Thoughts on Star Trek Discovery

[RocketGeekInFL]

Stop reading now if you do not want any spoilers.

Curious what others thought about this. CBS aired the pilot last night and if you want to see anything further you have to subscribe to their subscription service.

I watched the Pilot and was overall impressed. The FX are great, the new ship and tech looks awesome. A few issues I have. Not sure how I feel about the liberties they took with the Klingons. I am also not a fan of the new Captain. I think she will grow on me as I was not a fan of Janeway either, but grew to really like the character. I am not sure that CBS will be able to make their streaming service viable at $9.99 a month (no ads) on just this show though. I will not pay that much just to watch this. I will wait to see how it plays out. I am guessing before the Christmas season break one of two things will happen, they will either lower the price or they will re-market the show as a mid season premier to air sometime after the superbowl and then release all episodes on air.

 

[billdz]

Very similar reaction here: nice concept, did not like Klingons and captain. Will not subscribe at this time.

 

[Zeus-cat]

I was watching something on the DVR last night and when it ended the TV just happened to be tuned to CBS and Star Trek Discovery was on. I turned the channel. I am intrigued by a new Star Trek, but I refuse to be "blackmailed" into paying $5.99 a month to watch it WITH commercials or $9.99 without. To be "fair", you get a lot more than just this new show; supposedly you get access to their archives and can watch any CBS show from days gone by. Sorry, still not worth it to me.

I will be surprised if it works, but I have been wrong before. It was 1987 and it was a Tuesday at 2:15PM. Since then...

 

[H_Rocket]

^^^What he said^^^

While the pilot showed promise, I don't plan to pay between $6 and $10 a month to find out if it gets noticeably better. Add that to the fact that there is nothing else on the CBS streaming service that I want to see and is not already on regular TV and it's just not a value proposition.

 

[ColumbiaNX01]

Sucked!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hated it. I am a die hard trek fan. No need to reinvent the wheel.

 

[dr wogz]

Watched it. On the fence. New captain.. Meh.. I love strong female characters & leads, but she really didn't strike me as being "in charge". New Klingons, I think they went over the top, and not in a good way. Luckily, with all the Klingon being spoken, and with the sub-titles appearing, the network saw fit not to toss in one of those annoying ads at the bottom of the screen (which would have wiped out any sub titles..)

We had a 2 hr premier, which they dubbed as the first two episodes. We get it on 'Space' channel, so we got ads 7 such, but don't have to pay (already pay for eh channel in our 'cable package'. We also got a teaser, in the way that 'Space' channel prequeled the 'event by showing all 72 star trek movies.. than had their 'Innerspace' TV / geek talk show post interviews with the cast & tried to upsell it as much as possible.

Intersting how you guys in the US have as a paid service to watch what was once 'free'..

 

[Nytrunner]

Or wait long enough and it'll get dredged up by putlocker.

 

[boatgeek]

I like Michael as a character, but wonder how the last scene was supposed to end in her mind. "Load torpedoes to be ready if the captain orders it. Fire!" Of course the crew didn't follow the order--it didn't make sense. I do think the captain is too much of a friend to the bridge crew, but that may be deliberate and a plot point. Certainly happens in real life.

I'm really not convinced about the Klingons reimagined as ancient Egyptians. I didn't like the exposition speaking in the first sequence, but that evened out pretty quickly. There was also a basic physics problem of Sarek seeing the new star light years away a few minutes after it lit.

 

[Steven]

Did not watch, will not watch. Television has been dead for me for over 12 years now and not missing it.

 

[ColumbiaNX01]

No need to reinvent the wheel. Guess what CBS Star Trek in the 90's already had a strong white woman lead and had a strong black male lead. Also, dont forget Worf's character. I dont like the lead. I think Star Trek needs to go back to its roots and have a strong male character. Sorry if that hurts peoples feelings but that is what it is. Look at all that ridiculous lens flare ect.. They act like for this is the first time there are strong womans characters. Been there done that. They denied it but they are making the Klingons out to be Trump supporters. Its stupid. I see all the crap shows on televisions and wonder why Trek cannot be on regular TV. Scifi is currently big on tv.

From what I got from it was the federation vs. the klingons. Basically, it is the left (federation) vs. the right (Klingons). I will not watch it again.

 

[blackjack2564]

For those that haven't figured it out yet......Our new captain is was the Kung Fu star of "Crouching Tiger's Hidden Dragon" Sword of Destiny. The woman definitely has skills!



That movie & the follow up was a huge international success, they may be counting on this to increase international viewing.
She held a strong male type leadership in both those movies, in fighting skills, and holding down the role quite well.

 

[hornet driver]

They were going to have to hit it out of the park to get me to pay for it. That didn't happen by a long shot.

 

[boatgeek]

Most likely, we wait for the entire series to be out, then binge watch the whole thing on a free trial subscription. Maybe I'll pay for a month, maybe I'll wait until the series shows up at the library. Either way, I don't see paying X/month for the entire season.

 

[georgegassaway]

Won't be paying for it. If I was going to pay that much for a service, I'd get Netflix.

Will keep looking for ways to see it anyway.....

BTW - so much drama behind the scenes (was supposed to premiere a year ago, IIRC), that it sounds like this won't get renewed beyond the 10 or so episodes that have been made.

 

[JStarStar]

This is supposed to be set prior to ST: TOS, yet the ships and all the technology looks dramatically more advanced.

It's like a WWI drama with the Red Baron flying around in an F-104 Starfighter.

Also as many have noted, the Klingons look completely different than any other iteration, even the JJVerse.

I get they want to create their own alternate reality, but if so what's with the callbacks to Sarek and the hints of Spock?

If you're gonna be different, BE different. Why not just make it "Starfleet 2500" with TNG and TOS all set safely in the past -- the last events of any of the "established" timelines, the "future events" in the "All Good Things" finale of TNG, were set in 2395. Maybe once or twice a season make some reference to a classic character, otherwise let the show stand on its own.

Although of course you could cast descendants of the classic TOS/TNG characters.
We know Sulu had a daughter. Riker/Troi could have had kids, and by 2500, great-grandkids.

There were always borderline-canonical hints that Spock and Saavik had a child.

Certainly in 100+ years Data-B4 might have successfully created an offspring. Maybe an upgraded version of LAL?

 

[rstaff3]

I am very hopeful about the series, but am the last to realize that I only get to see one episode.

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[markkoelsch]

I think it was pretty poor. I hate what they did to the Klingons...what happened there.

I hate the Klingon ships- plenty of great looking Klingon ships from the timeframe in canon.

Once again, we do not have a quality male to be found. I have nothing against a strong female captain etc as I really rather enjoyed Voyager. In Star Trek Discovery, or as I will now refer to it STD, all males are wimps. Why is it that the writers cannot figure out how to have some balance. Stupid people.

I will not pay for it. I predict that within two months it will be on regular over the air as the pay streaming will implode. I can say in honesty that CBS has not a single show I would watch.

STD will meet its antibiotic- little or no viewership and will sink like the Titanic.


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[KenRico]

We should just nerve pinch the RSO if he doesn't sign off on the flight .... doin it Discovery Style !

Kenny

 

[H_Rocket]

Was it just me, or did anyone notice that the young Spock had round ears?

 

[dave carver]

Or wait long enough and it'll get dredged up by putlocker.

Don't go there, it's been taken over and infested with malware. Solarmovie has been good so far....

 

[georgegassaway]

BTW - it's 15 episodes that they've made for season one.

Was it just me, or did anyone notice that the young Spock had round ears?

Uhh.... "the young SPOCK?" Only young Vulcan I saw clearly was a Vulcan girl whose ears were extremely pointy.

Micheal was the one with round ears because...... human parents, killed by Klingons, grew up on Vulcan, raised by Sarek (& Amanda?), with brother Spock somewhere (Or not. Vulcans have such a long lifespan that Spock could have left home long before she became a ward, and I realized something that could be a spiler so I won't speculate more on that). If there was an orphaned human who ended up needing to be raised by a someone on Vulcan, then that would be the "logical choice"

So, no young Spock unless there was some other flashback scene I missed in episode 1, or you saw episode 2 online.

Googling did produce this interesting image, without any explanation and probably should NOT be explained due to spoilers. But if this is who you saw..... the ears are pointy, just not very pointy (yet). Not necessarily Spock, it was from an article speculating *if* Spock might appear.

Oh, just occurred to me that this is extremely likely to be young Spock from the JJ-verse movies.

Oh, there is a Young S______ who is on CBS, and yep, round ears.

 

[JStarStar]

Also, don't forget Sybok.

 

[georgegassaway]

Let's do forget Sybok........ and that 5th movie.

Was only good for one thing, this quote: "What does God need with a Starship?"

 

[DaveHein]

The Discovery series takes place 10 years before TOS. Spock would have completed Starfleet Academy by that time, and would most likely be serving under Christopher Pike during the time of Discovery.

 

[shreadvector]

When does Mudd appear?

 

[shreadvector]

Will we be able to get quotes like this?

[video=youtube;6o7UDpn1mKI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o7UDpn1mKI[/video]

 

[shreadvector]

Or this?
[video=youtube;7CO4yKmzXSw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CO4yKmzXSw[/video]

 

[scottrc]

I saw it and was not disappointed in what I was to expect. I was right, at the end I wanted my 45 minutes back. To me, its was a poor milking of the franchise. It was Enterprise meets Voyager without the chemistry between the actors. It was "Look at us and how politically and racially correct we are going to be and we will cram this message down your throat". I watched the Orville right after and well, I really think it was a better attempt to be Trek than Discovery. And of coarse, they had to make the Klingons look like any other milktoast, lizard looking, bad dude alien.

 

[georgegassaway]

Found a way to see episode 2.

I will say that comments/complaints some have made about the ship's crew...... the first episode was not a good indicator.

But any complaints against diversity, just give it up. That's a core principal of Star Trek back to the TOS days, so anyone having a problem with that, you were never a real fan anyway. IDIC.

So, I'll be looking for the 3rd episode next Sunday night.

 

[JStarStar]

The Discovery series takes place 10 years before TOS. Spock would have completed Starfleet Academy by that time, and would most likely be serving under Christopher Pike during the time of Discovery.

Pretty much all TOS crew would be active in Starfleet at this time, except maybe for Chekov, Sulu and Uhura.

Spock, McCoy and Scotty would all be in active service, and Kirk would probably be a young ensign.

So there's going to be constant teasing about "phantom cameos" etc etc.

Plus again, the huge technological incongruity. Plus plotlines will be constantly bumping into TOS canon.

If the intention is to reboot-retcon TOS, why not just do that?

Why not, as I said, just set it in the year 2500 and relegate ALL previous series to the ancient history files? A couple times a season you could show a "holofile from the Kirk era Enterprise" or the "Picard era Enterprise" and that would be all you had to do.

You wouldn't even have to do that at all, of course, except as pandering to long-time fans. I mean, do current day members of the armed services or political worlds spend a lot of time talking or thinking about what was going on 130 years ago?

You could have the technology tremendously advanced and not have to make up excuses about why it looks so different than the previous series. Of course it looks different than previous series, it's 130 years later.