So I read the reviews panning the series, and those praising it and I believed the ones which panned it and felt like the people praising it were shills; I was wrong.
Some of the criticisms I read were just plain nitpicky; for instance the common one about the Klingons. This show breathes new life into a tired and cliché race. Now don't get me wrong, I love the old Klingons, and I love to hate them, but they were of their time and needed an update, and this show gives it to them. Instead of having one-note bad guys, we see a complex, sympathetic culture intent on preserving their individuality and way of life against the Federation. Instead of every Klingon being a stereotypical violent, angry warrior, we see their thoughtful side and we see the inner politics of their culture that extends beyond them fighting each other like animals. It's fantastic, even the way they talk has improved, not everything is delivered in a braggadocios, angry snarl like the days of old.
These Klingons feel like a real alien race, not Russians on steroids and I love them for it.
I also really like the main character. I love Kirk, Picard and Sisko; but lets be honest - Sisko was gauche, Janeway was smug, but Michael Burnham is just the right level of restrained, yet unpredictable to make a great and compelling protagonist. I also like the dark, complex machinations of Lorca.
This show knows that in an age where Superman is a brooding idiot and Batman is a bigger brooding idiot, an idealistic show about a group of diverse people on a ship isn't going to get anyone's attention for very long, so they've made Star Trek dark. It's great, I love it.
OK, so the writing is clumsy, the exposition is clumsier and the science is faintly ridiculous (mycelium networks through space that let you travel anywhere, instantly? I might have bought that as a metaphor, but an actual universal network of mushrooms throughout space... a giant waterbear that you have to nipple-clamp to control the mycelium network, via spores...) Yeah, the science is utterly ridiculous, but it doesn't detract from the main drama, which is that of complex characters struggling against their own worse natures; that is what makes this show so compelling.
It also looks great. It's like a good mix between the sub-par new series of films, and the old Star Trek; it's slick, but not too slick, whilst retaining enough of the original to feel like some of the darker DS9 episodes when they were fighting the Jem'Hadar in the purpose- built defiant.
It's not like Ghostbusters: Answer the Call where they just did away with everything and made a mess of a film and stuck the Ghostbusters label on it at the end; this is still Star Trek, it's Star Trek as it has to be in the modern age.
It's not a betrayal, it's an evolution; and a necessary one.
Update: Having seen the final episodes I just wanted to update this review to say that the show is going in the wrong direction. The twist was absolutely jaw dropping, so to have them kill the object of the twist so easily and suddenly, was a big disappointment. The final episode was an abomination. It was everything that is wrong about Star Trek delivered in horrendous, saccharine overdose. Sentimental, preachy moralisation is why I tired of Voyager in the end, and why I genuinely couldn't sit through a single episode of Enterprise (and I tried, I really did). The writers have totally ruined the good work done early on in the series in order to beat people over the head with cloying propaganda, what a waste of a brilliant set up. If the series carries on down this childish route, then I'll be out for good.
Some of the criticisms I read were just plain nitpicky; for instance the common one about the Klingons. This show breathes new life into a tired and cliché race. Now don't get me wrong, I love the old Klingons, and I love to hate them, but they were of their time and needed an update, and this show gives it to them. Instead of having one-note bad guys, we see a complex, sympathetic culture intent on preserving their individuality and way of life against the Federation. Instead of every Klingon being a stereotypical violent, angry warrior, we see their thoughtful side and we see the inner politics of their culture that extends beyond them fighting each other like animals. It's fantastic, even the way they talk has improved, not everything is delivered in a braggadocios, angry snarl like the days of old.
These Klingons feel like a real alien race, not Russians on steroids and I love them for it.
I also really like the main character. I love Kirk, Picard and Sisko; but lets be honest - Sisko was gauche, Janeway was smug, but Michael Burnham is just the right level of restrained, yet unpredictable to make a great and compelling protagonist. I also like the dark, complex machinations of Lorca.
This show knows that in an age where Superman is a brooding idiot and Batman is a bigger brooding idiot, an idealistic show about a group of diverse people on a ship isn't going to get anyone's attention for very long, so they've made Star Trek dark. It's great, I love it.
OK, so the writing is clumsy, the exposition is clumsier and the science is faintly ridiculous (mycelium networks through space that let you travel anywhere, instantly? I might have bought that as a metaphor, but an actual universal network of mushrooms throughout space... a giant waterbear that you have to nipple-clamp to control the mycelium network, via spores...) Yeah, the science is utterly ridiculous, but it doesn't detract from the main drama, which is that of complex characters struggling against their own worse natures; that is what makes this show so compelling.
It also looks great. It's like a good mix between the sub-par new series of films, and the old Star Trek; it's slick, but not too slick, whilst retaining enough of the original to feel like some of the darker DS9 episodes when they were fighting the Jem'Hadar in the purpose- built defiant.
It's not like Ghostbusters: Answer the Call where they just did away with everything and made a mess of a film and stuck the Ghostbusters label on it at the end; this is still Star Trek, it's Star Trek as it has to be in the modern age.
It's not a betrayal, it's an evolution; and a necessary one.
Update: Having seen the final episodes I just wanted to update this review to say that the show is going in the wrong direction. The twist was absolutely jaw dropping, so to have them kill the object of the twist so easily and suddenly, was a big disappointment. The final episode was an abomination. It was everything that is wrong about Star Trek delivered in horrendous, saccharine overdose. Sentimental, preachy moralisation is why I tired of Voyager in the end, and why I genuinely couldn't sit through a single episode of Enterprise (and I tried, I really did). The writers have totally ruined the good work done early on in the series in order to beat people over the head with cloying propaganda, what a waste of a brilliant set up. If the series carries on down this childish route, then I'll be out for good.