What do older fans think?

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I joined these forums because of Picard, but I've been a Trekkie since the 90's. I've enjoyed evwry series except for the animated one, I couldn't get into that. What do older fans think of Discovery? Younger fans are encouraged to chime in too. I've watched Season 1 so far, saving Season 2 for when I finish Picard. Any word on what month Season 3 will begin?

I love the first season. Couple non-spoiler things I want to adress. I love our main character. Second series with a female lead, and I don't mind her being a Marry Sue. She was raised by Vulcans, and she doesn't have a social life, so it's believable that she's multi-talented. Yeah, Spock's sister is out of nowhere, but so was his brother. Spock's not really one to opwn up about his personal life.

As a Christian, I was worried about how the two gay characters would be handled. I don't like trendy stereotype characters being forced into a series, but if the producers or writers are just trying to be modernly inclusive, then let's see where it goes. I'm bad with names, so I'll call them the engineer and the doctor. I like how they are just portayed as members of the crew who you wouldn't know are gay unless they said as much or you saw them together. I have a close friend who is gay, and I consider him my adopted brother. You wouldn't know he is gay unless hw told you. I find the show's portrayal realistic. If some Christians find it too much, be proactive. Write a review tonget it out of your system, and watch a different show. See? Easy! OK, on to other stuff.

What thw fudge happened to the Klingons? Seriously, what the fudge?

Does anyone mind the "visual reboot?"

For hardcore Trekkies, how does this show line up with franchise continuity? I'm curious what the super Trekkies have to say here.

That's all for now. Looking forward to Season 2!

P.S. I don't mind season spoilers, but please don't spoil individual episodes for Season 2. Thanks!

 

[Greg Cox]

As somebody who (dimly) remembers watching TOS on its original run on NBC, I'm quite enjoying DISCO. It's the show I wanted ENTERPRISE to be: a bold attempt to reinvent STAR TREK for the 21st century.

The visual upgrades don't bother me nor do I require an in-universe "explanation." Sometimes a change in art direction is just a change in art direction and it's not as though Trek is a historical documentary. I don't expect a TV show in 2020 to zealous recreate the look of a 1960's TV pilot.

And as for the Klingons . . . well, if we survived the Klingons getting a major makeover in 1979, we can survive some new, new Klingons now. There's no such thing as a "real" Klingon.

 

[BillJ]

I started watching Trek in 1975, and have the opposite reaction to @Greg Cox. I think Discovery is bland and uninspired, hitting the fan service button so often it doesn’t feel like it has an identity of its own. I don’t find the show outright bad, but dull which is actually worse in my book. There are no moments where I go “WTF?!”

I do think they have a stellar cast, and am interested to see how they play things now.

 

[at Quark's]

Well, as an older fan, I'm thinking : "Perhaps it is time I started watching it."

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm of the '80s/'90s generation, not the '60s/'70s generation, but TOS is my favorite. I like Discovery but I think Picard is giving it a serious run for its money.

Discovery is keeping the same characters but completely changing its setting for the third season. I reserve judgment about this change until I see it. It was either the smartest choice they made or the dumbest. Not much room for middle ground with this type of move.

 

[Vger23]

I've been watching since the late 70's, and I am a hardcore TOS fan, and I enjoyed DSC much more than I enjoyed VOY or ENT (not to say I didn't like those shows....but comparitively speaking, I like DSC much better).

It's a very different type of Star Trek show, and that may or may not appeal to some. For me, personally, it was essential. I simply had my fill with the other Trek series that were all cut from the same cloth. I needed DSC to be very different from TNG/VOY/ENT in order for it to hold my attention.

I think there's been some turmoil behind the scenes that has resulted in the story arcs and premise getting jostled around quite a bit, which can make it a frustrating experience at times. But, I have enjoyed it quite a bit in spite of those facts. I like the characters and the cast, it's visually the most interesting Star Trek has been since the TOS movies, and it's at least trying to re-package the franchise in a different way.

I don't mind the production design differences, etc. at all. It doesn't bother me in the lesst. I think fans who "came aboard" in the 70's care less about that kind of stuff beucase we've seen so many design style changes that we simply take it as part of the regular course of evolution.

Ultimately, I'd say I'm a big fan....but I know deep down tha there are several things that could be improved. I guess my optimism is based in the idea that I've enjoyed it thoroughly even despite its flaws....so if it continues to improve, it could be fantastic.

I'm going to need to see PIC to understand how I feel about DSC compared to PIC. Right now, I'd say they are very much on par overall...but for totally different reasons.

 

[SJGardner]

This is just anecdotal evidence of course, but I've found it very disheartening as a Millennial that the people I see on the internet constantly complaining about the show in various political and culture-war terms as well as throwing around canned panels like "too dark", "not respecting fans" and "looks too advanced" are most often people my age, and most of their criticism can usually be chalked up to Discovery not feeling like the TNG they grew up with and remember through rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. But then again, based on the fans I actually know in real life, they often have the same opinions about any other franchise they liked as kids.

I enjoyed both seasons so far myself, even though they were quite uneven, probably due to the frequent shakeups in the writing room, but I'm cautiously optimistic for the third season because if I know correctly, it managed to keep the same showrunner throughout, and I'm hoping that the change in the setting will be handled well. The cast has been very strong, and the new main characters in Season 2 more than made up for the departure of Jason Isaacs for me. I even like how Sonqeua Martin-Green plays our lead; many people dismiss her as a bad actress, but she's playing the character exactly as I would imagine someone raised as a Vulcan without being one, with stilted and sometimes explosive emotions due to constantly suppressing them and letting them fume under the lid until the growing pressure blows it all up. I'd even say that her roommate's influence starts rubbing off on her in the second season and she starts expressing her emotions a bit more; she's still not completely there, but she's developing.

 

[Relayer1]

Remember (and love) TOS from my youth, albeit in reruns. Saw all the movies at the cinema when they came out, loved TNG, loved DS9 more, have liked what followed less to varying degrees.

I was excited to see Trek coming back to TV with Discovery. I was less excited by the idea of Picard.

I absolutely love them both.

 

[Terok Nor]

It's awful. Convoluted storylines, paper thin characters and it doesn't even attempt to fit into continuity with TOS or anything else visually or otherwise. You asked for no spoilers so I'll stop there before revealing anything of consequence. It all revolves around one of the worst actresses to ever join the main cast of a Trek show and the character is a bland know it all who the crew shows blind loyalty to despite the fact they have no reason to. Her pretentious speeches put me to sleep. The show looks fantastic but that's just style over substance. Overall I find it a show targeted at the sjw crowd who probably don't even watch it. The only characters I like are the recurring guest characters because they're the only ones with any personality thus far. I won't name names since you don't want spoilers.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

Overall I find it a show targeted at the sjw crowd who probably don't even watch it.

... That is certainly a take.

 

[Alexander Corrino]

I'm "older" (if mid 30s counts as older, lol), and I did not grow up with Star Trek, which is a blessing these days because I lack the rose-tinted glasses that so many fans my age have when it comes to TNG/DS9/VOY because it was their childhood/teenage days. I love TNG a lot, but I'm not oblivious to its often rather haunting flaws and I definitely don't hold it up as some kind of holy grail of how Trek should always be like.

That being said, DSC never really did anything for me as a whole. I watched the first season for Lorca and the second season for Pike, basically. But I watched, which is more than I can say for some other Trek series. (I'm just not really a big enough Star Trek fan I guess.) So it doesn't bother me, although I can see how it's a somewhat jarring series for those who are mostly used to 90s Trek. I can also absolutely understand some of the complaints about retconning designs etc - I just think that, if it bothers someone THIS much, why even watch the show? Just ignore it and move on. At least that's what I would do, but, as Trekkies have explained to me, "letting go" doesn't seem to be that easy when you're "in love with the Star Trek franchise".

I've gotten rid of Netflix so I won't be watching season 3 any time soon (streaming just isn't for me), but if people tell me it's good, I'll consider buying the DVDs. So I guess my attitude towards DSC is "whatever, it's there, fine with me but I wouldn't cry if it WASN'T there either".

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm "older" (if mid 30s counts as older, lol)

I don't know if I'd call it "older" in this case. There's only a handful of people on this entire board who are under 30, from what I can tell. I can't tell if that's more of a Star Trek thing or more of a "People who use a BBS" type of thing. Probably a little from Column A, a little from Column B.

 

[Alexander Corrino]

There's only a handful of people on this entire board who are under 30, from what I can tell.

That's probably due to the fact that message boards are the dinosaurs of social media. *runs and hides* I mean there are a LOT of younger Trek fans elsewhere. They DO exist. Just... not on message boards, I guess.

And now I'm still not sure if this means I'm old or not...

 

[XCV330]

I'm in my mid 40's. been watching it in reruns before I was in kindergarten. I don't know if that makes me an old fan or just a worn out one.

I like the new trek shows. I'm enjoying Picard and I love Discovery.

ST:Picard is like a fine seasoned wine, with subtle hints of the soil it grew from, carefully cultured and with suprising flavor once you really concentrate.

DISCO is Barcardi 151 in a plastic cup of Grape Nehi.

One is going to get your fix taken care of fast. One is going to be better for if you just want to wax poetic and not throw up on the neighbor's lawn again.

Picard is a Jaguar. Sporting and refined. Don't expect it to win every race, but it might thrill you on your way to the store and look good doing it.

DISCO is an old Model T frame with a supercharged LS1 motor bolted to it. It's playing with old infrastructure mixed with the new and somewhere along the way the builder forgot to install brakes. It will crash from time to time. But it's easy to fix.

I like em both. But they are not the same, and neither are going to appeal to everyone. The thing is, if you go into something with preconceptions of what YOU think a star trek show ought to be, that's fine. You're a viewer. But you are likely going to be happy with anything other than reruns.

 

[Nenya]

I don't expect a TV show in 2020 to zealous recreate the look of a 1960's TV pilot.

I don't think anyone else did either. They could have easily recreated the 60's look for a 21st century audience instead of what we did get. The Discoprise bridge is pretty close to the 60's look.

 

[XCV330]

I don't think anyone else did either. They could have easily recreated the 60's look for a 21st century audience instead of what we did get. The Discoprise bridge is pretty close to the 60's look.

What they did instead was have the Constitution class ships be very special and distinctive. It's a desirable assignment to be on one. They get special uniforms, and their ships have a style variation all of their own. I like it.

 

[Jinn]

There's only a handful of people on this entire board who are under 30

Yes, hi, hello, so I'm twenty, I started watching Trek at 10 and watched all of the then-available stuff long before Discovery came out, so old Trek was kind of a big part of my youth (I even hated the Kelvin movies and Enterprise, for a time!), but also all of that is still more recent than for other people.

I was rather nervous when Discovery came out, with the whole, y'know, it being the first new Trek series in forever, but I was rather pleased with it. I think the ending two-parter of the first season was rather rushed and I'm not entirely comfortable with mirror Georgiou's character, how she's used and where it seems the producers are going with her. I liked season 2 much more than season 1, even though I think it had a few rather bad episodes near the end, and the season as a whole lost some cohesion near the end. It was also really nice to see, as a queer person, that we still exist in the future.

With Picard I had a lot less emotions about it, before it came out, I was vaguely aware that it would happen, but TNG was never my favorite series (Voyager) and the whole post-Nemesis era didn't seem interesting to me at all, as I've already read a lot of the post-Nemesis novels about it. So far, I find Picard to be kinda meh, a lot of the early episodes felt like they were needlessly drawn-out, but I guess I liked episodes 1 and 5. I haven't really thought about my feelings about episodes 6 and 7. And yes, I know this is about Discovery, but I haven't talked about Picard enough, of late

 

[BillJ]

Overall I find it a show targeted at the sjw crowd...

You’ll be okay.

 

[SJGardner]

What they did instead was have the Constitution class ships be very special and distinctive. It's a desirable assignment to be on one. They get special uniforms, and their ships have a style variation all of their own. I like it.

Yeah, say what you will about the Discoprise ship design itself, but the interior sets are gorgeous. Especially the bridge. And their uniforms don't look half bad either (maybe the metallic red rank stripes for the red uniforms, but I can live with those).

 

[Jayson1]

I like most of the characters and I think if the writing was stronger it could be a better show. Burnham to me though is maybe the most boring Trek lead we have had or at least tied with Archer as the most boring Trek lead. Making everything about the one character I don't like really hurts my enjoyment but it still has it's moments because I do love Tilly,Stamets,Saru,Reno,Gergiou and last year it was Pike and before that Lorca.

In retrospect I kind of wish they had made Gergiou the star and built a show around her and Burnham could have been her first officer.

Jason