It was sometime last week when I first spied the new series while looking for something to watch on ye olde Netflix. I have never really been an avid fan of Star Trek, but one could say I grew up watching the series since I do have vague memories of the show, I think my mom may have been quite into it at a stage.
My sister wanted to watch it with me, so I added it to “my list”, waiting for an opportune time when we were both free.
When I fired up Netflix last night, and I was in fact rather excited to watch this newfangled series. I can’t really tell you why, dear reader. Perhaps there was an element of nostalgia, even though I’m not nearly well-versed in the long running series’ seemingly bottomless lore and burgeoning timeline. I wouldn’t even consider myself a “trekkie”. I do, however, love science fiction.
Vague Spoilers ahead, probably, I’ll try keep this to a minimum, though!
The show starts out on a desert Alien world, where we find Captain Georgiou and our MC as well as first officer, the deceptively named Michael Burnham, portrayed by Sonequa Martin-Green, who we soon learn was raised by the Vulcans after her parents are killed by the Klingons. Naturally this serves as a plot device, in a rather interesting way.
It should be noted that this series has in some ways rubbed some Star Trek purists up the wrong way, for various reasons. For one, Discovery takes place before The Original Series, with confirmations from the production team that it takes place in the “prime” timeline. Annoyingly, some folks are up in arms when the series has barely had a chance to do.. anything.. really..
One of the reasons for this is the fact that the Vulcan who raises our MC is supposed to be Spock’s father. This has caused some.. confusion.. among hardcore fans. To someone like me, who is trying to enjoy this new series on it’s own merits, it’s neither here nor there.
Fans are also displeased that the Starfleet uniforms bear no resemblance to the ones worn in The Original Series, and the Klingons have apparently been redesigned some. They are now apparently hairless, and the ones we encounter in the first episode are wearing strangely ornate armour, that is apparently uncharacteristic when compared to Klingons of days gone by. This is somewhat justified in that the Klingons we encounter here are apparently a radical splinter faction, what with their empire in disarray. The producers promise everything will make sense.
Anyways, once our Captain and MC are done saving an alien race from an impending drought that will last 80 years or so, we get to meet the rest of the crew aboard USS Shenzhou, which soon sets off to investigate some or other anomaly on the far reaches of Federation starspace.
Things get hairy pretty quickly, and without getting into detail, I must say that I am rather pleased so far with what I have seen. At the end of the second episode, everything is a real mess already, and I daresay that I am quite anxious to catch the next episode (apparently it aired yesterday!) Hungry for more, I ended up watching some Neil Degrasse Tyson stuff, which is always interesting.
I must add that the new series seems accessible enough to those who have never watched Star Trek, yet might be keen for some good solid science fiction. I can’t speak for the more hardcore fans, but as it stands, I intend to see this series through!
Feel free to weigh in, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings!
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