Star Trek Discovery [SPOILER ALERT]

Luciferical

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I thought there was a thread on this already, but can't locate it now.

I watched it last night on CBS broadcast.

Not impressed.

People seem so intent on remaking what Gene Roddenberry was so successful in creating. Bluntly, a utopia. Sure, unrealistic. I'd agree. But the camaraderie and interplay in a spirit of cooperation gave me something to which I could aspire.

There's no aspiration here. The characters felt flat, rather than conflicted.


And a human able to do the nerve pinch? I could have my canon incorrect, but I thought TOS said no human could do this.

It wasn't terrible. Just so-so. Not worth the streaming subscription for me. The Klingons were not a compelling enemy, either.

As I recall, TOS opened with something more personal, rather than attempting to be epic.

I think the makers of this show don't understand why the series of series works. They wanted "their" work tacked on to an existing franchise. For myself, it's not crash and burn, but it's fail all the same.
 

Toothpaste

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I enjoyed it, but I'm waiting to see what the show really is. The first two episodes were a prologue, after all we have yet to even meet Jason Isaacs who is the captain of this series. But I did enjoy most everything I saw, I liked a lot of the design, and so far I'm on board for the characters (isn't Michael an exception because she was raised Vulcan?). I don't fully understand why the Klingons needed a re-design and think that's a little silly. And I do hope there's more humour in the future. But I'm definitely giving it a go and am very curious what the show is actually going to be like now that all the backstory has been taken care of.
 

cmhbob

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And a human able to do the nerve pinch? I could have my canon incorrect, but I thought TOS said no human could do this.

I recall a conversation - possibly in one of the novelizations - between Spock and McCoy or Kirk where the latter said something to the effect of "I've got to get you to teach me that," and Spock replied along the lines of "I've tried." I think that's all they said about it in TOS though.
 

Sophia

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I absolutely, 100%, loved it. The characters, the look of it, the script. I can't wait for the rest. I'm just hoping that it will remain optimistic SF, with a future to want to be part of.
 

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Meh, it was okay. My biggest gripe (other than the razor-thin plot and nearly non-existent character development) is that Sonequa Martin delivered a master class in overacting in the first two episodes. It was near cringe-inducing which is odd because I don't remember her being that bad on The Walking Dead. I thought she did well in that series. But her performance in this one didn't come across as good acting; it came across as someone pretending too hard to be a bad ass. It could also be less about her performance and more the case that it's just a poorly-written character and she's trying to do the best with the shit they gave her to work with.

Ugh, I miss Janeway.
 

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I loved it. I love star trek but I never start a new series thinking it will be the same as the last one. Getting stuck with the same plots and subplots is what makes the series stale and why they eventually end up canceled.

I will withhold judgment on character development and plot until I get a few more episodes under my belt. In my area they only charged 5.99 per month for CBS all access so I am more than willing to give it a chance, especially since the new and improved Hulu app keeps having a schizophrenic fit on my tv.
 

lizmonster

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I don't have CBS anything, so I'll have to wait until it's streamable/rentable.

And I remind myself that the first season of TNG was largely execrable, so I hope they get the chance to keep going with this one.
 

Luciferical

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The more I think about it, the more worried I am.

This show is set ten years prior to the original series. Ten years? Kirk's out there, I think. Or maybe entering StarFleet Academy.

I'm willing to give a lot of leeway for better tech. I don't expect it to look like the original series. But I would think that I could sort of "see" it from here. And I don't mean by tossing in familiar names like Sarek here and there.

I don't "see" the original series here.
 

lizmonster

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I don't "see" the original series here.

This is one of the reasons I have a problem with prequels, and one of the reasons I liked what they did in the 2009 reboot movie.

That said, the original series was made fifty years ago and was essentially a snapshot of US culture at the time (never mind the worldbuilding decisions they made for budgetary reasons that Trek writers still cling to). If this one settles into some decent storytelling, I'll forgive it for blowing up canon. If it doesn't, it won't matter how slavishly it conforms to the history of the franchise.
 

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UK watcher here. I took out a Netflix subscription to watch it, which was all to the good, because I have found and been marathoning The Expanse - love it.

As for ST:D - and as a friend of mine pointed out, couldn't someone have thought about the infelicities of that beforehand - time will tell, I suppose. I am praying for decent, interesting scripts. If not, and the audience buggers off, I suspect it will be canned by CBS pdq. Patience of TV execs appears to be in short supply in this era.
 

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Patience of TV execs appears to be in short supply in this era.

Which is so frustrating, because there's some incredible television being produced right now. It's just not generally by the big networks.

And the every-network-requires-its-own-subscription model is about as customer-unfriendly as you can get.
 

talktidy

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What with one thing and another, I didn't have time to watch the show past episode three. Have now marathoned the rest and I enjoyed them. I thought the second episode to feature Harcourt Fenton Mudd was an absolute joy. Maybe even Hugo/Nebula worthy?

That Lorca is a bit of a dick, though. Not a deal breaker, I'm just saying.
 

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What with one thing and another, I didn't have time to watch the show past episode three. Have now marathoned the rest and I enjoyed them. I thought the second episode to feature Harcourt Fenton Mudd was an absolute joy. Maybe even Hugo/Nebula worthy?

That Lorca is a bit of a dick, though. Not a deal breaker, I'm just saying.
I'm not quite sold on the series yet, but for now the only things keeping me around is the is tyler=voq thing and I'm wondering if Section 31 ends up with a working spore drive in the end. Voq was interesting but they dropped him out of nowhere and if Voq isn't Tyler they will lose me as a viewer and Kol was never really that interesting. While I'm over it by now, this show really doesn't feel like star trek to me.
 

MythMonger

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Just finished season one on DVD, because I'm not adding another subscription.

I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Every episode flew by, and almost every ending had some sort of reveal or cliffhanger moment. Far different model than the old "one mission per episode" of the earlier Treks.

IMO, far superior writing than any other Star Trek series.
 

Diana Hignutt

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It's good stuff. I really liked it. You'll enjoy Season 2 when you get there.