The Elysian Kingdom (SNW)

[CharlesPhipps]

I felt the acting in the episode was subpar.

But I really did love La'an, La'an's dress, and Princess Runa who should be in all subsequent episodes.

1:30

https://youtu.be/dMlUkl-gP0U

"I've only had this dog for a day but if anything ever happened to him, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself."

[McAvoy]

Gotta love Rosa.

[Mabus]

I find it amusing that M'Benga's daughter arc lasted barely 3 episodes, with her only appearing on screen for like 10 minutes, I think. Yet another example of "the writers didn't think this through", which is typical of NuTrek.

Also, as a side note, the episode tried to make itself relevant by adding an Easter egg with the fairy tale book being written by Benny Russell, the character Sisko was playing in "Far Beyond the Stars". Not sure if the original writer of that episode, Marc Scott Zicree, saw that Easter egg, but he did see the episode and was none too impressed with it. So I guess if the SNW writers were hoping for a praise from him, they were wrong, heh.

Also also, I'm curious how would M'Benga explain his daughter's fate to Starfleet, given that he pretty much kept her on the ship without the captain's knowledge or consent, and it was this decision that lead to the ship being taken over by the magic space cloud.

[CharlesPhipps]

Also, as a side note, the episode tried to make itself relevant by adding an Easter egg with the fairy tale book being written by Benny Russell, the character Sisko was playing in "Far Beyond the Stars". Not sure if the original writer of that episode, Marc Scott Zicree, saw that Easter egg, but he did see the episode and was none too impressed with it. So I guess if the SNW writers were hoping for a praise from him, they were wrong, heh.

Making Benny Russell real and a fantasy writer has a lot of weird implications. It means he made a wildly successful children's book that people are still reading centuries later but it means he never got to do DS9 or continue in pulp sci-fi. Which is a weird bit of continuity derived from an Easter Egg but actually has a lot of depressing implications.

[TGLS]

Making Benny Russell real and a fantasy writer has a lot of weird implications. It means he made a wildly successful children's book that people are still reading centuries later but it means he never got to do DS9 or continue in pulp sci-fi. Which is a weird bit of continuity derived from an Easter Egg but actually has a lot of depressing implications.

Well, there's a few options:
1) Sisko's visions wasn't really what happened
2) It's a different Benny Russell (boo!)
3) Being committed, possibly for a long time, seriously fucked him up so he left DS9 behind.

[J!!]

why would writing a children's book preclude him also writing pulp sci fi?

[CharlesPhipps]

why would writing a children's book preclude him also writing pulp sci fi?

Very few writers in that time perod dabbled in multiple genres, let alone successfully.

[CrypticMirror]

I find it amusing that M'Benga's daughter arc lasted barely 3 episodes, with her only appearing on screen for like 10 minutes, I think. Yet another example of "the writers didn't think this through", which is typical of NuTrek.

I agree that they often don't things through, but in this case they avoided nuTrek's cardinal sin of dragging everything out for far too long. M'Benga's daughter stuck around long enough to be relevant to specific episodes, but did not overstay her welcome in an overdone and drawn out angst drenched season long dominating plot. Discovery could have taken notes.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Making Benny Russell real and a fantasy writer has a lot of weird implications. It means he made a wildly successful children's book that people are still reading centuries later but it means he never got to do DS9 or continue in pulp sci-fi. Which is a weird bit of continuity derived from an Easter Egg but actually has a lot of depressing implications.

Well, there's a few options:
1) Sisko's visions wasn't really what happened
2) It's a different Benny Russell (boo!)
3) Being committed, possibly for a long time, seriously fucked him up so he left DS9 behind.

I think we can take everything at face value. It’s probably him. He never published the book as far as we know, he just wrote it. And we can just use show magic to deduce that he made a highly precise rendition of futuristic conditions.

[CharlesPhipps]

I find it amusing that M'Benga's daughter arc lasted barely 3 episodes, with her only appearing on screen for like 10 minutes, I think. Yet another example of "the writers didn't think this through", which is typical of NuTrek.

I agree that they often don't things through, but in this case they avoided nuTrek's cardinal sin of dragging everything out for far too long. M'Benga's daughter stuck around long enough to be relevant to specific episodes, but did not overstay her welcome in an overdone and drawn out angst drenched season long dominating plot. Discovery could have taken notes.

I suspect they wanted to avoid an "Alexander" situation where the character is stuck with a child they have to write in about.