Star Trek: Discovery Warp Speeds Its Way from Streaming into Network Primetime

Also, Neil deGrasse Tyson is back to condescend to us all some more.

• Cosmos: Possible Worlds. Fox. Tuesday, September 22, 8 p.m.
• Star Trek: Discovery. CBS. Thursday, September 24, 10 p.m.

The good news, as TV's retread fall broadcast season continues its rollout this week, is that the beloved Vulcan Death Grip makes its reappearance in prime time for the first time in decades. The bad news is that no one applies it on the revenant of Neil deGrasse Tyson, who has risen from the television grave to reclaim his perennial hold on the Emmy for TV personality most in need of a hard slapping.

The death grip plays a key role in the pilot episode of Star Trek: Discovery, the seventh TV series in the Trekkie franchise, which CBS has pulled off its streaming service and pushed into prime time to bolster a lineup decimated by the coronavirus.

Discovery's popcorny science fiction has a science-fact (or maybe a better phrase would be "science-annoying") counterpart over on Fox with Cosmos: Possible Worlds, the third incarnation of the 1980 PBS series, unfortunately not hosted by a hologram of Carl Sagan but the look-at-me-I'm-a-genius Tyson. This is one case where fiction is definitely preferable to fact.

I'm not necessarily the best guy to evaluate Discovery. My experience with Star Trek is mostly listening to Leonard and Sheldon speaking Klingon while a bored Penny stares into space, fantasizing about mauve nail polish.

Fortunately, you don't really need a degree in Trekkie studies to enjoy Discovery. It's a throwback to the early days of Star Trek and the Cold War sci-fi that spawned it, with the humans and their allies as the United States and the warrior-species Klingons as the Soviets. Phasers are never set to stun.

In a lot of recent Star Trek spinoffs, the Klingons have tended toward the cuddly, even allying with humans against Romulans and other deep-space riff-raff.

But Discovery takes place in the Star Trek long-ago-and-far-away, about a decade before the original TV series, and these Klingons are collectivist religious fanatics, not to be judgmental about it, and prove their loyalty to the group collective by roasting their own hands over torches, sort of extraterrestrial versions of Gordon Liddy, except armed with death rays. Alerted to the presence of humans in their corner of the universe, the Klingon chief snarls sarcastically in English to his colleagues: "We come in peace."

Over on the U.S.S. Shenzhou, which is on a do-gooder mission helping out what Donald Trump might call the Shithole Planets, there's debate about the intentions of the Klingons, who mostly haven't been seen in the last hundred years or so.

Executive Officer Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green, The Walking Dead), a human raised by ruthlessly logical Vulcans, says the Vulcans, after losing a ship to peace-feigning Klingons, forever afterwards simply blasted them on sight: "Violence brought respect. Respect brought peace."

Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) isn't buying it. "We don't start shooting on a hunch," she warns, "and we don't take innocent lives." It's a bit like listening to a National Security Council smackdown between John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, except in this case, Bolton's got the Vulcan Death Grip in his pocket.

Burnham, by the way, wasn't raised by just any old Vulcans, but the late Mr. Spock's own parents. (Listening to Martin-Green imitate Leonard Nimoy's stop-and-go cadences is one of the most entertaining things about Discovery.) Oddly, in 50-some years of Star Trek movies and TV, this is the first time we've heard of a Spock sister or step-sister or whatever she is. For hard-core Trekkies, this is one of several unforgiveable deviations from canonical truth. The rest of us can just sit back and enjoy the smell of photon torpedoes in the morning.

Regrettably, this brings us to the subject of Cosmos: Possible Worlds. The original PBS show (Cosmos: A Personal Voyage) was one of the first television science documentaries for adults. The version Neil deGrasse Tyson hosted in 2014 (Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey) was one of the first television science documentaries aimed at showing how much smarter Tyson was than everyone else.

Cosmos: Possible Worlds mainly serves to show that Tyson has survived a brief stay in #MeToo purgatory. It's got too many CGI special effects; too much distorting of voices and blurring images, giving the unsettling feeling of a bad 1960s movie about LSD; so many random uses of unexplained scientific jargon that it often sounds as if it was written by a computerized buzz-phrase generator; and, mostly, too much Tyson.

Whether he's clownishly picking himself up and dusting himself as if he was really knocked out of his chair by an animated collision of stars, or dispensing scientific trivia that's essentially meaningless but can be used at I Fucking Love Science cocktail parties ("How small is 13 atoms? It's a quadrillionth of the size of a grain of salt"), Tyson's performance in Cosmos is all about self-promotion and show biz.

When he does venture into science, I don't believe a word he says—especially his oft-repeated anecdote about getting kicked off a jury after upbraiding a judge over misuse of mathematics during a criminal trial. Can anyone really believe that a well-known television star can actually be ejected from a courtroom without the news media getting wind of it? Yet Tyson's smug account of his superior intellect unraveling the criminal justice system has never been repeated by anyone but himself.

It would be great if somebody would apply the motto Tyson declares at the start of Cosmos— "question everything"—to that story. Or to his faux-anguished declaration, later in the show, that humanity is the world's serial killer ("What is it about us that wherever we go we bring death?"), as if sharks, timber wolves and Mycobacterium tuberculosis are pacifist vegans. Or his repeated insistence that religion and property are the main enemies of science, despite the overwhelming technological and scientific superiority of the ecclesiastic and market-oriented West over the atheist and unpropertied East. Any chance Judge Judy could eject him from TV?

Comments

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I see they have good ethnic representation.

[Ron]

Must have diversity in the fantasy past future.

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[Yes Way, Ted]

And gays, too!

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[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

The good news, as TV's retread fall broadcast season

I initially read this as "TV's retard fall broadcast season"

[Agammamon]

Same difference.

[Ken Shultz]

I thought Picard was fun.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Ken, you mentioned this last time but I had no opportunity to reply in time (and we all know how 'great' that platform is).

I honestly feel surprised that you liked it. You of all people who have so insightful comments of all things libertarian. And I do want to understand where you're coming from. Did you like Star Trek before? Did you watch the canon series? Which one was your favorite? Do you see that these Treks are different than those Treks, and if so, how do you explain the change of... things? How did you like 7of9 becoming a drunkard lesbian? Or the fact that everyone on the show was miserable, addicted, bitter and absolutely trashy? Oh, and the space elf, I loved the space elf guy, did you?

A lot of question, I know, sorry for that and I honestly don't mean to troll you. I just need to understand that how can you like something that is clearly the quintessential formula of all things Marxist, the epitome of all that is wrong in our current world?

[Ken Shultz]

The thing I liked least about it was the samurai character. I don't know why he needs to be there.

I liked Picard. I liked seeing Stewart play a role where he's no longer starting as the guy in charge but a shambling, old and dying version of himself. It was like his role in Logan. I liked seeing Picard standing up for the old ideals of the old Star Trek . . . which are no longer PC.

"To boldly go where no man has gone before" is to go into the future, and being optimistic about the future is no longer socially acceptable in a lot of places in this country. It isn't just that if you aren't a global warming doomsayer, you're part of the problem. It isn't just that imagining that we will solve our problems in the future with technology rather than personal sacrifice is considered being part of the problem.

It's also that in huge swathes of the country today, being tolerant is considered intolerable. The idea that Kirk or Picard shouldn't interfere in other societies' despite their unwoke customs is considered evil. Democrat America can no longer abide that. Picard has been set aside in Picard and outcast--because of his principled ideals in trying to save the fucking unwoke Romulans. Ultimately, he stands up for the lives of machines--and then begs the machines to be tolerant of humanity. It's almost like he's principled!

Picard in Picard is the last honest liberal, and the Federation around him has become the new Borg.

This has immense implications for the world around us, too.

And that's what I liked about Picard.

I started hating Star Trek when it stopped being about the interactions of characters I could like. Kirk, Spock, and Bones or Picard, Worf, and Data, there were always great characters--when the show was working.

I'd have accidentally pushed Neelix out of an airlock the first week he was onboard. I'd have pulled the fuse on that hologram of a doctor. I'd have stunned the changeling and put him on a shuttle to center of the nearest star. The characters they came up with went from being ignorable to annoying. Picard had some bad characters (the Samurai), but the story arc was good, Picard coming back into his own was good, and the moral universe they inhabited rang real.

And I think much of the criticism is because this generation can't handle honest tolerance. I was talking to a lady in her 70s the other day, and she was talking about watching All in the Family with someone in her 40s who had never seen the show. The woman in her 40s was complaining that it was unwatchable because Archie Bunker was such a racist. The lady in her 70s kept telling her, "The audience is laughing at him".

A society that is so tolerant that they can't even ridicule racists anymore is an intolerant society. Picard is a rare return to honest liberalism.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing your opinion with us, Ken.

I frankly didn't make these connections, even though it was obvious that Picard wanted to save the 'bad guy' Romulans and the Federation did not, which was kinda strange. The Federation was portrayed having some bad apples and moral flukes before, but they only started to portray them as outright evil in the new 'Treks'. Of course, we all know why.

What I did notice, and which bothered me is that Picard never cared to visit the space elf boy despite promising it... and afaik he was just a dick for not following through his promise.

What you explained about optimism and positive thinking is ofc true, the left just hates it, it can't stand it. President Trump was ridiculed in the liberal media for... having an optimistic outlook on a crisis, and for being positive that we're gonna push through it. The left is addicted to doomsday scenarios, and perhaps it's no wonder, that most of the bad in society is a direct result of their influence on policies.

[Yes Way, Ted]

"The left is addicted to doomsday scenarios, and perhaps it’s no wonder, that most of the bad in society is a direct result of their influence on policies."

To be fair, the right has trotted many a hobgoblin, including communists, terrorists, Muslims, and marijuana. Plus a good number of them believe in an actual Biblical doomsday.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

You are right, not all bad things are traceable back to leftists. It's just that most authoritarian shitheads tend to be leftists. But yes, occasionally there are authoritarians on the right too, though they tend to have much less influence, especially from a cultural standpoint.

[Ken Shultz]

Yeah, but this isn't about left vs. right.

This is about progressive vs. honest liberal.

I'm not sure honest liberals exist anywhere outside of libertarian chat rooms and science fiction anymore.

This isn't about left vs. right. This is about George Orwell vs. communism. The is about honest liberals vs. progressives. Free speech didn't used to be defined as a necessary evil at best on the left. Now the left is all "hate speech isn't free speech". It's the Borg. You will be assimilated--and they're not talking about assimilating the rights. They've taken over the left. There is no place for George Orwell and Christopher Hitchens anymore.

In the progressive mind, Picard's toleration for the culture and views of others is more offensive than Kirk's rule about mandatory mini-skirts. I joke about that, but back in 1967, they were imagining a future where women were free to wear what they wanted. It didn't become tacky to assume that women could wear mini-skirts on the job until it became possible for them to dress like they wanted at leisure. Nowadays, we see mandatory miniskirts as sexist Havey Weinsteinism--not sexual liberation.

And that goes double for tolerance.

There is nothing like tolerance on the left.

Tolerance is Intolerance in Orwell speak.

On today's left, "tolerance" means a stubborn refusal to associate with anyone who disagrees with you. The honest left is dead. Only Picard remains.

[Rockstevo]

I remember in SNG how they pushed back against government over reach, most notably in the episode The Drumhead. It’s 180 the other way with the Libs today, shred the constitution for lockdowns etc.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Sadly, yes.

[BYODB]

My favorite part was when he provoked a bunch of Romulans in a bar into attacking him, and his buddy Romulan samurai leaps out and decapitated several of them. Then they never speak of it again. I'm sure he won some hearts and minds there, what with being a consummate diplomat and all. It's ok though, they even say they are only racist literally because of his actions. He sure showed them!

Picard's so helpful towards the Romulans, and loves them so much, that he purposefully goads them into situations where he knows they will be murdered by friends of his, for no real reason other than to goad an unbalanced samurai kid into joining him.

I'm sure one can read all sorts of things into the nonsense that is the plot of Picard, but keep in mind it's probably just your imagination.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Oh yeah, how could I forget that cringe scene... horrible, just absolutely unbelievably horrible...

[Ken Shultz]

Picard has resigned from Starfleet in protest because they refused to save the Romulans--and he's been left to rot on his estate.

That's how the series begins.

He then endeavors to save machines from both the Romulans and Starfleet, and he endeavors to save the Romulans from the machines.

Why pretend that isn't so?

[BYODB]

Maybe they refused to 'save' the Romulans because, as the series shows us directly, the Romulans have thousands of warships still that they could use to save their own people if they actually gave a shit.

You know, that massive fleet of ships that shows up at the end? To kill the robots? And Picard? And literally anyone else who happens to be nearby?

Where Riker has to 'splain to them that he has ships too and will shoot beams at them if they do something?

Explain to me again how the Romulans, in any way shape or form, can simultaneously be a major military threat with literally thousands of warships while also being a bunch of poor laborers? Why does the Romulan Star Empire need the Federation for anything whatsoever?

Picard got played by Romulan high command, and maybe Federation command knew about that all along and was laughing at Picard for his idiotic claim that the Romulans needed Human's to solve their problems for them.

Honest liberal indeed? The Romulans aren't white male humans, therefore obviously they need our help to save themselves even while they are at least as advanced, and possibly more advanced, than the Federation itself.

Also, Picard seems to give zero fucks about the AI on Mars. There was an episode where they legally decided the AI had rights on Star Trek: TNG (The Measure of a Man). No word from the Picard show how exactly that hard-won legal fight was reversed. It just magically happened, and where the fuck was Picard for that fight? The show doesn't say. The insane thing is that the warned of result from The Measure of a Man, that being slavery of sentient machines, appears to have come to fruition but Picard is all depressed about the Romulans? So dumb.

[CE]

Picard was good in the new show for the reasons you say. 7 of 9 was good as always. It was sort of hard to believe that the Federation fell so far so fast, or that their security protocols were so ineffective. But it didn't seem like Star Trek at all.

[DWB]

That is an excellent defense, Ken -- I will give it a try.

[A Thinking Mind]

You didn't like the EMH? You're a monster. But I agree, no matter how many people were present, there would be zero witness to seeing Neelix pushed out an airlock.

I didn't actually watch Picard, but from what I absorbed of it, it looked gross and hateful. There's a samurai Romulan whose entire role is that he chops people's heads off because the producers think it's cool. There's extreme gory violence on screen like something out of Saw? And that was in service of "Fridging" a male character? They took an interesting character like Seven and turned her into an action badass instead of being purely rational and coldly calculating?

Picard was seemingly not for me. I liked a bit of Discovery when I was watching, but for the most part, I get the sense that there's no optimism left in the producers. The future is nihilistic and full of shitty people. They're making a show about Section 31 as if they're some necessary evil and not just evil. I'm not interested in the product anymore.

[Brandybuck]

Yeah, pretty much my reaction. I loved Picard too despite its flaws.

[BYODB]

Yeah, I mean it's totally reasonable an 80 year old man can be thrown back like 30 meters and walk away no problem. And that's just in the first episode or two. It's not Star Trek, it's Star Wars with different bad guys.

Picard as action hero failed multiple times in film. They learned nothing.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Yeah, I mean it’s totally reasonable an 80 year old man can be thrown back like 30 meters and walk away no problem.
Oh boy, and that was the least of its problem...
- and old and feeble Picard who can barely walk
- literal autistic space elf with a katana
- oversexualized romulans who hate the eff out of AIs because reasons
- a lesbian drunkard 7of9 who became a terrorist
- another lesbian ex-starfleet mom who abandoned his kid just because
- a needlessly brutal and idiotic execution of Icheb
- superfast transporters that are for some reason not available far into the future
- the borg having the spatial folding tech to transport your ass really really far because why not (never mind the actual race having this tech required the crystalline mantle of their own planet to make that device work)
- that whole exB nonesense which was for some reason overtly racist
- the hot latino captain who had an army of holograms representing his multiple personalities (whaaat?!)
- brutally killing poor Hugh because why not, the whole series was about shootin' and killin' and kickin ass cause that's soooo Star Trek
and many many more...

[BYODB]

Agreed. I can't go too far down that rabbit hole, because literally nothing made sense. But a fairly reasonable way to figure out if something is 'realistic' science fiction versus 'action pulp' is if an 80 year old can survive an explosion and being flung 1/4th of a football field and walk away.

That isn't TNG. It's the opposite of TNG.

It has it's place in TOS, or if they actually bothered with making something original, but Picard is certainly not The Next Generation and is entirely removed from that universe.

It's the worst of Movie Picard. They doubled down on purple laser bazooka's over plot.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

For some reason, I never really liked Picard or TNG for that matter. I appreciate its value, but to me Picard always reminded me of elitist professors and bureaucrats. Otoh I always loved the comfy vibes of VOY, DS9 and lately even ENT. Actually, the latter is the comfiest ST of all... it was really misjudged at first when it came out. Luckily, now we have new points of reference to compare it to...

[Yes Way, Ted]

Enterprise was just awful, from that super cheesy theme song to a complete abandonment of science and canon. Stopped watching after "Rogue Planet," which is quite possibly the stupidest Trek episode ever.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Strange, I tend to hear that the super cheesy theme song grows on people... and it certainly grew on me... 😀

I think Archer is a decent captain... I certainly like him more than Sisko, who imho was the first out of all real Trek. As for science and canon, perhaps there are some stuff, the most annoying one I recall was with the Borg. But I don't really remember other such grave inconsistences. I certainly loved T'Pol and the Vulcan episodes, I love Vulcans and we got to see a lot of the planet and their culture. The diplomacy episodes were superb. I loved the Andorians too, and the delicate balance between the three powers. Shran was perfect, played by probably the best recurring actor for Star Trek. The time traveling shit was a bit meh, I never really liked time traveling but ever ST series has about 6-10 episodes portraying it. The Xindi battle stuff was better at my latest re-watch, I didn't like it at first. There's a lot to like in ENT, really. I couldn't bring myself to hate it, especially not with a burning passion I feel toward STD and Le Nuveau Picard.

[BYODB]

If you liked Enterprise non-ironically, then really there isn't anything more to talk about.

It has it's charm in a campy kind of way, but the writing and effects were both pretty atrocious. It effectively killed the Star Trek brand for a decade.

Maybe you just haven't gotten to the Temporal Cold War stuff, but it's just unwatchable for me.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

You're being too harsh. It wasn't perfect, yes, and we can agree that it was a start of a decline, and that is halfway between real Trek and nu-Trek, so we might call it half-Trek. Still, as I explained above, it has a lot of good stuff in it too, and at least it's salvageable, unlike nu-Trek. And I admit, I was in Camp Hate at first, but then lately re--watching it made me realize it wasn't 'that' bad, as we now all now it possibly could have been.

And yeah, I gated the temporal cold war bs, just as I hate virtually all time travel bs... but it was bound to happen, it happens in every ST, maybe ENT overdid it, and it was certainly because or mainly due to bad writing, no arguments there.

[BYODB]

The idea was solid. And some of the plot threads were solid. But they basically tossed everything they set up that would have made a good Star Trek show, and inserted a bunch of time travel nonsense that became so convoluted it basically killed the show.

I can appreciate the good things in Enterprise, but mostly I just appreciate how campy and terrible just about everything is. I'm into that, not everyone is. Perhaps you are too.

They even dump a hot check into a skin tight leotard right off the bat, because obviously why not. Even Voyager took a few seasons to work up to that.

One of my favorite parts of TNG was when temporary Captain Jericho tell's Diana Troy to put on a damn uniform if she's going to be on the bridge. And after that? Her character kept wearing the uniform.

It pays when writers pay attention to what they did yesterday. Details matter. None of the modern shows can keep track of what they're doing today, let alone what the show has done before.

Kurtzman is a hack, is the short version.

[Anne]

I quit working at shoprite and now I make $65-85 per/h. How? I'm working online! My work didn't exactly make me happy so I decided to take a chance on something new…MHg after 4 years it was so hard to quit my day job but now I couldn't be happier.

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[CE]

the cheesy theme song was the best part

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

It certainly was.

[CE]

the new 7 of 9 was a lot less uptight though

[Overt]

I did not like either send up. Both were attempts to cram standard action series crap into Star Trek. Picard basically took all these characters and rewrote them heavily to fit what was basically a Patrick Stewart vanity piece. And to make his complaint against Trump's restrictionist policies, he sold out all of the Federation as well.

Red Letter Media did a good take down of both series, and I mostly agree with their criticisms.

[BYODB]

You know the weirdest thing? The anti-Brexit anti-Trump message that was supposedly inserted by Stewart isn't even obvious or noticeable. The writing is just so confused and terrible that any meaning becomes impossible. It's just word salad with explosions.

Never let actors write. Or in the case of Frakes, direct.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Holy shit, that was a thing? Did they really wanted to relay some form of political message aside from the obvious SJW bullcrap? I mean... holy effing shit, I literally didn't even notice, apparently they DID manage to fuck it up soooo bad that they failed at the one devious thing they intentionally wanted to deliver in the first place? Oh, the irony... 😀

[BYODB]

Yes, Stewart wanted some kind of anti-Brexit message specifically in the show as a condition of doing it at all but if it's there it's virtually erased by terrible writing. Probably because actors aren't known for writing, or directing, even while occasionally one turns out to have the talent.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Wow, thanks this shadenfraude made my day. I know that most if not all ST actors and actresses are fervent liberals. Luckily, they managed to be liberals without having to eff up Star Trek before, and it's good to hear that they still fail at achieving that, even though now they're explicitly trying to.

[BYODB]

I mean, The Next Generation was uber liberal and even socialist at times. Picard was French for a reason.

I can still enjoy it, which perhaps goes to show what a difference it makes when the writer/producer is actually involved and gives a shit.

[A Thinking Mind]

Patrick Stewart was adamant about making a political message about Brexit. He wouldn't have agreed to appear in that show unless it was thematically about the political issue most important to him. It kind of makes me hate Captain Picard by association, even though I've always loved him.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Just when I though Reason can't get any more disgraceful...

STD is the worst audiovisual torture I had ever set through in my life (only the 1st season). Words fail me when I have to describe just how awful it is. And no, it's not like I'm saying this much, there are movies and series I dislike, even ones that I hate, but to put this into context: this is like the absolute zero of the entertainment industry and a revolting insult to Roddenberry's legacy. I intentionally used absolute zero, not some very hot degrees since I know for sure that one cannot possibly create any worse, even if the intention was to make something really really bad. I watched Rubber for example, and it is one of those movies that are 'so bad that they're actually good'. Most movies/series would reach this if pushed to the limits, but STD managed to be stabilize itself at absolute zero, with unending cringe, SJW-ism, plotless hackery and an unending barrage of lens flares.

I also gave a chance to Picard, and I set it through it's first season. Well, it was certainly better than STD but as I said... it is physically impossible to beat STD at this point. Picard was about 4-5 degrees less trash than STD, but it was still unbearable to watch. Oh Star Trek, how I loved you, and how painful it is to see you raped by these clueless and cruel cultural Marxists...

[Juice]

I don't know if Roddenberry was a Marxist, but he certainly was a kind of Utopian socialist.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

You see, that's the thing about modern America and the Overtone window. Roddenberry might have been a leftist, heck even a utopian socialist idk... but today, he would be a literal Hitler to modern day democrats. Star Trek had the first interracial kiss in television, the first lesbian kiss in television, it touched upon gender roles and issues, it had a first female captain, admiral in the 90's etc... I had zero problem with any of these, my favorite ST is VOY and I absolute love Kate Mulgrew to this day. I couldn't imagine the series without her, nor can I imagine a better person for the role. So not all progress is bad, of course not, who says that. But progress for progress' sake... not that's something that can quickly backfire, and it backfired spectacularly. When browsing through a checkbox is more important than having a plot, well... that's how you know that something's iffy.

[Yes Way, Ted]

"my favorite ST is VOY"

You mean the show where they give a star ship to a woman and the first thing she does is get hopelessly lost?

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Weren't they at least honest? Jokes aside, it really was meaningful and of course it was time to finally give the 'keys' to a woman. Them being lost might have been a bit contrived but the core plot was fascinating, hence my preference: a single Federation starship alone a whole new quadrant. A whole new scenario where there's no backup, no communication to Starfleet, nothing.

[Yes Way, Ted]

Yeah, I liked it initially, and I'll still watch episodes when they air OTA. The ship is cool and I really like the opening sequence. I haven't watched all the episodes, but I should binge a season or two on Amazon soon.

The first season's production quality was fairly low, though, as are most ST series in their first year. There was one scene with Neelix in a cave and you can actually see the microphone boom at the top of the frame.

I didn't know about the bad treatment by Kate Mulgrew toward Jeri Ryan after Seven of Nine was brought for sex appeal in the hopes of boosting viewership by awkward nerds like me. Mulgrew has apologized, but it certainly tainted my opinion of her.

I liked a lot of the characters, especially Tom Paris, Chakotay (although he was never given enough to do), even the sexually frustrated Harry Kim. Neelix was annoying AF, and B'Elanna's constant over-the-top anger grated.

Overall a solid entry and my third favorite after TNG and the original movies.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Yes, production quality is usually low for the beginning of STs mainly for budgetary reasons, but I believe it had always been adequate, I never noticed the microphone boom before, despite watching the series several times. I did manage a Windows menu once, and the CGI discrepancy of a Species 8472 once. But these stuff tend to happen, yes.

Yes, the Mulgrew vs Ryan story is sad. But I really recommend you reading up Mulgrew's biography, or wiki for short. She had several personal troubles at the time, including losing her mother and finding her lost daughter after several years. Yes, it was unprofessional, it was wrong... but at the same time, I understand her reasons. Imagine nailing a contract stating that you will be The woman on the bridge, of the series, and it's a great breakthrough. Then views start to buckle and one of the directors bring in their gf, a younger absolutely effing attractive woman who effectively 'replaced' you. It was a bitter pill to swallow, and everyone felt it. But, and that's the most important thing: nothing of that came through the screens. Up until I read upon this story decades later, I was staggered. That's the proof that both of them are superb actresses.

[Rockstevo]

There was a female captain in the first season of STG, one of the last episodes where they had to battle what had been planned to be the Borg but later changed into what they put up in the second season, but then she turned out to be infected by them as well. After that the women were all admirals and all the captains were men. Make of that what you will.
I did enjoy some of the episodes of STV, same with DS9 and even Enterprise. Did not care much for the episodes where they tried to go all Shakespeare and or touchy feely which is weird because some of the best Original Series episodes are when they do.
As for Discovery, I liked the effects but that was about all. They changed the Klingons into unrecognizable characters that are no longer a warrior race just scary to look at and oh so misunderstood. Since DS9 when they brought back the mirror universe I have not cared much for those episodes but that was one of the best parts of Discovery.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

They should have allowed evil Michelle Yeoh to nuke and genocide all those degenerate Klingons. And then she should have proceeded to eat every single Saru in the universe. Finally, they should have packed Discovery with omega molecules mixed with fungicide to destroy their entire fucking ship, multiverse and series...

[soldiermedic76]

I hated the Klingons in STD. Also, Christopher Lloyd was the best Klingon ever, just saying.
STD Klingons didn't look or act like Klingons. Their ships lacked the beauty of Klingon vessels (and the threatening look) their bladed weapons looked silly.

[soldiermedic76]

Growing up with American Indians I absolutely hated Ch'Kotay, he was so stereotypical and derived. Also, what tribe was he supposed to belong to? They borrowed traditions and myths from multiple different tribes (basically Indian Trope).
Paris and Kim were my favorite. I wonder if Harry ever got promoted. I mean Tom was court martialed, imprisoned, released, hired as a civilian consultant, given his rank back, demoted once, and then promoted again. All the while poor, competent keeps his nose clean Harry is still slaving away as an ensign?

[soldiermedic76]

Also, the second worst plot line after time travel is hollowdeck episodes. And Voyager had way to many Hollow Deck episodes. BTW I like ST Lower Decks. Not great but better than STD.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

They had an expert on the show to help with the Native Indian stuff... but it turned out later on that the guy was a heck and that's why Chakotay was so eerie and inconsistent. Granted, on the show he played a failure of an Indian, since he didn't follow his dad's traditions. I kinda hated that approach, I would have preferred him as the opposite.

The Tom and Kim pair was superb. But they really mishandled Kim both as a character and as an actor. Wang was the only one who wasn't allowed to direct any episodes, while everyone else was. And he should have received a field promotion from the captain. Poor Harry...

[soldiermedic76]

Why doesn't that surprise me about their expert?

[Yes Way, Ted]

Also, an African-American Vulcan? WTF? How did that happen evolutionarily speaking.

[Agammamon]

It could only have been made better if Janeway were Asian.

[soldiermedic76]

A bisexual, Asian??? I think I've seen that movie.

[dew]

>> Star Trek had the first interracial kiss in television
No, that is just a Trekkie myth. The "first kiss on the lips between black and white persons on US network television" might be correct.

The BBC beat that Trek Episode by 7 or 8 years, several Asian-white kisses on US TV years before it, and Frank Sinatra's wife gave Sammy Davis a kiss on the cheek on TV a couple years before.

[Agammamon]

He wasn't a Marxist - Marxists aren't utopian socialists. They're power-mongers in the 1984 vein.

I see Roddenberry's utopianism as aspirational - not as something he thought there was a clear path to or even that it was actually possible but something that we should try to move incrementally closer to if possible.

[A Thinking Mind]

The Federation was unabashedly communist, at least in the TNG era. They talk about how they've abolished possessions and currency.

It doesn't really impact the show. For the most part it's feasible since the Federation is post scarcity, but there's also episodes completely about trading X for Y. In the background it's quite obvious that there's still some kind of market economy, even if their words pretend there isn't.

[Agammamon]

They don't talk about how they've abolished possessions and currency. Its obvious they still have possessions. What they blather on about is how they've moved beyond an 'obsession' with things - because they're so rich they don't need to worry about them any more. They spend their time working on improving themselves, not collecting things.

They've not 'abolished' money, they simply have no need for it anymore - handwaved as to exactly how they got there. So, yeah, this might be the mythical 'stateless communism' that real people keep murdering each other to create, or it could be some other thing.

[BYODB]

I'll just leave this here.

Red Letter Media ST:D Review

[Overt]

The plinket review of Picard is also fantastic.

[BYODB]

Agreed. Both shows are terrible, but at least ST:D doesn't directly take a shit on TNG. I hated Picard.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Thanks for the link.

I still think STD was worse but perhaps you're right I mean... would you drink diarrhea or eat shit? Which would be worse of the two? Which would be 'better'? It's really hard to tell, and hopefully none of us will try. I'm still trying to forget the first seasons of both STD and Picard...

And frankly, we shouldn't even call them Star Trek, they're STINO... Star Trek In Name Only...

[BYODB]

I think taking established characters from a seven season run of a beloved show and then totally rewriting them to be essentially their own antithesis is worse than just creating new characters that are garbage from the get go.

That's just my opinion though, I suppose.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Cultural Marxists can't resist the urge to destroy all that 'is' and they feel compelled to replace and rewrite everything in their own image.

[Overt]

The first time I saw that stupid rotating saucer section on Discovery, I just had this sinking feeling in my stomach. How any sci-fi nerd could watch that happen and think "Oh yeah, this makes sense", was beyond me. And it just went down hill from there.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

I can't recall where did I start feeling nauseous exactly... maybe when I heard that the strong black woman is called Michael? When I saw the uggly as eff neo-klingons? Or maybe when I heard them talk without the universal translator? Oh, or maybe when they decided to just start a war and shoot the shit out of everything in episode 1?

[soldiermedic76]

The Best New Trek is by far is The Orville.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Indeed. Never liked McFarlane before, but it goes to show that he at least watched ST and he likes ST. And this can take him a long way, certainly longer than Kurtzman et al...

[soldiermedic76]

The Family Guy Star Wars episodes were also far better than Disney's Star Wars.

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

How dare you belittle the intellect of Neil deGauss Tyrone!

[Mother's Lament]

I haven't laughed like this at a good fisking for a while.
Tyson is such a poseur.

[soldiermedic76]

Who gets his science and especially his history wrong a good portion of the time. I am sure he is a decent physicist but his understanding of biology is pretty mundane.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

Neil deGrasse Tyson is back to condescend to us all some more

"Good! Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Let the hate flow through you."

One of my favorite Star Trek quotes. And I get to use it referring to NdT. That guy is such a narcissistic pussy-grabber, amirite?

[Square = Circle]

One of my favorite Star Trek quotes.

Are you trying to get mobbed by sci-fi nerds?

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

Yes. The disdain for Tyson is real. The rest is poking fun.

[Square = Circle]

Carry on, then.

[Agammamon]

Like when Gandalf told Harry to 'use the force'.

[Agammamon]

https://imgur.com/gallery/cHh3U6N

[OneSimpleLesson]

https://www.wired.com/2016/04/neil-degrasse-tyson-black-hole-sucking-fun-universe/
One of the best things I've ever read that remains relevant.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Discovery is a shit show. Only the wokest of retards would enjoy it. The writers made it clear that they know nothing of startrek. Completely rewriting entire cultures mainly the vulcans and klingons. I guess coming up with a different unexplored alien groups. I wouldn't be surprised if they kick off the new season with the addition of 3 new crewmembers, a borg, a jem Hadar, and an ewok

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Well said.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

*Unexplored alien groups would require too much thinking and actual knowledge of the series

[Ron]

maybe they should add JarJar to really kill off the series

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

If they added Darth JarJar, it could be awesome.

[NashTiger]

People don't think the universe be like it is, but it do

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

Tyson’s courtroom fabulism reminds me of back a few years ago when Elizabeth Nolan Brown claimed that she got arrested by the Secret Service at the Republican National Convention or some bullshit like that.

[BYODB]

Nerd Alert:

Star Trek Discovery is watchable, but it's not Star Trek and the second season was actual trash in terms of plot. And effects. And being Star Trek. And writing. And being Star Trek.

Basically, it's 'Generic Adventures in Space' with the occasional name drop or nod to things the writers clearly didn't research beyond the most superficial.

Everyone is putting all their eggs into Bold New Worlds because, surprise, turns out The Orville proved that people actually still like optimistic science fiction that isn't darkness, rape, and skull explosions. Well, ok, some skull explosions. TOS would have done skull explosions, and TNG did do skull explosions.

We'll see if Bold New Worlds delivers. It's literally their only hope, and Paramount has actually said this. If BNW tanks, Star Trek probably tanks for the foreseeable future as well, outside of a few minor TV offerings that probably won't survive more than two seasons (if that).

The only reason STD survived for a 3rd season is because it's as close of a flagship show that they have, for the moment, and they're coasting on the very minor goodwill from the end of season 1.

All this while hoping that the new show takes over the flagship role, because they fundamentally screwed up with Discovery by making a random crewmember (with no personality) the focal point of the series. No offence to Sonequa Martin-Green, every writer for that show is a moron.

[Ron]

Orville was funny and could have been good if they had left out the clearly political crap, it wasn't even subtextual like in Star Trek. I quit watching during the second episode of Orville just to much

[BYODB]

I mean, The Next Generation was one long sell of the ideals of enlightened socialism but Gene was at least honest and portrayed just about every person at or above Admiral as a monster in Star Fleet.

The Orville wasn't serious, especially at first, but there were some episodes such as the social media episode that honestly tackled the idea's of mob rule and it's pit falls. It was perhaps the one episode that truly stood out as being the most 'Star Trek', even while most people seemed to like the obvious re-shoot of 'The Best of Both Worlds' episodes better.

Of course, McFarlane must have missed the part where 'The Best of Both Worlds' was, at heart, a story about Riker not taking the easy route and blowing up Picard, thus getting everything he wanted in life. It still worked in McFarlane's version, I suppose, even if it wasn't terribly creative.

[Yes Way, Ted]

That "clearly political crap" echoed TNG. Too bad you didn't get to the episode that skewered social media.

[soldiermedic76]

The Orville, despite Seth's over the top liberalism, is much like The Family Guy in that he pokes fun and takes apart liberal trope almost as much as he does conservative trope. Seth is not afraid to make fun of himself.

[soldiermedic76]

Also the social media episode was some of the best sci fi in years. Relevant, not overly preachy but definitely a worthy message.

[Agammamon]

BNW is going to tank because old Trekkies have either stopped watching (me) or are watching The Orville.

New Trekkies think ST:D, Picard, and Lower Decks are a thing and won't understand why the new show is so boring - hardly anyone yells at anyone.

[Agammamon]

And there's an old white male in charge.

[BYODB]

Well, The Orville is definitely not getting a season 4 so as far as that competition goes it's got an end date in sight.

Honestly, while it's dumb, I have to admit that I'm actually liking The Lower Decks. The first episode was pretty bad, and had way too much jammed into it for twenty minutes, but they do get slightly better.

I think it's probably just a case of Discovery setting the bar so low, but I honestly liked Anson Mount as Pike and am looking forward to Strange New Worlds, with a more traditional episodic framework.

(I mislabeled the show as Bold New Worlds, mental tick I guess.)

That said, I'm 90% sure they'll fuck it up.

[soldiermedic76]

I like lower deck. Not great and the Orville is better but better than new trek. And new trek Klingons.

[BYODB]

Indeed, it's a shame The Orville is over after season 3 wraps up but good shows do tend to end sooner, I suppose.

[soldiermedic76]

TOS only had 3 seasons, and only 2 good seasons. The third season was kind of a bust.

[DWB]

Please, let Star Trek rest in peace ... what you are doing to its corpse unseemly and just wrong!

[Adans smith]

Stargate SG 1 and Stargate Atlantis were far better than Star Trek.

[soldiermedic76]

Firefly. Damnit.

[Adans smith]

And Tyson is a smug ass of the first order.

[Square = Circle]

the unsettling feeling of a bad 1960s movie about LSD

I'm sure you meant the unsettling feeling of an immortal classic 1960s movie about LSD.

[Longtobefree]

"For hard-core Trekkies, this is one of several unforgiveable deviations from canonical truth. "

Unlike calling the Vulcan nerve pinch a "death grip"?
Go watch all the original series; make a list of each character that died after Mr. Spock briefly caressed their shoulder.
(hint, no paper or pencil required)

[Agammamon]

Except there is a death grip. Its a fake out in one of the TOS episodes. Except I think Garvin doesn't know that.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

His embedded link described the fake move and the correct episode. I would assume it appears in season 3, which I may or may not eventually see as I canceled CBS allaccess after watching the first 2 and Picard.

Other than Jeri Ryan looking absolutely amazing, I wasn't particularly impressed by anything enough to get excited about either series. My wife can't stand having to remember the convoluted plot-lines although she loved the older episodic series. She picked out Lucius Malfoy as the big bad guy the first episode he appeared.

[Yes Way, Ted]

"I'm not necessarily the best guy to evaluate Discovery. My experience with Star Trek is mostly listening to Leonard and Sheldon speaking Klingon while a bored Penny stares into space, fantasizing about mauve nail polish."

And yet you wrote a shitty piece anyway.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Indeed. Incredible, but they're eerily consistent... Reason's stuff is doing that a lot a lately, on every topic imaginable, but mostly on politics and economics.

But for a change, now at least they are dead wrong on television too.

[soldiermedic76]

Let's face it Penny was actually fantasizing about a threesome with Leonard and Sheldon (she did have kind of a creepy, sisterly incestuous crush vibe with Sheldon at times).

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

On top of that star trek discover did the unthinkable. It made deep space 9 not the worst star trek

[Yes Way, Ted]

+100!

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Right?! I'm literally re-watching DS9 since last week and it really does make a lot of sense now. And at least everything's familiar, consistent and they have a plot. Something that modern series tend to forget for some reason...

[BYODB]

The best part of DS9 is always Quark. I'd watch a show where Quark, his brother, and his nephew have misadventures every week. Throw in some Julian and Garrick, and I'm sold.

Actually, that was pretty much DS9 in a nutshell.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Oh, I love Quark too, holy shit. Best 'annoying character' of all Trek. Ferengis started out as a joke race, and they pretty much are, but over time they expanded on their culture and they become pretty decent.

[Agammamon]

What's sad about the Ferengi is that you can make a really great set of antagonists out of a group of hyper-free-market libertarians.

Money, contra Ian M Banks, does not imply poverty.

There are things the Federation won't allow - transhumanism foremost among them. A group of ruthless free marketeers that care not for your borders and will trade anything, anywhere, with anyone allows you to highlight the less-than-utopian aspects of Federation culture (without having to destroy the utopianism ala Picard) while also allowing you to have a dialogue about the tradeoffs of freedom and security at the margins.

If you understood what a free market was, what capitalism was, what libertarianism was.

Instead we got the Hollywood writers version of 'kkkorporations are bad'.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

I agree with your observations, it is sad of course that the Ferengi wasn't really polished out in a consistent manner, and they honestly should have portrayed them better. Even when they added to their culture over the years, they still remained something of a comical race. Their devious, scheming, superstitious and highly misogynistic, even though they like free trade and latinum too.

[Under_Pressure]

Their devious, scheming, superstitious and highly misogynistic

He already said they were libertarians...

[BYODB]

What is Enterprise and 'The Time War', chopped liver?

I suppose the camp value in having the guy from Quantum Leap inhabit Captain Archer in the future is funny, but several seasons of it not so much.

[Agammamon]

1. Enterprise was the worst Star Trek.

2. If DS9 (which I don't really rate) was the worst series then they were doing pretty good.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Star trek enterprise time war sucked, but leading up to the final season was pretty good (kind of like sliders and Rocky 5 I block it from my memory)
Star stay in one place and don't go anywhere: deep space 9 was the most annoying because most of the problems on that show were their own making and they ofter repeated issues that were already resolved

[Agammamon]

DS9 is really about an examination of the core principles underpinning the Federation and Starfleet - how extreme situations can lead you to abandoning those principles for expediency and personal safety.

[soldiermedic76]

DS9 got better after the Dominion War. Enterprise had promise but the Time War/Temporal Cold War Uber Plot undid that promise.

[Dan_In_Philly]

Just because the majority of Star Trek series were "Wagon Train To The Stars," that does not mean that a Star Trek version of "Gunsmoke" is not Star Trek. OTOH, if you are wedded to the meta of "The Forehead of the Week," then Yes, DS9 was different.

DS9 had some really top-drawer individual episodes, brought the concept of serialization to ST, and paid homage to ST:OS on a regular basis. For libertarians, Nog's speech in "Treachery, Faith, and The Great River" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6QVPbD9rD8 describes "The Invisible Hand" better than Adam Smith ever could.

[Yes Way, Ted]

"In a lot of recent Star Trek spinoffs, the Klingons have tended toward the cuddly"

First, there have only been three (count them: Discovery, Picard, and the animated Lower Desks) recent spin-offs (note the correct spelling of "spin-off"). The most recent spin-off before Discovery was Enterprise, which ran from 2001-2005. Hardly recent. And its Klingons were hardly "cuddly." The Klingon retcon in ST:D is an abomination.

Just admit you have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Just admit you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.
If they did, even for once, then all leftist prog-libs would pop out of existence due to the cascade effect of reality bursting their subspace bubbles...

[soldiermedic76]

I am not sure Worf was ever cuddly. And Goran was definitely not cuddly nor General Martok. What fucking trek was he watching.

[soldiermedic76]

Goran also is great meme material, especially with the bulging eyes.

[Azathoth!!]

Gowron.

[Ra's al Gore]

Over on the U.S.S. Shenzhou, which is on a do-gooder mission helping out what Donald Trump might call the Shithole Planets,

And DJT is involved in Star Trek, exactly how?

[Yes Way, Ted]

Well, he did fire George Takei on Celebrity Apprentice. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

what Donald Trump might call the Shithole Planets,
And they would love him all the same.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51012853

While overall, it seems the world lacks confidence that the US president will make the right choices, Mr Trump does find support in some countries.

Mr Trump is popular in the African nations surveyed despite his past missteps - including reportedly calling African states "shithole countries".

[Azathoth!!]

And DJT is involved in Star Trek, exactly how?

At the time of ST:D he's still president of the US. Duh.

[Sometimes Bad Is Bad]

Starship Diversity on its 5 year mission of Inclusivity

Spoiler they get eaten by the Klingons.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

The only good part that I honestly enjoyed in that heap of trash was when evil Michelle Yeoh character was eating that annoying piece of shit Saru (I think?). Now, if only the crew of Voyager had eaten Neelix by the second episode latest...

[BYODB]

Really? I thought Saru was one of the best characters and the most 'Starfleet' in season 1. He would have fit right in on the Enterprise under Picard. Michael would have been politely transferred, or more likely she would have been a villain of the week. A very boring villain of the week.

Tilly and Barclay could have been bunkmates.

Of course, they fuck all that up in season 2.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

All I saw in Saru is weakness, and that type of weakness disgusts me. Don't know why, maybe it's just me but fuck, he was even a member of a 'prey race'. Michael should have been politely de-replicated or transported down to Kronos to a Klingon rape gang.

Strangely, Tilly was not worse than Barclay, but perhaps the overall shittiness of STD stripped her off the chance of being a likeable autistic character.

[BYODB]

Yes, Saru starts off as skittish and weak. It's to leave room for character development, which went well until they decided to make his entire personality basically dependent on his race which sort of cuts the knee's out from under his personal journey.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Well, I don't know where his development went since I only saw season one, kinda... and that was already a lethal dose of that thing.

[Formerly Cynical Asshole]

You actually made it through season 1? You have more intestinal fortitude than I do. I think I made it 4 or 5 episodes in before I couldn't take it anymore.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

And you're right, I should have done the same. And it does require a great deal of morbid fascination to sit through more than the first season.

[CE]

Tilly was considered high potential officer material by Star Fleet. Which explains a lot of their future problems.

[soldiermedic76]

Trying to decide if Tilly is cute/sexy or someone you only take home at closing time after a long dry spell???

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

Tilly is the one you marry because she makes really great pies and never has a headache. A people pleaser.

[soldiermedic76]

Good take.

[Dillinger]

>>My experience with Star Trek is mostly listening to Leonard and Sheldon

dear God.

[Agammamon]

Star Trek: Discovery Warp Speeds Its Way from Streaming into Network Primetime

ST: D's spread.

The good news, as TV's retread fall broadcast season continues its rollout this week, is that the beloved Vulcan Death Grip makes its reappearance in prime time for the first time in decades. The bad news is that no one applies it on the revenant of Neil deGrasse Tyson, who has risen from the television grave to reclaim his perennial hold on the Emmy for TV personality most in need of a hard slapping.

What would be the point - the Vulcan Death Grip is *fictional within Star Trek*. Spock made it up to fool some people. As your own link shows. Wait, are you confusing the death grip with the nerve pinch?

I'm not necessarily the best guy to evaluate Discovery. My experience with Star Trek is mostly listening to Leonard and Sheldon speaking Klingon while a bored Penny stares into space, fantasizing about mauve nail polish.

Fortunately, you don't really need a degree in Trekkie studies to enjoy Discovery. It's a throwback to the early days of Star Trek and the Cold War sci-fi that spawned it, with the humans and their allies as the United States and the warrior-species Klingons as the Soviets. Phasers are never set to stun.

OMG. You've never seen either ST or Discovery. Why are you reviewing shit when you haven't even watched the shows. This is getting sad.

If there's one thing that fans of Star Trek agree on, its that Discovery is written by people who hate Star Trek for people who hate Star Trek.

. . . prove their loyalty to the group collective by roasting their own hands over torches, sort of extraterrestrial versions of Gordon Liddy,

You missed a goddamned Lethal Weapon reference opportunity!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mws8-dFTNks

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

Isn't it just absolutely effing revolting?

[Dillinger]

Busey w/a bic under his hand?

[soldiermedic76]

Good catch. Never miss a chance to reference a film classic like Lethal Weapon. The only thing worse would be to miss a chance to reference Die Hard (the first one).

[soldiermedic76]

Though the second ones description of Grenada as being a couple of hours of combat followed by days of surfing was pretty decent.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

Am I the only person that liked 'Live Free or Die Hard'? Capping the bad guy by shooting yourself is the best McClane move ever.

[soldiermedic76]

Honestly never made it all the way through it from start to finish.

[Agammamon]

I will admit that, in general, I liked it. Though there was a lot of stupidity in it that greatly diminishes the movie.

The one where he's in Russia? Not only is it a bad movie, its *boring*. They should'a stopped after the third one. Really, after the first.

[CE]

STD was fine, except for Mary Sue Michael being Spock's smarter step-sister, and for the whole magic mushrooms space warp giving Disco better navigational capabilities than even Picard's ship in Next Gen had.

The best part was in season 2 where they brought back Capt. Pike and Spock and the real Enterprise, then sent Disco somewhere off grid in space time. I was hoping Disco would stay there and the show would focus on Pike and Spock. That's unlikely, but they did announce a second show focused on the better characters and ship.

[Formerly Cynical Asshole]

...the whole magic mushrooms space warp...

They also ripped that entire concept off from some indie video game. If I'm not mistaken there's actually a lawsuit. Not sure if it was settled or if it's still in litigation.

Not only is STD shit, it's unoriginal shit.

[soldiermedic76]

The spore drive is second worse thing after the Klingons.

[Azathoth!!]

Not just the spore drive, the gay engineer with the black husband, Mikey Spock herself, Saru and a whole lot of the initial plot.

And the guy ran out of cash to fight CBS.

[Formerly Cynical Asshole]

Star Trek Discovery is shit. And not because it deviates from previously established canon, but because it just isn't very good. It's bleak and depressing, unlike the original series and TNG which presented a hopeful vision of the future and what human beings were capable of achieving, it's pretty much exactly the opposite It's basically Star Trek for people who don't like Star Trek made by people who, I suspect, don't particularly like Star Trek. The Orville is at least a million times better, and much more like Trek than STD (a fitting acronym if there ever was one).

[soldiermedic76]

Can we all agree that what we really need is a new season of Firefly?

[BYODB]

We'd all need to pretend Serenity never happened, but I'd be game. I try to forget that movie.

[soldiermedic76]

Yeah have to somehow get on Wash not getting killed.

[Longtobefree]

Opening shot, Firefly bunkroom of Walsh and Zoe:
Walsh wakes up Zoe saying
"Honey wake up and hold me! I just had this horrible nightmare!"

[soldiermedic76]

Okay I am on board. A Dallas Retcon. I can live with that.

[soldiermedic76]

Get on was supposed to be Retcon.

[Yes Way, Ted]

It was far more libertarian than Star Trek.

"That's what government's for. Get in a man's way." Mal Reynolds

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[Brandybuck]

I got through Season One of Discovery. It was okay, with two main flaws. The first being it was supposed to be before STTOS which made little sense given their clearly more advanced technology. And second, the awful awful ending.

Okay, included among the flaws are magic mushrooms (really?), the dude who can sense danger like Spiderman because he's a prey species, WTF, and the soft chick nerd who wants to be a captain one day. The character is obviously supposed to be a reflection of the target audience, but she's just so cringeworthy as to make me cringe everytime she shows up. (Probably a good actor, but grossly miscast in the role).

Which is why I coudn't get through the first episode of Season Two. They really expect me to pretend that this is a reboot and none of what happened in season one happened? Oh way, they're not, they're bringing back the enemy of season one and making her one of the good guys. Ugh. So okay, so the main character is Spock's sister, and Spock hates her. Still, do we really need that family drama in a family we already know about?

Sorry, but I don't care how much they reboot it, I'm not watching Discovery any more. Enough insults to my intelligence.

[StackOfCoins]

I'm not a big Trekkie, but I found Discovery annoying at best. It's trying so hard to be woke and body-positive and it's obviously a vehicle for progressive ideology. I haven't bothered with Picard; it looks dreadful, and I don't need to see Patrick Stewart being ritualistically humiliated. I already attended the character assassination of Luke Skywalker. I am done with these retreads.

[m4019597]

So they got all those suckers to pay for CBS All Access, now they’re giving away ST Discovery for free.

That should be the story here.