Season 3 Course Correction

[Vger23]

For some reason this reminds me of Game of Thrones. Specifically how in the early seasons - when they had books to base it off of - every character had a good story reason for existing. But once they ran out of GRRM material to pillage, they basically fell into the classic pattern of TV writers. Things like having characters hang around all season and do nothing just because they were main cast members, or having characters formerly halfway across the world from one another run into one another to form some sort of "avengers" style supergroup.

Ultimately, this is probably one of the ways that fandom kinda ruins storytelling. Either the showrunners discover they really like a character - or the fans really love them - and then all the sudden rather than flowing organically the plot is thrust forward partially on casting concerns.

I agree entirely. It's much like a professional sports franchise. You need to be focused on the betterment of the overall story (or, in the case of my metaphor, the "team") rather than be emotionally connected to actors / characters ("players") who don't fit in any longer.

Sometimes you have to make the tough call.

Most serialized shows don't know how do make that call.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Just recall that Michael derives from a Hebrew word Mikha'el Who is like God? With "El" being Hebrew for God.

I thought it was from the Kryptonian: Myk-El.

 

[fireproof78]

I thought it was from the Kryptonian: Myk-El.

That could be...I'm less familiar with ancient Kryptonian though

 

[Noname Given]

Much of its fan base will have never seen the original series or any of the series so will not concerned with any of these changes or even know that anything is different and that is fine.

How wrong you are.

 

[Noname Given]

I have a feeling that, like Tyler, Georgeau and L'Rell, they will find a way to keep Peck involved as Spock. For better or worse, they definitely "fall in love with" their cast sometimes (and rightfully so, the cast of DSC is amazing) and seem to be hell-bent on keeping the family together.

ORLY? Tell me, how'd that work out for Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs)? [Just saying ]

 

[Alan Roi]

Replace the entire crew of Discovery and I might just be interested in season 3. LOL

Why stop with just the crew?

For some reason this reminds me of Game of Thrones. Specifically how in the early seasons - when they had books to base it off of - every character had a good story reason for existing. But once they ran out of GRRM material to pillage, they basically fell into the classic pattern of TV writers. Things like having characters hang around all season and do nothing just because they were main cast members, or having characters formerly halfway across the world from one another run into one another to form some sort of "avengers" style supergroup.

Ultimately, this is probably one of the ways that fandom kinda ruins storytelling. Either the showrunners discover they really like a character - or the fans really love them - and then all the sudden rather than flowing organically the plot is thrust forward partially on casting concerns.

Well, as far back as M*A*S*H I could see the conundrum for writers. It just does not appear to be easy to replace good characters with equally good characters. Blake's Seven codified this for me, as just about every character who got replaced over the course of the show was less interesting than the one they replaced. They started out with aentire cast of decent characters and ended with 2 of 7 that were compelling at all. So yeah, its a risk either way.

Unless of course its Sean Bean. Then, for good or bad, you've got to kill him off.

 

[Tuskin38]

There hasn’t been any course corrections yet, so I’m not sure why S3 would

 

[The Wormhole]

Off the top of my head Q, Garak, Weyoun, and Martok were all supposed to be one-episode,

I don't know about Q or Garak. Groundwork was laid at the end of Farpoint for Q to return, while IIRC, Andrew Robinson was always aware Garak was meant to be a recurring character.

 

[Mudd]

There hasn’t been any course corrections yet, so I’m not sure why S3 would

The entire second season is a "course correction."

 

[Alan Roi]

The entire second season is a "course correction."

Did you think the second season would be another war story?

 

[Spider]

Why stop with just the crew?

I actually kind of like the ship itself, it's pretty cool with it's spinning and twirling and magic mushrooms.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Nothing wrong with course corrections.

 

[Hythlodeus]

Did you think the second season would be another war story?

the tiresome fanwankery of season 2 so far is a pretty strong indicator that they changed the course at least a litle to appeace the most rabid nutjobs in fandom. It kinda reminds me of the time they separated Garak and Bashir, because they were afraid that pairing would attract too many homosexuals.

 

[F. King Daniel]

the tiresome fanwankery of season 2 so far is a pretty strong indicator that they changed the course at least a litle to appeace the most rabid nutjobs in fandom. It kinda reminds me of the time they separated Garak and Bashir, because they were afraid that pairing would attract too many homosexuals.

They actually did that? Jeebus H Cripes.

Gay characters in Trek might have been a noteworthy thing in the 90's. Only the Marvel universe is behind Trek in featuring LGBT.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

I don't think any of the previous ST series would've survived past season 1 or 2 if they were being held to the same standards that DSC is. Just to recap some of those series and their first 2 seasons:

- TNG: over-the-top, wacky, much of the cast didn't think it would survive past season 1. It also included a being named Q who could traverse all of time and space at will.
- DS9: depressing, slow-moving, almost no follow-up story arcs, species of the week
- VOY: Kazon, Kazon, everywhere Kazon
- ENT: slow-moving, shallow character development, I honestly didn't make it past season 1​

Some really good ideas have been presented in this thread, and I offer this recap more for the people who've already written off DSC altogether. If you judged your favorite ST series solely based on its first season or two, how would it do?

 

[Sir Stewart Wallace]

I would be completely on board with Discovery if they hadn't done the whole Burnham/Spock thing. It's just so fanfiction-esque. I can't get past it.

But there's no correcting that, obviously.

 

[DaveyNY]

53 years of Novels and a myriad of Fan Fiction Stories, kinda-sorta make it impossible for anything to NOT be Fan-wankery, at this point.

 

[Noname Given]

The entire second season is a "course correction."

Not really, it's just a different story. The majority of teh characters and the 'Universe' it takes place in are exactly the same as last season.

 

[Tuskin38]

The entire second season is a "course correction."

No it isn't.

 

[Hythlodeus]

No it isn't.

I sadly have to agree with Serveaux here. There's a lot more pandering to the fandom in season 2. Sure, most of it has story reasons and this is the story they want to tell, buuut...there are thousands of possible stories and more ways to tell every one of them and they chose one that involved not only fan favourites like Spock and Pike but made damn sure to include No. 1, Talosisans, a more conservative D7 design and hairy Klingons. Season 2 is reactionary in that way