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selenakIn short, hm. Could go either way.
First of all, why would you DO this to so many of your actors? "This" being the horrible new Klingon look. They looik as if they can hardly move under all these prosthetics, let alone act, with the result being that a lot of the already rigid dialogue is delivered stiffly. Now I know by the time Worf was brought into DS9, there are a lot of fans tired of the Klingons anyway (and others who loved them, which is why Michael Dorn was added to the cast in the first place). As for me, Klingons weren't my favourite alien species, but I found several Klingon characters in three shows very memorable and in varying degrees interesting and/or endearing, plus I appreciated TNG developing the Klingons from the TOS standard enemy race into their own culture to begin with. If that hadn't been such a success with the audience, I doubt we'd have gotten Bajorans and Cardassians on DS9, btw. And Worf, K'eyhlar, K'empec, Gowron, Martok, Grilka... there were all distinctive individual characters, not stereotypes, due to a mixture of acting and scriptwriting. If they don't ditch or modify all the prosthetics, I doubt any of the Star Trek: Discovery Klingons will get that far, because the best actor of the world couldn't deliver a performance buried under all this stuff. Incidentally, it occurs to me that the fault isn't even in the prosthetics covering the entire face. Babylon 5' s Narn look also had not an ounce of human skin visible. Lizards all the way. And not only G'Kar but also Na'Toth and the occasional Narn guest star were most definitely individuals, with the actors able to deliver performances. And that was decades ago, in terms of make up possibilities.
Now, I can see two possibilities as an explanation for why this new Klingon look was designed in the first place, and neither makes me very comfortable. They aren't mutually exclusive, either. One is that since the story is set pre-TOS, post-Enterprise, and apparantly about the Human-Klingon war, the Klingons (one of the best known alien species with decades of familiarity for even casual ST watchers) needed, in the mind of the producers, get re-alienized, to be made looking as other as possible.
Or/and: all this talk of Klingon purity maybe a set up to explain why all the ST movie, TNG and so forth Klingons look differently - the Klingons through whatever happens on this show learn differently, start to intermarry with other species, and as a resultgrow hair develop a far more humanoid look. (Not that this explains why Kahless' clone would look exactly like a modern day Klingon, but hey. All the TOS Klingons look differently than the TOS movie and onward Klingons already and it's been turned into a gag in the DS9 Tribble episode. Continuity and the Klingon look were mutually exclusive already.) Unfortunately, since this would take generations, it still would not solve the problem that the show has given itself a major Klingon-heavy storyline while dumping exteriors on their actors preventing said actors of connecting in any way with the audience. Good grief. No wonder there were supposedly problems in production.
(One last Klingon thing: Having been a Trek-loving teenager in the 1980s, I actually have read John Ford's The Final Reflection, so I know where this Black Fleet mythology (which the tv and movieverses so far didn't feature at all) comes from and felt nerdishly pleased.)
Onwards to the actual main cast: here it felt like we're still in backstory for the main show territory, too. Not least because the two episodes were so tightly focused on Burnham, and the only two other Starfleet characters besides her who got characterisation so far were Captain Georgieu, who anyone knew would die going in given that Michelle Yeoh was given "special guest star" credit, and Saru (who btw complicates my confusion about the whys of the Klingon look by also being an alien whose actor is completely covered by prosthetics yet who seems to be able to emote underneath it). This is quite different from how ST shows from TNG onwards were introduced, because being ensemble shows, they featured more than a trio of characters in prominent positions. Mind you: it's the pilot, and one of its prominently featured characters is dead, and the main character isn't even on the ship yet which presumably will be featured through the show. So I assume the rest of the ensemble willl be introduced in subsequent episodes.
Now, about our leading lady, Michael (sic) Burnham: the teaser scene introducing her and Captain Georgiu was delightful, and very Star Trek at its best, as well as establishing their dynamic; so was the scene with Burnham exploring what she thought was an unknown phenomenon in space later. Then we got part of her backstory, which turned out to be, well, very fanfiction-y (Sarek's ward, biological parents killed by Klingons, sole human to have gone to the Vulcan academy), but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. While giving Spock an older half brother never heard of before or since in ST V still makes me roll my eyes (along with most other things about The Final Frontier), giving Sarek a human adopted daughter who went to the Vulcan acedemy, i.e. exactly Spock in reverse, strikes me as a retcon which could actually work very well (both as ic and interestingly messed up family dynamic way). I mean, James Frain does not resemble Mark Lenard, but then neither did Ben Cross, and Frain has been reliably good in all I've seen him in. (He also has chemistry with Burnham's actress.) Meanwhile, Burnham's attachment to her Captain is a bit too fervent to come across as a mentor-protegé thing, so it could have been the start of another Captain/First Officer slash ship, but for the fact that the Captain is dead and the First Officer in prison. And justly so. Seriously, I liked Burnham, but no matter how convinced of the rightness of her Klingon approach theory she was, between seemingly unable to use the intercom to convey a simple information to the bridge, contradicting Georgiu and then rendering her unconscious as if the people on the bridge would just accept that the Captain has mysteriously changed her mind within a minute - it makes Reboot Kirk himself look like the Master of Careful Consideration And Good Planning by comparison.
(BTW, if I never see a scene supposed to illustrate how stubborn and disregarding of their own safety character X is by letting said character run out of sickbay before the medical check up is done, it'll be too soon. It only illustrates stupidity in this particular case, because, see above: intercom. If it's good enough for Scotty, it's good enough for you.)
In conclusion: have mercy on the actors playing Klingons, production people, and writers, give me more ensemble, I'm not a fan of the two or three characters only approach when it comes to Star Trek, I want my crew. But all this being said, I'm curious, and I'm looking forward to the next episode, so we're good on that count.
First of all, why would you DO this to so many of your actors? "This" being the horrible new Klingon look. They looik as if they can hardly move under all these prosthetics, let alone act, with the result being that a lot of the already rigid dialogue is delivered stiffly. Now I know by the time Worf was brought into DS9, there are a lot of fans tired of the Klingons anyway (and others who loved them, which is why Michael Dorn was added to the cast in the first place). As for me, Klingons weren't my favourite alien species, but I found several Klingon characters in three shows very memorable and in varying degrees interesting and/or endearing, plus I appreciated TNG developing the Klingons from the TOS standard enemy race into their own culture to begin with. If that hadn't been such a success with the audience, I doubt we'd have gotten Bajorans and Cardassians on DS9, btw. And Worf, K'eyhlar, K'empec, Gowron, Martok, Grilka... there were all distinctive individual characters, not stereotypes, due to a mixture of acting and scriptwriting. If they don't ditch or modify all the prosthetics, I doubt any of the Star Trek: Discovery Klingons will get that far, because the best actor of the world couldn't deliver a performance buried under all this stuff. Incidentally, it occurs to me that the fault isn't even in the prosthetics covering the entire face. Babylon 5' s Narn look also had not an ounce of human skin visible. Lizards all the way. And not only G'Kar but also Na'Toth and the occasional Narn guest star were most definitely individuals, with the actors able to deliver performances. And that was decades ago, in terms of make up possibilities.
Now, I can see two possibilities as an explanation for why this new Klingon look was designed in the first place, and neither makes me very comfortable. They aren't mutually exclusive, either. One is that since the story is set pre-TOS, post-Enterprise, and apparantly about the Human-Klingon war, the Klingons (one of the best known alien species with decades of familiarity for even casual ST watchers) needed, in the mind of the producers, get re-alienized, to be made looking as other as possible.
Or/and: all this talk of Klingon purity maybe a set up to explain why all the ST movie, TNG and so forth Klingons look differently - the Klingons through whatever happens on this show learn differently, start to intermarry with other species, and as a result
(One last Klingon thing: Having been a Trek-loving teenager in the 1980s, I actually have read John Ford's The Final Reflection, so I know where this Black Fleet mythology (which the tv and movieverses so far didn't feature at all) comes from and felt nerdishly pleased.)
Onwards to the actual main cast: here it felt like we're still in backstory for the main show territory, too. Not least because the two episodes were so tightly focused on Burnham, and the only two other Starfleet characters besides her who got characterisation so far were Captain Georgieu, who anyone knew would die going in given that Michelle Yeoh was given "special guest star" credit, and Saru (who btw complicates my confusion about the whys of the Klingon look by also being an alien whose actor is completely covered by prosthetics yet who seems to be able to emote underneath it). This is quite different from how ST shows from TNG onwards were introduced, because being ensemble shows, they featured more than a trio of characters in prominent positions. Mind you: it's the pilot, and one of its prominently featured characters is dead, and the main character isn't even on the ship yet which presumably will be featured through the show. So I assume the rest of the ensemble willl be introduced in subsequent episodes.
Now, about our leading lady, Michael (sic) Burnham: the teaser scene introducing her and Captain Georgiu was delightful, and very Star Trek at its best, as well as establishing their dynamic; so was the scene with Burnham exploring what she thought was an unknown phenomenon in space later. Then we got part of her backstory, which turned out to be, well, very fanfiction-y (Sarek's ward, biological parents killed by Klingons, sole human to have gone to the Vulcan academy), but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. While giving Spock an older half brother never heard of before or since in ST V still makes me roll my eyes (along with most other things about The Final Frontier), giving Sarek a human adopted daughter who went to the Vulcan acedemy, i.e. exactly Spock in reverse, strikes me as a retcon which could actually work very well (both as ic and interestingly messed up family dynamic way). I mean, James Frain does not resemble Mark Lenard, but then neither did Ben Cross, and Frain has been reliably good in all I've seen him in. (He also has chemistry with Burnham's actress.) Meanwhile, Burnham's attachment to her Captain is a bit too fervent to come across as a mentor-protegé thing, so it could have been the start of another Captain/First Officer slash ship, but for the fact that the Captain is dead and the First Officer in prison. And justly so. Seriously, I liked Burnham, but no matter how convinced of the rightness of her Klingon approach theory she was, between seemingly unable to use the intercom to convey a simple information to the bridge, contradicting Georgiu and then rendering her unconscious as if the people on the bridge would just accept that the Captain has mysteriously changed her mind within a minute - it makes Reboot Kirk himself look like the Master of Careful Consideration And Good Planning by comparison.
(BTW, if I never see a scene supposed to illustrate how stubborn and disregarding of their own safety character X is by letting said character run out of sickbay before the medical check up is done, it'll be too soon. It only illustrates stupidity in this particular case, because, see above: intercom. If it's good enough for Scotty, it's good enough for you.)
In conclusion: have mercy on the actors playing Klingons, production people, and writers, give me more ensemble, I'm not a fan of the two or three characters only approach when it comes to Star Trek, I want my crew. But all this being said, I'm curious, and I'm looking forward to the next episode, so we're good on that count.
