Star Trek

Yeah, I agree in part with your points. Any Star trek show should be an ensemble effort, and that's why, of the newer shows, Lower Decks is much more my bag.

FWIW, I thought the Burnham focus worked in season 1 as our POV into the war setting and previously unseen Trek periode. We got to know the crew through her as she worked her way back into Starfleet. But yeah, past that the "it's all about Michael" approach became a detriment to the show. There was literally a whole crew to explore like they did, only somewhat, with Saru.

With Picard, I expected the new crew of La Sirena to crystallise around the main character and become a new constellation — but no. Season 2 turned into a strange Gothic exploration of Picard's past, and one that actually contradicted what we know about the character. If Chabon hadn't left the writer's room, I think we would have seen a more compelling story.

I did enjoy parts of the final PIC season, but it felt like it was written by somebody who didn't really get what TNG was about. The old crew felt two-dimensional, like clichés of themselves, showing up for a cameo and dropping a quip. But I'm already veering way off from the Disco focus of my post 🙂

I agree about fluctuating rates of technological progress, but surely not at the scale of almost a millennium. I did expect some more creative choices from a production standpoint; like the thoughts and development that went into the (far closer) future technology of Minority report.

Yes, Disco's personal transporter in the 32C was a pretty big deal, but only a logical progression from what had already been established throughout the series. "Programmable matter" was really just techno babble for hand held replicators, or 3D printers really — and detachable nacelles, how does that even work?

I will rewatch the show before the final season, and I look forward to another peek at the pre-Burn ships you mention. As I recall we barely saw them before they exploded but your description definitely makes me want to revisit those scenes!

On the balance between ensemble and lead focus — I think we're more aligned here than it seems. I wanted more scenes from crew perspectives because what we got was so good in terms of acting and chemistry, and the cast were clearly up to carrying the show to a greater degree if they got the chance.

[Edit because apparently I can't spell "development"]

Discovery also seems to employ the dimensional technology that the pod from the future employed on Enterprise, being much bigger on the inside

Man, I was so not into seasons one-three. I watched each one hoping it would just calm tf down and tell one story well instead of bouncing all over the place. But then season four came along and it was one of my favorite Trek seasons ever of any series. And what do people say about it? That it was too slow. I can't win! Looking forward to five tho.

I think we have one obvious reason why season 1 was so solid: Bryan Fuller. He came to Trek with fresh ideas and thoughts about how to use them creatively in that setting. And he envisioned Disco as an anthology show that would focus on different eras each season, so the Burnham arc was one season, on to the next.

A lot clearly changed even before the show went into production, at which point he was out and Paramount probably reneged on doing new casting and design work for each new season. We'll probably never know what could have been, and perhaps an anthology show would have the same dip in interest as it moved on.

For what it's worth, the jump between seasons 2 and 3 did make that kind of radical change in setting that an anthology sets out to — but preserved the characters who had just fulfilled their mission to hide the sphere data, so there's a contradiction in terms. And more to the point, the writers didn't seem to know what to do with the characters once they made it to the future.

The evolution of Zora was an inspired idea (and literally cripped from Michael Chabon's Calypso) but only became a detached plot strand, and Detmer's PTSD was a gut punch only dealt with too superficially. So you're right, despite some character highlights season three was meandering and listless. The crew had a whole future to explore, but no mission.

Rebuilding the Federation should have filled that hole with direction (or at least directives) but there wasn't a lot of purpose to the space UN once it was restored. Maybe that dead water feels so frustrating because we're seeing its literal mirror image in the deterioration of diplomacy and parliaments on the news every day. When Disco gets political it doesn't mess around, but here it couldn't deliver a show of common purpose because it was barely coherent itself. But I digress.

[Edit: misleading preposition]

I genuinely think Trek needs to get over its Kirk/Spock fetish. Beside SNW, there are still talks about another Kelvin film. If I'm honest, when that stalled over negotiations with Chris Pine, I hoped they'd just go on and make a one-off film where Sulu, McCoy and Uhura get to save the day on their own. Even then, why stick with that period?

I'm cautiously optimistic about the Starfleet academy show if it materialises. It could fall into either "The OC in space" or some kind of Top gun, West Point show bound to reenact "The first duty". Tawny New some seems to be on board as a writer, so I'm hopeful.

Thanks for this. I love your personal perspectives and insights on Stamets and Sisko!

You're absolutely right that Michelle Yeoh is a treasure, and her visible joy at playing an operetta villain was all the bts reason they needed to keep her on screen that long. Within the story though, her character was so irredeemable it didn't make a lick of sense.

Speaking as someone who has made counterintuitive, spur of the moment decisions, however, I thought Burnham's character was quite realistic 🙂 Terrible perhaps — me too — but thoroughly human. And I respectfully disagree, she is very much a female Kirk type in my eyes. They go 1:1 on following their gut instinct over Starfleet protocol, though maybe Kirk hijacked more ships in the process.

When you do make it back to Trek, seeing how you're into comedy shows as well, I really recommend you to watch Lower decks. It's a loving, dedicated bear hug of a tribute to the franchise, and has characters written with heart, too.

I think a lot of people enjoyed S4 quite a bit, and would agree with you in saying it's best of the series so far (I personally prefer S3, but they're both pretty solid IMO).

S5 should be an interesting project - based on what they've said so far, it's still going to be a single arc, but with more of a scavenger hunt/adventure tone.

You're right, for my part I don't have a distinct memory of season 4 — maybe because I haven't rewatched it yet in preparation for s5 🙂 Season 3 felt lacklustre to me, the 32nd century was decidedly underwhelming, and my esteem for s4 may have been coloured by that Discovery fatigue.

As I recall, there was a lot of build-up before actually meeting the 10-c, and that I found the Arrival-style challenges of even communicating with them more interesting than whatever that guy from The expanse had going on? His character was as unconvincing as Jake Weber's bored pirate in s3.

I'm looking forward to rewatching all of the first four seasons again to catch up before the last one, and hopefully on this wuewing s4 has as much kick as you describe 😉

Yep, that was beyond ridiculous IMO. Not sure how they felt it made enough sense to turn into a big season-long thing, affecting the entire future timeline of Star Trek.

Though I think Species 10-C (season 4) was an awesome episode that is rather underrated.

the cruel irony is that the only reason that Kelpiens are even spacefaring is because Discovery intervened the previous season, in that regard Discovery caused the burn

I liked the crying alien. Trek is full of zany Q-like entities whose whims cause fallout for everyone else.

@MajorHavoc @halm better than season 7 of DS9? Or (most of) S4 of Enterprise? Ok, to each their own. It was better than the previous two seasons of Disco, the story was better planned and the episode quality more consistent, but why do you think it's the best ever?

When you put it that way, yeah. That would have been interesting to watch. It wasn't really my experience of where the season's focus lay, though.

It’s not my favorite but it’s up there. I think the premise of all the dithium exploding and seeing “the far future that feels less future” that the OP described was actually really cool to me. The previous season where Burnham has the magic flying angel rocket suit was pretty stupid and made it feel like there were no stakes.

I'll give you points for controversial. I actually liked that season a good bit, but that is a pretty bold statement.