Your postmortem thoughts on DISCO

[F. King Daniel]

Michael being Spock's secret sister is the most fanfic trope ever, but I really loved the flashbacks and sibling squabbling and Beard Spock absolutely hating Sarek.

Thus I give it a pass. The Red Angel stuff would have worked better with a long term Bad Wolf-style foreshadowing but I still liked it even though it made little sense.

Just rewarched "Face the Strange" and it's the best episode of season 5 so far.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Neighbour or school rival, maybe cousin would have created a bit more distance.

 

[BillJ]

I've been watching some episodes I hadn't seen. I still think it was a great cast, the show did have some interesting ideas, but clumsy/poor execution sinks it.

 

[CetiAlphanEel]

Liked some of it, hated most of it. Have never rewatched it.

 

[fireproof78]

Liked about 50 percent of it. Often rewatch certain episodes.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I've watched all of it at least twice.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

I've watched the first four seasons twice, the second being right before S5 premiered. Maybe I'll do a full rewatch with S5 for the show's tenth anniversary. In the meantime, this was my assessment from last watch:

Both the first two seasons have relatively strong first halves then absolutely shit the bed during the second half. This was worse in S2, because I really thought the first half of that season was a true upshot from S1 overall. I thought the show had finally right the ship there. The breaking point for me was the episode where the cyborg officer sacrificed herself. After that, it felt like the show was trying to coast on the emotional attachment to the characters above all else and hope we go along with the dumb plot development.

S3 was intriguing, but I really didn't care for that Orion antagonist, and the revelation of that crying Kelpian being the reason for the Burn just felt too saccharine. So again a strong first half followed by a weaker second half, but not as awful as the first two seasons. This made me worry about the show repeating this structural pattern.

S4 was where I felt like it was the most Trek in all the ways that are good. I love the fact that there's no season villain again. That felt so refreshing for Disco. It's not a great season, but rather just a solid one from beginning to end.

S5 I didn't like as much, but the inclusion of the new first officer Rayner felt like a real shot in the arm that the cast needed in their dynamic. He felt like a character we really should have had ever since S3 who represents an officer that had lived in the darker times of the Federation and still had value in a new era of Federation restoration. In a way he's kind of a replacement of Stamets, who used to be an asshole I liked in earlier seasons before changing into the guy that gives pep talks to junior officers.

In the end, the show is a really mixed bag overall that I at least liked more towards its last two seasons. Its greatest weakness is that it never consistently reached those high notes of previous shows. The best episode of the show would be a 8/10 at best compared to great episodes of other shows.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

the revelation of that crying Kelpian being the reason for the Burn just felt too saccharine.

It's the kind of plot that would have worked better had it been a lone episode in an episodic series where the hero ship investigates a mysteriously empty/damaged area of space.

 

[BetaZ]

DNF. I found season 1 and 2 super exciting and I always watched them as they came out, but honestly it was mainly because it was the first new Trek to come out in my lifetime since I watched the broadcast era shows, and I got caught up in the excitement of it. It was very watchable though and quite fun so I carried on with it until that daft soft reboot they did in season 3. I was more attached to the setting than to any of the characters by about a parsec, so throwing the setting away killed the show for me.

TOS was originally interesting because it was set in an optimistic future. TNG built upon that setting by genuinely showing us how things progressed from there in the near-ish future; it was a useful and engaging change of scenery but kept us close to what we know and love.

If DIS had done the same it could have been lovable (though not guaranteed to be fresh/interesting), but when season 3 was airing I felt like the intention wasn't to show a new era in the trek universe, it was to throw away the established setting to give the writers more room to write what was essentially a fan fiction

For all I know, it was the smartest / only move given the mixed reactions to the first two seasons (and IMO the difficult task of integrating what they'd written with actual established canon which contradicts it all).

For all I know as well, maybe DIS got better during / after season 3. Maybe they decided to revisit the missing 500 years of the timeline to provide more context and make the time jump bear a more useful load. But realistically, with how short and action-focused the seasons were, I doubt they will have had enough room to make it remotely satisfying. I'd kill for just one more long-running trek show with a good 24-30, 30-minute episodes per season.

DIS did have some good things going for it. I liked a lot of the characters at first, even if character progression was a bit flat/obvious for many of them. I enjoyed the style and set work of the whole show, the action was good. The writing/characters felt a bit more human overall than I usually expect from Trek.

My ratings

TOS: C
TNG: B+
DS9: A
VOY: B
ENT: C+
DIS: E
SNW: C
PIC: D, E, D+
LDS: B+

 

[SpockOfNine]

If DIS had done the same it could have been lovable (though not guaranteed to be fresh/interesting), but when season 3 was airing I felt like the intention wasn't to show a new era in the trek universe, it was to throw away the established setting to give the writers more room to write what was essentially a fan fiction

To be fair, this could easily be said of TNG, which purposefully placed the show a 70+ years in the future so that Roddenberry and the writers could have maximum creative freedom and do pretty much anything they wanted with the lore of the franchise.

 

[fireproof78]

To be fair, this could easily be said of TNG, which purposefully placed the show a 70+ years in the future so that Roddenberry and the writers could have maximum creative freedom and do pretty much anything they wanted with the lore of the franchise.

Because that's what TNG did.

 

[BetaZ]

To be fair, this could easily be said of TNG, which purposefully placed the show a 70+ years in the future so that Roddenberry and the writers could have maximum creative freedom and do pretty much anything they wanted with the lore of the franchise.

I hinted at this in the paragraph before that, but I felt 70 years was quite reasonable. It's long enough for some small cultural and historical changes to percolate through, but not so long that history has been forgotten / made irrelevant. Perfect setup for a sequel series, especially when you factor in the realtime gap between both series. And in TNG's case, they had lots of time to acknowledge and pay service to the missing decades, at least some.

500 years by comparison is long enough not just for history to have moved on, but for chunks of it to have been forgotten, rewritten, or just become irrelevant. I won't say that this is an inherently bad setup for a sequel series, but the seasons of DIS I watched were very action-heavy and while I could be surprised if I watched the rest of the show, I don't yet see how DIS would have time to re-establish canon in a new era. That's why I say it's obvious to me what their intentions there were because unless they were planning for a much longer run, I don't see what purpose the time jump would serve.

 

[Jcyberinc]

I enjoyed the first season, got what I could out of seasons two through four, and have not been able to get through the first episode of season five. It felt like a parody of itself.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Just finished season 5 for the second time.


I REALLY miss the Discovery of seasons one to three. This was a real struggle.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I preferred season 5 to season 3, but season 4 was the best of the show's 32nd century seasons.

 

[fireproof78]

, I don't yet see how DIS would have time to re-establish canon in a new era

Because it's all new. They're nothing there written. Just the potential aftermath of various Temporal Wars and time travelers from post 25th century.

 

[SpockOfNine]

I preferred season 5 to season 3, but season 4 was the best of the show's 32nd century seasons.

Season 4 had the best balance of long and short form stories as well as interesting character dynamics.

Just finished season 5 for the second time.


I REALLY miss the Discovery of seasons one to three. This was a real struggle.

Season 5 was a classic case of butter scraped over too much bread. The narrative it aped was contained to two really well written episodes in TNG. Taking that concept and spreading it across 10 diluted the narrative.

 

[Quantum21]

I've rewatched some scattered episodes, then sort of fell into a season 2 rewatch...even better than I remembered. I went through it so fast I wanted to see it again.

Season 5 is still the pinnacle for me. Pretty much everything I could ask for in the franchise. I'm waiting to rewatch it again for a special time later this year to celebrate, after the 60th festivities and SNW, but before Starfleet Academy Season 2, which I presume we'll get in January/February.

 

[NuBoo2u2]

I've rewatched some scattered episodes, then sort of fell into a season 2 rewatch...even better than I remembered. I went through it so fast I wanted to see it again.

Season 5 is still the pinnacle for me. Pretty much everything I could ask for in the franchise. I'm waiting to rewatch it again for a special time later this year to celebrate, after the 60th festivities and SNW, but before Starfleet Academy Season 2, which I presume we'll get in January/February.

DS9 will always be my favorite Trek. That being said, Discovery wasn't that bad. It had both it's good moments and bad moments. Season 5 was definitely one of its best moments to me. Moll & L'ak were very interesting and compelling characters, we got to see what the Breen look like, and it had a decent story arc. I still think the " mycelial network" was one of the less believable and overpowering ideas in all of Trekdom though.

 

[StarMan]

S4 was where I felt like it was the most Trek in all the ways that are good. I love the fact that there's no season villain again.

Species 10-C are one of the best villains for how they so completely pulled the wool over everyone's eyes - the crew and the viewer alike.

They'll be back in the 42nd century to top their omega reserves again.