DISC - The Vulcan Hello

Plot - Since we know there was a pre-TOS conflict with the Klingons but one that we know relatively little about this does seem like a fresh field of drama to plough for Trek. Although DS9 has already handled that conflict (not especially well admittedly given how brilliantly the Dominion war arc was charted later) so we need a fresh approach to the material. Prequels have that tricky balance of having to tell their own story whilst leaving everything in place for the story they are preceding to make sense (Enterprise used to make up the rules as it went along with TNG style Klingons and the Borg showing up) but setting Discovery in this period means that you can have lots of Original Trek touches that will please the fans of that show. Correlating the technology seen in this series with Original Trek is practically impossible, but then technology has never been a reason for me to enjoy Trek so I can just accept it for what it is and assume they abandoned certain technology before Kirk began his 5-year mission on the Enterprise. 

Character -  One of the central reasons to watch and enjoy Discovery is Sonequa Martin-Green’s terrific performance as Michael Burnham, a half human-half Vulcan character who goes on the (very Star Trek) journey of discovering herself throughout the first season of this show. In a series of shifting regular characters, Burnham is an anchor and Martin-Green’s wonderfully cold and yet humane turn really keeps the series afloat during the rockier moments of the season. I really liked how Burnham refused to think that the mysterious presence in the binary star was automatically hostile, preferring instead to see it as a something lost or perhaps asking for help. She’s completely wrong, but it’s a very human approach. Her fear that ultimately turns into laughter as she is flying through space is gorgeous, mirroring that of the audience. The fear of the unknown and the beauty that surrounds her. The Vulcan Hello charts Burnham’s downfall and cements her reputation as the (accidental) catalyst to the start of a war between the Klingons and the Federation. This gives her a dramatic presence in the series but I think it is worth pointing out, because everybody will be pointing the finger at her in the future, that the Klingons were going to attack anyway and anything she does here merely gives them an excuse to bring forward their plan. She’s more of a scapegoat than anything. I’m not sure I buy her reason for wanting to open fire on the Klingons. She says it’s saying hello in a way that they understand, which would make sense if they were on conflicting terms but it just feels like open provocation to me. It’s quite a leap to say that the Klingons will respect you if you say hi with a torpedo up your arse. It feels like creating false drama, a character acting in an illegal way to pump up the tension. And Discovery is never short of that. Certainly, for her to attack her captain and commit mutiny is a massive step to make on the basis of a psychological hunch. 

I think it was Kate Mulgrew who once said that Star Trek comes with its own language and way and talking and acting and you can either adapt to that level of performance or you can’t. She was referring to the actress that she replaced in the role of Janeway, but she may as well have been talking about Michelle Yeoh who, despite being a very strong actress of some repute, looks extremely awkward and stiff in the Trek universe. There is a way of making technobabble sound effortlessly like Shakespeare, and Yeoh simply doesn’t have it. Even when she tries to display humour it comes across as forced an unconvincing (the gage about noting the date and time of an agreement between her officers). Interestingly, she would settle down a little in the second episode before being written out of the series for some time. 

To fear everything is to learn nothing, Saru is an intriguing new character and the only other person on the Shenzhou to exhibit any kind of personality so grab onto him and his quirks as quickly as you can. I thought we were heading into TOS territory with three central characters heading the series with Georgiou, Burnham and Saru taking the main chunk of the action. That was never the case but they are focus in the first episode and written with a small degree of familiarity and humour. We know relatively little about his species beyond the fact that they can sense death, but his caution, put downs and unwillingness to put himself in danger shows promise. At one point Burnham says that Saru is the only one talking on the crew about the potential upcoming conflict with the Klingons but that is only because he is the only character that has been allowed to exhibit a personality. His ability to sense the coming of death adds a layer of tension. That might be an interesting angle to explore throughout the series. 

Production - The title sequence and music both score a win for me, for once erring on the side of subtlety rather than melodrama. I’m used to Trek title sequences throwing a huge orchestra and vast interstellar vistas at me but Discovery instead pumps for a memorable but low-key theme tune that hits all the recognisably Trek notes and a progression of beautifully drawn images that represent the franchise in a vivid way. You might think it oversimplifies the franchise by reducing it to a number of sketched pictures but it suggests a back to basics approach that I wholeheartedly endorse. 

One of the most beautifully produced shows I have ever watched, Discovery really marks out a new era of science fiction that is genuinely reaching cinematic goals. There is no part of this episode that isn’t epic in it’s visual scope, from vast planetary landscapes with huge moons in the background (I love the creepy betentacled creatures that scuttle and chitter in to view) to a dazzling binary star system lit up by the majesty of a nearby sun. The transport technology is awesome, Burnham and Georgiou looking as if they are literally turning to dust in the desert. If Trek celebrates the beauty of the unknown then I cannot think of many sequences where that is explored more viscerally than Burnham flying through the binary system and landing on the dangerous looking and yet strangely beautiful Klingon vessel. Discovery feels like it is exploring the unknown visually and geographically. Hand to hand combat in space with both combatants caught in the hand of gravity is incredibly ambitious. 

Worst moment -  I want to get out of the way one of my biggest bugbears with Discovery and that is the interminable scenes with the Klingons talking in their own language. Firstly, I fail to understand how the Klingons look so different from their TOS counterparts given that this is set 10 years before the beginning of the Original Series. I get that Discovery wants to have its own visual impact with the species, but in order for this to fit in they need to evolve (devolve?) into wimpish looking orange men with goatees within a decade and then mutate into the Klingons that we know and recognise from hundreds of Trek episodes set during the TNG/DS9/VOY era. That’s rather a dramatic transformation for a species. It was these extended dialogue scenes in Klingonese that kept me at a distance from Discovery and forced me to watch the first episode three times before I finally moved on to episode two. They go on for the length of a bible, feature actors already struggling under heavy prosthetics with the addition hindrance of a language that the audience (except hardened Trek fans) understand. It’s a massive disconnect between the show and the audience, especially the casual audience, which I assume the producers were hoping to attract. I can imagine a non-SF fan switching on Discovery, seeing it’s main villains screaming their heads of in unintelligible dialogue but trying to pull it off like Shakespeare and switching off almost immediately. For Trek fans (which I guess I have to label myself, because I have reviewed almost 500 episodes), I can see the creative decision to allow this species to exist in its own right and free from the Federation and it’s spoken language and customs (because our go to Klingon was always Worf, who was corrupted by humanity at every turn) but in practice these scenes (some truly impressive design aside) are inexplicably inarticulate and boring. It’s no way to open a show, frankly. 

I wish they hadn't done that - I fail to understand why directors assume that science fiction has to be shot in such a discordant way, all tilted camera angles and over exposure, to overstress that this is not a regular drama. There were points during The Vulcan Hello when I wanted the camera to fix itself just so I could get a good look at the sets and concentrate on the performances but the pace, fast cuts, over lighting and sweeps and angles really served to distract. It suggests a lack of trust in the actors to constantly shoot them in such a jarring, attention seeking way that forces the attention on the direction over the performances. 

A reason to watch the episode again -  A show that offers a two-hour prologue rather than a pilot and is definitely serving up Trek for a post-JJ Abrams audience; Discovery offers a visually stunning but troubled opening episode. It asks its audience to take a lot for granted (the relationships between the three central characters are well established before the show begins), to be extremely patient (half the cast don’t feature nor the titular starship) and to suffer interminable scenes of Klingons spouting their own language. Countering that there are some truly dazzling special effects sequences, a sense of foreboding at a potential conflict with the Klingons, excitement at exploring the unknown and a pleasing feeling that this is a show that won’t set it’s stall immediately but build its foundations slowly through the first handful of episodes. TNG, DS9, VOY and Enterprise all laid out their intentions, their cast of characters and their settings quickly and created an identity in their pilot episodes but Discovery is going for a more slow burn, serialised approach. How things have changed. There’s an immediacy to the material, which is furiously paced and packed with visual interest but there were definitely points where I wished it would slow down and let me get close to the characters, which is my anchor into any series. By the end of The Vulcan Hello there is a mutiny that is sold as a huge moment for the characters but since we haven’t gotten to know them well enough it yet it feels like an unearned moment of drama, and rather hollow. It’s a deathly serious show at this point, lacking the colourful characters and humour that I have come to associate with Trek that makes all the technobabble and po-faced drama palatable. Burnham is an immediately interesting character but that is mostly down to Martin-Green’s nuanced performance, whereas I never believed in Georgiou for a second because Yeoh really struggles in this environment. Given conflict with the Klingons is a staple of Trek there is not a lot here that is particularly original, just how the material is presented. The Vulcan Hello works on a moment by moment basis, mostly because the budget allows for a beautifully realised universe, but you will have no clue what this show is going to be about once you reach the titles and I think that’s a tricky way to start a show. 

*** out of *****