How to Fail at Podcasting (or not)

I've been podcasting for some time now and listening to podcasts for a lot longer.  There are some great podcasts out there but also some stinkers.

Here are my nine rules for how to fail at podcasting and some of my reflections on the alternatives.

1.  Don’t have any clear subject matter for your podcast.  Be all over the map.

Listeners seek out podcsts because of the content they are looking for. As a result, your podcast needs to have a clear niche. If listeners can't predict what your next episode might be about, they are unlikely to subscribe, or stay subscribed very long. 

You need to "brand" what your show is about and preferably make it about something that 147 other podcasts are not also about. 

A narcissictic "it's about whatever I want" subject won't attract much of an audience, other than maybe your family and close friends.

2.  Use bad video and off-mic sound.

Theorist Marshall McLuhan said "the medium is the message."  If you are an audio-only podcast, you need excellent audio quality.  Sounding like you are a yard away from the microphone will turn off listeners fast. You don't necessarily need expensive professional microphone equipment, but use what you have professionally, which means having your microphone close to your mouth, recording in a quiet location, and avoiding distractions like "Popping Ps".

If you are also doing video, you also need a well-composed screen for each participant and good lighting. Weird camera angles and bad lighting appears unprofessional and ruins your credibility.  

3.  Ramble and use free-association as you talk.

You need to have a solid plan for your episode and stick to it.  At least have a rundown of topics planned in advance so all particiants can keep track as you record. Many podcasts use a relatively complete script, written in advance. 

And plan to edit your podcast before posting it.  At the very least, remove most (or all) of your "UMs" and generally tighten up the flow.  If you did end up wandering away from topic, maybe it's best to cut that section out.  The common professional audio editing software is Adobe Audition, but the Open Source (free) package Audcity will also do everything you need.

4.  It’s great to have multiple people all talking at once.

No, it's not. Only one person at a time should be talking and you should not be interrupting each other.  Whoever the "host" is for this episode should also be the discussion leader and moderator.  When you're verbally stepping on each other's toes  or talking over each other, it doesn't feel professional and, again, blows your credibility.

5.  Laugh uproariously at your own jokes.  

Humor is fine in a podcast, but remember that your focus has to be your audience, not your own narcissism. You aren't entertaining yourself.  You are entertaining your audience.  Be like the late-night talk shows - if you are telling the joke, you're the "straight man" (or woman or other gender choices, of course). Your side-kicks may respond, but nothing is more of a turn-off than people laughing at their own jokes 

6.  Spend at least 20 minutes talking about your personal lives before you get around to the announced topic of today’s episode.

This takes finnesse.  Some talk about yourselves (self-disclosure) can help make connections with the audience, but too many podcast people take way too long to get to the point of the episode.  Best is to make any opening small-talk short and sweet.  Also remember that people may be listening weeks or months into the future, so references to today's events need a light touch.

7.  Monster files are no problem, even if they take ages to download.

Save your finished podcast file in a way that is easy to download quickly. For audio-only, that means as an MP3 file, but wait, there's more.  

Unless you MUST have stereo, save your final as monaural.  It will be smaller and will download faster.  A sample rate of 44,100 Hz 16-bit is plenty of quality for a podcast that is mostly voice.  Try a format setting of MP3 192 Kbps. If you use lower than these numbers, listen to test recordings critically in headphones to ensure quality.  If you use bigger numbers, you probably won't hear an appreciable improvement in voice quality.

8.  Violate copyright - nobody will notice (probably).

The biggest point here is that you need to be REALLY careful about what music you use in your podcast. There is no way to blanket-license your podcast to play commercially-recorded music (although a few companies are cautiously getting their feet wet).  So if your podcast actually plays the music by name recording artists, you may easily be subject to copyright infringmenet legal actions. 

There are ways to find royalty-free music to use for your opening and closing themes and transitions, but beware. Many of the sites that claim to have royalty free music offer it only for personal use, and a podcast available to the general public is NOT personal use. Be sure to read their terms of service.

9.  Believe that "if you podcast it, they will come."

You need to not only produce a podcast with good technical quality and engaging content.  You need to promote it.  Get it listed with many podcast hosting sites as you can, promote it on social media, get yourself a professional-looking website, and promote, promote, promote still more. When podcasts instantaneously go viral, it is usually a freak occurance. How to really succeed at promoting would take tens of thousands of words, but promotion needs to be an importnt part of your planning.

I hope that this reverse psychology format has generated some ideas for your podcast.  A podcast is not something to start on a lark.  Those who do usually close down again soon.  Your podcast doesn't have to exist to make money (although that is possible, once your audience grows some) but you should still treat it as a professional undertaking.

Spock's Character Arc

The Star Trek character Spock is one of the best-known and beloved characters in American television. He is a central character in season two of Star Trek Discovery, and he began the story arc more...emotional than we might have expected.

How has Spock's character evolved over the years, spanning multiple series?

We first see Spock as the son of a Vulcan man and a human woman.  In The Animated Series, a seven-year-old Spock is bullied by other Vulcan children for being part human. He struggles with his emotions, particularly when his (very large) pet shelat, I Chaya, is critically wounded in the wilderness.  Spock chooses to allow an animal healer to provide I Chaya a painless death, rather than living on in pain. In doing this, Spock chooses to live his life in the Vulcan way of logic.

But in Discovery, we learn that Spock at a similar age also had affection for his older, human foster sister, Michael Burnham.  Their father, Sarek, had hoped that Michael would help Spock learn to balance the two sides of his personality, the more logical Vulcan alongside the more emotional human side.

But Michael unwisely drove Spock away, out of fear that "logic extremists" who were vexed that mixed-bloods were among them on Vulcan, would target Spock rather than herself. This rift, according to Spock in Discovery, caused him to pursue logic more ardently, but immediately after his youthful confrontation with Michael, Spock experienced a vision from the "Red Angel" telling him how to find the endangered Michael.

Thus we have competing influences in the young Spock that affect his balance between logic and emotion.  Fans generally accept the animated episode as "canon" for how Spock came to embrace the logical side of his makeup.  But the version of Spock who comes from the Discovery writers gives us a Spock who continues to be unbalanced between logic and emotion (as well as possessing a never-before-mentioned learning disability, which must have complicated his young life).

Sarek eventually arranges for Spock to join something the Discovery writers called the Vulcan Expeditionary Group, but Spock joins Starfleet instead. It has long been part of Trek continuity that Sarek actually wanted Spock to join the Vulcan Science Academy, and refused to speak to Spock for 18 years when Spock choose Starfleet. Discovery implies that Spock did not actually attend Starfleet Academy, but joined in some other way.  This is supported by Spock's statement in The Wrath of Khan that he had never taken the Kobyashi Maru test. Michael also did not attend the academy and made her way to a Starfleet commission via an alternative route.

We next see Spock as a lieutenant on the Enterprise a dozen years before Kirk takes command and a couple of years before he appears in Star Trek Discovery, which is set a couple of years AFTER the original series pilot. That pilot episode, The Cage, was the first time Leonard Nimoy played Spock and the character was not yet fully formed, but this Spock grins, often raises his voice, and generally behaves more emotionally that we expect today from a Vulcan character.

In Star Trek Discovery, Spock also begins his the season in a more emotional frame of mind, expressing anger, which Captain Pike, who had known him for some time, finds to be uncharacteristic.  Specifically, something triggers nightmares about the red signals, and Spock goes so far as to check himself into a psychiatric facility at Starbase 5. The writers were never explicit about what triggered this, but the implication is that Michael's mother, using The Suit, somehow triggered it, because it was needed for the overall defeat of Control.

By the Original Series, Spock had become generally logical and unemotional, but with strong friendships aboard Enterprise, presumably prompted by Michael Burnham's farewell admonitions to find people who seem farthest from him and to let them guide him to balance.  This is generally considered to be a foreshadowing of Spock's relationship with Kirk, but it also heralds his sparring friendship with McCoy.

In TOS, however, viewers had repeated hints that, when Spock was under stress, drugged, etc., his emotions were just below the surface.  As we have seen, this is true of all Vulcans.  They are not automatically logical.  They learn to actively suppress emotions.

Indeed, in The Motion Picture, shortly after the end of the Enterprise five-year mission, Spock undergoes the Kohlinar ritual to purge the last vestiges of emotion, suggesting that he wanted to end his balancing act between logic and emotion.  This would have been almost exactly 15 years after the Discovery season finale.

Maybe no longer being shipmates with Kirk, McCoy et al. meant Spock lost the balance they provided, although one would have hoped that the 15-year older Spock would have learned more self-regulation in the intervening years.

Regardless, Spock does not complete the Kohlinar, because Vger mentally calls to him across space, and an emotion, curiosity, gets the better of him. I can imagine Spock thinking, "Again?"  Was he secretly saying "this could be Control, I've got to return to Enterprise to check it out."

In the Motion Picture, Spock mind melds with the pure logic of Vger and finds it to be lacking. He comes to the realization that both parts of his personality, logic and emotion, must synergize. Possibly for the first time, he becomes fully comfortable with who he is and his ability to balance logic and emotion.

Of course, a few years later, he dies, has his katra refused with his body, and has to go through the process of discovering balance all over again.

Later in life, Spock becomes an unofficial ambassador to the Romulans. Because the Romulans were so driven by emotion, reuniting them would have meant the same epiphany for the cultures as Spock earlier had for his own personality. So he becomes a teacher, living in hiding, until possibly after the events of Star Trek Nemesis.

In the Kelvan timeline, weird things happen. Spock goes back in time and eventually dies. In the main timeline, we do not (yet) know Spock's ultimate fate (the movie rights and the TV rights are held by different companies and they are not obligated to conform to each other, however TV executive producer Alex Kurtzman has been involved in both).

From a storytelling point of view, episode and movie writers have enjoyed placing the logical and unemotional Spock in circumstances that disconcerted him and allowed his emotions to bubble out. From an in-universe perspective, however, we can see that Spock has ebbed and flowed back and forth, between more and less emotional orientations, more and less balance.

Of course, the season finale of Discovery provides a rationale for why Spock has never mentioned Michael, even to his closest friends. Spock is good t keeping secrets - remember that he also had an older half-brother, Sybok, who he did not mention for decades.

At the conclusion id Discovery season 2, Spock's character is ready for the mindset we see in the Original Series and beyond. If by chance a Captain Pike series happens, I hope Spock is fully recognizable as his in-balance TOS self.

(Photos used under Fair Use provision of copyright law, for the purpose of comment and criticism.)

Star Trek Discovery: Saints of Imperfection

Here are observations about the fifth episode of Star Trek Discovery this season, Saints of Imperfection.  There ARE a few minor spoilers below, but not full episode summaries.

1. May refers to transporting Tilly across the "dimensional plane."  So the thing Discovery is temporarily stuck in is basically an inter-dimensional portal.  Like a Stargate event horizon without the actual Stargate. Maybe THAT'S why the parts of the Discovery saucer need to rotate.  Because Stargates rotate in setting the destination address.  (In reality, CBS can't overtly use elements from MGM's Stargate, due to copyright, but the visual portrayals are reminiscent.)
2. Pike is seen entering the bridge from Lorca's Ready Room, even though Pike made a big thing a few episodes ago of not liking it and moving elsewhere. We can still see the stand-up desk through the doorway.
3. Pike and Georgiou were classmates at Starfleet Academy, although maybe not the same class year.
4. When Pike, Georgiou, and Burnham get into the turbolift, it starts going without anybody saying the destination.  In fact several times people get into the turbolift and don't say where they are going in this episode, but this is the only scene in which we see them continually after the doors shut.
5. A reference to "alligators" on Cestus III, was likely a reference to the Gorn, although supposedly Starfleet didn't know anything about the Gorn until the TOS episode Arena.  On the third hand, Lorca appeared to have a Gorn skeleton on display last season.
6. Also a reference to Deneva, one of the first Earth colonies, where Sam Kirk and family eventually live (and some of them die). 
7. Georgiou is eating an apple to show how cool she is, kind of like how the J.J. Abrams Kirk ate an apply in one of the movies.  She drops it when Burnham gets in her face.  She isn't as cocky as she pretends to be. Since they are getting ready to make a series about her, I HOPE that she is a nicer person than she lets on.  Here "oh look at the cute baby" moment last episode gives me some hope.
8. The new chief of security, Commander Nhan, is still wearing the skirt-and-tights version of the Starfleet uniform, except in Discovery blue.  Note that when Pike first came to Discovery, he identified her as an engineering staff member.  Now she's heading security.  Was she Security pretending to be Engineering, as a safety detail for Pike?
9. Once they find Tilly and...what else (spoiler) they find...they fritter away a LOT of time when they urgently need to be heading back.
10. Tyler has a radio integrated in his com badge, like TNG and later comm badges.  Nobody else has ever heard of that before, through the TOS movies.
11. The Section 31 ship does not have invisibility, but apparently is able to make its shields look like a big asteroid.
12. The tractor beams in this episode need a receptor or "tractor rig" to pull against.  The only time I remember the 1701 Prime using a tractor beam was in Space Seed, and they may well have placed a receptor on the Botany Bay, which we just didn't see.
13. Now we have two "we will meet again" foreshadows: Tilly and May, and Pike and Jacob (on New Eden). 
14. Leland is apparently in charge of Section 31, but he made a reference to "control" last week, and now we find out who "control" is.

Note: Photo is a "fair use" screen capture used for purposes of review or criticism, and thus complies with copyright law.

Lost in Space; Lost in Science

The new Lost in Space from Netflix is an ambitious project with likable characters, but the show runners could have benefited considerably from a science adviser.

There are a few minor spoilers below about situations, but not about the characters or story line details (unless they have already been shown in trailers).

As in the original 1960s Lost in Space, the Robinson family is on a colonizing expedition to Alpha Centauri.  This time, the Jupiter 2 is a landing craft from a larger vessel, which ends up in the wrong place and runs into trouble, requiring evacuation.

The production, based in Vancouver, uses beautiful locations and elaborate sets to produce an authentic feel.  The characters are generally likable, although they have different and more complex family relationships than in the original Lost in Space.

At face value, it is an enjoyable season with nuanced characters, a complex villain, and good action sequences, partnered with thoughtful character development.

But time and again, I was taken out of the story by having to say "that's not right" or "it doesn't work that way" about things related to science.


Ice doesn't freeze that way

Early in the series, we see a lake freeze solid in an instant, causing problems for the characters.  But water freezes at the surface first.  Yes, the script established that it was really cold, but there is liquid water under the ice on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, not to mention probably at Pluto, which has been very cold for a long, long time.  Ice freezes by forming a thin crust of ice, which slowly gets thicker and thicker.

There are other scenes (hinted at in the trailers) in which the Jupiter 2 is also stuck in ice, and the way the ice works in those scenes doesn't seem right, either.


Forests and critters don't grow that way

Like in the original Lost in Space, the planet the Robinsons are on is in a funny orbit that will cause it to get VERY hot and pretty much kill all life.  At one point, a character notes that the trees only have one growth ring.

The life clearly has ways to recover, but the series was shot in a typical BRitish Columbia forest, with tree trunks several inches in diameter.  You are telling me that the trees get that big in one growing season?

Plus we see several indigenous animals, some of which are very large.  How do they survive the heat?

Oh, and in one scene, we see a fallen tree and stump that was clearly cut by a chainsaw.


Radio doesn't work that way

One of the main points of the overall story line is that part of the colony ship is still in orbit and and the remaining crew there is transmitting, but can not hear the landing craft on the planet, because the colony ship's dish antenna is missing.  But if you know ANYTHING about radio, this breaks down.

A broken dish antenna WOULD prevent one from receiving, but it would also prevent one from transmitting, which they were doing just fine. Plus one would not use a big dish antenna for general coverage of the entire planet, which is what the folks in space wanted.  Dish antennas are directional and the colony ship did not appear to be in a high enough orbit to be able to cover the entire planet with a tight beam dish antenna.

True, they could have been using a different omni-directional antenna to transmit, but such an antenna would also work fine for receiving signals from the surface.  Astronauts on the International Space Station use five watt portable (handheld) radios to talk to ham radio operators on Earth, transmitting through a window and using nothing but the built-in antenna of a few inches long.  Because of the altitude, and nothing in the way, it doesn't take much.

In addition, if the transmit antenna is not working right (or missing) the transmitter in the ship would not work right.  The radio operators would realize immediately that they had an antenna problem.  For purposes of talking to and from the planet, jury-rigging a replacement would not be at all hard.

Without this "the ship can't hear us" plot point, the entire rest of the story breaks down.  It is clear from the dialog that the landing ships don't have the fuel to go back into space, to save themselves from the heat, but that if the colony ship could hear them, it would send down fuel.

So the whole rationale of the ten episode story arc breaks down.


Biofuel production doesn't work that way

At one point, the folks on the planet talk about using the biowaste (manure) from animals on the planet to create fuel to power their ships.  I can't say much more, in order to avoid spoilers, but the plan is to produce huge amounts of fuel in a very short period of time, and I am not convinced that they can produce enough fuel to do what they want, starting from scratch, in the time available.


[Sigh]

I still liked the new Lost in Space and if they make a season 2, I will watch.

It has a rich production design, character-based scripts with lots of interesting character development.  It generally does a nice job of promoting the "willing suspension of disbelief" that is needed in science fiction.....

Except for these troublesome "it doesn't work that way" problems with the science part of the science fiction that significantly undercuts the story arc of the series.

Why they had to Redesign the Enterprise...Again

Spoilers below!

Note: This post was written before the reuniting of CBS and Paramount.  This article reflects the considerations in effect when the Discovery version of Enterprise was created.

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The Star Trek Discovery season finale appeared on CBS All Access last night, and the cliffhanger was an unexpected appearance of the original USS Enterprise, NCC-1701 (no bloody A, B, C, D, E, or anything else, as Scotty might say).

Careful examination reveals that this is yet another "re-imagining" of the classic starship.  So why couldn't they just use the design from the "Kelvan Universe" in the most recent movies?  That would be logical, wouldn't it?

The answer is that if they had, they'd probably get sued.

The problem is that movie Star Trek and television Star Trek are no longer controlled by the same corporations.  CBS and Viacom (which owns Paramount) were once part of the same corporation, but over a decade ago they were split into two separate publicly-traded corporations (now there is talk of them recombining).

The result required years of negotiations over who owns Star Trek, which is why we didn't see new Star Trek for years.

Viacom/Paramount controls the rights to the Star Trek movies, whereas CBS controls the rights to television Star Trek.  When to comes to making NEW Star Trek, they're not allowed to draw significant content from each other.  They have to go back to the source material that THEY control.

All previous redesigns of the NCC-1701 Enterprise were in the movies.  The only appearance of a Constitution Class Starship in television Trek since The Original Series was the USS Defiant, seen in Star Trek Enterprise, which was a faithful CGI reproduction of the original design.

So given the decision to redesign the Enterprise, CBS HAD to create an Enterprise that was not directly linked to any of the movie incarnations of the ship. Of course, they COULD have made this Enterprise also a faithful reproduction, but...

My guess is that merchandising considerations led to the redesign.  We now have (or will have next season) yet another version of the Enterprise to make into plastic model kits, Hallmark ornaments, etc. 

Oh by the way, Pocket Books, which publishes all the Star Trek novels, is owned by CBS. Last year they negotiated a deal with Viacom/Paramount to also public Star Trek books based in the J.J. Abrams Kelvan Universe, but I do not know when any actual Kelvan Universe books may be released.

Separating the two companies resulted in Byzantine complications for Star Trek.  Merging them again would probably be highly beneficial for Star Trek, if they could decide which production team takes over.

For the record, what is different in the redesign?

• The struts attaching the nacelles are different.
• The shape of the rear landing bay is changed
• The nacelles, themselves, are different - the original did not have those lighted side panels
• The exterior lighting is different   
• The ship's markings in some areas are different
• The impulse engines at the rear of the saucer are different

There are probably plenty of other things that we will see when we get a plastic model kit or Hallmark ornament...or more video from next season.

Formula Scripts in TV and Movies

The growth of original series on streaming video services and cable has resulted in an explosion in the demand for scripts and "pitches" for series, not to mention movies, many of which never end up getting produced.

Nevertheless, many of these scripts, as diverse as they are, follow the same basic formulas.  One could argue that a "formula script" lacks creativity...but creativity actually resides in how new it feels, i.e. what is different, as opposed to what is similar to other uses of the formula.

Here are three storytelling formulas that we see over and over, including one that I consider to be particularly troubling:

1.  The Hero's Journey.  

In the 1940s, Joseph Campbell studied myths from many cultures (mostly Western) and found common elements.  A young reluctant hero is called to a journey that takes him out of his ordinary experience and discovers a villain or threat to which he has a hidden connection.  He has fellow travelers who help him as he is tested, and an older mentor.  The older mentor is taken away, and the young hero most stand up to the villain alone, eventually triumphing and returning to his ordinary life.

Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings are all basically this same "Hero's Journey" story.  Even the original Die Hard movie used a lot of elements from this formula.

Because this formula is so familiar, writers use it all the time, or at least elements from it. The familiarity allows readers/listeners/viewers to easily engage in the story.

2.  Save the Cat

Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder
was published in 2005 and rapidly became the "bible" for many movie writers.  Save the Cat software is even available to help writers structure their story to Snyder's sequence of "beats."  If you know what to look for, you can find these "beats" in many movies and even TV shows.

At one level, Save the Cat is an interpretation of how to translate Joseph Campbell into visual storytelling terms.  At another level, it allows writers to make use of the psychology of the audience in terms of primary and secondary (A & B) stories, major milestones in the plot, and pacing.

Follow those links and you may be surprised.

3. Dystopia

Dystopia is the opposite of Utopia.  In dystopian stories, times are dark, there is little hope, and people are generally bad.  Such stories are often set in the future, with totalitarian governments, dehumanized citizenry, rampant crime, and environmental disaster.  Brave New World, 1984, and Lord of the Flies were dystopian, but in the last decade, we have been deluged by dystioian settings for movies, books, and TV shows.  Sometimes the heroes are admirable, but sometimes not.

Science Fiction writer and futurist David Brin has call dystopian stories lazy, cliched, and cookie cutter.  They are easy stories to tell, resonate with conspiracy theory and suspicion of authority, and they often do not require nuanced characters, which makes it a lot easier for the writers to create.

What does it mean?

The main goal of the movie, television, and publishing industries is to make money.  To make money, they need to produce content that audiences will buy.

That is why so many stories today follow the Hero's Journey, Save the Cat and Dystopian structures.  They resonate with people and gain acceptance more easily than some unusual storytelling approach, but to their foundation of familiarity.

The question media critics and even psychologists must ask is how these stories affect our psyches. The media has incredible power to influence people's perceptions and actions.  Heroes, like Luke, Harry, and Frodo, may well subtly influence people to do what is right in the real world, not just what is easy.

But how about the modern dystopian orientation of story after story? Does it subtly influence people to see conspiracies everywhere, distrust authority, accept thoughtless ideology, and expect people to conform to the dictates of the perceived majority?

Waves of dystopian fiction usually come during times of social unrest and war.  Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 459, and Animal Farm all stemmed from the Cold War and deep concerns about communism. Today's stories are written against a background of seemingly endless war, unstoppable terrorism, and fake news.

This recent New Yorker article suggests that for every present-day dilemma, there is a dystopian novel to match it, and that the resulting "radical pessimism" has resulted in the unravelling of trust in science and the weakening of a commitment to political pluralism.

I think that dystopian story after dystopian DOES affect our national mood and makes "the ends justify the means" more and more acceptable, when it shouldn't be. So if the "heroes" are unlikable and do unethical things to each other, don't expect me to watch.

"Deconstructing" Star Trek Discovery

There’s been a lot of talk about Star Trek Discovery, but I haven’t seen anybody yet really analyze the story.  Ergo, here is my “deconstruction” of the first two episodes.

First let me say that in 1990s, when The Next Generation was on the air, it was common for fans to go onto the message board and work through many fine details and nuances of the episodes.  As I said, I do not see that level of analysis as often today, which is why I am providing this example.

Many of my comments could come across as negative, or as complaints, but that it not what they are. They are observations concerning the many decisions made by the writers and producers. They are what they are, because Discovery is a completed work of art, which is unfolding week-by-week.  So I am looking at what the writers and producers did, how they did it, and why they did it.

There ARE spoilers below, for episodes 1 and 2.

About the Plot

T’Kuvma is a cult leader, having gathered together outcasts and those marginalized by Klingon society. He found his father’s crashed ship, repaired it, and has fixated on the Federation as the enemy of the Klingon people.

“They are coming. They will coil around us.  And take all that we are,” he says.

So, he lures the USS Shenzhou, NCC 1227, to the fringe of Federation space and provokes a conflict.  It is Stardate 1207.3, or May 11, 2256 on Earth.

Specifically, T’Kuvma ignites a huge beacon, both in visible light and subspace signals, that attracts representatives of the 24 “houses” of Klingon society.  He cites legendary Klingon leader Kahless, and essentially says, “Make Klingon great again.”  

Battle results between Klingon and Starfleet ships.  T’Kuvma is killed, and it is asserted in the episodes that killing him makes him a martyr that the Klingon people will rally around, setting the stage for the war storyline in the remainder of the series.

The main character of Discovery is Michael Burnham. This black female first officer of the Shenzhou was raised by Spock’s father after her parents were killed in a Klingon raid.  This is a little confusing because the episodes also establish that virtually nobody has heard from the Klingons in a century.  Maybe it will be clarified in future episodes.

Michael displays some Vulcan traits if employing logic and analysis, but emotions also influence her.  She is the one who actually kills T’Kuvma after he kills her captain, Philippa Georgiou.  Therefore, it is Michael who triggers the entire war, because she allows her emotions to overrule her logic, exacting revenge for her captain’s death.  Saving her captain and crew is more important to her than Starfleet’s principals, which appears to be a remarkably emotional reaction, for one trained by Vulcans.  

Apparently, they have never heard of setting phasers on stun.

Michael gets in big trouble, is court martialed, and sentenced to life in prison.


The Klingons

One of the biggest continuity issues is that Klingons in this era did not have head bumps. 

In Star Trek Enterprise, the Klingon people were infected with a deadly virus, and the cure removed their head bumps.  They only got them back after The Original Series.  This was done in Enterprise to rationalize why Klingons in The Original Series had no head bumps, but before and after, they did.

The Klingons in Discovery would not be as threatening and exotic, if they conformed to established continuity.  This is a question of design esthetics over rigid continuity, but it is one of the things long-term fans will grumble about.  

The assertions about “coming in peace” or firing on first contact were not persuasive to me.  If you fire on a Klingon, the Klingon will fire back.  I do not see that as leading to respect from the Klingons. Klingons respect honorable behavior, like the Enterprise-C defending innocent Klingon civilians from the Romulan raid.  Firing first and asking questions later would not fit Klingon ideas of honor, I believe.

A threat display MIGHT have impressed the Klingons. However, in a threat display, you would fire your weapons in different directions, not at the people you want to impress.  What Michael was advocating, firing first, would just make them mad and ready to defend their own honor against an unreasonable attack.  

Honor IS important to the current generation of Klingons. At one point, T’Kuvma talks about honor, but the other Klingons say he has not earned it. It is interesting that we see flashback scenes that show he had been bullied as a child, which appears to have been part of his stimulus to restore honor, as he saw it, to the entire Klingon people. 

The Klingon cloaking device is also troubling. It is a one-off technology developed by T’Kuvma, so I HOPE we will NOT see Klingon cloaking technology later in the in this series.  It is well established that the Klingons eventually obtain cloaking technology from the Romulans, a dozen years in the future after Discovery.


The Shenzhou

The Shenzhou, of course, is named after the current real-life Chinese manned spacecraft.  

The bridge of the Shenzhou is huge – much larger than a Galaxy Class bridge decades later.  I don’t mind the modern set design not being anything like the Pike/Kirk Enterprise, but to me the various workstations seem spread out too for effective teamwork and collaboration.

By the way, the bridge is on the bottom of the saucer, with real windows, or at least transparent view screens.  

The assertion that the Shenzhou has no shuttle maneuverable enough to navigate the accretion ring is a plot device. Going fast and dodging stuff is hard, but provides dramatic footage.  Going slow makes it not so hard to dodge stuff, but is more boring, even though a shuttle would give more protection from radiation, because it has shields.  

In addition, why didn’t Philippa move Shenzhou closer when they knew Michael was in critical condition?  Yes, there was some debris, but they have shields, and in one wide-angle scene, they were clearly well away from the debris, where they were parked.  It is a standard law of radio that if you cut the distance in half, you quadruple the signal strength between two locations.  They didn’t do this, again, to heighten the suspense.

It will be interesting to radio folks, like me, that a Shenzhou graphic shown while Michael is missing near the Klingon Ship says the transmitters are using 100 watts with an antenna length of 8 meters, but radiated power is a whopping 12,599 watts. In the radio business, we call that a lot of “gain.” 

Nevertheless, why are they using faster-than-light Subspace Radio (subspace frequency 1142) to talk to a ship that is within viewing range, at the most a light second or so away?  Plain old VHF or HF radio would have solved many of their problems. 


The Other Ships

Several Federation starship names had cool associations.  The T'Plana-Hath is named after a Vulcan philosopher mentioned in Spock’s testing at the beginning of The Voyage Home.  The Yeager is named for legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager.  The Ride is presumably for the astronaut Sally Ride.  Many people seem to think that the Edison was named for the inventor, but I think it was for the long-lost Balthazar Edison, a character in the third JJ Trek movie.  The Europa, NCC 1648, is a reference to either Europe, or the moon that may harbor life (and by Michael’s time, they will know whether Europa has life).

By the way, all the ships zapping at once does not make sense.  Surely they came from different distances.  Why would some fly extra fast and some unusually slow so they all arrived POP at the same time. It is a dramatic visual, evoking the new Battlestar Galactica fleet arrivals or departures, but not very likely in the Star Trek universe, where even decades in the future the Enterprise is often the “only ship in the quadrant.”


The Uniforms

I also don’t mind that the uniforms don’t look like Pike/Kirk Enterprise uniforms, again because of modern design expectations.  The uniform side panels appear to reflect position - gold for command, silver for science, and I think maybe bronze for positions like navigation and helm.  If you look closely, they are made of a mesh of very tiny Starfleet insignia.  The Starfleet insignia on the chest also has different colors to reflect divisions, and that is where the rank insignia pips are in this incarnation of Trek.  The space suit helmet liner also had Starfleet insignia fabric. Note that the admiral’s insignia is different and does not have pips.

Yes, I know that in this era, every starship has a different insignia, and what I call the Starfleet insignia is really only assigned to the Enterprise.  But I do like the visual continuity that its consistent use provides.  


Professionalism in Starfleet

The entire first officer nerve pinching the captain, mutinying, and then the captain pulling a phaser on the first officer doesn’t really work very well.  It is part of the set-up of Michael is a disgraced convict, about to be pulled into risky events, but it isn’t how Starfleet officers behave in MY Star Trek universe.  

Nobody in Starfleet would imagine themselves getting away with this.  Spock didn’t even imagine himself getting away with hijacking the Enterprise to Talos IV, although his plan allowed him to not get caught for longer.


The Galactic Vicinity

We’re told that the Andorian colony at Gamma Hydra is six light years away. Gamma Hydra is where the Enterprise was going in the Kobyashoi Maru exercise. This means that the double star setting of these two episodes is near the location of the future Klingon neutral zone. Gamma Hydra is also mentioned in passing in other past Trek episodes.

Really, the whole basis for the conflict in Discovery is a bit strained. 

“This is Federation space.  Retreat is not an option.”  Who says its Federation space?  

It’s an uninhabited binary system with stars still forming.  There is no indigenous species. The implication is that the Federation just out-and-out annexed it by fiat. 

I was also troubled by the Sarek-Michael telepathic conversation while they were 1,000 light years apart. Sarek says that part of his Katra is in her, which of the Vulcan consciousness.  Basically, Michael is apparently like one of Voldemort’s horcruxes?  

Oh, and 1,000 light years away, Sarek already knew that there was a “new star in the sky” after only a few minutes?  That is not a reference to invisible subspace signals, but rather to light, which would take, oh, 1,000 years to get to him.


Formula Plot Elements

There were several elements of this story that draw on common screen writing formulae that you see all over the place, if you know what to look for.  

Formula scenes include the opening scenes that set the tone of the story, the catalyst that changes everything, the main character making a choice that defines the “journey,” The Dark Night of the Soul in which the main character struggles with hopelessness (the brig scene), and others.

I can see many of these elements in episodes 1 and 2.  Of course, the story continues for 11 more episodes, so they may be stretched out, or we may see the formula being repeated time after time in the subsections of the story.

However...formula plot elements are not automatically bad.  Because they contain elements of familiarity, the audience relates to them easily, making it easy to engage with the story.  (For more information on a very widely-used formula, see this link.)    


Final Thoughts

There are plenty of additional things from these two episodes that could be mentioned.  But I think I have given an example of productions such as Discovery working on many levels, and having many factors that affect them.

Discovery plays fast and loose with certain points of Star Trek continuity.  The richly developed world defined by this continuity is what appeals to many long-term fans. Bit I think my many examples show that in every case where Discovery deviates, it is for a practical “works better for the audience” reason, and as I have shows here, the audience they are catering to is the newer fans they hope to attract, not the entrenched long-term fans.

First Reaction: Star Trek Discovery

Star Trek Discovery offers some things for long-term fans, but really is Trek for a new generation, and I don't mean that figuratively.  

It is designed to match the experiences and viewing habits of younger people, who are considerably different from the older, veteran fans.

(Spoilers three paragraphs below this point.)

Before we go any further, we need to accept that this new incarnation of Star Trek exists to make money. It is not a "service" for fans. It is not a reward for the long wait since the last "new" Trek episode, May 13, 2005.  

It was created to be a profit center.

Let me say it another way: The ONLY reason that CBS decided to make Star Trek Discovery is the likelihood of return on investment and profitability. 

The problem is that while Trek has been a cash cow for the studios over the years, the spendable income in the United States today resides in the younger demographics, such as 18-49.  So, to succeed, the new series must appeal to them, as the current generation of "customers."

So we [spoilers] get a 13-episode story arc about war with the Klingons, with the main character being a court-martialed and jailed Starfleet officer who apparently becomes central to the outcome of the war.

To the veteran fans, Star Trek has done extended war stories before, in Deep Space Nine and Enterprise. We have even had main characters convicted and sent to prison. So this comes off feeling like a retread of things past.  

But the younger fans have been weaned on a diet of Game of Thrones, and endless similar Dystopian story lines. Their frame of reference in fiction is anti-heroes and, more generally, unlikable people doing unethical things to each other.

The producers had a huge challenge to a) create something that could legitimately be called Star Trek, but also b) create something that would feel familiar, and therefore appeal to the generation that made Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Twilight hits 

So we have a disgraced Starfleet Officer who gets pulled into the cauldron of wartime events, in a context that is generally based on past Star Trek -- the Federation, Klingons and Vulcans, generally familiar weaponry and technology, and other side allusions and terminology that are derived from past Trek.

The point I made about familiarity is very important. Familiar situations are easy for viewers to relate to.  That is why all starship bridges look roughly the same, across Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica (both of them), Star Wars, GalaxyQuest, Forbidden Planet, etc.  That is why cthe chains of command on starships are always more or less the same.  Commanders always have chairs.  It is familiarity factor.

The characters also tend to be familiar -- the captain, the first officer, the engineer. In general terms, we know what they are going to do before they do it, because it is all familiar.

Therefore, our stories don't need to explain all of that.  We can just move ahead to the elements of the story that are unique to us.  It is these innovations, or things that are different from all the other stories, that are seen as being "creative."

For Discovery, it is not what is familiar to the old folks who don't spend as much money.  It is the younger 18-49 year old demographic that has the money to spend on Trek stuff, and on the things the advertisers want them to buy.

But these things are not the only way that Star Trek Discovery is customized to the younger folks.

Did you notice that there was no To be continued at the end of the episodes?  They just stopped, and the next episodes pick up at the same place.  That is the binge watching dynamic. Yes, the new episodes will come out week-by-week, but CBS clearly expects the long-term revenue to be from binge watchers.

About 9.6 million people watched the premiere episode on the broadcast CBS network. That doesn't sound bad, but the adults 18-49 rating/share was a 1.9/7, which is only decent, not fantastic. CBSAllAccess had a record number of sign-ups, but we have no information about the demographics, i.e. the ages of people paying to see Discovery up-front.

So I am sorry to say that many of the long-term Star Trek fans may not be as interested in Discovery.  But the series is not made for them.  It is made for people young enough that previous Trek was before their time.

Because new fans means new merchandising, new streaming revenue, and highly desirable audiences for advertiser commercials.  Plus some of those folks may be intrigued to check out the older Trek series and merchandise as well, thus refreshing that demand, also.

Killjoys renewed, Dark Matter canceled - It's just business

Fans are scratching their heads because the Syfy Channel has announced the cancellation of Dark Matter, but the renewal of Killjoys.

This is a perfect example of the disconnect between how the fans see entertainment TV, and how the networks are actually run.

The simple truth is that every TV network, cable channel, and streaming service exists to make money.  Decisions about programming are always driven by considerations of profit.  Serving the audience with good programming is HOW they make money, but the business GOAL is making money, not serving the audience. It's just business.

I have been looking through the ratings information at tvseriesfinale.com and trying to understand the Syfy decision to renew one series but cancel the other.  Both were promoted in 2015 as the cable channel returning to its roots of space-based science fiction.  Both were outside acquisitions, not projects developed internally by Syfy.

Dark Matter averaged 614,000 viewers this season compared to 676,000 viewers last season. Killjoys averaged 627,000 viewers this season, down slightly from 644,000 last season. Industry-wide, declines of 25% are not unusual, as more and more people "cut the cord."

Those totals seem pretty close together, and it may seem bewildering that Syfy has renewed shows with considerably fewer total viewers, like The Expanse (562,000), Channel Zero (543,000), and Wynonna Erp (499,000).

But when we look at ratings from the 18-49 demographic, it makes a lot more sense. Advertisers love the 18-49 demographic because they are most likely to spend money. It's just business.

Killjoys captured an average of 17% of all television households in its timeslot this past season, which is down 5.56% from the previous season. Dark Matter got 15% of television households, down 12.67%, compared to the previous season.

Dark Matter WAS getting high viewership in online and time shifted viewing via DVRs and trackable (non-pirated) streaming views, sometimes doubling its audience or more, compared to the "live" cable feeds.  But such additional viewers may not be as valuable to the Syfy revenue stream.  

Syfy has renewed every current show getting 17% or higher of television households, and canceled every show with 16% or lower.  There is obviously some sort of threshold above which they consider a series to have profit potential, and below which there is not enough return on investment.  It's just business.

Television IS a business (broadcast, cable, and streaming). They spend money to develop and air series, or to purchase outside productions, and they need a return on investment from those expenditures. They make money by selling advertising. Advertisers spend their money on shows that will give them the best audience for their specific products, at appropriate cost. It's just business.

If the ratings of a show are too low, meaning not enough people watch, Syfy can't sell enough advertising in the program, because it's not a good enough deal for the advertisers. Or they have to charge less, meaning Syfy makes less money.  When Syfy makes less money, the investors also don't make as much money, and they consider firing the executives who didn't make enough money.  It's just business.

Syfy is owned by NBCUniversal, which also owns NBC, The Weather Channel, E!, Oxygen, Bravo, and the USA Network, among others.  Each one provides advertisers with a different demographic, not just in terms of age, but also in terms of interests that advertisers can match with their products.

Note that the network and advertiser analysis of ratings includes online viewing within a week of the cable broadcast (via legal DVR and streaming services).  But if your plan is to wait a few months and then binge-watch a series, your viewing is NOT part of the calculation about whether to renew or not.

Consumers generally to not understand these business considerations.  Cost versus revenue, and return on investment, however, are the primary considerations for which series are picked up and renewed, and which are not.  It's just business.

If you are interested in more about the Dark Matter decision, read this blog post from executive producer Joseph Mallozzi.

Streaming video becomes the "surface streets" of the Internet superhighway

Disney has announced its own streaming video service, and it will pull much if its content from Netflix when the new service premiers.

This article asserts that the growing number if streaming sites (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, CBS All Access, Disney, ad infinitum) means that the video piracy industry will remain healthy.

I agree, and I think it is the result is clueless corporate executives.  But the growing number of streaming services is going to be a bigger and bigger problem for consumers.

The article above continues:

While legal streaming services work just fine, having dozens of subscriptions is expensive, and not very practical. Especially not compared to pirate streaming sites, where everything can be accessed on the same site.

The music business has a better model, or had initially. Services such as Spotify allowed fans to access most popular music in one place, although that’s starting to crumble as well, due to exclusive deals and more fragmentation.

I am often pretty hard on movie and TV studio/network executives. They do not generally come from the creative side of the industry.  Because of the way our capitalist free enterprise system works, their world revolves around quarterly profits reports for investors.

Such executives study success, and then look for ways to replicate that success. That's why there are vampire shows all over right now.  Every time a TV show is succesful, we tend to get clones.  And this is not just the 36 different CSI series. Vamires are all over the place in the media because of Twilight.  Harry Potter spawned Percy Jackson, Miss Peregrine, and The Magicians (yes I know about them being books first).

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has resulted in DC developing its common universe of individual hero movies plus team-ups.

It's why the X-Files and Stargate and Star Trek are back, or coming back.

Studio and network executives see past success as a path to future success.

So what does that say about streaming services?

Netflix and Hulu have been successful.

Studios/networks have shared in that success, via contract.

No doubt the executive think somewhat along these lines:

A lot of people watch our shows, but the streaming service takes a cut, so we don't make as much money as we could.  If we had our own, we wouldn't have to share.  But we'd better have something BIG to launch it and get people to subscribe (with automatic renewal if at all possible).

The problem is, as the article above says, people aren't going to pay for endless streaming services.

Making money from people watching TV and movies is marketing. Marketing is SUPPOSED to be about understanding the customer.  I think the studios and networks have failed to properly analyze their customers.

For decades, the consumer's model was "set your DVR or other recorder to get the program on cable."

Then it was "I pay for one or two places where I can catch the shows, if I mess them on cable).

Now for many people the home video model is "discontinue cable and subscribe to a couple of inexpensive services."  Or downloading copyright infringed video, of course.

The industry argues "piracy is unnecessary because pretty much everything is available inexpensively online."  But this breaks down if you REALLY understand your customer.

The five streaming services I mentioned above would cost more than my current cable bill, but the expectation is that I will subscribe to more and more, because I like one or two additional shows on each?

People with unlimited entertainment budgets probably will. The TYPICAL consumer will have to make value judgments.  Some will just say "____ sounds interesting, but I guess I won't be able to watch it because it's not available on my services."

Others will find the copyright infringed shows.  

I am NOT advocating piracy.  I teach copyright law in several of my classes and infringing other people's intellectual property is never a good idea.

I AM saying that the studios/networks are chopping up the superhighway into a bunch of less desirable surface streets.  Not in terms of bandwidth, but in terms of convenience and usability.

In my always humble opinion, I think that they would succeed better by consolidating their individual lanes into a single interface with feed equal to or less than cable.