Diehard Star Trek Fans Slam This Series as Near-Fatal Blow to the Franchise
And it's hard to disagree.
Long ago, in the distant 1960s, screenwriter Gene Roddenberry came up with the sci- fi series Star Trek, a story about explorers plowing through space and encountering all kinds of civilizations. In his utopian future, intelligent races did not fight each other, but engaged in science and diplomacy.
Okay, sometimes they fought, but mostly they explored space in its infinite variety. The series captured the geek community so much that it gradually became a franchise, with many prequels, sequels, and alternate versions.
In 2017, the franchise returned to the serial formula with a prequel, Star Trek: Discovery. The first seasons focused on the war between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingons, which ended before the events of the original series, but starting with the third season, the events are shifted to the next millennium, to the year 3188.
Star Trek: Discovery Did Not Live Up to Fans' Expectations (At All)
Discovery officially ended with its fifth season — and fans have something to say about it. According to many viewers, Star Trek: Discovery is one of the worst things to happen to the franchise.
“The writing was just awful for so much of it. How can you spend millions on great actors, great sets, great costumes and makeup, all the CGI, and then make such a pig's ear of the world-building and dialogue? [...] Yeah, not good Trek or even passable sci-fi,” Reddit user marmarama wrote.
Discovery Ruins the Star Trek Canon
It was clear beforehand that the Star Trek universe would fall apart after Discovery, since it was the first real prequel. Yes, the Enterprise series took place a hundred years before the events of the original, but the large time gap gave the creators some freedom.
In Discovery, however, the action takes place only ten years before the adventures of Kirk and Spock. These characters were born and joined Starfleet. And those fans who care about the details of the canon cannot help but notice the inconsistencies. How did Spock get a human sister? Why did Kirk never remember Captain Lorca?
Discovery Is Afraid to Address Difficult Issues
Throughout its long history, Star Trek has touched on topics of social inequality, dictatorship, and religious fanaticism. Star Trek did not shy away from difficult subjects, but it said that heroes were stronger than problems — wars would end, dictators would fall, and the oppressed would be liberated. The combination of courage to ask important questions and deliberate naivety in answering them created its special optimism.
That is exactly what Discovery lacks. The first episode, in which the prophet T'kuvma unites the Klingons for war with the Federation, gave hope that the series would deal with a pressing issue: religious intolerance. But already in the second episode, the writers replaced T'kuvma with General Kol — perhaps the most ridiculous villain in Star Trek history.
Some might say that avoiding difficult topics is, on the contrary, a good thing. But Star Trek has always been imbued with pressing issues and humanism. A show without that might be all right. But it wouldn't be the real Star Trek.