Posted on 09/24/2017 4:31:46 PM PDT by EveningStar
The original Star Trek series debuted on TV 51 years ago - September 8, 1966.
Since then it has spawned several movies and sequel / prequel series'.
Tonight, the latest series, Star Trek Discovery will premier at 8/7c on CBS, free.
As to the remaining episodes, you will have to pay for them on CBS All Access.
Will you want to continue watching and pay for it? Watch tonight's episode and decide for yourself.
For you folks in the Eastern and Central time zones, it begins in only a few minutes.
Way too Chickified for me.
CGI is quite good these days. Wish Hollywood would put it to use on classic Sci-Fi.
I will post a full review later.
First impressions: 5/10. I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it either. Bottom line is they NEEDED to really hit it out the park and get the audience really intrigued by the story and at the edge of the seats wanting to know what happens next if they want to convince people to pay to stream the rest of the episodes "exclusively online only at CBS All Access". They failed to do that.
Stylistically, it felt a LOT more like the JJ Abrams "reboot" than the "prime" timeline it claims to be taking place in. There's all kinds of slick tech, lens flares, frenetic action sequences, huge viewscreens, etc. The one major difference is the JJ movies were fun and humerous, whereas this was dour and bleak.
Tonally, it was like Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Breathtaking special effects to hide the fact its a very bland, lifeless, boring "cinematic event". Number One even did a space walk just like Spock did in TMP. Michelle Yeoh was TERRIBLE as the captain, the only one bright spot is she was billed as "Special Guest Star" in this episode so I'm assuming they kill her off and Jason Isaacs takes over as the "regular" Captain later on. James Frain was AWFUL as Sarek, and I was actually looking forward to seeing Sarek again but he totally phoned in it and I wouldn't have known that was "Sarek" if the episode didn't say so. Even the guy from the Abrams movies was way better.
Klingons didn't come across as "Trump supporters", but were more like ISIS here. Just super evil aliens hellbent on WAR! WAR!! WAR!!! with the Federation because of the "Light of Kahless" or something. Even the original series Klingons were more like "arrogant mean ol' bullies" than the nasty barking monsters anything shown here. As I predicted, no in-universe explanation for why they look like something from Predator now, we're just supposed to accept the makeup change.
Michael Burnham is actually an interesting character, and I liked the actress's performance, she had a wide range of things to do. Too bad she's not in a better show/storyline aside from "Waging war with Klingons"
They made ZERO effort to make it look like its taking place in the Pike era, or tie it into the past Star Trek stuff in any way (sorry, faux Sarek doesn't count. A cameo by Jolene Blalock as an aged T'Pol or a CGI Commodore Decker looking like he did in 60's Trek would have worked nicely)
Biggest problem I had is that this was a "pilot" that's not actually a pilot. We're thrown right into the middle of a mission and none of the characters backstory is revealed and none of the storyline advances. The USS Discovery and its captain (Jason Issacs) doesn't even SHOW UP in the pilot episode. Its 40 minutes of frenetic action about menacing "Klingons". I didn't see much in the way of left-wing preachy politics, but I DID see lots of dour, bleak, "dark and gritty" stuff about space warfare, which is exactly what I feared and HOPED I would be proven wrong about.
Bottom line, wouldn't watch this kind of show if wasn't set in the "Star Trek" universe, at least on paper. "The Orville" is, bizarrely, shaping up to be the "real" Star Trek show at this point.
Hmmm. Guess I wrote a lot more than I intended. Still, full review coming later.
Yes, I watched both episodes. I watched the first one on my TV, and the second on my Kindle Fire.
As a long-time Trekker, I was curious. I, for one, can overlook PC garbage. I know what it is when I see it.
This show has promise. It might...MIGHT...surprise us all. After seeking the first two eps, I’m going to take the risk and see what develops. If it turns out I’m wrong, lesson learned.
Huh? As far as I've heard, Captain Lorca (played by Jason Isaacs) will be straight as an arrow, and is no mambly-pamply character. I can't wait for him to replace Yeoh.
The token "homo" character will be Lt. Stamets (played by real life flaming homo Anthony Rapp, real acting ablity there). They were interviewing him about the show and he said he was thrilled to be there because it has "lots of colors and stuff"
I will give Discovery a few more episodes to see if it improves, but either way, I would never pay $$$ for the "privilege" of seeing this stuff.
Well, the show is a PC mess, and I didn’t care for the Asian lady Captain or the First Officer for the casting roles but other than; not bad. The extra tall engineer on the bridge is way too whiny and far too careful but otherwise okay I guess.
Sonequa (Michael) may do better as the series matures some. We’ll see. She has been sentenced to life in prison but then at the end of the second show they give a preview of the season showing her in action so we know she isn’t going to rot in jail.
Clearly the lesson was the Asian Captain should have taken her advice and cut the head off the snake when they had a chance; instead thousands of lives were lost. Her punishment for being right but committing mutiny while trying to save everyone was life in prison.
Oh, there will be 15 episodes this season, to see more go to the link below.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5171438/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Heh. Funny thing, since the "pilot" (if you can call that 40 minutes of random fighting/war/conflict) aired on CBS, the embarago against reviews has been lifted, and I'm pretty much seeing across the board responses from "fans" on the internet. Some people loathed it and said they shut it off after 20 mins. and couldn't take it anymore, some people loved it and said they thought it was "AMAZING AND CAN'T WAIT TO SEE MORE!" and some were like me -- just gave it a collective "meh" and thought it had its moments but didn't engage them and isn't worth paying for.
With Orville, the response seems to be that 90% of "professional critics" thoroughly hated it, and 90% of casuas viewers enjoyed it and want to see more.
Discovery actually seems to have set themselves up for failure. They HAD to convince Star Trek fans their show is a legitimate "prequel" to TOS, they HAD to convince the general public "hey this show is AWESOME!!" in the FIRST episode if they expect people to pay to see all the other episodes, and they HAD to alleviate concerns that Discovery is a dumpster fire due to the endless delays and the producer quitting and so on. Based on the pilot, they failed to achieve any of those goals.
I don’t like the new Klingon look and ARRRG Lens Flares!
The Klingons are all on supercalifragilistic steroids and not in the good way. They nothing like any of the Klingon characters on the Original Series. They are way more surreal than even any of the other Klingon look of the later series and films.
Hell, that hologram scene appeared to be out of lace even in ST:TNG, where such things were mostly confined to the Holodeck. I knew they'd yield to the temptation if the computer-generated special effects. In the end it's mixed bag - you have to take the stuff that rankles you along with the more detailed space battles.
As for the Klingons, they appear to have been cross-bred with some of Tolkien's Orcs. Also, now that I've seen the pilot, I know why CBS killed the Axanar project. Lots of plot similarity, in terms of period and the villains du' jour.
At least the "girl power" nonsense came with an appropriate price tag in this instance.
Like I said, from what I saw, the show just doesn’t seem to click/work.
Forget the pc/non pc stuff, this just doesn’t seem to work for me, reasonable production values... reasonable acting...but just seems to me it’s trying too hard... and doesn’t really work at a fundamental level
Sure can’t see paying money to watch it
Yes I know about Roku. Another $100 device to attach to your tv then download the app then subscribe to see a tv show.
Fail for cbs.
Intriguing...
>>Isn’t this the Star Trek where...
“...they worshiped and served created things...”
--Romans chapter 1.
Romans, not Romulans.
Same ol' technocratic BS, different federated outhouse.
We had no idea who anyone was. They jumped into the show as if half way through a long conversation that the viewer was not in on.
Maybe they can make it work in three or four viewings, but the first two needed cohesion.
Only watched part of the first episode, not going online to stream the second and sure as heck won’t be “subscribing” to watch the rest of it.
Like I said, what I did see, just didn’t seem to be working... can’t blame it on bad acting, or low production values... but something about what I saw, just didn’t seem to work.
Just felt like things were forced, and it was trying too hard... but that’s just my personal opinion. Maybe there are enough Trek geeks willing to pay money for an online subscription to watch it... but I know I sure won’t be.... What I saw kind of gave me the same vibe I got trying to watch Stargate SGU... watching something trying way to hard to be what its supposed to be.. just didn’t feel natural at all....
Its not just a fail for CBS.. but if I am not mistaken its available to netflix viewers outside North America, which means, why pay CBS to watch it? The episodes will all be online shortly if they aren’t already.
What am I missing?
what's with the (presumably) deliberate lens flares comments??
Best. Star Trek. Ever.
Had to pinch myself a couple of times to stay awake. Big fail, won't by watching or buying. Oroville better and it fails at comedy, the stated objective.
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