I figured out the main problem with Discovery. They don't have a conference room. This was the place in every other version of Star Trek where the officers would - calmly, gradually - gain an understanding of the situation and make a plan. There is no gaining understanding in Discovery. There are no plans in Discovery. Everything is seat of the pants. Everything is sudden realization. some random notes: The USS Discovery ship design is boring. It lacks 3 dimensional interest. This episode used a lot of plan views and that was a mistake. The Pike-taking-command stuff wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Alice in Wonderland is a terrible book for Star Trek. Any picture book is a terrible book for Star Trek. There was way too much visual clutter, too much special effects stuff done for the sake of doing. And I hate the Transformers/Iron Man system of things folding away into nothing. They could have improved the episode by a third by cutting the budget by a third. The technobabble was poorly done. Why would so much of Discovery's valuable internal space be taken up by launch tubes? Just send the pod things out the shuttle bay. Or better yet send a shuttle with actual shields. And why does every show (and other Star Trek did this too) have the pilot take manual control? Ugh. It is utterly impossible for a person to avoid being crushed by the swirl of debris, for a computer it would be easy.
Hmmm, so uh, this weeks episode was actually not bad. It was actually pretty good. I like Mount as Captain Pike.
I'm about to watch it right after I finish this week's BLACK LIGHTNING. I was watching Gotham just before that.
This was definitely the most "Star Trek" episode thus far on DIS. Among other things, it felt like a standalone episode while still remaining within the season story arc. It certainly helped to have been directed by Jonathan Frakes. I knew going in that Anson Mount would do a good job as Captain Christopher Pike, though it's still somewhat surreal seeing him now as a clean-cut Starfleet captain after having watched him for five seasons as Cullen Bohannon in AMC's Hell on Wheels (along with another Star Trek alumnus, Colm Meaney as Thomas Durant). -G
Colm Meaney is so underrated. Probably has the best filmography( and most diverse) of any actor in the ST franchise.
I agree. Last night's episode was Spectacular. I was glad to see more of the officer with Pike n Burnham.
Jonathan Frakes knows the right angles to make starships look good. And he listened to me about conference rooms. That was the best part of the episode. I still have problems with the technobable. Gravity moves at the speed of light - detecting it directly does no good to determine "real time" behaviors hundreds of light years away. You got to use "subspace", dudes. Even then, nothing in previous Star Treks allowed detection that far away - in TNG they had very large, very powerful sensor arrays for extreme long distance detection, and even then I don't think they could see that far that fast. And about taking a multi-ton sample from the asteroid - that bit might be in an anti-gravity field, but it still has inertia. She wouldn't be able to move that hand-held device around. Star Trek does have ways of reducing mass, but again they didn't use them. These are not mortal failings, but they were missed moments that could have showed a love and understanding of the greater Star Trek universe. I get Pike's constant surprise at Discovery's abilities as a story telling device, but it annoys me because a captain can't run a ship that way. Pike should have taken the time to learn everything on that ship down to the self-sealing stembolts.
It's also interesting that junior high May referred to her lunches with Tilly as "little earthquakes... bounce, bounce, bounce...", considering that May was from San Francisco (as was Tilly?). Californians (especially Northern Californians) sure are familiar with earthquakes. Heck, it's even the name of the Bay Area's pro soccer team (San Jose Earthquakes). I wonder if May would've used another geographic reference if she was from a different part of the country. -G
Mount as Pike is good and a definite improvement upon Gabriel Lorca. Yet this still doesn't feel like Trek. I now am starting to accept the fact that this never will be the case. Tis a fine show, but sure it is no Trek, English. Having recently binged a genuinely bad sci-fi show in "Nightflyers", I do appreciate that this version of Trek is at least better than that. Faint praise.
Yes, but it was very TOS Star Trek. Which makes sense given the timeline, I guess. I'm just more of a fan of facial prosthetics and thinly veiled allegory Star Trek.
If May and Tilly had instead attended a junior high school together somewhere in the Midwest, would May have referred to their lunches as "little tornadoes... whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..."? -G
I'll also say that I'm glad the bridge crew is getting some attention now. I almost know some of their names.
I still only know Tilly, Saru, Stamets, Burnam and Pike by name. I'm blanking on the red-head with the cyber enhancements at the helm and the robotic lady and the operations officer with the dreads who joined them for the away mission to New Eden. As well as the comms officer with the beard.
Emily Coutts as Lieutenant Keyla Detmer, Conn officer Sara Mitich as Lt. Commander Airiam, the USS Discovery’s Spore Drive ops officer Oyin Oladejo as Lieutentant j.g. Joann Owosekun, Ops officer Ronnie Rowe, Jr., as Lieutenant B.A. Bryce, Communications officer And there's also: Patrick Kwok-Choon as Lieutenant Rhys, Tactical officer I hope that helped. -G
Operations is the person in charge of ship in all aspects outside of moving it. They either control things directly or coordinate between the captain and the person in charge of something (like the flight deck officer in the shuttle bay). The conn does piloting and navigation. These are extrapolations of current naval roles. In a modern navy ship, there are at least three people on the bridge - the person in charge (who is the navigator, or manages the navigator), the helm, and the lee helm who sends engine orders to the engine room. So in a starship with advanced technology, like computers doing most of the navigation and many operations of the ship done by remote control, those roles change to the ones in Star Trek.
so on most Treks; there's a Tactical Officer, Science Officer, Ops, someone at the Conn, Engineering, Medical Officer, Captain and that's it right? I take it Burnham is the Science Officer right?
Yes to all that - just like how in the modern navy ship there will be more people in the bridge when important things are happening. The later-set Star Treks would also have an executive officer (handling the routine aspects of command) and more specialists (doctor, councilor). Gene Roddenberry was a bomber pilot in WWII, so while he understands things like chain of command and set roles in operating a craft, he wasn't bound to 1940's style thinking in how a ship should operate. The US Navy has actually been studying the Star Trek bridge style for some time, and the bridges of both the Freedom and Independent class Littoral Combat Ships (ships designed for a reduced crew and a high degree of automation) would be very familiar to Star Trek fans.