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Star Trek: Discovery
S1.E1
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IMDbPro

The Vulcan Hello

  • Episode aired Sep 24, 2017
  • TV-14
  • 42m
IMDb RATING
7.2/10
8.3K
YOUR RATING
Michelle Yeoh and Sonequa Martin-Green in Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
ActionAdventureDramaSci-Fi

While patrolling Federation space, the U.S.S. Shenzhou encounters an object of unknown origin, putting First Officer Michael Burnham to her greatest test yet.While patrolling Federation space, the U.S.S. Shenzhou encounters an object of unknown origin, putting First Officer Michael Burnham to her greatest test yet.While patrolling Federation space, the U.S.S. Shenzhou encounters an object of unknown origin, putting First Officer Michael Burnham to her greatest test yet.

  • Director
    • David Semel
  • Writers
    • Gene Roddenberry
    • Bryan Fuller
    • Alex Kurtzman
  • Stars
    • Sonequa Martin-Green
    • Doug Jones
    • Shazad Latif
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.2/10
    8.3K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • David Semel
    • Writers
      • Gene Roddenberry
      • Bryan Fuller
      • Alex Kurtzman
    • Stars
      • Sonequa Martin-Green
      • Doug Jones
      • Shazad Latif
    • 55User reviews
    • 53Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Photos48

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    Top cast26

    Edit
    Sonequa Martin-Green
    Sonequa Martin-Green
    • Michael Burnham
    Doug Jones
    Doug Jones
    • Saru
    Shazad Latif
    Shazad Latif
    • Ash Tyler
    • (as Javid Iqbal)
    • (credit only)
    • …
    Anthony Rapp
    Anthony Rapp
    • Paul Stamets
    • (credit only)
    Mary Wiseman
    Mary Wiseman
    • Sylvia Tilly
    • (credit only)
    Jason Isaacs
    Jason Isaacs
    • Captain Gabriel Lorca
    • (credit only)
    Michelle Yeoh
    Michelle Yeoh
    • Georgiou
    Mary Chieffo
    Mary Chieffo
    • L'Rell
    James Frain
    James Frain
    • Sarek
    Chris Obi
    Chris Obi
    • T'Kuvma
    Maulik Pancholy
    Maulik Pancholy
    • Dr. Anton Nambue
    Terry Serpico
    Terry Serpico
    • Brett Anderson
    Sam Vartholomeos
    Sam Vartholomeos
    • Danby Connor
    Arista Arhin
    Arista Arhin
    • Young Michael Burnham
    Emily Coutts
    Emily Coutts
    • Keyla Detmer
    Justin Howell
    Justin Howell
    • Torchbearer…
    Ali Momen
    Ali Momen
    • Kamran Gant
    Bonnie Morgan
    Bonnie Morgan
    • Crepuscula
    • Director
      • David Semel
    • Writers
      • Gene Roddenberry
      • Bryan Fuller
      • Alex Kurtzman
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews55

    7.28.3K
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    Featured reviews

    sophiamaxx

    Wonderfully amazingly superb

    I absolutely love Star Trek Discovery, yes things may have changed, ideas updated, modernised, but it is all so exciting and uplifting especially in this present time so I keep going back to re watch. I am a serious trekkie, have been all my life, this new take is refreshing and awe inspiring, it feels like family right from the start and I am totally addicted and cannot wait for the new season.
    10XweAponX

    I take these two Eps as a Pilot Ep.

    They should have been One Ep anyway, not broken up into two. Because its basically setting up who is to be a Main Character, a girl raised by Sarek, and her unusual outlook on things. So it all happens on a ship that's not discovery, with a bean counting Captain whose religious adherence to the Prime Directive ends up starting a war.

    These Klingons are Klingons. When One of them Dies, they all do the Klingon Death Ritual which Worf demonstrated in "Heart of Glory".

    And these Klingons may look slightly different, but they are Klingons. Just missing some hair and a bit meaner looking.

    The Story is what makes this Trek. It's not just the gadgets or the ships, or the aliens, it's the social commentary.

    Imagine, a White Klingon. Who has no Family Name. Imagine an androgynous person who was raised by Sarek to think critically? These are very relevant things, relevant to us. In all of these years, nobody ever considered that Klingons also have Races.

    The Klingons here, react as to "The Other", as "Us vs Them", in fear of losing their culture. Because Michael, our main character, happened to accidentally kill their Torchbearer.

    That's another concept, "The Light of Kahless", it's as if this is something Holy to the Klingons, and Michael inadvertently contaminated it. It's like one of us, touching a Muslim's Quran. We can't make any progress until we start respecting other people's belief systems, and that includes Atheism as well as our 3 world religions and the many others.

    That's what Trek really IS, it's not how their Communicators and Tricorders look, or how their uniforms look, or how their ships look. It's all about a different way of thinking. And that was why Michael failed to convince her Captain to dole out the Vulcan Hello, because The Prime Directive was being treated as an Absolute.
    4newpapyrus

    Unwatchable

    Sorry but this first episode of the new Star Trek series was absolutely unwatchable. As bad as the J. J. Abrams Star Trek universe already is on the big screen, this episode was like J. J. Abrams on steroids:-) Star Trek is an intellectual chess game-- not a shoot em up action series.

    And to make matters worse, the main character (Sonequa Martin-Green) won't stop talking-- ever!!! And no military, on Earth or in space, would ever run a crew like this.

    The producers of this series act as if they're totally unaware of the new age of quality science fiction and fantasy television and its style: Syfy's Battle Star Galactica, Game of Thrones, Westworld, Humans, the Man in the High Castle, The Walking Dead, the Handmaid's Tale.

    They really need to end this mess and start all over, IMO.
    4RyanWinter100

    OOO Destruct O

    What an intergalactic mess, Please make it not so.

    I am a devotee to Star Trek. I love it, I've watched every episode from each production many times over.

    During those decades of watching, you build an affinity to the theme and vision of the overall story, the structure, the characters, the forward movement—to boldly go where you haven't gone before. So why in the heck, has Star Trek put on the brakes of going forward and has started going backward with the wonderful universe they have created.

    The TV show Enterprise, the three new movies and now Star Trek Discovery, all have gone backward in time. And all lack the freshness, the adventure, the unknown of the other shows.

    Can you imagine if lived was like that?

    My family had the old black wall wired phone when I was going up. We graduated to a modular phone with color, then wireless phones, cells and now smart phones. Would anybody like to back to those old obsolete phones?

    So, why is a sci-f- show created to give us a positive glimpse of the future, constantly going backward?

    OK that's bad enough, but the new ST Discovery doesn't even feel like a trek show. While Spock was brilliant and courageous, their science officer is a coward. Kirk and Spock, Picard and Ryker, Sisko and Kira, Janeway and Chakotay were tight. In just the first episode of Discovery you have the first officer committing mutiny. The Klingons look like a cross between turtles and large pieces of liver. They can barely move with all the make-up and bulky costumes. Overall if you take away the trek badges and emblems and I wouldn't have any idea what the show was about.

    The sets and effects are terrific, as they should be with 2017 technology. However, they are used in a vehicle that bears no resemblance to the Star Trek I have loved for a half century. Why work so hard to build a great story structure, then ignore it.

    And of course, the final insult, showing one episode on regular TV then hiding the rest of them on the Internet. Some say the show has a "cinematic look." Yeah, a cinematic look that's doomed to laptops. It's quite clear that CBS is not interested in making true Star Trek, it's interested in making millions of dollars and it's using trek to establish that money base.

    Overall, I think Gene Roddenberry would be turning in his grave over this money-making contraption they call Star Trek Discovery.
    TheDonaldofDoom

    Very Hollywood

    Never watched Star Trek before, so I can't comment on whether this is or isn't Star Trek. However, I found it pretty weak. It's lavishly produced, with convincing effects, but for a pilot episode it starts in a weird place, thrusting the characters into the thick of the action before we've even got to know them. The only characters we get to know at all are Michael, Saru and the Captain. None of the other characters get any screentime at all, not even a chance for us to find out who they are. It's like there are only three characters. If the episode had just taken care to set the scene, develop the characters and gently set up the plot it would have been much better. Instead, we're thrust into a dramatic plot with no reason to care. As someone who's never watched Star Trek, I know very little of its universe. A little bit of an introduction would provide some context to all of this. As it is, I don't even know what exactly is at stake, which robs it of suspense.

    Additionally, the Klingon internal politics is weak. Their arguments against each other boil down to very simple sentences that came straight out of a Hollywood textbook. The Klingon design looks pretty bad too, like they're made of plastic, as does their ship. None of it is convincing, which is weird because apart from that the visuals of Discovery are stunning.

    Not that there isn't anything to enjoy here. The way the plot thickens and the arguments between Michael and the Captain about how to tackle the Klingon threat add complexity, as well as Michael's perceptive comments about race not being the same as culture (something EU politicians need reminding of regarding the migrant crisis)...

    But overall, it feels like they were trying to cram a season's worth of story into one episode. There's a reason why there wasn't a battle in episode one of Game of Thrones, maybe the creators of Star Trek Discovery should learn from that.

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    Sci-Fi

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The cabinets in Captain Georgiou's ready room are filled with props that contain Easter eggs, but most are too difficult to make out in during the show. Behind the scenes photos reveal a bottle of 2249 Château Picard wine, Starfleet medals previously awarded to Jonathan Archer and James T. Kirk and a diploma from an Andorian military academy. The books on these shelves all feature Star Trek (1966) episode titles including The Cage (1966), Balance of Terror (1966), The City on the Edge of Forever (1967), Amok Time (1967), Mirror, Mirror (1967), Metamorphosis (1967), The Deadly Years (1967), The Trouble with Tribbles (1967), Return to Tomorrow (1968), Patterns of Force (1968), By Any Other Name (1968), The Omega Glory (1968), Plato's Stepchildren (1968), The Empath (1968), Whom Gods Destroy (1969), The Mark of Gideon (1969), That Which Survives (1969), The Way to Eden (1969) and All Our Yesterdays (1969).
    • Goofs
      Despite a claim that Michael Burnham cannot be a mutineer, since the rest of the USS Shenzhou crew never disobeyed the captain's orders, Michael did knowingly attack the captain and tried to take over the ship, which is the definition of a mutiny, so Michael is in fact a mutineer, even if the rest of the crew is not.
    • Quotes

      Saru: Their hull is covered in hollow, ornamental metallic pods, thousands of them, tightly interlocked, forming a kind of... armor.

      Michael Burnham: Not the most efficent defense.

      Saru: I suspect its purpose is more symbolic than practical. They contain Klingon biological material in various states of decay. Remote dating is wildly divergent. Some bones date back thousands of years, others only hours old.

      Michael Burnham: Their entire ship is covered with coffins.

      Saru: Commander, the captain listens to you. Tell her. We must withdraw.

      Michael Burnham: I'm afraid that's no longer possible.

      Saru: Your world has food chains. Mine does not. Our species map is binary. We are either predator or prey. My people were hunted. Bred. Farmed. We are your livestock of old. We were biologically determined for one purpose and one purpose alone: to sense the coming of death. I sense it coming now.

    • Connections
      Featured in After Trek: O Discovery, Where for Art Thou? (2017)

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 24, 2017 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Official site
      • Official Site
    • Languages
      • English
      • Klingon
    • Filming locations
      • Toronto, Ontario, Canada(location)
    • Production companies
      • Secret Hideout
      • Roddenberry Entertainment
      • Living Dead Guy Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 42m
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.00 : 1

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