What do you guys actually like about discovery?
- Thread starter dcm
- Start date
I will continue to not write the long outline of whys that I mentioned in my first post here...
I will give something more general in addendum:
I feel that as it progressed, Discovery was the closest to TNG and the last era of stated Roddenberry ideals.
While fans clamor for the modernized TOS appeal of SNW, and the nostalgia of Picard, and more surface appearances, Discovery produces things that may look different, and are told serially, but are closer to the heart to the real intention of Trek.
Namely: reinforcing the Starfleet ethos in the context of war in season 1, the importance of communication amongst everyone to further goals and improve quality of life in season 3, and not judging a book by its cover when trying to communicate with something so alien/different from our own ideas.
It puzzles me why Picard season 3 is considered a return to Trek when it is a simple season with lots of inward themes but no real overarching one.
We already had the real return in Discovery.
I will give something more general in addendum:
I feel that as it progressed, Discovery was the closest to TNG and the last era of stated Roddenberry ideals.
While fans clamor for the modernized TOS appeal of SNW, and the nostalgia of Picard, and more surface appearances, Discovery produces things that may look different, and are told serially, but are closer to the heart to the real intention of Trek.
Namely: reinforcing the Starfleet ethos in the context of war in season 1, the importance of communication amongst everyone to further goals and improve quality of life in season 3, and not judging a book by its cover when trying to communicate with something so alien/different from our own ideas.
It puzzles me why Picard season 3 is considered a return to Trek when it is a simple season with lots of inward themes but no real overarching one.
We already had the real return in Discovery.
Wow, this person is the poster boy for my image of the true Discovery hater. Small minded, backwards, not too bright. I'm surprised you engaged.
Agree except for 2 and 4. The Trill have never really done it for me. I do like Jett Reno and the cat, though her owner is not my favorite character.
All in all, I can’t say Discovery is anywhere close to a favorite Trek show. I like the Vulcan focused episodes with Sarek, Spock, and Amanda. I like Mirror Philippa Georgiou, but not in the Mirror Universe. I liked the Harry Mudd episodes. I liked Lorca up until they turned him into a villain, which I did not like. I like Tilly. I like Stamets. I like Saru, though I still have a hard time looking at Kelpians. They aren’t very attractive aliens. I like Saru’s relationship with T’Rina. I like Zora the sentient computer.
What is not masculine about Saru? He’s an alien that grew up with a predator-prey dynamic. His demeanor works in that context. I like Stamets and his relationship with Culber, but I am not as fond of Culber as a character. Stamets’ snark appeals to me. I do think they overemphasized the LGBT elements on occasion just for the sake of including it. If they fit organically into the storyline as with Stamets and Culber or Jett Reno’s dead wife, it’s storytelling. Otherwise, it’s too forced.
Personally, I think that's a great thing. Aliens are not really going to be attractive to us.
It's there because people exist. They treat them as people simply existing. That's not forcing it at all, any more than Saru and T'Rina is forcing their romance.
Romance is usually forced and I don't like it, but Discovery is no worse than any other Trek.
[QUOTE="bookworm8571, post: 14724432, member: 15807"I do think they overemphasized the LGBT elements on occasion just for the sake of including it. If they fit organically into the storyline as with Stamets and Culber or Jett Reno’s dead wife, it’s storytelling. Otherwise, it’s too forced.[/QUOTE]
GOOD FOR THEM. That's inclusivity. It's the kind of diversity TOS espoused, except that just having LGBT+ people sitting in the background of the shot manning the communications console wouldn't really work.
GOOD FOR THEM. That's inclusivity. It's the kind of diversity TOS espoused, except that just having LGBT+ people sitting in the background of the shot manning the communications console wouldn't really work.
Hmm, I cannot believe I have not responded to this yet.
First off, DISCO is not my favorite live action series. I clearly rank TOS, TNG, DS9, & SNW at the top (all mostly episodic) with VOY, ENT, DISCO, & PIC in a clear 2nd tier. But then again, I generally LIKE the shows. That is why I watch, & rewatch, them.
However, despite its flaws, there is a lot of good here. Starting with:
1) It ushered in a new era if Trek on TV. PIC, LD, and PRO do not happen without it, and SNW was an unplanned spinoff.
2) The first half of Season 1 is fantastic. "Into the Forest I Go," "Context is For Kings," "Choose Your Pain," and "Magic To Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" in particular.
3) It is some of the best acted Trek out there. If not THE best.
4) Michelle Yeoh.
5) Being brave & going where no Trek had gone before. Flawed main character. Not bridge/captain centric to start. Darker. Cursing. A Klingon boob! Blood! Trauma! Few Trek nuggets to start. Open enbrace of gay/trans characters. Going into the future was also brave, with no callbacks pissible there. And dealing head on with the main character's flaws (Spock & Rillak).
6) Tilly.
7) Saru.
8) The Culber/Stamets relationship is top 2 (at worst) in Trek history (Kira/Odo). Especially the stuff after Hugh comes back. And Saru/T'Rina looks like Bronze.
9) The first half of Seadon 2 is awesome. "New Eden'" and "If Memory Serves" in particular.
10) The Saru/Burnham arc.
11) Amanda.
12) Admiral Cornwell.
13) Finding Earth NOT in the Federation generally & "People of Earth" specifically.
14) Kwejian.
15) Bringing the Trill back.
16) The middle of Seadon 3 ("Forget Me Not," "Die Trying," "Unification III" and "Terra Firma" specifically.
18) Ni'Var, Burnham's mom going Qowat Milat, and Saru/T'Rina.
19) Burnham going all Die Hard at the end of S3..
20) Some fantastic chatacter beats throughout. In fact the show dwells here and piles so much onto these characters that it is too much at times (Burnham/Ash/Voq/L'Rell/Culber), but when it doesn't go too far, there is some beautiful stuff there. The Saru/Burnham beats in "Obol for Charon" stand out. There are many others.
21) New SF: Rillak, Vance, & Kovic.
22) Commander Nhan.
23) The Zora arc culminating in "But to Connect.." and tying back into the excellent "Calypso" short Trek.
24) Really sticking the landing at the end of S4, the last 3 episodes and Earth rejoining with Stacey Abrams as President.
25) Visually stunning.
26) It makes the heads of bigots explode.
First off, DISCO is not my favorite live action series. I clearly rank TOS, TNG, DS9, & SNW at the top (all mostly episodic) with VOY, ENT, DISCO, & PIC in a clear 2nd tier. But then again, I generally LIKE the shows. That is why I watch, & rewatch, them.
However, despite its flaws, there is a lot of good here. Starting with:
1) It ushered in a new era if Trek on TV. PIC, LD, and PRO do not happen without it, and SNW was an unplanned spinoff.
2) The first half of Season 1 is fantastic. "Into the Forest I Go," "Context is For Kings," "Choose Your Pain," and "Magic To Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" in particular.
3) It is some of the best acted Trek out there. If not THE best.
4) Michelle Yeoh.
5) Being brave & going where no Trek had gone before. Flawed main character. Not bridge/captain centric to start. Darker. Cursing. A Klingon boob! Blood! Trauma! Few Trek nuggets to start. Open enbrace of gay/trans characters. Going into the future was also brave, with no callbacks pissible there. And dealing head on with the main character's flaws (Spock & Rillak).
6) Tilly.
7) Saru.
8) The Culber/Stamets relationship is top 2 (at worst) in Trek history (Kira/Odo). Especially the stuff after Hugh comes back. And Saru/T'Rina looks like Bronze.
9) The first half of Seadon 2 is awesome. "New Eden'" and "If Memory Serves" in particular.
10) The Saru/Burnham arc.
11) Amanda.
12) Admiral Cornwell.
13) Finding Earth NOT in the Federation generally & "People of Earth" specifically.
14) Kwejian.
15) Bringing the Trill back.
16) The middle of Seadon 3 ("Forget Me Not," "Die Trying," "Unification III" and "Terra Firma" specifically.
18) Ni'Var, Burnham's mom going Qowat Milat, and Saru/T'Rina.
19) Burnham going all Die Hard at the end of S3..
20) Some fantastic chatacter beats throughout. In fact the show dwells here and piles so much onto these characters that it is too much at times (Burnham/Ash/Voq/L'Rell/Culber), but when it doesn't go too far, there is some beautiful stuff there. The Saru/Burnham beats in "Obol for Charon" stand out. There are many others.
21) New SF: Rillak, Vance, & Kovic.
22) Commander Nhan.
23) The Zora arc culminating in "But to Connect.." and tying back into the excellent "Calypso" short Trek.
24) Really sticking the landing at the end of S4, the last 3 episodes and Earth rejoining with Stacey Abrams as President.
25) Visually stunning.
26) It makes the heads of bigots explode.
I'll be sure to tell that to my LGBTQ+ coworkers and friends. They're not allowed to just exist, they've got to be part of the main plot!
Nothing new under the sun. LGBTQ people still have to justify their existence in ways cishet people are never required to. We can't be just characters in our own rights, we're different, we're other, and characters like us are demographic characters who only exist to facilitate stories discussing the consequences of us being different than the majority. Our otherness needs to have an impact on the plot, otherwise it would just feel tacked on, but at the same time we still can't be or act too gay as it would be forcing it down the viewer's throats, making them uncomfortable.
I don’t know if I would even say that. Jett Reno is a snarky engineer who happens to be gay and has a dead alien wife. These are simply two more facts about her that are mentioned in the course of the storytelling, like her bad back or the way she kept her crewmates alive, or her humor.
One of the more problematic elements in the storytelling has been the speechifying, which gets in the way of the story. When you’re trying to save the universe, is there really time to gather everyone round to say a dramatic goodbye or to have your parents visit? Especially when said speech is delivered after the character announces there is no time left. Then there’s Owo awkwardly interjecting her 30 seconds of character development with the story about her friend right before they go into the pattern buffer. Very forced, very out of place. Some of the emphasis on the LGBT issues feels like a continuation of that mindset. Reno is an example of how to tell a story without the speechifying getting in the way.
Burnham’s penchant for speech making gets on my nerves. I would have preferred to see more focus on her in the original timeline and her relationships with Vulcan characters over the romances with Book and Ash. Did Sarek ever consider bonding her to a Vulcan if he was raising her as Vulcan? That would have been a fun relationship dynamic to explore.
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Bad wr
Bad writing, bad pacing, bad plotting.
Felt like most dramatic goodbyes I've seen.
So, if that's bad, most dramatic moments are bad.
I think the others simply did it better, without dropping a wildly out of context line into the middle and dragging down the story.
I thought this thread died a Page 2 Death a few months ago.
It's the final season. You're either with it or you're not. I'm done arguing with the detractors. I want to enjoy the final season, then I'm moving on.
It's the final season. You're either with it or you're not. I'm done arguing with the detractors. I want to enjoy the final season, then I'm moving on.
That might be but I don't compare.
I watch it, engage with the characters and enjoy it. Since I'm all in on Burnham's story then those moments don't stand out as out of context. For other examples look at Spider-Man: No Way Home.
