Star Trek Discovery...best first season of the franchise?

Really, because it sounds like the question mark was just so that you could answer your own question...

...given how definitive your last sentence was. I'm surprised you didn't end it with [/thread] - "There we have it" in other words: "I've just proved why it's the best first season of any show". Look I get it, you love anything Trek gives you, and that's fine, but no need to pass off your own opinions as fact.

In what way was a FOUR episode arc in the mirror universe "integral" to a storyline about war with the Klingons? The fact that it might have been planned from the beginning doesn't excuse the fact that it was an idiotic creative choice. We're supposed to be shocked and awed by these mirror universe versions of characters we know, when we barely know the prime characters in the first place! Why not instead develop Airiam so her death in season 2 actually means something. Just tone-deaf story-telling.

Was that the one where Burham first goes on the ship? I remember it being pretty unsettling and a good way to set the tone for the series (until they course corrected for season 2, with yet another tonal shift coming in season 3 because they have no idea what they want this show to be), but a "masterful classic"? Come on. took me a little while to remember what that "wonderfully executed visual sequence" was. Seems a bit weird, how could Burnham exist on all those places in the booth like that. Was that ever used again? It was a kewl sequence, but really out of place given what comes next. It's a microcosm of the show, all flash, no substance.

Oh but yours are?

Wow, two nominations. One in "presentation" for the Mudd episode and the other in "entertainment". Something to hang on the wall for sure.

Literally all the replies were questioning your post and saying they can't see any differences. If you didn't put your opinion on such a high pedestal maybe you would have noticed.

That's just a ridiculous thing to say. Play the Picard finale in 480p on an old tv and I guarantee the USS Copy Pastes would just look like grey blurs. The DS9 fleet shots were outstanding. Great variety, gorgeous designs, well framed and composed shots. The Copy Paste fleet was just a disappointing blunder, and THAT is, if not the consensus, the opinion of the vast majority.

 

Except the only ships firing are the ones in front of the camera. You see ships in the background swooping past each other and... doing nothing

I get you love it, but it's flawed as hell.

 

Better than the same ugly ship copied and pasted 200 times and... doing nothing.

 

Doing nothing is fine when it's a standoff. Not firing anything during a life or death battle is a much more egregious error.

 

We are? O_o

 

If only the CG artists on CBS Trek would follow the less is more approach on occasion.

 

I hadn't realized that until rewatching DS9. Yeah, it's not a good look.

 

I'd still give that to TOS, though I'd say DIS did have that best 2nd season

 

Well, my opinion is definitive...for myself. I like to think I'm balanced and objective with a lot of background behind them, and I believe my grades are extremely fair...I'm not one of those people who ranks things good/bad in black and white, but with shades of gray.

Well yes, I consider the whole Trek universe as one franchise, with variations in quality, and again, my grades reflect that. I'll stand by the 15 episodes of DSC season one as the best the franchise has to offer.

I think it was obvious the Mirror Universe was another level of politcal commentary, to the point that Jason Isaacs said this was the reason he signed up for the show in the first place.

As opposed to other MU stories in TREk, which were often campy or over the top, DSC surpassed that feel with a background unease I found fascinating and extremely well done. It elevated it from tiresome obviousness to subtle commentary.

I've stated this from day one: The bridge crew in DSC were never meant to be main characters, with spoken parts and filled in backgrounds. They were the equivalent to the familiar glorified familiar faced extras we saw from TNG thru Voyager to populate the space, and only a handful (ogawa) were given lines. In Berman Trek, there wasn't enough of a budget to give such characters spoke lines (which have to be paid for). DSC had enough of a budget to at least make us more aware of them, and did such a good job, people wanted to learn more about them. So we saw more of this in season 2. The idea that DSC is not doing character development because of this is patently ridiculous.

Plenty of substance though, the flash is just gravy. Being the best-produced show on TV isn't so bad.

Every season was supposed to have a different tone...the first was about a war, the second about a quest. How did you miss this? In fact season 3 will also be different totally in tone. They are basically taking the original idea of an anthology and after season 1s mega-success, and transferring it to very different seasons. I find this refreshing and it makes the show vibrant. I'm seeing a lot more anticipation for season 3 online.

Yes, I stack up Context with the best 3-4 episodes of season TOS, easily.

Yup, I don't have an axe to grind.

Let's not be disingenuous, these are basically writing awards, and directly contradict your opinions..no wonder you disagree with me!

The Peabody Award for overall TV excellence. This means the entire production.

The show was also nominated for many other awards (and won some) but also was on numerous critics lists in season 1. There is plenty of precedent to attest to its quality.

I've had other responses online, much more that agree with me than do not. I stand by the three variations because I happen to be right, as seen in the screen cap.

Why is it ridiculous? I tried to pull up the rez for the hi-rez DS9 shots (from the doc) and they were not comparable in quality to the work in Picard. I've always maintained the limitations of TV Trek make the screen crowding of ships to be kind of sloppy, and I find the DS9 work to be somewhat sloppy too. They don't speak of any sort of military tactics whatsoever as they were involved in a battle. The Picard fleet was not in a battle, they were basically running a blockade. I'll still take a new Picard era ship which is basically a Sovereign/Century Class cross, over the umpteenth Miranda and Excelsior copy-paste fleet any day.

RAMA

 

That's all fine, but it's your opinion. Don't pass it off as fact like you did in the original post, with a "there we have it, the best season 1 of any Trek" line at the end. I happen to think season 1 is almost unwatchable, but that's also my opinion, no more or less valid than yours.

Political commentary? In what way? And why is that important in season 1 of a brand new show that still needs to find its feet? Season 1 was about war with the Klingons. Those mirror universe episodes were a total waste. As was the half-arsed, idiotic Voq storyline that literally went nowhere.

You hand out over the top praise like it's as easy as breathing! People probably wanted to learn more about them because the main cast are so dire.

Do we know anything about Stamets? Do we know anything about Culber apart from the fact that he likes opera? Does anyone care about Burham/Tyler? Discovery forces these emotional scenes on us, when none of it is earned.

You're not actually calling Star Trek Discovery the best produced show on TV, right?

I'm not talking about story-telling, I'm talking about TONE. 1 was a gritty war story with tons of gore, brutal deaths and the Federation acting shady. 2 was a much more optimistic season with far more humour. Hell the tone of 2 shifted half way through too, it started thoughtful and intellectual, then finished as a juvenile cliched train wreck. Frakes is on record saying season 3 will be yet another shift in tone.

Oh and it's easy to see lots of anticipation when you surround yourself with a fan message board echo chamber.

Just to be clear, you're calling your opinions "important"?

No they're not. They're based on the entire production.

You're not right, almost every single response on here was telling you that you were wrong. The differences were elsewhere, minuscule details like the nacelle caps.

Because you're comparing zooming into a 480p series from 20+ years ago to a 1080p series from this year, and somehow equating the latter having extra detail as automatically better.

I think you're getting confused over which show had a copy/paste fleet.

The Dominion war took place at a time when Mirandas, Excelsiors, Galaxys were still roaming the stars. Obviously they were going to make up the bulk of the Federation fleet. Then throw in Nebulas, Akiras, Steamrunners, Centaurs, and a few kitbaches and you have a realistic and diverse fleet that was great to look at.

Picard took place in a more modern time period (although still only 20 years later) and so they needed to introduce new ships. Instead, they gave us 1 new ship, copied and pasted it 200 times, and squandered it with terrible camera angles and framing. The majority consensus online is the fleet shot in Picard was a huge let down. Hopefully the showrunners will improve that sort of thing going forward. But they've got plenty else to improve on so who knows.

 

Eh yes, but my other point was that there was plenty of multi-tiered evidence to the contrary, as subjective as such opinion may be to your opinion that it's unwatchable, and I have supported my position in that way, and so I feel my opinion is more realistic than yours if not definitive. You're free to dislike it of course, but it in no way changes its success, praise and profitability.

Both the Klingon war and MU were a multi-faceted commentary about the current political landscape, in fear of otherness, cults of personality and polarization of masses. Isaacs stated these resulted in one line from his MU self selling the series for him. One layer of commentary supported the other. It was important the show had a POV as other series before had episodes that did.

Hmm, the cast is quite popular, and I've seen large sample data on the popularity of certain characters (numbering in the 10s of thousands), guess who the most popular character is? Micheal Burnham by a landslide.

I hand out praise where it is deserved and criticism where it's not. Simple. I don't think I have a bias as you evidently do.

Yes, without a doubt Discovery is the best looking, best-produced show on TV. Some shows have double the budget now, and still don't quite match up. An obvious choice might be the $15 mill+ Season 8 of Game of Thrones, but despite it's cinematic look, it's too dark and dingy to really be called "good looking".

Tone is directly tied to story-telling, the type of story it was telling in each season is integral and endemic. War=Darker. Quest=adventure and lighter. This isn't a hard concept to grasp.

Well, I haven't surrounded myself with a 45,000 member echo chamber, I have no control of their opinions, so I'll disagree with you there.

No, you misread, I looked at an HD shot from the DS9 documentary from the battle.

When they switched over to CGI in DS9 they used a copy-paste fleet. For a fleet that lasts several seconds, the Picard fleet was more than good enough, had some nice cinematic angles, and was one of my favorite parts of the episode. Would we see more detail if we focused on a single ship or if they had to withstand the scrutiny of a battle? Probably, but since we were told we would not see...and I did not expect a fleet at all, I was quite happy.

There were certainly complaints of not seeing familiar ships or more types but a majority consensus? Nah, I've seen no such figures.

RAMA

 

You need to look up the definition of realistic I think. You provided your own personal scores, to support your own personal opinion. It makes it no less valid than any other opinion, you just explained your opinion a bit more than I did. Here, I can do the same: Choose your Pain: 3/10, Vaulting Ambition: 4/10, Will You Take My Hand?: 2/10.

Voted by Star Trek Discovery fans. As few as those are.

Oh please.

If it was that good people would be talking about it, but no one is, outside of Trek fans. Your last comment about GOT is not only ridiculous, but utterly subjective and merely your opinion. It's "too dark and dingy to be called good looking"? Come on

I watched the Mandalorian for a second time recently and that is a beautifully produced, well written, brilliantly executed series, made with far more love than CBS Trek is, and certainly far more true to its roots than Trek has been recently. The visuals are stunning and the story-telling isn't as utterly convoluted and confusing as Discovery/Picard. Characters don't just vanish because the writers ran out of storyline for them for instance (the XBs, Narek etc) and the theme tune is instantly memorable unlike CBS Trek's utterly weak and watered down scores that leave zero lasting impression.

There are tons of better produced shows on tv. Game of Thrones as another example was lightyears ahead, it's not even a fair comparison. I think you should open your eyes to what's being produced these days outside of Trek.

Then you're not looking hard enough. Go into the starship discussion thread around the time of the episode and it was full of people disappointed with the fleet battle. I saw no "cinematic camera angles". I saw an ugly starship lazily copied and pasted 200 times and composited in the most generic way:

 

The first season of Discovery was the most excited I'd been about Star Trek since DS9 ended.

 

Same here, I would go as far to say as excited when TNG came out.

 

Your reading comprehension slips with every post.

Mandalorian is another show with a $20+ million budget. It has very good, pristine CGI, but a rather plainly shot cinematography and some unimaginative visuals. If a see another desert planet in SW I'm going to throw up. Discovery is far superior in overall "look" (and both Picard and DSC light years better in quality).

I see, a low rez cap of Picard is supposed to convince of this when I have many high-quality caps of the scenes? No.

I feel I've made my arguments, I still feel I'm correct and I still have more objective support than you based off of the critical reaction, etc that I mentioned over your small scale fannish bias. I feel no need to continue this particular discussion.

RAMA

 

I still think either Voyager or Enterprise had the best first season of the franchise. I'd probably give the nod to Enterprise mainly because things about the show felt new, even if it was the same format as the others of the era. I'm talking about the way the ship was ran, the look of the interior, inability to communicate, small things like that. Also, Shockwave was a great finale.

 

I commented when the thread started and have not changed my opinions. Not much, at least.

1) TOS is the best season 1 by a country mile. But I think the #2 spot for S1's is up for grabs.

2) TNG & DS9 struggled early. I rank those both as top 3, but not S1.

3) So that leaves VOY, ENT, DSC, and now PIC in contention.

I think the newer shows have higher floors (production values, quality effects, good budgets) but don't have highs quite as high or hit them as often (serial vs episodic issues, fewer episodes, more plot but less development).

Having said that, while I like ENT more than most, I still don't think ENT S1 was as good as VOY S1. So, down to VOY, DSC, and now PIC in the running.

Before PIC, I'd have said it was down to VOY or DSC. Arguments either way (been a while since watched VOY).

But I preferred PIC S1 to DSC S1. In both Disco seasons, I really liked the first half, then they kind of dropped the ball in the second half. Though S2 was an outright fumble and S1 was more of a penalty.

Picard came closer to sticking the landing (though that wonder tool thingy was beyond stupid). For me, PIC1 > DSC1.

Thus, #2 can only be PIC or VOY for me. I'd have to rewatch VOY again to rank them. But I'd still rank DISCO as 4th best S1, at worst, or 3rd.

 

TOS makes more than a respectable showing. It usually gets the nostalgia and familiarity vote, and I certainly have a measure of that nostalgia as it was my first Trek show, but looking at contemporary Trek objectively, I have to say both the TOS and Berman era have been surpassed, at least early on.

RAMA

 

TOS is one of the greatest, most recognizable and influential television shows in history. The first season of TOS is often considered its strongest, although it's certainly debatable.

I'd say that puts TOS head-and-shoulders above the rest of the franchise.

But after that, I'm definitely going with PIC and DSC as the best first seasons. I didn't like the DS9, ENT and VOY first seasons at all....and while I love TNG S1 far more than most, I fully admit it isn't objectively "good"

I think I'd go:

TOS




PIC
DSC







TNG


DS9









VOY
ENT

 

Indeed. I couldn't care less how you rank the rest, but #1 is TOS.