Having been born in the 1980s to a lower middle class family that didn’t have access to space travel, I can’t say with any amount of certainty that I’ve ever been where no man has gone before. But at least I’m able to live and explore vicariously through the Star Trek franchise, which will open up a new chapter of spacefaring adventures with the upcoming series exclusive to CBS All Access. We now have our first look at the show, and while it’s only a teaser – production won’t actually begin until closer to the end of this year – it’s still a gorgeous taste of the galactic quests to come.
For improved results, play the teaser through your TV and put some headphones on with the Star Trek theme playing at high volume. Also, install a captain’s chair in your living room and hire William Shatner to walk around and act like he’s being thrown off balance every so often. It’s just like the real thing. Whatever that real thing may be.
Sure we’d have a better idea of what to expect from Star Trek had there been something more to mentally latch onto than just fantastic images of large bodies hurtling through space. But some of them are burning and just begging to be album covers, so that’s nice. If the special effects for the modernized Star Trek look anything like this, our eyeballs will drowning in bliss.
And isn’t there something comforting about the fairly simple logo, with a new Trek font laid out over a textured Starfleet symbol? Different, but still very familiar.
Even without seeing any proof, we’re pretty sure that Star Trek is going to feature some fantastic storytelling that will live up to anything in the franchise’s past on the big or small screen. After all, it’s being crafted by Hannibal creator and all-around TV mastermind Bryan Fuller, whose TV past also includes writing stints on Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Fuller looped in Nicholas Meyer, the screenwriter and director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, so it’s hard to expect anything but dense and magical plots and character development.
We’re still not too sure what to expect from those narratives and characters, with only a rumored timeline floating around out there. But whatever it is, we’re down with watching, even if it isn’t quite as lovely as the teaser above. Star Trek will hit CBS All Access for weekly episodes at some point in 2017, long after Star Trek Beyond has stopped confusing the masses.
