The only question I have about Discovery is: do you think Michael Burnham is ever capable of crying?
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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My only major critiques for Discovery are that they walked back a Calvin-verse reboot after fan backlash (my interpretation), and that the theatrics usually don't mesh well with the action-oriented flow of the rest of the episodes around it.
The reboot thing was, to me, overly clear with the changes in aesthetics and technology. Especially the Klingons. And I get it: it's hard to dazzle audiences through vibrant creative direction, with decades of canon on your back. All that older stuff has compromises from old effects tech and budget baked in, so breaking from it is incredibly tempting. But the fans will not let you do this: just ask the Dr. Who production people. So we get some really oddball stuff happening in the first few seasons.
To the latter point, we get moments like: "The ship is going to explode in one minute, so let's argue for at least ten before we deal with that." This kind of thing happens a lot in Discovery and a binge-watch would have you thinking that the ship's counselor is either dead or contemplating transporter suicide. The dissent between characters feels valid most of the time, but other times is just jarringly out of character or contrary to self-preservation as to break suspension of disbelief. But there's usually angry, loud, arguing dissent. Which is a shame since these same episodes is hitting the mark on every other metric, IMO.
My response to the first five episodes was very much "It's like the writers are justifying a councilor being on the bridge crew."
Don't get me started on ds9. A black captain? A trans lesbian officer? A gay interspecies couple? The federation using fear from war as an excuse to become a police state? Can't believe they made my colorful space communism show woke.
I can't be the only one who remembers Trekkies legitimately bitching about Tuvok because "Vulcans aren't black."
Like... really? You've been there and checked this out for yourself? Or is it that most (and not even all) of the handful of Vulcans you saw so far were white?
A gay interspecies couple?
Rick Berman:
You hated Discovery because it was too woke.
I hated Discovery because it wasn’t woke enough.
We are not the same.
Yeah, really. There wasn't much enlightened future stuff going on and they pointlessly killed (and then returned, but still) one of the gay guys for shock value(?). It's just so poorly written that neither that nor any of the empowerment messages landed for me.
I hated it because half of the characters annoyed me and the other half didn’t have enough screen time
was there even one gay character in TNG?
No, but as soon as they add C to LGBT, Beverly will identify as part of the queer community.
Riker is clearly pan
I'm going with Alexander.
Ro Laren
I was hoping more for any character, even a one off, where they wrote and openly had the character that way rather than ones people might feel is gay. I doubt there is one but part of me is sorta hoping they snuck one in someplace.
Wesley /s
No. Fuck you. We reject him. We have standards.
Sincerely, the gay community.
Never understood the wesley hate. sure he was a trope character but I had more issue with data as he just filled to many roles and minimize other characters. stronger/more resilient to damage than worf, smarter than wesely, more experience than any other member of the crew.
Because Wesley was a stand in for Genes son basically. Wesley had a lot of unearned praise or unearned moments where he ends up saving the day or having a vital role in something that he just shouldn't. The other characters had earned their place but he didn't. He was just annoying and there. The reason I don't like him is because he just feels like a fanfic character that was shoved into the show.
I mean if he saves the day how is it unearned? I dunno I never felt that way. It felt to me like a trope. the boy/girl genius but really I felt his role was more to bring in the whole family aspect of the ship. A main character that would be regularly interacting with other kids on the ship and their families and a reference for beverly to bring up that she is a mom and has to be concerned for her family.
I didn't especially hate Wesley, but I also didn't enjoy his character. Part of it is that the narrative often framed Wesley from the perspective of Picard, who often seemed to be irked by Wesley, priming the audience to feel the same way. In many of his earlier appearances, before he was a cadet, I recall some Wesley plots involving him being over-keen and meddling with things he shouldn't. But it all turns out fine in the end, because Wesley is so precocious and special. This is likely a reductionist and possibly incorrect summary, but it's how I remember it.
When I try to think about faults or arcs that Wesley had in TNG, I really struggle to think of anything that made him feel like an actual character. There was an episode where he was considering giving up after doing badly on the academy entrance test, until he had a rare bonding moment with Picard. Then there was the academy shuttle crash coverup in which Wesley doesn't feel like he has any real agency or real conflict for his character.
I agree with you that his key role was about giving the family aspect, which I think was useful, but especially when combined with the young genius trope, he felt more like a prop than a real character (part of this criticism is also aimed at how they explored themes of family through Beverly — I see what they were going for, but it didn't fully land for me).
Now that I'm writing this, I'm thinking of episodes I wish I could've seen to develop Wesley more. Such as a "Lower Decks" (the TNG episode) style look at other young people on the enterprise, before Wesley is allowed on the bridge. I could see him framing himself as having more access or knowledge than he actually does and lying to make himself seem impressive to his peers. Then he gets peer pressured into doing some dumb stuff to gain that access he pretends to have, and it causes complications that threaten to reveal Wesley's deceit to both the crew and his peers.
I'm just spitballing. My main point is just that he seemed simultaneously overused and underutilised — for the screen time he gets, he doesn't really get to be an interesting character. He doesn't need to be edgy — idealistic boy genius who can't wait to join Starfleet fits in great with TNG's general tone. However, without something to temper the optimism with, TNG could be saccharine sweet.
Westley was also a viewer-insert character for kids to relate to. As a little kid watching TNG, I liked him as a character and thought he was cute. I didn't start to find him irritating until I got a few years older than him.
oh yeah I could see it being done way better. I just did not especially hate him and I did like data but again I sorta gated he was sorta the end all be all. I mean spock was like that in a way but scottie still knew more about engineering and bones knew more about medicine, and he did not do well in things like poker, etc.
Not to mention, programmed in a variety of techniques...
More Casanova than Riker
And yet, he would give it all up...
I find many of these shows and movies that are accused of being woke is because they create protagonists without flaws, out of fear of making non traditional characters look bad I guess? But protagonists without flaws are boring.
I'm trying to think what Burnham's fatal flaw is, or her deadly sin. It's mostly stuff that has happened to her and she has to overcome but that's not the same thing. Interesting protagonist have flaws like hubris, vice, hypocrisy, greed, something that makes them more real. You look at characters like Rey from star wars and again, flawless except for her past, which again is something that happened to her not something she is.
That's why people didn't like when Han Solo didn't shoot first. Yes Han Solo is overall a good guy, but he's also ruthless and a gangster when we meet him. If he's already a flawless good guy at the start,that just sucks. Anakin as well, good but arrogant and controlling
I think i agree with the general premise that flawed characters are more interesting, and i also feel (with no data to back up that feeling, so bear with me) that these 'woke' characters sometimes fall into a pitfall where they're just so boringly written that it does feel like the writers are either afraid of being perceived as 'punching down' or (edit: finishing this thought) want to misguidedly write a perfect character for the sake of superficial representation of some group.
That said, for this show in particular (i have watched TNG/DS9/Voyager but not Discovery), is it a valid criticism for this captain that couldn't be applied to the older series? Picard's flaws are heavily understated - sure, he was a violent little shit off screen when he was younger, and he can be a little more of a hardass than called for occasionally, but I always felt he was pretty consistently portrayed as the voice of reason, and his flaws were only relevant in a couple episodes. I think I would say that's also true of Sisko and Janeway, though Sisko has a lot more nuance to his pragmatism that is really interesting as DS9 continues.
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I just couldn't get into Discovery or Picard because they felt... weird? Not that it wasn't like Star Trek in the stories or that it was "woke," but it just didn't have the same vibe as what I grew up with. Lower Decks has the vibe, but not the tone or anything else. I need to check out Strange New Worlds. It looks like it might be what I'm really missing.
Yes, watch Strange New Worlds! It really does get at the vibe and tone of TNG and the other 90s Trek shows. It's a breath of fresh air
I've heard good things about that enough that I had already decided to watch it in abstract, but you have just tipped me over the edge and I've decided to actually give it a try. Thanks for the push, I will think of you when I do watch it
It's because the only "woke" thing nu-trek writers understand is representation, which even that is pretty tame by treks standards. Yeah there's more POC and lgbtq representation, which is important, but is also pretty standard for our time. There is nothing as groundbreaking as the first interracial kiss on television, or one of the first gay kisses.
Nu-trek writers don't understand Treks optimism and idealism at all. Gene Roddenberrys vision of a post-scarcity socialist utopia is simply beyond their ability to understand and write. They're a bunch of Neolibs who can't imagine a world without capitalism and just write dystopian scifi filled with interpersonal drama because that's what's in and what sells right now.
I just watched Season 2 of Picard and all I could think the whole time was "TNG crew would have wrapped this up in 1 or 2 episodes..."
Yup, in order to make Discovery and Picard work, the writers had to give everyone the idiot ball.
Trek is at its best when it's competence porn.
As a note, to be in star fleet requires 4 years at the start fleet academy. You need to be somewhat good at your job and somewhat disciplined to even be considered for a slot on a ship.
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Both Picard and Discovery were season long plots without episodic filler episodes to shake things up which made it painfully obvious that their overarching plotlines were terrible. Add some poorly done melodramatic scenes about how the leads are the most important people ever without showing why (and in a lot of cases showing the opposite) and we have two series that were just a slog to watch up to the point that I stopped.
Both sounded good on paper. Both had great casts. Both seemed to suffer from terrible writing and direction.
The final season of PIC was fun, and the second one had some good moments, mostly with Q. But that first season was still being written as they were filming and the second season had part of its budget appropriated for the third season and it shows in both.
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I loved it
Yep. This greentezt is all just "dont threaten me with a gokd time". Let anon fawn over one another's griftcoin acumen and wallow in their oblivious unfuckability.
Short of DS9, Discovery is my fav ✨️
heck yez
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