hissss it burns ussss
If I've never seen them, they don't exist. Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks.. none of it. I'm safe and pure.
At least give lower decks a try if you’ve seen the rest of trek, the references alone make it fun to watch. It’s AU it doesn’t taint the cannon but it’s still trek and a good time
From the clips I've seen, I can already tell you I don't like the character designs or the humor.
Picard is elder abuse and I'm sticking to it.
It isn't the mushroom drive that made Discovery bad, it's that Starfleet apparently no longer has any kind of standards.
TOS and TNG had all kinds of "woke" politics for their era, but they portrayed them as happening on a military vessel. People were calm, competent and followed the chain of command. The only time that broke down is when they were under the influence of some kind of alien disease or tech.
Discovery's crew was full of whiny, fragile people that were barely able to do their jobs for all the time they spent obsessing about their personal problems. Tilly is the prime example of this. The "Tilly" equivalent in TNG was Reginald Barclay. Shy, stressed, lacking self confidence, etc. Barclay's character arc makes sense for Star Trek. He is able to save the day, but he's certainly not promoted because it's clear that the senior officers on the show are calm, competent and project confidence. He's basically there to show that not all Star Trek characters are the confident, competent, brave people who make up the bridge crew. And, by doing that they emphasize how elite the bridge crew is. Meanwhile, on Discovery, Tilly is promoted and keeps gaining responsibility despite never addressing these gaping character flaws. The "Tilly" message seems to be something like "it doesn't matter if you're weird, awkward and unable to communicate competently, as long as you love and accept yourself, you too deserve to be on the bridge making life or death decisions".
Discovery also fails because that lack of competence is everywhere in the crew. The original shows had the crew acting as... well a crew. They'd tackle problems together. In TOS Kirk would lead the charge, but he'd never do anything on his own. Spock was stronger and smarter than anybody else, but he followed the lead of his commander. McCoy handled the medical stuff. Scotty handled engineering. In Discovery, Burnham is apparently the only competent person on the crew, and the only one not to be fazed when something bad happens, so rather than the crew working together to solve issues, it's superhero Burnham while the crew faints dramatically. The only real exceptions to that are Saru (whose personality doesn't really make sense given what they explain about his species), and Commander Reno, who is a breath of fresh air because she's basically the only one who isn't constantly freaking out -- although the sarcasm and fatalism of her character is almost too much.
What makes it all worse is that the backdrop is that the universe is doomed and only Discovery can save it. Sure, the other Treks have had major threats to the universe, but they were being slow-rolled over a long season, or sometimes multiple seasons. They had room to breathe and do episodes that didn't advance the plot. That gave them a time to do episodes focused on fleshing out the personality of a member of the crew, to do silly things, etc. Discovery has the whiniest, least professional crew that has ever crewed a starship (and I'm including Boimler and friends), who are whining while dealing with the most urgent apocalyptic scenarios. It's a soap opera while the end of the world is playing out.
Sure, the other Treks have had major threats to the universe, but they were being slow-rolled over a long season, or sometimes multiple seasons. They had room to breathe and do episodes that didn't advance the plot.
As a usual defender of Discovery - I absolutely agree here. CBS clearly wanted to do a Battlestar Galactica, just in case Star Trek was over.
As much as I like Discovery, I'll admit I'm sure I would like it more if they had settled down from the constant universe ending a bit more often.
And the constant tearful goodbyes to characters that either don’t die or somehow come back from the dead.
Tap for spoiler
When they killed the cyborg girl, I felt absolutely nothing because they had spent essentially zero time on her character prior to that.
I have had fun with Discovery (wrapping up season 4 on my first time through), but it’s my least favorite series so far. I don’t connect with the characters nearly as much as I’d want, and I think that’s largely because every single moment is a universe-ending crisis.
No one character’s big sacrifice to save everything has any meaning when five minutes later the universe is ending again. There isn’t space for any real happiness in the plot. They don’t really do science. The scientific explanations of things are extra goofy.
Tap for spoiler
(“The data won’t let us delete it. Guess we can’t remove our computer storage, so we’d better destroy the ship. No, wait, let’s just time travel instead using a suit that we also said was impossible to make with our technology - but we’ll make TWO of them anyway using the magic time stones!”)
I very much enjoyed the Strange New Worlds cast joining the series for that season though (I wish we’d gotten some more Nurse Chapel time because I think Jess Bush is adorable.)
I like the set and costume work. I think the actors do a great job (just once I’d like to hear Doug Jones do Baron Afanas’ voice while in Saru makeup). There’s a lot to like about the show, and I think it was worth watching. I can’t see rewatching it anytime soon though.
I regret that I have but one upvote to give to this comment.
The only addition I have is the glorification/growth of Section 31. They were introduced as the baddies because they are the antithesis of what the Federation is. As a foil they're at least a gateway to interesting variations on "do the ends justify the means" and ""are short term solutions acceptable while sacrificing long term ones". Which the Federation classically would answer with a resounding "No".
But sci-fi Black Ops is "cool" and The Expanse was popular so lets get on that bandwagon apparently. (I love The Expanse, but different things should be different.)
I had to stop watching when an alien got really sad that one time and that caused all the dilithium crystals in the galaxy to blow up. It was just... Dumb.
At the same time, it was a very TOS plot and resolution, and Discovery is based on that.
Charlie X was a child who would have blown up the entire Federation, because he was upset that people told him "no".
Lazarus nearly detonated the entire universe, and for at least one moment, caused it to cease to exist.
Which doesn't gel with the post-TNG Trek, which is more scientifically grounded, but "child got given godlike powers and nearly wiped out the galaxy because they were upset" fits in perfectly with TOS. It's just missing a reset button to put everything to rights.
I feel like one of the main issues with Discovery is also that it's much more serialised, and more compact, to its detriment.
There wasn't an ambiguous downtime between adventures, or for things to happen off-screen, everything happened one after the other. We didn't have space to develop and explore the characters, basically everything was plot, which made the emotional parts feel unearned.
The characters were rarely more than the bare minimum to enable said plot.
It hugely needed downtime it didn't really get, and could have benefited from stretching out either the seasons or the episodes out to have them be more fleshed out and normal, instead of dealing with crisis after crisis after crisis. In all of three seasons, we had about a single segment of episode where they had any memorable recreation at all.
There was never an equivalent of the "The Doctor is a good singer, Worf hates children, Spock likes chess" moments for the Discovery characters to expand into between the big plot points. They don't really have long-term flaws, or room to grow for the most part.
Discovery also fails because that lack of competence is everywhere in the crew.
I'd actually disagree with you on discovery showing a lack of competence. If anything, besides the attitude, it felt more like the characters were too competent. They didn't have varied, specific flaws and weaknesses that made them seem more human, instead being universally omnicompetent.
Even TNG, otherwise a shining bastion of competency, worked best when the characters had individual flaws and weaknesses that they collectively mitigated by relying on each other, rather than everyone being perfect and good at everything.
Discovery lacks that kind of deferring to better expertise, and often comes across as Burnham does everything. Except when she's coming up with a plan that will fix everything, there was barely any consultation, or back and forth. There wasn't really ever a "I can think of something that could help, but have no idea how to execute it, anyone know how we might pull it off?", or "That's not a bad thought, but if we do it this other way, it might be better".
basically everything was plot, which made the emotional parts feel unearned.
Unearned, and also shoehorned in. They were in the middle of a series of crises, and instead of just putting the personal stuff to the side until the crisis/crises were over they had to deal with personal soap-opera stuff in the middle of that. And, that meant that you couldn't have personal character development that was low-stakes. For it to interrupt the crisis it had to be high stakes. That just heightened the soap-operaness because every emotional moment was high stakes.
Discovery lacks that kind of deferring to better expertise, and often comes across as Burnham does everything.
That's basically what I mean about the incompetence. She had to do everything herself rather than consult with the rest of the crew, often breaking the rules because she didn't have time to follow them because everything was so urgent. On every other Star Trek, the chief engineer would be consulted when it came to engineering things, the science officer when it came to science things, and so-on. But, because Burnham didn't consult her experts, it makes it seem like they're not competent enough to keep up with her.
So, these other crew members are involved when there's a high-stakes soap opera scene where they bare their souls. But, they're bypassed when Burnham has to take quick actions or the whole multiverse dies. Which makes it seem like this isn't a crew of a captain, a science officer and a chief engineer working together to solve things. It's a soap opera involving Tilly, Stamets, and Jett while Burnham saves the multiverse.
This. All of this. Thank you.
Still canon tho
Yeah so is TAS. Being canon doesn’t mean it’s good or even good for the universe of canon itself.
Pop culture is mythology. You decide what's canon.
Aside: Y'all think the Egyptians ever had arguments over which version of Horus was canon?
Absolutely. In fact they definitely had wars about it.
People who whine about the silliness of some of the concepts in Discovery (spore drive, space-tardigrades) have never seen TOS.
While I do generally enjoy discovery, I do think It's still pretty flawed. Not because of the spore stuff, but because of the way that they have to deal with so many "danger to the entire galaxy/universe/multiverse" type events back to back. Like, doing a few is fine, I generally enjoyed the xindi arc in Enterprise for example, but having so many starts to feel very forced after awhile.
I especially find that bit with the spore energy extractor in the mirror universe that could kill all life in the multiverse if not stopped jarring, because, if you have a potentially limitlessness number of alternative timelines, and the massive expanse of space, to develop that tech in, the odds that nobody else ever built one of these drops to essentially zero, except that the existence of the plot at all implies nobody else ever has.
Not because of the spore stuff, but because of the way that they have to deal with so many “danger to the entire galaxy/universe/multiverse” type events back to back. Like, doing a few is fine, I generally enjoyed the xindi arc in Enterprise for example, but having so many starts to feel very forced after awhile.
I totally agree. When the stakes are over the top it makes the universe feel small. When everything depends on one crew at all times it feels hard to believe there is a larger world they exist in in which to immerse my imagination. Discovery has fantastic characters, acting, directing, costumes, sets - I would love to see all these great features thrive without leaning on artificial plot tension. The main goal of any show is to make you care about what happens. Ideally you care because you feel a personal connection to the characters. But making the stakes huge, and including frequent ticking-clock scenarios is easier. The thing is I do care about these characters! The artifice is unnecessary!
But it got better the longer the show went on! I appreciate how every season the stakes got smaller, and more believable, and the pacing got less frantic especially in the last two seasons.
spoilers: de-escalating stakes each season
- season 1: The entire Klingon war, and btw the existence of every possible universe is threatened.
- season 2: All life is about to be wiped out, but only in one universe.
- season 3: Is the Federation over? It's not clear if the dilithium crisis extends to other galaxies, but the stakes seem to be scoped to geopolitics in one quadrant.
- season 4: Several planets are in danger. Still bigger stakes than I'd prefer, but there is much improvement over season 1.
I especially find that bit with the spore energy extractor in the mirror universe that could kill all life in the multiverse if not stopped jarring, because, if you have a potentially limitlessness number of alternative timelines, and the massive expanse of space, to develop that tech in, the odds that nobody else ever built one of these drops to essentially zero, except that the existence of the plot at all implies nobody else ever has.
Agreed. It'd have been perfectly fine to scale it down to have the extractor messing up the nearby mycelial network/subspace enough that the spore hub drive would become inoperable, and they'd lose the only method they had to get home.
If anything, that might be more compelling, since you could easily squeeze in a character conflict with some people wanting to leave, damn the consequences, or make preparations for a long term stay in the mirror universe if they got stuck.
In some way, its probably similar to Lazarus' machine. He managed to build something capable of obliterating two universes. It didn't seem that difficult, or that much more advanced than the Enterprise, you'd think someone else would have built something similar, and accidentally destroyed the universe in so doing.
That's how I felt reading the Batman new 52 run. It was just constant city-wide crises with escalating stakes. Just foil a bank robbery or something now and then ffs.
Not because of the spore stuff, but because of the way that they have to deal with so many “danger to the entire galaxy/universe/multiverse” type events back to back
I find this complaint to be fairly flawed. It's like saying that it's exhausting to have to deal with a space station on DS9 all the time. That's just... the show. Discovery, the ship, was built to be a fast reaction vessel to respond to immediate and imminent threats. Why is it such a surprise that they do exactly that? It's like complaining that a special forces team is constantly dealing with dangerous missions. It's their job.
Every show has their own tone and flavor. Discovery's is the major threats. That's really all there is to it on that front. It's not wishwashy or bad writing. It's just the literal gimmick of the show.
Not liking it is fine but that specific complaint never really struck true for me.
odds that nobody else ever built one of these drops to essentially zero, except that the existence of the plot at all implies nobody else ever has.
It doesn't drop to essentially zero. Not all timelines are identical. Each has their own differences. Just because a Charon-type mycelial core was made elsewhere doesn't mean that those people didn't notice that issue or curtail it in their own universe. Question, do you have the same complaint about the finale of Lower Decks then? That's not dissimilar.
Edit: Downvote an opinion you disagree with while refusing to engage. Go replicate a spine, would you?
Don't mind me. I'm just thinking about the time Voyager had to battle a plague of giant viruses.
TBH Voyager is the orginal "bad trek"
TOS was, well TOS, TNG had a rough start but was always viable, DS9 started with consolidated lore and respected it, albeit being of course darker than the others, VOY... had bad writing. Wackyness in itself is not a huge issue though.
DIS gets hate because it feels like they wanted to write a specific series and just used the Star Trek setting for it, instead of wanting to make a Star Trek series.
I thought we all agreed that canon doesn’t start until the Wrath of Khan.
I try to console myself with the fact that Lower Decks is canon, too.
My wife and I are watching Star Trek for the first time ever. We're on the 4th season of The Next Generation. So I'm not "in the know". Should we not watch discovery when we get to that point? What's wrong with it?
I personally liked it a lot. I liked the fact that it broke from the style of the 90's Trek series and did something fresh. But that is exactly what a lot of Trek fans hated.
I love Discovery. You should definitely give it a chance.
It's not perfect, and some of the complaints in this thread are completely valid, but I attribute the ferocity of the hate it gets more to the fact that it brought Trek back as a series after a very long hiatus, and took some pretty big swings as a result.
I was around when DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise were the new shows that "just didn't understand Star Trek," so from my perspective it's all very cyclical. Trek fans, as with most long-standing fandoms, don't all handle change very gracefully.
Trek fans, as with most long-standing fandoms, don’t all handle change very gracefully.
Should be shouted at every comic-con by the Star Trek cast as a reminder.
Honestly, it's just a different tone. That's about it. You should definitely watch it and decide for yourself whether you enjoy it, don't let other people online decide for you.
I will say that the first season is a little rough around the edges but all Star Trek shows are. It gets better as it goes on. Tone, acting, writing. It all takes a slight tonal shift in the second season. At least there's only 13ish episodes as opposed to the 24 of older shows.
It's not wrong per se, it's just different. I don't particularly like Discovery and Picard, but they're ok. They don't have the same monster of the week approach as the others, and a lot of the other stuff has already been discussed here; lack of development of the crew and their relationship, the main character is constantly on focus while everyone else in the bridge is in rear view, no breathing room for proper character development, the orcs/klingons, etc.
I would rather watch Lower Decks, Prodigy or even The Orville. They're closer to what I like about Star Trek (though The Orville takes a bit to get there).
Shouldn't that last one say USS Voyager NCC-74656?
I have such a soft spot for VGR but my god it was an abomination. Tuvix anyone?
This might hurt your bones a bit:
MOOPSY IS CANON TOO
Don't care. Still ignoring it exists.
the real chad
Getting strong Sealab 2021 but live action vibes here.
strong Sealab 2021 but live action vibes
Now I want to see survey of people who loved Sealab 2021 and are apologists for Discovery. The venn diagram might just be a perfect circle...
I don't, myself, disagree with any of the many complaints people have about Disco. My counter argument is just - I still had fun.
You've given me this revelation that I defend Sealab 2021 exactly the same way...
Doppelgänger!!
Always bring a cannon to a canon fight
First couple of seasons were “ok”. But after the jump to the future the show became almost unwatchable.
Bad Trek is better than no Trek and the fact that this show spawned SNW gives it a pass in my book.
Just like Matrix 2 and 3 didn't exist, Discovery does not exist either.
Just watched Section 31.
Guess AI crap gets to be canon now. Mercurial Scottish crazy Vulcan bots, too.
Everything except that one line about elon musk.
But in generall the concept of canon is completly overated. Like these are stories that are up to interpretation they not real. You can do what ever you want with that.
Its kind of interesting to see how some of those anti woke types loose their shit over this. (not just)
Anyways I can recommend jessie gender after dark's video on this subject relatong to trek
Two lines. They had two elon musk lines and by far the worst part of the show
🙄
But in generall the concept of canon is completly overated.
You know, I wanted to disagree... But some of my favorite stories (especially Pathologic) make questions of canon a central story element. Sure, there's still a canon you could arrive at, but the canon of your experience with these stories is what makes them endlessly interesting and mystifying to me.
And that's not even to mention worlds like Dark Souls, Elden Ring etc. which deliberately allow for so much head canon that discussions are still going many years after release. None of this would work with strict canon.
I don't care about Canon. Every Trek has done silly things that are then included, or ignored, based on the next writers whims.
What did annoy me was that it became less and less fun to watch. Neither the scripts nor the sets and backgrounds felt like they where done by people who liked the general ideas and vibes of star trek. Or maybe they just didn't share my idea for star trek.
Pretty much only sticked around because I liked Stamments, Culber, and Adira. For all it's failings, I did feel they nailed representation.
Why do people care about canon?
Because an expansive universe lore is enjoyable if it's coherent and there are stakes at play. If you consider the official canon, voyager as a series is pretty much to throw away, because the Federation would already have the technology to bring them home centuries ago. And yes, many times the writers played around the concept in good ways to not make Discovery a ridicolously overpowered ship, but it still suffers from big "Superman is so strong he can destroy a plenet with his mind" energy.
Can you make the whole series good with deus ex machina superpowers? I guess. Was the writing good enough for it? Absolutely not.
Yes, I am aware of the baby lizards warp 10 episode of Voyager, that should also be thrown away from canon as it makes no sense, but at least it was a whacky episode among many (and the showrunners ackowledged it) not the premise of an entire seriea.
Because an expansive universe lore is enjoyable if it’s coherent and there are stakes at play. If you consider the official canon, voyager as a series is pretty much to throw away, because the Federation would already have the technology to bring them home centuries ago.
This sounds like a very good argument not to care about canon. You, who care about canon, are bothered that two shows made 20 years apart by different creative teams have a little friction with each other. I, who don't stress about canon, am able to accept both shows' premises on their own terms and enjoy them for what they are.
Headcannon all that matters
I haven't yet seen the last season of Lower Decks, but apparently they make the claim that Discovery was set in an alternate universe.
https://cosmicbook.news/star-trek-discovery-erased-canon
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/star-trek-erased.htmlAgain, I can't validate that, but have read those articles
That just seems like an intentional misinterpretation from someone who wants Discovery to be as non-canon as possible.
That's very possible
I watched the episode. They didn't erase it. They clearly weren't paying attention.
The Klingons in our world evolved and look different from DSC onwards. The ones in the timeline they shifted to, do not. Simple as that. Made fairly clear with the other stuff about a Klingon sailing barge and what have you.
More whiny people just whining.
Is that the guy who was in rent?
Yep. He plays a much larger role in DISC
lol did you forget that you already posted this?
Honestly, yes. I have so much stuff that I post that sometimes I don't update the tags properly and forget that I have already posted it. My mistake. That being said, was a while ago so meh.
And it seems to have generated quite a bit of discussion already anyway
You can keep the shrooms as long as I get to keep the Catians.
No. Not false. Just because someone else has a failure in basic video comprehension does not mean that Discovery is not canon. They just completely failed to understand what was happening in that episode.
Edit: Made even dumber by that link saying that Discovery/Section 31 aren't canon but SNW is. Well, you see, SNW kinda came from Discovery. You don't get to have one without the other. The pilot of SNW even aggressively states that they're in the same universe.
But nope. Hateful lil bitch fans gotta hate.
Hola, someone didn't pay attention to the show
Last I read, it was erased from canon not too long ago.
The same phenomenon that turned the TNG era Klingon into a Discovery era Klingon also turned the Cerritos from a California class to a Galaxy class. So I guess TNG is also no longer canon.
It was not erased from Canon and I'm starting to lean towards banning that site on this community for outright misinformation.
It's stunning how there are people who hate Discovery so much they will full on fucking lie about what is happening. It certainly wasn't a misunderstanding because that episode makes it abundantly clear that Discovery was not erased from canon. There was a single fucking scene of the quantum rift changing a Klingon ship into a Discovery era one. That is the entirety of the proof that "Discovery was erased from canon." Problem is that it doesn't work because the quantum rift changes you into something from another era or multiverse. The only thing that scene did was temporally shift the klingons. Same way the klingons were temporally shifted and turned into a sailing barge. Both are part of Klingon history.
Just because some haterboy has a failure in comprehension skills does not mean that it was erased from Canon.
If Lower Decks added multiverses then anything can be canon or not canon according to the viewer's preference! Want a multiverse that's the same but Discovery doesn't exist? Okay, that's the multiverse whatever show is set in until such time as they explicitly bring it up.
That's how infinite realities work!
My hot take is that Star Trek is actually a fictional show, and not 100% accurate historical documents at all! If this were true, we could all just ignore the parts we don’t like.
I know. No true Star Trek fan would believe this. Maybe I’m just losing my faith.
Heathen!!!
So let me get this straight. You’re saying there’s a reality in which we’re all sitting in the holodeck of the Enterprise-D right now, debating the canonicity of the prophetic Discovery show produced hundreds of years earlier, while eating Gorgon soup with our hotdog fingers?
You got it!
And one in which we have burger fingers too!
Isn't tos technically the only one not a spin off and therefore the only canon?
