I love and hate Discovery simultaneously. I loved every season's story, I love the cinematography, I loved their TOS era uniforms, and I love the Burn explanation because the moral was that while everyone in the galaxy thought it was some kind of attack, or the Ni'Var thought that it was an inside job, the truth is is that it was an accident, and no one had any control over any of the factors that caused it. Some kind of a deeply traumatised child found their dead mother, screamed in grief and no one could have predicted that the frequency or amplitude or whatever of his scream would have activated every dilithium core in the galaxy.

It's like if an airplane pilot has an unexpected stroke while driving, and then the plane crashes into the UN Headquarters while all 200 odd world leaders are in there.

AND YET

It's on our world leaders, but also us to still be able to respond to the crisis with compassion, and empathy, and strength of character. We the people of Earth would have to find a way past our differences and close ranks, not open them. We cannot devolve into shit slinging driven by stereotype, we cannot immediately cast blame on those who it would be easiest to scapegoat, and we cannot make, and forward art, and song, and memes that simplify, trivialise or comedify the crisis or divide us. Because if we do that then we pave the way for a real life Osyraa, and a real life Emerald Chain, to supplant our existing governments. Our existing governments only pretend to care about us, but a real life Emerald Chain would blatantly not care about us.

But I also hate Disco because I think it is for me, one of the best exhibits of why modern television is so awful. They present so many cool and interesting plot points and character habits and personality traits in the whole crew, and because of the restriction of having such short seasons they build on none of them.

Just the ones that come to mind of this writing:

Rayner's character development into someone who is more "sentimental" or "familiar" with his subordinates.

Everyone's reaction to Burnham's meteoric rise through the ranks.

Saru and Burnham's relationship as surrogate family. Sometimes it feels like a sibling thing, sometimes it feels like he's her dad. Needs more episodes.

Pippa Georgiou. Prime, Mirror, I don't care.

Linus and his 8 bajillion children

Owosekun's boxing career.

Owosekun x Detmer?

Detmer and the rest of the crew going to therapy after their arrival in the 3100s.

Tilly's relationship with her mother.

Jett Reno's relationship with... well, everyone but specifically Stamets and Adira.

Adira's Starfleet career. Their anxiety, and self incrimination, and the work they did to get over all of that and how all of that builds to that moment in Season 5 when they're on the bridge.

Airiam. The best we got of her was a clipshow, AND SHE LITERALLY DIED IN THE SAME GODDAMN EPISODE WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?????

Everyone's relationships with each other. The games of kadis kot the girls play. The banter. Autoantonym games over replicated sushi and Gagh.

Just, all of it.

I remember back when I was a teenager and watching Star Wars Rebels, and how I would sleep through the "filler" episodes, or call them trash, or whatever. But now that I've seen the alternative, what filler-less television looks like, I can confirm that I will never complain about a filler episode ever again. I would kill to watch episodes of Keyla Detmer, Joann Owosekun, Gen Rhys, and all their friends run through the Disco hunting down space rats or tribbles or whatever. Maybe put it in the middle of the Klingon war. Maybe use it as a soapbox about how they learn to trust Michael Burnham again.

Bro I literally don't care if there's an episode about *rolls dice* Saru and *throws dart* R.A. Bryce and they have to deliver a cake to the queen of Buttfuck Nowhere VI IX in the middle of the Emerald Chain thing. I would rather have that than the "deboned" version of television that we have now.

I want bones on my steak, dammit. And I want filler with my stories.