Is the Captain Pike we know from Discovery and Strange New Worlds really the same dude from "The Cage"?
https://startrek.website/post/803928
Is the Captain Pike we know from Discovery and Strange New Worlds really the same dude from "The Cage"? - Star Trek: Website
Like basically every current Star Trek fan, I love the character of Captain Pike
as Anson Mount portrays him. I wonder, though, to what extent he is actually the
same guy from “The Cage.” If we had only that episode to work from (which the
Discovery and SNW writers initially did), we would know that he is broody, that
he struggles with the responsibility he bears for the lives of others, and that
he is remarkably able to conjure up emotions like anger and hate on command.
Does any of that fit with Pike as we know him now?
One way to answer this question would be to imagine a very literal remake of the
original pilot recast with the current actors. Everyone else would basically
make sense, but I think seeing the current Pike act out his scenes would be
jarring and even a little upsetting.
I’m sure we can come up with in-universe explanations – he was having a
particularly bad day, he’s grown as a person, etc., etc. – but it does seem like
the current-day writers are departing pretty abruptly from the ostensible basis
for the character. What do you think?
The biggest recent example of someone getting backstory as prelude to killing them off is Airiam (Robot-Head Person).
On the first viewing of "Unnatural Selection" (TNG 2.7), are we supposed to believe Dr. Pulaski can really die?
https://startrek.website/post/612962
On the first viewing of "Unnatural Selection" (TNG 2.7), are we supposed to believe Dr. Pulaski can really die? - Star Trek: Website
One of the biggest difficulties of most episodic dramas, including the various
Star Trek series, is that putting main characters in danger is seldom
believable. It’s such a common syndrome that it’s even a pop culture trope: plot
armor. Watching the early second-season episode “Unnatural Selection,” in which
Dr. Pulaski is infected with a rapid-aging syndrome, I wonder if the writers are
counting on the viewers not believing Dr. Pulaski has plot armor.
After all, she is a recent addition and she is not even listed on the main
credits, instead being designated as a “guest star.” More fatally still, the
episode supplies fresh background about the character and especially her desire
to serve with Picard – and every viewer of a reality TV show knows that once a
contestant gets backstory and calls their family on camera, they’re probably
going home that episode. Perhaps they even expect viewers to remember that they
did really kill a main character, Tasha Yar. Maybe this will just be the season
of rotating-door Chief Medical Officers, much like season one had a different
Chief Engineer every time it came up. I’m especially interested to hear from
people who remember watching it when it first aired, but everyone who watches an
episode is watching it for the first time. Did you think Dr. Pulaski could
really die?
I also like that he is the only main character in an ongoing series to be from the pre-Enterprise era (since the Tellarites we see there have normal warp engines and presumably would not still be using generation ships like his).
The Pros and Cons of Remaking Old TOS Episodes
https://startrek.website/post/487511
The Pros and Cons of Remaking Old TOS Episodes - Star Trek: Website
Like most of us, I am greatly enjoying Strange New Worlds. One of the small
benefits of the series, in my mind, is that it has finally broken one of the
strangest of fan habits – the insistence on literalism for TOS visuals,
especially on things like ship designs and controls. Is there anyone still
holding out for a “refit” of the beautiful SNW Enterprise so that it “really”
looks like a set from the late 1960s? The updated look is a big part of what
makes the TOS world seem relevant and alive for contemporary viewers, instead of
just a nostalgia trip (as it was in the tribute episodes that showed TOS sets
within a TNG/DS9 context). Given that they have made the biggest remaining move
of recasting Kirk, the idea of continuing past SNW into Kirk’s Five-Year Mission
seems unavoidable. Given that Paramount seems to be contracting their streaming
footprint, it is admittedly unlikely that anything like this would ever get
made. But something like the Kelvin Timeline tie-in comics where they redo TOS
stories and intersperse them with new ones could actually be a good format –
reintroducing new viewers to classic stories while retrospectively granting more
cohesion to TOS. Obviously there would be drawbacks to redoing the old episodes.
Fans would howl at any changes to the scripts, and of course there would be
questions about whether any of this was worth anyone’s time or talents. And
maybe it wouldn’t be! But redoing the most stone-cold classics of TOS in a more
modern style could literally be the only way some new fans would engage with
those stories. Young people are very intolerant of entertainment that seems old
or outdated. Looking back at my childhood, I never liked TOS in large part
simply because it looked too old and the acting style felt weird. If we really
think that these stories are classics that deserve to endure for the long haul,
a remake could be a way to inject new life into them. What do you think?
Still, it seems like a risky and high-handed move in context. Most likely he’s just doing it because it’s how things were on his own ship and to assert that his way goes. I’ve never heard anyone give an account of why it would be better to change the shifts.
I still maintain that Jellico’s decision to disrupt everyone’s sleep cycles by changing to a four-shift rotation was unforgivable under the circumstances.
I agree that ideally they would maintain that kind of fuzzy timeline to maintain our connection to their future. In fact, many years ago on the old Daystrom I tried to argue that we shouldn’t take dates on the show literally other than as an indication of the general order in which things happened – leading to massive pushback from almost everybody! It seems like Picard season 2 went pretty far out of its way to endorse the fan-favored theory that the Trek timeline forked sometime prior to the 90s, though, and I worry about the slipshod continuity management that is emerging as the streaming era matures. Of course, the Picard finale also abruptly undid the whole climax of season 2, so maybe the official position is that we’re going to pretend season 2 never happened.
It still seems like they could have coordinated the two plots in a more transparent way, given that the shows are running concurrently and have overlapping staff. Fans shouldn’t have to do this much mental gymnastics to reconcile episodes that aired two years apart. The in-universe claim that the pre-history of our era is constantly shifting seems like a cop-out in those circumstances.
