Discovery focusing on a main mc/smaller crew could've worked well on a smaller ship

[MikHutch]

Despite not being a big Discovery fan, I'm not here to bash it, or its fans (so let's be civil, guys). This is more of a What If kind of post

but I recently thought about how some fans criticize Discovery for not focusing enough on a wider cast, or how some bridge crew are barely realized as characters. I sometimes feel that way too, but I also remember most Star Trek shows aren't great with ensembles (serioulsy, TOS Uhura barely is a character). Only DS9 and SNW really do this well of the live action shows

But I thought: if Discovery was based on a smaller ship, rather than the typical bigger flagship like TOS/TNG were, it might fit that kind of focus on one main hero + smaller crew. Either it could've been on a starship akin to the Defiant Class (I'd actually love to see a TOS-era ancestor of the Defiant Class), or a Danube Class/Millennium Falcon style ship.

Even outside of Discovery, I think a new ST series in either of those settings could succeed, with a smaller crew, thus not necessitating a large, fleshed out ensemble.

 

[fireproof78]

But I thought: if Discovery was based on a smaller ship, rather than the typical bigger flagship like TOS/TNG were, it might fit that kind of focus on one main hero + smaller crew. Either it could've been on a starship akin to the Defiant Class (I'd actually love to see a TOS-era ancestor of the Defiant Class), or a Danube Class/Millennium Falcon style ship.

It's why I think a colony type show, with a ground base and then a smaller ship could work really well. You could have the main hero (the ship captain), the secondary lead (colony leader), and then the smaller support staff.

 

[Daedalus]

Despite not being a big Discovery fan, I'm not here to bash it, or its fans (so let's be civil, guys). This is more of a What If kind of post

but I recently thought about how some fans criticize Discovery for not focusing enough on a wider cast, or how some bridge crew are barely realized as characters. I sometimes feel that way too, but I also remember most Star Trek shows aren't great with ensembles (serioulsy, TOS Uhura barely is a character). Only DS9 and SNW really do this well of the live action shows

But I thought: if Discovery was based on a smaller ship, rather than the typical bigger flagship like TOS/TNG were, it might fit that kind of focus on one main hero + smaller crew. Either it could've been on a starship akin to the Defiant Class (I'd actually love to see a TOS-era ancestor of the Defiant Class), or a Danube Class/Millennium Falcon style ship.

Even outside of Discovery, I think a new ST series in either of those settings could succeed, with a smaller crew, thus not necessitating a large, fleshed out ensemble.

There could've been some mileage to the idea of Burnham remaining as a courier in a distant future without the Federation. How would someone with 23rd century ideals navigate a galaxy in turmoil?
A small ship (maybe Book's), fewer crew members helping where they can and hoping to inspire others to do better along the way, sounds like a good setup for a show.

 

[Citiprime]

I remember re-watching the pilot and thinking how much I wished the show was based aboard the USS Shenzhou and used the Walker-class as the "hero-ship," with the initial dynamics of that crew, (i.e., Georgiou as captain, Burnham the XO, Saru as basically the Data/third-in-line, etc.) as the basis for Discovery.

Have the Prime Universe Georgiou survive, and let her be the captain. And instead of Burnham's story being a redemption tale of someone who makes a horrible mistake, let her story be that of a first officer who finds herself more and more conflicted between her loyalty to Captain Georgiou's belief in Federation values, and someone like Lorca who advocates a more militarized and aggressive Starfleet in the face of increasing threats.

 

[cultcross]

To me, to achieve a focus on support/minor staff, it's less about the setting and more about the stories. If your stories are about what the ship does, well the protagonist has to be the one making the choices to drive the story, so they almost inevitably end up the Captain. Otherwise they're just along for someone else's story. If you want a show about the science officer and the team in the lab (for example), you have to tell stories about them where their choices are the driving force in the narrative. Discovery seemed to want to do this proto-Lower Decks thing, but then the stories were all galactic peril stuff requiring the big decisions on the bridge to take primacy - pushing Lorca, and then Pike, into the position of lead. In turn this made the show's focus on Burnham seem off kilter. They went through a phase of always separating her from the ship so that she could be the protagonist in a side quest. The show got more coherent when her position in story matched the story they wanted to tell.

 

[MikHutch]

It's why I think a colony type show, with a ground base and then a smaller ship could work really well. You could have the main hero (the ship captain), the secondary lead (colony leader), and then the smaller support staff.

I think that could definitely work. I'd actually like if that were the next ST series: a sort of spiritual successor to DS9 but set even further, with new aliens on a smaller ship

There could've been some mileage to the idea of Burnham remaining as a courier in a distant future without the Federation. How would someone with 23rd century ideals navigate a galaxy in turmoil?
A small ship (maybe Book's), fewer crew members helping where they can and hoping to inspire others to do better along the way, sounds like a good setup for a show.

Now that you mention it, they basically had the setup for that in s3.

To me, to achieve a focus on support/minor staff, it's less about the setting and more about the stories. If your stories are about what the ship does, well the protagonist has to be the one making the choices to drive the story, so they almost inevitably end up the Captain. Otherwise they're just along for someone else's story. If you want a show about the science officer and the team in the lab (for example), you have to tell stories about them where their choices are the driving force in the narrative. Discovery seemed to want to do this proto-Lower Decks thing, but then the stories were all galactic peril stuff requiring the big decisions on the bridge to take primacy - pushing Lorca, and then Pike, into the position of lead. In turn this made the show's focus on Burnham seem off kilter. They went through a phase of always separating her from the ship so that she could be the protagonist in a side quest. The show got more coherent when her position in story matched the story they wanted to tell.

That's true. I think the galaxy in peril thing, when done right, works better with a bigger crew

 

[evilchumlee]

A small ship (maybe Book's), fewer crew members helping where they can and hoping to inspire others to do better along the way, sounds like a good setup for a show.

As much I generally dislike Discovery, I *DO* like the idea of The Burn era and Couriers. I would 100% watch a show about a Courier doing Courier things. Hell, make a prequel show with Book's time as a Courier. I'm down.

Discovery seemed to want to do this proto-Lower Decks thing, but then the stories were all galactic peril stuff requiring the big decisions on the bridge to take primacy - pushing Lorca, and then Pike, into the position of lead. In turn this made the show's focus on Burnham seem off kilter.

This right here is the biggest failing of Discovery.

The concept was interesting, to focus on a main character who was not the Captain. Great idea. But then it turned into... "main character who is not the Captain, but also for some reason is the most important person to have ever lived in the universe of Star Trek and is always involved with universe ending threats and only Burnham can save it"

It just doesn't work. The show really needed to be closer to... Lower Decks... with a situation happening in what is almost an mostly unseen A-Plot, while the crew we are focusing on deals with a part of that plot and showing it from their perspective.

Having the main character we focus on, who is not the Captain or anyone who should be particularly important... ALSO be the main character who is critically important to every situation just falls flat. I do blame some of it on the writing of Burnham. Burnham should have really been more of a Mariner... competent, badass, but also not particularly important in the grand scheme of things and often her own worst enemy who is definitely not always right.

 

[Discovery McDiscoveryFace]

Despite not being a big Discovery fan, I'm not here to bash it, or its fans (so let's be civil, guys). This is more of a What If kind of post

but I recently thought about how some fans criticize Discovery for not focusing enough on a wider cast, or how some bridge crew are barely realized as characters. I sometimes feel that way too, but I also remember most Star Trek shows aren't great with ensembles (serioulsy, TOS Uhura barely is a character). Only DS9 and SNW really do this well of the live action shows

But I thought: if Discovery was based on a smaller ship, rather than the typical bigger flagship like TOS/TNG were, it might fit that kind of focus on one main hero + smaller crew. Either it could've been on a starship akin to the Defiant Class (I'd actually love to see a TOS-era ancestor of the Defiant Class), or a Danube Class/Millennium Falcon style ship.

Even outside of Discovery, I think a new ST series in either of those settings could succeed, with a smaller crew, thus not necessitating a large, fleshed out ensemble.

You're very right about DS9. An interesting exercise is to look at how many episodes the ensemblers have each been in. Grand Nagus Zek - 7. Kai Winn- 1. Brunt (F,C,A) - 7 Leeta - 16. .... they are all in either or 8% or 4% of episodes in fact.....

 

[Quantum21]

Despite not being a big Discovery fan, I'm not here to bash it, or its fans (so let's be civil, guys). This is more of a What If kind of post

but I recently thought about how some fans criticize Discovery for not focusing enough on a wider cast, or how some bridge crew are barely realized as characters. I sometimes feel that way too, but I also remember most Star Trek shows aren't great with ensembles (serioulsy, TOS Uhura barely is a character). Only DS9 and SNW really do this well of the live action shows

But I thought: if Discovery was based on a smaller ship, rather than the typical bigger flagship like TOS/TNG were, it might fit that kind of focus on one main hero + smaller crew. Either it could've been on a starship akin to the Defiant Class (I'd actually love to see a TOS-era ancestor of the Defiant Class), or a Danube Class/Millennium Falcon style ship.

Even outside of Discovery, I think a new ST series in either of those settings could succeed, with a smaller crew, thus not necessitating a large, fleshed out ensemble.

Discovery has lots of character development. The characters that don't get much development aren't the main cast, or even secondary cast...theyre background members like the bridge crew. It's really very simple to understand.

 

[DarKush]

If one considers this a problem at all, then I don't think it's one of ship size. ENT had some of the worst character development of any of the series and the NX-01 was one of the smaller hero ships. If anything, I think the problem was the shortened television seasons and a commitment to arc-based storytelling, which put story over character. Many of the other series had twenty plus episodes a season, and that almost begs to spread the wealth to avoid running out of things to write about for your main character.

I think DISCO needed more balance, but I don't consider it an ensemble series. This was a series about Michael Burnham, and they've done a pretty good job keeping the focus on her. However, with all the interesting characters they put around her, I do think it would've strengthened the series overall to have fleshed them out more throughout the series' run.

With the fifth season, for instance, I don't think Burnham needs to be on every away mission. It is definitely a Kirkian trait, and she does hail from that era, but she's in the 32nd century now, and it would be nice to see more evolution/adaptation from Burnham, and the rest of the crew, to those drastically changed circumstances than we got. Let be clear, I don't want Burnham sidelined either, but I would've liked to have seen them utilize more Discovery crew throughout.

I could see a comeback to my argument with SNW, though SNW comes after Discovery, and is seen by some as learning from DISCO's "mistakes" or incorporating the internet saying they wanted more episodic storytelling. SNW benefits from having some already preestablished characters, the biggest being Spock. So, there's less pressure to create an ensemble whole cloth. Creatively, SNW is a less ambitious series than DISCO as well. SNW does tweak things here or there, but it hasn't made the kind of big swings that DISCO did, if anything SNW is like a reaction to the big misses, or what some consider misses, of DISCO's first two seasons.

ST: Picard also had the advantage of using some preestablished characters. Picard is the most like DISCO in set up, but I would say tone as well, when it comes to new Trek. But it had the advantage of Jean-Luc Picard, Data, and picking up the pieces of a beloved television series as well as the TNG movies. So, it had less work to do when it came to character development.

Another rejoinder is Lower Decks, which I thought had a lot more character development across the board than any new live action Trek, and with less screen time. But to me, it's hard to judge because it's in a different medium. Further, Lower Decks was designed to be an ensemble series and DISCO wasn't.

Prodigy was the most like the old Trek series in that it got twenty something episodes its first season to spotlight its ensemble.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I don't think it's the size of the ship that's the problem, in fact it's pretty crucial to Burnham's arc of starting off at the bottom and working her way back up to the top.

The trouble is that the producers wanted the show to focus on an atypical set of characters, a cadet, a genius inventor, a courier etc. and still be about a Star Trek crew solving problems. Stick Book at the helm and Adira at ops and those problems go away. They already made Stamets the de facto chief engineer and Culber the CMO/counsellor by having no one else show up to do the jobs.

 

[Citiprime]

I think an aspect to consider about Discovery is reportedly Bryan Fuller's original intention was for it to be something of an anthology series, where similar to American Horror Story, each season would jump to a new setting, with new characters, and have a new focus. So when all the behind-the-scenes kerfuffle led to changing showrunners and story edits, they basically took an idea for the story of a character that may have originally been intended to last only a single season and have stretched it.

But with the material they started with, they were locked in to the idea of this being a show focused on the story of the main character, instead of an ensemble. The basic dynamics of Discovery reminds me a lot of how Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer functions in 24. There's a big threat that might destroy everything each season, it's very serialized across a single season, there are side characters that seem interesting and may appear in one season but disappear in the next, because everything is focused around Jack Bauer. There are supporting characters which are memorable, just like Saru, Stametts, and Book are for Michael's journey, but they exist to service the focus on Jack Bauer's struggles.

I think whether a person likes 24 or Discovery hinges on how they feel about Michael or Jack Bauer. If you like those characters, you like watching them kick ass and take names, and the shows are basically action set-pieces where the focus on the main character's personal situation is part of the appeal. But if you don't really like/care for those characters, then all of the absurdities of their situations stick out and bother you.

What exacerbates the issue for Discovery is that since it exists within the Star Trek universe, if you don't like the focus on Michael, people point to the other Trek shows and say "well, why can't they do it that way?" when it was never intended to do it that way to begin with.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Yeah, but in 24 the writers gave Bauer's ops officer more screen time in later seasons when the fans took an interest in her

 

[DarKush]

24 is an interesting way to look at it, though 24 did have 24 episodes per season, and they also at times gave substantial screen time/storylines to side characters, including antagonists (from what I recall). Granted, 24 could also take big swings and misses with their big story arcs, but most of the time I was engrossed enough in each individual episode that I didn't worry as much about how it all fit together. Not as much as I do now, especially in the age of serialized storytelling.

I do think there is something to how much people like Burnham (just like Bauer with 24) factors into how much they like Discovery as a series.

I liked 24 more than I do Discovery, but I also didn't care for aspects of that series, like I don't care for aspects of Discovery. And I felt that 24 Season 6 was ridiculous, so much so that I quit looking at that season (I did go back years later, and it wasn't as bad the second time around, though I still felt it was stretching credulity even for 24).

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's got nothing to do with the size of the ship. Like it or not, it's the Michael Burnham show, and everyone else exists solely to interact with her.

It's only old school Trekkies, who cannot shake the "IT MUST BE AN ENSEMBLE!" mindset to whom this matters.

 

[The Wormhole]

It's only old school Trekkies, who cannot shake the "IT MUST BE AN ENSEMBLE!" mindset to whom this matters.

Ironic, since with the exception of DS9 and now SNW, no Trek series has ever been a true ensemble. I especially laugh at the "Give Detmer more to do" crowd. With the possible exception of Tom Paris, helms people have tended to get the least development in any Trek series. Hell, TNG even realized they didn't need a speaking character at the helm after Wesley left. And one could say Enterprise never had one.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

When they stick someone in the foreground of all the bridge shots, in every episode, and have them respond directly to the main character during all the important scenes, people start to notice them and feel like they're part of the main gang. Then it just feels weird when Mayweather, Detmer and Ortegas barely get anything else to do.

 

[fireproof78]

speaking character at the helm after Wesley left. And one could say Enterprise never had one.

When they stick someone in the foreground of all the bridge shots, in every episode, and have them respond directly to the main character during all the important scenes, people start to notice them and feel like they're part of the main gang. Then it just feels weird when Mayweather, Detmer and Ortegas barely get anything else to do.

What about on TNG or even in TOS when unknowns were there?

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

What about on TNG or even in TOS when unknowns were there?

That's the important difference, those are the unknowns. They are many and they are nameless. Or at least, I don't usually remember their names (except for Jae). No attention is drawn to them, unless they're the guest star of the week. I might wonder why Lt. Palmer is sitting in Uhura's chair, but even though she's doing the exact same job I'm not dying to see her join the landing party in the same way.

If you asked me what episodes McKnight piloted the Enterprise-D I wouldn't have a clue, but I can certainly tell you that O'Brien was in Up the Long Ladder, Unnatural Selection, The Icarus Factor, Booby Trap etc. off the top of my head, because he was given more attention and I noticed him. People wanted more O'Brien and the writers apparently realised this, giving him an appropriate amount of extra screen time for a guy who spends most of his day out of sight in the transporter room. And so everyone was happy.

Detmer and Owo have been right at the front of the bridge, in the foreground, all the time, saying lines and pressing important buttons at crucial moments for five seasons. They've been really hard to miss! So it feels weird that there is still a wall between them and the real characters after so many years, especially as they're supposed to be such close friends.

 

[fireproof78]

They've been really hard to miss! So it feels weird that there is still a wall between them and the real characters after so many years, especially as they're supposed to be such close friends.

I'm afraid I don't see a wall. They're just not a focus and are seen through the lens of the main characters. The only "wall " is trying to treat them as a main character or secondary character.