Star Trek Discovery's Transporter Room Still Doesn't Look Like The Original Series
If you're a Star Trek fan, you'll know that the new Star Trek Discovery series airs on Set. 24th (as I mentioned in this post).
The new series has come in for criticism in that it looks nothing like the The Original Series, And it looks nothing like The Cage (Trek's original 1964 pilot) - the events of which take place about 3 years before Discovery is set.
What it does look like is the recent Star Trek movies, with the Enterprise and its iPhone bridge (or should that be the iBridge?), complete with the lens flares that seem to pervade the Kelvin Universe (where the new movies are set). The laws of physics in that universe must be a little different to ours.
CBS just released a new photo of the Discovery set (above) - the Transporter Room. This is most likely from the USS Shenzhou (Michelle Yeoh's ship) rather than the USS Discovery. There seems to be a lot of gold and yellow in a deliberate attempt to make things look old and dated (it just looks like they had a really bad interior designer).
The transporters look clunky - those circular things behind the two characters are dead ringers for the rotating dishes on the original The Time Machine time machine from the early 1960s!
Maybe it's actually a temporal transporter! :)
The pads that crew members stood on in TOS were already in use in The Cage. This transporter room looks very different, less 1960s retro and more 2017 retro.
Are you looking forward to Discovery or looking at it with trepidation?
This is a good thing. The technology from the original series is stuck in the '60s and is completely unbelievable today. Trying to recreate that look would totally spoil it for me.
That's the problem with setting the series in the TOS era. It should have the look and feel of TOS with the gold, blue and red 2-piece uniforms and the interior ship designs should be reminiscent of the the original USS Enterprise (i.e. Chris Pike's ship, not Kirk's Enterprise). The tech, including hand phasers, communicators etc. would all be Starfleet issue, so should look the same. The new movies at least paid lip service to that. At the very least the USS Shenzhou should look like something from the TOS era.
Since we don't know what the major plot is yet, the USS Discovery is probably on some covert mission and can have an internal design that doesn't follow the 1960s design ethic, allowing it to appeal more to today's audience.
Personally, TOS is my favorite era, having grown up watching that series so a return to the primary color scheme of 1960s Trek wouldn't be a problem for me. The new movies got away with using more modern looking tech because they're set in a different timeline/universe where things developed differently.
Maybe Discovery will just ignore the whole TOS look and feel and hope no one notices or minds. Bur we'll have to wait till the series airs to pass judgement in that regard.
You can't have a TV show that's meant to be set in our future using technologies that were obsolete in the '80s. It just wouldn't have the necessary appeal.
They backed themselves into a corner by setting the new series in a period where the design ethic was established 50 years ago. The new movies made an attempt to give that kitsch, retro TOS look a 21st century gloss with some success but there were some naff elements there too.
If you want consistency, then you have to stick to canon and continuity, even it's something of a straightjacket. If you want to go and use your own design ethic, then set the series in a period that hasn't been viewed before.
My favorite era is TOS so I initially welcomed Discovery as a return to that period. Discovery, at least as far as the trailers have suggested, does not look anything like that era. That, and various other aspects of the show, in front of and behind the camera, aren't leaving me with a warm fuzzy feeling. Fans of TOS for the most part will not be happy if it doesn't have the look and feel of TOS. TNG/DS9/VOY and new movie fans for the most part probably won't like the series if it does, in fact, look a lot more like TOS than the trailers have led us to believe. The TNG and later fans wanted a series set post-Voyager, so they're already unhappy.
The conclusion I'm drawing is that CBS are going out of their way to upset all fans, whatever show their allegiance is to. I get the feeling that CBS see this as a TV Star Trek reboot that has more in common with the new movies to appeal to "modern" audiences and that there's big F.U. to the existing fans.
Make no mistake, this new show is purely about the money CBS believe they'll make from it. Everything and anything will be compromised in pursuit of that goal. CBS CEO Les Moonves himself said that the only reason Discovery will air on CBS All Access (in the USA) is because he saw how well Trek did on Netflix and CBS wants its cut of the subscription payment pie.
While I don't have a good feeling about the show, I'm not dismissing it out of hand. Trailers can be very misleading. The proof is in the pudding and we'll have to see how things play out over the 15-episode season.