That was ruined when Voyager revealed that going warp 10 turns you into a freaky lizard. Thanks, Brannon Braga. The spore drive is just as bananas, and in just as fun a way.
I agree that the whole spore network thing is ridiculous. But, I have to be that annoying person who points out that space is not really a vacuum; it's full of matter, just a lost less dense than planets, etc. In my pandemic boredom, I finally decided to try season 3. I'm enjoying it, too. I try to keep 5 decades of Trek watching/reading from spoiling it. I lower my expectations, as it were...
This is it. Discovery is not amazing but it still has some interesting ideas. You just have to be mature enough to let all the 'new ways of thinking' just wash over you till the next action sequence.
All the catchphrases apply to this program. And it's so obvious it's painful. It aspires to something high brow. But it's a program for tween's. A better drinking game would be to take a shot every time someone cries.
I have enjoyed Discovery but am finding this season a bit less exciting so I watched the latest episode on 1.25 speed on my Netflix app and found it a lot more palatable as all that slow pensive talking actually sounded a bit more normal.
Michael Burnham is no more a Mary Sue than James T. Kirk or Luke Skywalker. She's granted a lot of universal importance in this story (Michael and her mother both potentially responsible for galactic destruction in S2, for instance), but that's not the same thing.
The spore drive doesn't bother me any more than some of the other crazy things in Star Trek, but what does bother me is the surprisingly unimaginative writing this season. I mean, they go 900 years into the future and we have, what? Personal transporters. Pop up displays. And...? That, plus a seeming inability to write meaningful, rounded characters. It's the "let's give each character a single personality quirk" to identify them school of writing, and nothing more. I admit that having only 14 or 15 episodes per season vs. TNG's 26 limits the ability to expand the stories into deeper character aspects, but there must be a better way to address this than having secondary characters smirk or give "a meaningful look." JohnK
I just watched the 4th episode of the 3rd season ('Forget Me Not' - about Trills). This could have been a sappy, boring episode. In fact, some of the shipboard scenes were. But: 1) Dr. Culber really shone, showing his medical professionalism in helping the crew. 2) The pool scenes where Burnham helps Adira recover her memories was really moving. The script, acting, effects, and score were top-notch. I was misty-eyed, and Trek hasn't done that for me since DS9's 'The Visitor'.
As with most cinema of this type, I am a simpleton. Entertain me and bring me to a place where I can forget about the world we live in while creating a sense of wonder as if I were still a child. Discovery pushes those buttons. I don't read so much into the realism of spore drives in a show where warp is the norm. Gosh knows we cannot do that in these times, why should the spore concept bother anyone so much? I held off on watching the most recent finale for a few weeks, almost as if to savor it for a bit longer. As expected., I thoroughly enjoyed the conclusion of this season, asI have enjoyed the story to this point. Makes me wonder though if there is more story to tell. The rebuilding of The Federation seems with Michael at the helm of Discovery seems kind of routine. What might come next?
One of the threads in series 3 was a melody that was played by Adira and her invisible predecessor, and that also turned up elsewhere. Did I somehow miss an explanation as to where this melody came from?
It ended up coming from the way the Kelpien ship's distress signal propagated through subspace. There was a scene where Adira and Stamets break it down for Saru. The idea of it being a melody somehow everybody knows did disappear without a trace, though.
I just watched the Season 3 finale, and I agree with you wholeheartedly. I've long been thinking that the Trek producers love to push our buttons (I've thought this ever since Season 2 of DS9). I enjoyed the first two seasons of Discovery with that caveat, but sneered at the 21st Century style of flash cuts and incomprehensible action. I wasn't even going to watch Season 3, but was bored and got a week free of CBS-AA. This season made me realize that the true spirit of Trek is alive and well, and the promise of diversity is expanding. Sure, they push our buttons, but we need that aspirational content, especially these days. Are some of the plot points magical and ridiculous? Yes, and Trek has always been that. But, it's also been (and continues to be) imaginative and entertaining. By the way, tonight was a Trek binge. After a Jeopardy clue mentioned "Is There in Truth No Beauty?", I watched it on Blu-ray. I then watched the finale of Lower Decks (funny and too "hipster", but so reverential and knowledgable of Trek lore that I loved it) followed by the finale of Discovery.
No word yet, but maybe not until next year? Disco S4 is currently filming and I haven't heard anything about Strange New Worlds filming at this point. No word on production of a new Picard season either.
New Picard has started filming, hasn't it? I think Strange New Worlds is filming up in Toronto or someplace.
Looks like February: Jeri Ryan Confirms New ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 2 Production Start Date So, sooner than I thought. I know Lower Decks S2 is in production as well, and we may see that one first out of any of them, with it being animated.
Ten episodes in on season three. To much emotions and 2020 social commentary. To little Trek Weakest season by far. First two episodes were the best. Then it lost much of my attention. They went 900 years into the future and did nothing with it...? Two pointless mirror episodes and a boring visit to the thrill home planet, really! I hope the season finale picks up a bit
I also found Season 3 to be not as good as Seasons 1 and 2, and it became very much “Women In Space”. If I look at Star Trek TOS, that was very much “Men In Space”, but all it really did was to reflect its times. However, I feel that the gender mix in Discovery is contrived. I’d suggest that it doesn’t reflect the world of today, nor the world of the future. Instead, it feels more like the result of too much political correctness. For me, this seriously reduces the show’s appeal. My guess is that most people of either sex would wish for equality rather than single-gender dominance, and the whole Trek ethos has always been about equality... until now. Having said that, what Discovery does reflect is the poor state of the news media, and the current penchant for political posturing. Truth tends to get shoved aside as political opinions get reported as fact. Also, in humanity, there’s traditionally been a tendency to protect females for the simple reason that they’re our future inasmuch as they bear our children. My guess is that this is why men have traditionally put themselves in danger rather than their mates. If the world went the way of Discovery, and if a population came under serious threat, would they seriously send all the women off to the frontline as a first choice? The only real solution would be for all of humanity to become hermaphrodites, and I wouldn’t rule that out as a possible future outcome.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, there's a trailer for Season 4: Honestly my issue is here is "oh no, the entire universe is in danger again" as a starting-to-get-stale motivation for a season-spanning arc.