There was a couple of episodes in the first season which dealt with this. In 'Learning Curve' Tuvok had to train Maquis members who haven't adapted to Starfleet regulations. The issue quickly faded though, and the conflicts were so tepid that it barely seemed worth forcing them to work together in the first place.

I have no idea where they're going with the Klingons. In the opening two episodes they have a huge chunk of screentime, but the leader has been replaced twice. Their motivations aren't particularly coherent, and nothing that comes out of their awkward mouths about the Federation can compare to what DS9 says on the matter in a few minutes with the Rootbeer scene between Garak and Quark, or Eddington's betrayal message.

Eddington was a recurring character before we learned he's Maquis. And Admiral Ross was a recurring character throught the entire Dominion War, and was working with Section 31. And of course ensign Ro, who you've alraedy mentioned. And on Enterprise Reed turned out to be connected to Section 31.

How many episodes had Eddington before he was revealed as the mole? I honestly don't remember anything before that, except that he was hanging around.

If only Michele Forbes had accepted the offers to join the main cast. She was offered in TNG, in DS9 (her character was replaced by Kira) and in Voyager (replaced by B'Elanna). Nowadays she is doing TV so who knows. Maybe the long-awaited Trek show that advances the story will come to fruition and Ro returns as Bajor's representative in the Federation Council or something like that (I think she is pressumed dead, but that means nothing in a Star Trek show).

6 episodes according to IMDb. He was brought in with the unspoken assumption that Starfleet didn't trust Odo and wanted one of their own to take charge of security. He didn't have many scenes beyond occasionally stepping on Odo's toes and trying to make the best of an awkward situation.

I am endlessly glad she didn't. I like Kira way more than Ro, and think she's a much more interesting character. Not to mention suddenly elevating Ro to second in command of anything would make no sense.

Star Trek Discovery has been renewed for a second season.

“In just six episodes, Star Trek: Discovery has driven subscriber growth, critical acclaim and huge global fan interest for the first premium version of this great franchise,” said Marc DeBevoise, President and Chief Operating Officer, CBS Interactive, referring to the fact that Discovery set new CBS All Access records for subscriber sign-ups in a single day, week and month. “This series has a remarkable creative team and cast who have demonstrated their ability to carry on the Star Trek legacy. We are extremely proud of what they’ve accomplished and are thrilled to be bringing fans a second season of this tremendous series.”

Let's just hope it improves as it goes on, the way most Treks used to. That way by season 7 it may be almost not awful :D

I don't know even how to respond to that. I mean, he could bought critics, but almost all Trek fans I met in a few online communities, were talking about how bad Discovery is. Does Marc DeBevoise live in alternate reality or something?

It's called PR Jedi Mind Tricks according to Bill Gorman of TV Grim Reaper...

This article should explain better why it was renewed...short story...it's all about cable fees...
http://www.tvgrimreaper.com/2017/09/19/cbs-access-isnt-real-business-negotiating-leverage/2983/

Perhaps that's precisely the key: "Trek fans."

As far as I've seen, the show seems to be liked more by people who either had never watched Star Trek or were never hardcore into it, who happen to be a majority. Old Star Trek fans are the ones criticizing it the most, but to be honest they're a niche group. A show wouldn't have been able to remain on air just with trekkies on board, because there are too few of them - Star Trek isn't Star Wars with its massive mass appeal you can capitalize on by writing specifically for the fans.

Me, I've never watched a Star Trek series before. Only ST films I've watched are the reboot ones, and you know what? I really like STD (Once again, that acronym...) Same thing with my close friends, all of us are under 30 and Latin American so our exposure to Star Trek is basically limited to this, and we like it. Heck, I don't quite want to watch the old ones even because episodic narratives annoy me quite a bit.

So perhaps that's the difference there. This is probably Star Trek looking for mass appeal and trying to update the format to a twenty-first century one. So those of us entering blindly like it, because honestly it's quite interesting as a standalone and we aren't carrying the burden of decades of canon and storytelling on our backs. It's a shame older fans don't like it as much, but to be honest... do you guys really think a classic trek-like series would be able to remain on the air on today's market? Because from what I've heard, with all honesty, I don't believe it would. And if it did it sure wouldn't get much attention from the mainstream, which is what they're shooting for here.

We'll know as soon as The Orville either gets renewed or cancelled. I hope it gets to go live on for a long time, but I'm prepared for a disappointment. Either way, I'd rather have a single season of a good show than ten of a mass-appealing bloody stupid one. Because that's the problem - Discovery has so far had damn terrible writing, just filled with things that make absolutely no sense, and I'm not talking minor things but major plot points and character actions. I can very well understand that for non-Trek fans all the changes to canon and differences in style don't matter. But doesn't just basic, sensible writing matter either? Apparently not.

Maybe you're right and knowledge of past ST series is indeed affects me. But on the other hand, there is Dark Matter - an astonishing modern tv-show that in some regards very close to Discovery. And it's story and characters are so much better written, while FX and action scenes are also very good.

I mean that even with all the inconsistences with previous ST shows, if Discovery was written half as good, I would watch it and enjoy. Or am I wrong? Have you seen Dark Matter and can say that Discovery is on the same level with it's plot?

I couldn't tell, of course, not being you, but I do believe it would have much less backlash from Trek fans if it wasn't a Trek show. Far too often fans of the original thing both demand that more things be done with the franchise and then proceed to hate everything anyone does because it's not the original - heck, it happened just last year with the Muppets, for example. It's very, very difficult to tape a new entry into a very old, beloved series and keep the fans happy. Only series I believe consistently pulls that off is Doctor Who (and even then, look at all the absurdity around the new doctor being a female,) or series with a rabid fanbase that doesn't really care about quality or things making sense at all (Star Wars, I'm looking at you.) For the rest their past can really weigh them down as the fanbase is split between purists who basically want a shot-by-shot remake of the old shows and newer/younger viewers who enjoy the new formats and probably wouldn't be able to stand the older one. In the end somebody has to call the shots on what to do, and far too often they end in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation where the shows end up being doomed regardless of what's done.

Oh I haven't, but I'll add it to my ever-growing backlog of stuff to watch :P

There wouldn't be a backlash at all, we just wouldn't care at all and would stop watching by now :P Still, I think that when judging Discovery as a whole it's not unfair to criticise the way it treats canon, and it's not just some obsessive fan behaviour. After all, the creators of the show made the decision to make it a prequel and to involve classic characters. They could have set it after Nemesis (last movie in the classic timeline), made the Klingons a new race (the name is all they share anyway) and they'd be scott free.


Still, I think you're way too hang up on the whole "Trek purists" idea. The majority of key criticism against Discovery is not a matter of the canon, but the faults of the writing and characters, and some technical issues. Like I said early on in this thread, some of my favourite Trek novels don't fit the canon well or at all. But I easily ignore it, because they're just such good, well written stories.


It's not that hard- the recent two Muppet movies were great.

Thing is, it might not be the case here but every other post in AVClub for example is about how this isn't "real trek," but the reasoning is generally stuff like "The captain isn't a paragon of valor and good morals," "It's not an ensemble show," "The show shows too many people breaking too many laws, starting with having a rebel for a protagonist," "The show is too dark, in all other series spaceships are lit while here it looks like electricity is too expensive," "I don't like this serialized storytelling, where are my one-off, episodic episodes?" and so on. None of those complaints address the writing itself, but nit-pick on it by comparing it to a show from a bygone era.

I would rather read you guys complain about the Klingon not making sense (they're my least favorite part of the show indeed, not because they don't fit with some lore but because guys be speaking in riddles 90% of the time) or some of the characters going seemingly entirely off-character (blonde science guy suddenly deciding to rebel when in the previous episodes he seemed to be a stuck-up bitch with a penchant for following the rules,) but most of what I read out there isn't that. Most of the criticism I've read from comments is simply nitpicking, and the reviews I've read while far from stellar across the board aren't generally bad either.

I loved them, particularly the second one, but I believe they bombed in box office. And then the show bombed in ratings because a split audience wanted different things and seems to hate everything that isn't that.

For full disclosure I loved both the films (well not the first one) and the series. But I'm a weird one like that :P