Edit: Sean Ferrick… if you see this just know that while I am a massive dick and a terrible person I will love you forever please marry me
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I guess what I’m saying is, we don’t gotta all like it, but Disco fans are Trek fans and we gotta be nice to em, they’re here for largely the same reasons we are and, hey, maybe one day they’ll go back and learn that the best Trek is Deep Space Nine.
I’ve said many times that the best Trek is the Trek you like the most.
I remember when TNG was “bad Star Trek.”
I remember when DS9 was “bad Star Trek.”
I remember when Voyager was “bad Star Trek.”
I remember when Enterprise was “bad Star Trek.”
And you will find people who name any one of those as their favorites.
All Star Trek is bad Star Trek until it has aged a few years. It’s like whiskey, you gotta let the angels have their share first.
I can’t remember where I saw it, some Star Trek documentary, but it was pointed out that the Star Trek people first watched and grew up with tended to be their favorite one.
The same is true for music, types of movies, and pretty much anything else entertainment related as well. For the most part people like familiar things.
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Star wars prequels were “bad star wars movies” and now they’re looked on favorably.
A generation from now, the force awakens trilogy might not be “bad star wars”
Awesome take. I tried to push through, but I similarly just didn’t see any Trek in it other than a coated layer. I felt especially vindicated when Strange New Worlds came out so amazing.
No need for hate or anger toward it. We want studios to try new things. I was initially very afraid that it was ostracizing trek fans though. Telling them to f off in exchange for a wider scifi action audience
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I always hated the “pandering” argument because it usually was followed by some kind of complaint about social justice. When I was on discord those people would usually end up getting banned.
You’d better edit that damned comment and extol the virtues for our Tig.
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People are just more likely to comment on what is current, because there is a combination of immediate relevance and the assumption that the current thing is an indicator of how something will be moving forward. The complaints about Discovery were a lot more frequent and angry prior to SNW taking off as having an alternate that someone likes makes it easier to ignore the stuff they don’t. Stuff that came out 10 years ago can be easily ignored, and to be honest most people got their frustration out already.
I watched the first couple seasons of Discovery and blame the writing for stopping. The actors did a fine job with what they had, the special effects were great, but boy howdy I did not care about anything plot wise after a while because everything was universe ending stakes and apparently insubordinate leads don’t need to succeed to justify being insubordinate. Or learning anything from failure, that is off the table!
The best characters were all the side characters, who acted like normal people that learn things and have rational reasons when they don’t listen to authority when authority is wrong. Again, I blame this entirely on the writing.
Off the top … this is my personal opinion and take … it’s a hot topic and from the start, I’ll apologize if I get anything terribly wrong or if I offend anyone.
After several of you encouraged me, I went and binge watched the entire series over about two months. The start was exciting and I was happy to see so many new ideas and story lines created for the show. As a person of colour (I’m Indigenous Canadian) I was also happy to see characters of varied colour, backgrounds, species, orientations and sexualities in the show … it made sense because a future open world won’t just be a cast of uniformly identical individuals everywhere. A uniform group of individuals that all look, act and present in the same way are always painted as villains like the Borg, so why would civilization aspire for universal conformity?
I loved the characters and potential for growth of their individual stories like Tilly, Saru, Owosekun, Detmer, Reno, Nahn … or the couple of Stamets/Culber, and Adira/Gray
I enjoyed Burnham at first and I loved the idea of a female woman of colour taking a lead of the show … but to me, they went overboard with her storyline and her personality. In the TOS series, Captain Kirk played a part in events in the galaxy … he didn’t become central in the fate of the universe. I think the problem they had was that Burnham almost became like a God-like character that was central to the future of the entire universe. I like making characters important … it just gets difficult when you surround the entire universe around one person because then the stories all become the same … the universe is in danger because of one person, so it can only be saved by one person. And no matter what is going to happen in the future, you know that it will always revolve around that one person.
All the other Star Trek leads were passive participants in a greater story (I’ve only ever watched TOS, TNG, VOY and some of DS9) … Kirk, Picard, Janeway, Sisko mostly played roles where they were part of events in the galaxy that involved them but their survival didn’t hinge on the fate of entire galaxy or universe … their stories are usually stories of survival that would have been resolved whether or not they lived or not. Burnham is different … all her stories revolve around her and the fate of the entire universe hinges on just her, which was exciting the first time … but lost it’s suspense every other time it happened.
But about the most disappointing thing for me in the series was a lack of seeing the character JET RENO. I would have loved to see Reno square off with Stamets more often in engineering and the science lab.
I would love a spinoff show that centred around Engineering with Reno … and maybe an episode where they could bring together all the Star Trek engineers … Scotty, Laforge, O’Brien and all the other engineer characters and even throw Data in their too in some time warp multiverse event that unexpectedly brings them all together for a brief moment.
I think that was my favourite part of Discovery … the potential for more … the potential to see more of a story from each of the characters that made up the show.
Burnham almost became like a God-like character that was central to the future of the entire universe.
That’s why people liked to call it the Michael Burnham Show
I started hating Discovery. I ended loving it. The things I hated to start off were the retcon of the Klingons and the fact that it felt closer to the reboot films than the previous Treks. But there’s so much to love about it. The story is pretty incredible. It was definitely more intense than previous Treks, the character development was great. There was just enough humor to break things up. The twists were actual twists for the most part.
I honestly think people were hoping for something more utopian, forgetting about the timeframe of the show comes before even TOS, so things are more chaotic. It’s not my favorite Trek, but I think I’d put it around TNG if not above it.
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I also hated it…fuckin’ hated it! I watched the first three episodes when they aired and gave up. I binged it a couple of years later, and I’m glad I gave it another chance. What got me was the fallout from Hugh’s fate in season 1, omfg it was just heartbreaking watching Paul come to grips and try to move on. And Ash, even though he was responsible, got my empathy eventually because of his struggles with all that overwhelming crazy PTSD and repressed memories. Yeah, really glad I gave it another chance.
My main issue with the show is Burnham, so I don’t think there’s anything they can do to fix it for me unless they kill her off and get a new lead. The show has been going long enough, I’d watch one last season, but I think they need to end it and focus on strange new worlds and more shows like that.
I stand by Discovery, I enjoy that show. My main complaint is that I could’ve used more Jason Isaacs.
My dad has asked me every new season of Disco if Lorca is back, and disappointingly, every time, I have to tell him no.
I now know my son’s lemmy name
Seriously though, he was an amazing character.
I was so sure he’s coming back. Him falling into the shroom kingdom left the doors wide open, right? But he didn’t =/
He was my favorite part of the show! If only the rest of the cast/characters were as good/interesting
I get the criticism about production, plot, and dialogue decisions. I mean, I agree on quite a few of them. But a good chunk of the detractors are on the hate bandwagon because they just can’t stand women/minorities getting representation, and those dumbfucks need to GTFO. It’s Trek, for fuck’s sake. Yeah, Discovery is different, but I still dig the show.
You’re spot on. I have so many issues with the storytelling methodology, the decisions about how to treat the ST Universe and its canon, the use of the characters to tell the stories they chose, and more; but, it has been so hard to voice legitimate criticism of the show and the creators’ decisions because you always seem to end up lumped in with a bunch of chuds who are just upset about the diversity in the cast (which blows my mind, because it’s no more groundbreaking than a lot of other Trek, relative to the time of airing).
I’m with most people I’ve seen express a big meh for the show.
That show is only Star Trek by name. It’s got its own thing going (more science fantasy than science fiction), which isn’t my thing, especially not when you’re looking for a Star Trek fix which always had a nack for playing with real science but sticking with the plausibility of it.
I enjoy the other Star Trek show(s) and The Orville much more to get that.
So I watch them.
This constant “they are haters because minorities/women/other representation” is getting tired. It’s a couple loudmouth incels that have that sort of criticism and people like you seem to love getting baited in then saying everyone that doesn’t enjoy what you enjoy must be with them.
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You could hide the words ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Enterprise’ from TOS and TNG and people would not know they were part of the same franchise.
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They fucking changed the klingons!
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ENT at least wanted to be a Star Trek show. Disco banked on the IP for nostalgia and then did nothing nostalgic with it.
I’m fine with people liking Disco or whatever but it’s like, the show only got good after they went a billion years into the future and were allowed to thrive in their own sandbox, rather than being tied down in the TOS era.
I would have immediately enjoyed it more if they had made it a post-Nemesis starting point. It would have been more interesting to check in on the Terran Rebellion than it was to check in on the Empire. All that stuff was gross.
Strange New Worlds takes all the new aesthetics established by Disco and actually applies a Star Trek formula to it, and I’m much happier with that show. It wants to be where it is, and it wants to be what it’s doing. Intent and planning are everything with media. Disco lacked in both early on, but I’m glad it pivoted.
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Everything is based on personal takes. You enjoying Disco is a personal take. It’s my personal take that it seems obvious that when Kurtzman says he doesn’t care about violating canon because it’s too complicated, that he never really wanted to be tied down to the TOS era.
The first few seasons of the show are bizarre and jerky. They introduced tech and concepts that were too advanced for the timeline that didn’t make a ton of sense. Section 31 is my big example of that, because they have TNG-levels of equipment with combadges and a hyper advanced fleet. They operate more or less out in the open which is the total opposite purpose of a secret police in anything other than a Romulan or Cardassian-style military dictatorship. It’s just so out of place. The final battle in that season literally gives me a headache with the five hundred billion ships and shuttles.
My problem with Season 1 was that all of the solutions presented are so un-Starfleet. I understand they are consulting with Mirror universe assholes but planting a bomb in the planet core and then handing the detonator to a rebel faction is like, one of the most insane solutions I’ve ever seen come up with as a Star Trek plot, and that’s including Sisko straight up destroying atmospheres of planets in his vendetta against Eddington and the Maquis.
So yeah, opinions and personal takes.
I’m interested as to why you enjoy the series, because I’m here to converse even if we disagree on the first two seasons.
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Stamets I love ya you big shroomhead but this comment felt unnecessarily hostile, and I didn’t want to be upset when I responded.
You’re right that Starfleet does tons of shitty things all the time all across the franchise. Maybe I am being overly picky about what is in line with their doctrine as they violate it constantly, as you’ve rightly pointed out. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. Star Trek can be inconsistent within itself and that’s fine.
I just want to thank you for the contributions you make to Lemmy every day between memes and posts. I appreciate you.
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I don’t hate it, I simply don’t care about it.
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It is a single curse word.
And we’ve had ‘fuck’ used in Picard more than once. I don’t remember swearing in SNW, but I wouldn’t be shocked to hear it.
I mean we didn’t have swearing in TOS or 80s/90s/00s Trek because it was on broadcast TV. This should just be a duh thing.
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and oh god the Klingons…YOU CAN’T RETCON THAT HARD!!!
People seriously get so caught up in their pedantry, they forget where they came from. Please dismount that high-horse that you have no business being on.
Edit: in case you’re wondering about the deleted comment under this, I was told to walk out of an airlock.
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There’s 2 ways I believe you can view and criticize art, you can criticize it for what it is, or for what it isn’t.
I see a lot of the discourse and criticism around Discovery being much more focused on what it isn’t. That isn’t a fault of the show itself, that is a fault of the watcher.
You can love the Mona Lisa, but if you go and look at Starry Night and say “I don’t like it because it doesn’t have a woman in it”, that’s ridiculous. Is it a valid opinion? Sure, in the sense that any opinion on something subjective is. But the fact you don’t like it because it doesn’t have a woman isn’t the fault of the art or the artist.
Art is viewed subjectively, it can only be interpreted that way. Your beliefs and feelings towards any art is informed by who you are as a person, your experiences, etc. It’s why I hate the need fans of every fandom feels to compare and argue about which iteration of any series is “better” than another. What TNG was to me isn’t going to 100% line up with what it was to you, art is interpreted, those interpretations are unique to every person.
It seems a lot of people went into Discovery expecting it to fit their view of what “Star Trek” is. That’s fine, but saying the show is “objectively” bad because it doesn’t fit their expectations of what “Star Trek” is, is absurd and reductive. It’s not the fault of the art.
Nice try, Star Trek Discovery producers. You got me to try season 1. Not fooling me again.
If I wanted to watch Star Wars, then I would have watched that instead.
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I found every season stylistically jarring on first watch, and it made it hard to just enjoy the first time through, especially since it was the world’s first look at what new Trek was going to be like. But on second/third watch, all of the seasons except 1 are honestly pretty good. I’d take Seasons 3 or 4 of Discovery over, say, Season 1 of TNG, all of Enterprise, or season 2 of Voyager, any day. I think for me it’s a little overwhelming on first watch because it’s A - pretty high concept B - visual smorgasboard C - fast-paced. They’ll drop some important ideas or concepts really quickly then it’s back to the action. There’s no time to let ideas settle in, so you’re just suffering whiplash the whole time going from high concept to explosion to high concept to emotional moment to explosion to high concept. It’s honestly not bad, I actually enjoy media that’s too complicated to really grok the first time around, and it seems clear the fast-paced, high-concept intensity of the story is entirely part of the point, but I think this contributes to its lack of appreciation. Most people are probably gonna need to watch it a few times for the stories to really sink in.
I can throw on reruns of older Treks and kind of relax to them. I need to like, get hyped to watch Discovery.
Tons of issues, won’t deny that, but if people can look back fondly on Enterprise, I suspect they’ll be look back fondly on Discovery.
I don’t have time right now to watch the video, but if you’re not on their, Stamets, he’ll need to update it to add an 11th reason
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STD lost me early on, but I liked Stamets and Tilly, and Lorca was interesting. I wish they’d’ve introduced it as new IP rather than calling it a Trek show, but eh. Different strokes. I got my SNW and I’m happy.
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Sorry my good person. No offense intended.
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I just finished season 4 tonight. It’s great. Not perfect, but no Trek ever was. It’s also delightfully full of queer people!
Can’t wait for season 5!
