I'm rewatching DISCO and cutting it with episodes of TNG to break up the pace and tone.
I value a lot of what Discovery did in its first season, and remember the fun I had watching it the first time. But it's a show that's so reliant on twists that it doesn't offer as much on rewatches. I think the character arcs in Season 1 were also pretty decent on paper, but having them play out and basically become complete in under 15 episodes was a big mistake. The arc that Burnham alone goes through in Season 1 is enough character development for a full seven seasons, but it's crammed into a single mini-series and thus feels rushed and not as well earned. On retrospection, I imagine that's also a big part of why Season 2 of Discovery has some issues, since its USS Discovery characters pretty much had their full character development arcs already, and they're just spinning their wheels in Season 2 or re-learning the same lessons which feels redundant. Burnham goes from being a person who doesn't know how to handle her emotions, to someone who fully embraces them by the end of Season 1 and I'm not really sure how they got from Point A to Point C there. I'd say each theme that gets teased out over the length of the season is also pretty good on paper, but I imagine each one would have been better served being the focal point of its own individual episode versus being kinda slowly trickled through the plot and not ever given a satisfying conclusion. Things like Lorca's obsession with destiny versus self-determination is kinda fascinating when you consider things like the Mirror Universe and how it manages to spawn identical individual people despite radically different events and circumstances. I also appreciate the attempt to make a non-Captain the focal point of the narrative, but Discovery never quite manages to make Burnham feel like the most interesting thing going on, which is a detriment to the show. Lower Decks on the other hand does a much better job of nailing the idea of bringing the narrative focus onto traditionally supporting cast. I mostly just wish Lorca was never a mirror baddie and could have just been the focus of his own show because Jason Isaacs is amazing and was the best actor on the show. Star Trek works a lot better when your best actors/actresses are given the staring role to carry the shows and it just feels weird when a supporting character steals the show like that. That's not to say Sonequa Martin-Green is a bad actress, but she's not as good as Isaacs and she's also given a lot of bad material to work with.
Meanwhile, I'm working my way through TNG at the same time. You can really see how early on it's just more TOS in spirit. Which I'm glad it grows up as a show and finds its own voice, but I find a lot of the things it tries to do in S1 kinda charming, even if it doesn't fully work. I just watched the drug addict episode. I remember hating this episode as a kid because it was boring, and because David Marcus was in it as a druggie. But there's a point where the crew explains what drug addiction is to a confused Wesley, and it's kinda... amazing! Within the context of the late 80s, where the War on Drugs was doing some really gross stuff with regards to children's education, it's some galaxy brain, way ahead of its time stuff where TNG explains drug addiction in ways that are both honest, compassionate, and non condescending. What an amazing show. Now I'm off to watch "Skin of Evil" so I can see Tasha Yar die via trash bag, with a fruit rollup stuck to her face.
I value a lot of what Discovery did in its first season, and remember the fun I had watching it the first time. But it's a show that's so reliant on twists that it doesn't offer as much on rewatches. I think the character arcs in Season 1 were also pretty decent on paper, but having them play out and basically become complete in under 15 episodes was a big mistake. The arc that Burnham alone goes through in Season 1 is enough character development for a full seven seasons, but it's crammed into a single mini-series and thus feels rushed and not as well earned. On retrospection, I imagine that's also a big part of why Season 2 of Discovery has some issues, since its USS Discovery characters pretty much had their full character development arcs already, and they're just spinning their wheels in Season 2 or re-learning the same lessons which feels redundant. Burnham goes from being a person who doesn't know how to handle her emotions, to someone who fully embraces them by the end of Season 1 and I'm not really sure how they got from Point A to Point C there. I'd say each theme that gets teased out over the length of the season is also pretty good on paper, but I imagine each one would have been better served being the focal point of its own individual episode versus being kinda slowly trickled through the plot and not ever given a satisfying conclusion. Things like Lorca's obsession with destiny versus self-determination is kinda fascinating when you consider things like the Mirror Universe and how it manages to spawn identical individual people despite radically different events and circumstances. I also appreciate the attempt to make a non-Captain the focal point of the narrative, but Discovery never quite manages to make Burnham feel like the most interesting thing going on, which is a detriment to the show. Lower Decks on the other hand does a much better job of nailing the idea of bringing the narrative focus onto traditionally supporting cast. I mostly just wish Lorca was never a mirror baddie and could have just been the focus of his own show because Jason Isaacs is amazing and was the best actor on the show. Star Trek works a lot better when your best actors/actresses are given the staring role to carry the shows and it just feels weird when a supporting character steals the show like that. That's not to say Sonequa Martin-Green is a bad actress, but she's not as good as Isaacs and she's also given a lot of bad material to work with.
Meanwhile, I'm working my way through TNG at the same time. You can really see how early on it's just more TOS in spirit. Which I'm glad it grows up as a show and finds its own voice, but I find a lot of the things it tries to do in S1 kinda charming, even if it doesn't fully work. I just watched the drug addict episode. I remember hating this episode as a kid because it was boring, and because David Marcus was in it as a druggie. But there's a point where the crew explains what drug addiction is to a confused Wesley, and it's kinda... amazing! Within the context of the late 80s, where the War on Drugs was doing some really gross stuff with regards to children's education, it's some galaxy brain, way ahead of its time stuff where TNG explains drug addiction in ways that are both honest, compassionate, and non condescending. What an amazing show. Now I'm off to watch "Skin of Evil" so I can see Tasha Yar die via trash bag, with a fruit rollup stuck to her face.