1. I'm not sure if I'd count three feature films as "having Kirk and Spock rammed down my throat." Considering the prior state of Trek, using the franchise's most venerable characters was a safe and ultimately successful bet. The perception of TOS saturation is probably because it's also the only new Trek available... until now. Discovery, however, takes place before TOS and to my knowledge does not include Kirk or Spock, as much as many fans are hoping it will in some way.
2. The decision to make the series set 10 years before TOS was "explicitly stated up front." The show will focus on an event in Federation history that has been talked about but never explored. Apparently, unless show runners want to seriously screw with The Almighty Canon™, that event is already in a set timeframe. I guess if we want more info than that, we'll have to tune in.
3. Since Netflix is a production partner on this show, I seriously doubt it would end up on Showtime if All Access fails.
4. Once upon a time it was explained that the Aztec pattern had always been on Federation starships. It was simply painted over, on some better than others evidently.
1. I'm not merely referring to the three Kelvin Timeline movies; I'm referring to everything that effectively started with ENT ushering this warped view that "everything must revolve around TOS," which was only one of the many problems that series had. That entire push lead to a focus on TOS merchandise, TOS branding, and eventually TOS "inspired" films, because TOS was the closest thing in the timeline to ENT. DSC continues this pattern by setting itself between ENT and TOS, much closer to TOS at that, and effectively furthering this flawed idea that Kirk and Spock are the be all end all of Trek when they're really not. Trek XI was successful because it was different and people had to wait seven years between films making any Trek seem appealing; packing the film with big–name stars didn't hurt either. I do see your point about DSC, and while I'm pretty sure that it doesn't feature Kirk or Spock, (nor should it,) I do worry that Sarek could easily wind up being a stand–in for Spock rather than his own character.
2. Yes, the decision to set DSC a decade before TOS was explicitly stated upfront, and I'm aware that it's supposedly going to focus on an event referenced but never examined in detail from the prime universe, but I think you're missing my overall point. If the decision to set the show in this specific timeframe was made specifically to utilize these TOS–oriented events that we've never seen before, than the show should look like it fits within the general timeframe of TOS since the entire premise involves utilizing continuity from TOS to begin with. If the events were merely a general 23rd century concept, (e.g. "how did the Federation and the Klingons get through their early years as allies,") it would make more sense to find a way to take that basic concept and apply it to events set later in the timeline. (e.g. Change "Klingons" to "Romulans" and pick up where NEM left off in the aforementioned example.) My entire point was that if DSC is going to be so reliant on TOS and TOS–oriented continuity, it ought to have an aesthetic that seems believable as being set ten years before TOS. I'll note that the only reason I didn't mention the whole "event referenced but never explored in detail" thing was that we last heard about that before DSC changed showrunners, and things tend to change a lot between early pre–production and actual production, especially for Trek where a lot of ideas tend to be played with in detail. You actually bump up against a second point I was trying to make though, which is that we should know what the big event that this series is focused around is by now, not just that it's something that occurred about a decade before TOS. Even with the notoriously secretive production of Trek XI we knew that the plot involved time travel and Romulans, and with VGR we knew the main storyline was going to be a ship lost on the other side of the galaxy. With ENT we knew the focus was supposed to be on the early days of Starfleet, but we didn't know much else because it was obvious that the production crew wasn't sure of what they were doing themselves.
3. CBS Inc. is the parent company of Showtime, if All Access fails, it would make sense for them to put Trek on All Access to avoid ceding any further control to Netflix, even if Netflix is a production partner. Most content providers whether broadcast or cable networks, including CBS, typically produce as much of their content in–house with their own studios as possible, specifically to avoid licensing negotiations going sideways and ultimately tanking a show. This is what happened with Last Man Standing on ABC and what almost happened with Timeless on NBC. CBS is producing Trek in–house in North America, they're farming out distribution to another streaming service in Canada, and then sending it to Netflix outside of North America because they're not competing with Netflix's streaming service in the rest of the world, and they don't have a presence in places that Netflix does. North America and the US in particular are different though, CBS has leverage by keeping the show in–house in North America that they'll want to retain even if All Access isn't successful and Trek is, and the way to do that is to put the series on Showtime where they won't lose any of the leverage that they currently have.
4. I'd be curious to know where this was stated. I'm not saying I don't believe you, I'm just curious to know where this was mentioned. I know the TOS Enterprise had the "saucer grid" on it that was too light to be seen on camera, but I wasn't aware that every ship was supposed to have some Aztec patterning on it even in the TOS days.
If All Access fails it will end up on Netflix US.
The more interesting outcome is If Discovery fails to generate interest and interest that is maintained and built upon over the first 8 episodes then I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that Netflix purchases the rights to produce Star Trek from CBS. The older Trek series continue to be trending and highly popular on Netflix, there's sustained popularity to Star Trek's of old, so I think a failure for Discovery would probably mean a top to bottom overhaul of Star Trek and how it moves forward. It's very tricky, I don't think we've had Kirk or Spock rammed down our throats, but there is a case to be made that the times Star Trek has tried to emulate those characters either through the Abrams movies or Enterprise or now Discovery, the general reaction has been, why these guys again and why focus on the past.
Let's face it, the argument is and has been ever since Enterprise, that this show should be moving forward through the timeline, ensuring the evolutionary flow of continuity and canon, all the while building on what has gone before. Going backwards to try and rekindle the glory days of Kirk and Spock, hasn't worked before so why should Discovery be any different? Kirk and Spock aren't in it sure, but we're sure as hell as close as we can get to them both without showing them. Why? And what's the point? Well the point is that most people (not necessarily fans) can identify those two characters as being from Star Trek.
I can't see that changing unless the first 8 episodes completely make sense as to why 1) this show looks so completely different to what we know this period to look like over the last 50 years and 2) they chose 10 years before Kirk and Spock.
1701D, read my reply to MisterPL's third point above, there's a very good reason CBS doesn't want this show to end up on Netflix in the US even if All Access winds up crashing faster than you can say "saucer section." Content providers effectively serve as content creators now, which is why so many shows are produced in a manner resembling the Lannister family tree. Studios hate taking on outside partners; CBS went to Netflix out of necessity since they don't have a worldwide presence, and they don't have any presence for All Access outside of the US. CBS Inc. owns Showtime, it's much better for them to have the first run in the US on Showtime than on Netflix because they have control over licensing fees (among other things) that they would potentially lose by signing a deal with Netflix in the US. Even the deal that they currently have with Netflix for worldwide distribution outside of North America was done specifically with control over licensing fees in mind. Hulu wasn't chosen because it's pretty much controlled by CBS's competition, although I believe CBS recently added a small stake in it themselves, but that wasn't the case when CBS was looking for a distributor for DSC. (Amazon was passed over because Prime Video doesn't have as much of a worldwide presence as Netflix and Hulu.) There's also no chance of CBS selling the rights to Star Trek to Netflix even if DSC fails; the older material still brings in enough revenue for CBS to sit on the license and keep cashing royalty checks until they can figure out how to do a Trek series that's successful.
Onto the rest of your post, perhaps my "rammed down my throat" comment about Kirk and Spock was a bit extreme, but you hit upon the sentiment that I was getting at, which is forcing TOS–based concepts into non–TOS material where they don't work, and then hitting them in harder with a hammer when they wind up not fitting. Take the TNG movies for example, especially the latter two. Both of them tried to recreate TOS's "big three" with Picard, Riker, and Data as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and it didn't work because TNG actively succeeded at what TOS couldn't do in the '60s, which is representing the entire crew quite equally. VGR kind of wound up with a "big three," but that happened more as a result of audience feedback than as a result of the studio actively trying to make it work. VGR still represented everyone equally, but later seasons wound up with Janeway, the EMH, and Seven of Nine in the Kirk, Spock, and McCoy dynamic. ENT on the other hand actively tried to make Archer, T'Pol, and Trip Tucker the new Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and that didn't turn out nearly as well because the dynamic was stale and was being forced from the start instead of evolving out of competent writing. Additionally, ENT in particular was the series where this idea of "going backwards" gained momentum, and that played a large part in ending Trek's 18 year run. The new movies went both "backwards" by once again going back to TOS, and "sideways" by doing so in an alternate continuity. DSC fundamentally has to play within certain guidelines to fit where the writers claim it's set, and failure to do that just isn't going to fly. I'm not saying that I believe DSC will tank, but this is a delicate balancing act, and one that ENT only got right after the damage had been done.
The second to last quoted paragraph, (or at least the quoted portion of it) is the most important though. Fans have been practically begging for Trek to go forward in the timeline as it goes forward in ideals and values as well, and have instead been provided with more material that has gone backwards instead. The thought that Kirk and Spock are the most important elements of the franchise is highly flawed; the people who want more Trek didn't grow up with Kirk and Spock, they crew up with Picard and Riker, Sisko and Kira, and/or Janeway and Chakotay. The sooner the obession over Kirk and Spock stops and Trek starts pushing forward again, the better off the franchise will be.
I believe I trashed talked CBS a bit on All Access... but after doing a bit more reading of how the model is working for them, where they where and where they are going... I don't see it failing any time soon. The short of it is the service is making them money... and they have been using those profits to expand the service options as well as invest in new exclusive shows like Discovery.
It seems that CBS's parent company also owns Showtime, so I think very likely Discovery will appear on that service... so besides offering access to their catalog, CBS is also allowing access to live stream affiliate stations... and they recently announced that this includes NFL games that air on any CBS station.
Do they still face stiff competition from the likes of Netflix? of course, but I've done a 180 and no longer think of them as a some Johnny come lately with no real plan. They seem to be working to offer value that differentiates them in the market, not just trying to stream their catalog of old content.
I should be clear, my hypothetical of "if All Access fails..." was just that, a hypothetical. I actually don't want to see it happen and don't think that it will happen, precisely because CBS has been very careful with All Access. Not only were they the first major network to take streaming seriously enough to create a service like All Access, they've been expanding it slowly and carefully, and I might add rather successfully as well. Yes, they've had a few embarassing glitches along the way, and they really do need a better interface and improved quality of their streams, but they have a solid business plan and so far it's working. They've also been quite innovative with their original programming. For example, while the only reality competition show I really watch is Survivor, I've been consistent about giving them credit for that version of Big Brother that they did exclusively for All Access by utilizing the ability to constantly stream video in a way they couldn't do with a traditional network show. It created something unique that wouldn't be possible without a studio operated streaming service like All Access.
Also, CBS, more specifically CBS Inc., is "the parent company" of Showtime. 
CBS's "parent company" (technically their majority shareholder, not really a parent company, there's a bit of a difference,) is National Amusements, which is also Viacom's majority shareholder. (Note that Viacom is the parent company of Paramount.) Viacom and CBS are two entirely different business though, whereas Showtime is effectively a wholely owned subsidiary of CBS, hence my previous comments of DSC potentially winding up there. Actually one of All Access's "flaws" is that unlike similar services, a subscription to All Access or Showtime doesn't get you complete access to the other service or even a reduced subscription rate to said other service. Every other provider either offers everything together or a reduced subscription price for the affiliated service. (HBO and Starz come to mind.) The NFL deal however is one that's worth paying attention too, because they're very tough to negotiate with, and the fact that CBS was able to reach an agreement with them says a lot about both the NFL's belief in the service, and in how seriously CBS is comitted to All Access as a whole.
I also agree with you that they still face real competition from other streaming services, but they've definitely had plans for All Access for awhile. They've only really ratcheted them up within the past year or so though, particularly in regards to original programming.
The reason being, while showtime is a CBS owned or partnered company, Netflix is a producing partner on Star Trek: Discovery, most of the world will be watching Star Trek thinking it's a Netflix original. Why add another partner who won't be able to stump up as much cash as Netflix to produce it.
Seems like CBS and Netflix have a good working relationship with Star Trek so why not strengthen that relationship further if All Access doesn't do the numbers required.
In response to your first paragraph 1701D, see my previous statements: Showtime is owned by CBS; they lose nothing by taking them on as a partner and don't really have to worry about licensing costs since they're still producing the show "in–house" whether it's released on All Access or Showtime. They don't gain any cash, but they don't lose any either, and they don't have to worry about a pushback over increased royalty payments from an outside studio.
CBS and Netflix may have a good working relationship now, but good working relationships go sideways, and those incidents have tanked successful shows, which is exactly why studios now produce their shows in–house as often as possible. It's the exact reason why production partnerships with outside studios are increasingly rare, and why "an -insert station here- original series" is such a common term these days, content providers don't like relying on outside studios/content creators for material that the outside studio might raise the royalties on. This is exactly what happened with Last Man Standing; ABC didn't want to pay the increased royalty rate and the show was cancelled. (CMT looked into picking it up but quickly realized they couldn't afford a Tim Allen sitcom, it was just beyond their budget.) Likewise NBC's Timeless was cancelled for a whole three days over the exact same issue, except everyone involved came back with a clear enough head to realize that the show was too commercially and critically successful for them to walk away from a slightly smaller absurdly large pile of money. As I mentioned before, CBS has another streaming service in Canada specifically to avoid giving Netflix too much control over DSC.
I think CBS is hoping that Discovery will be the next big serialized show like Game of Thrones, Walikg Dead, etc. and will become the thing talked about at workplace water coolers. I think they're hoping it becomes a phenomenon like those other shows and forces people into all access. They even modeled some of this off those shows, they're planning a "Talking Dead" type after show.
I think the key thing is the primary focus here isn't Star Trek, but rather trying to build a show that fits that format and drives the streaming business. It's pretty obvious they looked at things like Netflix and saw the popularity of House of Cards and Orange is the New Black and that's what they're trying to emulate.
This was obvious to me the moment they announced (and Les Moonves kind of admitted) that they were putting DSC on All Access to drive All Access subcriptions. CBS was planning to eventually have original programming on All Access back when they launched it several years ago, but they only got around to that recently, and you're absolutely right, they waited and watched Netflix and Hulu take the plunge first to see how the idea worked before throwing money at an untested idea. Once they realized they could turn a profit on the concept, they moved forward with it.
From what I've seen, it's been overwhelmingly positive.
The reaction within insulated communities like this one might be split but on Facebook, most people are Liking, Loving, and Wowing what they're seeing. Let's face it; many people only talk about something when they've got a complaint and it's generally the same people saying the same things over and over. When it's as simple as clicking Like, they tend to move on.
The reactions that I've seen have been somewhat mixed, I would say more cautiously optimistic than anything else though. I try to be careful about going off of "likes" to gauge early reactions to something. For example, there were lots of "likes" for this years Power Rangers movie, but they didn't wind up translating into eyeballs in front of movie screens, the people with the complaints about the film tended to win out. The people who take the time to comment tend to be the ones that are going to make noise (positive or negative) about something, and the ones to put more weight behind. It's easy to "like" something and move on, forgetting about it three days later. When people take the time to comment on something though, they're probably going to remember it.
Hmm... I could kind of see that as being a pre–TOS captains chair. It does seem to resemble the TOS aeshtetic vaguely more than the Shenzhou does, but there's too much out of focus in that image for me to really critique the aesthetic in detail.
I guess as uniforms go, this falls between ENT and TOS from a certain point of view. Can't honestly say I'm fond of it.
These are definitely meant to be between ENT and TOS, my only big "beef" with the uniforms is that it looks like the Shenzhou was designed with the idea that "the U.S.S. Kelvin is canon in the prime universe," which is actually as it should be, (remember, the destruction of the Kelvin is supposedly where the timelines split,) but if the Kelvin is canon, it's uniforms have to be as well. While the Kelvin uniforms strike a decent balance between the designs from ENT and TOS, the DSC uniforms blatantly ignore them and go in a different direction from ENT. I don't necessarily dislike this, but the design really looks like it belongs on something post–VGR rather than pre–TOS by virtue of the gold/silver/bronze ranking colors and the gold stylized aspects of the uniforms. The metal insignias with pips on them also look more like comm–badges than patches that would be more era–appropriate. It's like someone started to design 25th century uniforms and then retrofitted them for a 23rd century show with a note along the lines of "make them like the red jackets from TWOK, but in blue to look more like ENT." I like the designs, I just think they look like the belong after NEM/VGR and not before TOS. The gold/silver/bronze ranking and the metal deltas really look out of place for a pre–TOS series, but I don't think they look bad.
One of the things I think Discovery has going for it, is its a pretty limited engagment. CBS is buying 16 episodes. If its not well recieved, they can scrap it and try something different. If its well recieved, they can order up another season. Put bluntly, if you hate it, you won't have to suffer it long!
Discovery isn't the only content they are producing for All Access... they have another show... "The Good Fight" which is a drama that has been well recieved, and they allready ordered up a 2nd season of that.
I don't doubt that they will eventually sell the rights to stream their shows to other services, like netflix, but you'll have to wait.
While I obviously want DSC to succeed and be enjoyable, you do raise a good point about it sort of being a limited engagement at this point. If it's abysmal, at least it won't be drawn out, and if it's good, well we can always have more of it. As for The Good Fight, it's been positively received and for good reasons; it's based off of CBS's highly successful The Good Wife and is a spin–off sequel akin to what DS9 was to TNG. CBS cancelled the broadcast show when they did largely with the idea of focusing on The Good Fight, which is why they gave it DSC's premiere date once it became obvious that DSC was going to miss its original deadline.
I'd expect to see CBS try to sell the rights to past seasons of original programming to other services at some point too, but I think it'll be awhile before they do. I also suspect we'll see Blu–Ray and DVD releases as seasons finish as well, much the way that you can buy every season of House of Cards except the current one on Blu–Ray if memory serves me correctly.
There are certanly alot of dramas on TV that don't have a ton of action, and people like them. TOS, TNG certainly could be seen as more Drama oriented, while somewhere around the dominion war in DS9, we started getting more and more space battles and more action. Perhaps thats part of the issue... the studios aren't sure if Star Trek is a Drama or Action series?
This is part of the issue, or more accurately the shift to treating it as an action series has been part of the issue. Star Trek has typically followed the format of a police procedural, except instead of chasing after the criminal of the week, the crew has to deal with the alien species of the week and whatever crisis that entails. It's basically a drama with some action elements, the space battles being analogous to car chases in the aforementioned procedurals. Action in Trek is good, but it can't be all that's there; part of what makes Trek work is the combination of drama with some action sequences woven in. There's a reason I described NBC's Grimm as the perfect blueprint for a new Trek series; it basically combined a police procedural with a fantasy series that had a handful of sci–fi elements, allowing for a mixture of drama and action. More importantly though, it mixed multi–episode story arcs with individual one–off episodes that allowed for both the traditional storytelling style of Trek and the serialized style of shows like GoT. The style of this show would work really well for Trek, and it's a direction that should be considered for a future Trek production.
Well, we've got Nicholas Meyer waiting in the wings possibly with another TV series.
CBS might be looking at what ABC and Netflix are doing with Marvel (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, et al) and thinking they could do something similar. (They've always been good at copying the competition, for better or worse.) Another series might dovetail into a miniseries that combines casts into one grand adventure. It might have nothing to do with Discovery and simply be another new Trek show to keep interest alive.
I'm very curious about what Nicholas Meyer was teasing us with, it might be nothing, but it could be something big as well.
Oh, and don't you mean CBS (formerly Paramount's television division) is looking at what ABC and Netflix are doing with Marvel, which is in effect what they did with Trek back when TNG/DS9/VGR aired in overlapping sequences, or what CBS did as CBS when it ran the entire CSI franchise? I could certainly see them doing two Trek shows, especially if the thought was to produce DSC along with that post–NEM/VGR "25th Century Trek series" that fans keep asking for, as that would probably end a lot of the kvetching around DSC, and allow CBS to focus on both ends of the timeline keeping everybody happy. I'd certainly be behind such an idea, but I'd be surprised if they had another show in pre–production this early on without having the results in from the first season of DSC. I could see them easily trying to have multiple Treks on multiple platforms if DSC is wildly successful though.
Some people on Reddit have said that since the Shenzhou is an older ship, this could just be a more rough around the edges transporter with the actual transporter mechanism exposed instead of being hidden behind wall paneling.
That was literally one of the first two things that I thought about the Shenzhou's transporter room when I saw that picture as well, the other was that the Shenzhou could be old enough that it's using some sort of modified cargo transporter rather than a personal transporter, hence why the transporter pads are in the walls instead of on the floor. (It would make sense if they were originally designed to beam large, boxy pieces of cargo to places rather than individual humanoids.) The only thing that I found really weird were the total lack of controls for the transporter which seems really out of place no matter how you slice it.
What makes this all so sad and ironic at the same time is that they obviously want that recognition of Star Trek, yet it seems wherever possible they're changing things "just because".
This is what's irking me about DSC right now. They want the brand recognition without any of what makes the brand what it is. You can put something that's not quite Pepsi in a can of Coca–Cola, but when you do that you get New Coke which isn't what your consumer is after, your consumer's after Coca–Cola; Pepsi is already serving the Pepsi consumer.
It's also being used on a lot of the superhero movies and shows lately. Not deltas obviously but having a fine texture like that with a repeating pattern. I think it really started with Spiderman.
Did it really start with Spiderman? The first time I honestly noticed it was with Superman in Man of Steel. I was actually kind of irritated when the new Power Rangers movie didn't use that aesthetic; the diamond designs looked like something that could have been use to keep the iconic "spandex" look while giving it a tougher "alien armor" look that would have worked for the new movie. I wasn't fond of the costumes that they wound up going with at all, and I know I'm far from the only one who feels that way. As for the deltas, I'm beginning to think that the Federation went from using the deltas to briefly only having the Enterprise use the delta, to reintroducing the delta. I do think it would be interesting if DSC got TOS–era uniforms at some point, or even something closely resembling them.
