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this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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Star Trek
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Overall, I thought it was fine. I think it got hit a little harshly by critics. It's not terrible (read: unwatchable), but it's pretty firmly my least favorite Star Trek series.
Without actually looking through the full episode lists, and just going off what I remember of each season, here are my gut ratings:
S1: 3/10
S2: 5/10
S3: 4/10
S4: 8/10
Overall: 5/10
Going a bit more into my thoughts in each...
Season 1 - 3/10
Pros:
Cons:
Season 2 - 5/10
Pros:
Cons:
Season 3 - 4/10
Pros:
Cons:
Season 4 - 8/10
Pros:
Cons:
Conclusion
I think Discovery suffered from one main issue, in multiple way: season-based plots. Since every season had a single main plot, any issues with the plot ruin the whole season. We don't get standalone great episodes like in the old series, which you could watch at random. You kinda need to watch the whole season. Furthermore, since each season had to have a big plot, every season is dealing with a huge issue. It's exhausting being in an existential crisis the entire time. That's the feeling we have in our real world right now. That's the reason I watch Star Trek; it's a glimpse at how the future might be brighter. Discovery never felt like a promising future. It felt like we are going to be struggling for our lives for the next millennium and more.
So, I still enjoyed it as a piece of media, and a part of the Star Trek canon, but it's not a show I see myself watching again and again like the rest of the franchise.
Part of your review is just outright wrong. Discovery does not retcon anything else in Star Trek. I keep seeing that complaint a lot but it's just flagrantly untrue. Most of the things people point to, like Spock having a secret sister, aren't retcons. They just weren't mentioned in the past and it lines up with established personality of Spock. He never mentioned T'Pring to Kirk or Sybock.
The closest thing people can point to are the holograms or the DOTs but if you want to blame someone on that you'd have to start blaming Voyager. They established that holograms were active in this timeframe. Enterprise also showed those holographic training orbs so the idea the tech would be extrapolated to a mini-VR training area within 100 years is entirely feasible. The Animated Series also has 'The Rec Room' which was a proto-holodeck and the show is proving to fall into canon thanks to Lower Decks. As for the DOTs, there's nothing explicitly that would ruleout their existence in the first place. Just because it wasn't mentioned doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
As for the graphics of the show lining up, yeah. CBS openly said that Discovery was a 'visual reboot' so things were going to look similar but not the same, as evidenced with the new awesome bridge we got for the Enterprise. A new update of an old classic. It would be kind of insane to suddenly downgrade everything into looking like it was made of cardboard and jolly ranchers.
I'd also argue pretty heavily against your complaint of "technology that doesn't match the era". Both of your examples are Section 31 tech. Given all the other crap we can see that they do, it doesn't remotely surprise me that their tech would be a bit more advanced, even more so when you consider that this was not long after a war where every resource was going to attempt to stop the Klingons.
A retcon is still a retcon even if it fits or doesnt inherently contradict anything. They do it in comics all the time. Having spoc suddenly have a secret human sister he cant talk about because shes classified is a retcon regardless of whether it fits or was well done.
That's for the critique.
You're right that I couldn't think of any explicit retcons. The closest I could think of, other than technology, were Burnham being related to Spock (which you touched on), and how absolutely decimated the Federation was by the Klingons while Discovery was in the mirror universe (again, not necessarily a retcon, but it seems like it would have been mentioned more).
Regarding tech, I had legitimately forgotten that Burnham's parents and the time suit were Section 31. That said, what other amazing tech do we ever see out of Section 31? Granted, we don't even see much of Section 31 in other shows, outside of DS9 and ENT, but in those cases, I seem to recall them being more intelligence operatives. They accomplish their job by knowing more than others, and operating outside usual Federation conventions. It's spy stuff, not super weapons (outside the Changeling virus). But maybe I'm forgetting things.
To be fair, nothing that they use in Discovery are superweapons and all of their tech can easily be put forward as spy stuff. We've also seen that Section 31 is directly involved with various classified projects to begin with, which is why they were posted on Discovery in Episode 3. Moreover, DS9 explicitly says that Section 31 was operating since the start of Starfleet but that they had almost no oversight for 200 years. They weren't merely intelligence operators. They were active assassins who are comparable (and were directly influenced by) the CIA. They were made to take care of any and all threats to the Federation that couldn't be taken care of within the normal scope of things. Is it really so unbelievable that this secretive black books organization has spy tech that's unavailable and unknown to most of the populous? I mean... we do that today with various intelligence and military agencies.