Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 and other stuff

[Alberon]

Christ. 50 minutes of people banging on to each other about how great they all are. If it was the penultimate episode ever rather than of the series then maybe I would have let them get away with it.

I have very very low standards when it comes to Star Trek but the second half of this season has really dragged and I am looking forward to it all being over. I like most of the actors, there are good bits, but about 90% of it is Burham whispering earnestly. I almost miss the boring stuff about Klingons in season 1.

Each season seems to have been a game of two halves. The first had interminable Klingon rubbish but then picked up in the Mirror Universe, while the second seemed to get out of the gates ok but fell over once the main threat of the season was revealed.

[Pranet]

I agree with that I think. If memory serves although the second half of the first series was better than the first half, the final episode was a bit bleh. So perhaps following the pattern this series will end on a high.

[olliebean]

The Discovery novel Desperate Hour seems to be free on iTunes. Had a bit of credit to spend so was looking at Trek books and there was no price just Get and now it's in my library.

The Kindle version is free on Amazon, too. Grabbed it because why not? Looks too Burnham-y for me to ever get around to reading it, though.

Just looked on Google Books, and I guess it's free everywhere.

[Malcy]

The Kindle version is free on Amazon, too. Grabbed it because why not? Looks too Burnham-y for me to ever get around to reading it, though.

Just looked on Google Books, and I guess it's free everywhere.

Thanks for that. I'll grab it for Kindle as well. I'm interested to see how Burnham comes across in a book rather than on TV. Hopefully it will be like how better and bearable River Song is in the Who audios.

[Malcy]

3 new cast members announced for the Picard series. 2 Brits. I wonder will they keep their accents or if this series will be 99% yanks in space like DSC.

https://trekmovie.com/2019/04/17/star-trek-picard-show-adds-three-new-castmembers/

[Wentworth Smith]

No one will ever mention it again... under penalty of TORTURE.

[mothman]

Mention what? ;-)

Is that a reference to the Armin Tamzarian storyline? Anyway. Thank heavens that's over. It's had its moments but it was becoming a bit of a chore.

So, off to the future they go (after five jaunts into the past to set thing up, and a final one to send Spock a message - all via a time crystal they, er, could only use once...). Where it's possible the Federation no longer exist or have become the (possibly evil) V'draysh. Thus maybe turning Discovery into the rebuilding-the-Federation show that Andromeda started out as. Which means we're stuck with the blue uniforms (and no changing to the updated TOS ones), if they even bother to keep wearing them now they're temporal castaways. This show had better not turn into Voyager - even if some would say that would be a relative improvement!

[Chairman Yang]

Fucking awful. 40 minutes of CGI space nonsense, someone punches a robot really hard and, because the show has no direction, Enterprise closes the series.

So... the time jumps through the series were to set up the time jumps in the series. Sure, fine, whatever. Fuck off.

Edit: My brother just raged his way through this: 'We're going to have to restructure Section 31', Him: "Yeah it should be secret" :D

[Malcy]

Absolute fucking shite. Cringed my way through it. The space scenes were pathetic and filled with really bad habits and clichés, the dialogue was atrocious throughout. Can't even be arsed to go into everything wrong with it.

[Chairman Yang]

Here's my sister, who's into gardening and being prey, come to save the day as a fighter pilot.

[up_the_hampipe]

I've been enjoying this new Jonathan Frakes meme https://twitter.com/i/moments/1118981875421208576

[phantom_power]

Right so if Control failed then Burnham and Co jumped into a future where all sentient life wasn't destroyed. Burnham's mum is stuck in a future that didn't happen. Are they going to address that in Season 3 or is it just going to be airbrushed out? And if they destroyed Control before the time jump, why did they need to time travel in the first place?

This whole plot and series has been a piece of bunch of crap. It makes no sense, the characters are shit, the dialogue risible, some of the acting is suspect to say the least.

Which is all such a shame because the show looks and sounds fantastic. That time travel sequence looked awesome and the character and set design is great but it is all in service of a plot and script that seems to be a first draft written by someone with no working knowledge of science, fiction or science fiction

[olliebean]

I think what happened with that Wired article was that they guessed, wrongly, that Control was going to be the Borg, wrote it up as though it was an already established fact, and I therefore assumed, also wrongly, that they had spoiled an episode the rest of us hadn't seen yet.

[phantom_power]

Whereas the writers and show-runners did it instead

[Spoon of Ploff]

I'll admit I was enjoying the crash! bang! KaZap! there for a while.. but then the clichés started coming thicker than Control's fleet of drones (see what i did there).

How is it that the two senior officers on Enterprise abandon the bridge to fumble about with an unexploded photon torpedo? A-and why would one of them sacrifice themselves when the right thing to do would have been to find the nearest Bolian, push them through the door and promise to mention them in dispatches? In fact how was that scenario even a thing when they have transporters? Why should I even care??

Laugh out loud moment came when the Doctor was gibbering away about home being where the heart is to a mortally injured Stamets who could only respond with 'Hrrnrrnnngh... ahhrrruhhhgghhh'

And now the whole sorry lot of them are 900plus years in the future. Why not leave them there and never speak of them again?

[Pranet]

I only really ever watch this pissed. To be honest I am not at all sure what happened there.

[Malcy]

There was a proper looking Klingon on the stupid ship they turned up in. Why the fuck did they not just use that design from the start?

[Phil_A]

Gave up on this about five episodes ago and don't regret it to be honest. I always had a horrible feeling the show would turn to complete arse under a hack like Kurtzman and it seems that has come to pass.

He's gonna fuck up the Picard series as well, isn't he. Urgh.

[Cloud]

Hmm I seem to be the only one who actually likes it.  I think it's brought things around pretty well and is WAY wayyyy better than season 1.  Bit wary of S3 though - great so we finally get a post-Voyager series...... but far into the future and with additional risk of fucking up the Trekiverse even more through timey wimey stuff.  Enterprise J shenanigans come to mind *shudder*

[Malcy]

Hmm I seem to be the only one who actually likes it.  I think it's brought things around pretty well and is WAY wayyyy better than season 1.  Bit wary of S3 though - great so we finally get a post-Voyager series...... but far into the future and with additional risk of fucking up the Trekiverse even more through timey wimey stuff.  Enterprise J shenanigans come to mind *shudder*

The Enterprise J stuff was fleshed out really well on Star Trek Online.

The big problem is that they defeated Control and didn't need to go to the future. An uncertain one at that. They've no idea what they're walking into. And why didn't they beam it's remains into a shuttle or something before they left rather than just assume they had won and take the fucking threat with them into the future which it was supposed to be getting away from it in.

Absolutely fucking pathetic it was. The big Klingon ship turned up making bird noises and half cloaked. The Spock/Burnham scene before she fucked off was atrocious. So much shite crammed into an hour. Let's never speak about the crew or ship again they say. So are they going to say that to everyone who ever crossed paths with or remembers each crew member?

What about all the world's the ship visited? It's pivotal role in ending the Federation/Klingon war. Fuck off. Dogshit writing staff.

I don't even want the Picard series or any other Trek now. What's the point?

The time jump has been stated by the producers as a way to avoid canon restrictions. And SMG has said that in series 3 they are in a part of the galaxy no one has ever seen before. What the Beta Quadrant? Fuck off.

[earl_sleek]

I liked it! In fact I would say Discovery S2 is overall better than TNG season 2. Looking forward to season 3.

It's true some things don't add up as well as they could, but all Star Trek has been like this literally since TOS. It's never been entirely consistent.

[Wentworth Smith]

I liked it! In fact I would say Discovery S2 is overall better than TNG season 2. Looking forward to season 3.

It's true some things don't add up as well as they could, but all Star Trek has been like this literally since TOS. It's never been entirely consistent.

TNG season 2 was shite, so not much of a hurdle to jump.

Saying 'they did this in the sixties so it's alright' doesn't fly and is just excusing this nonsense of all it's storytelling flaws and inanity. This wasn't just lazy storytelling, it was also vastly stupid.

As has been mentioned, Control was dead so why bother going through the wormhole? And how did that kill it? It's a computer program you dopes. How did they beam Spock back to the Discovery? Did they really pull an Armin Tamzarian at the end (answer: yes, they did). Just say they died!

So much crap: the tragically boring and pointless Stamets/ Doc storyline (DOC: 'despite everything I've said I've come back Paul!', STAMETS: 'blaaughghgh'). The sucking presence of charisma void Tyler, the hyped up irritation factor of Tilly, rubbish Klingons, the perma smiling crew (what is wrong with these loons?). Kerpow kerpow laser fights, the seemingly indestructible ships in the fight at the end (which is another thing: the ancient data thing protected itself and made super shields about three episodes ago so how did the Discovery become damaged when being shot at? Surely the data would supe up the shields and leave the Discovery impregnable?). Utter bollocks.

[mothman]

It's hard to disconnect from a series. I have done in the past (24, for example) and I don't think I'm there yet. I'll see what they do with the 3rd season, and whether they can really present a near-900 year jump forward in time in a way that still feels like Star Trek. And if they pull that off, what then? Are they there forever? Will they return to some point between the mid-23rd century and the early 25th? The period between TOS and TNG remains largely an open book. Or they could do a Picard show crossover. Or maybe they'll just stay in the 33rd century forever. If they go come back, then it'll have to be without Discovery herself, so that maintains the "no spore drive" part of the canon history.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

What did Control need the data for? I'd thought it was in order to become sentient, but it already seemed to be, even before it started Borging people.

[mothman]

WAIT A MINUTE! One thing just occurred to me. Now, leaving aside the part where a large matter/antimatter explosion is about to go off inside the Enterprise's primary hull, and all they need to do to mitigate that is close a fucking door...

(I mean, seriously, the bloody "blast door" even has a window in it! Who installed it? Everest?)

... if all they need to do to make that happen is to push a lever, then WHY not bring one of those repair drones they'd only just introduced (not just to the NCC-1701, but indeed the whole Star Trek franchise) inside to do it?

(unless within second of their emerging, future Pixar space lawyers slapped them with a cease & desist order)

Way to have an admiral and popular recurring character sacrifice herself needlessly...

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

What did Control need the data for? I'd thought it was in order to become sentient, but it already seemed to be, even before it started Borging people.

The data would have allowed Control to grow in power, as there was a huge amount of knowledge about the universe. With them, Control would have been able to wipe all trace of biological life in the universe.

Also, Leland had been destroyed, but Control needed to command another body, just as it did before when it lost the blue cyborg chick.

[phantom_power]

I think we can all agree that the Kelpian cavalry was the worst bit though yeah?

[Alberon]

Just caught up on this. This and last weeks was originally one episode bloated into two dreadful ones. The first being the neverending goodbye and the other being Things Explode II: Everything Explodes. The far too neat bow tied on the season on how they'll never talk about Discovery or Burnham again is just trite bullshit. The writers probably thought they were being clever.

Next season should see the Discovery in the 33rd or 32nd Century possibly still far beyond the Federation. But to be honest I'd rather stick with Pike's Enterprise.

[phantom_power]

I really like the Pike character and the actor who plays him but the more I think about it the more having him in this series seems like a cynical manipulation of an audience that knows his fate. That episode that explicitly references it was fucking awful and takes a tragic accident and both mines it for emotion and also invalidates it as a plot point.

[Alberon]

Meanwhile, in animated news, the next two Short Treks will be animated in different styles, but it's not been announced when they'll be appearing.

Also the Nickelodeon animated show has been given the greenlight.

The cable network has given a series order to an animated Trek show from Emmy-winning writers Kevin and Dan Hageman and Star Trek franchise captain Alex Kurtzman. The untitled, CG-animated series will follow a group of teenagers who discover a derelict Starfleet ship and use it to search for adventure, meaning and salvation.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/star-trek-animated-series-gets-green-light-at-nickelodeon-1204371

Sounds like a Trek version of the Star Wars CG shows, though I've never watched those beyond the cameo Tom Baker had on one.