Given how shaky some of the first TNG episodes were, some slack is merited here; it is seemingly an honest effort to create proper episodic sci-fi and that’s worth some forgiveness. Your criticisms are bang on though - too much of characters SAYING how they feel, and not taking actions in furtherance of a plot that can eventually teach us how they feel. As a result the main story was really thin.
Yes, I absolutely can. Americans despised the USSR back in the 60s.
Good point. I always got the impression that Chekov being Russian meant that the show could demonstrate that “even the commies can be good guys”. (I know he was also added in the second season because they wanted a younger crew member, and it’s no coincidence they made him look like Davey Jones from The Monkees.)
Chekov would work today for the same reason he worked back then.
I can definitely see Star Trek casting someone from an “enemy” nation of the US today, like from Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea.
What I’d like to see in the next film (in which they’ve stated they’re not going to recast Chekov, out of respect for the late Anton Yelchin) is to have an Iranian woman in full Islamic headdress as the new navigator.
I believe the proper term is “Kurtzmanified.”
You’re seriously going to play THAT card? “It’s just a name, it probably has nothing to do with Khan.”
That would be SOOOOOO^3 much worse writing than anything else they’ve screwed up since TNG. Create a character with the same distinctive last name (and as others have already pointed out, it’s Noonien-Singh, not just “Singh”) as THE MOST notorious bad guy in that fictional universe, and then not do a damned thing with regard to the distinctive name? They won’t even be able to lampshade it like Office Space did with Michael Bolton, as they don’t know Khan yet.
It would just be this enormous Chekhov’s Gun of a last name that never gets fired.
It’s safe to say she is probably related to Khan in some fashion, presumably descended from him during his heyday before he and his khalasar turned tail in the Botany Bay. It remains to be seen if that will ever be important, or how much of his genetic superiority La’an has inherited.
Khanasar, surely? With a Starfleet officer as his khaneesi.
Now THAT’s more like it.
Episode 2 had a solid Trek story - mysterious space structure! Powerful one-off aliens with a defined purpose! - strong plotting, and the character stuff was good and tied into the plot. If the show can maintain this level of quality, I’ll be very happy.
Lt. Kirk needs to be more careful before just barging into things. (My only nitpick with this great show: I thought only Jim called his brother Sam.)
Loved the second episode; better than the first. I could swear the shepherd captain was voiced by JK Simmons, but IMDB says it was Thom Mariott, whoever that is.
As usual for Trek the science was very very very very bad, but rock songs still beat Disco.
They’re going old-school in many ways, not the least among them is using plots the might have been lifted from 1950’s-60’s pulp novels. They’ve made no changes to allow for the many things we have learned, and the evolution of sci-fi storytelling, since TOS. I’m not at all sure the plot thing is on purpose. I believe they just don’t know the difference between sci-fi and whatever-the-hell-they-can-imagine.
I do enjoy the show quite a bit. I expect it will be fun, enjoyable, with a good cast, great effects, and plots that will HIGHLY emphasize the fi in sci-fi. I just have to re-calibrate and not expect anything resembling hard sci-fi. I’m not gonna worry about Noonien-Singh or Sam Kirk either. If I let it go, I’ll enjoy it more. They will fuck it up, though 
Well, Star Trek has from the beginning been space opera, not hard sci-fi, really, don’t you agree? Artificial gravity, warp drive, light beam weapons, teleportation, matter replicators, universal translators, force fields, … it’s all more akin to magic dressed up as technology, and it has never really explored the logical consequences of such technologies, or even tries to depict them in a “realistic” manner. It’s really a sailing ship but in space.
Or a wagon train to the stars, even.
Oh yeah, you’re right. I think I’ve just become used to sci-fi being a little more rooted in the SCI part in recent years - The Martian, The Expanse. . .even Babylon 5 had space ships that acted like they were in space. Did anyone else see the Enterprise banking in a vacuum this week?
As I said, I have to re-calibrate. I’d like to think that the writers knowingly fell back on a more 60’s feel to the stories, but I just have no faith in anything Trek anymore, not until they prove otherwise. Nonetheless, what they are doing may just fit in with a truly retro show, and I think I could really enjoy that. Just tune in once a week and watch a Star Trek show that could have been written in the 60’s, but made with modern techniques.
It’s a show I never knew I wanted.
I’m kind of worried that the new Christine Chapel might melt my television.
She is kind of stunningly charismatic.
A 1960s feel? I can’t think of a Star Trek in any decade that has been hard sci fi. It’s always been basically adventure stories of people maybe slightly better than us. Much of the time it has been blatantly allegorical. The best of Trek in my view was about things like how to make hard decisions, how to work together well, how to get along with different kinds of people, etc. The science has always been laughable … well, more fantasy than science, anyway.
Sailing the High Seas are we? 
Schillinger! One of my faves from Oz, but I guess not this time.