Discovery Season 2 Thoughts, CBS Merger and ST Online ‘Victory Is Life’

Hello and welcome to Future Imperfect. I'm your

host, Admiral Phillips, and joining me in this

endeavor into the stars is... Joining him on

the deck of his ship, the Future of Birth, it

is I, Captain Mike the Birdman, Don, and yes,

we are trekking into the future that is indeed

dark, unknown, and potentially very cool. We're

talking about Star Trek Discovery Season 2. What

does it mean? What's going to happen? We don't

know. We've got ideas, theories. What do we want

to see? What do we don't want to see? And all

sorts of crazy ideas and stuff that we hope to

share with you, our listeners, because hopefully

you're not from the mirror universe, although

God, I hope that makes an appearance, but not

too soon. You can't go back to that well too

often without ruining it. So. Before we begin

this I will preface this with saying I'm going

to run down the news very quickly and then make

our commentary about it I know some of this is

a couple like anywhere from a week or two old

depending on the information But you still find

it relevant So season 2 will have zero to do

with mirror universe But it will have everything

to do with section 31 They dropped a clip that

uh... had uh... mirror emperor georgia on uh...

on the the homeworld uh... with her little uh...

store front as it were uh... with the orians

and there is the guy that was uh... disguised

with holographic technology to look like a trill

and i was like uh... we didn't see trills this

early on uh... or that we know of and she's like

you're not a trill you don't you know and Basically

saw through it and then he gave her a Left a

black badge on on a table in this video and and

alluded You know that they could use her skills

to protect the Federation from itself And and

essentially recruited her into section 31 At

the end of this clip which was which was interesting

And it kind of makes you wonder where it's going

to go in season two and then also They have they

have stated that You know issues with the Klingons

may flare up in season two and then there may

also be More or less there's going to be more

connecting it or trying to connect it with the

prime timeline Because I guess they're firmly

committed to showing that and I don't know if

that's because of the The the plan all along

or if it's because of the pissing contest of

the fans of you know, how does this fit? Particularly

with like Klingons and other things like that

But it'll be interesting to see how they explain

away this thing not only that but they've they've

managed to say that that this second season will

have more of an exploratory and dramatic tone

or diplomatic tone with also the casting of inhuman

star Anson Mount to play Captain Christopher

Pike which is an interesting choice because he

does kind of resemble Jeffrey Hunter In a sense

he has that same kind of look and the same kind

of stern face same kind of hairline same kind

of Facial features so it kind of fits more than

like the Bruce Greenwood Look of pike and so

I'm kind of down with that. Honestly, I just

don't know if they're going to do like say Spock

or something In the next season but regardless

it's gonna be interesting not and then additionally

we have The fact that Netflix is not footing

the bill for season 2 whereas they did for season

1 Which means CBS has to come up with it, so

we may see more of a lessened Use of like the

shininess of like brand -new uniforms and a lot

of things like that I think we're gonna see a

lot more of like the original series style of

like Captain Pike's Enterprise looking uniforms

popping up which would actually be a welcome

addition being that they should be moving towards

that direction anyway in canon. So. I think they're

gonna have a hell of a time trying to explain

that and to the point they should just ignore

it. The show for its time was a by -product of

the 60s. Let some of its designs stay in the

60s and just be like, you know what? It's a soft

reboot, deal with it. Well, this is my dilemma

with it. I could deal with some of it, but the

Klingons, that's the one thing that I put my

foot down. I could deal with the uniforms and

some of the other stuff in the timeline, but

a lot of it, like the warp drive thing, I can

get over that. Obviously, it's going to look

more advanced now than it would back in the 60s

or even in the 80s or 90s. So, like, I can get

past that. That doesn't bother me. Like, the

Klingon redesign, I still don't know the rhyme

or reason because every series but this one has

Klingons that somewhat resemble each other. And

these have, like, completely foreign looking,

like, Cardassian mixed with Orc mixed with Klingon.

And so it's just funky to me. Now, the uniform

thing they've explained as it's a thing with

the Constitution class ships. Like, the rest

of the fleet has, like, the Discovery type uniform.

Mm -hmm and the Constitution class starships

each one has their own comb badge Style just

like the original series, but and then they have

those those specific like sweater looking sweatshirt

uniforms To kind of explain, you know that they're

going on more of a diplomatic exploratory Style

look instead of the the military look that we've

got with Discovery. I Don't know. I mean, I think

One of the things I love about Star Trek fans,

or one thing I don't like about Star Trek fans,

sometimes y 'all too nitpicky. And I don't know,

the Klingon thing, okay, I get that. The uniform

thing, okay, the Captain Kirk uniforms of the

60s looked stupid. They were shirts with arms

around, with braids around the wrists. That's

not exactly a good, really quick way to tell

someone's rank in the military. I wanna be able

to glance at them and know exactly who they are.

At least in Star Trek The Next Generation, that

was solved with rank pips. Now I know in the

traditional military, yeah, you'd look at the

guy's shoulder and see how many kind of chevrons

he has or whatever. See, that was kind of my

problem with Discovery, even on itself. Like,

yeah, they had the pips in the badge. But you

couldn't tell you couldn't tell and then the

thing is is they had different colors to like

part of the the braids to the shoulders for like

captain or or different things like that, but

even that I couldn't tell like who was what like

it it was still too hard to tell like whereas

like you get TNG DS 9 and then the The TNG films

like you could tell what their rank was and even

the original series to some extent like they

had the thing on the shoulder because it was

You know, they had different pins for each each

rank and you had to pay attention to that one

more so but You could even tell which department

they were in based on the color. I Mean something

like that. I mean strictly from what I understand

when you're in a military situation You should

be able to glance at somebody know whether they're

your a captain or an admiral or a lieutenant.

Yeah, whether they're a higher officer than you,

whether they're an NCO or an officer period,

you should be able to know that right away. Just

so you can follow chain of command. Should something

bad happen, okay, that guy's in charge sort of

thing. If there's no confusion on the field,

like, oh my God, what color is his com badge?

It should be like, okay, he's red, three things,

cool, he's in charge. It should be just a glance

and snap your fingers. You know exactly. Okay.

That's the dude, so to speak. So I don't know.

That's a nitpick I have. Hopefully they'll...

Fix it in season two. Well, I think I think that

when they design the uniforms I obviously they're

gonna look a little bit more updated than what

the original series was and I expect that and

I don't expect it to look like Exactly like the

original series. That's not what I'm nitpicking

on I'm nitpicking the fact that they threw this

show in this place in continuity that it has

already pre -existing things and they're trying

to make it fit. It's like trying to fit a square,

you know, peg into a circle hole. Like it just

doesn't, you know, there's some level of renovation

and change. Like what they did with the Enterprise,

like showing up at the end of season one. Like

that was like a perfect updating and nod to the

original series without taking away from what

it was. And so I feel they're gonna do the same

thing with like even the bridge aesthetics or

the or with the uniforms like they'll be Subtle

updating changes to it, but it'll still highly

resemble what the original was and that's and

that's all I'm hoping for it like that that I

like I can overlook little nitpicky things like

that Like it doesn't bother me. The Klingon thing

is still like the most like alienating thing

for me in the entire series over anything else

that we've gotten so far. So here's my question

for you. So season two is told to be more exploratory,

more diplomatic, if you will. Do you really see

that happening? No. Does this crew seem like

the people who are going to go out and make a...

a peace compact with the Andorians, I don't see

that. No, I don't see that either. And I think

that the enterprise being in that place, I think

that they're going to be part of the situation

predominantly through the season, even though

they say that they're not. Because ultimately,

everybody crapped their pants when the enterprise

showed up. Which they shot themselves in the

foot by doing that. If they want Discovery to

stand on its own, let it stand on its own. Yeah,

yeah, let it be its thing Although I will say

that there is one good thing to this of them

connecting to the enterprise at this point with

Captain Pike is we only got one episode with

Captain Pike and you'd get to see number one

you get to see like Majority of these these characters

more fleshed out than what we got in that one

episode of the failed pilot so in that essence

like I'm kind of excited to see where they go

with it because um pike is like this this living

legend and yet you you don't really ever get

to meet him yeah he's just a cynical like dick

in the one episode he's in and then that's that's

about it like you you really don't get to a taste

of who he is but you get the fact that spock

has such respect for him that uh he works with

the telosians to purposely uh break command and

and deliver pike to this world to live out a

perfect life so You know in in the episode the

menagerie of the original series, so it's it's

kind of It would be nice to meet the the man

behind the chair and so And this may even lead

to the point where like the Enterprise goes into

its refit at some point during this series because

it gets a major refit again before Kirk and Pike

becomes an admiral and then gets or a Commodore

or something like that and gets injured on a

mission. And it could be very well a mission

and with the discovery, like I see him eventually

possibly captaining the discovery instead of

the enterprise. At some point, be so bad, which

would be more his style and could lead to the

fact of how he gets injured in the first place,

because they never really state what ship he

was on. They say it was like a freighter, but

they don't really say like anything surrounding

it of whether he was still Captain of the Enterprise.

So it would be interesting to see if that takes

place in the series. But yeah, I'm enthusiastic

to see where the second season goes, especially

with the invention of 31 showing up, Section

31. I want to see more aliens. I want to see

more Andorians. And I know we saw a lot of them

on Enterprise, or at least a lot more of them.

I want to see more Tell rights. I want to see

Breen. You know who I really wanna see? Cause

I know they've only ever, they've only ever really

been talked about a few times. Show me foliands.

Hell, you know what? Let's go blasphemous here.

Give me an, give me a discovery version of the

Borg because why the hell not? If you can make

it, if you can make a mushroom drive work, you

can make the Borg work. Well, this is my thing.

Section 31, if they're in existence, would have

shown up right after the Borg were encountered

by - Enterprise? Archer. Yeah. And would have

commandeered some of the technology and been

having this in their back pocket arsenal for

quite some time. Oh, yeah. So I'm completely

cool with them doing something neat or show me

some real Romulan intrigue, not just this vague

stuff. We got back in like TNG. No, I wanna see

stuff happening in the Romulan Senate, like reunification.

Give me some real stuff. Give me trap Michael

on the planet for like two weeks just to blend

in and be like a Romulan page or something. I

don't know. Give me some real, give me some Battlestar

Galactica level politics here. If you're gonna

play in this version of television, you're gonna

have to bring your A game. And I think the storytelling

for war, I think is very easy in some ways. If

you wanna tell more exploratory stories, more

diplomatic stories, yeah, that's hard. It's one

thing to tell Battlestar Galactica, it's quite

another thing to tell the story. of discovering

brave new worlds and strange new things. And

that's why TNG did so well was because they had

a lot of social economic type issues that came

up throughout the series. Whether it's between

is data a life form, a lot of these aspects came

up and it just had a lot of uh personal moments

that that could be associated with with real

life people and that's that's partially why that

series kind of um flourished uh because it was

pretty much all peacetime you you had a few skirmishes

here or there but i mean it was pretty much all

peacetime and then you had you know jane way

basically fighting for her life the whole time

and then you had uh cisco like constantly at

war And so it was, it was kind of, you know,

each series had its strengths and this one, I

still feel like it has to find its footing. Yeah,

exactly. So now with the introduction of say

31, you have the ability to tell some really

cool spy stories. And then this age of the American

designated survivor, stuff like that. Jason Bourne

even. You've got some possibility here. You can

do some really cool stuff. Like one of the neatest

things that someone told me about, I haven't

seen this for myself, just because I just haven't

seen it yet, cat. There was a teleporting sniper,

or there was a transporter sniper rifle that

was in DS9. You give me some spy action like

that in Discovery? I am all in, man. You give

me teleporting assassins or intrigue with aliens

and Borg and whatever else you wanna throw in

there. Yes, you put a change, hell, maybe, who

knows? Maybe the changelings have been secretly

involved in the Federation for years. Or trills

of infiltrated, you don't know? Yeah, it would

be interesting to see what they do. I'll be looking

forward to seeing what they do. I think if we

see Lorca, the Prime Universe one, although they've

insinuated that they won't, they've somehow insinuated

that Mirror Lorca didn't die. What? No! He was

disintegrated. Yeah, I'm sorry, he was vaporized,

he was Goku. I've seen people saying that, oh,

Mirror Lorca is still, you know, and I'm like,

no, no, he disintegrated. Like, he's dead. That's

as dead as Prime Georgiou that was eaten by Klingons.

She's in somebody's colon. She ain't coming back.

But it would be interesting to see if Prime Lorca

is still alive somewhere and maybe embedded in

Section 31. Because somehow I just don't see

that dude not being a dick in every timeline.

And if we see him, I think we'll see him at the

end of the second season. He'll be the lead up

to third. Yeah, like I think this is I think

Discovery got lucky with its first season Sure,

the first couple episodes were rough, but then

more or less it was a success people liked it

I I think that the reason why they threw the

enterprise in not only for for storytelling to

try and connect it with the prime timeline especially

with the consistent complaints Was the fact that

they wanted to get? The the rest of the fan base

on that weren't subscribing to discovery in order

to sign up for CBS all access now that Netflix

was no longer footing the bill Because how else

are you gonna get them other than connecting

to the original Canon? Yeah, I mean obviously

it was meant to hey, we're gonna win here. We're

gonna win over the fans because we're awesome

and stuff But we'll just have to kind of wait

and see what happens with that. I mean ultimately

Discovery has a lot of stuff to prove and We're

gonna see what happens Over the next presumably

we'll see it like a year or so I think it's supposed

to, I think they started shooting this month.

Yeah, so we'll probably see some, my guess is

we'll see something in September. They'll split

it in the two halves like every television show's

doing now. Yep. Which I'm totally fine. Which

I'm fine with. Whatever. I just wish that they

came out all at the same time so I could just

binge it all at once. Yeah, exactly. Instead

of this weekly crap, like. If you're going to

have it only available online, like having it

come out every week is a bit annoying. Yeah,

but you know what? They're trying to hold. It's

nice to have weekly television again. It is,

but I would rather it was actually on television

if that's the case. Well, if you're Canadian,

Steve, you can pay for that privilege. Yeah,

yeah. No, no, I don't want to subscribe to CBS

All Access, so that's that's part of it, but.

Because I find it a bit of a garbage chute like

if it was Netflix like everybody else is getting

like I would be down for it But I don't want

to do The other way so anyways the other bit

of news that kind of has been floating around

is the fact that Viacom and well CBS bid on Viacom

which owns Paramount used to be a part of like

all of this company used to be all part of CBS

a long time ago anyway like back in 2005 when

Enterprise was on the air and then right after

Enterprise wasn't on the air they had a colossal

split which is why we had a different TV universe

and a different movie universe because they couldn't

legally touch parts of the same franchise so

CBS I guess lowballed Viacom on this Mm -hmm

and Viacom's like No, we want you to pay 2 .5

billion more dollars than what you originally

did And then they're having like complaints over

like who's gonna be in charge of different management

aspects so like it's When this eventually takes

place because let's face it. This is the era

of giant companies owning everything But when

it happens, I wonder how that's going to affect

Star Trek in the films and in the animation,

like not animation, but the television universe,

like how they're going to connect them again.

Because obviously I think something's going to

go down to where the Kelvin universe is just

going to stop. And then you're going to see more

stuff regarding the prime timeline start coming

back. Oh, likely the Kelvin universe was a failed

experiment. It did its job in revitalizing the

franchise. It got people talking again. That's

all it was ever meant to basically do. Yep. And

we had a nice three films. I still haven't seen

the last one. You're missing out. That's actually

the best one. It's the most original story because

Kurtzman and Orsi did not write any of them and

JJ didn't have anything to do with it. And you

had the Fast and the Furious director running

it. Oh, Justin Lin, I think, was the guy's name?

Yeah. And you have Simon Pegg writing it. It

was perfect. Like, it was... I mean, it wasn't

perfect, like, flawless or anything, but it was

the most fun, like, entertaining we've gotten

in a Trek movie in some time. It was very entertaining.

I enjoyed a lot of it. Plus, they threw in a

nice little nostalgia piece that takes place

before... Archer's timeline Mm -hmm or somewhere

there after yeah, it was actually before Archer

Like a piece of history in there, so it was it

was kind of a nice nod But kind of reminded me

of the like Star Trek the voyage home in a sense

and in the search for Spock and in certain regards

I'll leave it at that so that you can watch it

but Yeah, I really enjoyed that. But it'll be

interesting to see what they do when they reconnect

the two parts of the company to create a full

and united CBS and Star Trek again. We'll find

out when the show premieres. Presumably, likely,

my guess will be late October, November. Something

like that. The other thing, I know you haven't

been keeping up with Star Trek Online. No. They're

about to come out with their fourth expansion

in June. Victory is life, so they're going to

be expanding into the Gamma Quadrant and beyond.

So they kicked off a new storyline, the invasion

of the Mysteric Herc, I don't know if you remember

them, R -Toc. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Worf mentioned

them. Anyways. So, Martok is in this and Odo's

made a return, Captain Nog's made a return, Kira's

gonna make a return, Vashier's gonna make a return,

Quark, the Jem 'Hadar leader guy that watched

over the... I can't remember his blasted name.

Anyways, they're gonna have they're gonna garak

rip reprising. Oh It's Jeffrey combs the guy

that played Way you yeah, yeah Wayne and brunt.

So both are gonna be there They're gonna have

chase Masterson coming back as Lita and then

nog will be back as well So it's gonna be very

entertaining having all these these cast returning

and they're raising the the level cap to 65 It's

been like capped at 60 for years But I'm very

much looking forward to this because I've run

out of storyline to play in in my like eight

characters So it's it I love how it connects

to the original canon and And they're constantly

like innovating it and adding more to it But

it's been fun. Plus they just had first contact

day in the game, which was a lot of fun. So.

Yeah, other than that, like, have you had any

chance to watch like the Orville? Nope, I have

absolutely had no time. I've just been caught

up with a lot of personal stuff and honestly,

a lot more games have come out than I expected.

So I'm reviewing a lot of stuff for like Twig

right now. So. My free time is at a surprising

premium right now. Nice. But hey, it's better

to be busy than bored out of your skull, right?

So. Exactly. Also, kind of mentioning the like

Star Trek collectibles, I mentioned in Altered

Geek that I had the various com badges. What

I didn't say was that progress has started on

Odyssey uniform. Ooh, exciting. Yes. So I'm kind

of geeking out about that. I'm still hoping to

get some stuff to review for the replicator.

So hopefully we'll find out in the future what's

going on. I just sent an email. Nice. So I'll

let you guys know when I hear back and hopefully

a few weeks. So. Yep. And I might be bringing

back the Alcar segment. We'll see. If I do, it'll

be a much shortened capacity because it's one

of those things where I'd like to edit quickly

various shows that I record and then play games

in my free time because I like my free time.

Production takes time, but sometimes you can

streamline production, but you got to make a

sacrifice somewhere. Yep. Anything you want to

add to any of the Trek thoughts or conversation?

I just hope season two can be just as successful.

You've proven you can be a success. Now don't

let us down. Yep. So I guess if people want to

get a hold of us, they can do that in the following

ways. They can send it to feedback at ussfutureimperfect

.com. And if they want to find us on Twitter.

at SCP -21 or at Future Warped. You can find

me, consequence -free, at Birdman Dodd on Twitter

and I hold the rank of Lieutenant Commander on

the USS Future Imperator. We're always recruiting.

We're gonna shake down crews right now. So hopefully

you'll see us be one of the more active ships

in Starfleet as things move forward. And we look

forward to flying alongside the rest of our charter

members. Yes, we do. So until next time, get

off. Wrong show, Steve. Until next time, my friends,

live long and prosper.