What was your impression of Season 2 overall?

[eschaton]

Seriously?

Maybe you need to watch this clip from "Court Martial" to refresh your memory about there "was never really any indication that Kirk was anything other than a young hotshot captain" :

Or maybe all those episodes where Kirk succeeds where many other Captains, Commodores and Admirals have failed disastrously, leaving behind wrecked starships, dead crews, horribly messed up Human-Alien contact. And this willful denial of yours kind of crushes the credibility of the rest of your post.

I may have overstated it a tad, but the fact remains that while TOS is on we don't get the idea that Kirk is legendary. Exemplary? Of course. But as I said, the key difference is we get the idea that there may be many other captains of equal mettle out there having their own adventures.

I'm generally of the belief that when it comes to fiction, the size of the heroes and the size of the setting are basically inversely correlated. If you are trying to tell a rocking space opera and the same few characters continue to bump into one another across thousands of light years, it makes your setting seems small and tawdry. Modern day epic SF series get around this by having loads and loads of characters and multiple POV chapters - which only tend to link up by the climax of the story. However, this is much harder to pull off for reasons of casting and budget in filmed SF.

I agree, mainstream fiction puts extremely low stakes on a pedestal as a measure of "quality". But even as you note, science fiction often and repeatedly features stories with high stakes, because it's often not simply about regular people going about their regular lives. Science fiction is allowed to have Earth-shattering consequences by virtue of what ideas the genre *is expected to tackle* without being shat upon as being "pulp". You can feel free to rail against high stakes stories as being "lesser" than stories with low stakes, but IMO, that is just snobbery. A series of high stakes stories is no more "pulphouse" than a series of low stakes stories simply by virtue of the stakes. As an example, Spider:Master of Men novels often start with a drama level of about 9 and go up from there. That, IMO, is irrelevant to their quality, which is the author's ability to write, which is exceptional where it comes to in maintaining that dramatic level while still offering exceptional writing for the genre he is tackling.

I am a science fiction fan primarily because I enjoy the "sense of wonder" involved in the works. This doesn't have to mean high-stakes though. For example, as a child I loved the setting of Larry Niven's novel The Integral Trees - the idea of a human civilization in free-floating air. The plot itself however is a simple story of survival for a small band of nine people, nothing more or less. It's the setting that makes it stand out from mundane fiction - and the setting that makes it SF. Of course, Niven could have made the whole story about the potential destruction of the Smoke Ring and all human life, but he didn't.

Another great example is Frederik Pohl's Gateway. It was a fantastic novel which allowed many a daydream when I was a child. The stakes in the story however are fairly low. Robinette Broadhead isn't out to save the universe - he's just a poor guy from Earth looking for a lucky break. But it's easy to empathize with him - to put yourself in the mindset of going into an alien spacecraft without knowing what the hell you're doing, and seeing what happens.

Besides, there are copious examples across all Star Trek of truly abysmally realized low-stakes stories which profoundly demonstrates the fallacy of any claim that reducing the stakes of a Star Trek story makes it better by virtue of having lower stakes..

Some of my favorite episodes of Trek have low stakes:

(TOS)
Devil in the Dark - A single mining colony - and a single Horta - are at risk
Trouble with Tribbles - Who is at risk here exactly? I guess the colony that had its grain eaten

(TNG)
Measure of a Man - Just Data is at risk
Family - No stakes other than Picard's relationship with his family
The First Duty - Really, just Wesley's career is at risk
The Inner Light - No one is really at risk at all
Tapestry - Just Picard's future - apparently the world is fine if he doesn't become captain.
Lower Decks - Just one ensign's life

(DS9)
Duet - The life of one man hangs in the balance - that's it
House of Quark - Stakes are limited to Quark himself
The Visitor - It's all about Jake and Ben's relationship - Apparently the quadrant turns out better without The Sisko
In The Cards - Lighthearted comedy all about Jake and Nog trying to get a baseball card
Far Beyond the Stars - Stakes are Benny Russell's career/self respect
It's Only a Paper Moon - Stakes are whether Nog recovers from PTSD

I could go on and on. But the fact of the matter is a lot of great Trek episodes involve relatively low stakes beyond the personal level/the lives of one or two people. If you expand it to crises which threaten the ship/main characters alone, and don't have global implications, it probably includes most good Trek episodes.

And The only real difference in this area between Discovery and TOS in particular, or prior series of Star Trek, in general, is entirely structural. TOS is a series of discrete short stories, some of which are low stake some are high stakes. Discovery seasons are written like novels, where each episode is a chapter and the low stakes narratives they contain (of which there are many and often stretched out over multiple episodes, as in novels are stretched out over multiple chapters) are contained within the larger story..

IMHO the structure of Discovery - relatively tightly serialized within seasons, but loosely across them (because they are winging it) kinda hurts the show, because if you want a big epic story, it feels less artificial to let one slowly build over say five seasons (Babylon 5's original plan) than to try and come up with some entirely new high-stakes drama to push the show forward in each season.

PS, your denigration of comics as a literary art form is noted and rejected. Like any other literary art, there are many award-winning comics and otherwise which refute your notion that they are a lesser art form by virtue of being comics. Heck, there have been many exceptionally written Star Trek comics, for instance.

Not my jam, comics were my older brother's thing. I can only geek out on so many things at a time, and 90% of everything is crap after all.

 

[Alan Roi]

In DIS it FEELS like the same people are always saving the universe because all major arcs (Klingon war, multiverse-threatening Georgiou, Control) were about that, and all stand-alone episodes felt like only smaller side stories.

Forests are made up of individual trees. All it takes for me to appreciate the many subplots (which is what you get when you ditch discrete short stories for a full novel) that make up a Discovery season is watch for them to show up.

 

[antinoos]

The Inner Light - No one is really at risk at all

<--- Um...

 

[EnderAKH]

Again, if you have the same friggin protagonist save the Earth/galaxy/universe from different threats again and again, it just starts feeling like pulphouse, or a comic book, not a serious work of fiction.

Who the fuck considers the show with Spock's Brain, Space Lincoln, Space Liberace, Space Babies, Space Hippies and where they get held in space by giant transparent hands as a serious work of fiction? It's a lot of fun, and I enjoyed it as a kid, and enjoy it now due to nostalgia, but my Lord can we stop treating TOS like it was 2001?

 

[Rahul]

Who the fuck considers the show with Spock's Brain, Space Lincoln, Space Liberace, Space Babies, Space Hippies and where they get held in space by giant transparent hands as a serious work of fiction?

Me.

 

[eschaton]

<--- Um...

I suppose one can argue that there was the stake we didn't know if Picard was going to wake up or remain in his coma as Kamin forever. But that section of the episode was pretty clearly just there to give an excuse for the rest of cast something to do while Stewart acts his heart out.

The conflict in the episode was internal conflict within Picard. It was personal stakes. I mean, yeah, there were the global stakes of the slowly dying planet as well, but it really wasn't presented in the story as the conflict that Kamin must solve. Just a background fact of the setting.

Who the fuck considers the show with Spock's Brain, Space Lincoln, Space Liberace, Space Babies, Space Hippies and where they get held in space by giant transparent hands as a serious work of fiction? It's a lot of fun, and I enjoyed it as a kid, and enjoy it now due to nostalgia, but my Lord can we stop treating TOS like it was 2001?

I guess my point is that Trek is an immensely versatile format that can be used for any of those things. I've basically always been mainly a fan of written science fiction, and I've been sadly let down by how few of the more thoughtful, slow-paced stories get adapted oncreen versus action-adventure. I mean, the world could really use some more movies like 2001, Contact, and Arrival. But sometimes, sometimes - Star Trek surprises me and pulls off something magnificently brilliant, which is why it holds a place in my heart no other filmed franchise does.

 

[Alan Roi]

I'm generally of the belief that when it comes to fiction, the size of the heroes and the size of the setting are basically inversely correlated. If you are trying to tell a rocking space opera and the same few characters continue to bump into one another across thousands of light years, it makes your setting seems small and tawdry. Modern day epic SF series get around this by having loads and loads of characters and multiple POV chapters - which only tend to link up by the climax of the story. However, this is much harder to pull off for reasons of casting and budget in filmed SF.

I'm generally of the belief that when it comes to fiction, stories are about people. Epic space operas with casts of hundreds aren't about people, they are about worldbuilding and plot. That is why I don't read those kinds of books and certainly don't write them.

I am a science fiction fan primarily because I enjoy the "sense of wonder" involved in the works. This doesn't have to mean high-stakes though. For example, as a child I loved the setting of Larry Niven's novel The Integral Trees - the idea of a human civilization in free-floating air. The plot itself however is a simple story of survival for a small band of nine people, nothing more or less. It's the setting that makes it stand out from mundane fiction - and the setting that makes it SF. Of course, Niven could have made the whole story about the potential destruction of the Smoke Ring and all human life, but he didn't.

Another great example is Frederik Pohl's Gateway. It was a fantastic novel which allowed many a daydream when I was a child. The stakes in the story however are fairly low. Robinette Broadhead isn't out to save the universe - he's just a poor guy from Earth looking for a lucky break. But it's easy to empathize with him - to put yourself in the mindset of going into an alien spacecraft without knowing what the hell you're doing, and seeing what happens.

I've read both books. I found neither to be particularly engaging because they lacked the engaging characters who I need to enjoy the worlds they live in. For Niven, I enjoyed World out of Time much more. Can't say I've ever enjoyed a Pohl novel, as they feature main characters who just to self absorbed to be all that compelling. On the other hand, just about my favorite SF novel is the novelization of The Abyss, and it is a brilliant piece that combines the deeply personal where it comes to the immense and intimate humanity of the characters involved, and the sense of wonder of a world that will forever be changed by the events in the novel.

Some of my favorite episodes of Trek have low stakes:

(TOS)
Devil in the Dark - A single mining colony - and a single Horta - are at risk
Trouble with Tribbles - Who is at risk here exactly? I guess the colony that had its grain eaten

(TNG)
Measure of a Man - Just Data is at risk
Family - No stakes other than Picard's relationship with his family
The First Duty - Really, just Wesley's career is at risk
The Inner Light - No one is really at risk at all
Tapestry - Just Picard's future - apparently the world is fine if he doesn't become captain.
Lower Decks - Just one ensign's life

(DS9)
Duet - The life of one man hangs in the balance - that's it
House of Quark - Stakes are limited to Quark himself
The Visitor - It's all about Jake and Ben's relationship - Apparently the quadrant turns out better without The Sisko
In The Cards - Lighthearted comedy all about Jake and Nog trying to get a baseball card
Far Beyond the Stars - Stakes are Benny Russell's career/self respect
It's Only a Paper Moon - Stakes are whether Nog recovers from PTSD

I could go on and on. But the fact of the matter is a lot of great Trek episodes involve relatively low stakes beyond the personal level/the lives of one or two people. If you expand it to crises which threaten the ship/main characters alone, and don't have global implications, it probably includes most good Trek episodes.

Yeah, I disagree with you there. IMO, the vast majority of bad Trek episodes are the small stake ones. While many of the most memorable and highest rated, City of the Edge of Forever, Doomsday Machine, Best of Both Worlds etc. do have very high stakes. I will concede that, for instance, I agree that The Visitor is amazing.

IMHO the structure of Discovery - relatively tightly serialized within seasons, but loosely across them (because they are winging it) kinda hurts the show, because if you want a big epic story, it feels less artificial to let one slowly build over say five seasons (Babylon 5's original plan) than to try and come up with some entirely new high-stakes drama to push the show forward in each season.

Here's the thing about adopting the Babylon 5 model. It means that the climactic season is all climax. each episode is one major climax after another, I know, because I watched it when it originally aired. If you have a tough time with Discovery as effectively 1000 page novel with a climax at the end, then I can't see how you can handle Babylon 5 season 4 where its a 1500 page novel that is all climax from beginning to end especially with you saying what crap you claim to think pulp is, because that is definitive pulp.

Not my jam, comics were my older brother's thing. I can only geek out on so many things at a time, and 90% of everything is crap after all.

Then maybe don't capstone an argument suggesting that comics are a lesser medium to explore narrative than any other.

 

[Jadeb]

Most universe-shattering threats aren't presented in the context of a prequel, when we know they won't and can't come to pass. That was, well, stupid. Hopefully the uncharted future is a better setting, though I agree that giving the Discovery crew a new armageddon to overcome every season would seem really contrived really fast.

I tend to prefer smaller-scale stakes, but I would be less concerned about scope if the writing were better. Either can work.

 

[Alan Roi]

Most universe-shattering threats aren't presented in the context of a prequel, when we know they won't and can't come to pass. That was, well, stupid. Hopefully the uncharted future is a better setting, though I agree that giving the Discovery crew a new armageddon to overcome every season would seem really contrived really fast.

I tend to prefer smaller-scale stakes, but I would be less concerned about scope if the writing were better. Either can work.

We've always known that there will be another episode of Star Trek next week, so even as we are watching an episode we know the Federation/Galaxy/Universe won't be destroyed. We know that main characters are rarely killed off in the series, so that's another context everyone has while watching the show. This argument doesn't really work.

 

[Tuskin38]

I really love that design!
The one they used was... okay? But this one really would have been great!

That post isn't even from this thread. Wtf.

 

[Jadeb]

We've always known that there will be another episode of Star Trek next week, so even as we are watching an episode we know the Federation/Galaxy/Universe won't be destroyed. We know that main characters are rarely killed off in the series, so that's another context everyone has while watching the show. This argument doesn't really work.

’

That’s exactly why it’s goofy the show keeps going for those absurd stakes. But there are all sorts of potential consequences when you have a blank canvas, even if it’s not the end of everything. When the future has been written, there are a lot fewer “big” options. Then, more than ever, the drama needs to come from your characters, at a much smaller scale.

Also, there’s no reason Discovery needs to play safe with the main cast like an episodic TV show from 30 or 50 years ago. That’s goofy too.

 

[eschaton]

I've read both books. I found neither to be particularly engaging because they lacked the engaging characters who I need to enjoy the worlds they live in. For Niven, I enjoyed World out of Time much more. Can't say I've ever enjoyed a Pohl novel, as they feature main characters who just to self absorbed to be all that compelling. On the other hand, just about my favorite SF novel is the novelization of The Abyss, and it is a brilliant piece that combines the deeply personal where it comes to the immense and intimate humanity of the characters involved, and the sense of wonder of a world that will forever be changed by the events in the novel.

I'm not saying either were favorite books of mine, but they were books that I read in late childhood/early adolescence that stuck with me due to a sense of wonder.

I do have to say I reread series - like David Brin's Uplift universe, Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy - etc way more than I re-read standalones I first read decades ago.

Yeah, I disagree with you there. IMO, the vast majority of bad Trek episodes are the small stake ones. While many of the most memorable and highest rated, City of the Edge of Forever, Doomsday Machine, Best of Both Worlds etc. do have very high stakes. I will concede that, for instance, I agree that The Visitor is amazing.

I'd like to hear some examples of bad low stakes episodes. Maybe some of DS9's Ferengi episodes? Voyager's groan-inducing holodeck adventures?

While City on the Edge of Forever certainly had high stakes - since Kirk had to reset the timeline or everyone he ever knew and his entire culture would be forever lost - the stakes were very personal since this was balanced against his love for Edith Keeler. And quite honestly the way the episode was written and acted, it always seemed to me that Kirk was more motivated by his sense of duty than anything. Meaning the episode is about his own internal conflict - which is why it's so memorable.

I like Doomsday Machine, but I don't find it a perfect episode. The stakes are indeed very high, but note that what is at stake is a number of colonies - Earth is not threatened. As I said, quite often in TOS threats imperiled the ship or a given solar system - but usually not Earth (temporal shenanigans aside) or the entire friggin universe (except that once, when it does).

I feel like Best of Both Worlds is kinda overrated, insofar as the second part is grossly inferior to the first.

IMHO In the Pale Moonlight is the best case of high stakes in all of Trek, in that it's about a man with power wrestling with having to live with the death of a small number of people in order to save a much larger amount of people.

Here's the thing about adopting the Babylon 5 model. It means that the climactic season is all climax. each episode is one major climax after another, I know, because I watched it when it originally aired. If you have a tough time with Discovery as effectively 1000 page novel with a climax at the end, then I can't see how you can handle Babylon 5 season 4 where its a 1500 page novel that is all climax from beginning to end especially with you saying what crap you claim to think pulp is, because that is definitive pulp.

I could have used any number of other examples though too, like say Game of Thrones, the Expanse, or even Breaking Bad. I'm just saying that serialization works better if you have a greater show arc pre-planned to some degree, so that the entire show can be seen as one very long play with each season as its own "act." If you're winging it season by season, fundamentally it's not that different from winging it week by week. It's just that the episodic element is stretched across a group of 10-15 episodes rather than just one or two at a time.

Also, there’s no reason Discovery needs to play safe with the main cast like an episodic TV show from 30 or 50 years ago. That’s goofy too.

It's worth noting that the show fairly early on seemed to want to ape the Game of Thrones "anyone can die" thing, but undid it by making MU Georgiou come back to the Prime Universe and resurrecting Culber. For that reason, I think it's likely that the existing characters will now have pretty heavy plot armor.

 

[Rahul]

That post isn't even from this thread. Wtf.

Weird multi-quite function.
That was from another thread in another browser tab...

 

[Noname Given]

In DIS it FEELS like the same people are always saving the universe because all major arcs (Klingon war, multiverse-threatening Georgiou, Control) were about that, and all stand-alone episodes felt like only smaller side stories.

Yeah, in the same way that the 1701-D was really the only ship to encounter the Borg prior to Wolf-359; or how the 1701-D seems to be the Command ship for a sector ("Chain of Command"); or how Picard was chosen as Arbiter of Succession for the ENTIRE Klingon Empire and was the one who came up with the plan to do a Federation Blockade on the Klingon/Romulan border, effectively stopping the Klingon Civil War in the process (a pretty pat ending gthere IF Klingons really felt Gauron was unfit -- I mean yeah, so the Duras are loosing...there \have to be others willing to tale up the mantle...); or the Federation deciding Picard should go after the possibly defecting Ambassador Spock on Romulus... or when they encounter Davidians travelling to teh 19th century; and do they call for assistance? Nope they go back in time to stop the Davidians from altering/destroying Earth's past...the fact that the 1701-D encounters Hugh; and then a year later just happens to run in Hugh and the disconnected Borg again...but now controlled by Lore and poised to take over the Federation.

My point? If you have a show about a group of characters and only 10 - 14 episodes a season; is it surprising you give them something large to handle in your story?

 

[fireproof78]

Yeah, in the same way that the 1701-D was really the only ship to encounter the Borg prior to Wolf-359; or how the 1701-D seems to be the Command ship for a sector ("Chain of Command"); or how Picard was chosen as Arbiter of Succession for the ENTIRE Klingon Empire and was the one who came up with the plan to do a Federation Blockade on the Klingon/Romulan border, effectively stopping the Klingon Civil War in the process (a pretty pat ending gthere IF Klingons really felt Gauron was unfit -- I mean yeah, so the Duras are loosing...there \have to be others willing to tale up the mantle...); or the Federation deciding Picard should go after the possibly defecting Ambassador Spock on Romulus... or when they encounter Davidians travelling to teh 19th century; and do they call for assistance? Nope they go back in time to stop the Davidians from altering/destroying Earth's past...the fact that the 1701-D encounters Hugh; and then a year later just happens to run in Hugh and the disconnected Borg again...but now controlled by Lore and poised to take over the Federation.

My point? If you have a show about a group of characters and only 10 - 14 episodes a season; is it surprising you give them something large to handle in your story?

Yeah, I feel like DSC gets a lot of flak for things other Trek did.

KIRK: Once again we've saved civilization, as we know it.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Yeah, in the same way that the 1701-D was really the only ship to encounter the Borg prior to Wolf-359; or how the 1701-D seems to be the Command ship for a sector ("Chain of Command"); or how Picard was chosen as Arbiter of Succession for the ENTIRE Klingon Empire and was the one who came up with the plan to do a Federation Blockade on the Klingon/Romulan border, effectively stopping the Klingon Civil War in the process (a pretty pat ending gthere IF Klingons really felt Gauron was unfit -- I mean yeah, so the Duras are loosing...there \have to be others willing to tale up the mantle...); or the Federation deciding Picard should go after the possibly defecting Ambassador Spock on Romulus... or when they encounter Davidians travelling to teh 19th century; and do they call for assistance? Nope they go back in time to stop the Davidians from altering/destroying Earth's past...the fact that the 1701-D encounters Hugh; and then a year later just happens to run in Hugh and the disconnected Borg again...but now controlled by Lore and poised to take over the Federation.

My point? If you have a show about a group of characters and only 10 - 14 episodes a season; is it surprising you give them something large to handle in your story?

Same deal with ds9. Sisko is space jesus, seemingly the only captain who is also a brilliant tactician, gets away with being an accessory to murder and hatching a nefarious plot to trick a sovereign nation into declaring war, he designed a super battleship, regularly beat the shit out of klingons, and basically ordered one of his officers to kill the leader of the key federation ally. The list could continue.

But Burnham, how dare she do things in a show where she is the main character

 

[eschaton]

Yeah, in the same way that the 1701-D was really the only ship to encounter the Borg prior to Wolf-359; or how the 1701-D seems to be the Command ship for a sector ("Chain of Command"); or how Picard was chosen as Arbiter of Succession for the ENTIRE Klingon Empire and was the one who came up with the plan to do a Federation Blockade on the Klingon/Romulan border, effectively stopping the Klingon Civil War in the process (a pretty pat ending there IF Klingons really felt Gauron was unfit -- I mean yeah, so the Duras are loosing...there \have to be others willing to tale up the mantle...); or the Federation deciding Picard should go after the possibly defecting Ambassador Spock on Romulus... or when they encounter Davidians travelling to teh 19th century; and do they call for assistance? Nope they go back in time to stop the Davidians from altering/destroying Earth's past...the fact that the 1701-D encounters Hugh; and then a year later just happens to run in Hugh and the disconnected Borg again...but now controlled by Lore and poised to take over the Federation.

I had a post about this in the General Trek forum many months ago...it might have been last year - about how Trek gradually became more "epic" as time went on.

TOS/TAS were not really epic series, though once the TOS movies got started the "legend of Kirk" began began building, and they made him into someone legendary within universe.

TNG, as you noted, was a bit more epic. The Enterprise was canonically a flagship, Picard personally met with the heads of major interstellar empires, and saved Earth by the end of the third season. I personally found Worf's arc through TNG really, really poor, because the show didn't have the budget to depict Qonos as anything more than a small throne room, meaning it never really felt all that "epic."

DS9, though it is my favorite Trek series overall, was by far the worst regarding adding unnecessarily epic plot elements, considering the titular heads of the Cardassian, Dominion, and Ferengi governments routinely visited the station, Sisko ended the series as a god, and Nog, Martok, and arguably even Garak ended the series as major heads of state. It pulled this off to some extent because of the great characterization, but in some ways it was awful - like making Ferenginar seem like a single small town somewhere, and not the capital of a major interstellar state.

VOY was a step back from the epic. One could argue that some of the crew members were exceptional, but most of them were "average Joes" by Starfleet standards, and aside from the Janeway/Borg interactions there wasn't much in the way of stakes beyond saving the ship each week and trying to get home. Sort of a return to TOS in terms of the limited scope in a big quadrant.

ENT tried to have it both ways in the early seasons, portraying Archer & company as a bunch of schubs who weren't very good at their jobs, but also hinting that he was primed for greatness. Then in the face of flagging ratings they did a wild pivot in Season 3 and tried to turn Archer into the "hero Captain man" on whom the entire fate of Earth depended.

KIRK: Once again we've saved civilization, as we know it.

Seriously - how many times did Kirk actually save the Earth in TOS? There's time travel stories - most notably The City on the Edge of Forever, and arguably Tomorrow is Yesterday and Assignment: Earth as well. There's the terrible The Alternative Factor, where the stakes are "the entire universe." But besides that? Zip. There are cases like The Doomsday Machine and The Changeling where the Enterprise defeated threats that might - eventually - threaten Earth. But if Kirk & company failed, there might have been another crew waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces. And in most cases, the stakes were smaller than that - it was a planet of the week unrelated to the Federation, the survival of the ship itself, or even just the survival of the main cast.

Same deal with ds9. Sisko is space jesus, seemingly the only captain who is also a brilliant tactician, gets away with being an accessory to murder and hatching a nefarious plot to trick a sovereign nation into declaring war, he designed a super battleship, regularly beat the shit out of klingons, and basically ordered one of his officers to kill the leader of the key federation ally. The list could continue.

But Burnham, how dare she do things in a show where she is the main character

One of the biggest differences between space Jesus Sisko and Michael Burnham though is series focus. Ben Sisko gets a really complicated backstory and an epic and unique destiny, but Sisko as a character is not always the center of every individual episode. There are plenty of episodes - like say the Ferengi comedies - where Sisko appears, but just in 1-2 scenes for a few minutes framing the beginning and the end of the episodes. This provided the series with a lot of versatility. A 10-15 episode season of DS9 where everything was a "Sisko episode" and everyone else was reduced to supporting roles would have been pretty monotonous and boring.

 

[Nenya]

One of the biggest differences between space Jesus Sisko and Michael Burnham though is series focus. Ben Sisko gets a really complicated backstory and an epic and unique destiny, but Sisko as a character is not always the center of every individual episode. There are plenty of episodes - like say the Ferengi comedies - where Sisko appears, but just in 1-2 scenes for a few minutes framing the beginning and the end of the episodes. This provided the series with a lot of versatility. A 10-15 episode season of DS9 where everything was a "Sisko episode" and everyone else was reduced to supporting roles would have been pretty monotonous and boring.

I think a lot of this has to do with the number of episodes of each series. DS9 had more room to tell side stories as opposed to focusing every episode of Discovery on Michael. There have been two whole seasons of a show that focused on one character. That wears some of us down.

 

[Jadeb]

I think a lot of this has to do with the number of episodes of each series. DS9 had more room to tell side stories as opposed to focusing every episode of Discovery on Michael. There have been two whole seasons of a show that focused on one character. That wears some of us down.

I do wish we had more time with other members of the crew, but I thought the second season became the Pike and Spock show as much as Burnham's. Shows the writers can share the limelight, if they want. (And, in fairness, we got way more Ash Tyler in season one than I had any desire for.)

 

[Nenya]

I do wish we had more time with other members of the crew, but I thought the second season became the Pike and Spock show as much as Burnham's. Shows the writers can share the limelight, if they want. (And, in fairness, we got way more Ash Tyler in season one than I had any desire for.)

For me a lot of it has to do with fatigue from the concept of season long stories and the current trends of television. I miss episodes of the week. You could watch an episode or two without worrying about not understanding or missing anything. That's why I love TNG so much. ENT and DS9 had a good balance between episodic and serialized. I've never felt the need to go back and watch Discovery. It's just not a show that I can "jump back into".