A new Trek series

[Nate the Great]

There's really no right answer to that one...

[Nate the Great]

Another quote you may be interested in...

"Fans were upset enough about the Kelvin timeline (the USS Kelvin is the ship Nero destroyed in the first Abrams movie, creating a splintered timeline) to let CBS ignore it, and I don’t think fans of either timeline are going to accept a new timeline that is pretending to be the main one while acting like the new one and doing things counter to both. Fans are not stupid. They argue this stuff to death and they’ll soon see it as a rejection of both of their continuities. If you don’t like the continuity, CREATE SOMETHING ELSE!"

[Nate the Great]

Nicholas Meyer says that it's still the same continuity, but they've found a niche that allows for some freedom.

Uh, Nick? No, there isn't freedom. This is the era of "The Cage" and we know what that looks like. It is not a "niche" where new things could happen!

The bizarre thing is, if they wanted something resembling the TOS-era but still have freedom, there's plenty of things that happened in the movie era that we could've explored. The ships and uniforms looked pretty good, too. Assuming that the Monster Maroons entered service in 2278 (incidentally, Memory Beta recognizes this nickname and Memory Alpha does not), events from this era that could be further explored are...

2278: The encounter in the Typhon Expanse between the Klingons and the Bozeman. Have Grammar do voice-overs or logs on screens where his image could be deaged. What was the aftermath?
2280: The Charulhan/Andorian hostage situation as depicted in the novelization of Star Trek V. A key point in the life of Ambassador St. John Talbot, but we wouldn't have to see him, or even make direct references to Star Trek V. Just mention the Charulhans and the Andorians, have a few missions to Andor, and have details in the background for the fans to see.
2282: Treaty of Ectair, the result of a confrontation between the Federation and the Romulans. Again, no direct reference, but I would like to see Romulans in Discovery.
2284: Reliant assigned to Project Genesis. Just namedrop the ship and Captain Terrell, perhaps have a classified cargo run to Regula I.
2285: Events of Wrath of Khan and Search for Spock. Mention Spock's death, describe the aftermath of Excelsior's sabotage, what happened to the transwarp project.
2286: Events of Voyage Home. Aftermath of the Probe incursion. Perhaps recast Jillian Taylor and have a story regarding George, Gracie, and their son Harpo.
2287: Events of Final Frontier. Were the ambassadors returned to Nimbus III? Were there security changes to prevent another Sybok incident to occur?
2289: Ra-ghoratreii elected Federation President. As long as we have a recast Sarek, explore Federation politics at this time. What were the Klingons like just before Praxis exploded? Were they as warlike as ever, or were they already on the road to peace?
2293: Events of Undiscovered Country and the beginning of Generations. There's plenty to cover here in the aftermath of Khitomer. As a fan of the novel Sarek, I think it'd be fun to adapt some of Peter Kirk's career in diplomacy here. Once again, make use of a recast Sarek. How did the Federation react to the "death" of Kirk?

[Nate the Great]

A possible explanation for the redesigned Klingons.

The weird thing is, the theory is immediately shot down.

A forumgoer asks why the Discovery is using the Enterprise's "mission patch". Another answers "It's because Paramount doesn't want to pay any more money to Michael Okuda to actually know stuff like that."

I know it's outdated slang, but I just gotta say...word.

[Nate the Great]

Another article questioning why there are so many inconsistencies, but at this time the author expresses cautious optimism.

Another breakdown of the trailer.

As for assertions that Vulcans are not racists, well...that isn't quite true. Putting aside Enterprise (on a shelf at the other end of the universe, please!), there are many examples of racist Vulcans. Spock's classmates back in "Yesteryear" come to mind immediately. That idiot Solok comes to mind second.

The problem is putting such sentiments into Sarek's mouth. THAT'S a problem. Sarek is disappointed that Spock's human side prevents him from becoming an ideal Vulcan, but he doesn't think humans are a lesser species, he married at least two of them!

[Nate the Great]

Commentary on the Discovery Delivery Model

Salient points:
* Ever since Enterprise went off the air the amount of things a viewer could watch has exploded, so Discovery has to work hard to compete against the other options. No argument here. So why hasn't Paramount figured this out?
* They want Discovery to double the number of subscribers to 2.5 million (Netflix has 100 million). Good luck with that.
* All Access will run ads AND not make a whole season of the show available. Good luck with that.
* Serial storytelling works best when the viewer can binge watch; they can't do that with Discovery. If the pilot doesn't hook a viewer; they're gone.
* If CBS dumped all of Discovery onto the service at once, people would only sign up for All Access for one month. Duh. That's why the weekly model is best used for shows that have self-contained stories. Which Discovery is not.

They're currently working on episode five of fifteen.

Again, HOW was this supposed to be ready last January?

A poll about how people intend to watch Discovery:

55%-Watch it, but on on All Access
27%-Watch it on All Access
12%-No, I don't want to get All Access
6%-No, other

They're missing other options like "I'll wait until it's on DVD" and "I'll wait until it's on Netflix."

[Nate the Great]

Celebrity cameos promised for Discovery.

Once again we are promised that Fuller's influence remains and the delays are to ensure a good product.

I'm not in the mood for snark today, just read them and make your own decisions.

[Flying Gremlin]

That ScreenRant article had me until it called DS9 "Star Trek: Deep Space One".

[Nate the Great]

Discovery Executive Producer says that the show blurs the line between a movie and television.

That's just asinine. If this has to be one or the other, it's television. If anything he should've used things like "science fiction" and "action" or "drama", that would make more sense.

Why fans should look forward to the series.

"It's safe to say that the trailer for Star Trek: Discovery was met with positive reception."

No, it's not safe to say that. At all. Talk about a presumptive statement.

Some YouTube comments from the trailer:

"a couple of inconsistencies here: 1) every starship had their own emblem before Starfleet decided to adopt the Enterprise's. 2) the Klingons, as explained in an episode of Enterprise, had human features. 3) "ten years before Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise", depending on the stardate, the Enterprise was already deployed and was under the command of Christopher Pike, and their uniforms don't match. 4) the technology is way too advance from TOS."

"They are putting it on Netflix .... Netflix will air the episodes within 24 hours of their CS All Access release to every country around the world Netflix is available except the US and Canada. I imagine that, with this partnership, Netflix will air the entire season of the show after it is completed for its US and Canada customers as well."

"There's this thing called "continuity", you probably haven't heard of it, it's kind of important when making sequels and prequels."

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

"a couple of inconsistencies here: 1) every starship had their own emblem before Starfleet decided to adopt the Enterprise's.

Is this explicitly said, or is it just inferred from seeing other ship's crews with different emblems?

2) the Klingons, as explained in an episode of Enterprise, had human features.

People care so much about Enterprise

4) the technology is way too advance from TOS."

I don't necessarily care about this. Each incarnation of Star Trek is a TV show that reflects what its contemporary society might expect from The Future. If the communicators are smaller and sleeker, I have no problem with that. If the replicators are TNG-era powerful and get used as cheap escapes from one plot after another, there's a problem there.

[Nate the Great]

So you're going to argue that most ships had individual emblems, but that for some reason the Cochrane Delta is an exception in that more than one ship used it?

To be frank, I wonder where this nonsense of the separate mission patches came from anyway. All it meant for the TOS crew is more work and expense making these things that could only be worn once. You'd think the penny pinchers would've shot the very notion down. Remember, the different patches have to be made, then sewn onto new uniforms, then not used ever again. They couldn't be replaced, there would be holes and small tears and frays left by the process that would've shown up on screen.

[Nate the Great]

Discovery premiere confirmed for September 24th.

"The series will launch Sunday, Sept. 24 at 8:30 p.m./7:30c on CBS, though that time is approximate due to NFL Football and “60 Minutes” also airing that night."

I'm not in the mood for sarcasm today, just note that the words "approximate" and "football" occurred in this post.

[Nate the Great]

Why Discovery was delayed twice.

Apparently making custom props, costumes, and sets for a scifi show take a lot of time.

Cue "Captain Obvious" joke.

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

So you're going to argue that most ships had individual emblems, but that for some reason the Cochrane Delta is an exception in that more than one ship used it?

Keep in mind that I have read Federation, so it seems perfectly natural to me that it's a special symbol for Starfleet . . . but yes, I think there is an entire continuum from "every ship has its own emblem" to "the delta is the fleetwide standard".

TOS is still the frontier era. A lot of little things can be tried, shaken up, and adopted or discarded. Look at the TNG-VOY era: decades later and uniforms are still in a state of continual flux! So there might be one or two default insignia in Kirk's time, but if a ship has a special mission or the Captain requests it, the crew can have their own emblem.

[Nate the Great]

Maybe, maybe, I could be convinced that at the time there was...

1. The 12 emblems for the Constitution class ships.
2. A generic Starfleet emblem for everyone else.

Too bad Discovery blows that out of the water, because they're still using the Enterprise delta.

It's not like Discovery could take place during the Monster Maroon era, where the uniforms looked good, the ships looked good, the emblems really were Cochrane deltas and made of metal...

[Nate the Great]

A closeup of the new uniforms.

Note the 24th century pip-style rank markings. In NO form of the 23rd century seen before were ranks marked by the gold/black pip system! Even the Kelvinverse had TOS-style stripes and dashes on the sleeve cuffs!

So...

Wrong overall uniform design.
Wrong division colors.
Wrong rank markings.
Wrong emblem material and symbol.

First look at the transporter room

Huh? Are those supposed to be transporter mechanisms on the back wall?

A comment on that page:

"This should be taking place right around (even a bit after) the events of "The Cage"... I haven't heard it officially announced either way but it seems pretty definite this must be the Kelvin timeline since uniforms and tech don't even try to resemble the look of Captain Pike's Enterprise, theoretically flying around out there (with Spock on board even)"

I emphasize the "don't even try to resemble" part.

[Nate the Great]

Discovery will dispense with Roddenberry's rule that humans have no conflicts or other base flaws.

I kinda thought that this rule had been thrown away the minute Gene died. It really does seem like some members of the press who are covering Discovery have seen nothing except TOS and the Kelvinverse. Ugh. And if the showrunners feel like they have to explain this, I wonder if they have seen any Trek other than TOS and the Kelvinverse. Ugh again.

Another article extrapolates "more conflict allowed" to mean "more yelling."

Conflict=/=yelling. And if the showrunners feel that they are equivalent, that's another thing to get worried about.

More details about the first two episodes, and another reiteration that Discovery is stepping away from Roddenberry's no conflict rule.

I'm the first to admit that Roddenberry was overly idealistic and that conflict (note: not just yelling and fighting) is needed for drama, but there's a point where "stepping away from Roddenberry" means "this isn't Star Trek anymore."

[Nate the Great]

The first Discovery novel will be released the Monday after the premiere.

I wish them luck. Thinking about it, I wonder if it wouldn't have been a good idea to make a prequel novel and release it a few weeks before. Don't make it required to understand the show, but a helpful supplement.

The silly thing is, Discovery is supposed to appeal to a wider audience, and let me tell you, the wider audience doesn't know that Trek novels even exist. So why are they bothering with tieins so soon? Wouldn't it have made more sense to channel the novel money into filming vignettes exploring the characters, post it on YouTube, and then put commercials on CBS to direct people toward them?

[Nate the Great]

Main characters could die in Discovery.

It's sort of an odd thing to reveal now, isn't it? After all, we don't care about any of the characters at this point, do we? Maybe this post could've been postponed until a month or so after the premiere, right?

[Nate the Great]

Another recap of recently revealed information.

What Discovery can learn from previous shows.

The lesson from NextGen was apparently "don't rely too heavily on previous continuity."

Rebuttal: Yes, but there's a BIG difference between "don't make watching a previous show required viewing, but don't conflict with it" and "totally ignore previous continuity." For example, we know what the uniforms and ships look like in this time period, and Discovery ain't it.

The lesson from DS9 was apparently "don't be afraid of interpersonal conflict."

Rebuttal: We'll see how they handle this one. Of course, to do interpersonal conflict right you need an ensemble cast of likeable characters. Have we seen evidence of this from Discovery? Just cause we have characters named Sarek and Harry Mudd hanging around doesn't mean that we'll like them or care about their conflicts.

The lesson from VOY was apparently "change up the visual aesthetic."

Rebuttal: Oh, so that's why the transporter was embedded in the back wall like an eyesore; just to shake things up. It's not like we know what ships looked like in this time period, or uniforms...yeah, I've harped on this one before, even in this very post!

The lesson from ENT was apparently "explore other genres."

Rebuttal: Fair enough. I can't really complain about that one. Too bad they outright admit that TNG was doing it first. So what was so revolutionary about ENT again?

Key comment from the article:

"If Discovery should take anything anyway from Enterprise it should be that they need to stick with the familiar. Inventing your own alien conflict and continuity in season one is a terrible idea."