First Thoughts on “Star Trek: Discovery”

It’s an exciting time of year if you’re a TV fan.  It’s what is called Upfronts.  What that means is that the networks, broadcast, cable and these days, streaming services as well, present their upcoming shows to woo advertisers to buy ads on their platforms in the coming season.  To me and many other persons across the vast audience, we get our first look at the shows that are coming up next season.  It’s the first chance to see something and say, “Oooo, I can’t wait for that!”

This season is exciting for one very big reason.  It’s the long awaited return of Star Trek to where it began:  television.  The first full fledged trailer for Star Trek: Discovery was put online this week.  You can watch it on YouTube:

Just in case you don’t know, the premiere of this show will air on CBS.  The rest of the 15 shows will be released weekly on CBS’ digital platform, CBS All Access.  It’s unusual for a highly sought after franchise like Trek to be distributed in such a manner.  Keep in mind it’s the brain trust of a major media conglomerate making what they believe is a smart move.  “Let’s use a very dependable name to further a venture that we have complete control over and can make the most money for ourselves on!”

Now, about that trailer itself.  It looks exciting!  When I was talking about this trailer with Greg, I was mentioning that I’m trying not to let Discovery fall into the trap of not looking like the original show did in the 1960s, even though it’s supposed to be set after the events of “The Cage” but before Kirk was in command of the Enterprise.  I guess we are supposed to believe that if we were to go forward 10 years from this (which is where this series is set) that the Enterprise would be the ship we saw in the 2009 Abrams film, just we won’t have all of the Kelvin timeline stuff.  At least, that’s what my suspension of disbelief will tell me.

OK, now that you’re properly confused…

I am so excited to see this show.  I couldn’t get into Enterprise when it debuted.  I tried to watch the premiere in 2001, and just couldn’t get into it.  I hope that doesn’t happen again.  I want to like a new Trek show so bad, but I’m trying not to put my ambitions and desires so far up that I will be disappointed easily.  It’s a common fan trap.

Of course, I’ll review each and every episode of Star Trek: Discovery here on my blog.