Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x13 - "Coming Home"

Yup. Exactly how I feel.

 

I completely disagree. While there has been complaints, it is not nearly as bad as Season 1 or Season 2 Sorry, it's not, by a long shot. A lot of praise for those seasons were always couched or had a razor blade inside them; "It did this well but it really isn't very good Star Trek." This season, while overly long for the story presented, had people go "This is very good Star Trek storytelling." Long time hold outs who (for some reason continued watching it) giving high marks. The most consistent complaint I've seen it it is overly long. That's it. Not any of the stream of vitriol that Seasons 1 and 2 endured.

This season wasn't great for me. But, it is very Trek in its story, style and execution. And it has resonated with a lot more people than earlier seasons did, at least by my read. Not just as a fun show, but as Star Trek.

 

The episodes polls posted here for every episode say otherwise.

It's just a vocal minority beeing more upset.

 

I can confirm this is my experience. I liked the first two seasons of Discovery, but season four is so, so unenjoyable to me. It's absolutely my least favourite season of Star Trek. To say I hate it is an understatement.

 

I liked Discovery in the past. While Season 4 is definite hit or miss for me, hatred is a strong word. I "hate" TNG more than Season 4, and that's really not a hate so much as a general disinterest.

But, as someone who liked Discovery since Season 1, this season finale made it work. It reminded me of Season one where they had to bridge differences and make contact. And it wasn't through destruction but actual connection. Do I prefer Season 1? Yeah, I do. Can Season 4 work for me? Now, yes, that I have it as basically a singular episode to focus on.

 

I'm fine with a slow pace, I just wish they spent the extra time actually developing long-form character arcs for folks not named Michael. Saru spending an entire season trying to get a date just doesn't cut it for me, and the other characters had even less to do.

Characters talked about their feelings a lot over the course of this season true. A whole goddamned lot. But what they didn't do is face down individual challenges and come out of them as changed people. This is the core of good character writing, and there was enough time across the season that they could have given clear arcs to Saru/Tilly/Stamets/Culber/Adira. Instead Saru gets a girlfriend, Tilly gets actual character development, but is written off the show by the fourth episode, and everyone else stagnates.

IMHO good character writing is the most key element of storytelling. If you construct a good character arc, people will be engaged in your story despite plot holes. Look at how much people loved Spiderman: No Way Home for example, which had the most contrived/stupid plot in existence. Season 4 had (for the first time) a coherent character arc for Michael which was core to the season, and made me finally appreciate her more as a character. But it did nothing for anyone else, sidelining most of the regulars for guests like Tarka, Rillak, T'Rina, Ndoye, etc.

 

Ah, I envy you. The finale really slammed the final nail in the coffin for me.

 

Meh.

Then it's time to move on. Not all Trek is for all people. At least for me, Trek is about 50/50 for what I actually enjoy (TOS, DSC, DS9, LDish) vs. stuff I find I avoid (TNG, VOY, ENT, PIC).

 

Way ahead of you.

 

What we hate is tepid writing.

A snippet from this review sums it up pretty well, I think.

 

Star Trek is not about good writing. Easter eggs are more important.

Minor hyperbole.

ETA: But, I don't think the "we" in here is accurate. Largely because the bigger themes of Discovery are acceptable as long as the Easter eggs and tone are done "correctly" i.e. in line with past Trek feels.

 

Maybe that's a key differentiator in satisfaction with this season, in that I have no desire for everyone to have a full-season arc. But what I did want is for everyone to be used more and better than 1-3, and that I saw plenty of. In terms of full-season arcs, there were great ones for Burnham, Book, Saru, Rillak, and T'Rina. On top of that, Tilly, Gray, Culber, Zora, and Ndoye had great arcs that ran for part of the season. And Stamets, Adira, Reno, Kovich, and Vance had great stories within specific episodes.

That's kind of my ideal -- everyone is getting used, in arcs of different sizes, in mixes of established and new characters. I think the variety really helps the show as well. Everyone having their own season arc would probably be less interesting and more monotonous to me.

I just don't think that's a fair characterization of that story. There was significantly more going on.

I thought there were abundant examples of this as well. Everyone in my full-arc list.

But it underscores why I don't want the full cast to always have these kinds of season arcs. Who wants every character to fundamentally change every year? That's so forced. Those rules seem a little "movie" or "novel" to me. With TV, sometimes you want to do stories with the characters as they are now. That's what makes a good TV character, they're interesting enough to examine from various angles over many episodes, without having to constantly transform them in response to challenges. Obviously there will be change and evolution and progression over the life of the series, but not every character every year.

 

When Stacey Abrams was revealed as the President of Earth, I thought, "Oh, the anti-wokeness brigade are gonna lose their shit over this." Then the camera panned back from Earth so that only Africa filled the entire globe, and I was like *Chef's kiss*. Perfection.

That was a pretty damn good finale. They stuck the landing. It really made up for a lot of mediocre episodes we had to sit through along the way.

The reveal of the 10-C aliens was impressive, and I like how they used. I think it was Carl Sagan's in Contact(?), idea for a gas giant lifeform, which was essentially a huge floating gasbag with jellyfish-like tentacles hanging down. They looked a bit like a super-sized Portuguese Man-o-War.



I thought for sure when they were talking about needing an expert pilot to kamikaze into Book's ship that Michael was going to suddenly pull that skillset out of her hat too, so it was a pleasant surprise when she immediately turned to Detmer and asked if she could do it. Even Detmer seemed surprised. She's like "Oh, sure, NOW you finally follow the President's advice to delegate instead of taking the fate of the galaxy on your shoulder's alone. Thanks." But she stepped up and then was saved by the bell by General Ndoye.

I think it was a bit of a copout that they teased so many deaths only to have the people wind up being okay, except Tarka. They should have sacrificed Detmer, Ndoye, or Book to give it some real stakes. I mean, it was obvious Book wasn't dead when they just showed the transporter dissipate, but that collision between the two ships didn't kill anyone? 'Tis but a fleshwound!

It would have been nice to get more of an idea what kind of damage was going on on Earth and how much of the debris was penetrating the planetary shields. It looked like pretty substantial rocks made it through the shield. Titan Colony is all messed up, but it was evacuated completely first. Mars and Jupiter Station must have been out of the line of fire.

I was starting to groan as Michael called the President aside right as the crisis was happening, expecting another heartfelt sharing of emotions and a sappy speech, but she actually called her aside to address a "double-agent" among the diplomats. Then General Ndoye just comes forward and takes credit. Respect.

I'm all for forgiveness, and his change of heart and cooperation at the very end should be taken into account, but I think Book got off just a little bit too easy. Working to resettle refugees sounds like the job he would have been doing anyway, and Michael is simply a spore jump away, unless they forget that they have Tarka's new spore drive blueprints on file and restrict the ship to whatever the conventional warp speed limit is in the 32nd century now.

The episode featured the classic Trek story of contact with a species so alien it's difficult to even find a frame of reference to communicate on. I applaud the unconventional, I just wish the execution up till now had been smoother.

Good conclusion to a lackluster season.

 

It's interesting because as someone who despised season 1 and was lukewarm on season 2 and 3 at best, season 4 was a definite improvement even with the nitpicky problems I had with it and in isolation, I'd probably rank it above VOY and ENT at least.

I don't know if getting braids is the new growing a beard or shaving your head, but it's like a total evolution of the show from its very shaking introduction into something excellent.

 

Something else I loved about this episode -- the destruction of Book's ship!

Among my fairly small complaints about this season, an overreliance on Book's ship was one of them. There was no situation for which it's morphing capabilities were not the perfect solution! I'm glad the writers took that crutch away from themselves.

 

Super end to the season. Very much captures the heart and soul of Trek and generally well executed. I loved Species 10C, for a show about new life and new civilisation, Trek’s approach to new species has invariably been unimaginative—at least from TNG onward (despite its lesser budget TOS could be much more creative). In fact, I can still never forgive VOY for making the Delta Quadrant so dull and generic with its bumpy-forehead-of-the-week aliens week in, week out. Great stuff, and I love the Trekkian themes. Book’s apparent death and resurrection actually had a fair amount of emotional weight, although he definitely got off lightly for his extensive crimes.

Loved seeing Tilly back and seeing how far she’s come as a character (please bring her back in season 5; Adira can be demoted to bridge crew status because they are nowhere near as interesting as they initially promised to be). Glad to see an expanded role for Vance and I love that Rillick didn’t turn out to be the villain many initially suspected she’d be. Uplifting ending, with Earth rejoining the Federation and loved the final pull away shot of Earth.

Tarka’s fate seemed a bit unfinished, Is it possible he escaped or also got pulled away by 10C? Again, I’m pleased that our antagonist had some more nuanced motivation and wasn’t just bad for bad’s sake.

overall, pacing issues aside, I believe this season will be looked back on favourably —if not now, then in time. It has reminded me a fair bit of my favourite Trek movie, TMP. That’s a film that could also have had an hour sheared off it, but I nevertheless love every second of it.

 

Even some people who have been labelled woke are not to happy. My main concern would be who comes next. What happens when the next political guest appearance is someone a bit less noble or a bit more controversial amongst left wing fans.

 

I'm not even a fan of Stacey Abrams, I have issues with any number of her political choices, but I thought she did a fine job. Star Trek never stopped commenting on our social order. People who are dismissing the newer stuff as woke haven't been paying attention since the 1960s.

There will be some occasional cringe, like the nod to Elon Musk as some kind of innovator and iconoclast, because he's a douchecanoe, but no one can really tell the future, or what we'll learn about a once respected personality. So we have to work with what we have here and now, and hope it holds up.

 

Well, some of our beloved recurring actors of the past have subsequently gone full-crazy, and we're still enjoying the reruns.

 

Hell, I love Firefly, and I hate what I've learned about Adam Baldwin and Joss Whedon, and yet I still love the show, and can enjoy the people in it as they are. With Harry Potter, my admiration of JK Rowling no longer exists, but Daniel, Rupert, and Emma are fine people, and I still enjoy the films.