Alex Kurtzman reveals why Star Trek: Discovery didn't resonate with fans

Alex Kurtzman is saying what many fans who disliked Star Trek: Discovery have been saying for years. The show was dark. In a interview with the Los Angeles Times [via Slashfilm], he defines the series as "interpreting" the point of history the show was in when it debuted. In other words, modern times were dark and so was the show.

"We saw the nation fracture hugely right after the election, and it's only gotten worse since then. [Season 1 was] "interpreting that through science fiction."

- Alex Kurtzman

The big problem with that is that people don't watch Star Trek, or mostly any television series, really, to focus on what's going on in the current world. If they want to see that, they can watch the news. Tuning in to Star Trek is escapism, and no one needed to be reminded that the world was in a constant state of turmoil. If that was truly Kurtzman and his team's intention, he made a huge error.

Star Trek fans are diverse with different belief systems and different ways of looking at the world. But Star Trek is one way that has, for the most part, been able to unite us all as a community. But taking what Kurtzman and his team considered wrong in the world and trying to show it through science fiction wasn't the best course of action in this instance, especially since Star Trek in the past has always been able to balance the light and the darkness.

Some might say that was the issue with Discovery; there was no balance. And it sounds like that falls firmly at Kurtzman's feet. As I've said before, Discovery has its fans, but clearly, Kurtzman realizes it didn't resonate with everyone, and it makes one wonder if he had to do it all over again, would he do it differently?