OK, only just watched episodes 1&2 last night. My
Things I didn't like:
- Lighting / Cinematography - Yeah, it feels a bit JJ-ish. The action is too "busy" and badly illuminated for my liking. But I've had issues with lighting since Generations - my beloved well-lit galaxy class ship went to "illuminated by nearest star" mode. The reality is, large metal ships floating around in the darkness of space won't be as brightly illuminated as we saw on TV for years. They've added realism, and I just have to accept that one.
- Mutiny - Seems a little drastic. I can see the reasoning, but I feel like other avenues should have been pursued before this happened.
- Klingon ships - Not the Klingons themselves, no issues with make-up revisions (that's been a thing for years) and loved the death yells, references to Kahless etc. No issue with them having been "off the scene" since Enterprise. However the ships just look out of place in-between Enterprise's D5 and TOS's D7.
Things I did like:
- Burnham - A complex and flawed character, best series lead since Sisko. Sisko had issues to overcome, whereas the only character development Picard got in the pilot was "I don't like kids". Janeway was just out to prove captains can be tough AND have a vagina, and Archer had issues with Vulcans cause they were mean to his Dad. Burnham is a good starting point for this show.
- Saru - The trailer included that standalone line of "sense the coming of death" which just felt awkward, but in the context of the show, it makes sense. He's a character with flaws - and I'm excited for them to explore this character more. He treads an interesting line between cowardice, self-preservation and cautious conservatism.
- T'kuvma - A Klingon Cult leader who rallies the Klingons to war and gives them the motivation to be the bad guys for the show? Yes please!
- The fact that there is a plot. It doesn't involve time-travel, or kelvin-verses, or god-like superbeings or space jellyfish mysteries, or whatever-the-fuck-was-going-on-with-Khan-in-Into-Darkness. Just good old fashioned political and cultural tensions. Thumbs Up.
Other thoughts:
- Holocommunicator. Clearly a glitchy and less smooth version than the one seen in DS9, but I can accept that some technologies go in-and-out of fashion over time. Look at 3-D - once an unusual peculiarity of certain 50's movies, now a modern day staple (and yet I still don't like it, along with many others, so I could easily see it going out of fashion again, before coming back further down the line.
- Cost. Stop grumbling you fucking tight bastards. I'm buying Netflix JUST for this purpose. It's the evolution of TV. I used to pay a LOT more to get new episodes of Star Trek on VHS release day (during DS9/Voyager I was paying out 2x £11.99 per fortnight for 4 new episodes). This is much cheaper, AND I can afford it these days. If you claim to love Star Trek but won't pay to watch it, you just look like a fucking ass-clown, and ultimately if the show gets cancelled, it will be your fault.