I really enjoyed it. How much I kind of can't say yet- like all pilot shows, it's a lot of set- up, it's hard to know yet what the real flavor of the series will be, and I'm sure like all shows many things will be improved over time (i.e. the dreadful whole first season of Next Gen).
It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to the next ep. That said, a few nitpicks:
The opening music- where have I heard it? Doesn't the audio drame Defiant use it as their closing music? Just the first example of a lot of unoriginal music choices. When the TOS music pops up, it seems really out of place with the era and the rest of the music.
"Space, the final frontier..." that's just wrong. Kirk did it, and Picard, bringing the Enterprise and Star Trek back, did it, but that was it- the subsequent Trek series never did it again. Starship Exeter had their own version, and that was cool. It doesn't seem right to me that your Captain highjacked that opening and just stuck the name of her ship in there. Does every Starfleet captain say that about their ship? If every Trek series used it, it would seem awful silly.
The narration- very different, nothing wrong with it- except I felt it came in and out of the story in a very uneven way, as if it was an afterthought to fix unclear plot points, and not a natural part of the story structure. Also it switches from flowery prose to straight descriptions of the action- it should be one or the other.
There seems to be a lot of back story- the celebrated history of the Excelsior, the Iconian gateway, etc- I read on your site that it's all from a role playing game, but at first I found it confusing, which isn't necassarily a bad thing, so long as things begin to make sense eventually. It needn't all be explained in the pilot, but I would kind of like to see it to become more a part of these episodes, or dropped if it isn't important to this series.
The drydock launch sequence. Very predictable- I knew it was coming, but I hoped I was wrong- how many of these are we going to have to endure in Trek? However, I have to say you did a very nice job pumping life into it. Very well done, except for again an unoriginal music choice using the movie drydock music.
Westlake= Wesley Crusher? Some might complain- but I liked Wesley, and yours has a very different and interesting back story.
My biggest problem is, as you say on your site, you have an obnoxiously large cast. This makes sense on such a large ship as a Sovereign class (more sense than the small bunch we got to see on Next Gen). I have a particularly hard time with names, but I bet most listeners would have a hard time keeping all those (well casted) voices straight. It would be super helpful if you could put crew profiles on your site, with some kind of pictures (sketches, photos of "dream cast" celebs or the actual folks who voice the characters) so we could see everyone's name, rank, and race. I'd be willing to make some quickie sketches if you would send me detailed descriptions.
Sorry to dwell so much on the negative, I hope I'm not getting you down. I really enjoyed this and look forward to more.
