Star Trek Discovery: Taking the Plunge and Sharing My Thoughts

I can confidently say that it’s been a pretty rough year to be a Trekkie for me. The year 2016 is a year that I had anticipated for some time knowing that it would mark the 50th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise. I had envisioned, at the time, a new movie, a continuation of whatever show was bound to be on the air at that point, and just so much merchandising. I had sincerely hoped that there would be a surge of off-the-wall never-before released stuff that I could add to my collection. There was quite a bit of that, but there was a dark cloud looming over all of the fanfare. We started off the year with a mediocre, and poorly received trailer for the upcoming film. Then, over the summer, CBS went after its own by suing the folks behind Axanar. Say what you will, I’m not here to take sides, or pass judgement as I wasn’t there and can’t accurately substantiate any claims pertaining to the event one way or the other. All I know is that the concept seemed really cool, and I would have like to have seen the project come to fruition. Next, we got the fan film guidelines. Again, say what you will. I’ve not seen where they’ve had that big of an effect on the fan film community, but it certainly doesn’t project an image of good will towards all of those loyal fans who have worked to keep your brand alive for you. It was a lot of negativity, but in the midst of all of that, there was the announcement of a new show! YAY! That got me pretty excited, and finally we’ve been able to see what the moderate hype has been all about.

Now, I opted out of reviewing Discovery last week because I wanted to have a more firm grasp on what the DNA of the show was going to look like before I started passing judgement. Also, there were a lot of opinions/reviews circulating, and I didn’t want to get lost in that. On top of that, I was kind of tired of all the in fighting amongst fans, and I didn’t want to lob yet another grenade into the tornado as it were. So here we are taking a look at the newest incarnation of Star Trek. Let’s just jump in shall we? And because it probably still needs to be said, this article could leave you feeling:

Disclaimer: I’m going to try as much as I can to not look through nostalgia glasses on this one so if I come across as a bit frank, I apologize. I’m just trying to look at the show for what it is right now. We’ll get to what it represents soon enough though. I have to admit, when I watched the first couple of episodes, I wasn’t terribly impressed. I can confidently say that the aesthetics are slick, and futuristic by comparison to our current technology, the makeup is done well, and the special effects have a cinematic quality that give the show a very grand appearance. However, much like the 1980 Corvette 305 California, which looked like this:

Regret and disappointment wrapped in a sexy candy shell...

But only managed to make 180 hp, I felt like the pilot episodes really rang hollow for me. Sure they kind of look like Star Trek, and yes, there are even a few of the elements that are cornerstones of the franchise, but nothing about the first two episodes seemed, to me, like those things had really clicked. They didn’t appear to firing on all cylinders. Wow, that was a clumsy analogy, but I think it works.

I’m not going to go too far into specifics in order to preserve the experience for those who haven’t had a chance to watch, but the basic breakdown is that Michael Burnham is the XO aboard the USS Shenzhou. The ship finds an ancient Klingon ship that’s run by a guy with a Jesus complex. There’s an altercation with one of said Klingon’s underlings wherein said underling dies. The heads of the Klingon houses show up, there’s a standoff, CAPT Georgiou makes the fatal error of seeming a pushover in front of the Klingons, which leaves an opening for the Klingons to ‘take back’ their rightful place in the galaxy as marauding conquerors who constantly expand their territorial borders. In the midst of all of this, Burnham is trying to avoid conflict by bucking Starfleet’s traditions, and giving the Klingons a black eye, an action which leads to mutiny on her part. The Captain and Burnham use subterfuge to cripple the ancient ship, then beam over to abscond with the Jesus complex guy, but the Captain is killed, and Cult of Lack of Personality is killed as well, which precipitates the war that will be the backdrop for the rest of the show, probably.

Take another read of that last paragraph if you must, but there’s a blatantly obvious observation to made here. That’s a really short paragraph, and it explains the basic premise of two episodes. We’re going to talk about that in a minute. I just want to say that I gots so high expectations when it comes to narrative storytelling in film, y’all. Our species has been at it for over a century. I really feel like that at this point we should have a firm enough grasp on the art form that we can fairly consistently pump out great stuff. That said, a lot of the story in these first two episodes was just lazy guys. The premiere episodes are a ton of heavy-handed exposition, and backstory that I feel like we didn’t need 80 minutes to cover. By the end of the episodes, I honestly felt like a lot had been spoken but nothing had really been said. “Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” -Plato. That’s a fantastic quote from one of the greatest minds of all time, and one that I personally try to adhere to as much as I am able. The writers of these episodes apparently did not. I also prefer storytelling that relies on what it can show over what it can say. With as much exposition as happened, there wasn’t as much context as could have been established had the production team chosen instead to show what they wanted to tell.

A lot of people have complained about the new look of the Klingons. I’m pretty indifferent personally. What I did not enjoy, however, was a combined 30 minutes of subtitles. I can appreciate the use of foreign languages in order to punctuate the introduction of new characters who happen to speak a language other than English. I can even support the use of foreign languages to slyly communicate really important information in a sort of blink and you’ll miss it moment. And obviously, I enjoy foreign films with their subtitles. However, the expectation going into a show made in an English-speaking nation is generally that the bulk of the spoken language is going to be English. Filming nearly half of the premiere episodes in Klingon was distracting, tiresome, and annoying after a point. I found myself constantly rewinding just to make sure that I read something correctly. This goes much deeper than just choosing subtitled Klingon though. Anyone who has dealt with computers on a professional basis, and in particular web design, will tell you that certain fonts work better in certain situations. As a generally accepted rule of thumb, serif fonts are best utilized via a physically printed format. When designing for a digital format that’s going to rely on a screen, most graphic designers will use a sans-serif font. To demonstrate the difference, the font that I use for this blog is Arial. That’s a sans-serif font. It’s really easy to read off of a screen, which is why I use it. This is Times New Roman. It is a serif font. Notice how there are little flags coming off the leading edge of all the vertical lines in letters? Those lines tend to run together on devices that are back-lit, and make reading these types of fonts on a screen very difficult. And just to preemptively put out any arguments that I purposely changed the size of the font in order to exaggerate things, I didn’t. All of the text has been typed at 11 point font size. So the big question that I’d have if I could speak to one of the production team is, if I, a second year computer major in college, know this handy rule of thumb, why did they decide to use a serif font on their TV show?! Lazy. Enjoy comparison pictures showing the settings behind each font just for fun:

Arial

Times New Roman

I think that we’ve said enough about that for now. I have to admit, my critique of the premiere episodes is pretty harsh, but hopefully, you can see where it’s justified so far. I certainly think that there were some redeeming qualities there. For one, I like that some of the background sound effects hearkened back to older stuff. I also noticed the TOS motion pictures ‘Red Alert’ graphics. Those were a nice touch. I also really enjoyed the bulk of the score during the episodes. The theme song may take a little getting used to because it feels a bit obtuse to me, but I think, just like the Enterprise theme, I'll eventually come around. I could see the history of the Star Trek woven into the physical aesthetic of this new show, albeit in probably an overly subtle way. However, where these two episodes really failed to grab me is in the fact that although some of the hallmarks of Star Trek were there, like moral quandaries, and highbrow ideals, they were wielded pretty clumsily, and as a result, failed to make any kind of positive impact on me. It just left me feeling kind of meh, and I did not expect that reaction from a franchise that I have enjoyed for over thirty years.

This is the primary reason that I opted to wait a while to review Discovery. With as little as the premiere episodes actually said, I felt like I wouldn’t be giving the show a fair shake if I just reviewed what seemed to be, essentially, an extended trailer for the show that I had been anticipating all along. Hence, I dutifully waited, and then watched episode three, and I have to say, I was blown away! Why didn’t CBS just lead with this episode, guys?! Everything that the premiere episodes lacked, the third episode had in spades. There is a caveat here. I had been watching The Expanse in anticipation of writing this article because it’s shows like that that Discovery is apparently trying to emulate, and so I was in a mind space that left me fairly prepared for what I thought was coming in the first place. Anyway, after watching the third episode, I remarked to my friend that if CBS had just chopped all of the clunky, and unnecessary exposition out of the premiere episodes in order to combine them into one episode, and then followed that much more focused episode up with this, they would probably have had an even bigger response than they did. I know that everyone has been rejoicing that Discovery pulled in over 9 million viewers on premiere night, but in context, that’s not very good. In 1987, TNG managed 27 million viewers! That’s three times as many viewers, and I’m pretty sure that there were about two billion less people in the world so let’s just cool that jet okay?

However, episode three really had a lot to say, and I was listening in abject rapture the entire time. It was a lot easier to reconcile things like the design aesthetic seeming so futuristic by comparison to TOS, and all of the other differences the show has introduced when I was able to make the headcanon of USS Discovery being a covert experimental ship. It all feels very much in its proper frame when it’s in context of that ship, and that crew with whatever clandestine mission they’re on. The story was much more focused, and flowed much better. The atmosphere of mystery and intrigue is intoxicating. I was waiting on baited breath to find out what happened next as the episode unfolded. It was a nice change of pace. I found the bulk of the character more likeable, if not terribly relatable yet, but I’m willing to give quite a bit of leeway there because we’ve only had one episode to get to know the supporting cast of The Michael Burnham hour. Sorry about that dig. I’m just not seeing a strong ensemble approach to the show yet. I am hoping to see that improve over time though, and I’m willing to let it slide for now as the show tries to get its footing. I still don’t particularly like Saru, but he was way less annoying in episode three than in the previous episodes, and he graduated from merely being a McGuffin! SO happy!

Generally speaking, I enjoyed episode three way better than the first two. That’s not to say that there aren’t some minor fundamental complaints to be lodged. I’m sure that these are going to fall on apathetic ears, but I feel like they need to be said nevertheless. We’ll start with the rating. My wife is a pretty upstanding person, and she has a personal rule in life that she doesn’t watch R-rated films, or TV-MA rated shows. She was surprised and distressed to learn that Discovery had a TV-MA rating. One of those hallmarks of Star Trek that has helped it to endure for over 50 years is that it’s the type of show that can be passed from generation to generation, typically, at a pretty young age. My mom got me on it when I was three years old. And I started really getting hooked when TNG premiered, and I was four years old! The unfortunate thing about the rating that the creators chose is that I can’t in conscience justify showing it to my really young kids when I finally have some. Naturally, I want to expose them to Trek, and see if it takes if anything so that they can have the opportunity to enjoy it as much as I have. But, Discovery is going to be off limits for a very long time because some genius at CBS figured that it would be a great idea to push for a TV-MA rating. The next generation of Trekkies will probably have stories about watching Trek with mom or dad from a really young age, but Discovery might not be part of those childhood memories fondly recollected due to the more mature nature of the content. That makes me a little sad, personally. Furthermore, I sincerely doubt that there’s anything that anyone associated with the show wants to do that warrants anything more than a TV-14 rating. I’m of the opinion that opposition breeds better storytelling and creativity anyway so I’d be all for them trying to find more creative ways to tell that same story with a more family friendly rating.

The second, and last thing that we need to come back to is the pay wall. This has been a hotly debated issue for the last couple of weeks, and again, I’m sure that what I say here will only fall on deaf ears for the most part, but there’s something that everyone really needs to understand about how CBS has chosen to distribute their new show: It’s embarrassingly greedy. Let’s break it down a bit. The average cost per episode of Discovery is roughly 8.25 million dollars, and we know that there will be 16 episodes in season one. That means that season one is going to cost roughly $132 million. That’s a big number! In order to ‘offset costs’ CBS has chosen an exclusive streaming model in order to distribute the show in the US, while using an established streaming service everywhere else. It seems reasonable when you’re under the impression that CBS actually paid for it, but they did not. They licensed the distribution to Netflix, and Netflix foot the bill… For the entire first season. That means that these 16 episodes cost CBS nothing! As if that weren’t enough, they cut Netflix out of 49% of the global market share for streaming. On top of all of that, they opted for a tiered service model wherein customers pay for either a service that includes commercials, or pay a bit more for a service that doesn’t. I’ve heard many say that it’s just a few bucks a month, but consider that for those who pay for the service with commercials, CBS is ‘covering the costs of the show’ with three different sources of income. They got Netflix to pay, they get companies to pay them for air time over the streaming service as viewers are watching, and they’re getting the monthly subscription fee from the customer! That’s beyond greedy. And caught in the crossfire is a show whose creator believed in a world where mankind would someday evolve past petty things like greed. It’s pretty oxymoronic if you ask me, and I, for one, refuse to support the business model. Fox, NBC, and ABC already jointly contribute to Hulu, which is a reliable and affordable streaming service that has an established reputation for delivering what it promises. Disney has already announced that they’re developing their own streaming services (plural) that customers will have to pay for a al carte. I can imagine that this is at least in part as a response to CBS All Access. Fox announced that X-Files would be coming back for an 11th season in 2019. I’d be more surprised if they didn’t announce that was going to be broadcast exclusively on a streaming service of their own making. Once Fox bails on Hulu, that leaves NBC holding the bag, and you can bet that they’ll just follow suit and try to get their own exclusive service up and running. They’ve already got a service that their XFinity customers can get so they already have the capability.

Now I realize that there are probably a lot of people out there who are fairly new to the streaming scene. Welcome to the party posers! A lot of people don’t seem to realize why the cord cutting movement started in the first place. It started as an alternative to paying between $60 and $120 per month for cable or satellite TV services. The what was not terribly important. What was important, was paying less to legally watch the shows and movies that people enjoy. Netflix was able to offer a vast library of great shows and movies at an affordable cost because studios agreed that having a conglomerated service for content distribution was an effective and mutually beneficial way to do business with the customer. However, the Internet, as it is wont to do had to go overboard with the new thing, and so a ton of different services started cropping up. Most notably, there’s Hulu, and there’s Amazon Prime. I don’t think anyone begrudge those two services because they offer a wide variety of very different content. But, you also have Crackle, VRV, Crunchyroll, Rooster Teeth, Funimation, Cartoon Hangover, Shudder, Geek and Sundry, Nerdist, Tested, and YouTube Red, just to name a few. Hopefully, you’re starting to see the problem here. It’s no big deal if it’s just one service trying to muscle in on the industry, but when there are so many cropping up so quickly that Wikipedia doesn’t even bother to maintain a list of them all, then things might be out of control. And the fact is that the pie is only so big. If you’ve got all of these services trying to snatch a piece, eventually there just won’t be enough left for anyone to be successful. And if we’re being honest, none of us wants to see our franchise taken down by something so mundane, and silly as market oversaturation. To anyone who’s okay with this ongoing madness, I have only one response:

I made this!

Despite my rantings, and my tone, I really am hoping that this new Star Trek can be a successful venture for everyone. I’m excited to see what twists and turns await as we find out more about this drastically different, but still vaguely familiar universe. I think that the show holds potential, and I’m willing to get on board with that. If episode three is an indicator of the quality we can expect from subsequent episodes, then I can get behind it. I look forward to boldly going with this new, and interesting concept. There. Rant over. Stick around for next week because Halloween is right around the corner, and we’re going to look at some spooky movies to celebrate!