Your postmortem thoughts on DISCO

[Turtletrekker]

I think DSC very much ended on a high, with the final season being its strongest. I loved the galactic scavenger hunt, along with the poetic trials and messages along the way.

Absolutely, but the world building in all of the 32nd century seasons was amazing. The only real problem with seasons 3 through 5 is the pacing in season 4.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Sorry to admit, but I gave up just after the time jump. I'll probably go back some day and watch the full thing, and I hope I'll be pleasantly surprised at how good it is, but I just wasn't getting anything out of it. I prefer more episodic Trek.

 

[iliescu]

Disco was fun...Stamets and Tilly like Suter and Barclay

 

[Uhura's Song]

I finished season one the other day. As the season went on, it got progressively less satisfying for me. And the two-episode wrap-up was a staggering disappointment.

On to Season Two!

Sticking the landing is not a DISCO strong suit. With one notable exception.

 

[Elaise]

Yup, I went into that in my post a couple pages back, too. This show's Achilles heel was arc fatigue, except in season one, where they managed to evenly break up the story for season one in such a way that didn't drag to hell and gone like seasons 2 through 4.

I disagree, the main Achilles heel was the bad character development. I'm going through TNG again, and all the problems each episode has, such as the 2 parter where Picard gets captured by the Cardassians. What saves these poorly written episodes is the great characters, but when you have poorly written ones the flaws come to the forefront.

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm not sure if I'm qualified to answer this post, because I've only seen the first three seasons of DSC, and have little interest in watching the rest, which I've never felt about a Trek show since ENT (still haven't seen season 3.) I felt that the show just logically ended after S3, and that there was really no need to continue on, and that they should have just left the 32nd century 'rebuilding' to the audience's imagination.

I disagree for one very specific reason: The show was building up to Burnham being Captain, so I appreciated getting the chance to see Burnham actually be Captain. Of course, I'm also one who always thought the logical endpoint of Discovery is "Calypso". And I know we disagree about that. So, this is something where we're just flat-out NOT going to see eye-to-eye about.

Losing interest personally also isn't a reason for why a show should stop. I have no further interest in SNW. Between the Kelvin Films and SNW, I've ultimately found that reinterpreting and leading back into TOS just isn't my thing. Plus, the show really isn't my style. But that doesn't mean I think SNW should've stopped when I lost interest. That would be incredibly egocentric thinking. In-story, it should stop when Kirk becomes Captain. It's not my lane anymore, but that's what makes sense even to me.

As far as the rebuilding of the Federation, "leaving it to the imagination" is something that only works up to a certain point. Breaking the Federation and not bothering to do anything to fix it is like telling only half the story. Only telling half the story is the laziest thing someone can do. There's no guarantee at the end of the third season that the Federation will be put back together; and if they wanted to have other series set in the 32nd Century, like they've done with Starfleet Academy, then I feel that it was Discovery's responsibility to pick up the pieces and tell the story of how the Federation came back together, not Starfleet Academy's. Especially since the Discovery became a First Responder type of ship, and the kids in SFA are just Cadets. It inherently makes more sense to put the pieces back together in DSC than in SFA, if their intention was to have the 32nd Century be ongoing instead of a one-season-and-done type of deal. The details can be left up to the imagination, but the broad strokes should not be.

The state of emergency during the fourth season shows how and why everyone came back to together for the Federation itself to come back together again.

I'd say give DSC Seasons 4 and 5 a chance and you might like them... BUT I'm remembering that I gave ENT Season 3 a chance. Twice. And while I thought it was better than ENT S2 (not exactly a high bar), both times I still came away thinking of it as "Star Trek for Republicans". Politics aside, the point is: finally, actually watching it didn't change my mind about what I already thought, I still didn't like what I didn't like, and I suspect the same would be the case for where and how it applies to you. So, I won't naively recommend those last two seasons of DSC. I'm only explaining my rationale for why I think the third season was not the natural endpoint for Discovery.