S01.E04: Memento Mori

[Starchild]

At least this bridge doesn't catch fire during a battle lol

[salaydouk]

17 minutes ago, Starchild said:

At least this bridge doesn't catch fire during a battle lol

Yeah but I am currently still trying wrap my head around "the Torpedo Bay was hit in the attack" and how the ship is still in existence... I mean the torpedoes are armed with anti-matter in a chamber right? So if the chamber is blown apart doesn't matter and anti-matter combine for a nice giant explosion?  Now it is very possible that since the Enterprise was just attacked the majority of the torpedos were not "hot" and so did not have the antimatter chamber inside.   But it would be reasonable to assume, based on conditions on that planet and despite the fact that we did not hear the command, that at least 1-2 torpedos had been prepped/loaded and more should have been in process as the attack progressed.  So I am actually not sure how they are all still alive.

Edited May 29, 2022 by salaydouk

[Sandman]

2 hours ago, Colorado David said:

I wonder what an admiral's room looks like in this time.

I'm guessing waterbeds as far as the eye can see.

[greekmom]

On 5/26/2022 at 3:08 AM, paigow said:

The Gorn retcon is ridiculous.... Nobody is going to warn Cestus 3 ... The Metrons suddenly have NFTG...

Thank you. THIS EXACTLY.

I  admit I do like the character of La'an. She reminds me of Captain Lexxa Singh from Renegades.  I always said they should have just brought Renegades to the fold and done a show about that ship. 

[cambridgeguy]

3 hours ago, Colorado David said:

And no more of those little 3.5" plastic cartridge things Spock used to use to record things. And no bee-hived yeoman (bummer) for the captain so far. 

This version of Pike would hate that - women on the bridge?  That's crazy talk!  However, he doesn't mind clipboard guy just standing by his chair, and is OK with a blue shirt standing by the turbolift for no clear reason.

[LittleIggy]

On 5/26/2022 at 4:21 AM, millennium said:

What I can't manage to overlook or ignore or just let go, unfortunately, is the maddening insistence of the showrunners to inject MICHAEL FUCKING BURNHAM into a story that has absolutely nothing to do with her.

Stop trying to make Burnham happen, show.  

Amen! I quit watching STD ::snerk:: because of her so I don’t need reminders that that Mary Sue character exists.

[LittleIggy]

On 5/27/2022 at 2:55 PM, CarpeFelis said:

Did anyone else think La’an’s brother had a really evil grin the first few times she imagined (hallucinated?) him?

I wondered who that smirking guy was! He looked like bad news.

I hope they didn’t leave that dog on the planet. ☹️

[salaydouk]

On 5/29/2022 at 5:13 AM, Sandman said:

Oh, I’m perfectly okay with judging. 😇 

I feel fairly certain that Nimoy used the -a plural ending in TOS, as well. I suspect that’s part of why it struck as much as it did. (Of course, in the mid-to late Sixties using the -s plural probably was less established than it is now. What can I say? I’m a throwback.)

La’an’s pronunciation of “resources” didn’t register for me at all … maybe because I’m Canadian?

Oh please go ahead and judge it makes life fun. 😁 And you're right Nimoy did say "phenomena". 

Maybe the universal translator was "on the fritz", which would make sense the ship was damaged and all, and mis-translated. 😂  Now the counter would be of course that Spock had a human mother and a father was a diplomat assigned to Earth - so he should be able to speak "Federation Standard" fluently with no issues so why would he need the universal translator.  And the response to that would be he was educated on Vulcan and presumably in a Vulcan Language and as a result technical science conversations would be very difficult for him to have in "Federation Standard". So I would "get" why he would use the universal translator.   We could go round and round on this. 🙃 

[MissLucas]

Or Spock decided for the alternative plural to sound less pedantic? Didn't Data once something similar with a subroutine for colloquialisms?

[salaydouk]

1 hour ago, MissLucas said:

Or Spock decided for the alternative plural to sound less pedantic? Didn't Data once something similar with a subroutine for colloquialisms?

I thought Data just stopped giving a timer countdown including the seconds because he had discovered that humans don't care about the seconds

[Starchild]

Well they do eventually

[Sandman]

My subroutine for sounding less pedantic is buggy; it never quite kicks in at the right time.  

Edited May 30, 2022 by Sandman

[paigow]

1 hour ago, Sandman said:

My subroutine for sounding less pedantic is buggy; it never quite kicks in at the right time.  

[ML89]

Aliens  - abandoned colony, La’an has her own Newt, who knows the monsters are real, although at least the Enterprise believes her from jump… plus Wrath of Khan.

But I’ll cut them a little slack because the cast is so strong and I enjoy watching them (but seriously, M’Benga and Chapel - staples, not 3-0 silk - paging the Botched crew to erase No 1’s stitch scars! Are we going to find out Chapel is a descendent of Margaret Houlihan?)

[salaydouk]

9 minutes ago, ML89 said:

But I’ll cut them a little slack because the cast is so strong and I enjoy watching them (but seriously, M’Benga and Chapel - staples, not 3-0 silk - paging the Botched crew to erase No 1’s stitch scars! 

But didn't you know, scars are sexy. 🤣

[Colorado David]

9 minutes ago, ML89 said:

But I’ll cut them a little slack because the cast is so strong and I enjoy watching them (but seriously, M’Benga and Chapel - staples, not 3-0 silk - paging the Botched crew to erase No 1’s stitch scars! Are we going to find out Chapel is a descendent of Margaret Houlihan?)

Lol great point. You made me wonder, howabout some battery powered backup medical instruments in case there is a power outage??? Can't cost them anything, I'm sure they'd be small and portable. Like the kind you take in an emergency kit for away missions??? HELLO???

[paigow]

2 hours ago, Colorado David said:

Lol great point. You made me wonder, howabout some battery powered backup medical instruments in case there is a power outage??? 

They are stuck in the medical transporter buffer... retrieving them would kill the kid....

[benteen]

Excellent episode, probably the best so far. I always like submarine, cat-and-mouse encounters and even knowing they would survive, it was suspenseful. It was a great showcase for Pike's skills in  battle. The musical score for this episode was great.

I would say the strength of this episode was the character interactions. Spock and La'an, Hmer and Uhura and even Number One with the medical staff.

Liked the idea of Starfleet Rememberence Day. Though they missed an opportunity to remember the crewmembers who was lost on Rigel VII, the event that weighed so heavily on Pike during The Cage.

As I've posted before, I still don't consider Strange New Worlds canon. With all the cribbing they do and contradicting from their (superior) predecessors, I just can't. It's true, the Gorb have barely been used throughout the history of Star Trek and they are developing them into an interesting and effective adversary, the fact is they shouldn't be there. Pike says they'll be ready for them next time...except in Arena, they catch the Federation and Starfleet completely off-guard and it's clear Kirk and Spock (who HAS been retconned into encountering them before) clearly have no idea who they are dealing with. That's why these retcons make no sense and shouldn't be canon. As another poster said, if this show wanted "strange new worlds" they shouldn't be using the Gorn.

Spock having a half-brother is something I never really bought, let alone having a sister.

La'an is strongest of the new characters although she was bullied because she is a descendant of Khan (for no reason whatsoever other than fan wank) and has this horrific past. What other BSG backstory misery is she going to have? Maybe they can give Uhura another horrific trauma while they're at it. It's also clear that she has severe PTSD and it affecting the performance of her duty so it speaks poorly on Pike and Number One that they haven't forced her to get help for it (and yes, Pike needed to do that too).

Also, why is she second officer when Spock is cleary the second officer on the Enterprise on The Cage?

I've liked Ortega but found her really annoying here, with her unfunny quips constantly undermining the tension. I wish Pike had told her to shut the hell up.

This version of Chapel is a lot more entertaining than the original (and Majel Barrett would have agreed). I wish they had just made her an original character because I can't see becoming the sad sack she is on TOS.

My complaints aside, I do really enjoy Strange New Worlds. It's a fun shoe that definitely captures the spirit of Star Trek. I just consider it an alternate world like the Kelvin Universe. I love that today's Trek show utilizes the huge toybox of Trek history but wish the writers didn't feel the need to constantly contradict the original shows to prop up their own.

[Chicago Redshirt]

Just rewatched Arena. It doesn't seem like this episode is at odds with Arena as people might want to say.

I don't think I need to put spoiler tags on the plot of an episode that's like 60 years old, do I? But just in case...

In Arena, the Enterprise is lured to Cestus Three under the pretense that a mucketymuck wants to have a meal with them. The mucketymuck is like, "Make sure you bring your best tactical people to the surface too!" The landing party gets ambushed on the ground while the Enterprise is ambushed in space. Sulu says the ship doesn't correspond to any known configuration. (I don't think we get an actual visual of the ship). Fortunately, Our Heroes survive the dual ambushes, and give chase to the ship. At some point, the enemy ship stops abruptly and then the Enterprise stops abruptly. A representative of a race called the Metreons complains that the two ships have brought violence to their neck of the woods and describes the enemy as Gorn. The Metreon says that to solve the situation, they will pit the captains in a fight to the death on an isolated planetoid, where the winner and his ship will go free and the loser and his ship will get destroyed. Before Kirk can protest or question, he is transported to the surface, evoking a scream from Uhura. Kirk records messages that act as if this is the first time that he has heard of the Gorn as a race.

Two of the main points of contention are pretty easily resolved.

1. Sulu says the ship in Arena corresponds to no known configuration, but the Enterprise encountered several Gorn ships. What gives? The easiest solution is that the Arena ship has a different configuration than the Gorn ships in this episode. Another possible solution is that the Enterprise computers just did not see whatever similarities there might have been to draw the conclusion that this is also a Gorn ship. Similar to if you mistype one character in a entry, a computer is not necessarily be smart enough to say "input likely corresponds to this other data."

2. Kirk has no apparent idea what a Gorn is, so therefore it is odd that the Enterprise and the Federation encountered them years before. We are used to Kirk and our other captains knowing every bit of trivia about everything. But it seems entirely plausible to me that Kirk might not know the details of a mission involving his ship well before he was on it. It's a big galaxy, and it's honestly more likely that Kirk would not have at his fingertips the existence of every species the Federation has encountered. Now if the speculation is that there's a whole Federation-Gorn war coming in SNW, that makes Kirk's ignorance of the Gorn harder to swallow. 

The one area that doesn't work as well is that based on just this encounter, Spock and Uhura should have had some recognition of the Gorn when the Metreon named them. We don't see much of Uhura's reaction other than her scream when Kirk gets transported, which of course seems out of place as a reaction when you consider that transporter technology is a commonplace thing. Spock is aloof, but that's on-brand. One might expect him to be like, "Captain, we encountered the Gorn before. They are very dangerous" or whatever, but he didn't get much of a chance before Kirk is teleported away.

[MissLucas]

57 minutes ago, benteen said:

It's also clear that she has severe PTSD and it affecting the performance of her duty so it speaks poorly on Pike and Number One that they haven't forced her to get help for it (and yes, Pike needed to do that too).

ST:Picard's last season made it very clear that New Trek doesn't give a rat's ass about mental health in Star Fleet. Unless you're stationed on the USS Discovery that is.

[Affogato]

On 5/29/2022 at 1:52 PM, Starchild said:

At least this bridge doesn't catch fire during a battle lol

The whole ship was a 'fire factory' at several points, though. I'm sure the bridge will flame on eventually.

[millennium]

On 5/31/2022 at 11:15 AM, benteen said:

This version of Chapel is a lot more entertaining than the original (and Majel Barrett would have agreed). I wish they had just made her an original character because I can't see becoming the sad sack she is on TOS.

As I was watching the clip Paigow posted, I wondered if Majel Barrett might have become a more likeable presence on the show had she continued in the role of Number One instead of Nurse Chapel.   I never liked Nurse Chapel.  And for that matter, how I HATED Mrs. Troi.  Mrs. Troi should have been in an episode called "The Nepotism Syndrome."   Nothing dumbed down TNG more than Mrs. Troi (with the Ferengi running a close second).

I find the new Nurse Chapel kind of vanilla.   She reminds me of the Carol Marcus character from the Kelvin movies.   She could be killed off tomorrow and I'm not sure anyone would notice.

[Colorado David]

I don't think they've figured out what kind of character the new Chapel is yet - she's not comedic (tho I think she's had a couple of "funny" lines), she's not dramatic so far.  Maybe she'll go down the Kes route and want to become more than just a nurse.

[paigow]

12 minutes ago, Colorado David said:

Maybe she'll go down the Kes route and want to become more than just a nurse.

TOS!Movie canon she becomes Dr. Chapel

[millennium]

Was Christine Chapel meant to be a play on Sistine Chapel?   After all these years this just occurred to me.

[millennium]

On 5/31/2022 at 11:27 AM, Chicago Redshirt said:

but he didn't get much of a chance before Kirk is teleported away.

Here today, Gorn tomorrow.

[aemom]

On 5/26/2022 at 4:21 AM, millennium said:

What I can't manage to overlook or ignore or just let go, unfortunately, is the maddening insistence of the showrunners to inject MICHAEL FUCKING BURNHAM into a story that has absolutely nothing to do with her.

Stop trying to make Burnham happen, show.  

I believed that it was possible that Spock would never speak about Discovery and Michael's existence.  But Spock has been mind-melded so many times and NOBODY ever saw Michael in there? I'm not a Michael fan, but logic is logic.

So when they started the mindmeld, I joked to my family she's going to say "Who's Michael?" And then that they ACTUALLY WENT THERE surprised me. So I have to give them props for making the mind-meld far more authentic. 

Edited June 5, 2022 by aemom
Clarification

[Sandman]

On 6/1/2022 at 5:35 PM, millennium said:

I never liked Nurse Chapel. And for that matter, how I HATED Mrs. Troi. Mrs. Troi should have been in an episode called "The Nepotism Syndrome." Nothing dumbed down TNG more than Mrs. Troi (with the Ferengi running a close second).

Nurse Chapel didn't have a fleshed-out character. Her fetish for Mr. Spock was weird and sad. (Maybe they were going for "unrequited and noble"?) Even as a kid watching TOS I was creeped out. But it wasn't a substitute for an actual character. In contrast, I always wanted to know more about Number One.

I feel you on Lwaxana Troi -- the worst conception of a telepathic character in all of science fiction! Enraging "Give the boss's wife a showy part to get her off our backs" hogwash. Telepathy is maybe my favourite sci-fi trope of all, and Mrs. Backpfeifengesicht just ruined it. I'm still not over it (heh, clearly).

Edited June 4, 2022 by Sandman
The Ferengi are also unbearable.

[Sandman]

20 hours ago, aemom said:

And then that they ACTUALLY WENT THERE surprised me. So I have to give them props for making the mind-meld far more authentic. 

What struck me about that scene was how much a two-way sharing (a true meld, if you will) it was shown to be; I don't remember a mind meld anywhere in the canon being shown as revealing as much about the one initiating the meld (that is, usually Spock) as about the one whose mind contains the information sought. I didn't get the sense the La'an was poking around indiscriminately, but that Michael had a definite presence in Spock's mind. Spock never seemed quite so vulnerable in a mind-meld before -- though perhaps that's a failure of imagination (or logic, ack!) on my part, if I never worked out that implication.

[Chicago Redshirt]

20 hours ago, aemom said:

I believed that it was possible that Spock would never speak about Discovery and Michael's existence.  But Spock has been mind-melded so many times and NOBODY ever saw Michael in there? I'm not a Michael fan, but logic is logic.

So when they started the mindmeld, I joked to my family she's gojng to say "Who's Michael?" And then that they ACTUALLY WENT THERE surprised me. So I have to give them props for making the mind-meld far more authentic. 

In fairness, how many mind-melds has Spock canonically done where we knew anything about what the other participant learned from Spock?

I can't think of a single one. 

[Ottis]

On 5/26/2022 at 2:21 AM, millennium said:

this was a blatant mashup of Arena and Balance of Terror.

And Wrath of Khan, I might add. Balance of Terror is perhaps my favorite TOS ep, so as soon as they chose to head for the dwarf star gas my ears perked up. Sadly, they didn't do it very well. As the Gorn ship passed below the Enterprise on the monitor, I could hear in my head Spock saying about Khan, "... which indicates 2-dmensional thinking," and yet no one commented on SNW.

Still, this was better than last week. I like the recasting of the Gorn as something actually menacing. It was disappointing we didn't see one, though.

Also, the fact no one immediately said that the Gorn flash lights to communicate ... come on. That's what I thought they were doing as we saw it live. And I'm nowhere near Starfleet quality.

On 5/27/2022 at 9:40 PM, historylover820 said:

I really could have done without the reminder of Discovery and especially of Michael Burnham

I actually thought it was clever, an attempt by the franchise to fit Michael back into canon. But I don't get wrapped up in the fact that a show from 50+ years ago didn't have the foresight to give Spock an adopted sister, so I appreciate the effort today without trying to logic it out.

I didn't understand why there was so much freaking out about an ion storm that they said regularly sweeps across the planet. Clearly they had done so before, so anyone who stayed in the research area should be fine. It would have helped if there had been a line about the storms becoming worse or something.

[historylover820]

My thing is that I hate Michael Burnham. I don't hate the actress, I hate the character. I have since the pilot of Discovery and it's why I don't watch Discovery anymore. She's such a Mary Sue. It got to be where there wasn't enough characters that I liked that would make me enjoy an episode of Discovery. And if I hate a main character of a show so much I can't justify watching it.

And this was before the reveal that she's Spock's adopted sister.

But I watched season 1 because I loved Jason Isaacs as Lorca, even though he became a mustache-twirling villain. And then they struck gold with Anson Mount--I was going "If they made a show featuring Pike, I would be all over that." (And I am). And then I stuck with it one more season, because I was intrigued by the mystery. I ran from Discovery when Tilly left, because I loved her character. So, while I do like the other supporting characters, there's just too much of "Michael is the most wonderful person ever to have existed!" on Discovery.

So, it's not the reminder that Michael is Spock's adopted sister that I could have done without. It's the mention of Michael herself that I could do without. 

And Balance of Terror is my second favorite TOS episode. So, I'm always happy to have a reference to it.

Edited June 6, 2022 by historylover820
Typo

[Llywela]

On 6/4/2022 at 4:55 AM, aemom said:

I believed that it was possible that Spock would never speak about Discovery and Michael's existence.  But Spock has been mind-melded so many times and NOBODY ever saw Michael in there? I'm not a Michael fan, but logic is logic.

Let us bear in mind that the loss of Michael is still very fresh for Spock at this point. By the time he gets to TOS era, enough time has passed for it not to be so much at the forefront of his mind, for him to have mastered himself enough to more securely lock the memory away where no one can find it - especially after La'an picked it up so easily during this mind meld. He will learn from that experience.

[Pallas]

39 minutes ago, Llywela said:

On 6/3/2022 at 11:55 PM, aemom said:

I believed that it was possible that Spock would never speak about Discovery and Michael's existence.  But Spock has been mind-melded so many times and NOBODY ever saw Michael in there? I'm not a Michael fan, but logic is logic.

Let us bear in mind that the loss of Michael is still very fresh for Spock at this point. By the time he gets to TOS era, enough time has passed for it not to be so much at the forefront of his mind, for him to have mastered himself enough to more securely lock the memory away where no one can find it - especially after La'an picked it up so easily during this mind meld. He will learn from that experience.

He will, absolutely. And I suspect that between now and then, Spock will also undertake further telepathic training on Vulcan: to better serve the Fleet and to protect his privacy while doing so. 

[Colorado David]

I wonder if part of his Vulcan upbringing is being able to put up mental walls for certain memories, to protect himself? Maybe he's hidden Michael's existence in his vault.

[Catfi9ht]

This episode annoyed me and honestly, I was annoyed before watching the episode because of the episode name. It's so trite and lazy, quite frankly. 🙄

I was so annoyed by this episode that I haven't watched the two others that are currently out now as of this post so if my points are outdated, that's why.

This show is fine if you don't stop to think about any other Star Trek shows or canon or about the universe that exists outside of what each episode shows you.

The fear La'an shows when learning the Gorn are behind the carnage can make them seem scary probably If you have no idea who the Gorn are. If you only know them from TOS: The Arena then choosing not to show their current look before their introduced is a mistake. It's like having a Godzilla movie without Godzilla if the only reference you're familiar with is a guy in a rubber suit stomping on toy tanks. The look of terror in La'an's face when she said, "It's the Gorn," actually made me laugh out loud because of the dissonance between her fear and the poor guy in the cartoony Gorn suit in the California desert.

I'm in minority when it comes to Ortegas, La'an, and Kemmer. Ortegas is snarky without crossing the line into asshole territory while La'an and Kemmer gleefully skipped over it. Constantly berating your colleagues is not snark, it's verbal abuse.

La'an as the tropey hot-headed security officer frustrates me. I hate lazy writing especially for women. The actress is doing a great job, but the character type is so overdone. I hope they give her more nuance know that more of her history with the Gorn is known.

The problem with prequels in general for me is there's no emotional attachment to a character's sense of danger if they're pre-existing characters. I was never afraid for Uhura, Spock, or Pike in any of the episodes were they've been in danger. However, when Pike's reaction when hearing Uhura's voice actually made me tear up a little. It's all because of Anson Mount's delivery. He's pretty great in this show and definitely elevates the writing.

I think where I'm starting to land on this show is similar to my feelings about the movie Solo. It's a pretty good story with interesting characters in a fictional sci-fi universe, but once you add known names and pre-existing baggage to those characters, it doesn't really fit, some things become silly and don't make any sense.

Why couldn't they make a Star Trek exploration show with all new main characters? Studios' repeated rehashing of the same characters is really a disservice to a franchise as a whole whether it's Star Wars or Star Trek.

Since I always try to end on a positive note, I'll say I really like the look of this show. The sets and costuming are similar enough to TOS but still have a modern look so they feel familiar yet fresh. I trust them to do the same with the Gorn whenever they end up being on screen.

[Chicago Redshirt]

41 minutes ago, Catfi9ht said:

The problem with prequels in general for me is there's no emotional attachment to a character's sense of danger if they're pre-existing characters.

Yeah, but at the same time, the fact that a series regular plays a character should also remove any sense of danger.

Across all Trek, just a handful of main characters have been perma-killed. I might have some of these wrong but:

None in TOS. (McCoy and Chekhov were temp-killed in TOS IIRC, and Spock died in TWOK only to be brought back the next movie).

Tasha in TNG.

Jadzia in DS9 (but she was brought back as Ezri)

None in VOY (Harry, Neelix and Torres were among temp-deaths)

None in ENT (well, I guess you maybe can count Trip, but that was in the series finale)

I guess it depends on who you count as a regular for DIS, but I would not count any of the perma-deaths as regulars.

None on PIC. 

I hope one day they do a Trek anthology-style series where literally everyone and everything could be at risk. 

[Catfi9ht]

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Yeah, but at the same time, the fact that a series regular plays a character should also remove any sense of danger.

I disagree on this one. It doesn't happen often but it does happen.

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Across all Trek, just a handful of main characters have been perma-killed. I might have some of these wrong but:

None in TOS. (McCoy and Chekhov were temp-killed in TOS IIRC, and Spock died in TWOK only to be brought back the next movie).

Tasha in TNG.

Jadzia in DS9 (but she was brought back as Ezri)

None in VOY (Harry, Neelix and Torres were among temp-deaths)

None in ENT (well, I guess you maybe can count Trip, but that was in the series finale)

I guess it depends on who you count as a regular for DIS, but I would not count any of the perma-deaths as regulars.

None on PIC. 

I hope one day they do a Trek anthology-style series where literally everyone and everything could be at risk. 

Thanks for the info. I'm definitely not a Trek expert and haven't found a series I liked for a long time except for this one. Pointing this out may have made my emotional detachment worse, but we'll see when I watch the next episode.

For folks who don't feel the way I do, how do you feel for a character that's in danger knowing full well they'll live? Maybe that would help me become more emotionally invested. 😃

[MissLucas]

7 hours ago, Catfi9ht said:

For folks who don't feel the way I do, how do you feel for a character that's in danger knowing full well they'll live? Maybe that would help me become more emotionally invested. 😃

I suffer from a certain fatigue when it comes to showrunners killing off regular characters for sheer shock value so I'm perfectly fine with knowing -some- of the characters on this show won't get killed off. Plenty of good stories can be told without mortal danger looming over characters. And it can also be interesting to see how they behave facing mortal danger since they do not know that they will become series regulars in another show. And then there's Pike who knows his future - also good story potential.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Catfi9ht said:

For folks who don't feel the way I do, how do you feel for a character that's in danger knowing full well they'll live? Maybe that would help me become more emotionally invested. 😃

It can sometimes be harder to care about a specific scene but it makes it easier to care about them as a character. Jeopardy is temporary. It ends a character’s story and development. At that point it’s all about how other characters react to the death and in a show like Star Trek that reaction is generally fleeting. I like knowing I am invested in a character that is going to stay around.

So, I knew Uhura wasn’t going to die but I also knew this would shape who she is as a character in future episodes. Also, I couldn’t be certain Hemmer wouldn’t die as part of Uhura’s progression as a character. 

[Catfi9ht]

8 hours ago, MissLucas said:

And then there's Pike who knows his future - also good story potential.

5 hours ago, Dani said:

So, I knew Uhura wasn’t going to die but I also knew this would shape who she is as a character in future episodes. Also, I couldn’t be certain Hemmer wouldn’t die as part of Uhura’s progression as a character. 

Thank you both for your insights. 

[whiporee]

I think making La’an’s abductors Gorn was a mistake. Too much recognition and backstory from TOS. 
 

Should have used Husnock. All obliterated around 2366 so they’d have been terrorizing the edges of the galaxy at the time of the show but no backstory to integrate. 

[TV Anonymous]

On 5/28/2022 at 10:18 PM, thecdn said:

As a former Canadian soldier I was surprised and very pleased to see the show use the term Remembrance Day. It gets kind of tiring watching shows and reading books about the future with international or even intergalactic crews using nothing but American terminology.

Well, it is an American show after all. Even when her CO was a Canadian, the name of the ship was USS Enterprise, not HMCS Enterprise. As well, all the junior officers are Ensigns, not Acting Sub-Lieutenants.

[Linderhill]

On 7/18/2022 at 3:47 PM, TV Anonymous said:

As well, all the junior officers are Ensigns, not Acting Sub-Lieutenants.

I associate this with Lower Decks since I distinctly remember various crew members being addressed as "crewman" along with yeoman.  And there was a midshipman in one of the movies.  It is one of the reasons I'm not very fond of Lower Decks (besides a dislike of the animation style and the characters).

[Prevailing Wind]

On 5/30/2022 at 12:28 PM, salaydouk said:

And the response to that would be he was educated on Vulcan and presumably in a Vulcan Language and as a result technical science conversations would be very difficult for him to have in "Federation Standard". So I would "get" why he would use the universal translator. 

Why do people have accents using the UT? They're speaking in their own language; why would the UT add an accent to it? Picard & Worf should sound the same to anyone. And apparently UT work both ways - Mine translates what I'm saying so you can understand me and it also translates what you say so I can understand you - that was demonstrated on DS9 when the Ferengi, taking Nog to SF Academy, end up in Roswell, 1947.  Once they repaired their UTs (with a bobby pin) both species were able to understand each other.

Space must be a very dangerous place, with all those space-time continuum rifts.  I wonder how many times our timeline has been changed by time travelers. LOL.  I once read a short story about a time traveler who came to earth during WWII. He knows he's not supposed to disturb anything, but he couldn't resist writing that he was here. His name was Kilroy.

ETA: Kes died in Voyager.

Edited April 7, 2023 by Prevailing Wind

[Raja]

On 5/27/2022 at 8:31 AM, marinw said:

The Gorn are the Borg of SNW. The idea of useing people to hatch eggs is horryfying. I'm glad they didn't get too graphic about what that would actually look like.

For my generation the baby xenomorph from Alien is so iconic the scene is already graphically in my head.

I do wonder if Roddenberry had the egg ideal with the Gorn of Arena but faced a network standards that wouldn't touch it..  It was a feature of the Magog in Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda complete with a character living with the fear of the eggs hatching one day.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Raja

[meeeechiganman]

so this is supposed to be pre james kirk years, and its the same ship but this show it looks nothing like the old enterprise in fact it looks like twice the size and the engine room  looks like a totally different ship.  its not scottys engine room lol.  apart from the sets not fitting its still got the star trek lore, finding civilizations and when needed help them out.  

[John Potts]

For me, this was Starship Down (DS9) with a bit of Disaster (TNG) and a touch of Aliens (I have seen both Balance of Terror and Arena, but it felt far closer to the newer Treks than either of those). Probably wise to keep the Gorn offscreen, because even in their updated look in Enterprise they were still a bit goofy looking - as they often say, what you don't see is scarier than what you do.

On 6/9/2022 at 2:45 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

Across all Trek, just a handful of main characters have been perma-killed. I might have some of these wrong but:

Most characters have been temp-killed in TNG (Picard in Lonely Among Us, Worf in Ethics, Troi in Man of the People and arguably Data in both Ensigns of Command and Time's Arrow - not to mention everyone in Cause and Effect multiple times!), though only Tasha's death stuck (mostly!). Depending how major you consider him, DS9 perma-killed Eddington (and Gowron) and temp-killed O'Brien in Visionary (he's replaced by his temporarily displaced duplicate) and possibly Sisko in Starship Down (he gets better after Kira prays) as well as Jadzia - not including everyone who dies in the Mirror Universe (which is most of them). My recollection of Voyager isn't so good, but Tom Parris dies in Threshold (before turning into a lizard!) and I think B'Ellana dies in Barge of the Dead (it's kinda vague) - pretty sure Kim dies at least once, but I'm not sure. Dr Culber was murdered in Discovery before he was replaced by his clone(?).

On 5/29/2022 at 7:09 PM, salaydouk said:

I am currently still trying wrap my head around "the Torpedo Bay was hit in the attack" and how the ship is still in existence... I mean the torpedoes are armed with anti-matter in a chamber right?

I don't remember the exact line (so this may be contradicted in dialogue) but it's possible the loading system was damaged but there was one torpedo left "in the tube". Less plausibly, the the torpedo drives were damaged but the containment unit was left in tact (if I took a hammer to a nuke I probably wouldn't set it off but could damage it sufficiently that it couldn't fly) - though how just one survived is a mystery in that case!