Rumours, news and general speculation

[Graham Kennedy]

Honestly if they'd just called it a total reboot in a new universe, I'd be a lot more okay with it than I am. For that matter, just put it in the Jaybramsverse - it obviously is anyway, so why not just admit it? The only reason they claimed it was Prime was to try and attract original series Trek fans, but that was never going to work with all the changes.

[DonP]

Exactly this. Call it Abramsverse and I'll still think the Magical Mushroom Drive sounds ridiculous and that what I saw of the lead makes her the worst combination of unlikeable and boring, but 90% of my problems vanish, but insisting it's Prime is just insulting. Has there even been one moment, one prop, one character, anything that DOES show any respect for canon? Honest question, because as I said I'm not watching.

[Graham Kennedy]

Whups - is Discovery plagiarised?

[Teaos]

There is no original idea anymore.

[Sonic Glitch]

Exactly this. Call it Abramsverse and I'll still think the Magical Mushroom Drive sounds ridiculous and that what I saw of the lead makes her the worst combination of unlikeable and boring, but 90% of my problems vanish, but insisting it's Prime is just insulting. Has there even been one moment, one prop, one character, anything that DOES show any respect for canon? Honest question, because as I said I'm not watching.

Admittadly off the top of my head, the hand phasers and communicators look much closer to their original counterparts than the Abramsverse versions.

[Graham Kennedy]

Exactly this. Call it Abramsverse and I'll still think the Magical Mushroom Drive sounds ridiculous and that what I saw of the lead makes her the worst combination of unlikeable and boring, but 90% of my problems vanish, but insisting it's Prime is just insulting. Has there even been one moment, one prop, one character, anything that DOES show any respect for canon? Honest question, because as I said I'm not watching.

Admittadly off the top of my head, the hand phasers and communicators look much closer to their original counterparts than the Abramsverse versions.

They look like their original series counterparts. They don't look much at all like their decade-pre-TOS counterparts.

[DonP]

Exactly this. Call it Abramsverse and I'll still think the Magical Mushroom Drive sounds ridiculous and that what I saw of the lead makes her the worst combination of unlikeable and boring, but 90% of my problems vanish, but insisting it's Prime is just insulting. Has there even been one moment, one prop, one character, anything that DOES show any respect for canon? Honest question, because as I said I'm not watching.

Admittadly off the top of my head, the hand phasers and communicators look much closer to their original counterparts than the Abramsverse versions.

They look like their original series counterparts. They don't look much at all like their decade-pre-TOS counterparts.

Hell, at this point, I'll call that a win for Discovery. It might mean those hardcore superfans in the writer's room might have actually seen one or two episodes.

[Nutso]

So, do you guys think that new guy, Ash, is a Klingon spy?

[Graham Kennedy]

So, do you guys think that new guy, Ash, is a Klingon spy?

Seems pretty obvious. He's Voq. Becoming a human is the "give up everything" his galpal was talking about. And Lorca's Tribble is going to go ape the first time he walks into the room, giving him away.

[Sonic Glitch]

Exactly this. Call it Abramsverse and I'll still think the Magical Mushroom Drive sounds ridiculous and that what I saw of the lead makes her the worst combination of unlikeable and boring, but 90% of my problems vanish, but insisting it's Prime is just insulting. Has there even been one moment, one prop, one character, anything that DOES show any respect for canon? Honest question, because as I said I'm not watching.

Admittadly off the top of my head, the hand phasers and communicators look much closer to their original counterparts than the Abramsverse versions.

They look like their original series counterparts. They don't look much at all like their decade-pre-TOS counterparts.

Christ almighty. If we can put up with Enterprise's "Phase Pistols" I think we can write-off a minor retcon of devices that appear in what, maybe 3 episodes? (The Cage, the Menagerie. Maybe the 2nd pilot?).

On another note: The engineering room/lab looks like a Trek engineering room/lab, not a brewery or industrial plant. The ships bridge and internals don't look like an Apple store with barcode scanners attached to random counters. Yes, the "window as viewscreen" thing still exists but in the grand scheme of things it bothers me much less than other things.

[Sonic Glitch]

So, do you guys think that new guy, Ash, is a Klingon spy?

Seems pretty obvious. He's Voq. Becoming a human is the "give up everything" his galpal was talking about. And Lorca's Tribble is going to go ape the first time he walks into the room, giving him away.

Agreed.

[EDIT]: Thinking about it more, there might be a more interesting way for them to handle that as well. It is highly possible that in addition to Voq's apparent massive cosmetic surgery that Lt. Ash Tyler was indeed a real starfleet officer captured at the Battle of the Binaries by another Klingon ship, however it is more than likely he is dead. We know in TOS they have some pretty crazy mind-altering technologies pop-up in episodes (Whom Gods Destroy, Dagger of the Mind, etc.) and the mention a Klingon Mind-Sifter at least once -- it is possible (likely?) that Voq actually believes at this moment he is Starfleet Lt. Ash Tyler. If House Mokai is truly as good at spying and subterfuge as L'rell describes them then I imagine they did a thorough job with his species-reassignment surgery and implant the new personality over Voq and program him as a sleeper agent ala Boomer in nuBSG.

What I'm getting at is I think it would be interesting if, as Graham says, the first time Tyler goes into Lorca's office the tribble freaks out, and continues to do so everytime Tyler is around but after a thorough medical examine no one including Tyler has any clue why. This runs through a couple of episodes as gradually things start indicate a spy in their midst, leading up to the Big Reveal (like the Boomer arc from "Water" to "Kobol's Last Gleaming") .

[Graham Kennedy]

They look like their original series counterparts. They don't look much at all like their decade-pre-TOS counterparts.

Christ almighty. If we can put up with Enterprise's "Phase Pistols" I think we can write-off a minor retcon of devices that appear in what, maybe 3 episodes? (The Cage, the Menagerie. Maybe the 2nd pilot?).

Hey, you can like them if you want to. I didn't like phase pistols either myself. I'd have given Discovery these :



In a reasonably updated / modernised form, if they wanted, but something recognisably intended to be those. And Enterprise I'd probably have given some kind of advanced slugthrower, like a handheld rail gun.

But they forgot to ask my opinion beforehand, so...

On another note: The engineering room/lab looks like a Trek engineering room/lab, not a brewery or industrial plant. The ships bridge and internals don't look like an Apple store with barcode scanners attached to random counters. Yes, the "window as viewscreen" thing still exists but in the grand scheme of things it bothers me much less than other things.

They've certainly spent a lot of money on the show. I respect that, and if it hadn't been an alleged Star Trek prime universe series set ten years before TOS, I'd be impressed. Since it is, I consider it money largely wasted. YMMV, of course.

[Sonic Glitch]

I mean, I'll be frank I'd be more inclined to ignore it in much the same way they ignored the Holo-communicator after For the Uniform but again, as you said, YMMV.

[Edit]
On another note, evidently Discovery is supposed to start 2 years after The Cage. At the rate Starfleet changes things, that's plenty of time for them to roll out a new sidearm. I don't recall, do we see Kirk and Co. using the laser pistols?

[DonP]

We do see Kirk and Spock with a variant of these (with a rounded back end) in Where No Man Has Gone Before along with The Cage style uniforms before switching to the TOS styles. Other than that, I believe they only appeared in What Are Little Girls Made Of and The Man Trap, both times in the hands of civillians.

And as you say, ymmv. If you're fine with it, then that's great. The reason us nitpickers think we're justified in our nitpicking is that we didn't choose when and in what universe the show is set. They did. They had free reign to pick any time and place they wanted and THEY chose to make this series contemporaneous with The Cage and thus they took on the responsibility for getting it right. So yeah I could handwave it away or come up with explanations in my headcanon, like Well, it's a research vessel, so maybe they're testing prototype phasers (ignoring the one she pulls on The Shenjhou) and Well, it's not a front line starship so maybe they're using much older style uniforms (again ignoring that they seem to be universal), but I don't think I should have to because that's the job that the showrunners chose. I strongly suspect it all arises from them not realizing The Cage WAS contemporaneous, but again, that's their mistake, not ours. And yes, all of these things did bother immensely about Enterprise as well, but discussion of Enterprise isn't terribly active at the moment.

[DarkMoineau]

In resume, Discovery would be more accepted if happening in 2246 instead of 2256 just because of The Cage that show us how it should look like.