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Considering how heavily anchored in the African American experience some episodes of DS9 were...
 
Just finished the first two episodes of ST Discovery. Better than I expected but after seeing the preview for the rest of the season, it seems the first two episodes were just a prologue. Will have to wait and see the next few episodes to see how the series is going to be.
 
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I'm not a Trekkie per se. I don't care if Klingons carry disruptors or phasers. It's not the stupid details, quality is falling down since DS9. Voyager was ok, ENT was ok for some episodes and that's it.
 
Downloading first two episodes from torrents now. 1080p, 2.2GB each, at 6MB/s. Let's see what this is all about.
 
I must pause now and comment on the new ship having F-16 stick (main starboard one) at the helm, just for the Perun's sake :D

Edit : Watched it out, very ok. Positive impressions.

Federation stuff, visually ok, the vegan power smart cow guy sci. officer could've passed without that stupid backstory. No, pigs aren't going to fly even in 30000 AD. Anyways Klingons are a mess, they aren't visually themselves, the creatures and the settings of their ships. They look like Arabic bazzar and the storywriters have completely missed out the fact that Klingons are functional, genetic warriors ffs, so statues of gold and gold emblems on their uniforms are total and utter BS. I couldn't care less if some fact said in previous Trek is broken in new but how on earth do Klingons progress from bazzar colony ships to total bare metal 100% military vessel in 100 years. It's a total fucking miss, they could've done them sort of Mad Max fallen civilization thing. Unfortunately they behave like tribal backwater humans.

The main character is good, and everything that could've gone wrong did, in first two episodes. I like where plot ended right now.
 
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So, here's some thoughts:

Things I disliked:
1. I dislike the new Klingon design. Not because they changed the look - I don't care about that. I dislike it because the makeup is so heavy you can't watch the actors emote. It looks like they are all wearing big rubber masks. In addition, the fake teeth make it very, very hard to understand the words the actors are saying, even when they speak English. This is just practical stuff, but I keep imagining Michael Dorn's Worf wearing the level of makeup he wore, or such thick fake teeth, and I worry it would have robbed him of much of his character.
2. The SOOPER BIG BAD SHIP trend. This has been going on for awhile - the Romulan Warbird is massive, the Borg cube, but it got really dumb in the movies, with the Scimitar in Nemesis and the Dreadnought in Into Darkness. Not all enemy ships need to be utterly massive things. In fact...they probably shouldn't be. Anyone remember Promise of Terror from TOS? That was a little ship doing a lot of damage.
3. Not sure I love that it's Sarek who was Michael's mentor. Don't other Vulcans exist?

Things I liked:
1. Really, really enjoyed Michael's character and her interactions with Captain Michelle Yeoh. I'm curious about her backstory and really curious to see where things will go with her.
2. The Klingons' motivation. How cool is that? They are concerned about being culturally annihilated by the Feds, so they come together to revel in their own existence. I can honestly say it seems like a Klingon thing to do.
3. The set design is spectacular. It feels like Star Trek. I'm glad they used some of the classic sound effects without feeling like they had to build the TOS-style bridge. Let's all accept this and move on. Love the uniforms, too. Clear inspiration in some of the effects from the Abrams alternate universe - the way warp works, for example, the sound effects of the phasers. I'm perfectly fine with all this. Star Trek should never be stuck in the past, and I found it a little odd and jarring in episodes like Relics of TNG when they had a 1960s style bridge and they were presenting it as legit. If we ever get back up to Picard-era Star Trek, redesign the way the freaking bridges look there too. What matters is the exterior design - that's where the real love is.
4. I think Jason Isaacs is going to be an awesome Starfleet captain.
 
LooseCannon said:
found it a little odd and jarring in episodes like Relics of TNG when they had a 1960s style bridge and they were presenting it as legit.
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I completely see where you're coming from, and there are a lot of negative examples of this. However - in this specific case, I think it looks like an accurate representation of the leaps in technology between TOS and TNG. There's, what, 70 years inbetween? You would think the original Enterprise would look as antiquated next to the Enterprise D as it does in the episode.
 
One good explanation would be that Enterprise A belonged to more unstable era in terms of conflicts and war than Enterprise D. You can sell antique as protected, very narrow viewscreen on a huge wall, no glass walls everywhere etc. Bare metal, armored, compared to flashy and fancy observatories of modern Enterprise D from peaceful era. This is not so important IMHO, you can take care of it by pushing some explanatory backstory into scripted dialogs.

Besides, the ship design inconsistency is nothing compared to this actual Klingon example.
 
Perun said:
I completely see where you're coming from, and there are a lot of negative examples of this. However - in this specific case, I think it looks like an accurate representation of the leaps in technology between TOS and TNG. There's, what, 70 years inbetween? You would think the original Enterprise would look as antiquated next to the Enterprise D as it does in the episode.
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My problem isn't that it doesn't look antiquated compared to the Enterprise-D, my problem is that it looks antiquated compared to the current level of technology and expectations. They could have taken the bold risk of designing a "new-old Enterprise", which would have avoided the scene in Enterprise where the alternate universe crew found the Constitution-class USS Defiant and it looked like they took 50 steps down.

Yes, you could have kept the same general designs as Zare noted, the thicker bulkheads, the smaller viewscreens, but updates some of the horrible 60sisms.
 
Though to be fair, Relics was a "special" episode. There was no way they could have pulled that off without having the 100% TOS bridge.
 
Some thoughts

I disliked the Klingons ... in part because of how they look, but mostly a real lack of personality. I like the more animated Klingons we saw in the other series. A lot of the Klingons scenes were like watching a Klingon Mass ... they were a bit boring to me

Hard to tell after 2 episodes, because obviously the ship and some of the crew will change, but none of the main characters really stood out to me ... I guess we will see

Did not care for the theme songs ... minor ... at least it was better than Enterprise

I did like the look of the show, yeah it is more advanced than TOS ... but that's fine by me. It does not make sense in the continuity, but makes perfect "we have better special effects now" sense. I am cool with that.

I have some general issues with the premise of the show and why they are back in this time again ... there is a fair amount of been there/done that with the Federation and the Klingons. How much of the series will be about that .. who knows.

I'll watch the whole year, though I sure as hell am not paying for CBS All Access to watch 1 show.

TNG started off pretty bad and ended up being great ... we will see about this one.

So far though Orville almost seems more Star Trek than Discovery at this point.
 
^ get it off the torrents. Use transmission-Qt get into settings and put required encryption. If you have moral afterthoughts buy a boxset when it comes out.
 
So next one is scheduled to go October 1st. Thinking will I be able to see 3rd episode, will it be available at Sunday afternoon/night local time.
 
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