Manic at the Disco

[bcholmes]

I still have a bunch of apprehensions about Star Trek: Discovery.

Most of the things that I complained about before still annoy me. But the new thing is that I feel like the show is asking me to believe in relationships that they haven’t put in the work on. I continue to be baffled that people are so loyal to Michael Burnham, the woman who started the Federation-Klingon War and caused how many deaths? I remember how shunned she was at the beginning of her time on Discovery. And while I could accept that folks didn’t actively distrust her any more, somehow they grew to care about her so much (in two years?) that they decided to abandon their lives and jump into the future with her?

But they did that because of the demands of running a show. They had an end point: “we want to send the Discovery to the future so the fans will stop complaining at us about continuity” and a practical consideration: “we want to keep this pool of characters that we’ve already invested in because our audience expects the same characters and also contracts are a thing” and so they leap to the story beat: “the crew loves Michael so much that they decide to jump to the future with her and we can keep the crew together.” Except, they haven’t done the legwork, in my opinion. I don’t believe that the crew likes Michael that much.

Other minor beefs: new uniforms are ho-hum. I don’t understand why Detmer isn’t wearing red. The hallways of the USS Credence have the same design language as the Discovery — a 900-year-old ship (again, the practicalities of making a TV show: you reuse the section of corridor that you’ve already built to film the scene that takes place on the Credence). Also: the exterior of the Credence is ugly. Really, most of what we’ve seen of 32nd-century ships are ugly.

This season looks like it might give Tilly something to do; I think that she was underused last season (please give me all the Tilly). Same with Stamets. I don’t really understand how the showrunners decide on “main cast”: I like Adira (and Grey), but I don’t really understand why they’re a main character when Owo and Rhys are just recurring faces we see on the bridge. Similarly, I’m less interested in Book than I am in Bryce or Detmer (I get that having a non-Starfleet love interest for Michael removes some complication for the character: I just don’t know why Book is a main character. I don’t find his storylines that interesting). And I would be totally down for an episode about the Osnullus crew member(s?). And I’ll take all the Jett Reno you have on offer.

I hate my dislike: there are so many who want the show to fail because it’s too queer, or too diverse, or doesn’t centre enough white men. I want to love the show. I just don’t.

Mirrored from Under the Beret.

Comments

[sabotabby]

This is fair.

It seems to win me over all the time even though I am very aware of its flaws. It doesn't do the work. The last episode was 90% people talking about their feelings and somehow I was only briefly annoyed and then I got all sentimental. I don't know why some things work for me and others annoyed the shit out of me. Like, I couldn't stand the Klingons and I was just relieved when that plotline ended.

I adore Book but I cannot stand his current storyline. I think what's bothering me in both this and the movies is that everything always has to be a universe-shattering disaster. I'm not opposed to those, but when you have something like The Expanse that generates drama with "what if your suit springs a leak" or "you can have a heart attack if you go too fast" it makes "AND THE ENTIRE GALAXY COULD BLOW UP AT ANY MOMENT" feel way over scale. When I feel they could do the same story with Book if it was just his family or community affected (not Grudge, though. If anything happens to Grudge I will rage-quit the show).

I loved Tilly in the first season and absolutely couldn't stand her in the last. Now I like her again. Go figure. I am not sure why we get so many other relationships when Owo and Detmer are right there.

I can't stand the new uniforms. I think they're worse than ho-hum. You've basically got the protagonist and deuteragonist who are both attractive women with very different body types (I'm excluding Saru because he's meant to look weird) and somehow the uniform manages to look equally atrocious on both of them. Why would you do that to your lead actors? I don't mind the combat uniform though it seems impractical.

But somehow it just has this incredibly earnest heart so I keep coming back to it.

/unsolicited babbling.

[j00j]

My enjoyment of Discovery is mostly about the queer and found family feels.
I don't get the loyalty to Burnham either, beyond trauma bonding or something. The season opener immediately made me frustrated by how these people are... not good at their jobs? I'm definitely not a diplomat but a lot of my job is meetings and figuring out how to discuss challenging topics without pissing people off too much and they're... very not good at that. Also why the fuck would you use a bunch of incomprehensible idioms while talking to aliens? I get that it's for the LOLs but surely it's possible to make the same plot happen while making the characters look *competent*?

[bcholmes]

My enjoyment of Discovery is mostly about the queer and found family feels.

To be fair, those are some pretty great feels.