O gods, what dreck. What beautifully detailed, thoroughly overhyped dreck.
From the very first dialogue between the captain and the XO, it was clear that the show was poorly written and lushly produced, and nothing for the rest of that hour changed that impression.
The first sequence on the desert planet made absolutely no sense—the action seemed to follow a stream-of-consciousness approach to writing dialogue, without any logic or consistency. Worse, virtually all of the dialogue was blatant exposition, thoroughly unnecessary for the characters themselves.
Why do they need the captain and the XO to walk around the desert for hours before shooting a laser rifle down a well? How are desert-garbed, highly visible bipeds any less a violation of the proto-Prime Directive than a dune buggy would be?
I wanted to like this, I really did. Here are a few of the reasons why I can’t.
Spoiler: Klingons Are Fishfolk Now
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Seriously, the assembled Klingons looked like nothing so much as angry merfolk in some undersea castle. I think it was the spiny armor; all they needed were nets and tridents.
Spoiler: Mobile Suit Gundam FTW!!!!
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No, not really. The spacesuit looked thoroughly ridiculous with its oversized Japanimation shoulders.
Also, frustratingly, it looked nothing like the TOS suits. Granted those were extremely clunky, but at least a nod to the lineage would have been nice, rather than going for the Gundam look.
Spoiler: Contrived, Contrived, Contrived
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It’s hard to say which element was more ridiculous and contrived—the fact that a front-line exploratory starship has no remote probes, forcing a crew member to fly recon in a spacesuit; or the accidental impalement of the Klingons’ annointed champion on his own weapon by a clumsy Federation officer.
The first element was contrived for extra drama, and as a setup for the second element, which was contrived to make the XO a living causus belli. Apparently the Klingons’ champion was a real butterfingers. This is one small step from pure slapstick, and yet another plot point that feels like it was dreamed up in the bleachers during middle-school recess.
“Dude! It would be so awesome if she jams her thrusters and runs right into him, and stabs him with his own space sword!”
Seriously, the Shenzou doesn’t have a single shuttle? Or did I miss some contrived dialogue about how they were all out of commission?
Spoiler: Collect Call from the Outer Rim
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The technology in this show is so radically different from TOS that it seems clear we’re in yet another alternate timeline. The most glaring discrepancy is an obvious borrowing from Star Wars—the holoconference, which was never shown in TOS. Given the fade effects that were used in TOS in conjunction with the transporter-sparkle, some version of this could have been done in TOS if they’d had the concept, so it can’t just be excused as something digital effects have only recently allowed.
In terms of the story, it’s remarkably convenient that Sarek is available to give the XO his advice the instant she calls—even though for all she knows, he could be in the shower, or meditating, or in a council meeting, or off on a diplomatic mission.
But even allowing for plot convenience, it says nothing good about the XO that when she’s faced with a crisis, she immediately turns to her father figure rather than trying to work it out for herself. This is like a college student calling her dad when there’s a problem with her class schedule.
And really, wouldn’t the so-called “Vulcan Hello” be common knowledge in Starfleet, given the close association of Vulcans and humans at this point? And wouldn’t it be especially well-known among those ships most likely to encounter Klingons? There seemed to be no real point to the holoconference with Sarek, other than to make a little more use of James Frain.
Spoiler: Court-Martial That *****
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The interactions between the officers quickly went from casual to ridiculous to utterly unacceptable. Banter is one thing, but senior officers pushing back and forth over a console is childish and unprofessional. I can’t imagine the command crew of a top Federation ship behaving that way. Maybe they were trying to give the crew a family vibe, but it came across as thoroughly juvenile.
That was bad enough, but the XO’s behavior towards the captain—lying, physical assault and usurpation of command—deserved instant dismissal from active duty and a court-martial at the earliest opportunity. There is absolutely nothing that justified the XO’s actions—an officer of her supposed caliber would never behave so unprofessionally. Disrupting the chain of command during a standoff crisis could lose the entire ship, and every minute of the XO’s training and experience would only reinforce the bedrock importance of obeying rather than assaulting your captain.
And all this, over a point of tactics? Seven years the XO has served with the captain, and she can’t bring herself to trust the woman in a moment of crisis? This XO has no business being in uniform.
Spoiler: The Klingon Bat-Signal, or A Brief Lesson in Lightspeed
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So the much-ballyhooed Klingon Beacon, aka the Glowstick of Destiny, is supposed to be a signal to call the two dozen noble houses to rally at the rally point of heroic rallying, or something like that—basically a giant Klingon bat-signal.
And it relies on a giant burst of light to speed across the universe, waking fire in the hearts of all true Klingons and urging them to speed towards it, etc. etc.
Except these Klingons are scattered all over the quadrant or whatever, which is probably quite a few lightyears across. And yet, the Klingons all show up within moments of the beacon being fired, before all that light could even start to cross the protoplanetary disk, much less crawl across those intervening lightyears.
Star Trek has played fast and loose with pretty much every branch of science there is—but this is such a glaring failure of basic astronomy that it left a sour taste in the mind. They did a better job of following known science in TOS than with this dreck.
Spoiler: Warp Drive, Hyperspace, It's All the Same
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So Klingons are now flying Star Destroyers, at least to judge how they came out of hyperspace. The effects were absolutely identical to Star Wars ships dropping out of hyperspace, and the obvious imitation completely ruined what should have been a dramatic, stomach-dropping moment.
Spoiler: I Can't Wait to Stream This!
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o god no.
The writing is juvenile, the premise contrived, the lead character’s behavior unprofessional and entirely unbelievable. And because of that, I don’t give a tinker’s damn about her, or about what happens next.
Maybe if this ever shows up in syndication I might give it another look. But I’m not spending a red penny on this in any format, and I’m certainly not signing up for a streaming service just for more of this nonsense.
Re: Star Trek Discovery, finally a trailer
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