I have to agree, M E M. Star trek: Discovery is outstanding.
Explain yourself.
The first episode was painful enough. Heaven forbid subjecting myself to 4 of them. After experiencing the pretension and self-indulgence of the pilot, it's clear the tone was set: just another shitty millennial retcon. I think the only feather in its cap is the fact that the show HBO has titled "Watchmen" is even worse.
There's a reason that Kurtzmann is being skewered after STD, Picard, and Lower Decks. Viacom CBS is losing shit tons of money (which is cool), but it's at Star Trek's expense.
I finally got around to watching the complete seasons 1 and 2 on disc a few weeks ago. And my initial praise and complaints are consistent across the entire run. The visuals are fantastic, looking like a $200 million dollar film. But the writing is frustrating and difficult to follow, with many rapid-fire exchanges of dialogue that are too fast for any normal human being to be able to digest in the normal speed of the show, and only on disc can you re-wind, often 3 or 4 times, to be able to fully understand. Especially annoying are rapid-fire exchanges of dialogue in Klingon or Vulcan, with english subtitles. AAAAGH!! There are two flamingly gay characters, and a big sub-plot across both seasons is their love and intimacy, with much more male-on-male sucking face than I'm comfortable with. One is killed and is spiritually/physically trapped in another purgatory-like universe before he is discovered and somehow brought back/resurrected to his own universe by the crew. There are many portions like this where the concepts are not well explained enough for me to really know fully what is going on, but I got the gist of it enough to watch it... once. This is not a show I will re-watch for its cleverness or great dialogue exchanges or likeability of its characters. While I like some of the the characters and concepts and scenes, overall it's just bad storytelling and a chore to watch and try to fully digest.
One of the things I liked was Captain Georgeau (portrayed by Michelle Yeoh, a Malaysian) as the Captain, and in the first episode the main character (black woman) Michael Burnham who at that point is first officer. Georgeou suffers a terrible fate, and Burham feels a loss, losing a character who is her respected commander, friend, mentor, and the two have almost a mother/daughter releationship. It's a loss when her character is for a time written out of the series. And then... tying into the "Mirror, Mirror" episode of the original series... Burnham and other characters slip into the "Mirror, Mirror" universe where the Georgeou in that universe turns out to be ruler of the savage federation empire. And then her empire is overthrown and when she is about to be killed, Burnham brings her back with her to the main Star Trek universe when the crew escapes back to their own universe. And Georgeou becomes a series regular, after earlier being written out. Georgeou becomes consistently one of the more enjoyable elements of the series.
There are also elements of the original series "Journey to Babel" episode, with Spock, his mother and father. But the Spock actor is completely wrong for the role.
Captain Christopher Pike is brought in at the end of the first season, and for a while is temporary commander of the Discovery ship, away from his own Enterprise, and the actor playing him at least has some resemblance in both looks and demeanor to Jeffrey Hunter who played Pike in the original series. There are many elements of the original series episodes "The Cage" and "The Menagerie" that are expanded on that I like, with some consistency and some slight differences, that are mostly good. The actress playing Vina in this episode is very pedestrian in the role, and in either looks or acting is no Susan Oliver. It's annoying that she is so different in both looks and portrayal from the original Vina. If she resembled Oliver in either looks or acting portrayal (or preferably both) this would have been great. But this part is instead disappointing and annoying. If not for the ability to watch both seasons on disc, I never would have gotten through all the episodes. To watch the episodes one at a time on TV without the ability to rewind repeatedly and see what I couldn't pick up, I would have bailed quickly, and not bothered to watch it. But I'm glad I saw it, to know what it is, even though it ultimately had a lot of elements I didn't like, and was difficult to watch. I at least gave it a fair shot and know what it's all about, and even appreciate some aspects of it.
I also don't like that both seasons 1 and 2 have a plot that weaves through every episode of the entire season. Sometimes elements are picked up on after a long gap and are difficult to follow. Even with parts I was very familiar with, when they finally got around to resolving them, I'd forgotten some details. That again made it difficult to watch. I like the series concept and some of the characters, but it overall has bad/incoherent storytelling, and overall is a disappointment. Season 1 I found both more enjoyable, and easier to follow. I'd hoped that once I was familiar with the characters and storytelling, it would become easier to follow. But it never got easier. Interesting to sample, some concepts and potential, but ultimately poorly executed and a disappointment.
I'm sure virtually everyone reading this already knows, the 1967 episode that aired is credited to Harlan Ellison, but is in fact vastly different from the screenplay Ellison wrote. The aired episode was re-written by Gene Roddenberry (and possibly others) to focus on Dr. McCoy as the one who changed time, who Kirk and Spock had to travel through time to 1930 to eliminate the changes to Earth history that McCoy caused. Roddenberry in particular changed the episode's ending. But even so, it is ranked by most as the best episode of the series.
This new comic version presents the story as Ellison originally wrote it, WITHOUT the changes made in the televised episode. Ellison also had complaints about the appearance of the ruins and city of the time-Guardians, he called the time portal a "donut". I actually thought it was really cool. And the Guardians not having faces made them more compellingly mysterious to me. What Ellison envisioned was considered way too expensive to create, and would have taken the show way over budget, and stretched the production time.
As I recall, it was the screenplay by Ellison that won the award for Best Teleplay from the Screen Actors' Guild for 1967, and not the televised version. And that gave Ellison quite a bit of satisfaction. Ellison severed his ties with the Star Trek series in a big blow-up in 1967 for changing his teleplay, possibly without his consent. I first read Ellison's original script version in a mid-1970's book titled Six Science Fiction Plays. But it has been published in one or two other books since then.
This 5-issue series finally presents Ellison's unused screenplay in a visual narrative form that is comparable to watching the 1967 aired episode, allowing you to fully compare the two.
I like both (the original aired episode, and this 5 issue adaptation of the unused screenplay), but have a preference for the aired episode. But there are aspects of this screenplay adaptation that are superior, I think. Such as the more full development of Kirk and Edith Keeler's love for each other, and the intimate connection they have, that makes the loss in the final scene more impactful. Also, the art has remarkably good likenesses of all the characters, as contrasted with the often horrible likenesses in many other comics versions I've seen.
The banter in the televised episode between Kirk and Spock is much better in the aired episode. It is both funny, and develops both characters quite well, as Kirk pushes Spock's buttons. For example:
SPOCK: Build a pnemonic memory circuit here?!? In this zinc plated vaccuum tube culture?!? KIRK: Yes... it would present a rather difficult exercise in logic... SPOCK: [ raises eyebrow in surprise and agitation] KIRK: I'm sorry... I sometimes expect too much of you... SPOCK: [ raises eyebrow in even deeper agitation ]
There are many scenes like that, more polished in the final aired episode. For me what makes the aired episode superior is its focus on the central characters of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. It eliminated other characters to focus on them. Also interesting is that Scotty and Uhura appear in the final aired version, but are absent from the screenplay version. Yeoman Janice Rand, conversely, was no longer a character on the show when the episode aired in 1967, written out of the series after the first dozen or so episodes (City on the Edge of Forever was episode 28, of 29 first-season episodes). Ellison in the text lets on that the series was still not fully developed when he wrote the screenplay for the episode. And you can see watching all the first season episodes the changes that occurred in Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura, Janice Rand, and other characters that could have taken on greater roles but were eliminated.
This was published by IDW in 2014, and I'm amazed I never heard anything about it till now.
Enjoy.
The above ReadComicOnline link to the series issues still works, but that site (at least for now) is inundated with annoying pop-up ads.
In the same vein as the above CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER series.... Here is a cross-pollenation of the two most popular S-F series of the 1970's era. This ran from Dec 2014-April 2015, and I never heard of it till now.
Tom Snyder, who initially was nationally known for having a talk show that was on after The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson in the late 1970's, and occasionally returned with a talk show on other networks in the 1980's and 1990's, had Deforest Kelly, James Doohan, and Walter Koenig on for the first 25 minutes, describing the earliest beginnings of the show. And this was during the lean years (1976) between the end of the show in 1969, and its increasing rise in popularity that led to the first STAR TREK movie in Dec 1979. Although after the early 1970's, they were probably doing okay financially, due to royalties from the series doing very well in syndication a that point. They all look much healthier and in good spirits on this show than I recall in 1980's and 1990's interviews., This was the beginning of the peak period for them in popularity, being stars at conventions, and then starring in 6 very successful films, and still being young enough to travel worldwide and fully enjoy that stardom.
And then after that first 25 minutes, writer Harlan Ellison was on for the remainder of the show !
I understand Tom Snyder and Harlan Ellison were good friends, and Ellison was often a guest on Snyder's other syndicated shows throughout the 1980's and 1990's, often for the entire hour. Conversely, Johnny Carson hated Tom Snyder, and was instrumental in getting Snyder taken off his late-night slot in the 1970's, to remove Snyder's connection to Carson's show.
There's a 1970's hippie looking guy in this show who organized some of the first 1970's Star Trek conventions, named Al Schuster, who is sitting with Harlan Ellison when he comes on the panel. I bought a really nice poster from this guy years ago, by Steranko that he was selling, for a 1975 Star Trek Convention in New York City.
Here's an image of it.
Although for some reason it is shown here as yellow, but is actually black and white, and in roughly an 18" X 24" size.
![[Linked Image from trekmovie.com]](http://trekmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/1975alschusterposter.jpg)
![[Linked Image from i.pinimg.com]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/26/19/852619f1259cc991c51fc2915320afc3.jpg)
![[Linked Image from cdnmetv.metv.com]](https://cdnmetv.metv.com/h3ykK-1453762017-623-blog-Main.jpg)
![[Linked Image from i.pinimg.com]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/eb/11/94/eb1194b10fc394fbd75bfb76e06b9fb9.jpg)
![[Linked Image from img.grouponcdn.com]](https://img.grouponcdn.com/deal/acU3pbpRck4re94BYShKkf/creation_entertainment-700x420/v1/c870x524.jpg)