this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
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Don’t wanna bash on Discovery … but is there notable disengagement around the final season? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 7 months ago by maegul@lemmy.ml to c/startrek@lemmy.world
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I’m personally not watching it (you could call me a bit of a disco “hater” and s4 really kinda bummed me out) … but thought I’d see how people are enjoying it and think about getting a paramount subscription.

Asked some friends and they said they’d stopped watching. Then I checked here and the other community and posts about the episodes just seem to be tepid compared to what I would have expected.

Now obviously I’ve got a bias (and I really don’t want to start kicking the show) … but am I reading this right or wrong?

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

I haven't really been compelled to start watching this season yet, but I will eventually. Still, it seems pretty lackluster in terms of people getting into it from what I can tell. It's a really bad sign. Final season of Discovery not being that big, Lower Decks ending, Prodigy shunted over to Netflix, Paramount+ cutting budgets and bleeding subscribers... I think we may be close to the end of another Star Trek era. I hope that isn't true, but it could be.

They really need to light a fire under the fan base. I would suggest that would involve greenlighting Legacy, but I don't have much hope for that.

[–] Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm at a point where I wait until the season is nearly half done before I start.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

My wife and I are just not in a position right now where we have time to watch anything together in the evening. That will change in a couple of weeks and we'll start watching.

[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

For my money, sticking to prequels is where the problems start.

Disco, SNW: hard prequels bordering on TOS reboot in the case of SNW.

Meanwhile Picard and lower decks are very much grounded in nostalgia (hint: each have more Frakes appearances than DS9).

This era never really had the same bravery to do something new like TOS and TNG-era, IMO. I was a big fan of Disco’s move into the future (it’s just that Disco miss the landing every time for me).

[–] BigilusDickilus@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

I like that SNW at least is genuinely trying to live in and explore it's era, it always felt like disco was just using that setting carelessly.

Picard felt very pandering, I couldn't get past the first season.

Lost Decks is the best one though, you can tell there's a genuine affection for the setting and it's quirks.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I haven't been paying any attention to anyone else, but I've been enjoying this season.

It continues the abandoned Progenitor storyline from TNG. And it does a decent job at explaining why we didn't see any more about it until 800 years later.

Even the interpersonal stuff isn't terrible this season. We get to see more alternative captain/crew interaction and how those directly compare with Disco's crew.

[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Even the interpersonal stuff isn’t terrible this season.

I'm sorry, but fucking what? Heavy spoilers for Episode 1 below but...

Burnham just put herself above her duty and mission again. She did the exact same fucking thing she did in the first episode of the whole show except instead of physically assaulting her superior officer in a misguided attempt to try and prevent a war she threatened to let extremely dangerous criminals escape with information vital to Federation security unless she was read into a mission.

I'm sorry but the first episode immediately and categorically proved that Burnham is unfit for Starfleet in every capacity. Every single season she has flouted her duty and I've stuck with it because it's been sorta different and she's been growing but now? She is regressing. She went full manipulative psychopath and said "Read me in or I will let you stumble in the dark." Note that this is after she fucked up two different times on this mission already and thereby let the bad guys escape. First at the opening of the episode and then again on the planet. She knows that this mission needed to be done and was a psychotic level of important because of the whole 'Red Directive' shit (that was never fucking explained in the first episode). Kovich outright said to her that he doesn't care who is on the ship or what happens to them because it is that important. She is told she needs to get this done because it's above everything else. What does she do? Repeatedly put the needs of the few above the needs of the many.

She should have been court martialed on the fucking spot.

Note also that I'm not some Disco hater. I'm a mod and the one with an account named after a DSC character and who has been defending DSC on here for months.

I haven't seen past the first episode. If you can promise me it gets better than that, sure, but Burnham is fucking dead in my books. Every major decision that she's "done" in the show was never done by her to begin with, it had to be done by someone else forcing her to do it. Now she's in charge and making decisions that are going to get someone fucking killed.

[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

abandoned Progenitor?

Are you talking about “The Chase”? What’s abandoned?

Otherwise … cool.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah the storyline from "The Chase". After that episode it was never touched again in any of the series until this season of Disco.

Bombshell revelation that all humanoid life in the galaxy was seeded by a Progenitor race? Never discussed again. Obviously Starfleet wouldn't have abandoned that research thread. This season continues that story, and gives an in universe explanation to why we never saw it mentioned again.

[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

Funny, for me I was happy for that to go nowhere after the episode. It’s so big and deep a revelation that it’d just be its own show in the end to pursue it further … which I liked … it felt like something so big that even in the Star Trek era it was going to take time and effort to just digest it … which was cool.

Plus in a way the point of the episode wasn’t the sci-fi but the ending dialogue between Picard and the romulan colander about the struggle to find common ground and peace.

[–] ionize@lemmy.ml 7 points 7 months ago

I gave up on it halfway through season 3. I loved many of the concepts introduced in the show but ultimately found them unable to make up for the show's style. It was just exhausting to watch, and when I realized it I stopped.

[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

I am a die hard fan of Discovery and am fiercely defensive of it.

But the first episode of Season 5 was so atrociously awful that it killed all my excitement for the season and I haven't had the energy or strength to start the next episode, despite the fact 4 episodes are already out.

I go out of my way to defend the show and love it. I mean my account name is taken from one of the characters of the show. All my ship models are from Discovery. My calendar is a Discovery calendar. I have a DSC Starfleet Badge. Like I FUCKING LOVE Discovery but the first episode had some of the worst writing I've seen from any Star Trek ever. I can't think of a single other episode in any of Star Trek that was as idiotic as this one was. The writers had no fucking clue what they were doing and the episode is egregiously bad. Half of the episode involves 'Rise of Skywalker' type shenanigans where the characters blindly luck into the next thing or just happen to have the thing they need because the universe is catering to them. Let me demonstrate an example from the first couple of minutes of the episode. This does spoil the first 5 minutes but doesn't spoil anything plot relevant that wasn't mentioned in trailers or whatever.

The Discovery is a rapid response vessel that can show up anywhere at a moments notice. This was what it was literally designed for. To be able to appear behind enemy lines as a surprise tactic. Burnham has to go get something from a ship and they know other people are after it. So what do they do? Jump in on top of the ship without readying up or doing fucking anything which means they're caught with their pants down. They scan the vessel and see two people onboard who then vanish so they spend 3+ minutes getting ready (their suits can literally materialize on them now) and get onboard the other vessel. They know the enemy can vanish from sensors and theorized that they can probably personally cloak. So when they land, one of the away team notes that they were here recently because water vapor is still in the air and they can follow it. So they do. They then proceed to visually clear the ship. They also never mention the water vapor again. So, fucking obviously, they are jumped by someone who is cloaked and shot at from behind.

The whole episode is littered with writing that idiotic. They will give a thing and then not pay it off or they will just use a random thing out of fucking nowhere. Like a character having information that they categorically should not have as previous seasons had made it abundantly clear that the character would not have this information. Yet they do anyway, breaking their own rules of the show. Not to mention that the writing of the episode also undoes 4 seasons worth of character development for multiple characters, sending them back to Season 1 behavior with no explanation, and frames them as genuinely bad people who are putting themselves before the mission. Like

spoilerOne character genuinely threatening their superior officer to let terrorists get away unless they're given information they have no right or claim to in any manner

In short, it fucking sucks so bad that it sent me into a spiral of depression because if my favorite show starts off their final season this awful how the hell is it going to possibly continue?

[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

I feel you. I wasn’t ever as big a fan as you, but had a depressing moment somewhere in the middle of Picard S2 right after disco s4 (which I didn’t enjoy) where I realised that I just didn’t like new-Trek and had been doing my best to enjoy it as a fan not realising the work I was putting in. It all slipped away and I was just depressed for a bit. It’s the reason I haven’t started disco season 5 (while I was watching the other seasons live).

Thanks for sharing and hope you’re ok.

[–] JWBananas@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And what about that part with the warp trail shenanigans? There were 20 different trails, so they don't know which way they really went? Why not just do 20 jumps and find out? Didn't they do like 100 in short succession in season 1?

Hang in there though! The rest of them are good!

[–] Stamets@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Why not just do 20 jumps and find out? Didn’t they do like 100 in short succession in season 1?

They had trails but not end points. They knew the direction of travel but not where they would stop. With speed variances and cloaking shit that would have been a no go. Book was needed for that end point. A point he should not have known but that's a completely different complaint.

I saw the second episode which was better. 2 out of 10. This season is testing my fucking patience though and I don't see Burnham as anything other than a shitty person now. Everything that comes out her mouth annoys me and feels unearned, undeserved, and outright insulting. Like when she starts talking down to someone for behavior she's guilty of in that same episode I want to just start beating the shit out of Sarek for proving that you cannot raise a human under Vulcan ways and have them end up as anything other than a monumental cunt.

[–] BertramDitore@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

Lots of good points have already been made in this thread, I’ll just chime in to say I’ve really enjoyed Discovery. It definitely has its problems, and I’m kinda bipolar when it comes to Burnham, sometimes I love her, sometimes I can’t stand her…she never really learns any lessons. But the show is gorgeous and tried to do something a little different. I respect that.

The action sequences and cinematography are better and more exciting than any other Trek I can think of. That sequence in S05E01 where Burnham is blown out into space, has a suit materialize on her, jetpacks towards Discovery and then transports through the viewscreen directly into her captain’s chair was BAD ASS.

I just wish the show was released in 4K HDR. Seems like a waste of beautiful visuals.

[–] GuyFleegman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 7 months ago

The instances hosting active Star Trek communities didn’t exist during the previous season of Discovery, so Lemmy isn’t a great way to gauge relative interest.

On Reddit, the /r/startrek discussion thread for 4x02 has 1.1k comments and 4x03 has 600 comments while the thread for 5x03 only has about 400 comments. This seems to support your hypothesis.

[–] Rambomst@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

I've been enjoying this season but I am a sucker for anything space related.