Star Trek: Discovery — Forced Feelings Fall Flat
As a lifelong Trekkie, I really wanted to like Discovery. It has its bright points — an extremely diverse cast, a novel concept, and excellent production values (except for the dialog audio which *always* sounds muffled to the point of me needing subtitles). But despite — or perhaps because of — the heavyhanded attempts to portray the emotional bonds of the crew, I feel very little attachment to most of the characters, and only a passing investment in the plot. The showrunners keep ratcheting up the OMG DIRE STAKES AND THESE PEOPLE REALLY LOVE EACH OTHER but past a certain point it’s just numbing and tedious. Most episodes consist of pointless high-energy action sequences interspersed with sappy, plaintive, breathlessly whispered professions of care — desperately trying to *tell* us how they feel without any negative space to provide contrast and *show* us.
TNG-era Trek was mostly episodic alien-of-the-week procedurals, but even with that format I feel a stronger sense of character development and identification with Data, Picard, Geordi, and even minor characters like Barclay than I do with Burnham or most of the bridge crew (whose names I can’t even *remember* after three seasons). I suspect this is, in large part, because there was time to get to know the Enterprise crew; the pacing was slow enough to allow for real human interaction — not just wedging in maximal affective content between plot exposition (and explosion) intervals.
I do acknowledge that this is a departure from “classic” Trek; with the leap to the 32nd century, it’s clear that they’re looking to explore Trek ideals in a *fantasy* setting. As a consequence, the show also renounces any attempt at scientific plausibility — to its own detriment. I’m not critiquing this as a realism pedant, as some of my favourite sci-fi literature doesn’t even bother with such things. Rather, the tech-as-magic framing weakens the plot by creating a deus ex machina for any seemingly-tense situation, and gives rise to narrative threads that don’t follow from any intuitable logic. I also *strenuously* dislike the repeated use of “special DNA” tropes, as it replaces a “regular people in extraordinary situations” narrative with a divine saviour one — not to mention the unintentional invocation of racial supremacism. If I wanted a superhero movie, I would watch one instead (and I don’t).
I suppose this is also general statement about contemporary literature — and of real life for that matter — that I wish everything would just slow the fuck down. The viewer needs time and space to process, and empathy can’t be forced by added intensity. The serialized drama format has great potential for storytelling, but as we’ve seen with GOT et al the scale of the spectacle doesn’t equate with quality. I’m hopeful for the upcoming ST: Brave New Worlds to pull back somewhat and let us form attachments organically, but given the dominant trends my expectations are not high.
