I once again have to laugh at the push against emotional expression in Discovery after watching Spider-Man No Way Home. Because characters stop to talk feelings in the middle of a battle.
Seasons 1-2 or 3-4?
- Thread starter BlueStuff
- Start date
If the same group of people enjoys the way that Spider-Man does it and dislikes the way that Discovery does it, then we're a step closer to figuring out how Discovery does it wrong.
I haven't seen a Spider-Man movie since 2007. And I wouldn't have even seen that one if I hadn't been somehow dragged along with some other people to go see it. I really went just to hang out with them because I hadn't seen them in a while. But anyway...
Spider-Man lost me after three films. Discovery still has me, going into the fifth season: effectively the Streaming TV equivalent of a fifth "film".
All I really remember from the Spider-Man films, and the Dark Knight Trilogy films while we're at it, is that they felt like constant sermons. I prefer the characters on Discovery talking about their feelings than the characters in those comic book movies constantly lecturing the audience. "With great freedom, comes great responsibility." No kidding.
Without spoiling anything, it's also why I think The Batman was so great. They just go right into the story without all the Life Lessons. If "better" means being lectured to, then I don't want "better" because it's not. To quote Kirk from TWOK, "Bones, I don't want to be lectured."
The DSC characters in this season got to talk rather than someone telling them a soundbite "word of wisdom" and hoping that would do all the work for them.
Not that DSC hasn't had sermons and lectures in the past, but they've been saved for Season Finales where you'd expect them to be. In a film from the Dark Knight Trilogy, it felt like every time someone besides Gordon Lucius Fox talked to Bruce Wayne, it was Sermon Time. From my faded memory, it's similar to what I thought the Spider-Man movies felt like.
Spider-Man lost me after three films. Discovery still has me, going into the fifth season: effectively the Streaming TV equivalent of a fifth "film".
All I really remember from the Spider-Man films, and the Dark Knight Trilogy films while we're at it, is that they felt like constant sermons. I prefer the characters on Discovery talking about their feelings than the characters in those comic book movies constantly lecturing the audience. "With great freedom, comes great responsibility." No kidding.
Without spoiling anything, it's also why I think The Batman was so great. They just go right into the story without all the Life Lessons. If "better" means being lectured to, then I don't want "better" because it's not. To quote Kirk from TWOK, "Bones, I don't want to be lectured."
The DSC characters in this season got to talk rather than someone telling them a soundbite "word of wisdom" and hoping that would do all the work for them.
Not that DSC hasn't had sermons and lectures in the past, but they've been saved for Season Finales where you'd expect them to be. In a film from the Dark Knight Trilogy, it felt like every time someone besides Gordon Lucius Fox talked to Bruce Wayne, it was Sermon Time. From my faded memory, it's similar to what I thought the Spider-Man movies felt like.
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Season 1 and 2 Discovery was a nitrous injected street-legal drag-racer tasked with going up and down a winding mountain road. With bad brakes.
Seasons 3 and 4 are a mobility scooter chair tasked with going to go somewhere.. the battery went low in season 4.
With the change in show runners, Discovery lost its risk taking. There were accidents and bad moves and episodes that will rarely get a re-watch but originally it was rarely boring and it did what it was meant to do, get Star Trek back on the screen and talked about. I enjoy it. I still rewatch episodes from season 1 and 2. I haven't revisited 3 on purpose and would probably have to be paid to watch season 4 again.
I did not want to watch a show about feelings and mental care and harmony. If I want to be put on downers I'll check myself in to a psychiatric facility and say the right keywords. I did not ask for much from Discovery season 4, just an interesting plot every night. They gave me an interesting plot stretched over a dozen episodes. And space pirate ninja nuns. The acting is still good. Stormy Weather and the final episode were good.
They needed to fire their writers. There's always plenty more. And they need to seriously consider replacing Paradise with Frakes. He's been consistently good. He's earned this (whether he wants it or not)
Seasons 3 and 4 are a mobility scooter chair tasked with going to go somewhere.. the battery went low in season 4.
With the change in show runners, Discovery lost its risk taking. There were accidents and bad moves and episodes that will rarely get a re-watch but originally it was rarely boring and it did what it was meant to do, get Star Trek back on the screen and talked about. I enjoy it. I still rewatch episodes from season 1 and 2. I haven't revisited 3 on purpose and would probably have to be paid to watch season 4 again.
I did not want to watch a show about feelings and mental care and harmony. If I want to be put on downers I'll check myself in to a psychiatric facility and say the right keywords. I did not ask for much from Discovery season 4, just an interesting plot every night. They gave me an interesting plot stretched over a dozen episodes. And space pirate ninja nuns. The acting is still good. Stormy Weather and the final episode were good.
They needed to fire their writers. There's always plenty more. And they need to seriously consider replacing Paradise with Frakes. He's been consistently good. He's earned this (whether he wants it or not)
Ok, that's fine but doesn't change the very simple complaint of "Characters stop in the middle of action scene/battle/crisis to talk about feelings!" when it happens in both things.
I'm sure that people are complaining the best they can! If it was easy to identify problems in stories and say what they should have done, then we'd never have bad episodes. When people say that the way characters express themselves in Discovery bothers them, it's just a quick sketch of a more complicated picture that they're trying to bring into focus.
Like by season 4 of Enterprise, one of my complaints would've been 'I don't like how they get into a phaser shoot out every episode'. It doesn't mean I don't like phaser shoot outs, it means they did it too often and they didn't have the time or money to do anything I hadn't seen a dozen times already. You could reply with "Ah, but you liked the frequent low-budget action scenes in Arrow," and then I could try to refine my complaint further, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Like by season 4 of Enterprise, one of my complaints would've been 'I don't like how they get into a phaser shoot out every episode'. It doesn't mean I don't like phaser shoot outs, it means they did it too often and they didn't have the time or money to do anything I hadn't seen a dozen times already. You could reply with "Ah, but you liked the frequent low-budget action scenes in Arrow," and then I could try to refine my complaint further, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong.
I'm aware we are in the minority, but I just don't see the problem with it, full stop.
There are swathes of Berman Trek that could be improved by having characters talk to each other meaningfully about their feelings during a crisis. I'd certainly prefer it to the standard recitation of whatever percentage the shields are at or whatever.
I also believe it's not nearly as prevalent as people claim. I see 'constant' thrown about. I see 'five minute scenes' posted when it amounts to 5-10 lines of dialogue. No doubt it's there, but it's not as omnipresent as some seem to believe.
But people's mileage varies.
This show feels like it's the writers trying to make a focus group happy.
I think I may stand out in that I find each season to be an improvement over the last. My primary critique over past seasons was inconsistent pacing and a lack of direction - which I believe newer seasons have addressed well.
That's not to say the earlier seasons are bad. Honestly, looking at DIS' production it makes sense why things turned out the way they did. It was hard to be invested in Season 2, for example, when the threat confused me. Season 3 was spent mostly setting up an explored time period, so that hampered the larger scale story telling potential. Season 4, finally settling in, had time to breath and told a story I could become invested in.
but then again, The Motion Picture is my favorite film so what do I know ?
That's not to say the earlier seasons are bad. Honestly, looking at DIS' production it makes sense why things turned out the way they did. It was hard to be invested in Season 2, for example, when the threat confused me. Season 3 was spent mostly setting up an explored time period, so that hampered the larger scale story telling potential. Season 4, finally settling in, had time to breath and told a story I could become invested in.
but then again, The Motion Picture is my favorite film so what do I know ?
If people connect with characters and their emotional arc, they'll be forgiving of absolutely everything else. Spiderman: NWH is a great example of that, because the plot is completely nonsensical - it's literally "a wizard did it!"
That's it right there. And the first season, warts and all, didn't have that feeling. The second season immediately jumped into "make the focus group happy" territory with
- Bringing aboard Pike, the benevolent and fatherly fan favorite, to make the show "less dark" right off the bat
- Having Ash/Voq "fix" the D-7 Battlecruiser issue with some off-the-cuff and inorganic announcement in the beginning of the season
- Having the Klingons grow back their hair, or whatever
- Moving the show 900 years into the future to avoid crying about continuity with TOS
And it's just gotten more pronounced since then.
I literally feel like the writers come to this board, take all the complaints they see, bucket them like some kind of employee feedback survey, and then design their next season to address those complaints as best they can. Now....I like DSC quite a bit. Anyone who checks my ratings of the show will see I play in the 7-9 range quite a bit when rating the show. I'm a big fan! But that doesn't mean I don't get frustrated with the direction the production team chooses to take at times. I think they've made mistakes and they've operated from a check-the-boxes exercise far too much. I wish P+ and the production team had the confidence and faith in themselves to just get creative, take risks, and not cater to the fan focus group mentality.
Write a good damn show that happens to take place in the Trek universe. If it's not ideal, hey....you live to fight another day. But don't try to make all the complaints go away. That won't happen in a million years.
Which brings up my next question-do people not connect emotionally with the characters of Discovery?
Yes, that's the issue entirely. There have been many complaints across all of the seasons that Michael is an irritating character, and the supporting cast is underbaked.
I think both are less true than ever, TBH. Michael only personally annoyed me once this season (when she was mean to the magistrate of that colony in The Expendables). And I do appreciate that they are allowing the characters to talk about something other than the plotline (or Michael) now. At the same time, I still don't think they feel like separate characters any longer, because they are all written pretty much identically now.
I prefer Seasons 2-3 so far.
Benjamin Sisko × Cassidy Yates
Miles O'Brien × Keiko Ishigawa
Tom Paris × B'Elanna Torres
Paul Stamets × Hugh Culber
Michael Burnham × Cleveland Booker
I actually like that Burnham is Captain, I think she's done well in that position and that should've been her role early on. But the writers decided to give her a long story arc to the Captain's seat for whatever reason.
I would've preferred if she was Captain by early Season 2/3, but it is what it is.
I want to see realistic positive relationships:
Benjamin Sisko × Cassidy Yates
Miles O'Brien × Keiko Ishigawa
Tom Paris × B'Elanna Torres
Paul Stamets × Hugh Culber
Michael Burnham × Cleveland Booker
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Because of where she started. Imagine her becoming a captain at the end of Season 1. The outcry would have been huge and the character even more maligned than when she became captain at the end of Season 3.
See above. As the story started out, it was not a smart move.
I want to see positive realiastic relationships. I do not want to see romantic relationships if it can be avoided. That is not my choice in Star Trek.
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Next time, don't give a like to a post of mine when I say "Exploring the human condition means exploring the human condition" like you did here.
Like it or not, relationships are part of the human condition. So you clearly don't agree with what I said. And I appreciate it if you don't mislead me into thinking you agree with points of mine when you actually don't. Thank you.
I have to wonder how you get through TOS considering the number of romances that were in that series. But then you say "All Star Trek but TOS is garbage." (While somehow still getting pissed off when people bash DSC? How does that work?) Your posts are becoming contradictory, hypocritical, and it's next-to-impossible to tell where you stand these days, except as a Contrarian.
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I don't recall any "outcry" from people when Michael became a captain at the end of Season 3. Maybe some concern about how they were going to keep the show interesting now that her initial character arc was completed. But a lot of people seemed relieved that we didn't have to be in a situation where (because she was the protagonist, but not in command) she kept on overruling whoever was in the chair.
I honestly think Michael being in the chair at the end of Season 1 would have been a lot less of an issue than the other things they did (having her singlehandedly save the Federation, half of the characters in love with her, etc). The accusations that Michael was a "Mary Sue" were ridiculous, but the way that other characters talked about Michael made it feel like the writers were trying to shill her at times.
You know what-I misread @KamenRiderBlade post. I will adjust to clarify. Edited.
And no more likes will be given. That clearly lead to misunderstanding.
I trust we are clear now. If not, I will clarify again.
Note, I didn't say "outcry" at Season 3. I said "maligned" as in she wasn't appropriate for the chair type comments.
If I remember, the reaction was split between, "It's about time!", "I was wondering when that was going to happen," and "I liked Saru as Captain!" While I think Saru got the shaft, I do prefer that Burnham is the Captain. And I was wondering when she'd become Captain. So for me, my reaction was a little from each column, but a little bit more from "It's about time!"
I like that Saru is still in DSC, don't get me wrong, but if I were in their universe and not watching this on TV, I'd say that I think Saru should be Captain of the Voyager-J.
I agree about Saru. Him as captain is more interesting. While I expected Burnham as captain I think it could have waited a bit longer.
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