Thoughts on Star Trek Discovery

Let me say this first: please don't post spoilers.

ST:D is about to air here in the US (or at least in my timezone). I'm interested in what other people think about the show when it airs in your area.

Will you watch it on CBS All Access?

Comments

  • I watched the first three episodes and honestly, didn't think it was "Trek" at all. Seth McFarlane's "The Orville" is a lot more Trek. That's about all I can say without spoiling anything, besides, "KlingOrks".
  • Watching it without having seen any other trek series. (It's on netflix here, and I watch a lot of netflix these days, so I kinda run out of things to watch)

    Overall, I enjoy it. The parts where they talked klingon for like a full episode are kinda annoying, and felt more like proving they found actors that could speak klingon as a 2nd language or something.
    The new drive is a bit of a silly thing (especially the spinning animation). But then again, plot devices are hard :-)

    Ep7 would actually work as a "plot device" for bridge sim missions, and with the right facilities not even that hard to implement (but EE lacks those facilities, even tough you can simulate it for 90%)
  • Oh if you haven't seen any of the other series, it would be easy to accept the new look. This link shows the evolution from the original series "green humans" into today's Orks.
    And of course they spoke English just fine throughout all the series until Discovery (they did occasionally speak Klingon in some of the movies, but thankfully it was short, they went back to English quickly).
    Note that in the timeline, Enterprise (with Scott Bakula from Quantum Leap as the captain) is first, then Discovery 90 years later, then Kirk's original series 10 years later, then Next Gen, DS9, Voyager, with movies mostly in the TOS/TNG timeframe. So it makes no sense that Klingons look more like Lord Of The Rings Orks than painted humans that have no problems with English.

    https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/45589/physiological-changes-in-klingons-between-star-trek-tos-and-star-trek-tng


    The Spore Drive, with its silly flip the ship animation - odd that they NEVER mentioned it in any of the series following. It's completely new made up technology that none of the series ever mentioned. Not even the time-traveling Section 31 or the Max Headroom time traveler from TNG knows about it. Speaking of never mentioning...

    Sarek's daughter, Michael. Spock's half sister. Discovery mentions Spock, but none, zero, zip, zilch, nana, no mention of Michael in any of the other series. In this timeframe, literally EVERYONE knows about Michael the Mutineer (as people are so fond of calling her) Speaking of time...

    The last couple episodes featured Harcourt Fenton (Harry) Mudd. An older flamboyant 50ish gentleman who was featured in the original series. Who in this timeframe has a 20ish looking cute girlfriend, dating a 50ish gentleman. Flash forward (or is it backward, this time stuff can be confusing) 10 years (in the timeline, or backwards 50 years in reality to the 1960's) to the original series Stella, who is a 60ish nagging old woman.

    http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Harcourt_Fenton_Mudd

    Then there's the holodeck. Ah yes, one of the awesome new features in The Next Generation, ships started getting these neat holographic playgrounds (it's where Data earned the nickname Pinocchio). Somehow Discovery has one now. Speaking of Data...

    Starfleet's first Android bridge officer, Data was a technological marvel. Oh wait, Discovery has one now, with a Daft Punk helmet too! Can't wait for Red Alert so we can hear Harder Better Faster Stronger!

    Then there's the war. Michael The Mutineer started the Klingon War in the year 2256 in the first two episodes of Discovery. Or did she? In the Original Series, Kirk received a message from Starfleet in the year 2267 to proceed to the planet Organia due do the declaration of war with the Klingons.

    TOS: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Federation-Klingon_War_(2267)
    STD: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Federation-Klingon_War_(2256)

    Basically what this long winded message is saying is, they completely pissed all over 50 years of canon/history and are changing things for the sake of changing things. They've even come out and said they don't CARE about "old" fans or canon, they can get new fans.

    Finally, there's the issue of money. CBS/Paramount is hemorrhaging money on this series. Lots of it. Like over $8 million US per episode. To put that in perspective, TNG's most expensive episode was about $750 thousand. And guess whose money it is? Guess who is the "big money" in this? NETFLIX. That's right. And guess where you CAN'T watch Discovery in the US? NETFLIX. That's right. You can only watch it (legally) on CBS All Access, a COMPETING streaming service. That has NOTHING of value on it. Some of us were suckered into paying for it for this promising new Star Trek series. It is a horrible streaming service. They really have no idea what they're doing over at CBS. At times its like they expect millions of subscribers to stream a new episode on a 768k DSL connection. Stutter, buffer, lather rinse repeat. All the problems that NETFLIX DOES NOT HAVE. It's like they WANT this to fail.

    Sorry this turned out so long, I really wanted this to be a good series, but like I mentioned in a previous post, Seth MacFarlane's "The Orville" is more Trek than this. And CBS has been trying REALLY hard to discredit that series. How hard? Let's take a look at, say, Rotten Tomatoes, the site that has professional (paid) critics and end users (like you and I) "rate" movies and TV shows. What do the ratings look like, paid vs end users, for Discovery?

    https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/star_trek_discovery/s01/

    83% of the paid critics like it, 57% of the non paid fanbase like it. Not bad, right? The paid ones are kinda obviously paid but you'd expect that, right. OK, let's hit back and type in The Orville and take a look at their stats... I'd expect them to be pretty similar.

    https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/orville/

    HOLY CRAP! Wow the paid critics REALLY don't like this show, but the fans clearly do. 18% paid critics do. Wait, what does that mean? It means that 82% of the paid ones don't. And what's this? 93? Ninety friggin three percent of the fans DO like Orville?

    How is this possible? Looks like CBS is throwing a lot of money on negative press. Good thing the shows are on different nights (STD Sundays, Orville Thursdays in the states). So what other dick move could CBS possibly make? Last week they moved their only popular show, The Big Bang Theory, from Monday nights to....drum roll please... Thursday nights.

    Star Trek has always been about hope. There were occasional conflicts but exploration and the pursuit of peace was always the end goal. Bright light and the betterment of mankind (and alienkind in the end) Not anymore. STD is a dark brooding angst filled hole of dispair. If you want that bright hope you remember, Orville has it. Oh and it's occasionally funny too.

    And there you have it. No matter how much CBS doesn't care about the fan base, they've created their own vision of what you should think Star Trek is and where you should watch it.
  • You sir I hope you don't mind if I post this rant on some other sites. I'll credit you of course. This is why I don't like CBS or std..

    Thank you
  • Well to explain the lack of a proper timeline between the series, they could travel back in time on the last ep, and just erase everything that happened. Time travel is always a horrible plot device :) see Heroes, or DCs Legends of tomorrow. But it can be done right, DrWho just says fuck it on the timeline, which is fine. And 12 monkeys (series) does quite a good job on time travel abuse prevention and fixing.


    Putting something new inside the established series timeline is almost always bad. See the starwars prequels as prime example. New special effects just make everything strange if you watch it in chronological order. Storm troopers without robots, after robot armies proved to be effective?


    I didn't know it is only on CBS streaming thing in the US. It's on Netflix here in the Netherlands, so you could VPN to here and watch it on Netflix (I know quite some people that VPN to the US to watch things on Netflix that they cannot here)



    Of the movie nerds at my work (my work is filled with nerds of all kinds), none of those trust the paid rotten tomatoes reviews. Giant bias towards expensive movies. While less known movies get shot down for silly things (this movie is bad, because the color of one actors hair changed between scenes!)
    Not sure if I can watch The Orville here. But I'm not surprised if a lot of marketing money is being thrown at talking it down. The startrek franchise always has been super protective of their stuff. Which is why none of the bridge simulators are touching any official lore or graphics. (They are known for sueing websites using official art/logos)
  • edited November 2017
    @Flea11 anything I post in public is free to share in public, whether someone agrees or disagrees with it, so go for it!

    @daid yeah things are backwards between the UK and the States (what's new, right?).

    The irony isn't lost that Netflix paid for STD (that still makes me giggle like a 12 year old) yet can't stream it in the US. I'm sure they're not happy about dumping that much money into a sure thing (Star Trek franchise seems like such a sure win) and then seeing it tank, and having to pay more and more to prop it up. They (prematurely in my opinion) announced renewing it after episode 5 aired to try to make it look like a huge success. I bet Netflix is regretting their decision to dump gobs of money into that black hole. 15 episodes this season, times $8 million US per episode, and now because of pedophilia accusations against one of Netflix's other franchises (Kevin Spacey of House Of Cards), they are bleeding money all over the floor.
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