Short Treks: Q & A

[Darth Wedgius]

https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/st05.php

I liked what I saw, mostly. Number One being uber-capable is a common fan interpretation, from what I can tell. And it's a nice way to take the potential disadvantages (low budget, short running time) and work them into an existing story.

[Deledrius]

I liked it. Not everything landed, for me, but it was a good enough short. And again just leaves me wanting someone writing full-length, competently-told Pike-era episodes.

Also, hooray for calling out the idiotic turbolift effects.

[Mecha82]

Focus on Spock and Number 1 was nice change of pace from usual even when it comes to these shorts and this comes from some who doesn't hate Michael. I do wonder why Number 1 doesn't have actual name. Also it was good to hear turbolift design called out for being so overdesigned.

[clearspira]

The Enterprise looks fuck all like the Enterprise. There is ''updating'' the old design for the modern era, and then there is creating something that looks nothing like what it is based on.

I assume we are just meant to use willing suspension of disbelief that this ship would be completely redesigned for The Cage and then completely redesigned for The Slow Motion Picture, yeah? Well, balls to that. You are asking me to not think and I refuse to do that. I mean come off it... what is the point in-universe? Why not just make a completely new ship if you are going to gut the entire thing inside and out twice? We are talking a 95% total conversion here. Hull, equipment, technology, furniture, decor - the lot.
My fellow Brits may remember an episode of Only Fools and Horses where Trigger won a medal for claiming that he has been using the same broom for 20 years only to obliviously reveal that it has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles in that time. Sooner or later, we have to admit that the 1701 in this episode and the 1701 that made it to The Search For Spock is no longer the same damn ship no matter what its registry says.

Starfleet's unending obsession with changing its uniform design is now at its zenith too. The STD design, this design, The Cage design and the TOS design all within months of each other. And we all thought that wearing the TNG and DS9 designs simultaneously in ''Generations'' was stupid.

My review: A great episode if we were watching a show called ''Star Adventure'' rather than Star Trek. But as it isn't, it isn't.

[CrypticMirror]

I really do wish they would put Discovery into the JJ Trekverse instead of the original timeline. It would be a huge benefit to the show itself, or even put it into its own timeline (Like TAS), because it would free it up to take things in a whole new direction, like bringing Pike back as Captain and ending the Defence Against The Dark Arts professor policy we've had to the central chair, and unshackle it from the continuing fanwars over the continuity. It cannot be doing the show any good for it to have such a divided fanbase, even if they got a lot of mileage at first from the publicity of pitting the fanbase against itself with the whole "Not your daddy's Trek...etc" mess to bait those clicks. Surely we're past the point of diminishing returns on that though?

[Thebestoftherest]

I do wish they could go forward in time. Ds9 was the last time the original series went forward until Piccard.

[clearspira]

I really do wish they would put Discovery into the JJ Trekverse instead of the original timeline. It would be a huge benefit to the show itself, or even put it into its own timeline (Like TAS), because it would free it up to take things in a whole new direction, like bringing Pike back as Captain and ending the Defence Against The Dark Arts professor policy we've had to the central chair, and unshackle it from the continuing fanwars over the continuity. It cannot be doing the show any good for it to have such a divided fanbase, even if they got a lot of mileage at first from the publicity of pitting the fanbase against itself with the whole "Not your daddy's Trek...etc" mess to bait those clicks. Surely we're past the point of diminishing returns on that though?

I agree, it would solve a lot. I would say though that marketing something as ''not daddy's Trek'' (which clearly was their intention) is that you need to actually attract a new fanbase to replace the old one to make the risk worthwhile. How do I know that they failed to do so?
As I have said before with STD, successful shows do not need to completely reinvent themselves for season 3 because season 3 should be the moment in which your show is reaching its golden age. The actors should have nailed their characters to near perfection, the writers should now know what to do with them, and the audience should be by now immersed in this world and what is going on.

Clearly, old fans did not take to STD nor did new fans pick up the slack.

[Deledrius]

I do wonder why Number 1 doesn't have actual name.

She's been given a name on-screen twice now, but they seem to realize it's idiotic or else are just trying to be coy. One of the Trek authors gave her the joke name "Una" a few years back in one of the novels, and Discovery seems to have decided that making her entire existence a pun was the right move.

[Thebestoftherest]

I do wish they said that Micheal was Spock cousin, and that Michael always saw the two of them as closer than they really were.

[Darth Wedgius]

I think making STD an alternate continuity would have helped many fans give it its own space. It could have been from Spock Prime punching the universe or something.