Character development is an aspect of world building. But it’s not a thing done only by genre shows. Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, The Wire, Better Call Saul, Halt and Catch Fire, Mad Men, Law and Order, The West Wing...all of these shows are brilliant in no small part because their internal logic is specific and…

If you can sit thru seasons 2-7 of TNG and really all of DS9, to say nothing of the original movie run, and not feel that you were watching people live in a very specific, detailed world...well, I don’t know what to say. World-building doesn’t mean all of it is good. It means it’s internally consistent as far as those…

Trek is hard to get correct right out of the gate, to be sure. But it’s not the number of episodes per season that helped right the ships in TNG and DS9, et al. If anything the time crunch and pressure to produce that much TV hurt them. It was time in between seasons, when they had the opportunity to breathe, that…

None of the three showrunners in the modern era have knocked it out of the park consistently. I don’t think anyone can do that with Who. When it fails it fails. But so do Star Wars and Star Trek. I’ll take this era of Doctor Who over five of the last six Start Wars movies and, frankly, over all the TV Star Trek going…

Well, yes. But Moogie was there for comic effect. And sometimes (most times with the Moogie/Ferengi stuff) it fell flat. Embarrassingly so. But that only underlines the major flaw in Disco. You can’t have comic beats, or genuinely funny, human moments without people to care about. Discovery’s humor is all forced,…

Well, Michelle Yeoh is bloody brilliant, in general. But yeah. She’s stuck with a lot to carry here. Though she took the Bond Girl role in one of the absolute worst Bond films and ran with it. Made it one of the best Bond Girl performances ever.

But that’s not what he’s doing. He’s giving a pretty good overview of a course in “How To Write For TV 101.” He breaks down WHY things aren’t working for him. It’s not arbitrary. I only on rare occasions will sub a screenwriting class (I work in a film school), but I wish there were a good way to use these reviews.…

It’d be better off if it were The Orville. That show seems to understand what it is.

Actually, DS9 had the best all-around cast of any of the Trek shows. Nana Visitor could be a bit much from time to time. So was Marc Alaimo. And Terry Farrell had to learn to act in front of the camera- something she finally got the hang of - but the rest of them? Fantastic. You need SOME overacting to work thru all…

No no. Zack and the lady over at Geek Den are the only two who seem to understand how empty this thing is underneath all the shiny. I’d swear all the other recap/reviews are paid for by CBS.

Gaith,

I think Zach is spot on. This show oscillates between lazy pandering and being outright insulting. It’s georgous to look at, everyone is ACTING (in allcaps, all the time) and it moves fast. If that tips it in your favor, great. God’s speed. But beyond that, there’s no there there. This is all cover, no book. World…

He mostly complains about the shitty writing, but ok...it's just, when the writing is this lazy who cares about canon?

I’m sorry. Did John Cleese just say he denies the existence of alternative gender identities? Did he openly declare that there are two sexes, dammit! And you better conform to one??

I think you’re right that she is set up to fail, weekly, by the writers. But, so was Anson Mount. So is Doug Jones. So (and I especially hate, hate, hate her ridiculous character) is Michelle Yeoh. But they don’t fail BEYOND the limits of the writing. SMG seems to have a unique spin on her line reading that makes…

This is true. She was one of my favorite parts of The Walking Dead. But here? I don’t know where the disconnect is. But she’s one of the main reasons I can’t really enjoy this show. Whenever I think it’s getting better, Michael will be there to remind me that I can never love this show.

It’s the emotional manipulation and lack of faith in the audience’s ability to engage on their own that finally pushed me away (yet here I am still reading recaps...don’t ask). My breaking point was in the final ep of last season. Disco is surrounded, no starfleet ship can get there in time to help (or some shit), and …

“Christianity played a huge role in enslaved life...” Sure. Like this, you mean:

So much to unpack here.

I’ve developed almost as deep a contempt for Discovery’s producers (and by extension, the whole CBS Trek team) as they have for their audience. Their line of thinking on all things is, “Pan in, cue inspirational score, heavy-handed line reading....now CARE!!11!!!1!” I hate them so much.