OT: Star Trek Discovery
Gator
Posts: 1,311
in The Commons
What a pile of meh.
Anyone else sorely disappointed with it? I was, and I'm a fairly big sci-fi nerd. I've watched all the Trek shows. Grew up on ToS. And I have nothing against female leads either - I really liked Voyager. Just the dialog and action with the two leading ladies was uninteresting. Hoping it gets better.
At least if it continues to bomb we have the Orville. I've only watched the first episode of that, and it was much better.
Comments
I didn't actively dislike it, but ... eh. I certainly wasn't impressed enough to shell out for CBS all access (which is the only way to watch the rest of the eps in the states at least for a while) though I'd probably continue to watch if it were on broadcast - or Netflix US.
Have not seen it yet but thinking about it.
I didn't actively dislike it either... it would have to be really bad for a geek like me to hate it.
There was a number of things I disliked, but the whole access nonsense pretty much kills it for me.
If it gets easier to access maybe I'll try watching more.
i love Doug Jones, though
I haven't heard anything particularly good about it, and putting it behind a pay wall is a killer for me. I'm not about to shell out for another "service" just to watch one mediocre show. If it turns out to be good after all, I'll watch the reruns on Amazon or something a year from now. If they don't put it up that way, I guess I miss out. Oh well.
I'm a big fan of TOS, and watched most of the other shows. Quality is all over the place, but with so many shows, writers, producers, directors, you can't really help that. But a show with a history of questionable entertainment value, behind a wall like this, that was a bad idea. IMO
The first officer was interesting (if we set aside the fact that she literally pushed aside a science officer) but didn't like how the interactions with the captain were done. I don't get the male name thing. It's not clever or interesting. I liked the visuals of the show. Some people didn't like what they did to the Klingon ships, but I liked it. I didn't like that they could cloak though. That messes with continuity because they're supposed to have obtained it when they had an alliance with the Romulans which happens like 15 years later. And I didn't get why the cloaked ship collided with another ship seemingly on purpose. The captain and first officer going on an enemy ship alone was over the top. And the plot line of having a superior enemy to unify your species is well known, but it just doesn't add up here. The federation poses no threat to the Klingons. So the whole premise seemed rushed. I think having a series based on Klingon/Federation conflict would be cool. But how they got there is rather far fetched, even in a scifi environment.
Oh, my favourite part was walking in the sand to make a figure when there's a storm. I don't think the writers understand how wind works.
i watched it on direct Tv cbs west channel last night, IMO I think it compares to about the same as the star trek voyager series, not really bad, definitely different. its better than watching Judge Judy...lol
First episodes aren't always good and can be kind of info dumping. I'm waiting to see if it takes off. I tend to invest energy in shows which get cancelled
If you want to see a decent Star Trek show, and I can't believe I'm typing this, watch the Orville. It's a love letter to Trek with the occasional facepalm worthy frat boy humor.
I surprised myself and watched both episodes in one sitting, so it mustn't have been too bad. If worse comes to worse, it'll fill in the time between now and Dr Who's return at christmas.
Just watched it this morning on Netflix AUS
I didn't mind it ... if I didn't think of ToS at the same time..
I just had to watch the first two episodes. I think it's dumb to put this exclusively on CBS All Access in the US. Some people who live in other countries can watch it on Netflix etc!? The first two episodes appear to tell an "origin" story about the first officer. I saw the "Upcoming" thing at the end, and was blown away. It appears to be a story about a woman who was sentenced to life in prison, only to be assigned to the Starship Discovery instead. It almost looks like the continuing adventures of a disgraced former Starfleet officer. That looks appealing to me.
But I still have a problem with paying $10 a month for one new program (without advertisements) when the program hasn't proven itself yet.
It funny, I read a few reviews on the show earlier today, and the one comment that stood out the most between them was the comment that, right now, every discussion about the show gets derailed by the paywall that CBS put up. And yeah, the whole paywall idea seems dumb to me too.
Anyways, all that aside, the visual fx were good. Made sense too. Thought the Klingons had too much makeup on. Thought thier ships, interior and exterior made no sense. Dialog was not the best but its a new show. Will give it some time. If it doesn't work out, I will not loose any sleep over it. Personally, I always thought that they should have moved the story forward after Voyager into the future instead of trying to fill in gaps of the past.
I want to watch it, but I am not subscribing to CBS. Already do that for Hulu and Netflix and even doing the trail for a week means I will need to watch it if I like it after that and that is just pointless.. I already watch 5 shows on the CBS site weekly for free, so hopefully this subscription deal won't affect that going forward into the new season.
If I'm understanding the comments, you have to pay ten bucks for one series, rather than have a general subscription in which you can watch more than one show?
Well, right or wrong, I am not paying a subscription at all. From the comments, reviews and viewing the trailer, I'm not interested.
Orville was fun - got to watch that for free.
Honestly, the biggest problem I have with Discovery, atm, is that it is a love letter from John Eaves.
I like Eaves. I like his work. His starship design has an edge. A lot of edges, in fact. But it's hard to square (ha!) the idea that this show is set 10 years before TOS in the prime line (not JJ verse) with all those Eaves angles on the ships.
I am perfectly happy to assume that this show is set in the JJ verse (despite the design not being quite right for that) or another alt line that happens to be mostly like prime. But that's pretty much my only complaint.
Now, if we want to go into observations: I don't particularly care that Commander Burnham's name is Micheal. It's 200 years in the future. Star Trek's always bordered on breaking suspension of disbelief by how not different it is from the date of production. I don't mind that. Fiction comments on its own time, by default, even when it would rather not. And I don't see how Burnham's name puts her too far out of the present when we live in a world that already more directly confronts gender than just "it's a boy's name." I might find it bothersome if they ever explain it away. Better "She's Micheal. Deal with it." Now, the fact that she is a Disney princess does bug me, a bit. (Pluck, bright eyed, makes a pivotal choice for reasons that seem good to her, kicking off the conflict, and her mom is dead. Twice. Disney Princess.) I'll let that go. It's not a complaint. It just is what it is.
Also not a complaint, but an observation. Burnam is the second POC to lead a Trek. She is also the second lead who has a tragic backstory based on "the bad guys killed my family." The other being the first POC I think this may fall under unexamined bias. But it may just be conincidence. Also, as like the first, she starts the series NOT captain. But she goes backward.
Captain Georgiou is great, IMO. But I'm a fan of Yoh. She does good work. I also felt that Martin-Green did a bang up job selling the reason for her character's actions, but the writers made a mistake in not making it explicit. That is if you watch and listen to Burnham, she has a strong motive for what she does, but they don't quite say what it is. I like sbtle as much as the next guy, but the what she does seems quite jarring without that missing bit of script. I expect we will get it in flash backs as things go on, but this is Star Trek, so when you flip the expected table that fast, you probably need to explain why you did soon after.
I didn't think twice about Burnham's conflict with Saru because A) she is also a science officer, xenoantro specialist, command grade. And, B) Saru will be back, and they were setting up a long term relationship.
The show is lousy with anachronism. Again, set 10 years before TOS, but the coms systems are way more advanced. I suppose this is closer to Eaves thing and thus closer to a complaint. Just admit it's a new form of reboot already. It's easier. Stop lip servicing us old heads. We're dying off, it's okay to Star Trek to move on, now. OTOH, the hand phaser was a nice touch.
Well, actually, no. My BIGGEST problem with Discovery is Discovery.
Shenzhou is much prettier ship. The McQuarrie Enterprise was a terrible idea (though I have seen one person tackle the concept and produce a thing of beauty, USS Discovery is not that thing. Ugly, nay. Fugly.) I can (again) see the touch of Eaves, here, but the old promo suggests the call to make Discovery based on the McQE was made without him, because the final ship is at least improved. Sadly, very little will ever make that thing actually look good.
I expected, going in, that Discovery would not be my father's Star Trek. Or mine. And it isn't. I think that's going to turn a lot of people off.
I think, thus, that flagshipping their new pay service with it was the second dumbest move made by a compnay owning Star Trek (the Dumbest: UPN). Because this is not my Trek, though, I don't mind. But the idea was to draw the fanatics to the network, yet make a Trek for the non-fanatics (If you've seen it, you already know that this less classic Bold new worlds and more Game of Center Seats with a dash of Battlestar Discovery. Grim and gritty trek, at last. They've been dying to try it). That's definitely going to drive oldheads away, and it's definitly not going to make the new fans they want to cultivate jump on their toy when the only thing it has to offer is Discovery.
The fact that net chatter is all about the paywall supports that. Maybe, if it was more classic trek and less gritty, the play would work. Ultimately, I think it's going to hurt them, and kill the show. The word on the street is Discovery costs 8-9million per episode, which would make the most expensive per ep regular series, ever. CBS is not going to pay for it unless it pays for all access, and I don't see that happening.
Maybe I end up wrong about that, but it doesn't look promising.
See...I really liked the first 2 shows. I see alot of promise for intellegent story writing, and am very glad for an overall story arc rather than the patchwork writing of previous generations.
I even like the look of the new kilngons...not a fan of their costumes or ships, but that did not really take anything away from the story. I would have even liked if they went further with the diffferent look on the klingons, and have each faction look significantly different. I mean if they have been in space so much longer than humans, and have colonized other worlds, we would expect to see some evolutionary changes going on in the different ecosystems.
So I am really looking forward to this series.
(The Orville on the other hand.....just cant get into that no matter how hard I am trying..it is like it doesnt know whether to be a comedy or a semi-serious series)
She is called Michael because of Bryan Fuller, he always do that with his female characters (George,Chuck and so on), and even if he is not running the show any more I guess they kept that.
I only watched the 1st episode on Public CBS. I think it's got potential. The special effects and alien makeup looked good. But...I'm NOT paying for CBS' streaming service to watch it, so I'm out. I really get irritated when a corporation tries to take advanged of the fan base and tries to overcharge us or use other cash crap schemes. It's insulting. I may be a huge sci-fi nerd, but I'm not stupid. I have a family to take care of and they come first.
Watched it yesterday on Netflix... Some things to love, some things to like, some things to dislike, but... So far, I'm curious for more. And I've enjoyed Trek since before TNG came out.
Technical aspects - I was rather impressed with the FX, but then again, I haven't watched much SciFi lately and don't know what is state of the TV-Art right now. Some of the Science in the Fiction was rather hare-brained, but all in all, it was not any worse than the shenanigans old Trek pulled. I though the concept of the ships actually "plopping" into the scene quite interesting, I guess they took the "dropping out of Warp" literally?
The costumes are not bad, though the Klingons' masks were... well. Reminds me of rendering a 3DL set in Iray, and stumbling over too much glossiness. It looked more like insect than humanoid, but perhaps that was the intention? What impressed me was that the Klingons spoke Klingon, and not just for a few fragments of scenes, but the entire time. It brought home the alien factor, but also stressed the message about "We come in Peace", and the fundamental differences between the two cultures. In the end, of course, it was a Battlestations and Kobajashi Maru, and I felt so sorry for poor Connor.
I also was glad that the scene pacing was within tolerable limits. While it definitely has a higher pace than old Trek, it isn't quite the insane, alienating speed of the Bling Trek Reboot.
Characters... I like the characters so far, and except for the sometimes jarring feeling of the flashbacks scenes, the introduction was done nicely, hightlighting the characteristics. I do like the new Sarek. Again, I'm curious as to how the lead character will dig herself out of the hole she has managed to get herself into. The acting was, overall, good, and the chemistry was right, it felt like a real crew, even if it was just for two episodes.
Quoted for agreement
Right now I am in a sci-fi drought waitingfor the return of
"The Expanse" in 2018 so yeah,.. I watched the first two episodes
Not over whelmed... but not greatly dissapointed either so I am in with this one.
High production values, good VFX
I am a sci fi nerd not that hard to please.
I like this star trek way better than the Orville.
We've only watched the first episode so far, and visually we were blown away. I'm still on the fence about how I feel about the new Klingons. Some of the acting was definitely a little overdone, and there were a few cringe-worthy and eye-rolling moments. But considering how bad the first season of Next Generation was compared to later seasons (and first episodes of many shows in general), I'll stick with it for a little while.
I'm still convinced the show has been set up for a short run, though, based on things I've read about the production and ownership of the timelines.
The effect of ships dropping out of warp is vaguely consistent with what it would look like if a ship arrived at superluminal velocity, except my instinct tells me the motion blur would go backward. Like the ship would just suddenly be there and momentarily seem to stretch away from you, fading to infinity as the light caught up to it.
Yeah, that would look weird as hell.
If one takes the terms of warp drive as it is described, the ship isn't really moving. Subspace is being warped in something like the way the Alcubierre metric warps real space, so a ship dropping out of warp would appear moving at the same speed it had going in. If you timed it right you'd show up not moving relative to anyone already there.
It think the pre JJ treks never really thought about it. Stuff moving looks more dynamic. SciFi does it so much that the JJ sudden stop thing looks dramatic. To push the science wonking too far, the old trek stuff was probably more realistic in an accidental way. I mean why go to the trouble of making sure you are at rest reletive to something that might not even be there when you arrive? Match velocities after you know they are actually there. But like I said, it looks dramatic. It may get old now that it's going to be being seen a lot more often than movies allow for.
Anyway, the specifics of this vision of dropping out warp is pure JJ verse. You don't see it that much in the movies, but when it happens, it basically looks like that. The SFX are even cribbed from the movies.
Michael is also a woman's name
Singular: I've always thought that a ship dropping out of warp space/warp bubbles would look like it basically expands into view with some distortion. Of course, that might look silly.
But hey, the thing is? There's also no SOUND IN SPACE. So it's all just prettied up for coolness. ;)
I am in the UK and watch it on Netflix.
Saw the first 2 episodes last night and was very disappointed, to say the least.
Acting, in my humble opinion, was bad and all was to dark and grim for my personal taste.
When it comes to the Klingons, you would not recognize them as such.
They look like a reptile species, speak to slow.. considering the timeline that this is set. 10 years before Kirk and a decade after Archer., it does not fit at all for a species to evolve into something new, cos, that is what they look like now.
The whole thing lacked in the interaction between the actors, real conversations were a miss.
Do I watch it again?
I give the 3rd episode a try but if that is like the previous 2 I am not watching.
Bring back good action, good storiy lines and the KLINGONS .
Well lets be honest ALL of the warp technology in ALL of the treks
Fail miserably from a real science perspective because they all ignore
the time dialation cause by relativity ( see the movie interstellar)
Other than this movie, the only other fictional space based
civilization I have seen address the problem is the
HALO universe of the popular Xbox game.
There they use something called "casual reconciliation"
to 'Borrow" time from the space time continuim itself,
to prevent yourself from coming home from an extended warp speed
trip and finding, your not yet born, great grand children running the farm.