The first episode of Star Trek: Discovery will air on CBS the night of Sunday, September 24, and will also be released on CBS's streaming service sometime the same day. Please only discuss the first episode here.
Posted by Krenim (Member # 22) on :
Plenty of things to nitpick? Sure. But so help me, I enjoyed the first episode.
So the premise seems to be that we've got this Klingon religious fanatic who wants to unite the Empire against the Federation. Cool, I guess. We'll see where this goes.
And yes, we have ridged Klingons. Specifically, ridged bald Klingons that look more like the Kelvin timeline variety than anything else. I'm willing to give this a pass for the time being, since we don't have specifics on how far the Augment virus spread or when the Klingons started applying a cure to said virus. Would be nice to see TOS Klingons at some point, though, just for the acknowledgement.
Whether intentional or not, we might have a few vague references to Enterprise. The Federation is mentioned to have barely encountered the Klingons for a century, which would match up to Archer's encounters with them. And we get some elaboration on Vulcan's diplomatic relations with Qo'noS, in that the Vulcans decided to simply fire on any Klingon ship they came across until the Klingons were ready to bargain. That does sound like something Vulcans from that era would do.
Okay, so assuming these Vulcan learning pods are the same sort of adapting programs Spock used in The Voyage Home, you'd think they wouldn't ask a traumatized little girl a bunch of increasingly insensitive questions about the brutal attack that killed her family.
Sarek mentions that there is a "new star in the sky". How? Light from the beacon would take years to reach anywhere!
Holographic communication? Wasn't this established as experimental tech in Deep Space Nine?
Good acting from everyone, especially Doug Jones. He does not get enough praise for his roles.
Oh, and love the opening credits. Star Trek by way of da Vinci. And at the very least, the theme music isn't a pop song cover this time around.
Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :
Subspace sensors relay info faster than light.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Promotional interviews and such established that the new re-skulled quadri-nostrilled be-clawed hairless fashionistas are, in fact, "regular" Klingons.
The show's got money to just burn, with insane production values. The writing isn't terrible and the cast is competent, with some standouts, but it's basically got no connection to the rest of the franchise's rich tapestry of history and facts.
That Klingons would disappear for a century after Archer just makes no sense, and runs contrary to known events like the Battle of Donatu V. That disappearing act was the Romulans' schtick, which they seem to have confused. If both disappeared, that would literally mean the two major foes of the early Federation had taken a century-long lunchbreak. Seems to me the early Starfleet would've stagnated in such a case.
The 24 houses thing is a rewrite of Klingon culture.
The visual sensor scrambler that is eyeball and telescope-defeatable at range makes no sense in this universe. Indeed, the whole plot is pretty weak at that point, since Mike just acts as a human probe.
I actually like the "Vulcan Hello" story of how they dealt with Klingons early on, as it fits well with Enterprise Vulcan asshats.
But, the lip service to the Prime Directive was hilarious. They fixed an alien well and almost landed a starship on top of the aliens but acted like there was something serious to uphold, not the fun intro from STID.
All in all, it was as I feared . . . a reboot, Star Trek in name only. I'm one and done.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
If that was their attempt to convince me that they can not only make a Star Trek show, but that I should pay $6/month for it, I don't know how they could have failed more miserably.
I mean, the episode ended with the show's ostensible "hero" physically attacking her captain in order to initiate a first strike against the Klingons. Remember in TNG when O'Brien's old captain decided the Cardassians couldn't be trusted, so he was going to attack them first? I feel like the Discovery writers didn't get that he was the villain of that episode.
At least they definitively proved that the show does not take place in the old timeline. If it did, cloaking devices wouldn't be unknown, Klingons wouldn't have them, and holographic communicators would still be over a hundred years away (and even then won't let the hologram just wander around the room).
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
So I watched both episodes, because torrents. I'm not going to go too much into it, but production-wise, I was far too distracted by visual wowieness to easily follow the story, a point that compounded the existing feeling that the story was boring & slow. I was sitting there saying to myself, "Rimmer, can't you tell the story is not gripping me? I'm in a state of non-grippedness, I am completely smegging ungripped."
That plus other factors mean my already apprehensive leanings have been seriously deepened, enough to push me firmly into the anti camp for now. I'll see how it continues to get a better read, but suffice it to say, however, that it will not be acknowledge as Prime universe, & thus its events will not find their way into my project.
Also, those main titles piss me the fuck off, & I'd rather have had Michelle Yeoh stick around than have Jason Isaacs sign on.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
Bold choice to save up the Discovery for episode 3. Didn't really feel like a pilot episode but more like a prelude.
I'll keep watching but I gotta say that I found the redesign of the Klingons utterly annoying. Their looks, clothes, weapons, ships... And the ugly villain trope's been done to death IMO (INS, NEM, Beyond).
The theme song is kind of bland. Nothing remarkable about it besides a familiar beginning and end. Even "Faith of the Heart" worked better.
Posted by Krenim (Member # 22) on :
Okay, I really need to ask the question at this point...
Why are some of you so dead set on insisting this is not the Prime timeline?
Remember the "good ol' days" of Voyager when the show couldn't keep continuity with itself let alone the previous Trek series? Did we insist Voyager was in its own continuity? No. We attributed it to the laziness of the writers and producers.
Heck, I don't even recall people making this argument with Enterprise, where putting it in its own timeline actually had some merit due to the Temporal Cold War shenanigans.
But here? Seems like so many people are crafting some sinister conspiracy behind the scenes, where Kurtzman is waiting to leap out and yell "I fooled you all, this was JJTrek all along!"
Seriously, help me out here, people. What is the appeal of this argument versus when we used to chalk up such things merely to Berman and Braga's incompetance?
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
quote:Originally posted by Krenim: Why are some of you so dead set on insisting this is not the Prime timeline?
I must agree with you there completely. Having just finished watching the first two episodes, my main concern was not about continuity errors...because quite honestly over the years I've seen the fan community retcon bigger problems than these first two episodes have given us. Just talking off the top of my head, here's my views on some of the "problems":
- The concept of cloaking technology being new to the 22nd Century was already on shaky ground, as 'Enterprise' showed us both the Suliban and more importantly the Romulans using it a century before the Romulans are supposed to have invented it.
- How is that there are 24 Klingon houses a rewrite of Klingon history? We've never once been told how many houses have seats on the High Council, and TOS doesn't tell us a single thing about Klingon houses (or the Klingon system of government for that matter).
- While annoying and unnecessary in my opinion, the redesign of the Klingons is no more problematic than their redesign for The Motion Picture was. It's not too much of a stretch to say that their appearance now is an early attempt to undo the augment virus, but hasn't gone exactly according to plan.
- Michael basically attempting mutiny against her CO doesn't exactly bother me. I wanted to punch that captain in the face as well, considering she clearly had no idea how to deal with Klingons.
One thing I am curious about is Voq (the albino Klingon). I can't help but wonder if he's supposed to be The Albino from DS9.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Krenim:
Voyager's continuity bawbles pale in comparison to the gross rewrites we have here. Voyager at least made a passing effort to be part of the rest of the mythos, whereas the makers of this literally can't be bothered.
As I said recently to someone who demanded others accept it as Prime (unlike your polite inquiry),
"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.
That said, the production values are utterly insane, the writing and cast seem above average (given the plot holes like a subspace relay near a radiation-heavy binary and next to a debris field that they sent a manned flight into rather than a probe), and so if they'd have just called it a reboot from the get-go ("a lie is a very poor way to say hello") I might've given it a chance."
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
First, I enjoyed the first episode. Won't watch more for a while; I'll probably wait until the first half of the season is out, and burn my free trial to binge it.
The show basically filled my expectations. Visually, it's a reboot, but thematically, I think it'll fit right in. I'm okay with the visual reboot because the tech was always a means to an end, not the end itself. I really liked the approach they had for the central conflict: the captain definitely represents the classic Starfleet ideal of pure pacifism, which is a noble thing to strive for. But it seems that one of the main themes is going to be the definition of pacifism. Though it was rarely discussed explicitly, the Klingons always had an underlying disdain for Humans; it's clear in Discovery that part of the conflict arises from the Humans not meeting the Klingons on the latters' terms.
But Sarek's warning to Burnham gets overlooked: he described how the Vulcans just kept shooting at the Klingons until the Klingons respected them, but he also emphasized that that approach likely wouldn't work now. The Federation has already established its reputation with the Klingons, so there's no way the Klingons would immediately stand down in the same way.
It raises some interesting questions. I think that Discovery is trying to address how classic Star Trek ideals can fit into a modern 21st century world, using the Klingons as the catalyst for that story.
I'm interested enough in the show; but I sure won't pay $6 or $10 per month to watch one single show on a second-rate streaming service with no other content that I'm interested in. (I already own every season of Trek on disc; why would I pay to watch it again?) I'll be waiting for the Blu-ray or iTunes release to buy it.
But I can't resist nitpicking!
On the surface, the Klingons being out of touch with the Federation before this episode actually makes some sense. The last we saw of them was the Augment plague; I can easily see a massive civil war and general infighting after something like that. Clearly based on Burnham's back story, the Klingons weren't COMPLETELY isolated like the Romulans, so the occasional battle like Donatu V can be easily explained.
My biggest argument against this sequence of events is actually from The Undiscovered Country: Spock specifically referred to "seventy years of unremitting hostility." That doesn't match either Enterprise's backstory OR Discovery's, now.
I also agree with Zipacna on cloaking technology: Enterprise ruined that argument long ago.
The holograms feel out of place. But hey, we had viewscreens for internship communication with the speaker looking at a nonexistent camera in the middle of the bridge—think of Uhura on the bridge, calling Kirk in the briefing room, appearing on the center triangular viewscreen with her console showing behind her. If Kirk's Enterprise could have nonexistent cameras, why can't Discovery have holograms? Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
You don't have to subscribe to the shitty CBS service if you look elsewhere. That's what I'm doing.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
quote:Originally posted by Zipacna: - Michael basically attempting mutiny against her CO doesn't exactly bother me. I wanted to punch that captain in the face as well, considering she clearly had no idea how to deal with Klingons.
I had no problem with that as well. That was her Vulcan upbringing kicking in. She did what she thought was the logical thing to do. In "The Menagerie", Spock also physically attacked a fellow officer, kidnapped the Enterprise and disobeyed one of Starfleet's General Orders.
quote:One thing I am curious about is Voq (the albino Klingon). I can't help but wonder if he's supposed to be The Albino from DS9.
Not sure, Voq is following some misguided concept of honour, while The Albino was basically a thug.
IIRC the battle of Donatu V was mentioned by T'Kuvma.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by Zipacna:
1. At issue is the early Klingon possession of cloaks.
2. A limited-numeric Klingon house structure makes no sense. The houses of Mogh, Duras, especially Martok the commoner, his wife's family, et cetera all point to a rather more open, nebulous structure, akin to Earth houses, with "new money" folks available.
3. Having a Klingon individual change from TMP to TOS style is minor compared to the ”Threshold"-level realism that would be needed to imagine the STD Klingons making such a change. The long skulls alone would make that silly.
4. The assault and mutiny may not bother you, butbsuffice it to say that is not how the chain of command works. Mike scarcely bothered to try to further convince the captain of the logic of her plan, save for her smarmy "my ideas are l33t, don't challenge me" nonsense.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
I took it as 24 great houses at the moment and dozens of minor houses.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Seems like so many people are crafting some sinister conspiracy behind the scenes, where Kurtzman is waiting to leap out and yell 'I fooled you all, this was JJTrek all along!'"
I don't think it's consistent with the Abrams timeline, either. Like I said, there were cloaks in ENT (which is set before the timelines split), and suddenly the crew of the Shenzhou are confused that such a thing exists. I also don't think the producers are trying to play a trick on the audience. I think they just want to say that it's the original timeline, but don't want to bother putting any effort into making it consistent with that claim at all.
"...the redesign of the Klingons is no more problematic than their redesign for The Motion Picture was."
I don't really agree with that. When the Klingons were redesigned for TMP, they'd only looked like they did for three seasons, and the change was because makeup techniques were available that hadn't been before. But now we have a Klingon look that's been established for almost 40 years across ten films and 25 seasons of television. At this point, changing them up again so drastically just... because... is simply one more thing on the pile of things making this not feel like Star Trek to me.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Hey! It's 2017, there's a new TV show, let's fire up the old forum accounts.
So, Discovery.. I'll just do random bullet points, since I can't really make coherent sense of this yet:
* Overall, the story was decent enough to keep me hooked. It's basically as far removed from the old TV shows as TNG was from TOS, so I guess I'll just have to accept this as building on modern canon.
* But, nitpicks!
* By far the biggest issue with continuity are the Klingons. I kept expecting regular Klingons to show up among the other houses, or at least neo-Klingons in something resembling TOS costumes, and maybe with more Augment-affected ridges. But none of that, all Klingons are now monstrous aliens not resembling any others seen.
* The Starfleet vessels were kind of era-nonspecific Eaves designs (they could have been ENT era or 26th century and look the same). Perfectly reasonable, if a bit safe. THe interiors were a reasonable mix of ENT and Kelvin, which I suppose counts as proper canon.
* I can't imagine how "The Cage" fits into this, so I guess it doesn't? But via "The Menagerie", all of this is pretty canon.
* A huge 23rd century spacecraft is not as good as observing things as a telescope. I don't know how that makes sense in any way.
* Window blinds, like seatbelts and surge protectors, were never invented.
* Courtroom lighting is prone to budget cuts, leading to dramatic scenes.
* I did love the "busy" bridge, with many people milling around and a lot of background chatter and a TOS-y soundscape. It felt like a real mission control room.
* I get why it was necessary for this story, but it's kind of weird sending out a senior officer in a space suit. At least that fits other Trek where drones or other remote operation is rare.
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000:
1. Why is that an issue though? The ship we saw cloaking was T'Kumva's - a man who is implied to be an outsider up until this point. It's too early to say if the cloaking technology is standard use in the Klingon fleet or if it's unique to T'Kumva's ship. But if it is in standard use then all we really know is that cloaking technology was "new" to the Klingons when Kor was commanding the Klothos (assuming his story about taking it apart from DS9 wasn't a drunken ramble). Nothing from Discovery so far contradicts what little we've been told about Klingons and cloaking technology over the past 51 years.
2. Granted by the 2360s it's implied that there are a greater number of Klingon houses...but that's a century after this episode is set. The implication I got from these two episodes was that there were 24 houses with seats on the High Council, and that there were minor houses with no power. We've also been told directly in TNG that the House of Mogh was granted a seat on the High Council by Gowron, so the precedent in canon for the number of houses with power being added too has been established long ago. That there are minor houses at this time with no power could also work with Kor's view of Martok as a commoner...if the concept of minor houses now gaining power is something that developed in the century between Discovery and TNG, I could easily see the more traditional aspects of society railing against change.
3. There we'll have to disagree, because I don't view human-looking Klingons changing into bumpy-headed Klingons as being more "minor" than bumpy-headed Klingons with hair turning into bumpy-headed Klingons with no hair & more nostrils. Don't get me wrong...I'd have been happier if they hadn't redesigned the Klingons, but they have. And honestly it's less hard to believe that the Klingons changing than, for example, the Trill changing from a species with cranial plates to species with spots just because Terry Farrell looked better with spots.
4. I can't really address this without spoilers for the second episode, but the insubordination wasn't without consequences...and did result in her CO pointing a phaser at her head!
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
First, my compliments. Most of the pro-Discovery folks I have dealt with on Twitter and some other forums have been self-professed trolls or just unwilling to even discuss the fact that changes occurred. You're thus the first actual STD apologist I have encountered.
quote:Originally posted by Zipacna: It's too early to say if the cloaking technology is standard use in the Klingon fleet or if it's unique to T'Kumva's ship.
T'K might be having his strings pulled by Romulans, then. That'd be original.
Not having cloaks would be worse, in that not only would T'K be all like "hey guys, let's have a war except I haven't given you this tactically significant edge stuff yet" but also that others go along with it. And in any case, as much as ENT broke the cloaking timeline, that's no excuse.
quote: Nothing from Discovery so far contradicts what little we've been told about Klingons and cloaking technology over the past 51 years.
On the contrary, it is very contradictory. We know the Klingons didn't have the tech until circa 2270, a fact bracketed by TOS and the launch of the weirdos Voyager encountered. (Indeed, this is basically that group with better tailors.)
quote: Granted by the 2360s it's implied that there are a greater number of Klingon houses...but that's a century after this episode is set.
So there is an ad hoc rationalization available featuring the sudden democratization of the Klingon people insofar as houses, running contrary to Kor and the rules he followed which were in use at the time of Martok.
That doesn't work well.
quote: We've also been told directly in TNG that the House of Mogh was granted a seat on the High Council by Gowron
That helps me, not you. The House of Mogh, like the House of Kor, was of noble descent. Kor was the last of his house, which seems unlikely if houses represented 1/24th of the Klingon population.
quote: There we'll have to disagree, because I don't view human-looking Klingons changing into bumpy-headed Klingons as being more "minor" than bumpy-headed Klingons with hair turning into bumpy-headed Klingons with no hair & more nostrils.
Skull elongation seems a bad plan in reverse. Brains don't like to be smushed.
quote: Trill changing
Yup, that happened. But that was a one-off species in the first appearance. The Klingons are rather better known, and have been consistent but for the Augment event for 1500 years as seen on screen.
quote: the insubordination wasn't without consequences
Even the sentence was nuts and un-Starfleet.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
The Klingon redesign bothered me more than any inconsistencies in Starfleet ship or uniform design.
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: First, my compliments. Most of the pro-Discovery folks I have dealt with on Twitter and some other forums have been self-professed trolls or just unwilling to even discuss the fact that changes occurred. You're thus the first actual STD apologist I have encountered.
Fairly rubbish fans there then, in my opinion. I'm reminded of the good old days of trying to rationalise the mess that was the last few seasons of Voyager and the first three seasons of Enterprise - just with the Berman/Braga bashing replaced by a new Satan.
quote:T'K might be having his strings pulled by Romulans, then. That'd be original.
Not having cloaks would be worse, in that not only would T'K be all like "hey guys, let's have a war except I haven't given you this tactically significant edge stuff yet" but also that others go along with it. And in any case, as much as ENT broke the cloaking timeline, that's no excuse.
The thing is, though, that it's not exactly like T'Kuvma's in a position to share any tech he's got any more, given the position both he and his ship are left in at the end of the opening two episodes. All of this is, of course, crap if upon their next appearance the Klingons are cloaking left right and centre, but from the opening two episodes as I say I don't recall seeing anyone other than T'Kuvma and the beacon cloak. I'm personally viewing his vessel alone the lines of the Klingon's version of the Scimitar, albeit a much older designed retrofitted with newer tech.
quote:On the contrary, it is very contradictory. We know the Klingons didn't have the tech until circa 2270, a fact bracketed by TOS and the launch of the weirdos Voyager encountered. (Indeed, this is basically that group with better tailors.)
The main question here, then, is when the "Prophecy" Klingons set off on their journey...the episode only says it was about a century prior to the episode. When they launched is potentially significant, as that D7 (or rather the K'Tinga in disguise) in "Prophecy" did have a cloaking device...the episode opens with it decloaking and attacking Voyager. All we can truly say is that it was sometime between 2256 and 2277.
quote:That helps me, not you. The House of Mogh, like the House of Kor, was of noble descent. Kor was the last of his house, which seems unlikely if houses represented 1/24th of the Klingon population.
It illustrates the point, though, that houses can gain more power and influence - as presumably the House of Martok would have done as well, unless you're advocating that Kor would have refused a commission in the military to someone whose family was on the High Council just because he viewed them as common? I view the number of MAJOR houses as akin to the situation in Britain before 1832, where only a handful of people from a select section of society were realistically represented in parliament and only a handful could actually vote...it's slightly different granted, but political reform can happen at a very rapid pace - and certainly as a historian I wouldn't assume that a political structure is the same a century before what I'd already seen, and vice versa.
quote:Skull elongation seems a bad plan in reverse. Brains don't like to be smushed.
Incorporating augmented Human DNA into an alien genome seems like a stupid idea anyway. This is a species that has already shown it will do stupid things with their DNA if they think it will make them stronger. I'd rather not have to rationalise it, but Enterprise gave us a potential answer...ironically without it this would probably be less of a debate.
quote:Even the sentence was nuts and un-Starfleet.
Was it? Tom Paris was demoted and imprisoned for a month for insubordination and disobeying orders...who had also been in prison for an unspecified amount of time for defecting to the Maquis. Kirk was demoted for stealing the Enterprise (and destroying it) and disobeying orders, even though he saved the world and rescued the life of the son of the Vulcan Ambassador (which probably helped him get a reduced sentence). It's not the first time we've seen a Starfleet officer do this sort of thing, and it's not the first time we've seen that same officer punished in this kind of way. Given that she is directly responsible, as well, for T'Kuvma's fate, a life sentence seems like a more civilised version of agreeing to the Klingons sending Kirk & McCoy to Rura Penthe 40 years later.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"...if houses represented 1/24th of the Klingon population."
I don't have an argument one way or the other about the Klingon house question, but I feel like I should point out that this is not how math works. "24 houses" does not mean "1/24 of the population" any more than "2 houses" would mean "1/2 of the population".
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: Not having cloaks would be worse, in that not only would T'K be all like "hey guys, let's have a war except I haven't given you this tactically significant edge stuff yet" but also that others go along with it. And in any case, as much as ENT broke the cloaking timeline, that's no excuse,
I'm currently re-watching the first few episodes, and apologies for the minor spoiler...but there's a line in the second episode between the albino Klingon and the High Council holograms about how "he [T'kuvma] has even devised a way to hide it [his ship] behind a cloak of invisibility". I think the implication there has got to be that the High Council doesn't have this technology, otherwise it would be the height of stupidity to give that as a reason to follow him.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
1. The Prophecy Klingons did not launch until after TOS because the Klingons had no cloaking then. Saying "all we can say is" in this context is ignoring what always established for what is desired.
2. If I invent a personal shield and try to entice others to join me in combat against some foe by showing it off, doesn't it stand to reason that all my potential allies would want one before the combat starts and not after? It's just very silly writing.
3. The imagined cultural revolution vis-a-vis Klingon houses is an ad hoc rationalization for an unnecessary reboot of Klingon society.
4. While there could be Klingons of no house, it seems clear that 1/24th is the idea, whether in direct membership or effective control. They're uniting the Empire, not a social club.
5. Incarceration for a lifetime has no precedent in Starfleet's own jurisprudence. Even if Burnham was directly responsible for the war as opposed to disobeying and assaulting a senior officer (which is not mutiny as only one person was involved), court martial and cashiering out of the service would be in keeping with what we've seen elsewhere.
Posted by becky (Member # 2187) on :
quote:Originally posted by Krenim: Plenty of things to nitpick? Sure. But so help me, I enjoyed the first episode.
So the premise seems to be that we've got this Klingon religious fanatic who wants to unite the Empire against the Federation. Cool, I guess. We'll see where this goes.
And yes, we have ridged Klingons. Specifically, ridged bald Klingons that look more like the Kelvin timeline variety than anything else. I'm willing to give this a pass for the time being, since we don't have specifics on how far the Augment virus spread or when the Klingons started applying a cure to said virus. Would be nice to see TOS Klingons at some point, though, just for the acknowledgement.
Whether intentional or not, we might have a few vague references to Enterprise. The Federation is mentioned to have barely encountered the Klingons for a century, which would match up to Archer's encounters with them. And we get some elaboration on Vulcan's diplomatic relations with Qo'noS, in that the Vulcans decided to simply fire on any Klingon ship they came across until the Klingons were ready to bargain. That does sound like something Vulcans from that era would do.
Okay, so assuming these Vulcan learning pods are the same sort of adapting programs Spock used in The Voyage Home, you'd think they wouldn't ask a traumatized little girl a bunch of increasingly insensitive questions about the brutal attack that killed her family.
Sarek mentions that there is a "new star in the sky". How? Light from the beacon would take years to reach anywhere!
Holographic communication? Wasn't this established as experimental tech in Deep Space Nine?
Good acting from everyone, especially Doug Jones. He does not get enough praise for his roles.
Oh, and love the opening credits. Star Trek by way of da Vinci. And at the very least, the theme music isn't a pop song cover this time around.
The problem with this show isn't that there are a few leaps of logic here and there. It's that it's constant and that there isn't anything left to fall back on that's any good (except for the production value and the "dark atmosphere" which makes it seem "deep"--whoop dee doo). We might accept it if the characters were good and interesting or even just likable...but they're not...or if something were still otherwise in keeping with Star Trek canon...but it's not...or if there was some kind of internal logic linking their actions together...but there's none. I could see various minor captains doing questionable ethical things, but ALL OF STARFLEET being on the search for these creatures to use like some horse in a field being whipped to death so it can do some work for them? Without even doing enough research to determine if it's sentient or not? Are you kidding? I haven't gotten the impression the Federation is quite at that point of desperation at this point in the war.
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