I think it's absolutely fair to say that VOY and early ENT were failures as shows over a much longer run than DIS had to date, insofar as they didn't try and add to Trek. That is why I don't think DIS is the worst Trek, even though the writing flaws were glaring at times. The show was always well acted, expertly directed, and the visuals (aside from the weirdly grainy ship shots which looked straight out of a early aughts video game) looked amazing. I never felt outright bored by Discovery, as I did by Voyager. Exasperated with the choices made some times, but not bored.
Aside from finally having an explicitly LGBT character, I don't see what Discovery did better than earlier shows. I mean, looping back to DS9 again, O'Brien was the only white male human main cast member on the show. And even on LGBT issues, the show got about a half dozen references past the "Berman homophobic filter" without getting caught.
I think people are a little too trigger happy to blame all of the problems of Season 1 on Fuller. I admit I haven't seen any of his post-Trek work, but he was a cut above most of the Voyager writing staff when he was young, and seemed to get Trek. I really wonder (albeit with little evidence) if he's succumbed to some addictive behavior in recent years, since he was essentially fired from three shows within a period of less than two years.
I think her arc worked great up through the end of Act 1. She transitioned from being shattered by her own failure into being a confident member of the team, and from a pariah to accepted. However, there was basically no arc in Act 2 - it was Burnham being emotionally tortured as she was betrayed in turn by Ash and Lorca, then irrationally latching onto MU Georgiou - basically showing that she had not made substantial character growth over the season.
I concur. The editing in the speech seemed really, really weird. I do wonder if they wanted to have either a darker ending or to stretch the Klingon War into the second season, and CBS told them to put the kibosh on it. They had no plan B, so they engaged in pure asspull.
My own two cents are they should have toned down the epicness of the season. There's no reason to have Burnham blamed for the start of the Klingon War. Or to have her former captain be one of the most decorated in the Federation. Or to then put her on a ship which is instrumental in defeating the Klingons.
Basically take all of that out, and make Burnham an XO who made a really bad decision, got her captain killed, and have her dishonorably discharged (not imprisoned). But as the Klingon War heats up, Starfleet needs more warm bodies, and she's recruited back into the force. GIven CBS didn't want to spring for the big budget needed for a large cast to pull off an epic show, this tighter focus - the POV of a single crew on a not-so-amazing ship - would have allowed Burnham's personal story of redemption to come to the fore. It would also stop canon nerds from complaining about why we never heard of this awesomsauce woman before - because she was just another Starfleet officer doing the best she could.
Ultimately, the stakes that make us enjoy stories are personal ones. Get the characters right, and people will follow them anywhere. Get the characters wrong, and even spectacle of universe-destroying scope won't be enough.
When it comes to Discovery’s take on diversity, we’ve never seen a black woman as prominent (including Uhura even) on a Trek series/movie as Burnham, so that does make the show stand out. (It would be great if they did something though to root her more in a culturally black experience to demonstrate the difference, though the visual makes a statement on its own. A sci-fi series where the main character is a black woman. The character the audience is supposed to identify with, follow on their journey, watch their lives and loves, victories, and defeats, etc.; Off the top of my head I can’t think of another sci-fi series that has been led by a black woman). After Season 1 alone, Burnham is the most developed black female character in Trek’s history.
Also, while as you’ve mentioned, there have been some exploration, perhaps on the edges, when it comes to LGBT issues/characters, there has never been as prominent a homosexual character as Stamets and we have yet to have seen as much exploration of an LGBT relationship as Discovery has depicted. Perhaps this is just me, but when it comes to Georgiou, Cornwell, and Tilly, as well as Burnham, it feels like Discovery is making female characters more integral to the show in ways that feel different-to me at least-than some of the previous Treks. I also think Discovery has taken some steps to make their crew feel even more inclusive, in terms of background players, than I’ve noticed in previous Treks.
I see Act 2 as when Burnham starts to grasp the lessons she’s learned since the Battle of the Binary Stars. This is where they demonstrate her growth. I can see why she attached to Mirror Georgiou. I mean she’s got to be feeling very guilty about Prime Georgiou and she’s lacking a mother figure, mentor, and friend. (One thing that I did catch while watching the show was that Amanda and Burnham seemed to have a good relationship, so I don’t know why Georgiou would need to be a substitute mother like the show set up. If Soval had been the foster parent instead of Sarek I think this would’ve made more sense, IMO. I go more into why I think Soval and/or T’Pol would work better instead of Sarek later on). I think Burnham throughout has struggled to try to reconcile her human emotions with her Vulcan upbringing, so she doesn’t have ‘normal’ reactions at times to things. It reminds me a little of when Data in Generations, though not played for broad laughs like that. Burnham has struggled, is struggling with her divided halves, but her brilliance and ability to get the job done make her valuable to Starfleet so they have been willing to work with her.
It’s not my intention to blame or unload on Fuller. I would like to see what his plans were though, and how much made it to the screen. I wonder how much of the things I took issue with came from him or came from the people who replaced him.
I think you have some good ideas for how Discovery should have gone. I especially like the idea of the ship not being that great. Though if it was up to me, I would keep Burnham more central to the Klingon War. I think it was gutsy to make a lead character, on a Trek show of all things, be the cause of a massive war. (Though one can argue that Burnham was right since T’Kuvma’s plans were already gaining steam).
I’m okay with Georgiou being one of the best captains, but I wish there had been more people on that list. I wish Garth, Garrovick, Bryce Shumar, Shran, Erika Hernandez, and if they had been allowed to use Bad Robot characters: Edison, Robau, and perhaps Marcus Alexander. I think that was a missed opportunity for even more Easter Eggs but also to include some names we had never heard of, and more alien captains as well. Perhaps if they had just had Saru have the computer read off names instead of showing them, while also having some on the screen, it would have worked better.
With Burnham, I wasn’t a fan of her being the best student in the Vulcan Science Academy, or whatever, but I would’ve been fine if she had been one of the better students there, or had graduated at the top of Starfleet Academy, or was just a very gifted person who had problems fitting in anywhere due to her past trauma and any emotional turmoil of having to adapt to living on Vulcan. Her centrality to a war fans had never heard of before, and no other show, especially TOS, had ever brought up, was going to rile many fans, though I think even more so the connection to Sarek and Spock. I still wish they had had Soval or T’Pol as her foster parent. There’s a lot of room to play around there, and it doesn’t fundamentally alter the character they envisioned. Sarek, Amanda, and the Spock connection are hotter, but because of that, that is bound to provoke fans more. I don’t think people would have been as up in arms about Soval or T’Pol, their future is unwritten-canonically-unlike Sarek and Spock. I have to wonder if the writers thought that using Sarek would appeal to fans, but I think the opposite happened, at least online.
