Special Edition Podcast
Show Notes
Set phasers to nerd! Conor Kilpatrick and Ron Richards are joined by Star Trek super fan Mike Romo to examine the first two hours of Star Trek: Discovery (the first new Star Trek TV series in 12 years!), as well as the first three hours of the new Seth MacFarlane series Star Trek: The Next Generation The Orville. This one gets super nerdy… for a variety of reasons! (We apologize for Conor’s microphone issues.)
Running Time: 00:50:02
Music:
“Theme Song from The Orville”
Bruce Broughton
“Theme Song from Star Trek: Discovery”
Jeff Russo
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I loved this show
I though that it suffered from not looking old enough but that kinds what I knew would happen
I’m interested to see if they have any villain of the weeks or if it stays just with the Klingons.
Hey guys, I don’t think the direct download link is working. : (
Check again.
For context for my comments, I’m definitely a Trekkie. I watched reruns of all five previous series over and over again when I was growing up and have read dozens of the books.
And I absolutely loved Star Trek Discovery.
There was certainly a small piece of me who felt irked by some of the canonical inconsistencies that Mike and Ron commented on like the holographic projectors. But I am so much more impressed with the amazing look and feel of the show. The only thing that even comes close in my mind to the visuals is Game of Thrones. I was immediately hooked with the story and i’m really interested to see Michael’s journey from here and what the discovery is doing that needs her skills.
I’m also so use the practice of creating my own continuity from comics that I have no problem just saying to myself this is a different star trek than TOS or the Kelvin timeline. The rest is all marketing BS.
I had the same thought regarding creating my own continuity. Whatever part of me that used to get caught up on inconsistencies between different eras has been broken by years of reading comics. If we want Star Trek to continue for 50+ years we have to allow the creators a little creative licence. Just give me an original story in the Star Trek universe and I’m happy. Loved Discovery, looking forward to more.
Thanks for this episode! There are surprisingly few “Star Trek: Discovery” chats among my usual podcast subs, and no “The Orville” ones, so this was great, and your perspectives were great too. My own opinions are reversed from yours – while I like both shows, I liked STD more than I like TO – but you guys expressed many of the same observations I’ve had about each, plus many I hadn’t.
I’d set my bar so low for STD (having heard so much shit talked about it during production) that the fact that it was better than I’d expected helped me to like even more about it. I think its theme of regionalism vs. globalism, or galaxialism?, will be especially interesting and relevant to explore in our own present era. As was said on the “Mission Log” podcast this week, we’ve been forced to accept a Klingon monoculture for most if not all of the “Star Trek” properties produced thus far; it’ll be cool to see how the multiculture of Klingons we see in STD might lead to that… and maybe we’ll even get to see some connective tissue between our currently divided Earth of the early 21st century and the United Earth of Roddenberry’s futuristic vision.
As for the inevitable argument “it looks too cool to be in TOS’ past!” – well, we all know why, and I have no problem accepting that. Is it weird that STD’s Starfleet uses holograms and TOS’ didn’t? Is it weird that STD’s uniforms look different from TOS’? These are questions which may yet be explained (the latter is explained, apparently, in a recently-released official STD prequel novel), but it’s tricky when we complete-ists don’t have the whole STD story yet, haha. We’ll see. I still trust the STD creative team. They gave me a 2 hour glimpse into their world, and I really liked it.
Great podcast as usual guys. And I’m glad to see such positive comments from the other posters here as so many people seemed ready to hate this show out of the gate no matter what it turned out to be. For the recored, I really liked it and am definitely on board for as long as they let it run. I’ve seen every other episode of every other Trek series so this one will be no different for me.
Just a thought on this taking place in the past rather than the future… What we saw in the TNG era was basically a utopian society (as far as Earth and the Federation are concerned). But, those who know their Trek “future history” know that things get much worse before they get to that point (WW III, eugenics war). Star Trek always posited the idea that as we move forward, everything is going to get better. To go from the utopian society of the TNG era to what we see in Discovery (arguing amongst the crew, at war with the Klingons) if it were in 100 years in the future suggests that it’s going to get worse again and we’ll be right back where we started. I’m not sure if that thinking figured into the planning of the timeline of the show but it makes sense to me.
Also, to Mike who basically stated the 5.1 rant I’ve been expressing since last Sunday verbatim, CBS All Access (much like Hulu) does not stream any of it’s content in 5.1. It’s all 2.0 no matter what device you are using to watch it. Being that this is 2017, that is insane. It’s not like it’s, technolocially impossible. Both Netflix and Amazon Prime Video stream 5.1 audio. To have a show like Discovery – which was absolutely mixed in 5.1 – down mixed to 2.0 is nothing short of a sin. And to then ask people to pay extra for an inferior version of the product is just salt in the wound. Especially since everyone else in the world watching it on Space or Netflix for no extra cost gets the 5.1 audio.
As to the Orville, the trailer released last May at the up fronts made the show look like it was going to be a Trek parody (parody is one of my least favorite genres) and not a good one at that. I like Seth MacFarlane. I’ve seen him on talk shows and he always come across as a really smart guy but I’ve never watched any of his stuff. Not into Family Guy at all. But after hearing your take on The Orville I am absolutely going to check it out. So, thanks for that!
Episodes three and four of THE ORVILLE are the best. They’re basically straight up episodes of STAR TREK but with occasional “Seth MacFarlane jokes.”
I’m going to start with episode one of The Orville (of course) and make my way through them. You guys have gotten me excited for it. I can’t wait to get started.
Oh… and another note on Discovery that I just learned… Not only do the fine people of Canada who are watching it on Space channel not have to pay anything extra for the show, the get it first. It airs on Space at 8:00 Sundays. Thirty minutes before it streams on CBS All Access. Good grief.
I know that Star Trek Discovery is the big talking point in this video, but I wanted to chime in and say I really like the Orville. It’s kind of refreshing to watch a TNG-like series. There is humor but surprisingly it’s at the expense of the characters and not at the expense of the premise. That was greatly appreciated. It’s the type of sci fi show I want to watch. I agree with Conor that you need to stick with it to get to episodes 3 and 4. It feels like the show has really found it’s legs now. Hopefully it can keep it up. Also hopefully it doesn’t get cancelled.
Not sticking with Enterprise was a mistake.
The quality of original stories- acting and innovation was quite good especially compared to Discovery.
A lot more Star Trek dna and heart.
Ron and Conor should go back to it.
The Enterprise novels had a great explanation for the more futuristic look of what was supposed to be older tech.
In that the Romulans had created tech that could hijack and hike the more sophisticated Federation technology of Enterprise in so more simplistic- more isolated systems- TOS style were created to do the same things but it different harder to hijack ways.
It works if you think about it.
What did you guys think of episode 3
In my personal opinion
Spoilers
The idea of the ship having its mysteries is cool and the focus being on someone who Is not a ranking person in this case a mutineer is a nice idea. I thought the bad guy/monster was very violent for Star Trek and I can’t see myself showing that show to a young person who loves eg/ voyager, but I wasn’t massively annoyed.
My pain annoyance is IN SHIP BEAMING I’m not 100 percent sure but I thought that was a feature first seen in the next ten era, so if im wrong my bad, but I think that even so, were on earth is it in TOS, and it is only a geeky problem.
Lastly, I think that the federation are the very definition of being good, after the after mass destruction of world war 3 they are super good. So I didn’t like the feeling they had a hidden agenda or an evil side that seemed to be coming out in the show. And if they wanted to make a not perfect federation make the next next Generation and have a corrupt federation and don’t ruin the kirk days.
But a though and would love to hear what you think.
Still not as bad as enterprise
hi Benjacks!
Episode 3 was just crazy to me. I was kinda bummed, I thought I would get to see a bit more of the non-Federation world, but nope, all we got was the kidnapping from the shuttle…I was totally fooled by the trailer. Ars Technica had a good rundown of the episode here: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/10/were-not-on-the-enterprise-anymore-but-where-are-we/ which touched on what you were talking about…is the Captain mad? Is he evil? Is Discovery a warship??
And are we talking Midi-chlorians all of a sudden powering warp drive?
Regardless, we’re talking about 95 years after Enterprise, which ended with the founding of the Federation. What ST:D seems to be is the Federation either finding its way or losing its way. Clearly there are some racial tensions…but then, I dunno the bridge of the first ship (Shinzo? sorry) is like a menagerie of different races working together.
Good point on the in-ship beaming, I didn’t catch it.
I am just all over the place on this, clearly–which, as I tried to express in the podcast, is actually a GOOD thing. I love discussing Star Trek, I just think that in this particular case, there are fundamental aspects of the show that distract for no good reason.I think so much of this could be solved–and celebrated–if it just showed a bit of “Star Trek: Nemesis” and the Enterprise flying off and fading to “100 years later” and just go from there. Michael doesn’t need to be related to Spock, let’s just cut the cord and set phasers to FUTURE.
Regardless, I am watching it. I love Star Trek, and I will watch whatever they give me (I did finish Enterprise)…even if I dislike it (Star Trek: Into Darkness).
Great discussion, thanks for listening!!!
-mike
Thanks for replying
I just hope that the people making soon realise we don’t need more prequels (why stargate origins)
I will still watch it as you said. At the end of the day discovery is better than no Star Trek at all.
Just wondering what did you think about the fact they are going too have characters like Harry Mud introduced, do you think they should be left alone or that it’s a good idea to include them.
Personally I think that Mud doesn’t have any expansion that could make me happy.
One thing I was very happy about was that the bad guys seem to have a villain of the week theme to them, but I can imagine they will be connected by the mystery that is discovery.
Thanks again for replying
Love to hear what you think
Ben jackson
I really enjoyed the 3rd episode just like the first two.
Again, I had no problem with the technical inconsistencies like side-to-side transporters or that they are working on a mysterious transportation method that never carried over to the other series. Discovery feels self contained and we don’t know the whole story yet. The end of the season could see the ship mysteriously destroyed scaring Starfleet from trying it again. Or it’s successful and classified top secret through the TNG era because if it fell in the hands of another alien race it which could be disastrous.
At the same time though the show feels like Star Trek to me. A number of plot points have been used in previous series.
-Mutineer rejoins Starfleet – Ro Laren in TNG
-Starfleet experimenting with mysterious tech – The Pegasus in TNG or The Equinox in Voyager
-Commanding officers with dark intentions – too many to list.
And even if Captain Lorca and some of the crew may have bad intentions we spent enough time in the first two episodes to establish that the Federation does have good intentions.