felt like a space show with Trek slapped on sometimes
So many shows in established IP feel this way because that’s exactly what happens, even if not the original intent.
The Halo TV series was never intended to be Halo until it failed to get picked up as a standalone Sci fi show, and then they replaced names and locations in the same way a 5th grader might use “Find&Replace” to change names in a word document (think Michael Scarn vs Michael Scott). It’s so obvious they wanted to be their own independent thing and shoehorned in all the Halo parts.
Discovery FEELS like they want to make a star trek show, but that they ALSO want to tell their own story. I think every creative wants to leave an impact on things, otherwise why bother trying to tell the same old story that’s been told before? So I’m perfectly okay with each series being a different tone, with different perspectives on things (I like to think inter-series contradictions are simply results of different points of view).
That said, discovery definitely feels like the “Pick Me” kid in the IP. It’s trying too hard to be “different” sometimes, and it clearly wants to be set in a “relevant” time while also being technologically on par with other shows we’ve seen already, two ideas that are incompatible. There’s over a hundred years of difference between discovery and Voyager, which I think was the latest-running series in terms of stardate?
Discovery could have been a lot better, I think, if they had stayed closer to classic trek-type stories, but I’m still glad they tried steering away. You don’t know your limits if you never test them.
MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Let’s not forget that it’s thanks to Discovery that we got all the Nu Trek like SNW, Prodigy, Picard, LD, and Academy.