Is Star Trek Discovery that bad?
from cuchi@startrek.website to startrek@startrek.website on 27 Sep 01:59
https://startrek.website/post/29577558
from cuchi@startrek.website to startrek@startrek.website on 27 Sep 01:59
https://startrek.website/post/29577558
I recently saw Star Trek Picard, the first season was okey, season 2 was awful, the season 3 was nice.
Acording some critics last Discovery season is bad, so now I’m afraid of looking a series who has a bad ending, it worth to watch or is as painful as Picard Season 2? Or I should watch Strange New Worlds and Enterprise instead?
threaded - newest
I’ll be honest, I can’t remember all my particular criticisms, but here’s my impressions that I have left:
It’d be more accurately titled Star Trek: Burnham, because 95% of the time, every problem or mystery is somehow related to Burnham, everyone else is just supporting cast.
Like Picard, each season felt very disconnected from the others, there’s some continuity, but you could almost name the season based on the feel of an episode.
Plots more often than not felt underwhelming, as they were solved by essentially deus ex machina, mcguffins, surprise reveals or abrupt character changes.
It was largely visually ok, actors all did at least a decent job.
I have 0 desire to ever rewatch a single episode.
I always called it ‘The Burnham Show, starring Michael Burnham’.
It was crazy to me how they could make every plot line revolve around her in some way, have her always be part of figuring out the solution, everyone else fawning over how great she is and what they’d do without her, just the lengths the writers went to to insert her everywhere. It’s just so on your nose and gets really tiring after like 3 seasons.
Compared with like DS9 where you could have whole episodes where the main character, Quark, only has like 1-2 lines and they focus more on supporting cast like Cisco or just Bashir and Garrek (sorry, I couldn’t resist :) )
Did we watch the same show? She is literally demoted and sent to prison in the first episode.
@Corgana she did redeem herself.
You’re suggesting that redemption from disgrace is the same as “everyone else fawning over how great she is and what they’d do without her”?
@Corgana That's what redemption is about. It's recognizing that even the greatest among us make mistakes and can still be great.
Do you have any evidence to support your claim? I looked it up and I didn’t see anything about “redemption” necessitating the fawning over of the redemptee by others, so until someone claims otherwise I’m going to believe Mr. Webster.
@Corgana People fawned over her because she was a loving character who did great. That greatness emerged from her redemption and would have been lost to whatever the Federation's idea of a prison cell in the 23rd century otherwise.
I've been on social media for a while and I have to say, this has all the hallmarks of a flame war. So this is all I'm going to have to say on the matter. You can throw darts at her photograph on your own wall.
Wait what? lol I like Burhnam. I was arguing with the guy who was making shit up to hate on her!
If there’s one thing I’d like to peek behind the curtain to see, it’s the streaming metrics for each trek.
My gut instinct is that almost nobody wants to rewatch it unless it is their own favorite trek. I know I don’t.
Discovery’s characters are somehow simultaneously boring yet also obnoxious jackasses. The writers of the show apparently thought Star Trek would be more interesting if everyone in the future had, instead of professionalism and humanism, histrionic personality disorder and chronic hemorrhoids.
Discovery is fine. It takes some weird turns, sort of a necessity since they chose to make it a prequel with a unique propulsion system. And it is not like the 90s shows. And there’s a vocal group of fans that hate it just because it’s different, it was the first show coming back from the long show hiatus, and many are simply incapable of admitting that.
Picard’s seasons are all weird in their own way and with their own flaws, totally separate from Disco.
Watch the first season and make your own decision. Star Trek fans are some of the worst for having outsized online hatred of shit that doesn’t matter.
The first season, and the first few episodes of season two take some extra weird turns because of the revolving door of producers during that period. The original producer left the show during season one. Then a duo took over who took the story in quite a different direction. Those two left in early season two. After that production finally settled into a more stable state.
Anyway the characters and acting are great, and that counts for a lot!
Fans hated it not solely because it was different, that’s hardly a reason. They hated it because:
It wasn’t just different, it was bad. Really bad. It was like a vuvuzela in an acoustic song.
And this is coming from someone who watched a season and a half before quitting, but who loved Enterprise, who also had its glaring flaws, but was true to canon.
If I can present examples to you of those things happening in other Star Trek series would it change your mind about those other series?
Or does this list of criteria selectively apply specifically to Discovery?
You’ve said it, examples. All series have their flaws, but overall their qualities made them last. Who hasn’t heard of someone binging all of TNG? Who has heard someone say “Discovery was so good I’m rewatching it with my friends”?
Why is it when those things you listed show up on other Star Trek series you consider them to be “flaws” on an “overall quality” show, but on Discovery they become “reasons to hate”? Why the double standard?
Those are reasons to hate any show. Discovery made the mistake of being made mostly of that.
It just feels awfully weird to me that your list of criteria that makes a show “hateable” only applies to this particular show. And when another show checks off the items, the list suddenly stops being “hateable items” and instead becomes a list of minor nitpicks.
I just can’t figure out what the difference is, what could it be about Discovery in particular that would cause you to hold this list of criteria with such gravitas, but when the listed items appear on a different show, you don’t seem to mind? What could the difference be?
Again, let me explain it as a metaphor:
a) You want to buy a new house, it’s beautiful although there’s a few leaks here and there, but the rest of the roof is solid. You decide you like it.
b) You want to buy a new house, it’s beautiful although most of the roof has leaks. You decide it’s not wort the effort.
Was it the neighborhoods?
I don’t think Adira is a nonbinary girl, I think they’re just nonbinary. Their boyfriend was also trans for what it’s worth.
Georgiou is also pansexual, though that’s not particularly progressive (classic depraved bisexual trope), and Jett Reno was married to a woman.
So while you’re right, most of the major cast is cishet, I think there’s more people who hate it for being “woke” than for being not progressive enough, as I haven’t heard the latter much but the former is annoyingly common from the usual suspects. There simply hadn’t been actual representation of any of those groups (except the depraved bisexuals) in Star Trek before Discovery.
Also, as for “Vulcan powers”: we’ve always known that Vulcan logic is learned and not innate. Vulcans are naturally wildly emotional, their logic is basically just advanced meditation techniques, so it makes sense that a human raised by Vulcans could learn them. We’ve also seen non-Vulcans use the iconic nerve pinch before, it’s essentially just a Vulcan martial art and nothing to do with Vulcan biology. Picard and Data could both do it.
The only “Vulcan power” tied to their biology really is the mind meld, and that’s because Vulcans are mildly telepathic. Non-Vulcan telepaths could learn it too. I don’t think we ever saw Burnham initiate a mind meld though.
When I said Adira is a nonbinary girl, I meant she is female of sex and nonbinary of chosen gender.
it was a big deal when they announced her, but the treatment was milquetoast and timid. Same with the few non-cis characters, they were tokens, the show didn’t have the courage to depict a future where a diverse gender philosophy is widely accepted. They yellowed out of it and presented as if it was still our time. I don’t dislike the show for being woke, I dislike it for being shallow woke.
Same with the rest of it, it was 90% SFX and 10% writing. With long series like TNG you can afford the luxury of experimenting and fumbling the ball some weeks, it Discovery and Picard and massive productions that only have 12 episodes a year. They had to make every one of those count.
About Michael ‘s learned Vulcan powers, I don’t buy that. She was best than the Vulcans at their own academy, seemingly an expert at hand to hand combat, basically a prodigy at everything she wanted to do. That’s bad writing, super geniuses are too easy to write, so they had to make her emotionally immature to give her some challenge. Given she cried almost every episode, I’d seriously doubt she took to heart those meditation lessons.
It is a very flashy but bad show overall. If it hadn’t carried the name of Star Trek, it might have carved a niche in Sci-Fi, though. Space novels were called Space Operas after all.
I just don’t understand this “Vulcan powers” criticism. She was a prodigy, sure, and pretty good at doing anything she wants, but that’s a broader issue. I don’t recall any point where she showed any Vulcan abilities that would be implausible for a human to learn from being raised in that culture. Even if you could argue it contributes to her being good at too many things, that has nothing to do with Vulcans specifically.
And I find it very ironic that you’re complaining about the portrayal of trans characters not being progressive enough while misgendering Adira. Adira is non binary. They are not a girl, and they explicitly make it clear in the show they use they/them pronouns. Girl refers to gender, not sex, and furthermore sex isn’t relevant to 99% of conversations so you don’t need to disambiguate by finding a replacement word.
Frankly, I think Adira and Gray’s transness was handled quite well. I’m not sure what makes them tokens to you. Adira has more lines than most of the bridge crew, and the little queer family unit of Stamets/Culber/Adira gets quite a bit of development and screen time. Gray gets his time in the spotlight too, and gets a bit of character development of his own.
Both Gray and Adira are immediately accepted and never questioned by anyone on the crew. That’s a far cry from presenting it as if it were still our time. No one trips up on either of their pronouns once. You yourself refer to Adira with she/her in your comment.
The main difference between Adira and Gray is that Gray already came out and transitioned off-screen, while Adira comes out on-screen. I think their coming out scene is well done and realistic; even in the Trek future people will have to come out to some extent because people clearly default to binary pronouns. They aren’t mind readers, and they haven’t replaced all pronouns with they/them, so it’s only natural that one would have to explicitly tell people their pronouns.
Stamets immediately accepts Adira, with zero questions about nonbinary identity or pronouns, and then seemingly informs the rest of the crew off-screen. I don’t know what you think coming out nowadays is like, but that’s not the reaction most of the time. Adira comes off as kind of nervous in the scene, but they’re talking to someone they barely know at this point who arrived from hundreds of years ago. Plus they’re just a nervous person in general. I think it works well.
And Gray doesn’t have to come out at all, he’s accepted as male from day one. His transness only ever comes up as vague references to transitioning. Seems pretty accepted to me!
I fully accept I have difficulty with using these pronouns. English is not my first language, and in my daily life I know zero nonbinary people, literally zero, so I don’t get to practice. I’ve only seen trans people on TV, or in discussions on the Internet, so I don’t get to practice those either. Sometimes I wonder why it’s such a prominent issue on the media, specially American media.
I know a handful of people that are gay or lesbian, but they’re not into choosing special gender pronouns. So my only practice before this discussion was another online discussion more than a year ago.
I suppose I’m confused what your issue with the trans characters is then. I thought at first you wished there were more, but now you’re saying you don’t understand why it comes up so often?
I understand the difficulty getting used to new pronouns. It’s great that you’re doing your best to understand despite not having much experience with it. I was just trying to point out that the portrayal in Trek is already showing a world that accepts trans and nonbinary people far more naturally than IRL, even if there could be more representation of actual queer folks.
Some people like it. Some people hate it. You’re going to have to make that determination for yourself. You’ll know by the time you get to season two which camp youre in
Personally I found the cast wasted on poor writing. And as someone else mentioned, the show concentrates entirely too much on Burnham. Half of the bridge crew you probably won’t know their names by the end of season one. There were a couple of bright spots — Saru’s backstory and character were well done.
Don’t listen to the critics on the internet. If you’re not dying soon, watch it all. It’s Trek. It’s roughly 60% great, 30% mediocre to aged poorly, and 10% let’s never talk about it again.
I would go in rough order of release because they do like harkening back to stuff. Actually rewatching TOS will be good for SNW. And Disco S2 is its backdoor pilot.
Tell me more about this Star Trek that we are to never talk about
Janeway and Paris getting their lizard fuck on and having kids.
Code of Honor, Profit & Lace, Sub Rosa, …
Watch Lower Decks. Not because it is itself part of that 10% – it’s the best new Trek there is! – but because it talks more about it. Technobabble, giant Spock, lizards, it’s all there. Even random toy tie-in schlock:
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/91515c84-6ad6-41e1-8e07-6162ebdc0434.jpeg">
Code of Honor, Sub Rosa
That one episode of tng where the aliens of the week were black people
Or the one where Dr. Crusher bangs the ghost that banged her grandma
I feel we talk of the bad episodes way more than the good ones. It’s more entertaining.
I think if you’re looking for a recommendation, both Strange New Worlds and Enterprise are better than Discovery.
If you were ok with Picard season 1, at worst you’ll be ok with Discovery.
I will say that Strange New Worlds is technically a spinoff of Discovery, so a watching Discovery first makes more sense if you’re planning on watching them all eventually anyway.
Discovery has good episodes, but probably more bad episodes than good episodes. If you’re binge watching, which you can do now that it’s all been released, it won’t be so bad. If you watch a bad episode, you’ll come across a good episode soon enough. When we had to watch week to week, it was rough going bad after bad, week to week.
My honest opinion is that Discovery is nowhere near as bad as its detractors say.
That said, I also wouldn’t call it good Star Trek and didn’t finish the final season.
It’s boring, not bad.
If it doesn’t make you want to rewatch it whole years later, it’s bad Trek.
I felt that way about Voyager at one time.
Watched the episodes once as they came out but wasn’t seeking to rewatch.
But then our kids came along, hit their preteens, and for them Voyager reruns on cable was ‘their Star Trek.’
I watched Voyager more with them during their preteens and early teens than I did during its first run.
And I can say that it DOES stand up to rewatch. More, it has many ‘best of trope’ episodes.
I think perhaps it was Voyager’s unevenness in quality across the entire run or, perhaps fatigue from hundreds of episodes of TNG and DS9 rewatched immediately after they were broadcast, that led me to not appreciate Voyager as much initially.
All to say, I was very wrong about Voyager’s rewatch value, and perhaps many crusty 90s Trek fans are wrong about Discovery too.
Discovery is fine overall.
It may not be everyone’s favourite Trek but NO SINGLE SHOW IS EVERYONE’S FAVOURITE.
I’m stooping to yelling because, looking at it as someone who saw TOS in first run, it really can’t be stressed enough that there needs to be new Trek for every generation.
I didn’t expect that our GenZ kids would like Voyager best of the older shows.
And yes, for one of our GenZs, Discovery season one is ‘the best season of Trek’ ever. They have rewatched all the seasons of the show more than I have.
Discovery season 5 was fine in my view. I wasn’t fond of the series epilogue tacked on to the finale.
Season 4 of Discovery has a better premise and structure than Picard season 2 but both seem to suffer terribly from being shot under COVID restrictions. Other shows managed to write around the limitations without such stilted and drawn own scenes. I don’t know what Paramount instructed its writers teams be it’s boggling to see these seasons against the rest now.
I’m Genz, 25 years old and like the Voyager.
I watched all of Discovery. It’s different, a bit too touchy-feely at times for me. But, the stories are interesting and wild.
OTH, I liked all of Picard, so maybe you shouldn’t take my view into account.
I enjoyed Picard more than I thought I would
The worst Trek is still better to watch than a heck of a lot of other TV
Eh, it's ok. I'd definitely rank it below many other Star Trek series, but if you've seen all the better ones already then Discovery is worth a watch
My position too. It’s not my favourite Trek by far, but I don’t get the hate.
I have an intense distaste for Discovery, and wouldn’t recommend it.
I could rant about it a la Angela Collier for 4 hours but here’s my main issues boiled down to a bulleted list:
Some things I like about Star Trek:
• Optimistic future, humans can create greatness and beauty if they continue to check and overcome their faults
• No black and white villains. All antagonists are given nuance and development and many become favored allies
• Themes of teamwork, a functional ensemble, core crew are all valid and valued, no one star of the show.
• No such thing as magic or gods, everything is in the realm of human understanding if we have sufficient knowledge
Guess what Disovery has?
• Nihilistic, apocalyptic future
• Bad guys that are just bad, they’re evil, don’t ask questions
• One principal star of the show that is the focus of nearly every episode
• No attempt to explain things with any veneer of science
Then add on some blatant examples of total ignorance for the universe it’s set in, attempts at ham handed fan service by shoe horning in clumsy references to characters from other series, you have a show that is farther from Star Trek than a 14 year old’s submission on IO9. When it actually let the supporting cast do things, they were charming and likable, but Stamets, Saru and Tilly weren’t enough to keep me from getting mad at just about every episode.
If you don’t really care about or know anything about Star Trek it can be entertaining I guess, but why watch it when there’s Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks and The Orville?
I agree 100% with this take and want to thank you for that excellent video! I’m not all the way through yet, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it.
The Orville came out at the perfect time. The world was craving a good Trek, and was served Discovery. Orville scratched that decade-long itch, hitting all the right notes (though S1 was a bit rough…)
Similarly with Picard and Lower Decks. Picard was a high-budget fanservice with a thin veneer of storyline. Lower Decks was good old classic Trek fun and shenanigans.
And all the crying… my god, so many tears 🙄
With the soft speaking and camera panning across the bridge to catch everyone’s facial expressions in reaction to Burnham’s 13th motivational speech for the episode.
It’s a romantic comedy. Not science fiction. I lost it at the musical. Musicals are what happens when writers have no ideas.
Musicals are amazing and you are worse than Khan for suggesting otherwise
They’re also completely absent from Discovery…
OMG you’re so right.
<img alt="lol" src="https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/d6a79bed-b541-4582-ae3a-b4777d58609d.png">
Honestly I’m so used to hearing the same tired old arguments I didn’t even process that.
Do you have any examples of the Nihilism? I’m struggling to think of any… In fact Season 3 was about maintaining optimism and faith in the strength of the Federation against unbelievable odds.
Khan, Gul Dukat and the Clown from Voyager were all in Discovery?
I agree that there was a main character, but I also enjoy a lot of media with a main character so I don’t see that as a bad thing.
I suggest you avoid watching TNG and TOS because they do the same thing!
I don’t have much time to respond so I’m going to just hit one bullet for now:
Are you going to try to argue that Khan and Gul Dukat weren’t given nuance and development? Some of the things that made them such compelling antagonists is that we were given insight into their motives and backgrounds and perspectives. Khan absolutely was nuanced and the persecution and illegality of genetically enhanced humans was a great stepping off point for him. Just about every antagonist that pops up in Star Trek gets some kind of explanation why they are doing the things they are doing, and the crew takes a moment to acknowledge their inherent worth as living beings and, if they’re sentient, discuss possibilities for negotiations or nonviolence. I haven’t forgotten that Klingons, Ferengi, Borg, Cardassians and many others start off as villains, but we are given many opportunities for them to be “humanized” through characters like Worf, Quark, Hugh/Seven, Garak and others. There are no “good” or “bad” aliens in Star Trek.
So keeping that in mind, how did things go with the Ba’Ul? How did they handle Control? What nuance was Lorca given? In Discovery, your first impression of a bad guy being bad is always correct.
You didn’t say Discovery villains didn’t “have nuance and development”. So no, I didn’t say that either.
Maybe you drew too fast shot yourself in the foot?
Gul Dukat is arguably the most wellformed villain in ST canon. He is a delusional maniac pursuing a twisted vision of greatness. He even works alongside our heroes for a time!
Can I offer you an Armus instead?
I agree that Gul Dukat is a delusional maniac! The guy I replied to said that only Discovery had such characters. But that said I will gladly accept your Armus!
i think this clip really highlights all the issues i had with discovery.
kinda poor acting, cringe ass dialogue, boring and bland music, self aggrandisement, and too many obvious cgi ‘set pieces’.
new trek is action oriented space opera, not hard scifi morality tales. ig its just not for me
i would watch all of the above. with discovery at the very least the first four seasons, because S2 is a backdoor season 0 of strange new worlds and S4 rocks but needs the context of the first 3. it can be very uneven but i don't think it gets bad as often as Picard did and doesn't stay bad for as long as Picard does. Enterprise is similar, a rough-at-times ride that does really pay off in S3
you're only gonna watch one, though, i'd do strange new worlds. it's essentially a return to the TOS/TNG format and has a stellar cast. and frankly you don't need to watch disco S2 to fully know what's going on, they explain everything- i only watched disco after snw S1 left me hungry for more. SNW is seemingly unique among trek shows in that every season has been less well recieved than the last, partly because the short seasons are increasingly dedicated to gag episodes, but i'd say with the exception of one particular stinker in S3, a weaker SNW episode is still gonna be better than most shows at their best
but also- you're your own person and may walk away from all of these series feeling someghing different! no harm on trying and if you hate something hey, it only cost you 40 minutes of your life
Discovery is my least preferred star trek I’ve watched so far, I mean, it’s not “bad” per se, it’s just different from the rest of star trek and has a different formula.
The thing with discovery is that everything happens really fast, there’s always a sense of urgency and hurry, but actual plot development happens really slowly.
Conflict takes a whole season to resolve, instead of standard one episode which you expect from a star trek show.
Also, I hate how the actors mumble instead of talking.
It’s not bad, it’s just not my favourite format.
Stop at Season 2 and it’s an ok time.
Most any criticism of the show is true. I will say that it is a good series to watch with people who haven’t watched Star Trek before because it is a little un-Trek-ish and there is less to stop and explain. Also, since the mission is top secret it has little overlap with anything except SNW.
As a Star Trek fan, I was happy to get more Trek, the same as I was happy to get more Picard (that S2 was a pain though!), Lower Decks, Prodigy, and even the Short Treks.
My wife was pulled into the world of Star Trek by Discovery (a full 36 years after I’d started watching the franchise) and now she loves it and wants to watch all of the other series. So, Discovery gets a point for that.
(I haven’t seen Section 31 yet. It is supposed to be very bad.)
I really liked parts of it…from themes to characters…but found it really hard to sit through, most of the time. They had a really annoying way of rehashing everything that happened, after-the-fact…as if we needed to be constantly reminded about details that were literally from ten minutes ago.
It reminded me of the dialogue formats used in cheesy Mexican telenovelas. You can’t mention someone’s name, without also including a brief description of who they are related to, and what they’ve previously done. No one talks like that in real life. Especially when the person you’re talking to, was right there with you when that event took place.
If you remove all the superfluous dialogue, then the actual length of each episode, was less than 20 minutes.
@cuchi it is bad...
I absolutely loved that look for the Klingons. I was so sad to see it meekly watered down in later episodes. It’s what they should have done in The Motion Picture!
Discovery is fine and at the time it was the only modern Trek we had so there’s that, it’s enough for me to like it.
The only problem I had with it is that every season is “OMG we have to save the all fucking universe!”, other than that it’s cool.
Then we had Strange New Worlds so my thirst for “let’s just explore that funny planet and have a drink at the mess” Trek was satisfied.
I still watch discovery because ‘spaceships goes piou piou piou eat my phaser’ and that’s what I want it to be.
I liked it though it did feel that the series had a tendancy to take itself maybe too seriously. Trek is best when it knows when to keep things on the lighter side and/or create ongoing gags and themes to call back to during the series. Discovery didn’t really feel like it had much of that.
Despite that it was still a good watch IMO. Burnham tended to be at the center of the series though the other characters do get interesting when they got more time. You should just give it a watch and decide for yourself.
Also if you want to know the backstory of Star Trek Strange New Worlds you’ll want to watch at least some Discovery, SNW is a spin-off.
And giving credit where it’s due, Discovery was the first of what became a whole bunch of new Trek shows that came out afterwards. If Discovery was that bad then none of the other newer Trek shows would have even made it to air. Before Discovery it had been a while since any new Trek shows had appeared, at some point the Star Trek universe needs new blood to keep things going. Else it’s just going to be older people talking about the original Star Trek series and TNG and it’ll just be something that used to exist a long time ago.
I think Discovery is perfectly OK Star Trek. However, because it had a few changes in show runners things progress very strangely.
Season 1 is a 10 hour movie. I liked it for doing something different, and thought the plot twist was interesting.
Season 2 starts off good, but then jumps the (metaphorical) shark at the end.
Season 3 thru 5 starts to feel more like traditional Star Trek, just with wacky doom’s day scenario in the background until it’s resolved at the end of the season. It honestly feels too formulaic, but I thought Season 4’s ending was fantastic, some of the middle stuff was a mixed bag.
Anyway, I still think you should watch it. It’s perfectly adequate. Didn’t make me throw up at all.
I love Discovery. Some of the criticisms are valid; every season has a few dumb moments that make me shake my head. But I love the characters, the actors are all great, Doug Jones in particular is a treasure, and the first contact in season 4 feels more like a proper science fiction scenario than any other in Trek.
One thing to keep in mind is that the tone shifts considerably season to season. It starts off quite grim and gritty, but don’t expect it to stay that way.
It has its weaknesses, but I think you should watch it if just to form your own opinion.
I’ve only watched through the middle of season 4, where I got a bit tired of it, though I might pick it back up.
Season 1 is interesting, season 2 is weird, and season 3 has its flaws but keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Season 4 I feel like squanders the new setting introduced in season 3; the plot they introduce feels so artificial to me, which is very upsetting because it feels like the new setting has so many stories that would practically write themselves even if you do decide to lean on “Big Bad Villain/Problem” storytelling.
If you’re a fan of older Star Treks it’s bad, real bad. I watched until the end of season 2 with my partner and had to bail. Everyone above has given good reasons why, I’ll add one I haven’t seen: the lead actress (Soneqa Martin-Green?) overacts Michael Burnham. She overdramatizes almost every scene, to the detriment of the believabolity of the in-universe world, I tried to overlook it but found it grating. I told my partner that half-way into season two, and she responded that she doesn’t really see it. Then about five seconds later Burnham is raising her voice to a senior officer and on the verge of tears over nothing… a minor misunderstanding. Partner laughs and goes, “ok yeah I see it”.
I’d rewatch Enterprise 100 times over ever watching Discovery again, and Enterprise is probably my least favourite pre-2010 Trek, if that helps you.
I mean, Star Trek dosen’t had overacting in general?
Discovery gets a lot of selective criticisms in online spaces. I don’t want to say it has anything to do with being the first Star Trek show with a Black female as a central main character, but Burhnam does seem to be more frequently criticized for behaviors that are celebrated when done by someone like Kirk or Riker.
Go ahead. Watch it. 🤷🏻
TOS does but the 80s/90s series not so much.
@CmdrShepard49 @cuchi Wait, are you including Voyager and Deep Space Nine in this?
Speak for yourself.
I’ve been watching since 1967 and happily watched all five seasons of Discovery as they came out.
I’ve also rewatched them all with other members of our household.
I’ve definitely watched Discovery more times than Enterprise.
Cool. Power to you - we clearly have differing tastes. OP was on the fence and asked for an opinion so I gave mine, not sure who else I’d be speaking for. Now you’ve given yours, so they’ve even wider opinions 👍
It was your assertion that ‘if you’re a fan of older Star Trek’, someone would share your view that irked me.
There’s a lot of older fans that don’t dislike the new shows. We just aren’t feeling the need to caution other older viewers about the new shows.
@pulsewidth @cuchi I felt the same way, until a friend pointed out that's what Shatner did, too. Stylistically, tonally, etc. the shows are very different, but I wonder if #StarTrekDiscovery feels similar to TOS, to audiences with more modern tastes.
Seen it recently myself, about a couple years ago, never watched before, and it’s ok. I enjoyed it.
Don’t read too much into the comments, just watch it, of you don’t like it stop watching it.
For me it’s worthy, i have warched at this moment all ST except TOS, I tried it and I can’t.
It’s constant flawed buildup to a promise of something just around the corner the might actually be good, that not only never ever delivers on that promise, but pulls the rug out from under you more if ten than not, rather than just providing the payoff that you probably want (I lately keep thinking back to the Klingon War)
It’s always worth remembering that the people who dislike something tend to be the loudest.
There’s no doubt reactions to Discovery have been mixed. Personally, I enjoyed it. It was uneven and flawed and sometimes frustrating. But there were enough good moments to keep me going. I don’t think anyone can tell you if you’ll enjoy it… You just have to try it and see.
I feel it’s important to note that a lot of the “reactions” we see today are the result of coordinated review-bombing campaigns by “anti-woke” outrage-peddling youtubers.
That’s not to say it’s universally beloved among Trekkies online, just that for someone trying to suss out the “reception” is going to have a difficult time separating authentic reviews from inauthentic ones.
The central character of the show is the least interesting person on it somehow despite having what could have been a good back story.
Everyone else seems to be some sort of real person to me. She is just so boring and flat and everything revolves around her for no real reason. Her purpose seems to be to be the fence post that stands there and eventually cries.
The best thing about the show was it gave us Anson Mount as Pike and he is outstanding. He was so good as Pike we got SNW as a spinoff.
I couldn’t make it through the first season and tried picking up season 2 to see if it improved any. Didn’t watch anything past that.
It was written by people who didn’t have a good grasp on what star trek was, or thought they could remake it better for a new generation. But they ended up making something that just leaves a sour taste in your mouth if you know what that setting is capable of being.
To me, STD and the first season or so of Picard feel exactly like when a video game you thoroughly enjoy gets adapted into movie. There’s recognizable elements there, but nobody is acting the way they should and everything has that uncanny valley affect where you know what it’s supposed to be but it’s clearly failing to do it convincingly. It’s hard to point to what is actually wrong but you know several elements are off.
Protip: “STD” is not the official abbreviation for Discovery, it’s “DSC”. If you call it “STD” people are going to assume you watch those outrage bait youtubers who complained about how Discovery was “too woke”.
i loved picard and discovery the only bad thing about picard is that it made me remember watching tng every saturday at my dads house and he would of loved it.
Discovery was never bad. It’s just different. Some people say it’s not what Trek is about.
Star Trek has always been about captains exploring. Deep Space Nine challenged that with a commander; Sisko later made captain, but the station itself only moved in the pilot (closer to the wormhole; it’s always been in Bajor’s orbit) and maybe one other time? But they did plenty of exploring in the Runabouts, and Defiant, the ship they got later. But essentially the action came to them, and that was fine. Discovery is not about a captain. Michael Burnham is a… commander? I forget. On the original ship. Then she’s nobody. She gets promoted up but she almost never leads, but the show focuses on her. It’s… weird. (And she’s a woman… named Michael… pronounced the same as the male name… and this is never explained.)
Star Trek has always been about diversity, but Discovery had a gay couple in an openly sexual relationship. It never showed sex between them, but plenty of kissing and intimacy. Discovery also had a non-binary character with they/them pronouns. And as mentioned, a woman named Michael, but she’s cisgendered and straight, so that’s not why she has a guy’s name. Anyway, some people thought it was a few bridges too far.
Star Trek has almost always been wholesome. Deep Space Nine pushed the envelope, and while it showed Sisko doing some very bad things, profanity was never part of it, and the violence was mostly PG. Discovery was on streaming, so they had profanity and R-rated violence. There may have even been some mild nudity, I don’t recall. This put off a lot of traditional fans.
Before Deep Space Nine (i.e. The Original Series and The Next Generation), Star Trek has always been episodic. DS9 introduced arcs, but each episode still had its own identity, and this was true through Enterprise. But each season was its own thing on Discovery, and no one episode really stood alone.
Points 3 and 4, and to some, point 2, put off some older, “traditional” Trekkers who felt that Discovery was made for the younger generation and was not “for” them. And I can dig it. I mean, it does follow the recent-ish films where the ships are flashy, not tacky with their tech. (Keep in mind, the ships were always flashy for their time! It’s just, we cling to the old designs and the newer, flashier one just seems excessive, but now, the newer, flashier one is dull in comparison to the ones that have followed it.)
As for Picard, that was purely a sequel to The Next Generation (and to a lesser extent, Voyager, because of Seven of Nine). It was a love letter to the fans of that show, those shows. As purely its own thing, it’s a weaker Trek entry, but for those of us who grew up with 80s/90s Trek, it was good closure since the movies were neglecting those characters. Another such show might be Prodigy, which is a more direct continuation of Voyager, but Prodigy stood on its own better with its original cast. Picard’s original cast was not very good, but very forgettable.
Back to Discovery, it’s very much its own thing, set both before TOS and after anything else (minor spoilers — plot device allows them to swerve around any continuity problems). It did launch Strange New Worlds, which Trekkers seem to like more than Discovery, as that is a straight TOS prequel, showing the (movies/newer) original Enterprise under Captain Pike, who was captain before Kirk. Spock’s in it, too. (I have yet to watch SNW, but I plan to. I just finished Prodigy and I like to space them a bit.) Discovery also launched Section 31, the streaming-only movie, which is about as bad as you’ve heard. The less said about that one, the better — if you want to watch it, you should, and you should do so without worrying what Internet People think about it. It’s still Star Trek, albeit some of the weakest Trek out there.
Personally, I rate Discovery above ENT but below Voyager. I have a hard time deciding whether Discovery or Prodigy is better. Prodigy was a computer-generated anime that aired on Nickelodeon and that all sounds bad, but it was actually very good. It might seem at first that Kate Mulgrew (Janeway/Hologram Janeway) is there to prop the cast up, but they all shine so brightly, they don’t really need her as much as they think. I liked TNG, DS9, and VOY all better than STD and… whatever we’re abbreviating Prodigy to (PRO? STP?). As a child of the 80s, TOS is a bit dated for me, but the stories were so good… that’s another one that is hard to place for me.
I recommend you watch it, but if you do, you have to finish the season. You can’t drop it mid-season, and if you do, you can’t judge it, because the individual episodes aren’t meant to be watched on their own. It’s meant to be binged. That said, you can safely stop at the end
I am one of those older traditional Trekkers you mentioned (btw our generation prefers “trekkies”) and I actually enjoyed Discovery a lot. It’s definitely not one of my favorite Trek series though because of 2 things:
There is one HUGE exception to #1 and #2 above, and that’s the appearance of our good friend Mr. Kirk’s predecessor. There are a couple episodes that gave me the biggest chills from the old days, and if you saw the show (and you’re of a certain age) then you know exactly which episodes I’m talking about.
I’ve never heard of Trekkies as a generational term. I’ve always understood that Trekkers were people who enjoyed the show as a show (they’re on the Trek) whereas Trekkies enjoy the show as part of the show (they’re in the Trek). Like they believe Trek is real, or it’s our actual future, and that Klingons and Vulcans are out there somewhere. Gene Roddenberry preferred this term because the show is about hope, that things will get better to where the show is, and that when things are bad on the show, hope that they will be better or that it will all work out in the end. But me? I just like it as a show. It’s not “real” to me.
Though, I suppose everyone’s relationship with Star Trek (or, any other franchise) is unique and personal to them and you can’t just divide the fans into two categories. Still, that is what I always understood the difference between the two types was, as we are a franchise that has two names for its fans.
Regarding what you said about them having a generic space show and naming it Star Trek. That has happened before. Deep Space Nine exists because the guy made Babylon 5 pitched it to Paramount and they ran him off and stole his idea. Yes, Deep Space Nine is awesome and we love it, but it would not exist if not for Babylon 5, which we should all be thankful we also got. To this day no one who wasn’t involved knows exactly how much DS9 took from B5, but DS9 was not originally Star Trek, and it was widely criticised for not being Star Trek being that they were not exploring and that they were on a space station. I imagine a lot of episodes of TV started out as something else, some unconnected idea that was shoehorned into that show in the writers room. So while I don’t doubt that Discovery may have not been an original Trek idea, I do not care because neither was DS9 and I love DS9.
I’m not disagreeing with you, though, and I agree with some of your clarifications, particularly in point 1.
Okay so apparently I’m a Trekk_er_ by the modern definition, which used to be called Trekk_ies_ back when carrying pagers around was still in the future.
About DS9, yes that link with Babylon 5 is well known in these parts. But Paramount converted it into an actual bona fide Trek show. The constant parade of aliens through their stationary setting made it feel more alien than the rest of the franchise, and their position at the edge of Federation space. But that’s what the show was metaphorically, too: on the edge of the franchise, on the border between Trek and non-Trek in a way that could be thoroughly enjoyed by both groups.
Discovery wasn’t on the border of the franchise in the same way. It was more like an infiltrator, like if they had just made Babylon 5 but with Starfleet uniforms and no other changes.
I never softened on that particular development. The Star Trek Universe I know and love is based in optimism, and I want to believe in a Federation that keeps adapting, improving, and ultimately continuing as a positive force moving forward through the dedicated collaboration of an infinitely-diverse collaboration of peoples.
Disco took that basic core of all the flavors of Trek we’ve ever had and said “LOL never mind, all the principled and optimistic stuff you loved leads to a dystopian crapsack future and everyone’s sadder assholes than before, u mad?”
I’m so confused by this comment. Season three is literally (literally) about “a Federation that keeps adapting, improving, and ultimately continuing as a positive force moving forward through the dedicated collaboration of an infinitely-diverse collaboration of peoples” even in the face of overwhelming odds to the contrary.
I agree Discovery over Enterprise.
It’s hard to hold up the show that showed our first hero captain in the franchise not only condoning but choosing torture as an alternative as being ‘more optimistic’ or ‘more in line with Star Trek’s aspirational vision.’
Then there’s its sharp retrograde to bro culture.
BTW I’m almost as longtime a fan as possible.
My first episode was TOS ‘Devil in the Dark’ on the day it first broadcast in Canada in early 1967.
Since then, I have seen every episode in first run the week it aired EXCEPT when Enterprise went off the rails after 9/11, trying to be an apologia for the appalling reaction of the US which suddenly condoned torture and violations of the international rules based order.
Well said, Enterprise is my least favorite… until Season 4 which I consider to be some of my favorite Star Trek.
But same goes for Discovery! I appreciated what they were trying to do but it didn’t click with me. And then seasons 4 and 5 I consider to be some of Trek’s best.
Yes, there were a few great season one Enterprise episodes such as ‘The Andorian Incident’ directed by Roxann Dawson of Voyager and guest starring Jeffrey Coombs as Shran but it was the fourth season that truly redeemed the show.
ENT 4x23 Archer vs Shran fight 👌
I watched all of Discovery. It is, by far, the worst of all Star Treks. (Disclosure: I have not seen TAS.)
The reason is simple: Discovery is really the Michael Burnham show. She is the Mariest Sue who ever Mary Sued. Discovery could have been a really great show if it had been an ensemble show because it has a lot of very interesting characters whom we never explore.
Instead, everything centres around Burnham. She is the reason for the war at the start of the show. She is the magical, fated solution. She is Spock’s (adopted) sister and had immeasurable impact on his life. Even through timey-wimey things, her (biological) mother comes to save her and the universe.
And on top of all that is the crying. Oh, gosh, everything is so emotional on this show. There is a time and place for emotions, but Discovery was too much of it, including inappropriate times. Burnham and her maybe-broken-up-boyfriend stop in the middle of an infiltration in a hostile station to talk about their relationship.
Even the really great characters, Saru and (Emperor Georgiou) centre around Burnham. She is like a sister to Saru, she saved his life, he gives up being a Captain to continue serving under her captaincy. Burnham is Georgiou’s daughter (not actually), and Georgiou’s love for her (as much as she can love) changes her.
No one has a story unless its actually about Burnham. Or they get a story and then get killed off.
The best thing about Discovery is it brought Trek back on TV and it gave us the rest of this era of shows.
It’s not my favorite Trek, but I do like Discovery. That said, your summary is 100% accurate and emphasizes my least favorite parts of the show.
For clarity’s sake, a Mary Sue describes a character who can do no wrong. This is how it’s described on TVTropes:
I’m curious how you square that description of a Mary Sue with Burhnam’s many regular, repeated, failures and flaws as seen on screen and described in the dialogue? As one example, her character is introduced in the very first episode as a misguided mutineer and is demoted for it.
@Akuchimoya @cuchi
I am no fan of Discovery but can you re-read that and substitute another name, like I dunno James T Kirk? Why is it always about him? Why is he so good at everything?
Having a female MC does not make it automatically a Mary Sue. Especially not when they are smacked down constantly, shown making lots of mistakes, and having a character development arc.
I think Picard was worse than Discovery. Discovery had major flaws but there were moments when it really shined. It had some interesting ideas too. It just wasn’t an ensemble show.
Picard is just awful. Mediocre S1-2 that doesn’t know what it’s trying to achieve, and then S3 abandons every plot thread that they bothered to build up in favor of nostalgia baiting and bringing back the Borg, which was very tonally confusing after S2.
The tone is also just bizarrely dire throughout. People complain about Discovery not feeling like Trek, but I had that problem way moreso with Picard. And now it’s this minefield in the canon of the early 25th century that every show that comes after will have to figure out what to do with. At least Discovery going immediately jumping to the far future means it wasn’t able to fuck up the timeline much, and what it did do was cheekily classified.
Not Mary Sues:
Kirk: repeatedly impresses god-like beings with his emotional maturity and reasoning. Fought hand-to-hand with Khan and won. Saved the whales.
Picard: passes Q’s trials and makes a case for humanity’s worth, multiple times. Proves Data’s person-hood. Survives Carassian torture by sheer willpower.
Sisko: chosen as the Emissary. Does wrong and suffers no consequences.
Janeway: holds fast to Federation principles even when it prevents her from getting home; gets home anyway.
Archer: so important that Daniels and the Xindi both fight over him. Ends the Temporal Cold War and founds the Federation.
Mary Sue:
Burnham: starts the Klingon war, freed from prison by a Terran who uses her as a pawn. Gets called out for breaking rules.
Is this right, @Akuchimoya@startrek.website ?
Thank you for the sanity. I get so tired hearing Burhnam being held to such an obvious double standard. I wonder why? What is different about the character?
<img alt="" src="https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/8571bea0-8c58-4c4a-9ba6-6ae1793a8b2c.jpeg">
There is an entire season about warp drive not working anywhere in the universe. It turns out that it stopped working because an alien got really sad. Not because he did anything because he was sad, just because he got sad. Ohh, and somehow the Vulcans, with all their logic, never thought of tracking down the cause by triangulation.
That was the end of the series for me.
I really find this narrative offensive.
First there’s the mischaracterization of a very young and completely dependent who child completely abandoned with the death of the last adult who cared or supported him.
But more than that, Star Trek is littered with a trope about children with incredible powers to interact with the universe who nearly destroy the galaxy or civilizations or large swaths of them.
It started with Charlie X, and was taken up by every other series, sometimes more than once.
On all those other occasions, our hero ship and crew miraculously saved the day and prevented disaster by psychic or superpowered child who was incapable of adult decision-making.
Discovery called the bluff.
Discovery reversed the trope, had the child’s powers actually destroy civilization.
Instead of the hero crew stopping the disaster in the nick of time (again), Discovery finds the child and solves the problem.
And long time fans are offended by THAT?!!
Honestly, when I hear that interpretation it makes me feel like the person didn’t actually watch the season, they just watched the outrage peddling influencers online.
Semi-related but I lost count of the number of times someone on Reddit described Adira’s coming out (a ten second moment in a larger unrelated scene) as a “huge story arc” or being comprised of “multiple episodes” being “shoved in the audiences faces”. I felt like I was taking crazy pills until I learned that’s exactly how the outrage-tubers were presenting it. If you’d never watched the season you’d have no idea it was such an inconsequential moment.
Sorry to say, I watched every single episode, up until the end of that season, myself. I’ll admit to being extra harsh in judging this season since I was already pretty fed up with the writing by that point. I had very little patience left.
I’m sorry, but if you truly watched the entire season, you’d know that your description of the events is incongruous with the events as presented on screen.
This, and he wanted connection from someone of his species, and the first officer of the one ship that can overcome the plot debuff happens to be that species, a species we barely see outside this plot…it’s writing so bad you can’t see the show through it. Emotional stories are appropriate, it’s why Troi was a bridge officer. But this show was constantly setting up unsolvable problems that could only be fixed by this one crew, which breaks immersion. Good trek doesn’t have 50 Galaxy or universe ending threats only fixable by plot-armored main characters, it has ship, person, and planet level threats giving you the space to appreciate the human story. Even DS9 kept the stories on missions while the thread of the war was just a hum with reasonable stakes.
Naw it’s a journey. I accepted discovery like I did voyager. Once I saw what it was in it own, much better. Second watch got better, just like voyager.
It’s also important to separate what you’re seeing online from the leftovers of a manufactured “opposition campaign” orchestrated by a handful of reactionary influencers.
Personally speaking I did not like the early two seasons, but I thought three is ok, and seasons four and five I consider to be some of Trek’s best!
I’ve been doing a complete rewatch of Deep Space 9, and it really underscored why I didn’t enjoy Discovery and Picard. My favourite parts of DS9 are the character driven moments, whether they’re big and dramatic, or lightweight and silly. I like that the show has enough space for that. The show has more Plot than previous Star Trek, but that Plot still serves the characters. Discovery is not nearly as bad as Picard on this front, but I still found myself wishing for more opportunity to get to know the characters.
The main problem with discovery is they set it basically in the tos timeline which created all these weird plot things that had to be resolved with weirder plot things. I firmly believe if they had set it a decent amount post voyager that it would have made it much better. I don’t want to spoil but I felt season 2 fit better but having such weird start really messed it up for me.
No. Far from it. The First half of the first season sucks, second half gets better, Second Season is really watchable, third season is where it grows it’s beard.
It’s fine. It’s probably the weakest of the modern Trek shows, but only because SNW and LDS are so good.
It wasn’t my cup of tea.
My favorite new Trek remains Lower Decks.
You need to get passed the first story arc, then it gets really good. It doesn’t really feel Star Trek™ at first, but that changes and it’s worth the journey.
It’s not very good, but it does have some really good moments, and some really good ideas mixed in with the less-good stuff. It’s worth watching. Just put your fingers in your ears and la-la-la through all the Klingon retconning and inappropriate pathos. There are moments where the emotional storyline are good, but they cry wolf too often.
Discovery was so bad I had to stop after season 2 and have written off everything that they’ve set in the 31st century
It’s fine.
And those that disagree should be forced to watch Star Trek: Section 31 until they can have a reasonable conversation like an adult.
I very much enjoyed the start but steadily lost interest.
There’s some good stuff in Discovery all the way through, don’t get me wrong. But they kind of flipped the script in a way I did not appreciate.
Most of classic Trek showed us a future with a largely functional society, mostly full of good people who were ready and willing to deal with occasional corruption.
Lots of newer Trek, and especially Discovery, showed us a future where society is largely dysfunctional and corruption is the norm. Almost everyone in the series who isn’t a main character (plus a couple who are) is a piece of shit. Even the “good guys” frequently encourage or at least tolerate clearly evil behavior as long as it serves their ends. But it’s okay because…friendship I guess?!?
Their heart is in the right place but the writing is generally bad. I think this generation of writers is incapable of imagining a better world, which, sure, is understandable, given how thoroughly corrupt our current society is. But it’s deeply depressing. It lacks soul.
SNW is better in this regard. But you’ll probably want to watch season 1 of Discovery first since there’s some crossover.
It’s not awful. In fact it has a lot of great high points. On balance, I would say that if you compared it objectively to the first 65 episodes of TNG, it would compare rather favorably.
Really bad. I want some philosophy. Some slow, quiet discussions. Discovery is all bombast and action. No substance.
Star Trek Discovery is not “that bad”. Like Picard and some of the seasons of Enterprise, each season is a self-contained story arc, which I get is not for everyone. It also has a black female main character, which apparently is also not for everyone. IMO, the fifth season was not quite as good as the first four (I actually like the fourth the best), but there was still a lot to like. I do think they did better after they moved to the 31st century so they weren’t as constrained by canon gymnastics. It also (for a single season) gives us our only non-human main ship captain to-date, which I think is a good thing in a series centered on the idea of friendship with other worlds. There are definitely things I would change about the show if I could, but on the whole I think it’s a great addition to Trek.
(Also, Michelle Yeoh, Mary Wiseman, and Tig Notaro each steal every single scene any of them is in. Worth watching for those three alone.)
One thing I did hate, though, is the epilogue on the last episode. I will skip that when I rewatch the series.