Did anybody watch this? I did a trial of "CBS All Access" on Amazon in order to watch "The Amazing Race" and we weren't able to finish it during the trial period so ended up with a month-long subscription. So I started (and finished) watching Season 1 of Star Trek Discovery.

WARNING SPOILER ALERT -- this entire thread so I'm not going to bother putting spoiler tags.

So... Ugh. The actors were great. The dialog was fine. The special effects were fantastic. But the entire premise of the show was so utterly ridiculous it was distracting the entire time.

I'm stunned that the best the writers could come up with to explain an instantaneous space drive was that all of empty space is actually filled with mushroom roots and using mushroom spores and a space whale hooked into the ship somehow, the ship can use these roots to travel instantly anywhere, as long as said space whale can keep the desired position "in mind" when the drive is activated.

Engage the mushroom drive. Seriously. Ugh ugh ugh.

If you can manage to get past the groan-inducing "mycelium" drive, there's a pretty cool story about a human-raised-by-vulcans who disobeys her captain and has to pay for it, and then a war between the federation and the Klingons, and a magic-mushroom-induced jump to an alternate universe, which at first I despised because the premise was stupid and overused, but actually became one of the cooler parts of the show.

For some reason the Klingons look completely different; they all went bald and got even uglier. Also I'm not a huge Star Trek fan so I don't really know where in the Star Trek timeline this fits in (or maybe it's another re-re-boot?).

One other thing I really liked about it is that it did have an overarching story that progressed each episode, unlike previous Star Trek series which seemed to go nowhere most of the time, with only small jumps in any bigger storyline happening in certain key episodes.

So, meh, I'll probably sign up for CBS All Access again and watch Season 2 once all the episodes are out (sometime next year I guess).

A warp drive powered by.. mushrooms?

God ****ing dammit, I'm working on a cartoon with fungus powered spaceships and now someone has to do it wrong and ruin the whole thing for me

No you're not, Spook.

Wow, I thought Brian was joking and being intentionally absurd with the mushroom and space whale engine to navigate the infinite invisible fungus subway, so I looked it up; he's not joking. I was going to give the show a try, but I'm not going to watch it after all.

This thread has been helpful to me. Thank you.

Haha I wish I could make that **** up. Er... wait, no I don't. A 5 year old could make that up.

So in other words, is there mushroom for improvement?

I searched google for "space whale mushroom" and this was in the first page of results: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/paul-stamets-star-trek-mushroom-expert-mycology-1.4454204

don't talk to me like you know me

Wow he seems like a fun guy

i regret that post and will spend the next 17 hours evaluating my life choices

go to jail steven

i deserve that

I enjoyed Discovery, partly because it seemed like they were going to try really hard to shoehorn everything in canonically they at some point they went "actually, **** it". It's dodgy in parts but I expect things to tighten up a bit with the second season.

I really don't like the new Klingon redesign but that might just be because I'm used to how they looked the same for ~40 years.

I didn't like the new Klingons either. I wonder if they're scared to introduce a new race? Like they're not confident enough in their ability to make something new and interesting that they just keep rehashing Vulcans and Klingons until the end of time?

Maybe I'm too harsh; the new(ish) movies that came out seemed to have some new stuff in them, but they used old characters (meh), and they were more like "fast and furious in space" than real Star Trek movies.

He is awkward but fun to listen to in his interviews and talks. His company is ze best place to get mushroom cultivation supplies and that's where I get my spawn.

I have mixed feelings about the first two Abrams ones but Beyond was literally directed by the guy that did Fast and Furious 5-7 and it's the most Star Trekky one they've made in 20 years.

Directed by Justin Lin, but co-written by Simon Pegg. Probably why it felt Star Trekky but also featured a dirt bike chase sequence.

And why it had a bit too much Simon Pegg.

and he got to have a flirtatious relationship w/ the alien babe

<_<

>_>

pegg you dog