Star Trek Discovery: The Bryan Fuller TV reboot

heh should have mentioned i did quite enjoy this episode! altho can’t help thinking that s1-s2 gonzo discovery would have got here by about ep 4 and spent 3 eps hallucinating inside 10-C’s hyperstructure before undergoing a shocking paradigm shift that changed everything, with Detmer revealed to be the borg queen

that moment where Michael & Saru have their yelling therapy moment in the middle of idk diplomatic negotiations? idk idk but omg it just about brought me to full red mist like are you fucking kidding me with this fucking shit

ha yeah and Saru fretting about getting laid with 4 hours left til the destruction of the universe… actually when i put it like that maybe it seems reasonable

lmao

i guess yelling scenes are necessary when the pacing is so s l o w

i mean it took them a whole episode just to get through the galactic barrier! this flash, i love you but we only have 48 hours to save the earth mission is going to be fully half the season

also way too much time spent on tarka, and book being endlessly stupid about tarka, but, you know, ~grieving~

yeah otm re book, hes been charlie brown footballed by tarka the whole fkn time

and deep eternal eyerolls over this fkn emotion based math language i am so over it all yet here i am watching bc it might get good again 😬

tbh i like the language stuff even if it's ripped straight out of arrival. it beats the endless aliens who are just humans with weird nose wrinkles or whatever

true

i found the language stuff irritating bc it all seemed to meaningless handwavery but i was in a bad mood by then anyway

have not seen this in a while is tarka an otter?

to a species as technologically advanced as the 10C, we must all seem like otters

(but, sadly, no he is not)

he is however a weasel

:D

lol v.good!

I haven't felt compelled to pick this back up especially now that Picard might possibly be watchable -- seems like it's a justifiable choice!

sadly yeah

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6Q86-MUsAY5yow.jpg

that moment where Michael & Saru have their yelling therapy moment in the middle of idk diplomatic negotiations? idk idk but omg it just about brought me to full red mist like are you fucking kidding me with this fucking shit

Agreed. I was like "do you WANT people to stop liking this show guys? FFS". There was NO sense of urgency around working out the communication issue.

And Tarka is a fuckwit.

briefly wondered, in the finale, if tilly and vance were gonna bang

heh I accidentally unhid that comment before I saw it and of course could think of nothing else during those scenes

in the bit where Burnham describes to the 10C that she's sad cos one of the ones who died on that ship was her special one - it would have been a really good jape if they had space magicked Tarka back to life instead

overall this season was a very 6/10 viewing experience - actually that is probably a bit generous?

The pacing really undermined this season (i.e. the endless Stuart Smalley affirmations) which was disappointing considering some of the spectacular visuals. It probably should have been 10 episodes.

i liked thd finale okay, some good moments … but when they were talking to the 10C i was like, all this imprecise language & feelings & belonging whatever like how would they even get wtf you are talking about YOU KNOW YOU DONT *SHARE* A LANGUAGE right!?

ugh so annoying

I might be weary but I thought the finale was fine and a reasonable conclusion!

An OK ending, but Book being returned was obvious. I even used the phrase "he'll come back a la Close Encounters" and there he was, being delivered in a big ball of light, silouhette wallking towards them.

The leap from "thats too nuanced a concept to convey" to "I am going to use full sentences with cultural concepts and you will totes understand it all" within the space of what had to be an hour bugged me quite a bit.

Also, why the eff didnt the NiVar president lady just use her telepathy hours earlier mightve saved loads of trouble?

OH and lol in the bit where Burnham describes to the 10C that she's sad cos one of the ones who died on that ship was her special one - it would have been a really good jape if they had space magicked Tarka back to life instead

I had the same thought! "...what, wrong guy?"

coked-up Season 2 Disco might’ve had the balls to do it - and then reveal that he’s mirror universe Burnham’s father and also half-Gorn and a fanatical disciple of Sybok

that would have been so good

feels like this season was the most conventionally Star Trekky? or at least aiming for that, pulling back on the head-spinning ultra-compressed narrative, plot jackknifes and weird stuff with mushrooms - i guess they started to change tack last season but the jump to a far future setting distracted from it maybe

anyway feel like it is in danger of settling down into a “mid-to-late Voyager” vibe - i mean for all i know that is now a prized aesthetic but it felt pretty boring at the time

or maybe i am just doing that fan thing of hating whatever is the current version of the show - i mean I don’t really identify as a Discovery Fan… but i guess i watch it

I'm glad it ditched the grimdark but I think the under defined characters with ad hoc development has been with the show from the start (Saru and Burnham going from antagonistic rivals to BFFs in basically 1 episode where he thinks he's dying). It's also really fine for the workplace as family thing except filtered through an embarrassing amount of sentimentality.

Voyager was boring and corny and I ended up giving up on that show too so maybe you're onto something, because Disco is imo a bad show full stop.

Really INTO, not fine for.

voyager at least had seven and the doctor, who (if occasionally put into cringy situations) were good characters

the tension that burnham's presence caused in s01 was legit good, and jason isaacs has ~presence~. but since then it's been all kumbaya sprinkled with detmer's ptsd (okay, but rote) and bryce and reese arguing about book (risible)

at this point i like owo, reno, grudge and kovach; don't care about the rest

i guess i complain about this a lot but keep watching! oh well

I quit after a few eps of season 3, guess I’m not missing much. At least there doesn’t seem like a legit reason to watch this rather than carry on my long slow trawl through ds9 (mid season 2 now…)

But generally I agree the show is bad. Even the worst TOS/TNG/DS9 episodes have their wonderful casts and groovy/haunting period aesthetics to fall back on; I don’t get much from the writing or the performances here (or in Picard). I liked the three leads from Strange New Worlds though, so… maybe

And the aesthetics are just too “streaming show shot in Canada”

Stamets and the Doctor were good characters and Book for most of his first season but they've dragged them down to wallow with the rest of the cast.

I've just picked back up on the back half of the most recent season because my mom needs someone to complain to about how bad it is, really really hate the Federation President. One off bad political bosses are fine in ST IMO but they don't need to show up and meddle in every episode.

i actually involuntarily groaned aloud in the finale when the doctor said 'i needed to be here with my family'

I had to really think back to even remember there'd been some good plotlines! The whole mirror universe arc/Bad Isaacs, even part of the earlier Ash/Burnham story (after the klingon bit mostly fucked off). The spore drive discovery, chasing the red stars... ok so everythign til they jumped 900 years effectively.

Bring on the Pike and Kirk show, please.

Remember when there's a huge battle going on and thousands of people are dying and Burnham and Spock take a time out to chat about their feelings instead of getting on with it?

This show did that a LOT and it was very baffling.

it's not as pithy, but "jump cut to the ready room where everything is soft focus and ferns and water features, and Michael and Saru gently touch each other's upper forearms and express their appreciation for togetherness at this difficult time" ranks beside "make it saab" in the canon of unforgettable ST summaries. It's taking me forever to get through this damn series.

First episode of S5, still not great. Less terrible therapy talk but the dialogue (and way they shot dialogue scenes) was stilted and awkward.

Oh wow, didn't even know it was back

First ep was ... so busy. I've been watching a lot ofold trek + lower decks lately, so going back to the shaky-cam and lens-flare CGI everything tone of DISC was a bit of whiplash.

But!

I was pleased to see a lot more Trek fanservice in ep 2. Self sealing stem bolts! Picard! Mentions of the Breen! A Soongian android! (he was great - wish they hadnt killed him off) The progenitors! If that/they will be the main storyline btw I am all for it. Now, I guess I need to rewatch "The Chase" to get it in my head again.

In summary, I feel like the showrunners may have actually learned something from the reception SNW and LD has had, and started applying it here too?

How did I miss this was back? They must’ve done zero promo… I bought pizza last night and actively wished that I could eat it watching a schlocky ep of Disco (ended up watching Repo Man fyi)

i like the story but same w trayce the style felt jarrong this time. and the action sequences especially all felt like sooo stupid! it was like they were going for starwars pod race vibes. super dumb

space surfing? please fuck off.

*jarring

Yeah Burnham riding the outside of a ship in warp? GTFO with that. And yeah I had Star Wars vibes all thru this ep as well!

OH. And reading a recap just now, reminds me of the scene where the new cap'n on the Antares exclaims "70% for the win!" which REALLY clanged. That stupid phrase is dated NOW, let alone 100s of years from now, ugh.

lame