Star Trek Discovery: Season Three

[TGLS]

Hey Zargon beat me to Episode 8! And, given that he hasn't stopped hating it, I think he actually likes it.

Just going to leave this here:
https://variety.com/2016/digital/news/d ... 201805727/

[Asvarduil]

I want to revisit a point I'd brought up earlier, the bragging about how "more diverse" Star Trek has become. We see this with all sorts of older rebooted IPs the new, modern studios like to inject woke into it and pretend it's their own. I've seen people criticize this by waving it aside, "Well, Star Trek was always diverse." So which is it then? You cannot literally claim "more diverse" as you claim it was "always diverse" unless you want to look like a deliberate hypocrite.

You're presuming that 'diverse' implies a yes/no, true/false, or 'boolean' state of possibilities, when it actually implies a continuum of possibilities.

If you have a white sheet of paper, placed alongside a pencil sketch of something - anything - the pencil sketch is more diverse than the plain paper. There's more variance in what is on the sketch, than the plain paper.

If you then copy that sketch, and shade bits with a single colored pencil, that colored sketch is more diverse than the pencil sketch and the plain paper - there's an additional color. This new colored sketch varies from the plain apper and the pencil sketch.

You can add a new design to the mix, add more colors - the result is that the collection of things is more diverse than it was before. The presence of differences - which is what diversity actually means - is increased with each new sketch added to the collection.

So, then, let's go back and add the exact number of pages in the collection, with blank sheets of paper. You've reduced the level of difference - the collection is now less diverse, since half of it is exactly the same (blank sheets of paper).

Now, to add to that: You can use 'diverse' in a boolean sense too! It just changes to a condition. "This collection is diverse." means, "This collection has variance in it." "This TV show is not diverse" means, "The actors on this TV show are from similar backgrounds, heritages, and/or cultures, even though some variance may or may not exist."

I think on some level, you understand that your hangup is that your definition of what 'diverse' means, doesn't hold with what diversity actually is, but you didn't previously have a different perspective from which to see it.

Last thing, too - to be fair to you, and others who think like you. Very often, media and criticism uses that 'boolean' usage of 'diverse'; few people explain the meaning as I did, because they believe it to be understood that everyone knows the meaning of the word. Some people actually don't - in fact, I'd say a lot of people don't. People tend to pick up on the meaning of new words through repeated usages in context, not being a fucking nerd like me. Given how often 'is diverse' and 'is not diverse' appear in literature and critique, I believe one can and should be forgiven for not immediately realizing that diversity describes a continuum of variance, and not merely that differences are present in something.

I think that when 'we' - by which I mean our society in general - discuss diversity, that we don't frame diversity in boolean terms, because as I took all that time to explain, diversity isn't actually boolean.

[Asvarduil]

Hey Zargon beat me to Episode 8! And, given that he hasn't stopped hating it, I think he actually likes it.

Just going to leave this here:
https://variety.com/2016/digital/news/d ... 201805727/

So, what you're saying, is that if I go out of my way to make a TV show that would make the people who spawned Threshold weep and cry for mercy, that I'd probably have a show that gets a lot of views?

...Well, I guess we've just explained YouTube, haven't we?

[Mabus]

Hey Zargon beat me to Episode 8! And, given that he hasn't stopped hating it, I think he actually likes it.

Just going to leave this here:
https://variety.com/2016/digital/news/d ... 201805727/

“If you can’t stand a Kardashian, you are more likely to watch the show next week,”

Remember Uwe Boll and his shitty Ponzi scheme-like films? Everybody hates them, yet for some reason no one wants to touch them. I doubt it's because the douche kept challenging his critics to a boxing match, I feel that it's more than just hate alone, you also need to care to bother, to care to watch them. Which most people don't (moreso since everybody knows why he made those shitty films). So many people hate those films actually don't bother to watch them, let alone to care about them.

But the Cardassians? I hate them because they're shoved almost everywhere and they're made more important then they actually are, they're entire public image is astroturfed, not to mention they're mostly "popular" in America and this often doesn't translate well abroad. So I don't care to search them and hate-watch them because I just don't care.

[Asvarduil]

Hey Zargon beat me to Episode 8! And, given that he hasn't stopped hating it, I think he actually likes it.

Just going to leave this here:
https://variety.com/2016/digital/news/d ... 201805727/

“If you can’t stand a Kardashian, you are more likely to watch the show next week,”

Remember Uwe Boll and his shitty Ponzi scheme-like films? Everybody hates them, yet for some reason no one wants to touch them. I doubt it's because the douche kept challenging his critics to a boxing match, I feel that it's more than just hate alone, you also need to care to bother, to care to watch them. Which most people don't (moreso since everybody knows why he made those shitty films). So many people hate those films actually don't bother to watch them, let alone to care about them.

But the Cardassians? I hate them because they're shoved almost everywhere and they're made more important then they actually are, they're entire public image is astroturfed, not to mention they're mostly "popular" in America and this often doesn't translate well abroad. So I don't care to search them and hate-watch them because I just don't care.

While I think you meant 'Kardashians', it's also a fact that this exists: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zK-ugbncu4c/ ... ssians.jpg

...In hindsight, having a TV show about nothing and people who are good at, for, and with nothing, is exactly the kind of Magnificant Bastard-ery that one would expect of Cardassia.

[Makeshift Python]

This sums it all up.


youtu.be/NI7As3rOogo

[CharlesPhipps]

I admit to the entirely sexist fact that I watched the Bloodrayne movies for the incredible hotness of the actresses.

[Captain Crimson]

What matters first and foremost is a good story, and it wouldn't be so much of an issue on the "more diverse/always diverse" disconnect if there was more acknowledgement of the past lore and creative attempts and progressive themes for its time beyond the most broad strokes. Too many people coming into the production who have some familiarity with it, but at this late stage in society, it's just not enough, it would be past even I think the most skilled writers of the golden and silver ages except the hardcore-hardcore nerds, and we are few and far between, always have been.

It's the end of the monoculture, as the fragmentation of society means we form our own tiny little communities through the online digital sphere, start making more informed choices as consumers... and I think that's one, just one, reason contributing to rising depression. Not entertainment, per se, but that it's symptomatic to the larger issues, which is choice overload everywhere now. And with social media as the democratization to culture that Big Tech and the MSM fear, it really kind of backs up my point that people don't want they freedom they claim, not really. Just a limitation of freedom under a rigid system. The end of the monoculture is why you can claim that STD and STP are both successes and failures, because both viewpoints hold inherent intrinsic value as opinions. It makes the studio suits happy and gets general praise in the little subculture of some older fans, newcomers, casuals, SJWs, and children, you know, the usual stuff, that STD and STP belong to. And then it gets a lot of criticism, even hate and rejection from older fans, primarily, but plenty of other groups, anti-corporate types, creative fans, continuity geeks, and so forth, in their little subculture. That's a generalization, but you get the point. Both subcultures have around the same number of people, but at the end of the day, it's still a tiny drop in the bucket overall.

Wanting freedom means you have to accept the consequences to that, and that seems past the scope of much among my generation or civilization in general.

[Asvarduil]

What matters first and foremost is a good story, and it wouldn't be so much of an issue on the "more diverse/always diverse" disconnect if there was more acknowledgement of the past lore and creative attempts and progressive themes for its time beyond the most broad strokes. ...

Interesting perspectives.

I agree that the first two seasons were, simply put, an awful idea as executed, in nearly all ways. Really, DISCO should have started in the future, perhaps even before The Burn. SFX has come a long way since 1960, and without CBS being willing to cater to the details of a pre-TOS aesthetic - something somewhere between Enterprise and TOS, but leaning towards TOS - it was going to be visually jarring, no matter what.

Additionally, I do agree that the writing staff either hasn't done their research, or has a misunderstanding of a number of things they attempt to discuss. Burnham's role in a military organization, what PTSD is and how it works, war crimes (Prime Georgiou commits one in S1E1 for chrissakes), the contributing factors to fascism and adoption of authoritarian beliefs in real life...knowing anything about any one of those topics would've helped S1 be better than it was, and would've radically reshaped the writing.

S2 suffered from the poorly-used Red Angel signals, and trying to set up a more cerebral "mystery" for the season long arc, when A) the writers weren't up to that, and B) that's not something Star Trek really does. I think that adds to disillusionment with the series.

Where I think DISCO S3 is strong, is that it's gotten back to its "Wagon Train among the Stars" feel. In the 32nd century, the Milky Way really is the wild, wild west, and the Federation's role in basic humanitarian endeavors is made important, unlike a lot of episodes of TNG, where literally everyone can roll their eyes at whatever the Federation foists on the crew of the Enterprise-D.

With that said, I'm fairly sure Star Trek hasn't abandoned progressive/liberal themes - Adira Tal's coming out as non-binary this episode is a modern touchpoint, in that our LGBT+ neighbors have a very hard time with that, because key people in their lives are very capable of just not understanding (to be fair, as a straight white man myself, I literally can't comprehend not really feeling like a guy, even though I have critiques on what traditional masculinity does to men, based on my life experiences.)

Additionally, there's a number of more disturbing worldviews, in that people who are transgender - like Grey Adal was implied to be - are routinely the subject of violence the world over, in part due to them being "a trap", and existing anti-LGBT propaganda. Speaking of, the depiction of the Stamets family is generally considered a much more common of what LGBT partnerships and families are really like, instead of some of the caricatures that have been around for the last few centuries depicting them as sex-crazed and desiring to "convert" others to their orientation, somehow.

The conflict between Lorca and the DISCO crew in S1 - the first clue he wasn't all he seemed - was another: while I think most people can agree that "You shouldn't poop where you eat", it's a disturbing fact that part of the reason there's yearly recalls of salad greens, is because parts of the United States not only expect, but mandate that crops get grown with greywater. In reality, there's a real political conflict between people who think we really ought to take more care of our environment before it's too late, and those who are OK with status quo, and f@#$ the planet, because it'll get bad long after they die. They got their piece of the pie!

The last thing I'll say - you bring up "the consequences of freedom." You're 100% right about that. Making information free the way social media has, certainly has consequences, as well as the proliferation of "free" products and services (although, I don't think the software is the product, so much as the users themselves are.) The free information economy has shown us that "the Marketplace of Ideas" doesn't actually work, in the same way that free markets don't. While free markets tend towards monopolistic control, "Marketplaces of Ideas" tend towards chaotic misinformation, since any ol' fool with a platform can shout facts down with impunity. I wouldn't be surprised if someone succeeded at claiming that, with a sufficiently powerful laser, you could shoot a hole in an event horizon.

With that said, in order for society to not make Michael Burnham-grade decisions - decisions based on information, but that hurt everyone including the decider - we really do need facts and honest discourse, and to agree on what things actually mean. I don't think the end of monoculture is quite as scary as the abandonment of consensus on facts, how to find facts (science), and the role that trust actually plays in every facet of life. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that trust really is more valuable than any stockpiles of currency, because you can have all the money or resources or whatever in the world...but if no one believes what you say, it won't much matter. Someone more trusted will rise to social prominence, and thus to political power.

[Captain Crimson]

Yes, moving a millennium into the future was a smart idea, honestly the first one in a long time, so that you can ignore the modern bland, generic format for most TV shows or movies, and continuity is at least something you can sort of pave over, there's no way that could be set ten years prior to Kirk, as is. STP also has potential for this sort of long-term "keep afloat, but don't really strive for entertainment/creative zenith as of yore" goal in mind, being set 20 years after STN. Is it to the heights of old? H, no! But at least it's building upward toward something, potentially. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Same missteps made in SW RN, TBH. Though I don't know if they can salvage it. At least MST seems like it's something you can salvage, while for SW, the future to that feels... dead, whether it's a slow, lingering death or an instant loss, but I think cultural inertia will finish the deed at some point down the line.