Star Trek Discovery Gets Delayed Again As Spock's Father Is Cast (hollywoodreporter.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Hollywood Reporter: CBS All Access' Star Trek: Discovery has been delayed again as the series continues casting. The revival for the streaming platform has cast James Frain as Spock's father, producer CBS Television Studios announced Wednesday, as sources confirm that the show's planned May debut has been pushed. "Production on Star Trek: Discovery begins next week. We love the cast, the scripts and are excited about the world the producers have created," reps for CBS All Access said in a statement. "This is an ambitious project; we will be flexible on a launch date if it's best for the show. We've said from the beginning it's more important to do this right than to do it fast. There is also added flexibility presenting on CBS All Access, which isn't beholden to seasonal premieres or launch windows." Frain will play Sarek, the famed father of Spock who was first introduced in the original Star Trek and who has made several appearances throughout the franchise's many incarnations over the past five decades. The CBS All Access show features the franchise's Enterprise, now known as the U.S.S. Discovery. The drama will introduce new characters seeking new worlds and civilizations while exploring the dramatic contemporary themes that have been a signature of the franchise since its inception in 1966. Star Trek: Discovery was originally scheduled to debut in January and was pushed back to May, with The Good Wife spinoff The Good Fight now set to be the first scripted offering on CBS All Access, the network's VOD platform. This marks the second delay for the series, which saw former showrunner Bryan Fuller step down to focus on his Starz drama American Gods.

Comments

Spock was gay

[Anonymous Coward]

Spock was gay

Re:Spock was gay

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, just the actor who plays NuSpock.

Re:Spock was gay

[Anonymous Coward]

So you haven't read all the Kirk/Spock slash fiction. Because they're very gay. Why do you think they never had time for family? Too much gay sex with each other.

Re:Spock was gay

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but the same could be said about every single character in every single slash fiction.

Re:Spock was gay

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you read the one where Wesley nails his mother? Kinky.

Re: Spock was gay

[Anonymous Coward]

"Jim... This... simple feeling is beyond V'ger's comprehension."

Re:Spock was gay

[hey!]

What part of IDIC do you not understand?

Re:Spock was gay

[Anonymous Coward]

IDIC originated in a lame marketing ploy by Roddenberry to sell tchotchkes. It was never used as a symbol of diversity, at best it represented Vulcan nationalism, and an overtly racist Vulcan captain even went so far as to wear IDIC to symbolize his belief in Vulcan supremacy. IDIC ultimately became the Vulcan swastika.

ST:D?

[Anonymous Coward]

This show is gonna suck more cock than George Takei in a San Fran gloryhole called the Ship's Brig on a Friday night.

Re:ST:D?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems you know a little too much about it.

I'm guessing you were the one on the other side of that hole?

Now known as...

[JelleDeLoecker]

> The CBS All Access show features the franchise's Enterprise, now known as the U.S.S. Discovery How can you call yourself the "Hollywood reporter" and get something so trivial wrong?

Re:Now known as...

[BlueStrat]

The CBS All Access show features the franchise's Enterprise, now known as the U.S.S. Discovery

How can you call yourself the "Hollywood reporter" and get something so trivial wrong?

Better check, the reportage itself might be accurate. I don't care enough to check, but it may well be that they are "breaking lore", so to speak, and making major storyline changes regarding early ST 'history' regarding early ST-universe starships bearing the "Enterprise" moniker. Because they can. And because they're great. Just ask them. Just look at the DC/Marvel franchise adherence to established lore and storylines, etc.

Or, equally as likely these days I suppose, is that both sides are wrong, none of it happened, and it was Russian hackers planting fake news. Because hackers! And Russia! Hacking! Russia! Fake news!

Strat

Re:Now known as...

[Anonymous Coward]

The White House features the government's Barack Obama, now known as Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, William Shatner is now known as Patrick Stewart. Princess Diana has been resurrected and is now known as Camilla.

Re:Now known as...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's just wrong. ST: Discovery takes place before ST: Enterprise, and the USS Enterprise, and Starfleet itself, were new in ST: Enterprise. USS Discovery is a pre-Starfleet ship.

Re:Now known as...

[Half-pint HAL]

ST: Discovery takes place before ST: Enterprise,

Are you sure? Seems like a series set in a pre-warp-drive era would mostly be about a bunch of space mariners playing Poker for years at a time. Everything I've seen says that the story is set in a similar time to TOS, just slightly earlier.

and the USS Enterprise, and Starfleet itself, were new in ST: Enterprise. USS Discovery is a pre-Starfleet ship.

There have already been 7 USS Enterprises to date (and an Enterprise without the USS designation that was operated first by the US Navy and later by the Fisheries Bureau). The name was apparently taken from the British Royal Navy which has operated 11 ships designated HMS Enterprise and 2 HMS Enterprize. The name first entered the Royal Navy when they captured a French ship called L'Entreprise.

The naming of the Enterprise in TOS was following the long line of US naval tradition, and the naming of the ship in TNG followed that tradition, and the naming of the ship in ST:E was again consistent with this tradition. But as I said, this naming tradition predates Starfleet by a considerable margin -- the first USS Enterprise was christened in 1775. So even if this series is pre-Starfleet (which it appears not to be), they could still quite easily have dubbed the ship Enterprise if they'd wanted to.

Re:Now known as...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not from everything I've read. It's reportedly set 10 years before TOS.

Re: Now known as...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they were trying to say that the main ship wouldn't be called the enterprise but discovery, since the ship in 3/4 Star Trek shows that take place primarily on a ship were on an iteration of the enterprise. And they've said previously that this will occur in between the show enterprise and tos

Dramatic contemporary issues

[wjcofkc]

I figured they'd fuck it up. Star Trek: SJW
Not trying to troll or act as flame bait. I mean Enterprise had a decent start... until the time war story line. Oh please don't let this follow a story line.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[JaredOfEuropa]

I've never been a Star Trek fan, it's an ok (collection of) series and I enjoyed most of the movies but it never really grabbed me to the point where I'd make sure to watch every episode. But for some reason I really got into Enterprise. Until the time travel story line, yes. Time travel is just the next level of flashbacks and foreshadowing; a device that can tremendously enrich a story and even be a central part of it, but it is very hard to do this well, and in most cases it ends up getting botched or serves as a crutch for weak uninspired writers. Especially in case of the obligatory "Back to present day Earth" episode or even season that so many SF series seem to require.

As for Star Trek:SJW: that has the potential of being unintentionally hilarious. But hasn't the franchise always dealt with "dramatic contemporary themes", as TFA suggests?

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[AmiMoJo]

Star Trek has always been "SJW". Its vision of the future is idealized, mostly free from prejudice and highly progressive, mostly atheist in the Federation, and with a strong sense of fairness and social justice. Many, many episodes are based on some kind of prejudice or social injustice, and the members of Starfleet getting involved and resolving them.

For example, Data is a machine but has at least some of the rights afforded to other lifeforms, which he had to repeatedly fight for, awful SJWs that he and his friends and advocates were. There were numerous TOS episodes where they alluded to race relations. In The Drumhead a rabid right wing nut starts a McCarthyesq witch hunt for enemies of the federation, and Picard defends her victim's rights with an impassioned speech.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Rod Beauvex]

Shh...don't interrupt the hate train.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Shemmie]

And here, I suspect, you hit the nail on the head - that not all "social justice" is equal.

A person may look at old Trek exploring themes of interracial relationships, homosexuality, racism, sexism, and say "Superb work. I'm delighted to see this being explored".

And yet, the same person may well turn around and say "Facebook allows for 71 genders - hm. This seems a little odd to me".

If it's the kind of social justice that explores the former issues, I'm sure many people will welcome it.

If it's the kind that explores the latter, I'm sure you will welcome it.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

The big difference is probably that one is what people are, while the other tends to fall into "what people feel like being today", especially the 'fluid' stuff.

If someone tells you these new model Bussard collectors glow blue and the impulse engine trails glow green, and you throw a fit due to wavelengths, that's pretty screwy on your part.

On the other hand, no matter how much some random captain demands his ship be treated like a Galaxy-class because that's what he feels it should be, It's *STILL* a rickety Miranda. And some folks take issue when told they're no longer allowed to point that out.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[AmiMoJo]

And yet, the same person may well turn around and say "Facebook allows for 71 genders - hm. This seems a little odd to me".

That's the kind of thing that Trek was great at forcing the viewer to question. They meet all these alien races, some of them androgynous, some of them with three or five or 71 genders, and the viewer accepts it because they are aliens. That acceptance and normalization of the concept then transfers to humans, if only a little.

There was an episode of TNG with an androgynous race where any kind of gender was seen as abhorrent, and of course Riker turned one of them female. There are also the Trill race, of which DS9's Dax was a member, where they often switch gender when changing hosts. I recall an episode of Enterprise where there was a three gender race too, with the third gender being treated as little more than a breeding animal.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh shut up.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[serviscope_minor]

I figured they'd fuck it up. Star Trek: SJW

Star Trek has been pretty much the poster child for social justice issues since it's conception. It was a very explicit goal of Roddenberry. Martin Luther King Jr himself approved of the show. You might have heard of that chap.

If you think social justice has no place in Star Trek, then you haven't actually paid any attention, and seem to engage it on little more than the level of "herp derp space".

So please keep your silly, regressive non-social-justive crap out of Star Trek, and let it be true to the original vision. mmmkay?

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that there aren't really aliens right? Humans only have two genders (perhaps 3).

Re: Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that, you obviously don't understand what social justice actually is.

Re: Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Social Justice is a movement by men dressed up as women trying to be feminists. It's all run by the homo mafia.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Registered Coward v2]

I've never been a Star Trek fan, it's an ok (collection of) series and I enjoyed most of the movies but it never really grabbed me to the point where I'd make sure to watch every episode. But for some reason I really got into Enterprise. Until the time travel story line, yes.

I also like Enterprise, especially for its "stuff isn't quite ready for space travel" and the Vulcan's "we have to help the poor earthlings and not let them hurt themselves as they venture out" approach. The time travel story line jumped the shark; and the alternate universe one, "In a Mirror, Darkly," involving the Tholian Web and some real promise. A ST:Empire with the Klingons as good guys had a lot of potential.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Men, women and hardressers?

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[wjcofkc]

It is not that I do not understand Star Trek's reflection on society, but if the writers are going to really lean in on contemporary issues are we going to have a safe space instead of a rec room? Are we going to have Star Fleet vessels issuing trigger warning as a hostile craft swoops in for the attack? The times we live in are absolutely whackadoodle I could see this happening as unintentional SJW propaganda.

I'm getting modded troll on my original post, and will probably get knocked down here to, but I don't really care. Let's see where my statements are in a year. If you reply to this please keep in mind that words hurt and can even qualify as physical assault. If you are going to say something mean please post a trigger warning first so I can get to my safe room.

Re: Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

That was TNG under Roddenberry's tenure and it was bad. Horribly bad. It was boring, badly written, badly acted, a bunch of robots nobody could relate to. In today's climate it would have been cancelled after three episodes. Then they marginalized Roddenberry with his hackneyed "vision" and it got better. It's still a mostly forgettable show that only ever rose above mediocrity when it dealt with human feelings and flaws, traits Roddenberry despised in his desire for an "idealized" mankind that had no humanity within.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[wierd_w]

Oh, like one that has actual antimatter particles whirling around inside it, and possibly leaking deadly gamma rays wasn't edgy enough? ;)

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[serviscope_minor]

but if the writers are going to really lean in on contemporary issues are we going to have a safe space instead of a rec room?

Are you calling Trump an SJW now?

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you think those categories get changed?

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[JackieBrown]

I'm in the minority where the time war and the Xindi stuff where my favorite parts of the show.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Star Trek also featured the ship and crew repeatedly fighting to save (helpless) life forms who were intelligent (or had the potential to become intelligent) from destruction if they could not sufficiently protect themselves.

Sound like any debate in modern society that you know of?

I've always found it funny that the liberals who wrote Star Trek seem to be blissfully unaware that so many of the arguments they make about protecting life in the show go against a core tenant of modern liberalism (that a women's "choice" is more important than protecting the life growing inside of her).

One of the reasons I myself am pro-life is from growing up watching Star Trek.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Half-pint HAL]

I recall an episode of Enterprise where there was a three gender race too, with the third gender being treated as little more than a breeding animal.

Not a particularly good episode (but then again, that was par for the course with Enterprise) but the basic premise was pretty imaginative (although they chickened out and had the really interesting bit delivered through crappy expository dialogue: trying to emancipate the third-gender individual ultimately led to her suicide (I say "her" because they used a female actor and there was clear parallels to women's rights, and also because I can't bring myself to call a person "it") and a dressing down from the captain for the guy responsible (the engineer) pointing out that the species would go extinct if the third-genders weren't dropping babies all the time. The engineer even told the captain he was trying to do what the captain himself would have done, which led to his telling off being even worse.

It was a surprising turnaround for a Star Trek story to paint someone in the wrong for being (in effect) a "social justice warrior". Which is of course a stupid term, because while there are a number of people who genuinely go looking for causes to champion without thinking about what they're doing, most people labelled SJWs are not in that category.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Ol Olsoc]

but if the writers are going to really lean in on contemporary issues are we going to have a safe space instead of a rec room?

Are you calling Trump an SJW now?

He wrote rec room, not padded room.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Half-pint HAL]

You do know that there aren't really aliens right? Humans only have two genders (perhaps 3).

That depends on what you mean by genders. I prefer the feminist usage of the term -- that gender are the social norms expected by society of people of a given biological sex. We can extend that to the idea that we have created additional expected norms for non-heterosexuals -- for example, the highly camp persona typified by the Rocky Horror Picture Show could be considered a social construct that we apply to homosexual males, even though it restricts and incorrectly represents the population, and is thus a new "gender".

The point of the feminist view of "gender" is that it was a damaging thing, and the notion of "degendering society" was born. The camp-gay gender arose as gay people were being rejected by traditional gender views; by creating a new and very different identity, they distanced themselves from gender notions that rejected them. It's all summed up by "we're here, we're queer" -- i.e. your rejection of us is irrelevant, which was what was needed at the time. However, as society has become increasingly more tolerant, having a gender construct for homosexuals has become increasingly irrelevant. I've met plenty of camp people who are straight and plenty of gay people who don't behave any differently from the average straight person. And yet, there now seems to be pressure from the gender stereotype that gay people should act a particular way. And people who don't conform to that gender stereotype are now trying to define new genders that more closely define their personal inclinations, and we're getting a constant increase in the number of "genders".

How about we get back to degendering, stop trying to put people in boxes and just get on with treating everyone as simply "human"?

Re: Dramatic contemporary issues

[Half-pint HAL]

Social justice is a term dating to the 1840s. The concept is to treat everyone fairly. There is no one group that has a monopoly on the term, and while there a few hypocrites who use it to do down others (completely missing the point), that does not invalidate the basic idea that social justice is a Good Thing.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Salgak1]

Could be worse: Star Trek: Voyager was effectively "Gilligan's Isle" in space. Without Ginger OR Mary-Ann

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[SuiteSisterMary]

There's social justice as in 'don't discriminate based on the color of one's skin,' then there's social justice as in 'tumblr thinks mayonnaise is a gender.'

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but Seven of Nine had the collective memories of both of them.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[serviscope_minor]

He wrote rec room, not padded room.

ITYM "the whitehouse".

WTF.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Volda]

"Yes, but Seven of Nine had the collective mammaries of both of them" Fixed. :-)

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[vel-ex-tech]

They've already done three genders and post-gender so why the fuck not 71 genders.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[WallyL]

I didn't hate the time war. I thought it was interesting, albeit I wish we had seen some of it in other shows. The Xindi stuff was ok, but a bit long.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[elrous0]

Stark Trek has always been socially progressive, but that's NOT the same as SJW.

Socially progressive = being tolerant of all races, genders, creeds, etc.
SJW = lionizing certain races, creeds, genders while villainizing others.

And, sadly, ST:Discovery has all the earmarks of an SJW smug-fest. Notice how there isn't a single straight white (human) male in the crew? Nope, but you can bet they'll get plenty of the villain roles. In SJW-world, straight white males are ALWAYS the villains now.

This is especially disappointing as Bryan Fuller was once one of the most talented writers and showrunners in Hollywood. His Trek writing cred was top-notch. And most of his earlier shows ("Dead Like Me," "Wonderfalls" etc.) were fucking brilliant. But, like milk, every creative talent comes with an expiration date. And I think Fuller spoiled some time ago. Unlike his early works, this whole shows reeks of SJW fart-sniffing in its most smug and bigoted form. It's sad to see that come from Fuller, of all people.

It's possible that the show could still surprise us. But all signs right now point to a new Star Trek universe where the sign "Straight White Males Need Not Apply" is placed clearly in the window.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[MightyMartian]

Or a laugh track... or anything to laugh it.

Man it was a dire series.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[hackwrench]

Yeah, a Borg with breasts and so prominent at that never made sense to me. Especially since Jeri Ryan's breasts weren't as prominent when she was on "Leverage". They could have gone with a Borgs want to be the best so she had to have the best breasts bit, but the matter was never addressed, ever.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[hackwrench]

That reminds me of the situation regarding "racism" and to some extent "nukes". Racism used to be of the sense that my race is better than your race, but now a situation has developed that can still legitimately be called racism where people think all races are equal but if you aren't behaving according to stereotypical norms for your race, then you are bad and maybe an Uncle Tom. Both nukes and racism are referred to not for their effects but for their scariness.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[AmiMoJo]

Anthony Rapp seems to be playing a white, human male. The actor is Christian too. Doug Jones is white and male, but apparently not human. I haven't read anything about those characters being gay either.

To be honest, it seems like you are pre-judging this a lot. I can bet there will be lots of white male (human) villains? That's a reach, chances are most of them will be aliens as is usual in Trek.

There is no agreed definition of SJW, it's basically "someone I disagree with and villainize to make myself feel better".

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Anthony Rapp is playing a gay character and Doug Jones is going to be buried under heavy prosthetics and makeup. There are no straight, white human males in the main crew who've been announced.

Re: Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

I am all for equal rights. However, if you identify as dragonkin and want to have sex with dragons, then I can choose to assume you are mentally challenged. I don't have to accept every single equal human rights measure, just the ones that are within logical reasoning to be correct.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Half-pint HAL]

Or in short, we're all becoming more closed-minded and insular; trying to invent a tight, uniform group identity and to put up hard borders (build walls?) between our chosen "tribes". This is that good old-fashioned "nationalism" that messed up the world so badly in the mid-20th century.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Coren22]

Also reversed genders:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

But but what of n i g g e r monkeys like you Coren22 http://twicsy.com/u/Coren22/ ? If you reply, please, no baboon grunts or chimpanzee chimpouts!

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

im not human . I identify as a meat popsicle

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[sheramil]

Yeah, a Borg with breasts and so prominent at that never made sense to me. Especially since Jeri Ryan's breasts weren't as prominent when she was on "Leverage". They could have gone with a Borgs want to be the best so she had to have the best breasts bit, but the matter was never addressed, ever.

it was purely a strategic matter. if you see a regular Borg lurching towards you, you'd run. most guys confronted with Seven of Nine would at least pause for a few seconds to ogle.. long enough for the nanoprobes to come out.

of her arm extension. i know what you were thinking. don't go there.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Agripa]

I also like Enterprise, especially for its "stuff isn't quite ready for space travel" and the Vulcan's "we have to help the poor earthlings and not let them hurt themselves as they venture out" approach. The time travel story line jumped the shark; and the alternate universe one, "In a Mirror, Darkly," involving the Tholian Web and some real promise. A ST:Empire with the Klingons as good guys had a lot of potential.

I liked it because they had "marines" as boarding parties.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Agripa]

You do know that there aren't really aliens right? Humans only have two genders (perhaps 3).

They aren't really aliens because they are all the same species. How that was suppose to be remotely real I have no idea and it among other things makes Star Trek fantasy instead of science fiction. Babylon 5 even teased Star Trek about it.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Agripa]

I recall an episode of Enterprise where there was a three gender race too, with the third gender being treated as little more than a breeding animal.

It was too bad they did not take that to the extreme (or not extreme since it actually exists) that Niven did with the Puppeteers.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Registered Coward v2]

I also like Enterprise, especially for its "stuff isn't quite ready for space travel" and the Vulcan's "we have to help the poor earthlings and not let them hurt themselves as they venture out" approach. The time travel story line jumped the shark; and the alternate universe one, "In a Mirror, Darkly," involving the Tholian Web and some real promise. A ST:Empire with the Klingons as good guys had a lot of potential.

I liked it because they had "marines" as boarding parties.

Yes, that added a bit of nautical authenticity.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Agripa]

I liked it because they had "marines" as boarding parties.

Yes, that added a bit of nautical authenticity.

It was more because it is such an obvious thing to have for both attack and defense. Of course using them for attack will be problematical later when shields become ubiquitous preventing transporters from being used but then how is it that they are only used for defense under the same conditions which would allow attack? I liked Enterprise *more* than most of the other series.

I write it up as just another unrealistically idealistic concept in the Star Trek universe along with the usual collection of plot holes and assumptions which make most episodes poor science fiction at best.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Godwin O'Hitler]

I'm going to say this: Enterprise is hands down the best Star Trek series of all, even betterthan (but only just) TOS.
The Next Generation was bad scripts, random plots, and bad actors (and yes I'm including Patrick Stewart). The two others that followed were quite simply jokes. The only decent characters between TOS and Enterprise were an android and a comedian.

Enterprise had a purpose, a back story, evolution, consistency, sustainable discovery, no creators' pets, treated race naturally instead of stuffing it in your face, gave the Vulcans balls, really did go where (and how) no man had gone before.

IMHO anyone who doesn't see all those glaringly obvious attributes comes across not only as a SCi-Fi ignoramus but completely asinine.

Re:Dramatic contemporary issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides, if they wanted boobage, they could introduce a new character. Two of Double-D. . .

Axanar

[wjcofkc]

Pretty please.

Re:Axanar

[Anonymous Coward]

To hell with Axanar, I want to see Garth at Antos ordering his crew to destroy the planet. MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE

Re:Axanar

[denis-The-menace]

Because of eternal copyright, Axanar will probably never happen.

Axanar is a great idea for a story but until anybody can create a cartoon mouse and call it mickey, Axanar might only become real in an unpublished book.

Over The Top subscription streaming content

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Just how many 5-to-10 dollar-a-month streaming services do these content providers think the average demographic slice (in this case, I'm thinking 18-34 year-old males) is going to sign up for? In the first place, these guys aren't "content providers" any more than the ultra-rich are "job creators" -- CBS All Access and their ilk are simply middle men bundling/packaging content, no different than music publishers. The music industry is starting to show that people are no longer willing to pay for a full album to get a single song, and yet here's the TV industry trying to start a model to get you to buy an album (the streaming subscription service) rather than a single song (a particular series). These fractured/factionalized services might work for sports, where old content is almost valueless, but I don't see how forcing people to sign up for an ongoing subscription service in an age of binge-watching is going to work.

And as long as I'm ranting, can we please please please stop having spaceships with 15 and 20 foot ceilings and plumbing-free 12 foot wide hallways? Watch The Last Ship if you want to see what a hallway in a ship is supposed to look like.

Re:Over The Top subscription streaming content

[Anonymous Coward]

And as long as I'm ranting, can we please please please stop having spaceships with 15 and 20 foot ceilings and plumbing-free 12 foot wide hallways?

Why? It's not like there is a shortage of space in, erm, space, is there? And these spaceships are built in space dock in orbit of a planet, so they don't have to worry about making it suitable to be launched from a planet's surface. It might increase material usage a bit, but as it is mostly empty space, not too much, so why not make the interior a nice comfortable size?

Re:Over The Top subscription streaming content

[Anonymous Coward]

Because "real" men's ships have exposed plasma conduits and shit. I think I've spotted the Star Wars fan masquerading as a Star Trek fan.

Re:Over The Top subscription streaming content

[Aqualung812]

Why? It's not like there is a shortage of space in, erm, space, is there?

There is plenty of room in the ocean, too.

The point is that the more wasted space you have, the harder it is to make something tough and maneuverable. Hence the reason the USS Defiant was so small.

It makes sense that a floating cruise ship like the Enterprise-D had such huge hallways. It even had daycare, which was part of the plot.

However, military/scientific vessels in the years before where everyone on board was working, and not a spouse or child, should have been focused on the mission and designed as such. Hallways should only be as wide as needed.

Now, in defense of ST:TNG, even the Enterprise-D frequently highlighted the purely functional and cramped nature of the Jefferies Tubes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Over The Top subscription streaming content

[Half-pint HAL]

There is no such thing as empty space in a spaceship -- the voids are all filled with air, as the internal pressure must be maintained at pressures and gas concentrations suitable for the lifeforms within. This air has mass, and will need to be accelerated when the ship is accelerated. It will also put additional load on the artificial gravity generators, as the gases will be affected by gravity too. And the more air that's free, the tougher it's going to be to run the whole thing through filtration and heating/cooling systems.

Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Opportunist]

I loved Star Trek. TOS, TNG, you name it. Big time fan.

It all ended when they decided to "reboot" the show and give it the boot, literally so. Of course you can't really continue a show with actors that are either ancient, dead or both, and you cannot do the TNG-dance every other decade because, well, how far can technology advance before humans become fully redundant because technology literally has the ability from "poof - you're dead" to "poof - you're alive". Face it, watching a bunch of Qs meddling with time and space isn't really funny, nobody wants to watch a show consisting entirely of Mary Sues.

One Wesley was already more than anyone could stomach.

Maybe I'm also not the target audience, being old and no longer the target focus for movies. I haven't seen the last few and I most likely also won't see this one. Sorry for the nostalgic shit, but Kirk, Spock, Bones and Scotty are four old guys that are dead now. Ok, one is technically still alive, but you get the idea. If they want to rewind time and put the setting back into the 2200s, why not show the adventures of another crew? It could have been woven into the old stories of the Enterprise to make old fans happy, if only for the "oh I see what you did there!" effect, while effectively not really bothering any new fans who probably know nothing about the original show (and let's be honest here, the 60s TV show is cheesy as fuck by today's standards). That could have rebooted the franchise for sure.

What do we get instead? Well, basically what we got is that all we "knew", what has been established as canon and the stories that happened before, all that is simply tossed into the garbage can and you're expected to start over. And that's simply not working as well as it could. First, Star Trek is anything but unique today. It was in the 1960s, there was very little competition in the SciFi arena and it could easily gain a foothold, even with stories that were even for the time often sub par. If you want to succeed in the SciFi genre today, you have to pump a LOT of money to get noticed. That is of course easier if you can boast a known name, but if that name has been hollowed out as it has been here, you're basically trashing it. What they did was to throw away an existing fan base instead of building upon it. Because now you have to win us over again, there isn't anything in this Star Trek that I'd recognize anymore. But ok, fine, give me a story that I can relate to and believable characters.

And that's where it fails. Again, with new characters this could have worked. But if you reuse characters, people have expectations. You expect Kirk to be brave, cynical, able to make one of two faces and suck in his belly for at least 200 episodes. You expect a cold, logical Spock devoid of emotions. And if that expectations are not met, your reaction is that it's "wrong". Which is kinda sad because the characters aren't that bad at all. They just don't fit the boots they have been put into.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Anonymous Coward]

The new Trek is when it finally decided to grow some balls and get good.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[91degrees]

My understanding is that this will be based on the Pre-reboot reality. We will certainly be seeing (mostly) new characters so it should feel a little more "Star Trek" than the movies.

It is going to be set shortly after the TOS era though, and this does still have its problems. There's a lot of established continuity that we're tied into; and Star Trek fans will remember every single throwaway line about Sarek, when we are meant to have encountered each race and so on.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Anonymous Coward]

If they want to rewind time and put the setting back into the 2200s, why not show the adventures of another crew?

Star Trek: Discovery is set about a decade before TOS, which puts in the 2200s. The setting is a different ship named Discovery and it has an entirely different crew than the Enterprise.

So... great job suggesting that they should not do a bunch of things they were never doing with this series. And what a brilliant suggestion that they should do what they've said they were going to do all along.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[AmiMoJo]

Have you seen Star Trek Continues? You can watch it for free on YouTube. It has the original characters, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Checkov, but played by new actors. They filmed it in the original style, 4:3 with the same lighting, music, even 60s style direction and camera angles. And it's brilliant. Better than the original series in many ways.

I guess they thought something like that would be too niche, or were not brave enough to have new actors do what amount to impressions of the old ones. The guy who plays Kirk in Continues has it down to perfection, every mannerism, speech pattern, facial expression...

But no, they went with the crappy reboot, which is basically an action movie in space, barely related to Trek at all. Generic, forgettable bad guys... Khan was nearly good, but ultimately under-used and overshadowed by the enemy-within storyline.

This new show, going back to the prime timeline, has the potential to be good. It's an interesting time in Trek's fictional history. Women apparently can't be starship captains, the Federation is fairly new and not as solid as it is by the Next Generation era. The galaxy is a more dangerous place, and people are still struggling to get to the level of social justice and post-everything society that we see a century later. It's just that there will be inevitable demands to make it action oriented and dumbed down, so it needs strong advocates for real Trek values and ideas.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Opportunist]

I just doubt that it will.

What made TOS great was that it was controversial. That even carried over into TNG. It dared to touch topics that were an issue in its time. Racial tensions in the 60s, gender issues in the 90s. What's left for the 2010s? What topic could you touch without going SO far out that it turns cliche?

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Opportunist]

Maybe I should indeed eventually get over the last movie...

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[jellomizer]

In my Opinion Star Trek started jumping the shark, where Sisco started to get super Profit powers, then it started to go down from there.
I Voyager technobabble plot points. I had strong hopes for Enterprise, until I realized their influence from the future guys right from the pilot episode. I was hoping for a story about real discovery, running into aliens that we may have known before, but struggling to accept their methods and ways. Running into problems where sometimes the episode will mean they can fight and win, and others where they run away with their tails between their legs. However it was filled with plots from Mr. future, and trying to introduce technology like force fields, and tractor beams. Where I was happy with the idea of a magnetic cable.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Opportunist]

Women are also rarely used as adversary, even though the female adversaries in any Star Trek movie or show were far, far more interesting, dangerous and cunning than their male counterparts. From the Borg Queen to Sela to that female founder, the female adversaries of the Star Trek universe were usually more memorable and a far better match to their Federation counterparts.

I mean, let's be honest, Tomalak was a pushover for Piccard, and so was Gowron.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Half-pint HAL]

The new Trek is when it finally decided to grow some balls and get good.

When someone objects to an old song for using gender specific terms and tries to rewrite it to be less offensive to them, I tell them if you don't like the song, don't sing it. This is my view about reboots too. If the story is not good, don't tell it. If you want to tell a different story, tell a different story. Changing an existing story leaves you something that is not new and is not old. Move on and do something else instead.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Half-pint HAL]

In my Opinion Star Trek started jumping the shark, where Sisco started to get super Profit powers,

Quark was the one with the profit powers, Sisco/Cisco/Sisqó/Sisko only had prophet ones. ;-)

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[0100010001010011]

I want to know what happens after the Dominion war. Stop going back in time.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Stavr0]

Have you seen Star Trek Continues? [...] The guy who plays Kirk in Continues has it down to perfection, every mannerism, speech pattern, facial expression. [...]

He also does a hilarious Zapp Brannigan cameo, in a recent Futurama live-action fan film.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[WallyL]

Profit powers? The way he complains about all he has is the little bar, you'd think he doesn't make very good profits.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Sperbels]

Sisko never had super powers. Did we watch the same series?

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Opportunist]

Considering how often it was "redecorated" by passing Klingons, Jem'Hadar and other minor and major catastrophes, and considering that it was always back in business an episode later, he couldn't be that bad a businessman...

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[theendlessnow]

Q was a mistake.
Wesley was a mistake.
The Borg children were a mistake (Voyager).
Captain(less) Picard was a mistake. "We need to make a decision... quick, everyone to my ready room for a vote. Counselor tell us if our feelings are true on the matter!"

TOS, always the best Star Trek.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Coren22]

It is going to be set shortly after the TOS era though,

10 years before actually.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Coren22]

I'm wondering how they are going to get the actresses to wear the old uniform skirts.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[MightyMartian]

And maybe TOS was best because its three leads were archetypes; you had the brave and adventurous Horatio Hornblower figure in Kirk, you have the cold intellectual in the form of Spock, and you have the emotional and moralistic McCoy. Though the casting was never quite that intentional, it's pretty clear that by the first few first season scripts were being produced that Roddenberry and his writers understood the good fortune they had in the chemistry between Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley, and fleshed out those three characters to a point that by the mid-way point of the first season, we basically have the Holy Trinity in place. Thus, when you have the penultimate scene in The City On The Edge Of Forever, where McCoy is restrained from saving Edith Keeler, you have those three archetypal characters in one of the entire franchise's most dramatic moments.

And that really is the magic of TOS; some damned good stories matched up with actors with incredibly good chemistry (which is something you can't manufacture, but was just damned good luck on Roddenberry's part), and the rest just flows. Even awful episodes are redeemed by the fact that Kirk, Spock and McCoy are in it.

You can see through the other Star Trek series where the writers and producers tried desperately to reproduce that chemistry, but even when they came closest in the final seasons of TNG, it still felt somewhat stilted, as if the actors and writers were trying to show us what good friends they all were, without ever really convincing us emotionally that these people were more than just comrades. I suppose the friendship between Geordi and Data came closest, but even that felt one-dimensional as opposed to what seemed like genuine love and friendship between the three TOS leads.

And the brilliance of the TOS characters extends even past the three leads. The second tier characters; Scotty, Uruha, Sulu and Chekhov all were well enough written and portrayed (more the latter than the former considering how few lines these actors generally got) that you could feel some emotional attachment to them. Scotty, in particular, is one of my favorite characters out of the whole ST universe. A bit cranky, but brilliant and incredibly competent, he's sort of the archetypal engineer, to the point where I've read that a lot of people were inspired into technical fields because of Jimmy Doohan's portrayal.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[91degrees]

Yeah... Realised that I got that wrong sometime after posting.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Opportunist]

Money?

But in all seriousness, I'd like to see the MEN in sexy outfit, just to see the audience reaction. Can you imagine Kirk in hot pants?

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Opportunist]

Q was a nice plot device, and he was well used. An omnipotent being has no need for power games for he has any power he wants. What I especially liked was that they didn't try to make him a "god", i.e. someone craving worship, because anyone who had total power has no need for petty crap like that. He was quite believable. What would ultimate power eventually lead to? Boredom. That's exactly what happened with Q, and the Continuum. They were essentially incredibly bored. Bored enough that the exploits of an insignificant species become interesting enough to observe because they behave in an odd way, and bored enough that another one of them wishes to die.

It is likely that this is pretty much how an inquisitive mind reacts to total knowledge, total power and eternal life. It sure gets boring really quickly.

Wesley was ... well, a mistake, yes he was. He was the proverbial Mary Sue character. I think it was even revealed at one point that Roddenberry wanted to see himself in him, which makes him even more Mary Sue. It is kinda telling that the character was eliminated from the show around the same time Roddenberry died. In the end, the character was just not really believable, that was his fatal flaw. The youngest ensign in the fleet saving the day on the flag ship time and again... c'mon, it gets old. And again, it was the character, not the actor. Where Kirk was sometimes cringeworthy because Shatner is a crappy actor, Wheaton had little chance to make this character believable. When you're handed shit, you can only polish it so much. And in the end you sit there with dirty hands.

Borg children... never seen the episode. But we're (probably?) talking about an episode, there have been a lot of episodes that were rather... questionable in their logic. In TOS, TNG, VOY, DS9... and even more in Enterprise once the time travel sets in.

Piccard's style of operation was a cooperative one. There's not really a problem with that, and I don't remember a case where a spot decision was necessary and he instead went into a meeting. Kirk was a cowboy, Piccard a diplomat. Both of them due to the nature of the show they headed. Kirk was supposed to be a hands on guy, tough guy in a wild west universe. Not only 'cause TOS was basically a western show in disguise. Times change, and so do viewer expectations. The 90s were a decade when we believed we can solve all problems in the world by talking about them. That also explains the counselor.

Better and worse... all the Star Trek shows have their strong and weak sides.

Re:Jumped the shark a long while ago

[Coren22]

That would be entertaining, but isn't that why Kirk's shirt was always getting ripped on the away missions?

before or after his heart condition

[Anonymous Coward]

So will Sarek have the heart condition which forced him into retirement, or will he develop it later? He'll be in his late 80s or early 90s, young for a Vulcan.

Let's all welcome our new overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold on to your hats!! It's inauguration day and we're all about to get fucked over the course of the next four years.

Hope your still happy with YOUR president by then. Oh, wait, that reminds me, nobody will be happy, because nobody, not even republicans wanted this asshole to be president. Jeez, at least some people wanted Hillary.

Oh, well, "la vie", as they say.

Shit . . . I'm gonna get a leg up on all you motherfuckers - I'm gonna start learning to speak Chinese now. That way I'll be prepared when they take over.

I, for one, will welcome our new Chinese overlords.

Sounds like wrong approach...

[wierd_w]

If this is the same kind of horrid drek as the "reboot" universe (AKA, the Teen angst IN SPAAAACE universe), then again, hollywood DOES NOT UNDERSTAND.

Startrek was a huge success, because it preached a message of a non-militaristic, peaceful, and progressive future.

Look at the reboot movies-- Rigid militarism, politicians lying their fucking asses off and scheming to perform illegal acts, horrible writing to justify explosions-- horrid horrid drek.

The "Need" to "reboot" the series comes from some idiots in a board room feeling that the original message of the series was stilted, and not in line with modern audiences.

Guess what, the ORIGINAL series was considered "Unsuited for modern audiences" back in the 60s too! FOR THE SAME REASONS.

No, idiots in the board room-- it DOES NOT need more boobie time, more teen angst, bad drama, or more explosions. What it needs, is that original formula of "A better future than one ruled by horrible corporations, big money, and authoritarian government *IS* possible, and this is how it can happen".

If you fail to deliver that, you are not delivering star trek.

Re: Sounds like wrong approach...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollywood can't deliver what you ask for, they are all losers and have been from the late 60's onward. The actors are losers, the producers are losers, they can't even make a super hero movie without turning it into some cheap soft porn flick.

Re:Sounds like wrong approach...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just be thankful they didn't just add zombies, well 'space' zombies. I don't think they want people to have hope in a better future, they want you to be thankful that you current reality is a little better than a future space war infested with zombies, and be grateful.

Re: Sounds like wrong approach...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, it's hard porn or no porn for me as well. Do you have a newsletter I could subscribe to?

Re:Sounds like wrong approach...

[Anonymous Coward]

Startrek was a huge success, because it preached a message of a non-militaristic, peaceful, and progressive future.

Clearly that's why DS9 was the best Trek.

Re:Sounds like wrong approach...

[wierd_w]

Do I really need to approach this?

DS9 plot synopsis:

A guy with PTSD gets given command of a space station in the middle of a war zone, because the federation is stupid, and apparently cant assign duty postings without Q holding their hands.

He is naturally, not very capable, due to his PTSD.

The warzone theme of the series harps really hard on the militaristic side of the federation, (Seeing as we have a revolving badguy trope here, with the Cardassians, then the Jem-Hadar, and then the changelings before finally CBS was merciful and cancelled the series), it is a recurring plot point that the peaceful federation cant be bothered to arm a space station that *HAS* torpedo bays with any torpedos whatsoever, despite even Oberth class science ships having at least 6 standard compliment (You know, that ship that gets one-shot killed in Wrath of Khan? Yeah-- that's an oberth science ship) making this series into a "We REAAAAALLY WANT to make this about wars and battles and stuff, and we really dont like this peaceful federation restriction, so we will make it look cheap, taudry an stupid and throw tantrums until we get our way" type charade--- compared to TNG, where superior badguys do get introduced, but with very strong deliberation by the federation on escalation of conflict, and the focus being not on the explosions and battlefront, but on the ethics of conflict to begin with-- And in many of the conflicts that take place, the federation gets its ass formally handed to it, (Wolf359 for instance) necessitating and illustrating the need for solutions other than violence.

Then you have the "soap opera" bullshit, but that was inherent in the entire franchise. DS9 tried to take it to new levels though. (as did Voyager, but at least it MADE SENSE with voyager.)

But thanks for the bait there AC.

Re: Sounds like wrong approach...

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet the reboot movies have been hugely successful, bringing in a wider and more varied audience than the aging autistic weirdos that were associated with the franchise. You're out of touch with reality, sorry. :)

Re: Sounds like wrong approach...

[wierd_w]

Nope. Just not a whore looking for dollars, slapping branding on something it does not belong on.

If you want flashy explosions and bad politics, go watch star wars.

Re:Sounds like wrong approach...

[SuiteSisterMary]

Nah, when he was put in place, it was a backwater little desk posting, exactly like it should have been. He was literally in charge of cleaning up the physical mess left behind by the Cardassians.

Then they discover the wormhole, and Star Fleet wants to put somebody appropriate in charge, but they have to appease the locals, who now view The Sisko as the Emissary.

At least, that's how I remember it.

Re:Sounds like wrong approach...

[DarthVain]

Meh. Most of the Star Trek movies were pretty bad. So that isn't really a fair comparison. The last "reboot" was Enterprise. and while yes it was pretty bad also, I have to admit that it wasn't all bad. They had some parts that were pretty good. Most notably for me was the episode where trip got drunk which really just comprised of two actors talking like in a play, then once they stopped taking themselves so seriously they had the episode where the did the time travel thing to the original universe with the uniforms, big blink buttons and all which was fun (also the alternate "evil" enterprise which was fun even if they already did that in Voyager), and finally the any episode that built upon the relationship with the Andorian who was one of the better decisions of the series. Personally I can't wait for the new series. Will it be bad? Probably. However it will also have some good parts I bet (hopefully). Hell even DS9 was terrible, but had some redeeming qualities.

At least it can't be as bad as the Chronicles of Shannara can it? That has to be up there with most disappointing series of all time to almost the point of unintentional parody...

Re: Sounds like wrong approach...

[Half-pint HAL]

And yet the reboot movies have been hugely successful, bringing in a wider and more varied audience than the aging autistic weirdos that were associated with the franchise. You're out of touch with reality, sorry. :)

Imagine Ford relaunched the Fiesta as a sofa. Now imagine it was a really good sofa and really popular. Is still wouldn't be a Ford Fiesta. It wouldn't bring a new audience to the "Ford Fiesta".

Or imagine I built a theme park and called it Edinburgh Castle. Would it be bringing a new and young audience to Edinburgh Castle? No, because it wouldn't really be Edinburgh Castle.

My point: if you want to make something new, go ahead and do it; just don't pretend you're not making something new. JJ Abrams' Star Trek is not Star Trek -- it's just a lazy story built by borrowing a handful of names and ideas from Star Trek.

Why lazy? Because we accept a heck of a lot of nonsense when someone does a reboot. We accept characters because of their name, not because of their story. If you renamed everyone and redesigned every set and prop in Star Trek, it would look like an even weaker film than it already does.

Re:Sounds like wrong approach...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.theonion.com/video/trekkies-bash-new-star-trek-film-as-fun-watchable-14333

Re:Sounds like wrong approach...

[Anonymous Coward]

As I'm sure you've tangentially noticed Hollywood doesn't take chances anymore. Everything is a reboot and one that turns the nobs for sex and violence to the max[but still PG-13] in order to absolutely maximize the eligible audience.

Art is dead. It is 100% business now.

Re:Sounds like wrong approach...

[Anonymous Coward]

Star Trek Enterprise was an attempt to sell Star Trek to non-Trekkies, which is why it was called "Enterprise" and not "Star Trek Enterprise" (until the last season anyway) and had a sappy rock ballad theme song.

Of course when they found that they didn't grab the casuals OR the Trekkies they went back to the well in a last ditch effort (which is why the last season appeals to me, a phaser-wielding Spock-ear wearing fanboy)

But like I say, I'm the kind of consumer they aren't interested in attracting, they want a more general audience. I'm pretty sure ToS had the same problem, its easy to forget that it didn't really become a thing people gave a shit about until syndication where you got an opportunity to have every episode beaten into your (likely younger) brain over and over (eh, it was better than watching Gilligan not escape that damn island again right?)

The movies are kinda the same, I actually kinda liked the 2009 Star Trek, you knew the people involved were trying to give audiences the ol' Razzle Dazzle with an existing IP. What did surprise me is that they actually didn't want to damage it too badly and gave us superfans a canonical reason to not worry about it (alternate dimensions something-something whatever)

The second film was interesting because of what it could have been, in an ideal world it could have told a story that really brought our fears about terrorism, ignorance and xenophobia but instead they threw around names like "Kahn" and inverted one of the most iconic Star Trek scenes ever... with really young men... so the only depth in Wrath of Kahn was kind of ... emulated but made to be nonsensical in context and was an extremely shitty movie that made me hate life in general

Star Trek Beyond was on the surface an action-adventure movie but a little deeper it deals with issues like PTSD and the impact it can have on the psyche (in this case it was more of a uh... physical change) terrorism, changing organizational beliefs and dealing with retrograde thinking. Anyway it was full of flash for sure, but it was actually a pretty well rounded movie and a pretty good Star Trek movie (better than any of the TNG cinematic tripe)

I have high hopes for the new series but I'm worried that it's going to fall into the Enterprise mold where it's not going to be challenging enough to grab casuals or Trekkies and they'll fall back to making stuff that either appeals to the most basic urges (sax and violins) or go full nerd fanfic and bury its head deeply up fanboy asses (alienating normies and tanking ratings)

Either way I want to see it, if anything to get a new appreciation for what came before or to be y'know actually challenged by something fresh and new

Re: Sounds like wrong approach...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Sisko also gets his PTSD cured when he converts to the local religion.

Re:Sounds like wrong approach...

[MightyMartian]

Enterprise could have been incredible, and there were brief glimpses here and there, and particularly in the fourth season, when it became clear that it wasn't going to be renewed. If Enterprise had been about the founding of the Federation, if it had paid more attention to the cold war between the Andorians and the Vulcans, if it had spent some time on the human supremacist movement on Earth, instead of squandering so much screen time on that idiotic "Temporal Cold War" crap in the first three seasons, and in particular on the idiotic Xindi arc which made the third season into a pointless aside, then it would have been possibly the best Trek of them all.

I like to imagine an alternate Enterprise, where the first season is for the most part what was shown, minus any Temporal Cold War episodes. The second season could have been more about the Andorian and Vulcan conflict, plus run of the mill exploration episodes. Season 3 could have seen the founding of the Federation and then season 4 would have been the Romulan War, then I think you would have had a killer series. But I don't think Braga and Coto ever knew what to do with it, and just tried to turn it into another Voyager.

Sorry, im not a trekkie anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Jar-Jar Abrams cured me.

I dont have any interest it watching "GI-Joe in space"

Re:Sorry, im not a trekkie anymore

[godrik]

Jar-Jar Abrams cured me.

What are you talking about, Abrams never worked on Star Trek.

*rocks back and forth* Abrams never worked on Star Trek. Abrams never worked on Star Trek.

cbs NO access

[Anonymous Coward]

not gonna bite. not a fucking chance. splintering networks and television so much with 93840348 different streaming services (nearly all requiring their own subscription) will destroy the medium, not make it better.

put the show on real television.. or at least the closest facsimile you have. in other words, cbs not cw or some piece of shit network nobody watches like the old upn (which didn't do 'enterprise' any favors).

if you don't, the show is obviously garbage, you don't really have faith in the show, in the writers, in the directors, in the cast.. you don't really have faith in the franchise that GR created, either.. as proven by your need to 'reboot' destroying more than just vulcan, but also much of star trek's rich history.

It's going to suck anyway

[sproketboy]

I'll catch the 1st episode but I don't have high hopes.

Nano Nano! Shazbot!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bring back Mork from Ork!

Mmmm.... Take it slow number one

[Anonymous Coward]

Said Picard

Mmmm, take it slow, number one

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that's what could be heard late night on the Enterprise

Dramatic contemporary issues

[wjcofkc]

Does this mean they will have a non-binary android as a cast member?

Star Trek was never SJW

[Shane_Optima]

Star Trek has always been socially liberal / leftist. That is, of course, true (and to Roddenberry's credit.) And it's economically leftist insofar as it represents a post-scarcity civilization (which, say what you will about it, isn't terribly relevant to today's civilizations.) However...

Star Trek has always been "SJW".

Ah, but I don't ever recall hearing the phrase "check your privilege", do you? I don't recall anyone screaming in O'Brien's face that he was a racist as he struggled to deal with the fact that he was uncomfortable around Cardassians due to his experiences in the war. I don't recall Picard making all kinds of special allowances for Worf's behavior as a proud Klingon living in a society where Klingons are extremely rare and Klingon stereotypes are constantly bandied about--on the contrary, he often insisted that Worf completely set aside all cultural biases in the name of duty. I don't recall calls for safe spaces or neo-segregation. In fact, this was pushed back against numerous times, particularly in DS9.

And perhaps most illustrative of all, I really don't recall the leading males being demonized even if they exhibited aggressive sexual advances. Of course TOS leaps to mind, but I also recall an episode of ST:TNG where it's strongly implied that a woman who accuses Riker of attempted rape not only made it up, but is actually so self-delusional that she herself believes that that's what happened. Women can not only lie about sexual assault, but they can be completely self-delusional about it... and no one even bothered charging the man with sexual assault because there was no other evidence of it other than the woman's word. Yeah. So. Name me one SJW feminist who is OK with that.

I don't know or much care about how the right sloppily uses labels like "SJW". For the rest of us, centrists and egalitarian leftists alike, it indicates first and foremost the anti-egalitarian, pro-identity politics, victimhood-obsessed sections of the left.

And that was never what Star Trek was about.

Re:Star Trek was never SJW

[AmiMoJo]

The SJWs in Star Trek don't need to be vocal, because feminism, post-racial equality and the like are the norm. They don't need to tell people to check their privilege because people are generally very much aware of it. For example, Picard acknowledges Ro's difficult past as someone living under brutal occupation without her having to really explain it, and doesn't question her lived experiences.

As for special allowances, Worf murders at least two Klingons I can remember while serving in Starfleet. Picard is his captain at the time of the first one (Duros) and basically lets it side.

The counselor's office was a safe space.

If course it's not perfect, there are lots of issues like the racism towards Ferengi. Having said that there was an investigation of Riker and the claims made against him, and the woman was at least no dismissed by the security staff or blamed for seducing him. But yes, it was far from perfect in execution.

Re:Star Trek was never SJW

[Shane_Optima]

As for special allowances, Worf murders at least two Klingons I can remember while serving in Starfleet. Picard is his captain at the time of the first one (Duros) and basically lets it side.

He's pissed as hell and comes very close to asking Worf to resign, despite it being a completely legal killing under Klingon law and being done "off the clock", not in Worf's official capacities. The second one I'm assuming is from late-season DS9, which (at that point) wasn't a very progressive-oriented show at all beyond perhaps Bashir's pushback against Section 31.

If you want to see the cultural sensitivity with which Worf's gruff, stoic, pragmatic Klingon attitudes and ideas were generally met, you need look no farther than the hilarious Worf Denied compilation.

Having said that there was an investigation of Riker and the claims made against him

Of the murder only, as I recall, because there was some forensic evidence there.

But yes, it was far from perfect in execution.

Out of curiosity, what would you have preferred to have seen?

The counselor's office was a safe space.

By "safe spaces", I'm obviously referring to public spaces designed for group interactions that discriminate against people based on ideology or race (or both.) I don't think that there are many anti-SJWers out there arguing that all forms of private, voluntary counseling are bad.

Re:Star Trek was never SJW

[AmiMoJo]

Nearly fired... For murder. A harsh punishment indeed.

Re:Star Trek was never SJW

[Shane_Optima]

Except it wasn't murder and Picard/the Federation didn't have jurisdiction. It even strongly advanced the cause of the Federation, since the house of Duras was in league with the Romulans.

We're veering a bit off track, though. My point is the version of liberalism that Star Trek tended to embody was not of a separatist, relativist, identity politic-oriented sort. You said in your previous reply that this was because they've already achieved perfect equality, but this obviously isn't true regarding alien races (particularly the Cardassians and Klingons.)

If Roddenberry wished his works embody the perpetual-victimhood and relativist narratives that have existed in one form or another at least since the mid-twentieth century, he could have done so. But he did not.

Re:Star Trek was never SJW

[Gavagai80]

He's pissed as hell and comes very close to asking Worf to resign, despite it being a completely legal killing under Klingon law and being done "off the clock", not in Worf's official capacities.

Exactly like any modern "SJW". Find me one SJW who wouldn't be pissed as hell at say a Pakistani neighbor committing an "honor killing" of his sister. We support muslim rights and cultural differences, but never the right to murder in the name of culture.

Re:Star Trek was never SJW

[Shane_Optima]

Exactly like any modern "SJW". Find me one SJW who wouldn't be pissed as hell at say a Pakistani neighbor committing an "honor killing" of his sister. We support muslim rights and cultural differences, but never the right to murder in the name of culture.

Duras rather deserved it; he had just murdered Worf's lover / mother of his son. The sister (presumably) does not deserve it. To further clarify, the "murder" took place on a Klingon ship, without Worf representing himself as a Starfleet officer[1], and wasn't considered a crime under Klingon law.

I'm not altogether sure this specific incident is a great example of an anti-SJW slant (I wasn't the one who brought it up), but it doesn't appear very pro-SJW, either. Prime Directive be damned; the values of the Federation/Starfleet (including lack of capital punishment and a presumed aversion to duels to the death) are apparently held so highly as to trump a Starfleet officer's legal, off-duty adherence to his own culture's customs.

There isn't a great direct parallel for this in the real world, but I think there are plenty of indirect parallels. Many SJW defenses of Islam, for example, are all too eager to excuse or embrace corrosive ideas (particularly the justifications for females' dress codes[2]) because they're deemed to be merely 'different'. The ideal of multicultural tolerance--and in some cases an eagerness to self-flagellate over the West's sins and taboos--trumping normal, healthy criticism of an idea or custom or belief is a defining symptom of the SJW mindset.

Star Trek has tons of example of multicultural tolerance, of course, but with a handful of exceptions[3] I think they are fairly sane attitudes.


1. I believe he removed his comm badge, a recurring trope in the TNG / DS9 / Voyager era indicating that someone is either resigning from Starfleet or is about to do something in an unofficial capacity (and/or doesn't want to be tracked.)

2. This is not to say I think the hijab should be banned, but its religious underpinnings are odious and its more secular usage as an identification badge aren't much better.

3. The Prime Directive has always had some bizarre interpretations and inconsistent applicability. It doesn't *generally* seem rooted in SJWish-ness, but I'm sure if someone went over the hundreds and hundreds of episodes out there they could come up with something.

Re:Star Trek was never SJW

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it wasn't murder and Picard/the Federation didn't have jurisdiction.

Worf was a Star Fleet officer. By choice. By any rational understanding of organizational dynamics, they had jurisdiction over him enough to fire him, at the least, and more likely, to put him through whatever actual system of corrections that the Federation has.

Which is usually ignored in the Trek fictionverse, because they'd much rather exonerate the captain. Even Worf got to murder his own brother and ANOTHER Klingon Chancellor just for political convenience.

Here's a hint: If you're in the main cast, whatever you do, the writers will make it out to be heroic and rightful. Guest Stars aren't so lucky.

My point is the version of liberalism that Star Trek tended to embody was not of a separatist, relativist, identity politic-oriented sort. You said in your previous reply that this was because they've already achieved perfect equality, but this obviously isn't true regarding alien races (particularly the Cardassians and Klingons.)

The Ferengi are a better example. Of the writers, once again, failing to not fall into a trap of stereotypes. That's not liberalism, or any politics at all, that's bad writing.

And they did it TWICE over with the one group. Not that it's exceptional, but how many aliens exist in Star Trek just to be the problem of the week?

If Roddenberry wished his works embody the perpetual-victimhood and relativist narratives that have existed in one form or another at least since the mid-twentieth century, he could have done so. But he did not.

That's because that is your narrative that you're spouting off about, not his. If you want that, try John Ringo, he genuinely seems to believe that, based on my personal interactions with him. Go read his books if you want that. I'm sure there are others in that vein as well.

Roddenberry's failings are entirely different, though they are legendary. This has nothing to do with any real world ideology.

Re:Star Trek was never SJW

[Shane_Optima]

I think that was a rather rambling way of agreeing with my conclusion (if not the path there) ?

My argument had nothing to do with the legalistic structure and rules of Starfleet. The point wasn't whether or not Picard had the legal right to threaten Worf about his extracurricular actives; it was the fact that (contrary to what AmiMoJo was saying) it wasn't a very good example of SJW-ish toleration of other culture's customs.

The Ferengi are a better example. Of the writers, once again, failing to not fall into a trap of stereotypes. That's not liberalism, or any politics at all, that's bad writing.

As you say, that has nothing to do with politics (and thus nothing to do with my argument) at all. Well, I guess one could make a ST-isn't-SJW-because-Space-Jews argument, I guess. Except the Jews aren't really considered to be an oppressed class by most SJWs that I've seen. To the extent that was a straightforward criticism, yes yes Trek series have always had tons of rough edges if you go looking for them. They also have tons of content and the episodic structure (which you appeared to casually malign) that allows you to easily dip into only the good parts, hence all of the comments that contain phrases like "TNG in its prime".

Even Worf got to murder his own brother and ANOTHER Klingon Chancellor just for political convenience.

Late season DS9 isn't very relevant here. Few people would argue that the show had, at that point, a particularly liberal slant (except perhaps with the Section 31 stuff), let alone a SJW slant.

"Check your solid privilege at the door! The changlings are waging a perfectly legitimate struggle against the power structures that have kept them oppressed for millennia."

That's because that is your narrative that you're spouting off about, not his.

Again, I don't really think you're following me. I've been talking about what the narrative is not. I'm not saying there was an agenda (or "narrative") in the opposite direction.

Re:Star Trek was never SJW

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that was a rather rambling way of agreeing with my conclusion (if not the path there) ?

Well, yes, I think to some extent you are going down the wrong path, but you are correct in some senses, just not all.

My argument had nothing to do with the legalistic structure and rules of Starfleet.

Good, because those exist as the plot demands. That's really the point of the Prime Directive too, to provide an occasional point of conflict.

The point wasn't whether or not Picard had the legal right to threaten Worf about his extracurricular actives; it was the fact that (contrary to what AmiMoJo was saying) it wasn't a very good example of SJW-ish toleration of other culture's customs.

And my point (which has nothing to do with AmiMoJo) was that your remark about not having jurisdiction was an error, as clear logic exists to make it a plot point. Except they ignore it, as a main cast member, they'll let him do stuff without thinking about it. You may be right, but it was for the wrong reasons.

Oh no, Worf killed somebody. You get a token nod that it's really something not done by the civilized world, and that's it.(because we know it's cool!)

It got even worse with Kurn. The guy has trouble adjusting to a new life, and the solution is to wipe his brain? CREEPY.

The more so since...not much later, everything Kurn was bitching about got more or less undone.

The Ferengi are a better example. Of the writers, once again, failing to not fall into a trap of stereotypes. That's not liberalism, or any politics at all, that's bad writing.

As you say, that has nothing to do with politics (and thus nothing to do with my argument) at all. Well, I guess one could make a ST-isn't-SJW-because-Space-Jews argument, I guess. Except the Jews aren't really considered to be an oppressed class by most SJWs that I've seen.

Well, your thoughts about anti-semitism and the recognition of it aside(that's a can on worms I won't get into), actually, that is the point of the Ferengi being a better example, as they show that the writers threw together a collection of bad traits just to make a somewhat convenient (if pathetic) nemesis.

The Klingons, I will credit as being given some nobility in their antagonism. Early Ferengi? Were they even trying?

To the extent that was a straightforward criticism, yes yes Trek series have always had tons of rough edges if you go looking for them. They also have tons of content and the episodic structure (which you appeared to casually malign) that allows you to easily dip into only the good parts, hence all of the comments that contain phrases like "TNG in its prime".

The Trek series has tons of rough edges if you don't sit back and enjoy the popcorn while wearing your favorite pair of rose-colored glasses. The episodic nature of it tends to foster it, since it swings from "acceptable" to "what were they thinking?" in a very short period of time.

That you mention "TNG in its prime" as a good indicator of that.

Even Worf got to murder his own brother and ANOTHER Klingon Chancellor just for political convenience.

Late season DS9 isn't very relevant here. Few people would argue that the show had, at that point, a particularly liberal slant (except perhaps with the Section 31 stuff), let alone a SJW slant.

Not sure why you put this out of order, but it depends on what you're looking for, as there were plenty of things like the humans rejecting Martok's celebration at the end, the desire to be conciliatory with the Dominion, and some other things. Even Gowron was killed because he was doing something which liberals warn against, namely self-glorification through war.

They just do an occasionally bad job, because well, their writing isn't quite up to snuff.

Re:Star Trek was never SJW

[Shane_Optima]

Pretty sure you're still not on the same page.

"Check your solid privilege at the door! The changlings are waging a perfectly legitimate struggle against the power structures that have kept them oppressed for millennia."

See? This is you spouting off, as I mentioned already. Again, that's your narrative idea about something. Now if you want to look at the Changelings...

No, that was a joke. That's why I put that sentence in quotes. The sentence immediately before said that late season DS9 *didn't* have SJW themes. I was exploring, in an over the top fashion, what it might look like if one tried to inject SJW themes into it.

Good, because those exist as the plot demands.

Yes, but the plot demands broadly parallel the tone that the series creators and directors (including but not limited to Roddenberry) wanted to set. The fact that many plot points are illogical or inconsistent with previous episodes actually makes it *easier* to discern the underlying ideological tendencies, not harder, because it means whenever they exhibit a moral judgment, it's fairly safe to assume it was a conscious choice on the part of the creative team and not something forced on them for consistency's sake.

There's still a danger of reading too much into things that were intended more as throwaway plot points, but once again I am talking about what Star Trek was not. I don't talk about what its actual slant *is* other than to acknowledge that it's very broadly liberal (as in egalitarian and charitable and merciful and freedom-promoting.)

In the vein of Popper, it's much easier to prove an absence of slant than an existence of one. I don't think Star Trek is anti-SJW, but it clearly did not have any significant pro-SJW slant.

And my point (which has nothing to do with AmiMoJo) was that your remark about not having jurisdiction was an error, as clear logic exists to make it a plot point.

See above. Picard could have registered mild personal discomfort, made some comment about how it was done on Klingon territory by an off-the-clock officer, said "it's their culture" and went on his merry way. The fact that the writers and directors didn't do that is significant and relevant. Neither the plot of that episode nor the internal logic of the show demanded that Picard react the way he did.

Picard is the moral center of TNG, and though he exhibits reasonable multicultural understanding in other contexts, he clearly feels very strongly, very protective about his own culture and the people who belong to it. He's not crusading against SJWness, obviously. He's just failing to exhibit any signs of it.

Early Ferengi? Were they even trying?

Well, attempting to stay on-topic here, late Ferregi are a bit more relevant to the SJW argument since there was an abrupt, humorous attempt to rebuke their conservative excesses and handwavingly transform them into a good little Federation clone. The Ferregi were conservative punching bags, sure. They were "consistent with" an SJW slant but also consistent with a regular egalitarian liberal slant.

It got even worse with Kurn.

Along with most of the stuff did with Klingons in DS9, that was extremely cringy. And has nothing to do with SJWness as far as I know. I don't even really understand why they did it for plot reasons. It seemed like a huge, pointless waste after everything that Worf went through in TNG. And for what? So we could have an episode about Dax not getting along with Martok's wife?

Alexander was cringy as fuck, too. And then, as you note, they turned the best Klingon that Star Trek ever produced into a villain (again) and then killed him off unceremoniously and illogically, since by that point there was no doubt whatsoever that Worf was much better in hand to hand combat.

We're talking about ~350 episodes here, in an episo

Re: Star Trek was never SJW

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'm still not sure what you're trying to argue.

Pretty sure you're still not on the same page.

You'd probably do a better job if you didn't get things all out of order.

But since you did, let's spin the wheel. Mix things up.

Picard is the moral center of TNG, and though he exhibits reasonable multicultural understanding in other contexts, he clearly feels very strongly, very protective about his own culture and the people who belong to it. He's not crusading against SJWness, obviously. He's just failing to exhibit any signs of it.

The "anti-SJW" crowd has already tried to co-opt Picard and Patrick Stewart. They are quite desperate, frenetic in their attempts to keep their beloved Star Trek, even though it it really closer to those about whom they have chosen to hate.

They'd do better to have their own show. Much like the Axalon fellow at that. Well, ok, the Japanese guy has Gate, but I wouldn't even give it remote odds of getting on US broadcasting.

See above. Picard could have registered mild personal discomfort, made some comment about how it was done on Klingon territory by an off-the-clock officer, said "it's their culture" and went on his merry way. The fact that the writers and directors didn't do that is significant and relevant. Neither the plot of that episode nor the internal logic of the show demanded that Picard react the way he did.

Exactly why your objections above were meritless. You should just realize that it was because they weren't running Michael Dorn out of the show. No need to bother making a point out it not being in Picard's jurisdiction.

Doctor Who is a good example of this tradition as well, the main difference being that they are semi-comedic and much more freewheeling and unconstrained. It's more of a superhero genre than sci fi really, but in terms of tone and technique the modern series actually have a ton in common with TNG, and this similarity makes it a bit easier to objectively gauge some of the strengths and unique aspects of TNG and DS9 (since I wasn't introduced to Doctor Who before adulthood.)

Doctor Who is another series that you would have to consider carefully in order to appreciate it properly. Particularly some of the British matters, but even the scope of the production.

For the nth time, I am arguing that Star Trek DOES NOT HAVE A CERTAIN SLANT. I'm not arguing it had a slant in the opposite direction. It had a strong liberalish moral center, but they did not set out to write propaganda pieces, and yes often times a cigar was just a cigar and there was no deep, specific, directly-relevant-to-today's-world moral judgment intended. That's entirely in line with my thesis.

Your thesis is countered by too much contradictory evidence. Including the Yangs and Kohms, btut also the Sun. And the Last Battlefield. And Space Nicotine. And God needing a Starship. And Space Whales. And genetic supermen of all kinds being defeated because they didn't have wheelchairs and seeing eye dogs. They did set out to write propaganda pieces. Consciously and documented. Read the series bibles. It's just sometimes they messed up with their own limits and gave us sexy aliens or Janeway blowing up planets because reasons.

"Check your solid privilege at the door! The changlings are waging a perfectly legitimate struggle against the power structures that have kept them oppressed for millennia."
See? This is you spouting off, as I mentioned already. Again, that's your narrative idea about something. Now if you want to look at the Changelings...

No, that was a joke. That's why I put that sentence in quotes. The sentence immediately before said that late season DS9 *didn't* have SJW themes. I was exploring, in an over the top fashion, what it might look like if one tried

Fascinating

[thexfile]

Never understood how all those ships made noise in space or ended up in the same upright position.

Re:Fascinating

[wierd_w]

Dont you know? EVERYONE orients the false gravity of their vessels to the galactic ecliptic plane! /s

U,S.S. Discovery

[Geoffrey.landis]

"During San Diego Comic-Con, another teaser for the series was released — this one featuring the “test flight” of the U.S.S. Discovery, the space-traveling base of operations for the cast.

http://www.startrek.com/articl...
http://www.digitaltrends.com/m...

Star Trek was a subtle mixture

[Shane_Optima]

Startrek was a huge success, because it preached a message of a non-militaristic, peaceful, and progressive future... No, idiots in the board room-- it DOES NOT need more boobie time, more teen angst, bad drama, or more explosions. What it needs, is that original formula of "A better future than one ruled by horrible corporations, big money, and authoritarian government *IS* possible, and this is how it can happen".

You hear this sentiment very frequently these days, but it's only half true. Even if we limit ourselves for the moment to just TOS and TNG, and it's clear that not every episode had such hopeful social themes. I don't even think the majority of them did. What were the hopeful themes of "The Trouble with Tribbles" or "The Doomsday Machine" or "The Best of Both Worlds" or "All Good Things" or "Goddamnit, the Holodeck Is On the Fritz Again"? And sure, the Federation tried to be peaceful if possible but there were a hell of a lot of episodes (and movies) that involved military situations.

I agree that the upbeat and socially liberal tone is *a* defining characteristic of Star Trek, and one that was often sadly neglected in later efforts, but there was a hell of other ingredients in there including good old fashioned, episodic, golden age-inspired sci fi craziness.

Possibly nothing is more emblematic of this elusive mixture of classic action/adventure and poignant social commentary than Star Trek I and II. Roddenberry was forced out of the latter due to the former being a boring flop, and The Wrath of Khan went on to be what many people still consider to be the best Star Trek movie, even though the conflict with its villain is rather one-dimensional, with the only perhaps quasi-social commentary being Kirk coming to terms with his aging. What did Spock's poignant drama in that movie have to do with a utopian future? It was just drama. But that's ok. Star Trek always had regular character-driven dramas going on, too.

I'm no huge fan of the new movies, but it would be a catastrophe if the studios tried to pander to the hardcore fans by swinging too hard in the other direction. We need action and adventure and drama in the framework of this strangely optimistic crew and society. It's a sci fi drama, not a public service announcement.

In recent years, I actually think that Doctor Who has come closer to the moral optimism blended and adventurous spirit of TOS and TNG than anything else, though obviously it uses a freewheeling zaniness in lieu of Star Trek's semi-realism.

Re:Star Trek was a subtle mixture

[wierd_w]

This is true, however, it seems to me that the direction CBS and Paramount want to take the series is "GI-Joe in space, with boobies and lasers!-- Oh, and throw in some really crooked corporations and government officials too! Everyone relates to those!"

They seem to REALLY want to paint a very dystopian view of where humanity will end up, making any upbeat message of the series into a hollow sounding cliche that not even a koolaid drinker could swallow.

That, and not even a token effort at rigorous scifi. (Voyager's babble was better, imo)

Really, there are all kinds of interesting story opportunities that have gone completely to waste in the star trek compendium to date, and most of them dont need phasers or torpedoes.

Take for instance, the mysterious starless void mentioned only in passing in Enterprise, where it is mentioned that a huge subspace anomaly prevented star formation in that area. ("the barrens") What could possibly create a void "100 light years across", and be natural? Especially given that since it did not form stars, there is little matter there, suggesting very unusual and exotic physics? *I* sure as hell would want to find out what caused it-- but nope-- Not cool enough. No explosions, no boobies--- Nevermind that some really neat possibilities, like it being artificial in nature, or the result of subspace aliens performing research on our universe and creating partially interacting spacetime, or any number of potentially very neat directions it could be taken- Nope- 100ly void is just boring and uninteresting. We just needed an excuse for why nobody was there, so we could circlejerk about the transporter.

Star Trek could be VERY interesting, but it gets discarded for really dull plots anymore.

Anyone say, "The Motion Picture"

[Anonymous Coward]

CBS All Access - the Motion Picture

Car Wrecks that move in Slow motion are all the rage these days..

Egalitarian means egalitarian

[Shane_Optima]

And yet, the same person may well turn around and say "Facebook allows for 71 genders - hm. This seems a little odd to me".

Non-SJW liberals/leftists shouldn't be aggrieved by what people choose to self-identify as, so long as they don't demand special rights or considerations that others don't have access to. Egalitarian means egalitarian.

If you think that the voluntary self-identifications and hobbies of the Tumblrsphere are a problem with today's society, or if you believe that what is in between a person's legs should define them socially, that's a socially conservative stance to take (and one that I'm against.) But if, for example, you're against totalitarian language police (trying to *force* certain pronouns) or think that people should be able to openly express sexual and romantic preferences, that's mostly justifiable.

Re:Egalitarian means egalitarian

[AmiMoJo]

Egalitarians are SJWs according to the conservatives on Slashdot. Every time I show support for it I get accused of being one (as if I care).

In fact pretty much every main character on Star Trek is an SJW, by the standards of Free Speech Warriors. Starfleet is tyrannical because you can't just commandeer the comms system any time you like to broadcast your messages. They don't even have social media and speech has consequences enforced by the character's reactions to it. You can even lose your job for saying things.

Re:Egalitarian means egalitarian

[Shane_Optima]

I'm not merely referring to egalitarianism is a distant and lofty goal (which in practice will never arrive to their satisfaction); I mean egalitarian in judgments in the here and now. It means that someone's membership in a minority class (or as females) does not generally give them any special consideration or rights.

Your average outspoken, self-identified SJW does not believe in this.

Egalitarians are SJWs according to the conservatives on Slashdot.

I think you'll find that many of those people decrying SJWs are centrists, classical liberals, libertarians and even people who formerly strongly identified with progressivism before progressivism became bogged down in the current self-negating mire.

You can even lose your job for saying things.

Despite what XKCD would have you believe, freedom of speech exists as a concept distinct from the first amendment. If you believe that any and all non-government-sponsored sanctions should be levied against speech you dislike, you are not in favor of free speech any more than someone who believes that private golf clubs should exclude black people (not "can", but "should") is against racism (but is against the post office discriminating against black people because that's the government.)

One could be an egalitarian without actually being in favor of free speech, I suppose, but that's a pretty tough line to walk.

Re:Egalitarian means egalitarian

[AmiMoJo]

In that case I don't think there is an agreed definition of SJW, because I'm often accused of being one but am an egalitarian.

Maybe I need to bring my old .sig back.

Re: Egalitarian means egalitarian

[Anonymous Coward]

Owlkin are identifying as being and being attracted to owls or other owlkin. Why should I be forced to accept a SEXUAL identity or a GENDER identity that seems to be pshycologically anomalous against all reason? I want them to see a therapist not embrace their choice of identity.

Re: Egalitarian means egalitarian

[Shane_Optima]

It depends on what you mean by "accept." If they start demanding separate bathrooms then no, that's bullshit. If they demand that they never be criticized, that too is bullshit.

But if they more or less just demand to be not discriminated against for no reason other than what they do in private? That's pretty much fine. That's egalitarian.

I want them to see a therapist not embrace their choice of identity.

That's not your call to make. I want observant Christians, Jews and Muslims to see therapists. I want people who think soccer is interesting to... well, maybe not see therapists (unless it'll really help), but to at least shut up about it.

But the existence of these personal beliefs do not mean that I therefore also believe that we should be engaged in ostracization-based social engineering. I can think of no attitude more defining of conservativism than the attitudes that conventional, popular things are inherently good, and strange things are inherently bad.

(Actual issues of delusions of being an owl, or an epidemic of owl-rape, could and should probably be considered orthogonal issues here.)

Re: Egalitarian means egalitarian

[Coren22]

or an epidemic of owl-rape,

That seems like it might cause serious trama to the owl, unless the guy has a seriously tiny pecker.

Re: Egalitarian means egalitarian

[Anonymous Coward]

But what of n i g g e r monkeys like you Coren22 http://twicsy.com/u/Coren22/ ?

meh

[macdaddy357]

Nobody gives a damn about star dreck any more.

Re:Comedy

[hackwrench]

With medical degrees, in fashion,from France... Oops, this is the wrong forum. Could someone point out where the Portal humor forum is?

And I should give a damn why, exactly?

[Rick Schumann]

Since CBS took a gigantic steaming civil-lawsuit dump all over Axanar , I really couldn't give a damn about any of their imitation Star Trek-flavored crap, especially since I'd have to pay to see it in the first place -- and it's not even going to be worth pirating so far as I'm concerned. Likewise JJA's Star Trek-flavored 'movies'.

Qs messing with the universe

[hackwrench]

Doctor Who comes the closest to Qs messing with the universe. The Doctor frequently illustrates that he is hiding the extent of his power to manipulate the situation through things similar to hypnosis that the Master openly used in the classic series, but the seventh Doctor especially illustrated that he could do too.

Re:Qs messing with the universe

[Opportunist]

The Doctor doesn't have close to the powers Q has, which is good. An omnipotent, omniscient protagonist makes a very, very poor and boring story. Where's the challenge? Where's the room for character development? Where's the flaw that makes him likable?

Face it, perfect characters work well as foils, possibly as deus ex machinas and as plot device, but they should not be prominent characters.

I hope Sarek isn't part of Discovery's crew.

[NoSalt]

Because, if I remember correctly, Sarek was opposed to Spock joining Starfleet. Many things can be said about Vulcans, but I don't believe "hypocrite" is one of them. Although, I suppose he could have opposed Spock's joining because he, himself, had a bad experience as a member of Starfleet.

Re: I hope Sarek isn't part of Discovery's crew.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spock is already serving on the Enterprise commanded by Pike in the time frame when Discovery takes place. The Cage was 13 years before TOS, and Discovery is 10 years before TOS.

Sarek was said to have debated Gav before Sarek retired from an ambassadorial role, so it's likely Sarek is an ambassador or Federation Council member, not in Starfleet.

WTFH

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't believe it when I read it.

From comic book dictionary

[Oligonicella]

canon: (noun)

What some writer decides today what happened in a fictitious past. This is primarily caused by s/he wanting a personal thumbprint on a character set combined with an inability to imagine extensions to current story lines. In most cases this leads to conflict in story lines that produce confusion in the readership and at times actual outrage at the bastardization and extreme vandalism of admired characters (see Green Lantern).

Re:all becoming more closed-minded

[hackwrench]

Not all of us of course. Mainly those who unreservedly supported either of the two major candidates. I don't know the breakdown among those who supported the other candidates or like me didn't support any.

Re:all becoming more closed-minded

[Half-pint HAL]

Not all of us of course. Mainly those who unreservedly supported either of the two major candidates. I don't know the breakdown among those who supported the other candidates or like me didn't support any.

At the risk of starting a fight, isn't it closed-minded to forget that there are other countries out there, and that your presidential race wasn't a global election...?

Re:all becoming more closed-minded

[hackwrench]

Forgetfulness is not necessarily closed-minded, but I have a sentiment similar to yours in that what happens here does not just affect this country and that people taking interest in the elections of other countries shouldn't be called meddling, but a reasonable looking after interests. So when Obama contributes to an Israeli campaign, I don't talk of interference, but if doing so was really in US interests, and whatever Russia did or did not do isn't meddling, though the question of legality is there, but then breaking the law is not necessarily wrong.