Current Events > Is Star Trek: Discovery really as bad as I've heard?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Was planning to bite the bullet and binge watch both seasons this summer, but I've heard everything from it's "meh" to "it's flat out terrible."

Anyone here watched it? Is it worth seeing?
---

I love it. Its excellent, one of the top shows on tv hands down.
---

It's not a bad show. At all. It's just sort of... there. I like it, but don't love it. Season 2 was a magnificent improvement though.
---

X8Azazel8X posted...

I love it. Its excellent, one of the top shows on tv hands down.

Interesting. Were you a fan of the original series?
---

The Admiral posted...

X8Azazel8X posted...

I love it. Its excellent, one of the top shows on tv hands down.

Interesting. Were you a fan of the original series?

Not at first. I used to hate hearing the theme come on originally. But I saw it came on alot and I thought there had to be something to it. So I watched an episode of the next generation and was like wow....this isn't too bad. Then I started watching all of that, and went back to the original, the movies, Deep Space Nine, etc. and now I'm an avid fan of the entire series(Including the theme songs).
---

I thought it was pretty good, but don't expect self contained individual moral stories with a beginning and an end every episode like with old Star Trek. It's modern style longform television with season arcs.

It's not a bad show.

But it's a ****ing awful Star Trek.

Seems like the general consensus is it's a good sci fi show, but a horrible Star Trek show.
---

no, its really good, actually, but it's not traditional Trek-which triggers some.

go into it expecting the style of the movies, not the shows.
---

Hanky_Bannister posted...

no, its really good, actually, but it's not traditional Trek-which triggers some.

go into it expecting the style of the movies, not the shows.

Yea, I'm much more flexible and like style changes as long as they are good even though I Iove the original style too. I'm fine with either.
---

I liked it a lot, but thats because I'm not a trekky.

I think trekkys find it an abomination of a star trek show.
---

X8Azazel8X posted...

Hanky_Bannister posted...

no, its really good, actually, but it's not traditional Trek-which triggers some.

go into it expecting the style of the movies, not the shows.

Yea, I'm much more flexible and like style changes as long as they are good even though I Iove the original style too. I'm fine with either.

agreed.

plus we have Orville on fox doing the traditional trek thing with comedy; and doing it very well.
---

I don't know if season 2 was better, but I thought season 1 was bad, with way too much focus on the unlikable main character. I would suggest watching the first few episodes to see if you like it, because the rest of the first season doesn't get significantly better.
---

My mother had been watching Star Trek her while life since it first originally aired. She loves the show. Some characters about her, but overall she loves it. She didn't want season 2 to end. Kept wanting more.
---

I think Season 1's primary issue was it tried to use shock and awe as its primary story motivator and quickly bounced on to the next "shocking" sequence with little to no substance.
---

"That's the power of math!" Is an actual quote in the show

Its turrible
---

the first season was awkward, i agree. it was a weird tactic, they basically used the whole season 1 to setup the series, instead of a pilot movie episode-like most shows.
---

Hanky_Bannister posted...

X8Azazel8X posted...

Hanky_Bannister posted...

no, its really good, actually, but it's not traditional Trek-which triggers some.

go into it expecting the style of the movies, not the shows.

Yea, I'm much more flexible and like style changes as long as they are good even though I Iove the original style too. I'm fine with either.

agreed.

plus we have Orville on fox doing the traditional trek thing with comedy; and doing it very well.

Orville s good to, I like trek far more though.

Another thing is the captain isn't the focus of the show usually in most episodes its the captain. Told from the many different roles and label the main character is given and runs into which I find refreshing to see other sides and prospectives not explored before.
---

Science, fuck yeah~
---

It's Star Trek made by people who dislike Star Trek
---

The first season was quite good. The second season started off good, but the writers had no idea what they were doing and the last chunk of the season was horrible (but pretty and full of special effects). By the end of the second season, the universe itself practically revolves around the main character, who commands such attention that both the other characters and the plot suffer tremendously.

The show has a huge budget, fantastic actors, and good scripts for the most part. Sometimes you even see direct evidence that the writers really know their Star Trek lore and care about it. But everything is bent--especially in the second season--to make one character the focus of everything. Previous Star Trek series featured ensemble casts, but here we don't even know the names of all the bridge officers until the first episode of the second season. Weird continuity mistakes pop up towards the end of the season: important characters who had things to do on the ship will literally disappear for an episode or two and then reappear with no explanation.

It's like there was a war behind the scenes between people who had a coherent vision for the show, and people who had more power an agenda. Star Trek has always had a bold vision of the future, but in the past it gave viewers space to explore social problems and big ideas without being too heavy-handed. There are weird one-liners like "this is the power of math!" that I think are meant to make the show hip and cool. The main character is basically black female space Jesus by the end of season 2, and she talks over her old white male captain and puts him in his place, and is never reprimanded or reminded of the chain of command. A learning disability is made out to be a special thing with cosmic significance instead of a challenge that was overcome. Two dudes get in a much overdo and realistic fight, and the captain has a chat with the first officer about proper conflict resolution and resolving differences with words and not violence.

DS9 featured seven seasons of a black commanding officer, and we got seven seasons of a female captain on Voyager. The original series was made in the 1960s and it featured Russian and Japanese bridge officers. Nobody on the show ever treated them differently. The chief engineer was visually impaired in Next Generation, but there was no negative or positive stigma attached to it. When characters had strong opinions or moral views, there was always someone or something with a different view. There wasn't much pressure to conform to a particular view in past series, and even in politically charged episodes, it felt like real-world politics had nothing to do with it. You were given a lens through which to consider the human condition. You weren't being told what to think.

Jonny2284 posted...

It's not a bad show.

But it's a ****ing awful Star Trek.

---

Yeah Star Trek was never in-your-face about social acceptance. I'd say the only thing Roddenberry often bragged about is having one of the first interracial kisses on screen
---

legendarylemur posted...

Yeah Star Trek was never in-your-face about social acceptance. I'd say the only thing Roddenberry often bragged about is having one of the first interracial kisses on screen

that's an interesting point
Star Trek was always very progressive in its views (and Roddenberry himself was staunchly anti-religion) but it (usually) didn't beat you over the head with it

Fun Fact: Nichelle Nichols considered leaving the show due to her role being rather lame, but a young Whoopi Goldberg convinced her to stay (and of course Whoopi went on to be in TNG)
---

HylianFox posted...

legendarylemur posted...

Yeah Star Trek was never in-your-face about social acceptance. I'd say the only thing Roddenberry often bragged about is having one of the first interracial kisses on screen

that's an interesting point
Star Trek was always very progressive in its views (and Roddenberry himself was staunchly anti-religion) but it (usually) didn't beat you over the head with it

Fun Fact: Nichelle Nichols considered leaving the show due to her role being rather lame, but a young Whoopi Goldberg convinced her to stay (and of course Whoopi went on to be in TNG)

For some reason I thought it was MLK that convinced Nichols to stay...

I'll never understand why they didn't set the show after the Dominion War or after the destruction of Romulus.

I did think it was funny how people who have never watched Star Trek think that all the shows were nothing but white males and casting a black woman in Discovery was somehow groundbreaking.
---

darkmaian23 posted...

It's like there was a war behind the scenes between people who had a coherent vision for the show, and people who had more power an agenda.

I think season 2 had three different showrunners in total, so this would explain the discontinuity in vision.
---

Ruvan22 posted...

HylianFox posted...

legendarylemur posted...

Yeah Star Trek was never in-your-face about social acceptance. I'd say the only thing Roddenberry often bragged about is having one of the first interracial kisses on screen

that's an interesting point
Star Trek was always very progressive in its views (and Roddenberry himself was staunchly anti-religion) but it (usually) didn't beat you over the head with it

Fun Fact: Nichelle Nichols considered leaving the show due to her role being rather lame, but a young Whoopi Goldberg convinced her to stay (and of course Whoopi went on to be in TNG)

For some reason I thought it was MLK that convinced Nichols to stay...

yeah it was mlk
---

I watched S1. Couldn't get into S2.

It's got the prequel dilemma of adding stuff that makes it interesting, but doesn't explain why it's never talked about ever ever ever in the source material. On top of that, it doesn't feel like Trek to me.

If it was it's own thing, it'd probably be a lot better than it is. Because it's supposedly Prime-universe Trek, though, it makes no sense.
---

So from what I know of the season 1 trailers and reviews, they have this method of transportation called the Spore Drive that's obviously never mentioned after that. How does the show explain this tech and why we never hear about it again? Is that addressed in season 2? (please use spoiler tags)
---

Just watch the first episode and see what you think.
---

The Admiral posted...

So from what I know of the season 1 trailers and reviews, they have this method of transportation called the Spore Drive that's obviously never mentioned after that. How does the show explain this tech? Is that addressed in season 2? (please use spoiler tags)

It's experimental, and though it's never mentioned to this point in the show, something likely fucks up, keeping it from being widely adopted.

That's the biggest thing I was alluding to in my post.
---

UnholyMudcrab posted...

It's Star Trek made by people who dislike Star Trek

---

Vyrulisse posted...

UnholyMudcrab posted...

It's Star Trek made by people who dislike Star Trek

I can't disagree.
---

Discovery isn't a bad show; it had a rough start, which is typical of any Star Trek series, but it comes into its own. It's very different from previous series though - if you want an episodic fix, just watch The Orville. Better yet, watch them both.

Utter garbage! The writing is absolutely atrocious, but that is what you get when hire Alex Kurtzman.

These are actually lines from the show...

"That is the power of math!"

"I like science"

RLM tore it a new one in their season 2 review I would recommend watching it instead of this turd of a series.
---

I watched the season 1 pilot tonight. It was pretty good, but at no point did I feel like I was watching a show set in the same universe at Kirk and the Enterprise, much less just a decade before them. Felt closer to Battlestar Galactica than classic Trek. Still, it was interesting enough that I'll keep at it for a bit.
---

All that moving in to a parallel world where good is evil and evil is good, turned me off very fast.
I watched the two first shows and haven't watched it since.