Star Trek Discovery

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Canehdianman

I'm echoing a lot of other comments on here I think.

It was decent. I hope it gets better.

The mutiny scene was completely ridiculous. The entire series should have ended with the Captain shooting the mutinous First Officer in the back with her phaser.

Basically that's when I thought, this is the dumbest captain in Star Fleet and if she survived she would be reassigned to a small exploratory vessel.

Basically sitting there listening to her first officer blathering about saving her life was ridiculous. A good captain would have basically shot her face off so that she could regain control of the ship.

It was cringeworthy. That Captain, frankly deserved to die and Star Fleet is better off without her.

Hopefully Jason Issaacs is a better Captain.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Locke

Yeah, they're going to do that a lot. You're just going to have to let that slide.

The Klingons were annoying as hell. It was like trying to listen to someone talk while gargling golf balls and I dont want to read the dialogue every time the Klingons are talking.

Yeah, I know, I have to suspend reality on that one and realize that first of all, all captains think the Prime Directive is more a suggestion then a rule.

They're going to have to re think the Klingon thing, they just didn't work because the make up actually took away from the characters.

[Canehdianman]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Basically that's when I thought, this is the dumbest captain in Star Fleet and if she survived she would be reassigned to a small exploratory vessel.

Basically sitting there listening to her first officer blathering about saving her life was ridiculous. A good captain would have basically shot her face off so that she could regain control of the ship.

It was cringeworthy. That Captain, frankly deserved to die and Star Fleet is better off without her.

Hopefully Jason Issaacs is a better Captain.

Spoiler!

Does she die? I only watched the first episode so far.

[pseudoreality]

I really liked it.

I liked the fact that she decided the most logical way to deal with the Klingons is to be completely ruthless. She was also right about capturing the Klingon leader, but let her emotions get the best of her when she killed him.

I also really liked how the crew seemed to emotions and flaws, but didn't like how it was race-based in typical star trek fashion.

I didn't like how the Klingons look like they've been bitten by Underworld vampires, but I'm sure they'll retcon some stupid technobabble to explain it down the road.

Also, I didn't like Sarek's comment about a guest star. He was many light years away, it should take many years for light to travel to him. Unless I missed the Star Trek episode where they complete void Special and General Relativity. I know they can communicate and travel faster than light in Star Trek, at least let light travel at the speed of light. And if you don't, don't refer to distances as lightyears.

[starseed]

I absolutely loved it!

I also found it annoying that Sarek mentioned a new star, and the ethics conversation with the computer... But they were minor issues that I'm willing to overlook.

I really only wanted this star trek to address current social issues in a thoughtful way. I think they have found a great vehicle to talk about the rise of Trump politics through the conflict with the Klingon supremacists and the multi species federation. (Loved the dialogue from the Klingons regarding the threat that the federation posed to Klingon culture and individuality)

I also love how they introduced us to the main character with the first two episodes before introducing us to even the title starship! Now we can get acquainted with the new ship and crew at the same time as the familiar main character.

The Klingons were the worst part of star trek because I didn't think they were all that believable or perhaps just too lazily put together... But these Klingons are much more believable so far. They have put in the right motivations and background to make them an interesting addition to the show.

I didn't think I could expect this from star trek again, but now I cannot wait to see where this show goes!

Sent from my SM-N950W using Tapatalk

[You Need a Thneed]

^the first episodes of a series aren’t really the place to get too deep into ethics and social issues. Yes, it wouldn’t be Star Trek without them, but they also have to introduce characters, etc. Hopefully, as we progress a few more episodes, we will get into more of that. I do think they set some of that up in the first double episode.

[CliffFletcher]

Watched the first two episodes on Crave. I've been immersed in Star Trek the last year or two, with binge-watching TOS and TNG on Netflix, and starting into DS9. So I'm coming to this from the context of the Star Trek legacy. My thoughts:

The Good

* Production values are excellent. It looks feature-film quality.

* Acting is good. Especially by Star Trek standards (though that's damning with faint praise).

* Lead role seems interesting and is well-acted.

The Meh

* Klingons seem genuinely alien, which is cool. The Klingon speech grew tiresome, though.

* Besides the lead and the scaredy-cat alien, the rest of the cast is a blank slate at this point. You'd think we'd have some sense of the crew after two full episodes.

The Bad

* The writing is terrible. I can't recall any movie or TV show that had so much clumsy exposition. "As you know, we're on this planet to identity the blah-blah-blah." "As you know, I'm from XYZ planet, where we're all either predator or prey. I was prey. That means my character is cautious to the point of annoyance, etc. etc."

* For a pair of action-oriented episodes, very little actually happened. They came across a beacon. A bunch of Klingons showed up. Space battle. The end.

My overall impression is somewhat negative. Star Trek lives and dies by its writing, and Discovery is not off to a good start so far. More importantly, Discovery doesn't feel like Star Trek. It feels more like a Marvel series. Or the bad Star Trek movies. It doesn't feel like an optimistic TV show that will place science, exploration, and moral dilemmas at the centre. Frankly, the Orville feels a lot more like Star Trek to me than Discovery.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Watched the first two episodes on Crave. I've been immersed in Star Trek the last year or two, with binge-watching TOS and TNG on Netflix, and starting into DS9. So I'm coming to this from the context of the Star Trek legacy. My thoughts:

The Good

* Production values are excellent. It looks feature-film quality.

* Acting is good. Especially by Star Trek standards (though that's damning with faint praise).

* Lead role seems interesting and is well-acted.

I partially agree, I thought the best acting came from the Science officer, I thought Michelle Yeoh was just awkward, and Michael was ok. The Klingons just couldn't act through the makeup.

I ended up not feeling a lot of sympathy in the end for Michael. In my mind she was just stupid in terms of her reasoning, and also in terms of her execution.

I did like a lot of the production values of the show. I can't say I was still overly crazy about the Klingon Ship designs, what previous series did was make the Klingon Ships Iconic. The first time we saw a D-7 cruisers in the Original series they just looked deadly. Or the First time we saw a Bird Of Prey, frankly I fell in love with that ship. The people that designed the Klingon ships in those series had a real sense of what Klingon's were and their ships became an iconic part of that Lore. I wasn't nuts about the Sarcophagus ####, but the Klingon Fleet just felt generic. I did like however the Star Fleet ship designs.

The battle was ok, but it wasn't anything all that new, it was a shaky cam battle.

And I was waiting for Michael to be sentenced to the Phantom Zone at the end of her trial, because that courtroom looked like the opening scene of the first superman movie.

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The Meh

* Klingons seem genuinely alien, which is cool. The Klingon speech grew tiresome, though.

* Besides the lead and the scaredy-cat alien, the rest of the cast is a blank slate at this point. You'd think we'd have some sense of the crew after two full episodes.

I don't mind that they tried to alien up the aliens so to speak, but I do believe that the makeup actually hurt the Klingons, it was to me too heavy and just too much man in a mask monster of the week. The actors tried really hard to emote thought the makeup and just couldn't do anything. There just didn't seem to be any passion coming from these aliens. They're Klingon's they're an aggressive combative xenophobic species, and instead we got far eastern philosophy and a real difficulty in conveying emotion. Hopefully they find a way to lighten up the makeup.

As for the Bridge crew, yeah, outside of the Cow alien and the Captain and First officer, the rest didn't standout, even the attempts at light bridge conversation seemed forced. But this should fix itself. I did like the android alien, he can probably hold a few thousand of the Captain's favorite music and he's probably Android Auto compatible.


The Bad

* The writing is terrible. I can't recall any movie or TV show that had so much clumsy exposition. "As you know, we're on this planet to identity the blah-blah-blah." "As you know, I'm from XYZ planet, where we're all either predator or prey. I was prey. That means my character is cautious to the point of annoyance, etc. etc."

* For a pair of action-oriented episodes, very little actually happened. They came across a beacon. A bunch of Klingons showed up. Space battle. The end.

My overall impression is somewhat negative. Star Trek lives and dies by its writing, and Discovery is not off to a good start so far. More importantly, Discovery doesn't feel like Star Trek. It feels more like a Marvel movie. Or the bad Star Trek movies. It doesn't feel like an optimistic TV show that will place science, exploration, and moral dilemmas at the centre. Frankly, the Orville feels a lot more like Star Trek to me than Discovery.[/QUOTE]

I didn't like the writing because at key points, the mutiny the flight out in a space suit, it just didn't make any sense and it was just poorly executed.

[Strange Brew]

You are being really, really hard on this show CC. It is a great effort so far IMO and not worthy of so much criticism after just a pair of episodes.

I really enjoyed the story and production values and willing to give the characters time to grow on me. Of course I watched it after 3 episodes of Orville. Granted they are different types of shows, but since Orville isn't really funny at all, its hard not to compare them.

[KTrain]

I love the passion you have for Trek and Star Wars CC, but I've gotta agree with Strange Brew, the level of criticism you have for the shows is borderline insane. Doesn't picking them apart like this take away from the fun of just enjoying Trek. Nothing is ever going to be perfect but this is some of the most fun we've had with Star Trek since the first JJ movie.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

You are being really, really hard on this show CC. It is a great effort so far IMO and not worthy of so much criticism after just a pair of episodes.

I really enjoyed the story and production values and willing to give the characters time to grow on me. Of course I watched it after 3 episodes of Orville. Granted they are different types of shows, but since Orville isn't really funny at all, its hard not to compare them.

Heres my concern, and I'll be honest, I generally liked them but I find it kind of sad that so far I like 'The Orville' better, but these were the episodes done by Bryan Fuller.

Bryan Fuller is Star Trek Royalty and a TV genius (Hannibal/American Gods), so yeah, I have some trepidation concerning what we're going to get after this.

But I do have to agree, CC, you're being a little hard on the show in its early days.

[OutOfTheCube]

Originally Posted by Locke

Heres my concern, and I'll be honest, I generally liked them but I find it kind of sad that so far I like 'The Orville' better, but these were the episodes done by Bryan Fuller.

Bryan Fuller is Star Trek Royalty and a TV genius (Hannibal/American Gods), so yeah, I have some trepidation concerning what we're going to get after this.

But I do have to agree, CC, you're being a little hard on the show in its early days.

Whoa whoa, let's pull back on the hyperbole a bit. The guy wrote a dozen episodes of Voyager when he was breaking into the industry.

CC decided he hated this show long before he ever watched it (See: the rest of this thread).

As my fellow Trekkie friend at work said: it was good, and bordered on great. For Star Trek pilots, that makes it pretty much the best one ever and shows great promise for the overall series.

[CaptainCrunch]

I think you guys need to go back and look at my opening review of it.

Was it great? I don't know if it was, again there were lots of clumsy episodes of each Star Trek series, however it also wasn't as bad as the rumors had made it out to be.

I think the acting will straighten out as the actors get to know their characters.

The ship design was pretty good, however they fell into the trap where the ships looked far more advanced then the Kirk Enterprise, but that's a tough challenge that was handled really well in the DS9 Trials and Tribulation episode.

Not bad, not stunningly great, a few nice moments of tension and we'll have to see where it goes from here.

There were things in it that I liked.

I was honest when I said the Mutiny logic was badly written, and I had overall issues with the Klingon design.

But I didn't say that I outright hated it, nor that I was cursing the writers and directors with hellfire and brimstone.

It has quite a few things that it needs to fix in my mind, and I would think that even the shows creators realized that.

But it wasn't some horrible thing, there is certainly potential there, and I clearly know that this isn't comparable Trek to DS9 or even TNG or original series.

Plus you guys actually made me quote myself and now I feel gross.

[photon]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

* Besides the lead and the scaredy-cat alien, the rest of the cast is a blank slate at this point. You'd think we'd have some sense of the crew after two full episodes.

A few people I know mentioned this as well, but they all missed the preview for the rest of the season.

It's not a spoiler because it's in the preview for the rest of the season, but I'll put it in spoilers anyway just in case someone doesn't want to know.

Spoiler!

There's no sense of the crew after two full episodes because the crew doesn't matter, the series continues on Discovery, which is a different ship with a different crew. The main character is sentenced to life in prison, then is out to help the Discovery's captain somehow. It looks like the fact that she's out isn't popular, maybe it's some kind of Suicide Squad criminals helping the galaxy thing.

The alien Lieutenant looks like he's on the ship too, which is probably why they spent time on him and his relationship with her, while the rest of the crew were cardboard cutouts. Except the captain, she had to die to give her the emotional baggage to setup the rest of the series.

Looks like the theme is going to be redemption, which is cool.

[craigwd]

Definitely think the rest of the season will be stellar.

The only complaints I had have already been addressed:
1. The ridiculous mutiny.
2. The halted awful speaking by T'Kuvma. Sounded like he was taking a dump while speaking.
3. The character of Saru whom I hope gets better. I could do without an alien in Starfleet who's only role so far was to explain why he's such a big p*ssy.

[getbak]

Would have been nice if Space had shown that preview.

[GGG]

Put me down in the not impressed.

The Klingons basically looked like actors wearing black face.

Michelle Yo was awful and they gave away her death in the opening credits of the show by calling her a special guest.

Exposition was awful and the cast is undeveloped


That said I think that they did a good job in building the universe. They are at open war with a unified Klingon empire that has been in hiding for 100 years.

So now if take this first two hours as the set up for a show to occur within the universe they created them I think the show has potential to be good.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by photon

A few people I know mentioned this as well, but they all missed the preview for the rest of the season.

Yeah, I've since learned that's the premise. So I guess the first two episodes are basically back story for the main character?

This is what I mean by it feeling like a Marvel series. Getting right into the skin of one main character who the audience is meant to strongly identify with. I know that's the way a lot of modern narrative works. But it doesn't feel like Trek to me, which is an ensemble show. We'll probably have a couple more episodes of awkward exposition as we introduce a half dozen more characters. The point of a pilot is usually to get that stuff out of the way.

So what was really accomplished in the first two episodes?

* Introduction of main character with some motivational backstory.

* Introduction of Klingons as bad guys.

* Space battle.

It's shaping up to be a series where not much happens in any individual episode. A plot summary of the first two episodes of DS9, for example, would take about 20 paragraphs.

[FireGilbert]

I just watched the first two episodes and really liked it. The special effects looked great for TV and they did a good job setting up the universe and the war with the Klingons. I also found the characters of Michael and Saru to be interesting and am looking forward to seeing more of them.

Of course they still haven't introduced Jason Issacs as the Captain and the full crew yet so I will reserve judgement until I see their interaction for a few episodes. So far it looks promising though.

[Otto-matic]

I hated the lens flare. I wish they would tone it down for ST.