The Greatest Generation - Welcome to The Greatest Discovery (Bonus Episode)

Episode Date: October 7, 2017

The Greatest Discovery Episode 1: Oopsie-Daisy Murder When a precursor to the Argus Array gets a hole poked in it, the Federation sends its B-team: the USS SHEzhou. But when executive officer Michael Burnham pokes a hole in a nearby Klingon, the situation escalates quickly. Is Sarek the only Vulcan teacher? Has Georgiou given Burnham too much latitude? Is Saru the COB of this episode? It’s the episode that lights a beacon that can be seen across the galaxy.

Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Hey, this is Ben. And this is Adam. And we are getting on the horn here to tell you about our brand new show, The Greatest Discovery. It is a show that we are extremely proud of. And we thought we would put this into the greatest gen feed as a way to share it with you.

There are already three episodes because there are three episodes of Star Trek Discovery. We're trying to get these out the Tuesday after new episodes of Discovery. And we're having a lot of fun watching Discovery and reviewing it. And the show has really caught on. It's been in the top 10 of Apple Podcasts TV and film shows for the last week or two. So, it's been really exciting. And we thought we'd just stick this in the greatest gen feed so that you can try it

before you go to the greatest Discovery and subscribe there. So if you haven't seen the first episode of Star Trek Discovery, spoilers are ahead. You probably shouldn't listen to what's to come. And instead watch Star Trek Discovery, if you're interested, I personally think that it is a lot of fun.

So here's that. If you don't watch the show and aren't interested, you can just skip this app. And we'll be back at you with our normal Monday episode on Monday, but yeah, enjoy! The latest All right, come on The latest All right, come on Get out of my chair We have engaged The Kronons

Welcome to the greatest discovery It's a Star Trek discovery Podcast by the makers of the greatest generation I'm Adam Pranica I'm Ben Harrison Ben is season one episode one of a brand new show for us. See if we've got another bullet in this Star Trek gun, huh? Yeah, it's also the first time Star Trek has been a TV show in like more than a decade,

which is really exciting. It's weird that it has been gone for so long. I mean, because it feels ever present at the same time. It's always there. You can watch it at any point. It's the beauty and benefit of streaming media right now. But it's nice to have new Star Trek again. I've heard some people say that this show doesn't jazz them, at least what they've seen so far, but they want to. Thanks for saying that also, anyone who said that. Ha ha ha ha.

Well, I'm not saying our show, I'm saying the show, Star Trek Discovery. Yeah. But they want to pay the money to get the show, more to show that there is a market for Star Trek stuff than anything else. Just an interesting tag to take. I mean, I don't necessarily disagree with it,

but you got to do something pretty exciting here, didn't you? Yeah, I did. Real briefly, I wanted to talk about being invited to the premiere night party, which was at the amazing Arc Light Theater in Hollywood. My favorite place in LA to see a movie, in the dome. Yeah, you kind of saw a movie there, didn't you? Yeah, a friend of the podcast, Ben Fritz,

email Destiny's Like, hey, I have a plus one. Do you want to fight over this broken pool queue? And see which one of you wants to come with me? Yeah. And I, having stabbed a piece of that queue through your chest as you were moving decided that I would take the plus one. Yeah. And I did.

That's just the kind of crazy you are, Adam. It was so much fun, Ben. I mean, it was all the Hollywood finery that you would expect for a movie. And the presentation was entirely movie-like. Seeing something in that dome is is a almost cinemascope experience in there. And I mean, between the blue carpet walk-ins of your Star Trek celebrities,

I mean, Bill Shatner sat two rows behind me. Basically, everyone who has ever been in Star Trek was there except Patrick Stewart, George DeKay and Walter K. Nick, I think. Wow. I would not want to have Schattener on my six personally. Yeah. Yeah. But like I got to tell you, it was a real thrill that, you know, there was an MC there. He was, he was from the Entertainment's Night Program and he introduced all the producers, the many producers and cast members of the show.

Producers almost outnumbering the cast here. And then he gestured to the audience and said anyone who's ever been involved in Star Trek at all, you know, stand up and receive a round of applause. And everyone from all of the shows appeared. It was amazing and magical to be in the room with all these people I've grown up watching. It was great.

There was a definite through-lime, both from the MC and from the producers, that their duty was to protect Star Trek and to honor it and to respect it. And that made me nervous, TBH, because that sounded like the sort of genuine reflecting of a person who may be representing a point of view that they don't feel strongly about. You know, like I think protection and honor of the past is a very easy thing to make your own,

but making something new is comparatively harder. So that tone was an interesting one to take in the beginning. There was a really fun slash campy no spoilers pre-roll with the actor who played Seric speaking directly to camera talking about how important it was that you know members of the gathered press there were not to share spoilers on Twitter or anywhere else they felt like doing so. And then he kind of looked camera right and in the theater were two fully loved new klingons complete with weaponry like ready to punish those who would who would dare to spoil so like that was a fun way to kick off

what was to come and what was to come was what I thought a really great start to a brand new Star Trek television series. It's season one, episode one, of Star Trek Discovery, a Vulcan Hello. So this episode starts with a like zooming out from Cosmos, which is revealed to be the inside of the eye of a Klingon. This set with Tukuvma speech is really the only Klingon set we get in the first episode. It's, I guess, the bridge of his ship. It's sort of both bridge and religious temple kind of space. Yeah.

You know what it kind of reminds me of is those bad guys in the chronicles of Riddick, the kind of like death toll of the stars. The Klingon religion has been given a ton of dimension, like in the opening instance of this episode that we've never seen before. Sure. And the idea of the entire thing starting with an eye being opened is underscoring this idea, like they're waking up. That's our first little moment, and then we smash cut to the surface of a desert world,

and we're getting real like final mission Wesley and Picard vibes with the two characters walking across this desert. It's the captain of the Shinzo, Captain Georgeo, and her first officer, Michael Burnham, and they're there to get a well going again And they're there to get a well going again after some like, what is like orbital drilling caused like a radiation spike to dry out the well of this primitive species. And they're kind of doing like a stealth mission like they're going undercover to start this well back up

so that the species doesn't die, but avoiding making contact. So it's not to cause a prime directive violation. Just not really how my understanding of the prime directive works. But it's fun to see some like weird aliens, you know? Some weird primitive aliens. When everything starts with a well or something that looks like this, I get real, there will

be blood vibes. All throughout this scene, there's some little crawly guys sort of following their path. The inhabitants of this planet, it seems unclear how intelligent they might be, or if they're just scary alien types. They seem to have clothes which bespeak some intelligence, I guess, and we get a nice close up of some tentically fingers. I think that's, isn't that correct me in my terminology, but like you know something is life if it can reproduce, if it can consume, if it can clothe itself and if it drinks water, right?

Yeah, yes, all life must clothe itself. It's just good science, Adam. And then they leave. And the clouds overhead are very ominous. It's the storm clouds of the beginning of a story. It was a dark and stormy night. And the captain and her number one are attempting to get to clear skies so that the ship that they're waiting for can pick them up and Commander Burnham is concerned that they're not going to be able to get away from the storm fast enough because it's going faster than she can. And we get some kind of interesting character notes from her.

Like she kind of, she kind of like data or C3PO's her estimates, you know, she gives like two or three, two many degrees of precision on everything. And she kind of talks Vulcan, but she's not Vulcan. Yeah, you can tell that they are close for a captain and a first officer. And the shorthand that the captain uses for the first officer is calling our number one in a pretty cute callback almost as cute as the as the Star Trek logo written in the sand that they have unwittingly done. This moment didn't work for me. It's done because both it is an insane idea that makes no sense given there's a bunch of wind whipping around

and they're walking in sand and they're making a starfleet insignia in the sand. Like, yeah, like this is a life-threatening situation for them and they're like, it's like being caught in a blizzard and like stopping to make snow angels or something. But it also kind of confounds a thing that they're trying to establish about the character of Commander Burnham,

which is that she is an education in a smart in a way that many humans are not. And I feel like a data would have picked up on the shape that they were drawing in the sand, you know? So her inability to recognize what they've done does not give as much credibility as she should have for her intelligence. Yeah, and it's like she does a big difference.

She never sees it, so it's only for our benefit. Right. It's the kind of thing that you have to get out of the way in the premiere episode, though, you know. God, it's so true. This made me so nervous that like this was the throw to theme song and open. I was nervous too.

Because like the acting and the dialogue are not that good in this scene. I wonder how thoughtfully they approached how this scene was shot because a lot of it's wide. There's a lot of intercutting of aerial work. I wonder how much of the dialogue they had written for scratch, and then just figured they would loop in something better later. What? What? What's happening?

What? No! It's always. I'm trying to save you. What is this? Ben, what do you think of the opening? Oh, you mean the title sequence. The title sequence, the theme song, the sort of blueprint vibe to the whole thing?

I'm for it. Honestly, I still get the goose bumps when they'll do the space, the final frontier thing. And one of the things that is my biggest hates about the JJ Abrams reboots is that they make that the like, the like, hypocritocratic oath of captains or something. Which is just like an insanely stupid piece of writing. But I do kind of wish we got it.

I feel like the series that choose not to have that really set a tone that is different from the ones that choose to have it. Yeah, that's fair. So I am expecting this to be more in the tradition of your deep space nine than your next generations. I liked it. I liked the music of it, and I liked the music throughout the episode as well. Super cinematic sounding. It's very aesthetically pleasing the graphics and stuff. So we cut to the bridge of the USS Shenzhou, Captain George O's ship, and we do a lot of camera flies through windows and and deflect your fields and stuff in this in this episode. We're establishing a bunch of things. We've got a communications beacon that has been damaged by an unknown force. We've

got a bunch of characters on the bridge. We've got a lot of shop talk. Not a lot of time is spent introducing these characters. I mean, we've got maybe a little bit of time spent introducing our weird Lofi science officer. Yeah. But yeah, you're really right about this, Ben. Like everyone besides Lofi science officer, the captain and the magril, are real afterthoughts. They're real supporting cast and by that I mean like deep in support. They're just shot in as people looking at each other while the action happens.

It's, I mean I understand why they they're doing that because this is not the ship that we're going to live on for the rest of the series. But it very much struck me that this is the first episode of a television show and they are not going to the pains that so many opening episodes of television shows go to to introduce characters and like one thing about them, you know, like they are not going around the circle getting everybody's name and like, you know, showing data trying to whistle and failing. Seth McFarland isn't doing the roll call. Ha ha ha. I felt like that was a very strong choice. I like that too because it keeps the attention on the story. It does not stop the story in order to do that. And in that way, it's sufficient.

Yeah, so the one character we do get to know is Lieutenant Saru, who is kind of like a silly putty accident of a character. He looks like silly putty that has been a rolled in the comics and then turned into a face. Yeah, like rolled in the comics and then just stretched over a normal man's face. He is like the one character trait that he is established with is being super skittish

about all things. But they're really curious about this beacon and the only thing that they can think of in the neighborhood that might have caused it is like undetectable on their sensors. Like they keep like zooming in on this spot on their screen and it's just blurred out. Kind of looks like the predator in the forest

when sports, Nicarolas, guys, are like holding still, looking, trying to see if it's out there. Like it just doesn't look right. Yeah, yeah, Commander Burnham keeps going, come on! I really like the relationship between Saru and Michael here. Like there's professional respect, but there's also professional antagonism between them. She has 180 degrees in the other direction from him

style wise and she's like, let's fucking put on some spaces suits and go check it out. And he's like saying all the reasons that's a terrible idea. The captain does like a classic captain thing. It's like, you think it's a terrible idea? You go with her. And he totally talks the captain out of it. And so out Michael goes in a space suit.

And Adam, I don't know how you feel about space suits in Star Trek. We get so few of them. I love it when a space suit gets whipped out. Yeah, due to. And this space suit seems really unique for Star Trek space suits. It's like all of the form fitment of a first contact space suit, but with that giant backpack shuttle that, you know, and almost modern space suit would have. Right. It is bulky.

It does not look easy. And it's got a really neat heads up display on that giant glass panel, a profoundly dangerously large glass panel near her face. The spacewalk does not go super great. She's going like full throttle through this asteroid field and she's having a blast. But as she gets closer to the thing that they are only able to see through a telescope,

she kind of fades out of their ability to stay in contact with her. Like they lose telemetry from the suit. And she shows up on this thing and it's like old. It's like an old artifact in space, like a huge carved stone object. This really gooses the tension too, because she's also on a countdown timer

for being out there. Like there's a dangerous amount of radiation in the area where she's going. She's got 18 minutes to do with air and back. And when they lose contact with her, they are really clock watching to see if she can make it home because once they lose contact, they have no idea if she will. She is standing on the top of this thing. She's looking at that clock, trying to maximize the amount

of exploration she can do before she has to head home. And a shadow falls across the part of the object she's standing on to hooks up. And there's the scariest Klingon. I don't think we've ever seen a Klingon space suit before, but this thing is great. This is some of my favorite cost costume I've ever seen in Trek. Yeah, Worph's Klingon Space Suit

in first contact doesn't count. No, that's just a Federation Space Suit with an extra big helmet to accommodate his loaf. Yeah, this guy is profoundly scary and they do that horror film technique where they let Michael drag the frame into him. And so his, when the Klingon is revealed, it is a surprise. film technique where they let Michael drag the frame into him. And so when the Klingon is revealed, it is a surprise.

It's almost like a jump surprise. Yeah, it's a good little shock. And the suit is really scary. And this Klingon is like holding a batlet, which has been redesigned to look significantly less like a piece of plywood that has been spray-painted silver. But she like hits the thrusters and on the batlet goes right through the skyline. Like, you'd think of this this click on spacesuit would be a little bit better armored than than it is.

Yeah, that's an interesting point. She really oopsie daisy murders him. It's the kind of murder that my wife might have like had to be involved with when she was a product liability lawyer, like the company that made the space suit warranted that it was Batleth proof. And we have pretty good footage of a batleth going right through it and killing this guy. So the family of the fallen warrior is suing for compensatory damages. What really accelerates the tension here after this action sequence is that you have a number

of things being gathered into this point of focus. The idea that there's something out there that the ship doesn't recognize a possibly dead Michael floating out in space and a ship that doesn't know what to do. We have engaged the commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. The commands. No, to clean up. The hell is going on in this shit? What is this? So Michael has a dream, and this is about halfway through the episode. And her dream is about growing up on Vulcan. This is how the episode tells us about how she had a traumatic childhood experience

where Klingon's killed her whole family. Because the, like growing up as a child on Vulcan is depicted in the last decade, exclusively by showing children taking tests. And the test really wants to ask her questions about Klingon's killing her family. Really, really kind of unfair. But like if your test is supposed to grind you down emotionally if that's one of its functions, then it's doing its job.

The other thing that's revealed in this dream is that Cerec is the daddy figure for Michael Burnham, which is a pretty adventurous piece of writing. Is he the only teacher in this Vulcan school? Because I thought the same thing, this was another effort to be a little cute, right? There could be other teachers. We could make another character here. And it's not like Vulcans are that varied in their affect, too. Like it literally could be any Vulcans, but this is all

about like tying it into the tapestry of the franchise, I think. Yeah. She wakes up in in the solar bombardment tube that they make lilu in in the fifth element, and they're not quite done putting her skin back on. And she hops up in her toilet paper bikini and runs up to the bridge and says, there's klingons out there. We gotta go to Red Alert. This is fucking bullshit.

And it's not a good look for her. Really, like, she storms the bridge all bloody and crazy, I totally get the captain and the bridge crews reaction to her. It's amazing, right? Because like, they say that they picked her up three hours ago. She's been getting stitched back together for three hours. And they are still up on the bridge, like in the total same mode that they were in before she did her space walk. Like, all right, well, let's like do a little bit more scanning. What do you guys

say? Maybe that lady with a computer for a head can do some scanning. She seems like she would be good at that. What this does establish is the relationship between Michael and Georgeau again, which is Michael has the latitude to step to the captain and she does here and she does it repeatedly. The captain maybe has given too much latitude. Like this is like if you think about like the captain first officer relationships we've seen depicted over the course of Star Trek. This is probably the loosest that I can think of. But as she is like stamping her foot and telling everybody to prepare for set tripping,

some Klingon's decalook off the bow of the ship. And they are like right off the bow of the ship and they are like right off the bow. There's one thing I noticed about this, I wanted to ask you about is the Klingon ships are always like really, really close to the Federation ships when they're nose to nose. It's a real power move. Yeah, pretty intense. What did you think about Shiniko Martin Green's performance in this episode? I sort of thought that she really A Blinkens it with her ex-boyfriend,

with how she talks to other people. It's very beautiful and pre-thought in a way that doesn't sound like anyone else that she's talking to, but it also sounds really cute in a way that sort of took me out of her message and made it about the messenger. Some of the time it feels like her dialogue is written for the trailer.

Yeah, yeah, I could see that too. What are things we could clip from this and then put into that 30 seconds? I'm really interested to see how this character develops because like there were parts of it that really charmed me like when she does a captain's logger, first officer's logger, I guess it is. It's more descriptive of context and feeling

than we have almost ever gotten. It's more interesting than we've almost ever gotten. But it's also very weird. Yeah. I mean, especially because she's a human who grew up in a Vulcan culture. There is so much humanity about her from, from a how she steps to the captain. Like, it's weird that the one enduring Vulcan thing about her is her manner of speech. You have to be with someone who knows about how I'm trying to spot her.

Who are you? You little counterfeit those Klingons? Let's talk about what's going on with these Klingons, Adam. The like dude that she killed gets wrapped up and mummified and then put in a sarcophagus and I guess like a fix through the outside of the ship and it's revealed that there are just tons of sarcophagi all over this Klingon ship.

I really like this concept. This felt very spider-like to me. You know? Yeah. It happened up a dead guy and then sticking him in the web, and I thought the ship looked fairly web like, too, in its configuration. Were you surprised at for a pilot episode at how much subtitling there was throughout? I admired that.

Like, I'm glad they didn't just go straight dub. Yeah. But that was an interesting choice to me if what you're trying to go for is the maximum amount of viewers. It's a pretty interesting and a pretty like modern choice, I think. And I liked it. So the other thing, like Takufma reveals in speaking to Takuvma reveals in speaking to his assembled followers that he's looking to replace the guy that got killed who had the title of Torchbearer. The guy that was like next in line does not bear out W slash R slash T honorability. And a voice from the back of the room rings out and and a and albino Klingon presents himself his name is Voke and he would like to would like to take the

job. I don't know how if you're him how you even get on that ship. And this is one of the things that I wish there was even a little more backstory too, because this ship is clearly super important. It may even be, you know, religious in nature. I kind of felt like the thing are setting up is that Tegoufmou is like almost a cultist. He's almost like a, he's the El he's the Elrond Hubbard of the

Klingon Empire. And his goal is to unite the House of War. I was thinking David Kuresh, but that's fine. Sure. I use whatever cult figure that works for you is what I would recommend to the viewer here. Well, he's trying to, he's trying to, you know, unite the, he's the Jim Jones of the Klingon Empire. Looking to unite the houses,

but like, doesn't have any cred at this point. Like, he's kind of, he's kind of long-shotting his rise to the top. He's kind of shooting a moon here. And I, like, my head cannon on why Vogue could get on that ship is that like in the process of amassing followers, like cult leaders tend to get people who are on the margins who are looking for something that normal society can't provide them. Yeah, I mean this guy's, this guy's fucking dragging him up around on Kronos.

He wants to do something better. And if this guy gives him a chance, then he's gonna get on the weird spider ship. I mean, this is also like a lot of talking about K-Less and how the houses have been warring, but everybody should be united under allegiance to K-LLS and sort of where we're at with these Klingons. Boy are they going to be bummed when they find out what happens to KLS in 150 years or so.

God. Everything on the Shenzhou has been sort of paused at this point, right? They're staring out at this ship in front of them. They're kind of waiting for further instructions. They don't feel necessarily empowered to do anything on their own. Like, this is clearly not the flagship of the Federation. I think that's important.

Right. So yeah, and when they discuss the situation with hollow Admiral Anderson, like, not only is the captain kind of getting the third degree, but like Michael Burnham comes in, she's got like very strong opinions about what the right course of action is here, and she's not afraid to voice them to the admiral. In what kind of situation is the admiral that he can see Michael and Captain George Joe?

Like, there is a counter scene to this where he's in a room. He's in a room. And so, as soon as someone walks into the same room as George O, it's interesting to think about that projection capturing something else and transmitting it over. How much of this room gets sent to where the admiral is? Where's the Xbox sensor that is picking all this stuff up? Right. But the point she's making is that the Klingons

are here looking to pick a fight. They shot this communication beacon to draw somebody from the Federation out so they could pick a fight. Pretty classic Federation fight picking move too. A lot of next-gen stories start this way The other hollow hollow call we see in this episode is when she blows a call into Seric, who this maybe is even more confounding

from a how does this holographic conference call technology work? Because Seric goes and sits on the edge of her desk at some point. So it's like, is Seric in a room that is identically configured to her state room on the USS Shinjo? That would be super logical. He tells her about how the Vulcans established peaceful relations with the Klingons. And he does it in the most dramatic way, which is, all right, I'm gonna tell you. And then Smash got to her running on the bridge saying,

we've got to shoot the Klingons. When you're trying to convince a superior officer to do something crazy, form a cogent argument around the thing that you're advocating for, when what you're advocating for is shooting the ship that's got sarcophagi all over its hull. That's like her humanity, right?

Like if she were more Vulcan, I think her reasoning would have made more sense at the time. The logic behind it is that the Klingons only respect people that pick fights, and if you pick a fight every time they will respect you. But by the time she's like, like, laid this all out, the captain has basically decided, like, you are not in great shape

and not exactly respecting the chain of command. So I don't, two of us go to my office and talk this over and like, see if we can't cool off. And Commander Burnham is like, yeah, cool. And they go back to the office and she's like, okay, I'm really hearing you. I was totally out of line. Anyways, oh, what's that on your shirt? And Volcanic Pinch.

She does not do that thing that many Vulcans do when they neckpitch someone is to sort of like the pinch happens and then they sort of ride them down to the ground. Michelle, yo, just kind of drops here. It's super fucked. I had to rewind it because when I watched the episode, I looked down, I was like writing a note when it happened and I looked up and I was like, where'd the captain go?

One other thing that's happened during this scene that I think is important to know is that the Klingons have lit the beacon, which has sent out a blinding light everywhere, like everywhere in the galaxy, and it is served to send its location back to other clingsons. It's also served to make lens flares happen on the bridge on the regular. So every shot on the bridge from here on out has been flared. Yeah, and the view screen is like all white. So everybody is totally washed out.

And Commander Burnham, like, like stretch back onto the bridge, starts giving orders to prepare attacks. And Lieutenant Saru is like, hey, like, we heard the first half of the argument that then you went and sorted it out in there. So we're kind of all under the impression that the captain is not crazy about that idea. And she's like about to give the order.

She gives the order to fire, in fact. And the captain walks back out, dustbuster in hand, and tells the tactical officer to play that order. And... tells the tactical officer to belay that order. And it's a rou the cob of this scene during this mutinous conflict. Yeah, she yells, weps, belay that order, cob. Take Amanda Burnham into the brig. And the episode ends with Captain like holding pistol to her first officer

as 24 Klingon ships warp into the sector. Everybody on the bridge shits themselves basically. This is a cliffhanger that I didn't get to experience at the premiere. This was shown in one unbroken 90 minute episode. We have been waiting for someone worth a mile attention. Your time is too human. I am programmed in multiple techniques. Your time is too human. A broad variety of pleasureing.

Ah, what's happening? What is going on? I'm getting very close to. I sense it coming. Now, this is CBS trying to push people to their app, right? Like they're... It had to be a cliffhanger. This is the best of both worlds fire moment

of this season of this show. I kind of... That brings up an interesting question, Ben, as the one of the two of us that actually used the app to watch the show, how did you find that experience? I kind of feel like it was a marketing mistake to call these episode one and episode two. I think that this should have been called one episode and they should have said we're going to show the second half on our app.

The unfortunate thing is that the reason is so cynical for breaking it up the way they did and that doesn't feel good. Yeah, it's too bad. Did you like the episode Adam? I still really only think about this as one contiguous piece. And so, like, rather than just withhold judgment, I will say, yeah, I did. I really did. It's really impressive and it looks so expensive. It looks like a film.

It sounds like a film. Everything is cinematic about it. Yeah. I'm curious to watch this on TV again and see if it's, if it's bigness is lost in that sort of translation, because it's so, it played so big in the theater. What about you? I think, you know, like I had real misgivings

when it started, and I think that there are some things that I don't love about it. I don't love the kind of license that they constantly take with redesigning all the aliens and going like, oh yeah, now there's another founding member of the Federation, silly putty guy. Like, you know, like the retconning of species, I don't love that it takes place in the kind of TOS era. I wish they had set this, the post-voiager future. But all that said, the main character is a super interesting character who is a very

Star Trek character, I feel. She is torn between two worlds, and I feel like that is some of the most interesting characters we've ever had. I mean, Spock and data and Worf and the list goes on. Like all of these characters that kind of ballonatoras, like that kind of are trying to figure out their place in a world that they're not 100% one thing or another are great. And Star Trek is a great universe to explore those themes. And I will say, when I turned off the broadcast to go into the app

to try and find the second episode, I was left thinking, like, how is this going to be a science fiction show and not an action show? Yeah, that point is crucial as well as the others. I mean, I'm trying really hard not to grade it against what I wish it was in terms of what time period it exists and instead like judge it for the choices that it is making versus the ones that I wish it had made. It is, it's making strong choices and is, you know, like,

part of what makes Trek bad is the equivocation that it does, when Trek is bad, it does not fully believe in the story that it's telling and it's all melee and this is super confident in a way that gives me hope for the rest of the series. And I think that the costume design and the set design and the casting are all strong and cool and new feeling. The casting is an element that is just as cinematic as anything else.

Like these are strong actors. I wanted to talk about the camera work a little bit. This is a much more cinematic kind of camera work than we have had. I mean, even on Enterprise, which was a more modern looking show. And I wonder if the like Dutch angles that they always go to, especially on the bridge, you know, the camera is always kind of tilted. I wonder if that is because this is not our ship. Like our ship, we haven't met our ship yet.

That's interesting. Ben, I just have one question. What's that at them? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda! Oh, we're doing that. Well, for those of you who are tuning in

that are not friends of DeSoto yet, one thing we do on the greatest generation, our other show, is we find character that is having the most fun or doing something in Congress that just seems real weird, and it's based on the character of Jim Shimoda from episode two of Star Trek the Next Generation, who makes a jenga set out of visalinear chips. My Shimoda for this episode is Commander Burnham for the the Heaven of Blast spacewalk, like before she bumps into Darth Klingon on the object, she's like totally hot rotting through that asteroid field and people on the bridge going like, oh, her heart rate is elevated,

she must be having fun. I'm so glad they didn't start trek up the music of that moment and do Magic Carpet Ride or whatever old classic rock song that they felt like throwing in there. Thank you so much for the restraint on that one. That was appreciated. Did you have a drunk Shemou Adam? Yeah, mine was going to go to her counterpoint, Captain George Howe.

That scene in the cold open was the most Shemou to me, the walking around, making the Federation symbol in the sand. Really for no other reason than because it was fun and cute was was really like a crazy decision by her especially at a life-threatening moment. So I'm gonna give mine a her. We have engaged the Cranons. Cranons, Cranons, go to Klingons.

Ben, what do we have coming up on the next episode of our brand new Star Trek series? The next episode of Star Trek Discovery is season one, episode two, battle at the binary stars. Face to face with Klingon Vessels, the USS Shenzhou prepares for the possibility of war if negotiations fail. Amidst the turmoil, Burnham looks back to her vulcan upbringing for guidance. Do you remember this episode, Adam? I do, I just saw it last week.

Really racking up the tension with those primary school callbacks. Well, that'll be our next episode. We don't have priority one messages on this episode, but we will have those available by the time we record episode three. So if you would like to send a message to a loved one or promote your company or product or something, those will be on sale on maximumfund.org slash jumbo-tron. So go take a look. The greatest discovery is a maximumfund.org podcast, hosted by Adam Pranaka and Benjamin R. Harrison, produced and edited by Rob Schulte, music by Adam Rukusia.

You can find Adam Pranaka on Twitter at Cut for Time, or you can find Benjamin Harris on Twitter at Benjamin AHR. Make sure to use the hashtag GreatestGin. You can continue the conversation over at the Facebook group and page, or at the GreatestGin subreddit. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in, music playing in background, music playing in, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone Listener Supported