Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x02 - "Battle at the Binary Stars"

I can't help but feel that an Starfleet First Officer of 7 years experience wouldn't switch her phaser to kill in anger. That and her mutiny undermined the character for me.

 

BatBS was better than The Vulcan Hello, which was pretty awesome in and of itself.

I was seriously not expecting T'Kuvma and Capt. Georgiou to die, or for the episode to end with Burnham being imprisoned Tom Paris/Nick Locarno-style, but I'm really interested to see where the series goes from here.

I said in the discussion thread for The Vulcan Hello that it and BatBS might just end up being Trek's best Pilot, and, judging both episodes together like they should be, I think they are.

 

Biggest problem with this episode is the ending. It ended on a dud with the court scene. It wasn't much of a cliffhanger to keep you interested in tuning in next week. It seemed like the story just ended. They should have dropped a tease of what to expect from the '2nd pilot'

 

Tell that to Kanye West.

 

^^^
Don't forget STVI:TUC <-- After the Chancellor was killed his DAUGHTER became head of the Council.

 

Who?

 

It's also two years after "The Cage" - so if you go to TALOS IV - the Feds kill you too.

 

And then after Azetbur's term as Chancellor ended the Empire reverted back to male leaders and High Council members. Either Azetbur's rule was an abberation permitted due to the assassination of her father and a sense of grief and generosity among High Council members for having lost such a beloved leader to an act of violence or she did something so controversial and even hated within the Empire that after she stepped down or was deposed the High Council decreed that only men can rule the Empire as Chancellor.

 

She suggested everyone should shave their heads.

 

Where did you watch it? On All Access, there was a 2-minute long "this season on Discovery" preview

 

Belzoidian fleas were a major health problem in early 24th century Klingon society. She was made the scapegoat for her Empire's typically poor personal hygiene.

 

Well, if T'Kuvma is the same as the prophecied T'Kuvamah that the Klingons were looking for in Voyager, he doesnt have to be the physical reincarnation.

 

5/10

A little better than the first part. But not much. The basic idea of a messianic Klingon leader is a good one, but these don't seem like Klingons at all. And T'Kuvma was ponderous and dull. So it's not much of a loss that he's already gone. Hopefully this weird new alien species will have leaders and scenes that are less relentlessly tedious. I don't plan on sticking around to find out. I don't think the strength of these first two episodes, which never felt like Trek at any time, justify a paying subscription.

 

Tatiana Maslany as a time-travailing Miral.

Do it.

 

That was good. Both episodes were good, but I'd say this was a bit better. Good acting, great production values, some memorable and topical moments. The directing wasn't always the best, and some of the dialogue was stilted. But we're at the beginning here. It'll get there.

More importantly, we just watched the first new episodes of Star Trek in 12 years.

 

Yes, this. They've raised a serious emotional issue with Burnham that they dare not drop. My question: has the influence of Vulcan philosophy at an emotionally vulnerable time in her life robbed Burnham of the inherent necessity to mourn her parents' death? Has she tried to control those feelings by effectively denying them, to her obvious detriment? She definitely has serious abandonment issues, as well. I'm curious to see where they go with her.

 

Were we given the date of first contact between the Vulcans and the Klingon Empire? Burnham said that the Vulcans had to fire on a Klingon ship in the year 2016, thus setting the standard for contact between the two peoples for the next 240 years. This begrudging respect between Vulcans and Klingons would seem to be in play in ENT when the former agree to serve as the go-between to return Klaang to Qo'noS after he crash lands on Earth. They clearly have a more stable relationship with the Empire than humans and that seems to carry over into the era of the Federation.

 

That was a MASSIVE improvement over the pilot. Why CBS didn't air the two parter to attract new viewers is beyond me.

I didn't see them imprisoning Burnham and thought we'd somehow get a happy-ish ending wrapped up in a shiny bow where she somehow makes her way on to the Discovery as an advisor on Klingons or somesuch, which can still happen but not without a lot of potential conflict. Unlike the pilot, I largely didn't have any problems with the pacing of this episode or any plot points aside from the incredibly dumb Shenzhou boarding party of two whole officers on an enemy ship packed with a race of warriors.

The season preview looked appealing enough so I hold out hope the pilot was the anamoly and the rest of the arc is strong like the second episode was.

 

Burnham assaulted her captain then tried to use a massively powerful ship to fire on a foreign nation and potentially start a war. Yeah she went to jail for that.

 

I totally did not connect T'Kuvma with the kuvah'magh prophecy from Voyager. I mean, kuvah'magh is said to mean "savior of the people", so I guess there might be an etymological thing here, with T'Kuvma being named a contracted version of it. I don't know if we can as yet say that Kohlar's people were T'Kuvma followers who left the Empire in search of him after his death.