Did Spock tell Kirk anything at all about Discovery/Burnham/etc.?

I don't think so. Pike is presents as taking command in an emergency, not as a standard transfer of command.

 

Because the Enterprise was damaged.

 

The Enterprise wasn't headed to Vulcan

 

It was never explicitly said that the Enterprise was headed for Vulcan, but as I said, there is pretty heavy implication that Pike was already scheduled to take command of Discovery before the Enterprise was damaged, and since we know that the Discovery was headed to Vulcan, it stands to reason that Starfleet Command's original intention was for the Discovery to have been met at Vulcan by the Enterprise, at which time a more 'casual' transfer ceremony and briefing would have occurred and Pike would have assumed temporary command of the Discovery.

There's also the completely out-of-universe fact that DSC's production team reverse-engineered the entirety of Season 1 backwards from the notion of the Discovery and her crew encountering the Enterprise.

 

Nothing in the dialog that I recall supports this.

 

"I'm Captain Christopher Pike. Up there are my commendations, my diagnosis of childhood asthma, that big red F, that was my failing grade in astrophysics at the Academy. I know this is a hard left turn. You were en route to Vulcan to pick up a new captain. I was briefed on the classified details surrounding your last one. I know he betrayed this crew. If I were you, I'd have my doubts about me as well. But I'm not him. I'm not Lorca."

The way this speech is delivered implies that it was prepared before he came onboard, and since the Enterprise was damaged severely enough to be described as 'crippled', the likelihood that he could've prepared said speech, pulled his own resume, and been briefed on the Discovery and her crew in the short interval of time between when the Discovery left Earth and when they picked up the Enterprise's distress signal is very small.

The idea that Pike was always going to be given command of the Discovery is also supported by the out-of-universe fact that DSC's production team reverse-engineered the entirety of Season 1 backwards from the story concept of the Discovery and her crew encountering the Enterprise.

 

Never told him about his surprise brother so don't see why he's mention this

 

Or then Saru briefed Pike on what he would be up against when assuming the command. There's a cut between the turbolift scene (where we never get a destination for the lift) and the scene where everybody assembles on the bridge as ordered; Saru and Burnham might have discussed things with Pike while the assembling was proceeding. Heck, it isn't even as if the Red Signs come as news to the assembled bridge team eventually; Pike just puts that particular slide on screen casually, assuming everybody is up to speed already.

The timeline doesn't really work for Pike being the captain whose presence on Vulcan was assumed at the conclusion of the first season. Pike says it out straight: they only put him on the Discovery after the Enterprise went down. And that didn't happen until after they tried to go after the closest Red Sign, which only happened less than six hours before the rendezvous. At the very best, we can pretend that Pike got his orders shortly before Detmer punched the ship to warp at Neptune; the presence of a replacement captain on Vulcan must have been a known fact long before this.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Except the entirety of Brother, Pike was only supposed to be in command for that mission. That's why he kept his Enterprise uniform on for most of the episode, and why after the business was done at the asteroid field, he turned command back over to Saru. It wasn't until the end of the episode when due to how extensive the damage to the Enterprise was that Starfleet decided to leave Pike in command of Disco for the time being, thus why he then switched to the Disco uniform.

And besides, Pike did not "pull his resume" for that scene. His file only appeared on the screen accidentally. Tilly even apologizes for it, but he rolls with it anyway.

What? The Enterprise showing up at the end of the first season was literally decided at the last minute. The Enterprise was never supposed to be featured in Disco at all, originally. Novel author David Mack, who actually spent time in the show's writers room and had limited creative input into the first season even stated the reason he used the Enterprise and Spock in the Disco novel Desperate Hours was at the request of Bryan Fuller, who told him they would never be featured in the show.

The original ending of the season was supposed to be the scene that got released a month or so after the finale aired with Leland meeting Georgiou and recruiting her into Section 31. Which was even stated by CBS at the time the scene was released.

 

This is false.

Per Memory Alpha:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Will_You_Take_My_Hand?_(episode)

Also, per TrekMovie:

https://trekmovie.com/2018/02/11/st...inales-big-reveal-and-hint-at-season-2-story/

 

What I wrote comes direct from David Mack, in his acknowledgments in Desperate Hours. There could not have been a plan to include the Enterprise from the start of the season, if a novel author was requested by the showrunner to use the Enterprise in a tie-in novel saying he had no plans to use the Enterprise in the show. The very earliest they could have begun planning to end the season with the Enterprise would have been after Fuller left, but given they still filmed the season's original planned ending, that makes it look more and more like it was in fact a last minute decision.

 

What would David Mack know?

 

Let me be clear about something: I didn't say that the decision to include the Enterprise was made "at the beginning" of Season 1 or that it included Fuller (which it didn't, as per Kurtzman); what I said, and what Kurtzman said, is that the producers reverse-engineered Season 1 backwards from the ending of "Will You Take My Hand?", which simply means that they ceated a narrative roadmap going from " The Vulcan Hello" to "Will You Take My Hand?" that included the crew of the Discovery's first-person journey culminating in an encounter with the Enterprise.

 

Would YOU tell Kirk you had a sister?

 

SPOCK: And this is Michael, my sister.
KIRK: How you doin'?

 

BURNHAM: You'd better be staring at that read out! (God, I hate these new uniforms)