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Post by Hachiman on Nov 10, 2020 20:27:53 GMT -5
It was good to see Trill again, but it was odd to hear they were on the verge of collapse considering that DS9 showed several times that most of the population was actually compatible for the symbionts. The whole ending though still really felt like something from "Andromeda" (sure, it was a crappy Kevin Sorbo show but it was the only thing on when I finished my job working an evening shift!). If this episode ends with them going "Let's just make a new Federation with all the places we visited!" then we really will have just watched a Trek-continuity version of Andromeda. To piggy-back on ABz B👹anaz 's comment on the over-emotionalism of everything, it is really weird to see everyone so emotional when we've already had an arc with them stuck in the Mirror Universe with no way home. They all seemed to be basically fine in that situation. We've also had countless episodes on this show and others where people are stranded or separated from the rest of the crew and are fine. Sure, sometimes it's just the show handwaving everything so we can move on to the next episode, but it feels jarring now that the show wants to have characters really reacting to and reflecting on what is happening to them. |
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Ben Grimm
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Post by Ben Grimm on Nov 10, 2020 21:38:31 GMT -5
My main thing is this: if this is what the show is about from here on out, why did they wait two seasons to get here? And if it isn't, then what is this show about?
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Post by Hachiman on Nov 10, 2020 21:45:36 GMT -5
My main thing is this: if this is what the show is about from here on out, why did they wait two seasons to get here? And if it isn't, then what is this show about? Truly, this was the Seinfeld of the Trek series. It's never really been about anything. The original had the 5 year mission, TNG had it's continuing mission, DS9 had its examination of Federation ideals, Voyager had it's long journey home while reluctantly carrying the UFP banner, and Enterprise was about how the Federation came about. Discovery has been about....? |
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Post by Hachiman on Nov 11, 2020 20:13:05 GMT -5
…feeding the streaming content maw, flavored with a recognizable franchise name. That's pretty much the entire franchise at this point, isn't it? I liked Lower Decks but let's be real, it was just more content for streaming rather than really being about anything. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Nov 12, 2020 0:08:33 GMT -5
My main thing is this: if this is what the show is about from here on out, why did they wait two seasons to get here? And if it isn't, then what is this show about? If we had the same set of writers for more than one season, maybe we would know! Bryan Fuller clearly wanted to tell one type of story. But he left, so this only carried through to about 3, maybe 4 episodes. Then other people took over. Then new people took over from those people.
It was painfully obvious all along that the show should have been set in the future, so I am still not going to complain about them making this shift.
And if they are ripping off the plot of Andromeda, then fine. At least it is a plot. I'm still not sure what the heck even happened in S2. Doing a simple quest plot over the season has lower stakes, and maybe it will be easier for the writers to maintain plot cohesion.
And maybe they could make this season genuinely ABOUT something if they can articulate why this future actually needs the Federation. I was unconvinced by their visit to Earth. But, hopefully they can make it about this. Not sure what that would leave for S4, though, admittedly.
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ABz B👹anaz
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Nov 16, 2020 10:44:20 GMT -5
This is really cool. They paid tribute to Aron Eisenberg, who played Nog in DS9, Quark's nephew and the first Ferengi to join Starfleet. One of the Starfleet ships they saw in the future (along with the Voyager J) was the USS Nog.
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Post by Hachiman on Nov 16, 2020 20:53:00 GMT -5
This is really cool. They paid tribute to Aron Eisenberg, who played Nog in DS9, Quark's nephew and the first Ferengi to join Starfleet. One of the Starfleet ships they saw in the future (along with the Voyager J) was the USS Nog. He was also an injured combat veteran who bravely fought PTSD and was son of the Grand Nagus. Show some respect! |
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Post by Hachiman on Dec 6, 2020 20:55:33 GMT -5
So far, I am liking it but still getting heavy "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda" vibes. I still kind of wish they started the show at this season. And the writers still have a problem of meandering storylines. We still don't know what the real arc of this season is, which is a problem that they had in previous seasons as well. They're also not doing a great job of filling in the new rules of the future that they are in. Fuel aside, what is the scarcity situation like? It seems like there is still some major holes that need to be filled in. Like in a lot of time travel stories, a major theme is someone actually reading some history or grabbing a history book, but it seems like everyone is instead just waiting on others to fill them in according to the needs to the episode. It's still a big improvement on past seasons, but its also frustrating that we still have these kinds of issues.
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Post by Prole Hole on Dec 8, 2020 9:58:14 GMT -5
So far, I am liking it but still getting heavy "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda" vibes. I still kind of wish they started the show at this season. And the writers still have a problem of meandering storylines. We still don't know what the real arc of this season is, which is a problem that they had in previous seasons as well. They're also not doing a great job of filling in the new rules of the future that they are in. Fuel aside, what is the scarcity situation like? It seems like there is still some major holes that need to be filled in. Like in a lot of time travel stories, a major theme is someone actually reading some history or grabbing a history book, but it seems like everyone is instead just waiting on others to fill them in according to the needs to the episode. It's still a big improvement on past seasons, but its also frustrating that we still have these kinds of issues. The arc is supposed to be "what caused the burn" but the problem is that it's not an "arc" as such, it's just a lot of people standing around going "what caused the burn?" and then we get a one-sentence-long update every episode. Terribly riveting. That's not an arc - when the X-Files did this it bothered to have MOTW and mythology episodes with a clear distinction between them. Then it turns out that whatever is going on it's always Michael Burnam's fault/responsibility/connection that matters and everyone else is second fiddle. What are the odds Michael and/or the suit she took to the future are ultimately responsible for the burn? I'd say 100% at this point. At least when Worf got his own story in TNG, like Parallels or whatever, it was actually his story, not his-story-but-then-it-turns-out-it's-really-about-Picard, which is what it would be if it were a Discovery episode. It's a deeply frustrating mode of storytelling because none of the other characters get a chance to breathe. It's a consequence, I suppose, of ten(ish) episode seasons that just doesn't give the same amount of space for secondary characters to pull focus, but it wouldn't kill them to have one episode about Saru or Tilly and not have Michael pop in at the end to resolve everything. This season is way stronger than the first two but there's still some fairly basic storytelling issues that need to be addressed. |
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Post by Hippo on Dec 8, 2020 10:54:56 GMT -5
Really hoped that they’d solved the “Where’s Poochie?” issue they had with Michael. Oh well.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Dec 11, 2020 23:25:30 GMT -5
So far, I am liking it but still getting heavy "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda" vibes. I still kind of wish they started the show at this season […] Then it turns out that whatever is going on it's always Michael Burnam's fault/responsibility/connection that matters and everyone else is second fiddle. What are the odds Michael and/or the suit she took to the future are ultimately responsible for the burn? I'd say 100% at this point. At least when Worf got his own story in TNG, like Parallels or whatever, it was actually his story, not his-story-but-then-it-turns-out-it's-really-about-Picard, which is what it would be if it were a Discovery episode. It's a deeply frustrating mode of storytelling because none of the other characters get a chance to breathe. It also sums up one of the reasons I’ve found the broader fandom reactions to this pretty annoying. There’s a level of “there you go, nerds, we fixed Trek and you still don’t like it?” Well, I’m willing to give it more of a chance due to setting (and that’s a big part of my SF enjoyment, after all), but they *still* *haven’t* *fixed* *the* *storytelling.* And that leads to the reaction that since you dislike the storytelling it must be because you dislike the characters (esp. Burnham) and, yes, I kind of do *because* *the* *storytelling* *sucks* *so* *the* *characters* *mostly* *do* *too,* and the fact that the show’s is the Michael Burham show, and the storytelling isn’t “how Burnham gets from A to B” but “how we, can get from A to B for Burham” makes those issues just intractable. Yes, this is a fundamental flaw in storytelling. It makes the show incredibly tiresome to watch. All the characters are undeveloped because of this. And Burnham stops feeling like a character, and instead feels like a plot device.
I cannot understand why the show is written this way. WHY??
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Post by Desert Dweller on Dec 21, 2020 0:11:09 GMT -5
These last two episodes about Georgiou have been terrible. Like, the episodes themselves in isolation are okay, I guess. But they make no sense. There was no buildup to this. Why are we supposed to think this character has changed? That hasn't been demonstrated through this season. It wasn't even really demonstrated in these episodes.
The scene where they all do a memorial for her is so bizarre. These characters didn't like her!
This show does no work to get to their pre-planned destination. Stuff just happens, they tell us why, but they do nothing to SHOW that. It has been this way since it started. I think I said before that it feels like they put up note cards with their desired scenes and then just script those note cards, with zero connecting material.
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Post by Ben Grimm on Dec 21, 2020 11:35:22 GMT -5
These last two episodes about Georgiou have been terrible. Like, the episodes themselves in isolation are okay, I guess. But they make no sense. There was no buildup to this. Why are we supposed to think this character has changed? That hasn't been demonstrated through this season. It wasn't even really demonstrated in these episodes. The scene where they all do a memorial for her is so bizarre. These characters didn't like her! This show does no work to get to their pre-planned destination. Stuff just happens, they tell us why, but they do nothing to SHOW that. It has been this way since it started. I think I said before that it feels like they put up note cards with their desired scenes and then just script those note cards, with zero connecting material. My main hope is that this means we don't see the Mirror Universe again for the foreseeable future. I thought DS9 got to "Beating a dead horse" territory with it, but Discovery is just whipping a smear on the pavement at this point. |
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Post by Prole Hole on Dec 26, 2020 4:41:25 GMT -5
This week on Star Trek Discovery: Star Trek Voyager (specifically Basics Pt 1, the ending of which this is identical to).
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Post by Desert Dweller on Dec 28, 2020 0:22:51 GMT -5
I don't even know what to make of this show, honestly. I don't understand any of the storytelling choices they make. I don't understand why I am supposed to care about the things the show is telling me I should care about. I have never shaken the feeling that this show is just written to get to an outcome, no matter how. The writers don't care about the details, whether any of it makes sense, or whether they have adequately developed any of the characters.
I don't think I have ever stuck with a show this long that I thought had such terrible writing.
This whole reveal of the cause of The Burn? I mean, wtf? Nothing about this makes any sense, and I have no belief that the show cares that it doesn't make sense. I thought the scenes with Tilly were terrible.
I just don't like this. Sigh. I will stick around until the end of this season, but I am not coming back for Season 4.
Hey, I bailed on ST: Enterprise after 2 seasons, so I gave this one more of a chance!
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Post by Prole Hole on Dec 28, 2020 18:42:50 GMT -5
Well they haven't made The Burn (which I'm sure could be sorted out with the judicious application of some yoghurt) about Michael. Yet. I'm terribly worried for the finale.
What frustrates me is how often this show brushes up against interesting concepts then just pisses them up against a wall. The whole "Some guy in the middle of nowhere controls stuff" was really interesting and abstract in a way Star Trek can actually do really well, but turns out it's just a bit of fanwank continuity. The crashed Discovery at the beginning of the season being "eaten" by ice was a really resonant idea that lasted all of twenty-five minutes. Admiral DILF is great but gets one scene an episode either to send Our Heroes on their way or to remonstrate with them upon their return. Here we have the species-swap which seems rife with potential but oh it's just another holodeck thing. They're so close to getting things right, or at least interesting, but, to quote Captain Kirk, "like a poor marksman you keep missing the target." This season is miles better than the first two and we still have to fuck about the godsdamned Mirror Universe for about an episode and a half saying goodbye to Georgiou who did nothing more all season than be a one-person Snipe-matic 3000 as she just tiresomely bitched at everyone and anyone with no shading at all. Saru is clearly the breakout character but they won't allow the show to settle on the Captain's chair so we have to orbit the Gravity Of Michael, stronger than any black hole yet discovered. Tilly is sweet enough as a secondary character in the Sulu/Geordi/Quark/B'Elanna mould but just isn't enough of a presence for us to care about whether an ensign (an ensign!) can work out as an XO because duh. Culber and Stamets are mostly rather dull (and played by the weakest actors on the show). Tig Notaro is great in a Bones-mode and a desperately-needed injection of normality into all the pompous self-important posturing the show seems determined to stick with but gets about four lines a season even though they should throw money at her to get her on board for the next season. I really, really want to like Discovery but it seems absolutely determined to do everything it can to stop me from actually doing that.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Dec 28, 2020 23:08:36 GMT -5
This whole reveal of the cause of The Burn? I mean, wtf?
If I understood correctly (and maybe it’s just my brain rebelling against the given explanation, idk) I think there is actually a sort of thematic unity to the show. They describe the spore network as a sort of fusion of physics and biology and I think, given all that’s happened in the show, is sort of what they’re going for—life is intertwined into the structure of the universe in a deep way and our actions (treatment of the tardigrade, the dilithium cells thing, everything with Burn*ham and her mom, etc.) and treatment of life work together with that.
I kind of get it on a thematic level, kind of. Even if they've really not done enough work to make me believe they *intend* this.
But, the mechanics of it just don't work in any way, shape or form. If they are talking about some sort of sound wave causing some sort of harmonics that shatter crystal.... First of all, the effects wouldn't be even throughout the galaxy. That is not how sound works. And sound doesn't travel through a vacuum. And..... what the hell? What are they even trying to say? That just this one being's emotions can de-stabilize crystal? On some sort of cosmic level? LOL, nonsense.
I just need it to make some kind of scientific sense. This is not Star Wars. I can accept silly fantasy solutions for stuff in Star Wars. And as you say, the Transporter is essentially magic, but no one ever really tries to explain how it works, so I don't really care. But when you have something that is essentially magic and then try to explain it... please, have the courtesy to at least try to make that make sense. Or don't have the explanation be something that is so obviously wrong in terms of fucking basic physics. As you say, biology is based on physics.
What would have helped here is if they hadn't made this a ridiculous galaxy-wide event. The scale is off.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Dec 28, 2020 23:19:57 GMT -5
Well they haven't made The Burn (which I'm sure could be sorted out with the judicious application of some yoghurt) about Michael. Yet. I'm terribly worried for the finale.
There are TWO episodes left! I am definitely afraid of this.
Remember 2(?) episodes ago when a character tells Michael she has a Messiah complex. And she's all, "Yeah, I know". Ugh, come on writers. Stop trolling us. If you know this is a problem then FIX it.
I'm no longer sure this season actually is better than the first two. At least the first two attempted to tell one story and had a bunch of episodes that led to a conclusion. This season feels much more scattered. I'm still not sure why any of this matters or what any of it means. What is this season even about?
The storytelling problems are the same ones they've had all along. Honestly, ST: Picard had the exact same storytelling problems - lack of logical story flow, underdeveloped characters, writing for outcome and forgetting details, glossing over what is actually interesting in favor of action scenes, etc. (I will never forget how they had Seven of Nine hook herself up to the Borg Cube for, like, 10 minutes, essentially becoming the Borg Queen, and then just unhook herself and be totally fine about it! Truly baffling writing choice there.) But that series wasn't quite this bad. It seemed bad when I watched it, but I think I had just forgotten how bad ST: Discovery's storytelling was.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Dec 28, 2020 23:44:20 GMT -5
Desert Dweller Scale problems are constantly popping up in Kurtzman-Trek (even back to Trek 09) and just—obviously dorks won’t be running the show (and arguably shouldn’t, depending on how broad your interpretation of dork is) but find a non-dork who knows something about space. Or just physics in general? Sound waves, harmonic frequencies, crystal structure, etc. This stuff is all in PHY/CHEM 101. I learned this stuff in HIGH SCHOOL.
But New Trek just doesn't care. They don't care that it doesn't make scientific sense. They care about how it feels. And that's all.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Dec 29, 2020 0:38:12 GMT -5
Desert Dweller The one that always gets me is that Kurtzman apparently insists the viewscreens all be windows. That it a, you know, viewscreen is something that has given people zero trouble since the sixties. Five year olds can tell it’s not a window. You are watching Star Trek on a screen that can also show you things that are not immediately in front of you. The window thing is just so babyish. It bothers me like nothing else and is emblematic of a lot of recent Trek’s problems and the sort of thought that goes into it (I’m sure I’ve mentioned the viewscreen before and it honestly bothers me the most of anything—it’s like a damned paper cut). I just don’t really get it—stuff like this doesn’t make Trek any easier for normies. Talky, deliberate TNG got massive ratings in the early 90s, after all.
Oh, yes. The "viewscreen = window" thing annoys me, too. Like, the bridge of the ship is in this exposed area, and the viewscreen is just a massive window at the front/on the top of the ship? Whaaaaat?
The Enterprise D had 10-Forward in that exposed part with all the windows. You know, a bar.
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Post by Prole Hole on Dec 29, 2020 6:35:31 GMT -5
Well they haven't made The Burn (which I'm sure could be sorted out with the judicious application of some yoghurt) about Michael. Yet. I'm terribly worried for the finale.
There are TWO episodes left! I am definitely afraid of this.
...
The storytelling problems are the same ones they've had all along. Honestly, ST: Picard had the exact same storytelling problems - lack of logical story flow, underdeveloped characters, writing for outcome and forgetting details, glossing over what is actually interesting in favor of action scenes, etc. (I will never forget how they had Seven of Nine hook herself up to the Borg Cube for, like, 10 minutes, essentially becoming the Borg Queen, and then just unhook herself and be totally fine about it! Truly baffling writing choice there.) But that series wasn't quite this bad. It seemed bad when I watched it, but I think I had just forgotten how bad ST: Discovery's storytelling was.
I'm assuming the finale will be a two-parter off the back of what we have but was too lazy/unmotivated to Bing it prior to my comment. Picard definitely has exactly the same storytelling issues that Discovery has, a lot of which boil down to "we'll tell you to care about this but not do anything to actually make you invest in [SITUATION/CHARACTER]". Picard gets away with this a bit more because Patrick Stewart's the star, Seven's a pre-established character and we spend a whole episode eating pizza with Troi and Riker. But the issues are absolutely there. I mentioned this in my epsiode-by-episode write-up of Picard but it too has that so-near-and-yet-so-far thing that Discovery has, where (for example) one episode giant space flowers stop warships, a sort to Trek equivalent of a hippy putting a flower in the barrel of a rifle during the Vietnam War protests. It was a fabulous conceit that connected to nothing. And it lasts all of three minutes and then we're back to bullshit alien worm things and an ending that goes out of its way to tell us how little it matters. This isn't difficult stuff. Even Enterprise was able to get that kind of thing right. Well, less wrong anything. Please, for the love of Bowlpup, let the Jason Isaacs Pike show be standalone episodes not story-arc! This iteration of Trek can't do story arcs! |
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Post by Lt. Broccoli on Jan 9, 2021 8:27:20 GMT -5
This show is dumb as hell, which would be fine if it was fun, which it isn't. But "it's made of our shit" is an all-time classic line
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Post by Prole Hole on Jan 11, 2021 4:45:02 GMT -5
Fair's fair, I had assumed that Michael would be at the heart of The Burn and she wasn't, so minor points I guess at allowing something else in the universe to have a degree of significance. It doesn't last, as Michael gets the centre seat but hey, it's something. There's a lot of flash-bang in the season finale but most of it is pretty surface, which is Discovery all over. Evil Green Lady Is Actually Evil is the least interesting character choice they could possibly have made there, especially since her whole "let's join up" from the second-last episode was genuinely unexpected and - dare I say it - actually interesting. Then, nope, Evil Again. Sigh. The turbolift fight makes no logical sense and as many people have pointed out, seemed to have no sense of internal scale in comparison to the actual ship. Book is now a handy Stamets backup, just in case. After having introduced some genuine tension between Michael and Stamets last week, which had a real chance of generating some proper character conflict, it's completely forgotten here. Even if it gets picked up again next season not even having a single reference to it here is just unforgivable, especially with the flood of Michael The Great material at the end. The warp core ejection achieved nothing but a false attempt to up the drama - looked good on screen, but what difference would it have made if they had just disco-danced their way out with the spore drive? None, because the detonation happened after their escape. But it sounds dramatic to eject the warp core, right? WOO. and so it goes. I appreciate the fact that the resolution to the problem was about Saru being able to get through to someone on a personal level rather than just being a flood of bafflegab, even though the crying-boy-make-thing-go-boom is still horribly handled, but there's still plenty of bafflegab to go round nonetheless. In the end, this is what Discovery is, and that's clearly not going to change. This has still been the most consistent season of Discovery by some distance, but the things that I dislike about it are clearly now a feature not a bug, and that's just how it's gonna be. The stories will always be Michael-centric. The show will never invest in something when just telling the viewer they should be invested will suffice. Plot will always be prioritised over anything else. The problem with all three seasons basically boil down to "there's enough material here for a TNG/DS9/Voyager two-parter but we'll stretch it over a season". Seriously, if this had been a TNG two-parter, where a lost and lonely person had a connection to a planet that cause Bad Things To Happen, and Picard was able to get through to that person through being thoroughly decent and understanding, then next week we moved on to something else, this would be perfectly acceptable. Not an all-time classic or anything, but you can see the shape of something genuinely Trek in that, then next week we mess about on the holodeck or something. Fine. That works. But drawing it out over a dozen episodes, and having the Discovery crew solve a mystery in a month or two that apparently nobody else figured out in a century, is just ludicrous, and not the fun Star Trek ludicrous that takes you along for the ride. Either the Discovery crew are Best! Crew! Ever! or the rest of the galaxy are as thick as pigshit, but neither is really a great look for the show. Sigh. At least it was nice to hear the TOS theme. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jan 14, 2021 1:40:27 GMT -5
In the end, this is what Discovery is, and that's clearly not going to change. This has still been the most consistent season of Discovery by some distance, but the things that I dislike about it are clearly now a feature not a bug, and that's just how it's gonna be. The stories will always be Michael-centric. The show will never invest in something when just telling the viewer they should be invested will suffice. Plot will always be prioritised over anything else. The problem with all three seasons basically boil down to "there's enough material here for a TNG/DS9/Voyager two-parter but we'll stretch it over a season". Seriously, if this had been a TNG two-parter, where a lost and lonely person had a connection to a planet that cause Bad Things To Happen, and Picard was able to get through to that person through being thoroughly decent and understanding, then next week we moved on to something else, this would be perfectly acceptable. Not an all-time classic or anything, but you can see the shape of something genuinely Trek in that, then next week we mess about on the holodeck or something. Fine. That works. But drawing it out over a dozen episodes, and having the Discovery crew solve a mystery in a month or two that apparently nobody else figured out in a century, is just ludicrous, and not the fun Star Trek ludicrous that takes you along for the ride. Either the Discovery crew are Best! Crew! Ever! or the rest of the galaxy are as thick as pigshit, but neither is really a great look for the show. Sigh. At least it was nice to hear the TOS theme.
Bingo.
I thought the finale was actually boring. Nothing interesting happened. The plot resolutions were the easiest, most expected resolutions possible. More "Michael is the best!" They solved "The Burn" two episodes ago, but then apparently felt the need to do it again in this episode? I still don't know why the Federation didn't solve this mystery themselves in all that time. They didn't even seem interested. The show never really told us why the Federation was needed to come back. The villain was a cartoon. I don't know any of the characters other than Michael. Not even Tilly or Stamets. Saru's actions in this episode are nonsensical. I don't care about any of the character relationships. This show does not take the time to build anything. It's all just a series of events. Ironically, for a show about connection, nothing really connects. Stuff just happens. Suddenly. We're told to care about it. And then by the next episode it's forgotten. Nothing really matters.
I will not be watching season 4.
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Jan 14, 2021 13:42:13 GMT -5
So, I am not a Trekkie by any stretch of the imagination, and can count all the Trek I've seen on one hand, but I'm trying to get a handle on where the series has gone south. It certainly sounds like the problem here is that the show is trying to transplant a sort of chosen-one narrative on top of a franchise that's heretofore been more of an episodic ensemble show - in other words, trying to make Trek more like Star Wars, and flopping spectacularly as a result.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jan 18, 2021 4:03:01 GMT -5
So, I am not a Trekkie by any stretch of the imagination, and can count all the Trek I've seen on one hand, but I'm trying to get a handle on where the series has gone south. It certainly sounds like the problem here is that the show is trying to transplant a sort of chosen-one narrative on top of a franchise that's heretofore been more of an episodic ensemble show - in other words, trying to make Trek more like Star Wars, and flopping spectacularly as a result.
Oh, that is certainly one of the problems, but not even the most damaging one. The "chosen one" narrative problem, though, isn't quite that simple. Like, Luke Skywalker is a better developed character than Michael Burnham is. In ST: Discovery, Michael is always right. Always. Everyone around her is wrong. So she has to break the rules to prove how right she is. But breaking the rules never costs her anything. She doesn't lose anything. There is no risk. The show literally has a character tell her that she has a Messiah complex. But the end of every season is "You were exactly right, Michael. Thank goodness you were here to save the day." She's always right, even in unfamiliar places, with unfamiliar people, when she has less information than the people around her. And she gets rewarded and promoted, and it literally never costs her anything.
I'm not saying I want them to chop off one of her hands, but...if Michael Burnham had been the hero in "The Empire Strikes Back", then leaving training with Yoda would have been exactly the right thing to do, she would have arrived at Cloud City just in time to save everyone, and would have thwarted Darth Vader at the last minute. And then Yoda would have told her, "Wow, you were right, Michael. I was wrong. Great job!" Oh, and she likely wouldn't even be bothered that Darth Vader is her father. Hell, given what happened on ST: Discovery with Georgiou, Michael would probably convert Vader over the rebellion so that they could fight against the Emperor together in the next film! (And I'm not even sure that's an exaggeration!)
And, see, if you complain about this on social media, or in the comments of any review, you get told that you're some reactionary fan who doesn't want women or Black characters in Star Trek. The *creators and writers* of the show respond this way in interviews to this particular critique. I saw some piece float by on my Twitter feed that was something like "Michael being always right is wonderful and great and is exactly the hero we all need", so that is where the discourse is.
(Please don't think that all of us here are the majority opinion. My Twitter feed is full of people who freaking love this show and think it is the greatest Star Trek thing ever. It is wild!)
So, the problem isn't inherently the "chosen one" narrative. It is that it is an incompetently written "chosen one" narrative. Which I struggle to even call a "narrative".
But yes, the lead character of a Star Trek show shouldn't be a Chosen One. I didn't like when DS9 turned Sisko into some sort of god at the end of DS9, either. But at least DS9 made his choices have weight, and his decisions had a cost. And, like, the entire Dominion War wasn't all about him. And I also complained that Voyager wasn't doing enough to allow Captain Janeway to be wrong sometimes. It seemed like VOY often contorted her personality to allow her to take wildly differing positions from episode to episode, just so that she'd be right about whatever issue they were facing. As if they didn't believe the audience would support a female captain unless she was always right. But Janeway was not presented as a "Chosen One", so this wasn't nearly as irritating. And Janeway still did sometimes make mistakes.
On DS9 all the lead characters were well developed. There were fantastic secondary characters. A few tertiary characters on DS9 were better developed than ST: Discovery's main cast. VOY wasn't as great at ensemble development, but I'm pretty sure we knew more about B'Elanna, Paris and Neelix than the likes of Detmer or Culber or maybe even Stamets on DSC. Hell, I hated Neelix, but he was probably a better developed character than DSC's Tilly or Saru. On VOY, Seven of Nine and The Doctor were more interesting characters than Janeway.
However, as I said, this stuff isn't really the most damaging problem. The big problem is the writing. The writing is what is causing the weak characterization. The same writing problem causes the problems in character development as causes the wildly careening plot that never builds to anything or away from anything. It's all the same thing, really. Lack of development of plot over time = lack of development of characters over time. The show is *trying* to be serialized, but the writers have no interest in actual serialization. Nothing ever builds to anything else. The episodes aren't about the characters piling up information to build to a grand revelation later. Instead, the show just announces the revelation in an episode, and then tells you it is important and you should care about it. And then the next episode is about something else and you may not really need that prior episode's revelation at all, honestly. Because now you should care about this new thing! Repeat as needed.
I have joked about this before, but I honestly believe that an episode of ST: Discovery would be more enjoyable to watch if you'd never seen the episodes preceding it. Then you could just enjoy whatever the show is doing in that episode, and you would never notice that those events were not supported by anything that came before.
It is honestly hard to describe the way this serialized show doesn't care at all about logical story flow. There is no build up to anything. But the show acts like it is building to something. It hits all the beats of a serialized show, except there's nothing there.
Season 2 progressed from Michael knowing this legend about flashes of light in the sky from when she was a child, to their ship suddenly seeing the exact same pattern of lights! And when they chase down one of the lights, it.... kinda means nothing. But the next light is one of their own home planets, and a character learns something about his species! And then Spock suddenly goes crazy and they have to chase him down. But then they find this alien computer that takes over their ship. But, then there is a big conspiracy with Starfleet where an evil AI is taking over. And then Spock... ultimately does nothing? But then it seems like an actual person is causing the lights! And it's Michael's mom, from the future! Where she's not really dead! Oh, but she didn't make all the lights? Maybe Michael made some of them? Eh, who cares! And also, if all these lights are being formed literally right now, how'd Michael remember them from when she was a kid? But, whatever, we have to stop the Evil AI from getting our ship's alien computer. So, we'll fly the ship into the future! But the Evil AI invades the ship! Oh no! Never mind, we destroyed it. Oh, but we have to go into the future anyways, because... I honestly have no idea.
And literally none of that makes any sense. And none of it builds on anything that happened in any episode before. It's just a series of stuff that happens.
You're never going to get interesting characters when your plot is that much of an incoherent mess.
S1 and S3 were just as incoherent.
But I promise you, there are tons of people who freaking love this show and think it is the greatest. I see fan comments and articles on fan sites about it. I honestly wish I loved it that much.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jan 18, 2021 7:17:51 GMT -5
You failed to mention the quite marvellous end of Season Two for the 23rd century characters which was "... and we will never speak of this again!"  |
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ABz B👹anaz
Grandfathered In
This country is (now less of) a shitshow.
Posts: 1,992
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Post by ABz B👹anaz on Jan 18, 2021 9:55:44 GMT -5
Season 2 progressed from Michael knowing this legend about flashes of light in the sky from when she was a child, to their ship suddenly seeing the exact same pattern of lights! And when they chase down one of the lights, it.... kinda means nothing. But the next light is one of their own home planets, and a character learns something about his species! And then Spock suddenly goes crazy and they have to chase him down. But then they find this alien computer that takes over their ship. But, then there is a big conspiracy with Starfleet where an evil AI is taking over. And then Spock... ultimately does nothing? But then it seems like an actual person is causing the lights! And it's Michael's mom, from the future! Where she's not really dead! Oh, but she didn't make all the lights? Maybe Michael made some of them? Eh, who cares! And also, if all these lights are being formed literally right now, how'd Michael remember them from when she was a kid? But, whatever, we have to stop the Evil AI from getting our ship's alien computer. So, we'll fly the ship into the future! But the Evil AI invades the ship! Oh no! Never mind, we destroyed it. Oh, but we have to go into the future anyways, because... I honestly have no idea. Hahaha, honestly I love this synopsis in particular. I'm gonna add to it and kinda prove your point. They had to go to the future because the one GOOD mega-AI fused itself with the ship, and if the BAD AI got its "hands" on it all life in the galaxy/universe would be destroyed! So they took it to the future to protect it! And what did this amazing mega-AI with 10,000 years of data do in season 3? It 1) told Saru to have dinner with the crew. 2) It helped analyze data leading to the source of "The Burn". 3) It downloaded itself into some robots so the hijackers couldn't DELETE IT COMPLETELY and helped take back the ship. Yeah. They mostly forgot this thing even existed until it talked to them a couple of times. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jan 18, 2021 17:36:03 GMT -5
You failed to mention the quite marvellous end of Season Two for the 23rd century characters which was "... and we will never speak of this again!"
Literally! They have a big meeting with Starfleet and it is the official decision by Starfleet that no one will ever mention any of this, including the ship and PEOPLE, again.
That was my favorite part, honestly. Because it made more sense than the rest of the season.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jan 18, 2021 18:24:45 GMT -5
Hahaha, honestly I love this synopsis in particular. I'm gonna add to it and kinda prove your point. They had to go to the future because the one GOOD mega-AI fused itself with the ship, and if the BAD AI got its "hands" on it all life in the galaxy/universe would be destroyed! So they took it to the future to protect it! But, the BAD AI was already destroyed BEFORE they went to the future. So, there was no need to go to the future to protect the GOOD AI! Were they on some sort of auto pilot that they couldn't stop by then? I'm still baffled about this writing choice. However, I don't like to complain too much about this, because I prefer that this show be set in the future.
I didn't even try to sum up S3 because it felt like a lot of wheel spinning, just to get to an honestly ludicrous mystery solution, two episodes before the end. And the finale came down to a Good AI saving the ship from a cartoon villain we only just started to care about one episode prior.
Congrats ST: Enterprise! You are hereby removed from the bottom of my Trek rankings list! And I say this even while I am currently doing a re-watch of ENT and am in the middle of Season 2. Like, I just passed an episode of ENT that was about Mayweather visiting his family on their freighter and the only part of this episode which interested me was whether T'Pol would go to movie night with the crew.
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