Official Discovery Season 2 Discussion Thread (SPOILERS!)

[Kurt Logan]

I cant add much to the discussion as i've found the whole show from season 1 episode one to be annoying and badly written

I cant think of a single story that i've been a part of or have read that Discovery would be above 

Don't know if its just me but i've lost any real interest in watching any more of it, sadly

[Blake]

Ladies and gents, I have decided I would like nothing more than a show led with Anson Mount's Captain Pike and some adventures with Number One and Lt Spock.

Honestly, if CBS doesn't do this, after that finale, those execs should be written off as mad.

[Rahman and Rivi Vataix]

1 hour ago, Sky Blake said:

Ladies and gents, I have decided I would like nothing more than a show led with Anson Mount's Captain Pike and some adventures with Number One and Lt Spock.

Honestly, if CBS doesn't do this, after that finale, those execs should be written off as mad.

From an interview with the Hollywood Reporter:

You not only brought in Spock this season, but also Anson Mount, who garnered a lot of critical praise and even a fan petition to get a Pike spin-off. Is there a chance of that happening?

Kurtzman: The fans have been heard. Anything is possible in the world of Trek. I would love to bring back that crew more than anything. It was a huge risk for us. One of the most gratifying things is to see how deeply the fans have embraced Pike, Spock, Number One, and the Enterprise. The idea of getting to tell more stories with them would be a delight for all of us.

[+ German Galven]

I mean the reimagined Enterprise Bridge looked glorious!

[Pholin Duyzer]

If you would have asked me two years ago if I wanted a pre-TOS show on the Enterprise with everyone recast and not completely faithful to the original, I would have laughed. Things changed though. Now, I really, really want to see a Pike show. Gimme!

[Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf]

Hrm – chagrined that the message they took from this is that a prequel was the way to go. The thing a friend said to me was that this entire series would have made so much more sense in the future – all the new technology/redesigned look, Section 31 elements, etc. would have been perfectly "in place" after Nemesis. Ever since he said that I can't stop thinking about it and feeling frustrated they didn't go that route. 

The thing about the character of Pike is that he could have been any Starfleet captain. We knew nearly nothing about Pike before this, and nothing about this character of Pike beyond the moment of seeing his future was specific to that character's history. 

Nonetheless, I thought Anson Mount was great, I thought the character was very well written, and I absolutely hope we see him again in his own series. In fact, I hope they don't do a whole series but just test out a one or two season mini-series. Why couldn't we just get 10 or 20 episodes of him and be done? It would set the precedent that we don't need to fill up 7 seasons worth of Star Trek content for it to be fun to watch! 

[Kiliak Jo]

I agree with Wolf here above, I often forget it's supposed to be a prequel until Enterprise shows up and looks positively ancient next to Discovery.

But mostly, I just can't stand Ash at all. Character, actor, story-role, romance, half-evil-Klingon-but-also-Section-31-nonsense, his face, his lousy beard, the whole thing, whenever he's on screen, I'm like. Please. stop. Go away. Georgieu too, I preferred her character much more back when she was dead. Her whole walking edgelord schtick, I can't really help but to cringe sometimes. I thought the Red Angel thing was building to something a little grander, but whatever, it was passable. Let's not talk about Season 1.

No Kelpians seen around our fleet yet, hm?

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Lieutenant Kiliak Jo
Asst. Chief Engineer
USS Atlantis
A239509KJ0 
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[Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf]

5 hours ago, Kiliak Jo said:

But mostly, I just can't stand Ash at all. Character, actor, story-role, romance, half-evil-Klingon-but-also-Section-31-nonsense, his face, his lousy beard, the whole thing, whenever he's on screen, I'm like. Please. stop. Go away. Georgieu too, I preferred her character much more back when she was dead. Her whole walking edgelord schtick, I can't really help but to cringe sometimes. I thought the Red Angel thing was building to something a little grander, but whatever, it was passable. Let's not talk about Season 1.

Yes to all that stuff about Ash but honestly I think the bigger problem is just how convoluted his – and the entire – story is. I watch Discovery with my boyfriend who's as big of a Star Trek nerd as I am – he has a photographic memory and can name any TNG episode just from a few words describing it – and even he didn't really understand Ash's story. We spent a lot of time just trying to rehash the plot to understand whether Ash is a Klingon in a "human suit" or what. Like... did they tear apart the Klingon to make him look like a human and then put a human consciousness in him? Or is he a human they somehow put the Klingon mind into? How would those of us watching at home really know? 

But every story so far is like that. Every episode has five fake-out flips. Every season has 100 different degree plot turns just to get to the finale. The whole thing just feels very frantic to me at times. 

[Gogigobo Fairhug]

There are so many things about Discovery that niggle me, that I wish they had just chosen a different time period, in all honesty. I prefer the stand-alone episode style for a start, which, if my memory serves, Discovery didn't have at all in either season. I hated the fact that they messed with Spock's history by giving him a "sister" who they then conveniently wiped from the history books in what has got to be one of the biggest cop-outs in television history - I mean, seriously, it was almost Bobby Ewing in Dallas stuff. Some of the characters grated on me and others, who I hoped they would explore more, didn't get the screen time they deserved. Honestly, I could go on with plenty more stuff that I didn't like about it, but, that being said, there were things I did like, too.

I liked Saru as a character and I thought the twist with the Ba'ul was very clever. I loved Captain Pike and getting to see Number One and I would love to see them in a spin-off. I also liked the way they elaborated on Pike's future and I enjoyed the inclusion of Vina and the Talosians. Season Two was definitely a better effort, in my opinion.

All-in-all, I tried to just enjoy Discovery for what it was, but I think it was just such a strange time period to choose and they took too many risks, many of which did not pay off. There were so many other things they could have done, I really don't know why they went with this. Also, what on Earth are they going to do next season? So strange.

I don't hate it, but it's by far and away my least favourite Trek series.

[Theo Whittaker]

Discovery's second season was by far and away a massive improvement over Season 1 for me (which in retrospect is nigh-unwatchable). By now I think that it is clear that Season 1 was a rush job and hastily slapped together after Bryan Fuller was fired by CBS. It's my opinion that he had a game plan for the start of the season but NOT the end of the season, which is why plot lines like Ash Tyler went absolutely nowhere and why the war took a backseat for the second half of the series before petering out with a whimper. Add in to that the alleged abuse that the two show runners directed at the writer's room. The cast simply had to make the best out of a very bad situation. Unfortunately- it was a poor effort.

So like I said, I found Season 2 extremely engaging. The producers and writers clearly listened to the fan feedback and it must have taken guts for them to admit even to themselves that they had faltered. I appreciate them trying to rectify their mistakes. We got to know the primary and secondary characters, the Klingons looked more like Klingons, the plot felt more like Star Trek than say Battlestar Galactica, they did away with the dystopian mood and they ended the series by giving us what we wanted: a new time period.

I think my highlights of the season were Michelle Yeoh clearly having a blast as Emperor Georgiou (she was so much fun this time around), Captain Pike, Number One unleashing all the sass in the finale, Michael and Saru's bond being brought the fore (Episode 4 made me cry like a baby), Sonequa Martin-Green really stepping up and delivering one heck of a performance all season long and the finale... whew the finale was an absolute tour de force. I was on the edge of the seat the entire time. The last time I enjoyed Star Trek so much was DS9's The Way Of The Warrior. It was incredible, to me.

Of course there were niggles: after such a strong start to the series Tilly faded in to the background and eventually became a comic relief character. I've always loved Tilly (I relate to her so much) but she became actively annoying as soon as her mycelial plot wrapped up. On top of that, Ash's story went.... absolutely nowhere. Why they had to bring him back I have no idea and the baby plot line was.... yeah no. They strung out the search for Spock (no pun intended) for far too long and the Paul and Hugh melodrama was a drag (JUST GET BACK TOGETHER SO I CAN SHIP!).

I'm excited for Season 3 (and for Picard!) and I pray that the ship is steadied now that the backroom drama has been sorted out.