This is going to be an unusually ordered review, as I'm going to attempt to serve three masters here. First, you'll get my spoiler-free thoughts, for those who haven't watched any of the show. Then, I'll gather my thoughts on only the first episode, for those who watched the debut on television. Lastly, I'll go through the second hour, available through CBS All Access.
Perhaps first, we should talk about expectations. I know a lot of people who were looking forward to this with impossible-to-fulfill expectations. This was going to be the first new Star Trek series in more than a decade! People scoured every frame of every trailer, weighing in on the merits of overhauling the look of the Klingons, having a new uniform design that was not consistent with the original series (or even Captain Pike's Enterprise), and seemingly developed a pre-hostility. "I want this to be good," many seemed to profess, "but it's not going to be."
For my part, I went in as I try to do any time I've already decided to "buy a ticket." It was Star Trek; I knew I was going to watch it; so don't tell me anything else. It was impossible to avoid all information about it, of course, but I went in relatively blind.
Perhaps it's best/easiest to contrast this premiere with the third episode of The Orville that ran last Thursday. (I haven't reviewed that yet, but that's coming.) Overall, I believe Discovery entertained me more. But that episode of The Orville felt more like "Star Trek" to me.
Discovery is fully committed to serialized storytelling, in a way that even Deep Space Nine never dared approach. It's a show written for its medium: a streaming service. Much like Stranger Things or Daredevil or your Netflix show of choice, the first episode wasn't a complete story in any sense of the term, and ended on a cliffhanger designed to make you immediately want to watch the next episode. So did the second episode, which is an odd choice, as CBS All Access doesn't actually drop a whole season at once like Netflix; they spit out one episode a week.
Cliffhangers aside, though, the two episodes together did at least feel like a complete story. And when you consider that every Star Trek series since The Next Generation began with a two-hour premiere episode, this makes sense. It's too bad that commerce/marketing/scheming conspired to break it in half and leave people who watched on television, not sold on just one hour, in the lurch.
The production values of this show are sky high. With elaborate, real sets (not green-screened), location filming, fantastic visual effects, and great makeup, this thing looks like a movie. In fact, some creative decisions were made that make it too much like a movie -- specifically the three reboot (or "Kelvin timeline") movies. There were jarring lens flares and Dutch angles all over these episodes. I suspect this is meant to look "cinematic," but it really distracted the group I watched with.
There was a Star Trek sensibility to it all, though. I'll get into the specifics later, once I'm done with the "spoiler-free" section, but there absolutely seemed to be a real-world allegory woven into this tale, more subtly than many Trek episodes. There was also solid development of the main character, Michael Burnham.
To go farther, I think I need to get into specifics. So if you didn't watch either episode, consider this your jumping off point. I'll leave you with my verdict: I collectively give the two episodes a B, and I await the next episode with cautious optimism.
If you're still here now, I assume you at least watched the first hour, "The Vulcan Hello."
A number of creative risks were taken in the creation of the first episode. I felt more of them worked out than didn't, so I appreciate the attempt. But I have no doubt the mileage will vary among viewers.
First of all, it's remarkable that we didn't even get introduced to the titular ship, the Discovery, in the premiere of the show. This is what I meant by the show going all in on serialization. This was fascinating, as we joined a crew that's been together already for 7 years before we get to see them. It's like starting a series with the series finale of The Next Generation or something. The characters already know each other, give each other slack and work in a relaxed manner with each other, and generally do feel like they've been starring in a show we just didn't get to see.
Because of this choice, you don't get to have those typical Trek pilot moments of characters' first meetings, so we have to be shown who everyone is, not told. That's great, though it also meant that a lot more time needed to be spent on character development and not plot. Put more baldly, you could walk away from hour one with the sense that "nothing happened," because a lot of time was spent establishing the relationship between Burnham and Captain Georgiou, and showing us in rather striking detail just who Burnham is in the big lead-up to her moment of mutiny. And I thought it was great that they did this, because it made that moment when Burnham gave Georgiou the next pinch truly impactful.
Woven into all this, we also got a good sense of who Saru is. It's intriguing to have a character on a Star Trek show who is, at core, a coward. He's the "us" in all this, the one having the most "human" reactions to encountering the unknown. He's the Spock, the Data, the Seven of Nine, the "other" who is trying to fit in with everyone else. But it does feel to me like he's coming from a different angle than the characters in his Trek ancestry; I'm intrigued to see how that fits in the mix.
There were moments in the first hour that definitely didn't work so well. I'm generally against the decision to have so much subtitled Klingon. I understand the impulse to set the Klingons apart and have them (logically) speaking to each other in their own language. But the language is so guttural and stilted and weird that none of the actors could fit it compellingly in their mouths. It didn't sound like real language, it sounded like grunts and strains. The actors couldn't convey any emotions. A good subtitled scene still gets across the emotional throughline even without the subtitles. (For comparison, watch any scene in Dothraki in Game of Thrones.) Here, without the subtitles, you'd be completely lost.
The opening desert scene was ridiculous. The banter between Burham and Georgiou was fun, the first piece in establishing their relationship. But the idea of leaving tracks in the sand, in a storm, as if they wouldn't immediately be erased, was just stupid. It felt spiritually connected to the opening sequence of Star Trek Into Darkness, where they worked backward from a visual they wanted (there, the Enterprise rising up out of the water; here, the Trek chevron in an overhead shot) and failed to effectively reach it.
Moving on to hour two then.... (duck out here if you didn't stream the last part)...
As I mentioned above, you really needed to see the two episodes together to get the "full story" out of them. Together, you got the fall of Michael Burnham and the rise of the Klingon T'Kuvma. In fact, this was at least as compelling a Trek movie as the one we got most recently, Star Trek Beyond.
In the full context of both hours, we see what allegory has been inserted here. This group of Klingons are the nationalists, railing against the onset of a "globalism" that threatens their beliefs, their way of life. They're on the cusp of being absorbed into the Federation, and they hate it. And their last gasp, their railing against the inevitable, is going to be violent and scary. In short, this is what's playing out in the United States right freaking now, every day. I can only hope that in reality, it doesn't take seven decades to play out as it does in the established Star Trek timeline.
If you watched this whole "two-hour premiere," you'll know that the Discovery still hasn't been introduced. Neither has more than half of the main cast. This is extraordinary, something you could only do on a streaming show with a full season commitment. And while I may wonder later if these two episodes shouldn't have been "aired" as a full flashback somewhere in the middle of the season instead, for now it does at least put the focus squarely on the main character.
It totally works to base a Star Trek series around a character who isn't the captain. At least, so far I'm willing to say that it does. Sonequa Martin-Green is engaging as Burnham, and this story gives her plenty of chance to shine. I'm less sure about the Vulcan background they've given the character at this point (though she's not a Spock clone; she hasn't chosen to maintain steadfast Vulcan emotionlessness). Maybe it's just my fanness recoiling against the retcon of giving Sarek an adoptive father.
Well, I've shuffled around for quite enough for one post, I think. Like I said a while back, taken together, I'd give these first two hours a B. I am interested in seeing more, and meeting more of the characters this new series has cooked up.
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