Jason Isaacs Explains Lorca’s “Study” And What’s Up With Landry From ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Ep. 3

| October 2, 2017 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 124 comments so far

Fans are still absorbing the revealing and still mysterious third episode of Star Trek: Discovery, “Context is For Kings.” So far it has gone over well with critics. As noted in the TrekMovie review, the episode also opened up many questions. Thanks to a round of interviews down by Jason Isaacs who was introduced as Captain Lorca last night, there are now a few answers. We have highlights of those below, plus we have some more official images and a clip from last night’s episode.

Lorca’s mysterious room seen at the end of “Context Is for Kings”

Isaacs explains Lorca’s “study room” and gives monster a name

One of the mysteries of “Context is for Kings” was Captain Lorca’s menagerie of (mostly dead) alien creatures. In a post-episode interview with TV Guide, Jason Isaacs provides some more details on what is going on in there, including give the monster beamed aboard a name:

We’re losing this war and I’ve been given license to do whatever the hell is necessary to try and see if I can in any way shift the odds. And so I have in my private study area, anything I want including weapons, gasses, poisons, creatures… Anything that, if examined correctly, might give us an edge because we need something to turn the tide in the war. And that’s why someone like me has been given this ship and given license to go off and — not under the glare of anyone else’s spotlight — see if I can come up with a solution, any kind of creative solutions to this problem of imminent destruction.

So the tardigrade might be one, some of the Klingon weapons I’ve got might be it… The spores might be it. I just need something and I need it fast and I need people to help me, and hence, one of the reasons why I get Michael Burnham to be on my team. She is someone who’s prepared to break the rules… Someone who’s really smart strategically and someone who I think will ultimately be loyal to me since I’ve given her a second chance at life.

Lorca has added this giant tardigrade for his “study”

…also explains what’s up with Lorca and Landry (and how its all about Shatner)

And in another interview with Entertainment Tonight, Isaacs also discussed the relationship with Lorca and Landry (Rekha Sharma) and other women on the Discovery:

I think in this tradition of Star Trek captains and these alpha males who rise to the top, he’s got a taste for the good life and he’s got an eye for his female officers. I don’t know that that’s going to work with Burnham very well, frankly. She doesn’t look like she’s up for that kind of thing, but him and Landry certainly have a relationship that goes beyond, I would think, work. But that’s how I played my scenes with all the women on board, whether or not the writers were on board with that. By the way, that’s my tribute to Shatner. I always thought, as much as the original series was born out of the civil rights struggle and the birth of feminism, some of that was [infused with a feeling of] James Bond. It was clear Captain Kirk had his way with any member of the micro-skirted crew members he wanted, so that was my subtle tribute to him. I’m playing that, even if it’s inside my head. (Laughs.)

When Landry tells Lorca “Anything, anytime, Captain.” she means it

…and what about the Discovery and its strange tech?

Speaking to Variety, Isaacs gave a bit more detail on Lorca’s ship, the USS Discovery:

The Discovery is ostensibly a science vessel, but a long way away from everybody’s attention, we are trying to perfect a technology that will allow us to gain the upper hand. And I’ve also been given license by the Federation, who are at a loss for what to do, to do whatever is necessary. So I can hire anyone I want, I can conduct myself in ways that break the rule book, and no one can really call me on it.

And when talking to TVLine, the actor explained how it is possible we never heard of this advanced mushroom-based tech later in Star Trek history:

Well, we’ve got 10 years. The fact that Kirk doesn’t know about it, or that it was buried somewhere in Area 51, or…. There are a lot of storylines to be played out. There are wars and peacetime adventures, characters’ lives and deaths, before you need to worry about where that technology is stored or what memories of it are kept. You know it’s no longer used, but trust me, they knew that before they wrote it. They’re very clear, in not a cop-out way, to both incorporate this stuff which is exciting and very visual, to make sure that it didn’t rankle canon.

Lorca explains the spore drive to Burnham

Another clip and more official images from “Context Is for Kings”

If you are one of those who hasn’t yet subscribed to a service offering Discovery, there are some more official releases to give you a look at what you are missing. First up is another clip, featuring a boarding party searching the USS Glenn and running into something unexpected.

And here are some more official images.

 

Star Trek: Discovery is available exclusive in the US on CBS All Access with new episodes released Sundays at 8:30 pm ET. In Canada Star Trek: Discovery airs on the Space Channel at the same time. Discovery is available on Netflix outside the USA and Canada with new episodes made available Monday at 8 am BST.

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

SHARE TWEET PIN SHARE

Related Articles

124 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

How can a Cardassian vole, a Klingon sword and a Gorn skeleton help win the war? The dude just likes to collecting curiosities.

Those are examples for the areas of possible research… Vole = Biological Weapons, Sword = Weapons tech/Chemical dissolvent, Gorn Skeleton = “Fossil” = “Natural” Weapons (aka Big ol’ asteroid).

Wow, those connections are beyond sketchy.

Every modestly smart person knows technological breakthroughs always begin with basic science research. Lorca sounds like more than modestly smart to me.

Sketchy? Possibly. But then again, all the penicillin made today comes from a single moldy cantaloupe melon.

So in other words, you don’t know what “sketchy” means.

They look SO cool. And he has discretion, soooo….

“And that’s why someone like me has been given this ship and given license to go off and — not under the glare of anyone else’s spotlight”

Let the Section 31 theory continue to run rampant!

@AL — while I find this all extremely fascinating TV, I really hate Section 31. The idea of a whole series based around it makes me a little sad. I’d prefer this is strictly top secret research ship, and Lorca has become something of a Hans Reinhardt, due to the importance and power, who’s still walking the line and hasn’t yet crossed it.

I dont mind it. I like the Jason Bourne stuff. The whole CIA, NSA…its pretty damn interesting. But Sec 31 has been pretty cookie cutter. Expanding on it, deepening it would make it more interesting.

But I dont think the whole series will be about it. Although if we have more seasons, and the producers’ claim that we will know no one heard of Discovery and Michael is true, then future seasons would have to be “classified” as well.

Then again, whats to say they dont pick up on Fuller’s idea and jump eras using this “new way to fly” to do so.

Well it still may not be Section 31 but it was one of the main theories of the ship before the show started. I admit I really wanted a Section 31 show but strangely now that we got it I’m not so sure lol. I mean I love if they are PART of the show but I don’t want it just to be about them either. I think I liked the idea that Lorca was secretly a Section 31 member driving the agenda for example but if the entire crew is basically Section 31 that does feel a bit darker than I would’ve liked.

But I do love that he’s this guy who is doing all these crazy experiments to win the war at any means necessary. In fact thats kind of how I sort of imagined Janeway with Voyager that she would’ve gotten really desperate and taken on all these unethical means scientifically to get home faster. Of course she did SOME of that but she was still a Starfleet officer and wouldn’t cross every line. Thats what made the Equinox showing up later on that show because they actually did go that direction.

So we’ll see. If its Section 31 its going to make this show VERY interesting lol. But that said it may not just be a Section 31 ship after the war so thats what is fun about it, all the possibilities.

I got that reference! He was a good man, Maximilian.

NCC-1031 and all that.

S31 confirmed!!

103 was registration of Space Shuttle Discovery

NCC-1031…No question, Discovery and Glenn are Section 31. But what’s also interesting: 1031 is also “a crime in progress” in police code… Those these illegal experiements outside Starfleet jurisdiction and Federal law have been labled fittingly…

BTW: The USS Glenn was NCC-1040… In police code that’s “run silent, no lights or sirens”…

In IRS code, 1040 means “Pay up, sucker”

So the Glenn sort of defeats the idea of the registry as a code for Sec 31. the common number is 10. So 10 represents something. Or nothing.

I think I read that “1031” was because the showrunner loves Halloween. (Seriously.)

Clearly Section 31 as all this is an anti-Starfleet/Federation mindset given the other series.

NCC-1031, the highly restricted areas, the crew members with the black badges…I dunno, Section 31 seems likely. It would also be a simple explanation for why the tech on the Discovery isn’t in the Starfleet history books. And there’s plenty of precedent for Starfleet officers also being part of, or working with, Section 31. Admiral Marcus and Admiral Ross are good examples.

I’ve always thought that Admiral Cartwright and his co-conspirators like Valeris were Section 31.

I actually they were! ;)

They retconned it in a novel. Its not officially canon but it really makes a lot more sense knowing what we know now about Section 31 and their tactics. They are not above killing leaders if they have to.

Isn’t it all a tiny bit over the top for Section 31? Black badges, really? Isn’t the entire point of Section 31 that it *wink, wink* DOESN’T EXIST? ;)

“Isn’t the entire point of Section 31 that it *wink, wink* DOESN’T EXIST? ;)”

Exactly, and that’s why we never heard of Michael Burnham, Discovery, spore drive or black alert on any of the other shows… That’s the whole point of it. It’s beyond “Top Secret”… Even Spock may have never learned about his adoptive sister’s involvement…

As Smike said, this could be exactly why we never heard of Burnham nor seen ships like the Discovery before (although I guess that doesn’t matter now since the show has made it very clear the ship design on this show is nothing like TOS but would explain why we never heard of these crazy experiments.)

So yes, in a very classified way this DOESN’T exist officially. ;)

Yeah I mean when I heard ‘black alert’ it was clear this was no ordinary ship seeking out strange new life and civilizations. ;)

And yes it would explain….well everything lol. The design of the ship, Lorca’s free reign, everything classified to the point of insanity. And the registry kind of gives it away as been noted. Now it doesn’t mean it is but it would seem almost ridiculous if it wasn’t. And yes Admiral Marcus and Ross are great examples. But I am hoping if so Lorca is more on the Ross side than the Marcus side but whose to say at this point? We just don’t know with this guy what he’s capable of yet.

How is it just a theory?

@Trekboi – what do you mean? Are you insinuating its a fact? its not a fact.

I really like Isaacs for lots of reasons, but he’s pretty off-base when it comes to Kirk and the women serving, uh, under him. From the evidence of “The Naked Time” and other episodes he was very repressed in even acknowledging desires along those lines, which would only be fitting and proper not only for a Starfleet captain, but for any kind of relationship with a subordinate.

Anything remotely female off the ship, of course, was fair game.

tell that to Helen Noel at the Christmas party

Watch again. That was her fantasy, outside of a little flirtation. No evidence that anything untoward or unprofessional actually happened.

Kirk had a reputation as a ladies man. They even played that up in TUC. Remember this?
[after Kirk and Martia kiss passionately]
McCoy: What IS it with you, anyway?
Kirk: Still think we’re finished?
McCoy: Now, more than ever!

Ladies man, yes. But not at work.

That we know of.

Kirk bedded ever hot alien woman he could. But there is zero evidence he slept with any underlings. Multiple examples with Rand (who may have been the closest female to him on the ship). His deflection about not noticing Saavic’s hair in WOK. etc.

Tell that to Janice Rand. No seriously though, I feel like if anything, Kirk is just a product of his time, the 60s I mean. It’s played more like a 1960s office boss who by nature treats his female employees a specific way and…flirts…the difference in Trek would be that so far flung in the future, women could actually feel empowered to turn the tables and shag the captain if she chose to do so. Its all lines that shouldn’t be crossed and it’s sleazy but that in itself is a different post all together.

Tell what to Janice Rand? Seven episodes and Kirk never made a move on her (though his alter-ego certainly did).

In The Naked Time Kirk even lamented that as Captain he *couldn’t* notice her.

As for Isaac’s comments, I sometimes get the impression he says stuff like this just to get a rise out of people (no such thing as bad publicity and all that). He does seem to have an unhealthy fascination with Kirk/Shatner however.

Not at all. Yes, he’s a product of the 60’s but much more complicated.

The idea of Kirk as a frat boy, tongue wagging, playboy, juvenile delinquent is sort of the pop culture evolution which those geniuses who wrote the JJ films embraced, incorrectly.

Yeah Kirk really just like banging the alien women. He could just have his fun and when it was time to leave their planet he never had to look back. And it made it easier to hit on other aliens when you didn’t have a half dozen Starfleet women living on your ship giving you the evil eye you made a move on yet ANOTHER girl when they were the constant reminder that you are just a dog. ;)

Kirk was definitely a 23rd century player!

You’re right. Kirk would not have been the respected leader he is if he was hitting on his crewmembers. I disagree wholeheartedly with Isaac’s comments on this matter.

I like the depth to Lorca.

I thought I was imagining the connection or sexual tension between Lorca and Landry. He said something like “Good, then we’ll send time together” I thought he meant with Landry (I assume he meant the beast). And if he had meant Landry, it was an odd way to put it, almost like he was ordering her to his quarters.

In the PC world we live in, an exploration of the sexual tensions that exist within the power dynamic of the strong male leader and his trusted female adviser is fair game. It happens in the real world. And in the context of this war and all the terrible things Lorca must do and contemplate, needing to blow off some steam makes sense.

In the little we know of them, both being strong, decisive characters, one would not be surprised about an attraction.

Then we have to look at the inappropriateness of a Captain and underling. But then also, he has been given carte blanche to do as he pleases, would he stop himself or do it knowing he can get away with it?

In regards to Kirk, I always got the impression he did not sleep with his underlings. Rand even said she always wanted him but he never looked. But when we he was split into two, we saw his base personality immediately go for her.

Google “Tardigrade”. Holy crap, one of those blown up to the size of a bear would be indestructible and NASTY. Good choice : )

The term “Tardigrade” is really fun. I know it’s a pre-existing biological term but then, it also sounds like something from Doctor Who or Alien… Tardis, Xenomorph… Tardigrade… Nice!

Similar to what I figured.

Here is Wiki’s description:

are water-dwelling, eight-legged, segmented micro-animals.[2][6] They were first discovered by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773. The name Tardigrada (meaning “slow stepper”) was given three years later by the Italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani.[7] They have been found everywhere: from mountaintops to the deep sea and mud volcanoes;[8] from tropical rain forests to the Antarctic.[9]

Tardigrades are one of the most resilient animals known.[10][11] Individual species of tardigrades can survive extreme conditions that would be rapidly fatal to nearly all other known life forms, including complete global mass extinction events due to astrophysical events, such as supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, or a large meteorite impacts.[10][11] Some tardigrades can withstand temperatures down to 1 K (−458 °F; −272 °C) (close to absolute zero) while others can withstand 420 K (300 °F; 150 °C)[12] for several minutes, pressures about six times greater than those found in the deepest ocean trenches, ionizing radiation at doses hundreds of times higher than the lethal dose for a human, and the vacuum of outer space.[13] They can go without food or water for more than 30 years, drying out to the point where they are 3% or less water, only to rehydrate, forage, and reproduce.[3][14][15][16] Tardigrades, living in harsh conditions, undergo an annual process of cyclomorphosis.[further explanation needed]

In “The Naked Time” Kirk confessed his envy that Spock was allowed to “notice” Rand, but that he wasn’t. I can’t imagine why it would be different for any female member of the crew. You

Yes, very true. There was that episode where they were on a planet and had a desease and Rand lamented that she was always trying to get Kirk to notice her legs.

And in the split personality episode, Kirk’s baser instinct attacked Rand, which would sort of indicate his “good side” resisted.

In WoK, he clearly checked out Saavic but claimed he hadn’t noticed her hair when McCoy asked.

Kirk is actually pretty complicated. On the surface he’s just nailing alien babes. But in reality I see it as more of a by product of his lonliness and sense of duty to star fleet. Plus, he likely allows himself to get close to aliens out of a sense of curiosity and learning (even if it’s an excuse).

Definitely, like I can see Kirk getting with all the alien babes a symptom of his never having the time for a real relationship, hence his jealously when he learns about Sulu having a family and all that he went through in Generations.

I though there moments that were grotesque. That’s not Star Trek&

So, is TNG’s conspiracy episodes not Star Trek? There are plenty of gross moments in the other series. Hell, those Nausicaans had predator masks.

@James,

No, we don’t see “plenty of gross moments in the other series”

As for ‘Conspiracy’ I’ve watched the episode again on Netflix last week and it was nowhere as graphic as people seem to think. The scene with the exploding head was very quick and done with such bad effects that it lessens the shock factor greatly.

At the time, it was considered graphic ahmed.

@Captain Ransom,

Yes, in Canada and the UK it was considered graphic but not in the United States from what I’ve read.

Geez, do you have to nitpick and argue about everything Ahmed?

@Captain Ransom,

No nitpick, simply stating facts.

You can read the relevant info on the Wikipedia page of the episode.

Ahmed, you argue for arguments sake. That’s a fact.

@Captain Ransom,

Countering your point with facts is not “arguing for arguments sake”. But then again, I’m not sure why you are on this forum since you seem incapable of engaging in any discussions without restoring to insults.

Wow, you really are some kind of special, aren’t you. You seem to like to troll and interject an argument into eveything. How did my comment result in an insult? Because I said you like to argue anything? I am making a point… and a fact, since you seem to like facts.

Ahmed, it was a very shocking scene to see on a mainstream American television program in 1988. Scenes like that were found in horror movies, but almost never on television.

Yes, people were shocked, especially because TNG had seemed so “family friendly” (e.g. bland as vanilla custard) up till then. There were lots of complaints, even amongst fans, and no commentary about how it didn’t matter because of lousy effects. No need to read a Wikipedia entry about it, either; I was there.

I think 1st season TNG was originally supposed to be much edgier and progressive, and not just in a grotesque violence kind of way.

In fact if you read up on phase 2, there is a clear commitment from GR to modernize the show in terms of overlapping dialog (he actually adds a ‘thank you, MASH’ in the writer’s guide, though I guess Jon Povill did the actual writing for most of the p2 bible), and yet TNG didn’t get into any realistic/contemporary overlapping dialog (which has been around since CITIZEN KANE, although not trendy or popular till Altman’s OTHER version of MASH) that I can recall. Except for when DS9 had to run the DEFIANT using voice commands in what I call the ‘get eddington’ episode, I don’t recall much overlapping dialog in any TREK, except a bit during the wormhole in TMP and maybe a Picard/Riker exchange in Yesterday’s E. I always thought Picard/Riker should should have had the occasional CRIMSON TIDE moment myself, but then again, I don’t believe in the perfection of humankind (and even if I did, I wouldn’t cite either of those characters as examples of such.)

In a book by Ed Gross about TNG early days from around 1989 or so, Frakes recalls that he called Q a son of a bitch in an episode, and THAT sure didn’t make the cut for FARPOINT or HIDE & Q (was probably the latter episode.) Frakes didn’t think that was appropriate for family hour viewing. Just one more example of how somebody (GR?) intended TNG to be more progressive or edgy, but it didn’t survive.

I really liked CONSPIRACY as an ep, but it started out as a oonspiracy of Starfleet officers rather than the controlled-by-aliens shtick, and I think it was a group who found the Prime Directive too restrictive, which is completely in my wheelhouse storywise (but anathema to the new utopian mindset evinced in TNG), so I know how much better it could have been.

Original writer was the guy who did the underrated THE IMMUNITY SYNDROME, but he is also credited with HOME SOIL, so it is hard to know how good he really was, given that HOME SOIL was probably rewritten down by many hands after he turned it in, and IMMUNITY has always made me feel like Coon was ALL over it (hence my high rating for it … even back in 8th grade, I remember it was my 3rd favorite ep after DOOMSDAY and BoT. And at that time I recall FRIDAY’S CHILD being at the bottom of my list with AND THE CHILDREN SHALL LEAD and, believe it or not, SPACE SEED, because I had some weird break from childhood chauvinism due to detesting how MontalKhan handled McGivers. Maybe that was the start of my evolution away from admiring Bobby Riggs, who knows?)

In Germany, they didn’t even air the uncut version during daytimes. I had never seen that graphic bit of “Conspiracy” until the DVDs came out…

It’s the tortured and inhuman scream from TMP during the transporter malfunction that gets me. Also TWOK had lots of blood and gore, especially with that Ceti eel and Scotty’s nephew. I think it was a 15, and I think some DS9’s were too.

You fail to take into account that the scene took place 30 years ago. The effects were fine for their time and I distinctly remember a lot of fans being put off, scared and demanding TNG never do anything again like that. Pretty sure that is why TPTB never followed up on that episode (it ended with Data revealing that a signal had been sent to an unexplored part of the galaxy). They even mentioned people got nightmares because of that scene.

@TonyD — why bother with facts?

Have you seen the exploding head in the TNG episode “Conspiracy?” Discovery is Star Trek grown up and free from the silly broadcast TV and advertiser constraints of having to be a “family” show that doesn’t scare the kiddies – like reality actually would. Love it!

“free from the silly broadcast TV and advertiser constraints of having to be a “family” show that doesn’t scare the kiddies”

You know, the ugly truth is that none of this can actually scare the (older) kiddies anymore. Unless their parents keep them from all modern tech, they have seen far worse at this point. Age certificates seem to be pointless nowadays and as soon as a 12-year-old has watched GOT or TWD, there isn’t much he can be scared of. I consider this a major problem, but then again, what could I possibly do about it? Nill, nada, nothing…

How is this a major problem? Welcome to the real world, kiddos. You can thank the Christian Right moral guardians for hiding this from you all this time. It’s just television.

It is now.

It’s still okay. Those who have followed my pre-release rant about the TV-MA nature of the show know that I’m sorta worried, but the aftermath imagery aboard the Glenn wasn’t that sort of violence I’m afraid of. It wasn’t even “violence” to begin with, just grizzly imagery of an experiment gone wrong, the stuff they only used to talk about on the other shows. This Alien sort of graphic imagery I’m okay with.
But make no mistake, as soon as we get Klingons chopping off heads by the dozen with their Batleths or cutting throats with their smaller weapons, I won’t be that fine with it. If they go full Dothraki, displaying bloody severed heads, I will be complaining…
But then, my complaints won’t change a thing. TV culture has changed. GOT and TWD are the most popular shows ever and Trek is trying to compete with those. I may not like it, but it’s a fact of life. Maybe we’ll even be getting a Quention Tarantino R-Rated Trek movie. It’s no use complaining the way I had done for months now…

I think Issacs does have Shatner’s Kirk wrong. He appears to be under the common misunderstanding that Kirk was this “player,” including with is crew. Even if he did something with Helen Noel, and even with his lustful half in “The Enemy Within,” the fact is that in 79 episodes we have to go to such lengths to find any examples of Kirk trying to seduce a female crew member. So for Issacs to conclude he is drawing his inspiration from Shatner’s Kirk is a misunderstanding of the character.

The thing is, James Kirk from the 60’s is so long ago and has become such a cultural icon that he’s essentially become a stereotype, which he never was.

And that actually hurt the JJ films because they didnt write Kirk as Kirk was, they wrote a version of Kirk from pop culture.

I have no issue with Isaacs making an off hand remark. because Kirk WAS smooth with the ladies. I agree he likely did not bed his subordinates because he was exceedingly professional as an officer. But there was a James Bond-esque way about him.

But as time has passed the stereotype takes over. Had the writers of the JJ films actually gave a crap about respecting the character or doing their homework, they would have had a much deeper and more interesting and nuanced Kirk that could have carried their films even when they sucked.

Unfortunately the writers were unbelievably arrogant, especially Orci, in feeling they already knew everything.

But for Isaacs, I get what he means in that Kirk was handsome, desirable, leading man, and could have any woman…whether he did, I guess we an debate it. Rand’s comments would indicate he didnt, unless he just didnt like her lol

The sad part is that they did have a fairly good actor (nuanced and able to subtext it to the skies) in Chris Pine, and just gave it the hell away. Pine’s Kirk was actually excellent in all three films, bar the writing fails, and would have delivered a strong Kirk given half a chance.

I’m surprised he misunderstands the character to that degree — Kirk seduced aliens when he had to == Kalinda, Deela are examples, but he wasn’t a mindless horn dog. And didn’t Helen Noel use the mind machine to suggest Kirk had been more amorous?

“Giant tardigrade”? Seriously? I hope that’s not really what the monster is supposed to be.

“It was clear Captain Kirk had his way with any member of the micro-skirted crew members he wanted, so that was my subtle tribute to him. I’m playing that, even if it’s inside my head. ”

Yeah, that’s my captain. I bet if he was just a comment on this page, moderation will not tolerate him. Oh, well.

Your Captain in the Mirror Universe, maybe. 😊

I will be cancelling my subscription for CBS All Access today. This episode (#3) confirmed what I suspected all along since viewing episode #1. This is NOT Star Trek. It is a rip-off for true and loyal Star Trek fans. Eugene Roddenberry should remove his name from this project altogether. His father would not be happy with this at all. Other than the high production quality, this makes Voyager look like academy award material. I wouldn’t mind being assimilated by Seven of Nine any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

The writers haven’t a clue what Star Trek is really about nor do they care about theirus hardcore fans. I do not mind breaking with cannon. However, the sprinkle of Sarek, mention of Amanda and no name mention of Spock are turn-offs. The polished look does not match the time period selected. Faster than light “run-abouts” or shuttles on pre-NCC-1701 starships? The obligatory monster in the dark? Mention of Katra during a mind meld over multiple light years? Really?

This is Mr. Les Moonves’ attempt at keeping-up with Netflix, Disney and Fox. The Orville has more heart (with dirty adult humor) and consciousness than this high-tech abomination impersonating Star Trek. I am 54 years old and forgot more about Star Trek than the writers and CBS management will ever learn. Is that harsh? Yes. Is it accurate? No. It is an understatement.

I hate how Alec Peters went about trying to profit from Axanar. He ruined fan made films for everyone in his selfish process. However, his story line and overall concept for the pre-NCC-1701 timeline for the four years war is far superior and polished than Star Trek: Discovery’s splash for general appeal. I give credit where credit is due!

@Scott Goldfarb — “His father would not be happy with this at all.”

Thanks for telling us something you, nor anyone else has any way of knowing. You may believe this to help justify your opinion, but that doesn’t make it true.

It’s totally and completely Star Trek. My opinion. A “true and loyal fan” for over 30 years…

@Scott – I’m 52 and have been watching Trek for as long as I can remember. For me, this is Trek. Just as TNG, Voyager, DS9 and Enterprise were Trek to me. You are just giving YOUR opinion. We come from the same generation. I guess you are a TOS fan but not a Trek fan in general. That’s your choice. For me, I am loving this.

I’m sorry that Discovery doesn’t seem to be for you, but I think this IS Star Trek through and through. I couldn’t care less if the ship looks to advanced compared to TOS. I don’t mind that they didn’t name-drop Spock (why should that happen? There are still plenty of episodes left for more tidbits like that). I don’t care that episode 3 was darker and flirted with horror.

What is important to me is the characters, how they react to their situations and how they grow, especially how we end up seeing positivity come out of bad situations. THAT is Star Trek: that we have learned to be more than what we are now. There are plenty of glimpses of that here.

I agree with others that Lorca and Burnham aren’t immediately likeable, but Picard wasn’t likable in the first several episodes of TNG. Give the characters time to grow. It’s about the journey, not the result.

And, also keep in mind the TNG was a VERY different show than TOS. The show needs to be relevant to its time. TOS was relevant to the 60s. TNG was relevant to the 80s and 90s. Discover has to be relevant to 2017. The trick is to keep the same message and optimism, just in a way that appeals to the current mass audience. Frankly, if they just did TOS or TNG today, those shows would be miserable failure. You have to appeal to the audience. Discovery is doing that.

I totally agree.

@Scott I have a solution for you, going forward.

Ignore it. I know fans who don’t like anything post-TOS. And it’s their choice to ignore everything else. I don’t consider them not to be ST fans. They just like different things.

Just don’t think you can speak for other fans.

Yeah but the funny thing is this is ‘pre-TOS’ in name only though. They threw the hardcore fans a bone by throwing in a bunch of sound effects and some props from that period but nothing in the actual show looks or feels like TOS. It actually feels more like DS9 in terms of its actual tone and still much darker than that show (so far).

I still don’t get WHY they had to put it in this era since you would never know it was in the same era without the references thrown in with Sarek. But honestly outside of that and saying its in the timeline nothing about this show is TOS because its so dramatically different from that show (but in a good way) but to the point nothing is recognizable. Nothing. No one can freeze frame a clip of this show and then freeze frame a clip of TOS and tell me they would feel the shows take place in the same era. My guess is most would think this show is actually post TNG, especially with the technology seen so far on it. The uniforms being the other example.

In fact this is feeling like the KT films all over again. Its ToS in theory but in reality it feels like something else entirely and I will say at LEAST with the Kelvin films the spirit of TOS was there. People have to be honest with themselves, there is nothing in spirit that connects this show with that one, especially being that one was about exploration. This is the second Trek show that isn’t (DS9 wasn’t about exploration although they did plenty of it) and a very strict war show thus fa.

So if I don’t cancel my subscription to CBSAA,
Does that mean that I am not a true fan?

Fan for the last 42 years (I’m 46). I’m definitely going to keep watching.

And look, I don’t expect them to stick to TOS effects and sets. To me, everything here still feels like Trek. And none of this is actually real. It’s like expecting Dunkirk to look like a WW2-movie filmed in a studio in 1945.

Or like expecting Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman to be wearing Linda Carter’s costume.

I also disagree with you about Axanar. I still think there was nothing there.

But a lot of fans, including me, sometimes like to think we know more than others just because we watched a TV show. Nobody gets Trek but us. We saved Trek. And it’s delusional.

I wholeheartedly agree 100 percent, Jack.

Well spoken.
I’ve read a version of the Axanar script. I don’t know if it was the final version or not. Probably not.
While I wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s nothing there, (I was AD on Phase II)
It wasn’t going to be groundbreaking as Alec claims.

What I always find disheartening is that the people that hate it always make these broad statements about how it isnt Star Trek, its not Prime, Gene would be furious etc. Like hey, if you dont like it, dont watch. But dont pretend to be some sort of keeper of Trek for humanity.

The people that like it and the people that have reservations are all way more balanced then the hysterical “please erase this series from existence” folks.

Well, I’m no trivia master but I do know my way around the mythos (TOS in particular) fairly well. So just out of curiosity, where did you get the idea that there were no FTL shuttles prior to the 1701 era (which Discovery isn’t anyway)?

TOS writers guide established shuttlecraft as sublight-only vehicles, and this is even a storypoint in THE MENAGERIE when the pseudoMendez and Kirk vessel runs out of fuel while chasing the Enterprise. In fact, I didn’t realize TNG shuttlecraft were capable of FTL till the Wesley and Picard/Pakled ep.

@kmart — huh? How could a sublight shuttle even begin to chase a starship traveling FTL? That pretty much establishes canon that shuttles can travel FTL.

That bothered me the first time I saw it too.

That’s because it IS FTL, simple. That chase sequence otherwise makes no sense at all. (And why would they even bother to transport Elinor Donahue in a shuttle in “Metamorphosis” when the Enterprise could do it literally thousands of times faster?)

Gene wouldnt be happy with anything since the first seasn of TNG, thankfully.

I’m 40 and have been a Trek fan since birth, I am loving the show so far, and you know nothing abouy Gene if you think he would have had any problems with Discovery. He wanted to have LGBT characters on Trek in the 80s, he would have done nudity if he could have too.

‘I am indignant – indignant, I tell you!’

In all fairness, the showrunners have said that they haven’t forgotten about the importance of Roddenberry-esque optimism and will show how it wins out. That the show will evolve towards the kind of sensibility that TOS had. I’d like to see that kind of “how we got here” story from the point we started at, and I’d really like to see Lorca evolve along those lines too (even if it IS just my affection for Jason Isaacs talking). We’ve already seen captains/admirals who CAN’T deal with more peaceful times (Admiral Marcus, Balthasar Edison). Let’s see one who CAN and see how he gets there.

I wonder if when they do the mirror episode it’s basically like the Trek universe we know. Everyone gets along and there is no war. Like a reverse “Yesterday’s Enterprise”

@latitude Ha. That’s awesome.

I would love to see that, it would be totally unexpected, but they wouldn’t do it. Can’t see this series but it looks interesting — though would be hard to stomach as Star Trek. I’d have to watch it as another alternate universe.

LOL that would be crazy. Captain Lorca would be the most by-the-book Starfleet Captain ever. And instead of having crazy creatures in his study to experiment on it would be filled with nothing but pictures of all the first contacts and with items given to him by all the various cultures he has come across in his adventures. Oh and he’s smiling in all the photos lol.

In “Redemption Ark”, the third book of “Revelation Space” series by Alastair Reynolds, a team on a spaceship in the middle of an interstellar war was experimenting with a dangerous untested alien tech to achieve FTL travel.

They found out that the new tech comes with a dangerous side effect. As they were rushing their tests, people working closely with the alien machine during the testing were completely erased from the timeline, no one outside the ship remember them.

Perhaps we will see something similar on ‘Discovery’.

Nice Theory.

Am I imagining things or, at one point was Michael standing in engineering and two crew walked in from the side/behind her and disappeared? Ill have to watch it again…

I think that was a “time passing” transition, but you’re right, at first I was confused too

Yes, it was to show how long she was working and, I think, to suggest her isolation from the rest of the crew.

The funny thing is we’ve ALREADY seen the dangerous side to the experiment on the Glenn. Its made pretty clear what they are doing is not exactly safe. So yeah I imagine we are going to get more of it going forward.

I think Captain Gabriel Lorca intends to use the tardigrade against the Klingon’s, considering Tardigrade’s appear to be a formidable enemy against them- as seen in ‘Context is for Kings’.
Captain Lorca intends to win the war, and it seems he will fight it at almost any cost.
I suspect we will first grow fond of his tactics, then as the battle rages on he will begin to cross ethical lines, leaving us to wonder how much latitude he truly has with Starfleet.
I am still mystified by what Discovery can really do. Is it a time traveling ship? Does it transport people across great distances via the reaction chamber, or does the Discovery itself travel these distances?
The technology is clearly dangerous, likely controversial, and probably will remain so given the fact we have never seen, or heard of this propulsion technology in Star Trek history.
It will be fascinating to see how it all pans out, and where the second season/chapter will go. I am going to go as far as saying: Star Trek Discovery is the first ‘Trek’ series that brought me to the edge of my seat in the pilot, and has me salivating for more.
Bravo to CBS, the cast and crew, and all the writers and producers. You really gave Gene Roddenberry’s dream new meaning. Keep up the great work.

Lorca’s got a Tribble in his study. Perhaps he’ll weapon I’ve the Tribbles against the klingons.

After 12 years waiting for a Prime Star trek TV series, I can’t believe we have ended up with an alternative Universe Section 31 series- an Anti-Star Trek “Star Trek” series.
I feel sick & sad that Genes vision of peaceful exploration has been so violated for the show to be all about justifying the war crimes & experiments of a war monger free to experiment like Hitlers scientists in war times.

You say the exact same thing every time you post. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. It is as simple as that. You can change your name to Orvilleboi89 and you can feel everything is right with the world again.

hahaha

Sometimes when I come here I am saddened that it appears I clicked on an alternative universe forum where a few guys from the mirror universe complain a series that we dont have here.

To be honest I really doubt Roddenberry would like this show either….but I can really care less. We seen his ‘true’ version of Star Trek. That was TMP and early TNG and boy were those boring and bland.

I think the Gene Roddenberry who wrote and produced teleplays from the late Fifties to 1968, and was good enough at it to win a Writer’s Guild award and two Hugos, would have really enjoyed Discovery, or at least have been intrigued by it. The self-styled “futurist” and guru who came later? Not so much, in all likelihood. Not that it really matters much–as the Great Bird would be the first to admit, he is, well, dead, and consequently doesn’t get a vote. Best just to evaluate the show on its own merits without worrying about the non-existent opinion of the person with the “based on” credit in the main titles.

The ‘new tech’ for space travel in Star Trek Discovery harkonens back to the Worms and the Spice of Dune. Everything old is new again.

Losing again? Is there a war where federation is winning? I know audience like underdogs, but this is getting ridiculous and contrived for the sake of “conflict”.

Why is it contrived for a mostly peaceful space federation to initially be losing in a conflict with a warrior species with roughly equivalent technology? Why wouldn’t they be?

I personally think that Discovery is going to go into Genesis territory. It’s the greatest Star Trek MacGuffin of all time, and it hasn’t been reused since the old days.

Well that was a pretty huge explanation that was nowhere near what was presented in the show. Could that be considered a spoiler from Issacs?

But it does sorta support the section 31 theories, sadly.