I got Discovery on Blu-Ray as a Christmas gift and am watching it for the first time (outside the premiere that debuted on CBS last year). I have watched the first 3 episodes thus far and thought I'd post a few first impressions. I've avoided reading any specific story threads about the series, though I'm familiar with some background information and have read the 3 novels released thus far.
At the moment I'm still getting adjusted to the show. It's interesting to note the episodes don't have a standard run time. The first episode was 42 minutes and I wrongly assumed they would all be 42 (which was also the run time of Enterprise so it seemed to make sense). But the 2nd was 37 minutes and the 3rd about 47 minutes. Not a big deal really, just an observation.
I'm trying to make some allowances for some of the production design. But I really don't care for the Klingon design. I try to be forgiving as we know TMP redesigned Klingons, TNG made some changes to Romulans, Enterprise made some changes to Andorian and Tellarite design. But between the new makeup and the uniforms, it's hard to see how the Klingons can effectively fight hand to hand, and the make up seems to cause a lot of issues with their speech. So no, not a fan of the Klingon look.
It's also obvious they were heavily influenced by the Abramsverse movies. I still don't get the whole window instead of a viewscreen thing. But I'll let that pass for now. I guess we could say between the Kelvin through Discovery Starfleet was having a window fetish for that period for some reason and eventually went back to a traditional viewscreen. And again, I'll make some allowances for production design. I did for Enterprise and it's only fair to give Discovery some latitude as well. I'll get used to it.
Now we are told this takes place in the prime timeline. There are one or two things I'm having a hard time buying with that. One is the forcefields that pop into place on the Shenzou. Now the Enterprise is a more advanced ship and they don't have those types of forcefields, they have to rely on emergency bulkheads. Why wouldn't the Enterprise have emergency forcefields as well? Not sure about that. Also, 100 years of limited contact with Klingons was noted. That takes us back pretty much to the end of Enterprise. Did the Klingons suddenly go quiet after the Augment Virus incident (which was almost 100 years exactly before Discovery)? I wonder if we will see any human looking Klingons on Discovery.
Character wise--well I've only seen the Discovery itself once thus far. Lorca seems a very unusual captain. Something seems a bit off about him, but then I'll have to give it time. Cadet Tilley seems very insecure for a cadet assigned to an apparently experimental starship. Again, maybe there's more then meets the eye, but I found her to be a bit irritating so far. I was also a bit surprised at the chief engineers attitude toward Captain Lorca. His questioning of the Captain when he ordered him to take Burnham with him to the Glenn almost bordered on insubordination. And the spore drive that was introduced doesn't seem to jive with canon. If they have such an advanced drive, why is Starfleet relying on 'simple' warp drive 10 years later? I assume there will be an answer to that question in upcoming episodes.
Well, just some initial thoughts so far. I imagine some of my questions will be answered in future episodes.
At the moment I'm still getting adjusted to the show. It's interesting to note the episodes don't have a standard run time. The first episode was 42 minutes and I wrongly assumed they would all be 42 (which was also the run time of Enterprise so it seemed to make sense). But the 2nd was 37 minutes and the 3rd about 47 minutes. Not a big deal really, just an observation.
I'm trying to make some allowances for some of the production design. But I really don't care for the Klingon design. I try to be forgiving as we know TMP redesigned Klingons, TNG made some changes to Romulans, Enterprise made some changes to Andorian and Tellarite design. But between the new makeup and the uniforms, it's hard to see how the Klingons can effectively fight hand to hand, and the make up seems to cause a lot of issues with their speech. So no, not a fan of the Klingon look.
It's also obvious they were heavily influenced by the Abramsverse movies. I still don't get the whole window instead of a viewscreen thing. But I'll let that pass for now. I guess we could say between the Kelvin through Discovery Starfleet was having a window fetish for that period for some reason and eventually went back to a traditional viewscreen. And again, I'll make some allowances for production design. I did for Enterprise and it's only fair to give Discovery some latitude as well. I'll get used to it.
Now we are told this takes place in the prime timeline. There are one or two things I'm having a hard time buying with that. One is the forcefields that pop into place on the Shenzou. Now the Enterprise is a more advanced ship and they don't have those types of forcefields, they have to rely on emergency bulkheads. Why wouldn't the Enterprise have emergency forcefields as well? Not sure about that. Also, 100 years of limited contact with Klingons was noted. That takes us back pretty much to the end of Enterprise. Did the Klingons suddenly go quiet after the Augment Virus incident (which was almost 100 years exactly before Discovery)? I wonder if we will see any human looking Klingons on Discovery.
Character wise--well I've only seen the Discovery itself once thus far. Lorca seems a very unusual captain. Something seems a bit off about him, but then I'll have to give it time. Cadet Tilley seems very insecure for a cadet assigned to an apparently experimental starship. Again, maybe there's more then meets the eye, but I found her to be a bit irritating so far. I was also a bit surprised at the chief engineers attitude toward Captain Lorca. His questioning of the Captain when he ordered him to take Burnham with him to the Glenn almost bordered on insubordination. And the spore drive that was introduced doesn't seem to jive with canon. If they have such an advanced drive, why is Starfleet relying on 'simple' warp drive 10 years later? I assume there will be an answer to that question in upcoming episodes.
Well, just some initial thoughts so far. I imagine some of my questions will be answered in future episodes.
