Star Trek Discovery

[Lutz]

Sonar? It’s the whales behind it all THE WHALES.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Lutz

Sonar? It’s the whales behind it all THE WHALES.

Be interesting if the Whale Probe was involved somehow - it came, threatened Earth with a mass extinction and then just sailed away leaving all follow up to non-canon novelists (and there was even drama behind the scenes at Pocket with the novel Probe which the credited author pretty much disowns).

It's from outside the Galaxy - which could also tie into Doomsday Machine or the Kelvans.

Probably none of the above though. Who knows?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Lutz

Sonar? It’s the whales behind it all THE WHALES.

As soon as they mentioned sonar I was thinking of the whale probe, yep

[Lutz]

They should make it that the whales are extinct AGAIN and to save the universe from the whale probe this time they have to go back in time to post STAR TREK 4 and have William Shatner guest star on DISCO.

[Moe UK]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Boy, people are so strange. "I hate this show but imma keep watching it!"

Well they are helping it become the highest viewed original on P+ and making sure we get many more seasons to come.

But yeah it is weird to waste time watching something you dislike and then rant about it each week. If I don't like something I don't waste time with on it.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Moe UK

Well they are helping it become the highest viewed original on P+ and making sure we get many more seasons to come.

But yeah it is weird to waste time watching something you dislike and then rant about it each week. If I don't like something I don't waste time with on it.

Oh that’s beautiful, that the people who tune in just to hate on it are helping to keep it going for years

[SilverFox84]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Oh that’s beautiful, that the people who tune in just to hate on it are helping to keep it going for years

Not in my case

[Geoff D]

Figured that might be the case, but Trek’s derangement ‘tis a curious affliction, there are bound to be some folks who are paying for the privilege of despising it.

[kevin87]

Was there any sort of disruption in production, or is the break just to be stupid?

[Josep5349]

Originally Posted by kevin87

Was there any sort of disruption in production, or is the break just to be stupid?

Mid-season finale.

[mcrowell415]

Originally Posted by Josep5349

Mid-season finale.

A season with 11? episodes needs a mid season break. Sigh. I dont get it. 7 of which have aired.

[kevin87]

Originally Posted by Josep5349

Mid-season finale.

So, just being stupid then. Broadcast rules don't apply to streaming services, yet they're forcing an arbitrary midseason finale on us anyway.

Originally Posted by mcrowell415

A season with 11? episodes needs a mid season break. Sigh. I dont get it. 7 of which have aired.

I don't remember them announcing an episode count, but I don't think it'll be 11. I would guess it's maybe 13 or 14 and they're splitting it in the "middle". A break is stupid in general, but at least that part would make sense. I know production took 9 months, so I thought maybe that might have had something to do with it.

[mcrowell415]

Originally Posted by kevin87

So, just being stupid then. Broadcast rules don't apply to streaming services, yet they're forcing an arbitrary midseason finale on us anyway.



I don't remember them announcing an episode count, but I don't think it'll be 11. I would guess it's maybe 13 or 14 and they're splitting it in the "middle". A break is stupid in general, but at least that part would make sense. I know production took 9 months, so I thought maybe that might have had something to do with it.

imdb lists 11 but yeah there could be more. If they need it to finish production then I guess I understand. I just think its odd. Just me though.

[drb999]

The WGA site has 13 episodes for season 4

https://directories.wga.org/project/...rek-discovery/

[BillieCassin]

People continue to give the show a chance is because it's Star Trek. Particularly with the rather well-accepted notion that many Trek series take several years to find their groove, I think that a lot of us who think it's pretty bad are watching because we hope that it would find its footing and become half-way decent.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem Discovery has done that - at least for me. I thought Season 1 was pretty uniformly terrible - mainly because the character of Michael was just so incredibly poorly written and acted. Just a bad rehash of Spock in a new wrapping. Season 2 was largely the same, just so bogged down in itself that it was work to slog through.

Fortunately, Season 3 seemed to pick up - particularly Michael, who finally wasn't a character that you just wanted to smack up side the head and say "Snap out of it!" constantly (and as sexist and terrible as it sounds, she became decently likable once she started getting laid - don't blame me for pointing that out, I didn't write the show LOL). The actor didn't get much better, but at least the character wasn't so insufferable.

There was a decently compelling plot line for the season, a great villain, and the move to the future benefited the show feeling much less out of place with technology, considering it supposedly was set pre-TOS to begin with.

But this season? Blech. It has taken me weeks to get through the first five episodes. It seems they made a list of the worst actors on the show, and decided to focus on them. And the better actors they kept, they gave abysmal plot lines.

IMO, the essential problem with the show is that it seems they sit in the writers room and say "Okay, what statement do we want to make?" and then try to fashion some type of story around it, plugging in what characters they want to feature and working from there. It feels so contrived and artificial.

Trek has always had a great deal of allegory to it - it's just that, at least for the most successful of Trek in the past, it creates stories and features characters in those compelling stories first and foremost, and uses that as a springboard to add relevant allegory.

They essentially put the cart before the horse, and it's no wonder the quality stumbles such when the material is approached in that way. It's more concerned with making statements and checking boxes above all else, than telling good stories with interesting, likable characters and using that as a springboard for more lofty ideas.

[Lutz]

People didn’t keep giving ENTERPRISE a chance because it was Star Trek but I totally know what you mean about it taking weeks to get through this: it took me a full five weeks to get through the first five episodes.

[BillieCassin]

Originally Posted by Lutz

People didn’t keep giving ENTERPRISE a chance because it was Star Trek but I totally know what you mean about it taking weeks to get through this: it took me a full five weeks to get through the first five episodes.

Perhaps they learned from that experience - as time has shown that many folks who have given it time, since, seem to conclude that Season 4 was actually quite good, and that the show was just hitting its own groove just as it was cancelled.

[Lutz]

Yeah, but ENTERPRISE apologists also seem to love DISCO.

[Lutz]

Originally Posted by BillieCassin

IMO, the essential problem with the show is that it seems they sit in the writers room and say "Okay, what statement do we want to make?" and then try to fashion some type of story around it, plugging in what characters they want to feature and working from there. It feels so contrived and artificial.

Unlike TNG/DS9/VOYAGER where the props department had X amount of costumes and sets on the backlot left over from some other production they could write a holodeck or away mission episode around?

[BillieCassin]

Originally Posted by Lutz

Unlike TNG/DS9/VOYAGER where the props department had X amount of costumes and sets on the backlot left over from some other production they could write a holodeck or away mission episode around?

Yes, quite unlike that. You are talking on a granular, episodic level - and about budget constraints, no less. And this show certainly doesn't have that issue - they seemingly have a lavish budget and could do practically anything they want.

Make no mistake, there were certainly stinkers on all three of those shows. That said, in the types of episodes you are talking about - in general - they often were used to tell character stories and the things you reference were simply background to do so.

(FWIW, I think the better episodes of Discovery have been the more stand-alones, it's too bad they are so few and far between.)

In any case, that's very different than how they admittedly write this show from the very basis of conception. Star Trek, like much science fiction, has always had allegory and progressive aspects - but it was never the sole purpose everything revolves around, as it seems to be on Discovery.