Star Trek Discovery (2017)

Apologies for talking about older episodes, I’m pretty far behind.

So I saw Episode 3 last night (Season 2). It was the Klingon episode. That really surprised me. The way Season 1 ended, I just figured we were done with the Klingons, and those characters were written off the show. So I was really surprised to see a whole episode on it.

I’m also surprised that Tilly’s ghost turned out to be an alien. I know that would have been my immediate guess in any other Star Trek show, but it was a surprise to me here.

Phillipa Georgio turning up to save the day in spectacular fashion was pretty badass. I’m of two minds there: it looked cool as hell, and yet, I feel like a killer shouldn’t be that effective on a Star Trek show. It feels wrong.

Halfway through the first season, and I’m enjoying it more than any other Trek, other than TOS and TNG. The writing is above par, the characters are interesting, and I appreciate the darker elements. I also liked how the gay relationship was not hammered over our heads.

That said, I really dislike the obvious and heavy-handed fan service, If you’re going to redesign the Klingons, why not just make them a different bunch of aliens? And bringing back Harry Mudd or making Burnham Spock’s sister? Totally unnecessary.

Sorry if this has all been discussed before, but I’m not about to read 1800 posts to find out. :)

I don’t mind her being effective but I feel like the show thinks she’s cute. They write her like Han Solo, not space Hitler.

This was essentially already decided when they chose to set it just before TOS. Why set it then, if they weren’t plan to intersect heavily with that setting? It’s not like Trek technology really changes. If they weren’t going to have the fan service, then they could just set it at some random era that didn’t interest with known events.

@Sonoftgb I agree with what you said (obv. you’re talking about Season 1, which is all I’ve seen). I hated the Klingon redesign and it continued to grate on me. Fortunately, they get away from that through the course of the season.

And I don’t know why they felt as though they had to make Harry Mudd some sort of evil-ish mastermind considering in TOS he was just a bit of fluff comic relief. The stuff with shoehorning Burnham into Spock’s family - it’s for sure because the writers were desperately trying to have some connections between this series and the rest of the Trekkiverse (is that a word?).

All in all though, I thought Season 1 turned out quite well. I think the one overarching plot for the entire season worked, and they even surprised me here or there.

I have not seen season 2 yet so no opinion on that.

@stepsongrapes I understand how the writers wanted to intertwine with TOS but the two examples cited above were pretty poor ideas. Plus, I don’t know how you can make the argument that the Klingons changed from what we see in Discovery to what we see in TOS in only 10 years. That seems like a bridge too far.

Nevertheless I’m willing to just go with the flow, as much as I think a lot of it is dumb.

I guess each to their own. I like the new Mudd and I think he is a far more realistic character than buffoon Mudd. I do agree that shoehorning Burnham into Spock’s family is a bit heavy handed but then again I like the new Spock. He does a good job with the role. I think the bottom line is that they decided to embrace canon and still not do the same old original series schtick, which frankly has not aged well for the most part. Im fine with that.

At the risk of sounding silly, I think it’s “unrealistic” to have Mudd be portrayed as he is in Discovery and then to become the character he is in TOS. If there is a dearth of characters they can pull from TOS then they certainly could visit some iconic locations to tie Discovery into TOS. Or worst come to worst, throw in some green women! (I kid, I kid).

Maybe they should have. Drop the Burnham/Spock connection and change Mudd’s name, and they could have told the same story set 100 years after TNG.

Frankly its unrealistic to expect any character to be like Mudd, he was a caricature, like many of the characters on TOS were. If they wanted to mine this time period, it has to come with changes or else it would be ridiculous. You can accept that or not, that is up to you but changes had to take place. They could not make a series that ties directly to TOS stylistically, it would bomb.

Just putting this interview with Jonathan Frakes here because why not. I hadn’t realized that he was directing episodes of Discovery and Orville too.

https://trekmovie.com/2019/04/10/interview-jonathan-frakes-on-casting-marina-sirtis-and-what-the-orville-and-star-trek-discovery-share/

Cool, I just watched the episode of DS9 he guest starred in. Will give this a read.

So I watched the latest episode last night, and boy it better be building up to something amazing because it was pretty full of tearful goodbyes and such. BTW, who was the teenage princess engineer chick who was such great friends with Tilly? When the heck did we see her before? I sure don’t remember.

BTW, did DS9 get better after the first couple of seasons? I watched it for about that long but didn’t stick with it back when it aired. Is it on Netflix?

I was wondering that myself at the beginning of the episode when they “previously on…”

It did not.

Because you don’t get better from already great.

I’m near the end of season 3, and while there are some clunker episodes, the ratio of good/ great to mediocre/ bad is as high, or higher, than any other Trek series.

And I thought my rewatch was slow, but I already finished it. It definitely gets better than the first couple of seasons, Garak isn’t even half as interesting yet.
And I figured out why I forgot most of season 7, it meanders too much at the start and packs a lot into the final episodes, when your brain is used to side plots of the week again.

I don’t know exactly what episodes Frakes directs, but when I notice it was him in the credits (Trek or not), I usually like the direction (or however you say it) a lot.

She appeared in one of the Star Trek: Short Treks episodes.

It takes me at least 6 months to finish a season in normal circumstances, I don’t do much TV.

However in the last 3 weeks I’ve cranked out about 20 episodes of season 3, it has its hooks in me. And my pace is downright profligate for me. Partly because I spend most weekends on a mountain.

Ah, that explains it.