Michael Burnham is the Chosen One

I think "start great" or "get better" is a false choice. We live in a time of unprecedented entertainment options -- far too many to watch. So, for me, it's a question of whether a show is worth my time. Discovery's first season was right on the cusp. Had it not had "Star Trek" in the title, I'd have dropped it early on, so I can't help but question whether continuing with it -- and voting with my subscription dollars week after week -- was really the right call, for me or for the franchise. At a certain point, tolerating bad/mediocre Trek is only encouraging more bad/mediocre Trek, and there's already too much of that.

These days, being willing to write off the first two years doesn't make a lot of sense to me. We have, what, five or six more shows supposedly in the pipeline? Am I really expected and willing to sit through 12 seasons of disappointing TV in hopes it will improve?

 

Well, that's the question that keeps the CBS(AA) execs up at night, that's for sure.

 

Yes to expected to. Willing to is another question and will vary from person to person.

 

One other thought along these lines: TNG sucked at first, but it was being put together by many of the same people who had given us something amazing, TOS. They had a track record of success that warranted, IMO, a little faith and latitude. But now the franchise is run by a fellow whose work I have generally not enjoyed and who has never created anything I really loved. Yet I keep hoping he will suddenly produce something great. That gives me pause.

I really hope season 2 is good.

 

I give Trek that benefit of a doubt because I’ve seen how it played out before, and I’ve fairly enjoyed the first season of DIS more than the other first season spin-offs aside from DS9.

At least with the Picard series it’s a one and done season, so that’s something they’ll really need to lock down.

 

I think the latter is a compelling reason for you to continue to watch, but I grow increasingly skeptical about the first part. The franchise is run by totally different people now, and I'm no longer convinced that past performance is predictive of future success.

 

I like spaceships. Star Trek is just a bonus for me at this stage in life.

With so many franchises that I enjoy no longer being produced it is fun to just see where Star Trek can go. I think I get as much enjoyment out of that as I do watching the actual show. I watch so few shows nowaways that I think I can squeeze Discovery in even if it isn't exactly what I would have produced.

 

I'm not buying into this narrative and I won't. I like DSC S1. If I think S2 is better, I'm not going to retroactively turn around and say "Season 1 wasn't good but they made it better in Season 2!" I didn't watch Discovery Season 1 because I thought to myself "It'll improve in the third season!", I watched it because I liked it.

I'm not a TNGer, so I don't subscribe to this stupid "wait until Season 3" mentality. I either like it or I don't. And if I don't, I stop watching. The End. I thought DSC S1 was the best Star Trek in 20 years. If people disagree, good for them. That's their prerogative.

I also liked the first seasons of Parks and Recration and Orange Is the New Black to begin with. They got better later on but they didn't "get good", they just got better. OITNB, in particular, is a show that branched out. Discovery also looks to be a series that branches out from where it started.

 

IDK - TOS' first season is still my favorite season of ANY Star Trek series, and yes, it was 'rough' in many areas, but that didn't stop them from telling some great stories with good characters and good character interactions (my favorite Star Trek franchise episode across any series is still TOS - "The Corbomite Maneuver").

The
"The first season of any Trek series is rough/sucks"
excuse only became a thing in Trek fandom because of how laughably bad TNG's first season was/is still.

 

I still find TNG's first season more entertaining than pretty much any other season of any of the spinoffs. There was some facepalm worthy stuff in there, but they really seemed to be trying to tell "out there" stories with a sense of fun that seriously declined as the spinoffs progressed.

 

As I've said repeatedly, Kurtzman is really only "running" Discovery now. He's basically just on the business end of the other shows, and seems like he's been hands off with the creative stuff. This means that even if you don't like his work as a writer (I sure don't) there's no reason to think his mediocrity will infect absolutely everything.

 

That's exactly it.

Transforming Trek into acceptable "mature" television just sucked a lot of what made it entertaining and unusual out of it. As the years passed it became more and more mundane.*

Which goes some ways to explaining why the TNG film series rarely performed up to the studio's hopes and petered out after four films; they did not have a strong base in the show's television format and the tastes of its audience from which to try to build a more adventurous movie series. The original series leaned into big concepts and conflict much more so than GR's revised notions of what Trek represented.

TNG was probably the most successful Trek series of any, but it could not have been the first; without a preexisting audience and the enormous good will and free publicity that went with that, it'd have been cancelled after the one bought-and-paid-for season.

*Fortunately there are other shows that now embrace all the lost fun and adventure. Just sayin'.

 

I really enjoyed Season 1 of "Discovery". More than I thought possible. But with Alex Kurtzman as the showrunner . . . I have my doubts that Season 2 will be just as good or better. I'll watch it. But I have my doubts.

How interesting, considering that many Trek fans tend to regard either Kirk or Picard in that manner. There is already a thread that asks members to decide which man was the best captain in the franchise. It didn't even consider the other leads. Which is why I didn't bother to vote. Despite her competency, Michael Burnham made at least two serious mistakes during Season 1 for me to regard her as "the second coming".

Michael is the show's lead. She is not the first lead of a television show or movie in which some, if not all, supporting characters are defined by. Why make this complaint about her?

 

Berman’s track record wasn’t perfect either, as ENT fell much harder and faster than the previous spin-offs. That’s why it’ll either go that way or like TNG retain viewership.

 

Well of course it didn't the thread was about Captains, not leads.

 

Exactly so. There are many hours a week of great entertainment on TV and, honestly, how many hours a week do you want to spend watching episodic genre television anyway?

 

I don't watch much too television anyway (really just Fargo and Trek), so I can't say I'm really having difficulty making time for other shows.

 

I'm just going to say one thing in response to this thread. No she's not, stop being silly. This archetype of hero character is very common in fiction. The writers may be laying it on a little thick, and that's an issue, but the character itself is not.

 

I just watch shows I like, so I don't waste time on shows I don't like or that bore me.