I’d give it a fair chance just because it says Star Trek in the title.
A mistake to go to the 32nd century
- Thread starter TRON JA307020
- Start date
I’d give it a fair chance just because it says Star Trek in the title.
I think the most critical problem that bring down Discovery is because they cut a lot of interesting and powerful characters who actually could bring a lot of weight to the series.
1st. They cut Lorca. One of interesting character who actually could make the fans interested to the story.
2nd They cut Pike and Spock (and actually bring them to SNW) that actually could bring fans to watch Discovery in season 2.
3rd They cut the Evil Emperor from season 3. The last remain interesting character that they had build from the beginning of the series.
Then they replace those powerful characters with shite ones from the bridge. Weak and lame characters who actually don't have enough charisma; like the ones whom they supposed to replace. That's why season 4 felt like shite to me. Burnham alone can't help the franchise to move. Not to mention those weak characters who come from season 3 forward.
Let me honest, Burnham has the aura of a tough girl. Maybe a female Rambo who can beat everyone in the Universe. But she doesn't has the charisma of a captain. At least, if compared to Pike and Lorca, she's nothing. Even Evil Emperor Yeoh has quite greater charisma of a captain compared to Burnham.
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I love Burnham. So, if that's a "weak character " then I guess I have a weakness for weak characters.
wish this could get pinned. it's the definitive answer to the question that keeps coming up.
I do hope they flesh out the 32nd century more. I like the idea of being on the cusp of a new renaissance.
I don't know how you can watch Book, Tarka, Kovich or Zora and say they are weak characters. Not to mention that in Season 3-4 we still have Saru, Stamets and Culber front and centre.
I will admit I definitely missed Georgiou and Tilly in season 4.
It could have tied in with the undeveloped Final Frontier animated series, but it would not have had any obligation to.
I mean, it didn't? We literally saw it defeated in the person of Osyraa. It was pretty clearly a highly-centralized dictatorship, and her death meant it collapsed.
They spent two seasons depicting the Federation as rebuilding, so I'm not sure how that's "never amounting to much."
I do agree with this. Or more specifically, I think the combination of highly-serialized central plots and low episode orders for each season creates the pacing issues. If they used something more like the Russell T. Davies-era Doctor Who model for seasons of 10-13 episodes or something like the Buffy model for seasons of 22 episodes, I think either option would work better pacing-wise and in terms of finding tonal relief.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of the greatest television series ever produced, period.
Just compare them to Lorca, Queen Georgiou, Pike, and Spock. Non of them can compete against the characters who left behind / cut off from the story. Specially Pike and Spock. That's why I immigrate from Discovery to SNW.
Stamets was a good character in Season 1, but later on, he just become a Cinderella who thirst of love. Saru is a meh from the beginning. Culber is descent, but he just there as Stamets love interest.
Yes.
@Brainsucker
Your premise is fundamentally flawed. You said that only bridge crew were developed from a certain point onwards, whereas the reality is the likes of Reese, Bryce, Detmer and Owesekun remain as undeveloped as they were in early seasons.
The characters who get a spotlight in Season 4 are Book (not even Starfleet), Zora (another independent entity), Kovich (not bridge crew), Rillak (not bridge crew), Vance (not bridge crew) and Tarka (again, not Starfleet).
Maybe you should remind us all of the episodes where Reese or Detmer (both bridge crew) got a spotlight in Season 4? Or Owosekun/Bryce?
You'll have a job though, because those episodes don't exist.
The only conclusion I can draw is that you didn't actually watch the episodes if that's what you think happened, as evidently it did not.
And with that I'm done. I don't have time for bullshit, bad faith arguments.
Your premise is fundamentally flawed. You said that only bridge crew were developed from a certain point onwards, whereas the reality is the likes of Reese, Bryce, Detmer and Owesekun remain as undeveloped as they were in early seasons.
The characters who get a spotlight in Season 4 are Book (not even Starfleet), Zora (another independent entity), Kovich (not bridge crew), Rillak (not bridge crew), Vance (not bridge crew) and Tarka (again, not Starfleet).
Maybe you should remind us all of the episodes where Reese or Detmer (both bridge crew) got a spotlight in Season 4? Or Owosekun/Bryce?
You'll have a job though, because those episodes don't exist.
The only conclusion I can draw is that you didn't actually watch the episodes if that's what you think happened, as evidently it did not.
And with that I'm done. I don't have time for bullshit, bad faith arguments.
A whole lot of Star Trek is coming up against better technology/advancement and overcoming it with better humanity (sorry Spock I couldn’t think of another word!).
I liked the jump just to get to something new. I think it gave the crew of the Discovery a way to matter in a “present” and gripping way. I like Discovery and SNW but I’m a little exhausted with prequels as a format so I guess I’m biased because it took the characters out of prequel times
I liked the jump just to get to something new. I think it gave the crew of the Discovery a way to matter in a “present” and gripping way. I like Discovery and SNW but I’m a little exhausted with prequels as a format so I guess I’m biased because it took the characters out of prequel times
Strange. Part of the criticism post-32nd century is how emotional and stressed the crew is. I hardly call their understandable reaction to this trauma "easily integrated".
But they're also a professional starfleet crew used to the new and unexpected so they are functional as a team. They just need help along the way.
I didn't miss Emperor Georgiou last season. She didn't really fit on Discovery, and it made little sense to have her jump to the 32nd century to begin with in the first place to me. Tilly did grow on more over Season 3 and I thought her fourth season episode was one of the season's best, but honestly, I didn't miss her either. I thought Species 10-C and how that conflict was personalized between Burnham and Book was compelling. It's just I felt they stretched that storyline out too long. I wish they had started off the season more episodically, to explore more of the 32nd century, as well as the ensemble cast, and Burnham's command style, and then for the mid-season finale, that's when Book's world is destroyed so they could have a concentrated, more intense arc for the second half of the season.
I do wish we had gotten more Prime Georgiou in the first season. And absent that, I would've been fine with keeping Emperor Georgiou as captain of the Discovery longer than they did. Albeit that would be perhaps too much like Mirror Lorca.
I wouldn't have minded more shaking up in Season 4 though. Give Saru his own ship and take some of the old Discovery crew with him, which would've opened the door to bring in more 32nd century characters as part of the Discovery crew. The Species 10-C problem was big enough to have both Burnham and Saru, and their respective starships involved.
I do wish we had gotten more Prime Georgiou in the first season. And absent that, I would've been fine with keeping Emperor Georgiou as captain of the Discovery longer than they did. Albeit that would be perhaps too much like Mirror Lorca.
I wouldn't have minded more shaking up in Season 4 though. Give Saru his own ship and take some of the old Discovery crew with him, which would've opened the door to bring in more 32nd century characters as part of the Discovery crew. The Species 10-C problem was big enough to have both Burnham and Saru, and their respective starships involved.
Well, as we all know Starfleet officers are to accept things without complaint or trauma no matter what.
I like how everything is basically the same except for everything having "programmable" affixed to it. Really subverted my expectations on that one.
They moved the show to the 32nd Century for the reasons @The Wormhole mentioned. Unfortunately, they proceeded to trash it to make integrating Discovery easier (so far as the writing).
A more creative challenge would have been to show a legit level III civilization. Off the top of my head: S3 could have been about coming to terms with what they left behind and the overwhelming challenge of integrating into the 32nd century. How well are they regarded by the future? Just how far removed has humanity become from what they knew? What do they still have in common? No mystery boxes or galactic destruction, sorry.
Roll on season 4 and *then* maybe some cracks begin to emerge in this supposedly almighty civilization, with Discovery and her crew offering a unique perspective.
The absence of worldbuilding really sucked.
They moved the show to the 32nd Century for the reasons @The Wormhole mentioned. Unfortunately, they proceeded to trash it to make integrating Discovery easier (so far as the writing).
A more creative challenge would have been to show a legit level III civilization. Off the top of my head: S3 could have been about coming to terms with what they left behind and the overwhelming challenge of integrating into the 32nd century. How well are they regarded by the future? Just how far removed has humanity become from what they knew? What do they still have in common? No mystery boxes or galactic destruction, sorry.
Roll on season 4 and *then* maybe some cracks begin to emerge in this supposedly almighty civilization, with Discovery and her crew offering a unique perspective.
The absence of worldbuilding really sucked.
It works, because it's really hard to show a future that far ahead people can come to grips with. Making it somewhat lesser due to upheaval works because it allows the crew to catch up better but also for setting up a heroic recovery for the Federation.
Put me down as someone who thought the 32nd century had amazing possibilities, which were largely ruined by lazy worldbuilding.
I think the idea to have some level of regression was a solid one, because it gave the Discovery some agency despite the giant time skip. However, I would have gone much farther. My idealized scenario before Season 3 came out was a "Left Behind" style situation, where the bulk of the Federation just vanished something like a century prior. Discovery returns to a largely empty galaxy full of technological marvels they don't understand. Slowly they encounter various others who didn't ascend (people in cryosleep, colonies of luddites, holoprograms left running) and slowly put the pieces together regarding what happened. By the end of the season it becomes clear that most of the Federation ascended into energy beings en masse - that's just what happens to advanced civilizations, which is why there aren't multi-million year old technological species banging about. So what looks like it was an awful calamity actually is something of a happy ending. Then Discovery spends the remainder of its run trying to link back together the few scattered remnants they find.
But they couldn't even commit to the idea there was technological regression. Tech was alternatively depicted as futuristic (when they wanted to awe the audience with things like "programmable matter" or "detached nacelles," or completely comprehensible to the Discovery crew. Sometimes they suggested there was a reversion to a more primitive social order, but other times it seemed to suggest that other than warp travel being kind of rare, and a paring back of interstellar relations, there wasn't any loss at all.
Worse still IMHO was how culturally stagnant everything was. Yeah, Vulcans and Romulans joined together, and Andorians became bad guys. But It would have been nice to see pacifist Klingons, Communist Ferengi, Cardassians as fierce defenders of democracy. While I think it was an inspired idea to not have Earth part of the Federation (I hate the Earth-centric aspect of Trek's setting - it makes humanity seem "first among equals") I think they should have gone the whole nine yards and had Federation HQ almost entirely staffed by non-humans, that races which were formerly "enemies" of the Federation became the strongest defenders of its values, much as northern Europe embraced the legacy of Greece and Rome despite not having a direct connection. At the very least they should have had some plotlines related to culture shock; realizing how much the mores and social norms of the 32nd century clashed with their own.
I think the idea to have some level of regression was a solid one, because it gave the Discovery some agency despite the giant time skip. However, I would have gone much farther. My idealized scenario before Season 3 came out was a "Left Behind" style situation, where the bulk of the Federation just vanished something like a century prior. Discovery returns to a largely empty galaxy full of technological marvels they don't understand. Slowly they encounter various others who didn't ascend (people in cryosleep, colonies of luddites, holoprograms left running) and slowly put the pieces together regarding what happened. By the end of the season it becomes clear that most of the Federation ascended into energy beings en masse - that's just what happens to advanced civilizations, which is why there aren't multi-million year old technological species banging about. So what looks like it was an awful calamity actually is something of a happy ending. Then Discovery spends the remainder of its run trying to link back together the few scattered remnants they find.
But they couldn't even commit to the idea there was technological regression. Tech was alternatively depicted as futuristic (when they wanted to awe the audience with things like "programmable matter" or "detached nacelles," or completely comprehensible to the Discovery crew. Sometimes they suggested there was a reversion to a more primitive social order, but other times it seemed to suggest that other than warp travel being kind of rare, and a paring back of interstellar relations, there wasn't any loss at all.
Worse still IMHO was how culturally stagnant everything was. Yeah, Vulcans and Romulans joined together, and Andorians became bad guys. But It would have been nice to see pacifist Klingons, Communist Ferengi, Cardassians as fierce defenders of democracy. While I think it was an inspired idea to not have Earth part of the Federation (I hate the Earth-centric aspect of Trek's setting - it makes humanity seem "first among equals") I think they should have gone the whole nine yards and had Federation HQ almost entirely staffed by non-humans, that races which were formerly "enemies" of the Federation became the strongest defenders of its values, much as northern Europe embraced the legacy of Greece and Rome despite not having a direct connection. At the very least they should have had some plotlines related to culture shock; realizing how much the mores and social norms of the 32nd century clashed with their own.
I think some of the complaints about the 32nd century not being advanced enough can be applied to the TOS and TNG era as well. I think all of the Trek shows are rather reserved in terms of social development.
It would be interesting to see some fiction that explores some hypotheticals of what human society might evolve into in the coming centuries—looking back a hundred years and seeing how different social roles, etiquette, interactions, etc. were, and imagining how things might continue to change into the next hundred years—but I've learned that Star Trek isn't that place.
There are some vague indications of an "evolved sensibility," but in demonstration, these folks, whether it be Scotty, Tom Paris, or Tilly, are just character-types plucked from the time in which the episodes were written. Which is fine. It isn't about what century it's set it. That's just a dramatic convention, a tool, a backdrop upon which the story may reflect our current humanity. It's also about appealing to a broad audience. That's what I've come to expect from Star Trek and I think Discovery delivers that pretty well.
It would be interesting to see some fiction that explores some hypotheticals of what human society might evolve into in the coming centuries—looking back a hundred years and seeing how different social roles, etiquette, interactions, etc. were, and imagining how things might continue to change into the next hundred years—but I've learned that Star Trek isn't that place.
There are some vague indications of an "evolved sensibility," but in demonstration, these folks, whether it be Scotty, Tom Paris, or Tilly, are just character-types plucked from the time in which the episodes were written. Which is fine. It isn't about what century it's set it. That's just a dramatic convention, a tool, a backdrop upon which the story may reflect our current humanity. It's also about appealing to a broad audience. That's what I've come to expect from Star Trek and I think Discovery delivers that pretty well.
