‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Showrunners Preview Rest Of Season 1 + Work On Season 2 Starts

Speaking to IndieWire, Star Trek: Discovery showrunners Aaron Harberts and Gretchen Berg talked about how they wanted to change the dynamic of the show with the midseason finale (“Into the Forest I Go”), knowing it would get fans pondering the mysterious ending. Berg noted:

“Every couple of episodes, right around the time the audience feels like, ‘Oh, I know what you’re doing,’ we switch it up. It became a natural rhythm for the show, and it makes it really fun for us, the writers, everybody, really. Because it’s a way to keep it lively.”

Harberts added:

“It felt like a great place to end the first half of the season, too. We had a lot of fun tracking the debate that the fans are having about where they think storylines are going and where characters are going. And we thought it’d be a fun way to leave them for the next month and a half to really chew things over and debate and have fun until we come back.”

Showrunners relish fans speculating on where they left things with the midseason finale

The war lives on but Chapter 2 focuses on a bigger problem

While the finale showed the destruction of the Klingon Sarcophagus ship with the USS Discovery crew figuring out how to defeat the cloak and turn the tide, the war is not over. The showrunners talked about how it will play out in the second chapter, which kicks off on January 7th. According to Berg:

“The war will continue in Chapter 2. It’ll be in there for sure. The Klingon war is this crisis where Burnham was there when it set off and she feels responsible for setting off. That is her arc for Season 1, and that is what will be paying off by the end of the season.”

Harberts added:

“The war is always alive and always a motivator, but we also really wanted to try to tell some stories that stop down from the war. And I think that Chapter 2 will open in a place where as much as the war is weighing on our characters’ minds, they’ve got a bigger problem to solve.”

Scene from preview of the second chapter of Star Trek: Discovery

Work on Season 2 begins

Recently, we reported that work was soon to begin on the second season of Star Trek: Discovery. Following Sunday night’s finale, while thanking the fans, Aaron Harberts gave an update, saying that he was set to get to work this week.

For now, it may just be Aaron and Gretchen, as the interview with IndieWire reported work for the writer’s room will begin in a few weeks, with Berg noting, “It’s been a whirlwind, and it will continue to be a whirlwind. But we’re excited.”

For more, including how Ripper the tardigrade may return some day, check out the full interview at IndieWire.


Star Trek: Discovery is available on CBS All Access on in the US and airs in Canada on the Space Channel. It is available on Netflix outside the USA and Canada.

Keep up with all the Star TrekDiscovery news at TrekMovie.

 

 

 

 

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I wonder if they’ll do some crazy DC-style Flashpoint/multiverse/changing timelines thing. I’m hoping they don’t. But if they’re being really literal about converging with TOS continuity after, that’s one way to do it.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m being too harsh and unfair, expecting Discovery to play by my rules and expectations rather than keeping an open mind and letting the season play out before making any kind of real call on whether the show worked for me or not. Still, when I see Gretchen Berg talk about how she likes to “keep things lively” by keeping the fans guessing about where the show is going, wouldn’t a better hook be compelling stories and great drama? Not that one necessarily precludes the other, but that’s where my priorities as a viewer lie. I know the producers genuinely want to make a great show, and I’m thinking they have to make a choice: are they looking to make real prestige television, or do they just want fans endlessly gossiping about who Ash Tyler might or might not be? I’ll gladly pay CBS-AA for the privilege of watching the former, but my patience is going to wear thin pretty quickly if we just keep getting variations on the latter.

I think the show is being held to some pretty ridiculously high standards across the board. This isn’t a gripe at you personally, Michael, although it is a little depressing to see the general consensus and the likes of aintitcool, io9, etc., bagging on Discovery because it hasn’t done anything they expected it to (for better or for worse). I’m delighted it’s polarizing people so much. It has to be its own thing. I remember utterly despising TNG until I revisited it after the third season and even now there are virtually no episodes from there I’d consider rewatching. That includes Q Who? Discovery still needs to find her feet, no question, but as the first nine episodes of a brand new Trek show go, I think they’ve put together a – far from perfect – but very good first run. It’s gotten better as it runs and it’ll keep getting better if we get a few more seasons. Well, all in my opinion, of course. I can’t and wouldn’t try to negate your always well-reasoned thoughts.

Thanks for the kind feedback. FWIW I agree that this series needs to be its own thing–but, granted that, how do you avoid having expectations, not necessarily based on what you think makes for great Trek, but just great television? On “Context is for Kings,” the episode that introduces the Discovery and its crew, we’re given the idea that there’s a major divide on the ship between the scientist-explorer types like Stamets and the warrior contingent represented by Lorca. I thought this was an absolutely teriffic idea–even DS9 hadn’t dared to go there in its Dominion War arc, really examining in detail the core contradiction at the heart of Starfleet’s mission–only to see it fall by the wayside in favor of tardigrades, Harry Mudd, and Voq/Tyler. Are the producers obligated in any way to go with my notions of what would make for a great show, even when they introduce the ideas themselves? Obviously not, but you’ll perhaps forgive me for beginning to suspect that they’re too easily distracted by bright and shiny objects (including the ultimate distraction, the Mirror Universe) to be really successful at this kind of long-form storytelling.

The thing is, I’ve seen flashes of greatness in Discovery. I would even agree that with its disappointments it’s still had the best first season of any Trek series apart from TOS. (That won’t continue to be true barring a spike in quality towards the end of the season like DS9 had, though.) But right now, things feel adrift, at least for me. They really need to focus.

At this point I’m now glad I steered clear of this, because I think it will be beneficial for me to see it all at once whenever the disks come out. I’ll either feel the show jerked me around and was a waste of time or think otherwise, but regardless, I won’t be in push-me/pull-you mode about it, which I have a strong belief is where I’d be at if I had been watching all along.

I know that the saving grace of another SF series might be production values, but since I’m not enamoured of THAT aspect with this show either (going by the half-a-show I watched for free), that also isn’t something I’d factor in this time out. The frames I’ve seen of engineering are a huge disappointment, and I don’t like the bridges either, which seem like cathedrals sizewise. You can justify that in NextGen era because of the technology unchained notion, but getting away from the submarine feel in TOS or before flies in the face of pretty much everything except the damned Abrams timewasters.

Kinda sorta side note: read yesterday that the first scripts are coming in for the new GALAXY QUEST and that apparently it is as much focused on Earth as anywhere else — specifically fandom, which now is no longer a fringe thing, so ghettoizing the fans or using them as easy marks to make fun of is not going to be the thing it was in the feature film. Also that there have already been two generations of GQ adventures (on the tube) at this point in their 201_ reality, but I don’t know if that means that the 2nd crew has also gone off to real space on occasion or not.

The one takeaway I had from the brief thing I read was the notion that this sf conventions are so mainstream at this point, that if you were going to do a Klaatu and come down to Earth to advertise (PUBLICLY) that there is life elsewhere in the Uni, that a con would be the place to do it, as much so as the White House lawn (these days, probably more so!) Have no idea if that is where the show is going, but am definitely buzzed to hear progress is being made.

Now wondering how the LOST IN SPACE reboot is progressing …

@Blackmocco

“I think the show is being held to some pretty ridiculously high standards across the board.”

I think there is some truth to that but I also think CBS invited these high standards when they opted to prop up this thing as their premier content on their fledgling streaming service. Since almost everyone will be paying extra for this show it is reasonable to think said viewer is going to hold it to a much higher standard they would have had it been on CBS, CW or even Netflix or Showtime. The thinking being “I’m paying extra JUST for Trek so it better be better than it would have been on some service I already get.” I honestly wouldn’t begrudge anyone for thinking that way. CBS did it to themselves

Nothing out of the ordinary for Trek to do. TNG went the syndication route. VOYAGER was the flagship show for the then new UPN network.

Sorry captain. It is indeed out of the ordinary in that neither of the examples you provided did it require the audience to pay or do anything above and beyond what they were already doing. It’s similar to the concept that in general when people go to a movie they expect It to be better that what they can get on tv.

@kirok, disagree. Star Trek always attracts high standards and so far Discovery is living up to it.

If you were a diehard fan of The Good Wife (or if that series had the obsessed fans that Trek does) you’d feel the same away about the Good Fight. But you are always looking for an angle to complain about big bad CBS so thats what you do.

We get it, you’re paying extra. You also pay for Cable and Internet I assume. We dont care.

While we can certainly wait to make a final judgement of the season as a whole; we can still make individual judgements about the episodes. There is nothing wrong with that. I am also not one of the people necessarily interested in seeing Ash Taylor fan theories week after week either. I like the human idea of his character but whether or not he may be something else doesn’t interest me nearly as much. I also find most of the scenes involving the Klignons tend to drag on. This week’s episode being a rare exception. Here’s to hoping the first season wraps up some of the more problematic storylines and the second season goes in a slightly different direction. There is after all a galaxy left to explore.

Yeah. I’m not into fan theories about Ash either. That kind of thing I recall being prevalent on BSG with the “who are the Cylons?” thing. I fell into that on that show. Guessing the Cylon was fun. Here… The Ash thing is just not something I’m enjoying guessing about.

I think that’s because Ash is such a likeable character. If his backstory is to be believed he’s been thru a lot and you hope he pulls thru. Creatively, it would suck if all his backstory and PTSD trauma ended up being a big lie and I think the show would get some negative backlash because of it.

Yeah. I love the show so far, but her language makes it sound like they prioritize gimmicks over storytelling and character development. I hope I’m wrong but I’ve been thinking more and more about how this season will hold up substance-wise once you know where everything is headed.

Agreed. The guessing game can be okay for a little while, but in the long haul it can become tedious. Such are the perils of serialization, which I still have doubts about with Star Trek.

Sure, DS9 proved it could be done right, for the most part, but they also laid a lot of groundwork before going full speed ahead into things like the Dominion War and secret Changelings. Discovery by comparison feels rushed.

Don’t have to wait long to see if the guesses are correct! Glad we don’t have to wait seven or eight months.

I would gladly wait seven or eight months . . . if the payoff in the end is a season still worth rewatching and talking about in twenty years. Let’s hope.

You have your own set of expectations for the show. You want it to be similar in all ways with subtle changes to the Trek that you watched. This is it’s own show. I am not sure why you come on here all the time to complain about the writing. I find it extremely well written and very compelling. I find the drama on par with what they have been talking about. I feel that you are right – you want YOUR rules, YOUR expectations, YOUR stories. You do need to have a more open mind. I went in to this show with zero expectations. Knowing only that it is a new Trek for a new age. That TV has changed in so many ways since the 60s… since the 80s. I liken this new show to the successor to DS9. I find it extremely well acted, well directed, well paced with a great sense of drama. Maybe you NEED an episodic show where the drama is brought to a high fervor and then solved by the time the credits are about to roll.
Fans will try to guess at everything – that is the essence of Trek fans. Writers of Trek have been playing on that for decades. Maybe it is time for you to step back and not continue with the show if, at 9 episodes in, you are still not satisfied with what you see. Or maybe you need to binge watch the last 9 episodes back to back and go back in with an open mind. I don’t know. But I do love the show. I found that it got better and better with each episode. Maybe because I went in with an open mind and not knowing what to expect instead of harping on my love for TOS and DS9 expecting the show to be like that.

I feel that many of the detractors are holding it to the standards of TNG-era Star Trek and every little change becomes a huge negative point.

Agreed. Those are the people that should be watching Orville instead. And that is the reason why I do not like Orville.

But I dislike much of TNG, and except for parts of DS9, pretty much all of BermanTrek. Yet I’m finding the ORVILLE an increasingly smooth and enjoyable ride. Don’t be so fast to think that ORVILLE is only attracting TNG addicts, or folks who just watch ALL genre outings. There’s something else happening there; it hasn’t been consistent, but it is doing something right, and the rights for me are outweighing the wrongs (or at least the show’s charms are letting it skate past the more egregious wrongs, along with the annoying bland look and too-often let’swrarpitupreallyfast storytelling.)

Well, I’d sure like to know what (with apologies to Stephen Sills) that “something else happening there” could possibly be, assuming it isn’t just contrarianism run amok. Because The Orville so far has been occasionally charming, more rarely provocative, and mostly just awful.

I find Orville IS bland… IS dated… Wraps everything in a little bow at the end of the episode. No drama, lame attempt at humor… Dick jokes… Come on. Bad acting from MacFarlane himself. Sorry, I do not find it enjoyable at all. I have changed the channel halfway through episodes and even forgotten it was on. Not must see tv for me. It’s very forgettable.

You,may feel that way, but in my case, at least, you’d be wrong.

I agree. Many of us have gone in with an open mind. I was in no way expecting it to be like other Treks. In fact I hoped it would be different than all of the rest. We don’t need a clone when we can go back and watch the other Trek shows. There is nothing wrong with finding faults in the show but deciding to keep watching it because you would like to know the ending or just to see if it improves. Most of us will not like every aspect of the show and that’s ok.

Also why does the Orville keep getting thrown around like it’s an insult to watch it? That kind of talk is unnecessary. If you like the show fine. If you don’t fine. Let’s not use another show to bring either each other or Discovery down. Let’s judge it by its own merits.

I wasn’t get at you as such, Michael and I apologise that it came across that way. You are one of the few detractors on this website who intelligently discusses your issues with Discovery. The people I am referring to are the folks who simply go “this is trash” and “Orville is better” with explaining themselves.

Thanks, no offense taken. But just to make it clear: I’m not a detractor, just someone who’s really liked the show off and on and now finds himself becoming a critic because in my judgement it’s not living up to its potential. I know there are plenty who have been trashing Discovery months before its premiere, predicting absolute disaster, and have rarely even bothered to have the grace or decency to admit how wrong they were. Trust me, I’m not one of them.

I disagree with this and I like the show. The complaints isn’t just about TNG or any one show, it seems bigger than that with how things have changed from canon in general. And thats a valid complaint. I don’t have as much as the same problems with it but I do have some problems. Not enough to stop liking the show though but I understand why others do.

Agreed. Like TNG wasn’t exactly short of clunkers.

But hardly anyone is comparing it to TNG or any other show in particular. I have read post after post on multiple boards the consensus seems to be (with people who have problems with it) the show feels too generic in its approach and not enough Star Trek (explore strange new worlds and all of that) while feeling too different from the era its in.

In other words its being compared to the franchise as a whole, not just one particular show. Most people actually compare it to TOS but only in the sense how much it contradicts that timeline thus far. Again with people who are having problems with the show, not everyone.

Given that I’ve probably praised the writing on this show as much as I’ve criticized it, I might respectfully suggest that you have me confused with someone else. Maybe a Mike Hall from an alternate universe. 😊

Given the “leaks” so far and what the scripts have telegraphed let’s see how close I am:

1. Lorca intentionally spore-jumped them to his “home”, the mirror universe. “Our” Lorca either died on the USS Buran or is in an agonizer booth on the ISS Discovery.
2. Lorca was protecting Burnham as in the mirror universe she is either his Number One or Captain’s Woman.
3. Capt. Georgiou is alive and well and likely very mean, and also likely in command of the ISS Discovery… she probably figures that Mirror Lorca is dead and is not going to be happy to see him back
4. Stamets has gone full Gary Mitchell.
5. Admiral Cornwell has also been “mind-sifted” by L’Rell and will try to do something nasty at Starfleet HQ, leading her to become Lethe.
6. The reason the spore drive is never mentioned in canon is simple: With all this jump abuse, the mycelial network will die.

Find out in January!

Also, notice how Lorca took interest in Burnham, someone who attacked her captain and tried to take control of her ship. Sounds like behavior a man from the Mirror Universe might admire, eh? Veeery interesting…but probably wrong, haha.

I like your 6. a lot. That wuld make sense to me.

I’ll add 7.: ‘Our’ Tilly dies horribly at the hands of Stamets. Mirror Tilly is a psycopath and in command of a ship.

I think he is Mirror, or Lorca has been gathering all this data to jump back in time to undo his crew being killed in the Buran. (Far fetched, but I would like this arc)

He still needed more data to complete the jump, but when Stamets said only one more, he panicked and made the jump based on the data he had, which is why he was just as confused when they landed in the mirror universe

Regarding your point 7: I also think that Mirror Tilly will be captain of a ship, firstly because of the comment Stamets made when he stumbled out of the spore chamber that one time, secondly because that would make sense for her character: We know that Prime Tilly is ambitious and wants to become captain one day. But in Starfleet you have to be patient and wait for your promotions. Mirror Tilly however, if similarly ambitious, could simply murder herself up the ranks with the Terran Empire’s fleet!

Wouldn’t it be funny if Mirror Tilly ended up as Captain of the ISS Shenzhou? @Young Star Trek Fan, I don’t think that Lorca was really confused, just putting on a show for the Bridge Crew. After all he didn’t want them to find out that he jumped the USS Discovery to the Mirror Universe on purpose. Another puzzling question (which may just be a continuity error in the production)… They talked a lot about doing 133 jumps around the Ship Of The Dead and then Lorca talked Stamets into doing a last #134, but on the Lorca G Override readout it’s clearly #133.

Maybe they are counting them from 0

If they kill Tilly I will be so annoyed. She’s my favourite character.

I love Tilly.

I have to say that I hate this idea. So Lorca would go from being an interesting, conflicted character with a lot of baggage in our universe to someone whose behavior can just be conveniently explained-away because he’s from a dimension where everyone is a priori evil. I sure hope that’s not where the producers are going, though nothing would shock me too much at this point.

The micelial network dies and starfleet starts working on their next project……trans warp drive. idk, too much mountain dew today.

Compared to the spore drive and the things it could do like jumping to other universes, the trans warp drive sounds almost primitive in comparison.

I hope they wrap up the war as soon as possible. Can’t say the Klingons are all that interesting to me. Aside from the makeup changes, they’re pretty much the same boneheads they’ve always been. War! Growl! Honor! Yeah, I got it.

But the little multiverse teaser in the latest episode renewed my interest in this series. Now THAT could be a lot of fun.

” they’re pretty much the same boneheads they’ve always been. War! Growl! Honor! Yeah, I got it.”
You must hate Star Trek then because the Klingons have had some of the most beloved episodes throughout every series.

There was a time when I liked the Klingons. But after many hours of seeing them over 50 years, the tough guy act gets a little old. I was hoping Discovery would show some new aspect to their society, but so far it hasn’t.

And please try to realize when someone makes a criticism it doesn’t equal “hate.” Grow up a little.

Oh please. It’s true. They have had some great episodes over the years. And some of the worst. I love Klingons but people are out of their minds bitching about this stuff. Klingons – including Worf! – have never exactly been deep thinkers. Closest we ever came was with TOS but by TMP, they’re attacking Vejur like dopes, Kruge ain’t exactly Einstein and while TNG fleshed out their culture a bit, smarts wasn’t one of their more noticeable qualities. Discovery’s Klingons are just following the template.

“War! Growl! Honor! Yeah, I got it.”

War and growl I’ll give you, but there has been no hint of honor in these Klingons. Which I suppose is okay, because there wasn’t much in TOS Klingons, either. All that ‘honor’ business was a TNG creation

I think the these TOS style Klingons are way more exciting. They have over 50 houses all competition with each other, almost acting as their own nation/races of themselves. They had legends. They have a morality system far different then our own, they are not afraid to torture for instance. The Empire seems far more larger than depicted in the past to the point you can finally envision it where they could actually threaten the survive of the UFP.

The House element was never part of TOS. That came out of TNG lol. The TOS Klingons were nothing like this. They were more like space pirates. No one ever talked about ‘honor’ on that show. And they seem pretty big on Enterprise as well.

Yeah I agree. These Klingons are pretty boring. Its waaaaaay too much talking and little else. Last episode we finally see Kol do something which was fight Burnham but in general sadly they been one big snoozefest.

I find myself liking what the producers and writers are saying more than what we actually see on the show. I feel they have great ideas and good intentions, but the execution just isn’t there. This war with the klingons had sadly been a letdown. For all the talk about how the klingons were going to be re-invented in this show and be developed in equal measure, I find them less interesting or multi-faceted compared to the Klingon storylines in Next Gen and DS9. The show has been zipping along through its plot without truly taking the time to develop the characters. We’re getting all the beats, but I’m left not caring. It feels like they’re filming based on a first draft or an outline. To compare the mid-season finale with Balance of Terror is just nutty.

I am chalking this up to the chaos behind the scenes and I hope that in season 2 they’ll have a firmer hand on the helm. There is a lot of potential here and I am not giving up on the show yet.

The show has been zipping along through its plot without truly taking the time to develop the characters.

That’s my major gripe with the show’s writing as well. I still don’t blame it on individual writers but regard it rather as a general “conceptual” weakness given the show’s focus on a single, honestly only moderately interesting protagonist along with it inserting plot-points that just beg to be resolved early-on in the series left and right. You find yourself with episodes just stacking plot-threads atop each other, but taken individually, each thread has so far been pretty much high-concept and as such might have made for an entertaining standalone episode (note that “high-concept” does by no means equal “bad”; it just means “resolvable without delving too deep into character drama or philosophical implications”, i.e. “plot-driven”). Yet the only time they went that way was obviously the Mudd-episode.
The result are episodes that not only leave you wanting but asking “so what?”… and that can’t be the writers’ intention.

I’ve been referring to this problem as “no room to breathe” and I think that “Si Vis Pacem…”, while not a bad episode per se (as with all the others), was probably the worst offender and thus the prime example in that regard – Throwing the audience a lot of bones without much meat: The Klingon plot finally gets interesting… and is given some 10 minutes, everything regarding the Pahvoans or Pahvans is handled as quickly as possible with the more interesting aspects (at least according to my tastes) getting sidelined in favor of having Saru crush communicators and almost run amok and setting up Ash/Michael “for real” but without profitting from the actors’ undeniably fine chemistry at all. Heck, I mean something along the lines of “trying to establish communication but the noise is just killing me!” could’ve made for an interesting plot all by itself (like a Darmok/Is There in Truth No Beauty?-hybrid), but the issue just gets resolved out of the blue (heh… quite literally) and in a jiffy.
It still could’ve made for a great setup, but alas! The whole Pahvo-thing just gets glossed over in order to provide us with a super-tense standalone follow-up episode (and it was a good one! Reminded me of VOY and DS9 in their prime) which actually wouldn’t have needed any setup… so that’s what I mean by “conceptual weakness”: Sowing the seeds for a lot of great stuff but just not letting them grow.
And yet: That might just be the show finding its way. The issue that has been plaguing first (and second) seasons all across the franchise for thirty years now, ever since the days of TNG.

Here is a takeaway I haven’t mentioned yet. I am thinking the season long story arc is actually working against this show. I feel like it might have worked a lot better had they started the show off with standalone episodes with perhaps an underlying story to move along. Then perhaps part way through the season or perhaps in season 2 they could be in a better position to work the story arc in. For a season long story to work you really need to get people anticipating the next episode. GoT does that in spades. Even cable series’ like The Americans and others have done that. STD has yet to really do that except for the end of episode 1. It just doesn’t have that “gotta see it now” vibe. It’s not a bad show. As another poster said, criticism does not = hate. I still think the show has potential to achieve that level. Time will tell…

Not remotely. It serves the series well. Your opinion is just that and certainly not fact. Its pretty weird to proclaim the series doesnt make fans anticipate the next one. After every episode many Trek forums are full of fans debating where the story is going…lol

I agree the execution is different than what I expected BUT, yes a big BUT, it’s only been 9 episodes dude. Give ’em time

@Disco – the most annoying thing is the people posting here who complain about not getting answer or not getting resolutions etc after 9 episodes of a heavily serialized series.

Some old dogs need to learn the new tricks.

@Colin

I 2nd everything you said there.

Discovery has been better than anyone could have expected. I find it very amusing that some people complain about not knowing or understanding everything about the plot or characters. Watching modern serialized TV like GOT and the walking dead must be so frustrating for them. You aren’t going to get everything spoon fed and tied up with a nice little bow like TOS and TNG did.

It’s great to see the speculation and interest in the series. Discovery has proven to be compelling TV that’s not afraid to take risks. Art is subjective and polarizing opinions are a good thing. Otherwise you end up with bland, safe and generic TV like Enterprise season 1 and 2.

Watching GAME OF THRONES is far from a frustrating experience for me, thanks. While it’s not without its own flaws, GoT is just light-years better than Discovery at this point. Are you seriously arguing otherwise?

Im a star trek fan but I admit GOT is better in lots of ways. I think it is because it’s new and no one knows what came before and after, Timeline wise. With star trek the writers dont have complet freedom as they have Canon to respect and too many fans to please. I think star trek has even more potentiel than GOT, LOTR and even star wars in terms of the universe there in. Walking dead is the best example it terms of serialise storytelling. Sometimes a little too much. It takes them 3 shows to do something but they alsways have this blockbuster ending.

All in all, STD is a good show. Not epic but good. They havent sold me on this war and that dissapoints me. I have been waiting for an epic starfleet war with huges consequences and I dont see it happening now. We dont see much of the lower decks stories Fuller wanted to bring on board. That’s a bummer in my opinion.

“Discovery has been better than anyone could have expected” Well there’s quite a few million people who think you’re completely wrong.
“Discovery has proven to be compelling TV” Utter garbage. Again, there’s a huge percentage of fans that completely disagree with that.

Well maybe Game of Thrones lends itself far better to serialised storytelling thanks to it being a literary adaptation. Maybe some people don’t mind the highly serialised format as long as individual stories are still given enough room to unfold (and thus become interesting in the first place)… And maybe tying episode-plots up with a bow is actually an art in and of itself, don’t you think? I mean, it’s not a small challenge to tell an interesting self-contained story in 45 minutes flat.

Surely, I don’t even mean to argue and ramble on about that stuff, but disavowing episodic television as “spoon-feeding” … I find that rather aggravating for some reason.

Enterprise s1 wasn’t bland and safe, it was with maybe 2 exceptions godawfully unwatchable. So by the end of s2’s opener, the series had become wholly unwatchable for me. If it had just been repetitious and mildly disappointing, I’d have occasionally tuned in again to see if there was a course change, but it was literally crossed off my viewing list as an actively unpleasant experience, like going to the dentist or accidentally turning on a program showing people hunt animals.

Well, GoT Season 5 was tedious (lots of ‘network time killer’ episodes) but the rest has been excellent.

If any of the writers or producers read any of the comments here, I just want to say thanks. Thanks for making a great show and I look forward to seeing the next half of season 1 and beyond!

Agreed. Awesome works guys. Keep cranking out INSANELY GREAT Star Trek!

Absolutely. they are doing a great job so far.

I think the reason why the Klingon arc is not sitting well with many fans I think is because the new Klingon’s come off as two-dimensional, and so unlike Klingon’s we’ve come to love over the past 20 plus years. To me, without hair they are all just a bunch of General Chang wannabe’s. The facial appliances take away from the various facial expressions Klingon’s make. The actor who played Gowron- for example who have a hard time being taken seriously if he had to wear that make-up. The new design may work for some actors, but in general I think it was a bad idea to make such a drastic change from visual canon.
That being said, if Discovery ends up having taken place in an alternate universe, then the drastic changes could be explained, and would make sense to a point. If it were not for the great story telling, production, and awesome set design the Klingon arc would have fallen completely flat.
It will be interesting to see an answer to these questions about mirror universes, and if these VoQ as ASH theories hold any water when the show returns in 2018.

By the way, anyone knows how many episodes there will be for season 2? I haven’t seen any numbers anywhere.

No one knows because they haven’t said anything. My guess is it will be the same as this season or more. I can only see it being less if this season isn’t as big of a hit everyone keeps saying. IMO thats what going to tell us if Discovery is really a big success for AA or not, especially since CBS will be paying for the show completely next season.

Is it January yet?

I JUST LOVE IT! I don’t care what the detractors say, This show is brilliant! I have watched and owned every episode of Star Trek from the 60s ’til now. I love the way the writers are pushed to reinvent Gene Roddenberry’s legacy. I don’t give a hoot what the negative mob think, it is a TV show; I think they should stop watching it! Star Trek Discovery rules and I am so happy with the way the guys have reinvented this universe I love. Live long and prosper!

Hmmm…

The quote makes it sound like they made the decision to break at episode 9 AFTER tracking the fan debate going on during the season. Yet the decision to break at 9 was made after only one episode aired. Perhaps Harberts misspoke?

One of the big promises of the show was that we would go deep into the Klingons. Other than mentioning that there are 24 houses, this show has added nothing to our understanding of the Klingons.

They already said that season 2 will not be about the Klingons. And we know episode 10 will be perhaps in the Mirror Universe or some TNG style parallel universe. So they have 5 episodes to show some meat on the Klingons, which honestly is highly unlikely at this point. I love the show, but this is a big missed opportunity.

“I love the show, but this is a big missed opportunity.”

You may just have written our epitaph, Mr. Scott.

Oh god, we’re not even through season one and cheap gimmicks like mirror universes are being brought up. Add in some time travel and we’ll be back to the bad old days of Braga. Where are the character centred stories?

Braga didn’t invent time travel or the mirror universe in Star Trek. These have all been part of Star Trek since TOS. This is what Star Trek does and frankly is. Why are you so surprised now?

And my guess is thats partly why they have the spore drive as part of the show because as it was said it has immense potential of the things it could do like jumping to parallel universes, other dimensions and even time travel. Thats what makes having it fun.

I currently theorize that Lorca is from the Mirror Universe, which became aware of the Prime in the 22nd Century. Facing a similar circumstance in the Mirror universe against the Klingons Lorca took the place of the Prime Lorca after the destruction of the Buran to gain control of the Discovery. I rather suspect the Terran Empire to be loosing badly against T’Kuvma. I’m not entirely sure why Lorca is so protective of Burnham yet.

I think if Tyler is Voq that he doesn’t know it. I also hope for at least a cameo of USS Enterprise on Discovery.

No offense but that all sounds mindnumbing. A stream of tangled overly elaborated tech filled jibberish where there should be a proper plot. Braga would be proud.

I personally think the whole Ash-as-Voq thing is just too obvious. I think all of the “clues” – the imdb page on Jalid Iqbal, the fact that Shazad Latif has been in the credits all along despite Ash not showing up till after Voq’s disappearance, etc. has been a red herring set up to fool us and surprise us when we find out what really happened to Voq, presumably in January.

Really loving STD! Will be binge-rewatching the first 9 eps during my vacation time around the holidays!

I wonder if Discovery is in a parallel universe very similar to our own, with the Klingon war going poorly for the Federation. If Lorca is from the alternate universe he could be trying to steal Discovery to take on the Klingon’s in the new universe.
I’m going to put my money on Discovery being lost. Captain Lorca changed the coordinates at the last second, but if Lt. Stammets realizes it he may have stopped the jump midway through it’s execution.
My instincts also tell me that Stammets will slowly become dehumanized by the tardigrade DNA, and evolve into a mycialial (sorry ’bout the spelling…) being like a tardigrade, and roam the network- perhaps even becoming a Traveler. It will be sad when he and the good Doctor must part ways, but hey- it’s Star Trek, and as we learned from Captain Spock: death need not be permanent in Star Trek.
What makes this series hard for some is it’s hidden scope, and how different it is from the twenty years of Rick Berman, Michael Pillar, Ron D. Moore, and Brannon Braga. Berman was wiped out, having to produce three series overlapping each other. With the passing of Michael Pillar, Rick turned responsibilities over to Brannon whose vision could not have been farther from Gene Roddenberry’s. It was writers like Ron D. Moore that kept Star trek on the rails, and kept to the roots.
While ST.TNG, STDS9, and STVOY all borrowed sets, props, writers, production staff- even actors from each other, Star Trek Discovery stands completely alone, and autonomous from anything remotely related to what came before. This truly is virgin ground, and so far, the hard work, and dedication to the show from the least paid production assistant on up to the actors and producers has paid off big time, in the opinion of this life long 51 year old ST fan. For only having aired 9 episodes, this series shows how well prepared and thoughtful the creators were when producing this next chapter in the ST universe.
I give high praise for giving me my moneys worth, and beyond. I will continue to support this show with my CBS:AA subscription as long as it airs. That’s my way of insuring there is good Star Trek to watch.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading.

Peace and long life…

If Berman hadn’t started writing scripts I would have said he was a money man trying to do his best to stay true to a successful formula, but with only partial understanding of how that could be achieved. Having only limited old timer staff left, he maybe understandably turned to that clown Braga. He was in reality a lot worse than that though, he actually tried to write and develop characters and stories on a weekly basis. Pure ego! He therefore bears a heavy burden for old style Trek’s death in my view.

As for what we are seeing on screen now, it’s okay up to a point, but for second gen fans like myself, there seems to be a complete absense of weighty morality tales. It’s the fashionable thing to sneer at that sort of Star Trek these days, but it was the only sci-fi franchise that did them consistently, and did them well.

What is unique about Discovery up to now? It’s sad for me to have to say it, but very little.

There could be another twist: It’s possible the story never started in the Prime Universe in the first place. It could actually have been the Kelvin Universe (implied, if not stated outright for legal/copyright reasons) or another alternate/parallel universe. This would explain all the obvious differences.

If that’s true, then — since the Discovery can apparently jump between universes — it means the ship will end up in the Prime Universe sooner or later. So you *will* see normal-looking Klingons, Cage-style Starfleet uniforms etc, and yes the story will ultimately be about the Prime Universe as the showrunners/writers have insisted…but it’ll happen for different reasons than you thought ;)

Also remember what Alex Kurtzman said:

“We are canon. You’ll have to be patient with us.”

“you have to understand what the different timelines were. And what the different universes were.”

I think the writers have ignored the fact that the cloaking technology shouldn’t be so advanced in that time period.

Star Trek 3: TSFS

Kirk: There. That distortion. See It?
Sulu: Yes sir. It’s getting larger as we close in.
Kirk: Opinion, Mr. Sulu.
Sulu: I think it’s an energy surge.
Kirk: Enough energy to hide a ship would you say?
Sulu: A cloaking device.