Science Fiction

While I am glad it is ending and I think it is a little past due. Discovery brought Trek back to life and I will forever be grateful to the people who contributed to it.

The show never really found its footing. It's full of great moments and horrible writing. There are story arcs I love and arcs I loathe. But most importantly, it gave us Strange New Worlds.

I was very disappointed with discovery. I was okay with season one, but I don't even like the single long-story arc format to begin with. For me Star Trek is supposed to be episodic, science, philosophy, and ethics heavy content. Screen glare, constant massive explosions, over-the-top action sequences, and thin characters and plot just made it boring and indistinct from any other sci-fi I could watch. Stand alone, if it was not called star trek or in the star trek universe it would still be okay overall, but I showed up looking for Star Trek and got something that didn't fit in at all with the Star Trek I knew and wanted more of.

Strange New Worlds has taken a big step in blending decent action into episodic content that feels like a back to the roots revival of the what the series was and should continue to be.

On a moderately related note, I fucking hated Picard after season 1 too, and season 1 was ruined (from what I've heard because I just didn't watch anything after halfway through season 2) by taking away what was the final moments of a fan-favourite character.

For some reason I have a hard time understanding, new series and content in Star Trek seems to be following some... I guess I'll call it "modernization of storytelling" where the structure and soul of previous content is being entirely overwritten with long drawn out epics that don't challenge the viewer at all and rely on CG and SFX to fill in for the meat of the show. The meat of the show should be good writing, good character development, and yeah, to be a bit preachy about ethics. The story of the show should be the story of Starfleet, not the story of one shitty captain being special.

I couldn't get passed s1ep3. No real reason to point to though. I enjoyed Strange New Worlds much more.

I have to agree with OP.
Discovery had fantastic writing, great acting, some of my favorite characters ever (both relatable and not-but-I-want-to-know-them-better). Also stunning effects.

That said, I see the crtirique that it's not "Star Trek" and I understand that viewpoint. But I always saw it as part of the same universe, just the part OG Trek didn't focus on. Kinda like DS9 wanted to be.

So Discovery carved itself a niche in my version of the Trekverse, and I will always be happy it did. (Not to start arguments, but I liked it sooooo much better than Enterprise).

I hated it because it just wasn't Star Trek. It wasn't the goofiness, it was just that most of the time it made zero sense plot wise, threw the concept of science completely out the window, and spent wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much time focusing on petty character drama that felt more fitting in a high school musical show.

It simply wasn't ST. Maybe it would have worked as a high school show about random aliens in outer space doing weird stuff with the spore drive, but don't label that crap Star Trek.

Now Strange New Worlds..... GIVE ME MORE! Can't wait for S2, that show is flat out amazing.

I've just started it and mostly enjoy it. But the writing can be pretty bad sometimes. Not so bad I can't overlook it, but bad enough it pulls me out of my suspended disbelief.

Discovery I feel had some good storylines, but it had some of the most boring, forced, slow, touchy-feely character development I've seen.

I remember there were plenty of people who complained about it's "wokeness" because of how they zeroed in on the LGBT relationships and it really felt like the focus on the show was about relationships, not about the overarching journey.

When you're watching Voyager, it's all about the journey and getting home, there's relationships there, but they don't take minutes at a time on screen, it's mixed into the story in small bursts.

I'm still keen to see how they wrap it up after the DMA storyline, maybe piecing the federation back together?

I haven't watched the show since it was dropped by Netflix, but I, too, wish it could have lasted longer.

Discovery as an idea of a show would work way better in a starwars universe rather than star trek. Star trek shows usually at least pretend to care about science. Discovery threw that out the window right from the start, and excelled at keeping anything scientific miles away. Not trying to diss the show, but wrong universe imho.

I didn't like discovery at all. It does not feel like StarTrek, but a super hero show.

I think a lot of it was because Trekkies were waiting for years to have another traditional episodic series and were excited at the prospect of one getting a big budget. Discovery came out after a long drought and was different and seemed like it was trying to appeal to a broader audience. I think most Trekkies can admit it's a good sci-fi show, it just soured longtime fans as they wanted something more like TNG but with modern VFX

Also I think this RLM skit sums it up pretty well

Agreed. I love Discovery, despite/because/whatever the occasional cheese and the overflow of Michael's tears. I really enjoyed the fact that they went what some people want to belittle under the term woke. To me, they went empathetic, emotionally healthy. Not using emotional immaturity to create artificial, clumsy plot suspense through the characters acting foolishly/immaturely. It's the Federation... they 100% are woke. Empathy and understanding and patience are qualities they'd prioritize to succeed both as a civilization and at smaller scale a crew, and it's nice to see the characters act accordingly. I get enough toxic stupidity in my daily contemporary life. It's nice to dream about humans improving in wisdom. Thanks, Discovery.