UPDATED- I have watched about three (now up to 9) episodes of Star Trek Discovery. I don’t have any passion for this show.  I had mixed feelings going in but its worse than I feared. Not fun and heavily pilfered from a variety of successful sci -fi franchises (NONE of which were Star Trek). They even say “It’s not you, it’s me.” just like in Seinfield! Its harder to watch than the worst episode of Deep Space 9.

Instead of any kind of good or cohesive story its a freakish trip through other successful sci-fi franchises

At its worst, which it re-establishes several times an episode, its as maudlin and self important as the misguided ‘serious’ episodes of M*A*S*H.

Its boring, predictable and derivative. Familiar characters get horrible treatment. The writers research seems very cursory. Its not network quality. Its an even worse show than the shortest lived Law & Order spin-off.

Because I have now PTSD Im going to try to write my way to a place where I can forget the trauma and sleep. Yeah, its THAT bad.

At this point I must trash JJ Abrams greedy merchandise oriented creative decisions he selfishly made in his time at the Helm of the Final Frontier.  We split the timeline so we wouldnt have to revenue share toys and this is what we’re left with. The implications of his Star Trek franchise, which he’s now abandoned to ruin Star Wars, throws all shows out of cannon except PREQUELS of the original 1967 series. In other words, Enterprise and this. I guess the idea of a traditional Star Trek show was never considered. Certainly the writers are a bit handcuffed.

That said they did a shitty job. No respect for the fans or the material was shown. More of the Abrams era “Lets fix that awful Star Trek by killing its charms” approach.  Its not really an excuse. This is still Star Trek and big budget and good script could have come together, because things like the sets are a triumph most of the time. No such luck. They failed deliver a show you would want to watch or any likable characters for that matter. The lead is a Human female Reverse Spock who grew up on Vulcan. And that’s not even the worst or laziest part.

What went wrong? Apparently everything but mostly, in no real order, it’s that the shows few attempts at humor fail miserably. Then tone is self important and overly slick. All CGI special effects stops have been pulled out. You might be dazzled by a near future holographic subspace conference calls and a huge, even Bigly space battle, but you wont have any fun or crack a smile as the show just sort of happens.

Also lacking- Simple compassion. Its stark how little life seems worth to the Federation. We see characters in jeopardy, like a shuttle pilot who i guess dies for no reason except the dialogue was particularly cumbersome and bad for the preceding 5 minutes. You would expect the loss of any Star Fleet officer to deserve at least a remark, like how these awful people werent worth the loss, or that she had been recovered no thanks to them. The show lacks HUMANITY. In a universe of aliens its rudderless.

Here’s an example of how terrible it is- theres an episode called “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for The Lambs Cry”. Think about that! The episode with a Latin title, that i think means ‘seek peace, prepare for war’; seems like a real drag as I ponder pulling the plug on continued viewing. The episode titles are so flamingly bad that I wish they simply had numbered them instead.

In a typical low moment during episode 2 we are subjected to some kind of screaming conference call (via holograms)  between some pretty badly designed Klingon’s, complete with a flashback to a troubled Klingon childhood right out of Blade Runner 2049. It doesnt work at all, especially juxtaposed with an ethical debates amongst the Star Fleet characters.

So Much horrible. In THIS Star Trek show Klingon’s either yell or deliver lines (in Klingon) with Shakespearian stage kind of acting to I guess make the sheer drivel they’re saying seem important? Wait til you get to their enormous flag ship for a discussion of repairs and food! What a treat! Later we get more disrespect as its unveiled some Ronin-like honor-less Klingon’s had broken and rioted over food. Klingon’s TAKE things or die trying. These re-invented Kilingon’s are as bad as their garish costumes. Re-invented and experimentally designed to say the least. They’re Un-frightening total pussies who are easily beaten up by half dead humans.

The show, such as it is, limps along depending on special effects and gets hamstrung by some of the worst Techno-Babble ever seen on the Final Frontier. Its not as good as even Voyager. Even worse, it takes itself very seriously (while showing that the writers did only cursory research into Trek Lore.)

Much of the time is taken up by the moralistic scientific subplot. This revolves around an emerging technology that we can easily foresee is sort of wrong and Un-Star Fleet, but hey, we got Klingon’s! So we’ll focus on the tension between the Scientific Explorers and the more military people in Star Fleet I guess?

I’m now on episode 9. Its not gotten any better or developed any sort of energy. The Scientific subplot is where the show goes most wrong and borrows, surprisingly, from Event Horizon, which was an ok movie but makes for TERRIBLE Star Trek! The masochistic “Spore Drive” is a really bad sci-fi barely re-imagined “Dance Dance Revolution”  video game, with screaming people stuck with fondue forks gyrating in a glass booth to flashing lights to control the ship. It’s not fun to watch. Its also merely pixie dust and rainbows and lacks any tactile qualities. Even just an enhanced Warp Drive with the stripper booth controls would have been less preposterous. The shows reach exceeding its grasp is just too generous a way to put it.

The show has no feel of Trek at all. Its not as good as even Babylon 5 (from which it has appropriated some bad ideas). The ship is even kind of boring looking with a better development story than result (long story short- it was rejected in the 70s and looks like a Star Wars Star Destroyer).

Maybe the re-tasked Horta-like “Tardograde”, creature they keep in bondage is supposed to be a bone thrown to the the fans? Because its a lot like a creature from a GOOD trek show? Ok but it actually looks pretty bad when we get a good look at it, and is completely irrelevant, propping up their bad technical experiment story.  This subplot just hangs around to justify the engineer characters reluctance to be a military weapons developer.

I cant blame any actors for lurching and scenery chewing through this mess. I mean, William Shatners pure bluster DOES float a few episodes of the Original Series, so who could blame anyone for tucking in and going with it?

Although it seems like an intervention was trued around episode 7 its taken far too long for us to meet the new crew and see the new ship. To boot its totally underwhelming after the wait.

Oh yeah and Vulcan Logic has become somehow like The Force. Because this is an amalgam of other successful NON STAR TREK Franchises! The end result of this is lots of  unbelievably bad magical communicating between the Spock-like Burnham character and the poor actor who has to play Sarek. Pissing all over the Spock origin story and providing a human sibling comes next and is just not fun to hear about in a mutual outer body experience. It’s that fast and loose with major cannon.

I hope they dont try to keep this idea going. Its Un-Worthy.

What does Star Trek Discovery deliver? Ok the special effects are awesome. They have some pretty well made aliens among the terribly done Klingons. If you were one of those who hated the show Enterprise for its title sequence have no fear, the title sequence might be the best thing in this wreck.

Its Unimaginative, its no fun and it depends on special effects. Some plot devices are plain bad, Beaming from deck to deck is a small issue. The funtioning holodeck 100 years too soon is more troubling. Worse, it was not even needed. It was just to work in more special effects. Engineering features retinal scanner that only scans, I guess eye fluid? It was back in Blade Runner territory on that one.

Boring, disappointing and action packed this stupid show is should be called Star Trek Disappointment. They need everyone to die in a final episode to wash Trek clean. Watch The Orville, its closer to Star Trek than this mess!

Im now up to episode 9 and the heavy handedness is of toxic proportions.

This show is such a disaster I may skip to the last episode just in the hopes they go in a Rogue 1 direction and KILL ALL THESE AWFUL CHARACTERS, SHIPS AND PLOTS!

Do Not Engage with this garbage!

For the post on the episode A Piece of the Action click here 

For the Post on the episode A Taste of Armageddon click here

For the post in the episode The Doomsday Machine click here