Discovery Season 5

[m4a2000]

Here we are the last season of the show that kicked of nu-Trek.

Meh?

At least we don't start off with an 'End of the world' story line. With the two episode drop to start things off we get a better build up to what is going on, but I'm just not invested.

Cinematically the camera work at times is over the top. The open to the 'Infinity Room' had me rolling my eyes more than the camera was rolling.

[Madner Kami]

Fascinating. Without you guys mentioning it, I wouldn't even know there is a Season 5. Not that I care to know in the first place, but still.

[CharlesPhipps]

Some basic thoughts on Episodes 1 & 2:

+ This is a sequel to TNG's "The Chase", which I appreciate because I liked the Progenitors but I feel like they could have added a disclaimer, "Obviously, evolution is still real and true but it explains a few holes in the fossil record."

+ I absolutely love the villains are just a pair of smugglers and feel like they are so much of a breath of fresh air after the fact that universal threats were overwhelming all the other seasons. They're also incredibly fun villains as well.

+ The Tomb Raider/Uncharted energy was something I didn't expect to like as much as I did.

+ I really hate that they're writing Tilly off from being a captain because she had the most captain energy of them all. On the other hand, I have strong hopes Mary Wiseman will be the lead on Starfleet Academy.

+ Is the other Starfleet captain half-Ferengi?

+ I really would love to know what David Cronenberg is? He acts like he's the actual head of the Federation. I would not be surprised if he turns out to be CONTROL having been fixed and repaired.

+ The appearance of a Soong android was a welcome surprise.

+ I like how Stahmets reaction to the spore drive is, "Okay, they don't give a shit about it anymore in the future so I have no legacy whatsoever." It's kind of hilarious how this shoe has written away so much of its own premise.

+ Lots of excellent visuals.

+ I hate the fact that they have a "Blue Wall of Silence" in Starfleet by Burnham's reaction to being asked by the President to testify against her fellow officer. That's an attitude we totally need to get rid outside of a playground.

[hammerofglass]

Saru and T'Rina are absolutely adorable.

[hammerofglass]

+ Is the other Starfleet captain half-Ferengi?

Rayner is a Kellerun. One-off race from DS9.

[Mabus]

Welp, there it is. The final season of Discovery. As usual, lots of bad editing, dumb dialogue, dumb plot, and we're only 2 episodes in. For once, they seem to give up the "universe threat plot", but considering that it's mentioned in the dialogue that the Progenitors' biotech is basically power of God ("they seeded the entire galaxy", no only worlds with humanoid life), I won't be surprised if the series finale is yet another dumb fight to stop the Dakara Superweapon from wiping out all the life in the Universe, or Galaxy, whatever.

There was one particular scene in the second episode, that really highlighted (albeit unintentionally) the terrible state of the show. When Adira and Tillie are rushing against the clock to find a way to stop the ultra-dangerous drone system (that explodes when scratched by tiny biological darts moving barely fast enough), Adira says that the power source of the base could be "cloaked antimatter" something so stupid (even by NuTrek standards) that it caused a new character, aka Captain Rayner, to literally pop in the scene and stop them all from coming up with even dumber shit, all while people could be dying. Now this was extremely funny in hindsight, but what happened next, was not. The guy proceeds to literally teach, mind you, a human with a Trill symbiote having knowledge going centuries back, whose introduction was literally being a near-genius, and another Starfleet officer who not long ago was supposed to be teaching cadets at the Starfleet Academy, how to do their fucking job. As in, he literally has to order them to stop chasing wild horses and pull themselves together and 1)Get a hold of all the information they have on the Promellian tech, 2)Find out, based on the sensor readings and their history, what possible power source they had and used, and NOT what they didn't have or didn't use, 3) Find a safe way to deal with it, based on the information you managed to gather and confirm. All basic stuff on how to deal with unknown problems.

Star Trek: Discovery premiered in 2017, that is 7 years ago. SEVEN YEARS AGO! Season 3, when Adira was first introduced, premiered in 2020. Almost 4 years ago. If we were to compare to previous Trek shows, TNG, DS9 and VOY would have already ended their run by year 7, Enterprise would have also ended its run by year 4, while TOS would have been over for a year. All of these shows, while having ups and downs, were able to develop their characters, to varying degrees, or at the very least give them unique and memorable traits. And yet, after 7 years, Tillie is still an awkward incompetent that needs the plot to save her, while Adira spent the last 4 years doing nothing important or memorable, with little to no effect to the overarching story. Like... bruh! You have your first non-binary character in Star Trek, and you made a huge deal out of it back then. DO SOMETHING WITH THIS CHARACTER! Give them a role in the crew, one that does not involve burying (and resurrecting, again) another LGBT character, FFS. The same thing I can say for the other characters from the bridge, whom I couldn't even remember their name. When was the last time they all had a story arc? Or were random lines peppered throughout the episodes all they were allowed to have? Then why they even main characters on your billing and posters? After SEVEN years! Paul and his Stamets gets to have a bit more story, but ultimately, that too matters too little to the series. Only Saru gets to have something of a story arc, which was always cut by having him constantly thank our Lord and Saviour Michael Burnham for everything, who, BTW, got to become a captain after, I don't know, cry whispering or something. It is amazing to think that the only thing people will remember from this show will be stupid teleporting mushrooms, crying, yum-yum, more crying, ripping off better movies and series and trauma-of-the-week. Speaking of...

Last year, I came across a very interesting claim, by the former writer of "Far Beyond the Stars", Marc Scott Zicree, made in one of his YT videos (at around 7:25), regarding the writing in NuTrek:

One of the things that was interesting at Comic-Con when I was doing the signing for Space Command is, I, uh, someone who stopped by was a young writer, who'd written for Strange New Worlds season 1, and he said a problem he had with the show, uh, and I won't name him, because I don't want to, uh, you know, uh, "tell tales", but one problem he had with the show was each week they were asked by those in charge, what characters' trauma are we exploring this week, and each week we had different characters' trauma, and it's sort of like, you don't need each week to have someone have a trauma. You know, in the original Star Trek and in Star Trek: The Next Generation, sometimes you'd have a special Worf episode or a special Picard or Data episode, and you would have their trauma, like when Picard gets taken over by the Borg, and that leaves him with PTSD, that was fine. But often, you have these people functioning as competent people and they're not traumatized, you know, all the time.

Remember those two scenes from S4 of Discovery with Bryce or whatever his name is, aka the only Asian guy from the bridge, suddenly, out of blue telling Burnham about how his village was wiped out by a hurricane, and the second when Owo literally runs to Saru and tells him about her childhood trauma? Remember how out of place those two scenes were? Yup, those were just the writers doing their daily quota for characters' trauma. Same thing with Detmer's "PTSD" which had little if any effect on the main story. Or Riker's and Troi's son, who died of silicon virus infecting his carbon flesh brain. Or Picard's mom killing herself. Rios' captain killing himself. The writers just needed cheap and quick drama, that would barely last a couple of episodes, before moving on to the next. How can anyone expect good writing when all the writers can do is to make all characters' main trait, being traumatized by the higher-ups?

[hammerofglass]

I love how they've kept up the bit where Tig Notaro is only in like three episodes a season but they never acknowledge her when she's gone or act like it's unusual when she's there. Just off doing her own thing somewhere.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I like the Commander.

[Mabus]

Episode 3 made me fall asleep twice, so I had to postpone watching it for later.

Nothing much interesting happened here, though I did get a laugh when Tillie decided to have the rest of the Discovery bridge crew quickly present themselves to Rayner. I like to think that someone on the writing staff must have realized that after 7 years, we still know next to nothing about them, so they decided to speedrun their characterization, but only the basics, 7 episodes before the show ends. Like doing your summer homework 10 minutes before the teacher enters the classroom.

[hammerofglass]

So predictions for season 5:

* "The real treasure was the friends we made along the way" will be played absolutely straight.

* The smuggler boyfriend dies which sends the girlfriend out of control at a critical moment. Admittedly this one's kind of a gimme.

* Dr. Kovich is revealed to be Control. Because honestly who else could he be that the show would be so cagey about it for half it's run.

* Michael and Booker stay broken up and move on. Nah just kidding it's television, that never happens.

* The whole future part of the show is erased from the timeline and the burn never happened. This will involve a cease and desist from Trance Gemeni.