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Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x01 - "The Vulcan Hello"

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Ehh... It's kind of shit so far, to be perfectly honest. I mean, I'll stick with it and see where it goes, but not a great first impression, y'know?
 
Various thoughts:

Desert scene seemed unnecessary other than to show Georgiou's cleverness. Also - no shuttlecrafts available to pick them up? Have to bring down a starship?

Klingons. Boooorrring. Too drawn out; too much awk bawk a cawk Klingon language.

Good to see the tradition of prick admirals continues in the new show. Burnham killed in self-defense. Not her fault (at that point) that things went sideways.

Scene of Burnham in underwear. Achievement unlocked. Decon gel anyone? Plus - why not CALL the bridge instead of dashing up there.

Sarek. Ugh. Didn't add much. Not really on board with Frain portraying him.

Not much action 'til the very end and then CLIFFHANGER! Pay up, you cheap fuckers.

Mutiny? Really? And you can't do a nerve pinch that'll knock someone out for more than 30 seconds? Amateur.

The visual stuff was really good and the ship looked great.

Loved Saru.

Very much like Burnham too.

I'd give it a B- or a C-. I'm doing the free trial to get 2 more eps and then we'll see if I continue. I'm interested, but it needs to improve.
 
My biggest problem with it was the main character's insight about the threat of the Klingons seemed under developed. Honestly, I think she kinda came across as 1st season Kira. And I really dislike mutiny/insubordination story lines unless they are done REALLY well. Klingons were fine.
 
I gave it an 8. Solid, not spectacular; not the best debut episode of any of the Trek series (IMO, it's DS9's Emissary), but not the worst, either.

Highlights: Burnham, Saru, T'Kuvma.

Not-so-highlights:

1. The darkened bridge (it looks like they turned the lights off so it could be lit up by the stars)

2. Burnham's insubordination against Georgiou doesn't quite seem like the actions of a Starfleet officer. I would've had her plead her case in private with her captain, and follow her orders in public without question. How Burnham handled the situation doesn't sit right with me.

3. Georgiou. I want to like her but from the series opener alone I saw an officer who's a) so all-in on the Starfleet ideal that she ignores her first officer's wise advice not to poke the Klingons and b) willing to allow her first officer to leave the bridge during a red alert without a specific reason. That's one friend deferring to another. As captain she should've demanded specifics and made her decision accordingly.
 
My biggest problem with it was the main character's insight about the threat of the Klingons seemed under developed. Honestly, I think she kinda came across as 1st season Kira. And I really dislike mutiny/insubordination story lines unless they are done REALLY well. Klingons were fine.

"Nerve pinch me again, and I'll have your nerve pinch on a platter."

Doesn't work that well, sorry. Let me throw in a lens flare to compensate.
 
Spoilers for part 2:

The whole thing was just one big contrivance to create a pariah for an MC. And it was evident in the after episode season trailer that the whole pariah thing is going to be a running theme.
 
I never thought I would see a day where Star Trek fans would turn out to be as cynical as some sections of the Star Wars fandom, but apparently I overestimated the Trek fandom's level of maturity.

The only possible way The Vulcan Hello could be seen as "shit" is if people want to be negative simply for the sake of being negative.
 
Too much of the dialogue felt too exposition-y, especially the subtitled Klingon dialogue. Seru was a little intriguing but felt a little too trying-to-be-Spock-ish and a little too The Guy That's Wrong. Burnham deciding to take over was interesting but not really justified, kind of relying on the audience trusting and admiring Sarek (and her decision that the same thing must be tried now a little too illogical).

Just yesterday I started having a suspicion it would end on a cliffhanger ... indeed pretty shameless and unsatisfying, not interesting enough to pay for the continuation, especially with the Klingon footage feeling mostly like padding.
 
Various thoughts:

(Snip)

This was pretty much how I felt. Some good, some silly, some terrible. Sadly, more silly and bad than great.

Weird characterization they're giving Michael. She's a stoic pseudo-Vulcan who is reclaiming her humanity, but she's also a hysterical mutineer. I guess that's meant to demonstrate the effect of trauma, but I don't see how she can continue in Starfleet in any capacity after this.
 
First thoughts. Subject to change.

- The Klingons are foreign and like nothing we've seen before, and they are not Ridgeless. But there was a comment made, that some of the coffins were thousands of years old. Perhaps these are Klingons that have existed in a complete vacuum?

- Burnham was irritating. She seemed like me to be a human that was way too excited to try and include Vulcan teachings in her life. For all intents and purposes, she was raised Vulcan, but humans don't have the same grasp of emotions that Vulcans do, so it seemed odd for her to be trying to act so Vulcan, and at times it came off forced.

- The captain, I forgot her name already, seemed forced in her calling Burnham "number 1". I felt like that was something that only Picard did, but I could be wrong, and feel free to correct me. Besides that, she was alright. I guess.

- Graphics were impressive, very very impressive. I liked the design of the Shenzhou overall, it was interesting and brought to life very well with the new graphics.

- How are they going to rationalize all that technology, being it's only ten years before TOS?

- More on the Klingons; I liked that they brought more culture into it and are delving into something we haven't seen with the klingons before. The Sarcophagus-Warbird was awesome. Who the hell is Voq and why is he white? I'm not sure how I feel about that. I have heard that there will be flat forehead Klingons as well as more traditional TNG-style Klingons in later episodes, and I look forward to this.
 
I bet we don't get an explanation this season. We will get one when the producers realized they screwed up and should not have drastically changed the look.

They changed the look of everything. Why focus on the Klingons? They're as similar to the old ones as much as the ships and unis are.
 
Jadeb:
Weird characterization they're giving Michael. She's a stoic pseudo-Vulcan who is reclaiming her humanity, but she's also a hysterical mutineer. I guess that's meant to demonstrate the effect of trauma, but I don't see how she can continue in Starfleet in any capacity after this.

Yeah, she came off as more human than Vulcan for sure. I thought she'd be a lot more Vulcan-like.
 
Nothing makes sense with TOS (honestly nothing probably can so it's another reason to not have a prequel.)

I agree nothing makes sense with TOS and if producers REFUSE to at least make prequels more in line with Canon they should just move things forward. I disagree that nothing can make sense.

All they needed to do was
-use a non window view screen
-Have Blue and Yellow uniforms slightly updated from the cage and Where no man has gone before.(something like the current movie uniforms)
- A less busy ships interior. Sure it does not have to look exactly post Cage and Pre Wnmhgb but visual cues to bridge it would have been nice.
- Not have hologram transmissions. Just use the view-screen. We never saw hologram transmissions like that in starships. Just don't use it.
-Lasty use standard Bumpy and smoothy klingon. We got a great explanation in Enterprise of the Bumpy/smoothy klingons. This was a great chance to add to that and show both in this show. But NOOOO they just had to update the style and start the whole thing debate/ speculation of their look all over again.
-Do their research on Canon. There should be no big plot holes.

If they did these things it would have been more palpable and believable that it came before. But no they decided to do what they want and this is the result.

Enterprise with all it's faults at least TRIED. It's a much more believable prequel than Discovery.
 
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Nothing about Discovery ever indicated that it was going to be an "exploration" show, so if that's what you were expecting , the fault lies in your expectations and not the series itself.

I can live with that. I am sad that this concept was the one chosen to restart Trek on TV. Having that opinion does not mean I hate the show or refuse to give it a chance.
 
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