subspacecommunication
“Originally, the giant tardigrade was intended to be a crew member on the Discovery named Ephraim (in honor of Johann August Ephraim Goeze, who discovered real-life tardigrades). Ephraim would have been Stamets’ superior, have conversations with Burnham, and even wear a specially designed Starfleet uniform with a sash on which his badge would be pinned. However, the idea proved too expensive.”
Oh shit it has a name already. Ephraim it is.
Also lmao reminder of how many things could have been great and then just weren’t. :’D
tealdearest
I’m not entirely sure people would be able to take it seriously because weird/adorable in a non rubber forehead alien way, but honestly it’s not like there isn’t plenty of harder to swallow stuff going on, what’s one good waddle-y boy with rank?
That is definitely the problem with Discovery right there though. Grimdark/gritty is considered “realism” these days when it isn’t. And not only is it not realistic, it’s also pretty much the antithesis of the Star Trek philosophy. And it’s worrying as hell that we’re even at a point where “grimdark” and “realistic” have become synonyms, it really says something about the social climate.
Unfortunately I think you’re right, and the kind of audience that Discovery generally appeals to is one that would also not feel they could relate to or empathise with the tardigrade in any significant way, and would consider it an embarrassing joke character. So even if they brought it back by surprise in season 2 and established it as a character, I can’t see it going down well with the core audience, despite that there’s a small but devoted group of trek fans here on tumblr who seriously want the tardigrade to have a part that is actually significant (instead of how throwaway his plot was in the show).
Luckily, my stuff isn’t really for Discovery’s general audience either! My stuff is for those of us who want good old Star Trek goof, and my Discovery stuff is the adventure romps of TOS mixed with the space family of VOY. A waddle boy is right at home.
I just feel like if you’re gonna bring waterbears and biologically controlled space travel stuff you should at least have the decency to use your giant massive Hollywood budget for cat suit fitters or whatever and spend it on some good old fashioned farscape style puppetry.
Agree. I’ve said it several times now, but I seriously would have preferred more of that budget went into things like sorting out Saru’s shitty hooves than doing holograms.
And yeah, as a whole franchise, Trek has criminally little puppetry. There’s an entire fantastic amazing discipline there completely underutilised. Tardigrade could have very very easily used actual practical effects.
