EXO-6 Star Trek "Discovery" figures

[DParga21]

I LOVED Discovery! But even I have to agree with some of those points. I found the serialized plot captivating at least through season 2, but of a dip in season 3, recapturing some of the magic in season 4.

The issue I have with Discovery haters is that most of the criticism seems to flow from the idea that the show doesn't resemble the other ST iterations we love so well enough for them. I think that's a weak charge.

The show is admittedly very focused on Burnham's personal journey and that focus definitely takes the ensemble rapport of the bridge crew feature down a peg or two, but there was still plenty of that for me with Saru and Burnham, Stamets and Culber, Jett Reno with EVERYONE, lol! (you can look up who that is, @StarDude), Tilly coming of age and finding herself, Detmer sitting at her station looking sexy....

Yes, it's different, but different isn't necessarily bad. People also had a big problem with inventing a sister for Spock, and I was as skeptical about that as anyone. But I thought it worked very well. Their dynamic made perfect sense, and seeing them work through their relationship was an interesting and worthy change of pace, and I didn't feel that it diminished the character of Spock in any way. If anything it fleshed him out that much more.

Bottom line in my view is that if you came into the show thinking "Ok, let's see what WOKE trash Kutrzman is going to push on us this week", then yeah, you're going to find a way to dislike everything you see. But even coming from a decidedly more conservative vantage point, I loved it.

I agree with just about all of that. I loved Disco's first season. I didn't mind the whole "Spock's sister" thing until they started in later seasons to treat it like he owed all of who he was to Burnham, which was over the top.
But in general, I checked out as soon as Kovich told Stamets he'd transfer Stamets if he couldn't trust Zora. I thought Stamets was absolutely right in his concerns, Zora had already demonstrated multiple times she was emotionally unstable, and the whole resolution to that infuriated me.
But I blame most of that on Michelle Paradise, whom I think tanked the show when she took over.
I still love Discovery, though. I think that's why the things that bother me infuriate me so much.

 

[QuiGonFishing]

I agree with just about all of that. I loved Disco's first season. I didn't mind the whole "Spock's sister" thing until they started in later seasons to treat it like he owed all of who he was to Burnham, which was over the top.
But in general, I checked out as soon as Kovich told Stamets he'd transfer Stamets if he couldn't trust Zora. I thought Stamets was absolutely right in his concerns, Zora had already demonstrated multiple times she was emotionally unstable, and the whole resolution to that infuriated me.
But I blame most of that on Michelle Paradise, whom I think tanked the show when she took over.
I still love Discovery, though. I think that's why the things that bother me infuriate me so much.

Well said! I forgot about that part and wholeheartedly agree with your feelings here. Not everything worked, and there are moments when it seemed like they were pushing an agenda that a producer/writer du jour brought to the table. But I found just about all of those details fairly minor and forgettable (clearly, lol!).

 

[davejames]

I'll say it. Discovery sucks.
The bridge crew? What bridge crew? Those people with like 2 lines total that nobody remembers the name of? With absolutely zero character development or character?

They killed that blue robot lady and treated it as a big deal but we had never actually properly got to know her.
Micheal was going "I love you guys!" to bridge crew no body formed a connection with and few can remember their names. Because the literally pretty much do nothing.

If Michael and Saru have trouble selling to justify them, the rest of the "who the fudge are they?" crew would sell about 5 each.


Strange New Worlds improves this and has characters with character! I know their NAMES of all things. They each get EPISODES! They are not IGNORED!
Pike was one of the few good things to come out of the show. I kind of liked Lorca but he's gone. Some characters are decent but let's not pretend that bridge crew isn't the focus of the show and is good. The show focuses elsewhere.
View attachment 694337

I literally can't name many of them because they're so irrelevant.
Airam or something is the dumb blue person who we never formed a connection with and were somehow supposed to care died.
Detmer? Her character is she got injured and blamed Michael and is now over it. That's it.

Uuurghhh don't remember the other names of all the one line people... Ignoring the actual main characters like Stamets, the doc who ain't here. That dumb cat (geeze). Etc.

If some of those basically nameless characters get made, it's because Nanjin is being nice and deciding he doesn't some money. Maybe all of them if the ratings rumors for Discovery are true.... Seems for the later seasons someone at Paramount decided money wasn't important when not cancelling the show earlier . Probably due to it's ties to Paramount +.

Tell us how you REALLY feel.

If you're not a fan of the show that's fine, but they stated at the beginning that this was meant to be less of an ensemble show and focused much more on Burnham's character and journey. And while the bridge crew are mostly undeveloped we've still gotten to know quite a few other characters over the 4 seasons (Saru, Stamets, Tilly, Culber, Adira, Book, Tyler, Georgiou). And there are plenty of episodes where Burnham isn't the central focus at all.

So it just seems weird to me that the metric of whether a Trek show is good or not is whether the bridge crew are fully developed or not. Hell we didn't learn much about the other TOS crew until the movies 15 years later! They were mostly just glorified extras until then.

 

[DParga21]

Tell us how you REALLY feel.

If you're not a fan of the show that's fine, but they stated at the beginning that this was meant to be less of an ensemble show and focused much more on Burnham's character and journey. And while the bridge crew are mostly undeveloped we've still gotten to know quite a few other characters over the 4 seasons (Saru, Stamets, Tilly, Culber, Adira, Book, Tyler, Georgiou). And there are plenty of episodes where Burnham isn't the central focus at all.

Agreed. We've had lots of well-developed characters. Just, not the bridge crew. Which is annoying to me, but I think Discovery's contributions to the Canon have been a net positive in general.

Well said! I forgot about that part and wholeheartedly agree with your feelings here. Not everything worked, and there are moments when it seemed like they were pushing an agenda that a producer/writer du jour brought to the table. But I found just about all of those details fairly minor and forgettable (clearly, lol!).

I didn't think the agenda-pushing got to be too much until the whole Adira/Gray thing. It seemed so obvious to me that Gray especially was only there so the producers could virtue signal. Add to that Adira only became non- binary when their actor came out as non-binary, and it just reeks of pandering. Which is the same reason I hated them making Sulu gay in Beyond (A sentiment Tajei agreed with).
SNW has the right idea with Jessie Keitel. Just call her "they" and let everyone be nonchalant. No need to hang a big sign on it. This why I look forward to seeing Keitel's character again, but am actively hoping Gray is no where to be seen in Season 5.

 

[QuiGonFishing]

Exactly

 

[davejames]

I didn't think the agenda-pushing got to be too much until the whole Adira/Gray thing. It seemed so obvious to me that Gray especially was only there so the producers could virtue signal. Add to that Adira only became non- binary when their actor came out as non-binary, and it just reeks of pandering. Which is the same reason I hated them making Sulu gay in Beyond (A sentiment Tajei agreed with).
SNW has the right idea with Jessie Keitel. Just call her "they" and let everyone be nonchalant. No need to hang a big sign on it. This why I look forward to seeing Keitel's character again, but am actively hoping Gray is no where to be seen in Season 5.

Eh I never thought the characters entirely worked, but not because of the non-binary thing, but just because they were dull characters. And I never got the sense the show was "pushing" anything or making a big deal about it, aside I guess from a couple references to the discrimination the characters face. But given how real and pervasive that is in our society right now, it would be extremely odd for a Trek series to not address that at some point. Since that's kinda what Trek is supposed to do.

 

[DParga21]

Eh I never thought the characters entirely worked, but not because of the non-binary thing, but just because they were dull characters. And I never got the sense the show was "pushing" anything or making a big deal about it, aside I guess from a couple references to the discrimination the characters face. But given how real and pervasive that is in our society right now, it would be extremely odd for a Trek series to not address that at some point. Since that's kinda what Trek is supposed to do.

Yes, absolutely that's what Trek does.
My complaint is exactly what you said: The characters are boring and only seem to exist because of what the actors are.
To me, it's like the difference between Melora on DS9 (which was dogcrap) and Aurellio on DSC (which was great).
Gray is exactly what his name implies: Bland and boring and useless. The fact that they basically wrote him off the show after, what, five whole episodes seemed to indicate they either never intended to use him much or they just gave up. They got their magazine cover out of it and that was all they wanted
Which really undercuts what the whole message of having a character like that is supposed to be, anyway.