Discovery to end with Season 5

pixelburp

It took only 14 seconds of that trailer for someone to say "family".

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121809496#Comment_121809496

So Star Trek: Burnham comes to its inevitable end, thank god. I'll watch it, but any faith I ever had in this show being good is loooong gone.

flazio

How many episodes and are they being released weekly or all at once? Might just wait for them to be all out and binge it in 1 month rather than pay monthly for a drip feed.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121810914#Comment_121810914

Why? There is so much great TV out there, why push yourself to finish something you hate? Never have understood the "hate watching", life's too short.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121810933#Comment_121810933

Indeed, which is why I’ll likely not be watching this season either. I had not watched a full episode of DIS since the Season 3 finale. By then watching had devolved into a tedious chore which to be honest I was only doing at that stage to join in on the discussions here. But the enjoyment was gone, and that’s why it was enough for me to experience Season 4 second-hand from others.

I will do the same for Season 5, with the possible exception of the Finale. The finale watch is mostly to see if I am right in my theory that if I don’t watch the whole season, I could still grasp the finale’s plot. They have so far near always crammed all major elements of an arc into the last 15 - 30 mins of a season and I’m banking on them doing the same here.

I’m also curious of what kind of legacy they will hope to leave behind, and the finale will give us clues about that hope.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121811031#Comment_121811031

I liked the Avengers movies but not enough to watch all the side stuff but realised quickly that a quick scan of Wikipedia was all I needed to catch up.

Can probably do the same here. Watch episode 1 and the finale only.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121810933#Comment_121810933

I wouldn't go as far as to say I hate watch it. It's disappointing in how it squandered itself, but if I truly hated it, or anything else, I wouldn't devote any time to it. I suppose as a Star Trek fan I'm foolishly naively optimistic that it'll 'come good'....and while it will likely disappoint in the end, there's no harm in seeing it through to the end either.

Likewise, I find the concept of hate-watching a complete waste of a person's time, and a bit baffling....but there IS a difference between that, and a person who watches a show in (futile) hope that it becomes a decent watch.

Inviere

I suppose in essence, I'm hoping it pulls off a Picard Season 3. Granted the comparison is moot as Picard had decades of established and widely loved nostalgia to pull on, and Discovery doesn't....but my point is that many would had understandably tapped out on Picard after Season 2, and then the writing does a u-turn for Season 3 and the show was an enjoyable watch.

Can Discovery do similar? Highly unlikely, the writing has been consistently awful, the concept of character development outside of Burnham went out the airlock very early on, and there's no real connection to what many people love about Star Trek....but I'll give its final season a go in hope. Worst case is it's predictably shite.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121811245#Comment_121811245

Difference is Picard was an about turn because the creators were aware that season 2 was pure shte and the fans agreed. Discovery won't pull off a "Picard" because the creators of Discovery and its fans don't think there is anything to fix or course to correct. The promos all show it's going to be full on Disco style for the final season.

And character development did not go "out the window" in Discovery because it was never in the building. I can't understand when people complain that it's just "Star Trek: Burnham" when they told us from the first day it was intentionally exactly that.

ilovesmybrick

I suppose this is the medicine after two pretty solid years of new Trek shows.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121811245#Comment_121811245

Pulling off a Picard S3 with this would require a masterclass of exceptional writing and directing. It’s not impossible, but it would require a writer who could create a solid story that could stand on its own seperate from the previous seasons of the show and build on what strengths they have.

Alas for them, S5 appears to mostly just be that generic fetch-quest they had originally planned to do with some small finale tweaks. A generic fetch-quest could still work, but it’s going to be weighed down with all of the failings Discovery already had and likely still has in Season 5. I’d love to be wrong…but I have a feeling that I’m not.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121812022#Comment_121812022

A "masterclass in exceptional writing" is a million miles from what Picard season 3 was. Every inch of the plot was pure bollix. Wall to wall misdirects, panto, pointless people and ship cameos and phazer shotguns.

Season 5 will be for Discovery fans what Picard 3 was for many TNG fans which will be nostalgia based on the history of that show. If you like Discovery it will be full of fan service stuff for each of the characters and if you hate Discovery it will be a whole load of nonsense.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121811331#Comment_121811331

Re your first point, yeah, from that trailer it looks like business as usual.

Re your second point, I disagree. There was Lorca, T'Kuvma, and quite a few that could have all been richly developed if the will was there. Sadly, it wasn't.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121812022#Comment_121812022

Indeed, it's quite unlikely. Well said too. It kinda sums up why I'll still watch the final season....I'm going on with expectations low, and really hope to be proven wrong. I'm not watching enjoying the train wreck, it'd be nice to just see SOME lessons learned in the writing room from SNW, Picard, and Lower Decks. Alas though, confidence isn't high....

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121812229#Comment_121812229

I don't think that was what @Rawr meant. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the point was that to save the show from the disappointment of the previous seasons, would require a fundamental shift from within the writing team.

In terms of Picard and "pure bollix", Season 2 makes Season 3 look virtually Shakespearean by comparison. S3 came as a relief purely because it was at the very least watchable (personally I really enjoyed it, but I do hope we never see Picard again. It's done. No more please.)

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121812346#Comment_121812346

Lorca and the Klingons are leftovers from when it was supposed to be a different show (an interesting sounding anthology show)

But even then it was always to be the Burnham show.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121812387#Comment_121812387

Season 2 was one of the worst things I have ever seen. Season 3 being better doesn't make it good for me.

A tiny example is the Enterprise E. It could have been used as the "retired" ship or as the hero ship but no we had to resurrect a destroyed ship for the memberberries and canonise an STO ship which Kurtztrek just loves to do. Nuked Shelby in the process by having her as the champion of the integrated Control/Cylon network which she would be dead against.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121812392#Comment_121812392

Indeed, a shame they went the way they did. I'm not a Discovery apologist by any means, Season 2 was some of the worst TV I've ever seen....I just feel it didn't arrive on screens without potential. It definitely had potential, it just didn't have a skilled enough writing team to carry the show forward. It was reset after reset, galaxy saving season after galaxy saving season....lazy, uninspiring garbage a lot of the time.

You'd wonder what a mature TNG/DS9 level writing team could have done with the premise.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121812229#Comment_121812229

As @Inviere suggested earlier, I was referring the level of effort required to get DIS S5 up to the level of enjoyment many of us got from PIC S3.

I’m not saying Picard S3 was a masterpiece of any kind, but they did manage to make some of the more enjoyable non-prequel Trek we’ve had in a while beyond Lower Decks. But all that said, PIC S3 had two things going for the which DIS doesn’t have. They could build on established and liked characters from an earlier show, and they managed to actually (mostly) jettison much of Seasons 1 and 2 from the writing of Season 3. If we can somehow ignore the whole “Picard is an android now” thing, you don’t even need the rest of the show to watch S3.

For Discovery S5 their job is much harder and would require an extremely talented writer who could possibly encapsulate S5 as a story that doesn’t need the viewer to return to the previous seasons. The reason I’m saying this is that the previous seasons had done such a poor job at developing their characters that they’d need to start from scratch. We’d need a new take on Burnham, Tilly, Saru etc… in a way that makes us give a damn about them instead of continuing with the frustrated apathy I ended up having for them by the end of Season 3.

If the writers involved are the same ones we’ve had since earlier on, then there’s no real hope of improvement. It’s not impossible of course, but very very unlikely.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121812812#Comment_121812812

Why are you hoping for "improvement" from a show the creators don't think needs improving ?

People need to stop looking at it from their own bias as a show that needs "fixing". If you think it's sht just write it off because it ain't changing now.

You say it needs a "new take for people to give a damn" about the characters but Discovery fans already give a damn about them and don't want change. Get out of the bubble that is us old fogie 90s fans and accept Discovery has fans.

Stark

There's usually that one person who takes the April Fools joke thing too far.

breezy1985

Very good. I can imagine a lot of very angry people exploding over this 🤣

Evade

Forgot what day it was for a second.

Norrie Rugger Head

My god but Doug Jones, in general and his Saru performance, deserved so much better than this tripe.

Am so, irrationally, happy that this stain is ending

Brief_Lives

I decided to watch season 4, over the last week. SO much wrong with it and that's not just the physics.

Instead of naming all the bad stuff, it's best to name the good stuff. Doug Jones and the voice of Annabelle Wallis.

I know I will watch season 5, but I'll take a break for a bit.

(psst - how bad is it?)

pixelburp

I have also always thought it cool that one of the side characters was played by David Cronenberg of all people; and also more the level the Section 31 should have been. The distant, mysterious man in the corner, instead of the black badge Evil Org.

TheIrishGrover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121999808#Comment_121999808

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121999795#Comment_121999795

Yeah, they just have to be careful they don't OVERUSE Cronenberg though. He should be used very sparingly (IMHO, they've used him enough already in S5)

The show is SO forgettable that I keep forgetting they have this AI that they never really mention. Wasn't that involved somehow a few seasons ago with evil AI? That's why they had to jump into the far future? (I can't remember details and don't care enough to look back). But yeah, she has a great voice.

And yeah, I said it before (Especially a couple of years ago with the "The tears That Destroyed Warp" Saga. They then side-lined Saru for half the next season. How do you take the finest and most famous prosthetic actor in the business and just have him disappear for half a season and for the rest just have him do the usual "I love you and worship you and know you'll do the right thing". HOPEFULLY his absence at the start was due to scheduling conflict

And no, it's not any better. As typical, flash-bang start which, if taken out of context, would look like they livened up Burnham a bit but then BAU. (Remember how a couple of years ago a trailer came out which showed her laughing and joking and smiling only to find out it was all from a two-min period in one episode where she was drugged)

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122004190#Comment_122004190

They had to correct the mistake of making the protagonist a junior officer which meant bumping Saru aside somehow. They haven't had a clue what to do with him since.

Same with everyone really. They didn't know how to move Tilly on from "bright eyed fresher". Stamets just mopes around now that his unique selling point of spore guy is gone. Adira is the latest to lose all purpose.

Inviere

Im not going to watch it week by week, I'll wait until it's done and spore jump through the whole thing.