I'm not much of a believer in online ratings as they get horribly distorted by people with agendas.
Maybe I'm wrong on this but just looking with the naked eye it seems to me that there are a lot less ratings of Disco being done here on BBS and episode threads seem to be generating about 30% less pages and I think that's a much bigger story. Some of that is down to the trolls and various "ists" getting bored or banned but it also seems to show that Disco isn't convincing new viewers or holding onto the on the fence ones.
Another big factor is Paramount+ or whatever method you have to watch comes nowhere near Netflix for easy access.
I think there's less activity in the threads because all the regulars basically know what each other is going to say and all the major arguments about the show have been resolved.
"Should Discovery be a prequel?" Resolved. It's not.
"Burnham should be Captain!" She's captain.
"What's Georgiou still doing here?" She's gone.
"Tilly's so over the top!" Whether she's here or not, people warmed up to her.
"They have too much / too little LGBTQIA representation!" It's been settled that this a corner for LGBTQIA.
"They killed off Culber! It's Bury Your Gays!" On a related note, Culber's back and now a favorite.
"Too much with the Klingons!" Not a Klingon in sight for two seasons.
"Slow the fuck down!" Sure not hearing that complaint these days. It's the opposite.
I could go on, but I'll stop there. The point is, what fueled a lot of these threads were arguements about what the show was doing. Now it's just "Pick up the pace!" "Stop talking about feelings so much!" I find that not too interesting to argue about. I'll say something about it, and give a counter-argument, but I'm not going to go on and on about it for pages and pages if someone else wants to. This isn't exactly The Great Debate.
As far as DSC episodes being rated lower, I think a lot of people watching DSC aren't the target audience. That's why I've told them for years to stop watching. If they don't like it by now, they're not going to.
With all these new Star Trek shows,
Discovery is no longer trying to be a Star Trek show for all Trekkies. I don't think it was ever trying to be that, but now I think they've doubled down on it. So you have people who think "This show isn't geared towards me, this doesn't feel like my Star Trek, and there's not really anything I'm interested in seeing here!" and of course it's going to be rated low by these people.
A lot of people on here have said that one day the people bashing DSC now will love the show or at least like it a little bit more. Saying they'll say, "At least
Discovery was better than what's out now!" I used to think that too, but now I no longer believe that to be true.
I think DSC has found and will continue to find an audience that will accept the show for what it is, but it's just not going to be the people determined to bash it. When DSC is done, the bashers who bash it every week will completely forget about the show and move on to the next thing. I don't think they'll look back to DSC or revise their opinion of it because the show inherently isn't made for them. DSC is made for a different type of Trekkie. Not a newer or older type, but a
different type than what a lot of people see themselves as.
Every new series after DSC has been something that tries to rope back in the people Disco repelled. So I'm not really expecting another Star Trek series like
Discovery, once it's done. But I'm completely fine with that. I know that eventually Kurtzman Trek will lose me, just like Berman Trek did. I know that's where it'll eventually end up. And they'll have a shit-ton of various Star Trek shows of various quality. But, at the end of the day, no matter what else they do, I already have the Star Trek show I want. And I look at it like this: I got what I want and that's a better place to be than people who didn't get anything they want. So I'm happy to call it quits after DSC if comes to that.
