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September 25, 2017 (Originally posted on Blogger)

Star Trek Discovery First Episode Thing

So to get people on board for the new Star Trek and possibly buying their own specific version of a Netflix or Hulu-type service, CBS decided to show the first episode on regular TV, so of course I decided to check it out because not only was nothing else really on at the time, but I also kinda like Star Trek. I'll kinda be describing the plot of this one episode in the process of review, so this counts as a spoiler warning, hopefully. Be warned, there's pretty much badly-written and rambling spoilers for the very first episode of Star Trek Discovery.


So it starts out with this special effect thing that looks like some kinda ring and there's these subtitles in some kinda book font, and I'm thinking, wait is this somehow a Lord of the Rings series? And these are the Orcs talking about finding a new One Ring? But, no, they're Klingons, and they're angry at humans for some reason. Then suddenly on a desert planet, who I think is the captain of the new ship and the "Number One" are wandering and trying to do something to get this one species water, apparently, which they do by I think firing at the water table with a phaser until water comes up again, then they need to get a transporter lock because there's some dust storm happening. It's kinda clever and funny how they get the ship to notice them, and I'm thinking, okay, that's kinda neat, the captain here is pretty experienced. So I'm also thinking by the end of the season or series she'll hand over the captain's seat to this Number One lady.

And then the crew of the ship is made up of everyone they could probably make up for a ship. A lot of alien types and even a robot from Daft Punk or something as well as people-looking people. I didn't even know the Number One lady was part Vulcan until they brought it up. It feels like either Mass Effect showed up or it's some kinda Ubisoft production. Also their systems look all fancy and touch screen-y so it looks this is from the JJ Abrams universe, but if it is in the main show universe then later on they're just going to ditch all that for large buttons and light bulbs when Kirk shows up, since this apparently takes place between Enterprise and the original series. Also there's just a lot of Dutch angles. So many that you might think this is Battlefield Earth without all the blue. There's kinda lens flares around, but also a lot of CGI at work which is about par for the course with modern Star Trek shows. However it looks just a little better than what it was in Enterprise, I guess.

So they start looking at this weird anomaly they can't scan, but they can't take a shuttle for some reason so Number One lady just jetpacks out there, even though there's a lot of space radiation, it's some weird eldritch-looking wad of stuff, and when she lands on it, some guy is there and just wants to stab her, I don't know if she turns on her thrusters to run into the guy but that apparently stabs him with his own blade thing.

So it also turns out before then was all some kinda flashback if you call the whole Klingon meeting the present because that guy's body is in the room, and the talking guy meets up with I guess this albino Klingon and they have a small talk about how even though his skin is different he's still a warrior and he'll lead the honor charge. They're also on this ship which is apparently made of coffins and then it shoots off some kinda beam that's somehow brighter than every sun ever to signal the rest of the Klingons.

Meanwhile Number One lady gets out of the radiation removal chamber to give commands or something, I started kinda losing track of what was going on, essentially she kinda would want revenge on the Klingons and eventually there's this whole thing where apparently when Vulcans and Klingons meet the Vulcans fire on the Klingons first for some kinda honor respect thing, and she's trying to convince the captain to go through with it but she won't, so she just nerve pinches her, but she gets better a minute later and then holds a phaser at her while Number One is trying to get them to shoot at the ship's neck or something for some reason which I think includes an analogy, but then the rest of the Klingons show up.

So of course it ends in a cliffhanger thing, I don't know if it's all going to be a continuous plotline or if it's just a two parter thing, but they really want you to buy their streaming service that I don't know what else is worth seeing on there other than this if you want to see it. Also they kept advertising that the second episode was up now but it's like I'm watching the first one right now let me do that first. It should be on regular TV, and maybe they'll put it there later if nobody buys the thing, or maybe you could just wait until the whole show's out and get the free trial and binge it all right then like Netflix, or they could put it on actual Netflix instead of a bootleg. Meanwhile you can go watch spinoff shows that didn't really need to be made on regular CBS instead of this show which might turn out to be decent but who will know because it's on some weird service which solely exists for this show because they needed a way to try to sell it. Really they should put this on TV because there's definitely a place for it and Netflix or all these other super premium services shouldn't get all the good shows because I'm kinda broke and I can't subscribe to 50 different things. Everything else that was on TV that night wasn't great. Even the funny video show was on before it instead of during. I'd probably watch it for a while at least. It's not like other Star Treks but their justification is that it's in the early days of Starfleet so people are more on edge or something. But the technology is really fancy-looking so there's that weird thing too where they go back.

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