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When did Discovery JUMP the Shark?

Warp Drive was an actual scientific concept from JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), who were consultants on the original Star Trek.
Can you point to where using magic crystals...er, "dilithium" to warp through space comes up in JPL's research? Trek needed a way to go from point A to B without taking forever. Fungus or crystals? Is there a difference?
Where did the Spore Drive idea come from? They may as well have based it on Sapporo beer from Japan and called it the Sapporo Drive. Although using beer as a fuel for Space Propulsion is an idea called the Hopps Drive.
Mycelium "Networks of mycelia can transport water[4] and spikes of electrical potential" Looks like a SF twist on the concept by creating Prototaxites stellaviatori, a species of fungi that has extra-dimensional properties. Pivoting off the work of the real world Paul Stamets.
What????? Science Fiction based on actual science??????

Then there's the Red Angel suit. Which Manga did that come from? If you put five of them together does it create Voltron?
Trek has been lifting from all forms of SF, why should Manga be an exception? We've seen time portals, time orbs, time ships, time pods and time warps why draw the line at time suits?
 
Star Trek Discovery Jumped The Shark right from the start with the Spore Drive. Really? Mushrooms can teleport you across the galaxy? I think someone did too many 'Shrooms while writing it.

Warp Drive was an actual scientific concept from JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), who were consultants on the original Star Trek.

Where did the Spore Drive idea come from? They may as well have based it on Sapporo beer from Japan and called it the Sapporo Drive. Although using beer as a fuel for Space Propulsion is an idea called the Hopps Drive.

Then there's the Red Angel suit. Which Manga did that come from? If you put five of them together does it create Voltron?

All in all, I've always thought Discovery was great Science Fiction. Just not good Star Trek. But Star Trek has always had some wiggle room to it.

Star trek depicts space as having sound. Any arguments about the franchise being scientifically accurate end there. The franchise is not and never has been. It's not even science fiction, but science fantasy.
 
The only issue with the mycellial network is the way everyone forgot it existed. Their handwave "Nobody shall mention Discovery UNDER PENALTY OF TORTURE" just barely satisfied continuity.

When people call something "Woke" now they really mean "It shows gay and trans people exist but I can just cry out 'Woke' and have bigotry deniability".
 
The only issue with the mycellial network is the way everyone forgot it existed. Their handwave "Nobody shall mention Discovery UNDER PENALTY OF TORTURE" just barely satisfied continuity.
My single least favorite scene in DSC. Spock might as well have said, "STD sucks!"
 
If I'm looking at this objectively, I think you can make an argument there's 3 different versions of Discovery they presented to the audience.

  1. Season 1, especially the beginning of season 1, has a lot of Bryan Fuller's ideas of reinterpreting everything about the Star Trek universe, from Starfleet to the Klingons. Whatever turmoil happened behind the scenes, you can see them pulling back from those ideas a bit as the season goes along and adjusting it.
  2. Season 2 feels more like proto-Strange New Worlds. There's still the overarching "oh my god, the fate of the galaxy is at stake" season-long story, but there's more individual standalone stories in the sense of SNW that build up to that.
  3. I would guess that if there's a "jump the shark" moment for some Discovery fans, it's probably the time jump in season 3. It arguably becomes a different show, where it has elements of Voyager (i.e., a ship far from the Federation it knows trying to find its way "home") while also taking on the premise of Andromeda (waking up in a future having to rebuild a fallen government after a dark age has befallen it).
I know I've seen comments from people who feel like season 3 was reactionary. That the time jump was the powers that be reacting to fans who complained about Discovery not fitting within the timeline, so they moved the setting to get more freedom to do things storywise.

I've always felt that season 1 could have worked if they had been upfront with audiences from the beginning and said this is a reimagination of Star Trek. It's NOT in the Prime Timeline. It has all the elements of Star Trek but things are going to be different and may not be exactly the same as the way you remember it. And that would have allowed them to go in weird and different directions with the Klingons, the Spore Drive, and even the history of the Federation. I just think a lot of the hate against season 1 came in the form of distractions where people were like: "How are these Klingons? That's not a D-7!"

And I still think the Spore Drive needed to be weirder. If you want to introduce a piece of tech that rivals warp drive but exists in Star Trek's past, put in some caveats which explain why not only the Federation didn't pursue it, but also reasons why all the other galactic powers didn't too. Using the Spore Drive should be something that takes a toll either on the ship, on the crew, or both.

Maybe people randomly disappear sometimes into the mycelial network. Maybe some people are psychologically damaged by a Spore Jump because their mind can't handle it. Maybe sometimes people rematerialize as a potted plant on the other side of the jump. I don't know, but I just feel like it should have just been more than Stamets needed to be pumped full of tardigrade DNA to make it all work.
 
If I'm looking at this objectively, I think you can make an argument there's 3 different versions of Discovery they presented to the audience.

  1. Season 1, especially the beginning of season 1, has a lot of Bryan Fuller's ideas of reinterpreting everything about the Star Trek universe, from Starfleet to the Klingons. Whatever turmoil happened behind the scenes, you can see them pulling back from those ideas a bit as the season goes along and adjusting it.
  2. Season 2 feels more like proto-Strange New Worlds. There's still the overarching "oh my god, the fate of the galaxy is at stake" season-long story, but there's more individual standalone stories in the sense of SNW that build up to that.
  3. I would guess that if there's a "jump the shark" moment for some Discovery fans, it's probably the time jump in season 3. It arguably becomes a different show, where it has elements of Voyager (i.e., a ship far from the Federation it knows trying to find its way "home") while also taking on the premise of Andromeda (waking up in a future having to rebuild a fallen government after a dark age has befallen it).
That's the same way I divide up Discovery.

Season 1: Early-Discovery
Season 2: Transitional Discovery (a.k.a. The Fork in the Road)
Seasons 3-5: Discovery Proper

Discovery was an odd show to be a prequel. As far as I'm concerned, despite liking the first two seasons, the 32nd Century is where it belongs. I don't see it as a TOS Era show (and didn't even when it took place then), and I don't see it as a TNG Era show either.
 
Except that JPL came up with the concept of Warp Dive, it's not my job to do your research for you.
You made a claim about the scientific accuracy of Star Trek. The onus is on you to provide evidence.
For what it's worth Star trek has never been scientifically accurate and never will be.
 
And I still think the Spore Drive needed to be weirder. If you want to introduce a piece of tech that rivals warp drive but exists in Star Trek's past, put in some caveats which explain why not only the Federation didn't pursue it, but also reasons why all the other galactic powers didn't too. Using the Spore Drive should be something that takes a toll either on the ship, on the crew, or both.
I agree the spore drive needs to be weirder and more stressful. I think there was a missed opportunity with the subplot in season 2 around the spore beings, and Culber and I think that the spore beings should be pushing back on Discovery's intrusions because it's so uncomfortable to them, as well as the physical strain it puts on a navigator. I think once they bring Culber back there should have been an uneasy truce between the two and they allow Discovery only as a ship that can enter their space.
 
I agree the spore drive needs to be weirder and more stressful. I think there was a missed opportunity with the subplot in season 2 around the spore beings, and Culber and I think that the spore beings should be pushing back on Discovery's intrusions because it's so uncomfortable to them, as well as the physical strain it puts on a navigator. I think once they bring Culber back there should have been an uneasy truce between the two and they allow Discovery only as a ship that can enter their space.

Yes, this 100%. I was flabbergasted that they didn't go this route.
What a gigantic missed opportunity.

I've always felt that season 1 could have worked if they had been upfront with audiences from the beginning and said this is a reimagination of Star Trek. It's NOT in the Prime Timeline.

I never thought, aside from the look of the Klingons, that it had any trouble working as a main timeline Trek series. Once you start branching off and splintering timelines and stuff, you've pretty much killed your franchise.
 
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