Posted on 07/14/2017 7:24:09 PM PDT by EveningStar
Well, the Captains were still obviously the most important characters, whether they got less screen time than Kirk or not. It’s an interesting change.
If I were making a new Star Trek series I would not do a totally serialized story, that’s gonna hurt syndication, if gets that far, and if syndication will still be a thing with all this online streaming. There’s much to to be said for the self-contained episode. I would also set it after DS9 and Voyager, in the future, why not?
Is the finale of Voyager to remain the chronologically last event in Star Trek to occur (other than the garbage from the first reboot movie with Romulus getting destroyed in the “real” universe)? Klingons are played out, we not show some new aliens? The only thing from the “past” I’m terribly interested in would be the Earth(Pre Fed)/Romulan War, Enterprise would have done that if it had continued.
One idea of mine, colored by my politics of course, the Federation goes full Stalin and our main characters rebel.
On the main character deaths, the article acknowledges those that occurred, and points out they were all because the actresses wanted to leave, none were planned story decisions. Fair enough. I hope they don’t just kill people for shock value though.
Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd? Uhhh, maybe. Maybe.
I signed up for a free trial of CBS-all access and foolishly haven’t cancelled it. So I’ll check this out. I’m not terribly optimistic it won’t suck. The stupid looking Klingons (I’d rather look at this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7osvOYgmJoM ), chick with a dude’s name, and unnecessary inclusion of Spock’s dad don’t hearten me, and the characters don’t sound especially interesting. “Bad Language” is a big plus for me, I can’t believe that the fascist federation can so conquer human nature that no one curses.
I’m sure you’ll be able to pirate the show, if you want to see it for free.
The Orville looks very amusing. I like Family Guy.
What looks really bad is that it seems they're trying to COMBINE the two concepts, and retroactively make it so the black chick with the dude's name is Sarek's human stepdaughter or raised on Vulcan as Spock's next door neighbor or something idiotic like that. They tried that in Star Trek V (Spock's long last "half brother" who embraced emotion and who nobody conveniently ever mentioned him until now), and both fans and Gene Roddenberry himself denounced the ret-con. Apparently they've learned nothing from that.
If Spock had always mentioned some human black chick he grew up with on Vulcan but we never her on screen, FINE, then introduce her now and develop the character. That would be a suitable "prequel" to TOS. (Star Trek: The Animated Series actually did something similar when it introduced us to Spock's beloved childhood pet Seylat that he had previously mentioned during a TOS episode) But don't invent some new character out of thin air that doesn't gel at all with established 1960s Star Trek and then claim the show is taking place "10 years" before that.
FYI, the first episode of Discovery is airing on prime time CBS, but all the following episodes will be "internet only". I guess they're banking on the pilot being sooooo good we'll all rush to sign up for their rip-off streaming service. I'll certainly give the pilot a chance, but they shouldn't get their hopes up. Most of the previous Star Trek series had far BETTER premises than this one, but fairly mediocre pilot episodes. Ironically Voyager was probably the "best" pilot episode in terms of setting up the story and getting the audience intrigued for what will happen next.
The Spock half-brother thing didn’t bother me. It was adequately explained. Sarek likely would’ve first been married to a Vulcan female of high class, but her early death (in childbirth ?) would’ve explained why he’d turn to a human female for a mate. An unpleasant situation with raising his oddball eldest son (absent a mother) and departing Vulcan would’ve meant the family simply didn’t discuss him (Sarek or Spock).
Spock himself was estranged from the parents (Sarek, in particular) for decades and in an early episode, implied the parents were dead. So, again, not surprising how Vulcans would handle unpleasant family topics by just ignoring them and Sybok appearing out of the blue could be seen as believable.
In any event, the problem with ST:V wasn’t Sybok, it was a half-baked screenplay and Shatner couldn’t get the vision for it that he wanted as director. He clearly wanted a mix of the light-heartedness of the prior Nimoy-helmed pic, with a spiritual element, but it was just a misfire. They get into big trouble when they start trying to incorporate a “meeting God” element and Shatner should’ve learned that from the first film (of course, I’m one of the few fans who actually really liked the first film, despite the flaws).
Personally, I think it’s a shame we didn’t get that second series from the late ‘70s instead. I think we would’ve potentially gotten 5-7 years out of it, though the downside would’ve been Nimoy (desperately trying to distance himself from his character at the time) turning down a chance to participate (perhaps he might’ve come on board later). There’s no way to judge how well the new Vulcan character (Xon ?) would’ve worked out, although I think Kirk & Decker would’ve made for compelling drama. Decker was like the anti-Riker, someone who was going to remain perpetually aggrieved at Kirk for hijacking his command and desperately wanted his ship back (whereas Riker, as cocky and Kirk-like he was, he was terrified of command and was content to remain with Picard for decades, which was always bizarre and had that been a real military, he’d have been mustered out for refusing command).
Add in that element with Decker’s lingering hatred for Kirk because he probably held him responsible for his father’s death (perhaps even Decker having conversations with his dead father in his quarters, getting the great William Windom a chance for some guest appearances) and a slow-burn crackup over time. See, there’s some great Shakespearean drama that could’ve been had, stuff I’d have rather seen than all this new PC crap. Anyway, a little late for all that (after all, a 1978-85 Star Trek II reboot would’ve held up better than Shatner’s T.J. Hooker during the same period).
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