So the actress that played Robot Girl, was repurposed to play Lt Nilsson (amazed they give her a name). She wanders around the bridge, yet we have no idea about her. Just like the lady that's at the navigation station, or Detner, or the weird looking weapons guy or comms guy. These people all clearly have bridge experience and operations experience. But Saru made Tilly the XO because she's plucky, or the concience of the crew or whatever. And she made terrible mistakes and surrender command of the vessel mid combat. In other words she did not fight the ship. That decision alone should have been a big black mark in Saru's record. The sad thing is, I like Saru, Doug Jones is great, but they spent all of season three making him look like a bumbling unsure Captain, who's only memorable thing was coming up with a stupid catchphrase. Then having him leave at the end to go raise the Burn baby.
Its funny, because when you watch Orville which really recycles a lot of Star Trek story lines, and they have a serious slant and then realize what they are and insert dick jokes at weird times. With Tilly, they have her do some science stuff, and then she drops F bombs or weird high fives at places that just don't really work. So its almost like they realize they have to give her some character, so they look back on the script and drop a few random quirks into the script.
Don't get me wrong, I was glad they got rid of an untrained, engineering officer with no tactical or combat skills at all as Captain, but that lasted about 8 seconds when she basically said "Michael you need to be Captain because you're the bomb.com (paraphrasing).
I kind of get where they were going plot wise last year, and in the first half of the season, they did it decently. Then I think they panicked and dropped a lot of details that they had worked to established. Wrote themselves into a corner on the burn, because they wanted to make it a shock, so they came up with the burn baby. Dropped a bunch of character archs and then threw in some F-bombs.
What they need to do next year, is declare it the last season, and either decide if they go back to the past to deal with the Klingons (Remember the D-7 reveal to shocks and whispers, and then they dropped it). Or somehow make them relevant in the future. But most of all, I think they need to thin down the herd of producers from like 50 to a few, get one of two writers and thin the crew down.
Oh and on the first shot of next year have a torpedo hit the bridge killing off Tilly and Michael and the rest of the furniture.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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Just have Riker jump in with the Battlestar Galactica to save the day and then say "Computer End Program! Damn, whoever wrote this s***** program needs to be sent to Rura Penthe!"
Kurtzman was a Show Runner, Executive Producer, and writer on Five-0. The show lasted as long as it did as it (10 years!) as it had beautiful scenes of Hawaii, beautiful people, stuff blew up, and Steve McGarrett kicked a lot of ass. That almost makes the show impervious to bad writing.
Almost. The writers certainly tried. Mercenaries, nuclear terrorists, global syndicates, bio-terrorists descended on Hawaii every episode. When Steve got really mad, he'd round up a few now civilian SEAL buddies, rent a Huey, and randomly mount special operations in multiple foreign countries around the world as a glorified State Trooper in a solo non government sponsored effort. Writing wasn't even in the realm of possible.
But the show's real doozy was the "Wheel-of-New-Characters" approach to story arcs (sound familiar?). At the Producer level, this supports the aforementioned success factors: Hot new people to keep that factor fresh. Then you can kill them off in a fire fight, or have them flip sides for wonky gotcha episodes. All these new people introduced new story arcs for 2-3 episodes that should have been 6-8 episodes long to be properly developed. It was like the writers were counting on you to have ADD.
All these new people also reduced the actual regulars (i.e. Daniel Dae Kim, Grace Park) into what CaptainCrunch called "Bridge Furniture". Eventually they got so PO'ed they cited racism in a pay equity dispute and left.
I'm going to steal this description from a blog that summarizes how this happened in the last few seasons nicely:
Quote:
A sister was introduced into the mix. After several episodes she didn’t work out and was gone.
Jean Smart was the governor. It’s hard to make Jean Smart not interesting but they somehow managed to do so. Bang! She was shot and gone the end of last season.
Larisa Oleynik was introduced late last year as a former CIA analyst who winds up doing the same stuff for the team that Grace does. Big surprise. That didn’t work. She’s mousey so she can’t be used during action scenes. My guess – they thought she could become a love interest for Alex. But there’s no chemistry. She’s now gone.
And in her place – a super hot blonde bombshell, Lauren German. If that doesn’t light a fire under Alex’s loins then it's time for Ricky Martin. Lauren's a former Homeland Security agent assigned to the team against his wishes. So expect three weeks of mandatory bickering before the beleaguered writers realize that doesn’t work either. Good luck writing those scenes where we see Alex’s “sensitive” side. That’ll be one more story arc for the “dear God, never again!” file.
And still the new characters keep on coming. Terry O’Quinn (also a LOST alum) as a… I can’t even keep track. Alex’s mentor, John Locke, I dunno. And Tom Sizemore (in between his own jail stints) as an Internal Affairs hard-ass.
But wait! There’s more!
I suppose the writers felt they needed some comic relief. That way the tone could be action-thriller-romance-relationship-comedy. So joining the crew is Masi Oka as a goofy nerd coroner, and Taylor Wiley as big fat Hawaiian street informant, baby sitter for Scott’s daughter, scam artist, and shave ice stand proprietor. By this point you should be screaming, “Jesus! This is just a cluster####!” And you would be right.
But wait! There’s still more!
Arch villain Wo Fat pops in and out. Scott Caan’s ex-wife pops in and out. There’s a story arc involving Grace being investigated for grand theft. Lirisa may be a mole, or she may be a double-agent. The new governor has it in for Alex’s team. Alex suspects his late father may be a bad guy. There’s still the toolbox with clues. The HPD still hates Daniel Dae. And just what’s in that mysterious “hatch”.
The bottom line is this: If you don’t know what you’re writing you’re in trouble. Maybe one of these mid-course corrections will work and the show will click. The ratings are still okay but the theme song and beauty shots can only take you so far. One of these weeks I’m going to keep my vow. Better introduce Charlie Sheen before it’s too late.
Ultimately Kurtzman tried to follow a similar approach with Discovery, but has grossly misjudged what fans want from the show. Somewhere along the way, he figured an action packed, FX intensive, fast paced show, topical show would appeal to old/new Trek fans but given Discovery's ratings - it's clear he's mis-judged what *anyone* wants from this show.
(Yes, I watched Five-O despite all this. It was one show my wife and I could agree on. After a long day of headaches at work, it was nice to watch something that required zero thought.... and Hawaii is my happy place...)
Ah yess, the theme song and intro.... everyone one of the show's success factors that I mentioned above packed into a 31 second climax.... Let me link it here to give neatly how why it lasted 10 seasons:
Last edited by I-Hate-Hulse; 03-04-2021 at 09:00 PM.
I don't have anything against the actors in Discovery, the thrust and perspective of different sexualities in the spotlight, etc. That is all good imo.
Discovery's story telling is the worst of any trek ever, by lightyears. They have tried to make a star trek Neo or some bs with Michael... The stories are all disjointed, 99% of the characters of the depth of legumes and make baffling decisions, starfleet is portrayed as wildly incompetent and without any real command structure and leadership. The obsession with the mirror universe and section 31 (UGH).
Picard is almost plagued by the same issues in writing but the familiarity and depth of characters saves it from being an abject disaster IMO. Lower decks is the best trek of this generation so far, which is a bit sad given all the money and potential here.
Location: In my office, at the Ministry of Awesome!
Exp:
Season 4 synopsis:
When the Galaxy is threatened by a Quantum Burnham loop, only Michael Burnham, at the helm of the newly rechristened USS Burnham can save the day.
By channeling power through the main Burnham, and projecting an inverted Burnham beam into the anomaly, a Burnham sphere is created which envelopes the entire area in Burnham-ic radiation. Thus successfully saving the galaxy and restoring the Burnham-line.
Meanwhile in the background Mary Wiseman puts way more life into a character that the writers just kind of wrote "Quirky I guess" into the description, and Wilson Cruz just chews the **** out of ALL the scenery!
Doug Jones is ,for some reason, occasionally seen on a planet somewhere, but is relieved to no longer have to act the crap out of the character who makes the worst decisions ALL THE TIME!
__________________
THE SHANTZ WILL RISE AGAIN.
<-----Check the Badge bitches. You want some Awesome, you come to me!
Last edited by Bring_Back_Shantz; 04-09-2021 at 02:43 PM.
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When the Galaxy is threatened by a Quantum Burnham loop, only Michael Burnham, at the helm of the newly rechristened USS Burnham can save the day.
By channeling power through the main Burnham, and projecting an inverted Burnham beam into the anomaly, a Burnham sphere is created which envelopes the entire area in Burnham-ic radiation. Thus successfully saving the galaxy and restoring the Burnham-line.
Close, but you are missing the over emotional moment that has to occur every 10min
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Picard is almost plagued by the same issues in writing but the familiarity and depth of characters saves it from being an abject disaster IMO. Lower decks is the best trek of this generation so far, which is a bit sad given all the money and potential here.
Picard certainly had its flaws in its first season, but overall I'd say that show was heads and shoulders above Discovery in terms of quality. Also, I thought the characters were more likeable and it told a more interesting and coherent story. I anticipate season 2 will be even better.
Last edited by direwolf; 04-09-2021 at 03:29 PM.
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