For context this was prompted by a comment on our Facebook page, after I called out that it was ok to dislike Discovery, but it was not ok to be rude about it
So I appreciate that this thread has stayed on the civil side of things.
We will always like/dislike different things for different reasons, sometimes it is just about not being in the right frame of mind to appreciate something at a specific point in time.
And that's ok.
Outside of the unfortunate still existing biases, the issue in our era is that we take shortcuts to express ourselves (and oh let's not forget the drama love too ;p), and it results in generalized statements that bring nothing to the conversation. We're all guilty of it at some point or another, but we can identify it and course correct
Thank you for keeping it an actual conversation!
We're mostly housebroken around here. It's why I stick around.
I don't even know how to answer the poll. Discovery was ruined in a thousand other ways from the very first episode, this character not withstanding. She's also a terrible character and I don't think what's-her-name is a very good actress in general, either.
I am not a fan of Burnham. One of the issues I found early on with Discovery was that all of the character relationships, excluding the ones that already existed prior to her joining the ship (like Stamets and Culber), were centered around her. How much did we really see Stamets and Saru interact? Or Tilly and anyone else?
This has gotten much better the past two seasons, but that first impression of "The Michael Burnham Show" sticks with me a lot.
I don't even know how to answer the poll. Discovery was ruined in a thousand other ways from the very first episode, this character not withstanding. She's also a terrible character and I don't think what's-her-name is a very good actress in general, either.
I am not a fan of Burnham. One of the issues I found early on with Discovery was that all of the character relationships, excluding the ones that already existed prior to her joining the ship (like Stamets and Culber), were centered around her. How much did we really see Stamets and Saru interact? Or Tilly and anyone else?
I'm going to counter these two points, but this isn't to say you are wrong to feel the way you do. Rather, my point is the content is there but not presented in a way that's worked for you.
Burnham is too central to the show
In my mind, no more than past Trek protagonists. But the Trek formula was cemented around the captain-as-protagonist so this tends to go unnoticed. It makes sense that stories would involve the captain. So when Burnham plays the outside role for three season while the show attempts to otherwise maintain the formula, it may feel dissonant.
Other character relationships aren't developed
In my opinion, DIS has an important secondary hub around engineering, and it rarely involves Burnham. Stamets has well-established relationships with both Tilly and Adira Tal, and most of Reno's interactions are with other engineers. (Quite often, Trek has a secondary social hub like this, and it's frequently associated with engineering. Probably because it's such a large set. Indeed, DS9 doesn't have Engineering, it has the Promenade.)
Outside of engineering, Tilly also has a significant arc with Saru in S3, when he chooses her as first officer, and this relationship continued in S4. While Culber has a strong relationship with Gray Tal.
Six degrees in Inter-species Veterinary Medicine. Treating all manner of critters, from Tribbles to Humans.
If there is one thing that will bring Trek fans together, it is the view that the newest Star Trek is terrible and a betrayal of the franchise and all it stands for. Happened with TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, and now DISCO. I have come to just ignore it and embrace what I like. And I like DISCO and Burnham. And LDs and SNW and Prodigy. Truly a Star Trek renaissance right now and I'm super happy.
That's not what's going on here at all right now. Find me someone who doesn't love Strange New Worlds. Or Prodigy for that matter. Lower Decks is also super popular. Discovery is just the weakest of the modern Star Treks. I don't think that's even remotely controversial.
.
It is controversial. You wouldn’t even have to read the whole thread. Just the responses before your response should have made you think twice about making declarative statements. I don’t love Strange New Worlds or Prodigy and I think Lower Decks might is easily the worse Trek. But it doesn’t matter. I like that there are different kinds of Trek shows for everyone to enjoy. It’s what Star Wars has had for years and Trek had been missing. If you don’t like Discovery there’s lots of other stuff to choose from and I like that about the modern Trek experience.
As someone who works in merchandise marketing I have access to data that may or may not surprise you. Burnham is very popular with new Trek fans (new to the franchise) and not so popular with legacy fans. Of course no franchise wants to upset legacy fans but the character is achieving its goal of bringing in new fans. The franchise can’t survive on legacy fans. You’re not going to live forever.
I logged in for the first time in a while to check on the portal update. I only responded because I see “I don’t like something that means everyone else must too”. Fan bases can be an echo chamber. If I love Strange New Worlds I am unlikely to spend any time with people who don’t care for it. And the way social media algorithms work I’m unlikely to be shown content of people who don’t care for it either. This applies to anything not just Trek.
I am not a fan of Burnham. One of the issues I found early on with Discovery was that all of the character relationships, excluding the ones that already existed prior to her joining the ship (like Stamets and Culber), were centered around her. How much did we really see Stamets and Saru interact? Or Tilly and anyone else?
I'm going to counter these two points, but this isn't to say you are wrong to feel the way you do. Rather, my point is the content is there but not presented in a way that's worked for you.
Burnham is too central to the show
In my mind, no more than past Trek protagonists. But the Trek formula was cemented around the captain-as-protagonist so this tends to go unnoticed. It makes sense that stories would involve the captain. So when Burnham plays the outside role for three season while the show attempts to otherwise maintain the formula, it may feel dissonant.
There’s some of that. The shorter seasons often leave less room for other characters to get screen time. Burnham herself gets less episodes than any other Captain.
One frequent criticism I’ve heard is the DSC bridge crew are underdeveloped. This is true. They’re also not main cast characters. Why should they get any development at all? I then point out that TNG never had a real helmsmen as part of the cast. Ensign Gates was a re-occurring character that was frequently seen in the helm seat and she has more total appearances than many DSC characters (this will change in the near future). She never said a single word on screen and yet there are zero complaints about it.
I think Lower Decks might is easily the worse Trek.
LD Season 3 Episode 1 is the best Star Trek episode ever made. No other Trek episode has ever made the firm statement that the Federation is great and that the system works.
There’s some of that. The shorter seasons often leave less room for other characters to get screen time. Burnham herself gets less episodes than any other Captain.
Short seasons and the breakneck pace are my major problems with DSC and PIC.
A season of DSC could easily be doubled without feeling padded - and would honestly benefit from a few stand alone episodes in the mix to break things up and give the story (and actors) some room to breath. (I think PIC is even more overstuffed.)
In the rush to fit everything in, the showrunners certainly use Captain Ex Machina with Burnham more than the un-serialized series.
I think they also flip-flop between Burnham-as-outsider and Burnham-as-Starfleet. The inability to choose hurt the character. S3 seemed to finally settle on the former before switching at the last moment. I was really hoping Burnham exist Starfleet and instead become a Federation Liaison tasked by the President with re-establishing relations with former member planets, with the Discovery (under Saru) assigned to her.
Six degrees in Inter-species Veterinary Medicine. Treating all manner of critters, from Tribbles to Humans.
I am not a fan of Burnham. One of the issues I found early on with Discovery was that all of the character relationships, excluding the ones that already existed prior to her joining the ship (like Stamets and Culber), were centered around her. How much did we really see Stamets and Saru interact? Or Tilly and anyone else?
I'm going to counter these two points, but this isn't to say you are wrong to feel the way you do. Rather, my point is the content is there but not presented in a way that's worked for you.
Burnham is too central to the show
In my mind, no more than past Trek protagonists. But the Trek formula was cemented around the captain-as-protagonist so this tends to go unnoticed. It makes sense that stories would involve the captain. So when Burnham plays the outside role for three season while the show attempts to otherwise maintain the formula, it may feel dissonant.
There’s some of that. The shorter seasons often leave less room for other characters to get screen time. Burnham herself gets less episodes than any other Captain.
One frequent criticism I’ve heard is the DSC bridge crew are underdeveloped. This is true. They’re also not main cast characters. Why should they get any development at all? I then point out that TNG never had a real helmsmen as part of the cast. Ensign Gates was a re-occurring character that was frequently seen in the helm seat and she has more total appearances than many DSC characters (this will change in the near future). She never said a single word on screen and yet there are zero complaints about it.
I have been an Ensign Gates advocate for years calling for her inclusion in STT.
If there is one thing that will bring Trek fans together, it is the view that the newest Star Trek is terrible and a betrayal of the franchise and all it stands for. Happened with TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, and now DISCO. I have come to just ignore it and embrace what I like. And I like DISCO and Burnham. And LDs and SNW and Prodigy. Truly a Star Trek renaissance right now and I'm super happy.
That's not what's going on here at all right now. Find me someone who doesn't love Strange New Worlds. Or Prodigy for that matter. Lower Decks is also super popular. Discovery is just the weakest of the modern Star Treks. I don't think that's even remotely controversial.
.
It is controversial. You wouldn’t even have to read the whole thread. Just the responses before your response should have made you think twice about making declarative statements. I don’t love Strange New Worlds or Prodigy and I think Lower Decks might is easily the worse Trek. But it doesn’t matter. I like that there are different kinds of Trek shows for everyone to enjoy. It’s what Star Wars has had for years and Trek had been missing. If you don’t like Discovery there’s lots of other stuff to choose from and I like that about the modern Trek experience.
As someone who works in merchandise marketing I have access to data that may or may not surprise you. Burnham is very popular with new Trek fans (new to the franchise) and not so popular with legacy fans. Of course no franchise wants to upset legacy fans but the character is achieving its goal of bringing in new fans. The franchise can’t survive on legacy fans. You’re not going to live forever.
I logged in for the first time in a while to check on the portal update. I only responded because I see “I don’t like something that means everyone else must too”. Fan bases can be an echo chamber. If I love Strange New Worlds I am unlikely to spend any time with people who don’t care for it. And the way social media algorithms work I’m unlikely to be shown content of people who don’t care for it either. This applies to anything not just Trek.
Well, if you read my other messages you'll know that the point I was making is that 'good' and 'I like it' are very separate ideas. I like a lot about Discovery (and all treks shows), but I do argue that the writing in Discovery is objectively worse than in any other show. Whether people still like it is irrelevant. I use examples from my own experience, Smallville and The Wire. Smallville is a badly written show a lot of the time, but I still like it a lot. It's fine to be able to recognise that fact (The Wire is objectively great, but I couldn't watch it after season 1). Discovery has a lot going for it, but the way Burnham in particular was used over the first 3 seasons was often jarring and poorly set up or explained. A lot of the more mature responses here have mentioned that too.
I fully get that Burnham is an important piece of progressive media and also that the secret for CBS to grow the franchise is to find a new audience. None of that is at issue. What is at issue is whether Burnham is a well written character, and at least for the 3 seasons I saw her in, she was far from it. A mature conversation on the topic should be able to handle that fact as well as allow people to voice their preferences either way. A lot of my irritation with Discovery is that it can be a good show, they just keep making bad choices in the writing that makes Burnham look bad.
I think Lower Decks might is easily the worse Trek.
LD Season 3 Episode 1 is the best Star Trek episode ever made. No other Trek episode has ever made the firm statement that the Federation is great and that the system works.
The whole premise of DS9 is the Federation system works. Voyager too. Janeway and the crew spend a considerable amount of time evangelizing the federation even though they are light years away from it and the only ship out there. It would have been easy to abandon the principles of the Federation and they even encounter another Federation ship who has. It’s very powerful 2 part episode. I have to assume you haven’t seen much Voyager or DS9. No Star Trek has better demonstrated the concept that “the Federation works” better than DS9.
My problem with Lower Decks is twofold. First, the whole premise of the show is;
“remember that time that one mildly funny thing in Star Trek gave you a chuckle or made you smile” let’s make whole episodes about that”. Once you stretch out the joke it ceases to be funny. Mainly because the original jokes weren’t meant to be self sustaining. When the camera pans to Worf in a mudbath with Alexander and Lwaxana for 5 seconds it’s suprising and will give you a chuckle the first time you see it. If you take that idea and make a 30 minute comedy around it, it doesn’t work. At least not for me. But I’m glad some people like it.
The 2nd part is a “me” problem. I have been reading about a “Lower Decks” spin off since TNG ended. They teased us with another lower decks type episode of Voyager, very similar to the TNG one. When I heard Lower Decks was being green light I was not even discouraged that it was animated. Then I heard who the creators were (ex Rick and Morty guys) and realized it was not going to be the show I wanted. Again that’s a me problem and that doesn’t make it a bad show. My frist point is what I think makes it a bad show imho.
I think Lower Decks might is easily the worse Trek.
LD Season 3 Episode 1 is the best Star Trek episode ever made. No other Trek episode has ever made the firm statement that the Federation is great and that the system works.
The whole premise of DS9 is the Federation system works. Voyager too. Janeway and the crew spend a considerable amount of time evangelizing the federation even though they are light years away from it and the only ship out there. It would have been easy to abandon the principles of the Federation and they even encounter another Federation ship who has. It’s very powerful 2 part episode. I have to assume you haven’t seen much Voyager or DS9. No Star Trek has better demonstrated the concept that “the Federation works” better than DS9.
My problem with Lower Decks is twofold. First, the whole premise of the show is;
“remember that time that one mildly funny thing in Star Trek gave you a chuckle or made you smile” let’s make whole episodes about that”. Once you stretch out the joke it ceases to be funny. Mainly because the original jokes weren’t meant to be self sustaining. When the camera pans to Worf in a mudbath with Alexander and Lwaxana for 5 seconds it’s suprising and will give you a chuckle the first time you see it. If you take that idea and make a 30 minute comedy around it, it doesn’t work. At least not for me. But I’m glad some people like it.
The 2nd part is a “me” problem. I have been reading about a “Lower Decks” spin off since TNG ended. They teased us with another lower decks type episode of Voyager, very similar to the TNG one. When I heard Lower Decks was being green light I was not even discouraged that it was animated. Then I heard who the creators were (ex Rick and Morty guys) and realized it was not going to be the show I wanted. Again that’s a me problem and that doesn’t make it a bad show. My frist point is what I think makes it a bad show imho.
I don’t think that’s the premise of the show at all. The premise was to create a non-serialised show with a sense of humour about itself and the entire franchise. It was a reaction to the bleakness of what had immediately preceded it.
Now, humour is very personal and no series no matter how well made can satisfy everyone’s humour palette. But Lower Decks is well made. The detail in the backgrounds is insane at times. You may not appreciate it, but it’s clear that the people working on the show are huge Star Trek fans with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Star Trek canon. Now that might not be important to you, and that’s fine, but clearly it matters to a lot to the fans of Lower Decks.
It’s clear we all have our biases, but it’s clear to me as a non superfan of Lower Decks myself that it’s made with love and craft and that it works for many many people. Even for myself, some of the jokes land very well and others miss and so it can feel uneven from a humour perspective, but it’s always good Star Trek.
You nailed it about the other characters not being developed. The other characters are developed. Just not the bridge crew. The reason for that is the show for the most part, does not take place on the bridge. They’re secondary characters.
Let’s use TNG as model. How many fully developed characters were there?
Picard, Riker, Data, Worf, Crusher, Troi, La Forge. That’s 7. Wesley came and went and O’Brien didn’t even have a name for at least the first season. The actor played a helmsmen and before switching transporter operator and being given a name. Guinan was mostly a guest.
Discovery has Burnham, Saru, Tilly, Staments, Culber, Georgiou. That’s 6. Discovery has had characters with arcs that conclude at the end of the season. No one can make a case that those characters were less fleshed out than TNG main cast. Crusher and Riker in particular and to some extend La Forge. Discovery has a slightly smaller permanent cast with the intention of bringing in more guest cast for a season or two.
Those characters are Ash Tyler, Lorca, Pike, L’Rell, Sarek, Spock.
They have also added three new cast members Jett Reno, Booker, Adira for now.
Notice I didn’t mention 90% of bridge crew. I think it’s a bit jarring for Trek fans that the bridge crew are mostly background characters. This leads to the trope that the cast is not being developed outside of Burnham. This simple is not true. The characters they want to tell stories about are being fully developed. It’s just not the roles we are used to.
You nailed it about the other characters not being developed. The other characters are developed. Just not the bridge crew. The reason for that is the show for the most part, does not take place on the bridge. They’re secondary characters.
Let’s use TNG as model. How many fully developed characters were there?
Picard, Riker, Data, Worf, Crusher, Troi, La Forge. That’s 7. Wesley came and went and O’Brien didn’t even have a name for at least the first season. The actor played a helmsmen and before switching transporter operator and being given a name. Guinan was mostly a guest.
Discovery has Burnham, Saru, Tilly, Staments, Culber, Georgiou. That’s 6. Discovery has had characters with arcs that conclude at the end of the season. No one can make a case that those characters were less fleshed out than TNG main cast. Crusher and Riker in particular and to some extend La Forge. Discovery has a slightly smaller permanent cast with the intention of bringing in more guest cast for a season or two.
Those characters are Ash Tyler, Lorca, Pike, L’Rell, Sarek, Spock.
They have also added three new cast members Jett Reno, Booker, Adira for now.
Notice I didn’t mention 90% of bridge crew. I think it’s a bit jarring for Trek fans that the bridge crew are mostly background characters. This leads to the trope that the cast is not being developed outside of Burnham. This simple is not true. The characters they want to tell stories about are being fully developed. It’s just not the roles we are used to.
100% this. What people need to do is think of Detmer, Bryce, and Owo as versions of the random ensign at the TNG con. In that context they are way more developed.
And I'd argue Saru, Stamets, and Tilly have been developed more than Sulu, Chekov, Mayweather, Reed, La Forge, Kim, etc...
I think Lower Decks might is easily the worse Trek.
LD Season 3 Episode 1 is the best Star Trek episode ever made. No other Trek episode has ever made the firm statement that the Federation is great and that the system works.
The whole premise of DS9 is the Federation system works. Voyager too. Janeway and the crew spend a considerable amount of time evangelizing the federation even though they are light years away from it and the only ship out there. It would have been easy to abandon the principles of the Federation and they even encounter another Federation ship who has. It’s very powerful 2 part episode. I have to assume you haven’t seen much Voyager or DS9. No Star Trek has better demonstrated the concept that “the Federation works” better than DS9.
My problem with Lower Decks is twofold. First, the whole premise of the show is;
“remember that time that one mildly funny thing in Star Trek gave you a chuckle or made you smile” let’s make whole episodes about that”. Once you stretch out the joke it ceases to be funny. Mainly because the original jokes weren’t meant to be self sustaining. When the camera pans to Worf in a mudbath with Alexander and Lwaxana for 5 seconds it’s suprising and will give you a chuckle the first time you see it. If you take that idea and make a 30 minute comedy around it, it doesn’t work. At least not for me. But I’m glad some people like it.
The 2nd part is a “me” problem. I have been reading about a “Lower Decks” spin off since TNG ended. They teased us with another lower decks type episode of Voyager, very similar to the TNG one. When I heard Lower Decks was being green light I was not even discouraged that it was animated. Then I heard who the creators were (ex Rick and Morty guys) and realized it was not going to be the show I wanted. Again that’s a me problem and that doesn’t make it a bad show. My frist point is what I think makes it a bad show imho.
TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY spent a lot of time saying how great the Federation is but they also had they’re fair share of “The Captain is great but these Admirals are clueless and out of touch”. This is an example of Tell don’t Show.
LD on the other hand is unrelentingly enthusiastic about how great the Federation and Starfleet is. In some respects Mariner functions as the shows antagonist because she doesn’t have the patience for the bureaucracy needed to keep everything running. Boimler on the other hand, loves the paperwork. Yes, this is often taken to comedic extremes. No reason you can’t be funny and be positive about a better future at the same time.
Individual episodes are usually centred around a single topic. That’s not the same as stretching out one joke. The AGIMUS episode is a good example of this. How many times has a Trek show had to deal with a malevolent entity? It’s not really any different from that.
Comments
We're mostly housebroken around here. It's why I stick around.
This has gotten much better the past two seasons, but that first impression of "The Michael Burnham Show" sticks with me a lot.
Burnham is too central to the show
In my mind, no more than past Trek protagonists. But the Trek formula was cemented around the captain-as-protagonist so this tends to go unnoticed. It makes sense that stories would involve the captain. So when Burnham plays the outside role for three season while the show attempts to otherwise maintain the formula, it may feel dissonant.
Other character relationships aren't developed
In my opinion, DIS has an important secondary hub around engineering, and it rarely involves Burnham. Stamets has well-established relationships with both Tilly and Adira Tal, and most of Reno's interactions are with other engineers. (Quite often, Trek has a secondary social hub like this, and it's frequently associated with engineering. Probably because it's such a large set. Indeed, DS9 doesn't have Engineering, it has the Promenade.)
Outside of engineering, Tilly also has a significant arc with Saru in S3, when he chooses her as first officer, and this relationship continued in S4. While Culber has a strong relationship with Gray Tal.
Starport
It is controversial. You wouldn’t even have to read the whole thread. Just the responses before your response should have made you think twice about making declarative statements. I don’t love Strange New Worlds or Prodigy and I think Lower Decks might is easily the worse Trek. But it doesn’t matter. I like that there are different kinds of Trek shows for everyone to enjoy. It’s what Star Wars has had for years and Trek had been missing. If you don’t like Discovery there’s lots of other stuff to choose from and I like that about the modern Trek experience.
As someone who works in merchandise marketing I have access to data that may or may not surprise you. Burnham is very popular with new Trek fans (new to the franchise) and not so popular with legacy fans. Of course no franchise wants to upset legacy fans but the character is achieving its goal of bringing in new fans. The franchise can’t survive on legacy fans. You’re not going to live forever.
I logged in for the first time in a while to check on the portal update. I only responded because I see “I don’t like something that means everyone else must too”. Fan bases can be an echo chamber. If I love Strange New Worlds I am unlikely to spend any time with people who don’t care for it. And the way social media algorithms work I’m unlikely to be shown content of people who don’t care for it either. This applies to anything not just Trek.
Agreed. There are very few characters in Trek that I would apply these extremes too. I wish the poll had more subtlety.
There’s some of that. The shorter seasons often leave less room for other characters to get screen time. Burnham herself gets less episodes than any other Captain.
One frequent criticism I’ve heard is the DSC bridge crew are underdeveloped. This is true. They’re also not main cast characters. Why should they get any development at all? I then point out that TNG never had a real helmsmen as part of the cast. Ensign Gates was a re-occurring character that was frequently seen in the helm seat and she has more total appearances than many DSC characters (this will change in the near future). She never said a single word on screen and yet there are zero complaints about it.
LD Season 3 Episode 1 is the best Star Trek episode ever made. No other Trek episode has ever made the firm statement that the Federation is great and that the system works.
A season of DSC could easily be doubled without feeling padded - and would honestly benefit from a few stand alone episodes in the mix to break things up and give the story (and actors) some room to breath. (I think PIC is even more overstuffed.)
In the rush to fit everything in, the showrunners certainly use Captain Ex Machina with Burnham more than the un-serialized series.
I think they also flip-flop between Burnham-as-outsider and Burnham-as-Starfleet. The inability to choose hurt the character. S3 seemed to finally settle on the former before switching at the last moment. I was really hoping Burnham exist Starfleet and instead become a Federation Liaison tasked by the President with re-establishing relations with former member planets, with the Discovery (under Saru) assigned to her.
Starport
I have been an Ensign Gates advocate for years calling for her inclusion in STT.
Well, if you read my other messages you'll know that the point I was making is that 'good' and 'I like it' are very separate ideas. I like a lot about Discovery (and all treks shows), but I do argue that the writing in Discovery is objectively worse than in any other show. Whether people still like it is irrelevant. I use examples from my own experience, Smallville and The Wire. Smallville is a badly written show a lot of the time, but I still like it a lot. It's fine to be able to recognise that fact (The Wire is objectively great, but I couldn't watch it after season 1). Discovery has a lot going for it, but the way Burnham in particular was used over the first 3 seasons was often jarring and poorly set up or explained. A lot of the more mature responses here have mentioned that too.
I fully get that Burnham is an important piece of progressive media and also that the secret for CBS to grow the franchise is to find a new audience. None of that is at issue. What is at issue is whether Burnham is a well written character, and at least for the 3 seasons I saw her in, she was far from it. A mature conversation on the topic should be able to handle that fact as well as allow people to voice their preferences either way. A lot of my irritation with Discovery is that it can be a good show, they just keep making bad choices in the writing that makes Burnham look bad.
I like the character Michael Burnham but strongly dislike the weeping.
i would like to be entertained and educated, not made to feel sad.
thats what real life is for.
The whole premise of DS9 is the Federation system works. Voyager too. Janeway and the crew spend a considerable amount of time evangelizing the federation even though they are light years away from it and the only ship out there. It would have been easy to abandon the principles of the Federation and they even encounter another Federation ship who has. It’s very powerful 2 part episode. I have to assume you haven’t seen much Voyager or DS9. No Star Trek has better demonstrated the concept that “the Federation works” better than DS9.
My problem with Lower Decks is twofold. First, the whole premise of the show is;
“remember that time that one mildly funny thing in Star Trek gave you a chuckle or made you smile” let’s make whole episodes about that”. Once you stretch out the joke it ceases to be funny. Mainly because the original jokes weren’t meant to be self sustaining. When the camera pans to Worf in a mudbath with Alexander and Lwaxana for 5 seconds it’s suprising and will give you a chuckle the first time you see it. If you take that idea and make a 30 minute comedy around it, it doesn’t work. At least not for me. But I’m glad some people like it.
The 2nd part is a “me” problem. I have been reading about a “Lower Decks” spin off since TNG ended. They teased us with another lower decks type episode of Voyager, very similar to the TNG one. When I heard Lower Decks was being green light I was not even discouraged that it was animated. Then I heard who the creators were (ex Rick and Morty guys) and realized it was not going to be the show I wanted. Again that’s a me problem and that doesn’t make it a bad show. My frist point is what I think makes it a bad show imho.
I don’t think that’s the premise of the show at all. The premise was to create a non-serialised show with a sense of humour about itself and the entire franchise. It was a reaction to the bleakness of what had immediately preceded it.
Now, humour is very personal and no series no matter how well made can satisfy everyone’s humour palette. But Lower Decks is well made. The detail in the backgrounds is insane at times. You may not appreciate it, but it’s clear that the people working on the show are huge Star Trek fans with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Star Trek canon. Now that might not be important to you, and that’s fine, but clearly it matters to a lot to the fans of Lower Decks.
It’s clear we all have our biases, but it’s clear to me as a non superfan of Lower Decks myself that it’s made with love and craft and that it works for many many people. Even for myself, some of the jokes land very well and others miss and so it can feel uneven from a humour perspective, but it’s always good Star Trek.
You nailed it about the other characters not being developed. The other characters are developed. Just not the bridge crew. The reason for that is the show for the most part, does not take place on the bridge. They’re secondary characters.
Let’s use TNG as model. How many fully developed characters were there?
Picard, Riker, Data, Worf, Crusher, Troi, La Forge. That’s 7. Wesley came and went and O’Brien didn’t even have a name for at least the first season. The actor played a helmsmen and before switching transporter operator and being given a name. Guinan was mostly a guest.
Discovery has Burnham, Saru, Tilly, Staments, Culber, Georgiou. That’s 6. Discovery has had characters with arcs that conclude at the end of the season. No one can make a case that those characters were less fleshed out than TNG main cast. Crusher and Riker in particular and to some extend La Forge. Discovery has a slightly smaller permanent cast with the intention of bringing in more guest cast for a season or two.
Those characters are Ash Tyler, Lorca, Pike, L’Rell, Sarek, Spock.
They have also added three new cast members Jett Reno, Booker, Adira for now.
Notice I didn’t mention 90% of bridge crew. I think it’s a bit jarring for Trek fans that the bridge crew are mostly background characters. This leads to the trope that the cast is not being developed outside of Burnham. This simple is not true. The characters they want to tell stories about are being fully developed. It’s just not the roles we are used to.
100% this. What people need to do is think of Detmer, Bryce, and Owo as versions of the random ensign at the TNG con. In that context they are way more developed.
And I'd argue Saru, Stamets, and Tilly have been developed more than Sulu, Chekov, Mayweather, Reed, La Forge, Kim, etc...
TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY spent a lot of time saying how great the Federation is but they also had they’re fair share of “The Captain is great but these Admirals are clueless and out of touch”. This is an example of Tell don’t Show.
LD on the other hand is unrelentingly enthusiastic about how great the Federation and Starfleet is. In some respects Mariner functions as the shows antagonist because she doesn’t have the patience for the bureaucracy needed to keep everything running. Boimler on the other hand, loves the paperwork. Yes, this is often taken to comedic extremes. No reason you can’t be funny and be positive about a better future at the same time.
Individual episodes are usually centred around a single topic. That’s not the same as stretching out one joke. The AGIMUS episode is a good example of this. How many times has a Trek show had to deal with a malevolent entity? It’s not really any different from that.