I have an intense distaste for Discovery, and wouldn't recommend it.

I could rant about it a la Angela Collier for 4 hours but here's my main issues boiled down to a bulleted list:

Some things I like about Star Trek:

• Optimistic future, humans can create greatness and beauty if they continue to check and overcome their faults
• No black and white villains. All antagonists are given nuance and development and many become favored allies
• Themes of teamwork, a functional ensemble, core crew are all valid and valued, no one star of the show.
• No such thing as magic or gods, everything is in the realm of human understanding if we have sufficient knowledge

Guess what Disovery has?

• Nihilistic, apocalyptic future
• Bad guys that are just bad, they're evil, don't ask questions
• One principal star of the show that is the focus of nearly every episode
• No attempt to explain things with any veneer of science

Then add on some blatant examples of total ignorance for the universe it's set in, attempts at ham handed fan service by shoe horning in clumsy references to characters from other series, you have a show that is farther from Star Trek than a 14 year old's submission on IO9. When it actually let the supporting cast do things, they were charming and likable, but Stamets, Saru and Tilly weren't enough to keep me from getting mad at just about every episode.

If you don't really care about or know anything about Star Trek it can be entertaining I guess, but why watch it when there's Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks and The Orville?

I watched all of Discovery. It is, by far, the worst of all Star Treks. (Disclosure: I have not seen TAS.)

The reason is simple: Discovery is really the Michael Burnham show. She is the Mariest Sue who ever Mary Sued. Discovery could have been a really great show if it had been an ensemble show because it has a lot of very interesting characters whom we never explore.

Instead, everything centres around Burnham. She is the reason for the war at the start of the show. She is the magical, fated solution. She is Spock's (adopted) sister and had immeasurable impact on his life. Even through timey-wimey things, her (biological) mother comes to save her and the universe.

And on top of all that is the crying. Oh, gosh, everything is so emotional on this show. There is a time and place for emotions, but Discovery was too much of it, including inappropriate times. Burnham and her maybe-broken-up-boyfriend stop in the middle of an infiltration in a hostile station to talk about their relationship.

Even the really great characters, Saru and (Emperor Georgiou) centre around Burnham. She is like a sister to Saru, she saved his life, he gives up being a Captain to continue serving under her captaincy. Burnham is Georgiou's daughter (not actually), and Georgiou's love for her (as much as she can love) changes her.

No one has a story unless its actually about Burnham. Or they get a story and then get killed off.

The best thing about Discovery is it brought Trek back on TV and it gave us the rest of this era of shows.

Discovery is fine. It takes some weird turns, sort of a necessity since they chose to make it a prequel with a unique propulsion system. And it is not like the 90s shows. And there's a vocal group of fans that hate it just because it's different, it was the first show coming back from the long show hiatus, and many are simply incapable of admitting that.

Picard's seasons are all weird in their own way and with their own flaws, totally separate from Disco.

Watch the first season and make your own decision. Star Trek fans are some of the worst for having outsized online hatred of shit that doesn't matter.

There is an entire season about warp drive not working anywhere in the universe. It turns out that it stopped working because an alien got really sad. Not because he did anything because he was sad, just because he got sad. Ohh, and somehow the Vulcans, with all their logic, never thought of tracking down the cause by triangulation.

That was the end of the series for me.

I'll be honest, I can't remember all my particular criticisms, but here's my impressions that I have left:

It'd be more accurately titled Star Trek: Burnham, because 95% of the time, every problem or mystery is somehow related to Burnham, everyone else is just supporting cast.

Like Picard, each season felt very disconnected from the others, there's some continuity, but you could almost name the season based on the feel of an episode.

Plots more often than not felt underwhelming, as they were solved by essentially deus ex machina, mcguffins, surprise reveals or abrupt character changes.

It was largely visually ok, actors all did at least a decent job.

I have 0 desire to ever rewatch a single episode.

Don't listen to the critics on the internet. If you're not dying soon, watch it all. It's Trek. It's roughly 60% great, 30% mediocre to aged poorly, and 10% let's never talk about it again.

I would go in rough order of release because they do like harkening back to stuff. Actually rewatching TOS will be good for SNW. And Disco S2 is its backdoor pilot.

@cuchi it is bad...

My honest opinion is that Discovery is nowhere near as bad as its detractors say.

That said, I also wouldn’t call it good Star Trek and didn’t finish the final season.

It’s boring, not bad.

The central character of the show is the least interesting person on it somehow despite having what could have been a good back story.

Everyone else seems to be some sort of real person to me. She is just so boring and flat and everything revolves around her for no real reason. Her purpose seems to be to be the fence post that stands there and eventually cries.

The best thing about the show was it gave us Anson Mount as Pike and he is outstanding. He was so good as Pike we got SNW as a spinoff.

I've been doing a complete rewatch of Deep Space 9, and it really underscored why I didn't enjoy Discovery and Picard. My favourite parts of DS9 are the character driven moments, whether they're big and dramatic, or lightweight and silly. I like that the show has enough space for that. The show has more Plot than previous Star Trek, but that Plot still serves the characters. Discovery is not nearly as bad as Picard on this front, but I still found myself wishing for more opportunity to get to know the characters.

I couldn't make it through the first season and tried picking up season 2 to see if it improved any. Didn't watch anything past that.

It was written by people who didn't have a good grasp on what star trek was, or thought they could remake it better for a new generation. But they ended up making something that just leaves a sour taste in your mouth if you know what that setting is capable of being.

To me, STD and the first season or so of Picard feel exactly like when a video game you thoroughly enjoy gets adapted into movie. There's recognizable elements there, but nobody is acting the way they should and everything has that uncanny valley affect where you know what it's supposed to be but it's clearly failing to do it convincingly. It's hard to point to what is actually wrong but you know several elements are off.

If you're a fan of older Star Treks it's bad, real bad. I watched until the end of season 2 with my partner and had to bail. Everyone above has given good reasons why, I'll add one I haven't seen: the lead actress (Soneqa Martin-Green?) overacts Michael Burnham. She overdramatizes almost every scene, to the detriment of the believabolity of the in-universe world, I tried to overlook it but found it grating. I told my partner that half-way into season two, and she responded that she doesn't really see it. Then about five seconds later Burnham is raising her voice to a senior officer and on the verge of tears over nothing.. a minor misunderstanding. Partner laughs and goes, "ok yeah I see it".

I'd rewatch Enterprise 100 times over ever watching Discovery again, and Enterprise is probably my least favourite pre-2010 Trek, if that helps you.

Some people like it. Some people hate it. You’re going to have to make that determination for yourself. You’ll know by the time you get to season two which camp youre in

Personally I found the cast wasted on poor writing. And as someone else mentioned, the show concentrates entirely too much on Burnham. Half of the bridge crew you probably won’t know their names by the end of season one. There were a couple of bright spots — Saru’s backstory and character were well done.

It's fine.

And those that disagree should be forced to watch Star Trek: Section 31 until they can have a reasonable conversation like an adult.

i think this clip really highlights all the issues i had with discovery.

kinda poor acting, cringe ass dialogue, boring and bland music, self aggrandisement, and too many obvious cgi 'set pieces'.

new trek is action oriented space opera, not hard scifi morality tales. ig its just not for me

It's always worth remembering that the people who dislike something tend to be the loudest.

There's no doubt reactions to Discovery have been mixed. Personally, I enjoyed it. It was uneven and flawed and sometimes frustrating. But there were enough good moments to keep me going. I don't think anyone can tell you if you'll enjoy it... You just have to try it and see.

It wasn't my cup of tea.

My favorite new Trek remains Lower Decks.

I very much enjoyed the start but steadily lost interest.

There's some good stuff in Discovery all the way through, don't get me wrong. But they kind of flipped the script in a way I did not appreciate.

Most of classic Trek showed us a future with a largely functional society, mostly full of good people who were ready and willing to deal with occasional corruption.

Lots of newer Trek, and especially Discovery, showed us a future where society is largely dysfunctional and corruption is the norm. Almost everyone in the series who isn't a main character (plus a couple who are) is a piece of shit. Even the "good guys" frequently encourage or at least tolerate clearly evil behavior as long as it serves their ends. But it's okay because...friendship I guess?!?

Their heart is in the right place but the writing is generally bad. I think this generation of writers is incapable of imagining a better world, which, sure, is understandable, given how thoroughly corrupt our current society is. But it's deeply depressing. It lacks soul.

SNW is better in this regard. But you'll probably want to watch season 1 of Discovery first since there's some crossover.

Naw it’s a journey. I accepted discovery like I did voyager. Once I saw what it was in it own, much better. Second watch got better, just like voyager.

I think if you're looking for a recommendation, both Strange New Worlds and Enterprise are better than Discovery.

If you were ok with Picard season 1, at worst you'll be ok with Discovery.

I will say that Strange New Worlds is technically a spinoff of Discovery, so a watching Discovery first makes more sense if you're planning on watching them all eventually anyway.

Discovery has good episodes, but probably more bad episodes than good episodes. If you're binge watching, which you can do now that it's all been released, it won't be so bad. If you watch a bad episode, you'll come across a good episode soon enough. When we had to watch week to week, it was rough going bad after bad, week to week.

It has its weaknesses, but I think you should watch it if just to form your own opinion.

I’ve only watched through the middle of season 4, where I got a bit tired of it, though I might pick it back up.

Season 1 is interesting, season 2 is weird, and season 3 has its flaws but keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Season 4 I feel like squanders the new setting introduced in season 3; the plot they introduce feels so artificial to me, which is very upsetting because it feels like the new setting has so many stories that would practically write themselves even if you do decide to lean on “Big Bad Villain/Problem” storytelling.

I love Discovery. Some of the criticisms are valid; every season has a few dumb moments that make me shake my head. But I love the characters, the actors are all great, Doug Jones in particular is a treasure, and the first contact in season 4 feels more like a proper science fiction scenario than any other in Trek.

One thing to keep in mind is that the tone shifts considerably season to season. It starts off quite grim and gritty, but don’t expect it to stay that way.

It's also important to separate what you're seeing online from the leftovers of a manufactured "opposition campaign" orchestrated by a handful of reactionary influencers.

Personally speaking I did not like the early two seasons, but I thought three is ok, and seasons four and five I consider to be some of Trek's best!

Discovery was never bad. It's just different. Some people say it's not what Trek is about.

1. Star Trek has always been about captains exploring. Deep Space Nine challenged that with a commander; Sisko later made captain, but the station itself only moved in the pilot (closer to the wormhole; it's always been in Bajor's orbit) and maybe one other time? But they did plenty of exploring in the Runabouts, and Defiant, the ship they got later. But essentially the action came to them, and that was fine. Discovery is not about a captain. Michael Burnham is a... commander? I forget. On the original ship. Then she's nobody. She gets promoted up but she almost never leads, but the show focuses on her. It's... weird. (And she's a woman... named Michael... pronounced the same as the male name... and this is never explained.)

2. Star Trek has always been about diversity, but Discovery had a gay couple in an openly sexual relationship. It never showed sex between them, but plenty of kissing and intimacy. Discovery also had a non-binary character with they/them pronouns. And as mentioned, a woman named Michael, but she's cisgendered and straight, so that's not why she has a guy's name. Anyway, some people thought it was a few bridges too far.

3. Star Trek has almost always been wholesome. Deep Space Nine pushed the envelope, and while it showed Sisko doing some very bad things, profanity was never part of it, and the violence was mostly PG. Discovery was on streaming, so they had profanity and R-rated violence. There may have even been some mild nudity, I don't recall. This put off a lot of traditional fans.

4. Before Deep Space Nine (i.e. The Original Series and The Next Generation), Star Trek has always been episodic. DS9 introduced arcs, but each episode still had its own identity, and this was true through Enterprise. But each season was its own thing on Discovery, and no one episode really stood alone.

Points 3 and 4, and to some, point 2, put off some older, "traditional" Trekkers who felt that Discovery was made for the younger generation and was not "for" them. And I can dig it. I mean, it does follow the recent-ish films where the ships are flashy, not tacky with their tech. (Keep in mind, the ships were always flashy for their time! It's just, we cling to the old designs and the newer, flashier one just seems excessive, but now, the newer, flashier one is dull in comparison to the ones that have followed it.)

As for Picard, that was purely a sequel to The Next Generation (and to a lesser extent, Voyager, because of Seven of Nine). It was a love letter to the fans of that show, those shows. As purely its own thing, it's a weaker Trek entry, but for those of us who grew up with 80s/90s Trek, it was good closure since the movies were neglecting those characters. Another such show might be Prodigy, which is a more direct continuation of Voyager, but Prodigy stood on its own better with its original cast. Picard's original cast was not very good, but very forgettable.

Back to Discovery, it's very much its own thing, set both before TOS and after anything else (minor spoilers — plot device allows them to swerve around any continuity problems). It did launch Strange New Worlds, which Trekkers seem to like more than Discovery, as that is a straight TOS prequel, showing the (movies/newer) original Enterprise under Captain Pike, who was captain before Kirk. Spock's in it, too. (I have yet to watch SNW, but I plan to. I just finished Prodigy and I like to space them a bit.) Discovery also launched Section 31, the streaming-only movie, which is about as bad as you've heard. The less said about that one, the better — if you want to watch it, you should, and you should do so without worrying what Internet People think about it. It's still Star Trek, albeit some of the weakest Trek out there.

Personally, I rate Discovery above ENT but below Voyager. I have a hard time deciding whether Discovery or Prodigy is better. Prodigy was a computer-generated anime that aired on Nickelodeon and that all sounds bad, but it was actually very good. It might seem at first that Kate Mulgrew (Janeway/Hologram Janeway) is there to prop the cast up, but they all shine so brightly, they don't really need her as much as they think. I liked TNG, DS9, and VOY all better than STD and... whatever we're abbreviating Prodigy to (PRO? STP?). As a child of the 80s, TOS is a bit dated for me, but the stories were so good... that's another one that is hard to place for me.

I recommend you watch it, but if you do, you have to finish the season. You can't drop it mid-season, and if you do, you can't judge it, because the individual episodes aren't meant to be watched on their own. It's meant to be binged. That said, you can safely stop at the end of any season. I won't say it gets worse, but each season made me wonder if it was really necessary, including the first one. Because no, it isn't. Discovery is not necessary for... anything... in the Star Trek universe. It's not really connected. Even Strange New Worlds... they ran into the Enterprise in the beginning of the second season, but then they went away. So yeah, you can safely watch SNW without Discovery and you'd be fine. I do think the first season was good, as far as action Trek goes. And you can stop there, but with the way it ends... you won't. Season 2 was okay, a good mystery, and you can stop there, but you still may want to see what comes next. After that, I think the quality does take a bit of a dive, but then they're in the far future, and you just wanna see more and more of what's left of Starfleet in the future. And it's good enough to stick with. But never necessary. And that's probably the "worst" thing I can say about it.

The main problem with discovery is they set it basically in the tos timeline which created all these weird plot things that had to be resolved with weirder plot things. I firmly believe if they had set it a decent amount post voyager that it would have made it much better. I don't want to spoil but I felt season 2 fit better but having such weird start really messed it up for me.

Discovery is fine overall.

It may not be everyone’s favourite Trek but NO SINGLE SHOW IS EVERYONE’S FAVOURITE.

I’m stooping to yelling because, looking at it as someone who saw TOS in first run, it really can’t be stressed enough that there needs to be new Trek for every generation.

I didn’t expect that our GenZ kids would like Voyager best of the older shows.

And yes, for one of our GenZs, Discovery season one is ‘the best season of Trek’ ever. They have rewatched all the seasons of the show more than I have.

Discovery season 5 was fine in my view. I wasn’t fond of the series epilogue tacked on to the finale.

Season 4 of Discovery has a better premise and structure than Picard season 2 but both seem to suffer terribly from being shot under COVID restrictions. Other shows managed to write around the limitations without such stilted and drawn own scenes. I don’t know what Paramount instructed its writers teams be it’s boggling to see these seasons against the rest now.

I think Discovery is perfectly OK Star Trek. However, because it had a few changes in show runners things progress very strangely.

Season 1 is a 10 hour movie. I liked it for doing something different, and thought the plot twist was interesting.

Season 2 starts off good, but then jumps the (metaphorical) shark at the end.

Season 3 thru 5 starts to feel more like traditional Star Trek, just with wacky doom's day scenario in the background until it's resolved at the end of the season. It honestly feels too formulaic, but I thought Season 4's ending was fantastic, some of the middle stuff was a mixed bag.

Anyway, I still think you should watch it. It's perfectly adequate. Didn't make me throw up at all.

Discovery is fine and at the time it was the only modern Trek we had so there’s that, it’s enough for me to like it.

The only problem I had with it is that every season is "OMG we have to save the all fucking universe!", other than that it’s cool.

Then we had Strange New Worlds so my thirst for "let’s just explore that funny planet and have a drink at the mess" Trek was satisfied.

I still watch discovery because ‘spaceships goes piou piou piou eat my phaser’ and that’s what I want it to be.