Perhaps but I still feel like the character isn't needed. There are plenty of interesting characters on the ship and I wouldn't mind seeing a few stories with minor characters doing something useful and important. Most of the time in TOS the minor characters would get killed off, get infected with a virus, or some other random fate. I like Lower Decks as it shows ordinary crew doing their jobs and, occasionally getting in trouble or helping the officers save the day.
Star Trek Strange New Worlds, what did you think?
Ryujin
Legend
I quite like the role playing games, like Space Opera, that had a clear demarcation between Doctors and MedTechs (nurses/paramedics, etc.) A doctor is a scientist with a lot of theoretical knowledge, plus a bit of practical knowledge. The MedTech is the person who can put you back together. That's not quite how it is in the real world, but it's a handy allegory.
S1E2
Well, this was a nice character episode. Always nice to have a "get to know your main characters more" event.
Did we miss a bit where the Enterprise Officially embarked on a Five Year Mission?
Captain Pike is MUCH more casual with his crew then all other Starfleet Captains we have seen combined. It's a nice change.
Uhura's parents died in a shuttle craft accident.....wonder why all Star Trek writers have such a hard time thinking of any accident other then that one? It just gets over used.
So they beam over to the mysterious comet.....to find it has a prefect Earth like atmosphere. Ok, so the only reason it has air is they want you to see the actors faces....but then why even have space suits in the first place?
But...er....why does the comet have Earth like air again? They kind of skip this. "Oh there is air, helmets off!"
And if your going to say the comet did it to welcome them aboard......then why not turn off the radiation too.?
And they bring along Cadet Uhura along as she is a linguist.....but she is also a Cadet. Was Sam Kirk also a linguist? It's a little odd to just toss a cadet into a possibly deadly situation with a "good luck, try not to die". There should have been a more senior communication officer along for the trip...you know like a mentor.
Is this Kirks first away team mission? How does he know "don't just touch the big glowly thing"?
And it sure is amazing that Cadet Uhura is also a music expert because, BY PURE CHANCE, the Mysterious Comet communicated by music.
Of course, the sci fi problem here is music and sound is not quite a universal thing. First what your air is made of effects sounds, but the big one is the human ear. Not only does a human ear need Earth like air to work, but a human ear can only hear a set range of sounds. Simply put, alien music would not sound good to humans and a human would be unlikely to hear all of it anyway.
Was this Number Ones day off or something? Don't first officers normally lead Away Teams?
Spock has the problem highlighted a lot in this epsiode. Though it's a common Star Trek problem. So Spock is all alien and clueless of human social things. Worse, Spock is not the best commanding officer. Except Spock has been in Starfleet for a least ten or so years living and working with humans. A LOT of the "Spock does not know or understand humans" would have been gone over when he was a Cadet and Ensign. And then toss in Discovery that Spock has a human(step) mom and human sister. Plus he already did a five year mission with Pike. And did Spock have no command classes at Starfleet...you know where they teach people how to be in command? He has years of being in the command structure, he must have seen dozens of "peep talks" and other human social things. Logically Spock would not be so Clueless.
So why were the Comet Shepherds SO far behind the comet. If the Mystery Comet had no shields then the Enterprise could have blown it up or moved it. But it takes them forever to come over and say "don't".
And sure the "shepherd" ship is all powerful so they can't fight it....
Sigh Spock zooms through CGI Spam to save the day. Boring. But I guess some viewers like all that mess? But the idea of "being the galaxies best most awesome radical cool stunt flier" is what saves the day is just dumb.
B
Well, this was a nice character episode. Always nice to have a "get to know your main characters more" event.
Did we miss a bit where the Enterprise Officially embarked on a Five Year Mission?
Captain Pike is MUCH more casual with his crew then all other Starfleet Captains we have seen combined. It's a nice change.
Uhura's parents died in a shuttle craft accident.....wonder why all Star Trek writers have such a hard time thinking of any accident other then that one? It just gets over used.
So they beam over to the mysterious comet.....to find it has a prefect Earth like atmosphere. Ok, so the only reason it has air is they want you to see the actors faces....but then why even have space suits in the first place?
But...er....why does the comet have Earth like air again? They kind of skip this. "Oh there is air, helmets off!"
And if your going to say the comet did it to welcome them aboard......then why not turn off the radiation too.?
And they bring along Cadet Uhura along as she is a linguist.....but she is also a Cadet. Was Sam Kirk also a linguist? It's a little odd to just toss a cadet into a possibly deadly situation with a "good luck, try not to die". There should have been a more senior communication officer along for the trip...you know like a mentor.
Is this Kirks first away team mission? How does he know "don't just touch the big glowly thing"?
And it sure is amazing that Cadet Uhura is also a music expert because, BY PURE CHANCE, the Mysterious Comet communicated by music.
Of course, the sci fi problem here is music and sound is not quite a universal thing. First what your air is made of effects sounds, but the big one is the human ear. Not only does a human ear need Earth like air to work, but a human ear can only hear a set range of sounds. Simply put, alien music would not sound good to humans and a human would be unlikely to hear all of it anyway.
Was this Number Ones day off or something? Don't first officers normally lead Away Teams?
Spock has the problem highlighted a lot in this epsiode. Though it's a common Star Trek problem. So Spock is all alien and clueless of human social things. Worse, Spock is not the best commanding officer. Except Spock has been in Starfleet for a least ten or so years living and working with humans. A LOT of the "Spock does not know or understand humans" would have been gone over when he was a Cadet and Ensign. And then toss in Discovery that Spock has a human(step) mom and human sister. Plus he already did a five year mission with Pike. And did Spock have no command classes at Starfleet...you know where they teach people how to be in command? He has years of being in the command structure, he must have seen dozens of "peep talks" and other human social things. Logically Spock would not be so Clueless.
So why were the Comet Shepherds SO far behind the comet. If the Mystery Comet had no shields then the Enterprise could have blown it up or moved it. But it takes them forever to come over and say "don't".
And sure the "shepherd" ship is all powerful so they can't fight it....
Sigh Spock zooms through CGI Spam to save the day. Boring. But I guess some viewers like all that mess? But the idea of "being the galaxies best most awesome radical cool stunt flier" is what saves the day is just dumb.
B
I don’t watch shows I like as faithfully as you watch shows you hate, @bloodtide .
Benjamin Olson
Hero
Because it's the spacey-future equivalent of a car accident, the most common reason for multiple family members to abruptly and unexpectedly die in the contemporary West. It neatly explains why multiple family members would die all at once without audience members requiring further explanation. It's what you do when you want the character's family to be dead but you don't want the manner of death to be an important plot point or something that gives the audience expectations that it will be a plot point.
side note: apparently one writer hated Wesley so much that he'd write very long technobabbles just to make him sound worse.
Will wrote that he ran into the writer recently and they apologized.
so some of that in TNG was just jerks.
Third episode was pretty good, weaker than the other two but still quite enjoyable.
I'm liking our surly engineer Hammer. The Unas / L'ann switcheroo was neat. I think we all went into the series thinking L'ann was going to be augmented, only to find out she hates augments and its Unas whose augmented. A neat touch.
That said, it does open up a pretty big plot concern. When Bashir on DS9 was revealed as an augment, we got a backstory of parents who had actively hid his condition all his life, plus Bashir's career in medical gave him the knowledge and access to hide his condition (aka if anyone was going to be able to keep their genetic condition a secret, it would be someone in medical). So it made a lot of sense. The idea that a commander of the federation flagship could hide their condition, ESPECIALLY from the chief medical officer (as there would of course be routine scans and physicals)....the kindest phrase is "strains belief", but I could easily go into "now that is some b*** ****". Its the first real crack in the so far shining armor of the show to me.
It would have gone over a lot smoother if the Dr knew about the commander, AND the commander knew about the Dr's daughter. That would have been an interesting little conspiracy the two had between them, maybe the Commander even helped get the dr on the ship so he can perform all her tests, etc. Right now it all feels just a little too clean, "oh you have been hiding your condition from us for years, eh its fine. Oh Dr you were conducting some unauthorized medical procedures, eh its fine (at least with this one there is the notion that the commander would keep the dr's secret, presuming it help him to keep hers)". L'anns "you now represent everything I hate....but here have some strawberries". I actually wish they had just saved that L'ann / Unas scene for later, got it more time and oomph. This is theoretically a MAJOR thing between these characters, my hope is that it will come back in future episodes, as these two still have a lot of issues to work through.
It at least helped to explain the "overly dramatic walk" the commander had carrying Hammer. When I first saw that I was like, "what is going on this is so weird?" but after the reveal its, "oh you all are saying she's got enhanced strength, got it".
At the end of the day, Bashir's reveal was just plain better. It was a cool buildup, explained some of Bashir's previous behavior, and the scene at the end when him and Miles are talking, and Miles is still willing to play darts with him (a genuine sign of acceptance), but also has him take a few steps back (showing a respect for the skills), to me was the perfect way to show inclusion instead of talking about it.
I'm liking our surly engineer Hammer. The Unas / L'ann switcheroo was neat. I think we all went into the series thinking L'ann was going to be augmented, only to find out she hates augments and its Unas whose augmented. A neat touch.
That said, it does open up a pretty big plot concern. When Bashir on DS9 was revealed as an augment, we got a backstory of parents who had actively hid his condition all his life, plus Bashir's career in medical gave him the knowledge and access to hide his condition (aka if anyone was going to be able to keep their genetic condition a secret, it would be someone in medical). So it made a lot of sense. The idea that a commander of the federation flagship could hide their condition, ESPECIALLY from the chief medical officer (as there would of course be routine scans and physicals)....the kindest phrase is "strains belief", but I could easily go into "now that is some b*** ****". Its the first real crack in the so far shining armor of the show to me.
It would have gone over a lot smoother if the Dr knew about the commander, AND the commander knew about the Dr's daughter. That would have been an interesting little conspiracy the two had between them, maybe the Commander even helped get the dr on the ship so he can perform all her tests, etc. Right now it all feels just a little too clean, "oh you have been hiding your condition from us for years, eh its fine. Oh Dr you were conducting some unauthorized medical procedures, eh its fine (at least with this one there is the notion that the commander would keep the dr's secret, presuming it help him to keep hers)". L'anns "you now represent everything I hate....but here have some strawberries". I actually wish they had just saved that L'ann / Unas scene for later, got it more time and oomph. This is theoretically a MAJOR thing between these characters, my hope is that it will come back in future episodes, as these two still have a lot of issues to work through.
It at least helped to explain the "overly dramatic walk" the commander had carrying Hammer. When I first saw that I was like, "what is going on this is so weird?" but after the reveal its, "oh you all are saying she's got enhanced strength, got it".
At the end of the day, Bashir's reveal was just plain better. It was a cool buildup, explained some of Bashir's previous behavior, and the scene at the end when him and Miles are talking, and Miles is still willing to play darts with him (a genuine sign of acceptance), but also has him take a few steps back (showing a respect for the skills), to me was the perfect way to show inclusion instead of talking about it.
I agree with pretty much all of this. Good episode but a bit weaker than the prior two.
Seems a running theme will be: These aliens aren't what you think they are.
Though I will say, the doctor's actions as understandable and even laudable as they are (with his "secret") are crazy bad. As I often told my son when he was young "I didn't realize that was going to happen..." is not an excuse for doing something that goes wrong! And he's clearly been hiding it for a long time (nevermind the logistics of hiding what he's hiding). It's one of those things that the writers clearly thought "Wouldn't it be cool if..." without thinking through how absurd the situation is!
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