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Star Trek Discovery not getting any better I fear.
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<blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7601068" data-attributes="member: 37579"><p>I doubt I'll watch season 3 of Discovery. </p><p>I gave it two chances. And while it improved in a lot of ways on season 2, the writers just don't seem to know their Star Trek and the plotting and characterization is just terrible. It's a terribly, terribly planned show. It was excusable in the first season, with all the chaos behind the scenes and the showrunner being fired. But this season was a muddled mess of ideas. Just endless concepts thrown wholesale at a wall to see what sticks. </p><p></p><p>Plus, the series is jumping 800 years farther ahead than Nemesis and far beyond anything we've seen. Which feels like an excuse to pay even less attention to the canon. It's dropping any pretenses of trying to be a Trek series. </p><p></p><p>Having Discovery be the far future Trek show in name might be fine. It gets to keep its fans and still do what it's doing, while the Picard series can appeal to fans of the shared universe era of the '90s. But after the mess that was this season, my expectations aren't high.</p><p>Plus, it's not like Discovery will stay in the future. Georgiou needs to come back for the upcoming Section 31 series, likely staring Ash Tyler.</p><p></p><p>--edit--</p><p></p><p>Since I need to get it out, I'll explain what iI mean by "terribly, terribly planned show".</p><p></p><p>Let's stop and actually LOOK at the story and plot of Discovery and evaluating it as a series.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The first season is about a man from a Mirror Universe who is pretending to be his Good aligned doppelganger. And going completely undetected for months despite a radical shift in behaviour, likely not being able to guess any of his doubles passwords, and an absence of all Starfleet procedure and protocol despite being a captain. </p><p>He's trying to get back home and has decided the best way is to partner with the doppelganger of a scientist he has a passing relationship with, who is creating a new drive system. Despite the drive not working, only being theoretical, and having no known connection to the mirror universe, the evil mirror captain believes the spore drive can get him home.</p><p></p><p>He gets the drive working and instead of immediately seizing control and going home he pauses to half win a war. Despite this, he really wants to get back to the universe where he's Public Enemy number one, because if he can get himself arrested and sent to a pain chamber for torture (rather than being immediately executed by a fickle, unpredictable empress) there's a chance he can escape and rally an army. Assuming his co-conspirators haven't been executed in the intervening months.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, this is all told from the perspective of a starfleet officer who committed mutiny and was locked away before the Klingons started a war on the Federation. A war that said officer is blamed for, despite being in the brig when the firing started.</p><p>Because, despite all the Mirror Universe stuff going on, the real story is about the war with the Klingons, which Starfleet is badly losing. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Season two is all about an evil AI (because is there any other kind?) taking control of Starfleet's black ops division because it plans on wiping out all intelligent life in the galaxy. To do so it needs data from a giant alien sphere.... for reasons. Because despite being able to impersonate Starfleet officers, replicate itself, and turn entire crews into nanite powered zombies it needs the sphere data to win.</p><p></p><p>But this story doesn't really start until nine episodes into the season. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Prior to that, the first two thirds of the season is about a series of signals that Starfleet declares a major emergency for no real reason. </p><p>(Yeah, Spock received a vision of the signals and the end of all life, but that was prior to anyone seeing the signals and no one really believed him.)</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, the signals are tied to the appearance of a Red Angel that everyone immediately believes is from the future given the advanced technology at display. But really it's twenty year old technology that Discovery could build in about five hours. And no one from Section 31 mentions that the Red Angel is their design for several weeks. </p><p>But even following the revelation of Control, everyone pauses to capture the Red Angel at great risk because the fate of Starfleet is at risk, instead of actually doing anything about Control. Because the Red Angel might be a threat… for no real reason.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In both cases, there's a lot going on that is largely unrelated and actually gets in the way of the story of the season. </p><p></p><p>The big Mirror Universe arc in season one just puts the brakes on the Klingon War arc for a quarter of the season. And negated the story arc of the PTSD captain by making him comically evil instead of traumatized and tortured.</p><p></p><p>This season has even more going on. Tilly's imaginary friend. Saru learning everything he knows is a lie. A dying giant all-knowing planet-being. Then added to that is the giant red herring of the signals and red angel with time travel. Stamets and his dead/undead husband. But all that is really irrelevant to the story of Control and Section 31 going rogue. It feels like they had two unrelated story ideas for both seasons and rather than trying to find a way to make them mirror each other and run in parallel they just kinda smashed them together. </p><p></p><p></p><p>The season could have been a lot tighter had they dropped the time travel angle. (And angel.) </p><p>They could have focused on Discovery working with Section 31 for side missions while the fleet was being rebuilt, unknowingly gathering elements Control needed to become sentient. </p><p>And given the last third of the season is about resurrected corpses animated by nanites, couldn't Hugh Culber have been an early test, having him be a villain instead of magical spore clone? With the impetus to find a way to "cure" him and thus save him. </p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not trying to say people can't like the series. It's big and grandiose and pretty. There's a lot of fancy explosions and big special effects. There's a lot of spectacle. </p><p></p><p>It's okay to like bad shows. I love Legends of Tomorrow, which is a super dumb show. And I continue to have a fondness for trash like Xena: Warrior Princess. Or the shallow violence-porn (and actual porn porn) of Game of Thrones. </p><p>But be honest and don't kid yourself that the show is "good". </p><p></p><p></p><p>Discovery is poorly written trash with a budget. They threw all their money into big special effect scenes and then likely had fumble a way to connect the random plot. </p><p></p><p></p><p>There's so much murkiness in the plot. </p><p></p><p>Why did the captured Red Angel have to be Burnham's mother? Wouldn't it have been easier to just have it be future Burnham, giving them knowledge that they fail and thus breaking the loop?</p><p>Why did the Red Angel appear to adult Spock, driving him mad? </p><p>How did Starfleet know about the seven signals? They all appeared slowly over the season and for a purpose. How did they know about all 7 at the start? Why could they not locate them ahead of time? </p><p>What were the Red Signals? How did the suit make them? </p><p>Why did the Enterprise stop working at the beginning of the season while investing the signal? </p><p>Why did Gabriel Burnham save people from WW3 to move them to Terra Nova? How? (Ostensibly to have a safe habour in the future... but how does that help her?)</p><p>If Gabriel Burnham could travel back to the 2050s to save people, why not erase Control when it was first programed? Insert a virus or backdoor in its early days.</p><p>How did Control know about the Sphere data? What did it hope to gain from the Sphere that it didn't already possess?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jester David, post: 7601068, member: 37579"] I doubt I'll watch season 3 of Discovery. I gave it two chances. And while it improved in a lot of ways on season 2, the writers just don't seem to know their Star Trek and the plotting and characterization is just terrible. It's a terribly, terribly planned show. It was excusable in the first season, with all the chaos behind the scenes and the showrunner being fired. But this season was a muddled mess of ideas. Just endless concepts thrown wholesale at a wall to see what sticks. Plus, the series is jumping 800 years farther ahead than Nemesis and far beyond anything we've seen. Which feels like an excuse to pay even less attention to the canon. It's dropping any pretenses of trying to be a Trek series. Having Discovery be the far future Trek show in name might be fine. It gets to keep its fans and still do what it's doing, while the Picard series can appeal to fans of the shared universe era of the '90s. But after the mess that was this season, my expectations aren't high. Plus, it's not like Discovery will stay in the future. Georgiou needs to come back for the upcoming Section 31 series, likely staring Ash Tyler. --edit-- Since I need to get it out, I'll explain what iI mean by "terribly, terribly planned show". Let's stop and actually LOOK at the story and plot of Discovery and evaluating it as a series. The first season is about a man from a Mirror Universe who is pretending to be his Good aligned doppelganger. And going completely undetected for months despite a radical shift in behaviour, likely not being able to guess any of his doubles passwords, and an absence of all Starfleet procedure and protocol despite being a captain. He's trying to get back home and has decided the best way is to partner with the doppelganger of a scientist he has a passing relationship with, who is creating a new drive system. Despite the drive not working, only being theoretical, and having no known connection to the mirror universe, the evil mirror captain believes the spore drive can get him home. He gets the drive working and instead of immediately seizing control and going home he pauses to half win a war. Despite this, he really wants to get back to the universe where he's Public Enemy number one, because if he can get himself arrested and sent to a pain chamber for torture (rather than being immediately executed by a fickle, unpredictable empress) there's a chance he can escape and rally an army. Assuming his co-conspirators haven't been executed in the intervening months. Meanwhile, this is all told from the perspective of a starfleet officer who committed mutiny and was locked away before the Klingons started a war on the Federation. A war that said officer is blamed for, despite being in the brig when the firing started. Because, despite all the Mirror Universe stuff going on, the real story is about the war with the Klingons, which Starfleet is badly losing. Season two is all about an evil AI (because is there any other kind?) taking control of Starfleet's black ops division because it plans on wiping out all intelligent life in the galaxy. To do so it needs data from a giant alien sphere.... for reasons. Because despite being able to impersonate Starfleet officers, replicate itself, and turn entire crews into nanite powered zombies it needs the sphere data to win. But this story doesn't really start until nine episodes into the season. Prior to that, the first two thirds of the season is about a series of signals that Starfleet declares a major emergency for no real reason. (Yeah, Spock received a vision of the signals and the end of all life, but that was prior to anyone seeing the signals and no one really believed him.) Meanwhile, the signals are tied to the appearance of a Red Angel that everyone immediately believes is from the future given the advanced technology at display. But really it's twenty year old technology that Discovery could build in about five hours. And no one from Section 31 mentions that the Red Angel is their design for several weeks. But even following the revelation of Control, everyone pauses to capture the Red Angel at great risk because the fate of Starfleet is at risk, instead of actually doing anything about Control. Because the Red Angel might be a threat… for no real reason. In both cases, there's a lot going on that is largely unrelated and actually gets in the way of the story of the season. The big Mirror Universe arc in season one just puts the brakes on the Klingon War arc for a quarter of the season. And negated the story arc of the PTSD captain by making him comically evil instead of traumatized and tortured. This season has even more going on. Tilly's imaginary friend. Saru learning everything he knows is a lie. A dying giant all-knowing planet-being. Then added to that is the giant red herring of the signals and red angel with time travel. Stamets and his dead/undead husband. But all that is really irrelevant to the story of Control and Section 31 going rogue. It feels like they had two unrelated story ideas for both seasons and rather than trying to find a way to make them mirror each other and run in parallel they just kinda smashed them together. The season could have been a lot tighter had they dropped the time travel angle. (And angel.) They could have focused on Discovery working with Section 31 for side missions while the fleet was being rebuilt, unknowingly gathering elements Control needed to become sentient. And given the last third of the season is about resurrected corpses animated by nanites, couldn't Hugh Culber have been an early test, having him be a villain instead of magical spore clone? With the impetus to find a way to "cure" him and thus save him. I'm not trying to say people can't like the series. It's big and grandiose and pretty. There's a lot of fancy explosions and big special effects. There's a lot of spectacle. It's okay to like bad shows. I love Legends of Tomorrow, which is a super dumb show. And I continue to have a fondness for trash like Xena: Warrior Princess. Or the shallow violence-porn (and actual porn porn) of Game of Thrones. But be honest and don't kid yourself that the show is "good". Discovery is poorly written trash with a budget. They threw all their money into big special effect scenes and then likely had fumble a way to connect the random plot. There's so much murkiness in the plot. Why did the captured Red Angel have to be Burnham's mother? Wouldn't it have been easier to just have it be future Burnham, giving them knowledge that they fail and thus breaking the loop? Why did the Red Angel appear to adult Spock, driving him mad? How did Starfleet know about the seven signals? They all appeared slowly over the season and for a purpose. How did they know about all 7 at the start? Why could they not locate them ahead of time? What were the Red Signals? How did the suit make them? Why did the Enterprise stop working at the beginning of the season while investing the signal? Why did Gabriel Burnham save people from WW3 to move them to Terra Nova? How? (Ostensibly to have a safe habour in the future... but how does that help her?) If Gabriel Burnham could travel back to the 2050s to save people, why not erase Control when it was first programed? Insert a virus or backdoor in its early days. How did Control know about the Sphere data? What did it hope to gain from the Sphere that it didn't already possess? [/QUOTE]
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