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The Casting of this series is extremely bad

One thing that really amuses me when I'm visiting other sites, is people's assessment of SMG. I'm really fascinated by the fact that many people think she only has one expression, but that as a group they don't seem to be able to agree on which single expression that happens to be. Its like there is a whole community of Discovery watchers who are suffering from self-imposed face-blindness where it comes to this specific actress.
 
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When you script long monologues, flowery dialogue, and declarative statements it's hard to have any actor - regardless of skill - come across as a natural human being.
 
When you script long monologues, flowery dialogue, and declarative statements it's hard to have any actor - regardless of skill - come across as a natural human being.

I'm confused. Is this somehow new to Star Trek scriptwriting?
 
The monologues haven't helped endear people to Burnham. I wish they'd stop it, though my suspicion is we'll get a healthy dose of it tonight. There are so many writers with distinctly different backgrounds, not to mention different directors making sure she gets those moments that I am beginning to think its in the show's bible.
 
The monologues haven't helped endear people to Burnham. I wish they'd stop it, though my suspicion is we'll get a healthy dose of it tonight. There are so many writers with distinctly different backgrounds, not to mention different directors making sure she gets those moments that I am beginning to think its in the show's bible.

Funny how they never had a problem with Shatner, Stewart or Brooks offer similar monologues. Maybe if they hired one of the old guys to read them people wouldn't react so harshly? Maybe it would help if you imagined Jean-Luc Picard saying the words?
 
Funny how they never had a problem with Shatner, Stewart or Brooks offer similar monologues. Maybe if they hired one of the old guys to read them people wouldn't react so harshly? Maybe it would help if you imagined Jean-Luc Picard saying the words.
I didn't like it when Picard did it either. I didn't actually watch TNG much while it was on, I was a teenager and it did not appeal to me at all, after trying to watch the first two seasons.

But I don't really want to fix the past, I'm just hoping for fewer Burnham Sermons now. Maybe its just me. Maybe most people like them and can't wait for her to do a "what we learned today" summing up at the end. I like the character, its just that one thing I don't like.
 
Funny how they never had a problem with Shatner, Stewart or Brooks offer similar monologues. Maybe if they hired one of the old guys to read them people wouldn't react so harshly? Maybe it would help if you imagined Jean-Luc Picard saying the words.
Theirs weren't so long and were mostly informational. Disco's writers keep trying to make Burnham too philosophical and/or poetic.
 
Funny how they never had a problem with Shatner, Stewart or Brooks offer similar monologues. Maybe if they hired one of the old guys to read them people wouldn't react so harshly?
Burnman monologues indeed remind me of the monologues of those guys, and that's why I generally like them. This is certainly a Star Trek thing, and it generally works. It just feels that there is some dictate that there absolutely must be a certain amount of Burnman monologues, and they're having them regardless of whether the writers can come up with anything poignant to say. If you're gonna wax philosophically, then make you sure you actually have a point! Again, I think most of them have worked, but not all of them. Ones that I particularly regard as duds were the one in the season one finale and the one in the bizarre spore dimension episode where they save Culber (I'm good with the episode names as you can see.)
 
Funny how they never had a problem with Shatner, Stewart or Brooks offer similar monologues.

I'm not sure people never had problems with them. Hard to gauge when the shows have been off the air for twenty-plus years. Personally, I've always been a fan of economical use of language. I hate people droning on. Though like anything else, there are exceptions. Like Kirk's "Risk is our business" and Sisko's "I can live with it". Burnham has yet to drop one that remotely stands up to those two.
 
I didn't like it when Picard did it either. I didn't actually watch TNG much while it was on, I was a teenager and it did not appeal to me at all, after trying to watch the first two seasons.

But I don't really want to fix the past, I'm just hoping for fewer Burnham Sermons now. Maybe its just me. Maybe most people like them and can't wait for her to do a "what we learned today" summing up at the end. I like the character, its just that one thing I don't like.

I think the term 'sermon' is a bit hyperbolic from what I've experienced in this show, the use of which implies that she is talking down to the audience. I don't find myself that Burnhan is talking down to me any more than Tom Sellek was when he made voice over observations during 80s episodes of Magnum PI.
 
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I think the term 'sermon' is a bit hyperbolic from what I've experienced in this show, the use of which implies that she is talking down to the audience. I don't find myself that Burnhan is talking down to me any more than Tom Sellek was when he made voice over observations during 80s episodes of Magnum PI.
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Yeah, I don't get the sermon thing. I mean her personal logs just seem to be her...personal musings on the situation. Thematic exposition rather than straight boring exposition.

Although it seems people want more of the latter: "We're currently in orbit around/ en route to [insert planet] to [insert mission]. The inhabitants here have problems with [possible disaster or conflict]. The situation is [insert exciting adjective], but I have every confidence in my crew to resolve this with minimal casualties." Rinse repeat.

I think the only time Michael has sounded lecture-y is when she's addressing Starfleet personnel in a public speech (like the award ceremony) or when she has to publicly rebuke Starfleet (re: Cornwell's approval of genocide). Because that's the point of her story arc, realizing where she went wrong at the Battle at the Binary Stars and wanting to return to the Federation ideals she believed in.

I find her far less self-righteous and sanctimonious, for example, than Picard or Janeway or Sisko were in their moralizing speeches. And she's a lot less hypocritical than the latter two, imo. Picard had this "we're more evolved than you aliens" air to him which, upon re-watches, now irritates the heck out of me.

I think Burnham's monologues are essentially what she talks about in the opening episode of this season: an exploration of the human condition. The journey of self-discovery is a big focus of this show.
 
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