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

[137th Gebirg]

"It was just a flesh wound"

That's kind of how it worked out for Picard and that Nausican. There's no reason to believe that Georgiou can't be brought back with 23rd century medical advancements. If her body was brought back quickly enough for sickbay to take action, that is.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

I did have a problem with Burnham. I expected her to be much more Vulcan-like in her behavior/tone than she was. I can't believe 7 years (or whatever it was after she first came aboard Shenzhou) corrupted her that much! I mean you can say "logic" every other sentence (she did make reference to it more than once) but her behaviors and emotions were all human.

And the mutiny. Really? A Vulcan would do that? Over advice given about an incident that happened what, a century or two ago? There's no guarantee that current Klingons would act like ones of a century or two ago.

Well Burnham behaved pretty vulcan when she came on board, i feel it's implied that her relationship with Georgiou is what caused her to embrace her human traits. According to the producers, their relationship is going to be explored in flashbacks so I'm sure we'll get to see instances of Burnham's growth.

The whole reason for Burnham's mutiny was because of her PTSD over losing her parents. Burnham isn't vulcan and as much as she thinks she's got her emotions under control, she doesn't. I feel she made an emotional decision under the pretense of it being a logical one, if that makes sense.

 

[cultcross]

I did have a problem with Burnham. I expected her to be much more Vulcan-like in her behavior/tone than she was. I can't believe 7 years (or whatever it was after she first came aboard Shenzhou) corrupted her that much! I mean you can say "logic" every other sentence (she did make reference to it more than once) but her behaviors and emotions were all human.

And the mutiny. Really? A Vulcan would do that? Over advice given about an incident that happened what, a century or two ago? There's no guarantee that current Klingons would act like ones of a century or two ago.

Oddly I found Burnham's portrayal one of the strongest points - I was really worried we were going to get another Spock clone character to make wry emotionless comments and find humour a difficult concept, and I was not looking forward to that. Instead we got someone who quite nicely seems to pull off a combination of human emotion with a Vulcan like directness and worldview.

As for the mutiny, I think a Vulcan would be more prone to that of they were convinced of the logic of it - loyalty for the sake of loyalty isn't necessarily logical. However, in this case, Burnham is affected by her pussy experience to the extent that she can't listen to reason - the Admiral directly calls her out on her racism just prior to the mutiny and she responds with the old Islamophobia trope "it's a culture not a race". The show, in my view, is heavily signposting that this was someone who had lost control of her usual faculties. The difficulty they had was that they had only met this person for about half an hour at this point so it lacked the impact of, say, Picard in First Contact.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well Burnham behaved pretty vulcan when she came on board, i feel it's implied that her relationship with Georgiou is what caused her to embrace her human traits. According to the producers, their relationship is going to be explored in flashbacks so I'm sure we'll get to see instances of Burnham's growth.

The whole reason for Burnham's mutiny was because of her PTSD over losing her parents. Burnham isn't vulcan and as much as she thinks she's got her emotions under control, she doesn't. I feel she made an emotional decision under the pretense of it being a logical one, if that makes sense.

No?

She was right.

The Vulcan hello works.

That ship was dozens of the times the size, and a lot more guns too, that was both invisible and capable of blinding everyone nearby.

"Sigh"

The captain is always right, though.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Actually, you did. See below. In retrospect, that may not have been what you meant, but it certainly was what you said (wrote):

BTW, I think the scenes on the planet with Georgiou and Burnham along with Burnham's flashbacks on Vulcan, her interaction with Sarek's katra on the ship, her conduct before, during, and after, the battle, and Georgiou's conduct before, during, and after the battle, helped "establish" those two characters pretty well. We also got a pretty good idea of who Saru was as well, prior to, during, and after, the battle, IMO. I know you may disagree.

Stop with the presumptuousness. I was making a judgement about the episode, not establishing a general principle. And no, I did not say that they could have action until they had worked some predetermined amount on the characters. I'm saying that the character work sucked after the first half.

 

[BillJ]

I watched "The Return of the Archons" last night, one I haven't watched in a while. It just seemed so much fresher than either of the Discovery episodes I've seen. Which really says something (about me or the show? I'm not sure?).

The big things that stuck out? I can't remember any of the actual music from the Discovery episodes. I can't even remember if there was any music. The Original Series has a ton of faults, but there is a sense of brashness and optimism that is sorely lacking in this show.

 

[BillJ]

I think I've come to the conclusion (for me) that neither of these episodes were necessary. The important bits could've been handled via flashback during the "Discovery" episodes.

 

[Mudd]

Yeah, the score is pretty much wallpaper. I don't doubt that it sounds like a big improvement if one's point of reference is 90s TV Trek, though.

 

[Mudd]

I think I've come to the conclusion (for me) that neither of these episodes were necessary. The important bits could've been handled via flashback during the "Discovery" episodes.

I dislike flashbacks. This is where Burnham's story effecitvely begins, so this is where the show ought to begin.

It just ought to have been a better story.

How many years did GoT go without a significant flashback, BTW? Until the beginning of the fourth or fifth season?

 

[BillJ]

I dislike flashbacks.

I do too. But I'd rather have flashbacks for the three minutes of important bits than waste two hours.

 

[Mudd]

I do too. But I'd rather have flashbacks for the three minutes of important bits than waste two hours.

Which, IMO, is a problem with presentation.

I can't say right now, given that this is a season-long arc, that Burnham's re-traumatization here isn't so critical to what happens that dramatizing it at length is the best way to introduce it as a factor. There are suggestions that it's a Very Big Deal. Likewise, the beginnings and motivation of the Klingon fanatics may turn out to have been better shown than explained.

My problem is that the show ranged from dull to incomprehensible. Including the fact that the flashbacks that were included were confused.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

I think I've come to the conclusion (for me) that neither of these episodes were necessary. The important bits could've been handled via flashback during the "Discovery" episodes.

I agree. I'd rather it have started either with a more brightly-lit court martial, or better yet, the scene we see in the previews of upcoming episodes of Burnham in the shuttle in a prisoner uniform. With the other prisoners talking about her.

This, then, lends more gravity to things as well as interest into what the hell happened. We get to the Discovery quicker, into our actual stories and universe faster, and let the background get filled in as the series progresses.

It would have been more absorbing and more interesting, instead of a lot of useless dialogue and things that really weren't needed.

 

[Borgminister]

Burnham is affected by her pussy experience....

... Go on ...

 

[DigificWriter]

The Vulcan Hello and Battle at the Binary Stars are the Trek equivalent of Babylon 5's The Gathering, and intentionally so (although, thankfully, they're better-written and better-executed than The Gathering), and I don't get why that's a bad thing.

 

[BillJ]

For me, these two episodes feel like Mass Effect: Andromeda. I've spent the last couple days thinking about going back to rewatch them, then I find better things to do, like watching paint dry.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

For me, these two episodes feel like Mass Effect: Andromeda. I've spent the last couple days thinking about going back to rewatch them, then I find better things to do, like watching paint dry.

I feel almost the same. And that's what's making me sad, given that I'm a huge Trek fan and really had high hopes for this series to start out with a bang. I spoke with my parents last night (they have been fans since 1966) and turns out they turned the first episode off half way through. They just didn't like it.

I've gone back and watched the last episode of The Orville and have caught up on some reading. I really haven't made a point to go back to these episodes.

And if they keep saying that this was the prologue and we'll see a "second pilot" Sunday night one more time, I'm going to scream. Stop parsing the crap out of it and just say that the first couple episodes were slow, dull, word-heavy and boring.

 

[Mudd]

The Vulcan Hello and Battle at the Binary Stars are the Trek equivalent of Babylon 5's The Gathering, and intentionally so (although, thankfully, they're better-written and better-executed than The Gathering), and I don't get why that's a bad thing.

Well, because they're not very good.

 

[DigificWriter]

Well, because they're not very good.

I disagree, as do plenty of other people.

 

[BillJ]

I disagree, as do plenty of other people.

So now start telling us how objectively good they are!

 

[Wulfsa]

An old human saying states that beauty is in the eye of the beholder... so 39min are to short.