What do we all like about Discovery (love it or loathe it)

[Groppler Zorn]

Come one, come all - Discophiles and Discoskeptics alike!

Let us all come together in peace around Quark’s Dabo tables to discuss what we actually liked about Discovery.

Credit to @BillJ and @fireproof78 for the idea (I hope you don’t mind me picking up the ball and running with it!)

What have we in common?

Regardless of whether you liked the show overall or not, what things do we share in terms of what we thought was good about it?

I’ll be honest I’m a Discoskeptic. I’m not a massive fan of the show. But I still found things I enjoyed about it. So let’s have at it shall we?

Please keep it positive folks - there are plenty of other threads on here where you can nitpick the show

What I liked:

1. It’s new Star Trek on tv. Big win.

2. the bit before Burnham goes outside in “Vulcan hello”. That was classic Star Trek. Interactions, commentary, banter etc.

3. The Klingon torchbearer had pink blood.

4. The Klingons speak Klingon when there are no humans around as opposed to English. Ok the delivery was terrible but I like the concept.

5. Lateral vector transporters are a nice nod to Enterprise.

6. The starfleet ships look like starfleet ships (for the most part)

7. Saru - he was a genuinely interesting character. The scene in “choose your pain” where they rescue Lorca is one of the best in the show. Personally I think this is because there is no Michael. I don’t like Michael but I’m not going to dwell on that here. Towards the end of the season Saru becomes a great commanding officer. It’s a shame he doesn’t become captain of Discovery - unless they make him that in season 2 but I don’t think they will.

8. Stamets - he seemed like the most “Star Trek” character of the lot. He’d fit in on any other Trek show.

9. The ethical dilemma with the tardigrade. That was very Star Trek. And a little upsetting to watch - I actually empathised with a cgi macro version of a microscopic organism.

10. Tilly - she is cleverer than Burnham. She asks whether they could fool the spore drive into thinking the tardigrade is in it when it’s not in “choose your pain”. Her speech to Michael about our surroundings shaping who we are relating to Tyler is *very* Star Trek.

11. The universal translator was well executed and nice nod to Enterprise.

12. The bit where they used the spore drive to map the cloaked Klingon ship. That was awesome.

13. I liked Kol. He was cool.

14. With the exception of the bridge, most of the sets were quite small. This made them more realistic to me.

15. That DSC seems to have birthed additional new Star Trek shows.

 

[BillJ]

I think they hit a home run with the casting, especially Mary Wiseman and Anthony Rapp. Both of whom I think could be lead actors in other shows. Anyone who likes Jason Isaacs should check out The Death of Stalin!

While I'm not super-impressed with the design work on some aliens, I think the make-up artists are some of the best in the business.

Captain Killy was fun in a way Star Trek on TV hadn't been fun in a long time. A credit to the aforementioned Mary Wiseman.

The portrayal of a realistic relationship doesn't happen often in Trek, but they did a good job with Stamets and Culber.

 

[fireproof78]

1. The characters. Now, I'll garner some flak on this point because I can like the characters and the way they are presented even if I don't agree with them. Lorca is interesting enough, but Michael is really the reason I keep watching, to see how she changes and grows. Tilly is second favorite followed by Saru. But, it's a tight race since the characters are all interesting in their own right.

2. The Klingons-misgivings about how far the make up went aside, I enjoy how alien they are. I like seeing the infighting, and the back and forth with Voq and Kol is one of the highlights of the Klingon scenes for me. And, I enjoy the wide variety of Klingon cultural designs. Thank you for not being monolithic!

3. Starship designs: with some exceptions, I enjoy the starships a whole lot. I like the variety and appreciate the fact that they feel like different ships designed for different things, rather than kit bashes. Again, there are exceptions but the overall feel is very Star Trek.

4. Tardigrade. Spore drive is an interesting concept, and not sure I would have explored it to the extent the show did, but it was an interesting one, especially with the moral quandary that happened over using a living being to power the drive.

5. Technology. I enjoy the displays and the look of the equipment. Again, it's taking what is supposed to be a large, space faring organization, and expanding out what equipment they have. I'm all for uniformity but I'm skeptical that every starship looks the same inside and out.

6. Ambiguity. If it is one thing that Star Trek enjoys it morality plays. This one keeps that tradition alive and I like how it plays with how far desperate people will go when facing destruction.

7. Sarek and Vulcans. I never liked Sarek, despite Mark Lenard's performance. But, things like "Sarek" "ST 09" and now this show have given new life to my interest in the character.

8. It's the little things-I could list them off but Lorca's frustration after the training simulation, Tilly and Michael's exchange, Michael against Kol, and on and on. There are a lot of little moments in each episode that I find so enjoyable that make it worth going back to revisist.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

I think they hit a home run with the casting, especially Mary Wiseman and Anthony Rapp

Totally agree. They’re two of my favourite characters from the show.

Captain Killy was fun in a way Star Trek on TV hadn't been fun in a long time.

Yes! I was hoping Tilly would retain some of Killy’s confidence following the MU detour

they did a good job with Stamets and Culber.

Totally agree. I liked Culber a lot too. Very upset when he was killed off. But then death has never been an obstacle to Star Trek characters has it? Haha!

 

[Jadeb]

Well, I'm now a huge fan of Jason Isaacs, so there's that. He gave us one of the standout characters in all of Trek, despite what the writers did to the character at the end. And he seems to be good fun in real life.

I really enjoyed the depictions of daily life. I appreciated the effort to make the characters relatable to us today (eating burritos in the mess hall), even when I didn't think it was entirely successful (party scene).

Sickbay looked great, and the medical uniforms were cool.

The big three props really couldn't have been better, IMO. OK, maybe no delta shield on the phaser, but, still, great work.

I liked that they made the effort to make background characters seem interesting and alien, such that we now discuss what their deal is.

I'm a sucker for the Mirror Universe. I don't think we needed to go there so soon or spend so much time there, but that was still fun.

The Klingons were boring in a whole new way. That the show dared to try something different deserves kudos. At least they weren't boring in the old way.

Considering they put together Saru's look at the last second, it's pretty amazing. Those contacts really sell it. (Along with Doug Jones' performance, of course.)

 

[Groppler Zorn]

1. The characters. Now, I'll garner some flak on this point because I can like the characters and the way they are presented even if I don't agree with them. Lorca is interesting enough, but Michael is really the reason I keep watching, to see how she changes and grows. Tilly is second favorite followed by Saru. But, it's a tight race since the characters are all interesting in their own right.

Agreed. At least the characters seem distinctive compared to other Trek iterations - VOY and ENT felt a little “tropey” with the characters they presented. Not that that’s a bad thing in and of itself but I think that may have contributed to the “franchise fatigue” that got ENT cancelled in the first place. They seem to have tried to make DSC different in that regard. And Tilly and Saru are two of my faves. Tilly is endearing and Saru seems to have so much potential as a commander. I really want him to take command of the disco at some point.

 

[Ometiklan]

I just finished a rewatch of Discovery, so this is the perfect time and place to put down my thoughts.

First a random like:
- I really enjoyed the two part launch, maybe even more than when it first premiered. I think it has a real movie feel with good characters, acting, visuals, and pacing. I don't think the rest of the series maintained that "movie-level quality" despite their budgets and effort.

My main observation: I think the show works very well in all the "little" things, but not so much in the big things.
- For little things I mean: the cast, the character moments and scenes and arcs, the humor, ambiguous Lorca, the emotional stakes, all that stuff that comprises the minute to minute of Discovery.
- For the big things I mean: the Lorca twist, the Voq twist, the Klingon war, the supposed deeper exploration of the Klingons and their 24 houses, and the whole plot of the season finale.

The writers did well with the little stuff (despite some interesting things falling a little flat: Saru and Pahvo, or Stamets and Culber regarding Culber's death), but the oh-so-important big picture stuff did not work.

Here's to hoping the new showrunner arrangements and the more TOS-like space adventure focus of season 2 will make best use of the little stuff and course correct on the big stuff.

 

[Pure Antiproton]

—New Star Trek on tv with what looks like a real budget! I was blown away by the quality of the sets and loved the planetary scenes also (Harlak for example).

—Every character grew on me as the show progressed after an initial dislike. I especially came to appreciate Tilley and Stamets.

—Lorca. He was evil but so well-acted by Jason Issacs that I couldn’t take my eyes off of him and his next move. Something really appealed to me about a rogue star fleet captain.

Did I mention Star Trek finally back on television?

 

[Paradise City]

I like Lorca, I'll go against the grain and I'll say I'll generally like the Klingons. The mirror universe is interesting. Mudd is interesting.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

The one thing I like about it are that the books are somewhat interesting.
The one thing I loathe about it is that in order to see any actual episodes, I would need BOTH a home broadband connection AND a subscription to a premium streaming service.

 

[Tuvix5675]

After the disaster that was/is J.J. Trek; Discovery is an improvement. I like that we have a new Trek series to watch, debate, discuss. I can't say I like any of the characters overall, except, strangely, Ash Tyler and Captain Georgiou. I like the visual aesthetics even though the series is borrowing a lot of inspiration from J.J.'s films. The make-up, props, costumes, sets are all top o the line. This is visually the best looking Trek since Enterprise. I also like how this series isn't family friendly like all earlier Trek series, I like the violence, graphic sex, (I could do without the swearing), the inclusion of a gay couple, the serialized storytelling-in other words, the attempts to give it a modern cable/streaming adult audience orientation.

 

[F. King Daniel]

"Graphic sex"?

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

Well, I'm a lover of the series. After binge watching again since the series finished, I found I enjoyed some things that I didn't the first time around. We are past the point of needing spoiler tags aren't we? Oh well, I'll add them in case:

Spoiler

Voq/Tyler. I always thought Voq was a great character, but not so much Tyler. However, what we had figured out already, some of the storyline bugged me. Watching it again, knowing for certain that Tyler didn't know what he was made his storyline more tragic, and liked him more for it and felt for both of ...erm... him.

Spoiler

Lorca. I'd read the theories he was mirror Lorca, but didn't really buy it until the episode with the reveal. Watching him, knowing more of what was going on added something else for me.

The reveal in Lethe providing further info on the nature of the relationship between Sarek and Spock was really a highlight for me both times around.

Burnham. I am a big fan of the character. A worthy sister to Spock imho. I agree with those who don't like many of her speeches, but I really liked her for the most of the rest of it. Loved her log entry at the beginning of Magic to Make the Sanest Man go Mad, and her talking her way out of the brig with the computer.

Saru. I liked him in pretty much every scene he appears in.

Now this is a controversial one to some, but...

Spoiler

The Enterprise. Loved the design. Close enough to make me feel it was the same ship, different enough to feel like a modern interpretation of Starfleet design. I really couldn't be more pleased with the way it turned out. The actual scene it introducing too. Yes, it was very cheesy and forced, but it actually brought a tear to my eye, so I forgive it for that.

 

[Kane_Steel]

STD Positives:

1) Jason Isaacs, who should have been the lead of the series.

2) Anson Mount casting as Pike.

3) Special Effects Budget.


I guess I'm not a big enough fan of Trek anymore for 'Star Trek back on TV' to be enough for me.

 

[Tuvix5675]

"Graphic sex"?

The Klingon/human sex flashbacks between L'Rell and Tyler. It didn't turn me on or anything. I thought it was kind of frightening, but it just adds to the adult orientation of the series.

 

[Ralphis]

The biggest thing for me are the effects. I don't "need" spectacular effects to enjoy something, but if the aim of Disco is to bring in new fans, fans that watch shows like Game of Thrones, the effects needed to be top-notch. I think they did good there. A lot of these episodes, to me, felt big and motion picture quality.

Probably a weird thing to point out, but I like the 2:1 aspect ratio. It gives the show a little bit of a cinematic feel.

I enjoy this cast and most of their characters. Saru and Tilly are an absolute delight. I didn't like Stamets at first, but he grew on me. I'm not feeling Michael yet, but I like Sonequa Martin-Green, so I have hope for the character. And having names like Jason Isaacs, Doug Jones and Rainn Wilson gave the show a little mainstream credibility.

While I'll admit I do kind of miss the 80's/90's episodic story-of-the-week Star Trek I grew up with, I don't think it was the wrong approach to try to do something super serialized. Serialized storytelling does kind of shorten the shelf-life of a show, but if done right, could make for great, compelling television. I don't think Disco is quite there yet, but I'm cheering for it. I want it to happen for them.

Finally, I like that it was successful enough that CBS is moving forward with other Star Trek projects. I kind of feel like that if Disco bombed, CBS would get the 'wrong' message and assume the Trekkies/Trekkers/Treksters just want to watch TOS and TNG and a little DS9 over-and-over again. Well, I "DO" want to do that. But I also want some new stuff too.

 

[ITDUDE]

Another vote for Jason Isaacs
Rainn Wilson time loop episode, awesome! Felt like real Trek.
Mary Wiseman as Tilly/Killy is fucking awesome.
Doug Jones is good too.

 

[Vger23]

1. The Characters are well acted and have compelling arcs that are more in line with how the TOS feature films worked and not how the various series have worked.

2. The Cast is outstanding and has great chemistry with each other. Even the secondary cast members just have a great magnetism and charisma when they are on screen. Every single one leaves you wanting more.

3. The Design elements are outstanding. Best designs (sets, costumes, props) since the TOS movie-era designs (yes, inclusive of JJTrek).

4. The Production Values are staggering. The show looks really, really nice. Some of the CGI needs polish, no question, but everything generally looks cinematic and realistic. I can't get enough of how beautiful of a show it is.

5. Lorca and Georgiou (and Isaacs and Yeoh) are so awesome it makes my head spin.

6. Saru is the first alien character who feels truly alien (to me) since Spock.

7. The Spore Drive, while not without it's issues, was a brave and interesting attempt to do something very different and unique with technology in Star Trek...really the first such attempt in decades.

8. The Music is very good...and the best in the television franchise since TOS.

9. The Excitement is back. People are talking about Star Trek again. Despite vocal minority, the buzz is relatively positive. It feels great to have Trek back in a television format again, and fandom feels like it's awakening from a lull as a result.

10. There is Room for Improvement and Growth. The first season of DSC was far from perfect, and even somewhat rocky at times...but there is a tremendous foundation in place now to build upon. It reminds me of TNG's early years...you knew there were growing pains, but you could also feel in your bones that everything was in place to build something very special potentially. The fact that, amidst all the complications and pitfalls that occurred in the production of season 1, they still managed all of the positives listed above is a testament to the pure potential that exists. That is exciting and that is what keeps me engaged and supportive.

 

[Syd Shanshala]

I grew up watching ENT on tv as it aired. That was my “first” Trek series. In all honesty I’m just beyond thrilled that I get to see another “modern” Star Trek iteration. There was a couple years there where I thought it wouldn’t ever happen.

 

[BillJ]

I grew up watching ENT on tv as it aired. That was my “first” Trek series. In all honesty I’m just beyond thrilled that I get to see another “modern” Star Trek iteration. There was a couple years there where I thought it wouldn’t ever happen.

As entertainment becomes more niche, Star Trek is probably the perfect vehicle for a streaming service. Able to cater to the hardest of hard core fans.