A Tale of Two Treks: Thoughts on “Star Trek: Discovery”

 

Discovering Discovery

Sunday night we got the mid-season finale of the premiere season of “Star Trek: Discovery.” If you don’t follow these things, “Discovery” is a new Trek series, available only on the CBS All Access streaming platform. In the Star Trek timeline, it is set roughly 10 years before the Original Series adventures of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. And unlike the miserable trio of recent Star Trek movies, which are set in a separate timeline, “Discovery” exists in the same canon as the five other Trek television series and the first 10 films.

I had a lot of hesitation before the series premiered. The show was delayed and delayed again. We were supposed to get last fall, then in January, then in May, and finally in September. There was almost no information that came out about the series ahead of the premiere. We got drips and drabs. And none of it was good.

What we got was a picture of a troubled production, with canon problems galore, new Klingons that didn’t look like Klingons, and the whole mess would be terrible and would be scrubbed almost immediately. Before it came out, fans steeled themselves in preparation for disappointment. (Doubly so for those, like myself, who get upset when the canon is trashed.) Others I know have avoided it altogether. It was some combination of not wanting to shell out for a streaming service just for one show and dread that “Discovery” would be bad.

I am here to tell you that it is not terrible. “Star Trek: Discovery” is actually the opposite of terrible. It is amazing. It is a Trek with the depth of drama and the quality of production we’d expect from any dramatic show in 2017.

To be sure, “Discovery” is a Star Trek series like no other. Instead of planet-of-the-week episodes where the crew beams down to some new world, gets in an adventure, and then moves on, “Discovery” so far has been one long arc. You need to watch the episodes in order because each builds on the last. In fact, of the first nine episodes, I can think of only one that stands alone.

And yes, “Discovery” is very different from previous Trek incarnations. But it needs to be. From 1987 to 2005, we had four separate Star Trek series. Each time we had a new crew, a new ship, a new captain, new uniforms, new aliens, a new theme song, and new adventures with thinly veiled social commentary about our present day. But with the exception of “Deep Space Nine,” which was different for a variety of reasons, they followed a similar formula. And that is a formula from the Original Series back in the ‘60s.

But we’ve had a 12-year gap. The world and the world of television has changed since then and the producers of this new show couldn’t do the same set-up. You can’t just go to some new planet every week, with some new rubber-forehead aliens, get in adventures, beam back, and warp on. It worked in its time, and it works in reruns, but this is the 21st century, the new Golden Age of TV dramas. People won’t accept it anymore.

So the producers didn’t just make “Discovery” different for the sake of making it different, they made it different because it had to be different. And while people will quibble with some things, nerds on the internet will raise a stink about this or that, we have a new Star Trek series. It’s awesome. And I want to celebrate.

That being said, I want to point out some things that I like and I don’t like about “Star Trek: Discovery.”

The Good

First, this is going to sound dumb, but I love the main title sequence. I think it’s the best opening credits we’ve ever had for a Star Trek series. All the others, I don’t even watch them anymore (I can’t stand the one from “Enterprise”) because they’re boring. I always watch the opening credits of “Discovery,” and about 15 seconds in, I turn to my wife and say how great they are. Seriously, if you haven’t seen them, go watch it.

Second, the USS Discovery is a beautiful ship. Its design was odd to me at first, but there’s a reason for its unusual design. I buy the way it looks. I’m on board.

Third, I love the characters. I took to Saru immediately. I was iffy about Michael Burnham at first, but I’ve grown to love her. I really like Stamets. He really pissy at first and then goes to different places. I’ve seen people complain about Lorca, but I’m okay having a dark, complex character as captain. And I love Tilly. There is a spark and energy there that brings a lot of life to the show.

The Bad

The Federation ships are fine. But I have serious problems with the Klingon ships. Sorry to sound like an obnoxious nerd, but we have a very specific design legacy for Klingon ships, and I don’t see how they fit into it. I’m okay with the Ship of the Dead, that’s specifically unique for a reason. The rest of them are a major problem for me.

Things I Don’t Have a Problem With

First, the Klingons. They got a major redesign. In “Discovery,” they use Klingon imagery. They use Klingon language. But they don’t look or dress like Klingons. At first to me, they looked like some kind of generic evil alien from a random sci-fi movie.

I’ve since made peace with that. There’s been a wide variance in the way Klingons look. It took a couple of decades for them to explain why the Original Series Klingons look different from later ones. But they did it, eventually. I hope they’ll do that here.

Second, the technology differences. “Discovery” has a weird mixture of Original Series inspired designs, mixed with stuff that we’d expect a 21st-century science fiction show to have. And the big thing that I’ve actually argued with people about is the holographic communicators.

People can nitpick, but I can rationalize most of that stuff, even the holo communicators. The producers have said that the show is canon and they’ll square all that stuff eventually. I’m okay with that. We’ll get there. They probably have a plan to get us from how Discovery looks to the way Kirk’s Enterprise from 1967 looks. Ditto for the lady with the volleyball face who is some kind of robot. The producers say they can do it. I’m willing to let them.

Third, there are some … attitudinal differences. These are ideas that were expressed in the Original Series that I don’t think can be squared with “Discovery.” The big one is the oft-noted quote from TOS about how women can’t be starship captains. Those lines were written half a century ago, I’m willing to let that slide.

And no, I don’t care that they had a dance party where the crew played beer pong. It played perfectly. And blowing off steam during wartime is different from peacetime where the crew on TNG would put on amateur productions of Shakespeare and go to string quarter recitals. It’s okay. Both things can exist in the same universe.

A Tale of Two Treks

If you’re curious what it would look like if they made another Star Trek series, and didn’t change anything — just a new crew, a new ship, a new captain, new uniforms, new aliens, a new theme song, and new adventures with thinly veiled social commentary about our present day — we have that too.

Seth MacFarlane’s Fox series “The Orville,” is exactly that. From the promotional material, you think it’s supposed to be like a live-action “Family Guy” in space. But it’s not. And the crude humor is the weakest part of the show.

But, it only works because it’s consciously a parody. If he didn’t try to make it look like Star Trek, it would be a flop. And if they made it as straight generic Star Trek, it would be a widely mocked mediocrity. But “The Orville” is totally Star Trek, just with different names on things. They go to a planet, get in adventures, warp on.

I’m absolutely serious. Seth MacFarlane made a great Star Trek series. If you want old-fashioned Star Trek, go watch it. It’s great!

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  1. Curt North Inactive
    Curt North
    @CurtNorth

    Thanks for this post, I’m a Trekkie from childhood and happily geeked out on all the series thus far.  I’ve not watched any of Discovery yet, didn’t the partner with Netflix?

    • #1
  2. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    In the US it’s on CBS All Acces. The rest of the world can see it on Netflix.

    Also, you know, the Internet is a thing…

    • #2
  3. ToryWarWriter Coolidge
    ToryWarWriter
    @ToryWarWriter

    Its all set in an alternate universe.  My only suggestion is to not watch the two part pilot episode.  Start at episode 3 and wait for after this mid season break to watch those two episodes.

    • #3
  4. Curt North Inactive
    Curt North
    @CurtNorth

    So, since I’m so cheap I refuse to pay a fee for what should be free prime time TV, will it be on Netflix after season 1 is over?

    You see I do currently pay for Netflix, not that I get to watch it.

    Seriously I think everyone in mine and my extended family (and their friends) watches MY Netflix account, but God forbid I try to get on and watch something, the howls and gnashing of teeth are quite scary!  Sorry, got into a Netflix membership rant there…

    • #4
  5. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    ToryWarWriter (View Comment):
    Its all set in an alternate universe. My only suggestion is to not watch the two part pilot episode. Start at episode 3 and wait for after this mid season break to watch those two episodes.

    I agree that it gets better starting at Episode 3.

    However, I’m not sure it’s all set in an alternate universe. I’ve heard that idea floated repeatedly. There just isn’t enough on-screen evidence for a statement like that yet.

    And I’m sure you can point to evidence. Yes, but the show has faked us out before. Pointing us in one direction and then sending us in another.

    • #5
  6. Frank Soto Member
    Frank Soto
    @FrankSoto

    Fred Cole: And unlike the miserable trio of recent Star Trek movies, which are set in a separate timeline, “Discovery” allegedly exists in the same canon as the five other Trek television series and the first 10 films.

    FIFY.

    • #6
  7. rebark Inactive
    rebark
    @rebark

    Curt North (View Comment):
    I’ve not watched any of Discovery yet, didn’t the partner with Netflix?

    They did some kind of in-house on demand service called “CBS All-Access” that has streaming rights for the series, as well as a Netflix partnership for recently aired episodes.

    • #7
  8. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    anonymous (View Comment):
    It seems to me they’re digging themselves into some deep holes from which it will be very difficult to get out.

    I agree completely. I’m hoping they’ll be able to square all these circles.

    They have an easy out with the spore drive in that it requires Stamets to function. That has some obvious drawbacks. I suspect we’re about to learn there are even more.

    • #8
  9. Gary Robbins Member
    Gary Robbins
    @GaryRobbins

    I have the DVDs of everything Star Trek (except the cartoon series).  I resisted paying for Discovery but will do so at your recommendation.

    • #9
  10. mildlyo Member
    mildlyo
    @mildlyo

    I appreciate your throwing in the nice words in support of The Orville at the end there, but it won’t keep me from strongly disagreeing with your argument that Start Trek: Discovery is a good show.

    It is an expensive show. The production budget is rumored to be in the 8 to 10 million an episode range.

    It has beautiful special effects. Sometimes. The budget is on the screen, but the lighting is so deliberately dark that you need a home theater to get the full experience.

    It desperately wants to be modern. All female characters are exceptional; all male characters are psychopaths or weaklings. The only good actor plays the re-imagined Harry Mudd character from the first Star Trek series. The budget is not in the cast.

    It is an amoral show. There is no sense that humanity in the future has improved, that we figure out who we want to be before we go out into the stars and see what is there.

    I am sympathetic to the fan theory that this is the “Section 31” show in the Star Trek universe, that being the federation version of a CIA type organization introduced in the DS9 series. That is not how this show is presenting itself, however.

    The title sequence is a matter of taste, I suppose. I think it is too obviously trying to look like the Netflix Marvel show title sequences.

    • #10
  11. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    mildlyo (View Comment):
    It is an amoral show. There is no sense that humanity in the future has improved, that we figure out who we want to be before we go out into the stars and see what is there.

    I disagree with that.  Burnham is absolutely the moral center of the show. She is the one seeking redemption. She is the one leading the others toward the values you seek.

    • #11
  12. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Discovery and Orville are SciFi shows that are entertaining and worth the time if for different reasons.  Both are trying a bit too hard in different directions.  Ones tolerance for those directions will determine how much you like them.

    • #12
  13. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    Also, I’ve heard the Section 31 theories. I hope it is certainly not the case. Section 31 was interesting in DS9. But after that, it became like a cheat, a deus ex machina magic trick to explain things.

    I think it’d be a hell of a lot more interesting without Section 31.

    • #13
  14. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    Fake John/Jane Galt (View Comment):
    Discovery and Orville are SciFi shows that are entertaining and worth the time if for different reasons. Both are trying a bit too hard in different directions. Ones tolerance for those directions will determine how much you like them.

    That’s interesting. What are the two directions?

    • #14
  15. Gaius Inactive
    Gaius
    @Gaius

    I’m afraid that I’m one of those fans who has too little remaining trust left to give Discovery a chance. As far as my head cannon (find me a geekier term, I dare you) is concerned Star Trek begins with “The Man Trap” and ends at Vick’s during “What You Leave Behind.” Nothing that comes after that counts, not Nemesis, not Enterprise, not the last two seasons of  Voyager, not even the final fire caves sequence with Dukat (…a complex and underserved character, if i’m drawing arbitrary lines ascribed to by no one but me I might as well spare him his final indignity), none of it.

    • #15
  16. mildlyo Member
    mildlyo
    @mildlyo

    Fred Cole (View Comment):

    mildlyo (View Comment):
    It is an amoral show. There is no sense that humanity in the future has improved, that we figure out who we want to be before we go out into the stars and see what is there.

    I disagree with that. Burnham is absolutely the moral center of the show. She is the one seeking redemption. She is the one leading the others toward the values you seek.

    Our disagreement continues. Burnham is a “fish out of water” character, a human raised by aliens. Her redemption story is taking place on a ship of space pirates, in Federation uniform, who possess no positive character traits higher than ambition. Why slap “Star Trek” on this story if she is going to become a pirate queen or win the dilithium thone at the end of it all?

    • #16
  17. mildlyo Member
    mildlyo
    @mildlyo

    Fred Cole (View Comment):
    Also, I’ve heard the Section 31 theories. I hope it is certainly not the case. Section 31 was interesting in DS9. But after that, it became like a cheat, a deus ex machina magic trick to explain things.

    I think it’d be a hell of a lot more interesting without Section 31.

    I agree that Section 31 was woefully mishandled as the years went by. It started as an interesting idea; what sort of intelligence service would federation volunteers build? It then became a trope for “rogue government agency with mercenary troops” bad guys.

    At it’s height of inventiveness, Star Trek gave us glimpses of the sort of personal projects that federation citizens could devote their “post scarcity” resources to. Picard spent his vacations solving the archaeological mysteries of long dead civilizations. Bashir once took several months off to solve a bioengineered plague on a planet on the far side of the galaxy. Sisco dug up records, recreated a Bajoran light sail ship, and sailed it to Cardassia. And somewhere along the way a bunch of federation citizens started a club to seek out and kill the federation’s enemies so their neighbors wouldn’t have to.

    I suspect the idea was more popular with the fans than the show’s creator liked, and they had to make them bad guys.

    • #17
  18. mildlyo Member
    mildlyo
    @mildlyo

    Gaius (View Comment):
    As far as *** [I am] *** concerned Star Trek begins with “The Man Trap” and ends at Vick’s during “What You Leave Behind.” Nothing that comes after that counts ***.

    You make a good argument.

    • #18
  19. Archie Campbell Member
    Archie Campbell
    @ArchieCampbell

    I watched the half of the pilot that was on free T.V., after which it said I had to subscribe to “CBS All Access” to see the second half. Really, I get half of the pilot? Nuts to those cheap bastards. Or maybe I’m the cheap bastard. Either way, I’ll probably never find out why that beautiful woman is named Michael.

    • #19
  20. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    And unlike the miserable trio of recent Star Trek movies, which are set in a separate timeline, “Discovery” exists in the same canon as the five other Trek television series and the first 10 films.

    I’ve watched two and intend on watching the rest. Usually I would have watched it all by now, because it’s Star Trek and I love Star Trek, but the first 2 eps didn’t grab me. Some great moments, but once again we have small females beating up huge Klingons, because it’s just their time to shine!

    So I can’t disagree with your evaluation – yet – and I hope you’re right. But while “Discovery” may exist in the same canon, its visual aesthetic is straight-up JJ NuTrek, and gives it a post-canon look that clashes with the TOS aesthetic. Of course no one wants the cardboard sets and limited sound FX and smoking transistors, but now the TOS timeline looks more advanced than the TNG / DS9 / VGR style.

    And the tech’s different. Internship beaming as a matter of course? Instantaneous holographic communication with Vulcan? It’s absent TOS’ sense of being out there, alone, without backup, often cut off from Starfleet.

    I don’t see anything so far that justifies its timeline setting. But like I said, I’ve only seen 2.

    • #20
  21. Curt North Inactive
    Curt North
    @CurtNorth

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    I don’t see anything so far that justifies its timeline setting. But like I said, I’ve only seen 2.

    I might be in the minority, but I kinda like the timeline reboot.  I think it was the best way to just unshackle from Kirk, Spock, and TOS in general…Ironically with those same characters leading the charge into a new timeline.  For me at least, the rebooted timeline of the JJ Abrams Treks works.  Then again I’m weird, I think “Enterprise” was one of the best Trek shows ever put on TV.

    As far smaller females tossing Klingon’s around, I can’t defend that idiocy and p/c movie-making, it’s just silly.  But going back to TOS, Klingon’s were never really even much bigger than humans, just in more urgent need of a shower.  Maybe we’ve built them up in our heads to be these ultra tough guys when in fact they’re just avg sized bullies running around the galaxy picking on defenseless Democrats and Socialists, waiting for the Republicans to show up with guns and a space navy to save the day.

    • #21
  22. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    mildlyo (View Comment):
    At it’s height of inventiveness, Star Trek gave us glimpses of the sort of personal projects that federation citizens could devote their “post scarcity” resources to.

    Our disagreement continues indeed.

    The post scarcity society was interesting … for one show.  The next three twisted it in some way.  DS9 looked at deprivation in that post scarcity society.  Voyager threw them far away from the post scarcity.  Enterprise was set before it.

    • #22
  23. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    mildlyo (View Comment):

    Our disagreement continues. Burnham is a “fish out of water” character, a human raised by aliens. Her redemption story is taking place on a ship of space pirates, in Federation uniform, who possess no positive character traits higher than ambition. Why slap “Star Trek” on this story if she is going to become a pirate queen or win the dilithium thone at the end of it all?

    That is not accurate.  They’re not all pirates.  Lorca is the bad one, and everyone around him (except for that one security chief) felt icky about what they were doing.

    But Burnham is the only one who would stand up and say “What we are doing violates the values of the Federation.”

    • #23
  24. Nick H Coolidge
    Nick H
    @NickH

    Interesting. Some of what I’d heard about Discovery in the early episodes was that it was not just liberal in the way that the other series were liberal, but explicitly anti-conservative. (How it could be more anti-conservative than TNG trying to make the Ferengi into the major villains escapes me, but whatever.) I’m not seeing any sign of that in the comments here, which is reassuring. It sounds like all the problems with canon stem from the decision to make the show a prequel to a show that aired 50 years ago. I don’t understand why they keep doing this over and over. Enterprise, the (awful) reboots, and now this all try to retell the story of what happened before and during the time of James T Kirk. Why not move on? Let the technology advance and tell us what happened after the Dominion War? Or even farther into the future? But that’s just me.  It’s unlikely that I’ll shell out for CBS streaming, but for good Star Trek I just might reconsider.

    • #24
  25. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    I’ve watched two and intend on watching the rest. Usually I would have watched it all by now, because it’s Star Trek and I love Star Trek, but the first 2 eps didn’t grab me.

    I felt the same way.  But I gave it a chance and it paid off. (You should too!)

    • #25
  26. Fred Cole Inactive
    Fred Cole
    @FredCole

    Nick H (View Comment):
    Some of what I’d heard about Discovery in the early episodes was that it was not just liberal in the way that the other series were liberal, but explicitly anti-conservative.

    Maybe I’m blind to it or I just tune it out, but I don’t know how anyone could look at it and get that.  Maybe there’s some subtle agenda, but it’s too subtle for me to detect.

    And not for nothing, but Star Trek has always been liberal.  Not in the modern free-abortions-for-12-year-olds sense, but in the classic mid-century sense.

    Nick H (View Comment):
    hy not move on? Let the technology advance and tell us what happened after the Dominion War? Or even farther into the future?

    So originally Discovery was pitched by Bryan Fuller as an anthology series that would skip around to different time periods in Star Trek history.  That would be awesome and very interesting, but they didn’t make it this time.

    • #26
  27. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    I watched the first 3 maybe 4 episodes of Discovery. I wanted to like it, I wanted it to be likeable.  “Did I just get Shushed by a Klingon?” was the last one I watched.

    First of all – Rationalizing – is more important than sex – Have you ever gone a day without rationalizing something? (its a line from a movie – I forget off hand which)…

    The technology stuff, I dont like. Its before TOS, so no holograms, no robot crewmen, NO AI ship’s computer. Its also Trek, so dont try to merge organic chemistry in quantum physics. Dont turn the universe into a living creature, GAIA write large. The thing about squaring a circle, you end up with an octagon, which is a near universal symbol for stop. So STOP. Any time you have the urge to square a circle, stop.

    The better Trek right now is Orville. I have been watching these episodes as they’re released, its not a parody, its a homage. Its bright, optimistic, occasionally touching/endearing almost, and occasionally funny. Its what Star Trek used to be.

    • #27
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