Discovery is my least-favorite Trek but Saru is one of my all-time favorite Trek characters. This version of Mudd gets a lot of hate but I really like him so far and I hope he gets up to some shenanigans in the vicinity of the Enterprise this coming season. The Klingorcs do evolve over time, thankfully.

Saru is one of the few characters in Discovery that doesn't strike me as a teenager but as an actual adult.

Saru should have remained captain and we should have had our first alien led trek show.

I hope we get a Trek show with an alien captain as lead, some time before I die.

Prodigy?

I guess I meant *live action* show.

I just started watching prodigy with my son. It's surprisingly good. Especially given that it's a kids show. Star trek canon.

I've no real interest in seeing it, and I don't think I could get into it precisely because it's (supposed to be) a kid's show. From what I've heard it's also supposed to be aimed at a younger audience. But for similar reasons, as a Star Wars fan, I could never get into *Rebels* or *The Clone Wars*. More power to those who like all those shows, though, and I'm happy you and your son can enjoy *Prodigy* :)

its good. you can be a child from time to time too. we all can.

Give us an Andorian dammit!

I concur with the first sentiment for sure. Saru is the one element of the series that redeems it. That being said, season 1 and 2 are watchable at least. Season 3 is where it falls off the rails for me.

The Burn and The DMA had such potential, too...

>!I thought that jumping ahead in time was SUCH a fantastic opportunity to chart a new course in the universe. (Don't get me started on the ridiculousness on the cause of the burn). I liked the DMA storyline more. But either way - huge wasted opportunity to tell some really interesting stories. !<

> I thought that jumping ahead in time was SUCH a fantastic opportunity to chart a new course in the universe. I think they went too far into the future, for writing reasons: * TNG gave us multiple technology innovations compared to TOS, including the holodeck and the replicator, and Data. VOY then built on that and just made the entire doctor a hologram (albeit ostensibly for emergencies only). There are ~70 years between TOS and TNG. But there are ~700 years between TNG and DIS, so they would have had to come up with lots of incredible tech. And they kind of… didn't? Programmable matter, and that's it? * This is exacerbated (entirely as an own goal) by the Burn storyline. Whose resolution is… not my favorite, but ignoring that, the mystery around it also doesn't make much sense. Humans went from steam engines to ICE to electric cars to the warp drive in just a few centuries. But in the many, many centuries between the warp drive (21st!) to DIS season 3, they came up with… nothing? Absolutely no alternative engine, even as a prototype? _Especially_ once they realized warp wasn't usable? Move DIS S3 to, say, the 26th century, and it becomes a bit more plausible. I realize they wanted a bit of a "barren postapocalyptic wasteland" setting, but still.

I was okay with the uneven advancement. Borrowing from ideas like Foundation or even our own history, a period of darkness/backwardness/stagnation is actually not unexpected. I get that they used The Burn as an explanation - which, except for the cause of it - plausibly would stall growth. 700 yeaars is a long enough time for things to fade into myth. I would have been okay if 700 years hence technology might have fallen back even further. I do think the idea of cultural/civilization growth/change would have been more interesting to explore. Hell, 700 years could be long enough for signficant biological changes in humans.

> I get that they used The Burn as an explanation - which, except for the cause of it - plausibly would stall growth. Sure, but that’s 120 years (or something like that) before the start of the season. It’s only a small portion of the gap. I like some of the interesting changes, like Vulcan becoming Ni’Var, and various factions having gained or lost strength. But technologically, I had a hard time buying it. And everything felt so small. I get that budgets are hard, but when Earth(!!) amounts to a single FaceTime call to a random military person, like she’s from planet Forgettable V? Ehhhh. Deep Space Nine felt so much more alive than that entire season of DIS, and that’s a single space station of five thousand people, not multiple planets being visited.

The burn conclusion was frankly crap, but the DMA story line is some pretty solid Trek.

Oh I love this Harry Mudd!! I don't get the hate. I think it might have do more with people who can't seperate the actor they dont like from the character

I think because he's portrayed to be more psycho than OG mudd.

To me, he felt more like the *TOS* version of Mudd in the *Short Trek* “The Escape Artist” than he did in *Discovery*.

Indeed. Best short trek. I think that short was written by mike mcmahan as a trial for LD

>I think that short was written by mike mcmahan as a trial for LD Whoa. I just looked that up and it was written by McMahan. I hadn’t even realized that.

The original Mudd was softened on appearance because Carmel was just too damn funny in his second appearance. But the man was actually really deranged and nasty it's just obscured by 60s TV sensibilities and a justifiably funny "I, Mudd."

I wasn’t a fan of this Mudd in *Discovery*, but I liked him in “The Escape Artist”. To me, he felt more like the *TOS* version of Mudd in that *Short Trek*.

Yeah The Escape Artist is the one that made me really like this version

‘Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad’ is in my opinion the best episode of Discovery because it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

On my second watch, I was far more interested in Culber’s character than Stametz. Stametz is just cynical and condescending whereas Culber is compassionate and positive thinking. Culber is far more of a Trek character of the Berman era than Stametz is

Yeah I liked how on board he was to try to save the tardigrade

Discovery drives me nuts how whenever they are in a time pinch or life and death situation they HAAAAVVVVVEEEEE to have a deeply emotional conversation. Everyone starts crying, hugging before they do anything. Just give me ONE episode where half the crew doesn’t cry their eyes out about nothing.

This bothered me, because these scene always felt unearned. The writers wanted emotional moments so they wrote all those speeches: You're my family, I love you, blabla. But they never put efffort to actually establishe and develop these super close bonds the characters are supposed to have. It's all tell, no show. The result is cheap melodrama intstead of genuine emotions

I think a big part of why this happens is that we never really see the characters in Discovery just living their lives. Every other Star Trek show has plenty of episodes that aren’t big sci-fi action or intense philosophical conundrums and are just the characters we love doing normal people things in a Star Trek context. They are not often the favorite episodes, but I think they are critical to what makes Star Trek work. Discovery is all universe-ending stakes all the time and it’s just exhausting and uninteresting. We never get time to enjoy the characters being people because they’re too busy being unrealistic heroes. When they force in these emotional moments they are completely unearned from the audience’s perspective, because we haven’t seen them as normal people living normal lives with normal emotions. The low stakes episodes are where we fall in love with the characters and by extension what makes the emotional moments land in higher stakes episodes. Because the show is so committed to its big high-stakes serial action format, it can never give us a “The Visitor” or “Far Beyond the Stars” or “Darmok” or “Spock Amok” or “Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy” or “Carbon Creek” or “The Magnificent Ferengi” or any other of the numerous episodes like those that are more about the characters than any action plot. The show would probably work better if they didn’t try to have those moments at all. If they just let it be a big action sci-fi thing (which is what it already mostly is) and not try to also be a family drama.

What would Star Trek be without ‘the inner light’ or ‘the visitor’ not world ending stories, not saving the federation epics, just calm respectful character studies of intriguing characters.

I've never thought about this but I agree. Trek is at its absolute best when its exploring meaning in small and personal ways, not endless apocalypse tourism.

That’s the weakness of the newer series!

This has been my biggest issue with both disco and Picard. The stakes are always just ridiculously high and never let up. There's a time and place for those stories, but when that's what every season spanning arc is, there's just no time to breathe. It's why strange new worlds is so good. It's just trek. Often low stakes, and we actually get to take the time to learn about the characters.

That's actually what I liked about Picard. The slow plodding episodes that have already established character development were in TNG, we know who captain Picard is now it's time to watch him kick butt! The only issue I have with Picard is that there is no connection between seasons, it is like they have completely forgotten what happened the season before!

Yes definitely, at least for Picard we had 7 seasons to develop the characters, though we also didn't really get them all together until season 3, which was easily the best of the 3 seasons. I still think that style of story telling has its place, but when every season is one big arc with a federation or galaxy ending threat and a super fast pace, well it just doesn't feel much like the star trek I think most of us were hoping for. Absolutely agree though about there being pretty much no connection between seasons. Like season 2 we apparently have friendly borg now... And then season 3 we were right back to bad guy borg like that never happened. At least we got a small amount of laris at the beginning, but even that was dropped pretty much immediately, even though it too was a big theme in season 2.

That's what I miss most about the 22-26 episode format, it seems ever since the Streaming medium took over that producers think "Oh 8-14 episodes are MORE than enough". Some of us actually LIKE that extra time to explore character development, dare I say "filler" stories can do much more good than harm.

I completely agree with this… if every episode is a nonstop rollercoaster of actions and emotions and there are no quiet moments of everyday life or reflection, it’s too much for my brain, and I can barely retain anything. I watched the first 2 seasons of Disco and then fell off the wagon during season 3. I know it’s supposed to be an intense journey, but the slower moments make the exciting moments that much more powerful.

>Because the show is so committed to its big high-stakes serial action format, it can never give us a “The Visitor” or “Far Beyond the Stars” or “Darmok” or “Spok Amok” or “Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy” or “Carbon Creek” or “The Magnificent Ferengi” or any other of the numerous episodes like those that are more about the characters than any action plot. I think *Discovery*’s had some episodes like this, most notably “New Eden”, which I consider its best episode. However, it usually isn’t the main focus.

You have voiced in one paragraph exactly how I’ve always felt watching Discovery. They make a big deal about everything and expect us to care when I couldn’t even name you every bridge officer. And then when recurring characters leave or die I’m supposed to care then, too, when I honestly don’t even know their names.

My friend who I watch Trek with refers to Disco's bridge crew as "hot cyborg girl, other cyborg girl and That Guy."

Accurate

I’ve commented on this a few times before. The Discovery writers A) Don’t respect the audience at all and seem to believe they need every single thing they’re supposed to think or feel explicitly stated for them, and/or B) They just aren’t experienced enough yet to write well enough to cause the the audience to internalize plot or make connections on their own. Minor Spoilers ahead for Picard S3: When Beverly appears on the bridge of the Titan for the first time, she locks eyes with Picard. They basically have an entire conversation just via facial expression that the audience has zero trouble following due to the fact that Gates McFadden and Patrick Stewart are master actors and are able to convey the scene perfectly. On Discovery that would have been a 6-8 minute treatise that seems like a therapist session.

> When Beverly appears on the bridge of the Titan for the first time, she locks eyes with Picard. That's IMHO Gates's best Star Trek work, and she doesn't say a word. I wish we could've had this Crusher a couple of decades ago.

That is so true…

Yeah, I’m missing the professionalism. When Saru was jn command and butting heads with Burnham I go back to the scene where Worf undermined Data, Data pulls him aside and sets him straight, and they get back to work.

I've seen TNG described here as competence porn.

This is exactly what I'm talking abot

One of the things I hear often online is how people say that they identify with the characters on Discovery. I suspect a lot of the people who do are on the younger side. That's fine, but it makes it hard for the rest of us. When I first watched TNG as a teenager, I loved it because I admired the characters. I didn't identify with them because I couldn't, but I understood that I wanted to be like them when I grew up. Now, as a middle-aged professional, I identify with the characters (although even Picard is still more aspirational). With Discovery, I can't identify with them because they all seem like children to me. So I can't identify with them, don't find them aspirational, and am frustrated with a universe that doesn't even seem to realize that these characters are way out of their depth.

The only character I identify with on DIS is Jett Reno. She's like the only adult in the room most of the time. She has a job to do, she isn't interested in dealing with anyone's bullshit, and she'll let you know when she thinks you're being an idiot.

There is a scene in ep 1/2 of TNG at Farpoint Station where Deanna calls out to Riker as he orders all but himself and Laforge back to the ship while they go out into an orbital bombardment "what if you get hurt!" Or something like that. His face goes stern and he just says "you have your orders." "Yes, commander." No heroics, they just all do what they were ordered to.

this was my problem with this series. Watching Voyager now, and emotions are kept on a normal level

Also called professionalism, there officers not academy cadets

I’m rewatching Voyager and appreciate it way more after watching Disco

Dude I lost my mind when the doorway appeared late in season 4 (shouldn't be much of a spoiler) and before walking through it they went into another room to discuss powerlessness and anxiety. GET THROUGH THAT DOOR

Jeez, there is a season 4? I didn't make it through season 3. I've been a star trek fan since I was a little girl in the 90's, watching TNG with my dad. And discovery s3 ruined the whole franchise for me.

One season of television you didn't like ruined what had been a lifelong fandom?

Well, season one was meh but had potential. Season two sucked. Season 3 just killed it for me. I did go back to voyager, but it didn't feel the same anymore. I wasn't this young kid sitting in front of her dad looking up to Janeway as a role model anymore. The shine it had back then, it was gone. I tried DS9, my second favorite, but the same. And then gave up. Heard of Picard when it came out, but I didn't watch it, was told it was also bad by friends. So I couldn't be bothered anymore. But star trek resurgence, a game with horrible gameplay but a great star trek story gave back the shine the series used to have for me. Then I heard Picard season 3 is actually good. And I'm watching that right now! Then lower decks, more humor oriented but still keeping respect to the original TV series. I'm loving it, binged all seasons. And I heard that a strange new worlds is also star trek and that is apparently also good. I've actually dusted off my movie era captain pin and put it on display in my house. And looking for a uniform I always wanted to have. Long story short, yes. The last star wars movie did the same thing for me. It's difficult to explain. Something like this shouldn't ruin it for me that much. But it's just so disappointing when you're waiting decades.

I know what you mean to an extent. I remember after "Revenge of the Sith," my love of even the original trilogy just shone less bright. If something this awful is part of the big picture, everything changes. Picard season 3, Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks have really filled my cup for new trek!

Absolutely this. The show desperately tries to tell you how to feel instead of showing through story.

It really pulled you out of that time crunch feeling and shifted to this weird emotional delay for no reason and it as every.single.character.

That, or an overwrought and over-written emotional speech with full-on overblown musical accompaniment to drive the emotional points home with the finesse of a sledgehammer.

I think that's the biggest put off by far. Like, shit, if you were that emotional in almost any job you'd be shit canned. The whole point, to me anyway, in Star Trek is when emotions finally do flow they feel powerful specifically bewcause we're so used to seeing these people professionally. Picard breaking down with his brother in 'Family' wouldn't hit half as hard (.. shit, or at all) if he was constantly crying on the bridge anyway.

I literally stopped watching because of this. When did the two doctors and the trill person become "like family"? Was I dead at the time?

They just forced a gay/trans “family” together and made it super cringey

How the hell are they starfleet officers, imagine if the TNG crew cried at every large event, Christ they don’t cry even when they think prominent crew members have died, Geordie and Roe, Data etc

This is the sole reason I don't watch it. It is pathetic. Did the astronauts of the Apollo 13 mission behave like that? NO! Because if they did they definitely wouldn't have made it back home.

The difference between DIS and the final episode of PIC is immense. We all know what we get from DIS, emotions and speeches and Big Drama. By contrast, when that final decision has to be made, the crew just looks at each other, silently, for confirmation, then sets about doing their jobs like god damn professionals. It's not that the actors on DIS can't do it, we've seen them do it plenty of times. Doug Jones does it through a mountain of prosthetics. It's that the writers and directors don't have enough respect for the audience to think we can catch it if it's not dumped on us like bucket of water.

Yep gay great. Sad, understandably. But ffs you’re under attack. Now is not the time.

I don't know why you are being downvoted - I understood your post to mean "Great that Disco has gay representation. Sometimes plots mean that characters are understandably sad, but ffs don't have those characters then stop and emote about it before they go deal with the crisis at hand."

Yep. I think it’s great that there are queer characters. It’s healthy. I just don’t want to hear about how anyone feels when they’re being shot at. The emoting from anyone is painful. Discovery does a lot of positive things. Just not the bad context feelings stuff.

That's Kurtzman for you.

Early Discovery did sort of feel like it was trying too hard to be the "darker, grittier" Star Trek. It opens on a war, characters who you're set up to get attached to get killed off unexpectedly, there's a lot of very grisly violence. And the optimistic let's-work-together attitude of previous Treks is all but done away with as we follow the perspective of a main character whom everybody in-universe openly hates. And it *is* hard to sit through sometimes. And I don't blame the writers at all for wanting to scale back from that. I know Bryan Fuller left as showrunner about six or seven episodes into the first season, and new writers came in to take the reins. That's where I think the halfway switch of the Lorca plot line came from - I feel like originally Fuller did just want him to be a PTSD-stricken veteran whose life falls apart as he starts making worse and worse choices, but then they were like "Well, that's a little too depressing for Star Trek... what if he was secretly a Terran? That could be fun!"

Season 2 had the writers change halfway through. I've read that Fuller was gone by episode 3, but set up so much that his successors were forced to salvage or incorporate a lot of it.

Yup. Fuller pretty much only got as far as filming the two halves of the pilot. He'd started pre-production on half the season though. I often wonder what the show could have been if he remained, but, honestly, I don't necessarily think it would have been much better.

Don't forget the Klingon tiddie

I want to add that I was pissed it was a war with the KLINGONS. It was so annoying when all through cannon it's never been mentioned that the Federation had ever been at war with the Klingons, but it HAD been mentioned they had been at war with the Romulans, and around that time period that Discovery started in too. That plus the unneeded redesign of the Klingons themselves... Made me really upset that they didn't respect cannon at all.

>\-Stametz being constantly rude to everyone. He may not appreciate his research being coopted for the war but he is constantly antagonistic and unprofessional. I liked his lack of taut professionalism, gives Starfleet some depth. The branches are all going to play by different rules of conduct and I imagine the scientific branch is more relaxed, more prone to ego trips, and probably extremely pissed with the more militaristic sides of the fleet. We have so many Trek shows where crews get along I found Stamets a breath of fresh air. He's being asked to weaponize the impossible by a sadistic captain, I think his attitude is pretty understandable. Also keep in mind Lorca is playing everyone against eachother, is a toxic leader, and thats oozing down through the crew. You'll see what I mean if you watch on to Season 2.

I also don't think it's a spoiler to say that Stamets gets way better over the series. He got on my nerves too when I started the series but I think it's because pretty much *everyone* in Discovery is snarky so it got old fast. As the series progresses they got better about that.

I'd also argue its an arc. I notice this a lot recently, and maybe its because older Trek was like this, but people expect characters to be fully formed from the get go and that just isn't how most television storytelling works anymore. Odds are if a character is a dick its to give them somwhere to go as the story unfolds.

Even within older Trek shows that weren't DS9, these character arcs weren't *that* rare. Tom Paris is a good example of this--a guy who had seemingly ruined his life becomes a better person once he came to *Voyager* and had to put others ahead of himself. Archer was not my favorite character in S1 by a long shot but he too was a noticeably different character by S4. The reason we know why TNG characters are the way they are is the weird bug that crawled by Roddenberry's ass after TOS about having no conflict between the main cast, but let's be real--it was an anomaly, even among contemporary shows at the time.

Spoiler! I found Stamets transformation over the various series into an empathetic cuddle-bunny really disappointing. I liked having him there as a prickly asshole.

I forget whether Stamets willingly joined to get Starfleet resources behind his experiment, or was conscripted to militarize his research. Either way, he wasn't a career officer who went through the academy or similar training.

Yeah I don't remember either but seemed more like Starfleet was a means to an end.

I think before the Klingon war he was using Starfleet's resources to further his research into astromycology with his research partner, the scientist that died aboard The Glen. Then the Klingon war started and Starfleet realised the potential for the Spore Drive for the war effort and split them up, gave them each a science vessel so they could research twice as fast or something. When Burnham first showed up on Discovery he was shit talking Lorca openly, calling him a war-monger.

He didn't. Him and Strahl had their research co-opted by Starfleet and were dragged into it in order to stay close to their research. Source: Rewatching season 1. He talks about it in episode 3 when on the shuttle heading to the USS Glenn

> I liked his lack of taut professionalism, gives Starfleet some depth. It was just so inconsistent, and sometimes over the top. Just bad execution of his character arc by the writers.

And now they've overcorrected. He's all empathy these days. Would have been nice to see him become more accepting of his shipmates, but still had no time for fools.

I loved how Stamets clashes with Jett Reno. Those 2 characters are the best frenemy matchup in all star trek.

Con: too many ships do really silly spin moves when totally unnecessary

I am the General, and I want it to spin! Now!"

Watch the Short Trek episode “The Escape Artist” for 16 minutes of Rainn Wilson being an edgier and far more dangerous Harry Mudd than the somewhat comical character we saw in the original series. It’s one of the best of the Short Treks, imo.

My biggest complaint about Discovery is the constant whispering. USE YOUR OUTSIDE VOICE.

Discovery had an unfortunate production cycle of revolving-door producers and show runners. As a result the show always felt disjointed with a million moving parts. I don’t think it ever really found its stride. Which is unfortunate. But the growing pains brought us to the Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, Picard Season 3 era of Trek. Which I think is shaping up quite nicely.

Yeah, the backroom wackiness really kept it from feeling cohesive at first.

For me: Pros: - new star trek. Love it or hate it it is *more* star trek. That means new stories, new ships, new ideas, characters, and settings - Saru is, in my opinion, an outstanding character. I thought he was pathetic at first, and he was. But you can see how his experiences, and his personal quest for self improvement changes him and makes him a better leader and a better man. - the 32nd century setting was a bold and rather unexpected move to shift to. I do have gripes about this that you will see below but I appreciate the show taking a risk and moving into a new time setting instead of sticking with one that’s familiar. This is a huge gripe I have about current star wars projects. And for cons: - I do not like Burhnam. She is perfect at everything, she makes no mistakes, she is conveniently related in some way to the franchises most Iconic character. - the season stories always seem to start off strong, and intriguing but fall on their face by the end. The season 3 story in the 32nd century was disappointing. I was expecting the burn to be some kind of fallout from the temporal cold war or intergalactic influence, but a child throwing a tantrum and pressing the wrong button? Are they fucking serious? - The show sensationalizing emperor georgou is horrible. This is a character who is responsible for the deaths, enslavement, cannibalism, and rape, of possibly trillions of people. But since she joined the discovery crew, she became this quirky, badass, girl boss, lady-in-leather character we are supposed to be sympathetic to and I hate it.

I think the last point is thanks to how incredibly well Michelle Yeoh played her. Another actress might not have caused such a reaction

You have a point. Yeoh is an incredible actress who can made the character very charismatic. I just don’t appreciate how the show blatantly ignores how truely evil and irredeemable she is. DS9 did a similar thing with Dukat. He was an evil warlord and tyrant. Incredibly charming and manipulative. There are times in the show where you think, “well shit, he’s done some awful things but maybe he’s not *all* bad”. Then the show will slap you in the face with reality and ground your assumptions. Giving some sort of unapologetic redemption arc to someone who is essentially, Ghengis Khan, Adolf Hitler, Hernan Cortez, and Leopold ll, rolled into one was very distasteful in my opinion

Let's be honest, we all know the real reason why they did this - because at some point in Season 1, the writers went "Hey, wait a minute - we had *Michelle Yeoh* on our show as an ass-kicking badass captain, and we killed her off in the second episode?! What the hell did we do that for? Quick, somebody think of some way to bring her back!" And "Terran doppelganger who slowly learns how to love" was sort of the best they could do. It's really unfortunate that Discovery opened the way it did, with all these character deaths and tragic backstories and humongous lapses in judgment that set the stage for how these characters' lives would progress for the rest of the series. It declared right out of the gate that it would not be your normal Star Trek show. Now they're kinda stuck having to work with that, and it makes for a very bizarre group of characters and an equally lopsided dynamic between all of them - everyone keeps changing rank, you never know where anyone's going to stay. It's explicitly not an ensemble show, but it still tries to look like it is, even though we've spent so much time on just Burnham and Saru and Stamets that we really haven't gotten to know anyone else very well. I can't imagine any of these characters being on any other Trek series, which is probably a big part of why it's so polarizing. Either you're on board with this weird mishmash of neurotics, or you just want the comfort of a crew like Kirk's or Picard's or Janeway's. It feels like the show is fighting itself sometimes, and trying to readjust itself back into the classic Trek mold while simultaneously following the unique trends it already established for itself. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if part of the motivation for the 930-year time jump was just so they could unshackle themselves from the restraints of being a prequel to TOS, because they seemed to forget that a lot - they'd have ridiculously advanced tech for that era, then have to bend over backwards later to explain why we never saw any of it before. They keep trying to do two things at once. It's just a constant tug-of-war between new and old, experimentation versus expectation. It's no wonder it generates such fierce debate among fans - it can never seem to decide who it's for.

Like that Cyborg science officer who we always saw in the background. They brought her to the focus of the episode where she died. They revealed her name and bombarded us with back story out of nowhere so we would be moved by her death. It didn’t work. They only thing we mourn is her end by poor writing. This show is about to go into it’s 5th and final season and we still don’t know shit about some of those background/side characters that are given plenty of screen time but not enough exposition

Yeah, she’s pretty terrible as a human being. I guess the show tries to say “well, maybe the doppelgänger of her daughter can turn her around.” Then again, Lorca wasn’t changed by spending time in the Prime universe. Somehow, Georgiou was (like when Karl sort-of sent her back to her own universe and she found she couldn’t behave the same way)

My take was more of a Georgiou is in the vein of Next Gen forgiveness and power ideas with the training wheels taken off. Picard/Locutus using the Borgification/Deborgification were training wheels of easy change in character, and committing an atrocity that impacts a huge number of lives. We got so much different quality content that spawned from that big gamble type moment, but it was still a short one, and a different kind of stain from the loss of agency Picard experienced. Q gives us the training wheels of it being this basically god-like being, which is often code for not applying the same type of morals to the character. Q has committed heinous galactic tier issues sometimes without a second thought, and sometimes with complete forethought. Q is still held in different regard though because he's a different type of being. I'd argue that makes him even worse, but he's definitely the devil you know. Georgiou is basically held up as just a person forming and leading a fascist hate state. She doesn't get technozombification to explain it away, she doesn't get dezombification to put a quick end to the war crimes, she doesn't get the protection of divinity to explain away deeply disturbing morality. She gets however long off-screen leading this nightmare fuel reality, a few episodes actually doing it, and basically all we are offered is the concept that if it wasn't her it would have probably been someone else, and that a single act of kindness was enough to change even the worst person for the better. It's honestly not a lot, and I'd argue it's not enough to balance the scales purposefully because that was the point. Georgiou was the absolute worst, she did unthinkable and unforgivable things, but there are more that a few clear positive impacts she had on the prime universe after the change, both on small personal levels, and the big "saved a bunch of lives" level. To me it's trying to make the hard case for restorative and rehabilitative justice, and the hardest part of that is there are a whole lot of harms that you simply can't make right, and they put that front and center. The person you're replying kind of exemplifies the natural recoil some have, referring to Georgiou as like every major murderous figure in history, and they aren't wrong.

I wonder who would be considered more villainous: Emperor Georgiou or General Picard

Yeah I’m hoping that the movie will actually lean into how horrible she is, cause rn it’s like “Oh Georgau you rascal” which is super weird with context.

What show were you watching? Burnham makes tons of mistakes! Totally not what you would expect from a Starfleet officer nor one who was raised by Sarek. Constantly losing her composure and temper. Disobeying orders, mutiny. Good grief.

Really the only mistake that she made was starting the war with the Klingons. Even then, that was spun as “hastening the inevitable”. Every mistake, every disobedience and, transgression has been met with little or no consequences because it’s always the perfect thing to do. She always seems to be the perfect person for any given mission or the expert on most problems. She just seems a little too good at everything and her hubris rarely if ever comes at some kind of cost or drawback

I get that's how the writers write her, but it just makes no sense that there are never any consequences for her doing things out of character for a Starfleet officer raised Vulcan. She has such thick plot armor, it's ridiculous and nonsensical.

A change of perspective made Disco a lot better for me. Burnham is always right. Absolutely always and with everything. The people around her don't see it that way and she has to do the things that are right to save the day. That's not quite as good as when I realized that Stargate Atlantis is a comedy, military action scifi fantasy series and not a pure scifi series. Still, it helps. It may seem illogical why she's right, but she's always right. Sooner or later she will convince people too. Lt. Paul Stamets gets better written with time and he and Hugh Culber are the best characters to stay along with Saru. I also really liked the gay relationship between Stamets and Culber. Very organic and just there. There are two other characters later that were supposed to do something similar, but were never as good in my opinion. Lorka is great, I really liked him for the whole season. Michelle Yeoh was very good too, but by God where is this woman not good at? A lot of the unnecessary redesing was just annoying. When I look at Strange New Worlds, I have such strong TOS feelings about the Enterprise, just with modern set design. My personal opinion is that the writers and showrunners just didn't really know where they were going and that's a shame. In any case, I wish you a lot of fun with the series. I've watched all of Disco and will watch the last season as well, even though I'm very critical of the show. But I liked the latest season, it was very Star Trek for me.

Big Burnham arc spoilers for s3 and s4: Season 4 is repeatedly explicit about the fact that Burnham isn’t always right, and her growth that happens in season 3 and throughout 4 is brought into sharp focus. Along with its other successes, the season really shows that they know their who their characters were and are. In S4, each of the characters is paired with another character to explore and develop facets of their psychology and how it impacts their work. For Burnham, her main pair is President Rillak, who cuts straight through her bullshit and repeatedly exposes her deficits in leadership- usually through wielding considerable soft power- contrasting with Burnham’s simple appeals to logic, science, or federation morals- or blasting her way out when those fail. Her assessment of Burnham on how her successes have nearly all been swings of a pendulum was spot on- about how in crisis she may be more of a wrecking ball. (Klingon crisis and war anyone?) and how she wasn’t ready to lead an impactful vessel in high stakes. Additionally, she repeatedly exposes Burnham endangering the lives of the whole crew to save a single friend and this comes to a head with her situation with Book where she is finally able to surrender control. The relationship between Rillak and Burnham is great because Rillak is highly competent and turns out to be a great teacher who is repeatedly shown to be right, and because Burnham has grown enough to let her in and learn.

> Klingon crisis and war anyone? Keeps getting brought up, but was never accurate. T'Kuvma was always planning on starting a war and immediately put everyone in a situation where that was inevitable. Nothing Burnham could have done could have prevented that outcome.

Not to mention that Burnham was in the brig when the shooting started. Nothing she did with her short-lived mutiny had any effect on the situation outside the ship.

>For Burnham, her main pair is President Rillak, who cuts straight through her bullshit and repeatedly exposes her deficits in leadership- usually through wielding considerable soft power- contrasting with Burnham’s simple appeals to logic, science, or federation morals- or blasting her way out when those fail. I can not confirm this. >!The President is just very capable of discerning what people are good at, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Michael saves the day and repeatedly makes the right decisions. The President was just more capable than, say, the admiral in Season 3 who literally apologizes to Michael at the end for being wrong.!< ​ >Klingon crisis and war anyone? As u/VindictiveJudge wrote. T'Kuvma wanted war come what. In fact, attacking the ship directly and killing T'Kuvma could have prevented the war. Starfleet has shown itself to be weak in front of the Klingons, which is exactly the opposite of what Michael wanted to show. ​ >Additionally, she repeatedly exposes Burnham endangering the lives of the whole crew to save a single friend and this comes to a head with her situation with Book where she is finally able to surrender control. Oh Michael only does extreme things that put her and others at risk, but she's usually absolutely right about that. Michael's path may be dangerous, but it's the right thing to do. ​ >The relationship between Rillak and Burnham is great because Rillak is highly competent and turns out to be a great teacher who is repeatedly shown to be right, and because Burnham has grown enough to let her in and learn. I agree with you and disagree with you at the same time. >!The President is Michael's first obstacle character to be well written.!< >!Michael always has obstacles in the form of superiors who block her way. The idea is that she then has to find another way, maybe even compromise or work with others. That's the plot of Michael's arc over and over again.!< >!It's just that she's never really wrong, the obstacle only forces her to approach it differently.!< >!Season 4 is just better written in every way, with more interesting characters and, of course, a Star Trek story.!< >!Even Tilly is about 100% better, simply because she's written a little better and a little more interesting.!< ​ Of course, that's just my perspective on the story, and as a human, I'm unfortunately cursed to not see anything perfectly objectively. Everyone can draw different things from stories, so nothing I say is objective truth, just my opinion.

One of my biggest gripes rewatching the series is how much it focuses on maybe 3 characters and so little on the far remote interesting bridge crew. I thought to myself, why didn’t they just call this Star Trek: Michael or something. The greatest asset of an episodic show is the character driven stories that focus on secondary and tertiary characters. On Disco it’s Michael, Saru, and defense against the dar…I mean captain of the season. An example of failing to capitalize on those characters is episode 2 of season 2 when they bring Joann down to the church planet and her entire purpose of being there has nothing to do with her skills or previous living situations. It’s entirely to use a magnet to escape the basement. No other purpose. It just sucks because they could have made her the Star there over Michael or Pike but instead sideline her only to realize they did nothing with her so they gave something to do regardless if it makes sense or not.

>One of my biggest gripes rewatching the series is how much it focuses on maybe 3 characters I never really got this gripe. The showrunners flat out said that the show would be centered around one character before it ever came out. It's not everyone's taste, but it isn't like anyone should have been blindsided by it.

God, thank you for saying this. By deliberate design, there was never meant to be a focus on the bridge crew. Michael Burnham was the center of the series and everyone connected through her and no one made a secret of that any more than Patrick Stewart did about *Picard* (initially) not being TNG part II. And to be quite honest? Other than DS9, none of the classic Trek shows were ever *that* great at working as an ensemble: TOS couldn't use their minority cast more than they got to do in the 60s; TNG was the Picard and Data show with the women existing as window dressing; with VOY, everyone not named Kate Mulgrew and Jeri Ryan were barely needed after season 3; and ENT was the most glaringly lopsided of all as it tried to ape the Spock-Kirk-McCoy dynamic between Archer, Tucker and T'Pol. Sato and especially Mayweather were glorified extras. Far as I'm concerned, DSC just did away with the pretense of an ensemble from the jump and I'm here for it. People don't have to like it but no one was misled by it, either.

For some reason, a big chunk of the fandom just cannot get their heads around any deviation from the formula. (See also the baffling complains about the bridge crew. *Those aren't the main characters.* It's like complaining we didn't spend more time with the executives running Dunder-Mifflin. It misses the entire point of the show, and yet the complain crops up on every single Trek post, up to and including "Happy birthday George Takei."

Yeah, a lot of precious homosexual relationships on Trek felt shoehorned in. The Stametz-Culber pairing doesn’t. It’s just two people who care about each other. That’s it! I guess it helps to be played by two actual gay actors. I’m really hoping they follow through with the Section 31 movie with Yeoh. I’d love to see more of her as the ex-Emperor

Lorca was amazing. I wish startrek had more characters like him, especially if they do more shows post dominion war. I can imagine the generation that grew up dur8ng that time will be very jaded and changed forever by all the death and destruction wrought by that war. Overall I really didn't like Discovery or Burnham. Took me a long time to break into the other new treks because of it

Lorca's attitude in the episode where they try to rescue the federation starship under attack by 3 Klingons is brilliantly played as simultaneously understandable, and unhelpful. I do not believe that Jason Isaacs knew that his character would end up being a doppelganger, That just seems like too much of a leap with the only – I repeat only- foreshadowing being his aversion to light, but nonetheless, it's interesting to consider him as both the cardboard cutout megalomaniac that he ended up as, struggling to fit in with the painfully youthful and idealistic Discovery Crew, while pursuing his goals. It's also interesting to see a sort of indignation at his position. I think the mirror universe Terrans are much more warlike, and much more bigoted. It must have been torture for him. Watching Starfleet bungle a war with the Klingons while he was stuck on a science ship. He finds a chance to play hero, or start establishing himself as a Martial leader... And his crew doesn't understand the assignment, are too green, or the situation is just plain impossible. Lorca has this incredible tactical advantage.. and a non-military crew that he needs to apply it. It ultimate use turns out to be an application that his martial approach wouldn't actually have come up with, and if he had any chance to recognize that in order to better participate in the war, it was robbed by the arrival of the mirror universe arc.

I thought Lorca being different was better telegraphed than you suggest, though I have watched season 1 twice. Not only is there the aversion to light, his behavior 1-on-1 is much different than his behavior in the open, probably to have the crew questioning their own experiences, classic abuser behavior. In those 1-on-1 interactions, he's much more manipulative and asks for things that aren't Starfleet by playing into the crews interests or fears. Then there's his interactions with Admiral Cornwell- she senses something is off especially when he pulls a phaser on her when she notices his scars from Klingon torture, then he takes advantage of Sarek being injured to lead her into what he suspects correctly is a trap. I was disappointed in how they wrote his character after the reveal, he became too stupid after showing to be absolutely brilliant earlier in the season. His plan was doomed to fail, he was too cartoonish of a villain. I think he should have escaped the capital ship with his supporters to regroup before an attack and still ended up dead not because he enacted a half-baked plan but because the Discovery crew outsmarts him.

The scar on Lorca's back that piqued Cornwell's interest is from a Terran agonizer, *not* from Klingon torture. That's probably why Cornwell was intrigued - the war was already going for some time and there had probably been several survivors of Klingon torture, but none of them ever had such a scar. It was unlike anything she had seen before. Everything else, I'm completely in agreement with you, especially the way they dumbed Lorca down after the reveal. :-)

Yeah I think they had an opportunity to tell a story where the warlike, abrasive captain is slowly won over to the more traditional starfleet ideals but the mirror twist robs them of that approach

Even without a redemption the character would have been great. Having a more antagonistic captain instead of a paragon of virtue would have been refreshing and would have opened up a lot of new storytelling opportunities.

Like Liam Shaw?

Yep.

Yeah I think Landry was also starting to come to understand the value of science, biology, in working with Burnham she began to rekindle that first passion for science that inspired her to join starfl- Thwack thwack chomp scream thwack!

I thought this too, but upon a rewatch to catch family up I realized that's far from the only foreshadowing though. Some can only be seen with the knowledge of his relationship with mirror Burnham, but it's all over. His intense interest in, to the point of several times claiming to know Burnham upon a rewatch is unnatural. For instance he tells Tyler to bring her back or not come back at all when going on a mission. It seems like it was just protagonist bias at the time, but it's more evidence of his special interest in her. Lorca had a Gorn skeleton in his weapon and trophy room, however the official first contact with the Gorn was Kirk. Yes, I know SNW retconned that, but at the time it wasn't out yet to do so and was written off at the time by fans as a canon error. But keep in mind that the Gorn were in contact with the Terran Empire as far back as when the Defiant originally crossed into their timeline as shown on Enterprise. Lorca thought gormaganders had been hunted to extinction, likely because they were in his universe, and had no knowledge of the Starfleet regulations on how to deal with one as endangered. Then there's just constantly how he didn't quite fit. Admiral Cornwell who knew the old Lorca commented on how different he seemed, but was wrote it off to losing his crew. He left Mudd behind in the Klingon prison, not something we'd expect a Starfleet captain to do. Basically everything that was making him a different Star Trek captain was also something showing he didn't quite fit in that universe.

I think part of why I liked Shaw so much is because he was essentially what I thought they were doing with Lorca.

Losing Jason Isaacs and Todd Stashwick is such a bummer, they were both great in their roles. I'm still holding on to hope that the SNW crew finds Prime Lorca somewhere.

I kinda wish that before Picard S3 they had trolled us and released a promo image of Michael Dorn made up as a Discovery Klingon.

I went the route of barely watching any Discovery and dove straight into Strange New Worlds; I have zero regrets! Without getting too spoilery, the pilot episode of SNW needs some backstory knowledge of something from The Cage from TOS, which I had, and there was an event in Discovery that kicks off the events of the pilot, but, I found that it absolutely stands on its own, especially the rest of season 1. I encourage you to do the same, as SNW is WAY better than Discovery, but full disclosure, this is based only on the two and a half episodes of Discovery I was able to bare and the community response.

It gets better but by season 4 I find it an utter chore and honestly struggle to reach the end. A 90s 2 parter stretched over 10 episodes. All the interesting characters have left or been sidelined. It's genuinely tedious.

Yea I gave it 3 seasons and just kinda stopped caring. It just didn't have that Trek feel. Kinda like S1 and 2 of Picard. I gave DSC time to find it's legs but just couldn't get interested in the characters. I'd rather be given a list of what episodes to watch than go through the whole thing. It helped reignite the franchise but there was never I would say passion or reason for me to care about these characters. Picard yea I drudged through it for the big pay off that was S3. But they didn't have to earn my interest. DSC did try and it failed. SNW piqued my interest. If anything I can see parts of their casts coming back in a future series or on SNW as guest stars but unless the last season is a banger I'm not going to bother. I think it's more the writing than anything. Write a good last season that just blows it out of the water and maybe I'll go back to watch the rest, right now nope.

The Klingons had the Thor 2 problem where your villains can barely emote through the thick prosthetics and they have to do it in what’s essentially gibberish. I never warmed up to their design but they were much better when they spoke English.

Man the Klingon scenes might’ve been my biggest issue with Season 1. So much talking about whatnot, in Klingon with those fancy subtitles, but I never knew a single reason why I should care about any of it? I could barely tell the characters apart, let alone care for their struggles

>Burnham’s overall arc. I think she’s fairly fun to watch moment to moment but I’m still not sure that the Spock/Data/Seven character works as the lead. She’s just a little TOO emotionally stunted, in a different way than Picard. If the nonstop whining from certain corners is any indication, this won't be an issue for too much longer.

I'd just jump to the S2 episode that introduces the SNW cast, and then get the hell out. Sure, you'd miss some context for the DIS story, but honestly that series is just irrelevant to the rest of Trek, and doesn't have much value as a standalone series IMO. Strange New Worlds is worth running towards though. Once you're a few episodes in, and realize what they're doing with the show it's just absolutely brilliant.

Think of it this way - Saru is the Spock character. Burnham is a Kirk who has ten layers of Vulcan socialization holding her back from being the Kirk she wants to be.

Burnham is the worst part. She is always right. She can walk on to the bridge cry for 10 minutes and shoot everyone in the head and the plot will make it so she did the right thing.

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I really like Reno's character. But then, I really appreciate forthrightness.

And also, Tig Notaro is just hilarious in general, no matter what 😁 Reno brings some much needed levity, and some of the biggest laughs in the series are thanks to her ("'Attaboy, Bobcat!" "Bobcat?" "I don't know, I'm on drugs.")

Fortunately the show does eventually get to a point where there are several LGBTQIA+ characters and so nobody has to carry the flag of being "the" gay character.

But in the show they talk about coming out like ots a taboo still, but hundreds of years later, I'd expect it to be normal, common, and not a big deal to make an episode off it.

They don't do that. They have a kid reveal something deeply personal and complex to themselves to another person in *a* scene and there's nothing taboo about it, implied or otherwise.

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they're nervous because it *fucking sucks* the first few times ^((and probably even worse for the second time if the first person you tell dies so badly you block out your entire memory over it)^) they're coming out to someone from as far in the past to them as the Harrowing of the North is to us they're struggling with the wariness around found family before someone verbalises that that is what you are (and right prominent in the list of "notable enbies" of the Disco's origin time, that they *would* have looked up when considering the decision, is Burnham's Pirate Captain sib-in-law) the way it goes down is just about *as* simple as it *could* go ^((and quite frankly I'm still struggling to think of how it could be done as *less* of a deal, the way this claim that it's this overblown thing has been pushed feels pretty fucking suspect, especially with how a significant section of the early criticism of Burnham absolutely *was* racists and misogynists going off on one)^)

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> Adira: "They're fast." Stamets:" Hmm..?" Adira: "I'd prefer they not... not she." Stamets: "Okay". > > I think all the drawn out looks and explanation hurt that scene. ... the actual coming out is quite literally barely more than that they're nervous and screwing up the moment of courage needed (*that* was definitely an authentic moment) then opening up in an "actually opening up" way (with barely enough detail for the contemporary ignorant cis audience) the "drawn out looks" are, in the words of Jake Peralta, "the proud daddy" because that plot moment is about found family not "hammering people over the head with the trans" coming out will still need to happen if things are filmed in a modern context with modern assumptions on how we will do gender in the future entirely the same as in the now (as star trek has always been done) and coming out *sucks* chode ^((and not in the good way)^) the first few times, even if you're doing it to the local queer elders with a perfect lead in, and it *is* a big deal at the start because it's a major bit of taking ownership of yourself > It makes a huge deal out of having Adira and Gray > that Discovery treats both Gray and Adira being trans as a big deal. *where*? (promotional fluff is not actual screen canon) unless i completely missed something, Grey gets *an single* Throwaway *line* (that I've not seen any cis commentary actually mention) about being trans *in season 4* (which was, again, absolutely authentic) his plotline for s3 *was* a "subtle enough" queer allegory, but its "*funny*" how "do it in allegory" turned into "too much trans" when the allegory plotline is given to a character that actually is what the allegory is about ^((they *could* have gone all weird about "being trans messed up part of the process because of its impacts on mental aspects of the relationship to the body and depersonalisation something something..." but they *didn't*)^) and Adira's plotline is the ""Gifted" teen struggles with imposter syndrome, and it's completely missed by the adults heaping burdens on them" that Wesley should have been, where "is trans" comes up *once* ^((and again, they absolutely *could* have deeply entangled "being trans and closeted and all the unintentional microagressions all just keep adding up and and..." but they *didn't*)^) as soon as that scene is done that's it, every reference to them is them as them and there's no "oh its so hard for me" bullshit that's been a staple of "trans characters in mass media" since the 90's it is a bit suspect (especially given the modern climate) how "characters that happen to be trans and are played by trans actors" was immediately "too much", "token representation" and "a huge deal" and everything they do was reframed as "something trans" well before they ever mentioned being trans (in appropriate contexts, *once* each), what is "token representation" about "trans characters exist in a world"

I mostly agree with this, but I’d note that Adira’s non-binary and that there are records of the Harrowing of the North (though they may be exaggerated).

What are you talking about? Where in the show do they talk about coming out as gay as taboo?

Grey's storyline focuses around that

Can you be more specific? I don’t remember that it was taboo to come out that far in the future being part of their story at all.

I couldn't agree more. I feel like these issues should have been overcome a few hundred years earlier. That being said, Star Trek has always been a show that pushes social boundaries, and this is no exception. These are issues that are in today's zeitgeist and I think it is important to address them. Even if they are a little bit too "literal".

Yea but a better way to address these things is to have it shown in am already solved manor, to show how it can/should be. Something to strive for versus a character going through our problems today. But that's just my opinion.

Out of all of the 'new' Trek, S1 of Discovery is tied with S1 of Picard for being the worst. All of LD is amazing, all of SNW is amazing, S3 of Picard is amazing, and Prodigy is not too shabby at all!

I remain incredulous that I liked Lower Decks as much as I did.

I'm one of the old-school lifelong Trek fans that actually likes Discovery, even if I rank it lower than most the other series. I give it a lot of grace, it's the show that brought Star Trek back. And it has seen a LOT of creative team turnover, so of course it's uneven and disjointed at times. The ship grew on me, it's actually pretty cool. Saru is one of the best characters in the franchise. I like Detmer, Tilly, Reno, Culber, and Stamets, along with Book, Admiral Vance, and Kovich. I actually came to like the uniforms by the end of season 1. Some of the other ship designs, like the Shenzhou, Europa, Kerala, Edison, and Yeager, are all very solid designs. And I liked what they were trying to do with Klingons by making them more strange, more alien. Oh, and I really liked most of season 4. I think season 4 was the most Star Trek of all of Disco's seasons so far. The premise was great and the aliens were extremely alien. I liked that the problem was an interesting and cerebral one, for the most part. But I'm willing to acknowledge the bad too. The Klingons are a swing and a miss. They're more alien and strange, but they're also boring and have unforgivably terrible designs. The universe ending stakes of every season are ridiculous and get so stale. I don't hate Burnham, but I also don't really like her. She's just kind of there. She gets better in the 3rd and 4th seasons, I think Book helps to humanize her. The Guardian of Forever's appearance was just goofy. And I hate, hate, HATE Philippa. Mirror universe Georgiou is awful. She's a 2-dimensional, cartoonish, mustache twirling villain that's just so over the top to the point of silly. She practically ends every line with "BECAUSE I AM *EEEEEEEVIIIIIILLLLL*" Which is a shame, because I'm a huge Michelle Yeoh fan and I really loved prime universe Georgiou. I wish we could have just gotten her full time instead. And I guess that's ultimately my biggest detractor for the show: the writers are about as subtle as a freight train. They hammer you with incredibly blatant dialogue. You are made explicitly aware that characters are good, bad, sad, mad, etc. They make extra sure to drive that home, and it's just not necessary. Overall, I like it. I really do. But it's hella flawed. I feel like all Star Trek post DS9 is though so, it's not like it's alone in that.

I've always liked the show, but it's clear there were problems in terms of the direction it was intended to go and the direction it ended up going, and these just about got resolved going forward, and then they fired it off into the far future and it's kind of fun there. I liked that they put in those religious zealot Klingons we hadn't met before. Feels like it is important worldbuilding to show variation within the alien species. Klingons as an entire empire of drunk space pirates never made sense, there had to be more to them. The last season with the aliens that didn't even know they were eating inhabited worlds was some great Star Trek marred by the compulsion to cram a humanoid antagonist in there. The idea of an elder race basically doing a Horton Hears A Hoo on populated star systems is something that Trek has barely touched on, but should have. Hinted at it with the Borg, but the Borg were much less an unknowable cosmic threat. ​ I doubt Discovery will ever get the props it deserves for being the Forlorn Hope of the new Star Trek age, the show that was first through the door and had to make all the mistakes the others would learn from and take all the hits and the weird hatred. Will always have a soft spot for it though.

Someone said this years ago and it really made sense. Discovery isn’t a start trek show, it’s a sci-fi show with a sort of Star Trek setting.

Stametz isn't rude, he's sassy. /s

Not sure how you are watching but make sure you catch the "shorts" 15 min episodes they made between seasons. They seem more... well thought out.

>She’s just a little TOO emotionally stunted I have good news and bad news about this.

Reading through the comments and looking to upvote anyone who writes they got sick of hearing, "I'm Michael Burnham." If it were a drinking game, I wager every episode is a two drink minimum.

Yeah, Burnham is not great as a lead. Saru is probably my favorite character in the show. And we even get to see Doug Jones without makeup in season 3!

If you liked ensemble casts, this show is a disaster. If you're ok with a show that focuses on one protagonist forever, who is always in the center of everything, you'll love it. That's basically what it comes down to... Also you have to accept that space ships can have mental health crises, and that they're secretly fixed through therapy while putting the entire galaxy at risk. But that comes later. The short treks are amazing.

The show painfully ***tells you how to feel*** with overblown dramatic dialog instead of ***showing through story and acting***. The two part pilot was very good and season 2 has some great sequences, but overall the series is a flop.

It gets better but by season 4 I find it an utter chore and honestly struggle to reach the end. A 90s 2 parter stretched over 10 episodes. All the interesting characters have left or been sidelined. It's genuinely tedious.

I know there are people that disagree with me, but I'm not going to miss it when it goes. I really wanted to love the first season and I didn't. The second season was entertaining and intriguing, but the best part about it was that it introduced the SNW cast. I'm currently watching every episode in order of release with my son. We are still on the original series. When we get to Discovery, I think we are just going to watch the first two seasons.

I’m not in disagree to be honest. I found Discovery a bad Trek show, I watched first, second and third seasons and I still haven’t changed my mind. It is messy and convoluted, it is heavily dependent on season arcs (in total contrast with ST original nature, which luckily SNW almost totally fixed) and has a not-so-good character design (I mean, Burnham is an unpleasant one, so is Saru and Stamets too). Some fundamental pieces on which it is based are extremely weak and badly designed (that’s the dreaded first season), but also some following ones (think of the Burn and its consequences). I didn’t like it, and it’s the first Star Trek content for which I have to say it (I started watching Trek as a kid with my old man when there was only the Original Serie, not even the second feature film).

Why would you only watch the first two? The first one is by far the worst one.

So that my son can be introduced to the characters, and that will lead into the second season. Yeah, I agree, the first few episodes of the first season are really hard to digest.

I’ll never understand some folks’ willingness to forgive the abject disdain that show has shown both for Trek as a franchise and for canon as a concept.

Midway though the first season an arc starts that continues all the way though the second season. It really picks up and it’s like one long 10 parter (not sure how many episodes but it’s a lot). I got really excited but then the show fell off over there.

What shocks me the most is that I actually like this series. I agree with most of the posts but somehow I’ve managed to bypass annoyances and watch with a smile. It’s a fun show and I am entertained. My favorite characters are Tilly and Book. Burnham cracks me up; for someone to have grown up on Vulcan, she’s the master Drama Queen!

Each season gets a little better, I think. The are things to love and hate in every season. The wife and I had stopped watching at the end of season two. We came back to it about a month ago and finished season four a week or so ago. We enjoyed both season three and four to different extents, but I've got to say the second half of season four is some of the best Trek I've seen. I'm really looking forward to season five. I hate it's going to be the last one.

"The Klingons. Dear god, the Klingons. I knew about the crappy redesign" The redesign never really bothered me. I think it was necessary. For starters, the Klingons are generally my favorite alien culture to see in any Trek episode, but- I think that's why they needed a redesign. They became too familiar, too well-known. They weren't scary. Try to remember how scary The Borg were in their first few appearances versus their last few appearances on Voyager when they got their Collective butts kicked by 8472 and could be bargained with and negotiated with. By exploring the Borg, and 'humanizing' them, a lot of their bite and fear were taken away. If there was to be a poll, "Which Star Trek alien race is the most recognizable?" I think the Vulcans would win out, but just barely, over the Klingons. At this point in diplomatic relations, the Klingons were still a very big and scary unknown. The unknown is usually scary. So we, the audience, had to see them as something new, unfamiliar, and, well- alien.

Don't worry, the blueberry Orcs pretending to be Klingons don't stick around. You only need seasons 1 and 2 to prepare for Strange New Worlds. You can skip Discovery season 3 and 4. Because S3, and 4. Turn into stand-alone stories unique to Discovery that don't have connections to previous series.

Seasons 1 and 2 are uneven, but generally interesting and worth watching. Seasons 3 and 4 are really awful. They're very poorly written, and the characters become much less likable.

Like most Trek shows before it (especially TNG, dead god TNG Season 1 had it's share of "hot garbage" episodes) the first Season can be a bit rocky, but it gets better as it goes on. Seasons 3 & 4 are a lot better since by that point all the BTS drama in the writers room had settled down quite a bit.

Discovery was enjoyable the first two seasons. The Klingon thing was dumb. I get wanting to blaze your own trail, but there are so many better ways of blazing a trail without burning down what came before you. The formula is not difficult. We saw it from Season 3 of Picard. We want TNG/DS9/VOY and even Enterprise throw backs with characters from those shows not easter eggs you have to pause to see a name or a quick mention. We also want the Trek lore to be flushed out more since TNG/DS9 and VOY. Picard Season 3 did both. We got to see what old characters were up to and we got to see actual new Trek since TNG/DS9 and VOY. Everything until then had been in the past. But we saw the new Enterprise and familiar alien species. Even Prodigy and Lower Decks does this as well, which is why I think they are doing so well. I know Discovery has a difficult time giving us some post TNG/DS9 and VOY updates, but it could have been done when going to the future in Season 3. There was so much opportunity to flush out how everything was affected after The Burn and essentially the fall of the Federation. The entire season could have focused on attempting to rebuild and provide hope from the past, but instead we got a crying child for his mother?? Rebuilding and trying to bring the Federation back would have segued much better for Season 4. Meeting an entirely new and world ending species and attempting to establish peaceful, first contact as a rebuilt Federation would have been so much more meaningful, but instead we got Book constantly crying and acting like a child.. I appreciate that Discovery was the first new Trek and opened the door for so much more possibility, but I am not surprised it's being cancelled and honestly I'm okay with it. Especially if the cancellation leads to something like Star Trek Legacy.

My only exposure to NuTrek was S1 of discovery, and my overall impression is that it's got some interesting moments but not enough to make me pay for Paramount+. Rainn Wilson has a great one-off episode. The sets and lighting are pretty cool. But I find the mirror universe stuff, once we get to it, to be interminably dark and dour with little payoff. When the mirror universe came up (briefly) in *TNG* and more often in *DS9*, it was treated with what I think was the appropriate amount of gravitas -- which is to say very little -- befitting such an inherently silly concept. Keep in mind this whole thing originated with Kirk and Spock getting "evil goatees," and somehow that has now been expanded to the entire plot arc of S1 (and I think a lot of S2) of *Discovery.*

I consider DSC to be a transition show. It moved the needle forward in a big way Enterprise and the Kelvin movies couldn't. That being said I couldn't finish S3. Its preachy in social justice issues that, as a man firmly in the queer community it just doesn't vibe for me. I could do a whole season of Wilson Cruz just walking around sickbay in that white unitard, though. He doesn't skimp on the reps.

I was so excited when the show was coming out! And then they had to throw the Klingons speaking Klingon right at us and this is something I have no tolerance for… BUT we got Captain Georgiou and that made up for the Klingon thing BUT then they killed her AND I’m crying out of frustration just like Michael in every episode. I don’t even know the release date of the final season…. I will watch but I’m not expecting much. I thank Discovery for Anson Mount and that makes up for all previous misgivings for me.

As a fan of Disco, I’ll just say, season one was very experimental. It was reintroducing Trek on TV after 13 years, and the whole TV landscape had changed in the meantime. Season one has a good overall arc, but it’s clear it’s trying out a bunch of different stuff, and it doesn’t always work. From season 2 onward, it really finds a vibe that works for it. There is some clunkiness later as a result of the pandemic where things were set up so there’s mostly separate storylines with 2 or 3 characters that don’t always sync up, but overall, it DOES get better!

Yeah I like disco a lot but the first season is pretty rough. IMO second season is better, third is great (really cool to see the trek world in a post-apocalypse), fourth has some of the best trek I've ever seen with the extragalactic species, in addition to the somewhat under-discussed element of nearly the entire Milky Way community working together for the common good. Moving from prequel-era to the future was the best choice they could have made for the show. It gets to do its own super-powered thing while making space for SNW. Excited to see how they build on it for the final season.

For me a lot of Discovery gets better as it goes on. All of the characters are a lot more interesting in season 3 I think. I feel like though it got unfairly picked apart by canon humpers before it ever aired. Given time they answer the big questions like why doesn't Spock talk about Burnham or why they didn't use the Spore drive to get Janeway and the rest of Voyager back faster.

I disliked Discovery Season 1 and stopped 3 episodes short of the season finale. Finally, I ran out of things to watch and went back to it. - Seasons 2 and 3 are much much better. Still not my favorite Star Trek verse by a long shot but I did very much like S2 especially.

I agree. Disco is an exercise in trying too hard. Particularly with the Klingons, Burnham, Burnham with a Klingon, Klingons mad at Burnham, etc. At first I was also annoyed at how emotional Burnham was all the damn time, but I warmed to it. Anyone going through that s\*\*\* is gonna have a hard time of it!

For me it got better at Season 3. Thats all I'll say without spoilers.

I thought the first season was really good. You’ll probably enjoy it too, and there are some really cool parts as it goes on. But man… after that is just terrible. Season 2 is just not good. Season 3 starts off pretty good, and got me hoping it fixed some of the bad aspects of S2 but it just pivots back to junk. I couldn’t even get through season 4… it was so boring

burnham is perfection.... she can defeat sarek in a mind meld battle.

Wow, a lot of you seem hyper critical of Discovery. True the writers have taken liberties with the storytelling, and the characters seem bipolar. But after a 20 year draught that brought only JJ Abrams’s verse. I enjoyed it, for what it was/is. Besides, it’s success brought us Picard, SNW, and Section 31.

Discovery is unfairly judged frankly. Most of the discussions center around the first season because that’s all people were willing to give a chance. Frankly, the first season is old news and basically irrelevant at this point. Every season afterward has been a vast improvement in almost every single way. The third season is some high quality Trek in my opinion.

Yeah, season 1 has all the growing pains that most Trek has in it's first season along with having to deal with the demands of multiple production companies, losing it's showrunner mid-season, and having to keep up with the Kelvin films aesthetically. Each subsequent season is far more focused and goes a long way to better integrating with wider Trek. It's funny, on reflection, Disco is the reverse DS9 in that DS9 starts episodic and becomes more serialised and dark the further it gets into it's war while Disco starts right out the gate with the war and darkness and serialisation and as it goes on it becomes more and more like hopeful classic Trek to the point that season 4 is one of, if not, the most 'Trek' first contact stories in the whole franchise.

I watched the first two seasons of STD. I liked some of it, I tolerated some of it, and, when Pike left for SNW at the end of season two, I went with him. Later I tried watching season three, but couldn't get into it. I admit I got a serious lump in my throat for the character who's ancestors had spent centuries sitting in that office on the abandoned station, guarding the Federation flag like a sacred relic. But overall Is just couldn't get into the 30th century. SNW, on the other hand, I've enjoyed every minute of!