REVIEW: “Vulcan Hello” and “Battle at the Binary Stars”
Star Trek: Discovery Season 1, Episodes 1&2 – Debuted Sunday Sept. 24
Pt 1 written by Bryan Fuller and Akiva Goldsman, story by Bryan Fuller & Alex Kurtzman
Pt 1 directed by David Semel
Pt 2 written by Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg, with story by Bryan Fuller
Pt 2 directed by Adam Kane
After a long, twelve-year absence, Star Trek has finally returned to its natural home on television. And true to its nature, the return is spearheading new technology by anchoring the CBS All Access streaming service. The two-part premiere of Star Trek: Discovery delivered on its promise to bring the franchise up to date with a cinematic look while still (for the most part) fitting into the known (Prime) Star Trek universe. Though not without some missteps and a few debatable canon conflicts, the premiere provided enough action, drama and fun to pique fans interest for more.
[SPOILERS BELOW]
Captain Philippa Georgiou and First Officer Michael Burnham visit an alien planet
USS Exposition
The opening teaser and first acts of the “Vulcan Hello” packs a lot in in rapid fire, sometimes resulting in some stilted dialog. We learn there are some Klingons being whipped into a frenzy by a charismatic, and certainly anti-Federation leader, T’Kuvma (Chris Obi). Then there is the Federation starship USS Shenzhou lead by a surprisingly sarcastic, yet clearly commanding Capt. Phillipa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) out to help some strange new aliens, with just a little light Prime Directive violating. Georgiou is ably assisted by her compassionate first officer Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) who spouts off statistics and estimations like a Vulcan, which we learn later is for good reason.
This opening sequence on location in Jordan was gorgeous and not the kind of thing you are used to for television shows not called Game of Thrones. Combined with the visual and creature effects, you truly bought into the alien, drought-stricken world. The reveal of the USS Shenzhou with the sting of classic Trek music was surely exhilarating for even the most jaded fan. Which is why the gag with Georgiou creating a Starfleet delta in the sand seemed gratuitous, and really didn’t make any sense once you think about it. You had us with the ship coming through the clouds, the delta was one bit of fan service too much.
Once on board we meet science officer Saru (Doug Jones) who is clearly not shy of both openly competing with Burnham for his captain’s attention and advocating for the safest course possible at all times. Jones’ performance was a standout with the bridge banter surprisingly fun for a show presented as something dark and serious. As we move the action to the edge of Federation space to inspect a damaged subspace relay only to find it may have been the victim of foul play, we learn Saru’s flight instinct is inherent to his race of Kelpians, a prey species that apparently live life as if they may end up on the menu at any moment.
This bridge crew has a lot more fun than this publicity image lead us to believe
Say hello to the Klingons (if you can speak Klingon)
Things get more serious when Burnham heads out to inspect an unknown object only to find what we learn is the Klingon Torchbearer. Here again we are presented with visual effects more akin to what we are used to with feature films and you have to agree with Burnham as she exclaims “cool” while on her recon mission. Unfortunately it ends badly, beginning a series of events leading to inevitable war that will apparently last another 13 episodes.
And we learn that the Klingon ship is literally covered in coffins, which is seriously creepy and a nice new element to add to Klingon lore. It is also revealed that Klingon sightings are extremely rare with almost no contact in the previous century, which is probably one of those areas where they are pushing on the edges of canon. However, much about the encounter with the Klingons echoed nicely with the classic episode “Balance of Terror,” which sets up these Klingons to be more mysterious and alien, like that episode’s Romulans. They even borrowed the element of submarine style-battles with cloaking devices from that episode, giving them to T’Kuvma who uses them to great effect against the Federation and to gain power among the Klingon houses. This too will certainly spark a debate over whether any Klingons should have cloaking technology 10 years before the original Star Trek, but we saw cloaking technology on Enterprise which was set a century before Discovery so there is probably wiggle room.
T’Kuvma has got a plan, and a cloaking device
We also again return to the action on the Klingon sarcophagus ship. Actually action isn’t the right word because there seems to be a lot of talking and speechifying with these Klingons. While much has been noted about the new look, the biggest change with the Discovery Klingons seems to be the tedium. Restaging political rallies on a Klingon warship was about as exciting as watching the Galactic Senate debate trade policy in the Star Wars prequels.
The concept of having the Klingons speak in Klingon sounds good on paper, but it doesn’t seem to work, at least for now. Using a foreign language can be an effective way to add authenticity, like it does for the Netflix series Narcos. However, these actors are working though heavy prosthetics and false teeth speaking at length phonetically in a language they mostly don’t understand, and it shows. The design of the Klingons is alien enough to evoke without the added subtitles.
But long story short, T’Kuvma picks the outcast albino Voq to be a new Torchbearer, he lights the beacon, and the road towards war continues.
These are not the Klingons we are used to
That escalated quickly
Well it’s all fun and games until Michael Burnham gives her adoptive Vulcan father Sarek (James Frain) a call on the holophone. After informing her that the way to deal with Klingons is to shoot first (the eponymous “Vulcan Hello”), Burnham gives her captain a Vulcan nerve pinch after failing to convince her to use Sarek’s ‘first day in prison’ tactic.
It is not entirely clear that this act of mutiny was really worth the attempt as this is not a random encounter with the Klingons. T’Kuvma seems set to unite the battling Klingon houses together through war with the Federation, so taking a potshot at him probably wouldn’t make a difference. But it does supply us with the important “fall from grace” for Burnham and these scenes are played effectively by Yeoh and especially Martin-Green, who shows the kind of range seen in her impressive performances on The Walking Dead.
Georgiou and Burnham don’t agree on how to deal with the Klingons
Flashdance
Once things get exciting with a fleet of Klingon ships showing up we break to the next episode and flash back to seven years before. While it is interesting to learn about the relationship between Burnham, Georgoiou and Sarek, at least when watching the two-part premiere as a single event, this and other flashbacks, can feel a bit jarring.
Both T’Kuvma and Burnham get the full flashback treatment to flesh out their characters. The attempt to create sympathy and understanding for the Klingon leader mostly falls flat. And in the case of Burnham, the problems are more related to trying to cram too much backstory in too soon. Some of it may not be necessary and some could possibly wait for later in the season. These flashbacks along with other questionable editing choices throughout often result in a pacing problem in both parts of the pilot.
Sarek pops in to just drop off his ward
War, what is it good for?
As the fighting starts in “Battle at the Binary Stars” we see the Federation’s philosophy of peaceful coexistence – exemplified by Captain Georgiou – get shattered by the Klingon thirst for battle. Anyone watching this Star Trek premiere who was growing attached to the USS Shenzhou or some of its crew like Ensign Connor was soon hit with how this show wants you to know actions have consequences and the stakes of jeopardy are real. Just ask Admiral Anderson (Terry Serpico) and his USS Europa who came in for the rescue only to have their overtures of peace literally crushed by a huge Klingon ship in a tense and effective battle scene.
We find Michael Burnham in the brig surrounded by force fields with most of that section of the ship torn away and with life support failing, her despair reaches out across the light years to Sarek who pulls off an extreme long-range mind meld to give her a pep talk. Some fans may balk at this new ability given to Vulcans, but the creative team on this show must be allowed to expand the Star Trek canon and not just be relegated to painting by numbers and within the lines entirely.
And the follow-up scene where Burnham has to convince the computer to let her out of the brig was classic Trek at its best. The same was true of Saru’s cunning plan, doing a bit of his own surgery on a photon torpedo leading to the the crippling of T’Kuvma’s ship. This opened the door to to the newly freed Burnham to show her smarts with a plan to end the conflict by capturing T’Kuvma and turning him into a hostage. The resulting boarding action gives both Yoeh and Martin-Green a chance to show their action capabilities with a well choreographed firefight and hand-to-hand combat sequence where we get to see some Klingons be Klingon.
All of this leads to saying goodbye to two more characters: Georgiou and T’Kuvma. After the Shenzhou is abandoned we end with an ominous court martial scene for Michael Burnham, where she sits facing judges who are oddly shrouded in the shadows. Burnham is stripped of rank and sentenced to a life of imprisonment. This is not exactly the uplifting ending one might expect for a Star Trek show, but it is effective in developing the arc of what is certainly a fascinating and nuanced character.
Georgiou and Burnham visit the Klingons
A prequel not a pilot
That ending alone lets you know this is no ordinary pilot. In fact, it can be argued this is not a pilot at all. For many fans who have been keeping up on the news, they were probably prepared to see the destruction of the USS Shenzhou and the loss of many in the crew, most notably of Captain Georgiou. But, this may have come as a bit of a shock to more casual viewers who thought this was like another Star Trek pilot like “Encounter at Farpoint” or “Broken Bow.” The darker and less traditional approach is certainly by design, as the creative team want it clear, this is a new kind of Star Trek.
Your traditional pilot (for Star Trek or any show) introduces you to the main characters, setting, tone and premise of a series. While some of that is present, that isn’t really the point of this two-part premiere. The premiere of Discovery really is a sort of prequel movie to the actual series which will start next week. It is impossible to pass judgement on Star Trek: Discovery from the two-part premiere because what was shown tonight was essentially Michael Burnham’s origin story. And for that, it was very effective.
And while this may not be a traditional Star Trek pilot, it was very much a Star Trek experience, and one leading me to want to see more.
This premiere was Michael Burnham’s origin story
Random thoughts
- After spending all that time and money on the Klingon Torchbearer, is that all we will see?
- Production design is top-notch and in the zone of Star Trek aesthetic, but to enjoy the show you just have to accept that it doesn’t perfectly fit and is too advanced to be 10 years before the The Original Series look.
- The visual effects, music and sound design seem to borrow more from the J.J. Abrams films than they do from classic Star Trek
- Doug Jones’ Saru may be a breakout character and seems destined to fit in well with ‘outsider’ characters like Spock, Data and Odo
- How many executive producers can one show have?
More to come
All week long TrekMovie will be taking a closer look at the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery. So stay tuned.
Did not care for it.
Others may enjoy it, I simple did not.
That is all folks…for me any way.
I liked it a lot. Was it perfect? No, of course not. Probably best to wait until the next episode to pass final judgment.
If people passed final judgment of TNG after 3 episodes it never would have made it past season 1.
Great point Eddie. Which is exactly why I am still considering watching episode 2. Episode 1 needed to be compelling enough for people to want to subscribe. Did it accomplish that? Even some hard-core fans don’t think so and “casual” viewers I’ve spoken to almost universally agree that it was at times boring.
Sad to hear they thought is was boring. This isn’t Star Wars. Watch Encounter At Far Point. THAT was boring & I love TNG.
I loved 90% of ep 1 & 100% of ep 2. I truly believe most fans’ biggest problem is canon. I don’t care as much after watching it. I cared about Saru & Burnham by the first commercial break. It took TNG nearly 3 seasons to get there. Characters matter & these characters are compelling.
Well put. I dig Saru and Burnham a lot too.
Lol, “Emissary” wasn’t all that fantastic either if I remember right..
@ captmatt. .. we’ll the numbers came out on new subscribers to CBSAA and they broke a record for new subscribers on Sunday night.
@Trek fan 67 — imagine that!? Who would have ever guessed!? /s
;-)
This was well written but it had its flaws. What happened to a probe? The script was written for women. And there were no real men. Just castrated ones.
The Klingon script got old. And the mutiny is unforgivable.
It does have some Star Trek. I like the idea of using new tech while keeping the command structure.
Time will tell. But I will not get CBS Access to fing out.
No real men, huh? Wow. Alrighty then.
What the hell is a “real man”? FFS…..
Apparently we have no idea.
A real man is, for example, American tough guy Sylvester Stallone, or Arnold Schwarzenegger…
That would Capt Kirk or Capt April or any command of the TOS series.
James T. Kirk, presently serving as a lieutenant on the Republic, if memory serves.
They’ve completely trashed canon: no Four Year War, no Garth of Izar. Unless they are moving that war from the Forties to the Fifties. Then we see Axanar.
Would be interesting to note if we see any sign of the Talos IV gang.
Re: the real man comment from Ralpha, 😩. That’s incredibly sexist bullshit that doesn’t have any place in the world–let alone Star Trek. (Also anyone who has problem with a mutiny storyline in Trek has never watched any Trek.)
On a different note, to the other poster re: canon. The Four Year War and Axanar were never given a particular time in the TV/Film canon. Just in various non-canon source material so they haven’t trashed anything. There will be canon problems, I’m sure, but there have been canon issues since TOS and always will be. I’m okay with giving up some sacred things if it means a solid, entertaining show firmly rooted in Star Trek principles (and yes, Ralpha, including powerful women characters).
Well said.
my well said was for partialbigots…wish I could edit posts…
Now, now. You don’t get to decide what does or doesn’t have any place in the world. He’s just as entitled to want real men as you are entitled to want strong women or emancipated black people. Neither of which is mutually exclusive, by the way.
You New Left folks need to grow up some skin. When you go whining every time someone says something to disagree with, it seriously hurts your credibility as a relevant political force – which in turn hurts your cause, including those rare-and-far-between topics that are actually noble and worthy. In fact, whenever I see one of you whine like this, I almost wish I was a proper misogynist racist bigot myself, just so I could make you whine some more and feast on your hurt feelings. :-P
But go on, don’t let me dissuade you. The more you annoy the general populace, the sooner you become history. Case in point: Trump election. Do you realize how many people voted for him simply because they were tired of the New Left whining and their invented non-words like “sexism” and “heteronormativity”?
@Paul — as opposed to the new right whining? I’ve never heard a bigger snowflake than Trump. Poor baby nobody respects, whaaaaaa!!
You sound ridiculous Paul. And don’t worry, you ARE a proper misogynist racist bigot.
And yes 62 million low IQ Americans voted for Trump. Thats a lot and way too many but it still wasn’t the majority of people and looking at HIS whining and ridiculous scandals, under a special counsel investigation who can’t pass any major legislature even with both a Republican House and Senate he’s become a complete joke of a President with an under 40% approval rating.
No mate, you’re the only one who sounds ridiculous, mentally unhinged even. You and your ilk are so intolerant and nasty throwing around those terms like confetti so as to make them lose all meaning.
It’s a Reboot- the Prime History is irrelivant.
So… you can’t identify with another human being if that human being is a different gender?
Yikes.
You watch shows to identify with someone? I watch shows to have fun.
I did have fun. *shrug*
Thought the admiral portraied “the real man”. Get what your saying but…
Way to torpedo your own credibility.
“Real Men”. lol. What is this, 1951?
This is the biggest load of sexist crap I’ve ever read.
In other words, Relpha has issues.
Sexist moron. The future of equality that Trek presents is not for relics of the past with their outdated sexist viewpoints. The future is going to be a sad place for guys like you that are used to having privilege based not your character as a person but on your genitals. Glad you hate the the show and stop watching as you will have no basis to soundoff here and show your dumb sexism.
Don’t count on future that hasn’t happened yet. For all we know, your idea of “outdated” may be nothing but a temporary fad. Just saying.
The fact that no less than ten people came here to fire their butthurt remarks at Ralpha1961 shows how unsure and afraid you folks are about the sustainability of your “progress”.
True Paul. They jump to conclusions and make up their own reality. They do not know how to read or understand to ask questions. They just interject their thoughts.
Now if they had continued with Capt. Georgiou Of USS Shenzhou, I would be happy. That was the closets thing to the Star Trek universe. I believe it was a way to kill off and flip off the Star Trek Fans. And bring in a dark rebellious, anti establishment environment.
I believe the “real man” shows up in the third episode, so maybe you’ll have some relief from all those strong, scary women.
Real men, real women. Who cares? Strong characters either way!
strong character are okay, mary sues are not
i like that star trek is back on tv, but so many over dramatic cringe worthy moments.
Agreed not to mention despite being a prequel to TOS (the original StarTrek) they were using technology that didn’t exist on TNG (The next generation show)
an hour ago
What did you not like about the shows? What constructive criticism do you have? Not asking you to bash the show, but looking for a review that doesnt treat it as perfect either 👍
JaxParroh
*It is supposed to be a prequel to the original show but uses technology far beyond even the next generation show.
*The Klingons look nothing like they will just 10 years from now in the original show.
*The Federation is supposed to be a goal that we reach for in real life. Where we all put our petty differences aside and work toward the common good. So the second and third in command constant petty fights spits in that concept.
*though visual beautiful it was also disorientating weird angles, lighting and camera flares kept me from getting a grasp of the layout of the bridge.
*Let’s talk about the third in command how and why would such a cowardly person be made or want to be made third in command.
Should I go one?
LENS FLARES! Oy.
It all felt a bit confined, too.
No. You weren’t listening. They said phase cannons, so obviously less advanced than phasers.
>;>}
What technology? Have you never seen McCoy and Stick trade barbs in the original series? And you don’t think a Starfleet officer would value an intelligent vivid of caution among their senior officers? I know Trek is different things to different people, but…
“*The Federation is supposed to be a goal that we reach for in real life. Where we all put our petty differences aside and work toward the common good. So the second and third in command constant petty fights spits in that concept.”
In my opinion, Thats not a concept that really applied to the TOS era. One of the crewman in balance of terror insubordinate to Spock. In fact several characters, McCoy and Uhura for example, often made fun of Spock differences. The “starfleet captain gone bad” was a common enemy of the week. In fact that one applies to all the series with the exception of Enterprise.
Even in TNG era shows you had character conflict. Sisko and Kira in DS9s first season often butted heads. Paris and Chakotay in Voy. I think the main difference here is that inter main character conflict never really worked well in a show that wrapped thing up in 60 minutes.
Every Star Trek show starfleet personnel butted heads, yes including TNG. I have NO idea what people were watching but there was conflict on every show between Starfleet characters. Yes Roddenberry wanted none of that when he made TNG but that concept basically died by the third season when he got the boot. Even in the first two seasons there was SOME conflict just not as much. But Picard standing up to Starfleet in Measure of a Man, one of the most critical TNG episodes happened in second season. But certainly more so in later seasons.
And DS9, Voyager and Enterprise never had that rule. They all acknowledged it whats Roddenberry wanted but found ways around it or simply ignored it when they had to. DS9 has the most character conflicts than any Trek series, including TOS. As you said Sisko and Kira butted heads all the time. Ironically they both became good friends and respected each other later on so there was a lot less of that between them after third season.
This idea that Star Trek is some cumbaya show where everyone gets along are said by people who don’t watch the show. The later shows became almost infamous of Starfleet personnel butting heads with the Admirals on those shows disagreeing with their policies. You had people on Voyager where there were literally Starfleet traitors on the ship and hated Stafleet way of doing things. DS9 had everything from war criminals to thugs running around that station. Enterprise actually didn’t have a lot of conflict between the crew until the MACOs showed up in third season and it was a lot of headbutting between the explorers way of thinking vs the military’s way.
Discovery looks like it will have about the same amount of conflict judging by the first two episodes.
Just technicalities.
– How does “steering clear of General Order 1” and taking a stroll directly through alien nesting ground go together?
– Holograms casually interacting with the environment.
– “The quadrant reports a new stars” several light years away, even though it lit up mere minutes ago.
– The whole contrived reason why Burnham had to fly entire two thousand kilometers in EVA, thus wasting her limited time, when she could have used a shuttle for at least a part of the way.
– The ships. Too much Eaves, not enough Probert – if you know what I mean. ;)
The rest was alright.
It definitely had issues, but I still see a lot of potential. We just have to give it time to develop and evolve. I’m excited for the rest of the season!
Really, how many executive prodicers?
Yea. I’ve noticed that about TV shows these days. I count then out now. Westworld has over 25 frickin’ ‘producers’. Corporate culture demands it, I reckon.
CBS definitely didn’t skimp on budget. I liked the sets and how the ships appeared, but I’m interested to see how the series keeps going. Burnham seems like a complex character, but I hope they don’t try and make her bend in a million different directions.
To nitpick, I wish the pips were more prominent.
This is not my Star Trek. It would make great sci-fi but it’s not Star Trek and definitely not Prime Universe. Sorry…and disappointed
It Felt Fresh but firmly rooted to Trek to me. I will be sticking with it.
I’m still digesting. I didn’t like that they killed off the captain already. She was a likable character. A number one that mutinied, that is a very flawed character that is going to be hard to like. I don’t mind the updated look of the series, however I wish it fit a little better into pre-TOS cannon. Maybe we’ll see that going forward. I will still be watching to see where this goes, it is entertaining so far. Hope it builds…
It’s hard to get a show to look like the 60s when we are in the 2017s and the audience is expecting things to look newer. They are attempting a tricky balancing act. I like the look of it so far. I wonder if we do see a constitution class in the future how they will update it. I’ve also heard that the Discovery’s look will change over time to reflect more of the TOS feel. Color pallets and likely the design of the bridge will evolve.
As for a #1 that Mutinied, she was a flawed character to begin with stuck between Human and Vulcan, her emotions in this time of stress won out and it cost her.
As for the captain? We will most likely see her again in flashbacks.
Agreed, I am looking forward to seeing how this progresses toward TOS. I’d rather see an updated ship and bridge vs. an HD TOS bridge. Seeing an updated Constitution class would be awesome! I think of Lt Paris in Voyager and how he became a redeeming character. One thing I can say is that this is more cinematic like in look and backstory.
I really hope it doesn’t sink to fanservice-y “this is how they got miniskirts and clicking computers.” It doesn’t matter.
Fans are usually wrong.
Agreed Jack I don’t want it to morph into TOS. It would look silly and campy at this point. People just have to acknowledge its basically a visual reboot and either accept it or don’t. I have no idea how you go from the very sleek looking Shenzhou and Discovery where everything look super advanced to somehow ending up with a ship with bare walls, big buttons everywhere and boxy computers like TOS had.
@Nebula1701 — that’s a tall order. The Enterprise is already out there, “The Cage” has already happened. And the ship already looks the way we know it to look. Yeoh says the Shinzhou is an old ship. Which means it probably predates the Enterprise. Discovery is presumably even newer than the Enterprise, yet looks like an evolution from the Shinzhou, and not Enterprise. That said, keep in mind The Cage Enterprise was fairly monochromatic, black and gray, and the bridge dimly lit. Only the uniforms offered a lighter palette of colors. So while there’s room for the uniforms to brighten up, there’s not a lot of room for the set to. Maybe add some red accents since we don’t know when that first appeared on the Enterprise, but we didn’t see red added to the uniform palette until 10 years after Discovery, and we’re a long way from that. Likewise for the mini-skirt. Considering the wholesale changes to the look of this series, I’m guessing trying to fit the look of the ship and uniforms into visual canon is pointless. We’ll likely see the uniforms become lighter and more casual, and maybe the bridge will get a little brighter — out of the darkness of war, and into the light of peace. But I wouldn’t expect it to morph into TOS in any really appreciable way …
Well as close as they can get. They can move the consoles around, change the color pallet. They can even introduce a Constitution into the show with an update look to set it more into stone.
Ok but were you really surprised? It was pretty obvious no matter how much the PR focused on Yeoh’s role we haven’t heard anything about her filming past the pilot. It was pretty clear she was dying off, mostly because Burnham would be under a new Captain and ship in the show. So yes I was disappointed too but not surprised. But she turned out to be a great character. I really hope we get her in some form like flashbacks but my guess those will be minor if we get them at all.
As far as the TOS-canon, I agree to an extent. I don’t care that much its connected to TOS but if you say it is, it should feel SOMEWHAT like that show and honestly if they didn’t tell us this show took place 10 years before you would never guess other wise.
Yeah, gonna miss Michelle Yeoh. Didn’t expect her to stick around but, still, a shame.
No wait, I didn’t see that part yet.
Never mind that her death was telegraphed months ago. ‘Starfleet does not fire first.’
Me, too!
If they had just said it was based in the KU, I would be fine it. Would I pay extra for it? No way. Still won’t.
But it wouldn’t feel right in the KT either. It just feels like a very different entity other than it looking expensive and lens flares lol. But tone wise the two feel completely different.
Wrong and wrong. It’s IS Star Trek and it IS prime
Sorry you didn’t like it but don’t confuse your opinion with facts.
hahahaha
That’s like believing there are five lights. They should just call it a reboot and I’d be fine with it. It might not be Kelvin Universe, but it’s not entirely Prime either. It’s hard to make it fit with ’60’s TOS which I totally understand. I’m curious about Klingons not having been heard from in a century. Didn’t they say the same of Romulans in TOS? Was Star Fleet less military more exploratory for that century?
I will say the Klingons were more interesting to me than the Federation folk.
I wonder if that 100 year mark has something to do with Enterprise and Soong’s tampering with their DNA. Perhaps they were licking their wounds and focusing on each houses own issues.
That could very well be. Maybe the STTNG Klingon race was dominant / ruling until that time, we’ll see them come out later and struggle to regain power within the empire. I am curious to see how this plays out as well as how they reflect on current politics and events.
I’m hoping they abandon that DNA bit – it was dumb and unnecessary.
This show is, so far, telling interesting stories we havn’t seen before — not simplistic Enterprise-style “and this is how (phasers, the prime directive, whatever) came to be.
Has to be for the main stream or it’s impossible. Hince the Kelvin universe. Come-on get real
I’m fairly certain everyone saying STD is good is too unfamiliar with canon to be able to grasp the Five Lights reference.
(and those reading that do think STD is good are going to google it in order to falsely represent prior knowledge)
Because everyone who does not share your opinion just can not know what s/he is talking about?
Canon, yes.
Prime, no.
Ummm nope, it’s Prime. There isnt an opinion. And it isnt an argument. Its Prime.
TUP, “there are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders” when it comes to accepting what you’re told. That point comes when you simply cannot maintain any concept of continuity with what you’re given, which nullifies the whole canon enterprise. If they showed a female alien James Kirk in the next episode and demanded we accept it as Prime, I get that you’d try to roll with it via whatever hoop-jumpings are needed, but out in the real world such a demand is just marketing nonsense and should be treated as such. I view the vastly different re-skulled quadri-nostrilled be-clawed hairless “Klingons”, with their century-long disappearing act coinciding with “seventy years of unremitting hostility”, the Battle of Donatu V, et cetera, as being on par with that, as well as the obvious differences versus Pike’s Enterprise. They could’ve updated without discarding, but they chose the latter yet still wanted to claim Prime status for marketing. It obviously doesn’t work, and I, for one, am not going to spend mental resources fixing it for them in my headcanon if they’re too lazy or too dishonest to make something that can *reasonably* be called Prime.
From the look of things, I am not alone.
I like the show thus far but yeah this probably would be better if they just set it in another universe like the Kelvin films. It would explain everything.
@ Robert of ST-vSW – totally agree.
Federation tech seemed even more advanced here than in TNG. The holographic ship-to-ship, the extensive system of containment fields, etc. Then of course you have the radically different looking Klingons – will there be an explanation for that, or is it (as far as this show is concerned) that they simply always looked that way? I’m still not convinced this is the primary Star Trek timeline that leads to TOS. Where did those nifty gadgets disappear to?
Certainly they’ve redesigned almost every visual effect, from the transporters to the warp drives to the weapons. The bridge design is more open than any Federation starship we’ve seen before. Actual windows running its whole length, instead of just a small viewscreen in the center. Very different look from the other Trek franchises. More like what you’d expect on the silver screen. If the budget per episode didn’t set a new record, it must have come pretty close.
I wonder if we’ll see Zachary Quinto do a guest appearance as Spock. If Burnham was raised by Sarek they must have some kind of history with each other. Maybe good, maybe not so good.
Thank you and yes this is always the problem when you are trying to adapt a show that takes place in the future but filmed decades ago, the technology is ALWAYS going to just feel more modern and up to date because writers are making a show about the 23rd century and wants to do it from their perspective.
This was the entire reason why a lot of us wanted the show post Nemesis. Walking holograms would feel fine in a post Nemesis world. It feels very out of place in a pre-TOS one. That said I don’t personally mind it but who are they kidding if they are telling us this show is suppose to only take place a decade before TOS?
That’s the biggest problem I have with it too, Tiger, as I thought I would. Not happy with the time period they chose. Post-Nemesis, or post TUC/pre TNG would have worked better for canon and continuity. Just one guy’s opinion.
Well you’re actually many guys opinion Danpaine. I am one of Discovery’s biggest supporters, liked the premiere even if I didn’t love it and plan to watch the rest of the season. But yes it has always bothered me they chose this time period. I have accepted it a long time ago now but watching the premiere it seems most peoples gripes is that the show simply doesn’t match the original time line no matter how much the producers and writers try to tell us it kind of does. I mean we have eyes lol.
Every major complaint about the look and differences of the show would’ve been solved if took place a few decades after Nemesis. People would probably still be complaining about the Klingons but the rest of it would fit in a post Nemesis world no problem. I’m still scratching my head why they even felt the need to put it in this era because outside of Sarek nothing so far, including the story itself, could’ve been done in a future time line and you miss absolutely nothing.
All you lot are babbling about is design. It’s pathetic really. And setting it post nemesis is fanboy speak. This show isn’t made for you, it is not made for people who dream in convoluted holy canon. It is a show made for a new audience, just like tng was, and you all sound exactly like the TOS fans of that day. It is a visual update and trust me, within twenty years TOS will be remade using computer graphics to make IT comply. Honestly, I don’t understand all this wanking about how it looks. I started with tos and I think it looks ridiculous in 2017.
For what it’s worth, I wrote a piece advocating for this series to be set in a post-TNG future. A few minor tweaks is all it would take. Would love to read your reactions: https://medium.com/@robert_o/trek-out-of-time-2ba5604612bb
I don’t understand this obsessive compulsive behavior about ‘when it should be set’. The only reason you are doing this is because you can’t fathom anything good coming out of a ‘prequel’. Go watch Better Call Saul, ostensibly better than it’s ‘future’ parent. Setting this show in the supremely convoluted timeline after Voyager and the movies is suicide. So many bad ideas and stupid stories destroyed that timeline, a general audience would not even understand where to start. Then of course there are the time cops, the techno babble. the spacial anomalies. Bah.
I’m thinking that the JJ movies may be planning on “fixing” the Kelvin universe. Casting Kirk’s father may indicate that. Then this could be both Kelvin and Prime. Shatner’s universe , changed by whatever happens as a result of the “fix”.
Saw both episodes. I’m glad they turned the lights back on by the time TOS started. A little Too dark, perhaps? Have to say I liked the second episode better than the first. And thanks for the shaky-cam.
I see no reason to pay for an entire new service to see this. I’ll Kodi, or wait until it’s inevitable release elsewhere. Mildly interested, also rather disappointed .
I liked it, however, it went a little over the top with the “heroic” quotes, especially from the Klingons.
Despite a few of those flaws… I thought the episode was fantastic. It was packed with action and classic trek lore and I’m excited to see where this goes. I actually enjoy this better than the recent Abrams movies. Happy to pay $5.99 a month to help keep Star Trek alive and well.
I loved seeing trek back where it belongs. Was it perfect? No. But it sure as hell is nice to be even discussing the latest episode of trek :-)
I suspect some fans were expecting perfection, which of course is ridiculous. But as we’ve seen from reactions over the past few months, some Star Trek fans aren’t the most rational
Only saw (and will probably only see) the first episode which kind of lost me when Dunham mutinied and tried to attack the Klingons first on what seemed to be really questionable logic. No Starfleet (or real military) officer would do this.
I disagree. Military personnel are taught to question whether or not an order is lawful or even given in good faith. There have been many times through out history where the defense of, i was following orders didn’t work, because the person should have known better. Georgiou didn’t have all the information she needed to make a good decision. Burnham tried to help her out. I could also see her questioning whether or not it was worth giving up her career and the impact that it would have on the Captain. In her eyes ultimately her actions were justified given what she hoped to prevent. I personally side with Burnham. I thought the “Vulcan Hello” would have worked. It at the very least would have said that the Federation can’t be pushed around. Something a proud warrior culture would have looked favorably on.
As for the Admiral lowering his shields…I started screaming don’t do it. To be able to take out a high ranking Starfleet officer would have been a point of pride for the Klignons. I also think it was incredibly naive for just Burnham and Georgiou to go over on that ship alone. That kind of mission needed something akin to a special forces team. I also thought the scene with Ensign Connor in front of the brig was clunky. Good thing I know the Federation survives otherwise I would be worried given it’s faulty tactics at the Battle of the Binary Stars.
Perhaps the Klingon war brings the Federation to reevaluate their tactics. Every generation needs a reminder.
Let’s hope so. I really felt like those poor people had no military training whatsoever. I didn’t know if it was supposed to be a commentary on how long they had been at peace so they had “gotten rusty?” Then again Georgiou did say that she had been to war so there had been some recent conflict. Poor writing? Hmmm we shall see.
Which ties in very nicely with Sarek’s comment about great unifiers!
The Klingons now have a unifier… and the Federation has been reminded to wake up.
Yeah I think that was a big problem. But then again maybe we are going to see why she made that decision later. Obviously we know her parents were killed by Klingons and it may be a big character development down the line and that her emotions are really over taking her trying to block out what they did and eventually she kind of becomes Kirk in the sense she truly hates them and wants them dead. I kind of wish they played on that more and see her Vulcan side conflict with her human emotion side coming face to face with the people who killed her parents. In other words she made a rash decision because all she saw was hate for them and wanted to get back at them. But again that might be coming.
I didn’t see the hatred for them killing her parents so much as I saw a realization that they can be deadly. In my eye it was almost like optimism vs realism. Georgiou is the optimist. Her mentality was very much we can negotiate peace right away no problem etc. While Burnham is the realist. Peace is fine but it will be hard earned when it comes to the Klignons. If heartache or emotions ultimately played any part then it was the driving desire to prevent the loss of another “parent” at the hands of the Klignons. I think though it was balanced against doing the right thing with the “Vulcan Hello.”
Yeah I agree, as I said I was mostly saying that probably would be a better development other than it just being ‘logical’ to hit the Klingons first. I don’t mind that aspect but for her to go over the Captain like that and in such a way that got her absolutely nowhere the explanation of her deep seeded hatred of the Klingons would probably fit her actions better.
No Starfleet officer huh?
So I guess when Spock mutinied, stole the enterprise, and violated General Order 7 he wasn’t a Starfleet Officer. How about when Kirk mutinied and stole the Enterprise to bring Spock’s katra to Vulcan? Or when Picard mutinied to help the Ba’ku?
Excelllent points! Totally slipped my mind. On that note her punishment did seem harsh. The Klignons struck first…..if you count the destruction of the outpost, the torchbearer who attacked Burnham and that they fired first at the Battle of the Binary Stars. Not sure what happened at her court-martial though. (I posted this later in the comments as well) Did she not defend herself? What about her lawyers? Her fellow crew members? Was she so upset at the death of her Captain she offered very little because she thought she deserved it? Wonder if they are saving it for flashbacks or a tie-in comic?
On a side note I loved Sonequa’s performance as Burnham. Thought she did a wonderful job and I look forward to seeing where the storyline takes her. Definitely my favorite character from the pilot.
Yes, the punishment was way too harsh. And also, I really didn’t like the tribunal’s look and feel. All dark with a white headlight? It looked way too weird.
But I understand why they did it. The main character fell from grace right from the beginning, so she can spend the rest of the season earning the right to join the group of ST legendary characters that we all love, rather than being the perfect hero type from the very beginning. I’m digging it.
I suppose from an artistic perspective it worked. She was in a dark place mentally. The room was dark…that kind of idea. I just think in a real court martial even one that takes place in the future, you would be able to see your judges.
Of course they didn’t start a war or get their captain killed — and let’s not bring Insurrection into this. What a mess that one was.
I don’t believe she started the war. The Klignons did. That’s why I think her punishment is harsh. Yes she mutinied. However, it may have worked. I don’t Starfleet sitting their waiting to be attacked was a smart move on their part when dealing with the Klignons.
I don’t think Picard’s mutiny really counts as a mutiny since his superior officer had gone rogue and was committing war crimes.
Um. . . All of those events are in the “future” of Trek history.
@ Michael…. and?
I don’t like Obi-Wan Sarek.
What’s with an ambassador advocating shoot first? He also didn’t feel ‘Vulcan’ to me with the acting.
He didn’t want to give out that information. He didn’t think it quite fit the Federation but was convinced to at least tell the tale in hopes bernham would understand the actions that must be done.
It fit what we know of the Vulcans. And Sarek’s reluctance to share the info could lend itself to hos belief the stupid humans would screw it up.
He didn’t advocate shoot first — he said what Vulcans had learned to do when dealing with a very different culture.
Spock, Sybok, Michael….meet your other secret sibling. Han Solo.
Fancy salutes and all this logic mumbo jumbo are no match for a blaster at your side kid.
2 flaws. Why the holograms and why with 24 Klingon houses they couldn’t make any of them look like the Klingons from TIS?
Tos
DS9 flirted with hologram on the Defiant and then abandoned it. It didn’t really work.
@ spiked
Because there ARE 24 houses… but we didn’t see them all.
Extremely disappointed that they sold many people on the popularity of michelle Yeoh- only to waste her beautiful talent like that
She was the best part of the first two episodes!
She will be back, but mostly in Flashbacks :<
How so? She was the star of the first two episodes and very likely continues in flash backs.
Not even sure she is dead.
Uh, yeah. She’s dead alright. That bat’leth through he chest is pretty conclusive.
We’ll very likely see her again in flashbacks, and we might see her again if Jonathan Frakes was honest about one of the upcoming episodes.
Actually I have a feeling we WILL see her again because when the ‘After Trek’ show came on, they had a lot of the cast there but not in the actual studio (which I assume is in L.A.) but talking from Toronto. And yes Yeoh was also there. They all said they were going to film the final episode literally the next day. Of course it doesn’t mean Yeoh herself will film but it does make you wonder why was she there in Canada with the rest of the cast. Maybe she did go just to film the segment but seem like she could’ve just filmed it on set like James Frain did. But its just me probably over thinking it lol.
It’s early. She served her purpose
I was totally blown away by it. I loved it. Can’t wait to watch more. It was such a cinematic experience. It definitely has the je ne sais quoi of a prestige drama. Hopefully the haters will disappear as the episodes exist behind a paywall.
Oh! That thought had not occurred to me.
Unfortunately I’m sure there will be plenty of haters who will steal the episodes just so they can continue to whine in here :(
Those haters are part of the fanbase. From a ratings perspective, you need the haters. Too many people bail and this show gets a couple of years, budget cuts and rotating showrunners.
I don’t think they’re needed. There’s sn sudience.
Of Star Trek fans who like the show. I just don’t see this appealing to anyone other than Star Trek fans.
Fans who may be disappointed are haters? That’s an interesting, but unfair characterization. What about the casual viewers — people who aren’t ST fans? There don’t seem to be many (or perhaps any) of them with positive feedback. My “complaint” doesn’t involve the plot holes, poor writing, lighting, Klingons, etc. It’s really simple: Episode 1 needed to be compelling to Trekkers and others. It was the best opportunity that CBS had to encourage subscriptions. I will probably subscribe ONLY because I realize that TNG also had a less than spectacular start and worked out well. But some of my hard-core (fan) friends and so-far NONE of the more casual viewers who watched last night are interested. I’m glad that you loved it, but it’s really not very good. Not yet, anyway.
It needed to be compelling to non-fans and I’m not sure this was the best way to accomplish that.
Enjoyed it overall, and will be back for more. LOVED the opening credits and music. Did not love some of the creaky, “people don’t really talk that way” dialog. The only moment I out and out hated was Burnham ducking out to call “dad” for advice. Not only was it dramatically unnecessary and unbelievable, I thought it was insulting to the character, and quite frankly to women in general. Would they show a male officer duck out to call his mom?? They might, but it would probably be played for laughs. Hard to believe that it made it out of the writer’s room.
I would have liked to see ANY moment played for laughs. It was totally humorless.
Because it isn’t a comedy.
Oh, please. Trek has always had humorous moments
It’s also had serious eps. Take BOBW and year of hell.
I also quite clearly herd humor on the bridge in the first half.
@Rosie Yeah, Balance of Terror was a real hoot.
Occasionally… and not every episode.
Yes, but it’s never been a comedy.
And as for a humorous moment… there was one early on with Michelle Yeoh commenting on the rarity of her senior officers agreeing.
Humour doesn’t mean comedy, it means humour. Characters have nearly always been quirky. Archer had his dog Porthos, and something of a thing about water polo. Benjamin Sisko had his love of baseball and a son who was a prominent character. We learned a lot about how professional the leads were, and about their education and professional past, but they lacked a personal or empathetic side to their characters. And I think that’s important when introducing characters. I saw no warmth in the relationship between Georgiou and Burnham, unlike for example, between Archer and Tucker, or Sisko and Dax. I want likeable characters, as well as competent Starfleet officers1
Sadly, the ‘sarcasm’ scene was played for laughs…by actors with no timing and a director that can’t stage a setup and punchline. So it didn’t work.
@jonboc It worked.
Jonboc is spot on here. The humor fell flat, and much of Trek is filled with character based humor. One of the failings of the BSG reboot was a complete lack of humor too. Even in the most dire circumstances people find occasion to laugh. It’s part of a well rounded character and story.
True. I’m reminded of that scene in the DS9 finale where Damar, Kira and Garak are outside the barracks on Cardassia laughing. It waa a serious moment, and it worked perfectly.
@Redshirt Rosie — I totally disagree. The opening had a lot of organic humor, the kind I remember from TOS, until humor became totally in appropriate for the situation.
Perhaps you missed the humurous exchanges between Saru and Burnham. Even in the flashback sequence when Burnham first walks onto the bridge and makes eye contact with Saru was funny IMO.
Time
“Where No Man Has Gone Before” was a real laugh riot, huh?
The opening looks better with the credits rolling. However, they need to drop the phaser and communicator out as well as that crazy plant like thing at the end? It should be ships, space, and people not the “hey look at the devices we created”.
It’s a drawing board. (will most likely change in season 2) Also that plant will be important IIRC to the Discovery’s warp core from what I heard.
It’s clear they’re drawing from the visual language of premium cable shows like Game of Thrones, Mad Men, or even network shows like House, that use more symbolic / allegorical images rather than hitting you over the head with a literal ship swooshing through space. I like the bit where the classic TOS phaser is “rebuilt” into the three-lensed one – which both resembles an old-school 8mm film camera and has nods to the hand lasers from The Cage.
Not entirely sold on the Discovery’s design, but it too feels believable as a predecessor – more “1950s” angles and concentric rings, very Frank Lloyd Wright meets Norman Bel Geddes.
I think they did an awesome job fitting the phaser and communicator look into canon. Not so sure on the tricorder. These early photos had my hopes up thinking they were serious about canon. The first two episodes show otherwise. This is Star Trek, it doesn’t need to copy current trends with the opening sequence. What if Star Wars 8 didn’t open with the traditional crawl?
I didn’t mind the scene because I saw it as her calling Ambassador Sarek for information rather than her adopted for comfort. Otherwise I wouldn’t have liked it either.
That is EXACTLY how I saw it as well.
I think it mostly worked — she had a very specific history with Vulcans and Klingons and she wanted to know why Vulcans and Klingons had never gone to war. It was relevant then.
It’s also about exposition.
“Nice. Nice. Not thrilling but nice.”
Denny C, channeling Dom DeLuise from History of the World Part One? LOVE IT!!
“Money bath!” if this show connects with fans!
I’m glad that it is on All Access instead of on regular CBS. I don’t think I could deal with having it start late because of football every week.
Where I am, that was Voyager and Enterprise (which were run on Sundays at 9 on my local Fox station) most every week in the fall and early winter.
Unlike the usual cast of neysayers and complainers that will surely complain publicly (but will watch every episode)… I really enjoyed this. It kept me on the edge of my seat. I loved the pacing and the characters. Unlike Anthony, I liked that thy kept the Klingons speaking Klingon. I find it keeps you in that world. I always hated that every alien in sci-fi speaks English to each other. I really enjoyed Doug Jones’ performance. I also agree with Anthony regarding Martin-Green’s range in acting. Sure, there were a few things that I could have done without but it didn’t break my enjoyment. Making the delta shield made me smile but yeah, it was a gratuitous shot. Overall, I give the 2 parter a big thumbs up. Looking forward to this every week. If I was in the States… I would be subscribing to all access. Being in Canada, adding SPACE to my cable package was well worth it.
No need to start your post bashing others. It doesnt make your opinion more valid, or make theirs any less. Learn to share your own thoughts without lashing out.
@Jax… Who did I bash? I saw 2 negative reviews before mine and said I disagreed. How is that bashing?
@Trek67 — this is the most interested in the Klingon’s than I have ever been for any series. TOS would be next, but TNG-era Klingon’s bored me. I believe in these Klingon’s, they’re real, alive, alien, and purposeful. They don’t just go on and on about honor, they have a reason to be. And I was really dreading the Klingon’s. Now I want more.
@Curious Cadet…. I completely agree!
Agreed but. 2 flaws. Why the holograms and why with 24 Klingon houses they couldn’t make any of them look like the Klingons from TOS
You’ve already asked this earlier.
1) Holograms: I don’t know.
2) The Klingons: it’s been stated by a producer and implied in the Vulcan Hello that this is a 25th house with an xenophobic, isolationist policy. They haven’t interacted with the other houses for centuries.
The other Houses looked like that too, though.
The holograms because civilization has advanced more in the last 50 years since TOS than TOS projected it would. We already have Facetime and Skype. Having little better than that in 2256 would seem silly now.
Klingons have changed their appearance four times already (TOS -> TMP -> TNG -> KT) and harping on it now just seems like complaining for the sake of complaining to me.
Changing the Klingons isn’t inherently a problem, it’s just that they looked kinda stiff, the vocals seemed muffled, and i didn’t see anything about it that was somehow significantly more interesting than what we already had. As far as tech… some continuity here would be good without offending our 21st Century modern sensibilities.
@ spiked
There ARE 24 Klingon houses and we haven’t seen ALL 24 houses yet.
I agree with the review, except the part about being hooked for more. Sorry, CBS.
It was an okay hour of television, not great. I enjoyed the Starfleet stuff. Saru was fun in a Cowardly Lion sort of way. But the Klingon scenes really dragged and felt cumbersome. They kept talking and talking, and I kept being distracted by the uniforms. Don’t bump into each other! You might poke somebody’s eye out!
The Klingons sounded like they were choking on their words. I was hoping to see one of the Klingons representing a house with the appearance of the Klingons we’re used to seeing, and maybe one more human looking. Maybe that will come later.
Hating that spit-spewing Klingon dialog as well…I mean, It’s moviemaking…when prosthetics make you talk like a slurring drunk numb from a root canal.. it’s time for some overdubbing.
I just realized…Klingon dentists must be especially brutal!
After trek j frain “they have British teeth” lol
Yeah, the previous series kept prosthetics more manageable, but this series does look better in HD. If you look at DS9 in standard def there are a number of times where the prosthetic edges are noticeable. I think doing DS9 in HD would take a lot of work because of this.
Sorry Klingon folk. Just one seen with subtitles was enough. We lost a lot of tagalongs with the continued dialogue. I couldn’t keep up reading
I guess it felt normal for me watching several subtitled shows in the past. xD
Cowardly Lion – I like that :) He seemed C3PO to me in that way.
Oh definitely. A bit Sheldon Cooper too.
Not a big fan of the “cowardly lion” routine. Did love the snark though. Actually laughed a few times. Particularly during the scene where he side-eyed Burnham when she first came aboard.
People are complaining about the cowardly lion bit, but no one seems to have noticed that he was right… he sensed death coming and a whole lot of death arrived. Maybe they won’t dismiss him so readily next time.
I didn’t mind that he sensed death. I minded the cowardice part. It got a bit much at times. He even refused to go on an away mission because he was scared. Now I guess that is why he is scared to go out. If he can sense death everywhere that might be overwhelming as he goes about his life. They didn’t do a good job IMO of correlating the two together. Then again maybe I was suppose to do it and I missed it. I could believe that. Most of the focus of the “prequel movie” was on Burnham. Let’s hope future episodes flesh him out more and give him an opportunity to grow and push his boundaries. After all we know he can’t be afraid of everything. He left his planet and became the only one of his kind to join Starfleet. That takes a huge amount of courage.
I got a heavy Sheldon Cooper vibe from Saru. In many ways, he has done to the logical character what Dr. Evil did to the Blofeld megavillian stereotype.
Those uniforms were classic Klingon though. Maybe tuned up a bit but classic non the less.
I don’t know about that. The uniforms before never made me worry for the people wearing them, hehe.
Nah, way too ornamental with all the gold latticework. They looked distracting and showy rather than functional.
The Cowardly Lion turned out to be pretty brave.
I think that will be the case here,too.
And the show shouldn’t have opened with the Klingons. Works great as fan service but for casual viewers that may have actually been a bit of a turn off. Subtitles AND grunting aliens? Maybe not.
To sum it up about the cons all access experience:
episode 2 (first one streaming)…buffering…it…buffering…was…buffering…pretty…buffering…good :)
Maybe it was just the chrome cast. I’ll try via the laptop (and hdmi) next time.
most likely your chrome cast. I never had any buffering issues.
I watched the first episode on CBS and the second on AA. No buffering issues but the streaming quality was noticeably inferior to the broadcast.
@Redshirt Rosie — exact opposite experience for me. I thought I was watching 4K HDR. Raw OTA was noticable inferior.
I only saw the CBS regular broadcast, and we had to turn the set up to VIVID because it looked mushy. Then again, I guess the all access only gets up to 720 and on many systems only goes to 480, so that could be part of it, but might be deliberately mushy for stylistic reasons.
My AppleTV worked beautifully. But the compression seems high from any source.
I watched it through CBS AA app on my iPad. Had too actually. My cable company said on the guide part it came on 30mins later that what it actually did. I did hook it up to the tv so I could see it bigger and besides maybe a 10sec. buffering issue it looked great. Succeeded my expectations. Quality and streaming were great.
Watched Episode 1 on cable. Episode 2 on CBS-AA. Episode 2 looked and sounded better.
Glad it sounds like it might just be my chrome cast (wouldn’t want anyone else to have the aggravation). Just wish the app was available on the PS3 (and not just the PS4) since all of the other major streaming services are on there. But it’s all good.
@Trektacular — My experience was amazing. I’m looking at the CBS OTA broadcast now, and CBSAA was substantially better. In fact I switched my Apple TV 4K to 4K HDR — do we know for a fact that this isn’t transmitted in 4K HDR? The only complaint I have was that occasionally the picture degraded slightly as if it were dropping down in resolution because my bandwidth dropped. But otherwise it was fantastic.
Netflix has it listed as HDR. Usually when it is 4K HDR It is listed as such so I assume 1080p HDR.
I used my laptop and had very minor buffering issue that last a few seconds.
It did look better on CBS though
Didn’t look better on CBS network for me. Looked much better on CBSAA.
Same here. Much better quality streaming than broadcast.
I had no buffering issues but I watched it on my computer. I did with some of the commercials but the episodes themselves ran smoothly. Thats a big difference from when I first signed up to AA months ago and I wouldn’t go 5 minutes without major pauses. But yes you should try your lap top next time. I’m a bit afraid to try on my phone being old now but I never have any real issues with Youtube or Netflix on it.
Flawed but good. Definitely a first rate effort. Longer review to come…
Agreed.
Glad you liked it.
I look forward to your review.
I think that we are going need some positivity around here for the next few days.
I’m looking forward to seeing the season play out. I have a few reservations, mostly around visual continuity with other Trek TV iterations. James Frain bears a passing resemblance to Mark Lenard but the unique voice and gravitas is not there. And yes, waaayy too many executive producer credits. Nine? Twelve? I lost count.
Agreed as to Frain. He is no Marc Lenard.
@Danpaine and Praetor Tal — agreed. I didn’t care for Frain, don’t think he even looks like Marc Lenard. Took me out of it a few times.
As of yet, I see no reason he has to be Sarek. Just make him a Vulcan mentor. Why mess with the character?
I like Sarek so far. Thought James Frain made a good first impression. I thought he had an appropriate gravitas to his portrayal. I will say I am worried about where they might take his character but ultimately a good start. Loves his and Burnham’s Vulcan costumes. Especially when she first came aboard.
They should have just cast Ben Cross. He’s a good actor and would have been familiar to casual viewers.
How does the Exec Prod’s impact your enjoying of the series?
Dunno, why don’t you ask Anthony as he brought it up first. I just thought it was absurd. Unless I’m not supposed to pay attention to the credits?
I’ve seen it on quite a few recent shows. Seems to be a common thing these days to have lots of Executive Producers.
Q: Did anyone watch on All Access on the “with commercials” plan? How many commercials/total length of commercials were you forced to watch?
I liked the show, but the All Access service, at least for me, over my internet (I tested 30Mbs during the show), is something I won’t pay for. I signed up for the $10 no commercials plan, so perhaps I will go down to the $6 plan, depending on how many commercials are involved.
However, some benefit of All Access which I thought was there, is not. Big Bang Theory and Mom, both shows my wife wants, does not have more than the last 7 episodes? You pay about the same as Netflix, but for a very small library of content. When you add in that the Discovery stuttered through the presentation, not being able to keep a buffer going– it is HARD to justify.
I am more than happy to buy the season on Blu-Ray at some point, because it is a beautiful show, and would love to see it in 4k without picture/streaming issues.
While there were fewer commercials than broadcast, they increased as the show went on. One or two ads at a clip turned to six later in the show.
Agree. Started off at about 2 mins and then extende to maybe 2 or 4. Not bad for my taste. It gives you a count down clock and you can even pause the commercial if need be. Not the case with every streaming service by the way. Ultimately I just treated the breaks like I do regular tv ones….time to run and go get a snack. As for the buffering I had one small issue. Lasted maybe 10sec. I used the AA app on my iPad. Then connected my iPad to the tv. Not sure that’s options you used.
*what option you used*
@martin — I had no problems with the commercials. Gave me a chance to read the reviews and check the site ;-) but my streaming was flawless — looked like 4K HDR, so I turned it on my Apple TV 4K and it looked amazing. Better than the OTA broadcast I’m looking at now. My only complaint is there’s a lot of compression. But this will look amazing on 4K Blu Ray. I do wonder if given the broadcast window, whether they will release the first half of the season in November for the holidays? It might be good promo to compel people to join CBSAA to see the rest. But has anybody ever split up a BlueRay season like that?
So now issues with streaming on All Access? The predictions of crashing was just doom & gloom?
On SPACE, the show looked great too. I watched on my large 4KTV and it looked really good. No complaints there.
No issues. And despite the complaints that CBS-AA might show a commercial or two even though you sign up for “commercial free”, they did not.
I have the commercial option and honestly its not that bad at all. They have one 15 second commercial at the beginning before the show began and about 4-5 commercial breaks in the episode itself. From what I can tell you got basically 90 seconds to 2 minutes of commercials tops with each break. I’m so use to cable now where commercial breaks can literally go on for five minutes it was nice to see them a lot shorter at least. And there were a couple of glitches where no commercials ran at all but thats been happening for a lot of shows I watch on AA. I watched a bunch of TNG episodes a few days ago and no commercials aired for any of them for some reason.
The only issue I have is commercials seem to buffer a LOT! Its not too bad but oddly the show itself never buffered. It ran very smoothly after the first few minutes of episode 1. But it was the commercials where it would happen but not too bad. Honestly I’m fine with the $6 option but to each their own.
A: Yes, and the commercials are almost as excessive as broadcast tv. Some people are willing to pay $5/month to watch commercials. Not me. YMMV.
That’s why I use a DVR.
@Kirok — and now you know why the free ad supported model is dying, and networks and studios are being driven to find new sources of revenue to keep their budgets at the levels required to give the viewer what they expect from modern television. And that’s why the Live +3 ratings carry much less weight than initial live broadcasts, and Live +7 are basically meaningless as far as advertisers are concerned.
The first watch was with the PS4 app, which had the issues. Perhaps it was also the time (right after ep 1 aired). I got my old Apple TV out of mothballs, did a series of updates — and then connected to CBS AA. Watched Ep2 a second time, +3 hours from the first watch.
Better quality, and no buffering.
I have to say I liked the show. CBS AA program selection still stinks, there just isn’t enough… But given the excellent quality of the second viewing… I will let it renew for month #1 and watch the first 4 shows, and probably go on until the mid-season hiatus and then cancel and pick back up a week or three into the second half. If I can keep the total cost for the 15 episodes under $40, then I’ll be ok with that. I’ll be paying HBO for 2-3 months for just Westworld too. I hope they do improve CBS AA show selection, and also get the app on other popular devices (LG TVs & TiVo for me).
It’s going to be interesting what they do with Burnam now. And I am looking forward to Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd.
I did have an issue with the bit about how to handle the Klingons. Did the Vulcans never share this tidbit with the Federation about how they delt with Klingons? And the Admiral was just a bit to eager to play nicey nice after half the battle fleet had been lost.
The Vulcans not sharing what happened with the Klingons is actully something that fit canon really nicely for me. We never saw how the Vulcans’ attitude towards Starfleet evolved after the fourth season of Enterprise. Suppose it went back to suspicion/contempt and not towards more trust?
In other words, I saw the omission as a legacy of how the Vulcans were in Enterprise. They don’t trust humans. Spock could also not be completely forthright about sharing relevant information, even to his closest friends (EX: Only telling Kirk Sybok was his sibling only whilst they were in the brig).
I think you both bring up a point I have wondered about. How does intelligence sharing work in the Federation? Vulcan gathered that information separately from Starfleet yet when they joined they didn’t think to share it with them. Is it a case of them not thinking they would understand why they choose to fire first? Or is a planet not required to share all of their information even if it pertains to the overall security of the Federation as this information did. For a long time Vulcan and the Klignons had peace using this very method. Yet the Federation knew nothing? If I was in th Federation I would certainly want to know why the Vulcans had peace with the Klignons but the Federation didn’t. Lots of questions. Let’s hope we get answers.
@Steph — it’s been well established that Vulcan has withheld information from the Federation during most of its history with them, from First Contact straight through to the TNG era. This is nothing new.
The extended distance mind meld isn’t new. T’Pol does this with trip after they have sex and he leaves the ship for Columbia.
True.. also, there was a TOS episode where Spock felt the deaths of other Vulcans across a huge distance, so it’s established that they have psychic connections from a distance.
And in “All Our Yesterdays” when Spock is trapped in the distant past, he no longer feels his connection to Vulcan.
Good point!
indeed!
Spock and T’Pring were also melded in such a way that when Spock entered the Pon Farr, T’Pring sensed it and was aware as well, no matter how far Spock was from Vulcan. “Parted from me, and never parted…”
So there are numerous examples of long distance pairings in the Star Trek canon.
Loved it. Things seem set up for great story telling. New Klingson are difficult to get used to, but love Burnham and Saru. Sad to see Yeoh die as her character is great. Haven’t been this excited for Star Trek since I saw Wrath of Khan.
I enjoyed it. Only real problem I had with it was perhaps the dialogue. Does feel a bit forced. However, some of the more technical dialogue seemed to come out quite nicely, and didn’t feel as cumbersome as it has in other series. I also liked that some of it was more grounded. Sound design was also well done, and I like the computer voice. As for the story and plot, a few things surprised me a bit, and some of my speculations were wrong, which is nice. I thought the sets were great, and I don’t mind the darker lighting. I think it helps with the view out the windows. I think this show definitely has a chance to succeed as long as it can improve where it needs to.
I chose to give them an hour (that I’ll now never get back), and they made me dizzy with loop-de-loop-in-circles cam, annoyed my eyes with pointless lens flare, put me to sleep with boring gobbledygook dialog, and finally, dumbed it all down with drawn-out scenes of Klingon silliness. An utter waste of time, resources, and a couple of fantastic performers who deserve much, much better.
Can you believe they are asking for $5.99 per month to watch this. That is almost six whole dollars. That is almost as much as a cup of coffee at one them fancy places. For me it is the principal of it. I expect a huge budget like this and movie like quality to be free. I mean again it is six whole dollars. Wow CBS has some nerve.
Not only can I believe it,
I have been paying that very small amount since Discovery was announced
It’s cheaper than Netflix.
The only issue with the plans when compared to Hulu is that your program options are limited. Hulu gets you four networks plus a bunch of cable offerings while CBS All Access gets you access to all things CBS. Comparable pricing, few options.
The whole affair felt stilted and forced. I like natural dialog with natural delivery. Poor Nick Meyer…probably was honest telling them exactly how crappy this was and was shown the door to “consultantville’. It’s just frustrating. They had all this time to make something amazing. And maybe it can evolve into that. But these people, so far, are not engaging. I don’t care one bit about Michael, and have zero emotional investment in her or anyone else. I’ve found very little to reflect back on…two hours practically devoid of any ‘moments’. My best first impressions lie with the sets and props and cinematography…things that should be secondary to good characters, an interesting story and strong, want-to-watch acting. Too bad.
I was thinking the same scenario for Meyer, “Um…no…,” but was overruled.
I always love how you people are always in Meyer’s head lol. For all you know he could’ve gave them the advice on what we saw.
How long did it take for you to care about anyone in TNG? Even when Tasha dies I was, Oh well
I guarantee you that cheesy Delta scene moment came from the walking crap-factory named Akiva Goldsmith. And what a charmless Captain. “You better get me a signal!”. Yeah that’ll work. Just yell at the crew like they have a choice about whether there’s a signal or not.
Sarek was the worst. Totally inappropriate dialog and completely out of character for such a beloved member of the Trek mythos. Awfully sad.
I liked Sarek but same time its pretty clear he’s really only there for the TOS connection. Its early maybe we will get a deeper story line with him but if he’s just there to be the flash back plot device for Burnham that will be disappointing.
I didn’t like him at all, either. He felt completely unnecessary. The only reason I could see for him being there was that he could have been the main thread if Fuller’s anthology series had been made.
Sarek is, after all, a character that will still be living in TNG’s time. You could theoretically use him to cover the full timeline from pre-TOS to Spock getting involved in Romulan politics.
I agree he did feel unnecessary but that could change though. I do think they may be setting him up for a big arc but its hard to say based on what we seen so far. And my guess is he may be very involved in trying to help Burnham with her current situation.
But I’m not arguing him being there is nothing more than fan service. Thats clear. But now that he’s there, I hope they really utilize him because its clear he’s not going anywhere so you may get your wish on that at least.
I too hope they dig more into his backstory and his work. He does have peace treaties with the Klignons. So he is relevant to this series even if he is fan service. The question for me though is how well will they use him?
Here come the negative mama’s basement dwellers that want everything to be exactly like the old series in the 60s.
No, Nole. Vokar is absolutely right. Not Sarek, not at all.
Die in a fire.
That seems unnecessary.
While a good pilot, this could have easily taken place in the reboot movie universe than the original Prime universe. This could easily be a prequel series before the reboot movies. Star Trek TV series traditionally focus on the Captains, but here we focus on a First Officer. I feel like I was watching a mini-Star Trek movie after last year’s Star Trek Beyond.
Same here. Even the camera movements were similar to the reboot movies. I wonder if it’s a rights issue between CBS and Paramount, keeping them ‘officially’ in separate universes.
Yeah it’s most likely a rights issues since CBS owns the Prime Universe – 5 TV shows and the first 10 movies – while Paramount owns the reboot movie universe and their own versions of the original series characters.
@Van Ban — nope. CBS owns it all. They can’t use Paramount’s IP without paying royalties, but CBS owns it as a derivative copyright.
Are you sure CBS can use the KT stuff without a deal with Bad Robot? I thought that was Bad Robot’s play – to create a whole “new” version of Star Trek that they’d effectively own.
Its called modern film making. People are confusing this idea that its too much like KT and not enough like Voyager. Its MODERN film making. lol
It’s bad filmmaking, not necessarily modern filmmaking. Messing up the image is part of the modern process of taking the edge off shooting on digital, yes, but this is taken to goofy and distracting extremes.
And the Dutched camera angles are old as the hills, and hokey as Hell unless you’re doing THE THIRD MAN, when there is a reason for it (the hats they wear.) The flares are just absurd and hard on the eyes — the first DIE HARD took flares about as far as you’d ever need to go with them, but those were at least appropriate in the context of the film. Likewise the teensy photoreal flares in the exteriors during TMP, punctuated by OCCASIONAL larger ones, like the vger transform.
THE THIRD MAN has no exclusive patent on Dutch angles. Nothing wrong with creative composition for dramatic effect, until the camera begins to shake/roam/bounce, with lens flare added in to complete the nausea-creation.
Pretty sure modern filmmaking includes more than one style.
The USS Kelvin, pre-Narada IS the Prime universe. It’s only as the Narada arrives that the timeline splits. A prequel series before the reboot movies would still be Prime, even with a different visual style.
The Narada destroyed the Kelvin 25-ish years before TOS though, not 10.
It would be funny if they actually showed the Kelvin in an episode helping with the war lol. I know it won’t happen but it would be a way to let the fans know in the clearest way possible this is the prime timeline, period.
If this series was set 50 years after Voyager, it would be a lot more compelling. You still could have had the Klingons divided and wanting to go to war with the Federation. You still could have had Burnham be a human raised by a Vulcan. And lastly, there would be no “continuity” issues with the updated effects and ship designs.
I so agree. Nothing we saw so far couldn’t have been done after Voyager. Klingons are not the most consistent species and they have fallen out with the Federation before. And to add to that, all they would’ve needed was a Klingons like T’Kumva (sp??) who felt the Klingons have gotten to complacent being part of the Federation and want to unify the Klingons to be leaders again and not just followers like the old ways. That would’ve been just as compelling as what we are getting here.
Agreed as well.
I actually wrote an article precisely on this topic. I totally agree with you: https://medium.com/@robert_o/trek-out-of-time-2ba5604612bb
I’ll never get back that hour of my life. Never. That show sucked harder than I thought it could.
Star Trek: Discovery was fab. But you gotta see both the first two episodes to get the real impact – so it was really stupid of CBS to only air the first 45- minute episode by itself in regular broadcast. Should have been a 90-minute TV movie and then THAT would drive CBS All Access subscriptions.
@Hollyweired — I agree. All through the second episode I thought that. I also wondered why they didn’t give us any sense of the Discovery to come. Maybe start it on board the Discovery, and then flashback to the story? I’m very excited for next weeks episode and the introduction of the Discovery …
Agreed, Hollyweird. So I signed up for a free trial to see the second one and then cancelled an hour later.
I agree. Im in Canada so it doesnt matter. With the delay, I wasnt paying attention to the time so when the first episode ended, I was like “thats it..?” Not much of a ciffhangar.
I agree with this.
BUT – on the other hand, it worked with me. Had you given me the full episode, as much as I liked it, I might not have subscribed right now- and instead waited a few weeks for the queue to fill up. The way the half episode ended, I had to subscribe and see what happened next.
Maybe the better mix would have been – What would it have hurt to make these episodes each 10 minutes longer. Even if you settle in on the episode length being 41 – 45 minutes, there could be another 10 minutes in each of these episodes to fill out the story a bit. Add in a scene with Burnham going to prison in part 2. Extend Burnham and the Captain a bit more. Perhaps put something of the time between now and now – 7 years.
I agree, and with NO commercials. Headphones and in the dark.
First hour was mediocre with bits of good. Second hour is trash. The Klingon stuff is uniformly awful in both episodes (and deadly dull), and the subtitles/garbled Klingon idea is terrible. And Sarek?!?! WTF?!?! A katra-meld across light years?! That was utter nonsense. All of the Sarek scenes are terrible. Yeoh was good with what she was given. Saru is definitely the highlight–the only highlight. The visuals are dark and muddy. The direction is lousy. There is no fun to any of it.
And the end of episode 2…sorry, but that sucked, especially her monologue to the shadowed Starfleet folks.
Add to this the insane number of commercials on CBS All Access, and this is a big, fat “NO” for me. I’ll watch it on Netflix or in cable reruns or on a friend’s blu-ray someday, maybe.
Speaking of the shadowy Starfleet folks…the court-martial in front of the tribunal felt forced. She seemed so dejected she could barely talk above a whisper and it then made me wonder how much of a defense she got. For example, how much did she reveal about what happened? Did they know and not care? To say nothing of how her confidence at her earlier decisions had evaporated with Georgiou’s death. Then again I am not sure why no one, not even Saru, told them that going over to T’Kuvma ship was not good idea without more back-up. What about the testimony of her fellow officers aboard the Shenzou? We know Lt. Saru made it back. Then again maybe they are saving it for a future episode or even a tie-in comic.
Yeah I didn’t like that whole shadowy Starfleet bit. It made them seem like members of Section 31 and pretty heartless to boot. Yeah what she did was wrong but from what I can tell that’s not what got them into the war. The Klingons were striking no matter what. And given her history with them, yeah there should’ve been at least an acknowledgement of that.
But then again this is the same Starfleet that was going to let Kirk and McCoy go away forever on trumped up charges of murdering the Klingon chancellor so you can never tell with these people.
I still wonder about the “Vulcan Hello.” While I acknowledge the Klignons seem dead set on attacking no matter what….I wonder if the Federation proving they could stand their ground no matter would have earned them some respect? Ultimately I suppose we will never know.
Yeah Starfleet justice is questionable. The writers just love portraying them as the bad guys. The only time I can recall them getting a fair shake was probably Phillipa Louvois presiding over Data’s hearing in Measure of a Man.
So this tribunal keeps the judges in shadow? Sort of like a silhouetted take on the beginning and end of THE PARALLAX VIEW? Just wondering, because all of that was in a spec I sent to TNG called THE INQUIRY that got me into pitch there after two other specs (one of which was PURE TOS/TNG Trekness) failed. It was a bottle show, inspired by the events surrounding USS LIBERTY from 1967 and with a strong anti-TNG feel of political paranoia that might have been too close to what they were already developing as IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE, which passed from Ron Moore to Jeri Taylor and became THE DRUMHEAD.
If this show managed any kind of STAR CHAMBER feel to the 2nd ep, I’m definitely intrigued … especially given my disenchantment with the first ep. Not ‘spend the six bucks’ intrigued, but nonetheless …
I liked the show in general. The star chamber feel made no sense. I think it would have been better if it was in public as it seems like the future episode peek shows that people do know who she is and what happened.
Good point. The Federation news service picked up something however parts of court-martial may have been classified for security reasons. So my guess is they heard an officer got blamed for it but what they know, for the most part, is just gossip.
Watched the 1st ten minutes and opening… meh.
Had a couple friends over and we instead watched Baylon 5’s 1st three episodes. BETTER!
I am love this show! It’s exciting! Looking forward to more. I do hope “Discovery” would be released on DVD, Blu-ray, Digital, and 4K Ultra HD on the basis of one complete season per summer, even for those who are not ready to subscribe to CBS All Access for $6-10 every month. In case the first season ends up like that of “Supergirl,” then let’s hope The CW would pick “Discovery” up for season two.
@DonDon — not a chance this goes to the CW — way too expensive, and doesn’t fit with their teen lineup
And they would kill to have a younger skewing audience for Star Trek.
Well, there’s 65 minutes of my life that I won’t get back again.
“Star Trek” is about allegory. And … I’m still waiting for “Star Trek” to come back to TV.
(On one positive note: Doug Jones’ combined performance and character was the one interesting thing during the entire opener.)
Oh come on, David, be honest. You weren’t going to do anything worthwhile with those 65 minutes anyway.
Yes, Star Trek is about allegory.
But any chance the franchise had would have died decades ago, were it not for a second pilot that included fistfights and a phaser rifle.
oh please. The Cage had just as many fistfights and lasers and a green slave girl.
Bottom line… it was grand show!!!
Really, it was a grand premier! Big cinematic quality, and still trek crew drama. This is a a show that aims to be on par with the best these days. Westworld, Game of Thrones. Yea? And WOW, it SO delivered! One can only hope this show continues as a story with this visually wonderful setup. My Gods! This is what Trek should be! Pushing TV production and telling real stories!!! Yea?
Missed the first 15-20 minutes (came in before she suited up to spacewalk), but what I did see was hard on the eyes (FLARES! dutched angles) and hard on the ears (klingon spoken one syllable at a time, Yeoh hard to understand) …
Liked that THE FINAL REFLECTION black fleet reference and one line of dialog on the Klingon ship, but nothing else grabbed me.
I thought I would be feeling weird about not signing up for rest of 1st season of series, but no, I’m really not. If it takes two years to stream domestic, I can wait.
Also, didn’t they say months back that Meyer was writing the second hour? From what I’ve just read, it doesn’t sound like he was credited at all.
He’s a consulting producer now. Very little of Meyer likely made it into the final shooting script.
Gene Roddenberry was an “executive consultant: on TWOK; he got a paycheck, made suggestions, and all of them were ignored. I think it’s largely the same with Meyer here, at least so far. As far as I could tell, there was nothing in that first hour that had his imprint on it.
But Meyer wasn’t brought in as a consultant, he was to be an integral part of the writer’s room. Bryan Fuller brought him in and with Fuller gone Meyer likely disconnected from the production or was gradually phased out. Meyer hasn’t really said much of anything about Discovery.
I made this point on Reddit and got slammed for it lol. But yes I think now that we know he’s a consultant and no longer a full on writer, things probably did change after Fuller left. I never thought he would be running the show or anything but I thought he had more responsibility when he first joined.
oh yeah … klingons got cloaking tech from Romulans in original timeline. How does that work if THIS is supposed to be prime line? Not really expected an answer, just grousing.
My only complaint was the cloaking device. That was supposed to be a Romulan thing in TOS with Klingons only getting it as part of a peace treaty. Klingons had battle cruisers. Hopefully we do not see it again and its use just gets lots in the data (some kind of stealth mode). In Balance of Terror the cloaking device was definitely something not seen before.
@Cmd. — well so far we only know it to be present in two ships, one destroyed, the other presumably destroyed. Both ships part of a house of Klingon that seemed to be shunned by the high council, and they seemed to disbelieve his claims he could hide his ships. You may be right, in that the Klingons do not get this technology, and the Federation ships can’t be sure what they were seeing. “It seemed to come out of nowhere” — and Starfleet classifies that report, such that Kirk never knew of it, until he encountered it.
Perhaps T’Kuvma, the isolationist, made a shady deal with Romulans. It would not out of the norm for Romulans to back a specific house to gain political influence.
It did appear that the other Klingon houses were just as skeptical (and surprised) the T’Kumva was able to cloak his ship as was the Federation, so I got the feeling this was a “one-off” thing that may have died with T’Kumva. Or maybe something that takes so much energy that only something as large as the Sarcophagus ship could pull it off. We do know, from TOS, that the theory of cloaking a ship is known, even to the Federation, they just never found a practical way to do so. Spock even says something in Balance of Terror along the lines of (and I’m paraphrasing from memory), “The theoretical cloaking of a ship by the bending of light rays is possible, but the power cost is enormous. They [Romulans] may have solved that.”
My impulsive review: Liked it for sure but did not love it. As the review said the Klingon stuff started interesting but it just dragged on. I don’t mind hearing Klingon but yeah there is such a thing as too much of it. I really liked the characters we got in from the Shinzhou. Yeah it sucks they are basically all gone now minus two, especially Georgiou who I think was really likeable and interesting Captain. I mean I knew she was going to be dead by the end of the second episode but she grew on me quickly like Pike grew on me in the Kelvin films. But I think Burnham will be an interesting character and I liked her a lot too. Her flashbacks when she was more Vulcan was great. Loved the scene where she raised her eyebrow lol. Saru was great and AS expected the “I sense death line” was way over played by Trekkies. People argued it to death and it basically didn’t amount to anything anyone really thought but maybe there will be more? Liked Sarek, but yeah I just don’t see the point of having him outside of saying “we are connected to TOS”. But I’m curious to see what they will do with him. I hope its more than just being a Yoda figure to Burnham all season. ;)
But the story line could’ve been stronger overall. I don’t really understand what Burnham’s mutiny would’ve done if she got her way. Clearly the Klingons were going to attack no matter what and they made pretty clear on what they did to the Europa. The battle scenes were interesting but for some reason felt light to me. I don’t know I can’t explain it but when I see battle scenes on DS9 for some reason, those have real depth. Same for most of the other shows minus TOS (technology wise). But here it didn’t feel like ships were really getting hit. The battle between Starfleet and the Klingons were coo (especially seeing all those new Starfleet ships) but it didn’t make me get excited.
And yes I was actually disappointed we didn’t see the Discovery at all. I guess thats the REAL reason why they haven’t advertised the ship as much because its literally not in the freaking pilot lol. I thought at least by the end we would see the ship but clearly this is going to be slow burn type of story.
Other nitpicks, yeah it took itself TOO seriously for me. Its funny how I kept reading how fans expected their 5 year olds to watch this lol. Yeah I don’t think so. I been arguing Star Trek is not really a kids show and Discovery made that very clear. The Kelvin films this is not. There was VERY little humor. There was a very serious upper lip tone to the whole thing. All the pilots from TNG on were serious but they had a lot of light and comedic moments. I would say DS9’s pilot was the most serious but it did feel over dramatic every second. But we know there will be lighter moments and I guess the Mudd stuff will make sure of that.
And yeah, sorry I am going to try and get over this but I have no idea why this thing is a prequel? As TM stated, it just feels TOO advanced. Everything is too sleek and shiny. Again I ALWAYS say this but people harped on how ‘advance’ shows like TNG and Voyager was and yet I don’t remember walking hologram communication lol. But I know they are trying to sell to today’s audience, which I am completely on board with but it just felt too distracting trying to wrap your mind this show has any real connection to the TOS universe. Who are they kidding? I like the sound effects and the phasers look cool but it stops there as far as tangible connections. I know this is going to be hard for a lot of fans to reconcile now that I seen it.
But yes I like the show looks big and (very) expensive. It does feel very different from the previous shows, mostly from TOS oddly. I’m watching it for sure through the season no matter what but I REALLY hope we see actual exploration. I also want to see some other known aliens other than the Klingons in every episode. And it will be interesting to see what Discovery the ship is. And I have to say the scenes of her look like a vast improvement. So can’t wait to see her in action and what Captain Lorca is up to.
Overall, I give the pilot a 7.5/10.
My wife will sit down and watch an occasional episode with me. Part way through STD she asked me what I thought. I said, “well this is supposed to be 10 years before the original episode” and laughed and said “no way…I get why you hate it then”
I’m just wondering what kind of production design you would accept. Would it have to be a carbon copy of The Cage?
No, but likely more of an effort to at least have the aesthetic work within the prime universe. I now have a much better appreciation of what they accomplished with Enterprise.
One of the ENT novels had a great explanation for this. Starfleet discovered simple wired electronics could not be hijacked by the Romulan teleoperation technology. Hence buttons and switches. As elegant a retcon as they come.
@Praetor Tal — that’s the BSG rationale too. Considering the times we live in, with major hacks impacting hundreds of millions of people every year, not to mention possibly altering the outcomes of democratic elections, this too might be adequate, as well as practical, explanation.
So you’d want the computer to answer with the sound of a printout and a mechanical “work-ing” voice even though we have much better than that today with Siri and Alexa?
“Natural home on television”. For one night that is.
Just saw episode one. Liked most of what I saw. Has potential. I trust we will get more of Burnham’s back story to justify such a an un-star fleet like mutiny.
Regarding the production design… It VERY much looks like it takes place in the Kelvin time line. Thus far I’m not sure it really matters all that much. But based on this one episode maybe they should have put it in that realm. We shall see what the future has in store.
Will begrudgingly get the service tomorrow and catch episode 2. The free week plus one month will take me to the mid season winter break. When I will cancel. Then buy again when it resumes in February.
Update….
After looking at the schedule I will subscribe later in the week. That way I can get my free week then the first month will just after the last episode before the break. No sense in paying for a full month when the one thing I want will happen only a few days into the 2nd month seeing how cbs will not pro-rate subscriptions. Therefore, I will not be seeing episode 2 until perhaps Thursday or Friday. Assuming the service and the device I purchased works correctly.
Lame.
Been waiting for this for two years, and having eagerly lapped up every bit of news, I have to say, this premiere was…somewhere between “fine” and “meh it was ok.” And I say that having been an advocate of it and so wanting to love it. Where do I begin?
First, I loved the sound design. I appreciated the callbacks to TOS. The story itself, however, felt incredibly rushed. Because of that, a lot of the dialogue was swift and unnatural, completely forced — my worst fears from the trailers proved true, and I found the acting to leave a lot to be desired. I really wish I had laughed more — Trek is supposed to be fun, not grim. I had too straight a face throughout, even at the times when the show was trying to be clever. There were some great lines, like the whole discussion between Burnham and Georgiou about not “firing first” and killing “innocent lives” *AHEM* racist cops analogy, and I liked Saru a lot — not as awkward a character as I feared. As for the rest, honestly, I won’t know for some time. But I’m gonna see it through to the end and I enjoyed the experience.
I will say that I was lucky enough to watch the premiere at a bar in midtown Manhattan with a bunch of Trek fans all dressed up, and it was great having drinks and watching the show with a full house of fellow fans. After the show, the organizers weren’t prepared for the second half of the premiere to be online only, so I gave them access to my CBSAA account and they were able to play part 2 for everyone. It was an awesome night! Can’t wait for next week. I have a feeling I’m really gonna like Capt Lorca.
I was able to recite the line along with the show as soon as she started delivering it. “Contact Star Fleet Command. Send an encoded message. Tell them…we have engaged the Klingons”
That was enough fan service to give me a chill. I may have gone ‘squee’ a little
2 flaws. Why the holograms and why with 24 Klingon houses they couldn’t make any of them look like the Klingons from TOS?
We only saw the leaders of five Houses, though. We’ll see how this goes. The showrunners left open seeing TOS and TNG style Klingons for next season.
The holograms did feel too futuristic. Though not a deal breaker for me anyway. The Klignon look….takes a lot to get use to. On screen I appreciated the artistry but canon wise still hard to be ok with.
I felt for the actors in that Klingon makeup. They couldn’t emote wearing all of that stuff.
I thought Kol was snarly enough. He’s my favourite so far.
Great, impressive show. Loved how “Star Trek” it all felt. The attention to detail was wonderful. Looking forward to more.