Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Star Trek: Discovery -- "Context is for Kings"

I waited three days before writing anything about this episode, because I was hoping something would come to me that I haven't already said.  Alas, it was not to be.  I still see no justification for this series being a prequel to original Star Trek.  If anything, I see even less justification for this series being a prequel.  Apparently, the crew of the Discovery (or, at least, its engineering staff) is working on a fungus-based technology that will allow people to beam from planet to planet.  Benedict Cumberbatch's shenanigans notwithstanding, we know that doesn't pan out, because people are not beaming from planet to planet in the twenty fourth century.  Already we are seeing the brutalizing effect of war on the Federation (or maybe this vision of the Federation was always brutal).  Very few characters in this episode come off as sympathetic or empathetic to each other or us.  Authority figures relate to their subordinates principally via condescension.  A shuttle pilot gets jettisoned into deep space in the first five minutes of the episode and no one bats an eye.  Culturally, I do not see how this Federation evolves into Captain Kirk's Federation in less than ten years.

While we're on the topic of the Federation's new mean streak, I'm beginning to worry that I gave the first episode too easy a pass on the whole "mutiny" thing.  The first half of the effectively two-part pilot ends with Commander Burnham (sp?) Vulcan neck-pinching her mentor and (I assume) friend of seven years, Captain Georgiou.  Captain Georgiou then pulls a phaser on Commander Burnham.  I understand that "character you like pulls a gun on another character you like" is a time-honored way of ratcheting up the tension (and, I assume, it is probably what a commanding officer would do upon being rendered unconscious against her will by a subordinate, so maybe the fault lies more with Commander Burnham than Captain Georgiou), but I thought Star Trek was better than that.  This is supposed to be a vision of what humanity can become when we recognize, if not entirely overcome, our flaws, not a world in which professional military officers -- especially those in command of.... anything -- assault one another when they disagree.  The idea that the moral authority of the Federation has been or always was compromised is a worthwhile theme (again: something that Deep Space Nine got to first with the Maquis and Section 31 plots).  I'm not sure, though, that the way to explore that theme is by presenting us with a cast of main characters who are themselves compromised (put another way: I'm not ready to watch a Star Trek series in which I feel unfriendly towards more than half of the characters).  I know I am being hasty and we will get a chance to see everyone's warm and sympathetic side in turn (except Captain Lorca; that guy is Admiral Presman levels of creepy).  I just feel like this isn't quite Star Trek (because I clearly get to define what is and is not Star Trek....), which I would be much more comfortable with if it was sold to me as what Captain Janeway's Federation became through neglect and dissolution as opposed to the thing that became Captain Kirk's Federation through surviving a war with the Klingons.

Also: the super-top-secret lab is secured with a.... breathalyzer lock.  Clearly that choice was made to make it reasonable for Commander Burnham to hack the lock (which she could only do because her cadet bunk mate is authorized to enter the super-top-secret lab; one of those words, "cadet" or "top-secret" doesn't mean what I think it means).  I am just pointing this out because that level of world building for the sake of plot this early in the show doesn't strike me as a good sign.

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