It’ll be fine when this all turns out to be Spock’s fever dream because, hey, that Enterprise finale.
Spoilers A big hint about the finale/season 3 has dropped...
- Thread starter eschaton
- Start date
It’ll be fine when this all turns out to be Spock’s fever dream because, hey, that Enterprise finale.
From what I've seen, these types of criticisms happen when something isn't to the viewer's taste, and they're just looking for something to complain about and trying to blame DSC for coming up with it totally out of the blue, having apparently forgotten what was already solidly established in previous Trek canon... such as, "Ohhhh, Boreth is SOOO stupid! There's NO such place, Klingons aren't supposed to have religion and monks!!!!11"
Kor
Last edited:
Mostly it's just pointing out that DISCO is just being Star Trek.
Depends on what you think the "good bits" are. There might be people who like Threshhold or Spock's Brain.
I’d hate to think Discovery’s bar is “stuff that sucked even in the era of Gilligan’s Island and the Flying Nun.”
Well, TNG is set as the gold standard by many, so the bar for the first 29 eps is indeed not that high if one wants to make a fair comparison. And in that case, one has to ask why TNG is indeed the Gold Standard if so.
Last edited:
Huh?
I think the issue is the feeling from those who like the show, that those who are giving a Discovery a hard time are giving the other spin-offs a free pass for making the same mistakes or generally looking back on the franchise with rose tinted glasses. Since Discovery came on the air, I've seen a lot of people suddenly liking Enterprise and using it as an example of what Discovery should be. I remember when everyone HATED Enterprise.
Funny thing is all of this has happened before (with TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT) and will happen again when Trek is redone in another 25 years and everyone 'forgets' how much they hated discovery.
I expect more of a TV show made now than one made 20, 30 or 50+ years ago. “But TOS did it!” Is a poor excuse when the low points of that series are awful even by the standards of its era. (And I say that as someone who loves TOS above all its successors.)
While I absolutely acknowledge that there are people looking to complain about things, that's not at all what this conversation was about: The end of all life in the universe (multiverse) is silly because of the reasons listed above.
Other Treks have had issues with Stakes, absolutely. It was silly when the Enterprise was near earth and somehow the only ship in range. That's a legit criticism of many older Trek stories. If DSC does it, it will be a legit criticism of a DSC.
There is nothing wrong with holding a new show to a higher standard. DSC is standing on the shoulders of giants, so it's great when they do great, and kind of inexcusable when some elements are as well handled as Spock's Brain.
Boreth makes lots of sense, by the by. The degree to which it matches previous continuity... there's definitely room for argument (though I personally like the way DSC treated it).
But how much "more" does Discovery have to be to be viewed of as "equal" to shows made 20,30,50 years ago?
To be fair, I don't see too many people clamoring for a return to 'Spock's Brain' and often feel it goes the other way with TOS. It would not surprise me one bit if there are fans out there who think the talosian singing plants as they were presented in 'if memory serves' are not canon because they don't look like they are made out of tissue paper.
If the only defense of a badly done element in a show in 2019 is to say that a show made in the 1960s (or even the 1990s) did the same thing, that's not really a defense.
More often, I see people using DSC to shit on other Treks, ie the "looks like cardboard" argument, which is patently absurd.
More often, I see people using DSC to shit on other Treks, ie the "looks like cardboard" argument, which is patently absurd.
But how does any new trek show even have a chance if the the best of past shows is considered a bare passing grade for the new one along with all the other critical grading it gets like for fashion, lighting, who gets the most lines etc.?
I want it to be good to the standards of modern TV, not to the standards of Trek shows made long ago — shows that were often as much miss as hit. I want it to be way, way better than Voyager, for example, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be.
Again it depends on what each person thinks is "awful". Me, I'm not a fan of "Spock's Brain" or "The Alternative Factor". So I wouldn't like DISCO to emulate them. Other fans may have a different opinion.
Quite naturally. Nothing on TOS looked like cardboard. Everyone knows things looked like papier mâché.
I think this is the crux of the issue. Why should DSC be held to higher standard then previous spin-offs? What specific reason makes it different and therefore worthy of greater criticism? It's the arbitrariness that I think a lot of people take issue with.
The cardboard complaint usually only comes up when people complain that Discovery doesn't visually look like the TOS vision of the future and more like today's vision of the future.
As for elements, most top 100 episodes of Trek I still see sets TOS with a far higher representation than all following series, which suggests the argument that it is riddled with badly handled elements compared to later series under some suspicion, IMO.
Because it has an unprecedented budget, doesn’t need to fill a season of 26 episodes, has no fixed airdate and is competing in an era of sophisticated, prestige television that isn’t judged by 1960s (or 1990s) standards. Also, CBS is charging me for the privilege of watching it.
AFAIC, it is far better than Voyager in pretty much every single way imaginable. But obviously, others disagree with me. I watch just about every genre show on TV, and I consider Disco in the top 20%.
