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Post by Powerthirteen on Sept 24, 2017 22:26:45 GMT -5
See, these kinds of comments from Kurtzman are why I keep asking if the creative staff have actually seen DS9 From: TV Line Kurtzman Q&A(SPOILERS in that link, BTW, even in the link address!) That link just goes back to this page. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Sept 24, 2017 22:30:00 GMT -5
See, these kinds of comments from Kurtzman are why I keep asking if the creative staff have actually seen DS9 From: TV Line Kurtzman Q&A(SPOILERS in that link, BTW, even in the link address!) That link just goes back to this page. Oops, think I fixed it. |
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 24, 2017 22:36:46 GMT -5
See, these kinds of comments from Kurtzman are why I keep asking if the creative staff have actually seen DS9 From: TV Line Kurtzman Q&A(SPOILERS in that link, BTW, even in the link address!) That link just goes back to this page. To be fair, even when the link just returned people to this page, Desert Dweller was still correct in a manner of speaking, because the link did spoil that the name of the television show Star Trek: Discovery is Star Trek: Discovery, as that is the name of this thread. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Sept 24, 2017 23:12:08 GMT -5
Now going over to the AV Club for the first time in weeks to read Zack's review....
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Sept 24, 2017 23:36:42 GMT -5
Some reviews are out. Critics seem hesitant. They are indicating that episode 3 functions like a reboot or second pilot. Reviews seem cautiously optimistic. Edited: Read a few more reviews. Everyone seems generally positive, which is nice. Still seeing a lot of caution since Episode 3 is basically a second pilot. James Poniewozik at NY Times says he is waiting to see Episode 4 before he issues a review. Says CBS didn't give critics any advance viewing of anything after Episode 3. So..... optimistic that it might be okay? Hopefully. My impression from the first half was basically that—generally positive (though I went in with low expectations) but cautious. Incidentally I’m not actually sure if I’ve ever read Poniewozik before—I just know him as a good tweets guy. Now my actual impressions:
Not sure what timeline this is really supposed to be in at all—aspects seem very different from Trek 09, but also doesn’t really fit all that well into “Prime.” What it does seem to fit in well with, though, is The Final Reflection, the proverbial actually good—both as a story and as a work of science fiction—Trek novel from the early eighties that was the first in-depth look at the Klingons. It’s almost like reading an alternate Trek going back to it now, but one aspect in particular—like a the separate Vulcan relationship with the Klingons—shows up here (the Vulcan solution for dealing with the Klingons in Discovery is less extreme than in The Final Reflection). Actually hangs together pretty well aesthetically, too, even if it is a sort of a bit of everything from Trek on the side of Starfleet design rather than coming up with a coherent early-23rd century look, but that’s fine since this is essentially a reboot.
BUT. THAT. DAMN. WINDSHIELD. Even when I got into Trek in kindergarten and first grade I understood that the viewscreen was a screen (#actually a holographic projection but whatever) and that it would be dangerous to have a big, wall-sized window on the bridge for looking at stuff like suns, explosions, phaser beams and the like. At least it had blinkies, though. The references didn’t seem shoehorned in, like in the first two Abrams Trek films, and I really only caught one—Gamma Hydra, from the Kobayashi Maru test (I feel like “Hatoria” might be another—was that where Worf was a governor in “All Good Things?”).
That noted this definitely shares a fair amount of commonality with Abrams Trek, particularly the sort of elevated emotionalism of everything—the neck pinch and captain coming out with a phaser were definitely over-the-top, in line with the Kirk-Spock fisticuffs of the Trek 09.
The Klingons do feel like a totally different new species to me, though. The director seems to have directed the Klingon (why have everything in Klingon?) as very slow and mealy-mouthed—none of the gusto of the Klingons I grew up with. I did like the aspect of them not knowing how to read the Klingons’ action, but I’m not sure if I’ll like how it evolves. Not 100% sold on Sarek’s role, either—actually like the backstory, but damn Sarek just seems a bit too cold. Even though he didn’t get along with Spock it’s not necessarily of Sarek being an unfeeling asshole—Amanda’s presence proves that, and surely he had to know that’s an unhealthy way for humans to deal with trauma.
Still, I was engaged and curious for the whole thing, like the Captain (already dreading the seemingly inevitable kill-off), Michael, and Saru—I actually yelled out “Tosk!” when it was revealed his species was bred as a sort of cattle (nice little [unintentional, I’m guessing] shout-out to smug first season TNG Picard’s remark about no longer enslaving animals)—I mean, Tosk was more shaded, and I would have preferred a bit more with Saru, and they may have been trying a bit hard to establish a sort of Spock-McCoy thing, but I liked the performance nonetheless. Basically everything was fine but I have a bit of a reservation behind it. We’ll see, but I do want to see more.
Oh, and damn 30 Rock I’ll never be able to see that actor as anyone else but Jonathan—doesn’t help that he was desperately trying to keep someone from walking into their superior’s workspace, either.
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Post by Lt. Broccoli on Sept 25, 2017 5:28:22 GMT -5
This is only on topic in the most tangential of fashions, but wasn't the third episode of TOS originally intended to be the first episode? It certainly works better as a pilot than "Weird Salt Monster Murdering Everyone", or whatever the actual pilot was called. So in a manner of speaking, the third episode kinda being a second pilot kinda maybe sorta I guess could maybe be a nod to TOS? And also "the third episode is a second pilot" sounds a lot more appealing than "the third episode is 'Code of Honor'", which I'm pretty sure was the third episode of TNG. Encounter at Farpoint Everyone is drunk and Data has a fully functioning penis for some reason Code of Honor The first Ferengi episode TNG would never have lasted even one season these days. |
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Post by Generic Poster on Sept 25, 2017 8:53:02 GMT -5
I disliked the first hour intensely, but that seems to be a minority view. The way it was shot was shockingly ugly, and it didn't "feel" like Star Trek at all.
It may improve, but there's no way in hell I'm paying $10 a month to watch it as it airs. If they actually leave all of the episodes up, I'll shell out for a month and binge it when it's done.
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Post by haysoos on Sept 25, 2017 9:03:36 GMT -5
If they hadn't called this Star Trek, it likely would have been my favourite new sci-fi shows in decades. But the Orville is about 1000x more Trek than this dark, over-the-top oddity. If you're not going to set it in the existing Trek universe, why bother calling it Star Trek?
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Sept 25, 2017 9:16:01 GMT -5
It's too intensely gritty and keeps a lot of the visual quirks that folk really hated about Abrams' vision of it. That it's once again a series set in pre-TOS era Starfleet but in the Kelvin timeline this time doesn't help me feel like it's not going to be another Enterprise. It's needs way more levity and The Orville seems to adhere much more solidly to the Trek template than this, just wish it wasn't billed as a comedy or felt so cheap.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2017 12:22:29 GMT -5
So it is more Into Darkness than it is Beyond?
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Sept 25, 2017 12:59:52 GMT -5
So it is more Into Darkness than it is Beyond? Right now? It's the first scene in the 2009 film. |
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Post by gillianandersoncpr on Sept 25, 2017 13:52:24 GMT -5
So it is more Into Darkness than it is Beyond? Right now? It's the first scene in the 2009 film. Hmm--I think that's a great scene, but I guess that it doesn't tell us much about the possible Trekiness of the show. |
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Post by Generic Poster on Sept 25, 2017 14:05:40 GMT -5
One thing I will give the Abrams-verse credit for - I think they did a good job of translating the TOS look of the Enterprise and the uniforms through a "the original look updated to today" lens.
Discovery looked nothing like Trek.
I did kind of like Cowardly 2nd Officer. Is he going to be on it going forward?
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Post by Ben Grimm on Sept 25, 2017 20:10:24 GMT -5
We watched the first episode tonight. It doesn't feel like this was the story to bring Star Trek back on. It feels like it should be the "other" show. If Fuller was still actively involved, I'd feel better about it, but I don't have any confidence in Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman to pull this off.
I think inertia is going to keep me from signing up for All Access for the time being. If word gets really good, I might think about changing my mind. But my instinct right now is "buy the season after it finishes."
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 25, 2017 20:50:02 GMT -5
We watched the first episode tonight. It doesn't feel like this was the story to bring Star Trek back on. It feels like it should be the "other" show. If Fuller was still actively involved, I'd feel better about it, but I don't have any confidence in Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman to pull this off. How much creative input did Fuller have on Discovery, ultimately? Because wasn't basically the one thing that everyone agreed on about Hannibal was that everyone's cannibal suits looked really good? Sort of like the opposite of the bland bland uniforms on Discovery? |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Sept 26, 2017 1:05:40 GMT -5
It's too intensely gritty and keeps a lot of the visual quirks that folk really hated about Abrams' vision of it. That it's once again a series set in pre-TOS era Starfleet but in the Kelvin timeline this time doesn't help me feel like it's not going to be another Enterprise. It is not in the Kelvin timeline. This is in the prime timeline. |
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Sept 26, 2017 1:25:57 GMT -5
It's too intensely gritty and keeps a lot of the visual quirks that folk really hated about Abrams' vision of it. That it's once again a series set in pre-TOS era Starfleet but in the Kelvin timeline this time doesn't help me feel like it's not going to be another Enterprise. It is not in the Kelvin timeline. This is in the prime timeline. Huh, everything I read placed it in the Kelvin timeline, not Prime... odd. I'll find out more because if this is supposed to be the Prime timeline then it's way wrong. |
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Sept 26, 2017 5:55:28 GMT -5
It's the prime timeline. It really comes down to CBS and Paramount not working together and operating the TV and film ends of the franchise independently, a bit like how the X-Men films and TV shows are distinct from films and TV shows set in most other Marvel properties - or how Disney Marvel films aggressively ignore the ABC-produced Marvel TV shows. How much creative input did Fuller have on Discovery, ultimately? Because wasn't basically the one thing that everyone agreed on about Hannibal was that everyone's cannibal suits looked really good? Sort of like the opposite of the bland bland uniforms on Discovery? We know those aren't the uniforms he wanted to do - he wanted a variant on the uniforms seen in the original series. The showrunners of the series anyway aren't Alex Kurtzmann or Akiva Goldsman, but Aaron Herberts and Gretchen Berg, who were brought onto the project by Fuller and with him he worked with before (Herberts was on the after show.) |
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Post by Generic Poster on Sept 26, 2017 9:30:15 GMT -5
It is not in the Kelvin timeline. This is in the prime timeline. Huh, everything I read placed it in the Kelvin timeline, not Prime... odd. I'll find out more because if this is supposed to be the Prime timeline then it's way wrong. Everything you see in the show also places it in the Kelvin timeline. But, for some reason, they insist it is in the prime timeline. |
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Sept 26, 2017 10:35:36 GMT -5
Huh, everything I read placed it in the Kelvin timeline, not Prime... odd. I'll find out more because if this is supposed to be the Prime timeline then it's way wrong. Everything you see in the show also places it in the Kelvin timeline. But, for some reason, they insist it is in the prime timeline. That's what's getting me, it's so stylistically divorced from Prime and has way too much in common with Kelvin for them to be going "oh it's totally Prime timeline". If you place it in Kelvin, you get a good amount of kickaround space to build new lore but if it's someplace between ENT and TOS (and therefore in the Prime timeline) then it's probably some Mirror Universe nonsense. |
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Post by Generic Poster on Sept 26, 2017 10:47:46 GMT -5
Everything you see in the show also places it in the Kelvin timeline. But, for some reason, they insist it is in the prime timeline. That's what's getting me, it's so stylistically divorced from Prime and has way too much in common with Kelvin for them to be going "oh it's totally Prime timeline". If you place it in Kelvin, you get a good amount of kickaround space to build new lore but if it's someplace between ENT and TOS (and therefore in the Prime timeline) then it's probably some Mirror Universe nonsense. The Kelvin timeline seemed to affect stuff from before the Kelvin incident somehow. For example, the deletion of Kirk's older brother. |
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Sept 26, 2017 16:26:20 GMT -5
So it is more Into Darkness than it is Beyond? Right now? It's the first scene in the 2009 film. This really is the best descriptor—expendable ship with captain who you could easily see heading a more traditional Trek iteration (which is, frankly, what a lot of us might really like to see again after all these years), with the death/destruction depicted a bit more explicitly than in past iterations. That said, in the little mini-preview they had for the rest of the reason got me kind of pumped—we’re basically getting Ensign Ro, the series, with a prologue showing the incident on the Wellington Shenzhou that caused her all the trouble. I’m honestly surprised that I am much more positive on the show than a lot of other people out there online—it’s amazing how the conversation has shifted from “I want Trek, but in a Game of Thrones style” to “Ugh this is awful, please hook some season five TNG filler episodes into my veins.” Not that I don’t have my own reservations about stuff, of course: I think it’s a shame they apparently didn’t try for a look that tried to square “The Cage”-era flying around in a tin can with a somewhat updated look to tech—right now the aesthetic’s fine, but gives a definite a ca.-2400 vibe to be (that said I might be one of the few people who likes the uniforms, which are actually, well, uniform, and the weird asymmetrical collar thing actually looks good to me). Actually all the sets seemed really huge/spacious/luxurious—honestly the lower budgets of the previous series, meaning reuse of molds and sets, made the ships feel a bit more realistic as ships, I think. And damn I wish they’d quit it with the windshields. It’s not a big deal for most people, I think, but the series could really use some Sternbach/Okudas-level nerdery behind the scenes. I think you can have a somewhat more elevated/gritty series without over-the-top emotionalism, like the whole nerve pinch your captain/draw a phaser on your your first officer cliffhanger, and I do worry a bit that they won’t be able to find that balance between characters acting as adults and actual drama—perhaps an overreaction to Trek’s reputation? But we’ll see how it goes, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised so far, and some of my issues with the performances (esp. Sarek) were resolved in the second half. Overall looking forward to it, and it was worth the fairly minor wrangle to see the second half. |
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Post by liebkartoffel on Sept 27, 2017 1:39:38 GMT -5
I don't really get the complaints that Discovery doesn't "look" like Star Trek. What do people want, exactly? More beige? Maybe it's because I never much appreciated TNG's early 90s office park aesthetic, but I'm fine with Discovery having its own look, and it's kind of pointless to expect a show produced in 2017 to look like one produced in the early nineties (or mid sixties). Yes, Discovery is darker than TNG, but so was DS9 (both literally and figuratively), and that was the best Trek series. (And if you really want to complain about a dark bridge, look no further than First Contact. Maybe Picard was so cranky in that one because he could barely see his hand in front of his face). I'm also fine with the Discovery uniforms, though I miss the more overt color coding, and it's all but impossible to figure out someone's rank on sight--I think there were pips on the badges? hard to tell--which would be quite pointless in a militar--excuse me, "exploratory“ organization.
My biggest design issue thus far is the revamped Klingons, who just look too...different. I had no issue mentally adding in some forehead bumps to the TOS Klingons--and yes, I know there's some sort of genetic plague retcon examining their smooth-headedness; I just think it's dumb--but these guys look like a whole different species. Am I now supposed to imagine, say, Worf with no hair and yellow eyes? My headcanon is that there's simply more variation to Klingon appearances than we had hitherto seen...and maybe it was fashionable at the time to shave all of their head and facial hair? Still, it stretches credulity, and that's an aspect where I understand the "not Trek-enough looking" complaints.
I found the actual narrative meat of the show quite Trek-feeling, actually. More drama and action than your typical TNG hour-long episode, but it still touched upon some of the core philosophical issues--is the "diplomatic" approach always necessarily the morally superior approach? is it worth it to betray your superior officer if it might mean saving her and others' lives?--that Trek has tussled with for years. (It's certainly a hell of a lot smarter than, say, the Orville, which still reads like enthusiastic but tedious fanfic--what if there were these aliens but they were all, like, dudes? What if there was a people zoo?) Looking forward to the series proper and the actual introduction of the ship and Jason Isaacs. Praying that Jason Isaacs's accent isn't terrible.
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Sept 27, 2017 1:49:26 GMT -5
I'm not really thinking it should be TNG-like at all, I just think the grittiness is overdone and it feels like a different timeline all over again. The Klingons are much too different and dammit, I liked technobabble!
I'm reserving judgment but explodey war stuff is expected for films, not the series.
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Sept 27, 2017 2:14:17 GMT -5
I’m honestly surprised that I am much more positive on the show than a lot of other people out there online—it’s amazing how the conversation has shifted from “I want Trek, but in a Game of Thrones style” to “Ugh this is awful, please hook some season five TNG filler episodes into my veins.” In many ways, Discovery is exactly the kind of show people argued Star Trek should have back circa 2000 - heavily arced (arcing was hugely in vogue at this point, with the popularity of Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5), a dark, serious tone, characters in conflict, major characters dying, consequences that will carry over from episode to episode and not just be wrapped up at the end. The taste for this sort of idea was prevalent just a few years ago, with the likes of Matt Yglesias saying what Star Trek needs is a thirteen-hour episode cable drama show for adults. But I guess what happened is what was once cool and rarely implemented effectively - a serialised, arc structure - became routine; 'heavily arced' moved from a series that mixed episodic and arc stories to a show that might be so arced episodes run out of steam because they don't really have enough plot for each one of them, and the kind of episodic TV Star Trek did so well had relatively few examples in the current day. People online keep bringing up the Orville in this context, but the recently cancelled Dark Matter was a space show that did a wide variety of Standard SF Plots in its run, like a Groundhog Day episode: The Orville interests me in its attempt to recreate the style of 90s television, down to putting episode titles on the screen and bringing back the fade to commercial, but while this kind of deliberate indulgence in nostalgia may be entertaining for me and other Trekkies of a certain generation but it is not what I think the next Star Trek series should be like. There are things I wish Discovery was that it isn't - say, set in the future from TNG, not its past - but its attempt to situate the Star Trek brand within the logic of modern television, while pushing that brand in some ways I want to see it pushed (Sonequa Martin-Green is a great lead, and really the sort of lead we should have had post-Voyager) so I am optimistic about the show's future direction. Also the Orville's intro is clearly that of SeaQuest DSV. Tell me I'm wrong. My biggest design issue thus far is the revamped Klingons, who just look too...different. I had no issue mentally adding in some forehead bumps to the TOS Klingons--and yes, I know there's some sort of genetic plague retcon examining their smooth-headedness; I just think it's dumb--but these guys look like a whole different species. I believe this is the explanation Discovery itself is going for - there's a lot of diversity within the Klingon species, both culturally and visually, or so I hear. |
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Sept 27, 2017 2:35:12 GMT -5
Also JAMMER is back. A guy who reviewed Deep Space Nine and Voyager when they were on the air has dusted off his old Star Trek website to review Discovery. |
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Post by Ben Grimm on Sept 27, 2017 8:13:25 GMT -5
Has anyone heard anything on All Access's numbers? I know companies like to keep that kind of thing secret but if they're not crowing about it I suspect it's not doing great.
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Post by liebkartoffel on Sept 27, 2017 9:21:19 GMT -5
I'm not really thinking it should be TNG-like at all, I just think the grittiness is overdone and it feels like a different timeline all over again. The Klingons are much too different and dammit, I liked technobabble! I'm reserving judgment but explodey war stuff is expected for films, not the series. I think it's valid to say that the grittiness is overdone, but not necessarily valid to say that it thus doesn't "look" like a proper Star Trek, which has always been of its time. I think if DS9 had been made with modern production values it would look a lot like DSC. I did laugh at the court martial scene where nine tenths of the set, as well as the judges, were shrouded in shadow, which seemed like a very un-Federation way of going about things--though maybe that was a reflection of Burnham's mental state. And I do hope there will be more technobabble and less explodey war stuff going forward. |
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Post by liebkartoffel on Sept 27, 2017 9:33:12 GMT -5
My biggest design issue thus far is the revamped Klingons, who just look too...different. I had no issue mentally adding in some forehead bumps to the TOS Klingons--and yes, I know there's some sort of genetic plague retcon examining their smooth-headedness; I just think it's dumb--but these guys look like a whole different species. I believe this is the explanation Discovery itself is going for - there's a lot of diversity within the Klingon species, both culturally and visually, or so I hear. Yeah, there definitely seemed to be a lot of diversity when T'Kuvma summoned the heads of the 24 families--I just wish they had stuck a Worfy-looking guy there in the background in order to drive the point home. |
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Post by Lt. Broccoli on Sept 27, 2017 10:36:00 GMT -5
Finally watched it - I thought it was like, I don't really know how to describe it, but...some other kind of space show with Star Trek beeps and bloops occasionally.
Now that I'm reading the comments here, I'm also confused about which timeline it's supposed to be.
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