Star Trek: Discovery - spoilery thoughts?

[cilantro]

In honor of Clint Howard:

[MixedDrops]

Gonna join in on the people saying that the finale was quite disappointing for me. I didn't mind the corny speech at the end too much since I get why its there (and for me it ain't Trek if you don't have a corny speech in there somewhere, in fact it's one of the reasons Beyond was my favorite Kelvinverse movie), but I agree it didn't feel "earned". Overall I liked season one, but funny enough the "main" plot (if you want to call it that) of the Klingon War was the worst part of it for me.

After watching the pilot I had gotten the impression that we would be getting a season-long story involving lots of Klingon politics ala a lot of Worf episodes. Instead it felt a lot like the writers didn't really want to talk about the war or the Klingons very much at all and it felt more like something happening the background while the spore drive and the mirror universe episodes stole the show. I then thought that this final episode would be setting up for the second season to delve into said Klingon politics, and the Discovery crew would use their knowledge from the Mirror Universe to help stop the war. That was kinda what happened to be sure, but it all happened within a single episode and it all felt very contrived. As others pointed out, the whole "threaten to blow up Qo'noS to gain control of it" was just...absurd. It was so weird to see that happen after the rest of the season feeling so planned out.

Character-wise I was actually somewhat disappointed with what they did with Tyler, and it's related to my disappointment with the Klingon War not getting to have a season of its own, because they actually did kinda do what I wanted them to, but again it's all crammed into one episode. I was hoping this would be a Tuvix situation where Tyler becomes a true mixture of both Tyler and Voq- dramatically it would help develop both AshVoq and Burnham's characters, and Burnham striving to understand Klingons via this man she has fallen in love with could be the "key" to ending the war. They did do that to an extent, except Tyler is just Tyler with the memories of Voq...or I guess he's Voq with Tyler's memories and personality? Whatever the case it feels like a wasted opportunity to only have a few scenes about it.

Finally, I'm not one for squee-ing over fanservice so the final bit with the Enterprise just made me go "oh, okay, I guess that's neat". I do think it'll be interesting to see Burnham and Spock interact at least once though, seems pointless to make her his foster sister otherwise.

Despite a weak final episode I am definitely interested in seeing where the show will go from here. I was disappointed that the Klingon War plot was resolved so quickly, but at the same time it does open up the show to a great deal of possibilities.

[Paul Walker]

I suppose a question we should be asking ourselves is:

"How much of Series One was thrown into disarray by the change in production teams and producers?"

Voq, the Klingon War, and the focus on Burnham were all entrenched quite early in the season. There was more of an ensemble feel to the show in the later episosed (yes, it was still Burnham centric, but we did see more characters doing more things).

Series Two will be the teams first chance to write the show without a lot of baggage being put in place by others. I'm hoping this will improve a show which I already enjoy.

[Fixer]

Some things that never came up again such as the Black Badges. Or Section 31 links. The ship reg is NCC 1031 after all.

From all appearances they wanted to do a Black Ops story in the Klingon War and deconstruction of the Federation ideals, then abandoned that idea, made Lorca a mirror universe captain and set the story back to Star Trek roots.

Perhaps they could have pulled off the original concept if they had made the pilot correctly but they flubbed that badly.

Possibly there was going to be a lot more Klingon politics. I don't think anyone could stand any more actors trying to talk through prosthetics.

The other problem is that Star Trek had its own niche in Sci-Fi. While most other contemporary sci-fi at the moment is also dark, gritty and grim it made Discovery a fairly generic show with sub-par writing and a Star Trek skin. In fact, it's show that would have probably failed if not for that latter detail. The Klingons in discovery are pretty unmemorable as well and their ship designs are an ugly mess. If they were an entirely new species that had to stand on their own, they'd probably be forgotten and discarded.

Overall if I think of the better episodes of Discovery. It's the Mudd Episode and the Mirror Universe episodes. The one episode that was more like an original Trek standalone story and the episodes that were more like Star Wars. It's seems to be what works for this series and it's good idea for them to dump the original "Dark Trek" concept for that.

[Mindworm]

I don't like the lighting kits they installed in the Nacelles. Obviously Pike's chief engineer was into case modding.

Now I've got visions of the engineering crew staying up all night watching American Graffiti and getting ideas.

[Fixer]

youtu.be/ri7v-utIcvY

And Red Letter Media has their review out!

[mercurywatkins]

The final two episodes did a great job of undoing the show's success. The way I see it, the producers got bored with the war, pulled forward the Mirror Universe arc from the second season (Lorca's reveal would have been a killer cliffhanger), then hastily resolved the Klingon plot Bryan Fuller gifted them with. The greater message of the war (the folly of nationalism and xenophobia) was instead shoved into one speech from Lorca and an act of a random Vulcan terrorism. A huge intergalactic war, perhaps the most pivotal in Star Trek history, was reduced to four people in a cave (one of whom is from a magic, alternate reality) playing with a bomb. As a Star Trek fan I was disappointed; as a fan of good television I was even more so.

I write a lot more about this on my site. There's too much to unpack for a single paragraph.

[SlackerinDeNile]

A huge intergalactic war, perhaps the most pivotal in Star Trek history, was reduced to four people in a cave (one of whom is from a magic, alternate reality) playing with a bomb.

That sounds familiar, except the situation I'm thinking of was more fiery...
Also *interstellar.

[Fixer]

A huge intergalactic war, perhaps the most pivotal in Star Trek history, was reduced to four people in a cave (one of whom is from a magic, alternate reality) playing with a bomb.

And half of those people were actual cannibals.
I suppose Burham too. She did swallow.

[excalibur]

Honestly, having watched up to the mirror universe arc, I'm not sure how to feel about this show. Pushing pass all the attempt at hype and controversy that the behind the scenes focused more of than then actual show, I need to really think about it.

On the one hand, it has pretty good production value. Oppose to that thought, I am sick and tired of the JJ Abrams look of the entire show. I've been looking at this universe as the exact same as the reboot series because it looks so similar.

The story writing is very modern. It's very focused on fast pace, action pack, drama. I'm not saying old Star Trek didn't have that but I've never seen it like that.

There are plenty of good moments, though just as many that fall flat or had me scratching with "Why bring it up if there's no story relevance or it doesn't enhance the character?"

Several nitpicks I would bring up is if everyone speaks English as the common language in a unified humanity where local languages seemed to either not exist anymore or not important, why do certain characters still have thick local accents that very distinct compared to others. This little nitpick has always carried with me with other Trek series. Why Chekov speaks like that? Scotty? and now Georgiou, who's name confuses me on her backstory more than Micheal Burnham's name. I don't know what specific ethnicity those names are from. I'm assuming French but she speaks with her actress's thick Chinese-Malaysian accent, which from behind the scene, Michelle Yeoh did it on purpose to add flavor. It feels that they placed the character born in Malaysia to fit with the actress, even though she can speak perfect english with less of an accent - I've heard her speak before. Lorca with his bowl of Fortune cookies was a bit weird, but sure, it's a backstory.

I'm sure others have mentioned the design of the Klingons, their ships, and why they even have cloaking tech before the exchange with the Romulans more than a decade later according to the lore, IF this show is supposed to follow actual canon. Though, from the look of the general tech, it's safe to say they are ignoring all canon that isn't meant to bring out some form of nostalgia.

I supposed, the general complaint I have it everything is too shiny. Not clean kinda shiny, but like everything too fake metal plastic looking shiny. Like there's an imbalance of CGI on the set and it clashes with what's physically there.