This topic contains 162 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by Earl 9 minutes ago.
I don’t go out of my way to read the messages sent to the Mission Log account, but occasionally my phone automatically whisks me away there anyway…man, you think people are being insistent in public? There’s a small subset of the private messages that would make you bleed from your ears. No wonder John handed me the keys and went on vacation.
They’ll get back to it when they get back to it, when they’re ready. They’ve more than earned a break. A weekly podcast is just about back-breaking if you’re doing it all yourself like most people do and not just recording the audio and handing it off to someone else to edit. I know Ferg just released a little message to the listeners of 2600 Game By Game expressing that he’s going through a similar thing. I totally get it. I had so much gear get lost or damaged in my very badly planned move that even sitting down to do one of mine seems like a chore, just on the technical end, sometimes. Stepping through the looking glass from “this is your hobby that you love talking to people about” to “this is now how you at least partially make your living and people are putting money in your Patreon account to do it and it’s now as much your job as any other job has ever been” is more of a sharp curve than most people give it credit for.
I still can’t fathom why fans would complain about their taking a few weeks off. Here is this wonderful thing that people can listen to, totally for free. And it’s the most professionally-produced podcast I’ve ever heard, with two dynamite hosts. The fact that people are griping about it just boggles my mind. So many of these so-called fans have no social graces or boundaries.
As I always tell them, anything I can do to help, I’m there for ’em.
Have Wil Wheaton on the show!
Holy cats, but I loved the Enterprise bridge.
I absolutely loved everything about the Enterprise — the bridge and corridors were just amazing. In fact, I was really digging the episode and in the first half it was on track to become my favorite ever.
But then about halfway through, it turned into a maudlin, weepy goodbye fest that kept dragging through the entire entire second half, far past the point of being excessive. It was complete, unnecessary filler, and I only got through it with great difficulty. I really do love good character development, but that was… man, I don’t know what that was. Just completely schmaltzy, lachrymose filler. I was actually physically wincing and shouting stuff at the screen. It was too much. They could and should have condensed that stuff to a fraction of what it was and spent the rest of the time on more interesting and important matters.
In stark contrast, right after that I watched the latest episode of The Orville, and I couldn’t stop smiling and cheering during a particular scene. You know what I’m talking about. Truly an amazing episode.
This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by k8track.
I kind of agree with you, but with this being a two-parter, I think it kind of works out the same way as TNG’s The Best Of Both Worlds or Redemption: the first half is where all the character stuff is, because the second half is all incident, incident, plot, plot, just to get out from under the cliffhanger they’ve constructed for themselves to get out of. Also, keep in mind that there’s even more distance between Discovery and TNG than there was between TNG and TOS. The main different between TNG and TOS were effects technology and pacing. The main difference between Discovery and TNG is that Discovery is part of the current playbook of TV writing, which is: hit all the feels. And I kind of hate that phrase, but it perfectly describes what a lot of TV does these days. A lot of it – not just Discovery.
That Orville scene that makes you want to jump up and applaud… with the song juxtaposed with everything that’s going on… you know what that reminds me of? Anyone remember the Babylon 5 episode “And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place”…?
I absolutely remember that B5 episode and the scene in question, that was brilliant. A very astute observation, I must say.
I think that hitting all the feels is great when the writers are capable. “Such Sweet Sorrow pt 1” was not a good example of that. It went on wayyyy too long and was just maudlin and morose. Those scenes could have been condensed into a lean, mean couple of minutes, max. Or eliminated entirely. But what is the best example, you ask? “Sleeping in Light”, B5. Makes me tear up every. Single. Time.
On to the last episode. One thing that always bugs me is The Trope of the Noble Sacrifice™. It is oftentimes unnecessary, and that was certainly the case here. To wit… why isn’t there an emergency release lever on BOTH sides of the blast door? Then no matter what side you’re on, you can pull it. Also, did it have to be a human to pull the lever? Why not get one of those cute lil’ Star Wars-type repair droids to do it? Or set up a pedestal next to the lever, then put a heavy barbell on the pedestal and tie that to the lever, then get out of the room, and then beam away the pedestal, allowing the heavy barbell to pull down the lever? So many options. Why is it that I could think of that, and two of the most brilliant minds on the ship couldn’t?
And for the love of Zod, WHY is everyone going all Marie Curie and handing the time crystal with their BARE HANDS?? That really struck me. Why aren’t they using the proper Time Mitts? If no Time Mitts are available, then its cousin, the redoubtable Tater Mitts, would work equally as well, though there might be some unavoidable shredding.
Okay, here’s another one… they can’t remove the Sphere data from Discovery, so they decide to take it a thousand years into the future to get it away from Control. Why not use the spore drive and hop into the open space between galaxies? Or if they don’t want to stay on a ship forever, find a dwarf galaxy with a habitable planet they can colonize. Done. Control would never be able to reach them with a conventional warp drive, let alone figure out where in the entire universe the spore drive was able to take them. It’d be easier to just search the galaxy for another sphere life form.
So, Discovery’s going to the 33rd century for next season, in an effort to escape Control (and yet they essentially bring Control with them, in the supposedly dead Leland inside the spore chamber). Here’s the million-dollar question; what will they find once they get there? What direction will they take the show? Will they find a Federation that’s fallen apart and needs rebuilding, a.k.a. Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda? Or will an millenia-old ancient ship suddenly show up at Starfleet Headquarters and report for duty in the 33rd century version of the UFP? Or will they get another time crystal and start exploring time and space, in a Doctor Who way? I’m guessing they’re going to go dystopian. I don’t think they have enough quality writers to do a hopeful future.
I really appreciate Discovery. I never know what’s going to happen, nothing’s too predictable. That might have something to do with firing the showrunners after episode 5, and the new showrunner taking the show in a different direction. They also throw off my season predictions when they keep announcing a Section 31 series with Georgiou, then negate that by pulling her into the 33rd century. They talk about a Jet Reno show, and again, pull her with them into season 3. Can they do any spin-off shows now other than the Picard series and the cartoon?
According to somebody on the construction crew, the Enterprise set was built mainly with steel. They metal fabricated a lot of it. Doesn’t that seem odd for a set we’d only get to see a few times? I’m wondering if they might be planning a Christopher Pike-led Trek series. I’d totally watch that; Anson Mount was pretty great as Pike. He was good at channeling Jeffrey Hunter’s world-weariness at times, then switch over to an almost Shatnerian-style of upbeat acting. Get some good writers aboard, minimize the big story arcs and go more towards single episode morality plays, and you’ll have me hooked.
Apparently in a recent interview, Anson Mount hinted that some Pike-related conversations were being had, though I expect a lot of them have to do with moving the show’s home base to California, since Mount and Rebecca Romjin (who has young kids still) are based here rather than in Canada, and the second season’s 14 episodes apparently took 10 months to shoot (!). So I think CBS and Alex Kurtzman have heard the clamor for a show following Pike, Spock and Number One aboard the Enterprise.
Total amateur hour handling of the time crystals. Bare hands? That’s insane. I rub time crystals all over my bare everything. Wait, I’m invoking Starfleet secret protocols so no one ever mentions seeing that sentence again.
When Spock is retrained in Star Trek IV (following his resurrection in Star Trek III), do Sarek and Amanda remind him that Michael ever existed, or do they just say “whew” and keep that off the record?
This reply was modified 12 hours, 32 minutes ago by Earl.
Rabid fandom is so toxic. I ignore it to the point of where I don’t even know what is going on anymore. I stay the hell away from all that Star Wars fandom crap. Could not care less.
Anymore I’m not a huge stickler for canon. As I’ve mentioned before, with the infinite number of quantum realities and whatnot, who’s to say that every single episode doesn’t take place in its own separate quantum reality? Also, who cares? I’ve got bigger real-life problems to deal with. I just want to be entertained by a good story. If it (gasp!) “violates canon”, I have no problem if it’s cool and entertaining. If it’s 30 minutes of sappy soap-opera goodbyes, I’m out.
Spock: I seem to remember… a sibling? A brother? Michael? Cycle? Cylok? Sybok?
Amanda: Oh yeah… Sybok. Yeah. You have a brother. Sybok. That’s it. (whispering to Sarek) Quick, we need to hire someone to be Spock’s brother.
Sarek: I shall ask my colleague, Floyd. He is between gigs and needs the bread.
Actually, “every episode in its own quantum reality” is precisely how I look at season one of TNG, the biggest year-long hot mess in Trek history. (I even have an essay written to that effect for the eventual WARP!2 book, which… I don’t know when that’s gonna happen.) Remember when Riker was “Bill” for just one episode? And all those times Data could use contractions until it became a story point that he couldn’t? And…well…Code of Honor? And Conspiracy, the biggest threat to the Federation until the Borg came along, which… everybody… just… forgot?