Just watched both episodes. My feelings are mixed. It got more engaging as it went along. So, a few things:
- The reason it got more engaging as it went along is that the quippy raport dialogue fell of significantly as the situation got more serious. The dialogue in the first 20 minutes or so of episode 1 is pretty much atrocious.
- This isn't helped by the fact Michelle Yeoh couldn't pull it off at all - even native english speaking actors have their work cut out for them trying to make dialogue like that work, I don't know why shows just drop foreign actors into these characters and have them talk like they grew up internalising everything Joss Whedon's ever written.
- Michael is reasonably interesting. The actress is a liiittle wobbly but she mostly pulled it off. I didn't mind the tall alien science officer either - he's a complete Star Trek archetype but they didn't over do it so that he became annoying, which this character almost always is.
- It's corny, but Star Trek has never not been corny. It's just that this is corny in a way that doesn't feel original, it is corny because it's derivative. Star Trek's always been this awkward, stilted kind of thing and this still is but it's trying really hard not to be and I laughed at a few moments that were supposed to be dramatic or exciting.
- My interest is about exactly where it was before the show started. I'm glad Michelle Yeoh's character won't be the main captain, she can't pull it off, although she was 'fine'. Curious to see what the crew of the Discovery itself will be like. I'm not expecting much out of the writing at this point but who knows, it could surprise me.
- I don't know why we need to do Klingons again, but they had a good try at making them interesting and just about got there, for as good as it does. I'm kind of bummed the uh, T'Kulva? guy died because he was providing some nuance to the Klingon side. Hopefully, if the Klingons are going to be a huge part of the season, more actual Klingon characters are introduced.
- Is there anything on why she is called Michael? Why a human male name, and not either a human female/unisex name or even a Vulcan name? It doesn't really matter, but it's a weird choice in a show that hasn't made any other weird choices so far.
- Did not like the constant tilted angles. They could cool it with that, it makes it hard to get a sense of what's going on. I don't know if the continuity actually was on the sloppy side or if the angles were throwing me off, but it felt messy.