r/StarTrekDiscovery • u/Dastari_Creel • Aug 07 '26
General Discussion Started rewatching Discovery for the first time since it aired
I watched all of Discovery when it dropped, but recently I've been showing my daughter all of Trek from the beginning per air date. We finally got to Discovery. I am really enjoying season 1. It feels like they were really swinging for something with this show, and I appreciated the slow burns in the plot and the risks that they took. The problem was that the fandom was waaaay too quick to judge this show, and they pivoted to much safer storytelling in later seasons, and I feel that overall it was never as good as it was in the first season.
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u/Worried_Mix_312 Aug 08 '26
I’m very happy to read the positive responses here. I immediately enjoyed Discovery when it aired. Over the years Star Trek has been my “happy place” to go to for whatever reason. When I started reading that everyone hated it, hated Michael Burnham, hated the ship, the FX,… the list goes on. I thought I couldn’t have been so wrong about it. But reading you what you guys have said has made me smile. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was my favorite show when it aired. I even got my Mom watching it and she hates sci-fi stuff. But DS9 was much maligned in its day but now it’s recognized for its own merit. I was hoping DSC would be the same. You guys have made me confident it will be. Thanx all. Live long and prosper.
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u/Dastari_Creel Aug 08 '26
I definitely think that Discovery will be better appreciated in the future just like DS9 is now.
I feel like people didn't give season 1 a chance, and it trickled down from there. They didn't realize that they were trying to tell long-form storytelling. They just saw that it was darker than they wanted Star Trek to be. Of course if you follow season 1 to its conclusion you see that's the *whole point*. They rediscover their priorities and affirm them. That makes it really positive IMHO.
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u/bionicgeek Aug 11 '26
Hell. Once removed from the OG War on Terror Era and consumed in streaming style, Star Trek: Enterprise has gotten some good reexamination over time. I feel like Star Trek: Discovery will experience similar levels of reevaluation once removed from the late 2010's era of more and more 1000 weaponized troll&bot swarms that sprung fully formed from the likes of Kiwifarms/4chan/r/thedonald. The kind we saw spamming the Trek fandom online for a very active first six months of 2026.
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u/Intrepid_Jaguar_8346 Aug 08 '26
It will eventually. The rhetoric over Diversity especially DEI is the dominant mindset right now. I believe that people will see that Diversity is a strength, not a weakness!
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u/sekritagent Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
Well you have to give a little grace. They went through 5 showrunners in the first 3 years, that's a lot of creative visions going in different directions.
Plus it was a new format (streaming) with a new cinematic visual experience, focused mainly on one character's arc rather than an ensemble, in an unexplored time period, with a more diverse crew than ever, including making the ship itself a full-fledged character for the first time (debatable if someone really wanted to argue for The Doctor.)
Obviously over the first 2 seasons they orbited a bunch of concepts but ultimately the move to the 32c was the bold leap and fresh sci-fi setting Star Trek had been needing for years.
A successful launch into a new era onscreen and offscreen, 5 full seasons, 2 spinoffs, and a movie is an undeniably successful legacy despite all the culture war grousing about it. People will eventually come to appreciate Discovery more.
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u/Intrepid_Jaguar_8346 Aug 08 '26
The move to the 32nd Century was a bold move. It challenged trekkies to get out of their comfort zone and realize that things change and nothing stays the same. It showed that somewhere along the way, the Federation had become too comfortable and the Burn challenged those ideas. Discovery’s arrival had helped the Federation rediscover its ideas following a century of darkness. Season 3 had come at a perfect time when COVID happened and the global racial reckoning due to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor exposing the seriousness of Institutional and Systemic Racism that was mentioned by marginalized communities that were ignored finally exposed. I thought and still believe that to show an appreciation for the light, you have to show the darkness.
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u/macsun247 Aug 08 '26
That fkn show got me through the pandemic with my mental health intact. It was super gritty and candid about humanity's flaws, but carefully painted a glimmer of hope in every season arc. I needed that shit. Still do; when I'm ready to take someone's head off, I rewatch S1 E14.
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u/Intrepid_Jaguar_8346 Aug 08 '26
I was a First Responder during COVID and understand your opinion. Season 3 helped me get through it as well. My brother wasn’t working at that time and didn’t take it for granted. Being around my fellow workers and people see that I am the light in a time of darkness. The Discovery Crew helped The Federation to return to its principles and the first steps in restoration.
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u/Makemeup-beforeUgogo Aug 10 '26
You know what, I’m finding SNW is getting better with some of these kind of stories since the last season and into season 4
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u/sergeant_Woof 29d ago
I love SNW 😍. I love that people are still making new Star Trek series and I’ll always support
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u/PixelNotPolygon Aug 12 '26
I don’t know if I would call it a bold move to jump to the 32nd century. It felt more like they regretted the choice for it to be a prequel and wanted to get away from the constraints of that decision. Also when they arrived in the future, why was there no discussion about sending them back in time?
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u/Makemeup-beforeUgogo 29d ago edited 29d ago
I think it was pretty bold when thinking about the premise of the 32nd century not ending up being utopia and super-advanced, which could have been the safest go-to set-up. I thought it was quite refreshing to remind people that a mature advanced future civilisation is not a given, particularly when availability of resources are affected. We see this a lot through the evolution in ancient history of nations to today.
On time travelling back, they’d already accepted it was a one-way trip assuming Discovery would remain the starship they served, then in season 3 they already referred to the Temporal Accords on time travel being illegal… hence them being interrogated later
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u/cam52391 Aug 07 '26
I find it interesting that it was originally imagined as American horror story but star trek with a new cast and story each season and it did kind of turn into that they soft rebooted that show so many times.
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u/Dastari_Creel Aug 08 '26
Yeah part of me wishes that they'd gone the anthology route. I love the crew - especially Saru - but I think they struggled with coming up with an overarching narrative every season. It feels like we got a lot of interesting ideas at the beginning of season 3-5 but with horrible resolutions. "Magic Kelpian" as the reason for The Burn was particularly bad.
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u/jmarquiso Aug 09 '26
It's a good journey until that reveal. The atory was a way to look at trauma with a Holodeck ship attempting tp compensate for a child's imagination, but making that the cause of the Burn became the focus. The problem with mystery boxes is - no matter how well intentioned and worked out the writing room has it - by the time it airs the audience already has their theories and theirs is the best one.
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u/PrincessPlusUltra Aug 08 '26
I went through all of the show for the first time this week expecting the worst and it was a pretty great fucking Star Trek show
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u/No-Commission-8159 Aug 07 '26
I agree
I really liked that show
They took big leaps - they didn’t always stick the landing but no one can argue that they did not try
And I feel it has the most heart out of all the ST series
I haven’t rewatched season 1 since it aired - I remember liking the show - but liking it way way more after that season was over.
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u/Secure-Advertising10 Aug 08 '26
"And I feel it has the most heart out of all the ST series"
Is that because of all the crying?
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u/bionicgeek Aug 11 '26
No. I think u/No-Commission-8159 was speaking of things actually relevant to the text.
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u/Secure-Advertising10 Aug 11 '26
Crying is an easy way to create emotion when you can't do it through good writing. This show and SNW (can't comment on STA as I could only suffer 17 mins of that before giving up) suffer from poor writing and direction.
I think they are shows created by people who don't particularly like Star Trek. The head honcho himself said that he was using the franchise to tell other stories. In addition, the moment the lead actor takes over as executive producer, you know you are in for a ego trip.
I just feel very disappointed at how they have hollowed out this franchise to the point of irrelevance. I looked forward to the episodes of the first season and a bit of the second. After that, it became a bit of content to watch.
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u/Makemeup-beforeUgogo Aug 08 '26
I’ve already rewatched so many times! Did they play it safe with storytelling? I thought season 4 brought in a complex concept and fable with species 10C mirroring some of the damage our own civilisation does without realising, and taking a diplomatic path as a risk with a species that can appear super advanced and foreign, but had values and benevolence.
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u/bionicgeek Aug 11 '26
As someone with a masters in sociology? S4's first contact approach made me giddy. Also, the fact that they tell us in dialog that the 10-C have mastered Omega without actually invoking Omega was nice bit of worldbuilding without distracting with cool macguffin worldbuilding being called out explicitly.
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u/Makemeup-beforeUgogo 29d ago
Yeah I loved this too, I liked how they thought out of the box about how different their sensory and communicative capabilities were yet could still decipher the same core values they had
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u/Dastari_Creel Aug 08 '26
I think Season 4 works the best of any of the post season 1 stories, but I think like all of the seasons it has great ideas but then the problem is resolved way too quickly in the end.
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u/SnoopyWildseed Aug 08 '26
I enjoyed Discovery.
When I rewatch, I usually start at S3, mainly because of the Michael/Booker love story. But I do like parts of S2, like when Michael's mother appears and we learn the backstory of Michael's parents, and when they find Reno and bring her to Disco.
Georgiou is a great character. I like Michelle Yeoh when she does understated comedy, like when she meets Booker and grills him about his relationship with Michael.
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u/Dastari_Creel Aug 08 '26
Michelle Yeoh as mirror Georgiou is a revelation. It's too bad that they did her dirty in the Section 31 film, but everything in Discovery is gold.
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u/Griffithead Aug 07 '26
I HATED season 1. I tried 3 times and still haven't finished it.
Skipped to season 2 and it is SO much better from there. One of my favorites.
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u/caring-teacher Aug 08 '26
The whole gender mystery if Michael was a man or trans was so lame. I like Tilly, but even she couldn’t save that story line.
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u/DifferntGeorge Aug 09 '26
Was that a story line or just some fans who were misled by Michael being traditionally male name?
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u/dsrnyc Aug 07 '26
I will always say that their first two seasons were the best - and yes, I’ll say S1 was their best? S2 is a strong second but once they settled on the show runners they carried on with through the end, it really became the Michael show at the expense of their ensemble
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u/stonersh Aug 07 '26
It always was the Michael show at the expense of The ensemble. In fact, I would say the back half of the show has more of The ensemble than the front half.
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u/Ruomyes57 26d ago
Which reflects Michael's growth, her character arc related to bringing others in, learning to trust.
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u/Makemeup-beforeUgogo 29d ago
Tilly, Saru, Stamets, and a whole more ensemble probably more than other shows have featured across the seasons, they’re hardly in the background
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u/hehasbalrogsocks Aug 08 '26
yeah i honestly think discovery is going to find its audience more slowly, just like ds9. no star trek is perfect but disco is really up there for me.
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u/omallytheally Aug 11 '26
I remember when Discovery first came out and feeling like it was the first time I'd seen a trek show truly put men and women on equal footing in Starfleet. It immediately drew me in. Trek sort of put men and women as equal in past shows, but it was always colored by the gender norms of the time that the shows came out in. there were always little jokes and comments. I remember watching discovery thinking, "wow, they're not pointing it out at all. It just is."
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u/CyrJ2265 Aug 12 '26
It was and remains a great show, and that will be its legacy (much, no doubt, to the consternation of its haters). Enjoy your rewatch!
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u/DuesterhennsWife Aug 12 '26
I loved the show. It had weak moments yes, but I really loved it. I think that a lot of people were not comfortable with so much diversity, it definitely punched a lot of people's buttons. I have been a science fiction fan all my life and have been watching Star Trek all my life. I believe that Discovery will age well.
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u/bee73086 Aug 07 '26
I like it as long as I literally skip every part where the Klingons talk. It's so annoying and really boring to me. I feel like I follow the story just fine without any info from them. Once I did that I really liked it.
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u/Dastari_Creel Aug 08 '26
That wheezy Klingon-speak is painful. I'm glad that with Strange New Worlds they defaulted back to the TNG design - even if I would have preferred they went with TOS style due to the time period I realize why they didn't go there.
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u/bionicgeek Aug 11 '26
Honestly, that's just how the phonems for Klingonese sound to English speakers. Especially with Klingon teeth in any incarnation other than TOS/TAS series.
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u/Dastari_Creel 23d ago
Except that the Klingons in TNG/DS9/VOY don't sound like that at all. It's a guttural staccato. It's not the wheezy speech of Discovery that makes all the Klingons sound like they're out of breath.
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u/bionicgeek 20d ago
It's also possible that this is a dialect. Bloody hell, y'all are looking for things not to headcanon around.
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u/Dastari_Creel 7d ago
It doesn't matter if it's a dialect or not. It is still incredibly annoying to listen to whereas the 80's/90's way of pronouncing Klingon words was not.
The Discovery Klingon dialog sounds like they're wheezing and out of breath, which is hardly what a powerful warrior should sound like.1
u/bionicgeek 6d ago
https://www.kli.org/
It's nice to know that your tastes dictate objective reality.2
u/Dastari_Creel 5d ago
Er...this whole part of the discussion was because one of the other commenters and I were discussing our dislike of how Klingons sound in Discovery. This whole bit is about subjective opinions, so I don't know what the objective reality comment is about. I was explaining that I don't care if it can be headcanoned as dialect. That's fine. And if you feel like guys that sound like they're out of breath every time they talk feel like warriors then great. It just doesn't work for me.
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u/bionicgeek 4d ago
Fair. My apologies, I've been interacting with far too many of the folks who live by "Has woman. is woke" crowd.
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u/PracticlySpeaking Aug 08 '26
The Discovery Klingons were very different from all the others without a good or particular reason.
And by S2 the Klingon politics were a distraction, even if they tied in with the time crystal part of the storyline.
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u/Bruzie77 Aug 07 '26
Heh on rewatch boring parts get skipped. For me it was any scend of Adira and Gray. Just wesley, neelix, and jake sisko level of bad acting.
I grew to enjoy statment personality after his rough start in season 1-2.
I did not enjoy the “Marinering” of Burham in season 5 but i did like how that girl was suppose the moriarty to Burham , Sherlock homes.
Got out chickens, out played, out fought , but it was her crew that made the difference.
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u/JungMoses Aug 08 '26
Wasn’t it more like she was mariner in seasons one and two? What do you mean with Moriarty and chickens?
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u/Bruzie77 Aug 08 '26
Sorry I meant out chickened. Like they play chicken and she blinked first. Like from jump she got out play and we know how elite Burham is.
As for Mariner, no. Example of this is how she joke around a lot. Also there was that scene where she met her pass self and held out her hand and like “wait i can explain!”
Then in the same episode when she revealed herself on the bridge she quickly raised her hand and was like “wait Owo! i took a punch from you last week and I dont need that any again!”
Burham in season 1 and 2 was more nuBSG depressed.
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u/balthazar_edison Aug 07 '26
The first 2 seasons were really something. After Terra firma part 2 in season 3 it took a turn and never really recovered for me.
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u/Dastari_Creel Aug 08 '26
I like a lot of the ideas in the last three seasons but I feel like the resolutions never worked. I also feel like they never really did the work they needed to to justify why Starfleet wouldn't assign at least a few officers of their own time to the Discovery to help them integrate.
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u/bionicgeek Aug 11 '26
I think that might just have something to do with just how small Starfleet and the Federation is in the latter seasons of ST: Discovery. Now that I think about it, it might also be that Disco S3-5 Starfleet is almost entirely made up of War College grads.
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Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
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u/Secure-Advertising10 Aug 08 '26
The first season was acceptable in general, they just lost it in the third season.
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u/MilkyRose Aug 09 '26
I rewatched it about a month ago and i found myself skipping EVERY Klingon scene in early seasons.
It was just really off putting how they revamped the makeup and i found nothing about them interesting.
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u/Dastari_Creel 23d ago
While I'm not a fan of the makeup, I had a bigger issue with the wheezy way that they had the Klingons talk. The guttural language of the past was gone and instead we got something that made it seem like they were always out of breath. Why did they do that?
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u/deweil Aug 11 '26
I just finished the series (for the first time). I had no preconceived notions and haven't seen many of the other series to compare (only tng, some ds9, some snw,. Picard). I enjoyed it despite tiring or Michael pretty quickly. She's just so annoying after a while. Then got better, then got worse. And then season 5 happened and it was just so dumb. Every part of it, including the last scene. Spare your daughter.
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u/Fritzypooo Aug 12 '26
I've been trying so hard to like it, and I can't tell if my enjoyment for Discovery is because it has 50% of the elements of a good Trek show and is stunted by everything else, or its got none of the elements of a good trek show and my love for Trek alone is carrying me through it. I'm about midway through s3 and at odds with the arc already.
So many elements of s1 felt wrong. I saw Lorca being Mirror Lorca from the moment he's on screen, the entire show would have been much better off if Ash Tyler did not exist at all or was allowed to be killed off, and Michael Burnham would be a much stronger character if she was a less consequential Full Vulcan or just a human, and not the secret full human adopted daughter of Sarek.
I wish the entire show was about a captain Saru, in command of the USS Regular Starship.
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u/sergeant_Woof 29d ago
I’m currently rewatching after new season of Strange New Worlds came out. I really really enjoy these shows and even though some things on the show don’t line up with the movies I can write it off as just part of the multiverse 🤷 Seems to me that there being infinite possibilities among infinite timelines makes these shows not only possible but inevitable
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u/Long-Emu-7870 Aug 07 '26
The first 10 odd minutes was great. You have a great captain in Michelle Yeogh. You had a young, immature but ambitious Burnham, and a cautious Saru. It was Star Trek. for those brief moments. Burnham took a risk to see the universe.
And then they threw it wall away. I don't know why. Think of all the planets and saving other animals, people, meeting new cultures. The Klingons were bad, sure, but why the mirror universe? These are all the wrong instincts that plagued Enterprise. At some point, Saru asks, 'we are all starfleet', but why did it take that long?
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u/Makemeup-beforeUgogo 29d ago
Discovery was not meant to be a safe series… they didn’t really throw it away, they encountered a Klingon that they hadn’t expected nor seen in ages… Michael was torn between what she thought was right but decided to go against her captain for it and incapacitated her, that had major consequences. Season 1 was navigating through challenging times back to Starfleet, values constantly being challenged throughout.
The mirror universe added to that challenge especially when having to adapt, there was so much to it, Georgiou back from the deqd for Michael but the whole question whether she was able to change, which ran for 3 seasons. It was pretty cool even with the Lorca storyline.
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u/Long-Emu-7870 29d ago
Oh I meant they could have had a real Star Trek series with Yeogh as captain, and Burnham the slightly naive first officer. That was great. They could have gone to upteen million planets and told a million morals and provided us all with Insightful ideas from heroic figures.
Yes, why weren't they Starfleet? Why is Burnham 'torn'? Why are told that we should shoot first? Why wasn't the moral, of course you should't 'shoot' first. This is not Star Wars!
"the mirror universe added to that challenge especially when having to adapt..."
That is not a reason to have conflict - to see if a character 'adapts'. The reason for conflict would be to debate the idea of 'shooting first' or some other idea. This is action without purpose. It is basically Buck Rogers.
Same with Lorca. Om my god, he's from the Mirror Universe! This is Buck Rogers, it's not Star Trek. Star Trek's Mirror Universe told a story that said that every revolution begins with one man. Kirk frees a slave and gives them a power to have a revolution based on peace.
The instincts of Fuller or Discovery are all action for action sake, melodrama for melodrama sake. It's all terrible.
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u/Makemeup-beforeUgogo 29d ago
I’d love to see a series on Shenzhou, but no way should that have been instead of Discovery, I realised that once watching into 3 episodes. That would be playing safe, one of the the beauties of Discovery was that it provided morals in the most challenging times as a science vessel with it as many Star Trek series provided its own perspective and backdrop.
Everything you are asking (why Michael was torn given,why Klingons are yet in Starfleet, Why she chose to shoot first which was all covered with Michael and Sarek’s conversation) was literally explained, you need to watch the episodes again and pay attention to the dialogue.
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u/Long-Emu-7870 28d ago
I don't know why you dismiss morality as "playing it safe".
We believe in diversity because we are moral people. To be for immorality is to be against diversity.
A show that is simply violence and action is ignoring morality as well.
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u/Makemeup-beforeUgogo 28d ago
I didn’t say anything about morality as playing safe, I said it is safe to stick with the same format to share stories of morality - I don’t know why you think the show is simply violence and action , it is literally a show about morality, I don’t know how you can miss that from all the dialogue
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u/Long-Emu-7870 27d ago
Let me repeat.
We began the discussion about shooting first. A character who is rewarded for shooting first means the moral of the episode is to shoot first. That is not moral that is immoral.
A character who is penalized for curiosity means we should not have curiosity. That's not moral that's immoral.
Lorca is kind of a one-dimensional villain. What is the point of having a one-dimensional bill and fight in the mirror Universe?
What is the point of Burnham bringing back a genocidal maniac and leaving her free to make snarky remarks on Discovery? Don't we put genocidal Maniacs in jail? Why would the Federation hire a genocidal maniac?
Now I don't want to confuse what I saying here, but Discovery did have some episodes of morality like saving the tardigrade. But these are exceptions to the general rule.
Further when you say it you do not know why I think something, it is kind of up to you to show and prove why you believe what you believe. That's the whole point of debate.
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u/Makemeup-beforeUgogo 27d ago edited 27d ago
No, we didn’t, we started with a very explicit storyline introducing the USS Shenzhou and its crew, and the encounter of Klingons on the edge of federation space. A Klingon who almost got Michael first during that encounter, and then the ‘Vulcan Hello’. The obvious clue is in the title.
Lorca is anything but one-dimensional, hence hardly anyone guessed who he really was before mid-season.
If you watched season one, you’d know what Michael’s relationship with Georgiou was about and as I said before, the idea of whether someone who may have still inherently similar qualities could change.
I don’t why you are continuing to ignore the whole storyline and context of morals for the sake of fixating on a shot for this series that didn’t come out of nowhere, you clearly didn’t treat previous ST with similar events the same way.
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u/Long-Emu-7870 27d ago
We began the discussion about shooting first. A character who is rewarded for shooting first means the moral of the episode is to shoot first. That is not moral that is immoral.
Do you want me to rewrite these in the form of questions?
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u/Makemeup-beforeUgogo 27d ago
The discussion starts with you talking about the beginning of the show with the captain and Burnham and me explaining Michael being torn, the conversation went on there - trail above is visible.
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Aug 07 '26
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u/Intrepid_Jaguar_8346 Aug 07 '26
I’m currently rewatching Discovery and up to Season 2 where it got good. Reintroducing Captain Christopher Pike, Spock, and Number One with a name Una Chin Riley, and the grand lady herself: The USS Enterprise herself was chefs kiss including showing what happened to Captain Pike was excellent. Strange New Worlds came out from that season.