Star Trek: Discovery

[Seto Kaiba]

39 minutes ago, tekering said:

Okay, I'm getting tonal whiplash here.  Discovery's actually gone full-on treacly now. 

Who'd have thought rewriting Star Trek: Discovery into a Bad Future where interstellar travel is all but nonexistent would make it difficult to hide the painfully underdeveloped characters behind exciting space action?

Especially when the entire Bad Future hinges on a plot hole so large it was literally an interstellar empire for centuries.

[pengbuzz]

On 10/23/2020 at 2:40 AM, JB0 said:

That might go poorly, since the Discovery isn't a Gunstar.

Now, there's an idea for a series: The Last Starfighter.

[Guyffon]

You guys know they are making a sequel to the last star fighter right?

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Guyffon said:

You guys know they are making a sequel to the last star fighter right?

Actually...no I didn't. Do you have a link to any news?

[Dobber]

8 hours ago, Guyffon said:

You guys know they are making a sequel to the last star fighter right?

That’s been gestating for years. At this point I doubt it’s going to happen.

Chris

[Thom]

9 hours ago, Guyffon said:

You guys know they are making a sequel to the last star fighter right?

Have heard that off and on, and really hoping it is a sequel and not a remake. In fact, I would love to see the original movie redone with CG that looks like 80's-era practical special effects!

[Guyffon]

7 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Actually...no I didn't. Do you have a link to any news?

This is what I know so far

 

[slide]

4 hours ago, Thom said:

Have heard that off and on, and really hoping it is a sequel and not a remake. In fact, I would love to see the original movie redone with CG that looks like 80's-era practical special effects!

THIS!!

[pengbuzz]

On 11/6/2020 at 9:39 PM, Guyffon said:

This is what I know so far

 

Much appreciated! Thanks!

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

On 10/30/2020 at 9:01 AM, derex3592 said:

Ok, weeelll....my boss gave me his CBS login, so last night I started Discovery.  Watched the first two episodes.  I figure for free, I'll slog through this and see what all the fuss, good or bad is all about. 

I was in the same situation,  got a login for CBS and started watching.   I got through the 1st season and gave up.     The worst part is there were no really memorable moments for me and I would be hard pressed to have something stand out..   maybe the ridiculous looks Klingon ship designs..

[Thom]

2 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

I was in the same situation,  got a login for CBS and started watching.   I got through the 1st season and gave up.     The worst part is there were no really memorable moments for me and I would be hard pressed to have something stand out..   maybe the ridiculous looks Klingon ship designs..

I haven't watched season 1, but season two with Anston Mount was really good. Give me hope for his Pike series coming up.

[derex3592]

UPDATE!  - I'm about half way through season 1 and so far, well, it's not all bad I suppose. Two main thoughts so far -- everyone in this show is SO ANGRY-- and two is this, as others have said, it's just NOT Star Trek, if you look at it as NOT a Star Trek show and just generic Sci-Fi, it's almost passable some of the time. Characters are not developed well at all other than the Burnham, who I dislike very much.  The alien warp jump thing is just not my cup of tea.  There are some characters and episodes that I do like. The captain, the guy he found in the prison, the new security chief guy, the red head, she's alright. I don't like Saru at all, he's just annoying. I think my favorite episode so far is the Harry Mudd time loop one, obviously a rip off of TNG's time loop but meh, whatevs. The production value of the show is impressive.  All the space stuff looks really good, I'm just not a fan of the designs.  The main thing with Disco is this, turn OFF your brain if you are going to partake.  And finally, not to get political here, but it's certainly very wokety woke woke.  I am looking forward to getting to Anson Mount's Pike and Spock stuff. 

[Thom]

12 hours ago, derex3592 said:

...snip...  I am looking forward to getting to Anson Mount's Pike and Spock stuff. 

They are worth it!

[renegadeleader1]

On 11/5/2020 at 10:32 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Who'd have thought rewriting Star Trek: Discovery into a Bad Future where interstellar travel is all but nonexistent would make it difficult to hide the painfully underdeveloped characters behind exciting space action?

Especially when the entire Bad Future hinges on a plot hole so large it was literally an interstellar empire for centuries.

You sure you're not describing Warhammer 40k? 

[Mog]

Can't think of another spot to put this, but I finally got to watch the DS9 documentary What We Left Behind. 

It's streaming on YouTube and Amazon Prime, both free with some ads.

If you're a fan of the series, it's definitely a must-see.  A lot of interesting tidbits (though some of it is stuff we've heard before).  But you can see how much the extended cast and crew enjoy ribbing each other all these years later.

Was definitely cool seeing Ira Steven Behr, Ron Moore, and Robert Hewitt Wolfe breaking in an Episode 1 for a hypothetical Season 8 (set 20 years later).  Don't agree with all the ideas they tossed out there, but it would have been an intriguing start.

Also kinda got sad whenever they showed footage of Aron Eisenberg or René Auberjonois, considering they both passed about a year after this was released.

Lastly, make sure you stay for the credits.  I'm sure it was a planned bit, but I found myself completely agreeing (and getting slightly peeved) about all the things that weren't included in the documentary.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 11/10/2020 at 1:07 AM, renegadeleader1 said:

You sure you're not describing Warhammer 40k? 

Discovery did seem to be headed in that grimdark direction for two entire seasons and as of the last episode I am increasingly struck with a foreboding feeling that they're about to make it three.

[tekering]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

as of the last episode I am increasingly struck with a foreboding feeling that they're about to make it three

Oh?  Does Warhammer 40k also feature a Federation starship "seed vault" in service for over a thousand years? 

[Thom]

Looks like Saru and crew are going to play the roles of 'talisman's' from the past. A reminder of what the Federation/Star Fleet used to be, and something to aspire to once again. To people still struggling in the aftermath of the Burn, in triage as Vance put it, I wouldn't be surprised if that example started to spread quickly.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, tekering said:

Oh?  Does Warhammer 40k also feature a Federation starship "seed vault" in service for over a thousand years? 

... in Warhammer 40,000, it's more or less a rule of the setting that any relic of a bygone era that shows up unexpectedly is going to cause Very Bad Things to happen in the very near future.

Especially if it's an ancient starship.

 

Mind you, what I was getting at was more that Star Trek: Discovery's writers have yet to let optimism stand.  Episode 6 in last season was about the point where they jettisoned the show's brief experiment with acting like real Star Trek to set up that nonsensical Control story arc with the genocidal AI that wants to exterminate all life for no reason.  Various fanservice nods like the Voyager-J, the Nog, and so on aside, 32nd century Starfleet has made it clear they see Discovery's very existence as a criminal act given that they illegally time-traveled into the future.  It feels like there's an imminent betrayal coming, otherwise there's no real way to raise the stakes like the Kurtzman-Trek writers insist on doing in the most ridiculous ways halfway into any season.  (5'll get you 20 it's somehow Burnham's fault that The Burn happened too, because the writers are convinced the entire universe has to revolve around her.)

[Thom]

The hope would be that they would not make it too complicated. They're already trying to integrate the ship into the future fleet, as well as try and find out what caused the Burn, which seems to be felt to be interconnected with giving the Federation/Star Fleet a jump-start. Then there is the nursery rhyme that has apparently embedded itself into people's minds across hundreds of light years that, hopefully, will be it's own separate thing rather then being interconnected with everything else. And please, don't have Burnham be responsible for it all too! I like the character, but I hope they know it would be wwaaayyy too much!

[Dobber]

Maybe the music will be similar to how “All along the Watchtower” was in NuBSG. That something about it’s harmonics destroy dilithium or some nonsense. Possibly sent by or inserted by the sphere builders to get revenge on the Federation for thwarting them in the 22nd Century and then defeating them in the 26th. I use the Sphere builders because of all the temporal policing talk which was a result of the temporal Cold War brought on by the Sphere Builders.

Chris

Edited November 16, 2020 by Dobber

[derex3592]

Well!!!, I got through Season 1, wow...I mean yeh, it was...different...I could sit hear and trash a lot of it, but I gotta say I did like the alternate universe stuff, Michelle Yeoh is awesome as the evil Empress.  I liked Lorca turning out to be super evil bad guy.  I liked him a lot, guess he's vapor now though. Anywhooo, I watched the 1st episode of Season 2 last night. Man, that Enterprise sure does live up to the hype! Gorgeous! Obviously, Anson Mount as Captain Pyke is the highlight so far, and I don't care what anyone says, I love Tilly!!!  She's my favorite female on the show!  I haven't met the new Spock yet, but I hear good things.  Season 2 looks like it will be fun and better than one was.  

[Seto Kaiba]

On 11/16/2020 at 12:52 PM, Thom said:

The hope would be that they would not make it too complicated. They're already trying to integrate the ship into the future fleet, as well as try and find out what caused the Burn, which seems to be felt to be interconnected with giving the Federation/Star Fleet a jump-start. Then there is the nursery rhyme that has apparently embedded itself into people's minds across hundreds of light years that, hopefully, will be it's own separate thing rather then being interconnected with everything else.

Yeah, I'd hope that Star Trek: Discovery's third season will avoid the mid-season plot snarl in the name of serial escalation that made the previous two seasons such a bear to watch.

It feels like the series already has way too much on its plate while it juggles all the different secondary plot holes caused by the massive setting-breaking primary plot hole that is "the Burn", the Discovery's crew doing the "fish out of temporal water" thing, that seemingly irrelevant bit about Booker and the couriers, and wandering around what's left of the Federation to show us how far it had to fall to make an all-around horrible person like Michael Burnham into its hope for a brighter future.

"Forget Me Not" has a line from Xi that I sincerely hope is a major Did-Not-Do-Research moment for the writers... because the alternative is incredibly dark and depressing.

Spoiler

Guardian Xi mentions in passing that the population of Trill who were capable of joining was nearly wiped out by "the Burn"... to the point where there aren't nearly enough hosts for the symbiont population.

On its own, this seems like a relatively innocuous statement... unless you watched Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  

Back in the 23rd and 24th centuries, the Trill government and the Symbiosis Commission's official position on joining was that less than 0.1% of the total Trill population was biologically and psychologically suitable for joining with a symbiont.  Sisko's investigation into irregularities in the Dax symbiont's records in the DS9 episode "Equilibrium" led to the Symbiosis Commission's clandestine admission that at least half of the Trill population was actually able to be joined, and that they'd lied about how many people were compatible in order to protect the symbionts.  There were an average of 300 symbionts available for joining on any given year.  

Did Guardian Xi just imply that "the Burn" resulted in a massive holocaust among the Trill that wiped out most of their population?  One so severe that, over a century later, their population hasn't recovered enough for there to be 300 candidates for joining in a year?

 

Quote

And please, don't have Burnham be responsible for it all too! I like the character, but I hope they know it would be wwaaayyy too much!

This is my most fervent hope for season three... that, for once, Michael Burnham will not be written as a Mary Sue around whom the fate of the galaxy revolves.

 

 

On 11/16/2020 at 6:15 PM, Dobber said:

Maybe the music will be similar to how “All along the Watchtower” was in NuBSG. That something about it’s harmonics destroy dilithium or some nonsense. Possibly sent by or inserted by the sphere builders to get revenge on the Federation for thwarting them in the 22nd Century and then defeating them in the 26th. I use the Sphere builders because of all the temporal policing talk which was a result of the temporal Cold War brought on by the Sphere Builders.

Given the antipathy most fans and the production staff had for the Temporal Cold War story arc of Star Trek: Enterprise, I'm somewhat relieved to that that seems unlikely.

The Sphere Builders were just one faction in the Temporal Cold War tho, it's never indicated who actually instigated it all.  There was the Federation and the other Temporal Accords signatories, the Na'khul (the baddies from "Storm Front", whose defeat ended the Temporal Cold War), the Sphere Builders, and the unknown Suliban benefactor "Future Guy" (whose identity was never set by the production staff... some concepts had him as a Romulan, others as a future Admiral Archer, still others had him being an augment from a second Eugenics War in the future, etc.).

[pengbuzz]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The Sphere Builders were just one faction in the Temporal Cold War tho, it's never indicated who actually instigated it all.  There was the Federation and the other Temporal Accords signatories, the Na'khul (the baddies from "Storm Front", whose defeat ended the Temporal Cold War), the Sphere Builders, and the unknown Suliban benefactor "Future Guy" (whose identity was never set by the production staff... some concepts had him as a Romulan, others as a future Admiral Archer, still others had him being an augment from a second Eugenics War in the future, etc.).

At the rate they're going, it may as well be the "Can you hear me now? Good." guy from Verizon...

Edited November 19, 2020 by pengbuzz

[JB0]

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

At the rate they're going, it may as well be the "Can you hear me now? Good." guy from Verizon...

You know? That would be a fantastic plot twist.

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

At the rate they're going, it may as well be the "Can you hear me now? Good." guy from Verizon...

Well, it hardly matters now... it's in the past, as much as a war fought entirely via time travel can be said to be in the past without it becoming a snarky play on words.

As quickly as Discovery's writers dismissed the entire Temporal Cold War, it seems unlikely that they'll pin the blame for "the burn" on one of the factions of temporal bad actors from previous shows like the Vorgons, Devidians, Krenim, Na'khul, or the Sphere Builders.  Pretty much everything about "the burn" as a plot device ends up being more of a gargantuan plot hole on examination in the broader context of Star Trek, so I don't expect the explanation for "the burn" to make any sense in context either.

[tekering]

So, seven episodes into Season 3, Michael Burnham has finally returned to her position as Center of the Universe.  Only she can get the information she needs to solve the mystery of The Burn.  Only she can return the Federation to its former glory.  Only she can propel the plot. 

Credibility is further strained by the very strong suggestion that, in subsequent episodes, Michael and co. will prove the Vulcans wrong about their scientific conclusions.  It seems the 23rd century Discovery crew will prove superior to 32nd century Vulcan science. 

"Oh yes, Mr. Fibonacci.  Please use your 12th century math to demonstrate how Einstein's theory of relativity is a miscalculation.  I'm sure your abacus is up to the task."  

Don't even get me started on Tilly's promotion... 

[Thom]

Well, acting promotion, but...

Spoiler

 

WTF! Talk about bad-judgement! First Saru elevated Michael to Number One after she had been off-ship for a year and now he jumps an ensign over a dozen far more qualified lieutenants, and one of the main reason was that she had the courage to jump forward a thousand years into the future? Just to touch base here, but they all did that!

If I was Vance I would seriously be considering replacing Saru as the captain of what is now Star Fleet's most advanced ship. This is clearly showing that Saru is still feeling his way into the role of captain in a situation where there is no wiggle room for a learning experience. Which is a shame, as I like Saru!

There are far more people far more qualified for the position than Tilly. And who, rightly, should be angered by being jumped over for a command position. The only believable moment  in that was when Staments admitted that taking order from Tilly would be 'weird.' Mainly because it was so out of the blue I guess because then he's telling her to say 'yes' later on...

I get it though. Tilly is a main character so she should get it even if it is just as a place-holder until Michael gets back into Saru's good graces.

Anyway, after saying all that, I still liked the episode. Go figure... A few things I would change would be to have them stop crying at the drop of a hat and end this 'chosen one' theme they have going with Michael. Cause it seems as soon as she starts to say something, people start doing the right thing. And stop wrapping these missions up in a tidy bow at the end of each episode. Give them a well-earned fail here and there!

 

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Thom

[Seto Kaiba]

On 11/27/2020 at 12:52 AM, tekering said:

So, seven episodes into Season 3, Michael Burnham has finally returned to her position as Center of the Universe.  Only she can get the information she needs to solve the mystery of The Burn.  Only she can return the Federation to its former glory.  Only she can propel the plot. 

Yup, there's that mid-season plot snarl I was talking about a few posts back... we've hit the middle of the Season 3 and, for the second time, Star Trek: Discovery's writers revealed that they will always fall back on their bad habits to the detriment of the series and franchise as a whole.

 

On 11/27/2020 at 12:52 AM, tekering said:

Credibility is further strained by the very strong suggestion that, in subsequent episodes, Michael and co. will prove the Vulcans wrong about their scientific conclusions.  It seems the 23rd century Discovery crew will prove superior to 32nd century Vulcan science. 

"Oh yes, Mr. Fibonacci.  Please use your 12th century math to demonstrate how Einstein's theory of relativity is a miscalculation.  I'm sure your abacus is up to the task."  

Eh... in all fairness, this wouldn't exactly be the first time that the Vulcan scientific establishment collectively folded their arms and refused to consider any explanation that didn't line up perfectly with their preconceived notions of how the universe works.

"The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible."

Remember how well that proclamation aged?  

Once they started preaching the impossibility of time travel to Starfleet officers, it took Starfleet barely two years to serve up physical evidence of time travel and not quite three years for Starfleet to have one of its ships actually travel in time.  Three years and they had the Science Directorate eating their words and quite possibly their own robes in frustration as a human they'd previously dismissed as crazy undermined thousands or maybe millions of scientific papers and punched gaping holes in Vulcan's understanding of the universe.

If the Science Directorate still exists in the 32nd century, I can hear their complaining now... "The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that getting the humans involved is cheating".

That said, one would almost expect that the reason the 23rd century Discovery crew are the ones being assigned to figure out what "the burn" was and why it happened is because everyone else in that future has grown up with the consequences of it and really isn't as invested in solving it as they are.

 

On 11/27/2020 at 12:52 AM, tekering said:

Don't even get me started on Tilly's promotion... 

... yeah, definitely not Saru's smartest moment.

"Let's promote the raw ensign who has barely any qualifications and no social skills over the heads of dozens of more qualified candidates.  That's a great idea that in no way, shape, or form will smack of favoritism or come back to bite me in the future."

It's not the all-time biggest failure to judge character in the series, though.  That belongs to the unnamed Federation President c.2257 who pardoned Michael Burnham.

[Thom]

38 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

....

It's not the all-time biggest failure to judge character in the series, though.  That belongs to the unnamed Federation President c.2257 who pardoned Michael Burnham.

That's begging for a political joke, but I'll refrain! or did i just make one..?

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Thom said:

That's begging for a political joke, but I'll refrain! or did i just make one..?

They pardoned Burnham... they ARE a political joke.

Now that I think on it, it's kind of weird how quickly the crew of the USS Discovery get over their displeasure at having to work with Burnham after her conviction and her dishonorable discharge.  Everyone but Detmer and Saru seems to take having Starfleet's Public Enemy No.1 aboard ship in stride.  You'd expect she'd meet a reception as frosty as what the other convict crew like Ro Laren and Tom Paris got, especially when they get introduced to officers who aren't aware (or don't care) about her pardon and alleged redemption like Reno and Pike.  (And the idea that her crimes vanished from history just because she was pardoned and her record expunged is a bit odd too... it's not like Starfleet can just order everyone to erase the memory of her trial and conviction from their memories.  Once the 32nd century Starfleet figured out who she is, you'd have expected them to react more unfavorably to a woman who was, in her time, the worst criminal in Starfleet history.)

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 Once the 32nd century Starfleet figured out who she is, you'd have expected them to react more unfavorably to a woman who was, in her time, the worst criminal in Starfleet history.)

Actually, the worst criminal in Starfleet history is the idiot who thought these ideas would make for a good plot...

[Seto Kaiba]

9 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Actually, the worst criminal in Starfleet history is the idiot who thought these ideas would make for a good plot...

Nah... unless Q gets involved the writers won't stand trial for it in-universe. 

Besides, we've seen (in Voyager) that bad writing is a civil matter, not a criminal one.

 

 

All told, while I expected that the writing would take a dive again around the middle of season three like it did in the previous two seasons... the refit of the USS Discovery is one of the things I think I'm the least happy about.

The Crossfield-class USS Discovery was already kind of an ugly piece of crap almost literally rescued from Ralph McQuarrie's trash can.  It was with good reason that Ken Adam and Ralph McQuarrie's rough draft of a refit Enterprise created for Planet of the Titans was scrapped in favor of something that more closely resembled the iconic Matt Jeffries design.  Reviving the design with Discovery's obsession with digital VFX just made the ship look simultaneously ugly and too advanced for the era of Star Trek's history it was supposed to belong to, along with a registry that suggested the ship was MUCH older than it was.

After moving on to the 32nd century, the show's writers had a pre-prepared excuse to abandon the unlovely and unpopular Crossfield-class design and have the crew take possession of a less-ugly modern Starfleet ship with all the latest bells and whistles that 32nd century Starfleet can provide.  This was actually important to continuity, since the Short Treks episode "Calypso" indicated that they abandoned the Discovery in some remote region of space in its 23rd century form.  Instead, we got this.

I'll give the writers one thing.  I agree with their decision to change the ship's registry.  Starfleet Command officially listed USS Discovery as destroyed with all hands back in 2257.  Since, in Discovery's timeline, time travel was banned after the conclusion of the Temporal Cold War it makes sense that Starfleet would make at least a token effort to disguise the fact that this ship had unlawfully time traveled from the distant past by registering her as a different vessel that just happens to have inherited the older ship's name and registry.

Unfortunately, that's the beginning and the end of my ability to take this thing seriously... because all I see when I look at the redesigned USS Discovery is a Starfleet ship that's been riced out.  

It looks like they took the already unloved and unlovely Crossfield-class CG model and decided that the only way to make it look more futuristic was to add the spaceship equivalent of ground effects.

[pengbuzz]

9 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Nah... unless Q gets involved the writers won't stand trial for it in-universe. 

Besides, we've seen (in Voyager) that bad writing is a civil matter, not a criminal one.

 

 

All told, while I expected that the writing would take a dive again around the middle of season three like it did in the previous two seasons... the refit of the USS Discovery is one of the things I think I'm the least happy about.

The Crossfield-class USS Discovery was already kind of an ugly piece of crap almost literally rescued from Ralph McQuarrie's trash can.  It was with good reason that Ken Adam and Ralph McQuarrie's rough draft of a refit Enterprise created for Planet of the Titans was scrapped in favor of something that more closely resembled the iconic Matt Jeffries design.  Reviving the design with Discovery's obsession with digital VFX just made the ship look simultaneously ugly and too advanced for the era of Star Trek's history it was supposed to belong to, along with a registry that suggested the ship was MUCH older than it was.

After moving on to the 32nd century, the show's writers had a pre-prepared excuse to abandon the unlovely and unpopular Crossfield-class design and have the crew take possession of a less-ugly modern Starfleet ship with all the latest bells and whistles that 32nd century Starfleet can provide.  This was actually important to continuity, since the Short Treks episode "Calypso" indicated that they abandoned the Discovery in some remote region of space in its 23rd century form.  Instead, we got this.

I'll give the writers one thing.  I agree with their decision to change the ship's registry.  Starfleet Command officially listed USS Discovery as destroyed with all hands back in 2257.  Since, in Discovery's timeline, time travel was banned after the conclusion of the Temporal Cold War it makes sense that Starfleet would make at least a token effort to disguise the fact that this ship had unlawfully time traveled from the distant past by registering her as a different vessel that just happens to have inherited the older ship's name and registry.

Unfortunately, that's the beginning and the end of my ability to take this thing seriously... because all I see when I look at the redesigned USS Discovery is a Starfleet ship that's been riced out.  

It looks like they took the already unloved and unlovely Crossfield-class CG model and decided that the only way to make it look more futuristic was to add the spaceship equivalent of ground effects.

Detached warp nacelles, eh?

now they just need to detach the antimatter magnetic shielding couplings... and we're good to go.

[Thom]

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Nah... unless Q gets involved the writers won't stand trial for it in-universe. 

Besides, we've seen (in Voyager) that bad writing is a civil matter, not a criminal one.

 

 

All told, while I expected that the writing would take a dive again around the middle of season three like it did in the previous two seasons... the refit of the USS Discovery is one of the things I think I'm the least happy about.

The Crossfield-class USS Discovery was already kind of an ugly piece of crap almost literally rescued from Ralph McQuarrie's trash can.  It was with good reason that Ken Adam and Ralph McQuarrie's rough draft of a refit Enterprise created for Planet of the Titans was scrapped in favor of something that more closely resembled the iconic Matt Jeffries design.  Reviving the design with Discovery's obsession with digital VFX just made the ship look simultaneously ugly and too advanced for the era of Star Trek's history it was supposed to belong to, along with a registry that suggested the ship was MUCH older than it was.

After moving on to the 32nd century, the show's writers had a pre-prepared excuse to abandon the unlovely and unpopular Crossfield-class design and have the crew take possession of a less-ugly modern Starfleet ship with all the latest bells and whistles that 32nd century Starfleet can provide.  This was actually important to continuity, since the Short Treks episode "Calypso" indicated that they abandoned the Discovery in some remote region of space in its 23rd century form.  Instead, we got this.

I'll give the writers one thing.  I agree with their decision to change the ship's registry.  Starfleet Command officially listed USS Discovery as destroyed with all hands back in 2257.  Since, in Discovery's timeline, time travel was banned after the conclusion of the Temporal Cold War it makes sense that Starfleet would make at least a token effort to disguise the fact that this ship had unlawfully time traveled from the distant past by registering her as a different vessel that just happens to have inherited the older ship's name and registry.

Unfortunately, that's the beginning and the end of my ability to take this thing seriously... because all I see when I look at the redesigned USS Discovery is a Starfleet ship that's been riced out.  

It looks like they took the already unloved and unlovely Crossfield-class CG model and decided that the only way to make it look more futuristic was to add the spaceship equivalent of ground effects.

I'm okay with the show. Some things I like about it and some things are WTF, such as Tilly being given the Number One spot, even as an Acting. That just doesn't make any kind of sense.

But as for the ship, I like it better now far more than I did before. They've smoothed the lines out all over on it, got rid of the boxy belly and slab-sided neck, changed the saucer and the hull detailing, and the impulse deck... Basically, the only thing that is the same is the general outline, which I still don't like. I would have loved for it to have looked like something between a Connie and an Ares.

About the only thing I really don't like about it now is the Tron-motif and the detached nacelles, but all of that can be changed once it's in plastic. I basically had no plans to ever buy a 1/1000 Disco (if they come out with one) but now I would (if they come out with one.) And that would be because this redesign is far closer to a fan-redesign of the Disco that I really like and would like to recreate.

And I would loved it if they had gotten a new ship. But the way our luck goes, it would have been the Nog...

As for the Short Treks, I view most of them as the show's own fiction. Like Calypso, I view it as them telling a sci-fi story just using the Discovery set for convenience. We know it can't happen now because of the refit and they are in an entirely different century than the one it was portrayed in. It was a good story though.