Analysis of Star Trek Discovery Series as a whole

So in 1994 Paramount was bought by Viacom. In 2000, Viacom bought CBS. In 2005, Viacom and CBS separated. During that corporate divorce, CBS absorbed Paramount Television and Viacom absorbed Paramount Pictures.

The result, at the time was, that CBS has the rights to produce Star Trek content for television distribution and Paramount owns the older Star Trek films and has licensed the rights to produce Star Trek for theatrical distribution, from CBS. So, CBS makes Star Trek: Discovery and Paramount makes the J.J. Abrams films.

Now in 2019, the whole lot merged again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_merger_of_CBS_and_Viacom

And I think it was at that time that the producers of the show went back to using the TNG era stuff.

Contractual stuff is an absolute mess.

Star Trek is easily one of the biggest franchises the either of the companies above could have owned. The fact that it was split up meant it was difficult for either company to fully leverage the potential of the franchise. I'm guessing it was a huge contributing factor in forcing the merger in 2019

No they went back to using classic Trek looks because the fans went nuts. The end of season 1 in 2018 had the very TOS looking Enterprise.

I don't buy it that the look of Discovery had anything got to do with contracts.

Yeah, it might as well have been called Star Trek: Burnham. In TOS, it was the bridge crew in general, and usually Kirk + McCoy or Kirk + Spock, sometimes Kirk + Scotty. The movies spread the action out among the bridge crew in a more equal way.

TNG had no problem having character-centric episodes. There was even an episode with Deanna Troi as acting captain. Same with DS9. Voyager had a lot of Janeway centric episodes, but also lots of The Doctor based. BTW VOY is my least favourite of all series (except for DISC)

Like others have said, the show should have been called "Sorta Star Trek: Burnham" an up to date Kirk for the 2020's. Who went out to save the Galaxy, ended up in the 32nd century and the last season was on a Trek to find the Ultimate Tech which turned out to be a waste of time anyways, very disappointing..

The bridge crew… couldn't tell you who they were or their names really, were they really needed anyways? Could have gotten "Zora" to pilot the ship and give information.."Book" been led around the Galaxy by Burnham, again not really a memorable character.. The only character I thought was really good was "Moll"..great action scenes, clever character and motivated..

Special effects..stunning if a bit too dark, the personal transporters and computer, more like what you think future tech would be like.

No problem with the captain being super prominent, but not every mission, every challenge, every stupidly dangerous situation, solving every problem, every bloody time.

By then end I would have gladly taken a bloody Lwaxana Troi episode!

Goin to be the most devil's advocate I can be, that happened in TNG too, in season seven.

Sure Zora wasn't needed when Michael was able to identify the correct planet with 2 moons with no help.

Zora explained that pretty well actually.

They should be trusted to do their job the same as any other sentient members of the crew.

: )

Of the main cast Data had been in Starfleet longer than anyone except Picard or Pulaski so I don't think think a few exceptional circumstances should count against the decades of predictable behaviour.

Just finished the finale today. What can be said about the show has already been said in this thread really. It has many, many, many flaws....from the amateur fan fiction levels of writing, to the non existent character development, to the abject failure of world building. I hated the aesthetics of the show, the shallow visual effects, the filmography was lazy and jarring, the acting....you name it, it failed on all counts for me (an achievement in itself really.)

The best summary I can think of, is....

Discovery, a show about a crew (Burnham) dealing with constantly high stakes that nobody cares about, and a ship that can travel anywhere...but ultimately goes nowhere.

^^ Five seasons, and that's what it left me with. Zero desire to ever rewatch any of it, as for me, it's just not Star Trek. Star Trek's whole point, is (was) that if humanity could put its trivial differences aside, and be the best people we can be, then we can achieve great things together. Discovery seems to suggest that you should wear your childish immaturity and unprofessionalism on your sleeve, and it's up to the rest of society to adapt to YOU…

For me that's not Trek, it's not a message that encourages growth and positive change, and is unfortunately more a reflection of modern American society rather than something for people to strive towards.

Anyway, I'm done, glad it's over, and maybe, just maybe, in many years if I'm still around I'll watch it again to see if it's as bad as I remember...

It's the replayibility I wonder about. Previous Trek have also been very much a product of their time, but at the same time you can also see yourself re-playing these shows years later and some of the core themes still resonate. Some TOS episodes still work now despite very clearly being a product of the 60's, and the same can be said about the TNG-era shows.

But what of Discovery? I couldn't even muster an initial viewing of the show. As of now, my viewing went as far as the end of Season 3 and with that I have only ever watched these episodes once. I can't for the life of me imagine a situation where I would find myself wanting to rewatch. The show for the most part was just a blend of boredom & annoyance with Burnham, and this made the entire experience a chore to get though. Ultimatly I was only watching so I could join in on the episode discussions here…and then eventually it wasn't even worth it for that.

Discovery is also a product of its time, but alas for it, the current generation of Television appears to be geared towards disposable content to pad out the libraries of streaming servers. By design, I feel that shows like this may actually not be suited to rewatching. Time will tell, but I feel that Discovery may be relegated to little more than a footnote attached to an era of TV production that excelled at producing under-serviced & forgettable programs.

I'd agree with the above. I came back around on Enterprise rewatching random episodes when they came out on DVD or came back to TV after I had binged the hell out of TNG, DS9 & VOY. Gave it another shot at the time, and while the weakest of those four, it did really improve leaps and bounds as it went along. It would generally be in the rotation of Trek shows I will put on a random episode or two when cooking or cleaning or whatever. That just isn't possible with Discovery, all the episodes, maybe aside from a few in Season 1, are too inextricably tied into the rest to really be enjoyable on their own.

Don't get me wrong, that can be great. Some shows are just better that way, like the Wire, Sopranos, The Expanse, but I also won't put on random episodes here and there of those (with the exception of the Sopranos). They are a commited rewatch show and that's only every few years. I just don't see myself committing to rewatching a full season of Discovery again, and there aren't enough, if any, standalone episodes to tempt me to throw it on. I did do a full rewatch of season 1 before the second came out, and while better as a binge watch, it still wasn't great.

I don't even think it's that Strange New Worlds being episodic is what will give it the advantage, but it does help. It's just a better show, with better characters, and a stronger cast. Though the musical episode can go f**k itself! Which is fine, because I can skip it without any fear of missing much of importance to the overall season story.

I think there are some interesting episodes in Season 1 where the focus wasn't so squarely lasered onto Burnham: Isaacs' Captain was (Initially) very intriguing. And, I know it might be controversial, but I liked their interpretation of Klingons and thought the main Klingon character (Voq?) spoke it like a language as opposed. to. disjointed. words. And of course Enterprise/Spock/Pike/Number One appearing was a highlight.

But when the most interesting things about the show were almost the exact opposite of where the show went, then that really turns one off repeat viewing.

An interesting captain who's entire arc was completed in 9 episodes. Who went from interesting to farce within those 9 episodes. So, 5??? interesting episodes involving them?

An Interesting Klingon/"Human" character which basically turned into a soap opera by the end. Such a shame

REALLY enjoyable introduction of legacy characters. ABSOLUTELY and instantly smacked of desperation but welcome. But, actually came across as almost a pilot for their own show.

After that, TOTALLY forgettable (At best). I'm trying to break down season storylines into about 1-3 lines each and this is what I can remember (Without looking it up):

1: Start of Klingon war. Interesting Klingon & Captain. Mirror Universe boredom

2: Section 31 AI? Enterprise and time travel suit? Had to go to future for some reason I can't remember

3: Alien tears destroy warp. Burnham singlehandedly restores warp and rebuilds Federation

4: Travelling probe destroying everything. Orions were in episodes somehow. Were boring

5: Puzzle Hunt. Burnham stops Breen from getting weapon by learning how to love herself

That about right? (Honestly I may be TOTALLY wrong)

The very brief moment we got of Michelle Yeoh as a Captain was very much a highlight of the show. She managed to deliver a character who was very «Starfleet», and during that time Burnham actually made sense as a chaotic foil to the more by-the-books Captain Georgiou.

Alas, we lose that character within an episode and never really recovered from that peak.

If only they had cast & written Michael better, then maybe it could have worked…but alas it wasn’t ment to be…