this was fun but fuck CBS for making me watch a thousand NAVY SEALS promos and then asking for money to keep watching
― El Tomboto, Monday, 25 September 2017 02:15 (six years ago) link
points for having the main plot thread be about a black woman trying to tell everybody "no really, they're going to kill all of us" and being shouted down
― El Tomboto, Monday, 25 September 2017 02:17 (six years ago) link
cbs has consistently been tightassed with digital access to its programming since the tv-web boom, it's annoying
― j., Monday, 25 September 2017 03:20 (six years ago) link
Enjoying this!
First question: how can I get one of those dope uniforms
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 25 September 2017 04:42 (six years ago) link
We signed up for free trial - canceled after 2nd ep & got a month free so 4 more episodes
But seriously $6 for 1 original show and commercials is a joke. $10 if you want commercial free? Eat a dick
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 25 September 2017 05:20 (six years ago) link
A few minutes in, it looks right at least. The ship and cinematography look like a Star Trek show (vs. the new movies).
― louise ck (milo z), Monday, 25 September 2017 05:43 (six years ago) link
New Klingons - ehhhhhhhh. The makeup is so heavy their faces barely move.
― louise ck (milo z), Monday, 25 September 2017 06:02 (six years ago) link
Huh.
― louise ck (milo z), Monday, 25 September 2017 06:59 (six years ago) link
The theme manages to have twelve different sections, goes a bit Mahler for some reason, not very catchy
Although I speak as someone who liked Faith of the Heart so ignore me
― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 25 September 2017 07:44 (six years ago) link
Only seen the first hour - I feel like I can semi-credibly guess which ideas/dialogue came from Fuller and what came from Kurtzman/Goldsman. Not bad but the character-backstory shit is hacky and painful.
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Monday, 25 September 2017 14:13 (six years ago) link
Thought it was ok. Will keep watching. But yeah, the theme tune is a mess
― groovypanda, Monday, 25 September 2017 14:17 (six years ago) link
I liked the show!
At the beginning I was thinking "hmm, is this Star Trek enough?"
But, thinking back, the best shows start out with their own scope and integrate. Enterprise was slavishly devoted to tying into continuity while not fleshing out much history. More than anything I got the impression that someone (Fuller? looked like he was the writer w/Ortzman) had an understanding of what TNG and DS9 did well.
The previews make it look like it's going to be scientific discovery (hah!) in a time of war. Which is a clearer mission statement than we've gotten recently.
― mh, Monday, 25 September 2017 14:20 (six years ago) link
Yeah did enjoy that and thought there was going to be more, but I guess CBS is running it as a weekly show and selling it on elsewhere.
― Stevolende, Monday, 25 September 2017 14:30 (six years ago) link
Gotta free up airtime for those Chuck Lorre productions and NCIS: Anchorage.
― Gewgaws for Meemaw (Old Lunch), Monday, 25 September 2017 14:38 (six years ago) link
I know it's a Toronto production, so I hate to say this but most of the sets looked pretty lacklustre. Felt like they were adding the occasional lens flares out of sheer desperation to spice it up. And yeahhh, the guys playing Klingons can't even act in all that get up. Hopefully they will sort it out as it goes along.
― Manitobiloba (Kim), Monday, 25 September 2017 15:35 (six years ago) link
I'm guessing the backgrounds in the Klingon ship were put there in post-production, because they were pretty ornate?
― mh, Monday, 25 September 2017 15:44 (six years ago) link
I thought the story was engaging & the character development pretty solid for a 2-ep premiere. I am so used to expecting exposition dumps for new shows but this played out like a mini movie, it was kinda thrilling tbh
I think the Michael character has been set up with good layers & i’m really interested to follow her journey now
Doug Jones was great & I loved Michelle Yeoh
Klingon makeup looks more like the movie Romulans but dont they always seem to screw around with their look iirc?
Mr Veg had some gripes about how it doesn’t look like it’s taking place before the original series but i wasnt too bothered by that myself
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 25 September 2017 16:41 (six years ago) link
I was wondering if teh original Klingons were supposed to look like evil humans intentionally. Seem to be a bit Hispanic pirate update in the tv series or something don't they? Is that why they were made to look less human.
― Stevolende, Monday, 25 September 2017 16:45 (six years ago) link
Latest look has shades of Tudor era doublet and hose and tunic look don't it?
― Stevolende, Monday, 25 September 2017 16:46 (six years ago) link
klingons lose a bit of menace when they sound like they're trying to talk through a retainer.https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/1/1f/Shelley.pngtoday ish a good day to die, you turdsh!
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 25 September 2017 16:56 (six years ago) link
lol
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 25 September 2017 16:59 (six years ago) link
should I watch this or is it going to be totally cancelled within a year
― akm, Monday, 25 September 2017 17:22 (six years ago) link
(I hated enterprise and found most of voyager boring as fuck)
it won't get "cancelled"... i'm sure first season's in the can also, if they're really using this as a push for CBS All Access (I wonder how The Good Fight did) they'll probably keep it alive for that alone, regardless of ratings or quality. i mean look at Netflix's insane stable of shows, who knows how well any of these do or how much they cost to keep going with the verticality of it all
― Nhex, Monday, 25 September 2017 17:27 (six years ago) link
i can't even imagine picking up another subscription tv service, not for this. piracy it is.
― akm, Monday, 25 September 2017 17:43 (six years ago) link
The first hour was a disaster. tons of pilot-speak where characters explain things that should be obvious in their world. tons of phrases that they put in because they sounded cool despite not making sense -- how is a species both "prey" and "bred to sense death"? the michael actress ruins a bunch of her lines. i found michelle yeoh's accent distracting, but the rest of her performance was solid. filler with an optical scrambler that lets them do the "go back to old technology" bit, which has been done frequently in Star Trek but still sucks. crap CG during the space walk.
second hour does the "balance of terror" / enemy below thing. not the best use of it but it still works. lots of forced parallels that are more coincidental than meaningful. i was pleasantly surprised by the ending.
oh and i was distracted by trying to figure out where in the ST timelines this happens -- young Sarek + Klingons gone for a century = shortly before TOS, timeline still not split. i suppose ST fans will just look it up online.
― Einstein, Kazanga, Sitar (abanana), Monday, 25 September 2017 18:42 (six years ago) link
Continuity-wise, Shran from Enterprise will be happy to see they've named a ship after him... it's certainly BEEN A LONG ROAAAAAAAAAAD
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 25 September 2017 18:59 (six years ago) link
I thought this took place before Enterprise?
― akm, Monday, 25 September 2017 19:28 (six years ago) link
100 years after Enterprise, or thereabouts. About a decade before the original series.
― mh, Monday, 25 September 2017 19:32 (six years ago) link
Just read it said that it was supposed to be about 10 years before the Shatner series. But that might be open to debate.
― Stevolende, Monday, 25 September 2017 19:34 (six years ago) link
They might run into, or at least hear about, the Enterprise commanded by Christopher Pike
― mh, Monday, 25 September 2017 19:40 (six years ago) link
oh I'm sure they will at some point if not this year then next year when the ratings start to flag. expect a time travel episode with someone from TNG at some point too to revive interest.
― akm, Monday, 25 September 2017 19:45 (six years ago) link
they've already got Sarek, what else do they need?
― mh, Monday, 25 September 2017 19:47 (six years ago) link
Khan's older stoner brother Chad.
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 25 September 2017 19:51 (six years ago) link
CHAAAAAAAAAD
― mh, Monday, 25 September 2017 19:53 (six years ago) link
― Οὖτις, Monday, 25 September 2017 19:57 (six years ago) link
I liked this quite a bit and I think it's about as good as a Star Trek show could be in 2017. It's not what I would consider ideal, but it's what works now. Hopefully, they can keep it up.
― Spencer Chow, Monday, 25 September 2017 22:37 (six years ago) link
the internet informs me that giving strong female characters traditionally male names is a 'trademark' of fuller or one of the other three dozen executive producers
i don't really gi
― mookieproof, Monday, 25 September 2017 23:01 (six years ago) link
i’ve met several women named michael, just kind of figured they decided in the future “michelle” is just how french people pronounce the name
― mh, Tuesday, 26 September 2017 00:16 (six years ago) link
and let’s not forget queen of all michaels, michael hyatt aka mama barksdale
http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/558867506da8111716adf0f6-840-688/screen%20shot%202015-06-22%20at%203.51.04%20pm.png
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 26 September 2017 00:56 (six years ago) link
whoa, Michelle Yeoh
however i will probly never watch
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 26 September 2017 01:05 (six years ago) link
who plays Sarek?
james frain
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 26 September 2017 01:25 (six years ago) link
which is weird bc he’s the “bad guy” in like, everything. so seeing him play sarek is some cognitive dissonance like “ok well i ~guess~ he’s cool bc he’s sarek ...but it’s james frain so he might be plotting the downfall of the entire starfleet!”
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 26 September 2017 01:27 (six years ago) link
we don’t have a lot of cool-mannered, calculating figures who look like that who normally play protagonists
― mh, Tuesday, 26 September 2017 02:30 (six years ago) link
serious sheldon cooper vibes from lieutenant saru (whose name is maybe a nod to joe meek's i hear a new world?)
― reggie (qualmsley), Tuesday, 26 September 2017 03:06 (six years ago) link
ha, i was thinking the same thing about saru
this was fine, i guess? the floaty-camera dutch-angle shots were getting pretty tiresome by the end of the second episode but, having said that, i did enjoy how much more they made of the freedom of movement available in space than previous star trek shows - ships not always lining up in neat horizontal angles and the off-centredness of the accretion rings was cool
i also liked how the lighting helped the spaces inside the ship feel more like they were actually in space - instead of the flat, institutional lighting of tng or voyager the sets and characters were sometimes lit by sources outside the ship's windows, and it looked great
kind of a bummer that michelle yeoh isn't going to stick around but since she was listed as a guest star in the opening credits it was immediately obvious that she'd end up getting killed :(
― Mr. Eulon Mask, urging the UN to ban the "homicide robot" (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 26 September 2017 09:47 (six years ago) link
i also liked how the lighting helped the spaces inside the ship feel more like they were actually in space
It's one of the weird/interesting things about Trek that it never feels like a space show in *actual* space - it's just set in spaceships. There's no dogfights, space walks, gravity losses, all those cliches - every time you see a Trek character in a space suit, it feels like the rules are being breached. Even the space battles feel like turn-based RPGs rather than action sequences. (I'm sure there are exceptions - "The Doomsday Machine" springs to mind.)
My partner was like "The whole point of spaceships is to *avoid* being in space - sailors don't keep jumping in the sea to get things done."
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 26 September 2017 11:19 (six years ago) link
"kind of a bummer that michelle yeoh isn't going to stick around" well fuck, that was actually the main reason I was even going to bother watching it.
― akm, Tuesday, 26 September 2017 12:29 (six years ago) link
i think she'll be showing up in flashbacks in future episodes fwiw
― Mr. Eulon Mask, urging the UN to ban the "homicide robot" (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 26 September 2017 12:37 (six years ago) link
i actually involuntarily groaned aloud in the finale when the doctor said 'i needed to be here with my family'
― mookieproof, Saturday, 19 March 2022 21:53 (two years ago) link
I had to really think back to even remember there'd been some good plotlines! The whole mirror universe arc/Bad Isaacs, even part of the earlier Ash/Burnham story (after the klingon bit mostly fucked off). The spore drive discovery, chasing the red stars... ok so everythign til they jumped 900 years effectively.
Bring on the Pike and Kirk show, please.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Saturday, 19 March 2022 21:59 (two years ago) link
Remember when there's a huge battle going on and thousands of people are dying and Burnham and Spock take a time out to chat about their feelings instead of getting on with it?
― papal hotwife (milo z), Saturday, 19 March 2022 22:01 (two years ago) link
This show did that a LOT and it was very baffling.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, 21 March 2022 22:02 (two years ago) link
it's not as pithy, but "jump cut to the ready room where everything is soft focus and ferns and water features, and Michael and Saru gently touch each other's upper forearms and express their appreciation for togetherness at this difficult time" ranks beside "make it saab" in the canon of unforgettable ST summaries. It's taking me forever to get through this damn series.
― stet, Friday, 9 September 2022 14:20 (one year ago) link