Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 2 Episode 12 (Through the Valley of Shadows)

Having a huge franchise can be a blessing and a curse.  If you don’t draw on it, you are wasting potential.  If you do use it, it can come across as namedropping.  So far in Star Trek Discovery, we’ve seen Amanda, Sarek, Spock, Pike, Number One and the Talosians, not to mention The Enterprise and Boreth.

On the flip side are Control, which is a Skynet wannabe, and the Spore Drive, neither of which was mentioned in any other series or movie.  And there’s Michael Burnham, Spock’s foster sister.  That’s at least understandable, as Spock didn’t mention his parents or half-brother to Kirk.

What can I say?  It’s been a busy season.  Speaking of which, after this episode is the two-part season finale.

So, yeah.  This episode serves as a setup.

Control is bent on getting that Sphere data.  To do that, they need a Time Crystal, which means a return trip to Boreth, where the Chancellor will put in a good word so that Pike can beam down.  It’s not clear exactly what the plan is yet, but it’s got to be big.

Meanwhile, Spock and Michael check out a Section 31 ship that has gone silent.  That’s because Control killed everyone except for one person.  Coincidentally, that person served with Michael on the Shenzhou.  There’s no way that control took that person over.  Right?

By episode’s end, it’s determined that the only rational course of action is to evacuate Discovery to Enterprise and destroy the ship.  Given that a third season has been ordered, it can’t be that easy.  Even if we didn’t know that, there are still two episodes left.

I know I keep on about this whole Control/Skynet thing.  It’s not that farfetched.  Both are AI systems that become self aware and wipe out all known organic life.  Time travel is involved and there’s a parent/child team trying to stop them.  The child is seen as a threat to the AI and the mother has undergone a major personality shift trying to stop the AI.

So, part of the story is trying to change fate.  There’s also a part of the story that involves accepting your fate.  Pike has to accept his if he wants the time crystal.  Michael will also have to accept hers in the two-part finale.  So, there’s that.

It’s not clear what Pike intends to do with the time crystal, exactly.  He can’t get it to Michael’s mother.  It would seem that he has no plans yet to build another suit.  He’s doing this not really knowing why.  However, the alternative is letting everyone die.

The second season is almost as smooth as I’d have hoped.  There are a few parts, like here, where it seems like maybe it’s a victim of one too many rewrites, but I can forgive that.  It took me the entire season, but things are starting to make sense.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 2 Episode 3 (Point of Light)

There’s that line: Hell is other people.  It’s not what other people think of you, but rather, what you think other people think of you.  That seems to be the theme for this episode.

Ash/Voq is having a hard time being accepted as a Klingon since he looks human.  Tilly thinks she’s going crazy because of what’s ostensibly a hallucination.  So, of course, she hides it for fear of the straight jacket.  Also, we learn that Spock lacks empathy and Burnham feels like she’s responsible, due to some untold transgression against him when they were children.  She can’t even bring herself to approach or contact him.

The story progresses on these three fronts.  Ash learns that he has a son, which T’Rell, the mother, saw as a liability.  Her association with Voq has made her tenure as chancellor a difficult one.  Having a kid wouldn’t make that any easier.

Tilly’s hallucination isn’t making things easier for her.  It’s taken the form of an old friend, May and pseudo-May is persistent.  This might be all good and well, but Tilly has training to undergo and she nearly has a breakdown in front of the captain and the rest of the bridge crew.  But, there’s hope.  May could be the result of a parasite.

As for Spock, it looks like it may be a few episodes before we see him.  Burnham gets a visit from Amanda.  Amanda may not have been the best mother to Spock and Burnham, but she tried.  Still, it’s difficult to think of Spock being in a mental institution.

I mean, he was seeing the same Red Angel that Burnham saw, so there’s that.  The big thing is that Burnham committed some undisclosed transgression against Spock that may or may not explain everything.  Either way, Burnham feels guilty.

The second season is doing a pretty good job of building a cohesive story.  There are a few missteps, like Klingons having hair now.  (Apparently, they were shaving it before.)  And everything is tied together.  Spock knew about the Red Angel.  The Klingons do, too.

I have only one really big complaint.  I know I keep harping on this, but what’s with the whole Disco thing?  Couldn’t they use Dis or Disc?  I mentioned this with the first episode.  I was hoping not to see it again.  I really want to know why the first five letters of the ship’s name.  We never saw Voyag or Enter.  Could someone explain this to me?

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 15 (Will You Take My Hand?)

Star Trek: Discovery was a good news/bad news kind of situation.  The good news was that there would be a new Star Trek series after many years.  The bad news was that you’d have to pay for it.  Alas, my local library saved the day with the first season on DVD.  I had to put in a hold and wait, but I was still able to get all 15 episodes of the first season.

So, here we are at the last of those episodes.  It would seem that there’s a resolution to the Klingon War at hand.  Starfleet has a plan to send a probe to the Klingon home world and maybe find a way to threaten the Klingons into submission.  Only, it‘s not really a probe.  It’s a bomb intended to destroy the planet.  And when I say intended, I mean that it’s what Starfleet actually planned to do: Destroy the home world so that the Klingons would realize how serious the Federation is.

I’m not sure I like this plan.  There is a parallel to the United States dropping the bomb on Japan.  It shows that Starfleet is serious.  I had never thought of Starfleet being that serious, but this is what they get for putting a Mirror Universe Emperor in charge of the war effort.  It puts an admiral on the verge of selling Starfleet’s soul just for the sake of winning.

Given that there’s a Klingon home world in the other series and that this is the second-earliest Star Trek series, it’s safe to say that it doesn’t come to that.  The question is how and why it doesn’t come to that.  This is where Discovery has a chance to redeem itself.   The previous series had been about exploration.  Deep Space Nine had a wormhole, which led to a new part of the galaxy to look at.  Even Voyager, which was stranded 70,000 light years from home, took time to look at a new planet or meet a new race.

Discovery was mostly about conflict and war.  It’s almost a darker version of Deep Space Nine.  I am hopeful for the second season.  I know I’ll have to wait a few months if I don’t want to fork over the money, but I waited this long for Season 1.  I’ve also seen some spoilers for Season 2, which have me curious.  Despite what I may have felt before, there is some Star Trek in Discovery.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 14 (The War Without, the War Within)

Life is rarely fair.  Ash Tyler turned out to be a Klingon spy.  To cover his secret, he killed the chief medical officer and nearly killed Michael Burnham.  He’s allowed to walk around the ship unsupervised.  Also, Michael Burnham saves the Emperor of the Terran Empire.  She’s the most ruthless product of a ruthless version of humanity.  Rather than lock her up, they make her captain of the Discovery.  Makes sense.  Right?  That’s how this episode goes.  But, hey!  We’re back in the Prime Universe!  There’s no more evil humans or Vulcans with goatees to worry about.

The crew can focus on the Klingon war again, which has progressed nine months since they left.  Things aren’t going too well for Starfleet.  20% of Federation territory has been lost.  About a third of the Fleet is no more.  Starfleet Command needs something major and Emperor…er…Captain Georgiou might be the one to give it to her.  They do have the Klingon T’Rell in holding, so she might provide something useful.

The fact that they let two major threats walk freely through the ship is my major issue here.  You might say that there’s some major plot point that will require both Georgiou and Tyler.  And you’d be right.  I have seen the finale.  However, use of those characters would be done grudgingly.  Someone would be forced to let them out of prison to accomplish something.  That’s not the case here.  It would seem that being human, or at least appearing human, has its advantages.

It’s also a bit of an insult to Saru to make Georgiou the captain.  Saru has done a great job commanding the Discovery.  You can’t even argue plot point here.  First off, doesn’t the entire crew know what’s going on?  Why the pretense of saying that it’s the Prime Georgiou other than to remind the crew that they have to keep up an act?  Why even make her captain?  They could just as easily keep her on as an advisor or something.  If anyone asks, you could say that she’s taking time off to recover from being held captive or something.  The fact that she’s given direct command of a starship means that she could take over the Prime Universe.

So, yeah.  The first season of Discovery will end with some major questions.  I’m sure the writers have something planned for Tyler and Georgiou, but many of the details seem forced or unnecessary.  Basically, there are three people on the ship that shouldn’t be trusted and two of them are trusted in this episode.  I’m not sure any explanation would be sufficient, but I am curious to see where the characters go in season 2.


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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 12 (Vaulting Ambition)

WARNING:  I’m going to give away major plot points for this episode, including the major twist at the end.


I have to admit that things got a lot more complicated on Star Trek: Discovery.  The ship is in the mirror universe and things are what you might expect.  Many of the same people exist there, albeit in different positions.  The deceased Captain Georgiou is now Emperor Georgiou.  First Officer Saru is now servant to Michael Burnham, who went from mutineer to Captain.  Tilly also made a similar move, from cadet to Captain.  Lorca was supposed to have killed the alternate Burnham, though.  Stamets, the chief engineer, actually meets his counterpart.  The two seem to get along pretty well.

The episode deals with Burnham trying to get information on the U.S.S. Defiant.  This isn’t the Defiant from Deep Space Nine.  Rather, it’s the one that the Tholians tried to put their web around.  It was sent back in time to the Mirror Universe and might be useful if the Discovery crew can get their hands on it.  Or, at least, an unredacted report.  You see, anyone who has come in contact with the ship has gone crazy.

You might be asking how they got there in the first place.  Stamets was able to navigate between universes, but that’s what put him in a coma.  Even though he comes out of it by the end of the episode, trying it again would be risky.  So, The Discovery is their best bet right now.

Here’s the thing, though.  Lorca is actually the Mirror Lorca.  It would explain a few things, like how his former ship got destroyed.  (Incompetence as a captain or covering up that you’re not who we think you are?)  It also creates a rather interesting bootstrap paradox.  As I said, the ship traveled back in time about ten years.  This means that the ship would have information on the Prime Universe’s major players, including Burnham.  It casts much of what happened so far in a new light.  It also explains why Kirk and Crew wouldn’t have discussed the events of the series so far.  This is one more thing that would have been heavily classified.

Interestingly, Burnham makes the decision to level with Emperor Georgiou.  It turns out she already knew about the Prime Universe.  At least she has the Emperor’s help.  Alas, Burnham realizes that she’s eating what might have been Mirror Saru. 

I’m watching the series on DVD.  This was the last episode on disc 3, meaning I’ll have to wait a while to see the next episode.  A lot of people had the same idea I did, which is to get the DVDs from the library rather than pay money for CBS All Access.  I’d recommend at least starting the series the same way to help gauge your interest in the series.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 10 (Despite Yourself)

When you have a television franchise, there’s a certain dilemma.  The advantage of having a history like that of Star Trek allows for a lot of stories to be carried over from one series to another.  The Enterprise would occasionally visit Deep Space Nine.  Voyager would call on events that happened in the Dominion War or that happened in the movies.

If you do that too much, you run the risk of seeming uncreative.  True, Discovery has already called upon previous incarnations.  Michael Burnham is the foster daughter of Sarek.  Harry Mudd has already made two appearances.  To do this too often might undermine Discovery as a separate entity.  Then again, maybe not.

The previous episode had the U.S.S. Discovery jump into the Mirror Universe.  This was established in the original series episode Mirror, Mirror.  Instead of a federation, Earth is at the head of the Terran Empire.  The crew of the Discovery finds out that humans are ruthless and will conquer any alien race they come across.  Fighting them are the Klingons, apparently with the help of Vulcans and Andorians.

The episode is spent mostly getting the crew acclimated to the other universe.  Cadet Sylvia Tilly is now the captain of the Discovery.  Burnham’s alternate was presumed dead at the hands of Captain Lorca’s alternate, which provides them with a challenge when hailed by another ship.  Tilly, who’s normally talkative and nervous, has to put on a brave face (or voice, actually) and get rid of the other captain.

It does provide them with an opportunity.  Whereas the U.S.S. Shenzhou was destroyed, the I.S.S. Shenzhou is still out there.  So, the crew has to make the U.S.S. Discovery look like the I.S.S. Discovery an have everyone get used to being more ruthless.  This way, Burnham can take Lorca and Tyler to the Shenzhou and get more information on how to get home.

This is the kind of episode that’s going to be confusing for people that have never watched Star Trek.  There are references to at least two Star Trek episodes.  Even for someone who’s seen the episodes, it can be a lot to keep up with.  Then again, if you’re paying for CBS All Access so you can watch Discovery, there’s a good chance you’re not a casual viewer.

As I’ve noted with other mirror-universe episodes, it’s odd that everyone has a counterpart.  (Well, almost everyone.  No mention is made of Saru’s counterpart.)  It’s not clear when or how this other universe split from ours.  It does go back to Star Trek: Enterprise, to say the least.  How probable is it that everyone has a counterpart in both universes?

This does pose a problem, since Burnham’s alternate is presumed dead and Lorca’s is on the run.  There’s a chance, however small, that either one will show up at some point and create problems for the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery.  There’s also the issue of what happened to the I.S.S. Discovery.  Was it destroyed or was it transported to the Federation’s universe?  I imagine some answers will be forthcoming during the rest of the episode.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 9 (Into the Forest I Go)

Star Trek: Discovery began with a war with the Klingons.  It also began with its central character, Michael Burnham, betraying her captain and effectively ending her Starfleet career.  Both of these plot points have been central to the show so far.  Burnham is not only responsible for the lives lost at The Battle of the Binary Stars, but also those that died in the resulting war.

To figure out how to see through the Klingon’s cloaking device would put a serious dent in their offensive and defensive capabilities.  The crew of the U.S.S. Discovery doesn’t want to let the planet Pavlo be destroyed by the Klingons, but the inhabitants have technology that could cut through the cloaking device.

Fortunately, the crew devises another method that might work.  The catch?  The ship has to use it’s spore drive over a hundred times very quickly.  This wouldn’t be a problem except that Paul Stamets has to be hooked in.  One or two trips take a toll, to say nothing of dozens.  He agrees to do it, knowing that it could end the war.

The mission is completed, but not without complications.  Admiral Cornwell, who had been abducted by the Klingons,  is discovered on the ship and subsequently rescued.  Also, Ash Tyler is hit with PTSD, leaving Burnham to complete the mission by herself.

I will say that the series seems to be progressing better than I expected.  I still have issues.  For instance, the mission requires two huge devices to be placed on the Klingon ship for the cloaking technology to be understood.  How are Tyler and Burnham able to place such a large device out in the open on an enemy ship without someone noticing it?

The good news is that Burnham seems to be getting her sense of duty back.  For most of the series, she seemed to have given up on redeeming herself for an irredeemable act.  Here, she sees that she can not only help, but is necessary for the mission to succeed.

Conversely, we get glimpses into Tyler’s past that raises questions.  We see that he was tortured and raped during his time in captivity.  Captain Lorca has already expressed doubts about how someone could have survived that long.  This might hit at a bigger revelation.

This episode was the mid-season finale.  As such, it ends on an interesting cliffhanger.  Stamets promises one more jump, which leads them to a destroyed Klingon cruiser where a Federation starbase should be.  Yes, it’s the Mirror Universe.

So, I guess that means I’m in for the rest of the season.  I am more hopeful, given that the writing is getting better.  I am getting the sense that there is a bigger plan here.  I also have to see how this plays out.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 8 (Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum)

When reviewing TV series, I have to decide if I’m going to do it by the season or by the episode.  Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation lent themselves to being reviewed by the episode, as each one had a distinct plot.  With Friday the 13th: The Series, I realized that I should have done it by the season, as the episodes weren’t really distinct enough.  I’m still on the fence about Star Trek: Discovery, though.  There is a continuing thread with the Klingon War, although there are a few episodes that deserve further exploration.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum has the crew exploring a planet that would seem to sing.  It has this giant towering transmitter that broadcasts out into space.  Commander Saru is sent down with Ash Tyler and Michael Burnham to see about using this transmitter to find cloaked Klingon vessels.  It’s not clear how this is supposed to work, especially considering that the spire is so tall.  Do they just need a key component or are they going to take the whole thing with them?  How do they know that it will even work?

Anyway, Saru seems sensitive to the ambient noise.  Shortly after making contact with what would seem to be an indigenous life form, Saru would seem to go sideways.  He crushes Burnham and Tyler’s communicators, leaving them unable to communicate with the ship.  Saru wants to stay on the planet and would apparently have Burnham and Tyler stay with him.  It’s not really clear how much the locals are influencing him, but Saru has to be stopped.  At the very least, the war effort could do with that transmitter.

Meanwhile, Admiral Cornwell is being interrogated by the Klingons.  L’Rell offers to interrogate her only to secretly offer the Admiral the chance to escape.  L’Rell is disillusioned with her new leader and would just as soon leave.  The last we see of it is L’Rell ostensibly killing Cornwell, but it could very easily be a ruse.  (Is the admiral really dead or is she knocked out?  I’m going to have to wait until I get the third disc to find out.)

The title translates as, “If You Want Peace, Prepare for War.”  I’m sort of in the middle about the episode, as it does seem to be progressing nicely.  My only problem is that I kind of like the episodic series.  You’d have some continuity, but you didn’t have to wait until the end of the season to see so many resolutions.  It’s almost like a soap opera in that we keep having to tune in next week to see what happens.

Saru is definitely making progress.  He started the series as someone who would seem to be afraid of his own shadow.  He’s now leading away missions and even commanding the ship for moderate periods of time.  His learning curve isn’t as awkward as I thought it would have been.  I do think there might be some potential for this character.

We also see Paul Stamets confide in Sylvia Tilly.  (This is predicated by Staments having some noticeable mood swings.)  For once, we get a reason why he doesn’t go elsewhere.  It’s not common knowledge that he modified his own genes.  His partner is a doctor and would be bound to report what happened or live in fear.  Keeping it a secret is a priority.  I’m a little curious to see where this will go.

Star Trek: Discovery is becoming a guilty pleasure for me.  I still have issues, but I can’t stop watching.  (Maybe train wreck is better term.  I’m not sure yet.)  I’m going to finish out the season and see what happens.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 5 (Choose Your Pain)

I’ve asked a few questions while watching Star Trek: Discovery.  Notably, I’ve wondered if ethical concerns would prohibit the ship’s spore drive from becoming useful in the long run.  “Choose Your Pain” is the first episode to really face that head on.  The ship’s spore drive requires a living navigator, but that comes at a steep price, especially for said navigator.  The creature that the Discovery is using, Ripper, is in pain and actually gives out during this episode.

Only one crew member, Michael Burnham, advocates for Ripper.  The problem is that when Ripper’s services aren’t needed, it’s not really an issue.  When Ripper is needed, it’s to save lives.  During this episode, the ship has to go into hostile territory and get out as soon as they have their captain.  This can’t be done without Ripper, which means it sucks when he curls up into a ball and can’t navigate the ship.

While in captivity, Captain Lorca has two cellmates.  One is Harcourt Fenton “Harry” Mudd.  Fans of the original series might remember him as the guy who was peddling would-be brides to miners.  He’s not a nice guy.  I don’t know that he deserves to be in a Klingon holding cell, but he’s not the kind of guy I’d want as a friend, either.

The other cellmate is Ash Tyler.  He’s a Starfleet officer who had the misfortune to be captured by the Klingons at the Battle of the Binary Stars.  How he’s survived seven months in Klingon captivity escapes Captain Lorca, but he’s still a Starfleet officer.  The two escape and leave Mudd behind.

I do think that the series is picking up.  We get some plot development and some character development, notably with First Officer Saru, who is left in command.  It would appear that this is the first time that he’s gone an extended period without the captain present, being that he has to look up how to be a captain.  I would have thought that an executive officer would have learned something about that by now.  Still, it’s nice to know that his head is in the right place.  It also gives the show a chance to drop a few familiar names.

Speaking of familiar names, I realize that the part of Mudd has to be recast.  I’m not saying that Rainn Wilson is a bad actor, but I was expecting something closer to Roger C. Carmel.  Instead, I had this lingering image of John Lithgow by the end of the episode.  (Maybe it’s my imagination.)

I’m beginning to get the sense that the writers are playing the long game here.  I suspect that more of my issues will be resolved as time goes by.  I had hoped to watch at least half the season, which would be to the end of this disc.  I may have to go put a hold on the third disc before I’m done with this one.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 4 (The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry)

I recently realized that my local library has the first season of Star Trek: Discovery on DVD, thereby allowing me to bypass paying for CBS All Access to watch the show.  I just got the second DVD, so I’d like to review this episode before watching the next few episodes.  The episodes so far would seem to flow more evenly from one to the next, so this will allow me to keep the storylines straight.

This one starts shortly after the previous episode.  Michael Burnham has just come back from the Discovery’s sister ship, the Glenn, with useful technology and a tardigrade-like creature who has been dubbed Ripper.  She and Commander Landry are tasked with figuring out how to weaponize Ripper so that the crew might defeat the Klingons.  After all, Ripper took on a bunch of Klingons alone, as well as giving the away team a run for their money.

Burnham does make a major discovery:  Ripper has some sort of symbiotic relationship with the spores.  He’s also not that aggressive when not provoked.  All of Ripper’s actions thus far have been in self defense.  Furthermore, it would appear that Ripper can help navigate the ship for long jumps.  Discovery can use the spores for shorter jumps with some degree of accuracy.  To do the math for longer jumps requires some sort of supercomputer.

It’s not clear exactly what Ripper does or how Ripper knows where to go.  It’s not possible to communicate with the large creature, although the large creature does appear to be in pain when the drive is in use.  Captain Lorca uses Ripper to get to a colony that mines 40% of the Federation’s dilithium to protect it from a Klingon attack, so some discomfort isn’t his concern.  In fact, Burnham seems to be the only one who does show any sort of concern, ethical or otherwise.  She’s able to demonstrate that there’s no threat.

The ethics of using an alien creature without consent really isn’t dealt with in this episode.  The entire thing seemed a little too convenient.  I’m assuming that Ripper was trained by the crew of the Glenn.  Much like Star Trek’s The Devil in the Dark, it’s possible that a Vulcan was able to mind meld with Ripper to communicate what was going on.

So much is still unknown about Ripper.  Part of me feels like I’m missing something.  Maybe this will be explained in later episodes. I expect someone to leave a comment, “Didn’t you see when someone said X?”  I feel like the episode could have used a little more exposition.  It’s too bad for Ripper that his one advocate is someone who’s already on shaky ground with the rest of the crew.  However, this would be a very good reason for eventually discontinuing the use of the spore drive.

I definitely want to watch the next four episodes.  Maybe I’ll find a few of my answers.  At this point, though, I’m only expecting more questions.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 2 (Battle at the Binary Stars)

I’d like to think that there’s a plan.  Not to life, necessarily.  I think life, in general, is random.  When it comes to episodic television, though, I’d like to think that there’s a plan.  With Star Trek: Discovery, it’s not clear what that plan is, yet.  The Klingons look totally different.  They have cloaking devices.  Spock has a foster sister we didn’t know about.  Oh, and Spock’s foster sister has apparently just started a war with the Klingons.

Michael Burnham is the foster sister and she did kill one a Klingon, although it’s probable that they were looking for a fight.  There’s this new wannabe Klingon leader, T'Kuvma, who wants to unite the houses by picking a fight with The Federation.   If not Burnham, it would have been someone else.

The fact that she was correct is irrelevant, even when lots of other Klingon and Starfleet ships show up.  Her plan was to shoot first, which Starfleet doesn’t do.  Aside from which, she also tried to mutiny, which lands her in the brig.  She escapes and does help the Captain try to take T’Kuvma alive, but that ends in failure, too.  Both T’Kuvma and Captain Georgiou die.  Burnham ends up stripped of rank and court-martialed.

This was the second part of the pilot story.  It’s enough to make your head spin, especially if you’ve watched all the previous incarnations.  As I mentioned for the first part, it’s a huge franchise, with all the TV shows, movies and books.  A few things aren’t clear, like how Burnham got her spot as first officer or why the Klingons look the way they do.

I felt that the episode was kind of weak.  Part one was the setup and part two was basically one big battle scene.  Sure, it’s an epic battle and all, but we’re getting mostly the story of how Burnham came to be on the U.S.S. Shenzhou.  (Two episodes in and we haven’t even heard from the U.S.S. Discovery yet.)

The episode ends with Burnham utterly defeated.  She has no rank or position, despite a promising career.  Even if she gets out of her life sentence, which she does, she’s the executive officer that mutinied and got her commanding officer killed.  She’s not going to have a lot of friends.

I have the first disc of Season One from the library, with a hold on the second disc.  Given that I’ve watched all of the life-action series and movies, I feel like I have great expectations for this series.  I know people wondered about Worf, given that he looked so different from the original Klingons.  I am willing to give Discovery a shot.  I can only hope that it doesn’t disappoint.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 1 Episode 1 (The Vulcan Hello)

Star Trek has an interesting history.  The Original Series was apparently not popular enough to get a fourth season, but it just made it to the point where the reruns could be syndicated.  The Next Generation was syndicated, which gave us seven seasons.  Then, came Deep Space Nine and Voyager, the latter of which was the flagship of UPN.  UPN didn’t last long after Voyager went off the air, but we did get Star Trek: Enterprise, which was set before The Original Series.  There were also the movies, which were a mixed bag.  Then, we got that movie reboot, which I’m still not fond of.

So, here we are with Star Trek: Discovery, which is supposed to be this big thing for CBS All Access.  Except, I’m not going to let CBS use my love of Star Trek to get me to fork over money for yet another streaming service.  I refuse to.  Fortunately, by local library has the first season on DVD.  Thus, I can watch the show and not pay for it.  Having watched the first two episodes so far, I’m glad I didn’t.  I’m not entirely satisfied with what I’ve seen so far.

The episode starts with Captain Philippa Georgiou and First Officer Michael Burnham bringing water to a dry, pre-warp culture without being seen by the inhabitants.  They manage to beam off the planet after a successful mission.  Cut to a damaged communications relay.  It appears the big hole in the middle of it was deliberate.  Not only that, but there’s a Klingon ship hiding in the asteroid field.

These aren’t the original Klingons that Kirk had to deal with.  They have ridges and no hair.  They’re the exact opposite of the first Klingons.  I have no explanation for this.  I’m assuming it will be explained later on.  Anyway, the leader of this ship wants to declare war on The Federation so that he might unite the houses under one rule.  It is a powerful ship and he does have a cloaking device, which I’m assuming will also be explained later on.

Georgiou wants to hold off on attacking.  Starfleet doesn’t fire first.  However, Burnham is in contact with her foster father, Sarek, who advises her to attack first.  Georgiou declines her first officer’s advice, prompting her to act illogically and take the captain out with a Vulcan neck pinch.  Before Burnham can attack, Georgiou recovers and relieves Burnham of duty.  We’re left with a cliffhanger, not knowing what the Klingons will do next.

I have a few issues with the series so far, and we‘re not even 50 minutes into it.  It seems like the show was written by people that had never seen Star Trek before.  It’s as if everyone took a look at various Wikipedia articles and just decided they could wing it.  I’ve already mentioned two issues with the Klingons.  It also seems like the Shenzhou was given a first officer that didn’t have much training.  (If I’m interpreting correctly, it seems like Sarek got her the job rather than having her work her way through the ranks.)

If CBS wanted hard-core fans to buy into the service and support the show, you’d think the writers would try a little harder for continuity.  To be fair, the first season of The Original Series was all over the place, but we’re talking about a franchise that’s fifty years old.  This is the sixth live-action series.  I’d think they’d have their act together.

I think anyone who watched most of the previous series will take issue with the pilot.  I am hopeful.  Each of the other series took a while to get going.  Even the movies seemed to alternate between hit and miss.  There are so many issues with this episode, but I am willing to give the series a chance.  It did get a second season and will apparently get a third.  I will admit that there are ways my issues could be satisfactorily resolved.

IMDb page