Discovery's approach to leadership and Trek's interpersonal dynamics

[Sci]

From the (TOS) Star Trek writer’s/director’s guide, revised in 1967:

“The time is today. We’re in Viet Nam waters aboard the navy cruiser U.S.S. Detroit. Suddenly an enemy gunboat heads for us, our guns are unable to stop it, and we realize it’s a suicide attack with an atomic warhead. Total destruction of our vessel and of all aboard appears probable. Would Captain E. L. Henderson, presently commanding the U.S.S. Detroit, turn and hug a comely female WAVE who happened to be on the ship’s bridge.

As simple as that. This is our standard test that has led to STAR TREK believability. (It also suggests much of what has been wrong in filmed sf of the past.) No, Captain Henderson wouldn’t! Not if he’s the kind of Captain we hope is commanding any naval vessel of ours. Nor would our Captain Kirk hug a female crewman in a moment of danger, not if he’s to remain believable. (Some might prefer Henderson were somewhere making love rather than shelling Asiatic ports, but that’s a whole different story for a whole different network. Probably BBC.)”

I think the above has been a problem with Discovery from my perspective that's been evident since season 1 episode 1. When you predicate the protagonist’s motivations on emotional decisions, family ties, or interpersonal romance, it undermines the believability of their decision making and their believability as an officer/captain that the audience can trust. And it undermines the show.

In the current season, we have an anomaly that has destroyed entire planets, is spread across multiple light-years of the Milky Way, and is such a threat that most of the major powers have determined it to be a threat to galactic civilization. And yet, you would think the bigger threat we're supposed to be invested in is Book’s and Michael’s relationship by the importance the show gives to things and the actions of the characters.

1) There are multiple episodes where Kirk turns and hugs female crew members on the bridge during a crisis.

2) The scenario the TOS writers' bible outlines is absolutely not the same as writing characters as though their relationships matter, which is what you're complaining about.

3) It would be ridiculous and unrealistic for the characters not to make decisions in part on the basis of their feelings and relationships.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

She did. But it ties into the idea that there's one almost every episode "over and over again" for someone that's either uncertain, grieving, or depressed. And this story angle has been so beaten to death that they had to work their way down to Zora the computer.

Generally I'm not a fan of all the "support groups" and almost constant positive reinforcement the crew seem to need to give each other but I thought Zora was the exception. It was good to see them work through a problem rather than just have some cheap "Zora saves the day now we love her" wrap up. Also it wasn't the usual love in because we got a real debate through Stamets who probably for the first time since season 1 was a true dissenting voice which made the scene much better than the kind of "I'm Spartacus" backslapping we saw when Tilly got promoted.

Still missing a Jet Reno support group plot.

Although I imagine her reaction to being lined up for one would be refreshing.

My mind jumped straight to your avatar when I thought of how this might go down.

 

[YouAreDooomed]

From the (TOS) Star Trek writer’s/director’s guide, revised in 1967:

I think the above has been a problem with Discovery from my perspective that's been evident since season 1 episode 1. When you predicate the protagonist’s motivations on emotional decisions, family ties, or interpersonal romance, it undermines the believability of their decision making and their believability as an officer/captain that the audience can trust. And it undermines the show.

Burnham's season 1 arc comes down to pragmatism vs principles. One of the most important duties of (senior) officers is ensuring their crew's (plus ofc the the Federation's) safety, she thinks "shooting first" would accomplish this, and it makes sense to her since it worked for the Vulcans.
What are those overly emotional decisions? I'm not saying there are no emotions involved at all, and family ties within the crew make a lot of sense, they are strangers in a new, unfamiliar environment so they bond with each other, kind of like Voyager's "family" as some characters call it.
Not to mention classic Trek characters' outbursts like Picard dealing with Hugh, Sisko vs Eddington, Janeway vs Ransom and so forth. Hell, even Tuvok when he helps steal an alien device because he thinks it would be on Janeway's behalf.

In the current season, we have an anomaly that has destroyed entire planets, is spread across multiple light-years of the Milky Way, and is such a threat that most of the major powers have determined it to be a threat to galactic civilization. And yet, you would think the bigger threat we're supposed to be invested in is Book’s and Michael’s relationship by the importance the show gives to things and the actions of the characters.

Why would you think that? The DMA is an ongoing, severe issue which drives the plot and the sub-plots of season 4, Book’s and Burnham’s relationship is stressed, it's affected by the anomaly not vice versa. Naturally, other characters are constantly haunted in one way or another as well.

The 2009 movie promoted Lt. Kirk to captain of the flagship, and Discovery followed suit with Ensign Tilly being appointed first officer of Discovery (albeit temporarily), which changed Trek's dynamic from a space navy to something where positions are appointed and swapped around at a whim like an office workspace.

Wow, two cases across over a decade of production, the Kelvin movies and current "streaming Trek", and even two in-universe (or multiverse) realities, you know what they say: Exceptions confirm the rule.
Kirk's promotion is rather silly, Tilly's temporal position on the other hand not that far-fetched. Again, like Voyager, special circumstances, Saru chooses Tilly because he thinks she copes better with the massive stress that had emerged after arriving in the 32nd century, and he assumes she may help the rest of the crew handle it too.
Furthermore, Tilly explicitly points out it's very unusual for an ensign to be acting XO.

If anything, I shall remind you TNG is the show with insane appointments. Picard makes a kid, prodigy or not, who had not attended the academy or any other Starfleet school, an acting ensign, later full ensign, and lets him pilot/ navigate the f*cking flagship. This gets even more ridiculous when you learn that "there are officers who wait years to serve on [that] ship" (Riker, "Ensign Ro"). It's essentially nepotism.

Though I do feel like Discovery changes its tone a bit every season and season 4 is the season where everyone's constantly relentlessly supportive of each other all the time. There's lots of grief and uncertainty in the characters right now, so we keep getting multple plots an episode featuring someone with a problem who talks it through with someone else on the crew. Over and over again. It's gotten to the point where I want to skip the scenes because I just don't care about what characters like Book and Culber are going through anymore, and that's kind of a problem for me.

Okay, but extended grief and uncertainty make sense when facing something like the DMA, Book had lost his family and home planet, it's not unlike the general tension in season 3 of ENT where Tucker had also lost his sister. It would be weird if those issues were quickly shrugged off. Voyager was justifiably criticised as no one cares about the Dominion War except Torres who grieves about her dead Maquis friends for exactly one episode.

 

[dupersuper]

1) There are multiple episodes where Kirk turns and hugs female crew members on the bridge during a crisis.

During a crisis? Which ones?

 

[Deks]

It's like they're actual human beings or something.

What constitutes as 'human being' changes as society evolves.
I mean, Gene's vision was that these would be evolved humans who have surpassed majority of things that are holding us back in this day and age.
Its not an impossibility mind you to do that (because behavior comes down to environment)... its just a different set of behaviors... which is still defined as human... albeit previous Trek's had a tendency to showcase more 'balanced' human beings who don't act out on every emotional whim they have and are much more reasoned.

Certainly, we've seen various characters dealing with difficult and emotional events in a different capacity. They still grieved, and been emotional, but it also hadn't been 'over the top' or 'costant' like it is with Discovery (which seems to be doing this almost every chance it gets).

The main storyline for Disco is interesting, but then you get something like the last episode where majority of it is spent doing something entirely different and only 10 mins of actual main storyline.

There is such a thing as being able to advance the main storyline while doing character development without going into emotional breakdown every few minutes.

She's a character with the same emotional range as any person and has had an ongoing story arc for two seasons. There's a whole Short Trek about her falling in love with the first human she's seen in centuries and it's one of the better Star Trek stories in the entire franchise. Voyager had episodes about the Doctor who was a hologram and some of the best TNG was about Data who was an android.

Arguably, the one silver lining about Disco since it got to the 32nd century is Zora.

 

[fireproof78]

It would be weird if those issues were quickly shrugged off.

That's what is expected of Starfleet crews. They do not share emotions, they do not cry, or "breakdown "They are evolved.

 

[Awesome Possum]

What constitutes as 'human being' changes as society evolves.
I mean, Gene's vision was that these would be evolved humans who have surpassed majority of things that are holding us back in this day and age.
Its not an impossibility mind you to do that (because behavior comes down to environment)... its just a different set of behaviors... which is still defined as human... albeit previous Trek's had a tendency to showcase more 'balanced' human beings who don't act out on every emotional whim they have and are much more reasoned.

Certainly, we've seen various characters dealing with difficult and emotional events in a different capacity. They still grieved, and been emotional, but it also hadn't been 'over the top' or 'costant' like it is with Discovery (which seems to be doing this almost every chance it gets).

The main storyline for Disco is interesting, but then you get something like the last episode where majority of it is spent doing something entirely different and only 10 mins of actual main storyline.

There is such a thing as being able to advance the main storyline while doing character development without going into emotional breakdown every few minutes.

You mean when people cry either because they're happy or sad. That's not an emotional breakdown, that's normal and healthy human behavior. Humans are supposed to cry, if you don't then there is something very wrong.

 

[Deks]

You mean when people cry either because they're happy or sad. That's not an emotional breakdown, that's normal and healthy human behavior. Humans are supposed to cry, if you don't then there is something very wrong.

People react to emotions, I agree, but what Disco does is effectively pushing it to the extreme where these characters seem like they have 0 emotional control whatsoever... which incidentally also erodes capacity for logic and reason (two things that seem to be suspiciously absent in these characters for extended periods of time).

I prefer seeing SF officers and crews in their element... poised and measured most of the time... dealing with emotions when there is a time and place for it without dragging it out to no end.

If there's a longer period of emotional stuff happening, they were able to work through it and deal with it WITHOUT making the whole freaking situation about themselves (or gobbling up most of the screen time).

Disco writers have gone into a direction of: lets throw the crew into an emotional turmoil and turn it into 'I have to talk about it right here and right now and make it all about it'... or 'I'm gonna act out on every single little thing'.

Seriously, it's as if I'm watching people whose emotional maturity went into oblivion and have become so fragile to the point where the need for constant cheering and support is like an addictive drug (which isn't pretty - in fact its TIRESOME).

Honestly, provide support, comfort and cheering when its needed yes (I don't mind that)... but not every 5 minutes and have that gobble up most of your screen time like Disco is doing.

I'm reminded of a stupidity known as 'high fiving' someone for a 'job well done'. Honestly, what's the point? I'm just doing a job the best I can.
Having/enjoying occasional recognition is fine, but when you try to congradulate me every single time, you're being tiresome, intrusive and I start to think its very insecere (and are doing it because you are somehow 'forced' to do so).

 

[fireproof78]

I'm reminded of a stupidity known as 'high fiving' someone for a 'job well done'. Honestly, what's the point?

Encouragement. People need that, especially people who have been traumatized.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Most jobs try to encourage their employees to keep doing good work, so does anyone who has friends and the Discovery crew are essentially an extended friend group or found family due to them being so disconnected from their home era. All these complaints boil down to the crew behaving like actual human beings instead of stiff deliverers of expository dialogue, the thing that alienated most people from Berman era Trek.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Personally I feel like the balance has shifted too far the other way at this point. It's not just that the characters are always supporting each other, it's that the series is always showing us it. Scene after scene it feels like. Too much of a good thing starts becoming unwelcome.

 

[Deks]

Personally I feel like the balance has shifted too far the other way at this point. It's not just that the characters are always supporting each other, it's that the series is always showing us it. Scene after scene it feels like. Too much of a good thing starts becoming unwelcome.

Exactly.
As I said, I don't mind Trek occasionally showing us people behaving as they do, just reduce it in frequency by half or 75% and focus on the main storyline... you can still showcase evolved humanity (and other species) while portraying a meaningful impact for the character and focus on the main storyline.

A point can be made about a character without descending into emotional spillage territory where it ends up chewing up most of the screen time... there are too few episodes a season to waste on all that emotional drama (WHICH IS BORING when used excessively and takes over everything else).

 

[fireproof78]

Most jobs try to encourage their employees to keep doing good work, so does anyone who has friends and the Discovery crew are essentially an extended friend group or found family due to them being so disconnected from their home era. All these complaints boil down to the crew behaving like actual human beings instead of stiff deliverers of expository dialogue, the thing that alienated most people from Berman era Trek.

Exactly. This isn't a run of the mill crew and the demand of limited emotional development or expression is something I find, well, unbelievable, frankly. Honestly, the complaints of high emotional moments strikes me as borderline insensitive, and that the preferred method is suck it up and deal with it, and express no emotions.

 

[Deks]

Encouragement. People need that, especially people who have been traumatized.

Traumatized people usually need councelling from trained professionals to move forward. Occasional encouragement is fine, but its utterly pointless and hollow if people are giving it to you all the time (in fact it makes matters WORSE and ends up being a hinderance because it becomes apparent those people don't know how to help so they automatically say 'nice' things to you - which again is fine in sporadic amounts, but people get fed up with that)... and you become so impacted by what happened that you cannot implement logic and reason anymore (if anything, a person would be REMOVED from active duty until they have had a chance to deal with what happened).

In fact, that's exactly what the writers should have done... while Disco was undergoing refit for example, the entire crew should have been provided mandatory councelling sessions (showcased over the period of an episode) so they can start properly coping with what happened and to ensure their reasoning isn't impaired moving forward.

What Disco is showing us is basically people who have become so sensitive to littlest of things that now its taking up most of the screen time vs the main stroyline and their logic and reasoning are also impaired.

 

[fireproof78]

Traumatized people usually need councelling from trained professionals to move forward. Occasional encouragement is fine, but its utterly pointless and hollow if people are giving it to you all the time

It's really not, and it's not like Discovery is doing it "all the time." Positive praise for specific behaviors is very functional.

 

[Deks]

Exactly. This isn't a run of the mill crew and the demand of limited emotional development or expression is something I find, well, unbelievable, frankly. Honestly, the complaints of high emotional moments strikes me as borderline insensitive, and that the preferred method is suck it up and deal with it, and express no emotions.

Older Trek also had high emotional moments (I don't understand how people are trying to say the characters of older Trek were somehow 'emotionless' when that's not really accurate at all)... they just hadn't allowed that to become a running theme of the shows where most of the screen time is chewed out solely by that and seemingly forced 'encouragement' that would make even traumatized people become fed up because its not helping them.

Its also not insensitive when you watch a Scifi show that's supposed to have better matured people who are able to cope with situations better than most people in real life, only to find out you're watching what's happening in everyday life ALL THE FREAKING TIME.
Showcase human emotion and vulnerabiltiy, just don't have this become the central theme of the show where you ignore everything else.
Its like being fed candy all the time.

 

[fireproof78]

Showcase human emotion and vulnerabiltiy, just don't have this become the central theme of the show where you ignore everything else.

Well, I haven't seen that in this show. Perhaps another show has them ignoring everything else but emotions.

 

[Deks]

It's really not, and it's not like Discovery is doing it "all the time." Positive praise for specific behaviors is very functional.

Actually, Disco IS doing it all the time. Positive praise for specific behaviors on a SF ship?
You know what's positive praise? 'Good thinking liutenant' ... or 'an excellent idea'... not 'clapping'. Its like I'm watching a whole bunch of people going to support groups all the time.
Lets have a round of applause for a person who decided to share their inner feelings with us... just enhanced times a dozen.

Its irritating when this becomes a running theme. I personally couldn't function in such an environment because it would seem 'too fake'.

Is the crew made up of highly sensitive people who aren't TRAINED to work in space and expect the unexpected?
Oh wait... THIS crew apparently is.

 

[Deks]

Well, I haven't seen that in this show. Perhaps another show has them ignoring everything else but emotions.

Other shows don't ignore emotions... they just showcase them in a ballanced capacity where it doesn't chew up all of your screentime until there's nothing left of the main storyline.

Lower decks might be an exception, but its a cartoon with intentional exaggeration for comedic effect... and it STILL manages to work better than Discovery crew does.

 

[fireproof78]

Actually, Disco IS doing it all the time. Positive praise for specific behaviors on a SF ship?
You know what's positive praise? 'Good thinking liutenant' ... or 'an excellent idea'... not 'clapping'. Its like I'm watching a whole bunch of people going to support groups all the time.
Lets have a round of applause for a person who decided to share their inner feelings with us... just enhanced times a dozen.

Its irritating when this becomes a running theme. I personally couldn't function in such an environment because it would seem 'too fake'.

Is the crew made up of highly sensitive people who aren't TRAINED to work in space and expect the unexpected?
Oh wait... THIS crew apparently is.

Mileage will vary. Give me that environment than the stifling feeling I get from Picard at times.

Other shows don't ignore emotions... they just showcase them in a ballanced capacity where it doesn't chew up all of your screentime until there's nothing left of the main storyline.

Ok. Well, I like this show with all the emotions and don't feel it happens all the time. And even if it was happening all the time that's par for the course for modern shows that I am currently watching.