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

[Mudd]

Melinda Snodgrass has nailed this show to the wall.

The writing is lazy with terrible on the nose and obvious dialogue. And because the dialogue is poor it leads to poor performances. Michelle Yeoh is lovely, but the young woman who is going to be the lead is put in a dreadful position with how she is written. How can I support and root for a woman who takes such crazy actions against her beloved commanding officer...

...Yes the cast is diverse and we have two women in command and that’s cool, but not when they present one woman as a hysteric. Burnham’s supposed to have been raised by Vulcans, but you’d never get that from her behavior. And of course she is Sarek’s adopted daughter. Another lazy choice. Look, I love Sarek, but I didn’t need him in this show and it just felt like a cynical attempt to mollify the old fan base.

They have once again taken another step to make the Klingon’s even more alien. While I can applaud that idea as a science fiction novelist the writer/producer thinks it was a terrible decision. The actors look like the are doing battle with their costumes and their make up particularly those teeth. The appliances make it almost impossible for them to emote, and for god’s sake fire up that universal translator. The use of this guttural version of Klingon through the entire show became tedious as hell especially when our Klingon leader looked like he was just mouthing sounds that he had laboriously memorized but didn’t understand.

The direction was flat and dull. Too much time was spent on pointless scenes. Like that teaser which seemed designed only to provide a squee when the footprints form the Star Fleet logo. I guess it was supposed to show the close relationship between the Captain and Number One, but first what they hell were both of them doing on a planet together with no one else along and in a clearly hostile environment. I try not to be too literal with TV and movies that was an utter Oh Come On moment for me. That and the damn torches on the Klingon ship. Both knocked me right out of the show. The long lead up to Michael Burnham’s spacesuit flight...
.
.
.
...The Arstechnica review states “It’s not so much that the future feels darker in Discovery. The future just feels more realistically complicated. We’re not trying to make the galaxy a better place anymore, kids. We’re in the real world.” If that’s what I had seen I might be plunking down money for CBS All Access, but I didn’t. And I think CBS and the show runners missed the show that could have done that. I have always wanted to see a Trek show about the people who don’t fit in, who chafe under Federation rule, but aren’t militant assholes like the Klingons and Romulans or flesh and blood creatures trying to turn into robots, the Vulcans, or crass capitalists like the Ferengi. I want Harry Mudd. I want the people living in the cracks, trying to make a buck, pull off a con, and try to avoid the judgmental eye of Star Fleet. That’s the real world too and I think it would have been fun to write and more fun to watch.

Maybe someday Star Trek will get that broomstick out of its ass and we’ll have that show.

Well, she's going to get Harry, anyway, and he's looking pretty good to me.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Flash backs.

Or...

Time travel.

Twins.

Shape shifters.

Holograms interactive ai, or letters, history.

Triplets.

Mirror universe.

Robots.

The Library computers voice on the ship.

The Klingons bring her back.

Clone.

Salt vampire.

Disguise for away mission, holomask or rubber mask.

Dream, or wet dream.

Concussion, mental instability, craziness, invisible friend.

A god, like a Q maybe, uses Phillipa's form to interface with Burnham.

A fear weapon that causes Burnham to relive tragedy.

Her corpse could be "preserved" and we see more of Phillipa's cadaver.

If Burnham has a chunk of Sarek in her, maybe that makes her a little telepathic, so she can take Katras, and took a chunk of Phillipa at some point?

Surgically altered Romulan, who is now redundant and cut off, similar to Shinzon (who I know is a clone, shut up) never got around to replacing the real Georgou, or that was a surgically altered Romulan and the real Phillipa Georgou is in a Romulan prison camp.

During a near death experience, or flat-lining, Burnham and Georgou meet in heaven or hell.

 

[Mudd]

Flash backs?

I'm guessing she didn't really die. TV rules - no corpse = no death.

 

[JRTStarlight]

IMDB has her in 15 episodes (so far).

 

[dahj]

IMDB has her in 15 episodes (so far).

IMDb has Isaacs in 15 episodes, and the maximum he will be in is 13.

 

[Spider]

Continued flashbacks are lame. I'd rather they come up with some nonsense about how she somehow survived and escapes. Both I'd dislike, but I'd rather have her back alive than suffer through endless flashbacks.

 

[JRTStarlight]

IMDb has Isaacs in 15 episodes, and the maximum he will be in is 13.

True. But I think it's a strong indication Michelle Yeoh is in more than 2 episodes.

 

[dahj]

I'd rather have her back alive

"It was just a flesh wound"

 

[BillJ]

Continued flashbacks are lame. I'd rather they come up with some nonsense about how she somehow survived and escapes. Both I'd dislike, but I'd rather have her back alive than suffer through endless flashbacks.

I think she survives, becomes Voq's girlfriend and together they hunt down Michael Burnham.

 

[Spider]

I think she survives, becomes Voq's girlfriend and together they hunt down Michael Burnham.

Makes as much sense as some of the stuff I've seen so far. LOL

 

[Dr. Bashirs protege]

IMDB has her in 15 episodes (so far).

Firstly, flashbacks. Secondly, IMDb is unreliable as for example Jason Isaacs was listed as being in 15 episodes. Unless he's VOQ *tinfoil hat*

 

[BillJ]

Firstly, flashbacks. Secondly, IMDb is unreliable as for example Jason Isaacs was listed as being in 15 episodes. Unless he's VOQ *tinfoil hat*

Nah. I already have him pegged as Garth of Izar.

 

[Longinus]

"It was just a flesh wound"

Picard survived worse stabbing.

 

[Ovation]

I've solved all the canon issues--the entire series is a holo-novel being experienced by Admiral Riker on his triple-nacelled Enterprise.

(Activates cloaking device)

 

[Mudd]

Continued flashbacks are lame. I'd rather they come up with some nonsense about how she somehow survived and escapes. Both I'd dislike, but I'd rather have her back alive than suffer through endless flashbacks.

Having her alive has dramatic possibilities that flashbacks do not.

Given the loyalty and guilt that the show's protagonist feels for Georgiou, I can see a lot more interesting story coming out of that than from any other thing they did in the first two episodes.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

You don't have to wait until the audience gets to know the characters better before involving the characters in a battle.

I didn't say they needed to delay action until the character was established. That said, they didn't do it through the action either.

 

[Noname Given]

There's another transporter question I had too actually - Burnham's ejection from the brig shield, I thought "oh the transporters must be bust". But then not 5 minutes later they use them for their war crime.

I thought they were diverting power to and from various systems, and when they came up with the "Hey, we can Beam a Torp Warhead onto a body...", Phillipa said, "Bring the Transporters back up..." ?

(Plus this is TOS era - there is no (well they did it once in TOS - "Day of the Dove"; but Spock did say "It's extremely dangerous...") - because the Transporters aren't always that accurate.

 

[Noname Given]

Melinda Snodgrass has nailed this show to the wall.

The writing is lazy with terrible on the nose and obvious dialogue. And because the dialogue is poor it leads to poor performances. Michelle Yeoh is lovely, but the young woman who is going to be the lead is put in a dreadful position with how she is written. How can I support and root for a woman who takes such crazy actions against her beloved commanding officer...

...Yes the cast is diverse and we have two women in command and that’s cool, but not when they present one woman as a hysteric. Burnham’s supposed to have been raised by Vulcans, but you’d never get that from her behavior. And of course she is Sarek’s adopted daughter. Another lazy choice. Look, I love Sarek, but I didn’t need him in this show and it just felt like a cynical attempt to mollify the old fan base.

They have once again taken another step to make the Klingon’s even more alien. While I can applaud that idea as a science fiction novelist the writer/producer thinks it was a terrible decision. The actors look like the are doing battle with their costumes and their make up particularly those teeth. The appliances make it almost impossible for them to emote, and for god’s sake fire up that universal translator. The use of this guttural version of Klingon through the entire show became tedious as hell especially when our Klingon leader looked like he was just mouthing sounds that he had laboriously memorized but didn’t understand.

The direction was flat and dull. Too much time was spent on pointless scenes. Like that teaser which seemed designed only to provide a squee when the footprints form the Star Fleet logo. I guess it was supposed to show the close relationship between the Captain and Number One, but first what they hell were both of them doing on a planet together with no one else along and in a clearly hostile environment. I try not to be too literal with TV and movies that was an utter Oh Come On moment for me. That and the damn torches on the Klingon ship. Both knocked me right out of the show. The long lead up to Michael Burnham’s spacesuit flight...
.
.
.
...The Arstechnica review states “It’s not so much that the future feels darker in Discovery. The future just feels more realistically complicated. We’re not trying to make the galaxy a better place anymore, kids. We’re in the real world.” If that’s what I had seen I might be plunking down money for CBS All Access, but I didn’t. And I think CBS and the show runners missed the show that could have done that. I have always wanted to see a Trek show about the people who don’t fit in, who chafe under Federation rule, but aren’t militant assholes like the Klingons and Romulans or flesh and blood creatures trying to turn into robots, the Vulcans, or crass capitalists like the Ferengi. I want Harry Mudd. I want the people living in the cracks, trying to make a buck, pull off a con, and try to avoid the judgmental eye of Star Fleet. That’s the real world too and I think it would have been fun to write and more fun to watch.

Maybe someday Star Trek will get that broomstick out of its ass and we’ll have that show.

Well, she's going to get Harry, anyway, and he's looking pretty good to me.

You know - I think it's a case of sour grapes (IE Maybe she tried to get on ST: D' staff - and I say that because since she wrote and executive produced this Pilot:
Star Command (1996)

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I'd say here's a case of Pot...meet Kettle.

 

[Nerys Myk]

[fanwank]Subspace pulse is real signal, bright light is ceremonial?[/fanwank]

Details like this are exactly what I was hoping would be caught, especially in Star Trek, where you will have people paying attention to how light travels (ships that travel faster than light have been discussed ad infinitum, as well as knowing from reading about stars themselves and how long it takes light to travel through space).

Didn't someone on Shenzhou say there was a sub-space element to the burst?

 

[UncleRogi]

Yeah, I found that that silly too. And conspicuous.

I think that's all about transporter evolution. Of course, I'm probably wrong...