Star Trek Discovery season 2 megathread

[Worffan101]

All of those problems have one root cause, BunBun. Alex Kurtzman.

He does this all the time. Comes in to take the reigns of a project that's in a financial jam, starts promising all sorts of shit to draw in investors, churns out some cheap crap that bombs, and then flies off with his paycheck. He's a fly-by-night bullshit artist who specializes in churning out shitty, derivative, trope-laden crap that lives up to all the worst stereotypes of genre fair. He, like Orci, has open contempt for his audience, and like Orci seems to think that he's a sublime genius in as perfect a case of the Dunning-Kruger Effect as I've ever seen.

Putting that man in charge of a TV show is like putting Gul Dukat in charge of the Bajoran Comfort-Woman Survivors' Association annual get-together and conference. It will only end in disaster and tears.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Watching the first episode. Strange how Pike just comes in out of nowhere to take over the ship. I think it'd be pretty neat if it turns out that he's actually from the mirror universe.

[Madner Kami]

Putting that man in charge of a TV show is like putting Gul Dukat in charge of the Bajoran Comfort-Woman Survivors' Association annual get-together and conference. It will only end in disaster and tears.

I would actually love to see that happening.

[Worffan101]

Putting that man in charge of a TV show is like putting Gul Dukat in charge of the Bajoran Comfort-Woman Survivors' Association annual get-together and conference. It will only end in disaster and tears.

I would actually love to see that happening.

LOL, seeing Gul Dukat brutally murdered by the victims of his sex slavery program would be hilarious. But I think my point is clear.

[BunBun299]

All of those problems have one root cause, BunBun. Alex Kurtzman.

He does this all the time. Comes in to take the reigns of a project that's in a financial jam, starts promising all sorts of shit to draw in investors, churns out some cheap crap that bombs, and then flies off with his paycheck. He's a fly-by-night bullshit artist who specializes in churning out shitty, derivative, trope-laden crap that lives up to all the worst stereotypes of genre fair. He, like Orci, has open contempt for his audience, and like Orci seems to think that he's a sublime genius in as perfect a case of the Dunning-Kruger Effect as I've ever seen.

Putting that man in charge of a TV show is like putting Gul Dukat in charge of the Bajoran Comfort-Woman Survivors' Association annual get-together and conference. It will only end in disaster and tears.

Well aware of Kurtzman. While I can't recall Chuck ever mentioning him, every other internet reviewer I've seen talk about STD has gone on about him at length. About how the man just seems to fail upwards, somehow. One video I saw recently talked about how he apparently thinks most Trek fans can't tell the difference between DS9 and Voyager... because they aired at the same time or something, I don't know, I can't image any fan ever confusing the two. He's almost certainly projecting his own ignorance there, because he clearly knows nothing about Star Trek.

[MixedDrops]

Leaving the rest of your post (which I agree with) aside, I DO think that there was an attempt by the writers' room to inject politics into the redshirting to score cheap social justice points (because I guess they think social justice works on a points system).

Pike is also shown to be an affable, competent, experienced individual, and is the one character here who old-school fans will immediately know and expect to be "respected", hence the positive portrayal. To counter for doing that for the new white character, I believe the writers and Kurtzman (who directed) thought, they needed to kill off an asshole white guy to show how awesome Burnham is, even though we already HAD a whole season about how Michael Burnham is simply the most glorious creature ever to grace us with her presence.

It is both lazy and shitty writing, and politically motivated, because they lack the competence, work ethic, and basic decency to give us a good product.

Okay, so here's my confusion on all this. Let's assume you're right about all that, that they really did put all that stuff in there for some kind of weird progressive points thing.

From the perspective of a conservative, it still makes no sense for them to dislike the show on that basis, because if the show has both a positive and negative example of a White man, then the message essentially balances out as..."being a dick means you're a dick". Now of course nobody ever said the internet hate mob operates on any sort of logic, but it still makes no fucking sense to accuse the show of somehow being a White-person hating circlejerk when...well, yeah, like I said, there's both a positive and negative example of a White person being given.

I am engaging in good faith, and I hope you are too. But I am not misreading anything, you only think that because you so fundementally disagree with what I think. We are like a meat eater and a vegan arguing over a lost pig - we are never going to see eye to eye or read the same information in the same way no matter how clear cut either side thinks it is.

No, I accuse you of misreading things not because I disagree with you, but because you are misreading things, and you do it immediately right after by declaring this:

No, MRAs are not the same thing as INCELs. I can see why you would like that to be true, but it isn't.

Despite the fact that literally one of the first things I wrote in the post you're quoting is:

Spira, Worf said MRAs "includes" incels, which is perfectly accurate (and is basically the same thing as what you said).

Again, it's hard for me to keep assuming good faith on your part if you're going to keep putting words into other peoples' mouths.

And as for ''their goal'' you can stop with that right now, because MRAs are not a hive mind with a collective goal any more than feminists are. Or shall I lump you in with the radfems who literally want to kill men or the trans exclusionary feminists? Apparantly you are all the same by your logic.
According to official stats, teenage girls in the US are increasingly uncomfortable with calling themselves feminists because they feel as if the word no longer has positive connotations. Isn't that weird? Its almost as if both sides aren't all that different in the West and everything you have said about MRAs can be applied both ways. Herm...

If you have these official stats you're citing, I hope you can provide them, because I'm having trouble finding them.

That aside, your sentiment of "you shouldn't judge movements by their most extreme members" is true in general, but my problem with applying this to feminism and MRAs is that I have yet to see any movement that self-identifies as MRA providing any sort of positive impact in the direction that you are stating they wish to. Again, I have citing groups like The Good Men Project as an example of actual "men's rights" groups that do want to enact positive change, but basically all of the ones I've found do not associate with the term "MRA" at all. If none of these more positive examples associate with the term, why would the term ever refer to them?

Contrast this with feminist groups. Feminist groups that seek to enact positive change do not reject the term feminism despite any annoying radfem groups you can cite (incidentally, if you want to argue about the real-world impact the negative examples of each group in modern America, feel free to tell me the amount of times someone like Tim Kaine retweeted #killallmen versus the amount of times someone like Steve King has personally made the same arguments as Neo Nazis). Can you show me an equivalent of an MRA group encouraging the enaction of changes that can help in men's rights (Ex. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act)? Because as far as my experience goes, every group I've seen identify as MRA spends all their time denying that problems for women exist, attacking/blaming women for troubles men run into, and spend barely any time actually dealing in practical solutions for sexism against men.

After watching the episode, I spent a good deal of time searching the comment section, looking for some sort of defense of the episode. Surely someone has something positive to say about it. But as long as I searched, I could find nothing. No one had anything positive to say about it. Closest thing was some people replying to others, bashing them for not liking the show, but not trying to offer any positive counter arguments. I want something to maybe make me change my mind and somehow find some enjoyment in this new Trek series. Maybe I'll find something like that in this thread. But so far, it seems people watching it are not enjoying it.

I don't think even people who enjoy the show are going to defend the turbolift scene, but I wouldn't look to youtube comments for people trying to enjoy the show, especially in this case when people like Midnight's Edge and Doomcock implicitly asked their viewers to vote brigade and spam hate comments on the video. People who enjoy the show aren't going to enjoy engaging with people like that because they're not there to actually discuss the show, they're just there to make things unpleasant for everyone. I know the Trek subreddit is somewhat positive on the show, you'll probably get a bit more variety in opinions there. I myself am pretty much on the fence for season 2 so far. Episode 1 was completely bland setup for me, and Episode 2 was a standard prime directive episode that had a few good things but was otherwise unremarkable.

And as with most things, people who dislike the show are pretty much always louder about it.

Well aware of Kurtzman. While I can't recall Chuck ever mentioning him, every other internet reviewer I've seen talk about STD has gone on about him at length. About how the man just seems to fail upwards, somehow. One video I saw recently talked about how he apparently thinks most Trek fans can't tell the difference between DS9 and Voyager... because they aired at the same time or something, I don't know, I can't image any fan ever confusing the two. He's almost certainly projecting his own ignorance there, because he clearly knows nothing about Star Trek.

If anybody referred to Kurtzman's quote on DS9 and Voyager and used that to somehow conclude they know nothing about Trek, then that's a very good example of someone who was never interested in giving him a fair shake and just wants to spin everything as negatively as possible, because this is the full quote:

I want to make sure that each show is a different and unique proposition. I think Deep Space Nine and Voyager got into a tricky spot where people were starting to feel they can’t tell the difference between the shows, even though they were very different, but “I can’t tell the difference so why would I pick one over the other?” Our job is to make sure that it feels like a very different prospect from any other Trek show that exists. In the same way in the world of Marvel or in the world of Pixar, you have multiple stories coexisting although each one feels different while there is an assumption and an understanding of what the brand identity of what that thing is.

I can only assume he means it in a marketing standpoint, which is fair- I don't think it's unreasonable to say that Voyager and DS9 airing at the same time might have contributed to both shows suffering viewership-wise. Obviously a Trek fan can easily tell between them, but that wasn't the point of the quote.

[BunBun299]

Leaving the rest of your post (which I agree with) aside, I DO think that there was an attempt by the writers' room to inject politics into the redshirting to score cheap social justice points (because I guess they think social justice works on a points system).

Pike is also shown to be an affable, competent, experienced individual, and is the one character here who old-school fans will immediately know and expect to be "respected", hence the positive portrayal. To counter for doing that for the new white character, I believe the writers and Kurtzman (who directed) thought, they needed to kill off an asshole white guy to show how awesome Burnham is, even though we already HAD a whole season about how Michael Burnham is simply the most glorious creature ever to grace us with her presence.

It is both lazy and shitty writing, and politically motivated, because they lack the competence, work ethic, and basic decency to give us a good product.

Okay, so here's my confusion on all this. Let's assume you're right about all that, that they really did put all that stuff in there for some kind of weird progressive points thing.

From the perspective of a conservative, it still makes no sense for them to dislike the show on that basis, because if the show has both a positive and negative example of a White man, then the message essentially balances out as..."being a dick means you're a dick". Now of course nobody ever said the internet hate mob operates on any sort of logic, but it still makes no fucking sense to accuse the show of somehow being a White-person hating circlejerk when...well, yeah, like I said, there's both a positive and negative example of a White person being given.

I am engaging in good faith, and I hope you are too. But I am not misreading anything, you only think that because you so fundementally disagree with what I think. We are like a meat eater and a vegan arguing over a lost pig - we are never going to see eye to eye or read the same information in the same way no matter how clear cut either side thinks it is.

No, I accuse you of misreading things not because I disagree with you, but because you are misreading things, and you do it immediately right after by declaring this:

No, MRAs are not the same thing as INCELs. I can see why you would like that to be true, but it isn't.

Despite the fact that literally one of the first things I wrote in the post you're quoting is:

Spira, Worf said MRAs "includes" incels, which is perfectly accurate (and is basically the same thing as what you said).

Again, it's hard for me to keep assuming good faith on your part if you're going to keep putting words into other peoples' mouths.

And as for ''their goal'' you can stop with that right now, because MRAs are not a hive mind with a collective goal any more than feminists are. Or shall I lump you in with the radfems who literally want to kill men or the trans exclusionary feminists? Apparantly you are all the same by your logic.
According to official stats, teenage girls in the US are increasingly uncomfortable with calling themselves feminists because they feel as if the word no longer has positive connotations. Isn't that weird? Its almost as if both sides aren't all that different in the West and everything you have said about MRAs can be applied both ways. Herm...

If you have these official stats you're citing, I hope you can provide them, because I'm having trouble finding them.

That aside, your sentiment of "you shouldn't judge movements by their most extreme members" is true in general, but my problem with applying this to feminism and MRAs is that I have yet to see any movement that self-identifies as MRA providing any sort of positive impact in the direction that you are stating they wish to. Again, I have citing groups like The Good Men Project as an example of actual "men's rights" groups that do want to enact positive change, but basically all of the ones I've found do not associate with the term "MRA" at all. If none of these more positive examples associate with the term, why would the term ever refer to them?

Contrast this with feminist groups. Feminist groups that seek to enact positive change do not reject the term feminism despite any annoying radfem groups you can cite (incidentally, if you want to argue about the real-world impact the negative examples of each group in modern America, feel free to tell me the amount of times someone like Tim Kaine retweeted #killallmen versus the amount of times someone like Steve King has personally made the same arguments as Neo Nazis). Can you show me an equivalent of an MRA group encouraging the enaction of changes that can help in men's rights (Ex. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act)? Because as far as my experience goes, every group I've seen identify as MRA spends all their time denying that problems for women exist, attacking/blaming women for troubles men run into, and spend barely any time actually dealing in practical solutions for sexism against men.

After watching the episode, I spent a good deal of time searching the comment section, looking for some sort of defense of the episode. Surely someone has something positive to say about it. But as long as I searched, I could find nothing. No one had anything positive to say about it. Closest thing was some people replying to others, bashing them for not liking the show, but not trying to offer any positive counter arguments. I want something to maybe make me change my mind and somehow find some enjoyment in this new Trek series. Maybe I'll find something like that in this thread. But so far, it seems people watching it are not enjoying it.

I don't think even people who enjoy the show are going to defend the turbolift scene, but I wouldn't look to youtube comments for people trying to enjoy the show, especially in this case when people like Midnight's Edge and Doomcock implicitly asked their viewers to vote brigade and spam hate comments on the video. People who enjoy the show aren't going to enjoy engaging with people like that because they're not there to actually discuss the show, they're just there to make things unpleasant for everyone. I know the Trek subreddit is somewhat positive on the show, you'll probably get a bit more variety in opinions there. I myself am pretty much on the fence for season 2 so far. Episode 1 was completely bland setup for me, and Episode 2 was a standard prime directive episode that had a few good things but was otherwise unremarkable.

And as with most things, people who dislike the show are pretty much always louder about it.

I'm going to assume you watch neither Midnight's Edge or Doomcock (I only discovered Doomcock recently), because neither one does that. There is a very high up voted comment by Doomcock on the episode, in which he gives his own opinion and encourages others to do the same, pro or con. But he never made a video encouraging anyone to go downvote the episode.

And I have never seen Midnight's Edge do anything like that either. At most, they encourage fans to vote with their wallets as they give their own opinions

[MixedDrops]

I wasn't saying they told their viewers to downvote. Midnight's Edge and Doomcock both have very negative views of Discovery, and thus it's obvious what kind of audience they've cultivated between their channels, facebook groups and whatnot. They don't outright tell their viewers to downvote, because they don't need to. I very much doubt neither of them know what the result of telling their fanbases about the video would be.

[Worffan101]

I wasn't saying they told their viewers to downvote. Midnight's Edge and Doomcock both have very negative views of Discovery, and thus it's obvious what kind of audience they've cultivated between their channels, facebook groups and whatnot. They don't outright tell their viewers to downvote, because they don't need to. I very much doubt neither of them know what the result of telling their fanbases about the video would be.

That's going too far. It's like saying Chuck's Voyager reviews are problematic because most of his fans hate Voyager, he dislikes Voyager quite strongly, etc.

[MixedDrops]

I'm not really saying they're problematic exactly, rather I was pointing out a rather obvious cause and effect: If a guy who really dislikes Discovery and has multiple long-winded rants and criticism of Discovery, it's not unreasonable to assume his fans also tend to dislike Discovery. If he tells his fans about a video of Discovery, obviously his fans are more likely going go downvote it and leave hateful comments (I suppose the latter is me calling them problematic to a degree, but that has more to do with how Doomcock and others like him cultivate a specific type of fanbase, and on some level content creators are responsible for the community that they cultivate, but that's an entire discussion of its own), and I think it's silly to assume they don't know they have that sort of fanbase, especially when they also have Facebook groups and the like where they have a more direct pulse of the community. And yes, Doomcock does throw in lines telling people to be objective and not to do things like that, but how much meaning does that have when his entire take is to constantly crap on Discovery, no matter how minor? I mean, do we buy Fox News when they call themselves "fair and balanced" for instance?