Looking Back at S1

[eschaton]

Thoughts??

My biggest issue with this episode remains that weird conference room meeting where Cornwell claims that the Klingons were more powerful because the individual houses were not coordinating their attacks whatsoever, and just acting as individual bands of raiders.

This displays such a stunning lack of knowledge on the part of the writer's room regarding anything remotely resembling military tactics, logistics, etc. I mean, I'm not even a military history buff, but I know enough in passing that I rolled my eyes at this.

If the Klingons were so powerful they could roll over the Federation just acting like a bunch of barbarian tribes, than basically the Federation was already in a "fall of the Roman Empire" level of dysfunction, which nothing in the show led us to believe.

 

[fireproof78]

That does seem to be the impression given in the show is that the Klingons are closer to the Germanic tribes, prior to be organized but still able to defeat the might of the Roman Empire. But, it ignores the internal rot that had happened in the Empire by that point. I think the biggest part that bothers me is simply the "telling not showing" attitude around this war. I love the MU and exploring that, but the war gets short changed as a result.

 

[Wouter]

I actually find the Lorca reveal is worse on rewatches. It's bad enough the first time around, Lorca really is a great and entertaining character to watch and a truly unique one for the Trek franchise. A battle hardened Starfleet captain who has seen some stuff, and because of that he has no time for the usual head in the clouds idealism so commonplace in Starfleet. When people use the line that they joined Starfleet to be an explorer rather than a soldier, Lorca yells at them that they have no place on his ship. Then the reveal comes along and we find out the only reason Lorca is like this is because he's from the Mirror Universe and therefore Evil. It's worse on rewatches because while being enthralled by what a fascinating character Lorca is, I also know that he's not really a complex and nuanced individual. He's in fact an Evil douche from the Mirror Universe who wants to "Make the Terran Empire Great Again" (actual quote in an episode).

Exactly. They created such an interesting character with Lorca, and then turned him into an evil psychopath. Discovery lost me as a viewer at that point.
It seemed to tie in the everlasting debate "is Starfleet the military or not" where Lorca was one of those waging a war, while others wanted to pause that to investigate space whales and do exploration. I liked that Lorca had little patience for people who didn't realise they were actually fighting a war, and one existential for the Federation. By having him be a psychopatic mirror Lorca, the show seemed to invalidata his POV on Starfleet and fighting the war. Yet they somehow did not lose the war...

I came here to say exactly that! Even the biker gang comment.

I was happy to see that Klingons were truly alien again.

But the Discovery klingons weren't truly alien either, for me it seems they even doubled down on the mindless violence (with unclear motives for their war, though it mostly seemed to be war of conquest and to take out a competitor, with all the rest being pretexts) and the rivaly/hostility between the clans. They even had a Klingon take human form to infiltrate Starfleet, as if a "truly alien" alien could do so. When it comes down to it, they were still humans with different foreheads, even though the makeup was now more elaborate than ever (to the point where the actors barely could emote).

Star Trek aliens usually are allegoric for human traits or specific groups and are almost always anthropomorphised, even the Borg and Species 8472. The writers inevitably want to create interactions between the (often human) protagonists and the aliens, and quickly aliens turn out to be merely humans with some slightly different traits and one or two exagerated characteristics (and able to speak English, or at least be very easily translated to English). And I don't think the Discovery klingons are an exception.

Most SF works that could count as space opera nowadays populate the galaxy (or the local solar system) with human colonists and create their factions that way, which is probably easier if you want to have the kind of drama that Star Trek tends to generate. If you want truly alien aliens, you need another genre of stories.

 

[fireproof78]

But the Discovery klingons weren't truly alien either, for me it seems they even doubled down on the mindless violence (with unclear motives for their war, though it mostly seemed to be war of conquest and to take out a competitor, with all the rest being pretexts) an

So, same as Kor in Errand of Mercy?
I personally think the Klingons in Discovery were the most alien looking, while giving us more diversity to their culture. Different designs, different factions, duplicitous and even fractious. All of it reflective of Klingons we had seen before but not uniform. I think there's value to that.

 

[Wouter]

So, same as Kor in Errand of Mercy?
I personally think the Klingons in Discovery were the most alien looking, while giving us more diversity to their culture. Different designs, different factions, duplicitous and even fractious. All of it reflective of Klingons we had seen before but not uniform. I think there's value to that.

The design didn't seem to work, it was generally not considered attractive by the viewers and it was apparently very difficult to work with (emote and even pronounce the alien language) for the actors.

Different views on how to proceed is fine, and so is being duplicitous. But then, TOS Klingons were duplicitous and that with barely any makeup. Still the best Klingons overall.

It's also the problem of being another prequel show. A show in the present could have created a new race and defined it, they way Prodigy is doing with the Vau N'akat. Not being tied to canon elements has its advantages.

It was also a weird idea to base season 1 partially around the Klingon-Federation war, but not make it the main point of the season (the mirror universe suddenly taking over, and few episodes before that focused on the war). Together with Enterprise failing to tackle the Romulan-Earth war, this is actually quite a miss in my view.

 

[fireproof78]

The design didn't seem to work, it was generally not considered attractive by the viewers and it was apparently very difficult to work with (emote and even pronounce the alien language) for the actors.

Attractiveness is a poor reason. Actors emoting I get but attractive? Come on!

Still the best Klingons overall.

Hopefully you're talking about presenting behavior and not make up.

 

[Wouter]

Hopefully you're talking about presenting behavior and not make up.

Yes, the TOS Klingons were less one-note than later iterations and looked like credible opponents, who could nevertheless be engaged with in diplomacy from time to time. Looking close to humans, they were also more credible as infiltrators. It may have been better if the Klingons looked like, say, Bajorans, very slightly different from humans.

 

[fireproof78]

Yes, the TOS Klingons were less one-note than later iterations and looked like credible opponents, who could nevertheless be engaged with in diplomacy from time to time. Looking close to humans, they were also more credible as infiltrators. It may have been better if the Klingons looked like, say, Bajorans, very slightly different from humans.

I mean, it's an interstellar empire. Having multiple races, or "fusions" as one RPG called combinations between Klingon and humans. I would expect variety.

 

[Vger23]

Will You Take My Hand?

Unfortunately, this isn’t one of the season’s strongest outings, and it is a shame because it’s obviously the one that was needed to pull the entire arc together. And, while it does some things really well, it’s just not mature enough to be successful.

Again, I don’t hate it, but it’s almost certainly anti-climactic after the conclusion of the MU arc, and the wrap-up here is….well…just not very good. I can’t put it any kinder. There’s some fun here, and some worthwhile character scenes, but the actual resolution of the entire arc is so mediocre and contrived, it’s hard to feel good about. Additionally, the speech-heavy, hammy, “WE ARE STARFLEET” stuff is not well-executed and sadly does not feel organic. The tone is off as well, as there are attempts at some dark humor on Kronos that just spent seem inappropriate given the dire and sensitive situation the landing party finds themselves in.

It feels a lot like the writers who took over for Fuller were not really bought in to the war arc, and just wrapped it up as quickly and easily as possible.

It doesn’t ruin the season for me, as I had way too good of a time along the way…but it is admittedly a let-down.

Thoughts?

 

[Lord Garth]

Hard, hard, hard disagree. I went into the season finale at the time wondering how the Hell they were going to tie things up, and I didn't foresee any of what they did. I like when they subvert my expectations.

I also like that they avoided having an action-heavy finale and instead we spent a lot of time at the Orion Embassy. They already had an action-heavy mid-season finale and an action-heavy arc finale with the Mirror Universe, so they didn't have to do it a third time and they didn't.

I don't mind the "We are Starfleet" speech because Burnham loves the speeches. That's her character. What I did take issue with was whenever Cornwell said something and we heard Burnham narrating things like, "As it should be." That was annoying.

Too bad they had to cut the scene with Georgiou being enlisted in Section 31. Though I can't really think a place within the flow of the episode where it would fit. Between all that "We are Starfleet!" dogma and the Enterprise appearing at the end, and the spirit being "Starfleet! The Enterprise! The way it should be! RAH! RAH! RAH!", sticking a Section 31 scene in there wouldn't have fit... except maybe after the closing credits. Too bad Star Trek doesn't do that.

 

[eschaton]

Will You Take My Hand?

Unfortunately, this isn’t one of the season’s strongest outings, and it is a shame because it’s obviously the one that was needed to pull the entire arc together. And, while it does some things really well, it’s just not mature enough to be successful.

Again, I don’t hate it, but it’s almost certainly anti-climactic after the conclusion of the MU arc, and the wrap-up here is….well…just not very good. I can’t put it any kinder. There’s some fun here, and some worthwhile character scenes, but the actual resolution of the entire arc is so mediocre and contrived, it’s hard to feel good about. Additionally, the speech-heavy, hammy, “WE ARE STARFLEET” stuff is not well-executed and sadly does not feel organic. The tone is off as well, as there are attempts at some dark humor on Kronos that just spent seem inappropriate given the dire and sensitive situation the landing party finds themselves in.

It feels a lot like the writers who took over for Fuller were not really bought in to the war arc, and just wrapped it up as quickly and easily as possible.

It doesn’t ruin the season for me, as I had way too good of a time along the way…but it is admittedly a let-down.

Thoughts?

I feel like somehow, the showrunners kinda lost the thread over the course of the season. Like, they got carried away with whatever story ideas they found interesting in the MU, and then realized at the 11th hour what The Vulcan Hello had meant to set up, meaning the episode was reserved for some truly awkward course corrections.

Like, they realized that the point of Michael's arc was supposed to be moving past her suppressed emotion regarding the Klingons and becoming a more "objective" Starfleet officer and learning to rely upon others. This was a good idea! But they had done basically nothing with it during the MU arc, just putting her through emotional torture through repeated betrayals for no good reason. So instead, she makes a random-ass decision to trust Georgiou because...she looks like someone she admired, even though she's demonstrably been worse than Gul Dukat onscreen. And the plot rewards her for this decision! Just terrible.

The way the Klingon situation is solved is awful too. L'Rell ends up leading the Klingon Empire, despite having been locked in Discovery's brig for half a season, because there's only one Klingon character left on the show who isn't dead or surgically transformed into being a human. The moral message of "we don't have to do a genocide, we'll just install our own puppet who rules by implicit threat of genocide" is also completely antithetical to Trek.

Not a total loss though. I was pretty happy with the away mission to Kronos (why did we wait so long to go to a planet which had anyone on it?) and I actually liked how Ash's arc finished here. It's a shame they did nothing interesting with him in Season 2.

 

[Vger23]

So, I've completed S1 (I'm actually more than halfway through a re-watch of S2 by now), and my feelings on it in general are pretty strong, but certainly it is not perfect. I'd say it was a very bold and risky attempt not only at returning Star Trek to the television format, but basically holding the responsibility for single-handedly launching an entire streaming platform. From that perspective, it was an exciting, thrilling experience.

I think the show did a lot of things really well for a "first season of Trek," which is traditionally a rocky season in the franchise. The casting is extremely well done, including being the first series to really bring some legit international star power into the fold right out of the gate with Jason Isaacs and Michelle Yeoh. The production design and cinematography were exceptional, and the visual effects were above average as well. The themes of the season associated with testing the high-and-mighty values of the Federation with a crisis were well-done. The theme of identity on a social level (the Federation at war with the Klingons and their own ideals) and having that reflected on an individual level was, I honestly thought, pretty well done. I'd certainly say the exploration of identity on the individual level was done much better than Star Trek : Nemesis portrayed it, and using the MU arc to accentuate that was, well, a pretty unexpected and interesting idea. The action / adventure stuff was dynamic and exciting. Overall, despite flaws, it was an entertaining and thrilling season to watch.

Looking at it objectively, it does have its flaws, of course. But, this is true of any Trek product, including untouchable "fan darlings" like DS9, TNG, TWOK and TCU...so it's certainly in good company there. It's obvious that the show-runner shake-up (a situation that would plague DSC in the future as well) caused some story inconsistency and a slippage of cohesiveness. The wrap-up, no matter how well-intended, simply does not live up to the really good and intriguing material that proceeded it. The season has an air of self-consciousness throughout as well, very much like S1 of TNG...where the actors and writers are trying to prove to everyone that this is a "true and worthy Star Trek production," and the result at times makes things feel inorganic and not quite genuine. SMG particularly seems to be struggling at times with what is, admittedly, a very interesting idea for a character that never quite fully materialized on screen as envisioned. It's not for lack of effort or raw talent...it's just an insanely haphazard character to get right at this stage.

I think some of the twists were really entertaining, but weren't baked well enough before going in front of camera. The Voq/Tyler thing makes very little logical sense in terms of (even magical) biology or science. And, even worse, is the show doesn't even make an effort to hide that it is really quite hokey. It's like the writers were stuck with the concept, but didn't know how to define it, and were like "yeah....I don't know man, fuck it...lets just throw a few lines of confusing jibberish shit on the page and just get back to our energy drinks." The Lorca twist was awesome, but as many have pointed out for years now, it honestly would have been even more compelling if they had either dumped it in favor of him being a true "wartime captain..." almost like Trek's version of Colonel Jessup from "A Few Good Men..." leaving you asking the question of whether or not you want or need him on that wall....or if he had indeed been a MU counterpart bent on a coup, but whose ideology was actually the "softer" one compared to the current emperor and/or if his experience in the PU had changed him.

Overall, I find DSC S1 to be a wildly entertaining ride that doesn't stand up well to overthinking or scrutiny. So, I choose not to over-analyze it too much, because why ruin my enjoyment when I know that if I start nitpicking things, it will just sap the fun out of it?

Thoughts on the season overall??

 

[Lord Garth]

Klingons (especially in the 23rd Century) don't subscribe to Earth/Federation Values. Neither do Terrans (referring to Humans in the Mirror Universe). A non-Federation solution had to be found to end the Klingon War or it wasn't going to happen. Diplomacy only works if the other side is open to diplomacy and that wasn't going to happen when the Federation was The Thing that united all the Klingons together. Basically, what the Federation wanted was a 0. What the Klingons and Georgiou wanted was a 100. The Federation thought they'd be stuck going with 100 because they viewed the situation is binary and bleak. Burnham managed to bring it down to a 50. No one got everything they wanted. Even L'Rell lost something. She lost Voq. Even though Ash stayed with L'Rell, he's really not Voq.

I like that the solution was messy because getting out of war usually is. WWII ended with an Extreme Solution. Harry Truman dropping atomic bombs (plural) on Japan. We lost in Vietnam. The war in Afghanistan dragged on for 20 years, and people criticize Biden for the messy withdrawal, but it would've been messy no matter who was President. War is ugly. War is messy. You don't come out of it alive looking like an angel. You have to do things that you normally wouldn't do, because you're dealing with people who don't think like you.

 

[The Wormhole]

Overall, I call season 1 an alright season. The first two episodes were awful, not going to lie about that. But after that the episodes range from being okay to actually being somewhat good. Then things turn bad again for the last two. But then, ending a season is something Disco continues to struggle with, as does Picard.

There were some areas where their attempt at reinventing things did go a bit too far. I'm not referring to the new Klingons or the fact that Starfleet doesn't look like it did in TOS, since I get it it's not the 60s anymore and they (or rather Fuller) wanted the Klingons to look alien. That said, about the Klingons, I'm not too crazy about their look in Disco regardless, it just isn't for me, I couldn't care less about continuity or canon implications. And really, who thought it was a good idea to make it so the actors weren't capable of talking clearly in those masks?

What did get to me about their attempts at revisionism were some of the attempts they made at being futuristic. Particularly the holographic mirror we see some characters using, which seems a waste of resources. There's no reason actual mirrors would be replaced, and the holographic mirror just creates a mirror-reversed image of the person anyway, raising the question of what exactly it's purpose is, since it just seems to be a more complex mirror.

While I get the initial desire to avoid the traditional Trek formula of loading the main cast with the ship's senior staff, the way they went about it with Disco was somewhat questionable. For the most part, the main cast included a majority of the senior officer positions anyway. Captain, XO, chief of security. Their decision to leave out a chief engineer seems very odd given the fact that the spore drive is so integral to the show's story arc. It seems very odd the ship's chief engineer is apparently okay with a scientist essentially running their engine room and and an experimental propulsion with no oversight at all. And given the fact Culber fits the same narrative role as a CMO, I don't understand why they decided to establish he wasn't CMO to the point that after he was killed, the rest of the medical staff had no idea what to do without consulting with Saru, someone who has no medical background.

So, season 1 is decent enough, but there was some really messy execution.

 

[Lord Garth]

So, I've completed S1 (I'm actually more than halfway through a re-watch of S2 by now)

This is my opening to say SNW is what I was worried DSC Season 2 was going to be, at first. SNW's style fits SNW, but I would've been horrified if DSC had gone in that direction. It looked like it might during the first two episodes, but then came "Point of Light" to ensure me that wasn't the case. Granted, "Point of Light" was really an S1 episode masquerading as an S2 episode, but the point stands. The funky direction of the 4th and 5th episodes in the Mycellial Network was distinctly DSC. Then the change in Showrunners afterwards ensured that DSC and SNW would ultimately be two different things.

 

[eschaton]

Thoughts on the season overall??

IMHO the core flaw with the season, beyond all the execution, is how they botched Michael's arc.

Go back to Episode 1, and Michael pretty clearly has a lot of flaws from the getgo. She's not a Mary Sue, despite what the trolls said. He flaws seem to mostly boil down to unresolved negative feelings around the Klingons, then (somehow) being raised by Sarek and learning she should suppress her emotions rather than face them.

But did those flaws lead to a mistake? No, they didn't. Michael kills the Torchbearer, but it's by accident, more or less, and T'Kuvma's dialogue makes it clear it wasn't really a big deal. Michael's "mutiny" (which isn't really a mutiny, because you need two or more conspiring) was a failure - she never fired on the Klingons. Furthermore the cutbacks to the Klingons seem to make it clear that Michael's course of action would have been right. The "mutiny" killed her career, but in the macro sense, she had the right response to the problem, despite her flaws. The only mistake she makes is choosing to kill T'Kuvma after Georgiou gets shanked, but frankly no one other than her knows about this (Saru knew the plan was to capture T'Kuvma, but wasn't there to see what happened. Yet somehow the entire war gets blamed on her.

What this suggests to me is that an early draft of the first two episodes had the Klingon War being actively her fault. She was supposed to fire on the Ship of the Dead, and actually make a big mistake which set off the war. But somewhere along the way, either the showrunners who took over for Fuller or CBS got scared about a lead that flawed, and they choked. Sort of similar to how Paramount had this maxim during the Berman Trek days that the captain always had to be "right" which fucked up Voyager (neutering Chakotay since he could never win an argument with Janeway as XO) and Enterprise (where Dear Doctor was made far worse because the studio wouldn't let Plox disobey Archer and do a genocide on his own, so instead Archer had to extol the "wisdom" of it himself).

From episodes 3 to 9, I thought Michael had a great character arc. We slowly see her come out of her shell, losing layers of Vulcan repression and embrace her humanity. We see her relationships with the rest of the cast slowly transform from distrust to grudging admiration to outright friendship. Returning to the Ship of the Dead, facing down Kol, winning back Georgiou's badge...all of that was great symbolically.

And then Chapter 2 happened, and they just tortured her for no good reason. Her boyfriend was unveiled as a Klingon sleeper agent who tried to strangle her to death. Her captain was unveiled as a mustache-twirling villain who was just trying to get into her pants all along. And someone with the face of her dead surrogate mother is now lady Hitler. What does this tell us about her character? Absolutely nothing. What lessons does this teach her? Beats me. How does she grow through this arc? She doesn't, she just endures.

Then we have the final stretch, when she decides, randomly, to just trust MU Georgiou. Her spidey-sense ends up right here. But the issue is this isn't growth, this is what she's always been like. Michael from the first episode has been someone who makes rash emotional decisions and then covers them up after-the-fact with layers of Vulcan denial. The decision to trust MU Georgiou is built upon nothing other than her looking like PU Georgiou, and the fact that she trusted PU Georgiou. It works, because the plot needs it to work, but her decision in the 11th hour isn't built on learning lessons from any bad decisions that she made earlier.

 

[Vger23]

This is my opening to say SNW is what I was worried DSC Season 2 was going to be, at first. SNW's style fits SNW, but I would've been horrified if DSC had gone in that direction. It looked like it might during the first two episodes, but then came "Point of Light" to ensure me that wasn't the case. Granted, "Point of Light" was really an S1 episode masquerading as an S2 episode, but the point stands. The funky direction of the 4th and 5th episodes in the Mycellial Network was distinctly DSC. Then the change in Showrunners afterwards ensured that DSC and SNW would ultimately be two different things.

Upon rewatch, I'm actually wondering if I enjoy S2 more than S1 overall. And that's not to take away anything from S1...it's just to say that I don't remember S2 being quite as good or as enjoyable as I'm currently feeling about it, with only 3 episodes to go.

While I get the initial desire to avoid the traditional Trek formula of loading the main cast with the ship's senior staff, the way they went about it with Disco was somewhat questionable. For the most part, the main cast included a majority of the senior officer positions anyway. Captain, XO, chief of security. Their decision to leave out a chief engineer seems very odd given the fact that the spore drive is so integral to the show's story arc. It seems very odd the ship's chief engineer is apparently okay with a scientist essentially running their engine room and and an experimental propulsion with no oversight at all. And given the fact Culber fits the same narrative role as a CMO, I don't understand why they decided to establish he wasn't CMO to the point that after he was killed, the rest of the medical staff had no idea what to do without consulting with Saru, someone who has no medical background.

There were definitely some odd decisions that didn't really have the payoff "weight" you'd expect regarding the crew. You've picked out several of them here. The common complaint about how we "don't know anything about the bridge crew" is another one, but it's one I actually don't care about. DSC made a conscious effort to not have every main character also be a person stationed in traditional roles on the ship's bridge, and I thought that was cool. It's nice to have a bunch of Mr. Kyle's and Lt. Leslie's to add to the cast on a consistent basis.

 

[fireproof78]

How does she grow through this arc? She doesn't, she just endures.

This will probably be controversial but this is ultimatley why S1 and Burnham appeal to me. Too often, as much as I enjoy Star Trek, it gets framed as this aspirational idea, that if only humans got their you know what's out of their you know what's then it would all work out in the end. S1 isn't about that. It's about endurance and recognizing one's own limits. Michael recognizes she was wrong to just attack the Klingons and in so doing, tries to find a solution when the war goes badly. Her guilt over Georgiou though she has not gotten over by the end of Season 1 (and really won't until Season 3). So, she endures.

Which is about as true to life for a story as I would want.

 

[Vger23]

IMHO the core flaw with the season, beyond all the execution, is how they botched Michael's arc.

Agreed, although I wouldn't call it "botched..." more just "unnecessarily over-complicated."

IMHO the core flaw with the season, beyond all the execution, is how they botched Michael's arc. But did those flaws lead to a mistake? No, they didn't. Michael kills the Torchbearer, but it's by accident, more or less, and T'Kuvma's dialogue makes it clear it wasn't really a big deal. Michael's "mutiny" (which isn't really a mutiny, because you need two or more conspiring) was a failure - she never fired on the Klingons. Furthermore the cutbacks to the Klingons seem to make it clear that Michael's course of action would have been right. The "mutiny" killed her career, but in the macro sense, she had the right response to the problem, despite her flaws. The only mistake she makes is choosing to kill T'Kuvma after Georgiou gets shanked, but frankly no one other than her knows about this (Saru knew the plan was to capture T'Kuvma, but wasn't there to see what happened. Yet somehow the entire war gets blamed on her.

I agree with this, and it's even more obvious in re-watches that the war being blamed on MB is pretty unfair. The Klingons were on the path to attack anyway. The only thing you can point to is that she martyred T'Kuvma, which is exactly what she said she was the wrong thing to do. But, in the end, it didn't unite the houses behind a single cause anyway, mainly because Kol is a dick, so even then it's not really in her blame.

From episodes 3 to 9, I thought Michael had a great character arc. We slowly see her come out of her shell, losing layers of Vulcan repression and embrace her humanity. We see her relationships with the rest of the cast slowly transform from distrust to grudging admiration to outright friendship. Returning to the Ship of the Dead, facing down Kol, winning back Georgiou's badge...all of that was great symbolically.

And then Chapter 2 happened, and they just tortured her for no good reason. Her boyfriend was unveiled as a Klingon sleeper agent who tried to strangle her to death. Her captain was unveiled as a mustache-twirling villain who was just trying to get into her pants all along. And someone with the face of her dead surrogate mother is now lady Hitler. What does this tell us about her character? Absolutely nothing. What lessons does this teach her? Beats me. How does she grow through this arc? She doesn't, she just endures.

I agree, DSC S1 seems to have a few mini-arcs that end or conclude out of order from what a more solid narrative plan would/should have provided.

 

[The Wormhole]

There were definitely some odd decisions that didn't really have the payoff "weight" you'd expect regarding the crew. You've picked out several of them here. The common complaint about how we "don't know anything about the bridge crew" is another one, but it's one I actually don't care about. DSC made a conscious effort to not have every main character also be a person stationed in traditional roles on the ship's bridge, and I thought that was cool. It's nice to have a bunch of Mr. Kyle's and Lt. Leslie's to add to the cast on a consistent basis.

Indeed, and I actually do like the fact that the bridge officers like Detmer, Owo, Bryce and Rhys are actually just recurring co-stars instead of main cast. Other Trek shows have a habit of sticking someone in the main cast just because they're a bridge officer and then doing nothing with them. Harry Kim and Travis Mayweather are the obvious go-to examples of this. Which is why I always scratch my head over the people who say things like "we should know more about Detmer [or whoever]. If this were one of the other shows, we would have." Well, no, we wouldn't. We'd know exactly as much as we currently do. Just in the other shows, those characters would be listed in the main cast and would do promotional images with everyone else creating the impression we know them better than we in fact do.