SPOILERS OF SEASON 4 OF DISCOVERY
I have recently finished watching season 4 of Discovery and havent read any reviews or opinions on it before or after watching. Here I want to share my views.
Basically, I am very frustrated. Not because I think its complete trash, but because I think they had a very cool concept which they screwed up.
I separate, what I think are the main issues, in these two points:
- Non-stop apocalypse ready to happen
- Spore drive killing character development
I will cover both now in more depth.
Non-Stop apocalypse ready to happen
So in this season we are introduced with the idea of rebuilding. Rebuilding a great Federation, to return it to its glory and make the quadrant and galaxy prosper again. Soon we are introduced to this anomaly, DMA, which destroys an entire world and is basically unstoppable and is coming for other worlds as well. This, then, turns out to be artifical and creators are these very cool aliens at the edge of the galaxy. The task is to meet them and convince them to shut it down.
Honestly, I am tired of this thrope that every problem has to be a world-ending, galaxy-ending, universe-ending problem. Everything is so huge, everytime its either we succede or we all die. There is no more room for simple problems, “every day” problems. By far, the best episodes are episodes where “small” problems are solved. Like the episode where Zora’s consciousness was explored or in previous season where Saru beat his fear and so on. They work much better because audience can understand them much more, connect to them more easily than “entire universe will be dead”. At a risk of sounding like a hater, this is why TNG is so damn good. It is a bunch of small stories than are easy to grasp and connect to. You dont need a world-ending problem to make a good plot.
Spore drive killing character development
I think this is a unexpected consequence of the spore drive. A lot of character development in old shows was happening during the their travel to the destination. That was the time dedicated for character development, it was logical, it was simple, it worked. Now, with spore drive you dont have time for that. You are instantly in the combat or a problem.
How they do character development then? They do it in the middle of the mission. So there is a time sensitive thing we need to do, we have a few minutes to get the fuck out, lets talk about our emotions. I am all for talking about emotions, but damn, you are trained military personnel. You do your job first, then talk about your emotions. Its like firefighters would go into a burning building and pause to have a chat about their childhood. You go in, you do the job and you talk after the mission is over. Basically, the moments they choose for character development are extremely illogical and unnatural for trained military personnel.
My ideas on how to fix it
First, for the character development. Just give more screen time before and after the mission to this, not in the middle of the mission.
For the plot. I loved the idea of the future and rebuilding the federation. And i even like the idea of this aliens, which look super cool. But I would love to see more diplomatic episodes, where this federation rebuilding would actually been shown. Give us 1 episode of heavy diplomacy so we can appreciate what goes into rebuilding it. It surely is not as simple as “Join us, please. Ok we agree”.
Also these aliens could have been prime example of “new civilazation” and trying to bring them into the federation. Overcoming vast differences between the species, accpeting those differences and finding the common ground.
Basically, more diplomacy less apocalypse.
Do you agree, or do you think i am wrong? Please, I welcome the discussion on this.
I just want to highlight this as an excellent example of the kind of thoughtful criticism we want to see in this space. You talked about what you didn’t like, why you didn’t like it, and what you would have preferred, and you did so respectfully. Thank you for that.
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Totally agree with the bit in your spoiler tag. After a few episodes of escalating DOOMSDAY PLOT, it started to feel like Trek again.
I think this is a fair critique, and the comparison even extends to the movies more or less. While TMP, II, IV, First Contact, and Nemesis deal with potentially existential threats, III, V, VI, Generations, and Insurrection did not, and they were all perfectly interesting plots.
I really feel this way about the reboot movies. Utterly exquisite casting/acting, wardrobe/sets, and oh, let’s go blow something up again without breathing!
To be honest, this sums up a lot of issues the entire Discovery series has. If we leave out certain Season 1 plot points that annoyed some people, then the biggest thing people commonly criticize is all the emoting in the middle of battles/negotiations/strategic movement by just saying “character cries too much” or “too much emo drama”. I think you’ve clearly pinpointed the root cause of that.
A friend of mine also speculates that the new shows have an even harder time with character development than older shows, because they have far fewer episodes per season. When you have 10-15 episodes (instead of say, 26), and you limit character development to snippets in the middle of action, well, then you get Star Trek: Discovery’s tendency to annoy long-time fans.
I also agree that fewer “the galaxy/civilization/life is ending” plots and more variety would make the show far more enjoyable. Some of the best episodes of older Trek shows were about mostly a single character, or single world, or single issue.
A friend of mine also speculates that the new shows have an even harder time with character development than older shows, because they have far fewer episodes per season. When you have 10-15 episodes (instead of say, 26), and you limit character development to snippets in the middle of action, well, then you get Star Trek: Discovery’s tendency to annoy long-time fans.
This is one of the areas where Season 1 nailed it, and the subsequent writers/showrunners couldn’t seem to figure out how to replicate the formula. The first season gave significant time to heavy, emotional moments where characters talked about their feelings, but they were either outside of high pressure, time sensitive situations (like Tyler telling Burnham about what L’Rell did to him), or they are fundamentally a part of those high pressure time sensitive situations and the emotional issues becomes an additional hurdle to clear (like earlier in the same episode when Tyler has a massive PTSD episode upon seeing L’Rell aboard the Ship of the Dead). Both scenes are well done, powerful moments.
This is a stark contrast from, for example, the conversation between Spock and Burnham at the end of the S2 finale. Both characters are awake, alert, sober, stable, and well aware that there is a vitally important time sensitive task which must be done quickly; every moment of delay means more people die in the battle raging around them, and a greater chance of the plan being disrupted by something. And yet, Spock and Burnham take a minute for a tearful goodbye before actually doing what they were supposed to. That’s annoying to the audience and wildly irresponsible for the characters. Both run counter to the emotions the writers are trying to evoke, and neither would have been an issue if this conversation had been worked into an earlier part of the episode.
Absolutely agree - this is exactly my issues with Season 4 as well.
Look at how SWN did things as an alternative, they were able to have characters talk about their feelings in a much more natural way during down time… not in the middle of the action while there is an end of the universe ticking clock.
I don’t think the spore drive is the issue at all.
I miss the possibilities that travelling far from the heart of the Federation can offer, but it’s not the fast drive that’s excluding the possibility.
Even in shows where travel should take days, weeks or months (looking at you Picard S3), starships flit across the entire breadth of the Federation in less than a day.
Writers just don’t seem to want to write, or EPs don’t want to allocate from short seasons, the kind of bottle episodes that travel time seemed to engender.
I pretty much agree. I liked season 4, but not quite as much as 3, largely for the first reason you bring up: EVERYTHING HAS TO BE ULTIMATE DOOM. That was the biggest problem I had with season 2 (the best episodes that season were the one-offs ) and one of the problems I had with Picard.
(I also had some major problems with the logic in Tarka’s plan, partly because the event he was trying to recreate hadn’t needed a giant singularity to begin with, and because he had the spore drive right there.)
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I stopped watching Discovery S4 after about 7 episodes and started with Kirk again… Heck even the last season of The Orville felt more like Star Trek. If it wasn’t for SNW and LD I wouldn’t spend any more time with new Trek.
Don’t forget prodigy, I know it’s a kids/family show but definitely worth watching.
Thanks, I look into it
Stick with it if you give it a go, the main character can be… frustrating… at the beginning but there is proper character growth as the series goes on
Orville is very good, i think it perserves the old Star Trek formula much better than anything we have today.
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I don’t know, to some extent “bundles of feelings” is what people are.
It’s what sets us apart from the vulcans!
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Watched season 1 and was very disappointed. Including with how the spore drive was invented only to be hushed up as if it could be hushed up, as if the physical reality of this tech wouldn’t be independently discovered by multiple different civilizations across the universe, and as if conspiracies aren’t ultimately flawed and will unravel with more time and people involved. Don’t do a show set in the past if you want to invent something extremely substantial that doesn’t exist in the present.
Watched season 2 and liked some stuff (mainly the pilot content for a different series), but disappointed with how they didn’t do anything about a certain character they brought over from season 1. Watched season 3 go into the future only to have it be a broken future where they basically do the same thing as in season 2, they have some new tech but don’t ever make proper use of it. Gave up.
By Discovery standards, a threat that can wipe out a single planet accidently IS pretty low key! It’s when they involve Earth it kind of got too dramatic for me
Generally … completely agree.
Without adding to your critique, I’ll just add that as someone who’s really wanted to like Discovery, was hyped from the beginning etc (you know the story) and despite having problems with all of the seasons, enjoyed them and kept watching … it was S4 that broke me. It was just too much to go all in on apocalypse and neatly tie it together at the end.
There’s no critique here (sorry!) just the extension into the sort of “emotional” aspect of this. Some sort of broken trust or exhaustion just settled in with S4. I’m not saying it was bad (that’s not the point either way) … just that it was S4 that revealed to me that I just don’t like Discovery, however sad that is for me.
spoiler
Though I absolutely love the whole S2->S3 time travel into a broken future plot line … I am so here for that idea!! Only thing I’d like more if the reconstructing the federation were a more thought out and longer arc!
