One more sleep until a new Star Trek TV series premieres. The last time I could say that was September 2001, 16 years ago.
(It was 21 years between the premieres of TOS and TNG, so it’s not a record).
The early reviews (or to be more accurate, the headlines of the early reviews as there is no way I’m reading that now) seem fairly positive. But I maintain my skepticism from the earlier posts in this series. But I’m also excited – this will be only the second time I’m watching a Star Trek series as it launches.
(TOS and TNG premiered before my TV watching, VOY and ENT never captured my interest when they were on. I’m fairly certain I watched DS9 from its start, but honestly would struggle to prove that).
The main things I’m looking for are:
Is this Star Trek, or generic SF show number seven? This is both a question of history, but also one of philosophy – Star Trek at its best is the excitement and danger of exploration, and the battle for the moral high ground.
Is there a reasonable explanation for the fourth iteration of Klingon makeup? More to the point, does it mean something, or is it just a gratuitous change because a makeup designer wanted something more modern (looking at you here, Star Trek Into Darkness Klingons)?
How is the continuity with The Original Series? Sarek and Harry Mudd are two of the most obvious points, but I’ll be surprised if we don’t get a few other easter eggs.
Is it a good TV show? Does it have interesting characters telling an interesting story?
Is there an explanation for why we go from the set design seen in the trailers to the set design of TOS within 10 years? This matters not at all to me (for some reason it feels very different to the Klingon makeup), but I’d like to see them at least try. DS9 made it work.
I’ll be returning to the Trekathon series as of tomorrow, writing up some brief thoughts on each episode. Assuming everything works and it appears on Netflix according to schedule that is.
In the biggest news yet, there’s an actual trailer for Star Trek: Discovery
This looks to be pretty early (maybe first episode or two only) material. And there’s a lot to be optimistic about. While the design is a bit ‘Abrams Movies’, the dialogue feels a lot like more classic Star Trek. It looks gorgeous, with a lot of callbacks to the Original Series in design and special effects.
The major element I tripped over was the Klingons. While I’ve seen some things that suggest that there’s going to be an in-universe explanation for the new appearance (‘ancient Klingons’), I feel like it’s a bit unnecessary. But there’s the bigger point that the Klingons are not a good villain, and doing something with the Romulans would be a lot more interesting.
Still, enough for me to upgrade back to ‘guardedly optimistic’. That trailer looked, more or less, like Star Trek to me.
Mudd is not the worst character in all of Star Trek (cough Vic Fontaine cough), but he is at best a slapstick idiocy that it’s hard to see working in a more modern TV series. Maybe a gritty take would be interesting, but that would be hard to link into TOS. Rainn Wilson doesn’t strike me as the best casting either – his most famous role (Dwight in The Office) is more famous for deadpan humour than the sort of scenery chewing slapstick of Mudd.
Yes, new countdown. This is based on the ‘early Fall’ date mentioned by the head of CBS.
The news, other than I hope the show is going to be out before November, is that the captain has been cast:
The U.S.S. Discovery has welcomed aboard its captain. CBS has just confirmed that Jason Isaacs will join its next Star Trek series—but don’t forget, for the first time ever in the franchise, the captain will not be the main star. Isaacs will play Lorca, the captain of the series’ main Federation starship, Discovery.
Jason Isaacs is one of those actors who seems to have been in lots of things (most notably Harry Potter as the older Malfoy), but has never been the leading player.
This isn’t news that moves my expectations one way or the other really. He’ll be good in this, but that won’t be how the show lives or dies.
Star Trek: Discovery, CBS’ upcoming addition to the long running sci-fi series, has been delayed again.
There’s now no release date for the show beyond ‘when it’s ready’.
And then:
CBS confirmed today that James Frain would play Spock’s father.
(I’ll leave aside that when Mark Lenard portrayed the 2260s Sarek he was 43, James Frain portraying the 2250s Sarek is 48. He’s meant to be a 90-100 year old Vulcan, you can have a little creative licence there).
Put together I’m officially downgrading from ‘cautiously optimistic’ to ‘worried’.
Sarek first (and why do they have to say ‘Spock’s father’ here – anyone paying attention to casting news on a new Star Trek TV show knows who Sarek is). Canonically Spock is in his mid 20s by this point, indeed he’s begun to serve on the Enterprise. So this is a Sarek who doesn’t much like Starfleet. He’s an ambassador, so perhaps some role in negotiations with the Klingons makes sense. So I can’t really say that this is a big stretch – but something about this feels wrong to me. Perhaps it’s that they’re trying too hard to shoehorn in links to the Original Series, maybe it’s the idea of recasting Mark Lenard.
But the indefinite delay is more worrying. Not because it won’t be out soon (although it was originally supposed to be out next week). But rather because it suggests that they’re frantically reworking everything to create a story and a plan. Which means that they’re junking whatever they had to start with. I think starting something like this without a clear idea of the story you want to tell isn’t going to end well. It begins to seem like there’s something of a death spiral going on.