Star Trek: Discovery Ruined By Listening To Fans
The most recent season of Star Trek: Discovery has been a bit different from previous ones. That’s because the writers and producers have listened to constant fan demands that the show be more like earlier series such as The Next Generation, resulting in more episodic adventures. While some of those adventures have been fun, Paramount listening to Star Trek: Discovery fans may have ruined the show’s final season by making the end of every episode laughably predictable.
The Search For Progenitor Tech
To understand why, we need to first review the driving mystery of this season. Captain Burnham and her crew have been tasked with discovering the mystery of the Progenitors, a race discovered by Captain Picard nearly a millennia ago. This race claims to have created various forms of life in the galaxy (including humans, Romulans, and Cardassians), and the technology that could do this could also unleash untold destruction throughout the galaxy.
Moll And L’ak
That’s where two new characters come in: Moll and L’ak are an interstellar Bonnie and Clyde who are trying to learn the mysteries of the Progenitors so they can get the Breen off their back. The Breen can and will use this technology to destroy the Federation, kicking off an ongoing race between Burnham and this criminal duo. On paper, it’s the perfect excuse for Star Trek: Discovery to give the fans the episodic adventures we’ve been demanding, but it led to one unintended consequence that threatens to ruin this season.
It’s Become Too Predictable
Namely, you can set your watch by the fact that every single episode will end the same way. No matter what the adventure is–from exploring an iconic Mirror Universe vessel to fixing an alien air conditioner–the episode will always end with Burnham’s crew figuring out one piece of the Progenitor puzzle, but Moll and L’ak are still out there, one step ahead of our intrepid crew. Again, this is obviously meant to give Star Trek: Discovery fans the throwback storytelling we’ve been demanding (right down to focusing the season on a forgotten TNG episode), but it accidentally highlights the strength of previous seasons.
Echoing Voyager In The Worst Way
Whether you’re a major Star Trek: Discovery fan or its biggest hater, you have to admit that one of the pleasures of earlier seasons is that we never knew exactly how an episode might wrap up. The crew might end up in a different universe or time-traveling to the far future, and we never knew when beloved allies like Booker or Ash Tyler would suddenly have a heel turn.
The fact that we never knew is my main point here: even when the season-long mystery arcs were boring or had awful resolutions (or, with The Burn, both), there was a novelty in a Star Trek show that wasn’t afraid to boldly go where no series had gone before in terms of surprises and twists. Now, however, Discovery seems to be following in Voyager’s vapor trails in giving us interesting, episodic content that always ends in the same way. Just as the Voyager crew would wrap up the day’s adventure and commence their voyage home, the Discovery crew wraps up today’s mystery and commences chasing Moll and L’ak.
The Cancellation
As a Star Trek: Discovery fan, I can’t help but feel that this predictability problem is magnified by the show’s sudden cancellation, making this experimental season the final one. These will be our last adventures with the characters, and in a terrible twist, these adventures have largely been ruined because Paramount decided to listen to fans’ demands in the worst possible way. In this way, all of us watching at home are learning the hard truth behind Spock’s words of wisdom: “having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting.”
Wise words, Spock. Let’s hope your sister–and Paramount–were paying attention enough to throw a few surprise endings into the mix and end this series on a high note.
