I wish they had left the 32nd century as a "Discovery - only". After the jump to the future it felt like the show had no stakes. Everything felt disconnected.
It feels like an easy excuse for the writers to pull just about anything out of their asses, "because it has been so long" and "tech has evolved exponentially".
SNW proved that there was a lot more to explore even in the 23rd century. So much could have been done with the fallout of the Dominion War in the 24th.
But it's all up to the writers. If they're good the show can be good.
Agreed, Discovery has really only scratched the surface of what can be done with the Federation’s rebuilding itself, Earth’s new isolationist tendencies, and the unified Vulcan/Romulan society. It’d be a shame to leave all that behind. Plus, we still need to learn what’s become of the Klingons!
The Burn being caused by a magic baby having a tantrum kinda ruined the whole setting for me. There's a lot of potential with moving to the 32nd century, but if that's the quality of storytelling we're gonna get, it doesn't seem worth it. I'd much rather see a 24th century setting that follows up on the galaxy post Dominion War and the return of Voyager. There's a lot of untold story there that would be great to see... Although I'd hope it's not more magic baby style stuff.
I think the cause of the Burn is a nearly-perfect example of Star Trek's humanist values, and find it interesting when people feel the need to go out of their way to misrepresent it with words like "magic" in an effort to justify their dislike of it.
I find it interesting when people who are confronted with disagreement about a plot point they like resort to making implications about the other person's character instead of discussing anything in the post they're responding to.
I gave my opinion on a key plot point, which you took so much offense to, you ignored everything else in the post. Please, keep living up to your username as you find a place on my block list.
We can replace the words "magic" with "strongly telepathic" and it's basically the same problem.
It's a great idea to fuck warp travel right on its head as a concept, but the execution was majorly lacking for me. I would have much rather had a continuation of the plot from Force of Nature where warp had significantly damaged subspace gradually (like a climate change allegory), rather than a universe-wide explosion that happened all at once in a flash.
I don't know that I agree that "telepathic" is quite the right word - Su'Kal was a polyploidal mutant whose genes were affected by the dilithium in the environment - a sci-fi extension of a real genetic phenomenon that can occur when extreme environmental stresses are present. The explanation they gave was more scientific that many of those that we've had across the history of the franchise.
At the end of the day, if it doesn't work for everyone, that's fine - I personally think it's a very TOS/TNG idea, sort of a "Charlie X" by way of "The Survivors", and I think it's pretty obvious that the producers wanted the source to have a "human face" if you'll forgive the expression.
I think putting the face onto the source is what made it lose the value, unfortunately.
My comparison is what they did with the Borg and the Queen. Wolf 359 is a terrifying, tragic ordeal, made all the more serious by the fact that it was done by one cube that could not be negotiated or reasoned with. As soon as the Borg had a way to negotiate and reason, they became less scary because they had understandable motives and goals that could be bargained with, as excellently demonstrated by Janeway.
Ultimately, I agree with you that it's kind of more of a TOS-y sort of plot device. I do feel like back then they really followed the science being indistinguishable from magic logic, and we've progressed over time to wanting more hard and serious technobabble. I think that's kind of a disconnect for me, personally, is that they had to dip into a serious explanation for something that effectively functions like magic.
Oh boy, one day we should probably have the Great Borg Queen Debate - it would be a thread for the ages...
we’ve progressed over time to wanting more hard and serious technobabble.
That's the thing, I think the technobabble surrounding Su'Kal is actually pretty good. I will grant that the episode has a lot going on, and it's easy to miss, but it's solid enough that it's had me doing some light genetics research on more than one occasion.
I'm rewatching season 3 now, and the themes of trauma and mental health are so pervasive that I think it was really appropriate that the burn would be the result of a mental health crisis in one way or another. In that context, I think putting a face to it works. The "Force of Nature" or old-school Borg route could work great, but for a different show/season.
The Burn being caused by a magic baby having a tantrum kinda ruined the whole setting for me
The Burn has one of the most classic Star Trek explanations ever—normal human(oid) gains magic powers after being exposed to strange energies. The Burn was several classic Star Trek stories woven together to tell a new tale. It's basically a retelling of the TOS episode Charlie X.
Trauma acting as the trigger for those powers is the most believable part of the Burn. Emotions causing people to react is nothing new. It's how humans operate in real life. Entire wars have been started over the death of a loved one. Emotions acting as a trigger is not new to Star Trek either. It's been used a motivation for dozens of stories.
Star Trek has used the trope dozens of times and several in an almost identical scenario. Such as when Kevin wiped out the Husnock in response to them murdering his wife. Or Riker breaking his promise not to use his Q powers after Wesley was killed. It's a realistic human(oid) response—trauma like the loss of a loved one can trigger a reaction with no bounds.
tantrum
It's really disgusting anyone would refer to the grief and trauma one experiences over the loss of a parent as a "tantrum." Your comment is the very definition of hyperbole.
Agreed. For me, the only “magic” Star Trek needed was stories about relationships that took their time unfolding, with competency. There occasionally were unexplained encounters, but the focus was always on something that could be solvable when the crew worked together. There was resolution. Plus, I really liked the episodic structure of TNG and DS9, where I could get onboard with any episode almost. Within the self contained episodes there could be “twists of fate” that exist today. No more giant fantastic leaps than we already make by believing everything is in the future with their tech.
The “new” trek is too focused on being cinematic. Discovery was interesting at the beginning but it was overly precious and predictable, and overly representative. Designed to keep people hooked. I think the quality suffered greatly. I think representation is super important, having characters with diverse identities, but doing it for diversity’s sake isn’t the way. If we’re really in the future, then people just are.
My excitement at having Paul Giamatti in Trek is significantly tempered by the idea that he’s going to be the season villain for “Starfleet Academy”. Unless he’s going to be the hard ass dean of the Academy that doesn’t want to put up Tilly’s students putting Orion pheromones in the environmental system, and kidnapping the Klingon Military Academy’s targ mascot before the big game, I’m not interested in a villain.
Is there anyone else here that feels that Patrick Stewart is violating the spirit of the SAG-AFTRA strike with his book promoting interviews?
While it’s likely his publisher wanted a fall release for the Christmas gift market, it seems really inappropriate that he’s out pitching how he wanted his show to end (with his real life wife getting another voice credit) or stories about TNG behind the scenes.
SAG members have been constrained from talking about the franchise in convention panels, or promoting their new shows, but he’s out there selling his book based on his career in the IP and distracting from Lower Decks which needs all the boost it can get.
It’s not making me admire Stewart, and settled any question of buying his book for the negative.
This is probably my favorite story about the filming of TNG. He wanted to take it very seriously, his cast mates were all goofing around too much, and the end result landed somewhere in the middle, which I think served the show well in the end. Patrick Stewart elevated the show, and it might not have been so successful otherwise.
Listening to Patrick Stewart say, with full frustration in his voice “we are not here to have FUN” would have made me laugh him out too. God I would have killed to have footage of that
The footage I’d like to see would be Patrick Stewart seeing Galaxy Quest for the first time. Actually, I’d kill to have that as a commentary for the Blu-ray. Hell, give me all the casts’ first reactions.
“I could be a severe bastard,” he writes. “My experiences at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre had been intense and serious … On the TNG set, I grew angry with the conduct of my peers, and that’s when I called that meeting in which I lectured the cast for goofing off and responded to Denise Crosby’s, ‘We’ve got to have some fun sometimes, Patrick’ comment by saying, ‘We are not here, Denise, to have fun.'”
“In retrospect,” Stewart continues, “everyone, me included, finds this story hilarious. But in the moment, when the cast erupted in hysterics at my pompous declaration, I didn’t handle it well. I didn’t enjoy being laughed at. I stormed off the set and into my trailer, slamming the door.”
Stewart then details how Frakes and Spiner came to his trailer for a heart-to-heart chat.
“People respect you,” Spiner told him. “But I think you misjudged the situation here.”
Recalls Stewart: “He and Jonathan acknowledged that yes, there was too much goofing around and that it needed to be dialed back. But they also made it clear how off-putting it was — and not a case study in good leadership — for me to try to resolve the matter by lecturing and scolding the cast. I had failed to read the room, imposing RSC behavior on people accustomed to the ways of episodic television — which was, after all, what we were shooting.”
In short, he became angry because he was used to theater acting and tried to hold a tv production to theater’s standards.
he actually learns how to be a captain while playing the role, that's so awesome.. he gets a lecture from Number One and his Science Operations Officer on human behavior, it's just hilarious and beautiful, i'm dying here..
All good friend! I’m just too much of a Trek nerd to not correct it. It’s an easy mistake to make too, seeing as Data handles a lot of the science related stuff on the show and the Enterprise-D is notably lacking a Chief Science Officer. Behind the scenes Data was originally going to be in Sciences, but the producers didn’t like the way a blue uniform looked with his skin so they made him Ops.
that is awesome my friend, thank you.. you know i may have watched nearly every episode of that show, and not really been sure about his job, haha.. but i just naturally equate him with Spock, when i think about his relationship to the Captain character.. and the fact that Spiner's character is the one learning human emotions from square one makes the whole real world episode with Stewart (the ACADEMY man, for God's sake) even better..
Yes. If he carried a grudge for years, that would make him a pompous ass. This, on the other hand, just sounds like someone making the adjustment to television acting from a stage career.
I like that his fellow cast members felt like they could talk to him about it. That alone says quite a bit.
There’s interviews with Frakes where he talks about stepping into the director’s role for a few episodes and quickly realizing that it was very difficult to do when the cast would goof off up until the word ACTION gets called.
So Stewart probably had a point, especially from production’s view.
"After I moved out of the house,” he continued, “not because of the haunting — although it had become bothersome with noises, footsteps on stairs, voices in rooms that were empty and feelings of temperature changes and so forth.
“I moved out. Not because of the haunting though. But it was bothersome.”
Definitely something I could hear him saying. Why didn’t he just put down his Earl Grey, look up from his leatherbound book, and say, “You’re being quite bothersome!”? I think that would shut up anyone, ghost or not.
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