Is it just me, or is Star Trek going the wrong way?

Feel free to name a genuinely interesting, intriguing and likeable character on either Picard or Discovery. Characters from TOS, TNG and even Voyager will be remembered for decades to come and looked back on with fondness. I can't imagine the likes of Burnham, Tilly and any of the other no-name characters on Discovery will ever be mourned when the series ends. Perhaps if Discovery would focus on developing a few other characters they might start endearing themselves to the audience, but no - the show is 95% all about Burnham. After 3 years I still don't know the names of the bridge crew because they do and say so little. The previous series at least made an effort to integrate the bridge officers as key characters. Those on Discovery might as well be red-shirts, getting blown away in the next episode since they are so, utterly irrelevant to the series.

Similarly, Picard has reduced a once-great character into a pale shadow of his former self. Stewart just looks bored of the role, and if the main man isn't interested then what hope for the rest? Another show filled with explosions, profanity, violence and misery without any characters that you actually care about.

Let's be honest, if any of the "main" characters on either of these shows were to die, nobody will care.

 

I agree. Picard was one of my favorite characters in Star Trek, but I couldn't wait to see him die. Then of course they bring them back. Ugh. The two best characters on Picard were Kestra and Arcana.

Discovery has a wide range of cool and interesting characters, but we don't get to know them very well with the short season.

Spoiler: Disco Season 3

The whole reunion between Burnham and Discovery wasn't very emotional or dramatic at all, even though they tried real hard to make it so. They do that with a lot of scenes. We never saw anything that Burnham may have had to do to survive during that year away. Even though it was a year, it was only an episode to fans, there was no build up.

Bring back Wesley Crusher to captain the new Enterprise. See sig.

 

To put it simply:


With due respect the fact that these Treks are different doesn't mean people don't care about the characters. In point of fact, for me, I cared more about Picard in Picard than in TNG. This is the danger of generalizing so much. It's imagining only that people think the exact same way and thus could possibly never see it any other way.

Not everyone has to like it but there are people who do. And that's OK.

 

Oh, please. I've been a Star Trek fan longer than you've been alive. And I notice you didn't mention TOS in your list of Trek shows. Looks like more evidence supporting my hypothesis the people who hate new Trek are most likely to be those who fixated on TNG as true Trek. As for myself, I find this the best time to be a Star Trek fan since Deep Space Nine went off the air in 1999.

Pretty much all of them. They're like DS9's characters. Some are flawed, but they grow, which makes them a lot more interesting to watch. Are Crusher, Riker, or LaForge noticeably different at the end of season 7 of TNG from the way they were in season 1? No. That's even more the case with Voyager and Enterprise. Most of the characters are thinly written and never get to grow. On Discovery, we're seeing Burnham, Tilly, and Saru, in particular, learn and grow from their experiences. Stamets is becoming warmer and mellower. Detmer's had a character arc this season, more than Sulu ever got. If you spend any time among people who actually enjoy Discovery, you'll see that we do actually like those characters as much as we do the characters from previous Trek series.

Patrick Stewart would disagree with you. He's only there because he wanted a chance to do something new and different with the character, and he had a lot of input into the show and his character. What we see onscreen is what he wanted to us to see onscreen. I'm not as invested yet in some of the new characters in Picard because we've only had ten episodes, and because I've only watched those episodes once. I've watched all the episodes from Discovery seasons 1 and 2 at least twice each already. (Hell, there are a few TNG episodes I've only watched once, and a lot of Voyager and Enterprise episodes I've only watched once.) But I already like Raffi and Laris a lot.

Your post is just another "I don't like it and therefore nobody sensible could possibly like it" rants. It's purely based on your own personal negative opinion of the show, and you're not bothering to make any fact-based points or try to reach anyone on common ground.



This may seem like an intemperate response, but you basically walked in and said, hey, if you like this shit you must be an idiot. I like the new shows, they're not shit, I'm not an idiot, have a nice day.

 

Edited. Better?

 

I assume this was rhetorical, but I'm gonna do it. I'm quite fond of Tilly, Agnes, Rios, Stamets and Saru. I'm very interested and intrigued by their characters.

That might just be a lack of imagination on your part. Burnham's the lead character and it's her story. Might as well complain that Kirk took up too much time in TOS.
They've focused on Saru and Tilly quite a bit. The Stamets and Culber relationship, too. Pike in season two was very much at the forefront.

Your problem here is assuming "bridge crew" will always be key characters. On DISCO they're not. This is made obvious by the opening credits. You'll note that the actors playing Worf, Data, LaForge, Yar and Wes ( for example) were all credited in the opening titles of TNG. Why? they were "key characters". Detmer, Owo, Rhys and Bryce are not "key characters", so their actors are credited in the closing credits. They are the equivalent the person who sat at con after LaForge, Wes and Ro "moved on". They are atmosphere somewhere between a redshirt and the TOS bridge crew, but that's slowly changing.

Stewart is the main reason the project even got off the ground. He's very interested. Don't mistake Stewart's portrayal of Picard as a defeated, disappointed and disheartened man as disinterest on Stewart's part, it's called acting. Picard's reinvigoration as the show progresses is at the heart of the show.
Again I cared about the characters.

Lets be honest, you don't speak for everyone.
I'm sure many people would care. Some have active fanbases. Detmer seems quite popular. Airiam's death was very moving and touched many fans.
And speaking as an old fan and a old man, but I can't take someone in their late thirties seriously as the final arbiter of all thing Star Trek.

 

Yes. And they made us care in not much more than a single episode. Ensign Gates was in dozens of TNG episodes. How many fans will instantly remember her? Airiam was basically another Ensign Gates until they filled in a lot of the gaps about her in a short period of time and made us care what happened to her, through the writing, her performance, and the other cast members' performances. That was good TV.

 

One of them being Alex Kurtzman, who currently in charge of the entire franchise.

What about L'Rell? Or Georgiou? (You dare throw shade at a legend like Michelle Yeoh?)

As for Picard, what about Rios and his holograms? Or Elnor?

Really?

If only you knew how many times I've had to deal with the "VOYAGER SUX!" brigade.

Fondness? For the better part of a quarter century, Chakotay has been the butt of block of wood/Chuckles/potted plant jokes.

TNG was mostly about Picard -- and I don't recall anyone raising a stink about THAT.

You DO have to make an effort (There's Saru, Reno, Tilly, Bryce, Booker, Stamets, Culber, Linus ... even I know their names!)

Picard is not the man he was twenty years ago.

How do you know what other people think and feel?

Picard has already "died" once on the show. That ship has sailed.

 

Most of them, actually. I care a hell of a lot more about the likes of Tilly, Saru, Rios and Stamets, among others, than I do most of the characters from Berman-era Trek. Hell, they did more in one episode to make me care about Airiam than they did in seven seasons with most of the TNG characters.

I was dreading the appearance of Riker and Troi in Picard, since I disliked both characters throughout TNG, but they were great in that episode. Funny what giving writers some creative freedom can do - the likes of Ira Behr hated that characters had to be written in such a robotic and unrealistic manner on TNG.

You seem to think you speak on behalf of all fans. You most certainly do not. Indeed, you're epitomising the very worst of the fanbase with your patronising assertions.

 

TOS characters will be remembered for decades to come as indeed they've already been remembered for the past fifty years. TNG? Just Picard and Data will have much of a lasting impression. Voyager? Seven of Nine is the only one on that show known outside of Trek fandom.

 

Janeway just had a statue dedicated to her in Bloomington, Indiana (and she's going to be appearing in ST: Prodigy in 2021).

Trek's answer to Star Wars?

Seven is versatile. She's the closest thing to a living, breathing, human being in the entire franchise.

She's not perfect. She's made mistakes. She's not just a mouthpiece for the writers' grand philosophical statements. She doesn't need a "mirror" version of herself to give her a "dark" side.

 

If Chakotay was from a real place he'd have a statue too.

 

Yep, it's a legitimate criticism - and it was particularly glaring in a couple of recent episodes where they just shoehorned her into situations where she had no business being. They also lay too much heavy drama on her, when SM-G is fantastic at playing much brighter emotions (just see her scene with the kid in the last episode, or on the truth drug at the start of season three).

Hardly the first to be overdone, though - I recall plenty of complaining about the overuse of Seven on Voyager, for instance, and Sisko's story wound up becoming ridiculous by late DS9.

There are legit criticisms of any Trek show, but the level of bile Disco gets is ludicrous.

 

Seven's importance in VOY made that show even more difficult.

I get it; she did a lot in terms of growth and becoming her own character. But, her utilization in the show was poor, at best.

 

She's done more in five episodes of Picard than she did in four seasons on Voyager.

 

I supposed "big this year in Indiana" is something.

She'd need at least that to give her a third dimension.

 

It is. It's gone plaid with rage.