Star Trek Strange New Worlds (TV Discussion)

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

22 minutes ago, Sweeping Strings said:

Watched ep 1 of Strange New Worlds. It being set before the original series but having more sophisticated tech than it did and an Enterprise more akin to the one in the JJ Abrams movies will take a bit of adjusting to, as will its version of Spock (I was happy with Quinto basically running with a Nimoy impersonation, not so sure about this Peck guy). But we'll see as I watch more of it, I guess.   

I really like Ethan Peck as Spock I have to admit, hopefully you'll get used to him in the role. Leonard Nimoy was always going to be a tough act to follow. Then again, the gratuitous topless scene may have swayed my opinion...

 

I do agree on the tech though, some of it feels beyond TNG/Voyager era, let alone pre-TOS. The worst offender was in one of the first couple of episodes, where they used some body modification tech to blend in with an alien species, which seemed hopelessly out of place given that in TNG they were basically just using prosthetics to make the crew look like aliens.

[Tallguy 3,401]

5 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

The worst offender was in one of the first couple of episodes, where they used some body modification tech to blend in with an alien species, which seemed hopelessly out of place given that in TNG they were basically just using prosthetics to make the crew look like aliens.

 

I think it was at least implied in The Enterprise Incident that Kirk looking Romulan was surgical.

 

We're rewatching S2 of Disco and I am loving the scenes with Spock and Michael. I know it "breaks canon" but I would like to see James Frain's Sarek or at least Mia Kirshner's Amanda.

 

I didn't watch Enterprise much. I know they echoed the city ShiKahr from Yesteryear. Have we ever seen Vulcan's monstrous sister planet (not a moon) in live action?

 

I'm more excited for S2 of Strange New Worlds than any other nerdy media this year.

[Sweeping Strings 2,363]

42 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

 

You have more sophisticated tech right now. Unless we're talking transporters, warp drive, and phasers. Those seem about the same.

First ep had a bit where putting one of the communicators into a docking station turned it into a videophone kinda thing. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. 

[Giftheck 917]

There was a shot in the trailer of what looked like a wrecked Constitution class ship. Could be the Enterprise gets badly damaged and needs a refit? Would be a perfect excuse to swap out the model for the New Jersey model from S3 of Picard.

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

1 hour ago, Tallguy said:

 

I think it was at least implied in The Enterprise Incident that Kirk looking Romulan was surgical.

 

Fair point, although guess I still imagined it as a slightly more complicated process than the way they did it SNW. Reminds me that I need to finish my re-watch of TOS...

 

1 hour ago, Tallguy said:

I didn't watch Enterprise much. I know they echoed the city ShiKahr from Yesteryear. Have we ever seen Vulcan's monstrous sister planet (not a moon) in live action?

 

I'm more excited for S2 of Strange New Worlds than any other nerdy media this year.

There was a final season 3 part episode about rediscovering the teachings of Surak and so on, which was pretty decent. Don't think Vulcan's sister planet has been seen though.

 

Ditto on SNW, really looking forward to it, although would rather be looking forward to the next season of the Orville but I'll take what I can get! Better than having another season of Picard to dread ;-) 

50 minutes ago, Giftheck said:

There was a shot in the trailer of what looked like a wrecked Constitution class ship. Could be the Enterprise gets badly damaged and needs a refit? Would be a perfect excuse to swap out the model for the New Jersey model from S3 of Picard.

That would be cool. They can make the Enterprise garish and pokey again haha.

[Tallguy 3,401]

52 minutes ago, Giftheck said:

There was a shot in the trailer of what looked like a wrecked Constitution class ship. Could be the Enterprise gets badly damaged and needs a refit? Would be a perfect excuse to swap out the model for the New Jersey model from S3 of Picard.

 

Two problems with that:

 

1) The Enterprise supposedly already looked like the New Jersey during The Cage. There are minor differences between the Enterprise in The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before. And some more changes from WNMHGB to the series proper.

 

There's not going to be going back to 1966's Enterprise anymore than Ethan Peck is going to turn into Leonard Nimoy or Jess Bush and Rebecca Romijn will both turn into Majel Barrett.

 

2) They've already told us that these ships all look the same in "real life". The opening of Light and Shadows said "Previously on Star Trek" and they showed us Pike's Enterprise looking exactly like it always did. They're going Roddenberry's route of "This is a TV show. Even this doesn't look like the real thing."

 

It would be nice if they'd scrape all that greebly crap off the hull though.

[Gabriel Bezerra 302]

52 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

The opening of Light and Shadows said "Previously on Star Trek" and they showed us Pike's Enterprise looking exactly like it always did.

I hadn't watched the original series yet, but I watched this episode and got all excited... even though I didn't know what it was referencing.

 

But for what I understand, JJ's Enterprise looks the same as TOS Enterprise "in-universe", it's like different artists take on the same character/vehicle in comic book/cartoons.

[Tallguy 3,401]

2 minutes ago, Gabriel Bezerra said:

But for what I understand, JJ's Enterprise looks the same as TOS Enterprise "in-universe"

 

Lets not get carried away.

 

3 minutes ago, Gabriel Bezerra said:

I hadn't watched the original series yet, but I watched this episode and got all excited... even though I didn't know what it was referencing.

 

It was really well done.

[Giftheck 917]

48 minutes ago, Gabriel Bezerra said:

But for what I understand, JJ's Enterprise looks the same as TOS Enterprise "in-universe", it's like different artists take on the same character/vehicle in comic book/cartoons.

 

Eh, not so. Various media state that, in-universe, the Kelvinverse Enterprise is a vastly larger ship that, while conforming to the general layout of a prime Constitution, looks much more different owing to reverse-engineered future tech.

[Gabriel Bezerra 302]

11 minutes ago, Giftheck said:

Eh, not so. Various media state that, in-universe, the Kelvinverse Enterprise is a vastly larger ship that, while conforming to the general layout of a prime Constitution, looks much more different owing to reverse-engineered future tech.

The more you know!

[Giftheck 917]

3 hours ago, Tallguy said:

 

Two problems with that:

 

1) The Enterprise supposedly already looked like the New Jersey during The Cage. There are minor differences between the Enterprise in The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before. And some more changes from WNMHGB to the series proper.

 

There's not going to be going back to 1966's Enterprise anymore than Ethan Peck is going to turn into Leonard Nimoy or Jess Bush and Rebecca Romijn will both turn into Majel Barrett.

 

2) They've already told us that these ships all look the same in "real life". The opening of Light and Shadows said "Previously on Star Trek" and they showed us Pike's Enterprise looking exactly like it always did. They're going Roddenberry's route of "This is a TV show. Even this doesn't look like the real thing."

 

It would be nice if they'd scrape all that greebly crap off the hull though.

 

I kind of get what you're saying here, and there are elements I agree with, but I also think there's room to 'refit' (or would that be 'defit') the Enterprise back to its 'Cage'/'TOS' configuration, at least as far as its exterior goes. John Eaves said he designed the new Enterprise to basically be Jeffries' version underneath once you strip all the additions off and that the idea was that it could transition back to the original appearance:

 

Quote

We were trying to do things that implied it could transition to the original Matt Jefferies ship later on…we wanted to create links with ships that had come before…for example, we rotated the exhaust ports on the back of the nacelles 90 degrees inward. On the Phoenix those had faced each other like that.

 

Re #2: in-universe, we saw a hologram of the Discovery Enterprise in S1 of Picard, and a Jeffries Constitution in the New Jersey in S3. It doesn't make sense that we just saw a 'low-res' version of the Constitution there (if you'll pardon my game graphics-inspired parlance), especially when they actually had the Discovery/SNW Enterprise model right there (used in S1 of Picard) and had to explicitly create a new model for that sequence. It's also the only model in that sequence that isn't particularly tied to a ship we know - they could quite easily have given that slot to the NX-01, for instance. It makes me wonder if they took it as an excuse to model an old-school Constitution that they can use later. They now have both the SNW Enterprise and the New Jersey model, they could actually revert the Enterprise to its Jeffries configuration by the end of Strange New Worlds, whenever that may actually be.

 

I'm not necessarily after a 1:1, true-to-form 1966 Enterprise myself, there are definitely improvements that could be made. For example, I've always thought that the Enterprise-D is actually quite timeless in its aesthetic, both inside and out, so much so that it fits neatly in-universe alongside the ships of more modern incarnations without any alterations - the same cannot be said for the 1966 Enterprise aesthetic, at least as far as the interiors go, which have aged pretty poorly. Though I wouldn't exactly mind some brighter interiors either 😂 The New Jersey model kind of addresses anything regarding issues with the exterior's lack of detail too by adding a decent amount of external hull detail that wasn't present on the Jeffries' original designs.

 

There is also one other thing to note: Discovery introduced a new D7, but Strange New Worlds' new trailer middle-fingered that in favour of a much more faithful-to-the-source-material design (same goes for the Klingons) so I don't think it's impossible for the Enterprise to go back to its Jeffries configuration in this series. Having said that: personally, I think that there's a happy middle-ground in which the exterior can basically be the New Jersey 3D model with the the interiors being updated suitably.

 

Anyways, that's my indulgences on this topic satisfied

[Tallguy 3,401]

I'm not dismissive of those ideas but those are a yearning for it to visually make sense and it's just not going to.

[Giftheck 917]

I've probably given it more thought than the show's creators have tbh

[Jay 37,372]

New Season 2 trailer is out

 

 

[Tallguy 3,401]

I have not been this excited about ANY TV show, let alone Star Trek in... When did Person of Interest go off the air?

 

Squeeeeee! I CAN'T STAND IT! Now now now now now NOW!

[Giftheck 917]

I wonder what the justification for Boimler and Mariner being in Strange New Worlds will be. I remember reading that when we see their time it will be animated like Lower Decks, and that we might see Pike in that style too.

[Tallguy 3,401]

New poster.

 

 

I'm a little nervous about how Chapel is in black and white and separate from everyone else.

[Nick1Ø66 4,718]

8 hours ago, Tallguy said:

I'm a little nervous about how Chapel is in black and white and separate from everyone else.

 

What about that makes you nervous?
 

Describe.

[Tallguy 3,401]

1 hour ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

What about that makes you nervous?
 

Describe.

 

Obviously they can't kill her. But there is something, well I said "separate" above. She's in black and white. Her and Pike are the only ones looking at us. It reminds me of other posters like Lost or Endgame where the emphasized where some of the characters were going. (Did nuBattlestar Galactica ever do the Final Five with something like that?)

 

I don't need or want them to fix the continuity issues between SNW and TOS. But like the Discovery writers felt the need to "explain" why we'd never heard of Michael Burnam either to assuage fans, appear clever, or to deal with their own OCD (or all of the above), I'm afraid that there will be a "reason" for SNW Chapel to have a very different relationship with Spock (and to have met T'Pring) than what we know from TOS other than just being different shows.

 

Hopefully I'm wrong about alllll of this.

[Brónach 1,302]

if they'd just made TNG a new continuity in the eighties we would just have like five trek continuities and none of this would matter

[Gabriel Bezerra 302]

3 hours ago, Tallguy said:

 

Obviously they can't kill her. But there is something, well I said "separate" above. She's in black and white. Her and Pike are the only ones looking at us. It reminds me of other posters like Lost or Endgame where the emphasized where some of the characters were going. (Did nuBattlestar Galactica ever do the Final Five with something like that?)

 

I don't need or want them to fix the continuity issues between SNW and TOS. But like the Discovery writers felt the need to "explain" why we'd never heard of Michael Burnam either to assuage fans, appear clever, or to deal with their own OCD (or all of the above), I'm afraid that there will be a "reason" for SNW Chapel to have a very different relationship with Spock (and to have met T'Pring) than what we know from TOS other than just being different shows.

 

Hopefully I'm wrong about alllll of this.

It might just be a black and white planet... Pike Spock and Una are in Planet 1, Uhura M'Benga La'an are in Planet 2, Chapel in Planet 3Left and Ortegas in Planet 3Right. It's a bit ominous, but I think it's probably just a black and white planet.

[Tallguy 3,401]

2 minutes ago, Gabriel Bezerra said:

It might just be a black and white planet... Pike Spock and Una are in Planet 1, Uhura M'Benga La'an are in Planet 2, Chapel in Planet 3Left and Ortegas in Planet 3Right. It's a bit ominous, but I think it's probably just a black and white planet.

 

It's not JUST the black and white. She's also framed differently.

 

Probably nothing.

[Nick1Ø66 4,718]

1 hour ago, Tallguy said:

 

It's not JUST the black and white. She's also framed differently.

 

Probably nothing.

It’s clearly a callback. Change my mind.

 

 

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

Anyone else watched the first two episodes yet? Quite a contrasting pair to open the new series - a fairly action packed (but largely Captain and First Officer-free) encounter with Klingons and basically a courtroom drama. Quite impressed that, like The Orville, they aren't afraid to have a relatively low budget, but meaningful episode about the rights and wrongs of a particular topic (notably genetic engineering). I found the conclusion a bit too improbable, but enjoyed how it got that. There's one thing the Orville feels less afraid to do, and that's to leave a somewhat ambiguous ending. SNW tries too hard to draw a line under that particular plot (although I guess it could come up again, but with the way they ended it, it need not), which I admit that TNG and TOS (in particular) did more often than not.

[Sweeping Strings 2,363]

Last one I watched was Spock Amok. A lot of fun ... particularly enjoyed the use of the original series 'fight music' (excuse my ignorance of the piece's proper name) when Spock was dreaming about his human and Vulcan sides going mano-a-mano. 

[Tallguy 3,401]

7 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

Last one I watched was Spock Amok. A lot of fun ... particularly enjoyed the use of the original series 'fight music' (excuse my ignorance of the piece's proper name) when Spock was dreaming about his human and Vulcan sides going mano-a-mano. 

 

Most people just hum it al la Eddie Murphy.

[Faleel 5,359]

The Ancient Combat/2nd Kroykah

[Andy 4,141]

Two episodes into Season 2, and I like them, but don't love them.

 

Episode 1:  There's fun to be had with M'Benga and Chapel shooting up and going John Wick on the (Neo traditional) Klingons.  Although that planet from the first episode is starting to look like every planet from Picard and Mandalorian blended together.  Carol Kane is fun... ish.  A little mashup of Yoda and Guinan in her character maybe?  The trope of Stealing The Enterprise though... is very played out.  I am reaaaally tired of the Federation being played as bureaucratic asswipes though.  Which leads me to...

 

Episode 2:  The Federation has a discriminatory law against Illyrians, and Una has her trial.  I guess this is their "Court Martial" episode.  I honestly can't remember what Una's mutations allow her to do without googling it.  Like @Tom Guernsey mentioned, it's like an Orville story, a very on the nose allegory of laws of persecution needing revision if they are unjust.  A very talky episode.  But it was okay.   I really would like to see them explore some Strange New Worlds after this one.

[Tallguy 3,401]

6 minutes ago, Andy said:

The trope of Stealing The Enterprise though... is very played out.  I am reaaaally tired of the Federation being played as bureaucratic asswipes though.  Which leads me to...

 

So say we all.

 

6 minutes ago, Andy said:

Like @Tom Guernsey mentioned, it's like an Orville story, a very on the nose allegory of laws of persecution needing revision if they are unjust.  

 

Which we used to call "Star Trek" stories. It's interesting watching online discussion how so many people have different notions of what it's "on the nose" about. It's "obvious" (and likely even the writers' intent) to certain groups but personally I'm not going near them for any kind of discussion even with a ten foot cattle prod. Big fights there. With not requiring a terrible amount of nuance there are a LOT of groups that range from imprisoned to persecuted to just excluded under lots of countries' laws.

 

(Kind of like how in the pilot all the noise about the start of WWIII was pointed at the January 6th riots in the USA - which is what they showed video of, to be fair - but the dialogue said that it was more than one group on more than one "side". But almost all of the conversation was about the U.S. capital.)

 

And I LOVED it. I loved the acting, the music, I even loved (LOVED) the editing. I missed Pike so much in the first episode.

 

The first episode was kind of a mish mash. Not bad. Just unfocused. It gave us an interesting look at Chapel and M'Benga. But the "we have to buck the system!" trope was BORING.

[Andy 4,141]

You’re right about on the nose. I think as more time goes by, it’s harder to hide allegory within science fiction because we’ve all been exposed to so much of it. 
 

But then, I suppose Patterns of Force was never quite subtle, was it?

[Tallguy 3,401]

1 minute ago, Andy said:

You’re right about on the nose. I think as more time goes by, it’s harder to hide allegory within science fiction because we’ve all been exposed to so much of it. 
 

But then, I suppose Patterns of Force was never quite subtle, was it?

 

No. But it's not really possible to be "about" anything with Nazis. Unless perhaps you're making something that shows why they COULD be seen as positive and alluring which is what PoF did.

 

I think the most subtle allegory in Star Trek might have been The Trouble with Tribbles which is intended as an ecological cautionary tale.

 

I think SNW is a little more subtle than maybe even it's meant to be. If it's on purpose, yay! If it's by accident I suspect it's because a lot of TV writers don't seem to get out much anymore. (As opposed to the TOS writers who all fought in World War II. At least.) So even though they might think they're being super specific there's a lot of world out there beyond Hollywood.

 

But what do I know? I hang out on boards about movie music.

[Tallguy 3,401]

Well that was just awesome!

 

Paul Wesley has won me over as Kirk and I want to see more. (Not too much. I still want to watch the Pike show.)

 

So... Do you think the La'an and Kirk music was meant to evoke Fred Steiner? It sounded kind of City on the Edge.

 

Really, I loved this episode so much. It might be one of my favorites. It seems to be getting average to good reviews. I know we've only had three episodes, but it's my favorite so far.

 

I really love the music in the show. It may not be super melodic (but it is very melodic) but it has FEELING.

[Gabriel Bezerra 302]

Did they retconned the Original Series into a alternate timeline though? With the "this was supposed to have happened in 1992" line, like Spok said in Space Seed... and with everything Khan being a mess in recent Trek.

[Tallguy 3,401]

55 minutes ago, Gabriel Bezerra said:

Did they retconned the Original Series into a alternate timeline though? With the "this was supposed to have happened in 1992" line, like Spok said in Space Seed... and with everything Khan being a mess in recent Trek.

 

I'm taking it less of "an alternate timeline" and more "stuff got changed".

 

In Yesteryear Spock's pet died this time around. We didn't consider it an alternate timeline. Now the timeline where Spock died? THAT was an alternate timeline. Maybe it's just semantics.

 

For whatever reason Current Trek feels like revisiting 21st century Earth both literally and figuratively. And it's had to square "WW III happened in the 1990's."

 

Someone put it very well: (to paraphrase) - In Star Trek World War III / The Eugenics Wars happen a while after the "present day". Warp Drive is discovered after that. Back in the 60's that was 30-40 years later. Now? It's 30-40 years later.

 

Because it's Star Trek either the writers or the fans (but rarely both) demand an explanation. Unfortunately now every contradiction of "canon" (I HATE that word) will be defended with "it was changed with time travel"! And that's... fine? I'm sure everyone has their sacred cows when it comes to continuity. I know I have mine.

 

Side note: I've always raised an eyebrow that the show whose founding message is "We survive and go on to great things" not only had in it's early DNA a nuclear apocalypse but when The Great Bird got the chance to re-do the whole thing after thinking on it for 20 years the VERY first thing he did was make sure that that was still part of the "lore".

 

The episode: It's funny the reaction this episode is getting. Aside from the people who are focusing on the "does it make sense, in Star Trek or real life?" question (oddly, not me) the majority of people think it's fine. A few people hate it because they hate SNW. A few people hate it because they hate time travel. Then there are the oddballs like me who are putting this in the top of SNW episodes and maybe in the upper echelons of Star Trek.

 

Weird, eh? (Canada joke!)

[JoeinAR 1,949]

The STSNW  crossover episode with Lower Deck titled TOS, Those Old Scientist, was fantastic. Jack Quaid was so good.

 

Instatant Star Trek Classic.

[Gabriel Bezerra 302]

My only gripe with it was that Nami had a quasi-Lower Decks theme instead of using the theme itself, but it wasn't probably her choice.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

https://www.space.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-musical-episode-trailer

[Bespin 8,484]

I started this series and realized I wasn't enough of a Trekkie to be interested...

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Shame, this season is terrific

[Tallguy 3,401]

I haven't watched today's episode yet. (FYI.)

 

On the one hand I'm stupendously excited for the musical. OTOH, I'm a little disappointed I know it's coming. I'm trying to keep my wife and sister in law in the dark just so I can see their expressions.

 

Over on filmscoremonthly someone gave a shout out for Nami Melumad using Chris Westlake's themes in the Lower Decks crossover. I've watched Those Old Scientists three times now and I haven't heard it once. In fact when we see the Ceritos at the beginning she plays the SNW "hero" theme (my label). It's kind of a B theme that she actually introduced back on Short Treks "Q & A". (Which I didn't watch until yesterday so I was delighted to know that's where it came from.) You can hear it on the season 1 soundtrack at the start of "Home is Where the Helm Is".

 

Melumad is by far my favorite ST composer currently working. Westlake is pretty great too.

[Gabriel Bezerra 302]

45 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

Over on filmscoremonthly someone gave a shout out for Nami Melumad using Chris Westlake's themes in the Lower Decks crossover.

She really doesn't, but she uses a quasi one, it sounds like it's about to quote it and shifts gear immediately... (Really apparent when Boimler is entering the portal and looks back at Pike and co) Didn't know there was trouble about quoting other shows themes, but apparently there is since I doubt it was her choice.

[Tallguy 3,401]

8 minutes ago, Gabriel Bezerra said:

She really doesn't, but she uses a quasi one, it sounds like it's about to quote it and shifts gear immediately... (Really apparent when Boimler is entering the portal and looks back at Pike and co) Didn't know there was trouble about quoting other shows themes, but apparently there is since I doubt it was her choice.

 

Composers always seem funny about quoting other composer's themes. And then studios and budgets and what not make it funnier.

 

I can't think on any level why they wouldn't "let" her use LD. But then I can't think why she wouldn't want to use it.

 

To this day it amazes me how James Horner really embraced Courage's music for Star Trek. Everyone else (even Jerry) made it seem like a chore. (I'm sure I've said exactly the same thing elsewhere.)

[Andy 4,141]

Yes, Horner made it organic and seemingly effortless. To anyone not familiar with Trek, they’d have thought it was a motif composed by Horner himself. 

[Jay 37,372]

9 minutes ago, Andy said:

Yes, Horner made it organic and seemingly effortless. To anyone not familiar with Trek, they’d have thought it was a motif composed by Horner himself. 

 

Agreed! 

[Tallguy 3,401]

SNW is a chameleon in the best way. Going from light-hearted (Charades) to kind of classic sci-fi (Lost in Translation) to whatever you call the wonderful ridiculousness of Those Old Scientists. And now Under the Cloak of War. Wow, what a ride.

[Gabriel Bezerra 302]

Wow... Not one comment about the musical episode?

 

I managed to hide my enthusiasm from my mom, so when they started singing she just started smiling. Though the music was not as catchy as I would want (at least for me), I liked how they used the songs to develop the characters, and that Klingon portion of the last song still makes me laugh.

 

I don't know how to feel about Kirk knowing of Carol's pregnancy...

[Tallguy 3,401]

I haven't seen it yet. We have a sh** storm going on here that started Thursday and I'm waiting until everyone can watch.

[Jay 37,372]

49 minutes ago, Gabriel Bezerra said:

I managed to hide my enthusiasm from my mom

 

Why?

[Gabriel Bezerra 302]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

 

Why?

So she could be surprised by it.

 

1 hour ago, Tallguy said:

I haven't seen it yet. We have a sh** storm going on here that started Thursday and I'm waiting until everyone can watch.

Is everyone okay?

[Jay 37,372]

33 minutes ago, Gabriel Bezerra said:

So she could be surprised by it.

 

 

Oh you meant you already knew ahead of time it would be a musical, but didn't tell her.  I understand now.  I read your sentence to mean that while watching, you pretended you weren't having fun, and that made no sense to me