Star Trek Discovery 'A Vulcan Hello' & 'Battle at the Binary Stars' Review

The title credits of Star Trek Discovery are a departure from the previous incarnations.

I'd like to preface this review by saying that the first seasons of all Trek series are wobbly at best, downright awful at worst. Discovery looks to be on course for a wobbly first season from the first two episodes that aired on Sunday. If you haven't watched it yet, beware of spoilers below. There's lots of them...





In the first scene, we are introduced to the Klingons, who seem to be looking rather different from anything we've seen before, as many fans have been in an uproar about. They still speak Klingon and act like Klingons though and this T'Kuvma (Chris Obi) guy seems to be wanting to unite the houses of the Klingon empire "..To lock arms against those whose fatal greeting is... we come in peace."

Yeah. We figured he's on about the Federation. Uh oh.

Cut to a sandy planet inhabited by a pre-warp species and Captain Phillippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) and her first officer Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) are looking for a well to save these people from an imminent 89 year drought. They successfully complete the mission but due to an incoming storm, they can't be locked onto by their ship, the Shenzhou. So they walk across the desert, discussing Burnham's future career. 

Sarek introduces Burnham to Captain Georgiou.

Michael seems like a promising officer of Starfleet, across the course of the two episodes, we learn she's human but when she was young, the research facility on Doctari Alpha was attacked by Klingons, who killed her parents. This led to her being raised on Vulcan as a ward of Sarek (Spock's dad) who found the young Michael unconscious and initiated a mind meld with her to keep her alive.

Michael Burnham is the key to this series and the main focus is on her and her life. When she kills a Klingon on a beacon the Shenzhou is investigating at the edge of Federation space where one of their relays was damaged, this opens up a can of worms and leads to a confrontation between Starfleet and the Klingons. Several characters mention that in between 2256 (When Discovery is set, that's 10 years before the events of the Original Series) and the 2150s (The time when Enterprise was set) there has been extremely little contact with the Klingons. They'd seemingly entered a period of isolation and become heavily divided (Hence T'Kuvma's desire to unite all of the houses and head into battle). 

After a court martial, Burnham is stripped of rank and incarcerated.

Burnham seems to escalate the tense situation all by herself. She communicates with Sarek who tells her that the Vulcans always attacked the Klingons first,. Coming to the Captain with this information and telling her they have to give the Klingons a 'Vulcan Hello' (Which is the title of the first episode), she is slapped down. Michael doesn't let it go and, in Georgiou's ready room, nerve pinches her and takes command of the ship, effectively committing mutiny. Georgiou recovers and orders Burnham be relieved and placed in the brig. By then though, it's too late. The Klingons start firing, Starfleet returns fire and the Shenzhou is almost destroyed. 

Burnham tells Georgiou to give the Klingons a 'Vulcan Hello'

 
After a failed mission to capture T'Kuvma ends with the death of both him and Captain Georgiou, Burnham is court-martialed, stripped of rank and sentenced to life in prison.But that's not the end of Burnham's story. A preview for the upcoming season shows Burnham taken aboard the USS Discovery, under the command of Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) who seems to take a shine to the down on her luck and much hated Michael and takes her under his wing. The third episode has been designated the 'pilot' of Discovery, with the first two episodes being a sort of prologue, which is interesting as in Deep Space Nine and Voyager, the pilot episodes chose to have a running text before it began, giving the viewer a quick bit of back story. Discovery chooses to have a two episode run up to the beginning of Burnham's story.

The acting in these episodes has been wonderful. Sonequa's performance embodies the spirit of Star Trek and she is a very interesting character which many feel is a homage to Spock. Doug Jones as the Kelpian Science officer Lt. Saru is an obvious homage to Data and Spock roles.

You can watch Star Trek Discovery on CBS All Access.

Tell us what you think of Discovery in the comments below!