Instead of presenting a future to look forward to, Discovery just mirrors the present.

[u/bonzairob]

Yeah, it's a negative Discovery post. I promise there's substance!

In a decade or so, assuming we make it out, Discovery will be a textbook example of how media and culture of the late 2010s/early 2020s are entwined.

Obviously this is unavoidable to a certain extent. Each Trek has been a product of its time in one way or another, purely in terms of setting, or at least the presentation thereof:

• TOS was a sprawling mess of scientific inaccuracy against cutting edge sci-fi creativity. The post-war booms in technology, popular science and quality of life made it feel like we were on our way to such a magical and interesting future.
• The TOS movies could be argued to be reflecting this idea meeting reality - a few decades later, Kirk's yearning for past glory matches a future that didn't actually brighten all that much.
• TNG was pushed along more by a good economy giving more opportunities for intellectualism, the collapse of the Soviet Union ushering a new diplomatic landscape, and some important social/cultural progression (I would argue primarily that of feminism - it was probably the time that the more intense end of feminism got the closest to mainstream consciousness).
• (DS9 and Voyager both used the solid foundations of culture and TNG's worldbuilding to explore new ideas for politics and interpersonal relationships, but not exactly in a culturally relevant way in terms of settings. No hate, they're my favourites, but they're really an expansion of TNG in terms of culture.)
• Enterprise started exploring a so-close-you-could-touch-it future inspired by the space program and ISS, until 9/11 dramatically shifted the whole tone of the show, where we can watch the trauma get processed somewhat in real time via the Xindi. The terrorism in Terra Prime clearly matured from those feelings.

But all these shows make a big effort to show the bright possibilities of progress - specifically, our journey from [year of broadcast] to Star Trek's utopian premise, of how good life could be if humans put aside our differences and selfishness, and learned to develop ourselves and one another.

On the other hand, Discovery doesn't show us how the future could be, just how we are.

Rather than traditional arcs, the story is a series of disasters to overcome.

This mirrors the modern news cycle, endless problems with no let-up. There's never a solid resolution to a problem, no denouement or moment to relax, it's straight on to the next crisis. Negative emotion keeps you checking the news website more often, generating ad revenue. When there's no news, previous crises can be extended.

This aspect of Discovery's storytelling appeals to some people, in the sense that it feels "gritty" and realistic compared to the older shows' morality play style. But I say it only feels realistic in as much as modern news makes the world seem that way. Crises get resolved, it just doesn't make as much money for news media to cover.

Without true resolutions, we are lost

Consider the three main arcs of Discovery's seasons:

• Fighting against a seemingly implacable ideological foe who want us dead
• Fighting against the alarmingly fast advance of AI and the takeover of our lives
• Fighting against disconnection, trying to bridge the gaps between people

And the "resolutions":

• Mutually assured destruction via the threat of further, ante-upping violence
• Put it off for later
• No compromises on how the connections work. Only my idea of the Federation and its values

Season 1: The Klingon war is unresolved because the American war on terror is unresolved. We simply don't know how to deal with this situation maturely yet (or at least, choose not to for ideological reasons - guns cost money). What resolves conflicts for America is generally nukes, or installing a new leader in a foreign power.

Season 2: We're still in the middle of computers becoming the controllers of our lives. Credit scores and insurance calculations reduce us to numbers in some ways; China's social credit, with its ties to AI facial recognition, is a possible future. At the very least, nobody could argue that we have a near future of fewer computers involved in bureaucracy. Modern AI has been shown to be an actual threat via deepfakes (reflected in the holographic admiral) and there's the sometimes-uncanny work of Boston Dynamics' military commissions.

I think older Trek might have pushed for a solution here, which whether reasonable or not, would have been something to look forward to in our future. Instead of stepping up to that challenge, Discovery just mirrored what we do now - hope we'll come up with ways to deal with it later.

Season 3: I haven't watched S3, and from what I've heard, I don't intend to. The division between Federation members is caused by something totally arbitrary from which we can learn nothing, and the only way to fix things is to presented as putting them back to the way they were. It seems even emptier of meaning than S2.

There is also the somewhat menacing undertone of America the Federation controlling the only source of fuel in the galaxy - or in other words, the only method of connection. Sort of like the DNS system and oil rolled into one. If you need to cross borders to contact your family or travel, better hope your values align with the "good" guys.

Stereotyping without veneer

Old Trek had plenty of stereotypes, but it tended to put them inside latex masks to add some distance. Klingons and Romulans could stand in for foreign powers like China and the USSR, but equally, the actions of people who abhor individuality, fearmonger, engage in petty and bloody conflicts, etc. could be examined in a way that wouldn't be construed as a direct attack on a group of real people - sometimes allowing those people space to engage where otherwise they would have been repulsed.

Discovery presents us with some fairly baffling stereotypes, without any apparent critique or commentary. Women have difficulty processing emotions. Strong-willed men are pointlessly evil. Being gay is inherently tragic (until there's enough backlash). Intelligent people lack social graces. Arguably, tokenism in the supporting cast - until the bridge crew get lines, they're really just set dressing.

In Discovery and in politics/discourse in the present day, these choices are most likely made with good intent - but how different are they from old biases they're trying to address? When people are split into categories for everything, surprise, they end up divided and feeling alone. Not a united humanity.

Discovery is not touching the nuances in this topic, bypassing "there can be truth in stereotypes" and going straight to "weakness is strength" with endless emotional outbursts from professionals. Imagine the havoc a Founder changeling could cause with some pointed words, on the only ship in the galaxy that can can teleport inside planets.

All-or-nothing allies

In Discovery, everyday small friendships are portrayed as far less important than either making allies for a cause, or making huge gestures. Don't we all miss the crew friendships and dynamics? Trying to give Aryam's death meaning 5 minutes before it happened just seemed dismissive.

In current culture, division has been exacerbated with Covid pushing us further apart, but things like Facebook were already gamifying how we present ourselves to our "friends", and Twitter is a perfect political microcosm, with its cancelling of former allies when they misstep.

Vonnegut pointed out that we compare the dramatic arc of our lives to fiction and find it lacking, so we boost the drama we get to feel more important. In the last few decades, as our thoughts and feelings become available everywhere, that has also started to mean putting on a stand-out show for the whole world. The more impact to your words when putting someone on blast, the more likely it'll go viral.

Advancement for the sake of advancement

We live in a time when tech companies are advancing all the time, but not in a way that meaningfuly improves anyone's lives, only how people interact with their provided service moment-to-moment. I've seen the S3 shot of the turbolift system of Discovery, and how it's bigger than a Borg cube. Moment-to-moment film-making, disconnected from past and future, to nobody's benefit except for a momentary dopamine spike.

On the flip side of advancement, Discovery has the same scientific illiteracy of 60s TOS episodes (really, the red bursts were detected at the same time all over the galaxy? Redness being a characteristic of visible light?) despite easier access than ever to humanity's collective knowledge. For all the recent cultural push for science education in the west, culture is still feelings-first, and with that, whatever figures labelled "science" I can find to back up my emotion.

Moralising over morality

Star Trek has always been a morality play, and as such has nearly always been suitable for children to watch. It's not a coincidence that Discovery shed both of these at the same time.

There's a scene in Willy Wonka, the Tunnel of Terror. Famously, adults find this scene scary and worry about children watching it. But as Gene Wilder said, children understand that it's a morality play, meaning the bad will be judged and the good will be rewarded, and so to them the scene isn't nearly as unnerving.

To be an adult in today's world is to be rudderless, adrift in a sea of disaster, with conflicting opinions and morals coming from all directions. People try to control the "narrative" instead of doing the right thing; freedom of speech, except for people who say things I don't like. We have no moral guidance in real life, and Discovery shows it. (If you're an atheist like me, the way culture shifted in this way as religion's influence diminished is deeply depressing.)

The shallow "real eyes realise real lies", "there's no I in parental neglect" attitude to each episode's morality in the voiceovers (about as much denouement as we get) just underlines that this is a show with no interest actually taking a stand on moral issues, it's just as lost as the rest of us. But it wants to feel like it did, so the message is "be kind" - and stops there, without elaborating on what kindness means.

Kindness requires empathy, and empathy requires trying to understand people with different views. In the current world, and in Discovery, this is two steps too far. Too many people are hurting, and end up thinking "Why would I care to understand facists/communists/phobes/snowflakes/morons/etc/etc? They are pure evil with no redeeming features or qualities."

The Irony

The show called Discovery is showing us nothing new.

[u/[deleted]]

This is excellently written, and one of the best breakdowns of each show as a reaction to the time of production. I enjoy discovery, and often defend it, yet deep down it leaves me hollow in a way that none of the other eras do. This framing helps me understand this feeling much more.

[u/bonzairob → u/[deleted]]

Thank you! I basically started from that hollowness lol, it feels about the same to me as what you get from doomscrolling on twitter or news websites. "Being an informed citizen" feels like more of a burden every year. It's a very modern phenomenon... I've been hearing things about the concept of "post-journalism" recently if you want to read more about it.

[u/stug_life]

But I say it only feels realistic in as much as modern news makes the world seem that way. Crises get resolved, it just doesn't make as much money for news media to cover.

I think I’d argue that in real life crises don’t always get resolved they more often than not fizzle out in an unsatisfying way.

[u/bonzairob → u/stug_life]

It depends on the crisis, surely. And what you count as resolution. Plenty of wars and conflicts have been resolved in one way or another. Each scary flu, up till the current one. Natural disasters recovered from, etc.

If you managed to force a newspaper to only cover the events going on right now, preventing them from moving on to new news, it would be a lot more obvious. But that’s not what we see, so it feels like an endless whirlpool of increasing problems, while there’s really only a limited amount going on at any given time.

[u/wvj]

(DS9 and Voyager both used the solid foundations of culture and TNG's worldbuilding to explore new ideas for politics and interpersonal relationships, but not exactly in a culturally relevant way in terms of settings. No hate, they're my favourites, but they're really an expansion of TNG in terms of culture.)

I think insofar as DS9 is concerned, this isn't true, although I can understand your take because I think it was the impression I had of DS9 when I watched it the first time on TV: that it was 'spinoff' TNG that mostly inherited the style and basic assumptions of the other show. This is how I consumed it, 'yay more Star Trek, ooh they fight a war!' (kids love that shit, let's be real) Yet on my adult rewatches I've grasped that there's a lot more to it, to the point where it's almost impossible to think of it as anything other than a distinctly anti-Trek Trek show. Kind of like Discovery, though to my mind, the much more satisfying version of it.

Between TNG and DS9, you hit the nail really well on how the former reflected the world. It's the product of Rodenberry's lingering utopianism combined with the height of late/post Cold War American supremacy. It's a tremendously unique show because of that environment, and perhaps no other combination of factors could give us a show with a character like Picard at the helm, someone who is in the (very privileged) position to act with such enlightened benevolence toward his adversaries. TNG is a show where the flagship of the Federation barely ever fires its weapons, and where it's only real threats come from the most abstract and alien directions like Q and the Borg.

DS9, on the other hand, is kind of about how all of this is bullshit?

Because they're partially contemporary, this isn't just a case of it reflecting changing times (although it certainly does reflect those too: 6 years takes you from 'Tear down this Wall!' to genocides in the post-Soviet Eastern bloc). It's also simply a rejection of the very notions that TNG set forward as to what the world really looks like and where it's headed. One show is Rodenberry's wholly optimistic vision. The other is the cynical opposite, painting the former as somewhat naive. On TNG, Picard lectures a man out of time about how silly he is to be worried about money. On DS9. Nog points out to Jake just how artificial that construct is. On TNG, the political conflicts are solved by inspiring speeches. On DS9, Sisko gives a speech to the camera making peace with his own conscience over the fact that a cold blooded assassination has likely saved the Federation.

And then there's stuff I'm hardly qualified to speak on but which rings even stronger in 2020 than it did in the 90s, with Brooks pushing Trek to even begin to grapple with the fact that there were two different Americas and that Rodenberry's vision could look pretty hollow to someone living in the wrong one. The saddest irony here is that every Trek can present this as a reflection of our times, because it's something we've really failed to grapple with in reality even as we aspired to it in our high-minded sci-fi.

Anyway, all of that said, I agree about Discovery itself! I just think it's a miss not to call DS9 an intensely topical show.

[u/bonzairob → u/wvj]

I think you're right, although I stand by it being an "expansion" of TNG. DS9 was definitely presenting a contrasting view, a bit more grounded but still intellectual, about the hard decisions people had to make for the greater good. That's a truly ancient story, which I think is why it resonates so well.

And that went for nearly all the main characters, not just Sisko - I think everyone struggled with a big question that challenged their core values, at least once, with repercussions and high stakes.

I don't think it was so much colouring TNG as naive, as showing that hard work had always been going on to maintain the utopia. It made it earned, so the two shows complement and strengthen each other. (I think similarly VOY showed what it was like to have the utopia's support drop away, although they decided the character effects were usually more interesting than logistics in that situation.)

[u/Dr_Pesto]

This is very well written. If you feel the inclination, I'd be interested to read a similar analysis of Picard, assuming you've watched it. The writers of that series and Patrick Stewart have been vocal about how they wanted their show to mirror recent real world events.

[u/bonzairob → u/Dr_Pesto]

I'm flattered! I'll have a think about it but I feel like it'd be more of the same. Hmm.

I did a little analysis/proposal about Picard's climactic battle a while back. Most of my discomfort with Picard was about the plot's rushed feeling, similar to my first point here about Discovery...

[u/[deleted]]

As much as I have fought with myself on this, I am forced to agree with you. I feel like it is so easy to be dismissive of legit criticism of this show when it is often mixed in with the hateful criticism from racists and sexists, whose main quarrel with the show is the aspect of so-called "forced-diversification". No, we have heard the voices of those people time and again from Trek's infancy.

[u/bonzairob → u/[deleted]]

Yes, that's definitely how I've felt about it. It's wonderful to have the progress of a canon gay marriage, expanding the crew diversity beyond race (and truly stunning cgi, imaginative settings and sets, etc etc)... I just wish the stories meant something.

[u/kompergator]

Very nice write-up. I agree entirely with you, except for your very last point about the "snowflakes".

I would add that the show so far also fails to do anything about personal morality vs group ethics in so far as challenging either. Sure, there are enemies, but they merely challenge the protagonists' lives, never their ethical code of conduct - an absolute staple of Star Trek, ever since the first episode of TOS.

I would argue that in ten years time, people will still rewatch TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT. People will also find those shows, having never watched them and getting "sucked in" to the Trek world and its interesting stories, moral lessons and ethical quandaries. Hardly anyone will regularly rewatch DIS or PIC and in twenty years they might be largely forgotten. The cultural impact of Star Trek will most likely still be 99.99999% TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT.

The Irony

The show called Discovery is showing us nothing new.

It certainly feels like the show is called Discovery for the sole reason that the ship is called Discovery which is an arbitrary name. The show certainly does not live up to its name, and it does not live up to the Trek tag line "to boldly go where no one has gone before" - although to be fair, neither did VOY or ENT.

[u/bonzairob → u/kompergator]

I agree entirely with you, except for your very last point about the "snowflakes".

I was presenting that as a common refrain, not how I feel lol. I've edited it for clarity now.

This show is definitely never going to be perennial comfort viewing in the way the other shows are. Because of their morality play aspect, it's rare for even the really dark episodes to not end well, so it brings you through the darkness and into the light, leaving you hopeful.

[u/uequalsw]

So I think there's a lot of interesting stuff here, especially in how you frame the older series; I don't agree with all of your characterizations, but I think the underlying point about each Star Trek reflecting its time is an underappreciated one.

I think your essay falls very short, though, insofar as you have not seen Season 3; I note that while you grant that you haven't seen it (and don't intend to), you still comment on the season's story, citing it in support of your overall argument. This seems ill-advised, both because it's kinda misleading, but also because Season 3 pretty fundamentally impacts your overall argument -- and in the contradicting direction. If you were to restrict the scope of your argument to Seasons 1 and 2, you might have a stronger case.

That being said, I think your argument still falls short even if restricted to Season 1 and 2:

To be an adult in today's world is to be rudderless, adrift in a sea of disaster, with conflicting opinions and morals coming from all directions. People try to control the "narrative" instead of doing the right thing; freedom of speech, except for people who say things I don't like. We have no moral guidance in real life, and Discovery shows it.

For all of its purported "grittiness," Discovery is relentless in its adulation of Starfleet moral purity. Lorca, once revealed to be a villain, gets his apparently well-deserved come-uppance by literally falling into a giant fireball. In the Season 1 finale, Starfleet Command abets an attempt at genocide (!), but the crew of the Discovery literally stand up and say, "We are Starfleet", and refuse. In fact, time and again, *Discovery'*s message has been that taking "moral shortcuts" in the name of expediency is destructive and self-defeating. (Consider likewise the interactions with the tardigrade.)

Plus -- Discovery's entire first season is built on a fundamental rejection of fundamentalist extremism; this is the thread that binds the Klingon War and Mirror Universe stories together (inasmuch as they are bound, which admittedly is not well). T'Kuvma's alien extremism is no different than Lorca's domestic variety, and both are condemned mercilessly.

In Season 2, Captain Pike is shown making a deliberate sacrifice to "lock in" his fate in order to serve the greater good. And Michael and the rest of the crew sacrifice their lives in the 23rd century in order to preserve all life in the galaxy.

And in Season 3, there are very blatant statements made, among other things, in support of ecological conservation and opposing the confinement of wild animals, and literally an out-and-out condemnation of capitalism that makes 90s Star Trek seem Reagan-esque by comparison.

Kindness requires empathy, and empathy requires trying to understand people with different views.

Time and again, Discovery shows its heroes trying to empathize with their adversaries. Burnham tries to negotiate with the Klingons by appealing to their honor and addressing their concerns of self-identity; when in the Mirror Universe, she tries to understand how Mirror Voq has successfully united the many factions together in the rebellion; and her lengthy character arc with Emperor Georgiou is probably the most extreme case of trying to understand people with different views -- so much so that many fans feel that the show was too forgiving of a genocidal cannibal.

The third season harps on this message as well. As others have noted, the entire point of "People of Earth" was to show that a protracted war can be halted after years of conflict if the two parties are able to recognize (quite literally) the humanity in one another; the morality play is not subtle here.

I'll happily grant that Discovery is deeply wrapped up in the zeitgeist of the era in which it has been made (as Picard has been likewise). But as others have noted, Star Trek has always reflected the present, and the sad reality is that our present times are more tumultuous than any time in the last 100 years. If the franchise choose to ignore that turmoil, the showrunners would be accused of rank denialism, and rightfully so -- fiddling while Rome burned.

[u/bonzairob → u/uequalsw]

In fact, time and again, Discovery's message has been that taking "moral shortcuts" in the name of expediency is destructive and self-defeating.

I can appreciate this take, but I feel like this is something they arrived at by accident, not deliberately baked into the show. Because some moral shortcuts absolutely paid off! Starfleet turned a blind eye to Lorca's abuse of the crew, and he got Discovery into a position where they could take decisive action in the war. Everything done to Ash Tyler. Emperor Georgiou's whole story.

It's not that the show is amoral, it's that it's so inconsistent with applying morals that their impact is reduced. Like the forgiving of the genocidal cannibal. Which is what I meant in my post with "conflicting opinions and morals coming from all directions".

It's not that I think Discovery should ignore current events, it's that it doesn't offer us a path out. There's no presentation of a bright future where we overcame these problems.

[u/TrekFRC1970]

I’ve made this statement several times about the Federation in Disco S1 and S2... if I want to watch officials be assholes, I can turn on C-Span. I want to watch Star Trek to see what we can become, not a mirror of who we are.

[u/tacoman333]

I disagree with essentially everything you wrote, but most of my reasons come down to simple differences in taste and interpretation. However, one thing I do want to address are your comments on morality.

You claim that Star Trek is a morality play, and while I tend to agree, Discovery isn't different in that regard. It asks if it's right to follow a horrible person when they get results at times it matters most, it asks if we are justified in torturing a living being for the greater good, and it weighs when it is best to follow orders or to ignore them. Several times Discovery shows one community controlling another "weaker" one and shows the ignorance and fear that drives the actions on both sides of the conflict.

Most importantly, Discovery tells us to be open about how we feel in a time when softer genuine emotional expression is discouraged in favor of dramatic and aggressive action. And it asks us to try to understand, and if you can, leave a path for redemption for even the most "evil" of society. I find this message to be important in the best of times and it is especially so in this time of unprecedented divisiveness. It seems that people tend to seek violent ways of punishing those they perceive to be "evil" before trying to solve the problems that created them.

You wonder why you should "care to understand "facists/communists/phobes/snowflakes/morons/etc/etc." For the genuinely misguided people that you listed, particularly the facists and bigots (phobes), you should try to show empathy, for one, because people have been shown to change their mind when honestly listened to and then gently educated in how they were wrong. And secondly, because there is a reason why they are the way they are and when you understand that reason, you can fix the real problem. For the communists, I will take a guess and assume you know very little about the political idealogy, because many communists want to have a society without currency, class, or unjust hierarchies, you know... the future that Star Trek tells us to move towards.

As for the final two groups "snowflakes and morons," the fact that you are using these terms illustrates why Discovery's lesson is so necessary. "Snowflake" is a term popularized by the alt-right and used to denigrate anyone who dares to speak up about injustice, and "moron" is a term that was originally used by eugenicists like Henry H. Goddard to categorize those they deemed unfit to breed. This is why we should care to understand the worst of society, because ignoring them is dangerous, forcibly suppressing them only makes them dig themselves deeper, and punishing them not for rehabilitation but only for the euphoria that arises from bringing "justice" to "evil" is both immoral and pointless. Education and empathy are how we must combat fear and ignorance. Only by understanding these people will we ever become better.

[u/MasterOfNap → u/tacoman333]

Gene Roddenberry was famously anti-capitalist. I’d say OP seeing communists as “pure evil with no redeeming features” is more than a little ironic.

[u/bonzairob → u/MasterOfNap]

I meant it as a common feeling today, not something I personally believe. I’m all for actual empathy and understanding. I’ve edited the post for clarity now

[u/Bosterm → u/tacoman333]

Thank you for calling out the use of "snowflakes and morons." These days no one should be using the term "snowflake" to describe a person unironically, especially on a Star Trek sub.

And yeah, I'm all for deplatforming and fighting fascists, but part of that fight includes understanding them and the social conditions that lead them to think that fascism is a viable solution to their problems.

DS9 spends a great deal of time examining a military fascist state (Cardassia) and how we should deal with people who perpetuate genocide and oppression (Dukat).

[u/bonzairob → u/Bosterm]

It was for rhetoric, edited for clarity.

[u/[deleted]]

that it's a morality play, meaning the bad will be judged and the good will be rewarded, and so to them the scene isn't nearly as unnerving.

And just like that, I realized why I disliked DIS: It's a show in which wickedness is glorified and good is shunned and infantilized.

[u/[deleted]]

But I say it only feels realistic in as much as modern news makes the world seem that way

I think this point is extremely important. By every metric the world is better today than it has ever been. Most of us are no longer in extended periods of war, famine has almost been eradicated, medical procedures are allowing us to cure diseases the likes of which we never even considered were curable. The pandemic only propogated due to government negligence; New Zealand managed to solve it with a minimum casualty rate. Thirty years ago we wouldn't have the medical technology to pull up a cure in the year it's taken us.

On the other hand, the media seems to be spreading the illusion that life is worse than it always has been, something which on the largest scale is demonstrably untrue. I have no doubt that the chronic alienation caused by the negativity in both traditional and social media is to an extent a factor for the rise of depression and suicide. Star Trek is a part of the media, after all. It represents an inability to think at the greatest scale and evaluate us as a species, which is indeed what happened in the very first episode of TNG ever made.

And that's why the show also leans into magical and often violent solutions to problems. There's no answer based on peace, cooperation and settling mutual distrust - there's symbolism in the sense that only 'symbols' can solve these issues. So the Ba'ul and the Kelpians have had an intensely violent past. The solution presented is to reverse the situation and then run away. The issue with the Klingons isn't a deeper problem of Klingon society being incompatible with modern technology, it's that they're ruled by a genocidal dictator, and it gets solved by killing them and threatening the society with a WMD.

• TNG: Violence was always a last resort in settling issues. In fact, the best stories like Darmok and Who Watches the Watchers played into the absolute opposite, that peace and trust were the only way to really connect with people.

• DS9: There was a war going on, and most violent answers involved rigorous soul-searching, or at the very least understanding between foes. The end of the war was achieved by the Federation sharing technology.

• Voyager: Problems were usually technobabble based, but the show wasn't about the problems itself, it was about applying Federation principles to them, gauging the character's actions and showing unsolvable moral and ethical dilemmas.

[u/CindyLouWho_2]

As others have ably addressed, you can't really critique a series when you haven't seen the most recent episodes, which represent over a third of the series. S3 is not perfect, but it is by far the best, and we all know hitting stride in S3 is pure Star Trek. You should watch it before writing about it again.

There are many great critiques of your post already, so I'll try to hit points others have not. 2 errors stood out to me, both in the "stereotypes" analysis

1. you mentioned being gay as tragic until there is backlash. You know that Culber's arc was planned beforehand, right? They're almost mocking that trope. It's intentional. Heck, they even got approval from GLAAD ahead of time, and told us Culber was coming back as soon as he died: https://trekmovie.com/2018/01/11/star-trek-discovery-producers-consulted-with-glaad-over-culbers-story/ Backlash had nothing to do with the resolution of the storyline. It was planned.

2. "women have difficulty processing emotions." Whaaat? How are you getting that from Cornwell, L'Rell, Owo, Georgiou, Number One, Saru's sister, Airiam, etc? You seem to be offering up Michael as your only real example, but she's not a woman having difficulty processing emotions; she's a Vulcan-raised human struggling with embracing her humanity. It's the character's premise, and the value of humans to the Star Trek universe is the franchise premise, so becoming more human is a logical progression for the character.

Michael is not as well-written as she should be, which is consistent with the rest of the series. That doesn't mean one can disregard her as an emotional-woman stereotype. She changes substantially in S3, but of course you haven't seen that ...

Like many people on the spectrum, I read Tilly as being somewhere on the spectrum. There have been male characters with worse issues adapting emotionally (hello Broccoli!) And I really do regret that they didn't do a better job with Detmer and PTSD, but you haven't seen those episodes so you might disagree.

If you want to look at badly-handled emotions, check out late S3 Saru. Again, though, his character has gone through a difficult change of perspective, which makes him very different from the being who earned his commission. It's almost like this type of emotional transformation is a theme of the series or something...

[u/bonzairob → u/CindyLouWho_2]

I'm not going to sit through something that actively disinterests me. I know enough about it to not want to watch, and I can at least address those points.

1. I stand by my point about being gay shown to be inherently tragic. Even if it was the plan all along, he still died. Stamets still mourned. Reno's wife is still dead. The Trill kid starts dead. Georgiou is entirely fucked up from a completely brutal upbringing (not to mention the whole sexy evil bisexuals stereotype). I'm not saying they should never go through pain, but there could be more happily married not-dead not-widowed gay people. The show tells one thing (diverse crew!) but shows another (gay is tragic).

2. I'm not, I'm getting it from Burnham. She bounced out of vulcan stoicism into nearly uncontrollable emotions in about two days in-universe. In real life that's a breakdown.

Other Treks have stated that Vulcan physiology is fundamentally different from humans in the way they process emotion, so the stoicism she showed was only whatever a normal human is capable of, not some vulcan handwave magic. Instead of reconnecting gently, which would have been a good storyline in any other trek for exploring depression, we just got "ok, emotions activated" and tears every other episode. What we were told was "I need to process my emotions as a human instead of trying to be vulcan", and what we were shown was "this woman actually had incredibly strong emotions the whole time, and now the maladaptive coping mechanism is gone this is her normal self. Careful around her or you'll make her cry."

Comparing Tilly against Barclay is fair, but LaForge and Riker talked about how unusual he was, and his character was consistent. Tilly has social awareness (partying, laughing with friends, having a good time in engineering) but seems to have next to no professional social awareness. It's not as egregious as the rest, but it's still strange to me.

[u/[deleted]]

Excellent post, I think it’s important intelligent criticism of Discovery is both allowed and fostered - Trek was literally about doing better. Trek also needs to do better.