Spence

The Executioner books that were actually written by Don Pendleton are great. It's when he left the series and they started using ghost writers that the quality suffered. Another great modern pulp series that suffered the same fate is The Destroyer. When Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy started the series, it was all about philosophy, political commentary, social satire, and of course plenty of violence. The later books usually try to emulate the formula but the writers usually only succeed with the violence part. Still, each series has a few good books by ghost writers and more than a few great books by the original writers. If you can get your hands on early Executioner and Destroyer, you won't be disappointed.

Embarrased?  By God man!  They're PULP!  

LOL...
 
I guess he is the Shatner of our generation

Part of it, for me, was the same reason I want to punch Chris Pine in most of the stuff he does. Wonder Woman was okay but I have not seen him elsewhere that doesn't "rub me wrong."

There. Fixed that for you.

Not really hopeful at all.  Yes Frakes knows his Trek, but CBS has been clear they are changing the rules and discarding those pesky Trek guidelines to tell edgier stories.  

When Harley Quinn is portrayed as more heroic than WW or Superman, there is a problem.

It must be hard to be tactical and / or security on these shows.
 
Captain: "Tactical officer... your assessment?"
 
TO: "The anomaly is mobile and possesses an unknown maximum energy output. I recommend we raise shields and pull back to a safe distance."
 
C: "Noted. Science officer?"
 
SO: "We'll need to be closer to use our madeupium whatsitscope."
 
Captain: "Understood. Helm, take us in."
 
TO: *sighs*

Saw John Wick 2. It was one of those rare sequels that's as good as the original. Tons of fun! Can't wait for the third one.

Not a great sign since every Trek series after TOS has needed two seasons to grow the beard.

Maybe someone already commented on it here, but I find it... of concern that the abbreviation for the show is STD.
 
It's like at my work (University of Michigan), two different IT areas were merged and called Health Information Technology & Services (HITS).  A coworker suggested that they should call it the School of Health Information Technology & Services.  For some reason, SHITS didn't fly with people...

After seeing various pics and videos plus reading on forums and comment sections, here is my take.
 
On the paywall. 
For me it just won’t happen.   CBS literally does not have enough of interest for me to be nickeled and dimed yet again.  Game of Thrones is one of my favorite shows in not just years, but decades and I do not subscribe to HBO. 
 
As a note.  Everything is affected by “Form follows function”, even rubber science.   Once you define something such as ship design, you need to follow those restrictions or you destroy the audience’s ability to suspend belief.
 
On the uniforms.
 
Enterprise was Starfleet in its infancy and straddled the formation of the Federation.  And yet their uniforms display the Departmental colors in the piping.  
TOS uses the same colors in its shirt colors.
TNG, DS9 and VOY all use the same colors with a minor color switch. 
I made a career in the Navy and the uniform progression and changes are all plausible and are believable. 
 
Now we have STD which is advertised as being in the same universe timeline as ENT/TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY, occurring after ENT and before TOS.   But where are the solidly established Departmental designation colors?   Military and Semi-Military organizations, especially naval analogs where Captains will operate in environments where the communication lag is measured in months if not years, depends on firm customs and traditions.  No organization is going to completely abandon a core organizational doctrine and then magically readopt it.   Just not plausible.  Just not believable.   Major crack in the ability to suspend belief.   If you are going to reboot the ST universe, just say so.
 
On the “new realistic gritty outlook”. 
 
The fact that Starfleet personnel acted as they did despite the dark gritty universe they lived it is what made the Star Trek Universe, Star Trek.    The shipboard Treks all showed this as the crews adhered to the principles.  DS9 was great because it showed the difficulty of remaining true to Starfleet principles when you lack the insulating distance of being shipboard.   Remove the Starfleet Ideals from Starfleet and you have what?
 
On the new ship.
 
Form follows function.
 
Enterprise = saucer plus two balance nacelles.
TOS/TNG/VOY = saucer plus engineering hull plus two balanced nacelles
DS9 = introduction of radical new ship design that integrates all these into a single tight hull that also encloses the warp nacelles.
 
All through the series it is noted that Starfleet technology and ships maintain an overall superiority over other designs that do thing like integrate nacelles into the hull and so on.   Such as Romulan and Klingon designs.  While they have advantages they also have drawbacks. 
 
And now here comes STD.  It looks like a stretched old Romulan warbird flattened and stretched to a point with a saucer slapped on it.  But that is not the major issue. 
 
Form follows function. Enterprise (ENT) to Discovery (STD) to Enterprise (TOS) to Enterprise (TNG) to Voyager (VOY) just doesn’t track as a natural progression of Starfleet technology. 
 
As for the really stupid arguments desperately trying to say people who do like what they see also want 1960’s sets on STD.  They are just...stupid.  What people want is something that could fit in the already depicted designs.   ENT did a fine job of a plausible setup that was ahead of the present technology, but less developed the TNG and on.   STD looks like they may be going down the same road, which if true is a plus.
 
On the Klingons
 
I don’t know why they need to make yet another change, which is going to be hard to fit into the professed timeline.   How do they explain the normal Klingons (ENT) morphing into these Klingons (STD) and morphing back to Klingons (TNG/DS9/VOY)?   I understand they are near the early movie designs.  But the TOS and early movie designs were liek that because of the technology.  ENT through VOY established what Klingon's had always looked like now that we have good makeup tech.
 
 
On the whole, I am fully onboard with changes prompted by better industry technology and methods.  I am fully onboard with pushing the boundaries of entertainment.  But from what little I have gathered, there are too many changes for the sake of making changes and little to no effort to add to the Star Trek concept as a whole.  If you want to make a new scifi show, do that.  But don’t slap a recognized name on something and then go off on a  tangent with a few shallow nods.   It amazes me seeing people who attack critics of the new ship interiors and ramble about 1960's TV Tech are also the people that seem to think regressing to 80's makeup for the Klingon's is somehow great? 
 
For Star Trek Discovery?  My contact will be via Disc or maybe Netflix some year down the line.   I predict it will struggle through the first year, be renewed for a second season out of shear stubbornness by CBS.  But without a radical restructuring and a miracle it will end there and fade into obscurity as a minor cult show that cannot actually pull a true fan following.  

I would suggest you motor over to the Savage Worlds forums, but they've hit a snag getting those back up it looks like. Almost any setting book has a Plot Point campaign to go with it. 
 
I had this bookmarked because I generally try to write Plot Point Campaigns for every game I run (I suck at it so the results are mixed, but there it is). https://www.peginc.com/plot-points/ should get you what you want to know.
 
Forgot to add that I think the best Plot Point Campaigns take players all over the setting (or a very variably sized chunk of it) and gives them a chance to experience all the cool stuff that your setting has to offer.

Paramount's plans back in the 1970s was to launch a fourth network (Paramount Television Service, or PTVS) with Star Trek: Phase II. That network ultimately never came to fruition, and the work done for the series was (mostly) converted into Star Trek: The Motion Picture. As you mentioned, UPN ultimately launched with Voyager as its "flagship", and it was one of the more successful shows on the fledgling network.
 
It really doesn't surprise me that CBS would try to bolster their streaming subscription service by attempting to grab the assumed built-in audience of Star Trek fans again. The main problem is that Paramount and CBS haven't really taken good care of the franchise, and I doubt that many of my friends would want to subscribe to a streaming service for just one show, Trek or not. I can wait until the season is done, and it probably shows up on US Netflix.

It does when you realize that being PC is not the domain of a specific group.  In my day we didn't have the term.  You just had groups that tried to suppress anything not in line with their own beliefs.  Be it Discrimination, you are different and therefore not allowed to have the same freedoms as "correctly minded" people.  Or Bigotry, You don't agree with me therefore I refuse to listen or talk to you.   We didn't call it political correctness, but it was alive and well.  Trek ignored these conventions by setting up great stories and then injecting items that were decidedly not in line with "correct mindedness".   The Vietnam protests were a less elegant, though just as important to how America evolved.  They were all driving forces in reinforcing the fundamental right of free expression guaranteed in the US's governing documents.   When I was growing up, even distasteful or even hateful groups had a right to free expression. 
 
You cannot guarantee a citizen a right and then pick and choose who exercises that right based on whether you personally agree with it.   So while they may be idiots and mentally unstable, a member of the Nazi Party can indeed have a rally or protest.   Is their outlook and vision repugnant and against any sane persons views?  In my opinion yes.  But do they have the right to gather and express those views?  Absolutely.  If you don't want to be exposed to them, don't go.  On the other hand, you cannot actually understand their true positions and platform until you have actually listened to a speech.  Not read an article or view a clip composed/edited by someone else to tell you what they think you should know about them.  But actually see, contemplate and form your own first hand evaluation.   That is what colleges used to be.  Areas allowing free thought, even of things that were frowned upon, so that people could form their opinions first hand. 
 
Sometime in the 80's/90's(??) the idea of free expression became dangerous to those same institutions.  Because free speech and thought is well, free speech and thought.  They suddenly began suppressing dissent by labeling anything that didn't fall into a narrow view not as "wrong" or "forbidden", but as "mean" or "ill mannered".  Over time it has evolved as anything not rigidly in line is "offensive" and any action that does not prominently support that rigid narrow view (regardless of actual reason) is a "micro-aggression".   Anyone who requests the underlying reasoning or information supporting a position is a "hater", "bigot" or when all else fails a "racist".  Instead of reasoned dialog and using discussion to promote a view, the modern methods is to lambast and drive out anyone with a different view and bunker down in closed "safe-spaces" hiding from any form of unapproved information.  
 
Just before the election I was radio hopping, looking for a station that did not have end of the world ranting on it.  From everyone, Left, Right, Middle.  Everyone.  So I found a station where they were talking about restaurants.  Not wages or other politically charged topics, but general types.  Chain, Top End, Hole-in-the-Wall, etc.  They had not even brought up type as in ethnic origin at all.  So the male radio host said ask about what the female host thought about Hole-in-the-Wall restaurants and mentioned that it seemed to him that many people tended to think, right or wrong, that they were less clean that others.  Now here is the main catch, the female host immediately snapped out that he couldn't say that because it was a racist statement.  That!?  I didn't realize that Hole-in-the-Wall was a race of humans.
 
The key point I am making is that our so called centers of education have so isolated themselves in a protected bubble that echoes with only their personal ideas and completely insulates them from, well anything, to the point that they not longer even understand what it is they are supposed to be against. 
 
Bigot is now synonymous with Racist. 
Racist means anyone that does not agree with you.
Instead of listening to someones statement and then saying I disagree and moving on as informed.
They ban anything that might possibly disagree with preconceptions based on someone else's opinion formed equally without information because they also never took the time to listen. 
 
That is what we now call Politically Correct. 
It is not exclusive to the left and what ever agenda a group may have.   All spectrum's have their own defined PC listing.  
 
The sad thing is that most of the small groups have become the rabid hate groups that they are supposedly fighting.    Star Trek never bashed a group or idea.  They never spewed hatred.
They always told a great yarn and then casually slide in a "this is OK too" in such a manner as to provoke thought while at the same time not screaming "you all suck" to anyone that did not agree.  
 
Trek was great. 
 
Take Discovery.   
There is going to be a gay character.  So?  what is the difference between a gay football team and a not gay football team as far as playing the sport?  Nothing.  In fact "gay" is irrelevant to football.  
What will the character be?  An Engineer? OK cool.  Gay is not a factor in engineering.  There is no need for trumpets and fanfare.  Trek is about exploration and discovery.  Treat the side story personal relationship stuff just like they do for the non-gay characters.   Casual side comments and "its no big deal" this is just normal. 
 
The main character is going to be a woman? So?  This is not even worth a mention.  Sci-Fi/Fantasy across all media has been having strong leading female roles for decades.  Half of my favorite shows on TV to include Crime Procedurals and Drama's have female leads.  This is just a non-event.
 
What is bad about Discovery is the giddy joy that it can now have soft porn and gritty violence.   I love Game of Thrones, but full frontal nudity, soft porn and gory blood splatter scenes fit that story.
Star Trek implied off screen romance and centered the stories on exploration and discovery.  Note I said romance, not sex.  While they can be the same, romance implies a less gutter version.
 
The problem is that we have so many people (under 30) that no longer even know what they are so violently against.  They pop out catch phrases and memes without any real understanding of what they are even saying.  Ask for someone to define the word "bigot".  Generally speaking, though not always, they will pop out "a person that is racist".  They definitely won't say "a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions".  And they will not get the humor of pointing them at a mirror.
 
I once had one of my mentors tell me something that stuck.  He asked me how I would know when I had reached the point of being accepted as equal among my peers?   His answer surprised me and then I realized it was true.   You are equal when what you do is not longer remarked upon, when you are effectively ignored unless interaction is needed.   While I was in training, success was denoted by praise, failure by admonishment.  Once I was fully qualified and actually competent, success was expected and and not considered special.   
 
Many groups simply do not know how to handle the fact they have succeeded. 
Equality in America means that if you don't work hard you will fail and no one outside your immediate family will really care. 
Success means working 50-80+ hours weeks for years until you achieve that success.
Are there people that get a hand up because their parents were successful?  Sure.  But that is true in the US across the spectrum origin.  
 
Our biggest issue is that the people that are most vocal in dissent, I don't call it actual protesting because a real protestor has a specific goal and an idea of how to achieve it.   They are just demanding and wanting some undefined vague "other person" to pay for it. 
 
You want universal free healthcare?  Cool.  But you cannot use any of the existing structure.  You need to redefine how things are paid for.  Yes paid for.  Since it is free, you will need to establish a tax to pay for it.  Since it is mandated and free, you have to eliminate the very lucrative lawsuit machine.  To ensure quality of care is evenly available you need to eliminate monetary issues, establish a civil service/military style pay grade system.    All surgeons with 15 years experience get 50K a year plus a locality adjustment to compensate for local housing costs, etc.  The operation goes bad?  No you cannot sue for compensation.  An inquest will determine if it was negligence or criminal and the offender (if there is a guilty one) will be punished.  But you will not get $, you will get free medical because it is free.
 
So far all the Treks have been great.    I may not have personally liked a series because of story line or theme.  Both Voyager and Enterprise sucked because IMO time travel in Trek is the admission from the show runners that they have run out of ideas and are punting.  But all the shows did the exploration and discovery of wide and varied themes very well. 
 
The new movies have nailed the cast but for some reason don't seem to have any idea of what Trek is.  Explosions and destroying the Enterprise in each movie is not it.
 
Adding soft porn and violence is not a formulae needed in a Trek show.  And neither is casting according to a PC checklist.  Instead just cast the part to fill the role needed without fanfare. 
 
Ignore the idiots and move on. 

I have the Box set of Batman and am going through all the episodes. Finishing season 2 which belongs to Julie Newmar as Catwoman in the same way that season 1 belonging to Frank Gorshin as the Riddler. The quality of the writing was reduced I felt. But there are still gems. Lee Meriweather who played Catwoman in the film turns up as a socialite kidnapped by King Tut. Bruce Lee as Kato.
It is good but series 1 has the edge.
 
EDIT: to correct an obvious mistake

Not just Paizo.  D&D's Forgotten Realms has survived several rule sets and is rolling out again. 
 
Both Paizo and WotC are putting out not just Campaign Settings, but actual Campaigns you can actually run set in those Settings. 

Yes. But Hero actually has some good Campaign Settings. They just stopped at the initial reference/world boiks and never actually put out any actual campaigns.
 
D&D rules (the rules)
Adventures on the Sword Coast. (Campaign Setting)
Storm King's Thunder (Playable Campaign)
 
Fantasy Hero (the rules)
Tuala Morn (Campaign Setting)
?????? (playable campaign)
 
Unless you learn Hero from another experienced Hero player/GM, it is a difficult system to conceptualize compared to pretty much anything else out there. Easy once it clicks. But not so much without a fully realized example.

Yes. But Hero actually has some good Campaign Settings. They just stopped at the initial reference/world boiks and never actually put out any actual campaigns.
 
D&D rules (the rules)
Adventures on the Sword Coast. (Campaign Setting)
Storm King's Thunder (Playable Campaign)
 
Fantasy Hero (the rules)
Tuala Morn (Campaign Setting)
?????? (playable campaign)
 
Unless you learn Hero from another experienced Hero player/GM, it is a difficult system to conceptualize compared to pretty much anything else out there. Easy once it clicks. But not so much without a fully realized example.

Not just Paizo.  D&D's Forgotten Realms has survived several rule sets and is rolling out again. 
 
Both Paizo and WotC are putting out not just Campaign Settings, but actual Campaigns you can actually run set in those Settings. 

A setting developed with full support like Forgotten Realms or Golaron. Not just the monolithic setting product, but Gazetteers, Grimoires, Bestaries, Treasures, NPCs and, most of all, prefabricated adventures to tie it all together. If I am dreaming big, I want poster maps, high production quality and extras like miniatures and reusable map assets. Take a look at Paizo. Now rip out Pathfinder and stick Hero in there. Not necessarily the same setting, but certainly the same benchmark.

Go here. Scroll to the bottom line in the table. Note the descriptor. Chase the link in the citation.
 
I think I've got a new favorite English football team.
 
EDIT: "I’d had four or five pints – nothing major,” he said.

Episodes 8-10 of  My Hero Academia season 2. Best Teen Champions campaign ever! If you have Hulu or Cruncyroll, you should be watching.

Oh, it isn't really that much of a stretch if you think back to when these actually started.   Not AD&D but D&D, specifically the supplement Blackmoor in 1975.  Cable wasn't really available "everywhere" and even if you had cable you had at best 20-25 channels.   This is relevant because until the 80's I had never seen a "martial arts" movie and had only heard of Bruce Lee in magazines.  When the little black and white book Blackmoor introduced the Monk as a subclass of the Cleric we didn't have much more than that to go on. Where I lived the TV stations didn't even show Kung Fu on TV.  I missed Battlestar Galactica till years later too
 
But it was only the fact that I ran across D&D at an old wargaming shop before my Dad retired from the Army and we all moved back, that I even knew what a RPG was and had a copy. It wasn't until I joined the Navy in 81 that I actually got exposed to Asian Cinema and the often confused 70-80's martial arts action shows.  Since I was a apprentice at the time (being a seaman or airman in the Navy was synonymous to dead broke in the 80's) I took advantage of the MWR at the time.  The rec center on base had hobby rooms you could reserve, a cheap restaurant and a two screen theater. We used to go there and reserve a room where we played wargames, D&D and Champions all weekend long only taking breaks to eat and watch movies.  On Sat and Sun from 9am to 6pm they had free action theater where they showed end to end Martial Arts flicks and so on.   In the evenings they showed movies like Philadelphia Experiment, Top Gun, Flash Gordon and so on for $1 fo the night.
 
By the time I saw Enter the Dragon or Master of the Flying Guillotine, the Monk was firmly a Friar like the Robin Hood Tuck with cooler abilities.

The first time I saw the Monk class  was in the Blackmoor book back in the old days.  For some reason we always envisioned them as the Friar Tuck type. 
 
It wasn't until years later that we made the Far East connection. 
 
Weird right?