Submitted 1 day ago by cuchi@startrek.website to startrek@startrek.website
I recently saw Star Trek Picard, the first season was okey, season 2 was awful, the season 3 was nice.
Acording some critics last Discovery season is bad, so now I’m afraid of looking a series who has a bad ending, it worth to watch or is as painful as Picard Season 2?
My honest opinion is that Discovery is nowhere near as bad as its detractors say.
That said, I also wouldn’t call it good Star Trek and didn’t finish the final season.
It’s boring, not bad.
Discovery’s characters are somehow simultaneously boring yet also obnoxious jackasses. The writers of the show apparently thought Star Trek would be more interesting if everyone in the future had, instead of professionalism and humanism, histrionic personality disorder and chronic hemorrhoids.
I have an intense distaste for Discovery, and wouldn’t recommend it.
I could rant about it a la Jenny Nicholson for 4 hours but here’s my main issues boiled down to a bulleted list:
Some things I like about Star Trek:
• Optimistic future, humans can create greatness and beauty if they continue to check and overcome their faults • No black and white villains. All antagonists are given nuance and development and many become favored allies • Themes of teamwork, a functional ensemble, core crew are all valid and valued, no one star of the show. • No such thing as magic or gods, everything is in the realm of human understanding if we have sufficient knowledge
Guess what Disovery has?
• Nihilistic, apocalyptic future • Bad guys that are just bad, they’re evil, don’t ask questions • One principal star of the show that is the focus of nearly every episode • No attempt to explain “divine” phenomena/magic
Then add on some blatant examples of total ignorance for the universe it’s set in, attempts at ham handed fan service by shoe horning in clumsy references to characters from other series, and just medocre drama in general, you have a show that is farther from Star Trek than a 14 year old’s submission on IO9.
If you don’t really care,about Star Trek or know anything about it it can be entertaining I guess, but why watch it when there’s Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks and The Orville?
Don’t listen to the critics on the internet. If you’re not dying soon, watch it all. It’s Trek. It’s roughly 60% great, 30% mediocre to aged poorly, and 10% let’s never talk about it again.
I would go in rough order of release because they do like harkening back to stuff. Actually rewatching TOS will be good for SNW. And Disco S2 is its backdoor pilot.
Tell me more about this Star Trek that we are to never talk about
Janeway and Paris getting their lizard fuck on and having kids.
Code of Honor, Profit & Lace, Sub Rosa, …
I’ll be honest, I can’t remember all my particular criticisms, but here’s my impressions that I have left:
It’d be more accurately titled Star Trek: Burnham, because 95% of the time, every problem or mystery is somehow related to Burnham, everyone else is just supporting cast.
Like Picard, each season felt very disconnected from the others, there’s some continuity, but you could almost name the season based on the feel of an episode.
Plots more often than not felt underwhelming, as they were solved by essentially deus ex machina, mcguffins, surprise reveals or abrupt character changes.
It was largely visually ok, actors all did at least a decent job.
I have 0 desire to ever rewatch a single episode.
I think if you’re looking for a recommendation, both Strange New Worlds and Enterprise are better than Discovery.
If you were ok with Picard season 1, at worst you’ll be ok with Discovery.
I will say that Strange New Worlds is technically a spinoff of Discovery, so a watching Discovery first makes more sense if you’re planning on watching them all eventually anyway.
Discovery has good episodes, but probably more bad episodes than good episodes. If you’re binge watching, which you can do now that it’s all been released, it won’t be so bad. If you watch a bad episode, you’ll come across a good episode soon enough. When we had to watch week to week, it was rough going bad after bad, week to week.
Some people like it. Some people hate it. You’re going to have to make that determination for yourself. You’ll know by the time you get to season two which camp youre in
Personally I found the cast wasted on poor writing. And as someone else mentioned, the show concentrates entirely too much on Burnham. Half of the bridge crew you probably won’t know their names by the end of season one. There were a couple of bright spots — Saru’s backstory and character were well done.
Discovery is fine overall.
It may not be everyone’s favourite Trek but NO SINGLE SHOW IS EVERYONE’S FAVOURITE.
I’m stooping to yelling because, looking at it as someone who saw TOS in first run, it really can’t be stressed enough that there needs to be new Trek for every generation.
I didn’t expect that our GenZ kids would like Voyager best of the older shows.
And yes, for one of our GenZs, Discovery season one is ‘the best season of Trek’ ever. They have rewatched all the seasons of the show more than I have.
Discovery season 5 was fine in my view. I wasn’t fond of the series tacked on to the finale.
Season 4 of Discovery has a better premise and structure than Picard season 2 but both seem to suffer terribly from being shot under COVID restrictions. Other shows managed to write around the limitations without such stilted and drawn own scenes. I don’t know what Paramount instructed its writers teams be it’s boggling to see these seasons against the rest now.
I’m Genz, 25 years old and like the Voyager.
Most any criticism of the show is true. I will day that it is a good series to watch with people who haven’t watched Star Trek before because it is a little un-Trek-ish and there is less to stop and explain. Also, since the mission is top secret it has little overlap with anything except SNW.
As a Star Trek fan, I was happy to get more Trek, the same as I was happy to get more Picard (that S2 was a pain though!), Lower Decks, Prodigy, and even the Short Treks.
My wife was pulled into the world of Star Trek by Discovery (a full 36 years after I’d started watching the franchise) and now she loves it and wants to watch all of the other series. So, Discovery gets a point for that.
(I haven’t seen Section 31 yet. It is supposed to be very bad.)
Stop at Season 2 and it’s an ok time.
Discovery is my least preferred star trek I’ve watched so far, I mean, it’s not “bad” per se, it’s just different from the rest of star trek and has a different formula.
The thing with discovery is that everything happens really fast, there’s always a sense of urgency and hurry, but actual plot development happens really slowly.
Conflict takes a whole season to resolve, instead of standard one episode which you expect from a star trek show.
Also, I hate how the actors mumble instead of talking.
It’s not bad, it’s just not my favourite format.
i would watch all of the above. with discovery at the very least the first four seasons, because S2 is a backdoor season 0 of strange new worlds and S4 rocks but needs the context of the first 3. it can be very uneven but i don't think it gets bad as often as Picard did and doesn't stay bad for as long as Picard does. Enterprise is similar, a rough-at-times ride that does really pay off in S3
you're only gonna watch one, though, i'd do strange new worlds. it's essentially a return to the TOS/TNG format and has a stellar cast. and frankly you don't need to watch disco S2 to fully know what's going on, they explain everything- i only watched disco after snw S1 left me hungry for more. SNW is seemingly unique among trek shows in that every season has been less well recieved than the last, partly because the short seasons are increasingly dedicated to gag episodes, but i'd say with the exception of one particular stinker in S3, a weaker SNW episode is still gonna be better than most shows at their best
but also- you're your own person and may walk away from all of these series feeling someghing different! no harm on trying and if you hate something hey, it only cost you 40 minutes of your life
Eh, it's ok. I'd definitely rank it below many other Star Trek series, but if you've seen all the better ones already then Discovery is worth a watch
The worst Trek is still better to watch than a heck of a lot of other TV
I watched all of Discovery. It’s different, a bit too touchy-feely at times for me. But, the stories are interesting and wild.
OTH, I liked all of Picard, so maybe you shouldn’t take my view into account.
halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Discovery is fine. It takes some weird turns, sort of a necessity since they chose to make it a prequel with a unique propulsion system. And it is not like the 90s shows. And there’s a vocal group of fans that hate it just because it’s different, it was the first show coming back from the long show hiatus, and many are simply incapable of admitting that.
Picard’s seasons are all weird in their own way and with their own flaws, totally separate from Disco.
Watch the first season and make your own decision. Star Trek fans are some of the worst for having outsized online hatred of shit that doesn’t matter.
hallettj@leminal.space 1 day ago
The first season, and the first few episodes of season two take some extra weird turns because of the revolving door of producers during that period. The original producer left the show during season one. Then a duo took over who took the story in quite a different direction. Those two left in early season two. After that production finally settled into a more stable state.
Anyway the characters and acting are great, and that counts for a lot!