Spoilers Let’s talk about the destruction of Trek utopia…
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My threshold for doom and gloom must be high. I don't see it as bad as painted. 
Arguably, no, but Enterprise was definitely darker. Archer was so desperate, he attacked and stranded people in space.
I liked that Archer.
And i was annoyed as hell with Burnhams ridiculous posturing and speeches.
Shit...the timelines where the Xindi, Klingons or Changelings wiped out Earth (Im not counting that Borg paradox that was supposed to wipe out the Borg, that was dumb) must vastly outnumber the ones where they didn't.
I'll say what I said here.
Dark: DS9 S6, ENT S3, DSC S1
Not As Dark: DS9 S7 (the tide had turned in The War), PIC S1 (the worst all happens in flashbacks)
Not Really That Dark: DSC S2
The scene from the beginning of "Stardust City Rag" aside, Picard isn't the darkest Star Trek has been by a long-shot.
The way some people describe this series, you'd think Picard was "Nor the Battle to the Strong" followed by "A Time to Stand" followed by "Rocks and Shoals" followed by "Waltz" followed by "In the Pale Moonlight" followed by "The Siege of AR-558" with some "Chain of Command, Part II" and "Duet" thrown in for good measure. It's not.
And to quote another poster, you'd think, going by some people here, that "Stardust City Rag" was Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Again, it's not.
This is all seriously hyperbole.
Dark: DS9 S6, ENT S3, DSC S1
Not As Dark: DS9 S7 (the tide had turned in The War), PIC S1 (the worst all happens in flashbacks)
Not Really That Dark: DSC S2
The scene from the beginning of "Stardust City Rag" aside, Picard isn't the darkest Star Trek has been by a long-shot.
The way some people describe this series, you'd think Picard was "Nor the Battle to the Strong" followed by "A Time to Stand" followed by "Rocks and Shoals" followed by "Waltz" followed by "In the Pale Moonlight" followed by "The Siege of AR-558" with some "Chain of Command, Part II" and "Duet" thrown in for good measure. It's not.
And to quote another poster, you'd think, going by some people here, that "Stardust City Rag" was Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Again, it's not.
This is all seriously hyperbole.
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Is that not what you would expect? It would be "scathing" if reviews were all 0s and 1s. It would be overly generous if they were all 9s and 10s.
5/10 is breaking even - that's where the overall average should be on a properly calibrated ratings scale.
There's a certain irony to this kind of exclamation.
When does this series start?
I have a carefully thought-out system that I modeled after Trek reviewer Tim Lynch's and made into my own.
Part I: How My Rating Scale Works
Cutting and pasting a post of mine from two years ago. These are how I rate episodes and the rationale behind the ratings:
10 = Outstanding. This isn't necessarily "perfect", nothing is [see the explanation in Part II], but it evoked a strong emotional reaction from me, it moved me, and I wanted to watch it again immediately.
9 = Excellent. The best you can get but without being as powerful as a 10. It's more entertaining and satisfying than necessarily moving or draining.
8 = Great. Better than just "good". I liked it a lot. This is what gets me hooked on a show or makes me a fan.
7 = Good. This is what I rate something if I like it and I thought it was solid, but there wasn't enough there to push it passed that. Whatever drawbacks there might've been don't effect my overall enjoyment.
6 = Okay. I kind of liked of it. It killed time. There were probably some drawbacks but nothing too serious.
5 = Mixed, Mediocre, or Neutral. There was either as much good as there was bad or the show did absolutely nothing for me at all. It was just there. I didn't feel anything about it good or ill.
4 = Poor. I didn't particularly care for it. The positives don't outweigh the negatives.
3 = Bad. This isn't any good. Or I just didn't like it. But I don't hate it and I didn't think it was unwatchable.
2 = Terrible. This is where it becomes hard to sit through. Unless maybe I give it the MST3K treatment.
1 = Atrocious. I really, really had to resist the urge to turn it off. It took sheer will-power to get through the whole thing.
0 = Bottom of the Barrel. I couldn't watch it all the way through. I had to turn it off. This is pure trash. I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy.
Part II: Is a 10 really a 10?
And here's an explanation for why I curve ratings. This is from a post I also made two years ago:
Interstellar is a film I watched where, towards the end I was bawling my eyes out. It never happened before when I went to see a movie, at least not to that extreme. It was intense. The crying was so bad, as I was leaving the theater I had to get out of there as fast as I possibly could while hoping no one I knew saw me. It was that powerful of a movie. Clear 10.
Nothing in Discovery comes close to that. Nor am I expecting it to. So that's why I curve. I look at what's the best for this series and compare everything else in the series to it. Otherwise, nothing would get a 10.
The Passion of the Christ was an intense film. Another clear 10. I don't ever want to watch it again. I saw it, it made its point, and that one time experiencing it is all I feel I needed.
I wouldn't want to watch a season with a constant, steady stream of episodes like DS9's "The Visitor" for instance. It's riveting but watching something like that all the time is too much.
I had some friends over the other day. We were celebrating Abraham Lincoln's birthday. It was a silly thing but it was a good excuse to hang out. I thought about putting on Lincoln, the Steven Speilberg film from 2012, but given the overall vibe, I decided against it. We didn't want to watch something like that on a Monday night while we were all just hanging out.
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oh, for fucks sake...
They are nearly all DS9 episodes.
An eminently sensible system and broadly similar to the one I have always followed. I also recommend the Sonnenburg rule of all scores being relative to the series and 0s being tightly reserved.
This is a valuable observation on fandom in general, and particularly this thread - some of our favourite things are better as a rare treat rather than our whole diet.
I have never heard of this DS9. Tell me more!
It isn't though.
Fantasy dreamed up by a mentally unstable SF writer in the 1950's. Sad story really.
I still don't get why some people are saying everything is dark and gloomy..
We saw Earth for a grand total of maybe 20 minutes in the series beyond Picard's own home, and everything seemed really quite normal and very TNG/DS9 consistent.
Is it because we're seeing the rough edges of the galaxy where the artificial sterility of the Federation has never existed?
We saw Earth for a grand total of maybe 20 minutes in the series beyond Picard's own home, and everything seemed really quite normal and very TNG/DS9 consistent.
Is it because we're seeing the rough edges of the galaxy where the artificial sterility of the Federation has never existed?
I knew someone like that. He kept writing stories on the wall.
The more sane version of the argument is that the Federation isn't working hard to expand its benefits as far as it possibly can. Which is true. But it's a difference of degree, not of kind.
Probably because there is a struggle of accepting that there isn't a "happily ever after." Problems being solved less nearly , and that their are actual consequences that are not as nice as perhaps one would guess.It's not a matter of darkness so much as it cuts against the grain of expectation.
What I think is highlighted best is the idea the idea that Star Trek has never had violence like Picard or DSC. While demonstrably not true it speaks this idea that Trek was more sanitized, and shielded itself from harsher realities. Picard looks straight in to very harsh consequences. For some, that is very unsettling in escapist entertainment.
The only show worth watching now is NCIS. When they cancel that one, I will only keep my TV for the sports programs and for watching videos and DVD:s
I don't know. Now that are a trillion channels and streaming services, it seems to me as though there's more good tv these days for any one person to watch. You just need to track them down.
At the moment, I'm really enjoying LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, while counting the days until the return of KILLING EVE and WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS. Planning to check out MOTHERLAND: FORT SALEM when it debuts in a few weeks as well. And I still need to check out Lucy Lawless's new detective series, the DVDs of which just landed at our local library.
And now I'm going to go watch BATWOMAN . . .
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