Saturday, February 17, 2018

The Vulcan Hello

** 2 stars out of 5

Meet T'Kuvma, flashpoint of Internet troll rage. And so, Meet the Klingons. (Deploy heavy sighs.) Elaborate, baroque samurai lobster costumes, combined with trying to read subtitles printed across them and you'll be hard pressed not to make terrible cursing sounds too. The stilted, gargling speeches through big pointy teeth (for some reason also made slower & deeper by computers) will remind you you're losing hours of your life you'll never get back. And the new make-up. If you thought the 'Into Darkness' Klingons went too far with their piercings and weird contact lenses, let's see what further mutations have to offer. Pointy ears? Why not. Four nostrils? Watermelon size skulls & velociraptor claws? Yeah, that'll be off-putting. When the motive behind the changes is revealed around episode 9- believe me, it wasn't worth it. Since you insisted, there's a picture of one in the middle panel:



If you're just champing at the bit to make sweeping design changes, why not just call your new beast-men a new name, or call them an existing race we never saw? (Still a chance in season 2 to tell us these Klingons were Tzenkethi pretenders all along?)

And now, Minute Two. Remember how happy everyone was to learn during the much-beloved Star Trek V that Spock has a secret brother? Meet Michael Burnham- secret sister! She estimates storm arrival to the second but can't recognize what geometric pattern she's walking in. Her Starfleet calls somebody they haven't first contacted "Crepusculans", thank you very much. (Of course, the locals call humanoids "Stink Monkeys" so it evens out.)

Meet Captain Philippa "It's Hard to Believe You've Served Under Me For 7 Years" Georgiou. She's fun. Meet Saru "Give Forever Fishman a big hand to go with his big shoes" The Cowardly Celpian. Meet Keyla "Blink And You'll Miss Her" Detmer and the Cannon Fodders... uh, Shenzhou bridge crew. Meet a Klingon Torchbearer- a straw man with the worst bat'leth design in recorded history. Meet Voq & L'Rell- (the pale one and the girl one).

My niece points out what this oblivious cis male missed: in a crisis the captain and first officer each call white males to help them.

Their force ghost "fathers" (I still have a hard time swallowing the presence of holograms in this "prequel") give them opposite advice and start a fight between them. It's a good thing Vulcan logic can come to any conclusion. Meet Sarek, the Vulcan Ambassador whose horrible advice exacerbates Michael Burnham's mental breakdown.

Star Trek is back. Sorry.

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