Discovery 1x01 & 1x02 – 2-part premiere [** SPOILERS WITHIN **]

James Brown

Goodshape wrote: »

The new movies are a separate thing, set in an adjacent / alternative timeline.

Discovery – we've been told, although it hasn't mattered or been really confirmed on-screen yet – is set in the "normal" Star Trek timeline which includes TOS, TNG, DS9, Voy, and Ent.

They've updated some things again (as they did in the original first film, second film, third film, and TNG) which has annoyed some people again, but it is the same timeline.

Same timeline until Kirk's first mission?

Sonics2k

Zillah wrote: »

Nonsensical suicides are not a Star Trek staple; they always made an effort to make it make sense. I really wish people would stop saying that.

It really is though, look at the episode Chain of Command where Picard is taken hostage and tortured.

In all of Starfleet they chose the Captain of the Enterprise, a man who's background is largely in things like diplomacy, tactics and history, hardly in stealthy infiltration.

Riker himself frequently goes on away missions. Hell, now that I think about it seems that only senior staff go on dangerous away missions, the only time you'll see a low ranking person go is if they need a red shirt to kill off.

Sonics2k

TomSweeney wrote: »

True equality doesn't need Identity politics !! people are judged on their character and actions - not on their sex / race / orientation etc.
TNG at least had this, it didn't need to remind us in the episodes. (then again I didn't pay attention to media back when I was a kid ... )

BS, Star Trek frequently played with identity politics.

Code of Honor whilst being just a smidgen racist, deals with having a female head of security, which even the Klingons found odd later on.

Oh, how about Uhura herself. A black woman in a position of command way back in the 1960's. She was quite literally the first black woman shown in a position of power on American TV.

People really need to jump off this nonsensical claim that Discovery is 'too PC' because Star Trek has literally -always- been a forward thinking and PC show.

PhiloCypher

When I first saw the Uniforms in this it kinda threw me , Why were they still wearing NX Enterprise style jumpsuits a mere 10 years before TOS, but then I caught an episode of TNG on SyFy where Wesley is asked to confront his feelings of anger towards Picard over the loss of his father and it all came flooding back.



According to the memory Alpha wiki on Wesley, he was 15 in that first season of TNG(thought he was younger tbh) and had lost his dad 10 years before, which means the Wrath of Khan style navy uniform were still in service up till at least 10 years before the Romper suits came into Vogue in TNG.

LeinsterDub

Decent enough opening but I found all the subtitles and the a captain's accent annoying

PhiloCypher

New promo for season ahead

The_Valeyard

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Decent enough opening but I found all the subtitles and the a captain's accent annoying

I really enjoyed the use of Klingon

aligator_am

Watched first 2 episodes last night and have to say they were really bad IMO.

The characters just seemed off and uninteresting, didn't click for me at all.

The effects looked great in fairness but it wasn't enough for me to enjoy the episodes.

Something I noticed that was really odd was the weird camera angles that were constantly used, it reminded me of a review I saw once of Battlefield Earth!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8z7-DIa1As

I'm hopeful that the show will improve, it's early days yet so I'll give it a chance.

The_Valeyard

aligator_am wrote: »

Watched first 2 episodes last night and have to say they were really bad IMO.

The characters just seemed off and uninteresting, didn't click for me at all.

The effects looked great in fairness but it wasn't enough for me to enjoy the episodes.

Something I noticed that was really odd was the weird camera angles that were constantly used, it reminded me of a review I saw once of Battlefield Earth!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8z7-DIa1As

I'm hopeful that the show will improve, it's early days yet so I'll give it a chance.

How dare you compare StarTrek to the likes of Battlefield Earth.

Its the Bajorian slave ore processing for you!!!

cython

expectationlost wrote: »

did they rescue the prison transport pilot?

you mean the

prison transport

from episode 3?

PhiloCypher

I've decided to give the first 6 episodes a rewatch , I'll be retrospectively reviewing and rate them given what we know now in their respective threads (As I wasn't sure where else to post them)

Episode 1 : The Vulcan Hello

The opening Klingon scenes are as stilted as I remember and the dialogue in the desert prologue between Burnham and Georgiu as clunky, tho the visuals are top notch. We move onto the Shenzou , JJ flare in full effect, again the banter between the bridge crew seems somewhat forced and in complete contrast to the atmosphere on the Discovery, but then they are commanded by two very different captains. I for one am happy to see the Discovery crew earn that sort of comradery rather then have them be besties from the off. Burnham is also a lot more emotional here in contrast to how she is on the Discovery, I guess she blamed her "human heart" (to quote Sarek) for setting in motion a chain of events that led to her Mentors death and closed herself off emotionally. She'll likely spend the season trying to get back in touch with them.

"It would be logical for you to take into account my success rate during our 7 years together and execute my plan without further delay before we're dragged into war"

Dear god the hubris , whatever the merits of her plan that's not how you go about it and while her solution was the logical course of action it was also an emotional one for her given Klingons killed her parents. Given that her Vulcan upbringing surpressed rather then dealt with her emotions surrounding that, its not surprising that it came bubbling out in this outburst. So while I was inwardly cringing at what she was doing , it tracks emotionally for me.

" Starfleet doesn't fire first "

People have moaned about how Star Fleet has been depicted (despite the fact the Discovery is avowedly atypical) but this quote would suggest Starfleet at large, at least when not at war, are not a bad sort, they'll always let you throw the first punch .

All in all a mixed bag, amazing production values, Prosthetics and interesting characters dynamics in Burnham and Saru, hamstrung by dull Klingon scenes clunky dialogue and the sort of forced comradery that will have you yearning for the frosty silences of the Discovery bridge.

Not a great start but a start .

6/10

PhiloCypher

Episode 2 : The Battle of the Binary Stars

Warning: contains spoilers for episodes 3-6.

The episode opens with a Flashback to Sarek and Burnham beaming onto the Shenzou 7 years ago. Its interesting to note Burnham seems to be wearing the exact same outfit as she did in the flashbacks outside the Vulcan Science academy in episode 6 when Sarek was told he would have to choose which of his "experiments" would be allowed enter. He obviously wasted no time in carting her off to Starfleet as soon as he made his decision . Foreknowledge of this decision adds a nice layer to the scene.

"Behave"

Sarek utters this under his breath as he steps back onto the transporter pad, it comes across as an amused chastisement as Michael rebuffs Cpt Georgiu's niceties and could be seen as out of character for a Vulcan to say, but Sarek isn't a typical Vulcan, as the head of the Vulcan Science academy points out in episode 6.

"The House of D'Ghor will hear more" , " as will house Mokai"

I'm fairly sure these two houses are the ones that bribe there way into Kols good graces by handing over the admiral in episode 6 after they piss him off by listening to T'kuvma here.

Its all kicking off, and yes it does look somewhat Star Warsy with the phasers looking more like turbolasers then anything else but most of the ships do look NX01 era so maybe they don't have the superstructure required for normal phasers IDK . The action is more like DS9's sacrifice of angels then the more stately affairs of the films or TNG , extremely visceral. Watching it I've noticed the helmswoman Lt Detmar isn't sporting her 7 of 9 like skull implant. I'd missed that first time around and thought she'd always had them. Its yet another reminder as if Burnham needed any with Saru there, of what she did and what she lost.

"Communicating with you in this manner comes at a physical cost"

While its not stated explicitly if the explosion in episode 6 could be responsible for Sareks damaged heart as some have postulated(first heard about in TOS'S "Journey to Babel") could not his long distance meld be responsible for the Bendii syndrome we discover he suffers from in TNG's episode "Sarek". Even if its never made spoken canon, assuming the writing for Burnham and the show in general continue to improve it will add an extra layer of pathos to scenes that didn't lack for pathos in the first place when rewatching that episode.

We get another scene of T'Kuvma consulting with the remaining members of the council . Future hostage takers House's D'Ghor and Morkai are front and centre. We also get another scene of T'Kuvma speaking english in a far less stilted manner then he does his native tongue . Strange that.

"You will know our great houses standing as one under Kahless reborn in me. T'kuvma"

Kahless reborn huh, every bit as hubristic as Burnham this lad, and just like Michael pride cometh before the fall . Its especially ironic given he had only just lectured Kol on what an egotist he was in the last episode .

Looking at the basic shape of Tkuvma's ship in schematics its not dissimilar to the D7 of the TOS era its just overly florid in its external design. Maybe Post Battle of the Binaries it basic design becomes iconic and they start pumping them out in the more utilitarian design we see in TOS(Thats my head canon atm anyways).

The shows theme is reprised to great effect (imo) when the Captain, seeing the Klingons retrieving their dead, comes up with a cunning plan . Whatever one may feel about that theme(its growing on me like a fungas or ya know a spore) the incidental music in Discovery is definitely a step up from the sonic wallpaper that we got in most of 90's trek.

BOOM!!! her plan works and the head is damn near seperated from the neck of the ship. Curiously it is back reattatched when we drop back in with Voq and L'rell 6 months after the battle. Not bad for an on the spot repair.

"I can't transport her without a lifesign"

What is this Terminator . Only living tissue can go through , how do they transport inanimate cargo, how did you transport that photon torpedo Saru ? unfortunately this is one of those daft decisions they made to lay and even thicker layer of guilt on Burnham by having her have to abandon her Mentors dead body, sadly it comes at the expense of common sense .

Daft court martial is daft.

A better episode then the first, there's less clunky exposition, more action and we get a greater look at the Sarek Burnham family dynamic. It effectively sets the table for the show proper which starts with episode 3 .

7/10

DivingDuck

Finally getting around to watching this after putting it off for a while in case I'd hate it.

I didn't hate it, but like with everything post-Voyager, there's a distinct feel of "It's not Trek, though?" for me.

There was no sense of "coming home" the way there is with TNG, DS9, etc. I know the thing these days is to have unlikable protagonists, but that just doesn't feel very Trek-like to me. Burnham will probably grow on me as the series progresses, but so far I find her mostly irritating. The whole "I'm a Vulcan who's not Vulcan but I'm still very Vulcan" thing would have been more believable if she hadn't seemed on the verge of tears at multiple points throughout both episodes. I also didn't care for the fact that there was no sense of getting to know any of the crew aside Saru and Georgiou, though I enjoyed him quite and lot and thought she was the only character who actually felt like a real Starfleet officer. Will we see any of the others again? Are we supposed to care? I can't tell.

The biggest disappointment for me, though, was the Klingons. Are they going to explain how and why they look entirely different later on, or are we just meant to pretend they're the same as Worf et al? Even the language sounds different, like they're reading off cue cards with huge pauses instead of actually speaking it naturally. The scenes with them dragged really badly— I actually was bored during those scenes. As with the recent movies, it all just seemed very much "Trek in name only" and didn't have the same feel or tone as the other TV shows. Even Enterprise, which I drifted away from after a season or two, felt more in keeping with TNG/DS9/V than this did.

I'm not sure whether my apathy about the show thus far is because I was expecting the "Trek formula" or because it was genuinely lacking, but overall I wasn't impressed. I'll watch the rest of the episodes which are out already, but I'm lowering my expectations a lot going forward.