Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x01 - "Brother"

[Tuskin38]

Which is very unlikely, we already know that are going to be seeing Georgiou again in Discovery which means we will probably be seeing S31 as well even if it's only to setup the spinoff.

The spin off might not be coming out until DSC is completely over, and according to a recent interview, Georgiou will also be in Season 3 if they get renewed.

 

[Gul Sengosts]

True, but I also like the move away from perhaps more Berman era over-written human dialogue, toward a more naturalistic style. It seems more up to date but is also closer to the way people spoke in TOS.

In my opinion Discovery has the most stilted, artificial, unnatural dialogue of any Trek series

 

[Rahul]

It seems since last night the critical voices about DIS have come out of the woodwork more - both here and on the other sites I go to. I think it's important to break apart two different things. One of them is the question is the show well executed? The other is this a kind of show that I will enjoy? In my mind, they're two different things entirely.

I think there's no question at all that the Season 2 premier was more effective in virtually every way than what Season 1 tried to do. More effective VFX. More cohesive characterization. More effective balance between the main character and secondary characters. More naturalistic dialogue. Better use of visuals in storytelling. In every way it seems more polished and professional where Season 1 seemed at times oddly clunky.

However, the thing to remember is it's still - at this point - an action adventure show focused on Micheal Burnham. This isn't going to change. I don't have any expectation of getting a quiet character piece like The City on the Edge of Forever, The Inner Light, Family, Duet, The Visitor, Far Beyond the Stars, etc. It's just not that kind of show, and Kurtzman isn't interested in that kind of Trek. Just give up and engage with the show on the level that it's attempting to entertain you.

I totally agree!
Like, "Is this show well executed" is a damn "yeah" for this episode. A lot of the problems of S1 was that it wanted to be "serious drama", but instead was "dumb action schlock" coated in melodramatic tone. That didn't work. At all.

This one proudly wears "dumb action schlock" as it's main attraction - and it works! - but it also goes a lot deeper than that into characterisations. That's great. It's not exatly what I want out of a Trek show - I always am a big, big fan of meaty high-concept SF. But at the same time, I simply have to accept, in the modern genre world - we will NEVER get a show like TNG again. But TNG isn't even my favourite Trek: TOS is. And TOS was kinda' special, because it fantastically did "dumb action schlock" (how often did Kirk fought aliens bare-chested?) AND well-thought out high-concept SF at the same time! (Kirk kicking aliens was rarely ever the solution to the problem - that was only mid-episode entertainment - usually a "Kirk speech" was!). Literally every single episode was a concept that could easily fill an entire book (even though there was some repetition - an entire civilisation controlled by a computer, super-powered humans, aliens using "lesser" species for entertainment and so on....).

So overall, yeah, the "new" DIS manages to get half of what I loved about TOS right. And it adds a lot of more modern story-telling devices as well: Longterm story arcs, character ars, status quo changes etc.... Would I love more high-conept SF in it? Sure. Maybe we'll even get that one day. Until then - I think episodes like this are perfectly entertaining.

I kind of agree that the action in the episode was kinda shallow. It also didn't really work well from a dramatic perspective because CBS featured the asteroid belt flythrough so heavily in their promotional material, which took away any sense of awe the scene could have. It was also a blatant ripoff of a similar scene from STID. That said, it was only a few minutes of padding in the middle of the show, and zipped by much faster than Burnham's weird EVA flight in the pilot. The "action" scenes onboard the downed ship were basically standard Trek fare, done with higher production values. I did appreciate in general the story found a way to do "action" without a single phaser being fired though.

Also, the plot structure was really simple. We have a MacGuffin. We need to get to the MacGuffin. Oh, wait, there's a stranded ship - let's rescue some people! Okay, we rescued them. We've seen this plot before in Trek.

Why it worked - at least for me - is Brother showed an attention to character that the show lacked in Season 1. Fundamentally it's very, very hard to come up with a novel plot idea that makes coherent sense - particularly in a series with 750 or so different episodes/movies. What makes or breaks a story is the character work. And while the first season at times made me feel like the characters outside of Micheal were just intended as shallow plot devices, this episode at least treated them as people who had something to contribute to the story beyond merely saying or doing what was needed to move the chess pieces around the board.

Indeed, the "plot" of this episode was surface-level at best: The events weren't really logically connected, it was more a sequence of different things happening. The entire rescue-mission was essentially a big diversion, the long-term ramifications were essentially only "red bursts exist" and "when we got there, it wasn't there anymore - instead we got a piece of a weird asteroid". That's it.

While the plot was thin - this was not a plot focused episode! I see this entire episode as a big, giant TEASER for the main arc: Spock got only teased. The Enterprise got teased. The red angle-mystery. What this episode did, was introducing all these elements, put a big focus on introducing the new (and old) characters and the new character dynamic, and tease the up-coming plot. It did really good with all of that.

That being said:

• Weirdly enough, I think the charactersiation of our old main characters (Burnham, Tilly, Stamets, Saru) was... off a little, for all of them
• But: The focus on Pike and Tig Notaru worked great - these are amazing additions, and
• The entire "old" crew now feels a little more like an "ensemble", instead of "background NPCs for Burnham". The tiny chatter for Detmer and Owosekun really worked wonders

Also: That this was an entire action-focused episode without a single(!) weapon ever being shot - I lOVE that!

 

[Rahul]

if you pause it just right..

Yeah, this though was probably the single dumbest moment in th episode.
Like - that blue-shirt death was dumb as hell as well. But this one really has long-term ramifications, and COMPLETELY throughs any logic for the ship internals out of the window. How would that even work? Also, WHY would a ship have SUCH an amount of empty space? This ship has a crew of only 130. What are supposed to even do in there? This space is not usable in any form (it's not like a big hangar bay or storage room - there is way too much shit right in the middle of it to have ANY use). I doubt even Stardestroyers are that wastefull with internal space. I really was wondering why they even included that?

 

[Longinus]

sir, that trek you want to revert to - it never existed

Yes it did. TOS, TNG and the associated films.

 

[Vger23]

In my opinion Discovery has the most stilted, artificial, unnatural dialogue of any Trek series

I've read some things I've pretty heavily disagreed with out here over the years.



This has got to be in the top three.

The dialogue written in the Berman-era Treks is essentially radio-show exposition mixed with Classroom lectures. It barely qualifies as conversational, let alone naturalistic.

If that is how the people in your life communicate naturally, then I have sympathy for you. That would be a personal nightmareish hell.

 

[Vger23]

Yes it did. TOS, TNG and the associated films.

We all see what we want, apparently. DSC is closest to TOS in my opinion than any of the derivatives we got afterward. DS9 maybe comes closest, if only from a "great character chemistry" dimension.

Most of the films were action/adventure and comedic romps.

So....?

 

[Jadeb]

I totally agree!
Like, "Is this show well executed" is a damn "yeah" for this episode. A lot of the problems of S1 was that it wanted to be "serious drama", but instead was "dumb action schlock" coated in melodramatic tone. That didn't work. At all.

This one proudly wears "dumb action schlock" as it's main attraction - and it works! - but it also goes a lot deeper into characterisations. That's great. It's not exatly whatI want out of a Trek show - a always am a big, big fan of meaty high-concept SF. But at the same time, I simply have to accept, in the modern genre world - we will NEVER get a show like TNG again. But TNG isn't even my favourite Trek: TOS did. And TOS was kinda' special, because it fantastically did "dumb action schlock" (how often did Kirk fought aliens bare-chested?) AND well-thought out high-concept SF. Literally every single episode was a concept that could easily fill an entire book (even though there was some repetition - an entire civilisation controlled by a computer, super-powered humans, aliens using "lesser" species for entertainment....).

So overall, yeah, the "new" DIS manages to get half of what I loved about TOS right. And it adds a lot of more modern story-telling devices as well: Lonterm story arcs, character ars, status quo changes etc.... Would I love more high-conept SF in it? Sure. Maybe we'll even get that one day. Until then - I think episodes like this are perfectly entertaining.

I'm treating this like the TOS pre-title sequences, leading into a season-long "episode." It needed to get my attention and convince me to stick with the show, and it did that very well. It also did so with a Trekkish-tone and spirit that I found almost entirely absent from the first season.

They may end up backsliding -- Mirror Georgiou is in the way -- but this was way more fun than anything from season one other than the Mudd episode. And this didn't involve mass murder.

 

[Gul Sengosts]

I've read some things I've pretty heavily disagreed with out here over the years.



This has got to be in the top three.

The dialogue written in the Berman-era Treks is essentially radio-show exposition mixed with Classroom lectures. It barely qualifies as conversational, let alone naturalistic.

If that is how the people in your life communicate naturally, then I have sympathy for you. That would be a personal nightmareish hell.

I didn't say it's natural, I only say Discovery is even worse. Old Trek's dialogue was often awkward, Discovery's dialogue always is. It's all so artificial and forced and bad that it's exhausting to watch.

Old Trek at least had moments of more natural conversation, which I can't say about Discovery.

 

[Vger23]

So what did you think of the episode? Is someone that isn't a fan of season one going to find something interesting there or is it a waste of time?

Chiming in here as a public service message: Total waste of time. I'd avoid it at all costs, quite frankly.

 

[Vger23]

I didn't say it's natural, I only say Discovery is even worse. Old Trek's dialogue was often awkward, Discovery's dialogue always is. It's all so artificial and forced and bad that it's exhausting to watch.

Well, I don't see why you'd subject yourself to that then...

I for one don't see that. At all. Trek dialogue has been terrible for 30 years. Discovery finally brought it out of the Little Orphan Annie era.

 

[XCV330]

Yeah, this though was probably the single dumbest moment in th episode.
Like - that blue-shirt death was dumb as hell as well. But this one really has long-term ramifications, and COMPLETELY throughs any logic for the ship internals out of the window. How would that even work? Also, WHY would a ship have SUCH an amount of empty space? This ship has a crew of only 130. What are supposed to even do in there? This space is not usable in any form (it's not like a big hangar bay or storage room - there is way too much shit right in the middle of it to have ANY use). I doubt even Stardestroyers are that wastefull with internal space. I really was wondering why they even included that?

They were just having fun. Honestly if they did it to troll trek fans. I applaud them. I thought it looked cool, thats all that matters.
But for those who say its realistic, please get back to me on the gravity plates, and magic teleporters and faster than light flight (but with battles that occur at 100kph) etc

 

[137th Gebirg]

I've read some things I've pretty heavily disagreed with out here over the years.



This has got to be in the top three.

The dialogue written in the Berman-era Treks is essentially radio-show exposition mixed with Classroom lectures. It barely qualifies as conversational, let alone naturalistic.

If that is how the people in your life communicate naturally, then I have sympathy for you. That would be a personal nightmareish hell.

QFT.

 

[Longinus]

We all see what we want, apparently. DSC is closest to TOS in my opinion than any of the derivatives we got afterward. DS9 maybe comes closest, if only from a "great character chemistry" dimension.

Most of the films were action/adventure and comedic romps.

That specific comment was about stupid edgy stuff like S31 and MU*. And I don't have anything against some action, it is just that nothing much actually happened in this episode and the action sequence was pretty bad so I'd have preferred some plot instead of it.

(*Both of which were OK as as one offs and when S31 could have been just Sloane's ruse. They got overused and flanderised in stupid levels later.)

 

[DEWLine]

I was trying to remember that fortune cookie message:
"Not every cage is a prison, not every loss eternal."

Whatever I disagree with Bernd about at the moment, I needed that rescue.

I think it's definitely foreshadowing...and for Culber as much as for Pike.

 

[fireproof78]

(*Both of which were OK as as one offs and when S31 could have been just Sloane's ruse. They got overused and flanderised in stupid levels later.)

Something Star Trek does very well.

 

[Vger23]

That specific comment was about stupid edgy stuff like S31 and MU*. And I don't have anything against some action, it is just that nothing much actually happened in this episode and the action sequence was pretty bad so I'd have preferred some plot instead of it.

(*Both of which were OK as as one offs and when S31 could have been just Sloane's ruse. They got overused and flanderised in stupid levels later.)

I honestly think the heavy action spectacle of "Brother" was just the effect of wanting to do the traditional "big splash" of a premier event, combined with setting the tone for S2.

I doubt the rest of the season will regularly follow-suit. Even if they WANTED to make every episode like "Star Trek Into Darkness..." the budget wouldn't support it. They'll be looking to do a fair amount of smaller stuff in the support of the overall arc I'd guess.

 

[Jadeb]

That specific comment was about stupid edgy stuff like S31 and MU*. And I don't have anything against some action, it is just that nothing much actually happened in this episode and the action sequence was pretty bad so I'd have preferred some plot instead of it.

I can understand the complaint about the action sequence, but the ep introduced Pike; explored his dynamic with the crew (Saru to a surprising degree); finally introduced us to the bridge crew; showed the crew actually working together; finally let Stamets grieve Culber; established Burnham's relationship with Spock; introduced Jet and her unusual skill set; and launched the season-long mystery, in addition to giving us a phaser-free action sequence of substantial length. After a first season that raced from plot twist to plot twist, that was plenty for me.

 

[oberth]

Yeah, this though was probably the single dumbest moment in th episode.
Like - that blue-shirt death was dumb as hell as well.

is there anything more trekie than killing off random redshirts (in whatever coloured uniforms)? when i saw tos as a kid i soon found a nice hobby - which of the crew on a away mission i had not seen before won't make it back alive?

 

[Nerys Myk]

is there anything more trekie than killing off random redshirts (in whatever coloured uniforms)? when i saw tos as a kid i soon found a nice hobby - which of the crew on a away mission i had not seen before won't make it back alive?

There was no wrong answer in "What Are Little Girls Made Of".