|
In fairness, being boring as poo poo is also strong TOS S4 energy
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Dec 2, 2024 07:19 |
|
|
Season 7 had Crusher fucks a ghost and Barclay Devolves into a Spider
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:27
|
|
|
zoux posted:Season 7 had Crusher fucks a ghost and Barclay Devolves into a Spider I mean those two are definitely terrible episodes but in a very entertaining way.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:30
|
|
|
I’ve said it before, but Disco excels when it’s just being Weird As Hell™, as opposed to attempting some kind of epic, melodramatic tale. Like, when the ship half-phased into mushroom space to revive a dead guy? Give me an IV of that poo poo straight into my veins.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:33
|
|
|
Any special promotions for CBS All Access in the US? From what I can tell there's some sort of trial period available. Also I see it's just $6/month with ads, so that's cool (I had assumed it would be Netflix pricing). I hate the idea of all these splintered paid streaming services... but for a show I'm really interested in, two months for around the price of a movie ticket doesn't seem too bad.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:35
|
|
|
IMO all of Discos problems start and stop with Michael Burnham.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:36
|
|
|
Eiba posted:Calling it now: the Picard show is going to be great. Return to idealism. Cogent case for compassion to refugees in the face of cynical isolationism. An exploration of understanding for the "other," synth/ex-borg or whatever. Counterpoint: Alex loving Kurtzman.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:36
|
|
|
zoux posted:IMO all of Discos problems start and stop with Michael Burnham. Make Tilly the star.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:40
|
|
|
MikeJF posted:I think that's where it's going to go, but to me some of the greatest part of the idealism of Star Trek is that we might somehow make it to wisdom as a civilisation working together. That acts of idealism and morality aren't necessarily limited to heroes and individuals and small-scale stories, but something that we could collectively achieve together. Cast off the cynical idea that society must be a crushing, corrupted amoral machine dragging all of us down which must be defied if we want to do right, and instead present the idea that together we could build a civilisation to be proud of, one that could face times of darkness and struggle through while keeping ahold of its values and fight off the parts of itself that want to compromise them. I think things can get better, and state power can be motivated by ideals a lot more benevolent than the ones that currently motivate them. And I do think Star Trek depicts that, and will continue to depict that (with the possible exception of Discovery season 3). But there will always be failings. In this case, the Federation may be internally ideal, but it still exists in an imperfect galaxy and has to deal with international situations where people with wildly different ideals have to be respected, and the Federation has to compromise, and maybe it won't compromise well. That's a problem even a utopia could have. And the idea that people need to be vigilant and push back when things go wrong, even in a utopia, is a valuable and positive message. Ideally it would be a popular movement that corrects the Federation's lapse, but an idealistic individual we all know and love can represent that to make the story more coherent. The message is understood. We should all be like Picard. Edit: Timby posted:Counterpoint: Alex loving Kurtzman. And more generally, it's not that I've got faith in the people who make these things or anything. It's just that Star Wars taught me that even keeping my expectations low isn't going to keep me from being pissed at the absurdly incoherent mess they can poo poo out. I knew what to expect going into Rise of Skywalker- it was going to be bad and dumb and fail to appreciate what I appreciated about the other Star Wars movies. But then it did it and I was pissed anyway. So why bother getting preemptively pissed? I can at least spend this time before the show thinking about what I appreciate about Star Trek and these kinds of scenarios, rather than muttering and ruing the idiots running things before I even know for sure that they've ruined it. I can't protect myself with cynicism, so I'll do what I can to be positive as long as I can manage. Eiba fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jan 21, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:46
|
|
|
zoux posted:IMO all of Discos problems start and stop with Michael Burnham. Disagree, problems all start and stop with the producers.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:49
|
|
|
zoux posted:IMO all of Discos problems start and stop with Michael Burnham. I especially hate that she Bookends the episodes because they give her the most eye-rollingly terrible monologues.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:56
|
|
|
Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Disagree, problems all start and stop with the producers. 100%, my dude HD DAD posted:I’ve said it before, but Disco excels when it’s just being Weird As Hell™, as opposed to attempting some kind of epic, melodramatic tale. I hold this up as the best episode of both seasons (some really clunky pacing aside) because it had a solid emotional core for the key players and a traditional structure of teaser, a "work the problem" and pay off that wasn't completely asinine or undercutting the supposed theme of the episode (looking at you, New Eden). Now was it an exceptional story in the context of trek, sci fi or TV in general? I don't think so, no. But it did show that Discovery can have smaller arcs, built off previous plot developments and with lasting effects on the continuing narrative while being it's own self contained story. I think its strength is not necessarily because it was "weird as hell", since in the grand scheme of wacky trek poo poo, a plot of rescuing a crewmember from an extremely alien consciousness via diplomacy doesn't even crack top ten, but that it had an internal logic to problem at hand and emotional relevancy for the characters involved. That's the lesson I'd hope they'd learn from it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:57
|
|
|
Also the Federation doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be a substantially more just society than the one we live in today.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:57
|
|
|
Does SMG have some sort of clause in her contract that she must be the focus of all events happening around her?
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 18:57
|
|
|
I think a good idea for a post DS9 series would be along the lines of that one two-parter where the Defiant fought that souped up Excelsior-class. Basically in the wake of the Dominion War you have two emergent factions, one that believes that the increased militarism in the Federation post Wolf 359 led Starfleet (Defiant, Akira, Sovereign, etc classes were all designed as anti-Borg warships) inexorably to conflict, and that the Federation should return to its entirely peaceful roots. The other faction recognizes that the Federation gets its rear end whooped in every space war and wants to increase militarism while the Federation remains the dominant power in the AB quadrants and establish a permanent hegemony. The Romulans are done, the Klingons are a paper targ, who is even a threat to the Federation anymore, the Breen? The Sheliak Corporate? Drunk Kevin Uxbridge? So good conflict would have to be intra-Federation and fighting over the very soul of the Fed (and meta-ly the ST franchise and vision of the future) is to me an interesting idea.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 19:02
|
|
|
Eiba posted:Countercounterpoint: Michael Chabon? The guy who loved his time on the show so much that he quit before season 2 was even announced.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 19:11
|
|
|
Timby posted:The guy who loved his time on the show so much that he quit before season 2 was even announced. Well he's not going to be the showrunner for season 2, but he's remaining on as EP. Also he's leaving to run Kavalier and Klay on CBS, which, you know, understandable.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 19:17
|
|
|
Yeah I thought Chabon was leaving to run an adaptation of his Kavalier & Clay, which would make sense.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 19:19
|
|
|
zoux posted:Well he's not going to be the showrunner for season 2, but he's remaining on as EP. I haven't read anything about his departure, but that wouldn't be unexpected even if it was on bad terms.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 19:20
|
|
|
Lizard Combatant posted:I haven't read anything about his departure, but that wouldn't be unexpected even if it was on bad terms. Yeah, even Bryan Fuller still has an EP credit on Discovery and he got fired before a single episode was filmed.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 19:22
|
|
|
Timby posted:Yeah, even Bryan Fuller still has an EP credit on Discovery and he got fired before a single episode was filmed. Do you have some inside info or something, because everything I'm seeing reported says this was about him running the show for the book he wrote (after signing an overall production deal with CBS). Also Kavalier and Clay is going to be on Showtime not CBS, my mistake.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 19:25
|
|
|
I gotta say though, I am excited for Picard. If for nothing else than its moving into uncharted territory. I have major reservations about a lot of the creatives behind it, but at the same time anything is possible. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 19:29
|
|
|
HD DAD posted:I’ve said it before, but Disco excels when it’s just being Weird As Hell™, as opposed to attempting some kind of epic, melodramatic tale. Discovery S2 had some half-baked scripts, but they were aiming high and usually still landed on "entertaining". Like the mushroom space episode. Cool premise and visuals, but they stopped to have a conversation about three times while they were under a 5 minute deadline on the ship being torn apart. They were good conversations, but for the love of god, save the ethical debates for after you get the ship out of danger.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 19:31
|
|
|
zoux posted:Do you have some inside info or something, because everything I'm seeing reported says this was about him running the show for the book he wrote (after signing an overall production deal with CBS). Oh, I don't doubt that Chabon left to do his book's show, it's always been a passion project for him. It's just never a good look when a showrunner bails after the first season of a show.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 19:35
|
|
|
Wow, I had no idea Michael Chabon was involved in this, but seeing he wrote the Calypso short makes a ton of sense.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 19:50
|
|
|
angerbeet posted:Wow, I had no idea Michael Chabon was involved in this, but seeing he wrote the Calypso short makes a ton of sense. Yeah, he was brought in to be part of the writing team (alongside Stewart, James Duff, Heather Kadin, Akiva Goldsman and someone I'm forgetting) and then last summer he was promoted to showrunner (in part because Discovery season 3 was sucking down so much of Kurtzman's time). In December he announced that if a second season were greenlit, he wouldn't be part of it because ViacomCBS had approved development of Kavalier and Clay. Timby fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Jan 21, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 19:54
|
|
|
Discovery is fine if you don’t go in determined to hate it, hth. These threads routinely recognize that the first ~30-40 episodes of almost every Star Trek series are the weakest. Discovery has only done 29 episodes thus far and has had to deal with a revolving door of creatives and showrunners, including a creator that delayed the series by an entire year over stupid loving costuming choices before being unceremoniously fired. Discovery will be fine once it has a stable creative team behind it for an entire season.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 20:43
|
|
|
The first 2 seasons of Discovery are better than the first two seasons of TNG and DS9 easy. It goes without saying it's better than the other three series entirely, not just the first 2 seasons. If TNG or DS9 had been released in this era, they'd've been cancelled season one.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 20:50
|
|
|
zoux posted:The first 2 seasons of Discovery are better than the first two seasons of TNG and DS9 easy. It goes without saying it's better than the other three series entirely, not just the first 2 seasons. I said last year that Discovery's first season was the best first season of Star Trek since TOS, but now I'd say the first two seasons of Discovery are the strongest two seasons of any Star Trek since TOS.  Is there a Q Who or Measure of a Man or The Wire or Necessary Evil? No, but there isn't a lot of mediocre episodes or a Shades of Grey, either. MichiganCubbie fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Jan 21, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 21:23
|
|
|
Big Mean Jerk posted:Discovery is fine if you don’t go in determined to hate it, hth. TNG only got better because viewers rightly criticised what sucked about it, hth. DS9 too, although I think that was a lot stronger out of the gate. The internet being what it is is just an unfortunate reality that all shows have to deal with these days. The extreme poles of racist/misogynist dipshits and fawning YouTube fandom parasites aside, there's a fair amount of criticism that the writing just isn't doing it for folks. I hope they can address that in season 3 too because they've got a great cast, but drat it they still need to know. I think the backlash to something like GoT is fascinating in that it's almost universally aimed in the right direction. I don't know if that's progress, but man it's a hell of thing to see writers on the hook where usually it's actors baring the bront of it as the visible face of the show. Lizard Combatant fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Jan 21, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 21:26
|
|
|
MichiganCubbie posted:I said last year that Discovery's first season was the best first season of Star Trek since TOS, but now I'd say the first two seasons of Discovery are the strongest two seasons of any Star Trek since TOS. I agree. Like, Disco’s writing can be absolutely eye-rolling. However, I’ll still take that over VOY and TNG’s first outings, which verge on “bad high school play” territory. Lizard Combatant posted:TNG only got better because viewers rightly criticised what sucked about it, hth. The same is happening to Disco. Season 2 was largely a reaction to season 1 criticism.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 21:26
|
|
|
HD DAD posted:The same is happening to Disco. Season 2 was largely a reaction to season 1 criticism. Hey credit where it's due, there were some steps taken. But it was a 1 step forward, 2 steps back kind of deal for me. e: and yes I know I'm speaking in "writing bad" generalities, but if anyone feels like self harming and wants specifics they can go back and read my thoughts in more detail in the old thread. Lizard Combatant fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jan 21, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 21:31
|
|
|
I don't expect Picard will be much better but unless everybody involved is completely and utterly bad (or else being overruled by somebody truly awful much higher up at CBS) I can't imagine it will be as disagreeable as STD was at it's worst. I mean, what little I've read doesn't inspire much confidence in much the same way what I've read about the recent Star Wars movies didn't, but there's no way they could ignore all the people out there who were fed up with the reheated BSG edgelord stuff. Even STD's second season was trying to back away from that but now apparently the Federation's turned evil in the future so who the gently caress knows anymore. Star Trek was always my first love, but now finally I find it difficult to get excited for more despite P-Stew's involvement. Years and years of increasingly banal, gutless and surprisingly off-brand takes on the material combined with the loudest fan voices outside of these sheltered forums being at least Nazi-adjacent have worn my interest to a nub
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 21:40
|
|
|
HD DAD posted:I agree. Like, Disco’s writing can be absolutely eye-rolling. However, I’ll still take that over VOY and TNG’s first outings, which verge on “bad high school play” territory. Season one of Voyager had one of my favorite episodes from the entire series: Eye of the Needle. I'll be fair and say I haven't seen it in like 25 years, but I remember it being great. Discovery only has a few episodes that really stand out to me, like Magic to Make, but the worst episodes are better than any of TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT's worst episodes. I just wish the look of it matched a bit better with TOS, but season two fixed a decent amount of that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 21:42
|
|
|
It's the retro tech craze that's sweeping the Federation. Everything is orange and red buttons! The uniforms look stupid and are made out of polyester! Flat screens are out, peering into a deal that shows you science words is in.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 21:48
|
|
|
I'm watching TNG for the first time now and, as bad and boring as season 1 is, I really appreciate that everyone is more or less a bunch of professionals doing their jobs and not turning into weepy messes every other scene. How many God drat times did we have to watch Burnham choking back tears per episode?
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 22:17
|
|
|
My prediction: Picard will be a really good show anchored by a great performance that does justice to an iconic character. It won't be great "Trek" in a lot of peoples' eyes because of changes to the setting and format, but a solidly made piece of fiction on its own merits.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 22:36
|
|
|
Disco will significantly improve when they stop filming the first drafts of the script
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 22:53
|
|
|
I really doubt P-Stew would have come back if he had not liked what they wanted to do. My take on Disco is that is problems lay in it trying to be prestige TV over being Star Trek TV. So you get lots of overly wrought emotional scenes with episodes being about Relationships rather than Star Treks regular fair. It's the whole sociological to psychological storytelling thing, where the story is about the characters influencing the world rather than the world influencing the characters. I think I have that terminology right.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 22:54
|
|
|
|
| # ? Dec 2, 2024 07:19 |
|
|
Big Mean Jerk posted:Discovery is fine if you don’t go in determined to hate it, hth. Do you really want to start your thread with this toxic garbage. You've immediately dismissed all issues with the show as some sort of personal failing of the person watching it. Also standards have increased since Star Trek started airing as had the amount of competition it's facing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2020 22:59
|
|
