Star Trek: Strange New Worlds [SPOILERS]

Nice episode of classic Trek. Good to see that the new Prime Directive doesn’t allow them to just let civilizations die.

This is 2022. That was 1988.

No way Ortega is straight.

Ortegas.

Like: the all-of-Trek implication that music is the secret language of the universe

Dislike: Spock's sideburns. Seriously, you thought that was a good look?

Overall, I'm still in love.

Music is the universal language. Star Trek has shown this several times. BSG kind of did this as well.

I'm loving this show, too.

Not to be a cloud on a sunny day, though, but the first two episodes of the second season of Picard were pretty damn good and look how that turned out.

That being said, I don't think there's a character in SNW that I don't like. Can't say the same for any of the other Trek shows currently airing.

Why do you guys even care? She’s a fun character. And you guys do not have a chance anyway. Have all the sex you want in your imagination. Other than that, it doesn’t matter. It’s a character in a tv show.

Facebook post from a friend in Austin who works in the film industry:

I don't think this is any more "star trek" than any of the most recent series have been. This one is just getting back to planet/alien of the week format whereas most sci-fi since DS9 has been season long story arcs.

I liked both episodes so far. But, I also liked Discovery and Picard.

As long as it isn't the typical sitcom trying to pass off stupid human mistakes as humor, I'm good

Also doesn't hurt that Anson Mount is the most charismatic Trek lead actor since Avery Brooks.

Kate Mulgrew is a fantastic actress but was woefully underused in the unlikeable Janeway role. Same goes for Scott Bakula.

Sonequa Martin-Green is serviceable (and easy on the eyes) but she is also really fucking annoying more often than not. Jason Isaacs (first season of Discovery) wasn't bad, but doesn't really qualify as the series' "lead actor".

I like the season long arcs in Discovery, but there has to be a way to do it without it lagging so much in the middle. If you only have 8 episodes of good content, why shit out 13?

FTFY.

agreed. Better writers would be a good start.

It takes just as much brain sweat to stretch an idea as it does to make a brand new one and shove it in.
Somehow, paid writers have it in their heads that shoving in extra brand new is "wasting" an idea they could stretch out for next season.
Well, make up more brand new after that, and after that, and after that....
They're so fucking scared they'll "waste" something.
Well, you're wasting my goddamned time with stretching and filler.

As for Picard, I understand that as people age, they change and grow... but if you watch Jean Luc Picard in TNG and the JL in Picard, it would be hard to believe these are the same characters. S1 started out really good, they JLP we know retired and bitter, but it seemed like him. After he met Riker & Troi it just fell off the rails, IMHO. Maybe that's the point of the show? It will be good to see JLP with his old crew next season... See if some of that dynamic can be recaptured.

Yea, they totally changed the character. It could just be that Stewart is too old to be playing someone who is different than himself. It's too bad. The series itself is pretty good. They just should have made it twenty years ago so Stewart could still act like Picard.

Messing with someone's DNA seems pretty problematic, and as we saw in this episode, isn't necessarily stable. Also, it might be that bans on genetic engineering took place between this episode and the future episodes that makes that less of an option.

I could see O'Brien, Torres, Kim and Paris all describing a reading as "pretty weird" in much the same way as Ortegas did.

Not to derail this too much, but I don't know if I can think of anything that STP Picard did that TNG Picard absolutely would not have done or vice-versa, when you factor in STP Picard is older and embittered over how the Federation treated Romulus.

Do you really think Otegas is a straight woman? the other adult shows have been 3 for 3 in acknowledging queer people exist, so I'm sure that's gonna be touched on eventually here.

Spirk slashers are the reason we even have a Star Trek franchise to nitpick over to begin with.

I don't have anything else to add except to say this is by far the sexiest cast Trek has ever assembled, far more so than their deliberate attempt at Teh Sexy™ with Enterprise and anytime I think I'm not into guys, Anson Mount reminds me otherwise.

Also, apart from the difference in rank, this Spock/Uhura have a far more believable romantic chemistry in that pep talk scene than their Kelvinverse counterparts did in three (possibly four, finally?!) films.

What's weirder is that Uhura gets it right before Spock gets it wrong, and gets it wrong in a completely nonsensical way that doesn't even make

Uhura: "Every note vibrates at a specific frequency. Double that frequency and you get the same pitch an octave higher." True.

Spock: "Triple the frequency and you get a perfect fifth. Five times the frequency is a major third." Even if Uhura hadn't just stated the relationship between frequency and pitch correctly, Spock's description doesn't even make sense for somebody who misunderstands it, unless they also have no clue what the terms "perfect fifth" and "major third" mean.

Why not just ask someone who knows about music theory?

All I can think of is that two different people were involved in the final form that scene's dialogue took, one who knew the subject and one who didn't.

Paging @Bickendan

A major third and a perfect fifth do have mathematical definitions, but they're not what Spock said.

The frequency ratio of a major third is 5:3, so when you divide the frequency in Hz of the higher note in a major third by the frequency of the root note, you'll get something very close to 1.25. The frequency ratio of a perfect fifth is 3:2.

This.
And, and noted, half or double the frequency of a note is an octave down or up from a note. Splitting the difference between that, however, lands on the tritone, between the fourth and fifth.

Note, all this pertains to traditional Western music notation, which is 12 steps per octave.

I cna't help but think if this had happened on DISCO you'd be crying for cancellation.

Again

Spock's blunder aside, this was a good episode, and one that definitely "feels like Star Trek" to me, a person who grew up watching TNG and the occasional TOS episode on videotape (plus novels, the James Blish episode novelization, and ask on).

The "threatening force that turns out not to be threatening once you learn how to talk to it" trope is classic TOS. The "little thread from earlier in the episode that turns into a sudden brainstorm that solves the problem" trope that also brings to mind those TNG scenes of somebody making an offhand comment and Geordi going "that's IT!" because the metaphor they used caused him to suddenly think of the answer. And the episodic nature that both Trek and TV dramas in general have moved away from.

Does that make it good Trek or does that make it derivative? You could argue either way.

I think there's room in the Trek universe for both approaches, a series like SNW that feels like an updated version of TOS and reuses a lot of its favorite tropes and a series like DIS that tries to find new ground.

as it is, it appears the actor's last partner was male.
Sadly, he died of leukemia a few years back.

Otherwise, I don't know how any of these dorks can be assessing somebody based on a hairstyle? I've been seeing young women rocking variations of the same thing around here for the past few years.

Finally watched the second episode (was on vacation/trip to North and South Carolina) and I really enjoyed this episode. So one thing that jumped out at me was that this episode kind of contradicts and screws with This Side of Paradise. Spock witnessed Uhura decipher that the comet ship music or tones to control it. On This Side of Paradise music or tones controlled the deflector beam. So it making Uhura decipher the tone controls doesn't quite fit in.

And I really, really love Anson Mount's version of Christopher Pike. This version is more laid back and has a much more charismatic personality than Jeffrey Hunter or Bruce Greenwood. Easily the most likeable captain yet. Really looking forward to seeing more of him.