‘Discovery’ watch – my thoughts and reactions – Part 1: The first three episodes

You know, I’ve been meaning to continue my Dragon Ball watch for ages. I last released it last just over three years ago on the 8th July 2014. After that I tried to get my web videos going but that kind of didn’t happen, then I was going to do a Robin Williams tribute watch which only got as far as Flubber – and then I went to university and – well a lot happened. 

I’d always meant to come back to this but never had the time. SquishiVision found new life as a radio show, which then span off as a TV show. Any time I had to write reviews were then taken up by The Courier and Verbal Remedy. 

The plan was, after I finished all the Dragon Ball franchises, I would do something else, like Star Trek. Watch all the episodes. When Discovery was announced I thought it would be cool to do them all in time for Discovery.

Discovery has just been released and I’ve done none of that. I want to watch Discovery, and I can’t really wait for my life to catch up. SO I’ve jumped ahead to doing my Discovery watch, then I will go back and finish Dragon Ball, then do the rest of Star Trek, and then do Power Rangers coz why not. 

Anyway that’s my life how’s yours?

We start the show with a close up of a Klingon. And immediately this gives me pause for thought but before we talk about the Klingons, there is something else of interest to note. All the classic Star Trek series were of SD 4:3 ratio. Enterprise was the first to be broadcast in widescreen, at 16:9. 16:9 remains the current TV standard ratio however Discovery elects to go for the more cinematic aspect ratio of 1.9:1 – the favoured ratio of DCI 4K. I suppose this is the advantage of going straight to stream, more freedom with aspect ratios. Other Netflix Originals also take advantage of this. This isn’t Discovery‘s only cinematic change. There is a strong difference between the cinematography of Enterprise and Discovery, with less level and static cameras. 

But anyway. Klingons. These Klingons have less pronounced ridges and no hair. At this point in the timeline, we are between the incident that occurred in Enterprise: Divergence and the appearance of Klingons in TOS. The need to change the Klingons’ appearance between TOS and TNG was obvious – – more modern TV required better aesthetics. The need here is perhaps the same – but it does create another possible continuity hiccup. I can’t quite remember how many Klingons were affected in Enterprise, but it was enough that all the Klingons we met in TOS were. The appearance of the Klingons here would be what I would expect one on the recovering side of the affliction to look like. Not ten years before TOS. 

In any case, the Klingon talks about uniting the Klingon houses in order to fight the Federation. I’ll admit, it’s been a while and I can’t really recall my history of what happens between Enterprise and TOS with the Klingons. I also haven’t done any research into this show, so I’m going in blind, only really on what the show tells me and I remember from other shows.

We cut to Commander Burnham and Captain Georgiou wrapping up their mission on a desert, saving the pre-warm civilisation from dying in a draught by shooting open a well with a weapon. The weapon used shoots bolts, which is odd, Federation weapons are usually phasers. But it could easily be a specialised type. As a storm prevents the commanding officers from beaming up, Georgiou signals to their ship where they are to come closer by drawing a Starfleet Delta in the sand with her footsteps. It’s a nice moment, I suppose, but the show doesn’t bother to explain how the Shenzhou knew to come down and pick them up. 

Interesting to note that Burnham and Georgiou banter in a very casual manner, like two friends on a hike rather than officers. Different series of Star Trek had their officers act in different manners, but this is definitely the most casual we have seen them. 

Cue titles. 

I wasn’t very impressed with the titles if I’m honest. It didn’t invoke a sense of excitement in me that every other Star Trek series did (yes, even Enterprise – I am one of the minority that liked their choice of a pop track). The tone is very mellow and reflective. The use of callbacks to the original themes were appreciated, but were still very low key. I like my Star Trek opening titles to invoke a sense of wonder and inspire exploration. This didn’t do it for me. 

We cut back to the action to see the Shenzhou warping through space. In a deviation from all previous Star Trek  TV series (although the TOS movies added a rainbow tail, and the Kelvin timeline introduced a flashy white corridor effect), the warp field no longer displays elongated star trails but weird, sperm looking things.

Again, why? One assumes a warp field is a warp field, no matter when in time it is. The only reason it could look different is if it was created a different way.

The crew of Shenzhou are inspecting a damaged probe (I love how Burnham lampshades later on that Starfleet is known for it’s obsessiveness with fixing its tech as soon as it goes down, highlighting the frequent times previous ships in previous series were sent to go investigate probes going down) and it’s interesting to see that the bridge of the Shenzou is on the ventral side of the ship, not only a deviation of previous starships but in fact a direct violation of the starship bible Roddenberry wrote dictating how Starfleet ships should be designed. 

We also see that the viewscreen is a holographic display on the window. I suppose now is a good time as any to highlight the thing which bothers me the most about this series. It’s set ten years before TOS but displays vastly superior technology. It expects me to believe that it goes from what we see here to this:

In ten years. Here’s the thing – the bridge, the consoles, the look of the Klingons. They resemble more closely the look of the Enterprise in the Kelvin universe. Remember in the Kelvin universe, technology had advanced more quickly due to reverse engineering from the Narada. The Klingons we saw earlier resemble closely the Klingons of the Kelvin universe.

My point being – I wonder if this series would be better served being set in the Kelvin universe. It allows you to look more modern whilst still existing in the current continuity. I would’ve much preferred that, then this series set ten years before TOS but not looking anything like it. 

What is kind of fun to see is the continuing banter on the bridge of the Shenzhou. Chief Science Officer Saru (played by the amazing Doug Jones) is playfully rebuked by Burnham for his over-caution, and we see the other members of the bridge smile knowingly. Even the Captain gets on board by asking her (I’m assuming for now) navigator to note in the ship’s log that Burnham and Saru agreed with each other. 

There’s an odd object that cannot be seen on sensors (leading a nice moment where they try to look at it with a telescope). Burnham elects to go on a spacewalk to see the object first hand, risking radiation burns. There’s a lovely pre-flight scene, where we see the crew going through checks before Burnham flies off – it is paced and scored amazingly to build up a nice sense of anticipation (i.e. a stark contrast to the ten hour pre-flight of the Enterprise in The Motion Picture). 

The visuals in Discovery cannot really be criticised … the overly modern tech aside, I do feel like I’m watching a film, rather than a show. Although there is a weird moment where the camera zooms onto the viewscreen showing Burnham’s helmet camera and then cuts to the actual shot, which is very un-Star Trek. 

Burnham lands onto the object, naturally narrating her actions, causing the item to move, and a Klingon (I believe this is the first time we’ve seen a Klingon in an EV suit) to appear. Bunrham attempts to speak to him, but he attacks and she reacts by flying into him, pushing his Bat’leth into himself (there’s a nice Easter Egg where his blood is dark purple, like it is in The Undiscovered Country). Burnham falls unconscious. Before she is rescued we see her flashback to her childhood on Vulcan, where she is training in pits identical to those seen in Star Trek (which furthers my belief this should be set in the Kelvin – hmmm .. actually, has it been confirmed in-universe it’s not in the Kelvin universe. Right until otherwise, I am headcanoning that it is. Fight me).

We also see the funeral of the Klingon Burnham killed, Rejec, also called the Torchbearer. There’s a nice callback as the Klingons open his eyes and scream to the sky as his coffin raises up and attaches to the ship’s hull, harking back the traditions we’ve seen in Deep Space Nine.

Burnham wakes up and rushes to the bridge in a medical gown, covered in burns, to explain to her Captain there are Klingons. After using some dutch angles and dolly tracks to convince her she’s not delirious, Georgiou puts the ship on Red Alert, and forces the Klingons to show themselves by targeting their object. The Klingons decloak (rather than flittering into view, the cloak disappears in a wave starting from the front). 

I love Saru, but he is lacking in such a spine, barely wetting himself at every face of danger. Apparently it’s his species’ hat that he considers everything a sign of danger, but one wonders how you become a senior officer with that much fear. The second the idea that Klingons are suggested, he panickly suggests retreat. Just saying, as someone with some military leadership training, it’s a bad idea to your crew’s moral to show panic … but I love him anyway. I have a feeling, if this show looks as promising as it is, we’ll see some character arcs from him.

Anyway we go back tot the Klingons where we see an Albino Klingon, Voq, of no family insist he succees Rajec as the Torchbearer due to his faith (which he illustrates in a very intense scene where he puts his hand in torch fire and lets it burn). The lead Klingon lets him, but also makes a comment about the colour of his skin, which is curious – Klingons in TOS were usually played by White actors wearing tan make-up. It wasn’t until TNG that they were played primarily by black actors.

The comms office of Shenzhou is repeatedly hailing the Klingon ship, making me wonder why his software didn’t simply allow him to record and transmit a message, but hey, guess he was bored. The navigational officer asks Salu for orders but refers to him as a Commander, even though he has up to this point been referred to as Lieutenant. 

Saru shows Burnham that the ship’s hull is covered in coffins by nature of a holographic display, again, in contrast with the Prime Universe but not the Kelvin. Saru begs Burnham, with a less panicky voice, to tell the Captain to withdraw. He explains that unlike on Earth (or Vulcan), his planet didn’t have food chains, but a binary system where you were either predator or prey (I mean … you would still have food chains, no? Just ones with only two levels), and that his kind were raised as livestock, hence his fear of things. He explains his species has the ability to sense incoming death, which is what he is feeling now. 

Honestly, Saru would be such a pansy if Doug Jones didn’t play him so well. 

Georgiou is speaking with an Admiral using a 3D hologram,  which again is odd. In the Prime Universe, this was a device created (but abandoned for creative reasons) in Deep Space Nine, but by this time holodecks (and so I assume by extension holograms) were not used by Starfleet, although credit is due in that the hologram is not photorealsitic like the ones seen in earlier series, but flickers and jumps. 

Suddenly FLASH

The Beacon of Kahless have been lit. The Klingons call for aid. The Klingon ship immediately projects strong beams of light that (and I love how they mention this in dialogue) actually overloads the window, preventing filters from dimming it. A highpitch noise is heard, which even when Saru mutes is still reverberated through the ship. 

Burnham goes to her quarters to speak to Sarek via hologram to ask for advise. Sarek cautiously tells her what the Vulcans did to make peace with the Klingons – they spoke to Klingons on their terms, by firing on them every time they saw them, earning the Klingons respect and peace. 

Burnham attempts to convince the Captain to fire on the Klingons (giving them a ‘Vulcan hello’ – cue credits!), but Georgiou refuses (I agree with her btw), but Burnham is so adamant she is right she speaks out of turn, earning a rebuke from the Captain in her ready room. Georgiou points out that disarray among her senior officers can demoralise the crew (though Saru’s frequent panics do not). Burnham incapacitates the Captain with a Vulcan neck pinch and takes command of the ship. The mutiny scene is beautifully played out, the with the bridge officers looking unsure and confused but carrying out her orders to arm the ship, Saru picking up that something is wrong and challenging Burnham (he has some kind of spine, I suppose), Burnham being very aggressive.

Also, oddly, Georgiou refers to Saru as a Lieutenant Commander, and Burnham refers to him later as Commander so I guess he did get promoted? Odd thing to gloss over … That usually requires some sort of ceremony. 

Georgiou comes on to the bridge and aims a phaser at Burnham. Before anyone can act, the lights turn off and a Klingon fleet warps into the sector, standing off against the single small ship. 

As we go into the second episode, I want to talk about how brilliantly Sonequa Martin-Green plays a Human brought up in a Vulcan society. Her natural speech switches between Humanisms and Vulcanisms flawlessly and in response to the situations, exactly how one would in real life. 

This is even more brilliantly seen in the flashback of seven years prior as Burnham comes aboard the Shenzou for the first time, with her Vulcan haircut and formal posture – it’s a brilliant form of direction, within seeing seven-year-ago Burnham for mere seconds, I already understand her arc of those seven years, growing from being a Human acting exactly like a Vulcan to being a Human with Vulcan upbringing. It puts into light the words she said to Sarek in the last episode – ‘[my emotions] inform my logic’.

The flashback cuts back to the modern situation with a light leak (again, unusual for Star Trek), and there’s a nice juxtaposition between the emotionless old Burnham and the current Burnham, displaying anxiety and fear on her face. 

Burnham points out that 24 ships have dropped out of warp, one for each House of the Klingon Council, but Georgiou relieves Burnham for her actions and sends her to the brig. 

We learn Lead Klingon’s name, T’Kuvman, as a holographic conference call occurs with the House Heads as they complain about being summoned. Interestingly, their holograms are tinted blue, as opposed to Starfleet’s more colour accurate. The Heads demean T’Kuvman’s status, which inspires him to give some exposition about his backstory. T’Kuvman speaks of unity and honour to inspire him the fellow Houses. Kol dismisses him, but the other houses wish to hear more. Kol leaves the call with a threat, while the other houses hear Kol’s plan for unity. He argues they have become complacent in peace, and they should attack the Federation. A fleet of Starfleet ships arrive, to T’Kuvman’s excitement. 

Georgiou hails the ship, and appears as a hologram (okay like – viewscreens were a main component of Star Trek, even the Kelvin films have them …). Georgiou explains that the Klingons are in their territory, and invites them to leave or open a dialogue. T’Kuvman claims the Federation will destrroy the Klingon way, and the ships open fire on Starfleet. (Also, just to continue commentating on tech stuff, they fire bolts instead of beams). A torpedo damage Shenzou, injuring members of the bridge, including the Ops officer who I thought was the Navigator (so Ops and Helm have switches places). 

A space fight breaks out. A disorientated Connor (the Ops officer) wanders in to the brig where Burnham is kept, and laments the fighting, in a nice little Human moment – even the darkest series, Deep Space Nine, only rarely showed officers acting in fear to combat and injury, and those were usually in the big war episodes in the latter half. Suddenly the brig is blown out and Connor is sucked into space. Burnham is knocked out but survives due to the forcefield. Also, sorry again but:

We flashback again to a damaged Vulcan school. Sarek finds an injured Burnham as a child, and melds with her, bringing her back. We see this cool scene where Burnham’s cell has split in two and she is only alive due to the forcefield. We pull back to see gaping holds in the ship, protected by forcefields. The computer informs Burnham that the forcefield will fail soon, but with the only remaining part of the brig the wall to her back, Burnham resigns herself to her fate. Sarek appears in front of her and it transpires that when he melded with her after the bombing of the learning centre, his Katra was transfered over, allowing him to contact with her over space. Sarek encourages Burnham to find a way out and survive, inspiring her to not give up. 

A hull breach occurs in the bridge. A forcefield protects the crew but the ship is disabled and the ship heads towards the asteroid field. Before the ship can crash, the USS Europa grabs in it a tractor field and pulls it away. Admiral Anderson holograms onto the bridge (I mean … okay it looks cool but ya know) and commands the comms officer to hail the Klingon ship (I suppose he could’ve been speaking to his own comms officer … it would be weird to call the Shenzou and get them to project a projection). He proposes a ceasefire. T’Kuvman accepts, but once the call closes, something odd happens, illustrated by the hologram of the Admiral glitching around the bridge (which is … really cool and is making it hard for me to hate the continuity problem!!!). His call drops and the Europa suddenly starts burning from the inside, as T’Kuvman’s massive ship decloaks and slices through the Europa. The fighting restarts as the Europa self destructs. 

The Klingons sing T’Kuvman’s praise as they return to Qo’noS. T’Kuvman hails all the ships (actually appearing on the viewscreen – I guess you can do that …) to tell them they are being left alive as witnesses. 

Meanwhile, Burnham has to debate with the computer to convince it that she will die if she is not released (the computer has ethical protocols to release a prisoner if they are in a life-threatening situation, and the computer accepts Burnham will die in 8 minutes, but does not accept she is in a life-threatening situation)??? I mean it’s a clever scene but also a bit silly. 

Georgiou and Saru devise a suicide mission to destroy the ship, but Burnham arrives in time to point out that would only martyr T’Kuvman, while capturing him will desultory his honour and allow the Federation to sue for peace. 

Georgiou and Burnham discuss their relationship, with Burnham dismaying how little she feels she knows Burnham. Burnham then asks to do the suicide mission herself (for some reason – her plan to sue for peace sounded better?) but then the Klingons start to tractor in their dead, giving Georgiou an idea. 

They beam a warhead onto a Klingon’s body, and detonate it onboard (which seems very immoral????), before Georgiou and Burnham beam onboard the disabled ship (there’s a nice touch them them wearing body armour).

Immediately they shoot down two Klingons, and it appears their phasers shoot bolts, not beams. Even after CGI had developed for bolts to be a thing, previous Star Trek series honoured continuity by having phasers continue to fire beams. 

T’Kuvman and Voq attack the officers. Voq gets Burnham in a headlock, forcing Burnham to gauge his eye (ewwwww) to escape. T’Kuvman and Georgiou engage in hand-to-hand, with T’Kuvman getting the upper-hand and stabbing Georgiou, causing Bunrham to shoot him dead (taking the time to switch from stun to kill, I’ll note). Saru notes that Georgiou has died and beams Burnham back before she can grab the body, to her distress (apparently he can only use life signs to beam them, rather than also locking on to her communicator for some reason). Also whilst sending Star Trek has a long tradition of sending its senior officers into dangerous situations, it’s odd they didn’t take a security detail.

Burnham is court marshalled by three officers who apparently love being dramatic and sitting in shadow (because nothing says a just court in an enlightened society like ominous lawkeepers)!

The court sentence Burnham to a life sentence and strip her of rank. 

CONTEXT IS FOR KINGS is the next episode as we see Burnham  is being transported six months later to a mining colony. 

In what has to be the fastest deterioration of any situation, the shuttle becomes infested with space bugs that eat electricity, the pilot’s tether breaks flinging her into space as she tries to get rid of them, and the ship flies starts being shaken by the storm outside.

Suddenly, and just as conveniently, they’re all saved! As, three episodes in, we’re introduced to our main ship, the USS Discovery.

We get a fly-by of the ship, letting us see into the shuttlebay, which looks very much like the ones from DS9, and the bridge of the ship resembles that of the USS Enterprise. 

The convicts are taken to the mess hall to eat. Also we hear a call on the speakers asking for a Lieutenant. …

In the mess hall, Burnham spots the former helm officer of the Shenzou, who walks away from her, before two of her fellow cons attempt to attack her. She flawlessly defends herself, before being escorted to see the Captain. WHO OWNS A TRIBBLE AND I GOT SO EXCITED I SHOUTED TRIBBLE OUT LOUD AND WOKE UP MY FAMILY. 

Also, I just want to say I have tiny nerdgasms everytime I hear a classic Trek sound on this show. From the consoles to the communicator and the tribble. Idk. It just makes me happy.

Captain Lorca, played by the wonderful Jason Isaacs, introduces himself by exhibiting all his personality quirks at once. 

In a nice scene, and a departure from what we expect from the series, the Captain is a figure of distrust and uncertainty. Burnham notes that she was transferred without warning, the shuttle changed course, and now she’s on the Discovery. Lorca doesn’t confirm her suspicions, but does say he has an issue on his ship that he needs every trained science officer on. She declines, saying she just wants to serve her time, causing Lorca to chuckle, further solidifying the uncertainty around him. Lorca doesn’t give her a choice and enlists her to work on the ship. 

Then we get a very lovely scene where a Cadet Sylvia Tilly, an over-excited cadet who does not realise at first who Burnham is. She attempts to make friends with the now aloof Burnham (we’ve now seen Martin-Green play the same character in three distinct ways and honestly she is phenomenal) before the show switches into thriller territory with Black Alert announced and weird floating droplets appearing before disappearing. 

Saru comes to collect Burnham, and the two chat about the changes in the last six months. Saru has now been promoted to XO of Discovery (I mean … he’s going to lead the ship into battle???? okay). Despite Saru offering Burnham blueberries and chatting casually, he explains he considers her dangerous, and will do a better job protecting Discovery from her than she did for her own ship. 

We see our first Engineering section of the new series. Gone is the vertical warp core, instead we have some horizontal thing behind a screen. The Chief Engineer is a mean ass of a guy but in a Whedony sort of way. 

From the people who brought you holograms, comes 3D Skype – which is actually looks as terrifying as, if you think about it, it would actually be!

Anyway Burnham does herself no favours by breaking into the secret section in Engineering, and seeing some weird stuff. 

Gone on this ship is the friendly banter of the Shenzou, as the gruff Captain and the pissy Chief Engineering officer trade exasperated dissatisfaction with each other as news of the Chief’s friend’s ship having been destroyed during drills. The Captain orders him to take Burnham on-board with him. 

The Engineer has this nice scene where he explains the research he is doing is a subject that deals with physics and biology as one (which shouldn’t really be that much of a revelation, all science is essentially applied physics, but whatever), and that he and his friend were working on the research together before the war caused Starfleet to split them up in order to get them to work faster with the aims of furthering the war effort, to the Engineer’s disgust. The Engineer believes Burnham has been placed as a spy for Lorca, whether she realises it or not. 

An unusually gruesome scene awaits as body parts and twisted bodies lay everywhere. I don’t think Star Trek has ever been this gory. Bodies of Klingons lay further up, killed by something else. 

We see what very soon as a Klingon survivor and a security officer are killed by a large creature. The remaining officers lock themselves in Engineering (and we get a lovely nice peak at the mangled body of the Engineer’s friend … 🙂 ). 

Burnham distracts the creature as the rest of the team make away with the equipment they have recovered. After getting its attention, Burham does another first for Star Trek and swears.

Burnham scuttles along the Jefferies Tube (with the phaser conveniently holstered in a holster she was given, despite not being issued a wespon), quoting Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (which I’m a sucker for), before dropping down into the shuttle in quite a badass moment. 

Burnham and the Captain share another cloak and dagger scene, where Burnham accuses him of wanting her help as a dishonoured officer to develop illicit weapons. The Captain corrects her – they’re developing a new form of transportation, which should, if I read the scene correctly, allow them to travel anywhere instantly (much like the infamous warp 10 of Voyager: Threshold). It’s an interesting plot to go down, seeing as we know future ships still travel by warp. 

Burnham joins the Discovery. Her and Tilly talk in their quaters where Tilly shows amazement at Burnham owning a book (I mean I can buy them not using books anymore, but in a world where you can replicate anything, it’s not as if they can be hard to get a hold of to be a source of wonderment?).

Burnham explains Amanda, Spock’s mum and her adopted mother, used to read it to her, and I love the idea of Spock being read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and it being used to teach him about stuff not always being logical. 

Finally, we get a scene further expanding on Lorca’s hidden secrets as it is revealed he has beamed the creature on-board. 

–

So. Star Trek Discovery.

I mean, it’s Star Trek, but not as we know it. They’ve gone to steps to make it different to previous series. From the cinematography, the focus on an individual rather than a crew, the gore and vulgarity, the untrustworthy captain, and the fact that the lessons, the action, the conflict and the mysteries seem to be coming from the ship and its crew, rather than the planets they explore, is particularly exciting. Star Trek as a science fiction has always been the best example of how sci-fi is suppose to show us aspects of society today in fantasial and futuristic settings – in previous Star Trek, this had always been other cultures, but with Star Trek: Discovery – it becomes closer to home.
This Star Trek is definitely a new frontier.

But for me, the disparity with the continuity makes it hard to fit in with the other series. Say what you want about Enterprise, but I could see its place in the timeline. I don’t with Discovery and you may feel that’s a minimal issue, but it does throw me out of getting immersed. 

But I am intrigued to see how it goes. Every other Star Trek series started on uncertain ground. Once this has found its feet, I think we’re in for something.