(TV) Star Trek: Discovery

[Deleted]

Discovery is optimistic, smart and humanitarian.

Well, mostly it's just all about personal drama of the crew members. You've got the personal drama of the gay couple. Personal drama of the scared tall alien. Personal drama of the wannabe-Vulcan. Personal drama of the insecure and awkward redheaded officer with a really distracting mole on her face. Personal drama of the "I'm a captain in a wrong universe, get me out of here!" - captain. Personal drama of the man stuck in a Klingon's mind stuck in a man's body.

Yeah, the original series had like a single episode dedicated to any of the crew members and their struggles. Not some continuous Bold & the Beautiful drama going on board the ship. In TNG, there was the personal drama of Wesley Crusher, to which the answer was to remove that character from the show.

Yeah... I dunno. All this goddamn trite personal drama. It got real tiresome real fast.

[Frontenac]

Well, mostly it's just all about personal drama of the crew members. You've got the personal drama of the gay couple. Personal drama of the scared tall alien. Personal drama of the wannabe-Vulcan. Personal drama of the insecure and awkward redheaded officer with a really distracting mole on her face. Personal drama of the "I'm a captain in a wrong universe, get me out of here!" - captain. Personal drama of the man stuck in a Klingon's mind stuck in a man's body.

Yeah, the original series had like a single episode dedicated to any of the crew members and their struggles. Not some continuous Bold & the Beautiful drama going on board the ship. In TNG, there was the personal drama of Wesley Crusher, to which the answer was to remove that character from the show.

Yeah... I dunno. All this goddamn trite personal drama. It got real tiresome real fast.

I fail to see any drama in the Stammets-Culber couple (apart that Culber dies), or in Saru story arc (if he had any). And Tilly was probably the least dramatic of all the characters in the show. I can also add some "personal drama" in TNG. The drama of the androïd who wants to become a true little boy, the drama of the human-raised Klingon who clashes with his own people, the drama of the socialy inept and hypochondriac engineer, the drama of the two ex-lovers and their sexual tension, etc. What you are describing as "personal drama" are just normal character storylines that you would find in any show.

[Dhrizzle]

I liked that they put that reference in there. It was a nice homage to Enterprise.

You may have noticed an earlier reference - when Saru first had temporary command he asked the computer to contrast his performance against the great captains of starfleet history, one of those mentioned was Jonathon Archer.

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We haven't seen the same show then. Because Discovery is optimistic, smart and humanitarian.

What I like about Discovery is how they are still a bit shaky about the Federation's principles. The Klingon war and the 5-year mission gave the Federation the confidence shown by Picard and other officers, in Discovery they still seem to be riding on hope and uncertainty.

[Deleted]

I fail to see any drama in the Stammets-Culber couple (apart that Culber dies), or in Saru story arc (if he had any). And Tilly was probably the least dramatic of all the characters in the show. I can also add some "personal drama" in TNG. The drama of the androïd who wants to become a true little boy, the drama of the human-raised Klingon who clashes with his own people, the drama of the socialy inept and hypochondriac engineer, the drama of the two ex-lovers and their sexual tension, etc. What you are describing as "personal drama" are just normal character storylines that you would find in any show.

Yet somehow Discovery feels like Bold & the Beautiful, while TNG feels like Star Trek. Go figure.

[Vilendor]

After a horrible start i started to enjoy it. Well, not as a Star Trek series, but as a decent scifi. Up until episode 14. But this season finale? The dumbest crap i have ever seen. Yes, it even beats lizard Paris mating with lizard Janeway. Every Qo'noS scene (especially the bar scenes) made me scream at my monitor and ripping chunks of my hair. And the ending... really?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! A 20 second speech and everyone is ready to sacrifice Earth and the human race, because ... feelings and "who we are"?!?! I couldn't even watch the last minutes, Burnham looking into the camera and delivering the stupidest SJW monologue in history..... Yes, im perfectly aware that Star Trek was a "progressive" show always, but it never crossed lines, like going full retard and preaching suicide ideologies in the name of feelings.

I still hope there will be a season 2, just cut back the agenda to a tolerable level.... and for the love of the god, tell Sonequa (Burnham) that making constant bitchface doesn't count as acting. And cut that ridiculous hairbush from the top of her head

[Ivanstone]

Yes, im perfectly aware that Star Trek was a "progressive" show always, but it never crossed lines, like going full retard and preaching suicide ideologies in the name of feelings.

So not wanting to commit genocide is a suicidal ideology? Ok.

[Endus]

Finally got around to binging this, since I've had some time off this week. Overall not bad. I'd rank it alongside Enterprise (and I'm one of those who think Enterprise was solid Trek, so that's not a slam).

Some thoughts I have about the whole thing, though;

1> The Spore drive remains an incredibly stupid concept. I get wanting an instant-teleportation drive, but the mycelium network nonsense is quite possible THE stupidest iteration of that concept I have ever seen. Just say it's a "wormhole drive" or something, and find some similar conceit for controlling entry. The giant tardigrade was also really bloody dumb, and seemed only to be there because the show writers misread a single paper about horizontal gene transfer.

2> (maybe this is 1a) The flip-and-drop effect of the spore jumps was REALLY dumb-looking, and given that the show's effects were otherwise fantastic, it's just seriously bad. Especially given how much it's used.

3> The dark and depressing feeling in the first half feels out of character for Trek, but by the end, you find out there's a REASON (really, several), and those reasons DO make sense, so I'm fine with all that. If they were just trying to make Trek edgier/angstier, I'd be annoyed, but that really wasn't it.

4> It felt like we had important cast members who were there, constantly, but had their parts across the entire show's run just . . . cut. I even had to look up their names, because they were so irrelevant, even though their visual presence is constant; Keyla Detmer (the girl with the metal strap on her head) and Airiam (the cyborg girl) in particular. They're obviously important bridge officers, but I can't recall them even being NAMED in the show, and I'm not sure Airiam even has many lines. They could've easily fleshed those characters out a bit; we didn't really get the "bridge crew as family" feeling in this show we had from others, and this was a big reason why IMO.

5> Rainn Wilson's take on Mudd was fun, but really makes me wonder about continuity. Seemed a weird name-drop to make, since they could've just made it a new character pretty easily.

[Ryme]

I think the show was... enjoyable? It certainly doesn't feel like Star Trek TV, which I'm not really sure is good or bad but it have me pining for things I struggled to label another way, even small things like comic relief were painfully sparse.

Burnham is perhaps the least interesting character on the show whilst simultaneously having the most irrelevantly complex backstory, this leaves her with a very Mary Sue feeling. I just can't bring myself to care what happens to her, honestly I think the show would benefit greatly if her prominence was dialed way back to allow others the space to begin breathing and I hope the next season does this.

The season, as a whole, felt rushed and overly dark; it seems like they had a two or three part episode and needed to stretch it out over a whole season, which may very well be close to the mark considering the shows starts. Hopefully with nothing holding them back next season we can get a fully realised Star Trek show.

[Frontenac]

Finally got around to binging this, since I've had some time off this week. Overall not bad. I'd rank it alongside Enterprise (and I'm one of those who think Enterprise was solid Trek, so that's not a slam).

Some thoughts I have about the whole thing, though;

1> The Spore drive remains an incredibly stupid concept. I get wanting an instant-teleportation drive, but the mycelium network nonsense is quite possible THE stupidest iteration of that concept I have ever seen. Just say it's a "wormhole drive" or something, and find some similar conceit for controlling entry. The giant tardigrade was also really bloody dumb, and seemed only to be there because the show writers misread a single paper about horizontal gene transfer.

2> (maybe this is 1a) The flip-and-drop effect of the spore jumps was REALLY dumb-looking, and given that the show's effects were otherwise fantastic, it's just seriously bad. Especially given how much it's used.

3> The dark and depressing feeling in the first half feels out of character for Trek, but by the end, you find out there's a REASON (really, several), and those reasons DO make sense, so I'm fine with all that. If they were just trying to make Trek edgier/angstier, I'd be annoyed, but that really wasn't it.

4> It felt like we had important cast members who were there, constantly, but had their parts across the entire show's run just . . . cut. I even had to look up their names, because they were so irrelevant, even though their visual presence is constant; Keyla Detmer (the girl with the metal strap on her head) and Airiam (the cyborg girl) in particular. They're obviously important bridge officers, but I can't recall them even being NAMED in the show, and I'm not sure Airiam even has many lines. They could've easily fleshed those characters out a bit; we didn't really get the "bridge crew as family" feeling in this show we had from others, and this was a big reason why IMO.

5> Rainn Wilson's take on Mudd was fun, but really makes me wonder about continuity. Seemed a weird name-drop to make, since they could've just made it a new character pretty easily.

Detmer has been named a few times in the show. I agree with you that these characters were underused. However, after some thoughts, I remembered the original series. It was all about Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The other characters that had some importance were, in order, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov and the rest. I hope we learn more about Detmer, Airiam and that black dude on the bridge next season. We also still have to meet the chief medical officer (Culber was not) and the main engineer... The good thing is that we now have three strong, well established main characters: Burnham, Saru, Stammets.

I believe that Mudd's purpose was to remind us that some humans do not share the lofty ideals of Starfleet. Who better to do that than a classic character from TOS? His second episode was also full of hints about dimension and time skipping that happened afterwards.

[Endus]

Detmer has been named a few times in the show. I agree with you that these characters were underused. However, after some thoughts, I remembered the original series. It was all about Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The other characters that had some importance were, in order, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov and the rest. I hope we learn more about Detmer, Airiam and that black dude on the bridge next season. We also still have to meet the chief medical officer (Culber was not) and the main engineer... The good thing is that we now have three strong, well established main characters: Burnham, Saru, Stammets.

Right, it just felt odd to me to have characters who obviously had a core presence on the bridge, and a visual identity that made you notice them, but they were barely part of the story. I don't even mean they needed to integrate them into that main story, just have background references. Like, the party in that second Mudd episode; that was just "a party". It could've easily been "Detmer's birthday" or something, and changed nothing, but you include a couple seconds of Detmer getting cheered as she cuts some cake, and bam, you've fleshed her out a bit.

As it was, they felt like window dressing; they had good aesthetics but they were empty characters. And it would've been so easy to fill them up a bit.

They didn't need to be part of the "core group", but interesting side characters that get some exposure in a few episodes. As much as the character got maligned, think of Wesley Crusher in TNG. When he showed up, you knew who he was and why he was there, even if he wasn't a part of the current episode.

I didn't expect to get all this by the first couple episodes, but I did by the end of the first season. Missed opportunities.

I believe that Mudd's purpose was to remind us that some humans do not share the lofty ideals of Starfleet. Who better to do that than a classic character from TOS? His second episode was also full of hints about dimension and time skipping that happened afterwards.

Oh, no, I get the narrative purpose. The weirdness was that they created potential continuity issues, particularly since Starfleet SHOULD know exactly who Mudd is, and if I recall, when Kirk and crew encounter him, there's no big "uh oh", and given this is a dude who manipulated some kind off timeloop tech to serially murder a Starfleet captain and his crew while engaging in wartime espionage and sabotage, he really should be.

[Elim Garak]

Did you really expect them to explore every character in depth in season 1? Now you want to know more about them and you have to wait for season 2. Like with every other series.

[WoWGoneBad]

Finally got around to binging this, since I've had some time off this week. Overall not bad. I'd rank it alongside Enterprise (and I'm one of those who think Enterprise was solid Trek, so that's not a slam).

Some thoughts I have about the whole thing, though;

1> The Spore drive remains an incredibly stupid concept. I get wanting an instant-teleportation drive, but the mycelium network nonsense is quite possible THE stupidest iteration of that concept I have ever seen. Just say it's a "wormhole drive" or something, and find some similar conceit for controlling entry. The giant tardigrade was also really bloody dumb, and seemed only to be there because the show writers misread a single paper about horizontal gene transfer.

Until they say otherwise, I will hold to the idea that the Spore Drive is the beginnings of Project Genesis. I really got that feel when they added the spores to the planet and the planet came to life again. Knowing the spores have that kind of effect, they want to put it in Deep Science hands to fully flesh it out.

2> (maybe this is 1a) The flip-and-drop effect of the spore jumps was REALLY dumb-looking, and given that the show's effects were otherwise fantastic, it's just seriously bad. Especially given how much it's used.

Yeah...... I am not a fan of it myself. But they needed some kind of effect to show it working and I guess they had an Intern that day and ran with it lol.

3> The dark and depressing feeling in the first half feels out of character for Trek, but by the end, you find out there's a REASON (really, several), and those reasons DO make sense, so I'm fine with all that. If they were just trying to make Trek edgier/angstier, I'd be annoyed, but that really wasn't it.

For me this was a rather refreshing take on Trek. So far all the other series was so bright eyed and bushy tailed hoping through the meadows. This was the start of a war, war is not light, it is not frolic y, it is pain, death and darkness. I liked that part. I just hated how quickly it ended. They could have done the Klingon war for 2 seasons with plenty of material with battles for the planets but......

4> It felt like we had important cast members who were there, constantly, but had their parts across the entire show's run just . . . cut. I even had to look up their names, because they were so irrelevant, even though their visual presence is constant; Keyla Detmer (the girl with the metal strap on her head) and Airiam (the cyborg girl) in particular. They're obviously important bridge officers, but I can't recall them even being NAMED in the show, and I'm not sure Airiam even has many lines. They could've easily fleshed those characters out a bit; we didn't really get the "bridge crew as family" feeling in this show we had from others, and this was a big reason why IMO.

Detmer, while not fleshing out her back story had quite an impact on the show as the Helmswoman. The robo-chick I cant figure out if she is comms or Science or what station. With the war now over, I am sure we will start seeing more of their characters given time to shine.

5> Rainn Wilson's take on Mudd was fun, but really makes me wonder about continuity. Seemed a weird name-drop to make, since they could've just made it a new character pretty easily.

Mudd was fun, I liked his attitude and mischievousness. But I felt he was pushed to be too vile. Mudd fro TOS was mischievousness, witty and fun too but not as cutthroat.

For me as it stands the main characters of the show are Saru, Stammets, Tilly and Burnham bringing the backup. I just dont see Burnham as a major player yet. I am eager to see who the new Captain will be.

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The good thing is that we now have three strong, well established main characters: Burnham, Saru, Stammets.

I believe that Mudd's purpose was to remind us that some humans do not share the lofty ideals of Starfleet. Who better to do that than a classic character from TOS? His second episode was also full of hints about dimension and time skipping that happened afterwards.

I have to include TIlly in the main cast. She has been great in her role as the quirky but can be badass when needed. She and Stammets in scenes together are fun to watch too.

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Did you really expect them to explore every character in depth in season 1? Now you want to know more about them and you have to wait for season 2. Like with every other series.

I want what I want and I want it NAOW!!!!!!!!

This is the age we are in now... But I agree that at least Detmer should have had more development as the lady at the helm driving the ship. The cyber-chick and dude at comms not so much as there was not much need for them in this season. There was few ship to ship comms going on this season so no need for him and for cyber-chick, all she did was engage the spore drive on "Black Alerts". They could have delved a bit deeper with her too but the story going on the Spore Drive was more about Tilly and Stammets working with it. And those two havea great chemistry on screen despite Stammets being gay lol. Their personalities clash perfectly together without being annoying.

[Yvaelle]

Oh, no, I get the narrative purpose. The weirdness was that they created potential continuity issues, particularly since Starfleet SHOULD know exactly who Mudd is, and if I recall, when Kirk and crew encounter him, there's no big "uh oh", and given this is a dude who manipulated some kind off timeloop tech to serially murder a Starfleet captain and his crew while engaging in wartime espionage and sabotage, he really should be.

I'm pretty certain that all the actions, adventures, and technology aboard Discovery gets black-bagged before the series ends.

Which is why none of Discovery is mentioned by prior ST continuity. I was pretty sure of this from the very first couple episodes - it would allow them to erase all knowledge of what started the war with the Klingons, all evidence of the spore drive, any atrocities they might commit, early evidence of the mirror universe, etc.

So the admiralty at Star Trek command might know about all the actions of Discovery - but all the captains - even the flagship captains like Kirk and Picard - would be kept in the dark even centuries later.

I strongly suspected in the early episodes, that Lorca and Burnham, in order to win the war against the Klingons, were going to create and spread the mutagenic virus that devastates the Klingon population during TOS: so war crimes / atrocities. Along with all the risks of spore travel they might uncover, and access to the mirror universe - at the conclusion of the war - perhaps a condition of any truce - would be to wipe all evidence of Lorca, Burnham, Stammets, Discovery, Spore Drives, etc - from the history books.

So it didn't go down the way I initially expected - but I still expect Discovery will end up being a dark and well-kept secret of the Federation: which would explain in continuity why all actions and technology and encounters they had go unknown to all future generations (previous series).

[Endus]

I'm pretty certain that all the actions, adventures, and technology aboard Discovery gets black-bagged before the series ends.

Which is why none of Discovery is mentioned by prior ST continuity. I was pretty sure of this from the very first couple episodes - it would allow them to erase all knowledge of what started the war with the Klingons, all evidence of the spore drive, any atrocities they might commit, early evidence of the mirror universe, etc.

So the admiralty at Star Trek command might know about all the actions of Discovery - but all the captains - even the flagship captains like Kirk and Picard - would be kept in the dark even centuries later.

I strongly suspected in the early episodes, that Lorca and Burnham, in order to win the war against the Klingons, were going to create and spread the mutagenic virus that devastates the Klingon population during TOS: so war crimes / atrocities. Along with all the risks of spore travel they might uncover, and access to the mirror universe - at the conclusion of the war - perhaps a condition of any truce - would be to wipe all evidence of Lorca, Burnham, Stammets, Discovery, Spore Drives, etc - from the history books.

So it didn't go down the way I initially expected - but I still expect Discovery will end up being a dark and well-kept secret of the Federation: which would explain in continuity why all actions and technology and encounters they had go unknown to all future generations (previous series).

I mean, they explicitly did that with the Mirror Universe stuff, at least; wiped all records save under the highest classification for the admiralty alone, which explains why Kirk and crew didn't have a clue.

Not so much with more-minor stuff like Mudd, which is why (as much as Rainn Wilson did a FANTASTIC job) I felt it was an odd callback.

But you're right. Things are gonna get worse. Remember; the dark path they were on was driven by Lorca, who was trying to tear down a brutal Emperor. He was the lesser evil. And now, the greater evil is in the regular universe. With a Captain's rank. And a commendable record she can rely on. Giorgiou will be the one to spearhead the mutagenic weapon research, I'd lay money down.

The tech I honestly have less of an issue with. The phasers and communicators are morphologically identical; I can see that as upgraded effects and such. The show wasn't as visually dark, IMO, as a lot of people said (and with Lorca, there was a reason). The "new" NCC-1701 Enterprise, for instance, looked great IMO; the same stylings of the original, just upgraded to modern effects capabilities.

Though you did remind me of another thing that annoyed me; the utterly pointless character effect redesign of the Klingons. It was too extreme, not a refinement of the old. And their dental inserts made them all talk like they had wads of tissue in their mouths. If they'd done the same ship/costume designs with TNG/DS9/Voyager-style Klingons, it would've worked just fine. It's not like they futzed with Vulcans or Andorrans (at least, compared to the Enterprise-era Andorrans). And you can't use the metagenic virus explanation, either; that stuff got launched a century before Discovery, it was established in ST: Enterprise. It's shortly after TOS that they get a CURE for it. Which brought back the ridges, when all the Klingons we see in Discovery are all SUPER ridgy. It doesn't fit in the continuity, and there's no damned reason to do it this way.

I think what they're trying to do here is enshrine Starfleet's ideals. Burnham made a big step in this one, I think that'll get challenged in the next season. If I had to guess, that Giorgiou builds some superweapon, the Klingons are devastated, and she tries to seize control of Starfleet, through a combination of politics and martial law. I'd jump Season 2 ahead 5-10 years, allow for Giorgiou to have achieved the Admiralty and Burnham a Captain's chair (or at least First Officer, with the plan that her captain dies that season forcing her to grab the chair, but she's ready for it), and also to bring us into the TOS timeline (Discovery Season 1 being about 10 years prior).

[Frontenac]

I have to include TIlly in the main cast. She has been great in her role as the quirky but can be badass when needed. She and Stammets in scenes together are fun to watch too.

How could I have forgotten Tilly! She was indeed great with Stammets, but she was the perfect foil to Burnham. She's extroverted while Burnham is introverted; she's lacking confidence while Burnham is sure of herself (except in personal relations...); she's optimistic while Burnham is more pessimistic, etc.

[Puupi]

I'm willing to bet STD will end in the same universe as other Star Trek stuff, but they aren't in the same universe right now - a plausible way to get rid of all information considering Discovery in the other series'.

They jump to some other universe (the normal canon universe) in the end of the series and get blown up or w/e, therefore nobody after them know nothing about Discovery. Then the producers can say "we told you they are in the same universe, just didn't say when".

[Frontenac]

I mean, they explicitly did that with the Mirror Universe stuff, at least; wiped all records save under the highest classification for the admiralty alone, which explains why Kirk and crew didn't have a clue.

Not so much with more-minor stuff like Mudd, which is why (as much as Rainn Wilson did a FANTASTIC job) I felt it was an odd callback.

But you're right. Things are gonna get worse. Remember; the dark path they were on was driven by Lorca, who was trying to tear down a brutal Emperor. He was the lesser evil. And now, the greater evil is in the regular universe. With a Captain's rank. And a commendable record she can rely on. Giorgiou will be the one to spearhead the mutagenic weapon research, I'd lay money down.

The tech I honestly have less of an issue with. The phasers and communicators are morphologically identical; I can see that as upgraded effects and such. The show wasn't as visually dark, IMO, as a lot of people said (and with Lorca, there was a reason). The "new" NCC-1701 Enterprise, for instance, looked great IMO; the same stylings of the original, just upgraded to modern effects capabilities.

Though you did remind me of another thing that annoyed me; the utterly pointless character effect redesign of the Klingons. It was too extreme, not a refinement of the old. And their dental inserts made them all talk like they had wads of tissue in their mouths. If they'd done the same ship/costume designs with TNG/DS9/Voyager-style Klingons, it would've worked just fine. It's not like they futzed with Vulcans or Andorrans (at least, compared to the Enterprise-era Andorrans). And you can't use the metagenic virus explanation, either; that stuff got launched a century before Discovery, it was established in ST: Enterprise. It's shortly after TOS that they get a CURE for it. Which brought back the ridges, when all the Klingons we see in Discovery are all SUPER ridgy. It doesn't fit in the continuity, and there's no damned reason to do it this way.

I think what they're trying to do here is enshrine Starfleet's ideals. Burnham made a big step in this one, I think that'll get challenged in the next season. If I had to guess, that Giorgiou builds some superweapon, the Klingons are devastated, and she tries to seize control of Starfleet, through a combination of politics and martial law. I'd jump Season 2 ahead 5-10 years, allow for Giorgiou to have achieved the Admiralty and Burnham a Captain's chair (or at least First Officer, with the plan that her captain dies that season forcing her to grab the chair, but she's ready for it), and also to bring us into the TOS timeline (Discovery Season 1 being about 10 years prior).

I don't believe Georgiou is still a captain though. Her means will be rather limited. I can see her becoming some kind of mercenary or pirate. She must know how to build a lot of powerful weapons. She could sell that knowledge.

As for the Klingons, I must admit that I was not very fond of the new design. But, with time it grew on me. I just wish they could add beards and hair... Then they would look perfect. The augment virus did not spread to all Klingons. Most Klingons were not afflicted by it. I just would have liked that they showed us some "human-like" Klingons. Maybe next season? I would not be surprised if the Klingon mutants would have been relegated to the far reaches of the Empire. Somewhere near the zone the Federation would be exploring. We'll see.

I have made my research on Klingonese and, if we are to believe the Klingon Language Institute, Discovery may be the show where that language is spoken the best... One exemple: the letter "S" is pronounced by placing the tip of your tongue in the middle of your palate, without touching it, and blow air to pronounce a "s". It sound like a guttural "sh". Kahless, written "qeylIS," should be pronounced Kahlesh, like in Discovery... And when you look how other sounds should be pronounced... Well, no wonder the Klingons of Discovery sound like they have a hot potato in their mouths! But, yeah, those dental pieces don't help. Although I would say that they are more logical. I always wondered why Klingons would have such crooked, irregular (and decaying) teeth. These new teeth look much more functional...

[Ebalina]

This show started out great.
But the leading actress is not cutting it for me.
I care more for secondary characters then i do for her.

Also who ever designed the Klingons needs to be shot i do not care why they look like that i just hate it.

[Icaras]

Overall, I enjoyed the series quite a bit and I think the serialized format worked for the show (Had me looking forward to the next episode and wondering what would happen. With a normal trek style episode, there's no such excitement because you know this weeks episode will have no bearing on next weeks. Miss an ep? Doens't matter)./ I'm also glad it's prime continuity, and not kelvin. I really do dislike the kelvin timeline quite alot.

However I feel they rushed the ending of the war, it just seemed to magically get fixed, as did a few other issues (Mirror Georgio? Went off somewhere, doesn't matter. Ash Tyler and what his klingon to human surgery means for the series? Means nothing, he just goes off with girl klinggon. Micheal Burnham was a mutineer? Nah, she gets a medal and thats fixed. The war? Klingon girl did what she was told and this seemed to just stop the war, for...some reason. The spore drive...actually I don't believe they wrapped that up, which surprises me. They will have too come up with some reason for it to cease to exist, given nobody has or mentions it in any of the later prime series).

I also didn't like how they never bothered to even introduce some characters. Someone earlier mentioned in the thread, the red head with the metal on her face and the cyborg girl, and prolly a few others. They even talk a few times, but I don't think they were once even named (if they are I don't remember it), and we never see them interact with the other characters, they're just on the bridge.

I feel they could have easily cut a few scenes of Ash and Tilly and at least had the other bridge crew interact with Micheal a little bit.

My thinking is that this happens because early on they came up with the idea of Lorca being mirror Lorca, and decided they just had to do the reveal as soon as they could.

As such, a good chunk of the season has to switch course and suddenly deal with the mirror storyline, even tho the klingon storyline isn't wrapped up. Then when they get BACK to it, as I stated above, it feels like they ran out of time and just rushed to end it.

And because of when it happens, it's SO obvious what the reveal with Lorca is going to be. As soon as they entered the MU, I was saying to my sister "I bet he's an evil mirror man"...and sadly, I was right!
I feel they should have kept this for a later season, season2 at least. I'd say have a few hints that he's dodgy, then drop them as the war heats up, resolve (by focusing on it all season) and then a few episode in we go to the mirror universe.
Hell, then they wouldn't need to handwave the swapped MU destiny (Did MU destiny cause villainy while they were swapped? Nah, they blew up right away.)

Lastly, having the pike era enterprise show up really annoyed me.
This starts to get into small universe/star wars prequel territory (Yeah we know ships and star bases were lost, but the federation is still big enough that we don't need to be continually having cameos. IMHO, it's ok for us to deal with the parts federation that don't involve the enterprise)

Plus it means if any of the known characters are shown(and I bet they will be), they'll either be re-cast (WHich means we get the kelvin universe problem, because nobody will look exactly the same, despite being the same people) or they'll try to cgi them to look the same (Which would be worse, as star wars showed they still can't get them to look real and not trigger the uncanny valley).

Lastly, having Micheal interact with Spock just creates problems IMHO, especially if they try to have Spock show up a bit (It's not like they dumped the entire enterprise crew between Pike and Kirk, Spock himself still being there is evidence of that.
It just makes it more weird, that he'd never mention Micheal...even weirder when you factor in the movie that reveals a previously unknown brother....and that's not even accounting for the fact that Sarek himself is a federation big shot, so it'd stand to reason that micheal would be well known just by being his adopted daughter...argh, they really should have just made her parents generic vulcans! >.<

[Endus]

Overall, I enjoyed the series quite a bit and I think the serialized format worked for the show (Had me looking forward to the next episode and wondering what would happen. With a normal trek style episode, there's no such excitement because you know this weeks episode will have no bearing on next weeks. Miss an ep? Doens't matter)./ I'm also glad it's prime continuity, and not kelvin. I really do dislike the kelvin timeline quite alot.

If you want to get technical, it can't be either prime or kelvin continuities. In both, in 2154 (around the era of ST: Enterprise), the Klingons got hit with a metagenic virus that wiped out their forehead ridges. This was cured at some point shortly after TOS's TV run, timeline-wise, which is why the TV Klingons generally had no ridges, and the movie ones did (or some groups managed to avoid infection, but they were the minority at the time).

ALL the Klingons we see in Discover are way ridgier than those we see elsewhere in Trek. They clearly wanted to do a redesign, but that redesign means the metagenic virus didn't happen, which means we're talking about a third universe/timeline, as yet unidentified. Even if it's one that seems to share the same mirror universe as the prime timeline (but maybe the spore network connects to more than just two timelines, after all).

They might WANT it to be the prime timeline, and may have stated it, but if it is, there's continuity errors, which is why we're supposed to have timelines to begin with, to let each continuity branch exist separately.

Lastly, having the pike era enterprise show up really annoyed me.
This starts to get into small universe/star wars prequel territory (Yeah we know ships and star bases were lost, but the federation is still big enough that we don't need to be continually having cameos. IMHO, it's ok for us to deal with the parts federation that don't involve the enterprise)

There's less than two dozen Constitution-class ships, and the Enterprise is the flagship, so it's not THAT odd that they'd be scrambling in to make contact with Discovery, which is a high-end classified project. I'm okay with it, as long as it's basically just for a "neat!" moment and we either never see the Enterprise's crew, or it's just a quick conversation and maybe a transfer of critical mission personnel to the Discovery. If they put anyone on the Enterprise or in any way try to integrate it into the Discovery storyline, it's a mistake.

Plus it means if any of the known characters are shown(and I bet they will be), they'll either be re-cast (WHich means we get the kelvin universe problem, because nobody will look exactly the same, despite being the same people) or they'll try to cgi them to look the same (Which would be worse, as star wars showed they still can't get them to look real and not trigger the uncanny valley).

There's little reason to worry about that; this is about 10 years before TOS, and it's quite likely most of the "classic crew" aren't on the Enterprise at all. The only known character we KNOW is there is Pike, who's only had appreciable screen time in the Kelvin universe (and so recently that if they can snag the same actor, they don't even need to re-cast).

Lastly, having Micheal interact with Spock just creates problems IMHO, especially if they try to have Spock show up a bit (It's not like they dumped the entire enterprise crew between Pike and Kirk, Spock himself still being there is evidence of that.
It just makes it more weird, that he'd never mention Micheal...even weirder when you factor in the movie that reveals a previously unknown brother....and that's not even accounting for the fact that Sarek himself is a federation big shot, so it'd stand to reason that micheal would be well known just by being his adopted daughter...argh, they really should have just made her parents generic vulcans! >.<

I was okay with Sarek having an adopted daughter, but they should've stuck with the "I failed you" angle, rather than resolving it as they did. Drive in wedges between the two so that Burnham doesn't want further contact. He fucked her over for Spock, fuck him then. She'll show him. And then Sarek never really talks about Michael to Spock because A> he screwed up and won't admit that, like he wouldn't to Burnham, and B> he's giving Michael space. So Spock just never really knows her, and she's just someone Sarek mentored for a while to him, not worth bringing up or thinking of as a foster sister.