Spoilers Which season of Discovery had better villains?

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Discovery' started by The Overlord, Apr 24, 2019.

  1. The Overlord

    The Overlord Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Nov 26, 2010
    Which season of Discovery had better villains? It seems like season 1 had a revolving cast of villains: T'Kuvma, Kol, Lorca, etc, the last couple of episodes did not have a main villain. Meanwhile, in season 2, there were was one shot villains, but Control was ultimately the main villain of the season, he was the villain who ultimately drove the plot.

    I think I like Control better then the season 1 villains, Kol and T'Kuvma were alright, I liked the twist with Lorca, but Control got more focus as a villain than the others and is a villain with an epic scope, the stakes are really high with Control as the villain.
     
  2. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 5, 2008
    Location:
    A type 13 planet in it's final stage
    Season one started off with strong Klingon characters, but by the end of the season (and massive creative turnover later) they were generic caricatures and shit. Lorca... that awful twist still hurts. Shit. Georgiou... nope.

    Leland and Control are by-the-numbers and generic, and Leland-as-control acts as emotional and fallible as any human baddie. Oh yeah, and it's the Skynet storyline from 1984 being retold in Star Trek in 2019, which is just bizarre.


    Let's hope Disco S3 brings us their first good villain character.:techman:
     
  3. Wulff359

    Wulff359 Lieutenant Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Feb 18, 2015
    Location:
    Germany
    Whow, that early?
    I guess it was Season 5, when the self-borgified Thomas Riker was sent to Disco by the female Q to wreak havoc among the new crew (after they killed off all the main cast in the Season 4 finale, that is). I absolutely went with his anger toward federation personell after they abandoned him with the cardassians - but taking it out on the future people that inhabited Discovery was quite a stretch in the beginning as they were not even born during the Marquis time. Good that they found a way to explain it with "The Sisko" who is timeless. Casting Samuel L. Jackson as Jake Sisko was a good move, did not see that coming. Would not mind keeping him as Captain in Season 6!
     
  4. SJGardner

    SJGardner Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2018
    Location:
    In the cesspool of Europe
    No love for Season 3? I loved it when the leader of the mysterious V'Draysh that Discovery's new future friends were running from turned out to be Captain Killy in command of the Enterprise-R, having survived the Federation-Klingon War and spending the last millennium in cryogenic suspension so that she could catch up with Discovery and have a reckoning with that impostor who briefly stole her life a thousand years ago. She's the type who holds grudges like that.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2019
    ITDUDE, Mage, USS Triumphant and 2 others like this.
  5. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 30, 2001
    Location:
    America, Fuck Yeah!!!
    Can't really choose, they all seemed to be such missed opportunities. None of them had any real depth.
     
    Deledrius and Rhodan like this.
  6. Rahul

    Rahul Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 2, 2014
    To give a honest answer to the thread-question:
    There have been two villains on DIS that I actually really liked.

    1. Pre-assimilated Leland
    Really, I cannot stress how much I personally liked Leland. Because he's an asshole. But a good one. He's not evil or anything, in fact, his goals are actually very sincere. But he's just an asshole about it. He's the "the-ends-justify-the-means"-guy. Not realizing his means are so fuckin' evil that he is himself even directing the "ends" into the worst case scenario. That is a dangerously realistic portrayal of how many people want to "get stuff done", and "get their hands dirty" to "teach 'em badguys a lesson". And through all of that - I found the actor quite charming! Really, Leland is probably my personally favourite guest actor on DIS (after Pike). He's a well done "grey" character, that's neither 100% condemned nor the twisted hero. Star Trek needs more guys like him.

    2. The Ba'Ul
    The Ba'Ul weren't that much developed, they just were the opressors of the Kelpians. They could have appeared in any given TNG-episode as a race of human-looking actors with a bit of forehead prosthetics. What makes me like them so much is two-fold:
    1. They are absolutely reasonable. Yes, they are straight up evil opressors, that threaten to commit genocide. But they have an entirely reasonable motivation: Self-preservation. They were almost going extinct because of the Kelpians. If it's "us vs. them" - we all would chose "us". And yet - they didn't! They created an elaborate, evil suppressor regime. But they didn't totally annhilate the Kelpians either. They only tried last second, when they thought their own way of life was on the line again. Before that, they created that twisted regime, where they protected themselves, but still "preserved" the Kelpians in Zoo-like conditions.
    2. How they were - visually - portrayed as absolute evil incarnate. Looking like demons from a horror movie. Giant, geometric ships. That language. The flying stones all over the planet. That was great.
    Any of these two things alone - a badguy looking evil, or a badguy with a clear-cut motivation - would be okay alone. But combined? It worked absolutely wonderful, and is my favourite addition of DIS to the entire Trek lore so far!
     
    Deledrius, Rhodan, burningoil and 4 others like this.
  7. NewHeavensNewEarth

    NewHeavensNewEarth Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jan 16, 2019
    Location:
    NewHeavensNewEarth
    I would probably go with T'Kuvma as well as Voq, because they had some ok backstories and more nuanced reasoning behind their actions than Control did. Control was a very simplistic enemy in its basic motivations, and came off as a little 1-dimensional.
     
  8. Lord Garth

    Lord Garth Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 7, 2011
    Location:
    Aug 10, 1999
    Season 1
    • T'Kuvma could've been more. I don't see him as a Villain so much as someone who wanted to be a Revolutionary, so I won't count him. He wasn't a villain. He was an antagonist.
    • Kol is a Generic Klingon Baddie. That knocks him out of contention.
    • Lorca should've stayed gray. He's out.
    • Emperor Georgiou may have started out as a Villain, but she was already on the path of becoming an Anti-Hero by the very end of the season. Anti-Hero =/= Villain. She's out.
    Season 2
    • With Kol-Sha, we find out that in Kol's case: the apple didn't fall very far from the tree.
    • Leland is a good foil for Pike as an Anti-Hero. And then when Control takes control of him, and he becomes a Villain Proper, he's Terminator Leland.
    • The Ba'ul transmission looked cool onscreen, that by default gives them an edge. Shallow, but I don't care.
    I'm going to have to give it to Season 2.
     
  9. Starflight

    Starflight Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2017
    Neither the Klingons or Control have really grabbed me. Can barely remember anything about the Klingons. I liked Leland quite a lot, and having idealistic Pike clash with pragmatic Leland could have been interesting, but I guess that wasn't the route they took.
     
    Seven of Five and BillJ like this.
  10. Vger23

    Vger23 Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 19, 2014
    Location:
    Enterprise bowling alley
    Season 1 had Klingons, Lorca and MU Phillipa.

    That gets my vote.
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2019
  11. eschaton

    eschaton Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 2, 2017
    If forced to pick, I'd say Season 1. I mean, I prefer Season 2 overall, but at least the revolving door of Season 1 antagonists were fleshed out enough we understood their motivations:

    T'Kuvma: Wanted to unite the Klingon Empire
    Kol: Wanted to use the war advance himself and his house.
    Voq: Wanted revenge against Michael for killing the T'Kuvma - the one Klingon willing to accept him for who he was
    Lorca: Wanted to return to the MU with Michael, and then seize power from Georgiou
    Georgiou: Wanted to retain power, then basically just out for shits and giggles, along with to advance her own position.

    Control, on the other hand, sucks as an antagonist, because the motivation for genociding all intelligent life is never clearly explained. It wouldn't have taken much for them to connect the dots, explain that a threat assessment program re-interpreted "the Federation" to possibly be inclusive of as little as itself. Thus, if Control survives forever, the Federation is safe. The only way to ensure perfect safety is thus to systematically wipe out all other intelligent life, after which "the Federation" would have no threats. But they never went there. This is particularly odd because once Control assimilated Leland they basically showed it as acting like a person, with moods and flaws - even engaging in a Bond villain style monologue for no good reason when it possessed that mook Michael knew. It wouldn't have been hard at all for Control to explain its motivations, yet it never did so. And a villain which never has an explicable motivation is a poorly crafted one.

    That said, I'm of the opinion that villains don't belong in TV Trek. Trek has had plenty of antagonists from TOS onward, but they are seldom presented as genuinely evil - just people who have very different goals from the main cast, whose goals put them on a collision course.
     
    Deledrius and Longinus like this.
  12. Longinus

    Longinus Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 2, 2008
    Yeah. It is actually quite remarkable how badly this was handled. There literally was no stated motivation at all. This is why I have to hand it to season one. As noted, the Ba'ul were great, but the main villain of the season two is pretty much the worst villain in Trek.

    This too.
     
    Deledrius likes this.
  13. eschaton

    eschaton Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 2, 2017
    I mean, if they had kept the depiction of Control to what we saw in Project Daedelus - a program which could "possess" machinery and doctor holovids, but didn't truely communicate in a human way, that could have been great. The idea of malevolent super-intelligent AI is extremely creepy and scary, insofar as it not only has powers orders of magnitude beyond our own, but can literally think thoughts we cannot fathom - meaning we can never really understand its motivations.

    But then they went with the assimilation of Leland - basically going the "Borg Queen" route and taking a terrifying faceless villain and personifying it (thus lessening the horrific impact). After doing this, it's just inexplicable they didn't try to get into Control's head even a little bit.
     
    Deledrius, SolarisOne and Longinus like this.
  14. The Overlord

    The Overlord Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Nov 26, 2010
    A sympathetic villain is still a villain.

    Khan had sympathetic traits and a valid motive, but is still a villain. Killmonger from Black Panther, sympathetic backstory, still a villain. Annorax wanted to bring back his dead family, but was willing to kill billions to do it, he is a villain.

    Plus there have been several pure evil villains who appeared in Star Trek: Melakon, Redjac, Fajo, Dolim, etc.
     
  15. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 30, 2001
    Location:
    America, Fuck Yeah!!!
    Lorca was by far the best bad guy. Too bad they turned him into a Mirror Universe mustache twirler at the end.
     
  16. seigezunt

    seigezunt Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 2, 2007
    Location:
    Kobayashi Saru's Fried Ganglia Shack
    Get writing this story now.
     
    SJGardner likes this.
  17. SJGardner

    SJGardner Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2018
    Location:
    In the cesspool of Europe
    Well, it eventually will have to be written in fanfic form, considering it's obviously way too awesome to actually be filmed :lol:
     
    seigezunt likes this.
  18. Tiphanie

    Tiphanie Ensign Newbie

    Joined:
    May 1, 2019
    I have to say although I liked season 2 better in general, Control as a villain was a little bit lame I think. The whole evil AI thing... not for me.
    I really loved the twist with Lorca in season 1 and MU Phillipa was also great! She softened too much in my opinion in season 2. Lost her badass evil character and turned into this "mother figure" for Michael.
     
  19. USS Triumphant

    USS Triumphant Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2008
    Location:
    Go ahead, caller. I'm listening...
    I can't believe y'all have forgotten the villain(s) I consider to be the absolute scariest in what we've seen before: the Logic Extremists. Acting calmly and without anger, and with their own brand of Vulcan logic, they can plot and carry out your demise and you might not even know you were potentially a target until it's too late, because eliminating you is part of some plan thought out by a superior Vulcan intellect. Control may have wanted to wipe out all organic sentients, but that's at least straight-forward and an obvious threat.
     
    Deledrius likes this.
  20. guyute03

    guyute03 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2003
    Season 1.
    Gabriel Lorca.
    Captain Space A**hole.