Two months ago I did a post asking for the opinion of Discovery and the comments were mixed. https://startrek.website/post/29577558
The commander disobeing order to the captain in the first and also attacking her? Xenophobic military propaganda? I didn’t like it and that I like Deep Space Nine.
Now I’m watching Lower Decks, is very funny and has a lot of references to other Star Trek series, is really good, I don’t understand how a comedy who is almost a parody catch more the Star Trek vibes more than a serious production. I hope Strange New Worlds have something good, because I was already disapointed by the three seasons of Picard and the first episode of discovery.
Xenophobic military propaganda?
Okay, I’ll bite on this.
I’ll grant that it’s been a long time, but that seems like the opposite of the message of both that episode and the season as a whole…
I despise Discovery but having a xenophobic protagonist was an interesting idea if they didn’t abandon it to make Burnham the moral center.
In the end, I think The Orville is the best of all the new stuff.
I tell every Star Trek friend I know to watch The Orville and they never do. Compared to Star Trek it leans more heavily into comedy, especially at first, but it’s easily the best Trek since 90s Trek.
I say it’s the best because it’s not a prequel or a retread. It’s its own story, and it’s also really fucking well done.
I think SNW took some notes, and that’s why it works. And I cannot fucking believe we STILL do not have a normal post-DS9 show.
post-DS9 show.
If you haven’t seen it the DS9 Documentary, What We Left Behind, can give you at least a tiny hint at where the writers would have gone, maybe, possibly.
Strange New Worlds is actually pretty good. Sure there are some weak episodes, some silly ones and so on but don’t forget Sisko got trapped in a board game and Picard was Robin Hood.
I do like Strange New Worlds and feel that it captures the style and tone of classic 90s Star Trek, that most fans love, best. However, I think the number of whimsical episodes relative to the overall length of the season compared to the length of seasons from the 90s tips the balance too far. I haven’t crunched any numbers for this comparisons, it’s just vibes but even if the ratio was the same, in a shorter season I feel you need more serious episodes to maintain plot tension and character empathy.
To be fair, SNW only gets a 10 episode season, so based on ratio, 1 silly episode of SNW is equal to ~2.5 episodes of TNG; it doesn’t take a lot of silly episodes to make it seem like a huge amount of silly in SNW.
I know we probably can’t go back to 25 episode seasons because those were always very taxing to work on, but I think 15 episodes is a good compromise. I think SNW would have really benefited from a season of about that length; even 12 episodes would be nice.
Heck, as convoluted as Discovery could get, from what I watched of the show (up to a few episodes into S4), it somewhat benefited from a longer season in the sense we had plenty of time for multi-episode plots, which are harder to develop in a 10 episode season balancing episodic and linear storytelling. However, I don’t think they used that time the most effectively, as season 3 often felt like death by subplots - the episode would take on so many subplots that, although each of them individually may have been good ideas, none of them ended up being particularly well-executed. It’s especially weird because they didn’t really need to do that; there was more than enough episodes to, say, have one subplot as an A plot and another as a B plot, then continue the B plot next episode as an A plot and have another B plot.
I’d take any number of additional SNW episodes. It’s the best of the new series alongside lower decks.
My biggest issue is I just dont like any of the characters and I wouldn’t want to be on that ship. That to me is the biggest flaw of Discovery.
Every other Star Trek I can imagine it being so cool to get to be there. Discovery would be awful. Being around that crew sounds awful and exhausting.
I tried watching it and got to what I was told was a peak episode in S1E7 and it was still awful and seemed like it would be awful. No charm. I compare it to other episodes in sci fi like it and it has nearly 0 fun and the fun it had was dark and creepy.
I just dont like any of the characters
Not even Saru? 😢
Commander Abe Sapien’s dialog early on is pretty rough. His character is entirely ruined by the forced tension with Michael.
I wish there was like a Season 0 where I could learn to care about the characters before the events of Season 1. I feel like it is taking me on a journey the characters havent earned.
It’s only downhill from there for Discovery.
The exact opposite is true for Lower Decks, I hated it in the beginning, but it ended up being my favourite show in 20 years.
Every first episodes of Star Trek series rather suck.
Eh, I dunno. The opening seasons are usually weak (TOS is an exception) but looking at Encounter at Farpoint/Emissary/Caretaker and even Broken Bow they all do a pretty good job introducing the show even if the cast hasn’t found its feet yet.
Honestly, Vulcan Hello / Battle of the Binary Stars is spot on for how the rest of Discovery behaves. Pay lip service to science and exploration and, at the first opportunity, trash that and turn into an action drama.
Really? I personally enjoy the first episode of most Star Trek series, TNG, DS9 and Voyager, because are a good introduction of what the series is, even with some retcons like Deanna and Riker telepathy or Data being able to smile in the first episodes of the first season.
EDIT: Also the first episode of Lower Decks, even if teleports supposed to detect anomalies. But the idea of a zombie infection and everybody resolving it without problem is cool.
I watched every episode, all the seasons. It does get better over time, and the last season is the best of them (imo). I feel like they started to actually figure themselves out by the last season, but I’d still say it was okay, not “good”. I think I would have liked a sixth season to see if it would have become “good”.
If we think of Discovery as a drama show that’s about people’s relationships that happens to be set in a sci-fi universe, I guess it’s an okay show. It’s just not what Trek or sci-fi fans want: sci-fi. Was it a good choice to make that kind of show? Well, you know, I wouldn’t necessarily say “no”, but I don’t think it should have been “Star Trek”. You can have drama shows in space, just call it something else. Trek as a franchise has a certain level of expectation, and disappointment exists in the gap between expectation and reality.
