Discovery 4x01 - 'Kobayashi Maru ' ~~ { ** Spoilers Within ** }

Initial thoughts:

I actually had to google to see if Mary Wiseman was pregnant during the filming of this season, she's gotten ridiculously overweight for the role of a member of star fleet who would be expected to be able to defend the ship in the event of it being boarded or to be able to perform physical tasks on away missions etc. Call that fat-shaming if you like, I wouldn't be having a go if she was playing the role of a frumpy 70's housewife or a young go-getter in New York etc. but going from her character being made to run to get in shape for the command program back in season 1 to her being clinically obese while being a second in command is ridiculous.

In their efforts to be so diverse they seem to have left out one of the largest demographics of the human population: straight white males. They only seem to only exist as the moron of the week while the rest of the cast are defined by whatever it is makes them "special" ("the neurotic fat genius ", "the angry black woman who everything works out for despite her stupidity", "the neurotic gay scientist", "the neurotic non-binary child genius who's so non-binary they literally have a split personality disorder" etc. It leaves you with a crew that's more like the outcast group in a high-school drama for the young-adult genre than the traditional Star Trek group of professionals who happen to be diverse.

I'll give them their dues though:

The 'lets fly' catchphrase is exhausting.

I really thought they might pivot away from Burnham does every task to save every episode, but alas, no, more of the same.

Just watched the first episode and it's rubbish. Why the fook would 'the boyfriend' be on a diplomatic mission on behalf of the Federation??? Pure nonsense.

The rest of the crew are so bland that even after THREE FULL SEASONS, I don't know most of their names!

Why are there so many uniform changes? One minute Burnham is in grey from last season, then brown, then maroon, then red, then blue!!! (Okay I know the last one was a space suit!)

OK. I have been quite vocal about how I actually don't get all the hate aimed at Disco: My main issue is the over-reliance on Burnham.

But yeah.... the worshiping of her is just plain awful now. I don't think there was a single scene with her where someone wasn't casting doe-eyes at her. Even as she is getting given out to. (God, the academy scene). Stamets just running around out of his depth. Really? Tilly just standing there doubting herself (BAU) and everyone else simply orbiting Burnham or being all chipper.

I'll continue to watch it to bide my time to other, more interesting fare.

Was a bit confused by the statement that these were the first cadets since the Burn... but the Burn was ~125 years before, so, like, who's been crewing all the Starfleet ships, and how did they learn their trade?

Seems like they probably just had some sort of training program, and just now renamed it to 'academy', which doesn't feel like such a landmark event as was being made out..

As for the episode at large - I hadn't planned on watching, but curiosity got the better of me. In the end I found myself just sort of drifting out of it, and doing other stuff while it played. A bit of a 'shrug' season opener really, with sudden random moments of "DRAMA!!!" instead of actual storytelling.

I assume most SF crew were experienced already from flying with private crews and volunteered. If they didn't have experience they could just learn like Wesley, Nog or Tilly (has Trek ever had a cadet who wasn't a pain)

They explained the Grey/Adira thing. It's basically why the trill had rules like a new host should not be connected to the old one and why real hosts should have training.

Dax had a host who was so psychopathic he had to be blocked from the mind because he would make new hosts a little killy but Ezri channeled him into a mind ghost just like Grey using space magic.

As for Burnham I am way beyond hoping there will be a change of tone and this will become an ensemble. They have only doubled down on the criticism. The only way I can keep watching is to get over that.

I did.... But it was a slog.

They are going to somehow put Grey in a real body and they are currently working on that in show. What kind of space magic they use to extract Grey's memories and put them in a real body has yet to be revealed but Alexander will be staying as part of the cast.

I was explaining your they need to"explain why he is appearing to Adira" which they did do

Whatever they end up doing will have been needlessly convoluted . If they wanted to keep Ian on the show and corporeal they shouldn't have killed him in first place .

Probably not because this is and always has been a one person show they told us that going in. It should be called "Burnham" in the same way as "Picard" but everyone would have been confused

Actually initially there were rumours that it was almost going to be an anthology series. Obviously this would not have worked from a business perspective but initially the rumour was that it would cross multiple timelines and ships and even species. And, in the most interesting season it did focus on the Klingons brilliantly (IMHO of course). And then jumped timeline. Then it did refocus to be a mid level officer. Not quite lower decks. But similar idea. And, had it been this and the focus was as narrow as it is then I would have accepted that..... To a degree. But it almost instantly became about how this demotion was a narrow minded failure by the people who did not know how Burnham can/should save everything. Not just the universe but religious and personal quandaries. I am waiting for her to butt into gender politics. Where would the LGBTQ community be without their hetero saviour. It WILL happen this season.

Look at Lower Decks series. Similar character: Overly experienced/qualified mid level officer. But the focus is not totally on her. The rest get just as much coverage. Provide help, valued opinion, different views and voices. She has genuine friends who's opinions she needs and values. Not doe-eyed yes men. Burnham has never been wrong. There were times when it SEEMED like she was wrong but in the end.....

A previous poster said "why does she need a crew?" And they were right. If she had a holographic crew like yet man on picard she would'nt..... But they would ALL be identical as she is perfect. Not the (intentionality) terrible regional stereotypes that are in Picard.

So, a usual, it boils down to one single fact. The over focus on an unrealistic and uninteresting main character to the detriment of more interesting characters.

My point about Culber and Georgiou was that like Grey they were killed and then had to be space magiced back in because they were popular

Lower Decks isnt a show about 1 character so thats why the focus is spread equally. Its not really comparable to a show like Discovery which is by design about 1 person

"It is hard to lose weight when you can replicate any food you want"

To be honest I thought she looked OK on the away mission, probably later in the filming schedule. I suspect she comfort ate over lockdown, Lord knows a lot did. I just hope you are a bit more subtle with people in real life then you are here about a complete stranger.