I have to agree, M E M. Star trek: Discovery is outstanding.
Explain yourself.
The first episode was painful enough. Heaven forbid subjecting myself to 4 of them. After experiencing the pretension and self-indulgence of the pilot, it's clear the tone was set: just another shitty millennial retcon. I think the only feather in its cap is the fact that the show HBO has titled "Watchmen" is even worse.
There's a reason that Kurtzmann is being skewered after STD, Picard, and Lower Decks. Viacom CBS is losing shit tons of money (which is cool), but it's at Star Trek's expense.
I finally got around to watching the complete seasons 1 and 2 on disc a few weeks ago. And my initial praise and complaints are consistent across the entire run. The visuals are fantastic, looking like a $200 million dollar film. But the writing is frustrating and difficult to follow, with many rapid-fire exchanges of dialogue that are too fast for any normal human being to be able to digest in the normal speed of the show, and only on disc can you re-wind, often 3 or 4 times, to be able to fully understand. Especially annoying are rapid-fire exchanges of dialogue in Klingon or Vulcan, with english subtitles. AAAAGH!!
There are two flamingly gay characters, and a big sub-plot across both seasons is their love and intimacy, with much more male-on-male sucking face than I'm comfortable with. One is killed and is spiritually/physically trapped in another purgatory-like universe before he is discovered and somehow brought back/resurrected to his own universe by the crew. There are many portions like this where the concepts are not well explained enough for me to really know fully what is going on, but I got the gist of it enough to watch it... once. This is not a show I will re-watch for its cleverness or great dialogue exchanges or likeability of its characters. While I like some of the the characters and concepts and scenes, overall it's just bad storytelling and a chore to watch and try to fully digest.
One of the things I liked was Captain Georgeau (portrayed by Michelle Yeoh, a Malaysian) as the Captain, and in the first episode the main character (black woman) Michael Burnham who at that point is first officer. Georgeou suffers a terrible fate, and Burham feels a loss, losing a character who is her respected commander, friend, mentor, and the two have almost a mother/daughter releationship. It's a loss when her character is for a time written out of the series. And then... tying into the "Mirror, Mirror" episode of the original series... Burnham and other characters slip into the "Mirror, Mirror" universe where the Georgeou in that universe turns out to be ruler of the savage federation empire. And then her empire is overthrown and when she is about to be killed, Burnham brings her back with her to the main Star Trek universe when the crew escapes back to their own universe. And Georgeou becomes a series regular, after earlier being written out. Georgeou becomes consistently one of the more enjoyable elements of the series.
There are also elements of the original series "Journey to Babel" episode, with Spock, his mother and father. But the Spock actor is completely wrong for the role.
Captain Christopher Pike is brought in at the end of the first season, and for a while is temporary commander of the Discovery ship, away from his own Enterprise, and the actor playing him at least has some resemblance in both looks and demeanor to Jeffrey Hunter who played Pike in the original series. There are many elements of the original series episodes "The Cage" and "The Menagerie" that are expanded on that I like, with some consistency and some slight differences, that are mostly good. The actress playing Vina in this episode is very pedestrian in the role, and in either looks or acting is no Susan Oliver. It's annoying that she is so different in both looks and portrayal from the original Vina. If she resembled Oliver in either looks or acting portrayal (or preferably both) this would have been great. But this part is instead disappointing and annoying.
If not for the ability to watch both seasons on disc, I never would have gotten through all the episodes. To watch the episodes one at a time on TV without the ability to rewind repeatedly and see what I couldn't pick up, I would have bailed quickly, and not bothered to watch it. But I'm glad I saw it, to know what it is, even though it ultimately had a lot of elements I didn't like, and was difficult to watch. I at least gave it a fair shot and know what it's all about, and even appreciate some aspects of it.
I also don't like that both seasons 1 and 2 have a plot that weaves through every episode of the entire season. Sometimes elements are picked up on after a long gap and are difficult to follow. Even with parts I was very familiar with, when they finally got around to resolving them, I'd forgotten some details. That again made it difficult to watch. I like the series concept and some of the characters, but it overall has bad/incoherent storytelling, and overall is a disappointment. Season 1 I found both more enjoyable, and easier to follow. I'd hoped that once I was familiar with the characters and storytelling, it would become easier to follow. But it never got easier. Interesting to sample, some concepts and potential, but ultimately poorly executed and a disappointment.
