In typical Wacky fashion, I didn't check how many episodes were being dropped today, and assumed it would just be one. And really it SHOULD have just been one since the first is 1 hour 16 minutes, which is practically double length. But there's a second episode up and I can't be bothered watching it tonight.
1.1 - This was...actually...pretty...good? I mean, it probably helps that I've just watched the final season of Discovery and I can compare them easily and quite confidently say that this does a lot more right than Discovery did. It's been so long since Discovery's first episode that I can't remember much but I'm pretty sure I came away from that feeling "what the fuck was that?" whereas I come away from this feeling catiously optimistic that the show will at least be kind of fun. I think "fun" is probably the big difference between this and Disco so far: there were actually a few moments here that maybe me kind of laugh or smile. Some of the humour was maybe a bit much and one character at first felt like she could be super annoying, but I definitely didn't come away hating it and it certainly didn't feel like a disaster on any level, really. If you're worried about it being a "CW show" I don't think you need to: the tone didn't feel that much different from the other Paramount+ Trek shows (for better or worse!) I'm not sure saying I was blown away or loved it or anything, but "pretty good" is at least something.
I don't know any of the character names yet except Caleb, and only him because they said his name fifty time. Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti were clearly having a lot of fun together. It almost goes too far into goofy, but the actors are good enough to get away with it. I do question Giamatti's character being a season-long villain though: I can't imagine him getting much depth considering he's just all about murder and laughing evily. But at least he's fun! I liked the Klingon/Jem-Hadar woman, she was fun. Robert Picardo is still believable as the Doctor (with an aging subroutine) and I hope he mentions Neelix at some point. The kids have been fine, so far? The Hologram Girl was the one I thought could potentially get annoying but as the episode went on she kind of won me over and the actress delivered one line so well it made me laugh (I can't remember what it was.) It seems like she could work well with Picardo. I didn't like the "I'm a [species name], bitch!" bit but what can you do. They're going to put 21st century speak into Trek now, it's just what they do.
A few bits I found amusing that maybe weren't meant to be funny: an exocomp flying by in the background, one of the cadets being the "black down one side, white down the other" species and the song at the end.
So yeah I think if you go into this with an open mind you at least won't hate it. Maybe it's cheating to compare it to Trek's nadir but just remember the Section 31 movie and imagine how bad this show would have been if they'd tried to emulate that shit.
I'll watch the second episode tomorrow.
