Last time, I wrote about the look of the new Star Trek -- how it differs from the original. which this new story predates by about ten years. A lot of fans have made a lot of noise over the changes, although I think that we all agree that the look had to change, at least to some extent. As I mentioned last time, this isn't the 1960's. If the producers of this new show had made it look like the original series, no one but old die-hard fans lime me would have accepted it.
So, with that aside, let's dive in to the stuff that really counts -- the characters and the story.
SPOILERS - SPOILERS - SPOILERS!
The episode begins with the Klingons. A would-be leader (T'Kuvma, portrayed by Chris Obi), has arisen, or is trying to arise, to unite the 24 warring houses of the Klingon Empire. He speaks to those of his people gathered around him of the last of their kind to unite the empire -- Kahless, the Unforgettable. He calls for the houses to unite against those "whose fatal greeting is, 'We come in peace.'" In other words, he is attempting to unite the houses of the empire in war against the United Federation of Planets.
Okay, so from this we know that there are 24 great houses in the Klingon Empire, and that they are not united. They have, in fact, been warring against one another. I found the mentioning of Kahless a nice piece of continuity. We first heard of Kahless in the original series episode The Savage Curtain and again several more times on at least two or three and perhaps all four of the spin-off series. This opening scene does a nice job of setting up the core of the story -- the impending war with the Federation.
Next we jump to Arrakis...I mean, Tatooine...I mean some desert planet somewhere. A long drought is threatening the inhabitants of that world with extinction, so Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) and her first officer, Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) of the U.S.S. Shenzhou are on the surface -- as with all good Starfleet crews, the captain and fist officer both have gone down to the planet surface together -- hoping to unclog a well to bring water to the surface and save the inhabitants. Burnham points out that if they can accomplish their mission without making contact with the inhabitants, they can avoid violating general order one, a.k.a. the Prime Directive -- the order prohibiting interference with the development and progression of less advanced alien cultures. Never mind that simply by saving them, they are interfering. The unclog the well, but when the captain calls the ship to beam them up, she cannot make contact due to a storm. So, they go for a walk in the sand -- a walk by which they use their footprints to "draw" the Starfleet logo in the sand. By that, the crew aboard the ship finds them.
Like I mentioned above, by saving the inhabitants of the planet, the captain and Burnham have violated the Prime Directive, but that's okay. We long-time fans are used to seeing Starfleet officers doing that. I am left wondering, though... If the captain could not make contact with the ship with her communicator, if those aboard ship could not home in on her signal even if they couldn't hear her, then how could they possible look through the storm clouds and see their footprints in the wind-blown sand? This, I found to be little more than a silly gimmick.
After the opening credits, we find ourselves aboard the Shenzhou. As Burnham records her log, we learn that it is May 11, 2256... almost exactly 10 years before the original Star Trek begins, assuming that it began exactly 300 years from its television premiere. The crew of the Shenzhou are investigating damage to an interstellar relay on the edge of Federation space. Burnham suspects that someone damaged the relay to get Starfleet's attention. To make a long story short, she is right, and they encounter an unknown object.
These scenes aboard the ship tell us a lot about the crew relationships, and I found them to be quite entertaining. Burnham is shown to be almost Vulcan-like in her attitude and mannerisms, which is explained later.
Despite danger from radiation, Burnham goes E.V.A. to investigate the object, which appears to be ancient. When she lands on its outside, it reacts, and she encounters...a Klingon warrior. The warrior attacks, and in her attempt to flee, Burnham accidentally kills him with his own bat'leth and injures herself, renderring herself unconscious and potentially mortally wounded.
The original, classic Klingon logo and a bat'leth. Two more nods to continuity that I enjoyed.
Next, we are with the Klingons again. Their rising leader is speaking over the dead warrior, so we know that the object was, in fact, a Klingon vessel, aboard which the group of Klingons that we originally met are living. T'Kuva opens the dead warrior's eyes, the casket closes and rises into the air, and all of the Klingons look up to it and howl. The casket is then placed on the outer hull with hundreds of others.
I remember seeing Worf and other Klingons on The Next Generation raising their eyes and howling over a dead warrior. So, not only was this another nod to continuity, it was possibly a look at the origin of that tradition, as well.
We jump to Burnham, unconscious in Sickbay. We see her memory of undergoing an acedemic test on Vulcan as a young girl, standing inside an enclosed "bubble" while the computer asks her test questions, much like we saw Spock doing in The Voyage Home. The computer is asking her about a recent Klingon attack, and she fails to answer two or three questions, growing emotional. Sarek (James Frain), Spock's father, then speaks with her, and she wakes up in Sickbay.
Okay, so from this we have learned that Burnham spent some time as a child on Vulcan. Probably a significant amount of time, as she was going to school there and spoke, in this flashback, of perhaps learning Vulcan.
Naturally, Burnham leaves Sickbay without being released by the doctor, and goes to the bridge to warn the captain that there are Klingons out there. Captain Georgiou mentions that almost no one has seen a Klingon in a hundred years. She convinces the captain, who orders the ship to red alert. They target phase canons on the Klingon vessel to draw them out. The Klingon ship appears right in front of them, and they don't know how that happened. The captain orders Burnham back to sickbay and notifies Starfleet that they have engaged the Klingons.
Almost no one has seen a Klingon in almost a hundred years. Looking at the state of the Klingon Empire in Enterprise, that is feasible. Events could have led to a prolonged Klingon civil war or a series of small inter-house wars. When the ship goes to red alert, we momentarily hear the classic klaxon of the original series' Starship Enterprise. Georgiou targets not the phasers, but the phase canons. The NX-01's weapons in Enterprise were called phase canons. The question I'm left with here is, why didn't they realize that the Klingon vessel must have had a cloaking device. The NX-01 encountered cloaking technology about a hundred years earlier, though that was Romulan and not Klingon.
After another scene on the bridge of the Shenzhou, we find the captain speaking with an admiral over subspace. She tells the admiral that the Klingon vessel has a cloaking screen "unlike anything we've ever seen." This obviously is a mistake. There was the Romulan cloak that hid the mines from the NX-01, as I mentioned above. Burnham joins the conversation and warns that the Klingons will want battle. We learn that more Starfleet vessels are enroute.
The Klingon light there "beacon" -- a signal light as bright as a sun. The captain and Burnham return to the bridge. Burnham speculates that the Klingons are calling for backup. With permission, Burnham leaves the bridge and contacts Sarek. We learn that Klingons killed Burnham's parents, so we can assume that, for whatever reason, Sarek raised Burnham. She asks Sarek how the Vulcans achieved diplomatic relations with the Klingons.
She returns to the bridge and tells the captain that they must fire on the Klingons, explaining that that was what the Vulcans did after their first encounter. The captain, of course, refuses. Starfleet doesn't fire first. Burnham becomes insubordinate and the captain takes her to her ready room for privacy. They argue, and Burnham renders the captain unconscious with the Vulcan nerve pinch to her neck and then returns to the bridge to attack the Klingons. This, of course, is mutiny...something that Spock will mention, roughly 10 years later, has never happened aboard a Federation starship. Georgiou stops her in time, but a dozen more Klingon vessels show up.
And so, the first episode ends. I enjoyed the numerous nods to canon and continuity, and I suppose that I can overlook the error or two. The look is different, but it had to be, as I've already mentioned. I have to say, after having watched the episode three times now, that I enjoyed it. It looks as though it's going to be darker than the Trek that has come before, but then, if it's going to take place during a time of war, it needs to be darker. That's why I like the rebooted Battlestar Galactica so much more than the original. So, it might not be the Star Trek that we are used to, but I think I think that it's going to be good. I look forward to seeing the whole series someday.
