Before: kind of apprehensive, for no rational reason. (It's the opposite of how I felt about nuBSG. I guess the explanation is that I didn't really respect Original Recipe BSG in the first place.) After: quite pleased. Not perfect, but the best Trek first season since TOS.
Being a long time Trek fan, I really feel that Discovery is the worst thing on TV, it totally ignores the concept of Star Trek, everything about this series is wrong, the ship , the uniforms.. For all of you who like Discovery, I'm glad for you, I never watch discovery, nor do I ever plan to.
I tried to avoid as much as I could about DSC before it was released so I could try and enjoy it with minimal preconceptions about the show. Overall as a TV show it fulfilled it's number 1 goal which is to entertain me, that of course doesn't mean I enjoyed all aspects of it But that is the same of many shows.
Hmmm. Before: I was excited there was a new Trek show. I never thought there would be. Thought it was over after Enterprise, sadly. I enjoyed Abrams Trek but there are problems with it and I was skeptical of Discovery, based on trailers. Also, I despise lens flare. After Season 1: I enjoyed Star Trek Discovery thoroughly. It's new Star Trek. It's "Peak TV", "Prestige Television". It is serialized Television with roots going back to DS9 and even Enterprise. I welcome it. And I hope we can merge the best of "Old Trek" and this new paradigm.
Before: Dread. But this is something I feel before any new Star Trek series. Always have. I always think it's going to be terrible based on production reports and other news that leaks out about it. Producers always try to sell it as "not your daddy's Star Trek," but my daddy's Star Trek is literally the thing I fell in love with and the reason I'm here. Drives me insane. I was especially down on ENT, because I believed very strongly in 2001 that prequels were stupid, and I was even arguing with playground friends that ENT wasn't canon because it didn't have "Star Trek" in the title. (This was before the series premiere, mind you!) With DS9, VOY, and ENT, they won me over by the end of the pilot episode. They all had their own unique take on things, but they were all something I recognized as Star Trek. I reminded myself of that often in the months before Discovery, and really tried to push myself into cautious optimism, especially with Fuller, Meyer, Menosky, and Beyer all putting their stamps on it. After: ...so, I guess, my "after" is bitter and upset. Currently, I am trying to talk myself into being optimistic about Season 2 or maybe Season 3, since so many other Treks improved so much in their later seasons. But I've also decided not to watch Season 2 live. I'll wait for a free weekend after it airs. Hopefully I'll be less upset about it disappointing me if I'm not paying $6/month for it.
Discovery turned out to be almost precisely what I expected. The show is entertaining, but it has flaws. I know some will argue that is common with all Trek shows and perhaps they're right. But at this point only two Trek shows have my heart - TOS and DS9 - and I think that DISC will join the ranks of TNG, VOY and ENT - some endearing characters and some good stories, but nothing that is compelling or that I'll go out of my way to see in the future. TOS had the Big Three. Pure luck on that chemistry. Plus - it embodied hope. TNG was too prim and proper and "perfect," DS9 was loads of fun and even their guest stars (Weyoun, Damar, Dukat, Garak) were utterly compelling. VOY had an erratic captain who made bad decisions and it became Gilligan's Island in space. ENT had another dunderhead for a captain (poor Bakula!) and was VOY part II but set before TNG....er...I mean TOS. DISC ticks the right boxes and of course, must be "dark and edgy," for no good reason. The Starfleet doesn't do this Burnham speech was an utter load of rubbish as *anyone* who has ever watched all of Trek knows full well that Starfleet does a lot of shady stuff and that's without the dubious Section 31. The only character that has really grabbed me thus far is Burnham, and that's because she has the worst luck in the galaxy. I keep hoping something will go right for her. And of course as a TOS fan I watch for Sarek and Amanda.
I've been of the opinion for a while now that it's time for this old franchise to RIP in peace. That Star Trek is tired and stale and too hopelessly stuck in its own past to ever offer anything fresh, interesting or worthwhile again. Still, I was willing to give STD a chance to change my mind. It didn't.
How much of being "stuck in the past" is down to the producers and how much is down to the fans? TNG is announced and the fans complain with things like but it it's not Kirk and Co DSN is announced and the fans complain but it's set on a space station, Star Trek is about boldly going where none have gone before. VOY comes along and goes back to the TOS/TNG style storytelling fans complain that this is basically TNG-lite. ENT comes along and complain that this is even worse than VOY, though when it tired a season long arc in S3 fans where slightly warmer to it same with S4. No matter what they do to try and regenerate the show, a portion of the fan base will not be happy. Times change and shows have to change with the time to try and appeal to a modern audience unfortunately older fans can be the most resistant to change. But that's often true in general everyday life, some people are just more resistant to change than others.
Before: actually quite excited for it, especially hearing that they were going to redesign the Klingons and seeing the leaks of the Klingon Sarcophagus ship I thought it looked really cool. I've always been in the "pro" camp of redesigning the aliens to make them look more alien and honestly if they did a good job of redesigning them, then I honestly wouldn't mind, especially if they show as well redesigned TOS style Klingons. I was especially excited when we were told we would explore different Klingon houses and see different types of Klingons. To me it never really made sense that Klingons were just a single race when they were a race of conquerors that had an empire. Shouldn't there be multiple types of Aliens in the Klingon empire? After: Yeah, pretty much easily the worst Star Trek show ever made, everything they basically hyped up with was a flat out lie and even compared to it's just flat out competition in other TV shows being produced at the moment, it was bad. Nothing really about this show is Star Trek. The characters are unlikable. They went from "no conflict between characters" which really never was even a thing in Star Trek to everyone acting like cliquey bitchy high school students. I really came away feeling no body working on this show gave a shit about Star Trek as a setting and franchise, but instead were just writing a by the numbers generic sci-fi show.
I thought the show was going to be more edgy in content and push the envelope before it got started. I also though Burnham was going to be more interesting and not so much a stick-in=mud type of personality. I knew Lorca would be the star. I thought Stamets would be more goofy nerdy than grumpy nerdy. I expected Saru would be good. DIdn't know what to think about everyone else. I know I expected the look to be more like "Enterprise" in that it feels retro but still part of the prime universe type of look. I thought we would see more "LOwer Decks" type of stuff going on in the ship. I thought Georgiou and Mudd would be used more. I also felt the show would have more scope but most of the stuff is still just stuff taking place on the standing sets. The show feels and looks more cheaper than I was expecting. It looks like something you might expect from CBS to be honest. I was hoping it would almost feel like a movie which is kind of what you get with something like "Game of Thrones" or "Black Mirror" or even "Stranger Days" abit that feels like a 80's movie. Now I see the show much like "Voyager." It's kind of fun and it has characters who are mostly better than the plots. I can recall tons of great to good character moments but the only episode that I recall as being lots of fun to watch was the time loop episode and the mid-season final and the first part of the mirror universe story. It feels like Trek but it feels like mediocre Trek which is kind of what "Voyager" tended to be. It also might have the worst plot/character twist in Trek history by making Lorca a cartoon bad guy for no real good reason. Much better ways to move on from the character. Jason
Before: A fine, full bodied wine made from the best aspects of Star Trek. After: Pizza and a handjob. Either way can't complain.
Before - I voted cautiously optimistic in that poll. Some of the writers named had me afraid of a VOY redux, but other producers present gave me hope. In the afterwards I found myself entertained in ways I totally did not expect and am grateful for that. Tonight I am hosting a Discovery season wrap party. Some friends and relatives are coming over to binge on pizza and the last 5 episodes they haven't seen yet. Oh boy, this is gonna be great!
Before: apprehension that it’d be a glitzier version of Captain Proto- er, ENT. After: although I’m more a sci-fi than drama guy, I appreciated their attempt to make the show more down to earth, like a drama. It’s its own thing. I hope they up the sci-fi a little next season, but I’m enjoying the show for what it is. What I’m most worried about is that it drops the Better Future thing too much. I’m not sure I buy Burnham’s speech at the end. If they were really at extinction, it isn’t Not Better Future to shoot first. There is no honor in waiting to have your head shot off before you may shoot back.
Basically, I wanted Discovery to be Fun, Fresh & Different ... what I got was in the complete reverse order of that: It's different, which I praise it for and it has a freshness STAR TREK television has not seen since The Eighties. But it needs to lighten up ... it's not as much fun as it could've been, or should be. I hate the Art Direction, overall and I cannot stand the costumes for this show -- the Starfleet Uniforms really suck. Look ... I don't know what kind of pressure there was on the creative end to have things be this way, or that, for merchandising or copyright reasons, or whatever ... but they went about it all wrong. Fortunately, this series is still in the process of discovering itself and I'm hopeful that as it does so, it changes what it can for the better. The ship looks OK, I never really had a problem with that, or with the new Klingons. What did surprise me, honestly, was Tilly. I would never have suspected a character with Kes' temperaments to have been developed for the show, but there she is. It's not really a selling point, or anything, I'm just saying that I expected the women of the show to all be "empowered" ice queens that we're supposed to "take seriously" and here's this sweetheart, unexpectedly (which is not a bad thing). Once someone running the series realises that Discovery can be a really fun show, then the rest will figure itself out, I'm sure ...
Expectations: A modern re-imagining of Star Trek, with far more emphasis on characters and serialized storytelling, and looking visually a lot like those recent movies I loved. Reality: A flawed mishmash. Some really good stuff, some stupid stuff, actors making the most of their material and a flat finale. Overall worthwhile but not as good as it should have been.