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Post by wvengineer on Jan 26, 2019 20:55:02 GMT
Episode 7: Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad
This is a their version of a time loop episode. Thing of Stargate SG1 episode "Window of Opportunity", TNG episode "Cause & Effect", or the movie "Groundhog Day"
While investigating a injured space whale, the ship encounters Mudd who has escaped from his Klingon captivity. He setup a 30 minute repeating time loop so he can try to steal the ship to sell to the Klingons and repeatedly kill Lorca in revenge for leaving him on prison. Meanwhile, MB starts are relationship with Ash Tyler, another former Klingon POW who was in with both Mudd and Lorca and helped Lorca escape
So go though a number of loops as the figure out what is going on, turns out that Mudd was doing it to run from a jilted ex fiance. MS, Tyler, and Stamits are able to figure out how to outsmart Mudd, escape the loop, and save everyone.
Time loop episodes can be really fun by giving characters a chance to do things completely out of character. This episode is a ho-humm, missed opportunity.
From what I can tell, this is the last we see of Mudd in STD. Once again this creates a major continuity problem for Star Trek. In TOS, he started as an known, but petty criminal, not someone who has attempted to murder numerous Star Fleet crew, committed high treason, steal a ship, and tried to sell them out to a sworn enemy during a time of war. So it makes the Enterprise's interaction with him in TOS completely illogical.
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Post by the light works on Jan 26, 2019 22:39:37 GMT
Discovery news; Just to show how well Discovery is doing CBS has released the first episode of STD for FREE on YouTube - at least in the US. So those of you in the US can sit back, relax and have enjoy...The fact that you didn't have to pay to see it. sorry, but I have a busy youtube schedule of cat videos.
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Post by wvengineer on Jan 26, 2019 23:01:48 GMT
Episode 8: Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum
Episode starts with Klingons attacking another Federation ship. Discovery ties to help but is unable to save the ship. Nearly all Klingons now have cloaking tech, making them much more dangerous. They do figure out they cannot fire while cloaked, but are unable to exploit this due to their inability to track them while cloaked.
MB, Tyler, and Seru are exploring planet Pahvo. This planet has all life on it interconnected and living in harmony. How is never really explained. However, this planet has evolved this massive antenna that is able to interconnect all life on the surface. Star Fleet wants to modify this antenna to transmit a signal that would cover a huge area of space an allow for the detection of cloaked ships. They discover that the planet is intelligent and manifest with these spores that Saru is able to communicate with. They go into First Contact mode. Saru gets taken in with this planet, becoming part of the interconnected consciousness and tries to help spread their harmony to others, including MB and Tyler. Think of the TOS episode "This Side of Paradise", but not explored to the nearly to that level of depth depth.
They have the opportunity to explore the idea of "The needs of the many" vs. "The needs of the few" in a time of war, but again, they don't take it.
On a B story, Klingon L'Rell is a disgraced Klingon trying to find a way to get into the good graces of Kor the current Klingon leader. She volunteers to interrogate Admiral Cornwell, the person captured a couple episodes earlier. This is a ruse to get close to her so she can defect. She tries to help Cornwell escape, but is forced to kill the Admiral to prevent suspicion on her. L'Rell then finds that Kol has killed people that she was close to, vows revenge. Why is she an outsider? This whole thing basically came out of left field. I was expecting it to be a deception of some sort
MB & Tyler are able to snap the planet's control over Saru and get him back. They back to Discovery and find out that the planet is sending out a very strong signal attracting federation & Klingons in their (the planet's) attempt to find balance. So Klingons are on their way. Cliff hanger ending. Mid season finale.
It tries to build the romance between MB & Tyler. It's okay, but not overly engaging. T'Rel's actions don't jive her previous character. Eh, it keeps going.
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Post by wvengineer on Jan 27, 2019 2:21:30 GMT
Episode 9: Into the Forest I Go
Picking up within hours of the previous episode, Discovery is still at Pahvo. After looking at things, they figure they can figure out how to defeat the cloak if they can get detailed reading of a cloaked. This will require planting bugs on a ship and then observing it for several days. Fortunately, the flagship of the Klingon fleet is on it's way, so they have their target. It gets better when they also figure out that they can get all the data they need if the rapidly jump between 133 different points around the ship.
MB and Tyler take the task of infiltrating the flagship and planting the bugs. They do this, discovering the still alive Admiral Cornwell and L'Rell. This sends Tyler into a massive PTSD flashback and he goes useless for the rest of the mission. MB plants the bugs, they get out, and Discovery is able to crack the cloak. They then quickly destroy the Klingon flagship.
Victory and SF recalls them. Making all those jumps has seriously damaged Stamats. He vows to leave the project. They make one last jump home, but everything goes haywire, and they are lost. Roll credits.
About 2/3rd of it is actually fairly good. The last 1/3rd is a mess though.
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Post by Cybermortis on Jan 27, 2019 13:38:41 GMT
Is Episode 8 The one where they proudly announce that the magic plants can detect cloaked ships using Sonar. In space.
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Post by ironhold on Jan 27, 2019 16:09:47 GMT
Is Episode 8 The one where they proudly announce that the magic plants can detect cloaked ships using Sonar. In space. "Let's all discover... why Star Trek: Discovery is clearly written by hacks."
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Post by the light works on Jan 27, 2019 16:19:15 GMT
Is Episode 8 The one where they proudly announce that the magic plants can detect cloaked ships using Sonar. In space. "Let's all discover... why Star Trek: Discovery is clearly written by hacks." "I'll just take your word for it"
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Post by Cybermortis on Feb 1, 2019 16:35:39 GMT
Minor news;
Discovery has yet to be greenlit for a season 3 which along with a recent Tweet from two of the cast members saying 'Will work for food' has left many speculating that Discovery has been canceled.
My take; Although I suspect Discovery will not get a third season, I also think people are reading too much into this. I wouldn't expect Discovery to be renewed this early and the actors may only have been contracted up to the end of the second season.
Other News; The reason for STD's first episode being put on YouTube seems to be due to the CBS Board no longer having any faith in the in house information they have been getting. That information was either coming from Moove's supporters or through Bad Robot, both of whom have good reason to want STD to look successful. Bad Robot in particular should be considered highly unreliable as they are the ones that are responsible for the current Trek License. That license specifies that they have to make a film using that license within a specific time or it is void. With Star Trek 4 having been cancelled, Paramount not being in a position to fund a new film and even if they were not standing a chance of being able to make it in the time left. Well Bad Robot is going to lose that license. Bad Robot's reaction to this seems to come from the handbook marked 'How to lose clients and alienate people'. They have threatened to sue CBS if the license isn't renewed or CBS doesn't pay back the money BR paid for the rights. Legally this seems to very much be a situation where such a case has less legs to stand on than a snake and a lot of 'Lets hope CBS will settle rather than face a second lawsuit'. Why Bad Robot would do this is rather clear, and is one of those factors that seems to be getting overlooked by a lot of people; Bad Robot isn't just involved with Star Trek. They are ALSO involved with Star Wars. To me it seems that Bad Robot may have seen the writing on the wall. They are going to lose the Trek License no matter what they do, and with the situation at Lucasfilm it is quite possible that Disney will be kicking them out of Star War's as well in the near future as part of a house clearance*
If the reactions to the STD pilot on YouTube, which they left the comments open to get feed back from, are anything to go by the CBS board will now be well aware as to how badly STD is viewed.
(*Note; It seems that this clearing process may have already started. Some places have noticed that the head of the Lucasfilm writing room appointed by Kennedy is no longer listed on the Disney/Lucasfilm website.)
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Post by wvengineer on Feb 1, 2019 19:27:13 GMT
I can't say that I am disappointed to have Bad Robot out of Star Trek or even Star Wars. Despite what the majority of critics have said, I didn't like any of the new Star Trek movies and I only tolerated Beyond. None of them were good. For a series that has always been about mixing action with intellectualism, they have completely dumped the history to go with brainless action movies. I am intrigued with the idea of a Quentin Tarantino take on Star Trek, but that sounds like that is a dead end. It would be a violent action movie, but it would at least be well written.
Star Wars is suffering from bad writing, too much politics, and failure to do anything original.
Bad Robot can do good stuff, but how they have handled these flagship titles has very disappointing. Having grown up with both Star Trek and Star Wars, right now I am not inclined to give any money to either franchise.
I wonder if the Youtube things is a sign for just how poorly CBS All Access is doing? The first episode of STD was release on TV and was something that many people could view and did reasonably well. Since then, they put it on their limited access service and it tanked. By putting it on Youtube you open it up to a MUCH larger audience. It strikes me as the media equivalent of a free sample. Try to get people hooked by the free 1st episode and hope they will be willing to pay to see the rest. IT could also be some marketing research to gauge if people would be willing to watch if were on a different platform.
I would actually be interested to see how viewership compares between the US and England. In the US, we are are limited to CBS AA to watch it. that means that many people have to pay for yet another online subscription, whereas England can get it with Netflix. How much of the poor performance is due to it just being a marginal show and how much of it is due to people not wanting to spend the money for CBS All Access? If the viewership is better in England, than that would suggest that the issue is more with CBS AA and less with the show. However, if England numbers are just as bad, then that would lean to the quality of the product itself.
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Post by Cybermortis on Feb 1, 2019 19:49:14 GMT
Netflix doesn't release or have to release viewer numbers in the UK. The only UK streaming platform that has to release figures is the BBC's iPlayer.
Note that STD is only available on YouTube within the US; Understandable as A; That is AA's market and B; The deal with Netflix would make an 'open' release illegal.
The pilot episode on CBS was always going to pull in high figures. It was the start of the first new trek series in 12 years. (Much the same can be said about Force Awakens, in that it was going to pull in a large audience due to being a new trilogy). I recall predicting as much in the Star Trek thread elsewhere on the board.
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Post by GTCGreg on Feb 1, 2019 20:13:54 GMT
I don't see STD flying even if on free network TV. I was watching it on CBS-AA for free (through my son's subscription)and I won't even waste my time watching it anymore. It's that bad. On the other hand, I really look forward to Orville. Too bad it's not going to be on next week.
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Post by wvengineer on Feb 1, 2019 22:08:57 GMT
Even as bad as the writing and acting are, if it was available on a large platform (Netflix, Hulu, Prime, etc) and they are not so hellbent on having to add effects to every shot, I think this could have at least broken even or made some money. As it is, between the very limited availability and heavy amount of money needed for effects, it is clear they are loosing their shirt on this show.
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Post by wvengineer on Feb 1, 2019 22:14:04 GMT
One thing I was thinking about today is the use of Dutch Angles (tilted cameras). They use this off and on and like the shaky cam, I have yet to understand the reasoning behind when they use it and when they don't. It reminds me of Battlefeild Earth, which is probably the last movie you want someone to be thinking about.
I remember a quote about the use about BE's camera work that seams to apply to STD. I'l paraphrasing here. "The Director heard that they sometimes will tilt the camera, but does not understand why."
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Post by mrfatso on Feb 2, 2019 17:29:16 GMT
To the theme of this 2nd season of Discovery becoming more like TOS there was a scene on Kronos where a hologram of the new warship design of the unified Klingon Empire was presented.
It was the classic D-7 design.
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Post by the light works on Feb 4, 2019 15:15:49 GMT
in working on catching up with the new season of the new Star Trek, I see they are touching on obscure but controversial subjects, like antivaxx distortions and astrology.
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Post by GTCGreg on Feb 4, 2019 16:59:13 GMT
in working on catching up with the new season of the new Star Trek, I see they are touching on obscure but controversial subjects, like antivaxx distortions and astrology. I like the way MacFarlane handles controversial social topics. In Orville, he's hit on everything from gay relationships, transgender conversion, antivax, porn addiction and even religion. He makes the point without shoving it down anybody's throat or offending his audience, unlike other Hollywood writers that try to use the same topics for shock value and actually trying to offend someone.
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Post by the light works on Feb 4, 2019 17:14:32 GMT
in working on catching up with the new season of the new Star Trek, I see they are touching on obscure but controversial subjects, like antivaxx distortions and astrology. I like the way MacFarlane handles controversial social topics. In Orville, he's hit on everything from gay relationships, transgender conversion, antivax, porn addiction and even religion. He makes the point without shoving it down anybody's throat or offending his audience, unlike other Hollywood writers that try to use the same topics for shock value and actually trying to offend someone. add in forced conformity, and family dysfunction.
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Post by GTCGreg on Feb 4, 2019 18:59:44 GMT
I like the way MacFarlane handles controversial social topics. In Orville, he's hit on everything from gay relationships, transgender conversion, antivax, porn addiction and even religion. He makes the point without shoving it down anybody's throat or offending his audience, unlike other Hollywood writers that try to use the same topics for shock value and actually trying to offend someone. add in forced conformity, and family dysfunction. To say nothing of inter-species sexual relations, which is what kicked off the show in the first episode.
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Post by wvengineer on Feb 4, 2019 19:15:56 GMT
Add a gay/hetro/alien love triangle into all of that... One of the more interesting episodes was about over indulgence in social media.
I will give him credit, the views they have taken on the Orville are not overly one political side or the other. They are hitting issues on both ends. At lot reminds me of classic TOS where they use teh scifi setting to make a point, but are not insulting the viewed with it. I missed that in Trek. The political commentary they have used in STD is defiantly one sided, and not subtle or well done.
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Post by the light works on Feb 4, 2019 19:25:07 GMT
add in forced conformity, and family dysfunction. To say nothing of inter-species sexual relations, which is what kicked off the show in the first episode. in the original, spock being hlf vulcan, half human was less controversial than when Kirk kissed Uhura. in fact, Kirk kissing every pretty alien he ever met was less controversial than Kirk kissing Uhura.
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