Here ye here ye here ye. All rise. The court of public opinion is now in session, the Honorable Judge YouTube presiding.
It's hard to believe that it's been two full seasons since the launch of Star Trek Discovery, on CBS All Access streaming service. To this day, I've never figured out how to get hooked up with CBS All Access. Everything I've seen of the show is direct from the internet. I believe that I first saw the Discovery in a post of a clip of its unveiling at a convention. I agreed with fans that it appeared to be a terrible design. I first noticed that they changed the engines this month, on my Star Trek Ships of the Line calendar. Love the new engines. I think that it was last year. Someone posted the first episode of season one online. I thought that the dialogue was terrible. I didn't realize after watching it that the main character is Spock's half-sister, or that the character is transgendered. I had trouble understanding what the plot was. The ship which appears to be a variation of the old Enterprise NX-1 shows up to investigate a Klingon ship. Why? I don't know why a Klingon ship needs investigation. Was it in Federation space? I don't know. Then there was a bright light. The main character knocked out the captain, and when the captain came to, she put the main character into the brig. This is all I knew of Star Trek Discovery until this year.
Some months ago, I stumbled onto something called Midnight's Edge. Generally speaking, it's a kind of online public disclosure channel about new science fiction television programming and film releases. Lately, it's been a magnet for those accused of having what one critic of the channel refers to as a "hate boner for" the CBS All Access program Star Trek Discovery. I found it when I was looking on a search engine for information about said program, which I have yet to see more than the tiniest bit of. I was looking for alternatives to signing up for the CBS service., to watch the show Midnight Edge goes into detail about Discovery. It focuses pretty tightly on what it is able to discern from CBS decision making and from what it can surmise about ratings. Midnight's Edge concludes that a relatively tiny audience has signed up for the service, a little over 100,000 subscribers, explaining that this is too little revenue to satisfy the financial deal made with the distributor, Netflix. After season one failed to impress enough potential subscribers to satisfy Netflix, which paid for the entire production cost of this original season, Netflix has elected to drastically reduce what it is willing to pay for the second season.
When I encountered these first criticisms, I wondered what difference they would make. The show appeared to continue being produced. I don't know what difference it makes to the actors, who are being paid for the work they do. Midnight's Edge also reports that the program originally was never going to mention Mr. Spock, nor did it have plans to show the original USS Enterprise. Trekkers felt as though the show didn't care what they thought, and other YouTube commentators claim that Trekkers have flocked to their YouTube postings for vindication of this. Midnight's Edge reports that the program claims to have heard these Trekkers, and both Mr. Spock and the Enterprise have arrived for season 2, with Captain Christopher Pike in command. The USS Enterprise design has been reinterpreted, both inside and out. Midnight Express explains the legal reasoning for this. I wondered if Trekkers would revolt at any redesign, but I have yet to hear of anything like this. Spock has a full beard now. I think this is fuckin' cool. I like the ship redesign, and the bridge redesign. All I have seen are some still shots from the program. I have yet to see anything else beyond the first episode of season 1.
Here toward the end of July, 2019, I've been watching various YouTube channels which discuss Star Trek Discovery. They are very entertaining. These are Trekkers, who know Star Trek "cannon" far better than I do, and they're excellent debaters. One of the YouTube commentators mentioned something about an outtake from the program, the entire cast singing the word "nerd" together. The commentator claims that this is the cast calling the Trekkers nerds. I recall the cast from Star Trek he Next Generation during an interview, one cast member talking about the first couple of years of that program. The cast would go to conventions, where they were met by an average of "30 people who hated us." I understand that these were fans of the original Star Trek series who didn't like a new "Enterprise" cast and/or didn't think the first couple of seasons were up to par. The consensus among fans and cast of STNG is that the show found its footing by the third season. I wonder about the cast if Star Trek Discovery, and it's monosyllabic acapella performance of "nerd." Is this in fact a message from the cast to Trekkers? Is the cast drawing its own line with Trekkers? Is this cast from the performing arts department of Donald Trump's university? I eventually saw a clip of the cast singing what in fact was a parody of the musical Rent, swapping words from the original song with a narrative about nerds. The parody appears to me to be an homage to all those nerds who watch the show, without the show could not survive. One of the Discovery show cast members was a member of the original cast of Rent. He refers to the cast also as nerds. If this is indeed the case, the performance is being misinterpreted among some Trekkers on YouTube.
I've seen a couple of YouTube channels, both very different, both not simply making banal complaints but brilliantly eviscerating the plot, and both amazingly entertaining and simplistically genius. Jesus, these people are faster and smarter than I'll ever be. One YouTube channel questions a plot point where one planet's cave-dwellers "learn how to fly starships. In, what, two weeks?" Another YouTube channel can't believe that both USS Discovery and USS Enterprise become "surrounded" by enemy ships, or "drones." Surrounded in space...by a circle of the enemy. The pair of Federation ships never attempt to make use of the third final dimension and fly out of danger. The writers of Star Trek Discovery are accused of not paying attention in school or perhaps suffering from brain damage. Well, I suppose we all can't be as smart as Vulcans. I'm sure humans are being asked here to be smarter than the writers. There is one particular YouTube channel featuring a young woman with long bright red hair. She displays a message sent to her from Michael Kurtzman, an exec with some oversight over the show. In the post, he mentions that he knows "some martial arts stuff," and he threatens to knock her teeth out. He would later claim that his "drunk brother" gained access to his computer without his knowledge. I'm trying to remember if I have ever heard of either TV or streaming programming production, with critics who have driven one of the head guys to lose his fucking mind. Yeah, I happen to know some psychological kind of things and stuff. Just ask my drunk brother. Or has there been a program where the actor playing the main character is in a position where he or she must respond to a question by promising that "we'll fix the timeline. We will. I promise." The actor went on to address the critical Trekkers; "They're intellectual." I suppose supporters of Discovery, and there is a following, are whatever the opposite of intellectual is. The actor finished by saying that the show "wants younger viewers, because that's how you keep the franchise going." Okay. Intellectual vs. young. I wonder if intellectual means old. Are you listening, Mr. Spock? You know some intellectual stuff. Just ask the new young viewers.
Okay computer club members. Here's my own take on Star Trek Discovery. I don't remember such a clash of world views between a production and such a distinct part of an audience. But I feel that this production has put its cast and crew and writers in an impossible box, from which they are begging us to be patient with them. I suspect that all they want to do is have a nice Star Trek, please God. And after two seasons, the clash is gaining momentum. One of the posts I watched online just this month is a recap of season two. Nothing I saw on there made any sense to me. The ships doctor disappeared and reappeared as some kind of monster who wasn't recognized right away. A thinking planet swallows a couple of crew members for a while. The season ends with the USS Discovery travelling through a wormhole 930 years into the future. I'm not angry, I'm just lost in this space. They tell me it's called Star Trek. If they say so. They must know some stuff about writing...
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