What was your impression of Season 2 overall?

Disappointing. It started cool, very explore-y and GADZOOKS: not! opposed to religion, perhaps . . . and then became an action movie, serialized: save the universe from BAD GUY (AI). Oh, and SURPRISE, the Red Angel is . . . Michael Burnham.

That video about unearned loss is spot on btw.

Those plaintive doe-eyed sad looks! Janie one-note. Burnham should get paid by the pained expression.

I'm not a fan. Even moreso than after S1 b/c S2 started well, had that Cage ep which was GREAT, then . . . defeat-the-bad-guy again. YMMV

 

Martin-Green did enough crying in season two that she should never cry again on Star Trek.

 

I got dehydrated just watching her cry.

 

I'll take it. Prefer more emotion and tears than less.

 

No thanks. I preferred when Starfleet officers could control their emotions, before Abrams and his toadie kurtzman got their claws on Trek....

 

No thanks. I want to see people and their emotions, not pure professionalism. It's drama not a work place.

 

The starship is their workplace where they are meant to display a military level of professionalism. The only time I want to see emotion on Trek is rare occasions that call from it eg naked now, pon farr or data’s emotion chip.

 

That is not what I want nor do I believe that is what is needed for humanity. Research is finding more emotional expression is appropriate than the strictness and stoicism have taught.

No doubt mileage will vary but I want emotions. And I think Kirk would agree.

 

Maybe, maybe not...

 

Depends on the episode

 

I connect to the characters. People being people, connecting to each other.

A cold emotionless Trek is something I never want to see.

 

Thank you for putting it so succinctly.

 

All in all it was really good. Great special effects with the ships and space battles. The battles were more reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica style than Star Trek.
I am ok with emotional Star Trek, but I really thought Michael being raised by Vulcans would be more logical on the outside, less spontaneous and less inclined to show emotion.
I really like the Tilly character and Saru. I thought the Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius character was not real believable.

 

Remember DS9 whenever Sisko got pissed off? Or whenever Janeway went into no-nonsense mode? Those were pre-Abrams last I checked.

 

It's true. Having real human emotions is canon.

 

"Star Trek was never like this. Star Trek was never like that." Reminds me of Lorraine in Back to the Future in 1985. "When I was your age I never chased a boy or sat with or parked a car with a boy." But then we find out in 1955: "Marty, I'm almost 18 years old. It's not like I never parked before."

Same deal with Star Trek. "The Cage", which I love, was rejected for being too cerebral, so we got "Where No Man Has Gone Before", which was more viceral. Later on, during the second season, NBC pushed for more action-adventure, which Gene Coon delivered and worked in more light-comedy too. Later still: TMP. Visually, musically, it's the best Star Trek movie to this day but, as a narrative and actually getting through it, I don't usually watch the film in just one sitting, as impressed with it as I am. TWOK was the antidote to that. During the Berman Era: DS9, VOY, and ENT all had more conflict than TNG by design because they didn't want the crew to always be on the same page.

Long story short: None of what's been going on in the Abrams Films, Discovery, and soon Picard, is anything new. In one way or another, pushing for more action, more conflict, and a less sterile product from Star Trek has been a tug-of-war that's been going on since 1965. Before the series even aired.

 

Had to find some bits regarding TNG when it first came out. This one worked well to illustrate the "not real Trek" refrain that has not gone on for 30 plus years.


Also, this quote from the New York Times cracked me up:

Apparently not enough action for the "non True Trekkies"

And, to be clear (and I recall reading this from both Shatner and Nimoy) that "too cerebral" was the studio's way of saying the audience cannot connect with the characters. So, that's why we have a second pilot and a lot of warmth and energy from the next outing.

I would really like to stop pretending that Star Trek somehow fell off the wagon in the 2000s and was perfect before.

 

^ I'll do you one better than even that.

My parents, who were TOS fans, went to see TMP in the theater and they thought it was boring. But then they still went to see the second one. My mother, from what I understand, was upset at the fact that they killed Spock in TWOK and didn't like how gory it was. They didn't see another Star Trek movie in the theater after that until I was a fan. They definitely preferred the series over the movies. The original series. They didn't watch TNG when it first premiered. We got a VCR in the summer of 1990 (after I kept asking for one non-stop) and my parents decided to give the movies another chance around the beginning of '91, when my mother picked up TVH. And the rest is history.

Ironically, my mother ended up liking TNG better than TOS and TSFS was her favorite Trek movie. Things she wouldn't have discovered if she hadn't given Star Trek another chance.

But, for a while, my parents perceived the TOS Movies and TNG the same way some people today view the Abrams Movies and DSC. To quote Q, because it seems appropriate in this case, "The same old story, all over again."

My grandparents liked Star Trek too. TOS, of course. They never saw anything afterwards. I was told my grandfather went to see Star Wars in the theater and he liked Star Trek better. He was in the Navy in WWII, and he used to tell me about the navy sometimes, so he probably thought Star Trek was more relateable.

So, I'm actually a third generation fan, in a sense... Which makes my liking DSC so much even more appropriate.

 

My dad is much the same way, though he enjoyed all the TOS films and the Abrams' films. He cannot stand TNG era shows and simply doesn't enjoy them.

Moral of the story-takes all sorts.

 

Noone would describe either TOS or TNG as emotionless.

I find the manufactured EMOTIONAL Moments! THIS IS BIG! in DSC to be too often and forced, like the video above states well in my opinion.

The more I think about it, thanks to this very thread, the more I dislike this show. S2 had more promise b/c it seemed a move in the right direction for me, then turned into yawn! defeat-the-creepy-powerful-AI-action movie. And the uber mysterious Red Angel turns out to be... surprise! the all-important protagonist. All the short Treks were far more interesting and original than the latter half of the real season. Hm.