Star Trek Discovery

[KTrain]

Looks like we're getting a second season.

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/star...ss-1202596182/

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by KTrain

Looks like we're getting a second season.

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/star...ss-1202596182/

We kind of figured that this would happen, this is still a major CBS online or whatever franchise. Its going to get a lot of chances.

However, I would bet that a lot of the writing staff won't be back in the second year and it will be given a much smaller budget.

[Manhattanboy]

I can buy into a lot of things, mind melds, transwarp drive, cloaking devices, beaming from ships moving at light speed, but am having a lot of trouble with this new bio-spore jumping technology that requires a Jabba type monster to make it work (and perfected following a two minute exchange of ideas). Something that was never mentioned or conceived in any other Trek series (to my knowledge).

Can't say I am long for Discovery.

[You Need a Thneed]

I enjoyed today’s episode, felt a bit more like “Star Trek” to me.

[CaptainCrunch]

It reminder of the TNG episode with Kelsey Grammer in it where the Enterprise was stuck in a time loop.

It was a decent episode but lots of real logical loops and places where they just ham handed the hole Burnam likes Tyler thing to set up the heart ache of betrayal. I think they tried to be too cute with the whole Mudd killing the Captain over and over again and might have thought it was hilarious to beam him into space to die in a vacuum.

The writing was stronger, the acting was a bit stronger.

I wonder why Mudd would be allowed near any federation facility after the crime of hijacking a star ship, I mean you'd think when he showed up on TOS they'd arrest him on sight.

Its certainly stronger, a big part of that is that they removed the focus from the Klingons, and made it a character based episode.

Yeah, either Stamets is brain damaged by the Spores, or he's his mirror universe counterpart.

[Bane]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

It reminder of the TNG episode with Kelsey Grammer in it where the Enterprise was stuck in a time loop.

I'm a little concerned that they felt they had to do a time loop episode so soon into their run. And IMO, its been done better in Stargate SG-1, Red Dwarf, and TNG.

I'm finding all of this new super powerful tech (spore drive, time gems, dark matter hacky sacks, etc) really annoying.

Brain damaged or not, I've done a 180 on Stamets and he's becoming my favorite character.

[photon]

Yeah they're doing better when they're character based episodes like this one, and the writing is improving every so slightly. I think this is the first episode where I liked Stamets, where he wasn't written as being a complete ass or a flake. I enjoyed it.

[CaptainCrunch]

I was thinking about it last night with the Harry Mudd character.

In TOS he was a harmless incompetent con man, Kirk even saw him as fairly harmless and left him to his devices.

This Mudd us hardly harmless, he's hardly a mere thief and conman, he's actually a murderous psychopath who takes joy in murder and betrayal.

I liked his speech in the prison episode because it reflected a storyline that I've said before would be awesome, that not everyone loves Star Fleet and not everyone see's Star Fleet as heros. "There are more of us down here then there are of you up there".

But the logic here is flawed, I think that this was supposed to be a light slightly humorous character episode.

Instead we get the whole romance angle with Bernam and Tyler, that somehow Bernam has to romance up Tyler to do their duty.

We get Mudd gleefully killing Lorca in hideous fashion, and I can't help but think that the writers thought "When we beam the captain into space and show him dying on the main viewer, the audience will spit out their pop and drop their popcorn from laughing so hard".

And then they take this extremely dangerous psychopath and send him off with an innocent lovelorn girl in their family, because that's not a possible death sentence, and that's not another arrow in this vengeful man's quiver.

Don't get me wrong, I really liked the idea, but time loop stories have been done before but better. and the resolution kind of bugged me because this isn't Harry Mudd harmless con man, this is harry mudd, murderer.

And instead of this whole convoluted thing, why didn't Stamets just grab a phaser and stand in the hallway that Mudd had memorized the patterns for. Mudd hides from the blond girl, then steps out and gets blasted in the face before he can over ride the ships security?

I'm wondering if somewhere in the mirror universe, there is an angry Staments walking around on the ISS Discovery and his crew is wondering why he's acting so weird and maybe they should put him in the agonizer booth and find out.

[pseudoreality]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

I enjoyed today’s episode, felt a bit more like “Star Trek” to me.

Funny, while I still liked it, it was my least favourite so far. Time loops are such cliche sci-fi. Also, I didn't like how they kept hammering on how Tyler is doing so well for someone who was supposedly tortured for seven months.

[CaptainCrunch]

They know that the people watching the show are guessing that he's a Klingon spy, and if he is they're really pushing that "OMG huge betrayal angle" with maximum emotional effect.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Don't get me wrong, I really liked the idea, but time loop stories have been done before but better. and the resolution kind of bugged me because this isn't Harry Mudd harmless con man, this is harry mudd, murderer.

In the time loop that stuck, Mudd wasn’t a murderer though - no one dies in that loop. Still not a “harmless Con-man” I suppose, though.

If Mudd doesn’t do anything else, The crew in TOS wouldn’t know Mudd to be a murderer. I suspect that the show is setting him up to be an ongoing villain, however, which could change that. (I’ve never really watched TOS by the way, so I don’t know who Mudd is there).

I also don’t get how, Staments probably only has a couple minutes at most before Mudd gets to the bridge, to convince literally everyone on the bridge to enact this plan to out con Mudd. Sure, he has a secret word with Burnham in the one loop, but that’s much different than convincing the entire bridge in a different loop, setting up the con (with limited computer control), and executing it perfectly the first time (it could only be tried once, or else Mudd would just restart the loop).

Another thing that Staments could have done other then simply being ready to kill Mudd before he could gain computer access, is to simply call the bridge to lockout Mudd somehow before access could be gained.

Obviously, the ease of overtaking the security systems on a starship is a repeated plot device in Star Trek lore, but it’s still hilariously absurd every time it happens.

[CaptainCrunch]

I wonder how temporal law would work in the Federation in the future.

I mean just because he killed people in the loop and then kept re-running the loop where they're alive again and he doesn't murder them, shouldn't really be a defense.

I'm sure that when they enacted their final "Con" on Mudd, they said to Lorca that dude he's murdered you about 80 times, killed countless other crewmembers, and yeah they came back but he still actually murdered people. And because they've really established multiple time lines in Trek, especially with the first nutrek movie, in those time lines that he traveled to to different effects, the Captain Lorca's and Tylers would remain pretty much dead and the future changed completely, which means that there are a bunch of temporal laws that were broken.

On top of that just his act of setting foot on the bridge would be an act of piracy and at the very least treason against the Federation. When they took back computer control, they should have seized him because he lost the time Crystal and simply transported him back to earth or the nearest Star Fleet base so that he could face changes and been put away forever. The Captain could also convene a special Court Marshal on his ship, and pretty much shove him out of an airlock since the Federation was "at a time of war" and Mudd was trying to sell technology to the Klingons.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

I'm going to continue my off topic and sporadic review of DS9 if you guys don't mind.

Like any ST series it is littered with poor special effects, cheesy dialogue, predictable stories with hamfisted moral messages etc. but I still enjoy it. I enjoy it quite a bit more than I thought I would.

However the writers just pissed me off big time and if this was an ongoing show i might stop watching altogether.

So they spend all this time establishing that the characters are and have acted in morally ambious ways. Kira, Odo, Gul Ducat, Sisko, Garak, Quark etc. (apologies for spelling).

Then they execute a wonderful turn of character when the normally ####ty but entertaining Gul Ducat shows a softer side, first with his daughter, and also with Kira, the flashback episode where we see Dax as one of Ducat's Bajoran lovers etc.

He becomes a wonderfully sympathetic character despite being a POS during the occupation and still seeing Bajoran's as a slave class of people and yet he's attracted to them. Fascinating character all around. Somewhat Jaime Lannister like in that I hated him and now I like him and also feel sorry for him.

Then those bunch of ahole POS writers (20 years ago) go ahead and have him flip sides out of the blue? WTF? And after all his love BS with his daughter, he just leaves her to randomly die and be murdered by this stupid plot with fake Dr Brashear? (she didn't die because they stopped fake julien but it's the thought that counts) Are you serious right now?

Quite possibly one of the worst set up and biggest betrayals of character development I've ever seen. And they spent ####ing years to set that #### up. Then they throw it all away for a cheap twist. This show has on numerous occasions cheated the viewer with that type of misdirection and that's ok.

ST has a history of using the "it's all a dream" or "it's all in your mind" or "it's some weird lifeform" etc excuse when crazy #### happens. But this was too far. They fake us out 3 times in the same episode (fake Dr, traitor Ducat, fake invasion). I'm willing to bet in hindsight they regret selling out all the integrity of their series for a cheap shock.

If this show was ongoing week to week and not on netflix I would say eff it and never watch it again. Only because I already know it is good in the next two season am I even considering continuing to watch.

[Raekwon]

They didn't have better music in the future?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

I'm going to continue my off topic and sporadic review of DS9 if you guys don't mind.

Like any ST series it is littered with poor special effects, cheesy dialogue, predictable stories with hamfisted moral messages etc. but I still enjoy it. I enjoy it quite a bit more than I thought I would.

However the writers just pissed me off big time and if this was an ongoing show i might stop watching altogether.

So they spend all this time establishing that the characters are and have acted in morally ambious ways. Kira, Odo, Gul Ducat, Sisko, Garak, Quark etc. (apologies for spelling).

Then they execute a wonderful turn of character when the normally ####ty but entertaining Gul Ducat shows a softer side, first with his daughter, and also with Kira, the flashback episode where we see Dax as one of Ducat's Bajoran lovers etc.

He becomes a wonderfully sympathetic character despite being a POS during the occupation and still seeing Bajoran's as a slave class of people and yet he's attracted to them. Fascinating character all around. Somewhat Jaime Lannister like in that I hated him and now I like him and also feel sorry for him.

Then those bunch of ahole POS writers (20 years ago) go ahead and have him flip sides out of the blue? WTF? And after all his love BS with his daughter, he just leaves her to randomly die and be murdered by this stupid plot with fake Dr Brashear? (she didn't die because they stopped fake julien but it's the thought that counts) Are you serious right now?

Quite possibly one of the worst set up and biggest betrayals of character development I've ever seen. And they spent ####ing years to set that #### up. Then they throw it all away for a cheap twist. This show has on numerous occasions cheated the viewer with that type of misdirection and that's ok.

ST has a history of using the "it's all a dream" or "it's all in your mind" or "it's some weird lifeform" etc excuse when crazy #### happens. But this was too far. They fake us out 3 times in the same episode (fake Dr, traitor Ducat, fake invasion). I'm willing to bet in hindsight they regret selling out all the integrity of their series for a cheap shock.

If this show was ongoing week to week and not on netflix I would say eff it and never watch it again. Only because I already know it is good in the next two season am I even considering continuing to watch.

I think this is a great write up. I'm going to maybe counter it a bit though.

Dukat was always the mirror of two key characters in the show, he was a mirror of Sisko while at the same time being a mirror of Kira, and because of that he because this hideously complex character foil.

I can't call him a psychopath, because psychopaths don't really feel and can't connect of emphasize with their reality.

Instead you get a character that knows he's doing wrong, but because he's in effect driven by the desire for polictical power so he can be the hero he's a character that devoid of any real character. He's a chameleon and that's what makes his dangerous.

I mean I think that he feels love and doesn't understand it and it gets in the way of the self. He wants to be loved and respected but is incredibly Machiavellian. he's also the true embodiment of what's outside is the same as what's inside. The Cardassians were lizardlike in appearance and cold blooded. So was Dukat.

When he turned against his people to fight the Klingons he did it for himself not for his people. He wanted to be seen as the hero while at the same time setting himself up for a political gain. We had to know that he would eventually turn on the federation when the opportunity came to advance his career and himself.

I believe he truly did love his daughter, but he was willing to kill her to save his reputation, and then later after he died he was willing to do horrible things in the name of revenge, something that she wouldn't have wanted.

I believe that even though he did terrible things during the occupation, that he wanted to be seen as a liberator of the Bajorans, by the Bajorans, again not a political end but an ego end. He had this compulsion to be loved and respected but it was always at odds with his craving for power and the ability to control.

The episode where Sisko confronts him on it, it was beautifully done, because he wanted the respect and admiration of one of his mirror characters. He wanted Sisko to say "Hey dude, I know you tried to save lives during the occupation and I know that you're not a bad dude and you have a good heart" but instead Sisko basically said "Stop lying to yourself, your a murderer and a thug and a political opportunist, this whole thing is all about you man, and that's why your not a good man doing unfortunate things, your a bad man, doing bad things to make yourself feel good". At that point we saw an honest Dukat for the first time, he couldn't handle it and he basically completely lost touch with himself and basically his character became the "You think I'm bad and evil, then I'll show you bad and evil" and at that point, his quest wasn't about redemption of self, or revenge for his daughter, it was revenge for you not seeing me like I see me, and he did the whole destroy Bajor thing.

this is also reflected in his relationship with Kira, and for a time during the occupation you could see him thinking, I've won, and using his poor daughter to break down Kira so he could hear her say "Hey Dukat, now that I know you and your family, your a pretty good guy, thanks for trying to save lives" and he almost had her, until Kira realized that maybe Dukat was the end point of the road she'd been on through the series where she justified her horrible acts during the occupation as the path to freedom from occupation.

However the question is, why didn't Dukat snap then, when he was confronted by Sisko he faced the reality of himself and went insane. But not with Kira, why? Because at the heart of it, he didn't see any bajorian as ever being his equal, so when she told him that he was dirt, it was the opinion in his mind of an inferior and it didn't bother him all that much.

I know I'm rambling.

If you were to look at a historical comparison Dukat was Stalin.

Stalin didn't see himself as evil. He wanted to be known as the liberator of his people, he put in murderous 5 year plans because he wanted to be seen as the man who modernized Russian from an agricultural state to an industrial power house. He had a family and children, and I'm sure in a twisted sense he did love them, but he was willing to cast them aside or outright destroy them as a means to his goal. He was a malignant narcissist like Dukat, who viewed himself as superior, put his ambitions ahead of his humanity but wanted everyone to see him as Uncle Joe the man who did everything and sacrificed everything to the State. In the end everyone around him though hated him, and couldn't wait for him to die, because unlike Dukat, nobody was willing to act like that foil to check him back to reality.

However unlike Stalin who had Beria who he gave open permission to evil, Dukat had Dumar (sp?) who at his heart couldn't follow the path laid for him by his leader.

Again sorry for the ramble. But I think your write up was amazing.

[The Coppernian One]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

On top of that just his act of setting foot on the bridge would be an act of piracy and at the very least treason against the Federation. When they took back computer control, they should have seized him because he lost the time Crystal and simply transported him back to earth or the nearest Star Fleet base so that he could face changes and been put away forever. The Captain could also convene a special Court Marshal on his ship, and pretty much shove him out of an airlock since the Federation was "at a time of war" and Mudd was trying to sell technology to the Klingons.

To this and your earlier post, I thought it was garbage just sending him back to the girl and her dad. Mudd still knows roughly how the spore drive works (or that it's even a spore drive), what ship it's on, and that that ship also contains T'Kovma's killer. He can still do a lot of damage the first time he finds a comms station. So they keep him alive and put him in a spot where he'll have a huge amount of resources (family wealth) at his disposal.

I liked the episode overall, but the ending really bugged me. Lorca let's this guy go right after abandoning the admiral. He's not a soft guy in this sort of thing.

[CaptainCrunch]

Yeah I thought it was funny that there was no mention of the Admiral in this episode, and Lorca seemed to be in a pretty good mood about selling his girlfriend out to the Klingons.

[Kjesse]

For this time loop episode, it started off great, but ended weak. Great character development, and one needs to suspend belief moreso than normal to follow the timeline issues, but the ending was contrived.

In that way it was a throwback to TOS in several respects, for good or not.

TNG's "Cause and Effect" did the time loop concept much better.

I still enjoyed it.

[Resolute 14]

The problem with throwing Mudd out of an airlock is the fact that it is pretty obvious they expect him to be a reoccuring character. Ergo, plot-induced stupidity.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

The problem with throwing Mudd out of an airlock is the fact that it is pretty obvious they expect him to be a reoccuring character. Ergo, plot-induced stupidity.

Yeah and they clearly want him back as a villain in the series, but it was a decent episode, but you know when you watch a good movie and then at the end they do something so logically baffling that it pulls you out of the moment and you think "Frack that was stupid".

That was that moment, I guess if you wanted to prove that the Captain is indeed mentally unbalanced this was a decision that kind of backs that up.

They could have ended the episode with him being arrested and then later in the series you hear that Harry Mudd was sentenced to 11 years in a federation re-education center, which would mean he was released just in time for TOS.

As it stands he's going to come back and cause Havoc and maybe kill someone and the audience is going to be largely unsympathetic to the crew and the Captain because it was his stupid decision that harmed his crew.