Star Trek: Discovery: Successes, Failures, and Legacy | A Retrospective Analysis 

"The first season was off to a rocky start." So they WERE following along faithfully with a longly held Star Trek tradition.

"I'm not going to even go over every season" Proceeds to go over every season. Never change, Steve

I have a feeling that we would have known more about the rest of the ensemble if the writers had paid less attention to crafting the ubiquitous 500-word pontifications, and devoted those 10 minutes per episode letting Owo and Dettmer share some cool tidbits of their lives. Instead, all we get are knowing looks from them while Saru, Pike, or Burnham drone on and on with "I know you're scared, but you're the best damn crew in Starfleet, blah, blah..."

I think that you hit the nail on the head when you talk about the serialization of the story. I have some minor complaints about some of the things that the series did (I've never found mirror universe plots terribly interesting, I thought the mushroom drive was kind of dumb, I didn't think it was necessary to tie the main character to Spock, etc), but I'm willing to look past a lot of those things because Star Trek has *always* embraced a certain silliness. But the serialized storytelling killed me. Both in this series and Picard. In a monster-of-the-week style of storytelling, a bad episode is one-and-done---you watch it, roll your eyes, and hope that next week is gonna be better. When you decide to completely serialize a show like this, if the plot doesn't catch you, you have a season to get through. It is very frustrating.

It was amazing watching Doug Jones walk in season 1, because he broke his back carrying it.

growing up in the 1960s with the original series, I paid no attention, grew up and married a man that was a Star Trek fan, still no interest to learn, but I have to give it to you Steve, you have an amazing way to draw listeners in and make it interesting, I know more about Star Trek now listening to you then I ever intended to know , my husband also thanks you

Saru helped me with my anxiety, as I related to him that his fears were a form of lies that even his own mind was telling him. That will always be the legacy of Discovery for me.

Michael Burnham is a rare example of a character that was overdeveloped. She had huge personal arcs in basically all the seasons. No Star Trek character has ever had so much *backstory*. Even in S3, they introduced a whole timeskip seemingly just to give Michael more backstory to explore. And that was a shame, because it meant that she never settled as a character. It's not that I don't know who Michael is, it's that I have five different Michaels who all seem inconsistent with each other, none of whom get to fully just exist for more than an episode or two at a time. Try describing S5 Michael and S1 Michael to a friend who hasn't seen the show, and see if they can guess whether you're describing one character or two.

"People aren't robots." Data: "I take exception to that." 😉

My biggest gripe with Discovery was that they cast Tig Notaro and then barely gave her any fucking screen time.

I really wish that quality of writing for Disco would have been more consistent and that had it more of an "ensemble" show.

One complaint I’ve seen about Discovery that completely baffles me is the claim that the show’s presentation of society’s prejudices - especially in terms of LGBTQ (and particularly trans rights) - is too “in your face” compared to older Trek shows. Um, the original series depicted the ignorance of racism by having the last 2 members an entire species - whose faces were painted literally half black and half white - fight to the death. This aired at the height of the Civil Rights movement when peaceful protesters were being beaten in the streets… And DISCOVERY is the “in your face” Trek show?! Holding a mirror up to society and commenting on its uglier and shameful areas has ALWAYS been the core of Star Trek. If anything, Discovery depicted its LGBTQ characters as completely ordinary people, which is the WHOLE POINT of setting aside the trivial differences between people and living together harmoniously. Great video, Steve! Thank you for your work… your videos are often the highlight of my day 😁

I think my biggest issue with Discovery is that it didn’t lean into what made it great often enough. People complain that it’s too emotional, but I think that was its greatest strength. Instead of giving us moments of building relationships, it felt obligated to having action sequences as much as possible. For example, instead of getting a full Season 4 finale dedicated to the dynamics of making contact with the 10-C, we have to have a high stakes chase with a villain that was honestly never that interesting. In the season 3 finale, Tilly tells a story about how she was depressed on her birthday and Michael just comforted her without mentioning her birthday, but this story is sandwiched into a high stakes action moment instead of being shown to us previously. And of course, the Season 5 timey wimey episode where Michael has a fist fight with herself from the past, in what feels like bold character assassination of Season 1 Michael as wildly irrational. Discovery was at its best when it was feeling, not fighting.

I do understand your frustration and exasperation with supposed fans who do nothing but very publicly and monetizably bitch about canon, I really do. But the things you love about Star Trek (how it relates to the present day, the emotional truths of its characters and stories, its commitment to presenting an aspirational message) directly result in a huge population of people who are in love with the elements of the show you go out of your way to call out as insignificant window dressing. Emotional investment in the characters and their struggles is going to lead to emotional investment in the secondary world. That's just something we have to manage and express in constructive ways that don't involve death threats to people who are just showing up to do their job where they pretend to live in space, because that's what being a fucking human being is, Jesus Christ. Finally, material criticism of Discovery to keep this screed tethered to the topic at hand, the real reason I'm bothered by Michael Burnham's relationship with Spock is because a large chunk of Spock's (rather limited) characterization and depth in his original appearances was tied to his relationship with his family, and how those relationships interact with his struggles over his Vulcanness and humanity. In Discovery, since the show really isn't about Spock, it never felt to me like Michael fit into that paradigm in an interesting and compelling way, and Strange New Worlds, which is considerably more about Spock, has made it clear that it's not going to bother trying either.

*I* give a shit about Saru’s rank, because I think he was (is) one of the best Captains in the history of Star Trek. I also liked that Michael was the main protagonist without being Captain, and insisting she replace Saru in later series, I think slightly devalues her character.

If the look of the Klingons didn't matter, why did the Berman era runners make such a big point of squaring the difference between TOS Klingons and movie/TNG Klingons? I agree that I can live with differences in makeup and tech...except on the tech front, the Berman era (Enterprise) went to great lengths to make the tech look consistent with TOS. So, while I appreciate that this doesn't matter to some, it does matter to many, and it matters enough that showrunners dealt with it previously, and anyone who was going to deal with newer series should have been aware of that and not allowed it to throw them off-pace.

Dang. I never watched Discovery just because the streaming format doesn't really work for me, but you just made me want to try it.

One thing that I think Steve never gives a lot of consideration to about the people bitching about canon with respect to Discovery is that in the lead up to the series, there was a *lot* of hay made about how Discovery would be in the non-Kelvin timeline, that it would fit within that canon, and that it would be faithful to that canon. He touches on that here, and obviously the conspiracy theories are ridiculous, but I feel like he undersells how strongly the execs were trying to push those points in order to distance themselves from the Kelvin movies. Even though I don't really care about a lot of things they did, I feel like there's a certain amount of fairness to people feeling like they were bait-and-switched on that point.

I dislike Discovery for several reasons and gave up on the show after season 3 BUT there are several aspects and characters I love. - Saru: One of the best characters in all of Trek - Our first on screen gay couple, Stamets and Culber were great. - Tilly is a delight and her bubbly excitement is relatable af. - Without Discovery we wouldn't have SNW which is in my top 3 Star Trek shows.

Great video overall, but I do have to disagree slightly with your view on canon and continuity. To be clear, I'm not as strict on this as I used to be. Production design changes and timeline alterations are inevitable with a long running franchise, and canon can be flexible if it benefits the story. However, Discovery is a new entry in an established franchise, specifically building off familiar events and factions. Maintaining consistent continuity within a story is a basic aspect of fiction because a writer is temporarily maintaining the illusion of a real world. So when Discovery has a lot of really obvious contradictions all at once, it's hard to blame fans who care about canon for being upset. You are right that the story at hand is most important, but to say that canon isn't a valid criticism, or to imply that anyone who has a problem with it is just an irrational whiner, is unfair. (I know that's not what you intended but that's kinda how it came across at times). Then again I'm sure you have dealt with a lot of annoying and irrational fans over the years, so I might be fed up after a while too if that were the case.

This show relaunched Trek and ends with 15 more episodes than megahit Stranger Things and four direct spinoffs (Short Treks, SNW, Section 31, and Academy). We have it to thank for the explosion of new shows and breaking the format for what a Trek show can be. Even though DS9 is my favorite, and even though it's a hybrid crew of Starfleet, Bajoran militia, and civilians, even that show was basically about a captain and crew in all the standard positions. Discovery declared that the show could have an unstable captain's seat. We can go three years without knowing who the CMO or chief engineer are. We can follow the redemption of one character across two ships and the underdog lower decks crew she befriends along the way. We can normalize wearing a heart on one's sleeve as fuel for doing a better job, instead of seeing crying as a weakness. Diversity is super strong with this show. Burnham went from someone seeing her parents ripped from her, being raised by Sarek and Amanda (stunting her emotional growth), being cold and emotionless at first, coming out of her shell, having a maverick martyr complex, then learning to be more transparent and deliberate, and finally commanding by gently leading others away from the kinds of mistakes she used to make. Season four was a stand-out as a hard sci-fi riff on "The Devil in the Dark," with shades of The Day the Earth Stood Still, Close Encounters, The Abyss, Contact, and Arrival, showing rigorous data gathering and communication in good faith winning out over preemptive strikes borne of vengeance and fear. It also showed the value of restorative justice. It's a show that made no apologies about wearing its heart on its sleeve and I absolutely adored it for that reason. It took Troi's advice to Data "that emotions aren't good or bad; it's what you do with them that counts" and showed how empathy is the absolutely essential fuel in the fight for justice, not a weakness to be pitied. Supporting that theme, every season brought on new mentors that were experts in psychology and emotional intelligence: Cornwell, Pike, Vance, Rillak, as well as promoting Culber to counselor and employing the services of Dr. Kovich. The show dared to shift focus away from senior officers on a Starfleet posting, by focusing on one person's growth from grief-stricken maverick with a martyr complex to someone who learns to move past that by being more transparent and deliberate, and gently guiding people away from the kinds of mistakes she used to make. I'd rank the seasons from best to good: 4, 3, 5, 1, 2. Season one showed how peace can only be achieved through good faith. Season two showed how we can seek forgiveness and reconciliation for the past. Season three showed how connection is essential. Season four showed how the arduous work of reaching out to the seemingly implacable foe is an essential counter to the flailing preemptive strikes borne out of grief, a pretty full circle thematic tie. And season five showed the wisdom of not wielding too much power. No matter what show is your favorite from the current era, you have Discovery to thank for it. No longer were shows constrained to the same formula. Star Trek is so much bigger than any one format. DSC's focus on underdogs meant that we could have a show about people who left Starfleet in PIC, a show about a quartet of ensigns at the beginning of their career in LDS, a show with young people who never even heard of Starfleet or the UFP, and a show that fills in the blanks in the transition period between Pike and Kirk. It also birthed Short Treks, which was a great testbed for new Trek concepts. I'm looking forward to see what new kinds of Star Trek shows we'll see in the future. There's already talk about a Section 31 show (Will that be about how that organization finds redemption?) and an Academy show. But I'd like to challenge Star Trek to branch out even more than it has during this era. Let's see what the Star Trek future is like from the perspective of civilians. Let's see what it's like to live planetside. DS9 showed we could do a space station to critically acclaimed results. That said, I'm completely agnostic on the format for any Trek show. It could center on one character or dozens of characters. It could be heavily serialized or be completely an anthology, with zero returning characters from week to week. It could be a sitcom, a political thriller, a mystery series, a musical, a legal drama, a show about a suburban family, a variety show, a talkshow, a sketch comedy show, public access, a vlog, or be made up entirely Federation Council C-SPAN. The more different each Trek show is from previous Trek shows, the better. As far as I'm concerned, Trek is a philosophy, not a genre or format. As long as it's about a diverse group of seemingly implacable foes learning to communicate in order to solve problems in a post-artificial economy in which everyone's needs for survival are met without means testing, then I'm happy.

My wife and I are huge star trek fans and really looked forward to this show, but outside of a few episodes it really was just kind of boring. The stories were back loaded, everything important happened in the season finales and the rest of the time was spent with the characters in awkward group therapy sessions and episodes that felt like filler meant to waste our time. Almost the entirety of Discovery and Picard s2 were the only times on Star Trek where I legit was just bored out of my mind wondering how much longer the episode had. Saru is honestly the only character I liked at all, well him and Linus 😂

One of the strangest thing about modern Star Trek writing for me, is that it echoes itself. Sure, they course corrected and brought back Culber, but they also did the same thing again with Gray. DISCO S2, PIC S1, and LD S1 all had robotic space tentacles. PIC S1 and LD S1 both end with Riker saving the day. A lot of these "echoes" are minor, but when you add them to the occasional story beat or set piece that is almost-too-close to another Sci-Fi story or cinematic universe, and it really becomes noticeable.

There was a cumulative effect of the "changes" to the franchise in Star Trek Discovery. As you iterated through them, each on their own wouldn't have caused the fracas we saw from many legacy Star Trek fans, but when combined, we were offered a show that bore little to no resemblance to the beloved franchise many of us had invested a significant amount of time in. Personally, it's hard to express how excited I was that a new live action Star Trek series was lauching. I can remember watching the first few episodes of Discovery and feeling that excitement slowly turn to resentment. Magic mushroom spore drive, navigating giant space tardigrades (LOL), purple marble mouthed Klingons with undecipherable speaking abilities, mutiny by the lead character, unnecessary and preventable death of the first captain, space whales, double hosed pissing, deranged Spock, magical telepathic capabilites of Sarek, breath door locks, smug computer voice, sunlight bathed rooms and corridors, shiny metallic everything sets, lens flares, blue light everywhere, whispering dialog, etc., etc., all added up and created something incredibly unfamiliar. Not to mention the storytelling had completely changed in tone. Gone were big philisophical ideas, moral dilemmas and subtle world building plots. Gone were stories that provoked further thought. Discovery's stories were firnly rooted in surface level absolutes. Each a linear journey where a nemesis must be defeated or a mystery box solved. Each a mini Marvel superhero movie where good and bad are clearly laid out and we root for the heroes because we're told they're the heroes. After watching all 5 seasons, I can count on one hand the times when I was intrigued enough to spend time thinking about the show after it aired. In short, Discovery was NOT Star Trek, at least it wasn't for me. It was something else entirely. All the Gorn skeleton, Tribble, Guardian of Forever fan service and Easter eggs didn't make it Star Trek either. The showrunners used all that to lure in the sizeable audience the franchise had grown over decades, including me. Small wonder there was deep resentment. I think your intepretation of why legacy fans rebelled, cheapens the very real experience many of us had with the show.

The criticism that the show is too Michael-centric is valid. We're Trekkies. We know how ensemble casts work. No one has ever complained about TNG being too Picard-centric (maybe too Data-centric, but not to Michael levels). Even TOS, which really did only focus on its leads, didn't give us all Kirk (or Spock), what he was thinking, and his backstory all the time.

I watched Disco seasons 1 & 2 a year ago, and this video perfectly encapsulates everything that frustrated me : a lot of lovable characters, some really touching episodes, but the writers and the cameras made everything possible to never focus on the really good ideas the show had...I might start again soon, then finishing seasons 3, 4 & 5, this time not focusing on what frustrated me, but on what I loved on it...I hope it will be enough, because there's a lot to love in Disco, it's just that Disco doesn't want me to love these things...

After season one, I bailed. I checked in a few times but clearly there was not enough on the menu to make me sit down and eat. This is a great overview, Steve, and I thank you for doing it, but I'm not sorry I skipped 90% of Discovery, and would give anything to have back the hours I wasted on the first season.

"The main character cries too much" is now also a complaint for The Doctor in Doctor Who...

I was someone who dismissed Discovery when it first came out. I knew the people complaining about it being "woke" or whatever were stupid, but I heard enough seemingly valid criticism that I decided it probably wasn't worth my time. I enjoyed lower decks and strange new worlds, but I always ignored discovery. Well, recently my dear old dad who got me into Star Trek in the first place decided to start watching Discovery and I figured 'why not, good way to spend some time with my dad.' Folks, Star Trek Discovery is *great!* I'm halfway through season 2 and I've enjoyed pretty much everything I've seen so far. If the first season gets off to a rough start, I'm thrilled to see where it goes after that. It just goes to show, don't believe anything you read on the internet. Maybe I'll check out Picard after this....

DIsco was fun, had value, had some misfires but overall - it was Star Trek and I liked it. Would like to see these characters again.

The critique: “I wish the show maintained a better visual and thematic consistency with previous series, and that the characters on that show displayed a greater degree of professionalism befitting of their roles” The response: “SHUT UP NERD”

Other matters aside, the whisperibg of dialog in this series irritated me no end. My favorite character was Reno, both for the actor's scripting and performance, and for delivery of her lines in a normal voice, without Emotional Music overlaid in the background (which was also a persistent and annoying distraction).

Honestly I really disagree with your take about the aesthetic continuity of Discovery. It's true that a lot of the complaints about the aesthetics of the show were blown out of proportion, but if you're making a show that is meant to slot directly into a pre-existing timeline then it should look like it belongs there. If you want to make a show with complete artistic Liberty then you shouldn't set it into a setting with pre-established continuity. I would have absolutely loved to see an aesthetic that's blending between the original series Starfleet and the Starfleet of Star Trek Enterprise, but instead it just feels like Starfleet randomly decided to adopt the aesthetic of the Abrams verse for less than a decade and then immediately go back, it just doesn't make sense.

While I'm not much of a fan of nuTrek (with the exception of Lower Decks which is more of a lighthearted animated lark), I *DO* appreciate that Discovery in particular increased the diversity in the casting of Trek actors and stepped up on representation for marginalized groups. The shows are still not my bag (with the aforementioned exception), but I will give credit where credit is due.

There were glimmers here and there, but I think poor storytelling prevented Discovery's acting talent from shining thru.

I think Disco moving to the 32nd century was the best thing for it. No more crow-barring in legacy characters, no more needing to try to fit things into existing continuity, etc... And we met a few really cool new characters, like Federation President Rillak and the riddle that is Kovich. BTW, Kovich is played by legendary Canadian director David Cronenberg. I remember first seeing him, and going, "Wait... is... is that David Cronenberg?!" And then he was on the show for three freaking seasons! I love Saru. Doug Jones is a national treasure, and I'm so glad he got to have major role like this, even if he was under a ton of makeup. And Saru's journey is so much more interesting than Burnham's. In fact, Disco is one of those shows were the "main character" is probably my least favorite. I like her ok, but I prefer Saru, Tilly, Stamets, Culber, and Reno. Reno's and Stamets' interactions were so awesome! And Stamets and Tilly. BTW, I love that Tilly's actress gained weight, and she was still on the show until the end. Fuck yeah. I will say; I agree with you, Steve, about the show being episodic. But then, I feel that way about a lot of shows these days... soooo tired of 8-10-13+ episode story arcs. Plus, I think episodic series can do character-based episodes better. Cuz, ya, I'd have loved to see more of Detmer and Owosekun. d-:

The execution was crap. Writing was generally crap. Loved Stamets and Culber. Gray was just intolerable (can’t tell if it was the actor or the writing…pending a rewatch). Adira was meh… Mudd’s episode was fun. Michael’s progression felt unearned at times…just seemed like her actions would preclude her from making captain. There were some strong points for Michael…again I think it was the crap writing. All around it was just horribly inconsistent in quality on most fronts. Oh, and the “insert galactic threat here” season spanning arc for seasons 2-5 was tiring…the Klingon War could have been better and more interesting if it had been given room to breathe over more than one season. I’ll note I loved that shuttle ride in the beginning when they perfectly timed the uncut shot with the noted distance and warp factor (suck it, Abrams).

While I do find myself enjoying fewer, longer storylines over a season from my TV series recently, I can accept that you weren't a fan of how drawn out Discovery's stories were. Do you see space for a Trek show to have maybe three storylines in a season, each of 4-5 episodes each, which may or may not ultimately lead into the season finale? While I'm fine with episodic shows and do enjoy Strange New Worlds, I feel I'm personally enjoying the serialized format more recently.

I've briefly dicsussed this before. I liked the first two seasons of Discovery. My only complaints about it is they tried to cram too much story into too little time, and it could've benefitted from better pacing. But once they got into the future, the show just completely lost me. I found the future setting incredibly uncompelling. I just couldn't get into it at all. They pretty much discarded all the stuff about the show that interested me. Suspension of disbelief is a BIG thing in fiction, and while I was able to do it for the first two seasons, the third season onward I couldn't at all. It didn't feel like Star Trek at all...if it felt like anything I'd say it felt more like Andromeda (which in and of itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it was a dramatic shift for this show). I stopped watching very quickly, and these days I consider the first two seasons a sort of prequel to Strange New Worlds, which I really like so far. Except for the Lower Decks crossover episode...I despise that series. While they did the best they could on the SNW episode with the material, any reference to Lower Decks is too much for me. I personally think that while serialized storytelling is a good thing, and events should matter beyond the episode they happen in, not every single episode has to be part of an ongoing story. The best shows benefit from both serial stories AND standalone stories. They just need to make sure that they don't do the status quo thing where things that happen in an episode never matter again.

Star Trek Discovery is a work of fiction set in a pre-established period (or close enough) of a larger fictitious world. It is, by virtue of this, a period piece. I think what illustrates the ridiculousness of Discovery’s decisions is this: Lord of the Rings is 100% a work of fiction set in a fictionalized time period. If the Council of Elrond was held on a Zoom call over I-pads, a lot of people would have been miffed. Many would have been cheezed if Legolas was given a modern pistol instead of his traditional bow. It’s all fake but there should be consistency in both the world in public perception. Maybe people wouldn’t care about Elrond using an I-Pad and that’s fine. Lots of people don’t care about things but that doesn’t make the people who do care wrong. We shouldn’t confuse our own disinterest in a thing with the belief that it is not worth the interest.

my only real issue with the 'new' klingons is that they sounded like they were talking with a mouthful of cotton and pebbles - after a few epis i think they modified the prosthetics a bit, and the actors got more used to them, and then they sounded a lot better to me.

“Professional grievance merchant” is both an excellent name for a band and the perfect way to describe what some of these folks are. I wish they weren’t so ubiquitous.

Disco's first season is one of my favourite seasons of NuTrek. Insanely happy memories of watching it week by week when it released. Each season walked back more and more of what made it unique and interesting, but even at it's worst ( _cough_ season two _cough_ ) it was still damn good.

Mostly on-point, though I do have to object to the notion that the look and feel of the show doesn't really matter or that criticism of it is less legitimate than criticism of the show's narrative substance. Look and feel is such an incredibly important part of the presentation, getting hung up on it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand because what's being presented is a work of fiction. If anything, that's when look amd feel is the most important. That said, I also object to the kneejerk 'they changed it, now it sucks' position, so YMMV.

I wish we lived in the alternate timeline where Kurtzman had left and Bryan Fuller had been put in charge. Sure, maybe we wouldn't have gotten 'Strange New Worlds' but given Fuller's track record I truly believe we would have gotten more consistency in the series we did get. Instead of one good show and a bunch of average to terrible seasons of TV I think we'd be sitting here feeling better about everything we got whatever it was.

I decided in my head that since the Klingons are an Empire that the Klingons we saw were just a different species of Klingon than seen earlier.

It's wild how they not only decided for an entire season to be a fan service-y follow-up to a TNG episode but specifically a TNG episode that was made to be a fan service-y answer to a pedantic nit-picky fan question that kept popping up back in the day, which was "Why do all the aliens look like humans?" The real answer to this being "Someone decided that depicting aliens through make-up was the best way to go", but that wasn't good enough, so they made an episode with a big reveal answer to that question to which even the characters that witnessed it basically said "Well that's nice to know, I guess. Get ready to be asked this at Trivia Night" Also I'm surprised you had nothing to say about either version of Philippa Georgiou in this video

I think the show improved a lot as it got into later seasons. The writers seemed to respond to fan criticisms, such as Michael being too good at everything. Most of the bridge crew, although diverse, could have been cardboard cutouts. I didn't care for Tilly, but I'm fine that others did like her. Maybe I'm too old school sci Fi geek, but the science in the show was lacking for my taste too. Towards the end some of the episodes felt like i was watching the CW with the amount of interpersonal drama that felt a little unearned. I didn't care about adira and grey's relationship. I don't know if it was the acting or if it was just undeveloped. Today's Star Trek needs better writers!! But all in all, glad the show got made.

People didn't like the 25% different for the sake of being 25% different. It was jarring. However, Disco led to a nice revamp of the old girl's bridge. There was never enough red and black on any of the movie sets. Too much white paint, you never felt like this was your old friend, the familiar bridge of 1701-no bloody letters.

Gotta disagree with you on the presentation and inconsistencies. Props, sets and costumes are all important storytelling tools that ground a fictional world in a specific time and place. You wouldn't put a cell phone prop in a 1930s noir. The production artists on TNG, DS9 and Enterprise all worked really hard to design material that fit with and expanded the fictional world in believable ways. That's not trivial. For some of us, that stuff is a core part of the appeal of sci-fi. Discovery's art direction gave up on that work in favor of looking superficially cool. If they didn't want to keep track of those details or make something that looked like that era then they shouldn't have made yet another prequel.

The complaints about people from the fictional future sounding like people in the 21st century feels especially weird considering the characters from TOS all spoke in the same manner as characters from any other show made in the 1960s. You jump back and forth between Star Trek, the Twilight Zone, and the Outer Limits, and lo and behold, all these 1960s shows have dialogue that sounds like it was written by and for people from the 1960s.

Internal inconsistencies: at what level does it start to matter to you? Would inconsistencies in a particular episode matter to you? Or would it have to be within a scene? After all, at each level "it's just fiction!". A lot of the time the folks who get all upset at inconsistencies between series (or episodes) are making too much noise for the scale of the problem, but similarly a lot of the times the inconsistencies come across as carelessness or as a misuse of artistic preferences. (Note: I haven't seen any Discovery or Strange New Worlds because Paramount decided they wanted a smaller audience and put them behind paywalls.)

Aloha Steve! I love your channel and have been following for a few years! keep up the great work! Prost from south Bayern Germany!

I didn't like, how the klingons looked, when I first watched discovery and I still don't like their look. But when I first watched discovery, I was wondering about what it was, that I don't like about the klingons look. I asked myself for the reason why, and that sure is always a good way for enlightenment: to question oneself. So I thought, I didn't like the look of the klingons in discovery, because they looked too unfamiliar, indeed they looked to ALIEN to me. And then I thought, that exactly that point I brilliant. The show managed not only that the klingons looked alien to the characters of the story, but that I myself felt alien towards them. So the show established, that the klingons looked truely alien to me, and that is a great accomplishment. I still don't like the look of the klingons in discovery, but if they would look as sweet and familiar as little sweet kitten, they wouldn't be klingons anymore, would they?

From what I learned this show is 1 where you really had to watch from the beginning. I tried to get into it but couldn’t

S1 was superb. Really well written. Should stuck to that style and tone. Season 3 started really well but the whole burn resolution being rushed spoiled the end. Should have left the burn as an ongoing mystery, focused on trying to spread the hope of a rebuilt Federation, and all the story opportunities of a post-burn galaxy that they set-up S3:E1-2. They also changed Burnham way too much. Her character was more interesting with all the fast talking Vulcan traits while discovering her humanity. Season 2 is great because of Pike and Spock. But the Red Angel thing always felt contrived. Never explained why the ship can’t just come back to their century. Control is destroyed so what’s the issue? Other than because that’s what the plot says. And of course, they needed to give the crew some more character development. They needed their own lead episodes.

Another excellent Star Trek video; thank you, Steve! You expertly, fairly, and perfectly encapsulated all of the things that worked and didn't work about Discovery, and reminded me - yet again - why I consider you a voice of reason among the online Star Trek community.

Is it a TV show if it does not air on TV?

my dream was that the series just follow burnham, and not the discovery. the first few episodes i imagined the series was gonna break the mold and create a show in the star trek universe that wasn't following a single ship.

The season 3 finale was a letdown because the buildup was so great?

I think this was a very fair review of Discovery. I really loved the series despite its flaws, and I wish we could have had it around a little longer because I really wanted to give them a chance to have that perfect season that didn't have those pacing issues described. I really hope some of these beloved characters from Discovery will show up on the new Starfleet Academy spin-off series. Tilly in particular is perfectly positioned to be at least reoccurring on it.

I'm a long-time subscriber, and I enjoy your videos. Now comes the "but". I know that tolerance and diversity are important for you. Therefore, I don't understand that you don't seem to consider that there might be people which have a hard time to keep their suspension of disbelief when the world looks completely different than they expect. It might not be a problem for you, but it might be a problem for others. It is a problem for me. I am a very visual person. I can't dive into the story as well when I constantly notice that this is a different world. What's the sense in using the franchise when you don't use its world?

Disco's pilot was my favourite of all of the Trek series. A XO mutiny so that the optimal outcome was achieved was an amazing opening. It's a shame it went on a wild ride since then. Season 1 was the best and it gradually got worse as time went on. I stopped in the middle of season 4, I was fatigued, and Prodigy and Lower Decks were satisfying my Trek needs.

Another show I'll never watch; but I have enjoyed Shives' passion about it. That's the legacy to me, I guess. More content from Shives. :D

I feel like the first video I watched of your was about fans saying that star Trek was contractually forced to be like 15% different from the old trek when it asked of a designer why things looked different.

Discovery has some of my favorite characters in the franchise, and some excellent episodes. I really wish they had been able to pace out season story arcs better than they did... It's why I prefer a show like SNW that's gone for a *mostly* story of the week focus. It's why one of my favorite series ever is Babylon 5 that had major story arcs, including one for the entire series, but was mostly filled with story of the week episodes.

I know you don't agree. Fair enough. But I do think some discussion of stuff like redesigning the Klingons and such is fair in an analysis of the show as a whole. The series was originally pitched as "10 years before kirk and spock" in the teaser advertisements. The main character is Spock's sibling. The creative team wanted to leverage and trade on the popularity of existing elements, so how well they executed on that intention is fair game for critique. The art department had a hard job to balance "make a cool looking new show" and "exploit nostalgia." They were never going to make everybody 100% happy no matter what they did. But things like the bald Klingons were a work of invention that set them back a bit with needing to spend time in the narrative getting existing fans used to something they were already used to, and that did set the show back a bit. It wasn't the end of the world. It wasn't murdering my childhood. But for a show whose business model was explicitly to make use of nostalgia for old stuff as the foundation for building on, it did stumble by annoying so many of the old nit pickers and generating negative headlines for themselves.

Steve mate, thank you for creating a channel that, as wars are raging and reactionary forces worldwide are ascending, is an important avenue for temporary consolation and escape that I don't have to make excuses for because the content is intelligent, respectful, unique, well written and honest. As if external threats multiplying out of control was not bad enough, I took one on the chin personally when I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, this time last year, at 49 yrs old. Since then I have undergone all of the treatments, and horrors, (and the treatment horrors) on offer by this disease. But, my point is, that having spent the better part of the year in bed, I have become a keen and ultimately kick-ass, appraiser of RU-vid talent. Thank you for the gifts of your writing and personal perspective, they've been a significant element of my recovery. Now, quit feeling sorry for me, and yourself, because we're getting through all of this together with our heads held high. Best wishes from Vancouver Island, Canada. Live long and prosper, Shives.

I struggled so much with the Burn I decided to ignore discovery as part of the prime timeline. I’m aware that it is officially, but I struggle with it because it essentially wipes the slate clean and undoes everything from the previous series’s. At least for me. Had the burn been the product of Discovery leaping forward in time and the remainder of the series been undoing that mistake to prevent it, even ending with Discovery adrift, I would have had a lot less issues with the series.

I had to get used to the Klingons. It felt like watching something I loved suddenly replacing an integral portion of it with something else I piked. Like replacing Sisko suddenly with James Spader only to have them slowly add make up to make him look like James Avery only to eventually just bring Avery back and pretend they never had Spader. I didn't say it was bad, it was just a struggle earlier on. As for the show as a whole, I came to discovery later than something thanks to the weird Orville vs. Trek conspiracy nonsense early on. Thankfully I realized who those voices really were and quickly abandoned that nonsense. I love Discovery from Episode 1. I'm currently doing a watch through of it with my wonderfully patient girlfriend and I'm seeing more to love through how she enjoys it.

Steve, very well done! I agree with you completely that the flaw of the Discovery is, with the exception of Saru, the lack of organic character growth. I think you might have given the writers too much credit that any of the other characters actually grew at all, in so much, that they were to a great extent forgettable or worse, unrelatable. Then there is Burnham. I totally understand that she is the lead character but it was a huge mistake to make her a Messiah level character where plot could not proceed without her intervention. That level of characterization almost has to remain static and that I believe is why I couldn't relate to her at all and laughed out loud at some of her solutions to solve an episode's plot. I do need to address your complaints about those who want new stories to follow canon. The producers of this show made a choice to slap the Star Trek name on the front of this show. There was nothing forcing them to make this choice except the almighty dollar. A stand alone show creating its own lore and canon is a risk no producer dares to take these days. Using the name Star Trek brings a lot of baggage both good and bad and I think that you see all signs of the early mistakes in the first two season eliminated by the jump ahead in time is an admission that they screwed up and couldn't remain in the 10 years before TOS time frame and tell a story. Personally, I think it's time for Hollywood to ditch Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who and the other IPs and start creating completely new content for the next generation.

Good assessment. Burnham seemed to be the victim of inconsistent writing.

Unfortunately-- nowadays, a serialized story arc IS the traditional format.

Years before this series aired, Bryan Fuller's previous creations, Dead Like Me and Pushing Daises were personal favorites. Knowing he started as a Trek writer and long-time fan, I hoped he would get a shot at the reboot. I got close to getting what I wanted, and what I think the show needed. If they wanted to set it near the Kirk era, they needed someone at the helm who knew that show well. But he's also known as a creative showrunner with his own style. Removing him was a mistake, in my opinion. But that's the timeline we live in.

I'm what I would call a little above a casual star Trek fan. And I even think they went too far with the redesign of the Klingons. It is so different than what came before that they look like a different alien all together. Human faces with eye brows to the forehead ridges is also a big jump. But it is more acceptable to me because the human faces were clearly just humans. So anything different was "alien" ... Also it was the first true alien look for them. And also ... I was born when they already looked that way haha. And I say a little more than casual because I watch videos like this. But I probably couldn't name more than one or two episodes. Can't name all the main casts. And such

We all stan Saru. I want to see him on Star Trek: Academy. At least as a guest lecturer. Jones brings such depth to him. One issue that many of the latest generation of Trek has is that the stakes are always huge. The existence of the federation/humanity/all life. I want to see different levels of challenges. The more episodic structure of Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks helps with both characterization and the scope of the plot.

I loved this show. It was my second favorite Trek series ever.

I found the first five episodes of season 1 for me to be very exciting and fresh. I liked that it was written as a tightly plotted "novel for television" set in the Star Trek universe without a comfortable status quo to fall back on. I liked that it focused on a character very different in her position and circumstances than anyone we'd seen in Star Trek before. I liked the sense of real danger in Lorca's amorality and the foreign-subtitled, very alien Klingons. I liked the mysteries and the theorizing they invited. I wish I could have seen more of that show. I gave up on the show midway through season 2, because I felt like it didn't have any of that focused intent anymore and was just kind of wasting my time with overlong meandering stupidity.

There was a great bottle episode featuring Detmer and Owosekun that we never got.

I think a good measure of how well a character works, is "can you do an impression of them"? I bet many people can do impressions of Saru or Tilly, but how to do an impression of Michael? No idea.

Bravo mister, you got me emotional and wanting to watch all over again!

I was frustrated with the lack of character development of some secondary characters, but I feel like there’s a big lesson there too. We often work with people and we don’t get to know them very well personally, and we kinda miss their awesomeness. I think they touched on this with the new commander in the last season. I thought he must have been from the same race as that mysterious woman captain Sisko fell in love with, and could do psychic projections. Another thing that I really liked, even if it doesn’t all age well, is how it made a big effort to incorporate different branches of pop-science, not just astrophysics. It was exciting to see tartergrades and a character called Paul Stamets. They made a weird thing that the real Stamets said into a whole new thing called the mycellial network. Popularizing scientific discoveries is so important, and discovery put that front and center in the premise. Sometime trek series barely even tried, voyager was the worst for sciency mumbo jumbo as a plot device. As we’re in a difficult time with scientific denialism, I think it’s important to get people excited about real science, and get back to basics about the difference between space opera and science fiction.

I loved this show and it was my second favorite Trek series of all. I'll miss it.

All Star Trek shows are part of the same franchise. So I would expect at least some commonalities in these shows. Of course everyone has different expectations to that and some people take it too far by acting like every Star Trek show has to be exactly the same. I welcome Star Trek making something different. But if a show called itself Star Trek without even mentioning one thing established in older shows (from something as simple as a warp core to cameos), I don't know why the show has to call itself part of a franchise if instead it could have been its own show without those expectations. And by no means am I saying that every Star Trek show needs only cameos, references to stuff from before and be pseudo sequels to past episodes and shows. But complety without those things it could be just another scifi show.

Discovery was my introduction to Star Trek and as such will always be the series i come back to. The characters are like family to me and rewatching old episodes feels like coming home

Firstly, love ya Steve, always have you provide some fasting insights and counterpoints to my own views. Secondly this feels like someone trying to guilt me into appreciating discovery, which I do but it's a weird feeling in one of your essays. The meat, I loved discovery, especially after I learned that my biggest problem was the chaotic slate that was the ham of burn. It has issues but overall it's good. See I kinda like cannon and a somewhat consistent universe in my shows but I also kinda dislike fanservice. Not as much as you but I'm actually suprised that you don't mind the spock backround for the main character.... i add it amongst the things that were shoved into the unstable taxi of a maim character that I felt the writers wanted to force me to love not grow to love. You do have a point about strange new worlds though.... touche. That being said I think the future setting for discovery was actually amaizing, I wish the episodes had more time to develope the uniqness of that future time but side stories are deffinatly a major part of what the show needed. Anyway, stay cool!

The Arium backstory is like Ortega backstory, she is a pilot and her life is revealed in little bites

I wonder if, twenty years from now, a throwaway line from a Klingon character saying they "do not discuss" the differences with Disco Klingons with outsiders will FINALLY shut up the whiners.

The reason I don’t like the argument that canon can be changed is that if you’re going to change a franchise’s canon, there are only three reasons you would do it: 1) you have envisioned a new canon so genius that it would work perfectly with the franchise’s preexisting ideology, 2) you’re lazy, and you want to create a new canon that’s less challenging to tell stories in, or 3) you have an active grievance against the ideology of the franchise, and want to change the canon to support an ideology that you like. I think Discovery oscillates between number two and number 3. At its best, it was just lazy with canon without adding anything new in its absence. At its worst, it had contempt for the ideology of Star Trek and wanted to change everything, just so it could challenge the notions of exceptionalism, duty, chain of command, etc. that the franchise was founded on. That *is* adding something new. But oh, how I wish they hadn’t.

This was a great video Steve and I enjoyed your review of the series a lot more that I ever enjoyed watching the series itself.

I actually loved the look of the Klingons. They finally made them truly alien, with aesthetics to match their cultrure and beliefs. Burnham might not have been very likeable at the beginning....but wasn't that the point? The amount of growth she went through over 5 seasons was insane comparaed to many legacy characters expressed by her acting chops! No...ALL of their acting chops are a level above every other series.

Steve shives. Just curious. Did you watch the star trek continues on you tube? I'd like to hear about it if so.

I wish I could give this video more likes. I really enjoyed this show and I appreciate how it was able to reboot Star Trek on TV but you really captured all of my complaints as well.

Counter-point to "Without Discovery none of those other projects would exist": without Discovery we might have had a whole different set of shows.

“The show revolves around Michael Burnham” is a problem that my partner and I have with the show, and not because she’s the protagonist but because she’s the only one who gets to be right or do things. And I’m not saying that it’s “not Star Trek” since it’s a lot more similar to the Original Series and Kirk in that regard, but when I watch TNG, one of my favorite things is how Picard doesn’t instantly know the right answer. One of the ways we learn about the other main/recurring characters is when Picard says, “Ok, we have a problem. What should we do?” And everyone goes around giving their advice about it, which Picard listens to. Burnham was competent and proved correct so often in ways I just didn’t find interesting. I’m still not sure what the lesson of the “Vulcan hello” mutiny was. Because it seemed like Burnham was correct about the warlike Klingons, but then punished for it. And the only difference with the rest of the show is she stopped being punished for being right all the time. I really dislike Discovery. I just never enjoyed watching it despite liking lots of things about it, like the jump into the future. That was a really brave shakeup of the status quo. Having a fully sentient ship was really interesting. The main “villain” species of Season 4 was a neat idea. But nothing seemed to matter compared to Michael Burnham’s personal story, which, to me, came at the expense of everything else. It’s nice that Burnham found love in the 32nd century, but why was everyone else still part of the crew instead of grieving the effective deaths of everyone they’d ever known? Why didn’t the ship being capable of solving every problem they had come up more often? I liked the look of the show a lot, but I would have loved to have had 20-30 episodes a season with this cast where we got to live with them and get to know them in much lower stakes. I like ensemble shows, and I like when the concerns are something more genuine than “the fate of the galaxy”. On the bright side, the fanfic writers are going to be eating for generations off of trying to fill in things about this show the canon never showed us.

I really enjoyed this review. Although I disagree with your tepid view of later seasons and of Michael Burnham, you discussing how Discovery's main cast is based across the ship (thereby giving less space to bridge crew characters) was especially informative for me looking back on the show, and for drawing threads between the 23rd & 32nd C. eras I remember as two different shows in my head.

I love the look of this show, *especially* what they did with the Klingons.

TOS was my introduction as a kid through the 70s. I have never been up on canon I know it exists, but not into it to such an extent I can't enjoy a sci-fi show. That is how I watched it, as a good well presented production of sci-fi. I too felt it to be clumsy at times, but it ticked a lot of the boxes for me. But best of all it gave us the spinoff of SNW. As you've rightly stated, if not for Discovery, there would be no SNW.

Mostly agree with you here Steve. I have two intertwined issues with the opening. Remember that Star Trek Into Darkness. They swore Cumberbatch was not Khan. But then he was. They did lie to us once. I get Discovery was made by different people, but it was all approved by Paramount so it's hard to separate them in this regard. So the different look of the Klingons, going unexplained (at that point?) was a shock that made people uneasy. If it was explained later I don't know because I haven't gotten to watch it. I could easily accept the explanation from Enterprise that they were a genetically modifiedFaction, and that would be hard to explain in the first couple episodes. But the point being, people were skeptical for reasons that weren't completely unfounded.

I was born in 1982, so "my" Star Trek was the motion pictures as a gateway drug followed by TNG and DS9. The movies have always been more accessable than the TV series. As an adult, I realize that the first seasons of TNG were quite inconsistent in their quality, but understanding Gene Roddenberry's vision of the futuristic utopia, I can kinda see it. DS9 was quite the departure from the proven concept laid down by TOS and TNG, but made it up by questioning and deconstructing Gene's initial world building. The serialization aspect came late to DS9 - and I think that's a good thing, since there has been enough time before to establish all the major characters in a natural, unstrained way. Come Voyager, it was painfully obvious that this series would not become good before the end of DS9. The overuse of the Borg in later seasons and the crowbarred series finale left a strange taste in my mouth. Enterprise I went in blind and just could not make it past episode three. Too much retcon, did not enjoy the overall style of the show. Of Nu Trek, I've watched Season 1 of Picard first, than SNW and Lower Decks. Picard felt lazy and uninsprired with a plot that could have been driven home with a two-parter from the old TNG days. SNW felt as fresh, yet familiar as intended, full score. Lower Decks is a super-nerdy and funny hommage to the whole of Star Trek, thumbs up here, too! Discovery I will probably never watch, especially after analyses like Steve's. He is basically stating that the story line is too cluttered, the main character too shallow despite being loaded with objectively interesting traits and backstory, and the relationships between the main characters are not being felt, only told. The diversity cast is the most diverse in Trek history - cool, but I've always taken that as a given from Star Trek. But what I expect even more is a reason that has nothing to do with that to actually engage with the show! I want to get to know multiple complex characters with their own arcs. I want to see their honest take on today's world in futuristic, alien scenarios and metaphors. Not their pretending to do so. So why would anyone of sound mind and working a fulltime job waste their free time with this half-assed attempt at Star Trek?