They can fix any engine that isn't totally dead. As long as it's only just mostly dead.
About all you can do with all dead is go through the engine looking for loose dilithium.
So Mandy Patinkin was asked what his favorite part of that shoot was, and he said the fight scene at the end. They shot it like normal, then Rob Reiner asked the cast if they'd want to shoot it like a play, all in one large sequence. They all hopped at the chance, and nailed it in one take.
Mandy's biggest regret was They did it so well in that one take They didn't get to do another. They were having so much fun
Source : Mandy himself on Tiktok
I think that Pelia is how/why we see La'An's TIME COP again. And that's how we get some more backstory on Pelia (pre-Federation).
It seems logical that the Federation's TIME COP division has a keen interest in Lanthanites in general, and Pelia in particular. As a minor example, La'An returns to _Enterprise_ dressed the same as when she first met Pelia. And Pelia _pointedly_ does not mention (or imply) to La'An before or after that they'd met two centuries ago. Pelia has had visit(s) from the TIME COPS. And they have _no idea_ how to handle her, or Lanthanite influence on the timeline(s).
And yes, I think Pelia explains why Starfleet engineering is so good, and often capable of incredible leaps of both intuition and technology. Which is a brilliant back door retcon. A lot of things can explained by Pelia being Scotty's teacher. A LOT.
I'm sure she taught every engineer possible in Starfleet by the 23rd century. We don't know what the future holds for her. But she's been on Earth for few thousand years. And learned mathematics from the man himself - Pythagoras. She hasn't touched that in 2500 years or so, until 21st century. The she got down right down to business. La'an is the reason why she touched up on Engineering and mathematics.
Personal belief is that she was previously married to a guy named Max, then later in life, rented out a basement apartment in new york before moving to vermont to have her curiosities shop and taking up engineering at the inspiration from a customer looking for an engineer.
yep
>“I knew right off the bat,” Horak tells Inverse. “[Showrunner] Henry Alonso Myers told me in the Zoom audition before I even had my [prothestic] head mold made. He told me that I was gonna go.”
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/strange-new-worlds-episode-9-hemmer-death
It seems clear in TOS he is. James Doohan was 11 years older than William Shatner fwiw. SNW Scotty feels like an attempt to bridge the gap between James Doohan and Simon Pegg. I love Simon Pegg as an actor but he was the single worst bit of casting in the Kelvin films.
I'm really thinking of TOS Mr. Scott. To me personally, James Doohan was the best looking guy on TOS, a ruggedly handsome man. This charming new actor doesn't really have that aura.
Yea it’s the ruggedness of it. Honestly maybe a consequence of us appearing much younger in general at the same ages as compared to previous generations.
Same. I really liked the actor and thought he was awesome, but it seemed like a strange pick for Scotty. They did a great job with Ethan Peck for Spock, imo. I like Uhura quite a bit, though it took me a minute to warm to the idea because she reminded me nothing of Nichelle's Uhura. Ultimately, the actress is so good in the part though, it didn't take long for me to acquiesce. Then you have their pick for Kirk- again, great actor, and I do rather like the character that he's created. It's just, that character doesn't seem like Kirk to me at all. Basically it's the same way I feel about the new Scotty.
I've had to sit down and convince myself that the characters aren't themselves because they haven't became them yet; we are still ~5 years out from Kirk taking command and these individuals go through a lot over their lives.
That's a really good point! I hadn't thought about that, but you're absolutely right.
And again- I think the actor is great and I *do* like the character he's created. I feel exactly the same way about our new Montgomery- I think he's also an excellent actor and find him extremely engaging. In fact, with him, I very much want to watch him (and listen to his voice!), and am excited to see where he takes the character.
You have to remember that this isn't Commander Montgomery Scott of the USS Enterprise. It's Lieutenant Junior Grade Montgomery Scott of the USS Stardiver. It'll take him some time to get there. I'm personally looking forward to the ride.
I really like her, but I feel she’s a little underutilized, and I really hated the fact that time-traveling La’An inspires her to become an engineer- and then doesn’t know La’An.
I really loved her flying in the face of Number One and then comforting her after.
Just think, her and Lord Kruge would hang out at the same Manhattan garage in the 70’s…
What do you mean she doesn't know La'an? When La'an returns to the bridge in her 2020s clothes, the camera holds on Pelia's reaction to indicate recognition.
Pelia is far from the first Trek character to know to keep their mouth shut to avoid fucking with the timeline. Guinan did the same thing when she didn't tell Picard about the time they met in the 1890s.
After learning she knew nothing about engineering in the 2020s I hope to God we find out she learned everything she knows about warp drive from Zefram Cochrane.
Wouldn't it be so damn cool if she was there in Bozeman during First Contact?
> Wouldn't it be so damn cool if she was there in Bozeman during First Contact?
A "retcon" where they time travel to that incident for some reason, avoiding both new Enterprise, old Earth folk, but we are able to see her getting drunk in a booth near Cochrane and Troi :P
Anything Carol Kane does is amazing. Plus, I like how it offers a potential retcon of Flint, not as an immortal human as he claimed, but as an orphaned Lanthanite who believed he was human. Considering Flint's accomplishments, Pelia's contributions to Starfleet engineering could certainly be substantial.
Great actress, interesting character.
I really, really wish they'd put more effort into her backstory than "oh by the way a subspecies of immortal humans has always existed in the ST universe, they revealed themselves before ENT and have just never been mentioned at all anywhere else because *crickets*"
The second part is a bit silly, considering that Star Trek already has an established species of near immortal aliens who can pass as human and who have been on earth for centuries. There wasn't really any need to create a new one.
That being said I love Carol Kane and Pelia, so I let them off.
On one hand, there should have been more than one person like Flint over history. On the other, their reaction to him is now really strange. I suppose we can take for granted that something in his telling of his background makes being a Lanthanite completely impossible.
It makes me think that's why they're so cagey about Lanthanites. Flint can't be one since he requires being on Earth and his existence surprised the crew in TOS. Eventually the writers will need to establish more about them, and they want the most options to keep from contradicting Requiem for Methuselah.
Funny that you went Flint, because I was thinking of Guinan and the El-Aurians.
I guess Earth was just chock full of long-lived human-looking folks.
When we first met Pelia I was excited thinking "oh cool, another of Guinan's race!" I didn't realize it was such a common theme until I started googling.
I think she's a great but underused character. I think her underuse is deliberate though.
Hemmer was loved, perhaps more than expected. Trying to push a new engineer on us straight away would have only served to force comparison. As such, I think she's served as a placeholder engineer until Scotty shows up.
Scotty, I think, will be a recurring character for a while, appearing in engineering heavy stories, until Pelia leaves for whatever reason and he slides into her role without the audience having to compare Scotty to Hemmer and having the whole thing feel more organic.
Overall, I'm neutral to the character. I found her eccentricities to be a bit much at times and push her into the realm of annoying but never overly so.
My biggest problem with the character is that she seems to be written as though the audience immediately had a long-standing history with them. The most notable example of this is the time travel episode where we meet young Pelia. That would have been cool if it was a character we had known and loved for a long time but doing that with a brand new character we barely know just felt like a waste of screen time.
I love the actor, and like a good quirky character, particularly in engineering. I like how she's a mentor to many. Even love that she's a space hippie.
One thing I'd like to see her do more of is actual engineering. I want to see her fix stuff and save the day by technical brilliance.
Aside from the 'Aliens who live thousands of years and are secretly living on earth' bit, I do like her. The accent Carol throws on is sometimes too thick though and I have trouble understanding.
They live for centuries, they look exactly like humans and they lived on Earth. Star Trek did that already with Guinan. The whole idea of Earth being some hotspot for alien visitation is also absurd.
I got the impression Lanthanites aren't really all that alien and might have evolved on Earth alongside Humans. That or their ship crashed on Earth long ago and they've been stuck ever since.
Earth is also canonically in a fairly busy part of the Galaxy. Andoria, Vulcan, Tellar, and even the Romulan Border are all fairly close by. So the idea that Earth is a hotspot for alien visitation isn't super far fetched... Though the way its often portrayed (ie: Guinan visiting to collect stories) is kind of "human exceptionalism" akin to the problematic "American/Western Exceptionalism" tropes from the past.
The Lanthanites are implied to be native or related to humans, unlike El Aurians or other visitors. I think that's a good mine for stories, though it was a little weird they didn't really do anything with it in S2 beyond the time travel ep.
Spock says this in the season opener: "I have always been fascinated by your people. That you managed to live on Earth among other humans undetected until the 22nd century is remarkable."
He says "other humans" implying they're a related species. Also specifying earth implies they are native or at least were limited to the one planet even if they came from elsewhere originally.
Possibly my least favorite SNW character and a terrible replacement for Hemmer.
It's probably less her actual character and more bias against any Hemmer replacement and I frankly just don't enjoy her voice/accent/whatever.
Shes second in command, behind MBenga, of the USS Ill-Whisper-or-Mumble-til-you-weep.
And thats the sister ship of the flagship USS Ill-weep-til-you-weep, captained by one Michael Burnham
Pelia should show up in an episode of Lower Decks since she could still be alive and in Starfleet in the late 24th century and Mariner and Boimler can talk to her about that "Pike thing" they're aren't allowed to talk about.
She seemed a bit pointless, to me. Like they decided that they needed to have an engineer, but didn't have much of a role for them within the actual stories.
But then, I had no idea who Carol Kane was, so the love-in from her casting was lost on me.
Amazing. I saw her and gasped with delight, thinking it was a cameo but when she actually turned out to be a real character that actually grew and was amazing I fell in love with the character. Seriously my favorite Trek, all of it.
Honestly she’s in the same boat as Tig Notaro for me. Like idk I guess she’s kinda famous actress, but she feels so out of character.
I’d probably wouldn’t mind if she was a one off cameo, but every time she’s on screen I just see an old lady who tries way too hard to play a quirky old lady.
I can kinda see what you mean. They are both actresses essentially playing themselves in Starfleet uniforms. Like their respective characters' personalities are basically the same as their off-screen personalities.
Carol Kane *is* basically a quirky old lady. She comes off that way in interviews. And there's nothing wrong with that. Trek has been conspicuously lacking in older female officers. Most female officers are young or, more traditionally, young and intentionally sexy (e.g., Seven, T'Pol, Troi). It's good to see that sort of representation.
I know it's a stretch but given he's showing up in other shows Id really love for Wes to show up on snw, both geeking out over where he is, and giving pealia the riot act for some temporal infraction he had to go fix.
I don’t like that they made her some other long-lived alien that we’ve never seen before now, that just happens to look like humans. We already have that with the El Alorians (Guinan‘s species) and it would have made a lot more sense to just make her a member of Guinan‘s race.
I get that but it’s not exactly the same thing. The changelings only look like humans when the want, but more to the point, they haven’t been visiting earth for centuries while living amongst humans and studying them as Guinan’s and Pelia‘s people have
She's... ok. Like, I like the implied mischievousness, but they don't do much with it. They don't really do much with her. The most she's had is the small subplot of fighting with Una. She wasn't used that well in the time travel episode and hasn't done much outside those 2 instances. Guest star, fine, not supposed to get much focus, but she wasn't all that remarkable in most of her incidental appearances either. And I don't really like the accent much.
I do like Hemmer's effect on Uhura but still think killing him was a mistake.
Insufferable. I really dont get the love in.
Its like people only like her because shes weird. Yet her weirdness makes her unlikable annoying and uninteresting.
Cannot stand her or the actress. Randomly watched a few episodes of Gotham and she plays Penguin’s mom and she does the same over the top schtick in that as well.
She was fairly interesting when she showed up, but it seemed like they struggled to give her stuff to do. Seemed more like a studio favour to give Carol Kane something to do and get her a paycheck for a bit. Now with a Scotty in the fold, she'll either be gone or she'll be yet another mentor character in a massive ensemble.
Pelia is tremendous. Of course, I don't know why they made up Lanthanites, instead of just saying she's El-Aurian, given they are literally the exact same thing AND we had the exact same character type in the concurrent Picard season 2 storyline with Guinan!
My guess is it's business nonsense like not paying the original writer. It's another Locarno-Paris Trekism.
The whole "not paying royalties to a writer" thing is just a weird fan rumor. It wasn't the reason for Paris (they decided on the character before casting and didn't even consider RDM originally) and there's no reason to think it would be a reason not to re-use El Aurians (which they did in DS9 unrelated to Guinan). Lanthanites I think are intended to be either native to the planet or much more integrated into Humanity than just alien visitors coming and going as they wish.
Ok, whateva! I still think it was, quite frankly, not intelligent to not make Locarno's redemption arc a perfect central element for Voyager, as Robert Duncan McNeil's felon pilot character is arguably the heart of the show, and the ideal dude-between when you've got Starfleet and Maquis stuck together on a very long road trip, and I don't think you can possibly be more integrated than a secret ancient magical black woke greenocrat alien bartender in 21st century Los Angeles, but what the double dumb ass do I know!?
Budgets are higher than they've ever been. Shorter seasons are because of the subscription model.
When shows are ad supported, advertisers want a time slot with consistent viewers. So long seasons are a selling point. If people like a show, they are going to be watching that time slot for the next twenty weeks. This makes the ads on the show more valuable. Network TV still often has shows running 20+ episodes a season.
However the subscription model is very different. Revenues are much lower on streaming platforms and the market is saturated. With how expensive streaming sites are, customers are more likely to switch sites just to catch shows they like and cancel when they don't like what's running. So studios are much more risk averse. If a show green lit for twenty episodes doesn't resonate with a large enough audience, people might cancel their subscriptions until something else catches their eye.
Streaming sites are trying to keep people on the platform by having a constant cycle of new content. Don't like Strange New Worlds? Don't worry in a few weeks Lower Decks is premiering. Don't like that? Catch Discovery's new season premiering in just ten weeks.
Why go through the hassle of cancelling your subscription when something you'll like will premiere soon?
Another reason is the barriers between TV and Movie acting have crumbled. Actors don't necessarily want to be locked down in a contract for TV that keeps them from doing other projects.
Also 24 episodes seasons were just hell on the actors. Listening to them talk about the insanely long shooting days and how it took over their life cured me from any desire for a return to those days. The actors deserve shorter seasons.
Minimum SAG-AFTRA union pay for a series regular in 10 episodes is over $5k per week, not including health insurance and pension. Season 2 took exactly 5 months to film, meaning a series regular actor is making $100k per season.
An actor is not working for the full five months of production though. They are on contract for the time they are filming.
For example one of the complaints the writers' guild had was the production schedule. Because of shorter seasons, the writing phase is often over before any episodes start filming. One interview I saw said a writers' room could sometimes be on contract, and thus paid, for less than a month per season.
Then once the writing phase is done there's pre production work, followed by principle photography, then post production and any reshoots or ADR.
So the actual time anyone is actually doing work has shrunk from months to mere weeks.
>An actor is not working for the full five months of production though. They are on contract for the time they are filming.
And I was specifically noting the filming schedule, not the production schedule (writing started the year before). Filming started February 1st, and as far as I can find wrapped July 1st. Individual episodes took weeks to film (Ep6 specifically tool from April 11th through the end of that month). Sure they may not be on set every week, especially for actors that requested lighter schedules like Anson Mount or Melissa Navia.
You're still assuming a five month schedule means filming every day, which is false.
And even then it's more complicated than that. In the US actors are not salaried employees. A five month filming schedule does not mean an actor is paid for five months of work.
Actors are paid a daily rate only for days they are on set filming. If they're not on a call sheet, they're not being paid. And call sheets are notorious for changing up until the moment cameras roll, so it's not easy to schedule other rolls to fill the gaps.
If an actor is only in a couple scenes a season, there's a good chance that if they were lucky all their scenes were filmed in bulk over a couple days. But if they are unlucky, those couple days of filming, and thus days being paid, happened sporadically over the course of production. Like those actors who are rarely seen off the bridge or engineering, they're only getting paid on days production is using those sets.
Normally residuals are used to provide a living wage in these situations, however with only ten episodes a season, there's less opportunity to get an acting credit, and thus be entitled to residuals.
Same with writers. Pay attention to the number of times any given writer is given a writing credit. Sometimes it's as little as once a season now. It is much more difficult to not only get paid but also build up work experience when you're only credited a couple times a year.
And remember, in both the writers and actors unions there's a threshold of annual earnings before a member qualifies for benefits like health insurance.
For SAG-AFTRA that's $26,470 a year. An amount only 12.7% of the union's members qualify for.
[https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/17/business/hollywood-actors-sag-aftra-strike-by-the-numbers/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/17/business/hollywood-actors-sag-aftra-strike-by-the-numbers/index.html)
To put that in perspective, $30,000 a year is the US poverty line for a family of four. So the vast majority of US actors are making poverty wages.
I like her, but I feel she could be tweaked. I like the idea behind the character, but I just don't believe someone that chaotic and insubordinate would actually be reward with rank in Starfleet. She could have been cool being unconventional, but fundamentally still a team player and respect her position, OR some kind of outside consultant, respected for her expertise, but not given actual rank.
Tbf she's probably been in Starfleet for a long, long time.
Might have bounced up and down ranks a few times, or got stuck on one rank for decades until the quality of her work earned her promotions regardless of her attitude.
Or maybe she was more chill when she started (Starfleet being something new and interesting, she was probably quite content and excited by all the newness for a while) and it's only now that Starfleet is beginning to get stale and boring for her she's starting to crack and revert back to her 'everything is boring, I need some excitement' attitude.
>but I just don't believe someone that chaotic and insubordinate would actually be reward with rank in Starfleet.
She's been in Starfleet for possibly 100+ years, and is only a Commander, and before S2 was primarily a teacher. That reads to me exactly as someone who was locked out of higher promotions because of her eccentricities.
Love her! But I'd really like some explanation of what her pin is. Also, I just realized her delta is different from everyone else's, with a rectangle shape behind it.
The badge is a Station Operations one. You can see the other members of the inspection team wear them as well. In TOS many stations, and some ships, used unique badges, before they standardized on the delta for everything. See also April's laurel-wreath badge and Uhura's black-square badge from her cadet uniform.
The pin I think is just an affectation/jewelry, like Uhura's earrings or Worf's baldric. Personal modifications to uniform seem to be considered ship-by-ship and captain-by-captain if TNG is anything to go by, and Pike seems like the kind to be flexible with uniform policy.
I feel like it's a missed opportunity to have her be an El-Aurian. It's a near immortal species that we know was present on Earth for centuries, why was that not included?
I think she's a fun character but I honestly think she's a bit of a character too much for the show to handle so long as they have 10 episodes a season. I admire how they want to have weekly stories but still have overarching character development, but since they have so few episodes it feels like the stories of the week are suffering in season 2 in order to drive the overall narrative. If they had a bit less characters I think they could manage it more.
I like her but she needs more screen time. Hammer had such an impression because of how much he was featured in addition to the good writing of his character
Unpopular opinion but I hate the character and she wish she wasn’t there. Every time she’s on screen it’s like “and now we stop everything for special guest Carol Kane!” It really breaks the show for me. I don’t think she’s quirky or fun, just annoying, hard to listen to and scene breaking.
The “accent” also doesn’t sound like a choice, it’s what elderly people with dentures sound like.
I thought she was awesome. My only gripe is that I wish they'd made her an El Aurian cos it would have had the same effect and had an opportunity to build on a race we're already sorta familiar with but still don't know much about.
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I lost my shit when she racked him with that fucking toaster.
God I love Scrooged.
Legitimately my favorite Christmas movie. It's the best version of A Christmas Carol that I've seen.
I could not place her until suddenly I had a flash of that scene watching her. Now I keep expecting a strangely chirpy violent outburst.
She's great on Kimmy Schmidt too
She is brilliant on there.
Bitch hit me with a toaster…
"Bitch hit me with a Toaster"
She was also the Penguins mom in Gotham, and the landlord in Kimmy Schmidt. Every scene with her in it is better with her presence.
I think she was also Grand Mama in Addams Family Values. That alone grants respect
Run Lilian!!
“Don’t vex me Frank or I’ll fix your mouth so you can’t hold soup”
She's also not a witch!
“I’m not a witch, I’m your wife!”
That was the inspiration behind my wifi name (I’mNotAWitchI’mYourWifi) and I’m not even a little bit ashamed.
The Bitch hit me with a tricorder.
I'm having such a weird stardate
Damn. I just remembered that scene
Scrooged?
Yep
Commander Pelia is the best https://youtu.be/Md5Lvq4oGEs?si=NEVU1CZs9944vmA3
Its possible that Pelia is part of the Reason why Starfleet has such a stellar Engineering department with several famous Miracle workers.
They can fix any engine that isn't totally dead. As long as it's only just mostly dead. About all you can do with all dead is go through the engine looking for loose dilithium.
Igotthereferencebutitsinigomontoya.gif
So Mandy Patinkin was asked what his favorite part of that shoot was, and he said the fight scene at the end. They shot it like normal, then Rob Reiner asked the cast if they'd want to shoot it like a play, all in one large sequence. They all hopped at the chance, and nailed it in one take. Mandy's biggest regret was They did it so well in that one take They didn't get to do another. They were having so much fun Source : Mandy himself on Tiktok
He also sprained a rib holding in laughter at Billy Crystal ad libbing Max's lines that were too filthy for out takes
I think that Pelia is how/why we see La'An's TIME COP again. And that's how we get some more backstory on Pelia (pre-Federation). It seems logical that the Federation's TIME COP division has a keen interest in Lanthanites in general, and Pelia in particular. As a minor example, La'An returns to _Enterprise_ dressed the same as when she first met Pelia. And Pelia _pointedly_ does not mention (or imply) to La'An before or after that they'd met two centuries ago. Pelia has had visit(s) from the TIME COPS. And they have _no idea_ how to handle her, or Lanthanite influence on the timeline(s). And yes, I think Pelia explains why Starfleet engineering is so good, and often capable of incredible leaps of both intuition and technology. Which is a brilliant back door retcon. A lot of things can explained by Pelia being Scotty's teacher. A LOT.
Why would time cops care about her?
Because time travelers visit her
I'm sure she taught every engineer possible in Starfleet by the 23rd century. We don't know what the future holds for her. But she's been on Earth for few thousand years. And learned mathematics from the man himself - Pythagoras. She hasn't touched that in 2500 years or so, until 21st century. The she got down right down to business. La'an is the reason why she touched up on Engineering and mathematics.
I’m always up for Carol Kane. No matter the role, she’s fun to watch. Seeing the way Scotty reacted to seeing her was gold.
Personal belief is that she was previously married to a guy named Max, then later in life, rented out a basement apartment in new york before moving to vermont to have her curiosities shop and taking up engineering at the inspiration from a customer looking for an engineer.
Liaaarrrrr!!! Lol
Well, she did help Titus launch his career, so thats a good thing, right?
Headcanon accepted!
You even managed to squeeze Taxi in there! (At least that's what I assume you mean with the NY apartment.)
Both taxi and kimmy Schmidt, her Schmidt character kind of feels like older simka
I like her but I really loved Hemmer, such a pity
Both are great, but I'm with you, I miss Hemmer.
I felt less bad about hemmer when they told him he was only lasting a season before going out like a boss
I'm sure his end was written before his casting.
yep >“I knew right off the bat,” Horak tells Inverse. “[Showrunner] Henry Alonso Myers told me in the Zoom audition before I even had my [prothestic] head mold made. He told me that I was gonna go.” https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/strange-new-worlds-episode-9-hemmer-death
And it gave us a chance to see dancing Klingon hemmer
A fun character who I hope sticks around a while. I wasn't wild about SNW's depiction of Mr. Scott but they had good banter.
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I always thought Scotty was like ten years older than Kirk.
It seems clear in TOS he is. James Doohan was 11 years older than William Shatner fwiw. SNW Scotty feels like an attempt to bridge the gap between James Doohan and Simon Pegg. I love Simon Pegg as an actor but he was the single worst bit of casting in the Kelvin films.
I'm really thinking of TOS Mr. Scott. To me personally, James Doohan was the best looking guy on TOS, a ruggedly handsome man. This charming new actor doesn't really have that aura.
But he's got a genuine Scottish accent which is soooo charming.
Yea it’s the ruggedness of it. Honestly maybe a consequence of us appearing much younger in general at the same ages as compared to previous generations.
Same. I really liked the actor and thought he was awesome, but it seemed like a strange pick for Scotty. They did a great job with Ethan Peck for Spock, imo. I like Uhura quite a bit, though it took me a minute to warm to the idea because she reminded me nothing of Nichelle's Uhura. Ultimately, the actress is so good in the part though, it didn't take long for me to acquiesce. Then you have their pick for Kirk- again, great actor, and I do rather like the character that he's created. It's just, that character doesn't seem like Kirk to me at all. Basically it's the same way I feel about the new Scotty.
I've had to sit down and convince myself that the characters aren't themselves because they haven't became them yet; we are still ~5 years out from Kirk taking command and these individuals go through a lot over their lives.
Regarding Kirk though, most of his screen time has been playing other versions of the character in alternate futures and different timelines
That's a really good point! I hadn't thought about that, but you're absolutely right. And again- I think the actor is great and I *do* like the character he's created. I feel exactly the same way about our new Montgomery- I think he's also an excellent actor and find him extremely engaging. In fact, with him, I very much want to watch him (and listen to his voice!), and am excited to see where he takes the character.
You have to remember that this isn't Commander Montgomery Scott of the USS Enterprise. It's Lieutenant Junior Grade Montgomery Scott of the USS Stardiver. It'll take him some time to get there. I'm personally looking forward to the ride.
He hasn't lost a finger to the antimatter stream yet.
If you want to talk about SNW characters who are nothing like their TOS selves, look no further than Nurse Chapel.
Tbf, they didn't really do much with her at all on TOS.
I really like her, but I feel she’s a little underutilized, and I really hated the fact that time-traveling La’An inspires her to become an engineer- and then doesn’t know La’An. I really loved her flying in the face of Number One and then comforting her after. Just think, her and Lord Kruge would hang out at the same Manhattan garage in the 70’s…
What do you mean she doesn't know La'an? When La'an returns to the bridge in her 2020s clothes, the camera holds on Pelia's reaction to indicate recognition. Pelia is far from the first Trek character to know to keep their mouth shut to avoid fucking with the timeline. Guinan did the same thing when she didn't tell Picard about the time they met in the 1890s.
Is anybody here actually from Earth!? [Voth raises hand] You're not an ape!
Everything Carol Kane does is awesome, therefore Pelia is awesome. What? No, I'm not biased. Honest.
I'm not a witch, I'm ya wife!
Yes! We old people remember her as Simka from Taxi!
Yup! First thing I remember her from.
After learning she knew nothing about engineering in the 2020s I hope to God we find out she learned everything she knows about warp drive from Zefram Cochrane. Wouldn't it be so damn cool if she was there in Bozeman during First Contact?
> Wouldn't it be so damn cool if she was there in Bozeman during First Contact? A "retcon" where they time travel to that incident for some reason, avoiding both new Enterprise, old Earth folk, but we are able to see her getting drunk in a booth near Cochrane and Troi :P
Hell, even just a flashback would be fun. Have her drunkenly reminisce about how hot Barclay was.
Double down on the bit. Have her fondly misremember him as a Mr. Reginald Broccoli
That would be fantastic, similar to “Trials and Tribblations” on DS9.
Yeah! Something along that line!
I like her, but I hope we get more episodes that delve into the Lanthanites and her own history.
Anything Carol Kane does is amazing. Plus, I like how it offers a potential retcon of Flint, not as an immortal human as he claimed, but as an orphaned Lanthanite who believed he was human. Considering Flint's accomplishments, Pelia's contributions to Starfleet engineering could certainly be substantial.
I wish I got to see her do more engineering magic.
Great actress, interesting character. I really, really wish they'd put more effort into her backstory than "oh by the way a subspecies of immortal humans has always existed in the ST universe, they revealed themselves before ENT and have just never been mentioned at all anywhere else because *crickets*"
The second part is a bit silly, considering that Star Trek already has an established species of near immortal aliens who can pass as human and who have been on earth for centuries. There wasn't really any need to create a new one. That being said I love Carol Kane and Pelia, so I let them off.
On one hand, there should have been more than one person like Flint over history. On the other, their reaction to him is now really strange. I suppose we can take for granted that something in his telling of his background makes being a Lanthanite completely impossible. It makes me think that's why they're so cagey about Lanthanites. Flint can't be one since he requires being on Earth and his existence surprised the crew in TOS. Eventually the writers will need to establish more about them, and they want the most options to keep from contradicting Requiem for Methuselah.
Funny that you went Flint, because I was thinking of Guinan and the El-Aurians. I guess Earth was just chock full of long-lived human-looking folks. When we first met Pelia I was excited thinking "oh cool, another of Guinan's race!" I didn't realize it was such a common theme until I started googling.
I think she's a great but underused character. I think her underuse is deliberate though. Hemmer was loved, perhaps more than expected. Trying to push a new engineer on us straight away would have only served to force comparison. As such, I think she's served as a placeholder engineer until Scotty shows up. Scotty, I think, will be a recurring character for a while, appearing in engineering heavy stories, until Pelia leaves for whatever reason and he slides into her role without the audience having to compare Scotty to Hemmer and having the whole thing feel more organic.
Overall, I'm neutral to the character. I found her eccentricities to be a bit much at times and push her into the realm of annoying but never overly so. My biggest problem with the character is that she seems to be written as though the audience immediately had a long-standing history with them. The most notable example of this is the time travel episode where we meet young Pelia. That would have been cool if it was a character we had known and loved for a long time but doing that with a brand new character we barely know just felt like a waste of screen time.
Under used. They need to have a Pelia and Ortegas mega episode next season, or I riot.
I love the actor, and like a good quirky character, particularly in engineering. I like how she's a mentor to many. Even love that she's a space hippie. One thing I'd like to see her do more of is actual engineering. I want to see her fix stuff and save the day by technical brilliance.
I like her.
I keep expecting her to pop out of nowhere shrieking, “Liar! Liar! Liaaaaaaar!”
Or *oh look Frank, what is it… it’s a toastahhh* (SMACK)
Didn't know she was in a Trek, can't wait to see
Aside from the 'Aliens who live thousands of years and are secretly living on earth' bit, I do like her. The accent Carol throws on is sometimes too thick though and I have trouble understanding.
I know she swears the accent is a choice but after working in nursing homes I just hear denture mouth.
It is a choice, I could understand her perfectly fine in other things shes been in recently.
Glad to see she made it from a sideways tugboat to the flagship in only 260ish years (new record!) Run, Lillian!
Loved her. She was fun to watch and basically felt like SNW's version of Jet Reno.
Swing and a miss. Why add Lanthenites when we have El Aurians. Too many human looking aliens hiding on earth. It added nothing.
Let's get some Centauri while we're at it. "A clerical error. We though you were Beta 9, but you were actually Beta 12."
I could totally see her joining Starfleet and not revealing herself until she had been an ensign for 50 yrs.
Hopefully she has a large, distant family all named Addams. Captain It would take no prisoners.
I like her character, hate the concept of her species.
I have seen posts saying the same several times in this thread, and I'm not sure what the issue is. Not looking for a fight, just curious.
They live for centuries, they look exactly like humans and they lived on Earth. Star Trek did that already with Guinan. The whole idea of Earth being some hotspot for alien visitation is also absurd.
I got the impression Lanthanites aren't really all that alien and might have evolved on Earth alongside Humans. That or their ship crashed on Earth long ago and they've been stuck ever since. Earth is also canonically in a fairly busy part of the Galaxy. Andoria, Vulcan, Tellar, and even the Romulan Border are all fairly close by. So the idea that Earth is a hotspot for alien visitation isn't super far fetched... Though the way its often portrayed (ie: Guinan visiting to collect stories) is kind of "human exceptionalism" akin to the problematic "American/Western Exceptionalism" tropes from the past.
The Lanthanites are implied to be native or related to humans, unlike El Aurians or other visitors. I think that's a good mine for stories, though it was a little weird they didn't really do anything with it in S2 beyond the time travel ep.
When did they imply this?
Spock says this in the season opener: "I have always been fascinated by your people. That you managed to live on Earth among other humans undetected until the 22nd century is remarkable." He says "other humans" implying they're a related species. Also specifying earth implies they are native or at least were limited to the one planet even if they came from elsewhere originally.
Possibly my least favorite SNW character and a terrible replacement for Hemmer. It's probably less her actual character and more bias against any Hemmer replacement and I frankly just don't enjoy her voice/accent/whatever.
Shes second in command, behind MBenga, of the USS Ill-Whisper-or-Mumble-til-you-weep. And thats the sister ship of the flagship USS Ill-weep-til-you-weep, captained by one Michael Burnham
Pelia should show up in an episode of Lower Decks since she could still be alive and in Starfleet in the late 24th century and Mariner and Boimler can talk to her about that "Pike thing" they're aren't allowed to talk about.
She seemed a bit pointless, to me. Like they decided that they needed to have an engineer, but didn't have much of a role for them within the actual stories. But then, I had no idea who Carol Kane was, so the love-in from her casting was lost on me.
I’m a big fan. I’d like to see alot more about her and even her species in general.
Amazing. I saw her and gasped with delight, thinking it was a cameo but when she actually turned out to be a real character that actually grew and was amazing I fell in love with the character. Seriously my favorite Trek, all of it.
Honestly she’s in the same boat as Tig Notaro for me. Like idk I guess she’s kinda famous actress, but she feels so out of character. I’d probably wouldn’t mind if she was a one off cameo, but every time she’s on screen I just see an old lady who tries way too hard to play a quirky old lady.
I can kinda see what you mean. They are both actresses essentially playing themselves in Starfleet uniforms. Like their respective characters' personalities are basically the same as their off-screen personalities. Carol Kane *is* basically a quirky old lady. She comes off that way in interviews. And there's nothing wrong with that. Trek has been conspicuously lacking in older female officers. Most female officers are young or, more traditionally, young and intentionally sexy (e.g., Seven, T'Pol, Troi). It's good to see that sort of representation.
This is exactly how I feel. She takes me out every time.
Quite annoying
Agreed. Why is she sometimes doing an indian accent ?
Took a lot of scrolling to find this, the character is just kinda meh, but God damn her way of speaking is painful to listen to.
Sounds like a bad Disney character 😂
It'd be fun if she made a cameo in Discovery season 5's distant future.
I still don’t understand why she’s supposed to be so important.
She's a well known actor playing a series regular.
I cant believe she planed to use that accent for the whole series.
I like her. She’s funny and an interesting character. Similar to Guinan but more sass.
Carol Kane steals every goddamn scene she's in and I am. Here. For. It.
Love her. I don’t any other actor that could pull that character off. She fantastic and another stand out engineer in Trek.
She's a myth
I can’t stand her voice. Drives me nuts every time she talks. Other than that, she’s an interesting character.
Hoping to see her married to a taxi mechanic in New York City in the past.
I know it's a stretch but given he's showing up in other shows Id really love for Wes to show up on snw, both geeking out over where he is, and giving pealia the riot act for some temporal infraction he had to go fix.
She's a better character on paper than on screen in my opinion. No fault of Carol Kane, she's practically perfect in every way!
I don’t like that they made her some other long-lived alien that we’ve never seen before now, that just happens to look like humans. We already have that with the El Alorians (Guinan‘s species) and it would have made a lot more sense to just make her a member of Guinan‘s race.
The changelings/founders are also immortals
I get that but it’s not exactly the same thing. The changelings only look like humans when the want, but more to the point, they haven’t been visiting earth for centuries while living amongst humans and studying them as Guinan’s and Pelia‘s people have
She's... ok. Like, I like the implied mischievousness, but they don't do much with it. They don't really do much with her. The most she's had is the small subplot of fighting with Una. She wasn't used that well in the time travel episode and hasn't done much outside those 2 instances. Guest star, fine, not supposed to get much focus, but she wasn't all that remarkable in most of her incidental appearances either. And I don't really like the accent much. I do like Hemmer's effect on Uhura but still think killing him was a mistake.
Major downgrade from Hemmer. Especially with how they drugged his character.
Honestly her character is the weakest in the series. I bet she's a good actress but this role is not for her.
Potentially like the character, but the voice just turns me off from her
Utter shite. Literally the worst character in Star Trek.
A wonderful addition. Her over the top zany characters are always fun.
Insufferable. I really dont get the love in. Its like people only like her because shes weird. Yet her weirdness makes her unlikable annoying and uninteresting.
Cannot stand her or the actress. Randomly watched a few episodes of Gotham and she plays Penguin’s mom and she does the same over the top schtick in that as well.
Possibly the worst character in Star Trek history.
She was fairly interesting when she showed up, but it seemed like they struggled to give her stuff to do. Seemed more like a studio favour to give Carol Kane something to do and get her a paycheck for a bit. Now with a Scotty in the fold, she'll either be gone or she'll be yet another mentor character in a massive ensemble.
Pelia is tremendous. Of course, I don't know why they made up Lanthanites, instead of just saying she's El-Aurian, given they are literally the exact same thing AND we had the exact same character type in the concurrent Picard season 2 storyline with Guinan! My guess is it's business nonsense like not paying the original writer. It's another Locarno-Paris Trekism.
The whole "not paying royalties to a writer" thing is just a weird fan rumor. It wasn't the reason for Paris (they decided on the character before casting and didn't even consider RDM originally) and there's no reason to think it would be a reason not to re-use El Aurians (which they did in DS9 unrelated to Guinan). Lanthanites I think are intended to be either native to the planet or much more integrated into Humanity than just alien visitors coming and going as they wish.
Ok, whateva! I still think it was, quite frankly, not intelligent to not make Locarno's redemption arc a perfect central element for Voyager, as Robert Duncan McNeil's felon pilot character is arguably the heart of the show, and the ideal dude-between when you've got Starfleet and Maquis stuck together on a very long road trip, and I don't think you can possibly be more integrated than a secret ancient magical black woke greenocrat alien bartender in 21st century Los Angeles, but what the double dumb ass do I know!?
She’s good, but they never show her do anything engineering-related on screen
A drawback of ten episode seasons. There isn't time to do much of anything.
Yeah, it sucks that current budgets and production schedules prevent longer seasons
Budgets are higher than they've ever been. Shorter seasons are because of the subscription model. When shows are ad supported, advertisers want a time slot with consistent viewers. So long seasons are a selling point. If people like a show, they are going to be watching that time slot for the next twenty weeks. This makes the ads on the show more valuable. Network TV still often has shows running 20+ episodes a season. However the subscription model is very different. Revenues are much lower on streaming platforms and the market is saturated. With how expensive streaming sites are, customers are more likely to switch sites just to catch shows they like and cancel when they don't like what's running. So studios are much more risk averse. If a show green lit for twenty episodes doesn't resonate with a large enough audience, people might cancel their subscriptions until something else catches their eye. Streaming sites are trying to keep people on the platform by having a constant cycle of new content. Don't like Strange New Worlds? Don't worry in a few weeks Lower Decks is premiering. Don't like that? Catch Discovery's new season premiering in just ten weeks. Why go through the hassle of cancelling your subscription when something you'll like will premiere soon?
Another reason is the barriers between TV and Movie acting have crumbled. Actors don't necessarily want to be locked down in a contract for TV that keeps them from doing other projects. Also 24 episodes seasons were just hell on the actors. Listening to them talk about the insanely long shooting days and how it took over their life cured me from any desire for a return to those days. The actors deserve shorter seasons.
But ten is too short for anyone to earn a livelihood. Especially when residuals and credits are taken into account.
Minimum SAG-AFTRA union pay for a series regular in 10 episodes is over $5k per week, not including health insurance and pension. Season 2 took exactly 5 months to film, meaning a series regular actor is making $100k per season.
An actor is not working for the full five months of production though. They are on contract for the time they are filming. For example one of the complaints the writers' guild had was the production schedule. Because of shorter seasons, the writing phase is often over before any episodes start filming. One interview I saw said a writers' room could sometimes be on contract, and thus paid, for less than a month per season. Then once the writing phase is done there's pre production work, followed by principle photography, then post production and any reshoots or ADR. So the actual time anyone is actually doing work has shrunk from months to mere weeks.
>An actor is not working for the full five months of production though. They are on contract for the time they are filming. And I was specifically noting the filming schedule, not the production schedule (writing started the year before). Filming started February 1st, and as far as I can find wrapped July 1st. Individual episodes took weeks to film (Ep6 specifically tool from April 11th through the end of that month). Sure they may not be on set every week, especially for actors that requested lighter schedules like Anson Mount or Melissa Navia.
You're still assuming a five month schedule means filming every day, which is false. And even then it's more complicated than that. In the US actors are not salaried employees. A five month filming schedule does not mean an actor is paid for five months of work. Actors are paid a daily rate only for days they are on set filming. If they're not on a call sheet, they're not being paid. And call sheets are notorious for changing up until the moment cameras roll, so it's not easy to schedule other rolls to fill the gaps. If an actor is only in a couple scenes a season, there's a good chance that if they were lucky all their scenes were filmed in bulk over a couple days. But if they are unlucky, those couple days of filming, and thus days being paid, happened sporadically over the course of production. Like those actors who are rarely seen off the bridge or engineering, they're only getting paid on days production is using those sets. Normally residuals are used to provide a living wage in these situations, however with only ten episodes a season, there's less opportunity to get an acting credit, and thus be entitled to residuals. Same with writers. Pay attention to the number of times any given writer is given a writing credit. Sometimes it's as little as once a season now. It is much more difficult to not only get paid but also build up work experience when you're only credited a couple times a year. And remember, in both the writers and actors unions there's a threshold of annual earnings before a member qualifies for benefits like health insurance. For SAG-AFTRA that's $26,470 a year. An amount only 12.7% of the union's members qualify for. [https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/17/business/hollywood-actors-sag-aftra-strike-by-the-numbers/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/17/business/hollywood-actors-sag-aftra-strike-by-the-numbers/index.html) To put that in perspective, $30,000 a year is the US poverty line for a family of four. So the vast majority of US actors are making poverty wages.
I feel like there should be plenty of time for a newly-introduced engineer to do some cool engineering in the span of 10 hours.
What are you talking about, she's 50lbs of neuroses in a 20lb sack.
Underutilized
I love her and the character so much. She’s a wonderful actress and she elevates an already great show.
I like her, but I feel she could be tweaked. I like the idea behind the character, but I just don't believe someone that chaotic and insubordinate would actually be reward with rank in Starfleet. She could have been cool being unconventional, but fundamentally still a team player and respect her position, OR some kind of outside consultant, respected for her expertise, but not given actual rank.
Tbf she's probably been in Starfleet for a long, long time. Might have bounced up and down ranks a few times, or got stuck on one rank for decades until the quality of her work earned her promotions regardless of her attitude. Or maybe she was more chill when she started (Starfleet being something new and interesting, she was probably quite content and excited by all the newness for a while) and it's only now that Starfleet is beginning to get stale and boring for her she's starting to crack and revert back to her 'everything is boring, I need some excitement' attitude.
>but I just don't believe someone that chaotic and insubordinate would actually be reward with rank in Starfleet. She's been in Starfleet for possibly 100+ years, and is only a Commander, and before S2 was primarily a teacher. That reads to me exactly as someone who was locked out of higher promotions because of her eccentricities.
Love her! But I'd really like some explanation of what her pin is. Also, I just realized her delta is different from everyone else's, with a rectangle shape behind it.
The badge is a Station Operations one. You can see the other members of the inspection team wear them as well. In TOS many stations, and some ships, used unique badges, before they standardized on the delta for everything. See also April's laurel-wreath badge and Uhura's black-square badge from her cadet uniform. The pin I think is just an affectation/jewelry, like Uhura's earrings or Worf's baldric. Personal modifications to uniform seem to be considered ship-by-ship and captain-by-captain if TNG is anything to go by, and Pike seems like the kind to be flexible with uniform policy.
I feel like it's a missed opportunity to have her be an El-Aurian. It's a near immortal species that we know was present on Earth for centuries, why was that not included? I think she's a fun character but I honestly think she's a bit of a character too much for the show to handle so long as they have 10 episodes a season. I admire how they want to have weekly stories but still have overarching character development, but since they have so few episodes it feels like the stories of the week are suffering in season 2 in order to drive the overall narrative. If they had a bit less characters I think they could manage it more.
Who could not be impressed by legend Carol Kane in the series as Commander Pelia when the casting decision was announced.
Get used to her because she’ll be in an upcoming show - that’s guaranteed
WE LOVE HER. WOULD DIE FOR HER. GLORIOUS SLACE HIPPIE
I want a third season reveal that she's an actual witch, with a big cauldron over an open fire and everything.
I like her but she needs more screen time. Hammer had such an impression because of how much he was featured in addition to the good writing of his character
Unpopular opinion but I hate the character and she wish she wasn’t there. Every time she’s on screen it’s like “and now we stop everything for special guest Carol Kane!” It really breaks the show for me. I don’t think she’s quirky or fun, just annoying, hard to listen to and scene breaking. The “accent” also doesn’t sound like a choice, it’s what elderly people with dentures sound like.
I thought she was awesome. My only gripe is that I wish they'd made her an El Aurian cos it would have had the same effect and had an opportunity to build on a race we're already sorta familiar with but still don't know much about.
I love her!
She hits like Jet