Star Trek: Discovery
Out of context: Reply #98
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- Wolfboy3
In a side note on my last post CyBrainX asked "So, there's nothing this show can do to please you in any way?"
Well as much as I’ve not enjoyed this first season I would love it if they managed turn it around and make it something great. So here are a few things they could do:
1/ Ditch the season arc. I know that’s how modern TV works, but fuck it, this is Star Trek and interesting stand alone stories are a big part of the show. I don’t know how everyone else felt, but for me the show was at its best in the episode where Dwight from The Office was fucking with them in a time loop. It was an entertaining problem, they solved it, they moved on.
They have set up a universe that would now lend itself to episodic television like this - The Federation is decimated and this show is now about rebuilding and all the issues that come with that. With a weakened Federation we could see interactions with aliens looking to take advantage of the situation. Let’s get something other than running and punching back in it - a bit of space politics wouldn’t go a miss. Also, as a point of difference to previous Trek, maybe expand to see the Klingons rebuilding in parallel; these two wider themes/stories could overlap from time to time so it doesn’t feel like the firs season is forgotten about.
2/ Concentrate on the new Captain. Fuck Burnham as the centre of the show, she is a personality vacuum and although would still be there as Science officer, she would not be the focus. Make sure the new Captain is an interesting well written, well acted character too - Burnham has been dull dull dull.
I don’t think there actually needs to be a brand new Captain by the way, I’d be happy with Sarue as Captain and watching how he, as a natural coward/creature of flight develops. But what ever they go with, the Captain has to be interesting and the lynchpin of the show.
3/ More actual characters. Star Trek is an ensemble piece and at the moment there are faces on the bridge every week that I couldn’t name and have had about 10 lines between them across the whole first season. With a more traditional stand alone episode style show we could see these characters fleshed out.
4/ Bring it into line with the prime timeline. I know it’s easy to whinge about this, but fuck it, they made the decision to make this a prequel, not us. So they need to tie off all the flapping loose technological ends; destroy the spore drive for a start and explain why we've never seen it again. That bullshit throw away remark from Stamets about a none human interface was not enough to write it out of the show.
5/ Fuck fan service. It’s the worst of lazy writing in modern entertainment. Get what ever bullshit they’ve got planned with the Enterprise out of the way and concentrate on building new things that we like. You know, like they did with TNG.
6/ Just write it better. I think the main issue with this whole show has been bad writing. Poor dialogue with too much clunky exposition, characters that did not get properly fleshed out and bad plotting both for individual episodes and across the season.
As I mentioned already, I thought the time loop episode was pretty tight and well constructed. I cared about what was happening and I was happy with a resolution that wasn’t just a big showdown. They should concentrate on this kind of writing.
- Dwight from the Office was also Max Headroom that spastic head in a box from early 80s MTV.
They can't decimate the Federation and stay inline with prime canonCyBrainX - I don't think it's fan service to leverage a half century of awesome every once in a while. Sarek has been awesome in any Star Trek incarnation. We've had threeCyBrainX
- I agree about Saru. I think he'd make a good captain and he did an admirable job of making peace with Burnham.CyBrainX
- I think character development has been very good in some cases but there are a few regulars on the bridge that haven't opened their mouths yet.CyBrainX
- I'm pretty sure we'll see Georgiu again. They seem quite taken with that character. I just don't want to see anymore mirror nonsense.CyBrainX
- I'm tired of seeing James Franco waving his hands.CyBrainX
- Actually, Max Headroom was Matt Frewer.Continuity
- Dwight from the Office was also Max Headroom that spastic head in a box from early 80s MTV.