Hello My Imaginary Friends,
I had a hard time finishing Star Trek: Discovery. That says a lot considering I’ve happily watched every Star Trek series to come out since TNG.
I have a lot of thoughts that I’ll share after the cut.
Edgy for Edgy’s sake
One of my biggest frustrations was that the show felt disjointed. Like too many writers were trying to do to many different things.
The most annoying was trying to paint a Star Trek show to look and feel like Game of Thrones. You might get a few people to believe that your cat is a rhinoceros, but why are you trying to sell pictures of it to cat lovers?
The stories they tried to tell with the edge (Klingon hybrid dude, Klingon war, Traitor’s redemption, Mirror Universe, etc) were really just shallow gimmicks. They could have spent a lot more time on these stories and flesh them out. Before I got the chance to start really thinking about the implications of a story they took a ninety degree turn.
Stop trying to appeal to other show’s fans and try to appeal to yours. (Granted, that might not always work. Look at the Star Wars fandom.)
Tone Death
Star Trek is meant to show us what the human race could become. It’s optimistic and annoyingly moralistic. All this comes through the character’s words and speeches but not in the writing.
Did they really need to kill the Doctor? The first openly gay relationship and Latinx character and they kill him off for… Wait, why did they kill him off? It didn’t advance the plot, or give motivation to his significant other. It did give us a silly yoda like scene in the fungus dimension…. I guess. (Yes I know he’s not really dead.)
And then they called it Racial reassignment surgery… as if there wasn’t enough stigma around the Trans community and what’s in their pants.
Predictable
Maybe it’s just me but once I realized they were going for Edgy-Shock-Trek, I saw every plot twist three episodes in advance. Not in the, “I’m a crazy fan and know so much about the world I can guess” kinda way but in the, “What’s the laziest, least interesting plot twist,” kinda way.
What did I like?
Despite the rhino costume, I liked the loveable Trek morals underneath.
I liked the beeps and blerps lifted from the original. I liked the Klingon language being spoken consistently.
I liked the special effects, the anachronistic tech, and the Tardigrade mushroom drive. I loved the corny Da Vinci intro.
Most of all, I liked the characters. The core crew; Burnam, Saru, Stamets, and Tilly; were fun interesting characters. Once the show got going, and got it’s head out of GoT’s bum, the characters came together as quirky space misfits. That’s what I love to watch.
Conclusion
I’d give Discovery a 2 out of 5 for its first season. It wasn’t good, it was Trek trying to be something it wasn’t.
I hope we see something better in the second season. From this trailer I have high hopes:
What did you think of Discovery?
Éric