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Syd
Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2017 11:45 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
His first name is "Mister."

To tell the truth, I think Spock is his first name (translated into a non-Vulcan tongue). His father is Sarek, so Sarek and Spock aren't family names, and it's likely the family name is unpronounceable if it exists. Many societies don't use family names, and if they needed to distinguish Spocks, they'd call him Spock son of Sarek.

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bartist
Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:43 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Plausible, though Spock let Jill Ireland think he had a secret first name. Of course he was under the influence of euphoria pollen.

Re: "Discovery"

I am used to subtitles, didn't mind them. What I mind is seeing the first episode and then learning it's an ad for a streaming service I have no interest in subscribing to. Guess that's what broadcast tv is becoming - how soon will it all be reality shows, sports, and extended trailers for streaming series?

Wow, they are really banking on Trekkies being so devoted that people who already pay for Hulu and Netflix will pay another $6-$10/month to watch Spock's little sis kick Klingon asses.

As usual the physical laws like conservation of momentum are grossly violated as the ships uncloak.

As usual, each new series has to be tinkering with what Klingons look like. I miss Michael Dorn.

And the medical technology looks way more advanced than what Bones will have a century in the future. Put Sen. McCain in one of those tubes and he could continue to hold the center for a few more decades.

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mitty
Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 11:47 am Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 1359 Location: Way Down Yonder.......
I'm an old ST:TOS (not so rabid) fan from the beginning. I've watched Next Generation, Deep Space 9, and am finally, currently going through Voyager.

We do subscribe to CBS All Access, mostly for the local news as we don't have cable and live out in the sticks, meaning antennas don't cut it out here.

We watched Discovery last night, and frankly I almost turned it off on account of the unending, repetitive, every 10 minutes commercials. GAH! Also endured the second ep, and I can tell ya. True Star Trek, it ain't. I'll watch for awhile, just to see if it might mature into something better. It's always possible.....just as the first book in a series can be irritating, but then the following books are excellent. /sigh/

Hate the new version of Klingons. Really, they become uglier every time. And to have subtitles and have to hear the awkward mushy Klingonese was just too much. IMO this series lacks, so far, the passion and humanity that Roddenberry brought to the original series. It's very generic.

And sorry, the idea of a male name for the female lead is just a little toooo precious and/or Rolling Eyes .
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bartist
Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 12:25 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Agree wholeheartedly with all you said. You can get rid of the commercials on AllAccess for another $4/month, I hear. But that won't make bad Trek any better. There was also more mumbling in this series - quite the contrast to the crisp elocution of Piccard or Janeway or other previous Trek leads. The sound mix, for hearing speech, was pretty bad with too much incidental music track blaring around it.

Also, how do they get away with the continuity error of the Klingons having Romulan cloaking devices?? In the OS, which set 10 years later, they have to steal it from the Romulans, don't they? I'm pretty rusty on my Trek lore, but I'm pretty sure that's a SNAFU, and the rabid fans won't like that at all.


Last edited by bartist on Tue Sep 26, 2017 10:29 am; edited 1 time in total

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mitty
Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 11:03 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 1359 Location: Way Down Yonder.......
bartist wrote:
Agree wholeheartedly with all you said. You can get rid of the commercials on AllAccess for another $4/month, I hear. But that won't make bad Trek any better. There was also more mumbling in this series - quite the contrast to the crisp elocution of Piccard or Janeway or other previous Trek leads. The sound mix, for hearing speech, was pretty bad with too much incidental music track blaring around it.

Also, how do they get away with the HUGE continuity error of the Klingons having Romulan cloaking devices?? In the OS, which is set over a century later, they have to steal it from the Romulans, don't they? I'm pretty rusty on my Trek lore, but I'm pretty sure that's a SNAFU, and the rabid fans won't like that at all.



ST:TOS is only 10 years after Discovery. I don't think the Klingons stole the cloaking tech, they had an alliance with the Romulans at some point, and there was a trade.

Alas, the mumbling will continue, apparently the Klingons will continue to mumble in incomprehensible Klingon throughout the season. Plus the war will take up the whole first season. I wonder if there will even be a second season.
We watched an "after Trek" bit earlier today, only could stand about half of it. You've never seen something so bloody inane. A real giggle-fest.

Thanks, we do have the commercial free version of CBS All Access, somehow I clicked on the wrong thing, or perhaps upon the first watching in real time the commercials are there without being able to block. Dunno about that. I'm considering waiting till the end of season and then streaming, commercial free. If I can stand it. Stand watching it I mean. Really disappointing. I'm hoping though.....

Also, Discovery is located in the original time line, completely disregarding the new set of movies. Yeeks.
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bartist
Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2017 10:56 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Woops, thanks, yes I misplaced a decimal. ST:OS is indeed only a decade after "Discovery." ("Number One" being Spock's sister wouldn't make much sense, if they were separated by a century.....) I think it's "Enterprise" (which I've only watched a handful of eps) that is set a century or so earlier. I am still remembering an ST:OS where the Klingons did not have the cloaking device. It also seems at odds with the whole Klingon philosophy to even want to use a cloaking device.

Trek, old and new, is full of divergent timelines which might best be explained by a multiverse. In one universe, the old Trek universe, Vulcan is an intact planet. In another (starting with the 2009 Abrams movie), Vulcan was destroyed by Nero and only a few Vulcan wise elders are saved out of 6 billion. I have heard rumors of some kind of time travel gimmick in the next film to restore Vulcan and that timeline.

And Kirk, Bones, and Spock tinker with timelines in the Edith Keeler Must Die episode of OS, "City on the Edge of Tomorrow." (I always wondered how simply ensuring the social worker's death really saved the timeline -- seems to me the Butterfly Effect would still work against them, and they would be coming back through the portal and finding themselves in a universe where they never existed. Just eating food, talking to people, punching cops, heck just bumping into other pedestrians, would subtly shift the future....)

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mitty
Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2017 1:06 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 1359 Location: Way Down Yonder.......
bartist wrote:
Woops, thanks, yes I misplaced a decimal. ST:OS is indeed only a decade after "Discovery." ("Number One" being Spock's sister wouldn't make much sense, if they were separated by a century.....) I think it's "Enterprise" (which I've only watched a handful of eps) that is set a century or so earlier. I am still remembering an ST:OS where the Klingons did not have the cloaking device. It also seems at odds with the whole Klingon philosophy to even want to use a cloaking device.

Trek, old and new, is full of divergent timelines which might best be explained by a multiverse. In one universe, the old Trek universe, Vulcan is an intact planet. In another (starting with the 2009 Abrams movie), Vulcan was destroyed by Nero and only a few Vulcan wise elders are saved out of 6 billion. I have heard rumors of some kind of time travel gimmick in the next film to restore Vulcan and that timeline.

And Kirk, Bones, and Spock tinker with timelines in the Edith Keeler Must Die episode of OS, "City on the Edge of Tomorrow." (I always wondered how simply ensuring the social worker's death really saved the timeline -- seems to me the Butterfly Effect would still work against them, and they would be coming back through the portal and finding themselves in a universe where they never existed. Just eating food, talking to people, punching cops, heck just bumping into other pedestrians, would subtly shift the future....)


LOL. Given the length of Vulcans lives, it's almost possible.
I hadn't heard about any restoration of the original time line. Interesting, and given the......er.....flexibility of the ST universe, entirely possible. I hope it happens.
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Syd
Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2017 10:35 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
Episode 4 of The Orville was also quite good, in a story that plays off Heinlein's "Universe" (and I think a TNG episode). They're playing down the sophomoric humor quite a bit in favor of story and character. They should probably lose the gelatinous whatsit.

Edit: Nope, the original series. "For The World Is Hollow and I Have Touched The Sky." Not a ripoff though, when you consider the really, really famous story inspired by the Emerson quote ("If the stars should appear...").

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mitty
Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:50 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 1359 Location: Way Down Yonder.......
Hadn't heard of that one, sounds interesting though.

Btw, love your signature line, although I'd argue that's it is Susan Oliver in "The Cage", the original TOS pilot. Smile.
We happened to just watch it on DVD...Charles hadn't seen it. Next is "The Menagerie".
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bartist
Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2017 2:30 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Syd wrote:
Episode 4 of The Orville was also quite good, in a story that plays off Heinlein's "Universe" (and I think a TNG episode). They're playing down the sophomoric humor quite a bit in favor of story and character. They should probably lose the gelatinous whatsit.

Edit: Nope, the original series. "For The World Is Hollow and I Have Touched The Sky." Not a ripoff though, when you consider the really, really famous story inspired by the Emerson quote ("If the stars should appear...").


Nightfall, yeah. I met Asimov several times when we lived in Newton, MA - I was in my early teens. Friendly and really good with young people. And, looking back now, incredibly patient.

The Paradise Syndrome is oddly similar to the World is Hollow episode, both in season 3.

Am going to resume with The Orville, now that the Ken Burns doc is over.

The Menagerie has a lot of The Cage edited into it - not sure I've ever seen The Cage in its original form (the form that was rejected as the first pilot version).

I think Roddenberry would dislike "Discovery" given that he had that first OS season episode where the Organians enforced a peace treaty between Klingons and humans. GR didn't want the series to get sucked into a Klingon-Federation War. (that's the ep where we first meet Klingons...back when they were just swarthy guys with goatees) I recall a pal in high school who was always finding social situations where he would quote that famous Organian's line: "the mere presence of beings such as yourselves is...intensely painful to us."

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Syd
Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2017 9:07 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
I'm very happy that the crew of the Orville apparently all possess universal translators, though I don't think that's been mentioned.

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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament
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bartist
Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 8:41 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
I am not sure what is says about me that I liked the robot's practical joke, last night on "The Orville."

An amusing take on the femme fatale trope.

I like the idea of antique collectors grabbing things that went missing in their timeline. Seems like I read a sci-fi story some years back where people in the future grabbed the member of Robert F Scott's South Pole party whose body was never found.


The usual goofy physics bits - the concept of dark matter seems not fully understood by the writer - weakly interacting forms of matter tend not to slam into your hull like giant sledgehammers.

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carrobin
Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 11:31 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC
I haven't made up my mind about Tina Fey's new sitcom, "Great News." I like her--as the ferocious new network executive, proudly "disruptive" and "unpredictable"--but the rest of the characters aren't very interesting, and Andrea Martin as the meddling mother of the ambitious production assistant is downright annoying. I loved the "new desk lineup" in the first episode, in which a wild variety of people (and a gay military dog) were featured, but nothing so Monty Pythonish came up in the second. I'll keep watching, though, as long as Fey has a scene or two worth catching.
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bartist
Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 11:57 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Will give it a try. From your description....is this sort of pitched at 30Rock fans?


On another topic,

I hadn't seen Jeopardy for over a year, but tuned in yesterday because of the latest sensation, Austin Rogers....

http://www.vulture.com/2017/10/austin-rogers-jeopardy-winning-streak.html

Fun to watch. More of a ham and showman than Ken Jennings was. I love the mutual loathing that he and Trebek seem to have for each other.

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carrobin
Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 12:24 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC
Darn, last night "Jeopardy" was replaced by an NYC mayoral debate. I do find Austin Rogers amusing, though--he's been there for a while.

I think "Great News" may be aimed at "30 Rock" fans, but it misses the basic wackiness that made the other so hilarious. It may be trying too hard to establish characters in the first episodes, but there are few that come close to the outrageous personalities Liz Lemon had to deal with. (And I may be influenced by the fact that during "30 Rock"s run, I was working at the Time-Life Building across the street from Rockefeller Center.)
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