Welcome back to our TV Preview series! In this half of said series, Emily, Kandis, Stephanie and I will take a look at shows featured in our TV Preview: New Friends post, and let you know what we think you should—and shouldn’t—be watching.
Warning! Possible spoilers ahead.
Star Trek: Discovery
Premiered: Sept. 24 on CBS (Watch online … with CBS All Access)
Twitter Pitch
The latest in the #StarTrek TV franchise takes place 10 years before #TOS—and has ladies leading the way.
Familiar Faces
Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham
Michelle Yeoh as Captain Phillipa Georgiou
Doug Jones as Lt. Saru*
* You might not have actually recognized Doug’s face, but that’s because he’s often behind a crudload of special effects makeup.
Kenneth Mitchell as Kol**
** I had no idea Kenneth was Kol until I looked up the show’s IMDB page.
Maulik Pancholy as Dr. Nambue
Terry Serpico as Admiral Brett Anderson
Rainn Wilson, Jason Issacs, and Rekha Sharma will be joining the show in future episodes.
Faces That Might Become Familiar (If You Keep Watching)
Sam Vartholomeos as Ensign Danby Connor
Emily Coutts as Keyla Detmer
Redeeming Qualities
Kandis: I love the idea of leading ladies, especially in the sci-fi genre. The special effects are a lot better looking than the old OG Star Trek movies, and The Next Generation of my youth.
Mandy: It’s a new Star Trek show, with lady Starfleet officers leading the way. Star Trek is a major fandom of mine, and having a show in which the ladies are the leaders makes my LadyNerd heart super happy. The first episode felt more like the rebooted movieverse than the older shows, but I didn’t mind that. It makes sense for the technology and CG to be better, even if it doesn’t gel with the older styles. I also think they did a wonderful job with the aliens’ makeup, but ...
Stephanie: I enjoy a good Star Trek series, and some iteration of the show has been on TV for SO long that it feels like a TV tradition to have a new one air to bring in younger viewers and make long-time fans happy. I liked that we had some females in charge, and Martin-Green consistently drew my eye. The show is also visually appealing, and I finished the first episode curious as to what would happen next to Michael after she did what she did to the captain.
It's Not Me, It's You
Kandis: Maybe it’s because I’m really not a Star Trek person, but this was Not Good. I actually went to check IMDb for the two leading ladies to verify that, as I suspected, they’re legit actors. So, it’s probably not their fault that the dialogue is sooo stilted and awkward. I blame the writing or direction. But either way, it’s not helping them out.
Mandy: WTF with the Klingons, huh? If you’re going to introduce a new alien species, introduce a completely new alien species, rather than massively changing they way they look and giving them new names and personality traits.*** Sure, the Klingons underwent vast changes from The Original Series to The Next Generation and latter shows, but the Klingons are a known entity in Star Trek, and, besides, those changes were explained in Deep Space Nine and Enterprise. *takes a deep breath and steps off soapbox*
I’m also really confused about Michael’s relationship with Sarek and what that means for Spock in this ‘verse, but I’ll leave that discussion for the comments if anyone’s interested.
*** I had the same problem with the Klingons in Star Trek Into Darkness, among my other issues with that film.
Stephanie: This may be an unpopular Trekkie opinion, but the Klingons bore me. Honor in violence, yada yada, ad nauseum. My interest took a nose-dive any time we had long scenes of Klingons speaking Klingon to each other. Even with a very cinematic feel, after forty-two minutes it felt like nothing really happened. Episode two was released alongside the pilot, so maybe they really should be watched in tandem, but my husband fell asleep even before the end of the first one (and he normally loves everything Star Trek), so I have to be a patient wife and wait on him.
Let's Do This Again
Kandis: Nope. Honestly, I couldn’t even get through this entire episode. There is just too much TV out there these days to suffer. Maybe hardcore fans can wait it out, and see if this show finds its groove. But I cannot.
Mandy: I’m going to keep watching, even though I have my reservations. (And have some additional ones that I haven’t brought up here, thanks to events of the second episode and where the season might go because of said events.) I just can’t give up this quickly on a Star Trek show.
Stephanie: I’m gonna give the second episode a shot, but the fact that this is only available on CBS All Access means I’d have to resort to other less … legal ways to watch it, and is it worth the trouble? Not so far as I have seen.
Did you watch? If so, let us know your thoughts below!