The Vulcan Hello

I absolutely love Star Trek Discovery, yes things may have changed, ideas updated, modernised, but it is all so exciting and uplifting especially in this present time so I keep going back to re watch. I am a serious trekkie, have been all my life, this new take is refreshing and awe inspiring, it feels like family right from the start and I am totally addicted and cannot wait for the new season.

What an intergalactic mess, Please make it not so.

I am a devotee to Star Trek. I love it, I've watched every episode from each production many times over.

During those decades of watching, you build an affinity to the theme and vision of the overall story, the structure, the characters, the forward movement—to boldly go where you haven't gone before. So why in the heck, has Star Trek put on the brakes of going forward and has started going backward with the wonderful universe they have created.

The TV show Enterprise, the three new movies and now Star Trek Discovery, all have gone backward in time. And all lack the freshness, the adventure, the unknown of the other shows.

Can you imagine if lived was like that?

My family had the old black wall wired phone when I was going up. We graduated to a modular phone with color, then wireless phones, cells and now smart phones. Would anybody like to back to those old obsolete phones?

So, why is a sci-f- show created to give us a positive glimpse of the future, constantly going backward?

OK that's bad enough, but the new ST Discovery doesn't even feel like a trek show. While Spock was brilliant and courageous, their science officer is a coward. Kirk and Spock, Picard and Ryker, Sisko and Kira, Janeway and Chakotay were tight. In just the first episode of Discovery you have the first officer committing mutiny. The Klingons look like a cross between turtles and large pieces of liver. They can barely move with all the make-up and bulky costumes. Overall if you take away the trek badges and emblems and I wouldn't have any idea what the show was about.

The sets and effects are terrific, as they should be with 2017 technology. However, they are used in a vehicle that bears no resemblance to the Star Trek I have loved for a half century. Why work so hard to build a great story structure, then ignore it.

And of course, the final insult, showing one episode on regular TV then hiding the rest of them on the Internet. Some say the show has a "cinematic look." Yeah, a cinematic look that's doomed to laptops. It's quite clear that CBS is not interested in making true Star Trek, it's interested in making millions of dollars and it's using trek to establish that money base.

Overall, I think Gene Roddenberry would be turning in his grave over this money-making contraption they call Star Trek Discovery.

Sorry but this first episode of the new Star Trek series was absolutely unwatchable. As bad as the J. J. Abrams Star Trek universe already is on the big screen, this episode was like J. J. Abrams on steroids:-) Star Trek is an intellectual chess game-- not a shoot em up action series.

And to make matters worse, the main character (Sonequa Martin-Green) won't stop talking-- ever!!! And no military, on Earth or in space, would ever run a crew like this.

The producers of this series act as if they're totally unaware of the new age of quality science fiction and fantasy television and its style: Syfy's Battle Star Galactica, Game of Thrones, Westworld, Humans, the Man in the High Castle, The Walking Dead, the Handmaid's Tale.

They really need to end this mess and start all over, IMO.

1. The Klingons were stolen from Galaxy Quest,from a scene with character doing cosplay. 2. The uniform was stolen from Killjoys,because the poor producers and even Abrams don't know the fans don't like tight uniforms. 3. The nevrotic behaviour of the main characters was stolen from nu BSG,even this was the only flaw of the show ,excepting the female Starbuck. 4. The bathroom scenes were stolen from B5,last seasons. 5.The LBGT kiss scenes were stolen fom Torchood. 6. I come to peace phrase was stolen fom Dark Angel ,one of the best movies with aliens as good as Predator. 7. Emperor's weapons were stolen from Season Of The Witch and Dark Angel. 8. The Cyborg girl was stolen from Guardians Of The Galaxy (Nebula),a movie full of stolen ideas fom Star Trek (which is ironic is in't it ?..) like Andorian's anr Orion's look and they also stole the blue guy's look from Farscape ,from a plant alien. 9. The Klingon prequel conflict with the Klingons was stolen from A Prelude To Axanar,there is no wonder they were against that production so badly. 10. The ship's name and the encounter with Enterprise from the second season were stolen from Star Trek Horizon,which is also a fan made production. 11. The Tardigrade idea was stolen from an youtube LBGT sci-fi cartoon fan production ,Captain Tardigrade ,Defendor Of The Multiverse,created in 2015. 12. Kayla Detmer's Cyborg's character is a pale copy of Seven of Nine from Star Trek Voyager. 13. The blink jumps and blink drive was stolen from Dark Matter . 14. The Star Trek Discovery shorts were stolen from the numerous short gif anti or pro Star Trek Discovery movies from Tenor.

Having viewed what I believe are the first two episodes of Discovery what follows are my thoughts so far on the show. While it's much too early to form a firm analysis, this show is different from all the other Trek shows and films I have seen throughout the years.

Without spoiling anything I feel that so far the show is very pretty without a lot of substance. While it retains the name, feel and much of the look of Star Trek there were plenty of times this could have been any sci-fi show out there. So far there is very little backstory, but I am going to assume that more will be filled in later. The show immerses you into the what without any of the why. Since this is closer to TOS than Star Trek Enterprise I acknowledge there would be some improvement in technology in the time between shows, but at the same time Discovery feels more advanced than TOS.

I am completely unfamiliar with the director, but it seemed to me that many shots could have been done much better. I am familiar with the writer Bryan Fuller who seems to have a penchant for giving female characters male names (George in Dead Like Me) for example. Fuller cut his teeth under DS9 and also worked on Star Trek Voyager so let's hope for good things to come.

The good:I like the opening credits. It's refreshing to see something different for a change than just a ship flying around space to music.

Michelle Yeoh, who was excellent in Marco Polo as Lotus, does not fail to deliver here. I do feel that she is much too familiar with her subordinates as captain as seen having discussions with her bridge crew, but perhaps she prefers leading through diplomacy. As a military veteran myself I know that doesn't work.

Sonequa Martin-Green seemed to also do a very fine job. I have never seen her in anything before, but her performance is solid and even managed to give me a laugh or two. Hers is the only character that gets any backstory although it is very brief. I'm sure it will be filled in later throughout the season.

Finally Doug Jones is wonderful as Saru. His character reminds me the most of Alan Tudyk's character Wash in Firefly. I expect he'll bring more laughs in future episodes.

The not so good: First, there's the Klingons. My first impression was that they resembled characters from a vampire movie rather than any Klingon we've seen previously. While I felt the creative team was making steps to make them more noble it seemed to me that the main Klingon lead (Chris Obi) was having difficulty talking around his prosthetic teeth. While I like the Klingon's new outfits, I do hope there will be some future explanation as to why the race is so very different looking than any other Trek incarnation to date.

The space battles in EP.2. They looked very cheap and if you've ever seen anyone playing Star Trek on PS4 you might get my drift. I was expecting TOS level phasers, but instead the lasers more closely resemble Star Trek (2009) I don't know if it was due to budgeting or not, but the viewer doesn't really get to see the damage being inflicted as much as you might expect from other Trek shows. There is one pretty ridiculous scene as well, but I'll leave it to you to figure out which.

Finally James Frain as Sarek. To me the gold standard I measure all Sarek's by is Mark Lenard (RIP) and while I'll admit Frain doesn't get much screen time he just doesn't feel or act like Sarek to me. Perhaps he'll get better later on as I do like the actor very much in a number of other films and shows (The Tudors) Like many others I'm the type to give a show 3-4 episodes before I fully commit or decide to quit and I'll do the same here. I guess since it's been so long without a Star Trek show I was really hoping for something better than what has been offered so far.