"Porn and Star Trek built the Internet" -- late 90's / early 2000's conventional wisdom.
Your postmortem thoughts on DISCO
- Thread starter Charles Phipps
- Start date
The problem, for me, is that I don't feel Discovery or Strange New Worlds builds on the past. They want to reinterpret the history of the franchise for their own vision.
And that's fine. But it's inherently different. This is not like Andor or the Star Wars prequels where there's a high degree of fidelity of the source material. The creative intent of those in charge is to make a version of Star Trek for modern sensibilities with their own version of Khan, their own version of the Klingons (at least to start out with), etc. Again, that's fine, but it's different.
And I think that if you want to do that, and you've opened the door to that reinterpretation of the source material, then you've also opened the door to having the same thing done to you and being pushed into your own thing.
Maybe now the prequels are considered consistent with the artistic vision of Star Wars, but when they came out, especially phantom menace and that one with the thing about disliking sand, many considered them an utter travesty, wholly divorced from the first three movies.
Every star trek going back to TNG has been a complete reinterpretation of what came before. The exceptions were VOY, ENT, and to a lesser extent DS9, which all played in the TNG sandbox.
Discovery has many flaws, but it broke open the possibilities for Star Trek in a way no series has since TNG.
They've certainly strayed too far from fidelity to the source for my tastes, but I feel like future series can steer things back on course, like how SNW restored the Klingons, and Picard featured a classic Constitution-class. Future Star Trek doesn't have to shove Discovery and SNW into their own universe and ignore the events that happened in order to feel consistent, ignoring the contradictions would be enough.
My recollection is that the only issue people had with the designs in The Phantom Menace is that certain things looked more futuristic, but they handled the transition between eras fantastically in later entries. There were certainly no contradictions there, they didn't reimagine anything.
People also thought the writing was a big departure and a big step down, I think most people would still agree that this is true. The continuity's still absolutely rock solid though.
At the end of the day, it's all going to depend upon who's put in charge next, when that would be, and what they'd want to do. And, most importantly, what's mandated to them from up above.
I doubt it too, but I had to put that last part in nonetheless. You never know. They could say, "We want you to reboot everything!" Or they could say, "We want you to add a new show to our library of shows!" Maybe they'd say, "We want you to streamline everything! I can't make heads or tails of it!" That's how they'd probably phrase it, if they did.
I'm speculating in the dark.
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All it takes is one suit of the necessary level saying "the burn was stupid write it out" and that's it.
I think one issue that I think makes it more likely is that Discovery (at least for now) sits out there in the far future by itself. It doesn't have the interconnectedness that if you tried to carve something like Deep Space Nine out from TNG and Voyager as being as its own separate thing. Given the visual reinterpretation of the first 2 seasons (along with SNW), and seasons 3-5 being off out in a future, it would be easy to carve it off.
Another big factor will be the reactions to Starfleet Academy and Section 31.
What? Not even close. DSC’s premier was watched by 9.5 million. TNG’s was watched by 27 million.
DSC’s numbers aren’t bad for the modern streaming landscape and comparisons between older traditional network and syndicated Trek and modern Trek aren’t really apples to apples but this is categorically wrong in terms of raw numbers.
From your mouth to Q’s ears. I would buy that exec a drink.
I thought this when I was rewatching the series and I still think this afterwards. Discovery had a lot of neat ideas but failed on the follow through. I think the only season where they actually succeeded was Season 4, but it took so long to get to that point. Season 3 had an interesting premise with the Burn but the reason for the Burn undermined the entire season. Season 2 was chaotic for the most part because of change in writers, but episodes like Sound of Thunder and If Memory Serves and the episode where we see Pike's accident were some of the best of the series. Season 1 I didn't like how they treated Lorca in the end and the Klingon war could have been a whole lot better. The best episode that season was Into the Forest I go, mainly because of the Jump scene. Season 5 could have been so much better and a lot more fun, but the antagonists kind of ruined it. This is a season where I wish there was more of an emphasis on the ah and wonder and less on "We have to stop the Breen at all costs".
Overall, There were good and bad things about Discovery. It's not my favorite series and it's probably near the bottom for me, but there are still a few things I can really enjoy from it and for that reason, it's a worthy entry into the franchise.
Overall, There were good and bad things about Discovery. It's not my favorite series and it's probably near the bottom for me, but there are still a few things I can really enjoy from it and for that reason, it's a worthy entry into the franchise.
The Burn itself isn’t really the problem; it’s the cause and surrounding circumstances. It’s baffling that it even made it out of a pitch meeting, let alone that it was filmed.
Perhaps its biggest crime was the missed opportunity to create a good and organic connection to Trek lore by making it tie into any number of things (the whole warp drive as climate change allegory from TNG, or the Omega particle, etc) that would have been interesting and compelling. The fanfic I’ve read on this BBS was better conceived than what we got.
There’s no guarantee that we would’ve seen a triumphalist post TCW UFP. Putting aside that the TCW is another poorly executed shaky idea, there are many possibilities to introduce complications to a 32nd century UFP. Also, I reject the notion that a healthy UFP needs to be boring. What’s boring is the impulse toward deconstruction, because everything does it. Yawn.
The Burn, as shown, executed, and recovered from, is bad.
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Section 31 will probably do good.
Starfleet Academy will probably do bad.
Given the much larger population with access to the show that's actually a lot worse then it looks.
Or... You have a Federation in the middle of an actual Temporal War.
Or... You have a Federation now having solidified it's position in the galaxy spreading out to other galaxy's on 5+ year missions.
That would be sad but cest la vie.
Overall, I liked DIS, but I think it suffered from too many behind the scenes issues, from Bryan Fuller's vanity to too many cooks in the kitchen throwing ideas at the wall. The jump to the 32nd-Century was a total abandonment of its original premise as a TOS prequel that was ultimately picked up by SNW that did it better. DIS is far from a perfect show and some of its flaws are glaring at times, but I think it's going to be one of the shows that will develop a greater appreciation for what it did right (like representation) in years to come, especially if it's allowed to be seen by more people outside of Paramount+.
Season One is better than Season 4 and 5. Season 3 is the only good future season.
100% and there also will be an assessment of what Discovery and Picard could have been if covid, the big (small?) elephant in the room, had not gotten in the way
Very well thought out. The TCW was a lazy sleight of hand in Enterprise, and Discovery doubled down on it. However, this is not unlike the way Enterprise turned the whole klingon thing into a virus. Why? Give me a break. Sometimes Star Trek samson-like is crushed by its own weight in the writers room. I hope academy is a clean break
