Star Trek - Discovery - 04.01: Kobayashi Maru

[REBerg]

Watched the first episode and hope the next is better or I will stop watching.

It seemed like they were overcompensating for a weak story with a LOT of special effects, references to old Trek's, cliches, etc.

But what really annoyed me was everyone seemed to have a smug look on their faces and were mugging for the camera. There was no depth to any of the characters, or perhaps I mentally tuned out by the time something changed.

This did seem as if it was trying to recapture some of the magic of past series rather than build on the previous three Discovery seasons. Showing a trouble-making Tribble loose on the ship was amusing but a bit over the top.
The opening sequence played like an Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine, with a supposedly advanced alien species misinterpreting everything Michael and Book said. Laughing off the ensuing attack to free the "monarch" (aka Queen Grudge) as a surprise tactic that worked made the whole thing seem like a waste of CGI.
Discovery's main mission will need to become bigger than a diplomatic delivery service for surplus Dilithium. Discovery continues to be the go-to starship whenever an emergency -- like an out-of-control, spinning space station -- requires something faster that warp drive. A next-generation spore drive and a developing "pathway" drive may soon end that function.
Meanwhile, what is the mysterious force that hit the space station and may also have destroyed Book's home planet? Discovery is aptly named to find out.

 

[Dave]

Showing a trouble-making Tribble loose on the ship was amusing but a bit over the top.

Tribbles weren't intelligent, so what's up with that? With a food source, they reproduced exponentially; probably born pregnant, so a totally invasive non-native species. It isn't a joke to have them aboard (unless they had evolved or been genetically modified).

The opening sequence played like an Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine, with a supposedly advanced alien species misinterpreting everything Michael and Book said.

Unsuccessful First Contact missions would be much more common than shown. The Vulcan-Human contact would be unusual. That's how it was for European explorers sailing around the Earth, and they only met other Humans. We really haven't seen many First Contacts in Trek. It was the actual mission statement of Kirk's Enterprise and yet they mostly met with lost Human colonies. When we did get to meet powerful alien races on Star Trek - Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans, Tholians, Borg, Jem'Hadar - it often didn't go very well. Actual wars followed the contact!

However, having said all that, you might think that a combination of the Universal Translator combined with Book's empathic ability might have avoided the kind of language misunderstanding that was seen here.

The rest of the episode - well, I see it like the difference between old Doctor Who and new Doctor Who - continuous action and explosions in multiple storylines and difficult to follow dialogue. The technobabble scale just got broken in this when they attempted to use the proto-matter to fix the space station.

Discovery's main mission will need to become bigger than a diplomatic delivery service for surplus Dilithium.

If they are building and retro-fitting their ships with improved-Spore Drive and Pathway Drive (sounds like the Iconian TransWarp passages used by the Borg) then those ships are up to 700 years more advanced than Discovery. I'd doubt Discovery will have any use except as as a cargo transport.

Why would the Federation President be solely responsible for the choice of Starfleet Captains?

We only just got to know Book's new family and they've been killed off already. This is a dark show!

I don't know what this is, and it's watchable, but it isn't Star Trek as we know it.