Reviewing The Vulcan Hello and Battle At The Binary Stars

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.

Source: startrek.com

The show begins with T’Kuvma, the Klingon leader, expressing his desire to bring the 24 great houses of the empire together in unity. A noble goal to be sure, but our Federation heroes and their treacherous declaration of “We come in peace” are the foil here, believed by T’Kuvma to be the empire’s mortal enemy.

T’Kuvma speaks entirely in Klingon with subtitles on the screen, and whenever he is not speaking to humans, he speaks only in Klingon. It’s an ambitious undertaking for cast and crew, utilizing multiple experts in the Klingon language and dialogue experts.

This grand experiment works for me, particularly when T’Kuvma himself speaks. He speaks the language in a mournful, musical cadence at times. He takes a harsh, guttural language and adds a beauty to it that we’ve yet to see in Star Trek.

The redesigned Klingons and uniforms are a revelation. The ornate work that went into crafting each one shows through, and it was time well spent. As for the Klingons themselves, there’s no doubt who or what they are. At a first glance, they have more dimension than the often cardboard cutout Klingons we’re accustomed to. This species was due to be reinvigorated, and it was done to great effect.

The show is marvelously shot. As opposed to every other Star Trek series to date, ships don’t appear on a single plane, facing off level to each other. Particularly when the Klingon flagship and the Shenzhou face off, the two vessels sit at odd angles to each other. In its strange and unusual appearance, it lends a dose of realism.

The show uses non-linear time well with multiple flashbacks, including during the cold open in “Battle At The Binary Stars” when we see Burnham’s arrival on the Shenzhou seven years earlier with Sarek.

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Speaking of cold opens, the second half of the cold open in “The Vulcan Hello” is problematic. While on a desert planet, Georgiou and Burnham are endeavoring to open up a well to save an indigenous race. You might see this as a violation of the Prime Directive, which to be fair, is about as practically flexible as something called a “prime directive” could possibly be. They explain around this by saying as long as the planet’s inhabitants don’t see them, they won’t violate Starfleet’s General Order One.

That’s not how the Prime Directive works, and the inhabitants saw them anyway.

In addition, when separated from the Shenzhou by a dust storm, Georgiou traced a Starfleet delta in the sand in order to give the ship a point to pick them up. No, if the ship’s sensors couldn’t penetrate a dust storm, they shouldn’t be able to visually spot a large delta from the sky.

It’s a bit silly to use the delta, and utterly preposterous that it worked.

Technology from this show is significantly more impressive than that of the original series, which is set 10 years after Discovery. That’s simply unavoidable. TOS operated on a budget which could generously be described as “shoestring”, and we’re not going to see a high budget television program in 2017 utilizing tinsel and tin foil for props and effects.

Better to see Discovery’s technology as a progression from today’s technology, rather than 10 years earlier than TOS.

We lost Captain Philippa Georgiou far too soon, and we lost T’Kuvma too soon as well. Two charismatic, compelling characters died in the same battle. Georgiou’s death helps launch Burnham’s ultimate tale, and T’Kuvma’s death will likely radicalize the Klingons in future episodes. The battle on the Klingon bridge is certain to have long-lasting consequences throughout the rest of the season.

Captain Georgiou, and T’Kuvma, though we never got the chance to know you well enough, you are missed.

Commander Burnham is logical, intelligent, and a mutineer. She attempted to take over the Shenzhou in an effort to follow Sarek’s advice and give the Klingons a “Vulcan hello”, firing preemptively in order to gain their respect. While when battle was sure to come eventually anyway, this line of thinking made sense, as Georgiou said, “Starfleet doesn’t fire first.”

She assaulted her captain and mentor, but she did so thinking she was doing what had to be done to save her crew, her ship and her captain. It was a moment of conviction, and she’ll pay (some of) the price for it. Her sentence of life imprisonment fits her crimes of assault and mutiny, although it sure looks like she’ll get off the hook to some degree in the next episode, “Context is for Kings”.

Burnham outlogicked the Shenzhou’s computer when locked up in the brig, manipulating its ethical subroutines in order to escape that devastated deck in a way that would have made Captain James T. Kirk beam with pride. If you doubt this show as Star Trek, you need look no further than seeing a character outsmart a computer with ease. It was quintessential Trek and they pulled it off with style.

She’s a fascinating character, intelligent, complex and conflicted. It’s going to be a remarkable experience to follow her journey.

Next: Klingon mummification in Discovery

In a way, these two episodes could be seen as nothing more than an exciting big-budget action movie prelude to the real series which begins on Sunday with episode three. “The Vulcan Hello” and “Battle At The Binary Stars” showed us how Burnham, the Klingons and the Federation all got to where we are now.

Duncan Smith

Duncan is the site expert for Hoops Habit and finally has reason for optimism with the Detroit Pistons.