What is Star Trek Discovery's rewatchability?

[ITDUDE]

Since someone resurrected this thread...
Haven’t watched any Discovery episode more than once, but about to finish rewatching all of Voyager (for SO it’s the first time) and will watch TNG next in preparation for STP, after that if time permits will watch DS9. Then will watch STP, then maybe rewatch TOS. I imagine no earlier than 10 years or more from now may get to rewatch some of Discovery, but not any of the first couple seasons. Hopefully Season 3 picks up.

 

[Rahul]

As I get older, rewatching entire seasons requires an emotional engagement I simply don't have with DIS.

I would certainly rewatch TOS and TNG in it's entirety (if I had the time...). I love those shows, and they get better with every rewatch.

The only "season arcs" that I find rewatchable are ENT's 3rd and 4th season - those are excellent story arcs where every single episode gets better as part of the overall arc/theme - even if the single stand-out episodes arent that impressive, the arc(s) as a whole really benefit immensely from the connected storyline.

For VOY (I LOVE VOY! Go fight me) and DS9 - I find they have WAY too many boring filler episodes to re-watch completely: On VOY usually a bland conflict, on DS9 episodes where barely enough happens to qualify as a b-plot in any other series (Someone trades a baseball card, servers want to form a union), stretched out over 45 mijnutes. That being said - both these series have singular episodes, that belong up to the very best Star Trek has ever put on screen, and rival the movies. Something like "Scorpion I&II", "Duet", "Flesh & Blood", "Inter Arma Silent Leges" are episodes I could rewatch endlessly. Especially VOY has quite a lot of episodes that are simply perfect to rewatch, even if they aren't "perfect". Episodes centered around Cpt. Proton, the Hirogen, or interesting stuff like the space race with the Delta Flyer or the doctor (like "Prometheus") are just a blast to watch, and often times more entertaining than any of the "great" episodes from other series.

As far as DIS is concerned - I simpy haven't been invested in any of the two season arcs so far, so re-watching them makes no sense. And the single episodes usually are not as unique to be worth the time (The time-loop episode was fun, but I'm much more likely to rewatch TNG's "Deja vu", which is essentially the same concept, just better).

There is one big exception though: "If memory serves". That episode is amazing on it's own. It's part of the larger arc, but it also works perfectly as a narrative on it's own: From the original mystery, to the great tactical poker-game between Pike & Leland in the end. And it has so many stand-out elements, from the Pike-Vina scene, to the black-hole illusion, to everything on Talos, to the final ship-to-ship confrontation, it's just a blast to (re-)watch.

Other single DIS episodes I would re-watch are "Lethe", for it's excellent character study of Sarek, and "The sound of Thunder", for being a perfectly classic Trek allegory episode with amazing alien creature design.

Overall though, I think DIS really suffers, not because it's arc-based (that's even a plus - see ENT), but simply from having only weak arcs so far, which drastically reduces the overall rewatchability of the series in it's entirety, and leaving only few self-contained stand-out episodes inbetween.

 

[ITDUDE]

Overall though, I think DIS really suffers, not because it's arc-based (that's even a plus - see ENT), but simply from having only weak arcs so far, which drastically reduces the overall rewatchability of the series in it's entirety, and leaving only few self-contained stand-out episodes inbetween.

I think it is this, exactly. You can have great arcs and great short seasons IF the writing is excellent, which Discovery hasn't had at all. For "classic" Trek that had about 26 mostly stand alone episodes each season, there are A LOT of great episodes. It is these episodes that stick in our minds, more so than any arcs. And they definitely outweigh any weak stand alone episodes. These episodes are easy to rewatch at any time time as well. With arc-based shows, you can't really rewatch just one episode, you have to rewatch the whole arc. And this is where Discovery doesn't stand out in any way.
Again, hopefully in Season 3 writing steps up a notch so that arcs become more rewatchable or they adapt stand alone episode format, so that any great episodes significantly outweigh any weak ones.

 

[Qonundrum]

As I get older, rewatching entire seasons requires an emotional engagement I simply don't have with DIS.

Emotional or nostalgic. I almost feel shame in rewatching trash like "Justice" and pedestrian outings like "The Alternative Factor". Well, "Justice" had an interesting idea or two but was perverted into something shallow and sleazy, no pun intended.

I would certainly rewatch TOS and TNG in it's entirety (if I had the time...). I love those shows, and they get better with every rewatch.

Some episodes get better for me, others start to fall apart. As long as there's something of weight that holds up (e.g. "The Next Phase") then all the little quibbles become moot.

The only time I rewatch some episodes is to really determine if consensus is correct. There are plenty I refuse to sit through, regardless. (DSC isn't exactly the first Trek to be so sophisticated in its sophistic sophistry. By the seashore. TNG's "Ethics" is so loaded it's quick to upchuck over how forced and contrived it is to make a point that is ultimately tissue paper-thin. Especially when TNG successfully refuted the opposite in previous episodes (e.g. drawing board vs being out in real conditions, some patterns are repeatable and it all goes back to research vs experimentation with someone willing to test and prove the theory but I digress.)

The only "season arcs" that I find rewatchable are ENT's 3rd and 4th season - those are excellent story arcs where every single episode gets better as part of the overall arc/theme - even if the single stand-out episodes arent that impressive, the arc(s) as a whole really benefit immensely from the connected storyline.

Season 4 got me hooked, 1-3 were so uneven that I just didn't bother. The arc with blowing up Earth had me rolling, except it wasn't meant to be a funny scene. It's a new take on using time travel to change the future, but after "A Matter of Time" and "Captain's Holiday", not to mention that this is Earth, nothing's going to change. Kudos to JJ Trek for the guts to make an alternate timeline, even if the new blank slate accorded the franchise wasn't ideally used...

For VOY (I LOVE VOY! Go fight me)

Why would I? VOY isn't perfect but there's a lot TO appreciate.

and DS9 - I find they have WAY too many boring filler episodes, on VOY usually a bland conflict, on DS9 episodes where barely enough happens to qualify as a b-plot in any other series (Someone trades a baseball card, serves want to form a union), stretched out over 45 mijnutes.

All shows have filler, whether intentioned or not. I recall the baseball card episode being subpar and "Bar Association", was it, with the unionizing, was right back into TNG heavyhanded camp. No pun intended.

That being said - both these series have singular episodes, that belong up to the very best Star Trek has ever put on screen, and rival the movies. Something like "Scorpion I&II", "Duet", "Flesh & Blood", "Inter Arma Silent Leges" are episodes I could rewatch endlessly. Especially VOY has quite a ot of episodes that are simply perfect to watch, even if they aren't "perfect", episodes centered around Cpt. Proton, or interesting stuff like the space race with the Delta Flyer are just a blast to watch, and often times more fun than any of the "great" episodes from other series.

Never got into the season 7 race episode. But for limited resources, I still giggle over how they can replicate an entire warp-powered shuttlecraft. But it explains the torpedo complement as well... but did anything explain how the season 1 barriers put in about limited torpedos and energy get resolved so quickly? (And effectively; convincingly.)

As far as DIS is concerned - I simpy haven't been invested in any of the two season arcs so far, so re-watching them makes no sense. And the single episodes usually are not as unique to be worth the time (The time-loop episode was fun, but I'm much more likely to rewatch TNG's "Deja vu", which is essentially the same concept, just better).

Season 1 Tilly is better but the episode was engaging more in spectacle - as early as the premiere - and that's risky. A ship would have to fly really low to see one set of footprints trudging along the desert region in the shape of not any old easy SOS but the fanwank delta insignia, and it'd have to be a really big one that requires days and more to traverse. The wind would blow over the foodprints as well. That's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg for everything wrong with the scene and the spectacle itself doesn't have any emotional depth to it. There is that "patience is a virtue" thing if I recall but it's not convincing. It's almost, but not quite, on par with Worf having multiple redundant spinal cord connections in that stupid TNG episode...

There is one big exception though: "If memory serves". That episode is amazing on it's own. It's part of the larger arc, but it also works perfectly as a narrative on it's own: From the original mystery, to the great tactical poker-game between Pike & Leland in the end. And it has so many stand-out elements, from the Pike-Vina scene, to the black-hole illusion, to everything on Talos, to the final ship-to-ship confrontation, it's just a blast to (re-)watch.

I gave up on the show at that point, you're making me consider seeking that episode out. I'll hold out for responses to season three first. Especially if the new showrunner sticks around.

Other single DIS episodes I would re-watch are "Lethe" for it's excellent character study of Sarek, and "The sound of Thunder", for being a perfectly classic Trek episode with amazing alien creature design.

Overall though, I think DIS really suffers, not from being arc-based (that's even a plus - see ENT), but simply from having only weak arcs so far, which drastically reduce the overall rewatchability of the series in it's entirety, and leaving only few self-contained stand-out episodes inbetween.

A show that knows where its strengths are, if renewed, would also focus on the strengths. That in tandem with ditching trying to be a prequel that's flopping all over the map, season 3 could be the lucky break the show deserves. IMHO, there are people who utterly loathe DSC as much as there are those who love it. To me it's just felt like too many missed opportunities, hammered in as an ill-conceived prequel that didn't answer any questions asked that a prequel would resolve, in part because nobody cared about pre-Kirk. Much less see a pre-Kirk era (in the TOS timeline as we were told by the very makers) be so insanely more advanced and with zero plausible explanation for it to fit in, hence fanon creating a more viable explanation - which eschews outright the claim it's in the same universe/timeline, which it clearly cannot be.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

Since someone resurrected this thread...
Haven’t watched any Discovery episode more than once, but about to finish rewatching all of Voyager (for SO it’s the first time) and will watch TNG next in preparation for STP, after that if time permits will watch DS9. Then will watch STP, then maybe rewatch TOS. I imagine no earlier than 10 years or more from now may get to rewatch some of Discovery, but not any of the first couple seasons. Hopefully Season 3 picks up.

Old threads are being resurrected all over the board, apparently.

 

[Lord Garth]

I watched the first season five times.

Thus far I've watched the second season twice.

 

[ITDUDE]

I watched the first season five times.

Thus far I've watched the second season twice.

You do it so others don’t have to. I salute you sir

 

[Lord Garth]

You do it so others don’t have to. I salute you sir

"I'm not sure how to take that." -- Captain Kirk, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

 

[fireproof78]

I watched the first season five times.

Thus far I've watched the second season twice.

You're an inspiration to us all.

 

[Ralphis]

For me, to re-watch serialized TV, I need to really, really, REALLY enjoy it. I enjoyed the second half of season 1, but have never cared too much about the first half. And jumping in at the middle feels a little weird (I've tried)... it's like you're starting at a middle chapter of a novel, and you don't have the whole story. I imagine at some point in the future I'll give it a re-watch, but I'll never get anywhere close to watching it as much I have, say, Balance of Terror.

Season 2, I watched twice as it aired - once 'right' as it was available, and then again a few days afterwards. I tried watching again a couple of weeks ago, but only made it 2 1/2 episodes in until I decided to spend my time on shows I haven't seen yet. And I really enjoyed season 2, but again, it's too much dedication for me to give when there's a lot of serialized material I haven't seen yet. Now, on the other hand, if I have 50 minutes to kill and don't want to think about it too much, yet another re-watch of Errand of Mercy is very, very likely.

 

[Steve Roby]

I’m slowly making my way through a Discovery rewatch, because this has been a fuck of a year. My wife died a few months ago, and for some time it was hard to watch shows we routinely watched together. Consequently, I’ve got a big backlog of shows to watch. But I do find Discovery rewatchable. First time around, I was all about the plot. This time I’m focusing more on the character bits, and there are some good ones.

As for Trek in general... I’ve seen every episode of TOS and TAS several times, I’ve seen all thirteen movies at least three times each, and I’ve seen all of DS9 at least twice (and all of the second season a third time, before writing about it for the official Star Trek magazine a few years back). There are still possibly a few dozen TNG episodes I’ve only watched once, and most Voyager and Enterprise episodes I’ve only watched once. I didn’t care much for the last two for a long time, but Voyager’s grown on me a fair bit. I enjoy watching the occasional random episode every now and then. I still find a lot of Enterprise relatively hard to get through, and while it at least found some direction in its third and fourth seasons, I didn’t find them particularly good directions. I also never warmed to Archer at all.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Fairly low, especially in a world of multiple streaming services, Blu-ray, Kindle and Audible. (I did watch S1 episodes about twice on average, some even three or four times, but the novelty has worn off so I only saw a few S2 episodes twice.)

 

[Lord Garth]

Well, if we're going to go through all the series, TNG used to be on every weeknight when I was in junior high and high school. So I have no idea how many times I've watched those episodes out of the simple fact that it was on TV. I'm re-watching TNG as an adult for the first time right now.

TOS aired late at night or over night, after a time my parents would allow me to stay up, so I set the VCR to record every episode until I had them all. And I watched them whenever I wanted. So I have no idea how many times I've seen those episodes either.

Same with the first six movies. My parents said the VHS tapes "paid for themselves". Let's put it that way. I could probably quote the dialogue line-by-line, word-for-word.

With everything else? I watched new DS9 episodes twice and new VOY episodes once. Then I rewatched both series in 2008. There are stray episodes I've revisited more than that but I'm talking about entire series in general.

So it looks like I've already watched DSC more times than a lot of other Star Trek series.