SyFyWire scored an extensive interview from the cast and executive producers who were in attendance of the Star Trek: Discovery panel this weekend at PaleyFest LA. There are some juicy quotes to share, including some remarks that add some context to some of what was said in TrekMovie’s own interview with Kurtzman.
Season 2 finale will provide satisfying answers to fan questions
Executive producer Alex Kurtzman has said a number of times that elements of Discovery that have been confusing will all make sense this season. He repeated that sentiment to SyFy, and when asked if there would be a satisfying answer to fans’ questions, Kurtzman went so far as to say: “I damn well think so, yes.”
Elaborating on that, he said:
We are entirely aware of everyone’s questions and criticisms; I’ve read everything, and I see where everyone’s like, ‘Well, the spore drive never existed!’ and ‘What, Discovery was never around!’ and all of those things, we’re totally aware. You will get an answer.
Executive producer and co-showrunner of Star Trek: Discovery Alex Kurtzman
Rapp says the end of the season will “close the circle”
Anthony Rapp takes his fandom seriously. A casual Trek fan when he was cast, he decided to do a deep dive into a “best of” watch of most of the series before production started in season one. He addressed the concerns fans have had by saying:
I think that the last few episodes will really close the circle for people. If we’ve done our job, what was on the page … I haven’t seen them yet, but what was on the page in the scripts, closes the circle; it answers the questions that are lingering and remaining for people of how we fit in. And I believe very strongly that it will leave people satisfied. … As someone who cares about continuity, to some degree, I was like, ‘If this doesn’t make people happy, I don’t know what else we can do.’
Anthony Rapp, Mary Chieffo and Shazad Latif at PaleyFestLA 2019 (Emily Kneeter for The Paley Center for Media)
Pike and Spock will get a “send-off” and return to the Enterprise
Producers Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin also spoke about new fan favorite Anson Mount and his character Captain Pike.
Kurtzman: “We will sync up with canon, and obviously if you know the story of Captain Pike, you know what his fate was. It won’t be exactly what you think this season, but we will be consistent with that story. There will be a dimension shed on that story that you will not have known or have thought of.”
Kadin: “If anything it’s not going to feel like a send-off, because I think that’s what everyone thinks is going to happen. I think it will just become incredibly clear why he’s not continuing on, cause he has to go do TOS, so we have to make sense of that.”
Saru actor Doug Jones also discussed how the Enterprise crew members were only on loan to the USS Discovery and will go back their beloved ship at the end of the season:
We knew going in that we only had him [Pike] temporarily, because we borrowed him from the Enterprise, right? … He and Spock have to go back, and Rebecca Romijn as Number One, we can’t hold them all forever or The Original Series can’t play as it was filmed.
Captain Pike (Anson Mount) will get an appropriate send-off.
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.
Oh Kurtzman you’ve promised before. I don’t doubt Rapp that he saw it resolved on paper (he made that very clear too), but who knows how they will edit. #MoreReno #LessTilly
It depends on your question.
Tilly is amazing. More Tilly. More Reno.
More Linus for me,lol!
More Detmer, more Hoppeditz, more Narrhallamarsch!!!
More Ariammmmm! Dang, it.
I believe Discovery will be propelled several centuries into the future as hinted at in Calypso, and that is why they’re not part of TOS. One day they simply vanished.
Yeah, this has been my guess too.
It does seem like the most logical explanation.
It would be pretty wild if season 3 took place entirely in the far future.
That’s my hope.
….be pretty wild if the rest of the entire show took place far in the future.
That is something that I thought about happening way back in season 1. It really is the only reasonable explanation for everything.
I’d love to see what that means for the crew. Is the Federation around? Are things in turmoil? Does moving forward into the future cause something they have to fix? It’s all really interesting possibilities that would continue to make this a Trek like no other.
Yep, clean slate that they can’t f up
“I believe Discovery will be propelled several centuries into the future as hinted at in Calypso”
I would say it’s something fresh. For Star Trek at least. Given that the Federation is in shambles in the Calypso future, this does have a mighty Andromeda vibe!
If TREK had done this when it was first proposed, back before Wolfe went off and got crushed by Sorbo on ANDROMEDA, it would have been new and exciting. Now it just seems like desperation — but desperation that dovetails nicely into the fad for serialized storytelling.
I haven’t seen any of the shorts, but assuming the ship winds up uncrewed in the future, wouldn’t it be more likely that its destiny there is after the ship has already jumped to another future, done whatever it is going to do in that time, and then jumped again, trying to get home, only to kill everybody and wind up in this CALYPSO time? They could jump to century 25 or 26 and do their business w/o having any canon issues at all (not that I want to see that time portrayed if it is even higher-tech with more magic box.)
kmart but the thing is – and no shade to Andromeda – SO many people never saw or even heard about that show.
I heard of it. Just never interested enough to watch it.
My suspicion is they will go to the 28th century first because that’s where the Borg squids come from. Also:
– No interference with Picard show
– Tech finally does not look out of place anymore :)
I’ve never seen Andromeda so the concept will be new to me.
I don’t see where it was hinted at in Calypso. What am I missing? Discovery was abandoned and sat there for 1,000 years. So Discovery time travels forward with the crew a few centuries and then at some point is abandoned and then sits there for 1,000 more years?
I think it will be sent to a point before it is sitting there crewless for 1000 years.
Or left to wait for one or more people to arrive in their Red Angel costumes. Spock saw the vision in his mind meld suggesting that from the point of view of the person in that suit (I still think that was Burnham) this actually happened. If you think about it the explanation that Section 31 built the Red Angel suit doesn’t hold water. Look at what it did on Kaminar? And how do we explain the healing ray used to resuscitate Burnham? The most likely explanation is that it was modified with far future technology. This is why I’ve speculated that we might see galactic civilisation fall in an upcoming episode with the 33rd century becoming a staging post from which they will launch a plan to reset the timeline with us seeing what was going on in each of the Red bursts from the other side of the looking glass along with of course the resolution.
I dunno about this. It’s possible that some kind of artificial intelligence develops as a result of what we’ve so far seen, despite the Federation’s best efforts, and rather than destroy its manifestation on Discovery, they ditch it somewhere in the future. What I expect will happen is that the ships will be downgraded in terms of tech in the subsequent seasons in line with what we see in the 1960s, helping to explain why Discovery looked initially so much more advanced than Kirk’s Enterprise.
Can’t hold onto Pike and Spock? Sure you can. Dump Discovery and produce a new show with Pike and Spock on the Enterprise. If it’s 10 years before Kirk assumes command, there’s plenty of room to work within canon.
Give the fans what they REALLY want! The entire Burnham storyline is a complete waste of time!
No it’s not. Why do you feel that you can speak for all Trek fans? Cause you can’t
Speaks for me!
Man, you said it. If you don’t like Disco, then don’t watch it. People who hate the show are wasting their own time.
Harry is not claiming to. What he did is called hyperbole. He exaggerates to make his point. You, I and even he knows that even if he is speaking for a majority it is certainly not ALL fans. People get too strung up about such things.
Thank you for explaining it, ML31. That is exactly my point!
There’s no need to dump anything. You can keep’em all, and make people that agree with you happy, and people that don’t agree with you happy as well. Why all the bitching? Can’t you ask for a show without dumping another?
TPTB probably can’t afford to spend the money on a separate Pike show. All the dough seems to be invested in the current production. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig!
That’s not necessarily the case Harry. Kurtzman and Kadin have both gone on record as saying that they’d like Trek on for most of the year and with approx 12-18 month turnarounds on most of these series there potentially is room for both.
I hope you’re right, Corinthian7!
So do I Harry, you can definitely count me in the large crowd that wants a Pike show ASAP. Let’s hope they’re listening.
It’s all about driving new subscriptions and filling in the gaps between seasons when fans would otherwise drop the service. The Pike/Spock series might do both. It will drive some new subscribers and surely keep Discovery fans sticking around for more.
As Star Trek serves as an effective engine to rev up CBS streaming subscriptions, they will keep making them. Once they have a critical mass of year-round Star Trek/Sci-Fi material, however, longer running series will be less valuable. Unfortunately, once a Star Trek series stops driving new subscribers, they may just cancel it for the next shiny new Star Trek thing. That has less to do with the quality of the series and more to do with the economics of streaming services where “old viewers” are not as important as “new viewers,” if that makes sense.
That is why Netflix cancels a lot of shows after just two or three seasons although they may still be popular. They direct resources to the new series with a flashy premiere that lands new subscribers.
Very well put, Locutus
It’s also Locutus about keeping the subscribers and reducing ‘the churn’ as CBS executives are putting it.
Netflix is learning the hard way that streamers will bleed clients when the amount of compelling content goes down and the price goes up.
When Netflix was essentially the only service on offer, clients who had dropped cable faced a high cost to get back into cable.
But with an array of streaming services to chose from, clients find it easy to cancel and switch to another service.
So, with the direct to customer model wherein CBS owns the content it may make sense to keep series running longer.
Also, CBS is talking about selling its streaming original productions to broadcast TV via syndication, a couple of seasons after original release. Again this increases the return on production costs, and may also be a way to draw new clients to streaming.
Syndication will need more than 40 episodes per show to fly. Historically, 3 seasons of a 26 episode per season series was the minimum.
In the past, the magic number was 100 episodes. Some worked just fine with less. But shows often shot for 100.
Interestingly, it was TOS that established the lower bar of 3 seasons.
But we all know TOS was an exceptional show .😉
And THAT is one of the downsides to streaming shows.
You must be joking…
Hold up, I want to see what happens with the characters on the Discovery.
Me too! I’ve become invested in what happens to them, and I need to see what unfolds for our crew.
Me as well.
Fourth to agree!
Jumping up and down and holding your breath till you turn blue might just work in convincing the producers to give you what you want. I’ll tell you when you can stop.
Michael Hall, I don’t think Kurtzman and the rest of the Discovery panel would be going out of their way, again and again, to pitch and spin how they are addressing fan concerns if they didn’t feel they need to.
They know the demographic that’s watching. And they also are surely accessing metrics that show how social media discussions are impacting viewership.
So, on this, there is no basis to say that fan voices aren’t tracked and being considered as they develop their long term strategic plan.
@TG47 I’m inclined to agree, there’s too much evidence mounting in support of this assumption. I really don’t know how I feel about this, it’s nice that they listen and whilst I was always one of the more positive supporters of season one I can’t deny that season 2 has been a marked improvement, I’m just not entirely comfortable with the concept of turning a TV production into a democracy. The bottom line is that the fanbase is fractured, they’re never going to please everybody so there comes a certain point when they’ve got to start backing there own judgement and trusting the talent they have behind and in front of the camera to deliver a product that stands on it’s own too feet. Of course while Alex does seem to be listening I’m going to take every opportunity to bang the drum in support of a Pike series!!
Corinthian7 I share your mixed feelings about fan input.
If the creative vision is constantly jarred to and fro in order to respond to fans, there’s a risk of the show losing its coherence and voice.
Certainly, Enterprise seemed to suffer from that. The whole concept of the show was sold on going back before the Federation social norms kept the writers from writing conflict or heroic captain behaviour.
From the outside it sounded like the showrunners and network all kept arguing about what would work and each season was a kind of reset.
I do think that Kurtzman is strategically and tactically smart to go with a menu of very different Trek offerings. That way each show can find a core audience and be coherent in meeting the demand of that clientele, while pulling in enough other Trek fans to make it a viable offering. And it will encourage clients to stick with CBSAA over the year.
As someone who had LOTS of problems with season one but mostly minimum problems with season two I really can’t argue fan input didn’t do more positive for the show than negative. And of course I’m not implying every change was because fans whined about everything, I think they had planned to change things regardless. But its obvious that fan input had a big impact on this season.
And yes I think a big issue is that people tuned out to AA early. I don’t think it was a huge number or anything but it was probably enough to be alarming and based on audience feedback probably felt the show wasn’t really keeping people around as they hoped. I think that’s also why we are getting the Picard show as suddenly as we are and why Discovery feels way more like Star Trek this season than last.
But I will also agree they shouldn’t make constant changes just because of what they read online either. Most of the things fans complained about was just trying to ‘fix’ Star Trek where it didn’t need to be fixed or changing it just to be different. They probably went a bit overboard on that. But stuff like giving Spock a sister, making it feel WAY more advanced than it probably should be and etc are things fans will get use to in time. I don’t think anyone has stopped watching the show because of either but I guess if some consider them canon breaking enough they will.
But the thing season 2 did really right and where people responded is that it just got back to telling classic Star Trek stories again like New Eden, Light and Shadows, If Memory Serves, etc. Just do MORE of that and people will not care about the other stuff as much in time. The stories are strong enough they will care less about bald Klingons and spore drives.
@Tiger2 Agreed it’s a fine line. Season 2 is definitely an improvement and I know the new Klingon look had its fans but I’m with you on that one – I’m glad it was retconned. I just hope they don’t fall into the trap of having to explain every tiny difference and the Spock/Burnham relationship is one of them. Yes, it was jarring for many but you’re right in that it’s something fans would get used to. Eventually as they further flesh out this universe we would get to a point where it just seems normal for Spock to have a foster sister. We’ll all be like “jeez does this Spock guy ever shut up about the fact he’s got a sister!?” Lol.
@TG47 I agree, I’m confident that Kurtzman knows what he’s doing in terms of how to build the Star Trek shared universe and I like the idea of different flavours of Trek. It makes sense as well to listen to fans as well but it requires waking a very fine line. Too much of what we think we want is not necesarily a good thing.
Agreed. Give us a Pike and Spock story. There is so much story to tell.
Making Pike not get wounded saving those cadets and end up in the beeping box is e-z-star-track-101 with Talosians and the Q-Continuum around. A new Pike-Spock series on the E focusing on their missions together with Number One and Doctor/Bartender Boyce is a no-brainer. The actors ooze chemistry together, and their backstory has been substantially enriched by this fine season of Discovery. I say ‘YES’ to an Anson Mount-as-Pike on the Enterprise show.
Also agreed. Give Mount and Peck their own series!
Agreed! They can easily do a 5 year mission storyline, like TOS… That strings right up to dropping Pike at Talos IV.
I disagree Mr Ballz. I say, the more, the merrier.
Make a Pike’s Enterprise show, and set Discovery in the future. The Top Secret DASH drive ship disappears and no one in TOS, TNG or that era know about it. Except Section 31.
“Give the fans what they REALLY want! The entire Burnham storyline is a complete waste of time!”
True dat! I’d watch the Ballz chronicles before any more “It’s all about me” Burnham chronicles!
Vulcan Soul, it takes BALLZ to make a remark like that! :>)
Yes! I agree. Pike did TWO five year missions before Kirk left the USS Farragut. And Spock was with Pike the whole time. The USS Enterprise is the true star of Star Trek. Michael Burnham can burn in hell for all I care.
I agree with you. Even if they keep Discovery CBS can still do another show with Pike’s Enterprise. They could do alot in the 10 years before Kirk takes over.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. Thanks, guys!
Prediction: Through temporal shenanigans Pike sees his future as a burned up vegetable and asks Spock to promise to take him back to Talos when it happens, no matter what. Spock vows this, motivating his actions in Menagerie.
Perfect idea. I love it.
Pretty good, though you’d think Pike would strive to avoid that fate. I like it. :-)
he beeps no constantly in the Menagerie
Details… ;)
Yes! And that’s because it’s out of character for Pike to ask Spock to risk the death penalty to improve Pike’s life. It’s in character for Spock to be that self-sacrificing on his own, which is why I love the framing story they used to incorporate “The Cage” into “The Menagerie.”
Spiked,
Thank you. Doesn’t anybody else remember this? Pike is still noble enough in his vegetative state to not want Spock to risk it all on his behalf, and he wouldn’t be so selfish as to ever ask something like that of Spock — unless it was his mirror self doing the asking muuh-hah-hahh! (actually probably not even his mirror self, who wasn’t too smart since he got assassinated by Kirk — see what happens when you actually remember the shows?)
Why focus on facts from TOS when Discovery removes them with the time crystal stroke of a pen.
Time Crystal is the drug Discovery producers are on now! Our favorite drug addict, T’Pol, said it best: “It felt gooood, I wanted more” :)
Let’s all just forget the beeping. If Stephen Hawking can get a computer voice in the 1980s but the best Pike can get in the distant future are beeps? That whole concept is such a joke.
Well, it was 1966 tech. And the budget was limited.
Hey, go take a bath in the delta rays without a lead codpiece and see if you feel like talking afterward. And we’d never have the last part of TREKKIES w/o the beeping chair guy.
This idea undermines both characters! It makes Pike terribly selfish — run the risk of the death penalty for me — and it makes Spock’s sacrifice to save Pike in “The Menagerie” less heroic. So I really hope they DON’T use this idea!
Where it wouldn’t is if it is the Red Angel who reveals to Spock, not how it happens, but that at some point Pike is fried. And that he determines what his course would be when it does happen. I don’t think Pike would have knowledge of it. I think after the Talos episode that Spock may know that Pike does want to be with Vina.
This is the one. Pike won’t ask, but Spock will know and will keep it to himself, knowing he will someday have to return Pike to Vina and Talos IV.
Could Discovery find itself in the 30th century?
So is Nhan going back to Enterprise too?
She’s potentially a pretty decent second-tier character (and way less irritating, frankly, than the males of her species). I hope they leave her behind.
She could very easily remain Discovery’s chief of security without going against canon so I agree. I hope she does stay on Discovery
Wait… the males of her species? Have we ever even seen a Barzan male? Or are you thinking of Benzites, who also require a breathing apparatus in human-normal atmospheres?
of course we saw a male barzan.
When? The Barzans were only featured in TNG’s “The Price,” and the only Barzan we saw in that episode was Premier Bhavani, a female, if I recall correctly.
We’ve only ever seen two Barzans: Nhan and Bhavani, both of which were female. We’ve never seen nor heard about male Barzans. Are you thinking of a different species?
Yes I like her a lot
IF they make a Pike’s Enterprise series, she will be a great secondary character.
If they keep her on Discovery that’s fine with me too!
Love her!
Yup, I hope she stays too. One of the best characters this year.
I am hoping that she is going back to be on the Pike show, and take Reno as well to be the new chief engineer. And I would move Culber over to the Pike show as well.
For Culber it would be at best a lateral transfer. Enterprise already has a CMO in Dr. Piper. And Boyce after that. Besides, Culber is really a mycelial agent and he needs to stay on Discovery to acomplish whatever his mission is. Good intentioned or bad.
I sometimes have to take Kurtzman’s words with a grain of salt, for he understandably has to do a lot of PR spin.
However, I readily believe whatever Anthony Rapp has to say about the show. Rapp does seem like an actual Trek fan who understands and acknowledges the issues that people have with the show. Plus, he regularly listens to Star Trek podcasts (such as Star Trek Discovery Pod, which he mentions on his Twitter), so he *does* keep tabs on what some fans think about the episodes.
If Rapp says that the season finale will “close the circle,” I’m cautiously going to believe that :-)!
Does anyone else remember being told that “It isn’t Khan”?
Did Anthony Rapp ever say “It isn’t Khan”?
No, Kurtzman did. The point is still valid.
That’s right. Rapp never said anything about Khan because he wasn’t involved. Kurtzman was but again, the movie situation is a lot different than a TV show situation. How about this… What it Rapp who said we would never see an adult Spock on Discovery? Not to my knowledge.
I definitely remember cast and/or crew basically calling anyone who said STID was going to include Khan wrong or a liar. I hate to dwell on something that might seem so trivial from so many years ago, but the whole “we swear he’s not Khan guys!!! …. jk, he’s really Khan” thing was certainly a turning point for me.
I understand having to keep things under wraps, but cast and crew were outright lying to hide what turned out to be a pretty mediocre reveal.
Simon Pegg is often held up as a bastion of fandom, but he did exactly the kind of thing everyone would expect him to *destroy* when he said: “It’s not Khan. That’s a myth. Everyone’s saying it is, but it’s not. I think people just want to have a scoop. It annoys me – it’s beyond the point to just ferret around for spoilers all the time to try to be the first to break them.”
I would hate to ever be put in that position where some secret or mystery box that everyone has figured out already has to be kept secret by lying to the public. I hope everyone involved in Discovery is able to tell the honest truth.
I get that some people had an issue with that. But it was a movie and I don’t blame anyone for it. They had what they thought was a big secret. It got out. They had to double down on it at the time. From a marketing standpoint they had no choice. Each of these things needs to be judged in their own context IMHO.
“and Rebecca Romijn as Number One, we can’t hold them all forever”
Yeah, “eating a cheeseburger for two minutes” is pretty much “forever”
The Enterprise under the command of Number One will likely play some part in the remaining episodes of the season, I think.
Yes, why put the investment in the VFX model and then not amortize it over more than 2 episodes…
TG,
Keep the art department busy perhaps? Or they needed to spend even more money to make sure they would have as high a budget for the next season.
Perhaps. But I’m not counting on more than another 2 minutes.
“We will sync up with canon, and obviously if you know the story of Captain Pike, you know what his fate was. It won’t be exactly what you think this season, but we will be consistent with that story. There will be a dimension shed on that story that you will not have known or have thought of.”
So basically Pike will leave with full knowledge of his future accident. Wow, so groundbreaking.
“We knew going in that we only had him [Pike] temporarily, because we borrowed him from the Enterprise, right? … He and Spock have to go back, and Rebecca Romijn as Number One, we can’t hold them all forever or The Original Series can’t play as it was filmed.”
Lets put aside that Rebecca Romijn has been in 2 episodes and only for 1 scene a piece – why can’t it? This whole season is already set post-Cage. The only thing we know for sure is that Kirk takes over the Enterprise at some point before Pike’s accident. Pike and Spock could stick around for the next 6 seasons and it doesn’t affect TOS canon at all.
Well, we also know that Pike has to go back to the Enterprise at some point, because in “The Menagerie,” Kirk says “I took over the Enterprise from him.” And Spock has to go where Pike goes, because he says that he served with Pike for “eleven years, four months, five days.”
Wait, I thought it was 13 years. Holy moley. What a crap fan I am!
It was 13 years between The Cage and The Menagerie. Spock served with Pike for 11 years, 4 months. We don’t know the year Spock joined the Enterprise or the year Kirk took command, but they have up to 1 year, 8 months to play with if they want to keep Spock around for season 3.
Marja,
Easy mistake, it just doesn’t take into account the time Spock has spent serving since Pike made Fleet Captain, which presumably was with Kirk aboard Enterprise.
“As someone who cares about continuity, to some degree, I was like, ‘If this doesn’t make people happy, I don’t know what else we can do.’”
Wow, this sentence from Rapp really grabbed me. It sounds like they are doing something pretty drastic to make fans happy. I still can’t believe that means jumping into the future but outside of that OR just ending up in another timeline/universe but what else could it be outside of just killing off Burnham lol. That would make lots of people happy too. ;)
I didn’t really expect any big shifts at the end of the season, I thought they would just wrap up the Red Angel story line, Pike and Spock goes back to the Enterprise and they warp out somewhere else (maybe to pick up that poor guy still waiting to be their Captain ;)). Now I’m expecting a huge cliffhanger of some sort.
As far as their reasoning about Pike and Spock needing to go back, I mean sure, but they already had them for an entire season, would another one make that big of a difference? But now knowing that Discovery third season might put them in a different place, literally, then I guess they just may not have a choice. If thats true then people will probably be OK with them leaving.
And it does add to what Kutzman said early in the year before the show started in a TM interview when he said they could ONLY tell Spock story on Discovery this season. No one really understood what that meant and maybe it was just some artsy thing he was saying. But now knowing this, maybe he literally meant it and it would be impossible to do it in third season.
It does sound drastic doesn’t it? That’s why I was slightly concerned that they are going down a route that resets the timeline and maybe even overwrites things like a Burnham’s parents deaths and the Klingon war. Things that fans were sceptical of but at the same time I don’t want to feel as though I’ve spent two years watching a show that’s been invalidated. Of course we know that season 3 has been greenlit so if they do go down this route then presumably the crew will be insulated from the effects and end up in some other timeline/period. This doesn’t really seem viable given that they’re also developing a Section 31 show in the same era but there’s something about those words and Kurtzman’s comments that seems ominous.
I read that line like Rapp was ten years old and pleading, “WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM US????” I’m sure he didn’t actually say it that way but that’s how it sounds in my head lol.
But I don’t think going to any extremes that you have to completely set your show in another era to make bitter fans happy is the way to do it. And yes, erasing everything we seen happen in this show just to explain away some things away is NOT the way to go at all. As you well know, I believe when something is canon, its canon and should remain as such. Now they can certainly ignore it, retcon parts of it, but don’t try and wipe it out of existence either. I might’ve hated the Klingon war and how it played out first season, it doesn’t mean I would want it completely erased either. That would just be the wrong way to go and negate an entire season worth of stories. But I don’t really see that happening at all but yes could be wrong.
But I think all of this does proves the fans who had problem with this show weren’t just a small vocal group as people kept suggesting if they are willing to make so many big changes. We don’t know what season 3 will change yet but if it is something that alters the show completely from the first two seasons it will prove CBS is probably very worried about the perception of the show with the overall base and trying to correct it. No one would be jumping through this many hoops just to appease a few thousand whiners on the internet.
God, don’t get me started on that Klingon but I’m in agreement with you and technically they were correct, what had been said in canon was loose enough that they could get away with with it so just move on. That’s a fair point Trek fans have always moaned online and it’s never made that much of a difference. I think it’s maybe a little different this time as I suspect Discovery brings in a significant share of AA’s subscribers and there metrics might suggest that it’s mostly older Trek fans. They must be getting feedback from multiple sources though possibly even Netflix.
Oh yeah I agree about AA and in fact I think I wrote a post on it not to long ago on this thread somewhere that I do think there is an issue about either the LACK of subscriptions OR that people are not staying on for the entire season. Or as you said its might just be a demographic issue. Again, NO proof of any of that and before people start typing I can be 100% wrong! It’s nothing more than a guy’s speculation, that’s it.
But yes, there is clearly a disconnect somewhere if you are constantly changing a show every season. These guys have lost three show runners in two seasons, that has an effect and I bet there is just tons of pressure to make it more appealing for others. They really try their best and make it seem like everything is smooth sailing, the show is a major hit, AA can’t be anymore successful if it tried and everyone loves each other to death. And yet you constantly see little cracks in the glass that hint otherwise. I think there is a lot more behind the scenes turmoil even now. Maybe not as bad as first season but I think they are still trying to figure it out.
And none of that should matter to us of course. Every show, especially in the beginning, goes through it. Every Trek production has had issues. I don’t think there is one single one that went smoothly its entire run. I think in this case though, as you said because its the first Star Trek show you are paying for and its on a brand new streaming site, its very different and that include expectations. I ignore all the Midnight Edge BS like others here but I don’t doubt their view that the show still has problems behind the scenes generally and maybe not catching on with more viewers as hoped, just not to the hyper sensationalism as they make it out to be.
So, I wonder if it’ll be the revelation we’ve been in an alternate timeline from Prime after all, and what happens at the end is a Reset Button akin to the end of “The Year of Hell”.
It’s not so much a reset button so much as it is “let’s get Discovery and all the problems and came from it out of here to a place where it cannot interfere with established canon.” I said back in season one an obvious fix was the spore drive sends them to the far future or an alternate dimension or something. Back where they left the spore drive was deemed a failed experiment so it is not used as it is far “too dangerous”.
That might be what they are doing, not a full on reset per se, but just put it in an era or universe where they don’t have to worry about bumping into canon or can just have more freedoms to tell any story they want. Now let me say this, I don’t think the jumping into the future theory is happening. Maybe it will be something big but this idea its going to jump several centuries just seem like a huge extreme I don’t see them doing, at least not yet.
BUT, if they do go that direction, boy I don’t know how loud I can say “I TOLD YOU SO!!” lol. This would be exactly why so many of us wanted to go forward in the FIRST place! For literally this exact reason.
But like I said I don’t think that’s happening at all. It could be something more routine like you’re suggesting and be an alternate timeline plot which I guess to some people would feel like the same thing in a way but they would still stay in their own time period and wouldn’t erase anything that happened, just acknowledge their future will slightly alter from previous canon, ie, the Kelvin movies. But I guess that would upset some people too.
The interviews from the PaleyFest have only solidified my theory that Discovery is going to jump out of the era they are in. Personally, I think it another silly concept but not even in the same universe as the awful Lorca reveal. Which, for me at least, has left a lasting poison on the show that will take a VERY long time to recover from. That said, it’s a logical fix that makes perfect sense for everything. To me, it’s the only way out of the corner they painted themselves into.
I would be remiss, however, to mention that given the history or poor creative decisions made by the show runners it is by no means certain that this is how they will opt to fix the problems. Part of me is thinking it will be done in a terrible fashion. We shall see in three weeks.
Perhaps they’ll undo Michael’s parents death, which would explain why Spock never talks about her in TOS. But that’s a pretty big thing to wipe out, but not unprecedented in a Kurtzman show, look at Fringe. The timeline gets rewritten and Peter Bishop gets forgotten by everyone, Peter is protected from the changes and remembers the original timeline.
Because Kurtzman has never recycled a plot in his shows before…
Matt unlikely to happen
Good reference and good show, Fringe. I suspect the same may happen here, Matt.
Fringe was a great show, but I did not like that timeline-change and especially the explanation for Peter still around, even though he should not be there.
I sincerly hope they don’t do such thing. It would be a capitulation.
That is not a bad concept, either. Although, and I’m saying this again, there is nothing non-canon about Spock having an adoptive sister. I just found the decision to do it a terrible creative choice. The show has a number of canon issues. The Burnham mutiny being one of them. But the Burnham-Spock thing is not.
I’m finding this a bit hard to digest.
Does everything in Discovery have to be so ultra? Sigh.
But it is what it is. I enjoy the show. I am hoping it has a good long run within a broader menu of Trek offerings.
Nonetheless, I’ll be disappointed if TPTB have indulged their writers’ desires to do the big rewriting time thing. I’m certainly glad that piece of self-indulgence was suppressed and wasn’t permitted to destroy DS9.
BTW In the noticeable but unmentioned category…
What’s up with Admiral Cornwell and Jayne Brook?
The Admiral is an increasing presence in Discovery, and they actually gave her space in episode 10.
Now we’re this TNG or DS9 we wouldn’t find it remarkable…
But as some commentators elsewhere have noted, for a show with a large budget and 6 soundstages, Discovery has very little in the way of ship sets.
Sensitive conversations keep happening in an otherwise empty officers mess…
Or in the corridor with crew walking by.
So, to see Culber hunt down the Admiral in quarters was….new.
Is the Admiral along for the ride wherever or whenever Discovery is headed for season 3?
That would be an interesting option for “who’s going to be in command in Season 3.” If Pike and Spock go back to the Enterprise before whatever drastic event happens to Discovery, but Cornwell is still on board, logically she would take command of the ship.
Cornwell won’t be captain of Discovery in season 3
Admirals can put their flag on a ship and let the captain command it.
I sure hope she is. I adore Jayne Brook as Cornwell.
Well, does she have special knowledge of the drive? If so, and the writers don’t want anybody to reconstitute the drive in the prime timeline going forward, then you have to disappear her with everybody else if the ship jumps to the future. Would also guarantee you had somebody outranking Burnham, which I guess is necessary so she can seem smarter and/or wiser than her superiors some more.
Good point. Burnham needs a superior officer so her superiority at everything else can be demonstrated.
I figured that Burnham is the lead millennials need because (wait for it) the entire universe revolves around her!
meh
@TG47 The same thing occurred to me, it’s also significant that the Klingon’s will join the party next week. Is It also set for L’Rell to tag along for the ride wherever it takes them? I guess if they are heading for a time/universe jump then Cornwell will be in the Captain’s chair next season.
Edit I see that Josiah Rowe has actually already suggested this but it makes sense IF they are taking this route
Intrigued, those are some lofty promises and we typically don’t see this much confidence from producers and actors. Also, I’ve given up expecting the obvious answers hinted to us this season (and in Short Treks), they’ve successfully used them to surprise us.
I’ve just been thinking. It has already been stated that Georgiou will be on season three of Discovery and then get her own series. With that in mind, the Discovery cannot end up in the far future unless they take Georgiou with them and both series end up taking place in the far future and I really don’t see that happening.
That is a very good point. If they were to end up in the far future along with Georgiou, they would have to come up with some serious shenanigans to get her back to her original timeframe (since I doubt the Section 31 show would be set in that far future). Not impossible in sci-fi, but seems unlikely.
No reason they can’t be sent to Picard’s time (early 25th century) and the Section 31 show be set in that era as well.
So since Captain Pike knows his fate… History needs to happen as scheduled. This leaves behind so many unanswered questions.
Did they say that Pike will learn his fate of nearly a decade later? We fans know it but I don’t recall the article saying it would be revealed to Pike.
Also, as far as the spore drive goes, they could just shut it down – they have determined there is some level of damage which can occur to the network by travelling through it… also it is a door to the mirror universe and possibly other universes – bringing people back and forth is highly dangerous and the idea of allowing mirror ships to come regularly into the main universe is frightening. Add to that, they have no way of currently navigating without either harming a tardigrade, or radical DNA treatments on humans and having some impact on the humans health – it is easy to say they shutter the technology – just as they did transwarp technology.
They don’t need to explain Burnham, there is no reason to. It is fully consistent with the Spock we know that he would not go around telling stories about his sister, who he goes between being jealous of her, loving her, and despising her. His emotional side is compromised by her, making all the more reason why it would never come up around Bones or Kirk.
They can stay in this time, tell more stories, cross over with the S31 show and the Pike show (which is what I think will end up happening — you will have perhaps shorter seasons of each – 8 to 10 episodes like the Picard show (10 in season one), but have crossovers in the 3 2250s based shows.) — that would lead to perhaps 32 to 40 weeks of Trek per year – with 10 weeks on, and 3-4 week breaks between, then that leads to a continual All Access subscription (and more than worth it if you ask me)…
How does it get to be that nobody asks Kurtzman if there will be a Pike show? (and yes, there will be. I’d bet more on a Pike show at this point than I would season 3 of Orville)
Martin, I believe that the answer is that Kurtzman and the previous showrunners provided all these rationales to fans, but there remained too large a proportion of their target market that just wasn’t accepting these explanations.
So, while many of us – including you and me – didn’t need more, it sounds as though CBS’ market research found that the fan resistance was a factor in discouraging people from trying CBSAA.
And since the Star Trek franchise is one of the most significant properties that CBS production owns, that could not be allowed to continue.
I’d hoped that by introducing the Picard show to the menu of Trek productions, they would be able to side step the problem and let Discovery keep its own niche.
However, that doesn’t seem to be the outcome.
I think Discovery is going to make a jump to the future. I’ve thought this since seeing that capability of the spore drive and since seeing the timeless [to me] design aesthetics.
I’ve thought that from the instant they introduced the spore drive.
I think the season ends with them resetting the timeline.
Time crystal is never stolen, Michaels parents arnt killed and she never lives with Spock.
She excells in Starfleet and serves aboard the USS Discovery. She was never raised on Vulcan and has no hate towards Klingons so the war is never started.
Captain may be Prime Lorca or someone else.
Spore drive is still being researched so it’s not developed till later and possible shut down becuse stamets learns that it harms the network.
Culber serves on Disco but not stamets, Suru is probably on Shenzou.
Just my thoughts.
Burnham didnt started the war. The Klingons did!
Do starfleet uniforms revert to normal as well as all the 25th century tech?
Yes, the 25th century tech that’s barely more advanced than stuff we can do now…
Wow! Who has almost got the spore drive working today? For that matter warp drive and artificial gravity? The problems of relativity is almost reality now, right?
He’s got a warp drive app on his IPAD! See, 25th century tech!
Welp, this would seem to doom my theory that we are in a parallel but “re-skinned” timeline (in other words, all of the events are the same in both this universe and the “TOS” universe, just with a different look and feel). I’d say there is now a better than even chance we end the season with our protagonists thrown several hundred years into the future. Personally, I think that would suck, so I hope this theory is also wrong.
Please, not another info dump and dialogue to cover scenes we never get to see… like you did to us with the end of the Klingon War.
Discovery will get pushed 1000 years into the future, the timeline will alter at present stardate so that discovery technically never existed in anyone’s mind.
Season 3 starts afresh.
You heard it here first!
What if they “hop” to solve Red Angel, “skip” to visit Picard for about five minutes and then “Jump” to 1000 years in the future. Triple cliffhanger ending. This is a lot like the reset in (I think) the end of the 3rd season of BSG when they skip 18 months to Baltar as President. And you really feel the difference.
I am hoping for the Bobby Ewing shower scene to explain everything we’ve seen so far.
I hope not Spaceman Spiff.
Dallas was one of the few ‘appointment’ television series that ever caught my loyalty.
I hung in through the tough season…and signed off directly after the shower scene premiere the following year.
Never bothered to watch it again.
And I was far from a exception.
I’ve never quite figured out how networks get to the point of indulging the lousy tactical and strategic groupthink that gets them to the point that they say ‘But really, it will work this time for us…’
But I guess that it’s pure desperation that gets it signed off on.
Unfortunately, Anthony Rapp’s statement along the lines that if they don’t accept this, theythet won’t accept anything has just that regrettable air of desperate last stand.
Not a very popular show but I thought a very funny thing happened with the short lived, Sledge Hammer. They thought they would be canceled so at the end of season 2 they had Hammer fail in defusing a bomb and everyone blew up. But then, surprise! Show gets renewed. The next season began with a card saying, “This season of Sledge Hammer takes place two years before last season.”
Who shot J.R….
Wasn’t there a throwaway line in the last episode saying that “advancements in technology” were the result of time travel?
They didn’t specify what advancements, so it’s an odd line… Unless it starts to hint at the changes in “technology” that we are aware of between TOS and DISCO.
I had never imagined a timeline reset, but I’d say it’s possible and would explain everything:
Burnham
Technology
Spore Drive
Klingon War
Calypso
Reset to TOS and leave DISCO somewhen else.
“Kadin: “If anything it’s not going to feel like a send-off, because I think that’s what everyone thinks is going to happen. I think it will just become incredibly clear why he’s not continuing on, cause he has to go do TOS, so we have to make sense of that.””
My fear is this means Pike will have his accident at the end of their show! Which would be very very very wrong! I really hope that is not what is being telegraphed here….
He can’t continue on because he has to do TOS, not Star Trek: 31st century ;)
So Far Discovery has in my opinion, been a ‘soft’ reboot of the Original Series timeline. Star Trek’s ‘continuity and canon has been muddy at times. It has its issues. I wonder, given a lot of the time travel stories, if that is their way of explaining a lot of this. The Borg incursion during World War III etc. Remember on DS9 they mentioned that Kirk alone had ’17 temporal’ violations in his Starfleet career? The only way to get rid of something or improve something in Star Trek is time travel. You can create another timeline or tweak the one you are in. This whole idea about time travel impacting technology is interesting.
It seems this quote hasn’t been included above but elsewhere it is reported that Doug Jones dropped the clearest hints that Discovery is headed somewhere (or somewhen) NEW:
“As I read the final script for Season 2, my jaw dropped, and I’m dumbfounded with where we’re headed. So I think the fans can expect to boldly go where no Star Trek series has ever gone before.”
Where did that quote come from? That combined with the rest it’s pretty easy to read between the lines and at least get a decent idea of what is coming. And again, the concept was presented back in season one as pretty much the only way out of the mess they created.
Syfy Wire
What the hell is Lt Bryce’s story ? He the communications officer correct ? Give the guy something to do ! I mean we finally get one of the best Trek stories with the cybernetics chick and they kill her off in the same episode.
The explanation will be pretty straightforward. We know from precedent that there are both parallel universes (the Mirror Universe, the Kelvin Timeline etc) and that each timeline can itself be spontaneously rewritten by time travel (Yesterday’s Enterprise, arguably all of the Enterprise series). So Discovery can be a moderately rewritten version of the Prime Universe: the Red Angel’s intervention means that Burnham lived rather than dying. In the pre-reformatted version if someone had asked Spock about her, he’d have looked puzzled and then mentioned a young Earth girl lived with his family some 20 years earlier briefly before being killed, which was a tragedy but not something really worth bringing up.
Who is the admiral interrogating the enterprise crew in the S T Disco season 2 finale?