Star Trek Discovery in trouble, and a de facto reboot?

It's not. With only 13 episodes, Discovery's first season is going to be primarily serialized.

 

Which is consistent with contemporary TV storytelling now.

 

But is 'new' in terms of what Star Trek on TV has been up to this point.

 

That's what I fear. At the very least, I hope that the main arc is going to be some kind of a hypothetical phenomena and not an "Evasive maneuvers!" action with lazy cliffhangers.

 

Why is Star Trek Discovery being primarily serialized a 'fear' of yours?

There's nothing at all wrong with serialized storytelling.

 

Because Star Trek, traditionally, has been serializing nothing but wars, which are the weakest point of the show.

 

Which is something I am eagerly awaiting

Doesn't mean it has to be in this show.

 

One: Serialized storytelling is not new to Trek. DS9 was fairly heavily serialized, as was Enterprise (especially seasons 3 and 4). Complaining about that, despite it being the current standard for televised drama, is a bit like complaining that there's not enough comedy-variety shows on now, simply because they were everywhere in the 60s & 70s.

Lastly, citing your "OCD" about timeline canon as a valid reasoning for complaint about the show indicates that you need to be reminded that the D stands for "disorder." It's something to get treated, not encourage.

 

I have to disagree with you both. Out of all of ENT, I felt while there were some good standalones (Carbon Creek, Regeneration, Fallen Hero, and Twilight being my favorites), I think the multi-part episodes of season 4 were what ENT should have been as a prequel (given that the studio forced the show away from its original intentions to set season 1 on earth putting the ship/crew together, and toward only paying lip service to the prequel concept).

I feel the standalones you mentioned (and Bounty mentioned by another poster) are some of the weakest episodes of ENT: Unexpected and Bounty attempt to address prejudices and social issues with a little twist or a different angle, but rewatching them recently, I found them to be wrong headed and poorly done. Dear Doctor, while it has an interesting concept, is horrible in execution for two reasons: 1) against his own judgement Archer literally decides to follow an as-yet unwritten "directive" to not interfere because of, 2) Doctor Phlox totally and completely misunderstanding the theory of evolution while also having zero compassion for other beings. Civilization, I did enjoy.

 

Which only reinforces my belief that there should be a healthy mix of both types of episodes, to satisfy the wants of the entire spectrum of the fan base.

BTW, I also disagreed with the decisions in "Dear Doctor" but it was still an immensely enjoyable episode to watch.

 

Sure, I'm willing to keep an open mind. Still excited for the show despite the negative preconceptions it has already succeeded in cultivating.

 

'Dear Doctor' is possibly the worst e

Yes, absolutely agreed.

'Dear Doctor' was possibly the worst episode in the entire show. I have said this before, but I hate this episode so much. It is a perfect example of how ENT utterly failed it's premise. 'How the Prime Directive came to be' is of course a perfect topic for a Star Trek prequel series, but they completely dropped the ball. They just come up with prime directivish idea out of thin air at the worst possible moment and end up coming across as complete assholes. Such topic would have been much better handled by having the Enterprise crew trying to help some primitive civilisation, but despite their good efforts their meddling would cause some unforeseen, horrible consequences.

 

I don't disagree with that it did not make sense to me that this is how the Prime Directive was born, but the premise of these two species coexisting on the same planet, kind of like Humans and Neanderthals, was very interesting. And I do see the dilemma that was raise. I think that story should've been explored more deeply, perhaps over 2 episodes, diving into their anthropological relationship and with more discussions of the various consequences that their decisions would have on that planet's future development.

 

When you try to please everyone, you usually end up pleasing no one. Discovery needs to be whatever its creators want it to be.

 

Of course if there is truth in these rumours this thread is about, the problem may be that the creators themselves cannot agree what Discovery should be!

 

Oh, I agree that the history of serialization in Star Trek is an unimpressive one and I agree that it's because the "arc" was always some simplistic war.

Let's hope this is better than that. I also prefer stand-alone stories when they're well-written; it requires more skill to do that.

 

I just wish the new star trek was either set in the future, or if they absolutely did not want to deal with the PRIME timeline, in some alternate universe. This seems like the near past, which to my mind is too boxed in to truly new horizons.


The knights of the old republic game series solved the issue by going thousands of years in the past, so far that they had enough breathing room to flesh out the same universe without stepping on movie cannon or being boxed in.


Are writers and creators afraid of moving forward in time? Perhaps hundreds of years forward into the prime timeline? That would make it a new world, with potentially radically new subjects to tackle. Human/machine hybrids more common place? Data like people far more common? Something beyond? So many potential areas to explore... why box yourself into the past ?

 

Agreed, but clearly we will not be seeing any of it in Discovery.

 

It's set in the 23rd Century.