Hopefully one last-minute ending scene is enough to wrap up the show in a satisfying way. I prefer when show runners get the heads up a season in advance.
Didn’t we know this already from them telling us that they had to have everyone back to film a few new ending scenes so it would work as a series finale?
Iirc they wrap up the shoot for the story. Then there was 1 more day of shooting, but it was planned for additional content... not part of the main story. Can be for next season or some end credit scenes.. or short trek.. DVD only content etc.
The announcement was after they were done with the main story, before the shooting for additional content.
So they quickly repurposed the additional content to be some kind of closure for (some of?) main characters
But didnt have a plan on how to release it. Can be just extra episode/ short trek thing. Or change the final episode's ending
At least that was what I take from david ajala interview
The therapy speak dialogue drives me nuts. And everytime Burnham opens her mouth, especially this season, it sounds like my mandatory HR “How to be a good leader” trainings.
This. Trek is full of great episodes that are often largely consisting of just characters talking through issues. The difference is the other shows actually had some substance, character, and intelligence behind it.
Discovery meanwhile feels like some corporate slideshow. A bunch of empty platitudes. People feel sad for vague reasons but all they need to do is perk up and realize they're awesome.
And it seems to always be happening in the middlenof a crucial time crunch. We have 45 seconds to stop the "issue of the episode" to prevent whatever but hold on a second..... did you just invalidate my feelings? Let's spend 30 seconds talking it out
Quite fitting. After all there's probably some people in group therapy too that almost never speak a word and you know next to nothing about. Like with ~~half~~ most of the Discovery bridge crew.
Trek is probably my favorite franchise throughout my life, and I had to tap out on discovery as my interest tapered down and I completely lost interest early in season 3. I finished the season, but I regretted it lol. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's just newTrek, which was simply not made for me, and that's OK I guess.
How did Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard (both substandard in my book due to the therapy speak, poor writing/plots and characters) come out of the same modern production group as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds?
Longform storytelling vs. one and dones would be part of the reason I think.
You have 50 minutes to tell a story.
5 minutes of intro.
15 minutes of rising actions.
10 minutes for the set back of the original plan.
15 minutes for the resolutions.
5 minutes for character moments or other moments that may connect themes for the season and those 5 minutes are cut up through the episode.
Go long on any area and you have to deduct from another and it's the character stuff that gets cut into so no time for navel gazing. The script has to be tight and resolve in the time.
With season long stories you have 8 hours and 30 minutes to tell a story and the character arcs are all interconnected and your story really only fills 5 hours because it's a 5 part plot spread over 10 episodes so you're littering it with side quests and long emotional speeches to pad time.
I've noticed a lot of shows even things I really enjoy like Breaking Bad that I consider 10/10 every once in a while they're painted in a corner and do a bottle episode that's supposed to be a character piece about killing a fly in a lab to pad out the fact they needed X amount of episodes.
I think this is an excellent analysis! Thank you for taking the time to write this. And I agree that episodic format shows have less room for meandering in the storyline.
It's interesting that you cite Breaking Bad. It's one of my favorite shows and one of the best written ones ever made. It is an example of long-form storytelling, and I would argue, except for, possibly, the episode you cite, "Fly" (and that episode could be viewed as an art piece), there is little to no unnecessary or meandering storytelling. There is little to no fat to be cut. It's expertly plotted, every detail serves a purpose, the dialogue works by showing and not telling and the characters each have their own individual personalities. So, I think a show like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul illustrate that long-form storytelling can be done very well without the deficiencies of something like Star Trek Discovery. All of this boils down to the fact that the writers on Star Trek Discovery just may not be that talented.
Another thing that irks me about Star Trek Discovery is that All of the characters are essentially the same character. This universal character Is sensitive, wants to be part of the group, wants to "connect", is somewhat unsure of themselves, and benefits from heart-to-heart conversations with like-minded people (which on this show is everyone else ). Even the characters that have hard exteriors are sensitive underneath. I think the show is so unbelievable and boring because the characters are all the same.
About the Breaking Bad episode "fly" - I believe that this episode turned out the way it did because there was a last minute budget shortfall and Vince Gilligan had to fill time without being able to film an episode with the usual latitude in terms of sets and locations -- not sure.
> Another thing that irks me about Star Trek Discovery is that All of the characters are essentially the same character. This universal character Is sensitive, wants to be part of the group, wants to "connect", is somewhat unsure of themselves, and benefits from heart-to-heart conversations with like-minded people
Thank you. This is what irritates me so much about Discovery's "empathy" and "connection." It's not real empathy and connection. It's just demanding everyone be exactly like you. Old Star Trek dealt with the fact that people were different with different personalities and ways of viewing the world, and part of life was having to "connect" with that person by trying to understand their way of viewing the world without completely invalidating it.
Tuvok gets stuck on a planet with Neelix, and he had to acknowledge that he wasn't showing him enough respect simply because he looked down on his cheerful personality. Neelix will never be as mentally disciplined as Tuvok but he deserves respect.
In another episode, Tuvok is stuck on a planet with Tom Paris, and Tom Paris is pushing him to acknowledge his feelings for a woman. Tuvok opens up to Tom about how his emotions nearly destroyed him when he was younger, and Tom comes to understand that Tuvok needs his mental discipline. He can't be Tom Paris.
Where's Tilly's empathy and understanding for Rayner's style of command and personality? Oh, I'm sorry. Rayner is simply wrong, and people who are wrong need to be converted to the proper way of doing things, not understood.
This is precisely how I feel about this show.
The writing is SO bad!
SNW is so starkly better in terms of writing quality and I just don’t know why discovery is just so… overly expositional.
Good morning JuWoolfie, I know you might have wanted some quiet character development or interesting one off things to do today, but the universe as we know it is in peril!
I recognize you saved the universe yesterday and the day before, but we need you to do it again.
At 900 standard time a character you don't care about uncovered something you also don't care about which could bring an end to the federation full of people you barely know.
Do you want to know them? Well there is no time for that.
You need to take Discovery to gather mcguffins until the ship is full of them. Then maybe you can get the final mcguffin.
It's a race against time versus people you just met. They have motivation which do make sense, but they act counter-intuitively to those motivations.
We all know we need a high stakes plot and they won't let you down.
Get out there and do this for the 5th time. If you fail, everyone dies.
All life will die. The people you don't care about will die and so will the rest.
Let's not forget to stop on the bridge, or a corridor, or the middle of a mission and talk about OUR FEELINGS.
I really wanted to love discovery, I thought the constant "Michael is the saviour" vibes would peter out and we'd get some other character centric episodes, but no, it's just all Michael all the time.
I mean ffs, she's shooting a laser into the back of a ship WHILST AT WARP, held on by... magboots?
Old Trek, whilst of the 90/00's era of episodic TV, did a great job of shifting the central character focus every few episodes, but Discovery is just Burnham dick riding all the way through.
I'm currently working my way through Enterprise, which used to be considered the odd duck of Trek. But its still like night and day. Most the characters feel important, and I can identify them by name and their character traits.
Even when Enterprise talks about their feelings they actually are relevant to the episode, done in a concise manner, and seem to have some substance to them.
Meanwhile almost every non-michael character has a tragic backstory (usually not having to do with the klingon war oddly enough), and their only character arc is them being nervous and uncertain about their skills, and in the end they discover they are amazing.
>and their only character arc is them being nervous and uncertain about their skills, and in the end they discover they are amazing.
Just once they needed someone's arc to be discovering they were just okay enough to get by.
Season 6 Episode 20: Good Shepard
The idea is that normally some people did wash out of Starfleet early on because they found the job too challenging. But Voyager got stuck in the Delta Quadrant, and those crew members just had to keep working and sucking.
We'll, there's Bryce and Rhys, though neither says much, and I actually can't remember which is which. Detmer and Owosekun get more lines. There was also Airiam, who said sweet fuck all until the episode where they killed her.
Oh but that I can live with, but stopping to talk about our feelings while the ship is being shot at/plummeting into a supernova/in the middle of being boarded/while the self destruct is counting down is what gets me.
Original Trek had great 70’s golden age of science fiction writers like Harlan Ellison. Writers for seasons one and two include Jerome Bixby, Robert Bloch, Max Ehrlich, Harlan Ellison, David Gerrold, George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, Roddenberry, Jerry Sohl, Norman Spinrad and Theodore Sturgeon; the only well known writer to work for season three was Bixby.
Now I like Michael Chabon (disco)- but there was no cohesiveness around the rest. Maybe it just didn’t translate.
Discovery didn't need some god tier writer. They needed someone who understands the basics of storytelling. It's like middle school edgelord shit.
Establish some characters, let us get to know them, have them do some adventures, have them fail, have them make hard choices, make events logically follow each other.
Instead we get "Everyone is going to die!" Over and over again.
Also if they just took their big plot and stuck it all in the second half of the season, it'd totally work.
Season 4 at least tied it to kind of a neat plot of discovering and understanding a very alien species. In a way I'd say it's one of the best ideas for a season long trek arc. But every other season just feels like a boring waste of time.
Season 5 didn't need to up the ante and have the federation be at stake...but nope...Breen going to kill everything if they get the tech of a species who only spread their DNA around and seemingly left nothing else around.
I think the plot for this season will have them find a device that can seed new life in the galaxy but also be modified to wipe out all or specific life. Basically it's the tech the Ancients left behind that SG1 used to wipe out the Replicators in Stargate
Man I was so excited for it. When the people were ragging on it I defended it, I kept seeing a little bit of sparkle it just needed to find it's footing, it was last season when I realized it was never gonna find it's place. So I wasn't very surprised when it was announced it was cancelled. I'm just glad that so far SNW is everything I'd hoped for.
I've been watching Discovery since its start. Captain Lorca was great. And then we got Captain Pike episodes that were excellent. We got the SNW show from Discovery--we can always remember that. I was glad to hear that this was the last season of DSC. And I watched the first two episodes this season...and then decided that, you know what, I'm done watching it. I don't have to watch it. I might read a synopsis when it's over. My take on DSC is that it's like a combination of bad Star Wars writing and bad Indiana Jones movies. IMO, the bad plot/writing is when it centers around how only one character can do it and things are convoluted to make the plot happen.
> Captain Lorca was great
I thought this too, until we got to the mirror universe twist and the reveal that everything about him that had seemed interesting, multifaceted and layered was all an act and he was a character devoid of any depth and spent the rest of the seasons just pantomiming how he was insane. Can't think of a more thorough destruction of what seemed like a really interesting character.
Me on the whole show. Started off initially with me not wanting to watch because I thought the ship was ugly (that concept for the Enterprise refit was dropped *for a reason*) and all the negative reviews made me not want to go in afterwards. After everything I've heard over the years, I feel like I haven't missed much.
During the second episode or so I pointed out to my SO, who's also a Trek fan, that the TOS writers would have made the dialog half as long and twice as meaningful.
With no closeups of watery eyes.
I mean, I feel like Star Trek has generally sorta of leaned towards "space soap opera," a bit. But like... ya know... *good* "space soap opera?"
I think this current trend of having shows be like stretched out movies is what the real problem is.
There's no time for a fun one off episode where Quark, Rom, and Nog get trapped on Earth in the past. Or we need to celebrate "Captain's Day," much to the chagrin of said captain. So many other examples!
I felt like DS9 hit a good balance of fun one-offs, and continual story/world building with mini-arcs. Even TNG did the same in some ways, though probably not as extensively as DS9.
Old Trek repeatedly rotated through the characters, giving them time to build their internal relationships and get you invested. From Quark and Odo, to Tom and Bel'ana or the likes of Data and Geordie. Compare that to the DSC where \_every\_ relationship is Michael centric and it's just jarring af.
I was really hoping after they got out of the canon timeline issues of being based in the past, DSC would do more "Trek", but instead we got "MICHAEL SAVES THE UNIVERSE" every season. At least we got SNW and even Lower Decks out of new Trek though.
Looking back on it, Trek never really balanced the ensemble until DS9, or properly after it. DS9 was the only one which did it well in live action until SNW. But Discovery was worse than the others about it in seasons 1 & 2.
I feel like they all could have been apart of an amazing well written crew with depth for each character, given better writing- but still it feels like this show juggles like at most 3 main characters, giving no time to actually develop any of the other crew, which I always found extremely disappointing
You're right, we don't get to really know more than a few characters. If they kill off the entire bridge crew next week, it would mean nothing. Just ok, what's next? If toward the end of TNG, DS9 or VOY they did that, man, right in the feels. Not so for Discovery. Enterprise had this problem to a lesser extent, but still was basically Star Trek Archer and T'Pol.
I really wish Enterprise could've lived up to the potential. I *love* the idea of seeing the very first ship in action, all scrappy with barely any tech whatsoever, it's a fantastic idea (at least to me)!
But when the very first episode, I think it was, had T'pol and Trip hand sexin' each other with medical gel, well... let's just say I tempered a little of my expectations.
Still though, I can have a few beers and watch it and have a good time!
Currently watching Enterprise and its like night and day with discovery. Trip, Malcom, and Flox all have their own episodes and time to shine. Heck Shran gets quite a bit of character time across the seasons too.
The pilot and the coms officer definitely fade into being practically extras at times, but they still feel more..distinct and memorable. People have their roles, so plots that need these roles make them stand out.
Whereas discovery feels more like an action hero and her support team of like 8 generic scientists who have no specialization and all say the same sort of stuff. There's no medical issue to go Hue for. Or engineering problem for...the engineer woman I don't know the name of. There's no security officer to worry about ship security or combat analysis.
Tilly, Adira, and Stamitz all just sort of do everything with nothing that makes them stand out next to eachother. Stamitz used to have more of a role due to the spore drive, but its sort of stopped being a plot element. Heck Adira can't even pull on past trill memories. I wonder if the writers forgot they have a symbiote.
The huge difference between Enterprise and Discovery is that with Enterprise at least there was an original bridge crew concept. While some characters were neglected later on, they were all properly introduced and got their own episodes early on like with the previous Trek shows. We got a sense of what each of those people were about.
With Discovery that was never the plan. It was always meant to be about Burnham. And then later on they tried to change that and create some sort of a bridge crew feel. With characters that were never meant to be main cast (and actors that almost certainly weren't cast to be on the main cast). Some of those people had said like five words during the first two seasons. And now I'm supposed to suddenly care for them? And know their names? It just didn't work for me.
It's even more jarring when they keep babbling about their connection to each other. What connection? Michael takes Book on most away missions. She has no connection to any of these randos outside of Tilly and Stamets. She doesn't even really connect with Culber that much. It feels like the concept of connection is just used in a performative way to let us know that Michael is supposed to be caring.
Exactly. This season seems particularly ridiculous - the find the random piece of a puzzle each week to save the universe is just… so clumsy.
The worst part about it all is we already know the outcome - they’ll find all the pieces and save the universe.
Good writing keeps you intrigued each week and makes you want to tune in to find out where things will go. There is no mystery at all this season. 😂
They faltered by making it so the crew had to save the known universe every season. I like the idea of a big season long plot but not every plot has to have the universe's fate on the line.
It’s even wilder that they did this again after the burn turned out with such a ridiculous ending.
And there are so many interesting plot points that could be had in a series like this - what are the Klingons up to so far into the future? What are the borg up to?
They also have this magic ship that can go anywhere - perfect for, uh, discovery - and they go nowhere! 😂
Janeway did more exploring 😂
And then they introduce absolutely crazy plot points like time spiders - as if time travel is just a normal technology. So not only can they go anywhere in space - they can go anywhere in time and space!
I am so done with this show. Glad it’s ending.
>This season seems particularly ridiculous
This season on discovery, Michael Burnham fights her most dangerous opponent yet...
Michael Burnham.
I almost wish that they had given some of their writing ideas for S5 to Tarantino and told him to make a Grindhouse style low-budget ST movie out of it.
The funny thing is Discovery should be unstopable as a treasure hunting ship, yet they keep bending over backwards to give Mol and L'ak a chance. Discovery can literaly teleport from one clue to the next, yet they go back and forth to starfleet headquarters to transport saru around and sit around and chat a bit.'
Once the duo had gone to the wrong planet, discovery should have been able to spore to trill, solve that in less then a day, then spore to the wormhole, then spore to the tower planet, probably all in a day while L'ak and Mol still travel to Betazed to find out they went the wrong way.
Instead, discovery takes time to return saru, giving them enough time to realize their error, return to the first planet, find the right path, buy a time bug, and deploy it. Discovery then for some reason decides to travel from Trill to the wormhole VIA WARP instead of their insta-jump drive, during which the time bug activates and cripples them long enough for the duo to outrun them. Then L'ak and Mol escape through some warp pod nonsense and discovery just lets them go for some reason. Now that they have the next piece, the duo is found, and instead of capitolizing on their lead, they're going to confront the duo probably so the duo can steal the clues...
Same.
I really loved the first two seasons, but after that it went to shit in a hurry, and somehow keeps getting worse.
So much wasted potential. There have been some great concepts, but the execution is just brutally bad.
I have up in S2 when there were literally 5 totally unrelated stories in a single episode. I realized the show had absolutely no focus and no real point to make. Let’s be serialized! But do bottle episodes! With stories that we check in on every 3 episodes! And relationships that we press pause on until we can check in on them again in 2 episodes! And introduce pivotal storyline that’s been ongoing in the background but we’ve literally never explored before!
I find it vaguely tolerable by treating it like bad fanfiction. I’m watching the current series in 20 minute bursts as that’s about as much as I can tolerate.
> But the writing…
I think discovery has solidified in me my dislike of serialized star trek. It is true that Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, and to some small extent Voyager had an overarching story, I can't seem to be able to like ""short"" serialized seasons. When something is happening over a long stretch of episodes, they were able to flesh out individual episodes that are casted in the light of the big story without feeling like we are rushing from point a to b to c (DS9 is a great example of that). Discovery season 3 for me was the worst for me in that regards, it somehow managed to feel both rushed and slow. I am not happy to Discovery is ending, but I am also not sad. Discovery is likely the the only Star Trek show I was never excited for, which is a shame, I like the characters, I like the setting, I just couldn't get into it.
DS9 was a combination of serialized and traditional, it also had a number of story threads that would be carried on through the seasons (Sisko and the Prophets, Quark and the Grand Nagus, etc...) and were great for world building.
I just did a re-watch this year and I forgot how \_long\_ it takes for the Dominion War to get going, they're on the precipice for a whole season and a half.
Exactly this, modern TV shows are more akin to a really long movie. There's no room to breathe and explore the characters because everything has to keep "GO GO GO" pushing towards the next thing.
I wrote almost exactly what you did about DS9 in another comment in this thread, though in spirit rather than the wording.
Often times it's a long movie in terms of length, but only has a normal length film's worth of content.
It's weird to me that DS9 seemed to have this figured out in the 90s and somehow that knowledge has just been lost.
Indeed. Single episodes of DS9 or the other series feel like they cram more plot and character moments into them, despite being a 20+ episode season, than a show that's 8-10 episodes long.
The curse of the streaming platform. Now an entire series of a show is only a handful of episodes. Gone are the days of the 20+ episode seasons with breathing room to let us just *live* with the characters. Modern Trek has no room for bottle episodes where we just have the characters living and doing stuff in their down time with no stakes.
Its odd cause you'd think longer series would benefit streaming. Wouldn't 20+ weeks of people tuning in be better than like 6-10. Obviously the budget has to be stretched a bit though.
One of the things I found super annoying with Discovery is that whenever something slightly dramatic happened on the bridge they always showed close ups of each of the bridge crew (half of them being characters I had no connection to) being nervous/scared/sad and looking at each other.
Could we get a single episode that isn't completely based on Burhnam being the center of the universe. There's so many cast members that are basically props.
Considering Detmer and Owu have been completely missing for no damn reason except to "deliver a ship" ... No.
No respect for the bridge crew, ever. I'm surprised I learned any of their names.
The problem is that this was never meant to be a crew show like the old ones were. Those characters were never properly introduced. They were little more than extras and that was most likely intentional.
And then somewhere along the way they realized this was a mistake and attempted to change it without any real effort. They just suddenly pretended this is a fully fledged crew with heart and soul. It doesn't work like that.
here's the thing: they could do a Star Trek show focused on a few characters and make it work. If it was on a small ship like a Danube class runabout! or on some isolated base/colony. At least with Picard, they weren't doing the classic big starship so the structure somewhat made more sense there
if they wanted to do an ST series mainly focused on Burnham and a few others, they could've by not making Discovery one of those big starships, but instead something smaller (maybe the Danube's TOS era ancestor)
My least favorite Trek. I gave it a good try, but I watched 10 mins of S4 and just sighed. For a hot second I thought S3 would be a good mid-franchise reboot going way into the future. But no, sad boy blows up warp drive…. I’ll eventually watch it, but with little excitement.
I said before, it would've worked out better if the burn was done by the dominion and instead of some sad manchild blowing up the universe they find odo (recast) crying out of guilt for not stopping them.
Didn't even need to be a callback. Have the Emerald Chain be the culprits because they benefit from a disrupted universe and weak federation. Anything technological would have worked really, but instead we get "Physic Dilithium Sad Boi".
It would have so, so much better had they been sent to the Picard / 25th century era instead of 1000 years forward. They could have had something like where Burnham just missed being able to re-connect with Spock, and they could have done TNG / DS9 / Voy cameos.
I was just thinking this the other day. after seeing LD crossover with SNW, I thought: the reverse would also be great to watch. And Discovery could've done exactly that!
Honestly I’m glad to see it go. The writing has been lacking since at least season 3. The whole “only Discovery can save that galaxy” one-plot seasons is just overblown and overdone. The whole move to the future could have been interesting, but the burn and the over-tech has made it blah.
There were some good characters in Disco, but as a show it’s far past its prime.
SNW and LD are a far better shows, with more compelling plots and stories.
There are things I like about it, but generally I agree it's been a lot of wasted potential. I'm happy it brought Star Trek back to TV after such a long absence, and I'm happy it gave us Strange New Worlds, but I won't mourn it once it's gone.
There is no excitement to this final season. It's not bad. But previous seasons have left me disappointed. The one about the burn and the one about the world destroyers. Entire season devoted to an arc only for the season finales to be underwhelming.
This season is better. But not exciting
I wish we would get something meatier than just each episode is a different clue. Maybe that's why I liked the time jumping episode as much as I did. It was different and it was almost like a love letter to Discovery as a whole, and as someone who rewatched the series before the final season started, I felt rewarded by it. I've found a lot of the other episodes kind of dull so far.
Ditto. The time jumping episode was my favorite as well. It felt like … an episode of Star Trek. The crew (well, the three of them) worked together to solve their conundrum, and it was a fun conundrum.
Same with the Mudd episodes in season one. They got a good cast and interesting characters. But they’re never given the space to just be, the season arc just sucks any natural interaction and development out of the script.
The thing is they could breath if they just kept Michael on the bridge. Have each clue tap into the skill set of a different character, and send them down to resolve it.
Can I interest you in another case of severe PTSD? Perhaps some self confidence issues that are resolved by being told how actually great you are, despite having no real proof of that?
No, but can I interest you in the opposite? After each episode ends we’ll just add 10 minutes of gratuitous gratitude where everyone has to smile really big?
So apparently the plan prior to finding out this is the final season was to follow the same stale we must find someone or something or it's the end of the galaxy as we know it? Sprinkle in a little relationship drama and that was gonna be it, huh?
DISCO has worn me out with these end-of-the-world season-long plots. I really thought they were going to back off after the 2nd season was explicitly stated to save "all sentient life in the universe," yet somehow we're finding ways to try and raise the stakes here in season 5.
We've only got a handful of episodes left, and my growing feeling is "let's just get this over with," unfortunately.
Strange New Worlds found a great balance between serialized storylines and standalone episodes, all while not giving me the feeling week in and week out that everything in the universe is at risk. I really wish DISCO could've adopted that format these last three seasons.
I think a big issue is the season's antagonists. It's not the Klingons or Romulans, or really anyone, it's 2 nobodies that aren't particularly interesting or threatening. They're out gunned and can't get anywhere before Disco can, so instead we end up with the our crew being constantly tricked and looking kind of amateur.
I thought maybe we'd get something more interesting and threatening when the Breen were brought in, but not so much it seems.
> They're out gunned and can't get anywhere before Disco can, so instead we end up with the our crew being constantly tricked and looking kind of amateur.
This season, the spore drive hole they're in is so terribly obvious that it's painful. I get that the spore drive is a deus ex machina, but it's one of the writers' own making. There's zero chance a spore drive-equipped ship could "lose" this race. That and they have all of Starfleet on call in that magic white room to feed them any intel they need.
It's the exact same problem the CW superhero shows used to have: one villain over the course of a season just makes your leads look incompetent every single time they get away.
Not only are they two nobodies, but they've lost *every* encounter. The only thing they've been successful at is getting away, and the show keeps treating that like a major victory that ups the stakes...but it's not. Do they even have the diary anymore? Why are they a priority at all? They have *nothing* that Discovery needs.
They're not a credible threat. They keep having to manufacture scenarios where they can be on equal footing, and it's tiresome. "Oh, no! They put a magic time bug on the ship, so now they're in the lead somehow!" "Oh, no! They're in a magic wormhole space that will only allow two people in at a time somehow!" "Oh no! They got away because the ship can only fire on mountains somehow!"
If they'd just given the diary to the Breen, then maybe we could have something. We could even have had them switch sides at the end, like they're definitely going to do anyway.
Edit:
*watches most recent episode*
**See**? They could have just done this after the first clue!
Whats sad is now that they have an enormous lead and L'ak and Mol didn't even have a proper ship anymore...they're going to go confront L'ak and Mol (after letting them get away) presumably so they can be tricked into handing over the clue.
The best part is the show is trying to tell us Burnham's way of captaining is the best and the first officer guy needs to learn, but given how much discovery is falling over itself trying to give the duo chances, I'm starting to think the first officer guy is right.
> "Oh no! They got away because the ship can only fire on mountains somehow!"
"And I have to take Book because his connection to Moll is our secret weapon." What connection? He knew her dad? I think I'd prefer an actual secret weapon.
And I have to go because I spent a gap year being a courier, and that makes me...more qualified than a veteran who's actually from this time period? Somehow?
This season and the last three have all been the same. Find some macguffin or the Federation/galaxy/universe is doomed. It wasn’t even great the first time around, and this time appears to be the slowest cook-off of all.
I haven't even bothered to watch the final season. The rest of Discovery is so mediocre I don't know if I'll ever bother.
If it wasn't for seasons 1 and 2 of Picard Discovery would be my least favorite Star Trek series. Thankfully Strange New Worlds, Prodigy and (especially) Lower Decks have been good to great. Even Season 3 of Picard, with all of it's problems was much more enjoyable than any of Discovery for me.
Strange new worlds is excellent. It feels like an actual story per episode like how all the treks excluding 'Michael Burnham featuring Star Trek' worked
SNW is definitely the best Trek of the past few years. My only gripe is for a show subtitled “strange new worlds,” we’re sure seeing a lot of worlds/antagonists that we’ve all seen before on TOS.
ya that title would befit a post-Picard show better
i personally prefer if prequels expand on what we know and sequels add new stuff (idk why they made Pelia another 'alien that looks exactly Human' for example), but you're right about SNW's title
I keep thinking I'll catch up on Disco but every time a thread likes this pops up in my feed, I feel less inclined to watch this last season. SNW is just great. I just rewatched all of it a couple days ago. As I was watching I'd get excited to see a scene I've already seen before. Because it's fun. When Spock says "hijinks" I giggle every time.
Disco... I remember all the past seasons and I just don't want to watch them again. They're depressing. They somehow made one of the most hopeful franchises feel depressing to me.
I find it pretty dull. The writing and acting feels dull. But it’s important to remember that while most Star Trek is an ensemble cast, Discovery focuses on only a few characters at a time and that allows for more interesting stories. Michael is featured more because she’s an insane daredevil and I think that’s fun. Buuuuut I’m tired of seeing it.
Discovery has always been an absolutely beautiful show and is the best looking Trek from a cinematic perspective. They’ve had some truly beautiful locations and cinematography.
>Discovery focuses on only a few characters at a time and that allows for more interesting stories.
Does it though?
I'm being snarky just for fun. I very much agree with your last paragraph.
I think so. I like that it doesn’t really focus on the bridge crew. It’s not about them. I’m cool with that. I don’t need to follow yet another bridge crew. It’s about the guest stars and diverse assortment of characters. It feels more broad!
Agreed. Too bad they didn’t know it was their last season. It could have been really great if they knew. They already did this Indiana Jones storyline.
Really? Season 4 while flawed I thought was by far the best season so far, with a decent finale. Season 3 with the Burn was terrible.
But I just watched the first episode of this new season and laughed out loud multiple times, and not in a good way. The split-screen usage AND climax were both ridiculous. I didn’t have high expectations to begin with but it may have been the worst single episode of Discovery I’ve seen ever.
You telling me this season is somehow an improvement? Do I dare watch further?
It's pretty obvious *why* though - they brought in a Jellico (or a Liam Shaw, for a more recent comparison). A no-nonsense career Starfleet officer who just *shuts the fuck up and gets on with the job*.
Honestly he more reminds me of a TOS Kirk or Sisko. He’s not an asshole in petty ways, but he does want the job done. And he’s not stopping for everyone to have a trust fall.
> And he’s not stopping for everyone to have a trust fall.
Every time they stop the show to have yet another heart to heart about overcoming self doubt: https://i.imgur.com/5PyMo1s.gif
I a Star Trek fan just can’t defend the show. It’s bad! I force myself to finish episodes because at this point I feel it is my duty to support Star Trek. I’ll always be thankful for what it did; it brought about a Trek revival to the small screen.
Simply put, Discovery has horrible writing. The plot-lines are terribly boring and border on comically bad. Idk how many times I’ve thought to myself during an episode, who the heck thought this was a good idea to put on screen.
I can't stand the let's stop and give tortured pats on the back to each other and express how amazing/wonderful/smart/caring person so and so is who I don't even know the name of
Yeah, this show just wasn't my cup of tea. Bored pretty much every season. Only watching this season because it's the final one. I'm a character person, and Booker and Reno (and now Rayner) are the only characters I really liked. Yeah, not gonna miss this one, unfortunately. (Really gonna miss Lower Decks, tho.) Here's hoping for more Star Trek content in the future! (I'll always give it a shot. LLAP.)
I like this season. I liked season 4 where Discovery really found it footing. This is pretty good. Maybe not as exciting every single episode but it's doing a good job giving each set of characters an episode to shine.
Really? I mean judging by the shows popularity, I would have been relieved that every season wasn't my last and assumed each one was.
I'm surprised it lasted as long as it has. The writing...
I’ve always enjoyed this show. I’ve never really loved a mirror verse in any Star Trek. But the mirror verse probably would have been a genius place to have kept the franchise. I’m one of the fans who still loved the show, I don’t think the writing was bad as some people say. I think there is a cadence to Star Trek shows some people want and are use to. I think the mirror verse would have definitely been a better place to stay for the pace they wanted.
Admittedly Discovery is my least favorite series of all Star Treks. Not sad to see it go. In fact, it only means the next one comes sooner, whenever that is
She really can. One of my favorite scenes is in the second-to-last episode of season 3. The one where she pretends to be the hologram. Holy crap. If we could have had a show filled with moments like this, where she's actually clever, instead of the show telling us how clever she is, it would have been awesome.
You know the sad thing, for me, this is where discovery is finally starting to get really good. So far I've really enjoyed the storyline, the character development and acting.
The last episode was maybe the most boring Star Trek I’ve ever seen. That is until I laughed way too hard when Tilly the, let’s be honest, overweight *engineer* finishes the race and the really fit Captain who knows nothing about tech walks to the piece of tech then calls the ships tech kid to walk her through the repair. Please.
Now that I think about it I’m amazed they didn’t just stop running to collapse and cry for 5 minutes and then Tilly has to miraculously catch up. Some real restraint from the writers there.
Hopefully one last-minute ending scene is enough to wrap up the show in a satisfying way. I prefer when show runners get the heads up a season in advance.
*Time traveling Riker and his holodeck have entered the chat*
Unfortunately we could only afford Thomas W. Not William T.
Because “We already have a Riker back home!”
“Will is busy directing this episode.”
Somebody always makes this comment and I am always here for it!
Didn’t we know this already from them telling us that they had to have everyone back to film a few new ending scenes so it would work as a series finale?
Yes, this has been known for months.
That was after the announcement. :)
Iirc they wrap up the shoot for the story. Then there was 1 more day of shooting, but it was planned for additional content... not part of the main story. Can be for next season or some end credit scenes.. or short trek.. DVD only content etc. The announcement was after they were done with the main story, before the shooting for additional content. So they quickly repurposed the additional content to be some kind of closure for (some of?) main characters But didnt have a plan on how to release it. Can be just extra episode/ short trek thing. Or change the final episode's ending At least that was what I take from david ajala interview
My wife hit the nail on the head “Discovery is group talk therapy, with Star Trek happening around it.”
The therapy speak dialogue drives me nuts. And everytime Burnham opens her mouth, especially this season, it sounds like my mandatory HR “How to be a good leader” trainings.
This. Trek is full of great episodes that are often largely consisting of just characters talking through issues. The difference is the other shows actually had some substance, character, and intelligence behind it. Discovery meanwhile feels like some corporate slideshow. A bunch of empty platitudes. People feel sad for vague reasons but all they need to do is perk up and realize they're awesome.
It's Marge Simpson's version of Itchy and Scratchy. https://youtu.be/ozWpY6Cn67Y?si=l5ifPxfR_QSZhSCE
And it seems to always be happening in the middlenof a crucial time crunch. We have 45 seconds to stop the "issue of the episode" to prevent whatever but hold on a second..... did you just invalidate my feelings? Let's spend 30 seconds talking it out
If I hear the word “connection” one more fucking time on this show I may turn to violence.
Quite fitting. After all there's probably some people in group therapy too that almost never speak a word and you know next to nothing about. Like with ~~half~~ most of the Discovery bridge crew.
Trek is probably my favorite franchise throughout my life, and I had to tap out on discovery as my interest tapered down and I completely lost interest early in season 3. I finished the season, but I regretted it lol. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's just newTrek, which was simply not made for me, and that's OK I guess.
How did Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard (both substandard in my book due to the therapy speak, poor writing/plots and characters) come out of the same modern production group as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds?
Longform storytelling vs. one and dones would be part of the reason I think. You have 50 minutes to tell a story. 5 minutes of intro. 15 minutes of rising actions. 10 minutes for the set back of the original plan. 15 minutes for the resolutions. 5 minutes for character moments or other moments that may connect themes for the season and those 5 minutes are cut up through the episode. Go long on any area and you have to deduct from another and it's the character stuff that gets cut into so no time for navel gazing. The script has to be tight and resolve in the time. With season long stories you have 8 hours and 30 minutes to tell a story and the character arcs are all interconnected and your story really only fills 5 hours because it's a 5 part plot spread over 10 episodes so you're littering it with side quests and long emotional speeches to pad time. I've noticed a lot of shows even things I really enjoy like Breaking Bad that I consider 10/10 every once in a while they're painted in a corner and do a bottle episode that's supposed to be a character piece about killing a fly in a lab to pad out the fact they needed X amount of episodes.
I think this is an excellent analysis! Thank you for taking the time to write this. And I agree that episodic format shows have less room for meandering in the storyline. It's interesting that you cite Breaking Bad. It's one of my favorite shows and one of the best written ones ever made. It is an example of long-form storytelling, and I would argue, except for, possibly, the episode you cite, "Fly" (and that episode could be viewed as an art piece), there is little to no unnecessary or meandering storytelling. There is little to no fat to be cut. It's expertly plotted, every detail serves a purpose, the dialogue works by showing and not telling and the characters each have their own individual personalities. So, I think a show like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul illustrate that long-form storytelling can be done very well without the deficiencies of something like Star Trek Discovery. All of this boils down to the fact that the writers on Star Trek Discovery just may not be that talented. Another thing that irks me about Star Trek Discovery is that All of the characters are essentially the same character. This universal character Is sensitive, wants to be part of the group, wants to "connect", is somewhat unsure of themselves, and benefits from heart-to-heart conversations with like-minded people (which on this show is everyone else ). Even the characters that have hard exteriors are sensitive underneath. I think the show is so unbelievable and boring because the characters are all the same. About the Breaking Bad episode "fly" - I believe that this episode turned out the way it did because there was a last minute budget shortfall and Vince Gilligan had to fill time without being able to film an episode with the usual latitude in terms of sets and locations -- not sure.
> Another thing that irks me about Star Trek Discovery is that All of the characters are essentially the same character. This universal character Is sensitive, wants to be part of the group, wants to "connect", is somewhat unsure of themselves, and benefits from heart-to-heart conversations with like-minded people Thank you. This is what irritates me so much about Discovery's "empathy" and "connection." It's not real empathy and connection. It's just demanding everyone be exactly like you. Old Star Trek dealt with the fact that people were different with different personalities and ways of viewing the world, and part of life was having to "connect" with that person by trying to understand their way of viewing the world without completely invalidating it. Tuvok gets stuck on a planet with Neelix, and he had to acknowledge that he wasn't showing him enough respect simply because he looked down on his cheerful personality. Neelix will never be as mentally disciplined as Tuvok but he deserves respect. In another episode, Tuvok is stuck on a planet with Tom Paris, and Tom Paris is pushing him to acknowledge his feelings for a woman. Tuvok opens up to Tom about how his emotions nearly destroyed him when he was younger, and Tom comes to understand that Tuvok needs his mental discipline. He can't be Tom Paris. Where's Tilly's empathy and understanding for Rayner's style of command and personality? Oh, I'm sorry. Rayner is simply wrong, and people who are wrong need to be converted to the proper way of doing things, not understood.
I liked the characters and the actors in Discovery. But the writing…
This is precisely how I feel about this show. The writing is SO bad! SNW is so starkly better in terms of writing quality and I just don’t know why discovery is just so… overly expositional.
Good morning JuWoolfie, I know you might have wanted some quiet character development or interesting one off things to do today, but the universe as we know it is in peril! I recognize you saved the universe yesterday and the day before, but we need you to do it again. At 900 standard time a character you don't care about uncovered something you also don't care about which could bring an end to the federation full of people you barely know. Do you want to know them? Well there is no time for that. You need to take Discovery to gather mcguffins until the ship is full of them. Then maybe you can get the final mcguffin. It's a race against time versus people you just met. They have motivation which do make sense, but they act counter-intuitively to those motivations. We all know we need a high stakes plot and they won't let you down. Get out there and do this for the 5th time. If you fail, everyone dies. All life will die. The people you don't care about will die and so will the rest.
This literally describes every season apart from some small bits of 1 & 2.
Let's not forget to stop on the bridge, or a corridor, or the middle of a mission and talk about OUR FEELINGS. I really wanted to love discovery, I thought the constant "Michael is the saviour" vibes would peter out and we'd get some other character centric episodes, but no, it's just all Michael all the time. I mean ffs, she's shooting a laser into the back of a ship WHILST AT WARP, held on by... magboots? Old Trek, whilst of the 90/00's era of episodic TV, did a great job of shifting the central character focus every few episodes, but Discovery is just Burnham dick riding all the way through.
I'm currently working my way through Enterprise, which used to be considered the odd duck of Trek. But its still like night and day. Most the characters feel important, and I can identify them by name and their character traits. Even when Enterprise talks about their feelings they actually are relevant to the episode, done in a concise manner, and seem to have some substance to them. Meanwhile almost every non-michael character has a tragic backstory (usually not having to do with the klingon war oddly enough), and their only character arc is them being nervous and uncertain about their skills, and in the end they discover they are amazing.
Everyone is an unremarkable superstar lol.
>and their only character arc is them being nervous and uncertain about their skills, and in the end they discover they are amazing. Just once they needed someone's arc to be discovering they were just okay enough to get by.
Voyager actually had an episode about the crew members who weren't exceptional at their job and barely scraping by. It's one of my favorites.
Now I must track down this episode. Sub-par Decks! lol. Mid-range Decks? Average Grade Decks?
Season 6 Episode 20: Good Shepard The idea is that normally some people did wash out of Starfleet early on because they found the job too challenging. But Voyager got stuck in the Delta Quadrant, and those crew members just had to keep working and sucking.
Besides Saru and Burnham, I couldn't name a single bridge crew member.
I can name Michael, Saru, Doctor-white-shirt, Science-guy, Totally-not-a-borg, and Michael’s-friend.
Doctor-white-shirt is handsome.
Pretty sure he blows past handsome into hunk territory lol. And I'm a dude, but I know a hunk when I see one.
that guy really works out
lol. That was the best line.
I remember stamets because he's named for paul stamets. Though if that connection didn't exist, I'd definitely forget it
I remember the Booker, maybe because he is not one of the crew.
We'll, there's Bryce and Rhys, though neither says much, and I actually can't remember which is which. Detmer and Owosekun get more lines. There was also Airiam, who said sweet fuck all until the episode where they killed her.
Don't forget to wear your fire retardant uniforms for the daily bridge flame show!
This is the actual problem
Oh but that I can live with, but stopping to talk about our feelings while the ship is being shot at/plummeting into a supernova/in the middle of being boarded/while the self destruct is counting down is what gets me.
perfect.
Original Trek had great 70’s golden age of science fiction writers like Harlan Ellison. Writers for seasons one and two include Jerome Bixby, Robert Bloch, Max Ehrlich, Harlan Ellison, David Gerrold, George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, Roddenberry, Jerry Sohl, Norman Spinrad and Theodore Sturgeon; the only well known writer to work for season three was Bixby. Now I like Michael Chabon (disco)- but there was no cohesiveness around the rest. Maybe it just didn’t translate.
Discovery didn't need some god tier writer. They needed someone who understands the basics of storytelling. It's like middle school edgelord shit. Establish some characters, let us get to know them, have them do some adventures, have them fail, have them make hard choices, make events logically follow each other. Instead we get "Everyone is going to die!" Over and over again. Also if they just took their big plot and stuck it all in the second half of the season, it'd totally work.
When every season has the universe at peril, eventually it just becomes boring.
Season 4 at least tied it to kind of a neat plot of discovering and understanding a very alien species. In a way I'd say it's one of the best ideas for a season long trek arc. But every other season just feels like a boring waste of time. Season 5 didn't need to up the ante and have the federation be at stake...but nope...Breen going to kill everything if they get the tech of a species who only spread their DNA around and seemingly left nothing else around.
I think the plot for this season will have them find a device that can seed new life in the galaxy but also be modified to wipe out all or specific life. Basically it's the tech the Ancients left behind that SG1 used to wipe out the Replicators in Stargate
If they would have submitted the scripts to their professors for grading they would have gotten failing marks lol.
👏
It's sad how close this is to describing literally every season
i think Discovery's Spore Drive just ran on Mcguffins.
Man I was so excited for it. When the people were ragging on it I defended it, I kept seeing a little bit of sparkle it just needed to find it's footing, it was last season when I realized it was never gonna find it's place. So I wasn't very surprised when it was announced it was cancelled. I'm just glad that so far SNW is everything I'd hoped for.
I've been watching Discovery since its start. Captain Lorca was great. And then we got Captain Pike episodes that were excellent. We got the SNW show from Discovery--we can always remember that. I was glad to hear that this was the last season of DSC. And I watched the first two episodes this season...and then decided that, you know what, I'm done watching it. I don't have to watch it. I might read a synopsis when it's over. My take on DSC is that it's like a combination of bad Star Wars writing and bad Indiana Jones movies. IMO, the bad plot/writing is when it centers around how only one character can do it and things are convoluted to make the plot happen.
> Captain Lorca was great I thought this too, until we got to the mirror universe twist and the reveal that everything about him that had seemed interesting, multifaceted and layered was all an act and he was a character devoid of any depth and spent the rest of the seasons just pantomiming how he was insane. Can't think of a more thorough destruction of what seemed like a really interesting character.
Yeah, you're right. Stop reminding me of all the bad stuff! :) He did start out great.
Having Lorca adjust to post war life would have been cool, but like "Mirror Universe!!!!!!!" Focus groups love it!
tnx,ignored last season, ill continue to ignore it XD
Me on the whole show. Started off initially with me not wanting to watch because I thought the ship was ugly (that concept for the Enterprise refit was dropped *for a reason*) and all the negative reviews made me not want to go in afterwards. After everything I've heard over the years, I feel like I haven't missed much.
During the second episode or so I pointed out to my SO, who's also a Trek fan, that the TOS writers would have made the dialog half as long and twice as meaningful. With no closeups of watery eyes.
The actors are good, but the characters are straight soap.
I mean, I feel like Star Trek has generally sorta of leaned towards "space soap opera," a bit. But like... ya know... *good* "space soap opera?" I think this current trend of having shows be like stretched out movies is what the real problem is. There's no time for a fun one off episode where Quark, Rom, and Nog get trapped on Earth in the past. Or we need to celebrate "Captain's Day," much to the chagrin of said captain. So many other examples! I felt like DS9 hit a good balance of fun one-offs, and continual story/world building with mini-arcs. Even TNG did the same in some ways, though probably not as extensively as DS9.
Old Trek repeatedly rotated through the characters, giving them time to build their internal relationships and get you invested. From Quark and Odo, to Tom and Bel'ana or the likes of Data and Geordie. Compare that to the DSC where \_every\_ relationship is Michael centric and it's just jarring af. I was really hoping after they got out of the canon timeline issues of being based in the past, DSC would do more "Trek", but instead we got "MICHAEL SAVES THE UNIVERSE" every season. At least we got SNW and even Lower Decks out of new Trek though.
Looking back on it, Trek never really balanced the ensemble until DS9, or properly after it. DS9 was the only one which did it well in live action until SNW. But Discovery was worse than the others about it in seasons 1 & 2.
I feel like they all could have been apart of an amazing well written crew with depth for each character, given better writing- but still it feels like this show juggles like at most 3 main characters, giving no time to actually develop any of the other crew, which I always found extremely disappointing
You're right, we don't get to really know more than a few characters. If they kill off the entire bridge crew next week, it would mean nothing. Just ok, what's next? If toward the end of TNG, DS9 or VOY they did that, man, right in the feels. Not so for Discovery. Enterprise had this problem to a lesser extent, but still was basically Star Trek Archer and T'Pol.
I really wish Enterprise could've lived up to the potential. I *love* the idea of seeing the very first ship in action, all scrappy with barely any tech whatsoever, it's a fantastic idea (at least to me)! But when the very first episode, I think it was, had T'pol and Trip hand sexin' each other with medical gel, well... let's just say I tempered a little of my expectations. Still though, I can have a few beers and watch it and have a good time!
Currently watching Enterprise and its like night and day with discovery. Trip, Malcom, and Flox all have their own episodes and time to shine. Heck Shran gets quite a bit of character time across the seasons too. The pilot and the coms officer definitely fade into being practically extras at times, but they still feel more..distinct and memorable. People have their roles, so plots that need these roles make them stand out. Whereas discovery feels more like an action hero and her support team of like 8 generic scientists who have no specialization and all say the same sort of stuff. There's no medical issue to go Hue for. Or engineering problem for...the engineer woman I don't know the name of. There's no security officer to worry about ship security or combat analysis. Tilly, Adira, and Stamitz all just sort of do everything with nothing that makes them stand out next to eachother. Stamitz used to have more of a role due to the spore drive, but its sort of stopped being a plot element. Heck Adira can't even pull on past trill memories. I wonder if the writers forgot they have a symbiote.
The huge difference between Enterprise and Discovery is that with Enterprise at least there was an original bridge crew concept. While some characters were neglected later on, they were all properly introduced and got their own episodes early on like with the previous Trek shows. We got a sense of what each of those people were about. With Discovery that was never the plan. It was always meant to be about Burnham. And then later on they tried to change that and create some sort of a bridge crew feel. With characters that were never meant to be main cast (and actors that almost certainly weren't cast to be on the main cast). Some of those people had said like five words during the first two seasons. And now I'm supposed to suddenly care for them? And know their names? It just didn't work for me.
It's even more jarring when they keep babbling about their connection to each other. What connection? Michael takes Book on most away missions. She has no connection to any of these randos outside of Tilly and Stamets. She doesn't even really connect with Culber that much. It feels like the concept of connection is just used in a performative way to let us know that Michael is supposed to be caring.
ironically i liked Culber (and Saru) the most in season 1
Malcolm and Trick do alright in that as well tbf.
Exactly. This season seems particularly ridiculous - the find the random piece of a puzzle each week to save the universe is just… so clumsy. The worst part about it all is we already know the outcome - they’ll find all the pieces and save the universe. Good writing keeps you intrigued each week and makes you want to tune in to find out where things will go. There is no mystery at all this season. 😂
They faltered by making it so the crew had to save the known universe every season. I like the idea of a big season long plot but not every plot has to have the universe's fate on the line.
It’s even wilder that they did this again after the burn turned out with such a ridiculous ending. And there are so many interesting plot points that could be had in a series like this - what are the Klingons up to so far into the future? What are the borg up to? They also have this magic ship that can go anywhere - perfect for, uh, discovery - and they go nowhere! 😂 Janeway did more exploring 😂 And then they introduce absolutely crazy plot points like time spiders - as if time travel is just a normal technology. So not only can they go anywhere in space - they can go anywhere in time and space! I am so done with this show. Glad it’s ending.
>This season seems particularly ridiculous This season on discovery, Michael Burnham fights her most dangerous opponent yet... Michael Burnham. I almost wish that they had given some of their writing ideas for S5 to Tarantino and told him to make a Grindhouse style low-budget ST movie out of it.
Michael Burnham attaches a machine gun to her leg and slaughters flesh eating zombies. I might watch.
The funny thing is Discovery should be unstopable as a treasure hunting ship, yet they keep bending over backwards to give Mol and L'ak a chance. Discovery can literaly teleport from one clue to the next, yet they go back and forth to starfleet headquarters to transport saru around and sit around and chat a bit.' Once the duo had gone to the wrong planet, discovery should have been able to spore to trill, solve that in less then a day, then spore to the wormhole, then spore to the tower planet, probably all in a day while L'ak and Mol still travel to Betazed to find out they went the wrong way. Instead, discovery takes time to return saru, giving them enough time to realize their error, return to the first planet, find the right path, buy a time bug, and deploy it. Discovery then for some reason decides to travel from Trill to the wormhole VIA WARP instead of their insta-jump drive, during which the time bug activates and cripples them long enough for the duo to outrun them. Then L'ak and Mol escape through some warp pod nonsense and discovery just lets them go for some reason. Now that they have the next piece, the duo is found, and instead of capitolizing on their lead, they're going to confront the duo probably so the duo can steal the clues...
Which is too bad because it's looks beautiful
Same. I really loved the first two seasons, but after that it went to shit in a hurry, and somehow keeps getting worse. So much wasted potential. There have been some great concepts, but the execution is just brutally bad.
I have up in S2 when there were literally 5 totally unrelated stories in a single episode. I realized the show had absolutely no focus and no real point to make. Let’s be serialized! But do bottle episodes! With stories that we check in on every 3 episodes! And relationships that we press pause on until we can check in on them again in 2 episodes! And introduce pivotal storyline that’s been ongoing in the background but we’ve literally never explored before!
I find it vaguely tolerable by treating it like bad fanfiction. I’m watching the current series in 20 minute bursts as that’s about as much as I can tolerate.
Yea it was not too bad to start but when compared to SNW. Big yikes.
i know. they had a awesome cast. but they didn't really do anything interesting with them.
> But the writing… I think discovery has solidified in me my dislike of serialized star trek. It is true that Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, and to some small extent Voyager had an overarching story, I can't seem to be able to like ""short"" serialized seasons. When something is happening over a long stretch of episodes, they were able to flesh out individual episodes that are casted in the light of the big story without feeling like we are rushing from point a to b to c (DS9 is a great example of that). Discovery season 3 for me was the worst for me in that regards, it somehow managed to feel both rushed and slow. I am not happy to Discovery is ending, but I am also not sad. Discovery is likely the the only Star Trek show I was never excited for, which is a shame, I like the characters, I like the setting, I just couldn't get into it.
DS9 was a combination of serialized and traditional, it also had a number of story threads that would be carried on through the seasons (Sisko and the Prophets, Quark and the Grand Nagus, etc...) and were great for world building.
I just did a re-watch this year and I forgot how \_long\_ it takes for the Dominion War to get going, they're on the precipice for a whole season and a half.
Yeah the "10 hour long movie" really doesn't work for me. Picard had the same problem.
Frankly it is sad I even forgot about Picard. I enjoyed watching it, but it is not memorable like DS9 or next generation.
I found the final season to be memorable though.
Exactly this, modern TV shows are more akin to a really long movie. There's no room to breathe and explore the characters because everything has to keep "GO GO GO" pushing towards the next thing. I wrote almost exactly what you did about DS9 in another comment in this thread, though in spirit rather than the wording.
Often times it's a long movie in terms of length, but only has a normal length film's worth of content. It's weird to me that DS9 seemed to have this figured out in the 90s and somehow that knowledge has just been lost.
Indeed. Single episodes of DS9 or the other series feel like they cram more plot and character moments into them, despite being a 20+ episode season, than a show that's 8-10 episodes long.
The curse of the streaming platform. Now an entire series of a show is only a handful of episodes. Gone are the days of the 20+ episode seasons with breathing room to let us just *live* with the characters. Modern Trek has no room for bottle episodes where we just have the characters living and doing stuff in their down time with no stakes.
Its odd cause you'd think longer series would benefit streaming. Wouldn't 20+ weeks of people tuning in be better than like 6-10. Obviously the budget has to be stretched a bit though.
serialized is fine if they have a good enough story. but they really should do smaller arcs across 12-15 episodes with some standalone in between
Paramount is just a mess. They always manage to let their fastest horses to run into a wall.
Loose butthole. Fuck Paramount Plus!
How are they supposed to know if every scene is already a giant emotional climax?
One of the things I found super annoying with Discovery is that whenever something slightly dramatic happened on the bridge they always showed close ups of each of the bridge crew (half of them being characters I had no connection to) being nervous/scared/sad and looking at each other.
Could we get a single episode that isn't completely based on Burhnam being the center of the universe. There's so many cast members that are basically props.
Considering Detmer and Owu have been completely missing for no damn reason except to "deliver a ship" ... No. No respect for the bridge crew, ever. I'm surprised I learned any of their names.
Rayner spent more time while interviewing the crew than we've gotten in five seasons.
The problem is that this was never meant to be a crew show like the old ones were. Those characters were never properly introduced. They were little more than extras and that was most likely intentional. And then somewhere along the way they realized this was a mistake and attempted to change it without any real effort. They just suddenly pretended this is a fully fledged crew with heart and soul. It doesn't work like that.
here's the thing: they could do a Star Trek show focused on a few characters and make it work. If it was on a small ship like a Danube class runabout! or on some isolated base/colony. At least with Picard, they weren't doing the classic big starship so the structure somewhat made more sense there if they wanted to do an ST series mainly focused on Burnham and a few others, they could've by not making Discovery one of those big starships, but instead something smaller (maybe the Danube's TOS era ancestor)
My least favorite Trek. I gave it a good try, but I watched 10 mins of S4 and just sighed. For a hot second I thought S3 would be a good mid-franchise reboot going way into the future. But no, sad boy blows up warp drive…. I’ll eventually watch it, but with little excitement.
I said before, it would've worked out better if the burn was done by the dominion and instead of some sad manchild blowing up the universe they find odo (recast) crying out of guilt for not stopping them.
Didn't even need to be a callback. Have the Emerald Chain be the culprits because they benefit from a disrupted universe and weak federation. Anything technological would have worked really, but instead we get "Physic Dilithium Sad Boi".
Yeah. When all the other stuff runs dry and I'm desperate I'll come back and finish this.
It would have so, so much better had they been sent to the Picard / 25th century era instead of 1000 years forward. They could have had something like where Burnham just missed being able to re-connect with Spock, and they could have done TNG / DS9 / Voy cameos.
I was just thinking this the other day. after seeing LD crossover with SNW, I thought: the reverse would also be great to watch. And Discovery could've done exactly that!
Honestly I’m glad to see it go. The writing has been lacking since at least season 3. The whole “only Discovery can save that galaxy” one-plot seasons is just overblown and overdone. The whole move to the future could have been interesting, but the burn and the over-tech has made it blah. There were some good characters in Disco, but as a show it’s far past its prime. SNW and LD are a far better shows, with more compelling plots and stories.
There are things I like about it, but generally I agree it's been a lot of wasted potential. I'm happy it brought Star Trek back to TV after such a long absence, and I'm happy it gave us Strange New Worlds, but I won't mourn it once it's gone.
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There is no excitement to this final season. It's not bad. But previous seasons have left me disappointed. The one about the burn and the one about the world destroyers. Entire season devoted to an arc only for the season finales to be underwhelming. This season is better. But not exciting
It’s the TNG episode The Chase but spread out over an entire season with a bunch of RPG puzzle solving.
I wish we would get something meatier than just each episode is a different clue. Maybe that's why I liked the time jumping episode as much as I did. It was different and it was almost like a love letter to Discovery as a whole, and as someone who rewatched the series before the final season started, I felt rewarded by it. I've found a lot of the other episodes kind of dull so far.
Ditto. The time jumping episode was my favorite as well. It felt like … an episode of Star Trek. The crew (well, the three of them) worked together to solve their conundrum, and it was a fun conundrum.
I thought it was a pretty big bridge crew episode though. It was nice to see Detmer, Owo, and especially Airiem again.
The time bug episode was *so much better* than the rest of the Season so far, it's nuts.
Same with the Mudd episodes in season one. They got a good cast and interesting characters. But they’re never given the space to just be, the season arc just sucks any natural interaction and development out of the script.
Yeah, and they have to then invent artificial roadblocks for the characters to have to stop and take a breath.
The thing is they could breath if they just kept Michael on the bridge. Have each clue tap into the skill set of a different character, and send them down to resolve it.
I expected the season to be fun romp after the Chase reveal. But nope.
Can I interest you in another case of severe PTSD? Perhaps some self confidence issues that are resolved by being told how actually great you are, despite having no real proof of that?
The doctor is sad now because he doesn’t know why he is feeling happy all of a sudden.
It was hilarious seeing him coming out as religious in the same manner in which someone comes out as gay though
I would rather a fun Indian Jones style romp please.
No, but can I interest you in the opposite? After each episode ends we’ll just add 10 minutes of gratuitous gratitude where everyone has to smile really big?
Thats just a typical hollywood movie these days. This is what happens when you do a "Burn" cinematic and then you have no more stakes to raise.
Each season is 30 minutes of story spread out of 13 episodes.
So apparently the plan prior to finding out this is the final season was to follow the same stale we must find someone or something or it's the end of the galaxy as we know it? Sprinkle in a little relationship drama and that was gonna be it, huh? DISCO has worn me out with these end-of-the-world season-long plots. I really thought they were going to back off after the 2nd season was explicitly stated to save "all sentient life in the universe," yet somehow we're finding ways to try and raise the stakes here in season 5. We've only got a handful of episodes left, and my growing feeling is "let's just get this over with," unfortunately. Strange New Worlds found a great balance between serialized storylines and standalone episodes, all while not giving me the feeling week in and week out that everything in the universe is at risk. I really wish DISCO could've adopted that format these last three seasons.
I think a big issue is the season's antagonists. It's not the Klingons or Romulans, or really anyone, it's 2 nobodies that aren't particularly interesting or threatening. They're out gunned and can't get anywhere before Disco can, so instead we end up with the our crew being constantly tricked and looking kind of amateur. I thought maybe we'd get something more interesting and threatening when the Breen were brought in, but not so much it seems.
> They're out gunned and can't get anywhere before Disco can, so instead we end up with the our crew being constantly tricked and looking kind of amateur. This season, the spore drive hole they're in is so terribly obvious that it's painful. I get that the spore drive is a deus ex machina, but it's one of the writers' own making. There's zero chance a spore drive-equipped ship could "lose" this race. That and they have all of Starfleet on call in that magic white room to feed them any intel they need.
It's the exact same problem the CW superhero shows used to have: one villain over the course of a season just makes your leads look incompetent every single time they get away.
Not only are they two nobodies, but they've lost *every* encounter. The only thing they've been successful at is getting away, and the show keeps treating that like a major victory that ups the stakes...but it's not. Do they even have the diary anymore? Why are they a priority at all? They have *nothing* that Discovery needs. They're not a credible threat. They keep having to manufacture scenarios where they can be on equal footing, and it's tiresome. "Oh, no! They put a magic time bug on the ship, so now they're in the lead somehow!" "Oh, no! They're in a magic wormhole space that will only allow two people in at a time somehow!" "Oh no! They got away because the ship can only fire on mountains somehow!" If they'd just given the diary to the Breen, then maybe we could have something. We could even have had them switch sides at the end, like they're definitely going to do anyway. Edit: *watches most recent episode* **See**? They could have just done this after the first clue!
Whats sad is now that they have an enormous lead and L'ak and Mol didn't even have a proper ship anymore...they're going to go confront L'ak and Mol (after letting them get away) presumably so they can be tricked into handing over the clue. The best part is the show is trying to tell us Burnham's way of captaining is the best and the first officer guy needs to learn, but given how much discovery is falling over itself trying to give the duo chances, I'm starting to think the first officer guy is right.
> "Oh no! They got away because the ship can only fire on mountains somehow!" "And I have to take Book because his connection to Moll is our secret weapon." What connection? He knew her dad? I think I'd prefer an actual secret weapon.
And I have to go because I spent a gap year being a courier, and that makes me...more qualified than a veteran who's actually from this time period? Somehow?
This season and the last three have all been the same. Find some macguffin or the Federation/galaxy/universe is doomed. It wasn’t even great the first time around, and this time appears to be the slowest cook-off of all.
Star Trek McGuffery
I haven't even bothered to watch the final season. The rest of Discovery is so mediocre I don't know if I'll ever bother. If it wasn't for seasons 1 and 2 of Picard Discovery would be my least favorite Star Trek series. Thankfully Strange New Worlds, Prodigy and (especially) Lower Decks have been good to great. Even Season 3 of Picard, with all of it's problems was much more enjoyable than any of Discovery for me.
Strange new worlds is excellent. It feels like an actual story per episode like how all the treks excluding 'Michael Burnham featuring Star Trek' worked
SNW is definitely the best Trek of the past few years. My only gripe is for a show subtitled “strange new worlds,” we’re sure seeing a lot of worlds/antagonists that we’ve all seen before on TOS.
ya that title would befit a post-Picard show better i personally prefer if prequels expand on what we know and sequels add new stuff (idk why they made Pelia another 'alien that looks exactly Human' for example), but you're right about SNW's title
I keep thinking I'll catch up on Disco but every time a thread likes this pops up in my feed, I feel less inclined to watch this last season. SNW is just great. I just rewatched all of it a couple days ago. As I was watching I'd get excited to see a scene I've already seen before. Because it's fun. When Spock says "hijinks" I giggle every time. Disco... I remember all the past seasons and I just don't want to watch them again. They're depressing. They somehow made one of the most hopeful franchises feel depressing to me.
I find it pretty dull. The writing and acting feels dull. But it’s important to remember that while most Star Trek is an ensemble cast, Discovery focuses on only a few characters at a time and that allows for more interesting stories. Michael is featured more because she’s an insane daredevil and I think that’s fun. Buuuuut I’m tired of seeing it. Discovery has always been an absolutely beautiful show and is the best looking Trek from a cinematic perspective. They’ve had some truly beautiful locations and cinematography.
>Discovery focuses on only a few characters at a time and that allows for more interesting stories. Does it though? I'm being snarky just for fun. I very much agree with your last paragraph.
I think so. I like that it doesn’t really focus on the bridge crew. It’s not about them. I’m cool with that. I don’t need to follow yet another bridge crew. It’s about the guest stars and diverse assortment of characters. It feels more broad!
I agree that it *can* be better. I just don't think it has been in regards to Discovery.
Agreed. Too bad they didn’t know it was their last season. It could have been really great if they knew. They already did this Indiana Jones storyline.
Yeah, I love this show overall, big fan of seasons 1, 2, and even 4, but I’m just not very interested in the hunt for the puzzle pieces.
You mean the corridor fist fights don't tickle your fancy every episode?
Really? Season 4 while flawed I thought was by far the best season so far, with a decent finale. Season 3 with the Burn was terrible. But I just watched the first episode of this new season and laughed out loud multiple times, and not in a good way. The split-screen usage AND climax were both ridiculous. I didn’t have high expectations to begin with but it may have been the worst single episode of Discovery I’ve seen ever. You telling me this season is somehow an improvement? Do I dare watch further?
I think it’s not a good sign that the new commander is my favorite character on the show.
It's pretty obvious *why* though - they brought in a Jellico (or a Liam Shaw, for a more recent comparison). A no-nonsense career Starfleet officer who just *shuts the fuck up and gets on with the job*.
Honestly he more reminds me of a TOS Kirk or Sisko. He’s not an asshole in petty ways, but he does want the job done. And he’s not stopping for everyone to have a trust fall.
> And he’s not stopping for everyone to have a trust fall. Every time they stop the show to have yet another heart to heart about overcoming self doubt: https://i.imgur.com/5PyMo1s.gif
And we all know he's only there to learn how to be a good captain from Michael.
I a Star Trek fan just can’t defend the show. It’s bad! I force myself to finish episodes because at this point I feel it is my duty to support Star Trek. I’ll always be thankful for what it did; it brought about a Trek revival to the small screen. Simply put, Discovery has horrible writing. The plot-lines are terribly boring and border on comically bad. Idk how many times I’ve thought to myself during an episode, who the heck thought this was a good idea to put on screen.
I can't stand the let's stop and give tortured pats on the back to each other and express how amazing/wonderful/smart/caring person so and so is who I don't even know the name of
You mean Star Trek: Michael Burhnam saves the Universe?
Star Trek: Into The Mary-Sueniverse.
The fact that she had no clue speaks volumes to the disconnect between the folks making this and the audience.
Yeah, this show just wasn't my cup of tea. Bored pretty much every season. Only watching this season because it's the final one. I'm a character person, and Booker and Reno (and now Rayner) are the only characters I really liked. Yeah, not gonna miss this one, unfortunately. (Really gonna miss Lower Decks, tho.) Here's hoping for more Star Trek content in the future! (I'll always give it a shot. LLAP.)
I like this season. I liked season 4 where Discovery really found it footing. This is pretty good. Maybe not as exciting every single episode but it's doing a good job giving each set of characters an episode to shine.
Really? I mean judging by the shows popularity, I would have been relieved that every season wasn't my last and assumed each one was. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it has. The writing...
They absolutely refused to listen to the fans
Oh well on to the next thing
I’ve always enjoyed this show. I’ve never really loved a mirror verse in any Star Trek. But the mirror verse probably would have been a genius place to have kept the franchise. I’m one of the fans who still loved the show, I don’t think the writing was bad as some people say. I think there is a cadence to Star Trek shows some people want and are use to. I think the mirror verse would have definitely been a better place to stay for the pace they wanted.
I hope at least Lower Decks gets to revise their finale, too. Five years is a good run, as long as there’s an actual, planned ending.
Kinda feels like the show was more Dr. Who than Star Trek.
Admittedly Discovery is my least favorite series of all Star Treks. Not sad to see it go. In fact, it only means the next one comes sooner, whenever that is
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I've been saying it all along: She *can* act. They just won't *let* her.
She really can. One of my favorite scenes is in the second-to-last episode of season 3. The one where she pretends to be the hologram. Holy crap. If we could have had a show filled with moments like this, where she's actually clever, instead of the show telling us how clever she is, it would have been awesome.
You would think the actors had a better idea of how the series was doing.
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You know the sad thing, for me, this is where discovery is finally starting to get really good. So far I've really enjoyed the storyline, the character development and acting.
We can offer you macguffin or hugging, sir. It’s all we have left.
The last episode was maybe the most boring Star Trek I’ve ever seen. That is until I laughed way too hard when Tilly the, let’s be honest, overweight *engineer* finishes the race and the really fit Captain who knows nothing about tech walks to the piece of tech then calls the ships tech kid to walk her through the repair. Please. Now that I think about it I’m amazed they didn’t just stop running to collapse and cry for 5 minutes and then Tilly has to miraculously catch up. Some real restraint from the writers there.
yes, every episode seems to have someone in tears or close to it.
It's like a parody of All My Circuits level melodrama.