Star Trek Discovery Season 3 [ SPOILERS WITHIN ]

breezy1985 · 10-03-2021 6:22pm

Evade wrote: »

There's a part in the DVD commentary where he claims he wanted the Scimitar's bridge to look like a more sinister version of the Enterprises for thematic dark mirror reasons and that an alien bridge had never been laid out similarly to a Starfleet bridge. And he's right except for all the times alien bridges were redressed Starfleet bridges.

Usually they looked way too much like Starfleet bridges. Every race in the galaxy seemed to evolve using a central captains chair

RandomViewer · 10-03-2021 6:35pm

breezy1985 wrote: »

Usually they looked way too much like Starfleet bridges. Every race in the galaxy seemed to evolve using a central captains chair

Dermot Bannon went intergalactic

Banana Republic 1 · 10-03-2021 8:02pm

breezy1985 wrote: »

Trek was never cool and shouldn't try to be. Trying to make it cool just leads you down the Fast and Furious route. It should of course try and be successful but not by copying what others are doing in an attempt to be popular. Be high concept, be intelligent have an evolved sensibility and f**k writing the show based on what you think Stranger Things or Walking Dead fans will like

Strangers things went to ****e by series 3. SMG was in the walking dead so that explains that.

is_that_so · 04-08-2021 9:36am

Given the amount of time we've had to watch stuff I am surprised it has taken me so long to get to Season 3! Having got to episode 10, it's more and more looking like a complete waste of an opportunity to explore or push out the franchise. Apart from the bad writing, extremely limited plotlines and unnecessary social commentary it's clear that Star Trek and Discovery is now little more an incidental title.

As the Michael Burnham show you immediately compare it with the far better executed slice of nostalgia of Picard. The trouble is she is not Sir Paddy, not even a tenth of his ability. It's also hard to empathise with any of the cast, save Saru, who at least has some variety of thoughts. The rest are all cardboard characters - the running joke, the PTSD navigator, the chirpy ensign, the baddie who's just spouting lines, the badly acting child genius and the lead and sidekick who would probably be better off doing their own version of Firefly. None of them would be missed.

It's kind of a pity really as stepping outside the Trek timelines gave them a chance to do something interesting or new. It's neither of these. Nice to see Frakes helming a couple of episodes though.

pixelburp · 04-08-2021 9:41am

I've rarely witnessed a TV show that has so ably sabotaged its own attempt to reinvent itself than Star Trek: Discovery. Track this thread and you'll see my excitement that the production rid itself of the prequel monicker and pushed itself into new, unexplored territory. This lasted ... uh, an episode. Maybe a little more; then the whole season swan-dived into the same horrid tropes we had already seen.

As I said at the end, at least in being a captain now - however underserving she might be from her actions - Burnham now has a title to fit the unilateral decisions the scripts kept having her make. In season 4, when she makes those rash decisions it'll track as The One In Charge.

Rawr · 05-08-2021 7:47am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117703378#Comment_117703378

+1

I was in a very similar boat at the start of Season 3. There was every chance of making this a soft reboot and follow the tradition of previous Trek to find it's feet in the 3rd Season. They even had a new logo, and there were references in script to them understanding that the focus on Michael wasn't popular...and that they'd try to fix that.

However, by the 3rd Episode they had thrown out the idea of doing anything at all new. Micheal had been stranded in the future for all of a year, but you'd barely believe that. The entire crew are stuck in the future, centuries after all of their friends and family had died...but that's was barely touched upon. The pre-starfleet half of Season 3 was essentially Star Trek: Voyager...but fails to even pull that off.

The only really new item was the annoying Trill kid who'd suck the fun right out of any scene they were in...especially if Ghost-Boyfriend was there. I had really wanted to give that character the benefit of the doubt, was really hoping this would be Dax, and had hoped that the casting of a gender-fluid actor hasn't just an empty statement to garner attention. Alas, that's all that character appeared to be. Massively waisted opportunity there.

And of course, a Discovery rant isn't complete without addressing Space Poochie. Burnham might have worked with better writing. It has been suggested by one YouTuber that Bekket Mariner from Lower Decks is the Micheal we should have gotten, and I would agree there. If they had written and cast the character in the same vein as Mariner, we might all have been singing this show's praises long ago. Shoe-horning in a human raised as a Vulcan without even bothering to develop that idea managed to crash the potential of this series. I feel that they cast Martin-Green in that role because her range so very limited that they reckoned she'd be an ideal Vulcan. But then they ditched the whole Vulkan-angle and now we are stuck with an actor who is piss-poor at emoting. I have now seen her in other works, and she really doesn't seem to have a range of any kind. They had chosen very poorly.

So now we're into the 4th year of a show that is designed by contract to be carried by a sub-par actor while everyone else must act around them as best they can. The Season 4 trailer was at very least honest about what Discovery would continue to be, and I am thankful for their honesty because now I know that I should not spend any more time on it. If something crops up here to peak my interest, I might have a look, but otherwise it will go unwatched by myself. It stopped being any fun a long while back...

pixelburp · 05-08-2021 10:00am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117708458#Comment_117708458

I agree with most of that, barring one item: I genuinely think Martin-Green's a perfectly fine actor and not the source of the problems here - nobody could make those scripts work, no matter the calibre of actor attached. To quote Harrison Ford, "George, you can type this shít, but you can't say it". You can see she's giving it her all, and if the script says "EMOTE!!" then unless you're a "difficult to work with" auteur type, a professional will just give it their best shot. And to be fair, yeah. You can't say she's wooden during all those emotive, hyper-dramatic scenes.

In fact, to loop back to the missed promise of Season 3's opening; she bordered on charismatic and likeable when the scripts allowed Martin-Green to be less tortured or earnest. But the moment the writing says "Federation Feels!", what can you do? Which, unfortunately, is precisely what happened once the interesting premise got forgotten by what I now regard as one of the worst Writing Teams on mainstream TV

Evade · 05-08-2021 12:10pm

I think it would it be fair to say Martin-Greene isn't a bad actor in an ensemble but she can't carry a whole series on her own.

pixelburp · 05-08-2021 12:32pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117709662#Comment_117709662

I liked her when she was more carefree and looser, so maybe she could carry the show; but if the scripts insist on making her this over-earnest headache, we'll never truly know.

Rawr · 05-08-2021 12:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117709662#Comment_117709662

That's a good way to put it, and I believe my disappointment with Discovery is peppering my opinion of Martin-Green. Much in agreement with Pixel and yourself. She is certainly an able actor and I have seen much much worse out there. But like you said, I also believe that she can't carry a series on her own. She's not good enough to be that I feel, which is a big problem when you have a show that is clearly designed to be carried by her.

I've said before that a single-character-focused Trek series is possible, and might even be good if handled right. It looks like Discovery was at one point supposed to be that, but since Martin-Green cannot carry a show they should have properly converted Discovery into a traditional ensemble Trek show by Season 3...but they didn't do that. It was clear once we got into the season, that they had settled into the same pattern of applying focus onto Micheal, even when in a traditional Trek show episodes might have much more focus on one of the other senior staff members of the ship. A clear example was the Trill episode where it appeared natural that Dr. Cupler would get a lot of focus for that story. It even opened with him giving a Daily Log. However, not that long into the episode he hands over everything to Michael, for reasons. Didn't matter that he was the Medical Officer in this situation and thus best equipped to deal with Trill matters. It didn't matter that he was apparently supposed to be developing a parental bond with the Trill kid. None of that mattered because all episodes needed to be carried by Michael by design. When that happens all of the time...it wears you down and Michael becomes increasingly the target of your frustrations with the show.

By reason of group-think, or contract, or just plain idiocy, the show runners can't grasp this issue and I fully expect they wont. Which is why I've written off Discovery and approach anything else they work on with a high degree of caution. There is some hope with the rest of the shows....but alas not this one.

GSPfan · 08-08-2021 11:42pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117709662#Comment_117709662

I don’t know. I actually hated her character in The Walking Dead and when I continued that hate into Discovery I started to realise it’s not the character that i have problems with, it’s her as an actor. I just think she’s incredibly unlikeable as an actor. The whispering of dialogue, the overly emotional scenes, the lack of warmth, that’s down to her. Obviously someone loves it enough to keep allowing her to do it but I think she’s awful.