I love it. But I keep it to myself because star trek online forums are pretty aggressive when you say you like it.
"We Didn't Know It Was The End": Jonathan Frakes On Directing Star Trek Discovery Series Finale
3 years ago by triktrek to c/startrek
joe 13 points 3 years ago
Hey man you can't control what you like.
I personally might have enjoyed it more if it hadn't been (seemingly) shoehorned into the Star Trek universe. I understand it's not a very subjective metric, but Discovery just didn't feel like Star Trek.
It comes across as if someone producer got pitched a sci-fi series with the plot of Discovery and thought, "This is great! It would be even better if we slapped Star Trek all over it!"
VindictiveJudge 6 points 3 years ago
I bailed on DSC back when season 2 was airing. Specifically, Project Daedalus was my last episode. Later, I tried watching it again and trying to enjoy it more on its own merits, ignoring the Trek branding and whatnot. I wanted to bail again at the exact same point. I don't know if it's a too many cooks situation with the constant showrunner turnover or if the writers' room just has an obsession with melodrama, but at no point did it feel, to me, like there was a good show hiding in there.
aksdb 12 points 3 years ago
What I saw was ok from a plot perspective (for me). So the whole premise was nice and to me it fit into Star Trek. But as I just complained in another comment: I couldn't cope with the amount of crying and the way they forced drama into the story.
Burnham is raised by Vulcans which is used when it suits the plot (then she's extremely analytical and objective) but then suddenly turns into an emotional mess when they want to portray drama. That just feels .... off. Also the other officers. I should believe that these are the best of the Star Fleet, top of their class, trained for war but then they falter in the middle of a mission because their lover/friend/whatever gets hurt or dies? That just doesn't fit.
Maybe I zoned that out from previous Star Trek (because it's been a while ...), but in my mind the characters there were a lot more stable and professional. They all had their individual quirks and mannerisms, but during missions they more or less got their shit together.
Kichae 22 points 3 years ago
Burnham is raised by Vulcans which is used when it suits the plot (then she’s extremely analytical and objective) but then suddenly turns into an emotional mess when they want to portray drama. That just feels … off
No, that part feels very, very on to me. Burnham was a human girl who was witness to family being brutally slaughtered (as far as she knew/could tell) who was then placed in the care of a Vulcan man who liked living as a sociology experiment. This is a person who is traumatized from a relatively young age, and who has no idea how to cope with her feelings. She's never received therapy, only more psychological abuse.
The issue I ended up having with the show is that the show itself never addresses this. It's actually pretty clearly the setup for the entire series, but no one ever acknowledges that Michael needs help, no one ever tries to get her any, and, in the end, she never gets the help she needs. They took what could and should have been a character arc about healing from abuse and just turned it into "SMG's pretty good at crying".
Once it became clear that the show had zero interest in examining its inciting premise, I lost all patience with it.
osarusan 13 points 3 years ago
Likewise, the melodrama is what killed it for me.
There are a lot of bad trek episodes scattered across every series. Bad episodes isn't the issue with Discovery. The issue is that, throughout all of trek, the crew has come together and stuck with each other through thick and thin. If there ever is inter-crew strife, it's solved in generally one or two episodes (except for major plot/story themes like the Maquis, or Seven being a Borg).
Discovery, on the other hand, is a show where the crew was constantly backstabbing, betraying, lying, and being all around bad towards each other. There was no finding solace among the crew in a world filled with strife -- the world was strife, and the crew was also strife. And whenever the inter-crew issues seemed like they could finally be resolved, some new stupid issue was shoehorned in. It was unbearable to watch because of the forced melodrama.
bornagainpenguin 10 points 3 years ago
And whenever the inter-crew issues seemed like they could finally be resolved, some new stupid issue was shoehorned in. It was unbearable to watch because of the forced melodrama.
It's almost like those "filler" episodes in all the previous series actually had a function of allowing the series' interpersonal relationships to gel and solidify. When everything is always an emergency and everyone must react RIGHT NOW OR ELSE it tends to wear people out. There's nothing wrong with missions that just go somewhat routine and people get to interact with strange and interesting people from entirely different situations and places.
FormerGameDev 4 points 3 years ago
the crew was constantly backstabbing, betraying, lying, and being all around bad towards each other
.... what???
MaxHardwood 7 points 3 years ago
Crying alien baby breaks warp and Ensign First Officer Captain Tilly... That series is hard to enjoy...
socprof 5 points 3 years ago
@MaxHardwood @aksdb And the computer refuses to disclose crucial information because it has feelings. :eyeroll:
DrChaotica 1 point 3 years ago
Ensign First Officer Captain Tilly… That series is hard to enjoy...
Much like the 2009 movie.
Madison_rogue 9 points 3 years ago
I like it as well, yet I didn't find a place in Trek forums until I left Reddit last month. So this is new territory for me. Take it in stride, there are other Discovery fans out there.
Nmyownworld 7 points 3 years ago
Greetings fellow DSC fan. I like the show, too. Considering that Paramount+ kept it going for 5 seasons, a lot of other people watched it. While I'm a fan of the show, I don't think it's perfect, and I can respect other folks critiques of the show. But sometimes the vitriol generators go so long and strong, it can be difficult to separate the signal from the noise with DSC criticisms.
SweetSitty 21 points 3 years ago
I remember watching the first few episodes, but I got bored and started watching the Orville instead because it had more of a Star Trek spirit.
ValueSubtracted 14 points 3 years ago
Available analytics have placed it at roughly the same level of demand as SNW - often slightly ahead, but close enough that I'd call it even.
Madison_rogue 14 points 3 years ago
That's an interesting metric. Apparently the vitriol for Discovery is mostly contained to the internet.
This comes as no shock at all.
VindictiveJudge 6 points 3 years ago
Really depends on the site, the time of year, and the specific topic. The Trek subreddit, for instance, tended to be pro-DSC when a season was airing and anti-DSC between seasons. Even here, that recent thread on the DSC Klingon redesign was very in favor of DSC.
FormerGameDev 4 points 3 years ago
Millions of people watched it. It brought us the entire rest of everything in Star Trek now.
I love it.
kurt_propane 4 points 3 years ago
First season was great. Second was good. Now it doesn’t have the same charm. Imo
8Bitsblu 26 points 3 years ago
Y'know, if I had a nickel for every time Jonathan Frakes was involved in a Star Trek episode that unexpectedly became the series finale, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.
FormerGameDev 5 points 3 years ago
Orville has not been renewed or cancelled, officially, at this time, as far as anyone's aware?
aksdb 21 points 3 years ago
There's a lot of "emotionally" in that article. Kinda fits the series that was over-filled with emotional crap. (tbf, I aborted watching somewhere in Season 3, so maybe that changed afterwards. But I doubt it.)
InvaderSkooge 14 points 3 years ago
It did not ...
maegul 4 points 3 years ago
yea, love it or hate it, Discovery did not really change its core vibe. I think I had hopes it would in season 3. Season 2 had already played with different vibes with Pike/Spock etc. And the idea for the premise of season 3 was so bold (and which I think is the best and most forward pushing premise of Trek since Next-Gen and DS9) that I figured something new was in stall. It seemed so at first ... but then wasn't really IMO.
Kerred 16 points 3 years ago
From what I understand in television writing it was a constant struggle of "should we write a cliffhanger hoping it gets us renewed" to "we should have some closure in case we get cancelled", since many writers had no idea what would happen.
FishInABarrel 13 points 3 years ago
Has ending on a cliff-hanger ever worked to get a show renewed?
passinglurker 7 points 3 years ago
ENT's trip to 1944 between seasons 3 and 4. Or in other words what must be the writer's "you made us make this temporal cold war cake and by koala we are gonna make you eat it" letter to the execs.
CodingAndCoffee 6 points 3 years ago
It kinda did with Sense8, due to overwhelming fan support for at least completing the story. Netflix caved and they produced a movie to wrap it up.
Vittelius 3 points 3 years ago
Depends on how you look at it.
I don't think we know of a case where it convinced a studio executive, but then again we know very little about the reasons why some shows get renewed and some don't.
We do know cases where ending on a cliffhanger helped drumm up enough fan engagement to reverse a cancellation (timeless on nbc is a recent(ish) example for that)
GaiusGornicusCaesar 3 points 3 years ago
Or that Seasons 3 and 4 and 5 were a terrifyingly large Holodeck Program run by Tom Paris to see what would happen if the U.S.S. Discovery arrived in the 32nd century and that the U.S.S. Discovery was teleported back to the times of the Iconians?
dustojnikhummer 1 point 3 years ago
These are the voyages, again.
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r/startrek: The Next Generation
Star Trek news and discussion. No slash fic...
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Rules
1 Be constructive
All posts/comments must be thoughtful and balanced.
2 Be welcoming
It is important that everyone from newbies to OG Trekkers feel welcome, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, religion or race.
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If a polite way cannot be found to phrase what it is you want to say, don't say anything at all. Insulting or disparaging remarks about any human being are expressly not allowed.
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Was the show doing well at all? I appreciate that I might just be in my own little bubble, but I don't know a single person that loves this show. Some people like it, but it's always a milquetoast endorsement, like "It's not bad" or "It seems like a good scifi series but it feels like Star Trek fan fiction", etc.
I'm surprised they didn't at least strongly suspect it was the end.
Especially when compared to Strange New Worlds, which is an, imo, amazing Star Trek series.
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