Star Trek: Discovery

He'll probably die a few episodes in, so no worries about that.

That's region locked, but this isn't:


There's also the Netflix trailer, which is the same footage in a different order (and less dramatic as a consequence, frankly.)

Fucking biological determinism.

It reminded me of Battlefield Earth..... too many dutch angles. I also do not care for them aping the current movies lens flares and other design choices, mostly because when combined with a TV budget it certainly looked cheap at times. Also, the abbreviation for this series is STD. You think it is gonna be a good idea, but the consequences are not what you hoped for.

DSC? Not DIS? Is nothing sacred to them! Will forever be STD to me.

Roy Batty's Pet Dove Biological determinism‽ Did they bring Braga back for this‽

This really just extends my sense of “I’m really not sure what to make of it.” Not really convinced by the look at all—the bridge stuff looks a bit, I don’t know, like a Trek knock off from the late nineties? It looks very Abrams Trek-influenced to me, with the lights being constantly doing that lens-flare-y thing on the bridge. Is it only ten years before Kirk? Isn’t that young Spock in there? Maybe it’s ten years before the Enterprise launches, so 2230s? “Raises more questions than it answers” isn’t necessarily bad for a trailer, but these aren’t very interesting questions I’m having.

On the other hand, that desert planet stuff between Michelle Yeoh and Sonequa Martin-Green looks awesome (Fashion It So agrees), and the Klingon stuff plus Vulcan stuff makes me wonder this might be a bit Final Reflection-ish (The Final Reflection being the one great Trek novel). Also, I can’t believe Michelle Yeoh’s in Trek, which is beyond amazing.

So I’m not really sure what to think at all. This will be a mixed bag with some good bits and annoying bits (and the show would have been better served had Netflix rather than CBS took the lead) isn’t a hot take, but that’s what I’m guessing it will be.

I don't know much about Braga, apart from a lot of people considering him to be one of the less good Trek showrunners/executiveish people (I think?), but "The only thing my species was biologically determined for was to sense the approach of death.  Not reproducing, not raising young, not finding food and water, not even surviving, just sensing the approach of death per se.  The concept of natural selection was like 'all right, life, I'll pass on this one, it can just be a sentient death-proximity instrument or whatever, with no regard to whether it gives them a competitive advantage in surviving and reproducing, that's fine' when my species evolved," made me immediately leery of the very concept of Pale Man Guy's character.

Sarek's "Your tongue is too human to speak your own native goddamn tongue that you probably grew up speaking" was also pretty not-great, right?  I very much hope that that Vulcan kid isn't Spock.  Also, was Sarek's relationship with Spock ever that assholish in any of the previous series or films?  Besides, if Young Spock is going to be a thing on this show, it'll be difficult for them to write a more moving story than "The One Genuinely Fantastic Episode of TAS", aka the one where Spock goes back in time and meets Young Spock.

The desert planet stuff does look awesome, but it also reminds me of Star Trek V, specifically the first minute-and-a-half or so before there's any actual dialogue, which, admittedly, the first minute and a half of that movie is pretty great, so, actually that's probably not a bad thing at all.

Also, having fairly recently finished the third season of TNG, I feel like opening a series with a character I've never seen before and have no investment in telling another character I've never seen before and have no investment in "Isn't it about time you got your own command?" can't help but be anything other than a letdown compared with "Best of Both Worlds".

I read the like from Saru (Doug Jones' character) as suggesting a degree of genetic engineering in his species history, but 'sensing death' is such a bizarre ability to engineer a species to be about I couldn't make much sense beyond it.

To recycle my own content the bridge of (presumably the Shenzhou) does not make me think of JJ Abrams or nineties TV as much as it does contemporary space opera TV, namely, that's it's all got very dark in this post-BSG world:





It definitely doesn't fit the Cage era, as noted, and I have no idea how they're going to explain her relationship with Sarek (one theory is that she's Amanda Grayson's relative, or a child by a previous marriage) but Sarek remaining on Vulcan and just popping by via hologram is a touch that makes a certain degree of sense - Sarek is not the explorer his son is; but he is the kind of Top Level Ambassador character it might make sense to have around if the show goes political (a bit like how almost half Babylon 5's cast were ambassadors and their aides.)Braga is currently one of the Trek vets (along with Jonathan Frakes and David A. 'Futurama Star Trek Episode' Goodman) who's attached to Seth MacFarlane's Star Trek themed comedy, Orville (which, according to sources, is also the unnamed terrible show referred to in this TV Line blind item.)

Including the epitome of bad biology:

Since they’re going with mostly monochrome (evidently the shiny bits still correspond to science-operations-command in some way) I’m disappointed it’s a blue and not a red. I can kind of see what they’re doing, though—there are definitely hints of Kirk’s admiral’s uniform in the cut, collars and overall design:



The thing that really weirds me out, though, is that they not only didn’t bother to hide the zipper (or whatever sort of fastener they’re using) but to make it bright and shiny. There were obviously little fastening fails throughout Trek, but I think they generally did a good job of the whole “this uniform can fasten or split apart wherever” in TNG and DS9.

Also, holy crap, never making the mistake again of accidentally reading comments on TrekCore. Seeing people who say they're Star Trek fans ranting about the evils of progressives, feminists, and "SJWs" just makes my brain implode.

I'm feeling better about the Klingon makeup the more video and photographs I see. It no longer looks so completely different. Now it kind of looks like it belongs in the same universe as the Klingons in TNG/DS9. But, the costuming they are showing is really bad. I know there is a popular theory that these Klingons are actually from way in the past and they are somehow showing up in this time. I hate that idea in general, but that may be the only way I accept that those costumes could exist in the Trek universe.

I'm ambivalent on the Starfleet uniforms. I can see how they could come from the TOS movies. But, they kind of bore me.

The Starfleet props look okay. Sarek's costume looks okay.

I still hate the idea of Harry Mudd being on the show. I fundamentally don't understand why they want a gross, misogynistic character on the show. Are there any women who have creative control in this production?

I am also still hoping that Discovery will be amazing. I really want it to be good. Just tell a good story and I can forget about the questionable costumes. My expectations are low, though.

I also get a little tired of the thing - I just saw this on a comment thread on the old country - where somebody expresses disappointment that Discovery isn't attempting to look a little more like the era of Star Trek it's set in (since we've seen DSC's time period before, roughly - "The Cage"), and somebody comes back like a jerk being all "LOLOLOL haha dude nobody wants to watch a show that has 1960s production values in 2017 moron."

It's like...that's not what people are saying? I'm pretty sure when people say "it'd be nice if Discovery based its look more on the actual look of that era of TOS" they aren't saying "this high-budget 2017 show must be made with cardboard sets and plastic gumdrop buttons." They're saying "I wish they'd adapted & updated the TOS-era aesthetic to modern quality standards."

New trailer.