Discovery Recovery?, Twitter Conversations & Reviewing 'Lethe'

Hello and welcome to Future Imperfect. I'm your

host, Admiral Phillips, and in this episode we'll

be covering a vast majority of topics from some

of the experiences by some of the fandom watching

the Abrams -Kelvin universe for the first time,

and getting to some of the commentary on what

people wish that this series had turned into

initially. as well as a couple of Twitter conversations

I had on Star Trek Discovery as a whole, and

what I actually think about it despite the...

despite the misgivings that it seems I'm giving

this series, and I'll explain that further. Also,

I'll be talking about the latest episode, Lethe,

which... was airing last night. So, without further

ado, I'm gonna get into the initial topic of

the person that watched Star Trek Beyond for

the first time. And this individual said that

he was about to watch Star Trek Beyond, not a

huge fan of the J .J. Trekverse, the first movie

was decent but didn't feel like Trek to me, aside

from character names and Into Darkness was just

a whole lot of nope. Okay, Beyond, what's it

going to be? And then he gives his updated review

after. He says, okay, Star Trek Beyond, rather

than making another post, I'd rather say this

than the first two for sure. I'd rather see that

this one. He says, let's say Into Darkness never

happened either. Enjoyable, but not entirely

into this new universe. Some parts were cringe

-worthy, but overall not bad. I believe the friendships

portrayed on screen. Much more... than those

prequels that never happened. Carl Urban is an

amazing Dr. McCoy. I kind of felt a lot of the

same, especially with how bad Into Darkness was.

There was so much wrong with it. It kind of reminds

me... It makes discoveries... randomness seemed

more coherent than what we got in that film.

Beyond was actually really good despite the Beastie

Boys music bit. One of the funniest comments

though was, the first one was average at best

and had some of the stupidest coincidences imaginable.

Into Darkness was total crap and Beyond is great.

That's just kind of... the general consensus

of what I've seen so far on some of it. However,

getting to the Twitter conversation I was having,

I was actually kind of torn because I've been

having this conversation for the past couple

of days anyway, and somebody... And this is where

I shut down in conversation is where people feel

the need to use expletives to get their point

across. And to me, that's not really the best

method of trying to portray your difference of

opinion. And that's really all it's kind of boiled

down to is there's a lot of difference of opinion

in this Star Trek discovery to the original timeline.

I don't... despite what the producers say and

what these particular individuals have have venomously

yelled at anyone who disagrees with the mentality

of the the show I am thankful for another Star

Trek series and I'm not thankful that it's on

an app over television where it's more readily

accessible to the masses I see this as a giant

cash grab which it's not really foreign to CBS

or Paramount before this I mean they they launched

the UPN for the sole purpose of having their

own and they use the new Star Trek series of

I believe Voyager to launch it and then They

tried it in the 80s as well with the original

series in the next generation So it's not it's

not a foreign concept for them to do this but

what I've disliked is the fact that these individuals,

despite what you may think, resort to these venomous

comments and I was having this conversation and

I ended up having to block the individual because

it was kind of a nice conversation going between

five of us on Twitter and I was enjoying the

going back and forth until this person started

swearing and it says, the history, i .e. the

canon of the series has not changed in the least.

It kind of has. They've introduced these new

Klingons and none of them resemble anything in

Enterprise, the original series, or the next

generation onward. So we've got these blue -looking,

double -nostraled Weird looking Klingons and

people are trying to act like I'm beating on

them because they have no hair the hair thing

That's that's based on the individual like you

get general Chang who had More or less a ponytail,

you know bald head type thing and you had other

Klingons with bald heads or limited hair So like

that's not that's not what I'm debating. I'm

debating the entire aesthetic the fact that they

the way they talk it sounds like they've got

pardon my French, but some Genital region in

their mouth while they're talking or they're

chewing on marbles like it's not It's not I Don't

know. It's not as believable and it that it I

feel like the acting in the Klingons alone are

paled in comparison to any other Star Trek series

and that's That's even putting TOS above it and

TOS has kind of garbage Klingons like they're

okay, but they're not They're not like our TNG

DS9 Klingons that we had. I don't see this fitting

in Canon. Plus, you have sight -to -sight transporting,

you have holograms, you have various other things.

I'll get into another technology, a couple of

them that show up in this latest episode, and

why I don't believe that they fit. but anyways

this person says nothing represented thus far

changes anything from any other series actually

you know again the Klingons, the Tak, the ships,

the fact that we haven't seen a single constitution

class starship yet despite all these ones that

look like everything from the dominion war that

we got like almost every ship we've seen are

basically they look like they came from the dominion

war time period And they said, and for the record,

Discovery looks a thousand times better than

TOS ever did. I'm not even debating. That wasn't

even what I was debating with this person. We

were debating the Klingons alone, and how it

fits in a cannon. This person decided that I

was talking about the aesthetics, and it had

nothing to do with that. I've gotten over that

because I realized that as technology progresses,

television, you know, they're able to do these

feats they weren't previously able so you have

the ability to Show things or do things better

than what you could have in the original series

the next generation DS9 Voyager Enterprise so

on and so forth but I don't like that they're

using the Kelvin universe aesthetics for all

of the prime timeline material. It should have

some semblance that it fits in this universe

and everything is entirely too polished and too

graphically pleasing, and that's, I think, detracting

from the fact that they should be concentrating

more on the series and the writing, and I...

I don't feel like a lot of this stuff is warranted

and I'm seeing a lot of backlash from people

in general of you know enough with the prequels

already we could have had There were half a dozen

other places we could have taken this we could

have done an anthology series that each season

fit in a different part of the timeline with

different parts of the crew or You know, you

could technically have this crew be a time -traveling

ship that Gets lost and kind of shows up in random

time periods for a small stint in something You

could have had you know between the the early

24th century and mid 24th century when the enterprise

B You know is flying around before it gets destroyed

in the enterprise C gets lost You could have

had the mid 25th century To kind of differentiate

and then they could have reinvented everything

and come up with a new reason for why things

are the way they are I mean, there was other

methods that they could have taken and changed

this, and been given the freedom to change whenever

they wanted, had they gone more into the future

with it. Or just simply said, we're rebooting

it, we're doing a whole new timeline, it's not

gonna be a part of the Kelvin, then we can kinda

keep going with this television universe and

just kinda, you know, left it at that. But they

didn't, so. Anyways, I'm not debating that aesthetics,

but when you can have inner computer Intercom

systems on your Starship, and you can just have

the computer talk to you no matter where you're

at which The original series Kirk always had

to go to a bulkhead somewhere on one of the walls

and hit a comm system so that he could talk to

anybody for the comm system, so I don't Again,

this is something that kind of bothers me. And

then they said, have you seen all 24 houses yet?

No, you have not. You've seen most of them. They

mostly showed up in that first episode when they

were meeting with Takuvma. And so, in doing that,

we got to see that almost all of them look exactly

the same. And they've got these weird alien xenomorph

looking back -of -the -head things going on and

None of them again none of them resemble even

the Kelvin universe and I hate the Kelvin universe

come like their redesigns of some of the stuff

but Even the Kelvin universe Klingons looked

more like Klingons other than the fact that they

had the bright blue eyes and they had the weird

piercing thing on their forehead Those Klingons

even looked more Klingon than what we got in

Discovery. So I mean, if they wanted to even

go that route, I would have been like, eh, okay,

I can see this could be a different sect of Klingons,

but it just kind of infuriates a little bit.

And then this person says, and again, a visual

change. Makeup techniques are better today than

in 67. Stop effing whining. Also, you haven't

seen all 24 houses. Again, We've seen most of

it, and I don't believe we're gonna get anything

different as this series progresses So I think

this person's gonna be wrong anyway, but I'll

never know because I blocked him So they You

know I know makeup techniques are better, but

we also got better techniques and T &G and Voyager

and DS9 so again And then they said like this

particular person is is very toxic on Twitter

so I didn't I read their other posts and I was

like you know this person's just trying to get

a rile and trying to be mean about it there's

no actual conversation going on so I then they

said none of that stuff matters it's all visuals

And then it's 2017, not 67. Get the F over how

TOS looked. It doesn't matter. It had nothing

to do with TOS. I was comparing to TNG and the

rest of them. Even the technology we've seen

doesn't line up with anything in the future we've

seen. We just started getting holographic projections

in TNG and Nemesis, and it wasn't as crystal

clear and functional as what we got in Discovery.

That alone kind of tells me something screwy

with it and plus the Klingons didn't get cloaking

technology until The Star Trek 3 So and then

the firing when cloak didn't come until Star

Trek 6 so There's so much wrong with that. It's

not even funny, but I said I would be more happy

if this was a rebooted universe and They just

left it at that and I'm treating it as a left

a reboot at the moment so that I can sit and

comfortably enjoy the series as it is because

if I look at it as trying to fit into Canon it

just Infuriates me and I can't sit there and

pay attention to that aspect of the series I'm

sitting here trying to figure how it fits and

I don't know how many other people are feeling

that way But that's that's kind of my thought

on it. And so I'm treating it like this until

I see other reasons why or how it exactly fits

into our proper prime timeline. So, again, this

particular person is just very toxic. And then,

even in Star Trek Online, Star Trek Online is

very centered on the canon in the universe, and

it's actually canon, which... is interesting

because it goes back and forth throughout time

and discovery is by no means even mentioned.

I mean, I know they're going to eventually add

something in there, but I don't think it's going

to have too big of an influx in the series. Not

only that, but it says that when you're in the

23rd century and you're starting out as a captain

of a ship and you're helping Captain Garrett

escape along with the armada of the Federation

Constitution and Kind of Dreadnought class starships

Agent Daniel says your sacrifice allowed Garrett

to warn Starfleet about Klingon cloaking tech,

but your ship was lost with all hands so like

They started to gain it at this point But again,

it's it's not So I mean I kind of see how it

fits a little bit with the cloaking with Star

Trek online, but Again, it's kind of a touchy

area. They also had, when I was going through

the Twittersphere, I've been kind of trolling

the Star Trek CBS Twitter handle just to kind

of see if I can get a rise out of them and get

some information. Also, I would love to be a

fly on the wall so I could know what is going

on so that I can kind of... Understand where

they're coming from in any of this. I feel like

a lot of this is just flying off the handle and

just saying oh trust me So There there was this

Thing saying oh if you're not watching Star Trek,

you know Which is what they posted, you know,

why aren't you or they had like a head slap thing

with wharf? So I said if I understood how it

actually fits in a TOS timeline, I'd be more

apt to watch And so we had this nice conversation

going on Twitter about You know how we're watching

discovery, but like we watched Enterprise the

new alternative films. I enjoy them. They just

don't feel like cannon but We were also talking

about the the different houses and hairs styles

of Klingons and I kind of said, you know if if

we had a 25th century enterprise You know so

far away from Canon, you know, they'd never have

to look backwards clean slate sounded smarter

Because I kind of said, you know I'd rather they

reinvented in the 25th century and just kind

of left it at that but It didn't so You know,

they have said that it will be explained on the

Klingons But it could be anything a mutation

of the argument virus a failed attempt at a cure,

you know anything However, I don't think it's

either I think that this was just their blatant

just I just want to reinvent it. So I'm gonna

reinvent it It's it's funny how We were having

this conversation though and Somebody says I

thought that we saw typical representatives of

all houses in start Star Wars style holographic

form not Star Trek style when unifying Which

I'm pretty sure we did and they all look the

same And then they said, you know, what about

Enterprise set before Discovery the films are

twenty -fifth twenty -fourth century based series

All those Klingons looked very similar in style

Just visuals this thread started with an image

of wharf a typical both Enterprise films and

24th century Klingon. This is just comparing

So yeah, we had this nice little conversation

going and, you know, in every version except

the alternative universe, new films, Klingons

and their ships, looks evolved smoothly and discovery

equals like a massively divergent issue where,

you know, At least before they all had hair and

consistently similar evolution of ship design

as well I just You know, I just a lot of people

have been wondering, you know, yes dress changes

should be explained. They've done it Why is that

so hard? Why is it can why is consistency so

hard? And then there's other people are saying,

you know that Klingon has changed so many times

I don't get the butthurt from the vocal minority

And again, it's such a divergent shift for the

Klingons. I feel that that's one of the biggest

problems. You know, I'm a huge truckie. I understand

they're going to want to do their own thing and

try things, but I don't feel like the 10 years

before things should have fit. Plus the uniforms

and the insignias that they use. the insignias

weren't really standardized, those were kind

of enterprise emblems, so they weren't really

standardized until that era when they kind of

made it the go -to design because the flagship

of the fleet. Somebody brought this to my attention

on Twitter and I said, Again, if I actually understood

how it fit into the TOS timeline, and this other

guy goes, it doesn't. We know what TOS minus

10 years looks like from the cage slash menagerie,

which I didn't even think of that. That was a

totally foreign concept I hadn't even thought

about. They mentioned that, and I'm thinking,

okay, so the uniforms look totally different

than what we've got here. And the insignias,

and then the weapons, and... So the they've kind

of got a mixture of the two different kinds of

weapons from the cage and from TOS for Discovery

which I'm fine with but yeah the the the ships

and which had all the little weird gadgets sticking

out from them instead of all the holographic

stuff Which they don't even have until like Voyager

era it kind of it's a bit Difficult to swallow

that this far in the past they have all this

massive technology and yet none of its used so

Yeah, I kind of was was stuck with that. So I'm

gonna take a quick break come back and talk about

the episode lithium So on this episode episode

6 of Star Trek discovery we have lithium which

starts off with a Basically, Captain Lorca and

Ash Tyler doing a round through a holographic

battle scene, essentially. They're armed for

battle, they're going into this whole recreation

room, which looks like a holodeck. And I was

sitting there going, okay, something's wrong.

like I didn't realize that the holodeck was this

far back and so I was going through it and I

was like okay they didn't have stellar cartography

and a holodeck this far back in the past and

then I later was doing research and found out

that There were some recreation rooms which were

only partially like a holodeck. They weren't

100 % holodeck technology, but they were pretty

close and it was in the animated series and I

guess they wanted to do it in season 3 of the

original series, but they had a certain part

in the timeline during the animated series where

the Enterprise had one of its rec rooms updated.

with basically a holodeck, and it's in the episode

of the animated series, and they had this holodeck

malfunction and whatnot, but anyways, Gene Roddenberry

had intended to have this show up anyway, but

again, it was a budget issue in the past, so

they didn't work it in there. So they had it

in there, and then apparently the next generation

cast or writers didn't remember the episode from

the animated series when they conceived the holodeck.

So it was kind of thought that the next generation

came up with it even though the animated series

had it first. So we could theoretically say that

Discovery would have it first in the sense that

it's the most advanced starship. Also, it kind

of lends to that they have it there and then

eventually the Enterprise gets it. And I think

that the Constitution class Starships are a little

bit older and I know Enterprise gets refit about

every time they get a new captain or every five

years. So, it's been around for a while, they

just haven't done heavy refits and they did the

massive refit in the motion picture, which again,

it still wasn't... As updated as this which strikes

me as odd And I'm wondering if the spore drive

is like the precursor to trans warp technology

even though spore drive is instantaneous and

The trans warp is not It's like you slapped a

cue into your computer system Also some people

have have made this connection and think that

this may be possible that Vok the albino Klingon

that that showed up and and was sent off by another

Klingon when his when core or whatever his name

is that Klingon took over all the the empire

the one person says the Watcher clan the deceivers

the weaver of lies you know, where they'll send

him, and he says, what must I sacrifice? And

then she says everything to him. And some people

are making this connection that Ash Tyler is

just a human form Valk, changed by the Mokai

into a human, and that's how he survived and

had the affinity with that other Klingon for

that supposed seven months. So I'm wondering...

If it's a red herring or not if this is true

It would make interesting because that would

be the the part of the giving them a more human

look for the original series Which would certainly

be fitting But again, it's it's hard to say I

know there there's a lot of mystery shrouded

there With that particular character, and I guess

we'll find out as the series progresses But I

do find that a bit interesting that that's that's

the internet's thought on it Which means it's

probably not true But again, it's it's it's still

interesting to think about so Getting into further

parts of the episode they have this stellar cartography

Bit in there, and I was like okay. That was that

was a Voyager thing or even Star Trek generations

it showed up So I don't remember any starship

having it prior to that I could be wrong, but

I don't think it did So then we get Sarek being

almost assassinated by a Klingon or a Vulcan

purist who does not want Sarek to succeed in

meeting with the Klingons because He sides with

humans and so he gets hurt and because he shares

his Katra with Burnham She has to go on a mission

with Tilly and Ash Tyler to rescue him and Lorca

at the same time is dealing with Admiral Cornwell

on the Discovery who makes a special trip to

visit him and more or less threatened to take

away his command Because he's unstable since

getting captured and sitting back in the captain's

chair and so That's a little bit interesting

she's always kind of struck me as a little bit

of a doctor and then it kind of got confirmed

she was a ship's doctor and a Psychiatrist which

are among the same thing on a starship so She's

more or less threatened to take away his command

after she starts, you know, they've had sex on

the Discovery and she starts messing with a scar

on his back and he flips over her with a phaser

and puts it right into her face and chokes her

and so she's like you're not stable at all and

tells him that he needs help and she's gonna

take his command and So because Cyric was supposed

to meet with the Klingons to Garner piece because

he's known as someone who has the affinity to

deal with races that don't share in logic and

deal on emotion and he's Got this affinity for

dealing with people with human emotion and that

are part human or fully human Admiral Cornwell

goes in his place and so thus she is theoretically

captured and that kind of leaves you there and

Sarek is on the Discovery and you get to have

some historical adding of Burnham where the Vulcan

command more or less told Sarek he could recommend

one of his children to the Vulcan Science Academy

or Expedition, the Vulcan Science Expedition

and he was told that because he has two humans

they don't count Spock as Vulcan because he's

a half -blood and so they they treat him like

garbage as well and so Sarek goes with his blood

which is Spock and Spock basically throws it

in his face by joining Starfleet and joining

the Enterprise and whatnot. So it's kind of a,

you get that historical part where Sarek is still,

you know, where he's upset with Spock because

of a decision he made that Spock more or less

said no and he could have given it to Burnham.

So I don't know, it was a pretty solid episode.

You got enough, a little bit of a background

into the Spock -Sarek problems that happened

later. of why they don't get along. You get a

little bit of the humanity in Lorca. He even

fully reinstates Michael Burnham as a bridge

officer in this episode, and I'm not sure if

he's setting up for the fact that either A, he

knows he's going to die at some point, B, he

knows he's going to lose his command so he wants

to ensure Burnham is still in the fleet. or C,

they're setting up for a bigger end game where

Lorca is going to be killed at some point in

the future and Burnham will end up taking command

of the Discovery. So I'm just wondering, or if

Saru is going to take command of the Discovery.

I'm wondering if they're lining up for something

in that regard because none of this crew makes

it beyond this show, into the original series.

So I'm wondering if... You know all of them die

at some point and so after they've completed

their mission It's kind of hard to say so we'll

kind of see what happens But I feel like it was

a pretty solid episode and other than a couple

of minor nitpicks That have been kind of plaguing

me the entire time this series has been going

I Feel like this episode was actually pretty

pretty strong. You've got a little bit of Starfleet

command. You got a little bit of Lorca pulling

a Cisco. The only difference is they called him

out on it and made a special visit. I kind of

wonder how the Admiral made it all the way to

Lorca when he's by the Nebula where Sarek's at.

It's in that quick of a time span after the jump.

But... that really wasn't discussed. I mean,

this series has its flaws, for sure, but it's

getting better, and I feel that some of it does

connect with continuity. I just wish that some

of it wasn't so shiny. and graphically pleasing

to the eye and focused more on the story than

all the little interesting gadgets and redesigning

everything because they can. But overall I think

it was a pretty good episode and so I kind of

leave it at that. We're only a couple more weeks

until we're on break for the year which is a

bit unfortunate and I'm hoping I can get TFG1

Mike and Mike the Birdman Dodd on for discussion

on Star Trek discovery once they've watched parts

of it and kind of collect our notes and our gripes

and our High points and kind of go over the series

as a whole So far and and compare it to other

series and things that were wrong with those

as well so That about rounds it out for this

episode of Future Imperfect, so I hope you keep

listening. I hope you enjoy it. Leave comments

for me. Leave comments on the show. Leave feedback

on altergeek .com under Future Imperfect. You

can also find it at Geekcast Radio and This Week

in Geek. You can find it on Google. You can find

it on Stitcher. It's not yet on iTunes, which

was totally an oversight on my behalf. It will

be there soon. You can also interact with me

on Twitter at AlteredGeek. And so until next

time... Warp Factor VIII, engage!