Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Monday, September 25, 2017

Star Trek: Disco

Disco was the revival of dance music. The rock and roll of that began to take hold in the late 60s was for listening, not engaging. But people like to dance so disco grew into the void.

The current Star Trek void has spawned something similar: Star Trek Discovery. And just like the dance music, it’s as easily maligned as it is catchy.

Star Trek Discovery is a prequel, set 10 years before the original series. So I hate it. It’s a closed box, antithetical to the whole theme of Star Trek. It’s also short-sighted, literary and figuratively. The writers need to bend and twist to keep from crossing into future timelines that are not only canon, but beloved. Yes, it’s great seeing a young Serek, but we’re never going see anything beyond Beyond.

There are no ‘ah ha’ moments worth the price of prequel. Even one as beautiful as Discovery.

The pilot looked great. Michelle Yeoh and Sonequa Martin were fresh and fantastic. The design language is a little neon for my tastes, but the details were enthralling.

“It would be unwise to confuse race with culture,” was my favorite line from episode 1, and raised the value of the enterprise (small ‘e’). It made the show worthy of the mantle.

Maybe that will continue. I’m not sure I’ll know. It’s all in the delivery. As in, whether I feel like adding CBS All Access to my list of streaming services. Which makes little sense. It’s not like CBS doesn’t already broadcast into my house. Through an antenna of all things, the savior of all cord-cutters everywhere. The device that is old, with new life. Like . . . I don’t know . . . help me out here . . .

If I were in Europe, I’d watch Disco on Netflix. As it is, I probably watch Saturday Night Fever again.