My threat ganglia remain unconvinced
March 30, 2021 9:09 AM Subscribe
Question about Star Trek Discover and its fandom/online conversations. SPOILERS FOR SEASON ONE
I recently started watching Discovery and accidentally spoilered myself for the Ash/Voq reveal. (In The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry, during the scenes between Voq and L'rell, I was so blown away by the subtlety of facial expressions and tone of voice between these two actors who are covered in facial prothesis and speaking in lines they probably memorized phonetically that I was like, These actors are amazing! I have to look up who they are! Ooops.
I've been enjoying watching these episodes with this in mind though. I've became aware that, at the time these episodes were originally airing, lots of people were aware of this "twist" or had predicted it. It's not clear to me if this is info that was leaked or if people figured it out. I would love to read some threads or communities where people were working through this, in "real time." Would prefer it be people who are actually fans of the show; I found a reddit thread sorta related to this but it's A LOT of complaining about how this is proof of how awful the show is. I've also looked at fanfare here and it's more reactive than I would like; I'm interested in people actually thinking about this twist and pointing to evidence in the episodes, because what I like about this twist is IT IS foreshadowed, not Game of Thrones-style "let's do something NO ONE could predict to be shocking" type fo twist.
I recently started watching Discovery and accidentally spoilered myself for the Ash/Voq reveal. (In The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry, during the scenes between Voq and L'rell, I was so blown away by the subtlety of facial expressions and tone of voice between these two actors who are covered in facial prothesis and speaking in lines they probably memorized phonetically that I was like, These actors are amazing! I have to look up who they are! Ooops.
I've been enjoying watching these episodes with this in mind though. I've became aware that, at the time these episodes were originally airing, lots of people were aware of this "twist" or had predicted it. It's not clear to me if this is info that was leaked or if people figured it out. I would love to read some threads or communities where people were working through this, in "real time." Would prefer it be people who are actually fans of the show; I found a reddit thread sorta related to this but it's A LOT of complaining about how this is proof of how awful the show is. I've also looked at fanfare here and it's more reactive than I would like; I'm interested in people actually thinking about this twist and pointing to evidence in the episodes, because what I like about this twist is IT IS foreshadowed, not Game of Thrones-style "let's do something NO ONE could predict to be shocking" type fo twist.
I think it was a rapid mix of leaks, hints, and also figuring it out. Ash Tyler's first appearance is episode 5, Choose Your Pain. Over on Fanfare gusottertrout seems to refer to the spoiler on Memory Alpha first, without saying what it was. Three posts down thomas j wise hints he guessed it himself (referencing a missing post from liquorice; deleted?). fimbulvetr spills the beans first pointing to an IO9 story and then it's off to the races on Fanfare. Note this all happened less than 24 hours after the show broadcast.
As you said the discussion is pretty reactive on Fanfare, but it's reacting to the media atmosphere. Not sure anyone who was paying attention to the Internet at all could avoid having it spoiled for them.
Personally I didn't quite get it and it took me a few episodes to really believe it. But I was having a hard time following the show then, particularly L'Rell's escapades. They kept changing costumes and makeup (and actors!) on us, so the Tyler/Voq thing just seemed like one more confusion.
posted by Nelson at 10:38 AM on March 30, 2021
As you said the discussion is pretty reactive on Fanfare, but it's reacting to the media atmosphere. Not sure anyone who was paying attention to the Internet at all could avoid having it spoiled for them.
Personally I didn't quite get it and it took me a few episodes to really believe it. But I was having a hard time following the show then, particularly L'Rell's escapades. They kept changing costumes and makeup (and actors!) on us, so the Tyler/Voq thing just seemed like one more confusion.
posted by Nelson at 10:38 AM on March 30, 2021
I saw that they looked and otherwise seemed similar and wondered what was up, and kind of guessed it. I don't think I looked it up, but I was not "Surprised!" surprised. I alas wasn't that surprised by the twist, but one doesn't have to be surprised by one fact if the way something is seen or felt is interesting or moving.
posted by amtho at 10:40 AM on March 30, 2021
posted by amtho at 10:40 AM on March 30, 2021
I'm a mod on the main Trek subreddit and we definitely had a lot of speculation about Ash and Voq well before the twist happened.
One of the main drivers was the discovery that the actor who "played" Voq, Javid Iqbal, had hardly any internet evidence that he actually existed, which lead to further theories (supported by the show's hints) that Ash and Voq were the same person (as it turns out the fake actor was named after Shazad Latif's father).
DSC did earn a LOT of sustained hate from certain parts of the fandom, who took the fact that the fandom picked up on the twist as "proof" that it was "bad writing" (ugh) but I agree with you that it was pretty clearly intentionally telegraphed as a fun twist/clue hunt for fans.
posted by fight or flight at 11:10 AM on March 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
One of the main drivers was the discovery that the actor who "played" Voq, Javid Iqbal, had hardly any internet evidence that he actually existed, which lead to further theories (supported by the show's hints) that Ash and Voq were the same person (as it turns out the fake actor was named after Shazad Latif's father).
DSC did earn a LOT of sustained hate from certain parts of the fandom, who took the fact that the fandom picked up on the twist as "proof" that it was "bad writing" (ugh) but I agree with you that it was pretty clearly intentionally telegraphed as a fun twist/clue hunt for fans.
posted by fight or flight at 11:10 AM on March 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
I had heard some folks asserting such a thing was going to happen before it was revealed, mostly on casting or something meta-show like that. I wasn't "surprised" when they revealed that twist, having already heard it suggested, but I was... some type of way that they actually went with it. Nothing against the idea of a bio-mole spoy type shenanigans, it just overall was a weird and creepy and kind of ooky arc for everyone involved. Definitely one of those bizarre things you can chalk up to myriad production nightmares of the first three seasons of Disco.
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:52 PM on March 30, 2021
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:52 PM on March 30, 2021
Response by poster: Thanks for the links! I guess by "reactive," I mean in Fanfare and a lot of other spaces, someone will mentioned "the Voq/Ash" twist as fact and then people will respond to that, and I'm interested in seeing people actually figure it out.
posted by Ideal Impulse at 4:53 PM on March 30, 2021
posted by Ideal Impulse at 4:53 PM on March 30, 2021
Gotcha. But the Internet figured it out in about 8 hours, or arguably several weeks before Ash Tyler's first appearance. You need to find people who aren't online.
posted by Nelson at 8:19 PM on March 30, 2021
posted by Nelson at 8:19 PM on March 30, 2021
Im just really shocked that you werent impressed with metafilter's Fanfare page for Discovery. Ive loved following along with the breakdowns there. The fandom here is very positive in general, and really smart. They figured it out but only as a guess, and we were all excited to follow along the little hints as they came.
posted by Illusory contour at 9:18 PM on March 30, 2021
posted by Illusory contour at 9:18 PM on March 30, 2021
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