‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 5 Filming Soon – Showrunner Sees No Competition With ‘Strange New Worlds’

There are indications that the fifth season of Star Trek: Discovery is about to start production and co-showrunner Michelle Paradise is talking about how they are sticking with serialized storytelling.

Season 5 production is about to start

It looks like the production hiatus is over for Star Trek: Discovery. Season four wrapped last August, but the cast and crew are back in Toronto for season five. The first indication came earlier in the week from Michelle Paradise with a “Hello, Toronto” tweet along with a shot of the bridge set.

However, this was not a sign that filming had started, but the executive producer is Toronto to work on production prep for the season. It’s likely she wrote (or co-wrote) the season premiere, as she has done in the previous two seasons after being made co-showrunner. Industry reports have production set to start next week, possibly as early as Monday the 13th.

And on Thursday Wilson Cruz (Dr. Culber) shared an image showing how at age 48, he is still in fighting shape, with the simple message “Season 5…? READY!” Cruz previously shared he was in Toronto for the week, however, he is returning to New York City to present at the Tony Awards on Sunday.

 

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A post shared by Wilson Cruz (@wcruz73)

And the biggest sign shooting is about to start came Saturday morning when Doug Jones (Saru) shared a video and images of his annual ritual of shaving his head, which is done to make getting in and out of the Kelpien makeup easier. Here is his before and after shot with the message that includes “Here goes season 5 filming of Star Trek: Discovery!” And at age 62, Jones looks in fighting shape too.

Showrunner talks serialized Discovery vs. episodic Strange New Worlds

Michelle Paradise along with series stars Sonequa Martin-Green [Captain Burnham] and David Ajala [Cleveland Booker] took part in an online panel for The Wrap this week talking about Discovery. There were no details about season five, however, when asked by the moderator if she felt any competition with Strange New Worlds and its episodic format, Paradise made it clear she does not, saying:

No, there’s absolutely no competition at all. And one of the things to Alex [Kurtzman]’s credit that he has said from the beginning is that each of these shows needs to occupy its own space within the larger universe because you don’t want two shows that feel very, very similar. So Discovery and Strange New Worlds, for example, feel very different by design. And Discovery is heavily serialized. And when Strange New Worlds came out, I know, they worked very hard to make sure that it would be its own distinct thing.

And we are aware as writers and showrunners for all of the shows, we all get together on a pretty regular basis and talk to one another to make sure that the storylines aren’t overlapping. And in ways that don’t make sense for the larger universe. We talk about all of that stuff so that we are aware of those things. Because all of us want to make sure that the shows that we helped shepherd continue to occupy their own space, but that it all feels of a larger piece that Alex and his team at Secret Hideout kind of oversee all of them. But there’s not a competition. We love what they’re doing.

When asked if she had a preference between each style, Paradise again talked up serialization:

I’m not quite sure how to answer that because I’ve done both. And they both have their unique challenges and also wonderful creative opportunities. It’s such a cool thing at the beginning of every season of Discovery to start thinking about: What will be our big idea for the season? What are our big themes for the season? Who’s our big bad of the season? If we have a big bad. Or what’s the big obstacle? What is Burnham’s journey going to be this season? And how does that tie in with it all? Each of our characters, Book and Culber and Stamets, all the characters, Tilly… what are their journeys going to be this season? To get to look at that and to get to look at it over however many episodes we have is a really, really cool thing. And you get to dig really deep into one kind of idea.

And then for the episodic it’s really fun because every episode–every  in serialized is also “what if?” but you have a sandbox that you’re playing in for the season. On the other side, it’s the “what if?” for this particular episode. And of course, you’ve got characters that you’re building around and all of that. But they’re very different things and different creative opportunities. And I love that there are different iterations of Star Trek out there right now because some people really love serialized storytelling, and the episodic isn’t quite their thing. And some people love the episodic. and some people love both. It just it seems really like a really cool time to be a fan of Star Trek that you have all of these options on the table.

Season 5 Tilly?

It might be worth noting that Paradise mentioned Tilly’s arc as they develop each season. She may have been speaking of past seasons, however, this could be a clue about season five. Mary Wiseman exited Discovery as a series regular early on in season four but did return in the season finale. Wiseman’s Tilly left the USS Discovery for a position at Starfleet Academy. Speaking to TrekMovie earlier this year, Paradise said:

We’ll never be done with Tilly. [laughs] Everybody loves Tilly. I can’t spoil anything into season five, except to say that we love Tilly. I expect that we’ll have her in the world and all of those things. She’s not going anywhere.

Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham and Mary Wiseman as Tilly in the season four finale

Watch the full Discovery panel

Here is the discussion with Paradise, Ajala, and Martin-Green from earlier this week.


Find more Discovery news and analysis.

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Don’t see why there would be any competition. I mean they are both different shows. Some people like serialized stories over episodic while others like episodic stories over serialized stories and some people like me enjoy both. That is what i love about all the new Trek shows as they are different enough for all types of Trekkies to find enjoyment.

I have seen some fans online who love SNW and dislike DSC saying things like “Well now that Strange New Worlds is doing it right, surely Discovery will be cancelled!”

I just don’t get people’s eagerness to end DSC. I don’t watch it. Haven’t ever loved it, and gave up midway through season 3. But no reason it shouldn’t stick around for those people who are enjoying it. Like you said, it’s not a competition!

Yes, it is. If DSC were cancelled, there’s more of a chance for another good Trek show like SNW. It’s not about serial vs episodic either. You could take the cast and writers of SNW, stick them in a serial format, and I’d bet you’d get something just as good as the current SNW.

DSC’s problem isn’t the format. It’s the writers, showrunner and one or two of the cast. Well, and whomever came up with that extremely stupid fire effect that shoots flames up into the air whenever the ship gets damaged. Looks like something that belongs on a theme park ride.

Excuse me, but the DSC writers birthed SNW in S2. It’s bizarre how so many simply have somehow forgot that. LOL

What we should be excited about is what should be the next great series that DSC could spinoff given the tremendous success on their first spinoff?

Mitchell was talking about the showrunner / writers of S3 and S4, NOT S2 (when DISC was still watchable).

How could you know that? Are you guys like cousins or roommates? lol

The showrunners in S2 were a different sort of bad, but they wrote and cast Pike enticingly, I’ll grant them that.

Since Paradise took over very little has gelled with me. I just don’t like her vision for how the show does sentiment, social commentary, story arcs and character work.

Yeah I agree. I don’t think Paradise is a great show runner, at least on the creative side. But like Kurtzman she’s probably great at getting things done on time and budget but both seasons has been very very lack luster story wise. And she was the same person who approved the idiotic idea to have a crying Kelpian to create the Burn.

People can pretend it’s the fans who have the problem and not Discovery but with nonsensical story decisions like that, I can see why the show is having trouble catching on for the masses.

I always thought SNW was birthed in “The Cage”

Are we just saying “birthed” now?

lol about the flames, I miss the good old days with a cascade of sparks. At least, sparks make a little more sense to me. I mean geez! Why is the bridge so flammable

Yeah that was so bad.

My spouse, who should know, finds even the small sparks ridiculous.

It’s their only complaint about SNW.

In the Discovery episodes directed by Osunsami, Discovery’s supervising director in Toronto, all the silliness goes to the max. My spouse just snorts no matter how beautiful the rest of the effects and visuals.

Remember though, Picard’s entire family died in a home fire accident — in the 24 century when you would think that would be impossible.

Fires happen astoundingly often in the Star Trek canon future. We don’t have to like it, but it’s there.

Pete Mitchell, you seem to have missed the grand strategy in all of this.

Paramount+ intends to have a menu of options to appeal to different viewers.

Even though they aren’t as many or loud voices on this particular board, Discovery has a large fan base. Up until the release of SNW, Discovery has persistently been Paramount+‘s top original digital streaming series.

Fundamentally, when Discovery is replaced, it will be replaced with a show that suits that audience.

This isn’t about you or the other fans that strongly dislike Discovery.

Nor is it about my preferences, although I agree with several of your criticisms. I appreciate the improvements in the show over the years, but feel it never quite reaches its potential.

As long as Discovery is pulling in the streaming views and there isn’t a concept for the same niche, it’s going to carry on.

Second, Kurtzman has, rightly in my view, come to the conclusion that what makes a new show work is a creator/show runner or team that are strongly committed to a concept and able to champion it.

As an audience we have seen this succeed for Lower Decks, Prodigy and SNW, no matter how many EPs are in the mix.

Which means that we won’t see a replacement until someone is ready to champion a strong new concept that will appeal to Discovery’s audience.

And practically, third, Picard needs to be replaced ahead of Discovery. We can expect that to happen first.

Exactly. P+ is rather brilliantly growing the franchise by having shows that both tailor to existing Trek fan submarkets, while targeting growth in new submarkets outside of Trek.

The franchise has become a big forest with a lot of different types of trees in it. And if I may make a pun on a well known metaphor here, Pete Mitchell perhaps can’t see this forest through the trees on this topic. :-)

There’s been surprisingly little news about how well SNW is doing, views-wise. I found one article at The Wrap with Parrot Analytics data stating SNW’s premiere was the most in-demand streaming series on TV, which is amazing, but I’ve seen nothing since. I don’t recall even a press release from Paramount.

It was the most in demand streaming show for the week, not in general. Its doing well but it hasn’t reached DSC’s viewership levels.

SNW actually hasn’t overtaken DSC as the top original digital streaming series. Discovery is still the most successful of the New Trek shows. SNW is doing well though.

You need to get out more

There’s no competition in terms of the writing, that’s for sure. SNW could still stand to improve on the writing front, the talent of the cast is really elevating the material, but it’s already a better written show than Discovery or Picard.

I was speaking with a friend last week and she just casually said something that made me burst out laughing because I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say something quite like it. We were just discussing the current Trek shows. We both gave up on Picard and Discovery. She said she recently tried to go back and give discovery another chance…and I’ll quote her here, she said “but uhm…I think it’s unwatchable”. lol I had to agree. I got through the first two seasons and clung by my fingernails through Season 3 and the first 4 episodes of Season 4…but I just couldn’t put myself through it anymore. I wish the cast and crew of Discovery well but it’s just not a well written show. Looks great but it really lacks a solid foundation.

For many it just comes to the writing and it still really really lacks.

For me, a life long Trek Fan back to early 70s — it comes down to one simple matter. Good storytelling. Episodic vs Serial doesn’t really matter. All incarnations of Trek (due to sheer volume) have their fair share of episodes that are either winners or stinkers… but sadly, as a whole I have found Discovery and Picard almost unwatchably bad. SNW on the other hand, a lot of fun (so far). If Paramount had ever considered a cold reboot of the franchise… SNW is exactly how they should have gone about it. The worst thing about SNW IMHO, is having to carry over the trite plot contrivance from Discovery of Pike knowing his fate.

I really don’t understand why people don’t get that part. It’s like they were screaming so loudly at Alex before that they missed the part where he KEPT saying these shows were all going to have a different feel and suit different Trek tastes. And that makes overwhelming sense because as anyone who’s gotten into fan discussions knows, “Star Trek” is many things to many different people. Everyone in the fandom who loves to say and write IDIC really don’t subscribe to that philosophy and it shows. Keep on doing your thing Discovery (and all other shows). This is an awesome time to be into Trek

This is right on the money. I really appreciate the variety we are seeing with this new wave of Star Trek, Each of these shows have their own identity. Truly IDIC when it comes to these shows. Discovery is doing its thing and I can’t wait to see more from it and the rest of the shows airing and in production.

I’m not sure why anyone thinks there would be competition. They’re streaming–people can watch them at different times. Streaming platforms have made the idea of competition obsolete.

Also, Strange New Worlds is such a better show anyway, so even if there WERE competition between the shows, there still wouldn’t be.

Except that there are genuinely fans who think it’s some kind of race to be “better Trek.” They dislike DSC, so they want it to go away now that SNW is around.

It may be a case of wishful thinking, assuming that if DSC ends, SNW will somehow double their episode count every year. But that’s not how it works. If DSC ended, they’d just develop a new show to replace it.

Discovery would most likely be followed by one of the shows that they already have in development. The Section 31 show still gets mentioned from time to time. There has also been talk about an Academy show. Plus. I think they have mentioned more stuff being in development.

Yea, for all it’s detractors, by the time it’s run has ended, DSC will likely have been the incredible engine that spun off multiple new Trek series, including SNW.

Remember, without DSC, there is no SNW today.

I really don’t care about Section 31 and the Space Hitler show but of course I’ll give it a chance if it ever gets made.

We been hearing about the Adolf show for 4 years now. Michelle Yeoh will probably be Patrick Stewart’s age before it ever gets made! 🤣

I don’t know which I’m less motivated for, that or the next insipid JJ verse movie they keep threatening to make for 5 years now? Don’t rush on our account guys. Really no one is losing any sleep over either.

Yeoh’s movie Everything Everywhere All at Once is fantastic though! And she actually acts in that one.

Has it really been four years?? I just checked and it was first reported back in November 2018, so close enough. I thought it was much later, where does the time go lol. Maybe when the Picard show is done that will be the show to replace it. But I’m not holding my breath on that either until someone just tells us when they expect it to happen.

Everyone I know who seen it said that movie is great. I haven’t watched it but I will probably rent it when the prices go down. Right now I think you can only buy it on digital or blu ray and I never buy any movie until I seen it once first.

They will replace it with a whole new Flagship ST show.

I don’t agree

SNW is such a strong show top to bottom, great cast and premise which for me contrasts sharply against the fundamental problems at Discovery (weak cast and floundering premise they keep trying to fix). So I think there is competition in that sense, the strength of one show highlights the weaknesses of the other.

Although I think Discovery should have ended with Season 4, I am always excited for more live-action Star Trek. I just hope they don’t slash the budget further because it really felt that way for Season 4. In the absence of good storytelling, at least make it pretty and exciting ;)

That is Discovery’s biggest flaw. It has no premise. Each season they invent a huge problem that only Michael can fix. No one else. And then they have to create an even bigger problem for next season, that again.. only Michael can fix. Rinse and repeat each season. The writers need to start thinking of a series endgame for Discovery and start writing to eventually get to that. The show will then have more purpose than “Michael saves the day on the last episode of the season”.

I’m seriously expecting a christ pose from Burnham at some point. It doesn’t help that SMG is not that great of an actress. She’s way over the top with the drama. It’s like there’s a competition between her and Jennifer Love Hewitt to see who can cry in the most number of episodes in their shows every season.

No doubt you think that your sexist, sarcastic remark on these actresses is clever and funny.

I laughed

Got Class?

It’s only a weakness or a flaw to those who don’t like Discovery. I see plenty of fans who still love Discovery for what it does differently. Let them have their fun, I say, it doesn’t hurt anyone.

I am a big DSC fan, and frankly, I don’t need you patronizing remarks that seem to suggest the show has problems, but DSC fans like me are oblivious to them we should be left to just have our fun. I’d prefer actually to discuss and debate here with those Trek fans who have issues with DSC, and not sweep it under the rug as if I am not able to intelligently respond.

With all due respect, I don’t need your help to discuss DSC with other fans, and I would imagine that others who like DSC would feel the same way.

Fair point, One Lion.

It would be interesting to actually discuss, at this point, what would improve Discovery.

As I said elsewhere on this thread, I’m not sure what would make it better for me without detracting from what Discovery’s core audience likes most.

I’m in the part of the audience that enjoys Discovery well enough that I keep watching (which is more than I can say for most of the other long running streaming series).

It’s not my favourite however. I don’t find myself captivated and speculating on what will come next, and am never quite satisfied with the character arcs.

I find that Discovery’s storylines have become more coherent in the past two seasons, with consistent show runners. So, that’s a plus. I also find the 32nd century setting interesting and well done so far. S4 finally saw the character arc I needed to believe in Burnham as a captain.

But….it dragged, and there was still too much character exposition through telling rather than showing. Which makes the show drag for me at odd points.

So, I keep wondering if these character moments that I am finding awkward, and disruptive at key points in the action, are exactly what the core audience of Discovery likes. If so, I guess that I just have to accept that the show is never going to be quite for me.

As a big fan of the show, and I know this grates against many comments here, I liked the first two seasons the best. I really liked the Lorca storyline in S1, and similarly like the SNW storyline in S2. S3 and S4 I felt played too much to the fans who wanted the darkness watered down and SMG to behave herself more — I think the series is weaker by doing that, and it should be a darker Star Trek with lots of drama and connections to old Trek. Just my opinion though.

That being said, the Bryan Fuller’s series concept had the ship moving to different time periods in Trek history, including one scenario where they go far into the future, which is now where we are at. Perhaps it’s time to move them again to another part of Trek history. I know at one point he was considering the timeline around Star Trek VI — that would be really cool.

I agree with all of this. Disco has had too many opportunities to become more than just the garbage that it is.

I wouldn’t even say that Discovery has a weak cast. It’s just that they either get terrible screenplays or outright nothing to do … and after four seasons they ruined most of the characters so thoroughly, that there’s no saving them, even if they were to start producing quality episodes …

Also I think, Discovery should have never been made (though Fullers original Idea was interesting). But they should have endet after season 2 or 3 … they both had worked as season finales.

Another way to put it is that I think the cast is incomplete and constantly revolving/leaving. Every season the show is partly recast with only a few leads staying behind, and even fewer of them being fully utilized. And unfortunately, while I like many of the characters, quite a few of them just weren’t meant to be leads and have no charisma on screen. I won’t name them, but it’s not SMG like everybody likes to bring up. I happen to really like SMG and Doug Jones in particular, but I think the show has LONG struggled with their rolls on the show. The show is just so creaky at its core, it has never really stabilized. The show just never had a sturdy foundation or full cast.

This show just gotta get better. I’m sorry, I like the show, I support it and I defended as much as I criticized it but four seasons in now and I’m just frustrated with it season after season. And yes a huge part is the serialized format. They still haven’t really cracked it IMO. Every season the stories either feel too rushed and convoluted or a tedious slog, which it felt like last season in it’s second half. And last season had a really great and innovative story line but like Picard they took a 2-3 episode plot and stretched it out an entire season and it really suffered for it IMO.

I want to like this show more than I do, but thank Kahless we have SNW now. That show is just better on every level IMO. And it’s sad Discovery is the only show that made it four seasons in I haven’t totally embraced by now. It’s just losing me frankly.

It’s the opposite for me Discovery has held my attention through out every single episode and when ever a new season starts i look forward to each episode so much after i get up and brush my teeth and have my morning coffee is pop the newest episode on.

Strange New Worlds on the other hand while i enjoy the show i don’t have the same excitement for it and then when a new episode is available i pop it on whenever i don’t have anything else to do. Discovery compared to the episodes available for all the new Trek shows is still my absolute favorite of show of them all.

I’m glad you like it Christopher, I just wish I felt the same way.

And what’s frustrated about it, season 2 and 3 did start out amazing for me and that potential. Some of the most fun I had in a while setting up the mystery and feeling like a reboot of the show in both seasons while adding interesting new characters. Unfortunately both ended in either a whimper or a convoluted mess.

Discovery is the second to my least favorite show. It’s only beating Picard right now (and I sooo don’t want to get into that show lol). And it’s been that low on the list four straight seasons for me.

But I am always happy to see fans enjoy and stick up for something they like. I know Discovery has it’s fans, but it is a pretty divisive fan base when four years on there is no large outpouring of love like SNW is currently getting and that show is just in it’s first season.

I like both shows, so I guess that makes me a rarity.

I hope they take the critics serious, but I highly doubt that. They should focus on various mini-arcs or take a look at Enterprise season 3 and DS9. Enterprise season 3 had 24 episodes and there were some stand alone episodes. By skipping them you had around 15-18 episodes filled with the main plot.
Discovery was already shortened to 13 episodes and yet they were not able to use that format wisely.

‘I hope they take the critics serious’ The critics gave S4 of Discovery a 93% on RT so i say the critics loved the season and i don’t count the Audience Score as that is prone to review bombing by the ‘fandom menace youtube channels and their followers who created multiple accounts to get the score down and yes this actually true as the likes of Midnight Edge, Mecharandom42 and Nerdrotic have said it on their channels that they review bomb Discovery and even other shows.

But the audience rating on RT season 4 is around 40%. Its one of the worst ratings there for a Star Trek show. Only it and Picard are below 50% while all the other shows are pretty strong which says a lot.

People use to say it was because there was this toxic response to Kurtman Trek shows and people just voting it down because it’s ‘woke’, etc. And I don’t doubt there is some of that. But then why is LDS, PRO and especially SNW so high?? You can’t make that argument anymore they are just out to get Kurtzman when the majority of his shows are actually rated fairly well and very young shows at that. It’s not really a surprise, most people seem to generally like LDS, PRO and SNW where as PIC and DIS has been pretty divisive from the beginning, including people who like it but still have big issues with them.

You can’t just blame it on people on Youtube. There is a deeper problem within the shows themselves.

But the audience rating on RT season 4 is around 40%. Its one of the worst ratings there for a Star Trek show. Only it and Picard are below 50% while all the other shows are pretty strong which says a lot.

People used to say it was because there was this toxic response to Kurtman Trek shows and people just voting it down because it’s ‘woke’, etc. And I don’t doubt there is some of that. But then why is LDS, PRO and especially SNW so high??

You can’t make that argument anymore they are just out to get Kurtzman when the majority of his shows are actually rated fairly well and very young shows at that. It’s not really a surprise, most people seem to generally like LDS, PRO and SNW where as PIC and DIS has been pretty divisive from the beginning, including people who like it but still have big issues with them.

You can’t just blame it on people on Youtube. There is a deeper problem within the shows themselves.

i don’t count the Audience Score as that is prone to review bombing by the ‘fandom menace youtube channels and their followers

EXACLTY! Spot on, dude!

Again you can’t have it both ways. Why is one show made by the same people so high while another is so low?

And the problem with most critic scores they only rate the first few episodes the studio sends them. And not shocking those are usually the best episodes. These shows usually start out strong. It’s the ending where many drop the ball.

If only we could get the numbers from the IMDB database of the set of fans that voted on all of the series, and compared those numbers, then we would have something reliable regarding relative review ratings between the series. I mentioned in another post here that I suspect a lot of non Trek fans who are politicized, anti-diversity types of people, have likely skewed DSC ratings much lower than they should be.

This is my opinion, and I can’t prove it, but it’s backed up up by anecdotal information with us all seeing many of those types of people show up and make negative remarks on SNG and diversity in DSC during the Trump years. And there were reports then that those type of people were trying to cover multiple media sites with their negative presence.

It’s a little cloudy, because while I do think there was a marked downturn in the quality of Disco in season 3, and Doctor Who in series 11, I personally don’t think it was so dramatic as to warrant the IMDb/RT review ranking that befell them. I tend to agree with you about who is doing this and what their agenda is, which frustrates being able to look at data more dispassionately.

I tend to agree with you about who is doing this and what their agenda is, which frustrates being able to look at data more dispassionately.

I agree!

Because it’s not the people but the concept? SNW riffs on the classic, proven episodic formula. Disco does not and worse, it doesn’t have a valid concept – as some said, it’s End of Galaxy threat > Burnham puzzled and emotional > interchangeable other characters> endless exposition> rushed rabbit out of hat solution in final episode.

Obviously I agree. I have said many times like others Discovery gone down these paths too many times and you can feel the frustration from fans over the saving the galaxy thing over and over again.

I’m really hoping they go a different direction in season 5 altogether.

To be fair, they have certainly listened. It’s a very different show today BECAUSE of fan complaints. Every major complaint from the Klingons to even Burnham being Spock’s sibling has been dealt with in some way. It was a more dreary and dark show in season one where as now it feels a lot more positive and lighter in season 4. No one is eating each other anymore lol. And of course the biggest problem that people thought the show’s very existence was hindering canon by feeling too advanced and that was solved by moving it to it’s own era, where it should’ve always been.

That’s why I still support the show, they are trying and they are trying a lot. But no matter what they do, the show still lacks. And yes it keeping to the season long arc that is the problem. That is the one thing they seem to double down on. If they did mini-arcs like Enterprise did in fourth season it would probably be better for the show but its still no guarantees of course. They have done so many different things since it started, that should be another. The format just isn’t working that well IMO. In a lot of people’s opinions…especially when seeing the responses to shows like Lower Decks and SNW.

I’m not sure what they need do to improve Discovery.

I definitely enjoy it, but it does seem to drag at times.

Haha yeah Worf often talked about eating the heart of an enemy combatant, but it was never done on screen or to a character we cared about.

I really like the mini arc idea. It would help with the pacing of the show and the writers could come up with 2-3 major stories per season instead of trying to drag out a single story over 10 long weeks.

Yeah it’s a reason why I can’t even watch the first season of Discovery anymore. It’s too dark and dreary. When it first started, it was a novelty to see Star Trek with a little more edge, which was the point. But after watching it again in my grand rewatch last year, season one is already aging poorly because it feels so out of step with the other seasons. It LOOKS the same but the tone is so much more dire and bleak.

The mini arc has been proposed by multiple people here and other places of course. I just think after four semi-satisfactory seasons for a lot of fans maybe it’s time to change it up a bit. Enterprise could’ve done season 4 like season 3 but they were trying to do different things and see what worked.

I give Discovery a lot of credit of making at least a more ‘Trek-y’ like show and with a new setting but the main problem still remains; they can’t really tell a strong story in serialized form. Sure some people truly love it, but ask fans who watch shows like Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, Stranger Things, Ozark, The Boys and on and on. The reception from fans for those shows (which I include myself in all minus The Boys) are stronger for a reason because the writers on those shows can tell tightly plotted serials in a 10 episode season that really builds on both the story and it’s characters. Some are considered better than others but they are highly praised for a reason.

Every season with this show (and now Picard) the results have been highly highly mixed at best with both shows being accused of spinning its wheels for most of their seasons.

Yes, I got it that they changed the things the fans complained about season 1 and 2, and I understood why they changed it. But it didn’t improve the storytelling and went into the wrong direction IMHO. I liked the first episodes of season 3 and 4 and the solution in the finale episodes. But the major part that was between that felt like the season didn’t lift off until the last 2 episodes. It’s like waiting on the traffic jam and it doesn’t get green.
I have no intention to rewatch season 3 and 4 ever again (same goes to PIC S1), while I now enjoy reruns of DSC season 1. They tried to make something fresh and different and keep up style-wise with newer shows to bridge the 12 years after Enterprise ended.
S1 didn’t fit with TOS, but felt like 100 years extrapolated from Enterprise modernized with the grit from BSG and DS9. It was something new and exciting.
I liked the characters in S 1 and 2 way more. Lorca was a badass and how can you not like Pike?

Totally agree although I usually didn’t like the ending to any season. That was always the problem for me. EVERY season finale I was left disappointed. I actually think the season 4 finale was the best one so far. But unfortunately by the time it got there, I just stopped caring. That’s how bored I got. It just no longer mattered by then but it was decent (and Species 10c were really nice!)

I’ve spoken a thousand times now how I thought about the look in season one but I didn’t have a problem with trying something different either. In hindsight though I think it was a little too different too fast. They wanted to basically reboot the universe (without calling it that) but didn’t take into account how much fans wanted to see the old version again since we didn’t have it since Enterprise left and then had the Kelvin movies.People wanted a return to the familiar as much as possible…and they definitely didn’t do that lol.

I think if we got something in the vein of SNW but with the Discovery cast it would probably be a very different conversation today. SNW is basically the anti-Discovery in so many ways. They bent over backwards to have it feel as much like the other shows as possible and it’s paying off.

I actually prefer the first two seasons. Love the darkness and love SNG saving the universe, and loved the Lorca storyline and the Pike E storylines.

I realize this will be a minority opinion here, but instead of ‘listening to the fans” and watering down the series they should have continued what they were doing from the first two seasons. It’s too formulaic and traditional Trek now, which is not it’s strength.

Bring back the dark plotting, the surprise character connections to TOS, the multiverse, and SMG going overboard to save the universe — I love all that!

“It’s too formulaic and traditional Trek now”

I don’t disagree with you at all. Discovery still feels a bit different from the classic shows but every season it gets a bit closer.

SNW however is very formulaic in many ways but look at how much people are loving it because of that? That is the one funny irony about all of this. People dinged Voyager and Enterprise for the same idea at the time; but when you have hundreds of episodes back to back for over a decade, people will naturally get tired of it after 15+ straight years of it.

But now that we been away from that type of formula for so long, people are happy to see it back. It just proves how strong nostalgia works.

As I said, I actually agree Discovery being so different in the outset was a good thing, but it was just too much looking at it now. It tried to turn the universe on it’s head by spiking the visual look of the classic shows, making it feel more bleak and making it too serialized. But I have also said if Discovery was maybe the third or fifth show to come out, people’s reactions wouldn’t have been so strong against it. I compare it to DS9. If that was the first spin off show from TOS, people would’ve burned it to the ground lol. They wouldn’t have been able to handle it. And it would’ve never even made it to air obviously. But coming after TNG, it was easier to shake things up more after 6 seasons of that show.

And SNW is basically TNG in the world of modern Trek which is why people are going nuts for it I guess. But looking at everything SINCE Discovery, they are trying everything to appease the old fanbase. I know you hate it but LDS is obviously made for that crowd and it’s working too. Same reason Picard is even on the air and even that wasn’t enough and why everyone from TNG is back next season even at the expense of the new cast! Prodigy isn’t even made for old fans but they threw Janeway in just to get them to give the show a chance anyway.

Maybe if the new shows didn’t rely on subscriptions we may have a different slew of shows and characters like classic Trek did. Yes they (mostly) kept to formula but the shows could at least have new characters and settings to expand the universe. Not so much in modern Trek it seems, but nostalgia sells better.

Using any season of Enterprise as a standard for how DSC (or any Trek series for that matter) should improve I find completely ridiculous. That failed series stunk from start to finish. My opinion.

That failed series is also much more popular than Discovery these days. It’s not even close for me. But yeah it’s all opinions.

The ultimate scoring is the business calculation of does this series attract enough viewers to continue the series. Enterprise failed miserably in that regard. DSC obviously has not, and obviously did well enough that it became the foundation for many new Trek shows. Business failure versus business success.

Enteprise is more popular today then it was twenty years back — I will give you that. But who’s to say that twenty years from now DSC won’t have a similar level of “revised popularity” then?

I think I am personally and unusual person. My opinion doesn’t really change over time on media shows, whereas I think most fans forgive and forget the crappy series and also have this sentimentality creep in from the comfort level of watching old crappy eps over and over such that they eventually seem fun and good (artificially in my opinion).

That’s apples and oranges. TOS got cancelled three seasons in. It’s safe to say people who watched it still liked it. And obviously it’s more popular today. That’s how Star Trek rolls lol.

Discovery started on a small streaming network and was hyped to death after no Star Trek has been on in 12 years. It’s just not the same metrics. I do think Discovery is successful of course but in a very different way. I don’t think it would’ve lasted as long on regular network TV because frankly no Star Trek has outside of Voyager. In it’s second run on CBS last year it got dismal ratings.

It’s why Star Trek was never put on one again. Star Trek is popular but not in a mainstream way like other shows unfortunately. But more comfortable in non traditional media like syndication and now streaming.

But it’s not really apples and oranges. Sure, it’s a different business context. But business is business, and regardless of what the business context is, TV shows business-wise either perform or they don’t based on whether viewership targets are met or not met — and after a couple years in a row of not performing, unsuccessful series are cancelled.

Business-wise, Enterprise failed, while DSC has not. It’s that simple.

That’s the only “scoring” that really matters in terms of what type and how much Star Trek we will get. And DSC is rolling into S5, not to mention that it spawned SNW, and is likely to span one to two other shows — it’s a business creator for the franchise, whereas Enterprise was a one-off business failure.

It is what it is.

PS: And if you want to use the TOS as a cancelled example, then where are the Enterprise movies, Enterprise Next Gen series, etc.? :-)

Again, you can’t compare it to Discovery. Enterprise came on a failing network that got cancelled itself a year after Enterprise was and after 18 straight years of Star Trek on television. Discovery was the first show on a new site that had like 3 other original shows on at the time. It’s not that simple. It’s silly to suggest it. And Kurtzman said before Discovery even aired the plan was to create more Star Trek shows. So this is kind of disingenuous. They were always going to make more, it was just a matter of what and when. It’s like suggesting Mandalorian created Boba Fett and Obi-wan when the plan from day one was to add more SW content on Disney+.

And the funny thing is Moonves was so confident in Discovery he was predicting a certain number to watch the first season. I don’t remember what it is but the point is once it DID air, we never got one statement from him or anyone exactly how many people it actually pulled in. I think that’s for an obvious reason, it didn’t hit those numbers.

I think Discovery IS successful, but not in the traditional TV sense that Enterprise had to work under. And I always said it’s ‘success’ was probably somewhere in the middle even in terms of CBS expectations at the time.

For any TV series, regardless of network, streaming versus non-stream, syndication versus cable, etc, etc, the series always has to meet a business case in terms of viewership numbers to get renewed. For any series, the question is going to be like this:

Did the series meet the necessary viewership target to justify renewal for successive seasons based on it’s business case for the studio?

And for Enterprise, the answer would be no. And for DSC the answer would be yes. It doesn’t really matter that it was a different situation, network or timeframe, the simple fact is that business-wise, Enterprise was a series failure and did not meet it’s business goals to be renewed, while DSC did.

Also, we have a substantial supporting fact that DSC spawned other series and grew the franchise (in fact, DSC’s greatest success may be in spawning SNW), while Enterprise nearly killed it. I mean, can you name any series and new series start that Enterprise generated? Of course not, because unlike DSC, it was a dead end.

Because by then the franchise needed a break. There was 3 shows and 21 seasons straight of Star Trek before Enterprise. Almost 500 episodes (WOW). But we’re going in circles. I understand your point, but it’s still unfair to compare them IMO. And I mean if the tables were turned and it was Discovery released in 2001 on UPN and Enterprise in 2017 on AA I don’t see a big difference in the pattern at all; ESPECIALLY given how divisive Discovery is now. That’s what this conversation is really about. It’s way more divisive than ENT was IMO and Enterprise was divisive then too obviously; so I see the exact same issues basically. And I think in 2001 it would’ve been worse but that’s all speculation obviously. So we’re leave it there.

I think it was more like the fans needed a break from BAD Star Trek. Give Trek fans in any generation a few years in a row of bad Trek like Insurrection, Enterprise and Nemesis, and yea, the fans will tell you the franchise needs a break.

In regards to turning the tables, perhaps in 20 years, a lot more fans will appreciate and like DSC more, just like today, twenty years after Enterprise, that series seems to be liked more by fans now?

I’ve always said DIS will probably become more popular in the future as newer fans come around or people see it in a different light just like all the classic shows. That is the beauty of Trek it all becomes more popular and not less as it ages.

Tiger2, we don’t have any evidence that Enterprise is doing significantly better.

Yes, I see posts on any number of boards from a segment of fans that say Enterprise plays better with the backdrop of where television has gone in the past two decades.

But the global Netflix ratings (such that they were made public) weren’t strong for Enterprise.

I’ve been trying to figure it out, and I think that Enterprise just doesn’t appeal to viewers outside the US even with the benefit of time going by.

Looking at Parrot Analytics, which covers audience demand for all shows on all platforms, Voyager’s pulling almost double the demand in the US compared to Enterprise (13.3 times the average show vs 7.0 times).

However, outside the US, Enterprise plays decidedly worse. In Canada, Enterprise has only 2.0 times the average demand while Voyager has 7.0 times the demand. For the UK, Voyager has 5.7 times average demand and Enterprise has 2.3 times.

In Germany, Voyager gets 4.0 times average demand compared to 2.7 times for Enterprise which is the best performance for Enterprise that I could find internationally.

Wow, finally some quantitative data that refutes the small, but vocal set of Enterprise fans who try to claim how popular the show supposedly is now.

Thanks, TG47

I’m not claiming Enterprise has better ratings than the other classic shows. I never once suggested or claimed that. I simply said it’s not fair to compare the situation between that show and Discovery. It’s completely different metrics. But I’m not debating Enterprise is the least watched show in classic Trek. That doesn’t surprise me at all. But its a more popular show for people who do watch it today as you said; at least in America for some reason. Me included. I love Enterprise! Certainly more than Discovery.

And I don’t remotely doubt Voyager is more popular because it’s always been more popular lol. Voyager was like the Kelvin movies to me in the sense it was very divided among old fans but new and casual fans generally loved it. You see that bare out in the review sites and places like Reddit. And love it even more today. Voyager is my third favorite show after DS9 and TNG. Enterprise is my fifth. Even I stopped watching Enterprise after it’s first season but I loved Voyager from beginning to end, just not at the level of TNG and TOS at the time. But I actually liked it more than DS9, in the beginning at least.

I used to argue with a former poster here who suggested once that Voyager should just be forgotten or ‘second canon’ because he said most fans didn’t care about the show anymore and that new fans should just focus on the new shows. And he felt that way because he personally hated the show which was fine, but that’s the problem with the internet sometimes; people constantly coloring their own biases for something as if it’s a consensus. It was such a ridiculous statement because as you showed um yeah plenty of fans watch Voyager today and on Netflix more than a lot of the other shows. It held seven of the ten most rewatched Star Trek episodes in one poll Netflix released. It’s not a shock why Prodigy is a quasi spin off of that show now.

Voyager is probably the best gateway for new Star Trek fans IMO,

I think your point about Enterprise was that its viewership even in 2005 would have been considered a boon for CBS All Access in 2017, and nostalgia may well have swelled its popularity. What metrics we do have for how many people subscribed to the service to watch Discovery at first tend to support that – about as many people as watched Enterprise when it was canned subscribed for Disco’s premiere. Internationally things are likely a different story, Netflix was a powerful platform for the series.

I will always believe Viacom had a chance to salvage Enterprise and make early use of a paywall though, and it could have worked. It could simply have moved Enterprise to Showtime. Even just 3 million viewers on a premium channel back then would have been a huge deal.

Star Trek pre and post-TNG has just been too niche to be true network material – UPN being a mini network is what protected Voyager and Enterprise, and syndication saw DS9 through its harder times, even though both platforms could be argued as being hinderances as well. Linear ratings have collapsed to a point where a first run series might do respectably now, but the budgets are too high for new Star Trek to be anything but a premium series behind a paywall these days.

To say this upfront, I obviously don’t know if Enterprise would’ve been successful if it landed AA back in 2017. It could’ve failed there too. But I have a hard time seeing how it wouldn’t have succeed if it was the same situation as these new shows today. More people were probably watching Enterprise when the show was in its last season than people were watching Discovery in it’s first seasons, at least in America. It may have been doing amazing on Netflix overseas but they never reported any actual data so we don’t know.

But for AA, after the first season of Discovery that site only had around 3 million subscriptions and my guess (only my guess) half of them signed up to watch Discovery. Today the site is in a very different place, I read P+ now has 60 million subscribers worldwide. That’s really impressive since they got most of those in the last two years alone. P+ still lacks in some ways but it feels like a competitive streaming service now. I actually know two people who have it lol. For years I couldn’t even say that. And I will say part of that is due to Star Trek obviously.

But I also agree and what I been saying, Star Trek is still a niche franchise when compared to stuff like Marvel and Star Wars. It’s big enough to make more of it (at least on TV) but only when it’s not directly competing against others in a traditional way. TNG without a doubt is the most successful Star Trek show of all time. It not only revitalized Star Trek as a brand but science fiction TV in general.

BUT same time, the reason TNG was so successful was that it was in a market basically onto itself which was first run syndication. Until TNG showed up there were few first run syndicated shows and what was there was cheap content stations would run 11 p.m. on a Saturday or something. TNG changed all of that when Trekkies gravitated to the show and the market got filled with actual quality productions and lots of sci fi/fantasy stuff. By the time DS9 showed up it had to compete with those shows in multiple markets. It did fine, but yeah it didn’t have the same advantage as TNG obviously.

By the time UPN showed up, the landscape had changed a lot and Voyager and Enterprise was on a fledgling network that wasn’t even in every household in America. Many people still had to get those shows through other means and Trek was running non-stop for years by that point. Sure you can definitely argue that fans weren’t happy with the shows themselves which was true. But the novelty of a new Trek show just wasn’t there either anymore. It’s basically what is happening to Star Wars now. Still highly popular but it doesn’t feel ‘special’ anymore when you had five movies and multiples shows all running in less than ten years. After awhile people get more cynical it’s just making content to make it. But when that takes a break for a few years, people will get hungry for it again.

So when Discovery showed up, not only was there a hunger from old fans who was wanting for a new show, but now an entire new era of young fans have showed up because they found the old shows through streaming and so it was naturally a bigger resurgence. And it’s now paying off for everyone. But as I always said, we’re ONLY getting this much Star Trek because it’s on a streaming site and one who needed a big brand to advertise it. If Discovery was on CBS, I don’t think it would’ve lasted more than a few seasons given the cost. Or if it was successful I just don’t see it spawning five shows in three years either.

That was all due to being on AA. I mean Lower Decks will probably go at least 7 seasons now lol. It already has four and season 3 hasn’t started yet. That tells me there is a HIGH demand from either the fanbase or a studio who is desperately trying to build a future library of content. It probably is both obviously. But if shows like LDS and Discovery (considering how divisive it’s been from day one) can get 5+ seasons, I don’t know why Enterprise wouldn’t get the same since they are ALL successful enough on that site and more are coming.

Just like TNG of old, they once again found a market it can thrive in and even a better option because they have a lot more control of how it’s distributed and people actually paying for it directly.

Isn’t DSC some kind of ENT- Next Gen? Season 1 really felt like that.
Having said that, I still look forward for S5 of DSC, hoping , that they finally nail it.

I don’t just think it’s sentimentality One Lion.

I enjoyed Voyager in its first run, but I appreciate it so much more now. It was watching Voyager with our kids when they were middle graders)a few years ago now) that I came to realize that Voyager has more to offer than I had thought.

In many ways it seems to be the most accessible entry point for younger viewers of all the classic series. Our kids took quickly to TAS and TNG but it’s Voyager that made them fans. The premise of a ship lost far away, trying to get home is a very successful one at that age.

For myself, what I realized in that rewatch is that Voyager, like SNW, has some episodes that are stellar examples of certain Trek tropes, or adaptations of concepts from other popular science fiction, horror or military storylines.

“The Thaw” is clearly derived from It, but it’s much better in my view and very much the kind of thing that TOS would have taken on – but it lacks the gore of much of modern horror, a good thing from our kids’ and my view.

I still can’t say that about Enterprise, but I did find a few more gems in there on rewatch. I’m in the group that couldn’t stand Archer or Bakula as Archer most of the time he’s on screen, and that never changed.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying here. I am enjoying Voyager more on a gradual re-watch I have been doing over the last year. Like you though, Enterprise is just too lame for most eps for me to get into.

Agreed. I always loved Voyager but I recognized at the time it was definitely more divided. But so was DS9 too. The difference is that show ultimately won out because people started to recognize how great the quality was overall. And the fact it just did something different than the other shows.

Voyager definitely has a lot of valid criticisms. The show didn’t really take advantage of it’s premise among other things, but that was just due to the nature of network TV at the time. Today it would be a very different story obviously.

But I always loved and defended Voyager. I love all the characters and Janeway became my second favorite Captain in the franchise after the first episode. Mulgrew just plays her so well and so happy we have her back in Prodigy. In fact we now have two Janeways on that show, who could ask for anything more lol.

And I forgot to add I think the other problem with Enterprise at the time and now is that the prequel setting doesn’t really draw in fans like the other shows. That was always a big problem for me when I originally started to watch the show. I think that was a big problem for others when Discovery started too (for people who don’t like prequels, not everyone!). More people want to go forward than backwards. CBS finally got the message and why four of the five shows are now going forward, including a former prequel lol.

A lot of younger fans today are not enamored with TOS or its era like old fans who grew up with the show. Many who started watching when TNG started wanted a show to continue in the 24th century or beyond. So again I’m NOT surprised Enterprise is the least watched show in classic Trek for many reasons and that’s certainly another. A lot of fans are just not in love with prequels in general.

SNW is a different matter because A. It’s a show that takes place on the original Enterprise with known TOS characters and B. as stated, we have other sequel shows on now. So I’m not suggesting prequels aren’t popular or can’t be loved but when Enterprise and Discovery were the only shows on at the time, it really soured for people who wanted to go forward in the timeline again. Definitely for me but as said I have embraced Enterprise now and I was already enjoying Discovery by it’s second season and got over it being a prequel. If it stayed in the 23rd century I would’ve been fine with that. But again it also helped we had Picard coming around the bend too.

But I want to make this clear I didn’t stop watching Enterprise because it was a prequel, I just felt the show on its own was boring and had lots of issues at the time and I imagine that’s true for people who don’t like it today. So I’m not spinning or suggesting being a prequel alone is what kept people away from Enterprise. I just think it was another factor among others. Same thing with Discovery for people who had or having problems with that show too.

You can like or hate Enterprise. At least they managed to tell a serialized season in 24 episodes which felt like 24 episodes and not like 3 episodes stretched into 13.

Just like VOY, ENT didn’t use it’s full potential and played it too safe by the book, instead of taking risks (minus ENT S3 and VOY Year of Hell, which should have been a full season). Nevertheless I enjoy both shows alot and find them highly rewatchable.

When Enterprise ended, the viewers were tired after 18 years and the episodic formula was outdated. Shows like BSG took over. BSG was like VOY and ENT should have been. It felt like the premise of VOY, with the darkness of DS9 and the low-tech of ENT. (On the other hand, I can’t rewatch single episodes of BSG and had the last rerun 10 years ago). To bring in another franchise, Stargate Universe took that formula, but failed.

When DSC started the viewers were hungry for New Trek. Me too. That’s why DSC season 1 was exciting. And IMHO there wasn’t really some competition or another running show to compare, except The Orville.

I’ve heard every excuse under the sun on why Enteprise failed — why the ratings went down year after year, including during the final two seasons which are odds with today’s urban legend that the show was supposedly better in those two seasons. Someone here once even claimed that Friday Night High School Football games were responsible…lol

Here’s a thought. The series failed because most of the episodes were in the range of bad to mediocre.

Ocaam’s Razor applies here: when faced with competing explanations for the same phenomenon, the simplest is likely the correct one.

The show stunk, fans stopped watching, and it was cancelled. I think it’s really that simple.

And what are the excuses for Discovery? :-P *ducks and hides*

DSC wasn’t cancelled, so your comment makes zero sense.

I think if they listened to Berman and waited a few years to put on a new show Enterprise would’ve had a better reception. Even I needed a break by then (but the prequel setting never did it for me….same issue with Discovery first season).

If they had waited a few years the style would have maybe a bit different too. I can imagine BSG could have had influenced that hypothetical version of Enterprise with a more realistic approach, “Naturalistic science fiction” (i just googled that). DSC season one did have that a bit.
ENT season 3 came close to that.
I still would love to see a Star Trek series in that style, takin place between our era and Enterprise.

Everyone really knows the reason why Enterprise failed from the start. There are legions of humans who had no interest in the lead actor. And every episode was a fight to watch him, or change the channel. As a whiny Enterprise captain, he is a million ways less compelling than SMG, even if the stories, which I can watch now – 20 years later – are marginally “better.”

I have many complaints about DSC, but at least in this last season, in the middle of Covid, they came up with a story that really had no “bad” guy. And I respect them for that.

Unfortunately, they destroyed the character of Book when all they needed was a few more scenes of him sitting down and talking.

Really? That’s the first time I read that. I was there from the start of Enterprise (although as an international viewer in Germany) and don’t remember ever having read such complains about Archer. And I followed a lot of discussions back then. There were jokes about him getting abducted almost every episode (ENT-führt in german) and his behavior in the Xindi-Arc caused a lot of controversial discussions. So I suppose it’s not “everyone” knows.

It’s clear they had problems with ratings – they fell quickly. So when people talk about the SMG whisper (which I think is a thing) I can easily point out the creaky, whiny crack in Archer’s voice which almost always came out when they were trying to solve a problem. I find it less annoying now, but back then…?

Yep!

Good point on Archer. Lame character and the actor didn’t work for the part. By comparison, he makes the overrated Janeway look like Admiral Horatio Nelson.

Scott Bakula was the reason why I even liked Enterprise. I liked Archer right away and he and Pike has the same laid back folksy leadership style (although unlike Pike, Archer can have a temper at times lol). And I certainly like him more than Burnham. She’s very whiny herself. And it’s just too much crying! But I think she cried a lot less in season 4.

A more relevant question which will probably go unanswered. Has anyone seen a script? Is Michael’s crying in the script? Is it always there? That would be the biggest revelation of all.

Agreed. I like Discovery and Picard but with so much prestige TV available I probably still wouldn’t be watching if they didn’t have Star Trek in the title. The bottom line is that it just doesn’t grab me like Trek of the past and before anybody wants to accuse me of being stuck in the past, I’m not. This is a golden age for television, there is so much quality content but unfortunately the premium live action trek content (I’ve not seen SNW yet) is not competing with the top end of that market. It’s good, but it’s not great and it really needs to be if they want to build the audience beyond the core fanbase.

I’ve not seen SNW yet

Well at this point in time, I would say your opinion is uninformed I think until you correct this.

I’ve not seen SNW yet

BTO?

Thats a ridiculous thing to say One Lion, how can my opinion of Star Trek Discovery and Picard be considered ‘uninformed’ because I haven’t seen SNW? That show hasn’t launched in the UK yet so there’s nothing for me to ‘correct’ at this stage.

OK, but may I please point out that your reaction may not be quite fair to me I think, as your remark specifically says: “…but unfortunately the premium live action Trek content (I’ve not seen SNW yet)…”

So it seems to me that you should be in agreement to me that you need to watch SNW first and then review your general opinion on premium live new Trek content, am I wrong? I mean you stated this, not me, and you yourself inferred that you need to watch SNW still, right?

I’ll accept that, I felt that by acknowledging I hadn’t seen SNW I
it would be clear I was referring to the shows I had seen but yeah, it could have been worded more clearly.

Thanks, no worries. My response also could have been worded better.

I honestly would still be watching but yeah I’m also a sucker for punishment lol. And I don’t think Discovery is THAT bad either, I just don’t think it’s must-see TV but I’m a fan. Picard, sadly I DO think it’s that bad unfortunately.

And I also agree, it is the golden age of TV. We’re not hurting for premium entertainment these days and you can credit all the streaming channels for that today. Everyone is pumping a ridiculous amount of money into these shows and brands. I think Star Trek is successful on P+ but I still feel it’s more the niche franchise compared to the big boys; ie, the people watching it are the same people whose been watching it forever now. Stuff like MCU and SW shows has a bigger audience already but I feel has more cross over appeal to non-fans. Certainly the Mandalorian did because I had friends who don’t care about SW watching it. I can’t say the same for any of the new Trek shows yet.

But if it’s one that can do it, I feel SNW is the best contender right now. And I know you’re from the U.K. and will get it soon. I think you will love it when you do! :)

Would you still be watching Discovery it wasn’t Trek though? That’s what I meant that I’m only still watching because it is Trek and I’m a huge fan of the franchise. I Don’t think either show is that bad, I’d go so far as to say they’re both good just not great. It’s just there’s so much content out there at the moment that there’s probably better shows that I’ve fallen behind on or lost track of completely because I just don’t have the time and I don’t have a decades long investment in them. SNW I am looking forward to though and from what I’m hearing I suspect I’ll love that. I think I saw you say that they should have just launched with that show and I agree.

Yeah that’s a great question and the answer sadly is probably not. I probably would’ve stuck with it for a few seasons at least but stopped watching after the third season.

And yes I do think they should’ve launched with SNW. Obviously it’s just hindsight and I will say because they have effectively eliminated all the issues people had with shows like DIS and PIC. So it’s tricky obviously. I think a Pike show would’ve been more popular for obvious reasons but we still may have had gotten a similar version of how Discovery started out too and all the complaints with it.

I thought S3 was actually a sign that DISCO had found its stride; I really had a good time with that season, despite some annoyances. Then noped out of S4 early on, because it seemed like a retread of S3, but hey, look! More trauma! It’s just so uneven and seems largely disinterested in the development of characters who aren’t Burnham, Tilly, or Saru. I’m rooting for this show, but I really need it to give me more reasons to stick around.

This is such a narcissistic viewpoint. It HAS to get better because YOU don’t like. Clearly other people are enjoying it. If you’re not, move along. That’s what I did.

I’m giving my opinion. Learn what that word means or you move on. I already told you if you can’t handle that without feeling offended over it then ignore my posts please.

This AlphaPredator dude is really posting a lot of BS here. For those of us who have always liked and defended DSC over the years, the last thing I want is this bozo acting like he’s the sheriff and tying to shut down discussion on DSC — he certainly doesn’t represent DSC fans, and I or others defending the show don’t need his unhelpful BS to make our legitimate points on why we like DSC.

Agreed. I already told him in another thread he comes off too belligerent and rude and to just ignore my post. People like this don’t last long here.

Discovery and Picard are interchangeable when it comes to the level of frustration I have with both shows. It’s not that serialized storytelling can’t work for a Star Trek series but the storyline has to be compelling enough to take what could be a two part episode and stretch it out to 10 or more, particularly for a storyline which we know will wrap by the end of the season. Each season of Picard and Discovery could have been told in two or three episodes.

And while some argue that the serialized nature of Picard and Discovery allow us to learn more about each of the characters and their backstory, the episodic nature of Strange New Worlds has allowed the writers to do the same while presenting a new story each week.

It’s not the format of Picard and Discovery which is the issue, it’s how that format has been executed.

I agree 1000%. A serialized series shouldn’t be just an old story simply extended. It should be be something that would be almost impossible to tell another way. Imagine there was a series that only had to do with a single ship helping a colony establish itself over a series of months. You could do everything Star Trek does well in a setting that has always been in the background. Etc etc.

BSG did this in a later season. Half of the new Lost in Space is like this, and it was beautiful and fun to watch.

Agreed as well. Both DS9 and ENT shows that serialization can be done very well and in fact both shows became more popular with fans once they went that route. I’ve said this before, I just think the people making PIC and DIS are simply not talented enough to pull off a serial format. I’m not trying to be insulting, but we’ve had six seasons of it so far and I haven’t loved one yet. Most have started very compelling and interesting but by the time you get to the end it just landed flat. And sadly both shows last season I was basically watching them just waiting for them to wrap it up, but I was checked out long ago. Good serial stories keep you glued to the season until the very last episode.

Maybe season 5 of Discovery and season 3 of Picard will turn it around but I’m not holding my breath at all.

There’s no competition- SNW mops the floor over Disco. Way better premise and a more likable cast.

Snw for me is not good , if I wanted to watch episodic Star Trek I watch legacy trek , I love discovery because it’s different it doesn’t use the Star Trek formula

You guys, LOL. Why does it have to be so black or white? Some of us like both shows.

Relax! :-)

Competition is related to “competence”.

Except that it’s not.

I’m glad they’re going to be back soon but I was really hoping for them to abandone the season arc and embrace the episodic format. That’s what I would have done. Salvaging the show by keeping the cast and general setting but completely reinventing it, even renaming it Discovery Adventures to make sure it is perceived as a soft reboot. Just adding another “big season arc” will only make them repeat the same mistakes…
Let them finally explore! Week by week… If they need an overall arc, let it sit in the background like with the X-Files or Doctor Who…

Yup! Discovery could be so good if they moved to an episodic format.

‘Yup! Discovery could be so good if they moved to an episodic format.’ They don’t need episodic format for Discovery and imo as a Trekkie i don’t want them to move from the serialized format as i enjoy that. If you want episodic stories you have strange new worlds for that and as Alex Kurtzman has said recently Discovery is a serialized show it’s not going to change and fans seem to agree as Discovery is still the most watched of all the new Trek shows according to Paramount and that includes Strange New Worlds as well.

I dislike serialized storytelling a lot… Not just in Trek but generally. Most serialized shows are just a meandering waste of screen time and would be better off as a three-part movie series or so.

Out of dozens of serialized shows over the last 20 years I only finished six, in two decades: NuBSG, Lost, GoT, Gotham, The Expanse and Killjoys…
All the countless others I abandoned along the way because of that format. I’m still with Stranger Things which will most likely be my seventh show to finish…

I prefer good old episodic TV or if it has to be semi-serialized, the overall arc should be evolving in the background like it was done on The X-Files or Doctor Who, or large portions of DS9…

Enjoy your steady stream of divorcees and stars-of-the-week. “Good old episodic TV” was where A-list Hollywood acting careers went to die.

You’d never get the likes of Bryan Cranston or Olivia Coleman/Claire Foy or Jon Hamm or Kevin Spacey caught dead doing a TV series in the 1970s.

The majority of those actors are not the type to carry major movies, so I think you are largely wrong. Cranston, Hamm and Coleman I think would have ended up on TV — Cranston could have done something like Rockford Files easily in the 70’s for example.

Foy you are right about — she’d be a movie star in that era. Spacy — who cares given what he’s done…wish he’d never been given that opportunity to have a power position in Hollywood given the lives he’s damaged.

SNW is episodic TV and people are loving it!

Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB both rank Discovery well below SNW. SNW hasn’t had time to rack up viewing hours. Discovery has had years so of course it is leading in that metric.

Yeah that’s the problem. Discovery has been around four years now and is still ranking pretty low. And you can’t just blame the fact fans just hate NuTrek since the Kelvin movies are the highest rated Trek films on the same review sites and they are loath in places like this lol.

Except that DSC became the target of a lot of negative/politicized people, many not Trek fans, who rejected the diversity and social justice aspects of the show, and I think voted down the show in huge numbers…and the other Trek shows did not attract that politicized negative element.

So I think there are a ton of negative reviews on DSC on IMDB, RT and other sites due to that “anti-diversity” negative element of reviewers. And I would not underestimate the size of this group, and again, I don’t think they have likely done this much on the other series. DSC is obviously the “diversity king” of the new Trek series, and unfortunately there are people out there who react negatively to that.

But it’s been four years now. I don’t think it’s that alone. MAYBE at the beginning but I feel its mostly people who are just not hot on the show still. You are reading it here now. I don’t know if you ever been on or part of TrekCore but it’s the same thing there. On Reddit, social media boards and on and on. People are still divided on this show. I think TrekCore is now worse than here lol. They have really soured on Discovery the last 2 seasons from what I read (I lurk there a lot lately). I only bring it up because the two boards are similar with about the same usual group of people who always posts and seems to be hardcore fans. And they kick off anyone who try to make it about diversity just like here. Those people don’t last long on these sites,but thrives on Youtube unfortunately.

But places like here and Trekcore, it’s the same theme. More and more seem bitter about Discovery but LOVES SNW lol.

Well I will agree that among the Trek fan’s who like to spend time on Trek web sites, DSC is not very popular. On the other hand, I was at a Creation convention last year where SNG and the other DSC packed the hall on her appearance more than Shatner and the Picard actors did at the same event — and there were a lot of younger and more female fans that obviously showed up just for her appearance.

Dude no offense, but you been saying this for a loooong time now man. I was at the L.A. Star Trek convention in Pasadena waaaay back in 1996 and I saw a panel with some of the cast of Voyager there. They were treated like rock stars, especially Kate Mulgrew. And let me add this nugget, this convention happened the maybe a few weeks after Threshold was released to the world lol. Surprisingly it wasn’t boycotted or nerds calling for Brannon Braga’s head. It was still a packed hall I assure you. Because yeah, it’s a Star Trek convention.

And Discovery is still a brand new show just like Voyager at the time was. No one is claiming everyone hates it and it doesn’t have devoted fans. TAS has devoted fans! What is being said is there are probably a lot of people who hate it as much as people likes it. Thats what it means to be divisive. I can guarantee you the people who thinks it sucks probably didn’t go. ;).

I’m going to make this as clear as I can. I don’t doubt Discovery is popular. I don’t doubt it has a loyal and committed fanbase. But I do think it’s still not a show embraced by the masses the way TNG was by it’s fourth season. And that’s OK, I don’t think DS9 was all that popular then either. Certainly not Voyager. Those were more divisive back then than they are today. Discovery can get over the hump in time. But it’s clearly not there yet and why every season it feels like it gets a reboot of some kind because they are constantly tinkering with it to appease the fans still not on board yet.

I don’t disagree with much of what you are saying here. And anything that I have “been saying for a long time,” I will continue say, because I believe it’s good info/observations — otherwise, I would not bring it up again. :-)

It’s no different that with you keep bringing up this “reboot” idea, which I disagree with only because it was in the original Fuller plan — but we don’t need to go down that road again because I know we disagree on that and are unlikely to convince each other to change our minds. :-)

I really don’t think we are as far apart as it seems on this. DSC has a unique market that is only partly made up of traditional Trek fans, and the rest of it’s market is new fans that have been brought into Star Trek — and I personally saw this at a Creation Convention in NJ in September of last year, as all of these “extra fans,” many of them being woman and younger fans, just showed up to her session only, and her autograph line was 2 hours long to boot.

Discovery WAS rebooted. I think everyone agrees with that lol. You’re only arguing the semantics over why it was done basically; which I debunked thoroughly since it’s not even an anthology man lol. That was the main point of Fuller’s idea, every season a new ship and crew. And no one has remotely suggested that anywhere, from Kurtzman or anyone else throwing the ship in another century came out of Fuller’s idea. You’re the only one I have even seen make that claim that…annnnnywhere!

And rebooting a Star Trek show is a long held tradition right? TNG, DS9 and ENT all were rebooted in some fashion by their third seasons too. Voyager to a lesser extent but it got a small one once Seven of Nine showed up and the Borg became the focus. But I used to argue DS9 got the biggest reboot in the franchise until Discovery came along, so this is nothing new. Discovery was just the first to leave its original setting and basically started over in a new one, which I applauded, right? I think it was a brilliant idea, even with my issues of Discovery now. And I think got more fans on board in the process who wasn’t sold on it being a prequel. I think they just got tired of fans whining about it and always comparing it to TOS and wanted to do their own thing.

I could be wrong, but to me you just don’t like the idea that they threw the show in the future because it would be admitting either it was a mistake to put it in the 23rd century in the first place or that they made a mess of canon (which is probably the real issue IMO). I get that, but again, the show itself made that pretty evident. Discovery didn’t just go into the future but then they made the weird decision to say the ship was destroyed when we know it wasn’t and that anyone mentioning Burnham’s name is now illegal throughout Starfleet lol. Like, why??? Discovery destroyed, still unnecessary, but OK if you want to buy it was a cover for Section 31s fuck up. But Spock pretending he never had a sister now is just trying to line the show up with TOS canon in the clunkiest way possible unfortunately.

But it’s clear evidence they were trying to erase the show’s history in one timeline and start anew in another, hence a reboot.

For some reason you seem hung up that I believe what I believe on this? When they went to the future, I said to myself, “cool, just like Fuller set up.” I really believed and expected that to happen, so was not the least bit surprised.

Now if you want to call that a re-boot, I am not going to stop you as superficially, sure you could call it that. But it was part of the Fuller plan all along, and I would not be shocked if they jump to another period in Trek history one more time before the series ends it’s run.

Dude, you can’t force me to think differently than what I think on this? I can’t help it that I think this way and reacted that way to the time jump, dude. It’s my personal opinion and take on what was presented to me, and no, I don’t have an ulterior motive for thinking that way or lowering myself to use that as an excuse.

We can politely disagree on stuff and have fun discussions here, but please don’t try to suggest to me what I am thinking and kind of infer that I am being intellectually dishonest with you. This is just what I think on this, that’s all. Could I be wrong, sure. Could you be wrong, sure. If they do end up doing another time jump, I would think that you should buy be a beer though! LOL

OK man fine. But it’s not a FACT that’s why they rebooted the show either, just your speculation on it since no one has ever suggested it in any way. But yes you have every right to believe that. So we’ll move on.

Sounds good.

BTW, this proves that this is not just me having this idea as you have claimed:

Setting Star Trek: Discovery in the franchise’s past always seemed a puzzling choice. It’s an idea held over from co-creator Bryan Fuller’s original pitch for bringing Star Trek back to television as an anthology show that would start before Kirk’s day and then jump ahead through Trek’s fictional history each season until reaching a never-before-seen future. Now, going into its third season, Discovery has wound up reclaiming part of that abandoned premise, launching into a new century and shedding much of its obligation to the rigid continuity of the universe.

— Fanbyte.com, October 15, 2020 (Dylan Roth)

So yea, others besides me have in fact brought this up. :-)

Ok there is another! Noted.;)

You should join us at TrekCore bro! We don’t bite. A lot of cool people over there just like here. And you can block the crazies.

And there are definitely Discovery fans over there… I’m just not one of them. Dismal show with too much crying, bad plots and melodrama.

Loving SNW though. They should cancel Discovery and just make more episodes of that show like others been suggesting.

Yet without DSC there is no SNW today.

Actually I used to be on TrekCore too but with a slightly different handle. This was 5 years ago now. I used to post on both, but a lot more moderately back then. But someone hacked into my Disqus account and made silly posts under my name, my guess a teenager or something, so I just closed it permanently. Planned to make another one at some point but just never did.

And agreed, it is great you can block out the crazies lol. But I never had any real issues with anyone there unlike here unfortunately.

Anyway, I do agree Discovery does have too much melodrama and definitely lots of crying lol. I don’t mind seeing characters break down but not at the level they do it on that show. It’s just too much. I think Burnham has cried more in the four seasons on that show than Captain Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway and Archer combined. Maybe I’m wrong but if I am, I’m positive it’s still pretty close lol. Either way she definitely has turned on the water works beyond any of them.

Burnham is just a horrible character all around bro. One of the worst characters Star Trek has ever made and I’m even including Neelix. They replace her with Grudge the cat as Captain it would be a better show for me. Maybe she doesn’t have the training to pull it off but zero whining and crying so still a win.

Glad Tilly is not around much anymore either. The other weeper on that ship. It’s like watching melodramatic teenagers run that ship.

LOL!!

And I will probably get banned for saying this, but I always liked Neelix! :)

This is what’s great about Star Trek. Everyone can have vastly different opinions about which characters they like. It’s all personal opinions and tastes. No one is right and no one is wrong concerning who they like.

To each his own, but Burnham is one of my favorite Trek characters of all time. I love it that she can be emotional one minute, and save the ship in the next minute, orders be damned.

Tilly I find annoying, but I totally get why many fans like her.

I don’t begrudge you on your opinions though, as I feel the same way regarding multiple characters on Lower Decks, Archer on Enterprise, and Chakotay and the so annoying Doctor on Voyager. To me, Mariner is the Jar Jar Binks of Star Trek — I just keep wishing she would just shut the F up…LOL

Yeah I think Mariner has that effect on a lot of people bro! 😂

Including most people on the Cerritos itself.

And my girlfriend hates the Doctor too…but loves Neelix lol. I tell her you can hate the doctor babe, that’s cool, but loving Neelix is where the line should be drawn. But that’s how you you compromise in a relationship. She actually likes Chakotay and thinks he’s better than Riler and Kira. Like WTF??? I like Chakotay too actually but c’mon. She doesn’t like ANY of the Vulcans except Spock.. but only Ethan Peck Spock. She thinks Nimoy’s is too nerdy and boring. Same for Tuvok and T’Pol.I like Peck too but over Nimoy’s?! Bruh! And I love all the Vulcans so it’s a constant fight lol.

But hey I’m just happy I finally got her to like a Star Trek show! It only took like six years! 🤣🤣

LOL that’s pretty funny!

Does she only like one show? Have she seen others?

We just finished watching all of Voyager a month ago!

She’s seen a lot of it, like 2/3rds of it but never watched it straight through. And I been wanting to rewatch it for awhile now. I haven’t watched it straight though in probably ten years, so we watched it together. It was great man. A lot of fun. I skipped over some of the really bad ones though, but only like a dozen or so.

And she’s seen a little bit of all the old shows actually but the ones she loves TNG and VOY and likes Enterprise. So would probably like it more but hates T’Pol with a passion. She really doesn’t like Vulcans bro and T’Pol is one of my favorite characters. She doesn’t love Tuvok but tolerates him. And he’s not in every episode the way T’Pol is, but she can watch the show.

The only shows she just flat out hate is TOS and DS9. For TOS she said it’s like watching something from the 1930s, but just in color and really bad acting lol. It’s too dated for her. And I’m not a big TOS fan so it’s fine. She’s seen most of the TOS movies though and those are better but not a huge fan. She also hates DS9 because its on a station and she don’t like the Emissary/Wormhole alien stuff. It’s too spiritual but she knows how much I love and wants to give it a real chance.

The Kurtzman stuff she is liking SNW a lot and where she saw Ethan Peck. She hates Lower Decks and calls it dumb. ALSO hates Mariner lol. She seen a few episodes of Discovery but not into it at all but likes it more than Lower Decks for sure. I don’t think it’s even a contest lol. She wants to try out Picard but she knows I’m not loving it but I tell just try it, she might like it. But she doesn’t want to watch it without me so unfortunately she won’t be watching lol. But she definitely wants to see season 3 because all of them from TNG is back, so probably watch that together at least. She’s even a little excited about it. Sadly more than I am. No interest in Prodigy either and I love that one too. But it’s not for her and she loves Janeway like I do.

So kind of a mixed bag but the ones we both like are TNG and VOY but she can watch ENT and SNW. Everything else I doubt she’ll ever really like. I am a little disappointed she can’t into DS9 though because it’s such a great show but she says she’ll watch at least the first season and go from there.

She never seen the JJ movies and knows I think they are mostly trash but if she wants to watch those too we will. She’ll probably like them, at least more than me but that’s not hard bro. 😂🙄

If I can get her to like that show then she will like my top shows: TNG, DS9 and Voyager. The rest I don’t care about. I wish I can get her to like the Doctor more…at least over Neelix lol. She also really loved Kes and was heartbroken when she left Neelix lol.

Your girlfriend sounds like she likes adventure of the week/episodic Trek. TNG/VOY/ENT/SNW are total comfort food Start Trek; especially for new or casual fans. This really shows because while all those shows can be very layered and complicated, they are not something you have to watch every episode to follow except ENT in third season (but I’m guessing she’ll never get that far and T’Pol is a big part of that season too lol).

I have a live in girlfriend too, not a big Trek fan but can watch it. The stuff she can watch regularly are TNG/VOY/ENT/TOS/LDS. I actually think she could like Discovery but the serial stuff scares her away. She doesn’t want to watch the shows week to week, just catch it here and there. It’s the same reason why she won’t watch DS9 more regularly because she knows it’s gets more complicated after season 4. But she watches it, but only if I’m watching it basically.

But like your girlfriend she is another example of a casual fan. She doesn’t about canon or any of that crap us nerds argue over here every week. She’s more focused on the characters themselves. She’ll watch anything with Data, Riker, Spock, Janeway, Torres, Seven, Trip or the Doctor in it. If any of those are the star of the episode she’ll watch it. And fortunately she loves all the Vulcans AND the Doctor lol (he’s one of her favorites actually). But there are still characters whose names she forget, like minor characters. She thought Quark name was Nog lol. She doesn’t know a single characters from any of the new shows unless they were already in the classic shows.

She says she wants to try SNW but haven’t yet. Same for Prodigy. And she doesn’t love LDS either. But mainly because so many of the in-jokes goes her over head but she loves all the characters. Tendi is her favorite. It’s fun for her but she feels the show is for long time fans than someone like her. But she’s watched nearly episode so she definitely likes it. And she loved all the ones with Riker and Paris in it lol. She really wants Janeway or Picard to show up. Also not big on TOS, same issue as your girlfriend, but she likes it and seen about half the episodes.

Actually her grandmother met Nichelle Nichols in some kind of women conference back in the 70s that Nichols was part of. She said she was very sweet and talked to everyone. She had never watched an episode of Trek before, but watched every episode of TOS on TV after meeting Nichols lol.

I’m about to sound like a total fanboy but I think you guys should try and give Lower Decks another shot, IF you only watched 1-2 episodes. But if you seen more than that and not your thing then no worries. No one is going to love everything…I think this thread makes that point very clear lol.

Oh and as far as the Kelvin movies, we watched the first two films for the first time a few days before Beyond opened and it was the first time she watched any of the Trek movies before.

Again, it proves the point when it comes to casual fans, she loved ALL of those movies. She thought they were pretty dumb in terms of the story but will watch those over the other movies. She saw nearly all of those except TMP, TFF and Nemesis. I just can’t do that to her lol.

But the Kelvin films are her favorites by far. She can not understand why fans hated STID? She LOVED Khan and don’t understand why I don’t lol. She thinks the TOS films are overrated. She thinks STID is much better than TWOK. It just proves the point none of this is a consensus. And for casual fans like my girlfriend even more so.

So your girlfriend may like them too even if the hardcore group moans over them.

I think Lower Decks is great and one of my favorite shows but my girlfriend would probably walk through fire before she watched another episode lol. Not her thing man…not her thing! 🤣

She’s only watched two episodes but I think that was enough lol. Same with TOS. You just know. ;)

But you’re spot on. She just likes to watch fun easy going episodes. She likes they have a message usually but she doesn’t need to be drowned in fake crap canon like we do. She wants to see how Janeway and her crew get out of the nebula that’s trying to eat the ship and the replicators are offline so she doesn’t have any coffee so the stakes just got raised!

She may watch another episode tomorrow but then not another one for weeks. So the shows really works for her. She is way more devoted to Housewife of Atlanta shows and crap like that. But she appreciate Star Trek way more today because of me.

And I hear you about the JJ verse. I hate those movies to my core man, but yeah my girlfriend will probably like them. But there is another Vulcan in those movies so I don’t know????? But this one cries a lot and punches people until they die, so she may love that one.

But all my friends and family members liked the first movie at least. NONE of them had ever seen a single minute of Star Trek before. Maybe saw a few minutes of TNG flipping through a channel. But they thought that movie was great. But good luck trying to watch anything else lol.

I’l tell you a story, when the 09 movie came out me and my best friend went and saw it. I thought it was a dumpster fire of a movie. He thought he just watched the greatest film since Apocalypse Now. He loved second of that movie. He now called himself a ‘Trekkie’ and said, and I quote “I thought Star Trek was for nerds who like astronomy and never left their house, why didn’t you tell me it was cool?” Yeah, we grew up together.

Anyway he was such a ‘fan’ now he wanted to watch more Star Trek and asked me where should he start? I told him to rent WOK, TVH, TUC and FC. And I gave him some of my TNG and VOY DVDs and I told him some episodes to try.

Cut to maybe a week later. We talked and he said he tried to watch TWOK and TVH but couldn’t get into them. He said they were too slow. And that both of them looked cheap and something made from the 80s. I responded BECAUSE THEY ARE YOU MORON!!!!!!!!! He didn’t even bother watching TUC or FC. He was done lol.

Then he tried to watch some of the TNG and VOY episodes. He thought TNG was too boring because people talked too much and there was only one fight scene. Voyager was so bad he fast forward halfway through the episode. He called both shows ‘trash’ and asked me how could I like them? I was lie Bro, you watched ONE episode and it’s all trash now?? You do know how TV shows work right? And then the kicker was he caught an episode of Enterprise and liked that and ask me how come I didn’t give him those DVDs because the show actually looked updated and new (it was 2009)? I told him because like the first JJ movie Enterprise was TOTAL TRASH and I would never watch that crap again!! I became a fan later, we’ll put it that way.

Anyway He was no longer a Trekie, but watched the first movie like 2 more times. By the time STID came though, he already moved on! Didn’t care. This is a guy who loves the Transformer movies so there you go!

So I know all about how non-fans really view Star Trek. Sadly I was like this too for a long time. It’s not easy to get non-fans into it and stuff they do like it’s nothing close to what you do. And if they only thing will like is the JJ verse stuff, then it’s a not huge loss! 😙

Dude this was HILARIOUS!!!!

I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. I totally get where you’re coming from too but I was fortunate to meet people in my prime school years. I was a Trek fan as young as six years old watching TOS reruns day in and day out for years. But obviously at that age, I didn’t know anyone who watched it. And I went to some TOUGH schools lol. You don’t admit you like something like Star Trek casually unless you want to be branded a loser and sit alone at lunch time or something if you don’t just get beat up for it! So I just watched it on my own though my teenage years.

But in high school I did meet more like minded people and TNG was pretty big and in the mainstream by then. So even though it was still not ‘cool’ to like Star Trek, you found people like you who liked the nerdy stuff and a lot of people were watching that show. So it was nice to have people to at least talk about it. And I got my best friend then into Star Trek. We first started with TNG and then he started to like TOS and DS9 was just starting by college years so I became an even bigger fan because my closest friend turned into a fanatic like me. And when I got into college it was much easier to find people into Star Trek. I met tons of people by then and made Trek friends. We would have TNG watch parties and sometimes watch VOY when it came on. DS9 was not as popular but people did like it, just didn’t watch it on the level of TOS/TNG/VOY.

I still remember when First Contact opened, about a dozen of us went and saw opening night. Sooooo much fun! That was when Star Trek was everywhere and the 30th anniversary was huge. We had a mini-TNG Borg marathon the day before FC came out and watched that the next day. Those are fun, fun college memories I still have! :)

Things were definitely waning by the time Enterprise came around and even I was getting a bit tired of Trek. After college not as many people around and when the Kelvin movies came out, it was very different. I didn’t really know many people around who were big fans anymore. By then most people I talked to about Trek was online. I actually saw the first Kelvin movie with a few friends but none of them Star Trek fans. They liked the movie but it was just another movie to them. Definitely wasn’t the same like when the TNG era was thriving.

Unfortunately for me, Star Trek fandom has shifted 100% online, which is fine. That’s why I come to places like this and because there are 34 shows on now, its ALWAYS something to talk about lol.

But it’s still very different when Trek felt like it was in the mainstream. There are a lot of shows on now, but it feels like it’s in its own secret corner now where you have to be in the know to even know it’s on. I meet people at my job who has no idea about any of these new shows but they call themselves fans. Or one will have watched a season of Discovery but nothing beyond that. Fandom is big online, but it’s just not the same when in the 90s you bumped into it everywhere. Now it’s only online mostly: shows, merchandise, promotion, etc. And 99% of the time, I never meet anyone directly who likes Star Trek these days.

So in some ways it’s harder to get new fans into Star Trek because you can’t flip on a TV and find it in syndication like the old days and gradually get into it. It’s more accessible than ever but you have to do a little work to find it on your own; especially now that P+ is consolidating all the shows and movies to their site. And it takes more than watching a few episodes or movie to get hooked. And some don’t want to pay to watch it if they are not already fans of it.

But all that said and despite allllll the whining, I’m still happy we are getting new Trek again and I can talk to others even if it’s mostly through my keyboard these days. I do wish there were more public arenas though outside of conventions of course, but it what it is.

Anyway this was pretty fun. Haven’t been on these boards in years. And always up to hear others destroy Discovery.

This board and most of the internet never fails at that these days so we finally get some real entertainment out of this show. 😂

Might come back. If not take it easy bro! 😎 🖖

Same! :)

Discovery became absurd since it went to the far future. They need to re-examine how they build their serialized stories for the season, because they just meander and then are resolved in 5 minutes. I think they need to think bigger in scope when they moved to the far future and use each new season as a piece in a much larger puzzle that would be completely revealed and resolved when it is time for the series to end, rather than upping the galactic stakes every season. Use each season to build up to the galactic wide event.

They may as well just give Michael a red cape and call it a day.

What you are proposing sounds even worse: going from season arc to series arc… ughhh… I know that’s how most genre shows of the last 20 years rolled but that’s the reason I didn’t finish many of those. I hate, absolutely loath those meandering super arcs that all come down to the series finale that can only disappoint a significant proportion of viewers because everyone has their own theories and head canon of how things should resolve…

No, before they turn DSC or PIC into shows relying on series arcs, I’d rather take those limited season arcs with new threats every season any time…

Lost and GoT tried that, and it failed miserably. In fact, I can’t think of one long-running sf series where that has ever worked.

It seemed to work ok for BSG. Well, I enjoyed that show anyway. It had a series long premise with a build up to a resolution of that premise. I had always thought Voyager was a missed opportunity for a serialized format. I think it would have worked well for that show. Also DS9, while still being episodic, still had a long story arc with the Dominion War that lasted a few seasons. Point is, they all had a series premise that they worked toward each season.

As far as Discovery is concerned, maybe 3-4 episode story arcs are the better way to go, but not sure how well that would work with such short seasons. And maybe the short seasons are another big part of the problem.

One thing is for sure.. the increased threat level each season that Burnham needs to be the savior for is reaching levels of absurdity. They need to decide on a premise for the show and stick to it instead of a new galaxy-wide threat for the season. Right now, from my point of view, it seems so rudderless.

Well the BSG final season with then all ending up on Earth didn’t get me the kind of final season I was hoping for, so I thought they also missed and opportunity to finish strong.

I like your idea of DSC going to several story arcs per year. S4 was hopefully weaker because of COVID pressures, just like Picard S2.

I wonder what galaxy size threat they will bore us with this time, all teary-eyed and badly paced? Yes, it is a competition, and SNW is superior in every single way. Cast, writing, being episodic. Everything is much, much better in SNW (and Lower Decks). Disco is bottom of the trek barrel together with Picard.

It’s sad what they did with Picard. I was really looking forward to the series, and then it crapped the bed. I’m hoping that with the TNG case in season 3, it might go out on a good note.

Lower Decks is you standard? LOL, OK, whatever. If that’s the case, I don’t feel so bad for really liking Discovery.

“LOL,OK, whatever” Always fine to discuss things with eloquent, intelligent people.

Well at least I don’t use “they are just checking the diversity box” in my comments all the time. ;-)

There is a LOT I’d like them to change, but the biggest thing that I wish for is that they get better at writing dialogues.

There doesn’t need to be a monologue (or more) about the theme of the season every single episode. Not only that, but it’s not even subtle. It’s so heavy handed, it’s cringy. SNW has some of that too but even though it’s heavy-handed there too sometimes, it’s still more subtle and seamlessly integrated into the plot, so I don’t mind it.

Whereas in Discovery, they would talk about it while being shot at by enemies or being dragged into an anomaly that might destroy the ship. “RED ALERT” “By the way, when I was young, my father used to take me fishing and…”. Come on, do you job first!

Also, they could integrate the serialized storytelling with related but more episodic stories. They tried to do that last year with the casino thing and such and it was bad. It seemed forced and just there to delay the main plot.

As an example, what if they fast-forwarded the plot so that by episode 3, they were already in the other universe? Then, instead of finding the thing they wanted to find almost immediately, they are attacked by an unrelated unknown race? Maybe get in a conflict with them, resolve it, find clues to where they need to go, get on another world, find a new civilization, make a friend and get them onboard as a sort of guide to this new galaxy and its species and learn more about the species you are seeking, etc.

There is a way to advance the plot instead of just introducing a threat in episode one, stall for the whole season then resolve it in the last 2 episodes. If you can’t do serialized, then don’t.

I prefer serialized storytelling by a LOT. But Discovery is not well done. Either try to see what you’re doing wrong and fix it, or stop doing it altogether and just do what you’re good at.

Exactly!

I gave up on Discovery after 2 seasons; watched the first episode of season three with my brother at his insistence – he fell asleep halfway thru and by the end of the episode I never wanted to see anything related to that show again.

Personally, I think what makes SNW a stronger show is that it has embraced the ensemble nature of every Trek before Discovery. The writing and pacing could be better but each episode has at least put the focus on a different character and not relied on solely one or two to solve every problem every week. The episodic nature of the show also allows for each episode to have a different tone and more varied plots overall. That combines makes for a fresher, more relatable and just more interesting approach than the Adventures of the Incomparably Superior Michael Burnham and her Inferior Friends.

Going with an episodic format also removes the pressure of needing to come up with a sustainable season long arc. From what I saw, Discovery (and Picard for that matter) took what could have easily been a 2 or 3 part story and stretched it out to an unmanageable number of episodes, leading to lots of filler and what always felt like a rushed, overly simplified and ultimately unsatisfying resolution.

So yeah, there is no competition. SNW wins hands down.

I think it also helps that it’s not the Pike/Spock show. The supporting cast is pretty strong, and is being well used. I like how they’ve made Uhura more than just the comms officer.
There have been some moments of cheesy writing, but in the context of this show it works, just like it did in TOS for the most part. As long as we don’t get another “Spock’s Brain”…

I gave up on Discovery after 2 seasons

Yet Season 2 of DSC was largely focused on birthing SNW which you claim to really like? Weird?

Not weird for me. Once the SNW elements were gone, that was a good time to jump ship, I thought.

But having said that, I did give season 3 a chance for a couple of episodes.

Hmm, OK.

Well, there really is no great mystery there. Watching season 3 I realized, oh yeah, I was just hanging in there to see Pike, Spock, Number One, and the Enterprise. And so I was done with Discovery, waiting for the spinoff.

Fair enough. IDIC

Much like Lorca was the most interesting character in S1 (until they turned him into a one note heavy), Pike was the best thing about S2 but at the end of the day it all still devolved into the “Michael Burnham solves everything” hour. The show once again ran out of steam as it went along and that finale was borderline incoherent and full of stuff that made no sense. So yeah, remove Pike and Spock and you’re left with the same old train wreck that is Discovery.

I loved both of those seasons, and particularly enjoyed the way they wrapped up at the end. In fact, I wish the series would get back to darker way of storytelling, with surprise connections to TOS, Federation politics and “bad actors”, plots within plots, and Michael going overboard and saving they day. For me, S1 and S2 have been the best seasons of the series to date.

I unapologetically love those two seasons, and I wish they hadn’t “listened to the fans” and watered all that down during the past two seasons…because the fans they listened to — no offense intended — I think were the detractors like you who were obviously done with the show anyway.

I agree, S1 and S2 were Discovery’s strongest seasons – S3 started off alright, but then it just went straight downhill by the second half of the season. I just can’t get through S4, and the more casual fans I know said they felt the same way.

I feel like hardcore trekkies and the more general audience have very different preferences. SNW does get more love from hardcore trekkies than the more general audience, and Picard S2 doesn’t get as much hate from the casual viewer.

I will say that probably newer and more casual fans like Discovery than hardcore fans. It was the same issue with Enterprise, Voyager and the Kelvin movies. The hardcore base were divided on these shows and films, many still today. But the newer fans don’t have the same issues because there isn’t the same baggage for them. I can say the same for Discovery too. Now don’t get me wrong, that’s not the ONLY reason people have against these shows and movies. Writing is still a big issue with all of them for fans IMO.

Picard is a different issue. I just can’t read that show like the others because it’s really the only show that is a direct sequel and main character from another show. And I have to be honest, I think the main issue with Picard is strictly the writing first and foremost. The others have writing issues too of course but Picard its not due to any canon issues directly although people have complained the tone is too dark too, at least the first season.

Oh definitely, writing and pacing are definitely issues. But the tone and the plots, well, I generally liked the darker tone.
It’s funny how the hardcore fanbase criticized the darker tone and think it isn’t optimistic enough, but the first thing that came to mind when I first watched Discovery (which was the first time I’ve watched Star Trek) was that was so optimistic and wholesome – yes, there was a war going on, but everyone still chose to do the right thing and to choose hope. I thought it was a very optimistic and ideal future – like yes, there was a war and bad things happen, but the diversity and Starfleet’s values, it was so hopeful.

I think discovery has ran it’s course, and the reason I want it cancelled isn’t to piss off it’s fanbase but use the vast financial resources it consumes to be used towards a new trek show, Stargazer etc.
I don’t think discovery will age as well as the other current nu trek shows. Let’s just say, it’s a product of the rather confusing times we live in….

Exactly. I’d like to see Discovery put out to pasture and the budget given to something with a better concept and cast. I’m not sure a Stargazer series would work unless they went for serial with a some episodic thrown in, like the last season of Enterprise. Jeri Ryan could pull off the captain role with a strong supporting cast. Hell, see if Ronald Moore is interested in being the creator and showrunner, and give him free reign. The guy knows how to make a great sci-fi show, and wrote some of the best TNG and DS9 episodes.

I have no issues if Discovery went longer but agree would be fine if fifth season was its last for a Stargazer show! Starring Seven or even a returning TNG character like Worf.

I think a lot of fans would be up for that.

Nice little fantasy there…lol. It will go at least 7 seasons, if not 10. There is a large fanbase for the show, with many younger and female fans who have now been brought into the franchise because of it.

“Everyone loves Tilly”? Really? So you really can’t hear the many, many fans who know her to be the single most annoying Star Trek character ever?

Watching her was like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard.

I totally agree that each show is distinctly different and targets specific demographics – this will help prevent franchise fatigue. It seems obvious to me that Discovery specifically targets women plus gender and racial minorities first and the broader Trek audience. As a legacy fan, I will still happily watch Discovery, even though I much prefer the format of SNW.

One thing I would POLITELY SUGGEST to the showrunners of Discovery (and Picard – if it were still in production). PLEASE stop trying to tell a five episode story by dragging it out over 10 episodes. The pacing of the show sometimes becomes interminable, especially while needlessly dragging out backstories of secondary characters like they did last season for someone like Tarka.

Learn from SNW, you can explain a minor character’s motivations in a single 5 min scene and then move on.

To address the slow pacing of the show, Tiger2 earlier suggested mini arcs. Great idea, this way the writers can tell 2 or 3 major stories over 10 weeks.

That would elliminate the need to drag out a 5 hour story over 10 hours!

5 hour story? It felt like a 2 hour story over 10-13 hours…

Yeah….

What a weird thought for a showrunner of DSC to have. DSC created SNW, so of course there is no competition. Mothers and son’s don’t compete. LOL

Bit mother and daughter maybe do compete… ;-)

No more Discovery for me. Best of luck Michelle. I sincerely mean that.

Five seasons is a pretty long run for a streaming series. What do folks think is the probability that this might be the last season of Discovery?

0.0001 %

Thank you for your objective opinion.

Discovery can’t compete with Strange New Worlds anyway.

Although, I love Strange New Worlds, Prodigy and Lower Decks more, I shall give season five of Discovery and the final season of Picard a try.

Same.

Feel the same way. I totally love SNW, LDS and PRO but I still support the other shows. I’m hoping last season of Picard will be amazing with everyone from TNG back, but i’m still hesitant about it. I have been excited about every season of Discovery but less so last season and even more less so now. It sucks to feel this way because I want to love all the shows….and especially when we are now paying for them for the first time (if you live in America).

I just think keep all the writers that are like “this show needs a slipstream spore drive” powered by more magic mushrooms with totally unlimited energy that they can jump back and forth in time when the crew isn’t playing in the holodeck or preaching to the aliens how great they are and how they should all be like them on this show and away from SNW and the show will have done us all a great service.

They should have used its potential and having the Discovery jump to another galaxies and dimensions. Maybe have them stranded in another galaxy and then the spore drive starts automatically again and can’t be stopped. Wait.. that sounds like another show. ;-)

As showrunner, she must improve on the writing for the show (including her own). She’s managed to squander a lot of good will the past two seasons.

SNW is significantly less episodic than some are making it out to be.

“Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach” is a prime example; look how to weaves plots from previous episodes (Pike’s foreknowledge of his fate, M’Benga’s daughter, etc.) into the story of the First Servant. It’s also abundantly clear that we’ll see more of the augments and the Illyrians.

None of this is *that* different from, say, seasons 3-4 of DS9 or seasons 1-2 of ENT. Additionally, we’ve been promised “lots of two-part episodes”; I suspect we may eventually see more plot serialization as well as character serialization.

SNW needs a longer season of 15 episodes or so. Ten is not enough.

Well, I consider ENT 1,2 and 4 as well as all seasons of DS9 to be EPISODIC mainly outside the DS9 arcs that started S6 and ended S7… Those were still episodic series with a serialized background arc as on the XFiles or Doctor Who…

The ultimate test is: can you say something like: “Do you remember the episode with xxx?” I don’t mind if there are continous elements in the background. But when each episode is just a chapter in one ongoing story, it becomes a drag… Because ultimately, season arcs could be well condensed into a fun three-parter!

Those are more character beats than plots. Someone who hadn’t seen the previous episodes could easily catch up by watching just “Lift Us,” because nothing really advances. It pretty much repeats what we already knew. Pike knows his fate, M’Benga has a sick daughter. Got it.

Michelle, you should have just made your own show called Discovery and not bothered with the ‘Star Trek:’ in front of it.

Hire yourself some capable scifi writers.

Stop shoehorning LGBTQ characters in for the sake of it and giving them crap story lines.

Stop preaching and virtue signalling. Stop making your characters weak and pathetic. Youngsters watching the show need intelligent, capable and real heroes whatever their preferences and choices in life.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you stuck Amber Heard in Season 5…

Your only saving grace is Discovery gave us SNW. But it says a lot when the spin off with characters that appeared for part of a season is already infinitely better than this show.

Well said.

Discovery season 2 was pretty much the pilot season for SNW, IMO.

We would very much like to see Discovery Season 4 in Japan before season 5 is released in many other parts of the world.. My husband, along with a few other casual viewers around here, like Disco very much. Maybe it’s because they have no connection with any other Star Trek show.

I think a lot of legacy or longtime fans of Star Trek think each show is made for them. In my opinion Star Trek must expand its audience to attract new fans, both domestically and around the world.

One way to do that is by making shows distinctly different from anything that was made before. Now that there are so many Star Trek shows to choose from including shows which appeal to old time fans like me, I am glad Discovery is free to be different and to attract new fans like yourselves.

Absolutely, DeanH.

It’s evident that Discovery has built its own audience, and though new fans like Hayeta don’t stop by this board that often, from posts elsewhere it’s clear that it’s being successful as an entry point into the franchise as a whole. For their sake, I hope that the global rollout of Paramount+ accelerates so that they can get all the shows in a timely way and be able to join the global conversation.

Picking up on your comments below, I’m not sure why SNW was more successful working around the protocols, but it did start production 3-4 months after Discovery.

It does seem that a lot was learned from those early months with Discovery in terms of how to manage the COVID protocols and in using the AR wall technology.

Also, SNW went right into an A-B-C (and sometimes D) plot formula that works with COVID protocols, but which Discovery seemed to struggle to do well in S4.

Make sure you don’t miss the parts where they interrupt the flow of the episode to stand somewhere to talk about their feelings and backstory. They’ll do that on the bridge when the ship is under attack, in almost every hallway scene, anywhere… and do pay attention how they all gather in kumbaya moments where they’ll make sure you notice how everyone is together in blissful cooperation to participate in the resolution of the issue. You’ll see this by Burnham’s teary-eyed expression when she looks down at everyone with her benevolent smile, revelling at how she once again saved the Universe. Let’s not forget the useless characters, some played by flagrantly incompetent actors, who are there just so the showrunner can pat herself on the back having ticked-off the inclusion box. Inclusion is so important and deserves a better treatment than what’s done with those characters. They’re there just to show that they’re there…

I will say this however, many people do like this show and see those issues in a different light, so yes, do watch the show and hopefully you may start enjoying it. To each his own.

DSC has its core audience, just like all the other Trek shows in the franchise. I’m a reluctant core fan. While I agree with some of the writing criticisms, I don’t think some fans know just how hard it is to produce these shows and actually get them out. My brother has an actor friend in Canada, who is working on a Netflix series. The biggest frustration for S4 were Covid protocols. The crew and cast were separated into separate pods. That’s why we didn’t see the cast all together that much. Also, the big round table at Federation HQ made it easier to film scenes and maintain distancing. My biggest criticism of S4 was they didn’t take advantage of the talent they had. The casting of Adira and Grey was great representation for the LGBTQ community but they basically did nothing with them. Even my gay sibling grew frustrated with the storytelling, saying DSC needs to do more than have “cut and paste” representation. Hopefully, S5 takes a breath and we actually get to see these characters for who they really are.

Good to read a different perspective. As a longtime or legacy fan, sometimes I forget to empathize with some new fans that the series is now more free to attract – simply because there are more choices that appeal to people like me.

Discovery has a tough job, trying to placate old school fans while bringing in new ones. I for one really liked Adira’s backstory from S3 which also gave us more insight into the Trill homeworld. I thought it was one of Discovery’s better episodes, but as you said, after that…. crickets.

How they fix this, I have no idea, but getting the writers room to focus on fewer characters and shorter story arcs might help. Maybe go back and focus on select crewmemebers we already know (including Adira and Grey) and stop trying to give every secondary minor character their place in the sun.

Great comments on the difficulty of doing this series during COVID. I agree that most fans don’t appreciate it.

Regarding your diversity comments, I would argue that it’s also a diversity strength if they are seen as just part of crew and doing their jobs, and given about as much time as the other supporting actors? I certainly thought that in S3 we got a ton of Adira and Grey. While S4 not so much, perhaps they will have more to do in S5? They only have X amount of eps in a serialized storyline every year and many supporting actors to cover, so I guess I’m not sure what you are looking for given I think the attention across the seasons have given most of the supporting characters signature moments?

That all being said, S4 was the weakest season to date — and I think your COVID reasons played a part in that, just like we got a really weak Picard S2 as well for the same reasons I think.

Maybe the serialized storytelling would be more welcomed, if you could binge-watch the season at once, instead of having to wait one week, where each episode moved forward for 5 minutes.

My actor acquaintance, who works on a Netflix series, says that the bulk of any series on any streamer is binged by most viewers. Some of my casual Trek fan friends wait until DSC and PIC finish their seasons. They buy a month of Par+ and binge it out. They didn’t seem to mind the slower episodes as the next one was right behind it. I’ve way too many shows to catch up on but I may binge a season of DSC or PIC and see if it flows better.

If casual viewers don’t follow the Trek shows and discover(y) them later, of course they can binge watch DSC which maybe changes the flow. But fans like me are too impatient and not in the mood to wait 13 weeks or to rewatch the show in a row. So I can’t evaluate that theory.

We agree on something at last! This would really help.

I think we already have agreed on DSC season 1 (and 2). ;-)
Despite the complains about being inconsistent style wise with other shows (i’m fine with that) I like that season. Style-wise it fits as a sequel to Enterprise. It’s what Enterprise Season 5 could have been, if they had taken the more realistic and grity approach of BSG.

I love Disco and SNW. I love them both. I will admit though, I wish Disco would go episodic. I’m enjoying the episodic nature of SNW. The mystery box got tiresome, the hiatus didn’t help, and Picard S2 was incredibly bad. It didn’t pay off at all.

“No Competition”Of that you can be sure. Strange New Worlds is good Star Trek and Disco is a disaster.

For me, it’s not serialization vs episodic as I enjoy both.

I’m eagerly awaiting the conclusion of Better Call Saul. That’s a prequel – which means I know with 100% certainty that he’s going to make it past the main events alive. Yet, somehow, they manage to write that show in a way that still has tension. It’s highly serialized, but I still want to watch each episode as soon as it’s out, because I’m enjoying the ride of the story as it unfolds.

In contrast, I watch Discovery, but I don’t have that same compelling urge to need to be there as it happens. I know the conclusion is that Michael is going to somehow fix everything. Over the years I’ve continually let my P+ subscription lapse, then just binge when the season is over. Each individual episode doesn’t grab me, it’s something I know is more or less just to keep you occupied until you finally reach the conclusion (PIC s2 was like this too.)

I had a promo subscription to P+ for three months for a couple dollars. I got it so I could watch Picard season 2. Before it lapsed, it let me get 4-5 eps into SNW. I seriously considered keeping my subscription active to keep watching SNW weekly, rather than binging it when it’s over (if it wasn’t summer, I probably would have.) Unlike DSC, the episodes felt like I was getting entertained every week, rather than just something biding time until it wrapped up at to the end. (And again, it’s not just serialization, as I gladly look forward to weekly episodes of BCS.)

It makes you think about the streaming model. Shows like DSC that only have a single (galactic consequence) payoff per season, encourages viewers to subscribe in short spurts, rather than keeping subscriptions active continually. I’d think, in that frame, shows like SNW might be better for business.

I know that based on what I saw in the first handful of episodes, I’m enjoying SNW more than I have Discovery. I think part of it is I feel like I know the peripheral crew members (not counting Pike, Spock, & Una – who we got in DSC S2) better in five episodes, than I have gotten to know DSC’s crew in four seasons. It doesn’t mean I want DSC cancelled or changed into an episodic show, but I would like it if they expanded it to being more than just “Michael Burnam Saves the Universe.”

just let it die already …

The main problem I’ve had with Discovery isn’t because it’s serialized, it’s because nearly every story is of ‘galactic import.’

You can serialize any kind of story. It could just as well be about people surviving in some hostile corner of the galaxy and whether they live or die, not the entire galaxy, is why we keep watching. But when it goes from one HUGE calamitous subject to another, I find that tiresome. It’s the same reason I couldn’t keep watching modern Doctor Who. Too much muchness.

Sure there is no competition. Strange New Worls already relieved Discovery as the franchise Flagship.
That new trailer before every new episode symbolizing it.

Of course there is competition. It’s called a budget. Star Trek has a budget. It has to be divided between multiple productions. Show runners compete for resources.

Clearly the available metrics show SNW is a more popular, well received show. If Discovery ended, that money could enhance SNW or any other production in the form of longer episodes or seasons.

They aren’t serving the same market niches Bassmaster 22.

Paramount+ wants to attract different types of viewers. Discovery does that.

A quick review of my feelings on Discovery!

Season One: Sucked
Season Two: Sucked less
Season Three: Sucked a little less?
Season Four: Sucked more again

I’m just giving up on the show to ever be good at this point. Every season definitely has some good episodes but the show just has awful writing. I’ll give season 5 a chance but I’m just watching as a fan of the franchise at this point.

And there is just a lot more fantastic Trek to care about like PRO, LDS and SNW.

SNW has managed to become the Kurtzman era Trek show that has got back to the basics of what Star Trek does best, this week’s episode really felt like classic Star Trek, good character stuff and an interesting morality play.

SNW is the best since Enterprise ended. Haven’t even bothered finishing season 4 of DSC and at times it feels more like a therapy session than good SF. SNW is getting the balance back.

Some minor canon issues and cringy dialogue are the only issues but overall I am liking SNW

And we are aware as writers and showrunners for all of the shows, we all get together on a pretty regular basis and talk to one another to make sure that the storylines aren’t overlapping. And in ways that don’t make sense for the larger universe.

Is this a double negation I don’t get, or did she just say that they make sure that the storylines don’t make sense for the larger universe?!?!

I’d rename it Star Trek: Eclipsed

its gonna be hard to go back to DSC after season 1 of SNW and season 3 of LD

not really looking forward to a long draw out overly bloated story that really only needs 2 episodes, but we’ll draw it out over 10-13 cause streaming tv show

Can’t wait for more Disco. That tos nostalgia show is boring me.

Season 4 Discovery was a total snooze fest bro and the show is a dumpster fire. People actually like and praise SNW. That’s why it’s popular and Discovery isn’t.

Trek is Trek….