DIS Will you take my hand

[CrypticMirror]

No matter what they ever do with her, I can never over look the fact that Michael in her very first episode assaulted her Captain and committed mutiny. Maybe if they had done something to endear us to the character first, or given us some sort of reason to agree with her reasons, it might be different. But I don't agree with her reasons, I thought Georgiou was making the right call under the circumstances. I think Michael should never breath free air again. Even if you want to argue that she should somehow be pardoned, and get out of prison, she has proven she should never be trusted to wear a Starfleet uniform again.

Would you like her to be flogged before her execution, or would you like to skip the formality's and get the Firing Squad.

Definitely skipping those formalities, that would be kinda racist as well as being the sort of mistake the Overlord List says to avoid. Just make sure you destroy the brain whatever you do, that way they can never come back. And no monologuing before carrying out sentence, don't want to give time for a rescue.

[Link8909]

Just make sure you destroy the brain whatever you do, that way they can never come back. And no monologuing before carrying out sentence, don't want to give time for a rescue.

Wow... just... (sign) do you even... just... wow, so people talk about how "Nu Trek" never has the spirit of the classic Star Trek, that "it's not optimistic enough" or "it's to cynically", and yet the new series are more innkeeping to what Star Trek is than most fans on the internet, and this quote is case and point.

Your saying that you want this character, who suffered a traumatic experience at a young age from SEEING HER PARENTS MURDERED BY KLINGONS, suffering from survivors guilt, who was then put into a situation where her crew, her family, was at risk from Klingons, and not wanting history to repeat itself, made AND I WILL EMPHASIS THIS, what even the series is deliberately framing as the worst mistake of her life, a decision that while her heart was in the right place and is understandable why she did it, she regrets, that she pays the price for, and must live with.

And you are saying that her Court Marsal isn't enough, that she MUST pay with her life, after all, Star Trek is all about that death penalty, isn't that what "being more enlightened" is all about.

But the icing on the cake is that then you have good old Archer, you now, the hero of the last Star Trek series, literally stealing a vital component from an alien ship, leaving them to die... and everyone talks about "how he's so complexes" and "what an interesting character", and that's the example when Archer was written good, I talked about why Michael potentially caused a political insisted (what she did to Captain Georgiou was wrong), meanwhile Archer's reason for actually caused a political insisted, it was because he was stupid enough to bring his dog on a diplomatic mission to an easily offended plant, and then acted like they were in the wrong, so much so that we were treated to the most lovely of imagines, Archer, who I will remind you is suppose to be the hero of his series, a trained diplomat, LITERALLY PISSING ON AN ALIEN SACRED TREE, and he is considered in cannon as the greatest Starfleet Captain who ever lived, the most important person in history that time travelers are lining up to protect or assassinate him, Archer, the racist dumbass.

Every time I hear about how "Nu Trek is the worst", all I can say is, with all due respect, do you even remember Star Trek Enterprise? do you remember the episodes "Unexpected" "Dear Doctor" or "A Night in Sickbay"? how because of that series we were without a Star Trek series for over a decade, how the last people who were incharge cared so little for Star Trek they were looking for any excuse to cancel the series, even when it was starting to get good? how stagnant the franchise had become that when Star Trek (2009) came along people were saying "how much of a breath of fresh air that was"?

Look, I'm not saying Discovery or any other new series is without flaws, every Star Trek series has flaws, remember how The Next Generation started, but how about we stop acting like everything that comes out is the worst in ever, because quite frankly, IT'S NOT!

[CharlesPhipps]

I like how Spock and kudos for me actually thinking him as Spock, just tears apart Michael's entire martyr complex in like three sentences. "You didn't start the war with the Klingons. They showed up in Federation space with an armada. A vicious warlike race is gonna war. But you'd rather you be the person who caused it."

I will say I bitterly regret T'Kuvma dying in the first episode. He was 1000% more interesting a villain than Kor and I wanted to see his philosophy and ideology explored.

[Link8909]

I like how Spock and kudos for me actually thinking him as Spock, just tears apart Michael's entire martyr complex in like three sentences. "You didn't start the war with the Klingons. They showed up in Federation space with an armada. A vicious warlike race is gonna war. But you'd rather you be the person who caused it."

I will say I bitterly regret T'Kuvma dying in the first episode. He was 1000% more interesting a villain than Kor and I wanted to see his philosophy and ideology explored.

Indeed, Ethan Peck's portrayal of Spock is really good, and I like they incorporated the emotional elements of Leonard Nimoy's early performance that was him still finding the character as part of Spock's character at the time.

And while It's understandable that Michael would have a martyr complex, Spock calling this out is sort of the tough love she needs to stop thinking she needs to bare all the burden of responsibility, my favourite bit of this is from "The Red Angel":

Pike: We're saying that Michael- our- our Michael Burnham is going to wake up one day, access time travel technology that doesn't exist yet, and take it upon herself to save the galaxy.

Spock: That supposition rather fits her emotional profile rather precisely, particularly her drive to take responsibility for situations often beyond her control.

Burnham: Thank you for sharing that with the group, Spock.

Also yes, I did wish T'Kuvma stuck around, with how much the Klingons take pride in their own culture it would make sense that the Federations "unity" would threaten them, it even touches on something said in The Undiscovered Country:

Azetbur: Human rights. Why the very name is racist. The Federation is no more than a homo sapiens only club.

And I like that this was the reason for the Klingon War rather than the usual "They are without Honor" spiel from the TNG era, though I will say while the Klingons themselves acted very much like Klingons, their overall design needed some improvements, I think if they had Human toned skin (not that I'm racist toward Purple People) and given their costumes sashes with medals and their Houses Crests they might have gone over better.

But I do like Voq's design as he could well tie into the Albino from Deep Space Nines "Blood Oath" episode, and I like that they brought back that Klingons do indeed partake in espionage from the TOS era.

[CharlesPhipps]

I admit, it seems Klingons won't be keeping the DISCO design since they're back to "normal" in Lower Decks.

[GreyICE]

Look, I'm not saying Discovery or any other new series is without flaws, every Star Trek series has flaws, remember how The Next Generation started, but how about we stop acting like everything that comes out is the worst in ever, because quite frankly, IT'S NOT!

This is true, and I often take this position on these forums. But lets not also forget the flip side. It's not the worst ever. But it is not actually good. And rather than delivering us a buffet of episodic content that ranges from boring to derivative to mindless adventure to gem in the rough to true genius, Discovery is wedded to an ongoing narrative. And for two seasons running now that ongoing narrative has been so fucking awful that calling it "mindless" is an insult to stupidity. It's very hard to overlook it when we get mystery plots that are resolved by screaming insanuty. It reminds me of the worst of the Russell T. Davies Who era, except with the Bad Wolf plots being given 4x the screen time (but remaining just as fucking stupid).

Our writers are also fucking hacks. Because rather than develop character motivations, and show how the characters motivations and actions draw them in to the ongoing conflict, they use a plot contrivance to pull the characters to where they need to be. And this is where charges of Burnham being a Mary Sue come from - 80% of the plot contrivances involve Burnham suddenly discovering that she's [insert whatever bullshit is needed to move the plot along]. Her mutiny and attack on the Klingons is the only thing that ISN'T this - it's developed from her pathological need to act "more Vulcan than thou" and her fear of the Klingons who murdered her parents. Are we surprised its one of the few remnants to survive intact from the old showrunner?

And where there is only contrivance there is no character growth.

This is the sort of show that looks to kill off a character to show how dangerous someone is, so they kill off the gay black guy. Fucking christ. If this was a bad horror movie they'd joke about that "Christ Matt, you're black and gay? Shit man, you're getting double stabbed!" "No wait, they started letting the gay guys live to show that they weren't just killing the gays." "How about the brothers? Do we get to live?" "Of course not!"

Only it's not a bad horror movie, it's Star Trek Discovery, they play it straight.


So yeah, it's not the worst Star Trek ever. But it's not fucking good. And the very few times it rises to the level of good, its very quick to invoke the ongoing narrative to shut down any idea the season might be going somewhere enjoyable.

I admit, it seems Klingons won't be keeping the DISCO design since they're back to "normal" in Lower Decks.

Does anyone else ever wonder if they changed them because they were embarrassed that their "savage warrior culture" was black people with prosthetic foreheads? And that now they're safe to change it back because the fans demanded black people with weird foreheads, and they're also out of the part of the plot where the Klingons are being tribal savages murdering people?

These things sometimes occur to me rewatching TNG. Like wow, if the Klingons were doing that, looking like that... this might not be entirely comfortable.

[Link8909]

So yeah, it's not the worst Star Trek ever. But it's not fucking good. And the very few times it rises to the level of good, its very quick to invoke the ongoing narrative to shut down any idea the season might be going somewhere enjoyable.

That's fair and I do agree with your points, the major problem for me and as Chuck points out is the fact that Michael is giving far too much story, and as I’ve said could have been given to other characters, and it was bad that we finally get a gay couple only to kill one off so callously.

But for me personally I wasn’t as bothered by the failings of Star Trek Discovery, and I appreciate that the series tried to do something different from previous Star Trek series rather than stay the course that lead to the franchise’s stagnation, and that is just me, one of the many issues with Season 1 of The Next Generation was that it was trying to be like The Original Series, but came into its own when the series started to do its own thing, and one of my personal problems with Star Trek Enterprise is that it seemed to unlearn all the lessons learned from the last 3 seven-year long series.

I’m just more for not giving into the hyperbolization that comes with any new thing that comes along that Chuck talked about in his The Lost World review, the kind that isn’t interested in seeing improvements or willing to discuss what works or what doesn’t, but instead is more interested in screaming that this is bad and you’re an idiot for liking it, that thinking that negativity equals honesty and cynicism equals intelligence.

[GreyICE]

That's fair and I do agree with your points, the major problem for me and as Chuck points out is the fact that Michael is giving far too much story, and as I’ve said could have been given to other characters, and it was bad that we finally get a gay couple only to kill one off so callously.

But for me personally I wasn’t as bothered by the failings of Star Trek Discovery, and I appreciate that the series tried to do something different from previous Star Trek series rather than stay the course that lead to the franchise’s stagnation, and that is just me, one of the many issues with Season 1 of The Next Generation was that it was trying to be like The Original Series, but came into its own when the series started to do its own thing, and one of my personal problems with Star Trek Enterprise is that it seemed to unlearn all the lessons learned from the last 3 seven-year long series.

I’m just more for not giving into the hyperbolization that comes with any new thing that comes along that Chuck talked about in his The Lost World review, the kind that isn’t interested in seeing improvements or willing to discuss what works or what doesn’t, but instead is more interested in screaming that this is bad and you’re an idiot for liking it, that thinking that negativity equals honesty and cynicism equals intelligence.

Absolutely agree. There's room for nuance in criticism. Discovery is bad, but its a salvagable bad. Good acting from many of the main actors - Sonequa Martin-Green, Mary Wiseman, and Wilson Cruz are standouts - my favorite time loop episode, and a few very good outings hint there's more to this than just a sea of mediocrity. If Season 3 has a decent storyline (or is *gasp* episodic) and maybe someone gets Shazad Latif acting lessons or shoves him out an airlock or something, and it could be actually good.

[CharlesPhipps]

Does anyone else ever wonder if they changed them because they were embarrassed that their "savage warrior culture" was black people with prosthetic foreheads?

There's plenty of white Klingons. Martok, Gowron, Chang, Gorkon, and so on. It's just that Worf is now the iconic Klingon.

Also, rebuttal from a friend of color, "Klingons started as racially problematic, being white guys in brownface, but then they became awesome."

[CharlesPhipps]

Also, DISCO *IS* episodic.

It's got an overarching plot but is broken up among a bunch of other episodes:

* Battle of Binary Stars
* Mudd
* Prison Break
* Mirror Universe Arc
* Magic Tree Planet

It's just it's a shorter season.