(TV) Star Trek: Discovery

[draykorinee]

Another fun episode, I'm loving this series as much as the last.

[Vilendor]

is it progressive though? we focus on 1 black character and a bunch of white ones, with aliens that could be any ethnicity under the makeup. theres an asian drige officer, and we dont learn his name in all 11 episodes hes in for the first season. the OTHER black female bridge crew memeber? whats her name? shes in 13 episodes and has 4 lines for all of season 1. the "female" robot thing. whats its name? it had 10 episodes. and the girl with the prosthetic blue eye, metal plate and shaved head. She says "its all your fault burnham" and then is another permanent background bridge crew member until the second episode of season 2. I know her name was mentioned once, but she was so forgettable considering how she was used (or misused as she should have direct hate for the main character) Its far from being the USS AFIRMATIVE ACTION. Voyager was so much closer to that. its just a bad show that fails to utilize an ensemble cast for much of the show. Rainn Wilson has more total screen time than some of the mentioned bridge crew...and hes supposed to be a secondary character. this is where the show fails.

Need to post more then a meme image. Infracted.

[I Push Buttons]

I'm a Stargate fan myself, and I don't have your luxury of watching my childhood series renewed again. Why? Because of crybabies who said SG Universe sucks and they don't like it.

Maybe one day. Roland Emmerich is apparently remaking the original movie in a few years. If successful, perhaps it will spawn more series spin-offs.

[cface]

I disliked S1 a lot, not sure how I got through it. But S2 feels a lot better, especially S02E02. I just wanna see them explore ordinary stuff, and not focus that much on burnham, who is ok, but is not a character that can carry the show alone.

[Yvaelle]

I disliked S1 a lot, not sure how I got through it. But S2 feels a lot better, especially S02E02. I just wanna see them explore ordinary stuff, and not focus that much on burnham, who is ok, but is not a character that can carry the show alone.

Yea I think this is really key.

If you look back at TNG, you could pretty easily pick any episode and say, "Ah, this is a Troy episode", or "This is a Riker episode", or "This is a Broccoli episode". They had so many characters who could carry an episode themselves that they only used the best ones and cut a bunch of half-baked ones.

When you only focus on a single protagonist to solve most of your problems (Burnham) you're going to run out of steam fast. Particularly because characters can grow and evolve by explicitly NOT being the forefront character of an episode: but watching purely on how they are used or where they fall short in someone else's story. Burnham's story through season 1 was good, but Season 1 had other issues: but if we do another full season of Burnham, this series will run out of steam and die.

By contrast, if they could evolve the other officers into more complete and interesting characters - then the show could do run 10 seasons if they wanted.

If you haven't seen the Discovery Short Treks, watch them all: they're all individually better than Season 1. I want to see a lot more of that.

[draykorinee]

Yea I think this is really key.

If you look back at TNG, you could pretty easily pick any episode and say, "Ah, this is a Troy episode", or "This is a Riker episode", or "This is a Broccoli episode". They had so many characters who could carry an episode themselves that they only used the best ones and cut a bunch of half-baked ones.

When you only focus on a single protagonist to solve most of your problems (Burnham) you're going to run out of steam fast. Particularly because characters can grow and evolve by explicitly NOT being the forefront character of an episode: but watching purely on how they are used or where they fall short in someone else's story. Burnham's story through season 1 was good, but Season 1 had other issues: but if we do another full season of Burnham, this series will run out of steam and die.

By contrast, if they could evolve the other officers into more complete and interesting characters - then the show could do run 10 seasons if they wanted.

If you haven't seen the Discovery Short Treks, watch them all: they're all individually better than Season 1. I want to see a lot more of that.

This is an interesting point, I didn't mind at all in S01 but it is definitely something that isn't sustainable, the more characters given focus the better.

[Sorshen]

Sonequa Martin-Green has only 2 emotions she can show, and it's getting old fast.
I think Anson Mount is saving this season. Much like Isaacs, Rapp and Jones (plus Michelle Yeoh) carried the first one.

[draykorinee]

Sonequa Martin-Green has only 2 emotions she can show, and it's getting old fast.
I think Anson Mount is saving this season. Much like Isaacs, Rapp and Jones (plus Michelle Yeoh) carried the first one.

Imagine a vulcan raised person not showing a lot of emotions ><

[Endus]

Yea I think this is really key.

If you look back at TNG, you could pretty easily pick any episode and say, "Ah, this is a Troy episode", or "This is a Riker episode", or "This is a Broccoli episode". They had so many characters who could carry an episode themselves that they only used the best ones and cut a bunch of half-baked ones.

When you've got a large ensemble cast and continuity from episode to episode isn't just an expectation but actively undesirable, that kind of design makes sense.

As I mentioned up-thread, the way people watch TV is not the same today as it was in the '80s and early '90s. Back then, you needed "episode of the week" formats so that if people had lives and missed an episode, they could pick up the week after without a hitch. Today, between DVRs and on-demand, that's not a risk, and audiences have shown they generally prefer longer-form storytelling, with seasonal arcs rather than episodic storytelling.

To put it another way, TNG was a collection of short stories you could read in whatever order, because people might miss one here or there. People today prefer novels.

There's still some standouts in the older style (Black Mirror is a major example), but if anything, they tend to exaggerate the separation between episodes.

I don't think we'll see a return to episodic "show of the week" formats. People have issues with one-off "monster of the week" episodes in current shows, that don't push forward the seasonal arc; TNG was all "monster of the week" episodes.

When you only focus on a single protagonist to solve most of your problems (Burnham) you're going to run out of steam fast. Particularly because characters can grow and evolve by explicitly NOT being the forefront character of an episode: but watching purely on how they are used or where they fall short in someone else's story. Burnham's story through season 1 was good, but Season 1 had other issues: but if we do another full season of Burnham, this series will run out of steam and die.

I agree S1 had too great a focus on Burnham, but they seem to be stepping that back in S2. She wasn't a major part of Ep 2. It's more about Pike and Tilly; Burnham's there to be Pike's foil, primarily, and Pike overrules her.

That said, I can't agree that focusing on a small number of main characters causes a show to run out of steam. Case in point; Supernatural. It's been a threesome for most of its runtime (the brothers and Bobby, then the brothers and Castiel). They're on season 14. Now, we can talk about how good or bad those seasons have been; it's been up and down. But that's the point; they've had low points and then come back to new highs. The deep focus into a handful of characters is a big part of the show. The issue is that the actors need to be able to carry that load; the guys on Supernatural largely can. I don't think Martin-Green is pulling it off, with Burnham. I'm having more fun with Pike in this new season.

If you're using a focus character, they need to be one of two things. A point-of-view character, a Regular Person who's there mostly for the viewers to empathize with and be our path to experiencing the crazy nonsense. Or the Most Interesting Person Around.

Seth McFarlane's captain on The Orville is the former. A regular guy, he lets the craziness of his co-stars shine; he's the normal center to the wackiness around him.

Sherlock on either Elementary or, well, Sherlock, is the latter, whether you prefer Johnny Lee Miller or Benedict Cumberbatch. Those shows live or die by the central characters and their portrayal.

Burnham is neither. She's not that strange, and most of what makes her "special" is that she's related to people we already know. She's not awesome because she's Michael fucking Burnham, she's supposed to be interesting because Sarek's her adoptive dad and Spock is her estranged adoptive brother and jesus christ we had a semi-Vulcan character already in Spock why are we doing this. Worse, she started out a little disaffected, with Vulcan patterns of thinking and analysis, but now, she's just acting like anyone else. Was for most of Season 1. She lost the Spock-ness and became Regular Person, but they still want her to appear to be the bestest human ever.

They're trying to do both stories at once, and it doesn't work. Make Burnham the Riker or Data of the show. Critical, but not the center focus.

By contrast, if they could evolve the other officers into more complete and interesting characters - then the show could do run 10 seasons if they wanted.

Really, the rest of the crew we've had time with, I find more engaging than Burnham. She's the weakest link. I just don't think there's enough character there for the deep dive they tried to give us in S1. "My dad is Sarek and my brother is Spock" is an anecdote, not a character. They had more interesting stuff with the "I totally fucked up and got decommissioned and sent to prison", but then they handwaved it all away.

[Ryme]

Sonequa Martin-Green has only 2 emotions she can show, and it's getting old fast.

I agree. I understand the argument that this is to be expected with someone who was brought up Vulcan, but it's not always consistent with her actions; she's often written in emotionally laborious scenes but she just can't get that across. Sometimes I'm not sure if that's her fitting the role well or not, but I know that it's not exactly a character I can root for.

Her role seems to be exposition on Star Trek ideals, my guess being the idea of the marriage between objective value (paired with Vulan logic) and personal improvement (paired with human emotion) that sort of encompass a general idea of what Starfleet is about. Trouble is, I find no human anchor in her outside of stoic sarcasm that seems simply to be badly written powerful female #763.

I thoroughly do not buy into her character due her (perceived?) acting range and what I find worse is that I don't even think it would be interesting if I did. I just get a sense of creeping tropes with her.

[Endus]

I agree. I understand the argument that this is to be expected with someone who was brought up Vulcan, but it's not always consistent with her actions; she's often written in emotionally laborious scenes but she just can't get that across. Sometimes I'm not sure if that's her fitting the role well or not, but I know that it's not exactly a character I can root for.

Her role seems to be exposition on Star Trek ideals, my guess being the idea of the marriage between objective value (paired with Vulan logic) and personal improvement (paired with human emotion) that sort of encompass a general idea of what Starfleet is about. Trouble is, I find no human anchor in her outside of stoic sarcasm that seems simply to be badly written powerful female #763.

I thoroughly do not buy into her character due her (perceived?) acting range and what I find worse is that I don't even think it would be interesting if I did. I just get a sense of creeping tropes with her.

I think the worst part about it is that her central character identity is "half-Vulcan and half-Human". Not biologically, in her case, but she was raised Vulcan.

Now, it's bad enough that Star Trek already plundered this exact character concept in perhaps their single best-known character; Spock.

It's even worse because Burnham isn't even a new take; she's Spock's sister, and raised in the same household. It's the same character arc. And now, in Season 2, we're getting Spock alongside Burnham, so why are we even bothering with her?

Trek's even delved into the cultural conflict in more-varied ways, with other characters. Worf was born Klingon, but raised by a Federation family. His son is half-Klingon, and explored that stuff. On Voyager, Torres was half-Klingon, and at least took a different angle on it all than Work and Alexander. Enterprise had T'pol dealing with the humans. And then Discovery, bam, "what if we made Spock a black girl?" To the point of having literally the same adoptive parents.

As much as I'll bitch about how fucking stupid the spore drive is, Burnham's character is the laziest goddamned thing in the show's writing. And they aren't even trying to take her down a different path; she's just Spock, again. Not a new version with added features, a re-release with a new paint color and that's it.

The interesting part was her whole "I'm prejudiced against Klingons and mutinied and almost got my entire ship destroyed and crew killed" bit, which they basically handwaved shortly into Season 1, giving her an insignia-free uniform and her mutiny only coming up rarely.

I couldn't care less that she's a black girl, before anyone misrepresents the "coat of paint" up there; my issue is that she's just a Spock retread and they're focusing on retreading Spock rather than on her being the only mutineer Starfleet has ever seen. That last bit was the interesting part. She should have never gotten a uniform, and never gotten her commission back. Especially after Lorca was shown to be a Mirror Universe fraud; he's the guy who pulled her out of prison in the first place.

[SavoirFaire]

Trek's even delved into the cultural conflict in more-varied ways, with other characters. Worf was born Klingon, but raised by a Federation family. His son is half-Klingon, and explored that stuff. On Voyager, Torres was half-Klingon, and at least took a different angle on it all than Work and Alexander. Enterprise had T'pol dealing with the humans. And then Discovery, bam, "what if we made Spock a black girl?" To the point of having literally the same adoptive parents.

Each show had a few characters that were a bit atypical/alien to explore: The Doctor, 7 of 9, Belanna, Worf, Data, Odo, Quark, Garek (admittedly a semi-regular, but one of my fav characters). It seems like on discovery, those characters (with exception of Saru) are just interesting to look at or see, and we don't get to find out anything about them. I do not have CBS all access so i'll have to wait out S2 until it is complete. I enjoyed S1, had my issues with it, but am hopeful on S2 at least with the comments I've read here.

Burnham reminds me a lot of Daniella Panabaker on flash season 1: I cant decide if she's a good actress at acting the way she does, or just a flat out bad actress.

[Endus]

Each show had a few characters that were a bit atypical/alien to explore: The Doctor, 7 of 9, Belanna, Worf, Data, Odo, Quark, Garek (admittedly a semi-regular, but one of my fav characters). It seems like on discovery, those characters (with exception of Saru) are just interesting to look at or see, and we don't get to find out anything about them. I do not have CBS all access so i'll have to wait out S2 until it is complete. I enjoyed S1, had my issues with it, but am hopeful on S2 at least with the comments I've read here.

Burnham reminds me a lot of Daniella Panabaker on flash season 1: I cant decide if she's a good actress at acting the way she does, or just a flat out bad actress.

That's last is kind of why I wrote that post; I don't think it's necessarily the actress' fault. She's been given absolute garbage to work with. Depressingly bad, given that I actually like a lot of the rest of the show.

[draykorinee]

Now, we can talk about how good or bad those seasons have been; it's been up and down.

There hasn't been a good Supernatural season for a good 3 or 4. I quit after season 11.

Oh, you're back in hell again are you?

[Dhrizzle]

My big complaints about S1 were basically "why redesign Klingons? At all? C'mon" and "this spore drive is hella stupid and the giant tardigrade is dumb". Both are, so far, absent in S2 (though there's notes that they'll be going back to spore drive at some point).

I agree about the Klingons, the fact they redesigned them didn't bother me as much as the fact they decided they needed all the spikes, everywhere, to the point where the utter impracticality of it was distracting. Spore drive and tardigrade were monumentally stupid, but credit where it's due they just ran with the idea and played it straight until it worked.

Saru is great, he's probably the first Star Trek alien that actually feels like an alien and not a human overacting. The thing that really bugs me is I don't know why the pilot lady has cyber-bits or what the robot-lady's deal is.

[Shiny212]

Have any serious trekkies here actually made it through all of STD that's come out up to this point? I couldn't get further than about 5 episodes into S1 before I suffered a brain hemorrhage and had to stop.

I'm a huge star trek buff, seen it all, several times, I'm asking people like me, is S2 watchable, or is it the insufferable garbage I had to endure in S1?

To elaborate, I hate spore drive, I hate the butchery of klingon/vulcan culture and behavior , but most of all I cant stand the piss poor dialogue and general writing. Do these things somehow get better? Or should i just watch Orville.

[Dhrizzle]

I think DS9 is by far the worst star trek show (although I haven't watched TOS) :S.

Mainly, actually almost exclusively, because the actor who plays Sisko is absolutely worthless. I just can't stand his expressions (or lack of) and the way he puts a pause between every single word he says.

In text form, It is like......watching......someone......speak like this............and it drives me........completely INSANE.

Fixed that for you.

[Elim Garak]

Have any serious trekkies here actually made it through all of STD that's come out up to this point? I couldn't get further than about 5 episodes into S1 before I suffered a brain hemorrhage and had to stop.

I'm a huge star trek buff, seen it all, several times, I'm asking people like me, is S2 watchable, or is it the insufferable garbage I had to endure in S1?

To elaborate, I hate spore drive, I hate the butchery of klingon/vulcan culture and behavior , but most of all I cant stand the piss poor dialogue and general writing. Do these things somehow get better? Or should i just watch Orville.

Define serious trekkies? If what you wrote is a description - I disagree with it, those are not serious trekkies, more like crybaby trekkies.

I liked S1 in full. I was bummed with the new Klingon look at first, but I got used to it, I'm a serious trekkie you know. I saw no butchery of any culture, I liked Klingons speaking Klingon for a change, it has always bummed me to hear them speak mostly Enlgish, besides Qapla' now and then. I've found the Spore drive fascinating, I had issues about how it is not used in later treks (continuity) but after I learned how it works it was resolved, I'm a logical trekkie, you know. The writing is fine, the dialogues are fine. Orville is not for serious trekkies, it has some fun episodes but mostly it's a boring mess with poor acting.

Serious trekkie out.

[draykorinee]

Have any serious trekkies here actually made it through all of STD that's come out up to this point? I couldn't get further than about 5 episodes into S1 before I suffered a brain hemorrhage and had to stop.

Yes, they have, most of them have because its a great series.

[rogueMatthias]

Define serious trekkies? If what you wrote is a description - I disagree with it, those are not serious trekkies, more like crybaby trekkies.

I liked S1 in full. I was bummed with the new Klingon look at first, but I got used to it, I'm a serious trekkie you know. I saw no butchery of any culture, I liked Klingons speaking Klingon for a change, it has always bummed me to hear them speak mostly Enlgish, besides Qapla' now and then. I've found the Spore drive fascinating, I had issues about how it is not used in later treks (continuity) but after I learned how it works it was resolved, I'm a logical trekkie, you know. The writing is fine, the dialogues are fine. Orville is not for serious trekkies, it has some fun episodes but mostly it's a boring mess with poor acting.

Serious trekkie out.

Now for me I found it really dull at the start of Season 1. The pilot was a bit of a mess, Michaels kind of annoying sometimes and Saru acts like a slightly more serious Kryten.

Lorca was an interesting character though and I think the show improved a lot in the latter half of the season. Enjoying season 2 so far, it feels a lot more like old Trek. (and Pike is great)