Everything Discovery has abandoned over the course of this season...

[eschaton]

Thinking about the long view, the number of ways Discovery has changed over the season as it has "retooled" is astounding. Let me list the ones I can think of off the top of my head:

• Any sense that Micheal Burnham being raised by Vulcans meant anything regarding her personality
• Any idea that Burnham had Klingon-related PTSD and/or might be a bit racist towards Klingons
• The tight narrative focus on Burnham. She used to be The Very Special Protagonist who solved everything and saved the day. Now she just leads the "A plot" each week, and is being led around by the nose by Georgiou and Lorca ATM
• Saru having any character traits whatsoever. He used to be a coward who was resentful towards Burnham, which was shitty characterization, but it was something. Now he's just a generic XO with no personality - only saved by Doug Jones's performance.
• Tilly changing from a very weird, possibly ASD character to just slightly adorkable
• The mysterious black badges and floating water seen in the third episode
• The idea that Discovery is a special science ship researching all kinds of black-ops tech, rather than just the spore-drive machine
• Stamets being a grumpy jerk
• Klingons speaking in their own language with subtitles
• The idea that the 24 houses of the Klingon Empire were going to actually mean something
• The "lower decks" concept. Originally Tilly was just in the show because she happened to be Burnham's roommate. Now she's doing officer-level work as a cadet just because she's a main cast member and must be doing something.

Some of this can be attributed in-universe to character growth, but IMHO that's headcannon, they were trying to tweak the show as each script was finished.

Regardless, a lot of this was a mess. It was abandoned mostly to put focus on the long-con of Gabriel Lorca and to a lesser extent Ash Tyler. Which is why the tiny, tiny bit of character work which had been done on Burnham, Saru, Stamets, and Tilly has fallen so far onto the back burner, at least IMHO.

 

[Hythlodeus]

A lot of those are just in your head, to be honest.
Klingons speaking in subtitles as an example was not abandoned, there are just no more scenes between Klingons, because most of them are dead. The few surviving Klingon main characters still have subtitles whenever they speak thlingan hol, but most of the time they speak to humans or other UFP personel and therefore not in Klingon.

 

[BillJ]

Saru having any character traits whatsoever. He used to be a coward who was resentful towards Burnham, which was shitty characterization, but it was something. Now he's just a generic XO with no personality - only saved by Doug Jones's performance.

Saru almost makes me think they merged the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz into one character.

 

[Mudd]

Yeah, the surgery on Discovery's premise and dramatic arcs makes whatever L'Rell's friends did to Voq's radius, femurs, and spinal cord look like minor dermabrasion by comparison.

(Funny thing: sites that offer transcripts of the show based on closed captioning have a lot of trouble with the Klingon scenes - the English translation apparently only appears as subtitles on the screen, not as generated captions).

 

[eschaton]

Klingons speaking in subtitles as an example was not abandoned, there are just no more scenes between Klingons, because most of them are dead. The few surviving Klingon main characters still have subtitles whenever they speak thlingan hol, but most of the time they speak to humans or other UFP personel and therefore not in Klingon.

While on one level what you said is true, the writers also made the choice to not introduce any further Klingon characters into the story, which of course means few discussions in thlingan hol. And in the last episode before the mid-season break, they did end up utilizing a "universal translator" - which I was very happy about.

Mirror Voq also could have not spoken English if they wanted him to. They made the choice to not do it, because the long scenes where Klingons were speaking their own tongue were a horrible mistake.

 

[BillJ]

...thlingan hol...

Whenever I see this term, my eyes glaze over.

 

[Hythlodeus]

Mirror Voq also could have not spoken English if they wanted him to.

Which would make zero sense, given that he is the leader of a diverse group of rebels (with which he has to communicate on a daily basis) speaking with Terrans

 

[Mudd]

Whenever I see this term, my eyes glaze over.

Seriously. What the fuck is that?

 

[Hythlodeus]

Whenever I see this term, my eyes glaze over.

Stamets style or Mitchell style?

 

[BillJ]

Stamets style or Mitchell style?

One, then the other.

 

[eschaton]

Which would make zero sense, given that he is the leader of a diverse group of rebels (with which he has to communicate on a daily basis) speaking with Terrans

There were other Klingons there as well however besides him.

The fact remains that while it's true the reason that there is now virtually no Klingon dialogue is because there's seldom two Klingons in a room together, the writers also chose to make sure there would virtually never be two Klingons in a room together. It was their choice to not script more Klingon dialogue.

 

[Hythlodeus]

Wait, weren't you the one who bemoaned two days ago that the Klingons in DISCO don't speak thlingan hol fluently enough?

 

[Captain Killy]

And the comment about Michael’s personality is totally off as well. She’s not Vulcan. She was raised by Vulcans, and yes, when she first joined the Shenzhou she behaved and spoke like a Vulcan but that was over 7 years ago. Michael has not adopted a Vulcan lifestyle. She doesn’t reject her emotions for logic, her emotions inform her logic. But she still struggles with her emotions and human interaction. There is a shell around her that Georgiou failed to totally pick away at.

As to her feelings towards Klingons, other than Kor (whom she killed) what other Klingons has she directly interacted with? None. That she knew of anyway. Now that Ash’s true identity is out in the open I suspect the interactions between her and him are going to be quite...interesting.

 

[BillJ]

And the comment about Michael’s personality is totally off as well. She’s not Vulcan. She was raised by Vulcans, and yes, when she first joined the Shenzhou she behaved and spoke like a Vulcan but that was over 7 years ago. Michael has not adopted a Vulcan lifestyle. She doesn’t reject her emotions for logic, her emotions inform her logic. But she still struggles with her emotions and human interaction. There is a shell around her that Georgiou failed to totally pick away at.

Problem being, we entirely missed the transition between the two Burnham's she acts one way, then the next episode she acts a totally different way. I believe the Vulcan upbringing probably factored more into the character in Fuller's original story.

 

[Hythlodeus]

And the comment about Michael’s personality is totally off as well.

One could pick the whole list apart like that, it's ridiculous.
but for now I focus on thlingan hol, just for BillJ's eyes to glaze again

 

[Captain Killy]

Problem being, we entirely missed the transition between the two Burnham's she acts one way, then the next episode she acts a totally different way. I believe the Vulcan upbringing probably factored more into the character in Fuller's original story.

No she doesn’t. She only behaved “traditionally” Vulcan in two flashback scenes: When Sarek brings her aboard the Shenzhou and the day she’s rejected by the Vulcan Sciene Expeditionary Force.

She’s not Spock! She’s not going to behave like Spock.

 

[BillJ]

No she doesn’t. She only behaved “traditionally” Vulcan in two flashback scenes: When Sarek brings her aboard the Shenzhou and the day she’s rejected by the Vulcan Sciene Expeditionary Force.

And at the beginning of "Context is for Kings".

 

[eschaton]

And the comment about Michael’s personality is totally off as well. She’s not Vulcan. She was raised by Vulcans, and yes, when she first joined the Shenzhou she behaved and spoke like a Vulcan but that was over 7 years ago. Michael has not adopted a Vulcan lifestyle. She doesn’t reject her emotions for logic, her emotions inform her logic. But she still struggles with her emotions and human interaction. There is a shell around her that Georgiou failed to totally pick away at.

It was absolutely a part of the early episodes that Burnham had a hard time expressing her emotions in a normal human manner. She even had an extended monologue about at the end of one of the episodes. Confusingly it seemed to veer back and forth depending upon what episode it was, but so far in Act 2 she's acting like a normal human being - expressing, fear, horror, disgust, sadness, etc. I never bought the whole "raised by Vulcans, can't emote right" thing anyway, because her seven years on the Shenzhou should have mellowed her more.

As to her feelings towards Klingons, other than Kor (whom she killed) what other Klingons has she directly interacted with? None. That she knew of anyway. Now that Ash’s true identity is out in the open I suspect the interactions between her and him are going to be quite...interesting.

She had a whole monologue in the first episode which amounted to "all Klingons understand is violence." Replace the use of the term Klingon with some earth group (blacks, muslims, etc) and it comes across as very offensive.

 

[Captain Killy]

And at the beginning of "Context is for Kings".

I’m sorry no, that’s not correct. In “Context is for Kings” she shot at Ripper and immediately said “Oh Shit that worked.” and started quoting Lewis Carrol...

She was calm and detached in the shuttle because, well, that’s who she is...

 

[seigezunt]

It was my impression that her abandoning a pure Vulcan approach was the point of the prologue.