A far cry from the Pike we meet in The Cage, right?
Star Trek: Discovery Season 5
- Thread starter Captain Dunsel
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universaljoint
New Member
One of the other things really bugs me about new trek, is that it's so highly focused on trying so hard for the characters to be just everyday contemporary characters that people can related to, rather then being people to look up to and admire for their abilities to solve problems / threats.
My wife works in an elementary school, and she watches the odd ep with me, and always remarks how the characters are like the kids at her school. They just blurt out things at inappropriate moments. Cry and act out when they don't get what they want. The admirals, I mean teachers and principals just give them what they want and push them up the ladder to avoid conflicts with them. She's not a Trekky like I am, and she can't stand the non-stop drama of the show when she does watch it. That's putting aside the nonsensical season long story arc.
I don't watch TV to wallow in my emotions. I watch it to escape reality. It's hard to do that when you're watching people non-stop react like in real life. It doesn't feel like a positive future like Trek used to.
My wife works in an elementary school, and she watches the odd ep with me, and always remarks how the characters are like the kids at her school. They just blurt out things at inappropriate moments. Cry and act out when they don't get what they want. The admirals, I mean teachers and principals just give them what they want and push them up the ladder to avoid conflicts with them. She's not a Trekky like I am, and she can't stand the non-stop drama of the show when she does watch it. That's putting aside the nonsensical season long story arc.
I don't watch TV to wallow in my emotions. I watch it to escape reality. It's hard to do that when you're watching people non-stop react like in real life. It doesn't feel like a positive future like Trek used to.
Bloop
Sr Member
I haven't watched since early season 3, but I was curious to know what people thought of it now. But based on my prior viewings, I agree with what you're saying, especially about them trying too hard to make the characters contemporary and "relatable," which I find applies to both Discovery and SNW. While I can imagine some people disliked the formality of speech that previous Trek series employed, I liked that people spoke in a more "high class" way, for lack of a better term. It spoke to the kind of future society that Trek was representing, and made those series feel more timeless to me due to their lack of colloquial speech.
Side note: I did find it annoying when they would have a character be too into some kind of 20th century thing - Tom Paris being the worst, Archer's inexplicable love of water polo, etc.
Having characters act too "chummy" and casual, using current slang terms seems out of place in the more formal military-type hierarchy and semi-idyllic society of Star Trek. Also, you can have the occasional character who acts more informally, but when too many characters share those traits, it's too much. For example, Dr. McCoy was often informal and spoke his mind, but he was pretty much the only TOS character other than Kirk to act that way, and it made sense for both their characters. Plus, they were both high ranking officers on the ship, so it makes more sense that they'd be allowed some more liberties with how they spoke and interacted with other crewmembers.
universaljoint
New Member
I agree about the speech as well. And without straying to far off topic, I love historical fiction. And when shows/movies do that exact same thing where contemporary slang and speech is inserted ad nauseum into dialogue, it really takes the believability out of it. Same for music. Music literally sets the tone, so when it's not used correctly...
Don't get me wrong, I know there has to be some flexibility with dialogue, especially with historical speech, but I think you worded it best. Formal speech helps make it more timeless. Keep the contemporary terms and slang out of it, and just keep it formal, and there's nothing to take you out of the moment.
Regarding Archer's water polo obsession. Enterprise was set about 150 years from when it was filmed? I guess it's a sport not too far removed. That said, someone on the showrunner team must have either been a fan, or thought it would just be funny for Archer to like such a thing.
Do you find it perplexing that water polo was around, or that anyone likes it? Or that this was his idiosyncrasy that linked him to our time?
Rick Berman’s son was a water polo player and this was the source for why it was written into the Archer character.
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As a sports fan, even I have to admit that I am shocked that water polo would even have a fanbase that wants to watch it on TV, now, or in the 22nd century. It’s not exactly like watching NCAA / NBA basketball…
I recall that there was one episode in which Archer was watching a taped game and his excitement didn’t quite mirror the game that was being shown onscreen.
I recall that there was one episode in which Archer was watching a taped game and his excitement didn’t quite mirror the game that was being shown onscreen.
Bloop
Sr Member
I think it's also that if they hadn't had Sisko be obsessed with baseball on DS9, Archer's water polo obsession wouldn't have seemed as odd. It just felt like they were trying to copy character traits from previous characters but giving them a twist - "same but different" is a big thing with Trek.
NakedMoleRat
Master Member
My biggest feeling about discovery is that mostly the characters are generic and forgettable. I don’t even know the names of more than three of them. We had that weird android, cyborg hybrid character from the first season and a half that was way more advanced than anything in the original Star Trek, though it was set what, 10 or 20 years before?
Then we have the ship itself, which is way more advanced than anything from the original Star Trek.
It also seemed that for the most part, the crew did not know how to work together as a cohesive unit. It almost seemed at times that none of them really liked each other.
The show itself to me, just did not seem to actually fit into the Star Trek universe.
And Michael Berman and her constant, flagrant disregard for the rules, being rewarded for it, and crying over every other situation, did get old very quickly.
Then we have the ship itself, which is way more advanced than anything from the original Star Trek.
It also seemed that for the most part, the crew did not know how to work together as a cohesive unit. It almost seemed at times that none of them really liked each other.
The show itself to me, just did not seem to actually fit into the Star Trek universe.
And Michael Berman and her constant, flagrant disregard for the rules, being rewarded for it, and crying over every other situation, did get old very quickly.
NakedMoleRat
Master Member
Honestly, Berman, Saru and Tilly are all the names I can remember.
I know them all: “That One Guy”, “The Other Guy”, “The Girl With The Severe Haircut”, “Mr. Roboto”, “Hey, Does She Sit At Ops?”, “That One Girl from Band Camp”, Michael, Saru, and “The Jerk In Engineering From ‘School Ties’”.
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universaljoint
New Member
Well... Things have certainly changed with the crew since the first couple of seasons.
Some are gone, or just not seen. Now they're all one big super duper happy family with big dumb smiles all the time. It seems that all they do is have one on one, super deep feelings discussions whenever there isn't on point to the plot dialogue.
They also still manage to be asses to other people without any sort of reason for it. OH, and the banter. So much banter. It's so refreshing how much banter there is now because of how comfortable they are around each other. The banter makes them feel like.... A family, dare I say?
By Jove, I think I got the theme! Family. Connections. Puke in my mouth a little, but swallow it like a champ.
So ya, they've certainly changed the tone of the show, but it clearly hasn't been for the better.
I still can't get over that horrendous brainstorming session of how to stop an avalanche with all their super future tech, and how their only solution was to nose dive two starships into the surface of a ******* planet. Or the horrendous brainstorming session involving a junior officer talking down to a Captain, and then coming up with the great solution without using any of their super future tech, to shut down the power, and hold on to your socks here, because this is crazy, and I can't believe it only took them 10 minutes to come up with this, to (temporarily) shut down the power at it's source...
And the dialogue... Burnham: Stations report (before departing on a mission)... Tactical: "Photons and phasers locked and loaded" Or something like that. That was just brilliant. It was dumb when Data said it in First Contact, and it's especially dumb in the context of that scene in Dis.
Some are gone, or just not seen. Now they're all one big super duper happy family with big dumb smiles all the time. It seems that all they do is have one on one, super deep feelings discussions whenever there isn't on point to the plot dialogue.
They also still manage to be asses to other people without any sort of reason for it. OH, and the banter. So much banter. It's so refreshing how much banter there is now because of how comfortable they are around each other. The banter makes them feel like.... A family, dare I say?
By Jove, I think I got the theme! Family. Connections. Puke in my mouth a little, but swallow it like a champ.
So ya, they've certainly changed the tone of the show, but it clearly hasn't been for the better.
I still can't get over that horrendous brainstorming session of how to stop an avalanche with all their super future tech, and how their only solution was to nose dive two starships into the surface of a ******* planet. Or the horrendous brainstorming session involving a junior officer talking down to a Captain, and then coming up with the great solution without using any of their super future tech, to shut down the power, and hold on to your socks here, because this is crazy, and I can't believe it only took them 10 minutes to come up with this, to (temporarily) shut down the power at it's source...
And the dialogue... Burnham: Stations report (before departing on a mission)... Tactical: "Photons and phasers locked and loaded" Or something like that. That was just brilliant. It was dumb when Data said it in First Contact, and it's especially dumb in the context of that scene in Dis.
I thought this was the Orville crew.
NakedMoleRat
Master Member
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