Star Trek: Discovery – Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Review (for Star Trek noobs)

Boldly prologue-ing where no show has prologued before.

Welcome to Adam’s incoherent ramblings on Star Trek: Discovery! Adam hasn’t watched really any Star Trek outside of the rebooted films. He loves Beyond, dislikes Into Darkness and is ambivalent towards Star Trek 2009. He hopes that Star Trek noobs find solace in his lack of Trek knowledge and how this informs his reviews, though he is aware of basic Trek things, such as ‘Star Trek is an optimistic show’ and ‘Starting your Star Trek show with a war episode is weird’. He doesn’t know how many of these he’ll review. To be fair, this is a non-profit blog read by no-one, so what did you expect?

He also suggests you skip to episode 3.

Episode 1: 'The Vulcan Hello' and Episode 2: 'Battle at the Binary Stars'

I want to quickly talk about Firefly.

The first episode of Firefly opens with main character Mal and band of soldiers fighting for a rebellion against the Alliance. After some speechifying and shooty-shooty, the call comes in to lay down arms and surrender. Mal looks up at the descending Alliance ships, realising that all he fought for has been for nothing and that he likely will spend the rest of his life on the run. We then flash forward several years and begin the show proper. It’s probably the weakest part of an already overlong and iffy Pilot episode, but it’s also kind of essential in understanding where our main protagonist is coming from and has the courtesy to last less than five minutes.

Now imagine, whether you’ve seen Firefly or not, taking this little prologue and stretching it to two forty minute episodes. The new viewers won’t be able to look away!

I’ve already had my rant about the over-extension and fast food commodification of episodic storytelling in the Netflix age and I’m utterly the-opposite-of-shocked to be writing about it again. Upon finishing this two hour wank-fest over characters I don’t know or even particularly like, most of the responses I had were overridden by questions such as “Why wasn’t this only one episode?” or “Why wasn’t this only as long as the intro to Star Trek 2009?” or “Why bother?”

The plot of episodes 1 and 2, despite all the intricacies and details is fairly simple and also weirdly hard to recall from memory alone. Martin Burnham is the first officer of a Starfleet ship that comes into contact with a hidden Klingon ship. She accidentally kills one of them, which causes the Klingons to attack or something. Captain Michelle Yeoh doesn’t want to attack but Martin does, which looks bad because Martin has past grievances with Klingons. Martin mutinees against Michelle Yeoh, which eventually Yeoh gets over. Eventually Yeoh dies in battle, which means Martin is tried for mutiny without anyone in her corner. She’s sentenced to life in prison and is considered to be responsible for the start of a galactic war.

Murder and warfare. Classic Star Trek.

It’s a fairly wide assumption that the Pilot episode of a TV show is more than likely going to be a bit rough. Exceptions abound, but generally speaking, a show doesn’t find its feet until at least episode 2. That doesn’t mean a Pilot isn’t going to try and sell us on at least the basic ingredients that will compel us to stick around for this show. The storytelling might not be as tight as it will be later, but Buffy and co. seem like a good time, so maybe I’ll stick around. Nobody told the writers of ST:D (side note: oh dear) who rolled the dice on ‘include nothing in the first two episodes that sticks around or is likeable’ and came up with almost naught.

I say almost because if there’s anything not to grumble about from ‘Prologue: The TV show’, it’s that this can be a very good looking show, with it’s stunning desert stormscape and big showy ‘180 degree rotation around the ship’ shot. It pushes its CG a bit too far at times and I could definitely use an extra lightbulb in some of the interior scenes, but the potential for dazzling your eyeballs is strong with this one.

Note that whilst I say good looking, I don’t really mean well-directed. Clearly the directors are big fans of Battleship Earth because there are dutch angles all over the effing place. Seriously, there are only so many I can take before I wonder who forgot to set the tripod up properly. Because we’re apparently throwing visual coherency out the window, we can also all settle down to enjoy Michelle Yeoh in one of the crappiest fight scenes put to television. One minute of action that we don’t properly get to see, with zero tension build to the key character death of the episode. Thanks Star Trek.

Dutch angles. Dutch angles everywhere!

Which is probably as good a Segway as I’ll get into talking about the cast (because I mentioned Michelle Yeoh – keep up). There’s not a whole lot to say given that only about four people are carrying on to the rest of the series and only two of them are interesting. Most of the cast doesn’t get much in the way of attention because of this, with most of them just swept away to the sidelines (though I did spot the blue ranger from Power Rangers SPD, which made me realise I probably watched that show as a kid more than I thought I did). As for the cast that do get attention…look, Michelle Yeoh is awesome, but she is not great in this. It’s not her fault – she’s basically playing insert_Star_Trek_captain_here so there’s no character for her to really embody. Series’ main character Martin Burnham is frustratingly unlikeable, so there goes Sonequa Martin-Green’s chance to shine for two episodes, while Doug Jones as Saru gets off the best as the only character who doesn’t make me want to sigh.

I’ve also reserved some bile about the Klingons as well, with their boring overly-serious politics and their slow delivery stretching the scenes out foooorrrreeeevvvveeeerrrrrrrr. Can’t wait for them to pop back up again...

It’s all capped off with the kind of auto-pilot writing that represents the worst of Kurtzman’s involvement in Abrams’ Star Trek movies (and everything else he’s done as well). Stuff like Michelle Yeoh walking the Starfleet logo into the sand as a rescue beacon…because it looks cool(?) and characters walking in and going “Hi! I’m feeling –emotion-.”

So for Star Trek noobs like myself diving into Discovery hoping for a convincing pitch, we’re left feeling pretty underwhelmed by these opening two episodes.

Episode 3: 'Context is for kings'

Fortunately, things immediately get better. Episode 3 actually tries to be a Pilot episode of a TV show instead of whatever episodes 1 and 2 try to be and is way more enjoyable as a result.

Behold: an episode of television that tells a holistic story arc (astonishing in the Netflix age, divine intervention for Star Trek: Discovery) complete with interesting characters!

It’s been six months since Martin Burnham was sentenced to prison and her shuttle has just been intercepted by the USS Discovery – a shadier than usual ship for Star Trek with an even shadier captain (Jason Isaac). Burnham is put to work on one of the ship’s projects – albeit one that she isn’t allowed to know the details of. Eventually, the Discovery’s sister ship is attacked and Burnham is selected to join a team to investigate the damage.

Probably the most interesting element of Episode 3 is the emphasis on horror that arises in the second half. Once onboard the sister ship the lighting drops and the grisliness begins with bloodied corpses and an alien slasher monster in the shadows. There’s even a ventilation sequence that’s somewhat reminiscient of Alien. But where Episode 1 and 2’s focus on war seems an incongruous way to achieve lift off in a Star Trek show, the horror in Episode 3 places more of a focus on the end goal of arising from the horror – something brought to light by the episode’s reveal that the project Burnham is working on isn’t a weapon but a means of transport that will go on to aid peaceful exploration once the war is over (as well as help win the war, but focus on the explore-y bit for now!). Looks like we haven't seen the last of this grisliness, either, with the creature brought on board the Discovery by the end of the episode.

On the whole, it paints a more hopeful picture for the future of the show and I’m not just talking about themes. As I mentioned, a complete story arc for the episode gives it a sense of satisfaction that is denied to the show’s prologue, but it also calls upon details of those two episodes in ways that actually makes them kind of necessary. I can’t quite decide if this is a bad thing to be honest (“Wait? We have to watch the shitty prologue, now?”) but if you’re going to waste two episodes of time, you might as well have the details come up again later on.

We also have decent characters this time as well! Burnham is still a bit of a brick wall when it comes to empathy, but her arc at least suggests the promise of likeability in the future and Martin-Green gives full commitment to the role. Mary Wiseman as Sylvia gives the show a lightness of touch that is otherwise sorely missing, whilst Jason Isaacs is appropriately enigmatic as the Discovery’s secretive captain. (Side note: I always see a vague similarity between Jason Isaacs and Jon Hamm, which means Isaacs’ American accent in this show is very confusing for me).

Staying with Isaacs for a minute, one thing that is perhaps well known about Original Trek is it's broadly Utilitarian viewpoint as espoused by Spock: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". It will be interesting to see if Discovery will guide Isaacs' teleological ideals ("Context is for Kings") towards merging with Utilitarianism's more numbers-based view of goal-oriented ethics. Or perhaps the shadiness of Isaacs' character indicates the show will go on to poke holes in his morals and thereby question the very ethical underpinnings of the show that Trek fans have quoted for so long. Maybe nothing will come of it. I don't know - I'd hope something would given the writers' named the episode after a character's ethical principle.

There are still some things the show needs to do to convince people that it’s the real deal. The shady feel of the Discovery is novel, but it means we miss the sense of ‘home’ that you get even in the rebooted Star Trek movies (Beyond, if we’re being specific). And whilst Episode 3 is a step up for the show, it feels like a precursor to goodness, rather than the show maximizing its storytelling potential.

But if we’re taking Episode 3 as the real Pilot of the show (which we should), then what we find is a pleasantly entertaining and promising ride. I can’t say the whole package reeks of premier television just yet and I’m not sure how it will fare once the Klingon’s are brought back into the fold (easily the worst part of ST:D so far) but I hear tales of similar iffy starts for previous series of Trek, so here’s hoping we can expect a similar quality trajectory for ST:D (no, I will not stop using that acronym).

Episode 1 and 2: ★1/2

Episode 3: ★★★

#startrek #startrekdiscovery #firefly #netflix