Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Compel wrote:
The 2 key points people bring up for the whole "Dark and edgy" morally compromised DS9 are typically.

I think you can go further than that really. I bring up In the Pale Moon Light and For the Uniform because the main characters didn't just win by sticking to the higher principles of the Federation. In the Pale Moonlight in particular because if Sisko hadn't broken from principle to do something really nefarious and ultimately more than a little evil, the war might not have been won. Setting aside plot armor, they were not winning before the opening of the Romulan Front. In stark contrast to TNG, DS9 went out of its way to present the unworkability and the challenge of the supposed ideals of the Federation. Starfleet started building warships in DS9. Section 31 was like the space CIA with the clandestine nefariousness turned up to 11. Numerous episodes dealt with the horrors of war (The Ship, and The Seige of AR-558 to name two that I know the titles of). The show went out of its way not only to explore non-Federation cultures more deeply, but to juxtapose those cultures against the Federation, particularly the Ferengi and the Dominion.

Deep Space Nine wasn't just "darker," it was internally critical of itself. if anything the fundamental content of DS9 was the same we got in TNG, but the main characters actually had to live with consequence because they weren't traveling everywhere and leaving last week's problems forgotten. Its easy to be a saint in paradise (hehe) perhaps, but it's a lot harder to be a saint when you can't just warp speed away from the problem of the week. Enterprise and Voyager had their dark moments too to be fair, but I don't think any series in the franchise really stands up to DS9 for having a rather concise persistence across episodes and seasons at treating itself and its compatriot series' critically.

Thought the first two episodes were very watchable.

Great production values, some good characters (loved Saru, and what was with the Daft Punk guy?!), and definitely felt 'Star Trek', and a humanity in the future, rather than the current-day humanity in space (which, for me, was one of the areas that Enterprise missed the mark)

I liked the time spent focusing on the antagonists - in fact, I was surprised by how much depth they had managed to add to them in just a couple of episodes. They are definitely much more impressive as a concept now, than the later ST series definitions that used to just club each over the head with rocks. Actually pretty scary.

Some nice twists, shocks, neat ideas while having a few homages to the old series (the communicators etc.)
I'm not ready to proclaim it as the next TNG, but think it's definitely done enough for me to watch a few more episodes and see where it goes.

 Thargrim wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Thargrim wrote:
It gives me slight hope due to it have 15 episodes,

How many have been filmed?

Just because a season is scheduled for 15, doesn't mean it gets there. A lot of things get cancelled after only a few episodes.

Not sure, I haven't really cared enough to do any further research.

Okay, at the risk of having my Starfleet uniforms taken from me due to ignorance, who is that Vulcan in your Avatar?

 Just Tony wrote:

 Thargrim wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Thargrim wrote:
It gives me slight hope due to it have 15 episodes,

How many have been filmed?

Just because a season is scheduled for 15, doesn't mean it gets there. A lot of things get cancelled after only a few episodes.

Not sure, I haven't really cared enough to do any further research.

Okay, at the risk of having my Starfleet uniforms taken from me due to ignorance, who is that Vulcan in your Avatar?

Lol not surprised you didn't recognize, it's Luv from Blade Runner 2049 not a vulcan similar hair though I suppose.

 Thargrim wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

 Thargrim wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Thargrim wrote:
It gives me slight hope due to it have 15 episodes,

How many have been filmed?

Just because a season is scheduled for 15, doesn't mean it gets there. A lot of things get cancelled after only a few episodes.

Not sure, I haven't really cared enough to do any further research.

Okay, at the risk of having my Starfleet uniforms taken from me due to ignorance, who is that Vulcan in your Avatar?

Lol not surprised you didn't recognize, it's Luv from Blade Runner 2049 not a vulcan similar hair though I suppose.

Obviously a Romulan infliltrator

 Compel wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

DS9 was absolutely superb, and did indeed go to some very, very dark places by Trek standards. Remember the episodes set on the front lines? Remember that the Federation doesn't exactly do solidering, but committed to the war all the same?

I wrote a long post about this at work during my lunch break. Not to want to write the whole thing again, I'll give the cliffnotes version.

The 2 key points people bring up for the whole "Dark and edgy" morally compromised DS9 are typically.

For The Uniform.
And
In The Pale Moonlight.

Now, I've not seen Discovery yet but I can talk about the morality of those two episodes.

Pretty much this. There's a difference between building up characters, making them relatable before examining how they start to crack under the pressures of a war for survival....and having the cast be jerks right from the start because this ain't your dad's Trek, you know? You can't deconstruct characters or settings before you've made the effort of actually constructing them, or the darkness just feels shallow.

So if no one has seen the Klingons in 100 years, how did the main character lose her family? Humans interacted with Klingons back in Enterprise. They would have established policies.

 Frazzled wrote:
So if no one has seen the Klingons in 100 years, how did the main character lose her family? Humans interacted with Klingons back in Enterprise. They would have established policies.

I guess they just bombarded them from space and no one who saw them up close lived to tell the tale. As for Enterprise I think this is about 100 years after that.

Well I saw the first two (they're on Netflix outside the US if no one mentioned that) and liked them. Really just 2 quibbles:

1 - Who though having several 10 minute scenes in Klingon was a good idea? No really. Especially on a show that's seen on streaming, watching on a screens that vary from a magazine to an envelope in size and you're want us to read subtitles? It's not like the Starfleet crew is speaking 21st C English so why not translate the Klingon?

FEH!

I once tossed a Star Trek book across the room because the first scene was half in Romulan.

2 - Why oh why are we doing the 3rd prequel in a row? Just draw line under TOS and TNG and move to the 24st century. Other than a few lines there's nothing here that requires it to be a prequel.

But overall good episodes, good characters, good show.

I'll be back.

I liked how everyone's reinforcements were equidistant away. Like they call for help from people scattered across the system and when they show up they all show up at the same time. No trickling in, just bam, we's all here now. With the exception of one slacker that is.

 AduroT wrote:
I liked how everyone's reinforcements were equidistant away. Like they call for help from people scattered across the system and when they show up they all show up at the same time. No trickling in, just bam, we's all here now. With the exception of one slacker that is.

I was nice for once to see that the Enter-I mean Disc- I mean um Shenzhou was that it? Is not the only ship in space. And that Star Fleet has well, a fleet.

But yeah, clearly plot-driven warp engines.

I kind of didnt like the change to the Klingons way if treating the dead - there was a few TNG and DS9 episodes that showed that the Klingons view their dead as empty shells, and other than shouting to warn Sto'vo'kor of the coming of a warrior, there isnt really much to do with them.

Of course, this sect seems like an ultra religious sect of the Empire, so who knows?

Is this supposed to be an AU universe where the Klingons dont get infected to look more Human? Or are they just skating right over that.

Of course, Star Trek space battles are good, and the fact that they are showing more people getting Spaced (an awful way to go) makes combat in the future that bit more grim. Before, battles in Trek were comparitively clean, nice and orderly with the whole ship blowing up and noone being sucked out into space.

I also kind of like the reversal of the Kirk/Spock dynamic, with the Human being the more calm, measured one and the Vulcan the more impulsive, playing off the cuff one. Its a pity they killed off the Captain right off the bat, they could have done more with it. Though how they write themselves out of the hole they dug with the main character being stripped of rank and imprisoned will probably be a bad piece of writing.

Im betting on a time skip and a 'well, we need all the officers we can get on the front line, so heres your old crew and aged ship, good luck!'

T'kuvma referenced "the black fleet", not "Sto'vo'kor" - so I'd say he's part of a different death-religion (one that comes from the old ST EU novels, like "The final reflection", where "the black fleet" was where warriors went after death, not a quasi-viking paradise).

The two episodes we've seen so far are pretty much Pilot material - testing the waters, showing what they can do.

Seems churlish to write the entire series off based on just that.

That's... The point of pilots.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

I watched the pilot, and I'm pretty damn sure that's not how a naval wessel operates. Hell, I don't think any chain of command would tolerate that crap between the top officers.

Starfleet isn't a navy. It's an exploratory group that has warships.

Sure, right. Regardless, that's not how chain of command works in any functional organization.

But becomes the captain in the next episode?

The preview of the next episode looked like a Star Trek version of the Dirty Dozen, she definitely isn't the Captain though.

One thing I did like in the first episode, that regularly bugged me about previous series, is how when Shenzhou or whatever that ship is, finally reveals the Klingon vessel, they are not facing directly even, nose to nose. .. . Like, they're facing each other, but one is sitting at an angle in relation to the other.


Always did bug me how they treated space as almost a 2D surface in the past, making everything facing flat to each other.

Nah, that made sense if you consider that the progenitors who seeded the galaxy with humanoid DNA were insanely OCD about ship orientations.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Always did bug me how they treated space as almost a 2D surface in the past, making everything facing flat to each other.

The pattern indicates two dimensional thinking.

So is the next episode on this Sunday? I don't see it on my TV Guide. It's actually supposed to be on TV in Canada. Any Canadians know what's up with this show? I thought it was on Space but is it actually on Crave?

Only showed up on the guide for recording it on Space for me this morning.

 Eldarain wrote:
Only showed up on the guide for recording it on Space for me this morning.

It has indeed appeared, thanks.

Pseudomonas wrote:
The preview of the next episode looked like a Star Trek version of the Dirty Dozen, she definitely isn't the Captain though.

I think they have mentioned during development that the main protagonist of the show isn't the captain.

I'd be watching the latter seasons of DS9 recently and pondering if it was my memory or time that was making it feel underwhelmed, so I watch Discovery with trepidation fearing something akin to The Orville.

Man alive, that's how to do Star Trek! I really liked it.

True the Klingons were a bit jarring at first but that soon faded. They're a bit too Bling is as strong as my criticism goes there.

Great production values I felt and the strong Female characters were really nice to see. Michelle Yeoh was a pleasant suprise and Burnham looks like a good pivotal chart after to build the show around. It capture the energy of the recent films without the superfluous effects and pastiches.

Definitely one to watch, it ranks up there with The Expanse for good contemporary SciFi.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Always did bug me how they treated space as almost a 2D surface in the past, making everything facing flat to each other.

The pattern indicates two dimensional thinking.

All stop. Z minus 10,000 meters.

Utter trash. I am glad I own DS9 on disk so I can cleanse my eyes after seeing this rubbish.

It grew on me over the two episodes. The Klingon redesign was jarring, I don't know if it will be acknowledged as the previous revision ultimately was (Trials and Tribbilations) or if this is what all klingons look like now.

I don't have a problem with the mutiny of the first officer, but the way it was framed is all wrong. It needs consequences that show she is misguided. Yes, she's been sentenced but I assume she'll be out in no time.

Dramatically speaking, given the long held values ingrained in Star Trek, Starfleet firing first should not be written into the story as the correct way to resolve a situation. They should always offer the hand of peace even when it doesn't work out. They should never fire first without provocation and stories that specifically set up scenarios to get us to cheer on the aggressive mutineer for being the 'mavrick no one will listen to' as they promote a militaristic might-is-right approach to resolving conflict is a bigger deviation from the core of Star Trek than any cosmetic design.

Starfleet should aspire to more than aggression and set an example of optimism in peace. Characters who take the actions of a few to tar a whole species have no place in Starfleet. Even Kirk, whose son's murder left him bitter and angry was able to sit down to dinner with klingons, he didn't mutiny and attack them. He knew what his duty was and rose above his hate. It's sad that in the first episodes of the new series, a main character not only was consumed by that hate, but the story was written specifically justifying her 'forget peace and fire first' approach.

So finished the third episode. Very dark but I'm hooked now. There's some push back against the grimdark in a speech by an engineer guy but it's still dark overall. The idea seems to be The Discovery is a state of the art science vessel that's been co-opted into the war effort much to the chagrin of some officers but happily by other officers like the Captain himself. I'm buying it so far.

Trying to figure out the 'ole Star Trek colour code system for this era. Command seems to be gold and Science silver? Think the cadet may have been wearing bronze but was hard to tell. However, one of the convicts made a remark like "there's a lot of silver for a science vessel" which made it sound like silver was security. Also those cons questioned the black combadges which may actually indicate black ops. Possibly Section 31 is afoot here?