Last year, after hearing a new television series called Star Trek: Discovery would be coming, I was really excited, who wouldn't after Enterprise got canceled in 2004? I tried not to read anything to spoil. All I knew it's a story focusing on a female first officer, that's all. Basically, I knew nothing about it, although the name "Discovery" hinted something.
In the opening episode The Vulcan Hello, the First Officer Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) was in desert with Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) trying to save a species without breaking General Order 1, that's the Prime Directive to us TNG and later generations of viewers.
Georgiou asked Burnham about the estimated time of the storm coming on them, which Burnham exhibited some Vulcan mathematical and scientific skills with precision and whatever you need to make an estimations about a weather system on a planet, as we humans would probably think that's just showing off, Burnham gave a guess, I meant scientifically educated estimation down to seconds.
I immediately glanced at her, looking for pointy ears, but I couldn't see with the hood on. Didn't pay any attentions as she looked and acted like human until we saw her training as a Vulcan. Now, it's clearly to me, she was raised in Vulcan and then learned her parents were killed by Klingon.When she first boarded USS Shenzhou, I must say she was more Vulcan than Sarek (James Frain) was. Frankly, all these shifts in her character made me wonder who exactly Michael Burnham is.
To make it even worse is when the second episode Battle at the Binary Stars ends, and the preview or teaser of what's yet to come rolling out. But now Burnham looks like a badass or kickass character with serious mental issues. I was like is this some Suicide Squad of Section 31? Please don't tell me that USS Discovery is a prison ship, it's not, hopefully! What the heck is with her character? I only hope it's just editing in the preview for explosive reactions, or I might not going to watch this psychological unstable television show.
Back to the story in hand, the two aired episodes, the prologue. The plot is good, it brings up how Federation and Klingon would be in an all-out war. Burnham is a scapegoat, simply as that, even she just had to disobey the order of flyby-only to put her goddamn feet on a space object that she knew nothing about—her Vulcan side must be also blocked by the scatter field—which turned out to be a sacred beacon of Klingon, you can guess the rest.
One way or another, T'Kuvma would have his unification and lead Klingon to many glory battles, Burnham probably just helped him to advance his schedule to just a few hours. And the Starfleet-do-not-fire-first-and-we-like-to-talk-peace ensued T'Kuvma's plan to go on the right direction. Although Starfleet has the tendency to blow up their ships when things go sideways—of course, after escape pods launch, USS Euorpa is an exemplary example—or ram into much bigger ship.
T'Kuvma got his unification of 24 houses, give or take a house or two, and Burnham took the blame for starting the war with 8,000 deaths in first two days of war—"8,186," Burnham replied—she just had to kill T'Kuvma when he killed her beloved captain. Whoever transported Burnham back on ship forgot to put her Vulcan katra back. Speaking of katra, the scene when Sarek contacted her, what the heck is that light-year remote mind melt thing? Discovery is ruining Vulcan.
But somehow Vulcan knew better about Klingon than human-slash-Federation, they got fired first, next time, they fired first. Sound illogical? Well, it worked.
A couple of things more I don't like.
First, the lighting in the trial in the end is utterly ridiculous, a focal light on the accused, barely could see the judges,, is that how a real court-martial proceeded? They could be as well as wearing hoods to further conceal their identities. Or is it a mirrored universe? The the reboot films came up, I don't like its lighting all over the bridge, and still don't, because they make no senses to me, but the lighting in this ending is just on the opposite, why do some television shows have to go the non-sense extreme?
Second, I must admit that I really don't like Klingon much that they seem to be the only species in Star Trek kept getting plastic surgeries, always have significant changes, but this one is the most dramatic one, of course, you can say post-virus shaped the Klingon we used to see, but this version still quite different than in reboot films.
So far, after two episodes, the Discovery is not all what I thought, actually, it'd be better this way, because I was still expecting the similar style from previous series—believe or not The Orville, is more close to the previous, even it's a parody, comedy with a few holes in plot and low budget set designs and CGI starship with glares—I just hope it wouldn't completely blow out my mind, becoming too stray to watch.
It's still too early to call since the first two episodes should be just a standalone instead of being part of the first season. I don't believe it'd be same on Discovery than on Shenzhou. This means I haven't watched Star Trek: Discovery at all.
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