Star Trek: Discovery logo. Sadly, this means that the short form for the series will be STD.

HERE BE SPOILERS! BE YE WARNED!

No one hates Star Trek more than Star Trek fans. They, like the fans of any franchise, have been bitching and moaning about each new season since TNG first reared its head back in 1987 and wasn't the same as TOS.

Unlike the fans, however, I've come from a unique perspective, in that I haven't been watching Star Trek since the dawn of time, but rather I only just started watching it a year or two ago. Like a lot of things I enjoy, I'm not a fan of Star Trek. I enjoy it, and enjoy what's good about it, but manage to avoid the distinct and rabid fanboyism that comes with the franchise.
I disliked The Original Series, mostly for the shitty acting and cheesy 60's vision of the future. Only a handful of The Next Generation episodes were actually good, and I mostly disliked Picard as a captain until the show started getting good in season 3 or 4. Most of Deep Space 9 was forgettable. It was only with Voyager and Enterprise that I really started to enjoy the franchise. In most of the series, I mostly enjoyed the character arcs of the alien species, as the humans generally seemed fairly forgettable.

Captain Archer - best captain!

So unlike the fans, I get to enjoy the show for what makes me enjoy it, without breaking down into fits because the shape of a Stardate 2255.9 phaser is too close to one made on Stardate 2134.2, or that the image of the warp field is actually closer to a warp field generated by an Akira class ship and not the Defiant class using it. It is, after all, a space fiction, with warp drives and alien species.

Actually, I hold Janeway as the best captain, with Archer a close second

And now, here we are, with the latest instalment - Star Trek: Discovery.

As with every new series of every TV show, people had decided to hate it from the beginning. They hated every aspect of the show, and the first two episodes (now out of Netflix!) only fuelled the flames. I took a few minutes to read the reviews, and they basically boiled down to four main complaints:

• I don't like that there's two women in charge, and neither of them are white.
• I don't like that it looks modern.
• I don't like that the Klingons are different.
• I don't like the look of the show.

Broken down, they're some pretty fucking stupid reasons to pre-judge a TV show, or even judge the first two episodes, but I guess that's how the world operates these days. Having now seen the first three episodes, let me address some of the things I like, and dislike, so far.

SPOILERS AHOY!

Right off the bat, there's only one thing I dislike, and that's the JJ. Abrams-stylisation of everything - the camera movements, to the colour grading, the sheen, and the constant lens flaring - is very much on the nose. It presents a distraction, though I'm unsure if it's trying to hide something, trying to replicate the Abrams movies, or just trying to be 'with it' for the kids of today, as if some studio executive had a look at the pre-vis and decided that kids liked this shit in their TV shows.

Also rather irritating is a very small, very specific issue - the blue LED lighting. Unless you're a photographer or videographer, you may not understand the issue, but blue LEDs have this issue of overloading the camera's sensor, resulting in what is a distracting and unsettling thing to see.

An example of the issue. There's a few more throughout the three episodes.

I did get a bit annoyed at the decision to show the ship of the first two episodes with such odd camera angles. Very tight, very shallow depth of field, and never really showing us much - at first a complaint, as I feel the ship should be as much a character as any other - and then all became clear at the end of episode two. With the Shenzhou destroyed, we move to the Discovery in episode three - it seems like the 'stylistic' choices for camera-work might have been to not bring the Shenzhou into any sort of focus, as it would not be the ship we'd get familiar with.

I found that Michelle Yeoh's dialogue as Captain Georgiou was fairly wooden, but one does need to remember that she's Malaysian by birth, and despite being an incredible actor with 33 years and close to 50 credits to her name, she has a distinct Malaysian-American accent that many people seem to confuse with being bad at her job.

Michelle Yeoh as the unfortunately temporary Captain Philippa Georgiou

Those complaining that we have 'yet another female captain' or 'yet another non-white captain,' rest easy - Captain Georgiou doesn't make it, and the captaincy role is quickly replaced by yet another white, male captain. For the record, we really only had one female captain - Captain Catherine Janeway of Voyager, as Georgiou doesn't live, and the role of non-Caucasian captain really only went to Benjamin Sisko after three years of running Deep Space Nine, so the issues with 'yet another leftist token captain' being a non-Caucasian female really don't make sense, seeing the numbers.

Again, with the sexism and racism, we see complaints of First Officer Michael Burnham being a black woman, but conveniently forgetting about Nichelle Nichols' role as Lieutenant Uhura in TOS. Also of concern was the use of a traditionally male name for the female character, but Star Trek has almost always been about showing a progressive future, where Captains are called 'sir' regardless of gender, god no longer exists, and the men wear the uniform skirts. In this case, male names for female characters is a signature of former showrunner Bryan Fuller, and seen as something that would be commonplace in the idealistic future of Star Trek.

Sonequa Martin-Green as First Officer Michael Burnham

While we're only three episodes in, I'm seeing intriguing plot points coming up for the show, and so far I'm happy with the acting chops and personalities presented by Sonequa Martin-Green, Jason Isaacs as the captain, and Mary Wiseman - the latter presenting as a neurotic first year cadet on her first mission, seeking approval and mentorship from Burnham.

I like that the creators haven't given us a cheesy 60s aesthetic of what the future looks like. We all know that if Star Trek TOS were made 20 years later, it would look more like it does now. The 60s vision of the future was a product of its time, and no longer relevant to what we now know. We maintain a few small things, however - some of the old sounds are still there, as well as a cameo from a furry little friend in episode three.

The Trouble With Tribbles - our furry friend is back!

And this is the same as the 'new' look for the Klingons, which are far darker and more menacing. On its surface, you could say that they were changed to look more menacing; taking advantage of a new series to mess about with things a little - and that would be fine. Suggestions abound using the canon of 50 years or so, mentioning the augment virus, the differing timelines, or that the Klingons we see here are an older class, not seen before.

These ain'tcher dad's Klingons, son

My main issue with the Klingons here is their speech, which sounds less like a harsh Germanic speech and more like they have marbles in their mouths. Even with subtitles, it's a little grating.

It is evident that this is a new Star Trek for a new era. It's shed the past, given itself a new look, and injected violence and (from what I hear) sex into the mix. It no longer holds itself accountable to Roddenberry's old rules, and sets itself up for a new age, a new audience, and new fans. The whole series is a giant fuck you to the old-school fans, and that is the best possible thing it could be right now. Star Trek no longer needs to tether itself down satisfy people that grew up with it, and I'm glad.