anyone else? General season 3 was ok but the burn was never the prority and wasnt't really addressed until later in the series. I was hoping for an Omega partical cause for that disruption or is it just me
Omega particle would have been interesting and totally fanwanky and I'm tired of it. The Burn cause worked for me because I am tired of fanwank and wanted a smaller, non sinister, cause.
Nah, there are plenty of posts by people who didn't like it. Some even in threads about the episode and the burn it's self. I'm with @fireproof78 and glad the reason wasn't some fanwank call back to an episode I barely remember. The cause was very Star Trek, IMO and driven by character.
I fell into "Burn"-ham thinking but as you say, I like that it wasn't something predictable like that.
Omega Particle is so obscurely fanwankish that I can’t even imagine how unsatisfying an outcome that would have been. I like that we got something that feels like it was right out of a TOS of TNG episode with its weirdness. Was it odd? Yes. But at least it wasn’t some half-assed callback to something most fans wouldn’t remember or care about.
In a way, the cause of the Burn was kind of scary in the sense that it was something nobody could have predicted or even prevented (unless they were there). It was a inexplicable freak of nature that devastated the entire Federation, and for over a century, nobody knew the cause, who was responsible, or if it might happen again.
I was also disappointed with the cause of the burn but not so much by the cause itself but rather that the cause was underwhelming relative to how they built it up in the story. The marketing people basically hyped up the mystery box to try and sell the season and they stretched it out over the entire season and in doing so made expectations high where I was expecting some earth shattering revelation. So when you find out that it's just some guy who cried it seems like a letdown, even though the story itself was rather interesting. The weird thing was that stretching it out over the season was unnecessary from a story telling standpoint because it had minimal connection with any of the other ongoing plots. I think it would have been received better if they didn't hype it up so much and also resolved it sooner. In a way though it was a much needed adjustment to the equally ridiculous super high stakes of previous seasons where all life in the galaxy hangs in the balance, but it was an overcorrection. They went too far in the other direction.
Su'Kal has issues. Serious issues. Through no fault of his own. I recently had to help with something involving the family member of a friend, who wasn't quite right in the head, and was extremely irritable (Understatement of the Century) and if he screamed loud enough, the entire world probably be shattered. And, mentally, yeah I'd probably say he was kind of like a little kid. Luckily, my friend did give me the head's up in advance about this family member of theirs. So I went in prepared. ... but I liked how an idea that's along those lines is in a science-fiction story where Su'Kal's rage causes The Burn to occur. What I feel like is that Su'Kal is probably not going to get a very warm welcome on Kaminar and that's going to complicate things for Saru.
To me it's poor storytelling as opposed to the writers making a five dimensional chess move, but to each his own I suppose. It didn't work for me.
I thought the cause of "The Burn" was underwhelming. I thought the season wasted too much time building it up only for it to be caused by an orphaned child. I thought story/arc management was an issue this season, though I think that's been a persisting issue with DISC period. In season two I felt the whole buildup about what caused the rift between Spock and Burnham was also disappointing. There's a habit of build up with weak payoff that seems to be regular for this series. The Burn arc could've been resolved in the first half of the season and the second half could've been spent dealing with the Emerald Chain. I think that might have given both story arcs more time to breathe than entwining them to equally lackluster results. This season had a lot of promise, and overall I liked it. I liked a lot of the new characters, really appreciated the Burnham-Book romance, and was glad they were giving the supporting cast more personality and things to do. I don't know if CBS owns these properties but I wish they had incorporated some aspects of the aborted Final Frontier animated series and the Federation series.
I think there was a vague Omega molecule reference in S3 E1 by Booker who said that the Gorn destroyed 2 Ly's of subspace. Now granted, subspace damage can occur in several ways from what we saw in Trek... but the most probable answers would be: Warp drive, and/or the Omega molecule.
That's the Trek writers for you... they somehow manage to mess up the basic terminology and have this unsatiable urge to over-exaggerate (for example: saying the AI will destroy life in the entire universe vs just say the Milky Way galaxy... or how the Burn was galaxy-wide, but then some characters refer to 'most of known space' which could easily mean 'just the Federation', or the Milky Way and nearby galaxies - that is IF the Federation went extragalactic... but it seems like it hadn't, which is even stupider.).
To be honest I think that's a level of detail far beyond what we are seeing right now. The writers are struggling with basic stuff, like how to structure the season and tell a serialized story, much less be consistent with the nuances you mention. It seems like the QC is really weak. I'm no TV expert, but like everyone else on the internet with an opinion I have read articles and now know everything about this. The articles say that when you are building a serialized plot, you are supposed to stress test every new plot point you introduce by taking it both forward and backward to make sure it's consistent with the story you already told and the story you are going to tell. It's really obvious this isn't happening. Now, before this becomes me just dumping on Discovery I will say that certain individual episodes this season have been excellent and the failures on the consistency / serialized plot side of the house doesn't really detract from the greatness of those episodes. I will also repeat that I enjoyed this season up through the MU 2 part. The weaknesses I'm seeing become noticeable at the end of the season when you are trying to wrap up the serialized plot and can't deliver.
Is it can't deliver or failing to live up to expectations already built up? Also, the tendency to exaggerate has been a part of human storytelling for thousands of years.