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sepdet · 7 years

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Star Trek Discovery: ep 2

Okay, I absolutely adored the premiere, which I liveblogged Sunday night. But I’ve been feeling rotten and groggy and didn’t watch episode 2 until tonight.

I’m kind of glad I waited.

I’m transcribing remarks I made to a friend in a private chatroom while watching, and then I’ve added some thoughts afterwards.

SPOILERS.

Ep 2.

Raw remarks transcribed from private chat while watching (slightly edited)

So, our cliffhanger ended with Michael committing mutiny trying to save them, her captain betrayed and pointing a gun at her, and a whole Klingon fleet warping in like several buckets of shit flying towards a fan.

I’m still trying to get used to Sarek being nicer to a human trying to Vulcan than he was to a son whom he practically disowned for leaving Vulcan to join Starfleet. But I love Sarek so will try to muffle the "buts." I want Amanda to show up.

Parting word to Michael: "Behave." On the bright side, seems like it took her seven years before she LOL NOPED.

I hope the Klingon fans are happy. This is a very ponderous language to listen to when it's whole scenes of dialog and not just quick commands or insults. But I know there's a whole branch of fans who embrace Klingon culture and language, and I hope they're as thrilled as I was to hear Sindarin Elvish spoken. (And that they're not too perturbed that the Klingon look has mutated again.)

Oh SHIT. I know the Captain was trying to defuse situation with diplomacy, but did they not have their shields up? Or was this just an old ship and/or Klingons managed to puncture shields. Ouch ouch ouch.

Wow, Michael is not having a good day. Waking up in remains of brig with failing containment fields around her — whole sequence is impressive and sad.

I like the way they're employing FX in service to story. It's hard not to let CGI overwhelm. But here, no matter how spectacular FX are, they're functional, rather than an end to themselves: like incidental music the Big FX moments help set mood/tone and give audience catch breath to process what just happened. As opposed to only using FX to foster one mood, maximum adrenaline, and keep audience off-balance so they have no time to catch breath and reflect on situation.

Intense telepathic scene with Sarek. Man he really likes this kid. He is one crazy ass Vulcan, even if he won't admit it: sharing a katra with a near stranger, especially a human child, is pretty drastic. (Also I'm confused: thought he adopted her after parents died in attack, but it looks like Michael was already his ward during attack?

ARGH.

Sarek: "I did not come here to judge your actions. I came here to—"

*Pumpkin, who likes to snooze on desk next to keyboard and occasionally use it as pillow at inconvenient moments, carefully and deliberately stretches out paw and plants it over ESC key, backing up browser window to several URLs ago, losing livestream.*

Cats. Such exquisite timing.

Back online.

Okay yes [STC sounded slightly noncommittal when I was enthusing about restraint of FX] now they're getting a little show-offy. But yikes. First time I've ever seen a space battle using classical Greek naval warfare maneuver. Trireme beak-ram!

...although it could be coincidence, and I'm reading it that way because of my classical studies background. They might've come up with that unusual and dramatic visual independently. At any rate, impressive.

OOOOO. Just hit scene where Captain, out of options, sees Klingons beaming up their dead, and she sees option. I've been kind of waiting for her to be proactive instead of reactive. Earlier her hands were tied by trying to avoid conflict (following orders).

...DAMMIT. Just Googled to find out spelling of Phillipa's last name and saw the kind of spoiler I really hate to see. Stupid, stupid me. I really honestly didn't know, since I had been so strenuously avoiding behind-the-scenes stuff.

—

[At this point I stopped babbling in the chatroom to watch final scenes, so rest is post-watch thoughts.]

At least we have one great sequence between Burnham and Captain Georgiou, although the lull to confront one another and devise a strategy was a little forced— Klingons being very polite about not finishing them off. And YES, YES YES, finally seeing Michelle Yeoh fighting, which believe it or not I never have. (I don't watch many films or really much media.)

:( Ouch. So close. Just a second or two longer.

So that's that. Man, that's gotta be a record even for Trek; can't even get through two eps without ship's destruction and crew evacuation. (Mom and I used to get annoyed at destroying Enterprise for shock value; first time was so dramatic and meaningful, whereas repeat felt gimmicky.)

Not sure Michael's Expository Speech is did her any favors at this trial, but at least now we hear what she thinks.

Teaser for next episode (or "real" Discovery show) follows. Kinda confusing that they're convicts but on a Federation ship? Or did she get transferred from prison?

I am still mourning the captain and really not in the mood to parse the trailer. DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT. I was wary of this show, but after watching Ep 1 I let my guard down and was SO EXCITED.

I had seen one article about this series last spring showing what looked like a predominantly white-dude bridge with generic-looking white male captain and a few tokens, just like TOS. That had dampened my enthusiasm for this show and prevented me from getting into it or looking forward to it.

But recently I saw posts saying, "Yo, WOC captain and first officer!" (or rather, in Tumblr's usual WE MUST MAKE YOU FEEL GUILTY FOR NOT SUPPORTING THIS THING YOU WEREN’T AWARE OF, SHAME ON YOU!!! way, there was a post berating Tumblr for lack of photosets and buzz and excitement over Michelle Yeoh and Sonequa Martin-Green, and why weren't we getting behind WOCs when we'd been all excited for Gal Gadot?) And I thought, Wait—what?! I thought this was going to be generic white dude captain with token black female first officer which is okay but not ANYTHING LIKE as cool as what you're saying?

And since I do try to avoid spoilers and PR I didn't know Yeoh wasn't going to be the regular series captain. Or rather, I was confused why the hype I was seeing now differed so drastically from that one article I’d started to skim and then closed thinking, “Nah, I’m going to avoid spoilers.” Had the showrunners changed their minds and decided to bring in Michelle Yeoh as an upgrade after seeing their version of Captain Pike wasn’t good enough to anchor a series?I was just going to wait and see.

I forgot any doubts when Episode 1 gave me EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED: Two great female characters with a friendship and professional working relationship. Banter. Excellence. Skills and wits. Clunky TOS tech and new shiny bridge set. Smart captain. Brave first officer. With two WOC they couldn't be tokens; they had to be expanded as just... 3 dimensional characters.

I was so here for that. I loved that whole opening minisode, and also the Captain sending Michael off to play in a brief voyage of discovery and enjoying that her first officer was enjoying herself.

Their friendship was perfect, legendary Kirk and Spock material. It was distracting me from the other bridge crew— even Saru, who is an interesting character, but I was focused so much on these two women— but I figured other characters would get filled out in subsequent episodes.

And now?

"Here. Here's what you really wanted. Two women being superbly competent officers with a meaningful friendship, leading a show just the way Kirk and Spock did. And it's going to be about discovery and an older woman mentoring another one, and tackling difficult ethical problems without providing easy answers and— PSYCHE!

“...FOOLED YOU! Two leading women in a Kirk-Spock dynamic? Oh, we could never do that. So we're killing off your already-favorite character. As consolation prize, here, have an incarcerated and demoralized WOC who has to be 'grateful' to a white dude for letting her out of jail. Power imbalance between her and captain, no close friendship, and oh yeah, instead of voyage-of-discovery and complicated-ethical-problems Star Trek, it's going to be various people being macho and angry, and a depressing Federation-Klingon War."

I hope I'm wrong.

It feels like they gave me everything I'd hoped for and more, and then, once I'd let my guard down, they took it away. I'm left with a character and actor (Sonequa Martin-Green) I like enough that I'm going to watch anyway...for now. But I'm back to being wary. And here we have yet another WOC/minority being killed to make way for generic white dude. So now I'm disillusioned and won’t trust this show, and we're only at the end of ep 2.

Okay, yeah, I'm pissed.

Discovery could redeem itself and turn out to be fantastic. There is a lot of potential here and a lot to like. Saru and Burnham are good characters, and I assume some of the others will be too. But they're going to have to pull off a miracle now to keep me from fantasizing about the better show that COULD HAVE BEEN.

ETA: so maybe I should have read the behind-the-scenes stuff beforehand so I’d be prepared for this premiere to be backstory, in effect. I guess everyone else knew her death was coming, and could appreciate the drama while anticipating this would be a tragedy. Either I’m naive, or too groggy/tired to pick up the Obi-Wan vibes.

#star trek discovery #star trek #episode 2 #liveblog #spoilers

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spynotebook · 7 years

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All images: CBS

Hey, did you hear there’s a new Star Trek show starting September 24? Anticipation is mighty high here at io9—but for everyone who hasn’t been cataloguing every bit of info that CBS has revealed about Star Trek: Discovery on the long road to its debut, we’ve assembled this handy guide to get you up to speed.

Timeline and setting

Discovery, the sixth live-action Star Trek series, was initially announced as taking place in the prime timeline, the same universe as the other TV shows and their related films—but not the recent J.J. Abrams directed and/or produced movies. Since it takes place 10 years prior to the events of The Original Series, it’s more relevant to that show than Enterprise, which took place a century prior. That also means we’ll be seeing some retro-future takes on the classic show’s signature tech flourishes, including a variant on the phaser (though the badges and the flip communicators look fairly familiar). The Starfleet uniforms, however, are closer in look to Enterprise’s blue jumpsuits, rather than the classic colorful costumes of original Trek. (For once, though, away teams will get body armor, an idea that clearly fell out of fashion by the time Captain Kirk and company were boldly going beyond.) As the title implies, most of the action will center on the USS Discovery, though it won’t start there; instead, it seems we’ll first meet the main character when she’s serving aboard the USS Shenzou.

Main characters

Lt. Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green)

Discovery’s protagonist is unique in the Star Trek pantheon for a variety of reasons. One is that—unlike Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and Archer—Burnham is not (yet) a captain. Another is that she was raised on Vulcan after her birth parents (both human) were killed by Klingons. Her adoptive parents just happen to be Spock’s parents, Sarek and Amanda Grayson, and her unusual upbringing means she’s the first human to have attended both the Vulcan Learning Center and the Vulcan Science Academy. (This is the first we’ve ever heard that Spock had a sister, though one of Discovery’s producers insists there will eventually be an explanation for that.) Based on ominous hints we’ve seen in the trailers, an early episode will explain the incident that causes then-First Officer Burnham to leave the Shenzou, where she’s serving under Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), and end up on the Discovery, to be Number One under Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs).

Sarek (James Frain)

We learned way back in January that Spock’s father was joining the show—as a younger version, quite obviously, of the character we first met on The Original Series. But it wasn’t until July’s San Diego Comic-Con that his specific connection to Burnham became known. In the first Discovery trailer, Sarek appears in a Vulcan flashback, as well as in hologram form to Burnham to counsel her about leadership. Sarek has a long history in Trek, first appearing with a strained relationship with his half-human, Starfleet son and eventually dying on The Next Generation, after sharing a number of intense scenes with Picard.

Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh)

As mentioned above, she’s the top commander on the USS Shenzou. In the trailer, we learn that Burnham and Georgiou have been working together for awhile, and Georgiou has become confident that it’s time for her protégé to get her own command. That is, until something (maybe an alien object?) makes something (maybe very bad?) happen to Georgiou. We aren’t certain of her fate yet, but you might not want to get terribly attached to this particular character.

Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs)

He’s the captain of the Discovery—but he’s not the star of the show, and that’s not the only thing that makes Lorca different from previous Star Trek captains. According to Isaacs, the character is “probably more fucked up” than most Starfleet officers, which means he’s been through some exceptionally crazy shit during his time in space. That’s a quality that could create an interesting dynamic between Lorca and Burnham; in the second trailer, he seems stern when speaking with her: “You helped start a war. Don’t you want to help me end it?”

Lt. Commander Saru (Doug Jones)

The alien science officer aboard the Discovery, Saru’s the guy who delivers the trailer’s most chilling line: “My people were biologically determined for one purpose alone: to sense the coming of death. I sense it coming now.” He’s a Kelpien, a race that’s new to both Starfleet and the Star Trek series overall; their ability to sense death evolved on a home planet where they were hunted as prey. He stands almost seven feet tall on his hooved feet. At SDCC, it was mentioned that Saru and Burnham have a “brother/sister relationship;” Jones has also said that Saru is a character equivalent to the Spock or Data of this series. That’s a telling description, since Trek loves to have a character with an alien point of view and, specifically, one who can comment on human characteristics.

Lt. Stamets (Anthony Rapp)

He’s another science officer aboard Discovery, an astromycologist (translation: this dude knows a lot about space fungus). A far more exciting fact about Lt. Stamets is that he’s Star Trek’s first openly gay character (on TV at least; in the movies, Sulu has a male partner). As it happens, Discovery also has Star Trek’s second openly gay TV character as well, in the form of Lt. Stamets’ partner: ship’s doctor Dr. Hugh Culber (played by Wilson Cruz).

Cadet Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman)

She is an eager young Starfleet cadet assigned to Discovery, specializing in engineering and reporting to Lt. Stamets. After she becomes Burnham’s roommate, they form what Wiseman describes as “an unlikely friendship.”

Harry Mudd (Rainn Wilson)

This character—full name: Harcourt Fenton Mudd—is a con man, smuggler, and delightful sleaze who first appeared on The Original Series and has since become a cult favorite, largely thanks to Roger C. Carmel’s over-the-top performance. You can get a quick glimpse of Wilson’s take on Mudd as a younger man (“Are you mad?” “I’m MUDD!”) in the second Discovery trailer.

T’Kuvma (Chris Obi)

He’s a Klingon leader seeking to unite the 24 great Klingon houses—no easy task, especially since (as the second trailer reminds us) “the Klingon Empire has been in disarray for generations.” Klingons are the primary antagonists on Discovery, but the show will portray them as honorable warriors with—as you can see on T’Kuvma here—some really fantastic battle ensembles, not to mention new ships, at least one highly elaborate coffin, subtitles (when they’re speaking Klingon), and a biological reason for those distinctive forehead ridges.

Story and conflict

As mentioned above, Discovery will find the Federation at war with the Klingons. The show will run 15 episodes and we know a teeny bit about the first four installments. Episode one is titled “The Vulcan Hello,” and the description is nearly exactly what the two trailers have already revealed:

While patrolling Federation space, the USS Shenzhou encounters an object of unknown origin, putting First Officer Michael Burnham to her greatest test yet.

Subsequent known episode titles include “Battle at the Binary Stars,” “Context Is for Kings,” and “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry,” though we don’t have plot descriptions for those yet. Based on hints from showrunners Aaron Harberts and Gretchen Berg, however, the season will also focus on how the characters work through their differences together. Based on what the showrunners have said, he war with the Klingons will be in some way a comment on current political events, much like The Original Series reflected then-contemporary Cold War tensions. And Burnham will have to cope with whatever happened on the Shenzou, growing into the kind of leader that Sarek encourages her to be. She may also find herself caught between Vulcan and human cultures, much like her adoptive brother Spock was.

And the rest

The Discovery is a science vessel, which sets it apart from the Enterprise, which, as the flagship, was tasked with all sorts of things; with Voyager, which was designed specifically for long-term exploration; and Deep Space Nine, which was a space station. (And also very different from the Defiant, Deep Space Nine’s ship, which was designed to fight.) According to Memory Alpha, science vessels aren’t meant to be out in space for long periods of time, so maybe Discovery will be docked more often than in the other shows.

The design of the Discovery itself can be described, in the words of io9's Katharine Trendacosta, as being “sort of like Ralph McQuarrie’s original concept art for a new Enterprise and the original show’s ship had a baby. A baby about to go where no one has gone before.”

Composer Jeff Russo’s Discovery theme song calls back to Alexander Courage’s iconic original, while also doing its own melodious thing.

There will be a Mirror Universe episode.

After some initial misinterpretation, it’s actually totally fine to say “God” (as in “For God’s sakes!”) on the show.

There will be Tribbles.

Star Trek: Discovery premieres September 24 on CBS and CBS All Access. The rest of the series runs through November on CBS All Access, before taking a hiatus until January 2018. Each episode will be followed by Talking Trek, a live aftershow available on CBS All Access.

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