I don\'t begrudge the reviewer his opinion, but I resent this review pretty intensely on a couple counts.
First, Star Trek has never been without stupid snarky banter in inappropriate situations defusing the tension. Spock and Kirk did it in a literal space Nazi prison once, while Spock was standing on Kirk\'s freshly whipped back.
Second, Star Trek has always made an utter hash out of continuity and technological advancement, and frequently had an extremely limited understanding of science and cross-disciplinary skills at that. Miles O\'Brien once got tapped to decode borg signals because Burton was out for medical reasons and they wanted a recurring cast member.
And third, because it ends on a recommendation for The Orville, a show I hate the bones of, while paradoxically complaining about stupidity, drama, and preachiness throughout the review. I don\'t like a lot of things about Strange New Worlds, but at least Kurzmann didn\'t stunt-cast himself as Christopher Pike, and at least their episode on the Important Issue of Prejudice didn\'t smash my brains out with a brick like seemingly 50% of The Orville\'s episodes about how much religion sucks. (And at least there haven\'t been major controversies about important recurring characters being written off due to behind-the-scenes drama, but that\'s allegation and scuttlebutt, and also it\'s a new show.)
No, other shows being bad doesn\'t make Strange New Worlds good. But Star Trek having always done the things you\'re complaining about makes complaining about them making it \"not real Star Trek\" foolish.
...And for my part, as a fan of the gorn I hate what they\'re doing with them, no the science often doesn\'t make any sense, and I do think the security officer\'s trauma/drama is overdone and overwrought. But I do think that having an ensemble cast negates rather than enhances a major weakness of Discovery, the laser focus on Michael, and I appreciate rather than resent that they aren\'t trying to just smooth over all interpersonal differences at the end of every episode.
First, snarky banter in tense situations is one thing, 80%-90% of the episode is another. Two people cannot talk in Strange New Worlds show without snide comments or passive-aggressive remarks or drama-exposure. The ship is shot? Ortegas replies in snark. Uhura talking to Spock inside a comet? Nothing but attempt at awkward snide banter and quips. In TOS, for example, Bones was more than the banter with Spock, he was a sensitive man that could see the preciousness of life, and he was the only one to constantly quip to counterbalance Spock\'s seriousness, whereas in Strange New Worlds, everyone quips all the time.
Second. One thing is technobabble and the writers missing the mark in one or two points every couple of episodes (especially in technology, or, in DS 9, warfare), in this show every single episode blunders even basic aspects of biology, engineering, linguistics and physics that any people with a modicum of education wouldn\'t miss. And nowadays you can\'t pull the same excuse since information is insanely easier to access. They didn\'t bothered with either researching, or asking for others to research.
Three. I agree in part, I love Orville and I was going to make a review of it (but chose to wait till the third season was out) pointing out that its weakest aspects come from Seth himself and his need to be with the hottest babes and be the underdog of his shaggy story, and whenever the focus is on him or his ex-wife, the plot goes down the drain. But Orville dropped the religion bashing in the second season and there are far more plots and points used in better way whereas Kurtzman & Co still can\'t make a decent episode without trying to rehash plots from older trek in the same formulaic, trite and overdone drama-guided plot.
I think that Voyager had a far better esemble cast that handled bad stories much better. Kim having no personality besides some quirks was far better than being a one-dimensional whedonverse pastiche that can\'t talk like a human being.
And lastly. Talking about \'old trek also did it\' without acknowledging the size of the problems, how often they happen and the scope of everything is telling that a car with a broken windshield is the same as a flaming wreckage.
I\'ll agree to disagree about the banter. To me, for example, I\'m willing to take the episode at its word that they\'re cracking jokes on the comet because they\'re in deadly but not immediate peril and they\'re trying to relieve the tension so they can think their way past the problem, and that\'s much less obnoxious than cracking jokes while in agonizing pain.
And I don\'t necessarily agree that the problems weren\'t as widespread, just that 60\'s jokes don\'t register as jokes and that stupid space magic being completely unexplained instead of given a stupid or incomprehensible explanation.
But it overall just sounds like we dislike most of the same things, and just find the degree to which they piss us off varies.
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Discovery wearing the skin of TOS.
I was 'optimistically skeptical' when I first heard about this series. I genuinely hoped it would be good, but didn't have many expectations considering the writers.
Seeing the episodes, I realized that this is just Discovery with a new coat of paint. It has the same problems of the Burnham saga, but attenuated by the lack of a central figure like her. The dialogues are marred by whedon-esque quips, with unlikeable characters talking in smug, condescending tones with each other, completely lacking any sort of professionalism or sense, they keep calling themselves geniuses, patting their own backs, whining and screaming and snarking. Everything is full of lens-flare with hypertechnological glowing panels and spinning, so much spinning, every character has a dramatic background that they need to spill as soon as possible and keep hammering again and again 'My parents were killed by the goooorn!'. At the same time, it says it wants to be TOS, but tries every single corner to one-up it, with technical innovations that wouldn't be seen TNG and beyond showing up without care of how it could be worked or influence the plot.
Speaking of plot, the biggest fault, in my opinion, is the fact that the 'problem of the week' only serves as a vehicle for personal drama. Mind you, I have no illusions, Trek always had drama in it, but most of the time said dramas served as the vehicle to the debate and the problems, such as Worf receiving a barrel to the face leading to talks about Medical Ethic and Euthanasia, or Kirk's hesitance about firing against an enemy ship being a discussion of ethics in war and killing another sentient being. Here, the Kurtzman method of 'drama writing the plot' is still in full impulse, just not focused on a single character, and a future-reading computer only serves to make Uhura feel good about being in starfleet, or a Gorn attack and a gritty combat in a nebula only serves to make a security officer ok with loss. The writers not only show that they don't know about Star Trek, they disregard basic science altogether, 'Linguistics is like Engineering'? an organism that doesn't have antibodies and just heats up anytime it has an infection? Windmill generators in a world with safe fusion energy? People inventing warp-engines because they saw a phenomena in space? A cursory research on google would be enough to stop those ideas on their tracks, yet these things ended being filmed and shown.
And the more you look at each episode with a critical eye, worse it gets, since they seek to one-up the trek of old that they don't think of consequences. Beam up cream directly onto someone's eye? Why not just hack the computers? Keep a child in transport buffer pattern? Why not just keep her in stasis? Especially since she'd be dead after the ship lost power in the very next episode, and any engineer worth their salt would know what's going on. Because it NEEDS to be overblown and dramatic, rehashing plots from previous series, not offering anything new. Or else it wouldn't be Kurtzman.
So, if you enjoy it, go on enjoying it. If you're curious and hesitant, yes, this is still Kurtzman, avoid it. If you want good Trek, Orville is around the corner.