Star Trek: Discovery S01E01-02 Review: To Boldly Go

Star Trek: Discovery, Episode 1: The Vulcan Hello; Episode 2: The Battle at Binary Stars

So yesterday I just happened to watch the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, the brand-new Star Trek TV show, and I think the first in over a couple of decades. I know scant little about the franchise beyond pop culture osmosis. I saw every one of the rebooted movies, a couple of individual episodes from the original and TNG shows, I know some of the memes and catchphrases, but I wouldn't call myself well-versed in Trek lore. Yet I was kinda bored yesterday and decided to give Star Trek: Discovery a shot.

The two episodes that it started off with felt more like a prologue to a far larger story, more intent on introducing our main character, Michael Burnham (played by Sonequa Martin-Green, a.k.a. Sasha from Walking Dead) as well as setting up the presumably series-long conflict against the Klingons. Oh, and this is apparently a prequel to the Star Trek movies. And, of course, just like the Star Wars prequels, it has... insanely slick technology that look centuries beyond what we saw in the older films and TV shows, despite taking place chronologically earlier. Can't be helped.

The graphics are pretty great, by the way. Whether it was the astronaut suit shooting through an asteroid belt, or the panning shot of the binary star, or the costuming for the Klingons (which look cool, if not especially rubber-headed like the traditional costume), or the space battle, it's pretty damn great-looking, regardless of whether it made sense in a continuity standpoint or not. 

I come into this series fresh with zero expectations beyond 'yay, space stuff', and so far it's entertaining enough. It's thrilling, the acting's decent, the special effects are movie-worthy and I am engaged enough during my stay throughout the first two episodes that I might return for more. The first two episodes are far more intent on setting the tone and telling the relatively simple story of the disastrous space contact between the Federation and the until-now reclusive Klingons, who themselves are being riled up by the warlord T'Kuvma, who led his ship into Federation territory to rile up the other Klingon Houses and conquer and not be weaklings and be polluted by the homogenization of the 'we come in peace' mentality of the Federation. 

We are introduced to the main characters of the piece. Michael Burnham, a human raised by the ultra-logical Vulcans, yet has enough of a daredevil streak to suggest flying out with a jetpack astronaut suit to investigate an unknown structure in the middle of a radiation-blasted asteroid field, and has enough sense of humour to bicker with her shipmates. Serving on the USS Shenzhou alongside her is the stern-but-playful Obi-Wan figure, Captain Phillipa (played by the amazing Michelle Yeoh), who acts as her mentor, as well as the snarky wrinkle-faced alien Saru. Conflict arose when they discover the Klingons on Federation space, and we learn that Burnham has had significant tragedy at the hands of the Klingons, and things go downhill when the Klingon ship, led by T'Kuvma and a bunch of seeming outcasts, basically acts all hostile and shit.

Burnham's logical response is to show the Klingons a hello in a language that the Klingons will understand -- a show of force. It's ambiguous whether it's the logical decision against a relatively illogical race, or if Burnham is just consumed by emotions (the conflict between her Vulcan logic and her human emotions is the theme of her character, but it doesn't get displayed quite as well as it could), but she attempts to stage a coup, basically, and gets thrown into the brig at the end of the first episode, just as the Klingons basically engage with the USS Shenzhou and her reinforcements. It's a bold decision that might be justified by the fact that she's proven right when the Klingons do attack, but at the same time she did, y'know, try to belay the orders of everyone.

Oh, we also get to see brief bits of her backstory through flashbacks, including her adoptive father Sarek (who I think is Spock's father, yeah?), who apparently has a psychic connection with her. Mostly Sarek acts patronizing and helpful in equal beats. Not really that much to say about it, but it does help put Burnham's conflict between her Vulcan and human nature into some perspective.

The other main character that survives the episode, Saru, doesn't get much to do. He's far more stuffy than Burnham, bickers with her a lot, but they ultimately have a 'good working buddies' relationship going on. Saru's a Kelpien, as google tells me, and apparently this means he can sense death or something. I did enjoy him, though. He was fun.

The Klingons are also presented in a pretty cool light, with T'Kuvma being portrayed as this messianic figure, this revolutionary who rose from a tragic, downtrodden backstory to make the Klingons great again. He's a cool leader, and his second-in-command, an albino named Voq, gets some screentime too. We get talk about uniting the Houses, about reminding the galaxy of the Klingons, about purity, about torchbearing, and apparently the Klingons invented cloaking devices, which the Federation either has never heard of before or are just plain unfamiliar with. We get to see some of the Klingon culture well, too, with the disparate Houses not all wanting to kowtow to T'Kuvma, them respecting warriors who can endure pain, and really respecting the dead, stopping in the middle of a battle to pick up their dead with tractor beams, and have a ritual to put them in coffins and attach them to the side of their ship. Or maybe that particular funerary ritual is just unique to T'Kuvma's subfaction. I'm not sure.

T'Kuvma is presented as a villain with some depth, which makes it even more surprising that he gets killed off at the end of the two-parter. Seeing Burnham's mentor, Captain Phillipa, get killed isn't especially shocking, although that might simply be the 'guest starring' bit on the opening credits cluing me in. Seeing what seemed to be a character built up as a main villain get shot? That's pretty cool and a neat twist.

(It is unfortunate that the female Asian captain gets killed off in favour of yet another white male captain, as the 'next episode' seems to imply and Wikipedia tells me is going to be the main cast, but the main character still seems to be the female, black Burnham. So...)

The story ends with a bittersweet victory. While T'Kuvma's armies do manage to shatter and cripple the Federation ships, even killing one Admiral Anderson, thanks to Phillipa and Burnham they get part of their ship blown up, and they lose their leader, T'Kuvma... something that Burnham notes will end up being a martyr all the Klingons will rally behind. And while Burnham survives, she loses her mentor, and gets stripped of her rank and court-martialled at the end of the episode... which presumably is going to be the setup for the 'real' start of the season in the third episode. It's interesting enough, and I'm genuinely curious if it'll be far more episodic, or if it's going to be super-serialized and dealing with the Klingons.

The early two-parter is more about introducing characters and the story's a wee bit simple and somewhat feels like generic sci-fi at times, but it's engaging enough. I'm not sure if it's going to be enough for the Star Trek diehards because I genuinely don't know the bars that older Star Trek shows have set, or if it'll be interesting enough to draw in new viewers. For now I'll give it a chance, because the opening is decent, but we'll see if the rest of Discovery will prove to be a revitalization of one of the oldest and most iconic series of science fiction, or if I'm better served binge-watching older Star Trek series.