Star Trek: Discovery - New series on Netflix
Discussion
_dobbo_ said:
It's interesting that people hark back to the old star trek and say Discovery isn't proper star trek, then use plot holes as some sort of rationale for this.
All the other star trek series had terrible plot holes and inconsistencies. And astoundingly bad storylines and episodes.
Totally agree, you cannot surely character assassinate when there have been terrible ones through the whole ST genre!All the other star trek series had terrible plot holes and inconsistencies. And astoundingly bad storylines and episodes.
What I would agree to a degree is that Discovery has become a bit more action focused - old Star Trek was very much exploration, evolving situations out through dialogue, with the occasional blast with a phaser. Discovery feels like it moves along at a much faster pace for me and there is a lot less soul searching going on. But I like it, and happy to have the franchise change direction a bit and try something new.
_dobbo_ said:
It's interesting that people hark back to the old star trek and say Discovery isn't proper star trek, then use plot holes as some sort of rationale for this.
All the other star trek series had terrible plot holes and inconsistencies. And astoundingly bad storylines and episodes.
It's more the feel and demeanor of the other series/movies. They all where the same, this new one isn't. It'd a be akin to launching a new Porsche 911 with fwd and a turbo charged 4 cylinder diesel engine. It could still be good, but isn't by any stretch of the imagination a "911".All the other star trek series had terrible plot holes and inconsistencies. And astoundingly bad storylines and episodes.
And while there will always be inconsistencies, there should be general trends that remain when you have a back catalog as vast as Star Trek does..... 9 motion pictures and 703 episodes. That is a lot of cannon that should be acknowledged and respected. If this was a brand new franchise with very little cannon, then yes they would have the freedom to start and define what that cannon is. But it isn't.
I think Pike feels very much like Kirk in the one episode I have seen so far. Although Burnham is the constant in terms of lead character I think Lorca still got as much screen time, expect Pike to do so also. It does feel like star trek to me when you see the ships, the klingons etc. Also its worth bearing in mind that all previous star treks literally were stand alone episodes, whereas with this incarnation its on the whole a rolling storyline. That in itself will create a different feel.
coldel said:
It does feel like star trek to me when you see the ships, the klingons etc.
Not sure I can follow this. The ships have mostly been blocky things bearing no resemblance to past known ship classes and styles. They couldn't even keep the Enterprise/Constitution class looking correct, something both DS9 and Enterprise series managed.The Klingon ships - OMG no idea what has gone wrong there, certainly nothing Trek at all in their look or their design. Much like the Klingons in Discovery too. If I wasn't told explicitly (think it was in the on screen sub-text) that they were Klingons, I'd never have guessed they were. For the simple fact that they look nothing like what a Klingon has done for the past 40 years....
coldel said:
Also its worth bearing in mind that all previous star treks literally were stand alone episodes, whereas with this incarnation its on the whole a rolling storyline. That in itself will create a different feel.
Not sure this is true. There have always been joined up episodes in all of them. And DS9 had an on-going story arch, more apparent in the latter seasons than the early ones. Enterprise also had some very joined up episodes as an entire season was looking for the Xindi.300bhp/ton said:
coldel said:
It does feel like star trek to me when you see the ships, the klingons etc.
Not sure I can follow this. The ships have mostly been blocky things bearing no resemblance to past known ship classes and styles. They couldn't even keep the Enterprise/Constitution class looking correct, something both DS9 and Enterprise series managed.The Klingon ships - OMG no idea what has gone wrong there, certainly nothing Trek at all in their look or their design. Much like the Klingons in Discovery too. If I wasn't told explicitly (think it was in the on screen sub-text) that they were Klingons, I'd never have guessed they were. For the simple fact that they look nothing like what a Klingon has done for the past 40 years....
coldel said:
Also its worth bearing in mind that all previous star treks literally were stand alone episodes, whereas with this incarnation its on the whole a rolling storyline. That in itself will create a different feel.
Not sure this is true. There have always been joined up episodes in all of them. And DS9 had an on-going story arch, more apparent in the latter seasons than the early ones. Enterprise also had some very joined up episodes as an entire season was looking for the Xindi.
There have definitely been joined up episodes, I could be wrong but from memory not an ongoing storyline playing itself out through an entire series. There are plenty of two parters etc. in TNG but nothing like the Discovery end to end storyline as far as I remember where one episode feeds into the next, so in previous ST where a character has a traumatising event happen and then in the next episode they are completely fine and over it except some references to Picard and the Borg when it was necessary.
I actually think this style makes the series weaker for it, previously ST could throw all sorts of great stories at us each week, now it is forced down a specific path.
Edited by coldel on Tuesday 22 January 12:18
Ultimately all of the previous incarnations of Trek were eventually cancelled.
Therefore any new series has to go down a different route with a different slant on things and must incorporate new filming techniques, styles and the progression of CGI or it won't last 1 season.
Discovery has also had Sex, Graphic Gore and Foul Language.
It's a series for the here and now, not 20 years ago. I love it. It's fresh.
Therefore any new series has to go down a different route with a different slant on things and must incorporate new filming techniques, styles and the progression of CGI or it won't last 1 season.
Discovery has also had Sex, Graphic Gore and Foul Language.
It's a series for the here and now, not 20 years ago. I love it. It's fresh.
LoonyTunes said:
Ultimately all of the previous incarnations of Trek were eventually cancelled.
Therefore any new series has to go down a different route with a different slant on things and must incorporate new filming techniques, styles and the progression of CGI or it won't last 1 season.
Discovery has also had Sex, Graphic Gore and Foul Language.
It's a series for the here and now, not 20 years ago. I love it. It's fresh.
Though if you want that there's other series that have done it better recently, The Expanse series has done gore (within the context of space and without being too gratuitous) really well and space based combat much more interesting (although obviously a very different time-frame and universe to Star Trek).Therefore any new series has to go down a different route with a different slant on things and must incorporate new filming techniques, styles and the progression of CGI or it won't last 1 season.
Discovery has also had Sex, Graphic Gore and Foul Language.
It's a series for the here and now, not 20 years ago. I love it. It's fresh.
To say they've all been cancelled at some point is true but some of the older ones went on for a lot longer than 1 series and remained great shows. Not to say I hate the new show at all, it's just maybe not as good as it could be if it either drew more from the older shows style or just went whole hog and became a bit more 'gritty'.
GrumpyTwig said:
LoonyTunes said:
Ultimately all of the previous incarnations of Trek were eventually cancelled.
Therefore any new series has to go down a different route with a different slant on things and must incorporate new filming techniques, styles and the progression of CGI or it won't last 1 season.
Discovery has also had Sex, Graphic Gore and Foul Language.
It's a series for the here and now, not 20 years ago. I love it. It's fresh.
Though if you want that there's other series that have done it better recently, The Expanse series has done gore (within the context of space and without being too gratuitous) really well and space based combat much more interesting (although obviously a very different time-frame and universe to Star Trek).Therefore any new series has to go down a different route with a different slant on things and must incorporate new filming techniques, styles and the progression of CGI or it won't last 1 season.
Discovery has also had Sex, Graphic Gore and Foul Language.
It's a series for the here and now, not 20 years ago. I love it. It's fresh.
To say they've all been cancelled at some point is true but some of the older ones went on for a lot longer than 1 series and remained great shows.
LoonyTunes said:
True but you couldn't make the previous Treks today.
The Orville is far more previous Trek and that's generally been getting a very positive reception. LoonyTunes said:
But it got canned by the SyFy channel and had to be saved by Amazon.
I think that had a lot more to do with SyFy's fairly poor rights deal with no standalone streaming service than it did with the quality of the show. Whilst The Expanse was streamed by other companies, none of that revenue went to SyFy. Of all the genres, scifi is probably the one that most benefits from after the event streaming. Given that production costs for subsequent series are going to increase significantly if it's to stay true to the books, they simply couldn't sell enough advertising to fund it.That said, The Expanse was still a lot less costly to produce than STD at a reputed $8m per episode but like The Expanse, CBS have been hanging the success of their All Access streaming service on the back of it. It's been less than successful in that regard, with rumours that after giving a week's free access to new customers (with no restrictions) to binge watch Series 1 prior to Series 2 starting, uptake was measured in the hundreds only.
CBS were fortunate that Netflix pretty much covered their production costs for S1, but the S2 budget ran over significantly and if this series doesn't perform extremely well, as in GoT levels of success, S3 is looking doubtful.
jagnet said:
The Orville is far more previous Trek and that's generally been getting a very positive reception.
It's not real SciFi though is it. 
LoonyTunes said:
But it got canned by the SyFy channel and had to be saved by Amazon.
CBS were fortunate that Netflix pretty much covered their production costs for S1, but the S2 budget ran over significantly and if this series doesn't perform extremely well, as in GoT levels of success, S3 is looking doubtful. Doomcock's CBS insider who's been pretty much on the money so far. That's the source that gave us the info on the budget overruns, the reshoots, the shorts, etc.
Given that the STD budget is around that of most GoT series a handful of All Access subscriptions in return isn't going to cut it.
Let's not forget that it was Moonves who gave the green light to STD originally. The same Moonves that didn't actually like previous Star Trek series. Now that he's been #metoo'd out following a slew of assault allegations (so very progressive) along with some of his close allies there's few to no exec level STD defenders left in CBS and CBS execs haven't taken kindly to becoming a laughing stock on the internet with some very very strained meetings as a result.
It's pretty much make or break this season and the rash of media reports in the week before E1 aired from CBS owned outlets around spin off series such as Picard shows that they are desperately trying to drum up hype. None of those series have started filming, but you'd think they rather than STD were now being aired for all the talk.
There's also been some talk recently of a CBS / Viacom merger which would bring Paramount and CBS back together, removing the ST rights nonsense that requires STD to be 25% different. Perhaps then they might be able to design some decent collars for the Enterprise crew uniforms
Given that the STD budget is around that of most GoT series a handful of All Access subscriptions in return isn't going to cut it.
Let's not forget that it was Moonves who gave the green light to STD originally. The same Moonves that didn't actually like previous Star Trek series. Now that he's been #metoo'd out following a slew of assault allegations (so very progressive) along with some of his close allies there's few to no exec level STD defenders left in CBS and CBS execs haven't taken kindly to becoming a laughing stock on the internet with some very very strained meetings as a result.
It's pretty much make or break this season and the rash of media reports in the week before E1 aired from CBS owned outlets around spin off series such as Picard shows that they are desperately trying to drum up hype. None of those series have started filming, but you'd think they rather than STD were now being aired for all the talk.
There's also been some talk recently of a CBS / Viacom merger which would bring Paramount and CBS back together, removing the ST rights nonsense that requires STD to be 25% different. Perhaps then they might be able to design some decent collars for the Enterprise crew uniforms
coldel said:
Klingons, I would argue have changed appearance half a dozen times, the ridged heads, tall stock body, etc. generally looks similar but improvements in make up and CGI should be implemented to make them look more up to date - if I remember correctly the very first klingons on the original had no ridges at all, just dark skin and long moustaches and beards
Klingons have looked the same since the 1979 Motion picture right thru to Nemesis. Can you cite what these other half dozen appearance changes are?Yes, we all know in the TOS days they looked different, but that was mostly budget and to some extent technology constraints. However Enterprise made a good stab at retconning this explain why Klingons looked this way.
And for Discovery, sure use new make up techniques, but why not introduce new aliens for radical new looks. I mean, why stop with Klingons, why not redesign all the species in the known Star Trek universe.....
There have definitely been joined up episodes, I could be wrong but from memory not an ongoing storyline playing itself out through an entire series. There are plenty of two parters etc. in TNG but nothing like the Discovery end to end storyline as far as I remember where one episode feeds into the next, so in previous ST where a character has a traumatising event happen and then in the next episode they are completely fine and over it except some references to Picard and the Borg when it was necessary.
coldel said:
I actually think this style makes the series weaker for it, previously ST could throw all sorts of great stories at us each week, now it is forced down a specific path.
Enterprise had 3 big stories. The Temporal Cold War (season 1, 2 & 4), the Xindi (Season 3) and the Founding of the Federation (Season 4).The Xindi particularly had continued story from one episode to another. Such as the ship being half destroyed in one episode and still the same in the next.
LoonyTunes said:
Ultimately all of the previous incarnations of Trek were eventually cancelled.
Therefore any new series has to go down a different route with a different slant on things and must incorporate new filming techniques, styles and the progression of CGI or it won't last 1 season.
Discovery has also had Sex, Graphic Gore and Foul Language.
It's a series for the here and now, not 20 years ago. I love it. It's fresh.
Very cleaver biased view there Therefore any new series has to go down a different route with a different slant on things and must incorporate new filming techniques, styles and the progression of CGI or it won't last 1 season.
Discovery has also had Sex, Graphic Gore and Foul Language.
It's a series for the here and now, not 20 years ago. I love it. It's fresh.
I'm not sure 7 seasons and over 170 episode each for the TNG/DS9/VOY would really be seen as a failure in anyone's book. So ended successfully rather than cancelled due to low ratings.
So I'm not sure there is any reason or justification to take a new Trek down a different route as you put it.
300bhp/ton said:
Enterprise had 3 big stories. The Temporal Cold War (season 1, 2 & 4), the Xindi (Season 3) and the Founding of the Federation (Season 4).
The Xindi particularly had continued story from one episode to another. Such as the ship being half destroyed in one episode and still the same in the next.
I didnt actually watch much of Enterprise so as I say happy to be corrected, but certainly for TOS TNG Voyager DS9 etc there wasnt a constant storyline that ran through an entire series.The Xindi particularly had continued story from one episode to another. Such as the ship being half destroyed in one episode and still the same in the next.
There is an interview with the makers of Discovery somewhere online which explains the Klingon design etc and why it changed in much more detail than I could ever go into on here. Made a lot of sense. And the TOS Klingons were meant to be based on Genghis Khan and never had ridges (even though other aliens at the same time had various make up adaptations including pointy ears).
300bhp/ton said:
Very cleaver biased view there
I'm not sure 7 seasons and over 170 episode each for the TNG/DS9/VOY would really be seen as a failure in anyone's book. So ended successfully rather than cancelled due to low ratings.
So I'm not sure there is any reason or justification to take a new Trek down a different route as you put it.
Voyager ended nearly 20 years ago and the people who made it aren't making any new series of Star Trek. The TNG/DS9/VOY style is as dead now as TOS style of filming was the moment TNG first aired.I'm not sure 7 seasons and over 170 episode each for the TNG/DS9/VOY would really be seen as a failure in anyone's book. So ended successfully rather than cancelled due to low ratings.
So I'm not sure there is any reason or justification to take a new Trek down a different route as you put it.
I enjoyed Enterprise, but I was disappointed that it was a wasted opportunity to do something different. I think Enterprise was cancelled because it was just more of the same old Trek that people were getting bored with as they had already been over saturated by 700 episodes of it.
Star Trek must adapt to survive. Classic Trek is a laughing stock. You tell someone you like it and you may as well have said you like Dungeons & Dragons. That sort of reputation is not going to bring in the viewing figures. I've tried to convince a few people to watch Discovery, but they won't because of Star Trek's reputation.
What they should have done was update the storylines and filming technique, but keep the timeline and the aesthetic (uniforms, aliens, ships etc) the same so as not to p
s off the existing fans. Star Trek The Motion Picture managed to get away with sexing everything up, but I suppose back then there were no web forums to complain about it.I really think it was the fans who killed off Stargate in the end. If Stargate Universe had more support there could be a brand new series of it by now. Instead Stargate is gone from our screens, probably forever.
AlexC1981 said:
300bhp/ton said:
Very cleaver biased view there
I'm not sure 7 seasons and over 170 episode each for the TNG/DS9/VOY would really be seen as a failure in anyone's book. So ended successfully rather than cancelled due to low ratings.
So I'm not sure there is any reason or justification to take a new Trek down a different route as you put it.
Voyager ended nearly 20 years ago and the people who made it aren't making any new series of Star Trek. The TNG/DS9/VOY style is as dead now as TOS style of filming was the moment TNG first aired.I'm not sure 7 seasons and over 170 episode each for the TNG/DS9/VOY would really be seen as a failure in anyone's book. So ended successfully rather than cancelled due to low ratings.
So I'm not sure there is any reason or justification to take a new Trek down a different route as you put it.
I enjoyed Enterprise, but I was disappointed that it was a wasted opportunity to do something different. I think Enterprise was cancelled because it was just more of the same old Trek that people were getting bored with as they had already been over saturated by 700 episodes of it.
Star Trek must adapt to survive. Classic Trek is a laughing stock. You tell someone you like it and you may as well have said you like Dungeons & Dragons. That sort of reputation is not going to bring in the viewing figures. I've tried to convince a few people to watch Discovery, but they won't because of Star Trek's reputation.
What they should have done was update the storylines and filming technique, but keep the timeline and the aesthetic (uniforms, aliens, ships etc) the same so as not to p
s off the existing fans. Star Trek The Motion Picture managed to get away with sexing everything up, but I suppose back then there were no web forums to complain about it.I really think it was the fans who killed off Stargate in the end. If Stargate Universe had more support there could be a brand new series of it by now. Instead Stargate is gone from our screens, probably forever.
Pining for a Trek that couldn't be made today whilst holding it up as standard that Discovery should match doesn't make sense. This is a Trek for today.
It could well get cancelled because with the myriad alternative viewing options available today as competition for it many series are getting canned that have good production values and might previously have survived. TOS, TNG etc never had to compete with 500 satellite channels, Netflix, Amazon, Streaming services etc.
The Orville is the only way you could attempt it but then it's a deceit as The Orville is a semi-comedy (and having watched all of them is really quite light on the comedy).
Gassing Station | TV, Film, Video Streaming & Radio | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff