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Questions for the Discovery Non-Fans
theboxisred
Member Posts: 477 Arc User
I tried to get some insight from Discovery fans, but it would seem that there are none frequenting these forums.
The two responses I did get left me with the impression, and I may be wrong here, that they were not fans but they offered some insight and I thank them for it.
This time I would like to know what the Non-Fans of Discovery think.
1. What are your thoughts an the cancellation of Star Trek: Discovery?
2. Can you name some revelations about the show that made you cringe before the show premiered?
3. What was the final clue that let you know that Discovery would not be to your liking?
As in my last discussion, this is not just so we can all take shots at each other. I'm looking for insight.
Thanks!
(Typos... There are always typos.)
The two responses I did get left me with the impression, and I may be wrong here, that they were not fans but they offered some insight and I thank them for it.
This time I would like to know what the Non-Fans of Discovery think.
1. What are your thoughts an the cancellation of Star Trek: Discovery?
2. Can you name some revelations about the show that made you cringe before the show premiered?
3. What was the final clue that let you know that Discovery would not be to your liking?
As in my last discussion, this is not just so we can all take shots at each other. I'm looking for insight.
Thanks!
(Typos... There are always typos.)
Post edited by theboxisred on
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Comments
As I stated in my original post in this thread, this is not just so we can all take shots at each other. I'm looking for insight.
If you have any insight regarding the topic of this discussion please feel free to contribute. Otherwise, thank you for the off-topic insight you have provided.
but here I go, I'm a big girl.
1. Mary Sue. It may be the most irritating trope in scifi.
2. the main characters questionable moral fiber. she falls in love with a klingon agent, leaves him behind and instead of any kind or mourning she's hooked up as soon as she gets to the future. and she didn't even shop around...
3. DEI. yes, i get that Star Trek is progressive. but no Star Trek EVER shoved it down the audience throat like Disco does.
(I posted my comment before typing my comment. Coffee is our friend.)
If it turns into a flame fest it will not be by my hand and I have made it quite clear that my interest does not lie down that path.
Meanwhile, I appreciate your insights. Thanks!
I Already answered the first question in the other thread, and the third one is not really applicable since despite the irritation of some aspects I still find it watchable.
The second question is very complex though it boils down to one word: Everything (too many things to explicitly list, however I will give a few of the more major examples here).
The announcement that CBS would be doing a new Trek series set in the Cage/TOS era was great news, but it was all downhill from there. I don't remember the order they came out, but things like it being paywalled instead of on the actual network, pictures of the nauseatingly generic sets and anomalous ENT-esque jumpsuits, yet another Klingon type with even more rubber on their faces, snippets of leaked lore that directly contradicted TOS and The Cage, the silly JJWindow on the bridge, and all sorts of other nonsense that seemed deliberately tailored to be a slap in the face to TOS fans.
Luckily, with it in context it is not quite as bad as the "leaks" and announcements made it seem, though it could have been considerably better if they had made even the tiniest effort to actually build on the TOS era foundation instead of jumping to a mix of The Undiscovered Country and the Kelvin stuff. And no, three hand props do not constitute a real try. Moonves deliberately dissing Trek fans and stirring up controversy in a misguided attempt to get free advertising out of the strife didn't exactly help either.
That said, some of that stuff actually makes at least some sense when taken in context and it would not have been difficult for them to have made DSC TOS compatible had they bothered to make the attempt.
One that would have been a huge help would have been to downplay the TNG warp-jump stuff and use the foundation laid by the movies that said that with the leap in shield strength in the early 2270s the energy needs of combat became too great to sustain it for long while at warp anymore since they have to tie weapons and shields directly into the warp core. Since DSC is from the 2250s they should have used the TOS/later-ENT standards of warp combat, when possible, as well as entering and leaving orbit via warp as was common for that era.
Long range warp combat using beams can be just as exciting as the close-in sublight stuff shown in DSC, and way more exciting than those ridiculous static ant-stomping exercises like the one with Control at the end of season two.
Also, finally bringing all the Klingon makeup types together (yes, even the rubber faced gargoyles like T'Kuvma) by treating the Klingon empire as an Empire and not as just a single race would have been much better than what they actually did, and at least some of the show's creative people knew it. There was behind the scenes talk from DSC people about Klingons not all being from the same homeworld (even some of the great houses came from different worlds), but apparently that came to naught since little or nothing in the show as aired ever reflected that talk.
The compatibility part here would be acknowledging the augment-virus type since it is not unreasonable to think that the Klingon High Council would get tired of being on the receiving end of unfathomable human trickery all the time and position the genetically hybrid augments in sectors where those fiendishly unpredictable humans are operating the most since they have their own measure of trickiness (enough that the council does not completely trust them and keeps them under observation all the time, as Kor pointed out and used to his advantage in Errand of Mercy).
Showing more of a mix of uniforms and (probably metal) versions of the various TOS division insignia would make the weird DSC costumes more believable, as would the occasional comment of "the TO&E is in flux again" or whatever, though that may have been too much to ask for with the very short time available per season for actual plot, much less allotting ten, twenty, or thirty seconds at random times for slice-of-life asides like that.
SNW even hints at division consolidation starting (with marines like Erica Ortegas integrating directly into the "space navy" part of Starfleet in the equivalent shipboard positions) even before the final homogenization in the 2270s or so where there are no longer separate fleet, fleet auxiliary, ground, admin, colonial, or whatever else they may have had even earlier than TOS anymore. Also, they should use the "fleet captain" designation and "commodore" rank since those were in effect then before phasing out in the same 2270s reorganization.
A greater mix of ship types, showing both TOS round and DSC style square engines, possibly along with some intermediate ship designs, like say an Earth style saucer with a Vulcan ring drive or other combinations to go with other "old" ships still in service (like USS Shenzhou, which is probably from the 2220s or 2230s) would have likewise made more sense and been far more compatible.
The day-to-day script writers were not that good (especially when it came to dialog, which was horribly silly at times), and seriously underutilized Sonequa Martin-Green's skills, especially considering Fuller delayed the series specifically to get her for the lead for things like her ability to quick-change personalities (which is not as easy as it looks to do convincingly). With better writing they could have properly foreshadowed her unusual background reveal and avoided a lot of the accusations of being a Mary-Sue. And she is definitely a good enough actress to pull of that kind of layered personality situation.
The funny thing about that is Spock does a lot of the same stuff as Burnham without being called a Mary Sue (or Marty Stu, the male version), probably mainly because he is male. It takes more than just being an irritating know-it-all to be a Mary Sue or half the cast of The Big Bang Theory would be blasted as Mary Sues the same way as Burnham, and Burnham doesn't have the other qualities (such as everyone likes a Mary Sue for no apparent reason and nearly always takes her advice, whereas few characters actually like Burnam (in fact many hated her, especially in first and second season) and practically no one listens to her even when she is right) required for that designation. Of course, she still was a bit irritating early on either way.
I've heard the male version called Gary Stu before.
Also... Wesley in early TNG was male and pretty much blasted for the same thing as Burnham. Actually I think he took more flak considering how much people hated the character early on. Even heard the writers didn't like him. Got ugly.
Thanks, again, for your input.
I'll appreciate the mods stepping in under such circumstances.
To the phoenixc bit quoted here, I think it's less because he's a male and more because he's a Vulcan. Of course, that may depend upon which iteration of Spock we are talking about. For clarity, I'm including TOS Spock, as that is where most of he character and story have been developed, and the Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds versions.
Regarding Wesley Crusher... Part of the reaction to the character was because there was already an annoying trope about the Genius Kid and the Hollywoods took a very long time to figure out that no one likes those kids except in a limited narrative context.
Anyhow, thanks for the continued input.
Each nerd had their specialty, but when they changed format to be more cruiser than flying small city, they consolidated stuff, and in Wesely's case he ended up being all of his gang at once in the rewrites, which made him even more annoying as a know-it-all as well as just passive aggressively pushy.
I'm glad someone squashed that idea.
It sounds like an Everything Your Mom Knows About Dr. Spock and the Star Track Enterprise kind of plan.
I kind of think it might have been a little like the Macross colony era shows (but on a much smaller scale) mixed with the Space Academy/Jason of Star Command shows with a touch of Whiz Kids on the side, though that might be expecting too much of first season TNG with all the trolling and sabotage that Maizlish was doing to the writers. If they could have pulled it off it would have put the show back into innovative mode instead of being behind the curve like the movies and all the spinoffs (not that they were necessarily bad, just not as inventive and forward looking as TOS was for its time).
I think it was Berman who talked Roddenberry out of that format, but it was so long ago I don't remember who for sure and I don't have the time to try digging up the articles and interview from back then right now. Whoever did it though, it was probably a good thing since even with its possibilities and innovations it was overcomplicated for an hour-long show and probably would not have gone over very well.