Star Trek Fans Are Happy Discovery Is Canceled, Polling Data Reveals
A GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT Twitter poll disclosed that fans are actually happy Star Trek: Discovery has been canceled.
One of the risks that we run when putting up a Twitter poll is that people will be brutally honest, and sometimes their answers are surprising. In the case of Star Trek: Discovery, fans are not surprised at all that the science fiction space series is coming to an end despite Star Trek’s cultural impact and popularity. When fans were asked if they are glad Star Trek: Discovery has been canceled, they were presented with four choices: “Yes, good riddance,” “Take it or leave it,” “No, I love it,” and “Just show results,” and the most popular answer was “Yes, good riddance.”
At the moment, it looks like “good riddance” will be making a clean sweep and is currently the highest-ranked vote at 37.3 percent. Twitter user @SlinkumsDinkums expresses this sentiment by saying, “I liked some aspects of it, but the storyline was goofy. A lot of heavy emotions like I don’t need all that. My life already has that.” This seems to be the overall sentiment for this iteration of Star Trek, as it tries a number of different things that are widely considered to be non-canonical.
While most science-fiction stories are rooted in philosophy and metaphysical subject matters, one of the things that gives Star Trek mass appeal is the fact that it’s kind of campy and uses clever storytelling to reel in some of the more existential plot lines in a way that’s easily digestible. When it’s all doom and gloom, the escapism that makes many gravitate to science fiction all but goes away. At the end of the day, we’re trying to be entertained, and sometimes we simply don’t want real-world drama interfering with our space operas.
So what went wrong with Star Trek: Discovery, and why are they calling it quits after Season 5? For one, the series took Star Trek in a different direction by trying to make the series more “adult,” but really only ramped up the use of profanity and violence in a misguided attempt to capture an older audience. But the issue at hand is that most Star Trek properties are geared for all ages, and simply throwing in a few curse words and some bloodshed seems like a misguided attempt to give the series a more R-rated feel that it didn’t necessarily need.
Another glaring issue is that other Star Trek properties are mostly episodic in the sense that a single episode can stand on its own with its own teachable lesson and self-contained plot. Discovery, on the other hand, gave each of its five seasons the “mini-series” treatment in which one central antagonist has its own season-long over-arching plot. While shows like True Detective, American Horror Story, and even some seasons of South Park pulled off this method of storytelling, they all had something that Discovery did not: a big payoff at the end of the season.
The biggest problem of all, however, is whether Discovery is considered to be part of the overarching Star Trek canon, and an overwhelming amount of people don’t think it is. It seems as if Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman missed the mark by starting the series off as a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series but then launching the story into the distant future by the second season. In so many words, Star Trek: Discovery is all over the place, and while our Twitter poll has 19.3 percent of people saying they can take it or leave it, most Star Trek fans are happy just leaving it. Let’s just hope that more people are on board with the upcoming Star Trek musical that’s in the works.
