apologies in advance for the long winded post.
I'm finding it difficult to give an honest rating. It's not easy being objective with something like Star Trek, which I've felt so close to for so many years. For several months I was looking forward to watching this series and I fully expected to like it.
In the opening scene of the first episode they showed a wondrously cinematic view of an alien world and my heart beat a little faster, it was mouth watering eye candy. I thought that yes, this is what I've been waiting for... and then the dialog started. That was the first of many wtf moments. The delivery seemed stilted and unnatural (worthy of a comic book), and instead of me being immersed in the moment, I'm left analyzing it and trying to figure out what's wrong with this scene.
The weak dialog continued onto the bridge of the Shenzhou where I got the impression they did it in one take while reading off a teleprompter, and I'm thinking why didn't someone on the set stand up and say "Cut, OK lets try it again". So once again I'm analyzing and asking myself what's the problem - bad acting or a failure on the part of the director for not getting a better performance out of them.
In fairness to the actors, Michelle Yeoh's accent may not have been well suited to the part, and what I found adorable in Crouching Tiger I found irritating in Discovery. SMG's performance definitely did improve in later episodes - even masterful in certain scenes. However, those scenes were usually the emotional scenes between Burnham and Tyler, and unfortunately for me I personally dislike those sorts of scenes and would prefer to fast-forward through them.
For the most part I'm OK with SMG in the lead roll, It's the lead character itself that I have a problem with. I couldn't buy-in to the raised by Vulcans thing, firstly because I think it is illogical for a Vulcan to choose to raise a human child rather than turning it over to human authorities - for the good of the child. Just as I expect that if humans came across a orphaned Vulcan child they would return that child to Vulcan - because it would be the logical thing to do and even we humans are capable of logic. The only way I could see this making sense would be if Sarek's human wife Amanda insisted on adopting the child, in which case we could presume a strong relationship between Michael and Amanda, and yet we are supposed to believe that Human female child Michael developed a stronger relationship with a cold emotionless Vulcan father while human mother Amanda only played a peripheral role. This makes no sense to me.
Further on the Vulcan thing, it bothered me that they chose to use the Sarek character rather than coming up with a new original Vulcan character. To me that was cheap. I also didn't like the communication by telepathy over great distances. I don't think Star Trek needs more mysticism trumping science.
In trying to understand my dislike for the Burnham character I reached back to the past and gave some thought to Ro Laren from TNG. Ro won my sympathies from the start and I quickly found myself resenting Ryker's disapproval of her, but I never felt sympathetic to Michael Burnham and I thought she was being forgiven too easily. The difference I think is that Michael Burnham's fall from grace was entirely self inflicted. She made bad decisions and continued to make bad decisions and never seemed to learn anything from her mistakes, so I found myself wanting her to pay for those mistakes. Which ultimately results in me not wanting her character to be redeemed - I put that down to a failure of the writers who just did a very bad job with her - or conversely did a very good job of making her un-likeable.
As for the rest of the cast:
I liked Stamets at first when they presented him as an arrogant prick - I thought he was interesting and had a lot of potential. But laid back relaxed super nice Stamets became super uninteresting super quick.
Culber was underdeveloped. He seemed to only be there to serve as Stamets love interest, which is a shame because as chief medical officer his character had a lot of untapped potential. I could be wrong, I'm just going by memory, but I don't recall him being shown doing any actual doctoring other than with Stamets.
They put a little bit of effort into Tilly and she wasn't bad as a peripheral character, though I think if they over use her she will get old fast.
Cornwall, though not a member of the crew, was on often enough to be considered a regular. She was a strong and convincing character as befitted her rank, and was maybe what this show was mostly missing.
Lorca and Tyler I'm going to look at together because there was a common thread between them that I don't think a lot of people are getting. I think both characters had a lot of potential but were wasted by the writers who saw them only as tools to do some messaging. These were the only two straight human males in the show, and they were both exposed as having monsters within them. Both of them hiding their true natures. In Lorca's case, outwardly giving the appearance of being a nice guy, treating people with respect and even showing some acts of nobility - not a perfect man, but a man that most could relate to. Inside of course he was none of those things. He was full of hate and bigotry and otherwise a despicable human being. Now I may be reading too much into this, but I'm seeing it as the writers making a statement of what they really think of the average human male, and it's part of an underlying anti-male bias in Discovery. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's what I see.
Saru, the guy in the plastic suit, was ironically the best fleshed out character. He was mostly delightful and could have fit in with any of the best Trek characters from past shows and movies.
Unfortunately the rest of the bridge crew isn't worth mentioning as the writers did nothing to develop those characters untapped potential.
The Klingon war? We saw so little of it - again untapped potential.
Mirror universe? I thought it had a Buck Rogers in the 25th Century vibe to it, if anyone remembers that show. A little too campy for my liking.
The ending? Didn't work for me. It was just another bad decision by Burnham. Up until that point in the show nothing had been presented to suggest that L'Rell could be a partner for peace. You can argue that Tyler knew L'Rell and told them all they needed to know, except that you've got to show that decision making process to make it believable. And let's not forget Tyler isn't Tyler and can't be totally trusted. As well, Klingon grievances have not been addressed, the Federation will still be encroaching on Klingon territory and threatening Klingon culture with long term assimilation. So as I see it the war continues.
What they could have done to make it believable, would be if Cornwall kept control of the bomb. They inform the Klingons of the situation and leverage it to force a Klingon pull back and a negotiated settlement. That would have worked for me.
I'm not going to mention MU Georgiou - well OK, maybe I will, even though I don't want to go there. This is where Michelle Yeoh excelled. I wasn't crazy about her as the good Philipa, but I loved her as the evil Emperor.
I'm not going to touch the speech at the end - I have a theory about it but it is too contentious and best to be avoided.
How do I rate it? Well it's not a 10/10 and it's not a 1/10. I would like to give it a 5 but I don't think that would be fair. I did watch it every week. I looked forward to watching it, but it wasn't so much because I was enjoying it, rather it was because I was hopeful that it could still develop into something good. In a way I was watching and hoping to see redemption - redemption of the show itself
I'm giving it a 7/10. The two extra points are for hope, I still have hope. Isn't there a saying that hope is the last thing to die. I heard that somewhere.
To those people who loved this show I just want to say "Great" and I'm happy for you. You got the Star Trek you wanted. I on the other hand didn't get the Star Trek I wanted, and that's just my tough luck.
