New Star Trek series - 2017
- Thread starter Spit
- Start date
Typical.. One episode left and no development at all. Guarenteed the last episode has nothing to do with the progenator tech and what it is, and it's all about Burman saving the day and her feelings. What a load of crap this series. This make Voyager look like a masterpiece.
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Soldato
Hey, look at that. They finally figured out how to write Rayner. A buck too short and several days too late, but I appreciate the effort.
Mary Sue Burnham The Ever Right™ now able to plot out a strategy because she knows all the weaknesses of the Breen ship. How? Presumably from reading the script, because Lord knows she didn't get it from anywhere else...
The final episode is going to be Burnham vs Moll then, which even for Discovery doesn't seem like it'll be a thrilling match-up. A charmless, witless protagonist against a charmless, witless antagonist. 'Woo'.
Barring something absolutely revelatory happening in the finale I've got to wonder how they took TNG's "The Chase", expanded it out to ten episodes instead of one, and somehow told less of a story featuring fewer characters???
At least Doug Jones was in this one. File under 'thanking God for small mercies'.
Mary Sue Burnham The Ever Right™ now able to plot out a strategy because she knows all the weaknesses of the Breen ship. How? Presumably from reading the script, because Lord knows she didn't get it from anywhere else...
The final episode is going to be Burnham vs Moll then, which even for Discovery doesn't seem like it'll be a thrilling match-up. A charmless, witless protagonist against a charmless, witless antagonist. 'Woo'.
Barring something absolutely revelatory happening in the finale I've got to wonder how they took TNG's "The Chase", expanded it out to ten episodes instead of one, and somehow told less of a story featuring fewer characters???
At least Doug Jones was in this one. File under 'thanking God for small mercies'.
Like the 4 previous series I've really enjoyed it. I don't expect Shakespearian content to dissect and over analyse. I just want to be entertained and I think this series generally does that. I guess I'm shallow and easy to please
Like the 4 previous series I've really enjoyed it. I don't expect Shakespearian content to dissect and over analyse. I just want to be entertained and I think this series generally does that. I guess I'm shallow and easy to please
How though, how can you enjoy this? This week episode they find themselves between two black holes and tilly with my clue other than it's written badly in the script tells the crew that she's got the answer. Just fly to these coordinates and we'll be fine..
There's no threats in the whole series when every character has humungous plot armour.. It's beyond stupid.
For me I can't enjoy something I can remotely take seriously and the dialog is so awful I ask myself why the hell have I watched so many series of this crap.
I'm truly ashamed of myself.
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Soldato
Neither do I. But some intelligence in the writing might have not gone amiss?
But no. Here we are, incompetently remaking a TNG episode but stretching it over a ten-show season, with half the regular cast AWOL for most of it and the other half sidelined in order to elevate Michael Burnham, The Ever Right, Saviour, One True Light Of The Galaxy And Beyond™ to Godhood.
And they're still - after five seasons, still! - making the same old mistakes. Still telegraphing plot twists light years in advance, still writing by the seat of their pants, still letting the pacing of episodes completely **** the bed while discussing how we feel about whatever pointlessness is going on around us...
Soldato
It's a good job our saviour had timetabled in 5 minutes to have a heart to heart in the middle of a covert mission where time and efficiency, also relying on others was all critical in carrying off the mission. Her character either whispers everything or talks so fast it's pointless trying to keep track of whatever point she is trying to bully across. She has all the hallmarks of a bad manager and a bad leader. Every other captain in this show has been written so much better. In this series Tilly would have been a better captain.
Ha! Thought the same thing.
No, Tilly is on par as for me as being as equally annoying as Burnham. They can both go into an airlock for all i care.
Tilly is one of my highlights of the show. I actually like her compared to Michael. Her character has actually grown so much since it started.
Seriously? She was a bumbling wreck at the start which continued through the middle, right to the end where she is now a lesser bumbling wreck and teaching at the Academy? Out of all the crew, their age and experiences, she is the one chosen to be Number 1? GTFO. "It’s like making the work experience kid the Company Director".
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Not just a bumbling wr3ck as you put it. Anxiety and confidence issues and if you went back to S1 you'd see what a difference there is.
But that's just my view and opinion. Neither do I think the show is a total train wreck. I watch 5o be entertained and it does that.
I think some people expect too much from TV these days and that's why so much disappointment.
I agree Tilly has grown, but not to the extent of being a No 1.
Granted there aren't that many to choose from, everytime Burnham gives an order on the Bridge, the Bridge Crew just look at each other and follow orders blindly. But there are other crew ie Reno. But putting Tilly in charge is like giving Wesley Crusher the job. Or is it that Tilly is the least worst option?
Just caught up. Looks nice but the script has been written by a child.
How do the Breen survive through a day without being told what to do by an outsider?
There just seems zero threat to anyone except their own utter stupidity.
Why am I still watching this? and why does it keep getting renewed?
How do the Breen survive through a day without being told what to do by an outsider?
There just seems zero threat to anyone except their own utter stupidity.
Why am I still watching this? and why does it keep getting renewed?
Soldato
u/Rendesi3 on the reddits reviewed the latest episode better than I ever could.
Not the first episode of Trek that could have been resolved before the end of the teaser, but definitely one of the more stupid examples.
Not the first episode of Trek that could have been resolved before the end of the teaser, but definitely one of the more stupid examples.
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Soldato
For the penultimate episode what a waste of the runtime.
Soldato
As expected the final episode was a let down, you can tell the people writing these things have no grasp on story or any life experience at all. All I can say is thank god its over.
Soldato
Right then. For the, thankfully, last time - a Discovery commentary.
5x10 - Life, Itself
5x10 - Life, Itself
Memory Alpha said:
1) Recap serving only to underscore just how wretched this all is.
2) VFX team put in some overtime.
3) Oh, drat. Burnham lived.
4) Tries to hail the Disco because that bunch of galactic misfits is exactly who you'd want in a crisis.
5) No dice. But it gives her the opportunity to deliver exposition out loud.
6) Bored already.
7) Mary Sue Burnham The Ever Right™ making several leaps in logic to determine what it is she's looking at. Which will doubtless be vindicated by the script.
8) Oh, please jump. That'd improve things.
9) More VFX.
10) And a rough ride into the next section, which sadly still fails to kill her.
11) A spot of weather. And a dead/dying Breen.
12) Still trying to call the ship.
13) And now a living Breen making a running tackle.
14) Gratuitous slo-mo.
15) Gratuitous hand-to-hand combat. Kirk-fu in TOS was much more entertaining to watch.
16) Of course Burnham wins the fight against an armoured aggressor.
17) Deus ex machina. Or is it deus ex Burnham?
18) Another burst of slo-mo. Quick pause while I look up who directed this crap...Olatunde Osunsanmi, who was responsible for some of my least favourite Discovery episodes. Explains a lot.
19) Slo-mo Burnham jump, as the soundtrack goes for 'epic' but hits 'meh' before it can get there.
20) This is all stupid and terrible and I hate it.
21) And she's made it back to the platform where she started.
22) Dynamic entrance from Breen. Followed by even more dynamic entrance from Moll. Who is trailing blood at a rate that probably shouldn't leave her standing.
23) Burnham tossing her a dermal regenerator to tend her wound. *record scratch* Pausing again. A dermal regenerator for a sliced femoral artery? These things before now have been shown to repair cuts, grazes and burns. I don't believe even in this far-far-far-future Trek we've ever seen one do that kind of surgery? Plus, she's already bled out a bunch.
24) Witless dialogue ensues.
25) This is all still stupid and terrible and I'm hating it more and more.
26) And all I win for sitting through that 11 minutes of dreck is the Discovery intro and theme.
27) Still, at least the light coma that this puts me into will be restful.
28) Only amusement is counting the people with a producer-level credit, which must comfortably outweigh any other role in the production.
29) More VFX.
30) Back with the Discoball. Spinny camera. Flamethrowers. Sparks. Lights.
31) Boredom.
32) This pair at the front even less compelling to watch than Owo and Detmer would have been. At least those two got an attempt at fleshing out their characters from the showrunners.
33) Vague approximation of witty dialogue between Rayner and Ensign Ricky #3.
34) Breen fighter craft flying in to pound on the Discoball some more.
35) Meanwhile with Vance, Nhan and Saru.
36) Saru and Nhan volunteering for an entertaining opportunity for suicide.
37) Oh, God. "The crew of Discovery is family to us both, Admiral." Please sod right off with the lame attempts at making this crew a band of brothers. It doesn't land
38) Witless dialogue continuing between Burnham and Moll.
39) Devolving into gratuitous fight.
40) Spinny cam.
41) And now a forest with a magenta filter.
42) A sprinkle more witless dialogue.
43) I expect this is meant to be exciting.
44) I just heard Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool fangirling about superhero landings with that one from Moll.
45) Fighting in the fire. Kirk and Kruge did this bit better in the third film.
46) Osunsanmi really got fond of slo-mos for this one.
47) The Discoball still running from the Breen fighters and chasing the portal.
48) Exposition piled upon exposition.
49) And Rayner deciding on Plan B - space battle.
50) Book going to take a shuttle, just as soon as someone's worked out how to keep him safe from all the radiation around the portal.
51) Engineering has quickly built a MacGuffin for the radiation issue. Very quickly. Almost as if they already had it ready to go. Which begs the question - why wasn't it already fitted anyway????
52) Episode crashing to a shuddering halt while they waste time talking about this. This series never did get away from that.
53) Culber going with him. So the episode slows down even more as he and Stamets talk about it all. Still, at least their relationship is halfway convincing. Unlike...well, pick another relationship shown in this dumpster fire of a show.
54) Burnham and Moll still fighting, having made it back up to the platforms off-screen.
55) Witless dialogue. And whispering.
56) And boredom. So much boredom.
57) Meanwhile on the bridge, no cliché left untouched with Rayner's 'time to switch from defence to offence' line.
58) Tilly with a plan that Ensign Rickette #6 is going to explain.
59) Hang on. This is just a variation of the Riker Maneuver from Insurrection, isn't it?
60) More witless dialogue between Burnham and Moll. And leaps in logic.
61) Burnham The Ever Right™.
62) A wide eyed look from Burnham. Cussing from Moll.
63) Saru and Nhan have caught up to the Breen fleet.
64) Doug Jones remains one of the few bright points about this series.
65) "You speak of 'maybes' and 'mights'. I offer certainty." See, this is what I never got about this series. Occasionally they'll screw up and write a line as good as that. And then the rest of the time it's complete trash.
66) No-sell. But Saru a half-step ahead.
67) Burnham and Moll slogging through the field.
68) Exposition.
69) Sex position joke. My heart's not really in it, but there you go.
70) If you don't know what's about to happen long before it does, then you ain't been watching this show.
71) Pacing has all but disappeared now.
72) Book trying to hail Burnham.
73) Yep, there we go from 70). 'Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal', and all that.
74) Moll builds a triangle with the interface, which won't do what she wants. Because she's stupid.
75) Exposition on the Discoball.
76) The Riker Maneuver worked.
77) But the dreadnought is back in the game.
78) VFX team still earning their corn.
79) Culber with the insight. Deux ex scriptwriter.
80) Tractor lock.
81) Meanwhile with Saru and Nhan.
82) Saru engaging in some psychology.
83) And poker. Not quite Kirk against Balok, but pretty decent. Also, that 'look into my eyes, you think I am bluffing?' bit? Easily 1,001% more badass than anything Burnham has ever done.
84) Burnham waking up from the clonk on the head.
85) Jesus H. tapdancing Christ, there are young kids at nurseries who can figure out this puzzle quicker than these idiots!
86) Burnham's elevation to Godhood complete.
87) A Progenitor.
88) And, somehow, a slow episode gets even slower.
89) "Time functions differently in here." And, indeed, in the Discovery writers room.
90) For once, Trek getting Magic Fun Time With DNA™ right. Broken clocks, and all that.
91) There have been many, many better works examining the whole "technology is neutral, it's what you do with it that counts" deal than this. In the Trek wider universe see "Federation", by Judy and Gar Reeves-Stevens. Later Trek productions left it irreconcilable with canon (First Contact, for one) but it's a brilliant book.
92) Mystery piles upon mystery.
93) Book and Culber. Exposition.
94) No real answers, but it's alright. Again the writers screwing up and coming up with something vaguely worthy.
95) VFX.
96) Saru with the late breaking update.
97) Rayner and Tilly back-and-forth.
98) Exposition layered with Treknobabble layered with witless dialogue. The unholy trinity of Discovery script writing.
99) A plan. A stupid plan, but a plan nonetheless.
100) Back to clichés.
101) And, unfortunately, back with Burnham. And exposition.
102) Stupid, terrible, hate it.
103) Exposition still wanging on.
104) Rayner's plan, shuffled to the background in all of this expository BS from the Progenitor to Burnham, worked. Because the spore drive is, in fact, actual magic.
105) It's still going on.
106) Showing Burnham a part of creation.
107) Aaaaaaaand back to the platform, to break the news to Moll that - for her, at least - this was all a gigantic waste of time.
108) Witless dialogue between Book and Burnham.
109) Having been at a snail's pace for most of the episode, now we're just racing past bits in order to get to the next slow, talk-about-our-feelings scene.
110) Whispering. Of course.
111) IDIC getting a namedrop.
112) Burnham The Ever Right™ is the one who gets to make the decision about the Progenitor tech. Of course.
113) Quick pause. I suppose we should be glad that they didn't use the Progenitor tech as a fix-all for this universe - bringing back Book's planet and people, for example. I still can't help but think 'is that it?' though. One again an idea that showed some kind of promise very early on founders on the rocky coast of the We Can't Write For **** Bay.
114) Book visiting Moll in the sickbay.
115) Who is going with 'snotty', though even someone as terminally stupid as her must realise that she brought it all on herself.
116) Witless dialogue.
117) Kovich exposition with Burnham.
118) He really is an utter waste of David Cronenberg.
119) Yeah, yeah, Burnham's awesome, we get it
120) Gratuitous references to other Trek. The Chateau Picard bottle, Geordi's VISOR, Sisko's baseball.
121) The 'reveal', such as it is, that Kovich is Daniels from Enterprise and the Temporal Cold War crapola.
122) Saru and T'Rina married, in a seemingly very human ceremony and reception.
123) Yes, yes, let's talk about our feelings some more. That won't make the audience want to vomit up their own internal organs.
124) And a hook for the Academy series.
125) Did Book just say "Talaxian" pirates? As in, Neelix's lot? How in God's name are they still around, and how on Earth could they possibly have delayed him?
126) Witless dialogue continues.
127) And continues.
128) It's still continuing.
129) And on, and on, and on...
130) Book and Burnham back on then.
131) Kovich wants another word.
132) Here goes the timeskipped coda then, which AFAIK was written and filmed after the showrunners decided season five was to be the end of this dreck.
133) An older Burnham and Book.
134) Space deer! Conspicuously CG'd.
135) This guy is Burnham and Book's son, then.
136) Witless dialogue.
137) Wahey, a 47 reference with the shuttle hull number. Joe Menosky began inserting references to the number during his time on TNG, and the trend caught on.
138) More conspicuously CG'd animals.
139) Witless dialogue between mother and son continues.
140) Undoing the change in look on the Discoball, presumably to get it back in sync with the Short Trek episode "Calypso"?
141) Zora.
142) About to get abandoned in space. So yeah, 140) confirmed.
143) Witless dialogue between Burnham and Zora.
144) At least Detmer and Owo made it into the episode. Even if it was only in dream/flashback.
145) Jesus, just put a bullet in the show's head already...
146) Honour guard for the Disco's departure.
147) Buh-bye.
148) The adventure continues. Just not on this show.
2) VFX team put in some overtime.
3) Oh, drat. Burnham lived.
4) Tries to hail the Disco because that bunch of galactic misfits is exactly who you'd want in a crisis.
5) No dice. But it gives her the opportunity to deliver exposition out loud.
6) Bored already.
7) Mary Sue Burnham The Ever Right™ making several leaps in logic to determine what it is she's looking at. Which will doubtless be vindicated by the script.
8) Oh, please jump. That'd improve things.
9) More VFX.
10) And a rough ride into the next section, which sadly still fails to kill her.
11) A spot of weather. And a dead/dying Breen.
12) Still trying to call the ship.
13) And now a living Breen making a running tackle.
14) Gratuitous slo-mo.
15) Gratuitous hand-to-hand combat. Kirk-fu in TOS was much more entertaining to watch.
16) Of course Burnham wins the fight against an armoured aggressor.
17) Deus ex machina. Or is it deus ex Burnham?
18) Another burst of slo-mo. Quick pause while I look up who directed this crap...Olatunde Osunsanmi, who was responsible for some of my least favourite Discovery episodes. Explains a lot.
19) Slo-mo Burnham jump, as the soundtrack goes for 'epic' but hits 'meh' before it can get there.
20) This is all stupid and terrible and I hate it.
21) And she's made it back to the platform where she started.
22) Dynamic entrance from Breen. Followed by even more dynamic entrance from Moll. Who is trailing blood at a rate that probably shouldn't leave her standing.
23) Burnham tossing her a dermal regenerator to tend her wound. *record scratch* Pausing again. A dermal regenerator for a sliced femoral artery? These things before now have been shown to repair cuts, grazes and burns. I don't believe even in this far-far-far-future Trek we've ever seen one do that kind of surgery? Plus, she's already bled out a bunch.
24) Witless dialogue ensues.
25) This is all still stupid and terrible and I'm hating it more and more.
26) And all I win for sitting through that 11 minutes of dreck is the Discovery intro and theme.
27) Still, at least the light coma that this puts me into will be restful.
28) Only amusement is counting the people with a producer-level credit, which must comfortably outweigh any other role in the production.
29) More VFX.
30) Back with the Discoball. Spinny camera. Flamethrowers. Sparks. Lights.
31) Boredom.
32) This pair at the front even less compelling to watch than Owo and Detmer would have been. At least those two got an attempt at fleshing out their characters from the showrunners.
33) Vague approximation of witty dialogue between Rayner and Ensign Ricky #3.
34) Breen fighter craft flying in to pound on the Discoball some more.
35) Meanwhile with Vance, Nhan and Saru.
36) Saru and Nhan volunteering for an entertaining opportunity for suicide.
37) Oh, God. "The crew of Discovery is family to us both, Admiral." Please sod right off with the lame attempts at making this crew a band of brothers. It doesn't land
38) Witless dialogue continuing between Burnham and Moll.
39) Devolving into gratuitous fight.
40) Spinny cam.
41) And now a forest with a magenta filter.
42) A sprinkle more witless dialogue.
43) I expect this is meant to be exciting.
44) I just heard Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool fangirling about superhero landings with that one from Moll.
45) Fighting in the fire. Kirk and Kruge did this bit better in the third film.
46) Osunsanmi really got fond of slo-mos for this one.
47) The Discoball still running from the Breen fighters and chasing the portal.
48) Exposition piled upon exposition.
49) And Rayner deciding on Plan B - space battle.
50) Book going to take a shuttle, just as soon as someone's worked out how to keep him safe from all the radiation around the portal.
51) Engineering has quickly built a MacGuffin for the radiation issue. Very quickly. Almost as if they already had it ready to go. Which begs the question - why wasn't it already fitted anyway????
52) Episode crashing to a shuddering halt while they waste time talking about this. This series never did get away from that.
53) Culber going with him. So the episode slows down even more as he and Stamets talk about it all. Still, at least their relationship is halfway convincing. Unlike...well, pick another relationship shown in this dumpster fire of a show.
54) Burnham and Moll still fighting, having made it back up to the platforms off-screen.
55) Witless dialogue. And whispering.
56) And boredom. So much boredom.
57) Meanwhile on the bridge, no cliché left untouched with Rayner's 'time to switch from defence to offence' line.
58) Tilly with a plan that Ensign Rickette #6 is going to explain.
59) Hang on. This is just a variation of the Riker Maneuver from Insurrection, isn't it?
60) More witless dialogue between Burnham and Moll. And leaps in logic.
61) Burnham The Ever Right™.
62) A wide eyed look from Burnham. Cussing from Moll.
63) Saru and Nhan have caught up to the Breen fleet.
64) Doug Jones remains one of the few bright points about this series.
65) "You speak of 'maybes' and 'mights'. I offer certainty." See, this is what I never got about this series. Occasionally they'll screw up and write a line as good as that. And then the rest of the time it's complete trash.
66) No-sell. But Saru a half-step ahead.
67) Burnham and Moll slogging through the field.
68) Exposition.
69) Sex position joke. My heart's not really in it, but there you go.
70) If you don't know what's about to happen long before it does, then you ain't been watching this show.
71) Pacing has all but disappeared now.
72) Book trying to hail Burnham.
73) Yep, there we go from 70). 'Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal', and all that.
74) Moll builds a triangle with the interface, which won't do what she wants. Because she's stupid.
75) Exposition on the Discoball.
76) The Riker Maneuver worked.
77) But the dreadnought is back in the game.
78) VFX team still earning their corn.
79) Culber with the insight. Deux ex scriptwriter.
80) Tractor lock.
81) Meanwhile with Saru and Nhan.
82) Saru engaging in some psychology.
83) And poker. Not quite Kirk against Balok, but pretty decent. Also, that 'look into my eyes, you think I am bluffing?' bit? Easily 1,001% more badass than anything Burnham has ever done.
84) Burnham waking up from the clonk on the head.
85) Jesus H. tapdancing Christ, there are young kids at nurseries who can figure out this puzzle quicker than these idiots!
86) Burnham's elevation to Godhood complete.
87) A Progenitor.
88) And, somehow, a slow episode gets even slower.
89) "Time functions differently in here." And, indeed, in the Discovery writers room.
90) For once, Trek getting Magic Fun Time With DNA™ right. Broken clocks, and all that.
91) There have been many, many better works examining the whole "technology is neutral, it's what you do with it that counts" deal than this. In the Trek wider universe see "Federation", by Judy and Gar Reeves-Stevens. Later Trek productions left it irreconcilable with canon (First Contact, for one) but it's a brilliant book.
92) Mystery piles upon mystery.
93) Book and Culber. Exposition.
94) No real answers, but it's alright. Again the writers screwing up and coming up with something vaguely worthy.
95) VFX.
96) Saru with the late breaking update.
97) Rayner and Tilly back-and-forth.
98) Exposition layered with Treknobabble layered with witless dialogue. The unholy trinity of Discovery script writing.
99) A plan. A stupid plan, but a plan nonetheless.
100) Back to clichés.
101) And, unfortunately, back with Burnham. And exposition.
102) Stupid, terrible, hate it.
103) Exposition still wanging on.
104) Rayner's plan, shuffled to the background in all of this expository BS from the Progenitor to Burnham, worked. Because the spore drive is, in fact, actual magic.
105) It's still going on.
106) Showing Burnham a part of creation.
107) Aaaaaaaand back to the platform, to break the news to Moll that - for her, at least - this was all a gigantic waste of time.
108) Witless dialogue between Book and Burnham.
109) Having been at a snail's pace for most of the episode, now we're just racing past bits in order to get to the next slow, talk-about-our-feelings scene.
110) Whispering. Of course.
111) IDIC getting a namedrop.
112) Burnham The Ever Right™ is the one who gets to make the decision about the Progenitor tech. Of course.
113) Quick pause. I suppose we should be glad that they didn't use the Progenitor tech as a fix-all for this universe - bringing back Book's planet and people, for example. I still can't help but think 'is that it?' though. One again an idea that showed some kind of promise very early on founders on the rocky coast of the We Can't Write For **** Bay.
114) Book visiting Moll in the sickbay.
115) Who is going with 'snotty', though even someone as terminally stupid as her must realise that she brought it all on herself.
116) Witless dialogue.
117) Kovich exposition with Burnham.
118) He really is an utter waste of David Cronenberg.
119) Yeah, yeah, Burnham's awesome, we get it
120) Gratuitous references to other Trek. The Chateau Picard bottle, Geordi's VISOR, Sisko's baseball.
121) The 'reveal', such as it is, that Kovich is Daniels from Enterprise and the Temporal Cold War crapola.
122) Saru and T'Rina married, in a seemingly very human ceremony and reception.
123) Yes, yes, let's talk about our feelings some more. That won't make the audience want to vomit up their own internal organs.
124) And a hook for the Academy series.
125) Did Book just say "Talaxian" pirates? As in, Neelix's lot? How in God's name are they still around, and how on Earth could they possibly have delayed him?
126) Witless dialogue continues.
127) And continues.
128) It's still continuing.
129) And on, and on, and on...
130) Book and Burnham back on then.
131) Kovich wants another word.
132) Here goes the timeskipped coda then, which AFAIK was written and filmed after the showrunners decided season five was to be the end of this dreck.
133) An older Burnham and Book.
134) Space deer! Conspicuously CG'd.
135) This guy is Burnham and Book's son, then.
136) Witless dialogue.
137) Wahey, a 47 reference with the shuttle hull number. Joe Menosky began inserting references to the number during his time on TNG, and the trend caught on.
138) More conspicuously CG'd animals.
139) Witless dialogue between mother and son continues.
140) Undoing the change in look on the Discoball, presumably to get it back in sync with the Short Trek episode "Calypso"?
141) Zora.
142) About to get abandoned in space. So yeah, 140) confirmed.
143) Witless dialogue between Burnham and Zora.
144) At least Detmer and Owo made it into the episode. Even if it was only in dream/flashback.
145) Jesus, just put a bullet in the show's head already...
146) Honour guard for the Disco's departure.
147) Buh-bye.
148) The adventure continues. Just not on this show.
The episode
Well, that was genuinely awful. Pacing - schizophrenic. Dialogue - thoroughly nauseating. Direction - plain weird in places, generic 'action Trek' in others.
Discovery in a nutshell, really.
The season
It was a promising idea, the hunt for the Progenitors. We'd already done it in Trek of course, with TNG's "The Chase". But handled well it could have added something.
Heh. 'Handled well', as if that was ever going to happen. I really do crack myself up sometimes...
To somehow tell less story in ten episodes than TNG managed in one was impressive, in a way. Also impressive was how they managed to do a little fleshing out of the Breen while at the same time making them so much less than they were in DS9. Moll remained a thoroughly uncompelling and barely repentant villain all the way through, looking and feeling like a refugee from a Farscape script.
The series
Thank God that's over.
I look back at the shows which went before. TOS proved that there was a place for intelligent sci-fi on our screens instead of shlock like "Lost in Space". TAS proved that there were still stories to tell in that universe. The movies proved that the audience was still clamouring for more. TNG proved that you can catch lightning in a bottle more than once. DS9 proved that the universe could tell overarching, serialised storylines. VOY (at its best) proved that you could take Federation ideals and have them survive a long way from the relative safety of the Federation. ENT proved that there was still a place for Star Trek in an increasingly cynical world.
I'm always reminded with TV and film by the Nick Meyer line about how "all works of art are ineluctably products of the time in which they are created". You see it in all of Trek. From the hopes and fears of late '60s America permeating TOS, the changing social attitudes running through Berman-era Trek, to here with Discovery and the other modern shows. You look at PIC and SNW, you see that politicians don't come out of it looking very good at all. The people who do are the people like Picard, and Pike. People willing to stand up, do the right thing, do the hard things, fight for a better way to be.
And then you get this. Which was trying to do similar, but kept missing the mark somehow. In fact, it missed the mark with virtually everything it did. I noted years ago that Discovery had started out grim, and gritty, and hip-deep in war and had become, as time went on, a lot about finding your identity and place in life. They chose to do that by having lots of scenes where characters talked about their feelings, their problems, their fears. All fine, in a way. But it was always at about the least appropriate moments in the story! Even in this series finale it was happening. And all it does is just kill any sense of momentum that the story was building up.
That, really, was the fundamental weakness of this show. The showrunners, writers, directors, everyone just kept making the same mistakes and never seemed to learn how to avoid them. They never, ever did get to the point where a season felt like they had a handle on where they were going and how they wanted to get there. Plot twists were always telegraphed in hamfisted fashion. Continuity was always a thing to be ignored whenever it was inconvenient rather than embraced and used to make the writing better.
If Discovery has a legacy at all it's that other, better shows are on TV in part because it was made. Strange New Worlds is the prime example, a show made because fan reaction to Anson Mount in Disco S2 was so overwhelmingly positive. And that really says it all. Fan reaction to the guy who just shows up in the story one day was so much more positive than the reaction to the main character who you spent almost every line of every script trying to show as being awesome that he ended up with his own show.
I didn't have high hopes for the show all the way back when it was first mooted. And I didn't get any more hopeful as more details about what they had planned trickled out. And yet somehow, in a lot of ways, it was even worse than I expected.
So, yeah. Thank God, indeed, that it's over.
Well, that was genuinely awful. Pacing - schizophrenic. Dialogue - thoroughly nauseating. Direction - plain weird in places, generic 'action Trek' in others.
Discovery in a nutshell, really.
The season
It was a promising idea, the hunt for the Progenitors. We'd already done it in Trek of course, with TNG's "The Chase". But handled well it could have added something.
Heh. 'Handled well', as if that was ever going to happen. I really do crack myself up sometimes...
To somehow tell less story in ten episodes than TNG managed in one was impressive, in a way. Also impressive was how they managed to do a little fleshing out of the Breen while at the same time making them so much less than they were in DS9. Moll remained a thoroughly uncompelling and barely repentant villain all the way through, looking and feeling like a refugee from a Farscape script.
The series
Thank God that's over.
I look back at the shows which went before. TOS proved that there was a place for intelligent sci-fi on our screens instead of shlock like "Lost in Space". TAS proved that there were still stories to tell in that universe. The movies proved that the audience was still clamouring for more. TNG proved that you can catch lightning in a bottle more than once. DS9 proved that the universe could tell overarching, serialised storylines. VOY (at its best) proved that you could take Federation ideals and have them survive a long way from the relative safety of the Federation. ENT proved that there was still a place for Star Trek in an increasingly cynical world.
I'm always reminded with TV and film by the Nick Meyer line about how "all works of art are ineluctably products of the time in which they are created". You see it in all of Trek. From the hopes and fears of late '60s America permeating TOS, the changing social attitudes running through Berman-era Trek, to here with Discovery and the other modern shows. You look at PIC and SNW, you see that politicians don't come out of it looking very good at all. The people who do are the people like Picard, and Pike. People willing to stand up, do the right thing, do the hard things, fight for a better way to be.
And then you get this. Which was trying to do similar, but kept missing the mark somehow. In fact, it missed the mark with virtually everything it did. I noted years ago that Discovery had started out grim, and gritty, and hip-deep in war and had become, as time went on, a lot about finding your identity and place in life. They chose to do that by having lots of scenes where characters talked about their feelings, their problems, their fears. All fine, in a way. But it was always at about the least appropriate moments in the story! Even in this series finale it was happening. And all it does is just kill any sense of momentum that the story was building up.
That, really, was the fundamental weakness of this show. The showrunners, writers, directors, everyone just kept making the same mistakes and never seemed to learn how to avoid them. They never, ever did get to the point where a season felt like they had a handle on where they were going and how they wanted to get there. Plot twists were always telegraphed in hamfisted fashion. Continuity was always a thing to be ignored whenever it was inconvenient rather than embraced and used to make the writing better.
If Discovery has a legacy at all it's that other, better shows are on TV in part because it was made. Strange New Worlds is the prime example, a show made because fan reaction to Anson Mount in Disco S2 was so overwhelmingly positive. And that really says it all. Fan reaction to the guy who just shows up in the story one day was so much more positive than the reaction to the main character who you spent almost every line of every script trying to show as being awesome that he ended up with his own show.
I didn't have high hopes for the show all the way back when it was first mooted. And I didn't get any more hopeful as more details about what they had planned trickled out. And yet somehow, in a lot of ways, it was even worse than I expected.
So, yeah. Thank God, indeed, that it's over.
