As Mariner in Crisis Point 2: it’s a starfleet story so it’s worth telling.
However, I really feel like they wanted to have the “it’s BEFORE almost everything else” cake and also wanting to eat it by having more advanced tech.
Then they realized their error, shot into the future, but in my opinion EXTREMELY underestimated technological advancement across NEARLY 1000 YEARS. Everything basically looks the same.
And then a man child had a temper tantrum and destroyed galactic civilization single-handedly. Sure. Okay. Have fun with the rest of the show, but that’s where I turn in for the night.
It just really seems like they had a premise for a good show, then someone came in and demanded this and that HAS to be in the show, and instead of rewriting to make it good, they just kind of crammed things in to please the higher ups.
I enjoyed large parts of Disco so far, and pretty much agree with you. The show feels like a decent Brian Fuller setup that was corrupted during the production of season 1, and continued to take course correction notes for each new season.
[They] EXTREMELY underestimated technological advancement across NEARLY 1000 YEARS. Everything basically looks the same.
Let me one-up you here: it looked like a step back. Not only in terms of in-universe development, but also just… uninventive production design. Trek gave us sliding automatic doors, flip phones and touchscreen tablet computers before they existed in the real world. Its conceptualisation of 32nd century tech and design on the other hand is swiped from actual 21c industry pipe dreams.
If this sounds very negative, I’ll add that I’ve really enjoyed the highs of Discovery, and there have been a good few throughout the show. I like that they’ve leaned into the emotional and therapeutic work that would go into an accepting, peaceful society — even on a daily workplace and social basis.
And hell yeah, will I binge rewatch all seasons as a warmup to the final outing!
“Flip phone”-style form factors were appearing in fiction in the 20s, and had started to appear in actual electronics by the 60s, albeit as full-sized telephones and radios.
The first stylus-friendly touchscreen became available in 1962, and the first patent for such a device was filed in 1946.
People don't hate this show for existing, they hate the generic JJ Abrams sci Fi aesthetic and writing, its incoherent premise, and the laughable fan fiction back story of its unwatchable main character.
And then a man child had a temper tantrum and destroyed galactic civilization single-handedly. Sure. Okay. Have fun with the rest of the show, but that’s where I turn in for the night.
I felt the same way, at first. Then I realized that we have other things in the Trek canon that asks as much suspension of disbelief:
“God” lives at the center of the galaxy and is a right bastard. Also happens to resemble Chuck Heston as Moses.
Psychics and psychic abilities are a thing
V’ger
Q and the continuum
Whatever species Guinan is, and their supernatural temporal sensitivity
Tachyons and the rest of the fictional subatomic zoo
Mirror Universe
Time travel, but mostly to whatever year the show was made, and for the occasional Deus Ex Machina device
SPACE FUNGUS
Edit: my head-canon for the weirdness of Disco’s first season is that they really wanted it to be the start of a Kelvin-verse TV reboot, but were coy about it.
Edit 2: I forgot about the Kardashev Type 3 civilization of robots living just outside our galaxy, that will turn the Milky Way into a lifeless wasteland if anyone so much as prank calls them. But they made their digits really hard, but possible, to find.
Totally, thank you. Star Trek is goofy as hell sometimes. I think if the Kelpian kid had been a plot device isolated to a single episode, no one would have batted an eye if it were on TNG or VOY. But as the reveal of a season long mystery, it was a big woof for a season and a concept that I was really into.
That said, season 4 really picked up that briefly dropped ball. I think the last two episodes of S4, plus the one with the debate at Federation HQ, will go down as Trek classics once Disco ages a bit.
The Star Trek movie about God flopped though. And for good reason. Holding it up as an example is like saying, “Well, there’s been plenty of one off crappy Star Trek episodes or movies, so we should make five seasons worth of them” and then say that’s ok instead of wanting better.
I don’t dislike it for existing but there are a few characters I can’t stand. Sadly the main two for me are Burnham and Tilly, so I have to cringe a lot. Don’t like the action pace of the show and didn’t like big, season long story arcs. But I do love Stammets and his entire story, wish the whole show was about him, he’s such a unique character and has such a unique skill and connection to Starfleet and the discovery ship itself
I just don’t like the story spanning entire seasons. They either become too complex to keep it interesting, or ir becomes a boring slog to get through.
Also means that if the story sucks, the entire season sucks.
Would have loved it more if it was episodic like SNW.