I am Gorp! The Malcontent!
Welcome to Star Trek: Allegedly, WOT’s weekly review and recap of “Star Trek: Discovery,” the long… awaited, I guess (…?) — new instalment in the Star Trek television canon. Gone are the violent sociopaths and the high school melodrama of the splinter universe JJ Abrams has been so lovingly shovelling into your head-holes. Gene Roddenberry’s eternally spinning corpse can finally gear down a few RPMs. This is 100% genuine Trek, picking up right where it left off, and taking us boldly into the futu—
Never mind! Apparently, it’s just some dumb prequel. Great. People love those. Well, since I’m broken inside and compelled to watch every piece of malignant afterbirth that slithers out of this dead franchise’s poison womb, I might as well drag you along for the ride.
Episode 1: “The Vulcan Hello” or “Regulations, Schmegulations!”
We open on this series’ carefully redesigned Klingons. Hairless. Earless. Pointless. I, of course, mean that only figuratively, because these Klingons are pointy as f**k! Now, don’t lump me in with those stunted neckbeards who oppose any change to their beloved franchise at all costs, but I don’t know what these sparkly Uruk-hai do for us as an audience, that a spiffed up, more traditional, hair-metal Klingon doesn’t. In any case, I prefer them to JJ’s K-Mart-Predator-Klingons any day.
Anyway, there’s one mouthy Klingon in extra shiny, extra pointy armor speaking to a room of his slightly less shiny underlings. He’s talking about (presumably) the Federation inevitably swallowing up the Klingon Empire and diluting their culture until blah blah blah they are no longer Klingon or something.
I am reminded that at some point in their future, Worf will watch Data’s cat while he’s on vacation, so I must admit that his fears are not unfounded.
Okay, now we’re in the desert outside Albuquerque, and the meth deal is about to go down—wait, sorry, it’s an alien planet (digital colour correction is a pox on this earth). For some reason, the Captain (Michelle Yeoh) and first officer (Sonequa Martin-Green) are alone on a barren planet, casually discussing the Prime Directive, except they don’t call it the Prime Directive because this show is ashamed of itself.
They need to open a well because some Federation experiment fucked up the Pustulans’ (…ew) water table. So they chat about how they can’t make contact with these Patchoulians, as they casually stroll through their friggin’ nest site and are clearly seen by at least one of the gross lobster monsters!
They get to the well and Michelle Yeoh fires into it with a phaser rifle like Rambo liquefying Myanmar’s finest. Bingo, bango, Spock’s your uncle, the well erupts in a CGI climax. The Punchandjudians are saved! But what’s this? They can’t contact their ship to warn them because of an incoming storm!
This is a great excuse to aimlessly walk around for a while longer and deliver more clunky expository dialogue. Except it wasn’t aimless, Michelle Yeoh had a plan all along — a stupid plan, conjured from the laziest corners of the writer’s room, and what I can only assume was originally meant as a placeholder for something actually clever.
The Captain has led them both to create a picture perfect Starfleet Delta in the sand, big enough to be seen from space. Oh yeah, and the provocatively named Michael Burnham, the First Officer of a starfleet vessel, purportedly our main character, yeah, she didn’t even notice they were doing it!
Okay, so the Shenzhou just drops into the atmosphere, directly above them, apparently unconcerned with being seen by the nearby natives, and beams them the f**k up.
And that leads us into a thoroughly uninspired opening titles sequence. (Seriously, the less said about it, the better. How hard is it to just give us a spaceship whizzing around? It’s all we want.) Apparently, Michelle Yeoh is a “special guest star”, so it’s a good bet she’s toast before these first 2 episodes are over.
Our first looks inside the Shenzhou are fairly unremarkable, and that is a blessing. We get a stardate and mission log, and it feels kind of like Star Trek – if Star Trek was dimly lit and conspicuously bathed in a shade of blue I typically only associate with CSI labs.
After some nonsense philosophizing about “all life [being] born from chaos” (I’m assuming this is the writers presumably pre-excusing how violent err’thing is about to get), we learn that they are investigating a damaged communications relay. And that’s as good a way to start an episode of Star Trek as anything else. Too bad they opted for all that pointless desert nonsense, that, I guess, was irrelevant to the plot.
I genuinely like the layout of the bridge and the DP, Guillermo Navarro, is doing a good job of establishing a visual tone without delving too deeply into JJ Abrams lensploitation territory. I’d be remiss, though, were I to not mention the ludicrous dutch angles—I know, I know, they are a bit of a Trek staple, especially on the original series. But they used to be motivated by some degree of conflict. This is the opening scene and we’re already well into Batman ‘66 territory. I dunno. It’s not a big complaint. Maybe the inertial dampeners are out of synch.
We are also introduced to Lt. Saru (Doug Jones), who is part chicken, part nutsack. He is apparently the Science Officer, but no one seems particularly interested in his scientific opinions. Mostly, his crewmates seem to put him down for being a hypochondriac. The senior officers, on the whole, seem rather snippy.
Saru detects an “object of unknown origin”. In a move seemingly plucked from Enterprise’s obsession with human antiquity, for some reason, they can only look at it by using Commander Mike’s personal, old-timey telescope.
After the Captain explains that that their scanners are useless, and a shuttle isn’t maneuverable enough, because the script says so, Michal immediately volunteers to strap on a rocket pack and check it out herself, despite the immediate radiation threat. I guess the Shenzhou doesn’t have any probes, which is weird when even today, NASA’s job is, like, 98% making probes. Lt. Saru, the science officer, rightfully objects to putting a senior officer at risk.
Captain Michelle Yeoh briefly introduces the idea of sending both Burnham and Saru to investigate together. It seems to be grounded more in putting two bickering siblings into the same big sweater until they make nice, than sending a science officer to investigate an unknown space object, though. In any case the idea is quickly dropped because Saru doesn’t want to go because he is scared. Which is comforting. We wouldn’t want to encourage too much character development.
As the rocket pack propels Burnham toward the object, seemingly on autopilot (further supporting how well A PROBE would work in this instance), I consider the rest of the bridge crew, who have no defined character at all. They’ll probably all die.
Number One Michael investigates the object while incoherently babbling ham-fisted witticisms to herself. “I can’t remember who said: sculptures are crystallized spirituality” she says, at one point. Oh, let me google that for you, self-proclaimed xenoanthropologist Michael Burnham: No one. No one ever said that. Because it is terrible.
Finally, she finds something of note: A motherf**king Klingon just hanging out on the hull. It swings at her with an unnecessarily redesigned bat’leth, but misses for no discernible reason. Some warrior race. Michael then rockets into the Klingon, whether by panic or design remains unclear. What is clear is that this causes the Klingon warrior to fatally stab himself in through the chest. These new Klingons may be facing more of an uphill battle than I initially realized.
Though nominally victorious, Michael doesn’t come away from the whole kerfuffle much better, as she she manages to knock herself unconscious, crack her visor, and go tumbling out into space. Thankfully, this brings a welcome commercial break.
We return to a funeral for the unfortunate Klingon. They seem to be keeping it all above board, and don’t mention his tremendously dishonourable means of passing. I mean, no one even mentions Sto’Vo’Kor, so you read between the lines. His coffin then rises up, out of the… bridge? church? funeral parlour? Whatever, exits the ship and affixes itself to the outside of the hull, where we see it is only one of hundreds. Gross.
From there, we cut to Michael in the medical pod from The Fifth Element which triggers the first flashback of the series. I bet these will become a mainstay. We see young Michael in one of those Vulcan learning pods from Trek ‘09 that JJ Abrams totally stole from Attack of the Clones. She’s dressed and styled like a Vulcan and kicking ass at all the Klingon trivia questions the computer lobs at her. Or, she was, until she gets all emotional when it starts asking her about a particular klingon massacre of a Vulcan/Human science station. It seems the writers have straight up lifted Worf’s origin and applied some clever race swapping. Ergo, she is an orphaned human, raised by Vulcans. No wonder she has exuded exactly zero Vulcan traits so far!
Motherf**king Sarek of Vulcan shows up to tell her she has flunked due to her human emotions, because Vulcans don’t believe in PTSD, I guess. Wait, is she Spock’s human, adopted sister? Only time will tell (and it will surely tell us “yes”).
Back in the present — that is in our future, but also the past if you consider the full Star Trek timeline — Michael wakes up and just straight peaces out of sickbay while the doctor ineffectually lectures her about her rapidly unspooling DNA. Suck it, doc! Mikey Burnam ain’t got time for radiation poisoning! Drs. McCoy and/or Crusher would never stand for this. I guess they don’t have intercoms on these ships? At least we’re halfway into the first episode and we’ve already seen the lead in her underwear.
Mikey bursts onto the bridge in her hospital gown shouting “The Klingons are coming! The Klingons are coming!” Everyone doubts her, including her captain of 7 years and the science officer, whose only defining trait so far is that he’s a coward who thinks everything is a threat and wants nothing more than a good reason to nope outta this system at maximum warp. Weird time to stand your ground, chicken-sack. But thankfully, Michael says it again in a very serious tone, and Captain Michelle Yeoh goes to red alert.
They lure the Klingons out of cloak by targeting the unknown Klingon space object. No one seems to know what a cloaking device is, which, I think, lines up with canon, but who knows?
Back to the Klingons. The main one, who I will henceforth refer to as Goldar due to the general sense of Power-Rangerness he exudes, needs a new volunteer to… stand on the outside of the space object (which is apparently a beacon)? One of the volunteers is lily white and pretty unpopular because of it. To prove his faith to Goldar, he holds his hand over an open flame like Mr. Joshua from Lethal Weapon (Man, there is a wiki for everything.) He is obviously chosen and will be the one to “light the beacon,” whatever that means.
Lt. Saru begs Mikey to convince the captain to withdraw because the klingon ship (as evidenced earlier) is covered with coffins, which, you know, is something only really messed up people do. She says that they can’t, with absolutely no explanation as to why. He explains that he is some kind of sentient farm animal with finely attuned senses of danger. Why does nobody listen to this guy? He seems to have a good head on his shoulders, nutsacky though it may be.
Captain Michelle Yeoh confers with a hologram of Admiral Whiteman. I imagine the holograms will bug some of the nerds, as it’s clearly too advanced for this era of Trek, historically. That’s really the least of this thing’s issues. Mike walks in and states that battle is inevitable because it’s friggin’ Klingons, yo. The Admiral then says “Considering your background, I would think you the last person to make assumptions based on race.”
Wow.
Let’s unpack this one. I assume he’s referring to her education on Vulcan, but it’s pretty much impossible not to also read that as a white man speaking to a black woman. Yeesh. This is further compounded by the high likelihood that she is right, and this will escalate into some form of violent conflict (I’d love to be proven wrong and see them start this show off with some clever diplomacy, but let’s be real). In that case, is the show making a case for race-based assumptions? Maybe this will be the first pro-eugenics Trek series. We live in interesting times.
Anyway, the Admiral tells them to stay put and wait for backup. There’s more clunky philosophising between Michael and the Captain. Yeoh plays lip service to a possible diplomatic outcome before they both seem to acknowledge that they’re gonna have to kick some ridged Klingon butt. It’s a pretty good distillation of the last decade of Trek. But then…
A JJ Abrams ejaculation of pure, white light streams in from the viewport behind them! It’s the same on the bridge. So bright, even the Shenzhou’s space-blinds are powerless to dim it. I guess the beacon has been lit. I don’t know what that actually entailed. Did Mr. Joshua hurl himself into the beacon’s core like that orc in The Two Towers? Did he just flick a switch? We may never know.
Burnham exits the bridge with no explanation. She heads to her quarters and calls Sarek up on the old holophone, lending credence to the Spock’s sister theory (what is it with this guy and human women?). He must have been playing candy crush or something, because he picks up immediately. He says something about a report that there is a new star in the sky, presumably referring to the beacon, which is stupid for a myriad of reasons and best forgotten forever. Burnham tells him about the Klingons, to which he responds by waxing poetic about her personal demons. He is just a terrible Vulcan. Then the hologram sits on her desk somehow and rather clairvoyantly tells her that while the Klingons have historically been a bunch of warring houses, she should be careful of unique unifying figures. You know, like Hitler, or Goldar, who Sarek knows nothing about. Michael asks him how the Vulcans deal with Klingons. Finally, after warning her not to misuse this sensitive information…
They smash cut to the bridge, where Michael demands they shoot all the Klingons in the f**king face! Because… i guess… that’s what… Vulcan’s do? That’s the dangerous strategy that Michael needs to be delicate with? The Captain is understandably skeptical. Michael then states that “violence brought respect, respect brought peace.” You know, the foundational edict of Star Trek.
Michelle Yeoh remains unconvinced, because if they attack, the much more heavily armed Klingon ship will blow them out of the sky. Michael persists, Vulcan-style now. She notes that, as a successful first officer, it would be logical for the Captain to put her plan into action if she doesn’t want the Federation to be dragged into war. Keep in mind, her plan is to indiscriminately open fire. I think she might be insane.
The captain ushers her into the ready room for a thorough dressing down. Michael is clearly in the midst of a PTSD-induced, revenge breakdown, because what would Star Trek be without a good old revenge plot. Before the captain can say “the first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth”, Iron Mike fuckin’ nerve pinches her!
Michael heads back out onto the bridge and starts ordering the crew to target the Klingon’s friggin neck! She has all the confidence and believability of a teenager buying booze with their parent’s ID. No dice. Saru is onto her, likely because she’s rambling like a lunatic. But none of it matters because less than a minute after she went down, the Captain comes out with a phaser and ends the brief, glorious command of Michael Burnham. And just in time! A dozen other Klingon ships drop out of warp, and the episode is finally over. Hail Fek’lhr!
FINAL THOUGHTS
As the first half of a two-part episode, there’s not a lot I can say definitively about the story, but it was less violent than I was expecting. So, credit where credit is due. I’d be very surprised if we make it through the next one without a massive space battle, though. All the nitpicky design stuff is totally unnecessary, but also fine. The gold/silver/copper variant of the classic yellow/blue/red uniforms works well enough, I guess.
Organizationally, Starfleet seems like a mess, roughly on par with the current film franchise. I can’t see any of the classic crews falling into any of these issues so brazenly. I dunno, maybe no one has written down the regulations yet. Will this series will be the origin story of The Federation rule book? Time will tell.
I hope this show develops into some form of an ensemble but fast. If we’re stuck with Commander Michael Burnham belligerently stumbling into conflicts she herself is the exclusive cause of, over and over again, Sonequa Martin-Green may as well have stayed on The Walking Dead.
Whatever.
I’ll try to keep this shorter next time.
Courage.
I AM GORP THE MALCONTENT!
Follow me at @MrGCampbell
Until next time:
