Is Spectacle better than character development?

[Groppler Zorn]

She wants to be the dominant one over her more dovish Captain. And then her interjecting constantly whenever Admiral Cornwell was speaking in that scene at the end of "Will You Take My Hand?" Lines up with some of the worst traits I've observed about some types of Alphas from just life in general.

I see where you’re coming from - I just didn’t interpret it as alpha behaviour (like, say, Shelby). I interpreted it as her just being an arrogant a-hole

Some people are saying they don't like Burnham because the Creators want to show her as being Just Perfect. I'm of the opinion she's the exact opposite. She's not perfect at all. That's what, for me, makes it interesting to watch.

Agreed on this. I don’t subscribe to the “Mary Sue” interpretation of Burnham. She certainly isn’t perfect. But she never seems to learn anything from that imperfection - she just seems to keep ploughing away at life in that pigheaded way she has.

I hope she changes a little in s2 (early indications suggest that she might so fingers crossed!)

Disagree wholeheartedly. I find the journey and growth towards wisdom to be far more interesting and entertaining than just being handed someone who is, for all intents and purposes, perfect and already complete in terms of their personal development journey.

One of the reasons I believe Picard IS a one-dimensional character.

Huh. I never considered Picard from that angle.

I wouldn’t agree that he’s one-dimensional, mind you, but I take your point.

I guess Burnham’s journey isn’t all that appealing to me right now. I’m hoping that changes as DSC progresses.

 

[Vger23]

I see where you’re coming from - I just didn’t interpret it as alpha behaviour (like, say, Shelby). I interpreted it as her just being an arrogant a-hole


Agreed on this. I don’t subscribe to the “Mary Sue” interpretation of Burnham. She certainly isn’t perfect. But she never seems to learn anything from that imperfection - she just seems to keep ploughing away at life in that pigheaded way she has.

I hope she changes a little in s2 (early indications suggest that she might so fingers crossed!)


Huh. I never considered Picard from that angle.

I wouldn’t agree that he’s one-dimensional, mind you, but I take your point.

I guess Burnham’s journey isn’t all that appealing to me right now. I’m hoping that changes as DSC progresses.

I was admittedly harsh on Picard to hammer the point across a little more harshly than was probably necessary. Picard has other facets (as I believe Burnham does as well). I think we need to be patient. I really hated Picard after 10-15 episodes in 1987/88. He took a while to grow on me.

 

[Amasov]

No, it's not better than spectacle and Discovery has had character development.

 

[Awesome Possum]

The show is almost entirely focused on character development, Hell a lot of the complaints about Burnham was that her arc was character development.

 

[Refuge]

I interpret Michael's driving force as being guilt. The faux Vulcan orientation crumbles when her demons kick in. She lost her parents when the Klingons attacked, if her family had not delayed their vacation due to her insistence they would've avoided the attack.

From her first mutiny until the last episode's threat of more mutiny Michael's character and motivations remained the same. I see the story but not the development of her character. Decisions born from guilt and inferiority. She went from wanting to attack (fire first) the Klingons to giving power to a Klingon outcast, one who specialised in spying and torture. A weapon of mass destruction handed over. Both examples layered onto her childhood memories with the lesson learned that dominance wins the day. The little girl who felt guilt over her parents' death grew to be the woman who felt guilt over Georgiou's death, guilt over the Klingon war, guilt over Saru and his issues, guilt about her mirror self's baggage. People trust her and try to take care of her (even Lorca - the sod he was) and they drop like flies around her.

It is not character development but a simple plot point that advanced Burnham in the end. Ending the war by the tactic chosen just perpetuates the status quo. The threat of attack and its consequence has been a running constant for Burnham.

 

[Noname Given]

I interpret Michael's driving force as being guilt. The faux Vulcan orientation crumbles when her demons kick in. She lost her parents when the Klingons attacked, if her family had not delayed their vacation due to her insistence they would've avoided the attack.

From her first mutiny until the last episode's threat of more mutiny Michael's character and motivations remained the same. I see the story but not the development of her character. Decisions born from guilt and inferiority. She went from wanting to attack (fire first) the Klingons to giving power to a Klingon outcast, one who specialised in spying and torture. A weapon of mass destruction handed over. Both examples layered onto her childhood memories with the lesson learned that dominance wins the day. The little girl who felt guilt over her parents' death grew to be the woman who felt guilt over Georgiou's death, guilt over the Klingon war, guilt over Saru and his issues, guilt about her mirror self's baggage. People trust her and try to take care of her (even Lorca - the sod he was) and they drop like flies around her.

It is not character development but a simple plot point that advanced Burnham in the end. Ending the war by the tactic chosen just perpetuates the status quo. The threat of attack and its consequence has been a running constant for Burnham.

IDK - At the start she seemed more Vulcan than Human to me; and over the course of the Seson she had various points and incidents that had her reconnecting to her Humanity and reaklizing teh Vulcan way wasn't the only/best way to deal with things in life.

I got the impression in "Battle of the Binary Stars" that she thought she COULD make the Vulcan Hello work for the situation she was in (she was wrong; nothing would have deterred T'Kuvma) and that it WAS THE SOLUTION as opposed to the Human solution of 'More Diplomacy'. In the episode we saw how T'Kuvma saw diplomacy when the Human Admiral proposed a cease fire, T'Kuvma accepted; them proceeded to destroy his ship.

Had Georgiou survived the boarding action on T'Kuvma's ship; I doubt Burnhams actions would have been reported to Starfleet Command as at the point described above, even Georgiou realized that NETHER Burnham's "Vulcan Hello" nor Federation Diplomacy would have worked; and that's why she agreed to using the photon torpedo warhead and beaming over to capture T'Kuvma. Had Georgiou lived, it WOULD have been something along the lines of an old TOS episode like say, "The Menagerie" - where even after everything that happened, Captain and First Officer would say, lesson learned, time for the next assignment.

Yes, after the incident Burnham felt guilty; but I also think she was upset and felt her Humanity in effect betrayed her because she had a very Human response to seeing Georgiou killed and in a fit of uncontrolled anger killed the being who killed Georgiou. At that point, she again WANTED to discard her Humanity and embrace her Vulcan training; and wanted NOTHING to do with Humans, the Federation, or anything; she just wanted to logically and dispassionately continue her existence until she was executed, or died.

 

[Refuge]

IDK - At the start she seemed more Vulcan than Human to me; and over the course of the Seson she had various points and incidents that had her reconnecting to her Humanity and reaklizing teh Vulcan way wasn't the only/best way to deal with things in life.

I got the impression in "Battle of the Binary Stars" that she thought she COULD make the Vulcan Hello work for the situation she was in (she was wrong; nothing would have deterred T'Kuvma) and that it WAS THE SOLUTION as opposed to the Human solution of 'More Diplomacy'. In the episode we saw how T'Kuvma saw diplomacy when the Human Admiral proposed a cease fire, T'Kuvma accepted; them proceeded to destroy his ship.

Had Georgiou survived the boarding action on T'Kuvma's ship; I doubt Burnhams actions would have been reported to Starfleet Command as at the point described above, even Georgiou realized that NETHER Burnham's "Vulcan Hello" nor Federation Diplomacy would have worked; and that's why she agreed to using the photon torpedo warhead and beaming over to capture T'Kuvma. Had Georgiou lived, it WOULD have been something along the lines of an old TOS episode like say, "The Menagerie" - where even after everything that happened, Captain and First Officer would say, lesson learned, time for the next assignment.

Yes, after the incident Burnham felt guilty; but I also think she was upset and felt her Humanity in effect betrayed her because she had a very Human response to seeing Georgiou killed and in a fit of uncontrolled anger killed the being who killed Georgiou. At that point, she again WANTED to discard her Humanity and embrace her Vulcan training; and wanted NOTHING to do with Humans, the Federation, or anything; she just wanted to logically and dispassionately continue her existence until she was executed, or died.

Interesting to read your point of view. I felt that the opening scenes with Michael and Georgiou gave us a starting point whereby we felt Michael had already rediscovered her humanity through her mentor. Her friendship with Georgiou. Michael tapping into her Vulcan orientation and Sarek gave her permission to betray her Captain and to override her. There was a healthy dose of her childhood pain and hatred toward Klingons factored into her wanting to fire first. We as an audience knew about the Klingon agenda but Michael was not basing her decisions on that. Her mutiny was in the act of taking over the ship not in seeing Georgiou killed and killing the wrong Klingon as revenge. You know that whole plan of booby trapping a Klingon corpse was awful. Wanting to take T'Kuvma hostage - just stupid. Yet that same mentality did not change with the ending of the Season, with in effect an enforced peace kept by keeping the warring Klingons held 'hostage' because of a threat.

I do agree with you though that Michael battles with feeling her humanity is a weakness when sometimes it is the Vulcan led choices that have caused her pain.

 

[gblews]

Yup. Really the only character in the whole franchise who holds a candle to Burnham is Kira.

In terms of character development, I would add 7 of 9 to this list.

 

[Refuge]

In terms of character development, I would add 7 of 9 to this list.

I think there is a parallel to Seven and Michael. Both as children cowering in fear as their parents are either assimilated or killed. Both compartmentalising their emotions later in life. Though I think Seven's parents were horrendous putting their child in such danger.

 

[Noname Given]

I think there is a parallel to Seven and Michael. Both as children cowering in fear as their parents are either assimilated or killed. Both compartmentalising their emotions later in life. Though I think Seven's parents were horrendous putting their child in such danger.

For myself - it makes me wonder WHAT Federation psychologists were thinking RE: "Oh, a Vulcan Ambassador wants to adopt and raise a Human orphan...Okay, sounds great!"

 

[gblews]

But, comparing Michael to, say, Bashir - who becomes a totally different character as DS9 developed -

Once again, you're comparing the development of Bashir, a character you knew for 7 seasons (26 episodes each), with the development of a character you've seen for only 15 episodes.

 

[CorporalClegg]

The one defining a change in Bashir was completely lightswitched. Otherwise, he was still the same arrogant, pompous creep that he was in the beginning. The best you could say about him is he became slightly less annoying -- yet remained obnoxiously full of himself.

 

[Vger23]

In terms of character development, I would add 7 of 9 to this list.

Agree, but it took a tremendous shift in focus at the expense of many of the other VOY characters to accomplish that, and over a longer period of time.

 

[Vger23]

I think there is a parallel to Seven and Michael. Both as children cowering in fear as their parents are either assimilated or killed. Both compartmentalising their emotions later in life. Though I think Seven's parents were horrendous putting their child in such danger.

Agree that the two characters are very similar in terms of background and make-up.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Once again, you're comparing the development of Bashir, a character you knew for 7 seasons (26 episodes each), with the development of a character you've seen for only 15 episodes.

I know, that’s an unfair comparison on the whole.

But even when we compare Bashir between, say, seasons 1 and 3 we can see differences in his character.

Granted, that’s still more than 15 episodes in total, but they were standalone episodes that didn’t focus on the viewpoint of any one character. If we took all the Bashir-centric episodes (like the one where the holodoctor guy turns up) there wouldn’t be 7 years’ worth of Bashir stories. There probably isn’t that many more than 15 episodes that actually *focus* on Bashir. Someone on reddit compiled a list actually:

Past prologue
The Wire
Distant Voices
Hippocratic Oath
Our Man Bashir
The Quickening
Doctor Bashir, I presume
In Purgatory's Shadow

And look what we learned about him when the story *did* focus on him. Ok we can probably equivocate and say that Bashir was in lots of other episodes of DS9, but those episodes didn’t focus exclusively on him. So it’s actually more of a fair comparison than at first it might seem to compare Burnham to Bashir (and there’s alliterative advantages to doing so as well haha!)

The point of DSC was that it would focus on Michael’s character and her view on the Trek world, right? That’s not what they actually delivered, mind you, but I still would have expected more growth in a serialised show that (allegedly) focuses on the viewpoint of one single character.

But ymmv

 

[Groppler Zorn]

The one defining a change in Bashir was completely lightswitched. Otherwise, he was still the same arrogant, pompous creep that he was in the beginning. The best you could say about him is he became slightly less annoying -- yet remained obnoxiously full of himself.

Hey! Julian Bashir is bae.

He’s Baeshir.

But yeh even Garak essentially makes the same point as you about Bashir and his genetic enhancement

 

[gblews]

I know, that’s an unfair comparison on the whole.

But even when we compare Bashir between, say, seasons 1 and 3 we can see differences in his character.

Granted, that’s still more than 15 episodes in total, but they were standalone episodes that didn’t focus on the viewpoint of any one character. If we took all the Bashir-centric episodes (like the one where the holodoctor guy turns up) there wouldn’t be 7 years’ worth of Bashir stories. There probably isn’t that many more than 15 episodes that actually *focus* on Bashir. Someone on reddit compiled a list actually:

Past prologue
The Wire
Distant Voices
Hippocratic Oath
Our Man Bashir
The Quickening
Doctor Bashir, I presume
In Purgatory's Shadow

And look what we learned about him when the story *did* focus on him. Ok we can probably equivocate and say that Bashir was in lots of other episodes of DS9, but those episodes didn’t focus exclusively on him. So it’s actually more of a fair comparison than at first it might seem to compare Burnham to Bashir (and there’s alliterative advantages to doing so as well haha!)

The point of DSC was that it would focus on Michael’s character and her view on the Trek world, right? That’s not what they actually delivered, mind you, but I still would have expected more growth in a serialised show that (allegedly) focuses on the viewpoint of one single character.

But ymmv

In the first 15 episodes of DSC, we learn more about Burnham and there is more character development than we saw of Bashit in the first 15 episodes of DS9.

Now, if you think the comparison is unfair because Burnham (in her 15 episodes), had more episodes centered on her than Bashir did (in the 180 episodes of DS9), all I can say is, you're the one who made the comparison in the first place.

Look, anyone can take characters who have developed over 180 or so episodes and compare their development favorably to characters that have only had 15 episodes of development. It doesn't take much incite or powers of observation.

But then claiming that the characters who have had only 15 episodes should (for whatever reason), have developed more in that short span, than the characters in a 7 season show, is just self serving and manipulative.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

In the first 15 episodes of DSC, we learn more about Burnham and there is more character development than we saw of Bashit in the first 15 episodes of DS9.

Now, if you think the comparison is unfair because Burnham (in her 15 episodes), had more episodes centered on her than Bashir did (in the 180 episodes of DS9), all I can say is, you're the one who made the comparison in the first place.

Look, anyone can take characters who have developed over 180 or so episodes and compare their development favorably to characters that have only had 15 episodes of development. It doesn't take much incite or powers of observation.

But then claiming that the characters who have had only 15 episodes should (for whatever reason), have developed more in that short span, than the characters in a 7 season show, is just self serving and manipulative.

I did indeed make the comparison to Bashir in the first place. I initially stated that it was perhaps an unfair comparison, but later altered my view to suggest that it was perhaps not as unfair as I’d first thought when we take episodes that focus on Bashir and compare them with Michael in s1 of DSC, since to do that would create more of a like-for-like comparison.

Regarding your points, don’t forget that the first 15 episodes of ds9 weren’t about Bashir. Indeed, there were plenty of episodes of ds9 that weren’t about Bashir. What did we learn about him in “sons of Mogh?” Nothing - because that episode was about Worf.

DSC was notionally about Michael Burnham and I think they could (note: not *should* but *could*) have developed her character more in s1 than they did. That’s just my opinion, of course and it’s one you clearly don’t agree with. Which is fine - I’m not trying to prove you wrong here!

But I think we’ve probably got everything we can out of this discussion at this point so I’m going to gracefully retire from it to save extensive back and forth with no movement! Thanks for the debate - the bits in between you disparaging my points (calling them ridiculous, manipulative, etc) were quite interesting! LLAP

 

[LJones41]

I have been enjoying Discovery but I feel the Visual aspects of the series as well as the grandiose nature of the story line is not allowing the characters to present a face that we can identify or sympathize with. I feel Character development is taking a back seat.

I don't agree with you. Not one bit. One of the reasons why I enjoyed "Discovery" so much was the character developments and revelations. I'm not the type of person to depend upon "spectacle" alone. Characterization has always been strong in the Trek franchise, even on a show like "Enterprise", of which I'm not a big fan.

 

[Noname Given]

The one defining a change in Bashir was completely lightswitched. Otherwise, he was still the same arrogant, pompous creep that he was in the beginning. The best you could say about him is he became slightly less annoying -- yet remained obnoxiously full of himself.

^^^
Yep, - when they turned him into an Augment in Season 6, practically everything that came before in the show about his character was wiped clean in that it was all his 'act' to not give himself away since genetic manipulation of Humans in illegal in the Federation.

It was klike they fcelt they needed a true 'Spock-Type' character (and Dax was 'smart' but not smart enough) - for the ability to do immediate exposition to the audience (like Spock often did for TOS) quickly when a story demanded it (IE On the exploding Bridge of a ship in combat, you can't have a character looking up something on a computer screen - the exposition has to come fast from a character who the audience believes could have the material memorized.