SEASON 1, EPISODE 1: THE VULCAN HELLO
Rating: 8/10.
TL;DR: This introductory outing of DISCO is an unabashed celebration of the NuTrek aesthetic that's brought to life by compelling characters, big ideas and ambitious creativity.
Recap: What set this whole rewatch in motion was the undiminished power of the series opener, years after having first watched it. We are very clearly building a bridge here from the thrill-a-minute universe of the Kelvin films into the television format; and yet the transition to the small screen, if anything, comes with bigger and more ambitious ideas.
We start with a speech in Klingon delivered by Chris Obi as the charismatic prophet T'Kuvma from under a truly incredible excursion into Klingon make-up, a look if anything amped up from the famous "Blingons" of
Star Trek: Into Darkness. It really sets the tone. From the first shot through to the last,
The Vulcan Hello is a statement of intent: an unswerving commitment to the aesthetic, the action-packed pacing and cinematography, and the adventure-first nature of the new movies, combined with big swings at big subject matter.
From there, we meet Commander Burnham and Captain Philippa Georgiou in a saving-primitive-aliens adventure on a visually spectacular desert planet. We're introduced to their ship, the
Shenzhou, and all of it is at least tonally reminiscent of Nibiru in
Into Darkness, albeit different in its particulars and a bit more restrained in its execution.
Soon enough, we join this crew on a fateful expedition to audit a damaged comms relay in a remote binary star system. As the investigation unfolds and it gradually becomes clear that they have stumbled upon a Klingon presence or incursion of some kind -- and as we see T'Kuvma on the other side of these events, whipping his followers into a divinely-inspired frenzy and rallying the great princes of a currently-fractious Klingon Empire -- we also see Burnham, the primary protagonist of our series, come into focus.
The Burnham we encounter here is brilliant, driven, insatiably curious, and confident bordering on (and sometimes more than just "bordering on") arrogance. A human foundling raised on Vulcan -- presumably after being rescued from a Klingon "terror raid" that's mentioned in a flashback to her early schooling -- she was fostered by a familiar and famous Vulcan, Sarek.
The Vulcan Hello, through Burnham and her experiences, gives us a different perspective on Vulcan logic from most of what we've seen previously: Michael is a creature of Vulcan logic, but her logic is rooted in and proceeds from a fiery and restless Human nature. The path of logic is influenced by its premise, and her version is hard-charging, impatient about risk (at least about risk to herself), only barely tolerant of caution.
Burnham has honed her expertise and her approach through seven years of voyaging aboard the
Shenzhou. (That this is the timespan of the Enterprise's televised voyage in The Next Generation is probably not a coincidence; fans of that show have an instant mental metric for just how many deadly scrapes and seat-of-the-pants adventures that could add up to.) During that voyage, she and Georgiou have settled into a kind of triad with Kelpien science officer Saru. In much the same way that Bones and Spock flanked Kirk in the old TOS days with the perspectives of passion and logic, Saru and Burnham flank Georgiou -- who is an avatar of duty and Starfleet ideals -- with contrasting perspectives of caution and boldness.
It is a relationship that has clearly worked despite -- even because of -- some long-term personal conflicts and flaws. And in
The Vulcan Hello the same traits that allowed this trio to work together effectively now pull them apart as Burnham is captured by the idea of a Vulcan approach to logic matched to the necessities of coping with a violent enemy.
The Vulcan Hello means firing first, something the Vulcans learned to do with Klingons out of experience and the application of ruthless, dispassionate logic... and something Georgiou will not do.
There's a sense of almost destined tragedy that unfolds from this clash of perspectives in the face of an enemy that is, indeed, obviously inclined to view the sentiment "We Come in Peace" as insidious and deceptive, and will use that in itself as a pretext for war. By the end of the episode, Burnham has outright mutinied in an attempt to carry out her plan, but has failed... and war is coming.
HIGHLIGHTS
TlhIngan Hol / The Klingon Language: Something about the cadence and the smooth flow of how Klingon was spoken on
Discovery always resonated with me. It's very different from the pronouncedly rhythmic barking delivery of Klingon that we've often seen in other shows and movies, like the difference between actors who render Shakespeare in stark iambic pentameter and actors who try to make it scan more naturally as speech. This approach is on display from the first line of dialogue here, and I love it.
Chris Obi / T'Kuvma, Shazad Latif / Voq: The two characters who set their stamp on the Klingon War before it even begins (both of whom will be gone from center stage by the time it's in full swing, but whose legacies will haunt the conflict), T'Kuvma and Voq are frankly my favourite Klingons since Gowron and Worf.
T'Kuvma is magisterial, a figure whose force of personality and febrile religious vision has real gravity: it's understandable why people flock to him, why princes respond to his call. Voq, the outcast follower whose fanatical devotion leads to his elevation, is just as compelling as the kind of misfit for whom fundamentalism offers a way to circumvent a rigid social order that rejects him. It's delivered in not a lot of screen time, and yet very convincingly.
Burnham & Georgiou... and also Saru: Michelle Yeoh and Sonequa Martin-Green don't quite match the double act of Obi and Latif -- Yeoh in particular will, as I recall, find her rhythm later on as a very different version of Georgiou -- but they're good enough to sell the complicated relationship that will be the core of Burnham's act of mutiny. Meanwhile, Doug Jones as Saru (part of the
Shenzhou's core trinity but otherwise the odd man out from this relationship) is never less than superb for a single onscreen moment; and he's the crucial element that really makes the material sing.
A Sense of Wonder: Jaded SF fans are inclined to mock blathering about
"sensawunda," and I get it, the term is vastly overused and too often pressed into the service of mawkish sentimentality. Still, on the other hand, I have to be straight-up about it: I'm an absolute sucker for some good old-fashioned Sense of Wonder at the beauty of space and the wonders therein. I have never stopped staring up at the stars with awe (when I can see them), and I appreciate an SF show where that same awe occasionally even grips people who just work in space. Martin-Green's performance as Burnham delivers this from the jump, and I doubt I will ever tire of it.
The Mutiny Plot: All the various pieces of character and circumstance that lead ultimately to Burnham's failed mutiny feel not only earned and believable, but after it happens, almost inevitable. As an overall short multi-character arc, it's well structured and compelling.
All the Vulcan Stuff: Burnham's Vulcan-foundling backstory and ties to Sarek provide a very different viewpoint on Vulcan Stuff from what we were used to at this point. Yet it still feels convincing: a broadening of perspective rather than an outright clash with prior perspectives. Also, while nobody could ever hope to replace the great Mark Lenard, James Frain's Sarek is already a fascinating, distinct and welcome interpretation that I'm appreciating in its own right.
The Little Things: Coming back to this as a rewatch, there are a lot of little things about it that I appreciate as a DISCO fan specifically. I had forgotten, for example, that this episode happens before Keyla Detmer acquires her distinctive cybernetic implants. Stuff like that is just nifty to note.
LOWLIGHTS
Not a lot of things in the episode that outright didn't work for me. The main one I noticed was...
Stilted Exposition: As exposition goes, the Klingon side of things benefits immensely from T'Kuvma's presence. As a prophetic preacher, he's a natural source of info dumping: lecturing everyone around him constantly about the fallen state of the present galaxy, the glorious days of Kahless and the glory of his imagined Empire yet to be is his entire purpose in life.
The Starfleet cast really doesn't have anyone like this. The
Shenzhou crew are all supposed to have up to seven years of voyaging together (maybe more in some cases) under their belts. So it's noticeable, and sometimes very clunky, when they have
"as you know, Bob" conversations explaining what they're doing and why and who they are and what their relationships are.
Our first scene with Burnham and Georgiou is especially notable for this, introduced by a segue line
"we come in peace" which ties in with the Klingon scene preceding it in a particularly goofy and groan-worthy way. Like apparently, this is something that Starfleet officers just sort of randomly say
to each other in casual conversation while hiking between destinations.
It does seem to me that this sort of thing is specifically why the Captain's Log conceit was introduced on the original show, and is rather instructive as to how wise that innovation really was. But it's a relatively minor quibble with what is otherwise a pretty great episode.
JUST NUTREK THINGS
The NuTrek style wasn't a natural fit for me as a fan when it first came along, and I still sometimes notice
NuTrek Things with a touch of bemusement. They're very often the opposite of what my sensibilities would have been had I been given the keys to the kingdom. Some of them still make a part of me kind of groan and eyeroll.
OTOH I also eventually came to see, in part thanks to this show, that it was possible to evaluate the show as
what it was trying to be rather than as
what I would have done instead, and to appreciate the things that NuTrek style brought to the table that were genuinely cool and compelling.
Both sorts of NuTrek Things are very much present in this first episode:
The Rule of Space Cool: Asteroids are always Cinematic Asteroids in fields of impossibly frenetic density. Whole star systems might be dominated by improbable but arresting visuals: the Binary Stars are an iconic example. OTOH this commitment also produced the Beacon of the Klingons a.k.a. the
Light of Kahless, which is incredibly cool.
The
Rule of Space Cool is arguably NuTrek General Order Number One. The extravagantly cool trumps boring continuity every time, and often, I get why (even when plausibility sometimes suffers). Its corollary is...
The Rule of Big Swings: Burnham's backstory could have been tied into a completely different Vulcan family from that of Sarek and Spock... but that would be the safer and easier route, whereas tying her in with the franchise's most famous Vulcan family is the bigger swing. This episode was the revelation of DISCO's go-big-or-go-home creative ethic, and I was there for it then, and I still am now.
The Klingonest Klingons Ever to Kling: DISCO's Klingons are, somewhat infamously, equal parts Met Gala, Elizabethan Stage and H.R. Geiger. The sheer amount of makeup this look requires must have been murderous to wear, and possibly it's a factor in why most Klingon scenes tend to be fairly brief. I fully recognize this... but I embrace it.
These Extra-Dramatic Klingons may not have proved sustainable in the long run (I'm not surprised that Klingons have since reverted to a more restrained brow ridges TNG-style-adjacent look), but goddamn are they visually impressive and imposing, in a style that visually brings home the decadence of which T'Kuvma complains (and yet which he exemplifies). They're amazing, and I dig the hell out of them.
The Very Visible VFX Budget: The Klingons aren't the only sumptuous feast of makeup and effects on display. DISCO became famous for incredible effects whose quality became taken for granted, but shouldn't be. Saru's look, and the physicality Doug Jones brings to him, is quite simply one of the greatest triumphs of character design in Trek, period. The visual cool factor of Burnham's thruster suit adventure -- another obvious nod to
Into Darkness -- is off the charts. T'Kuvma's Ship of the Dead, the transporter effects, the ship designs overall (
Shenzhou is gorgeous), even the brief but striking glimpse we get of the Crepusculans in Burnham and Georgiou's introductory scene... it's all damned impressive.
Rubber Science: Another habit of NuTrek Things, for which DISCO remains notorious, is playing fast and loose with science in a way that is hardly foreign to the Trek brand but which often pushes the boundaries of credulity even so. There's a few instances of this in
The Vulcan Hello, most noticeably when Saru tells Burnham that
"Your world has food chains, mine does not." Yeah, sorry Saru, that's a
WTF? in any context.
