Star Trek: Discovery Is Returning For a Second Season (engadget.com) 478
Engaget reports that CBS' Star Trek: Discovery series is being renewed for a second season. The show has reportedly been enough of a success to justify a second season of episodes. From the report: The move comes as a vote of confidence for both the show and its platform, since it has recently aired the sixth of its fifteen-episode first season. Now, a second run of Discovery will air, presumably at some point toward the back-half of 2018. Discovery has certainly benefited from plenty of hype, since it's the first Trek show to air as a TV show since 2005. The pull of the Star Trek name was always going to be a draw, but it wasn't clear how much of a draw given the saga's lackluster popularity at the box office. CBS refused to offer numbers, but did boast that Discovery's debut lead to the highest number of sign-ups in the history of its All Access service.
whatever (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a solid show but this pay channel crap screws everything up. paying for one show is dumb since folks pay a ton of money for channels they DON'T watch.
I'm surprised that there are folks that would pay for another channel for what, a single show?
I see the Production value and it is very good but. That is not the Trek way.
I feel that the only folks getting this show are wealthy fans and Pirates.
Re:whatever (Score:5, Interesting)
A solid show maybe but, there was less Star Trek in the free episode I saw than in the first five minutes of the average Orville episode.
I can't say anything redeemable about the free episode other than "nice graphics" but, Star Trek used to be the show that proved special effects were not all Sci Fi had to offer; so that was kind of a step backwards.
Then I can't even really complement the special effects because of all the lens flare someone shat all over perfectly good video.
They failed to sell me, and up to this point, I watched every single live action Trek show in existence.
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They failed to sell me, and up to this point, I watched every single live action Trek show in existence.
Even Enterprise?
Re:whatever (Score:5, Interesting)
TheCarp opined:
A solid show maybe but, there was less Star Trek in the free episode I saw than in the first five minutes of the average Orville episode.
Agreed. And you're far from alone [ycombinator.com] in that assessment ...
Re:whatever (Score:4, Funny)
They have retconned massive amounts of technology. (Score:5, Informative)
Holodeck Pre-TOS: It was supposed to be new in the Era of TNG.
Holographic Displays everywhere: Was there *EVER* any in Trek?
Transporters like they're safe!: McCoy was still concerned about transporters in TOS, and the tech was still known for mishaps in the TOS era. Yet they use them in EVERY POSSIBLE SITUATION they could be dangerous. I mean beaming them off a small fast moving fightcraft being fired on by the Klingons? That sure seems like the sort of situation a 'new' technology would have mishaps with.
The biggest issues so far were believing Michael had ever passed for Vulcan, that the commander woman who was sleeping with the Captain and died on Discovery was that stupid, and that Tilly/the Admiral were that touchy feely emotional as a recruit on a Black Ops ship, and an Admiral in the Federation. The Admiral sleeping with the Captain just felt like something out of The Orville, which makes wonder if the fraternizing in that show was a jab at ST:D (even more apt giving all the sleeping around.)
Here is hoping at 2 seasons, it will also be notable for being the shortest Trek series ever and not get a third...
Having said that, the Captain, the gay scientist, the doctor, and a few other characters have all been top notch, if not what you'd expect of Trek figures. Honestly if they had spun it as an original show and omitted the Trek aspects I might like it, but too much of it feels JJ Abrams inspired, rather than post-Enterprise or strictly pre-TOS. Personally I think it would have been a lot better if they had done it in retro motif with TOS style sets and uniforms and kept the budgets small. Oh and make an intro that seemed like a Trek instead of an evolution of the crappy intro in Enterprise. Trek is about *SPACE*, show a starscape, show a ship. Don't show a crappy montage on a sepia colored screen.
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Holodeck Pre-TOS: It was supposed to be new in the Era of TNG.
Yeah, that puzzled me as well. On the other hand, it was shown in use by friendly aliens in ST:Enterprise, and it has IIRC only been used once (for tactical training). I also suspect that the main reason that it was not in TOS was that the special effects technology of the time did not make it feasible for them. What irked me more about that was their kill count. If klingons are so bad fighters, it is surprising that the Klingon empire haven't been overwhelmed by fiercer fighters ... like maybe the vulcans?
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Roddenberry had planned for the holodeck to be in TOS, but due to budget issues it was never used. It did appear in the animated series though.
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Transporters like they're safe!: McCoy was still concerned about transporters in TOS, and the tech was still known for mishaps in the TOS era. Yet they use them in EVERY POSSIBLE SITUATION they could be dangerous.
Meanwhile, The Orville avoids them. There is some kind of transporter technology, but only in the hands of higher-tech-level aliens, without even explaining how they work (magic reassembly, wormholes, whatever).
And it's a good thing too, because transporters are a lazy-ass plot device, probably the weakest tech of Star Trek. Okay, so you can be disassembled inside the transporter station, but how does it cause you to be reassembled perfectly, hundreds of miles away?
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Well, this is the problem/holy grail of popular entertainment: people want the same old thing, only different.
People crave repeatability, but are thwarted by neuroscience: you get habituated to anything. So you can't recapture the feeling you had watching TOS or TNG (depending on your generation) because you've already had that experience and you will never be able to recapture the sensation of novelty with that exact experience again.
Discovery and Orville are both takes on the "same thing, only different.
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Thats your opinion. My wife even likes it, which is not true of any previous trek series.
That should tell you 100% who its aimed at: NOT TREKKIES.
Congrats for making our point.
Re:whatever (Score:4, Informative)
It's a solid show but this pay channel crap screws everything up. paying for one show is dumb since folks pay a ton of money for channels they DON'T watch.
I'm surprised that there are folks that would pay for another channel for what, a single show?
They really don't have to make much money from AllAccess to pay for Discovery. From what I understand, they made a profit on Discovery just by selling the rights to Netflix to show overseas. They could get 20 people sign up for their crappy streaming site and still the show has already made a profit.
Of course they're going to sign the show for a second season. The fact that they haven't released numbers probably means that All Access didn't do nearly as well as they had hoped.
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> It's a solid show
That's debatable. The Orville is more Star Trek then ST:D
> but this pay channel crap screws everything up.
(Almost) Everyone bitches about wanting TV "a la carte" -- this is what it looks like. Price Gouging on BOTH sides.
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I haven't watched Orville yet as I have per-judged it as Star Trek meets family guy.
Yes, you are wrong. I am not a Seth MacFarlane fan and I hate family guy. I watched the first episode of The Orville expecting endless fart jokes in space. I was presently surprised. Still it is Seth MacFarlane after all so the crude humor is there, it actually adds to the show. One of the best thing about The Orville is it doesn't take itself to seriously.
So give it a try. I was greatly impressed with it.
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I'm not a Seth fan. Family is OK but the jokes drag on _far_ too long.
I initially wrote-off The Orville pre-judging it to be just another dumb Star Trek spoof. I couldn't have been more wrong. I have loved the first 4 episodes! It is basically an updated TNG.
Jonathan Frakes (Riker) will direct episodes in both series! So them watch'em, and you be the judge. Who knows, you might end up like both. ST:D for being too serious, and The Orville for being too light. [imdb.com]
The Orville (TV Series) (1 episode)
- Pria (
Oh, I signed up, all right (Score:4, Insightful)
I signed up. I watched the premiere. It was terrible. That was the end of my signup.
I don't know WTF is wrong with having a damned science advisor on the production team, and listening to them. But apparently there is something wrong with it. Because they either didn't have one, or they didn't listen to them, either of which is deadly for producing something that purports to be SF.
I'll grant you that trek has always been some kind of broken, science-wise, but this version, the premiere anyway, was near maximum suck.
And then there were the long angsty conversations in the captain's ready room when there was a bloody emergency going on.
What a load of CGI-shiny poop.
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You first, AC
Re:whatever (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, you might as well wait. Everyone outside the US gets a better deal.
Canadians get it through the Space channel with surround sound.
Everyone else gets it through Netflix, presumably with surround sound.
Americans get it through a streaming service with crappy stereo sound.
I'm presuming there's actually a lot of viewers outside the US that's causing a lot of the interest, though I know of a few people who really did sign up for just one show.
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Yup, we get 5.1 surround on Netflix in .nl. Every monday a new ep.
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Canadians get it through the Space channel with surround sound.
Everyone else gets it through Netflix, presumably with surround sound.
And through CraveTV. The only reason I renewed my subscription. Of course we may have got it on Netflix if it weren't for Bell (who owns both Space and CraveTV.)
Re:whatever (Score:5, Interesting)
> Everyone outside the US gets a better deal.
Not true; all people in the US have to do is tune in when its broadcast at 9/8 central on Fox thursdays.
The spirit of Trek is alive and well, and CBS has nothing to do with it.
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and MacFarlane's political opinions
Next thing you know, they'll have the robot singing songs in hippie garb ala Spock, and have a white chick kissing a black one.
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7.3 on iMDB (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yeah, but look at how many 1 star reviews using the term "SJW" there are.
It's clear that a lot of people had decided this show was crap before it even aired, and were primed and triggered by anti-SJW rants on Reddit and YouTube to hate it from the start.
If you scroll past them and read the more balanced reviews, or check YouTube reviews from long established Star Trek fan channels, they are generally quite positive.
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Budget? No, I pay $308.50 a month for cable TV, internet, and phone with all the premium channels. Its just the principle of the thing. MORE money for ONE show? Not happening. If they can get the show to air SOMEWHERE in the group of channels I'm ALREADY paying for, then FINE, I'll watch it. But not a penny more. This also goes for monthly subscription internet content - nope, not happening either. Not Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Levin, any other website for a price BS. Pound sand. I start doing c
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Yeah, I've refusing to sign up for a subscription for this show on principal. I don't care how good (or bad) it is... I just don't want like the idea that networks will start charging more for TV programming by putting their "premium" shows behind an additional paywall.
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I don't give a shit I'm not signing up for their stupid pointless streaming service just to watch one show. 0% chance the show will remain exclusive forever. I can wait.
That's how I feel too. Netflix has it in every other country. They will have it in the US eventually. I only just got to see the last two seasons of Voyager last year... I can wait for Discovery. After the awful JJ Abrams Trek, I don't have as much passion for Trek anymore- he added to my patience to see if Discovery is any good.
Until then there is The Orville, which is a dumb, cheesy rip-off but nonetheless entertaining.
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After the awful JJ Abrams Trek,
'k, at this point, I suggest you completely skip ST:D - it's VERY much from the same recipe book as JarJar Abrams' "Trek".
I didn't even watch the FIRST season (Score:2)
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Not after next generation, but after Enterprise and b4 TOS. If you notice when the 1st officer calls a list of Star Fleet's greatest captains both Kirk and Picard are noticeably absent. Also, the blue uniforms are an extension of Enterprise's uniform design.
ARRRK BLAAARKK GARRRRK! (Score:5, Funny)
As overrated as it is overexposed and oversaturated.
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Trek fans wouldn't be Trek fans if they didn't complain about every new Trek show and how it's not as good as the last one.
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Most of us are complaining that we can't see it because stupid broadcasting decision. Once that problem is resolved, THEN we will complain about how it's not as good as the previous.
It kinda sucks. (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't imagine many of those subscriptions will be around for season 2.
The show itself kinda sucks. A lot of the technology bullshit is so far out there it's not even something you can remotely imagine as being real. There was a certain charm to the older series because you'd see stuff on the show and think "well, OK, maybe we'll see that in 50-100 years if we're lucky". Discovery is packed full of so much random crap you kinda look at it and go "uhhhh no, not gonna happen". It's like they decided to transition from futuristic-but-almost-plausible to outright space magic because that was easier to write.
Everything else feels like a bog standard Hollywood action movie with tons of CG. It's almost well done enough that it's generally watchable, but again, it isn't Star Trek. I don't find myself thinking about the implications of what's going in the show, in fact, I don't find myself thinking very much at all when I'm watching it. It's just kinda senseless action with the Star Trek name bolted on because OMG recognizable franchise.
I'm pretty sure it's going to get really old really fast (I'm already starting to get bored with it). Once they run out of inertia from the hype and name alone, the show is doomed.
Re:It kinda sucks. (Score:5, Interesting)
All of a sudden 20 years before Kirk and the Enterprise (reboot or not) they have a drive that teleports the ship to any known sector, and the technology is based on a network of mushroom spores that permeates the entire universe, and they first were using a GIANT TARDIGRADE as a supercomputer to control the drive, and the main character is SPOCKS ADOPTED SISTER THAT YOU NEVER HEARD OF BEFORE? AND SHE HAS A BOYS NAME?
On top of that... its another SOAP OPERA. Instead of producing stand-alone shows every show is a continuation of a long assed story?
The only "good" thing about the show seems to be that its not as overwhelmingly SJW as we were led to believe (we were led to believe it was like that one "fan" produced show with gratuitous 5 minute homosexual make-out scenes in half the episodes!)
Re:It kinda sucks. (Score:5, Funny)
that teleports the ship to any known sector, and the technology is based on a network of mushroom spores that permeates the entire universe, and they first were using a GIANT TARDIGRADE as a supercomputer to control the drive
Dilithium crystals are no longer a rare source of plot devices in Starfleet.
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What? No gratuitious gay sex?
I'm SO out of here!
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I'm with you on the mushroom spores and the giant tardigrade. Obviously it's complete fantasy, and not at all credible as something that will ever be. Worse it makes no sense.
But it's not a soap opera. A soap opera doesn't have seasons,it's just endless episodes, with story threads being constantly started and overlapping with other ones. And soap operas do not have a protagonist.
Discovery is a serial. It has a season, and presumably has a story arc planned for that season. And it has a protagonist.
Previous
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"SJW"? Star Trek has always been a show with liberal values.
Star Trek never made it gratuitous. Liberal values yes, but not SJW. That "fan" show with the gratuitous gay scenes were *about* the gay scenes. Star Trek on the other hand was always about something else... with the liberal values just being there, rather than the whole point of the whole show.
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Star Trek never made it gratuitous.
There was a time when Kirk kissing Uhura was considered gratuitous. It's easy to forget that in the late 60s, that scene was pretty damn controversial.
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Yes, you see, but when Kira and Jadzia make out, that's totally hot. But if you have two men in a pretty innocuous same-sex scene (they're brushing their fucking teeth, for chrissakes), oh my goodness, the end of the world is nigh!.
Lesbian makeout scenes don't ruffle Alt-right feathers, but showing a gay couple doing something mundane, well you know, SJW!!!!!!!!
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I don't consider Star Trek as SJW. Although I am only familiar with TOS through Voyager.
Presenting liberal views and philosophical and ethical dilemmas is not in itself SJW. I would even argue it's the exact opposite of SJW.
There have been quite a few instances where an SJW, in Picard's or Janeway's shoes, for example, would have imposed their worldview on the situation. The Captains all had situations where they did that.
Take Picard when he didn't let that one people execute Wesley for stumbling into a ran
It's a beautiful idea (Score:2)
I'm with you on the mushroom spores and the giant tardigrade. Obviously it's complete fantasy, and not at all credible as something that will ever be. Worse it makes no sense.
A plane of mold, extending below all of universe and multicellular life feasting on it. Makes perfect sense to me. Yes, thats complete fiction bordering to fantasy, but still, very plausible.
"And it was to this planet that unattended ballpoints would make their way, slipping away quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely ballpointoid lifestyle, responding to highly ballpoint-oriented stimuli, and generally leading the ballpoint equivalent of the good life." Do
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if the idea of tolerance and inclusivity trigger you....how have you ever stomached any Star Trek show?
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The only "good" thing about the show seems to be that its not as overwhelmingly SJW as we were led to believe (we were led to believe it was like that one "fan" produced show with gratuitous 5 minute homosexual make-out scenes in half the episodes!)
Erm, the fact that it's devoid of white men is a constant giant fuck you to, well, white men. That's pretty damn SJW.
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All of a sudden 20 years before Kirk and the Enterprise (reboot or not) they have a drive that teleports the ship to any known sector
So obviously the technology didn't work out. Maybe there's a story behind that? Maybe it might make for a good plot line?
the main character is SPOCKS ADOPTED SISTER THAT YOU NEVER HEARD OF BEFORE?
Hmm. Maybe there's a story behind that?
AND SHE HAS A BOYS NAME?
MIND BLOWN! A girl with a boy's name!? It's madness! This is just pushing credulity beyond all known limits! Maybe there's a story behind it?
Basically you're complaining that the show has stuff in it that you don't already know about. Do you not think it might be a bit boring if it was just a history lesson on pre-Kirk stuff you already knew?
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You forgot about space telepathy. Also the fact that the giant tardigrade, which seemingly has the ability to wipe out klingons and federation security at will, and literally tear apart spaceship bulkheads is somehow attached to delicate devices which hurt it and it doesn't just destroy everything around it. Then there was the whole, oh the giant tardigrade isn't working out? Oh we need a compatible life form for this magic DNA altering juice but can't find one? Oh lets just inject the closest human, hey it
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Star Trek has done a good job with long story arcs in the past. DS9 had a lot of longer story arcs and a persistent theme during its final four seasons.
You're kind of proving yourself wrong there by including DS9. DS9 was horrible. It was basically a really bad soap opera set in space. I think they were trying too hard to make DS9 appeal more to women and in the process turned it into another awful chick-flick.
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Two words: Heinsenberg compensators.
Any kind of teleporter that works by scanning an object and rebuilding it hits problems with the uncertainty principle, so this one makes sense: you can see with current physics that there is a problem that needs solving, you wouldn't expect to understand the solution that's based on technology from 200 years in the future.
Two more: Warp drive
The science behind an Alcubierre drive is pretty well understood, though it's not clear whether the exotic matter required to build one can actually exist in this universe. This is magic
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The rest of your arguments amount to "It's the future dummy, so therefore it's possible". I'm pretty sure that laws of physics will still exist in the future
Also, I forgot "subspace communications" i.e. FTL communications (transfer of information)
Alcubierre drives and relativity physics) (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with deflector dishes is that the ship is travelling at (say, warp 2, which is four times the speed of light) and the deflector dish puts out a beam which travels faster than that forward of the ship to sweep away all that pesky interstellar dust.
Two things :
- Alcubierre drives, the theoretical physics concept around which the fictional warp drives are based do not actually move the ship.
At all. The ship stays completely immobile in its own frame of reference. (There wouldn't be a way to move it past speed of light anyway).
What you move it the frame of reference it self. You bend the space time it self. You contract it in front of the ship, and expand it behind.
And unlike speed of things which is limited (at C, the speed of light), space-time bending isn't limited
(How the hell to you think our real-world astronomers can observe the distant past by looking at far away points in the space ? if our solar system was just a moving object, it would obligatory move slower than speed of light, and the light emitted in the distant past would have "over-taken" us and would not be observable anymore. The trick is that the space time of our actual universe did expand it self. More space was "created" between the objects, so that now they are further apart, and we can still catch "glimpse" of the beginning of the universe - some of these past images haven't reach us yet, because these image suddenly have way more space to travel to reach us because of that space-time expansion)
The only difference is that Alcubiere drive is a completely theoretical concept. It might not even be doable in the real world : it might happen that distorting the space time this way could require more energy than contain in the universe that you're trying to distort (it took a whole bigbang to expand our universe).
Whereas in Star Trek they just use dilithium crystals or some other fictional stuff in their warp core and can warp around freely.
- Speed of light. :
You're reasoning "the deflector dish puts out a beam which travels faster than that forward of the ship" is based on old classical physics (the speed of some launched from a moving something is the sum of both speeds : a photon launched from a ship travelling near the light speed would it self be launched at nearly twice the lights speed). Classical physics at that speed don't work and give wrong results (there's no such thing as an object moving at twice the light speed).
You're entering the realm of relativist physics
No matter what, the light speed (in vacuum) is constant and the same same every where in all referential. When an object is moving, from the point of view of the object the radiation it's shining forward will travel at exactly 1 C. From your point of view as an observer, the radiation of the deflector will travel at exactly 1 C *too*.
The thing that will change is the time and space. The scales will seems squished and time will seem running slow, so at the end, both the ship and observer will see the same distance/time = speed of light for the radion. The speed of light doesn't change, is the distance and time which end up being different.
There's a bunch of math to compute all this, but then ... (appropriate citation, in Bone's voice) I'm a doctor, Jim ! Not an astrophysicist)
---
(Also not mentioned in your post, but also relevant to the discussion of Star Trek technology : artificial gravity and inertial dampeners.
General relativity.
Which basically states that gravity actually works by playing around with space time too. Except this time, it isn't by expanding or contracting space, but by curving it. Objects aren't actually "attracted" to each other. They simply travel on straight lines (imagine a point travelling on grid on a sheet of paper), but the "straight lines" them selves are curved by the presence of mass (if you draw a sun in the middle of your sheet of paper, the grid suddenly isn't squares anymore but spirals that head towa
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It's been established that things can be emitted at warp speed during warp travel, e.g. subspace messages are sent a superliminal speeds and continue to travel that fast after leaving the ship. I guess the issue is that the energy required is the product of the warp factor and the mass of the thing being accelerated... Maybe some kind of particle that pushes things out of the way, kind of like how photons can.
I remember that in TNG Riker noted that laser weapons wouldn't even penetrate the navigational shie
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Warp drive is not beyond the realms of being real. Scientists have theorised about how a real warp drive might work.
Faster than light travel is more of a... problem though.
Phasers also don't seem so far fetched. Maybe where it's set to full and the thing being shot at disappears, it's gone too far. But a ray gun weapon that destroys or kills seems inevitable, as does one that can render a person unconscious.
Also replicators are not necessarily magic. We have first generation replicators right now with 3D pr
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This is always going to be a problem for Star Trek or any sci-fi series. The Enterprise of the 1960s looked futuristic, but today it's laughably primitive with it's big filament bulb indicators, mechanical buttons and ROBOT 9000 computer voice.
TNG actually stands up quite well in that respect because most of the displays are just backlit printed panels or animations superimposed into the image, but DS9 went back to using curved CRTs and looks dated now.
The main issue I have with tech on Discovery is the tra
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A lot of the technology bs is so far out there it's not even something you can remotely imagine as being real.
Everything else feels like a bog standard Hollywood action movie with tons of CG. It's almost well done enough that it's generally watchable
You must be new to Trek
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Re:It kinda sucks. (Score:5, Interesting)
With the difference being that TNG is set way, way after TOS. Discovery is supposedly set before.
TOS is set in 2200. 200 years ago, in 1800, we were still busy exploring our planet, but we had most of it mapped out. The steam engines are a new technology that boosted our progress considerably and we were progressing technologically at a speed never experienced before. People from that time would probably consider ours an utopia, mostly concerning our social achievements and the fact that we basically eliminated hunger at least in our "civilized" areas of the planet, a problem that was really huge back then, with worker famines being a constant problem. They would probably also be amazed at the way greater equality (note: We're talking about a world where a royal could still beat peasants with impunity in many "civilized" areas of the planet, and where owning people was maybe no longer considered decent and normal by some, but definitely legal in many areas). I think that would astound them more than our technical advances, like I said, they live in the age of the steam engine which was propelling advances forward faster than ever before, things were changing rapidly in that time.
So they would probably accept that we mastered flight, even though it seems impossible to them, much like FTL-travel seems to us now. But we can consider it possible. Likewise, traveling to the moon has been though about in that time, too, with the first sci-fi novels being written, and of course traveling beyond the confines of our planets is a topic. They would be amazed that it's possible and that we did it, but they wouldn't deem it impossible or completely outlandish.
Scroll back another 200 years to 1600 and it becomes impossible. Not only our technology, but our social advances. To a person from the 1600s, the idea of social equality of races, genders and especially religions is an alien concept they would reject on principle, as impossible. Likewise, travelling beyond the speed of wind is a concept that is absolutely alien, we are talking about a world where the fastest form of locomotion is riding on horseback, and crossing oceans is still a huge endeavor, with most of the planet still being unknown to "civilized" countries, and the idea of simply occupying and owning places you "discover", including the people on it, is considered the norm.
TNG is what we are to the guy from the 1600s. TOS is what we are to the one from the 1800s.
This is the difference.
So yes, TNG gets away with space magic, because they should actually have concepts that we don't even remotely grasp. Actually, they are way, way too "mundane" in many areas.
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I really like the mycelium-idea (Score:2)
warp field is far more believable than instantaneous travel to anywhere based on mushrooms that exist everywhere at once.
I just watched the 6th episode on Netflix. I was very annoyed by the mushroom idea at first but I now really like the idea of a biological agent growing in a separate plane of reality, covering all of the universe and maybe (spoilers?) bringing life to all of it.
I think it could have been ants or cockroaches, too, but the concept of an all encompassing mold is just plausible to everyone who ever owned an old house. I would have expected it in Doctor Who, though.
And I really like the characters they are buil
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Why doesn't 2000 look at 2200 and say, "wow, they finally cured the Gender Disphoria psychological disorder, and there is no need for LGBTQXYX in the future?"
That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.
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So the captain and the admiral spend the night together, then jump out from under the covers pretty much fully clothed in the morning. This is the pureUSA version of sex, makes you wonder how they did it, and why they're still doing it fully-clothed in the 23rd century. Don't think international audiences are gonna follow this show for long.
In the future clothes will put themselves on you moments before you wake up- so you're never late looking for your underwear ever again.
Fixed that for you (Score:2)
"Discovery has certainly benefited from plenty of hype, since it's the first Trek show to have a character shout 'Fuck!'"
Highest in history... Trust me. (Score:5, Funny)
CBS refused to offer numbers, but did boast that Discovery's debut lead to the highest number of sign-ups in the history of its All Access service.
Said CBS spokesman Donald Trump.
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Trump's become a meme. Like Natalie Portman's hot grits imagining a beowulf cluster in Soviet Russia.
He'll probably be around /. longer than he'll be president.
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In Soviet Russia, citizens piss on Trump!
I don't know if that was a joke.
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CBS refused to offer numbers, but did boast that Discovery's debut lead to the highest number of sign-ups in the history of its All Access service.
I bet they claimed the same thing just after their first customer signed up.
Then again the month when two more customers signed up.
It’s a matter of perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
”CBS refused to offer numbers, but did boast that Discovery's debut lead to the highest number of sign-ups in the history of its All Access service.”
So that means at least 10 people signed up because of Discovery, I’m guessing?
I don't care. (Score:2)
I didn't really like the new show. Not sure why, I used to like Star Trek, so I figured that I would really like it.
It seems a bit off.
Re:I don't care. Me neither (Score:4, Interesting)
I didn't really like the new show. Not sure why
Here's my reasons - see if any strike a chord.
First of all, none of the characters are likeable. I wouldn't care if any or all of them got eaten by their monster-cum-computer.
Second, the show lacks the "lightness" and humanity of previous incarnations. (Although Voyager comes close, in terms of grinding tedium and unnecessary earnestness).
Finally, the Klingons. Really? The show simply doesn't need all that pseudo-religious claptrap. In TOS and others, they were a bit-part, just another baddie. I have no desire to bond with them and don't need any of their back story, culture or infighting. Just shoot the suckers!
Re: (Score:2)
I'm speculating but I think the Klingons are going to explain the disparity between the different ones we have seen on screen and how such a war-like species ever managed to develop into the Klingon Empire we see in TNG.
We know that a considerable number of Klingons were affected by a virus that was accidentally created when they were trying to use Human augment technology to enhance themselves, which was covered on Enterprise. That resulted in the Klingons we saw on the Original Series, who lacked forehead
Nope (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
STD is the right abbreviation for this rubbish (Score:2)
Star Trek Discovery is about as enjoyable as an STD, so its abbreviation is suitable, at least. This show is utterly irredeemable. I'm like the O.P. above, I want my money back. I've been watching DS9 again and it's leagues ahead of this crap. I gave up watching it after episode three (I think) where, 10 minutes or so into the show, there was a full minute of pointless Klingon dialogue - in Klingon and with subtitles! The Orville is more Trek than this garbage. What were they thinking? I'm running out of wa
The Orville (Score:5, Insightful)
They should fire the writers of Discovery and hire the Orville team instead. Marry the solid writing of a real Star Trek show (The Orville) with the high production values of the knock-off (Discovery).
The Orville is a true to form Star Trek show disguised as generic sci-fi.
Discovery is generic sci-fi disguised as Star Trek.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm guessing The Orville season two will drop some more of the comedy, and it'll basically be Star Trek in all ways that matter.
Re: (Score:3)
When it hadn't shown yet, people were expecting The Family Guy in Space, full of fart jokes. Maybe that's even what Seth made the network think in order to sell it. Then while watching it, the captain has to have his ex as a first officer? Married with Crew? Nope, they use it for occasional gags, but nowhere near too much.
It has basically serious plots with a dysfunctional and irreverent crew, explained in-story by "we have three thousand ships that need crew!", and since Mercer didn't rate a prime post, h
Re: (Score:2)
Orville is pretty hit or miss.
the obvious fanboydom towards trek and thorny moral issues is cool....but the macfarlane caliber jokes can go away.
Re:The Orville (Score:4, Insightful)
Just think about the SJW-Trek bullshit that The Orville has been putting out:
Ok lets see your examples of SJW stuff...
Away teams consisting of three women, one man and one robot, and the women spend many minutes of screen time talking about their feelings
No, thats not SJW stuff. SJW stuff is not "stuff that old people may not like" ... SJW is making it gratuitous. For instance your next point fits the bill, because the homosexual scenes were gratuitous, they were the plot.
Multiple domestic conflict situations, including an overtly gay couple and an episode where the captain and first officer spent most of the time together in an apartment talking about their relationship
Star Trek didnt make Kirk kissing Uhura the plot. Star Trek in fact *downplayed* its significance. Meanwhile the homosexual scenes in that other show *were* the plot. It was gratuitous. Instead of just being there to show how normal it was in the future, instead it consumes the episodes to show how abnormal it is today. Its needlessly gratuitous bullshit. Full blown SJW crap.
An entire episode about a society that thinks women are inferior and forces gender transitions on infants
Nothing SJW about that.
The old "religious zealots" plot line, an obvious dig at religious conservatives
Sure, not a dig at the religious liberals. Your true intolerant colors are showing.
Re: (Score:3)
The only SJW stuff on Orville so far has been episode 3. That was such ham-fisted propaganda that the writers of Let That Be Your Last Battlefield are subtle to the point of inscrutability in comparison.
Though I should say, in complete harmony with Trek... the 'science' behind it was so bad it was cringe-worthy.
First, I'd like whoever decided an 'all-male' species could be a thing without cloning or somesuch to take a basic biology course.
Re: (Score:2)
Meanwhile the homosexual scenes in that other show *were* the plot.
Sorry, which show and which scene specifically?
Discovery had two guys brushing their teeth before bed. It was part of the plot, giving important character development and insight into how the ship runs.
In The Orville the same-sex aspect was just background to the gender issue, and some cheap laughs about how two men in a relationship have arguments just like opposite sex couples do.
Star Trek didnt make Kirk kissing Uhura the plot. Star Trek in fact *downplayed* its significance.
It was a huge deal at the time, getting a lot of press coverage. Roddenberry had great difficulty getting the executives to agr
Re: (Score:3)
"Orville" has a satirical element that riffs on Trekish memes to score SJW points. And given its overt imitation of characters from Trek, it also could be called a parody of Trek.
I definitely disagree. The Orville is neither spoof, satire, nor parody. The science is solid and the characters are all highly competent at their jobs. They don't make fun of technobabble, or races, or maritime ranks, or code of ethics, or anything else I can think of that's inherent to Star Trek.
The Orville doesn't make fun of any aspect of Star Trek. It merely adds a few jokes on top. And yes, some of those jokes are not fitting in the otherwise competent execution, but it seems they are dialing it to so
All Access is what? (Score:2)
I'm assuming All Access is a US thing. We have been watching it on Netflix here in Oz.
Positive here (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm seeing some negativity here, but I very much enjoy this season. It's Star Trek, but for once its crew is not infallible and almost-perfect. Nope, these people are damaged goods. Captain Lorca has been trapped, tortured, had to abandon his crew, etc. So he is VERY focused, to the point where you not only think "wow, this is a tough S.O.B." and then continues into the territory of eye-for-an-eye.
I don't much like their Spore Drive, but the dark and serious atmosphere makes it worth it, IMHO.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
For me what made star trek be star trek was not having that constant source of conflict. Every scifi show these days has crew conflict. It's refreshing to watch star trek(not discovery, obviously) and see a set of competent, professional people working together for a common good. They may have philosophical disagreements from time to time, but they respect each other and work it out. That's the utopian star trek universe and I miss it. If i want inner conflict between main characters, ostensibly on the
Re:Positive here (Score:5, Insightful)
That's precisely why this is not Star Trek. The crew are supposed to be "infallible and near-perfect". The whole point is to show an optimistic future where humanity has overcome its petty differences and started actually working for the betterment of all. This is the core principle of Star Trek. Everything else is a side-effect of that. If you want to watch people squabble over inconsequential things and torture animals for their benefit, go watch something that isn't Star Trek. There's tons of it, and lots of it is great if that's what you're looking for.
This isn't Star Trek, this is "Generic action sci-fi show #48911" with a Star Trek sticker slapped on it so that people will buy it.
Who is CBS? (Score:2)
I thought that was the Canadian Broadcast Service or something, but from the comments, it appears to be a US thingy.
My "cut cord" doesn't have anything but streaming channels for video.
Re: (Score:2)
Spore Drive is a one season story at most (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that the show is supposedly set about a decade before TOS, and that nobody in the whole Star Trek universe heard of Spore Drive until Discovery, should mean that Spore Drive technology will fail so spectacularly that nobody ever mentions it again and they just settle for "slow" Warp Drive for the rest of the future. Even the Borg have only Trans-Warp conduits to help them move faster.
If they still have Spore Drive in season 2 they're mad - otherwise they'll have to declare it an "alternate universe" story, and then watch how everybody suddenly understands why the Klingons look like a totally different species.
Re: (Score:3)
Given that the show is supposedly set about a decade before TOS, and that nobody in the whole Star Trek universe heard of Spore Drive until Discovery, should mean that Spore Drive technology will fail so spectacularly that nobody ever mentions it again
What the show really needs is Picard facepalm drive.
Spore Drive could be fixed via Q dimension. Turns out it involves traveling through Q's moldy infra-dimensional fridge, and once he threw away old pizza at the back it stopped working.
I'm enjoying it. (Score:3)
I'm enjoying it. They're making a lot of references to the EU of Trek; the old Pocket Books novel series that really fleshed out most of it (such as, for example, the Klingons wanting to be declared 'Unforgettable') and what not. ST:TAS introduced basic holodecks to the original Enterprise, so whatever.
Which leads to the second point; *real life* has already outstripped TOS in so many ways, it would be impossible to make a 'prequel' that looked like 'earlier technology' than TOS without it looking really fucking stupid. Besides, I remember when ST:TMP came out, people asked 'why do Klingons look different?' Roddenberry said 'That's what they've always looked like, we just didn't have the capability back in the 60s.'
Third, I thought they did a great job of coming up with, dare I say, the first 'logical' explanation of why Sarek would hook up with a human woman, and why he was able to get away with it.
All access as leverage (Score:2)
I'll wait (Score:2)
I will watch it once it gets to Netflix (never? Too bad). Not going to spend that kind of money for one show. I used to sub to Hulu before they fucked up their interface.
The only network I would willingly subscribe to would be the CW, since they have several shows I want to watch (The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow). Unfortunately they don't offer a paid version, so if I want to watch current episodes I have to sit through the damned commercials. I'll wait until Netflix gets them too
Re: (Score:2)
someone's triggered