Great first impression of the new episode, artifice to preserve the canon. Lots of action and it zipped past so very fast that the end titles took me by surprise. Captain Pike is good and the way he is feeling out his relationship with the established crew is realistic. Loved the bit where Burnham called him out on the bridge, it brought him up short and made him reassess and he showed his class by acknowledging that he was out of order. She does it again in the landing pod in getting him to realize that the crew are smart professionals and he should trust them. I wonder if we have just met our new chief engineer in the Jett Reno character as she is obviously brilliant.
This is just a first impression as I only finished watching it a few minutes ago and as with the last series I think I need to mull it over for a while to get past just those first thoughts but it is obvious that Spock is off on a hunt about these seven anomalies and if Burnham wants to remedy the problem between them she and Disco are going to have to follow.
I am just super hoping that Jet Reno is a new regular. I LOVE her. Soooo much. Yeah, I have to watch it again before I can really talk about it.
Yeah totally sassy and irreverent, also another super smart female character. That science officer ended up dead pretty quickly but perhaps deserved everything he got for being such a cocky and arrogant idiot.
@kev may That's what happens when someone mansplains too much. A big ol' chunk o' asteroid smashes them. :D
@Karen Chuplis @kev may Spoiler: I married Jett Reno in our first round of Smooch/Marry/Kill this season. I knew Tig Notaro wouldn't let us down, but her character surpassed even my own expectations! Smart, sarcastic, brilliant. My three favorite adjectives.
I really like Sarek in this episode, he seems much more empathic towards Burnham much more the father than he was last season . Also Amanda's amazing Disney princess dress was beautiful Mia Kirchner is very good looking and that dress was great on her .
I was a little confused as I thought that Burnham was younger when she was taken in but then I remembered that in the last episode she said she was nine when she lost her parents but in the scenes of the attack on the learning center she looked younger than she does here.
Loved Tilly in the episode both in her interaction with Stamets and with Burnham both before she goes to the asteroid and in the sick bay where they are finishing each others sentences.
I really am starting to love some of these characters.
To keep our episode under two hours, I think I wound up cutting this conversation, but Valerie and I had the same concern about Burnham's age. It's the same actor (Arista Arhin) in both seasons, but they were filmed nearly two years apart, so it all looks a little backwards.
@Glenn I agree but frankly I can handwave it myself.
@kev may Yes, Glenn and I had the same concern about young Burnham, but I'm just powering through!
To your other point: I neglected to mention it on air, but I also had this funny feeling that Sarek was a little bit less Vulcan in this premier. He is warmer and more empathetic than last season, likely to drive home the point that Sarek wanted Spock to learn about empathy from Burnham. I hope it's the writers trying to show us that Sarek has grown after his harsh words last season!
I am still working through the episode for comments after your podcast but one plot hole (I think) is as follows.
When we find Enterprise it's communications are shot and we learn that this happened while investigating the anomalies yet Pike would only need a new ship after the damage so just when did Starfleet authorise him to take command of the Disco?
I assume that when the change of command occurs it is transmitted to Starfleet and the lack of signal back in surprise means the writers have just got it wrong .
It would have been more realistic if Pike had come aboard to use their coms and then been given permission to take command.
I had this same question, but I wasn't sure if it was sloppy writing or if it was intentional -- i.e., Pike never had authorization and was lying. The tow trucks at the end suggest he's not lying, so I also think it was just a mistake. I think they goofed as well with the use of Morse code after we've just been told that the Enterprise has no systems save for life support and explicitly cannot communicate.
@Glenn He might just have authorization to do so with the ship down? SF may have ordered him to go, and during a scan (isn't that what happened?) whomp, they got shut down. He saw Disco near and in the absence of a higher authority, he was senior person in the area and at liberty to take command (isn't that what the one statute said?) When they got back and ENT still out of commission SF said, take temporary command of the Disco until you solve this. Anyhow that is my take.
@Karen Chuplis I think what Kev is pointing to is that Pike says Starfleet told him to take command of Discovery as soon as he beamed over, and the question is how Starfleet told him that if their communications are down. Indeed, he even says that he communicated back to Starfleet his desire to inform the Discovery crew himself. It's a small thing and probably just a writing oversight, but it was part of what made me immediately suspicious of him.