Why the hate for Disco?

[BillJ]

I enjoyed it. I enjoyed a story arc driven trek as opposed to the episodic ones. I enjoy that the franchise has modernised and moved with the times. I’ve read a lot of reviews and feedback about missing 26 episode series and it “not being real trek”
I don’t get it, this is a modern trek for a modern times. I mean sure we all would have wanted something different and it’s far from perfect. But I for one don’t miss the standard holodeck/stuck in the transporter/let’s build the captain a new chair episodes.
The new series need to compete with a totally new TV landscape. Disco, and Picard are doing that.
But then I am a fanboy.

Not hate, I just find it bland and unimaginative, finally dropped out completely after three episodes of season three when I finally accepted I just didn’t care about the characters or situations. Which is a shame because they have an extremely talented cast, the writing is just a major letdown for me. Same for Picard, though I find Lower Decks a blast.

The CBS live action shows largely broke my addiction to Trek.

 

[Oddish]

I liked the Trek of 1987-2005 best, and Lower Decks when I need a laugh. I stream those episodes. If there are those among you who prefer classic, or Kelvin, or Disco/Picard, I urge you to enjoy them to the fullest. Don't let me tell you what to like.

 

[David Hanley]

I liked the Trek of 1987-2005 best, and Lower Decks when I need a laugh. I stream those episodes. If there are those among you who prefer classic, or Kelvin, or Disco/Picard, I urge you to enjoy them to the fullest. Don't let me tell you what to like.

That wasn't the aim of my post, it was more to find out why others did not enjoy it as I did. What were their thoughts on it that made it unenjoyable/unwatchable. To see what perhaps I have missed.

 

[somebuddyX]

I watched two and a half episodes and I wasn't getting any enjoyment out of it so I just stopped. I don't like the characters, the concepts and the stories. I kinda like the look and the Season 2 TOS style uniforms. I'll never say something is "not Star Trek" when there's so many different iterations of it as whole series and even just seasons of shows. But I realised my idea of what I would like in modern trek is something like the weirdness of Fringe, the drama of Counterpart and maybe the look and feel of Prometheus and Interstellar.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

"Hate" is a strong word. I don't like it because I found the characters unlikeable, the writing to be poor, the aesthetics bland, and it just didn't resonate with me. Picard was alright, wouldn't have been the way I'd had taken his story, but I like the outside of Starfleet look at life. Lower Decks is a hoot and has saved my perceptions of modern Trek, packed with so much love and appreciation of the franchise whilst also doing its own thing.

IDIC.

 

[Relayer1]

Not hate, I just find it bland and unimaginative, finally dropped out completely after three episodes of season three when I finally accepted I just didn’t care about the characters or situations. Which is a shame because they have an extremely talented cast, the writing is just a major letdown for me. Same for Picard, though I find Lower Decks a blast.

The CBS live action shows largely broke my addiction to Trek.

See, I'm the reverse - I've loved Discovery and Picard (not that they're perfect) and I've flushed away things I like more than Lower Decks. It's the most pathetically inane drivel I've ever seen under the Star Trek Banner (including Spock's Brain, Threshold and most of TAS) - imho it's got no redeeming features and it's existence is an embarrassment to the whole franchise.

But people like it, so...that's up to them. If there's enough of them (and it looks very much like there are) there will be more Lower Decks.

 

[David Hanley]

I don't dislike Discovery, but I had to work out for myself that it's not the same Universe as anything else. There's so many inconsistencies with everything else that I can't see how anyone could say it's the same Universe as TOS, TNG, VOY, DS9, and the movies from Nemesis on back to TMP.
I like Doctor Who as well, and some of the same tolerances I have for that are employed here.
There's too much time travel. Unlike Doctor Who it just doesn't really fit so well to do it so much.
'Spore Drive'? Really? That right there sounds like something straight out of Doctor Who or a fantasy novel.
The way the ships are designed doesn't totally make sense. There's tons of useless open space within them that shouldn't even be there.
Having ships that have major parts of them magnetically (?) connected to the rest of the hull instead of mechanically connected is something stolen straight out of Star Wars movies, isn't it? It's something else that doesn't make any sense to me. Just because you have the technology to do something like that, why would you even do it? I see no reason for it, it's just more points of failure.
'Inclusiveness' is a good thing, but they've gone so over-the-top with it, put it in your face so much, that it's quite obvious so far as I'm concerned that it's done just to get certain demographics to watch the show. It's distracting.
The overall emotional content of the show can be a bit high. I don't know what else to say about that.

On the other hand the story moves right along, there's no 'filler' episodes, and you can say there's never a dull moment.
For what it's worth I've seen the last half of S01 and all of S02 and S03. So I think I've had a fair sampling of it.
I'll watch S04 when it's available to me just to see where they go with this next, and also because I've watched TOS through ENT so much over the last 30 years. 'New' isn't always 'better' but in this case at least it's 'new'.

Interesting thoughts Tachyon. I am not sure I am the type of Trek fan who would look at what I am watching and try to match up universes based on technology used. I just don't watch the show with that much detail. I am also of the opinion that a lot of the shows just use technobabble to get round things, and Disco is not much different. A warp drive does not exist, a tachyon neither. The open space inside I totally agree - that turbo shaft scene in the last episode was ridiculous.
I am interested in your opinion on diversity though. How would you like it to have been handled differently that would not have felt like it was being forced upon you?

 

[David Hanley]

"Hate" is a strong word. I don't like it because I found the characters unlikeable, the writing to be poor, the aesthetics bland, and it just didn't resonate with me. Picard was alright, wouldn't have been the way I'd had taken his story, but I like the outside of Starfleet look at life. Lower Decks is a hoot and has saved my perceptions of modern Trek, packed with so much love and appreciation of the franchise whilst also doing its own thing.

IDIC.

Thats a shame. I hope the next seasons bring some more joy for you.

 

[Xhiandra]

Some people who have a negative opinion are bigots, yes.

Some other people who have a negative opinion are purists who can't tolerate any change, yes.

... but can we stop pretending those are the only reasons not to like Discovery?

I hated Discovery to the point that it's the only Trek series I stopped watching (late S1, IIRC).
Is it because of LBGT themes? Fuck, no. I love the fact that there are LBGT elements in Discovery. It's one of the few things the series does right!
Is it because they changed the Klingons' appearance, the look of the uniforms or even because the ship looks more modern than the TOS entreprise? No. I like some of those changes (uniforms), dislike others (Klingons), but none matter that much to me.

My reasons are:

- Way too much action, not enough ethical debate. This is the big one. To me, that's what Trek is all about.
TOS had plenty of it, TNG even more, DS9 and VOY still had some. When I think of classic TNG episodes, I think "The Measure of a Man" or "Ethics", not "Starship Mine" or "Disaster".
If "a modern Trek for a modern era" means "pew-pew" instead of debating deontology, that's a rather sad indictement of the modern era.

- Even for pure action fare, the writing is very poor. I watched ENT, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis despite them being mostly action series. The writing wasn't briliant for any of them, but it was passable. DSC, at least in S1, doesn't even have that.

- The "mirror universe". The TOS episode was intruiging despite the rather silly premise, but it should've remained at that. Both in DS9 and DSC, forays into the "mirror universe" are a font of bad writing and hammy acting.
Scene-chewing villains with no motives beyond "I did it for the evulz" and moments of pure cringe ("Killy", really?) do not enjoyable TV make.

- Burnham is a war criminal/murderer/terrorist, but gets a slap on the wrist for it. Sure, she's supposed to be on the way to a penal colony, but Lorca intervenes and now she's de facto a normal officer with a lot of informal authority (despite the lack of de jure rank).
Oh, but she gets mean looks in the mess hall! Poor Burnham!

- Other characters fawn over Burnham a lot. Not the first time in the series, Kirk was the same way. It already annoyed me in TOS.
Show me that the character is smart/brave/ethical/..., don't have the other characters constantly tell me!
Imagine if, instead of Garak (random example) manifesting hidden talents, the only hints at him being more than a tailor were other characters going "that Garak fellow is so amazing!"
You can have characters praising other characters, but don't do it too often and show the trait first. Praise Worf's bravery after he faced many threats in hand-to-hand combat, not before.

 

[at Quark's]

First time viewer here, and I've only seen 4 episodes so far at that. (So the story line only has only barely begun to unfold for me). The last Trek series I've seen before was Enterprise. So I can't go into much depth or compare to other 'modern' Trek.

I'm not sure I like the show thus far or not. That is, I love the visuals and the ship's interiors, they are awe inspiring. Not sure I like the makeover of the Klingons that much, but I don't mind it, either, We have seen that before (between TOS and TNG), so for me it's not hewn in stone they should have any particular look. Then of course there's the silly stuff, such as the tardigrade-guided instantaneous travel thingy backed up by a few spurious sounding statements to make it sound scientific, but I'll just take that as a narrative McGuffin.

What I'm less certain about is how the characters actually behave. On the one hand. it's clearly a show of our time, with more realism thrown in - characters are a good deal less perfect, more cynical. Even more so than in DS9, and I kind of like that. However, on the other hand, characters striving for the best, even if they have flaws, to me forms the very core of Star Trek, a core that cannot be replaced by any means without it ceasing to be 'star trek' for me (which wouldn't necessarily mean I'd stop watching, it might still be a good SF show in that case). In short, I'm not sure yet of the crew's ultimate motivations for the way they act like they do, and to me, that is an important question.

 

[David Hanley]

First time viewer here, and I've only seen 4 episodes so far at that. (So the story line only has only barely begun to unfold for me). The last Trek series I've seen before was Enterprise. So I can't go into much depth or compare to other 'modern' Trek.

I'm not sure I like the show thus far or not. That is, I love the visuals and the ship's interiors, they are awe inspiring. Not sure I like the makeover of the Klingons that much, but I don't mind it, either, We have seen that before (between TOS and TNG), so for me it's not hewn in stone they should have any particular look. Then of course there's the silly stuff, such as the tardigrade-guided instantaneous travel thingy backed up by a few spurious sounding statements to make it sound scientific, but I'll just take that as a narrative McGuffin.

What I'm less certain about is how the characters actually behave. On the one hand. it's clearly a show of our time, with more realism thrown in - characters are a good deal less perfect, more cynical. Even more so than in DS9, and I kind of like that. However, on the other hand, characters striving for the best, even if they have flaws, to me forms the very core of Star Trek, a core that cannot be replaced by any means without it ceasing to be 'star trek' for me (which wouldn't necessarily mean I'd stop watching, it might still be a good SF show in that case). In short, I'm not sure yet of the crew's ultimate motivations for the way they act like they do, and to me, that is an important question.

Good Point from the fellow at the bar I agreed with you at the same stage, what I will say is all of that get's A LOT better.
Except for Burnham.

 

[David Hanley]

Some people who have a negative opinion are bigots, yes.

Some other people who have a negative opinion are purists who can't tolerate any change, yes.

... but can we stop pretending those are the only reasons not to like Discovery?

I hated Discovery to the point that it's the only Trek series I stopped watching (late S1, IIRC).
Is it because of LBGT themes? Fuck, no. I love the fact that there are LBGT elements in Discovery. It's one of the few things the series does right!
Is it because they changed the Klingons' appearance, the look of the uniforms or even because the ship looks more modern than the TOS entreprise? No. I like some of those changes (uniforms), dislike others (Klingons), but none matter that much to me.

My reasons are:

- Way too much action, not enough ethical debate. This is the big one. To me, that's what Trek is all about.
TOS had plenty of it, TNG even more, DS9 and VOY still had some. When I think of classic TNG episodes, I think "The Measure of a Man" or "Ethics", not "Starship Mine" or "Disaster".
If "a modern Trek for a modern era" means "pew-pew" instead of debating deontology, that's a rather sad indictement of the modern era.

- Even for pure action fare, the writing is very poor. I watched ENT, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis despite them being mostly action series. The writing wasn't briliant for any of them, but it was passable. DSC, at least in S1, doesn't even have that.

- The "mirror universe". The TOS episode was intruiging despite the rather silly premise, but it should've remained at that. Both in DS9 and DSC, forays into the "mirror universe" are a font of bad writing and hammy acting.
Scene-chewing villains with no motives beyond "I did it for the evulz" and moments of pure cringe ("Killy", really?) do not enjoyable TV make.

- Burnham is a war criminal/murderer/terrorist, but gets a slap on the wrist for it. Sure, she's supposed to be on the way to a penal colony, but Lorca intervenes and now she's de facto a normal officer with a lot of informal authority (despite the lack of de jure rank).
Oh, but she gets mean looks in the mess hall! Poor Burnham!

- Other characters fawn over Burnham a lot. Not the first time in the series, Kirk was the same way. It already annoyed me in TOS.
Show me that the character is smart/brave/ethical/..., don't have the other characters constantly tell me!
Imagine if, instead of Garak (random example) manifesting hidden talents, the only hints at him being more than a tailor were other characters going "that Garak fellow is so amazing!"
You can have characters praising other characters, but don't do it too often and show the trait first. Praise Worf's bravery after he faced many threats in hand-to-hand combat, not before.

That is fair enough and those points are certainly not unjustified. They are fairly big issues, particularly with the first series. I do think most of them got resolved from S2 onwards (Burnham still not for me). I hope you maybe get through the rest of it at some point, it sounds similar to what I did with Enterprise. I tried watching it a few times but just could not get past the first few episodes. So then I skipped them and joined from the incident at Par Jem (sp?) and it went fine for me from there on.
The big point where we do agree is Burnham. Her heroism feels so forced, and in later episodes there are times where she does something not just questionable for her character, but completely out of the story arc, just for her to be able to come back and save the day. I find that very hard to follow. As I am new here I did not add the spoilers tag (doh) so won't go further in this post.

 

[at Quark's]

I’ve also seen them claim that CBS is only making new episodes/seasons “to save face”. Yup. They throw out millions of dollars because they’re embarrassed. Totally logical reasoning.

What a bizarre argument. Of course you can just as easily turn it around , and thank the commenter for his deep 'insight' as it made you finally understand how series such as VOY or TNG got to have their 7 year's run in the first place. I'm sure they'll reciprocally appreciate that 'insight'.

More generally, I wonder whether some of these toxic reactions might have to do with Trek being a bit of an escapist fantasy for some people at certain points in their lives (nothing wrong with that, if it helps you cope), and someone making a successor series that 'betrays' some of the 'rules', it is felt as a violation of that safe place.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

Thing is, it's very successful. You don't commission multiple spin-off shows from an unpopular show

Popular does not mean good though. When me and my small group of friends were watching 90s Trek its because we wanted a show that was much better than the shows that were popular. There are exceptions like The Simpsons but most popular shows are vacant crap like Sex in the City. It's a personal taste thing obviously but I usually find popular shows to be crap

You’re already way ahead of the Fandom Menace people - they keep claiming the show has been canceled despite it getting more and more seasons

This is the weirdest element of those clowns I have come across. It's like they think if they can fool people into not watching next season or that they can wish their dreams into existence if enough people say it out loud.
Also weird when you realise a lot of the people watching a show called "Doomcock" are not 12yo boys

Because lots of people don't like the show and it's fun to complain about it and some people do like it but it's still fun to complain about it because complaining about stuff is one of humans favorite past times. People even love to complain about people complaining about stuff.
Jason

I'm definitely guilty here

 

[ED-209]

Discovery is like the peak of DS9 compared to Picard - now that was a complete pile of rubbish.

 

[Jayson1]

Picard is actually decent even if ended badly. I think it comes down to Burnham. You basically got to love the character to like the show. Even though the show has plenty of fine secondary characters the show so revolves around it's lead she alone breaks or makes the show. Jason

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Picard is actually decent even if ended badly. I think it comes down to Burnham. You basically got to love the character to like the show. Even though the show has plenty of fine secondary characters the show so revolves around it's lead she alone breaks or makes the show. Jason

I really liked Sonequa Martin-Green in The Walking Dead, she showed there that she has some good acting chops on her (when I heard she'd been cast I was hopeful), but what little of Discovery I watched did nothing for her. It's a shame Picard ended with him now being an android, facing the degradation of his mind and all that made him who he was would've been some great fodder for Sir Patrick to get his teeth into.

 

[Jayson1]

I think Green is a okay actor but not really a series lead level of talent. I wish they landed who the had really wanted for the role in Rosario Dawson. That would have changed everything. Jason

 

[ED-209]

SMG showed that she is a good actor in the S3 MU episodes, I had no idea she was that good before that.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

I think Green is a okay actor but not really a series lead level of talent. I wish they landed who the had really wanted for the role in Rosario Dawson. That would have changed everything. Jason

You would still have all the things I personally don't like. SMG is a fine actor and the character is fine personality wise. It's her mutineer/Sarek backstory I hate and some of the writing decisions around personal relationships and emotions. No actor can fix those problems or do any better than SMG at papering over the writing cracks