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:
- First new Trek in a while.
- Neat graphics.
- Great cast. (Especially Doug Jones as Saru).
Cons:
- Prequel-itis…
- New graphics don’t match the TOS era.
- We already know, roughly, how things will pan out.
- Retcons.
- Unintelligible Klingons (and unreadable subtitles).
- Discovery is ugly.
Season 2 - 5/10
Pros:
- Interesting season-long mystery, with payoff for multiple story beats.
- Introduces Anson Mount as Captain Pike, leading to the spinoff of Strange New Worlds.
Cons:
- More prequel-itis…
- Puts legacy characters in peril, when the audience knows they canonically must survive. Saps any tension.
- Galaxy-level threat must obviously be defeated, since we know there’s life in the future canon.
- Burnham time suit well beyond reasonable tech level for the era.
- Control drone fleet tech unreasonable for the era.
- Predestination/Bootstrap paradox.
- Discount Borg.
Season 3 - 4/10
Pros:
- Finally out of prequel territory.
- Cool future tech.
- Interesting mystery of The Burn.
- Great character development.
Cons:
- Unsatisfying conclusion to The Burn mystery.
- Tired of seeing The Federation in shambles.
- Seriously, the source of The Burn was stupid.
- Discovery would be able to solve so, sooo many problems in this era.
- Did I mention the sad kid causing The Burn?
Season 4 - 8/10
Pros:
- More character development.
- Federation starting to get back on its feet.
- Interesting mystery around the “Dark Matter Anomaly” (DMA)
- We get to see The Federation deal with a truly alien first contact. Species 10-C was amazing.
Cons:
- Once again, an existential threat. Very exhausting.
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.
I’d say it started at a 6 or 7, and grew to a strong 8 over its runtime. Most of the characters have always been beautifully nuanced, but the stakes of its plots have always been unnecessarily inflated, and the endings for each story arc are of very mixed quality. After the jump to the 31st century, the storylines became much more Star Trek-ian, and the show started to display more of its own identity separate from classic Trek and action movie tropes, and that pushed it into properly great territory.
I’d say 4/10.
One remarkable thing was that it paved the way for SNW.
All other captains were more interesting captains than Burnham, and that’s sad, because they were removing them so fast. The happiest point for me was when they made Saru captain, only to remove it later.
I’m ok with Klingons, I think it’s ok that each Star Trek generation rethink their visual language.
They told some good stories.
I’m not good with scores so I’ll just explain how I rate Discovery.
Back in the 90s/00s I never understood the hate that some Trek fans had towards a new Trek series. Every time a new series premiered there was a large (or at least very loud) chunk of the fanbase hating on the new series. I liked them all. Some more, some less. But I enjoyed them all for being Star Trek and watched them all countless times. (same goes for LD and SNW)
To put that in perspective:
- I still don’t remember the names of all the bridge officers on Discovery.
- I only watch Discovery episodes once.
I never felt inclined to rewatch a single episode. It’s not that all of them are bad but there’s just nothing about them that makes me rewatch them. Especially since 90% of them are embedded in season-long story arcs. (same with Picard, although I do plan to rewatch season 1 and 3 at some point)
At first I liked Discovery for trying something new. I’m not one of those fans who wants a new Trek show to do exactly the same thing that other Trek shows have done before. You need to do new things if you want to keep a franchise alive. But when you do season-long story arcs you need a plan. And Discovery didn’t have that. It was quite obvious both in seasons 1 and 2. Season 2 was at least helped by Captain Pike. It’s hard to rate those two seasons because there were so many ups and downs. But in total I’d say the first two season were better than the 3rd and 4th seasons.
Season 3 was a chore to watch. Jumping to the future was like jumping the shark for me. There’s not nearly enough world-building to make that future interesting – and how can there be, when there’s only 13 episodes and all of them are part of a story arc.
Season 4 was okay. I give them credit for doing something big with non-humanoid and really strange aliens. But this story could have been told in the 23rd century with minimal changes. So why again are they in the future?
In short: Discovery is okay-ish but nothing more.
Well, Discovery is the only Trek I gave up on. Forced myself through S1 & S2, but eventually decided it was not worth my time. SNW gave me back my hope on good New Trek though.
Didn’t care for the story, the characters or the futuristic looks even though it was supposed to be a prequel to TOS.
Score 2 out of 10 maybe?
If you enjoy DIS, by all means, have fun. It just doesn’t work for me.
3 - Michael Burnham is so annoying self centered and needy. If they’d moved to being a more ensemble cast sooner and not had it seem like they thought the universe revolved around her then it could have got a solid 6.
2/10. I get the impression that they couldn’t afford good writers, but the production heads could afford a LOT of cocaine. The end result is a Trek-ish setting around the biggest Mary Sue trope ever written against a character that they could not ever get up to ‘likeable.’ Watch as Star Fleet Officers constantly break the rules, run off without communicating effectively, disregard orders, or just plainly talk-back with amazing levels of snark to superiors. Somehow they are all written up as heroes instead of all being removed from duty and forced to spend years in front of councillors for their war PTSD… or time-travel PTSD… or mirror-universe PTSD…, discipline and corrective actions for their MANY examples of insubordination, their ship broken up to figure out space-mushroom instantaneous-travel in a post-dilithium universe, remedial training once cleared to return to figure out the changes in the world around them after the jump, and even then being kept on a short-leash because they obviously can’t be trusted: they don’t even fully trust each other and have demonstrated time and time again that they make the wrong decision because of their own ego…
7/10 I think its get hated on very unfairly, though it has significant structural issues that keep it from being the best of star trek. Even still, anyone who says that it didn’t have the heart of star trek is wrong I think, if it wasn’t still there in some essential way we wouldn’t have gotten the rest of new star trek.
Also anyone who says the futuristic starship designs in discovery aren’t awesome are just wrong, sorry.
Not going to score it but I stopped watching at the end of season one.
Really enjoying lower decks and strange new worlds however
I’m happy that it introduced some new people to Star Trek. I think the diversity and representation on the show really resonated with some people, and made them feel more seen. I think these positive things it did probably outweigh any weaknesses the show had, in a larger perspective.
Personally, many elements of the writing, directing, and cinematography of the show really rubbed me the wrong way. It is, in my view, more akin to a Young Adult series than any previous iterations of Trek. It’s definitely an intentional appeal to younger viewers, and I feel like it probably succeeded in that. It’s not for me, but that’s ok.
I feel like my biggest issue with Discovery was that it failed to live up to its potential. There was a lot that it did right and it had some interesting characters but it never really stuck the landing on it’s major arc premises.
The war with the Klingons was disappointingly handled. I find the little glimpses we get of it in strange new worlds to be way more compelling than the season that actually sort of focused on it. In addition to that the stakes were always way too damn high. Like every arc was an existential save the galaxy from war with the klingons, mirror universe invaders, or super AIs, or solve the energy problems of the future. The show also lacked that sunny optimism that trek normally has. Every once in a while it’d reach for it and then come crashing back down.
Overall it wasnt horrible but meh. When season 4 went on hiatus I lost track of when it came back. I meant to get back to the series but I just never mustered the momentum to do so.
I also feel like Picard was similar though I enjoyed the final season of that more(likely because it shamelessly tugged at my nostalgia strings.
With Strange New World and Lower decks the showrunners have found a better groove for trek I think.
Explain my score… Well it doesn’t have any characters I like, and that’s the first time in star trek that has happened for me. Just the most annoying people everywhere, with really shitty acting skills.
5/10: Season one made me think we were getting some kind of Trek / Sliders mashup where they are lost AF in the multiverse and in theory closed all possible prequel issues right then and there. Nothing they could have done would match the show I thought we were in for.