Star Trek Social Club

Most any criticism of the show is true. I will say that it is a good series to watch with people who haven't watched Star Trek before because it is a little un-Trek-ish and there is less to stop and explain. Also, since the mission is top secret it has little overlap with anything except SNW.

As a Star Trek fan, I was happy to get more Trek, the same as I was happy to get more Picard (that S2 was a pain though!), Lower Decks, Prodigy, and even the Short Treks.

My wife was pulled into the world of Star Trek by Discovery (a full 36 years after I'd started watching the franchise) and now she loves it and wants to watch all of the other series. So, Discovery gets a point for that.

(I haven't seen Section 31 yet. It is supposed to be very bad.)

Eh, it's ok. I'd definitely rank it below many other Star Trek series, but if you've seen all the better ones already then Discovery is worth a watch

Discovery is fine and at the time it was the only modern Trek we had so there’s that, it’s enough for me to like it.

The only problem I had with it is that every season is "OMG we have to save the all fucking universe!", other than that it’s cool.

Then we had Strange New Worlds so my thirst for "let’s just explore that funny planet and have a drink at the mess" Trek was satisfied.

I still watch discovery because ‘spaceships goes piou piou piou eat my phaser’ and that’s what I want it to be.

Seen it recently myself, about a couple years ago, never watched before, and it's ok. I enjoyed it.

Don't read too much into the comments, just watch it, of you don't like it stop watching it.

For me it's worthy, i have warched at this moment all ST except TOS, I tried it and I can't.

I think Discovery is perfectly OK Star Trek. However, because it had a few changes in show runners things progress very strangely.

Season 1 is a 10 hour movie. I liked it for doing something different, and thought the plot twist was interesting.

Season 2 starts off good, but then jumps the (metaphorical) shark at the end.

Season 3 thru 5 starts to feel more like traditional Star Trek, just with wacky doom's day scenario in the background until it's resolved at the end of the season. It honestly feels too formulaic, but I thought Season 4's ending was fantastic, some of the middle stuff was a mixed bag.

Anyway, I still think you should watch it. It's perfectly adequate. Didn't make me throw up at all.

Stop at Season 2 and it's an ok time.

I really liked parts of it...from themes to characters...but found it really hard to sit through, most of the time. They had a really annoying way of rehashing everything that happened, after-the-fact...as if we needed to be constantly reminded about details that were literally from ten minutes ago.

It reminded me of the dialogue formats used in cheesy Mexican telenovelas. You can't mention someone's name, without also including a brief description of who they are related to, and what they've previously done. No one talks like that in real life. Especially when the person you're talking to, was right there with you when that event took place.

If you remove all the superfluous dialogue, then the actual length of each episode, was less than 20 minutes.

Discovery is fine overall.

It may not be everyone’s favourite Trek but NO SINGLE SHOW IS EVERYONE’S FAVOURITE.

I’m stooping to yelling because, looking at it as someone who saw TOS in first run, it really can’t be stressed enough that there needs to be new Trek for every generation.

I didn’t expect that our GenZ kids would like Voyager best of the older shows.

And yes, for one of our GenZs, Discovery season one is ‘the best season of Trek’ ever. They have rewatched all the seasons of the show more than I have.

Discovery season 5 was fine in my view. I wasn’t fond of the series epilogue tacked on to the finale.

Season 4 of Discovery has a better premise and structure than Picard season 2 but both seem to suffer terribly from being shot under COVID restrictions. Other shows managed to write around the limitations without such stilted and drawn own scenes. I don’t know what Paramount instructed its writers teams be it’s boggling to see these seasons against the rest now.

I watched all of Discovery. It's different, a bit too touchy-feely at times for me. But, the stories are interesting and wild.

OTH, I liked all of Picard, so maybe you shouldn't take my view into account.

It’s constant flawed buildup to a promise of something just around the corner the might actually be good, that not only never ever delivers on that promise, but pulls the rug out from under you more if ten than not, rather than just providing the payoff that you probably want (I lately keep thinking back to the Klingon War)

I liked it though it did feel that the series had a tendancy to take itself maybe too seriously. Trek is best when it knows when to keep things on the lighter side and/or create ongoing gags and themes to call back to during the series. Discovery didn't really feel like it had much of that.

Despite that it was still a good watch IMO. Burnham tended to be at the center of the series though the other characters do get interesting when they got more time. You should just give it a watch and decide for yourself.

Also if you want to know the backstory of Star Trek Strange New Worlds you'll want to watch at least some Discovery, SNW is a spin-off.

And giving credit where it's due, Discovery was the first of what became a whole bunch of new Trek shows that came out afterwards. If Discovery was that bad then none of the other newer Trek shows would have even made it to air. Before Discovery it had been a while since any new Trek shows had appeared, at some point the Star Trek universe needs new blood to keep things going. Else it's just going to be older people talking about the original Star Trek series and TNG and it'll just be something that used to exist a long time ago.

i loved picard and discovery the only bad thing about picard is that it made me remember watching tng every saturday at my dads house and he would of loved it.

The worst Trek is still better to watch than a heck of a lot of other TV

i would watch all of the above. with discovery at the very least the first four seasons, because S2 is a backdoor season 0 of strange new worlds and S4 rocks but needs the context of the first 3. it can be very uneven but i don't think it gets bad as often as Picard did and doesn't stay bad for as long as Picard does. Enterprise is similar, a rough-at-times ride that does really pay off in S3

you're only gonna watch one, though, i'd do strange new worlds. it's essentially a return to the TOS/TNG format and has a stellar cast. and frankly you don't need to watch disco S2 to fully know what's going on, they explain everything- i only watched disco after snw S1 left me hungry for more. SNW is seemingly unique among trek shows in that every season has been less well recieved than the last, partly because the short seasons are increasingly dedicated to gag episodes, but i'd say with the exception of one particular stinker in S3, a weaker SNW episode is still gonna be better than most shows at their best

but also- you're your own person and may walk away from all of these series feeling someghing different! no harm on trying and if you hate something hey, it only cost you 40 minutes of your life

Discovery is my least preferred star trek I've watched so far, I mean, it's not "bad" per se, it's just different from the rest of star trek and has a different formula.

The thing with discovery is that everything happens really fast, there's always a sense of urgency and hurry, but actual plot development happens really slowly.

Conflict takes a whole season to resolve, instead of standard one episode which you expect from a star trek show.

Also, I hate how the actors mumble instead of talking.

It's not bad, it's just not my favourite format.

Discovery was never bad. It's just different. Some people say it's not what Trek is about.

1. Star Trek has always been about captains exploring. Deep Space Nine challenged that with a commander; Sisko later made captain, but the station itself only moved in the pilot (closer to the wormhole; it's always been in Bajor's orbit) and maybe one other time? But they did plenty of exploring in the Runabouts, and Defiant, the ship they got later. But essentially the action came to them, and that was fine. Discovery is not about a captain. Michael Burnham is a... commander? I forget. On the original ship. Then she's nobody. She gets promoted up but she almost never leads, but the show focuses on her. It's... weird. (And she's a woman... named Michael... pronounced the same as the male name... and this is never explained.)

2. Star Trek has always been about diversity, but Discovery had a gay couple in an openly sexual relationship. It never showed sex between them, but plenty of kissing and intimacy. Discovery also had a non-binary character with they/them pronouns. And as mentioned, a woman named Michael, but she's cisgendered and straight, so that's not why she has a guy's name. Anyway, some people thought it was a few bridges too far.

3. Star Trek has almost always been wholesome. Deep Space Nine pushed the envelope, and while it showed Sisko doing some very bad things, profanity was never part of it, and the violence was mostly PG. Discovery was on streaming, so they had profanity and R-rated violence. There may have even been some mild nudity, I don't recall. This put off a lot of traditional fans.

4. Before Deep Space Nine (i.e. The Original Series and The Next Generation), Star Trek has always been episodic. DS9 introduced arcs, but each episode still had its own identity, and this was true through Enterprise. But each season was its own thing on Discovery, and no one episode really stood alone.

Points 3 and 4, and to some, point 2, put off some older, "traditional" Trekkers who felt that Discovery was made for the younger generation and was not "for" them. And I can dig it. I mean, it does follow the recent-ish films where the ships are flashy, not tacky with their tech. (Keep in mind, the ships were always flashy for their time! It's just, we cling to the old designs and the newer, flashier one just seems excessive, but now, the newer, flashier one is dull in comparison to the ones that have followed it.)

As for Picard, that was purely a sequel to The Next Generation (and to a lesser extent, Voyager, because of Seven of Nine). It was a love letter to the fans of that show, those shows. As purely its own thing, it's a weaker Trek entry, but for those of us who grew up with 80s/90s Trek, it was good closure since the movies were neglecting those characters. Another such show might be Prodigy, which is a more direct continuation of Voyager, but Prodigy stood on its own better with its original cast. Picard's original cast was not very good, but very forgettable.

Back to Discovery, it's very much its own thing, set both before TOS and after anything else (minor spoilers — plot device allows them to swerve around any continuity problems). It did launch Strange New Worlds, which Trekkers seem to like more than Discovery, as that is a straight TOS prequel, showing the (movies/newer) original Enterprise under Captain Pike, who was captain before Kirk. Spock's in it, too. (I have yet to watch SNW, but I plan to. I just finished Prodigy and I like to space them a bit.) Discovery also launched Section 31, the streaming-only movie, which is about as bad as you've heard. The less said about that one, the better — if you want to watch it, you should, and you should do so without worrying what Internet People think about it. It's still Star Trek, albeit some of the weakest Trek out there.

Personally, I rate Discovery above ENT but below Voyager. I have a hard time deciding whether Discovery or Prodigy is better. Prodigy was a computer-generated anime that aired on Nickelodeon and that all sounds bad, but it was actually very good. It might seem at first that Kate Mulgrew (Janeway/Hologram Janeway) is there to prop the cast up, but they all shine so brightly, they don't really need her as much as they think. I liked TNG, DS9, and VOY all better than STD and... whatever we're abbreviating Prodigy to (PRO? STP?). As a child of the 80s, TOS is a bit dated for me, but the stories were so good... that's another one that is hard to place for me.

I recommend you watch it, but if you do, you have to finish the season. You can't drop it mid-season, and if you do, you can't judge it, because the individual episodes aren't meant to be watched on their own. It's meant to be binged. That said, you can safely stop at the end of any season. I won't say it gets worse, but each season made me wonder if it was really necessary, including the first one. Because no, it isn't. Discovery is not necessary for... anything... in the Star Trek universe. It's not really connected. Even Strange New Worlds... they ran into the Enterprise in the beginning of the second season, but then they went away. So yeah, you can safely watch SNW without Discovery and you'd be fine. I do think the first season was good, as far as action Trek goes. And you can stop there, but with the way it ends... you won't. Season 2 was okay, a good mystery, and you can stop there, but you still may want to see what comes next. After that, I think the quality does take a bit of a dive, but then they're in the far future, and you just wanna see more and more of what's left of Starfleet in the future. And it's good enough to stick with. But never necessary. And that's probably the "worst" thing I can say about it.