Finished up fantastically.

Leaving us hanging like that. Damn.
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Much like many of the characters, the Gorn have been supersized. I'm sure I said it before, but how in the hell did the lumbering brute from TOS turn into a combination of Alien/Predator? I understand the need to update the 60s stuff for modern audiences, but that absolutely shits all over established canon. Kirk wouldn't have lasted a minute against one of those things with no weapons or armor. Hell, Mike Tyson in his prime wouldn't have lasted a minute against one.

I hope they'll fix this somehow (perhaps as Gorns get older they become bulky and slow and lose their ten foot long whiplash murder tails), but I doubt it.

I realize that I don't represent SNW's intended audience (or any modern show's intended audience, for that matter) but goddamn, they really took this one too far. I wish they'd simply made them a brand new species. I'd have had zero problems with that.
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This was an alien on TOS. Yes, I think they need to update the 60s stuff for modern audiences.
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Sometimes I forget how you love to argue just for the sake of arguing.

"Updating the 60s stuff" and "supersizing" aren't the same thing. Redesigning the bridge is updating. Turning a slow, hulking brute into a velociraptor that infects its victims with its larvae is supersizing.
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It's not arguing for the sake of arguing to point out that it is rather silly to complain about a 2020s show not sticking with the ridiculous Gorn design from a 1960s television show with next to no budget. Of course things like that are going to be updated, how could they not?
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Again, you're so busy being obtuse that you completely miss the point. Of course you can update things. That is to be expected. I mentioned the bridge before - that is perhaps the coolest thing in Star Trek ever. Hell, I didn't care that they altered the look of the Klingons in the first movie, or the Romulans in NG. But changing the entire nature of something goes far beyond updating. The updated Klingons just had long hair, bad teeth and ridges on their foreheads - they weren't suddenly ten feet tall with tentacles sprouting out of their backs. They could have made menacing CGI Gorns that are better and more realistic than some guy stomping around in a green costume 55 years ago that didn't completely piss on established canon.

Explain how Kirk, alone and unarmed, could survive against an "updated" Gorn long enough to locate and identify the components of gunpowder, and then construct a bamboo mortar. Good luck with that. I guess they could just supersize him into Captain America or Superman; that would be as silly as what they've already done, but hey, modern audiences, right? :-)
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For some reason I'm reminded of this Simpsons scene.
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And for some reason, I'm reminded of this.


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Also, I'm still waiting to hear why making the Gorn's design similar to the monsters from the Alien franchise is a bad thing. It's a proven formula and it has worked very effectively on this show so far as well.
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Nope. ST:TOS is history, it is what it is. The challenge in making another entry into the franchise is in either developing what already exists or bringing in something new that fits the show. If they're going to develop what already exists then don't take short cuts - do it well or don't do it, as I have already said. No one has said that they must be exactly as they originally were, but if the show is going to make the decision to reuse them then it's their obligation to make it work. Doing something completely different and slapping a Gorn nametag on it is lazy.


Nope. It has nothing to do with my own personal image of Star Trek. The Gorn as they were in ST:TOS simply exist. The Gorn as they are in ST:SNW are nothing like them.


Because that isn't the Gorn. It's something completely different. If they wanted to bring in a bad guy like that, nothing was stopping them from doing it. It's another weak storytelling shortcut.
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Yes, TOS is history and is very much a product of its time. That is exactly the point and has been the point when judging a show made 60 years later for an entirely different audience.

Again, if you're talking about the Gorn, they did develop what already existed and they did it exceptionally well. They took an old, ridiculous design of a villain that had been considered little more than a joke for decades and made it a serious brutal threat to the Federation. You don't need to look any further than the near-universal acclaim for both Gorn episodes (including here with with a recent comment to your own praise suggesting that it was "pretty well pitch perfect").


An alien that is a dog dressed up in a funny little costume with a horn also exists in TOS too. That doesn't mean any Star Trek these days should be held to the same budget/design constraints or shouldn't update them to fit a TV show made in 2023.


Why isn't it the Gorn? Because it doesn't fit a ridiculous design from a no-budget 1960s TV show (that Roddenberry no doubt would have altered himself had they had the money/technology to do so)? They have re-imagined its design to fit a modern show with a modern audience and created two of the best Trek episodes in decades. What the hell is there to bitch about?
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It's not the Gorn because it has no resemblance at all to the source material. They've done something completely different and slapped a Gorn nametag on it. Lazy, weak storytelling.
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The source material (at least with respect to the Gorn) was ridiculous and due only to budgetary/monetary/technological constraints that existed in 1967 that do not exist in 2023. They've now modernized the design to make the Gorn a terrorizing villain that have been an integral part of two of the best episodes so far on the show. That isn't lazy, weak storytelling in the slightest. It's a creative way to update what was no longer relevant and use it in service of something better.
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I agree, but at the same this is hardly the first continuity violation in this SNW/Discovery iteration of Trek, and arguably not the worst. It's kind of like shooting a dead body at this point.
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Which makes sense. Strictly upholding the continuity/canon of a 1960s TV show with enormous budgetary restrictions a lifetime ago should probably come second to creating a good television show now.
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