Star Trek is a franchise that I just didn’t get into growing up. I love a lot of ‘nerdy’ things but for whatever reason I just never really sought Star Trek out, tv series’ or movies. That is u till the first J.J Abrams movie came out and I really enjoyed it. I know there’s a lot of purists out there who hate the Abrams movies but for me it was me dipping my toe into this world and these characters. It’s still taking a while though, I just recently started watching The Original Series and I’m only a couple of episodes deep on that but I’m getting there.
So this morning I open up Netflix and up pops the first two episodes of the brand new series so I figured I’d give it a go. As I mentioned above I don’t have the nostalgia or the deep love of the franchise to hold this up against so I can only base my opinion off of this on its own merits.
At this stage I’ve only watched the first episode. I’m planning on watching the second one later when I get time. The first or ‘pilot’ episode is called ‘The Vulcan Hello’ and is largely about introducing the characters and setting the stage for what’s to come. Basically the episode centres on the crew members of USS Shenzhou while they decide what course of action to take against a Klingon ship. The group of Klingons are working to unite all the Klingon houses in order to wage war on the Federation and Starfleet. The conflict of the episode climaxes between Captain of the Shenzhou Philippa Georgiou and her First Officer Michael Burnham (but Michael like a girl Michael, also she’s the main character of the series) having very different ideas as to how to handle the situation.
What I liked most about the episode was the characters. Especially Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham. As the hero and lead of the series you need a strong interesting character and she definitely is that. She’s tough, smart and confident but those traits also lead to her flaws in that she can be too cocky. They did a great job of balancing how tough she is while giving her plenty of room to grow which is important. I also enjoyed the setup with the Klingons, again I’m not too familiar with the lore so I don’t know how that sat with the long time fans but I for one am interested to see where this conflict is headed.
The one main thing that stood out to me as a negative was the character of Saru played by Doug Jones who I am I big fan of. It was his performance that bugged me, he is a fantastic actor and his performance in this was great, it was just the character. Basically he is there to be a coward. Just someone to say “Let’s run away” so that the hero can say “We’re not running away”. There was a moment where he explains why he is that way and it did soften me towards him but I’m just not fully on board yet. I’m sure in episodes to come more of his character will come about and I’ll hopefully come to like him more.
Overall I enjoyed this first episode, I’m not 100% locked into the show but I’m going to keep watching look forward to checking out the next couple of episodes.
What did you think of Star Trek Discovery? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading and until next time, take it easy.
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