Star Trek Discovery is not “that bad”. Like Picard and some of the seasons of Enterprise, each season is a self-contained story arc, which I get is not for everyone. It also has a black female main character, which apparently is also not for everyone. IMO, the fifth season was not quite as good as the first four (I actually like the fourth the best), but there was still a lot to like. I do think they did better after they moved to the 31st century so they weren’t as constrained by canon gymnastics. It also (for a single season) gives us our only non-human main ship captain to-date, which I think is a good thing in a series centered on the idea of friendship with other worlds. There are definitely things I would change about the show if I could, but on the whole I think it’s a great addition to Trek.

(Also, Michelle Yeoh, Mary Wiseman, and Tig Notaro each steal every single scene any of them is in. Worth watching for those three alone.)

I watched all of Discovery. It’s different, a bit too touchy-feely at times for me. But, the stories are interesting and wild.

OTH, I liked all of Picard, so maybe you shouldn’t take my view into account.

Stop at Season 2 and it’s an ok time.

i think this clip really highlights all the issues i had with discovery.

kinda poor acting, cringe ass dialogue, boring and bland music, self aggrandisement, and too many obvious cgi ‘set pieces’.

new trek is action oriented space opera, not hard scifi morality tales. ig its just not for me

@cuchi it is bad…

Most any criticism of the show is true. I will say that it is a good series to watch with people who haven’t watched Star Trek before because it is a little un-Trek-ish and there is less to stop and explain. Also, since the mission is top secret it has little overlap with anything except SNW.

As a Star Trek fan, I was happy to get more Trek, the same as I was happy to get more Picard (that S2 was a pain though!), Lower Decks, Prodigy, and even the Short Treks.

My wife was pulled into the world of Star Trek by Discovery (a full 36 years after I’d started watching the franchise) and now she loves it and wants to watch all of the other series. So, Discovery gets a point for that.

(I haven’t seen Section 31 yet. It is supposed to be very bad.)

Discovery is fine and at the time it was the only modern Trek we had so there’s that, it’s enough for me to like it.

The only problem I had with it is that every season is “OMG we have to save the all fucking universe!”, other than that it’s cool.

Then we had Strange New Worlds so my thirst for “let’s just explore that funny planet and have a drink at the mess” Trek was satisfied.

I still watch discovery because ‘spaceships goes piou piou piou eat my phaser’ and that’s what I want it to be.

I really liked parts of it…from themes to characters…but found it really hard to sit through, most of the time. They had a really annoying way of rehashing everything that happened, after-the-fact…as if we needed to be constantly reminded about details that were literally from ten minutes ago.

It reminded me of the dialogue formats used in cheesy Mexican telenovelas. You can’t mention someone’s name, without also including a brief description of who they are related to, and what they’ve previously done. No one talks like that in real life. Especially when the person you’re talking to, was right there with you when that event took place.

If you remove all the superfluous dialogue, then the actual length of each episode, was less than 20 minutes.

I have an intense distaste for Discovery, and wouldn’t recommend it.

I could rant about it a la Angela Collier for 4 hours but here’s my main issues boiled down to a bulleted list:

Some things I like about Star Trek:

• Optimistic future, humans can create greatness and beauty if they continue to check and overcome their faults
• No black and white villains. All antagonists are given nuance and development and many become favored allies
• Themes of teamwork, a functional ensemble, core crew are all valid and valued, no one star of the show.
• No such thing as magic or gods, everything is in the realm of human understanding if we have sufficient knowledge

Guess what Disovery has?

• Nihilistic, apocalyptic future
• Bad guys that are just bad, they’re evil, don’t ask questions
• One principal star of the show that is the focus of nearly every episode
• No attempt to explain things with any veneer of science

Then add on some blatant examples of total ignorance for the universe it’s set in, attempts at ham handed fan service by shoe horning in clumsy references to characters from other series, and just medocre drama in general, you have a show that is farther from Star Trek than a 14 year old’s submission on IO9.

If you don’t really care,about Star Trek or know anything about it it can be entertaining I guess, but why watch it when there’s Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks and The Orville?

I love Discovery. Some of the criticisms are valid; every season has a few dumb moments that make me shake my head. But I love the characters, the actors are all great, Doug Jones in particular is a treasure, and the first contact in season 4 feels more like a proper science fiction scenario than any other in Trek.

One thing to keep in mind is that the tone shifts considerably season to season. It starts off quite grim and gritty, but don’t expect it to stay that way.

Eh, it’s ok. I’d definitely rank it below many other Star Trek series, but if you’ve seen all the better ones already then Discovery is worth a watch

Discovery is fine overall.

It may not be everyone’s favourite Trek but NO SINGLE SHOW IS EVERYONE’S FAVOURITE.

I’m stooping to yelling because, looking at it as someone who saw TOS in first run, it really can’t be stressed enough that there needs to be new Trek for every generation.

I didn’t expect that our GenZ kids would like Voyager best of the older shows.

And yes, for one of our GenZs, Discovery season one is ‘the best season of Trek’ ever. They have rewatched all the seasons of the show more than I have.

Discovery season 5 was fine in my view. I wasn’t fond of the series tacked on to the finale.

Season 4 of Discovery has a better premise and structure than Picard season 2 but both seem to suffer terribly from being shot under COVID restrictions. Other shows managed to write around the limitations without such stilted and drawn own scenes. I don’t know what Paramount instructed its writers teams be it’s boggling to see these seasons against the rest now.

The central character of the show is the least interesting person on it somehow despite having what could have been a good back story.

Everyone else seems to be some sort of real person to me. She is just so boring and flat and everything revolves around her for no real reason. Her purpose seems to be to be the fence post that stands there and eventually cries.

The best thing about the show was it gave us Anson Mount as Pike and he is outstanding. He was so good as Pike we got SNW as a spinoff.

Don’t listen to the critics on the internet. If you’re not dying soon, watch it all. It’s Trek. It’s roughly 60% great, 30% mediocre to aged poorly, and 10% let’s never talk about it again.

I would go in rough order of release because they do like harkening back to stuff. Actually rewatching TOS will be good for SNW. And Disco S2 is its backdoor pilot.

I couldn’t make it through the first season and tried picking up season 2 to see if it improved any. Didn’t watch anything past that.

It was written by people who didn’t have a good grasp on what star trek was, or thought they could remake it better for a new generation. But they ended up making something that just leaves a sour taste in your mouth if you know what that setting is capable of being.

To me, STD and the first season or so of Picard feel exactly like when a video game you thoroughly enjoy gets adapted into movie. There’s recognizable elements there, but nobody is acting the way they should and everything has that uncanny valley affect where you know what it’s supposed to be but it’s clearly failing to do it convincingly. It’s hard to point to what is actually wrong but you know several elements are off.