Which is what ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lightofdaye wanted to know. Well, for starters, the previous season had for my money a near perfect ending, if the show has to end. It also had a fantastic sense of wonder arc with the Ten C, making communication between two very different species the season's main challenge, and was, to me, Star Trek at its very best. And I could live with where the show left our characters in terms of their personal story.
Now, don't get me wrong: Discovery has become my personal firm favourite among the new (i.e. post Voyager) shows. If the show had been granted seven seasons, I'd have so been here for it. But my current fear is that this season might originally have been intended to set up the next one or something like that, and thus won't feel like a smiliarly good conclusion. Also, I'm permanently burned with what happened with the tv show Alias, which had a great fourth season and fourth season finale that with some tweaks could have served as the overall series finale - and then came season 5 which while not without its highlights still managed to destroy what I treasured about the fourth season and reduced two of the characters I most cared for to caricatures of their former selves. Or take Once Upon A Time. For me, the natural final show and finale would have been season 3. I never finished season 4 because it felt so very unnecessary and repetitive and just - never mind, my point is, there were several shows in my fannish past which had a perfect exit season and then got more granted, or at least one more, and I came to regret it.
Otoh: Disco has more than earned my fannish trust so far. Yes, they started out with some nostalgia tie-ins, but as opposed to certain other shows, they only used that as their launching panel, so to speak, and quickly became their own thing. And season 3 and 4 really did go where no ST show had gone before, creating truly new settings and circumstances, and in their consistent "even when things are dark, we can be better than do a survival of the fittest rerun, we can be compassionate and kind with each other" ethics are just what I want on my tv screen in our present. So I should trust the prodouction team to come up with good ideas and executions of those ideas for the fifth and final season. So in terms of the overal season plot, I'm happy to be surprised, and here's what I'm hoping for on a personal scale:
- exploration of who Adira is beyond Grey or "found family" with Stamets and Culber
- more Laira Rillak, Vance and Covic (I'm very fond of the supporting cast the last two seasons have introduced)
- at least one scene between Keyla Detmer and Michael Burnham addressing the fact Detmer, too, started out on the Shenzou
- more Tilly (season 4 was great but I really missed her in the second half)
- exploration of T'Rina beyond her relationship with Saru, possibly in combination with showing us slices of life on Ni'var
What I'm neutral on: anything involving time travel that would allow characters from the first two seasons to interact with Michael and/or the rest of our lot. I mean, that can come across as cheesy fanservice, but sometimes it's what you want. It's also not necessary - we've seen Michael say her goodbyes to her Vulcan family and Mirror Georgiou, and if the STverse wants to bring back, say, Ash Tyler, I'd rather see him on Strange New Worlds because that could lead to fascinating scenes with M'Benga, Chapel and Ortega, and there's nothing left to say re him/Michael. Speaking of SNW, if the Guardian of Forever should decide Michael can rescue Captain Pike from his eventual fate by swooping in through a time portal post the TOS two parter The Menagerie with some futuristic medicine, hey, why not? (I'm only half kidding. But seriously, I doubt they'll go there. At most, there will be a "renembering my past" montage in the final episode featuring the s1 and s2 only characters.
Lastly: no Terry Matalas anywhere near Discovery, its characters and its setting. Sorry, fans of his, but I disliked the third season of Picard that much.
The Other Days
lightofdaye wanted to know. Well, for starters, the previous season had for my money a near perfect ending, if the show has to end. It also had a fantastic sense of wonder arc with the Ten C, making communication between two very different species the season's main challenge, and was, to me, Star Trek at its very best. And I could live with where the show left our characters in terms of their personal story. Now, don't get me wrong: Discovery has become my personal firm favourite among the new (i.e. post Voyager) shows. If the show had been granted seven seasons, I'd have so been here for it. But my current fear is that this season might originally have been intended to set up the next one or something like that, and thus won't feel like a smiliarly good conclusion. Also, I'm permanently burned with what happened with the tv show Alias, which had a great fourth season and fourth season finale that with some tweaks could have served as the overall series finale - and then came season 5 which while not without its highlights still managed to destroy what I treasured about the fourth season and reduced two of the characters I most cared for to caricatures of their former selves. Or take Once Upon A Time. For me, the natural final show and finale would have been season 3. I never finished season 4 because it felt so very unnecessary and repetitive and just - never mind, my point is, there were several shows in my fannish past which had a perfect exit season and then got more granted, or at least one more, and I came to regret it.
Otoh: Disco has more than earned my fannish trust so far. Yes, they started out with some nostalgia tie-ins, but as opposed to certain other shows, they only used that as their launching panel, so to speak, and quickly became their own thing. And season 3 and 4 really did go where no ST show had gone before, creating truly new settings and circumstances, and in their consistent "even when things are dark, we can be better than do a survival of the fittest rerun, we can be compassionate and kind with each other" ethics are just what I want on my tv screen in our present. So I should trust the prodouction team to come up with good ideas and executions of those ideas for the fifth and final season. So in terms of the overal season plot, I'm happy to be surprised, and here's what I'm hoping for on a personal scale:
- exploration of who Adira is beyond Grey or "found family" with Stamets and Culber
- more Laira Rillak, Vance and Covic (I'm very fond of the supporting cast the last two seasons have introduced)
- at least one scene between Keyla Detmer and Michael Burnham addressing the fact Detmer, too, started out on the Shenzou
- more Tilly (season 4 was great but I really missed her in the second half)
- exploration of T'Rina beyond her relationship with Saru, possibly in combination with showing us slices of life on Ni'var
What I'm neutral on: anything involving time travel that would allow characters from the first two seasons to interact with Michael and/or the rest of our lot. I mean, that can come across as cheesy fanservice, but sometimes it's what you want. It's also not necessary - we've seen Michael say her goodbyes to her Vulcan family and Mirror Georgiou, and if the STverse wants to bring back, say, Ash Tyler, I'd rather see him on Strange New Worlds because that could lead to fascinating scenes with M'Benga, Chapel and Ortega, and there's nothing left to say re him/Michael. Speaking of SNW, if the Guardian of Forever should decide Michael can rescue Captain Pike from his eventual fate by swooping in through a time portal post the TOS two parter The Menagerie with some futuristic medicine, hey, why not? (I'm only half kidding. But seriously, I doubt they'll go there. At most, there will be a "renembering my past" montage in the final episode featuring the s1 and s2 only characters.
Lastly: no Terry Matalas anywhere near Discovery, its characters and its setting. Sorry, fans of his, but I disliked the third season of Picard that much.
The Other Days
