The series debut of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds finally arrives this week and we have details, new photos, and a clip to get you started.
“Strange New Worlds”
The series premiere is aptly titled “Strange New Worlds.” The preview images reveal the episode will feature the canon characters T’Pring and Robert April. The teleplay for the debut was written by co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman from a story by Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet. Goldsman also directed. Strange New Worlds debuts on Paramount+ on Thursday, May 5, the same day as the season two finale of Star Trek: Picard.
Synopsis:
Series premiere. When one of Pike’s officers goes missing while on a secret mission for Starfleet, Pike has to come out of self-imposed exile. He must navigate how to rescue his officer, while struggling with what to do with the vision of the future he’s been given.
T’Pring and APril:
Gia Sandhu as T’Pring of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+
Adrian Holmes as Admiral April of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+
Anson Mount as Pike and Adrian Holmes as Admiral April of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+
More new photos:
Christina Chong as La’an, Ethan Peck as Spock, and Anson Mount as Pike of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+
Ethan Peck as Spock of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+
Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+
Melissa Navia as Ortegas of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+
Pictured: Ethan Peck as Spock and Anson Mount as Pike of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+ ©2022 ViacomCBS. All Rights Reserved.
Anson Mount as Pike of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+
Anson Mount as Pike of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+
Previously released photos:
-
- Pictured: Christina Chong as La’an of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+ ©2022 ViacomCBS. All Rights Reserved.
-
- Pictured: Anson Mount as Pike of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+ ©2022 ViacomCBS. All Rights Reserved.
-
- Pictured: Ethan Peck as Spock of the Paramount+ original series STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+ ©2022 ViacomCBS. All Rights Reserved.
Clip:
The latest episode of The Ready Room includes a clip from the premiere with Pike approaching the USS Enterprise in spacedock [at 26:40]. [Also available internationally at startrek.com]
Season 1 trailer
This trailer for the series contains some footage from the season premiere. (also available on startrek.com)
All photos by Marni Grossman/Paramount+
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debuts on Thursday, May 5 exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., Latin America, Australia and the Nordics. The series will air on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and stream on Crave in Canada. In New Zealand, it will be available on TVNZ, and in India on Voot Select. Strange New Worlds will arrive via Paramount+ in select countries in Europe when the service launches later this year, starting with the UK this summer.
Find more stories on the Star Trek Universe.
I think this has decanonized one of the two aspects of TAS that Roddenberry declared canon and novels developed upon.
I am all for diversity but don’t the writers not recall how April looked in TAS and that in novels he was depicted as British.
I think this is canon B now.
::thumbsdown
People of color live in Britain. If April will have a larger presence in the show, and he’s a good actor (and given good material) bring it on.
That’s overly-loyal to the notion of “canon”. This isn’t a change that could ever possibly make waves in a universe that is fictional, except in the lacking imagination of some of the audience members. This isn’t a literal place that owes anyone such an exacting interpretation at the potential expense of its modern-day relevance. It has zero impact on anything.
To say the least.
I read somewhere that The Official Person Who Decides What’s Canon (whoever that was) decreed that TAS was not canon, except for the episode with the Guardian of Forever, which was. I don’t think canonicity is an à la carte thing. But maybe to make their point they could have renamed that episode “Canonicity on the Edge of Forever.”
TAS was rarely, if ever, considered canon. Live action Trek used some of it as inspiration, most notably “Yesteryear.” It’s treated the same was the books, which is where Number One’s name Una Chin-Riley comes from.
More recently, Discovery has mined it for some of its details, finally bringing April into canon on a viewscreen in Season 1, but the TAS is still not considered canon.
The fact that so much of Trek — from ’90s to today — has contradicted some events and details from TAS, yet you’d crow about making April a black man, says a lot about where your problems really lie.
I would be equally annoyed if Sisko was recast as a white actor.
As I said it’s canon, when its a reboot we can have different iterations of characters. Like I thought Jeffrey Wright was fantastic as Gordon on The Batman but it’s a different continuity.
It’s about canon and I am sorry I said two elements of TAS were canon and April is one.
Be no problem if it was a new character.
Star Trek has always played fast and loose with canon, however. GR didn’t consider Star Trek V to be canon, yet almost everyone I’ve seen does.
The simple reality is that SNW is going to override TAS’s canon, as Star Trek has done several times in the past.
“I would be equally annoyed if Sisko was recast as a white actor.”
Apples to Oranges. Sisko was the lead character of a television series that lasted 7 years. April was seen only ONCE in animated form, in a series which has had questionable canon status for decades.
I’m actually very much in favor of the casting, but — devil’s advocate — I’d argue that while April may have had questionable status for decades, that one appearance of him solidified in people’s minds over that period of time. So it’s understandable that it’s a surprise for some that they’d stray from that.
That said, folks, get the hell over it. This all looks amazing. :)
Just get to the point. It’s never about ‘canon’.
The social impacts of these two things are incomparable.
Replacing Sisko with a white actor will seriously decrease the representation of already under-represented communities of people, while replacing April with a black actor will only decrease the representation of over-represented communities of people.
And yes, if you still don’t understand why this is important by now even after the number of times Nichelle Nichols or Sonequa Martin-Green or Garrett Wang or Leonard Nimoy or Anthony Rapp or Michelle Paradise or Kate Mulgrew had banged into your head the importance of diversity and representation, what show are you even watching?
Seriously, what show are you even watching?
Meanwhile, T’Pring is played by Gia Sandhu who is South Asian Indian, and no one bats an eye, I wonder why *shrug*. Totally fine with the SNW version of Robert April.
Its never been anything with race, I also have reservations of T’Pring being in this show, because I feel it contradicts Amok Time, but I digress, why worry about canon?
Its canon, I guess it depends on how you view canon and TAS’s relation to it.
Mel Brooks version of Star Trek: “T’Pringtime for Hitler.”
So what contradictions will something be not canon? Exact same age? Exact same gender? Exact same race? Exact same species? Exact same accent? Exact same origin of birth? Exact same actor? Exact same haircut? Exact same drawing style? Exact same uniform style? Exact molecular composition? Exact diet?
You know that you are bound to draw an arbitrary line here somewhere, and the way you draw it is exactly where your biases lie.
Decisions are ultimately made upon principles. And the core principle of Trek is IDIC. Not strict adherence to ‘canon’.
This is easily solved by redoing TAS with CGI graphics and using this actor but same stories and voice overs. How AMAZING WOULD THAT BE?!?!?! You then make that version of TAS canon (and keep it going!!)
Also I vote for featuring this April actor in a mini series based on Diane Careys Final Frontier, the BEST TREK NOVEL EVER.
Redoing graphics is what ruined FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON on blu-ray, throwing out Emmy-nominated miniature and CG effect for new CG work farmed out someplace that must have worked cheap … and from what I could tell on brief perusal, wiping out credits for the original artists into this devil’s bargain. The VFX camera crew spent EIGHT MONTHS shooting model elements for that series, but now, unless you have the old DVD (I have two sets of them now), you’re never going to see them again. Progress. Spelled b-a-c-k-w-a-r-d-s c-o-w-a-r-d-i-c-e.
Sorry, but ‘Diane Carey’ and ‘best’ are not going together in my mind, ever. Even the few good parts in BEST DESTINY don’t make up for GHOST SHIP or her Mary Sue-style Trek novels.
Not jumping on you to be jumping on you, Bremmon. You know that when we’re on the same side of an argument, I’ll back you. We just differ massively on these points.
Hey fair enough, fair criticism and I respect differing opinions, you never need to apologize.
I hated Ghost Ship too. Man was that horrid. I can’t believe that was written by the same person who wrote Final Frontier (had to look up to confirm).
That being said, I think TAS is a special case.
I always think they need to make Secret of Vulcan Fury into a CGI movie!
Any excuse for a new TOS adventure I am in!
Well that’s a different case where the effects were of Emmy-quality. I actually kinda loathe the TOS remasters for their cheesy VFX, because it’s erasing the history of pioneers of model work that gave TOS the iconic visuals it had. TAS, while iconic enough in style to be made into memes and even featured on shirts, isn’t exactly top-notch animation. But what I would HATE to see is a CGI animated series in the vein of the Paramount+ shows Kamp Koral [Spongebob prequel] or the new Rugrats reboot, which have the. worst. animation I’ve seen in decades. It all looks so cheap. If they’re going to redo TAS with modern CGI, I would want it to just be a cleaner, glossier, more modern-looking 2D style, just give it a face-lift rather than rebuild it from scratch.
I speak for myself and a few other Trek fans I know of..
We’ve never considerd TAS to be canon, ever.
I’m thrilled we’re finally seeing Robert April in live action.
That’s weird because I’ve always considered TAS canon. And I’m going to continue doing so because the show is a worthy edition to the franchise.
Agreed, Kurtzman era is moving to universe B and the Kelvin timeline is universe C.
Any excuse to hate.
I still think TIME TRAP could be the basis for a decent standalong TREK feature. Or JIHAD, for that matter. They already kinda did ONE OF OUR PLANETS IS MISSING and MAGICKS OF MAGUS as features (TMP and TFF respectively.)
So all of the previoulsly written star Trek novels and comics should be canon then?
Tha majority of TAS are great stories. It is canon.
Adrian Holmes, who plays April, identifies as a Welsh-Canadian actor.
Last I checked, Wales is still part of the UK.
As for how April was drawn in TAS, as much as I love TAS and generally consider it canon, I am willing to move on from some of the network limits DC Fontana and Roddenberry faced in making it. Roddenberry pushed the envelope, but there were limits. I don’t think he’d be unhappy to see Holmes cast as April.
It’s a big thing that Uhura was allowed to take command of the Enterprise, and it only happened because Fontana came up with a story wherein no male officer could do it.
If you think a black admiral and historic captain would have been accepted, we have different reads on the behind the scenes history of Trek.
Plus the writer of the TAS episode has appeared on Twitter saying he is happy that Robert April is coming to life. Also that he is happy with Adrian playing him. Personally I believe capturing the essence of the character is more important. Let’s see what he can do with that and then judge the casting choices.
Robert April isn’t a real person.
Lol. Enjoy your feelings, bro. Jesus Christ.
Question: Does anyone here prefer David Hasselhoffs Nick Fury over Samuel Jacksons Nick Fury (Hasselhoffs is way more “comic accurate” btw)………
Seriously. There was probably a normal casting process. This actor probably auditioned and was probably deemed best fit for the character that has been written. Do you think maybe, just MAYBE there is a chance the guy just plain ACTED BEST!? No? Well, that says more about you than him.
Sometimes I loose hope in the fandom.
Honestly, I like both Fury’s and can appreciate the difference between them. I also like Holmes as an actor and consider him to be a fine choice for Robert April, although in my head canon I had an image of a guy like Robert Patrick for the role. I am certain Holmes will do a very good job with the role.
Nope, the thing is in a different canon or reboot it would not matter, I loved Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon in the The Batman. He was true to Gordon, but its a different version than the Nolan films and the Burton films.
Its just that my head canon for April was influenced by TAS and the novels as well as an image of Gene Roddenberry in a Cage era uniform used in the encyclopedia. It has nothing to do with race just me being stuck rigidly to canon. I am sorry if it sounds silly
It is indeed folly to prioritize the minutiae of canon over the opportunity to adjust toward modern-day relevance. The purpose of a story is to be relatable to the audience, not to pretend that its a real universe that owes us overly-rigid consistency at the expense of its message. This isn’t really just sticking rigidly to canon, its being stubborn at the expense of missing the point of it all, but I digress.
This is a simple solve. TAS got colors wrong all the time. Remember the pink Kzinti ship? It was supposed to be grey. So, I just think, “the TAS animators got April’s color wrong,” and then I move on with my life.
Any time a character is recast, the new actor is going to look different and have different traits than the original. There is no possible way I would believe that a man could look like Jeffrey Hunter, and then a few years later look like Anson Mount. They are different people and have different appearances. You would never mistake one for the other. That isn’t considered a plot hole or a break from canon. Why is skin color more important of a trait than facial structure, body proportions, or fingerprints, all of which change every single time a character is recast with a new actor?
From your comment below:
“the current stuff sometimes makes me feel ashamed to be a white male.”
This place is anonymous, and you still don’t have the balls to just admit that you’re made uncomfortable by a cast member being black.
This very minor change to one TAS ep and some non-canon fiction is nothing given we all have to accept all the crap we see on Lower Decks as canon.
Relax, dude, it’s going to be OK.
Eh, in my eyes nuTrek broke canon long ago. Trusthfully, I was more bothered when Picard looked up at Federation HQ in the first episode of Picard S1 and saw the Pike/SNW Enterprise instead of the classic TOS Enterprise even though the classic design was shown in TNG and DS9. I approach it this way: these days something is canon until it isn’t.
I’m all for diversity. But not like that!!
Who cares? What’s done on SNW is fully canon. It contradicts a forty year-old cartoon. Big deal.
If you insist on doing a prequel then you should also honor the limiations of a prequel. Or just call it a reboot and be done with it. That said I’m fine with ignoring TAS, but there are also major TOS ties which just seem forced. For example, what did M’Benga do to lose his CMO position to Piper? What did Chapel do to being demoted to Ensign? How did Spock forget that he served with a descendant of Khan?
I think if you are unhappy with the changes to the established canon, you should think of Discovery, Strange New Worlds and even Picard as canon B. Despite what has been said, Discovery was clearly a reboot of the franchise and Strange New Worlds continues that reboot. Also, if you have an issue with a black character on Star Trek, you really do miss the point of Star Trek.
1960’s Star Trek was groundbreaking and celebrated for having a cosmopolitan bridge.
Now it’s box ticking diversity.
Oh man… this looks soooo good!!!!!
I’m cool with Robert April as long as they eventually do a mini series of my favorite novel Diane Duanes excellent Final Frontier with that actor and then have to re CGI TAS using the voices but CGI April to match the new actor!!!!
PS – I see non monochrome colors on the bridge like yellow and blue, whoever did that, huge shout out and thanks!!!!
Maybe the red color is just red alert, if so, I retract all my complaints on the decolorization of the bridge.
Okay, so they have made Robert April black, I guess that’s modern Trek inclusivity. But let’s see if he is from Coventry still? As someone 20 miles away I was always happy to think he came from my back yard.
I mean not all straight white males are bad. I embrace diversity and Trek helped embrace we are all equal but the current stuff sometimes makes me feel ashamed to be a white male.
That’s not how I want to feel when watching the latest iteration of my my fav universe.
If you’re that delicate that you can’t even watch made-up stories about fictional people without “feeling bad for being white” then I think the problem is you, not the stories.
I am not that delicate, I was just trying to make a point, but in here everything is twisted around.
Look I am sure Holmes will be great in the role but with the novels and TAS I did have a way I envisioned him, that is all.
Also I know it’s fiction.
Certainly sounds like the point you were trying to make is that you’re either soft or have eel carcasses for brains, but sure. “Twisted.”
Let’s do it like this. What about Star Trek since 2017 makes you feel ashamed to be a white male?
I challenge you to prove that you aren’t delicate by having the guts to swallow and let go of what I said and then move on to not reply to me or any of us to prove your point.
There’s still Pike and Spock, both straight white males who are likely to get lots of screentime. Relax, it’s going to be OK.
Just continued to be ashamed then. There’s one nice straight white male sitting on the captain’s chair right there, and I’m pretty sure that you don’t feel represented by him or you are ashamed of him.
WTF, dude, the new series next week has your white male and presumably strait captain, who is a good guy?
Weird remark, and not very timely given SNW and Pike ???
Dude, you won!
/s
Considering we’ve never seen April in canon they can do whatever they want with him. He’s only ever been referenced once, on a viewscreen in Discovery. Again, criticizing his race when he’s only ever been seen as white in a non-canonical episode of 50 year old show… says a lot.
Why do I bother, I happen to like TAS and elements of it have been worked into canon, see Enterprise, even Lower Decks has referenced a lot of it.
Perhaps I am too rigid with canon but it also shows how rich this universe was before Kurtzman came.
“Richness of the Star Trek universe”
You mean the one that was dead and in the ground prior to ST09, Into Darkness and then Discovery?
Yep Into Darkness is still the worst Trek movie in my opinion
“Yep Into Darkness is still the worst Trek movie in my opinion”
Well, therein lies the problem: Your opinions!
Cause we all know, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was the absolute worst.
I think Into Darkness is worse than The Final Frontier, its a story let down by effects and compromises but has some great character scenes, whereas Into Darkness fees like a mess of a plot and a poor remake of The Wrath of Khan
Yeah at least Final Frontier was an original story instead of a ripoff.
Along with TMP and TWOK, I love TFF, but ‘original’ is not one of the first words I’d use to characterize any of them.
I agree. into darkness is pure garbage. TFV, for all it’s faults, is the still the best representation of the Trio ever commited to the big screen.
I still cast my vote for Generations, personally.
Elements but not major. Also it seems that it’s the older Trek fans that are moaning about the new shows.
Sorry but this is a next generation and they do not live the same way. If you do not like the new shows then stick with what you grew up with. Simple.
I think the exterior of the Admiral’s shuttle should be a little less grungy.
Rough entry into the atmosphere? Dirty storm?
Didn’t have the time to take it to the fly-through carwash before hunting Pike down.
Well, the colors were always weird in TAS. I’m just going to assume that April was always black, and he just looked white in TAS for the same reason that all the tribbles looked pink, or that one Andorian looked grey.
Also everyone had flesh-colored eyeballs
Well, now that we have an Aenar on the Enterprise in SNW, I’ve been comfortable with the idea of a greyish biracial Aenar Andorian in TAS.
But it’s an established fact that there were some truly odd choices in the colouration of TAS, so I don’t see any reason to be stuck with it.
For those citing the novels, if many of us can let go of our grief over the end of the Relaunch Trek Litverse continuity, I would say that changing the look of a character expanded in the novels is super second order in terms of any concern.
Since some people are worried about “remaking” scenes from TOS, I challenge them to list which episodes of TAS should never be touched by live action.
Quibbling over how “canon” TAS was. It was always really “potential canon” more than anything.
Parts of it got made “real” when they got mentioned or shown in live-action shows, which is what Enterprise did on a few occasions.
But if something contradicts what we saw in TAS, then maybe we should just be fine with that.
April is a black man.
Klingons don’t have pink uniforms.
The crew doesn’t have force field belts for space.
The Enterprise really didn’t create a giant blow-up balloon version of itself.
I do love TAS though, and thought it was great Saturday morning programming that tackled various subjects that you don’t see in cartoons.
I refuse to believe that the giant blow up Enterprise isn’t canon.
Robert April’s appearance in the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues a tradition of characters from a previous Star Trek series appearing in the first episode of the newest series that began with McCoy in TNG’s Encounter At Farpoint and continued with Picard in DS9 and Quark in VOY.
This tradition changed to merely featuring a known character from a previous point in time to the newest series starting with Cochrane in ENT’s Broken Bow, which was followed by Sarek in DIS , Data in PIC, and Janeway in PRO.
The only one that didn’t take part in this was Lower Decks, which I guess would be on brand for them…
Well, even without April, SNW already has six characters who we already knew.
Yeah, I guess. Though I was thinking in terms of cameos.
Even if Locarno had been the pilot in Voyager and T’Pau had been the Vulcan in Enterprise we’d still have seen a DS9 cameo in Caretaker and the Cochrane cameo in Broken Bow.
LOL yeah that’s what I was thinking too.
Yeah, but Picard in DS9 was a cameo, Quark in Voyager was a cameo, and Cochrane in Enterprise was a cameo. Sarek in Disco was a character who stayed with the show after the first episode, Data was in other episodes of Picard after the first episode, and Janeway may be in all episodes of Prodigy. (I don’t watch that show.) I appreciate the tradition, but I think the cameos are more meaningful.
And McCoy in TNG was a cameo, of course.
I did point out that the tradition changed starting with Discovery, but I should have elaborated further and also pointed out that it changed from mere cameos to making them part of the ongoing narrative.
Yeah I agree. I think comparing what they did in the older shows to the newer stuff is completely different. And TNG to VOY, the point was to have the previous show’s character send off the new show. That changed with Enterprise (which obviously they didn’t have much of a choice) and the new shows hasn’t continued that tradition because those characters are all part of the show. They have story lines, etc.
Since nobody else will ask the Hard, Important Questions, I will:
What is the argument in favor of displays that aren’t simply a damn rectangle? They seem to be omnipresent in “Star Trek,” and even if they proved to be technologically feasible I don’t see why you’d want to do that.
That is all.
What did I miss, they seem rectangular in a variety of sizes. It’s the rounded corners that aren’t meeting with your approval?
It’s dated tech in the 23rd century, but RADAR displays are round.
We just don’t know enough about screen technologies in the future to comment on this. To me it just looks like it’s a great spot to fill the space between two diagonal structural joists with whatever sprayable nano OLED particle screens they have.
The workstations around the edge of the bridge have semicircular control layouts (which dates back to the TOS bridge, except those layouts were made of physical switches and coloured resin lights). This is actually ergonomic because it corresponds to the circle that you can easily reach from a seated position.
I would say this makes sense because you get the reconfigurability of a touchscreen, within an easy-to-reach arc that has a tactile edge, and it’s also a sensible visual update from the candy lights of the original series for today’s audiences. No doubt that running shipwide and inter-ship comms requires a much bigger set of UI controls than what would be physically possible with fixed switches alone.
Well, for those who just needed to find a reason to hate SNW’s because it has Kurtzman’s name on it, I guess Admiral April being a person of color fills the bill.
Jesus effing christ…..
Bingo.
I was lucky enough to see the premiere (first two episodes) of SNW in New York this weekend, and I gotta say, I am in fact blown away by it. I really, really enjoyed it all! I can of course pick nits (which I did for hours at the bar with everyone after the screening), but what mattered to me was that the stories landed, the dialog didn’t make me vomit, and it made me feel good. Everyone left the theater in good spirits, and you could tell the energy was super positive – THIS is the Star Trek that so many of us had been waiting for for so long! The effects were top-notch, the ship looks fantastic, the props and uniforms are cool, the acting was great, the characters are likeable, the vibes were fun. This isn’t grimdark Discovery or save-the-entire-universe-again Picard; this is the adventures of a crew of people we care about. Also, the crowd was very diverse, many of them wearing incredible uniforms, and there were plenty of younger Trekkies in attendance which made me feel good about the longevity of the fan base. I give 5/5 stars to the first two episodes as a combined experience and intro to the series. We’ll see what they do with the rest of it, but for once I may actually be tuning in to weekly Star Trek again :)
Yes! A great diversity of age groups! Everyone cheered and clapped! There were even TWO Boimlers! :)
P.S. You don’t need to like a show by trashing other shows that others like. That ruins the positivity of your comment.
I can trash if I want – if you take it personally that’s on you. I’m not yucking your yum if you like other shows; I’m just saying I don’t. And almost everyone I talked to after the premiere expressed the same sentiment, even the Discovery apologists, who had to admit that SNW felt leagues ahead of everything else on offer from Kurtzman & Co. But I’m glad you like the other shows – I just wish I could, too. As they’re written, I simply can’t, and I’m hoping SNW finally changes that.
This is a great report albatrosity, thank you!
And I know you haven’t been a big fan of the other new shows, so for you to be this excited about it makes me excited about it!
Admiral April!!!! Love it! Fan service…
Think I’ll just watch this new show on it’s own merits…and not give a toss about “canon”….
This is probably the best way to do it. I get bothered by some of the choices the writers make, though, which “violate canon” when they just as easily could’ve, ya know, not chosen to do that. None of the choices the writers have made to violate canon have added anything to the story; they simply do it because they can, because they want us to know that they’re in charge of our universe now. For every example of it I can think of, they could’ve just made literally any other choice instead, and the end result would’ve been the same, if not better, because they didn’t “break canon.”
Just as an example, naming a character Noonien-Singh – literally could’ve picked any other name, kept the same character, and everything would’ve been fine. Khan wasn’t the only Augment out there. Or [censored spoiler ahead] referencing first contact with [alien race] when we’ve literally seen first contact with that species before, so why did they have to go there? Could’ve picked any alien without an established first contact and it would’ve been fine. Or a new alien. But no, they had to retread what we already know for familiarity’s sake – and that’s lazy writing. If you’ve been given a universe to manage, respect its history and the fans that have followed it. I wish that’s the philosophy they followed.
Yeah, Star Trek used to be pretty good at references, that made the universe feel bigger. Unfamiliarity was key.
“Station Salem-One” comes to mind. What is Salem-One? It’s something Picard compared to Pearl Harbor that one episode. That’s it. It wasn’t a reference to anything from TOS, just something else in the Star Trek universe. Plus, we never find out what happened there. No details. And that was wonderful.
What is up with Wil Wheaton? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like the guy, but he comes across as a former children’s show host trying to get us to buy a pre-owned Mazda. Dial it back, buddy.
Yeah, it’s just a tad overboard. I can’t watch it….stresses me out. lol
Does this mean Robert April will get a spinoff too? Before Kirk, before Pike, there was Robert April! Cue music…..
I’d like a two hour made for streaming movie with April.
There’s so much that could be done to build the universe outward though – using the familiar but taking us to other parts of the Federation.
The Vanguard novel series from the Litverse (which takes place in the years following TOS) would be great to adapt for streaming for example.
Starfleet colonization, intrigue and Cold War competition with the Klingons, but with the Enterprise just appearing in occasional cameos, seems a natural premise for an amazing but highly serialized show that would target the younger audience.
Is the pilot episode going to be a one or two hour show, like Broken Now, Caretaker, or Encounter at Farpoint were?
Just one hour. I think sadly Discovery was the last two hour premiere shows, especially when you only have ten episodes with the new shows and you want to stretch those subscriptions as much as possible.
Okay, thanks for the info.
The NEW trailer that I just saw was really good! Hope it’s as good as they say.
I’m seeing a few comments about the TAS animation/lighting colouring being off as means of explaining April’s phenotypic pigmentation for the sake of “head canon”.
Well, I only recently found out that Kirk’s TMP Admiral’s uniform was actually olive green instead of the “grey” as the movie lighting depicted. EXO-6 did painstaking research for their magnificent figures and decided to go with the olive green colouring for their 1/6th scale rather than the fake grey as depicted by the lighting.
And as for the “what if Sisko was white” comparison – not fair to compare a character that appeared for 7 yrs in live action to a character that was questionably canon in an animated episode, until DSC. Just be happy that for a major character like Kirk (comparable to Sisko) they cast the whitest, palest vampire available in Paul Wesley lol.
That’s weird. I always knew the admiral’s uniform was green. Never thought it was grey.
“The teleplay for the debut was written by co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman from a story by Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet. Goldsman also directed.”
Welp
Star Trek now has both Uncle Phils!
:)
It’s funny how TAS isn’t considered canon except for one thing. Kirk’s middle name wasn’t established until TAS. At any rate, if DC and Marvel can have multiverses, then I’ll just consider this as part of a Star Trek multiverse, a separate timeline like the Abrams movies.