Star Trek - The Bear and Badger

Tempy

Or stick it in the NuTrek canon. Does seems like a very confused show. Will just keep binging DS9 until me and the GF are done with Fargo.

Escape

Isn't the problem that they're wanting to do different things under the commercial safety of its banner, so you'll only ever please half of its potential audience?

Star Trek is very limited in terms of what I'd want from it, should I watch, because that's the history it has. I watched the Pinekirk reboot and found it okayish, but not really a Trek film.

Tempy

Probably. They should just make an actual Trek show, lord knows it'd be novel in this day and age.

Diluted Dante

Escape wrote:

Isn't the problem that they're wanting to do different things under the commercial safety of its banner, so you'll only ever please half of its potential audience?

Set it post Voyager. Job done.

EvilRedEye

It's odd that they've grounded it in the TOS era, yet in every respect other than Klingons-as-antagonists (which could easily be swapped out with a different race) it so neatly with dovetails with how things were left at the end of the TNG era.

Escape

I appreciate their desire to fiddle with it out of a lack of creative confidence, but its post-beard form is what most fans would have it always be. In fairness to TNG, the cast carried it for the most part.

Though I still love the look of its OS. As something that uncomplicates the Enterprise to such understandable menus, they nailed that.

Yossarian

RedDave2 wrote:

If you're going to do a star trek show do a fecking trek show and have it part of the history otherwise make a different sci do show from scratch.

Fuck the history, you can still do a lot with the settings without the baggage.

Fucking nerds nerding the place up.

EvilRedEye wrote:

There'd be murders if Kylo Ren popped up in Rogue One but then a dodgy Star Trek comes along and all the filthy plebs ooze up out of the woodwork with their 'ooh, don't care, ooh'.

Nah, it's only a movie.

Escape

Star Wars has the advantage of a large gap between batches. I'll never watch the prequels, and there's no narrative need to.

mannaboy

I get the feeling it’s a self contained show, with its own story to tell and will have very little impact on whatever Trek timeline it’s supposed to in.

RedDave2

Yossarian wrote:

RedDave2 wrote:

If you're going to do a star trek show do a fecking trek show and have it part of the history otherwise make a different sci do show from scratch.

Fuck the history, you can still do a lot with the settings without the baggage.

Not if you are placing it within a period that's already been mapped out. Set it after voyager and your gold to do whatever you want. If you aren't going to build it into the history that's established then don't set it in that history.

EvilRedEye

It feels a bit like creating a movie set in Spain but then filming it in Britain and also writing it so that the Spanish setting barely has any bearing on the plot and then when people go 'wtf why did you do that?', you just shrug your shoulders and go 'It's all made-up bollocks anyway.'

Escape

Eldorado wasn't all bad.

Dinostar77

Discovery registry is NCC-1031. Could it be the section 31 ship?

Yossarian

EvilRedEye wrote:

It feels a bit like creating a movie set in Spain but then filming it in Britain and also writing it so that the Spanish setting barely has any bearing on the plot and then when people go 'wtf why did you do that?', you just shrug your shoulders and go 'It's all made-up bollocks anyway.'

Spain is made-up bollocks? Does that mean that Kow is a fictional character too?

Diluted Dante

Yossarian wrote:

Spain is made-up bollocks? Does that mean that Kow is a fictional character too?

Well duh.

Section 31 is my hope, because then that allows them to have seemingly canon breaking stuff because shh, top secret.

Sorry. Above top secret.

poprock

I thought the first two episodes were bollocks. Shiny enough, Trek enough, but dull. Trek by numbers. But episode three … HELLO. Now we’re talking.

It did feel a lot like eps 1&2 were the pilot and things were deliberately changed after test screening those. Ep3 is light years ahead in tone and content.

I don’t like the new take on Klingons. Why do they have to be so wooden and TALK. So. SLOWLY. With. LOTS. OF. PAUSES. Between WORDS? Way too cartoon bad-guy for a show that looks to be leaning into a bit of nuance with all its human characters.

(This is a general ongoing complaint about all Trek shows though – alien races are often caricatures without depth and variety.)

And yeah – “we haven’t interacted with the Klingons in 100 years” Oh? So who killed Michael’s parents? Or don’t the Vulcans count as part of your Federation? Massive plot hole there.

I do like the new dark side of the Federation. This is ace. Looking forward to seeing where it goes and looking forward to meeting more of the Discovery’s crew.

I_R

Spoiler:

Tempy

Had a big long conversation about Trek races elsewhere and I think the idea races are caricatures and stereotypes is refutable pretty easily, to the point where i'd say that the very fact that people walk away with that impression is proof the show works. That for every race you can pick out characters and episodes that show members of a race acting against type is part of the underlying point of Trek, that unity means having an outlook that understands a race can be its stereotypes and actively much, much more.

DS9 is proving good on this, the Ferengii being a great example of a race everyone writes off for being a massive caricature rarely seems to get an episode without there being a massive contradiction to this established 2D idea you are frequently presented with.

poprock

I see your point, but I think that exact trope is relied on too often. Klingons are warriors therefore one Klingon acting peacefully is A Plot Point to build a whole episode around. It’s black and white, it’s binary, it’s not enough depth and variety across a small group of characters, let alone across a nation or a whole species.

Not saying that Trek does it all the time. Just that it happens often.

Diluted Dante

The 3 main Ferengi characters in DS9 show a huge variety between themselves.

Despite the whole canon breaking bollocks that has gone on, there is one redeeming factor.

Michael used a tape people.

Tempy

Perhaps, I still think there's more to it than black and white, Klingons are more diverse than just Warrior/Peaceful as Plot Point, but that strong stereotypical foundation needs to exist so the show can frequently undermine it, thus making its point.

The handful of Klingons so far in DS9 have involved a woman taking control of her house from a relative who used financial tactics to cripple it (illegal in Klingon Society) a group of ages friends who wrestled with the practicalites of their honourbound oaths when applied to species that for various reasons don't fit into ittheue societal expectations (Dax), and of course the return of Whorf, his difficulty with the Federation, and trying to use his status/tokenism as a way to help disarm a conflict that involved stereotypical warrior Klingons who were betraying their adherence to the code by acting against superior orders.

It's all nestled in a particularly Klingon set of ethics, but that's the point - as easy as they are to be seen as stereotypical, there are internal depths.

monkey

Diluted Dante wrote:

The 3 main Ferengi characters in DS9 show a huge variety between themselves. Despite the whole canon breaking bollocks that has gone on, there is one redeeming factor. Michael used a tape people.

Michael shouldn't be using a tape in a 21st century sci fi show. Nor should she not be using a tape in Kirk-era Star Trek.

poprock

I do agree that DS9 wasn’t as guilty of caricature as other Trek series. Still think the idea of setting an ongoing series on a busy fixed space station is brilliant – like setting an anthology show in Grand Central Station. Babylon 5 did it better, though.

Spoiler:

And yeah, I agree there Tempy. The caricatures are necessary to allow for plot developments that undermine them. It’s just something that rankles at times – lack of nuance in an alien race breaks the suspension of disbelief a bit. It’s a problem with genre fiction in general, not just Trek … but Trek does make it a central conceit on a regular basis. It has to.

monkey

If you rebel against the race you're from in Trek, you're either a main member of the cast and that dual identity is the point of your character. Or you and your race are in it for one episode, help the Federation defeat the real evil person who is leading the race, and then you probably end up leading your people at the end of the episode so they can rebuild their society in an open, peaceful way in accordance with federation values.

poprock

Aye, it’s a clearly signposted as a red shirt on the away team.

Diluted Dante

Babylon 5 is a big pile of, oh wait.

You can reconcile tapes quite easily. Just say that it's a historic hangover, and like floppy discs that we recall no longer being floppy, tape was just the name given to the storage medium. Plus, the save icon is a floppy, even though most people haven't used one in years.

Yossarian

So he used the word ‘tape’ not an actual tape?

poprock

She. Michael’s a girl.

Diluted Dante

She.

TOS 'tape':

Yossarian

Her too.

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