posted
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.
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
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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.
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
Registered: Mar 1999
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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.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
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).
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
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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.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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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.
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
Registered: Mar 2000
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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?
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
Registered: Mar 1999
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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.
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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."
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
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?
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
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You don't have to subscribe to the shitty CBS service if you look elsewhere. That's what I'm doing.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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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.
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
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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.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
I took it as 24 great houses at the moment and dozens of minor houses.
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
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