Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x13 - "Such Sweet Sorrow"

[Rahul]

Honestly though, considering how disjointed the story arcs have been since the show's premiere (probably due to the several changes in showrunners), the show is almost a defacto anthology.

That was actually pretty great about the show! Hell, in my opinion, Star Trek itself basically is almost a SF anthology-show - exploring unique concepts every episode - tied together by having the same cast and the same general setting (the starship travelling).

Having that now be season arcs instead of every episode just enhanced that IMO, and made it work like modern television. That time-jump would carve big junks out of both the connecting tissues.

 

[eschaton]

I wish they did the same with Discovery. They have a fuckin' amazing cast. How about pairing off Tilly with Saru? Together they could find the solution to any problem, actually implementing it would been the challenge for the two! Use Stamet's snark to undercut Burnhams melodramatism - have your cake and eat it too? It's a fucking great character ensemble. USE IT.

While it's gotten better in the second season, one of the issues with how the show uses the characters springs from the fact that Michael is the lead, but not the captain. As a result, most extended, one-on-one dialogue scenes are between Michael and someone else. Where that isn't the case - where two non-Burnham characters are interacting - it's almost always because something plot relevant is happening. This is one reason why Stamets, Tilly, and Saru have been so absent in the back half of the season. The writers don't pair them up with Michael any longer (choosing Ash, Georgiou, Pike, Amanda, etc for that) meaning (save for the little Stamets/Culber plot arc) they mostly exist to tech the tech to plot the plot.

However, the idea that was presented that they needed to learn how to write a season-long arc isn't fair, We only know the aspects of the production that are told to us, but it is obvious that the changes fundamentally altered the course of the season. I don't criticize Kurtzman for that. I don't agree with every decision made, but I think its unfair when there has been continuous serious upheavals in the behind the scenes over the course of this show have been problematic. The show needs a consistent voice running the room. I'm hopeful that in season three, we actually see that. Kurtzman may not have agreed with the direction Harbets and Berg were taking the show. Budget cuts cause story decisions to be changed or action set pieces to be changed.

So then we...uhh...agree? Given I said basically the exact same thing in this thread.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Sarek, Amanda and Georgiou are recurring characters who each have showed up in 1/2 the episodes. That isn't your main cast. The core cast is remaining intact.

Main cast:
- Burnham - going into the future, supposedly. The show will follow her, wherever.
- Saru - onboard Discovery, following Burnham
- Tyler - said he's leaving, but he also has some secret plan that may wind him back with the crew in the future
- Stamets - onboard Discovery for some reason
- Tilly - onboard Discovery
- Culber - should be on the Enterprise, but there's some talk that he may have been blurrily seen on Discovery in the trailer
- Pike - he swapped his uniform and left at the first opportunity. They even sent out a press release informing us he won't be back.

Only Pike is known to leave, and there's a possibility for everyone else in the cast to stay, along with most of the main recurring cast.

 

[Rahul]

Kurtzman is absolutely the one to criticize for any problems Discovery has. It is his show that his production company is making. It is on him that things with Berg and Harberts got out of hand to begin with, and as the showrunner, it was his job to make sure the transition was smooth.

I blame him for doing franchise management instead of crafting compelling single story-arcs. He has done that his entire career. With great writers that can work. But in this case - he should have intervened earlier, and not gotten the main arc out of hand.

He is completely blameless for the fuck-ups of the first season. But that we have ANOTHER season which main story-arc goes completely side-ways in the middle of progression is entirely on his shoulders.

 

[Campe]

So then we...uhh...agree? Given I said basically the exact same thing in this thread.

I guess. I just was thrown by the way that it was presented. Sorry about that.

ETA: Note to self: don't post on the allergy medicine you're on. You get ridiculous.

 

[BillJ]

He is completely blameless for the fuck-ups of the first season.

It was still his show, so at the end of the day, issues with it are on him. Just like the flaws in the Abrams movies are on JJ Abrams.

 

[Uhura's Song]

I went with a 9. A healthy 9.

Only nits that prevented a 10 were the fact I thought ENT could have just unloaded on DISCO and blown her away anyway. Just batter the shields down. And I did not buy Po coming with.

Loved virtually everything else, though I do think they dropped the ball a bit on Culver coming back from the dead/who am I type stuff. There was a good episode in there that did not happen. With Ash, Georgiou, and Stamets angles.

Oh, I have been signed up for Pike series for a while.

And one last note, Sarek could have had that premonition weeks before. No telling how long they traveled for.

 

[137th Gebirg]

That and Pike and Georgiou(Prime) knew each other. Pike suspected something was off with NuGeorgiou on their first meeting, stating something was amiss in a discussion with Burnham and Micheal promising to fill him in at some point. Maybe that conversation happened, hence Pike's *wink* when saying "What Mirror Universe?".

That was my thought. It was a quick and elegant way to say the conversation had taken place because, without it, the writers knew that the fans would freak out, saying, "but...but... we never saw Burnham waste screen time to tell Pike about everything we've already seen in the Mirror Universe!!" This was confirmation. Brilliantly handled.

I really hope the rumors of a new Pike series are true.

 

[Kemaiku]

Antagonising DSC's sentient core may have eventually caused it to fire back or jump away without them.

 

[Alan Roi]

Having that now be season arcs instead of every episode just enhanced that IMO, and made it work like modern television. That time-jump would carve big junks out of both the connecting tissues.

Not really. It would just be the modern equivalent of Following up A Private Little War with Return to Tomorrow.

 

[BillJ]

And one last note, Sarek could have had that premonition weeks before.

One that he didn't share with Starfleet.

 

[Rahul]

While it's gotten better in the second season, one of the issues with how the show uses the characters springs from the fact that Michael is the lead, but not the captain. As a result, most extended, one-on-one dialogue scenes are between Michael and someone else. Where that isn't the case - where two non-Burnham characters are interacting - it's almost always because something plot relevant is happening. This is one reason why Stamets, Tilly, and Saru have been so absent in the back half of the season. The writers don't pair them up with Michael any longer (choosing Ash, Georgiou, Pike, Amanda, etc for that) meaning (save for the little Stamets/Culber plot arc) they mostly exist to tech the tech to plot the plot.

That's pretty much it. I'm really not averse to Burnham being the main character. But I think they should use her in a way like Riker and Tom Paris were the "main character" early on in their respective series. All the other characters had meaningfull stuff to do as well - just whenever there was some exciting mission stuff to do, it was always these characters that got to go out there and do the stuff and talk to the people!

DIS is very focused on having Burnham be the middle of all dramatic events as well - and that doesn't work nearly as well, and is IMO where a lot of the "Mary Sue"-criticism comes from. Hell - "Star Wars" had a very obvious main character (Luke Skywalker) - but all the other characters (Leiy, Han, Chewie & the robots) still got lots of shit to do and have interpersonal conflicts and relationships!

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Look, I don't know anything about proper story structure (other than the Stewart test), and I generally, outside of snide jokes, support the show very much.

But even if the show was terrible, horrible (which it is not), you're going to have to pry the intangible CBS All-Access subscription from my cold, dead hands. I will always watch Star Trek, in whatever form it takes, and I certainly wouldn't abandon it during its time of need.

Thats where you and I differ. Having Star Trek in the title isn't enough for me. If i didn't like Discovery I wouldn't watch it.

 

[Alan Roi]

One that he didn't share with Starfleet.

Star Fleet is compromised by Control. Telling Star Fleet could have had them waiting for Disco as opposed to chasing it.

 

[Rahul]

Not really. It would just be the modern equivalent of Following up A Private Little War with Return to Tomorrow.

No, it would be like following up TOS' "A private little war" with DS9's "Trial's & Tribble-ations".

Yes - there are connecting tissues. But no - it's definitely a new series with a different focus and characters, even if the core of them carry over.

 

[Sakonna]

No, its time for commentors like that to put their money where their mouth is. Show me what you can do better knowing that there are a world of possibilities of things where things can and often do go wrong. I'm willing to read ideas, but someone suggesting, "This sucks and they can do better" don't know the realities of TV production. Budget crunches. Showrunner changes. Studio mandates. These are things that all affect the production of a show.

Instead of considering that, people just attack, attack, attack. I've not been 100% thrilled with the direction of this show. I HATE the Control arc. I think its ridiculously stupid. I choose to focus on the things I enjoy. But if I need to I can be critical without suggesting that someone doesn't know how to do their job. Don't attack someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That's what I find problematic.

Well, speaking only for myself for a moment, I intimately know the realities of TV production because working in TV has been almost the entirety of my professional career. I also aspired to be a showrunner at one point, and chose to step off the track when I realized that the realities of the job would make me miserable -- being a showrunner requires an enormous amount of time, work, and stress, and at one point I finally saw that I simply don't want my life to involve that much work and that much wrangling of bullshit from idiotic executives. (Heh, this just gave me great flashbacks to a time early in my career when I was assistant to a mostly absentee showrunner, phoning it in at the end of a long career, and since I could never reach him and he rarely showed up and department heads were always clamoring for decisions on urgent production matters, I started just making the decisions myself and claiming I had gotten them from boss on the phone. I was a bold 24 year old!)

But also, I didn't actually need to have any of those experiences for it to be valid for me to criticize Disco on a discussion board. TV exists to be watched and responded to by fans. Every showrunner I've ever worked with would kill to have a site like this about their show (on one of my first PA jobs, in the days where MySpace was the only social media, this was one of my job duties -- print up the discussion threads from the shows discussion boards, highlight the most interesting comments and deliver them to the producers)

You are right that there's a way of criticizing a show that's obnoxious and personal about the creators in a way that's uncalled for, but that wasn't happening in @eschaton's post that you were responding to.

And I also basically agree with your approach to Discovery -- I find it enormously frustrating, but there's many aspects about it I love and I try to focus on those. But we're allowed to speak the complaints.

 

[BillJ]

Star Fleet is compromised by Control. Telling Star Fleet could have had them waiting for Disco as opposed to chasing it.

Control could've just followed him as well.

There has to be elements of Starfleet that aren't under its banner, heck there are only Section 31 ships chasing them. They made Control a bogey man without any real form or parameters.

 

[Spot261]

That my English skills come from consuming media - not necessarily using it myself that much....

Sorry bud, that was unfair of me, it was just too good to pass up

 

[Mr Awe]

Kurtzman is absolutely the one to criticize for any problems Discovery has. It is his show that his production company is making. It is on him that things with Berg and Harberts got out of hand to begin with, and as the showrunner, it was his job to make sure the transition was smooth.

No worries. I'm sure Kurtzman is getting the appropriate credit for driving so many subscriptions for CBS All Access and creating a jumping off point worthy of multiple other ST series!

 

[Alan Roi]

No, it would be like following up TOS' "A private little war" with DS9's "Trial's & Tribble-ations".

Yes - there are connecting tissues. But no - it's definitely a new series with a different focus and characters, even if the core of them carry over.

That's just ludicrous. We know who the main characters are of the show, and we know they are all going with the ship.