I thought about this back when they had the wheelchair-using crewman in the first couple of seasons of Discovery - I think I’ve come down on the side of “sometimes the old ways are the best ways” with stuff like this.

You can’t suddenly lose power and crash your wheeled chair. For all we know, it’s got some sort of powered unit for use when the user encounters a steep incline or flight of stairs or whatever.

But for everyday use? Yeah, I’ll stick with wheels.

Didn’t he seem visibly shaken when asked about the Protostar crew, like he knew something SAM didn’t?

I didn’t think that at the time, but on rewatch…maybe? At least some of the Prodigy kids are on the memorial wall, but that doesn’t really mean much in context. I’m not sure how the production timelines of the two series aligned when this pilot would have been filming, but they may even have been attempting to do a little synergy.

I would say “yes” to “odd” (or at least unusual), and “no” to “out of place”.

TBH this piece didn’t resonate with me at the time, but I have to admit it’s just about perfect, thematically.

I’m not a huge fan of the opening theme, but c’est la vie.

I didn’t realize this was an original recording for the show.

I really hope they get into this at some point, but my assumption is that the main limitation of programmable matter is that you have to, y’know, program it first, which takes time.

Also, I had no idea that programmable matter is an actual theoretical thing that scientist have been trying to crack for a few decades now!

In the case of the tricorder…I wonder if that’s the Doctor being old-fashioned, since we’ve also seen that tricom badges have tricorders built into them.

I guess as a response to the youth movement that was pressuring him to negotiate. This sort of thing is unfortunately common IRL.

There are arguably spoilers in the track titles, so browse at your own risk.

Genesis is an interesting version of charming because at first glance she starts out as a “mean girl” but then you realize that she’s parodying it hard.

From the trailers, I had assumed that Genesis would be the stuck-up mean girl, and Darem would be the friendly tryhard. Turns out the reality is the exact opposite.

Edit: Also, there’s no need for spoiler tags in these discussion threads!

I think their initial demands were ludicrous because the president had no real intention of rejoining the Federation - it was all theatre.

Yeah, unless they start specifically mentioning the DMA or the fight with the Breen or something, there’s no reason to assume this doesn’t take place after DSC S5 (excluding the time jump).

Or at least a refit, which I suppose could be repairs following season 5, in theory.

are Betazoids really so vain that the shift of Starfleet HQ is enough to mitigate all their concerns?

I think this is actually a really big deal, especially since the Betazoids’ concerns were chiefly about security, and the Federation is hardly going to let their seat of government fall.

But “the Federation is too Earth-centric” is a concept that’s been played with since…at least the PIC era, so I thought this was pretty significant.

That has been a thing since DSC season three, and I really hope they explore exactly how that works in this series.

Na na, nanana hey hey

For now, I’ll just share the thoughts I posted to Mastodon while this instance was still on the Genesis Planet…

Overall, a very strong couple of episodes. The cadets are all interesting enough, though Jay-Den and SAM are outstanding. Caleb is the sort of Rebellious Young Person that can grate on people, but I think the show compensates for that by making him a bit of a punchline. His backstory is also compelling enough (I actually thought his separation from his mother seemed very real), and his motivations are clear.

Nahla Ake is fantastic, and Holly Hunter brings a lot to the role. The character is quirky, but grounded, and you can see that she carries multiple lifetimes of experience.

Paul Giamatti is clearly having the time of his life as Braka. Time will tell whether he remains a cartoonish pirate (which I’d be fine with TBH), or if they’ll give him more to do.

I’ve always loved the post-Burn setting, and I’m looking forward to exploring that status quo. The Betazed stuff is intriguing, and I hope we learn more about this “psionic wall” of theirs.

Also, “Discovery is unavailable because X” is the new “the transporters don’t work because X”.

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There’s been a little bit of vagueness about the details - even in the recent SFX article, Kurtzman hedged a little bit about just how much it overlaps with Discovery.

“The new show synchronizes with the first two years of Starfleet returning to its full form. The safest way to look at it is it’s like when Discovery ends, we begin - but there’s kind of a two-year overlap.”

So it might be (or parts of it might be) running concurrently with Discovery season 5. It probably doesn’t matter very much.

(although the ongoing IDW comic Star Trek: The Last Starship, whose writers previously teased to io9 that it had connections to the events of Starfleet Academy, suggested that the Federation was on the verge of incorporating every known galactic civilization into the Federation at the time of the Burn, with the Gorn being the last intergalactic outliers)

Although Klingons had been mentioned multiple times across Discovery‘s later seasons, the show never explored much of what happened to the Klingons by the 32nd century.

It’s interesting that they brought up The Last Starship in one context, but didn’t carry that forward to the discussion of the Klingons. As I understand it (without having actually read it), according to the comic,

I think they’ve done a decent job of giving each series its own tone and identity.

In any case, SFA and the remaining two SNW seasons are all we’re going to be getting any time soon.