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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."
If it ain't on Amazon or Comcast, I'm not watching it. Not gonna pay monthly fees for yet another streaming service just to watch one TV show.
That's the other reason I'm going to pass on this for a while and wait for the reviews to come in.
BTW I was pleasantly surprised by, of all things, The Orville and how of all people Seth McFarlane managed to pull off an adult story about a hot-button topic without coming off as a nutter extremist for either side.
I should also say that I'm not being paid by Fox, but I would like to boost their ratings because I find that I like the show and don't want it cancelled.
If you think that asking only that straight white males be allowed to be heroes too, not just villains, is somehow the same as demanding "dominance" than you need mental help.
This isn't even new ground. Star Trek has always been inclusive. Just ask Ben Sisko or Katherine Janeway. What scares me is the idea of Trek going from inclusive to exclusive. Trek has always welcomed all races, genders, etc. What they've never done before is intentionally exclude certain ones.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
For fucks sake, are all alt-right racist bigots as clueless as you ? Don't you even get what principles the Star Trek universe was built on back in the sixties ?
Star Trek is the ultimate SJW's wet dream. Gene Rodenberry was a SJW. What ? A black woman as a bridge OFFICER ?!?! An alien as the first officer ? Women admirals who outranked men ? Extraterrestrials of all origins as equal partners in a galactic federation of planets ? A world without war, discrimination, poverty and *GASP* money ?
This liberal SJW crap, as you call it, is not what ruined the original Star Trek, it's what made it one of the best, most influencial tv show in human history.
I'm old enough to remember when Star Trek was recieving the same kind of critics you're making by equally stupid cavemen back in the sixties. I was hoping your lot would be extinct by now.
That's not SJW at all. SJW would be Uhura slapping Kirk's face afterwards and telling him to check his straight cis white male privilege.
Circumcision is child abuse.
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.
Modern SJW liberalism is very different from the traditional liberalism that Trek has always represented. Traditional liberalism embraced values such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion (including the right the not be religious), inclusiveness of all races and genders, racial/gender equality and unity, non-violence, and many other values that modern SJW liberals today seem to find abhorrent.
Modern SJW liberals are racial/gender exclusivists who openly advocate censorship, persecution, and even violence against anyone disagreeing with them. Those are absolutely NOT traditional Trek values.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
There is a big difference between women and minorities being given better representation in a TV show
Maybe you're not familiar with Star Trek, but the franchise had minority and gender representation pretty much from the beginning. Minority and women captains and crew have been in Trek for decades now. No one is complaining about that. But if you want to pretend that there isn't a nasty strain of anti-straight-white-male sentiment brewing on the left for the last few years, or that it hasn't begun to infect popular culture, then by all means keep your head in the sand. If the only straight white male in the series turns out to be incompetent or a villain though, I submit that this is no coincidence.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
No, I'm worried that the liberal movement that I was once proud to be a part of is turning white males into the new "dirty jews," and the horrible things that could lead to. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
A public school in Toronto had this forced on them. It didn't last the first year because it wasn't the black people but a few black LOUDMOUTHS who wanted it. Funny that their reason was that the black kids needed to be taught the black way because they don't learn the same way as the whites.
I like Star Wars better than Star Trek, but I really enjoy both.
I've often wondered, are there really a lot of people who just like one or the other? I've not really seen any evidence of that among my friends either.
Basically the majority of us just enjoy a good story (and sometimes just awesome special effects for the heck of it), and just want something either enjoyable or thought provoking (or both) to watch. I think most of us judge individual efforts set in any Sci-Fi Fi universe against these simple metrics...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
The sad thing is that the 21st century incarnation of the hard left is turning into the mirror image of the hard right with the same rhetoric of hatred and division albeit directed at different targets. Are you proud to be part of a movement that laughs at and dismisses the homeless and mentally ill because of their physical characteristics? Whatever happened to liberal compassion?
Says the person who knows nothing about what Star Trek is about:
“Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. [] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.”
Gene Roddenberry
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.
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.