Star Trek Discovery

Thanks for posting both - the first was indeed geoblocked here.

This looks good. I enjoyed Season 1 so much, and I do have high hopes for Season 2.

 

I got the "classic fun" idea from the trailers I've seen.

That will be good, but.... I really did like the darkness and seriousness of Season 1.

 

Yes, I had this with "Coming To America". As a McDonald's alumnus, I was horrified by the inaccuracies when he worked in the burger chain.

 

Do you think there could be a connection between these two posts?

Enterprise NX-01 felt - to me, as a non-submariner, admittedly - a lot like a submarine. The uniforms, the decor, the relatively-cramped spaces (compared to the nice hotel that was Enterprise NCC-1701-D), and the crew structure all felt quite submariney. Could this subconsciously add to the appeal of Enterprise for you?

So, a couple of things on this.....

Season 1 was, in my view, by far the weakest season of Enterprise. So you have a lot to look forward to.

As for why reviews were so poor.... I initially found myself pretty hostile to it. It wasn't the storyline, because that was good. And the acting and everything is fine, once you get into it. And Hoshi Sato has my dream job, which is always going to add to the appeal of the programme.

But I found that I had to get over a couple of big hurdles. The theme tune and the presence of Scott Bakula made me feel like I was going to be watching some sort of heartwarming late-80s / early-90s nonsense that belonged on Hallmark. And there was something about the lighting and production that made it feel a bit Days Of Our Lives or something: maybe the camera format or something - I don't know. It just didn't feel right. Once you get over that, it's great: there are good characters and good stories, and it's an enjoyable series. But I think some critics never overcame the initial hostility that they may have felt for the same reasons I did.

As it is, there's only one major issue for me, which comes in Season 3 or 4. Captain Archer tries to improve his relationship with Malcolm by inviting him for dinner, and they engage in awkward small talk. To break the silence, Archer congratulates Malcolm on England making it to the final of the 2152 (soccer) World Cup (I assume that the interruption of World War III accounts for the World Cup being in 2152 when it should be in 2150 and 2154 on the current schedule, so I'm happy to let that slide).

NO THEY DIDN'T. England did not qualify for the final of the 2152 World Cup. England showed a lot of promise, and the English interplanetary media networks were convinced that this could be the year. Shuttle craft in and out of the London spaceport all had St George's Crosses flying from poles stuck to their hulls. Terrible English-themed pubs on Mars and Titan showed all the games lives, and were packed with drunk fat people with St George's Crosses and Union Flags painted on their faces singing songs that could be construed as maybe a bit racist. Everyone thought this would be it: after 186 years of hurt, England would reclaim the World Cup that was rightfully theirs.

But in either the semi-finals, or, more likely, the quarter-finals, England went out on penalties to a not-very-promising, and, let's be honest, a bit cheaty, Argentina/Croatia/Italy/Germany/Uruguay/Moon.

I can accept that by 2152, we might have made contact with alien species. We might have achieved faster-than-light travel. There might be interspecies romance. Teleporting might be under serious development. There might be moves toward the development of an alliance of planets. This is all possible. But England are not going to make it to the final of the World Cup. That isn't going to happen, either in this universe or in any parallel universe.

As you said,

Indeed.

 

You're very welcome.

I'm glad I'm not alone in seeing the similarities there. I can see it in 1701 to a degree, but I think it's much more pronounced in NX-01, and it's really noticeable how much more like a (heavily-armed) hotel or a cruise ship the Enterprise D and Voyager were. When you finally get round to Discovery, you might see some submarineyness in that too, but not to the extent of NX-01.

I can see the logic in going the submarine route rather than the surface ship route. Submarines can travel in three dimensions, like spaceships. If a ship travels in a third dimension, something has gone badly wrong. And yes, your point about the enemy being just outside the pressure hull is very salient (and, in one case, saline).

It is nice to get a pleasant surprise from something.

I'm watching a British series, called "Strangers" in Britain, but "White Dragon" in Australia, at the moment, about a British university professor whose wife is murdered in Hong Kong. He goes to Hong Kong to investigate.

I have the same sort of problems you have with "Jack Ryan": it makes me shout at the TV.

The British Consular officials are comically unrealistic. The environment the Australian journalist at the leading English-language newspaper in Hong Kong (my wife's old job) works in is hilariously wrong. The police stations are jaw-droppingly weird. One of the main protagonists has a name romanised in a way that does not work in any Chinese dialect.

And the geographic continuity is appalling. At one point a Consular official turns to a man and says "Why are you following me?" Why is not the question. How is the question. How did he follow her, walking, around a corner in Yau Ma Tei, and end up immediately on the Escalator in Central? They're not out of breath, or wet, but they've travelled 5km - 1km of which was through water - in an instant.

It's a shame, because it's a good story, with some good acting. But suspension of disbelief is a challenge.

 

I like the Romulans. I have ever since they first appeared in TOS. I wish there were more stories involving them.

Malcolm reminds me of quite a lot of British expats in Asia. Maybe that's the Malaysian thing too.

As a nation, we do tend to be fairly cynical - especially when it comes to politics, which is where my posts in the adult section come in.

But we're mostly not such a bunch of uptight buttoned-up w----rs. But that doesn't mean such a type doesn't exist. As I said, Malcolm reminds me of several people. In particular, he reminds me of a British stockbroker in Hong Kong called Miserable Mark who was on the fringes of my social circle. He had the same accent, and the same hang-dog look, and the same unremittingly miserable outlook on life, and the same lack of any real friends. I really couldn't stand him.

Maybe Malcolm's parents were in Malaysia working for our Asian masters.

Even if Britain comes out of WWIII as a winner, and becomes a powerful force in the world again, England will not get into the World Cup Final. 1966 was an anomaly, and it will never happen again.

(I say this partly as a person with decent knowledge of English football, and partly as a Scotland fan who knows how insufferable England fans still are about 1966, and who fervently hopes it will never happen again.)

 

I listen to BBC Radio 5 Live's excellent film review programme every week.

A few weeks ago, someone wrote in about Avengers: Infinity War, which I haven't seen. He said that there's a big fight scene in Edinburgh, and he said that it was the first such film he'd ever seen with a coherent geographical narrative: if one superhero punched another superbaddie here and he flew backwards, he would indeed end up there, and so on. The whole fight scene went exactly where it should have gone.

As for me, I remember a Doctor Who episode from the 1980s. The Doctor was fighting some baddies on Mars.

Now, I should stress that I haven't been to Mars, so geographic incoherence shouldn't have been an issue.

However, it was filmed at Timanfaya National Park, a massive field of volcanoes and lava in Lanzarote, which looks quite a lot like Mars (except for the bus).



And while I haven't been to Mars, I have been to Timanfaya, a lot.

I was watching that episode with my Mum. Doctor Who ran away from the baddies (cybermen, maybe?), and Mum and I shouted "Don't run up there! It's a dead end and you'll be trapped against a cliff after you go round the corner!". And that was indeed what happened.