(TV) Star Trek: Discovery

[segara82]

So far the trailer is not wowing me, it seems a bit too dark for Star Trek. MAybe they want to emphasise the dark times ahead of them, but Jesus tittyfucking Christ put some more colors into it.
To have a struggling ship and crew it needs to be put in a rather tough spot, explorers when there are things left to explore (TOS, TNG, VOY), or when the Federation is not one of the mightiest powerhouses in existance (DS9).
So setting the show after the Dom Wars is going to be tough without the usual power creep with just another gigantic empire of different species like another Dominion. Let's not talk about the implosion that was the Borg menace.

Why not go back to the times when the Federation was just a hatchling and just about everything in the Alpha Quadrant was more or less terra incognito, with rumores and sightings of monsters (eg Klingons)? Makes sense to me, gives them the chance to fill out some gaps we had so far in the canon (cannons are used to fire at someone).
It offers mystery, exploration and action/war without the powercreep.
As for the characters: As long as they fit into their spots both by personality and capability i don't give a damn about their skin color, gender, religion or eating habits. If they however get preachy about any 1 of those things .... there's the airlock, out you go.
Quick example: Jeffrey Sinclair and John Sheridan may have commanded B5, but no one ever questioned Cmdr. Ivanova unless he wanted to breath space. She never preached about her gender or religion (although she gets a whole episode to sit shivat), made at best quibs about russian stereotypes, and otherwise did an outstanding job of keeping B5 running. She was defined by her actions and attitude, the rest was part of her but did not make or define her.

Oh, and if they trek through the Alpha Quadrant ... please do some noticeable pit stops, carry over scars and damages from previous episodes (not just as a plot hook to go looking for a new better do-hicky), and story lines that go over several episodes if not a whole season. TOS and TNG episodes you can watch in nearly whatever line-up you want, their episodes are so interchangably it sucks FOR ME quite a lot of fun out of it. I so much more prefer DS9 with a running story.

[SavoirFaire]

So my guess, and certainly from not a person that's big on canon or recalls a lot of TOS well, is that these are the ridgeless Klingons, exiled for some reason, and Discovery stirs them back up and they will be the series Borg or Dominion as they impact the Klingon empire, sort of closing the loop on all of that and linking back to TOS Klingons.

I'm not sure if this is the JJverse, but as I recall didn't Nero go back a long time, more than 10 years before kirk and spock's time, unless this is putting us into "what did Nero really do" territory, where things he messed up are actually the big reveal. I hope not as I'm not a big fan of prequels and making one's way to a known conclusion, I prefer blazing the trail where the audience doesn't know how things end up, except perhaps in the vaguest sense (i.e. federation survives).

However, I too want to see more than the same old races we're used to. All the stuff ENT did with the Andorians I thought was great, ditto for the Cardassians and Bajorans (and even the Ferrengi) in DS9. The borg in voyager.... meh, and otherwise they didn't spend as much time as I would have liked on many races they encountered. I'd love to see more emphasis put on the non-humanoid/non-mammal races like the Gorn, or even give us a fleshed out insectoid race. Problem is that CGI costs $$$, and I don't have the faith that CBS will dump a lot into the budget.

[Independent voter]

The writing staff seems okay, one writer worked on Hannibal the TV series, another worked on the movie Star Trek 4 the voyage home which a lot of people liked. The only woman writer wrote a couple ST novels.

It might work out.

[Hammerfest]

Wasn't Nicholas Meyer involved in this series at one point?

[Independent voter]

Wasn't Nicholas Meyer involved in this series at one point?

I thought he was. Someone in this thread is sure to know for sure.

[Rhlor]

So my guess, and certainly from not a person that's big on canon or recalls a lot of TOS well, is that these are the ridgeless Klingons, exiled for some reason, and Discovery stirs them back up and they will be the series Borg or Dominion as they impact the Klingon empire, sort of closing the loop on all of that and linking back to TOS Klingons.

I'm not sure if this is the JJverse, but as I recall didn't Nero go back a long time, more than 10 years before kirk and spock's time, unless this is putting us into "what did Nero really do" territory, where things he messed up are actually the big reveal. I hope not as I'm not a big fan of prequels and making one's way to a known conclusion, I prefer blazing the trail where the audience doesn't know how things end up, except perhaps in the vaguest sense (i.e. federation survives).

However, I too want to see more than the same old races we're used to. All the stuff ENT did with the Andorians I thought was great, ditto for the Cardassians and Bajorans (and even the Ferrengi) in DS9. The borg in voyager.... meh, and otherwise they didn't spend as much time as I would have liked on many races they encountered. I'd love to see more emphasis put on the non-humanoid/non-mammal races like the Gorn, or even give us a fleshed out insectoid race. Problem is that CGI costs $$$, and I don't have the faith that CBS will dump a lot into the budget.

I would like Captain Lorca of the discovery to be an Andorian

[Kithelle]

Why do reboots always have to ruin what we loved and cherished?

Some big wigs thinks they can do better or they think it should be what *they* like and not what it was...so they butcher it and we get something like this.

A show that pisses all over canon and is basically rewriting history...

[I Push Buttons]

They put out another trailer.

Just as unpopular as the last one.



Really sad, when this flops they will probably kill the franchise for another decade or two.

[Mormolyce]

I get the practical concerns, but having an established reason for similarities changing them up is lame, IMO.

Said reason was mostly a joke though.

Trekkies of course take every joke very seriously.

[Frontenac]

Religion has lost its importance, so people will now look for absolutes where they shouldn't.

It's fiction. It's story telling, not history...

[cyberglum]

As a fan of the franchise I think the trailer looks good.

I sense this series is going to go the same way the Wonder Woman film; everyone slags it off then realize, upon watching it, its actually quite good.

[Hammerfest]

This show looks like a parody of Star Trek rather than the genuine article. Not enough of it looks familiar. When the trailer for The Force Awakens came out, what got people jazzed was seeing the Millenium Falcon, TIE fighters and X-Wings (in other words, familiar elements). None of this looks familiar.

This just isn't what I want.

[matt4pack]

This show looks like a parody of Star Trek rather than the genuine article. Not enough of it looks familiar. When the trailer for The Force Awakens came out, what got people jazzed was seeing the Millenium Falcon, TIE fighters and X-Wings (in other words, familiar elements). None of this looks familiar.

This just isn't what I want.

Funny you say that when TNG was very different from TOS and DS9 was very different then TNG. So what you're saying is all you really want is nostalgia.

[Hammerfest]

Funny you say that when TNG was very different from TOS and DS9 was very different then TNG. So what you're saying is all you really want is nostalgia.

The pilot episode of TNG had familiar elements in it. We saw an Excelsior class ship, for example. We got music from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. We got a Dr. McCoy cameo. We had a Klingon on the bridge in established make-up. We had all kinds of sensory tie-ins to the world that had been established prior to the show's first episode. We get little-to-none of that with the trailers in Discovery. I want to see new ships alongside familiar ones. I want a show that builds off of the other shows the way every other post-TOS show did. I'm just not getting that here.

[Gorgodeus]

The pilot episode of TNG had familiar elements in it. We saw an Excelsior class ship, for example. We got music from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. We got a Dr. McCoy cameo. We had a Klingon on the bridge in established make-up. We had all kinds of sensory tie-ins with the world that had been established prior to the show's first episode. We get little-to-none of that with the trailers in Discovery. I want to see new ships alongside familiar ones. I want a show that builds off of the other shows the way every other post-TOS show did. I'm just not getting that here.

Discovery's timeline is 5 years before TOS, so it would be kinda hard to see familiar ships unless they were from "Enterprise". There is not much of an established base to draw from. All the other shows have occurred later in the timeline, giving them more material to draw from.

[Hammerfest]

Discovery's timeline is 5 years before TOS, so it would be kinda hard to see familiar ships unless they were from "Enterprise". There is not much of an established base to draw from. All the other shows have occurred later in the timeline, giving them more material to draw from.

Except Constitution class ships, uniforms, props etc... it's not like 5 years is very long.

[draynay]

Enterprise itself was commissioned 20 years before TOS.

[Zuben]

Looks pretty good to me. I'll take new klingons over silly-hair klingons any day.

[Gorgodeus]

Except Constitution class ships, uniforms, props etc... it's not like 5 years is very long.

The Constitution class ships were first launched in the 2240's. The Enterprise was launched in 2245. So even the first ones would most likely still be under construction.

Edit: Discovery is actually set 10 years before Kirk set out on his five year mission, which was from 2265-2270. So this means Discovery begins in 2255. So there would have been a few Constitution class ships running around, but they would not have been a very common sight. Even as late as 2267, there were only ~12 in service.

[Biomega]

Not sure what to think, honestly.

Star Trek has been one of THE defining forces in my life for decades, and I was really looking forward to seeing a new chapter in the saga - but at the same time, I realized instantly upon hearing that it was yet again set in the 'classic' era that it would probably not be what I wanted.

It boggles the mind why they focus on the Kirk-style time periods so much. Either it's because all the people in charge are so old they grew up with TOS instead of TNG, or they just think that the 24th century societies and personalities are too enlightened to provide enough drama. It was definitely one of the more popular criticisms leveraged at TNG/DS9 which were almost Shakespearean in their poise and diction; and also criticized for VOY, where they tried to bring things down to earth with rather cringy results. They want Star Trek to be a Space Western, it seems. Big boom boom bang yeeehaaaw Kirk diplomacy. That, however, is not what many, many, MANY fans of the universe actually like about it. In fact, it's so popular with "geek" type audiences precisely because it is NOT that. I suppose those audiences are a minority, though, and unless there's explosions and motorcycles and impossibly hot green women every 2 seconds, they lose a huge chunk of their viewership - or at least fear that they will.

This new trailer speaks to that more than ever. The new Klingon design makes it clear that they're drawing on the new movies more than the modern TV versions, and the very un-ST-like ship designs etc. also speak to a very strong motivation to modernize what is without a doubt an iconic aesthetic. Star Wars recognized that, for example, and kept things consistent despite the obvious ability to make everything look way more high-tech if they wanted.

I expect ST to be middling in both reviews and viewership. Trying to please a wider demographic with things that aren't the core of what ST is about will blow up in their face, and as people have already said, will damage the franchise for decades to come.