The second season finale of Star Trek: Discovery still has fans speculating about what the jump forward 930 years into the future means for the show, and they are not alone. The cast is also talking about the possibilities.
Discovery cast talks about leaping ahead of TNG era
The new Moments of Discovery video CBS released today features Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Wilson Cruz, and Mary Wiseman. They bring up some interesting comments and questions about the implications of the finale, such as:
Doug Jones: For us to jump ahead of Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, it’s like ahhh, I can breathe now because we don’t have to worry about rules and regulations. Now we can create without consequences…The slate is clean, the chalk is in hand, anything can happen.
Anthony Rapp: I think that gives our writers, and our designers and our creative team incredible freedom now to do anything new.
They also bring up some important questions:
Sonequa Martin-Green: Anything can happen, what is this future we are going to?
Mary Wiseman: What exists in the future? What kind of technology they might have? What kind of landscape are we going to end up in?
Anthony Rapp: Are we going to see some of the familiar species we haven’t seen before? Are we going to continue to see new species? What state is the Federation in? What’s going on with Starfleet?
Watch the full video
The writers are already working on the answers
The third season is set to start production in July and the writers’ room has been at work on it for a while. Today their official Twitter account shared an image of what fuels their thought processes in a way that would make Captain Janeway smile.
Why can’t we just say “coffee, black” to the machine? pic.twitter.com/D9ashtGTjF
— Star Trek Writers (@StarTrekRoom) April 24, 2019
Star Trek: Discovery is available exclusively in the USA on CBS All Access. It airs in Canada on Space and streams on CraveTV. It is available on Netflix everywhere else.
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.
Keep Discovery going! It can only get better and better as flagship of new Trek series. Let it be the hub for all other series!
The flagship Star Trek show right now is the Picard show not Discovery. Plus, Star Trek finally gets a kids show on Nickelodeon.
Oh is that on? I haven’t been able to catch this new flagship Picard show yet. Is it good? Any new breakout stars I can look forward to loving? Thanks, Prof.!
“Star Trek finally gets a kids show on Nickelodeon.”
Are you insininuating that Discovery could be outshone by the kids show? :)
“Are you insininuating that Discovery could be outshone by the kids show? :)”
with ease … I mean its written like a fithgrade fanfic…
Respectfully, I disagree Professor.
Right now,we have 78 year old Picard surrounded by 6 younger characters. I’m fearing it MIGHT be something like this:
Star Trek: Grandpa Simpson. Picard: In my, day we only had one phaser strip on the saucer section.
Star Trek: Retirement Home. Now, Captain Picard, you have to let me give you this hypospray. It’s got your B12…Don’t make me get the other 5 characters to hold you down like yesterday
Star Trek: Get Off Of My Lawn! Picard is the grumpy version of Boothby at Star Fleet Academy.
Seriously, Star Trek: Get Off Of My Lawn! I would pay to see that.
Boothby was great!
“YOU MOTHER****ERS ARE GONNA KILL ALL MY LILLIES! FRIGGIN’ PARASITIC RODENTS!”
I would like to believe that but so far, it’s sounding like this show has nothing to do with Starfleet & space exploration. More like a retired Picard going on a personal quest to do the right thing one last time, picking up a few misfits along the way. Trying to pull an ST: Insurrection-style mission to save a bunch of desperate Romulans in the face of a Federation that isn’t doing enough to help Romulan refugees.
I bet the show, while still amazing, will be more like Firefly
I like Firefly, so if it is like that…I’m cool with that.
I’m hoping that this show or some future show will have more of an urban setting rather than a space setting. The show needs to be different. They all need to be different from each other visually, tonally and whateverly.
A colony show would be cool as well. It can have a starship in orbit protecting the new colony.
professor spock, Discovery is the flagship show, picard show for now is the secondary show all be it lead by an iconic actor. I see the Picard show as a 2/3 season mini series. Discovery I can see running into 5/6 seasons
Way to go tell one of Alex Kurtzman’s best bud’s what the flagship show is right now Professor Spock!!
Star Trek used to have a kids show, it was all the prior series which were made with family viewing in mind. And they were all the better for it.
I’m open to seeing what the writers come up with, but I’m skeptical of the Great Time Jump Reset.
I tend to agree that the new show would have been better situated post-Nemesis from the beginning. However, the producers elected not to do that, and instead to make a prequel; the audience bought into that decision.
I think that decision was path-dependent. I don’t appreciate devoting time to this series — which, though not perfect, has been very good in season 1 and excellent in season 2 — and then being told “just kidding!”
Furthermore, this move doesn’t rid Star Trek of prequels. In fact, it makes the new PICARD series a prequel. Whatever Picard does is now history. So Discovery’s newfound creative freedom comes at PICARD’s expense.
Finally, this move risks doing into VOY territory (“one ship alone, trying to get home, no allies”). As I’ve observed before, one of the joys of successful Trek series (TOS/TNG/DS9, and I’d say ENT) is the recurring characters, and outside relationships. VOY had none of this. DISCO did, with great characters like L’Rell and Tyler, and now has inexplicably molted them.
Like I say, I’m open to the third season convincing me otherwise, and I will say this writers’ room is more likely to pull it off than VOY’s. We’ll see.
I have no problem with prequels I just want them to approach it like they did the set of the Enterprise from DSC season 2.
I think the way this is set up (with a TOS era ship (albeit top of the line with a piece of tech which may or may not work properly) and crew in a far future is great.
Had they set the show that far in the future from the get-go we run into problems with 29th Century Starfleet, which is so advanced they can easily time travel and seems to have mastered extra dimensional tech (Enterprise J), which just pushes the power level beyond ridiculous.
“Furthermore, this move doesn’t rid Star Trek of prequels. In fact, it makes the new PICARD series a prequel. Whatever Picard does is now history. So Discovery’s newfound creative freedom comes at PICARD’s expense.”
Possibly, although one way DSC could get around this is if the show depicts 33rd century records of the Picard show’s era as not necessarily matching actual historical events. Things being lost, forgotten or distorted over the centuries. We’d see the accurate version in the Picard show.
With their technology…it would be crazy for them to misplace historical records/ archives throughout the centuries.
The River Temarc, I just want to thank you because you just wrote the same exact opinion I have, in better prose than I could.
I mentioned you https://twitter.com/lucamauri/status/1121392924892250112
Though Picard WILL be a prequel to Disco3, neither show is ‘bound’ by cannon from the other, to the detriment of either. Because the same creative team is behind both, and there don’t be any canonical issues because of that. That’s like saying that the canon of DS9 & Voyager cake at the expense of TNG, which of course isn’t true.
If you don’t think that the teams from each new show coming out aren’t coordinating, you’re extremely naive.
And if/when we do get a Trek 4 or TarenTrekno they don’t necessarily have to mesh since they’re supposed to be in the JJverse.
It looks like they purposely isolated it from the other Trek series by stranding it 900 years in the future. How would that work to make it the hub?
It isn’t stranded. They made a decision to go ahead 950 years.
Good to see you, boborci. Yes, I agree DSC has the potential to get better. Brave, risky move to send Discovery into the future like that. I don’t think it’s going to be like VOY. Voyager, had to make it’s way back to the Alpha quadrant. Discovery needs to stay where she is. And besides, it seems the Writer’s Room has Burnham beating everybody back with a hoagie. As we know, a robust club sandwich fixes everything. And Bob? If this is yourself dropping a hint that you’re going to be involved in someway with these Treks? Welcome back…. Hopefully, we will see you in the Director’s chair a time or two. Also, I still think you were standing in the breach during production of the Kelvin films. Alex Kurtzman MIGHT be spreading himself a little thin with all these other shows. MAYBE, just MAYBE, you can stand in the breach, again, and executive produce the Captain Pike series? Let’s just forgive and forget that whole Star Trek:90210 outing that was aptly titled: Into Darkness…;-)
Bob, find your way back to making new Trek. We need all the Trek-fan producers we can get, especially if they are going to flood the market with new Trek!
I concur
Nice to see you dropping in again Bob Orci.
I didn’t see the 2nd or 3rd Kelvin movies. (More due to the reality of a young family than lack of interest.)
So I don’t know your work with Trek, or what your view is on what are the key things that make Trek, i.e. what are the common resonant elements that distinguish this franchise from others and defines its niche.
But I can say that I get a sense we’re in different places on this.
As much as I’ve given Discovery all the benefit of the doubt, the last half of season 2 has been a real disappointment. I’m curious to see where it goes, but am moderating my expectations.
I understand that the writers room and showrunner situation has been very difficult.
However , as much as Kurtzman could not continue to carry Discovery as showrunner alone, Michelle Paradise has not given me confidence that she’s ready to carry the ‘flagship of the franchise’.
And perhaps that’s putting too much on a new co-showrunner with no history of sci-fi writing.
I should also say that I think Kurtzman is really on the mark strategically in putting forward a menu of Trek offerings for different subniches.
I’m not totally convinced that he’s got all of the markets ideally worked out, particularly the kids, but he deserves a lot of credit for rethinking the model in this way.
And from that perspective, I’m not sure that any one show should bear the burden of being the flagship.
Watch Star Trek Into Darkness, TG47. Nothing more needs to be said.
Agreed. That is the absolute worst Star Trek movie ever made, by a margin! Even TFF and TMP are masterpieces in comparison. ST09 was ok, but didn’t really get the point of ST and some of the characters, where ITD was a mess. Beyond got a little better, but still not great (though it’s fair to say it couldn’t retcon everything, so it could only go so far)…
I don’t mind the time-jump concept, but I think they went too far forward. They should have aimed for about 100 years after The Next Generation, just as TNG was 100 years or so after The Original Series.
The problem, which I think the writers (again) don’t realize, is, that yes, they’re in the 33rd century now, but the Discovery and it’s crew still are from the 23rd and have only knowledge and understanding of the tech of it’s era (which is, because of all the mistakes made, already too far advanced for their supposed knowledge). So unless the Federation still exists or they find some friendly aliens patronizing them, they’d be absolutely stuck and outgunned, to name two problems…
It will get better if they hire better writers. I think they desperately need a seasoned science fiction writer and probably a technical adviser as well.
The cast has been fabulous, and the costume designer, set designer, special effects crew, and other creatives have been wonderful. But it all depends on the writing, and so far the writing has been barely adequate.
hi boborci – you think Quentins Trek movie will happen after he done with OUATIH? maybe Shatner will be in it..
Discovery should have done this a long time ago. It was good in the 23rd Century TOS era but I’m happy to see it go into the future. Back to the future! Pike will be missed. Explore new worlds and new possibilities.
They won’t be exploring anything, methinks. It’ll be another season-long mystery box of doo-doo.
At first, just figuring out what the 32nd/33rd century is like will be a process of exploration…
But I hope they get off the ship more and see what civilizations are like.
For a series with a very large production budget, there has been very little time on planets, and when they have been it has always been brief and in service of the larger seasonal story arc.
Terralysium, Qonos, Talos IV, Boreth all left me wanting to see more.
I’m SO excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Finally, going forward in a big way! I think this basically Discovery rebooting itself! I really wish they did this in first season but it will probably be more interesting since its now a fish out of water story.
It’s fun to be super excited about Star Trek again! :)
Tiger2 I agree. Discovery is starting to have an identity now. Season one and two was a step to something greater than that. Season 3 is when it really takes off and never stops.
This is just something I never saw happening and its more exciting because its such a big surprise. Although I’m still super excited about Picard, in a crazy way I’m even more excited about Discovery now (for the moment). Its going to put Star Trek on a completely different level for years to come.
I’m just happy they finally are understanding Star Trek should be more than trying to fill us in how the Klingons got cloaking technology or how Kirk first met Spock and doing something thats actually bold and new.
I agree. I am so looking forward to season 3.
In the 33rd century they finally can:
– Introduce whatever fantasy magic technology they can dream up while caring squat about its scientific plausability!
– Wildly contradict established canon and design lineages!
– Use technology from later Trek shows!
– Redesign familiar alien species to make them look more “cool”!
Oh wait….
At least they can do anything they want in the 33rd century without violating canon. You are right about the science part and the new technology. Starfleet doesn’t know the truth about what happened to Discovery. They lied to protect the future course of history. Perfect sense.
“At least they can do anything they want in the 33rd century without violating canon”
Not exactly true. You can mess up the canon from both sides of the timeline. And I’m sure they will, they couldn’t even keep their own stories/tech consistent.
Right. That’s about the only constant in that mess of a series: they’re destined and guaranteed to mess it up somehow.
-Like teleportation, mind melding, time travel by going around the sun, all of those… completely real science we have right now.
-design is not canon, it’s design, and I’ll be damned is the future looks like a set from the 1960s. Story is canon, and that part they got pretty well in hand.
– Show me where current technology hurt you so. “but but holograms” they had holograms in ENT, you seriously think that tech we have today was not going to be used just because the people in the 1960s couldn’t imagine it? They couldn’t imagine a computer that didn’t use reel to reel tapes.
-You got me, they actually look cool, Klingons too.
Not only is it not canon, it’s artistic expression. It’s one thing to like Constitution or D7 class ships, but none of them would ever in a million years actually work.
“Not only is it not canon, it’s artistic expression.”
You also call burger chains haute cuisine? :P
Hauted it! (just kidding,that was snappy.)
Reel to reel? In the 1960s, TOS writers imagined data modules and slot ports and an interacting speaking computer.
I’m a little worried about this 930 year leap. By then, won’t citizens just be beaming from planet to planet, or using gateways like the Iconians, or some other super-technology? Why would they need starships at all by then? Wouldn’t communications and sensors be bio implants (700 years more advanced than Geordi’s VISOR) and everyone has one? Would everyone be able to transfer their consciousness into a “Data” android body like Ira Graves, and therefore achieve immortality? It seems to me dramatic possibilities will be limited in this new far future.
Unless they make it a bleak future where the Federation is gone, Earth has been wiped out, etc. But that’s not Star Trek to me.
I think all those new technologies increase the opportunities for drama. The best part of science fiction is seeing how we change/react when new technologies/options/standards are created. And it will be especially interesting to see how the crew reacts to all the changes and differences.
As for those saying that this makes the Picard show a prequel, or that Discovery will still have issues aligning with Picard canon, that doesn’t really hold water. However important Picard has been or will be, or how important late 24th century events (The Dominion War) are in their own time, they won’t be that important 800 years dwn the line (relatively). How often is something like Marco Polo’s travels to Asia mentioned in day-to-day life in the 21st century? How often are the exact details of the history directly mentioned today? Discovery will have no problem avoiding mentioning any 24th century events as those will be so out of scope in the 33rd century.
I had similar concerns but there is an easy way for the writers to avoid that. If there was a catastrophic war in our galaxy engulfing all the known characters, we could have situation that has set the entire galaxy hundreds of years back.
It will still be a 23rd century ship. I’m not a fan of the “no talking rule”…there has to be conspiracy theorists in the late 23rd and 24th centuries talking about Discovery.
I have faith in these writers. They made an interesting season 1 then blew it away in season 2. Perhaps a dystopian universe where they rediscover Q? XD I mean St. Michael-the red-angelo needs to find her mummy, so there’s that. I really wonder how they’ll wrap that up the most. Maybe Q can be season 4. XD
” I mean St. Michael-the red-angelo needs to find her mummy”
Oh right! I already forgot about that. Must be all those flashy explosions! So if season 2 was the Search for Spock, season 3 will be the Search for Mom? The mote things change the more they stay the same I guess ;)
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. I’m looking forward to the possibilities for Season 3.
Maybe they’ll really get into the soul of GR next year, exploring Infinite Perversity in Infinite Combinations. That would have gotten him to spin in a different way in his grave (if he had had a traditional burial that is.)
There are still many discoveries to be made in the 23rd century. Star Trek doesn’t need to go 1000 years into the future to tell new stories and boldly go, unless you hate the original concept of Star Trek. Seems like the show runners hate the entire concept of Star Trek and want to completely toss anything that came before In to the trash to try and appeal to people that never liked it to begin with.
I want a Pike or Kirk series on the new reimagined Enterprise and won’t be supporting anything else until that happens.
There is still the Section 31 show. It sounds like that will stay in the 23rd century and Georgiou will find her way back somehow if the entire crew doesn’t come back.
Either way the 23rd century is not going anyway. It sounds like it will be on the back burner for a few years but more will be coming. As someone who don’t like prequels I didn’t have anything against a show in the 23rd century I just didn’t want that to be all there is about Star Trek when they have done so much more than that in the past. And we’ve had the 23rd century literally for a full decade now with both the Kelvin movies and two seasons of Discovery. Its now time to, sorry, discover something new for awhile.
But now that I definitely know we are getting post Nemesis shows and story lines I’m more than fine to see other shows back in that era and even during the 22nd century, which there is also more to mime there, mostly the Romulan war.
The kelvin movies didn’t explore anything and one of them was an awful remake of TWoK. So they really don’t count. And they spent so much care getting the uniforms and actors right for the roles, but then turned the Enterprise into an unrecognizable brewery in space.
Unless the section 31 show is on the Enterprise, seeking out new life and new civilizations, then I am not interested. It will be just another quasi-trek show. The only thing Star Trek about it will be phasers, warp drive, and transporters.
Well yes they definitely squandered the Kelvin films in that sense but they still took place there regardless. But its why I don’t really miss them either.
Michelle Yeoh did say in a recent interview the Section 31 show will actually be exploring and visiting planets, but my guess mostly to just create coups lol. But maybe there will be some exploration component to it. After seeing what they did with them this season I’m not holding my breath but you never know.
If s31 is really just a M:I coup-of-the-week show, it may be the first true post-2016 genre series. That would be sad, Sad, SAD! (I can’t even use that word anymore without being forced to think of T-Rump.) We can only hope that will date the show in the worst possible way rather than darkening the path for future series.
I guess the right way to get Hitler back to century 23 is to look at old LOST IN SPACE eps. I seem to remember that there were a few times when Dr. Smith was about to get a free ride home in exchange for betraying the Robinsons, but that somehow we still always wound up back with the status quo — just take one of those trope stories and give it a new spin, that the bad person gets away (and in so doing, probably strands them there more irreversibly.)
kmart, or maybe she will use a time travel enabled version of Captain Ransom’s distinguished drive, powered by hapless aliens. Of course for Space Hitler, it gotta be the RIGHT aliens (let’s call it a “Kelpien Displacement Drive”) so Madame Mussolini can travel back “in style” ;)
My money is on Georgiou being a genetic relative of Mama Burnham, with the same mitocondrial DNA.
She’ll take the timesuit back for Michael and make the last red signal, then hop to the Federation in the 23rd century to continue her revenge on Leland.
Well, this way they get to cash in on the franchise branding without honoring the work of the predecessors who built that brand. A win-win in their book.
That’s what it appears to be, Kevin Lee. Use the name and toss the rest.
Well, you’re all antiques 930 years in the future.
Actually I wonder if the Discovery’s spore drive could prove something new to the residents of the future.
Who cares? The writers will stuff it up anyways, there will be 33rd century gaps of logic in their story telling! Even though they’re released from the constraints of canon it does not mean that the creatives and writers are just miraculously going to start writing good-Trek science-fiction – they haven’t so far. Ho hum.
Will the season 3 writers be the same writers that gave Nhan the cringeworthy line “Yum Yum” in the season 2 finale?
Man, I forgot about that. That was awful.
“Will the season 3 writers be the same writers that gave Nhan the cringeworthy line “Yum Yum” in the season 2 finale?”
I’m afraid that episode, choke full of DUMB dialogue, was written by the new showrunner *cry*
It seems to me the accolades after her first episode were definitely premature…
Yeah that line was really bad lol. Either it was poorly written or poorly acted but my guess is probably both.
It’s not just that line, Tiger. That entire revenge and hate binge of Space Hitler, which (prime!) Nhan inexplicably joined, was so crassly anti-Trek that I can only laugh about the promise that she is becoming “more friendly” for the S31 series. In what universe exactly?
Leland is no different from Locutus, a victim. Imagine instead of trying their everything to turn Locutus back into Picard, the crew of the Enterprise would have reveled in having him scream in pain and essentially torture him to death! I don’t even want to begin to think about the message these dim-wits are sending with such a barbarian characterization. So funny this is the same people who must always signal their civilizational moral superiority in every other interview…
“Who cares? The writers will stuff it up anyways, there will be 33rd century gaps of logic in their story telling!”
Agreed. No matter WHERE they go, no matter WHEN they go, they (and we) can’t escape bad writing!
One can but hope that the writers will actually make use of the new possibilities presented to them. Just imagine what sort of bummer it would be if, at the start of Season 3, all that happens is that Discovery emerges from the wormhole in the far future only to find itself amidst a great big war against a great big foe that strives to oppress or extinguish all sentient life and maybe holds a personal grudge against Michael Burnham for things she did 950 years ago etc. etc.
If the stakes are always at an absolute maximum, there may as well be no stakes at all…
Will they be squeezing in a planet of the week, or is exploration completely an old Trek thing that is too boring to write anymore? Boldly going from one universe ending drama to the next.
They will certainly need more episodes like New Eden, for it to feel like they are a Star Trek show.
Ahh, New Eden… that was one fine episode. Maybe the best of S2 in hindsight, but that’s just my personal opinion. Still, it was basically the one episode that felt like they were taking the stated premise of S2 seriously while at the same time delivering on the promise that they would explore secondary characters a bit more! Well, Owosekun was with the landing party for no real reason, but it still felt like they were at least trying.
“If the stakes are always at an absolute maximum, there may as well be no stakes at all…”
Too right JAGT, and prescient it seems…
Kurtzman has already stated that “They will have bigger problems when they get there.”
Bigger problems than having the future of all sentient life in the galaxy resting on Burnham?
I guess the whole manifold of all universes could be at stake…
Everything with this show has to be “BIGGER!!!!” That’s all the writers know how to do. “Make it BIGGER!” Lame-o.
That’s no surprise, blackmocco. The kelvin movies suffered from that same exact problem.
At least they were just big, dumb movies. I know that’s a pretty sad excuse but I get why they felt that way for something to be seen in a movie theater. Figured with a new TV show they’d focus on some stuff that might matter more: characters, scripts, good ideas, etc.
Watching that video, its obvious even the actors are really excited about the possibilities. I’m sure it was fun to do stuff like meet Spock and be on the Enterprise but that actually overshadowed their own show in a way. I think they feel being in the 23rd century really limited what they could do and its probably more fun knowing they are going to put their own stamp on a completely new century just like Enterprise and TNG did for their shows and not just a constant comparison (or lack of ;)) to everything TOS. Now this will be their own thing.
I have a feeling the Picard series will lead in to Discovery season 3 now. Picard series will be something to do with the fall / break up of the Federation at the end of 24th century. (maybe they were taken over from the inside by S31?) Section 31 possibly engineered the Romulan supernova (maybe that’s why Nero blamed Spock?) and Picard leaves starfleet in disgust. Fast forward a few hundred years to DSC arrival 930 years later and Federation is a bloated corrupt empire. DSC is forced to show everyone what the federation should stand for and the season ends with the Federation being reborn. Random thoughts…
The 29th century starship USS Relativity was a Federation starship operated by Starfleet. Nothing on Voyager suggested the Federation was in decline or the verge of collapse. Whatever Kurtzman has planned to destroy what came before, would have to happen after the 29th century. Possibly the 31st century and the effects of the temporal Cold War.
Speaking of the starship Relativity, they should send Georgiou to the 29th century and make her a temporal agent. That would be far more interesting than a Section 31 show.
So if i am correct, Control newer evolved and was destroyed. discovery jumped to the future in the Beta Quadrant. Life in the galaxy is flourishing normal as if nothing happened. Time travel should be quite common ( i think the relativity was from the 29th century) and distances like 50k light years should be peanuts, so Discover could really easily return to the Alpha Quadrant. Hey, even the people on Elysium might be a warp capable culture when Discovery arrives, Pike gave them the energy and i think the spark for technological evolution.
Discovery is getting better but the problem for me now is these scenes we see where we get big speeches about what they all mean to each other. They don’t make any sense as we have few everyday moments of bonding before hand, and these are vital if those attempts at the deep touchy feely stuff are going to stack up for the audience and seem plausible and interesting
When Pike said they were his ‘family’ that seem like such an odd thing to say. How long was he even on Discovery? I still have no idea how much time was suppose to pass between the first and last episode of the season but I’m guessing a few weeks? Its not a huge deal but it does go to what you said and this really ham fisted way they are trying to prove everyone is a big family and love each other, like how we found out (literally in that episode) that Tilly and Ariam were these great friends which I don’t think we saw them hanging out or exchanging dialogue with other once in 20 episodes outside of relying some ship directive or information on the bridge. Now they are hanging out in each others rooms and talking about their deepest darkest secrets for the first time before they killed her off in the same episode.
As you said, the show HAS gotten better, there is no way you can doubt that even if you still think its pretty bad but there are definitely still issues with it and I think part of it is just being so serialized and trying to do waaaaaaay too much with just 14 episodes. And it was suppose to be just 13 this season but they had so much going on they literally needed another episode to fit it all in which REALLY tells you of either poor planning or creating too much plot.
And because its so much about all the nutty twists and 13 story lines happening there is no time to see the crew just being people on board a ship being themselves. That was the thing about the other Star Trek shows, they could actually have episodes of people JUST hanging out or build B plot stories of the characters actually having a life, being friends with others, doing stuff together, etc. That stuff matters because it builds real characters. And they had 25 episodes to do it in. But on Discovery its go, go, go, go and so when they do try and slow down to show them ‘bonding’ it feels a bit flat and very forced.
Tig,
I think it is a matter of striking a balance between character and plot. TOS managed to ‘braid’ character stuff into a-plots so that you didn’t really have a b-story but you had material that added complexity to things (IMMUNITY SYNDROME is a good example, all the Spock-McCoy stuff is awesome in that massively overlooked episode.)
By comparison, the original draft of BY ANY OTHER NAME was apparently ALL brooding character rumination over their expected fate, very melancholy, and enough to get Jerome Bixby cut off from the assignment, which DC then livened up with the booze stuff and the sex stuff. I’ve always wanted to read Bixby’s draft, but also acknowledge that it was certainly too much of a departure.
On this series, they might have a melancholy arc or sub-theme running through seemingly unrelated stand-alone stories and use that to tie the season together, which would be a way of adding some depth and interest instead of just more lens glare (and I’m using that word deliberately, to differentiate from lens flares that were used sporadically and beautifully in the olden days.)
All of this is assuming they even have folks capable of writing this stuff AND that it would survive the inevitable rewrites.
You make some great points Kmart, but to be fair TOS really only juggled the three main characters and they had ample of episodes to present them how they wanted. Its a big difference than all the other shows which were true ensembles and so all the characters got a lot of development or equal time. Sure some didn’t get as much a others but they most got quite a few individual story episodes. There was never a Sulu or Scotty episode the way you got a Data or Worf one on TNG.
And of course all those shows were episodic so it was just a lot easier for someone to decide to do a romance episode or a buddy caper like when Bashir and Garack decided to play James Bond on the holodeck or when Sisko and Jake spent an episode trying to get a Bajoran ship to go warp speed and so on. Thats the thing they weren’t always just B stories, there are tons of Trek episodes like those that are A stories too. Nog and Jake trying to buy Sisko a baseball card is just FUN and you really see the chemistry with those two because we been watching them actually bond and be friends for years now. It didn’t feel forced like Tilly suddenly being besties with Ariam out of nowhere.
And All the whining over the holodeck episodes fans hated were usually just two characters doing something fun together like Kim and Paris or Data and Geordi. You can’t just do something like that on DIS because when you are at constant war or all sentient life is expected to perish 8 episodes from now. You can’t have a side story episode of Tilly and Burnham taking a casual trip to Risa together or the gang playing a basketball game against some Andorians.
Its all nothing but business, which is fine, but don’t pretend they are this tight knit group when you never show it for more than two minutes in an episode.
Wow speak of the devil this video touched up exactly what we are talking about and hit the point solidly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlgOg7qekqE
He said it, just feels pretty unearned in so much of Discovery. These characters having these big melodramatic scenes and yet we barely see them anymore than 5 mins together.
And what happened to my post??? I replied with a response and it looks like its gone. Hopefully it will show up again. Frustrating when you spend so much time writing something and its gone.
I think they just need to have more tight and focused stories. Instead of having two-thousands plots going on at the same, have at most one main plot and several b-plots and then you can stretch those plots for 13 episodes much easily and with much more character moments.
You’ve summed it up in a nutshell.
“I can breathe now because we don’t have to worry about rules and regulations. Now we can create without consequences…The slate is clean, the chalk is in hand, anything can happen.”
Lol, do you all realize no one forced you to make it a tos prequel? Why not make it a sequel from the start instead of having to end season two in such a way that makes the first seasons useless?
They are admitting they had painted themselves into a corner after years of preaching so much about how being a prequel of tos validated them…
I never considered them to be painted into a corner since I viewed the show as a modern reboot of the franchise. As exciting as it was for them to bring in Pike and the Enterprise, it also gave me the feeling that they weren’t getting the number of viewers they had hoped for from All Access or Netflix and that is why they decided to scrap everything that happened in season 1 and use season 2 to set up a reboot for season 3. I’m really curious to see if people that weren’t watching will somehow decide to start watching.
I too always thought it was a reboot and it’s au. However, cast and crew insisted it’s a prequel of tos and does make sense with canon so..
I agree with this too and been saying that since season 1 I don’t think the numbers are anywhere close to what they hoped. Even after ALL the hype over DIS and the first Trek show in a decade and it still got a little less than 10 million people on its premiere when it was airing on CBS for free seemed pretty soft. I mean decent, but for a STAR TREK show and the first one on in so long it kind of told me the excitement was not there as much as hoped. Compare it to Enterprise which was the fourth STRAIGHT Trek show on in 14 years and people were starting to complain about fatigue and even that show got 12 million when it debut.
There is just something ‘off’ I can’t place my finger on. On one hand DIS seems to be successful enough because it at least been renewed twice and it must have been successful enough to convince CBS to add 12 more Trek shows on AA to make it the big hit they are hoping for. But then on the other hand it doesn’t seem to have any big following outside of hardcore Trek circles. You will find tons of articles about it on Youtube for reviews and criticism, and I did see a lot of discussion on sci fi sites about all the mysteries, Spock/Pike, Borg theories and so on, so its talked about in cult circles for sure. But its not really talked about like actual big hit shows are mainstream wise. I go to work and everyone is talking about GOT now of course, something new on Netflix, but I never hear anyone discuss Discovery. And there are Trek people at work because you see Star Trek mugs, T-shirts, etc but nothing DIS related.
There are still people out there who doesn’t know a new Star Trek show is on two years later. And thats probably because there is barely ANY real marketing for it other than trailers on Youtube. I saw ONE actual promotion for it on TV for season 2. One. And lets face it, Pike and Spock felt like a desperate move to have them on for so long. But I guess you can argue if that is literally the one only time they could do it its to take as much advantage as possible if DIS really isn’t never coming back.
Before people shout at me, I think its successful, obviously, I just don’t think it reached their expectations and they are probably seeing drop off rates that are a little alarming. Third season will be basically another reboot for the show since you can argue season 2 was one in itself. That’s why I couldn’t even believe they were now jumping into the future after spending season 2 as more of a quasi TOS show. I thought they were going to go even harder with it next season. I’m happy to be proven wrong on that at least. ;)
The show was marketed pretty heavily here in Los Angeles with billboard posters everywhere, particularly for season 2, but yeah, no-one outside of the Trek fandom – and even then – is really watching it, as far as I can tell. The CBS AA thing is really off-putting for people, I think.
I’m from L.A. too and you’re right and they did have some billboards for season 2, I just forgot about all of that. I still think more lack of traditional marketing on TV where promos just show up weekly and yes being on a site no one seems to be pining for are the two biggest issues. I do suspect its doing better on Netflix abroad but we know Star Trek biggest market is still mostly here in America. If it was on Netflix here it would definitely be getting a lot more attention at least.
I’m guessing a giant planet in the shape of Leland’s head will greet Discovery as soon as it exits the wormhole. “You Lost.”
You see I was thinking that they immediately land on a planet that worships the Spore Drive, like the second Planet of the Apes films and… they blow up the universe.
That’s okay, they can then claim they blew up the mirror universe instead of ours. Always a cop-out way in lame science fiction!
They can reimagine the Borg, just as they always wanted!
Not that I want to hate, but this hype, here, now – and it’s delivery – borders on SNL satire. People like me have spent 50 years as fans of Trek and wrote short stories as fans and wondered about other Kirk-era ships lives and planets. To have had the freedom to create 10 years pre-Kirk? Without Pike and Spock – to have, at the least- 11 other Constitution ships to use? Unseen planets and a few we know? And a budget? That would have been a dream. FU to Moonvies who I am sure is the one who exerted the pressure to walk away from this so producers could give him multiple NCIS-like products. Which is what a I predicted might happen in this site when the series was announced. Does anyone remember they wanted a Trek SWAT team in space? That we (here) are arguing about this and not the quality of the amazing stories and characters is actually rather brain numbing.
Trek in a Cafe I agree that the hype is backfiring : at least for me.
Yes, the showrunners and cast have a role in selling the show and maintaining interest given modern seasons are basically 1/4 of a year.
Not to mention that in the current social media environment some of the cast are influences in their own right.
BUT when the media lines and messaging that have been prepared seem so oblivious to the deep trust issues in the fan base, it just encourages more scepticism.
Frankly, the cast don’t deserve our cynicism. They are as a company among the strongest casts ever in Trek, and like the production folks, have been pretty heroic in compensating for the apparent and reported dysfunctional the writers room.
Well Trek in a Cafe, were you at least happy with the Spock stuff and how this version of Spock tied into TOS version? I remember you saying that was one of the things you were excited to see, to understand why Spock seemed different in The Cage. I honestly didn’t care, BUT, I will say what they did was fine. I didn’t hate it for sure, I still don’t think it was necessary either though.
And I didn’t want it to be another Kelvin issue with so many people slagging off that Spock I thought Peck was going to be scrutinized to death since he’s playing the ‘real’ Spock but it looks like I was wrong after all. There was some criticism but people seem to really like him and now want him on the Pike show everyone now imagines will start shooting by September.
I really thought it was going to be endless moaning and how Peck doesn’t do ‘so and so’ like Nimoy did it but very little of that happened, especially here. I assumed people were going to be brutal over him on this site lol.
The actors are excellent. SMG did amazing things with the writing which must have been very difficult as her story changed her character so much – and quickly. I imagined sometimes she read the scripts and took a moment and told herself, “Today I have to do my best.” And she did.
Mount, Peck, the full cast, I have no problem with any of the actors. Whatever confusing, vague and unfinished narrative threads we weaved through, I saw and felt the writers and handled Spock in an amazing way. Yes to all that. I am even saying this season is better, and less about solving problems with violence. I received some pleasure!
But the whole concept I wanted to see– a TOS-era Starfleet show – is exactly what we didn’t get to see. I can’t say it’s Fuller’s fault or anyone thereafter. What I am saying is it came from CBS directly from an executive who has since been removed under duress. Moonves put in place a process of creation which determined that we would NEVER see a Star Trek series that actually had Star Trek problems solved in a Trekkian way. Let’s even think about this: over two seasons – outside of the soap opera – what characters did we meet for even one episode that are memorable? Help me. I can’t think of any. Not a single one. They Star Trekked and met no one! All the problems were solved by… effects or looking inward.
My complaints are that I wanted to see a grown up adult science fiction show set in the TOS- era that took the rules of the time period seriously. Everything in this video says the actors are being forced to ape what the producers want them to say about the rules of TOS, and what they want them to say is absolutely irritating.
Interesting Trek in a Cafe …
I had never really thought as the former CEO of CBS as having laid out those kinds of parameters for Discovery.
Appealing to a modern target demographic for a streaming service yes.
But dictating no visits to planets, not so much.
After all, we have been told that the one planetary away mission in the first season was an episode dictated by CBS corporate.
Tamara Deverell has said that the writers had been told by the Network get an episode on a planet. At which point, Deverell was hunting up a location on short notice and proposing it to the writers… literally days later.
“EVERYTHING IS FINE! WE’RE EXCITED! AREN’T YOU EXCITED?!”
I bet they all went drinking after having to film this nonsense.
It is not like canon really restricted them before. They disregarded it all the time in the past. So not breaking canon is a lame excuse for overall really subpar storytelling so far.
There’s the Temporal Cold War from the 31st century. Daniels, right? (Enterprise)
No-one else received the CBSAA survey to fill out…?
Nope. What kind of questions were they asking?
“Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?”
“Who is Spain?”
“Why is Hitler?”
“Which popular science fiction stories have recently fallen into public domain?”
BTW, that is CATCH-22 humor, I figured a tie-in joke for the Hulu series would at least be timely. (it kind of went THUD, so here i am making it worse trying to explain the gag.)
I spoke about it at length at the end of the “SNM talks season 3” post but reckon no-one saw it. It’s basically focus group questioning, although with a critical bent: that is, it didn’t ask me what I liked about Discovery, it only asked me what I didn’t like about Discovery. Pics of the cast – who do you like best and why? – and generally asking me if I was happy with the show. I’d assumed more people on here would have received it.
As I stated in the other post, my feeling is there’s been quite a bit of negative buzz regarding the finale and the execs are trying to figure out what needs to change.
https://cbs.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5gKIXEhgQCG8l3n?et_cid=80173&et_rid=71063979
Do you mean this one? Found the link on another site. You can pick your favorite DIS character and also explain what you like about her or him. Write what you didn’t like about the series. Things like that. They also ask where you get your Star Trek information from and Trekmovie is one option you can choose there.
That’s the one.
Season 1: shrooms
Season 2: crystals
Season 3: pyramid power? aligning chakras?
The second season started out strong. Unfortunately in the end the Discovery flew through giant black plotholes and plenty of them. Also they have to check that Star Trek doesn’t need to look like GOT or Star Wars or Marvel but like Star Trek. I guess that is rather the fault of the people sitting on the budgets than that of the creators. Idiots in the marketing screw up a lot usually. “Err GOT is successful so lets make the Klingons look like Orks!” So now they are going into the future which is what Star Trek fans wanted anyway instead of prequels that don’t fit and endless re-boots. So why not start the series there in the first place? It seems the series still suffers from it’s f…ed up beginning.
As much as I’ve wanted to see ST move into post Nemesis territory, I am worried that next season will be some dark dystopian future where the Federation is evil or has collapsed. I’d really hate to see that but I am fairly sure that’s the direction they will go.
I’m also concerned that while they’ve freed themselves from canon to some degree, the visual reboot will cause serious problems with portraying technology 1000 years more advanced than Discovery’s already magic-level technology. ST has always used technology marvels to solve problems but Discovery has been way more over the top with it’s magical solutions to everything.
I’ve enjoyed the first two seasons and will continue to watch, but I do think the writers miss the mark an awful lot and don’t seem to get it in a lot of ways. It’s a visually stunning show but they’ve painted themselves into so many corners story wise that it’s next to impossible to write something that makes any kind of sense in this universe.
Bryan, I was thinking about this and to me – unless they do their usual handwaving away of reality (which admittedly is a strong possibility) – the only way Discovery would stay together as a crew, ship and continue on missions upon arrival in the 33rd century is if the Federation and Starfleet is NOT their home base anymore, because otherwise their should be some “integration measures” for the crew on some Starbase etc., and why would a Superfederation keep a millenniun old antique flying around when, as someone said, by all means starships per se could be obsolete by then! So logic dictates that a continuing Discovery mission in season 3 means they are on their own. Granted, this series has been all about emotion and not logic, and proud of it even, so that is the wildcard here.
I also expect a dystopian future. DIS is so obsessed with being “dark and gritty”, I just don’t see a positive future awaiting them. My bet is the Federation doesn’t exist anymore and humans are actually less advanced overall than they were in the 23th century. So there won’t be super advanced tech everywhere. I suspect they just copy the premise of the series Andromeda and the Discovery is the strongest human ship around.
They may also go “Lost in Space” meets “Guardians.”
How about they just leave Discovery 930 years in the future where no one can see them?
Same writers……..
They’ve done great so far. Never seen my friends so excited for Trek.
It’s good to hear that it’s brought new people in.
In my case, my spouse signed off watching after the red angel.
…and we are speaking of a fan since childhood.
I hope that CBSAA and it’s international partners have really high quality public opinion / marketing research firms working on finding out on balance who is been drawn in and who is being turned off.
I finally get it now. Micheal going thru the wormhole is analogy for Alice going down the bunny hole.
Discovery….I hope doesn’t have an easy time in the 33rd century. After all…it will be a ship and crew out of time. If the federation still exist…how will they feel about these time hoppers ?
Will we get to see 33rd century Enterprise ? Will They be a 1701-AA.
At some point the USS Enterprise will run out of letters in the alphabet. So I guess they could always do AA, BB…ect I guess the sky is the limit.
Would be cool to run into decendents of TNG crew.