Some myths endure, and some stories are retold over and over again because they become a part of who we are as a culture. To that end, they can become a reflection of our need to believe tomorrow will be better than today. Because, if it isn't, then what's the point? Even at the darkest of times, in the most horrible of places, one of our species' greatest strengths is some people’s ability to find hope where there is none, and somehow persevere where others would fall.
Out of that is the stuff from which "big damn heroes" are born. From the many come the few (or the one) with great danger to themselves and all they care about will strive with their last ounce of courage "to reach the unreachable star." Within this is everything we hope we can be. Star Trek has endured for more than a half-century as a collective myth of the future, one in which a more enlightened humanity has moved beyond racism, sexism, and the problems of today to create an interstellar government spread across thousands of light-years.
But like almost all fandoms which have existed for a long time and have a lot of material to argue over, eventually there are debates over what it all means and who is truer than true. J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek effectively rebooted the franchise, with his series of movies creating an alternate timeline where things are a little different. The film enjoyed both popular and critical success, but there is a contingent of Trek fans which feel the “Kelvin Timeline” of the Abrams film is an abomination and not “real” Star Trek, in keeping with the franchise's underlying philosophy.
Starring Sonequa Martin-Green (The Walking Dead) and Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), CBS’ Star Trek: Discovery is marketed as being in the “Prime (original) Timeline” and centered around a war between the Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets about a decade before Kirk and Spock’s five-year mission aboard the Enterprise. Much of the talk in the run-up to this show’s premiere has been about the mess of what has been going on behind-the-scenes. Discovery was co-created by Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies), who pushed for Trek’s return to television. After a series of disagreements with CBS, Fuller left the production over creative differences, with other influences —including Wrath of Khan writer/director Nicholas Meyer— coming in and trying to make this work. Couple those misfortunes with a fan backlash, which includes some segments complaining this newest series is feminist SJW Trek because of the presence of two prominent lead characters who are not white or male.
But, in the end, is it a good show? While there are elements to Discovery which make for interesting television, and the first two hours justify staying to see where it goes, one big thing struck me while watching the first two episodes was how much the main character arc, which is central to the plot of the series, feels unoriginal and like plowing the same old dirt.
The action picks up around Stardate 1207.3 (May 11, 2256), with Captain Phillipa Georgiou (Yeoh) and her first officer, Commander Michael Burnham (Martin-Green), saving a species from extinction, while also discussing Burnham’s growth as an officer. Before long, the USS Shenzhou is re-tasked to investigate a damaged satellite near the Klingon border. This is occurring at a time when the Klingon Empire has been in disarray for nearly a century. The 24 houses of the Empire have been divided on ideology and purpose. T’Kuvma’s faction sees themselves as following the true teachings of Kahless, and wishes to unite the Empire by promoting a philosophy that rejects threats to their culture’s individuality in order to “remain Klingon,” and pushing back against all peoples who promulgate what they see as a great lie: “We come in peace.”
Burnham discovers the damage to the satellite is no accident, with the Shenzhou dragged into a plot that eventually causes all-out-war between the Federation and the Klingons, and the crew divided over how to react. Burnham’s tragic history of being a human child raised on Vulcan by Sarek (James Frain), as his “ward” no less and Spock’s adopted sister, creates a situation where her decision making, and the interaction of emotion and logic, makes her both reactionary and insecure of her self. Burnham often clashes with science officer Saru (Doug Jones), a Kelpien, who have evolved from a prey species, that tends to advocate caution and retreat. Captain Georgiou, who’s hinted to have suffered great loss and experienced the horrors of war firsthand, represents the usual Star Trek ethos. She attempts to bridge all of these competing notions with compassion and faith in humanistic qualities of reason to overcome any problem.
The situation with the Klingons causes all of this to blow up into a mess of nerve pinches and mutiny, with Starfleet ill-prepared to deal when the shit inevitably does hit the fan.
The biggest question many of the online commentariat had about Discovery during the bits of news and tidbits running up to its realease was is this really Star Trek? For a segment of people, the concerns are about why the uniforms are so different from the turtlenecks they're “supposed” to be wearing, the designs of starships don’t exactly fit the era, and how is it all supposed to work with The Original Series?
The answer is that none of it really fits into the Prime Timeline. For the most part, Discovery is a reboot in all but name, where almost everything looks and feels like a third iteration/direction of the franchise, hewing closer to the Abrams movies than the original TV shows in appearances, but still distinct from both. For some that will be a bridge too far. On the other hand, one has to on some level acknowledge this is a TV series made for an audience in 2017, and not everything is going to match a low-budget NBC broadcast from 1966.
The biggest change is probably the Klingons, and it is arguably the most interesting change with a lot of possibilities. Visually the Klingons have been made much more alien, no longer having hair and added ridges which now go around their heads. Each change to the Klingon’s appearance in the franchise has went in this direction, where they were originally human-looking aliens with brown makeup. Beyond just the surface changes, Discovery moves the Klingons from Vikings/Samurai with a warrior code predicated on honor through combat to now being religious zealots who see honor through the lens of protecting Klingon purity. The Klingons, in their conception for The Original Series, were originally meant to represent the Soviet Union as a Cold War analogue rival to the Federation/United States. Since Star Trek: The Motion Picture, their characterization became more of organized biker gangs in space, who rationalize their violence as being in pursuit of honorable combat.
According to the executive producers behind Discovery, these Klingon are modeled on a divided United States and Trump supporters.
“The allegory is that we really started working on the show in earnest around the time the election was happening,” showrunner Aaron Harberts says. “The Klingons are going to help us really look at certain sides of ourselves and our country. Isolationism is a big theme. Racial purity is a big theme. The Klingons are not the enemy, but they do have a different view on things. It raises big questions: Should we let people in? Do we want to change? There’s also the question of just because you reach your hand out to someone, do they have to take it? Sometimes, they don’t want to take it. It’s been interesting to see how the times have become more of a mirror than we even thought they were going to be.”
While such topics have been explored across Star Trek‘s six previous series and 700 episodes before, the serialized nature of Discovery‘s 15-episode debut season allows for a greater depth of storytelling. “The thing about the war is it takes Starfleet and the Federation and forces them to examine their ideas and ethical rules of conflict and conduct,” Harberts says. “It provides a backdrop to how we want to be as a society and that analysis and self-reflection is new forTrek. They’ve done it in certain episodes in the past, but this is a true journey for the institution in itself.”
Of course, one might say why didn’t they just create a new race in order to explore these ideas, instead of re-doing the Klingons? The answer is that it’s probably much easier to market a show as a “Klingon War” with something people already know, then doing something original.
However, to me, the larger issue is how much the character conflict feels like things Trek has already done, and done well in the past. Martin-Green’s Burnham is the lead character, and through her personal struggle the audience is meant to see a contrast in trying to understand and solve the problems with the Klingons. But her backstory and internal conflict is largely a mishmash of previous characters from Trek’s past: Spock’s (the conflict of Vulcan and human values), Worf’s (a child who survived a tragic attack, lost their parents, raised among aliens and carries values of both biological and adoptive cultures) and Odo’s (feeling different and alien among one’s own people). Martin-Green does well with what she’s given, and a witness exploration of what it means to be human is a core part of what Star Trek is, but it’s still the fourth or fifth time we’ve been down this road with these issues.
I also had some issues with the production design and visual effects. I’m not going to complain about things looking too good to be set 10-years before TOS. On the contrary, I actually thought a lot of it looked bad. Really bad. I’m sure a lot of money was spent on this, but the visuals felt more on the level of something one would see in a video game. The distinctiveness of the Klingon designs that have been used over the past 50 years were missed, and the battle between Starfleet and the Klingons was mostly flashes of blue and green light that was hard to follow at times.
- Shenzhou: The name of the USS Shenzhou comes from the Chinese Space Program, and is the title of the spacecraft for their manned spaceflight program. The name Shenzhou can translate as “divine craft.” Also, the logo for the Chinese Space Program has been noted as a sort of combination of Trek's Federation and Starfleet emblems.
- Gamma Hydrae: During Burnham’s and Georgiou’s discussion of options, mention is made of Gamma Hydrae being just 6-light-years away from the binary system where the battle eventually takes place. In Wrath of Khan, the events of the Kobayashi-Maru scenario is set near Gamma Hydrae, with the system stated as being within the Klingon Neutral Zone.
- Why Bryan Fuller Left: Most media reports indicate Fuller clashed with CBS “over budget, production schedule, and crew selection,” eventually deciding to concentrate on American Gods for Starz and the retry at Amazing Stories for NBC. As originally envisioned by Fuller, Discovery would have been an anthology series similar to American Horror Story, with each season set in a different era of Trek.
According to Fuller, his vision would begin with a prequel series (Discovery is set before Star Trek: The Original Series), and would continue through the eras that followed in Voyager, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and beyond. CBS instead decided to move forward with a serialized season, and would see how audiences responded … Interestingly, Baby Driver’s Edgar Wright said that Fuller approached him to direct the pilot, while CBS opted to hire veteran television director David Semel instead.
- Klingon Racism: In keeping with the new take on the Klingons and their Trumpian roots, they now exhibit racism within their species. It’s implied lighter-skin Klingons are seen as “vermin” by those with noble bloodlines.
- The Corporate Reasons Why Things Look SOOOO Different?: The division of Viacom in 2005 is reportedly one of the main reasons why everything Star Trek since that date has been aesthetically changed. Prior to 2005, both CBS and Paramount Pictures were owned by the Viacom corporation. When Viacom split into two separate corporate entities, it created rights issues between the resulting CBS Corporation and (new) Viacom. Paramount Pictures, now part of (new) Viacom, holds the rights to all of the previous Trek TV series and films. However, the intellectual property rights, trademarks, the ideas around and the creation of new material is controlled by CBS Corporation. In order to make Star Trek films and TV series, Paramount now has to license the IP from CBS. The Abrams films were created under a licensing agreement, but it requires visual differences between the original material and the new material (e.g., the color hue of the uniforms and the pattern of the fabric in the Kelvin Timeline are slightly different from those in the The Original Series). Any material with a likeness to anything in the original films or TV series has to be negotiated. According to some reports, Star Trek: Discovery is being made under the Paramount/Bad Robot licensing agreement, which if true would mean the production is legally obligated to change things.
- CBS And Paramount’s Lawsuit Against Axanar: About 2-years-ago, Paramount and CBS sued a (sorta) fan production called Star Trek: Axanar, which raised more than a million dollars in two successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns. The production used actors from the various Star Trek series (e.g., Tony Todd, J.G. Hertzler, Gart Graham, etc.), and would have based its story on the vague information about the character Garth of Izar from the episode “Whom Gods Destroy” of Star Trek: The Original Series. The movie would depict a pivotal battle at the planet Axanar during a Klingon-Federation war set shortly before the time of Kirk and Spock. CBS/Paramount’s position as the rights-holders was never in doubt, but given what the final product of what Star Trek: Discovery is, the lawsuit makes even more sense given the ground being covered. Axanar and Discovery are very similar in premise and idea.