[Spoiler warning] New Star Trek series on Netflix!

[Marjo]

Hi guys, hope your day is going well!

Are you aware that there's a new Star Trek series on Netflix now? It started on Monday and there's already 2 episodes available. 

This is me about it:     

Have you started watching it already or have plans to do so? I'm still lacking behind in the previous series a bit, currently at mid-season 3 on Voyager. However, do you think I should go ahead anyway and watch the new one too at the same time? @Martin-O2 said it shouldn't spoil anything but... I'm a bit paranoid! 

Apparently it's pretty awesome at least according to this article.

Trailer:

[sheepdog]

So episode 6 and we're firmly in the ST universe of extreme technobabble Only caught up with it yesterday due to other commitments so this episode....

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• Basically Discovery does hippy trippy visuals a lot. 
• Notice the chief engineer is a little trippy too which is likely the side effect of the spore drive
• Spot the movie time: Inception (mind meld within mind meld). The Matrix - see the fight scenes. Yeah highly contrived and we want fist fights not zen kung fu fighting. 
• Disco T-shirts? Surely there's a meme for that coming. That and the oddest bluetooth headset you might find on ebay. 
• Spock makes a large mention so cue intro to young Spock at some point in the series.
• Lorca is quite the duplicitious character. Remind me why Wesley Crusher Michael  is the lead one as she's just discovered the use of the Vulcan raised eyebrow.
• The Ship's doctor doesn't seem to know much. 

Probably the poorest episode so far though mainly setting up plot devices. Thankfully no expletives this week. 

[Marjo]

Aargh thanks for the reminder @sheepdog, I haven't had time yet to check out this week's episode! I think I'll have a mini marathon beginning of next week.  Thanks for the spoiler tags

[jonsie]

They have commissioned a second series 😁

[Marjo]

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@jonsie wrote:

They have commissioned a second series 😁

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Great news!!! Thanks for the info @jonsie!   

[sheepdog]

Almost forgot, the food replicator reminded me of this classic:

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[sheepdog]

And episode 7 can be summarised as this:

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 Star Trek does Strictly Come Dancing. 

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Also featured rap music to the chosen tune of Staying Alive which is a clue to what happens often in the episode. 

Harry Mudd is a star but as long as they use him sparingly he'll be one of the highlights of Discovery's legacy. Tonights episode is a good one for his reboot edcharacter. "Random communications guy" is one of the best lines!

Sadly they copped out with the ending of the plot but you'll need to see it to see why and oddly I'm thinking its more of a tribute to the original series of ending a Harry Mudd episode. 

[sheepdog]

Episode 8

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Ah the opening scenes means we’re in for loose end tie-up episode before the finale of the mid-series break next week.

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After seeing it, best I think you watch this one back to back with next weeks finale as its a semi-two-parter that you need to see the conclusion to understand what this episode is about.

But if you must.....

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Epic Kingon space battle ships. Yay! A trip down to an uninhabited planet with plenty of optical filtering for pop out colours. Think of the film Avatar or Canada as its commonly known 😉

I'm sure the costume designer is a fan of 80’s pop fashion. Definite influences of Adam Ant era in the Klingons. The popstar bridge crew get a sentance each this week! Well at most, 5 words.

Chief Engineer is finally realising drugs aren’t a good thing as does Saru (who is still acts better than Michael even with the prostetics). Michael's love interest sub-plot is rather um, er, can we see more Klingon subtitles please?

Anyway, the summary is you’ll be thinking this episode is rather Avatar like in a New Age way. Oh yeah, nothing really happens and its just a set up for next week. 

[sheepdog]

So Episode 8 marks the mid-season break, next episode January 8th 2018.

Spoiler time:

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Last weeks episode plot base was just a filler. It has a brief mention in the retrospective at the beginning so unless its a future plot line, episode 7 is really and was a waste of time.

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Ok this episode, the First rule of Klingon Fight Club is you don't stop fighting, Second rule of Klingon Fight Club is you don't stop fighting, Third rule of Klingon Fight Club you don't stop and look at the spaceship about to fire on you whilst your shields are down.

We get to see Michael dispose of the Klingon subtitles by whipping out her iPhone Universal Translator app and the love-interest revealed as a Klingon drone (or rather the reason why he was kept alive in prison). The iphone app is still far more interesting than the lovebirds.

Lots of hints about discovering alternate time lines and dimensions so cue parallel universe arc coming. 

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So overall for this part of the season,

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I'd say a 7 out of 10 and mostly for the visuals being outstanding for a TV show. You can guess I'm not a fan of Michael's character as there doesn't seem to be any real depth to her as we've already seen her backstory. Frankly, its not that interesting as we've more or less seen it all before and way too familiar to Wesley Crusher.

Captain Lorca on the other hand is the real star of the series so looking forward to see more episodes with more of him and his unusual hobby as revealed by Harry Mudd. Who in turn deserved better than the ending to the episode he was in. Will the security officer provide more than a love interest for Michael, we shall see but I'm not convinced this show actually needs the romance/love aspect and only something obviously thrown in to keep the execs happy. 

Saru is superbly acted by Doug Jones as the token ST lead alien. Jury is out on Tilly but slowly liking her though perhaps the writers need to engage the other crew members in the story more rather than Michael's point of view. Which is slightly grating considering she's emulating Wesley Crusher. 

I'm beginning to realise the Bridge crew entire acting ability is literally glaring at the main viewer intently and uttering the odd word. Or turning round to face the Captain and staring at him intently. No idea what that robot thing actually does on the bridge but unless they are featured in future episodes, the only reason for them being there is to fill space during space battles. 

The Doctor is quite weak out of all the Star Trek doctors in standing against the Captain. If they kill or write him out, he won't be missed. Stammets has got better but whether he becomes normal remains to be seen in the latter half.

Now we have the universal translator, I suspect a bit more alien encounter of the week coming up thus pushing it back into traditional ST stomping grounds. Hmmm, Klingons have effectively been neutralised so do we now get the Romulans?