DIS: “Will You Take My Hand?”

[Karha of Honor]

I have to say for me this show already had a strike against it for being a prequel. I still gave it a shot and couldn't finish it. I have even more disappointment for show runners and executives that think most trek fans can't get away from earlier shows or that we only want fan service and references. It really bugs me because it stifles any attempt to grow this universe.

I think they need to forge their path and create great drama if it grows the universe or not.

Its gonna grow the universe regardless.

And DISCO did not by giving a new Klingon war?

[CmdrKing]

I just don't even get what it is they're going for here, and what they want the show to be, or be about. TOS was wagon train to the stars, STV was exploring the unknown while finding a road home, STE was showing how the foundations got laid. Mileage will vary on how well or not those got executed, but at least the very core premise of them were clear.

This is based solely on Chuck's reviews, so take with a grain of salt for sure, but I think there is an answer to this.

Discovery is the dark side of Trek.

"But CK, we already have that show, it's called DS9"

Not exactly. DS9 was imagined as the frontier outpost counterpart to TOS' wagon train, but what it ended up being was both the "spiritual" Trek and the "war" Trek. Or, put together, DS9 is about a Crisis of Faith: can the Federation Utopia actually exist? What dark deeds are done to accomplish it? Can it withstand a true challenge? Does it deserve to survive at all?
But ultimately it comes away with a resounding yes. Section 31 are ultimately extremists, peace and bridge-building are shown as decisive to ending the war, and specifically undoing the damage done by Section 31 is what opens that window of opportunity.

Discovery is about the dark things that can grow and flourish in the shade of the Trek Utopia. Like I don't think it's an accident that the time/space warping plot device is literally fungus: organisms that grow in darkness, feeding on the decay of other living things. And similarly, Lorca finds a hidden corner of the Federation, a place they very pointedly don't pay very much attention to, and thrives, building power, biding his time. The ~pure~ and ~ideal~ Federation could never have such ambitious and deceitful people in it, don't be silly, and so he does whatever he damn well pleases, until suddenly the Federation needs some dirty work. And lo and behold there ~just happens~ to be an impossibly powerful tool to do it right there whereever did it come from.

The trouble is because of the complete lack of focus in the show, they never really do anything interesting with this. The extended stay in the Mirror Universe is meant to be "see, see, that's the point, Discovery is like the dark mirror to the rest of trek!!" but... aside from the Discovery's very existence we don't really see those darker, ignored flaws of the Federation that the show should be exploring. They made this vessel for a story they didn't bother with.

I mean, if they'd followed through on that intent/concept, I dunno that it'd have been a good or pleasant show. I myself think we need some proper idealistic Trek in the world right now, and while there's some Topical Things to Say about the unseemly underpinnings of a great society, that's so fundamentally not what Trek is that doing it at all is going to feel contrived 99% of the time. But it wouldn't be this ungainly mess of a show.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The trouble is because of the complete lack of focus in the show, they never really do anything interesting with this. The extended stay in the Mirror Universe is meant to be "see, see, that's the point, Discovery is like the dark mirror to the rest of trek!!" but... aside from the Discovery's very existence we don't really see those darker, ignored flaws of the Federation that the show should be exploring. They made this vessel for a story they didn't bother with.

I mean, if they'd followed through on that intent/concept, I dunno that it'd have been a good or pleasant show. I myself think we need some proper idealistic Trek in the world right now, and while there's some Topical Things to Say about the unseemly underpinnings of a great society, that's so fundamentally not what Trek is that doing it at all is going to feel contrived 99% of the time. But it wouldn't be this ungainly mess of a show.

- That's what I was saying about Saru!! His species was the bottom of the food chain, but in that omega state his species evolution gave them an intuitive sense of imminent danger. But IIRC, they didn't do anything with it! At one point I believe his spidey sense goes off, but Michael defies the prospective danger of the situation anyway.

- Sounds interesting, what you're saying in the second paragraph, I'm just having a hard time with the syntax near the end. So I'm not sure I understand fully,.

[CmdrKing]

Oh, yes. If we suppose that the Federation is analogous to the US, then the TOS era can be seen as a time of general optimism despite clear background political tensions. This was broadly true in the time TOS aired (I mean, show started a few years after the Kennedy assassination and would have been conceived and planned to some degree when he was alive) and similarly was often said during the time major work started on Discovery under Obama.

So a show about the dark dealings happening out of the public eye during those eras is certainly a way to give your show gravitas if done well. Nasty, war crime-like things certainly happened under either president, and delving into how idealistic societies continually let such things happen and intentionally feign ignorance at that they do through the magic of Science Fiction isn't a terrible concept. Just not actually the show Discovery ended up being.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Oh, yes. If we suppose that the Federation is analogous to the US, then the TOS era can be seen as a time of general optimism despite clear background political tensions. This was broadly true in the time TOS aired (I mean, show started a few years after the Kennedy assassination and would have been conceived and planned to some degree when he was alive) and similarly was often said during the time major work started on Discovery under Obama.

So a show about the dark dealings happening out of the public eye during those eras is certainly a way to give your show gravitas if done well. Nasty, war crime-like things certainly happened under either president, and delving into how idealistic societies continually let such things happen and intentionally feign ignorance at that they do through the magic of Science Fiction isn't a terrible concept. Just not actually the show Discovery ended up being.

I see. I undoubtedly think it can work, but those kinda grander narratives or backdrops are better paced when you have 26 episodes per season.

[Darth Wedgius]

Is it a little funny to anyone else that they titled an episode "Will You Take my Hand" when featuring a cannibal?

[Enterprising]

I just don't even get what it is they're going for here, and what they want the show to be, or be about. TOS was wagon train to the stars, STV was exploring the unknown while finding a road home, STE was showing how the foundations got laid. Mileage will vary on how well or not those got executed, but at least the very core premise of them were clear.

Not exactly. DS9 was imagined as the frontier outpost counterpart to TOS' wagon train, but what it ended up being was both the "spiritual" Trek and the "war" Trek. Or, put together, DS9 is about a Crisis of Faith: can the Federation Utopia actually exist? What dark deeds are done to accomplish it? Can it withstand a true challenge? Does it deserve to survive at all?
But ultimately it comes away with a resounding yes. Section 31 are ultimately extremists, peace and bridge-building are shown as decisive to ending the war, and specifically undoing the damage done by Section 31 is what opens that window of opportunity.

Discovery is about the dark things that can grow and flourish in the shade of the Trek Utopia. Like I don't think it's an accident that the time/space warping plot device is literally fungus: organisms that grow in darkness, feeding on the decay of other living things. And similarly, Lorca finds a hidden corner of the Federation, a place they very pointedly don't pay very much attention to, and thrives, building power, biding his time. The ~pure~ and ~ideal~ Federation could never have such ambitious and deceitful people in it, don't be silly, and so he does whatever he damn well pleases, until suddenly the Federation needs some dirty work. And lo and behold there ~just happens~ to be an impossibly powerful tool to do it right there whereever did it come from.

The trouble is because of the complete lack of focus in the show, they never really do anything interesting with this. The extended stay in the Mirror Universe is meant to be "see, see, that's the point, Discovery is like the dark mirror to the rest of trek!!" but... aside from the Discovery's very existence we don't really see those darker, ignored flaws of the Federation that the show should be exploring. They made this vessel for a story they didn't bother with.

I could maybe accept that was what it was about, if the series itself went into how at least some of that happened and came to be. I thought we were going to have a show initially about a ship that was basically under S31 command (with the 1031 registry) but S31 wasn't mentioned until this episode, the last one of the season. So you're very last sentence is 100% fitting for this, and one I completely agree with.

I could take in the Lorca points if we seen at least seen some of what you described on-screen, but as it was on the show, he was already bedded in and established with all that. The drama about him was instead on being this rogue like Captain that can do things all the others can't/won't, until the revelation of the MU kicks in of course.

I thought as the initial episodes were playing out, that this was going to be a war story, which confused me a lot as then, why call the show "Discovery"? You're boldly going to where we've been before with all guns blazing. In the end, we barely seen any of the war, then it's dropped for the MU, and then the war thing is wrapped up here in a rush at the very end, like they'd forgotten about it and had to quickly finish it somehow.

So that is why I have real trouble defining it, especially when trying to tell someone else that hasn't seen it. It's under the Star Trek banner to begin with, which is in the main known for exploring strange stuff, social constructs and general sci-fiy stuff. It gets called Discovery, which further implies we're going back to the exploring strange stuff thing, then we're told it's 10 years before Kirk is on the Enterprise. So it's TOS era which is the most ripe era for exploring strange stuff, looking at social constructs and general sci-fiy stuff. Then you see the show, and there's nothing about that in the show, the closest we get is the odd one line of dialogue from someone here or there.

I'll watch S2 since it's on my Netflix and won't cost me anything extra beyond time. If I had to get an extra thing like folk in the US had to, then I couldn't justify it in the least.

It's a bad show, biggest reason being it doesn't know what it wants to be, the few things it does get through is the opposite of what most would expect or want from a Star Trek show. People hated Man of Steel and the like for good reasons, we don't want stuff like Superman or Star Trek to be "dark, gritty, flawed". If we want that kinda stuff, we can just turn on a news channel. Star Trek is suppose to take us away from that for a wee while, and seeing tales about humanity that show us as way better and more uplifting.

[Asvarduil]

So, here's what I think.

First - I do think that Chuck is right. Having Burnham in the lead role was an absolutely god-awful mistake. The reason is, that her character is frankly ill-thought out, and ill-thinks-things-out. Michael Burnham is bad at decision-making; she may be a great scientist, but we're not really shown that aspect of her too much. All we see is her failing at the morality she claims she has, and making decisions that make bad situations worse.

Having Burnham mess up to kick the whole story off is OK. However, her character has no arc. She never learns from her mistakes, really - and worse, in the end, gets rewarded for committing mutiny. She's like the idiot hero in Anime, only she's female, doesn't have spiky hair, and doesn't likely eat as much as most anime protagonists.

That being said, I feel like of all the characters, it's Tilly that's the saving grace of the show. I find her character really, really likable - she starts off being a total spaz, but unlike Burnham, she has a damn good character arc. She grows as a person in terms of demeanor, capability, and self-esteem. She may or may not be on the Autism spectrum, but that's what makes her character still better, and what Burnham should've been - she overcomes her nature and challenges to be a better person. What's more, she can scare the shit out of the former Terran Emperor, while not being at all as ax-crazy as her counterpart. I feel like she's a Crouching Spaz, Hidden Badass.

Still, if the first season had dared to develop the other characters, it would've been so much better. Saru also has a character arc where he learns to overcome his own nature as a prey animal, to become a fairly decent C.O. The woman on the bridge with the cybernetics who survived the destruction of the Shenzhou - I don't know her name, because she speaks a grand total of like four times ever in the season - she adjusts to having cybernetics surprisingly well, and based on how she comes over to Tyler and Tilly, seems to be a good-hearted woman. What's her story? No, really, I'd like to know.

Here's the thing - Star Trek Discovery is trying too hard to be something it's bad at being. Chuck is right at saying, this is a show about adventure that goes on no adventures, that's a war story that has no war. It's also something else - it's a character piece, that focuses either on the wrong character, or just doesn't develop the other characters necessary for it to be a character piece. Trek's messages of social justice, and the nobility of the human spirit only work when you develop the characters and show their interactions.

Because no characters are developed, the relationships aren't impressive enough for the show to develop or deliver the theme that I think the show wanted to deliver, of one's morals being indispensible, especially in a desperate situation like a war.

That, I think is the real tragedy of DISCO season 1. Because the writers didn't really know what they wanted to do - if we're being 100% honest, because they were busy doing actual virtue signaling - they failed to convey the ideals they wanted, and they failed to make the emotional moments they needed to make for that to happen. They wrote J.J. Verse trek - visually amazing, but morally hollow.

Reading between the lines, I think that the writers of DISCO wanted to rebuke the wave of nationalism and authoritarianism that's sweeping the world, but all they did is prove that they don't know how to argue against it, because their own ideas were unclear. They made very bad, emotional mistakes with their storytelling, that did the modern political landscape they were trying to comment on a grave injustice. Instead of being a powerful inspiration to resist hate and fear, all they did was create a convenient instance of what authoritarians argue that those who argue against them are - people just talking about virtues to self-aggrandize.

That being said, I also feel like the network and their own management may have strangled their storytelling; while Berman & Braga weren't responsible for this mess, the script feels similarly disjointed. That can't be coincidence.

Here's hoping they learn from their mistakes in Season 2.

[Yukaphile]

Tbh, I hope they don't learn. I want STD to be canceled so they can stop raping the franchise I love for money. The people who own Star Trek now are... freaking Ferengi. God help us.

Wait, are Berman and Braga working on this?

What were Chuck's overall thoughts on STD? Where would he rank it, against TNG, TOS, the movies, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise?

[Karha of Honor]

So, here's what I think.

First - I do think that Chuck is right. Having Burnham in the lead role was an absolutely god-awful mistake. The reason is, that her character is frankly ill-thought out, and ill-thinks-things-out. Michael Burnham is bad at decision-making; she may be a great scientist, but we're not really shown that aspect of her too much. All we see is her failing at the morality she claims she has, and making decisions that make bad situations worse.

Having Burnham mess up to kick the whole story off is OK. However, her character has no arc. She never learns from her mistakes, really - and worse, in the end, gets rewarded for committing mutiny. She's like the idiot hero in Anime, only she's female, doesn't have spiky hair, and doesn't likely eat as much as most anime protagonists.

That being said, I feel like of all the characters, it's Tilly that's the saving grace of the show. I find her character really, really likable - she starts off being a total spaz, but unlike Burnham, she has a damn good character arc. She grows as a person in terms of demeanor, capability, and self-esteem. She may or may not be on the Autism spectrum, but that's what makes her character still better, and what Burnham should've been - she overcomes her nature and challenges to be a better person. What's more, she can scare the shit out of the former Terran Emperor, while not being at all as ax-crazy as her counterpart. I feel like she's a Crouching Spaz, Hidden Badass.

Still, if the first season had dared to develop the other characters, it would've been so much better. Saru also has a character arc where he learns to overcome his own nature as a prey animal, to become a fairly decent C.O. The woman on the bridge with the cybernetics who survived the destruction of the Shenzhou - I don't know her name, because she speaks a grand total of like four times ever in the season - she adjusts to having cybernetics surprisingly well, and based on how she comes over to Tyler and Tilly, seems to be a good-hearted woman. What's her story? No, really, I'd like to know.

Here's the thing - Star Trek Discovery is trying too hard to be something it's bad at being. Chuck is right at saying, this is a show about adventure that goes on no adventures, that's a war story that has no war. It's also something else - it's a character piece, that focuses either on the wrong character, or just doesn't develop the other characters necessary for it to be a character piece. Trek's messages of social justice, and the nobility of the human spirit only work when you develop the characters and show their interactions.

Because no characters are developed, the relationships aren't impressive enough for the show to develop or deliver the theme that I think the show wanted to deliver, of one's morals being indispensible, especially in a desperate situation like a war.

That, I think is the real tragedy of DISCO season 1. Because the writers didn't really know what they wanted to do - if we're being 100% honest, because they were busy doing actual virtue signaling - they failed to convey the ideals they wanted, and they failed to make the emotional moments they needed to make for that to happen. They wrote J.J. Verse trek - visually amazing, but morally hollow.

Reading between the lines, I think that the writers of DISCO wanted to rebuke the wave of nationalism and authoritarianism that's sweeping the world, but all they did is prove that they don't know how to argue against it, because their own ideas were unclear. They made very bad, emotional mistakes with their storytelling, that did the modern political landscape they were trying to comment on a grave injustice. Instead of being a powerful inspiration to resist hate and fear, all they did was create a convenient instance of what authoritarians argue that those who argue against them are - people just talking about virtues to self-aggrandize.

That being said, I also feel like the network and their own management may have strangled their storytelling; while Berman & Braga weren't responsible for this mess, the script feels similarly disjointed. That can't be coincidence.

Here's hoping they learn from their mistakes in Season 2.

JJverse Trek is morally hollow?

I don't think it is.

And it does not have Space Hitlerina giving orders to Starfleet.

At leasat Berman and Braga were doing episdic stuff so if they fucked up it was more conatined.

Trek's messages of social justice, and the nobility of the human spirit only work when you develop the characters and show their interactions.


Universal jusatice, colorblindnes qoute unqoute, no more greed. Not what we mean by Social Justice today minus the TNG Neutral Zone episode.

Tbh, I hope they don't learn. I want STD to be canceled so they can stop raping the franchise I love for money. The people who own Star Trek now are... freaking Ferengi. God help us.

They weren't Fertengi before?