I recently saw Star Trek Picard, the first season was okey, season 2 was awful, the season 3 was nice.
Acording some critics last Discovery season is bad, so now I’m afraid of looking a series who has a bad ending, it worth to watch or is as painful as Picard Season 2? Or I should watch Strange New Worlds and Enterprise instead?
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It’s not awful. In fact it has a lot of great high points. On balance, I would say that if you compared it objectively to the first 65 episodes of TNG, it would compare rather favorably.
I very much enjoyed the start but steadily lost interest.
There’s some good stuff in Discovery all the way through, don’t get me wrong. But they kind of flipped the script in a way I did not appreciate.
Most of classic Trek showed us a future with a largely functional society, mostly full of good people who were ready and willing to deal with occasional corruption.
Lots of newer Trek, and especially Discovery, showed us a future where society is largely dysfunctional and corruption is the norm. Almost everyone in the series who isn’t a main character (plus a couple who are) is a piece of shit. Even the “good guys” frequently encourage or at least tolerate clearly evil behavior as long as it serves their ends. But it’s okay because…friendship I guess?!?
Their heart is in the right place but the writing is generally bad. I think this generation of writers is incapable of imagining a better world, which, sure, is understandable, given how thoroughly corrupt our current society is. But it’s deeply depressing. It lacks soul.
SNW is better in this regard. But you’ll probably want to watch season 1 of Discovery first since there’s some crossover.
It’s fine.
And those that disagree should be forced to watch Star Trek: Section 31 until they can have a reasonable conversation like an adult.
It wasn’t my cup of tea.
My favorite new Trek remains Lower Decks.
Discovery was so bad I had to stop after season 2 and have written off everything that they’ve set in the 31st century
I’ve been doing a complete rewatch of Deep Space 9, and it really underscored why I didn’t enjoy Discovery and Picard. My favourite parts of DS9 are the character driven moments, whether they’re big and dramatic, or lightweight and silly. I like that the show has enough space for that. The show has more Plot than previous Star Trek, but that Plot still serves the characters. Discovery is not nearly as bad as Picard on this front, but I still found myself wishing for more opportunity to get to know the characters.
I watched all of Discovery. It is, by far, the worst of all Star Treks. (Disclosure: I have not seen TAS.)
The reason is simple: Discovery is really the Michael Burnham show. She is the Mariest Sue who ever Mary Sued. Discovery could have been a really great show if it had been an ensemble show because it has a lot of very interesting characters whom we never explore.
Instead, everything centres around Burnham. She is the reason for the war at the start of the show. She is the magical, fated solution. She is Spock’s (adopted) sister and had immeasurable impact on his life. Even through timey-wimey things, her (biological) mother comes to save her and the universe.
And on top of all that is the crying. Oh, gosh, everything is so emotional on this show. There is a time and place for emotions, but Discovery was too much of it, including inappropriate times. Burnham and her maybe-broken-up-boyfriend stop in the middle of an infiltration in a hostile station to talk about their relationship.
Even the really great characters, Saru and (Emperor Georgiou) centre around Burnham. She is like a sister to Saru, she saved his life, he gives up being a Captain to continue serving under her captaincy. Burnham is Georgiou’s daughter (not actually), and Georgiou’s love for her (as much as she can love) changes her.
No one has a story unless its actually about Burnham. Or they get a story and then get killed off.
The best thing about Discovery is it brought Trek back on TV and it gave us the rest of this era of shows.
She is the Mariest Sue who ever Mary Sued.
For clarity’s sake, a Mary Sue describes a character who can do no wrong. This is how it’s described on TVTropes:
[A Mary Sue] is exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws.
I’m curious how you square that description of a Mary Sue with Burhnam’s many regular, repeated, failures and flaws as seen on screen and described in the dialogue? As one example, her character is introduced in the very first episode as a misguided mutineer and is demoted for it.
I think Picard was worse than Discovery. Discovery had major flaws but there were moments when it really shined. It had some interesting ideas too. It just wasn’t an ensemble show.
Picard is just awful. Mediocre S1-2 that doesn’t know what it’s trying to achieve, and then S3 abandons every plot thread that they bothered to build up in favor of nostalgia baiting and bringing back the Borg, which was very tonally confusing after S2.
The tone is also just bizarrely dire throughout. People complain about Discovery not feeling like Trek, but I had that problem way moreso with Picard. And now it’s this minefield in the canon of the early 25th century that every show that comes after will have to figure out what to do with. At least Discovery going immediately jumping to the far future means it wasn’t able to fuck up the timeline much, and what it did do was cheekily classified.
Not Mary Sues:
Kirk: repeatedly impresses god-like beings with his emotional maturity and reasoning. Fought hand-to-hand with Khan and won. Saved the whales.
Picard: passes Q’s trials and makes a case for humanity’s worth, multiple times. Proves Data’s person-hood. Survives Carassian torture by sheer willpower.
Sisko: chosen as the Emissary. Does wrong and suffers no consequences.
Janeway: holds fast to Federation principles even when it prevents her from getting home; gets home anyway.
Archer: so important that Daniels and the Xindi both fight over him. Ends the Temporal Cold War and founds the Federation.
Mary Sue:
Burnham: starts the Klingon war, freed from prison by a Terran who uses her as a pawn. Gets called out for breaking rules.
Is this right, @Akuchimoya@startrek.website ?
Thank you for the sanity. I get so tired hearing Burhnam being held to such an obvious double standard. I wonder why? What is different about the character?
It’s not my favorite Trek, but I do like Discovery. That said, your summary is 100% accurate and emphasizes my least favorite parts of the show.
I am no fan of Discovery but can you re-read that and substitute another name, like I dunno James T Kirk? Why is it always about him? Why is he so good at everything?
Having a female MC does not make it automatically a Mary Sue. Especially not when they are smacked down constantly, shown making lots of mistakes, and having a character development arc.
There is an entire season about warp drive not working anywhere in the universe. It turns out that it stopped working because an alien got really sad. Not because he did anything because he was sad, just because he got sad. Ohh, and somehow the Vulcans, with all their logic, never thought of tracking down the cause by triangulation.
That was the end of the series for me.
This, and he wanted connection from someone of his species, and the first officer of the one ship that can overcome the plot debuff happens to be that species, a species we barely see outside this plot…it’s writing so bad you can’t see the show through it. Emotional stories are appropriate, it’s why Troi was a bridge officer. But this show was constantly setting up unsolvable problems that could only be fixed by this one crew, which breaks immersion. Good trek doesn’t have 50 Galaxy or universe ending threats only fixable by plot-armored main characters, it has ship, person, and planet level threats giving you the space to appreciate the human story. Even DS9 kept the stories on missions while the thread of the war was just a hum with reasonable stakes.
I really find this narrative offensive.
First there’s the mischaracterization of a very young and completely dependent who child completely abandoned with the death of the last adult who cared or supported him.
But more than that, Star Trek is littered with a trope about children with incredible powers to interact with the universe who nearly destroy the galaxy or civilizations or large swaths of them.
It started with Charlie X, and was taken up by every other series, sometimes more than once.
On all those other occasions, our hero ship and crew miraculously saved the day and prevented disaster by psychic or superpowered child who was incapable of adult decision-making.
Discovery called the bluff.
Discovery reversed the trope, had the child’s powers actually destroy civilization.
Instead of the hero crew stopping the disaster in the nick of time (again), Discovery finds the child and solves the problem.
And long time fans are offended by THAT?!!
Honestly, when I hear that interpretation it makes me feel like the person didn’t actually watch the season, they just watched the outrage peddling influencers online.
Semi-related but I lost count of the number of times someone on Reddit described Adira’s coming out (a ten second moment in a larger unrelated scene) as a “huge story arc” or being comprised of “multiple episodes” being “shoved in the audiences faces”. I felt like I was taking crazy pills until I learned that’s exactly how the outrage-tubers were presenting it. If you’d never watched the season you’d have no idea it was such an inconsequential moment.
Honestly, when I hear that interpretation it makes me feel like the person didn’t actually watch the season, they just watched the outrage peddling influencers online.
Sorry to say, I watched every single episode, up until the end of that season, myself. I’ll admit to being extra harsh in judging this season since I was already pretty fed up with the writing by that point. I had very little patience left.
I’m sorry, but if you truly watched the entire season, you’d know that your description of the events is incongruous with the events as presented on screen.
I have an intense distaste for Discovery, and wouldn’t recommend it.
I could rant about it a la Angela Collier for 4 hours but here’s my main issues boiled down to a bulleted list:
Some things I like about Star Trek:
• Optimistic future, humans can create greatness and beauty if they continue to check and overcome their faults
• No black and white villains. All antagonists are given nuance and development and many become favored allies
• Themes of teamwork, a functional ensemble, core crew are all valid and valued, no one star of the show.
• No such thing as magic or gods, everything is in the realm of human understanding if we have sufficient knowledgeGuess what Disovery has?
• Nihilistic, apocalyptic future
• Bad guys that are just bad, they’re evil, don’t ask questions
• One principal star of the show that is the focus of nearly every episode
• No attempt to explain things with any veneer of scienceThen add on some blatant examples of total ignorance for the universe it’s set in, attempts at ham handed fan service by shoe horning in clumsy references to characters from other series, you have a show that is farther from Star Trek than a 14 year old’s submission on IO9. When it actually let the supporting cast do things, they were charming and likable, but Stamets, Saru and Tilly weren’t enough to keep me from getting mad at just about every episode.
If you don’t really care about or know anything about Star Trek it can be entertaining I guess, but why watch it when there’s Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks and The Orville?
The Orville came out at the perfect time. The world was craving a good Trek, and was served Discovery. Orville scratched that decade-long itch, hitting all the right notes (though S1 was a bit rough…)
Similarly with Picard and Lower Decks. Picard was a high-budget fanservice with a thin veneer of storyline. Lower Decks was good old classic Trek fun and shenanigans.
And all the crying… my god, so many tears 🙄
With the soft speaking and camera panning across the bridge to catch everyone’s facial expressions in reaction to Burnham’s 13th motivational speech for the episode.
I agree 100% with this take and want to thank you for that excellent video! I’m not all the way through yet, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it.
• Nihilistic, apocalyptic future
Do you have any examples of the Nihilism? I’m struggling to think of any… In fact Season 3 was about maintaining optimism and faith in the strength of the Federation against unbelievable odds.
• Bad guys that are just bad, they’re evil, don’t ask questions
Khan, Gul Dukat and the Clown from Voyager were all in Discovery?
• One principal star of the show that is the focus of nearly every episode
I agree that there was a main character, but I also enjoy a lot of media with a main character so I don’t see that as a bad thing.
• No attempt to explain things with any veneer of science
I suggest you avoid watching TNG and TOS because they do the same thing!
I don’t have much time to respond so I’m going to just hit one bullet for now:
Are you going to try to argue that Khan and Gul Dukat weren’t given nuance and development? Some of the things that made them such compelling antagonists is that we were given insight into their motives and backgrounds and perspectives. Khan absolutely was nuanced and the persecution and illegality of genetically enhanced humans was a great stepping off point for him. Just about every antagonist that pops up in Star Trek gets some kind of explanation why they are doing the things they are doing, and the crew takes a moment to acknowledge their inherent worth as living beings and, if they’re sentient, discuss possibilities for negotiations or nonviolence. I haven’t forgotten that Klingons, Ferengi, Borg, Cardassians and many others start off as villains, but we are given many opportunities for them to be “humanized” through characters like Worf, Quark, Hugh/Seven, Garak and others. There are no “good” or “bad” aliens in Star Trek.
So keeping that in mind, how did things go with the Ba’Ul? How did they handle Control? What nuance was Lorca given? In Discovery, your first impression of a bad guy being bad is always correct.
You didn’t say Discovery villains didn’t “have nuance and development”. So no, I didn’t say that either.
Gul Dukat
Maybe you drew too fast shot yourself in the foot?
Gul Dukat is arguably the most wellformed villain in ST canon. He is a delusional maniac pursuing a twisted vision of greatness. He even works alongside our heroes for a time!
Can I offer you an Armus instead?
I agree that Gul Dukat is a delusional maniac! The guy I replied to said that only Discovery had such characters. But that said I will gladly accept your Armus!
It’s a romantic comedy. Not science fiction. I lost it at the musical. Musicals are what happens when writers have no ideas.
Musicals are amazing and you are worse than Khan for suggesting otherwise
They’re also completely absent from Discovery…
OMG you’re so right.
Honestly I’m so used to hearing the same tired old arguments I didn’t even process that.
The main problem with discovery is they set it basically in the tos timeline which created all these weird plot things that had to be resolved with weirder plot things. I firmly believe if they had set it a decent amount post voyager that it would have made it much better. I don’t want to spoil but I felt season 2 fit better but having such weird start really messed it up for me.
The central character of the show is the least interesting person on it somehow despite having what could have been a good back story.
Everyone else seems to be some sort of real person to me. She is just so boring and flat and everything revolves around her for no real reason. Her purpose seems to be to be the fence post that stands there and eventually cries.
The best thing about the show was it gave us Anson Mount as Pike and he is outstanding. He was so good as Pike we got SNW as a spinoff.
Naw it’s a journey. I accepted discovery like I did voyager. Once I saw what it was in it own, much better. Second watch got better, just like voyager.
I’ll be honest, I can’t remember all my particular criticisms, but here’s my impressions that I have left:
It’d be more accurately titled Star Trek: Burnham, because 95% of the time, every problem or mystery is somehow related to Burnham, everyone else is just supporting cast.
Like Picard, each season felt very disconnected from the others, there’s some continuity, but you could almost name the season based on the feel of an episode.
Plots more often than not felt underwhelming, as they were solved by essentially deus ex machina, mcguffins, surprise reveals or abrupt character changes.
It was largely visually ok, actors all did at least a decent job.
I have 0 desire to ever rewatch a single episode.
It’d be more accurately titled Star Trek: Burnham
I always called it ‘The Burnham Show, starring Michael Burnham’.
It was crazy to me how they could make every plot line revolve around her in some way, have her always be part of figuring out the solution, everyone else fawning over how great she is and what they’d do without her, just the lengths the writers went to to insert her everywhere. It’s just so on your nose and gets really tiring after like 3 seasons.
Compared with like DS9 where you could have whole episodes where the main character, Quark, only has like 1-2 lines and they focus more on supporting cast like Cisco or just Bashir and Garrek (sorry, I couldn’t resist :) )
everyone else fawning over how great she is
Did we watch the same show? She is literally demoted and sent to prison in the first episode.
@Corgana she did redeem herself.
You’re suggesting that redemption from disgrace is the same as “everyone else fawning over how great she is and what they’d do without her”?
@Corgana That’s what redemption is about. It’s recognizing that even the greatest among us make mistakes and can still be great.
Do you have any evidence to support your claim? I looked it up and I didn’t see anything about “redemption” necessitating the fawning over of the redemptee by others, so until someone claims otherwise I’m going to believe Mr. Webster.
@Corgana People fawned over her because she was a loving character who did great. That greatness emerged from her redemption and would have been lost to whatever the Federation’s idea of a prison cell in the 23rd century otherwise.
I’ve been on social media for a while and I have to say, this has all the hallmarks of a flame war. So this is all I’m going to have to say on the matter. You can throw darts at her photograph on your own wall.
I have 0 desire to ever rewatch a single episode
If there’s one thing I’d like to peek behind the curtain to see, it’s the streaming metrics for each trek.
My gut instinct is that almost nobody wants to rewatch it unless it is their own favorite trek. I know I don’t.
I couldn’t make it through the first season and tried picking up season 2 to see if it improved any. Didn’t watch anything past that.
It was written by people who didn’t have a good grasp on what star trek was, or thought they could remake it better for a new generation. But they ended up making something that just leaves a sour taste in your mouth if you know what that setting is capable of being.
To me, STD and the first season or so of Picard feel exactly like when a video game you thoroughly enjoy gets adapted into movie. There’s recognizable elements there, but nobody is acting the way they should and everything has that uncanny valley affect where you know what it’s supposed to be but it’s clearly failing to do it convincingly. It’s hard to point to what is actually wrong but you know several elements are off.
Protip: “STD” is not the official abbreviation for Discovery, it’s “DSC”. If you call it “STD” people are going to assume you watch those outrage bait youtubers who complained about how Discovery was “too woke”.
Discovery is fine. It takes some weird turns, sort of a necessity since they chose to make it a prequel with a unique propulsion system. And it is not like the 90s shows. And there’s a vocal group of fans that hate it just because it’s different, it was the first show coming back from the long show hiatus, and many are simply incapable of admitting that.
Picard’s seasons are all weird in their own way and with their own flaws, totally separate from Disco.
Watch the first season and make your own decision. Star Trek fans are some of the worst for having outsized online hatred of shit that doesn’t matter.
fans that hate it just because it’s different
Fans hated it not solely because it was different, that’s hardly a reason. They hated it because:
- For the first time, Starfleet officers were emotionally-stunted or plain assholes instead of well-adapted officers.
- The series revolved around a divisive character, hoping I guess that some people would become hardcore fans of Michael.
- It intentionally wrecked canon, even one of the producers proudly said he didn’t watch Star Trek to avoid preconceptions.
- Tech doesn’t make sense for its time. Practically none of it made any sense for a prequel, maybe if it had been a sequel.
- The forced linking of the main protagonist to Spock was unbelievable, more so because it somehow gave her Vulcan powers by osmosis.
- It promoted itself as progressive, but all it did was including a gay couple and a non-binary girl. The important characters were all cis, or left unspoken.
It wasn’t just different, it was bad. Really bad. It was like a vuvuzela in an acoustic song.
And this is coming from someone who watched a season and a half before quitting, but who loved Enterprise, who also had its glaring flaws, but was true to canon.
I don’t think Adira is a nonbinary girl, I think they’re just nonbinary. Their boyfriend was also trans for what it’s worth.
Georgiou is also pansexual, though that’s not particularly progressive (classic depraved bisexual trope), and Jett Reno was married to a woman.
So while you’re right, most of the major cast is cishet, I think there’s more people who hate it for being “woke” than for being not progressive enough, as I haven’t heard the latter much but the former is annoyingly common from the usual suspects. There simply hadn’t been actual representation of any of those groups (except the depraved bisexuals) in Star Trek before Discovery.
Also, as for “Vulcan powers”: we’ve always known that Vulcan logic is learned and not innate. Vulcans are naturally wildly emotional, their logic is basically just advanced meditation techniques, so it makes sense that a human raised by Vulcans could learn them. We’ve also seen non-Vulcans use the iconic nerve pinch before, it’s essentially just a Vulcan martial art and nothing to do with Vulcan biology. Picard and Data could both do it.
The only “Vulcan power” tied to their biology really is the mind meld, and that’s because Vulcans are mildly telepathic. Non-Vulcan telepaths could learn it too. I don’t think we ever saw Burnham initiate a mind meld though.
When I said Adira is a nonbinary girl, I meant she is female of sex and nonbinary of chosen gender.
it was a big deal when they announced her, but the treatment was milquetoast and timid. Same with the few non-cis characters, they were tokens, the show didn’t have the courage to depict a future where a diverse gender philosophy is widely accepted. They yellowed out of it and presented as if it was still our time. I don’t dislike the show for being woke, I dislike it for being shallow woke.
Same with the rest of it, it was 90% SFX and 10% writing. With long series like TNG you can afford the luxury of experimenting and fumbling the ball some weeks, it Discovery and Picard and massive productions that only have 12 episodes a year. They had to make every one of those count.
About Michael ‘s learned Vulcan powers, I don’t buy that. She was best than the Vulcans at their own academy, seemingly an expert at hand to hand combat, basically a prodigy at everything she wanted to do. That’s bad writing, super geniuses are too easy to write, so they had to make her emotionally immature to give her some challenge. Given she cried almost every episode, I’d seriously doubt she took to heart those meditation lessons.
It is a very flashy but bad show overall. If it hadn’t carried the name of Star Trek, it might have carved a niche in Sci-Fi, though. Space novels were called Space Operas after all.
I just don’t understand this “Vulcan powers” criticism. She was a prodigy, sure, and pretty good at doing anything she wants, but that’s a broader issue. I don’t recall any point where she showed any Vulcan abilities that would be implausible for a human to learn from being raised in that culture. Even if you could argue it contributes to her being good at too many things, that has nothing to do with Vulcans specifically.
And I find it very ironic that you’re complaining about the portrayal of trans characters not being progressive enough while misgendering Adira. Adira is non binary. They are not a girl, and they explicitly make it clear in the show they use they/them pronouns. Girl refers to gender, not sex, and furthermore sex isn’t relevant to 99% of conversations so you don’t need to disambiguate by finding a replacement word.
Frankly, I think Adira and Gray’s transness was handled quite well. I’m not sure what makes them tokens to you. Adira has more lines than most of the bridge crew, and the little queer family unit of Stamets/Culber/Adira gets quite a bit of development and screen time. Gray gets his time in the spotlight too, and gets a bit of character development of his own.
Both Gray and Adira are immediately accepted and never questioned by anyone on the crew. That’s a far cry from presenting it as if it were still our time. No one trips up on either of their pronouns once. You yourself refer to Adira with she/her in your comment.
The main difference between Adira and Gray is that Gray already came out and transitioned off-screen, while Adira comes out on-screen. I think their coming out scene is well done and realistic; even in the Trek future people will have to come out to some extent because people clearly default to binary pronouns. They aren’t mind readers, and they haven’t replaced all pronouns with they/them, so it’s only natural that one would have to explicitly tell people their pronouns.
Stamets immediately accepts Adira, with zero questions about nonbinary identity or pronouns, and then seemingly informs the rest of the crew off-screen. I don’t know what you think coming out nowadays is like, but that’s not the reaction most of the time. Adira comes off as kind of nervous in the scene, but they’re talking to someone they barely know at this point who arrived from hundreds of years ago. Plus they’re just a nervous person in general. I think it works well.
And Gray doesn’t have to come out at all, he’s accepted as male from day one. His transness only ever comes up as vague references to transitioning. Seems pretty accepted to me!
I fully accept I have difficulty with using these pronouns. English is not my first language, and in my daily life I know zero nonbinary people, literally zero, so I don’t get to practice. I’ve only seen trans people on TV, or in discussions on the Internet, so I don’t get to practice those either. Sometimes I wonder why it’s such a prominent issue on the media, specially American media.
I know a handful of people that are gay or lesbian, but they’re not into choosing special gender pronouns. So my only practice before this discussion was another online discussion more than a year ago.
I suppose I’m confused what your issue with the trans characters is then. I thought at first you wished there were more, but now you’re saying you don’t understand why it comes up so often?
I understand the difficulty getting used to new pronouns. It’s great that you’re doing your best to understand despite not having much experience with it. I was just trying to point out that the portrayal in Trek is already showing a world that accepts trans and nonbinary people far more naturally than IRL, even if there could be more representation of actual queer folks.
If I can present examples to you of those things happening in other Star Trek series would it change your mind about those other series?
Or does this list of criteria selectively apply specifically to Discovery?
You’ve said it, examples. All series have their flaws, but overall their qualities made them last. Who hasn’t heard of someone binging all of TNG? Who has heard someone say “Discovery was so good I’m rewatching it with my friends”?
Why is it when those things you listed show up on other Star Trek series you consider them to be “flaws” on an “overall quality” show, but on Discovery they become “reasons to hate”? Why the double standard?
Those are reasons to hate any show. Discovery made the mistake of being made mostly of that.
It just feels awfully weird to me that your list of criteria that makes a show “hateable” only applies to this particular show. And when another show checks off the items, the list suddenly stops being “hateable items” and instead becomes a list of minor nitpicks.
I just can’t figure out what the difference is, what could it be about Discovery in particular that would cause you to hold this list of criteria with such gravitas, but when the listed items appear on a different show, you don’t seem to mind? What could the difference be?
Again, let me explain it as a metaphor:
a) You want to buy a new house, it’s beautiful although there’s a few leaks here and there, but the rest of the roof is solid. You decide you like it.
b) You want to buy a new house, it’s beautiful although most of the roof has leaks. You decide it’s not wort the effort.
The first season, and the first few episodes of season two take some extra weird turns because of the revolving door of producers during that period. The original producer left the show during season one. Then a duo took over who took the story in quite a different direction. Those two left in early season two. After that production finally settled into a more stable state.
Anyway the characters and acting are great, and that counts for a lot!
