Published on: 18 Jan 10:00

Zbigniew asks

Oh boy, I’ve tried hard to like this series, but eventually gave up somewhere in the midst of the 2nd season. It was so boring that I simply had to stop watching it.

My answer

Gave up middle of the 2nd? Same! For me the reason was a teensy bit different: I’d found the show and most of its characters were and are proud of being bitter, and cold, and abrasive, and of brandishing their tantrums like some kind of perverse badge of honour.

I mean geez. What happened to optimism? What happened to the fab new post-scarcity future? It’s not that I don’t get you can venture way too far in that direction, absolutely you can: Roddenberry’s decree to the writers back in the first couple of seasons of TNG that the main characters may never have any interpersonal conflicts of any kind whatsoever due to the Federation being “more evolved” or what-have-you is just plain silly. Zero conflict means zero drama, zero tension, zero story, boring. Personally, I’d interpret Star Trek’s “more evolved” Federation as its members having greater skill and savvy at analysing and resolving the conflicts they do encounter, rather than just simply never encountering any in the first place.

But Discovery goes way, way too far the other way. Most characters spasm and squirm with psychological trauma, they thrash and recoil with their inner emotional agonies, they quiver, they wobble, they burst. No-one’s perfect, mind you. We all have our issues. But this? They’re just taking the piss.

What happened to competence? What happened to professionalism? There’s a reason TNG’s fandom birthed the term “competence porn”. Watching the D’s crew doing their thing was and is a thing of beauty. Why can’t we have that again?

Source: https://www.quora.com/What-went-so-wrong-with-Star...