BigJKO

A Dedicated Thread For Talking About Star Trek Episodes

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FYI it's Encounter at Farpoint, not Encounter at Waypoint. Every time I read that I imagine Austin Walker and Danielle Riendeau wearing the Q judge robes.

 

In fact, could someone with photoshop skills mock that up?

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One little alarm bell that rang for me was when the Captain and Burnham were chatting about Starfleet being there to explore, not to war. It felt like they were establishing the MacGuffin Star Trek is about before they spend the whole series trying to get back to that. I can see it being all about war, and light on the 'explore'. Which is fine, I guess - the culture now dictates we explore these issues 'ourselves' rather than stumble on some planet with a problem and spend an hour watching their morality play before warping away. But, man, that's Star Trek! I want a weird little time loop episode, an off-the-wall one-shot story, in and out in 42 minutes, then something completely different next week. I get the feeling the series is going to be one looong pilot - they don't have the number of episodes to play with other ideas. It could just be a big arc with Klingons. Man, the Klingon TNG episodes always switched me off. They were okay, I just got bored of the Klingon bullshit. K'Ehleyr ripped the piss out of the Klingons like I wanted to. And the new they killed her. They were more interesting to me as surrogates for the Russians in TOS, but it seems that's being modified for Discovery.

 

I dunno. It was fine. I'm open to anything. I just hope Discovery does some actual discovering! Not just looking in the mirror self-discovery, but quasars that fart musical jellybeans and planets where the natives communicate by rubbing their palms. You know, boldly going places! Not just boldly going to battle the bloody Klingons.

 

Also, I'm going to be the dweeby dork who corrects in the Comic Book Guy voice 🤓 I'm sorry. But hey, it's a Star Trek thread! This is THE place for pedantry!

 

"Ahem. Ectually, I think you'll find it's Encounter At Farpoint."

 

Edit. Ahh fuck I was too late!!! 😂

Edited by dartmonkey

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I'm taking the gloves off: the first two episodes were dreadful. Clumsy writing, cheesy acting, nothing that actually sets the series' stall out. I'm sure it will be a lot better by episode 8, but currently it looks gorgeous and fails on every other front.

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10 hours ago, dartmonkey said:

They were more interesting to me as surrogates for the Russians in TOS, but it seems that's being modified for Discovery.

 

I dunno. It was fine. I'm open to anything. I just hope Discovery does some actual discovering!

 

Well now that I think about it, how much is it being modified for Discovery? The Klingons are now represented as religious zealots with a vaguely Egyptian theme who hate the western culture of Starfleet... upon reflection, I'm suddenly wondering whether this is them being recast as America's current "great enemy" of Islamic fundamentalists.

 

Also, yeah, after I watched the episodes I was pretty much thinking that the series title is currently nonsensical. Here's hoping that's a temporary problem.

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I thought the pilot episodes were pretty okay, my wife actually loved it which shocked me as she generally hates most sci-fi, especially those with alien  makeup prosthetics. I wish there was a way to watch it outside the CBS All Access ecosystem as I probably won't sub for just that. 

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6 minutes ago, YoThatLimp said:

I thought the pilot episodes were pretty okay, my wife actually loved it which shocked me as she generally hates most sci-fi, especially those with alien  makeup prosthetics. I wish there was a way to watch it outside the CBS All Access ecosystem as I probably won't sub for just that. 

There are plenty of ways, just not legal ones ;)

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I kinda read the Klingons as republicans with their directive to stay Klingon, or whatever. It gave off a real MAGA/America First vibe for me. They're trying to build the wall, etc

 

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42 minutes ago, Salacious Snake said:

I kinda read the Klingons as republicans with their directive to stay Klingon, or whatever. It gave off a real MAGA/America First vibe for me. They're trying to build the wall, etc

 

 

I could see that. They're trying to stay culturally pure, which I guess is something someone who was very anti-immigration might be concerned about. There's definitely an implication that they want to return to the Good Old Days that may or may not ever have existed.

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On 28/09/2017 at 10:59 PM, dartmonkey said:

I can see it being all about war, and light on the 'explore'. Which is fine, I guess - the culture now dictates we explore these issues 'ourselves' rather than stumble on some planet with a problem and spend an hour watching their morality play before warping away. [...] I get the feeling the series is going to be one looong pilot - they don't have the number of episodes to play with other ideas. [...]

 

I dunno. It was fine. I'm open to anything. I just hope Discovery does some actual discovering! Not just looking in the mirror self-discovery, but quasars that fart musical jellybeans and planets where the natives communicate by rubbing their palms. You know, boldly going places! Not just boldly going to battle the bloody Klingons.

 

I believe the "serialized narrative" marketing was a little overstated. It seems like there will be more of an episodic structure than I previously expected. It looks like there will be "that one episode" in which an old TOS villain returns, and there will be "that one episode" directed by Will Riker Jonathan Frakes in which they're drawing on a fan favorite [Spoiler Spoiler] plot. What's strongly overarching still is the Klingon War and Burnham's character development.

 

I sure do hope there's still a lot of discovery on the Discovery. B)

 

 

On 29/09/2017 at 9:01 PM, Gwardinen said:

 

I could see that. They're trying to stay culturally pure, which I guess is something someone who was very anti-immigration might be concerned about. There's definitely an implication that they want to return to the Good Old Days that may or may not ever have existed.

 

The analogy is super strong. The Klingons' war is ours. It's born out of the unfounded fear of cultural extinction ("Remain Klingon", oh boy) and it feeds on a perceived threat to their culture (the Federation) that absolutely isn't one.

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I liked ep 3 better. It was very tropey and didn't feel that 'Trek', but it was a lot less clunky and I'm moderately intrigued by all the

 

secret research

stuff.

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So I just finished season 3 of Enterprise, and it was pretty good. People kept saying it gets good, but I was getting pretty skeptical as the first 2 seasons wore on. 

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Cancelling CBS all access was a giant pain, but I did it before my free week expired.

 

Edit: I watched the third episode, it was better, I am still on the fence.

 

don't like that they appear to be using Tilly's crippling social anxiety as a gag. The recitation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland seemed really out of place.

 


The technology they are working on seems like a bad idea for a larger plot because this is a prequel, we know that the federation doesn't have this tech unless this is secretly a new timeline. A little worried that the ship will get pulled into some other part of space Voyager style.

 

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The third episode was pretty ok, and while not great I'm more optimistic about this eventually becoming something good. The setup of the ship sounds good for lots of neat episodes.

 

I was really hoping we'd have a more consistent, less all-actions-must-serve-drama Michael Burnham. I suppose I am overly sensitive about portraying logic as either coldness or lack of emotion, but does she have to be written so horribly? She's all over the place. One minute she's supposed to be this Spock-like character: measured, in control and distant. A few minutes later she's supposedly extremely emotional and impulsive. Martin-Green does a good job, I think as both. I just can't buy such a character.

 

What is the character motivation for her saying she just wants to atone by serving her sentence, and then committing crimes, during wartime, on a military science ship: impersonating an officer and breaking into a restricted area? That moment was so baffling, the very definition of illogical behaviour. Plus they didn't do anything with it. They might as well just have shown Stamets or Tilly in there.

 

Perhaps the point is supposed to be that her history of losing her parents and undergoing the Vulcan upbringing damaged her so severely she can't control her impulses under stress, or something. But I think they don't care and just wanted a Vulcan-Kirk.

 

Which does not fill me with confidence with regards to Tilly.

 

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I too liked the third ep a lot better than the second. I see promise for the Discovery! I liked how they portrayed the captain as ultimately a solid guy, but then didn't like that they instantly flipped back and showed him with his weird alien menagerie. Saru is still great, he has exactly what was good about Spock: a character that is good for both comedy and drama in the show.

 

The energy-eating bugs in the beginning were neat. I don't mind action at all (Star Trek is full of it), as long as it has some scifi cause and it's not all just characters butting heads or political stuff. That's super fine for Battlestar Galactica, but Star Trek needs to have a bit more scifi going on.

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I quite like that it's focusing on a different crew member than the captain of the ship, because then they can do the ambiguous captain character. I hope he has more depth than just "madman monster-collector" and it doesn't just end up with the monster eating him or something.. We'll see!

 

Saru is great!

 

I'm very hopeful and thoroughly entertained, so far! :tup:

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I have yet to watch any Discovery because

1) I wasn't super interested in another Star Trek thing. I still like Star Trek but I'm not exactly ravenous for more of it.

2) I have no desire to sign up for yet another streaming service, especially for one show

3) Even ignoring 1 and 2 I have no free time anyway

 

Somewhat tangentially related, has anyone seen The Orville?  It's a Star Trek-like comedy on Fox starring Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy.  I admit to being mildly curious about it.

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Wait, is Discovery not on Netflix in the US? I see everyone talking about another streaming service, but over here in the Netherlands it's on Netflix. It's even a Netflix Exclusive! What gives?

 

I hesitate to see The Orville. I can just about smell the kind of cheesy humor involved. I'll pass up on Star Trek with dick jokes. But I might be wrong. It's a tough deal to have to go  up against Galaxy Quest and I really doubt MacFarlane can pull it off. I don't doubt it's lovingly made, with great fondness for Trek, but the execution of it I'm less sure of.

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32 minutes ago, Roderick said:

Wait, is Discovery not on Netflix in the US? I see everyone talking about another streaming service, but over here in the Netherlands it's on Netflix. It's even a Netflix Exclusive! What gives?

 

Yeah, it's on Netflix here in the UK too, and also an exclusive as far as I know, but in the US it's part of a new service called CBS All Access.

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Discovery is only (legally) available in the US on CBS's streaming service.  The rest of the world gets it on Netflix (except for Canada).  There's nothing on CBS that I want to see other than Discovery so I'm reluctant to sign up just for one show.

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I saw one episode of Orville. The marketing seemed to push the comedy side of it pretty hard but the show plays things surprisingly straight. It was essentially a bad Star Trek plot with quippy one liners spread throughout.

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32 minutes ago, SecretAsianMan said:

Discovery is only (legally) available in the US on CBS's streaming service.  The rest of the world gets it on Netflix (except for Canada).  There's nothing on CBS that I want to see other than Discovery so I'm reluctant to sign up just for one show.

you can get one week free if you want to check the show out and not have to deal with 'totally legit websites'

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Meh, I have other things I'd rather see first.  Like I said I'm not exactly eager for more Trek right now.  I might try to binge it all at once sometime in the future though.

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1 hour ago, Professor Video Games said:

I saw one episode of Orville. The marketing seemed to push the comedy side of it pretty hard but the show plays things surprisingly straight. It was essentially a bad Star Trek plot with quippy one liners spread throughout.

 

The warmest (amateur) reviews of The Orville that I've seen praise it for its slavish recreation of TOS plotting, but with better visuals and some slight winks to broader sci-fi trends. Professional reviews are overwhelmingly less charitable, like from Vox or Alan Sepinwall.

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My interest in the Orville is as a spectacle.  I have no expectations of it being good.  The whole thing seems like a very highly produced SNL skit rather than a proper show.

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