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Star Trek: Section 31


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#21 Whirlygig

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Posted 13 November 2018 - 06:36 PM

This would be a boring thread if everyone just came in and said "WOOHOO CAN'T WAIT!"

I am extremely optimistic about Untitled Picard Series.

I am optimistic about Untitled Section 31 series.

I am optimistic, but not yet jazzed to the nines, about Discovery, especially optimistic for S2.

I am skeptical about Untitled Animated Series.

That doesn't mean I can't be all those states of mind while simultaneously analyzing whether or not this is the strategy I'd be using if I were in charge. We can all imagine piloting that ship in our own way!

#22 Gothneo

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Posted 13 November 2018 - 07:39 PM

 

we seem to be in a generation of participation trophies and everyone seem to think CBS gets a trophy just for making a show and putting the title "Star Trek" on it. 

 

So... I'm gonna be a bit preachy... but in a Stan Lee kinda way... it seems like the last three generations have taken a bruising as being entitled and getting participation trophies, but in my experience you gotta judge people individually... and I've met plenty of Boomers and even "The greatest generation" folk that are whiners, or lazy and just waiting for their Trophy... no single generation has mediocrity cornered! Conversely I've met fantastic people of all ages, color, creed, religion all over the world. Its kinda the same thing... every generation says "The younger generation has ruined music". But I can find great music from 1700 all the way up to today!

 

 

If others are happy with the shows or movies great. What they've been producing lately simply hasn't been for me, if that changes I'll be happy to start enjoying new Star Trek again and gladly pay for my CBS membership. If not I'll continue to collect TOS and TNG era merchandise and enjoy other movies and shows.

 

This is right on target! People taste changes over time... not just for what you enjoy watching, but also what you collect. As well done as the Fan Films like continuing voyages are... I really can't get into watching them... I certainly never watch them more than once... and thats not because they aren't well done in the style of TOS... but if TOS was on today as originally produced... I probably wouldn't watch it... tastes of just aren't the same. 

 

I don't belittle anyone that doesn't want to pay for a sub service like AA. Regardless if its a great show... I can understand that some people just don't have a budget for multiple subs services. 



#23 VulcanFanatic

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Posted 13 November 2018 - 08:31 PM

I used to be all "woohoo can't wait" until we got Enterprise, Nemesis,then the JJ CRAP trilogy. Now we have Discovery, I am all out of "Woohoo can't wait", just one disappointment after another is what it seems to be. Would like to be pleasantly surprised but it does not appear that they know how to make a decent Star Trek series anymore.
Optimism to me is seeing a future that I would like to be a part of, a noble human race that explores the universe in search of strange new world's and civilizations. I would be ashamed to have the discovery crew be the representatives of the federation to other races.

#24 s8film40

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Posted 13 November 2018 - 08:36 PM

Haha, that sums up my view pretty well too! Im just out of woohoos. That doesnt mean Im not hoping for the best.

#25 Gothneo

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Posted 14 November 2018 - 04:42 AM

 

I would be ashamed to have the discovery crew be the representatives of the federation to other races.

 

Well... off target a bit maybe... and though I think DISCO does have its writing & plot issues... I'm gonna take a second and make a counter argument to such a sweeping statement... assuming of course you have finally actually watched DISCO... otherwise your comment is just a straw man argument and you have no basis for such a statement.

 

I agree that a couple of the crew were well outside the Starfleet norm... however... it tuns out that these crew members weren't really Starfleet. Tyler was really a Klingon agent, and Lorca was from the Mirror universe, so you can't really say they were Starfleet. As mentioned by some previously, you have to set up some kind of conflict for a drama, and this was how they chose to do it. 

 

Its absolutely true that DISCO, as a show, abandoned the formula that stars a captain, co-stars a 2nd in command, and is supported by cast that has varied, usually between 5 to 7 as well as other supporting recurring members. The DISCO formula stars a former Stafleet officer along with the other two non Starfleet. The only "real" Discovery crew that we get introduced to in any depth are Tilly, Stamets, and Saru. we are introduced to some of the lower deck, but if I have to make a critique about the Discovery crew... its that we didn't get to know them the way we did with any previous series. But, Tilly, Stamets and Saru... do seem to live up to the ideas of the Federation and Starfleet... the only time they don't is when they are externally influenced by some force that overcomes them... again... a tried and true McGuffin in Trek (the enemy within??!!). 

 

As for the behavior of some of the other Starfleet personal... well there are plenty of examples of Starfleet... or even Federation members behaving badly... all the way back to TOS otherwise why did the federation need an entire planet to isolate a dangerous psychiatric patients... we see it in TNG... we see it VOY.... its even a main plot point of Insurrection... again... its a necessity to write in such personality flaws to make a drama interesting.

 

Now... none of this excuses the critiques I've even made in the past of Discovery's writing and general plot, but the actual crew... the crew we have met  that are actually Starfleet... they do their duty to serve Starfleet and the Federation... and do so with real distinction and honor, but again, we only get to know a very limited number of the crew.



#26 MisterPL

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 12:09 PM

It's official:

 

https://www.hollywoo...evealed-1175816



#27 Alteran195

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 12:12 PM

Up to 5 series now.

Wonder how many more are coming.

#28 Damon1984

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 12:36 PM

Up to 5 series now.

Wonder how many more are coming.

 

Don't know, but I hope they bring plenty of new fans, because this one

<-

is just tired of this gornhshit and on the verge of leaving the franchise behind.

 

A show about space hitler? Seriously? Jeez.



#29 Gothneo

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 12:48 PM

Im torn. I love Yeoh. I especially loved what she did with evil capt G. It was a standout from S1 Disco.

But like Ive said I deslike the idea of section 31 at all in the trek continuity, and if there was a singular bad idea that came out of DS9... Im gona go with that one.

Still... its bound to make for good cloak and dagger writing and between the possibility of entertaining story and what Yeoh will bring to it... it may be hard not to watch.

#30 Alteran195

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 01:51 PM

They could make it that Section 31 is not as black and white evil like we've seen in the past, and expand on the organization and how they operate. Make them more morally grey. 

 

If that's the case, and we see Georgiou develop in both season 2 of Discovery and this into adopting more Starfleet ideals, that could be interesting. 



#31 Gothneo

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 06:31 PM

Alteran195, I really hope they go that way. 



#32 Jay K

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Posted 15 January 2019 - 12:05 AM

DS9 is my favourite show, but I've always feared that in the wrong hands, the whole 'section 31' angle could be used in a very harmful way towards the franchise - potentially being used to change the whole complexion of what Star Trek was. :(



#33 Gothneo

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Posted 15 January 2019 - 02:28 AM

Jay K, yep. DS9 is a fav of mine too. I always saw Sec 31 as an allegory for the dangers within a society or organization. DS9 used it effectively to make the moral point that those dangers can be overcome and succumbing to fear isn't the way.



#34 Whirlygig

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Posted 15 January 2019 - 10:45 AM

"The dark side of the Federation"....  well, there isn't supposed to be a dark side to Starfleet (beyond the occasional parasite-infested exploding watermelon head conspiracy) but I suppose there could be to the Federation?  Might be harder than it looks to keep all those skittish aliens at peace???



#35 Gothneo

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Posted 15 January 2019 - 06:08 PM

Your not making me feel any better about it Whirlygig!



#36 MisterPL

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Posted 01 February 2019 - 11:21 AM

http://sciencefictio...inoff-tca-tour/



#37 Alex

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Posted 19 February 2019 - 03:10 AM

Oh crap, there were so many good posts in this thread that I wish I could have "liked," but I've hit my limit for the day. Please don't feel bad if you weren't given a "like" on your post.
 

Oooff, this smells of a JJ Abramseque approach: Turning up previously popular elements to eleven, effectively producing concepts that are too-much-of-a-good-thing.
 
The plot devices of the Mirror universe and Section 31 were used very sparingly throughout Trek, but this seems to be going: Oh, you liked that? Well how about a show with both of those things every week?

This is honestly my biggest fear about this show. Into Darkness showed just how horrible of a concept Section 31 is when it's executed poorly, and I definitely don't want any more of that. On the other hand, there's a lot about this premise that I do find appealing. I sort of feel that the Picard series is like fire in the sense that it could keep you warm or burn down your house, while this series is like dynamite—you could blast a hole in a mountain to build a tunnel for a train to go through, or you could just level everything around you. Do this right and you have a functional, unique series; do it wrong and you "level" Trek, or at least a good portion of it.
 

I really just get the feeling theyre doing the throw everything against the wall and see what sticks approach. And yeah I think if they had found the success they wanted they wouldnt be branching out into all these very different things. Theyre putting the odds in their favor though I guess. One of these at least has to do well... right?

Oh, they're definitely lobbing stuff at the wall and hoping to find something that "sticks." I'm pretty sure DSC is largely responsible for this too; it's been "successful" enough to keep getting picked up, but the complaints against it are simultaneously so high that they know it's not going to galvanize the fanbase or anyone else in any meaningful way for an extended period of time. The Picard Series comes across as something that's meant to be the antithesis of DSC and the Kelvin Timeline's style of pacing; everything we know about it screams "the Trek you remember" in a good way. The Section 31 series on the other hand seems like it's back to the Kelvin Timeline and DSC style of storytelling. Granted, this kind of makes sense given that it's been suggested by one of the higher ups at CBS that this could eventually replace DSC just given how long pre–production is expected to take. I have a feeling that if the Picard series does well, and if it's what we're expecting, (in which case I expect it'll do quite well,) CBS will quickly conclude that it's what they should have done from the get–go. Then again, just look at what happened to the Ghostbusters franchise: Sony rammed a movie the vast majority of fans didn't want down everyone's throats, were shocked when it tanked, and are now making the thing fans said they wanted all along. Who'd have thought that the fans would be happy now?
 

Regardless of what any of us think of Star Trek 2009 or STID, the numbers say they were a success in ever meaningful way to any bean counter. folks can say they were are failure... but the numbers say different, which is why not one but two new movies seem to be in the works. 
 
Likewise, with DISCO, they seem to be happy with the results... especially since CBS AA managed to get Netflix to pay for it and CBS AA retained the rights. We'll never know exactly what something like DISCO brings in in actual revenue because no streaming service breaks out viewing numbers, but the fact that they seem to up to 5 other shows in various stages of production says something. 
 
Unfortunately, I don't think the old formula is how people watch anymore... I certainly don't...  I think streaming content is actually starting to follow the formula used for years by the BBC... which is that they come up with a project, budget it and shoot a 1/2 dozen to a dozen episodes and thats it. Maybe if it gets good reception they will do another run... but Most of the shows aren't seen as long running continuing series. Which makes sense as TV in the UK (as I understand it) is taxed on a per unit basis to pay for BBC content... which means they have basically had the streaming formula forever. 
 
Streaming sites need new exclusive content to make them relevant and to keep subscribers, so where the advertising dollars is what drove "free" TV product, subscribers drive streaming product. Part of what makes streaming services interesting is that the exclusive content is available all the time... so new subscribers can discover shows that have been around for years. People lament that they have to pay a lot more money for all these services, but I think what most people do is they pick 1 or 2 and then if they get tired with one they rotate to a new service... even if you only pick it up for a few months. AA has been continuously adding new content.. and some of it, I think is good, while some I don't care for. 
 
Michelle Yeoh was a standout in DISCO, so she'll be able to carry a new show... we'll have to see how they decide to do the format, but I expect sort of a Trek version of "The Americans" (for lack of better insight at this time). I think the idea will be interesting and entertaining, and with most stuff I watch... it comes down to good writing, decent plots etc. 
 
I always thought one of the tenants of Trek was about embracing diversity... and the different products certainly do seem to be diverse!

You're partially right. The numbers for Trek XI say it was a success; the numbers for STID tell quite a different story. While they're big, and big looks good, they're actually pretty lousy once you factor in the production budget for the film and how well it was expected to perform. They're not as lousy as Beyond's barely breaking even numbers, but those are honestly a bit of an anomaly that was a result of people just not going to the movies in 2016 until November. Everything underperformed from January to November of 2016, especially sequels, and even Disney initially projected that Rogue One was going to be an abysmal failure before things started to turn around in November. Also, it appears we're back down to one film in the works now, namely Quentin Tarantino's, which I'm cautiously optimistic about, especially given his comments and what he's said he wants to remake as a movie.
 
As for DSC, I want to know if CBS had the same setup for season two that they had for season one. If nothing else, the season one setup definitely explains why they renewed it knowing they could tweak things. If they're actually footing the bill this time, that's a sign that DSC did well, if not... well it doesn't necessarily bode well for DSC. Also, can we please take a moment to appreciate how gangster CBS actually was with that agreement, and how dopey Netflix was to agree to it? (And no, I'm not just saying that because I hold some stock in CBS.) I mean, they basically got Netflix to pay for a series and not retain the rights to it, or have any rights to it in North America which is the one market Trek typically does well in.
 
As far as The Orville goes, Seth MacFarlane himself said that he wanted the lower episode count, so it sounded more like something that was pushed for by the production crew than the network.
 
There are still a lot of people that prefer the "old" formula. The formula used by the BBC (and HBO for nearly 20 years, as well as other premium channels for "prestige" content,) is popular for streaming because it's cheap, but it is definitely not preferred, and I've honestly grown tired of it. It's eventually going to implode, especially given that it's almost too easy to "binge watch" an entire series in the space of a month now and run out of new content that you care about. The concept made sense back when the usually risk–averse TV industry wouldn't touch half of what's commonplace today, especially as it relates to continuity on an episode to episode basis, but now that its been proven that those concepts work, the shorter seasons need to go away for most shows. For something like Star Trek, the old formula makes a lot more sense, and I know I've said this before, but the formula Trek should be following is that of Grimm; an overaching plot that stretches through normal length seasons, with standalone episodes interspersed. That's actually where I expect things to go eventually as more people get fed up with shorter and shorter seasons, (and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, I've spoken to more than a few people who will admit it in private, even if they won't admit that they hate short seasons publicly,) and the current system becomes increasingly unsustainable. I just wish that Trek would stop skating to where the puck is and go back to skating to where it's going to be. ENT S3 and S4 were so close to having the right approach; it's too bad they haven't gone back to that.
 
All Access is currently the only streaming service I'll even consider paying for. I don't use Netflix, Hulu, or anything else. The problem with the current streaming model is that it's completely unsustainable. Although original content only started in 2016, All Access had been around for ages, and CBS first announced plans for it back in 2006. The reason streaming is unsustainable as it currently exists is because of its cost, and the fact that subscribers are reassessing what's worth subscribing to as prices are continually being hiked while content continues to be produced at the same level. You're paying more and getting less. The one thing a service like All Access has going for it that a Netflix or a Hulu doesn't is that it's tied to a broadcast company, contains a huge back catalog for said company, and if you pay for the higher tier, basically lets you remove ads from what is essentially current broadcast programming. The value isn't necessarily in the original content, it's in the concept of "give us $10/month and you can watch our network channel without ads, and we'll throw in a bunch of extra shows." This is actually a bit of a loss leader for CBS, but it's admittedly why I'm paying for the commercial free tier. It's also why I didn't cancel my subscription while DSC wasn't airing. That actually brings me to the other reason the current model isn't sustainable: if you subscribe to a streaming service for one show, whether it's All Access, Netflix, or something else, you have no incentive to stick with that service beyond the few months that it's available. This causes subscribers to yo–yo based on what's airing, and it's already starting to be a problem. Eventually you're going to need spring and fall seasons, along with the usual wacky summer season like a real network if you want to keep your subscribers from just cancelling when they're done with the show they care about. The last reason the current method is unsustainable is that while you used to have Netflix and Hulu basically slugging it out, you now have everybody creating their own streaming service, each with its own fee. Eventually (more) people are going to stop caring, and these services won't be able to retain a subscriber base without offering constant new material like a broadcast network.
 
One thing All Access has going in its favor is that it doesn't release episodes the way Netflix does with a full season "dump," at least not for Trek. This at least forces you to stick around for a couple of months to watch the whole series, or to wait until a season ends if you plan to subscribe for just a month. I honestly think that if CBS were truly happy with DSC, we wouldn't be getting a Picard series or a Section 31 series, but would just be getting a network style season of DSC that ran for 20–some odd episodes. Actually, maybe we'd get one or the other, but not both. The fact that we're getting so many new Trek projects tells me that CBS is still trying to figure out how to handle Trek going forward. When they hit the magic formula, I suspect we'll see more of it.
 
As for the Section 31 series, the vibe I'm getting from the recent episodes of DSC is less The Americans, and more The Blacklist, (or even the short–lived Redemption spin–off of the latter,) with the idea being that you basically have people working in the morally gray areas for what is usually for the greater good.
 

What they really want with those movies is to recapture a franchise that nobody (including people beyond core fandom) stops talking about like Star Wars or the MCU.  Until they get that they will have, by their own ambitions, continued to fail.  Discovery isn't exactly off the ground yet either...
 
When TNG, DS9, VOY, and the movies were all up in the air simultaneously, they were branching out at a time when they were on top of the world.  Good time to experiment.
 
Now at this early stage, they just appear to me to be spreading themselves too thin instead...
IMO the Picard show should have been what they launched with.  It's not like it would have been hard to look around the room and see that everyone else is reviving the same characters from 20+ years ago successfully and figure that out, but they don't appear to think like normal people.

I think you have a pretty good assessment Whirlygig. Paramount wants the Trek movies to be something they never were and never will be, and the sooner they realize that, the sooner they can produce something that isn't going to backfire or be a waste of money. DSC is improving, but it definitely suffers from the same issue most Trek shows do with finding its footing. I think that part of its problem is its short episode count, combined with the fact that as a result of said episode count, you can't just fix the complaints from the first half of the season by the time you get to the second half.
 
I don't know if they're spreading themselves too thin just yet, (let's see when shows start coming out,) but I do agree that the Picard show is what they should have launched with, and I honestly think that it's at least partially a rebuke of DSC's production style. It's what fans wanted, it's what people screamed for, it checks most if not all of the boxes for the "fandom erogenous zones," and it should have been a no brainer. Instead we got the war story that felt like it was produced solely to stick it to the guy behind the ill–fated Axanar fan film. Actually it might even be more accurate to say that CBS saw fans give a guy a million bucks to make a fan film and completely misunderstood why. It wasn't that anyone cared about a war story involving the Klingons, it was the way Prelude to Axanar meshed the Kelvin Timeline and TOS aesthetic together. Look at the one thing that people consistently hate about DSC other than the numerous issues with Michael Burnham, (most of which are Spock related,) and its all of the unexplained visual changes. Had DSC mixed the look of TOS with an aesthetic that blended with the portions of the Kelvin Timeline set on the Kelvin, (which technically occurred in the Prime Universe since they were before Nero's arrival,) you probably wouldn't see much complaining. It's screwing with the known aesthetic, especially that thing being passed off as the Enterprise that's drawing the ire of viewers, and fixing it would do the show a world of good. The comments about respecting the aesthetic of TNG–VGR for the Picard series while still offering something new pretty much suggest that they've realized this mistake and are attempting to correct it.
 

It seems like there's an entire generation of participation trophy winners who were never taught how to deal with disappointment. They'd prefer to be cynical so that they can either be pleasantly surprised when they're mistaken or vindicated when they aren't.
 
But some people would rather be negative at the first rumor (and bring down as many other people with them) before we even have a title for the show. What a morose bunch "fans" have become.

While I agree with your initial statement, I cannot necessarily blame fans for being cynical, and not just for the reasons you've cited. This fanbase had to endure the first two seasons of Enterprise at a time when everyone involved should have known how to produce a Trek series, then a film that was Trek in name only, followed by one that was pure garbage, and one that finally started to get back to what Trek was only to have the film franchise put in a holding pattern. That was okay because a new TV show was coming, and then we saw DSC and it looked like a Kelvin Timeline series visually and tonally. I don't blame fans for being cynical, not when Trek has been more miss than hit lately. Granted, Beyond was a good film, and DSC S2 seems to be leaps and bounds better than S1, but the fact that S1 was such a mess, and that STID ever saw a green light are reasons for concern. I don't think fans are necessarily being negative at the first rumor, at least not without good reason. The Picard series is seeing lots of optimism, the Section 31 series is justifiably seeing a bit more cynicism, perhaps because the entire concept of Section 31 is more cynical. Don't get me wrong, I'm interested, I'm just not drooling all over this one yet, but I'm getting there.
 

I don't know maybe destroying entire worlds just isn't my idea of an optimistic future.

I feel like this should have been a line in DSC, perhaps from Michael to Georgiou. Heck, it could be a good piece of commentary in the Picard series as well given the setting. ;)
 

I used to be all "woohoo can't wait" until we got Enterprise, Nemesis,then the JJ CRAP trilogy. Now we have Discovery, I am all out of "Woohoo can't wait", just one disappointment after another is what it seems to be. Would like to be pleasantly surprised but it does not appear that they know how to make a decent Star Trek series anymore.
Optimism to me is seeing a future that I would like to be a part of, a noble human race that explores the universe in search of strange new world's and civilizations. I would be ashamed to have the discovery crew be the representatives of the federation to other races.

I get where you're coming from, I really do. NEM didn't bug me, (I actually liked it,) but I can understand why others felt differently. ENT irked me, as did DSC season one. So far DSC season two seems to be improving, but I definitely agree with you on large portions of it. I don't know if you've seen season two, but so far the crew seems like they're more in line with what I'd expect from the Federation now than they were last season. Granted, a good part of that is thanks to Anson Mount's portrayal of Pike, and while I'm really not fond of having the Enterprise involved in this show at all, I do feel that this particular character has truly improved the show's quality.
 

Its absolutely true that DISCO, as a show, abandoned the formula that stars a captain, co-stars a 2nd in command, and is supported by cast that has varied, usually between 5 to 7 as well as other supporting recurring members. The DISCO formula stars a former Stafleet officer along with the other two non Starfleet. The only "real" Discovery crew that we get introduced to in any depth are Tilly, Stamets, and Saru. we are introduced to some of the lower deck, but if I have to make a critique about the Discovery crew... its that we didn't get to know them the way we did with any previous series. But, Tilly, Stamets and Saru... do seem to live up to the ideas of the Federation and Starfleet... the only time they don't is when they are externally influenced by some force that overcomes them... again... a tried and true McGuffin in Trek (the enemy within??!!). 
 
As for the behavior of some of the other Starfleet personal... well there are plenty of examples of Starfleet... or even Federation members behaving badly... all the way back to TOS otherwise why did the federation need an entire planet to isolate a dangerous psychiatric patients... we see it in TNG... we see it VOY.... its even a main plot point of Insurrection... again... its a necessity to write in such personality flaws to make a drama interesting.
 
Now... none of this excuses the critiques I've even made in the past of Discovery's writing and general plot, but the actual crew... the crew we have met  that are actually Starfleet... they do their duty to serve Starfleet and the Federation... and do so with real distinction and honor, but again, we only get to know a very limited number of the crew.

My problem with DSC isn't that some of the Starfleet personnel and members of the Federation behave badly, it's the sheer quantity of them in one location that do, or at least did in season one. In season two my real beef is with Michael Burnham, whose just been a truly awful character from the get–go, and unfortunately is also the star of the series, and thus the center of the universe. Look at her behavior in the pilot, "Starfleet's first mutineer" shouldn't be celebrated. Now I get why Lorca wanted her on his crew, and why Starfleet allowed it, but after the war ended she should have been exiled to the nearest penal colony planet and left there. Now we've seen characters get redemption before, notably Tom Paris, James T. Kirk, and others, except those characters didn't start a war. They didn't throw a temper tantrum and take a phaser to their Captain. It feels like Burnham had no real consequences for her actions, and that irks me. Worse, this is someone we're supposed to believe was in line to be a captain before her little stunt. If that's the case, Starfleet's standards were either really low before the Klingon war, Georgiou was a terrible captain for not seeing that Burnham wasn't command material, (or even plasma conduit scrubbing material) despite what Discovery's computer told Saru about great captains, or Burnham is the worst written main character of any Trek series. I'm inclined to go with that last option, especially since Burnham's behavior is consistently abysmal, to the point where she's not even a sympathetic character. Shoehorning in Spock to make her relevant only makes things worse, and the whole "never spoken of half brother" thing has just hurt the show overall. By the way, where's Sybock? You know, Sybock, Spock's other unspoken of half sibling. I mean, we have a season with a bunch of religious imagery, so where the heck is the guy who was once asked "What does... God... want with a starship?" Without giving anything away, the stuff that's going on in season two really could help explain why Spock never spoke of Burnham or Sybock if the writers were more competent with Burnham's character.
 
I do agree that Tilly, Stamets, and Saru, are in the mold of proper starfleet officers now, but that's largely because the writing has improved. Saru really is the one character not named Michael Burnham that seems to have gotten a decent amount of character development in both seasons. Stamets has evolved a lot, and my impression of him has changed drastically given that he came off as a total prick initially. Tilly was always interesting, but she came off as "the bumbling cadet" initially. Again, much like Stamets, she's grown a lot and the way she's written has improved drastically.
 
I do agree with you that we haven't seen enough of the crew as anything more than 2D cutouts, but I also think that focusing the series on Burnham, whose poorly written, and just saddled with baggage, does the show no favors. The main "problem" is that her actions early on make her come off as unredeemable and outright loathsome. I'm actually reminded of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels, where you basically have a character whose behavior is so repugnant that instead of someone whose flawed but sympathetic, you get a redemption story that comes across as "The Redemption of Joseph Stalin," and it just doesn't work.
 
Coincidentally, this "flaw" with Burnham is actually what gives me hope about the Section 31 series. Mirror Georgiou is far more repugnant, but already we've seen her doing some good, and given who she was surrounded by, and her background, that's a lot more of an interesting change than seeing Burnham try to behave the way she should have from the get–go.
 

They could make it that Section 31 is not as black and white evil like we've seen in the past, and expand on the organization and how they operate. Make them more morally grey. 
 
If that's the case, and we see Georgiou develop in both season 2 of Discovery and this into adopting more Starfleet ideals, that could be interesting.

I think we're starting to see this already. More accurately, I think Section 31 has always operated in a morally gray area, but we've just never seen their inner workings. My suspicion is that they're typically not seen, and generally frowned upon, especially in times of peace. However, in times of war or upheaval, they come out of the woodwork and Starfleet may even acknowledge their existence. I'd go so far as to state that perhaps during the Klingon war, they were acknowledged as an actual part of Starfleet, and that at some point may have been "dissolved" officially while unoffically being kept around for events like the Dominion War, hence why they're so shadowy a hundred years before and after DSC. Actually, we saw them in a morally gray area on DSC this week, and without giving anything away, that was best summed up with a line that I believe went "we do what we do so that you can do what you do," implying that in order for Starfleet to maintain its squeaky clean image and goals of optimism, you need to have an organization like Section 31 working in the shadows. Granted, do this wrong and it'll be a disaster, but do it right and it could show the morally gray, "ugly" side of Starfleet. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely intrigued, but I really want to know why these guys go from being unspoken of, to basically being Starfleet's worst kept secret, to being unspoken of again.



#38 Gothneo

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Posted 19 February 2019 - 05:42 PM

Lots there... and really I don't have any huge disagreements... but I'll keep it short and key in on this comment..

 

My problem with DSC isn't that some of the Starfleet personnel and members of the Federation behave badly, it's the sheer quantity of them in one location that do, or at least did in season one. 

 

As I said most of the people behaving badly turned out *not* to be star fleet personnel... Lorca doesn't count, Tyler/Vok doesn't count... and like you said, the crew we did get some backstory to... Saru, Tilly, Stamets, all fit the mold and ethics of the typical Star Fleet we've seen previously. 

 

So where is the sheer quantity?? I still contend that overall the crew was very professional and cut of the star fleet mold... except for  Burnham... who I agree with pretty much all of your analysis.



#39 Whirlygig

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Posted 19 February 2019 - 06:19 PM

I guess Burnham is what a human would act like if that human were as intellectual a Vulcan. Smug, narcissistic, and willing to do whatever it takes to demonstrate their superiority. While the lack of emotion and more even application of logic prevents Spock from being that way. Though that is often how they paint other Vulcans which I've never really been a fan of... they should be even more levelheaded than Spock. Enterprise decided to start making them blustering jerks and its downhill from there. Spock sometimes lets his human side turn into a subtle condescension or two among friends but a full Vulcan shouldn't have reason to do that.

#40 Gothneo

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Posted 20 February 2019 - 01:03 AM

I viewed ENTs take on Vulcans as a reveal that politics can have real impact even on Vulcan, and interestingly enough the biggest Vulcan Jerk turns out to be a Romulan agent... presumably prior to anyone knowing of the existence of Romulas... so I guess I kinda forgave some of the portrayal... but the biggest gaff is that the Romulan agent was clearly much more emotional and thus begs the question why wasn't he removed from office for emotional instability issues, which one would think would be a very Vulcan thing to do... but I guess judging from the times... that arc was maybe ahead of its time?






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