Star Trek:Discovery Themes and Continuity
May. 31st, 2018 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestofgloryI recently finished watching Star Trek:Discovery, and I wanted to reflect on the series here. This post is going to talk about the series over all and how it fits in with other Trek. Then in a follow up post I’m going to talk about representation of marginalized people on Discovery. (I started out writing one long post but it was too disorganized and needed to be split up.) Since I last wrote about Star Trek R and I have finished watching original series (TOS) highlights and watched most of the first three seasons of Next Generation (TNG), skipping the really bad episodes (e.g. most of season one). At the end of season 3 of TNG we took a break to watch Discovery. I’m becoming a bit obsessed with all things Star Trek. I’ve been enjoying pondering questions like “what would one wager in post scarcity society?” and coming up with Watsonian solutions to Doylist problems.*
Before I get into spoilery bits, I want to say that I liked Discovery and that it did contain thematic elements that are important to making it feel like Star Trek to me. However, it did lack a lot of the quiet character moments that I enjoy in other Star Trek shows. I really wanted to be able to see Discovery as something that stood on its own, but the show was keen to remind me about how it linked to the franchise.
Beware Spoilers
I haven’t watched a lot recent TV -- I’m not a fan of the current trend for everything being bleak, so I can’t say how much of this is just part of the way things are done these days, but the pacing felt messy here. Some episodes seemed to be all middle with no resolution, some just seemed a bit slow, and the finale felt very rushed. It seems that the creative direction of the show was in flux the whole first season and that show in a lot of inconsistencies. I’m also not super keen on big arcs where everything ends on cliffhanger. Personally Deep Space 9 (DS9) is the perfect balance of this for me; for the most part each episode is resolved at the end, but the series has an arc, things that happen matter and characters have emotional growth episode to episode.
There were a lot of confusing camera angles and close ups which either calmed down a bit or I got used to them as the show when on because I generally felt less confused. The show has bit of a darker color palate than other Treks I’ve watched, and that also took a bit of getting used to.
Having just watched a lot of older Trek right before starting Discovery meant that I was very much in a mindset to think about it as part of the larger Trek continuity; besides, I love creating worldbuilding out of dropped puzzle pieces. This made it hard for me to focus on the show as its own thing at times. However the writers weren’t always helpful in this regard. There are a lot of references to other Treks in this, mostly to TOS but also some to Enterprise (which I haven’t seen). Some of them worked for me, but some of them were distracting. The worst offender in terms of pure distraction was the Tribble sitting on the desk making cute noises while two character where having a very serious conversation. Tribbles are a bit silly, and I kept being distracting by images of the room filling up with balls of fluff.
Still, some of the more subtle callbacks worked well for me. I enjoyed the bit where Lorca is pretending to be an engineer and needs to disguise his voice so uses a Scottish accent. I also liked mirror Sarek’s goatee. Oh, and the list of most highly decorated captains was a fun touch. (Though I wished they’d found a way to include a more than one person who wasn’t a white man.) So basically, cameos and small references are fun easter eggs but the plot revolving around people or things from other Trek just feels like it limits the scope of the story.
The problem is further compounded by Discovery being a prequel set 10 years prior to TOS. This means that if one is familiar with Trek cannon some of the dramatic tension is removed, because we know certain characters will be around 10 years later or, in the case of Sarek 100 years later.
When creating TNG, Gene Roddenberry apparently wanted to limit the references to TOS so that the show could stand on its own. Many iconic races never appear in TNG, and while some character from TOS do eventually show up in TNG they don’t appear until after Roddenberry stepped down. Roddenberry was maybe a bit too strict about this. There could be a few more Vulcans and it wouldn’t be a big deal, and the Ferengi, who were created to avoid bringing back old villains, are awful, at least in early TNG. But watching Discovery I also understand why Roddenberry made that choice because references are very distracting.
Now let's discuss Michael Burnham’s backstory. It amused me to note how similar it is to Worf’s (the Klingon security officer in TNG and later on DS9) Both had their parents killed in raids and were subsequently raised by members of another species. This is especially ironic because Burnham’s parents were killed by Klingons. If this reference is intend the show never indicates it, however other parts of Burnham’s background are direct references to TOS. I think the show went a bit too far with references to other Trek by making Burnham Spock’s foster sister. I mean, Spock never talks about his family so it's fine to give him random family members, but at the same time it means that the stories that can be told about Burnham’s family are constricted by what we know about canon. I enjoyed Burnham's interactions with Sarek and Amanda, but I still question that choice.
The show spent most of the second half of the season in the Mirror universe, which I’ve never liked, mostly because of what DS9 did with it. In “Mirror, Mirror” the TOS episode that first introduced the Mirror universe, Kirk is shown getting Mirror-Spock to think about rebelling against the Empire for the sake of freedom. Then in DS9 we are shown that Spock’s choice to follow that advice led to the downfall of the Empire at the hands of the Klingons, Cardassians and Bajorans. Since I’m a fan of taking moral actions, it pisses me off that the moral of the story seems to be that choosing freedom over tyranny was the wrong thing to do. Also I don’t enjoy the high death count of DS9 mirror universe. The whole idea of the mirror universe is absurd. Why do mirror people exist in a parallel universe and why, despite quite different histories, do they exist at multiple points in time? Its nonsensical.
So, I was not excited about a long arc set in the mirror universe, but it did give us a really fun martial arts scene and some fun costumes. It also served as chance to really explain what the federation tries to be about and what the characters value. Some of this moral code got covered in the opening with the discussion of coming in peace, but it then mostly got overlooked in all of the war stuff.
This show was pretty dark, and there is lot more character death than in earlier Trek shows. Given the current trends in media this days I was worried it would be hopelessly bleak, so I was happy that at the end of the season chose to reaffirm the worthiness of having ideals. One of the things I love about Trek is that it's about good people trying to do good and mostly succeeding. I just find it so comforting. So I was totally there for the scene where Stamets and Tilly going “we are Starfleet we can technobabble our way to to option C damn it!” People complain about Trek getting out of hard choices with this type of thing but I loved it in this case.While I have some quibbles with the ending I was very happy that they chose to reaffirm the idealist nature of Starfleet rather than suggest that brutality and lack of concern for others was only way to save the Federation. I liked that Burnham refused to commit genocide and used what she learned about Klingon unity from mirror Voq to find a third choice that, that Federation leadership overlooked. So the end of this first season get back to the ideals that I feel are the heart of Trek.
I hope going forward the the show will question these values a bit more and bring up the Klingons’ fears about the Federation’s expansion. I’ve seen criticism that the show doesn’t take a complex enough look at the Federation’s ideals, but I think it's important to have them firmly established first. And given the ending, I also hope that the show isn’t going to get too caught up with Spock and the Enterprise. I love Spock, but I want Burnham to have her own story.
*In the Sherlock Holmes stories Watson is the 1st person narrator and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is author. So a Watsonian approach uses only in universe stuff, whereas a Doylist approach acknowledges that the story is work of fiction created
Before I get into spoilery bits, I want to say that I liked Discovery and that it did contain thematic elements that are important to making it feel like Star Trek to me. However, it did lack a lot of the quiet character moments that I enjoy in other Star Trek shows. I really wanted to be able to see Discovery as something that stood on its own, but the show was keen to remind me about how it linked to the franchise.
Beware Spoilers
I haven’t watched a lot recent TV -- I’m not a fan of the current trend for everything being bleak, so I can’t say how much of this is just part of the way things are done these days, but the pacing felt messy here. Some episodes seemed to be all middle with no resolution, some just seemed a bit slow, and the finale felt very rushed. It seems that the creative direction of the show was in flux the whole first season and that show in a lot of inconsistencies. I’m also not super keen on big arcs where everything ends on cliffhanger. Personally Deep Space 9 (DS9) is the perfect balance of this for me; for the most part each episode is resolved at the end, but the series has an arc, things that happen matter and characters have emotional growth episode to episode.
There were a lot of confusing camera angles and close ups which either calmed down a bit or I got used to them as the show when on because I generally felt less confused. The show has bit of a darker color palate than other Treks I’ve watched, and that also took a bit of getting used to.
Having just watched a lot of older Trek right before starting Discovery meant that I was very much in a mindset to think about it as part of the larger Trek continuity; besides, I love creating worldbuilding out of dropped puzzle pieces. This made it hard for me to focus on the show as its own thing at times. However the writers weren’t always helpful in this regard. There are a lot of references to other Treks in this, mostly to TOS but also some to Enterprise (which I haven’t seen). Some of them worked for me, but some of them were distracting. The worst offender in terms of pure distraction was the Tribble sitting on the desk making cute noises while two character where having a very serious conversation. Tribbles are a bit silly, and I kept being distracting by images of the room filling up with balls of fluff.
Still, some of the more subtle callbacks worked well for me. I enjoyed the bit where Lorca is pretending to be an engineer and needs to disguise his voice so uses a Scottish accent. I also liked mirror Sarek’s goatee. Oh, and the list of most highly decorated captains was a fun touch. (Though I wished they’d found a way to include a more than one person who wasn’t a white man.) So basically, cameos and small references are fun easter eggs but the plot revolving around people or things from other Trek just feels like it limits the scope of the story.
The problem is further compounded by Discovery being a prequel set 10 years prior to TOS. This means that if one is familiar with Trek cannon some of the dramatic tension is removed, because we know certain characters will be around 10 years later or, in the case of Sarek 100 years later.
When creating TNG, Gene Roddenberry apparently wanted to limit the references to TOS so that the show could stand on its own. Many iconic races never appear in TNG, and while some character from TOS do eventually show up in TNG they don’t appear until after Roddenberry stepped down. Roddenberry was maybe a bit too strict about this. There could be a few more Vulcans and it wouldn’t be a big deal, and the Ferengi, who were created to avoid bringing back old villains, are awful, at least in early TNG. But watching Discovery I also understand why Roddenberry made that choice because references are very distracting.
Now let's discuss Michael Burnham’s backstory. It amused me to note how similar it is to Worf’s (the Klingon security officer in TNG and later on DS9) Both had their parents killed in raids and were subsequently raised by members of another species. This is especially ironic because Burnham’s parents were killed by Klingons. If this reference is intend the show never indicates it, however other parts of Burnham’s background are direct references to TOS. I think the show went a bit too far with references to other Trek by making Burnham Spock’s foster sister. I mean, Spock never talks about his family so it's fine to give him random family members, but at the same time it means that the stories that can be told about Burnham’s family are constricted by what we know about canon. I enjoyed Burnham's interactions with Sarek and Amanda, but I still question that choice.
The show spent most of the second half of the season in the Mirror universe, which I’ve never liked, mostly because of what DS9 did with it. In “Mirror, Mirror” the TOS episode that first introduced the Mirror universe, Kirk is shown getting Mirror-Spock to think about rebelling against the Empire for the sake of freedom. Then in DS9 we are shown that Spock’s choice to follow that advice led to the downfall of the Empire at the hands of the Klingons, Cardassians and Bajorans. Since I’m a fan of taking moral actions, it pisses me off that the moral of the story seems to be that choosing freedom over tyranny was the wrong thing to do. Also I don’t enjoy the high death count of DS9 mirror universe. The whole idea of the mirror universe is absurd. Why do mirror people exist in a parallel universe and why, despite quite different histories, do they exist at multiple points in time? Its nonsensical.
So, I was not excited about a long arc set in the mirror universe, but it did give us a really fun martial arts scene and some fun costumes. It also served as chance to really explain what the federation tries to be about and what the characters value. Some of this moral code got covered in the opening with the discussion of coming in peace, but it then mostly got overlooked in all of the war stuff.
This show was pretty dark, and there is lot more character death than in earlier Trek shows. Given the current trends in media this days I was worried it would be hopelessly bleak, so I was happy that at the end of the season chose to reaffirm the worthiness of having ideals. One of the things I love about Trek is that it's about good people trying to do good and mostly succeeding. I just find it so comforting. So I was totally there for the scene where Stamets and Tilly going “we are Starfleet we can technobabble our way to to option C damn it!” People complain about Trek getting out of hard choices with this type of thing but I loved it in this case.While I have some quibbles with the ending I was very happy that they chose to reaffirm the idealist nature of Starfleet rather than suggest that brutality and lack of concern for others was only way to save the Federation. I liked that Burnham refused to commit genocide and used what she learned about Klingon unity from mirror Voq to find a third choice that, that Federation leadership overlooked. So the end of this first season get back to the ideals that I feel are the heart of Trek.
I hope going forward the the show will question these values a bit more and bring up the Klingons’ fears about the Federation’s expansion. I’ve seen criticism that the show doesn’t take a complex enough look at the Federation’s ideals, but I think it's important to have them firmly established first. And given the ending, I also hope that the show isn’t going to get too caught up with Spock and the Enterprise. I love Spock, but I want Burnham to have her own story.
*In the Sherlock Holmes stories Watson is the 1st person narrator and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is author. So a Watsonian approach uses only in universe stuff, whereas a Doylist approach acknowledges that the story is work of fiction created
