Discovery is losing me in Season 3, anyone else?

I don't care if it is the bridge crew. I just want more episodes to be told from a primary POV other than Michael. SMG will of course always be the lead, but this does not mean that she needs to be the center of every episodes. Hell, the most effective episodes this season were Forget Me Not (which was mostly from the perspective of Adira and Culber) and Terra Firma (where Michael was more a supporting character in Georgiou's story).

For me personally, Michael is fine, but in some cases, less is more. I think it's possible to saturate the viewer with too much of a character. I keep going back to what Chuck over at SF Debris said regarding Discovery - basically, imagine if Voyager started with a two-part origin story for Seven of Nine, and then every single episode was told from her POV. People probably would have enjoyed the show a lot less, despite Jeri Ryan's obvious talent.

 

I myself was aiming for “It’s not even like TNG or DS9 with their somewhat stilted dialogue, disappearing music and other shared-90s-Bermanverse restrictions, let alone a tightly-focused, shot-by-shot innovative, character-driven show with a purpose like Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul.” Or just watch how Queen’s Gambit presents an interesting story while side-stepping nearly every trope you could think of. It can be done, just not with a franchise series that starts with a business case and hires and fires and retools as needed.

 

I've seen Breaking Bad in its entirety, and Better Call Saul is my favorite current series. For the record. Better Call Saul keeps its character-focus mainly on Saul, Kim, Mike, Gus, and Nacho. It has obvious main characters, just like Disco has obvious main characters.

I haven't seen The Queen's Gambit. Though it actually is a show I'm interested in looking into. So please don't ruin that for me.

 

Great, so as a thought experiment, if DSC were written like Better Call Saul, we might have an entire episode fully flashing back to how Culber and Stamets met. Another episode could focus on Reno. The writers wouldn’t have a clue where DSC would end up in terms of plot, but if it’s called Discovery, the thematic sense would be where we’re going and what we’re discovering, about ourselves as well as the universe. What should be the difference in focus that would make this distinct from the Enterprise’s mission? The vessel is newer and has a spore drive. So we’ve updated the show, but to avoid the obvious contradictions, let’s just use the established spore drive to go elsewhere in the galaxy — then again, this is not VGR, and return trips are always possible. Should it be more about scientific discovery than first contact? What is the life of a Starfleet scientist? Brick-by-brick, step-by-step, the series would take its characters in undetermined directions, focusing on the main cast but giving development as needed to the highly-promoted co-stars also.

 

That would be nice. But that wasn't the focus so I struggle with wishing for what we cannot have.

Well, that's fair. I think there is room for different POVs. I just also think that Michael is just fine as a character and have no issue with it. I don't feel like there can be too much of the main character in a show. That's my view. Mileage clearly varies.

At this point, I think DSC has created a very stable launching platform to explore what they want to explore. That might include other members of the crew and it might not. I don't need it. The story is OK as it stands, and hopefully will continue to improve.

 

So we're clear, as much as I like Discovery, I think Better Call Saul is the better show. Just want to get that out of the way, before the rest of my post.

I think it would be a pre-title sequence. Then maybe referred back to, post-intro. Or otherwise shed some light on something post-intro. Picard did this in almost every episode of its first season.

Only if the story had a direct bearing on how it effects Burnham, Saru, Tilly, or Stamets. Stamets is the most likely character choice.

Frankly, I don't think the DSC writers know where Discovery will end. It's obvious they wanted to get up to the point where Burnham is Captain of Discovery. But beyond that? No idea. I think Burnham becoming Captain is what they had in mind as a Turning Point. Not a Finishing Point.

Better Call Saul on the other hand, has a VERY definitive ending point. Jimmy becomes Saul. By the fifth season he's Saul, but he's not Full Saul. In the sixth season, he'll almost assuredly become Full Saul and it will lead into Breaking Bad. But then Saul becomes Gene. We don't know what will happen to Gene. But we definitely know that Jimmy becomes Saul and then becomes Gene.

This is easy. The Enterprise was on a mission of exploration. The Discovery wasn't. It was a science-vessel whose mission changed depending on the situation.

In the first season, its Spore Drive was used as an advantage in fighting the Klingon War.

In the second season, its mission was to use the Spore Drive to seek out the seven signals.

In the third season, there wasn't really a mission. Vance kept Discovery on a tight, tight leash. As the only ship with a Spore Drive, he made Discovery a Rapid Responder.

At the end of the third season, and heading into the fourth, it looks like its mission will be delivering dilithium to other Federation worlds and to try to get former Federation worlds to rejoin. Discovery will presumably use the Spore Drive to get from planet-to-planet quickly.

What do all these missions have in common? What do all these assignments have in common? Taking advantage of the fact that Discovery has a Spore Drive. Its missions are centered around how Discovery's Spore Drive can help Starfleet achieve its objectives.

Different and distinct from the Enterprise's mission. Not to mention specific to the situation, unlike the broad premises of TOS, TNG, and soon SNW.

They're not going to go just anywhere. They have to rebuild the Federation. I just hope it's not rebuilt all within the fourth season. Like Tilly's promotion to First Officer in "Unification III", that's something I will not defend if they do it.

We'll see what they do. I thought "Forget Me Not" did a good job of showing the slice-of-life side of Discovery in the B-Story, while doing also doing a good job of introducing Adira's character and their background in the A-Story. So Discovery can do stories like these.

And I know you don't like Mirror Georgiou, but -- just as an example -- they did do a character-study in "Terra Firma" to show how much the Prime Universe changed her, when Carl put her back in the Mirror Universe to put how much she'd actually changed to the test.

I also think Detmer's depression during the first half of the season was a good character study. I never would've thought about how much someone who prides herself on her piloting would be shattered by having crashed the ship. But to them it would be a huge failure. So it made me think about something I took for granted. Just like she tells Stamets in "Forget Me Not". Everyone talks about how awesome the Spore Drive is and the person who operates it. No one thinks about the piloting or how critical that part of ship operation is. That is, until the ship can't fly or move anymore. So the only parts that are noticeable are the parts where things go wrong.

 

I think I missed It, but doesn't It hurt the aliens in the mycelial network when they use the spore drive?

 

As a fellow fan of Better Call Saul (best show on TV hands down. Oh, and my sentiments re: DS9 are the same as yours. How the hell are we so divergent on Discovery? ), I highly, highly recommend The Queen's Gambit. Phenomenal series.

 

It turned out that what hurt the aliens in the mycelial network was not Discovery but Culber's presence. Culber became active when the ship passed through the network.

 

Still would be interesting if the use of the spore drive caused some harm.

 

Yeah, from a storytelling standpoint I think they are going to need to do something to keep its use limited, whether it be because its causing harm or some other reason. I like the spore drive as a concept, but it's too powerful, so it needs to be limited in some capacity.

 

If you have an infinite range, instantaneous drive, then the only sensible thing is to have a list of curious locations which every scientist wants checked out. What's it like at the edge of the observable universe? What's outside the Milky Way, what shape is the Milky Way, what's in the center, what's on the other side beyond all the dust, what's going on in the Large Magellic Cloud, what's up in the Andromeda Galaxy? What does the unreachable other side of what ever civilization look like? Other stuff like taking an extremely accurate set of measurements of the galaxy from far outside to improve astrogation would be useful. Go out far enough to observe events from hundreds of thousands of light years away in order to peer back in time.

For a war, make it the Federation-Sheliak War. Discovery can just drop doomsday weapons on the enemy dilithium processing plants as an opening move, and if they don't surrender, drop them on their capitol. Going with the seperate threads which meet later on, there could be episodes during the war where mystery attacks are done as opening moves. At first it's not mentioned specifically, and later people could start speculating. Later on we finally see Discovery and figure out it was that ship doing the attacks.

Burnham's story can be her going from Ensign to Captain through a combination of regular promotions and field promotions. I would base some of it off the movie Greyhound if possible.

They can just give up on stories based around time and distance crunches. In most Trek stories running isn't really an option for solving what is going on. Or they can do what they already do, just forget they have the Spore Drive.

 

S3 did seem self aware that they were inserting Michael into every scenario and did try to drop some lines here and there about why it had to be Michael doing something. Sometimes the rationale made sense (like in Unification III) and sometimes it didn't (like when they decide it's best for Michael, instead of Saru, to talk to Su'Kal, though this one is forgivable because SMG nailed that scene). Maybe a better example is Forget Me Not. I don't really think it was critical that Burnham accompany Adira to Trill, it would have been nice if Culber went instead and also would have made more sense. Wilson Cruz is a phenomenal actor who I think is underutilized in the series. I'd love to see more of him.

 

I mean, it's overpowered to a certain degree. I'm more interested in the actual story drama of discovering that their intrusion in to this realm is causing harm and dealing with that. That sounds interesting.

 

I think having Cruz be on Trill with Adira would have made more sense, but then the B plot onboard the ship doesn't make as much sense, as he's more or less the lynchpin of that as well.

 

I think it could have still worked. Culber could have delivered his report to Saru on the state of the crew before he left, and then had the convo with Detmer when he came back. He would have been missing from the dinner party but I don't think that part was overly relevant to the story.

 

Just my personal preference. I'm REALLY high on Wilson Cruz, I think he's top tier talent, better than SMG. Not saying I want him to be the series lead but I wish he had more screen time.

 

Agreed. I've liked him as an actor since My So-Called Life.

 

It's amazing how he can show so much emotion in his facial expressions without going over the top. It's hard to explain, but its subtle and really powerful at the same time.

 

He’s subtle in a show that often is not. Doug Jones too. They’re both great, and Culber is my favorite character by some measure.