I love Emissary, it is my favourite Trek pilot, but I didn't like it when I'd only seen Emissary. I liked it when, as a seasoned DS9 fan many years later, I rewatched it.
Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x01 - "The Vulcan Hello"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
I hear that a lot. But I was the absolute opposite. I loved it so much. I remember the day after at school (I would have been in eight grade, then.) it was of course the topic of the day at lunch. All my friends did the #notPicard thing, but absolutely gushed about it.
I was actually a pretty die-hard Niner until my mid twenties -- or four or five years into TBBS.
I just watched both parts. Second seem to go very quickly. Its good that Trek is back.
I think we watched it at a similar age
I was in my pre-reflective black-and-white world phase at that age, and TNG was all there was in my world 
DS9 was rubbish. By my later teens, that had swapped around completely.
It was ok. It wasn't great. It wasn't bad. It was just ok for me.
I think they made a big mistake setting the show in the prime universe because anyone familiar with the prime universe can clearly see that this does not fit in the prime universe.
The technology is way too advanced. And obviously the Klingons have been totally changed in appearance. When GR changed the appearance of the Klingons in TMP, he asked the audience to accept that they always looked like that, but didn't have the makeup in the 1960s. I always thought that was a fair explanation.
The TMP-24th century Klingons looked great. There's a difference between change by necessity and change for the sake of change.
They should have known better.
For me, this just didn't feel like Star Trek. I felt no optimism here. No sense that this was humanity at its finest. It was way too dark.
I can't see how this show would fit with Pike's Enterprise.
The amazing thing is that with very few tweaks, this show could have been set 100 years after Picard and most of these problems would be avoided.
I liked the captain and first officer. I hated the science officer, who since I don't remember his name, I will call "Wesley."
This is also the first Trek pilot not to have a real passing of the torch from another incarnation of Trek.
They have some good people working on it, but unfortunately they also have some bad people.
I'm disappointed that The Orville has more of a Star Trek feel to it than Discovery, even with the awkward humor. As of now, there isn't anything about this show that would make me actually PAY to watch it. I hope after a time, they bring it to netflix in the US. It wasn't so bad that I wouldn't continue, but it wasn't so good that I would pay to watch.
I think they made a big mistake setting the show in the prime universe because anyone familiar with the prime universe can clearly see that this does not fit in the prime universe.
The technology is way too advanced. And obviously the Klingons have been totally changed in appearance. When GR changed the appearance of the Klingons in TMP, he asked the audience to accept that they always looked like that, but didn't have the makeup in the 1960s. I always thought that was a fair explanation.
The TMP-24th century Klingons looked great. There's a difference between change by necessity and change for the sake of change.
They should have known better.
For me, this just didn't feel like Star Trek. I felt no optimism here. No sense that this was humanity at its finest. It was way too dark.
I can't see how this show would fit with Pike's Enterprise.
The amazing thing is that with very few tweaks, this show could have been set 100 years after Picard and most of these problems would be avoided.
I liked the captain and first officer. I hated the science officer, who since I don't remember his name, I will call "Wesley."
This is also the first Trek pilot not to have a real passing of the torch from another incarnation of Trek.
They have some good people working on it, but unfortunately they also have some bad people.
I'm disappointed that The Orville has more of a Star Trek feel to it than Discovery, even with the awkward humor. As of now, there isn't anything about this show that would make me actually PAY to watch it. I hope after a time, they bring it to netflix in the US. It wasn't so bad that I wouldn't continue, but it wasn't so good that I would pay to watch.
I gave it a '7', but "The Vulcan Hello" is built entirely on incorrect fan wank. I want to be generous because it is the first episode, and I want to like it.
The Superfans 100 year Klingon absence is directly contradicted by Spock in The Undiscovered Country "seventy years of unremitting hostilities". Then there's the Battle of Donatu V from "The Trouble with Tribbles" which is twenty-five years before the episode. Even the attack that orphans Burnham takes place during that period. There's an awful lot of contact for the Klingons to have been in hiding for a century.
The acting was stilted, the characters outside of Burnham and Saru are dull in the mode of TNG, the effects are great, the sets overly dark for no particular reason. Then there's the Prime Directive. Lets have a starship come down out of orbit to save us in front of the natives and Burnham talking about living with the natives if they are stuck. Whoops.
I'd have rather had people who weren't "Superfans" running the show. At least that way they wouldn't be feeding us bullshit about this show somehow lining up with TOS.
The 100 years absence of the Klingons annoyed me a little, seeing we already have the Romulans doing the same thing. Their make-up doesn't bother me because I either use the TOS/TMP rationalisation or that there's been different Klingon tribes we're seeing. But the Klingons felt off, like if they're always this warrior culture just attack already and stop waiting for reinforcements. How many songs are sung in Stovokor about a whole fleet whooping one Starfleet ship's ass. I maintain that seeing one Klingon being kickass at his job and taking names is better than a whole bunch of nameless chumps.
I actually agree with you here. They are rebooting the TOS universe for some weird reason. Well at least rebooting the visual continuity of TOS. We'll find that out once they decide to show pike and the enterprise.
I must not be a real fan, because watching this I didn't think for a second about canon, continuity, rebooting universes and visual continuity. I'm just watching this as its own thing. “But why didn't they call it something different then?” — Well, why should they? It's obviously a Star Trek show and (at least for me) it's obviously set in the established Star Trek universe and fits there nicely. Minor details be damned.
For the same reason that TMP did it.
BST 13.04pm about to watch Episode 1 in my lunch break
brb
Edit 1
Ok I am 23 minutes in and enjoying it. I like the scenes from the Klingon pov, don't really care they look less humanoid than we are used to, I see that as a good thing however not sure how B'Leanna going to be born in this AU, unless some human male find this look attractive but then why not, when one is used to living with nonhumans then one is less narrow minded.
A Vulcan raising a human child to be like a Vulcan seems like a therapists dream, must be bad for the human psyche to repress emotions? And doing that to a tramatised young girl.. in our day this would be child abuse.
Back to the show! So far my only beef, we need less humans and more aliens from the Federation. Too Terrancentric! where's the in universe diversity.
ok a little break
'that's the diplomat in you talking, what does the soldier say?' It's canon Starfleet is not just a bunch of explorers! (Drops mic)
Edit 2
ok will watch Episode 2 at home, lunch break is over. I really enjoy this I like the idea of a Vulcan hello being what it is in the show, T'Pau must be clutching her lirpa.
It got my attention, fave character Lt Saru.
Rating this 8.5/10,
I bet TOS/TNG etc wished it had this level of tech!
brb
Edit 1
Ok I am 23 minutes in and enjoying it. I like the scenes from the Klingon pov, don't really care they look less humanoid than we are used to, I see that as a good thing however not sure how B'Leanna going to be born in this AU, unless some human male find this look attractive but then why not, when one is used to living with nonhumans then one is less narrow minded.
A Vulcan raising a human child to be like a Vulcan seems like a therapists dream, must be bad for the human psyche to repress emotions? And doing that to a tramatised young girl.. in our day this would be child abuse.
Back to the show! So far my only beef, we need less humans and more aliens from the Federation. Too Terrancentric! where's the in universe diversity.
ok a little break
'that's the diplomat in you talking, what does the soldier say?' It's canon Starfleet is not just a bunch of explorers! (Drops mic)
Edit 2
ok will watch Episode 2 at home, lunch break is over. I really enjoy this I like the idea of a Vulcan hello being what it is in the show, T'Pau must be clutching her lirpa.
It got my attention, fave character Lt Saru.
Rating this 8.5/10,
I bet TOS/TNG etc wished it had this level of tech!
Last edited:
"Let me help. A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He'll recommend those three words even over I love you. "
HA!
5 scenes before Kirk says to Edith, Spock says "let me help" to some bloke before nerve pinching him.
Hilaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarious.
Things like the holo-communicator can bring me out of a story, too. Because I keep thinking about the practicability of the idea. When they are talking to the admiral on the bridge, for example; what is he seeing on his end? The whole Shenzhou bridge crew? Just Captain Georgiou? Wouldn't it be totally confusing for someone to use this technology, having to parse two sets of surroundings at once?
None of that has anything to do with established Trek canon, though. Although I do understand what you are saying regarding holograms on later shows such as Voyager. I guess the key difference would be that this kind of hologram can't really interact with the surroundings it appears in. It can't touch anything, for example.
If I must spell it out, the arriving Klingon fleet says "let me help you (kill the humans)" which creates a bond and unity among the gathered houses, more lasting and earnest than if T'Kuvma said "I love you".
I really friggin' loved the first episode.
I really fuckin' hated the second one.
I really like the dialogue, the little bickering, the jokes. The trip to the alien planet in the first episode, and the whole procedure on the starship was amazing. It felt like Star Trek. Explorers. But this is an ugly show. Despite the budget, it doesn't look good. The sets are clunky and way too dark, and I think they overestimated what kind of vfx they were able to pull off on a tv budget. They clearly aimed for a movie experience. The episodes are chock-full of CGI. And it looks bad. They should have relied more on props and practical sets, and put more effort into less screentime of CGI but make that look more finished. I loved all the characters, until the bridge drama at the end of ep. 1.
I really HATE the klingon story line. It's the most clichéd, re-used collection of tropes I have seen in a long time. And I hate the war arc, what we've seen of it yet. I can't say how much I'm annoyed at it. Every second of it felt like a second season Enterprise klingon episode. In fact, I'd argue the depiction of klingons is even more clichéd than it had ever been before, even during TNG, VOY or ENT. They lost all their subtleties. In fact, if it weren't for the visual re-design, I'd be annoyed how stereotypical barbarian-klingon they are. With the visual reboot, I wonder what the fuck they were doing?
I'm not a fan of the war arc. The second episode already felt like one of the "bad" episodes of DS9. The ones that used war as a "filler" to move on to the more interesting character stuff. I take umbradge at that portrayal of conflict. The saddest thing is, I can't see them going an interesting route for it that would make the voyage worthwile - it has been SO clichéd, I fear it's going to be the exact by-the-numbers Trek plot - making peace, crazy Starfleet Captain (Lorca) trying to sabotage it by "winning" via unethical methods - then defeating the klingon end boss - then doing peace. I have no interest in that.
Which is a shame. Because, in the beginning, when they were on their voyage, it felt like Trek! It felt like great Trek! Not great looking Trek, but the content was great! I'm looking much more forward to the second season, when the klingon arc is finished, in the hope for an exploration/adventure storyline, than I am looking dforward for the next episode. Which is a shame.
I really fuckin' hated the second one.
I really like the dialogue, the little bickering, the jokes. The trip to the alien planet in the first episode, and the whole procedure on the starship was amazing. It felt like Star Trek. Explorers. But this is an ugly show. Despite the budget, it doesn't look good. The sets are clunky and way too dark, and I think they overestimated what kind of vfx they were able to pull off on a tv budget. They clearly aimed for a movie experience. The episodes are chock-full of CGI. And it looks bad. They should have relied more on props and practical sets, and put more effort into less screentime of CGI but make that look more finished. I loved all the characters, until the bridge drama at the end of ep. 1.
I really HATE the klingon story line. It's the most clichéd, re-used collection of tropes I have seen in a long time. And I hate the war arc, what we've seen of it yet. I can't say how much I'm annoyed at it. Every second of it felt like a second season Enterprise klingon episode. In fact, I'd argue the depiction of klingons is even more clichéd than it had ever been before, even during TNG, VOY or ENT. They lost all their subtleties. In fact, if it weren't for the visual re-design, I'd be annoyed how stereotypical barbarian-klingon they are. With the visual reboot, I wonder what the fuck they were doing?
I'm not a fan of the war arc. The second episode already felt like one of the "bad" episodes of DS9. The ones that used war as a "filler" to move on to the more interesting character stuff. I take umbradge at that portrayal of conflict. The saddest thing is, I can't see them going an interesting route for it that would make the voyage worthwile - it has been SO clichéd, I fear it's going to be the exact by-the-numbers Trek plot - making peace, crazy Starfleet Captain (Lorca) trying to sabotage it by "winning" via unethical methods - then defeating the klingon end boss - then doing peace. I have no interest in that.
Which is a shame. Because, in the beginning, when they were on their voyage, it felt like Trek! It felt like great Trek! Not great looking Trek, but the content was great! I'm looking much more forward to the second season, when the klingon arc is finished, in the hope for an exploration/adventure storyline, than I am looking dforward for the next episode. Which is a shame.
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