When you finally get to watch Discovery and realize it isn't actually an enormous pile of mugato dung
It's pretty bad. Comparing it to other Trek or not. Writing is atrocious. Much of the acting is bad. Crying Captain crying damn near every episode. Not developing much of the bridge crew over 5 years. Not to mention not remembering their own rules (I remember once they said they couldn't jump while cloaked, and then they did it).
Stamets, Saru, and Georgiou were they only ones that kept me watching.
If others can find joy in it, sounds good to me, but I'll pass thanks.
It's pretty terrible, not terrible enough to not see. The main problem is they made it very very difficult to care at all about anyone. Burnam is the most intollerable captain ever, they barely develop any character at all, and if they do, it's only to kill them immediately after and try and squeeze some easy feelings from us. Well developed characters are instead falsely killed, but ultimately protected by plot armor. As you mentioned, Stamets and Saru are the only really decent guys.
The acting is fine. The issue is the genre.
Discovery is melodrama, something previous series explicitly were not.
I can't tell you much about acting, because I see the shows subbed. However, the writing is terrible, in any language. Not only their choice don't make sense and there are constant plot holes, they are supposed to be seasoned Starfleet veterans, yet they act to dramatically, so emotionally, illogically and scared all the time.
And it's not a smart "logic vulcans vs illogic humans" confrontation, it's not a quirk of well defined characters with balance in their emotions; they are simply badly written for dramatic and sitting-on-the-edge type of narrative, which is fine I guess, but it's a cheap way to get traction in the narrative, which doesn't hold well for fans of the series that enjoyed the professionalism of Starfleet captains, supposedly the best of the best, capable of facing every menace.
Again, you want to do such a series, do it. But brand it as Star Trek, and you will get this kind of criticism.
Oh yeah, especially the season level writing. It's been a recurring disappointment. It's clear that they don't know how to structure a 10-15 episode serial drama.
See, I’m torn. Because ST often gets weird and goofy, but DIS seemed to take that to another level with some REALLY questionable writing, directing, and acting at times. But that said, the big showpiece that DIS brings to the table - and imo, absolutely hits out of the park - is the pervasive theme of radical acceptance. For all the cringe and facepalm moments that the show has, THAT is a huge win - and in fact, goes to the very core of what the UFoP is supposed to represent both in-universe and in the context of fandom.
What exactly were you missing in other shows that was accepted here (besides wild subordination and actual mutiny)? I have to say I felt somewhat uncomfortable with the amount of emotion they show during their work. I have no problem with the show exploring that, but these people are supposed to be professionals, having them cry during every shift doesn't really give that impression
That’s what I mean about the bad acting. That was regularly cringey for me.
But they DID very directly and prominently address acceptance of and compassion towards various mental heath conditions, neurodivergences, and non-traditional personal/sexual identities, the importance of which should not be understated in this day and age.
That’s what I mean about the bad acting. That was regularly cringey for me.
But they DID very directly and prominently address acceptance of and compassion towards various mental heath conditions, neurodivergences, and non-traditional personal/sexual identities, the importance of which should not be understated in this day and age.
Personally, I was overall disappointed with DIS. But when watching it there was the occasional moment that I loved. Lorca was a great character (until they did the haha he's actually super space Hitler rug-pull), much of the props, set designs, and costumes were great, Mudd was superb, it introduced us to Anson Mount's Pike and led to SNW, Saru was genuinely one of the most interesting characters in all of Trek, etc.
It also had a bunch of stuff that I just really really didn't like. But meh. That's just, like, my opinion maaaaann.
(until they did the haha he’s actually super space Hitler rug-pull)
My guy, they had him admit to blowing up his own vessel and killing everyone on board. He openly ignored Starfleets protocols surrounding new life and sentient life by sanctioning the effective torture of a creature to power the spore drive. He rejected admirals and went against their orders frequently. He slept with a gun under his pillow. He was shown to be collecting torture implements that are psychotically illegal from the entire galaxy and having a creepy room filled with those implements that also happened to have its own independent brig.
It isn't much of a rug pull if you looked down at any point...
Edit: -
He was also gathering navigational data the entire time and actively punched in extra coordinates into the Spore Drive from the Captains Chair. He then gave a long stare into the camera and said "Lets go home".
He was exceptionally pragmatic in military strategy which isn't so common in Starfleet in general.
The season is also littered with mirror imagery. First time Lorca is introduced is through a reflection in his window. Stamets has his mirror moment in episode 4.
He's also littered with scars, including ones that are consistent with the shape of an Agonizer. He showed extreme interest in someone willing to break one of the biggest rules in Starfleet and used his power to pull her into his reach through some wildly sketchy means.
The light sensitivity wasn't an obvious one as it was a new thing, it was used to canonize why all the Mirror Universe episodes in DS9 and Enterprise are dimly lit and darker, but even that hints that he's not 'normal'.
He also behaved weirdly with Admiral Cornwall who knew him well and she even mentions that he's not the same person she knew.
He actively set her up for something he suspected to be an ambush and then refused to go save her despite risking the ship repeatedly before. Something Saru even questioned at the time.
He's even eating the same food that Burnham is served in the Mirror Universe.
Like I said. Isn't much of a rug pull if you look down.
He was still far more interesting to me as a guy suffering from PTSD and having to often choose between two bad options. There are a lot of ways a character like that can grow and evolve.
But he was never that. Ash Tyler was the one set up for having PTSD but the only thing close to it for Lorca was when he jumped Admiral Cornwall when they were sleeping together. But at the end of that episode we see him purposefully set her up to fail and then abandon her.
I mean, if human and terrans are identical, expect for the dim light thing, you can expect any terran to have ptsd. If you put a human brain with its psicology and needs, every single person will have ptsd from the traumatic life of violence, betrayal and torture they must endure.
I thought the last two seasons were good, but 4 was great. I still don't recommend it though because of the first three.
It's almost like people throw a fit over everything new for little reason other than not what they're used to. TNG was whined about. Ds9. Voyager. Discovery is in good company. Still Trek, no matter what anyone whines otherwise
Ds9: where's the exploring? They're on a space station!
Voyager: where are all the aliens we know about?
Enterprise: it's been a long road.
With time, they all got their space. (This is me agreeing)
All Trek is equal.
With the exception of Code of Honor and that racist ass shit they wrote for Chakotay
Ok so literally not what you're after, because I do like LD.
However, sometimes it feels a bit too Rick and Mortyish for my taste. Mariner could shout "Wubalubadubdub haha, amarite guys??" and it would seem completely in character both with her and the show.
I guess it makes a lot of sense considering they poached some talent from the R&M team, and LD was greenlit after executives saw how popular R&M was (the same is true for multiple other sci-fi comedy cartoons).
I still like it, but I can't sit and watch like 4 episodes in one sitting like I could with DS9 or SNW.
I’ve never watched Rick And Morty, but I find the constant reference humour to be very grating. I’ve come to appreciate the characters but also can’t get excited about it like most of the other series. I’d definitely rate it in the bottom half of Trek shows.
Yes. There are people on this community who frequently complain about the show. One dude was outright banned because he refused to accept LD as canon or any animated show as canon while being hyper dismissive and aggressive about that stance.
They're out there and they're not that unicorn-esque. They just generally don't say anything because they don't want to go against the grain. Same reason why the people who loathe Discovery are multiple factors louder than the fans. Anytime I said I liked Discovery on reddit I got jumped by every Trekkie who claimed that I clearly wasn't a real fan.
Hello, I am the unicorn. I don't resent LD per se, but I hate "adult cartoons" aka crude pseudo intellectual, cynical humor. I understand other people like it, but for me it is just not real trek, both tonally and the cartoon medium itself (TAS can get fucked as well).
I couldn't make it through the first episode because it's direly inane. Like, it's aggressively vapid and everything I hear about it reinforces that opinion. I mostly just avoid that stuff so instead of being there making a show of how much I hate that show, I'm just... not? I think that's maybe why you think we're unicorns: could be you just don't see us because we don't hang out around the thing you expect to see us disliking. Kinda makes sense from another perspective, I think.
That or the rest all got banned or bullied out or something for having unapproved feelings regarding series deemed important. Idunno. Kinda tired of it being a religious issue.
I really dislike lower decks. I find it annoying and lacking in ideas. I feel exactly the same about Final Space the previous show by the creator.
That said I don't think it's bad or not very "Star Trek". It just completely grates on me.
To contrast I really like TOS, TNG, and DS9. I thought VGR and ENT felt "Star Trek" but badly written. DSC and PIC are badly written and don't feel "Star Trek" to me. I've herd the final PIC season is pretty good so I'll give it a shot at some point.
Yes, it's the least Star Trek I've seen so far. I couldn't make it past maybe the 2nd or 3rd episode. Much preferred Final Space if we're going for that kind of show.
All Trek is equal.
Yo them's fighting words Stamets. Obviously Year of Hell is above all the rest.
Maybe it's simply that the format changes a lot.
TNG is much different from TOS and some people don't like that style.
I can honestly say that I find Discovery extremely frantic, boring and way too contemporary, but that's just my expectation towards Trek. Others have different tastes.
Maybe it’s simply that the format changes a lot.
Then that makes the complaints even more pointless. If the format and style of the series changes continuously then what basis do people have for whining that it "doesn't feel like Star Trek"?
I feel that frequently a lot of complaints about the show are directed towards the entire series as a whole. That Discovery doesn't fit for whatever reason. Yet these people are the ones who are wrapping up so much variety throughout the shows to one 'feeling' and when it doesn't fit they check out.
Yeah, if you don't like that style that's perfectly fine. Personally I don't like the style of DS9. But I'm not out here saying that because it's different than what I am used to and what I like that it "isn't Star Trek" or "doesn't feel like Star Trek."
I've said this before but Star Trek shows off diversity through as many aliens and characters as they can. Why are people so angry when the shows themselves do the same thing?
I'd argue that there are different categories of Trek-feel. TOS is different from TNG and DS9, and the "new Treks" are different from those TNG/DS9.
The new Treks are all much more modern and contemporary. The production styles are completely different, the underlying topics are much closer to reality. It is a completely different category of show, that just happens to take place in the same universe.
Whether that's a good thing or not, is up to debate. But arguing that "this is not my Trek anymore" is invalid, is just wrong.
The new Treks are all much more modern and contemporary
As opposed to TNG, DS9 and Voyager using more modern and contemporary filming techniques than TOS? Enterprise going even further?
The underlying topics are much closer to reality
I... what? This is clearly from you looking back, not from you experiencing it at the time. EVERY TREK DID THIS. TOS had an episode aggressively about racism and segregation, not to mention the Uhura kiss in a time of extreme racism against anyone black and the civil rights movement. TNG had an episode about deafness being a part of his race but not a disability, a couple of years after Children of a Lesser God was released. They also had multiple episodes about genetic alteration, something that was just rising to prominence in reality with GMOs, engineered drugs and the first time animals had their genes changed. I mean even Barclays holoaddiction was a BLATANT comparison to the rise of video games at the time and worries about becoming addicted to it. The complaint that its "much closer to reality" is completely void.
It is a completely different category of show
The exact same complaint was made against TNG and DS9 but now both are under the same category. The category is Star Trek. Not Star Trek that feels a certain way. If it is Star Trek then it, by default, is in the same category.
I'll agree on the bit that different Treks feel different but I outright reject the notion that due to a different feel it doesn't get to be classed as Star Trek. Once again. Star Trek gets to have diversity in the numbers through characters, races and species. Why are the shows not allowed the same?
extremely frantic
Yes! I didn't know what was wrong with it but that's it. It's like a movie trailer where they put everything in to get viewers to watch the movie but it's 50 minutes long.
I'm just happy to have new Trek shows after like 15 years lol and now there's SO many
Plus, DIS really got into the groove after the first 2 seasons, which is a common problem IMO for many Trek series from TNG to ENT
Up until Lower Decks, no Star Trek show had a good first season. Most of them had a rocky second as well. Also why I balk everytime someone says "Yeah I watched the first couple episodes of the first season and gave up." But you sat through the first season of TNG and the first 3 of Voyager with no issue?! Seasons that are twice as long?!
I think you’re forgetting TOS! Hit the ground running with two very solid seasons, then fell off a bit for the third. Kind of reverses the usual pattern.
When The Last Jedi came out I went to see it with some friends who were big Star Wars fans. I thought it was fun, they hated all of it. I said to them "I guess I am not big enough of a Star Wars fan to hate Star Wars that much." The same is true for almost everything.
I've been a Star Wars fan for almost three decades and I think almost all Disney Star Wars is "fine" at worst. Even most of the things I didn't like had some sort of redeeming qualities, or I could recognize that I wasn't the target audience. The only thing I truly hated was Rise of the Skywalker, which is quite possibly my least favourite Star Wars thing ever.
I realize this puts me in the very small minority among Star Wars fans, and it's the reason I tend to avoid fan discussions these days - the relentless negativity is exhausting and leaves little room for discussing the things about Disney Star Wars I find good and/or interesting.
I'm with you buddy. On pretty much everything. There are things in Rise of Skywalker I like (Rey's new lightsaber is bitching but I also actually do like her taking the name Skywalker) but most of it feels like it was written by 14 people at the same time. But the sequels in general I do like quite a bit. BB8 is adorable, Rey is awesome, Finn is hot as balls, Poe can equally get it and I loved seeing Carrie Fisher back in the saddle
I am a big Star Wars fan and TLJ is the only one of the three I think is actually good. Though, admittedly, TFA is fun if you shut your brain off and don't think about it.
Yup. Proudly love the Sequels too. There are some flaws in them, don't get me wrong, but it's new Star Wars that expanded on what we got. Personally I found that a thousand times more interesting than the endless void of fanfiction being peddled as 'believe in whatever you prefer!'
Nah.
Lower Decks and SNW is generally well liked even though it's new and not what people are used to (LD is a wacky cartoon comedy).
Both TNG and DS9 were bad shows in the beginning (DS9 could be described as ok-ish, but it ran concurrently to TNG in its prime, so looked worse in comparison). Fans didn't dislike them because they were new and then got use to them, they disliked them because they started out bad and then liked them because they got better. VOY and Enterprise are generally considered bad to highly flawed (ENT 3rd season being the exception because, again, it was good).
There are PLENTY of reasons not to like Discovery. You enjoyed it? Great, have fun. No need to dismiss people not liking it because it's new or whatever.
My main complaint is common to Picard: I don't think the season long arcs were a good idea. I felt like maybe that had enough story for a "two parter" but stretched out to a season because "streamers binge".
I did watch it, that's how I know I don't like it it didn't take everyone else's views and make them my own.
Same, I needed more after SNW and wasn't quite ready for the way 80's - '00s era Trek was filmed. I actually liked the first two seasons and thought season 3 was okay.
Spoiler alert:
But then we learned about the source of the burn.
And then season 4 happened. And then season 5 happened. It felt like all of these were leaning into my least favorite things about Discovery. By the finale, I was fast forwarding through everything just to get through it.
Watching TNG for the first time now and loving it way more than Disco :)
Yeah, I got through season 3 and just let it go after that. Like the other seasons, the first half had me, but the endings killed it for me. And the endings just kept. Getting. Worse.
Sounds like you saved yourself 2 more aneurysms haha.
I actually liked a lot of S1 and S2 (S2 being peak because enterprise crew just carry the hell out of everything) but I also like edgy and dark media and can overlook a lot if the tone is done in a way that grabs me.
S3 looked promising until the "big reveal". Couldn't take it seriously after that. Forced myself thorugh S4 and S5 but those were just straight up annoying. I can't stand it when things go wrong just because the protagonists are being stupid, or getting held back by some weird moral stance they clearly didn't have 3 episodes ago. What's even worse is when it's so generic I can accurately predict how a 40-60 minute episode will end within the first 10.
Watching TNG for the first time now and loving it way more than Disco :)
There's so much to look forward to! It is a bit dated and I watch it through rose-colored glasses, but even with that in mind, it's a good show.
Coming directly from Discovery and SNW, the sets and how everything was shot definitely felt dated at first I won't lie. But it took a couple of false starts, and then actually watching it for more than 10 minutes for me to be super immersed and forget about all of that. Still on Season 1 and I really like the stories being told so far. I'm watching an episode here and there when I'm in the mood but I get the feeling I'm gonna reach a point where I binge the whole thing in an unhealthy amount of time haha.
My intro to Trek was Lower Decks so I'm also excited to see all of the crazy stuff they referenced in passing there :D
Yeah, my only complaints with it overall are the insanely high stakes every season. The format of the show is hyper-serialized by design, so each season is a 10-13 hour movie which appears to make "high stakes" a requirement. Once you accept that and go along for the ride, it is quite enjoyable.
That said, I do prefer the episodic format of SNW and LD.
Yeah, which makes the burn story kinda flop at the end. It was a good idea, a resource everyone has become dependent on becomes scarce. There was a lot of untaped potential there IMO, but a great premise. Then it gets turned into this asnine root cause. They could have done so much better. Imagine if they turned it into a tragedy of the commons. A warp superhighway wore a crack in subspace and that interacted with a nebula or something. It was a death of a thousand cuts and everyone ignored it. Maybe Starfleet even knew it could happen but ignored it because that's how they have always done it, and even if Starfleet stopped the cardasians and the gorn etc would still be using dilithum based warp bubbles (excuse after excuse)... Heavy handed, maybe, but more meaningful.
Totally second everything you state. The characters are absolutely great too, but the season story arcs with just incredible stakes are not my cup of tea. Serialized and packaged story EPs are preferred. That said I enjoy it for what it is.
Yes, the one where I'm 90% sure season 1 is some other IP that had Star Treks skin stretched over it.
I still maintain that season 1 of Disco was a sly attempt to reboot all of trek into the alternate timeline Calvin-verse. I can't prove this though. To me, the aesthetics are all a closer match to what's going on in the recent Trek movies than anything done before all that. Season 2 saw the producers backpedal hard after fan backlash.
They steered them back towards normal looking after the first season for what it’s worth. They literally have a character comment, “Oh hey, you’re all growing beards again.”
The hair was one thing, but also their skin tone. Every previous Klingon has had a "human" skin tone. But in Discovery, each Klingon is entirely either a sort of dark blue, charcoal, or just straight up black.
Reminds me of that TOS / DS9 crossover episode where Worf is like, "We don't talk about that with outsiders" lol
I think a lot of the criticism of DISCO is overblown. It’s definitely a fun watch, but it never really feels like Star Trek. It feels like an action sci-fi show wearing a heavy coat of Star Trek paint.
It was good once I accepted it for what it is and stopped expecting it to be something like what I generally expect Star Trek to be.
That's what a lot of modern Sci fi shows are doing these days, it seems.
Like the "Halo" show. It very much feels like someone took their idea for a show that got shot down, used find+replace to redo all the names and places to make it "halo" and got greenlit. And honestly I think I might have liked it as it's own thing.
People that had qaulity shows for decades expect quality. If you want to make a scifi show either don't call it Star Trek or accept the criticism
The criticism is worthless though as 95% of it was applied to every other new Trek to be released
That's not true. Enterprise was new when released and I find it quite ok. Might not be the best of the shows, but it tried a different narration perspective and decent writinf. SNW is very new and very solid, despite a similar context to DIS, with a more modern narration, relevant morality and even a less serious tone at times. It's just a better show, comparable to the "classic" ones, despite being a few years old
I thought Disco was pretty good, but it kept diverging further and further from what feels like Star Trek
I thought it got closer over time. Season 1 tired maybe a bit too hard to feel "new and fresh", but they reined it in a lot later on. I mean, obviously bringing the SNW Enterprise crew in for Season 2 was a bit of a mission statement, but the entire back half of the show is all about getting back to Trek status quo.
It's the classic hero's journey, where the hero starts out grumpily going along with the journey, but by the end, taking the lessons to heart and standing as exemplar to those ideals
Season 1 that was true where was trying to be grim dark. But I'd say that was actually one of the things they fixed.
It’s the only Star Trek show I’ve struggled to get through. It became the show I put on in the background while I was ironing my laundry.
I’ve watched everything else except Enterprise and Prodigy.
Stamets is one of the better parts of the show, though.
I really do honestly recommend Enterprise. It has highs and lows, but some of the highs are WAY high. There's some of the best of Trek hidden away in Enterprise.
Discovery is very divisive among viewers. People seem to really like it or really hate it with not much in between. Both sides have valid arguments, but people forgot there is a middle ground.
Yeah I'm in the middle. More positive than negative, but I'm not a fan, especially of the 2 first seasons, it became better after the time jump.
However, even the first seasons do not deserve the hate we see.
I’m also in the middle, though more negative than positive. I love the inclusivity even though it’s a little heavy handed at times (more “let that be your last battlefield” than Uhura’s position on the bridge). I hate the stakes, internal conflict of the earlier seasons, and how far it feels from canon vs SNW or LD.
I agree the show is better post time jump, but to me it now feels like we know where the universe is going. Futures shown in one-off episodes are easy to wave away as alternate, but that seems harder for the franchise to manage when it’s multiple seasons.
It seems to me the powers that be have already decided to stick with the jump to the 32nd Century, what with Starfleet Academy in production. What's annoying is that there's now another lost era. I'd expect a lot of Beta canon material, but not a lot of official content to fill the gaps.
Discovery, especially the last 2 seasons are very, very inclusive. Which pisses some people off.
Next to that everything is debated. Sometimes way too long. And if you cant look past that it's sure to annoy you very much.
Lol at people getting uppity over diversity. Like, that's Star Treks' most defining characteristics.
For me, it wasn't so much the diversity, it was that everyone seemed to be struggling with their diverse identity. It's the 23rd century, people should not be uncomfortable with their identities anymore, ESPECIALLY the crew of an advanced space ship. It just seems that rather than a professional crew that we see in every other Star Trek show, they decided to pack this one with a bunch of high schoolers struggling to figure out who they are. For fuck sakes, the ship itself starts having an identity crisis at one point.
. It’s the 23rd century, people should not be uncomfortable with their identities anymore
And people are totally comfortable. I am guessing that you're referencing Adira and their reaction to announcing that they're non-binary? That didn't happen in the 23rd century. It happened in the 32nd in an area torn with strife and isolationist behavior that is also not a part of the Federation. Their reaction is appropriate for the setting. There's a reason that Culber and Stamets are gay without addressing it. Because they are from the 23rd century where that isn't an issue.
For fuck sakes, the ship itself starts having an identity crisis at one point.
.... It's a newly born AI that is being threatened with being severed from its physical housing. Yeah I feel like that's kind of appropriate as well. I mean when they did that in TNG there was Measure of a Man... so...
My push back would be that the crew is from pre utopia federation. I think your take is reasonable though
It's only 10 years before TOS. Earth and the federation were already post capitalism utopias.
There's few different criticisms of DISCO. From different perspectives
People who are concerned with canon have issues with the first couple of seasons because it's set before TOS but has had a big visual reboot. They'd also probably argue that some of the story elements don't fit in with canon.
The first season (at least) doesn't feel very star trek, it's got this whole grim dark thing going on. That is thankfully dropped later and you do get the normal hopefully outlook.
Characters aren't developed very well. Even by the end I don't think we've got to know anyone other than maybe Stamets and Tilly.
Plots often rely on the mystery box format, which has been disappointing when they don't stick the landing
Plots are over whole seasons, when they probably don't need to be.
Because of 5 production often started before writing had finished, and it shows. So you end up with a good start, a bunch of meandering, and then suddenly bam you're at the final crisis.
I often find it an OK show.
I also find it quite frustrating that after the time jump they didn't take the opportunity to tell some different more interesting stories. Grappling with how society would have changed unimaginably for this crew compared to what they're used too (like in the forever war when we hear how earth has changed), or grappling with genetic modification (in show the eugenics wars were over a millennium ago at this point - surely the federation would have gotten over one species bad experience with it) etc etc.
Watch it without reading any critic reviews first, is my opinion. (When I watched Enterprise, it just so happened my opinions aligned with other people's complaints. I am glad I watched it first though.)
Things that people found divisive, I really didn't. Some changes probably caught everyone off guard, hence the major controversy of season 1, but at least it was plausible that the change could align with the rest of the Star Trek universe in some way. Maybe.
Like most other new shows, it can be a bit rocky as the writers develop the story and underlying theme.
I thought this was about the discovery channel... and didn't understand anything from the comments
Until you ACTUALLY watxh it, and discover(y) that it's an enormous pile of sucking Donkey balls
My personal highlight in DIS was the start of S3, when Burnham amd Book were cruising around with his ship. I thought "Yeah, that could be nice. Star Trek that's not playing on a Federation ship? That could be a nice change of pace". Then two episodes later they abandonded that and returned to the same old.
Michelle Yeoh carried the show in the episodes she appeared in. Otherwise it is Bantha poodoo.
Right? It's pretty solid.
I think it's a shame the show ended on a bit of a downer, but season 1 is underrated and 2-4 are actually very watchable. I think my power rankings are 4>2>3>1>5, but I could change that in a rewatch.