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Star Trek Discovery | |
November 26th, 2020 | |
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Holy shit, this show is the worst. It's physically painful for me. | |
Uggggghhhhhhh. | |
I was thinking about doing a systematic take-down laying out all | |
the failings in a logical way and truly sticking it to the | |
writers, but who has the energy for all that. Instead, here's | |
a rambling whine of why I think this is officially the worst trek | |
that has ever been. | |
First and foremost, Star Trek has always been an ensemble story*. | |
Discovery is a major departure for that and tries to lie to itself | |
that it's not. But James, what about the shaved-head pilot girl, | |
and the red-head, and the squid-faced guy, and the mushroom drive | |
guy and his husband the doctor? Fine. Name them. Seriously. What | |
is anyone's name on this damn show? Don't know, don't care. Nobody | |
gets more than half an episode of back-story except our darling. | |
Michael Burnham is the main character. She is, quite frankly, | |
a Mary Sue of the worst variety. Not only is every problem faced | |
by the universe something that she needs to fix personally, but | |
she will mutiny and disobey direct orders to do so only to be | |
forgiven time and time again because "she had no choice." | |
Bullshit. Utter crap. This character is relentlessly self-absorbed | |
and pig-headed. She acts recklessly and has gotten her own best | |
friend and captain killed in the process but learned nothing from | |
it. The worst of it is that she as this false modesty. "We'll do | |
it as a team," she says to the crew of nameless people after she | |
just went off solo and spoke for the whole federation without | |
consulting anyone on shit. | |
And what is with that? Everything Discovery does is saving the | |
entire universe or starting or ending galactic wars, the end of | |
all life, or some massive thing like that. The show starts out | |
with the Klingon wars which they either started or ended or both, | |
I can't keep it straight. Next up they're destroying empires in | |
the mirror universe and then I guess they ran out of history to | |
mess with so they've jumped forward in time so the Federation is | |
failing again so they can save it anew. This is a bad fanfiction | |
where everything needs to be the 100% most dramatic bullshit at | |
any moment. Why is one ship that nobody has ever heard of or | |
mentioned at all at the heart of every fucking event in history? | |
Why even mention the ship, how about we just mention Michael | |
Burnham, who has saved everything countless times and deserves | |
a whole planet to be carved into a statue of her. Except she is | |
also so meaningless that nobody ever mentioned that Spock had | |
a sister and she was human and did all this stuff. Yeah. that's | |
right. Spock's sister. Cause fanfic. | |
Okay, okay, so the plots are dumb and the characters illogical, | |
non-trek in style, and flat. But at least it's well constructed, | |
right? Well... sorta, except how the big bad Klingon lady in the | |
first season had such a shitty mask on she couldn't speak clearly | |
through it and everything came out muffled. Or there's the lens | |
flares on everything as if JJ Abrams didn't get his ass chewed out | |
over that a decade ago. Or silly things like having the saucer | |
section spin. Why does it do that? What purpose does that possibly | |
serve? And why does the ship flip upside down when it travels on | |
the mushroom super-highway. | |
Riiiiight, did I not mention the mushroom super-highway before? | |
That's the show's mcguffin right there. It can go anywhere | |
instantly. Nice, right? Except maybe that was a little too | |
powerful so we'll spend the next 3 seasons hamstringing it and | |
trying to backpedal. | |
There's just so much stupid shit I can keep going forever. In | |
tonight's episode, for instance, the captain decided that after | |
Michael Burnham's 53rd disobeying of orders he should probably not | |
make her his first officer anymore. So who should replace her? Oh, | |
what about the plucky comic relief ensign? She's literally the | |
lowest ranked person on the entire fucking ship. Let's make her #2 | |
in charge, mmmkay? But she's obviously not cut out for it and is | |
gonna sweat over the decision. I know, we'll have everyone chime | |
in and tell her to say yes to the dress and it'll be this epic | |
moment of solidarity. *VOMIT* | |
And that brings me to my last point. Last not because it's the | |
last thing wrong with the show but because I'm too bored of | |
talking about this waste of time to continue. "The Epic Moment" | |
That's what this show tries to be. The Epic Moment, again and | |
again and again. Why? Cause that's what fanfic does. Jump from | |
amazing thing to amazing thing, let your Mary Sue save the day and | |
have Epic Moments. Monologue, YES. Threaten and then do some | |
badass fighty shit and win. Don't worry that your ship is | |
literally 1000 years old and a little kid's toy bike could take | |
out your star ship now, you've got moxie. And the Epic Moments | |
won't just be action and adventure, but heartfelt too. How do we | |
know? Well, everyone will whisper and tear up! Yes, even the | |
Mirror Universe queen of evil shit will have a soft spot for | |
Michael Burnham's ass because Mary Sue! | |
In all of this, in every single moment, nothing is earned. Michael | |
will get 1 episode to journey into the future and adventure | |
wondering where the Discovery is. The very start of episode 2 she | |
finds the ship and has a tearful reunion about how she's been | |
searching for them for a whole year. You can tell cause her hair | |
got longer. We saw none of it, felt none of it, and so the payoff | |
is flat. It's the same when we say a tearful goodbye to bridge | |
crew member #7 who I never learned the name of, but had a funny | |
mouth guard. It's all meaningless drivel without actual emotional | |
depth because they never invested in anyone or anything. We were | |
too busy jumping through mushrooms to the next moment of awesome. | |
Nate Cull on Mastodon had this to add: | |
I really feel that kids today (by which I mean most movie and TV | |
sci-fi writers) just have zero experience of working in | |
a competent functioning team and so they can't write stories in | |
a setting that requires there be a competent functioning team. | |
It's all gotta be "BUT MY PROBLEMS COME FIRST" and having loud | |
temper tantrums while trying to, eg, run an actual ship which | |
will explode if anyone pushes the wrong button at any moment on | |
their shift. | |
I wonder if this is partly because having a career in movies or | |
TV writing is something that only spoiled rich kids can afford | |
to do nowadays, and so they literally can't comprehend what it's | |
like to not always be the most important person in the room. Or | |
is it just a deliberate dumbing down of writing to try to | |
capture a young mass audience who have mostly never experienced | |
working in even, say, a factory, let alone a military? | |
But I mean if you even ran a McDonalds like the Federation runs | |
the Starship Discovery, yikes. | |
I couldn't agree more. | |
This show is just terrible writing. It's an embarrassment to the | |
Star Trek franchise. It undermines what it stands for and weakens | |
canon with nonsense. The best I can hope for is that the last act | |
of the dying crew will be to erase themselves from history so we | |
can all ignore this shit and get back to our lives. | |
----- | |
* I acknowledge that Picard is not an ensemble story, but it is | |
not pretending to be one. It's literally named for the one guy. | |
I am okay with this. They could have made the entire show about | |
him growing grapes on his vineyard and I'd have sat through it to | |
see Patrick Stewart act. |