Jammer's Reviews

Re: MAND S1: Chapter 6: The Prisoner

Personally, I gave this episode an automatic +1 star the moment I saw the title saying that it was episode Number Six, called “The Prisoner.”

Re: DSC S3: That Hope Is You, Part 2

This was a disappointing final. I strongly dislike Burnham, making her Captain does not do much for me.

The action part of the episode also was a step down from last episode. I sure was rooting for the green women to kill Burnham though.

General musings about the season:

The world-building this season was just poor. Accept for the Admiral we no nothing about the current federation.

The season started interesting, and some action episode worked, but in general it was just mediocre. I rate it about the same level Picard. Patrick Stewart's poor acting did not help that season either and the main story line was a mess.

The few positive points of the season is that the crew got some screen time and we get to know them better. Book also was a positive, but did not get much to do except being supportive of Saint Burnham, the worthless space Jesus.

The whole transgender angle was superfluous and went nowhere, just woke signalling.

Discovery suffers from bad writing, without a major shakeup I expect not much from next season.

The final gets 1 1/2 Stars from me.

Re: DSC S3: The Sanctuary

@Dave in MN
@Elliot
@Booming

Since all of you have gathered in this thread, let me voice my appreciation for all of your perspectives and contributions to this message board.



@Dave in MN
@Elliot
I enjoy your perspective on the issue of Gender identity. I assume it has been a bigger issues in your life than for straight people and it is interesting to see your view on the Cis and transgender modern interpretations.


@Booming You often remind me of the young Elliot. He was for my taste a bit too edgy and angry, but well educated with a lot insight.

I really appreciate Elliot's recent entries, they are well thought out and not concerned with winning discussions and I value yours and his contribution to this board.

I am a German political scientist living in the US for 20 years, so your political perspective and feedback on Discovery (from a German political scientist in Germany) are quite interesting. I often are tempted responding to your political tangents, but I feel this medium is not good enough to discuss the nuances of American politics and where your German perspective might be off.

Maybe some other place?

Re: DSC S3: There Is a Tide...

This episode was a lot better than last weeks disastrous outing. I liked the action part and the obvious Die hard reference with the boots gone.

Stamets rant worked for me, even though his kid connection is not earned. They should have just left it with his husband. I am rooting against Burnham so his outrage against her entertained me.

The negotiation was weird. If the Federation is in dire need then a peace deal with the evil chain makes sense. Sometimes justice cannot be served and you have to make peace with murderous racist, e.g. South Africa and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Insisting on a trial of Osyra is just saying "I want the war to continue". Of course Disco is not deep enough to ponder that thought in more detail and went back to she is so evil, she just killed a guy.

The production value of this show is really amazing but they need better writer.

This season once again has been a mess, the Space Hitler detour did not help and not enough world building, and the cause for the burn is a dud.

But this episode at least was entertaining. 3 stars.

PS: The new season of the Expanse is so great, that is how you do multiple Arcs.

Re: DSC S3: Terra Firma, Part 1

This season has been one long exercise in how to recycle ste stories and spin your wheels

Hardly any new movement on the Burn each week

No interesting insight into the 32nd century in any significant meaningful way and no the lip service and that’s really all.It was with Vulcan and Romulans dont count

Instead we get trading post chases, western saloon bad guys, hostage rescues, double crossing brothers, Warmed over bullies with the emerald chain, stake uninvolving romances

This week we get a pointless umpteenth revisit to the mirror universe—an idea that was fresh and intriguing in ToS Mirror, Mirror and that was on the way to wearing out its welcome with DS9 starting with Through the Looking glass. Now we get another two episodes to waste on it after DIS spent several episodes in season one on it. Yawn

And once again the writers are too proud of themselves with these insular fangirl ideas of making the guardian corporeal and human with a door middle of nowhere reading a newspaper. It’s not sublime . It’s not clever. It’s lame. Pretentious. Too cute by a mile
It sadly seems they put more thought in something like this than the script itself

And did we need to really visit the Mu chatacters again when the audience barely cares about the regular weekly cast

I’d call this a loser episode 1.5 stars. This season is a loss. The first three episodes were bores, the fourth was average, the fifth was the strongest but would be just a solid typical episode on TNG or Ds9

The sixth episode another loser. Unification iii was a loser 2 stars. The most interesting part of that episode was on the world building it could have explored but didbt choosing to focus on the. Least interesting aspects and upending the possibility of jettisoning Burnham from the series by having her leave Starfleet bf go off on adventures with Book

The last episode was boring too. So by my count
2 stars, 2, 2, 2.5, 3, 2,2,2. I think I enjoyed enteeprise season two more and voyager season three more which up until discovery and Picard I had considered the worst trek seasons produced.

Ashame all the money is being wasted on such a ho hum show

Re: DSC S3: Die Trying

I think 3.5 stars is too high. 3 stars maybe

It certainly is the best episode this season. But it’s got issues—blurry unsatisfying glances when it comes to VFX like the federation ship visual reveal. The chatacters aren’t connecting with me still despite the more effort writers trying to give to them. I don’t like the serialized/standalone style. Hated it on Fringe and other shows

If you’re gonna do serialization-/and for some weird reason the 21st century writers think they made it fashionable when it was being done and done better in the 80/90–then be fully serialized like season one of Heroes or Hill street blues in the 80s etc

Yes you are never gonna beat DiS at vFX but who cares. VFX should be like a spice used to slightly enhance something not to be ladled on thick like gravy to cover over the disgusting meal placed on your plate

And the show still treats “characters” as plot devices like Nhan. Think she is a character then realized just used to move her around like a pawn in a chessboard. I’m sure they’ll kill somebody off nobody cares for after giving them three seconds of screentime this season then expect it to be shocking and sad when it’s not. It’s manipulative and lazy

Re: DSC S3: Die Trying

I think another issue I have with DIS is it’s too excessive in all it does

Too frenetic. Too much convoluted plot. Too much frenzied action. Everything looks superficial like a vide game in terms of VFX and cinematography.

I was for DIS leaping out of prequel territory but the 32nd century seems too much. Maybe a couple centuries but feels very Remote

Berman and Braga had that concern when developing ENT—that going into future would be too much. I disagree. But some of there concern presents itself with DiS in season three.

Although in better writers hands the idea of “our best days are behind us” could be milked. Afterall I feel that way about not just Star Trek having stagnated under Kurtzman unto unrecognizable drivel that makes one pine for 90s Trek. But also about the decline of our culture and society. Between the pandemic, the polarization of people in large part to social media/internet you do feel a need to get back to basics and recapture what made yesteryear better. But I don’t think these writers are capable nor inclined to tackle something like that via the 32nd century’s Federation


Also I appreciate the nod to Nog but wouldn’t ge have had a ship named after him centuries ago not nearly a millennia after he lived. It’s not like it’s the Nog-J

And as far as the visuals You can barely make out the ships. The VFX I don’t think are better than the vfx we got on ds9-Voy or Enterprise honestly

And I don’t like the whole hybrid approach to trying to squeeze in a standalone story while advancing the arc. Do one or the other. Doing both I don’t like

Did appreciate the tidbit about Terran empire not being visited for centuries and it growing further away from our universe

Sonequa still is awful actress. I know they won’t because they don’t want to be seen as firing a black female lead but they should.

Re: DSC S3: Forget Me Not

I quit watching DIS halfway through season one. Didn’t watch only read what was happening in season two. Was excited for PIC. Watched all of it. Terribly disappointed in that shoe. Skipped LD cause it looked like a horribly unfunny cartoon.

Tried to give DIS a chance with season three when it jettisoned the prequel setting. But ultimately Kurtzman Trek isn’t for me

Even if there are moments or episodes that sometimes give a glimmer of hope shoe can be good it never can maintain or capitalize on it. I’m jumping off again with DIS. I just don’t care about the characters. I hate when the writers try to give them emotional scenes or move the audience when they haven’t done anything to earn those moments

I’m tired of the Mystery Box. It’s long passed needing to be relegated to the ash heap of tv writing.

You just know that when the story reveals all it’s card and everything plays out it’s gonna be a total arbitrary and wholly underwhelming event like the first two seasons. But before we get to that the writers are going to stall, spin their wheels, toy with the audience in such an annoyingly cloyful way.

I guess I’m an old fuddy duddy. I’ll gladly admit I prefer the nostalgia of 90s Trek even ENT for all its faults.

At least those shows were well crafted. I liked the writing. They were mostly entertaining. The writers had real life experiences to draw inspiration from to imbue the characters and scripts with that allowed for relateability and resonance. There were fun high concept sci fi notions. The plots felt mostly fresh and held my attention. There was a comfort to those shows. Yes part of that is pure nostalgia. I won’t deny that. Rose colored, feel good days gone by. Soundtrack of my life. Etc etc. but it’s not entirely that either. I think there was a genuine objective quality to them

Nowadays Trek is just flash. There’s no limitations. Studios give kurtzman unlimited budgets. VFX Kets you do just about anything. Writing is an afterthought. I’m tired of the ADHD style and the convoluted storytelling. They include all these disparate parts and force them together by design without caring if they really fit or make sense. The payoffs are long in coming and when they do come they come as a whimper and are totally lame.

I’ll gladly take my old Trek. Whoever can stomach this new crap can gladly have it. I can and have rewatched most of TOS-ENT at least 50 times. I can’t even get through most of a DIS episode of last three weeks.

Re: DSC S3: Far From Home

I think the off topic is a commentary on the quality of the episodes. The episode themselves have nothing to offer so people dwell on stuff that otherwise wouldn’t be given much attention on another show of quality

Re: DSC S3: People of Earth

Sad that a TREE and a CAT have more personality and are more likable than the cast

Re: DSC S3: Far From Home

This overly expensive Star Trek prequel turned sequel series was the final nail In creativity In the franchise’s five decades long run

alex, What is Star Trek Discovery?

Re: DSC S3: People of Earth

It’s funny. Most trek series had a well defined regular cast. You knew who the main players were. Not so with DIS. It seems they are solely focused on Burnham. Then had a season long guest star they rotate. Then reacting to fans wanting more traditional focus on a regular cast took which were originally intended to be wallpaper and have started throwing a tiny bone here or there to them

For me. It’s not enough. It doesn’t address the underlying fundamental problem that the casting wasn’t great to begin with for most of the characters and the little bit of writing they have gotten doesn’t make them anymore interesting and/or likeable So reunions among the cree carry zero emotional resonance. Big failure on the show’s part

It also hurts other things like the tree hugging or plight of the crew being cut off from their families and what was home and familiar. That should be moving and poignant. Instead it rings empty with this crew because the writers failed from day one to write good characters and interactions so when they come to things like this it carries a punch

Also this plot was tired. Last two episodes had a well trodden outpost/market and saloon. This week borrowing from Voyager Friendship One and ENT’s Terra Nova we get misdirection of the weirdly masked raiders turning out to be humans. yawn

Re: DSC S3: People of Earth

I consider 2 stars out of four a loser episode. No desire to rewatch. Doesn’t inspire me. Does nothing for me. Can’t find anything to applaud the writers for

A 2.5 star episode is average. It either is a mixed bag with some things I liked or enjoyed coupled with things I didn’t like or dragged other elements down. Or it could simply be a fair episode. Doesn’t strive for much but what it does it well enough to hold my attention and be watchable

For perspective. A solid tv series should be getting 3 stars(solid good. Entertaining from beginning to end )most weeks with one or two 2 star episodes and the occasional 3.5 or 4 star episode(. Bring great or excellent

I don’t bother giving anything below 2 stars. It’s like giving an F- what’s the point. It’s a failure matter if degrees don’t matter at that point

I’ve found pretty much the first three episodes of DIS this season to be a waste of time and the studios money. No urgency. No sense the writers have something to say

Contrast to this to TNG where I give most episodes 3 stars and in its peak in season three and four I was giving a larger than would expect 3.5-4 stars to many episodes. Those episodes were consistently entertaining, balanced character and plot well, had right amount of action adventure and jeopardy/tension. And on many occasions while not necessary was appreciated when a philosophical idea or intriguing perspective or bit of sophisticated dialog found its way into a script

Re: DSC S3: People of Earth

I also don’t like how it’s so in the audience’s faces that they and the characters are being led by their noses fromOne plot marker to the next

This isn’t elegant serialized storytelling g that feels organic and natural and the magic of the writers’s hands is pleasantly unobtrusive. No here it’s obvious that the writers in big NEON letters is flashing that “Hey, we contrived this big epic season long mystery and have markers set out and need to get to certain points each episode and we are going to clumsily launch the crew to those arbitrary spots”.

Everything feels contrived and the namedropping or the familiar species feel like pawns with the writers having no clue as to lovingly and affectionately put them to use in the story other than in a “let’s throw a dart at a trek race or character this week and see who we dump into the script

Also as evidence the writers have too much money and not enough talent or good sense is the fact the stidio gives the show money to film in an exotic place like Iceland So I’m thinking the writers are going to want to do justice to a locale that’s oft mentioned and never seen or visited but not done so in the epic fashion it deserves and with which a larger budget will allow

No. What we get is a mundane western and outpost setting. Why couldn’t this be filmed on a soundstage? Did any of this really deserve Iceland ? The studio should have told Kurtzman and Paradise when they asked to go film in Iceland something along the lines of what Weyoun once told Jake The Writer—you keep writing and we will keep reading and leave it at that.

Re: DSC S3: People of Earth

2 stars again.

This season is just more of the same with differ Ent window Trappings. More stalling. Not much but lip service paid to world building and status of the alpha Quadrant. Earth didn’t feel alien like it should with a millennium having passed

Everything feels like mechanical contrived plotting. Nothing organic. Just a push to the next plot point or next episode

Re: DSC S3: Far From Home

What this fan wants is to be entertained. DIS doesn’t have to be deep or say something profound. These writers don’t have the life experience or mental capacity for that. I’d also like a better cast of actors and better written characters.

I’d like the show to fire Sonequa. She’s an albatross. Horrible actress with awful delivery.

And a little imagination would be nice. How uninspiring is it to recycle western settings. Smuggling. Ship crash. There’s no high concept. There’s no imaginative thinking outside of the box. It’ is just rote

Re: DSC S3: Far From Home

The problem is the new series aren’t generating any sort of emotional reaction. There’s no investment in the characters or their plights or jeopardy they find themselves in. Scenes don’t slow down to breathe to let you get engrossed in them or the people featured or any kind of human reaction. Because the actors aren’t that great. The characters are cyphers. The writers don’t imbue them or the dialog or the scenes with any kind of insightful or relateable human moments. It’s all mechanical and to serve the bigger mystery and arc which themselves are so badly plotted and clockwork like in just going through the expected motions

It sparks nothing but indifference. kurtzman Trek is hollow. It’s as artificial as the green screens and overdone VFX.

Re: DSC S3: Far From Home

I can’t stand Burnham. And Book’s Cat is a much better actress than Sonequa martin

Frankly the cast could have been jettisoned. They’re all uninteresting cardboard cutouts. If the writers are smart they’ll do two things. One create and introduce more interesting characters played by better actors this season who can slowly replace the current cast. And two lean hard into world building. There’s fifty years of built in love for Andorians, Tellarites, Bajorans, Vulcans, Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans etc. shifting to large scale Focus on Trek civilizations along with history and inter species dynamics of the 32nd century would help tremendously

Re: DSC S3: That Hope Is You, Part 1

I think Kurtzman is an awful writer and show runner. He has no talent. It’s astonishing anyone hires him let alone gives him control of a franchise like Star Trek

He has no grasp on the basic fundamentals of what makes good writing. His writing is convoluted, filled with gaping plotholes. The pacing is dizzying. You can’t enjoy a battle or action scene cause it’s moving to fast. You need to stop and watch it in slow motion to folks what’s going on

He has no idea how to write a satisfying payoff. He is more concerned about Toying with the audience and on structure and playing with the linear format than he is with well developed ideas, interesting characters, thoughtful relateable moments. He basically throws everything including the kitchen sink at the wall and sees what shit sticks. Some decent ideas aren’t fully realized or utilized. He feels that everything must be connected even if there really isn’t a good reason to connect them. He plagiarized other people’s work. Just look at StarTrek. into Darkness. He says homage I say wholesale lifting of meyer’s film.

Fringe was another hot mess filled with fantasy and unbelievable psuedo-science, emotionally uninvolving romance between the two leads. It was a poor man’s inferior The X/Files.

Re: DSC S3: Far From Home

The problem is the whole draw for most fans of going to the 32nd century should be about the status of all the civilizations and races TOS, TNG and DS9 introduces and explored. We are invested in the Klingons, the Cardassians, the Ferengi, the Andorians, the dominion, the vulcans, the the Bajorans etc

You could spend a whole season on how things have changed. The dynamics. The shocking fate of some of them maybe. But so far zilch

The other interesting thing of moving to 32nd century is showing some wild imaginative sci fi. Instead we get western bar. That’s tired especially for the far flung future of the trek universe.

Tos and tng gave us holodecks, replicators, transporters, androids, salt vampires, shape shifters

And when discovery visits earth it should be as alien as Vulcan or Trill. It shouldn’t be recognizable. Even daniels made some rather interesting and cryptic hints about earth in the 31st century. If it turns out to be recognizable or feel like home the writers will have dropped the ball

Re: DSC S3: Far From Home

2 stars

A step down from the Premiere which was pretty meh itself. Just spun its wheels for an hour. The DIS crew I could care less about except Saru. This felt like filler. Amazing TNG had twenty six episodes a season and rarely did I feel like writers didn’t have a narrative urgency and point in the episodes they filmed. Yet with half as many episodes and a supposed serialized format the writers strain to tell interesting, intriguing, fresh and compelling stories. This was just taking up airspace. Nothing more. Worse yet it felt recycled. Been there. Been there done that better

Re: DSC S3: That Hope Is You, Part 1

Oh and this episode feels a lot like the third season premiere of ENT. Promised a revamp but more of the same. Average or so. Stock action with a filler plot on a trading post. Interesting teaser at the end that’s more interesting than the entirety of the episode itself

But unlike discovery the writers managed to later capitalize on the xindi arc to great affect

I don’t have Faith these writers can based on picard play-off , the klingon war arc and the red angel mysteey

What will happen is viewers will come up with more interesting story developments and sadly see more in the writers ideas than the writers do.

Re: DSC S3: That Hope Is You, Part 1

The sad truth is writers aren’t very good anymore. At least that’s my opinion. I’ve watched a lot of tv and despite protestations that this is the Golden Age for tv I disagree

Sure there are tons of shows to watch nowadays. Too many. Nobody can keep up. Sure they are more serialized than was the norm.....maybe. Because in the 80-90s soaps and primetime dramas on networks DID tell serialized season long arcs. And I’d argue they did them better because the serialized format they used wasn’t based on epic mystery boxes and playing games with the audience by limiting points of view or only showing a few cards they were holding

Writers nowadays are no good. They haven’t lived or lived very protected shallow lives and done no self reflection or deep thinking. So they have nothing to bring to the table when it comes to writing. Instead they rely on a relentless pacing and being propped up by ridiculously large VFX and production budgets

Gone are the days writers told a well crafted entertaining story. Trek was mostly entertaining. Not always deep that’s ok. As long as you were Entertained. But these new trek programs can’t even do that. The storytelling is so convoluted and payoffs so underwhelming you are left scratching your head why you even watched it

I’ve been rewatching 90s trek especially TNG and the dialog. The character moments. The vocabulary The discussions. The ideas are fantastic. You could tell Michael Piller or Melinda Snodgrass or Michael Wagner or Mauruce Hurley lived and were thinkers. It showed in their scripts. There was imagination. There was reflection at times.

Now shows don’t bother. You won’t find that here these days. Oh you might see lot of pretentious ideas or chatter but scratch or peel the surface and it’s a whole lotta nothing

I’m not saying bringing back writers like Melinda snodgrass or ira Behr or ron moore or brannon braga is necessarily the answer. I believe artistic ability peaks. You hit your high then it’s down hill from There. You can’t be as good a writers as when you were on fire in TNG or ds9. So I don’t think they could do that. But maybe spark something or guide the writers working on trek these days. Provide some sage advice. Give pointers on how to improve their scripts

Re: LD S1: No Small Parts

As far as rewatchabilty I find all five trek series rewatchable. I’ve seen most episodes 40-50 times.

I actually like the episodic format. The way it treats the viewer to a new story. You never knew what each episode was going to be about as opposed to an ongoing arc. It also allowed viewers to see how the episode would take shape and it forced the writers to provide a payoff rather than dragging it out which I think made for better payoffs in the episodic shows than the modern mystery box programs like lost, bsg and discovery/Picard

Re: LD S1: No Small Parts

I think DS9 is hard to get into because it jettisons for the most part the action adventure and high concept sci fi.

It is more dense and political a series. I enjoy DS9 but it’s increased reliance on romance and comedy hurts it. I don’t tune in to trek for episodes like Family business , Fascination, meridian, let he, change of heart, crossfire, Melora, second sight, looking for parmach in all the wrong places or Dax/Worf, Kira/Bareil, kira/shakaar, Rom/Leeta, moogie/Zek

Also some of the main cast is weak like dax and bashir. The more interesting characters on the show weren’t main players and only came along halfway through the series. Then when the series hit it stride with the dominion war it spun its wheels after occupation arc til
The the start of the final Season