Discovery Trailer

[Jester David]

It sounded great.
The classical sound FX and background bridge noises were great.

The holocalls was initially weird, but makes sense. It's something Trek flirted with during DS9 but couldn't make work with budget constraints. No reason not to do it now.

Things like the captain's office and personal quarters looked good: nice and brightly lit. As did the hallways. The bridge was a little dark for some reason.

I would have preferred uniforms that were more of a nod to the Pike era. Colour coded shirts of some kind. But the metallic highlights on the uniforms were keen. They really popped on the show, as did the badges.
(Telling the rank of characters is unfortunately hard and kinda irritating. Impossible to tell from a distance. Some bands on the wrists would have still been nice...)

The story. It's still somewhat weird that there was apparently a noteworthy war between the Federation and Klingons that has gone unrecorded.
I was still hoping for something optimistic and upbeat. Something on the human condition and humanity... Maybe that's a season long plot instead?
And Michael sure does a terrible job at the end. Telling the Captain *not* to kill the Klingon captain because it will make him a martyr and all...

The Klingons...
One of the most beloved races in science fiction. One of the top 5 - if not top 3 - most iconic and well recognised alien species in Sci-fi. And they were totally and completely redesigned. They removed their hair, their beards, their freakin' ears. They made their heads mishshapen in the back. They added extra nostrils.
It's all too much. They could have just updated the make-up a little but kept some of the older design elements. An update not a revision.
Instead, they took a beloved alien race - as well known as the Wookies or Vulcans - and completely changed what they looked like, making them virtually unrecognisable.
As I have said before, the design of the Vulcans was just as limited by the simple make-up of the '60s. Why not redesign them completely?
I found the Klingons more distracting than anything. It really took me out of the show. I couldn't focus on what was happening or being said as much because I was goggling at their over designed costumes and weird Peter Jackson Orc-like heads.

(Also, cloaking devices were a Romulan invention created in 2266 and first seen in TOS. Klingons didn't get cloaking technology until after TOS ended.)

I'm curious to see where it goes. The ending to the second episode was certainly dramatic. And a cliffhanger. The punishment seemed a little harsh... It's odd that the titular ship hasn't even appeared yet.

 

[Mallus]

I could write up a list of nitpicks and not-so-nitpicks, but overall I thought it was fantastic. Much more Trek-y than the Pine/Quinto vintage (and I enjoyed all three of those).

Martin-Green was great. I loved Michelle Yeoh and my biggest disappointment is that she's only a "guest star". I'm not entirely sure about Burnham deciding to break her Paragon run by taking the Renegade interrupt -- I've been calling it Star Trek: Mass Effect and I didn't realize how right I'd be -- but I sure as Hell didn't expect it. So I guess it was... intriguing.

As soon as the broadcast episode finished I signed up for the 1-week free trial of the streaming service so I could watch the 2nd episode. I think I'm in. I hate the decision by CBS to gate this behind their ill-advised service (no option to buy on iTunes or Amazon, even), but it's *good*.

And I'll pay $6 for a beer, so how can gripe about the cost? At least they shoveled money into Discovery. The production values & art design are amazing.

 

[Morrus]

The Klingons...
One of the most beloved races in science fiction. One of the top 5 - if not top 3 - most iconic and well recognised alien species in Sci-fi. And they were totally and completely redesigned. They removed their hair, their beards, their freakin' ears. They made their heads mishshapen in the back. They added extra nostrils.
It's all too much. They could have just updated the make-up a little but kept some of the older design elements. An update not a revision.
Instead, they took a beloved alien race - as well known as the Wookies or Vulcans - and completely changed what they looked like, making them virtually unrecognisable.
As I have said before, the design of the Vulcans was just as limited by the simple make-up of the '60s. Why not redesign them completely?
I found the Klingons more distracting than anything. It really took me out of the show. I couldn't focus on what was happening or being said as much because I was goggling at their over designed costumes and weird Peter Jackson Orc-like heads.

If there’s one thing about Klingons that is a constant, it’s that every iteration of them has competent redesigned them. This is the 4th design. There is no single Klingon appearance.

I like that they acknowledged that by saying each of the 24 houses looks different.

 

[Zaukrie]

I only saw episode one. I was not as enthused as the rest of you. Is was ok to good for me. And no, I won't pay for only this.

 

[Jester David]

If there’s one thing about Klingons that is a constant, it’s that every iteration of them has competent redesigned them. This is the 4th design. There is no single Klingon appearance.

I like that they acknowledged that by saying each of the 24 houses looks different.

They implied differences in the other houses. But they looked relatively the same in the hollocall.
And while Klingons changed in Into Darkess, that was an alternate reality that changed everything. In the regular timeline, Klingons have been unchanged since 1978. Until now.

Their modern look (the one for the previous 37 years) has become iconic. Like Wookiee, ET, and a few other aliens that are identifiable even by non-fans.

I've commented before that changing the Klingons now feels like changing the Vulcans.
Which they could do:

These are identifiably Vulcan, having the iconic traits.

The frustrating thing is that this change is more dramatic than even Into Darkness. They changed things more than the reboot films....
And why? What is gained? What is the benefit of a complete redesign rather than a slight tweak to improve the fabric and details of the prosthetics?

It's a change for change's sake.

 

[Morrus]

It's a change for change's sake.

I guess we all have our crosses to bear. Didn't bother me one iota. Sorry to hear it spoiled the show for you.

 

[Mallus]

I like the new Klingon look, including the design of the Funeral at a Gaudí Cathedral class battlecruiser.

Frankly, while I want callbacks to the earlier aesthetic(s), what I'm looking for is a *new take* on Star Trek. If you're just going to repeat yourself, why bother?

This is why Fuller's departure almost killed my interest in the series. He knows his Trek, but God knows where he would have boldly gone with it.

 

[Jester David]

I guess we all have our crosses to bear. Didn't bother me one iota. Sorry to hear it spoiled the show for you.

It bugged me and took me out of the show. A lot. Which is frustrating as so much else was actually much better than I had feared. That cold open was excellent. I want to see where the show goes, and what happens next in the story.
Hopefully not every episode deals with the Klingons...

But it was a deal breaker for my wife. She half-watched it beside me and I could hear her eye rolls. And she has zero interest in the rest of the series.
She's a big Klingon fan. A Worf fan really, as she's a TNG Trekkie, never having seen much of TOS or the related movies (TOS was too campy for her tastes.) They're the only Klingons she's really familiar with.
(Which is the catch with updating properties/ franchises: you have to be carefully when making changes to something that might be someone's favourite element.)

This makes watching the show awkward for me. We only have a few hours of time between the munchkin going to bed and sleeping ourselves. Often 60-90 minutes. And there's no shortage of TV as it is, and generally limited couple time. Finding time to watch a show she's uninterested in is going to be hard. There's a bunch of stuff on Netflix I'm trying to watch (some anime and Archer) and I barely get to see that, getting snippets at the gym while on the treadmill.
But ironically Discovery isn't streaming in Canada, being on the sci-fi channel "Space". So I can only couch watch.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

(Also, cloaking devices were a Romulan invention created in 2266 and first seen in TOS. Klingons didn't get cloaking technology until after TOS ended.)

This was always an assumption made based on that the TOS Klingons didn't seem to have it, and the Romulan/Klingon deal, but it was never confirmed in canon.
Of course, it could still be that these Klingons have it from the Romulans - but since the houses are apparently mostly isolated until now, it could be T'Kuvma or his allies organized it from the Romulans.

Since the Klingons are also the first culture the Federation encounters that can manage to build a cloak that can be used while firing, it might suggest that the Klingons were actually developing the technology on their own, independent from the Romulans. (Or maybe there is a 3rd party, like the Suliban perhaps, that invented it first.)

 

[Ryujin]

This was always an assumption made based on that the TOS Klingons didn't seem to have it, and the Romulan/Klingon deal, but it was never confirmed in canon.
Of course, it could still be that these Klingons have it from the Romulans - but since the houses are apparently mostly isolated until now, it could be T'Kuvma or his allies organized it from the Romulans.

Since the Klingons are also the first culture the Federation encounters that can manage to build a cloak that can be used while firing, it might suggest that the Klingons were actually developing the technology on their own, independent from the Romulans. (Or maybe there is a 3rd party, like the Suliban perhaps, that invented it first.)

It was confirmed that the Klingons had received cloaking tech from the Romulans when someone stole the model of the original Romulan Warbird from the studio, so they had to make do with the Klingon ships
, and so concocted the Romulan- Klingon tech exchange treaty to explain why Romulans were in Klingon ships. (No room in the budget to replace it.)