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.
