‘Star Trek: Discovery’ First Impressions of Pilot + Red Carpet Coverage

Tuesday evening was the red (actually blue) carpet premiere for Star Trek: Discovery in Hollywood. We had staff there covering it who were also able to see the 2-hour premiere. Below we have assembled some of the instant reactions to the event by the TrekMovie team and others along with some of our blue carpet tweets. We will have more coverage of this event in the come days.

TrekMovie’s first impressions of the 2-hour premiere

TrekMovie will have a full review up once the embargo ends Sunday evening after part 1 has aired.

Tweets from TrekMovie on the blue carpet

 

Twitter reactions from Trek-folks and fans

CBS Facebook Live video feed of red  blue carpet

Live feed has ended. The archive of it is still available for Facebook users in the USA.

 

 


 

Star Trek: Discovery premieres on September 24th on CBS with all subsequent episodes on CBS All Access in the US.  In Canada Star Trek: Discovery will premiere  on Bell Media’s CTV and the Space Channel on the same night. Netflix will launch Star Trek: Discovery on Monday, September 25 to countries outside of the U.S. and Canada.

Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.

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Notice the frowns flowing across the screen? Of the ~800 unique emotions: 486 likes, 274 loves, 30 frowns. Literally a few folks are sitting there clicking frown over and over.

Last check they were at 600 likes, 400 “love”, and just 30 something “angry/sad/laughing”. seems like most fans are excited or at least looking forward to it.

Classic case of “vocal minority.”

Which means they watched something they hated just to do that…so lame.

Yep, there’s also a whole coterie of these fools trolling every Discovery video on youtube they can find and posting that we must choose Orivlle over DSC. Sigh!

I saw a lot of that on Twitter, saying Orville is true Trek. I guess that’s my frustration with it here. But that’s another post for another time.

@PEB — If ORVILLE is “true TREK”, then it’s time to find another sci-fi franchise to support.

No reason we can’t have and enjoy both! IDIC!

“since it’s a special Facebook Live feed, you need a Facebook account to stream it.”

Within the US only!

Don’t feel too bad, I couldn’t even get on lol. I got to see the last 20 mins basically where they interviewed Martin-Green and the actors who played Sarek and Lilly. My guess is the whole thing will be up on Youtube soon anyway.

How did I know the chief complainer would find something silly to complain about! lol

Wow so great to see Nicehell Nichols was there! That is so cool. What’s crazy is Burnham will only be the second main cast member since Uhura in TOS and the KT films. Its kind of come full circle I guess.

Gates was there, too, very cool.
Glad that everybody had a good time.

And Nana visitor was too I believe

Oh really?
over the years, she became my favorite guest at cons.

Women of Trek there for the new woman of Trek. Love it!

Is there a list of attendees?

@FLB: You mean like a full list? I’m sure CBS has one (or whoever organized this) but they won’t hand it out. This was for press, celebrities and some lucky fans.

Anthony Montgomery (Travis Mayweather of ENTERPRISE) was there, too!

Nicole Deboer was there as well!

Saw Frakes towards the end. Made a move on Cadet Tilly while she and Sarek (Frain) were being interviewed. John Billingsley was there too.

Shatner was there, too. Very classy of them to show up, and some fine marketing there, too.

I’m glad to hear Shatner as well as many others made it. :)

I guarantee you some of them were paid to attend, Shatner most notably.

Oh, jeeze, so, just how can you “guarantee” that, eh?

Wow. Overwhelmingly positive reviews online. More than even I, an optimist, would have expected. Tremendous.

Very excited!

I GUARANTEE there will be certain people who will say that all the comments are about how good the visuals are, but that they are being coy about the story itself – which in their minds must mean the story is terrible.

What rubbish, as it’s clearly been told that they must hold off any actual reviews until Sunday. For all intents and purposes, attendees’ reactions thus far have been positive as you rightly point out.

They all agreed not to discuss the story so I wouldnt say so. I watched Transformers and I would not leave the theatre describing it as epic, awesome, cinematic etc just because the SFX were good. lol

Of course, the idea of these red carpet premieres is to get positive coverage. Its expected. But the verbiage used and the enthusiasm is certainly a good sign.

THIS is why they held back screeners and decided to control the release themselves. They are treating it like a film, not just one of 50 other new TV shows this fall.

They were all VIP invited to a red carpet event, so they will all be wanking over it regardless as to if it’s good or bad. Jez are you that naive?

Don’t read too much into that. You get the same every time there’s a new Star Wars premiere. Lot’s of gushing. The real test will be the audience reaction on Sunday.

This is par for the course. The studio invites “friendly” sites like Trekmovie and Nerdist, outlets that are more likely to give it a positive review. They make it an event, bring in the stars, give out gifts and goodie-bags, not necessarily as a straight bribe, but it’s been shown that when you wine and dine someone, they’re much more likely to walk away with a good impression. You don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you.

Whereas an influential outlet like The New York Times can take or leave that coverage– and the studio needs it– an outlet like TrekMovie NEEDS that access to be seen as legitimate. If the NYT gives the show a scathing review, do you think CBS will bar them from press events? No. And even if they did, the NYT would just laugh.

Then of course you get outlets like fan-run outlets Collider that actually are bribed by studios with gifts, all-expense paid trips, sneak peaks, to set visits, in a “wink wink” exchange for positive reviews, or at least “softened” reviews.

Typically the more established critics, newspapers, magazines, and other organizations are immune to this (see above) so I am more willing to trust their opinions.

You know, to be completely honest, reviews by big media establishment mean nothing to me. My go-to for reviews is fan run sites – like TrekMovie. I don’t give beans if the NYT doesn’t care for something, they’re pretentious and looking for the next Citizen Cane Kane in everything they review.

Shocking twists, eh? As many of us suspected. What could they be???!!

I can’t wait to find out!
Sounds like they left the audience wanting more.
Always a good sign.

Also, these reactions seem to suggest that the whole thing about no reviews until the 24th was truly all about spoilers.
Good to know.

Hmm.. I’m tempted to stop reading articles about ‘Trek until it premiers for us plebs so I don’t see the spoiler shocking twist

One of the other sites have a review saying no concerns about Michaels stilted delivery. That it’s just editing and she’s fantastic. Also that VFX are even better and everything seen so far is in progress.

Excitement building

In all honesty, I never percieved the “stilted delivery” myself from Sonequa ( or even Michelle Yeoh, as some have accused ). They both sounded fine to me. Yeoh has a very unique and specific way of speaking, yes, and that’s fine.

The acting concerns me. It seems more than a bit wooden in the bits we’ve seen so far. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve also heard from several Walking Dead fans than Sonequa Martin-Green was awful on that show. I need it to be Sunday, I can’t take it much longer.

OK, what Trek series HASN’T had wooden acting (except for TOS, that is)? I mean, with lines of formal dialogue that makes a sex scene sound like two people reading in turns from an automechanics manual, it’s sometimes difficult for even the best actors to breath life into some scenes. Just goes with the territory, I suppose.

Sounds all very positive which is great to hear! :) I’m in the UK so have to wait until Monday but I’m buzzing for it :)

Yep, me too – I just signed up to Netflix specifically for DSC!

I signed up to All Access to specifically watch DSC. ;)

Unfortunately i’m one of the idiots cbs was hoping to get. I begrudgingly bought a chrome cast and will subscribe to AA next week. All just for ONE show. Trek is the only show I will do this for. All I got to say is that DSC better be the best Trek EVER to support doing all this.

That said, I’m still going to cancel during the shows winter break and as soon as the season ends. There is NOTHING else on CBSAA or in their library that will be worth spending the extra money to see.

Me too, and I’m a big Star Trek fan.

Has anyone else noticed the odd sound quality on CBS All Access and how compressed their picture quality is on shows in their library? I did some A/B comparisons last night of “Star Trek: Enterprise” and “Deep Space Nine” between CBSAA and Netflix and came away very worried. The audio on CBSAA sounds hollow and tinny compared to Netflix, and the picture quality is much darker and blurrier.

The preview videos for Discovery on CBSAA look and sound pretty good, but I’m very concerned, especially for the premiere on Sunday night. If it’s going to look and/or sound like crap, what’s the point?

So according to IMDB the last episode before the break will be Nov 5. I’ve contacted CBS about this and haven’t gotten a response and wondering if anyone here might know and get me a faster response. If I cancel mid month will CBS give me a refund or a credit? I wonder this because I plan on canceling soon after watching the 8th episode and re subscribing in January when the show resumes. And again, canceling after February after the final episode.

So you want to see it for free and then feign disappointment with the service in hopes of getting a refund?

Thats a good idea. Im going to go out for lunch, order an extra large pizza and eat half of it and then say I didnt really want it and ask for a refund.

@TUP

Hard to tell… Was your post in response to me? It physically follows mine in the thread but it is responding to things I never ever brought up. Nor can I find anyone else in this sub thread mentioning those things.

@Kirok – Please dont fall into your old habits. You have a new handle, a new start.

@Kirok: It says in the FAQ on the CBS AA website that they don’t offer refunds. You can cancel each month but you won’t get money back that you already paid. If you pay 12 months in advance to get a discount (you save 2 months) and decide to cancel it early you still won’t get a refund.

@DIGINON

Thanks for that. Unfortunately it’s bad news. Would be nice if you only had to pay for partial months if you cancel before your month is out. Or at the very least get some sort of credit like most other services do. Looks like another element that is. Not surprised CBS does not offer this consumer friendly element, however.

@Kirok, I don’t know of any streaming services who do that. As far as I’m aware, about the only companies that offer that are cable and satellite, and even then conditions apply. You still have to pay for setup, and service fees, equipment rentals, etc. Are you telling me that if I cancel my $99 annual Amazon Prime account mid-year, Amazon will refund half my money?

Man you gotta look at this way: You’re paying $1.50 an episode to get NEW STAR TREK!! To me its a no brainer. And hey you think it sucks cancel after the first month. Thats the beauty of it. I would easily pay twice as much if we get an amazing show out of it. AA wss made with people like me in mind I guess. I’ll subscribe all year if it gets us another season.

OK. To you it’s worth it. To me it’s irritating. Mainly because I had to buy a stinking chrome cast just for the honor of paying CBS a monthly sum for just ONE show. Like I said, Trek is the only show I will even consider jumping through such hoops for. There are other shows I’d like to see sooner than I do that are way easier to get and I still won’t do it for them. That is how much I wish to see new Trek. To me, I’d rather not pay. BTW… I’m such a sucker for new Trek that I will probably watch even if the show is terrible. I suffered through TNG’s first season and the first two seasons of Enterprise. All because I just want to eat up more Trek. I do, however, suspect I’m in the minority of folks willing to jump through a bunch of hoops just for new Trek.

So you whine for a year about how you wont get All Access, cant get All Access, might get it with 6 of your buddies to share. Now you break down and get it and you’re still whining.

Good Lord

@Kirok — Ha! I’m not signing up until Sunday morning, for my one month free trial of CBSAA. Depending on how good DISC is, I may or may not cancel my subscription before my trial is up. Either way, I’m not planning to keep the subscription going year round. Even if I like the show, I might still cancel and wait until all the episodes have aired, then subscribe for a month and binge watch it. I grew exceedingly frustrated after I caught up with episodes of BETTER CALL SAUL, waiting for the next one to appear.

@Curious Cadet

If the free month thing is still going on I plan to do that. But I was under the impression that free month was only good if done the month before STD “aired”. I hope I’m wrong on that. It’s one less month to pay. I’ve never been a huge binger myself. I think the most I’ve ever sat through in one sitting was perhaps 3 episodes tops for GoT. Even if I’m jazzed to see the next part. Too much sitting in front of the TV at one time. Can’t do it. Even my kid who enjoys watching TV on his phone doesn’t watch more than one or two at a time. I have sat through 4 episodes of Silicon Valley. But that’s no more than a half hour an episode. I’ve heard of a lot of binging going on but I haven’t personally run into anyone who actually does it.

@Kirok — CBSAA, like every streaming service, offers 1 month free trial to all new subscribers. Now they could rescind that for the launch of Trek, but that’s never been done before by any other service, as far as I know, so I don’t look for CBSAA to be the first. As of last night, there’s still a one month free trial option to sign up. I believe the confusion is that CBS was marketing the free month prior to the start of DISC, as a way to get people signed up early. So they weren’t getting anything that CBSAA doesn’t already offer, but it was a targeted marketing launch. Wasn’t it the commercial free version? I believe the free trial offer is only with commercials.

AA only offers 1 week free not one month. They know most Trekkies would just binge watch that way. They could for one week but most don’t want to wait that long.

Im glad your year long complaining amounted to nothing and you took the plunge. While one might choose to wait for disc, there is no telling if Netflix will even have Discovery available via disc in a year (or if that division will even be open as its such a small part of their business).

You dont want to miss all the hype and chatter!

Stranger Things has not had a physical release… and no plans as yet…

It could be a while before we see Discovery on disc!

@DataMat

Netflix has been delaying their own content on disc ever since Arrested Development. House of Cards has been delayed months. Season 1 of Daredevil only recently became available. Long after season 2 came and went.

I hope we are wrong but I agree it will be a very long time before STD is on disc if at all.

Sunday/Monday midnight

Trolling is a scalpel not an ax. Better luck next time.

The reactions to this show across the board make it seem like an absolute EPIC. This is awesome. Cannot. Wait.

I think Sam Witwer’s reaction was my personal fav – “In a good mood about Trek. Gonna put on some DS9 as a victory lap. #discovery”

I ABSOLUTELY love Sam! I’ve hoped to see him on a Trek show.

His tweets is gone from that bunch of tweets though. Saw it yesterday and thought it was a funny tweet.

Some of the other tweets I’ve seen should calm the nerves of a few people who were worried. More to Saru than just sensing death, the VFX in the trailers was definitely in-progress versions, the dialogue isn’t stilted like it seems in the trailers at times, and the opening credits sequence is great.

I’m more excited than ever for this show!

Sounds promising. “Cinematic”, if nothing else! lol

Ooh look, it’s the back of Brannon Braga’s head…

I wouldn’t put too much stock in early reactions. Premieres’ initial reactions are always overwhelmingly positive regardless of the quality of the show/movie; they aren’t the ideal way to make a judgement about an upcoming show.

In 2016 Trekmovie and other sites reported “First Reactions to Star Trek Beyond Overwhelmingly Positive”, the movie turned out to be only 1/3 good and it underperformed badly at the box office.

Same thing happened with BvS when it the media reported that “Batman V Superman Premiere: Early Reactions Are Overwhelmingly Positive”, and many other major releases.

Though I agree with your overall sentiment (and I too remain skeptical for a variety of reasons), let’s remember Beyond received high marks from viewers, Trek fans, and critics.

Funny though that you didn’t have this same skepticism for other shows out there.

Also worth mentioning, I only care about ratings or box office where it relates to getting a sequel or additional seasons. Ratings and box office have squat to do with quality.

Some of my favorite shows of all times were notoriously low rated.

@Etymologicool,

‘Beyond’ underperforming at the box office was a clear indication of lack of interest in the movie; that the audience didn’t flock to see it. It shows, once again, that the “Overwhelmingly Positive Early Reactions” that we see after every premiere was overblown.

You’re stretching to make a point. The positive reaction to BEYOND at the premiere was born out in later reviews and audience scores. The problem with BEYOND was bad marketing and people turned off by INTO DARKNESS.

By comparison, BvS absolutely WAS a case of premiere reaction being out of step with later critical and audience reviews…

@Drew Melbourne,

In term of reviews and audience scores ‘Beyond’ came at #7 comparing to the rest of Trek movies.

The problem with ‘Beyond’ that it was a lousy movie, partially because of the rush production.

The rhianna song Hit a Wall is just brilliant though!

Yeah because people hated STID. Wait, no they didn’t, hence why it has overwhelmingly positive reviews on RT.

Please re-read my comment. Box Office/Lack of Interest has nothing to do with quality.

I don’t care if Discovery is watched by 10 people or 10 million. I want a really good show. Likewise, Beyond’s box office only bothers me because it might mean we might not get another, when Beyond is in my top 3 Trek films of all time.

It was well reviewed and well received by those who did have interest. It’s the quality that matters to me, which is, in the end, why we care about these impressions and reactions anyway.

I mean, would you feel any better if the early reaction was “Story is just OK, but the action and FX are great, and mass audiences will eat this up! Viewing numbers will be HIGH!”

@Etymologicool,

“when Beyond is in my top 3 Trek films of all time.”

Ah, that’s why we see it differently. I don’t rate ‘Beyond’ as highly as you do. While I liked the few character moments in the movie, the rest was a mess.

I think it’s funny when Ahmed responds to me and doesn’t address my points. I also find it funny that he calls beyond a mess while praising Orville. #irony

But to my point here: Ahmed brought up money. I countered that don’t care about money, I want quality. Audiences and money to not equal quality.

To Scott’s point, I’d rather ONE great season that nobody watches than 4 mediocre seasons that get JUST enough viewers to skirt by (cough ENTERPRISE cough)– or worse– 8 bad seasons that the drooling Orville audiences love (Big Bang Theory).

@Etymologicool,

Do you have same expectations from every single movie and TV show that you watch? Because I don’t.

And comparing a movie and a TV show makes zero sense, two very different mediums.

And again, ‘Beyond’ as a Trek movie is a mess.

To be fair, even Ahmed is smart enough to know Orville was not going to be the quality of show he pretended it would be. Its basically exactly like most of us said. Which is fine if you like that sort of thing.

I agree with him about Beyond, though I enjoyed it mostly. Actually sort of the same I enjoy Orville – turn brain off, try not to look at clock. lol

You *should* care if the number of viewers is closer to 10 than 10 million. It doesn’t matter how much you like it if no one is watching, because CBS won’t greenlight future seasons if you’re only one of a handful of viewers.

Scott. Please read my comments in full instead of just the first few words.

@Etymologicol — Ha! Yes, when it comes to Star Trek, let’s be skeptical of early reviews and assume the show is going to be a dismal failure, but when it comes to THE ORVILLE, let’s assume the critics are wrong (even though they weren’t), and it’s going to be a massive success (even though premiere ratings are never any guarantee of future success)!

@Curious Cadet,

Except for a tiny little fact, premieres’ initial reactions on twitter are not reviews. For those, you will need to wait till Sunday.

And the critics were wrong, the Orville didn’t crash and burned as they predicted. And downplaying ‘Orville’ massive premiere ratings only shows your bias.

The critics were spot on: the show is terrible. I’m not downplaying the ratings. Lots of people like terrible stuff. Transformers being the oft-used example.

@Etymologicool,

“Lots of people like terrible stuff. ”

Indeed. That must be why ‘Beyond’ “received high marks from viewers” according to your own comment.

Who said it would crash or burn? No one. They said it was lame. it was. The majority of reviews for Orville were quite correct.

You’re getting pissy because you think people are downplaying the ratings for the premiere of Orville, which no one is doing. But you’re trying to downplay the overwhelmingly positive reactions from the Discovery premiere.

You’re so transparent its hilarious.

Yes, Ahmed, I mean no disrespect, but you really are. No one here is making an overly big deal about the overwhelmingly positive reaction Discovery got last night (though I assume the producers are at least somewhat relieved). Opinions will differ, and I assume we’ll see a whole range of them on Sunday. The question that last night’s preview seems to have settled is whether Discovery is an unmitigated disaster. For all the bad press it has received over the past year, much of it pushed by people who clearly had agendas both personal and political, it clearly isn’t. That doesn’t mean it’s great, or an indispensable addition to this franchise. Fans and general audiences will make that determination for themselves, and it would be nice if they could at least try to do it with a minimum of institutional bias. Unfortunately, these days it seems that tribalism has to effect everything. Which is pretty ironic, given that’s what the show is supposed to be about.

@Michael Hall,

Twitter reactions from Trek alumni, media personalities & Trek sites means very little since premiere’s initial reactions are always overwhelmingly positive.

There was another group that was invited yesterday and so far we haven’t heard from them, the critics.

You’ve got a real attitude problem, Ahmed.

To be fair, if you had bought stock in the Orville, you’d have a poor attitude too…hahahaha

Now you’re just being disingenuous. Try reading my post again for comprehension this time, including my thoughts on what last night’s event did, and did not, prove. And I’ll note this, too: if just half of those critics we haven’t yet heard from elect to agree with the overwhelming majority of the rest of the people who were there, that’ll be an almost 50% improvement over the critical response to The Orville. So why even pretend that you think what they’ll have to say is important in any case?

@Michael Hall,

As you’re well aware, since we’ve already discussed that in The Orville threads, I didn’t dismiss the critics’ reviews altogether. I disagreed with most of their criticisms but acknowledged that an issue they raised was problematic.

You seem incapable of addressing any issues regarding ‘Discovery’ without going back to ‘The Orville’. I guess ‘The Orville’ is your go-to excuse now!

What issues about Discovery were we discussing here? I thought the discussion on this thread pertained to the opinion of critics, which you seem to think is all-important for Discovery, but in the case of The Orville, not so much.

@Michael Hall,

Unlike ‘The Orville’ we have no ‘Discovery’ reviews to speak of. You were more than happy to discuss every negative Orville reviews, why the sudden animosity towards critics all of a sudden?

Going to repeat what I just wrote since you don’t seem to see them for some reason!

I didn’t dismiss Orville critics’ reviews altogether; I disagreed with most of their criticisms but acknowledged that an issue they raised was problematic. Capisce?

Wow. I don’t know if you’re simply being obtuse, or are incorrigibly intellectually dishonest. Your choice, and your problem in either case, but I’ll tell you this: it’s a lot more important in terms of your life than whether the space opera you favor is on Fox or All Access.

@Michael Hall,

You may want to run full diagnostic on your circuit board before you end up like your predecessor HAL 9000 & starts singing Daisy!

Ahmed, you are such a hypocrite.

Beyond failing at the box office was partially the result of the cast and crew not promoting the film while they processed the death of Anton Yelchin- and quite rightly so- just as much as the backlash against STID.

Also the release date. It was a week before Bourne, two weeks before Suicide Squad. Not great placement, when there was a 3 month open window after SS with no competition.

Released first week of September, I bet it does another 100M.

@AdAstraPerAspera,

While Yelchin’s death was shocking to everyone especially the cast, they did promote the movie in the United States and abroad in countries like China, Australia, South Korea & others.

We need to qualify Beyond’s “fail” at box office. It spent too much in production, what prevented it from being profitable. But, even when you adjust for inflation, it made more money than Generations, Undiscovered Country, Insurrection, Final Frontier, and Nemesis. The last three, true, you could call them failures at the box office. The other two, not really. Beyond outperformed them in the domestic market, and was even better worldwide (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=startrek.htm). The main mistake for Beyond was spending US$ 185 million to make it. If it was US$ 150 million, as originally planned, with its US$ 343 million worldwide box office, it would have turned out on the blue.

@Salvador Nogueira,

“it made more money than Generations, Undiscovered Country, Insurrection, Final Frontier, and Nemesis. ”

Well, I guess Paramount is very happy then that a movie that cost $305 million ($185M Production budget + $120M Marketing and distribution) grossed more than those low-cost movies from the last century & early 00s!

Yeah its pretty unfair to compare the KT films with the TNG and TOS movies for a multitude of reasons. The marketing budgets alone cost more than the TOS and TNG films and the international distribution was no way close to what the Abrams films got. Also minus 3D and IMAX and yeah.

Healthy skepticism is fine, but your bias is showing.

@Etymologicool,

Funny, your twin agreed with the comment just an hour ago.

I’m not disagreeing with your comment. Are you so slow that you can’t see that?

I’m saying that you, like Trump– who will condemn a muslim terrorist attack before any evidence comes out, but claims he “wants to hear more before commenting” on white domestic terrorism– seem only skeptical when it doesn’t fit your pre-constructed opinion.

jokes and trolls aside, the reality is, the premiere is obviously designed to create buzz. Its exactly what CBS intended and why they were criticized for not allowing screeners. Funny the same people whining about that arent patting CBS on the back now, eh?

But the comments coming out from the premiere are positive. They are quantifiable things. “Excellent SFX” Well, unless the SFX take a dive between now and Sunday, that is not a “wait to see” thing.

When people say “I cant give spoilers but its great” that is not something that usually turned into “its great, but thumbs down” when a more detailed review is released.

They dont tell us everything but for anyone to try and suggest the overwhelmingly positive reactions to the premiere are anything but positive is the trolliest of trolling at this point.

At least wait til you’ve seen the show before releasing your prejudiced bias negative review.

Still, until I hear a real review (or see it for myself), these twitter reactions mean very little to me beyond “okay, it’s not a COMPLETE disaster.”

Wonder Woman was deemed a mess and then early reviews were glowing. It turned out to be one of the top reviewed and the highest grossing film domestically. So to play devil’s advocate, there’s no way to tell about early reviews. A lot of the people who have spoken about Discovery are not your random reviewers and are people who get Trek so hearing good words coming from there is a positive sign.

Tee hee, didn’t you hear the early reviews for the Orville?

@James,

Yeah, they were horrible but that is not the case. Premieres’ initial reactions are not reviews, and we are not going to see any ‘Discovery’ reviews until Sunday night.

Oh Im sure all the people saying how great it was will submit their negative review on Sunday. You’re probably right. lol

Ahmed that’s just not true and you can’t just discount Orville’s bad reviews as “not the case.” As an avid DC fan I’ve paid attention to early reactions. Suicide Squad and BVS were not the same as say Wonder Woman’s early reactions. You could tell that people were holding back and the reactions that were put out there were casual movie fans not fans of the property itself. Justice League had a “secret” screening last night and the tiny bit of reaction that was leaked has been so/so. You can tell a lot by reactions, you just have to read between the lines if there’s an embargo. There’s nothing to make you believe that the people who saw Discovery aren’t being truthful. I think it’ll overall be good, there’ll be some twists in the 2nd episode and there will be things that will get under the skin of purists but this will be a much easier pill to swallow for them than the Kelvin films.

@PEB,

With The ‘Orville’ we have actual reviews from different newspapers, fan sites and other sources. We have none of that with ‘Discovery’, only twitter reactions from Trek alumni, media personalities & Trek sites.

“Suicide Squad and BVS were not the same as say Wonder Woman’s early reactions.”

Guess what? I’m a DC fan as well and your comment is not true.

Suicide Squad.
Slashfilm: ‘Suicide Squad’ Test Screening Buzz: Sounds Like the Hit DC Comics Needs

Movieweb: Suicide Squad Early Reactions Call It Perfect & Breathtaking

Wonder Woman.
io9: The First Reactions for Wonder Woman Are Spectacular
Darkhorizons: “Wonder Woman” First Reactions Are Superb
Screenrant: Wonder Woman Screening Early Reactions Are Positive

Batman V Superman.
Independent: Batman v Superman: The first reactions are in and they’re very positive

Screenrant: Batman V Superman Premiere: Early Reactions Are Overwhelmingly Positive

“only twitter reactions from Trek alumni, media personalities & Trek sites.”

That is so dishonest. Unless everyone who isnt an alumni or Trek site falls into “media personality”. Get a grip.

So, it is not proof that it is good, but it is not evidence that it is bad either, right? ;-)
Admit it, it will hurt you so much when it turns out to be great, won’t it?

This reminds me a lot of the DC vs Marvel debate. Where DC movie fans try to make every Marvel movie seem like a failure; they’ll say Spider-Man is going to bomb, and be terrible, and when it is well received and makes big money, they find any hole to poke in their argument: “oh well the second week drop was huge!” or “it’ll never do as well as Wonder Woman!”

Then when Spider-Man topped Wonder Woman, the DC fans screamed “well, Wonder Woman did way better domestically, and really, Spider-Man should have made a billion, what a failure!”

It’s not unique to Ahmed, there are Discovery fans doing the same thing about Orville– but my point rather is that the Discovery/Orville is quickly becoming a rivalry within the fandom– and I blame Seth McFarlane for this. He went out of his way to promote his show as being “More Star Trek” and “Better than the JJ movies” in an effort to attract a small group of disgruntled Trekkies.

But by doing so he encouraged a fracture among fans. A much better tack would have been to be diplomatic, and maybe he could attract ALL Trekkies.

Etymologicool THANK YOU! That’s my whole feeling every time someone says “there’s room for both.” There’s obviously room and I actually wanted Trek fans to enjoy them both. The Orville would be a show I could kick back and have a beer on a Sunday night and have a few chuckles before pulling up Discovery and watching Trek. Unfortunately from day 1, Seth and crew (some) have been creating a fracture in the fanbase. I hated every second of that civil war during the Kelvin films run and now we have to deal with it again. Orville is not Trek no matter how many times some angry fans want to say it is, just like Galaxy Quest is not a Trek film. But the damage has been done. I’m curious to see if Orville will have another panel at the Vegas Trek Con which I don’t think is a smart idea. I feel like my ability to try to enjoy both now has been interrupted by the feud that was started by Seth before any Trek fan jumped on that bandwagon.

@Salvador Nogueira,

Nope. After SW EP I & EP II, I wasn’t looking forward to EP III. In fact I was skeptical as hell about it until I watched it in theater and was pleased that it was better than the previous two prequels.

If ‘Discovery’ turns out to be good and not just Star Trek Greatest Hits, then I will keep watching it beyond the pilot. If not, there are plenty of current & upcoming shows to watch.

True. The glass is always half empty for some until they start drinking it. For many of us though, when all indications are that the glass is pretty full, we go in optmistic. Certainly we dont cheer for it’s failure like some here.

So, in other words I’m being a lot more open-minded about The Orville than you even care to be about Discovery. Good to know.

@Michael Hall,

No need for you to throw a hissy fit about it.

I’ve always maintained that I’ll watch the pilot and then make up my mind whether to continue watching the show or not. Typically I give any new shows around 3 episodes but since only the pilot will be on CTV and the rest of ‘Discovery’ will be on a premium channel, I’ll settle for the pilot to impress me.

No hissy fit involved; it’s obvious you’re just trolling. I personally don’t care whether you watch one episode or the entire series’ run.

He wants it to fail. It would literally have to be nothing like the teasers and trailers which he has whined about, for him to like it. if its as we suspect and as good as it seems, he wont like it.

@Michael Hall,

Good to know. For a moment there I thought you might be a CBS sales representative given your aggressive sale pitch throughout the thread.

Marvel’s Inhumans has gotten bad ink at every preview thus far. Early returns on BvS that I saw before release were mixed at best. Bad at worst.
STB did get praise before release but while it underperformed at the box office I thought it prett darn good.

For what little all that is worth.

To be fair, if you want Discovery to be a success, you see the positive reviews for what they are – positive reviews. If you are a bitter complainer who wants Discovery to fail as some sort of bizarre reinforcement of your own ego, then you see positive reviews as a negative thing. lol

I think Discovery has a lot more buzz and press coming through than Beyond… at least in cyberspace…

I think a lot of that has to do with the great job CBS is doing on marketing. A much better job than Paramount did with STB.

CBS actually did an amazing job marketing the show for starters. We were afraid we were going to be left in the dark for too long and they have basically released something new about the show every few days for the last month. The original trailer seems to get a lot of hate on youtube but at least it feels like Star Trek and not that sad first Beyond trailer. And CBS didn’t wait 6 months before it made another one either.

I live in L.A. and Discovery is everywhere here. Beyond obviously had a pressence but it was far too late for a film.

Dude, Beyond was easily the best of the three JJ-Verse movies, and was actually pretty freakin’ great. Chill.

This all sounds so very promising! Can’t wait for Sunday!

Woohoo! Excited!
Also just signed up for Netflix to see Discovery! :)

Not to be a wet blanket (to our U.S. readers), but I’ve been searching around the web for reviews of CBS All Access today. Many, many complaints of buffering issues, voices not synching with video, mid-episode drop-off, and other streaming issues. And many comments I saw were made within the last 48 hours.

If a lot of people jump in to CBSAA on Sunday for episode 2, they may be in for a nasty surprise given what I’ve read so far. I hope not, but just letting people know.

To charge me to watch a show is one thing, if I’m seeing quality. To charge me to watch a show on a crap platform? That’s another.

Absolutely. Every streaming service has had issues. All Access MUST be very diligent about having the support in place t provide a quality experience. I actually do think they will have issues on Sunday and will be pleasently surprised if they dont.

Its probably quite likely in 90% of cases to actually be the internet service provider, who is at fault for buffering issues, and slow broadband speeds…

Thats also very true. There was a long standing argument here about that where someone insisted it was the result of streaming in general (and Netflix specifically) being in its infancy.

In the case of WWE Network they actually crashed when the sign up period began and then crashed during their first major event. And that was using the industry leading MLB Advanced Media. It was related to so many people accessing the OTT service at once.

If you already use Netflix or other OTT’s you should have no issue from an Internet Provider aspect. But hopefully CBS is ready for a lot of people watching All Access at once (surely their highest viewer count ever).

No, there was definitely buffering issues with AA. For the first two months I had it everything was much slower. Now, it runs normally with slight buffering issues and I’ve had the same internet provider and broadband speed for years. I have never had a problem with other services like Netflix and Amazon. It was really only AA and that is no longer a problem anymore. At least for me.

@Danpaine — you must get your TV programs on one of those magical platforms that isn’t affected by outages, or poor signal quality. In the US, I was constantly plagued with cable problems. It would notoriously go out right before a big TV even, if not during. There were also channels that horrible signals, noise, or ghosting, or audio out of sync. Then I switched to satellite, where weather conditions could affect the picture, or celestial events, such as sun spots, or a glitch on my access card, requiring a system reset. In almost every case, I called customer service and got a credit for the problem, assuming it was their fault and not the fault of the equipment or other ‘acts of god’. I would expect CBS would handle such issues similarly, especially in the beginning. I no longer subscribe to a cable or satellite service, having cut the cord. However, that doesn’t stop my OTA antenna signal from being affected by local weather conditions, and other issues. So if my signal is degraded for a network TV show, I have nobody to complain to either. I don’t pay for it, except for the time I have to sit through commercials, but I’m also not guaranteed a signal either.

I had satellite briefly. I drove me insane. The last straw was that I had a few days off over Christmas and was looking forward to doing nothing in front of the TV. No signal.

When I called they said Oh did it snow? Yes. Then you have to climb up on your building and clear off the dish. Yeah right.

The reports Ive seen of All Access is its been great for people. My only concern is the large number of people that will all tune it at once on Sunday. If it does crash, its not reflective of the permanent situation as CBS will respond and make things better. But that initial big night can be a problem.

On the other hand, CBSAA isnt new. So hopefully they are prepared for a big night!

I’ve had All Access for months now and yes it did start off with all those problems, especially buffering, but it has improved tremendously since. I been rewatching a lot of Star Trek on that site and been watching their new show Salvation on it (Executive produced by Alex Kutzman) and I have to say most of those problems have disappeared. Sure some could still be having those problems but its clear they are improving the service overall.

Now who knows what it will be like the first night the show airs when everyone will be watching but the platform has improved in the last few months at least.

That’s good to hear, Tiger. Thanks.

Definitely NOT giving CBS my money to watch this show. I don’t care how great it is. Now, if they give me new Star Trek AND new Person of Interest, another great show that they cancelled too soon (much like Star Trek: TOS), I will happily allow them to charge me $10 per month.

@Eric — that’s why CBS is putting DISC on CBSAA, so it’s free from the pressures of an advertising based ratings system, regardless of whether the right demographic is watching it in the right numbers. If POI had been on CBSAA, you might still be watching it today. But you can partially blame Bad Robot for POI’s cancellation, as they did little to contain costs and the network license fee. This is one of the reasons why Bad Robot is no longer producing network TV series, but instead focused on high-end pay cable and streaming, subscriber-based networks.

@Curious Cadet, I am well aware that Bad Robot owned the show and thus the distribution rights. It wasn’t a CBS owned show so CBS wasn’t going to make any money from re-airing the show down the line on other networks.

It is sad to lose a great show that was still getting good ratings (even though CBS moved it to a lousy night and time). I think they have put two different shows in that time slot that were cancelled after one season.

Exactly. There’s a reason “Hawaii Five-O” is still on the air while other shows not produced by CBS with higher ratings have been cancelled over the past several years. “Hawaii Five-O” is not CBS’ highest rated series but they own the show outright and turn a tidy profit with international distribution.

Eric — Bad Robot does NOT own POI, nor the distribution rights. Warner Bros. does. Bad Robot was the producer under its deal with WBTV. But don’t mistake that as the sole motivation by CBS — there’s the license fee. Bad Robot does not know how to work within a budget. That’s one reason BEYOND went over $30 million over budget, which otherwise would have made it a profitable film for Paramount. CBS cut POI, because Bad Robot refused to lower the budget to a reasonable amount in line with its ratings, and WBTV refused to subsidize the license fee and take the loss upfront in hopes of recovering it in syndication.

CBS is putting Discovery on All Access to promote all access. That’s pretty much the long and short of it.

And life on a premium cable network or streaming service doesn’t free a show from the pressures of performing for whatever platform it exists on. “Westworld” was successful and renewed early in its first season run but “Vinyl”, which many thought would be a breakout hit, failed to pull viewers to HBO and was cancelled after one season. Because shows are produced at a loss you need a respectable run to make that money back. Licensing fees offset productions costs but in the short term they don’t cover production costs.

Discovery is more than just a show for CBS, it’s an investment in All Access.

The pressures are certainly still there, but they are different, and there are also, to put it simply, different metrics. A low rating at 8PM on a Thursday, for example, will kill a series rather quickly. But a show uploaded to a streaming service can be given more time to find its audience. They’re not locked down to audiences watching in a given time slot.

The same way TOS got a bigger following in syndication, many streaming shows’ audiences grow over time. If Day One of Discovery only a thousand people watch it, that’s ok. Because viewer metrics are not based on who watches on a single day at a single time. They can gather their viewership slowly.

But you’re right, there is still pressure to perform. Though the fact that Netflix has made such a huge investment in it mitigates a LOT of that pressure.

Spot on analysis. A different metric is used to determine the success of a show on specific platforms and cable channels (and who owns and produces the show carries some weight as well). Discovery is in a good place in that and will no doubt outperform what The Good Fight has been delivering.

So, if you tune in and love Discovery it’s probably a safe bet that it will be around for awhile.

Vinyl was actually renewed for a second season but there were behind the scenes issues that resulted in the creator being fired. It was THEN renewed. And then cancelled when they could rejig it. I think the cost of Westworld made them decide to go all in and cut Vinyl plus they liked The Deuce as a property and it had a similar time frame to Vinyl.

Vinyl was great though.

Sounds like a lot of boom boom pow effects and minimal thinking person story telling.
It’ll be Star Wars-3.0

So you havent been following along or reading articles or anything then? Good.

Getting ready for Discovery, for better or worse, and I’ve found CBS All Access to be have some horrible compression issues. Lots of programs look really crappy with a lot of artifacts. And, considering the library at their disposal, the programming is severely lacking. But it’s free, at least for a month. We’ll see how Discovery fares. I’m going to watch the pilot on a nice clean, HD, over-the-air antenna broadcast from our local CBS affiliate. Then I’ll switch to the stream next week and see how it goes.

Can someone who has seen the premiere tell me if it is family friendly? Don’t want to expose my children to inappropriate content.

Our folks that were there tell me that there’s no nudity or bad language but definitely graphic violence.

Thank you. It feels surreal that I have to put a family block on a Star Trek show. :/

Most likely, not every episode is going to be as violent.

No matter how many good reviews it gets I still think it’s going to be a shitshow. The Orville is better Trek than Trek has been in years, and people attack it cause they’re afraid it’s going to be better than Discovery lol.

Keep telling yourself that.

We only saw 2minutes the Oprah show took up most of their air time. We live on the east cost.👎

So, they let football ruin the season opener. This was supposed to be the teaser that lured people to their over-priced and useless streaming service (at least useless to those of us that don’t watch anything else on CBS). Those who have cut the cord may spring for this, but for those of us that still have pay TV like DirecTV (which already has CBS included) are not going to be so quick to jump on board for another $5.99/month. In addition to all of this, the commercials are WAY too long for a streaming service, and there were WAY too many of them. This is a greedy money grab for CBS, and shame on them for picking Star Trek to do this. They keep touting how many people signed up for the service, but they really need to wait and see what happens when the 1 week free trial ends. It will be interesting to see how many people cancel before their week is up.

As for the show itself, there are things I liked, and things I hated. The special effects were done well, and the acting was really good.

And for the things I didn’t like? First of all, what is the purpose in changing the look and language of the Klingons? This is supposed to be loyal to Star Trek Canon, and they fundamentally alter several key aspects of the most well known alien race in the franchise. They look more insect-like than warrior-like to me. That is the first thing i hate about the new series. And, seeing as the Klingons are poised to be a huge part of the series, that is unfortunate.

The look and feel of the show and filming techniques are obviously meant to copy the J.J. Abrams style of the new Star Trek movies. I did not care for those movies. The constant tilted camera angles, the overly bright lights drowning out some of the images, the constant non-stop action. It just isn’t Star Trek. Making Star Trek “gritty” like they have is moving too far away from the original intent of the show. This is Star Trek, not a summer action movie.

This show was created for non-Trekkie fans. There are some Trekkies who will watch, but I know many of them are not happy.

I think the show will continue, but the fan base will be new and different. I don’t think CBS cares, as long as they have viewers, and an excuse to continue their useless streaming service.