RLM - Star Trek Discovery mid-season - re:View (Spoilers)

[Nutso]

Nerd Alert!!! Mike and Rich go insane debating Discovery Vs. The Orville.

[Graham Kennedy]

Mike is kind of weird about sci fi lately.

When it comes to Star Wars, he seems to be really kind of overly nitpicky. If it's not exactly what he wants in every respect, he is... well he doesn't shit all over it like he did the prequels, but he's really pretty heavy handed with the criticisms and very hesitant about praising any of it.

Yet when it comes to Trek, he will pretty much bend over backwards to find some way to say he likes it, even if the praise is pretty faint. On his previous video about Discovery he actually went so far as to say that he liked it... because whilst watching he would pretend that it was set in the post-TNG era of the Kelvin timeline. I mean, I can see where he's coming from on that because if it had been, I'd have liked it a lot more myself! But... it isn't. And pretending it's something it blatantly is not, to justify liking it, is kind of weird.

And then he talks about The Orville as if he likes it... but won't watch it because it isn't Star Trek.

I dunno. In the end he likes what he likes and that's fine, I guess we all judge different properties differently according to our own biases.

[Nutso]

I think Mike won't watch The Orville anymore because it is Star Trek. He thinks it's just re-doing TNG and sometimes TOS. It probably drives him insane sonce he is a Star Trek encyclopedia. Something remotely reminds him of Stgar Trek, his brains *pings* to a halt. I kind of get that. It didn't stop me from watching The Orville, however.

For me the interesting thing about Discovery is that I don't know where it is going. My cynicism can't figure out what cliched ending they're going to arrive at, and I am okay with that. I'll keep watching to see what happens next.

My big problem with DSC is that I can't give a damn about the characters. One of them was killed recently, in a brutal way, and while I think it's sad that he died, I saw it coming since it was a little like the old cliche of characters have a confrontation alone, the accuser is killed by the accused. But also we didn't really know much about the character beyond he is a doctor and is Stamets' significant other. I should have be able to like Burnham enough to be invested in her, but no. I like Lorca but only because it it Jason Isaacs. I don't view Lorca as evil, just practical and desperate. His being tortured only had me wondering if that will be remembered in future episodes.

[Graham Kennedy]

I think Mike won't watch The Orville anymore because it is Star Trek. He thinks it's just re-doing TNG and sometimes TOS. It probably drives him insane sonce he is a Star Trek encyclopedia. Something remotely reminds him of Stgar Trek, his brains *pings* to a halt. I kind of get that. It didn't stop me from watching The Orville, however.

Yeah, I watched that thinking "you and me both, mate". Reusing plot ideas jumps out at me, but honestly most of those plot ideas were not really original to Trek in the first place. Yeah, Trek had a generation spaceship whose crew had forgotten what it was... but that idea was used by Heinlein some 25 years before Trek did it. And Trek had people in an alien zoo... but so did The Twilight Zone years earlier, multiple times. My only interest is "are you doing something different with the idea?" - and The Orville does, at least different enough for me.

I do notice lifts specifically from Trek - they have a habit of using music that is all but identical to Trek music, not in general tone but copying individual pieces. But for me, that just adds to the fun of the Orville. It makes me smile when I spot it.