No Brannon Braga.
No Michael Berman.
Thank god! I firmly believe that you can trace everything that has been wrong with recent iterations of Star Trek -- the later seasons of Voyager, the later TNG movies... the godawful Enterprise -- to these two. With their adolescent approach to story telling, the sexism, the racism, their "good ol' boys in space" narrative voice-- they undermined everything that Star Trek striven to be.
And then, right near the end of the credits, up popped a name I never thought I would see associated with Star Trek again -- Nicholas Meyer. The man who almost singlehandedly saved the Star Trek franchise when, as an unproven director, he helmed the stunningly good, remarkably true-to-its-roots Wrath of Khan and rescued Roddenberry's universe from the oblivion of The Motion Picture. Meyer later wrote and directed the final, fabulous TOS film, The Undiscovered Country, cementing his place in the Star Trek pantheon forever.
No Braga, No Berman, the surprise return of Meyer. Discovery was just destined to be good.
And it was. No, it wasn't just good. It was great.
A rich, diverse crew, led by two strong, very different women, with an intelligent, layered script, plenty of philosophy, plenty of action. An exploration of right and wrong, honour, bravery, loyalty.
Well paced, beautifully acted. A remarkably strong beginning to what I hope will be a long run for this new crew and their ship, whatever ship they might end up serving abroad.
So where does it go now? After that very powerful beginning -- the Klingons finding unity against a common enemy, in the shadow of a flawed martyr; our main character, Michael Burnham, sentenced to life in prison for mutiny, the captain dead, the ship destroyed, the crew dispersed -- where does Star Trek: Discovery go?
I can't wait to find out.
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Did you hear all the names of the Federation ships taking part in the battle? Awesome references both to Star Trek history and to earth history.
And I love the hand phasers, the reference to the phase cannons (from Enterprise), to so many Star Trek races. Even the reboot of the Klingons (now in their third physical iteration -- I wonder how they will explain that!) seems well thought out and interesting.
I was also quite delighted with how Discovery continues the tried-and-true Trek trope of having at least one character looking in on humanity from the outside. We had Spock (half human, half Vulcan), Data (android wishing to be human), Odo (Shapeshifter), Seven of Nine (Borg), Saavik (half Vulcan, half Romulan), T'Pol (Vulcan on a human ship) and now we have Burnham, a human raised from her childhood by that most Vulcan of Vulcans, Sarek. Burnham is a fascinating character and I am looking forward to seeing how she develops and how her interactions with humans and the other races on her ship get worked out.
Speaking of Sarek, I wonder how his relationship with Burnham works into his family life with Amanda, Spock and, to a lesser extent, Sybok. By the time Burnham arrives on the scene (I'm guessing it was about 20 years before Discovery), Spock would have already been at Starfleet Academy (or even serving aboard Enterprise under Captain Pike). Would Spock consider Burnham a step-sibling or was Sarek's relationship with her completely separate from the rest of the family?
One challenge the producers/writers face is the fact that the show is set about a decade before Kirk and therefore should have slightly inferior technology when compared to TOS. But... in the 50 years since the original adventures aired, our present-day technology has in many ways caught up to the "advanced" tech presented in the 1966-69 series and, in some ways, surpassed it. How can Discovery remain consistent with TOS and yet still seem advanced? Burnham's space suit, for example, is significantly more advanced than the ones seen in The Wrath of Khan and yet did not seem that much far ahead of our own 21st Century tech.
From where I sat, I thought they got the balance right. Sure, you could quibble about the space suits and stuff like that but, all in all, I thought Discovery fit nicely between the now (2017) and then then (the 19602 version of the 23rd century).
I was also quite delighted with how Discovery continues the tried-and-true Trek trope of having at least one character looking in on humanity from the outside. We had Spock (half human, half Vulcan), Data (android wishing to be human), Odo (Shapeshifter), Seven of Nine (Borg), Saavik (half Vulcan, half Romulan), T'Pol (Vulcan on a human ship) and now we have Burnham, a human raised from her childhood by that most Vulcan of Vulcans, Sarek. Burnham is a fascinating character and I am looking forward to seeing how she develops and how her interactions with humans and the other races on her ship get worked out.
Speaking of Sarek, I wonder how his relationship with Burnham works into his family life with Amanda, Spock and, to a lesser extent, Sybok. By the time Burnham arrives on the scene (I'm guessing it was about 20 years before Discovery), Spock would have already been at Starfleet Academy (or even serving aboard Enterprise under Captain Pike). Would Spock consider Burnham a step-sibling or was Sarek's relationship with her completely separate from the rest of the family?
One challenge the producers/writers face is the fact that the show is set about a decade before Kirk and therefore should have slightly inferior technology when compared to TOS. But... in the 50 years since the original adventures aired, our present-day technology has in many ways caught up to the "advanced" tech presented in the 1966-69 series and, in some ways, surpassed it. How can Discovery remain consistent with TOS and yet still seem advanced? Burnham's space suit, for example, is significantly more advanced than the ones seen in The Wrath of Khan and yet did not seem that much far ahead of our own 21st Century tech.
From where I sat, I thought they got the balance right. Sure, you could quibble about the space suits and stuff like that but, all in all, I thought Discovery fit nicely between the now (2017) and then then (the 19602 version of the 23rd century).
Speaking of quibbles, there are always problems in these kinds of shows and I just love to point them out:
1. I don't get the plot device that the Klingons lured the Starfleet crew out to the borders by damaging the communications relay when the Klingons didn't seem to want to reveal themselves until threatened;
2. Klingons don't have cloaking devices. At least not at this point in ST history, ten years before the events of the Original Series -- Kirk and crew are stunned to discover that the Romulans have cloaking technology in the early TOS episode "Balance of Terror" and go to great lengths to steal it in "The Enterprise Incident". The Klingons of that era show no signs of having cloaking technology. So it's just wrong here.
3. If the U.S.S. Shenzhou is indeed patrolling the furthest borders of the Federation, then there is no way Captain Georgiou could simply dial up the Admiral back at Star Fleet HQ. Ten years later, when Kirk is that far out, subspace communications take days if not weeks to pass between the Enterprise and Star Fleet. That fact is one of the things that makes TOS so fun -- Kirk and crew are on their own and must make decisions for themselves, without guidance from HQ.
4. Further, if the Shenzhou encounters T'Kuvma and his ship at the border, there is no way that all those Klingon ships and a good portion of Star Fleet are all only two hours away.
