Discovery to end with Season 5

eadrom

Well sure. Fair enough.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/star-trek-discovery-season-5-end-1235339464/

AMKC

YES!!!! GOOD. Only about 2 seasons too late. Should have ended after season 3.

Now maybe they can put the resources wasted on that to good use.

A new show on a new ship in the 25th or 26th century even.

TheIrishGrover

Oh thank God

TheValeyard

Its for the best.

TheIrishGrover

You do know though that season 5 will be 100% internal monologue. While she walks through the ship in slow motion with swirling camera angles as the rest fawn over her

Spear

It's for the best at this point. SNW will be the poster boy for Trek now. I presume something new will quickly take up the slot.

PhiloCypher

I think with the demand for vfx artists in the industry its just not possible for them to have 3 live action shows on the go for any length of time and still get them out on a regular schedule. So they're ending Discovery to make way for the inevitable 7 of 9 Titan spinoff and/or Worf centered section 31 spinoff .

Not watched it since season 3. I can really think of one episode of those 3 seasons that stood out as really enjoyable, which was a time shifting one.

I wont miss it.

cagefactor

great news. a terrible show with a terrible lead actor with some of the worst acting and writing ever in star trek. For me, this show is not cannon and should be retconned from everyone's memories.

Evade

I don't know if it will be replaced, CBS have reduced their streaming budget. The Star Trek Academy series sounds like it'll be very gen zed.

Rawr

Ah…so sense does exist at some level in that organization. As others have said, Season 3 should have been the finale (and even seemed to be framed like one), and this final 5th season smacks them running out of ideas / resources to keep this going.

I honestly thought they’d limp on for another two seasons. Season 6 would probably chronicle how Michael single-handedly brings The Dominion in to the Federation while Season 7 covers how she’s made Federation President, because why not it’s Michael.

Any bets on Michael dying in the final episode to save the entire Trek multiverse, thus cementing herself as Trek’s most important character? That or she’ll live and threaten to pop up in cameo at any moment in future Trek.

Mav11

Great news. Worst ever!

Rawr

Now that we know it’s over (unless Murphy’s Law somehow reverses this) I guess it is time to consider the legacy of this show.

Some people might credit it as the show the got Trek back on TV, but I am of the view that the JJ Movies are more deserving of this credit and that Discovery merely rode the wave that these films generated as well as the promise to bring us back to the established Trek time-line we had known for years.

But there I think lies the main problem with Discovery. It was born of JJ Trek and looked like it belonged to that universe, but then pivoted to be part of the TOS Trek world we were used to. It felt like a show that was unsure of what exactly it was supposed to be, and instead of making it’s mind up it reacted to audience whims.

• Burnhams wooden Vulkan-lite performance was recieved poorly, so they went the opposite way turning her into an emotional wreck.
• The fans complained about continuity, so they threw the show into the distant future that didn’t really work either.
• A lack of focus on the rest of the crew resulted them stopping several times during Season 4 episodes to give the extended crew screentime. But the way they did that was artificial and dragged the episodes down.

The show just reacted to the audience in an admirable yet alas talentless attempt to make Trek that the fans would happily consume.

Finally, they attempted to make a Trek show built around a single character, which in theory should work, but required excellent writing, casting and directing to make that one character work….and they failed on all three counts. Discovery is essentially the “Soniqua Martin-Green SCI-Fi Hour” and alas she hasn’t the range to be the singular focus of a show like this. She normally plays supporting characters and my guess is she won’t be headlining a show again after Discovery. The showrunners should have identified this problem earlier and addressed it, but they didn’t. They doubled down and made it that much harder to get behind this show.

We do owe Discovery thanks for having more Trek on TV, but alas I feel that is it not due to it doing a good job. I feel that Lower Decks was made as almost a reaction to Discovery, highlighting classic TNG-era stylings possibly even showing what Burnham might have been if written correctly in the form of Mariner. Strange New Worlds exists as a reaction to one of the few highlights of Discovery with the reintroduction of Pike and the pre-TOS Enterprise crew. This was an escape from the Michael-centric slant of Discovery and people wanted more. Finally, Picard appears to exist as a definitve answer to something Discovery was not really good at answering..."Is this the same Trek universe as before?" Having a show about Picard seemed like a solid way to answer that, and like many I was excited by this. But again...that was in spite of Discovery and their dancing on the border of JJ-Trek and what we had before. All of these shows came about thanks to Discovery's failures.

It should now remain as yet another example of a wasted chance to do something new & interesting with Trek. I hope it serves as an example of what not to do when you wish to continue a show like Trek and that future TV folk can learn from this.

Greyjoy

I think in a similar manner to Enterprise that Discovery course corrected its storyline too late. In its 4th season Enterprise finally focused on the idea of bringing together the different TOS alien races and founding the Federation. Likewise the jump to the far future in S3 is where Discovery should have started. They could have still started in the pre-TOS era and have the ship jump to the far future as a mishap with the spore drive.

_Kaiser_

Great news. Gave up after they made Burnham "Space Jesus" in S2, and that she was the reason Spock reached out to humans and eventually formed the bond with Kirk and McCoy we all love from TOS etc

Then there was other nonsense like Tilly. Saru was about the only good thing/actor in the show.

Won't be missed. Several years too late but better late than never I guess!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120309098#Comment_120309098

Making Michael Spocks half sister was the biggest slap in the face to "real" trek fans.

eadrom

Spock’s sister.

The “Klingons”.

”I sense the coming of death “ 🙄

The cartoon mirror universe.

Redemption arc for space-Hitler.

So 😭 much 😭 crying 😭.

“the power of math!”

Spore drive.

the purge or the event or the whatever that crying child caused in the future future

just… ugh. Cancel it. Put it in a box. Bury the box. Let us never speak of it again.

TheIrishGrover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120309218#Comment_120309218

And you know what? (IMHO) SOME of that actually had the potential to be pretty interesting. And was even handled interestingly.... Partially:

• I actually did like the interaction with Spock and Burnham and Sarek and Burnham... When they weren't fawning over her. I thought Sarek's portrayal was fantastic (If a bit TOO cool-for-school). And, let's face it, it gave us SNW. So that's GOTTA count for something. While Pike, Spock and Number One turning up smacked of desperation, they (The SNW crew) knocked it out of the park........ But then this drew attention away from Burnham and they abandoned that to focus on her mam so she could cry...
• I actually quite liked the Klingons. And thought that V'oq was great. Shazad Latif spoke it like a language as opposed to just. one. word. after. another. His internal conflict was interesting and well portrayed....... but then only ONE person can have internal conflict so... "NEXT"
• ”I sense the coming of death “ ..... No comment
• The MU. As I have said elsewhere, I hate hate HATE the MU. It is over-used and too silly and campy to take any way seriously. I immediately liked Jason Isaacs' character 'cos he was an interesting, harder take on what a captain probably really should be. He was harsh but had the loyalty of his crew 'cos he was doing what he thought needed to be done in dire situations.... PLUS, He was Jason-goddamn-Isaacs!!!! (Hello to Jason Isaacs)...... Then Mirror Universe and they dialed the camp up to 11 and I lost interest...
• I love Michelle Yeoh. I thought she was great in the first episode then.... Yeah, see above...
• Yeah, the crying. Jesus...
• “the power of math!”... I cringed so hard I broke a tooth 😀...
• I liked the concept of the Spore Drive and liked the initial execution. This was experimental and each jump was a risk. Was a game of odds. It was not something to be taken lightly as you ran the risk of ending up part of the ship. By the end: "We need milk! Black Alert" "Captain, we have milk. And the shop is over there anyway" "I said BLACK ALERT. Oh GOD I'm so conflicted. Let's Fly"...
• Sad alien destroys warp... I mean... What?

Burnham at this stage (For anyone who has watched Avatar (The REAL one)

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308066#Comment_120308066

She already is in charge of a new section of Federation politics that has total veto and oversight of the President.

Not surprised it's finished. The 32nd century stuff felt like it was going nowhere.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120309218#Comment_120309218

Spore drive would have been fine if it wasn't a prequel show.

Klingons were good early on. Only turned shte when Clem Fandango turned out to be one and it focused on that terrible female Klingon.

So many terrible plots and pointless decisions though.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120319393#Comment_120319393

The mis-use of the Spore Drive sort of broke the whole concept of the show for me. As you wrote, as a risky last-minute desperate move it seemed interesting. But they spore-jumped so often I don't really remember the ship ever being at warp. On that note, was Main Engineering ever shown? By the time I stopped watching after Season 3 I do not remember them going there once. I assumed the ship had a warp drive, otherwise those gignantic naycelles are just silly.

The spore-drive also introduced the word "Mycelial" to Trek technobable which I feel like they swung around like a plot hammer whenever they needed an excuse for the Discovery to factor into anything. Sort of their take on "Sub-space" I guess.

I do also miss Jason Issacs, I feel that his precence was a lingering echo of the much better Trek show that was originally planned before the production got handed over to talentless f*ckwits.

ednwireland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120307793#Comment_120307793

same as should have ended then , don't think I even finished season 3.

no loss

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120319699#Comment_120319699

This too. It's so far removed from the Trek we consumed before it's very hard to get invested in the Future Federation or Future Starfleet (a better uniform & comm badge might have helped).

In fairness, TNG started with a new expanded Trek world that TOS viewers had to get used to and that many initially hated. But with TNG they put the effort in to build the TNG-era Trek world into something that Trekkies would later even tune into Voyager to revisit. 32-Century Alpha Quadrant appears bereft of any of the character and I had a very hard time caring about any of it.

I could however see myself watching some more Trek post-Picard. 1000 years seems to be plenty of room to keep Trek rolling without going near this mess of a timeline.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120319929#Comment_120319929

Once they took out the consequence that it was killing Stamets the spore drive became a pointless feature. Like wow they could jump anywhere instantly but in fairness Trek was always flimsy with warp anyway and for the purpose of a TV show the traveling was instant thanks to fade outs.

Season 1 had potential. Started off on the wrong foot with Michael Sarek the first ever mutineer and ended terribly with the MU. But in the middle there when it was Lorcas quest to win the war by any means it was good.

PhiloCypher

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120319983#Comment_120319983

The Spore drive took the Discovery out of Discovery, 80% of ship based Trek had the ship Discovering new species or anomalies just warping from place to place. The spore drives instantaneous travel robbed them of that opportunity.

TheValeyard

I think the magic Tardis turbolifts also helped kill the show.

Evade

I think not having the mycelial network be a metaphor was the beginning of the end. Putting some kind of limit on the spore drive in general would have helped like if it had a minimum jump distance or something.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120319393#Comment_120319393

I actually quite liked the Klingons. And thought that V'oq was great. Shazad Latif spoke it like a language as opposed to just. one. word. after. another. His internal conflict was interesting and well portrayed....... but then only ONE person can have internal conflict so... "NEXT"

What Klingons? There was no Klingons in STD only Klignots a totally different alien race altogether and a rather stupid one too. Everything about them was the opposite to Klingons. Once a Klingon is dead Klingons do not care for the body for it is just an empty shell now. But these had ships with all their dead body's on them like wtf was that about. Klingons would never do that.

They also had really stupid looking ships.

The less said about this rubbish the better. Just let it die please.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322537#Comment_120322537

Shte talk like "klignots" and childish edgelord STD stuff was one of the most annoying things about the whole experience that was Discovery.

It has so much wrong with it but you couldn't have a decent conversation about it.

Also you seriously need to learn what " is for.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120322901#Comment_120322901

Also you seriously need to learn what " is for.

For the World is not what you say it is.

I will use for for however I feel like it. What are you a Word Nazi?

For is For whatever I feel like it is for.

Or maybe you would prefer fir.

Evade

Can we stop using the word edgelord for things like calling DSC STD and keep it reserved for actually spicy jokes?

TheIrishGrover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120323098#Comment_120323098

I thought edgelord was something to do with that "Forged in Fire" show...

Mitch Connor

I liked the show well enough, though always felt the last episode or two where they revealed the actual source of the problem was a major let down. 'The Burn' cause... uuuugggghhhhhh.

Evade

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120324004#Comment_120324004

It's generally meant for jokes on the edge of good taste or public acceptability.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120324101#Comment_120324101

I felt this was a persistent problem in Discovery and at least the first 2 season of Picard.

Kind of smacked of not only bad writing, but also bad overall planning of the story arc. They'd always seem to rush to the conclusion in a way that negates the entire season.

• DIS S1: Klingon War! (Resolved last minute by bomb iPad)
• DIS S2: Mysterious Red Angel! (It's Burnham, because reasons)
• DIS S3: Warp destoryed, Federation in bits, need to find Starfleet. (Finds Starfleet...barely an inconvience, makes space-kid feel better. Everything fine in last 10 minutes)

I could go on, but you get the idea. They just didn't know how to finish. I am somewhat tempted to watch the final episode of this. By now I know that I don't actually need to watch Season 5 itself since they'll just fill it with the usual nonsense and cram everything plot-related into the end. It will interesting to see if they know how to finish this, or if they are true to form and can't even do a finale right.

flazio

They're going to rename the Discovery "Enterprise" and end the series with Michael being "the first woman to" deliver the "Space, The Final Frontier..." speech aren't they? 😐

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120307637#Comment_120307637

She will also be crying. She constantly has tears in her eyes. I heard people calling it Cry Trek :)

Yoshitsune

I'm more surprised that the show lasted long enough for a season 5. I wonder what will be next for the Star Trek franchise. Will there be a resurgence or will be cursed with bad writers?

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120651563#Comment_120651563

Picard S3, SNW and Lower Decks give me some hope that the mistakes made on Discovery have helped them learn for future Trek projects.

Discover really felt like it was supposed to close on Season 3, but I suspect the need to keep their production roster full kept it going past that point. Season 5 wasn’t even supposed to be the finale, and got pushed to be reshot as one. I still think they would have tried for 7 seasons if whatever prompted them to pull it hadn’t happened.

The fact that this got to Season 5 is an insult to Enterprise.

Saw Doug Drexler take a swipe at Discovery (and s1&2 of Picard) today.

Brannon and Braga are on record as not being fans and that they've ditched Roddenberry's vision.

Previous cast members have come out questioning new trek while liking SNW, Picard S3, and even Lower Decks

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120652297#Comment_120652297

Which cast members ?

pixelburp

Looks like this is getting an April 2024 release, for those still watching and wanna see it to the end.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120746188#Comment_120746188

Christ cant remember now but it was one of the Shuttlepod Show interviews.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448063#Comment_121448063

I, literally, know no one interested in it. It's astounding how it's gone.

It's, honestly, going to be the Poochie of Trek. It'll never be mentioned again, in universe, I feel

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448071#Comment_121448071

Yet in the article I saw the announcement, it had a myriad of fans declaring how they loved the show, "warts and all", so there are fans. Albeit those seemingly admitting it has flaws, to put it charitably, and are intentionally looking past them all.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448088#Comment_121448088

There's the idiotic "All Trek is Good Trek" groups too. As if we should be praising the Koala for scraps and all criticism must have an agenda.

No, Discovery was/is just badly written TV

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448165#Comment_121448165

Agreed, the rabidity of certain fans isn't ever an accurtate barometer of the quality of a show. I think it's fair to say in the face of this much - almost widespread - criticism, Discovery isn't simply divisive, it's (objectively?) badly, badly, written.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448165#Comment_121448165

To be fair, I was that for a while cos I think on balance Discovery had potential. But talk about squandered potential.

Also, we don't know how many younger watchers are coming at Trek from the 2009 onwards and only know Pew Pew Trek? If all you know are superficial thrills Disco might tick your boxes.

Great news terrible show.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448193#Comment_121448193

It definitely has a big following of fans who really love it but what it doesn't seem to have is fans who kinda like it. All the other Treks would be described as at least watchable regardless of your favourite but Discovery is the only one people who don't love it can't stand it.

Fans aren't really a good barometer of a show. A look at the top grossing TV shows will tell you that. I do think the fact that the Discovery team didn't even have enough faith in the show to stop constantly changing it is a very interesting barometer.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448302#Comment_121448302

Yea, you could almost describe Discovery as Star Trek’s Marmite. It’s one of those things where you have total love or total hatred for it. Although for moderate souls for myself, not «total hatred» but lack of love for the show, and without that love I seem to have no patience for it either. Without patience the mistakes they make are harder to ignore and quicker to irritate.

I also agree that it is telling that they had to keep retooling the show’s concept. This is something they appeared to have nailed down early in the production of previous Trek shows:

• TNG: Essentially TOS, but 100 years later with updated tech.
• DS9: Political thriller set on a remote outpost.
• VOY: TOS again, putting a ship in unexplored space, but with a twist of them also trying to get back to Earth.

Discovery on the other hand:

• DIS S1 (Take 1): Antology series of various Trek characters, starting with a mutineer named Burnham
• DIS S2 (Take 2): Crap, we had to change production staff! How about we just run with our first antology idea for as long as we can? Kay?
• DIS S2: People like Spock right? Lets make Burnham his sister, then they’ll like her too! Also I suppose a TOS crossover will shut up those compaining fans?
• DIS S3: Damn it! Alight, how about this, we put the show in the future? Then the fans are happy about canon. Also people are complaining about Burnham being wooden, so lets make her cry alot. Also lets copy the concept of Voyager for very short while.
• DIS S4: People still don’t like Burnham?! Fine, we’ll make her Captain, then they’ll love her. Bad guy for the season? Emm….guess we could copy V’Ger from TMP?
• DIS S5 (Take 1): I dunno anymore…they are in a race to find space treasure. Get Burnham to «surf» on the ship or something. If we get her to do dangerous stuff surly they like her then?
• DIS S5 (Take 2): Cancelled?! Dammit, reshoot stuff to make our stupid space treasure race seem more important to a finale…somehow.