Like basically every current Star Trek fan, I love the character of Captain Pike as Anson Mount portrays him. I wonder, though, to what extent he is actually the same guy from “The Cage.” If we had only that episode to work from (which the Discovery and SNW writers initially did), we would know that he is broody, that he...
One of the biggest difficulties of most episodic dramas, including the various Star Trek series, is that putting main characters in danger is seldom believable. It’s such a common syndrome that it’s even a pop culture trope: plot armor. Watching the early second-season episode “Unnatural Selection,” in which Dr. Pulaski...
@daystrominstitute What can we know (or at least guess) about Tellarite culture and behavior from Jankom Pog?
This is going to be pretty open-ended, but I'm curious: given that Jankom is the only Tellarite main cast member of any Star Trek series, what might his personality, behavior, relationships (etc.) tell us about Tellarites as a whole, or their relationships with other species within or outside the Federation? Obviously, it's not easy to know much from Jankom in particular (given that he's a kid and grew up among pre-Federation Tellarites), but thematically, I think it would be nice if one could draw some lines (even if it's wild speculation) between his his role in the team, and the fact that the Tellarites we see in ENT not only help found the Federation, but never leave it, even after the Burn (IMO, one of the most fascinating bits of worldbuilding that's ever been dropped in an off-screen monologue).
I also like that he is the only main character in an ongoing series to be from the pre-Enterprise era (since the Tellarites we see there have normal warp engines and presumably would not still be using generation ships like his).
Like most of us, I am greatly enjoying Strange New Worlds. One of the small benefits of the series, in my mind, is that it has finally broken one of the strangest of fan habits – the insistence on literalism for TOS visuals, especially on things like ship designs and controls. Is there anyone still holding out for a...
Sure, maybe Sera was an unreliable narrator, and it's just the USS Relativity working in the background to correct things (even if they end up happening a few years off from when they should)....
Why did they have to show Khan shifting into the future just one year after Picard and co. travelled back to the same time and we saw Soong on trial for the Khan project (a past event)? What benefit is there to jacking around with what they just established?
It still seems like they could have coordinated the two plots in a more transparent way, given that the shows are running concurrently and have overlapping staff. Fans shouldn’t have to do this much mental gymnastics to reconcile episodes that aired two years apart. The in-universe claim that the pre-history of our era is constantly shifting seems like a cop-out in those circumstances.
I agree that ideally they would maintain that kind of fuzzy timeline to maintain our connection to their future. In fact, many years ago on the old Daystrom I tried to argue that we shouldn’t take dates on the show literally other than as an indication of the general order in which things happened – leading to massive pushback from almost everybody! It seems like Picard season 2 went pretty far out of its way to endorse the fan-favored theory that the Trek timeline forked sometime prior to the 90s, though, and I worry about the slipshod continuity management that is emerging as the streaming era matures. Of course, the Picard finale also abruptly undid the whole climax of season 2, so maybe the official position is that we’re going to pretend season 2 never happened.
In season 3 of PICARD, there are two major plot points that strongly echo plots from the two current animated series. The struggle between Data and Lore for control of Data’s body is very similar to Rutherford’s struggle with his former self in Lower Decks s3e5, and the takeover of Starfleet by the Borg’s virus is very...
I agree that the Construct was a bit of a kludge to make it so they couldn’t just go directly back to Starfleet. But I would defend the Rutherford plot as more organic – it’s not just that he’s the victim of a mindwipe, which we already kind of knew. We need to understand why he would cooperate with something evil, or even why the evil people would single him out. Making him become a different person with the mindwipe actually adds the the coherence (or provides them with a way out of the hole they had inadvertantly opened up with the mindwipe plot… that’s the nature of long-running storytelling).
There is something undeniably weird about the new Kirk that we’re seeing in Strange New Worlds. He doesn’t yet “feel” intuitively like Kirk to me, especially in the rom-com episode. But I do think his writing and, to a lesser extent, his performance show that the writers are thinking deeply about the character and what...
As you may have heard, Paramount cancelled Prodigy, halting production on its almost-complete second season, and removed the show from its service. The primary reason to do this, other than to streamline their content in light of the service's upcoming merger with Showtime, was to generate a tax loss -- a disturbing trend among...
I recently rewatched the premier of Picard season 2 and was puzzled by one thing that doesn't seem to fit, even on rewatch -- why does the Jurati-Queen act so aggressively and fail so dramatically to communicate clearly? It makes sense if she were representing the regular Borg, but she's supposed to be the "nice" Borg! What...
One of the fascinating things about this "third generation" of Star Trek (starting either with Star Trek 2009 or with Discovery) is the way the Star Trek universe has started to knit itself closer together by referencing existing backstory. For example, Discovery wholeheartedly embraced the idea that Andorians and Tellarites are...
The biggest gap in the existing series is the one-two punch of the Romulan War and the founding of the Federation, which we only missed due to ENT's cancellation. Finding some way back into that era, beyond Riker's holodeck program, would be number one on my wishlist.
It's never made much sense that the entire multi-species Federation would be subject to a strict ban on genetic engineering due to events on Earth that happened centuries before the Federation was even founded. The way they doubled down on that rationale in Una's trial only highlighted the absurdity -- especially when Admiral...
Okay, first they try to cover it up, because it's easier if the Klingons never find out. But then once she's uncooperative, you go all out to show it's serious. And you don't have a Klingon observer because you don't want the general public to know the Klingons are dictating such an important domestic policy.
To say Discovery has been "controversial" would be something of an understatement. From the very beginning the show sparked off considerable debate about it's quality, and the bevy of showrunner changes and resulting shifts in tone and plot choices just adds an extra layer of confusion. Many of the same groups and same people...
Of course you can watch it and it mostly makes sense from a PTSD/pragmatism perspective -- that's how they structured it so that it would reward rewatching.
I still maintain that Jellico’s decision to disrupt everyone’s sleep cycles by changing to a four-shift rotation was unforgivable under the circumstances.
Still, it seems like a risky and high-handed move in context. Most likely he’s just doing it because it’s how things were on his own ship and to assert that his way goes. I’ve never heard anyone give an account of why it would be better to change the shifts.
Is the Captain Pike we know from Discovery and Strange New Worlds really the same dude from "The Cage"?
Like basically every current Star Trek fan, I love the character of Captain Pike as Anson Mount portrays him. I wonder, though, to what extent he is actually the same guy from “The Cage.” If we had only that episode to work from (which the Discovery and SNW writers initially did), we would know that he is broody, that he...
On the first viewing of "Unnatural Selection" (TNG 2.7), are we supposed to believe Dr. Pulaski can really die?
One of the biggest difficulties of most episodic dramas, including the various Star Trek series, is that putting main characters in danger is seldom believable. It’s such a common syndrome that it’s even a pop culture trope: plot armor. Watching the early second-season episode “Unnatural Selection,” in which Dr. Pulaski...
The Pros and Cons of Remaking Old TOS Episodes
Like most of us, I am greatly enjoying Strange New Worlds. One of the small benefits of the series, in my mind, is that it has finally broken one of the strangest of fan habits – the insistence on literalism for TOS visuals, especially on things like ship designs and controls. Is there anyone still holding out for a...
The time-heals-itself concept is starting to grow on me
Sure, maybe Sera was an unreliable narrator, and it's just the USS Relativity working in the background to correct things (even if they end up happening a few years off from when they should)....
On PICARD's reuse of plot points from the animated shows
In season 3 of PICARD, there are two major plot points that strongly echo plots from the two current animated series. The struggle between Data and Lore for control of Data’s body is very similar to Rutherford’s struggle with his former self in Lower Decks s3e5, and the takeover of Starfleet by the Borg’s virus is very...
SNW's version of Kirk is a genuinely insightful take on the character
There is something undeniably weird about the new Kirk that we’re seeing in Strange New Worlds. He doesn’t yet “feel” intuitively like Kirk to me, especially in the rom-com episode. But I do think his writing and, to a lesser extent, his performance show that the writers are thinking deeply about the character and what...
Is Prodigy still canon?
As you may have heard, Paramount cancelled Prodigy, halting production on its almost-complete second season, and removed the show from its service. The primary reason to do this, other than to streamline their content in light of the service's upcoming merger with Showtime, was to generate a tax loss -- a disturbing trend among...
Picard season 2 is structured like TAS "Yesteryear" -- and the Jurati-Queen knows it
I recently rewatched the premier of Picard season 2 and was puzzled by one thing that doesn't seem to fit, even on rewatch -- why does the Jurati-Queen act so aggressively and fail so dramatically to communicate clearly? It makes sense if she were representing the regular Borg, but she's supposed to be the "nice" Borg! What...
What is an underexplored corner of Trek lore that merits further exploration?
One of the fascinating things about this "third generation" of Star Trek (starting either with Star Trek 2009 or with Discovery) is the way the Star Trek universe has started to knit itself closer together by referencing existing backstory. For example, Discovery wholeheartedly embraced the idea that Andorians and Tellarites are...
The Klingon Augment Virus is the real reason for the ban on genetic engineering (includes spoilers from SNW 2.2)
It's never made much sense that the entire multi-species Federation would be subject to a strict ban on genetic engineering due to events on Earth that happened centuries before the Federation was even founded. The way they doubled down on that rationale in Una's trial only highlighted the absurdity -- especially when Admiral...
The first nine episodes of Discovery are a model for what streaming era Star Trek should have looked like
To say Discovery has been "controversial" would be something of an understatement. From the very beginning the show sparked off considerable debate about it's quality, and the bevy of showrunner changes and resulting shifts in tone and plot choices just adds an extra layer of confusion. Many of the same groups and same people...
You're not my real dad!
@williams_482 invited contributors from the old Daystrom to repost some favorites, so here is one of mine....