Bizarre version of Star Trek I was excited to see a new Star Trek series and was doubly excited because it was shot in my hometown of Toronto. But watching the final product was a deflating and confusing experience.
This "future" is dark and depressing and this is supposed to be gritty reality baring its soul to an audience. The truth of the matter is "reality" is more re often beautiful, joyous and happy. Making a story dark and depressing is easy. Making a story that actually mirrors "reality" WILL have light and dark elements mixed together...just reflect upon the great stroyteller Shakespeare. Even in the darkst of his tales (Macbeth) there are "knock, knock" jokes. However, moments of believable levity, especially clever word play requires intelligent writing.
The Characters lack what made the original series clever, engaging, riveting and amusing. Besides the whole idealism of a positive future, the RELATIONSHIPS between characters (especially the captain and their immediate subordinates) MADE the original series GREAT entertainment. This series lacks a strong lead and lacks ANY interesting, morally redeemable, let alone engaging, even charming characters. The bromance of the original series made it genuinely touching and gave it an emotional core that this series COMPLETELY lacks.
The Klingons and their 10 minute unintelligible scenes in every episode are both hilariously bad and bizarre. The writers must have thought, "let's make the enemy completely foreign and confusing and force the audience to be utterly mystified and tune out for washroom break."
The only good aspect of the series is that all the money thown at it produced some cool looking cgi effects but I don't watch sci-fi to look at shiny objects. I watch sci-fi for great characters who exude charm, intelligence and make the future something to look forward to. I watch sci-fi for genuinely engaging storylines that make me think this could be Shakespeare in space. Even Shakespeare knew that you need stories with both high and low brow scenes. And even Shakespeare knew that sometimes you can write something completely fluffy and humourous and then later write something really dark. Surely we, 400 plus years after Shakespeare can say that we've learned something, "in the future" about good storytelling.