Comment Re:Well, what *is* the reason? (Score 1) 215
Discovery season 1 gave us something new for Trek. A look at how a fascist could insert himself into Starfleet and corrupt the otherwise good people around them, with psychological abuse and manipulation dressed up as patriotism and determination to win the war.
Did you watch the same show I did? That might have made for a compelling story. The story we actually got was about a cartoon villain from a literal universe of cartoon villains. That twist ruined what was up until that point a fairly compelling character story acted brilliantly by Jason Issacs. Discovery has done this time and time again, take a concept from Classic Trek best used sparingly (Section 31) or not taken seriously (tMirror Universe) and drive it into the ground.
In other shows things happened to them, but they stayed basically the same people they always were.
That's nonsense but I'm not surprised you worship at the altar of DS9 because it feels like all DS9 worshippers have to throw this shade at the other shows. You don't see any character evolution between S1 Data, Worf, or Picard vs. S7? S1 Doctor vs. S4? S4 Seven of Nine vs. S7? There were certainly characters (Harry Kim) the writers forgot about but it's nonsense to say they stayed the same as they always were. Side note: I like DS9, a lot actually, so don't mistake this as a condemnation of that show, just the more rabid parts of its fan base.
Episodic television is not mutually exclusive with character development and serialized television is not automatically superior. I would posit that it only works when the show runners actually have the whole story sketched out in advance, e.g., Babylon 5. How many B5 episodes ended on a cliffhanger? I can recall only one. How many Game of Thrones episodes ended in cliffhangers? I can't recall any. Those shows (well, GoT until they outran the source material) are how you do serialization, a novel for television, not what Discovery and Picard pull on us. Discovery and Picard take story ideas that could be told in a two hour movie or three episode television arc and try to stretch them out for 10 hours. They do it with cheap tricks, like cliffhangers (invariably resolved in the opening act of the next episode), twists to drive engagement on social media (OMG, Lorca is from the mirror universe!), manufactured interpersonal conflict on a soap opera level (what happened to the professionalism in Starfleet?), blah, blah, blah, all there just to pad the run time and keep the rubes subscribing.
This isn't uniquely a Star Trek problem. It has happened to a lot of other productions. I blame Netflix, or rather, Hollywood's reaction to Netflix. Everyone rushed to copy that production model without asking themselves if there was still room for traditional TV (e.g., Strange New Worlds) or (crazy idea) new concepts.
I might revise my recommendation of SNW though, as there are a few episodes with blood.
Blood isn't the problem my friend. It's the gore, torture, and violence for the sake of shock value that ruined Discovery and Picard for me. Something else you said:
I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that the writers wanted to go further and show the horrors of war
You don't need gore porn to tell a story about the horrors of war. If you think you do you've probably never seen the horrors of war. The two Star Trek episodes that most effect my partner -- who actually served in the GWoT and came back with the TBI and PTSD to prove it -- are Chain of Command and It's Only a Paper Moon.