Spoilers Star Trek Discovery Season 1: Overall Review Thread

[cultcross]

So it's all done. We have reached the end of season 1 of Star Trek's latest series, many of the storylines are finished, and it is time for the overall retrospective.

So, I've created this thread. What is your overall score for Season 1? What did you like and dislike, what surprised you or annoyed you? What was achieved that you'd hoped for or included that you'd rather was left out?

I'll do a proper reply of my own in a minute, but a bit tl;dr for an opening post!

 

[Lakenheath 72]

I voted 5. It's a "meh" with a few strong characters and tons of script writing issues.

 

[lawman]

A very mixed bag. Started badly, ended badly, had some good bits in the middle. My favorite episodes were 4 ("Butcher's Knife," freeing the tardigrade), 6 ("Lethe," with Sarek and Cornwell), 7 ("Magic," with Mudd), and 9-11 (the battle with Kol and the first two Mirror episodes).

Lots of potentially interesting concepts and story threads that petered out without any real payoff, or just ended badly. Lots of potentially interesting character depth that got sacrificed for the sake of plot twists. Lots of pointless contrivance.

Wildly erratic visuals, from ships to sets to costumes to makeup to FX. Some things (sets and props) seemed genuinely evocative of Trek's familiar visual vernacular; others (especially all things Klingon) seemed pointlessly at odds with it. It often seemed like the writers, the designers, and the FX people hadn't even talked to one another.

Overall, still probably the best first season of any Trek series other than TOS. But that's judging against a very low bar. It certainly doesn't compare with the best of any previous series (except perhaps VOY, which IMHO never had any "best" period).

 

[cultcross]

I came into Discovery cautiously optimistic, and I think I leave it in a similar state, having gone through a bit of a roller coaster in the interim.

The first 'half' of the season I mostly enjoyed a lot. I wasn't so keen on the Mudd episode, but otherwise it seemed interesting, entertaining, with some fascinating characters. I was particularly taken with Lorca, I liked seeing how Star Trek would tackle someone who was a bit more nuanced and a bit darker than the traditional starship captain. I always felt Ben Sisko got away with a lot because he was firstly a backwater commander and then a wartime captain, but this is a guy in charge of what is ostensibly a science ship. Really wanted to know how they would treat him. There were some interesting themes coming out too, stuff Trek hadn't done before like sexual violence. Presented really well and with a lot of promise.

The Klingon stuff was OK, although not half as deep as the writers seem to think it was. They were just a bad guy, really. I enjoyed some aspects of the war from the Federation perspective, and Choose your Pain and Into the Forest I go were really good war themed episodes, but I didn't think the show had as much to say about war as it thought it did.

Then the Mirror Universe arc happened. Initially, I thought 'hey, this isn't as bad as I was expecting'. The MU wasn't as campy as it was before in Trek, and the much darker portrayal of a fascistic dog-eat-dog society was enough to sustain interest. But the show didn't seem to carry its plotlines over intact. We had the meeting with Mirror!Voq on the planet where Burnham learnt some wisdom that ultimately she never ends up using, but otherwise all the plots they'd been working on just seemed to go out like matches in the rain. Lorca isn't an interesting nuanced man damaged by war, he's eeeeevil. Tyler/Voq is exposed as a Klingon traitor!!!!!! and nothing happens really. He's just immediately caught. L'Rell spends the whole time in the brig doing basically nothing. Then Lorca is unceremoniously killed off and his storyline switches for some reason to Mirror!Georgiou.

As for Culber, well, I've typed myself hoarse on this topic, so I will sum up briefly. A pointless example of 'bury your gays', a very disappointing way of dealing with Trek's first gay couple, and ultimately dramatically pointless. Stamets didn't even really seem to care. And certainly no-one else did. Another plot line, in essence, that went nowhere, and on the way shot the legs out from under Discovery's progressive self image.

We arrive back in the Prime Universe, to pick up the tattered threads of our plotlines. We have a war that alternatively is/isn't devastating, Georgiou playing Lorca's role and some convoluted plan to do some mapping on Qo'nos. This in set up for what really should have been the mid season finale, as all the pieces were lined up for it then. Decent finale, just cheapened by the rubbish that had immediately preceded it.

So, overall, the season was going pretty well for me until the MU arc. I was hoping for big things after a strong start, but it floundered off course and ballsed up most of the plotlines. As a Trek first season, it is strong - up there with the best of the other spin offs. But it didn't do that well as a TV show outside of that bracket. It needs tighter plotting, less fanwank, and the guts to follow through with its themes. It needs strong episodes - a Duet, a City on the Edge of Forever, or an Inner Light. Something to show that this series can deliver that quality. Because on average, it is better than its predecessors were at this stage, but it lacks the highs that redeemed some of them.

Score: Up to Into the Forest I Go and the finale, 8
The MU arc, 5.
Overall, a 6. An above average TV show with promise, that didn't manage to be great.

 

[Campe]

I apologize, this is going to be a little stream of consciousness...

I'd give it a 7. It is not perfect. You can tell there was a lot of strife coming into the production and hopefully they'll get their act together with season 2. At the beginning, I was very tired of the Klingons. In everything, the Klingons have to be the bad guys. I still feel that way for the most part, but I would suggest that they handled them in a different manner which was sometimes interesting. Overall, there was some poor writing. Some things were put into place that were never explained (and maybe those issues will come back at a later date). Dialogue could be a little iffy. I was a little disappointed with Lorca's end, but I imagine we haven't seen the last of Jason Isaacs on the series. But, I liked the characters, particularly Stamets, Tilly and Saru. I wasn't expecting to find the Kelpian to be an interesting character, but they managed to turn me around. I'm hopeful in some fashion we'll see Culber again. I'm hoping that relationship will somehow show up again and that the producers aren't paying lip service. I'm glad Georgiou is still out there as a potential foil for later on down the line. And although L'rell and Ash weren't my favorite characters, I'm sure we'll see them again too. Michael? Eh. Not my favorite character. But she's fine. I will say, I'm excited to see where this may go. And thank god the Klingon war is over!

 

[Kirk the Jerk]

I gave it a 9...

Yes, there are some forgettable episodes, much like every season of a Star Trek show. It has had one of the stronger first seasons IMO.

For me though, there has been so many ‘wow’ moments. From the Harry Mudd episode to the death of Dr. Culber to name just 2. The last 5 or 6 episodes have been the strongest, the mirror universe, seeing Andorians, Tellerites and Orions was great and what a great way to end the season with the Enterprise showing up. I like it.

 

[Donker]

two out of ten.

Fails at completely everything it tries to do. Has basically nothing to do with Star Trek at a deeply core level and feels mostly just like a generic Mass Effect ripoff with a cheap Star Trek skin thrown on top. I feel the writers do not want to be working on a Star Trek show and have been extremely lazy and lax with the setting and writing. There has been absolutely zero respect for the setting and era they have set this show in.

Michael Burnham is hands down the worst character in Star Trek, terribly written, the entire universe revolves around her, her backstory is laughably Lt. Mary Sue tier and it doesn't help the actress is just, so astonishingly bad that it literally breaks all suspension of disbelief. All she does is stare, stand agape and then have extremely wooden and terrible dialogue delivery. "She's a Vulcan" Yeah no, no excuse, Spock, T'pol and Tuvok were all extremely enjoyable characters. Seven of Nine is probably Burnhams biggest analogue and she is one of the most fun and enjoyable characters in all of Star Trek.

The show has far more interesting characters than Burnham in Lorca, Saru and Stamets, but Stamets spends much of the show in a coma, Saru gets barely any screentime and Lorca gets retroactively character assassinated in the most eye rolling way. Instead the entire show focuses on a character that out Wesley's Wesley in unwatchable.

Then we get to the plot of this serialised show.
To sum it up, Discovery S1 is a season of mind bogging terrible ideas and decisions that they never carry through with in any meaningful way and instead just use it to shallowly set up a new series of mystery boxes. The show uses it's setting as extremely shallow fanwank to basically jerk off the exact type of people RedLetterMedia parodies in videos like this. I mean, go look at /r/StarTrek right now. "OMG I SAW THE ENTERPRISE AND I KNOW WHAT THAT IS SO I CLAPPED BEST FINALE EVER 10/10". Remember what Gabe Koerner said after the first episode of Discovery? "Put a Delta in the sand and the fans will be cheering damn it!", absolutely completely on point.

Since Discovery literally FAILS at what it sets out to do, it's a two out of ten. This honestly is one of the worst seasons of Star Trek out there. There are far more enjoyable episodes in even S1 of TNG than Discovery. Discovery is consistently below average where TNG S1 ranges from, fantastic to unwatchable. Frankly, I'll rather watch 5 or 6 fantastic episodes and a few fun episodes of TNG S1 than 15 or whatever absolutely middling generic episodes of Discovery.
This show is not Star Trek, people say it's Star Trek for a new generation but no, it isn't. That argument does not stack up at all when much more intelligent sci-fi is in the cinema and is on TV and is far more popular than Discovery. Disco is a cynical crashgrab by CBS to push a streaming service that is produced by some the biggest hacks in Hollywood.

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

5 out of 10.

 

[Scotty]

I rated this season a 6 out of 10. I desperately wanted Star Trek Discovery to succeed. I was probably one of the few fans out there who did not take issue with the various visual updates and was excited about the cast, especially Jones, Yeoh and Isaacs.

But it was evident from the first episode that the show had issues with character development, dialogue and plotting. I very much felt that the show was being written by a committee and did not seem to have its own identity. Despite a huge budget and longer episode running times, the show felt short and small. The emphasis on the Klingon War and the Mirror Universe meant that there was little world building. Everything seemed to revolve on a couple of characters and nothing else really mattered. A huge shame.

Personally, I think this is the worst(first)season of Star Trek. All other Trek shows had rocky starts but they at least managed to firmly establish the main characters and the setting of the show. Discovery has failed to do that.

 

[Spider]

I give it a 5. With Lorca gone there's no one left for me to give a shit about. Burnham is the worst written lead character for Star Trek ever.

 

[DigificWriter]

I still need to watch the final two episodes, but I'm going to give the season a 10 out of 10.

From the very start, DSC had everything that made DS9 and VGR my Top 2 favorite Trek series, and even managed to bump the former out of the top spot.

By simultaneously shaking up the Star Trek formula and relying on it, DSC brought brand-new nuances to the Trek Canon and the Prime Timeline/Universe and if the writers can continue to maintain the level of quality that S1 had going into S2, I'll be a very happy man.

 

[Donker]

I desperately wanted Star Trek Discovery to succeed. I was probably one of the few fans out there who did not take issue with the various visual updates and was excited about the cast, especially Jones, Yeoh and Isaacs.

Very much the same, in fact, I wanted visual reboots but I wanted a visual reboot that paid respect to the source material, not threw Star Trek out the window for Mass Effect. Hell I'm even mostly fine with the Klingon redesign except the bald part. (though the Klingon ships are still godawful)

Personally, I think this is the worst(first)season of Star Trek. All other Trek shows had rocky starts but they at least managed to firmly establish the main characters and the setting of the show. Discovery has failed to do that.

Yep and honestly other S1's just had more enjoyable episodes that are rewatchable. Again as I said. Competent showrunners would have had the Klingon war start S2 and spent S1 worldbuilding and character building on both sides. But nope, had to have pew pew bang bang Star Wars in the opening.

 

[eschaton]

I'm rating it a six, which is maybe being generous. It's better than the first season of TNG, ENT, or VOY. However, it was clearly not better than TOS. I also don't think it was better than DS9, which, despite having a boring first season with some stinkers, had a string of strong episodes in the back end, including one of the best in the Trek canon (Duet).

Honestly, one question I find myself asking is what was the point of this season? That is to say, would it have been better in terms of Trek if they scrapped the whole thing after Fuller quit and started from scratch, maybe reusing some of the sets a year later? Although it remains to be seen, it looks like they're going to set up the second season to be something totally different and more conventionally Trek - in which case the answer is a qualified yes. There was nothing worth adding to Trek canon in this season (indeed, much of it took away from what came before) and the little bit of backstory it gave our main cast could have been dealt with through future exposition.

 

[fireproof78]

not threw Star Trek out the window for Mass Effect.

Yeah, no. I can't stand Mass Effect.

 

[ITDUDE]

4/10, actually much higher than I thought it would actually end up being half way through. Some decent potential on this show. There really is. But writing is so inconsistent, I just don’t have the feeling it will get much better than this. It can of course, but I have doubts. And please stop with “shock of the week” stuff. You can write a serial without trying to shock the viewer every week. It gets tiring and annoying. Case in point season finale. It was already over. Did they HAVE to try to add a mini-cliffhanger with Enterprise showing up? It ended up being a nice cute little ship, but what did add to the story? Why show it, if it adds nothing? It’s this kind off writing that gets annoying pretty quickly. Let’s hope less of that next season.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

8/10

The second strongest first season of Star Trek. TOS S1 tops it because that season is just top-heavy with classics.

I think I've been kind of a DSC cheerleader on this board, so I probably don't have to go into singing this show's praises any more than I already have. And right now I'm not so focused on what I loved, I'm instead wrestling with things that let me down or left me wanting more. A few of my DSC S1 criticisms:

• Culber's death. Did very little for the plot. It's problematic from a social perspective (bury your gays). The show lost way way WAY more than it gained. Culber was a fascinating character played by an exceptional actor, and his relationship with Stamets was a highlight of the series. Losing that character just felt like a waste.
• The pacing is...just not right yet. It's way too fast. I don't think there was a bad episode this season -- most episodes were good and a few were really great. But with the exception of Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad, every episode felt jam-packed with content and we never seemed to linger on any one scene or moment. I felt rushed through the plot. The writers/directors need to slow down.
• Most of the bridge crew are still strangers. I know Burnham. I know Saru. But....anyone else? Airiam? Owosekun? Detmer? Rhys? Bryce? I literally just had to google these people. I know their faces really well! But they all probably had like 10 lines combined this season and a lot of that was calling out bridge reports. TNG S1 was pretty terrible but at least I knew who Data and Yar were by the end of it. Some of this could be explained by just the change in approach and style of DSC from previous Treks -- more focus on a core handful than an ensemble show. Maybe? But I WANT to know more about the bridge crew.
• Related to the pacing problems: the Klingon War. We hardly knew ye. Here today, gone tomorrow. The Dominion War was a multi-season epic with a couple seasons' worth of buildup. It felt real. It felt lived-in. We shared in the heroes' exhaustion with the war. In DSC, the war is one season and we spend much of it in a different universe. It was anticlimactic.

Aside from those big issues, I actually didn't have too many complaints about season one. I thought the acting was outstanding across the board. The show has a clearly defined tone and identity in its first season, which cannot be said of any Trek series since TOS. The writing was consistent from week to week, granting that I had a problem with the pacing. The effects are gorgeous and the battles were excellent. Good character work (at least with the characters they chose to actually work with). I really liked the Klingon redesign. The attention to detail on the sets, props, costumes, etc blew me away. Overall I think this is a great start. They just need to slow down and not make decisions with its characters that seem impulsive and thoughtless.

 

[guyute03]

Gave it an 8. It's the best first season of Trek outside of TOS season 1, and I've enjoyed it thoroughly.

 

[Jadeb]

In terms of fan estimation, I don't this season is going to age well. And I'll be surprised if it brings many non-fans into the fold.

Overall, there was just too much stuff thrown in the mix. I don't know if this stemmed from the behind-the-scenes turmoil or just because the writers were new to serialization and erred on the side of overegging the pudding. Or maybe they just wanted a slam-whizbang type of show. But nothing got room to breathe. Imagine if they'd done the Lorca plotline right. Overall, a huge wasted opportunity, which is how I feel about the season as a whole.

Alex Kurtzman confirmed on After Trek that they'd started with the ending and worked backward. That, I suspect, is a big part of the problem. IMO, they were just too transparent in how they moved the chess pieces. The overall effect was clumsy, from the plotting to the character work to the speechifying. I hope they've learned some lessons for next season.

 

[Lord Garth]

I haven't averaged out all my ratings, nor am I going to go too in-depth, I'm saving that for my Rewatch Thread, but based on my overall take-away, I give it an 8.

[EDIT: I've just averaged out all my ratings for the season, and it came out to 8.43; which rounds down to an 8. The Median is also an 8 and the Standard Deviation is 1.105.]

DOUBLE-EDIT (2/17/18): Here are the individual episode ratings I gave it:

"The Vulcan Hello" & "Battle at the Binary Stars" - 7 (I'll count this twice, since it's two episodes)
"Context Is for Kings" - 8
"The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lambs Cry" - 8
"Choose Your Pain" - 9
"Lethe" - 10
"Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" - 9
"Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum" - 7
"Into the Forest I Go" - 10
"Despite Yourself" - 10
"The Wolf Inside" - 7
"Vaulting Ambition" - 10
"What's Past Is Prologue" - 8
"The War Without, The War Within" - 7.5
"Will You Take My Hand" - 9

DSC Season 1 Average: 8.43

They could've benefited from more episodes after they got back from the Mirror Universe, they should've done more with Lorca -- after we knew he was from the Mirror Universe -- before he met his end, and they should've found a way to work in Captain Killy and the ISS Discovery.

Burnham, Saru, and Tilly went through a complete arc. Stamets is in kind of a weird point of resolution. I like where they sent AshVoq. I hope the bridge crew is fleshed out next season.

I've never seen Game of Thrones, so I can't comment on that, but other people have made comparisons between this show and Battlestar Galactica. Considering how much I liked BSG before its fourth season, that this series wants to feel like BSG is not a deterrent to me. Ironically, Ron Moore was co-creator of that series, so DSC in a way, could be argued to be following in the steps of Ron Moore. Intentionally or not.

I like the arc-based storytelling. I've been a fan of it since the '90s. Most of the series I watch these days follow this format and I think it worked like a charm on Star Trek. It also worked on DS9 when they did it for the opening stretch of the sixth season and the closing stretch of the seventh.

What else?

They didn't really tackle Issues of the Day but, considering we're in the Trump Era, I can live with that. I'd rather not be reminded of King Orange whenever I watch something. He loves attention, whether it's good or bad, and the best thing to do is deprive him of it.

I'm disappointed they killed off Culber but, otherwise, I thought they handled Star Trek's first homosexual romantic relationship well. It was just two people in love and it felt natural.

I like how they treat the 10 years before TOS not like some static thing that's just waiting for Kirk to take command of the Enterprise. It's an active universe. It was active before "Where No Man Has Gone Before" just like it's active after. This is less a prequel and more like a spin-off that just happens to take place a little bit earlier, with its own story.

 

[BillJ]

4.

The cast was excellent and unfortunately wasted on some pretty poor material.