Star Trek: Discovery (Episodes 1 and 2, i.e. the pilot)

[selenak]

In 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 result grow 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.

Comments

[kerkevik_2014]

The Final Reflection was the book that made me a Trek fan, rather than someone who liked a TV show; followed by Diane Duane's My Enemy, My Ally & The Romulan Way (which she wanted to call The Way of the Rihannsu) and almost made me like Kirk (ironically most of my favourite episodes are William Shatner's best).

In fact I was at a Norbreck Castle Trek con in Blackpool and while more than a thousand people were listening to peeps like Gates McFadden next door, little more than a dozen of us were listening to Diane Duane and Peter Morwood chatting about Star Trek; Ireland; Switzerland; myths and many other things.

We wouldn't have been next door for the world :-)

kerk

[selenak]

I can understand that. Some of those early novels contributed to my own fannishness, too; Vonda McIntyre's as well. And Carolyn Cowles "The Pandora Principle", which gave me all my Saavik headcanon.

[kernezelda]

I was also pleased with the Black Fleet references. Also, it felt like the Klingons could barely speak through the mouth prosthetics, making them not only stiff, but hard to understand. If this is set only ten years before TOS, then the Klingons should be rather more humanoid rather than less - we never saw the ridged foreheads for Klingons until Kirk was in his fifties. We shouldn't see Romulans at all, given that no one had visual communication with them until "Balance of Terror."
I'm so used to seeing Frain as villainous or morally ambiguous characters that seeing him as Sarek made me hope he wins against type-casting in the future.
I loved Captain Georgieu and Burnham's intro scene, and thought both Michelle Yeoh and Sonequa Martin-Green worked well together. I agree with you that Burnham acted rashly, but I think of Spock's devotion to Pike, and wonder if that's a Vulcan mentor-protege carryover, which Burnham would have picked up. Sarek literally gave her from his keeping into Georgieu's.
Vulcan schooling gives me the creeps--keeping a child on their feet while questions are thrown at them for however long? It's a carryover from the first AOS movie, but it also descends from Spock's computer-guided re-training in STIV: The Voyage Home.
I wish Bryan Fuller had been able to remain involved; I'd been looking forward to his take on Star Trek.

[contrary_cal]

I haven't seen this yet, but I've heard lots of people complaining about the Klingon makeup and how it seems to stifle performances, and I'm wondering if it's the texture/material that's an issue. Scorpius and a few other Farscape aliens had their faces completely covered by appliances, but because they used HotFlesh, Wayne Pygram could give a complete, nuanced performance - you could even see his skin flush under the makeup when Scorpius got hot and bothered! But then in Peacekeeper Wars they switched to another, less flexible type of makeup for the appliances and he really lost a layer of the performance because he was fighting the prosthetics.

So I'm wondering if the Saru character's makeup might be made of something different than the Klingons', which would explain the differences in performance.

[selenak]

That would explain it. Btw, did you know why they switched in The Peacekeeper Wars? Was the other type of makeup cheaper? Because Saru so far is the only one of his species on screen, whereas there are lots of Klingons, so if they gave the cheaper make-up to the Klingons for budget reasons...

[selenak]

re: Spock's devotion to Pike, true, he hijacked the Enterprise then, but that wasn't in the middle of a standoff involving dozens of well-armed ships on the other side with only one of you on yours. Even if Georgiu had remained unconscious and the crew had followed Burnham's orders and fired at the Klingon vessel, the likelihood of it and all other Klingon vessels firing back and destroying the ship the Captain Burnham wanted to save was on was extremely high. At best, a lot of lives on both sides would have been lost. All Burnham's fault. Spock didn't risk anything like that for the chance to give Pike a happy ending.

[contrary_cal]

I think it must have been at least partly for price reasons - they changed a lot of makeup for Peacekeeper Wars for no clear reason, since the original materials were still available and apparently at similar prices, but with bad effects overall (Melissa Jaffer went from having no problems to having an allergic reaction to her appliances that was so severe they basically had to write Noranti out). Needing to trim costs would explain it.

If Saru's a character they're planning to keep around for the remainder of the series and need a strong actor for, it would make sense to put the higher-quality makeup on them and use cheaper, less flexible stuff for a short-term Klingon horde. :)

[rike_tikki_tavi]

I think the Klingon look is another facet of the show striving for the re-boot universe look. Only here, in addition to looking like space Uruk-hai they also took a detour through ancient Egypt and looted king Tut's tomb. Together with the overabundance of lens flares that annoyed me the most look wise. Though I would love to get more of a look at Klingon society and history. I've always liked them.

I'm willing to hand wave the lack of internal com use by believing that Burnham was still in some kind of shock when she woke up and not firering on all cylinders, yet. Radiation damage + seeing for the first time in a long time a half unknown enemy + her personal history makes for irrational behavior.

[monanotlisa]

Yes, I'm not sure about the Klingon storyline, and v. sure about the femslash in there. Love Michael Burnham and Saru, in any case, and also? God, it's beautiful show. I was genuinely stunned by the first scenes planetside. Wow.

[kore]

Oh, dear. That sort of sounds like the difficulties B5 had with the pilot Minbari makeup and prosthetics, which were toned way down even for S1. Still pretty excited to see it, though!

[kore]

Aw. I just bought Reflection, since it was like five bucks for Kindle.

[ide_cyan]

Saru's actor is Doug Jones, who has a TON of experience acting under heavy prosthetic makeup.

[lynnenne]

I think the choice to have the actors speak Klingon through the entire two episodes was the biggest hindrance on their performances. I mean, what are the odds that any of them actually understand the language? It's a tough thing to speak phonetically for hours of filming without really knowing what each individual word means. How do you emote? Where do you put the emphasis?

Plus, Klingon has a lot of guttural sounds in it, meaning an actor has to speak it very slowly to get the pronunciation right for fans who might actually understand it. Slow, plodding pronunciation doesn't exactly lead to stellar acting.

I found the sub-titling hard to read, tbh, and wished the producers had let them switch to English after a certain point. It would have worked out better for the actors and the audience.

[selenak]

Good point. Maybe that will contribute to a lighter sentence (since obviously she won't spent the show in prison)?

[selenak]

And I did love the reveal of the Starfleet emblem. Both a visual treat and a character point about Georgiu.

[selenak]

That's a good comparison, though given that Klingons have been around for decades (well, the old TNG onwards design for them anyway), it's more obvious than it would have been with a completely new alien race.

[selenak]

I imagine now the Klingon actors getting together with the Elf actors from the LotR and Hobbit movies for mutual sympathy re: dialogue in made-up languages invented by nerds, even if one of them was an expert at it. :) Then again: the amount of spoken Quenya in the movies was limited.

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

As much as I love Star Trek, I don't care about the continuity issues, but I really really feel you on the WHY WOULD YOU TORTURE YOUR ACTORS LIKE THIS front?

My main problem, though, is that the show feels just too grimdark for me in a way that feels counter-Star Trek. I'm realizing that the productive tension between optimistic ideals and difficulty realities is the most central aspect of that franchise for me, and without it I find it hard to get invested.

This feels far too generically like the grimdark I can get in any other sci-fi show, and the tossing out of established ideals (as opposed to struggling with them, as previous shows have) reads very dangerously to me living under the current US regime.

And while I was really really impressed by the lead actress--who is far better than her material--I am irked by the lack of ensemble. You can't spend two hours getting me invested in exactly one relationship, kill off half of it, and expect me to feel excited to keep going.

I really wanted to like this, though, and I want to keep going and have the show change my mind. But I do think the paywall within the US is cutting out a lot of the audience.

[selenak]

Unspoilery, I will say that the third episode, which introduces the actual crew and ship we'll stay on, also gives us a wonderful scene that deals with your fear about whether or not the show tossing out ethical standards. Haven't seen the fourth episode yet, but the third episode made me wonder why it wasn't the actual pilot, with Michael Burnham's backstory revealed in flashbacks throughout the season. Granted, this would probably mean less of Captain Georgiu, but it would have made more narrative sense, imo.

re: paywall, I'm watching on Netflix, where I only have to pay seven Euros per year (so far), which is affordable.

[kalypso]

I have belatedly caught up with Discovery many months later (when I found out that altariel has been commissioned to write a novel) so now have the pleasure of catching up with what you thought.

We seem to be very much in the same place on the Klingons (my first reaction was "Why have they turned into Orcs?" and my second "None of them seems to speak Klingon very fluently").

I thought Michael had far too much backstory (or maybe we just got too much of it too soon) and too much of it clichéd.

And I kept wondering when we were going to get all the interesting characters I'd heard about.

But my primary reaction to the pilot was disappointment that we weren't going to get the series with Captain Georgiou in charge. I, too, realised she was going to kick the bucket, but I liked Michelle Yeoh's performance so much that I felt intense resentment that I was being offered such a strong character who I obviously I wouldn't be allowed to keep.

So I don't think it was a good start. Fortunately, things improved very quickly.

[selenak]

Yes, we seem to have had similar reactions to the pilot, though as you might have seen from a more recent entry, when I looked back on the first season in totem, I found I had changed my opinion on several of the complaints. Re: Georgiou, for example, early on I thought the story of the pilot should have been told in flashbacks spread through the first half of the season, but as it turns out it was very important that we met Georgiou the way we did, not in Flashbacks, and became attached to her, because of future developments. There are other reasons, too, for changing my mind on the necessity of the first two episodes being the way they were, but these are even more spoilery. Otoh, I stand by my opinion that redesigning the Klingons was unnecessary. (Save for one particular thing, also spoilery, but even that could have been accomplished using the old Klingon look.)

[kernezelda]

I'm re-watching ST:Discovery now, in preparation to watch S2 and then maybe wait another year for S3... But! Having re-watched the first two eps, why is Michael Burnham being blamed for the war? Her mutiny failed. She shot T'Kuvma in defense of Captain Georgiou. Imprisonment for life seems very harsh for a failed mutiny.

[selenak]

As far as I recall, she's not blamed for shooting T'Kuvma. (Well, not by the Federation.) What she's blamed for:

- first of all, the mutiny in the middle of an emerging battle situation. That it wasn't successful is besides the point. She directly (and physically) attacked her superior officer and tried to take over the ship. That she did so with good intentions makes it no less a mutiny.

- and secondly, earlier than that she had gone against Georgiou's orders when exploring. Instead of returning when ordered, she had chanced it to explore a little longer, and had landed on the Ship of the Dead which had alerted the Klingons' attention to begin with, resulting in Michael accidentally killing the original "Torchbearer" (which causes T'Kuvma to appoint Voq as the next Torchbearer).

Now, by opening with T'Kuvma's xenophobic speech, the episodes make it very clear the Klingons were itching for an excuse to fight anyway, plus conversely, you can make the argument that Michael's hard sentence was at the very least motivated for the urge to have someone to blame for an evolving disastrous situation. But it's also worth pointing out that the finale mirrors the pilot set up, and now Michael's reasoning is the opposite. In the pilot, she believes she needs to protect Georgiou and the Shenzou and can do that by firing first on the Klingons; her attempt at mutiny fails, not least because even before Georgiou shows up on the bridge, none of the bridge crew is willing to get along with her. In the finale, it's her superior officer - in this case Admiral Cornwell - who is willing to do the ruthless, unethical thing, by blowing up the Klingon homeworld, in order to save the day, and Michael who argues otherwise, for the riskier but ethical way, and this time, the bridge crew is with her. (And eventually, so is Cornwell.) In between, you have of course the stint in the Mirrorverse and the Lorca reveal, showing where "the ends justify the means" dogma ends up leading to, but another difference is that Michael doesn't act unilaterally (as she did in the pilot) but by making her case to everyone.

Which is my rambling way of saying that I think the narrative implies that while Michael is treated harshly at the end of the pilot and certainly scapegoated early in episode 1.0, she wasn't right in the pilot, either, and her development through the season got her to the point where in another critical situation she acted differently, and this time managed to end the war by doing so.

[kernezelda]

At this point, I've almost completely forgotten the plot of S1 apart from the mirror 'verse. Even though Michael disobeyed orders in exploring, she killed the Torchbearer by accident; that could have been dealt with by some penalty far less than imprisonment. Killing T'Kuvma and making him the martyr she herself had predicted was still in defense of her captain. And mutiny itself, to me, should not carry a life imprisonment sentence. I agree, Starfleet made Michael the scapegoat for the whole war rather than try explain a more complicated and nuanced string of actions and consequences. Of course, our politicians do the same today, and people find the simple blame of individuals far easier to glom onto than patiently trying to understand complicated narratives.