A spin-off of the Future of Star Trek thread, so to speak. I thought it would be better to have a separate thread to discuss the show, and leave that other thread for discussions about other Trek-related news, upcoming projects etc.

I have not yet seen the premiere, but will rectify that this evening, and will be back with my opinion. But you don't need to wait for me. If you've seen it - go ahead and let your angry/happy nerd loose.

I dont know how I feel about Discovery, I dont hate it, yet, but I decided to give it the first season and the start of season 2,

There is the seed of a potentially great series here.

During the show they were plugging future episodes. After the first teaser episode, looks like it's going to be online only... ? At least that's the impression I got from watching the show's spots here in the US last night.

Yup, it requires CBS All Access which is $6 per month. Since I'm not really interested in that service I didn't bother with the pilot episode.

International viewers can watch it on Netflix (not in USA unfortunately).

...

Hmm, too bad.

It was mediocre. Very little happened in the pilot and it purposefully ended on a cliffhanger to get all of us to subscribe to CBS All Access. Don't know if I'm going to subscribe but the smartest move would be to wait till it's over and get a free trial to binge watch the full season or buy the inevitable DVD/Bluray release.

Pro's:
CGI is decent
Good character casting

Con's:
Klingons redesigned again
Story pacing is too slow

Bottom Line:
Too little to judge on 1 episode but I'm hoping the story picks up faster. As of right now, Orville is more Star Trek than Discovery.

Not only their change the look of the klingons and their ships, but now their have technology that is supposed that their aren't to have yet (the cloaking device, that is fisrst developed by the Romulans in TOS and later acquired by the klingons). In few words, Discovery not respects the story line of the other series.

Its that hard to make a new serial that respects the timeline and story?

This can be ok if isn't called Star Trek, but as a Star Trek is a big mesh.

Repeating what I said in the last thread, I checked the CBS website for when they were showing and it said 8:30EST/PST, so I went down and checked in then. As it turns out, where I was at it started at 8:00, so I missed the entire first half. Thanks CBS.

Anyway, I liked what I saw, but I'm also not willing in the slightest to shell out for CBS All Access, so I just gotta hope that their service will fail and they put it out elsewhere. Which seems awful to say, but fuck that.

It stinks.

All action, no still moments.

Basically the equivilant of jingling keys.

It's already better than Enterprise. And the first season of TNG. It doesn't feel very Star Trek though. And there was a lot lens flare. And I mean JJ Abrams lot.

Well, I've just watched. It's by far, and I do mean faaaar the weakest pilot of any Star Trek series.

First things first - let's not even get into how this all fits into any sort of canon, because it doesn't The events, the characters, the Klingons, the technology, none of it makes any sense. I could spend a lot of time nitpicking it all, but I'm sure plenty of hardcore fans will do that in even greater detail then I could. But that in itself does not have to be a disaster, annoying though it is. Canon is not everything. Some of my favourite Trek books are very much non-canon. It could still be good.

But it's not. The second problem is that, canon or not, it just doesn't feel like Star Trek at all. BenKii nailed it - The Orville is much more Trek than this. This all just about war and action and nothing else. Even the new movies, action focused though they are, still have at least some token themes other than that, but here's there nothing. And why is everything so dark? All the interiors of the Shenzou (or however you spell it) are just the opressive techno-darkness. And that court-martiall in the final scene, in an utterly dark room, with the judges' faces hidden in the shadows like they're some X-Com council? What the hell was up with that? Are court-martials now some shadowy tribunals?

But even forgetting all the un-trekness of it, it's still not good. It's rather boring. The scenes of Klingons talking klingon just drone on and on endlessly with no drama to them at all. And T'Kuvma must be the least interesting Klingon villain in Trek's history. Just compare him to the charaisma, screen presence and fun of having someone like Kor (TOS), Chang (ST VI) or Kruge (ST III). Or hell, even Lursa and B'Etor were more fun They have done the impossible- they have made Klingons boring. And the Federation side is not much better. The previous shows managed to do more for entire cast-full of characters in their pilots than this one did for one single character. I just don't care about commander Burnham, and I certainly don't like her. Even the action is not very good - the battle in the second episode is just about one of the least interesting, most poorly shot battles in Trek history. It's kind of amazing how twenty years ago and more they were pulling off so much better, more dramatic and engaging battles. This is just choppy and chaotic.

But the most disappointing thing about it all is that the whole pilot, the whole double episode comes down to this- Klingons set a trap, Starfleet flies right into it, there's a battle, and now there's a war. Just think about all the strange, weird, high-concept stuff we had in the other pilots. Barriers at the edge of the galaxy! Humanity on trial! Giant sentient space squids! Wormholes to other side of the Galaxy! Hell, even Enterprise had much more of a plot than this to it's pilot, even though it was too dealing with conflict with the Klingons.

In all honesty - if this wasn't Star Trek, I'd probably stop watching right here. Since it is, or at least is supposed to be, I'll give it more of a chance, hoping it has more to offer than just shooting at boring Klingons.

EDIT: Oh, and the intro sucks to. So boring and lifeless, the theme is so forgettable and lackluster... like the whole show, it's just so "meh".

Only thing related to Star Trek I found was opening scene of deserted planet.

So it's not really Star Trek. It's a Sci-Fi thriller in Star Trek's skin. That's about as close as the connection goes. It's done pretty well I thought. You can tell they're just dumping money into it. It'll probably be fun.

I completely agree with you Breja on the Klingons though. Somehow they've made the Klingons kind of bland. Mega props to whoever is doing the art though. That was some serious scifi detailing work going on there. I thought it was OK all in all. The Gotham dude makes a wicked Vulcan. I'm interested in this theme they're bringing of how the doings of Starfleet and other space-nobles affect the non-starfleet shmos that inhabit the galaxy. It was rare to see episodes with just regular dudes even in the old Star Trek. Will we see Star Wars-esque roguish out-for-number-one types in Star Trek? Can it be. Anyway, it looks fun. Seems I found it a bit less boring than some. Yeah the symbol bit at the beginning was cringy. Not really Trek at all.

You mean Harry Mudd? :v