Star Trek: Discovery - Teaser Trailers

Star Trek: Discovery - Teaser Trailers

We finally get a good look at what this new Trek will consist of, visually, at least, and on initial impressions I was none too sure. The biggest issue for me, or one of them, is that they've deliberately chosen to set a series at this specific juncture in the timeline, ten years before 'TOS,' and just a short time after the events of 'The Cage,' our first glimpse of what the technology and style of Starfleet was like. And they've completely ignored it! I understand the desire to make a current TV series in a more contemporary aesthetic compared to the 1960s when the original designs and style was created, but to me, that style doesn't look completely of its time. There are elements such as the flared trousers and the chunkiness of the equipment, but there's so much there that would have translated perfectly well to a modern audience (and people still watch the original anyway!). I loved the jackets they wore in 'The Cage' on Landing Parties, and though the tech could have been slimmed down to an extent (as 'Enterprise' did), the general impression of a heavy cruiser in space with its colours and ranks was pretty specific. I don't mind the uniforms as such, they do have an element of the 'Enterprise' boiler suits about them, and perhaps something of the USS Kelvin (supposedly Prime in origin, even though I thought it was in the 24th Century when I first saw 'Star Trek XI'). I can also buy that the ship we see, USS Shenzhou, isn't the same type of vessel as the Constitution-class we saw in that period and wouldn't look exactly the same. At the same time, the impression is of something far too advanced for the period in which it is supposedly set.

Trek has always been a period drama, it just so happens all its periods are in our future, so if you're going to pick a particular era of established Trek history, especially if you're going to go out of your way to reassure us that this is indeed the original timeline, nothing to do with the Kelvin offshoot universe, there must be a reason for doing that, but that doesn't mean you can just alter the entire design aesthetic of the period. It looks heavy with backlit touch-screens and transparent window consoles that don't appear to be in the spirit of the time it's supposed to represent. And regarding the uniforms, I like that they're darker as this gives more contrast to actors' faces, as evidenced by the best uniforms ever designed in Trek, the 'First Contact' version, also used in 'DS9,' and the metallic rings that appear to designate department make a kind of sense in that we see ranks stripes on 'TOS' sleeves (plus it has been fluid in the past with the 'TOS' films adopting other colours for the famous scarlet uniforms' undershirts), but the problem is that 'The Cage' had very similar uniforms to 'TOS,' only a shade blander in colour, so unless this Shenzhou doesn't represent the status quo of this era's Starfleet, and is actually a unique ship on a special mission, it doesn't make much sense that they'd transition into these, then back again by 'TOS.' It's possible, of course, and perhaps that's what they're banking on.

After viewing the trailers a good few times, and checking through them slowly, I became a little more comfortable with what I was seeing as I began to notice things that made me think they are taking the fine detail of this rich universe seriously: it was lovely to see the Starfleet badge, though three-dimensional, does seem to be the full shape, not with a side chopped out of it as was shown in photos a while back. The familiar emblems of Command, Sciences and Engineering are in place. The Communicator sounds right and what I saw of it, looks about right. It was actually exciting to see the Klingon emblem back in all its red, pointy glory. But then we come to the Klingons themselves. We were warned by the leaking of a behind the scenes image of the radical new look these famous warriors are to have, but I was hoping it was going to turn out they weren't actual Klingons. It seems they were, with all the weirdness of conical, domed heads, and pointed ears the illicit photo showed before. In fairness, they look fine from the front, with ridges, even though the race at this time was supposed to be led by the flat forehead variety due to genetic manipulation in the previous century. My hope is that we'll see all three different types, especially as the mysterious sarcophagus is clearly moulded into the likeness of a traditional Klingon, with flowing locks, curt beard and normal ridges to the forehead. The one that confronts Michael on her space walk appears to be wielding a curved blade that could well be a bat'leth…

The outsider alien position seems to be well in place with Saru, a being whose race were designed to sense the coming of death. My first thought on seeing an image was Odo, but in closeup he's quite detailed and the domed head and swept back ears may have more in common with the Klingons. I do wish we could have had an alien that had already been seen in other Trek, and taken the opportunity to flesh out a race and culture as we've seen on other Treks with Klingons, Vulcans, Ferengi, Bajorans, Cardassians, even Borg - but we were told early on that he'd be a new kind we hadn't seen before. Oh well, maybe the blue guy will turn out to be a Bolian, a race that has been seen a lot, but has had little development. I wasn't so keen on the 'Star Wars'-type Lobot lookalike. But generally the layout of the stations and fact that there's so many people in the corridors (they used to pack them in on these old ships), does have the Trekky feel. I think Captain Georgiou has a lot going for her, and I'm actually more interested to see her than the main character of Burnham since she seems wise and a reassuring presence. Her comments about it being time for Burnham to think about a command of her own seems out of place because she looks too young for her own starship - Kirk was in his early thirties and he was considered young at that time, and if you consider that she'd likely have left the Academy at eighteen, that would make her twenty-five after serving under Georgiou for seven years, unless she was a Cadet under her, so it's possible she could be as young as twenty-three!

You get the impression Burnham is a bit of a maverick, despite apparently having been taught by Sarek as a child, and still retaining contact with him, seemingly in some kind of mentor role. Rather than having Vulcan-like control and restraint she definitely seems to be full of fire, perhaps even a mite unlikeable, such as when she fiercely tells the Captain to 'cut off its head' and wants her to fire first, so she doesn't seem to have much of the Vulcan about her, but some of the best character work on 'DS9' was in setting them up in a way that made them not too likeable at first, but gave them the room to grow into the heroes we knew later: Kira was angry and bitter, but became tempered and was able to channel her violent feelings; Bashir was green and tactless, but became an excellent, compassionate doctor; Sisko was only a Commander, moody and gloomy about his posting, but became a great Captain and leader, resolute in purpose. Here's hoping some of the characters in this series have the same kind of progression, rather than being fully formed as they were in 'Enterprise,' which led to their being stripped away until some of them had almost nothing to do.

I like that they spent the money for some location shooting in Jordan for the desert scenes, especially as Trek already had a connection there, since King Abdullah (then Prince), was in an episode of 'Voyager' and has always been very pro-Trek. Not so keen on the wibbly warp effect, since surely, scientifically speaking, light would be seen in straight lines (a legacy from the Kelvin films, no doubt), and always looked so cool, although I suppose I can live with it. I also didn't like the Abramsverse-style viewscreen, which is also a window and an HUD, all in one, as it doesn't fit the period at all. Nor holographic Sarek. And if they had to bring back an iconic, much-loved character, they could at least have gone to some lengths to have him look and sound similar, instead of generic Vulcan-American! The EVA suit is suitably bulky for a time of inferior tech, compared with the 24th Century version we've seen. And the Shenzhou herself looks like a fine ship. I do wonder why we saw hide nor hair of the actual starship the series is named after, the USS Discovery, or her Captain, Lorca, but I'd be fine waiting till the pilot for that, I don't need to see or know everything before the series starts, and these teaser trailers have done a fine job of getting the general idea across, without giving too much away.

Interestingly, of the two variations, one for CBS All Access, and one for Netflix, it's the US' CBS version that has more of a Trek feel to it, not to mention being longer and showing more detail. In the Netflix version emphasis is placed on the Klingons' orc-like appearance, large weapons and clawed hands (although on close inspection they could be gauntlets rather than natural appendages), as if fearsome Klingons are more important to The Rest of The World. It makes sense that they've skewed slightly more towards traditional Trek for the home audience, but they shouldn't forget that the reason the rest of us like it is because it's Trekky (we don't want them making the same mistake as Paramount did with 'Beyond' and paring back the Trekkiness because it was too Trekky! In a Trek film!). The music is more fitting in the CBS trailer, with almost an 'Interstellar' impression, while the Netflix one is more contemporary with vocals, although it's hardly the 'Beyond' trailer, for which we can be thankful! Even the choice of part of the 'TOS' theme is interestingly chosen differently: in Netflix' you get the bing-bong opening, but CBS' has the more affirming fanfare, which works better, I think.

After giving it some careful going over, I'm slightly more optimistic than I was when I first watched it (there are some buttons - look at the blue man's console, for example), and there are definitely ways to explain most of what we see, I just hope they take the trouble to do so, and don't leave it for a future spinoff in twenty or thirty years time to account for it beyond the obvious fact that technology and prosthetics have increased in complexity thanks to budget and experience. I wouldn't say my anticipation has been altered by this, it's more that when I first saw it I was slightly disappointed, even though I suspected this was the kind of thing they'd do, then over time it's grown on me a little more so I'm still cautiously interested and hopeful. The best news is that the thirteen episode count has been extended to fifteen, making it almost the same length as the first season of 'Voyager,' which did sixteen, and also shows that CBS is confident in the series, meaning its life will be at least reasonable in this age of short seasons, and few.

Anticipation Rating: ***