The weirdly small and empty universe of Discovery

[eschaton]

Pretty much what they are doing with Discovery.

Not completely. They're both darker than the norm in Trek, take place during a war, and have serialization it's true. But the core of DS9 was the development of the characters - the plotlines were actually secondary to this, and often flowed out of what they wanted to do with the characters. In contrast,, Discovery is a plot-driven show where the characters don't have much of an independent life on screen aside from what is needed to solve the issues of the week.

 

[Mudd]

I honestly think another Trek show more in the style of DS9 would have worked pretty well if they waited say five years after Enterprise.

God no.

"Let's go back to where we were the last time the franchise started bleeding viewers..."

 

[eschaton]

God no.

"Let's go back to where we were the last time the franchise started bleeding viewers..."

DS9 had higher ratings throughout its run than Voyager and Enterprise.

I maintain that (unfortunately) if they didn't make the decision to have Sisko treat Picard badly in the pilot, a lot less people would have been turned off from the series.

 

[Mudd]

DS9 had higher ratings throughout its run than Voyager and Enterprise.

And lower than TNG.

And sinking lower every year.

Because people stopped watching it.

People who stuck with TNG from beginning to end.

In terms of public interest, DS9 marked the beginning of Trek's decline as a pop culture phenomenon.

And, as you can see, its ratings bumped along pretty much in parallel with Voyager's when they were both on the air - generally slightly above, occasionally dipping below.

Sorry about that.

 

[Mudd]

BTW, if you look at where Enterprise's ratings were at the end of its first season...that's about where the American audience for Discovery is right now.

 

[Scout101]

to be fair, one was actually on tv, and one is hidden behind a pay wall. that DIS is actually as high as the first season of ENT is a little surprising in a good way..

 

[CorporalClegg]

Orville proves that there's a market for the more 'old school' silly/camp adventure. I think it's safe to say Disco's biggest fault is it feels too samey to the majority of the current market.

And even if they consider Disco a mild success, I have to think there aren't a few people at CBS kicking themselves.

It wasn't that long ago where it seemed like every other week in the Future Trek forum there was a Fuller/MacFarlane/Singer poll, as it seemed like that was the internal debate going on.

So I'm sure there's someone wondering if they picked wrong. Take Orville as a foundation (minus the most puerile stuff, obviously) with MacFarlane as boss (and that one Braga fellow) with Disco's budget and the Star Trek name brand.

I can say with good confidence it would have been a smash.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It's not about whether they do vistas at all, it's about the quantity of them. It costs significantly more to do the fly-throughs than to make a static plate.

Not anymore it doesn't. You used to have to charter a helicopter or a private plane for that kind of footage, which took a lot of time and paperwork. Nowadays, they do those same shots with remote controlled drones. Which is probably what they did for the sequences on Pahvo, come to think of it.

 

[Mudd]

So I'm sure there's someone wondering if they picked wrong. Take Orville as a foundation (minus the most puerile stuff, obviously) with MacFarlane as boss (and that one Braga fellow) with Disco's budget and the Star Trek name brand.

I can say with good confidence it would have been a smash.

Well, I'd go with the "more puerile stuff," which is part of what makes it work the way it does. But generally speaking...yeah, I think you're right.

 

[fireproof78]

BTW, if you look at where Enterprise's ratings were at the end of its first season...that's about where the American audience for Discovery is right now.

Past performance does not equal future results.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I wonder how much money they spent on that little field trip, to tell us how great Burnham is?

They could have told us "how great burnham is" by a couple of lines of exposition in the mess hall. That scene was a depiction of "exploration" that we've been hungering for for years, and they did it by showing a grand open terrain and long horizons in exactly the way you would expect an alien planet would actually look, rather than showing us a soundstage with some cardboard rocks and asking us to use our imaginations. They then gave us the double whammy of the Burnham spacewalk in the asteroid field, which totally reminded me if the V'ger EVA from the first movie and was full of win on so many levels.

 

[eschaton]

I think the plethora of superhero shows now indicates that if CBS wanted to, they could throw everything against the wall and see what stuck. Even off-the-wall things like my idea for "The Adventures of Curzon Dax" show. Or a workplace comedy with Neelix and Wesley Crusher as the main characters.

 

[BillJ]

They could have told us "how great burnham is" by a couple of lines of exposition in the mess hall. That scene was a depiction of "exploration" that we've been hungering for for years, and they did it by showing a grand open terrain and long horizons in exactly the way you would expect an alien planet would actually look, rather than showing us a soundstage with some cardboard rocks and asking us to use our imaginations. They then gave us the double whammy of the Burnham spacewalk in the asteroid field, which totally reminded me if the V'ger EVA from the first movie and was full of win on so many levels.

They went for bland and uninspired instead of trying to sink the hook in the viewer. That initial hook is so important now. Even a non-action show like The Handmaid's Tale understood that, opening with the attempted escape of June and her family.

 

[eschaton]

They could have told us "how great burnham is" by a couple of lines of exposition in the mess hall. That scene was a depiction of "exploration" that we've been hungering for for years, and they did it by showing a grand open terrain and long horizons in exactly the way you would expect an alien planet would actually look, rather than showing us a soundstage with some cardboard rocks and asking us to use our imaginations. They then gave us the double whammy of the Burnham spacewalk in the asteroid field, which totally reminded me if the V'ger EVA from the first movie and was full of win on so many levels.

I'll grant you that there was more awe and visual spectacle in the opening 1/2 episodes. The problem is, they were a structural failure as a pilot. They didn't introduce the entire regular cast or the ship. They painted a very imperfect and flawed picture of what the actual show was going to be.

 

[XCV330]

Replying to the original part of this thread, it's a war-time season and that is going to narrow the focus entirely. (that and I suspect their talent payroll was budget draining). The fact that it went with a war-arc season was already going to alienate it from people who did not like the war arc in DS9 or Enterprise. Those happened to be some of my favorite Trek moments, so I can see why this show is divisive. But if you can accept that at least for season 1, it IS A war time season, than complaining about that focus makes as much sense as a Tour of Duty watcher in the 80's wondering when CBS was going to have a good waterslide episode.

I'm glad people who don't like Discovery have a show they like in The Orville. But if I had been a star trek show there would be just as many Trekkers complaining about that show because the fanbase is always going to have that toxicity. Fortunately the success of these shows don't hinge on the fans.
Showrunners know it.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

They went for bland and uninspired instead of trying to sink the hook in the viewer.

Really? Because literally EVERYONE I have shown that first episode to has responded to that opening scene with something alone the lines of, "Ohhhh. Cool!" It's actually one of the more interesting openings of any Star Trek I've ever seen.

I mean, it's not Captain Kirk beating his first officer in a game of Chess and then sounding a red alert because they found a space beacon... that was hella exciting.
It's not Jean Luc Picard narrating a breathless log entry about how cool his ship was and then chatting with one of his bridge officers about the etymology of the word "snoop" before being brought to a stop by a guy in a conquistador costume.
It's DEFINITELY not an entire Federation fleet getting its ass kicked at Wolf 359 and the crew climbing into their escape pods in blood and tears.
Hell, it's not even a group of maquis in a tiny spaceship doing a thing to the thing and then getting hit by the thing. That was hella exciting too.

No, it's two officers on a mission of exploration, getting totally lost in the desert, and using a relatively clever trick to get their starship to swoop in and pick them up.

It's no better or worse than any other Star Trek opener, but it does it on a grander scale than most of its predecessors.

 

[BillJ]

Really? Because literally EVERYONE I have shown that first episode to has responded to that opening scene with something alone the lines of, "Ohhhh. Cool!" It's actually one of the more interesting openings of any Star Trek I've ever seen.

I've yet to see any one in the real world who thought that opening was anything more than them trying to make the main character seem important in the most dull way possible. For as long as I've been alive, the mantra for TV is "show, don't tell". All that opening is designed to do is tell us how great Burnham is.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I'll grant you that there was more awe and visual spectacle in the opening 1/2 episodes. The problem is, they were a structural failure as a pilot. They didn't introduce the entire regular cast or the ship. They painted a very imperfect and flawed picture of what the actual show was going to be.

They weren't SUPPOSED to paint a picture of the entire show. The producers themselves have said the REAL pilot was "Context is for Kings" and that The Vulcan Hello was basically a prologue that sets the background to it all.

Think of it this way: the opening episode of Doctor Who's 5th season shows us the Doctor crashing into Amy Pond's shed. But the introduction to Matt Smith -- and the entire reason the TARDIS is crashing in the first place -- is contained in the David Tenant "The End of Time" TV special. It's actually a sort of low-key movie stuck between seasons. And from what I can tell, they've now done that every year since then, either with the Christmas specials or by having some other "Because we felt like it!" special two-parter that bookends the previous season and launches the next one. "The Expanse" did something similar to that by opening its second season with a back-to-back two parter that included a shit ton of action sequences and the series' first full-throated space battle, while the REST of the season was actually pretty tame.

This is what television scifi looks like now. CBS isn't setting any trends, but they're definitely following them.

 

[BillJ]

They weren't SUPPOSED to paint a picture of the entire show. The producers themselves have said the REAL pilot was "Context is for Kings" and that The Vulcan Hello was basically a prologue that sets the background to it all.

They should've stuck with "Context is for Kings" as the pilot.

While it isn't perfect, it is far less drab, stilted and uninspired than "The Vulcan Hello"/"The Battle at the Binary Stars".

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I've yet to see any one in the real world who thought that opening was anything more than them trying to make the main character seem important in the most dull way possible.

I am seriously wondering if you actually watched that episode with anyone in the "real world." That level of pretentious snarkiness isn't something people normally express in person. Youtube comments, IMDB reviews and trekbbs, sure, but most NORMAL people watching the show for the first time don't even know that Burnham is the main character until "Context is for Kings."

Hell, I have a family full of die-hard trekkies and I had at least four people mention to me that they were kind of sad that Michelle Yeoh didn't survive the second episode.

For as long as I've been alive, the mantra for TV is "show, don't tell". All that opening is designed to do is tell us how great Burnham is.

But "How great Burnham is" is the one thing that scene DOESN'T tell us about. The Captain mentions it's time for Burnham to get her own command... and that's about it. What it SHOWS is, however, is that these are two people who have an excellent working relationship, who trust each other and know each other intimately, and that one of them (Georgiou) is just a bit wiser and more experienced than the other.