[7.3/10] Star Trek: Discovery is back and it is different! There is a new captain in town (well, technically he’s an old captain, arguably the original captain, but that’s another story! He does things differently from the last guy! We have a new resourceful and sarcastic engineer! We have familiar faces apt to leave! We have updated versions of the Original Series uniforms! We have unadulterated, non-stop action to blast directly at your eyeballs! And by god, we have fun!
It’s hard not to look past the text of “Brother”, the season premiere for season 2 of Discovery, and see most of the episode as an attempt to reassure folks who were lukewarm on the first season that there is a new sheriff (or rather sheriffs) in town behind the scenes, not just in front of the camera, and that this new season of Star Trek is going to be more like what you remembered except cooler and funnier!
With turnover among the showrunners (for good reason, if the reports are to be believed), efforts to harken back to more traditional Trek, and rampant reminders that things are going to run differently than they did before, it’s hard not to read this episode as something meant to be a corrective, to hook reluctant viewers with enough octane and crew-wide camaraderie to keep them coming. I can see the strings of that approach showing, and it makes me put my guard up.
But with that aside, I actually enjoyed the arrival of the famed Captain Pike on the Discovery. When I heard that Anson Mount had been cast in the role originated by Jeffrey Hunter in 1966’s “The Menagerie”, I had a fair bit of trepidation. Not only is it a tightrope walk to try to recreate a character who was originally crafted in the sixties, but I only knew Mount from the execrable Inhumans series where his character may as well have been played by a mannequin on a hand truck.
My fears were misplaced. Mount is full of life as Pike, and it’s interesting to see a little of the rough and tumble cowboy diplomacy that Kirk famously favored intersecting with the more rulebound professionalism of the Discovery. In a way, beyond even Star Trek Generations or the episode “Relics” from TNG, it feels like a collision course between the sensibilities of the 1960s series and the slicker bent that Trek took on in the 1980s and 1990s. Having Pike dispense with rank, speak with slang and a smirk, and inject his style of leadership on a ship used to a little more order makes for instant conflict and pressure point that seem promising.
There’s also way more humor than we had in the first season of Discovery here. Season 1 had a nicely dry sense of humor, and it’s not like there were no moments of levity. But everything from Tilly’s being flustered over Pike’s pinky to Burnham’s banter with her compatriots in the pods and the elevator (replete with sneezing alien), to the arch bent of Tig Notaro as Lt. Reno, there’s a looser vibe to this episode that comes off a little forced at times, but is at least different. High fives between Tilly and Stammitz, the ladies at helm looking stammering something supportive, and even the shape of the already warm dynamic between Burnham and Tilly here feels more slack and friendly than what we got in season 1, which could come off a little detached at times.
The show also throws in plenty of sops to longtime fans and continuity hawks. We get an explanation for why the Enterprise didn’t fight in the Klingon War (which seems primed to have emotional consequences, not just excuses for Pike & co’s absence from last season), an account of why the uniforms look different, and even a barb about the Enterprise crew looking at Discovery’s interior and deciding it’s clear where the Federation’s “pennies” are going. At the same time, “Brother” has more of the rhythm of a tradition Trek episode, with a mysterious phenomenon that must be investigated, a few deaths in the process, and a lesson learned after the inevitable triumph over the myriad obstacles in the way, with a ticking clock to up the tension.
And we can tell where Discovery is spending its pennies too. It seems unlikely that we’ll be entitled to this level of spectacle on a weekly basis, as “Brother” crams about a full movie’s worth of action sequences into sixty minutes. From the race to the asteroid and rescue from the debris, to the daring escape from the rock’s surface, to the efforts to secure a sample to potentially revitalize the spore drive, it’s clear that the show spared no expense in presenting a film-quality dose of CGI action to keep the fans salivating. It feels a little perfunctory in places, and gratuitous in others, but you can appreciate the efforts to keep up with the likes of the recent Trek films in terms of tension and interstellar fireworks.
But honestly, the parts I liked the most of “Brother” were the parts that felt more indebted to what the show was going for last season. I’d be lying if I said I relished the chance for more heavy-handed colloquies or the show’s ponderous voiceovers. But I had a greater appreciation for the slower moments before and after the nonstop explosions and danger when the core of the episode was Burnham and Sarek reacting to the prospect of reuniting with the estranged Spock rather than surviving or capturing the macguffin du jour.
It’s here where “Brother” ceases to feel like just another quippy action flick and where it feels more like a contemplative, even arty picture that seems more like the soul of Star Trek than the flashier tales that tend to dominate the franchise’s big screen offerings. It’s not that the visual acuity departs in these moments; the use of color in the flashbacks to Michael’s first visit to Sarek’s family home, juxtaposed with her visit to Spock’s quarters in the present, is striking, in a more measured, deliberate way that feels more cinematic than all the kinetic space rumbling the episode otherwise has on offer.
That comes with a heavily signposted theme of brotherhood, of not wanting to lose people close to you whether they’re colleagues or kin. It’s what unites Pike’s crew and Burnham’s crew despite their differences and bristly start, and it’s what drives Burnham to want to make things right with her foster brother after so much seems to have gone wrong between them. Star Trek Discovery is new, and good lord it wants you to know that. But the part of the episode that feels the most palpable, the most interesting, the most Trek, is the part of it feels like what we’ve already seen from the show.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2019-01-22T03:55:45Z
[7.3/10] Star Trek: Discovery is back and it is different! There is a new captain in town (well, technically he’s an old captain, arguably the original captain, but that’s another story! He does things differently from the last guy! We have a new resourceful and sarcastic engineer! We have familiar faces apt to leave! We have updated versions of the Original Series uniforms! We have unadulterated, non-stop action to blast directly at your eyeballs! And by god, we have fun!
It’s hard not to look past the text of “Brother”, the season premiere for season 2 of Discovery, and see most of the episode as an attempt to reassure folks who were lukewarm on the first season that there is a new sheriff (or rather sheriffs) in town behind the scenes, not just in front of the camera, and that this new season of Star Trek is going to be more like what you remembered except cooler and funnier!
With turnover among the showrunners (for good reason, if the reports are to be believed), efforts to harken back to more traditional Trek, and rampant reminders that things are going to run differently than they did before, it’s hard not to read this episode as something meant to be a corrective, to hook reluctant viewers with enough octane and crew-wide camaraderie to keep them coming. I can see the strings of that approach showing, and it makes me put my guard up.
But with that aside, I actually enjoyed the arrival of the famed Captain Pike on the Discovery. When I heard that Anson Mount had been cast in the role originated by Jeffrey Hunter in 1966’s “The Menagerie”, I had a fair bit of trepidation. Not only is it a tightrope walk to try to recreate a character who was originally crafted in the sixties, but I only knew Mount from the execrable Inhumans series where his character may as well have been played by a mannequin on a hand truck.
My fears were misplaced. Mount is full of life as Pike, and it’s interesting to see a little of the rough and tumble cowboy diplomacy that Kirk famously favored intersecting with the more rulebound professionalism of the Discovery. In a way, beyond even Star Trek Generations or the episode “Relics” from TNG, it feels like a collision course between the sensibilities of the 1960s series and the slicker bent that Trek took on in the 1980s and 1990s. Having Pike dispense with rank, speak with slang and a smirk, and inject his style of leadership on a ship used to a little more order makes for instant conflict and pressure point that seem promising.
There’s also way more humor than we had in the first season of Discovery here. Season 1 had a nicely dry sense of humor, and it’s not like there were no moments of levity. But everything from Tilly’s being flustered over Pike’s pinky to Burnham’s banter with her compatriots in the pods and the elevator (replete with sneezing alien), to the arch bent of Tig Notaro as Lt. Reno, there’s a looser vibe to this episode that comes off a little forced at times, but is at least different. High fives between Tilly and Stammitz, the ladies at helm looking stammering something supportive, and even the shape of the already warm dynamic between Burnham and Tilly here feels more slack and friendly than what we got in season 1, which could come off a little detached at times.
The show also throws in plenty of sops to longtime fans and continuity hawks. We get an explanation for why the Enterprise didn’t fight in the Klingon War (which seems primed to have emotional consequences, not just excuses for Pike & co’s absence from last season), an account of why the uniforms look different, and even a barb about the Enterprise crew looking at Discovery’s interior and deciding it’s clear where the Federation’s “pennies” are going. At the same time, “Brother” has more of the rhythm of a tradition Trek episode, with a mysterious phenomenon that must be investigated, a few deaths in the process, and a lesson learned after the inevitable triumph over the myriad obstacles in the way, with a ticking clock to up the tension.
And we can tell where Discovery is spending its pennies too. It seems unlikely that we’ll be entitled to this level of spectacle on a weekly basis, as “Brother” crams about a full movie’s worth of action sequences into sixty minutes. From the race to the asteroid and rescue from the debris, to the daring escape from the rock’s surface, to the efforts to secure a sample to potentially revitalize the spore drive, it’s clear that the show spared no expense in presenting a film-quality dose of CGI action to keep the fans salivating. It feels a little perfunctory in places, and gratuitous in others, but you can appreciate the efforts to keep up with the likes of the recent Trek films in terms of tension and interstellar fireworks.
But honestly, the parts I liked the most of “Brother” were the parts that felt more indebted to what the show was going for last season. I’d be lying if I said I relished the chance for more heavy-handed colloquies or the show’s ponderous voiceovers. But I had a greater appreciation for the slower moments before and after the nonstop explosions and danger when the core of the episode was Burnham and Sarek reacting to the prospect of reuniting with the estranged Spock rather than surviving or capturing the macguffin du jour.
It’s here where “Brother” ceases to feel like just another quippy action flick and where it feels more like a contemplative, even arty picture that seems more like the soul of Star Trek than the flashier tales that tend to dominate the franchise’s big screen offerings. It’s not that the visual acuity departs in these moments; the use of color in the flashbacks to Michael’s first visit to Sarek’s family home, juxtaposed with her visit to Spock’s quarters in the present, is striking, in a more measured, deliberate way that feels more cinematic than all the kinetic space rumbling the episode otherwise has on offer.
That comes with a heavily signposted theme of brotherhood, of not wanting to lose people close to you whether they’re colleagues or kin. It’s what unites Pike’s crew and Burnham’s crew despite their differences and bristly start, and it’s what drives Burnham to want to make things right with her foster brother after so much seems to have gone wrong between them. Star Trek Discovery is new, and good lord it wants you to know that. But the part of the episode that feels the most palpable, the most interesting, the most Trek, is the part of it feels like what we’ve already seen from the show.