Star Trek Discovery: Season Three

[Link8909]

I'm more interested that we got some lore on what happened with the Guardian of Forever in the interregnum between Picard and DISCO S3. Apparently, the Guardian of Forever was found and used to fight in the Temporal Wars, by someone. I don't think Starfleet would've done that, as they had their own temporal technology (as we saw in Voyager.) Given what we saw of the Temporal Cold War in ENT (...oh dear...) there were a few different factions in play, and probably more factions than we realize. With that said, I do hope that this backstory isn't well-explored, simply because Star Trek's writers aren't equal to the task of making it good or engaging.

Honestly, with the little bits of information we've gotten about the Temporal War during season three, I'm more interested in this conflict than I was during Star Trek Enterprise when it was shoehorned into that series, and with all the new series being announced, I'm not opposed to seeing a series set during this war, and really being creative with the concepts of time travel.

I also like when Star Trek does goes back and expands on episodes and ideas like in The Wrath of Khan or First Contact, and here with The Guardian of Forever, despite being very recognisable and plenty of poetical for stories, before this we've only seen Carl in two episodes in the entire franchise, same goes with a lot of other parts of Star Trek like the Gorn, the Orion's, the Tholian's and plenty of other aliens, durning the TNG era it seemed like a lot of these things would be forgotten, it wouldn't be until Deep Space Nine we would return to the Mirror Universe (and even then it was unrecognisable), the Organian's wouldn't be mentioned went the Federation was at war with the Klingon's again, and until Enterprise we would start to learn more about the Andorian's (and they help found the Federation),

So I do like that this era of Trek is gong back to explore and expand on things that have seemingly been forgotten.

With DISCO returning focus to the Discovery-A, I think an interesting point to bring up is that Burnham seems...more even-keeled at the end of Terra Firma than she did at the start. She's been forced to come to grips with her loss, and I think that slowly she's realizing for real that her choices have consequences, and that she needs to think things through. To this point in the series, she's been impulsive to the point of recklessness and stupidity, as I've discussed many times before. I think losing Georgiou for realzies, and with no possibility of take-backs, is going to affect the character. At least, I hope it will. S1 and early S3 Burnham were downright insufferable.

I also like how Burnham was used in Terra Firma. I suggested before that the writers refer to the DS9 style of writing episodes - choose a character, give them a story arc, and then have all the other characters support that story. While that's not what happened, Terra Firma was closer to that form than what we had before, and the juxtaposition of Mirror!Burnham with Prime!Burnham was helpful in telling the last Emperor Georgiou story...until Section 31 comes out.

I think after the events of "Unification III" Michael has changed for the better, and it's "Terra Firma" that we truly see that change as she was finally able to let go of Georgiou, and personally I didn't mind her recklessness because it was not only called out, but was serving her character arc, and now we have a Michael with the best of both worlds as it were, someone who is more open and "lighter" as Tilly first pointed out, but is not a complete maverick either, which is good because it gives Sonequa Martin-Green more acting range besides kind of Vulcan stoicism.

Oh yeah. Let's talk about that. Before this started, I saw three possible trajectories for Georgiou:

A) Georgiou dies permanently, killing the in-universe context for the S31 series.
B) Georgiou lives and goes back to DISCO as a regular, postponing an in-universe context for the S31 series.
C) Georgiou lives and is thrown back to an earlier period, all but creating an in-universe context for the S31 series.

We got option C, with a fake-out towards A. With that said, there's still no guarantee that S31 will be a thing. With that said, though, yesterday when I woke up I thought S31 was vaporware. Now, I'm not so sure.

I does feel like Star Trek Section 31 is going ahead, the only reason many (even myself) have doubts about it is that it's been so long since its announcement and have yet to see anything (which of course we wouldn't, we don't work at CBS), and with the character growth we've seen from Georgiou here, I'm more open to this series if and when it comes.

[Link8909]

The difference between Dukat and Georgiou is that Dukat liked to claim he was ALWAYS the good guy and that whatever evil he did was done for justice, whereas Georgiou had to be a barbarian because she was in a barbarous world where compassion was seen as a weakness, and once she got a taste of the Prime universe she could never truly go back home.

Exactly, Dukat was given plenty of chances to change, but had such an ego that he could never, while Georgiou simply couldn't change because it would mean death in the Mirror Universe, and it was once she was "freed" that she saw a better way, even if she didn't know it until she returned "home".

[Link8909]

A good way to tell if a main character had any real impact on a series is to see if after their departure, the series suffers.

So Wesley, Pulaski, Kes and Jadzia had no real impact?

Pulaski definitely had no impact on TNG. She is literally never brought up again. She isn't even at Riker and Troi's wedding - and Wesley stops being a god to attend that. It is also hard to argue that season 3 isn't massively better than season 2.

I would also say that Kes's only real impact on VOY was escaping Borg space. Barring her return as Evil Grandma, did VOY ever really acknowledge Kes after she left? I would argue that she is memorable because she's a hot elf nurse rather than because she was a memorable character. At least Seven has character layers behind the bulging catsuit.

I can't help but notice that Jadzia was left out. Jadzia's death led to not one, but at least three or five character arcs!

1. The Sisko's relationship with the Dax symbiote changed from being someone who was soft-mentored by a fully-realized Joined Trill, to being a mentor to someone who was joined as an emergency.
2. Worf's relationship with the Dax symbiote changed from being married to Jadzia, to having to figure out his feelings towards Ezri, who further had very different feelings about the Klingon Empire than Jadzia did.
3. Bashir's relationship with the Dax symbiote changed from a co-worker of Jadzia's who, in the first seasons, he tried to date in as annoying of a manner as possible, to a full-on romantic interest with Ezri, and this time with everyone being aware that he's an Augment, and with him having a bit more world experience than those first, awkward passes at Jadzia
4. The Dax symbiote itself changed in prominence. As noted with the Sisko, Dax started off as a repository of knowledge and wisdom. At the end of the series, Dax was in a position of needing to adapt to an awkward situation as a result of the emergency joining.
5. Ezri herself had an ongoing character arc in DS9 S7, as she adapted to the reality of being a joined Trill, and dealing with all the personalities she carries within herself, as well as the consequences of a previous host dying.

...I think Jadzia singlehandedly demolishes the notion that a character leaving means they had no impact.

Of course as noted before: DS9's writers were simply better than those who wrote the other three characters on that list. Wesley is still one of the most hated characters in Trek due to sheer arrogance and creepiness. Pulaski the Gorgon is proof that, in the 24th century, humanity hasn't outgrown bigotry. Kes was literally written by writers whose approach to continuity was "f@#$ it."

Maybe a stronger argument that could be made is the opposite of what Mabus said. A good way to tell if a departure is going to have impact, is to know if the main character's presence or departure has implications on the story.

If a character doesn't matter, no one will really care that the character is gone. If the character is sufficiently bad, the story will improve for their leaving. If the character is sufficiently well-written, however, it will cause the story to adapt to the sudden loss.

Very true, I also feel that with many of these character that we never got episodes that really touched on their departure, simply because the nature of how the series was produced back then when it was far more episodic, and not just deaths, I remember "The Changeling" when Uhura got her memories erased, that's a major character change, and yet it was hand waved away off screen, and there are plenty of other time in Star Trek were characters go through major changes but nothing come of it.

With Jadzia, as you said the writers of Deep Space Nine were more willing and capable of serialised storytelling, and were able to show the consequences of her death.

[Link8909]

Okay, here's something I just realised, now that the Discovery crew have them Comm-Badges with personal transporters, this means that the Transporter Chief is out of a job, and the Transporter Room is obsolete.

[Al-1701]

Not necessarily. A full scale transporter probably has more range and power than the personal ones. So it still has a use and situations where it would be preferred. And someone needs to keep the personal transporters in good working order, so the TC might be where you go for maintenance and repairs.

[Mabus]

A good way to tell if a main character had any real impact on a series is to see if after their departure, the series suffers.

So Wesley, Pulaski, Kes and Jadzia had no real impact?

Maybe a stronger argument that could be made is the opposite of what Mabus said. A good way to tell if a departure is going to have impact, is to know if the main character's presence or departure has implications on the story.

If a character doesn't matter, no one will really care that the character is gone. If the character is sufficiently bad, the story will improve for their leaving. If the character is sufficiently well-written, however, it will cause the story to adapt to the sudden loss.

I think I might have written that poorly. I apologize and rephrase:
"A good way to tell if a main character was important to the story/series is to see if after the character leaves the show, someone else can fill their role and not change the direction of the story, basically if the role of a character can be done ad literam by another, be it main or minor, then your character is not necessary and its role can be either given to others or split between others" (I guess "suffers" has a slight different meaning in English, since I meant it as "improves or breaks", should have said "suffers or not")
A good example is Daniel Jackson from Stargate: When Shanks left the series after season 5, the new character of Jonas couldn't fill his place since his persona was too different and thus he had to be written in a way that would fit the dynamics of the SG1 team (obviously the new guy won't be a clone of the old one) which ultimately lead to changing the dynamics of S6. Since not only the fish out of water was done better with Teal'c, Jonas' persona leaned closer to Carter (given his background in science), so they had to change him to make him more "detective-like", basically the writers had to give him something new, different than the previous character to make him distinct... which is necessary, but inevitable changes the dynamics of the story.

By comparison, in Stargate Atlantis, the character of Aiden Ford simply didn't fit in the story so after he left not much changed, if anything the presence of Ronon Dex improved the team dynamics, especially since he was almost opposite to the other "outsider" character, Teyla. Likewise, the departure of Elizabeth Weir didn't affect the character the team dynamics that much, since she wasn't always important enough for the story, but unlike in the other cases, replacing Weir with Carter didn't improve the story much since her character was already established in the previous series so it didn't bring much to the table. By comparison replacing Carter with Woosley worked a bit better since Woosley started as by-the-book bureaucrat who always wanted to do the right thing even if no one liked him to leading an expedition who did plenty of that and worse, so it feels a bit more natural.

As for the Trek characters mentioned:
Wesley - Everyone and the actor hated the character, reducing its role and ultimately removing the character from the series allowed the other characters to grow; So his departure didn't hurt the series, it did the opposite. Improvement.
Pulaski - Few liked her character, doesn't help that in an attempt to write the character as "tough" they decided to make her a bit like McCoy only without the charm, meaning she ended up annoying. Bringing back Beverly didn't change much, if anything there was a slight improvement. No change.
Kes - While she had important roles in the first 3 seasons, they were all confined to individual episodes (though this is due to the show's writing) she didn't amount much save for sending Voyager away from Borg space... after encountering them 2 episodes ago. And given that they kept re-encountering the Borg for the next seasons, I'd say even that wasn't anymore different than the other stories she was involved. Replacing her with Seven of Nine however felt like an improvement since Jeri Ryan was able to deliver better performances with what she was given and her chemistry with the Doctor was better than the chemistry Kes had with Neelix. Overall improvement.
Jadzia - With the risk of getting pelted with rotten tomatoes, I don't think the departure of Jadzia had that much of an impact to the show, and I think it's because of two things:
a) She didn't have an important role or personal stakes in the Dominion War, or the Maquis, Cardassian war, Ferenginar, Pah-Wraith or Section 31 arcs like the other main characters (Odo, Sisko, Bashir, Kira, O'Brien and even Nog had more personal stakes in these stories), mentions of friends lost in the war don't count for obvious reasons, her role was mostly confined to smaller stories, especially in the early stories, and as the Dominion War arc evolved, her role got smaller. She had more presence and stakes in the Trill episodes (I never got the impression that the Trill episodes could count as an arc, they were closer to Worf's episodes in TNG) than in the main story arcs. Not sure if Berman had something to do with her reducing her presence in the main story arcs, but even after Jadzia got replaced with Ezri, her role was still more significant to smaller stories (like the one with the serial killer) than to the Dominion War arc, which leads me to...
b) Due to the fact that an important part of her character literally involves the transfer of one's memories to a new host courtesy of an alien symbiote, she's never technically dead, so she's in the unique position where her character can be replaced by almost anyone and not affect her character much, since you're basically replacing the actor. Replacing Jadzia with Ezri didn't changed the series as much as it should have, especially given that it happened nearly the end of the series, and there was only one season left, half of which was a multi-parter about ending the war, so her absence didn't have any significant effect.

Now ofcourse, you don't need to have the character 100% tied to the main story so that the departure of said character affects the series one way or another. Your character can simply be written poorly, but the actor has enough charisma to overcome that flaw and become memorable due to their acting/performance. So when the actor leaves, their absence is significant. This is not the case with Yeoh in Discovery. Maybe she's better in other works, but in STD she was cringy and flat, and I feel that the editing wasn't helping her either. By comparison Jason Isaacs's performance as Lorca was more memorable (not the best but not the worst), despite the crap he was given, even if at the end they turned him into dollar store Hitler. Then Anson Mount as Pike was also OK despite the nonsense he was given to work with. Unfortunately due to how the show is written, their presences had little impact on the series so you can't tell if their absence affected the series in the long run, since the producers don't seem to be capable of long-term planning.

Unlike the previous Trek shows, I'm more harsh towards NuTrek, because
1)There's already 30+ years of Trek from which there are hundreds of lessons one can learn and where improvements can be made, so you don't get to pull the "it was bad before, it just needs time to get its pace", you don't need to be perfect from start, just write something decent
2)New and fresh writers and producers (all 50+ of them), so they (in theory) shouldn't repeat the same issues that plagues the previous series (overpowered character that overshadows the other characters, no proper character development to anyone but the creator's pet, contradictory morals, contrived coincidences, technobabble or just technononsense, bad acting, easy to avoid plot holes, etc.)
3)Each season is shorter than the other, old Trek had like 20-26 episodes per season, NuTrek on average has 10-15, meaning you can't afford like a dozen of stand-alone stories, so your resulting story has to be tight because your series is tight, you have to trim the fat and focus only on the important aspects of the story, because
4)The entire series is heavily serialized much more than the old ones, meaning there's no time to waste by going on pointless adventures and if you have a limited number of characters, as all too often happens you need to properly flesh them out, and no, having the background characters gather around and have them exposition how they feel about the creator's pet is never a look into the other characters' persona
5)Bigger budget (really, both DIS and PIC have a bigger budget per episode than most HBO or Prime series) so the sets should not look like they were make from cardboard and filmed in the local school or junkyard and most importantly
6)Don't just say "X represents Y, Y represents B" while onscreen you're showing the opposite, don't tell me the Romulans represent the refugee crisis while showing them as far-right wing caricatures

[clearspira]

Okay, here's something I just realised, now that the Discovery crew have them Comm-Badges with personal transporters, this means that the Transporter Chief is out of a job, and the Transporter Room is obsolete.

It kind of already was though. I've always wondered what the transporter room did by the time of TNG and VOY as it can be operated from seemingly any console on the ship and/or by voice commands. Not to mention that the runabout transporters were 100% automated.

As noted though, the chief's job is probably to maintain them.

[Durandal_1707]

Speaking of maintenance......... do you suppose it might be possible for an admin to fix that typo in the thread topic?

Sorry, it's just been bugging me for a while.

[Thebestoftherest]

Speaking of maintenance......... do you suppose it might be possible for an admin to fix that typo in the thread topic?

Sorry, it's just been bugging me for a while.

I am with you there.

[Asvarduil]

Speaking of maintenance......... do you suppose it might be possible for an admin to fix that typo in the thread topic?

Sorry, it's just been bugging me for a while.

I've been being very polite, but oh my god yes change it change it change it!

That typo troubles me something fierce.