Trek bits

ITEM! Because of good word of mouth, I checked out the second season of Star Trek: Discovery. Not bad, not great. As a cast and a show, from seeing season 2, I’d rank it thusly on the roster of Trek shows:

1.Deep Space Nine. 10/10

2.The Original Series, films 9/10

3.The Next Generation, films 7/10

4.Enterprise 6/10

5.Discovery 5/10

6.Voyager 4/10

Kelvin timeline films

The cast/crew is mostly unremarkable, aside from Michael Burnam (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Saru (Doug Jones). Every Trek show has that one special character, that outsider who proves to be the emotional anchor or breakout character from the pack, whether it’s Spock, Data, or actually, virtually everyone on DS9, but here, it’s Saru. Jones does a great job bringing this gangly alien to life. Martin-Green does a very nice job with Burnam as well, even though the writers tend to make her a sobbing mess about as often as she’s kicking ass, if not more so. 

Aside from those two, there’s Tilly (Mary Wiseman), who plays the ditzy– yet brilliant –ensign who never ever shuts up. It’s meant to be endearing but she makes me want to hit her with a baseball bat. I guess every crew needs a Wesley Crusher. There are at least another four or five bridge officers who are part of the furniture. There’s also a meticulous chief engineer (Anthony Rapp), who occasionally squabbles with another engineer (Tig Notaro), but over all, not a very memorable crew in general. I also can’t get with their weird take on the look of Klingons. The empress has some false teeth that she can’t speak through and for some reason, all the Klingons are different, vibrant colors, green, steel blue, shiny black, copper/metallic….it tends to make the rubber heads look more like rubber and plastic toys than one alien race. Not sure of their thought process there. 

The most interesting character on the crew is not *part* of the crew. It’s Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), the man who commanded the Enterprise before Kirk. He steps in to command Discovery for the main mission of season 2. I don’t know whether it was always planned that there’d be a spinoff with Pike’s Enterprise crew, or Mount proved to be so instantly popular that they made it so to answer the demand, but it’s happening. “Strange New Worlds” premieres on CBS All Access in late 2021. Looking forward to getting that on Blu-ray in like two and a half years.

ITEM! Steve Shives hosts a YouTube channel called “Trek Actually”, which talks about all things Trek. He’s a life long Trekkie and it’s clear that he loves all things Trek. 

For instance, he, like myself, had a problem with the finale to Voyager, and had a better ending in mind. He talks about it length on his channel and it is interesting. He gives his pitch on a better alternative.  For myself, when the crew got back to earth, I maintain that Starfleet would detain all the Maquis crew members, experiment and disassemble Seven and impound the Doctor’s Mobile Emitter. Because Starfleet. Failing that, because Section 31. It would be such an unhappy ending that the crew, who’d become a family during their years in the Delta quadrant, would break out and skeedaddle, with the possible exceptions of guys like Tuvok and Harry, who had family on Earth. Done and done. And better than what they gave us.

ITEM! The Enterprise finale was worse. But the show was better than some think. If you want a *good* Star Trek Enterprise viewing experience, there’s actually an alternative viewing order that ups the quality immensely. Trust me on this. It’s worked for me as well as others. *Start* by watching the very last ep of Season Two first. Then watch Season Three and Four. Then, go back to the beginning and start watching from the beginning of Season One, through all of One and Two. It works.

ITEM! Those who haven’t watched Star Trek Continues on YouTube, you’re missing out. Go for it. We won’t be in lockdown forever!