Reviewing The Vulcan Hello and Battle At The Binary Stars
By Duncan Smith
The pilot episodes of Star Trek: Discovery have come and gone, launching us into a new era of Trek. After many viewings, it’s time to review “The Vulcan Hello” and “Battle At The Binary Stars”.
[Spoilers] Just like that, a new era of Trek has begun with the pilot episodes of Star Trek: Discovery. In what could better be described as a cinematic experience than a mere television show, we’ve been introduced to a new… well, not exactly a new crew.
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In contrast to the usual set up for a Star Trek pilot, where we see the first meeting of a new crew, often on a new ship (or a space station newly reclaimed from an alien race), Discovery dropped us into the middle of a highly-functioning crew on a ship familiar to everybody we see on screen in the form of the USS Shenzhou.
This allowed the show to introduce us to the triumvirate of Captain Philippa Georgiou, Commander Michael Burnham and Lieutenant Saru. They have the rhythm of a trio who has served together for a long time, seven years to be exact.
Saru is a Kelpian, a prey species on his planet. As such, he operates with a perpetual sense of dread and self-preservation. Logical and intelligent, the science officer is this show’s version of a Spock or a Data-like character. Burnham is a human who was raised by Vulcans, Ambassador Sarek to be specific. As a result, she’s a curious and intriguing mix of human emotion and learned logic.
Georgiou, well, we don’t know that much about her, but much more to come on that later. What we do know is that she is a mentor to Burnham and that Saru reveres her.