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'Star Trek: Discovery' Premieres Tonight (ew.com)
An anonymous reader quotes EW.com:
Tonight CBS will premiere the first new Star Trek TV series in 12 years at 8:30 p.m. on the company's regular broadcast network. Immediately afterward, the second episode of Star Trek: Discovery will stream exclusively on CBS All Access -- the company's $6 per month streaming service... CBS saw an opportunity to leverage the built-in popularity of Star Trek to help fuel its fledgling All Access streaming service. The service currently has about 1 million subscribers and the company's goal is to grow it to 4 million by 2020...
But once fans watch Discovery, they'll notice the show's production values aren't like a typical broadcast show, but more reminiscent of a premium cable or streaming show. CBS was able to justify spending a bit more money on Discovery since it's going onto the paid tier. Sometimes, you really do get what you pay for.
The Los Angeles Times reports each episode costs $8 million -- though Netflix is paying $6 million for each episode's international broadcast rights. The show's main title sequence has been released, and the Verge reports that the show is set before the original 1966 series (but after Star Trek: Enterprise) along with some other possible spoilers.
Space.com asked one of the show's actors who his favorite Star Trek captain was. "I mean, Kirk," answered James Frain, who plays the Vulcan Sarek in Discovery. "That's like, 'Who's your favorite James Bond?', and if you don't say 'Sean Connery,' really? Come on."
But once fans watch Discovery, they'll notice the show's production values aren't like a typical broadcast show, but more reminiscent of a premium cable or streaming show. CBS was able to justify spending a bit more money on Discovery since it's going onto the paid tier. Sometimes, you really do get what you pay for.
The Los Angeles Times reports each episode costs $8 million -- though Netflix is paying $6 million for each episode's international broadcast rights. The show's main title sequence has been released, and the Verge reports that the show is set before the original 1966 series (but after Star Trek: Enterprise) along with some other possible spoilers.
Space.com asked one of the show's actors who his favorite Star Trek captain was. "I mean, Kirk," answered James Frain, who plays the Vulcan Sarek in Discovery. "That's like, 'Who's your favorite James Bond?', and if you don't say 'Sean Connery,' really? Come on."
I really enjoyed the latest episode. What I really liked was how smoothly they introduced their hot-button token character. The guy with gender issues didn't come in out of nowhere, he wasn't just placed there. They took the time to develop over the course of three episodes in a sneaky little subplot. They orchestrated a situation that is slightly removed from how gender issues actually manifest in real life, but now they can focus on the issues trans people allegedly have instead of whether or not the character is mentally ill or faking it. Emotional understanding of the problems of these people may allow the viewer to reexamine their beliefs or judgment. It's got a way better chance than anything else I've seen on TV which basically amounts to "I'm trans, deal with it!"
I mean, don't get me wrong, I hold the belief that gender as defined separately from sex is a fake construct and we will find that it is simply an attempt to stereotype people more specifically instead of not stereotyping at all. It's the new astrology. "I am these things because I am a Libra" is no different from "I am these things because I am third gendered". No, you are an indescribable, complicated personality and mind. Do whatever you want to your body but stop trying to escape from the genitals box society put you in by building a gender box to put yourself in. You don't need to be in any box.
What irked me was that while they set up this nice character, people roasted the show for not going far enough in to gender politics while they were telling a very genuine story that seemed realistic (from a psychological and emotional perspective in terms of the motives of the characters). I'm sure we'll periodically have that stuff come up related to gender identity now that we have this character, but this past episode wasn't about that. We got a story that can relate to many things in current culture such as deaf parents wanting their child to remain deaf instead of getting an operation to restore hearing, circumcision, and sex assignment surgery for intersex persons. As much as many people decried it for being dumbed-down, they sure didn't seem to understand what was happening.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on people's willingness to be nickle-and-dimed. To date, most of the streaming services have been content delivery platforms only and people only had one or two at a time (counting cable). Not so sure people are willing to have make the psychological leap to subscribe to N different services for N different TV shows. There's a spectrum between all-or-nothing bundling on the one side, total a-la-carte on the other, and this CBS venture seems like it falls into an uncanny valley somewhere in between.
You don't think it's a problem that straight white males are only portrayed as idiots or villains in many TV series and movies today? Do you not see how villianizing one particular race/gender could lead to a very nasty future? It's happened many times before, and the results were almost always horrible.
If this idea permeates the Trek universe, I would find it to be particularly disturbing. Trek in particular has always been about unity, progress, and inclusiveness. The idea of a new Trek that excludes straight white males as anything but villains deeply saddens me. I sincerely hope that the new series doesn't do this, and that my fears are unfounded.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Doubling down on crappy looking Klingons
Trailers filled with NOTHING but weapons fire and CG overload
gay/trans/ethnic political bullshit turned up to 11
I have to pay to see the rest of a TV series
If I pay to see the rest of a TV series I should expect to be rewarded with spyware installed on whatever I'm watching from.
CBS all access privacy policy says:
"Websites or other services you visited before and after visiting a CBS Interactive Services"
"Information about your interactions with audio and video content, such as the type of content listened to (including music applications such as iTunes, Spotify and Last.fm) and content viewed, and information about your interactions with email messages, such as the links clicked on and whether the messages were opened or forwarded;"
"Upon request, your bandwidth speed and information about the software programs installed on your computer including registry key information; and"
So basically if you watch Star trek you should assume spyware will be installed on whatever your watching it from to spy on EVERYTHING you do even if it has NOTHING to do with CBS all access.
This will be the first star trek I don't even bother watching even out of curiosity.
Yeah. All the claims of being x-phobic are made simply because being fearful is not a virtue. Calling someone fearful is a veiled insult essentially designed to shut them up and force compliance to the latest bonkers assertions of the SJWs.
I happen to agree.
Having seen discovery I was really kinda let down.
1. The characters were not really interesting. They were the same tropes over again. Part Vulcan part human who is at war with their emotions... yawn seen it.
2. They messed with the Klingons a bit too far. Originally I was OK with the more alien looking makeup. However after they talk and moved it just looked and felt fake. Even when they talked in Klingon it was slurred speech like they had marbles in their mouth. Then having them very religious with elaborate ceremonies just didn’t say warrior culture.
3. 1 hour for 15 minuets of content. I’ll avoid spoilers but there was too much exposition for stuff I really didn’t care about at the moment.
4. The lack of fun... this plays like an early 2000 SyFi Chanel show. Dark and deep with a lot going on all meaning little. We live in bad times already I want some some escapism.
Perhaps I was just pissed because it got delayed and I sat threw Opra trying to moderate a bunch of Trump and Non-Trump supporters both just giving the standard excused that pissed me off before the show started. But I wasn’t too pleased with the show. And the fact that they want me to pay money to see the other episode is just insulting. If you are going to stream it put it on Hulu or American Netflix. I don’t want an other monthly bill just to watch a mediocre show.
If it was broadcast or on a normal streaming service then I may want to give it a view.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
A pop-culture story has to introduce it's protagonist and get you invested in his struggles quickly; until then its living on borrowed time.
This pilot wasted a lot of time and crucial early scenes, in part I think giving in to same temptation that got George Lucas on Phantom Menace: showing off what you can do with an unlimited budget. There is dialog in the ST:Discovery pilot that exists solely to to stretch out SFX shots. J.J. Abrams has said that he found Star Trek pacing slow, but I disagree; it just took a long time to get to the action scene. That time was taken up with drama. On this pilot that time is taken up with furniture.
The director also made the unfortunate decision to shoot much of the pilot in the Klingon language with English subtitles. This isn't at all like watching, say a Japanese movie with English subtitles. Japanese is a real language that evolved to fill human needs. Klingon was designed by professional linguists to sound alien, and it works well enough for saying things like "Fire all disruptors!" But it was painful to watch actors struggling to emote through heavy prosthetics while forcing their tongues to perform inhuman phonetic acrobatics. That meant that you got almost the entire sense of the scene through the subtitles. Also by overexposing the Klingons so early they seem less threatening. We know too much about what's going on (having read a lot of subtitles), but none of it adds to the suspense or drama of the story.
Altogether this is hot mess. Often TV shows have difficulty launching while spoon feeding viewers all the information they know, but despite the sumptuous visuals this one wasn't competently put together.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Calling someone who sleeps in a doorway âoeprivilegedâ just shows how toxic your ideology is and no amount of verbal diarrhoea can justify it.
It's definitely a comedy, but your right about the bad acting. My wife doesn't think MacFrlane will hire anyone that acts better then him, which is a pretty low ceiling.
I like it so far, but the ham fisted social commentary is rough. MacFarlane seems to love setting up a both sides are bad scenario.
He's classic fence sitter ruining America, shitting on a real issue then making a joke about the corn in the turd.
Cheap storage VM.