Today’s Discovery bits has the title for the first episode. We also have a new image from the show, some new behind-the-scenes images, plus new comments from the cast and crew of Star Trek: Discovery ranging from political influences to how tight the costumes are … and a Klingon biting an Emmy.
Premiere episode title revealed
Thanks to TV Guide we now know the title for the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery. Part 1 of the 2-hour premiere is titled “The Vulcan Hello.” The episode description in TV Guide is a little spare:
In the series premiere, new worlds and civilizations are explored by new members of the “Star Trek” universe.
But the title likely refers to how the main character of Michael Burnham was raised on Vulcan by Sarek following the death of her human parents.
New image of Michael Burnham
Our friends at the Star Trek Argentina site alerted us to a new image from the Netflix Star Trek: Discovery page in Argentina featuring Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) in an EVA suit, and if you look closely you can see the USS Discovery reflected.
Michael Burnham sees the Discovery (Netflix)
Harberts: 2016 election inspired first season
Co-showrunner Aaron Harberts has spoken again about how politics have influenced the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. In a brief interview with the LA Times, Harberts said:
“We had out first meeting with Michelle Yeoh [Capt. Georgiou] on election day and we were both wearing our ‘I voted’ stickers,” recalls Harberts. “She said, ‘What do you think is going to happen?’ At that point, we didn’t really know, but we were obviously seeing sentiments during the entire election that did make us [ask], ‘Do we [even] have to look much further than our own backyard to start thinking about themes, to start thinking about conflicts, to start thinking about ideologies that are in dire opposition to each other?’ [The campaign] certainly provided us with a pretty dynamic and provocative backdrop.”
Yeoh talks glory of Shenzhou and humanity of Georgiou
In an interview with Parade, actress Michelle Yeoh talked a bit about her role as Captain Georgiou of the USS Shenzhou.
What can you say about your ship the Shenzhou?
Discovery is a very enviable ship, but my ship has been around for some time. It’s full of glorious tales.
Is Captain Georgiou a powerful woman?
She’s a war veteran, but she is still filled with humanity. She has great hope for not just humankind, but for all the different species. She’s an explorer, but she does it with great compassion, so she’s a great leader. It’s been very empowering to play someone like that, who inspires other people.
Cast talk uniform tightness
You know things are getting close when the promotion hits Entertainment Tonight, who aired a segment with the cast of Discovery, focusing on the important issue of how tight the uniforms are.
CLICK TO SEE VIDEO AT ETONLINE.COM
More behind the scenes images from Ted
Discovery co-executive producer Ted Sullivan released a couple more behind the scenes images on Twitter.
Capt. Georgiou’s bottle of of Chateau Picard wine, 2249 vintage (Twitter/karterhol)
Michelle Yeoh and Doug Jones on the set of the USS Shenzhou (Twitter/karterhol)
Isaacs teases + Rapp’s Times Square selfie
Jason Isaacs is sticking the the no-spoilers policy, but just wants everyone to know that something happened on set yesterday which has him saying “blimey.”
Struggling with an inexplicable compulsion to spoil @startrekcbs by telling you the thingy that happens today. Won't, of course, but blimey.
— Jason Isaacs (@jasonsfolly) September 15, 2017
And last night Isaacs’ co-star Anthony Rapp was back home in New York City and shared this selfie showing off the Times Square Discovery promotions.
Times Square @startrekcbs promo!!! #LLAP pic.twitter.com/KnWpcni40o
— Anthony Rapp (@albinokid) September 16, 2017
Emmy for Discovery makeup artist
We previously noted that Discovery composer Jeff Russo picked up an Emmy last weekend for his work on the FX series Fargo, but he isn’t the only new Emmy winner on Discovery. Makeup artist James McKinnon scored one for his work on a different FX show, American Horror Story. And last night Discovery’s L’Rell (Mary Chieffo) shared this fun photo of herself, McKinnon and his new trophy.
"Klingon ate my Emmy!" Congrats @jimmymackinnon on another Emmy win for @AHSFX We are so lucky to have you on @startrekcbs Qapla'! pic.twitter.com/JEhuds4Ca5
— Mary Chieffo (@marythechief) September 16, 2017
Star Trek: Discovery premieres on September 24th on CBS with all subsequent episodes on CBS All Access in the US. In Canada Star Trek: Discovery will premiere on Bell Media’s CTV and the Space Channel on the same night. Netflix will launch Star Trek: Discovery on Monday, September 25 to countries outside of the U.S. and Canada.
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.
Star Trek is about an ensemble. Stop making it about her.
Why? What is your problem with her? She’s the star…
Star Trek is whatever the producers want it to be.
I actually don’t remember much of the online promos for Enterprise in 2001. Was anybody at the forefront?
Scott Bakula was featured a bit more than everyone else, but they also did ensemble posters versus the individual poster route DSC is trying. The very first teaser ads trumpeted Bakula by name, then they settled into typical promotion, emphasizing wonder and action and using “Wherever You Will Go” by The Calling heavily. Frankly, I’d rather have seen that song become the theme versus what we got.
Exactly
“Star Trek is whatever the producers want it to be.”
Nope, Star Trek is whatever I (among other fans) want to watch. If it’s against the majority of fans, the producers can kiss their show goodbye. At this point, I believe the fandom will be irreparably split on DSC and those wounds won’t heal in 10 or 15 years. The fandom will be in “disarray” for decades like the Klingon Empire…
@smike: Star Trek fandom has been split at least since TNG came along. It split further with each successive show. Each show has its fans, but each show also has a number of people who consider themselves Star Trek fans but hate that show with a passion. So Discovery is nothing new in that respect. It just so happens that this time the show is not what you personally want.
“Star Trek fandom has been split at least since TNG came along.”
That is entirely true, I remember that too well.
In the late 90s, there were flaming debates between Niners and Voyagers that very much remind me of Discoverers vs. Orvillians. DS9 was the arguably better show, but too dark to be real Trek wereas VOY was mediocre at best but still had the traditional starship setting. ENT devided fans further on the issue of the prequel setting and its canonical issues. The NextGen movies were picked apart by fans of the very series they were based on. And then, the KT reboots ignited another flame war…
So this may seem indeed be nothing new at all. But it’s still not the same. While I felt very passioante about Trek back then, I was perfectly able to accept all shows and movies to some degree. I prefered VOY but still liked DS9, I wasn’t a big NEM fan but I watched it four times in cinema to support the franchise. I didn’t care much about ENT’s continuity quibbles and I was perfectly fine with the action-oriented reboots…
This time it feels a whole lot of different. The TV-MA rating in combination with all the successful ongoing TV shows that helped to shape this spin-off (Walker class starship anyone?), makes me feel uneasy about it to a degree I had never felt before. The problem is that TWD or GOT are not “normal” TV shows from my POV… they are boundary-pushing juggernauts going against everything I’ve been raised to believe.
The graphic depiction of graphic violence… this is nothing I can file under “each his own”… The DS9 vs VOY debate or the action status of the TNG / KT movies was a matter of content… debatable content at times with entire planets being destroyed. But none of this was done in exploitative grindhouse-style. It is one thing dealing with mature THEMES as on DS9 or NuBSG, but a completely different thing to graphically depict these issues the way it is done nowadays by TV-MA shows.
The Walker class of starships is named in honour of test pilot Joe Walker, who flew spaceplanes for the United States in the mid-1960’s, not after The Walking Dead.
If the show is any good, people will pay to see it just as they do with GoT, Better Call Saul, and any number of prestige cable dramas. If it isn’t, it will wither and die, whether the hardcore fan base likes it or not, divided or not. It’s 2017 and the nerd vote, for better or worse, just doesn’t count for that much anymore, assuming it ever did. Sorry.
“If the show is any good, people will pay to see it just as they do with GoT, Better Call Saul, and any number of prestige cable dramas.”
The issue is that those premium cable contents are nowaydays required watching for teens and young adults alike. Internationally, they are broadcast on standard channels after a short time on Pay-TV channels. TWD or GOT are also streamed and downloaded illegally by millions upon millions. In addition to the already record-breaking legal viewing numbers (up to 17 million in the US alone!), we are talking about hundreds of millions of people on this planet, may of them underage, who watch these contents. Where as the last remaining TV-14 or PG series wither away into oblivion. Older kids don’t really have a choice. Group pressure makes them watch that stuff and parents have to play along because their offsprings have the opportunity to watch it anyway.
The conception of DSC has to be seen against that backdrop. CBS wants DSC to pull TWD and GOT numbers. They feel they have to get through to those “modern day audiences” and they are willing to sacrifice any values, traditions or restrictions in their way to get there.
Movie studios will be doing the same shortly. Deadpool, Logan and IT have paved the way for mainstream going full hard R. No problem in your country, where parents can decide whether to take their kids. But in Germany, the 16+ rating is final and not open for parental guidance. So movie theatres are going to wither away by the hundreds… because Hollywood will be churning out R-Rated blockbusters by the dozen soon… The only remaining PG-13 movies that are still successful are CBMs… But unfortunately, they are not popular at all in Germany. Yeah, off topic…
That’s just too bad, if only we could just get along. If only Star Trek fans could embrace the IDIC that they supposedly believe in.
Star Trek has always focused on one character more than another…usually the captain but not in this case.
This is actually nothing new and nothing “untreklike.”
“That’s just too bad, if only we could just get along. If only Star Trek fans could embrace the IDIC that they supposedly believe in.”
I wish it was that easy. I’ve always tried to give each Star Trek series and movie a chance. I never really hated any incarnation of Trek. I prefered some, but all of it was part of the bigger picture that was Star Trek as a whole.
But this time, I might just not be capable of doing that. If the TV-MA rating indicates the same level of graphic depiction of violence seen on TWD or GOT, there is no way I can relax about it.
Believe me, for months, I’ve tried to justify it, to find a personal solution for this issue but I simply can’t. Yeah, Trek, Wars and other PG-13 stuff had very high body counts, entire planets, billions of fictional people…good point.. but that doesn’t lower the emotional threshold towards TV-MA stuff but rather sullies the PG-13 stuff as well for me!
I know the feeling I have during watching TWD or GOT… I just can’t think of these shows as “normal” television, and there is always that voice deep inside my head telling me that none of this is acceptable… I hate that feeling! I truly do! I don’t want to be that backward prude crying out for censorship. I truly hate that part of me but it’s there and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Expecting to have to go through this same emotionality on DSC is just overwhelming…
Fandom irreparably split?
Respectfully, what a load of crap that statement is.
Star Trek is what the producers, writers, actors, and fans want it to be.
The creators start with a vision and get people on board. They use a collaborative process and make a better product.
A lot of “fans” simply don’t want to like this show because it’s different. Perhaps you’re one of them?
Star Trek was groundbreaking in the 60’s. It needs to be groundbreaking, again. Without attracting new fans, Star Trek will just be watched by us and nitpicked to death. Because it’s show BUSINESS and LOT’S of money is being spent on this show I expect CBS to want lot’s of eyeballs to watch it.
If CBS caters to “fans” who can’t even agree on what Star Trek “is” they’ll throw their hands up in the air and greenlight NCIS:Nashua..
FFS
Pfff. When TNG came along all the TOS fans were shouting out of there asses, so much hate and piss. As if this was a show that was supposed to cater only to ‘them’. As if any series only caters to ‘fans’. What bloody nonsense. Hardcore fans consist of a small portion of viewers of any show. There are circles of viewers from hardcore to casual, that is the reality. And this new show will, just like TNG did, create a new audience, with new viewers that may or may not become ‘fans’. Or simply watch the series, thought it was cool and move on to the next season of Stranger Things.
The original series was certainly NOT an ensemble. It was a show about Enterprise and her captain, with Spock and McCoy supporting him. I mean, you can count on one hand the number of episodes that focused on Uhura, Scotty, and Chekov.
TNG was far more an ensemble, but less so in the early goings.
DS9 was the only TRUE ensemble, and even then there was a large focus on Sisko and his role as emissary.
Exactly. TOS was not an ensemble at all. That’s part of why I think the supporting actors got so pissy. They never accepted that they meant very little overall.
They often weren’t all together. Sometimes, they were even replaced. There was another (female) navigator in That Which Survives, for instance. And another blonde communications officer in a couple of episodes.
What came to be known as The TOS Cast never were on the main credits together until the movies IIRC. In the first episodes, DeForest Kelley isn’t in the main credits, either. It was just Shatner and Nimoy.
Yes it wasn’t until the movies the TOS crew became a lot more integral and even then it was still basically the Kirk, Spock and McCoy show. But we did see them act a lot more cohesive than you ever saw on the show. Its really all the other shows where all the characters were given something to do, full backgrounds, character arcs, etc, and even then some still got a lot more than others.
You’re quite right! TOS was Kirk, Spock, and McCoy; all the other characters were quite minor.
And at first, just Kirk and Spock. McCoy wasn’t in “Where No Man…” and didn’t get opening credits billing until Season 2.
That can be said of any drama currently on television but there are always actors and characters at the forefront of any series and Star Trek is no exception. Discovery follows her character and the fallout from her actions. I’m not sure why this would bother you.
I think you can probably guess why it bothers him….
You mean that pesky gender/ethnicity thingy. Yeah, fanboys, whatever. Hope that’s not where he’s coming from, but in these wretched times you never know.
Have a cry son lol
You’re right Chris. Ensemble is the way to go. The reason why all the TNG movies failed is that they moved from the ensemble cast to focus on (emotional) Data and (action hero) Picard.
So far this Michael Burnham character seems rather dull. If they want to focus on someone make it captain Lorca, he seems much more interesting.
Tell me how he seems more interesting. We’ve seen maybe 4 lines of dialogue, and know almost nothing about him.
@Etymologicool,
Jason Isaacs is a far better actor than Sonequa Martin-Green.
Don’t know if that’s true or not, actually. But Leonard Nimoy was a better actor than Bill Shatner, and Adrianne Palicki is a far, far better actor than Seth MacFarlane. Nevertheless, they are not the stars of their respective shows.
@Michael Hall,
“Don’t know if that’s true or not, actually.”
Simple, go and watch Martin-Green’s episodes on ‘The Walking Dead’, then watch Isaacs in NBC’s ‘Awake’, the BBC miniseries ‘The State Within’ or watch ‘The OA’ on Netflix.
No interest in watching TWD, thanks. As to SMG, well, I assume that there was a reason Bryan Fuller was willing to delay production for months to obtain her services, but have no opinions otherwise. I’ll see for myself soon enough.
Same here… and I know we’ll be dissecting every second of Discovery for the next fifteen years, if not more. People are still writing new reviews of TNG episodes as if they were broadcast yesterday.
Would you know Jeri Ryan was going to knock it out of the park the way she did as 7 of 9 based solely on her work in “Dark Skies?” Maybe not the perfect example because she’s shown herself to be very versatile since, but still, sometimes an actor is only perfectly utilized in a certain role.
By utter happenstance I happened to see an old episode of HART TO HART a few months ago. The guest star was…Jonathan Frakes, probably ten years pre-Riker. And he was *atrocious.* By TNG, he may not have been as capable an actor as Stewart, but he grew into the role of Riker well. You’d never have known that from Hart to Hart.
Nimoy had some good moments in a few projects, but I don’t think he ever did anything as full-blooded great as Shatner’s racist in THE INTRUDER, which really utilized his full toolset without going off into the hamminess that marks his later work. I really love that PBS version of THE ANDERSONVILLE TRIAL, but Shat, despite what Ellison says, is really REALLY broad and I actually flinch at some of his readings in that. I wish I could have seen George C. Scott in the original, because Scott can usually do all the broad things and still have it work, whereas Shatner becomes … Shatman.
Honestly, I think Kelley was the best actor in the cast, and if he’d gotten the right breaks, he’d have been the 2nd coming of Jimmy Stewart in a lot of ways. His monolog near the end of SEARCH FOR SPOCK is practically the only reason I ever put that disc in (well, okay, I like watching the spacedock scenes, even if I HATE the design of that ridiculous mushroom.)
The giant ‘shroom was ridiculous, but spectacular. Was really jazzed to see that, in 1984.
And it was re-used in TNG a couple of times, which I thought was really neat.
It might be because I grew up very close to the old blimp hangar at Moffett Field, but the mushroom has always seemed the most terrestrial-minded of designs, especially compared to the wonderful spaceframes seen in TMP’s drydock and Epsilon 9 station.
Big & Grey is kind of more the STAR WARS thing than the Trek one, and since SFS featured design work from ILM for everything from ship exteriors to tricorders (on TWOK they only were responsible for creative decisions relating to The Genesis Tape and altering – for the worse — Minor’s design for the Genesis Eden Cave within Regulae, with all other design work coming from Minor and Jennings and I guess Lee Cole), it is easy to trace the influences back to the Lucas franchise (the contours of the interior of spacedock actually look like a redress of JEDI’s death star core.) And if you rip the wings off SFS’ BoP, you have something a lot like the ‘hot rod’ stolen by the kid aliens in EXPLORERS a couple years later.
I remember similar views in CFQ’s TSFS coverage (wish I still had those issues, which were beautifully done). ILM has always had very talented people, but reasonable futurological projection just isn’t in their wheelhouse; they just tend to go with what looks good.
Interesting that you call DeForest Trek’s best actor, a position I hadn’t considered but may be very justified. From what I’ve read and heard first-hand, he was certainly the best-liked figure amongst the cast themselves. But I remember reading Orson Scott Card’s (something of a creep with awful politics, but also a gifted and perceptive writer) positive review of Trek 2009 where he singled-out Kelley as the worst. As always, opinions certainly differ.
Kmart, Kelley is good at playing a curmudgeon, but his range is small. In “For the World is Hollow, and I Have Touched the Sky,” he’s supposed to fall madly in love with Natira, and he’s TERRIBLE at it. He acts like he’s never seen a woman before and isn’t quite sure what to do with one, which is weird, since Kelley had been married for years at that point.
Romancing the space babes must be harder than it looks, because Shatner did it very well, and Nimoy did it beautifully on the rare occasions when Spock was given a romantic interlude, but Kelley was incredibly wooden and charmless with Natira.
So I’m afraid I have to agree with Michael Hall that Leonard Nimoy was the best actor in TOS.
Ahmed, that doesn’t answer my question. Even if I concede Isaacs is a better actor (I can’t say, as I’m not really familiar with either of them), how does Lorca look like a better character when we’ve seen almost nothing of him, and know less about him?
Agreed! Watch previuous work from both actors and you’ll see it.
Excactly, those 4 lines are more dramatic than all lines from Burnham combined. She only seems to have one facial and vocal expression, much like the one from TWD.
It’s about quality, not quantity.
Sigh… Bart, that doesn’t address what I’m talking about. Do keep up.
“Lorca seems more interesting” is not “Lorca seems better acted.” Which while I might not entirely agree, I could accept as a subjective assertion.
But we know almost NOTHING about Lorca AS A CHARACTER other than that he’s a captain. Whereas we know a LOT about Burnham, her story, her past, her relationships with other characters, etc.
So when someone says “Lorca seems more interesting” I just laugh because it’s not coming from a genuine place, it’s coming from a place of “I hate this and I want to badmouth it.”
Would have been much easier to simply say “I don’t like this character and her performance leaves a lot to be desired.”
But people are simply so irrationally hating on Discovery they resort to arguments that make no sense, when they could have chosen one that does.
It’s like Orville: I hate it. I think it’s trash– poorly written, poorly acted, awful attempts at humor, and just a stale, forgettable piece of garbage.
But I’m not going to say “Discovery is better” because I haven’t seen Discovery yet.
Have you put in your application with CBS? What were the producers thinking, that they could make anything of value without your input?
“So far this Michael Burnham character seems rather dull. If they want to focus on someone make it captain Lorca, he seems much more interesting.”
It may just end up this way. If Lorca has a few “issues” that he struggles with and fans identify with him? We will see more focus on him.
I remember a certain co-star from a certain 60’s sci-fi show who surprised the series “star.”
Star Trek wasn’t an ensemble series. That’s part of the problem with the new Trek’s, stretching stories too thin to give everyone a piece of the pie…when in reality, the original series was just Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Mostly Kirk. the others were simply supporting cast who were lucky to get their names in the credits at all. It was fandom, novels, and to some degree, the movies, that put them on the same pedestal as the real stars of the show. Having said that the “star” of Discovery appears to be a horrible actress and I’d be more than happy to get around her and deal with the other, more competent actors in the cast.
I’m not familiar with her work, and thus have no clue. But ‘horrible,’ seriously? Just out of curiosity, why do you suppose an experienced producer like Bryan Fuller would be willing to delay the production of this show for months until this horrible actress became available? Why would the network and Les Moonves, who are betting the farm on this project, agree to it?
We’ll see soon enough, I guess. I wouldn’t have considered her a bad choice based on WALKING DEAD, but rather just a curious one (there’s another character on the show, Hispanic or Asian/Hispanic in appearance, who suggests a lot more complexity as well as barely-constrained ferocity to me.) However the DSC clips do seem to show her carrying a lot of awkward lines or delivering conventional ones in an unconvincing way.
And as far as that goes, the lead in AMERICAN GODS is a bit of a ‘miss’ for me too, so Fuller’s not infallible (I think Dancy is one of the reasons I haven’t been able to engage fully with HANNIBAL as well, to cite another case, even though the other Will Grahams in MANHUNTER and RED DRAGON were ‘misses’ for me too.) I have only watched the first four eps of that, but he is probably the reason I haven’t finished watching the rest of it.
Okay, fair enough. Still, you know far better than I that unless you’re Stanley Kubrick studios and networks usually have the final say in matters like this over producers or directors (which is why even Leonard Nimoy had to live with Christopher Lloyd as Kruge rather than his personal choice Edward James Olmos in TSFS). The stakes for DSC and CBS are hugely greater than those for HANNIBAL or AMERICAN GODS, yet the network apparently agreed with Fuller’s decision to cast her even in the face of the production delays it would cause. Someone, somewhere with some real juice likes the cut of her jib, that’s for sure.
That sounds oddly like some racism…
Star Trek has ALWAYS been about a (primary) Captain and supporting characters.
Get your head out of your nickers.
It is amazing how many ignorant, self serving “fans” there are with their own revisionists versions of Star Trek history.
If you don’t like the show, then don’t watch it. Simple. Boom. Problem solved.
If part of the first episode is set on Vulcan, then I hope that T’Pol can get a cameo. It would be nice to keep up the tradition of having a character from the previous Trek show cameo in the premiere of the new Trek show.
Funny, I hadn’t considered that. Maybe she is an old friend of Sarek’s, or his mentor, even.
There has been a rumour floating around of a cameo. But not her. I agree. She’d be great.
I think it would be a lot more appropriate for her rather than Archer.
The reason I could see archer is that he was the captain. We know he lived a very long time. And Bakula would likely love to do it.
I’d love to see Archer have his Admiral McCoy moment in the Pilot, and it’d be one better than Star Trek 2009’s prized beagle poke in Enterprise’s eye. Scotty losing Porthos still feels a bit bad taste really.
LOL I don’t think it was a ‘poke’ and I highly doubt that was Porthos unless they found ways for dogs to live up to 90+ years. In dog years time, thats, well, its a lot lol.
I agree. That joke was silly. For starters it made archer really really really old and still seemingly active. A bit of a stretch. But mostly I don’t think killing a dog is very funny.
To be fair, Scotty never said he killed him, just that he beamed him somewhere but couldn’t retrieve him. The dog could be chilling somewhere on Risa. ;)
2249? A very good year.
I want a bottle to drink during the Discovery primer.
Nitpicking from a native French-speaker ;)
The bottle should say ‘Appellation Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Contrôlée’. ‘Appellation Contrôlée’ is how you know you’re having the real deal. It’s a label of authenticity.
There is also a mistake on the name. It should be ‘Château’ and not ‘Chateâu’. I suspect it’s written ‘Vendangé à la main’, which means the grapes were hand-picked ;)
I once took a wine-tasting course in France, taught by a British woman who had lived there for 15+ years. And yes, the first thing we leaned was “appellation controllee”!
‘The Vulcan Hello’?
Literally the worst Star Trek title ever.
However, this isn’t going to stop me from watching it! :)
Wow. A dozen comments, and this. Guess I get that drink.
‘The Undiscovered Country’ this ain’t.
Won’t stop me from watching either, though.
While it’s not a prize winning title, I think it beats the likes of “What are Little Girls Made Of” and “Looking for Par’Mach In All the Wrong Places”– both of which, by the way, were decent (if filler) episodes whose titles made sense in context.
Then there are terrible episode with nice sounding titles, ala TOS’ “Turnabout Intruder,” TNG’s “Dark Page” or VOY’s “Threshold.”
Criticizing the episode titles is really scraping the barrel to find things to gripe about.
Yeah there has been worse episode titles but I always liked the pilot ones. I can’t think of one I thought was bad. Vulcan Hello is pretty bad IMO but maybe we’ll think differently after the show.
How can you say it’s bad without knowing the context?
@Michael Hall,
No need for context when the title sounds uninspiring & bad.
If it relates to something that happens in the show (and I suspect that it does, but we’ll see), there’s every need for context.
Once again, Ahmed, I’ll repeat: regardless of what the title sounds like, that pretty well defines the phrase “scraping the bottom of the barrel” trying to find things to whine about.
“Criticising the episode titles is really scraping the barrel to find things to gripe about.”
This is literally the only thing I have criticised about the show itself so I don’t get why you feel the need to drag my opinion, but hey- you do you.
Yeah because “Spock’s Brain” was a much better episode title. LOL
Actually, yes, “Spock’s Brain” is a lot better title…
I really hope you’re joking.
Bear in mind, English is his second language. 😊
Nice reply :-) But yeah, I never thought of “Spock’s Brain” as a bad title, although it was a VERY bad episode. The German title was “Spocks Gehirn”, a direct translation of the English title… The “second language” aspect doesn’t play a part here :-)
Hope you took that as the simple joke it was intended as (though the subtleties of language and word choices is an interesting and legitimate topic). I detest chauvinism of all kinds, language and cultural included. Your English, which seems excellent in any event, is certainly far superior to my German, so I’m no position to criticize, only to joke. 😊
Really. How far into sheer pettiness can someone be willing to go, to make an issue of this? Seriously?
I’ve loved this franchise most of my life, and am starting to suspect that its fans are simply the worst.
I completely agree with you on this point Michael.
If you were among the early usenet posters, you’d have learned this decades ago. Trek fans are indeed the worst.
“Really. How far into sheer pettiness can someone be willing to go, to make an issue of this? Seriously?”
The title is an insignificant minor issue, which doesn’t come off as a surprise at all, given the world-shaking implications the TV-MA rating might hold.
I’d be happy with “Stamet’s Mushroom” as a title if this rating didn’t exist.
I’ve heard tell that “Stamet’s Mushroom” is actually the title of Episode 2. Be prepared to defend it.
THE THAW is a pretty awful title, isn’t it? I never got through that one, and I think it marked when I pretty much gave on VOYAGER for good. Somebody at SCIFIUNIVERSE once did up a thing showing what TOS shows would have been called on VOYAGER or TNG, and they had it that THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER would have been titled THE RING.
“The Ring” would actually be a good deal more poetic than the majority of Berman-era Trek titles. Try “The Glowing Lopsided Donut” instead.
After just posting about this, I am again thinking THE VULCAN HELLO might refer to the hand gesture associated with Live Long & Prosper … and that a Klingon misinterpreting this as The Finger — like a gangbanger seeing a civilian wearing the wrong colors in his territory — could be the basis for the whole war. Especially if it interrupts a Klingon death ritual, where it could be taken as insult, like somebody pouring fire retardant on JFK’s ‘eternal flame’ site.
The more I think about it, the split finger greeting could be easily spun by the dirty-minded into a dual-orifice reference that would be much more at home in ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, and isn’t too far away from a line Big Boo had a couple or three seasons back.
I was going to steer clear of here after the premiere, to stay spoiler-free until the rest of the season either gets to ‘free’ status or homevid, but now I may just have to come back just to see if this guess is in the ballpark or not.
I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Vulcans, so I think it’s fun that they’re mentioned in the title of the very first episode.
I was planning to watch Discovery, anyway, but if I’d been wavering, the title would make me even more likely to watch it.
The Vulcan Hello? Sounds like a title from Police Squad.
I would’ve preferred “A Horta Howdy.” ;)
*That* would be pretty neat! I’d love to see a 21st Century interpretation of a Horta.
“The Vulcan Hello.”
This gotta be a joke! No, seriously? Is “The Orwell” the serious scifi drama and this the comedic space opera?
Orwell = Orville (Ouch)
Would “The Vulcan Soul” have been more to your liking?
@Michael Hall,
It’s a stupid title.
“The Vulcan Soul,” stupid? Why?
There’s a “Star Trek” novel called Vulcan Soul.The writer might cry a copyright foul.
I agree, it is a stupid title. That doesn’t make me a hater, doesn’t make me a nitpicker. It’s just dumb and I don’t like it, and that’s my right.
Has nobody ever heard the axiom, “A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet”?
If “The Vulcan Hello” is incredible, does it matter? If it’s awful, but were titled something that met your subjective “cool” standards, would it help?
One would think the USS Discovery will show up after the Shenzhou/Klingon fiasco but Burnham looking up at Discovery the glass on her space suit is intact as we clearly see her helmet cracked after her fight with the Klingon.
First, this shot may have been created specifically for promo purposes. It may not actually be in the show. Second, they may use the EV suit more than once.
I’m guessing this EVA takes place long after the first one, perhaps when they return to (salvage? Investigate?) the wreck of the Shenzhou
Star Wars Rules Star Trek fails.
“The Vulcan Hello”? Sounds like a guidebook title!
I really hope they’re not going to start bringing American politics into the show. I’ve actually had enough of everyone making fun of that.
Okay, well I certainly don’t believe in judging something by its title. But I hate that title.
“The Vulcan Hello,” directed by David Semel and written by Bryan Fuller, Alex Kurtzman, and Akiva Goldsman.
At least one third of the episode will be good!
That’ll be one-third better than what I saw last weekend on Fox, then. In other words, quite the disappointment.
@Michael Hall,
#Whataboutism
Or #Cheapshotaboutism. Not my finest moment, I’d agree. Shouldn’t let myself be trolled so easily.
I think this new series from CBS is bogus
On how they make us sign up and pay money to steam it to see it.
It’s all about money
Of course it’s about money, which CBS needs to be making to exist. Above all else, this is a business. They’re trying a new model because more and more people are watching shows online. If CBS doesn’t change its business model, it may go out of existence.
To paraphrase Kirk in TSFS: ‘My friends… The Great Experiment: CBS All Access!’
“The Vulcan Hello”??? That’s gotta be a joke, right? Why not call it “Live Long and Prosper” then?
Why call anything anything? You are impossible.
“Why call anything anything? You are impossible.”
Because “The Vulcan Hello” is “Live Long and Prosper”… But you’re right… I am impossible.
I’m impossible because I do not subscribe to the majority’s notion that graphic violence is now a required feature of every successful movie and TV show.
I’m impossible because I believe that stuff that’s not good for (older) kids cannot be good for adults either.
I’m impossible because I’m opposed to adult enterainment becoming more and more mainstream these days, legally watched by kids and their parents alike in your country (and illegally in every place on this planet).
I’m impossible because I believe Trek shouldn’t blindly follow current trends but stand on its own, even if that means being niche counterprogramming for a limited audience.
I’m impossible because I believe that once such gross material is depicted on Trek, it never goes away because it is part of the Trek legacy for good, making it IMPOSSIBLE to ever get rid of it, even if tastes should revert back to more decency and dignity in the media in 20 years from now…
Yeah, I’m impossible!
Oh gosh… I really hate that “impossible” post on my part. It was written by the part of my I’m trying to get under control because after all, if I’m not able to solve these issues ASAP, I don’t know where to go from here…
Cinematic mainstream will be CBMs and hard-R contents only in a year from now and the only successful TV shows are either hard TV-14 or TV-MA. So if I want to remain the geek I am, I have to find a way to come to terms with all of my tribulations. Otherwise I’ll be dead on the inside shortly… This mental war between my Freudian Superego and my ID concerning TV ratings has gone on for far too long… I need a mental cease fire…
I respect your internal struggle and your honesty in writing about it, sincerely. But instead of getting so bent out of shape over a rating, why not wait to see the show and judge the actual content instead? You may well discover that your fears about graphic sex and violence were overblown.
“You may well discover that your fears about graphic sex and violence were overblown.”
Maybe. I hope you are right. Not all TV-MA shows are as gross as TWD or GOT… There are also shows like Defiance, Killjoys or The Expanse (given as TV-14 on IMDB but there was a TV-MA sticker on the US Blu-Ray I ordered). Maybe it’s closer to those shows end of day. In the end, it’ll end up 16+ in Germany these days, no matter whether it’s hard TV-14, soft TV-MA or hard TV-MA. Only TWD being the grossest of them all gets an 18+ rating. The 18+ rating would hurt though…
BTW, thanks for your understanding concerning my overblown tribulations. I really appreciate that!
To be honest I’ve seen very little on GoT that haunted me more than the fate of the refugees from Ganymede in THE EXPANSE, which was entirely bloodless. Gore isn’t everything. The violence on GoT hasn’t generally offended me or struck me as over-the-top because the series never (or almost never) underplays the costs of such violence. But I have to admit that what I’ve read of the violence on THE WALKING DEAD so sickened and disturbed me that I’ve never been tempted to sample that show. Just as well; zombies mostly bore me anyhow.
Will Hulu or Netflex eventually carry “Discovery” in the USA? Or will I have to wait for the DVD’s to come out? I can’t get CBS ALL Access.
Nope. You can watch CBS All Access in your web browser if you want. Maybe mirror it to your TV?
Thanks.But would there be a charge? My family didn’t want to pay for another pkg. for my Roku, just Hulu and Netflex. I do have a tablet.
CBS All Access costs $5.99/month for the basic version (with commercials). There’s a commercial-free option for $9.99/month. You can get discounts on both if you pay for a whole year in advance. So yes, there is a charge for watching CBS All Access. You could wait till the season is finished, sign up for a free trial month, binge watch Discovery and cancel before the month is up.
Best if on free TV with replays on Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix. I will not subscribe to CBS ever. I cut the cable.
You’ve had two years to whine about this. Pick another tune.
Produit de France, SOL III
Want to hear a really inane, juvenile excuse for a Star Trek title? Try THE WRATH OF KHAN. Disagree? Take it up with Nick Meyer, who thought it was trite and stupid, but didn’t get to use his own preferred title, THE UNDISCOVED COUNTRY, for another four films. Did that mean KHAN was a bad film, because it had a silly title? I honestly don’t recall a single critic even bothering to mention it.
TOS titles were often poetic, derived from quotes from Shakespeare or classic literature. Titles in the Berman spinoffs tended to be mostly prosaic and descriptive, even for the best episodes. None of it mattered, because we tended to focus on the quality of the shows themselves back then, rather than look for any flimsy excuse to rip them apart. “The Vulcan Hello” is no better or worse than the vast majority of them, and may even be meaningful in the context of the lead character’s background. It’s pretty thin gruel indeed to base any judgements on.
While this title truly is a minor issue, I completely disagree on THE WRATH OF KHAN. Nothing about this title is silly or stupid. It is plain perfect!
While I agree there are numerous silly titles for individual episodes on every Star Trek show, none of the pilot episodes ever had a meh title…
“The Cage” may be rather prosaic and descriptive but there is a depth to it when you think about the episode. “The Cage” may refer to Pike being Caged by the Talosians, but it is also about the ability of leaving once bodily, mutilated cage via the powers of the mind.
“Encounter at Farpoint” is simply wonderful, an epic, poetic launch for this generation’s journey of exploration and wonders.
“The Emissary” and “The Caretaker” are both rather descriptive but they sound imaginative enough to cover the essence of both pilots.
“Broken Bow” is utterly brilliant… It’s both a fictional place name and a symbol for the crashed Klingons and the dangers of space exploration as a whole at the beginning of a new era of deep space missions…
But “The Vulcan Hello”? Maybe we have to see the episode but this sounds like nothing at all… Is it Burnham starting a war by saying “Hello” to the Klingons the Vulcan way (for logical reasons)??? Then, I would have called it “Burnham All”…
Maybe the Vulcan hand sign is the equivalent of The Finger to Klingons. That would show how one man’s hello is another’s call to arms, and explain how the war arose out of a misunderstanding that linguacode (if I understand that correctly) would have avoided.
That would be pretty interesting, not to mention funny.
@kmart,
But the Klingons are familiar with the Vulcans & their hand sign since they were in contact with them before even meeting humans.
but do these ancient klingons know from any of these current folks?
@kmart,
The ship is 200 years old, does that means the crew was cut off from the Klingon Empire during that period or that they were merely using a very old ship.
The 200 years put the launch date of the ship around 2056. We know that the Vulcans made first contact with humans in 2063, but we don’t know when the Vulcans made contact with the Klingons. The only reference that I’ve found on Memory Alpha didn’t give a specific date:
“By the 21st and 22nd centuries, the Vulcans had also made contact with the Cardassians, Trill, Tholians, Klingons, and scores of other races.”
By the way your comment reminds me of Earth-Minbari War on Babylon 5. During first contact between an Earth ship and a Minbari ship, the human commander misunderstood Minbari custom of approaching ships with gun ports open as hostile and opened fire on them, killing their leader and trigging a war between Earth and Minbari.
That’s actually part of what fueled my train of thought. (I’m a big Sinclair fan, another minority viewpoint — I’ve seen the arc stories from B5s1 about 20 times by now.)
I got to see JMS speak at a panel at Loscon a couple of years back about what happened with Michael O’Hare on the show, and it was one of the saddest things I ever heard.
Well, Wrath of Khan was better than what the studio originally wanted (Vengeance of Khan). Wrath has a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that’s almost biblical or that references the Grapes of Wrath
Titles mean more in film. In TV they are irrelevant and are needed simply for cataloging purposes, if Im not mistaken.
I remember being surprised to learn even episodes of Monday Night RAW had titles because they “had” to have titles.
Sometimes, TV uses a gag or in joke. Friends always used “The One with…”.
So the titles dont mean anything. Its kind of cute actually.
If the Vulcan hello is anything like the Trump hello, they’ll be grabbing involved…
Any Vulcan woman would make short work of him in about 2.835 seconds.
Let’s hope it would be something a little more sensitive than his neck that would get the Vulcan Death Grip …
I think this just proves they are going to have a necessary sense of humor that everyone wants. That title feels contemporary to me, almost like an episode of “the office.” I do not think that’s bad.
The title feels like a track on one of Giacchino’s Star Trek soundtracks!