[-] maegul@startrek.website 7 points 2 years ago

Oh man. I never got around to watching it!

[-] maegul@startrek.website 3 points 2 years ago

It might be big enough to work as a temporary small space station around a planet or just in some general area in need like a fleet in need of repairs and medical aid.

[-] maegul@startrek.website 4 points 2 years ago

A lot of the focus here seems to be on the military utility, which is also how I suppose the separation feature was presented in the show.

But an obvious use case would probably have been less dramatic. Anytime two things needed to be done at the same time. Send the drive section to the more distant or dangerous location and keep the saucer where it’s safer, like running supplies or something for a planet.

Don’t know it would have been good TV though?! Perhaps if it was used as a plot device to put the ship in trouble?

[-] maegul@startrek.website 5 points 2 years ago

Oh yea I know. In the context of TNG though, where everyone else has US accents, Picard’s Britishness goes up to eleven on that word.

[-] maegul@startrek.website 17 points 2 years ago

But in contrast, this lawyer (Neera) won by mainly by being a good lawyer (albeit in a tv legal drama kind of way). Setting things on fire with the first witness to create a bunch of fog and doubt about the premise of the case, realising that other important regulations impinge on the case and setting up testimony to substantiate the effect of those regulations.

My memory of most other officer-lawyers is that their methods tend to focus more on the moral "issyew" (Picard's pronunciation of "issue" in Measure of a Man).

[-] maegul@startrek.website 4 points 2 years ago

Yep ... I was thinking of that episode when I wrote the post. Unfortunately I don't have a clear enough memory of it to get into details, and I might find you to be right on a re-watch.

Nonetheless, my memory of the episode is that it wasn't really about anything "ethically meaty". It might have been enjoyable or interesting, but it seemed primarily character driven, inline with your summary of it (Burnham's character especially and the dynamic of her immaturity, stubbornness and determination/ambition), which would mean it isn't really relevant to my thoughts or as a contrast with SNW S2E2 ... ?

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submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by maegul@startrek.website to c/startrek@startrek.website

Reposting this from the SNW S2E2 thread as it was removed by a mod for being “off topic”.

SNW S2E2 spoilers and a Discovery critical perspectiveSo I’m not the biggest fan of Discovery. I would say I’ve found it a disappointment and I’m sure I’m not alone in this. I don’t want to convince anyone here of this or even get into the arguments, in part because there’s still a lot I’ve liked about the show and what they tried and the fact that it ushered in more trek!

What I did want to talk about, just in case anyone finds it interesting or agrees … is that this last episode of SNW (S2 ep 2, ad astra per aspera) feels like a perfect demonstration of what Discovery was missing.

Sure, using a court trial as a vehicle is a bit tropy, but for a reason, it works. The story and premise of the trial, while not particularly deep or even well rooted in character, worked. It made sense, had human and political plot elements to it and was delivered well most importantly … all of which is what, IMO, Discovery often lacked and instead would often just cross the line into being on the nose.

I don’t want to be negative against Discovery here. It is what it is and has its fans. I just want to express as someone who didn’t vibe with Discovery that this is what was missing for me, and I’m very pleased to have SNW!

Added to original post after removed

Watching the episode it felt like writers etc had reflected on Discovery and wanted to do the progressive, ethical stuff differently, and maybe they were trying to do it better too.

IMO, what the writers managed to pull off was successfully weaving personal stories and inter personal dynamics with the ethical issue, which, in combination with the court room drama structure, allowed the issue to be explored and unravelled organically. From what I’ve gathered from my own reflections and speaking to others about Discovery, part of the difficulties some of us have had with it is its tendency to resort to speeches/monologues to digest dilemmas. For someone like me, it was tonally off putting, because it took away my ability to feel like I was exploring the issue myself either sympathetically with individual characters or logically/philosophically.

With this episode, part of the reason it works, IMO is that Una’s trial takes us through the issue, not any one perspective, character or speech, demonstrating each character’s personal connections and biases while also allowing the issues to stay in focus.

Plus, it was cool to see Neera being a badass lawyer! Maybe I just like legal dramas too much!!

Thoughts? Am I being too harsh on Discovery?

[-] maegul@startrek.website 9 points 2 years ago

Well, SNW predates DS9, right, so this seems consistent with and even complementary to continuity, unless there’s something in TOS I’m missing.

[-] maegul@startrek.website 7 points 2 years ago

It’s funny. It seems there’s an inversion with this compared to TNG era trek, where the first season is often a write off.

I agree with you and feel the same way about Picard S1. Something about how streaming era TV is run, at least with the particular mood and aspiration that Star Trek has, seems to benefit from the pre-production planning, and suffer under the loss of season to season production.

48

So, lemmy seems to be flooded with spam bot accounts at the moment. Look through the table of servers on fedidb (https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy) and notice how there are these huge instances without any active users (MAU).

Also notice how startrek.website has 9000 users for 276 active users this month.

From memory, when I signed up, there was no email requirement or captcha or anything.

Admins ... maybe you want to tighten things up?

[-] maegul@startrek.website 10 points 2 years ago

Yea, in general, it seems it was really just part of the whole season 1 shitiness and the crappy politics behind it.

I did a rewatch of the early TNG seasons not long ago and recall it being fairly obvious that even though S3 is "when it gets good", there was a notable difference between seasons 1 and 2 with S2 being clearly underrated. I think S2 is more up and down, with episodes probably as bad as s1 (like the finale, but that's unfair) but also with episodes clearly better. I would guess that it was S2 that kept the show alive.

[-] maegul@startrek.website 28 points 2 years ago

Does an admin or something want to make "first contact"?

She probably doesn't know this place or lemmy exists, and if she wants to post here, like all mastodon users, could maybe do with a pointer or two (but also a warning about following this community unless she's ok with a firehose on her feed, which she might be).

259

Just in case you didn't know ... she's on mastodon, has probably been here longer than you, and is active (she once actually replied to me!!!!!).

https://mastodon.world/@JeriLRyan

[-] maegul@startrek.website 7 points 2 years ago

Fuck yes ... everyone in serious chairs and then Tim Russ is like "I can do the interview between my funk band sets, I'll keep my guitar with me ... because I am that fucking cool!"

Cool to see this, I will definitely watch.

Voyager was the first star trek that I got to see from the beginning as it aired. I remember talking about if the Intrepid was more advanced than the Galaxy class. But I've always had a mixed relationship with it that has sweetened over time.

Looking back, even as a young kid, my vague feelings were pretty accurate. One the one hand, it was almost certainly the best made star trek to date (where I'm happy to put DS9 in a separate "star base" category compared to the conventional exploration on a ship category). And honestly, probably the best made so far, SNW is yet to clinch that IMO. Janeway and B'Elanna as female characters were awesome, even as a kid I got that. And while the character of seven, for a het-male, had a clear purpose, the character itself, an essentially stubbornly neurodivergent and strong female, again, definitely registered as unique on television.

But the whole hesitancy over committing to actually being stranded in the Delta quad, also was clear to young me. And so I drifted in and out of keeping up with the show, which was always bitter sweet because I'd catch an episode here and there and think "Fuck yes that's the shit", even sometimes thinking "this should be the whole show!" (eg, year of hell, obviously, the one where they make an ad-hoc federation in a void). Over time I've come to appreciate the former more, and just how much Mulgrew and Janeway did (which this doc will probably focus on to some extent).

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maegul

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