Interview: Michelle Paradise On ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 2 Finale And Going Beyond Canon In Season 3

The second season finale of Star Trek: Discovery debuted one week ago, wrapping up an eventful season and setting the series off in a new direction. TrekMovie spoke with Michelle Paradise, co-writer of the two-part finale (and co-showrunner for the series) about the finale and where Discovery is going in season three.

Can you talk about the decision to split the season finale into two parts and how you figured out what to put into each half?

We decided to do two episodes in the first place because we realized there was just so much story to tell at the end of the season and so many mysteries that we wanted to wrap up in a satisfying way, and so many character moments that we wanted to pay off. In particular, Burnham and Spock were the heart of the season. We had a lot with Pike this season that we wanted to wrap up. As for Spock, how he gets back to the Enterprise and how becomes prepared for what will happen in TOS in ten years, and Number One, all of these wonderful character beats that we wanted to wrap up. There was the Red Angel and the signals and all of these things. When we started talking about what the finale should be and really looking at what the story should be, it became clear very quickly that it was way too much to do in a single episode. So that is where we came to breaking it into two episodes. It felt like the natural way to do it.

In terms of how to break that up, we end episode 12 knowing that we have to take some drastic steps in order to protect the future, essentially. Once we realize that those things are not going to work, it felt like getting as many of those character things in and getting the stage set and getting ready for the battle, and once the battle begins, we are off to the races with all of that. So, it felt like an organic breaking point between the two episodes for us and having two episodes gave us the space we felt we needed to really do all of those stories justice.

Let’s talk about the decision to jump the show forward in time. How did that influence the second season?

As I joined about halfway through the season, I wasn’t there when they originally made that decision. That was made even before the season started. They knew that was where they were going. I can speak to the benefits of that, and what we have talked about since then. One of the discussions that I have been part of is the opportunity to go to the future to be beyond canon, and to explore what that looks like and what that fresh snow landscape looks like. This felt like an organic way to do that.

Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham in “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2”

Looking at the decision from the point of view of the characters, there is a moment in the finale where it becomes clear Control was neutralized. Why did they then stick with the plan to jump into the future?

Well, Control is really only neutralized at the moment that Burnham is already heading into the wormhole as Discovery is following behind her. At the moment Georgiou finally kills Leland,  because he is essentially the face of Control—its controlling element if you will. So the moment that she does that, all of the ships that have been fighting in his armada essentially stop functioning and that is when Pike says “open fire” on all of them. By that point, they are already far away. Whether or not Control had been defeated in that moment or five minutes earlier, the pressing issue is this sphere. If Section 31 could have allowed Control to get to the point where it did, could there be anything else? That is one of the things they talk about in the final act of episode 14—we have to do things in a different way so an entity like Control isn’t developed with good intent but gets pushed past the point where it should be. With the sphere data accessible that would always have been a threat. So, once our heroes realized they needed to go into the future, they need to take that sphere data out of harm’s way and that is the only solution for making sure that this thing doesn’t happen again. And back in our present, which is the stuff they are talking about with the Starfleet Officer at the end there, is how do we make sure that we go in a different direction? How can we ensure that Section 31 goes in a different direction so this kind of thing doesn’t crop up again?

Sticking with the motivation of the characters, Star Trek canon establishes that time travel becomes somewhat commonplace in the far future. So returning might not be so hard for the Discovery. Are the characters motivated to stay in the future to keep the sphere data in the future?

What they know given the information that they have at that time in our history is that time travel is not common. Their perspective is the way to solve this problem is to take it far into the future where it can’t be used for nefarious purposes. That is what they are driven to do. Take it there and their intent is to stay there. We have some really great stuff. Our actors just absolutely killed it with the performances in episode 13 as they said goodbye to family and friends. Our crew has made the decision to stay with Burnham and to go with her and from all of their perspectives, this is a one-way journey.

There is a sort of parallel with Star Trek: Voyager, which was thrown far from home. However, here the crew is making the choice. So, in the case of Discovery, they will not be trying to get back home?

Everything we know in season two is they are motivated to go into the future to help ensure that there is a future for other people. None of them is talking about coming back. They are all talking about how this is the journey we will make in order to save sentient life so that there is a tomorrow. That is where they are focused on all of their perspectives. That is why we have them say goodbye to their family and friends. That is why it is such an emotional moment for Burnham when they stand there and say, “We are coming with you,” because from Burnham’s perspective, the minute she finds out she can’t come back because of the time crystal she knows it is a one-way journey and then everyone else knows it is a one-way journey.

Anthony Rapp as Stamets; Doug Jones as Saru; Shazad Latif as Tyler; Ethan Peck as Spock; Ronnie Rowe as Bryce; Oyin Oladejo as Owosekun; Patrick Kwok-Choon as Rhys; Mary Wiseman in “Such Sweet Sorrow”

A quick point of clarification. In an interview with THR last week Alex Kurtzman said they jump forward 950 years, but it was actually 930, right?  

Yes, it is 930 years. From Burnham’s mom’s point of view, it was 950 years. But our heroes are going 930 years. When Burnham at the very end of the finale is setting the parameters of jump on the holoscreen, she even says 930 years.

So, that is the 32nd century, or specifically 3187?

Yeah, but I would need to do the math [laughs].

I’m sure [“keeper of the canon” staff writer] Kirsten [Beyer] has worked it out.

She has! She probably has charts. [laughs]

The USS Discovery has a big crew. It wasn’t entirely clear in the finale how many of them transferred back before the jump. Like, did Linus make it?

[Laughs] Everyone wants to know about Linus! I am sure Linus will be fine. We love Linus. What they say in knowing that this would happen in the chaos of everything and how many people are staying, certainly some of the crew members would have left. You will have to wait until season three to find out who if it is anyone. But we had them deliberately say in that scene with Burnham as they are talking to her in the corridor, there are others, but they are working now. So, very clearly, we have a complement of crew that can run the ship and can handle everything that they need to handle as they go through the wormhole. Not everyone on board had decided to stay is the implication in that moment. But many people have.

David Benjamin Tomlinson as Linus

Changes made in the second season appear to reflect some of the fan and critic feedback from the first. Is there feedback from the second season that is influencing the third?

Without getting into specifics about season three, what I will say is there is a lot we feel was really working and that people really love and that we really love in season two. A lot of the character moments people really seem to respond to. And those character moments that we definitely want to continue exploring. There is stuff people love like the unique things about Star Trek that only Star Trek can do, which are those moral and ethical debates, and the science of it. All of those things that people have responded to about Star Trek from its very inception are the things people continue to respond to about the show, and are the places that we as fans of the franchise and writers of the show also respond to. And those are the places we want to continue to play.

Can you give us an update as to how things are going in the writers’ room for season three and if there are any changes in the room from season two?

A lot of people from season two have come back, including a lot of folks from the beginning of the show. We have added a couple of new faces as well who are wonderful writers and wonderful human beings. We are super excited about the makeup of the room. Of course, we have [executive producer/co-creator] Alex [Kurtzman]. I am running the show with him, but he is very much involved in the show and in all of these decisions we are having on season three and I am helping him along the way. We are really excited about how everything is going so far and how the room has come together. Again, there are a lot of folks from last season, so there was a lot of cohesion there. A lot of folks who have been there since the beginning, which is great.

What would you say are some of the key influences being discussed in the writers’ room?

The original Star Trek has always original inspired and continues to inspire. That is the blueprint. That is the foundation for everything that all of the iterations of the franchise has done. We continue to be inspired by that. We continue to be inspired by—as I mentioned before—the moral and ethical debates that come up and the questions that don’t necessarily have a right or wrong answer. The ways in which our heroes interact with the world around them. All of those sorts of things just continue to inspire. TOS is always a point of discussion in the room.

What about you personally? What are some of the things that most spark your interest for inspiration?

I love the stories that are intriguing and human and about the human condition. The original Star Trek has always been inspiring to me. The original Twilight Zone was also very influential because it was about the human condition and complex questions and questions that don’t have answers and normal people in unusual situations. Those sorts of questions have always been fascinating to me. I am always inspired by science itself. I am a huge fan of science in general. I have two Wired magazines and an MIT Technology Review on my desk now as I am speaking to you. I read science-y stuff for fun. I was super excited when the first photo of a black hole came out. Real-life science really inspires me and I absolutely love it. I didn’t major in science in college, but I love all of that and following the latest advancements and trying—as much as a layperson can—to understand those things. And thanks to folks like Brian Greene and Neil deGrasse Tyson and all of them, I have a very basic understanding.

Those kinds of things for me, and any story that really focuses on character and small character moments that are revealing of larger themes and larger questions. And character moments that are revealing of that character. Those are things that excite me, and I am really interested in learning and discovering more about the characters on this show as we move forward and learn about them in new ways. We have learned quite a lot about them in the two seasons that Discovery has been on the air, and I am looking forward to finding out new things about them that we haven’t learned yet. And how does that play in their relationships with one another and their relationship to whatever story we happen to be telling in the episode? Those are the kinds of things I get excited about.

Michelle Paradise (fourth from right) with the Star Trek writers on a field trip to SpaceX in March (Twitter/StarTrekRoom)


Star Trek: Discovery is available exclusively in the USA on CBS All Access. It airs in Canada on Space and streams on CraveTV. It is available on Netflix everywhere else.

Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.

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Interesting interview. They could go back to the 23rd century after season 3. What happens to Section 31 after season 2? I remember Tyler was hired by Starfleet to run it after season 2. The Section 31 show is strange. Discovery might end like in Calypso from Short Treks or not. To boldly go…

That is pretty much the exact opposite of what she says, Prof.

blackmocco I didn’t say that.

Ok then.

Does “ok then” remind anyone else of ‘Raising Arizona’? :)

Sometimes, I get the menstrual cramps real hard…

If Calypso still somehow happens, they have to return at SOME point.
A. The last shuttle on board was “just delivered” and “never flown”. If that shuttle was on board when they went to the future, the crew would have to abandon Discovery pretty soon after they arrive.
B. The font on Kraft’s “Disco” shirt is different from the ones we’ve seen in season one. In season two we never saw that specific shirt (the Disco shirts we saw were special Command Training Programme versions).

In some ways I think we are waaaaaay over thinking Calypso. I’m sure there will be a connection to that story in some way but I don’t think we should over think every little detail that happened in it either. Attaching so much to a 15 minute short before they even finished season 2 probably will change whatever they want going forward. And Star Trek is pretty infamous for retconning stuff. ;)

But they used a character from one of the shorts to help sort out the whole “time crystal” situation. I agree they shouldn’t have put too much emphasis on the shorts that nobody has seen,but what do you expect when the writing in this show is consistently awful.

What makes good writing good?
For Example pay attention to details when you write them!
So why shouldnt we look very close to these details because if they are not of any importance what is it worth? Is it any good then?

If it were any other program, it would not even be considered for a third season. The Star Trek brand is basically subsidizing poor writing. What bugs me is, I don’t even know if this writing team believes that their work is crap. Some might. I don’t know. I hope that these people have to answer for this at convention panels. What is CBS doing? Fire these dudes.

Rikers, Of course, it’s your opinion that “the writing is crap” … I believe they’d be able to do work that shows more consideration of issues if they could just … slow … the action down! For some reason, it seems “paramount” to speed things along, zip-zip-zip, give the audience a 30-50-second scene that allows us to breathe, then continue rushing along to a climax and conclusion.

These are characters that deserve more character moments, and I don’t just mean Burnham weeping [she was so emotionally tortured in Season 2]. I was very pleased with the scene in the mess, when the JOs were playing Antonyms, and Linus and Reno had their comradely sniping, and Reno’s “hangnail” and Culber’s quick [too quick] consultation with Cornwell. But we didn’t see either of the traumatized characters [Culber or Tyler] getting PTSD treatment, per se. And we should have.

Marja, you’re right; It’s only my opinion. However, one could make the case that the plot points objectively don’t meet criteria for logical storytelling, and it doesn’t seem as though the writers are holding themselves accountable. The question is, do THEY believe that their scripts hold weight? I am genuinely curious.

Here’s the thing about that. The action beats are fun and do need to be there. But the focus ought to be on the people. But here is the problem Discovery REALLY has. The characters are rather poorly conceived. I, personally, don’t really feel anything for any of them. (Save for Reno and quite frankly the only thing I liked of her was her attitude, we don’t really know her yet but that’s a good starting point) The challenge these writers have is that they have to made dull people interesting. A very tall task. TNG had a cast of boring people but they also had a VERY charismatic actor in Patrick Stewart to make the lead watchable. After some 25 episodes (essentially one season) no one in the Discovery cast has proved to have that skill. As a result, TNG was good when it focused on sci-fi and Star Treky stuff. They failed miserably every time they tried to flesh out the existing characters. The bottom line is Discovery for season 3 needs to come up with a really bang up great sci-fi story line. If they rely on these characters for drama it would be a tremendous mistake.

Insightful, and worryingly accurate of Discovery, the challenges the show and writers face, and of TNG as well.

I agree. Every element should serve the story. “One must never place a loaded rifle on stage if it isn’t going to go off.”

Of course, there can be red herrings to keep it interesting and unpredictable, but every detail should be important.

In the short ‘Calypso’ we see the the ship DSC abandoned for 1000 years with it’s computer ordered to wait for their return. This could be the crew’s solution to avoiding any chance that the data gets into Control’s hands.

I think many are placing too much value on that Calypso short. Yes, it was the best of the 4 shorts. But it was so far removed from Discovery pretty much anything save for Discovery’s destruction could happen.

Well, Michelle Yeoh is contracted to be in the Section 31 series which is supposed to go into production after season 3 of Discovery, so that may be an indication that the time jump is only intended for one season.

“Well, Control is really only neutralized at the moment that Burnham is already heading into the wormhole as Discovery is following behind her. At the moment Georgiou finally kills Leland, because he is essentially the face of Control—its controlling element if you will. So the moment that she does that, all of the ships that have been fighting in his armada essentially stop functioning and that is when Pike says “open fire” on all of them. By that point, they are already far away. Whether or not Control had been defeated in that moment or five minutes earlier, the pressing issue is this sphere. If Section 31 could have allowed Control to get to the point where it did, could there be anything else? That is one of the things they talk about in the final act of episode 14—we have to do things in a different way so an entity like Control isn’t developed with good intent but gets pushed past the point where it should be. With the sphere data accessible that would always have been a threat. So, once our heroes realized they needed to go into the future, they need to take that sphere data out of harm’s way and that is the only solution for making sure that this thing doesn’t happen again. And back in our present, which is the stuff they are talking about with the Starfleet Officer at the end there, is how do we make sure that we go in a different direction? How can we ensure that Section 31 goes in a different direction so this kind of thing doesn’t crop up again?”

Grud, listen to someone try make sense of that appalling over-convoluted mess. Good lord.

Not that anyone relevant is going to read this or take it on board but some friendly words of advice for next season: LESS IS MORE.

Whatever happens to Section 31 is a big mystery. Control is destroyed… or is it.

I don’t think it’s particularly convoluted. There are a number of things with the whole time-travel scenario that just don’t make sense or add up, but in this case just a line or two to the effect that the jump was still necessary because the destruction of Control wasn’t definitely confirmed would have sufficed.

They did say it in episode 13 tho why the data have to be sent

M Hall,
Yeah, and even I got that on my first watch. [Usually I have to re-watch to make sure I catch everything, because lawdy, they do pitch a lot at us at once.]

Blackmocco, she doesn’t seem very media trained or rehearsed.

I agree that it came across as a core-dump.

Given how long ago filming wrapped, and a good deal of time since she was named co-showrunner, I would have expected for her to have had several training sessions – including audio and video recording – with a high end PR firm.

It should have also included prepared media lines and Qs and As on anticipated questions.

And even if there were surprises for the showrunners in the critical reaction, it’s been a week.

A good war room / quick response team should be able to write better lines in under a day.

If the writers room can’t break it down into crisp bullets, a good war room team can create straw dogs until it can be delivered in under 30 seconds.

Being in management means being ready for your peak release dates. Secret Hideout has the air of winging these things despite the nice production values on the ‘Moments of Discovery’.

e.g. Knowing what year season 3 is set in is an obvious, predictable question that should have been on a page in front of her. ‘Kirsten keeps track of that’ is not an acceptable response.

As it is, she sounds disorganized and dismissive of the details that matter to fans.

Worse, she sounds as though she’s buying her own spin without actually knowing what it is.

“Worse, she sounds as though she’s buying her own spin without actually knowing what it is.” In other words, like 99.9% of humankind. Burn her!

Yes, it’s true, we are self-deceiving as a species Michael Hall.

But ‘buying your own spin’ is actually PR slang for losing objectivity even when all you have left is spin to cover a bad situation.

And that is why even good writers need PR pros to help them be self-critical and take a step back to assess how their messages are going to be received before they take them out to a target audience.

It’s a bit like trying to be your own lawyer.

I worked in TV for years. Showrunners don’t get media training or PR help. They’re just normal people.

Exactly. They’re not policy wonks appearing on MEET THE PRESS.

I dunno. Working at a software production facility for six years, I saw all sorts of PR folk coaching the big bosses before public appearances and media events.

I think the idea of coaching, as in taking a Dale Carnegie course, was so much a thing with most businesses that it became a joke by the late 60s … the first time I heard of Carnegie was in a science fiction novel by Martin Caidin called THE MENDELOV CONSPIRACY (way WAY better than his CYBORG, the basis for SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN. or MAROONED), and it was an abrasive engineer who suddenly turns polite with a reporter, and when queried about it, tosses it off with a laugh and the words, ‘took a course from Dale Carnegie.’) I’ve used it myself in describing the way nearly all ILM folk comported themselves during interview in the 1990s (I only recall three of them who kept making politically incorrect sounds — an older modelmaker who wasn’t there for very long afterward, a VFX supe who wasn’t there very long period, and a tech guy who had uncomplimentary things to say about Lucas’ choice of lenses, who I think went on to help create BattleBots.

I took a Dale Carnegie course in the 1980s, and the emphasis was always, “be yourself,” “be kind,” “be friendly and approachable” … I think she did that just fine in the interview. Jesus if they start consulting with a PR firm everything will sound rehearsed and as if they’re scared to death of fan reactions to whatever they might say.

Yes, keep track of what you say, but don’t make a huge production of it. Forgive me for saying so, but TG47 sounds almost as if they’re looking to consult with them @_@

I’m still working in prime time TV. Being a show runner involves – amongst the obvious duties in the job title – being the face of your show in public. But I’m not bagging on Paradise in that regard. My only point was no-one could have explained that finale in succinct terms, even the person co-responsible for it.

Thanks Marcelo…

So CBS has spent $100 million on a season of Discovery, but they don’t pay to make sure that the frontpeople out promoting it have basic, trainable skills to do the job.

Weird.

Sounds like a industry-specific blindspot.

Yes politicians and policy wonks get media training… but so do any corporate execs that deal with media. Most largish corporations have a ‘no speaking to media without training’ policy. And they definitely engage pro communications firms to support them for critical messaging around peak events.

And executive is effectively what the showrunners are. It’s in their titles as executive producers.

Really, it’s only a couple of thousand, less if group media training is used to start.

And ironically news readers and others from that side of the media sometimes seek out acting training to improve their delivery.

“Grud, listen to someone try make sense of that appalling over-convoluted mess. Good lord.”

The whole thing reminds me of how they FIRST decided to destroy the Enterprise-D for Generations and then came up with a really convoluted and unbelievable way to make that happen – unbelievable because it contradicred 7 years of the series where a garbage scow of a ship couldn’t destroy the flagship of the Federation (and read out “shield frequencies” etc).

The whole going to the future because its the only way to get rid of the sphere data is a non sequitur. They didn’t nearly try hard enough the more obvious options. So Discovery wouldn’t let itself be destroyed nor self-destroyed? Surely this ship isnt strong enough to withstand the combined fire power of Enterprise, the Klingon flagship, the Ba’ul ships and (possibly) the retaken Section 31 fleet?

As with everything Discovery, think about it for more than 5 seconds and it falls apart. But but our EMOTIONS got tickled ;)

This. Written for teenage girls. Or by them.

How dare they! Star Trek is for manly manly men! Men who never cry or feel or are moved by anything, except BIG GREAT MANLY IDEAS because feelings are icky. And to be a girl = worse than death, so comparing anything to a young girl (who has the power to CREATE LIFE, icky again!) means it must be terrible.

(sarcasm tag in 120 point type)

Nice strawman. Really has nothing to do with what I said though. I watch Star trek with my girlfriend and jadzia dax is one of my favorite all time characters. I also love feelings in Trek and can name countless episodes dealing with grief, loss, and personal connections that touched me. Shows that appeal to teenage girls focus on melodrama rather than the human condition which isn’t gender specific.

HouseofQuark,
What melodrama? Please point to some examples rather than smearing the whole show.

I mean so much of it is melodrama it is hard for me to narrow it down. Perhaps poor character development led to my perception of melodrama as opposed to actual drama? Burnham randomly admitting never having fallen in love to falling in love the following episode is the most obvious example. It is writing for teenage girls. As a counter example, Kyra had mature relationships with men based on mutual interests and growth in deep space nine. Odo was tortured by his feelings and how to deal with them as they progressed over seasons. Jadzia dax grew close to wirf over time before they began a relationship and when social norms stood in the way if her rekindling her romance with a past lover, we felt how unfair it was. When this lover conceded to those social pressures and left her, we felt her loss. These feelings and relationships were meaningful and explored character growth while Burnham and Ash (or was it vok??)checks a box meant to tug at immature viewers heart strings. The whole ash/vok Burnham dynamic being revisited occasionally as if they had an incredible bond while music plays and they stare into each other’s eyes is melodramatic considering their relationship lasted like two episodes. Their dialogue is nearly George Lucas prequel bad.
The relationship was manufactured poorly out if thin air and revisiting it occasionally to show how tortured each are is kinda hysterical. It could pass on a teen show though.

I think there may be a tendency to project depth where none actually existed.

Kira had TWO doomed relationships. One with an actor that she had negative chemistry with, who we got to see in maybe 2-3 episodes before he bit the dust? We’re just supposed to buy that he was some Great Love Of Her Life by taking their word for it? That’s like bad fanfiction writing.

And the “we can never be together” aspect of her relationship with Odo – as well-acted as it was by two Broadway theater vets – is exactly the plot of lots of teen fantasy romance. It allows one character to pine for the other one but maintain some sort of chaste purity, too, so it doesn’t get too icky.

Likewise, I never bought Jadzia and Worf, despite the occasional episode that explored backstory. I’ll be honest – Michael Dorn’s performances as Worf were so stiff, esp compared to most other Klingons who range from Falstaffian to Richard III, they had to lampshade it in that one episode and explain it away as “i must be humorless forever due to a childhood accident,” which is really terrible writing.

And we never really saw those relationships grow organically or dynamically over multiple episodes, because (later seasons of DS9 excepted) as syndicated series, Berman-era Trek was designed mostly so episodes could air out of order and there was always a reset button.

I will grant that the romance between Ash and Burnham felt “fast.” I would have liked to see more time spent, small scenes, light touches, even silly couple moments to explore that weightless, new-relationship feeling.

But in the real world sometimes romance hits you quickly and intensely and in high pressure situations (working in an ER, under fire, etc) your emotions trick you into thinking something is more deep than it is. That part felt real, and I can buy Burnham as a Vulcanized Human not being equipped to know what love was except as a memory of a feeling she had for her parents, locked away with PTSD.

They were two damaged people meeting under strange circumstances. In the end I wish there had been more of a weight to it in the sense of feeling tied to the past and having to give it up to embrace the future.

But I will say that it is no more or less silly, or poorly-written, than many other relationships in the Trek franchise, which had far more wooden dialogue and performances!

The other thing still, though, is using “teenage girl” as some sort of pejorative. I could slag half the comments on this board as being from teenage boys who won’t grow up!

The world of teenage girls is fraught, layered and complex. They’re more sophisticated than you realize, and also under more pressure than ever before. Ask one!

Fair enough Fred. It isn’t the complexities of a teenage girls life that I would mock; only the shows I associate with having grown up with two sisters. Certain programming and stations appeal to them specifically.

As for Kira, the relationships in question grew out shared spiritual and patriotic interests. I won’t debate the chemistry or acting as it is secondary to the more mature motivations which drew them together in the first place. As for Odo, I can see your point about the ongoing desire though I thought it was dine very well and can even see your point about Worf, though I think his being stiff came off as repressed and was part of the charm. I also think we the viewers saw it before the characters themselves acknowledged it.

In all, I don’t get what Burnham and Ash had. I certainly don’t get how it went from nothing to love in like an episode. Sure, you are right about high pressure misappropriation of feelings, especially fear for sexual ones which has been shown in controlled studies. I just think that is giving the writing a lot more credit than it deserves. I don’t think that is what they were going for but who knows? They never really told us, showed us, or made any of it convincing. It was the relationship feelings of the week type of scenario common to the shows I mocked above. The exposition set to long vacant stares at nothing to sell the connection is something you see in shows for that audience. It just isn’t something we (or I anyway) typically associate with Trek, regardless of how poorly some Trek relationships were portrayed (riker/troi, tpol/tucker as examples).

Exactly, Fred

Well, the really sad part is that when Paradise acknowledges that “yes, Leland/Control is really dead but the Discovery is already being sucked into the wormhole” she’s also acknowledging that they’ve robbed the Discovery and her crew’s sacrifice of any nobility. It’s more effective that the jump saves the universe. Killing Leland right before – something that seems could have been done at any point in the battle with the same result – just makes the jump an empty and moot plot point.

It always baffles me in sci-fi that they treat AI evolution like biological life. Surely artificial life would evolve more in line with computing. It doesn’t make sense that Control would die because Leyland did. He was after all just a drone, no different than that other bloke that Burnham used to serve with in the Shenzhou. Files can be copied and computers can be networked – Control should be everywhere. It’s software it should be taking advantage of every available computer to increase its processing capability not limiting itsself to the inefficient biological hard drive that is Leyland. The same goes for the sphere data. Why when it’s transferring from one device to another does it leave no trace of itself in its previous host. Surely if the Sphere data wants to protect itself then the logical thing to do is keep duplicating!

They can be a bit excused in the case of the sphere data. They were so vague about it, so we don’t really know how intelligent and self aware it really is.

But there is really no excuse for how they handled Control. They made it clear that it is super smart and calculating. They also said that its program were in all the Starfleet ships at least initially. It definitely took over that Section 31 basis and all their ships and should have easily be able to take over more. So it doesn’t make any sense that killing Leland killed Control as a whole. Even real life non intelligent computer viruses are seemingly harder to destroy than a super advanced AI. Just some fists and magnets won’t do the job when a virus has infected thousands of computers, smartphones, etc. around the world.

Well the sphere data was still aware enough to commandeer a starship, turn off it’s self destruct commands and raise shields so I think it’s probable it would have the ability to to replicate itself. I know technically we’re dealing with technology that is supposed to have developed far beyond our 21st century understanding so it could be argued that there are in universe explanations for all of these things but I wish they’d at least try to explain them. Look I’m a Discovery fan and if you see most of my posts I’m pretty positive about it but I get why so many fans can be critical of the show when at times it seems they either can’t be bothered or simply don’t realise that they should at least be making up some technobabble to explain away the plot holes they dig when at the same time they’re going to extravagant lengths to explain minutiae like why a character might have smiled 50 years ago.

Personally I hate technobabble, but sadly, the shows move far too fast to give much explanation of things.

Actually I am very critical about DIS. So my intention wasn’t really to defend it. I actually fully agree with you.

I am just saying that they were at least not so stupid with the sphere data to say on the one hand that it isn’t sentient and on the other hand let it talk and make clever plans like they did with Control. It was just so unbelievable ridiculous how they treated Control and kept saying that it isn’t sentient, when it was so super intelligent and self aware already. Their bad writing of the sphere date pale in comparison to the treatment of Control.

I am really not saying that they wrote the sphere date thing well. It was also stupid like hell and inconsistent. I can handwave away that it should also be able to duplicate itself like a virus. Maybe it was programmed that way by the sphere. After all the sphere didn’t seem evil. But it was stupid how on the one hand it stopped the self destruction and raised the shields when the Enterprise shot on it, but on the other hand nearly let itself shot to pieces by the Section 31/Control ships. Why didn’t it try for example to flee with the ship? It got nearly destroyed and it did absolutely nothing to prevent it then.

Sorry Mel, I don’t think I made my point clearly. I get that you were being critical – my point was that for the most part I defend Discovery! I enjoy the show and I do my best to give them the benefit of the doubt but I can’t simply dismiss the criticism/concern of my fellow fans as there’s often a lot of things that on the surface at least seem a little dumb. I agree that the intention of the writers for the sphere data is that it’s an emerging intelligence. My theory for season 3 is that this will be one of the plot threads alongside them encountering a far superior enemy that outclasses them in every way and that they’ll ultimately hatch a plan to have the ship piloted back in time and hidden by Georgiou in order to give it time for the AI to mature/develop so that the ship can be competitive against the new threat and allow the show to sync with Calypso/have Yeoh back in the 23rd century for the Section 31 show.

Didn’t they kill Burnham’s possessed ex-crewmate from the Shenzou in the exact same fashion? Why wouldn’t that have killed Control then and there? Oh, Leland was the MAIN control host. Wait, isn’t that lame? Yes. Yes, it is.

It is pretty lame but to be fair I suppose it is a bit of a sci-fi trope blackmocco. I love the Mass Effect universe and they ended the first game in pretty much the exact same way Discovery defeated Control.

blackmocco,
For all I know Leland could have been carrying some central controller on his person [which might be stupid, but Bad Guys make stupid decisions that are their downfall].

But I don’t know how “lame” that is. Computer people know that. Are you the majority of Star Trek fandom?
No. No, you are not.

Marja, regarding Leland – a single line of dialog clarifying that would have solved that particular plot hole.

As for “lame”. I should have added “in my opinion”, obviously. My bad. Not pretending to speak for everyone.

I too think it was pretty lame. It was just too easy. They are making this huge deal about keeping the Sphere data from Control but then all you had to do was kill off Leland? Yes, I get it story wise Starfleet didn’t know that, but I’m talking about it from a writer’s POV. In reality Control really WASN’T that big of a threat then when you just made this vast AI system the embodiment of one guy who could be killed off.

It’s just a massive plot hole Tiger. Control is an AI, extremely sophisticated software that we’ve seen can take over an entire fleet of Starships. It never should have needed to steal/transfer the Sphere data as at any point prior to being discovered Leyland could have transported over to Discovery, infected it with nanobots and taken over the entire ship thereby absorbing all of the sphere data that was housed within it.

There’s a lot of chatter about being free of canon, but a 32nd century show may not be a happy time. Assuming Federation society hasn’t self destructed or been assimilated by the Borg, at some point Discovery will be able to access space Google and see a thousand years of space history. Including theirs. If the Sphere Data is that toxic, do they self quarantine, or do 32nd century defenders, identifying this threat, put an APB out on Discovery? That’s gonna rule out a lot of boldly going? How do they deal with being antiques, irrelevant except as museum displays in the 32nd century?

At a minimum, Burnham is going to learn that old Spock disappears into a wormhole, too. Ironic.

space Google

There’s a way to make the jump-the-shark work. The 32nd century (even typing “32nd century” is already dismantling my own argument…) could well be dystopian, but if Discovery and her crew are portrayed as a positive force bringing light and hope to the dark, that could conceivably work. Whether this writing staff are capable of pulling that concept off successfully, well, here’s their chance to shine. If season 3 is just gonna be The Search For Burnham’s Mom, I know a good wormhole they can fly this show into. As ever, I hope to be proven wrong.

I think the notion that this turn of events makes the show canon-proof is pretty naive. My advice for the producers would be to stay in the Beta quadrant, near the Terralysium colony, and far away from Federation space. Plenty of stories you can tell there.

If the Federation still exists, they will have expanded to the beta quadrant by then. There’s slipstream drive, and transwarp drive, and all sorts of ways that will allow the Federation to expand.

Thank you for saying ‘jump the shark’ blackmocco…

The only surprise is that they’ve been planning this for a whole season.

Must admit though that ‘nuking the fridges’ somehow seems to capture the flavour better for me, even though that’s a movie term.

The irony is that they proved with Pike and Spock that the 23rd century still has good stories to tell.

The 23rd century stories with Spock and Pike were told on Discovery in this case. Talk about your mon-sequitir.

My point precisely Michael Hall.

No non sequitir, just irony.

While TPTB had decided before the season started that they needed to take Discovery into the far future to give it ‘fresh snow’ and escape the canonical shackles of a prequel…

…season 2 did a very good job of telling 23rd century stories about Pike and Spock while respecting canon and the coherence of established characters.

Basically, they showed they could be creative while being true to canon when they disciplined themselves to do it.

Unfortunately, it’s an apt term here.

With other words they will copy the series Andromeda. This is also my bet. They will end up in a dystopian future and the Discovery is the strongest human vessel around and they try to bring back peace and hope to the population.

Captain America

23rd 24th century Federation society seemed to be in a ‘golden age’.

Keeping that up for a few hundred years would be remarkable.

So, I could see a darker 32nd century in which some values and technology have been abandoned or lost without in any way diminishing the ideal society that came before. Time travel might no longer be a thing – – other than from 28th century travellers coming forward incognito.

The Andromeda concept would involve Discovery holding up Federation values in this darker time.

But it doesn’t sound like this is what’s going on in the writers’ minds.

It sounds like the Discovery arrives in the future only to find itself in another high stakes mess that actually serves to narrow the crew’s horizons.

And 930 years forward, they still won’t be exploring.

“Our crew has made the decision to stay with Burnham and to go with her and from all of their perspectives, this is a one-way journey.”

Well its now official! I know A34 will be crying in his cereal but this is definitely a complete restart to the show. Its an amazing turn for both the show and the franchise. To leave the 23rd century behind and start anew in an advanced future completely foreign to everything is going to be a really fun show to explore next season. I know, this is still Discovery, they can still screw it up badly lol. But I’m going to stay positive and support them for taking on such a big risk and huge job creatively. Every Star Trek show has had some reboot at one point, DS9 probably was the biggest one until now.

Anyway Star Trek is boldly going again with Picard and Discovery. It took awhile to finally get back to that but couldn’t be more happier now that they are. For people saddened there won’t be any 23rd century for awhile and the Section 31 doesn’t sound that fulfilling, maybe a Pike show will happen and can return to a proper 23rd century show in the future in a few years. We’ll just have to wait and see.

The show is about people, not ambience. It’s not a restart simply because the characters are the same ones we’ve been following for the last two seasons. Their story continues right from it left off. Just the surroundings have changed.

The setting and premise is the restart. Do you have any idea what the show is about next season other being in a new century? That’s a restart to me.

Again, seaQuest 2032. Although s3 was arguably an improvement on the hideousness of s2 (haven’t seen all of it), it was still all over the damned place.

I didn’t remember that DSV even had a third season. Once that interview was published where Roy Scheider effectively trashes his own show, it was all over.

Poor Michael Ironside (V) got to take over for s3, with Scheider an occasional guest star. The girl who was with nearly every supporting character wound up with the Exec in s3, but I can’t remember much else.

I have no idea what A34 has said that you are referring to. If you are suggesting that it’s impossible for Discovery to go back in time after staying in the 32nd century for a season or even just some episodes that’s still a possibility. Right now the crew thinks that this is a one-way journey but if given the chance later to go back they probably would (if they thought it was save).

Of course they can go back, its Star Trek. They can do anything lol. But he keeps saying this is only a plot line for one season despite allll the evidence to the contrary. Its clear they are setting the show for the 32nd century for the long term because they literally spent all of second season to do it. And then they went through such lengths in the finale to say everyone died when they didn’t and Burnham can’t even be mentioned again. This is their way to ‘explain’ away the canon issues, which is the entire point its being done. Why have 20 minutes worth of long drawn out goodbyes from everyone in the finale if they intend to bring them all back in a season? Makes zero sense.

And no one in any interview talks about it from the POV like Voyager and its about how the crew will get home. Instead its what Paradise said, they have accepted their faith because they fear bringing the ship back to the 23rd century could be a great risk. And another reason why I don’t think even the ship is coming back to the 23rd century as we assume from Calypso because isn’t the point to KEEP the ship away from the past? The show is clearly going to be about exploration in the 32nd century from this point on. Its not to say they won’t get home some day but I have a feeling it won’t be until the show’s last season.

Could I be wrong, with this show, certainly lol. But they have zero reason to lie about it or hide the fact since most of the time the plan is ALWAYS to get home from wherever they are. But its obvious Kurtzman is just following the same playbook he did when he wrote the first Kelvin movie with Prime Spock. That guy ALSO traveled through time to end up in the Kelvin universe in the past. Did we ever see him once try to get home? No, he just accepted his faith and oddly settled there. And what happened to him was just an accident. In this case this crew decided to stay in the future before they even left.

In Discovery case, this is simply the show now or why set it so far to begin with?

It’s quite clear that the producers wanted to get rid of the “shackles” of 23rd century canon. However, they may find that the 32nd century doesn’t work out for them, either, because it’s just too far removed from anything. In that case they could decide to jump to a different time period once again.

Well yes of course, thats possible. All that is being said is the INTENT is to restart and keep the show in this era. But as they shown over and over again to their credit, if something isn’t working or fans complain enough, they will change it. But it doesn’t mean they will all just pop back in the 23rd century like nothing happened either. They can send them to another parallel universe, a different galaxy, etc, etc. They have a spore drive, they can literally go anywhere and why the writers seem so determined to keep it. I really doubt we will see them back in the 23rd century from this point on but I agree you can’t rule it out completely either.

I just have a feeling they are thinking much bigger with this show now if season 2 is any indication to go on. Going back to the 23rd season my feel quaint or even boring for them.

If she likes science so much why not hire a science consultant? She said she did not major in science, so hire a person who did!

Also, if you have to defend the reason to have Discovery go to the future, then you didn’t do your job very well in conveying that in the show.

Do we know that Discovery does not have a science consultant? You have to remember that a science consultant is only there to give advice. It is always the decision of the writers/producers to follow or ignore that advice.

Good point. KHAN had a science consultant, and it was still, in the words of David Gerrold, about as accurate scientifically as the 1803 Farmer’s Almanac. And GR ignored most of Harvey Lynn’s suggestions. Except for GR, nearly everybody on TMP hated Jessco’s suggestions too, even though some of those would have improved the visuals as well as providing veracity.

If I ‘inherited’ the current TREK universe tomorrow, first thing I would do is revive an abandoned aspect to Bixby’s original MIRROR, MIRROR story, with Kirk being poisoned by exposure to the altverse, in order to kill off space Hitler and head off the whole s31 series.

I’m disappointed of STD so far, especially of season 2. And all the more because there are quite a lot of good ideas and characters with which you could have done so much more.

Unfortunately, so much has been given away: Stories not finished or came up without origin, some characters stagnate in their development, others make quite sudden jumps, many are completely forgotten in between. It also does not help to set forced “character moments” between the action, if I can not sympathize with them because of the missing motivations.

And then all the time these forced twists, just to come to a certain scripted goal. Many things are explained too easily with incomprehensible techno bubble or even mystical trash.

In general, the series is completely overloaded. Many ideas would have given enough story for a whole season, but everything is mostly wrapped up in one or two episodes.

There are too many characters too. Instead of picking five or six and writing a solid development, there are appearing new ones all the time, often reduced to stereotypes.

Nothing against women’s power: But somehow it feels like the authors had a competition, how many pretended(!) strong women’s parts you can pack into one season!

And unfortunately, the omniscient and self-sacrificing central character is getting to be annoying!

Finally, the plot holes. Every five minutes I asked myself “Why?”. At the beginning I thought, I just did not pay enough attention until I came to the conclusion that many things really do not make sense!

I’m not against new Star Trek at all and I like the JJ movies, but this one could have done a lot better! :-(

Hope for season 3 and Picard!

I dom’t disagree with many of your criticisms (though I still find things to like about the show), but the Abrams films were guilty of all of those things, and far worse.

True, but the movies had **some** likeable characters. If I could like anyone on Discovery, I would be much more forgiving of plot holes and bad stories. At least Lorca was a decent villian who commanded attention while figuring out his motivations (excluding the eyedrop nonsense). Then, he died. Pike was really incredible but now is gone. Maybe season 3 creates a super memorable antagonist. They will need it because this crew can’t carry the show!

“True, but the movies had **some** likeable characters”

I’ll bite: who? (OK, Jaylah, maybe.)

“I’ll bite: who?”

Groot, i mean Scotty’s assistent :P

Mccoy was great.

The Abrams’ versions of the characters were far too dopey for me to like any of them, Kirk in particular. I don’t know that Michael Burnham is especially likable, but I find her more interesting and compelling than any of them.

Agreed. Kelvin Kirk was like a lowest-common-denominator version of the character.

I’ve harped on this before. I’m not against having women equally represented, but in the season finale alone:
Burnham as the Red Angel takes Discovery to the future
Georgiou and Nahn defeat the bad guy (played by a man)
Cornwell and Number One try to defuse the torpedo, with Cornwell making the ultimate sacrifice
Tilly fixes the shields
Po determines how to defeat the enemy ships
Reno powers up the time crystal
L’Rell and Saru’s sister come in like the cavalry

I’m not sure any man did anything particularly heroic or noteworthy.
Spock kind of figured out that Burnam needed to go back in time. That seems to be the biggest thing
Saru and Pike are manning the bridges
Tyler went to get help
Culber treats Stamets who was injured

I like and want diversity, but with Pike and Spock no longer being part of the series, I would like to see the writing staff develop Rhys and Bryce, who we hear practically nothing about. I don’t think that makes me a mysogynist to ask for some balance.

Uhm, now Jeff F, you can appreciate what it’s been like for women who started watching Trek with TOS and TNG.

Women and people of colour had to identify with white men…possible but it gets old when you never see someone like you represented.

That said, it’s not unreasonable to make a point that inclusion shouldn’t lead to Discovery becoming a ‘separate but equal’ all women in leadership roles show (excepting bumpy-headed aliens).

I’d be on board with Bryce and Rhys from the bridge getting out and getting storylines, or seeing Hugh Culber as the physician on an away team the way McCoy was in TOS.

Women make up the literal majority of people on the planet Earth.

Presuming that Starfleet represents the gender balance of the Federation population, why wouldn’t 50% or more of the crew be women? (And the same for other space nations).

There is a study that was done on perceptions of male and female participation rates in discussions. When women spoke an equal amount as men did, the men perceived them as speaking *more* than men did.

Thus, after 50+ years of a TV franchise with mostly male (and at first, white male) lead characters and secondary characters, seeing women as lead characters given a more realistic, equal or slightly greater screen time – that must be head-exploding.

It is a perfect example of the adage, “when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality must feel like oppression.”

Fred Javelina, first of all it’s men that slightly outnumber men in the world, but for all intents and purposes, it’s nearly 50/50.

Second, if you think Discovery is showing equality between men and women, then you’re watching a different show than I am. I clearly demonstrated in my post the wide disparity between women and men in the roles and impact they played; show me where I’m mistaken. I’m not just perceiving an inequality; there is a blatant inequality.

TG47 acknowledges that there’s an inequality, but seems to think that’s ok since earlier shows were male-dominated. I suspect that inequality kept some women from watching the show; does STD want to have the same result?

I’m fine with a woman having the lead. I’m fine with having slightly more women than men on the show. I’m not fine when the balance is so out of whack. Reverse discrimination is still discrimination.

Jeff F,

Ok discrimination is bad. But neither is past severe discrimination salved by playing some matching census numbers game and declaring “OK, now we are going to play fair.” either.

The field of play wasn’t and still isn’t level if you allow the heirs of those whose legacies were richly fertilized from treating women and other classes as chattel to enter the field as if it isn’t heavily tilted in their favor by things such as millennia of legal precedents, property rights, peerages, etc. amassed on a discriminating field. Worse, if you let them delude themselves that somehow these ancestral fathers “fairly” and righteously “earned” that tilt in their favor.

I see there are basically five ways you can look at this situation:
1. There is no great disparity on STD between women and men, at least not significant enough to be an issue
2. Yes, there is a measurable disparity, but it should be a non-factor. The story comes first, regardless of whether the cast is 90/10 women/men or vice versa.
3. Yes, there is a measurable disparity, and that’s actually a good thing. It’s about time that women get to feel superior to men considering the years that men have enjoyed that advantage. And it’s good for men watching to see that.
4. Yes, there is a measurable disparity, and it’s bad because it’s unrealistic to have women in leadership roles and to be portrayed so heroically. That should be primarily reserved for men.
5. Yes, there is a measurable disparity, and it’s bad because an entity like Star Trek should be fighting discrimination of any kind, not only today but particularly because it is set in our future. It should show the kind of world we should strive for. Showing women and men working/contributing equally side by side would be the best image to portray.

You can count me in number 5. It sounds like Disinvited is in category 3. Thanks, but I don’t need to be lectured to or enlightened, and if that continues to be a goal of STD, CBS will probably lose me as a subscriber. In my field of IT, I take everyone individually based on his/her talents and abilities, regardless of gender (or nationality, for that matter). I think highly and lowly of colleagues of both genders, and gender never factors into it.

Jeff F,

Category 3 is NOT what I was advocating. I was advocating NOT pretending that just because you as an individual were going to stop discriminating that somehow that levels a playing field built on a legacy of millennia of severely discriminating ancestors. The laws governments pride themselves upon being founded using a legacy of legal precedents built by those extremely discriminatory ancestors which are allowed to tilt new laws in discriminatory ways via the common legal rule of past precedents influencing new laws and their enforcement no matter how well intentionedly carefully level new laws are constructed by such as you and me with our personal intentions to not discriminate.

Mere good intentions do not remedy the effect of a legacy of bad legal precedents coloring new non-discriminatory legislation and acts.

Beyond canon
Beyond reason
Beyond science
Beyond scifi
Beyond Star Trek?

Be Gone canon
Be Gone reason
Be Gone science
Be Fantasy not SciFi
Be? Or not be?

I read that in the voice of the trailer guy :)))

While it is clear that the only reason why the Discovery traveled to the future at the end of the second season was to either appease the series’ detractors that lost their mind after seeing Spock with a beard and that technology looked considerably far more advanced than it could ever be represented in the 60’s or to provide those that make it a bit of relief from the aforementioned-detractors’ rampant hatred, I think the proposed scenario if considerably far better than if the series had been set 800 years after TNG/DS9/VOY.

Had the series begun in that setting then all the characters would have already been native to it and, consequently, familiar with everything of consequence.

By having the narrative center on a crew of time-displaced Starfleet officers there is a greater opportunity for discovery and exploration.

Not only must they familiarize themselves with the existing species introduced in the series that followed them in canon, they must also familiarize themselves with the rules of the world they find themselves in.

For one thing, they need to figure out that Red now stands for command and Gold stands for Security, 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

“By having the narrative center on a crew of time-displaced Starfleet officers there is a greater opportunity for discovery and exploration.”

As someone who wished they just created the show in the far future from the start instead of a two season prelude to it, I do think that is the one plus in it, is that they will TRULY be discovering all new things like Voyager did. But unlike Voyager where it was about just getting home (and avoiding the Borg while doing it ;)) they will be settled there and creating a new home. That’s going to be a lot more interesting instead of week after week of trying to figure out how to get home but since they are there, they can also help future Starfleet wipe out the last remnants of the Borg or something. In this scenario they will have to live with the fact this is their new home and will be exploring possibly worlds we seen centuries ago and where they are at now. Its going to be interesting on how they do all of this.

Tiger, I admire your optimism, I really do, I just wonder where you see the evidence they will do the discovery and exploration at the third (!) try that they couldnt be bothered with the first two times (unless it was strictly in the service of the serialized plot/twist – be that New Eden or Into the Forest I Go) . As you yourself conceded, ultimately it’s not about when and where but who – the buck starts and stops with the showrunners.

You sound as if you want the series to only be about exploration and discovery.

That was acceptable of series like The Original Series, The Next Generation, Voyager, and Enterprise because they focused on ships of exploration.

Deep Space 9 and Discovery do not, therefore it’s okay if they don’t do any exploring at all and instead focus on different narratives.

Maybe someday they could do a series about a Starfleet medical frigate and make it “ER in the Star Trek Universe” and focus solely on medical plot lines. Or one about the Starfleet legal system that put Kirk and Picard on trial and make it “Law & Order in the Star Trek Universe” and neither would ever do any exploring of any kind, and that would be acceptable. It wouldn’t make them any less valid as Star Trek series.

Yes. Let’s just slap Star Trek on any old thing. I’m waiting for a Star Trek sitcom, or maybe even a reality show – Star Trek: Real Captains Wives of the Federation. Ugh…

Gene Roddenberry himself thought of a spinoff with a medical frigate with Dr. M’Benga onboard in the 60s. He sure had enough authority to say whether that fit in the Star Trek universe or not… :-P

And yet it never happened. I’m sure he had many ideas that were stinkers no different than any other creator of art and entertainment.

That may not have, but something like Deep Space 9, which had nothing to do with exploring space, did.

Michael, if that were the case, DS9 would have been a short-lived show indeed, because ‘exploring space’ on the other side of the wormhole is what drove the series to what it became. And there were plenty of standalone shows with runabouts and DEFIANT finding civilizations on alien planets too, they’re just not the show’s bread-and-butter, and they didn’t fuel its greatness, TREK’s last example of that for me to date.

“I’m waiting for a Star Trek sitcom” What do you think Lower Decks is?

I agree Trellium that it needs more than just the Star Trek brand name and a future setting.

But there have been Trek-lit offerings that have been anthologies of different kinds of stories. And I’ve found them to be Trek.

Bryan Fuller wasn’t wrong to think an anthology show could work with the audience, but the production cost would be daunting.

Starfleet Core of Engineers has worked.. Often involves cool engineering issues, but also planets and stations needing assistance. So new places and unexpected phenomenon even if not exploring.

Bureau of Intertemporal Investigations – also has worked.

There was also a TOS station Vanguard of less than ideal characters.

It wouldn’t make them any less valid as Star Trek series.

Perhaps not in the sense of using CBS’ trademarks.

But in that sense, New Coke was Coke.

Not all Trek series are about “boldly going”. Only the ones set in ships of exploration have been. Deep Space 9 and Discovery are not that.

They did PLENTY of exploring in DS9.

Exploring of the Gamma Quadrant, sure, but that was not the main plot of EVERY EPISODE as it was in the OTHER series set on ships of exploration.

DS9 was about life on the station, a stationary setting. It was not about going to new places in EVERY episode of the series and leaving the one they visited behind them, as was the case with the OTHER series.

This is among the many things purist gatekeepers hated about DS9, much as how they hate DIS today.

Ehh, I think we’re gonna have to agree to disagree. Sorry. DS9 was as much about exploring and understanding new frontiers as any of the other shows. The station being rooted in one spot doesn’t really change that.

FWIW, I’m fine with some of the new shows showing us different aspects of life in Star Trekland, Discovery included. I just hope they’re written well, is all.

“The station being rooted in one spot doesn’t really change that.”

The station didn’t go anywhere, it was not a ship of exploration. They didn’t use the station to explore the Gamma Quadrant, they used runabouts and the Defiant, which was a ship of war. And their “exploring” had more to do with finding ways to defeat the Dominion and Cardassians than it did with “seeking out new life and new civilizations”.

Mos of what happened in DS9 served a main plot. It wasn’t just episodic filler.

Actually, the only Trek that felt like an exploration show was the first two seasons of Enterprise. Archer was always like “let’s got see that supergiant” or “let’s explore that Vulcan monastery” or something. People really rag on the first two seasons of Enterprise, and some episodes were really bad, but it had the most exploratory feel of any Star Trek. Most of Star Trek is NOT exploratory in nature, even though it states that it is in that famous monologue.

In terms of execution, you are probably right. Re-watching TOS and TNG, it does feel as if they spent way too much time in “Federation space” and not enough finding new life and new civilizations. And whatever they did find looked human or Vulcan, lol.

Voyager did have its fair share of exploration, though. They had a greater variety of locations and alien species, with human-looking ones kept being fairly sporadic.

Voyager really was successful in showing some new and very different species, although for budget reasons they didn’t get off the ship as much as hoped.

Stopping to investigate and explore was always a trade off with getting home, which dampened a bit of the cool science dimension.

I’d like to note again, that while TAS followed by TNG seems to have been the best entry into Trek for our middle graders, Voyager has ended up as the favourite series.

I think that Kurtzman is underestimating the appeal of exploration, science and technobabble for the youth audience.

Our kids say Voyager has the best technology and better, more dangerous enemies than any Trek or even Star Wars, and they find Janeway’s determination to get the crew home compelling. Technobabble and working the problem, even McGyvering, are very much a plus for them and Voyager does a lot of that.

One of them watches TOS and DS9 sporadically, but for them Voyager rocks. And watching occasionally with them, I see a lot more in Voyager than I did watching it in first run.

Just because it has Star Trek in the title it doesn’t mean it has to be the same as the series that came before, about finding a new world and new aliens with opposable thumbs.

“Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations”.

If EVERY Star Trek series was EXACTLY the same, it would be a TREMENDOUSLY boring experience.

Agreed TG47,

While Voyager is on the lower end of my favorite Trek shows, its still one my favorites anyway because it was basically about exploration. All the other shows, minus Enterprise as well, were about Federation missions but Voyager was the freest show in the franchise because every episode there was something completely new we never seen. Now to give the other shows credit, a lot of the episodes did present new things, but they were new to us as an audience but not always new to the crew on the mission. Ironically SO MUCH of Star Trek is really about tedious bureaucracy and politics, just on a galaxy level lol. But it was always bringing resources to a colony or escorting an ambassador somewhere or engaged in peace talks, etc.

Voyager did none of that stuff. It was about getting home but it was also about learning as much about the Delta quadrant as they could. When it came to TOS and TNG, they weren’t really going out to a lot of unknown space in the Alpha quadrant but just finding new areas of it within Federation space itself. DS9 had the entire gamma quadrant to itself but their mission had nothing to do with exploring it although they would sometimes go and find new planets, but it was mostly for strategic purposes.

But I think its why Voyager had the most interesting premise out of all of them, it just didn’t execute it very well a lot of the times. Oddly I realize this entire chain of posts started with me and Michael saying we can see Discovery now being more about exploration being in a new century and of course it may not be at all. I suspect we will still get some big internal Federation (or whatever) crisis they have to end like the first two seasons.

But NOW that we have literally an entire new century of possibilities to discover, I hope its not just about stopping the next villain and really seeing whats out there too. They did do that a little bit in season 2 (which is why I liked it more) but it was still very little. I think (or hope) how excited New Eden made fans should give them a clue they want more stories like that in general.

Yes, I agree Michael, a lot of people think of TOS and TNG as mostly exploration shows since they are the only shows with the ‘seek out new life’ moniker in their opening credits. But the funny thing is probably 2/3rds of both shows were really mostly about tending to one Federation planet after another or involved in some diplomatic mission to help Federation citizens in need or to stop the Klingons/Romulans/Cardassians etc. And its weird how people keep saying TOS is about ‘one ship being alone in the galaxy’ which I guess is technically true, but they spend practically all their time in Federation space with the exception of a few episodes.

Half the planets we see them visit on the show are actually Federation planets or colonies. On that show, one of the main tropes was always revisiting a planet that Starfleet had some influence on or settled there to realize something had changed it for the worst so Kirk had to save it somehow or undo the mess someone else created. But I would say there are MAYBE 20 episodes or so where they literally just reach a new planet for the first time and find a new civilization somewhere. That was done very little in reality. TNG did it a little more but it also had a lot more seasons. Contrast that with Voyager where literally every planet they visited was nearly always for the first time.

Exactly! 100% accurate assessment.

I agree completely with you VZX, that is the irony about Enterprise, it was really the ONLY show where its mission was 100% about exploration and nothing else, the first two seasons anyway. All the other shows had that element in mind but that was just one function of their duties. They all basically went out and did missions for wherever the Federation told them to go.

Voyager of course was different and probably the second show where it was about exploration since it was stuck in the Delta quadrant and so literally every place it went was completely new. Those two shows were about exploration unlike TOS, TNG and DS9 which were mired in a lot of different things from diplomatic missions to supporting Federation colonies and scientific endeavors.

DS9 definitely explored but its main function was about restoring Bajor and preparing it to become a member of the Federation one day. And later it became a war show.

To be fair, the third season also featured plenty of exploration of the Expanse. It was the fourth that limited itself to visiting known places, like TOS and TNG did before.

Try saying this while imitating Ted Cassidy as Ruk when he explains that survival cancels out programming:
“Taste trumps trademarks” (or in new coke’s case, lack of taste — the stuff was almost as bad as Cragmont imitation strawberry in a warm can.)

👍

Hmmm somewhat concerning they sidestepped your question about commonplace time travel of that era. I hope they remember that the Federation of the future, not only explored space but time (Timeships/Temporal agents etc). They’re far ahead in relation to Discovery, but only 100 years (or less) after Crewman Daniels, who himself was from the 31st century.

I hope that when they visit Earth they see the statue of Archer Daniels mentioned in Shockwave.

Related to Stormy?

I’m ready for another episodic Trek show like TOS or TNG. DS9 had a good balance of story-of-the-week and continuing storylines. Go back to that format for season 3 and beyond of Discovery.

I agree. If they’re not going to follow the Netflix model and release all thirteen episodes at once, dragging out what is essentially a thirteen-hour movie over thirteen weeks is not doing the show any favors, in my opinion.

Your suggestion for the producers to follow the model established by Deep Space Nine is spot-on: self-contained episodes that fit within mini-arcs that can span across a season (or multiple seasons).

Salt Vampire; Scott:

I agree with this idea and advocated for it early. Arcs should be tied up in 3-5 episodes and be a background, or be a background until a threat becomes evident.

I find myself watching certain Season 1 episodes repeatedly. They can very nearly stand on their own [as separate ones], plus they feature the magnetic Jason Isaacs.

Bingo! DS9 set the franchise bar for balancing both approaches to a series. What their production staff and writers could have done with the tech and budget ST: DISCO enjoys would have been stupendous.

They try to squeeze too much into a short season, when they should spend a couple seasons or more reaching the intended resolution. It would give them more space to do more stand alone episodes and give the audience a chance to get to know the characters better.

I’m just curious on one thing: how’s Georgiou gonna be both in Section 31 tv series and in Discovery season 3 when the former is in 23rd Century and the latter one in 32nd Century?

Anyway, I like her character, so I don’t mind watching 2 shows with Georgiou. Just interested to see how it will work out.

As far as I know the section 31 show isn’t going to happen until after discovery s3. So they’ll have an entire season to figure how Georgiou gets back to the 23rd century.

Have they specified when the Section 31 show will bet set? I don’t remember.

No, they haven’t, we just ASSUME it takes place in the 23rd century. But I can’t recall one interview where someone said the show will be set in the 23rd century, simply that a Section 31 show is happening.

NOW that said I do think the show will take place there, but as they are proving, anything is possible.

It’s very simple: if they want to bring back Tyler, L’Rell etc., and do not consider a Pike show at this time (or after season 3 at least), Section 31 must be set back where we left, in the middle of the 23rd century.

In my opinion, they are proving that very little is possible, at least under their stewardship.

“The original Star Trek has always original inspired and continues to inspire. That is the blueprint. That is the foundation for everything that all of the iterations of the franchise has done. We continue to be inspired by that. We continue to be inspired by—as I mentioned before—the moral and ethical debates that come up and the questions that don’t necessarily have a right or wrong answer. The ways in which our heroes interact with the world around them. All of those sorts of things just continue to inspire. TOS is always a point of discussion in the room.”

For example, they ask each other if any of them have ever actually seen an episode of TOS, and they always laugh, and then actually say aloud “lol no, but moral and ethical debates tho lol.”

I’ve seen no quality work from Michelle Paradise as of yet. I wish her well, and hope for her to find her groove in season three; but personally, I’d prefer she were replaced with someone more talented.

There continues to be a disconnect between what they say and what they do (and shows up on screen), and the new showrunner is no different. There were ZERO moral and ethical debated about Control/AI and a very clear right/wrong judgment on poor Leland, who was as much victim as Locutus: die he must, and die in pain! If this is ethics than it is medieval. They didn’t even consider for one second if he could be saved. This is the essence of Star Trek, not to seek revenge but reach out to the enemy, so Star Trek this is not!

From my vantage point, Discovery is like a bunch of lettuce between two buns — the people who give me one every week SWEAR it’s a cheeseburger, and that once I’ve eaten it I will TOTALLY SEE HOW it’s a cheeseburger. But, like … man, that’s just a lettuce sandwich. You can call it a cheeseburger all day long, but don’t expect me to buy into that delusion.

Bryant,
Wow, that analogy is seriously on target. I’d apply it to 21st century Bond as well, and what I’ve seen of post-Nolan Batman. And that doesn’t even get into how apt it is when commenting on political speech.

Maybe the surprising takeaway for me is that there is still a lot of storytelling being done elsewhere that is literate and compelling.

I’d expect modern Trek to be pushing back against the political climate, not supporting it. I think we NEED Trek right now, and we are not getting it.

They split the last episode into two parts because there was too much story to tell? Yet Part 1 was almost an empty episode!

Also, it’s streaming; length of episode makes zero difference.

DELETED BY ADMIN

SPOILER ALERT! Damn, Prof. Haven’t even seen it yet!

EXACTLY: The movie is barely out, have a little courtesy!

Seriously?! An Endgame spoiler the day it comes out?!?!? WTF is wrong with you!? Uncool, dude. Massively uncool.

Don’t care. I’ll wait until Endgame lands on Netflix. There’s zero drama in the Marvel universe, just spectacle.

Sorry, but it was not clear at all in the episode, why Discovery still went to the future after Control was destroyed. She can try to explain that plot hole away however much she likes, but this is still an example of bad writing. I think this happened a lot in the series. They imagine a storyline in their heads, but the implementation on screen is awkward and really lacking. I think they have plot points in mind they want to show, but how they get from plot point A to plot point B is obviously a problem for them. There are plot holes amass, character developments don’t feel natural and earned, it all just feels too static, constructed and fake.

By the way there were also other ways to get rid of the sphere data. The Discovery was in the final battle nearly destroyed. It seems the sphere data’s survival instincts are far from perfect. After Control was destroyed they simply could have evacuated Discovery and let the Klingons and the Enterprise shoot it too pieces. Or even easier. Just let a torpedo detonate inside Discovery. After all we saw in the same episode how dangerous they are in the hull of a ship. Let a torpedo detonate close to the warp drive and “boom” the Discovery and the sphere data would be gone.

“The original Star Trek has always original inspired and continues to inspire. That is the blueprint. ”

Could’ve fooled me.

As long as they figure out and show how the universes is in the 32nd century and not drag it out over 8 episodes it should work. Answer dozens of questions about the 32nd in the first or second episode. Is the Federation and Earth are still there. Will Discovery need a refit to 32nd tech or will it be a dystopian future where the whole galaxy is Borg or something.

I guess my lingering question about sending Discovery 930 years to protect the sphere is, why only 930 years? Originally, I thought the idea was to send it perpetually into the future so Control could never find it. Seems to me whatever AI exists in the future could still capitalise on the sphere data. There is some safety in the AI not knowing where Discovery went I suppose, but the threat still exists.

If I was in charge, I’d have Discovery emerge from the wormhole 930 years in the future to be greeted by an Imperial Star Destroyer with “USS Enterprise NCC-1701-Z” as the registration… That would be awesome :)

Thank you, but no please Lyle.

Cross-overs can be fun, but the neverending battles of the Star Wars franchise is precisely what some of us look to Trek to provide respite from.

If you look at art of the original McQuarrieprise that Discovery is derived from, you can see that having the ship do a flyover would make it look exactly like a star destroyer for the first 20 seconds or so, given the tortilla shaped secondary hull. I’m still amazed and disappointed with McQuarrie’s art, given he was working from a sexy charcoal by Ken Adam that was a LOT more interesting.

kmart, would it be violating posting restrictions (not to say matters of basic decency :D) if you posted a link to those sexy charcoals here?

Not sure, but forgottentrek probably still has them, along with the main wiki trek site. The Adam sketch of the enterprise dish interior being hollow with escalator tubes like a habitrail is really out there, like a French airport inside a starship.

The interior (miscredited to McQ, though it is obviously Adam) and one of Adam’s exterior sketches are at the bottom of this story at: https://io9.gizmodo.com/ralph-mcquarries-concept-art-for-a-star-trek-movie-in-1-5721854

I thought memory alpha had the interior as well, but nope.

I’m not sure who Kristen Beyer is and how she was put in charge making sure Discovery fits in with canon. This show seems to break with Star Trek canon on a regular basis. Hell, it breaks with its own canon every other week.

Kirsten Beyer is a Trek-lit writer.

She’s not the problem. She’s also been focused on creating the Picard show since the summer. It was originally her idea.

Kurtzman says that the Discovery writers room talks canon all the time, but they will break it for a sufficiently good story.

Beyer is fantastic, and she knows her canon well. She’s also well connected to the Trek writers who are writing for TOS, TNG and DS9.

She’s written several of the Voyager Relaunch (post-Nemisis) novels and more recently IDW comics.

She is also the liaison between the show’s and the publishers.

Hudson: “Why don’t you put HER in charge…?”

Well, although she has a master’s in theatre arts, she’s not all that experienced in script writing, even though on the Trek-lit BBS she’s considered ‘a god’ for her novels.

Seems perhaps a hierarchy thing.

So far, she has had script credit for Si Vis Pacem, Para Vellum in S1 and Saints of Imperfection in Season 2.

She’s not getting executive producer status for the Picard show, which surprised me, as she definitely was a creator. It sounds as though she had a lead role in developing the pitch that sold Patrick Stewart.

Another great Trek-lit novel writer, David Mack got his start with a couple of scripts for DS9. He’s writing non-Trek fantasy now with good critical reception, so I can’t see him moving back to TV even if he’s a film school grad.

I’d strongly recommend both Beyer and Mack’s books as a place to start for more Trek stories.

I love the irony when people (use to ;)) say you can’t do any post Nemesis stories because supposedly there is nothing left to tell and yet some of the most acclaimed stories made in the last decade (according to fans such as yourself) are the post-Nemesis novels both David Mack and Kirsten Beyer have done. And now they are both working with Discovery and Beyer on Picard. Beyer obviously works directly on the shows but Mack is writing Discovery novels for them and as you first mentioned that the entire Control idea came from his Section 31 novels.

And who knows, MAYBE the Picard show will also use story lines or elements from their other novels as well since there is a lot of juicy stuff in them they can use. I really want to read his Destiny trilogy now. It just sounds amazing and maybe my next set of books after I get through a few of The Culture books.

But I’m just dumbfounded when I hear STAR TREK FANS out of all people who say they can’t imagine stories past the 24th century or that it would be ‘impossible’ to do more interesting stories. Its utterly insane to me anyone would have that kind of thinking, especially when it comes to Star Trek where every and any crazy idea is always on the table.

And to his credit, Kurtzman is proving them completely wrong on that and willing to take the franchise places even I never considered a year ago. So I’m rooting for him and Discovery more than ever. It may still end up bad but I really hope going this far into the future succeeds and it set DIS apart from all the other shows out there and no longer just a ‘TOS prequel’ show which I always thought was a mistake to go in on day one.

Now it can has its own identity and not just the show you watch just hoping for Kirk or Uhura to show up one day.

For me, it hasn’t been as much about when they would be willing to take them as WHERE. While I do think the higher tech makes it (or should make it) more difficult to tell stories without technobabble solutions, or solutions that sound technobabbly, I havce always bemoaned that TREK was stuck with Starfleet and the Federation, when there is a whole universe out there.

DS9 took a step in that direction with the continuing situation on Bajor and with the maquis, but ever since overcoming the disappointment of SEARCH FOR SPOCK, I have been dying to see Starfleet professionals go — and stay — renegade, essentially doing the Malcolm Reynolds in space thing (if you don’t recognize the reference, then go watch all of FIREFLY — do it now, it won’t take long, and I’ll be here when you get back.)

If they had taken that approach with the TREK movies, they could have gotten the films made more cheaply or with greater production value, since they wouldn’t have needed to be showing Starfleet Command in damned near every film or spacedock or a lot of that stuff that weighed down the storytelling, and they could have invested in showing some of those strange new worlds.

Plus you’d really have gotten back to ‘Kirk has a decision to make’ instead of “kirk has to defy his bosses” — and you’d have the bonus of a core group of beloved characters aging together, sharing a focus on a small ship in an intimate fashion that really enhances storytelling (there are a few bits in TVH aboard the BoP that sort of suggest this possibility as well 00 I still wish they’d never given it up or gone back to Starfleet, because these folks can uphold Starfleety values much better if they are not a part of what seems to be on its way to becoming an increasingly 20th/21st century society based on political paranoia instead of quality-of-life.)

Tiger2 I don’t know if you or anyone else is checking out this thread anymore, but Trekmovie has some author interviews in the archive that are very much worth checking out..

David Mack from 2016

https://trekmovie.com/2016/07/06/trekmovie-interview-david-mack/

Another author I recommend is Dayton Ward. He’s been writing a series of TNG focused books in the years closing in on the new Picard show. After a long period of clean up in the aftermath of war, the Enterprise is exploring again. Ward is an ex-marine and brings an interesting perspective while being true to Trek positivism and exploration.

Beyer seems to be the reason so many are excited for the Picard show, at least on Reddit, because she’s the only writer left who not only written a ton of Trek stories in the past but all based on 24th century mythology and apparently did a great job with the Voyager relaunch novels. And yes, the entire premise of the Picard show actually came from her when they pitched it to Patrick Stewart. So I am excited (but still cautious) about that show because of her. It doesn’t mean it will be great or anything but I trust her more than I trust Kutzman, that’s for sure.

Tiger, is Reddit your major (only) source for Trek apart from here? That would explain why you never encountered those utterly disrespectful “race and gender based evaluations” of Discovery that I apparently got “hung up with” (on “hip” review sites like Vulture). I have to say depending which echo chamber or filter bubble you pick that shapes your reality. For example you keep mentioning that so many fans don’t believe in post 24th century Trek but I never heard of that (I don’t read Reddit). So you see that works both ways.

Three out of the four episodes of the inaugural season of Star Trek: Short Treks were further elaborated upon in the course of the second season of Star Trek: Discovery.

The first two, Runaway and The Brightest Star, introduced characters and concepts that proved pivotal to the two-part season finale.

The third, Calypso, introduced characters and concepts that will prove pivotal to the third season of Discovery.

It is the third, Escape Artist, that stands out due to not being connected to any episode of the season.

One thing that could solve that would be if one of the Mudd androids stowed away aboard Discovery when it jumped into the future. This way the real Mudd could stay in the past to fulfill canon while he could still appear in the series as an android.

One problem against that is that Wilson is working on Utopia.

I’m not a Mudd fan, so I’m kind of glad they haven’t followed up on that. It is weird, though; that’s the one which seemed most like a setup for something to me. I wonder if he won’t be involved in the Section 31 show.

“Comment awaiting moderation”

Uh…why?

I got it recently quite a few times, too. Maybe they changed their automatic filters so that more words, including innocent ones, are flagged? I am not sure. As my comments appeared later, I don’t think my comments were the problem.

Same here, seemingly.

IF the Section 31 series takes place in the 23rd Century, it would be cool. As of now, we should conclude it will take place in the 32nd.

The Discovery crew maybe the worst starfleet officers ever. Zero professionalism and absolutely over emotional. I really don’t understand how the ship functions. The whole damn crew runs around questioning and second guessing orders mumbling under their breaths. It’s maddening. Them going into the future is possibly the best thing that could ever happen to Star fleet.

It’s a sign of the times. They say every Trek show – even being set in the future – reflects the present zeitgeist, and this one reflects the shallow, anti-intellectual, hyperemotional and instant gratification focus that BOTH sides of the aisles represent. Discovery is a bit like Prometheus for TV (written by one of Kurtzman’s buddies) of “scientists” lacking any sort of professionalism or scientific understanding, commanders lacking a command hierarchy and everything just generally being dumbed down and focused on pushing emotional buttons rather than providing any intellectual insight or meaning. Even jumping into the future won’t change that, on the contrary I fear. Without the constraints of previous Trek they are free to turn the show into Star Wars / Marvel / Lord of the Rings.

PROMETHEUS was REwritten by one of his chums, who I assume is responsible for the ‘too dumb to deserve to survive’ characterizations. There’s some core greatness buried in PROMETHEUS, though you have to squint to see it (and watch cut scenes as well.)

PROMETHEUS definitely made my top ten disappointments for the century when I saw it in the theater, but when I tried rewatching on disk (mainly to look at the production design and absolutely stupendous spaceship VFX, especially the CG ship collision), I actually got some of my pre-release excitement back instead of just seeing the STUPID stamped on nearly everyone’s forehead or helmet visor. The original writer on PROMETHEUS is one of the guys credited for the new DUNE currently shooting, and the draft of his I later read, while not perfect, was better than the finished film by a decent margin.

I agree about the rest, re: rationalism — this kind of reminds me of a thread here from a couple months back when I mentioned the old Ellison line about our culture having put Sherlock Holmes in the toilet while making a god of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT’s Raskolnikov

Of all the things the crew of the Discovery might learn about the future, I imagine the ones that will hit them the hardest (and most likely than not the FIRST they will seek out) is learning what happened to Pike and Spock.

They will learn about Pike’s heroic sacrifice to save the students and whatever the official record of the end of his life might be, whether it mentions his return to Talos IV or not.

They will also learn of how Spock vanished through a singularity that decimated Romulus as depicted in Star Trek ’09. That one will completely destroy Michael.

I do wonder if we’ll see Spock as depicted by Nimoy in 2009 were whatever they find contain visual records of what happened.

Michael, this is not a foregone conclusion at all. I am convinced they are aiming for something drastic when they say they go beyond canon and free themselves of it, such as a new Dark Age that makes Discovery the most advanced ship (once again, ironically). That could mean not just all beyond-TOS technology but historical records being lost as well. The corruption of Federation into “V’draysh” in Calypso points to that. One thousand years is just not the same time span as 150 between TOS/Discovery and TNG, and it should not be the same. Just compare the 1850s to our world and the 1050s!

If they’re in the beta quadrant, there’s likely to be no Starfleet around anyways, so they’ll have no access to Starfleet historical records.

Unless the writers want them to, in which case a tiny matter of logic like that won’t matter one bit.

Their spore drive should still be working unless *reasons* (permanently burnt out from time crystal loading?) so they can jump back to Earth in an instant. This series will NOT become an Earth2 clone on Terralysium right?

I doubt they’ll be stuck on one planet of one sector.

By the 32nd Century the Federation should have a presence in the Beta Quadrant. Hell, they should have one in all the quadrants, heh.

I do think it is possible that they might find themselves in a Dark Age as you suggest, but that does not necessarily mean a loss of all historical records.

I’ve been assuming the spore drive was off the table, but I’m not sure why I’ve been assuming that. Good point!

It’s a fair assumption. If it is, that would be okay as the Beta Quadrant is fairly unexplored, specially compared to the Alpha, Gamma, and Delta Quadrants.

While Spock may have vanished from the Prime Universe in the end he did so after having lived a long and fulfilling life. There’s no reason for Michael to be completely destroyed by his fate. Everybody dies at some point.
If they were to reuse footage from the Kelvin movies they would probably have to pay a license fee to Paramount.

I’ll giver her this… She’s saying all the right things. Will that translate into something better in season 3? Time will tell.