Online Series: Star Trek: Discovery - Topic II

[Blender]

Welp, that twitter thread got me all excited.

Damn it.

Also, it's running on Space in Canada for free. So at least being in Canada has one advantage.

Yup, and even if you have no cable at all it's running on CraveTV, which at least has content besides CBS.

 

[johnjm22]

Episode Titles:

Episode 1 -- "The Vulcan Hello"
Episode 2 -- "Battle at the Binary Stars"
Episode 3 -- "Context Is for Kings"
Episode 4 -- "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry"

 

[johnjm22]

This explains the why the Klingons look different:

On Thursday, TrekCore excerpted an interview with Discovery writer Ted Sullivan from the magazine SFX... In it, Sullivan explains what the new Klingon Sarcophagus ship is all about. “It’s a 200-year-old ship. This is a group of Klingons who’ve gone back to a puritan way of life. They look very different: they wear armor that’s 200 years old and they don’t have any hair,†Sullivan said.†Their commander runs his Klingon house – the house of T’Kuvma – by the rules of Kahless, the Klingon messiah. And he calls himself the second coming of the Klingon messiah.†Sullivan also claimed that this specific Klingon house was one never before seen in any version of Star Teerek.

https://www.inverse.com/article/36441-star-trek-discovery-klingons-canon-tng-t-kuvma-kahless

 

[Blender]

Episode Titles:

Episode 1 -- "The Vulcan Hello"
Episode 2 -- "Battle at the Binary Stars"
Episode 3 -- "Context Is for Kings"
Episode 4 -- "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry"

These are very Game of Thrones like titles.

 

[Blender]

This explains the why the Klingons look different:

https://www.inverse.com/article/36441-star-trek-discovery-klingons-canon-tng-t-kuvma-kahless

I still don't think their makeup looks close enough to the typical klingons, but this is a relief for sure that they are dressing and acting different for an in universe reason and not just a change for the sake of doing so.

 

[NyQuil]

This explains the why the Klingons look different:

https://www.inverse.com/article/36441-star-trek-discovery-klingons-canon-tng-t-kuvma-kahless

On Thursday, TrekCore excerpted an interview with Discovery writer Ted Sullivan from the magazine SFX... In it, Sullivan explains what the new Klingon Sarcophagus ship is all about. “It’s a 200-year-old ship. This is a group of Klingons who’ve gone back to a puritan way of life. They look very different: they wear armor that’s 200 years old and they don’t have any hair,†Sullivan said.†Their commander runs his Klingon house – the house of T’Kuvma – by the rules of Kahless, the Klingon messiah. And he calls himself the second coming of the Klingon messiah.†Sullivan also claimed that this specific Klingon house was one never before seen in any version of Star Trek.

It must be hard to come up with creative new stories when you're saddled with the canon and a fanbase that is obsessive about it.

They have to come up with dubious plot twists (they haven't been in contact with anyone for centuries!) to try and circumvent it.

I have a feeling that everyone is going to be outraged no matter what they do because this is the age we are living in.

 

[Blender]

It must be hard to come up with creative new stories when you're saddled with the canon and a fanbase that is obsessive about it.

They have to come up with dubious plot twists (they haven't been in contact with anyone for centuries!) to try and circumvent it.

I have a feeling that everyone is going to be outraged no matter what they do because this is the age we are living in.

This is exactly why attempting to do prequels within a vast and deep universe like Star Trek is and always has been a terrible idea. There is decades of canon to deal with here, and no matter how careful they are they are going to **** something up.

 

[Tawnos]

This is exactly why attempting to do prequels within a vast and deep universe like Star Trek is and always has been a terrible idea. There is decades of canon to deal with here, and no matter how careful they are they are going to **** something up.

Which is why I still maintain that they shouldn't worry overmuch about it.

Let's face it though, early Federation serialized stories are more likely to be intriguing compared to mature Federation stories. At least that's my opinion. I find Roman history prior to Commodus and US history prior to World War I to be much more interesting than what came after.

The search for who a people are is an optimistic period to delve into. The effort to live up to it is less interesting to me.

 

[johnjm22]

This is probably the best promotional material they've released thus far. Some of the sets are very impressive.

I'm not too happy about that Tribble though.

 

[johnjm22]

The premiere was last night. Even though reviews are embargoed, people who saw it have made some comments about it:

 

[Cloned]

****ing fantastic hype.

Should be good.

Everyone go ahead and get real excited.

 

[One Blurred Eye]

Meh, producers blow their wad on impressive premieres all the time, but television's a marathon, not a sprint and the hype on display for two hours of content only makes me wary of a Walking Dead-style bait and switch around the corner (budget slashing, narrative directionlessness, revolving door casting, paper thin character development, etc). With how much CBS has riding on this show and how desperately a lot of us want something even remotely like the Star Trek we grew up with, it's conceivable that there's a good degree of overstatement in effect out of the gate, probably somewhat in overcompensation of the misgivings a lot of us had about it throughout its production (which probably suffered a degree of exaggeration as well). I'll wait to see how it fares in the meat of the season though, and how it finishes, before I'm convinced Star Trek is truly alive and well again.

That said, even if all we do get out of it is a couple hours of really well done "official" Trek, that'd be better than what anyone else has done in 15-20 years. If the premiere is as even half as good as these tweets indicate then that'll warrant at least a tip of the hat, even if they can't follow through on the promise over the course of 15 episodes (let alone multiple seasons).

 

[Osprey]

****ing fantastic hype.

Should be good.

Everyone go ahead and get real excited.

Those are people who attended a premiere, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. The people who attended the mother! premieres were glowing about it, but regular audiences have largely given it a big thumbs down. Heck, I gave Voyager a thumb up after the first episode, because I was so eager for it to be a good show, and that turned into a thumb down by the end of the first season, as I came to my senses.

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

Even if it is good they will lose large % of fans who simply are not going to be forced into purchasing CBS streaming service

Hope CBS loses alot of money with this nonsense

 

[Blender]

I definitely like that all those people loved the premiere, but you definitely have to take that with a grain of salt. Things have looked more positive over the last few weeks than they ever have over the last 6 months, so hopefully that's a good sign.

 

[johnjm22]

Typically at these events they "butter up" the crowd with free stuff and alcohol. They also immerse them in Star Trek lore with props and memorabilia from Trek history. It's easy to get lost in the pageantry of it all.

So yes, the crowd is going to be biased. But still the positive comments mean something. I literally couldn't find anything negative from people who attended the premiere.

The first two hours are written by Fuller and Nicholas Meyer. And it's still Fuller's premise. Fuller said The Undiscovered Country and Balance Of Terror were touchstones for the show. Considering this and the budget CBS put into it, it's hard to imagine these first few episodes could be bad.

 

[Blender]

Typically at these events they "butter up" the crowd with free stuff and alcohol. They also immerse them in Star Trek lore with props and memorabilia from Trek history. It's easy to get lost in the pageantry of it all.

So yes, the crowd is going to be biased. But still the positive comments mean something. I literally couldn't find anything negative from people who attended the premiere.

The first two hours are written by Fuller and Nicholas Meyer. And it's still Fuller's premise. Fuller said The Undiscovered Country and Balance Of Terror were touchstones for the show. Considering this and the budget CBS put into it, it's hard to imagine these first few episodes could be bad.

The descriptions in that twitter thread seem Meyer heavy as well. Emotion, themes, etc. are hallmarks of the Meyer films.

 

[IronMosher]

8 million an episode? That alone is enough to justify not getting a second season. Even if it turns out to be a moderate to decent success there's no way any studio will justify spending that much. You would need GoT level numbers to justify that, and we all know Star Trek doesn't have that pulling power, at least not anymore.

TNG was a million an episode in the 80's, and it succeeded.

Also, if you have Netflix, just change the DNS address on your PC to one of the 188 countries it will be available in and you'll be able to watch it. I worked at Netflix and have a 5 country account so it will be easy for me.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

DS9 reborn? That's a very very very high mark they've set for them selves.

DS9 had JMS's entire Bible to work with, not sure what the discovery heads have.

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

TNG was a million an episode in the 80's, and it succeeded.

Also, if you have Netflix, just change the DNS address on your PC to one of the 188 countries it will be available in and you'll be able to watch it. I worked at Netflix and have a 5 country account so it will be easy for me.

On Network TV and facing limited competition

This new series will go to a streaming service most people don't want at 8M an episode

 

[Blender]

On Network TV and facing limited competition

This new series will go to a streaming service most people don't want at 8M an episode

TNG wasn't on a network, it was sold in first run syndication to local stations individually. A production that big and expensive had never been handled that way before. None of the networks would finance the show with how Paramount and Roddenberry wanted/needed to do it.

 

[Tawnos]

On Network TV and facing limited competition

This new series will go to a streaming service most people don't want at 8M an episode

What part of "between Netflix internationally and people who have already subscribed to CBS All Access paid for the entire first season" makes you think that?

 

[Acoustic]

All this Trek hype has made me want to go watch BSG.

 

[chicagoskycam]

On Network TV and facing limited competition

This new series will go to a streaming service most people don't want at 8M an episode

TNG was strange because it was sold to networks on an individual basis. It was also not on many major networks, I believe it was on Channel 50 in Chicago.

What part of "between Netflix internationally and people who have already subscribed to CBS All Access paid for the entire first season" makes you think that?

I think the point is, very limited audience in the U.S. I'm a huge Trek fan and I'm not buying All Access. I already have two streaming scripts.

 

[Tawnos]

TNG was strange because it was sold to networks on an individual basis. It was also not on many major networks, I believe it was on Channel 50 in Chicago.



I think the point is, very limited audience in the U.S. I'm a huge Trek fan and I'm not buying All Access. I already have two streaming scripts.

What you're doing is definitely not the point.

I'm not sure where things stand right now is really the point, either. If the show is good and builds hype, more and more people will get All Access. But, even so, without it being the initial point, there has still been enough subscribers to pay for a big chunk of the show's production cost. Despite the rhetoric around here about how it's a bad delivery platform, it seems to be doing just fine.