As much flack as Enterprise gets for not using Mayweather or Hoshi, Enterprise did give them dedicated episodes. They were criminally underused, no question but i knew something about them- some attachment was made. Compare ENT bridge crew and you realize the Discovery bridge might as well not exist. Do we know anything, anything at all about the human males on the bridge? I finally learned Owo and Detmers name in Season 4! it took me 4 damn seasons to learn their names. Here is a perfect analogy about discovery, it looks pretty, has great special effects, but very little substance. Take the example of Ariam, always loved her look, i wanted to learn more, but they gave us nothing. She was a literal cypher. Then the one episode they show us her backstory they kill her off. This was the only emotional attachment i had to any secondary crew member. and to this day i wish she made the time jump; with newer tech they maybe could have made her more humanlike in appearance. Frankly its embarrassing that the show only cares about MB. Having a perfect leader is boring. People need flaws, they need to make mistakes in order to learn from them.
Main characters get the focus? I'm shocked, shocked I say! More seriously, Discovery isn't like regular Treks. It isn't about the bridge crew. This is now news, this is not new, and this is not a mark against it, save for the expectations that Discovery be a traditional Trek show when it is not. You and I are watching different shows then. MB is far from perfect. Picard was presented as a perfect leader. Burnham is not.
The problem with a show that is only 10-13 episodes long per season is that there’s no time for any character development other than for the characters that the story is focusing on. Yes, all the other bridge crew are ancillary to the plot, but it’s not like any of the other ancillary characters from ENT such as Hoshi, Mayweather, Reed, etc. were given hugely developed backstories or character development even with 25 episode seasons either.
Wow, what a groundbreaking perspective, saying one Trek is better than another. There's no rule that says, "Thou shalt know the minor characters on the bridge in-depth." I like them just fine, but it's not a prerequisite for enjoying the show.
Hmm, she is a genius, and an excellent combatant / captain. Must they also make her a better ambassador/ specialist / linguist/ politician that multiple presidents? The reason she wears so many hats? because they profile no one else. Anyone that didn't roll their eyes when she upstaged world presidents / politicians might be missing an example of what many find as horrible writing. Just an observation on what current trek is compared to older trek.
Same reason why Picard was sent on a commando mission. But, this Trek measuring contest benefits no one, and I see that's what this is. If one prefers older Trek then by all means enjoy that. I enjoy Michael Burnham and her story and trials and difficulties.
I disagree. the other current trek shows are better that DISCO IMO - but i still prefer old trek. But if trek fans are unable to voice their opinions, then nothing will change. If someone likes Star Wars 7 more than 3 and eight less than part 6- they are allowed to express that opinion. and if a plurality agrees, then perhaps the powers that be might change to accommodate a majority. if a significant portion of the intended viewership has problems why ignore or demean? i am firmly in the camp that some trek, even mediocre to bad trek is better than no trek. but if bad trek becomes the norm, it will eventually lead to no trek at all. not every critic is a troll, but i suppose everything is so polarized that it's hard to find common ground on anything.
And, in my opinion, Discovery is better than Voyager. I have voiced my opinion on this board for several years now and it doesn't come down to plurality; it comes down to preference. The powers that be have already accommodate the majority but severely altering Discovery to the point that it is unrecognizable from Season 3 forward, and creating very safe and predictable Star Trek shows. Congratulations-you won. Also, I live Star Wars sequel trilogy more than the prequel trilogy.
You seem to be mistaking bridge characters for main characters. The main characters are the ones in the opening credits not anyone on the bridge. When the actors who play Owo and Detmer get their names in the opening credits, they'll become main characters. eh, they've focused on several characters other than Burnham. Lorca. Stamets. Saru and Adira all come to mind. Burnham's far from perfect. But enough about Kirk and Picard, we should be talking about Burnham.
Sigh. Once again, the bridge crew on Disco are not main cast, and therefore the show is not obligated to develop them or tell the audience anything about them. They're listed in the credits as "Co-Stars" which means they only purpose is to deliver lines of dialogue relevant to a particular scene and that's it. The fact that Disco has developed its bridge crew to the extent it has is something the show was under no obligation to do. This is like complaining Walter Harriman should have had a larger role on Stargate SG-1. Enterprise's neglect of Mayweather is a bigger deal as he actually was in the show's main cast, and therefore should have been getting far more material in the show than he did. I guess you haven't been paying attention since both their names were established in the first season. Even if you did blank on that, there was a scene in the second season premiere where Pike had everyone on the bridge introduce themselves by name, he even emphasized "don't give me your rank." The fact you didn't realize Detmer or Owo had names until the fourth season says more about your attention span than it does the writing on the show. A show is focusing on its lead character more than the Co-Stars? Why I never! You do realize the other Treks had perfect lead characters too, right? Kirk was Starfleet's most legendary, Picard was one of the most celebrated living individuals of his time. Sisko had an entire religion built around him. Janeway took on the entire Borg Collective essentially singlehandedly and Archer founded the Federation. Maybe, but you're not exactly providing constructive criticism here.
You don't get that the focus is not the entire bridge crew. I think it's funny that people who aren't actually fans of the show won't stop going on and on and on and on about Bryce and Rhys, as if focusing on those two characters would make them magically think they'd like the show better. They wouldn't and you wouldn't. I've seen what the actors are capable of when Bryce and Rhys get more to do. What they get is just about at the right level. They're serviceable, but that's it. So, no, I don't think they need to have more focus. And by the way, I've known Detmer's and Owosekun's names since the first season. So you not knowing their names until the fourth season is a you thing, not a show thing. The focus is on Burnham, Tilly, Saru, Adira (who are all bridge crew), Stamets, Culber, and Book. The show is also expanding the cast beyond the ship. Vance is basically The Boss, Rilak is The President (so they're delving more into the political arena), and Kovich is the mysterious character who's like DSC's Garak. Zora's also becoming more prominent. But you're fixated on a few bridge crew who don't get development. You're not seeing what else it's focusing on, like what I described above. And Enterprise isn't better than Discovery or even close. I binged that show two years ago, so it's still relatively fresh in my mind. ENT is George Bush Star Trek. It's a "good 'ol boys" club, a lot of those characters get on my nerves sometimes, I can't figure out why T'Pol would want to stay there, the decon scenes are ridiculous, and the second season put me to sleep several times. The first season is okay when it's focusing on stuff specific to the 22nd Century but the rest of the time it was dull, dull, dull, dull, dull. I recognize the third season is better, but it does nothing for me, and I don't like "Star Trek does 9/11" (yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that it was the early-2000s and they "had" to do it, but the way they did it was ridiculous and The Xindi look like they were rejected from Farscape). The fourth season is the first one and only one I can recommend. But even there, given a choice between the fourth season of ENT or any season of DSC, I'm going with DSC. As far as the other shows: While I like PIC Season 1 better than DSC, I can't say the same about PIC Season 2. I still like PIC S2, but it wasn't as good. For SNW: it's basically 2020s TOS. How much you like that depends upon how much you think you needed to see it. I didn't. There are some parts where I like SNW better than TOS and some parts where I like TOS better than SNW, but the show itself has already begun to wear off on me. I'm not usually a fan of Back to Basics. Which takes me back to another thing that initially drove me off of ENT!
My point isn't just about not knowing their names. the fact is i know nothing about the bridge crew at all, as they aren't detailed / fleshed out at all. They are nothing more than background fixtures. ENT did not give Mayweather enough to do, but we actually met his family. I take your point, maybe we don't need to learn about the bridge, but its unlike any other trek if that is intended. Don't you see it as a disservice to the story however? Trek is more than just special effects and the captain.
You're not discussing the other characters I mentioned. Saru, Tilly, Adira, Stamets, Culber, Book. Hell, even Zora. They've all had stories and episodes focused on them. Even Detmer had a story focused on her in the third season. It wasn't the best story, and they could've done more with it, but it was there. And I can see Detmer's point about feeling slighted that Stamets gets all the attention operating the Spore Drive when she's the one maneuvering the ship most of the time.
That's what they are and designed to be. That's why their names aren't in the opening credits. Why is that so hard to understand?
It's almost as if Detmer, Owo...uhh *checks notes* Rhys, and Bryce.. are not the main characters, or even supporting characters, of the show. On that note, TNG must also be terrible because we learn nothing about Gates or Rager, but we won't mention Ensign Ro in the argument. If anything, we get MORE characterization out of the third-tier characters on Discovery compared to other Treks who don't even give third-tier characters names half the time.
Here's the thing, Owo, Detmer. Bryce and Rhys aren't Mayweather and Hoshi. They're Cutler and Rostov. We only see them more because they're on the bridge.