1x01 The Vulcan Hello

[7.5/10] Risk is our business. That notable speech from Captain Kirk lays out the essential ethos of Star Trek as a franchise -- that the wild and wooly galaxy our heroes explore is full of dangers and pitfalls, but also full of unfathomable possibility, there to be discovered. The first two episodes of the aptly titled Star Trek Discovery bring this notion to the fore.

On one side is our protagonist, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), who relishes exploration, enjoys taking chances, and is ready to shoot first. On the other is Lt. Saru (Doug Jones), who hails from a species of alien prey, ever reluctant to mix things up. And in the middle is Captain Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), who has to find the middle ground between the two chief advisors whispering in her ear.

It’s the type of dynamic The Original Series relied upon heavily: Spock the cold logician, Bones the hot-blooded humanist, and Kirk the leader who had to somehow split the difference. But Discovery’s three-man band differs from its predecessors in more ways than just its welcome lack of monochrome. While the 1960s series often focused on how much logic versus emotion should go into decision-making, its successor, fifty-years later, seems focused on how much risk we should take, when our lives, and the lives of the people we care about, are on the line.

The fulcrum for that point of contention, as it so often is in Star Trek, is some unknown object in space giving the ship funny readings. Naturally, Burnham wants to go check it out; Saru wants to leave it alone, and Georgiou comes up with a measured response that allows for some investigation from her headstrong first-in-command, but with set limits meant to minimize the dangers as much as possible. While walking along the surface of the ancient object that defies scanning, Burnham encounters a Klingon “torchbearer,” bat’leth in tow, whom she kills in a moment of confrontation as she makes a desperate attempt at self-defense and escape.

The Klingon is part of T’Kuvma’s crew, a collection of Klingon zealots devoted to the “Light of Kahless.” T’Kuvma speaks of Klingon unity, intending to light a beacon to reunite the twenty-four Klingon houses in opposition to the perceived threat of the Federation. It’s his ship, which is covered with coffins of his fallen countrymen, that emerges in the aftermath of Burnham’s skirmish, and poses the next major threat for Captain Georgiou.

Burnham consults with Ambassador Sarek, her adoptive father, and concludes that they should fire first -- claiming it’s the only language the Klingons understand. Saru advises retreat and caution, noting that the members of his species who survived did so because they could sense deadly situations, and he senses one now.

In the end, Burnham defies the chain of command, going so far as to give her captain the Vulcan nerve pinch and try to assume to command so as to fire on the enemy vessel. Georgiou recovers in time to halt her second-in-command, with the business end of a phaser, but by that point it doesn’t matter. T’Kuvma lights the beacon, and a swarm of Klingon ships emerge, heavily outgunning the crew of the U.S.S. Shenzhou before their backup has arrived.

It’s a hell of an opening statement from Discovery one that seems to run in the face Star Trek’s exploratory, diplomatic, peaceful ethos. (And it’s also a somewhat cheesy enticement to convince people to purchase CBS’s new subscription streaming service to catch the end of the cliffhanger.) But it’s also one poised to explore new wrinkles in Starfleet’s mission to patrol the galaxy and seek out new life and new civilizations. Humanity’s journey through the stars is not a painless one, but one fraught with beings who may attack on sight, who may not prove receptive to your message, who may disdain your very existence. There is a cost to roaming the frontier, a peril in the unknown, and Discovery’s first hour, brings that peril to the forefront.

But it also foregrounds the clash of civilizations idea that seems a likely throughline for the season. The series doesn’t open with a recitation of those hallowed words about five-year missions or boldly going where no one has gone before. It opens with a unifying demagogue rallying his people around the emptiness of the Starfleet mantra “we come in peace.” To T’Kuvma, the Federation is not the coming of paradise; it’s a threat to Klingon purity, to Klingon sanctity, that must be fended off before it engulfs all they believe in.

It calls to a sense of multiculturalism and a pushback among enclaves that fear their personal cultures will be overwritten in a fashion that’s all too relevant, as Star Trek should be, in light of current events. T’Kuvma isn’t afraid of Starfleet as a military threat; he’s afraid of it as a cultural one. A confederation that would blend humans, Vulcans, Tellarites, and Andorians is anathema to the Klingon hardliner who worries the same sort of melting pot will extinguish the unique Klingon identity.

That is what he’s fighting for. That’s why he tries to unify the warring houses. That’s his angry response to a broadening world that’s encroaching on his space.

These are weighty themes, and Discovery’s two part premiere -- “The Vulcan Hello” and “Battle at the Binary Stars” feels true to its roots by wrapping its explorations, space-battles, and hand-to-hand fights in those broader ideas. Despite that, it often falters in capturing the “feel” of Star Trek, for lack of a better term. The series says and does all the right things, introduces a compelling conflict, and throws in a few classic sound effects to soothe the diehards, but doesn’t yet feel of a piece with its forebears.

Part of that comes down to the series’ visuals. Make no mistake, this is the finest Star Trek has ever looked on the small screen. CBS and Paramount clearly spared no expense in terms of the production design, the special effects, and the kinetic action sequences that filter throughout the series’ opening salvo.

But that is, in a peculiar way, part of the issue. Despite officially existing as part of the “prime” Star Trek timeline, Discovery takes most of its visual cues from the J.J. Abrams reboot films. The Shenzou is a dark-tinted version of Chris Pine’s Enterprise, with a floor to ceiling viewscreen and holographic conversations with superior officers. Its frames are filled with dutch angles and even those notorious lens flares. The Klingons are more directly alien, looking more like spiky-headed demons than hairy brutes. Sarek is snootier, more condescending, less detached. The series’ opening credits are a page out of the Marvel Netflix playground rather than a visual journey through space.

This is a slicker, darker, fancier version of Star Trek. On the one hand, that’s an exciting, arguably necessary direction in which to evolve the franchise, but on the other, it just doesn’t feel like home yet.

It doesn’t help (though maybe it should) that the dialogue and performances are uneven across Discovery’s two-part premiere. As all opening episodes must do to some extent, there’s infodumps, “as you know”-style statements, and relationship-establishing scenes that stick out as the heavy machinery of T.V. storytelling being a little too visible behind the curtain. Comments like “The only word to describe it is ‘wow’” would make the writers of Contact blush. On-the-nose statements about choosing hope sting the ears. And while the hard-edged lyricism of Klingons and subtitles can cover for some of it, there’s plenty of the faux-profundity and stilted character declarations that have infected much of “serious” sci-fi of late.

That’s why I’m inclined to give Sonequa Martin-Green, the show’s lead, a bit of a pass for her weaker moments in the premiere. In The Walking Dead, Martin-Green was often grouped with characters who spoke with a certain fanciful verbiage and cadence. That lent itself to a theatrical, mannered tone in Martin-Green’s delivery which frequently carries over now that she’s made the leap from zombies to Xindi. But when not spitting out the premiere’s rougher dialogue, Martin-Green excels at selling confidence, desperation, and even Vulcan detachment creaking toward emotion to help carry the hour.

That’s helpful since her character’s personal journey makes up other main arc of the premiere, and presumably the series. Raised by Vulcans, living with humans, resentful of the Klingons, Michael Burnham exists at the inflection point between the species “A Vulcan Hello” and “Battle at the Binary Stars” center on. While the “they killed my parents” backstory is generic, and the connection to an established Star Trek family is strained, the notion of how Burnham balances her human heart with her Vulcan teachings and channels them toward a species whose terrorists made her an orphan is fruitful territory for the new series to explore.

It also connects with the attention Discovery pays to race, and the challenges of existing in multiple worlds but not finding full acceptance or understanding in either of them. Burham’s presence on the Shenzou is paralleled with Voq, an albino Klingon on T’Kuvma’s ship. He too is an orphan, one whose captain sees a unique value and potential in him, who faces challenges because of who he is and how he differs from those around him. Both Burnham and Voq lose a great deal in the battle that ensues, one spurred, in part, by how the two cultures view one another.

So much of Star Trek is about managing the risks of such encounters. The premiere of Discovery is good not great, with questionable visuals, performances, and writing. But the strength of the nascent show comes from its premise, from its themes, and from its willingness to confront the good and bad of that, animating, exploratory philosophy at the heart of the series.

There's a cost to roaming the frontier and trying to make first contact (or at least new contact) with alien species. More than a few folks in prior Star Trek incarnation paid the price for it, but outside of the occasional Tasha Yar, they were typically guest stars or redshirts whose demise carried less impact. Discovery features Starfleet commanders following the underlying principles of the Federation and suffering losses for it, while a relative outsider bristles against these tactics which, oddly enough, leave her sharing the philosophy of the Klingons she says should be attacked. Risk is still Star Trek’s business, but it can be a harsh business, where you are, what you stand for, and how you see the faces on the other side of the viewscreen can dictate whether you seek out new life, or end it.

The build up to this new Star Trek show has been a rollercoaster. It was impossible to tell what it was really going to be like, and there were countless "fans" screaming online about how it's going completely in the wrong direction (I was particularly disgusted with the objections raised about its diversity). I've been cautiously optimistic, and it has helped that since I'm not in the US that I don't have any issues with being able to watch the show, as it's on Netflix here.

I'm happy to say that Discovery is great. At least, this first episode is. It feels very true to the spirit of the franchise and is focused on characters and ethical/moral issues. The visual reboot is wonderful, and something that Trek sorely needed. I really don't care if it doesn't match up with how The Original Series looked, because if a modern show looked anything like that it would be laughed at. Discovery is a visual feast, almost every shot is breathtakingly gorgeous and its clear that the big budget has been spent wisely. My only minor gripe is that the redesigned Klingons are bugging me quite a bit, especially given how established they are within the franchise's canon. I'm sure it's something I'll be fine with eventually.

We are given some strong characters here. The lead, Commander Michael Burnham, seems very brash and possibly over-eager. She promises to just do a fly-by of the unknown object found by the USS Shenzhou, and then proceeds to land and and activate it. She's being treated for heavy radiation burns but flees sickbay to get back to the bridge, when surely she could have just contacted the captain over the comm? The final sequence is the most shocking of her actions when she incapacitates Captain Georgiou. Burnham could be a lot to take if she continues like this!

The trailers seemed to indicate that this show would be an action fest. I'm happy to say that's not so at all, and it feels more concerned with characters. I'm an instant fan of Lt. Cmdr. Saru, who is bringing some comic relief with his sarcasm. He's also, quite sensibly, scared! Captain Georgiou is fantastic, but there was little doubt about that since Michelle Yeoh is player the part. The incorporation of Sarek is an interesting one, and while the portrayal here feels nothing like the character established by Mark Lenard so many years ago, there was an intimidating presence and I find myself quite fascinated by the background story being revealed here.

The title sequence is also nice and elegant. I'm delighted to report that Discovery could be great, at least based on this premiere.

Despite it being far more eye candy than actual substance, the episode was much better than that lame promo that I saw long ago would have suggested. I mostly liked everyone on the Shenzhou...up to the point where Burnham embraced mutiny as an option with something like a minute left in the episode. So the weakness at the end matched the weakness of the beginning, which has its own problems. First, how did the sandstorm not wipe out their first prints in the time it took to complete the last ones? Why was Michael surprised to learn that they'd walked in something other than a straight line when the pattern that they did walk required several sharp turns? (The pattern was the Trek insignia.) And how could the ship visually see the tracks through the clouds even if the storm hadn't wiped away the prints? And if visual sightings are a thing at this point, then why didn't they have a flare in the first place?

Again, though, the rest of it was pretty good if a little too Klingon-heavy for my tastes. After all, this was a pilot and getting to know the Starfleet types was/is far more important than getting to know any particular Klingons.