Star Trek Discovery: The Bryan Fuller TV reboot

i keep watching this season and it's all watchable but never great or even GOOD really. michael burnham takes a test and the crew plays musical chairs with positions. the serial killer bad guys are treated with kid gloves and every decision michael burnham makes ends up working. michael burnham michael burnham michael burnham.

latest episode has an absolute classic “we are in grave peril but must take 5 to talk about feelings” scene - also a “you got this” - but sadly no-one “feels seen” so can only award four stars (it was a pretty fun one and I am genuinely mildly intrigued re the finale)

Was there a specific & unrealistic countdown involved? Literally every episode of STD includes someone saying "we've only got 45 minutes to solve this problem!" And usually it's a weird problem that contains a scale of information beyond human comprehension, originating from a long-dead civilization or in a language no one understands... to which Burnham will helpfully say "I need ideas, let's figure this out!"

if that's part of some kind of STD bingo game, you won!
but if it's some kind of "take a shot" game, you're dead of alcohol poisoning!

Well, that was the most tedious series finale of all time

Star Trek: Tedium

these lord of the rings endings should be illegal

ENOUGH

JUST END IT FFS

Well it was fortuitous we've been watching Enterprise at the moment...
Kovich is DANIELS!? I said "OH MY GOD" loudly at the screen at that. I honestly thought he was gonna turn out to be a Q.

That bit aside, yeah this was like 30 mins too long - the whole coda was a snorefest of back-patting indulgence.

Angry Saru was pretty cool though.

I was planning to watch this season - but now, maybe not.

Unrelatedly I only just learnt about this originally being a Rod song from Patch Adams (!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxB349lLgPo

I don’t know my Star Trek lore enough to understand that agent Daniels reference.

He’s a major part of the Enterprise storyline, he’s a time cop, but not a bad one like Braxton.

Apparently they filmed the entire season not realizing it would be the end, so the writers scrambled to write and shoot a satisfying series conclusion. That at least explains why it felt so separate from the main plot, and why so few actors were present. But also? I cannot grasp what her final mission was supposed to be. She seemed to leave Book and their son so casually, but then left in a massive starship all by herself? Huh?

The extended epilogue also overshadowed the fact that the original planned conclusion of the season was a total whiff. After all that macguffin chasing, they finally meet the progenitor and have their hands in the tech are basically just like… nah, don’t want that.

tbf braxton went through some shit

getting ready to suffer through this

I cannot grasp what her final mission was supposed to be.

It took me a bit, but it was a loopback to the Short Treks ep "calypso" where the ship's been all on its own for years and then a guy comes along and talks to the ship AI. Which I'd forgot all about. As to *why*, Ive no freaking idea, it wasnt really made clear.

But anyway, other thoughts:
I was a bit meh about the idea that they go to SO MUCH TROUBLE FETCHQUESTING to find this stupid tech, then Burnham just goes "ya know what. No one needs this, its too much" and fucking yeets it into a black hole. Did she even ask anyone else's opinion first? None of them seemed to care she did that??

After all that, Laak just dies, I guess? And Moll is just sulking? Is she gonna be hired by Kovich for some section 31 or timecop shenans?

Saru and Trinas wedding was v pretty. Was rather odd of Michael and Book to just nope out and not say goodbye to anyone though. As Jeffrey Combs would say - Rude!

somehow appropriate that they made the finale the worst episode of the entire series.

I actually quite enjoyed the first hour - I was expecting a far worse conclusion to the dopey season plot, I thought the visuals were actually pretty cool - the last 30 mins was colossal toss but in its own way this was quite on brand for Discovery

but far out so many fucking hugs ffs

I kind of like the idea that David Cronenberg's entire mission in life is to fix Star Trek canon continuity problems.
Not the character Cronenberg plays. I mean actual David Cronenberg.

well that was pointless.
tng did it in a first season episode where riker becomes a q. i didn't buy it that time either.
if you could prevent children from being murdered, would you really not do it? prevent a little suffering. warm your socks. you don't need to do big things with the technology.

discovery's writers' room spent time on the real issues:

That was an ongoing writers' room debate. According to canon, Klingons have two organs, they have two of everything, right? So we had this debate. When we say two of everything, does that include the penis? I think this was something that (director Akiva Goldsman) really liked the notion of. He just kept joking, 'Klingons have two dicks, Klingons have two dicks.' And then he finally went ahead and showed it on television.

blessed

The episode showing that also had Cliff Howard as an Orion drug slinger when the crew goes undercover, I believe.

just reflecting this morning on the total wrong-headedness of finishing your series with a tiny bit of continuity housekeeping that addresses a short film that nobody has actually seen

(and also to have the Cronenberg reveal be a callback to the least-watched (?) of all trek shows without any explanation for viewers who don't have that context)

Supposedly had they done a season six, it would have used that short as the basis for its plot. Of course when you realize you only have the time and budget to film a 20 minute summation of the series, that may be the time to leave that plot idea behind.

Yeah it was only sheer chance I've been finally watching Enterprise so the reveal was really relevant and an OMG moment for me. I'll be honest, I'm enjoying ENT way more than I thought I would!

I'd usually agree with the sentiment that this kind of ridiculous fussiness is unnecessary but c'mon this is the series whose central premise is the main character is SPOCK'S SISTER ARMIN TAMZARIAN WHOM WE WILL NEVER SPEAK OF AGAIN BECAUSE CONTINUITY -- pointless convoluted callbacks is 90% of the show!

Yeah I did find myself thinking "what has happened to her Vulcanness?". Am I right in recalling she was very stiff and Vulcan in her demenour in S1 cos of how she was brought up? All that just went out the window eventually. I honestly wonder why they even had that storyline - it didnt really add/enhance anything canon.

Vulcan sisterhood was ridic contrived but I was ultimately fine with it as a pretext to bring Spock into the show - the Spock era of Disco is probably my favourite bit

and would cheerfully argue there is quite a difference between referencing Short Treks and referencing universally-recognised Trek icon ACTUAL SPOCK