The teaser trailers for the new Star Trek series are now online. One is CBS-based and region locked for the U.S.A. while the other is Netflix-based and can't be viewed here in America.
I have watched the first version and I like what I've seen.
What amazes me, although by now maybe I should be used it to it, are the kinds of comments I'm seeing on a few different sites (TrekMovie especially). Many people are saying nasty things about the show.
People, really? You're going to state that a series that has filmed exactly one episode is doomed to fail? And you're basing that on a series of clips that total about two minutes?
Can we get a reality check on aisle two?
Nothing I saw contradicts the statements that have been made referring to the series as a "re-imagining". A lot of people seem to feel that its setting ten years prior to the original series means that the ship, the sets and the costumes must be identical or very similar to those from the original show.
If you want to disagree with what I'm about to say, fine.
It's 2017, people. The look we associate with "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is a classic 1960s look. I love it. I miss it. But I also accept that with limited exceptions, it just isn't suitable for network television anymore.
There are fan films and fan drawn comic books that nail that look perfectly and I love them for it. Most of these efforts have writing that ranges from average to excellent. There are some things I've seen that, with a little reworking, would make for good viewing on television.
Please note, I said "good" viewing, not highly rated. I don't think for one second that there's enough of an audience to keep a retro styled "Star Trek" on the air for even half a season.
The new show, from what little can be seen so far, looks as it if uses a lot of the same design elements as the recent films. I'm fine with that. Will the writing or the acting be first rate from the very start?
Maybe, maybe not. If we go back thirty years to "Encounter At Farpoint", I believe that had The Next Generation aired on CBS, NBC or ABC, it would have been cancelled after thirteen weeks.
Fox might have been willing to take a chance on a full season as they would not have had much to lose by doing so.
On the other hand, I've long held the view that "Where No Man Has Gone Before" set a standard that many of the episodes filmed from 1966 to 1969 never quite managed to live up to. I really feel that if they had expanded the final cut to ninety minutes or so, it would hold up nicely as a feature film.
But part of filming a weekly show is that it's expected to air every week. The sheer number of scripts that were required to film the original series pretty much guaranteed that some weak material would make it to air.
As always, these are just my opinions.
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