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

The Vulcan Hello and Battle of the Binary Stars are a two-part episode in the same way that episodes like Improbable Cause and The Die is Cast or Homefront and Paradise Lost are.

 

Nope

 

Well I didn't like, not only ST V, but Sybok. I refuse to accept that Spock has a brother. Now a having a sister, surrogate? like Burnham, not sure what she would be to Spock (I know not related, but Sarek's Ward) is another issue. I can accept Sarek taking Burnham into his home/family than Sybok anyday

 

Star Trek 1st Episodes:
1. Broken Bow
2. Emissary
3. Beyond the Farthest Star
4. Caretaker
5. The Vulcan Hello
6. The Man Trap
7. Encounter at Farpoint

 

Thanks CBS, only one episode on regular TV. And it ends on a cliffhanger, swell.

There are so many things: canon/continuity, cinematography, pacing, some of the acting, set and prop design.

Where's the color? Where is the cast love and character connection? Where is that sense of wonder, adventure, and optimism?

It may have Trek shapes and styles, but it just doesn't feel like Star Trek.

 

oh Thank you for reminding me which ep this dialog is from. Spock said he did try to teach Kirk the neck pinch and couldn't, they don't exactly elaborate as to why

 

Sure. But the idea behind it was, even as one considered strong for his species, Spock ultimately failed in teaching it to Kirk because humans lack the fine-motor strength and dexterity needed to close the artery without killing the subject. At least, that's how I always understood it.

 

Yes. But I think the first halves of those two-parters held up much better than "The Vulcan Hello".

 

The series premieres as I see them from best to worst:

1. Broken Bow
2. Caretaker
3. The Vulcan Hello
4. Emissary
5. Encounter at Farpoint
6. The Man Trap

 

Yep. A cliffhanger might work between seasons, but you don't want something like that for a pilot where the second half of it requires a pay service. That's just an awful, awful idea to get people onboard to a pay service, when they've only seen half the introduction.

 

Did Emissary "not feel like Star Trek"? How about Homefront and Paradise Lost? Because those are the episodes TVH and BotBS most resemble narratively and tonally.

 

Nope.

Because in all of those cases. Each episode it's own theme, plot, and narrative. And they all are self contained. For example, the plot in IC is the who-done-it with Garak's shop.

 

Kirk and Bones never succeeded at it, but Picard and Archer both successfully performed the pinch. Maybe Spock just had bad form that didn't work with human fingers, or alternatively was a natural talent who couldn't communicate the technique well as a coach.

 

And it was already in an established season. We know Garak, we know the characters, the setting, and the storyline.

This is a pilot, which is a wholly different animal. Yes, get people watching, but don't cut the introduction in half before they know whether or not they like what they're seeing. The first hour does almost nothing to establish anything other than stilted Klingon dialogue, expansive shots, great visuals, and "Federation good / Klingons bad." For some, that might be enough for a network or cable show, but for a pay access series? It might take much more.

 

Honestly, my only real complaint with this pilot is that I don't buy the footsteps drawing out the Starfleet symbol in the desert sand didn't blow away immediately.

I loved Frain as Sarek, and I hate James Frain in (almost?) everything I've seen him in before. But I thought he was perfectly cast here.

I had a nerd moment of resisting the holographic communications (it was such a big new thing when DS9 got it for two episode!), but then settled down and admitted this is clearly better.

I even liked the uniforms more in in the context of the full episode, I really didn't care for them in the trailers.

 

More of a fewstepsawayfromthecliffedge.

Canon/continuity debatable or irrelevant, cinematography great, pacing awful, acting was all over the place, set and prop design good.

Maybe a tad unfair, since it was the pilot and not DS9 or TOS.

Clearly not the kind of story they wanted to tell here. That shit don't sell in this day and age.

Absolutely correct, in my opinion.

 

The plot of The Vulcan Hello is the discovery of T'Kuvma's ship and Michael Burnham's choice to try and fire on it before it fires on the Shenzou.

The plot of Battle of the Binary Stars is the creation of the conflict that Burnham wanted to avoid by showing the Klingons a gesture they could respect.

Two separate narratives that form a single overall story, just like the episodes I mentioned from Deep Space Nine.

 

No, you stop dictating to people what they are and are not allowed to critique. You are neither a mod nor the arbiter of acceptable opinions, and this is now the second time you've been told to stop doing this. Keep it up and you'll receive an infraction.

 

It was clever, but not clever enough for a slow as hell exposition dump on a desert world.

Personally, I would have made the shape of a penis for my bridge crew to lol at.

 

I guess the Klingon Empire went largely into isolation after the birth of the Federation in 2161 save for occasional border skirmishes and massacres like the one depicted in the flashback sequence. The poor state of relations begun by Klaang, Archer, Enterprise NX-01 and the Earth Starfleet seems to have left a sour and even bitter aftertaste in the mouths of both humans and their allies and the Klingons. It was jarring at first considering that Spock in Star Trek VI said that the two sides had been experiencing unremitting hostility for 70 years at that point, but the 2223 timeframe could easily have been the date of one of the early 23rd century border raids and massacres, following which both powers became even more wary of one another and tensions increased to the brink of open warfare.