Is Burnham the least engaging of the Discovery Characters?

[Ensign Ogahd Ahmganadai]

Short answer: I liked her a lot in the first two episodes. I wasn't impressed by where her story seemed to be going in "Context is for Kings", "Butcher's Knife..." and "Choose Your Pain". Then came "Lethe". I'm back on board. There isn't a single major character on this show that I dislike.

 

[gblews]

I think that Trek has historically had the captain as the primary character, but not the main character/protagonist (except arguably Kirk). A protagonist makes the key decisions in the story, feels the consequences of those choices, and propels the story forward. Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and Archer clearly got the most lines in the running of the show (and final authority rested in them in most areas due to being the captain), but they were not always key in resolving the primary or secondary plots of the week.

The captains were at the heart of every "A" story of nearly every episode of Trek on TV.

For example, someone did a line count for DS9, and Sisko only had the most dialogue in 50 out of 176 episodes, meaning that for over 2/3rds of the run of the series individual episodes tended to focus on someone else besides him. I haven't seen a similar breakdown for other series - I presume because of the smaller cast and less recurring characters this was less true for TNG, VOY, and ENT - but the fact remains that in all of them often the A plot, the B plot, or both are resolved not by the captain, but by someone else entirely.

A line count alone of nuBSG might indicate that that show's captain was barely in the show. For the purposes of this discussion, line counts mean little.

 

[eschaton]

The captains were at the heart of every "A" story of nearly every episode of Trek on TV.

I'm sorry, but this is just factually wrong. Let me take a season of DS9 here, because I'm most familiar with that. Let's say - Season 4, and ignoring B plots

Way of The Warrior - Ensemble (but to showcase Worf)
The Visitor - Ben/Jake
Hippocratic Oath - Miles/Julian
Indiscretion - Kira/Dukat
Rejoined - Dax
Starship Down - Ensemble
Little Green Men - Ferengi episode (with Odo)
The Sword of Kahless - Worf/Dax
Our Man Bashir - Julian
Homefront - Sisko Family
Paradise Lost - Sisko
Crossfire - Odo/Kira
Return to Grace - Kira/Dukat
Sons of Mogh - Worf
Bar Association - Ferengi episode
Ascension - Sisko/Kira
Rules of Engagement - Sisko/Worf
Hard Time - Miles O'Brien (must suffer!)
Shattered Mirror - Ben/Jake
The Muse - Jake
For the Cause - Ben
To the Death - Ensemble
The Quickening - Julian
Body Parts - Quark
Broken Link - Odo

Now, I'll be generous and say that all of the ensemble shows (mostly high-octane action) were actually Sisko stories, since he is the captain. That still means Benjamin Sisko isn't the protagonist in 15 out of the 26 episodes that season. And I just picked Season 4 randomly.

 

[ralfy]

The main characters are not engaging in general because of poor writing.

 

[fireproof78]

The main characters are not engaging in general because of poor writing.

That's ok. I have a writer in my head

 

[gblews]

I'm sorry, but this is just factually wrong. Let me take a season of DS9 here, because I'm most familiar with that. Let's say - Season 4, and ignoring B plots

Way of The Warrior - Ensemble (but to showcase Worf)
The Visitor - Ben/Jake
Hippocratic Oath - Miles/Julian
Indiscretion - Kira/Dukat
Rejoined - Dax
Starship Down - Ensemble
Little Green Men - Ferengi episode (with Odo)
The Sword of Kahless - Worf/Dax
Our Man Bashir - Julian
Homefront - Sisko Family
Paradise Lost - Sisko
Crossfire - Odo/Kira
Return to Grace - Kira/Dukat
Sons of Mogh - Worf
Bar Association - Ferengi episode
Ascension - Sisko/Kira
Rules of Engagement - Sisko/Worf
Hard Time - Miles O'Brien (must suffer!)
Shattered Mirror - Ben/Jake
The Muse - Jake
For the Cause - Ben
To the Death - Ensemble
The Quickening - Julian
Body Parts - Quark
Broken Link - Odo

Now, I'll be generous and say that all of the ensemble shows (mostly high-octane action) were actually Sisko stories, since he is the captain. That still means Benjamin Sisko isn't the protagonist in 15 out of the 26 episodes that season. And I just picked Season 4 randomly.

"Factually" wrong? I believe I could probably make a quite plausible argument to the contrary for many of the episodes you name here but it would require doing some research (haven't watched DS9 in a while) which I don't see myself doing. Maybe I'll change my mind, though. But I daresay, this list is likely no more accurate than your list of Ent season 3 episodes that supposedly weren't arc related.

And for the record, I didn't say the captain was the protagonist in most episodes. I said "main character".