Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x08 - "All In"

Maybe DSC is just fairly run of the mill no matter what they try do.

Or maybe people just want Founders to be goo.

 

Keep in mind that the fanbase is diverse. There are older fans who long for the glory days of TOS and TNG. There might be fans of the JJ Abrams movies who want to see more action and adventure. You might also have fans who want to see more serialization and some fans who want more standalone stories. You might have fans who just want to be entertained, and other fans who want be intellectually challenged. I don't think it it is the same group of fans who complain about serialization not being fun and complain about light episodes being filler.

 

Given that this is Trek, the planet destroyer will have a “good reason” for destroying planets like the survival of its own species/universe/timeline and Michael be called upon to make a “heart wrenching choice” in the penultimate episode. Tarka probably needs all that power to get to his favored universe and will double cross Book, who will have to decide at the last minute to help Star Fleet to save the universe.

I’d actually prefer a surprise and a straight up enemy that doesn’t care who they kill.

This wasn’t a terrible episode. I enjoyed the casino scenes and the poker game and Owosekun’s conversation with Tarka more than I did her boxing match. I suppose the Xindi might have evolved into the enemy species or might have joined forces with the Changelings.

 

I didn't think this was an awful episode, but I rated it a 6, which is the lowest rating I have given this season. It just...wasn't that interesting. As I said, I thought in some ways it hung together better than other episodes this season (no extraneous B/C plots to keep secondary characters in the spotlight) but the execution wasn't that entertaining to me.

Trek has of course done "heist" style stories before. IMHO those outings were much more entertaining. Even something more recent like Stardust City Rag (an episode I enjoyed less overall) leaned into the campiness of the whole thing and tried to have some fun. Everything here is a bit too on the nose for me.

 

What they want is it to be exactly like the past.

 

I voted "7". The casino parts were ok but nothing great. IMO, the best part of the episode was the ending where we got some new info on the DMA.

 

I like ST: prodigy and Lower Decks just fine.

I would have liked for Disco writers to have created a more meaningful technologically and scientifically developed environment for the 32nd century (aka Type III and Type IV civilization stuff for UFP by emphasizing/showcasing a decent approximation of exponential developments and returns - there is plenty of material out there that could have been adapted for Trek in the 32nd century) and find some kind of 'balance' in regards to emotional display (as oppossed to a massive emotional rollelcoaster we got - with I don't know, perhas more 'competence' from Disco crew? They behaved more professionally and capable in the first 2 seasons, so S3 and 4 seem to have just eroded their common sense among other things).

 

You're looking at the wrong Franchise then.

 

Trek can EASILY be used for what I described... in fact, things alluded that the UFP was headed into that direction... and then... nothing.
If you ask me its just poor writing on the part of Disco writers (they even made synth body tech virtually non-viable for anyone 'just because').
At least Prodigy made an effort to take what happened before and showcase some meaningful development in the form of the Protostar and Dauntless for example (and in only 5 years since VOY returned) and the show developers actually make an EFFORT in explaining a few things (or at least as much as they can without divulging too much).

Now THAT's some proper progress in universe wise if you ask me coupled with just better writing.

Discovery on the other hand... it was meh since it arrived in the 32nd century (sans perhaps Zora - which is maybe 1 element out of how many?).
Too much emphasis on personal drama and emotions running wild as opposed to the actual story.
I don't mind character development (in fact I applaud it), but there's a nuance on how to handle emotions in live action as opposed to being all over the place like it has been for Disco.

 

Been that way for a while.

 

Burnham has already lost Georgou and lots of other stuff, We don’t need more Burnham tears, I want to see captian Burnham more.

 

Captains can cry too.

 

The founders only turn into goo at will or due to injury, when they are exposed we have seen changelings revert to the Odo face like Laas, the Female Changeling, the ambassador changeling ect. The use of the term ‘changeling’ (capitalised and the Odo face points to it being the founder species from DS9

 

And they already have, tragedy for tragedy’s sake is pointless and we have enough real Burnham tragedies we don’t need more. Burnham needs to be stabilised and established by this point not thrown into further disarray.

 

Crying isn't being destabilized.

 

Babylon V was definitely THE master for that, but if you look at it it had two things that discovery solery lacks.

1. Internal coherence. Plenty of times it’s pretty obvious that the writers here have a cool idea, want to get from A to D but never took the time to figure out B and C, so you get episodes like this one and the preceding and deeply unsatisfying season endings, when the big mystery that has been hyped all season turns out not being that interesting or make much sense. Having a single individual with a single vision and a more or less written plan in charge certainly helped here B5, of course.

2. each B5 episode had an internal arc, with a beginning, a middle and an end. They could be seen as single episodes an would work anyway, but seen together they built a bigger story. LDS and prodigy are written this way, discovery and Picard aren’t. This invariably leaves me with a sense of incompleteness, as if I turned up the tv mid episode and shut it down before the ending.

By the way, B5 DID lose both these things in the very last few episodes before the finale, when they had run out of material and episodes dragged on without a real purpose, not unlike certain discovery episodes.

 

Yes I have. She left that prisoner behind for example. But this is a galaxy threatening event AND THEY STOLE CLASSIFIED FEDERATION TECH so maybe she should be a bit more aggressive.

 

For what it's worth Kirk in TOS routinely used seduction and humor to obtain the information and tech he needed and only resorted to throwing punches and blowing things up if he were forced to.