Note: I went in with an open mind and no real knowledge of what the show was going to be: I had only seen the first trailer (the one where they show the ship and nothing else) and read nothing about the show except the title and release date.
My first impressions are, as before the episode, a mix of worry and hope.
To me, what matters most aren't superficial aspects like how the Klingons look, what sound effects are used, whether it matches continuity (continuity is important, but not primordial), how the uniforms look,... it's that the "heart of Trek" (to quote someone from upthread) be present.
And, to me at least, the heart of Trek lies in discussions of ethics and the human condition through a futuristic allegory.
It's Balance of Terror, The Measure of a Man, Who Watches the Watchers, The Drumhead, Duet, Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges, In the Pale Moonlight, Blink of an Eye, The Void, ...
Everything else is just window dressing. You could ditch the transporters in favour of constant shuttle usage, have no ship-to-ship energy weapons, replace phasers with conventional firearms, have the Klingons be pink-skinned small creatures obsessed with the preservation of trees and 6-armed Vulcans who constantly extoll the virtues of coffee in high-pitched voices, as long as there is an attempt to go beyond mere entertainment and present an humanistic and hopeful vision of the future, it'd be true Trek to me.
As far as that is concerned, we've seen very little of it.
What we've seen of the show seem to hint at an action-fest. And I like those, I just don't think EVERYTHING should be an action-fest.
Is it so wrong to have a single franchise that aspires to something else?
If "Space Action" and nothing else is what the series will be, I see no point in it being Trek. Might as well call it Star Wars: the Series. Or Stargate: The New WraithOris. Or newnewBSG. Or, preferably, make it a Firefly reboot.
There were glimpses, though, in the beginning of the first episode and in the concussed crewman declaring "we're explorers, not soldiers!"
Nuggets of hope to cling onto, but at this stage, I'd rather re-watch Darmok a 15th time than either of those episodes a second one.
This all being said, I'm not going to judge the series by 2 episodes. It's way too early to tell what it's going to be.
To conclude, I will give my impressions of the "fluff":
- Overall visuals: impressive, but to be expected. A bit jarring that the tech is more advanced than latter series, but to be expected as well. Going with a TOS look wouldn't have worked at all... though maybe an ENT look should've been considered.
- Theme tune: bland, sure, but I'll take bland over Faith of the Heart any day.
- Klingon redesign: first shot was weird, with the pan-out of K'vumtal's face, it looked so rubbery. Then, it grew on me a bit. Then, I noticed that none of them had any hair, which was mildly annoying. They look more like Remans than Klingons, tbh. Overall, it (and the introduction of the science officer alien) seems aimed at placating the frequent criticism of Trek's "rubber forehead aliens", but I don't think that criticism really needed to be placated.
- The Klingon behavioural redesign was a bigger offender, though: they seem to act more like brutes than honour-bound Space Vikings/Space Samurai. So, they look like Remans and act like Nausicaans.
- Making Klingons speak Klingon with subtitles: a good idea, but not very well executed at the moment. They don't sound like the Klingons used to. Not enough yelling, too much mincing about.
So, they look like Remans, act like Nausicaans and talk like Ferengi... hmmm.
- Uniforms: I might be the only one, but I actually liked them.
- Acting: Michelle Yeoh was good, I thought; as was Hellboy fishdude in the science officer role. Burnham and the Klingons? Not so much. AlbinoKlingondude was dreadful.
- The listing of Michelle Yeoh as "special guest star" was very silly. Way to clue/spoil everyone as to her early demise.
- The holographic communicators just seem so pointless. Yes, DS9 had them too... and they were just as pointless. Not bad, just pointless.
