Don’t suppose you have an episode list for these purposes, do you? That sounds more appealing than the argument about which show’s bad first two seasons to suffer through to get to the good stuff that I got the last time I considered checking out Star Trek.
For the first two seasons, I’d say watch these:
S1E1: Encounter at Farpoint (it’s not good, but it introduces the characters)
S1E12: Datalore
S2E9: The Measure of a Man (first really good episode)
S2E16: Q Who (introduction of the Borg)
For Season 3 and on, if you go to IMDB and look at the episode ratings, they’re a pretty good overall guide. Depending on how many total episodes you want to watch, just set your minimum somewhere between 8.0 and 8.5. :) (And ignore the high rating for I, Borg. Ugh.)
My key “Don’t miss” Episodes:
Yesterday’s Enterprise
Best of Both Worlds Part 1 an 2
Family
Darmok
Redemption Pt 1 and 2
Cause and Effect
The Inner Light (my favorite)
Relics (if you’re a fan of the original Star Trek)
Chain of Command Pt. 1 and 2
Parallels (this one’s just fun)
Second Chances
Lower Decks
All Good Things
There are of course many more good episodes than this, but IMHO these are the best.
Is that really necessary? The new show works as a generic sci fi series, with no prior Trek knowledge required - and you don’t want to put the poor kid off for life by making her sit through that old stuff… ;)
Thanks!
I tip my hat to you and your attentive eyes, @Steel_Wind. Well predicted.
Btw, the mirror universe people being more sensitive to light, is that something that had been established in previous shows already?
Yeah I mean if you’re going to live in a universe full of mirrors you’re probably going to be getting some bright light in your eyes now and then.
Well, this is quickly becoming the best Star Trek season I can remember. I mean, I think it already is unless they really fuck it up in the final episodes.
This is pure Star Trek, a twist to the formula that reveals it’s not a twist at all but a different way to look at the same thing.
I like the theory that Voq will bring upon the classic Klingons. If that happens (and after all these twits I think it very well might), then we are talking of meta-trolling at the highest level.
I hope they don’t try to explain the Klingon look. Its been tried to be done in previous Trek shows and they were all dumb IMO. People just need to accept its a new show in a different decade(dealing with IP that goes back 60 years now).
They don’t really have to do anything more. Having established that there is a process by which you can surgically alter a Klingon to look like a human, that’s enough to make the explanation possible.
We’re not talking about a single person. They are saying this will somehow explain getting from Discovery looking Klingons to what they looked like before as an entire race. Surgery doesn’t explain that.
They already explained it. The augment virus.
(Worf’s “we don’t speak of it” was a great way to handle it. Alas, they gave in to the fans…)
The novels I read as a kid has the best explanation, which was just species variation among Klingons from different parts of the empire. We just happened to only see the human-ish ones in Kirk’s encounters. The forehead ridge Klingons were of a higher caste, one too badass to be bothered with Federation conflicts.
They screwed that up in DS9, though, when they brought back the TOS Klingons for some good episodes but gave them forehead turtles.
Anyway, ST:D is only 10 years before TOS, so it would take an event of pretty staggering magnitude to human-ize all the Klingons in the empire that quickly.
Wish they’d gone with the novel explanation, though. Could have easily been addressed by having a human-looking Klingon show up in a TNG/DS9 episode and all the ridge-Klingons being snotty towards him/her.
Today’s episode was great again and felt the most Trek of the whole series. Loved the bridge scene on the discovery and the way they took on the problems. Wondering how they will wrap up the season now.
Yeah, seriously - this was amazing television. My GF was kinda bummed when it ended, saying she just got totally into the mood. Its really the best series I have am watching currently.
I really like the direction of the story, but two things really annoyed me when watching it (usually I can brush off the imperfections of this show).
- when they went to the mirror universe Phillipa as emperor was portrayed as the ultimate nightmare scenario. Bloodthirsty tyrant, tortures anyone and everyone, and wiping out or enslaving all non-human species. The complete antithesis to starfleet in the good universe. But now Lorca is even worse of a bad guy, and is deposing her because apparently Phillipa let alien races in or something? I can see them desperately trying to shoehorn in the current immigration debate into the show, but I don’t think it works at all and goes unexplained.
- twice in one episode Michael’s plan was to get captured at gunpoint and then somehow magically disarm a whole room of gun-toting baddies. It’s such a lame way to write action scenes.
- the technobabble was at its peak in this episode, but hey, trek.
The thing that got me is, it’s not just one universe and the mirror, it’s a whole myriad right? Possibly infinite judging by all the bifurcations Stamets has to navigate to get back home.
And this mycelial network links them all together, in a way where all it takes is one of those universes to screw with the network and it wipes out everything.
Out of the two universes we’ve seen, the rate of near total multiverse annihilation is 50 percent. :)
I realise it’s a small sample size, but given the possibly inifinite number of universes this reality seems a bit of a fragile, error prone setup if it trends so easily toward obliteration! :)
Since they told the media that the show would be about Trump, I’ve been waiting to see how that happens, and finally it does. Lorca says he wants to “make the empire great again”. Okay. So Lorca = Trump. So… Trump is a genius whose plans span across multiple universes and he’s literally playing 4-dimensional chess? So that makes Michelle Yeoh… Hillary or something? And suddenly she’s not evil anymore because… girl power or something?
The original Star Trek told stories about problems that are timeless, like controlling humanity’s violent impulses, space amoebas, racism, or hippies who don’t wear shoes. All we get from this show is a few confused attempts to throw in a reference to current politics. It makes no sense now and would be terribly dated in a few years anyway.
And while I adore Michelle Yeoh, her CGI legs in those fight scenes were cringey as hell. She’s an incredible actress, so at age 55 maybe just let her exert power in the way an adult woman does instead of putting her in fistfights? Why is it that American writers can’t make a strong female character without resorting to violence?
But despite all my complaints, I’m still having fun watching. It’s like the Buck Rogers serial from the 1930s but dumber and with much better special effects. It’s got action and plot twists and keeps moving at a brisk pace, so it’s never boring.
Hey @Miguk , can you point me towards where the showrunners said this show was about Trump? That seems stupid beyond belief to make it so. I also enjoy it quiet a lot, and can usually in spite of stupid showrunner remarks but this seems rather silly.
It was the Klingons they were referring to, not Lorca.
He mentions that among the show’s antagonists are an ultra-religious and violent Klingon faction whose rallying cry – “Remain Klingon” – is intentionally reminiscent of “Make America Great Again.”
I am trying to slog through the new episodes after the winter break. I like the stories overall (despite a few plot holes). The audiovisuals and editing are usually good. I can even tolerate the nu-Klingons.
But the acting is pretty bad. The only actors I really enjoy watching are Jason Isaacs and maybe Mary Wiseman. Everyone else puts me to sleep. Especially the romance between Michael and the security officer (I haven’t gotten very far into the new episodes yet). I simply can’t seem to make it through a whole episode without stopping and putting the show aside for a few hours or even days.
So sad. :(
Okay. Some people have very different perceptions of the same thing, apparently.