Battle At The Binary Stars

DVD, Star Trek: Discovery S1 (Battle At The Binary Stars)

Perhaps it was my long initiation into so many aspects of the first episode that softened my concerns through long association, and that in turn which heightened my expectations for this second helping, but whatever the case, I found myself experiencing the discomfort and disappointment that I had expected at the first encounter with this series and was relieved didn't come. This time there were many things that were confirmed and that came down on the wrong side of acceptable in canon terms, leading me to reconsider my optimistic response to the series. There were also a number of positives, but it seems these writers are determined to walk a strange path of both pleasing the faithful with deep references that a casual viewer would never notice, while also annoying with the largest in-your-face departures from established continuity. I still can't dismiss the series because these issues are largely aesthetic in nature, so there is a sense they're honouring the historical details in some respects, but they weren't the only flaws.

Both narrative and character took some bumps: for example, one of the good scenes is a flashback to Burnham first being transferred aboard the Shenzhou, accompanied by Sarek. I like seeing these moments of her past when she displayed more Vulcan bearing and attitudes, but I wonder why she'd never been inducted into humanity before? Presumably she'd met humans - it would be strange if Sarek had kept her sequestered away from her own species, yet she remains so Vulcan she can't have gone to Starfleet Academy by the way she acts in those scenes as if it's the first time she's been aboard a Starfleet ship or around human society, and considering Sarek's displeasure with Spock for joining Starfleet you'd hardly expect him to be handing over his protege to that organisation. It is not logical. It's not the first time a Vulcan has joined a Starfleet crew without having gone through the Academy: T'Pol of 'Enterprise' was at first a Vulcan representative, later resigning her commission to join wholeheartedly with her colleagues. It almost makes me think they should have done a more straightforward series following Burnham during the Shenzhou years, learning to fit in with other races, especially humans, and perhaps that seven years of service is actually a sly reference to a Trek series' traditional length, and by passing over those years is suggesting this is going to be different. Because 'TNG' went into films after seven years, so it's almost a hint that we're entering the 'film era' of Burnham's career, a more epic time of less individual stories and more sweeping, large scale events, as the 'TNG' films were for that crew. Or I might be reading too much into it.

From the moment Sarek said a very uncharacteristic line, his last word to Burnham being the murmured "Behave," things began to stick in my craw. My big preconception that had coloured my acceptance of the altered appearance of the Klingons was to be shattered in this episode - I'd thought the rumours were highly likely that the strange look could be explained by their being an ancient group that had somehow reemerged, like the pilgrim generational ship that was (coincidentally), searching for a messiah in the 'Voyager' story 'Prophecy' (even though they looked the same as contemporary 24th Century Klingons). But these notions, brought about by incredulity that that must be the only explanation for such radical changes, were smashed quite easily: we meet members of the ruling families, including Kol whom I'd seen pictured in a way that suggested he was going to look more traditional, when in fact, all the Klingons we see are of this bestial, orc-like structure, with weird pointed ears, cumbersome claw hands that don't look as if they could ever have the dexterity to build anything, let alone the complex starships and intricate weapons they're famous for, and it can't be speculated about, there's no getting around it: these are the main Klingons of this period! Now if we'd seen a mix of Klingons which included the other designs (of which there have been three: the 'crustaceans' of 'The Motion Picture,' the long-haired rockers of almost all other Trek, and the original smooth-heads - I don't count the fleeting appearance of the hairless thugs of 'Into Darkness' as they're an alternate universe and they clearly influenced the new design), it would have been fine. In a way, it's still fine and we can retcon that the Augment virus created this latest offshoot, but it irritates, and if the intention is to make the Klingons more brutal and simplistic rather than the complex political, honour-based species we loved for so long, it's an awful indication of the intent to alter Trek to suit the masses rather than staying true to itself and carving its own path.

Maybe we will see other types of Klingon, but my instinct suggests not because it might be too 'difficult' for new viewers to understand easily, and nowadays everything has to be given to people served up neatly on a plate to cater for people's laziness so as not to offend their short attention spans in case they switch to so many other choices at their fingertips, when their intrigue should make them willing to invest time to find out why things are as they are, and so draw in the audience, using canon as a lure rather than something to be overcome, striking out boldly in its own direction. They may want to be 'Game of Thrones,' but that series wasn't trying to be anything else which is why it's had success, I suspect. So those 'ancient' Klingons of T'Kuvma's group are just ordinary members of the race - we even witness him being kicked around as a child on Qo'noS, and they look the same then, too. It took the wind out of my sails quite a bit because I'd hoped for some kind of justification or explanation to placate my stern historical mindset. In the lead-up to Season 2 a justification of the Klingons not having hair has been revealed: they shaved it off to go to war, yet we see the children of T'Kuvma's past without hair. Perhaps they still considered themselves at war in those days - this episode can't be blamed for retcon mistakes to come, and I like that explanation, so I can leave all that aside. If the story and other choices had been better I probably would have found it easier to accept all this, as I did with part one.

This part was not so well told or thought out: the messiah complex of T'Kuvma, and an absence of good grounding of his acceptance as this visionary. It seemed he had a grudge against the Federation and doesn't like humans, Vulcans, Tellarites and Andorians associating together as if some kind of purity has been lost, or maybe just because they're more of a threat. It wasn't entirely clear, but it seemed the lighting of the beacon in part one was to summon the twenty-four Houses, who then look down (literally and figuratively), on this summoner. From there he moans about the Federation and they point out that there's only one ship, and then a fleet of ships arrive and clearly the Klingons are going to respond to a show of force. But nothing is ever explained about why the Shenzhou is in this region, or why the beacon would be so close to, or within, the borders of Federation space, nor is the significance of storing the dead Klingon bodies in sarcophagi when we know Klingons (and it's even stated in the episode), view the remains as mere flesh and bone to be discarded, so unless it's some kind of visual statement to enemies, like gargoyles covering the ship, I don't get it. I hope for further explanation. But the conflict seemingly comes from nowhere, engineered by T'Kuvma. Maybe this is true to life, and wars and atrocities are so easily escalated out of nothing, but as the all-important genesis for a new series you'd expect the justification to make more sense. Granted, the other leading Klingons presented what seemed to be an ambivalent response to T'Kuvma's views, despite the battle, but I'm not sure if that's to keep us hanging to see what course the different Houses will pursue, or a lack of character depth and exploration.

It remains difficult to see how things are going to pan out across the season since I don't know how much time will pass before Discovery, and what T'Kuvma's death will actually mean - if it's a power struggle then it would also come out of nowhere because I didn't get the impression the Houses were particularly disunited, but then we haven't really seen them. It's fun to present first impressions, especially being a unique opportunity to do so after having waited so long for new Trek, but it also has its flaws because it's hard to judge when not all the facts are known. While the ignition of hostilities was a bit contrived, the sequence also failed to serve Burnham's actions in part one, because they essentially had no real bearing, she never got to fire on the Klingons: she's sentenced to the brig, and rightly so, then the fleet turns up and the Klingons fire at them out of aggression stirred up by T'Kuvma (I wonder if he was mocked as a child for having a name that sounds so similar to Vulcan female naming tradition!). She's locked away for no real reason, neither her absence nor her presence really makes that much difference, she's just a First Officer where Captains and Admirals are dealing with the issue. And it also seems that killing the Torchbearer was the incident used to incite war after all. Oh well.

Her only reason to be in the brig is for an exciting sequence where we wonder how she'll get out, and there's time for a formerly unheard of long distance mind meld which Sarek can do because when she was young he put part of his katra in her mind. I couldn't hold back on this, it really smacked of the kind of lazy writing of the Kelvin Timeline films and their magical technology that allows people to beam halfway across the galaxy onto a ship at warp, or from one planet to another, when the limitations imposed by technology or established about a race's abilities is one of the things that makes Trek real, with unprecedented internal consistency, instead of a 'Dr. Who' universe where anything can be done to take shortcuts, with its penchant for making up rules however it suits, to get an emotional reaction or a plot twist, regardless of making logical, satisfying sense, something I can't stand. Technically there isn't anything to suggest that such telepathic communication couldn't be so, but it's annoying: the katra is supposed to be the Vulcan soul, so how could Sarek give part of his soul to his young charge, surely it's all or nothing, though I do take that in 'Star Trek II' Spock passed on his katra to McCoy and still lived, so perhaps it's like a connection that the katra is pulled to upon the death of the body. I'm not even sure what it accomplished here, with Sarek again speaking in a way you wouldn't expect from such a noble man, saying he wouldn't waste his effort and wellbeing on this method of communication just to say goodbye. Then again, maybe that is Sarek, considering he and Spock didn't speak for years. We still don't get the impression Burnham is Spock's adopted sister, more that Sarek took her on as a pupil that he mentored.

That was just a short scene, and her escape from the brig was fine, even if, again, they're aping the modern films with a space jump (yes, I know 'TNG' did it first in 'Nemesis,' but it's become more associated with the new films), almost like they have to tick every box: lens flares, energy bursts instead of beams… Argh! That, right there, was my biggest bugbear. I was so hoping we were going to see starships again as the large, graceful battleships so well portrayed in much of Trek, but here we're right back into a muddle of pow-pow-pow in a space battle that really disappointed. Not just because of the blasts, losing the greatness of established Starfleet weapons, but because it's more like a 'Star Wars' dogfight, all external rolls and twists rather than a sense of crews operating a vast machine in the ocean of space. We got some traditional Trek staples, like people rolling on the floor and consoles exploding, which was fun (and it was a different approach to show someone becoming confused by a head injury when doomed Ensign Connors, whom I'd assumed would have a larger role in the series stumbles into the brig instead of making it to Sickbay), but it wasn't well-staged where you can follow a narrative, always an essential component in any battle: just look at Helm's Deep for how to achieve that, whereas this was a flotilla of chaos. My favourite series is 'DS9' and the Defiant was a barrelling, pulse-firing, almost dogfighting starship, but that worked because it was the exception to the rule and was built for combat in contrast to all the ships about it. The Shenzhou was not, which is perhaps why it so feebly rolls over and dies - the escape pods were good, but I never had that sense of the devastation of a Captain and crew leaving behind the home they've inhabited for so many years - I was surprised how little emotional connection was achieved there, and it didn't even have the awe of a large vessel horrifically torn apart as seen of the Enterprise in one of the good moments in 'Beyond.'

Punishment in Starfleet evidently had a long way to go before the 'enlightened' 24th Century, where even a short term of incarceration was considered abominable and hard, and even in 'TOS' they didn't have prisons except for the mentally troubled, so Burnham's sentence to life imprisonment was rather excessive, though perhaps motivated by Starfleet's horror at losing so many ships and crews needlessly - she could be a scapegoat for all their despair to hang upon. It's still true, however, that there was very good justification (my favourite word for this review), for war, for the battle, and for what happens after. I like that they choose to capture T'Kuvma rather than take him out, even if Georgiou should have been the one to think of that when she's shown to be the diplomat. Perhaps she was defaulting to her soldier's instincts? Unfortunately, this mission only adds to the negative overall feeling coming out of this episode: where part one was upbeat and untested, with room for much speculation, part two is a disappointment of failures, both in story and for the characters personally. Their failure ends the episode on a low when I'm used to Trek episodes going out on a high, reinforcing a positive message that makes you feel better about life. Maybe that method of storytelling is a thing of the past, and so every episode will have to end, essentially, on a negative for cliffhanging requirements until the story is wrapped up, and that's not a promising thought. It was much like that in Season 3 of 'Enterprise' the first Trek season to be serialised, and doesn't lend itself to satisfying stories, so my hopes for this series have taken a large dose of realism.

The reference to T'Kuvma's invisibility tech was something I was unsure of. It's believed Klingons first started using the cloaking device after their brief technological alliance with the Romulans in 'TOS.' The idea of ramming an enemy ship while cloaked would appear to have its problems, and I wasn't sure how I felt about all that. I suppose the cloak is some kind of justification (that word again), for why the Houses will follow T'Kuvma's way (maybe he had a secret pact with the Romulans), or perhaps because he took out so many Federation ships, or merely because he's now a handy peg upon which any Klingon seeking power can hang his hat and use as a platform to rise. Perhaps Voq will become the new leader, or the Houses may not be united and it will be internal conflict until someone takes control? As I said, I don't know how far ahead the series will jump before we finally get to the USS Discovery, and for those reasons interesting questions remain, even through such acute disappointment. Adding to that were the conversations between Georgiou and Burnham on why she accepted her aboard and how she'd hoped to peel away the hard Vulcan shell that had been grafted onto her. Again, I wasn't sure how much sense it made or what it was saying about the Vulcans, or Sarek. It may be that viewing the season again, with hindsight, will improve it. I hope we get more flashbacks to her time under Georgiou as that would be a good way to keep Michelle Yeoh's name in the credits on a regular basis, ready for the 'surprise' that I know is coming later, but also because Burnham's earlier life is interesting, and as a character she's engaging. Maybe she'll be the only character this series gets right, but even if that's so, I'm glad to find her adding to the many appealing iconic Trek characters over the years, and her Vulcan attitudes make me care more since that's my favourite race. She's almost Spock, in a way, since she's mentally half-human, half-Vulcan, even if not physically so.

Like the issue with the Klingons, and the weak basis for war from one warrior being killed by accident, there were other things that took away from part one merely by filling in detail and removing speculation: I wondered in the first review if Burnham and Saru were new to each other, which is why he had to explain about his species, but no, she should know all about that since she's spent seven years serving with him, as should the Captain. As before, I question why the Captain and First Officer would beam aboard an enemy vessel with zero security for protection - it's not like they don't have any, two guards were instructed to escort Burnham to the brig! I also found it hard to accept the vast size of the facilities in the diminutive Shenzhou: why would they have such a huge Transporter Room, and even more, why waste space on a massive brig for such a small exploratory vessel - it was bigger than the holding cells on 'DS9' ad they were constantly being used for all the nefarious criminals passing through the station! It doesn't make sense and tells me the design rationale was to be bigger and brassier, once again following the stupid aesthetics of the Kelvin films rather than even trying to fit into an established period in history, something unforgivable in such a content-heavy franchise forever bound by its realism and attention to detail.

To say they've let the side down would be a fair complaint. 'Enterprise' may not have been beloved, but at least it gave a good impression of being accurate for the time it was set in, no matter how frustrating it was that they were often underpowered compared to alien ships. At least the fleet that faces off against the Klingons was of similar type to the Shenzhou rather than featuring Constitution-class vessels, because they would have stood up to a lot more punishment, while the Shenzhou and its ilk have age to take into account. Could it be that Starfleet hasn't bothered to retire old ships, preferring to add the Constitutions that are out there now, to its growing fleet? There are questions about Starfleet's ships at this time, both from a design perspective and their mission focus, but again, we don't know much about this period so I hope for more clarity in the coming episodes. I have to say I didn't get a good sense of the ships in the fleet (though great to hear one called the T'Plana-Hath, named after the first Vulcan vessel to land on Earth), what they were capable of, and who they were, after the quick shopping list of ship names that were rattled off, a poor choice when you consider the budget and that this was the introduction to a fleet in a new series. I was very underwhelmed by the engagement, though as I mentioned it's more to do with a failure to create a good story for the battle, rather than just ships whizzing about in chaos, no sense of the tactics or manoeuvres you'd expect from such highly trained crews, nor from the Klingons, either, as we don't get much from the Bridges' POV, discussing the action, it just happens - a sign that bigger budgets can sometimes take away from a story?

I have been largely negative about this episode, and I can't help the way I feel or view it, but it would be wrong to suggest I didn't enjoy it at all. Indeed, there were things that truly thrilled me, particularly the level of cognisance of Trek history (even if it does make the glaring alterations even more stark and bizarre). I already mentioned the first boarding of Burnham to the Shenzhou, in her Vulcan robes, with her Vulcan-esque hair, and her very Vulcan speech patterns and reserve, with a touch of human hostility. I didn't mind the Transporter Room, so bright and of very different design to what you'd expect, but explained away by this ship being quite old. Gene Roddenberry always wanted his Enterprise to be a ship with history, and that seems to be the case with Shenzhou, a good choice, though it makes it sad that it was abandoned, if inevitable, I suppose - I'd always hoped for it to be partners with the Discovery in whatever missions they were fulfilling, the teaser trailer talking of crews and ships in the plural, something that hadn't been seen so much. What really made me bubble up with glee was the simple mention of the House of D'Ghor, something that only came into one episode of 'DS9,' where Quark comes up against this warrior and becomes entwined with the widow of D'Ghor's enemy, whom he'd accidentally killed. What a terrific idea, I would never have thought to hear that name again in a Trek production and I hope that some other established Houses we know of, such as Martok, Duras, and Mogh, are given their dues (I'm still sore about Michael Dorn refusing to come back as ancestor Worf!).

I didn't know the House of Mo'kai, the other House name to be mentioned, but I know it's a reference to a previous episode of 'Voyager,' so obscure it doesn't even appear in the 'Star Trek Encyclopedia,' which is quite a feat. I also couldn't be stopped from smiling happily when T'Kuvma runs through a list of founder members of the Federation, and during the episode I thought I recognised the name 'Donatu V,' but couldn't place it. To my unbridled joy I later read that it was a reference to the last incident between Federation forces and the Klingons and if it sounded familiar it was because the battle which took place there in 2242 was recalled in 'The Trouble With Tribbles' (the planet also mentioned in 'DS9'). One reason Trek is so re-watchable is because that helps to bind together the knowledge of the history that has been set out in different episodes and series' across the eras, and so remembering things like this helps to keep that high level of reality, so once again it's with confusion that you see them force major changes to the look of things while also getting little details so right, an infuriating halfway house between giving you a warm glow and a cold shoulder at the same time! A scene I really appreciated was Burnham's conversation with the computer, especially the computer's terminology. I'd been thinking they should be using more of a 'TOS' manner of speech where 'negative' and 'affirmative' were used over 'yes' and 'no' to show the formal, almost militaristic environment, and lo, the computer does just that, along with "Working," when it needs time to think, something which probably hasn't been heard in a new episode since 1969 because the computers were so much more advanced after that!

I also have to say it was good to have a bit of viewscreen communication when T'Kuvma sends a message on wide band to any and all ships in the area - it would make sense that if he's not speaking to a particular ship, he wouldn't be using the holo-communication we see so much of in this series. Talking of which, it really does feel way too advanced for the time, manifested most strongly in the Admiral's 'visit' to the Bridge. One thing I will give it, the fritzing of his image when the ships are losing power and how it flits about like a malfunction, worked very effectively, it's just hard to accept tech that appears more advanced than ships at the height of the 24th Century and is a bit of a flashy gimmick to appeal to new viewers. If you find Trek boring then don't watch it, don't change Trek to suit short attention spans and the need for constant gratification! But I'm not going off on that rant, it would take far too long, and would no doubt be a fruitless exercise, a cry into the void. While I'm about it, though, I'm coming to a dislike of the uniforms for the simple reason that you can't easily tell what rank or department anyone is, they all blend together, a major mistake in a series that is full of shaky-cam visuals and extreme lighting, and especially from an in-universe perspective when you need to identify people immediately during battle.

While Captain Georgiou's death was fully expected, I didn't feel they took advantage of the opportunity. It's not that I wanted Burnham to cradle her head in her lap as she's given some final words of wisdom, as that is pretty cliched, but I could have done with something more than the dispassionate and futile death she was served with. I know the desire nowadays is to kill off characters for shock value, but there was no shock, nor value, to her loss, unless it is to further punish Burnham, and Georgiou could have happily continued serving as Captain of another ship. And with the loss of the Shenzhou I'm guessing we won't meet that crew again and will probably never know if the blue guy was a Bolian, why some crewmembers had mechanical instruments strapped to their heads, or whether that robotic helmet guy was actually a robot, or not. The fight also made it much more basic - aside from not taking any security, the set (was it the Klingon Bridge?), was shown up for the small size it was, because this is still a TV show, so trying to ape, and compete with, the vastly inflated and over-budgeted modern films was a mistake. I just didn't care for that whole fight sequence. Even T'Kuvma had a better moment of death and one that was more meaningful in that he'd inadvertently been made a martyr - I did like the eyes glinting out of his fat face deep in darkness, though Voq should have done the death wail. And was T'Kuvma using a mek'leth?

I still love the fact they went to the trouble of having real Klingon spoken with subtitles, and I have to keep reminding myself that, for all that I dislike, and perhaps will come to despise about this latest iteration of Trek, it's still wonderful to have something new to dissect and examine, a situation that had previously only occurred every three or four years with each film release, and this is far more Trek-heavy than the films. The episode was the shortest Trek ever (until the specifically brief 'Short Treks' that have been released since Season 1), coming in at a meagre thirty-seven minutes. I thought the power of streaming meant you could go over the forty-five minute barrier, I didn't expect it to be reduced, and I still think the opening pair should have been shown as one 'feature-length' episode as all previous modern Trek premieres were. Perhaps I was pulled in by the joy of seeing more Trek, no matter what, when there were times I wondered if it would even get a DVD release in this age of streaming. My gratefulness to have it can't paper over the canon cracks, or even the variable writing so far, and so it is with a sinking feeling that I will come to view the remaining thirteen episodes. Maybe that's the right way to approach it? It's certainly how I first came to the series and was pleasantly surprised in response. I see now I was wrong to be so optimistic, but at least I enjoyed that feeling about the prospects of the future of Trek for a week. But so far, with all these poor choices to upset and irritate I just don't know how that can be, yes, justified.

**