STAR TREK: Discovery

[Spence]

Well...the "Archer" Trek had the decontam chamber as it's most interesting feature, not suprised to see suits grab that part as the "best". Who will replace Jolene though?

 

LOL...

 

I don't know, but good question.

[Scott Baker]

Haven't seen anything about a Klingon captain. Only captain I've seen cast is Michelle Yeoh is a recurring role; Capt. Georgiou of the Shenzhou. Doug Jones and Anthony Rapp are the only other castings I'm aware of.

There were a number of (unconfirmed) characters back at the end of October, first of November. A Klingon captain is one of them, although it was generally reported as there will be a Klingon captain, not that they would be the captain of the Discovery. Some people just automatically assume that any "captain" rumor/announcement is for the captain of the Discovery, and report it as so. Just as they initially did with Michelle Yeoh's character.

[Starlord]

Hmmm....no.

 

Star Trek is defined by its ability to present concepts even when they are not in lock step with current beliefs. 

 

Star Trek has been pure anti-PC from before the phrase was coined. 

 

Political Correctness is the death of free expression masquerading as a protection from hurt feelings.

 

Pretty sure he was being sarcastic, hence the quotation marks around 'political correctness'. 

[Pariah]

I don't know that PC/Anti-PC is the right metric here. Trek, in its various incarnations, has always supported a progressive (or even liberal) social and political stance. Equality, the futility of war*, the elimination of poverty (and, as a corollary, the elimination of materialism altogether) a big protective government that has solved all of humanity's problems--this is the essence of the franchise.

 

*When you consider that the original series ran at the height of American involvement in Vietnam, the Prime Directive makes perfect sense.

[Clonus]

Hmmm....no.

 

Star Trek is defined by its ability to present concepts even when they are not in lock step with current beliefs. 

 

Star Trek has been pure anti-PC from before the phrase was coined. 

 

 

 

No,  It hasn't.  PC doesn't really mean "in lock step with current beliefs".  Originally it mean "conforming to the Stalinist party line".  Later on it was an insulting characterization of the liberal stigma attached to racial invective and anti-feminism.  

[Spence]

Pretty sure he was being sarcastic, hence the quotation marks around 'political correctness'.

You could be right

I don't read nuance very well....

[Pariah]

Voyager is one of my favorite Star Trek series for seasons 4-7. Some great episodes.

 

In the Star Trek family, Voyager is that odd sibling that the others suspect of having Multiple Personality Disorder.  There were some fantastic episodes, to be certain. There was also "Threshold", the less said about which, the better. The writing was uneven, and Robert Beltran clearly phoned in most of the last 5½ season as Chakotay. But Voyager definitely had its great moments. I thought "Endgame" was a great finale.

[DasBroot]

To be fair poor Robert Beltran was given practically nothing to do unless they needed some tribal magic done (ugh). He was bored and justifiably so.

 

It was watchable and I liked it overall but more than any other Trek series I think it showed its warts.  It was rarely 'TNG first season bad' but it was also rarely 'TNG season 3 to 5 good' either.

 

Most of the leads were just there.  It was like half the command crew had Deanna Troi syndrome (a good character rarely used to her potential).

 

And Neelix should have been booted in season one when he started cooking with an open flame on a space-submarine.

[Pariah]

The biggest problem I had with Neelix was that he just wasn't interesting.  He was there pretty much there as an appendage to Kes--and Kes wasn't that interesting, either.

 

In all, though, I thought Voyager had a good group of characters. Tom Paris was great, and having him take newbie Harry Kim under his wing made for some cool stories. I liked Janeway quite well when the writers weren't using her as a straw feminist (not that she was ever as bad as Samantha Carter in the first few episodes of SG-1). Tuvok and even Chakotay were interesting in their own ways. And Robert Picardo played the Doctor brilliantly. The cast--both actors and characters--had real potential.

 

Too bad the writing was so inconsistent.

[Spence]

I don't know that PC/Anti-PC is the right metric here. Trek, in its various incarnations, has always supported a progressive (or even liberal) social and political stance. Equality, the futility of war*, the elimination of poverty (and, as a corollary, the elimination of materialism altogether) a big protective government that has solved all of humanity's problems--this is the essence of the franchise.

 

*When you consider that the original series ran at the height of American involvement in Vietnam, the Prime Directive makes perfect sense.

 

It does when you realize that being PC is not the domain of a specific group.  In my day we didn't have the term.  You just had groups that tried to suppress anything not in line with their own beliefs.  Be it Discrimination, you are different and therefore not allowed to have the same freedoms as "correctly minded" people.  Or Bigotry, You don't agree with me therefore I refuse to listen or talk to you.   We didn't call it political correctness, but it was alive and well.  Trek ignored these conventions by setting up great stories and then injecting items that were decidedly not in line with "correct mindedness".   The Vietnam protests were a less elegant, though just as important to how America evolved.  They were all driving forces in reinforcing the fundamental right of free expression guaranteed in the US's governing documents.   When I was growing up, even distasteful or even hateful groups had a right to free expression. 

 

You cannot guarantee a citizen a right and then pick and choose who exercises that right based on whether you personally agree with it.   So while they may be idiots and mentally unstable, a member of the Nazi Party can indeed have a rally or protest.   Is their outlook and vision repugnant and against any sane persons views?  In my opinion yes.  But do they have the right to gather and express those views?  Absolutely.  If you don't want to be exposed to them, don't go.  On the other hand, you cannot actually understand their true positions and platform until you have actually listened to a speech.  Not read an article or view a clip composed/edited by someone else to tell you what they think you should know about them.  But actually see, contemplate and form your own first hand evaluation.   That is what colleges used to be.  Areas allowing free thought, even of things that were frowned upon, so that people could form their opinions first hand. 

 

Sometime in the 80's/90's(??) the idea of free expression became dangerous to those same institutions.  Because free speech and thought is well, free speech and thought.  They suddenly began suppressing dissent by labeling anything that didn't fall into a narrow view not as "wrong" or "forbidden", but as "mean" or "ill mannered".  Over time it has evolved as anything not rigidly in line is "offensive" and any action that does not prominently support that rigid narrow view (regardless of actual reason) is a "micro-aggression".   Anyone who requests the underlying reasoning or information supporting a position is a "hater", "bigot" or when all else fails a "racist".  Instead of reasoned dialog and using discussion to promote a view, the modern methods is to lambast and drive out anyone with a different view and bunker down in closed "safe-spaces" hiding from any form of unapproved information.  

 

Just before the election I was radio hopping, looking for a station that did not have end of the world ranting on it.  From everyone, Left, Right, Middle.  Everyone.  So I found a station where they were talking about restaurants.  Not wages or other politically charged topics, but general types.  Chain, Top End, Hole-in-the-Wall, etc.  They had not even brought up type as in ethnic origin at all.  So the male radio host said ask about what the female host thought about Hole-in-the-Wall restaurants and mentioned that it seemed to him that many people tended to think, right or wrong, that they were less clean that others.  Now here is the main catch, the female host immediately snapped out that he couldn't say that because it was a racist statement.  That!?  I didn't realize that Hole-in-the-Wall was a race of humans.

 

The key point I am making is that our so called centers of education have so isolated themselves in a protected bubble that echoes with only their personal ideas and completely insulates them from, well anything, to the point that they not longer even understand what it is they are supposed to be against. 

 

Bigot is now synonymous with Racist. 

Racist means anyone that does not agree with you.

Instead of listening to someones statement and then saying I disagree and moving on as informed.

They ban anything that might possibly disagree with preconceptions based on someone else's opinion formed equally without information because they also never took the time to listen. 

 

That is what we now call Politically Correct. 

It is not exclusive to the left and what ever agenda a group may have.   All spectrum's have their own defined PC listing.  

 

The sad thing is that most of the small groups have become the rabid hate groups that they are supposedly fighting.    Star Trek never bashed a group or idea.  They never spewed hatred.

They always told a great yarn and then casually slide in a "this is OK too" in such a manner as to provoke thought while at the same time not screaming "you all suck" to anyone that did not agree.  

 

Trek was great. 

 

Take Discovery.   

There is going to be a gay character.  So?  what is the difference between a gay football team and a not gay football team as far as playing the sport?  Nothing.  In fact "gay" is irrelevant to football.  

What will the character be?  An Engineer? OK cool.  Gay is not a factor in engineering.  There is no need for trumpets and fanfare.  Trek is about exploration and discovery.  Treat the side story personal relationship stuff just like they do for the non-gay characters.   Casual side comments and "its no big deal" this is just normal. 

 

The main character is going to be a woman? So?  This is not even worth a mention.  Sci-Fi/Fantasy across all media has been having strong leading female roles for decades.  Half of my favorite shows on TV to include Crime Procedurals and Drama's have female leads.  This is just a non-event.

 

What is bad about Discovery is the giddy joy that it can now have soft porn and gritty violence.   I love Game of Thrones, but full frontal nudity, soft porn and gory blood splatter scenes fit that story.

Star Trek implied off screen romance and centered the stories on exploration and discovery.  Note I said romance, not sex.  While they can be the same, romance implies a less gutter version.

 

The problem is that we have so many people (under 30) that no longer even know what they are so violently against.  They pop out catch phrases and memes without any real understanding of what they are even saying.  Ask for someone to define the word "bigot".  Generally speaking, though not always, they will pop out "a person that is racist".  They definitely won't say "a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions".  And they will not get the humor of pointing them at a mirror.

 

I once had one of my mentors tell me something that stuck.  He asked me how I would know when I had reached the point of being accepted as equal among my peers?   His answer surprised me and then I realized it was true.   You are equal when what you do is not longer remarked upon, when you are effectively ignored unless interaction is needed.   While I was in training, success was denoted by praise, failure by admonishment.  Once I was fully qualified and actually competent, success was expected and and not considered special.   

 

Many groups simply do not know how to handle the fact they have succeeded. 

Equality in America means that if you don't work hard you will fail and no one outside your immediate family will really care. 

Success means working 50-80+ hours weeks for years until you achieve that success.

Are there people that get a hand up because their parents were successful?  Sure.  But that is true in the US across the spectrum origin.  

 

Our biggest issue is that the people that are most vocal in dissent, I don't call it actual protesting because a real protestor has a specific goal and an idea of how to achieve it.   They are just demanding and wanting some undefined vague "other person" to pay for it. 

 

You want universal free healthcare?  Cool.  But you cannot use any of the existing structure.  You need to redefine how things are paid for.  Yes paid for.  Since it is free, you will need to establish a tax to pay for it.  Since it is mandated and free, you have to eliminate the very lucrative lawsuit machine.  To ensure quality of care is evenly available you need to eliminate monetary issues, establish a civil service/military style pay grade system.    All surgeons with 15 years experience get 50K a year plus a locality adjustment to compensate for local housing costs, etc.  The operation goes bad?  No you cannot sue for compensation.  An inquest will determine if it was negligence or criminal and the offender (if there is a guilty one) will be punished.  But you will not get $, you will get free medical because it is free.

 

So far all the Treks have been great.    I may not have personally liked a series because of story line or theme.  Both Voyager and Enterprise sucked because IMO time travel in Trek is the admission from the show runners that they have run out of ideas and are punting.  But all the shows did the exploration and discovery of wide and varied themes very well. 

 

The new movies have nailed the cast but for some reason don't seem to have any idea of what Trek is.  Explosions and destroying the Enterprise in each movie is not it.

 

Adding soft porn and violence is not a formulae needed in a Trek show.  And neither is casting according to a PC checklist.  Instead just cast the part to fill the role needed without fanfare. 

 

Ignore the idiots and move on. 

[Spence]

 

Too bad the writing was so inconsistent.

 

I think the major issue was they had no idea of a story.   Over the years Trek has used time travel as a stop gap when the creative well ran dry.  Voyager was just one long line of a dry well.  Really sad because I though the cast was tremendous.   Captain Janeway could have been one of the best.  The actress was great, but it seemed the rewrote Janeways personality every couple of episodes.  From overbearing follywood idea of military ogre to spineless wimp to incompetent waffler.   No reasoning or understandable progression.

[Lord Mhoram]

The biggest problem I had with Neelix was that he just wasn't interesting.  He was there pretty much there as an appendage to Kes--and Kes wasn't that interesting, either.

 

In all, though, I thought Voyager had a good group of characters. Tom Paris was great, and having him take newbie Harry Kim under his wing made for some cool stories. I liked Janeway quite well when the writers weren't using her as a straw feminist (not that she was ever as bad as Samantha Carter in the first few episodes of SG-1). Tuvok and even Chakotay were interesting in their own ways. And Robert Picardo played the Doctor brilliantly. The cast--both actors and characters--had real potential.

 

Too bad the writing was so inconsistent.

 

Yeah. My overall opinion of Voyager, that the best episode were on par with the best episodes of any other trek. The bad ones (Threshold, which gave me my Rock Band 3 band name - Warp 10 Catfish) were as bad or even worse that others.. and had a higher percentage of them. Average episodes were not quite up to the average of the others. So overall it came off bad, but had many moments of brilliance.

 

I think the bad writing for Janeway was really eximplified by Q "Sleep with me and I'll take your ship home" - so she either betrays what she promised the crew, to get them home any way she could, or betray herself and her standards. That was the moment I truly understood that the writers had no clue about how to write her.

[Iuz the Evil]

Year of Hell, Equinox, Blink of an Eye, Living Witness, Endgame, Scorpion were all among my favorite episodes of any Trek series.

 

Voyager gets a lot of grief, but dang the first seasons of Enterprise and DS9 were hot garbage with problems through the entire series. I really don't see any greater issues with Voyager, and the high points were fantastic.

[Greywind]

‘Walking Dead’ Star Lands ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Lead

 

http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/walking-dead-star-lands-star-trek-discovery-lead-1201942648/

[Scott Baker]

I don't watch Walking Dead, so I don't know if her role there is large enough to be concerned about the split focus, and likely inevitable conflict between series scheduling. (Maybe not initially, but somewhere down the road.)

[Lord Mhoram]

I don't watch Walking Dead, so I don't know if her role there is large enough to be concerned about the split focus, and likely inevitable conflict between series scheduling. (Maybe not initially, but somewhere down the road.)

Was she one of the ones that Sam and Dean's dad beat to death with a barbed wire baseball bat?

[Old Man]

Man, that sounds like fun.

[zslane]

Both Voyager and Enterprise sucked because IMO time travel in Trek is the admission from the show runners that they have run out of ideas and are punting. 

 

I feel we can extend this observation to all sci-fi/fantasy on television. As are a number of other cruch tropes: body/mind-swapping and clones/duplicates posing as the original characters being the other two that immediately come to (my) mind.

[Greywind]

Was she one of the ones that Sam and Dean's dad beat to death with a barbed wire baseball bat?

 

No. Glenn and Abraham met Lucille.

[Clonus]

I don't watch Walking Dead, so I don't know if her role there is large enough to be concerned about the split focus, and likely inevitable conflict between series scheduling. (Maybe not initially, but somewhere down the road.)

 

It's not a problem.  Walking Dead kills characters for little or no reason all the time.  

[Old Man]

I didn't know I was GMing the Walking Dead campaign.

[Starlord]

Hmmm, I do like Jason Isaacs, though. 

[zslane]

Yeah but will you like paying $6-10/month for the privilege of watching him play the captain of the Discovery?

[Cassandra]

Based on what I've heard about the series I don't have my hopes up.  They seem to want to focus on the lower decks of the ship and not have the Captain and senior staff on the focus of the show.

 

Granted that would have been a huge advantage with Star Trek Enterprise, but not in this case.

[Greywind]

http://www.darkhorizons.com/first-trailer-star-trek-discovery/

 

http://www.startrek.com/article/discovery-unveils-first-look-trailer-key-art