Discovery to end with Season 5

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121498376#Comment_121498376

It shows. The writers on Discovery have no business doing what they're doing.

pixelburp

Nothing wrong with being a fan of something - just helps if primarily you're a good, competent writer who knows basic story structure and screenwriting. Look at Mike McMahan after all for a Fan who did well.

Which remains Disco's primary crutch: the writers are singularly and spectacularly untalented people.

TheIrishGrover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121498376#Comment_121498376

I did not know that.

That... explains SO MUCH!!!

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121499335#Comment_121499335

McMahan is a fan of and parodies the most popular era of Trek which helps (as well as being a better writer)

The Disco crowd are fans of a small little pocket of non canon fandom (which they are desperate to canonise). They are from the very early Trek forum days and if you hang out somewhere like TrekBBS there are older posters who actually remember them. At times they are literally writing to please their friends by putting some 90s fan fic shop or idea into canon. Enterprise F from STO had no reason to be in PIC except to give it that 5 seconds so it's canon and me for the refit NX-01. Feeling the need to explain Picard's accent is straight out of nerdy forum debates too.

Bobtheman

I thought seasons 1-3 were not that bad but the 4th season was terrible beyond belief

There was a failure to develop characters and a patent lack of heterosexual white males. The introduction of pike was a breath of fresh air.

I'm not watching season 5 even if I was stuck in solitary confinement and that was the only show to watch.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121753162#Comment_121753162

Lower Decks has 1 heterosexual white male. SNW has 2 and Prodigy has none.

DS9 only had 1 heterosexual white male.

That's only a problem in your head.

pixelburp

Oh dear, won't someone please think of the poor heterosexual white males.

Bobtheman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121753257#Comment_121753257

You are completely missing the point. I'm only talking about Discovery. It had barely any for most of its run. It went out of its way to virtue signal practically every other group. I hope I didn't offend your woke sensibilities! But I only clearly talked about Discovery-you got up on a high horse a tad too quickly on that one and took it right round the ST franchise. Impressive

Bobtheman

A series should try to represent all humanity in its various forms, but Discovery was bizarre in not having any hetero males for a long time.It was unnatural. If, say, it had been full of them, then you young uns would have been up in arms. If, say, there were no gay or black characters? Even though statistically, that is more likely than less likely in the USA where these shows originate. You could easily end up working in a place with no gay or black people.

pixelburp

Statistically there are 0% Kelpiens in the USA too. Big Woke gone mad I say.

flazio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121753257#Comment_121753257

I agree with your sentiment but weren't both Bashir and O'Brien HWM?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121754966#Comment_121754966

Bashir was played by Alexander Siddig (went by Siddig El Fadil in early seasons and his name according to Wikipedia is Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abdurrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi). The characters parents were both played by Asian or Asian heritage actors too.

Even O'Brien despite being a "HWM" was a welcome minority in Trek for being a genuinely non American character and actor which is something I hate about the very Hollywood California sounding modern Trek.

Cookie_Monster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121755016#Comment_121755016

I'm guessing he's giving Bashir a pass as Alexander Siddig is half Sudanese.

As for lower decks: Boimler, Shax, Ransom...

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121755037#Comment_121755037

It all gets a bit confusing... if we are counting non humans eg Bajorans what about Odo and Quark!

This really is angels dancing on the heads of the pin territory...

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121755037#Comment_121755037

Although Shax is Bajoran, and Boimler is half Ribena :P

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I couldn’t give a fiddlers about the demographic makeup of my Trek cast. The whole lot could be Latina Lesbians for all I care and all I’d really care about are the characters and their writing. Discovery can tick off whatever boxes they want, and people can focus on race and gender all day long if they want, but at the end of the day I just want well written Trek, and Discovery failed in that.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121755037#Comment_121755037

Ya I was only thinking of the main 4 in Lower Decks. Mariner is a black, bisexual woman and no one cares which to me only reinforces the point that all this white man crap has nothing to do with why Discovery is terrible. Mariner is also part of an argument I have made plenty of time.es before in regards to Discovery not actually being all that progressive at all.

To be honest I should have said nothing to that other poster because there is no point with people who cry about "woke" and all that shte

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121754213#Comment_121754213

The problem is not that there are not enough heterosexual white males. The problem is that it's a badly written bad show. If they lobbed in a few more white straight lads it would still be a badly written bad show.

Bobtheman

Look I agree it was a badly written show and that's the main thing.

We will agree to disagree about the variety of character types. Personally, I think it matters in terms of story delivery or story construction but we won't agree on this one.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121756467#Comment_121756467

We can certainly agree to disagree, and I do appriciate the civil discourse of this. I would certainly disagree that the variety of character race & gender matters at all when delivery or building a story. Character is key, and if a production can manage to create good, engaging personalites; then it really doesn't matter too much about the rest. Beckett Mariner was mentioned earier, who despite ticking off a number of "quota" points comes across as a well built character. The quota elements are there, but they are only an addition to an already fleshed out and bolted together personality.

Similarly, we don't obsess over Sisco being the "Black Captain". We see him as the occasional war-criminal who has a thing for baseball, cooking and beating the crap out of The Dominion with his Anti-Borg Revenge Ship. Janeway isn't the "Woman Captain", she's the Coffee-Addict Harry Kim Torturer with a flexable relationship with the Prime Directive. There's enough character in both that we don't pay any attention to gender or race. They are "Sisco" and "Janeway", and their writing made them so in our minds.

One thing I might advise you, or to anyone who puts too much truck into the race or gender of a show's cast is to try to not focus on that. I firmly believe that in the last decade that some production companies have gotten into the habit of "diversity hires" in the hope that everyone will focus on that and not on the quality of their work. They may hope to gleen unearned support from people who care about diversity in media, while at the same time gain an automatic defense to any critism by blaiming it on racism / sexism / homophobia. Even valid critiques could be dismissed on this basis since they can bank on actual racists creating enough noise to make this seem feasible.

What they may not want you to do, is to examine a show on its merits. Is it well written or not? Is it well produced / directed, or not? When that happens enough they might actually do a *good job* when they produce a show. This is all I ever hope for, and when I see it I appriciate even more, espeically these days.

pixelburp

About the only time the relative diversity of a cast approached anything that consciously poked me in the brain was Wheel of Time: where a supposed backwater, 100-kilometres-from-nowhere village had a surprising & convenient level of ethnic diversity. But then main characters, who themselves were diverse and probably the reason for the village's Benetton break down, left the village after episode 1 - and I never really thought about it again.

And so it goes with any other show: yeah they're all broadly diverse these days, but so what? My ability to empathise or relate to a character's motivations, problems or arcs aren't dependent on me sharing their ethnicity, sexuality or gender. And given American TV's former insistence on casting generic white college-football dropout guys or bottle-blonde women in their leads, it's nice to look at a broader palette of appearances just for the sake of a bit of variation.

Even the white people in American TV shows never looked like people I saw on the street so the grumble is weird - it's why someone like Barry Keoghan is such a breath of fresh air 'cos he looks normal. Maybe too normal, lol.

Plus, speaking as a redhead I don't think I've EVER had the luxury of linking my enjoyment to a lead having pale skin & red hair; closest I got was Amy Pond in Doctor Who, and even then there was a limit cos I look like many things, but NOT Karen Gillan (regrettably?); and since then she has spent most of her time in blue makeup as Marvel's nebula (yet still managed to look fantastic, go figure)

Bobtheman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121757287#Comment_121757287

I can't really disagree with you. It's a bit of a cul de sac anyway as it's in the past. Discovery is ending. SNW is here and it's success is largely down to good acting and stories.

I won't be watching season 5 of discovery unless they do Picard on it and change course.

breezy1985

https://twitter.com/startrekpod/status/1756406823983124597

Something very ominous supreme overlord looking about having her in that pose on that big sphere.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121757566#Comment_121757566

Well that's just nightmare fuel right there. It's like she knows we don't like her and is charging up her *Doom Sphere* to smite us all!

pixelburp

That Las Vegas Sphere is insane and entirely on brand for that city. You'd have to imagine if you live in the city you'd want some serious blackout curtains in your bedroom. Also, given the state of Lake Mead it might be the last big swing by the city before the desert takes it over again 😁

Spear

They need a big leering Quark head taking up the entirety of it, that'd be properly on brand for that city. Even better if just slowly rotates around glaring at the entire vista.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121766427#Comment_121766427

Now I'm imagining this spliced into advert for Quark's Bar...which seems like the perfect thing to have in Vegas.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121770472#Comment_121770472

Come to Quark's, Quark's is fun, come right now, don't walk run!

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121770610#Comment_121770610

*Drinks from coffee mug*

*Horrified to hear Quarks advert playing from it* :D

EoinMcLovin

https://youtu.be/js3-j-iLwDs?si=7F3RQIUm0Gua4kXc

Back April 4th

TheIrishGrover

Sigh.....

Yeah, that looks about right. About what we expected:The entire season is going to be internal monologue, isn't it.....

Ok, I'll take one for the team and watch. If it does ANYTHING interesting (like giving anyone elde anything to do) I'll let ye know.

But I wouldn't hold my breath