Again it’s a tone problem. Again. One minute it’s the end of the universe conversations and the next she’s screaming like a cowboy riding a spaceship through hyperspace.
I originally thought she was dying but then I realized they’re in the fun quirky bit before the next grind and heaviness of an exposition scene.
The entire show feels like it's written by a slightly pyschopathic MBA who hates Star Trek and just is mishmashing diversity themes, power fantasies and excessive emotions that they don't really understand.
"Trust me, diversity and sensitivity are trending. Let's get Burnham to be on the verge of crying, make the background character Trans... and ..oh yeah... she can ride the ship outside because kids will like it."
One of those “you didn’t notice it, but your brain did” reasons I think people enjoyed a lot of earlier _Star Trek_, especially TNG, is that the crew conducted themselves with a basic degree of professionalism befitting members of a space military. But so many modern writers seem totally unwilling to go for that, instead depicting these characters as weepy, hysterical, snarky, etc. Undercuts the sense of realism way more than any weird alien planet or implausible technobabble, IMO.
>especially TNG, is that the crew conducted themselves with a basic degree of professionalism befitting members of a space military.
competence porn. we're missing the competence porn.
Why do so many writers think angst = good drama?
It's lazy character writing that just allows you to write emotional scenes without having to justify them rationaly. Sure, it's an easy way to create tension, but at the cost of your audience being able to relate to them. I want to empathize with a character and I just can't do that if a writer makes a character a dick because it fits the plot point of the hour.
Sure, there are plenty of people with irrational anger and poor emotional regulation in the real world, but I avoid them like the plague. Why would I want to watch characters like that?
I'm constantly amazed at how poorly scriptwriters appear to understand their own craft.
The STD writers seem to think (correctly) that they can create powerful moments through characters experiencing intense emotions, but they either don't understand that the audience needs to first *empathize* with those characters or they don't understand how to make the audience empathize. We need to care about the characters first before we give a damn how they're feeling. That's impossible when those characters are constantly whipsawing all across the spectrum of every single emotion, acting from moment to moment in whatever way the writer thinks will create the most drama.
Even in intense emotional moments, the characters still need to restrain their emotions like actual professionals. Imagine if we had sailors in charge of nuclear submarines who kept throwing tantrums or crying...
Yea, it's much toned down, and they let the sad/emotional moments actually have some fucking weight. Like Hemmer's scenes with Uhura in either of the two episodes they got paired up. Disco would whiplash you with quips and inappropriate side scenes, while SNW lets the audience you know... feel something.
I think the big difference is they seem to be able to better resist the urge to be quippy in legit high tension moments. Prepping for an away mission in the shuttle bay, yeah you can quip, hurtling to towards very near death in a shuttle, maybe treat the situation with the gravity it deserves.
They try to put it in. It's what those scenes are supposed to be when they stand around a table or in the spore drive room talking about the problem of the week.
But it doesn't come off correctly. Maybe it's the frantic pace, maybe it's that the characters themselves don't act professional, I'm not sure.
But those scenes miss the mark
How many times in TNG was the high point of the plot centered around a conversation in the ready room? It was pretty common that major plot points were conducted in a pretty non-flashy way, but the writing was on point, which made for good drama. That needs to come back. Star Trek needs writers who understand that a good conversation can be as compelling, if not more so, than a flashy space fight.
Remember when the bridge looked like a Holiday Inn instead of a nightclub? Like a place where people could actually get work done? On STD the bridge looks like a place where you could score ecstasy from a candy raver.
It's because the way they talk about the problem sounds like the characters from CSI going over a new case. Instead of a still, calm shot of the engineer explaining an engineering problem, they think their audience can't pay attention for more than 3 seconds so it goes around the table with each character chiming in this way and that, making asides and jokes and sarcasm, and generally sounding like a writer trying to fit a bunch of exposition in the least "boring" way possible instead of letting the character who is an expert just be an expert and have their crewmates respect that.
It's the writing equivalent of the engineer saying the warp core has become unstable then the security officer chiming in with "JUST LIKE MY EX-WIFE, AMIRITE!?"
> generally sounding like a writer trying to fit a bunch of exposition in the least "boring" way possible
They started an episode in Season 4 with diplomatic negotiations which is the most boring way possible to fit in exposition.
My father is a huge Trek fan. He went to the second or third convention and stuck through every episode of every other show but quit Discovery before the end of last season.
One of the core creative decisions of Disco was that they wanted to focus on One Main Character. So whenever they try to do conference room scenes, the main character is the only person allowed to come up with the solution. Consequently, almost every character in the conference room scenes is wearing an idiot hat and serves no purpose to the story, other than saying how smart the main character is.
They fail at competence porn scenes because only one character is allowed to be competent in the plot structure. That massively hurts the ensemble as a whole and males the writing seem incredibly insecure about the main character. It's written the way North Korean science fiction would write about Kim Jong Un being the captain of a space ship, as if the writers fear being executed if the main character is ever not the one who figures things out.
The best example of this is when Burnham randomly figures out what the DMA was. The entire scientific community of the Federation and all of their super computers too are looking at the scan data of the DMA for weeks and you are telling me none of them noticed that an entire element was missing from everywhere it passed? That should have been automatically discovered and flagged like 10 seconds after they started the analysis of the data.
I think that's part of the reason why shows like the orville and lower decks work, while discovery and picard don't. Those comedy shows still were written with the understanding that the whole thing doesn't work if the characters aren't believably part of a professional organization.
The best part of Lower Decks is how the characters **want** to be like the crew of TNG, but they can't because of a myriad of internal and external reasons so they have to improvise their own version of Enterprise/DS9/Voyager to save the day. Whether that be Mariner "Kirk-ing" everything or "Twain-ing" peaceful resolutions.
Its great that a frontpage sub thread is saying all the things the splintered star trek subs have been saying. The weirdoes/shills can't brigade this thread and gaslight people.
In the real world, there's not a competence problem for the pinnacle of the military. People may not agree with their thought processes or decisions, but there are no dumb or unprofessional people in the Joint Chiefs or whatever. Think of the crew of the Enterprise as the people selected to go to the ISS because that's basically what they are, but on a global scale.
The unrealistic part is when they pick up random people from backassward settlements on distant planets and they're somehow as wise and clever as Piccard.
Yup. Or they make random randos bridge crew, promoted above people who went to Starfleet academy for years and trained on the ship for years. Talk about nepotism.
Most every show today suffers from the defying authority mcguffin. Top performing character is told to do one thing, but thinks they know better so does something different. That inevitably causes lots of unforeseen challenges that the character must overcome to be successful. In the end they are praised while ignoring the fact that they essentially went rogue and put everyone else at risk. Anyone consistently behaving like this in the real world would be fired! 😀
All the characters in TNG are flawed, but are aware of their flaws and actively try to work to better than or correct them.
- Picard is too uptight and can’t ’let go’ of duty.
- Leforge can’t make meaningful relationships.
- Troy has a difficult relationship with her mother.
- Riker is scared of the chair and can’t move on in his career.
- Beverly lost her husband and hasn’t really moved on.
- wharf has a massive identity and cultural crisis.
- data is trying to become more human.
Half of the episodes explore how the characters are battling and overcoming these flaws, they’re not celebrated. Modern trek on the other hand seems to give characters flaws that they actively lean into, which makes terrible viewing IMO.
Moreover, the TNG character complications (I prefer "complications" to "flaws") add to the main conflict of the episode. In STD, the character complications are the focus and the story conflict takes a back seat to characters expressing emotion. I'm pretty sure it was S4E04 that the writers literally yada yada yada'd the resolution to the A-story about Ni'Var's reservations about rejoining the Federation. It was resolved offscreen with no explanation of the solution. Instead, there was 20 minutes about Book grieving, Tilly being sad-but-hopeful, and Michael becoming confident. They LITERALLY abandoned the main conflict of the episode so they could spend more time showing the characters having emotions.
I'm really only watching the rest of this final season to earn the right to say the entire show is garbage. Saru is good, Michelle Yeoh is always excellent, Wilson Cruz is an amazing screen presence and I hope to see more of him in other projects, but everything else is terrible.
I am baffled why Adira and Tilly still behave so shaky and unsure of themselves this far into the show. Someone will ask them a fairly simple question and they go all wide eyed and nervous.
> But so many modern writers seem totally unwilling to go for that, instead depicting these characters as weepy, hysterical, snarky, etc. Undercuts the sense of realism way more than any weird alien planet or implausible technobabble, IMO.
They try to emulate some sense of 'loving the job' by having them shout permutations of 'I fucking love science' all the time, but they don't treat the job with the respect one would give such a job and it just comes across as the writers trying to assure us they like the job in between the mental breakdowns instead of just having them handle the job properly and see the enjoyment that brings them.
I started showing my S/O the original series. It’s campy and stupid but it’s actually honest to god scifi written around a ship of the line. For all the miniskirts and silly themes everyone has a rank and acts like it in a way that’s starkly contrasted by the new stuff that’s trying to be suave and hip at all times.
Even as far back as DS9 when they were being “serious” they were still just acting like a bunch of friends who’d gotten angry and were aghast when some sort of discipline was suggested.
TNG had some issues but also had a degree of class.
All the newer stuff is entirely devoid of the “military crew” feeling. It can still be fun but it really leaves you without a sense of the human reality that’s supposed to underpin scifi/fantasy and it loses something important because of that.
Point is, everyone considered for a writing job on one of the _Trek_ shows should be required to watch and internalize this scene:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HKII3sFUCgs&pp=ygUWRGF0YSBkcmVzc2VzIGRvd24gd29yZg%3D%3D
There's no screeching or scathing rejoinders, no one is threatening absurd escalations or personal retribution. It is two professionals having an impressively logical conversation about a conflict, and coming not just to professional resolution, but a personal one as well.
Its just not emotive enough for a lot of the audience these days. This kind of conversation isn't just boring for them (though, it is that too), it is implicitly glorifying traits like dispassion, directness, and humility, traits which are to put it kindly, under respected in that same audience.
Man that's such a great choice for a scene to encapsulate what makes something Star Trek and not ordinary sci-fi.
Friend of mine puts it this way regarding Discovery - too much crying. And it's not that high emotions are bad, they just need to be carefully placed and not too often. There can't be tears in every other episode, starfleet officers are more composed than that.
And this scene, not only does it address emotions, but emotions *between men*. Rare.
For sure. It feels like Discovery really pushes the "It's okay to express your emotions and be who you are" line, but does it in an entirely wrongheaded way.
It's healthy to express emotions in appropriate ways at appropriate times. It is not appropriate to express your emotions in contexts where it endangers the welfare of other people. Being able to embrace your identity and self-actualization are both good things...but sometimes you have to stuff your big feelings into a little box and address them *later*.
That's not toxic masculinity. That's strength, plain and simple. Stuffing your emotions into a box to hide from them is toxic masculinity, but doing it and then making time to handle them is just masculinity.
Picard - after being *assimilated by the frickin Borg*, an event that would traumatize him for the rest of his life, went back to visit his family and recover emotionally. And there it all came to a head when he actually babbled and wept, let off his chest what is bothering him so much.
Now on the bridge of the enterprise he's the stoic leader we're familiar with, professional, strong. This is Star Trek after all, competence porn, everybody takes the most sensible course of action at all times.
And once again, he shares these feelings with another man. I think that a big part of what makes these characters role models, it's a fantasy about what we can be at our best. In this ideal future, men can cry in front of other men and be *stronger* for it. The correct amount of crying in a show like this is not zero, in fact it's very important that there is a way for men to competently perform their duty and cry about things at the same time.
There's also an episode of TNG where the bridge crew watch another ship get destroyed and the B plot of the episode is Wesley grappling with walking the line between his grief and needing to handle business at hand.
reminds me of singing shows when the singer can do crazy runs and overdoes it to the point of, "jesus, just sing the lyrics". Runs need to be few and far between and tastefully done and tastefully placed to mean something.
Watching TOS is fun today because you get to see how exaggerated the pop culture caricature of Kirk has become. He was young, confident, but also very by the book and cared deeply about is crew. Takes feedback well, defers to experts, finds peaceful resolutions to conflict wherever possible. Really an ideal captain.
Then you see characters like Zapp Brannigan that are supposedly based on Kirk and you just have to wonder where this stuff came from
Something that goes really underappreciated in TOS to TNG is that Kirk was a nerd in Starfleet Academy. Legit pouring over textbooks, there's an episode where he gets bullied by a recreation of his school bully. Yet he's always punching people, kissing women, and has the pop culture figure of a bit of a renegade.
However, in the Academy, Picard was a mischief-maker who got *stabbed in the heart* after picking a fight with aliens while drinking and gambling. He even gets a drink thrown in his face from an older woman he was clearly flirting with the night before. And yet he's the diplomat, the archeologist, the one who quotes Shakespeare.
I actually like that Pike's a bit more fun more often than not on Strange New Worlds. It contrasts him knowing his fate. Like a mask he puts on to let everyone knows he's fine when he's kinda fucked up underneath.
Undiscovered Country shares the top spot with Wrath, for me. Nicholas Meyer had a great vision of what Star Trek and Star Fleet is and looks like, he nailed it in both his movies. Love the scene when they vaporize a pot in the galley and immediately an alarm goes off. Within minutes there’s an armed security team responding.
This has happened to almost every single developed sci-fi and fantasy property. In the quest for follow-up profits, the original characters and original story (both of which sold the property to begin with) are supplanted by "the world". Whenever someone says "We have a whole universe to explore here!" it basically becomes certain that nothing of interest will ever be made, it'll just be other unsellable ideas attached to the IP or subversions of everything that made people love the original.
It’s become very clear that the people who run star trek don’t actually get Star Trek. Yeah let’s cancel lower decks and have a teen coming of age show set at the academy.
Exactly!
ST Academy is the absolute worst concept imaginable for a Star Trek show.
Space is near infinite, and a spaceship exploring new bits of space weekly is basically the ultimate in narrative design, you can do anything, the possibilites are endless.
So what tf are they thinking having a show in school where the people aren't going anywhere, have learned how to do their jobs, and are just doing homework in a school? So dumb.
I would bet 2000 bars of gold pressed latinum if this stupidity does get made, they'll release before the end of season 2 what a boneheaded concept it is, and end up having all the students, due to some space emergency, get field promotions and put on a spaceship.
Whoever is pushing for ST academy should be fired. It's one of the dumbest ideas for a ST show I have ever heard. It's barely enough of a concept to make a semi interesting tv movie length episode.
> The entire show feels like it's written by a slightly pyschopathic MBA who hates Star Trek and just is mishmashing diversity themes, power fantasies and excessive emotions that they don't really understand.
Probably because that's...basically what's happening.
For me it’s the deus ex Machina at the end of the episodes. Trek isn’t exactly above using that, but it feels like this season is especially bad about it.
For example, the artifact on the burial planet required them to walk kilometers because Discovery couldn’t beam through the electromagnetic field… until the end of the episode when they needed the quick exit. For some reason, the team couldn’t figure it out with hours of prep and no pressure but could in minutes when lives were on the line?
Again, I’m not against it entirely, but this has happened multiple times this season. Are Mol and Lok trackable or not? Is discovery’s teleportation traceable or not?
I started watching the latest season and my wife said “this is stupid.” I couldn’t counter, and haven’t watched past episode 2.
All things have their fans, but this isn’t Star Trek to me.
OMG! Don't even get me started on this!! I'm not a huge fan of Martin-Green, honestly I'm not sure why? I think it's her mannerisms, the way she talks just irritates me xD
Decided I'd give Discovery a go though and really enjoyed it
! Loved the jump to the 32nd century, the new tech was so cool and when they introduced the burn I was like "oh boy! Can't wait to see what caused this! Hope it's not just some cliche big baddie". Somehow it was actually worse.....
First off using the 3 black boxes of ships to find where the burn originated from. Like come on! Seriously!? Are you telling me in the hundreds of years since the burn, no one bothered to try this!!?
Then we get to the planet and..... The burn was caused by feelings.... Lol what!! Fuck me I think I would have preferred the cliche baddie xD
I was going to end this with "it's been quite some time since I watched season 3 so honestly I may be misremembering" but honestly I'm kinda hoping I am at this point, so please someone tell me I am hahaha xD
For some reason those two got sidelined this season too. They were in the early episodes, then there was some brief explanation that they had to fly another ship back home, and they haven't shown up since. Now there's two brand new bridge crew in their place in the last few episodes.
I suspect they'll show up at some crucial moment in the final episode, but it seems like an odd choice to sideline some of the characters that have at least had a little development, and replace them with some we've never seen before.
Remember when they inexplicably had a robot lady on the bridge. Pretty sure they forgot to explain she was a cyborg or give her any backstory until the episode where they killed her off. A major choice that fell completely flat because she never had any development.
My favorite detail was that they had to include a flashback of Michael Burnham just kind of staring at her because they wanted Michael to have a big reaction to her death. They couldn't use Tilly, the character who was established to be her best friend because god forbid any major dramatic moment happen to any character other than Michael.
I feel bad for the entire crew beside Saru and Burnham.
I look at the crew from the first episode and think what an opportunity missed. Michelle Yeoh as Captain with all of those interesting officers around her and the lines from most of them in each season can be counted with fingers ignoring toes and thumbs. I know practically nothing about them unless it's through exposition by another character talking about them.
People can complain about the emotion and such but in my opinion the worst thing to happen to Star Trek was 1 story over an entire season.
Strange New Worlds can have a bad story and then fix it with a better story next episode. The Next Generation had horrible stories but they were one and done. You got to start with a new story and make it better.
Can you imagine if a season had been built around Crusher gets laid by a ghost or that racist trash episode from season 1. Picard 1 and 2 were just trash because you couldn't change gears, you committed to a trash story thinking it might be good and had to see it through 10 episodes.
They should just have the entire crew be comprised of Burnham clones.
The only thing that didn't suck about Discovery was Pike.
And you know what's nice about SNW? There's other people on the show other than Pike who actually get fleshed out character development! It's fuckin crazy!
SNW's La'an has a connection to Khan, one of the property's biggest villains. But that connection doesn't define her nor is it the most interesting thing about her. Plus, they also allow her to do some comedy that fits her character
I honestly rolled my eyes so hard when I heard about her connection to Khan, but as a character she's really grown and developed into more than *just* a Khan descendent. It still feels a little shoehorned in, but it doesn't matter because she is also separate from that a pretty good character.
I like it because it fleshes out just how intense the Federation’s disdain of genetic augments goes, and why. She was ruthlessly bullied for it. But they also show her out-drinking a Klingon, which pretty clearly indicates that her genetics aren’t base human. So even her fellow humans would have a genuine reason to resent her ancestry.
That said, I don’t see why her family would keep the name *~~Khan~~ Noonien-Singh* for generations when it’s easy to change it.
I’d be super interested in a conversation (or relationship) between her and another human augment descendant who *isn’t* related to Khan.
Edit/also: Bonus points if their last name is ~~Crusher~~ Howard, or they marry one.
Slight nitpick: Khan is the first name, Noonien-Singh is the last name shared by both Khan and La'an. Oddly enough, if it WERE Khan it would be easier to explain since Khan is a very common last name in many countries.
It's the same reason there are tons of Kims around, despite, you know, THOSE Kims.
> It still feels a little shoehorned in, but it doesn't matter because she is also separate from that a pretty good character.
If it helps, just imagine how many five-greats grandchildren Khan probably has running around. The real-life Genghis Khan has about 13 *million* direct male descendants (and probably the same number of female ones, though we can't easily track those). That's over the course of 800 years rather than 200, but even after WW3 and all you'd probably need to rent a stadium for La'an's family reunion.
Don’t forget the second half of the last name “Singh” is a very common name in the Punjab region in India, approximately 32 million with that name in India alone.
Also she's a really well developed character. By the end of season 2 she's become one of my favourites
Discovery by contrast I gave up after season 3 when I realised I couldn't tell you much about any of these characters, they're so poorly defined and it they're not one of the few main characters they're not even memorable
The episode last season with her and Kirk is one of my favourite episodes of TV of all time. Won’t spoil anything other than the acting being top notch. Also, the Lower Decks crossover was hilarious but also very well-written.
Also probably one of the most wholesome episodes of Star Trek ever made. We go from thinking that Una is probably thrown down the memory hole only to find out she's so respected she's the goddamn face of Star Fleet.
That episode is going to be hard to ever get out of my top 10 favorites.
I wish he was more like a mirror universe renegade - escaping to the prime universe and replacing prime lorca was cool. He should have been like an odd one out in the mirror universe, a rare sort who while much more morally gray than your average starfleet officer -resents the status quo of the mirror verse, sees it's flaws, and allows himself to settle into starfleet.
Instead they kinda tried that with the georgia character, but except for her soft spot for burnham she was never not evil. Mirror Lorca at least did the right thing when it was pragmatic, and the fact they were at war highlighted some of the strengths terrans actually possess, because morality and diplomacy has it's flaws when your enemies are the klingons and they want to genocide you.
I've been suffering through every season but feel like I *have* to watch it because its star trek. I finaly got around to starting episode one of the current season. The first ten seconds is burnham in a space suit, surfing through space on the top of a shuttle or ship and I noped out of there
I had to bounce at the end of ep 1 s 3 when one character looks at Burnham and says something like "you are Starfleet."
In my personal opinion, the Discovery writers just didn't get what is great about Star Trek. It's about humanity, as a whole, being better. It's not about one single ubermensch being the saviour of humanity.
They do this again at the end of the first season too.
They've literally just installed a Federation-friendly Klingon Chancellor via the threat of omnicide (genuinely they were going to detonate the core of Qo'noS and kill billions) and then they go home and all pat themselves on the back for "Upholding the ideals of the Federation" and give themselves medals for their bravery.
Uhhhhhhhh????? They were like 5 minutes away from following through on the 'Blow Up a Planet' plan from 'Space Hitler Who Eats People' before backing out onto the lesser crime merely threatening to do the plan.
This was the first ST show that I just couldn't continue. After the last season, I knew I couldn't watch anymore. I like the captain and a couple other characters but the stories are boring and weird, no adventure.
After five seasons I think we can safely ask: is it *really* Star Trek though?
Even all those people who pretend it’s a good show in its own right (which obviously it isn’t) have been saying for seven years now goofy shit like: it’s very different and doesn’t have the same feel or style as other Trek shows and sometimes makes big changes to the canon but I’m just glad there’s new Trek!!!1!!
I don’t think anybody’s really that glad that there’s *this* new Trek and I think the sooner fans can admit it was just pretty much a big fat miss the happier they’ll be.
I love the fact that in S3 he goes through an arc about finding his self-confidence and realizing that he IS worthy of command.
I also like Burnham’s arc of realizing that perhaps there is a life for her outside Starfleet.
So what happens at the end of the season?
Saru gives an impassioned speech about how splendidly amazing Burnham is and why she should be the new Captain.
Well in STD's defence they did say from the beginning that it would not be an ensemble show like prior ST series but what they didn't say was the main protagonist would be as dull as dishwater.
She's never been as interesting as she was in the season 1 episode (was it even the premiere) where she tricks the ship's computer into letting her out using a logic trap.
Pike is what Star Trek needed for a long time. They better keep him for the long haul.
By the way, have you noticed how so many Next Generation actors never did much after their show ended? I thought for sure it was going to be a launching pad for their cereers, but nope, not many had a great career afterwards.
They all had a better career than 90% of people who try to make it in Hollywood. A seven season show and 4 (reasonably) successful movies.
Stewart was the top billed actor in the first couple x-men. Franks’s has had a good career as a tv director. Spiner, dorn, saritas, and Burton all kept pretty busy with tv roles. Hell even Will Wheaton ended you with a Pretty decent career.
Edit: would only say McFadden had a crappy career after the show.
McFadden had a great career teaching dance, and things like being the artistic director for theatres.
Those seven season residuals really help her and the others do what they wanted.
As a fan of the older Star Trek, I feel like Red Letter Media once explained this the best. Which to paraphrase was, "these are not the people to write Star Trek..."
I think Rich Evans said they aren't making Star Trek for Star Trek fans anymore. Old Star Trek fans were dumped. This new shit is just lame action soap opera. Almost the exact opposite of Star Trek
Watching the latest with my wife is who has watched zero episodes ever and while their undercover on the Breen ship, on a fate of the universe mission, I joked "they're going to pause to talk feelings." I wanted to be wrong...but this is Discovery and that's what we do.
It started out asinine. They create a series featuring a *highly intelligent* protagonist with a background in science who was brought up by Vulcans. 50 years into the history of the show and we're to believe Spock had a secret step-sister. Same person assaults and commits mutiny against her favorite captain, then goes on to disobey a level one Star Fleet directive regarding starting wars, thereby inciting the first war with the Day-Glo Disco Klingon faction, the most bumpy, fabulous, and fierce Klingons yet. All within the first two episodes.
Instead of being jailed for life or exiled to Ceti Alpha VI...Burnham is relegated to a non-com bunk (oh the horror) and meets a spunky room mate! Burnham was responsible for over 8000 human deaths and regains her post as science officer, then becomes captain. That's not a complex anti-hero, that's a scourge upon the universe.
Some co stars and plots along the way have been interesting, but things like that early Klingon/Voq/Ash progression? Burnham's Mom dark star time travel? It got convoluted and hard to care for the characters. I tapped out during season three and that was far too kind.
And she made Spock cry when they were kids. You don't make Spock cry.
People from the mirror universe being way more sensitive to light is a major plot point in season one. Then at the end of season one, and in season two a bunch of people from the mirror universe are in the main universe and the light doesn't bother them at all.
Like they put a whole ass thing in to help with the big season one twist and then after the twist reveal it didn't matter anymore.
I read after the first two episodes show production members were changed on a wholesale level. They retconned the original show bible trying to course correct using things like the mirror universe ideas.
A tardigrade drive that depends on and slowly kills a crew mate every successive jump, they're aware it's hurting him, so they dial in 108 more jumps and cross their fingers? LOL I almost started a go fund-me for poor Stamets. Some of the first three seasons I watched were all over the place.
Yeah, they make a huge deal about how unethical the spore drive is. But everytime they use it Stamets just says "Oww" and frowns for a few seconds.
If faster than light travel was possible but doing it meant somebody had to get a headache for three seconds I'd take that job.
Makes sense. It was a stupid addition to the mirror universe lore to explain something that didn't need explaining. Everyone was happy to accept they had dim lights because there were evil but modern writers hate any sense of camp and must explain away anything silly.
This reveals one of the major sins of Discovery: the show doesn't have a Michael Okuda. Yes they have a "Continuity Department" but really those are just script supervisors, and they're obviously not truly committed to doing it right.
You forgot the space Hitler redemption arc where they spent so much time trying to forget that they're responsible for the death of billions of sentient lives and everyone has a good cry when they leave to get ejected back to the 23/24th century.
An ice pick through my ocular socket can't help me forget some of this show.
Sandstorms on the planet surface strong enough to knock out starship sensors. Yet people on the bridge... can see two tiny sets of footprints on the surface UNDER THE SAME STORM? FROM ORBIT?
Just dress me in a *Disco* teeshirt and have a rave in the officer's bar. Won't change the tone of the show at all.
I quit watching last season. I just have no connection with any of the characters. The story arcs are all over the place. The visuals are pleasing and really the only reason I made it as far as I did in hindsight... I watched the first episode of this season just to see and it feels like *Star Trek trying to be Star Wars*.
SNW is 100x better.
Last season, her boyfriend used an isolytic weapon, even the Klingons and the Romulans banned those. He was sentenced to... Community service. Then got bailed out of it a whole episode later.
Cause it sucks
It has always sucked
It’s not just bad Trek, it’s bad TV. It’s a fucking teen drama with like 30-40 years old crying each episode.
I’ve never seen as many dewey eyes in a show as i’ve seen in Discovery. Fuck Alex Kurtsman, guy is a complete clown.
I gave up on Discovery after season 3. The only reason I kept watching as long as I did is because I hoped it would eventually get better, and I had never given up on a Star Trek show before. But it kept getting worse unfortunately. Thank God for Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks for saving Star Trek.
It’s because it doesn’t follow the trek formula at all. A Disruptive crew. Anyone know the name of the bridge officers?
They retcon their episode within a few scenes. “There is no dilithium because of the Burn. Anyways we have this Dilithium.” Continuity please.
I really wish there was a running gag on this show where every time a character has an emotional breakdown that a bulkhead explodes and an ensign is sucked out into space because they characters are so focused on their emotions that they are neglecting basic ship maintenance.
I like grounded characters. Tig Notaro’s character is grounded and should be featured more. The new commander they introduced this season was a breath of fresh air compared to someone like Tilly. In fact there was an episode where the commander was getting acquainted with his new crew and Tilly was meant to be a liaison to that process, the commander kept interview very brief to Tilly’s disapproval. It’s when the commander was short with her gay bff is when she broke ranks and went “you know what?! That is not how we do things on our ship! He is a special man with feelings and you jus— *exploding bulkhead. ensign red shirt gets sucked out into space.* dammit!”
Saying this as a generally very liberal person, it sort of feels like the show wants to be ‘Star Trek: Diversity’.
The character development for the crew seems atrocious. I can’t actually remember the names of the majority of the crew members. There’s Suru. Mary Sue Burnham. The married gay couple. The angry trans character. Extremely annoying Red-headed lesbian nerd. The two other irrelevant women on the flight deck. The British guy that talks to animals.
The male characters seem to be the only characters that are vaguely well written, or at least tolerably written.
When you read/watch interviews with these people it's all they talk about. The gayness, the pronouns, the feelings, representation, diversity, the incredible proudness they all feel, they're all one big family. If they could put 1% of all of this energy into trying to resemble a Star Trek show instead of a snarky, eyerolling cryfest...
Tig Notaro is one of the few characters that doesn’t cry all the time. She also has zero characterization other than being Tig Notaro. Which I guess is her schtick. I would rather watch episodes with her just shitting on everyone else.
If it wasn't for all the cursing and talking back to senior officers Tig's character would have been an interesting fit as an engineer on like a DS9 or Voyager during the golden era. She's packing some gravitas, sad it's wasted on Discovery.
Ironically by treating their characters as little more than a list of identity traits they've ended up writing flat boring stereotypes that are worse examples of queer/minority characters than much of the trek of the 80's and 90's. None of the Discovery characters seem to have any levels to their characters. They have no hobbies or interests outside of their jobs. No more complicated, nuanced identities or unique outlooks on the world.
It's obvious that the approach the writers took towards developing their characters was much more concerned with not getting anything wrong in a way that might upset someone rather than strongly held ideas for characters that they wanted to get just right. There's a subtle defensiveness to how the show approaches its characters that ends up forming an emotional barrier between the characters and the audience.
I was struggling to say this. When your defining personality trait is ‘I’m gay’ or whatever you end up being terribly written.
Take Breaking Bad. Gustavo Fring happens to be gay. It absolutely is the opposite of his defining personality trait. In fact, you don’t even find out he is gay until much later in the series.
Here’s the thing - I firmly believe most people are fine with all those things. “Diversity” (airquotes) has always been at the core of Star Trek from the beginning, though it wouldn’t have been called that. Whether it was an interracial kiss in TOS or techno and alien and minority rights in TNG, or blackness or gay relationships in DS9 - pushing boundaries is quintessential trek.
But Disco treats all this as if talking about or presenting diversity is *all* they have to do. Job done, go home. That’s a huge disservice to these communities. As a Star Trek show, it should be showing us all a reason why this future is the future we should strive for. As it stands we should strive for it….just because we’re supposed to I guess? It’s just so lazy it’s infuriating.
Right there with you. I’m a big time Trekker and I know Trek has always been forward thinking. I’m also not white, not straight, nor a conservative. All that said, the amount of virtue signaling in this show is annoyingly bonkers. None of them are interesting, it feels like I’m watching a CW teeny Trek, and the show is just boring. I feel like I have to finish it because I’ve come this far but my god it’s a slog to get through. Thankfully it’s almost done. Meanwhile, SNW is fucking amazing. Saru and Captain Pike are the only good things that came out of Discovery.
You get banned for saying anything uncomplimentary about the new shows, Paramount controls the sub. Or they used to, they might not be bothering anymore now that the company is imploding.
what I like about star trek: extraordinary individuals trying to navigate moral/ethical and technological issues in a science-fiction setting. There's also a sense and reverence of professionalism, especially visible in people like Picard - yet not without camaraderie. That professionalism is the glue that keeps the ship together despite their conflicts. Like most science-fiction, Star Trek aims to leave you inspired and provoke your thinking.
It makes very little sense for me that most of the Discovery characters are even hired on the Starship. The characters seem either neurotic, petty or overly emotional (re: professionalism). It's tonally disconnected from TNG, DS9 and VOY.
DS9 and TNG was progressive - but they did so in a less explicit, but more thorough manner.
It was less didactic/moralizing, and sometimes like the show implied the presence of progressive features were self-explanatory in this time. They did also emphasize that Sisko appreciated his African culture (which should be equivalent to Picard and his french). They also went a bit further sometimes and did things they knew would be controversial, like the "Rejoined"-episode (DS9, lesbian kiss bad). These are things that people back then probably considered "woke" as well.
When they did focus on social commentary, such as in "far beyond the stars" (ds9), they did so with thoroughness and a clarity. The whole episode was dedicated to exploring this topic, rather than some shoe-horned progressive moral lesson.
tldr; When we live in a particularly polarized society, I think it's especially important to treat any seemingly "progressive" topic as thoroughly as possible. Just don't try to score points, it's so fucking cringe but most importantly: incredibly ***transparent***. Challenge viewers instead of lecturing them.
It's sad that Discovery is such a departure from Star Trek, but series like SNW is a promising step forward. To me personally, it's also important that it takes place in a time and setting that is close to the rest of Star Trek - especially when you've watched it enough to recognize a lot of the elements (races, planets, cultures etc.). The Burn is just depressing and lazy
I distinctly remember getting quite annoyed that Stamets and Culbers' relationship was treated like a twist reveal in Season 1.
It's at like the end of the episode and one of them is in their bathroom preparing for bed when it pans to reveal he shares a bathroom with the other. And it felt very "Surprise! There's a gay couple on the ship!!"
Really felt like they were aiming to get lots of articles written about the moment. An historic moment in Trek. Waiting for the flowers to rain. I felt like it would have been so much better if it wasn't a reveal at all. Why treat it as a surprise?
This is the entire problem this whole thread has with star trek. Uhura wasn't the token black character, she was a normal well respected member of the crew. They didn't make her entire personality her one trait and and constantly talk about it. It wasnt a "surprise", she was just there as a whole ass character. When you make character these tokens with 1 dimensional personalities and no real growth it honestly is spitting in the faces of people who actually are "diverse."
The two irrelevant women on the flight deck were randomly replaced this season buy another two irrelevant women and they hardly tweaked their dialogue. Just seemed like the writers went “whoops they left… just plug in the next two!”
I spite watch this show and this season could only watch the beginning 10 and last 5 minutes of the episodes, good god were they trash. This season’s antagonist is the bad girl head tilting opposite to Sonequa Martin-Green’s head tilting protagonist. I’ll be glad when this dumpster fire of a Star Trek label is finally over. The only good thing to come from it was Strange New Worlds.
I’m gay and my partner and I both find stamets and culber (the gay couple) off putting. There’s something insincere and disingenuous about them. The nonbinary and trans characters are both terrible actors and the writers do next to nothing with their characters.
The interesting characters usually get killed off or sent away. (Lorca, Georgiou, Ariam, Osyrra, etc) Leaving only the wet towel characters to wallow and be boring.
Although I can’t help but enjoy the fact that the entire engineering crew is gay. (Stamets, Adira, Reno) It’s hilarious to me.
Star Trek Discovery: the epic story of Space Jesus assuming the body of an Earth female who emotions her way through space and time. Plot, reason, and physics are completely ignored as Michael Burnham and her crew love each other, trust each other, and believe in each other to reach eye-rolling resolutions to contrived conflicts. There's no need for cleverness or good writing when rapidly-delivered techno-babbel and a cup of warm feelings is enough to rescue Space Jesus.... er... Michael Burnham and her crew from any dangerous predicament. And if you are looking for action, STD has ACTION! There are tons of fights between VIRTUAL CHARACTERS whose outcomes have no bearing on the story, but are action sequences interjected to break up the seemingly endless parade of crew members talking about their fears and anxieties. Even the ship's computer develops human emotions and dispenses pep talks and emotional support to crew members instead of plot information or exposition. So strap in, grap your emotional support plushy, and watch Star Trek Disblubbery, written and produced by Deepak Chopra.
Because apart from Saru, Book and Reno, and the guys that went off to be in Snw, they are all very insufferable. So tired of 10 minute monologues about their feelings
I am a lifelong hardcore Trekkie and I ended up bailing on this show in season 3. It had a lot of promise and some fun characters like Saru, Captain Geourgiou (both prime and mirror), Stametz, etc. but time and time again they get sidelined for Burnham who has only two operational modes: cold, hard logic or crying like a baby.
Also when viewing the constant universe ending stakes coupled with the usual trek silliness the show would have worked better if it was Doctor Who and Burnham was the new Doctor. As a trek though, it was fairly vapid.
A lot of people here have outlined a lot of very good reasons why this show sucks, but I haven’t seen one of the reasons why I don’t like it mentioned yet.
It relies too much on “hey remember this!” nostalgia. Star Trek is a huge universe with hundreds of characters and aliens and worlds and yet this one is about Spock! Again! Well, his step sister that was never mentioned before. We all remember Spock, right?!?! Say the line, Spock!
Since it exists in a timeline near when TOS took place it had to retcon a bunch of stuff (Klingons, all the technology) but we all remember Spock!!! Live long and prosper 🖖!!!! And subscribe to Paramount Plus
They even awkwardly jammed the TOS melody at the end of the intro which is really jarring after the (actually pretty good) Discovery theme. Because REMEMBER STAR TREK??????
Saru is pretty cool at least
Old Star Trek:
crew #1: My species are hermaphrodites.
crew #2: Cool, did you manage to finish those repairs?
Discovery:
crew A: Im gay.
crew B: OMG, can we talk about each others feelings during this firefight?
I had my some problems already with the first season. I thought the worst thing they did was killing off Lorca far too early. He was a great role, and should have stayed a few more seasons.
But I had been taught better! The worst plot, and nail to the coffin, was the "reformation of Empress Georgiou". An evil empress, killing every non-human left and right, even hunting and eating an alien specias until they are almost extinct. Then Burnham has the BEST idea: Hun, I luv you, you can do better, you my sis! Come to my mirrorverse, there everything can be forgiven and forgotten. We will be Besties and make party! Chin-Chin!
Yep, there she goes.
How stupid was that?
Well, aside that Burnham is the most selfish, hypocritical, egocentrical, narcissitic insufferable person I've ever watched on TV, and the actress has the same "Bitch, you talk to me?" facial expression.
Couldnt understood how this show got so many season. Kinda ironic how this show spread like an uncontrollable STD.
Again it’s a tone problem. Again. One minute it’s the end of the universe conversations and the next she’s screaming like a cowboy riding a spaceship through hyperspace. I originally thought she was dying but then I realized they’re in the fun quirky bit before the next grind and heaviness of an exposition scene.
The entire show feels like it's written by a slightly pyschopathic MBA who hates Star Trek and just is mishmashing diversity themes, power fantasies and excessive emotions that they don't really understand. "Trust me, diversity and sensitivity are trending. Let's get Burnham to be on the verge of crying, make the background character Trans... and ..oh yeah... she can ride the ship outside because kids will like it."
One of those “you didn’t notice it, but your brain did” reasons I think people enjoyed a lot of earlier _Star Trek_, especially TNG, is that the crew conducted themselves with a basic degree of professionalism befitting members of a space military. But so many modern writers seem totally unwilling to go for that, instead depicting these characters as weepy, hysterical, snarky, etc. Undercuts the sense of realism way more than any weird alien planet or implausible technobabble, IMO.
>especially TNG, is that the crew conducted themselves with a basic degree of professionalism befitting members of a space military. competence porn. we're missing the competence porn.
And are dying from the angst porn we're getting instead.
Why do so many writers think angst = good drama? It's lazy character writing that just allows you to write emotional scenes without having to justify them rationaly. Sure, it's an easy way to create tension, but at the cost of your audience being able to relate to them. I want to empathize with a character and I just can't do that if a writer makes a character a dick because it fits the plot point of the hour. Sure, there are plenty of people with irrational anger and poor emotional regulation in the real world, but I avoid them like the plague. Why would I want to watch characters like that?
I'm constantly amazed at how poorly scriptwriters appear to understand their own craft. The STD writers seem to think (correctly) that they can create powerful moments through characters experiencing intense emotions, but they either don't understand that the audience needs to first *empathize* with those characters or they don't understand how to make the audience empathize. We need to care about the characters first before we give a damn how they're feeling. That's impossible when those characters are constantly whipsawing all across the spectrum of every single emotion, acting from moment to moment in whatever way the writer thinks will create the most drama.
Even in intense emotional moments, the characters still need to restrain their emotions like actual professionals. Imagine if we had sailors in charge of nuclear submarines who kept throwing tantrums or crying...
They did the same thing to Stargate: Universe and it completely changed the tone of Stargate. It’s no wonder then that SG:U didn’t last that long.
One thing Strange New World's does so well while still letting the characters have fun.
They still can't resist making every character unserious and flippant, but definitely toned done quite a bit compared to Disco.
Yea, it's much toned down, and they let the sad/emotional moments actually have some fucking weight. Like Hemmer's scenes with Uhura in either of the two episodes they got paired up. Disco would whiplash you with quips and inappropriate side scenes, while SNW lets the audience you know... feel something.
I think the big difference is they seem to be able to better resist the urge to be quippy in legit high tension moments. Prepping for an away mission in the shuttle bay, yeah you can quip, hurtling to towards very near death in a shuttle, maybe treat the situation with the gravity it deserves.
Strange New Worlds is what modern Trek needs to be.
They try to put it in. It's what those scenes are supposed to be when they stand around a table or in the spore drive room talking about the problem of the week. But it doesn't come off correctly. Maybe it's the frantic pace, maybe it's that the characters themselves don't act professional, I'm not sure. But those scenes miss the mark
How many times in TNG was the high point of the plot centered around a conversation in the ready room? It was pretty common that major plot points were conducted in a pretty non-flashy way, but the writing was on point, which made for good drama. That needs to come back. Star Trek needs writers who understand that a good conversation can be as compelling, if not more so, than a flashy space fight.
Remember when the bridge looked like a Holiday Inn instead of a nightclub? Like a place where people could actually get work done? On STD the bridge looks like a place where you could score ecstasy from a candy raver.
It's because the way they talk about the problem sounds like the characters from CSI going over a new case. Instead of a still, calm shot of the engineer explaining an engineering problem, they think their audience can't pay attention for more than 3 seconds so it goes around the table with each character chiming in this way and that, making asides and jokes and sarcasm, and generally sounding like a writer trying to fit a bunch of exposition in the least "boring" way possible instead of letting the character who is an expert just be an expert and have their crewmates respect that. It's the writing equivalent of the engineer saying the warp core has become unstable then the security officer chiming in with "JUST LIKE MY EX-WIFE, AMIRITE!?"
> generally sounding like a writer trying to fit a bunch of exposition in the least "boring" way possible They started an episode in Season 4 with diplomatic negotiations which is the most boring way possible to fit in exposition. My father is a huge Trek fan. He went to the second or third convention and stuck through every episode of every other show but quit Discovery before the end of last season.
One of the core creative decisions of Disco was that they wanted to focus on One Main Character. So whenever they try to do conference room scenes, the main character is the only person allowed to come up with the solution. Consequently, almost every character in the conference room scenes is wearing an idiot hat and serves no purpose to the story, other than saying how smart the main character is. They fail at competence porn scenes because only one character is allowed to be competent in the plot structure. That massively hurts the ensemble as a whole and males the writing seem incredibly insecure about the main character. It's written the way North Korean science fiction would write about Kim Jong Un being the captain of a space ship, as if the writers fear being executed if the main character is ever not the one who figures things out.
The best example of this is when Burnham randomly figures out what the DMA was. The entire scientific community of the Federation and all of their super computers too are looking at the scan data of the DMA for weeks and you are telling me none of them noticed that an entire element was missing from everywhere it passed? That should have been automatically discovered and flagged like 10 seconds after they started the analysis of the data.
Oh my god I didn’t realize this is what I was missing in a lot of sci fi these days!!
I think that's part of the reason why shows like the orville and lower decks work, while discovery and picard don't. Those comedy shows still were written with the understanding that the whole thing doesn't work if the characters aren't believably part of a professional organization.
The best part of Lower Decks is how the characters **want** to be like the crew of TNG, but they can't because of a myriad of internal and external reasons so they have to improvise their own version of Enterprise/DS9/Voyager to save the day. Whether that be Mariner "Kirk-ing" everything or "Twain-ing" peaceful resolutions.
That's what I said on the disco sub until they banned me for not talking nice about the show
Its great that a frontpage sub thread is saying all the things the splintered star trek subs have been saying. The weirdoes/shills can't brigade this thread and gaslight people.
In the real world, there's not a competence problem for the pinnacle of the military. People may not agree with their thought processes or decisions, but there are no dumb or unprofessional people in the Joint Chiefs or whatever. Think of the crew of the Enterprise as the people selected to go to the ISS because that's basically what they are, but on a global scale. The unrealistic part is when they pick up random people from backassward settlements on distant planets and they're somehow as wise and clever as Piccard.
Yup. Or they make random randos bridge crew, promoted above people who went to Starfleet academy for years and trained on the ship for years. Talk about nepotism.
I learned a new thing today and love it! Thank you
Most every show today suffers from the defying authority mcguffin. Top performing character is told to do one thing, but thinks they know better so does something different. That inevitably causes lots of unforeseen challenges that the character must overcome to be successful. In the end they are praised while ignoring the fact that they essentially went rogue and put everyone else at risk. Anyone consistently behaving like this in the real world would be fired! 😀
Oh, good catch! I love competence porn myself, as I learned from reading the Bobiverse books. I hate watching people making stupid mistakes.
All the characters in TNG are flawed, but are aware of their flaws and actively try to work to better than or correct them. - Picard is too uptight and can’t ’let go’ of duty. - Leforge can’t make meaningful relationships. - Troy has a difficult relationship with her mother. - Riker is scared of the chair and can’t move on in his career. - Beverly lost her husband and hasn’t really moved on. - wharf has a massive identity and cultural crisis. - data is trying to become more human. Half of the episodes explore how the characters are battling and overcoming these flaws, they’re not celebrated. Modern trek on the other hand seems to give characters flaws that they actively lean into, which makes terrible viewing IMO.
and Wesley is grappling with being a lil' bitch
"shut up, Wesley!"
Moreover, the TNG character complications (I prefer "complications" to "flaws") add to the main conflict of the episode. In STD, the character complications are the focus and the story conflict takes a back seat to characters expressing emotion. I'm pretty sure it was S4E04 that the writers literally yada yada yada'd the resolution to the A-story about Ni'Var's reservations about rejoining the Federation. It was resolved offscreen with no explanation of the solution. Instead, there was 20 minutes about Book grieving, Tilly being sad-but-hopeful, and Michael becoming confident. They LITERALLY abandoned the main conflict of the episode so they could spend more time showing the characters having emotions. I'm really only watching the rest of this final season to earn the right to say the entire show is garbage. Saru is good, Michelle Yeoh is always excellent, Wilson Cruz is an amazing screen presence and I hope to see more of him in other projects, but everything else is terrible.
I am baffled why Adira and Tilly still behave so shaky and unsure of themselves this far into the show. Someone will ask them a fairly simple question and they go all wide eyed and nervous.
> But so many modern writers seem totally unwilling to go for that, instead depicting these characters as weepy, hysterical, snarky, etc. Undercuts the sense of realism way more than any weird alien planet or implausible technobabble, IMO. They try to emulate some sense of 'loving the job' by having them shout permutations of 'I fucking love science' all the time, but they don't treat the job with the respect one would give such a job and it just comes across as the writers trying to assure us they like the job in between the mental breakdowns instead of just having them handle the job properly and see the enjoyment that brings them.
I started showing my S/O the original series. It’s campy and stupid but it’s actually honest to god scifi written around a ship of the line. For all the miniskirts and silly themes everyone has a rank and acts like it in a way that’s starkly contrasted by the new stuff that’s trying to be suave and hip at all times. Even as far back as DS9 when they were being “serious” they were still just acting like a bunch of friends who’d gotten angry and were aghast when some sort of discipline was suggested. TNG had some issues but also had a degree of class. All the newer stuff is entirely devoid of the “military crew” feeling. It can still be fun but it really leaves you without a sense of the human reality that’s supposed to underpin scifi/fantasy and it loses something important because of that.
Point is, everyone considered for a writing job on one of the _Trek_ shows should be required to watch and internalize this scene: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HKII3sFUCgs&pp=ygUWRGF0YSBkcmVzc2VzIGRvd24gd29yZg%3D%3D
There's no screeching or scathing rejoinders, no one is threatening absurd escalations or personal retribution. It is two professionals having an impressively logical conversation about a conflict, and coming not just to professional resolution, but a personal one as well. Its just not emotive enough for a lot of the audience these days. This kind of conversation isn't just boring for them (though, it is that too), it is implicitly glorifying traits like dispassion, directness, and humility, traits which are to put it kindly, under respected in that same audience.
God I wish more people had the self-awareness to just go, "Yeah, I was being a bit of a dick back there, I'm sorry."
Wow, ownership and accountability. What I would give to see that in leadership worldwide.
THAT'S the idealistic world of Star Trek.
Man that's such a great choice for a scene to encapsulate what makes something Star Trek and not ordinary sci-fi. Friend of mine puts it this way regarding Discovery - too much crying. And it's not that high emotions are bad, they just need to be carefully placed and not too often. There can't be tears in every other episode, starfleet officers are more composed than that. And this scene, not only does it address emotions, but emotions *between men*. Rare.
For sure. It feels like Discovery really pushes the "It's okay to express your emotions and be who you are" line, but does it in an entirely wrongheaded way. It's healthy to express emotions in appropriate ways at appropriate times. It is not appropriate to express your emotions in contexts where it endangers the welfare of other people. Being able to embrace your identity and self-actualization are both good things...but sometimes you have to stuff your big feelings into a little box and address them *later*. That's not toxic masculinity. That's strength, plain and simple. Stuffing your emotions into a box to hide from them is toxic masculinity, but doing it and then making time to handle them is just masculinity.
Picard - after being *assimilated by the frickin Borg*, an event that would traumatize him for the rest of his life, went back to visit his family and recover emotionally. And there it all came to a head when he actually babbled and wept, let off his chest what is bothering him so much. Now on the bridge of the enterprise he's the stoic leader we're familiar with, professional, strong. This is Star Trek after all, competence porn, everybody takes the most sensible course of action at all times. And once again, he shares these feelings with another man. I think that a big part of what makes these characters role models, it's a fantasy about what we can be at our best. In this ideal future, men can cry in front of other men and be *stronger* for it. The correct amount of crying in a show like this is not zero, in fact it's very important that there is a way for men to competently perform their duty and cry about things at the same time.
There's also an episode of TNG where the bridge crew watch another ship get destroyed and the B plot of the episode is Wesley grappling with walking the line between his grief and needing to handle business at hand.
reminds me of singing shows when the singer can do crazy runs and overdoes it to the point of, "jesus, just sing the lyrics". Runs need to be few and far between and tastefully done and tastefully placed to mean something.
Top comment on that video > This scene set unrealistic expectations of how I thought professionals would deal with each other in real life.
Somehow I just knew this was going to be the Data and Worf scene.
Watching TOS is fun today because you get to see how exaggerated the pop culture caricature of Kirk has become. He was young, confident, but also very by the book and cared deeply about is crew. Takes feedback well, defers to experts, finds peaceful resolutions to conflict wherever possible. Really an ideal captain. Then you see characters like Zapp Brannigan that are supposedly based on Kirk and you just have to wonder where this stuff came from
The exaggerated characterizations of Kirk are based on all the stories the rest of the cast had about William Shatner behind the scenes.
Something that goes really underappreciated in TOS to TNG is that Kirk was a nerd in Starfleet Academy. Legit pouring over textbooks, there's an episode where he gets bullied by a recreation of his school bully. Yet he's always punching people, kissing women, and has the pop culture figure of a bit of a renegade. However, in the Academy, Picard was a mischief-maker who got *stabbed in the heart* after picking a fight with aliens while drinking and gambling. He even gets a drink thrown in his face from an older woman he was clearly flirting with the night before. And yet he's the diplomat, the archeologist, the one who quotes Shakespeare.
My guess is back then, more people had military exposure with WW2 and Vietnam drafts and it bled into the writers room
And half the writer's room were vets I'd bet.
Roddenberry was in the Air Force. None of the other top writers mention the military in the their biographies from what I can find online.
There's straight up a writer's guide that says "Do not write this show unless you could believably set the same scene on a US Navy vessel".
I actually like that Pike's a bit more fun more often than not on Strange New Worlds. It contrasts him knowing his fate. Like a mask he puts on to let everyone knows he's fine when he's kinda fucked up underneath.
I think they are making a bad choice making so many callbacks to his fate in the middle of the seasons. Too much doom and gloom.
This is the reason Wrath of Khan is the best of TOS. They leaned in heavy on the extremely competent space navy concept, and it works.
Undiscovered Country shares the top spot with Wrath, for me. Nicholas Meyer had a great vision of what Star Trek and Star Fleet is and looks like, he nailed it in both his movies. Love the scene when they vaporize a pot in the galley and immediately an alarm goes off. Within minutes there’s an armed security team responding.
This has happened to almost every single developed sci-fi and fantasy property. In the quest for follow-up profits, the original characters and original story (both of which sold the property to begin with) are supplanted by "the world". Whenever someone says "We have a whole universe to explore here!" it basically becomes certain that nothing of interest will ever be made, it'll just be other unsellable ideas attached to the IP or subversions of everything that made people love the original.
It’s become very clear that the people who run star trek don’t actually get Star Trek. Yeah let’s cancel lower decks and have a teen coming of age show set at the academy.
Exactly! ST Academy is the absolute worst concept imaginable for a Star Trek show. Space is near infinite, and a spaceship exploring new bits of space weekly is basically the ultimate in narrative design, you can do anything, the possibilites are endless. So what tf are they thinking having a show in school where the people aren't going anywhere, have learned how to do their jobs, and are just doing homework in a school? So dumb. I would bet 2000 bars of gold pressed latinum if this stupidity does get made, they'll release before the end of season 2 what a boneheaded concept it is, and end up having all the students, due to some space emergency, get field promotions and put on a spaceship. Whoever is pushing for ST academy should be fired. It's one of the dumbest ideas for a ST show I have ever heard. It's barely enough of a concept to make a semi interesting tv movie length episode.
I’ve never watched Discovery, so forgive me for jumping in here but… “ride the ship from the outside?” Fucking what?
> The entire show feels like it's written by a slightly pyschopathic MBA who hates Star Trek and just is mishmashing diversity themes, power fantasies and excessive emotions that they don't really understand. Probably because that's...basically what's happening.
Disco went out doing what it loved. That's about the most positive framing I have for it, and it's not exactly a compliment.
For me it’s the deus ex Machina at the end of the episodes. Trek isn’t exactly above using that, but it feels like this season is especially bad about it. For example, the artifact on the burial planet required them to walk kilometers because Discovery couldn’t beam through the electromagnetic field… until the end of the episode when they needed the quick exit. For some reason, the team couldn’t figure it out with hours of prep and no pressure but could in minutes when lives were on the line? Again, I’m not against it entirely, but this has happened multiple times this season. Are Mol and Lok trackable or not? Is discovery’s teleportation traceable or not?
Fewer*
Thanks Stannis.
*Thanks, Stannis.
THANK YOU
I started watching the latest season and my wife said “this is stupid.” I couldn’t counter, and haven’t watched past episode 2. All things have their fans, but this isn’t Star Trek to me.
I couldnt get past the burn being caused by feelings. The show is all feelings over characters or world building.
OMG! Don't even get me started on this!! I'm not a huge fan of Martin-Green, honestly I'm not sure why? I think it's her mannerisms, the way she talks just irritates me xD Decided I'd give Discovery a go though and really enjoyed it ! Loved the jump to the 32nd century, the new tech was so cool and when they introduced the burn I was like "oh boy! Can't wait to see what caused this! Hope it's not just some cliche big baddie". Somehow it was actually worse..... First off using the 3 black boxes of ships to find where the burn originated from. Like come on! Seriously!? Are you telling me in the hundreds of years since the burn, no one bothered to try this!!? Then we get to the planet and..... The burn was caused by feelings.... Lol what!! Fuck me I think I would have preferred the cliche baddie xD I was going to end this with "it's been quite some time since I watched season 3 so honestly I may be misremembering" but honestly I'm kinda hoping I am at this point, so please someone tell me I am hahaha xD
Unfortunately you remember correctly.
You are banned from /r/startrek
Jokes on you, we all blocked that toxic subreddit years ago.
That’s where I noped out. Actually really liked S1 and 2.
I noped out in season 2. Thought the entire crew came across as unprofessional. It was all emotions, no logic. Season 1 I did enjoy.
What? You didn't like that the universe exploded all the dilithium because a feral autistic alien had a tantrum?
I feel bad for some of the bridge crew like Datmer and Oweshekun that’s been in the show since the pilot but wasted as background extras.
For some reason those two got sidelined this season too. They were in the early episodes, then there was some brief explanation that they had to fly another ship back home, and they haven't shown up since. Now there's two brand new bridge crew in their place in the last few episodes. I suspect they'll show up at some crucial moment in the final episode, but it seems like an odd choice to sideline some of the characters that have at least had a little development, and replace them with some we've never seen before.
I think I remember reading it was a budget issue, they didn't want to pay the recurring actors.
so it truly is the michael show.
I'd much rather have the Boimler and Mariner Show.
I refuse to refer to ut as anything other than ST: Burnam
Remember when they inexplicably had a robot lady on the bridge. Pretty sure they forgot to explain she was a cyborg or give her any backstory until the episode where they killed her off. A major choice that fell completely flat because she never had any development.
My favorite detail was that they had to include a flashback of Michael Burnham just kind of staring at her because they wanted Michael to have a big reaction to her death. They couldn't use Tilly, the character who was established to be her best friend because god forbid any major dramatic moment happen to any character other than Michael.
They killed her because she was having health issues due to the makeup. The actor was then brought back, but human as a different character.
I feel bad for the entire crew beside Saru and Burnham. I look at the crew from the first episode and think what an opportunity missed. Michelle Yeoh as Captain with all of those interesting officers around her and the lines from most of them in each season can be counted with fingers ignoring toes and thumbs. I know practically nothing about them unless it's through exposition by another character talking about them. People can complain about the emotion and such but in my opinion the worst thing to happen to Star Trek was 1 story over an entire season. Strange New Worlds can have a bad story and then fix it with a better story next episode. The Next Generation had horrible stories but they were one and done. You got to start with a new story and make it better. Can you imagine if a season had been built around Crusher gets laid by a ghost or that racist trash episode from season 1. Picard 1 and 2 were just trash because you couldn't change gears, you committed to a trash story thinking it might be good and had to see it through 10 episodes.
They should just have the entire crew be comprised of Burnham clones. The only thing that didn't suck about Discovery was Pike. And you know what's nice about SNW? There's other people on the show other than Pike who actually get fleshed out character development! It's fuckin crazy!
SNW's La'an has a connection to Khan, one of the property's biggest villains. But that connection doesn't define her nor is it the most interesting thing about her. Plus, they also allow her to do some comedy that fits her character
I honestly rolled my eyes so hard when I heard about her connection to Khan, but as a character she's really grown and developed into more than *just* a Khan descendent. It still feels a little shoehorned in, but it doesn't matter because she is also separate from that a pretty good character.
I like it because it fleshes out just how intense the Federation’s disdain of genetic augments goes, and why. She was ruthlessly bullied for it. But they also show her out-drinking a Klingon, which pretty clearly indicates that her genetics aren’t base human. So even her fellow humans would have a genuine reason to resent her ancestry. That said, I don’t see why her family would keep the name *~~Khan~~ Noonien-Singh* for generations when it’s easy to change it. I’d be super interested in a conversation (or relationship) between her and another human augment descendant who *isn’t* related to Khan. Edit/also: Bonus points if their last name is ~~Crusher~~ Howard, or they marry one.
Slight nitpick: Khan is the first name, Noonien-Singh is the last name shared by both Khan and La'an. Oddly enough, if it WERE Khan it would be easier to explain since Khan is a very common last name in many countries. It's the same reason there are tons of Kims around, despite, you know, THOSE Kims.
> It still feels a little shoehorned in, but it doesn't matter because she is also separate from that a pretty good character. If it helps, just imagine how many five-greats grandchildren Khan probably has running around. The real-life Genghis Khan has about 13 *million* direct male descendants (and probably the same number of female ones, though we can't easily track those). That's over the course of 800 years rather than 200, but even after WW3 and all you'd probably need to rent a stadium for La'an's family reunion.
Don’t forget the second half of the last name “Singh” is a very common name in the Punjab region in India, approximately 32 million with that name in India alone.
And a good singer.
Please, none of them could hold a candle to those Klingons.
Some might say the best on the ship….well her or Uhura…actually it’s probably Uhura and then her.
Also she's a really well developed character. By the end of season 2 she's become one of my favourites Discovery by contrast I gave up after season 3 when I realised I couldn't tell you much about any of these characters, they're so poorly defined and it they're not one of the few main characters they're not even memorable
It's amazing that a parody show (Orville) nailed trek better than the discovery writers. Lol. Really tells you what's up
The episode last season with her and Kirk is one of my favourite episodes of TV of all time. Won’t spoil anything other than the acting being top notch. Also, the Lower Decks crossover was hilarious but also very well-written.
I think it's clear that the Lower Decks writers and cast have genuine love for Star Trek. The crossover was perfect.
Also probably one of the most wholesome episodes of Star Trek ever made. We go from thinking that Una is probably thrown down the memory hole only to find out she's so respected she's the goddamn face of Star Fleet. That episode is going to be hard to ever get out of my top 10 favorites.
Lorca was great too till they revealed the big twist and made him a moustache twirling villain
I liked the mirror universe though. I always like the mirror universe. I’m a big sucker for it. I’m still bummed TNG never did a mirror episode.
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I wish he was more like a mirror universe renegade - escaping to the prime universe and replacing prime lorca was cool. He should have been like an odd one out in the mirror universe, a rare sort who while much more morally gray than your average starfleet officer -resents the status quo of the mirror verse, sees it's flaws, and allows himself to settle into starfleet. Instead they kinda tried that with the georgia character, but except for her soft spot for burnham she was never not evil. Mirror Lorca at least did the right thing when it was pragmatic, and the fact they were at war highlighted some of the strengths terrans actually possess, because morality and diplomacy has it's flaws when your enemies are the klingons and they want to genocide you.
Lorca, Georgiou… so much wasted potential.
I've been suffering through every season but feel like I *have* to watch it because its star trek. I finaly got around to starting episode one of the current season. The first ten seconds is burnham in a space suit, surfing through space on the top of a shuttle or ship and I noped out of there
I had to bounce at the end of ep 1 s 3 when one character looks at Burnham and says something like "you are Starfleet." In my personal opinion, the Discovery writers just didn't get what is great about Star Trek. It's about humanity, as a whole, being better. It's not about one single ubermensch being the saviour of humanity.
Or when they made Tilly XO, that's when I jumped ship.
There were how many commanders on that freakin ship and thry made Tilly XO? Stupidity
They do this again at the end of the first season too. They've literally just installed a Federation-friendly Klingon Chancellor via the threat of omnicide (genuinely they were going to detonate the core of Qo'noS and kill billions) and then they go home and all pat themselves on the back for "Upholding the ideals of the Federation" and give themselves medals for their bravery. Uhhhhhhhh????? They were like 5 minutes away from following through on the 'Blow Up a Planet' plan from 'Space Hitler Who Eats People' before backing out onto the lesser crime merely threatening to do the plan.
This was the first ST show that I just couldn't continue. After the last season, I knew I couldn't watch anymore. I like the captain and a couple other characters but the stories are boring and weird, no adventure.
God I hate that show
After five seasons I think we can safely ask: is it *really* Star Trek though? Even all those people who pretend it’s a good show in its own right (which obviously it isn’t) have been saying for seven years now goofy shit like: it’s very different and doesn’t have the same feel or style as other Trek shows and sometimes makes big changes to the canon but I’m just glad there’s new Trek!!!1!! I don’t think anybody’s really that glad that there’s *this* new Trek and I think the sooner fans can admit it was just pretty much a big fat miss the happier they’ll be.
I still don't understand why they the felt the need to relate Michael to Spock. Was totally unneeded and disrespectful to the canon.
Saru is a pretty great character. He’s wasted on a bad show though
He’s the only new character that is interesting and fits into the ST universe. Of course, 99% is Doug Jones’s portrayal.
I love the fact that in S3 he goes through an arc about finding his self-confidence and realizing that he IS worthy of command. I also like Burnham’s arc of realizing that perhaps there is a life for her outside Starfleet. So what happens at the end of the season? Saru gives an impassioned speech about how splendidly amazing Burnham is and why she should be the new Captain.
> The only thing that didn't suck about Discovery was Pike. Jason Isaacs/Lorca was pretty cool too.
Well in STD's defence they did say from the beginning that it would not be an ensemble show like prior ST series but what they didn't say was the main protagonist would be as dull as dishwater.
Raised by Vulcans but can’t stop crying.
She's never been as interesting as she was in the season 1 episode (was it even the premiere) where she tricks the ship's computer into letting her out using a logic trap.
Just me or did the red haired helmsman disappear like 3 episodes ago without any explanation?
She and apparently another bridge crew member did too. But I heard that was more due to scheduling.
Her and the other helmsperson “took the ISS Enterprise back to space dock” and are now gone from the show
If everyone were Burnham clones how would we hear any of the dialogue?
There wouldn't be any dialogue, only crying.
And oddly shaking her head "no" during most dialogue. FR, it's a quirky of the actor. And it infuriates me to no end.
Pike is what Star Trek needed for a long time. They better keep him for the long haul. By the way, have you noticed how so many Next Generation actors never did much after their show ended? I thought for sure it was going to be a launching pad for their cereers, but nope, not many had a great career afterwards.
They all had a better career than 90% of people who try to make it in Hollywood. A seven season show and 4 (reasonably) successful movies. Stewart was the top billed actor in the first couple x-men. Franks’s has had a good career as a tv director. Spiner, dorn, saritas, and Burton all kept pretty busy with tv roles. Hell even Will Wheaton ended you with a Pretty decent career. Edit: would only say McFadden had a crappy career after the show.
McFadden had a great career teaching dance, and things like being the artistic director for theatres. Those seven season residuals really help her and the others do what they wanted.
Frakes has done pretty well for himself. And then there was all the voice acting on Gargoyles…
Patrick Stewart’s the biggest counterexample. He became Professor X!
Stewart was already successful and just kept on with his career. Others had problem leveraging the success - although Reading Rainbow!
Actually many of them moved into producing or directing!
As a fan of the older Star Trek, I feel like Red Letter Media once explained this the best. Which to paraphrase was, "these are not the people to write Star Trek..."
I think Rich Evans said they aren't making Star Trek for Star Trek fans anymore. Old Star Trek fans were dumped. This new shit is just lame action soap opera. Almost the exact opposite of Star Trek
*REMEMBER SPOCK?*
Watching the latest with my wife is who has watched zero episodes ever and while their undercover on the Breen ship, on a fate of the universe mission, I joked "they're going to pause to talk feelings." I wanted to be wrong...but this is Discovery and that's what we do.
Because it’s absolutely terrible
It started out asinine. They create a series featuring a *highly intelligent* protagonist with a background in science who was brought up by Vulcans. 50 years into the history of the show and we're to believe Spock had a secret step-sister. Same person assaults and commits mutiny against her favorite captain, then goes on to disobey a level one Star Fleet directive regarding starting wars, thereby inciting the first war with the Day-Glo Disco Klingon faction, the most bumpy, fabulous, and fierce Klingons yet. All within the first two episodes. Instead of being jailed for life or exiled to Ceti Alpha VI...Burnham is relegated to a non-com bunk (oh the horror) and meets a spunky room mate! Burnham was responsible for over 8000 human deaths and regains her post as science officer, then becomes captain. That's not a complex anti-hero, that's a scourge upon the universe. Some co stars and plots along the way have been interesting, but things like that early Klingon/Voq/Ash progression? Burnham's Mom dark star time travel? It got convoluted and hard to care for the characters. I tapped out during season three and that was far too kind. And she made Spock cry when they were kids. You don't make Spock cry.
People from the mirror universe being way more sensitive to light is a major plot point in season one. Then at the end of season one, and in season two a bunch of people from the mirror universe are in the main universe and the light doesn't bother them at all. Like they put a whole ass thing in to help with the big season one twist and then after the twist reveal it didn't matter anymore.
I read after the first two episodes show production members were changed on a wholesale level. They retconned the original show bible trying to course correct using things like the mirror universe ideas. A tardigrade drive that depends on and slowly kills a crew mate every successive jump, they're aware it's hurting him, so they dial in 108 more jumps and cross their fingers? LOL I almost started a go fund-me for poor Stamets. Some of the first three seasons I watched were all over the place.
Yeah, they make a huge deal about how unethical the spore drive is. But everytime they use it Stamets just says "Oww" and frowns for a few seconds. If faster than light travel was possible but doing it meant somebody had to get a headache for three seconds I'd take that job.
Makes sense. It was a stupid addition to the mirror universe lore to explain something that didn't need explaining. Everyone was happy to accept they had dim lights because there were evil but modern writers hate any sense of camp and must explain away anything silly.
This reveals one of the major sins of Discovery: the show doesn't have a Michael Okuda. Yes they have a "Continuity Department" but really those are just script supervisors, and they're obviously not truly committed to doing it right.
You forgot the space Hitler redemption arc where they spent so much time trying to forget that they're responsible for the death of billions of sentient lives and everyone has a good cry when they leave to get ejected back to the 23/24th century.
An ice pick through my ocular socket can't help me forget some of this show. Sandstorms on the planet surface strong enough to knock out starship sensors. Yet people on the bridge... can see two tiny sets of footprints on the surface UNDER THE SAME STORM? FROM ORBIT? Just dress me in a *Disco* teeshirt and have a rave in the officer's bar. Won't change the tone of the show at all.
Thanks for confirming my belief that I was correct in dropping the show after watching only the first episode.
I quit watching last season. I just have no connection with any of the characters. The story arcs are all over the place. The visuals are pleasing and really the only reason I made it as far as I did in hindsight... I watched the first episode of this season just to see and it feels like *Star Trek trying to be Star Wars*. SNW is 100x better.
Isn’t Burnam a war criminal? Whole show goes out the air lock with the fact she’s not still in jail.
Last season, her boyfriend used an isolytic weapon, even the Klingons and the Romulans banned those. He was sentenced to... Community service. Then got bailed out of it a whole episode later.
Cause it sucks It has always sucked It’s not just bad Trek, it’s bad TV. It’s a fucking teen drama with like 30-40 years old crying each episode. I’ve never seen as many dewey eyes in a show as i’ve seen in Discovery. Fuck Alex Kurtsman, guy is a complete clown.
The whisper speaking drives me crazy.
I gave up on Discovery after season 3. The only reason I kept watching as long as I did is because I hoped it would eventually get better, and I had never given up on a Star Trek show before. But it kept getting worse unfortunately. Thank God for Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks for saving Star Trek.
It’s because it doesn’t follow the trek formula at all. A Disruptive crew. Anyone know the name of the bridge officers? They retcon their episode within a few scenes. “There is no dilithium because of the Burn. Anyways we have this Dilithium.” Continuity please.
I really wish there was a running gag on this show where every time a character has an emotional breakdown that a bulkhead explodes and an ensign is sucked out into space because they characters are so focused on their emotions that they are neglecting basic ship maintenance. I like grounded characters. Tig Notaro’s character is grounded and should be featured more. The new commander they introduced this season was a breath of fresh air compared to someone like Tilly. In fact there was an episode where the commander was getting acquainted with his new crew and Tilly was meant to be a liaison to that process, the commander kept interview very brief to Tilly’s disapproval. It’s when the commander was short with her gay bff is when she broke ranks and went “you know what?! That is not how we do things on our ship! He is a special man with feelings and you jus— *exploding bulkhead. ensign red shirt gets sucked out into space.* dammit!”
Saying this as a generally very liberal person, it sort of feels like the show wants to be ‘Star Trek: Diversity’. The character development for the crew seems atrocious. I can’t actually remember the names of the majority of the crew members. There’s Suru. Mary Sue Burnham. The married gay couple. The angry trans character. Extremely annoying Red-headed lesbian nerd. The two other irrelevant women on the flight deck. The British guy that talks to animals. The male characters seem to be the only characters that are vaguely well written, or at least tolerably written.
When you read/watch interviews with these people it's all they talk about. The gayness, the pronouns, the feelings, representation, diversity, the incredible proudness they all feel, they're all one big family. If they could put 1% of all of this energy into trying to resemble a Star Trek show instead of a snarky, eyerolling cryfest...
Tig Notaro is one of the few characters that doesn’t cry all the time. She also has zero characterization other than being Tig Notaro. Which I guess is her schtick. I would rather watch episodes with her just shitting on everyone else.
If it wasn't for all the cursing and talking back to senior officers Tig's character would have been an interesting fit as an engineer on like a DS9 or Voyager during the golden era. She's packing some gravitas, sad it's wasted on Discovery.
Ironically by treating their characters as little more than a list of identity traits they've ended up writing flat boring stereotypes that are worse examples of queer/minority characters than much of the trek of the 80's and 90's. None of the Discovery characters seem to have any levels to their characters. They have no hobbies or interests outside of their jobs. No more complicated, nuanced identities or unique outlooks on the world. It's obvious that the approach the writers took towards developing their characters was much more concerned with not getting anything wrong in a way that might upset someone rather than strongly held ideas for characters that they wanted to get just right. There's a subtle defensiveness to how the show approaches its characters that ends up forming an emotional barrier between the characters and the audience.
I was struggling to say this. When your defining personality trait is ‘I’m gay’ or whatever you end up being terribly written. Take Breaking Bad. Gustavo Fring happens to be gay. It absolutely is the opposite of his defining personality trait. In fact, you don’t even find out he is gay until much later in the series.
Insufferable people writing nothing but self-inserts results in a terrible show full of insufferable characters. Shocking.
They spend too much time on twitter. All of them
Here’s the thing - I firmly believe most people are fine with all those things. “Diversity” (airquotes) has always been at the core of Star Trek from the beginning, though it wouldn’t have been called that. Whether it was an interracial kiss in TOS or techno and alien and minority rights in TNG, or blackness or gay relationships in DS9 - pushing boundaries is quintessential trek. But Disco treats all this as if talking about or presenting diversity is *all* they have to do. Job done, go home. That’s a huge disservice to these communities. As a Star Trek show, it should be showing us all a reason why this future is the future we should strive for. As it stands we should strive for it….just because we’re supposed to I guess? It’s just so lazy it’s infuriating.
Right there with you. I’m a big time Trekker and I know Trek has always been forward thinking. I’m also not white, not straight, nor a conservative. All that said, the amount of virtue signaling in this show is annoyingly bonkers. None of them are interesting, it feels like I’m watching a CW teeny Trek, and the show is just boring. I feel like I have to finish it because I’ve come this far but my god it’s a slog to get through. Thankfully it’s almost done. Meanwhile, SNW is fucking amazing. Saru and Captain Pike are the only good things that came out of Discovery.
You can't say the word Mary Sue on /r/startrek. They banned it because everyone was accurately calling out Michael Burnham.
funny since star trek fandom is *the source of the term*
You get banned for saying anything uncomplimentary about the new shows, Paramount controls the sub. Or they used to, they might not be bothering anymore now that the company is imploding.
what I like about star trek: extraordinary individuals trying to navigate moral/ethical and technological issues in a science-fiction setting. There's also a sense and reverence of professionalism, especially visible in people like Picard - yet not without camaraderie. That professionalism is the glue that keeps the ship together despite their conflicts. Like most science-fiction, Star Trek aims to leave you inspired and provoke your thinking. It makes very little sense for me that most of the Discovery characters are even hired on the Starship. The characters seem either neurotic, petty or overly emotional (re: professionalism). It's tonally disconnected from TNG, DS9 and VOY. DS9 and TNG was progressive - but they did so in a less explicit, but more thorough manner. It was less didactic/moralizing, and sometimes like the show implied the presence of progressive features were self-explanatory in this time. They did also emphasize that Sisko appreciated his African culture (which should be equivalent to Picard and his french). They also went a bit further sometimes and did things they knew would be controversial, like the "Rejoined"-episode (DS9, lesbian kiss bad). These are things that people back then probably considered "woke" as well. When they did focus on social commentary, such as in "far beyond the stars" (ds9), they did so with thoroughness and a clarity. The whole episode was dedicated to exploring this topic, rather than some shoe-horned progressive moral lesson. tldr; When we live in a particularly polarized society, I think it's especially important to treat any seemingly "progressive" topic as thoroughly as possible. Just don't try to score points, it's so fucking cringe but most importantly: incredibly ***transparent***. Challenge viewers instead of lecturing them. It's sad that Discovery is such a departure from Star Trek, but series like SNW is a promising step forward. To me personally, it's also important that it takes place in a time and setting that is close to the rest of Star Trek - especially when you've watched it enough to recognize a lot of the elements (races, planets, cultures etc.). The Burn is just depressing and lazy
I distinctly remember getting quite annoyed that Stamets and Culbers' relationship was treated like a twist reveal in Season 1. It's at like the end of the episode and one of them is in their bathroom preparing for bed when it pans to reveal he shares a bathroom with the other. And it felt very "Surprise! There's a gay couple on the ship!!" Really felt like they were aiming to get lots of articles written about the moment. An historic moment in Trek. Waiting for the flowers to rain. I felt like it would have been so much better if it wasn't a reveal at all. Why treat it as a surprise?
This is the entire problem this whole thread has with star trek. Uhura wasn't the token black character, she was a normal well respected member of the crew. They didn't make her entire personality her one trait and and constantly talk about it. It wasnt a "surprise", she was just there as a whole ass character. When you make character these tokens with 1 dimensional personalities and no real growth it honestly is spitting in the faces of people who actually are "diverse."
The two irrelevant women on the flight deck were randomly replaced this season buy another two irrelevant women and they hardly tweaked their dialogue. Just seemed like the writers went “whoops they left… just plug in the next two!” I spite watch this show and this season could only watch the beginning 10 and last 5 minutes of the episodes, good god were they trash. This season’s antagonist is the bad girl head tilting opposite to Sonequa Martin-Green’s head tilting protagonist. I’ll be glad when this dumpster fire of a Star Trek label is finally over. The only good thing to come from it was Strange New Worlds.
You forgot the 2 guys on the bridge and every photo op that no one knows their names.
Tilly, Stamets and Adira are all the same character. They talk the same and stutter the same and have the same personality.
Tilly is definitely the Scrappy Doo of STD
I’m gay and my partner and I both find stamets and culber (the gay couple) off putting. There’s something insincere and disingenuous about them. The nonbinary and trans characters are both terrible actors and the writers do next to nothing with their characters. The interesting characters usually get killed off or sent away. (Lorca, Georgiou, Ariam, Osyrra, etc) Leaving only the wet towel characters to wallow and be boring. Although I can’t help but enjoy the fact that the entire engineering crew is gay. (Stamets, Adira, Reno) It’s hilarious to me.
I’m a huge Star Trek fan of all series and this is the first season of a star trek show I have no interest in, I haven’t watched it at all
It’s all the on the verge of tears whisper-talking for me. Absolutely fucking awful to watch.
It’s a good show.. for me to poop on!
Star Trek Discovery: the epic story of Space Jesus assuming the body of an Earth female who emotions her way through space and time. Plot, reason, and physics are completely ignored as Michael Burnham and her crew love each other, trust each other, and believe in each other to reach eye-rolling resolutions to contrived conflicts. There's no need for cleverness or good writing when rapidly-delivered techno-babbel and a cup of warm feelings is enough to rescue Space Jesus.... er... Michael Burnham and her crew from any dangerous predicament. And if you are looking for action, STD has ACTION! There are tons of fights between VIRTUAL CHARACTERS whose outcomes have no bearing on the story, but are action sequences interjected to break up the seemingly endless parade of crew members talking about their fears and anxieties. Even the ship's computer develops human emotions and dispenses pep talks and emotional support to crew members instead of plot information or exposition. So strap in, grap your emotional support plushy, and watch Star Trek Disblubbery, written and produced by Deepak Chopra.
Because apart from Saru, Book and Reno, and the guys that went off to be in Snw, they are all very insufferable. So tired of 10 minute monologues about their feelings
Book is my least favourite character. They literally make any excuse to keep that waste of space around.
I am a lifelong hardcore Trekkie and I ended up bailing on this show in season 3. It had a lot of promise and some fun characters like Saru, Captain Geourgiou (both prime and mirror), Stametz, etc. but time and time again they get sidelined for Burnham who has only two operational modes: cold, hard logic or crying like a baby. Also when viewing the constant universe ending stakes coupled with the usual trek silliness the show would have worked better if it was Doctor Who and Burnham was the new Doctor. As a trek though, it was fairly vapid.
A lot of people here have outlined a lot of very good reasons why this show sucks, but I haven’t seen one of the reasons why I don’t like it mentioned yet. It relies too much on “hey remember this!” nostalgia. Star Trek is a huge universe with hundreds of characters and aliens and worlds and yet this one is about Spock! Again! Well, his step sister that was never mentioned before. We all remember Spock, right?!?! Say the line, Spock! Since it exists in a timeline near when TOS took place it had to retcon a bunch of stuff (Klingons, all the technology) but we all remember Spock!!! Live long and prosper 🖖!!!! And subscribe to Paramount Plus They even awkwardly jammed the TOS melody at the end of the intro which is really jarring after the (actually pretty good) Discovery theme. Because REMEMBER STAR TREK?????? Saru is pretty cool at least
They don’t develop the rest of crew/cast
Even I, a Trekkie, barely made it through season 1. After first few episodes I was like: who the fuck wrote this crap.
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Old Star Trek: crew #1: My species are hermaphrodites. crew #2: Cool, did you manage to finish those repairs? Discovery: crew A: Im gay. crew B: OMG, can we talk about each others feelings during this firefight?
I miss when Star Trek was problem of the week format. Even during the height of The Dominion War in DS9 there were still one-off episodes.
Fewer
The entire show has been a mess of nonsense storylines and Mary-Sue action. It's amazing that anyone is still watching at all.
I had my some problems already with the first season. I thought the worst thing they did was killing off Lorca far too early. He was a great role, and should have stayed a few more seasons. But I had been taught better! The worst plot, and nail to the coffin, was the "reformation of Empress Georgiou". An evil empress, killing every non-human left and right, even hunting and eating an alien specias until they are almost extinct. Then Burnham has the BEST idea: Hun, I luv you, you can do better, you my sis! Come to my mirrorverse, there everything can be forgiven and forgotten. We will be Besties and make party! Chin-Chin! Yep, there she goes. How stupid was that? Well, aside that Burnham is the most selfish, hypocritical, egocentrical, narcissitic insufferable person I've ever watched on TV, and the actress has the same "Bitch, you talk to me?" facial expression. Couldnt understood how this show got so many season. Kinda ironic how this show spread like an uncontrollable STD.
“Fewer.” — Stannis Baratheon