We used to do that with In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.
Lower Decks finished up its season last week. For my money, it was the best first season of any Trek show ever, and it really found its footing halfway through - the last few episodes were really enjoyable, especially the movie-on-the-holodeck episode.
Season 3 of Discovery starts THIS THURSDAY.
And finally, season 5 of The Expanse premieres December 15. They’re dropping the first three episodes that day, then one episode a week. This season is based on book #5, and it’s gonna be good.
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Discovery could be really interesting; they’ve leapfrogged in time every other arm of the franchise save Enterprise. On a superficial level, the opportunities to lace the show with easter eggs is vast, but they also have the opportunity to let us see how things played out for the characters we know from other shows who are now in their past.
Obviously, “The Burn” is going to be the major historical plot point, as to what it was, how it happened etc. But I hope they make good use of what they’ve seeded in the trailers as regards the fate of the Federation. Plus, it looks likest they have the spore drive working and presumably can now use it without opening giant holes in continuity (is JJ Abrams anywhere near this?).
Actually, S3 goes beyond even Enterprise. Discovery travels to the 32nd century (3188 to be exact) while Daniels was a temporal agent from the 31st century, and very little about the distant future (including the state of the 31st-32nd century Federation) is established in canon. I’m presuming/hoping that “The Burn” somehow relates to the temporal cold war.
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I’m not up on canon (and I didn’t watch “Enterprise”) so I don’t know how much is already established, but the “Discovery” crew won’t have any knowledge of the goings-on in TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager etc. that are now in their past, which could be fun. They won’t even know about the Borg, Ferengi or the (now) unfortunately named Cardassians.
There’s very little established canon between Picard season 1 (late 24th century) and Discovery season 3 (late 32nd century). The Federation does still exist by the 31st century, and at that time it is defending the timeline from a temporal cold war that is being fought by different groups spanning centuries. A Federation temporal agent named Daniels was sent back to the 22nd century (the time period of “Enterprise”), initially posed as a crewman aboard the Enterprise NX-01, and made various appearances throughout the series as that Enterprise encountered belligerents in the cold war. Those are pretty broad strokes, so the Discovery writers have a lot of leeway.
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Enjoyed first 2 episodes of The Right Stuff.
Well shot/acted. Very clear right away this is the Al Sheppard/ John Glenn story.
Great to hear, Im holding back on that until the Astros season is done. ESPN+ also has a 4 part doc on Oscar Pistorius that is supposed to be really good. Then Mandolorian S2.
I caved and signed up for CBS to get the new season of Discovery. As it turns out, if you are an Apple TV+ subscriber (I got it for free because of my iPhone upgrade to the 11 Pro), for $10 you get CBS sans commercials and they throw in Showtime for free. Just make sure to sign up through Apple TV+ to get the deal.
Anyhoo, EP1 of S3 was very good, very Trekky. No spoilers here, but the near-1,000 leap forward has been handled well, as far as tech upgrades are concerned. Also, the plot they have set up is bursting with possibilities.
$10 per month?
Yessir.
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FYI, Apple TV+ is $6/month, so it’s cheaper to get the Apple TV+CBS+Showtime deal ($16/month) than get CBS+Showtime direct ($20/month). Of course, CBS is $6/month on its own (with commercials), so there’s always that too.
Also, there’s nothing to stop you from waiting until the entire season is posted, and then binging it in one month and paying only $6 for the whole thing. There are all no-contract subscriptions.
Saw that Away was cancelled. Guess they’re stuck on Mars forever.
We’re almost finished season 4 of The Expanse. That’s still a heckuva show. 4 started out slow (to me) but is picking up. We can only watch it on Friday and Saturday nights, because there’s no such thing as watching one Expanse, so we end up not going to sleep until quite late because of “just one more” syndrome. Love the show. Has some real BSG influence for sure. We’ll finish it this weekend and then are going to rewatch the last half of Discover season 2 to have that fresh for the new season.
I also jumped on the Apple TV+/CBS/Showtime deal when I first saw it a couple months back. CBS (without commercials) and Showtime are both $10/month on their own, so you’re getting 3 streaming services for the price of one and a half.
The interesting thing about season 4 is that
Spoiler
the book on which it’s based (Book 4, “Cibola Burn”) is all A-story revolving around what’s happening on, and in orbit above, Ilus, and the events in the show pretty closely reflect what happens in the book. I think they knew they couldn’t fill a whole TV season just with that, so they had to create some new plot elements - namely, the political machinations back at the UN and the Drummer/Ashford/Inaros storyline in the belt. That does hurt the pacing of the season some, and it’s not helped by the fact that there’s not much action on Ilus until shit gets real about halfway through. But, having read both books 4-5 before watching season 4 I can say that it was a treat to see the added depth.
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I really liked the first episode. Agreed that they’ve done a good job on the tech advancements: it’s definitely the future, but none of the new tech seems world-breaking (screw replicators). The outright statement that there’s no time travel tech was good. The origins of the “burn” and its consequences for the story are also pretty neat. So much fodder not just for new exploration, but re-exploration of the familiar under these new circumstances.
Also, as a general note, I really loved that they haven’t tried to make things too dark or dystopian. Yes something terrible happened, but the two new characters are both defined by their irrational commitments to preserving something good in bad times. It’s so anti-cynical and so very Star Trek. Good stuff. Excited for E2 tonight.
There’s enough of that on Netflix etc already. It’s like zombies from a few years ago, every new show seems to be dystopian to some degree.
I have no idea what would drive people to be making shows about a dystopian future right now.
However, like you, I was happy to see the direction of S3; it’s why I called it “very Trekky”, because it’s hopeful despite desperate circumstances.
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The only thing I haven’t liked so far about Disco season 3 is
Spoiler
the casual nature in which Burnham and Book dusted all those dudes getting out of the mercantile. Just seemed really out of character for Burnham. Do 32nd century phasers not have a stun setting?
Now, with respect to episode 2…
Spoiler
The thing that caught my attention the most was the way Detmer was acting after the crash. It can’t just be a concussion because she snapped out of it so suddenly right there at the end. When she sat down at conn I was surprised that she was actually able to operate it, because I was thinking that maybe her implant got damaged and was negatively affecting her abilities. I’m hoping this isn’t just a head-fake by the writers, because the supporting cast could use some more interesting storylines in this show.
Re Detmer
They included Leland in the “Previously on…” reel, which makes me think that she’s been infected by Control. I’ll be a little irritated if they do this, because Georgiou supposedly killed it before they went through the wormhole - negating the need to go through the wormhole. If they took it with them, making the trip moot, that renders the entirety of Season 2 pointless - other than to get to the future.
Hadn’t thought of that. I also hope that’s not the case.
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