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

[spinagogue]

Yeoh should have been the main captain. I like her much more than Isaac.

Still can't believe they killed her this early. She was a major selling point for me. Her and Sonnequa are great. Really am not digging the stupid orange alien (Doug Jones) and the AWFUL new purple sparkly Klingons

I thought Yeoh portrayed her character well, but I found that character to an intransigent asshole. If she were a regular, I'd like the show less, so I'm glad she's dead.

SPIN

 

[cultcross]

I don't think Picard, for example, would have acted differently. He wasn't the type to fire first either. He even didn't fight back on occasion.

He would definitely have acted differently and that is my point - Picard had ideals and the competence to take the right steps to bring them about. Georgiou makes dumb decisions which fail to bring about her goals so in the end her principles are just words.

 

[EyalM]

He would definitely have acted differently and that is my point - Picard had ideals and the competence to take the right steps to bring them about. Georgiou makes dumb decisions which fail to bring about her goals so in the end her principles are just words.

What would Picard do (WWPD) in her place?

 

[BillJ]

What would Picard do (WWPD) in her place?

First, he likely would've had sent a shuttle to begin with. If the computer can handle a rocket suit at 12,000 kph, it should be able to maneuver a shuttle in there.

 

[Timo]

And if not, there are always spare Bajoran Ensigns at hand.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Zeppster]

First, he likely would've had sent a shuttle to begin with. If the computer can handle a rocket suit at 12,000 kph, it should be able to maneuver a shuttle in there.

Or some sort of drone/probe.

 

[EyalM]

Or some sort of drone/probe.

They probably would have done it here if the option was available. The specifically said the shuttles aren't maneuverable enough. Maneuverability isn't just about fast response time. You need to have a vehicle that can actually perform the maneuver.

 

[Zeppster]

They probably would have done it here if the option was available. The specifically said the shuttles aren't maneuverable enough. Maneuverability isn't just about fast response time. You need to have a vehicle that can actually perform the maneuver.

Probes/Drones would be smaller and more maneuverable and done so remotely. Granted it would be disable before getting close to the vessel but it would be smarter to try it first instead of putting a crew member at risk.

 

[BillJ]

Probes/Drones would be smaller and more maneuverable and done so remotely. Granted it would be disable before getting close to the vessel but it would be smarter to try it first instead of putting a crew member at risk.

Burnham's computer controls weren't disabled. A probe could have done a fly-by (which is what Burnham was supposed to do) with little trouble.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

Burnham's computer controls weren't disabled. A probe could have done a fly-by (which is what Burnham was supposed to do) with little trouble.

And probes could be programmed to go, do the fly-by with scans and visual records, then return to the ship. If it were destroyed by something or someone, they'd know.

Plus any evidence Burnham had with her visual and scanning records were all gone after her stunt. They said the computer in the suit was corrupted and nothing could be retrieved.

I understand the ideas behind her maybe having PTSD or something to that matter. I thought Starfleet had psych evaluations and other such testing for people, much less cadets.

 

[Sci]

Micheal was right, the war was going to happen no matter what, there was a slim chance of stopping it before it began but then there would be no overarching storyline to use as a background for the show.

This is the problem with these kinds of characters. She was right (about the Klingons) and Georgiou had to be the idiot (Yeoh deserved better), in order for Burnham to mutiny.

I dunno. I think there is a possibility that if Georgiou's plan had been followed, T'Kuvma might not have fired the first shot. It's possible that he felt he needed to demonstrate Federation hostility towards the Great Houses before they would have united under his leadership against the UFP.

I say "possible," because I don't think there's any way of knowing with certainty. It is possible that Georgiou's plan may have worked and that Burnham's illegal order to lock weapons on the Sarcophagus Ship is what prompted T'Kuvma to fire the first shot. It is also possible that T'Kuvma was going to fire anyway.

I suspect that Burnham is going to have to live with that uncertainty for the rest of her life.

Too much focus on the Klingons yakking at each other, I guess it was necessary for any new viewers to the franchise but it was painful to watch the actors/actresses deliver the guttural dialogue and slowed things down in a bad way.

*shrugs* It reminded me of all those scenes in Dothraki from Season One of Game of Thrones. It didn't bother me, and I felt it added greater emphasis to the idea that Klingons really are a distinct culture whose values are coming into conflict with the Federation's, not just Shakespearean actors with heavy metal rock costumes and 80s hair.

Bit risky adding holograms to a show set 10 years before TOS if you ask me, its not really necessary and was bound to raise a few eyebrows, I suspect they just added it because it looked cool even though it brought doubt to the whole "Prime Universe Timeline" that the show is meant to be based in.

I think there comes a point where we just have to accept that a television program depicting "the future" made in 2017 is going to depict it differently from a television program depicting "the future" made in 1967, and suspend our disbelief.

When will Admirals learn not to broadcast which ship they are on, its such a beginner mistake.

Good point!

I've been wondering the same actually.

Though, I'd still prefer to think of that exchange as being between Burnham and "the left behind remnant of Sarek" rather than a long distance communication... unless something explicitly confirms the opposite.

I hated the idea that Sarek could communicate with her over vast distances. I despise when they introduce super powers to fill a plot need.

I don't really like the idea of mind melds opening up the possibility for telepathic communication across interstellar distances either, but that ship sailed in 2005 when Trip and T'Pol started telepathically communicating with The Power Of Love. And that's not counting "The Immunity Syndrome," where Spock telepathically sensed the deaths of every Vulcan on the USS Intrepid across interstellar distances. So there are canonical precedents for this.

I'd preferred it if they didn't have ready rooms, especially ones as large as a ship's bridge. No ready rooms in ENT or TOS, so how did they appear here?

Archer had a ready room.

Personally, if I'm running DSC, I'd have a ready room. That TOS lacked one is an exceedingly minor issue, and the creative integrity of this show and its need for a private "captain's space" for the scenes between Burnham and Georgiou, are more important than maintaining continuity with every unverified fan assumption about TOS.

Melinda Snodgrass has nailed this show to the wall.

The definition of irony is the writer of "The Measure of a Man" criticizing someone else's script for being too on-the-nose.

So are we supposed to like Burnham? As the main protagonist of the show I would assume so.

I dunno. Are we supposed to like Agent Carrie Mathison on Homeland? Are we supposed to like Peggy Olson on Mad Men? Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones? Piper Chapman on Orange is the New Black? Jessica on Jessica Jones?

Are we supposed to like Tony on The Sopranos? Walter White on Breaking Bad, BoJack on BoJack Horseman, the title character on Dexter, Frank and Claire Underwood on House of Cards?

Are we supposed to like the title characters of Hamlet or King Lear? Are we supposed to root for Harry in Henry V?

Star Trek: Discovery is an attempt to bring Star Trek into the world of high-brow prestige drama, and it's not always out to have simplistic answers about who we're supposed to like and root for.

The Klingon ship didn't seem all that sound. One torpedo split it in two with the shields down.

A single photon torpedo is supposed to be able to utterly devastate a ship if it detonates without being thwarted by deflector shields. A single photon torpedo crippled Qo'noS One in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and completely destroyed a Borg scout ship in "Dark Frontier, Part I" (VOY).

From Starfleet's perspective most officers probably had no clue what cloaking devices were or how they worked. Any Romulan cloaking technology encountered by the United Earth Starfleet and ships like Enterprise NX-01 would likely have been classified or downplayed as rumor, and in either case Federation officers living 100 years later wouldn't have a history of encountering cloaking technology except as old, unproven stories or theory.

Yeah, I would assume that Archer had information on Suliban cloaking technology classified and hidden away to protect the timeline--assuming any of their tech even worked after "Storm Front, Part II," of course.

Meanwhile, I just think the Suliban having cloaking devices was a shit idea in the first place and I'm just as happy for DSC to ignore it entirely.

First, he likely would've had sent a shuttle to begin with. If the computer can handle a rocket suit at 12,000 kph, it should be able to maneuver a shuttle in there.

The impression I got was that they felt it likely that the source of the sensor blind spot would detect an incoming shuttlecraft, but that a single humanoid in an EVA suit would stand a better chance of evading detection.

Or some sort of drone/probe.

Can't do that; they knew something was jamming remote transmissions. Probe would have been cut off from the ship.

 

[137th Gebirg]

One Torpedo SHOULD cause MASSIVE damage to any ship with its defenses down. IMO - over the years they have really weakened these weapons across the board. One torpedo should be a massive threat if your defenses aren't up. The ship wasn't 'weak' or 'in bad shape' - T'Kuvma did not expect that level of guile from a Federation Captain and he paid for it.

That, plus a firecracker sitting on the surface of an open hand will just burn you when it pops. If it pops inside a closed hand it will take you fingers off. The explosive gasses need a place in which to expand. It will break out at the weakest point in order to do that. The neck of a Klingon ship is, arguably, the weakest possible tactical location in which to remotely detonate a photon warhead.

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

It didn't really do much for me. But you may like it, or may not.

I can truthfully say it left me flat. Flat and disappointed.

To T'Motormouth's credit, he crafted a terrific gotcha scenario for Starfleet, as I surmised earlier. No matter the outcome, he would get his war. There was no surprise in his getting offed as it was ham-handedly foreshadowed in his prattle about honourable death in battle. I really hope it means he's through making speeches. The season preview made it evident that, had the producers not been in such a fan-wank fervor, the Klingons could have transitioned to English and been clearly intelligible. A missed opportunity.

Georgiou's death was predictable thanks to Yeoh's "special guest star" billing, a metaphorical red shirt. One one hand, it's nice to know who you shouldn't get emotionally attached to. On the other, it keeps you out of the story to an extent.

The inconsistencies were maddening. Your transporter can lock on to a corpse to let you plant a bomb on it, but it can't lock on to a corpse if you want to beam it aboard? Seriously?! And how does one ship ram a another stationary vessel without said stationary vessel tumbling? That's not how things work in space. Did the admiral order them to hold orientation to make sure the can-opener effect was cool enough? Then there's Sarek's plugging a katra SIM-chip into Burnham's brain for making hands-free telepathic video calls. Maybe this was the cause of his eventual Bendii Syndrome. Serves him right.

Burnham and Georgiou getting into a "my PTSD outranks your PTSD" emostruggle was tiresome, especially when they resolve to meet in the middle like good little Starfleet damaged goods and promptly screw everything up. But to Georgiou's credit, she knew how to land a good sucker punch in response the the Klingon's dirty fighting.

For me, this was a tedious, uneven prologue to a series that can't manage to tell me what it wants to be when (if) it grows up. The only character that looks interesting from here on out is Harry Mudd. Good luck, CBS and Discovery. You're gonna need it.

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

The Klingon ship didn't seem all that sound. One torpedo split it in two with the shields down.

I don't think T'Kuvmadaddy built the ship in anticipation of someone detonating a bomb inside it. Or if he did, Junior did a crap refurb job on it.

 

[BillJ]

...predictable...

The word that pretty much signifies everything wrong with the first two episodes. There was no surprise moment, nothing that left me in awe. It was very much paint-by-numbers.

 

[137th Gebirg]

What would Picard do (WWPD) in her place?

He would have talked too much and had at least 3 conferences in the briefing room before coming to that decision.

 

[Sci]

The season preview made it evident that, had the producers not been in such a fan-wank fervor, the Klingons could have transitioned to English and been clearly intelligible. A missed opportunity.

And the climatic scene of the Game of Thrones episode "A Golden Crown" could have been performed in English ("Westerosi") instead of Dothraki. But had they done so, it would have undermined the thematic power of dramatizing a clash of two genuinely foreign cultures.

Ditto the Klingon scenes in DSC. Having them performed in tlhIngan Hol instead of English ("Federation Standard") gave them a thematic power they would have otherwise lacked.

The inconsistencies were maddening. Your transporter can lock on to a corpse to let you plant a bomb on it, but it can't lock on to a corpse if you want to beam it aboard?

I imagine having a direct line of sight to a corpse floating in outer space vs. having a starship bulkhead and its attendant energy sources in the way is a factor.

Then there's Sarek's plugging a katra SIM-chip into Burnham's brain for making hands-free telepathic video calls.

I really don't see how this is any worse than Spock sensing the deaths of the Vulcans aboard the Intrepid across interstellar distances, or Trip and T'Pol communicating across the stars by The Power Of Love.

Maybe this was the cause of his eventual Bendii Syndrome.

I actually really like the idea that Sarek may have acquired Bendii Syndrome because he allowed himself to become close to Michael in a way he never did with Spock. Adds a nice layer of pathos to the Sarek/Spock relationship.

Burnham and Georgiou getting into a "my PTSD outranks your PTSD" emostruggle was tiresome,

I have no idea what you are talking about here.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

He would have talked too much and had at least 3 conferences in the briefing room before coming to that decision.

And with the beacon, they'd have plenty of light to see each other! Plus, he'd be alright seeing the music he'd need to create a mood with his flute.

 

[BillJ]

Ditto the Klingon scenes in DSC. Having them performed in tlhIngan Hol instead of English ("Federation Standard") gave them a thematic power they would have otherwise lacked.

I saw no thematic power. It just made me roll my eyes. Much like Klingons have done for the last thirty years. Thematic power would've been them talking about honor, then actually acting in an honorable manner instead of accepting a cease fire under false pretense then attacking another ship under cloak.

 

[Mr Awe]

I disagree. Because she is openly ignoring the evidence of prior contacts with the Klingons.

I think she knew the risks. But, as she said, Star Fleet doesn't fire first. She was sticking to her and Star Fleet's principles. If she fired first, it would also look like she and Star Fleet started the war. Same outcome but this time they're in the wrong.