Category: Paramount+ Trek Reviews

As STAR TREK: DISCOVERY  completes its initial season, I have one final chance to kvetch about the new series before what looks to be a year or more hiatus while production proceeds on season two.

I know it seems like all I ever do (or most of what I do) is criticize this show…and many have asked why I’ve even bothered watching it in the first place.  It’s a fair question, and the answers I can come up with are: 1) it’s not that the show sucks, and 2) I’m a 50-year Trekkie…how could I not watch this show?  Even if I’m choosing to be critical of it (as I am of the rebooted Star Trek films, as well), I want to know what it is that I’m criticizing.

But as I said, folks, the show doesn’t suck!  It’s well acted, well produced, well edited, has great music, mostly great pacing, looks visually stunning, and is obvious the result of a team of very dedicated individuals working very hard to produce a quality television series.

So why the heck don’t I like this show more?  Why don’t I LOVE it???

It’s not simply that I don’t like the bling-shiny uniforms or that I wasn’t thrilled with the new-fangled Klingons and their crazy ship designs that look more like bats  and the Federation technology that looks like 25th century rather than 23rd.  I moved past all the cosmetic issues I had with the series early on.  So their USS Enterprise NCC-1701 doesn’t match the original.  My head canon can just shift this entire series into an alternative reality, and all is good.

So again, why don’t I like this show more?

I know I’ve sounded like a disgruntled broken record in my editorial reviews.  But that’s just me trying to figure out the answer to this question in my head (and sharing those thoughts with all of you).

And as the first season brought with it what I considered to be a very unsatisfying end to the Klingon war, I finally put my finger on what’s been bothering me the most…

Continue reading “It’s not what’s in DISCOVERY that bugs me – it’s what’s MISSING! (editorial review)”

Spoilers, there’ll be a few…but then again, too few to mention

I touched on the question last week: What is STAR TREK: DISCOVERY about?  The original Star Trek and Next Generation were about exploring strange, new worlds and stuff.  Deep Space Nine was about healing the spiritual, cultural, and environmental wounds of a decades-long occupation…both of a race of people and also of a space station that were suddenly thrust into a role of prime importance in the Alpha Quadrant.  Voyager was about getting home.  And Enterprise was about exploring the final frontier for the first time.

But what is Star Trek: Discovery about?

If you watched the first episode of Discovery, it initially appeared that the show would be about Michael Burnham getting ready for her first command.  That went out the window quickly when she attacked her captain.  By the end of the second episode, Burnham was in chains and a war had started with the Klingons.

The third episode establishes Burnham as a pariah, brought aboard Discovery because, well, because she’s awesome?  Because she deserves a second chance?  Who knows?  It’s still early.  So okay, now we’ve got a show about an “awesome” officer who’s been flung down into the abyss of life and is slowly clawing her way back up the Starfleet Jeffries Tube to a place of respect.  Fine…except the show abandons the “pariah” part pretty quickly.  Burnham makes a best friend, becomes a useful part of the crew, and even gets a boyfriend.  Heck, by episode 5, she’s even giving Saru Captain Georgiou’s old telescope and having a “moment” with him.

So, no, the show isn’t about Burnham’s redemption, as she’s pretty much redeemed by a third of the way through the season.  Hmmmm, maybe the show is about Burnham’s voyage of internal, um, discovery and learning to forgive and love herself the way others have.

Nope, way too much else going on in the show for that to be it!

Continue reading “Is DISCOVERY the “STAR TREK SHOW ABOUT NOTHING”? (editorial review)”

IT’S SPOILIN’ TIME!!!!

Last week, I wrote a blog that started with a few paragraphs drawing comparisons between CAPTAIN GABRIEL LORCA and DONALD TRUMP.  Let me be perfectly clear: I WAS KIDDING!!!  But apparently, no, I wasn’t…at least as far as the STAR TREK: DISCOVERY writing team was concerned!

In what was probably the most obvious and direct reference to a political issue since Bele and Lokai were each colored half-black and half-white, LORCA/TRUMP says the following things during the most recent 13th episode, “What’s Past Is Prologue”…

I’ve watched for years; you’ve let alien races spill over the borders, flourish in our backyard, then have the gall to incite rebellion.  The Terrans need a leader who will preserve our way of life, our race.

…we together will make the empire glorious again.

Here’s the full scene:

My wife Wendy, who normally doesn’t watch the show with me but just happened to be in the living when this line was delivered, asked me, “Are the writers always this lazy?”

Now that Lorca is the established bad guy, let’s draw a direct line from him to Donald Trump.  It’s not that Wendy and I like Donald Trump or anything.  But seriously, was this kind of dig really necessary?  Should Star Trek be used to take cheap political shots?

Continue reading “JASON ISAACS says fans who said DISCOVERY wasn’t STAR TREK were right! (editorial review)”

There be SPOILERS here!

And now we know.  Well, lots of us already knew.  I’ve written about it repeatedly here and elsewhere.  I and others have debated with those in the fan base who believed that Captain Lorca was simply a tough-as-nails leader who would always put Starfleet first.  In this time of war with the Klingons, we needed someone like Lorca to make the United Federation of Planets great again!

But now we have all, er, discovered that Lorca has been playing us this whole time.  He’s really from the Mirror Universe, and he’s a bad dude.  For those fans who supported Lorca, stood up to defend his disturbing behavior and his dark methods—guess what!—you’ve placed your loyalty in someone who is just out for personal gain and doesn’t care about the UFP or anyone in our Prime Universe.  In fact, he doesn’t seem to care about people from his Mirror Universe either…certainly not women.  “Her name was Ava, and I liked her,” Lorca tells the brother of a woman he’d killed years before.  “But you know how it is.  Somebody better came along.”

Sure, he can be charming and talk crew members like Stamets into doing almost anything.  But Lorca’s been keeping a lot of secrets from all of us, including from the people he leads.  As far as I’m concerned, Lorca’s lust for power trumps anything that might have made him seem admirable in any way…and he’s fooled at least 37% of us all along.

Okay, enough of the fun double entendres.  Let’s start doin’ some reviewin’!

Continue reading “Has DISCOVERY gotten TOO dark to still be STAR TREK? (editorial review)”

There’s SPOILERS off the starboard bow…
starboard bow…starboard bow!

After publishing my previous editorial review of the 10th episode of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, a post from someone named Boris commented: “I wouldn’t be surprised if Capt Georgiou made a reappearance – maybe even as an Empress…”

I responded, “Man, if they make Georgiou the Emperor/Empress…that’s gonna be one angry blog!!! Enough with the doppelgängers!!!!” 🙂

Even as I wrote that response, I knew it was gonna happen.  It had to.  The “faceless” emperor?  C’mon!  In a Mirror Universe filled with probably hundreds of billions of sentient beings, we just happen to run into the dozen or so that are all main characters listed in the opening credits of the show: Captain “Killy” Tilly, the slave Saru, bearded Sarek, Voq leads the resistance, Burnham is captain of the USS Shenzhou, even Mirror-Stamets pops in.  Honestly, I was surprised we didn’t see Mirror Landry (the first Discovery security chief) as the Shenzhou‘s head chef or something!

So really, of course Philippa Georgiou was going to be the Empress.  Boris nailed it.  And that really pissed me off, right?

Surprisingly…no, it didn’t.

Neither was I angry about the Mirror-Tellarites mysteriously growing tusks like wild boar…or the Andorian whose voice reverberated for some strange reason.  Nothing seemed sloppily written or beyond believable.  There was even some banter!

Honestly, guys, I really liked this episode.  Let’s take a look at why…

Continue reading “Why the 11th episode of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY did NOT piss me off! (editorial review)”

Did I mention there will be spoilers?  Oh, there WILL be spoilers!

I actually liked the tenth episode of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY…until I hated it.

Well, “hate” is a strong word.  So instead, I’m just gonna go with “totally pissed me off!”

So what was the straw that stuck in my craw?

Was it the underwhelming “surprise” that Ash Tyler is really the Klingon Voq and that there never was any “rape”?  Nah.  I knew he was Voq all along.  Being predictable doesn’t piss me off.

Was it that Ash/Voq killed Dr. Culber…arguably the only character on the ship I was starting to actually like?  No.  That stung, but as I said in a previous blog, I’m not really emotionally invested in any of the characters.  So I got over Culber pretty quickly.

Was it that I still have to wait to say “I told you so!” when we finally learn that Captain Lorca was/is originally from the Mirror Universe?  Not really.  I can wait another week or two for that “surprise” reveal.

Was it the cringe-worthy scene of Tilly’s first attempt at being “Captain Killy”?  No.  I pretty much expected something like that to happen—the inevitable “fish out of water” scene to establish that our civilized folks are gonna find it tough to pretend to be barbarians.  And it wasn’t too bad.  It was even kinda fun and cutesy.

Was it the Mirror Universe uniforms that somehow managed to be even more outrageous than the Starfleet uniforms?  No, I pretty much ignored the glitzy half-vests…right after singing Let’s Do The Time Warp Again when I first saw the Discovery crew wearing them.  Actually, I was more horrified to discover that the Elvis-like Starfleet uniforms on this show include golden soles on the boots!  Who designed their footwear…Usain Bolt???

Was it the lack of banter?  No.  This episode actually had some decent banter for a change.  (When I see/hear banter in an episode, my friends, I freely admit it.)

So why did this episode piss me off so much…and why did it only piss me off at the end?

Continue reading “STAR TREK: DISCOVERY just royally PISSED ME OFF!!! (spoiler-filled editorial review)”