Star Trek Discovery
S1 ep2: Battle at the Binary Stars
From IMDB:
Escaping from the brig while the ship is under attack, Burnham joins the captain in an audacious plan to end a battle rapidly escalating into war.
The Logical
There’s a wonderful use of flashbacks that allow us to see how Michael has changed in the 7 years since entering Starfleet. It gives us a good idea of how much impact the Vulcan training had on the human psyche.
The battle scenes throughout this episode are absolutely incredible and quite possibly some of the best I’ve seen on TV. It’s a violent episode, filled with sacrifice.
All I’ve placed in my notes is the ethics of martyrdom and prisoners of war. I’m pretty certain it was in reference to the Captain wanting to destroy the Klingon ship instead of capturing the leader. It was an incredible scene and something as a teacher who looks at moral and ethical decisions, it’s good to see that it’s still as relevant as ever.
The gathering of the Klingon dead was deep and beautiful; it seemed to hark back to the Viking mythological roots the Klingons have.
Having the episode end with Michael imprisoned for life for treason is an interesting and bold move. I’m curious to see where this goes.
The Illogical
Having Michell Yeo as ‘special guest star’ on the opening credits is a big spoiler. I really wish they’d made a creative decision on that one.
I’m sure I’m going to be bitching about this one all series, but this world that has been created is far too advanced for where it takes place in the timeline. I’m not just talking about the style of the show; the technology used is too advanced. For example; the containment field in which Michael is held in. While I was geeking out about how it remained intake during the firefight, it just isn’t believable that this would exist in a time before Jayneway, let alone Kirk.
It’s not just the believability though; it’s the decision of the writers. You want all this fancy technology? great. You want a timeline unpolluted? Sure. You know the easy way to ensure you get all this without pissing people off? Put it outside of the cannon timeline. Maybe there’s more to it than this, I HOPE there’s more to it than this, because I will struggle as a fan if there’s not.
I’m curious as to whether they reused sets from the 2009 film; the Klingon ship looked awfully familiar to Nero’s ship.
So, Michael is heading to prison. Will it be the same one Kirk spent time in during one of the silver screen outings? Is the series going to spend a chunk of time in the prison like one of the poorer series of Red Dwarf? Aren’t all the Star Treks (excluding OS and … oh, never mind) named after their primary vessels?
It seems a little, I don’t know… anti-climactic, knowing that she’s the protagonist.
The Queens of Geekdom 