What was your impression of Season 2 overall?

[Noname Given]

Seriously - how many times did Kirk actually save the Earth in TOS? There's time travel stories - most notably The City on the Edge of Forever, and arguably Tomorrow is Yesterday and Assignment: Earth as well. There's the terrible The Alternative Factor, where the stakes are "the entire universe." But besides that? Zip. There are cases like The Doomsday Machine and The Changeling where the Enterprise defeated threats that might - eventually - threaten Earth. But if Kirk & company failed, there might have been another crew waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces. And in most cases, the stakes were smaller than that - it was a planet of the week unrelated to the Federation, the survival of the ship itself, or even just the survival of the main cast.

Um The Changeling wasn't a threat that 'might' one day show up. Per NOMAD: "I shall return to Launch point Earth. I will sterilize." <--- As NOMAD had found it's creator, it was pretty much a given that next stop...Earth; and with the ability to trow energy bolts at Warp 15 - it could get there fast.

It seems you downplay everything that doesn't fit the narrative of "ST: D tries to be too epic." Also, the show pretty much had the entirety of Starfleet involved in a full scale war. Yes, the Discovery went to the Mirror Universe for a few episodes and took out a ship that was damaging the Mycellial Network and could have ended up ending the Universe eventually - but hey, like you admit, even Kirk and Co. saved the Universe once in TOS S1 - "The Alternative Factor".

Now ST: D S2 went the epic "save the Universe" route whole hog - yep; but hey given in brought in the 1701, Captain Pike, Spock ane Number One to do it -- I'm fine with that. Here was a situation that was epic just because of teh personalities BESIDES Burnham involved.

I think what throws TNG fans off is the fact that overall, TNG WASN'T an 'Adventure Show' in the same way the TOS era (TOS and TAS plus the films and JJ Abrams take on TOS) was. Yes, TNG had the occasional 'Adventure' episode, but compared to TOS, TNG was mostly Board Room conferences of exposition, with Picard lecturing and sermonizing more often than not.

Personally one of the things I like a lot about ST: D is the fact Star Trek is back to having 'Adventure' back as a big part of the mix.

 

[eschaton]

I think a lot of this has to do with the number of episodes of each series. DS9 had more room to tell side stories as opposed to focusing every episode of Discovery on Michael. There have been two whole seasons of a show that focused on one character. That wears some of us down.

There are plenty of examples of serialized dramas with relatively short seasons which lack an overpowering main character. Game of Thrones, The Expanse, and (outside of SF) The Wire for example. Thus I think it's clear you could do DS9 in a modern format without making it "the Ben Sisko show."

It seems you downplay everything that doesn't fit the narrative of "ST: D tries to be too epic." Also, the show pretty much had the entirety of Starfleet involved in a full scale war. Yes, the Discovery went to the Mirror Universe for a few episodes and took out a ship that was damaging the Mycellial Network and could have ended up ending the Universe eventually - but hey, like you admit, even Kirk and Co. saved the Universe once in TOS S1 - "The Alternative Factor".

I think part of the flaw of Season 1 in particular is it tried to be epic, but seemingly had big budget constraints in the first season (after the first two episodes) which severely limited the use of location filming and guest stars. As I said, TNG's Klingon drama was ridiculous because it didn't have the needed budget to pull it off. Similarly, in the first season of Discovery, we have four Klingons who are given names and more than a few lines of dialogue: T'Kuvma, Kol, Voq, and L'Rell. Michael Burnham kills the first, helps kill the second, has an unsuspecting relationship with the third, and installs the fourth as chancellor because - hey, no other named Klingons are left!

Big epic stories - particularly in TV - require loads of characters to provide multiple POV's in different physical locales. It helps give the world a proper sense of scale. It's one reason why the early seasons of Game of Thrones worked so well - you had multiple settings (Kings Landing, Essos, The Wall, and various other locales) and something like 20 starring characters. It's also a big part of why the series floundered near the end, as the showrunners gave up on any attempt to accurately display the passage of time or distance in order to have the right characters appear together for "dramatic moments" (similar to Sarek and Amanda mysteriously showing up on Discovery at the end of Season 2).

Now ST: D S2 went the epic "save the Universe" route whole hog - yep; but hey given in brought in the 1701, Captain Pike, Spock and Number One to do it -- I'm fine with that. Here was a situation that was epic just because of the personalities BESIDES Burnham involved.

I think Season 2 was the appropriate level of "epicness" honestly. Yes, there were big stakes, but most of it was happening on the "down low" as far as most people in the Federation knew, which means we shouldn't expect (unlike the Klingon War) it would have been widely remarked upon. And unlike the first season, they got off the ship a fair amount this go around. My issues with the season had more to do with the dramatic mid-season plot veer's nonsensical nature than anything.

I think what throws TNG fans off is the fact that overall, TNG WASN'T an 'Adventure Show' in the same way the TOS era (TOS and TAS plus the films and JJ Abrams take on TOS) was. Yes, TNG had the occasional 'Adventure' episode, but compared to TOS, TNG was mostly Board Room conferences of exposition, with Picard lecturing and sermonizing more often than not.

I don't think this is true. But for me personally, the core of Trek is character-based drama and issue-driven episodes, not action-adventure. You can get action-adventure out of any old sci-fi show.

 

[Jadeb]

For me a lot of it has to do with fatigue from the concept of season long stories and the current trends of television. I miss episodes of the week. You could watch an episode or two without worrying about not understanding or missing anything. That's why I love TNG so much. ENT and DS9 had a good balance between episodic and serialized. I've never felt the need to go back and watch Discovery. It's just not a show that I can "jump back into".

I like serialization, but I haven't been too keen, so far, on Discovery's insistence on "serialized" stories that are tied up at the end of the season. That approach -- one really long episode, basically -- has many of the disadvantages of the episodic format, only without the variety. I'd be happy to see storylines that continue organically as long as needed -- possibly throughout the course of the show. I hope the jump into the future signals that.

 

[Rahul]

Yeah, in the same way that the 1701-D was really the only ship to encounter the Borg prior to Wolf-359; or how the 1701-D seems to be the Command ship for a sector ("Chain of Command"); or how Picard was chosen as Arbiter of Succession for the ENTIRE Klingon Empire and was the one who came up with the plan to do a Federation Blockade on the Klingon/Romulan border, effectively stopping the Klingon Civil War in the process (a pretty pat ending gthere IF Klingons really felt Gauron was unfit -- I mean yeah, so the Duras are loosing...there \have to be others willing to tale up the mantle...); or the Federation deciding Picard should go after the possibly defecting Ambassador Spock on Romulus... or when they encounter Davidians travelling to teh 19th century; and do they call for assistance? Nope they go back in time to stop the Davidians from altering/destroying Earth's past...the fact that the 1701-D encounters Hugh; and then a year later just happens to run in Hugh and the disconnected Borg again...but now controlled by Lore and poised to take over the Federation.

My point? If you have a show about a group of characters and only 10 - 14 episodes a season; is it surprising you give them something large to handle in your story?

I think you didn't get what I was getting at:
Yes, Star Trek always had tried to be epic. But in the past, that usually has been only one type of story, out of many, many different ones, and one of Trek's biggest strengths was it's multitude of stories. Nowaday it just feels like epic is the only type of story. Not just one of many.

To be fair, late VOY and early ENT also had the problem that many, many episodes felt very similar. Just in a different kind (usually a slow stakes conflict of the week ending in a phaser fight).

My larger point is simply that diversity in storytelling is Trek's biggest strength. There are better SF epics, better war stories, better horror, better drama and better social commentary. But Star Trek is unique in the it's the only series that has ALL these types of stories, and usually pretty good. It's just a shame if one type feels to take over. On DIS that would be "epic".

 

[eschaton]

My larger point is simply that diversity in storytelling is Trek's biggest strength. There are better SF epics, better war stories, better horror, better drama and better social commentary. But Star Trek is unique in the it's the only series that has ALL these types of stories, and usually pretty good. It's just a shame if one type feels to take over. On DIS that would be "epic".

Kurtzman has been fairly explicit I think in that he sees the way to square the historic huge variety in terms of tone/story type with modern-day short seasons and serialization: Have lots of different Star Trek series, all of which are dramatically different in terms of tone/content.

I mean, it's pretty clear when he makes comments - which initially seem odd - that DS9 and VOY suffered because they were too similar to a casual viewer. To us this seems crazy, because they were two very different shows when it came to things like overall tone and level of within-show continuity. But on a week-to-week basis, they often told the same fundamental kind of stories, since they both were drawing upon different aspects of what TNG (and TOS) had left behind.

Thus, Kurtzman wants a Trek for everyone. Kiddos get the Nickelodeon trek. People who want comedic Trek to return get Lower Decks. People who want thoughtful, heavy character study get Picard. People who want spy drama get Section 31. Discovery may change in its jump to the future, but they've likely decided it's going to be the "action adventure" show, leaving the other kinds of stories to the other series.

 

[fireproof78]

Thus, Kurtzman wants a Trek for everyone.

Regardless of execution I applaud this attitude. Taking advantage of the serialized format is of interest to me in crafting the variety of shows that Star Trek's format can support. I personally want far more of the action/adventure format but I also what as much Trek as possible too for everyone. So, this works out to my mind.

 

[Rahul]

Kurtzman has been fairly explicit I think in that he sees the way to square the historic huge variety in terms of tone/story type with modern-day short seasons and serialization: Have lots of different Star Trek series, all of which are dramatically different in terms of tone/content.

I mean, it's pretty clear when he makes comments - which initially seem odd - that DS9 and VOY suffered because they were too similar to a casual viewer. To us this seems crazy, because they were two very different shows when it came to things like overall tone and level of within-show continuity. But on a week-to-week basis, they often told the same fundamental kind of stories, since they both were drawing upon different aspects of what TNG (and TOS) had left behind.

Thus, Kurtzman wants a Trek for everyone. Kiddos get the Nickelodeon trek. People who want comedic Trek to return get Lower Decks. People who want thoughtful, heavy character study get Picard. People who want spy drama get Section 31. Discovery may change in its jump to the future, but they've likely decided it's going to be the "action adventure" show, leaving the other kinds of stories to the other series.

I understand the idea. I just think Kurtzman is dangerously wrong with this approach. Having an entire Trek series focus only on one aspect of Trek, makes each series weaker than its competition in this area. If I want to see a Trek comedy, Orville is
going to do it better, if I want to see hard-SF worldbuilding, the Expanse is probably better, of I want to see a SF family show, Lost in Space is better. If I want to see SF cartoons, Futurama is going to be better. In each case, Trek would be bogged down by having to take place in a universe where all these other types of stories must be possible as well (instead of focusing the universe on the actual type of stories each series tells) - and yet never be able to explore all these other types of stories.

That's what burned me on DS9. No matter which episode, which season you picked - it would always be a story about war. And never any type of modern war, asymetric war, or war shaped by new technologies. Instead, it would always be a retelling of WW2 in funny Make-up and stupid outfits. Don't get me wrong - I don't dislike DS9. Quite the opposite. I just don't have any passion for anything other than the recurring characters, whatsoever. Even though at the same time, I absolutely adore everything about the very similar nuBSG, from the same creative team. Because on BSG, they were able to focus on this type of story. In Trek, the wackyness of the overall universe always was in stark contrast to the grimdark time they were aiming for. (Same for DIS, season 1).

To be fair, if I could make a Trek series, it would focus much more on cosmic horrors, monsters & ray guns, adventure stories, drama and social commentary. I never cared for epics, war stories, saviour journeys or D&D-inspired SF diplomacy, so maybe DIS just isn't made for me. But as a lifelong Trekkie, that just sounds weird to say about a new Trek show.

 

[fireproof78]

To be fair, if I could make a Trek series, it would focus much more on cosmic horrors, monsters & ray guns, adventure stories, drama and social commentary. I never cared for epics, war stories, saviour journeys or D&D-inspired SF diplomacy, so maybe DIS just isn't made for me. But as a lifelong Trekkie, that just sounds weird to say about a new Trek show.

It's OK for Trek not to be made for a particular fan, including myself. Picard isn't made for me. I'm not a TNG fan. But, there are fans out there who want it. Why not allow that experiment to be tried. If it fails, then it fails. But, I'd rather they try something a little unusual than just what has come before.

Otherwise, what's the point of continuing forward with the franchise?

 

[Amasov]

IMHO the only real self-inflicted canon issues caused by Discovery is the showrunners' repeated desires to "go epic" - raising the stakes to these giant season-long stories that threaten the entire federation/galaxy/multiverse. It's completely understandable Spock never told anyone he had a foster sister - since he never told anyone he had a half brother either. But things like the Klingon War, the Spore Drive, the openness of Section 31 in the 23rd century, etc are all much, much harder to square away as having never been mentioned again onscreen.

On Enterprise, the Xindi attack on Earth and the threat they posed to humanity was every bit as large, or I'd argue, larger than what was happening in season 2 of Discovery. And the reason I say it's bigger is based purely on the idea that more were aware of this threat. I find this much harder to explain away if you want to talk about why such important events are never mentioned.

Outside of our heroes and one Admiral in Starfleet, we're given no indication if the rest of Starfleet was ever aware of Control's threat. In the season finale, they had to establish that the communication relays were down, so, no other vessels could be contacted. This is the Star Trek equivalent of tossing out one's cell phone in a horror movie, because it could invalidate the entire plot giving the main characters the ability to call for help and win the day.

 

[Alan Roi]

I think you didn't get what I was getting at:
Yes, Star Trek always had tried to be epic. But in the past, that usually has been only one type of story, out of many, many different ones, and one of Trek's biggest strengths was it's multitude of stories. Nowaday it just feels like epic is the only type of story. Not just one of many.

To be fair, late VOY and early ENT also had the problem that many, many episodes felt very similar. Just in a different kind (usually a slow stakes conflict of the week ending in a phaser fight).

My larger point is simply that diversity in storytelling is Trek's biggest strength. There are better SF epics, better war stories, better horror, better drama and better social commentary. But Star Trek is unique in the it's the only series that has ALL these types of stories, and usually pretty good. It's just a shame if one type feels to take over. On DIS that would be "epic".

There's plenty of diversity in storytelling going on in Discovery. The difference is, unlike an episodic series, the diversity isn't packed into discrete separate packages, but spread across whole seasons, such as the difference between a short story collection and a novel. As I view Discoverys seasons as novels, I adjust the way I'm watching it, as opposed to how I would watch an episodic series. That's all I have to do to enjoy the diversity Discover offers.

 

[thribs]

Could have been way better if they didn’t make Control so incompetent. They should have used the novel version.
Also, all that drone nonsense. Just no.

 

[Alan Roi]

Seriously - how many times did Kirk actually save the Earth in TOS? There's time travel stories - most notably The City on the Edge of Forever, and arguably Tomorrow is Yesterday and Assignment: Earth as well. There's the terrible The Alternative Factor, where the stakes are "the entire universe." But besides that? Zip. There are cases like The Doomsday Machine and The Changeling where the Enterprise defeated threats that might - eventually - threaten Earth. But if Kirk & company failed, there might have been another crew waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces. And in most cases, the stakes were smaller than that - it was a planet of the week unrelated to the Federation, the survival of the ship itself, or even just the survival of the main cast.

You've forgotten a few episodes that offered serious interstellar existential threats to the Federation, such as Where No Man Has Gone Before, The Immunity Syndrome, Operation Annihilate!, By Any Other Name and one could even make a case for I, Mudd. Kirk and co. were faced with threatened massive interstellar war twice, first with the Romulans and then the Klingons.

 

[Alan Roi]

Could have been way better if they didn’t make Control so incompetent. They should have used the novel version.
Also, all that drone nonsense. Just no.

If Control hadn't been a fraction of a 500 years in the future AI trying to operate on a primitive network, there would have been no hope of beating it.

 

[thribs]

If Control hadn't been a fraction of a 500 years in the future AI trying to operate on a primitive network, there would have been no hope of beating it.

I don’t mean that silly Skynet version. I mean the one shown in the Control novel. The mastermind behind Section 31.

 

[plynch]

The point of continuing with the franchise.

I care not for a franchise.

The point is to make money for shareholders.

nu-BSG I THINK you had a showrunner who wanted to tell a certain style of story and style. Similar to the misfits\stepchildren who got to do DS9. Which I don't find grimdark at all, currently in a rewatch. Similar to GR whi started this thing. (Yes I KNOW he was also interested in money, but he was a writer who wanted to tell stories in a fairly optimistic future. Now Trek is a brand name looking for something to be done with. With all these offerings, at least one should be really good. eh? Not Star Trek meh-good, but Sopranos, the Wire, Futurama, Breaking Bad - good. Double plus good. We'll see.

 

[eschaton]

On Enterprise, the Xindi attack on Earth and the threat they posed to humanity was every bit as large, or I'd argue, larger than what was happening in season 2 of Discovery. And the reason I say it's bigger is based purely on the idea that more were aware of this threat. I find this much harder to explain away if you want to talk about why such important events are never mentioned.

You're assuming I think the Xindi arc was a good idea. It wasn't at all, at least if you care about canon. You shouldn't have a widely-known crisis threatening Earth in a prequel.

Outside of our heroes and one Admiral in Starfleet, we're given no indication if the rest of Starfleet was ever aware of Control's threat. In the season finale, they had to establish that the communication relays were down, so, no other vessels could be contacted. This is the Star Trek equivalent of tossing out one's cell phone in a horror movie, because it could invalidate the entire plot giving the main characters the ability to call for help and win the day.

Yeah, I had no issue - as far as canon is concerned - with most of what happened in Season 2, aside from the fact that everyone and their mother apparently knows about Section 31, whereas by DS9 it's somehow become completely unknown. Even if you argue it later went underground, it's hard to believe that in a democratic governance system like the Federation they could have expunged all records of it - particularly when the series are so close together in time that there are long-lived members of many races in the 24th century which would have remembered the time of open operations.

My issues with Control was more that threatening the whole Galaxy is a hackneyed cliche, nothing smart was done with it, and it was an obvious last-minute retcon of whatever their original plan for the season was.

You've forgotten a few episodes that offered serious interstellar existential threats to the Federation, such as Where No Man Has Gone Before, The Immunity Syndrome, Operation Annihilate!, By Any Other Name and one could even make a case for I, Mudd. Kirk and co. were faced with threatened massive interstellar war twice, first with the Romulans and then the Klingons.

There were highish stakes in many TOS episodes, but we're lot talking about Council of Elrond level stakes. We don't really get the idea that the Enterprise crew are the sole thing that stands in the way of galactic-level destruction. For example, in Operation: Annihilate! it is said that if the crew fails, it will result in another colony falling and another million dying. Those are big stakes by any standard, but not galactic or Federation-wide stakes.

IMHO, those are more appropriate levels of stakes for a show like Star Trek anyway. Space is big, really big, and from a story perspective millions dying versus quadrillions doesn't change the emotional impact much.

 

[Rahul]

You're assuming I think the Xindi arc was a good idea. It wasn't at all, at least if you care about canon. You shouldn't have a widely-known crisis threatening Earth in a prequel.

I'll defend the Xindi-arc, because, all flaws side, it was a very solid, well planned, well structured arc, that had both a ticking clock AND a good mystery component that was hinted at from the very beginning and made sense in the resolution.

They also made the clever thing of adding a time-travel component to fit into canon. Sure, we know Earth won't get destroyed, as much as it wouldn't get destroyed in "Best of both worlds". But technically, it was still possible. Which makes all the difference for the stakes of a story. And we didn't know that the whole Expanse itself would have been gone by the end, but it was a natural conclusion of the arc, and not felt like a tacked on side-jump to calm down fans.

Also, it was set a 100 years before Kirk, and followed by a much bigger, much more costly war (the Romulan one), so it makes sense it wouldn't have been dropped casually into every conversation 100 years later, the same way we don't talk a lot about WWI, and focus more on WWII.

Aside from that, it had really solid character arcs planned out, for ALL major characters (except Mayweather...), and really did follow through on them and had lasting changes and consequences, that were informed by the events preceding them.

To be quite frank - I think DIS could learn a great deal from ENT season 3 and 4, as far as consistent planning, character and plot arcs and following through on themes is concerned.

 

[Alan Roi]

You're assuming I think the Xindi arc was a good idea. It wasn't at all, at least if you care about canon. You shouldn't have a widely-known crisis threatening Earth in a prequel.



Yeah, I had no issue - as far as canon is concerned - with most of what happened in Season 2, aside from the fact that everyone and their mother apparently knows about Section 31, whereas by DS9 it's somehow become completely unknown. Even if you argue it later went underground, it's hard to believe that in a democratic governance system like the Federation they could have expunged all records of it - particularly when the series are so close together in time that there are long-lived members of many races in the 24th century which would have remembered the time of open operations.

My issues with Control was more that threatening the whole Galaxy is a hackneyed cliche, nothing smart was done with it, and it was an obvious last-minute retcon of whatever their original plan for the season was.



There were highish stakes in many TOS episodes, but we're lot talking about Council of Elrond level stakes. We don't really get the idea that the Enterprise crew are the sole thing that stands in the way of galactic-level destruction. For example, in Operation: Annihilate! it is said that if the crew fails, it will result in another colony falling and another million dying. Those are big stakes by any standard, but not galactic or Federation-wide stakes.

IMHO, those are more appropriate levels of stakes for a show like Star Trek anyway. Space is big, really big, and from a story perspective millions dying versus quadrillions doesn't change the emotional impact much.

All the TOS episodes were of the short-story variety they stopped at the 50 minute mark. As we all know short stories work very differently than novels. You don't get the Council of Elrond showing up in a Tolkien short for the same reason, because there isn't enough rooom to handle the scope. Novels allow for a substantially greater degree of scope and stakes. Discovery stories stop at the 800 minute mark. It hardly has an effect on Star Trek as a whole to build the stakes to match the size of the narrative and not descale an 800 minute story to what TNG used to make their filler eps out of. It is a different approach, and if you don't like it, that what happens with 50+ year old franchises who actually change with the times to stay alive. Some died in the wool advocates for old style storytelling get left behind. Back in the 80s I wasn't too pleased with the TNG story Relics that had vast potential to be much greater but was shoved into a bland filler episode with an embarassing stunt cameo. It wasn't for me. It happens. Other people like that episode, though.

 

[Alan Roi]

I'll defend the Xindi-arc, because, all flaws side, it was a very solid, well planned, well structured arc, that had both a ticking clock AND a good mystery component that was hinted at from the very beginning and made sense in the resolution.

They also made the clever thing of adding a time-travel component to fit into canon. Sure, we know Earth won't get destroyed, as much as it wouldn't get destroyed in "Best of both worlds". But technically, it was still possible. Which makes all the difference for the stakes of a story. And we didn't know that the whole Expanse itself would have been gone by the end, but it was a natural conclusion of the arc, and not felt like a tacked on side-jump to calm down fans.

Also, it was set a 100 years before Kirk, and followed by a much bigger, much more costly war (the Romulan one), so it makes sense it wouldn't have been dropped casually into every conversation 100 years later, the same way we don't talk a lot about WWI, and focus more on WWII.

Aside from that, it had really solid character arcs planned out, for ALL major characters (except Mayweather...), and really did follow through on them and had lasting changes and consequences, that were informed by the events preceding them.

To be quite frank - I think DIS could learn a great deal from ENT season 3 and 4, as far as consistent planning, character and plot arcs and following through on themes is concerned.

To be quite Frank, I think Disco should distance itself as far from anything that ENT was. And so far its been doing a good job at that. I found it to be far more worthwhile watching as a prequel to TOS than ENT for as many reasons as ENT annoyed the crap out of me.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

nu-BSG I THINK you had a showrunner who wanted to tell a certain style of story and style. Similar to the misfits\stepchildren who got to do DS9. Which I don't find grimdark at all,

No one has ever described either show as "grim dark."

Also, it was set a 100 years before Kirk, and followed by a much bigger, much more costly war (the Romulan one), so it makes sense it wouldn't have been dropped casually into every conversation 100 years later, the same way we don't talk a lot about WWI, and focus more on WWII.

That's not really convincing. World War I is difficult to talk about because of the nature of the fighting. Indeed, in 20 years of teaching college students in various capacities, I've never met one who could tell me that they already knew the fighting ended when the mutiny of German sailors turned into a revolution. On the other hand, plenty of people in the United States still actively remember the Civil War, and in British and Russian men still somehow can be angered over Napoleon.