Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x01 - "The Vulcan Hello"

[Logopolis]

It's a...7 out of 10 for me.

I watched the first two episodes as a single pilot....it was ok.

I like:

- The production

- Opening credits

- Set and costume design

- The overall look

- The fact that the show does not have the Captain as its central protagonist



Not liking as much:

- The cast (apart from Michelle Yeoh, the cast aren't really making an impression on me)

- Unmemorable characters and moments

- Predictable death of a certain character



In fact, it's possibly the least memorable Trek pilot i've seen.



I'll stick with the show since i'm a Trek fan and it's costing me nothing extra to watch. For now, it's competent but i'm not fully engrossed as I was in previous Trek pilots. But, again, i'm looking forward to seeing where Michael's journey takes us.



I suppose this episode...

Spoiler

...this serves more as a Prologue? Like an origin story and the real series, in terms of the crew, ship and overall journey begins next week?

 

[Michael]

Sarek sits on Michael's desk - that was the point that threw me first, actually, and then later the bit with the Admiral giving orders on the bridge - were those aimed at Shenzhou's crew, or the Europa's? How would each crew know that?

Yeah, that's right. Doesn't make a lot of sense. It is true Star Trek then.

 

[Rahul]

I was not a fan of the holo-communicator, the klingon cloaking device, or the look of the klingon fleet (shouldn't there be a few D7 out there? With them being "all" the houses and stuff? I hate the klingon re-design, but even more that, despite the redesign, the klingons are more clichéd than ever.

However, all of that concerns only canon. Which is secondary to the plot and characters in my book. It is there where they did an extremely mixed job. I thought the introduction was great. But it was WAY too dependend on previous Trek lore - I'm NOT going to recommend that to my non-Trek friends! They won't get much out of it. And while I'm a big fan of how they began their story, I'm not a fan of the direction they're taking it - Trek had enough war stories. This is one isn't bringing anything new, or frankly interesting to the table.

 

[psCargile]

"Hey, can we kill the overhead lights so I can see my holographic display?"

"Low light levels have the potential to create tripping hazards, but I see what you mean."

"What's better yet? If we adopted 'gumdrop' switchology. They work perfect under nominal ambient illumination, are ergonomic, and don't strain the eyes."

"Good idea. Draft up a white paper and send it Starfleet Engineering. I'm sure they will see the merit of your proposal."

Oh and, who destroyed the subspace communication relay? Why the cloaked Klingon ship!

I don't like knowing the answers that the crew have yet to find. Had it turned out to be Harry Mudd, that would have been surprising.

 

[YLu]

This is what I mean about the desert scene being unnecessary - there is nothing in it that we don't either relearn or see portrayed better later on.

That scene serves the important role of being the 'save the cat' moment. For those unfamiliar with the term, it comes from a book on screenwriting called, coincidentally, Save the Cat. From Wikipedia:

The title Save The Cat! was coined by [Blake] Snyder to describe a decisive moment when the protagonist does something nice—like, literally, saving a cat. Snyder writes that, "it's the scene where we [first] meet the hero," in order to gain audience favor and support for the main character right from the start. In the opening scene of the movie, Frequency, for example, Frank Sullivan, played by Dennis Quaid, is the veteran firefighter that jumps into a manhole to save two workers from a gas explosion. [...] According to Snyder, this crucial element is missing from many of today's movies. He referenced Lara Croft Tomb Raider 2: The Cradle of Life (2003) - as being a film that focused on making the character Lara Croft "cool" and sexy (via a "new latex body suit for Angelina Jolie") instead of likable.

As big time fans, we take it as a given that Starfleet is a noble, benevolent institution and its officers likewise, but other viewers won't be going in with that assumption. To them, Starfleet's just going to look like some space military at first. Hence the opening scene to establish our leads' hero creds. Without that scene, they'd have been acting purely in self-defense across most of the two parter, working to protect their own hides from the Klingon threat: Not an immoral motivation, but not an altruistic one, either.

 

[somebuddyX]

The desert scene was basically just Into Darkness' opening scene but better/worse worse/better.

 

[YLu]

This is what I mean about the desert scene being unnecessary - there is nothing in it that we don't either relearn or see portrayed better later on.

That scene serves the important role of being the 'save the cat' moment. For those unfamiliar with the term, it comes from a book on screenwriting called, coincidentally, Save the Cat. From Wikipedia:

The title Save The Cat! was coined by [Blake] Snyder to describe a decisive moment when the protagonist does something nice—like, literally, saving a cat. Snyder writes that, "it's the scene where we [first] meet the hero," in order to gain audience favor and support for the main character right from the start. In the opening scene of the movie, Frequency, for example, Frank Sullivan, played by Dennis Quaid, is the veteran firefighter that jumps into a manhole to save two workers from a gas explosion. [...] According to Snyder, this crucial element is missing from many of today's movies. He referenced Lara Croft Tomb Raider 2: The Cradle of Life (2003) - as being a film that focused on making the character Lara Croft "cool" and sexy (via a "new latex body suit for Angelina Jolie") instead of likable.

As big time fans, we take it as a given that Starfleet is a noble, benevolent institution and its officers likewise, but other viewers won't be going in with that assumption. To them, Starfleet's just going to look like some space military at first. Hence the opening scene to establish our leads' hero creds. Without that scene, they'd have been acting purely in self-defense across most of the two parter, working to protect their own hides from the Klingon threat: Not an immoral motivation, but not an altruistic one, either.

 

[cultcross]

I'm going back and forth on the idea of doing a 'flashback' pilot. Or a prologue pilot, or whatever you want to call it. I've had a little (very little) creative writing teaching, and one of the things that was hammered home was 'start your story as late as possible'. That is to say, superfluous setup is usually poor writing technique, and you should start at the latest point at which it will still make sense to your audience because by definition anything before that is unneeded. I obviously haven't seen episode 3 yet, but I'm willing to bet that a cold open on that episode would have worked fine, with detail about what happened in the Shenzhou incident dribbled in as necessary as we went along. Especially given the fact that only three characters seem to carry forward (and I'm not sure how much Sarek will be in it from now on) I would question whether this was strictly needed. It carries the risk of seeming like a single completed story, too, without the draw to tune in for episode 3.
On the other hand, I'm very glad we got to see part of Starfleet being explorers, before the war began. It gives me hope for more of that, and establishes Burnham's character as one who fundamentally wonders at the universe and its mysteries. It should also help prevent them from abandoning their premise, Voyager style, by week 4, by showing their Tom Paris' crimes front and centre. Imagine how Voyager might have been different if the pilot had shown the Maquis raider carrying out a bombing or something. Also, laying it all out for us to see allows us to have a fuller understanding of Burnham's journey through the first season and what exactly she has lost.

 

[Rahul]

That scene serves the important role of being the 'save the cat' moment. For those unfamiliar with the term, it comes from a book on screenwriting called, coincidentally, Save the Cat. From Wikipedia:

As big time fans, we take it as a given that Starfleet is a noble, benevolent institution and its officers likewise, but other viewers won't be going in with that assumption. To them, Starfleet's just going to look like some space military at first. Hence the opening scene to establish our leads' hero creds. Without that scene, they'd have been acting purely in self-defense across most of the two parter, working to protect their own hides from the Klingon threat: Not an immoral motivation, but not an altruistic one, either.

Coincidentally - that was my favourite part of the 2-part episodes: Star fleet travelling around the universe, visiting strange new aliens and planets, doing good, and bickering while doing it. That was my "Star Trek moment" of the premiere.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I'm going back and forth on the idea of doing a 'flashback' pilot. Or a prologue pilot, or whatever you want to call it. I've had a little (very little) creative writing teaching, and one of the things that was hammered home was 'start your story as late as possible'.

I once read a great quote by King on this. I wish I could remember it. It was in reference to Carrie and I remember laughing at it.

But yeah, the gist of it was something about throwing away the first few chapters you write because they're never needed.

 

[EnsignRicky]

It's as if The Orville and Discovery are the result of some kind of a "The Enemy Within" type malfunction.
Too bad there's really no way to fix it; We could have had ONE really good show.

 

[cultcross]

Too bad there's really no way to fix it;

*Captain Janeway to the Transporter Room*

 

[Rahul]

I'm going back and forth on the idea of doing a 'flashback' pilot. Or a prologue pilot, or whatever you want to call it. I've had a little (very little) creative writing teaching, and one of the things that was hammered home was 'start your story as late as possible'. That is to say, superfluous setup is usually poor writing technique, and you should start at the latest point at which it will still make sense to your audience because by definition anything before that is unneeded. I obviously haven't seen episode 3 yet, but I'm willing to bet that a cold open on that episode would have worked fine, with detail about what happened in the Shenzhou incident dribbled in as necessary as we went along. Especially given the fact that only three characters seem to carry forward (and I'm not sure how much Sarek will be in it from now on) I would question whether this was strictly needed. It carries the risk of seeming like a single completed story, too, without the draw to tune in for episode 3.
On the other hand, I'm very glad we got to see part of Starfleet being explorers, before the war began. It gives me hope for more of that, and establishes Burnham's character as one who fundamentally wonders at the universe and its mysteries. It should also help prevent them from abandoning their premise, Voyager style, by week 4, by showing their Tom Paris' crimes front and centre. Imagine how Voyager might have been different if the pilot had shown the Maquis raider carrying out a bombing or something. Also, laying it all out for us to see allows us to have a fuller understanding of Burnham's journey through the first season and what exactly she has lost.

Yeah. I think having the first two episodes being the equivalent of the "Kelvin"-cold opening of ST09 was a creative misjudgement.

They should have jumped right to the meat of the story - the Discovery - around during the middle of the first episode.

 

[Campe]

Yeah. I think having the first two episodes being the equivalent of the "Kelvin"-cold opening of ST09 was a creative misjudgement.

They should have jumped right to the meat of the story - the Discovery - around during the middle of the first episode.

Oddly enough, I was typing this up as you were, Rahul. I agree.

Obviously, its hard to say for sure until I watch the first few episodes with Discovery actually in it, but I can't help but think they could have done so much better with the structure of this if they designed the whole Shenzhou part of the story as a flashback with the story showing how and why Burnham failed while the story started on Discovery.

 

[CorporalClegg]

It's as if The Orville and Discovery are the result of some kind of a "The Enemy Within" type malfunction.
Too bad there's really no way to fix it; We could have had ONE really good show.

As I noted in the Orville thread months ago, I said they should have given the franchise to MacFarlane back when he first asked for it.

I still think so.

 

[Mudd]

Airing The Vulcan Hello on CBS itself was a courtesy; it wasn't a "marketing tactic".

That's absurd, and incorrect. It was absolutely nothing other than a marketing tactic.

Let me tell you how many pennies "courtesy" is worth to CBS...

 

[cultcross]

As I noted in the Orville thread months ago, I said they should have given the franchise to MacFarlane back when he first asked for it.

I still think so.

I couldn't be more glad they didn't, I don't get on with anything MacFarlane has made that I recall. I don't 'get' him.

 

[Mudd]

The arrival of the Klingons is no less an acceptable stoppage point than, for example, Picard hailing the Ent-D as Locutus.

That's an oddly unobservant claim from someone who says that they're a writer.

(Of course, that's something that anyone who might be paying attention will have many opportunities to throw back in my face. ).

 

[cultcross]

Technically all the pilots so far (apart form TOS) have been two parters. Does anyone actually watch them split up anymore? I don't even know where the episode break is on any of them off the top of my head.

 

[Mudd]

I'm not sure I understand the complaints about Frain as Sarek. I don't have enough to go on yet to see how well he's doing. I really want him to succeed; perhaps I'm just dazzled by his outstanding performance on Orphan Black.

Me neither. He seems right on target to me.