Star Trek Discovery: The Bryan Fuller TV reboot

wish any of my devices could reboot as quickly as discovery

Michael channeling Kirk in multiple scenes!

I feel like I got a few twinges of “this isn’t trek-like” which I don’t get, as I’m not married to the franchise and all for variation. I’m just becoming an old curmudgeon, now. But as Akiva Goldsman-like as some of the emotional beats were, I never jumped off board. I care about this crew!

Also, Book rallying yet again and ejecting that guy when he threatened the cat was beautiful

Is Cronenberg a permanent addition? He weirdly has a lot of speaking time that they didn't need to give him.

I was also surprised he appeared again. His parts were always with the small handful of characters, so I assume they filmed them all in the same stretch

I can't get over how this season's big mystery came down to some Kelpian adult child's hissy fit (I'm an asshole but this is a fictional show who fucking cares)

I hate this fucking show and wish I was better at stopping shows I start watching

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2020 season is nominated in the 2020 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2020 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 29, 2021

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ4CkuDx5LE

rewatching season one and it's rather better than i recalled

Have rewatched first two seasons and part way through third but will now have to find other means to watch as Paramount+ have made the dick move of removing it from Netflix with immediate effect despite P+ or whatever it's called not going to be available internationally until March 2022 at the earliest.

i don't think anything past season one made it to free-to-air uk tv

I didn't realize that season 4 is upon us!

I think I've figured out why I have trouble comprehending this show. It changes the time structure structure of a Star Trek show in a bad way.

the old formula (TOS/TNG/VOY at least):
Cold open: Mundane Starfleet routine, then something mysterious happens (2-5 minutes)
opening credits
story that follows from the mystery, possibly with a b-plot as well

the new formula (DIS):
Mini adventure (10 minutes)
opening credits
Lore update: the state of starfleet, or a look at an alien planet, or a bit of character development (10-15 minutes)
then the main story starts

Two problems with this:
The "lore" portion FEELS like it's a first act, but it isn't. It doesn't lead into anything.

It takes too long to get to the main story. By the time it starts, the main story feels like a C-plot because there have been at least two threads started already, although those threads are usually never returned to.

I'm not saying that Star Trek needs to go back to the old formula -- it feels stale after awhile. Just that the new formula has those new problems.

That's not a Trek-specific thing -- in fact, I remember people complaining about how the first act for the Simpsons didn't relate to any of the other plots of the rest of the episodes, and that was probably 10 years ago.

I think the swerve in The Simpsons is humorous in how it goes against expectations -- although now that it's a standardized formula, the joke no longer works.

that Paramount move is infuriating - i was looking forward to watching this over the xmas holidays, was excellent braindead fare last year - now i can't see myself being bothered and I certainly don't need -another- fucking streaming service in my life

First ep of new season... I find it extremely irritating that its a jllion years in the future and ships getting hit - despite all the sheild tech - flail around, and explode in sparks internally. WHY.

I could make something up about shields and weapons being in an arms race but yeah it doesn't make sense.

lol for every complaint like this there are five about how why isn't trek like it used to be

i mean i hear you cluckin' but also there has to be some sort of danger conveyed, if ideally not demonstrated by weird flash pots

I've never understood 'shields' as a Star Trek concept tbh.

One of my favorite parts of the Expanse was space battles requiring people to pressure suit up because every bullet will just zip through the tin ships are made of.

if it weren't for radiation/gravitational anomalies/etc. starfleet vessels would just solve everything instantly

i do like to see them *try* to explain why they're helpless tho, and at least heisenberg compensators are old-school legit

star trek is optimistic; the expanse points out that all this shit is so difficult as to be almost pointless

Yeah, I don't mean it's better as a sci-fi trope, it's just fun to see bullets zip through one side of the hull and out the other with everyone going "oh shiiiiit"

Having recently watched TOS it’s now v amusing how Burnham is like Kirk turned up to 11 in terms of being the first to go on offworld missions for any and everything, the more ill advised the better

I do enjoy Disco but I dont approach it like Other Trek, to be sure.

Kind of want Saru to stay where he is, and have a fleshed out storyline on his world.

https://intl.startrek.com/news/star-trek-discovery-season-four-lands-on-paramount-pluto-tv-internationally time to find out what pluto is

And here I was thinking they landed on Goofy.

Thank you for this information stet

Look forward to renewing my acquaintance with this silly show

Pluto is cool. This show is cool. "Let's Fly" as the captain's catchphrase order is not cool at all.

we're four seasons in and i *want* to like this but 50 minutes of 'people grieve in different ways' is just terrible

and every time they reference burnham growing up on vulcan simply makes a joke of how everything she does is weepy emotional

at least that one guy (bryce?) got to suggest something?

make grudge the center of the show imo

oh no! my dead soulmate is going to blah blah blah reincarnate! but what if i can't measure up to them! oh no!

This was probably my favorite episode, largely because of how much it made me laugh -- sometimes intentionally, sometimes less so: the random flame jets on the bridge, fr'instance.

That said, yeah, I do wish that not every episode has to involve some galaxy- or identity-shifting inflection point.

Haha yes once again I have the gripe I had last week. When the ship was getting battered by those grav waves, why was there... like, literal rubble? All over the deck? The hell?

Losing gravity suddenly was a cool thing to happen and they dont do that much on shows like this so that was cool.

Burnham is becomign a freaking hypocrite. Last week she was being accused of taking too many risks and she got all huffy and defended it... then she goes and accuses book of the same thing!

But man, this anomaly better turn out to be some giant space alien/actual enemy because do not sit here and tell me this season is them going to war with Space, that is just ... NO..

mr veg has been joking about the rubble, like are they building with concrete in space?

also pyro budget must be sizeable, sparks & fireballs like the bloody wizard of oz

Just starting S2 and by god I will get through it this time but man I miss Sisko playing baseball with his idol and bridge crew string quartet shows. Grimdark is probably a bit extreme as a description but it's getting close.

Yeah stakes being pushed to such extremes means that all the side characters don't get fleshed out, in addition to the very shallow way the main characters are all overachieving Dunning Kruger idiots.

The Ba’ul sentry ship CGI was Doctor Who level crappy.

hi, i'm a qowat milat. i get to completely change my morality from time to time based on how i feel like defining the word 'hopeless'. (maybe someday one of us will take up the 'lost cause' of the confederacy!) it's *possible* that a mysterious space anomaly *could* turn in my direction at any time, giving me license to murder at will. i can use spaceships and transporters, but if you even ask me detailed questions about my actions -- let alone interfere with them -- i must regretfully kill you with a sword, because thousand-year-old stun technology is beyond me, as is bothering to hide my identity. i am a lone wolf who cannot seek help, except for when i'm attacking other peoples' spaceships and need accomplices in non-speaking roles. i live my life with absolute candor but see no contradictions in any of this.

fuckin romulans, man

This episode bugged the heck out of me. A good half of it felt like wasted "I have feelings and I dont know how to deaaaalll with them" rambles that did not service the plot. The whole discovery and rescuing of the entirely new species was almost an afterthought. They didnt even mention First Contact directives, cmon guys you're trying to restore the Federation can you not maybe follow its rules? No lets just boondoggle a fix for a massive, long broken ship in 10 minutes flat and then go "ok theyre good to go lets take off". Buh?

yeah i had similar thoughts about this one
show definitely weights emotional journeys over actual plot / things happening

i appreciate that (some of!) their experiences have future consequences -- remember when picard spent 50 subjective years with a family on a dying planet in 'the inner light' and it apparently didn't change him at all? and the characters *should* be pretty fucked up emotionally!

but having everyone tilt their heads at each other and blurt platitudes like 'i'm here for you' and 'everyone must grieve in their own way' isn't very compelling to watch either

Tilly with her therapy babble this week was really pushing me over the edge

Yeah Tillys character is starting to grate on me. She has a shipmate who just lost his whole family, race, and planet and she has to talk about how she fits in. Read the room lass.

This show moves sooooo slow. I can't tell if we've been on Sad Spock for three episodes or six.

for me this show is just a wait station for the Captain Pike show

I have hopes for the Section 31 show, Yeoh is great but they're going to have to make her more than the Joker in Space.

oh i forgot abt that- that oughta be good too

I've been thinking that Disco is a deconstruction of TNG-era Roddenberryism, where humanity has leveled up, everyone is a hyper-competent professional, and there aren't (supposed to be) interpersonal conflicts -- all edicts which the writers hated. I wonder if Disco is trying to show how unrealistic that idealism is, and that's why all the main characters constantly overestimate their objectivity, ability to compartmentalize, etc. Except in Disco, the characters never seem to learn their lessons and keep making the same mistakes, which compounds the "Being so emotionally invested in the situation makes me the PERFECT candidate for this mission" kind of emotional stuntedness that really bugs in this era of nu Trek.

that is a good observation!

i think Disco just has bad writers tbh