How is/isn't Discovery Star Trek?

[Groppler Zorn]

the majesty of the binary star visual effects, all the bridge protocols and banter, and the ready room conversation, and the preflight checklist for her spacewalk...ALL of that was exactly how I wanted a modern Star Trek to look and feel.

Totally agree. I was like “ok the visuals weren’t what I was expecting, but this is pretty good”. Then Michael went outside and it went a bit kaka from there.

If you get the kaka reference you pass the test and we can be friends.

I'm off-put by how overly Star Trek it is...given that every episode feels like a mashup of at least one or two episodes of each series that came before.

Definitely. This is an issue with ENT (and the Orville actually - and I love the Orville - but I give it a pass on this front because it’s not Star Trek). I wanted DSC to be fresh and new and exciting and totally different whilst at the same time being familiar and recognisable and distinctly “Star Trek”. DSC had an impossible job from the get go.

I can understand people who aren't about Discovery, but hopefully in 20 years you guys will be able to enjoy it!

Well I wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s a “you guys” who don’t like DSC - I’ve never had an invite to one of the meetings - but maybe it won’t take 20 years for the show to improve. S2 looks like it has potential...

It's Star Trek, it's just Star Trek produced for the 2010s instead of the 1960s, 80s, 90s or 00s.

I’m curious as to what your actual point is here. Since I don’t want to assume I know what you mean by this would you mind elaborating? I think I get your point but I don’t want to proceed from a faulty premise

However, I think Discovery is not a spiritual successor to Star Trek. It is like a different show using the same name.

Agreed. I guess the Orville *is* a spiritual successor to Star Trek (in some ways - don’t yell at me) but then again Orville is a different show using a different name. The question becomes, would we want DSC to be more like the Orville?

Overall, yes and no. Too much and it becomes like ENT (or Red Dwarf). Not enough and it remains Klingon rape sex and murderous sex trafficker Harry Mudd.

YMMV, of course, but I think almost everyone on DISCO this year acted like an insane person.

That’s a good point. But, there are two explanations for this that are perfectly acceptable:

1. Spores. Like in TOS spores. Not magic FTL spores. Everyone got shot in the face by spores and they went nuts.
2. Michael is in a coma. She’s been in one ever since she was knocked out on the beacon. DSC as we perceive it is all in her coma addled mind.

 

[BillJ]

DSC had an impossible job from the get go.

Especially when they made the decision to set it eight years before TOS.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Especially when they made the decision to set it eight years before TOS.

Exactly. They didn’t go the way I would have gone with the visuals - since I’d have assumed the TOS period was a historical period (albeit a fictional one) and made a historical period drama that was period accurate (just in the future). As we know, they went a whole nother direction...

 

[Cox of Seagulls]

TOS fans thought that TNG wasn't Star Trek

TNG fans thought that DS9 wasn't Star Trek

All kinds of dummies thought that ENT wasn't Star Trek

Same goes for the reboot movies

The truth is people have cried "it's not real Star Trek!" every time something new comes along. It's a very tired cliche and it always falls by the wayside when something even newer comes along to draw the ire of fans and suddenly TNG/DS9/etc is "real Star Trek" and this new one, this one is really really not Star Trek!

The amount of people I used to argue with about Enterprise who now turn around and talk about how they wish it had gotten a fifth season is astounding.They've just moved the same complaints onto Discovery instead.

"It's not real StarTrek!" "Gene would hate it!" oh fuck off.

 

[Jinn]

TOS fans thought that TNG wasn't Star Trek

TNG fans thought that DS9 wasn't Star Trek

All kinds of dummies thought that ENT wasn't Star Trek

Same goes for the reboot movies

Turns out Voyager is the only spin-off that's truly Star Trek

 

[BillJ]

Turns out Voyager is the only spin-off that's truly Star Trek

 

[eschaton]

IMHO the only thing that DIS is missing in terms of the Trek formula is - for lack of a better term - intellectual content. Season 1 hinted around a lot of subjects, like whether it was morally okay to torment the tardigrade for the sake of the war effort, or the effects of "PTSD" on Ash. But it never actually stood up and made a particular episode about something thematically. Of course not every Trek episode has deeper themes. But all of them - even ENT and VOY, which I'm not very fond of - have "issue" episodes where they focus on one particular thing. Sometimes the issue episode is heavy handed and doesn't work, other times it's subtle and leaves you with no easy answers. But it's an important part - hell, I'd argue the most fundamental part - of the Trek formula. Take it away and it's just a generic sci-fi show.

 

[Lord Garth]

I almost think the Picard Series will elude the cries of "It's not real Star Trek!" Almost. Either because 1) some won't like where Picard is, 2) they're dead-set against any type of continuation, or 3) they've already decided to never like any Star Trek put out by CBS All Access.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

I almost think the Picard Series will elude the cries of "It's not real Star Trek!" Almost. Either because 1) some won't like where Picard is, 2) they're dead-set against any type of continuation, or 3) they've already decided to never like any Star Trek put out by CBS All Access.

Of course there will be uproar. Correct me if I'm wrong but the Picard series is set 20 years after Nemesis right? All those people who are excited to get okudagrams will be sorely disappointed when the picard series follows a different visual look than what was established for the time period in 'All good things' and 'Endgame'. Of course the visual look can be rationalised away as being due to those episodes taking place in alternate timelines. But, you know someone's gonna be butthurt regardless that the Picard series doesn't look like the trek series they want.

 

[mos6507]

People watch what they want to watch and whether the producers can afford to marginalize haters has to do with how numerous they are.

BTW, you can call, let's say, Enterprise, a Trek as you want but it didn't do that well. It's not whether it's deemed Trek, it's whether people stay engaged or leave the pews.

From a pure business standpoint, fan discontent is a market opportunity...witness The Orville.

 

[Lord Garth]

Of course there will be uproar. Correct me if I'm wrong but the Picard series is set 20 years after Nemesis right? All those people who are excited to get okudagrams will be sorely disappointed when the picard series follows a different visual look than what was established for the time period in 'All good things' and 'Endgame'. Of course the visual look can be rationalised away as being due to those episodes taking place in alternate timelines. But, you know someone's gonna be butthurt regardless that the Picard series doesn't look like the trek series they want.

My answer to them will be, "How much did 1999 look like 1979?" Not that it will change their minds.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

TOS fans thought that TNG wasn't Star Trek

TNG fans thought that DS9 wasn't Star Trek

All kinds of dummies thought that ENT wasn't Star Trek

Same goes for the reboot movies

The truth is people have cried "it's not real Star Trek!" every time something new comes along. It's a very tired cliche and it always falls by the wayside when something even newer comes along to draw the ire of fans and suddenly TNG/DS9/etc is "real Star Trek" and this new one, this one is really really not Star Trek!

The amount of people I used to argue with about Enterprise who now turn around and talk about how they wish it had gotten a fifth season is astounding.They've just moved the same complaints onto Discovery instead.

"It's not real StarTrek!" "Gene would hate it!" oh fuck off.

Especially on TNG's case. I think too many forget, after all these years of it becoming a beloved show by many fans, how utterly HATED TNG was by a group of fans at the time of its debut. Not having Kirk/Spock was sacrilege. The complaints about Michael Burnham pale in comparison to Wesley Crusher. The Enterprise having an interior of a Lexus vehicle.

It especially floors me how ENT is now embraced. That show was getting shit on even during its fourth season.

I almost think the Picard Series will elude the cries of "It's not real Star Trek!" Almost. Either because 1) some won't like where Picard is, 2) they're dead-set against any type of continuation, or 3) they've already decided to never like any Star Trek put out by CBS All Access.

I predict we will see comments like "well at least DISCOVERY mainly presented new characters instead of centering on a beloved one and ruining Picard forever!"

I bet my Federation credits on that big time. All those DIS haters being excited for Picard's return will loathe it.

 

[BillJ]

From a pure business standpoint, fan discontent is a market opportunity...witness The Orville.

The Orville premiered before Discovery. Fan discontent had nothing to do with it.

 

[Kor]

So I read a lot from people that will say that Discovery "isn't Star Trek" (to them, though they don't usually put it that way), and I really want to unpack that, basically asking what *is* Star Trek, positively speaking, that the show either does or doesn't fit?

By the time the season wrapped up I was left feeling completely content that DSC *is* Star Trek, at least what I've come to think of in terms of elements that all the various shows and movies have in common. It's not going to be TOS or TNG or VOY, but I think it continues much in the same spirit: a sci-fi-based adventure set in a certain universe, with some messaging and humor. I frankly feel more comfortable with this show than I ever did with TNG at the get-go, being an old TOS fan. It fits, for me. I suspect having had to stretch my expectation of what Star Trek is when TNG started, set me up to be more accepting than someone who grew up with TNG? Just a guess.

This show is just joyless. To me, Star Trek isn't joyless.

Kor

 

[Groppler Zorn]

TOS fans thought that TNG wasn't Star Trek

TNG fans thought that DS9 wasn't Star Trek

All kinds of dummies thought that ENT wasn't Star Trek

Same goes for the reboot movies

The truth is people have cried "it's not real Star Trek!" every time something new comes along. It's a very tired cliche and it always falls by the wayside when something even newer comes along to draw the ire of fans and suddenly TNG/DS9/etc is "real Star Trek" and this new one, this one is really really not Star Trek!

The amount of people I used to argue with about Enterprise who now turn around and talk about how they wish it had gotten a fifth season is astounding.They've just moved the same complaints onto Discovery instead.

"It's not real StarTrek!" "Gene would hate it!" oh fuck off.

So... we can define it as “Star Trek” by virtue of the fact that people say it’s “not Star Trek”?

 

[jaime]

My answer to them will be, "How much did 1999 look like 1979?" Not that it will change their minds.

Basically logical answer. However, 1979 and 1999 were not a huge paradigm shift. Tvs were still big glass things, teenagers still wore jeans and grew their hair long, and people were still arguing about The Beatles vs The Rolling Stones and buying record players. 2009? Yeah. Smart phones and the internet had happened in the mainstream, basic home tech had fairly radically changed its appearance. But 79 and 99? The changes were still fringe, mobile phones were probably the single largest change, and were only really just shifting into the mainstream. Computers were finally just about managing that too, but it was still only a few that really had one. Cars had changed shape a fair bit, but not radically.
You want different years basically.
And to tie that around to the more serious point...what matters is not ‘how much time has passed’ but ‘what happened in those years’. And that’s what should be the focus. They will have to make the Picard show not look like DSC, because, to paraphrase Sir Stewart ‘it’s ninety fucking years old’. Okudagrams are exactly the logical start point for the design of the show, for precisely the same reason DSC has Phasers and Communicators that are clearly TOS inspired with a bit of gloss. Safe money says we will see a glossy First Contact dolphin phaser at some point in the Picard show. In fact, I would not be surprised if the first episodes are chock full of that stuff. The design in TNG is even more prominent than it was in TOS after all, especially when we are talking about the later parts of that era.
But yeah, it will change, and as long as it’s clear why, I doubt anyone will mind.

And yes, I am more excited for the new Picard series than I was for DSC. Because it’s the first step forwards since Nemesis, and not another sixties love in. XD

 

[seigezunt]

I predict we will see comments like "well at least DISCOVERY mainly presented new characters instead of centering on a beloved one and ruining Picard forever!"

I bet my Federation credits on that big time. All those DIS haters being excited for Picard's return will loathe it.

I agree. I think the same about the next films, for when they re-reboot or otherwise change them. People are going to be outright nostalgic for the JJ films when they get around to rebooting or reimagining TNG in the years ahead.

The Orville premiered before Discovery. Fan discontent had nothing to do with it.

But it certainly plays a role in fueling it. One of the reasons (other than the completely lackluster episodes I bothered to view) that keeps me away from it.

 

[BillJ]

One of the reasons (other than the completely lackluster episodes I bothered to view) that keeps me away from it.

I simply thought that the first season of The Orville was better than Discovery. For me, that came down to the characters being more likable. Though it didn't keep me from watching Discovery (have three episodes left). I do think The Orville is having an impact on Discovery season two. Which seems, at least in the teaser, to have a lighter touch.

Some folks act like it is an "either, or" case. Where if you watch one, you can't watch the other. I imagine there's a huge overlap in the audiences.

 

[seigezunt]

To each his own. I found the characters on the Orville, especially the lead, utterly unappealing. But then I'm not a fan of Family Guy.

 

[Wowbagger]

The truth is people have cried "it's not real Star Trek!" every time something new comes along.

Yes, and this is even a point I have made before. But I think the post-Enterprise era is the first time that the complaint is actually true. A stopped clock is right twice a day and all that.

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Suppose CBS rolled out a spinoff of Blue Bloods, centered on one of the kids. They call it Star Trek: True Blue. The central character is married her off to someone named "Cochrane" and she has a kid named "Zefram," and she's good friends with that kooky old lady down the block, Roberta Lincoln. Otherwise the new show is exactly like Blue Bloods. It's not in space. It's not an action-adventure but a police procedural. Science fiction elements do not appear, but are sometimes hinted at. There are no morality plays. There are strong, well-written character arcs, but they are firmly planted in the crime-drama genre. There is no exploration in the sense of "Darmok" or "Desert Crossing", either interior or exterior. The show is well-budgeted, well-produced, and appears in prime time.

Is this show Star Trek?

I contend that it isn't. It is a show I would probably enjoy quite a bit, so I'm not just bashing it. And it would be canon, thanks to those little canon connections like Zefram Cochrane and Roberta Lincoln. It has the CBS imprimatur and the official title. But True Blue isn't Trek, in a spiritual sense, because it doesn't explore and doesn't deal realistically with human beings in science-fiction scenarios.

If you agree that this show would not be Trek, then you admit that it is possible for a show to have Trek branding and Trek elements without being Star Trek. It's just a question of degree. In my opinion, Discovery has deviated completely from the central elements of Trek. Now, I may be wrong about that, but it's a legitimate topic of discussion. It can't be proved wrong with "But it mentions Spock!" or "CBS says it's Star Trek!"