I’m happy and relieved to report that I enjoyed the premiere episode very much! Heck, this is easily the best pilot episode of the Kurtzman era. It’s not perfect, but I found it to be better than I thought it would be. Had expected it to feel very much like
Discovery, but actually it’s much closer to the tone of
Lower Decks or
Strange New Worlds. The comedy (mostly) works for me, as do the quieter, more emotional beats. There’s definitely the sort of quick and snappy kind of dialog that we’ve gotten used to from the modern
Trek shows, but they also allow for quiet and slow moments with more gravitas. And I
love that it takes its time and doesn’t rush things in the first episode, the pacing is great!
The entire cast is spot-on. And although I expected that I would need a few episodes to warm to Holly Hunter’s Nahla Ake, I loved her off the bat. As someone else here said earlier, I appreciate that they’ve avoided writing her as perfect, but show her to make some flawed decisions. Much more interesting character that way. I’m honestly surprised how much Hunter is obviously committed to the part. Hopefully she stays on for the full run.
One of the standouts for me is Lura Thok, who’s everything I hoped she would be. Gina Yashere just seems to own the part and had some of the best funny bits in both this episode and “Beta Test”. I’m looking forward to learning more about her. She somehow seems very intriguing. From the cadets, I thought Genesis, Sam and Jay-Den were nicely introduced and had some good moments. I found them to be instantly likeable and can’t wait to get to know them better.
Despite his inexperience as an actor Sandro Rosta is doing very well as Caleb. He’s playing as this annoying know-it-all prick in one moment, but then you can almost observe how it makes click and he seamlessly becomes a decent guy who wants to do the right thing. His story is genuinely tragic (and very timely, considering the experiences of refugee kids all around the world) and I wonder if they will dare to go for the full heartbreak of him not finding his mother alive.
The weakest part for me was actually the whole Nus Braka detour. You can tell that Paul Giamatti is giving it his all, but ultimately the character feels too insignificant. There’s a kernel of an interesting idea in there in that originally he genuinely seemed to want to help Caleb’s mother, and I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to lean more into that aspect and have him be less of a black-and-white cartoon villain and more of a nuanced character in grey tones. He doesn’t feel at all like he will survive this initial story arc for the first season.
Visually the show looks stunning and I love the
Athena design inside and out. The music is brilliant and I think it’s just great how noticeable it is. I’m sure there’s another million little things I liked, noticed or found weird, but for now that’s all I got.
This was well worth the wait. Hope the rest of the season lives up to the hype of the premiere!
