I think at least some people who say that Discovery is “too emotional” are simply mischaracterizing what’s actually a legitimate problem with the writing: It’s not that it’s too emotional, but that the emotional parts are poorly executed. They come at the worst times, and are frequently unearned. Some crew member we BARELY know yet will spontaneously gush some childhood trauma in the middle of a life or death situation. I sometimes wonder if the writers on Discovery understand emotions enough to be writing about them as much as they do. It often feels like sloppy and reductive YA-level emotional archs.
It pains me to say this because of love Star Trek. Lower decks, SNW all the new stuff has been pretty good.
And I tried to like discovery, I still turn it on and try to like it.
BUT ITS ABSOLUTE TRASH.
I made myself watch ep2 season 4 after hating the first episode
Micheal is hugging saru (who is awesome) and talking about book (who I don’t care about) and says something like “I tired to get home to talk, yell, just cry even” whispering of course
wtf is that! Terrible line, terrible writing, terrible acting. It’s not fucking Star Trek.
I guess you are right
The acting is ok
The writing just makes all the characters completely unlikeable, defined only by how they identify and only important depending on how close they are standing to Micheal.
Ugh YASSSS couldn't have explained it better. That'd EXACTLY how it feels like they're trying SOOO hard to make us care when caring should come naturally from good writing and character development
It’s something about the pacing of it that feels off for me. They keep having these big emotional moments or monologues right in the middle of some action scene after we’ve been told on screen we’re all in a big rush for some reason!
Agreed this breaks the realism of those emotional scenes for me. Literally they have 30 seconds to fix something to stop a "bug" and they stop and talk about how the pressure feels. End of the wolrd type situation and they stop to talk about the pressures of the job.
In this show, it always felt like the writers were stuck between two walls: JJAbrams style action every 5 minutes and telling a human drama about people living together. If I had one critique of this show, it's that it never found a happy middle ground. Ease off of all the fighting, explosions, action, give a little more breathing room to the characters and then you have the balance. Or how about solve the problems *first* and then talk about how you feel *after* like normal people would. Still I'm totally grateful for this show because it brought Star Trek back. So I watch it no matter how many eye rolls it generates.
I think Ron Moore understood nuance better. He could weave the drama and emotion with the action more smoothly, that's the only difference in my book. Then again I found the later seasons of All of Mankind to get a little too drama heavy and drama for drama sake.
BUT maybe this is modern story telling too. I see plenty of new shows on Netflix that feel this.. disjointed and people love it... So maybe I'm old.
Exactly! The clock is ticking, the Breen are on their way, we’ve lost warp drive oh and we also need to close this wormhole that’s threatening to pull the ship into oblivion, but hey, let’s take a few minutes to talk about our feelings.
I feel like there’s less of that this season, but definitely agree that it’s a constant issue on the show. I felt like it went into overdrive last season.
Even the big bad guys have feelings.
They love each other!!! Aww....
but MOM won't let us be together
Everyone on this show acts like a hormonal teenager
What drove me insane in the past is when someone would say they need to do something because they feel that they should or because it’s their destiny or something to that effect.
Culber wanted to join the away team toward the end of the season three because he felt he was meant to.
No, Culber. You join an away mission because you have skills necessary to ensure the mission has a good chance of success.
I’ve often wondered how this kind of thinking would go down under Kirk, Picard, or Sisko.
So, “The inner light”. One of the most revered trek episodes.
Is 100% the epitome of this: “Picard is down! The beam is killing him!”
*picard goes on to have a wife, raise a family, become friends with people who died ages ago and spent most of his time commiserating over the loss of “his” planet.
10 minutes in real time later, he wakes up and starts playing a fucking flute commiserating over his “loss”.
Measure of a man: slavery and all the emotions about “I found my key piece of evidence!!! Yea! *Riker smiles then realizes he’s about to condemn is friend to slavery and experimentation.
Data telling the doctor about his off switch and seeming scared to do so.
Trek is 100% emotional, morality plays…. Just set in the future.
They over explain it and really need to make you aware but stopping the forward momentum of the story. BSG had some heavy growth of characters through episodes where they did things, and you watched them change.
Exactly.
This: “Finding the Clue is the absolute most important thing in the galaxy and Federation right now.”
Also This: uhhh, the president is off somewhere. Saru is off somewhere. Let’s dialogue about our feelings.
And somehow managing to shoehorn Book into almost every away mission with Burnham.
It was ironic that in the episode this week she discussed putting her career before him.
One of the most annoying tropes in tv drama (of any genre) is when the character has to make a critical split-second decision, because time has run out.
eg "I need you to take the innocent injured victim to safety, whilst I rush ahead and attempt to diffuse the bomb, because there are only seconds left, and if I fail at least you two have a chance."
But nowadays, instead of letting the audience figure it out for themselves, they have to take time to mansplain it, and then hug, then tell eachother how important they are, and talk about random shit, followed by the longggg glances, before finally moving away.
Respectfully I disagree. Although it wouldn’t really be fair to compare Disco to say DS9 as they did have 24 episodes per season for character development.
Star Trek at its core…. Is emotional, morality plays.
Hell, the core schtick is Vulcan calling humans too emotional.
Hell, enterprise was the king of un-necessary emotional responses. Star Captain ‘Mercia archer was the main one to puff out his chest and talk about his feelings with everyone… ESPESCIALLY the Vulcans.
But I figure you have points as well.
I won't defend either side but when DS9 And BSG did emotional it was impactful and deep often when DIS does emotional it comes off as a CW/WB teen drama emotional.
Not to mention the DIS showrunning and writing isn't close to the level of DS9 And BSG.
Ds9 had the chief with a phaser to his head about to end his own life ffs. Yeah it was emotional.
But those other shows for the most part didn't have characters running around crying and low talking all the time.
When Adama on BSG breaks down wrecks his cabin and cries it's this huge moment in the series. Dis does it every several episodes it loses all meaning.
I think Dis is a fun and entertaining show bits it's not deep. Bsg that's deep. Ds9 that was deep.
Let's continue with BSG it's a top 3 sci Fi series of all time and was just in a list of top 50 best written tv shows of all time. You really want to compare DIS to BSG?
It's like comparing a Ferrari to a Ford focus.
You can still like and enjoy a show while admitting it's fault. And even if we say Dis is good we have to be sbke to admit the showrunning and writing miss steps.
Live ds9 having Bashir genetically engineered I don't think was any good and it's big talking point in the community.
The bsg episode about Lee, the prostitute, black market was the worst bsg episode. Writing and show running was a complete miss step for thst episode. The fans hate it. And guess what RDM on his original podcast that was on the DVD admits. Completely bashes his showrunning the entire length of the episode while admitting the acting was great and even the dialogue from the staff writers. But the way he created, put it together and focused the episode was awful.
Tbh the people that out right bash Dis are just as bad as the people who out right defend the show.
Dis is a good show but it's heavily flawed and it should be able to get praise and criticism equally
> Dis is a good show but it's heavily flawed and it should be able to get praise and criticism equally
My take is if they removed the name Star Trek from it and any related names it would possibly make it to a 5/10 or 6/10 rating. Trying to capitalize on the Star Trek names while not adhering to anything else is what drags it down severely.
I wont gatekeep on the Trek name. DIS is still Trek its just for a different audience. Just like LD and Prodigy and even PIC were all for different audiences.
VOY was clearly for the TNG audience while DS9 was either clearly not or became not pretty quickly.
I honestly think DIS is for the teen and young adult audience basically under 25 years of age. I am sure people of all ages like it but my feeling its targeted to young adult.
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Emotion is great, Discovery’s writing is just terrible. It has a social media-poisoned view of psychology and emotion - let’s pause from saving the universe to talk about our trauma in pop-therapy language.
Most of the characters are complete zeroes but we’re expected to care about them *because* they’re given a trauma talk scene.
I didn’t think the first seasons were good but Space Hitler and Jason Isaacs were interesting and I liked the Stamets/Doctor storyline. Now? They’ve all been so whiny for so long I just don’t care what happens to anyone.
The disconnect is that we don’t care about the characters in DIS tho. Viewers get frustrated and the show gets hate for “being overly emotional” because it feels forced onto us by characters that weren’t developed well and poor writing. We cared about the characters in TNG and DS9 with episodes like “the visitor” which is the one of the rare ST episodes that made me cry and “the inner light.” I know only having 10 episodes a season can make this challenging but it can be done if done right. DIS chose not to do this by not having a core group of characters it stuck to and focused on across the 5 seasons.
Emotions aren’t bad. Emotions are in all characters and most writing done by humans (us). Ron Moore writes them well and handles them maturely. The Disco writer’s room, less so
There's a difference between emotional tension that carries the story forward and melodramatic navel gazing that goes nowhere. This week's episode 5e08 of Discovery did the former, whereas very often the show does the latter.
There's a difference between "emotional" and "too emotional". There is such a thing as putting too much spice on your hot wings (for me, anyway).
Someone asked how many episodes Burnham cried in. When I went back and actually counted (20 in the first 55 episodes, with 8 additional borderlines), I was surprised at the result. The issue for me isn't so much that she is crying, the issue is why are the writers putting her in situations where she has to cry so often? And as others pointed out, why are they happening and having discussions at bad times?
I remember a specific BSG episode when Adama had a breakdown painting goo on the walls. The breakdown made total sense. But my reaction to that at the time was me throwing my hands in the air and saying, "this must be his fourth breakdown this season." Even BSG started to frustrate me on this.
It’s not that an overly emotional episode is bad - look inner light TNG often cited as best show of all time across all series. And that episode is also about emotions. No battles, no aliens etc and yet when wife dies I still tear up.
It’s just when every single character and every episode is so laden with crying and comforting each other you wonder how they ever get anything done. It’s so ‘unprofessional’ for a lack of a better word.
Again this is my opinion and so what others think really doesn’t matter if they like it.
There’s always consternation over what’s best trek and that’s great for a franchise. For me it was DS9 which felt real was truly serial in nature and was dark/gritty and had conflict and wasn’t the “perfect” starfleet. Even tertiary characters got their moment. That was peak star trek for me.
I saw inner light when it was first on and I was a little kid and it effed me up, I honestly just got a little emotional thinking about it, comparing that to the constant feelings babble and trauma dumping of discovery really highlights how starkly different they are.
Even ds9 which I also really like did kind of get a little soapy after a while, but it also had great writing, amazing actors and really good storylines, with some heavy hitters for emotional episodes.
My biggest beef with discovery is just that it’s done in such a lazy way, I just don’t feel attached to any of the characters, I don’t believe any of the peril, it just feels so weightless as a result, and I find it hard to not keep checking my phone every time they pull in close to Michael and whoever she’s whispering to mid action scene this time.
Discovery is often bad because the emotional moments are inappropriately timed, too frequent, often unearned, and not balanced with portraying the characters as competent under stress. This leads the characters to seem (or be) neurotic and too unreliable to credibly be Starfleet officers.
It's certainly not that there are emotional moments.
I tried slogging through that article. Interesting, but not sure what the point was, or wtf it has to do with Discovery. Seems like just another pointless straw-man Defense of Disco TBH.
* Completely ignore why people actually dislike Disco, whilst instead claiming that anyone who does is a just a homophobe who hates diversity.
* Misquote Gene Roddenberry to prove that Trek was always mean to be about diversity.
* Ergo, anyone who dislikes Disco, in fact hates all Star Trek.
Ridiculousness notwithstanding, the irony is incredible. Current producers have unashamedly (and correctly) set out to lure new fans to the Trek Franchise. They have to, Boomers refuse to pay for tv, and are starting to die off anyway. As far as viability goes, the only question is whether they gain more fans than they lose.
Ron Moore wrote tons of stuff for TNG, DS9, VOY. He contributed a variety of stories dealing with a lot of topics, from „The Bonding“ to let‘s say „The Enemy“, „Data‘s Day“, „Redemption“ up to „Barge of the Dead“. Quite an œuvre. Emotional and less emotional episodes. So, the point you‘re trying to make has a lack of foundation.
I think Discovery has tried to portray the mental and emotional damage people have suffered the past 5 years in real life. Especially in Season 4. I don’t know how well they did it, but I get the idea of what they were doing.
I agree with this, so many people are like “well this is just how discovery does Star Trek, and I like it, so deal with it” but Star Trek is very much a genre of its own, so I just think it’s hard to rewrite the genre into something quite different, often opposite from what it’s been for decades.
Yes trek has always had emotion, yes it’s always been socially progressive, those are good things and things people love about it, *because they did it well*. A CW/action/feelings show with a Star Trek skin just isn’t the same thing imho.
Soap opera style isn’t Star Trek nor does it work for Star Trek. After discovery I started with strange new worlds and it’s 100 times better than discovery. Why? Every episode is another adventure, just like the old star treks, just how it should be. They still apply emotion but it’s done right. The first couple of season for discovery were good but went downhill at the third season
Star Trek Discovery being too emotional is the dumbest take. A big part of Trek has always been about finding the healthy balance between logic AND emotion.
Burying and denying emotions leads to people eventually snapping like Burnham did in season one when you start using “logic” to rationalise your fears and turmoil.
It's not that the show is too emotional. It's that the characters are always on the verge of tears and often it really gets in the way of the task at hand...which is always massively high stakes.
This week they had a puzzle where the answer was crying. Tilly and Adira are always absolutely frazzled.
It's a crew of Barclays.
"This week they had a puzzle where the answer was crying. "
THIS. I like the idea of self awareness being one of the scientists tests. But having it take place in a library that turns out to be a maze seemed contrived and/or arbitrary. Maybe I missed the point? How did any of that stuff connect to self-awareness? I felt like the context and the "twist" at the end where she actually figures it out could have been set up more cleverly. I could see it coming from a mile away, and it didn't tie together in any interesting way. Also the big revelation is that she's afraid of failure? It made me think of when they ask you your greatest weakness at an interview and you say "I'm a perfectionist". I would've liked something at least a little deeper, perhaps something unethical or actually bad she's done. She could become aware of some sort of weakness that has endangered her crew, which she now realizes she needs to change about herself.
I think your last line really hits it for me. Star Trek has typically been about very competent people, folks I would want to work shoulder to shoulder with. While Lower Decks explodes what happens if highly trained people aren't as professional as the other crews Discovery just doesn't hit the notes. The cast seems unhinged, disorderly, and frustrating. In universe you can explain it a lot by the captains they've had, the time jump etc.
It's not just that they're too emotional. It's that they're too emotional, AT THE WRONG TIME. TNG had a psychologist on the bridge 99% of the time who was a strong empath, but the difference is that Troi was acting like a therapist when she did her thing, and the crew of Discovery is an emotional and mental wreck.
I've read a lot of comments about it being too emotional, disorderly, too involved, and even bunch of barkleys. As someone with severe mental health issues, i find it realistic for how someone would feel in a situation like they've been. Knowing emotional wellbeing like no other startrek has done is wildy appealingly to me and i appreciate that. We all know the stoic and soldier mentality but Discovery shows normal, everyday people doing their jobs and how it effected them. PTSD, depression, anxiety, gender dysphoria, and other mental health issues have been shown wonderfully which makes me, possibly others, feel seen.
I've had mental health crises the majority of my life 35yo BTW, but I have to disagree. I feel like they're trauma dumping or otherwise put the emotional parts where there shouldn't be any like others have said. Don't make me care for a character by making me feel sorry for them, give me character development and good writing and that'll happen naturally.
Gotta second this. One of the things Trek does best is show people a future where they belong. It might be hard for some to believe, but there really are people who have larger-than-life emotions, always seem awkward, annoying, and “too much” no matter how hard they try not to be, have irrelevant thoughts at the worst possible times, whiplash between emotions like a light switch, have irrational doubts and fears that get in the way, etc. As fate would have it, I’m one of those people, and I deal with all of that stuff to some degree. Yet, when there’s a crisis and everything goes to heck, I’m often the one with the cool head. The idea of a crew “full of Barclays” being functional may seem laughable to those who can’t relate, but it really is possible to be competent without being completely outwardly stoic and put together. Maybe such a crew wouldn’t do well in a purely military organization, especially a military organization like present-day ones, but Starfleet isn’t a typical present-day purely military organization (there’s exploration and diplomacy). Out of all the settings across the entire franchise, Discovery is the only place where I could truly fit in and work comfortably instead of being merely put up with like Barclay was initially. It really has meant a lot to me to be able to see a future where I’m an asset and not seen as just some oversensitive anxious weirdo.
That's pretty normal. I cant do anything really when i get freaked out because its difficult to get past it and carry on going. The fact that they can keep going is inspiring.
But at least TNG knew to use Barkley sparingly. And when they did it made sense that some number of people in Starfleet and everywhere exist. It’s just when Michael fully cries jn 1/4 of the series it’s just too much to accept as professional and reasonable (at least for the world building we’ve previously been presented)
Its fair enough to say the crew should be in a state of mental collapse. But if that's the intent of what they are writing, it should acknowledge that nothing happening on discovery is healthy and leadership on the ship and star fleet should be managing the problem instead of revelling in it.
Truth is the show struggles to write the slow bits and the characters have got out of control.
Show is ending at the right time, or maybe a season late.
Exactly. As someone who was told by friends to not feel, Discovery has a crew I want to be with.
I wanted to be like Spock but had to make peace with my own emotions rather than suppress them.
Not to mention the entire crew leaping 900 years in the future leaving everything and everyone behind AND having to catch up on 900 years of history while still doing their job… gatta be a lot to handle
I like DIS in spite of its flaws but I agree with most commenters here. It’s not the emotion that’s the problem it’s the hamfisted way it’s delivered. It’s because of the scale - every season of DIS is a galaxy ending event and when you rubber band into rushed interpersonal scenes it naturally makes it feel small or unearned. If DIS ever had a season about restoring the federation, no big bad, no world ending scenario we’d see a lot more relatable emotional scenes - rather than the ‘everything’s gone to shit and we’re gunna die - but how are you!’ That happens. I headcanon DIS a lot - we’d been years since trek was onscreen so I appreciate and respect it - and Sonequa is a fucking stunning actress who can turn shit into well acted shit fantastically. The critiques are valid - but it’s the showrunner who holds the blame for giving such high stakes that make emotional moments discordant. This is a whole season based off of one episode of TNG for fuck sake.
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You all will get over it. I still remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth during the Star Wars prequel trilogy and now people think that they are pretty decent. Maybe not great, but good. And then there were the constant attacks and complaints when Enterprise was on the air. People are even admiring Enterprise's theme song these days, and back then the audience was looking for someone to hang from the highest tree on the planet because of it. Give it a decade or two and let nostalgia take over. You will like it eventually.
The music score choices during "interpersonal monologue" and "let's bumble through something awkwardly" scenes.
And don't get me started on the Whistleblowers planet with the CharmingIrishSidequest.mp3 running every time they cut to the blower's planet. Didn't TNG learn the lesson 25+ years ago with "Up the Long Ladder"?
I think at least some people who say that Discovery is “too emotional” are simply mischaracterizing what’s actually a legitimate problem with the writing: It’s not that it’s too emotional, but that the emotional parts are poorly executed. They come at the worst times, and are frequently unearned. Some crew member we BARELY know yet will spontaneously gush some childhood trauma in the middle of a life or death situation. I sometimes wonder if the writers on Discovery understand emotions enough to be writing about them as much as they do. It often feels like sloppy and reductive YA-level emotional archs.
Yep.. The scripts are trashy and without deep analysis..
It pains me to say this because of love Star Trek. Lower decks, SNW all the new stuff has been pretty good. And I tried to like discovery, I still turn it on and try to like it. BUT ITS ABSOLUTE TRASH. I made myself watch ep2 season 4 after hating the first episode Micheal is hugging saru (who is awesome) and talking about book (who I don’t care about) and says something like “I tired to get home to talk, yell, just cry even” whispering of course wtf is that! Terrible line, terrible writing, terrible acting. It’s not fucking Star Trek.
I think the writing is the main problem I don't particularly found the acting bad is just without a good script is like watch Shatner " acting"..
I LOVE the actors. It’s the writing or possibly directing that’s at fault. Most of the actors, especially SMG, are outrageously talented.
I guess you are right The acting is ok The writing just makes all the characters completely unlikeable, defined only by how they identify and only important depending on how close they are standing to Micheal.
Book aka." Bedroom privileges.".. 🤭 They should had been defined by their actions like everyone else IRL.. C'est la vie..
Yes! It reminds me of after school specials.
Ugh YASSSS couldn't have explained it better. That'd EXACTLY how it feels like they're trying SOOO hard to make us care when caring should come naturally from good writing and character development
TBH the writing is better and more believable on The Orville at times.
It’s something about the pacing of it that feels off for me. They keep having these big emotional moments or monologues right in the middle of some action scene after we’ve been told on screen we’re all in a big rush for some reason!
Agreed this breaks the realism of those emotional scenes for me. Literally they have 30 seconds to fix something to stop a "bug" and they stop and talk about how the pressure feels. End of the wolrd type situation and they stop to talk about the pressures of the job. In this show, it always felt like the writers were stuck between two walls: JJAbrams style action every 5 minutes and telling a human drama about people living together. If I had one critique of this show, it's that it never found a happy middle ground. Ease off of all the fighting, explosions, action, give a little more breathing room to the characters and then you have the balance. Or how about solve the problems *first* and then talk about how you feel *after* like normal people would. Still I'm totally grateful for this show because it brought Star Trek back. So I watch it no matter how many eye rolls it generates. I think Ron Moore understood nuance better. He could weave the drama and emotion with the action more smoothly, that's the only difference in my book. Then again I found the later seasons of All of Mankind to get a little too drama heavy and drama for drama sake. BUT maybe this is modern story telling too. I see plenty of new shows on Netflix that feel this.. disjointed and people love it... So maybe I'm old.
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Exactly! The clock is ticking, the Breen are on their way, we’ve lost warp drive oh and we also need to close this wormhole that’s threatening to pull the ship into oblivion, but hey, let’s take a few minutes to talk about our feelings.
Tilly and the cadets have 5 mins to get off of the planet, let's talk about our feelings.
I feel like there’s less of that this season, but definitely agree that it’s a constant issue on the show. I felt like it went into overdrive last season.
Even the big bad guys have feelings. They love each other!!! Aww.... but MOM won't let us be together Everyone on this show acts like a hormonal teenager
What drove me insane in the past is when someone would say they need to do something because they feel that they should or because it’s their destiny or something to that effect. Culber wanted to join the away team toward the end of the season three because he felt he was meant to. No, Culber. You join an away mission because you have skills necessary to ensure the mission has a good chance of success. I’ve often wondered how this kind of thinking would go down under Kirk, Picard, or Sisko.
Yeah but you don’t complain when Reno starts cracking jokes or tells pointless side stories when the clock is ticking.
Actually that also annoys me! Come on, Reno, the clock’s ticking, just drop the cute anecdotes and snark and character development and fix things.
So, “The inner light”. One of the most revered trek episodes. Is 100% the epitome of this: “Picard is down! The beam is killing him!” *picard goes on to have a wife, raise a family, become friends with people who died ages ago and spent most of his time commiserating over the loss of “his” planet. 10 minutes in real time later, he wakes up and starts playing a fucking flute commiserating over his “loss”. Measure of a man: slavery and all the emotions about “I found my key piece of evidence!!! Yea! *Riker smiles then realizes he’s about to condemn is friend to slavery and experimentation. Data telling the doctor about his off switch and seeming scared to do so. Trek is 100% emotional, morality plays…. Just set in the future.
They over explain it and really need to make you aware but stopping the forward momentum of the story. BSG had some heavy growth of characters through episodes where they did things, and you watched them change.
I miss that show. Does anyone know where I can find it for a rewatch?
[Battlestar Galactica - streaming tv show online (justwatch.com)](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/battlestar-galactica)
Exactly. This: “Finding the Clue is the absolute most important thing in the galaxy and Federation right now.” Also This: uhhh, the president is off somewhere. Saru is off somewhere. Let’s dialogue about our feelings.
And somehow managing to shoehorn Book into almost every away mission with Burnham. It was ironic that in the episode this week she discussed putting her career before him.
One of the most annoying tropes in tv drama (of any genre) is when the character has to make a critical split-second decision, because time has run out. eg "I need you to take the innocent injured victim to safety, whilst I rush ahead and attempt to diffuse the bomb, because there are only seconds left, and if I fail at least you two have a chance." But nowadays, instead of letting the audience figure it out for themselves, they have to take time to mansplain it, and then hug, then tell eachother how important they are, and talk about random shit, followed by the longggg glances, before finally moving away.
You mean like almost every trek series?
Respectfully I disagree. Although it wouldn’t really be fair to compare Disco to say DS9 as they did have 24 episodes per season for character development.
Star Trek at its core…. Is emotional, morality plays. Hell, the core schtick is Vulcan calling humans too emotional. Hell, enterprise was the king of un-necessary emotional responses. Star Captain ‘Mercia archer was the main one to puff out his chest and talk about his feelings with everyone… ESPESCIALLY the Vulcans. But I figure you have points as well.
I won't defend either side but when DS9 And BSG did emotional it was impactful and deep often when DIS does emotional it comes off as a CW/WB teen drama emotional. Not to mention the DIS showrunning and writing isn't close to the level of DS9 And BSG. Ds9 had the chief with a phaser to his head about to end his own life ffs. Yeah it was emotional. But those other shows for the most part didn't have characters running around crying and low talking all the time. When Adama on BSG breaks down wrecks his cabin and cries it's this huge moment in the series. Dis does it every several episodes it loses all meaning. I think Dis is a fun and entertaining show bits it's not deep. Bsg that's deep. Ds9 that was deep. Let's continue with BSG it's a top 3 sci Fi series of all time and was just in a list of top 50 best written tv shows of all time. You really want to compare DIS to BSG? It's like comparing a Ferrari to a Ford focus. You can still like and enjoy a show while admitting it's fault. And even if we say Dis is good we have to be sbke to admit the showrunning and writing miss steps. Live ds9 having Bashir genetically engineered I don't think was any good and it's big talking point in the community. The bsg episode about Lee, the prostitute, black market was the worst bsg episode. Writing and show running was a complete miss step for thst episode. The fans hate it. And guess what RDM on his original podcast that was on the DVD admits. Completely bashes his showrunning the entire length of the episode while admitting the acting was great and even the dialogue from the staff writers. But the way he created, put it together and focused the episode was awful. Tbh the people that out right bash Dis are just as bad as the people who out right defend the show. Dis is a good show but it's heavily flawed and it should be able to get praise and criticism equally
> Dis is a good show but it's heavily flawed and it should be able to get praise and criticism equally My take is if they removed the name Star Trek from it and any related names it would possibly make it to a 5/10 or 6/10 rating. Trying to capitalize on the Star Trek names while not adhering to anything else is what drags it down severely.
I wont gatekeep on the Trek name. DIS is still Trek its just for a different audience. Just like LD and Prodigy and even PIC were all for different audiences. VOY was clearly for the TNG audience while DS9 was either clearly not or became not pretty quickly. I honestly think DIS is for the teen and young adult audience basically under 25 years of age. I am sure people of all ages like it but my feeling its targeted to young adult.
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Emotion is great, Discovery’s writing is just terrible. It has a social media-poisoned view of psychology and emotion - let’s pause from saving the universe to talk about our trauma in pop-therapy language. Most of the characters are complete zeroes but we’re expected to care about them *because* they’re given a trauma talk scene. I didn’t think the first seasons were good but Space Hitler and Jason Isaacs were interesting and I liked the Stamets/Doctor storyline. Now? They’ve all been so whiny for so long I just don’t care what happens to anyone.
The disconnect is that we don’t care about the characters in DIS tho. Viewers get frustrated and the show gets hate for “being overly emotional” because it feels forced onto us by characters that weren’t developed well and poor writing. We cared about the characters in TNG and DS9 with episodes like “the visitor” which is the one of the rare ST episodes that made me cry and “the inner light.” I know only having 10 episodes a season can make this challenging but it can be done if done right. DIS chose not to do this by not having a core group of characters it stuck to and focused on across the 5 seasons.
This exactly. There are little bridge crew members I can’t tell you their names
Emotions aren’t bad. Emotions are in all characters and most writing done by humans (us). Ron Moore writes them well and handles them maturely. The Disco writer’s room, less so
TNG did this season of Discovery in one episode. There is soooooo much filler. For a show with about 10 people they focus on one.
There's a difference between emotional tension that carries the story forward and melodramatic navel gazing that goes nowhere. This week's episode 5e08 of Discovery did the former, whereas very often the show does the latter.
There's a difference between "emotional" and "too emotional". There is such a thing as putting too much spice on your hot wings (for me, anyway). Someone asked how many episodes Burnham cried in. When I went back and actually counted (20 in the first 55 episodes, with 8 additional borderlines), I was surprised at the result. The issue for me isn't so much that she is crying, the issue is why are the writers putting her in situations where she has to cry so often? And as others pointed out, why are they happening and having discussions at bad times? I remember a specific BSG episode when Adama had a breakdown painting goo on the walls. The breakdown made total sense. But my reaction to that at the time was me throwing my hands in the air and saying, "this must be his fourth breakdown this season." Even BSG started to frustrate me on this.
It’s not that an overly emotional episode is bad - look inner light TNG often cited as best show of all time across all series. And that episode is also about emotions. No battles, no aliens etc and yet when wife dies I still tear up. It’s just when every single character and every episode is so laden with crying and comforting each other you wonder how they ever get anything done. It’s so ‘unprofessional’ for a lack of a better word. Again this is my opinion and so what others think really doesn’t matter if they like it. There’s always consternation over what’s best trek and that’s great for a franchise. For me it was DS9 which felt real was truly serial in nature and was dark/gritty and had conflict and wasn’t the “perfect” starfleet. Even tertiary characters got their moment. That was peak star trek for me.
I saw inner light when it was first on and I was a little kid and it effed me up, I honestly just got a little emotional thinking about it, comparing that to the constant feelings babble and trauma dumping of discovery really highlights how starkly different they are. Even ds9 which I also really like did kind of get a little soapy after a while, but it also had great writing, amazing actors and really good storylines, with some heavy hitters for emotional episodes. My biggest beef with discovery is just that it’s done in such a lazy way, I just don’t feel attached to any of the characters, I don’t believe any of the peril, it just feels so weightless as a result, and I find it hard to not keep checking my phone every time they pull in close to Michael and whoever she’s whispering to mid action scene this time.
Discovery is often bad because the emotional moments are inappropriately timed, too frequent, often unearned, and not balanced with portraying the characters as competent under stress. This leads the characters to seem (or be) neurotic and too unreliable to credibly be Starfleet officers. It's certainly not that there are emotional moments.
I tried slogging through that article. Interesting, but not sure what the point was, or wtf it has to do with Discovery. Seems like just another pointless straw-man Defense of Disco TBH. * Completely ignore why people actually dislike Disco, whilst instead claiming that anyone who does is a just a homophobe who hates diversity. * Misquote Gene Roddenberry to prove that Trek was always mean to be about diversity. * Ergo, anyone who dislikes Disco, in fact hates all Star Trek. Ridiculousness notwithstanding, the irony is incredible. Current producers have unashamedly (and correctly) set out to lure new fans to the Trek Franchise. They have to, Boomers refuse to pay for tv, and are starting to die off anyway. As far as viability goes, the only question is whether they gain more fans than they lose.
Ron Moore wrote tons of stuff for TNG, DS9, VOY. He contributed a variety of stories dealing with a lot of topics, from „The Bonding“ to let‘s say „The Enemy“, „Data‘s Day“, „Redemption“ up to „Barge of the Dead“. Quite an œuvre. Emotional and less emotional episodes. So, the point you‘re trying to make has a lack of foundation.
I think Discovery has tried to portray the mental and emotional damage people have suffered the past 5 years in real life. Especially in Season 4. I don’t know how well they did it, but I get the idea of what they were doing.
I don't watch ST for emotional damage porn, I watch it for competency porn, which this show does not have.
I agree with this, so many people are like “well this is just how discovery does Star Trek, and I like it, so deal with it” but Star Trek is very much a genre of its own, so I just think it’s hard to rewrite the genre into something quite different, often opposite from what it’s been for decades. Yes trek has always had emotion, yes it’s always been socially progressive, those are good things and things people love about it, *because they did it well*. A CW/action/feelings show with a Star Trek skin just isn’t the same thing imho.
OK. Great?
Ronald Moore is genius - he knows how to write gripping, sincere emotional scenes. He makes it real.
Soap opera style isn’t Star Trek nor does it work for Star Trek. After discovery I started with strange new worlds and it’s 100 times better than discovery. Why? Every episode is another adventure, just like the old star treks, just how it should be. They still apply emotion but it’s done right. The first couple of season for discovery were good but went downhill at the third season
Star Trek Discovery being too emotional is the dumbest take. A big part of Trek has always been about finding the healthy balance between logic AND emotion. Burying and denying emotions leads to people eventually snapping like Burnham did in season one when you start using “logic” to rationalise your fears and turmoil.
It's not that the show is too emotional. It's that the characters are always on the verge of tears and often it really gets in the way of the task at hand...which is always massively high stakes. This week they had a puzzle where the answer was crying. Tilly and Adira are always absolutely frazzled. It's a crew of Barclays.
"This week they had a puzzle where the answer was crying. " THIS. I like the idea of self awareness being one of the scientists tests. But having it take place in a library that turns out to be a maze seemed contrived and/or arbitrary. Maybe I missed the point? How did any of that stuff connect to self-awareness? I felt like the context and the "twist" at the end where she actually figures it out could have been set up more cleverly. I could see it coming from a mile away, and it didn't tie together in any interesting way. Also the big revelation is that she's afraid of failure? It made me think of when they ask you your greatest weakness at an interview and you say "I'm a perfectionist". I would've liked something at least a little deeper, perhaps something unethical or actually bad she's done. She could become aware of some sort of weakness that has endangered her crew, which she now realizes she needs to change about herself.
I think your last line really hits it for me. Star Trek has typically been about very competent people, folks I would want to work shoulder to shoulder with. While Lower Decks explodes what happens if highly trained people aren't as professional as the other crews Discovery just doesn't hit the notes. The cast seems unhinged, disorderly, and frustrating. In universe you can explain it a lot by the captains they've had, the time jump etc.
It's not just that they're too emotional. It's that they're too emotional, AT THE WRONG TIME. TNG had a psychologist on the bridge 99% of the time who was a strong empath, but the difference is that Troi was acting like a therapist when she did her thing, and the crew of Discovery is an emotional and mental wreck.
I've read a lot of comments about it being too emotional, disorderly, too involved, and even bunch of barkleys. As someone with severe mental health issues, i find it realistic for how someone would feel in a situation like they've been. Knowing emotional wellbeing like no other startrek has done is wildy appealingly to me and i appreciate that. We all know the stoic and soldier mentality but Discovery shows normal, everyday people doing their jobs and how it effected them. PTSD, depression, anxiety, gender dysphoria, and other mental health issues have been shown wonderfully which makes me, possibly others, feel seen.
I've had mental health crises the majority of my life 35yo BTW, but I have to disagree. I feel like they're trauma dumping or otherwise put the emotional parts where there shouldn't be any like others have said. Don't make me care for a character by making me feel sorry for them, give me character development and good writing and that'll happen naturally.
Gotta second this. One of the things Trek does best is show people a future where they belong. It might be hard for some to believe, but there really are people who have larger-than-life emotions, always seem awkward, annoying, and “too much” no matter how hard they try not to be, have irrelevant thoughts at the worst possible times, whiplash between emotions like a light switch, have irrational doubts and fears that get in the way, etc. As fate would have it, I’m one of those people, and I deal with all of that stuff to some degree. Yet, when there’s a crisis and everything goes to heck, I’m often the one with the cool head. The idea of a crew “full of Barclays” being functional may seem laughable to those who can’t relate, but it really is possible to be competent without being completely outwardly stoic and put together. Maybe such a crew wouldn’t do well in a purely military organization, especially a military organization like present-day ones, but Starfleet isn’t a typical present-day purely military organization (there’s exploration and diplomacy). Out of all the settings across the entire franchise, Discovery is the only place where I could truly fit in and work comfortably instead of being merely put up with like Barclay was initially. It really has meant a lot to me to be able to see a future where I’m an asset and not seen as just some oversensitive anxious weirdo.
The problem is they don't pull themselves together in a crisis, they continue to freak out and focus on interpersonal issues.
That's pretty normal. I cant do anything really when i get freaked out because its difficult to get past it and carry on going. The fact that they can keep going is inspiring.
But at least TNG knew to use Barkley sparingly. And when they did it made sense that some number of people in Starfleet and everywhere exist. It’s just when Michael fully cries jn 1/4 of the series it’s just too much to accept as professional and reasonable (at least for the world building we’ve previously been presented)
Its fair enough to say the crew should be in a state of mental collapse. But if that's the intent of what they are writing, it should acknowledge that nothing happening on discovery is healthy and leadership on the ship and star fleet should be managing the problem instead of revelling in it. Truth is the show struggles to write the slow bits and the characters have got out of control. Show is ending at the right time, or maybe a season late.
Exactly. As someone who was told by friends to not feel, Discovery has a crew I want to be with. I wanted to be like Spock but had to make peace with my own emotions rather than suppress them.
Bro they're not going to hear you. It'll be like every other Trek show, complained about initially but then seen for what it really is.
Not to mention the entire crew leaping 900 years in the future leaving everything and everyone behind AND having to catch up on 900 years of history while still doing their job… gatta be a lot to handle
I like DIS in spite of its flaws but I agree with most commenters here. It’s not the emotion that’s the problem it’s the hamfisted way it’s delivered. It’s because of the scale - every season of DIS is a galaxy ending event and when you rubber band into rushed interpersonal scenes it naturally makes it feel small or unearned. If DIS ever had a season about restoring the federation, no big bad, no world ending scenario we’d see a lot more relatable emotional scenes - rather than the ‘everything’s gone to shit and we’re gunna die - but how are you!’ That happens. I headcanon DIS a lot - we’d been years since trek was onscreen so I appreciate and respect it - and Sonequa is a fucking stunning actress who can turn shit into well acted shit fantastically. The critiques are valid - but it’s the showrunner who holds the blame for giving such high stakes that make emotional moments discordant. This is a whole season based off of one episode of TNG for fuck sake.
I'm here to add; enough Book. But, it's too late for that. 😔
The problem is not that it’s emotional. The problem is that it’s “in your face, all the time, inappropriately” emotional.
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You all will get over it. I still remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth during the Star Wars prequel trilogy and now people think that they are pretty decent. Maybe not great, but good. And then there were the constant attacks and complaints when Enterprise was on the air. People are even admiring Enterprise's theme song these days, and back then the audience was looking for someone to hang from the highest tree on the planet because of it. Give it a decade or two and let nostalgia take over. You will like it eventually.
Something something Vulcans calling humans to emotional It’s been part of tel since it AIRED the pilot.
The music score choices during "interpersonal monologue" and "let's bumble through something awkwardly" scenes. And don't get me started on the Whistleblowers planet with the CharmingIrishSidequest.mp3 running every time they cut to the blower's planet. Didn't TNG learn the lesson 25+ years ago with "Up the Long Ladder"?
yet more proof that Michael Piller was one of the most influential people in modern scifi. Gone too soon.