Star Trek Discovery not getting any better I fear.

Ryujin · Mar 20, 2019

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
No, the beatings will continue until morale improves.

(DRAT! Animated GIF failure)

Jester David · Mar 20, 2019

Hussar said:
Thing is, your better is my worse. You want Roddenberry era Star Trek? Blech. First three seasons of TNG suck. And suck badly. TNG didn't get good until they ejected Roddenberry.

You're wrong there.
Roddenberry was really the big cheese for the first half of the first season. Do you remember a huge uptick when he passed the reins to a different head writer for the second half? Meanwhile, he was still there as a producer until season 5, giving feedback on scripts and such.
What changed was they brought in different head writers. That's the thing, the show didn't just get better for no reason. They had four or five different head writers over the first three seasons. But until they brought in someone good it didn't improve. The writing changes in TOS and TNG and DS9 have everything to do with good writing and good editing.

But the new writers still kept his vision and ideas. They still worked with him until he got ill.

Hussar said:
But, if you want "classic" if that's the word, Star Trek, you've got several hundred hours of watching.

Yeah, all of it cheesy and dated and with messages and social commentary aimed at the world of twenty to thirty years ago.

Look, a different take on Star Trek is a good idea. But this is the first Star Trek show in a decade. You don't launch with something different and strange. You launch with something safe and earn the audience's trust. Then you go new directions and do new things, when you've earned the trust.
You don't start by alienating and pushing away the core fanbase.
The Discovery showrunners haven't earned that trust. They haven't shown me they can reliably handle the baseline ideal of Star Trek, so I have zero faith that they know what they're doing when they try and subvert it.

Hussar said:
Why can't I get several hundred hours of what I want to watch?

See above.

But right now, there's an eff-tonne of dark TV shows. Everyone is doing dark. Everyone is doing post apocalypse of twisted futures. Zombies. Alien invasions. Nobody is doing optimistic. We need an optimistic reminder of the future that has messages for today.

Dark is a crutch. It's a lazy way of not having to commit to an ideal. It's a sign they're afraid of the show being able to stand on its own and so it has to look like everything else on TV.

Hussar said:
Why does "quality" mean, "things [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] likes"? I liked the first season. I liked the darker aspects. I liked that they were telling Trek stories that weren't sanitized pablum where Star Fleet is always on the side of angels. We've had decades of that. Howzabout a bit more depth of story telling where no one is always the white hats?

If I want dark, gritty science fiction, I can watch the Expanse. In fact, I DO watch The Expanse, in part for that reason. I recommend it. It's excellent.

If I want to watch optimistic, uplifting science fiction, I go to Star Trek. A dark, gritty, pessimistic version of the future isn't really Star Trek. Star Trek has always been about finding the positive. Even in Deep Space Nine, they were hopeful. And when they do cross a line it feels like it matters.

But... even in Discovery Starfleet is still always white hats.
Here's the thing. Star Trek Discovery is terrible as a dark show.
Dark means people doing questionable things for selfish reasons and horrible consequences for actions. But Discovery is pretty much a consequence free zone. The worst of the bad stuff being done is conveniently being done by someone outside of Starfleet (mirror double and generic evil AI). It dodges having people feel bad by not having the main characters be held responsible for the actions. There's no fallout for poor choices. And then everything works out at the end as the standard "Star Trek Reset Button" is pressed.

Discovery isn't dark. It has the illusion of darkness. It's a junior high edgelord version of dark, with lots of posturing and posing but no real substance.

There are so many better ways to tell a dark Star Trek show. But they'd actually have to KNOW Star Trek to do that.

One episode (the episode before last) was the only one that really bothered to show the fallout of actions. But they didn't follow up on that and maintain the inertia. And with two episodes left, there's not a lot of time to continue that either. There's likely be left unresolved.

Hussar said:
Your version of quality is anything but. It's a solid show, set in a believable universe with a pretty decent storyline. "Oh, but, it's not living up to thirty year old canon of Episode 86 of whateverdahell Star Trek is the "good" Star Trek because I happen to like it". It's ludicrous.

They did it just fine in '87. And that was 20 years after The Original Series.
They looked at what worked and kept it. They looked at what didn't work and ignored or changed it. But they kept the tone and attitude. It seemed to have a strong respect for the original.
Why can't they do that again?

Heck, the freakin' Orville nailed it out the gate. And did it while managing to invent its own canon.
Why can't we get a Star Trek show that's a serious version of the Orville but with the sets and budget of Discovery?

Hussar said:
If you don't like something, great. You don't like it. But, punishing yourself by spending, well, now presuming you watched season 1 and season 2, twenty some hours watching something you don't like seems really, really strange. I will never understand fans who seem to feel they have ownership over a property. It's just mind blowing the self entitlement that fans profess.

For the exact same reason fans get upset when their sport team has a line-up change and begins playing poorly. Or a favourite band changes their sound. Or an edition of a game changes into something you don't want to play.
You want things to evolve and grow, but it needs to be recognizable, or it loses something that drew you to that in the first place. It still needs to be enjoyable.

Fans are emotionally attached. And losing something they're emotionally attached to hurts. By definition.
Some fans do take it too far. The equivalent of stalking or emotional abuse. They take the "ownership" too far and become toxic fans.
But, at the risk of going No True Scotsman... if you're not emotionally invested, are you really a fan? Or are you just a viewer? After all, a lot of people just watched the movies, but never got into the shows, are they really fans? I'd hardly qualify everyone who watches the Batman or Marvel movies as "comic book fans". That feels like someone just watching the Superbowl: are they really a fan of football, or just watching the big event?

I complain because I think the show can/could get better. As every Discovery supporter tripped over themselves saying last season, TNG and DS9 got better as they went on. That could happen here too.
And season 2 did look better. The trailer was good, and the first couple episodes were good. But, man, that middle was just weak and full of poorly thought out ideas. And that last episode was a masterclass on unsubtle emotional manipulation and forced tragedy. And it looks like they're doing the same damn dodge as last season, by brushing off all the bad things Section 31 did to apprehend Spock as the will of an Evil AI rather than Starfleet.

Morrus · Mar 20, 2019

I've started a [+] thread for those who want to talk about what's happening in the show.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-Discovery-(Fan)-Thread&p=7581224#post7581224

Mallus · Mar 20, 2019

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
No, the beatings will continue until morale improves.

What do we have to do to get the criticism to improve? Harder beatings... perhaps employing some form of metallic pipe?

The thing I find both funny and frustrating about the conversation around Discovery are the fans who don't notice (or admit to noticing) the differences between the previous Star Trek series. Little things like being set on a starship (TNG vs. DS9) or the perfectibility of human nature (TOS vs. TNG).

Diljit Dosanjh · Mar 20, 2019

I liked first few episodes at first but later dropped it.

CapnZapp · Mar 20, 2019

Morrus said:
Oh, god, here we go again. Does it ever stop?

I guess the thread title remains relevant...

Hussar · Mar 21, 2019

Jester David said:
You launch with something safe and earn the audience's trust. Then you go new directions and do new things, when you've earned the trust.
You don't start by alienating and pushing away the core fanbase.

ROTFLMAO.

I see. We're going with the "what I like is the definition of core fanbase" argument. Snort. Giggle. Gimme a break.

Hrm, most popular show on CBS's streaming service, responsible for huge upticks in sign ups, rates about 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, critically successful.

But, you hate it, so, everyone must hate it. :uhoh:

Look, I get it. You don't like it. You like the Orville. Great. We both win. You have a show you like, I have a show I like. Why can't I have a show I like without having folks like you jumping in and telling me why I'm wrong every single week?

What is this persistent need to tell people why they are wrong for liking something? It's utterly, utterly beyond me. Why waste your time?

Ryujin · Mar 21, 2019

Perhaps the same reason that people feel the need to post positively about a programme in a thread that was clearly and decidedly negative about it

Hussar · Mar 21, 2019

Ryujin said:
Perhaps the same reason that people fee the need to post positively about a programme in a thread that was clearly and decidedly negative about it

Fair enough.