10 Dumbest Things In Star Trek: Discovery
6. Bad Romance
After a rather unfortunate romance with Ash Tyler in the first two seasons of Discovery, the writers decided to give Michael Burnham a break from any form of heartache and move on.
Hang on. No, they didn't.
Reflecting on many of Star Trek's shows, there has only really been Deep Space Nine where the lead character has been involved in any form of long-term romantic relationship. In that instance, it took until season three before that was even a consideration in the form of Kasidy Yates.
Already carrying more emotional baggage than an airport departure lounge, Burnham time jumps from one relationship to another with Cleveland Booker at a frightening pace and not even a glance back to (for her) recent events. The limited episode run each season doesn't help. While a romance in the realms of 90's Trek would have evolved over the course of a full 26-episode season and more, Discovery's significantly shorter annual run meant a lot needed to be crammed in over 13 episodes. Character development was certainly breakneck.
Not only that, but without the real buy-in of the Discovery crew, Book is seemingly given access to just about everything on the ship and Starfleet because of his relationship to Discovery's first officer/captain. As one might expect, this backfires when he allies with Ruon Tarka in season four.
To be fair, the Discovery crew were right to keep him at arm's length given that he would later use his inside knowledge to bypass Zora when he and Tarka snuck a lift to the 10-C's territory. For a Starfleet captain to allow someone this close and this quickly proves dangerous. Sisko might have also fallen foul of this to a degree in For the Cause; however, Yates didn't have quite as in-depth knowledge as Book was allowed.