for some time, but doesn't respond until the end). Got pilot certification at some point but doesn't like to talk about it (potential Academy accident?)
Operations chief Lieutenant Joann Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo): The Human adopted child of Andorian parents, Joann is of Congolese extraction but was raised on Andoria. She's still acclimatized to cold environments, and wears a modified uniform for comfort (sleeveless thingy or like a glowy cooling tech bit, not cleavage) with the Captain's permission. Outgoing and jovial, even to Burnham, but looks to the chain of command first and has a hard time believing Burnham's wilder ideas and Protagonist crap.
First officer Commander Saru (Doug Jones): This character needs to be fucking rewritten. While his species are stereotyped as cowards due to the incredibly dangerous wildlife of their homeworld forcing them to evolve spider-sense, and Saru himself is cautious and methodical, he has balls of steel underneath, and when his back's to the wall and he has no other options, threatened by an angry Klingon who he's being forced to fight for the amusement or judgement of another, more senior Klingon, he will step up to the plate and deliver badassery like Quark from DS9 would. He isn't concerned with not being a coward, but not being perceived as a coward, and has a great deal of cultural and ethnic pride in the face of the rude stereotype others have of him.
Weapons officer Ensign So-Jul Rhys: A Human of mixed British and Korean extraction, Rhys is a cocky, flirtatious guy a couple years out of the Academy. He's good with weapons, though, and while his pick-up lines suck he takes rejection with easy good grace, a chuckle, and a self-deprecating quip.
Chief Engineer Lieutenant Natalya Harrington: A Human of Russian and American heritage, Harrington was born in space to parents who were active Starfleet officers--said parents were on a long-term planetary survey mission as part of Starfleet's science division (which at this point is still overseen by the Federation Science Council and mostly uses old hulls that the Fleet proper doesn't need), so they didn't get into THAT much trouble, but there were questions about birth control implants that still resulted in some slight controversy. Harrington herself doesn't like talking about this, and claims to be an Earther born and bred.
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Episode 1: Re-shoot dialogue scenes and patch them into the existing ones as much as possible, especially reworking Klingon makeup if legally possible. Re-name Burnham's Vulcan daddy. Skip the scene where she holos him--use Michelle Yeoh for that and make it a character building and discussion scene. Remove any bit of racist dialogue. Re-work the space scenes if possible; this can be done by chopping some stuff up and adding minor sparkle effects to existing ones. What happens is, Burnham goes out, fights a Klingon in a spacesuit, kills him but is injured, nearly dies of asphyxiation. Patched up, can't remember most of what happened, Georgiou has her resume duty anyway. A giant solar flare happens! They don't know it but T'Kuvma did this; it damages the ship and causes a short, Georgiou is hurt, Burnham temporarily takes command. Klingon ship decloaks. Burnham orders OPEN FIRE in desperation.
It's not T'Kuvma's ship, and he chuckles smugly as she blows away a scout carrying an important Klingon dude who was in the area and came to see wtf was happening.
Episode 2: More Klingons show up, with more Feds showing up too. T'Kuvma goes all rabble-rouser, accusing Burnham of murdering *respected old Klingon* and of foul treachery. Negotiations go south and the panicked, horrified Burnham has to fight blah blah blah. She and a somewhat-recovered Georgiou beam over in desperation, and Georgiou is ambushed and mortally wounded before she can reassure Burnham that her mistake was relatable. Burnham kills a bunch of Klingons and crashes the Klingon flagship into another after fighting and defeating T'Kuvma (Georgiou manages to aim a gun enough to get the kill shot despite being semiconscious), then escapes with the dying Georgiou, who dies in her arms blah blah blah. Cut to court-martial, Burnham is made scapegoat to appease angry lawmakers and kicked out.
Remove the scene where Mikey's daddy tells Georgiou that Daddy wants to work on his career so she's the babysitter, or whatever that hackwork was about.
Episode 3: Prison transport, picked up by Discovery and it's prototype transwarp drive. Introduction to real main cast. Intro to Lorca, who comes off as a hard-ass but more like Sisko than anything. Skip the black badges and "black alert" BS. Stamets is an engineer and transwarp specialist (still gay, still married to the doctor). Detmer meets Burnham again and they hate each other. We see Rhys try and fail hilariously to chat up Tilly (who's an Ensign and tech head on Stamets's team, has obsessive-compulsive disorder manifesting as tapping and fascination with obscure alien games, and ADHD manifesting as inability to shift focus (play for a cheap laugh? Tilly reading a book, Burnham tries to get her attention 8 times and cracks a joke about her attention span, Tilly takes it completely seriously and explains that she has an infinite attention span but can't control when it shifts)), few other establishing moments.
Episode 4: Trying to get the transwarp drive to work, it works but tech-tech they can't steer. Whole episode is about Burnham and Stamets working out personal issues trying to fix it. Think ENT: Damage, the one where Trip's mental state parallels the state of the ship; only Stamets overcomes his hiccup and fixes the drive but Burnham fails. Lorca talks with Burnham to try to help her out. Nice fourth-act battle with Klingons and done.
Episode 5: Lorca is on an away mission with a redshirt and they get caught by Klingons. Saru takes command and tries to find them; Skip the Ashvoq plot, and Mudd, but the character Rainn Whatshisface plays is some dude who recognizes Lorca. Lorca panics when he mentions "over there" and "Her Imperial Majesty". Otherwise broadly similar to the canonical episode.
Episode 6: Hopefully we saved enough money to splurge on a big embassy bombing shot! Burnham's daddy is hurt, she has to save him via mind-meld with the help of a young Vulcan whose father was also injured in the blast. At the end, he introduces himself as Spock.
Episode 7: HERE we show Burnham helping someone out. Mirror Dude from episode 5 is back and trying to take the ship, only he's using a Klingon escape pod instead of a space whale and a false distress call to lure them in. Bryce is dealing with his mother's disapproval and Burnham helps him through it, makes some realization about herself, and together they and Stamets manage to save Lorca and Saru, kill Mirror Dude, and stop the time-loop, but they don't find out where Mirror Dude is from outside of cryptic hints. (Mirror Dude is Mirror Mudd, but the audience doesn't realize this until later)
Episode 8: Balance of Terror is the episode we want to ape, not Errand of Mercy. This should be a no-brainer; Submarine battle, no other ships in range (hey, dodgy transwarp tech explains a story point!), duel with a cloaking Klingon ship led by Voq (Latif's only role and using less shitty makeup). Just as Discovery wins a hard-fought battle, more ships arrive!
Episode 9: BIG FLASHY MIDSEASON CLIFFHANGER. The Federation fleet is here! But so are the Klingons! Dump half the special effects budget on this. Mirror some important sequence from episode 1 and have Burnham flash back and consciously do something different that saves the day. But the transwarp drive malfunctions when they go to jump out, and they land...
...viewing what looks like themselves. Or at least, their ship, with a yellow coat of paint and a strange emblem on its bow.
And Lorca is visibly terrified.
Episode 10: Mirror Georgiou, commanding the ISS Conquest introduces herself, but the Mirror Universe angle is not made completely explicit so the fanboys won't completely lose it. Like, we know it's the MU, but Lorca won't talk about it and Mirror!Georgiou just calls it "another universe" and refers to "the Empire, my temporarily former domain". Battle and escape. Burnham urges Lorca to tell them something about the MU but he can't do it, to consumed by creeping fear that the MU's evil will infect the multiverse or whatever his paranoia can come up with. Saru takes command but Burnham's lingering trauma over Georgiou makes her fail in a critical moment. They lose badly and barely escape.
Episode 11: Detmer loses her shit at last over Burnham's latest fuckup as everybody tries to pretend everything is normal (Discovery's being repaired after the thrashing they took). Lorca is recovered enough to go with Landry and break them up as the knock-down drag-out fight leaves Burnham and Detmer with bruises and broken bones and injures several bystanders as Burnham tries to poke Detmer's eyes out and Detmer tries to throttle Burnham. Big episode of breakdowns and personal resolutions and emotional recovery. Lorca doesn't spell out the MU too much but he says that Mirror Georgiou was a terrible despot in his universe, ruler of "the Empire", and all around a bad lady; she's working with the Klingons to conquer the Federation and plans to take over. They set out to stop her.
Episode 12: Mirror Georgiou again encounters the Discovery and crew as they jump in to defend a world she's attacking, but she captures Burnham. Lorca has to overcome his fear with the help of Landry and Saru to rescue Burnham. blah blah blah fairly typical plot Burnham stays strong and despite Mirror Georgiou being a monster and looking just like her mentor keeps herself stable and cool-headed, showing growth. Let Yeoh ham it up and have fun, she's earned it.
Episode 13: Someone's found evidence they claim can stop the war. Discovery must rescue him, deal with his eccentricities (here's when we use Prime!Mudd to make the TOS fanboys happy), evade Mirror Georgiou and her evil minions, and escape back to Federation space--on warp drive, as the transwarp's on the fritz. Prime!Mudd starts spilling the beans on the war.
Episode 14: It turns out that T'Kuvma set off the solar flare with tech-tech and summoned the old dude Burnham killed himself, planning a false-flag attack with a hacked Federation defense station, Mirror Georgiou was working with him and is the mastermind. Starfleet preps Discovery for a mission to Qo'noS to end the war by capturing Mirror Georgiou and delivering her to Qo'noS. Detmer and Burnham bury the hatchet. Lorca gets a message from Mirror Georgiou promising to spare his crew if he surrenders to her for "interrogation and punishment for treason". He takes a shuttle alone and is seen heading out into deep space, where Mirror Georgiou shows up to greet him...
Episode 15: It was a trap! Burnham and Saru spring the trap with brilliant timing, and Burnham and Landry rescue Lorca and capture Mirror Georgiou. Lorca's injured by a Terran agonizer/phaser hybrid, though, so Saru must again take command. Burnham captures Mirror Georgiou after an epic swordfight; have Yeoh ham it up, cheesy lines like "You can't beat me, Michael! I AM THE EMPRESS OF TERRA!" They evade Klingon ships and jump in to Qo'noS, beaming Burnham, the evidence, a small away team, and Mirror Georgiou down with a pants-pissingly scared Mudd to the Great Hall, where Burnham exposes the con to the High Council and broadcasts the whole affair to the entire quadrant. The Council agrees to peace talks and a ceasefire to save face, declaring Georgiou's life forfeit for her dishonorable deeds, and the Mirror Empress is dragged away screaming to prison and certain execution. Burnham is saluted by the High Council, even by Voq, who has been stunned by the revelation that his idol, T'Kuvma, was a fraud and that he was just another power-hungry bastard like those who threw him aside for being albino. She returns and everybody gets a medal.
Post-credits stinger, Mirror Georgiou escapes and vows revenge.
So, Ash is a KINO, surgically altered to look like a TOS era Klingon and passing for a human because no one in this universe has ever seen a real Klingon?
Wow, complaints that DIS isn't diverse enough? That's a first, especially considering how some people (usually the kind who throw around the term 'SJW' non-ironically) talk about it.
It's one thing when Star Wars is being accused of 'pushing diversity politics' but really, this is apatebtlly a huge crime fir Star Trek now?! It really did baffle me seeing those comments, did they really not know this franchise's history?
unknownsample wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 2:04 pm
Does anyone on here like Discovery?
Discovery is a show which I think actually has the potential to be very good.
I like elements of it.
Lorca's PTSD (oops)
Georgiou (oops)
Michael and Saru's frenemy status
Tilly
I like Fran's Sarek - I don't think he gets nearly enough credit
Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad actually is a really good episode, IMHO.
I don't hate any of the characters and I don't think any of the plots are bad actually. They're so desperately trying to big and epic, though, I can't help but feel bad about the fact the vast majority of Star Trek fans would be satisfied with a show at much much less the budget where people stopped to talk to one another for five minutes before EXPLOSION.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion,
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
The hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning,
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
CharlesPhipps wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 2:17 pmI like Fran's Sarek - I don't think he gets nearly enough credit
This, by God. Fran does an excellent job of playing a young Sarek - on the one hand, a homophile (a perfect trait for an Ambassador to Earth and the Federation), yet also vaguely world-weary, and deceptively aware of his strengths and shortcomings, especially regarding Michael. He plays the role as someone who has grown with their 'ward', and learned things from her, and about her, and about humanity. His performance is nuanced in a way I haven't seen a Vulcan played since Leonard Nimoy.
Also, he gets a sweet verbal smackdown on Mirror!Georgiou later.
CharlesPhipps wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 2:17 pmHowever, it needs a retool.
...Also, this, by Jesus. While I felt the show is enjoyable from an entertainment perspective, it lacks cohesion. The usage of multi-episode arcs does help it, and having those arcs tied together is also a strong thing. Unfortunately, there's little consistency either with established canon (macro-continuity) or sometimes even within itself (micro-continuity). DISCO breaks one of the fundamental principles of writing: "Magic A is Magic A", and it seriously damages the integrity of the larger work.
