I gave up on it halfway through season 3. I loved many of the concepts introduced in the show but ultimately found them unable to make up for the show’s style. It was just exhausting to watch, and when I realized it I stopped.
I haven’t really been compelled to start watching this season yet, but I will eventually. Still, it seems pretty lackluster in terms of people getting into it from what I can tell. It’s a really bad sign. Final season of Discovery not being that big, Lower Decks ending, Prodigy shunted over to Netflix, Paramount+ cutting budgets and bleeding subscribers… I think we may be close to the end of another Star Trek era. I hope that isn’t true, but it could be.
They really need to light a fire under the fan base. I would suggest that would involve greenlighting Legacy, but I don’t have much hope for that.
My wife and I are just not in a position right now where we have time to watch anything together in the evening. That will change in a couple of weeks and we’ll start watching.
For my money, sticking to prequels is where the problems start.
Disco, SNW: hard prequels bordering on TOS reboot in the case of SNW.
Meanwhile Picard and lower decks are very much grounded in nostalgia (hint: each have more Frakes appearances than DS9).
This era never really had the same bravery to do something new like TOS and TNG-era, IMO. I was a big fan of Disco’s move into the future (it’s just that Disco miss the landing every time for me).
I saw him speak once. The one time I went to an event at the L.A. Science Fantasy Society- let’s just say their clubhouse has an odor that made me not return. It was an honor ceremony for Bjo Trimble (which I found out was pronounced Bee-Jo).
Anyway, he spoke very eloquently about his wife and their time in Star Trek fandom. I’m glad they were both around to keep it alive. RIP.
Edit: Wrote memorial, she was getting an award. She’s still alive.
Also to remind us that there hasn’t been a tremendous amount of character focus beyond the small core. We’ve seen these faces and maybe even remember a few of their names over the years. However, some of them still feel like strangers a few cubicles over where we say “What’s up?” but hesitate to include a first name or develop a nickname.
The catch of the episode put that front and center. I get why Worf had to spend time accepting that his path would never see him fully accepted by his Klingon brethren. It’s not too far a stretch to accept that O’brien is able to take so much punishment and bounce back (minus the PTSD effects lasting longer than 1 episode). Discovery’s crew is convinced to help in future Burnham’s cause with little more than 1-2 lines of detail. Some of those bits even the audience wouldn’t know until we’re told.
I will admit, that much of the potential growth is handicapped by truncated shooting schedules and seasons. We haven’t had 24-26 per batch where we can hyper focus. Only so much time to dedicate to bridge, engineering, sickbay, the bar, and crew quarters.
It all seems just a bit too shallow… the tension forced.
Side note: I did appreciate the end of act 2 callback to the Short Trek: Calypso . Really tied the series together.
The focus is more on Burnham and her belief in personal connection, not the crew and their own piccadillos. Discovery has always been first and foremost the story of Michael Burnham, like it or not. Docking it for what it is not and has never attempted to be isn’t really valid criticism.
Well, you know me. The resident Discovery lover and defender. My comment will only be about the first episode, Red Directive, as it is the only episode I’ve seen thus far but let me just say this.
That might be the worst episode of Star Trek I have ever seen.
The opening I had no real issue with. Everyone hanging out and having a little party, Saru having a moment with T’Rina, all of that was great. But then suddenly the term Red Directive is thrown with increasing drama/intension like 3 times by 3 different people with 0 explanations. At least from what I saw anyway. I had to infer from context clues that a Red Directive is a mission that exists as part of the Federation structure, regardless of who is in charge and must be adhered to at all possible costs. Okay. Sure. Then the problems start almost immediately, the problems being for me primarily with the writing behind the scenes. Nothing really makes sense.
DISCO drops in on the ship, surprising Moloch (I’m not spelling both their names and more on that later). Moloch know exactly where they need to go so they head there, cloaking themselves. DISCO notes that they’ve cloaked themselves and then starts getting ready. Now, you’d fucking expect that they would have gotten ready and dropped in last second for the element of surprise, like the ship was literally designed for, right? Nope. Drop in to announce presence and then fuck about for a while getting ready. By the time the Away Team arrive in the room with the vault (tracking water vapor that Rhys points out), Owo mentions that it’s been nearly 5 minutes since the lifesigns vanished and that they would need more time than that to crack Romulan encryption. Note that they cleared this room with visual detection despite knowing that these people can likely cloak themselves in some fashion. Personal cloaking isn’t unknown in this new future and if they can fool sensors they can probably fool eyes. So, you know. Visual clear while ignoring all about the particles they were tracking to this room. They then made the brilliant deduction that the people would still have to be in the room (it’s never made clear how they were able to break the Romulan encryption faster than they should be able to as Burnham said). They get jumped, unsurprisingly, and Burnham escapes narrowly. Moloch then throw a grenade at Burnhams feet which blasts her into space.
Here’s where the Rise of Skywalker style convenience problems start. She just happens to see a glimmer of their cloak and heads to it. She magnetizes on and just happens to survive despite things not really being set up for that. I’ll let that go but whatever. Rayner shows up and starts telling her that he knows them better because he’s been tracking for a while but Burnham is insistent that she knows better and tells him to back off using, fucking hilariously, things being too personal as an excuse. She says she will track them. She of course fails because she did not know better after having been on the mission for like 4 hours. So she pulls a hail mary out of her ass and says Book!
Despite an insane sense of urgency being built up over this Red Directive stuff (still not explained), Burnham then drags her absolute ass in the corridor with Book having this huge lovey-dovey scene. He acts like “Aw shucks, I’m just helping people and trying to make right” for his fucking psychotic level of crimes against humanity. Yes I know that isn’t the right word but I don’t care. I’m angry. They spend so much time on this scene with them slowly fucking around that it makes Burnham look like she’s valuing Book over the mission. They’re SO SLOW! Book takes like 3 seconds to step onto the turbolift. It’s fucking painful.
They get back into the briefing and Burnham is withheld information. Now I love this show and she has learned multiple times in multiple seasons the same lesson of “Follow orders and you don’t always know better” so I hoped they wouldn’t do it here again but of course they do. She starts getting suspicious. Okay, asking Tilly to look into it is fine. Wanting to know more is fine. She’s still doing the job though right? Well, for now. They get through the briefing that actually has a sense of urgency and Book just happens to know the only sensible route to plot here of where they’d go. He just happens to know of the dealer on that planet. He also just happens to know vital information about surrounding terrain but that’s for later. So they head to it. Rayner says he’ll be an hour behind because he goes at warp. So if Moloch have the same tech as Antares and no faster, then by the time that Rayner reaches the planet they will be at least one hour ahead of him. But we know that they’re further ahead than that because Burnham had to go get Book and waste time fucking about first. Vance then says they need to work together and Discovery, despite having a spore drive that can be there NOW, has to wait for the slower tech and nullify its literal purpose as a Rapid Response Vessel as Vance already designated it in Season 3.
So then we cut to Moloch whenever they arrive. They go see the dealer who is a Soong style android that demonstrates a total failure of every part of himself. There’s also an insanely drawn out scene where he points out how the names of the two fugitives, Moll and L’ak, sound like two word sounds and would go well together. So, Moloch. The most hamfisted bullshit I can think of, especially when they were barely just named on screen. He acts like a cheap version of Lore and when a fight breaks out he has the most insanely slow response times one could imagine. He picks up a gun and fires it multiple times, it failing, before he thinks to get another gun. He then has to look for it, despite it being his fucking shop and him being an android. He gets it, spends a very long time aiming and fires it, missing, and then actually nods with a smile on his face when looking at the gun. L’ak then defeats him in hand to hand combat (with great ease) and Moloch leaves.
Burnham and Book arrive on the planet and have another lil meet cute waiting for Rayner. That’s fine, they’re waiting. But he arrives at an awkward time and makes a little joke and suggests getting to the mission and they get all high and mighty and act like he’s the asshole, despite her wasting fuckloads of time up until now and they go to check out the corpse but are passed by two people on sandspeedster things. A few minutes later they realize it was Moloch. So what in the FUCK happened to that hour plus advance that Moloch had? They just spend it fucking about? There’s a bomb that was planted (more later) but that cannot have taken longer than like 15 minutes at MOST. Probably considerably less with transporters. But nah, they’re just barely ahead of them. And apparently taking their time because Rayner, Burnham and Book catch up to them. Moloch gets to their ship and fires directly on them and hits them multiple times. Shields block the hits. So either these sandspeedsters have shields that can withstand fire of a ship or the personal shields can. They don’t even fucking flinch either. Like it’s a guarantee that it’ll hold.
They realize that there’s a bomb in a tunnel Moloch are going to go into that will let them escape. Burnham yet again does her “No trust me, I’m totes right!” and Rayner rightfully is like “Not the fuck again” and orders the bomb and escape hatch destroyed. But it gives Moloch an idea to trigger an avalanche. Burnham then forces her ship and the Antares (after guilt tripping Rayner) to crashland into the planet to protect a settlement of a few thousand. By this point they are well aware that the threat being posed here is of Galactic importance and could probably shift the scales of power but Burnham is like “NO! There are a few thousand people! We can’t let the terrorists get away with information about god knows what. We need to save these people!” Like I get it, it sucks and you wanna save everyone but there is a clear decision here with a line said by your own fucking brother on numerous occasions and I’m pretty fucking sure you at some point. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. So they crash the ships into the planet (whatever) and shield the settlement. Hurray. Yay. They’re sitting around when the dust is clearing and Moloch then taunt them and fly off. Rayner is like “Wish I could say this was a pleasure” and beams out and I feel that with every ounce of my soul. Burnham and Book then get all lovey dovey before being emotional and romantic despite THERE BEING TERRORISTS YOU NEED TO KINDA FUCKING LOOK FOR WHILE YOU’RE THE FUCKING CAPTAIN. Yet when Tilly calls? Instant urgency.
To top it all off, Burnham then figures out where it is that Kovich is after and withholds the information from her superior officer, information that’s so insanely classified and important that it’s a Red Directive (STILL NOT FUCKING EXPLAINED) because she wants to know. She outright says either let me be part of this or I will let the terrorists go. Putting her own insane arrogance above anyone else.
Burnham has been on the same path with every season so far. Disobey orders, realize she shouldn’t, start doing the right thing. Happened with Season 1 and 2 and 3. Season 4 had her follow orders begrudgingly and even before Book as the romantic reason she doesn’t want to follow said orders. Now she’s just back at it again. Me me me me me. I’m tired of it. I loved her and I’ve been frustrated with the repetition but now I’m just tired of it and tired of her whole character. She doesn’t learn anything.
The writing for this episode was fucking atrocious and I am seriously concerned about the rest of the season.
I’d just like to say, after spending the previous four season of Disco on “everything sunny all the time always” /r/startrek, it’s real refreshing to be able to come to an episode discussion and see one of the top mods just straight up going “child, what the fuck was that?”
Glad I’m not the only one bugged to hell by the “This is a Red Directive.” “Hi, audience here, what is that?” “idk bro you figure it out lol” routine. This is the, like, fifth damn synonym for “super-duper double-dog extra important top-secret thing” you’ve come up with, guys, just pick a lane already, or else five years from now we’re gonna end up with a season-long arc about a General Order Black Code Double-Red Priority Level One Section Alpha 31 Critical Omega Alert Directive.
I’m not sure which would be more obnoxious: if “Red Directive” turns out to just be exactly what I’ve already inferred from context, making all the sinister cryptic vagueness completely unnecessary; or if six episodes from now they pull the rest of the context out of their ass and try to act like it’s a major revelation, like, “ooh, haven’t you forgotten captain, if you fail a red directive mission it means you go to space jail and we blow up your ship???”
They’ve got what could be an incredibly significant story arc going here, and I’m gonna be a little miffed if they spend the bulk of it getting repeatedly pantsed by a couple of horny street urchins instead of, like, pondering the vast untapped mysteries of the ancient cosmos or some shit.
Like I love this show and I can defend a lot of it. I do defend a lot of it. I hate it when people say STD because it’s flagrantly insulting for no reason to both the franchise and the show. I hate when people bash it for no reason. I hate some valid criticisms (although I do admit they are valid). I am a Discovery fan through and through. Fuck sakes I’ve got the Discovery model on my desk in front of me.
But this was the worst episode of Star Trek I’ve ever seen and it genuinely sent me into a depressive spiral with how excited I was for this final season to be presented with that.
Yeah, it’s just frustrating going into what should be a final victory lap for the whole show, one last grand send-off for the crew, and:
A) having to wait until the very end of the episode before you even get a clear answer about what the plot is you’re supposed to care about, and
B) having the whole episode center around a conflict that is only an issue because the characters keep making dumb mistakes that we know they’re way too smart to make, and that only gets progressed because they keep stumbling into favorable contrivances like being shot through the hull of a warbird at just the right angle to spot a cloaked ship taking off.
Ideally you’d want it the other way around, smart protagonists driving the plot forward with their smart decisions and a competent antagonist that’s unpredictable enough to stay a few steps ahead. That’s why the last four seasons worked, really, the bulk of the overarching conflict came from the crew being made to punch way above their weight class, and having to just stop and puzzle out how to take down an entire alien crusade or a time-travelling cyborg or some Cthulhu monsters that are so far ahead of the rest of the galaxy that they literally don’t even notice that they’re vacuuming up inhabited planets. Not as much fun watching a seasoned Starfleet crew getting routinely bodied by shots we’ve seen easily dodged a half-dozen times already. How long have we been playing “whoops, the bad guys got away and we can’t track them” game, at this point, and they’re still falling for it? Or the “whoops, Burnham thought she knew better than the people in charge and the bad guys used it to sucker-punch us” game? Like, c’mon, it’s the end of the show, I think you can let the character development stick just this once.
Also? Kinda annoyed that like half the crew is getting sidelined for Burnham and Book to have just-like-old-times-adventure #17 featuring some crusty old rando sniping from the peanut gallery. I’d like to spend a little more than one scene per episode with the rest of the supporting cast before the end of the series, maybe that’s just me. So far it feels like there’s been more Stamets in this comment thread than there’s been Stamets on the show.
Stamets had like one scene that whole episode, didn’t he? The opening party thing where he’s talking about the Luminary stuff. I don’t remember him at any other point.
They bring Owo and Rhys onto an Away team and then treat them like absolute chumps and toss them away.
Like I actually kinda like Rayner because he’s not putting up with Burnhams shit. When he said “I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure” and beams out at the end of the episode I actually 100% agreed with him. I never thought I’d be on his side but I am. How is it that a captain shows up for a singular episode and already proves directly that he cares more about structure and order than you do?
The Burnham doing the same thing for a thousandth time thing is what killed her character for me. I can’t root for her anymore. She is objectively a bad person. She’s been given chance after chance after chance and fucked almost every one of those up but still gets given another one. She’s the Starfleet version of a white middle aged CEO at this point. She can only fail upward and get away with everything. No consequences for fuck all. At any point. And yeah I don’t care about Book either. Dude detonated illegal weapons and violated so many laws but nah, lets get him back because he just happens to know a thing. Bet he’s not being dropped off back to continue his punishment though. Nah there’s gonna be some contrived reason to keep him on board so Burnham and Book can have another lovey dovey thing. I would not be surprised if Burnham sacrifices herself at the end of the season to protect the crew and Book and honestly if she does I will legitimately cheer and whoop that Starfleets worst Captain (easily outranking Jelico) is finally dead and can’t harm the Federation anymore.
If you told me 3 months ago that Id be saying that I would have given you a warning for stuffing words down my mouth that I’d never agree with. Now I’m one of the biggest people wanting her to die. It’s ruined any rewatch value too. I’m so angry.
This is not being rich, this is the minimum you need for a safe car when you have temperature differences of 40c between a cold winters day and a normal summers day.
You can get all season tires but they are bad both in summer and in winter, and only really a good alternative during spring snd autumn.
I bought my first (used) car last year, it came winter tires included.
That’s not true. Winter tires grip just fine in warm weather. The only downsides of using winter tires in the summer are that they wear faster because of the softer rubber, have increased road noise due to the more agressive tread, and they’re just typically more expensive than all weather tires. Technically there is a slight handling difference because of the deeper more agressive tread but not enough that it is even noticable to most people. So it’s still a good idea to swap if you can, but they are not unsafe to use in the summer, just unwise for your wallet. If the vehicle you have them on isn’t a daily driver it may not even make sense to switch them out.
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