It's a slow build, but that's part of the "my first Star Trek" thing. Episode one is almost all the new characters, episode 2 we'll get the Janeway/Federation stuff. By season's end, newbies will be up to speed on the Trek universe, and us old-timers will be up to speed as to how/why the Protostar is out in the Delta Quadrant.
It was a decent start, but I can't help wondering: why was Bad Guy unable to find the Protostar before now? Trek tech would presumably be able to find a ship-sized metal object with all the doodads, and even if one puts that aside, just doing visual searching of an area would seem to make Bad Guy able to locate it well before Zero/Dal might. I could buy it if Bad Guy had no idea that the Protostar was there even, but for him to have been actively searching for it with all the resources at his apparent disposal and for Dal to have found it strikes me as a stretch.
so we've got a Caitian, Tellarite, and Medusan in the D.Q. ... (I was really hoping she was just a member of another feline species). Frickin' Caretakers! Killing off all the G'rups. I'm not so optimistic about it building slowly, at least not to anything that I'll be salivating for the next episode of. Pretty sure it's going to rely on knowing the Trekverse to be anything other than a space show for the kids and if they don't have that knowledge already, well, feedback loop or something...
I gotta say I went "Awwww" out loud when I saw the little kitty appear. Love how animated Trek is making furries Caitians a thing. I just hope that if they make it into live action that lessons will be learned from the fiasco that was CATS on costumes. For a kids show take on Trek, it seems fun enough and the musical score goes way harder than I expected. Wasn't fond of the more action-y, JJ Abrams inspired zoom-ins but this could've been a lot worse. For kids under 12, they won't give a shit about how or why Alpha Quadrant species are out that far in space so I'm willing to let it slide. Not something I be rushing to see each week but given I'm not it's target audience, that's no mark against it. But for a first children's outing it could be worse.
Is the period throwing you off? "I like it better than I like Lower Decks" is an opinion, to an objective claim. You are familiar with folks holding differing opinions I assume? I, personally, don't consider Trek comedy. It's well suited for humorous moments but not straight comedy (which is also why I was less enthused about "The Orville" than others) Others are fine with it. S'cool.
The was for your opinion, to which you are certainly entitled, but you're still wrong. The was for the "Considerably better than Lower Decks by a considerable margin." Your English professor is rolling in his grave.
I liked it. Special kudos for doing something real with both the universal translator and a person working as a translator. That was long overdue to be explored. Unclear so far on which century we are in. I suppose this could be after the fall?
Nope, it's canonically only just before Romulus goes FOOM! i.e. about a year or two after the current Lower Decks.
So, uh, opening theme has nods to TOS and Disco. Also evil robotic dude has serious shades of General Grevious. In fact, before we get to the 7 minute mark, there's a number of seeming nods to the Star Wars universe. Not complaining, just noting. And this episode is brought us by the Power Rangers and a cereal company that demands people work 16 hours a day. We've got Kzinti. And the adults remind me of the quasi-Smurfs from Avatar. So, the Kzinti says she can get purple dude to talk but she needs time. WTF doesn't the MCP looking character she's speaking to say, "Time is a luxury you don't have."? So, when the purple Smurf guy and the Wish version of The Thing (WvoTT) wander around the ship, there's musical nods to Blade Runner. Sadly, when WvoTT hits the button that fires the thing up, there's not the musical cues from TWOK of the Enterprise flipping on her lights as she preps to leave spacedock. Oh, good, more Power Ranger commercials. Dear gawd, they're really cribbing from SW. Have to wonder if Sluggy isn't a nod to Yaphit from The Orville. The bit with purple Smurf dude being on the "outer rim" doesn't really make any sense. Nor does him and the Kzinti (who's father is this series version of Vader or Palpatine) having com sex. So, the metallic soldier thingies are even worse shots than your garden variety stormtrooper. That's convenient. And not Grevious goes full Grevious as they're trying to escape. WTF hasn't anyone here noticed this shit? Dude couldn't be more obvious if he whipped out half-a-dozen lightsabres. And we get a scene that desperately cries out for one like in the movie Narrow Margin, where Gene Hackman is facing off against an assassin on a moving train, and says to the assassin, "You know what I like about you? You're very tall." At which point, the assassin turns around to discover that the train is about to head into a very low tunnel. Am I the only one reminded of the handles that Obi-Wan had to pull to turn off the tractor beams when purple Smurf dude fixes the shields? Now, they're basically trying to get out of the exogorth. And they've escaped from Dark City. Good for them. Though they left the kitten Kzinti behind, so I'm sure they'll be going back for that at some future date. Plot a course? WTF doesn't someone say, "Second star to the right and straight on till morning."? Dear gawd, EH Janeway not only goes full uncanny valley, she mates with it, and spawns the kind of horrific nightmare that'd have HP Lovecraft screaming in terror. So, it turns out that the MCP was in a bactatank and he's actually Gollem. Interesting that a bunch of kids can pilot the ship better than the more experienced crew of the Cerritos, if the closing credits are to be believed. And I gotta wonder about this: Are they brothers? Ah, more Power Rangers ads. Because Jebus or something. Overall, not horrible, but if I gotta choose between this and Lower Decks, I'm a Lower Decker.
Funny thing about that, actually. If Trek is stealing Grievous, Star Wars stole Grievous from Trek first. Garamet invented Grievous in "Strangers From The Sky". Except she didn't name him, and the good guys killed him as soon as he showed up. I half-jokingly PMed her that she should sue, but she was like "nah".
So if garamet was never on TV, it's just total coincidence if someone names a TV character Margaryt Wynderr Bynnanno?
It's a damn sight better than Star Wars: Resistance was I got more of a Korg & Meik: the Early Years vibe from WvoTT and Sluggy. Caught a bit of an interview suggesting Not Grievous was based on Maximillian from Black Hole...
So, Gwyn's liquid metal sword arm bracelet; special brainwave activated poly-alloy, or molecular kinesis in her that works on anything?
Didn't the 32nd century people have guns that turned into something else when not in use? I assumed it was something similar.
Now that we're under way, I'm starting to get a feel for the show, and I already like some aspects of it. The animation is good (dwarf star scenes, various SFX scenes all well done), music is good, as said before, but it's characterization and story line that will win me over, and Rok-tahk is already shaping up to be my favorite character, while Dal continues to be my least favorite. Granted, it's early, and he may get better, but for the moment he's just annoying and gets in the way of me actually enjoying moments in the show. He's kind of the loud blaring horn during tense moments more than anything. Gwyn's got a lot of potential, and it's clear that she has better decision making capacity compared to Dal, at least for the moment. Unfortunately, her wanting to return to her home keeps her from being effective. Janeway explaining the concept of the Federation was interesting. That she used liberty explicitly may be a way of underscoring what our characters have been lacking for so long. It ties into what Rok-tahk was saying to Gwyn later in the brig when she brought her food. I'd like to see more focus on that, and I think we will. So yeah, with things getting organized into a general idea of where they might go, I'm curious to see what comes next. So I gave this one a 6/10. It has potential.
Purple smurf/Avatar dude has a good point. Oh, this episode is brought to me by a company that is in a fight with unionized employees. I'm thinking that Gene would have been pro-union. Also WvoTT is a chick. Unexpected but interesting. Kzinti can be bribed with Ikea meatballs. That makes them kinda less than fearsome, IMHO. Diverting all power gets rid of the brig forcefields but not the artificial gravity? Yeah, no. And there's some kind of Nick show that's creepy uncanny valley/knockoff Batman and Robin, with possible pedophile characters as the ad break. Creepy! So, they've finally come up with a way to explain all the replacements for the exploding shuttles on the series. And I find it hard to believe that HoloJaneway was pre-programmed to know how to get them out of that shit (and really, WTF cares if they warp out of the gravity field of a star without life-bearing planets). Also, prime opportunity for time travel shit (yes, I know, it's a cliche in the Trekverse but flying close to a star is how they've done it from the beginning, so why not now?)
Artificial gravity is always the very last life support system to lose power, probably for bureaucratic OSHA reasons. Areas like cetacean ops are probably completely fucked without it. EDIT: When Sisko built his 99% accurate Bajoran solar sail ship, he installed gravity plating that didn't seem to have an obvious power source, so maybe Federation gravity plating comes with built in batteries or something.
Oh, right! This news dropped during the technical difficulties... The season is 20 episodes. There's gonna be a lot of stopping and starting to make way for Discovery though. Season 2 is already picked up. Kate Mulgrew already leaked months ago that she was recording for season 2, but Paramount is making it official.
Little of both. She can clearly only control the bracelet, otherwise she could melt her way out of the cell, BUT, her head glows, so she does have a power.
Or, and I realize that this might be difficult for some folks to grasp: Simulating weightlessness on a TV show might be really fucking expensive, so they never really tried to do that on the live-action stuff. But it is pretty easy to do when you're animating a series.
