Counterpoint: Star Trek with a “main character” is no good. Recent shows make that pretty clear.
That’s not a counterpoint that’s just like, your opinion, man.
I don’t suppose you can elaborate on what makes a main character bad without using the word woke?
Don’t worry, I’m not the type of person you think I am. I have queer friends. My partner’s a bi she/they. I drive a Prius. I’m gonna vote for the woman of color here in a few weeks. Pretty cool of you to make that assumption, though.
I actually really liked Disco S1 and kinda S2. But the whole “one special person across time and space” thing got kinda old. One person is always right. No matter what. That and the Discovery-is-special-ex-machina Burn alongside the ridiculous constantly-reconfiguring-geometry ships made me lose interest. I hear half the Disco bridge crew had like zero character development in the last season, and they just didn’t even bother having Detmer there for a lot of it.
Strange New Worlds? Lower Decks? Hell yeah. Perfect Star Trek. 10/10. Disco and Picard? Trying too hard to make “prestige TV” and ending up forgetting why Star Trek is good: ensemble casts working together.
“one special person across time and space”
I believe you, but I also remember those exact same words being applied to Sisko and Kirk, and in my experience they were not ever presented as a bad thing when applied to Kirk.
I’m actually not a big Discovery fan, but my reasoning has nothing to do with the average screentime of a particular character.
Picard, and Disc had major issues focusing on one character. It tried to have a massive arch which then failed horribly in the eyes of some (S2 Picard, even S1 picard had me like wtf) Disc was fun as hell, and I enjoyed the time jump. Beyond that though, it just… Stops being coherent.
Compared to Voy, DS9, or TNG where they do have an over reaching arxh, but every show is just a story, and the plot maybe progresses just a bit. Worked great, we got to love all the characters, and they each had their own personal touch you could fall in love with.
All of that to say; LD, and SNW are top tier 10/10 and don’t have the issue of centering the show on one character. Please give me more of that.
Also, just personally; I’ve never been a fan of a Star Trek having a “Darker” side. Most of the old shows that talked of S31 or a darker side was always rogue actors, and the Federation never openly acknowledged them. Go back to dismantling S31, not pretending its a necessary villian to achieve your goals.
This. So much this. I hate what Discovery did with S31. The Federation isn’t the Federation with an official black ops gestapo running around.
Also, I love Michelle Yeoh but I am way more interested in the Capt. Georgiou we missed out on than the genocidal maniac Empress we got.