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

Sad Professor

The first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery are airing/streaming on CBS in the US at 20:30 EST on Sunday night and should available on Irish Netflix from 08:00 Irish time on Monday morning.

This is a 2-part premiere consisting of two episodes:

1x01 – "The Vulcan Hello"
1x02 – "Battle at the Binary Stars"

Warning: This thread will contain spoilers for both episodes. Spoiler tags will not be used, so if you don't want to be spoiled read no further.

Sparks43

Interesting start but not sure on theme

FutureGuy

EDIT: A MASSIVE HEADS UP for anyone who is deciding to take a look at online reviews now that the embargo is up. While they are very positive of the show, the ARE spoiling parts of episode 3 too. It seems like some have failed to recognize we have only seen two episodes.

A very solid opener and an easy 8/10

Some things I expected (they stupidly announced Michelle Yeoh as special guest which means only one thing) and some things I did not - T'Kuvma dying and the Klingon ship getting beheaded.

But overall, a very enjoyable opener and looking forward to seeing where this goes. It's definitely not going in the exact direction I expected but very interested.

Trek is back.

jamesbere

Enjoyable first episodes, unsure where this is leading too which makes the next few episodes exciting to look forward to.

_Kaiser_

Just watched the first 2. Will probably need to rewatch later, but initial thoughts...

- Yes it looks visually stunning, but it IS basically JJ Trek the series in terms of designs and overall feel (right down to the lens flare effects) and combat scenes
- TOS bridge sound effects (and other audio cues) are a nice touch
- The initial bit with Burnham in the space suit is very Spock in TMP

- Burnham and the "death" guy bickering just seems out of place
- Those are not Klingons and Sarek seems wayy too emotional
- WTF was with the court martial.. did someone not pay the ESB bill?

- Also, they give away far too much in the post-episode 2 promo.. just as they did in the original trailers which basically covered the entire 2 episodes


Overall though, I'm not sure about it at all. It was good in parts, but I'm not sure I like the tone/approach they've gone with

FutureGuy

I just realized how jarred I was when the first episode ended. I thought "what the hell is happening to my movie, why is it ended" and then remembered it's a 45-min TV show.

Yggr of Asgard

My initial thought is:

meh

Sure, there are some visually stunning elements in JJ style, some great sound elements (the background music they use in the titles is bad however) and some good performances.

But I just could not get interested into the main character, I did not form a bond, nor am I interested in that character nor do I see why it's such a special character.

IvySlayer

It just feels like JJ-verse again.

The technology is arguably ahead of TNG/DS9. It still makes no sense why its set before TOS, why Sarek is involved.

Holocommunications were just being installed on season 4 of DS9 which is what 100 years ahead? I don't recall verbal communications much in TOS, you always had to touch a panel.

Visually it looks great and I like Lieutenant Commander Saru, I feel like the chemistry and cast are too forced. (The acting in the early series of Star Trek is usually woeful though)

A gritty war with Spocks half-sister, sounds like the worst fanfiction....Can Starfleet give you life imprisonment? And for mutiny? Seriously?

I'll watch the rest of the series but so far its underwhelming for me.

crazyderk

Well nuts to you all, I LOVED it!!!!!!!

it was awesome, I won't hear a bad thing said about it and I will end my statement with this.

STAR TREK IS BACK ON TV WWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Overall I enjoyed it. Great cliff hangar at the end of episode 1 but so little happened in episode 2 they could have just made episode 1 an hour long and shown the same story.

Like JJ Abrams Trek and arguably anything Abrams does it is inconsistency and plothole galore so don't go over thinking it or you'll ruin it for yourself.

Also, you can see Abrams finger prints on it by all the borrowing from every other scifi movie/series ever made. Like the "Your video camera didn't record anything so we are going to completely ignore what you said you saw" from Contact. Or the bypassing the shields by beaming warheads onto the ship borrowed by Stargate Atlantis.

For an example of the inconsistencies:

Science Officer: They are beaming up their dead.
...
Burnham: Beam us up!
Science Officer: I can't beam up the captain if there is no life sign.

Err, then how were the klingons beaming up their dead from space?

I enjoyed it. It was a good pilot but the Star Trek porn parody was more true to Star Trek cannon than this was. They could have taken out the starfleet element of it and still made it a decent scifi show. The risk in rewriting events so much is they will alienate firm Trek fans, while not attracting enough non-Trek fans and therefore not gaining enough in the way of ratings to make it viable.

I still hate how the klingons look though.

Evade

It was pretty good overall. The Klingon religious prophecy stuff was very reminicent of that episode of Voyager. Wouldn't the Klingon ship from that episode of Voyager have left around this time period? Are they connected?

The stuff I didn't like mostly tech and visual style related like the JJ Trek viewscreen window. The holographic communicator is pretty anachronistic too since holodecks were pretty new at the start of TNG and holocommunicators didn't come around until the late DS9.

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

- WTF was with the court martial.. did someone not pay the ESB bill?

It looked like a Cardassian court scene.

_Kaiser_

^^ On the transporter thing above, in the flashback when Burnham first comes aboard it's mentioned that the Shenzhou uses an older system. That probably covers that. Also the Klingons use different tech but they were more tractoring the bodies than beaming them in

If you want inconsistencies..

- holo comms decades before DS9
- subspace mind-melds
- Whatever about the ancient Klingon warship, WTF were those other ships? No D5/6/7s?

The Klingon make-up is just wrong IMO and seems to be hampering the actors - seemed very muffled and stilted

_Kaiser_

Evade wrote: »

It looked like a Cardassian court scene.

Completely out of place for the Federation IMO

I think what we have is yet another "gritty" generic sci-fi actioner but with a Star Trek skin.. it's a pity because there were definitely moments with potential.

I lifted this from the Reddit thread ...

Michael may officially be the worst character in this series.
Violates Klingon property and kills notable Klingon figurehead
Yells at Captain on the bridge
When she doesn’t get her way, assaults her mentor and Captain committing mutiny
Immediately yells at Saru for respecting the chain of command
Lying to the bridge crew
And we’re supposed to root for her?

All good points to be fair.. incidentally, the reaction over there is not good.

FutureGuy

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

^^ On the transporter thing above, in the flashback when Burnham first comes aboard it's mentioned that the Shenzhou uses an older system. That probably covers that. Also the Klingons use different tech but they were more tractoring the bodies than beaming them in

If you want inconsistencies..

- holo comms decades before DS9
- subspace mind-melds
- Whatever about the ancient Klingon warship, WTF were those other ships? No D5/6/7s?

The Klingon make-up is just wrong IMO and seems to be hampering the actors - seemed very muffled and stilted

While I enjoyed it, these two points annoyed me a little.

I have no problems about Sarek and Burnham using holotech to communicate privately. She may have been gifted some technology by Sarek which is Vulcan. But then we see it's very common place across multiple ships and multiple species. That is an issue.

Also, the subspace mind-meld was completely out of nowhere. I guess it was the same when Spock suddenly came out of nowhere with the ability to imprint his kotra on Bones on TWoK and we also see that Vulcans also have telepathy in Voyager.

Funnily enough, of the two, it's the holotransmissions that are more problematic. I am perfectly comfortable with this being a visual reboot, but we know that holotransmissions are not commonplace for over 120 years.

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

^^ On the transporter thing above, in the flashback when Burnham first comes aboard it's mentioned that the Shenzhou uses an older system. That probably covers that. Also the Klingons use different tech but they were more tractoring the bodies than beaming them in

If you want inconsistencies..

- holo comms decades before DS9
- subspace mind-melds
- Whatever about the ancient Klingon warship, WTF were those other ships? No D5/6/7s?

The Klingon make-up is just wrong IMO and seems to be hampering the actors - seemed very muffled and stilted

In another thread someone asked me to explain the inconsistencies I saw. One example I gave was the Coms Officer saying he was hailing starfleet on all bands and getting no reply, then the scene switches to the Captain in a holo conference with the Admiral.

On the Klingon warships, they've obviously completely rebooted the Klingons keeping only the language so that explains that, but if they are going to completely change a key race, why not just create a new race. Set it after DS9, introduce this new warrior race and let war commense with all the new tech.

And yeah, sub-space Jedi-like mind-melds. Is there anything those Vulcans can't do?

degrassinoel

don't like michael

Hope it's not all about her, she's a crap actor by trek standards.

Also, wish the klingons would have stayed true to their TNG origins - whatshisname the forgetful was a good idea done wrong imo

i'll keep watching but yeah, it's pretty much on a par with the orville for me atm

James Brown

I haven't seen the second one, so I lightly skimmed the thread. Apologies if already covered.

I think the new look Klingons are pretty bad ass. I did like the way Deep Space 9 had the story about how the Klingons had had some virus or whatever and that's why they looked like poorly dressed Mexican Bandits from the late 1800's back in the Kirk days of the Original series.
I like the first officer perspective too. I think it may succeed where Enterprise failed, in being a more gritty less Mormon Federation. Mutiny in the first episode is pretty good. Also casting Michelle Yeoh as the captain, (however short lived it may be) gave a great dynamic to it.
The opening credits look like an episode of House, but so far so good.

Venom

These two episodes just left me feeling kinda meh.

Didn't like the show's intro. Dunno know what it is but it felt more like something you'd see in a teaser trailer rather than a show's actual intro.

The show's visuals are really very well done but the level of tech shown along with the pre Kirk setting, just feels wrong and out of place with the established lore of previous shows. The whole JJ Trek look but prime universe setting just seems a mess.

As for the new Klingons, WTF were they thinking? Why totally ret con such an established in lore race?

The Federation crew so far were just filler apart from Michael who's a dick and the alien dude who could be interesting down the line.

While this show is not as bad as I feared considering the production woes, I just don't see why it exists.

JayRoc

Postives first: I certainly enjoyed it more than I expected to (but to be fair I went in expecting to hate it). Pace was decent, I didn't find myself clock-watching. Set pieces were visually very impressive.

Oh, and I actually quite liked the theme tune, especially the beginning and end.

Negatives: not to sound like a broken record, but this would have been so much more enjoyable if it wasn't a pre-TOS prequel. Every couple of minutes I was wrenched out of "suspension of disbelief" by something else that looked ludicrously more advanced than stuff that's supposed to be years in the future. Tonally this is the biggest obstacle for me, and specific inconsistencies such as ship design and communications methods have already been highlighted by several others.

The "klingons" didn't really do it for me. Apart from the obvious problems with reimagining a race that's one of the most popular elements of TOS/TNG, they looked really clunky. The prosthetics were so over-the-top that the actors looked and sounded daft, like they were trying to act in a sumo suit with a ball of cotton wool in their mouth.

And the court martial scene was ****ing ridiculous. Turn on a light, lads.


All in all, better than I thought. If it was a standalone sci-fi series it'd be fine. Just doesn't feel like Trek.

Sparko

It was certainly different, which could be a good thing in the long run. I'll continue watching anyway.

The holo communication was a bit jarring but I'll get over it, I guess in theory they could come up with some reason why it disappears until DS9 - faulty firmware or something!

Klingons are just bizarre, I was holding out hope that these particular ones were just a subspecies we'd never seen before but it seems they all look like that now.

I recall Trip and T'Pol having a long distance psychic connection in Enterprise so there's some precedent I guess for Sarek and Michael.

Like I said, I'll keep watching. Was quite entertaining, just perhaps not very Trekky. I was surprised there was no sighting of the Discovery yet.

AMKC

Does not sound like Star Trek at all. I think I will stay watching proper Star Trek and watch this if it gets better. Sounds like it could have been great if they had just set it in the 25th century then they could have had all this new tech and subspace mind melds etc and no one would mind. Hell even the Discovery and the other ships could have been the same sort of styles just neither and cleaner and more futuristic.

_Kaiser_

AMKC wrote: »

Does not sound like Star Trek at all. I think I will stay watching proper Star Trek and watch this if it gets better. Sounds like it could have been great if they had just set it in the 25th century then they could have had all this new tech and subspace mind melds etc and no one would mind. Hell even the Discovery and the other ships could have been the same sort of styles just neither and cleaner and more futuristic.

Yea the insistence that it's a prequel in the same timeline as the other series really hampers it. If they'd either gone with post-Nemesis or officially set it in the Kelvin timeline it would work just fine (especially as the visuals are straight out of the JJ films)

I've just rewatched it there and it's just not Star Trek imo.. It's technically and visually stunning but the whole tone and emphasis on conflict (both pew pew and between the crew) is more BSG than TNG

And then, from the trailer for the third episode/rest of the season,

it looks as though they're almost starting over again with the actual ship and captain?? A reboot within a reboot - maybe there was some truth to the production difficulty rumors after all

Agent Coulson

Meh meh meh meh meh is all I feel after watching the two episodes.

Yggr of Asgard

I think these were just stretched out trailers which got quite a lot of references wrong (from wrong name pronunciations to who can do what).

Sure, it was an optical spectacle but overall as I previous said "meh".

Now let's see if Episode 3 brings some story line and kicks this off.

Venom

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Yea the insistence that it's a prequel in the same timeline as the other series really hampers it. If they'd either gone with post-Nemesis or officially set it in the Kelvin timeline it would work just fine (especially as the visuals are straight out of the JJ films)

Has any reason being given why they didn't go the pre JJ Trek universe Kirk and crew route? It would of solved so many fan and lore issues and seeing as it's a prequel, wouldn't impact future JJ Trek universe movies!

Yggr of Asgard

I also wonder, is this really Star Trek?

If I look at this separate from any expectation I have to a Star Trek show (and what makes Star Trek Star Trek), than this show is not really bad and an interesting war in space show (too bad that space above and beyond never took off).

_Kaiser_

Venom wrote: »

Has any reason being given why they didn't go the pre JJ Trek universe Kirk and crew route? It would of solved so many fan and lore issues and seeing as it's a prequel, wouldn't impact future JJ Trek universe movies!

The only reason I can think of is marketing..

They know the JJ films split the fan base but that everyone loves the TOS era so by saying this was in the original timeline, just before that era but with JJ tone and style, I guess they thought they'd appeal to both sides

The problem is that many of the original fans see that as an insult to their intelligence, and don't like the JJ films anyway - and this IS basically JJ Trek: the Series - and on top of that, many of the JJ film fans wouldn't be paying to watch an entire series.

Venom

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

The only reason I can think of is marketing..

They know the JJ films split the fan base but that everyone loves the TOS era so by saying this was in the original timeline, just before that era but with JJ tone and style, I guess they thought they'd appeal to both sides

The problem is that many of the original fans see that as an insult to their intelligence, and don't like the JJ films anyway - and this IS basically JJ Trek: the Series - and on top of that, many of the JJ film fans wouldn't be paying to watch an entire series.

It just seems for every solution they came up with to try and appease both fan bases, they created multiple problems instead that would rile up the original fans such Spock having an adopted sister, the JJ style tech and the new Klingons?

I'd love to know the reason post Nemesis Trek is such a no go for TV and movies.

jamesbere

Venom wrote: »

It just seems for every solution they came up with to try and appease both fan bases, they created multiple problems instead that would rile up the original fans such Spock having an adopted sister, the JJ style tech and the new Klingons?

I'd love to know the reason post Nemesis Trek is such a no go for TV and movies.

I don't get it either, there was plenty of material to work with post nemesis. What happened to the borg, future of the cardassians and dominion. The future alliance with the Klingons and federation. I know star trek online covers some of this but a TV series or film would be better

This is fantastic. Great TV. Fantastic action. Great opening two episodes.

expectationlost

feels like there a redoing the USS Defiant story