S01.E01: The Vulcan Hello

[legaleagle53]

6 minutes ago, SmithW6079 said:

Granted, I was predisposed to dislike Star Trek: Discovery, and I'm not likely to subscribe to CBS All Access, but I tried to keep an open mind during the premiere.

Except, it suuuuuuucked.

The opening scenes are the fucking Klingons!

 

 

Seriously, what is it with Trek creators and their hard-ons for Klingons? TOS used Klingons sparingly and it worked. They were the enemy, but we didn't see them all the fucking time. Kirk's crew had to deal with many different adversaries. ST: TNG went too often to the Klingon well, which made me hate them, but not in the way you're supposed to hate the villains. I just hated the Klingons, especially Worf, the worst security chief in the galaxy, and all his fucking "honor" stories.

And during the show, which was so slow-moving even in the "action" scenes, I kept being reminded of the pretentiousness of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and all its pondering, bloated, boringness. 

When the new head lizard Klingon kept talking about united the different houses of the empire, I started wondering if that's how they were going to explain the Klingon variations on a theme -- lizards, crest-heads, flat-heads (augments), but I think that's giving the "creative" team too much credit.

Plus, prequels never work for sci-fi shows. Real-life technology advances too fast. One thing Enterprise got right, to a certain extent, was showing that the NX-01 wasn't advanced as the later Enterprises. The technology they had on the bridge of the Shenzhou is way too far ahead of what TOS had. Plus, for a show about the USS Discovery, why is it taking to episode 3 to show that ship? 

I didn't care for any of the characters, although the captain of the Shenzhou is OK. I think it was a mistake to have Michael raised by Vulcans. Her actions in the first episode alone show her to be emotional and impulsive. 

I was watching some Battlestar Galactica beforehand (apparently, it was a BSG weekend on SyFy). It was the first season (when the show was still good), and man, it just ran rings around Discovery.

Even if I were willing to pay for CBS's streaming service, I will be avoiding this STD, as one should avoid all STDs.

If I could, I'd like this post a million times, marry it, and have its babies (especially the last sentence). You just won the forum!

[Padma]

Well, my enthusiasm was short-lived. (And ITA about Klingons. Why? They are among the LEAST interesting aliens--and have been done to death already. Plus, the weirdness of them here doesn't work. No. More. Klingon-centered stories!)

But, I digress. Klingons aside, I liked it, as mentioned earlier. I liked it enough to become a little bit spoiled. And now I'm reassessing.

 

I'll be a bit oblique, just in case, but I'm afraid of the "bait and switch" as it appears that almost everything I liked most about Ep 1 is NOT going to be part of STD after all. And, when you're asking for people to sign up and PAY to watch the season, I think that change after 2 eps really stinks! [/spoiler] 

Edited September 25, 2017 by Padma

[TDT]

Seriously,wtf was that..?

Theyd have been better off reviving another Roddenberry show from the 90s,Andromeda..

This looked more like it couldve been set in the Mass Effect universe rather than Trek,IMO

[immortalfrieza]

First, the negative, they certainly didn't cheap out on the effects and I've seen way worse acting than in this episode I'll give them that much, but the characters don't mesh well and their personalities aren't as defined as they should be and really it's just spectacle over substance that they probably just pulled out for the first couple episodes. Once I might have let this show pass under the justification that they're just getting started, but after seeing shows like Bones, NCIS, Agents of SHIELD, and a few others I'm probably forgetting that have most if not all of their characters and even the show's formula itself work well right out of the gate I'm not so tolerant of the idea that a show needs to "find it's feet" anymore. Hell, I just watched the first episode of it right after this and even Orville has a cast that mesh very well and have very distinctive personalities right away, which only makes this so much more apparent.

 

Now, the positive, I'm going to go against some common opinions on this thread, just to be forewarned. I honestly don't care about this canon that says women can't be captains of starships, or the idea that the tech shouldn't be as advanced as it is. Both are the products of their time, the sexism of the 60s and the lack of or massive expense of effects back then respectively and thus if nothing else are parts of canon that should be thrown out and ignored now. Also, considering the fact that at this point in Trek history Klingons should actually look like this:

 

...what we've got here is infinitely more preferable. Besides, really all they really look like is a bunch of Klingons in these weird ceremonial outfits which all shaved their heads, which considering they're obviously religious zealots it fits. Also, I have no problem with how they talk since most of the time whenever Klingons in other shows did talk in their own language it was bombastic and they halted every few words for a second, admittedly it's probably because most of the time when they did actually use their own language it was during what were supposed to be dramatic moments.

 

Lastly, when Michael Vulcan Nerve Pinched the moronic captain tried to take over the ship and blast the Klingons my reaction was basically "About damned time somebody with two brain cells to rub together took charge." Seriously, even discounting rationale for blasting the Klingons that Michael goes out of her way to find out from a reliable source and explain to her captain only to get blown off, whenever they aren't allied with the Federation Klingons throughout Star Trek have time and time again shown that they are little more than psychotic warmongers which are very hard if not impossible to reason with. One thing I've always hated about Star Trek is how nobody in the Federation acted like real people in the slightest, particularly the "holier than thou" attitude they have about everything which is especially annoying when it comes to the idea that they shouldn't attack an obviously hostile enemy unless attacked first no matter how readily apparent it is that they should, something the captain whose name I'm not going to even bother to remember has in spades. It's commendable to want to approach situations with other species with diplomacy first but sometimes that just isn't a realistic, intelligent, or sane option and the Klingons are a definitely one of the species in Star Trek where "shoot first, ask questions later" is the only reasonable response the vast majority of the time. The fact that they had already established that the Klingon ship was simply calling for backup only drove the last nail in the cover that much harder.

 

Well, considering that they're going with this whole consumer screwing CBS All Access online streaming that we actually have to pay for, if sanity prevails I guess I'll see everybody here in about  year when the show gets cancelled halfway through it's first season from nobody on the planet actually watching any more of it except by pirating it and I can get it on DVD for next to nothing.

Edited October 1, 2017 by immortalfrieza

[Bobbin]

Another sci-fi effort by people who don't understand sci-fi. A good sci-fi story is NOT just about aliens, special effects and technobabble. There has to be an engaging plot for which being in space is incidental. "Forbidden Planet" was drawn from Shakespeare's "The Tempest." Gene Roddenberry described TOS as a "Wagon Train to the stars." Each episode was a self-contained morality play involving characters you could identify with facing life challenges you could relate to. That's why Spock was so popular with younger fans, as an outsider and one having to suppress unwanted emotions. To my mind, this show has too much in the way of production values and too little substance. Beam me up.

[DisneyBoy]

I hope the show runs for awhile, finds its feet and does well. It's been too long since we had a good Star Trek show. I sat down to watch this pilot with great anticipation.

I agree that the effects and overall sheen of the series are top-notch, but I found the acting really not so good. I know the lady playing the captain is a veteran but she had a very distracting accent and delivery. I didn't feel like she was really a captain or had enough time to create a distinct character. Then we have her Number One, who also sounds like a really inadequate actor, sometimes nailing emotions and sometimes sounding completely random. The two of them walking through the desert in the opening moments of the show exemplifies exactly what I'm trying to refer to. The dialogue was clearly written to suggest that these two have known each other for a long time and had a certain banter between them. But the way they were delivering their lines it was like they were on their first or second take and hadn't found anything close to a believable chemistry. If you're going to have two characters with as long a history as these two, please cast actresses who can make us believe it.

Things didn't really get interesting until the end of the episode. It was a nice counterpoint to the way were introduced to them at the start to go from having them trust each other to pulling guns on each other. I liked that twist...

..but there really weren't more than three characters in this pilot. The Klingons were very hard to make out on the television I was watching so I know there is an albino Klingon, but he doesn't especially interest me, even with his burnt hand. On the ship, the only characters we got to spend time with were the captain, the number one and fussy tall alien and I guess out of the three fussy tall alien is the most interesting but not by much.

 

I didn't even find the opening credits all that interesting either. It was very artsy fartsy but I didn't catch a really good theme song in there and that bummed me out.

 

I guess I have to see episode two to understand how the male captain comes into play.

 

Simply put, I don't think the pilot did enough to pique my interest for future episodes. It was playing out like it had all the time in the world and that was disappointing. I wonder if this war with the Klingons will be a major arc for the first season...

 

I wonder if that weird alien on the desert planet will pop back up...

[GaT]

Those are Klingons?????? They look like they're made of metal.

[7-Zark-7]

“They’re a danger to us. Fire!”

“No, they aren’t!”

“Yes, they are!”

“No, they aren’t!”

“Yes, they are!”

“NO!”

“I need to leave the bridge!”

“Now? Oh, fine.”

“Okay, I’m back. I’ve had a consultation and yup, they’re a danger to us so… Fire!”

No, they aren’t!”

“Yes, they are!”

“No, they aren’t!”

“Okay, you’re right. [neck pinch]”

“What the…?”

“Okay, everybody, I’m back, the Captain is kinda busy, so we’re totally going to fire at those guys.”

“NO, WE ARE NOT!”

[KLINGONS multiply like tribbles, minus the cute factor]

                                                                                           …To Be Continued

This was done much better on Voyager when Janeway and Seven of Nine got deep into fuck or fight mode over how they should handle that one Species 8472 that was being hunted on their ship by The HIrogen.

[KimberStormer]

I don't care about contradicting canon, tech levels, sexist 60s assumptions, etc etc, and I baiscally like the design, costumes, etc. here.  But I did alas find this boring.  The ship seems weirdly empty.  The captain and Michael have zero chemistry.  Having long stretches in Klingon was a mistake.  And I was super disappointed that the main character, and freaking Sarek himself, are all "KILL SHOOT NOW" because, Kirk Drift aside, even TOS was basically a pacifist show -- lest we forget, the original Klingon episode was a full-throated antiwar piece.  While I feel relatively confident in my hope that the message will be DON'T KILL SHOOT NOW, it's not going to be easy to stick with a main character I dislike for her bloodlust and bizarre disregard of reason to go running out of sickbay when there's a perfectly good communicator.  There's a reason I don't watch all these popular prestige shows about assholes.

(I swear I'm not a nitpicker about these things but I wonder why people communicating with the Senzhou seem to interact with the ship's environment, instead of the Senzhou people interacting with the Starfleet Command or Vulcan environment?  I thought it was especially weird that the bright light was shining on Sarek's face somehow)

I might as well keep the subscription so I can watch this season of Survivor without ads, and maybe rewatch Cambodia or Philippines, so I will keep up with the show for now.  I do love space.

Edited September 25, 2017 by KimberStormer

[Lebanna]

I'm just starting to watch on Netflix now and I already love that they give you the option to watch the whole show with Klingon subtitles. 

Ok, the first scene in the desert comes off as a 'As you know Steve' explanatory dump which is very, very awkward. Like, these people have gone on a mission which they are now explaining to each other? Ridiculous. They're now telling each other that they've known each other for seven years, and what jobs they have? It's silly and definitely could be better, although hopefully they won't have to tell us any of this ever again, so at least this infodump is now over with. And the sand symbol is actually pretty amazing. I like the captain. Her accent is really nice to listen to.

The theme and the images are great. The imagery reminds me a little of Enterprise but the music is so much better. And the hand reminds me of The X-Files and Fringe.

Ok, back on the ship. I love how they snark on each other. Saru is 3CPO but more sarcastic. This is fun.

I like that Burnham seems to love blogging her experiences as much as Kirk used to.

Well, I guess it's kind of how this Klingon would have wanted to go. At least it was sort of a battle, you could argue - although probably more of an accident really. Oops. That coffin is fabulous. I'm enjoying how beautiful and colourful they're making Klingon culture this time out. I've always been a big fan of the Warbird design of ship, so I'm liking this a lot. Of course they attach dead people to their ships. This is great.

And we're back at Vulcan school. This is probably the future, people, when they fire all the state school teachers and stick everyone in pods for 13 years. So much money to be saved that way. Poor future kids. Sarek! He seems like the same character so far.

Will Burnham collapse into a pile of noodles? That teeth-clacking sound that Saru makes when he's worried about something is his kind of tutting noise, isn't it? It's a nice touch.

A cowardly Klingon! And a true believer. He's striking me as kind of a try-hard.

Saru's people are half sheep half banshee? What species bred them and used to eat them? I like the idea that his people were even worse off than slaves, and have been purposfully created. That's interesting, and really horrible. I wonder if they're still being eaten and he escaped somehow? Or if he has to work with his species' former eaters as part of the Federation.

Admiral Kenobi. Holograms are cool as long as there isn't a whole deck of them.

'Somebody press mute!' 

Aww, that's nice. When in a fix, it's sometimes a good plan to call your dad for advice. Depending on the dad. I'm not sure about this advice, though. But then Sarek, though really awesome and a favourite of mine, has been known to be wrong on occasion.

Why is the captain a former soldier? She's way too young to have ever been a MACO. What war was she in?

Mutiny! That's something Riker never tried. Total chaos. And scene!

 

Ok. The first five minutes were kind of lame. But the rest of this first episode, once they got back to the ship, were really enjoyable and felt like Star Trek to me. I wasn't expecting Michael to betray her Captain so quickly, but I probably should have, especially as they seemed to have a slightly Janeway/Seven confused mother/ rebellious daughter vibe.

To be fair, I also loved the first episode of Enterprise and it took me fifteen years to come round to loving the rest of it, so who knows what the future will bring? But this was honestly great fun and gave me enough to be interested in seeing more. It was solidly good.

Edited September 25, 2017 by Lebanna

[NeenerNeener]

I liked the opening credits and the theme music. I stopped watching both Enterprise and Firefly after two or three episodes just because I hated the opening theme songs so much and lunging for the remote to mute the tv was annoying too.

James Frain is a decent Sarek and it's nice to see him NOT playing a villain for once, although it wouldn't have killed them to create a new Vulcan character to be Michael's mentor.

It also wouldn't have killed them to stop futzing around with what Klingon's look like if this isn't supposed to be an alternate Trek universe. All in all, I'm with the folks who aren't going to pay CBS to watch 9 more episodes of this. I won't do it for Christine Baranski, and I won't do it for James Frain either.

Edited September 25, 2017 by NeenerNeener

[marinw]

So Spock has an adopted sister? Ok then.

The Expanse is by far the best "Space" show on right now, although I enjoy Killjoys and The Orville on thier own merits.

3 hours ago, immortalfrieza said:

Also, considering the fact that at this point in Trek history Klingons should actually look like this:

Enterprise did some elaborate retconning with a genetically engineered virus or some such to make that so.

[starri]

Am I the only one who really wants to know who or what that Daft Punk-looking person was?

[Lebanna]

I'm curious about the guy with what looked like Geordi's Visor on backwards. Is he meant to be deaf, or is it doing something to his brain?

Edited September 25, 2017 by Lebanna

[Bryce Lynch]

Right before Mikey went full mutiny, when the captain ordered the computer to establish privacy mode, I was expecting some sort of "cone of silence" to drop down over them.

Total dreck!  I still can't get over the atrocious acting.  I normally don't really notice bad acting.  Many times, I read multiple comments about how horrible an actor or actress is, and I think, "Really, I didn't think they were so bad."   But, this acting was off the charts bad.

[marinw]

55 minutes ago, starri said:

Am I the only one who really wants to know who or what that Daft Punk-looking person was

A Robot (more retconning!) or someone from a planet with a different atmosphere so he (or she, or they) need some Daft-Punk setup to breathe.

The retconning is driving me nuts. The communicator is basically a 2003 era flip phone.

[Chit Chat]

Quote

Having long stretches in Klingon was a mistake. 

Honestly, I got tired of having to read the sub-titles.   There were elements to this show that I liked, and a few that I didn't.   At least the uniforms weren't those age-old jumpsuits!  The ship was pretty cool looking too, IMO.  However, I won't pay for CBS all access in order to watch this show.  

[Lebanna]

13 minutes ago, ChitChat said:

Honestly, I got tired of having to read the sub-titles.  

This is definitely something that will vary around the planet. Some countries are really used to watching shows with subtitles on and language variations and others are not. The US, generally, is not. But hey, Narcos is bilingual. Jane The Virgin is bilingual. People watch telenovelas. A lot of people don't speak Spanish but they still happily watch and read along with those shows. French, Italian, Swedish and Spanish shows are watched  in the UK on relatively mainstream TV nowadays. Bollywood, Chinese and Korean movies are becoming more and more popular in the US. This is how TV and film is going now.

I didn't think the subtitles went on for that long, but I was also kind of enjoying trying to work out what the Klingon words meant. It's fun.

Edited September 25, 2017 by Lebanna

[wknt3]

I am firmly in the camp of not caring that it doesn't look like a higher budget version of low budget 60's sci fi (although I personally would have taken more design inspiration from "The Cage" and less from Enterprise and Nu Trek and turned on the freaking lights) and can past the redesign of the Klingons. And I have no sympathy for anyone who thinks that they should stick with the bad idea that the glass ceiling is still a thing in Starfleet. None. And I also believe it was better than most pilots in the franchise. That said it had to be spectacular if they expected me to subscribe to a pay service and it just wasn't. Maybe it will end up being good. Maybe not. If it was on Netflix or one of the networks I would stick with it and hope that the bad acting is really just good actors and writers trying to get a handle on their characters and they'd drop some of the sillier elements like the Star Wars communications holograms, but as it is I might check it out by whatever means, but I'm not going to go out of my way to seek it out and definitely not paying for it.

[Helena Dax]

I liked it. Yes, the technology seems more advanced than the one in TOS, the klingon make-up sucks and the crew should be wearing the uniforms we saw in The Cage, but to me, it feeks like Star Trek anyway. I also liked Michael and the way she tries to act like a Vulcan, like she sees herself as a Vulcan. I want the show to explore that.

[Sandman]

7 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

If the main character is a girl named Michael, would we get a boy named Sue? #reallylowhangingfruit

Well, we've seen a boy named Surak. And Sulu. And Saru. #evenlowerhangingfruit

[benteen]

7 hours ago, Sandman said:

I'll say I'm glad the newest show has moved past the issue, and move on myself.

My full comment was meant to be that I was glad that the stupidity of the "no female captains" thing is gone.  That was always ridiculous for Star Trek and it would be ridiculous to have heeded "canon" on that one.

[Bryce Lynch]

1 hour ago, wknt3 said:

I am firmly in the camp of not caring that it doesn't look like a higher budget version of low budget 60's sci fi (although I personally would have taken more design inspiration from "The Cage" and less from Enterprise and Nu Trek and turned on the freaking lights) and can past the redesign of the Klingons. And I have no sympathy for anyone who thinks that they should stick with the bad idea that the glass ceiling is still a thing in Starfleet. None. And I also believe it was better than most pilots in the franchise. That said it had to be spectacular if they expected me to subscribe to a pay service and it just wasn't. Maybe it will end up being good. Maybe not. If it was on Netflix or one of the networks I would stick with it and hope that the bad acting is really just good actors and writers trying to get a handle on their characters and they'd drop some of the sillier elements like the Star Wars communications holograms, but as it is I might check it out by whatever means, but I'm not going to go out of my way to seek it out and definitely not paying for it.

I don't mind the updated design, in the pre-TOS ship.  Let's face it, the TOS Enterprise interior, with all the colored lights on the consoles, looked ridiculously outdated by the 1980s.  The set design on TOS was a rare example of a lack of vision with the show.  

But, I don't think they should have superior technology to TOS.  "Enterprise" did a good job of making the interior  ship look like something that might exist in the 23rd Century, as opposed to something you'd see in a 1960's Radio Shack.  But, they clearly made the functionality of the technology inferior to that of later Federation ships, in terms of speed, transporters, etc.

The holo transmitter that was used in STD was introduced as brand new technology in the 5th season of DS9, which takes place about 125 years later.  

As for the Klingons, it bothers me that they chose to go with a totally different version of them.  I understood the later moves and TNG, and DS9 going with the new, ridged forehead warrior race Klingons over the TOS, almost human, mustache twirling, "Soviet" Klingons, and thought they were an improvement.  But for STD (I love that acronym!) to come up with a 3rd version of the Klingons who look and speak nothing like either of the prior 2 versions was a big distraction and totally unnecessary.  They looked more like Xindi Reptilians than Klingons and they speak more like Pakleds.  

I agree about the glass ceiling thing.  I don't think one somewhat vague reference to women not being able to be captains, from a terrible TOS episode needs to be followed religiously.  Actually, as weak as Captain Gergiou and as mutinous as Mikey was maybe that could explain the lack of female captains referred to in "Turnabout Intruder" :)

Looking at the IMDB page the one potentially interesting thing I see is that

Spoiler

 Rain Wilson has a recurring role as Harry Mudd!  I'm sure Dwight would have preferred a role in a new version of Battlestar Gallactica, but that could be fun. :)  I wonder if Harry will smuggle Andorian beets. 

Edited September 25, 2017 by Bryce Lynch

[starri]

4 minutes ago, Bryce Lynch said:

The set design on TOS was a rare example of a lack of vision with the show

It was also driven by the fact that color TVs were still fairly new, and stuff that was really colorful helped drive eyeballs to the show. 

See also: the Adam West Batman. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

10 hours ago, Sandman said:

Wasn't it established as canon that we humans don't have the capacity to perform the nerve pinch? I though the biomechanics were supposed to be all wrong..

I might be misremembering -- it's been a while since I watched ST:III - but I thought that McCoy nerve-pinched someone while in possession of Spock's katra.

Data definitely nerve-pinched someone in TNG's Reunification, so it's not a matter of a biological or psychic component to the nerve pinch.

[Browncoat]

As much as I disliked it, and as bored as I was by most of it (and annoyed by the mutiny/cliffhanger), I will also say that I would probably keep watching if it were on regular TV.  But it isn't worth my money (or time) to find it on All Access.

[Chaos Theory]

I am a Star Ttek fan.  I have like all the series (Even Enterprise) for its own reason and the movies (even the recent remakes) have all had something that made me like them.  This new thing has potential.  I watched some of it but then realized it was on CBS all-access and I WILL NOT pay for another online network so I kinda tuned out after awhile.  

[PodcastTown]

Wait this is also on netflix? 

[marinw]

2 minutes ago, PodcastTown said:

Wait this is also on netflix? 

It is streaming on Crave TV in Canada.

[aemom]

As I read all the posts, it occurs to me that CBS is only showing the first portion of the premiere for free?  I thought that they would show the entire 2 hour premiere at least.

I'm watching on Space in Canada, so we got everything, and will continue to get everything (lucky us), but did they really leave you hanging like that in the States?  That's cold.

[Lebanna]

15 minutes ago, PodcastTown said:

Wait this is also on netflix? 

It is in Europe.

 

Apparently, with the Netflix money, CBS considers the season already paid for.

Edited September 25, 2017 by Lebanna

[benteen]

53 minutes ago, Bryce Lynch said:

I don't mind the updated design, in the pre-TOS ship.  Let's face it, the TOS Enterprise interior, with all the colored lights on the consoles, looked ridiculously outdated by the 1980s.  The set design on TOS was a rare example of a lack of vision with the show.  

But, I don't think they should have superior technology to TOS.  "Enterprise" did a good job of making the interior  ship look like something that might exist in the 23rd Century, as opposed to something you'd see in a 1960's Radio Shack.  But, they clearly made the functionality of the technology inferior to that of later Federation ships, in terms of speed, transporters, etc.

  Reveal hidden contents

 Rain Wilson has a recurring role as Harry Mudd!  I'm sure Dwight would have preferred a role in a new version of Battlestar Gallactica, but that could be fun. :)  I wonder if Harry will smuggle Andorian beets. 

I don't mind the superior technology either.  I don't expect the designs to be made cruder.  Technology has improved and if they had this in the 60s, they would have used it.

Look at it this way, in the original Star Trek, they didn't even have DNA technology.  When Kirk tries to find a war criminal in season one, he uses a voice recognition technology and not DNA.  Should Discovery not have DNA technology then?

[Bryce Lynch]

6 minutes ago, benteen said:

I don't mind the superior technology either.  I don't expect the designs to be made cruder.  Technology has improved and if they had this in the 60s, they would have used it.

Look at it this way, in the original Star Trek, they didn't even have DNA technology.  When Kirk tries to find a war criminal in season one, he uses a voice recognition technology and not DNA.  Should Discovery not have DNA technology then?

To the extent TOS fell short of 20th and early 21st Century technology, I am fine with them adding it to prequels.  I don' t approve of them having technology that doesn't exist now and did not exist in the TOS time frame.  

Did they specifically say they could not identify the war criminal based upon DNA, or did they simply choose to use voice recognition.  It is feasible that in the 23rd century, voice recognition would be as reliable as DNA.

[Lebanna]

It actually weirded me out, watching it now, that Enterprise has worse tech than we do. Of course TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY look a bit old fashioned as well, because they were a while ago now, but ENT finished two years before the iPhone was available.

It wasn't as strange at the time, but those thick black computer screens hanging right off the walls and thick chunky PADs, when compared to even a 50€ tablet available now, look bad for such a young show.

And in 2001 people complained that everything was too high tech to be believable as happening before TOS.

I mean, apart from the starship itself, they were using almost the same technology we had when it was made. If they'd run until 2008 as expected and planned, their tech would have been out of date even for our time. 

11 minutes ago, Bryce Lynch said:

To the extent TOS fell short of 20th and early 21st Century technology, I am fine with them adding it to prequels.  I don' t approve of them having technology that doesn't exist now and did not exist in the TOS time frame.  

Did they specifically say they could not identify the war criminal based upon DNA, or did they simply choose to use voice recognition.  It is feasible that in the 23rd century, voice recognition would be as reliable as DNA.

In TOS they had all the computer data on tapes. There's no way we'd go back to doing that because it's massively inefficient. And the DNA thing is basically that. I mean, we could do voices now. We could do ears and faces and fingerprints. DNA is better and the guy was right there.

Edited September 25, 2017 by Lebanna

[AD35]

1 hour ago, Bryce Lynch said:

As for the Klingons, it bothers me that they chose to go with a totally different version of them.  I understood the later moves and TNG, and DS9 going with the new, ridged forehead warrior race Klingons over the TOS, almost human, mustache twirling, "Soviet" Klingons, and thought they were an improvement.  But for STD (I love that acronym!) to come up with a 3rd version of the Klingons who look and speak nothing like either of the prior 2 versions was a big distraction and totally unnecessary.  They looked more like Xindi Reptilians than Klingons and they speak more like Pakleds.  

That's the major problem with the Klingons for me.  Why did TPTB felt they needed to redesign them yet again? They could have just kept them the same physically and redesign their outfits and ships to reflect an earlier time.

[greekmom]

8 hours ago, immortalfrieza said:

First, the negative, they certainly didn't cheap out on the effects and I've seen way worse acting than in this episode I'll give them that much, but the characters don't mesh well and their personalities aren't as defined as they should be and really it's just spectacle over substance that they probably just pulled out for the first couple episodes. Once I might have let this show pass under the justification that they're just getting started, but after seeing shows like Bones, NCIS, Agents of SHIELD, and a few others I'm probably forgetting that have most if not all of their characters and even the show's formula itself work well right out of the gate I'm not so tolerant of the idea that a show needs to "find it's feet" anymore. Hell, I just watched the first episode of it right after this and even Orville that mesh very well and have very distinctive personalities right away, which only makes this so much more apparent.

 

Now, the positive, I'm going to go against some common opinions on this thread, just to be forewarned. I honestly don't care about this canon that says women can't be captains of starships, or the idea that the tech shouldn't be as advanced as it is. Both are the products of their time, the sexism of the 60s and the lack of or massive expense of effects back then respectively and thus if nothing else are parts of canon that should be thrown out and ignored now. Also, considering the fact that at this point in Trek history Klingons should actually look like this:

 

...what we've got here is infinitely more preferable. Besides, really all they really look like is a bunch of Klingons in these weird ceremonial outfits which all shaved their heads, which considering they're obviously religious zealots it fits. Also, I have no problem with how they talk since most of the time whenever Klingons in other shows did talk in their own language it was bombastic and they halted every few words for a second, admittedly it's probably because most of the time when they did actually use their own language it was during what were supposed to be dramatic moments.

 

Lastly, when Michael Vulcan Nerve Pinched the moronic captain tried to take over the ship and blast the Klingons my reaction was basically "About damned time somebody with two brain cells to rub together took charge." Seriously, even discounting rationale for blasting the Klingons that Michael goes out of her way to find out from a reliable source and explain to her captain only to get blown off, whenever they aren't allied with the Federation Klingons throughout Star Trek have time and time again shown that they are little more than psychotic warmongers which are very hard if not impossible to reason with. One thing I've always hated about Star Trek is how nobody in the Federation acted like real people in the slightest, particularly the "holier than thou" attitude they have about everything which is especially annoying when it comes to the idea that they shouldn't attack an obviously hostile enemy unless attacked first no matter how readily apparent it is that they should, something the captain whose name I'm not going to even bother to remember has in spades. One of the reasons I liked Enterprise It's commendable to want to approach situations with other species with diplomacy first but sometimes that just isn't a realistic, intelligent, or sane option and the Klingons are a definitely one of the species in Star Trek where "shoot first, ask questions later" is the only reasonable response the vast majority of the time. The fact that they had already established that the Klingon ship was simply calling for backup only drove the last nail in the cover that much harder.

 

I was thinking this through this morning. I think CBS could have had people accept these Klingons if they were a) 1 lone house and the rest of the Klingons looked like TOS or TNG ones, b) an ancient off shoot of Klingons or c) they were the Kuvah'magh Klingons that the Voyager Klingons in the one episode were following.  

Seriously CBS - this isn't rocket science. 

[shrewd.buddha]

I was actually relieved that first episode did not interest me enough to consider subscribing to the CBS service - - or even regret not seeing more. It all felt like a big tease - but with things already seen in the previews. 

I did wonder who made the decision to start a new series with the first scene being the Klignons.  

I'm not to worried about the Kingon war  - - we know that will get worked out in fifty years or so. But is the war going to throw the Federation into a technological dark age so that in ten years time people will revert to mini skirts, beehive hairdos and blinky-light computers? The horror.  I think the only reason for setting this series at this time was to recton Spock's history to include a never-mentioned half-sister. 
And prequels are just a spiderweb of inconsistencies , limitations and foregone conclusions. Did they do it just for the easter-egg opportunities? 

The whole beginning scene on Tatooine seemed pointless. Why send a captain and the first officer on such a mission? 

There will have to be a lot of excited positive buzz about this show to make me want to temporarily subscribe to CBS when all the episode are available for binge-ing. 

[Raja]

3 hours ago, Lebanna said:

I'm curious about the guy with what looked like Jordi's Visor on backwards. Is he meant to be deaf, or is it doing something to his brain?

He is Borg.

[satrunrose]

I can't believe I'm going to defend the Klingon make-over here (mostly because I'm not a fan of the lizard look and it underlines that this show would make a lot more sense and have a lot more creative freedom if it was set in the Kelvin timeline), but after all of the exploration of Klingon culture in TNG and DS9, I just can't be scared of old-school Klingons any more. Nu Klingons do feel a little more intimidating and a little less "Aw, I bet Worf's grandfather is going to Battleth practice right about now!"

 

As for the rest, it ticked a lot of boxes I was looking for and I'm not put off by the uniforms or tech stuff. The problem was that I never really got excited about it. I think a fair bit was the acting (to be fair, I think Vulcans, or raised by vulcans, are harder to play than you'd think and they need to play off someone with a bigger personality than Cpt G. was given) but also that we only focused on three characters and none of them seemed particularly fleshed out. I'll keep watching, but I'm in a country where I don't have to pay for an extra subscription service.

Edited September 25, 2017 by satrunrose

[Unusual Suspect]

I liked it. Felt like Star Trek, infused with a more modern sensibility. I like Burnham, I loved Georgiou. The show had to quickly set up their relationship and give us a background on Burnham to make the ending work, and I think they got there. I was legitimately surprised with how it happened.

As for the new Klingons, I'm still indifferent to the redesign, but I did find the characters ... stilted. As cool as it is to see Klingons speak Klingon, it feels distracting. I didn't find T'Kuvma all that charismatic. Still, I am intrigued by this deeper dive in Klingon religion.

[enoughcats]

5 hours ago, marinw said:

Enterprise did some elaborate retconning with a genetically engineered virus or some such to make that so

One of my favorite TV quotes of all time, ever, in multiple decades of watching TV, was the revisit to TOS and they asked Worf why the original series' Klingon's didn't look like him.

He put on a "chin up, old man, face", had an aggrieved voice as he said "We don't talk about that." In words that brooked no further discussion

[Raja]

Too much showing off the production values not enough story. It reminded me of Star Trek The Motion Picture. But a straight out mutiny by the lead character, that wasn't my Star Trek even if the insignia was the same as Enterprise's.

[marinw]

Even if we are in the future, I am annoyed when characters quickly recover from horrible injuries. Michael had severe radiation burns and a “Grade 3” concussion, whatever that is. Yet when Christopher Pike was exposed to “delta-particle radiation." the horror of his injuries compelled Spock to violate orders and risk the death penalty.

(True, in the 1960’s there were very different attitudes towards people with disabilities, but that is a discussion for another time)

Even by the TNG era, Picard had some band-aids on his face after being de-Borged.

Edited September 25, 2017 by marinw

[Idiotboy]

This STD thread is more interesting than the pilot episode was. Not good.

[Peace 47]

I guess that one other thing that bothered me about the mutiny is that Michael was an experienced first officer who had served with that captain for seven years.  Yes, Michael apparently suffers deep-seated Klingon-related trauma from her childhood that evidently was the catalyst for her actions here, but it seemed a little inconsistent that the assured, competent officer from the first half of the episode couldn't have a conversation that reached a better result with her captain (given the implicit trust and good humor that they showed one another in getting off that planet and that Michael was just about ready to captain her own ship).

And if she had devoted so much of her life to Starfleet, it seems that she would have known that the day could come where her captain would make a "bad" judgment call and Michael might have to die for it--the unfortunate result of living in a command structure like that.  Just like Michael expected everyone to follow her orders when she knocked out the captain.

But was Michael even right that they needed to have fired first to avoid what was apparently about to happen at the end of this episode?  Didn't the captain say that they were outgunned?  And not that the Shenzhou would have had any reason to know, but wasn't that particular contingent of Klingons hellbent on picking a fight?  So would firing first have really made them back off, or would it have just moved up the timing of the battle?

I do get it though: characters have to be edgy, imperfect and skirt the rules because that is what has been and is in style in everything from sci-fi to serious prestige drama (like how new Alternate Universe Kirk was a bad boy outlaw playboy in the 2009 movie instead of a nerdy bookworm who got bullied in school like the original Kirk of TOS).  I just kind of personally am drawn to relentlessly competent characters who aren't laid low by decisions of their own making, which is why Michael lost me at the end.

[proserpina65]

14 hours ago, Kaoteek said:

Isaacs & the Discovery don't appear until episode 3, according to some of the reviews that got un-embargoed.

He was the only reason I was the least bit interested, knowing that I'd only get to see the first episode anyway, so imagine my disappointment last night.  I usually really like Michelle Yeoh, but honestly, even she couldn't save that mess.

14 hours ago, ketose said:

That's a pretty low bar.

Visually, I liked Enterprise's titles.  But that song, ugh!

[staphdude]

53 minutes ago, Peace 47 said:

I guess that one other thing that bothered me about the mutiny is that Michael was an experienced first officer who had served with that captain for seven years.  Yes, Michael apparently suffers deep-seated Klingon-related trauma from her childhood that evidently was the catalyst for her actions here, but it seemed a little inconsistent that the assured, competent officer from the first half of the episode couldn't have a conversation that reached a better result with her captain (given the implicit trust and good humor that they showed one another in getting off that planet and that Michael was just about ready to captain her own ship).

And if she had devoted so much of her life to Starfleet, it seems that she would have known that the day could come where her captain would make a "bad" judgment call and Michael might have to die for it--the unfortunate result of living in a command structure like that.  Just like Michael expected everyone to follow her orders when she knocked out the captain.

But was Michael even right that they needed to have fired first to avoid what was apparently about to happen at the end of this episode?  Didn't the captain say that they were outgunned?  And not that the Shenzhou would have had any reason to know, but wasn't that particular contingent of Klingons hellbent on picking a fight?  So would firing first have really made them back off, or would it have just moved up the timing of the battle?

I do get it though: characters have to be edgy, imperfect and skirt the rules because that is what has been and is in style in everything from sci-fi to serious prestige drama (like how new Alternate Universe Kirk was a bad boy outlaw playboy in the 2009 movie instead of a nerdy bookworm who got bullied in school like the original Kirk of TOS).  I just kind of personally am drawn to relentlessly competent characters who aren't laid low by decisions of their own making, which is why Michael lost me at the end.

Very well said. The other issue is second guessing the captain in favour  of information that comes after a quick chat with your daddy figure who doesn't have all the facts. The messianic, I'm in possession of all the right answers attitude is grating.

[iMonrey]

Quote

the characters don't mesh well and their personalities aren't as defined as they should be and really it's just spectacle over substance

Yes, this. They should have devoted more energy to fleshing out interesting characters and less on sets and prosthetics. They basically made the same mistake TNG did WRT the Klingons. Just because you have better special effects or makeup effects now than you did 20 years ago doesn't mean you have to use them. There's no real reason to completely re-design an entire species, especially one as important and well-known as the Klingons, just because you can and you think it's cooler this way. That just takes you right out of the show. (Especially when they've already done this once before!) Then they spent way too much time on the Klingons. All of these scenes were just tedious to get through and dragged the whole show down IMO.

And then there's this Lt. Saru guy. First of all, I'm sure the makeup department had a ball inventing whatever the hell species this is, but how do we have a senior officer on the bridge from a species we've never seen before when this is supposed to be a prequel? Furthermore, as "cool" as the makeup people might have thought this design was, he's pretty repulsive looking. Not someone I want to watch for an hour every week. The character himself is mildly interesting as a foil to Michael, but there was no reason to make him look like someone whose face is melting off. That doesn't make him more interesting, it just makes him distracting.

I can't think of any good reason why this show had to be a prequel unless it's because they want to tie it into the current movie franchise (which doesn't make a lot of sense either, since that takes place in an alternate timeline). I suppose they have plans to feature earlier versions of TOS characters but overall it would have made much more sense to set this after Voyager so the vastly superior looking tech didn't seem so baffling, and they could have cameos from TNG, DS9 and Voyager characters. The whole thing just feels like an enormous misstep.

So yeah - count me among those unwilling to pay for any more of this. Nice going, CBS. If you'd done a better job, I might have considered it.

[benteen]

3 hours ago, AD35 said:

That's the major problem with the Klingons for me.  Why did TPTB felt they needed to redesign them yet again? They could have just kept them the same physically and redesign their outfits and ships to reflect an earlier time.

I hear Les Moonves was responsible for a lot of these new looks and that he hates Star Trek.

[Bryce Lynch]

3 hours ago, AD35 said:

That's the major problem with the Klingons for me.  Why did TPTB felt they needed to redesign them yet again? They could have just kept them the same physically and redesign their outfits and ships to reflect an earlier time.

The Klingons seem to shape shift more than the Founders from DS9.

I could see if STD tweaked the Klingons a bit, or made them like the old "Soviet" Klingons or somewhere between the Soviet Klingons of TOS and the "augment" Klingons of everything else. But, they made them into hairless lizards who don't resemble either of the earlier Klingons.   While they are at it, why not make the Vulcans blue and give the hew-mahns Ferengi ears?

Edited September 25, 2017 by Bryce Lynch