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Sep 24, 2017 · The Vulcan Hello: Directed by David Semel. With Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp. 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.
- (7.9K)
- Action, Adventure, Drama
- David Semel
- 2017-09-24
- Overview
- Summary
- Memorable quotes
- Log entries
- Background information
- Links and references
While patrolling Federation space, the USS Shenzhou encounters an object of unknown origin, putting First Officer Michael Burnham to her greatest test yet. (Series premiere)
Teaser
A Klingon is speaking in a large chamber full of other Klingons. He says that the Klingons have lost their way, and forgotten the Unforgettable, Kahless, and the traditions of honor and glory he set down for them to follow. He mentions the lighting of a beacon, and the need to reunite the Houses and save themselves from an impending threat: an enemy that says "We come in peace" (the Federation, as he says this last phrase in English for emphasis). Captain Philippa Georgiou and Commander Michael Burnham are on a desert planet attempting to locate a well that has run dry due to radiation from a meteor mining accident. A large storm is brewing overhead. Burnham predicts that an eighty-nine-year drought is imminent, and the non-humanoid species inhabiting the world – the Crepusculans – are facing extinction if they lose their water supply. Georgiou and Burnham's goal is to repair the well and have the USS Shenzhou pick them up undetected, thereby avoiding a violation of Starfleet General Order 1. After walking past a group of egg sacs and eventually locating their objective, Captain Georgiou discharges a type 3 phaser into the well, shifting the water table and allowing water to reemerge from the well in a large geyser. At this point, two natives are visible watching from atop a plateau, and a third is shown crawling along the ground with octopus-like tendrils, seemingly unseen by the two Humans. The pair realize the gathering storm is preventing a transporter lock at their current location, so they begin to walk across the desert, discussing Burnham's future career. Soon the Shenzhou is shown breaking through the storm clouds, and transports them up to the ship. A bird's-eye-view glimpse of the desert reveals that the captain used their footprints to create a Starfleet insignia visible from overhead, allowing them to be located.
Act One
"First officer's log, stardate 1207.3. On Earth, it's May 11, 2256, a Sunday. The crew of the USS Shenzhou has been called to the edge of Federation space to investigate damage done to one of our interstellar relays. Blast burns around the hole are inconclusive. Were they caused by an asteroid, or was it deliberately destroyed to limit Starfleet communications? And if so, by whom? Despite the risks of our mission, I remain optimistic. It's hard not to be in the face of such beauty – in this case, a binary star system. Around these two suns, ice, dust, and gasses collide to form planets future generations will call home. A humbling reminder that all life is born from chaos and destruction." The stardate is 1207.3, or May 11, 2256 in Earth terminology. The Shenzhou has responded to a signal from a damaged relay and arrives in order to make repairs. The relay is located in a region of space in close proximity to a binary star system in a state of stellar collision, and the collision has created a large debris field. Science Officer Saru believes that the relay was intentionally damaged. He picks up a signal from an anomaly in the debris field, but the object is somehow creating a scattering field, and deflecting their attempts to scan it. First Officer Burnham convinces Captain Georgiou to allow her to approach the object with a thruster pack, since the debris is too dense for a transporter lock or a shuttlepod. The large quantity of radiation in the area limits her space walk to twenty minutes. The debris field also has the potential to disrupt communications from the ship. Commander Burnham uses the thruster pack to travel the two thousand kilometers to the anomaly without incident, but communication to the Shenzhou is disrupted. Burnham floats over to the source of the scattering field, and realizes it is not a normal part of the debris field, but an a intricately-designed, sculpture-like object. As Burnham explores the object, she comes across a platform-like area with ten minutes left on her mission clock. The proximity sensor on her environmental suit is abruptly activated, and she finds herself standing across from a Klingon. As she attempts to make contact, the Klingon swings a bat'leth at her. She manages to activate her thrusters at a crucial moment, driving one side of the bat'leth through the Klingon's suit and body, impaling the Klingon and pushing it away from the platform. While this is happening, the Shenzhou is still unable to establish contact with Burnham.
Act Two
In the Klingons' chamber, the body of the warrior killed by Burnham, Rejac, lies in a sarcophagus in the center. The leader notes Rejac's place in history for being the first to die in the conflict. It is revealed that the anomaly investigated by Shenzhou is the "sacred beacon" placed by these Klingons. The sarcophagus closes, floats out of the chamber and into space. It comes to rest at a mausoleum-like area, which is open to space and already populated with many other sarcophagi. Unconscious, Burnham recalls her childhood at the Vulcan Learning Center. There, a computer system quizzes her rapidly on various Klingon and Starfleet-related facts. She becomes overwhelmed by video of a particular Klingon attack and pauses the computer program. Her mentor, a Vulcan named Sarek, arrives and lectures her on the importance of logic over emotion. Commander Burnham wakes up in an antiproton chamber, covered in wounds. Doctor Nambue tells her three hours have elapsed since she was rescued from the object. She terminates the medical pod's anti-radiation procedure prematurely and climbs out, over his objections. She makes her way to the bridge and notifies her crewmembers about the Klingon she encountered, but they are skeptical since she seems affected by her ordeal. She recounts what happened earlier to Captain Georgiou, and Saru suggests that she is confused due to suffering a concussion and tells her to return to sickbay. Georgiou believes her and locks on to what turns out to be a cloaked Klingon vessel. As soon as the weapons lock is initiated, the Klingon ship decloaks.
"(in Klingonese) They are coming. Atom by atom, they will coil around us and take all that we are. There is one way to confront this threat. By reuniting the twenty-four warring houses of our own empire. We have forgotten the Unforgettable, the last to unify our tribes: Kahless. Together, under one creed, remain Klingon! That is why we light our beacon this day. To assemble our people. To lock arms against those whose fatal greeting is… (in English) we come in peace."
- T'Kuvma's speech to his followers
"Hey – I taught you that."
- Michael Burnham and Philippa Georgiou, while on the Crepusculan's homeworld
"Saru's Kelpien. He thinks everything's malicious."
- Georgiou, on her science officer
"First officer's log, stardate 1207.3. On Earth, it's May 11, 2256, a Sunday. The crew of the USS Shenzhou has been called to the edge of Federation space to investigate damage done to one of our interstellar relays. Blast burns around the hole are inconclusive. Were they caused by an asteroid, or was it deliberately destroyed to limit Starfleet co...
Format
•This is the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery, which is the first-ever Star Trek series in which an episode title was not seen at the beginning of act one (in keeping with current standards, episode titles have never been displayed on Discovery episodes), and the first series premiere since "Beyond the Farthest Star" to not be a feature-length episode, the episode ending with a cliffhanger instead. It is also the first series premiere not to feature the series' main vessel (ship or station). •According to Aaron Harberts in AT: "O Discovery, Where Art Thou?", "The Vulcan Hello" and the following episode, "Battle at the Binary Stars", form a "prologue" of sorts, with the third episode, "Context Is for Kings", being the "pilot". In pre-recorded interview footage from the same episode of After Trek, however, Director David Semel referred to this episode as "the Star Trek pilot." Furthermore, in AT: "Will You Take My Hand?", Harberts referred to this episode as a "pilot", as did Burnham actress Sonequa Martin-Green and After Trek host Matt Mira. In the featurette "Creating Space" from the DIS Season 1 DVD and Blu-ray, not only was the footage of Semel calling this episode a "pilot" reused but Executive Producer Alex Kurtzman also termed it that. Director Hanelle M. Culpepper additionally referred to this installment as "the pilot". Star Trek author Christopher L. Bennett pointed out that neither episode is technically a pilot and that "the first episode is just a premiere."
Story and script
•When David Mack was asked to start work on writing the first DIS tie-in novel to be published (which ultimately became Mack's novel Desperate Hours), this installment was still in very early development. Mack commented, "They had not settled on what the pilot episode was going to be." Although Michael Burnham's formative years on Vulcan and the attack on Doctari Alpha were initially to have been featured in the novel, the writing staff of DIS decided that they wanted to keep these ideas for the TV series. "They also weren't a hundred percent sure where they wanted them to go yet," recalled Mack. This was while Bryan Fuller, who was ultimately credited on-screen for co-writing both the story and teleplay of this episode, was still involved in conceiving the series. •Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg felt it was important for this episode to ensure "that the audience was able to empathize and understand why Michael Burnham was doing what she was doing," in Berg's words. ("Star Trek: Discovery: The Voyage of Season 1", DIS Season 1 DVD & Blu-ray special features) •According to Robert Meyer Burnett, the original version of this episode's script didn't include the teaser scene where Georgiou and Burnham walk across a desert on a planet's surface. •Early script drafts included very few character names or descriptions for the Shenzhou bridge crew. None of the preliminary concept drafts of the script were shown to author David Mack, though he did see production drafts of the teleplay once they had been approved by the studio and were being prepared for production. Even the first three or four drafts of those had many of the Shenzhou's bridge officers still unnamed; although Philippa Georgiou, Michael Burnham, and Saru were already named, the rest of the officers were referred to merely by their duty station. Recalled Mack, "I thought, 'Wow. Okay. In the TV show, to a certain degree, you can get away with that.'" However, because he had been assigned to pen the first DIS tie-in novel (the aforementioned Desperate Hours), Mack, with Kirsten Beyer's permission, invented a couple of those character names, which ended up being used in the actual episode too, as well as backstories for the characters, writing these up as a series of biographies. Influences on this work included production materials and the casting process. Names Mack invented that were used in the episode include "Keyla Detmer", "Kamran Gant", and "Troy Januzzi". •When the first scripts were written for Star Trek: Discovery, a Klingon raider was to have been part of this episode's plot. When Burnham investigated the Klingon beacon, she would have literally bumped into the raider as it decloaked right in front of her. "They had a whole sequence when she landed on the beacon; instead of the Torchbearer walking over the top, there was a cloaked raider," explained concept designer John Dickenson. "She got blown off the beacon and she would have landed on the cockpit glass." (Star Trek: Discovery Designing Starships, pp. 142-143 & 151)
Cast and characters
•Aaron Harberts philosophized about Burnham's actions in this episode, commenting, "It's not that Michael's strategy was wrong; it's that she didn't convince people and move people to her side." (AT: "Will You Take My Hand?") •Burnham actress Sonequa Martin-Green approved of how the spacewalk sequence turned out, commenting, "It looks cooler than you imagine [it will]." ("Creating Space", DIS Season 1 DVD/Blu-ray special features) •Despite being credited for this episode, Anthony Rapp (Paul Stamets), Mary Wiseman (Sylvia Tilly), and Jason Isaacs (Gabriel Lorca) do not appear in this episode. Jason Isaacs was, though, given the script of this episode while he was originally considering whether to appear in the series. •Shazad Latif (Ash Tyler) appears only as the Klingon Voq, and is credited as "Javid Iqbal" for the first time. •The cast members playing the Shenzhou bridge crew were supplied with the bios that David Mack had written about their roles. This enabled the actors to base their performances on whatever details they chose from those he had devised for each of their characters. •In this episode, Tasia Valenza took over the role as the Federation computer voice, providing the voice for the computer of the USS Shenzou. From "Context Is for Kings" onward, Julianne Grossman voiced the computer of the Discovery. The role of the Federation computer voice was held by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry from 1966 until her death in 2008. Coincidentally, both Grossman and Barrett were born on 23 February. •With the addition of this episode, James Frain became the fourth actor to portray the character of Sarek. Mark Lenard originated the role in TOS: "Journey to Babel", and Jonathan Simpson played a younger Sarek in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Ben Cross portrayed his alternate reality counterpart as well as, in a deleted scene, the character's prime-universe version.
Starring
•Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham •Doug Jones as Saru •Shazad Latif as Ash Tyler •Anthony Rapp as Paul Stamets •Mary Wiseman as Sylvia Tilly And\t •Jason Isaacs as Gabriel Lorca
Special guest star
•Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou
Guest starring
•Mary Chieffo as L'Rell •James Frain as Sarek •Chris Obi as T'Kuvma •Maulik Pancholy as Nambue •Terry Serpico as Brett Anderson •Sam Vartholomeos as Danby Connor
The Vulcan Hello. " The Vulcan Hello " is the series premiere of the American television series Star Trek: Discovery, which is set roughly a decade before the events of the original Star Trek series and shows the beginnings of the Federation – Klingon cold war. It was written by Akiva Goldsman and Bryan Fuller, from a story by series creators ...
- Season 1, Episode 1
- David Semel
- September 24, 2017
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Star Trek. "The Vulcan Hello" was a term used by Commander Michael Burnham to describe how the Vulcans dealt with their encounters with Klingons in the aftermath of a fatal clash near H'atoria in 2016, which led to the destruction of a Vulcan ship.
The Vulcan Hello (2017) Full Cast & Crew. See agents for this cast & crew on IMDbPro. Directed by. Writing Credits. Cast (in credits order) complete, awaiting verification. Produced by. Music by. Cinematography by. Editing by. Casting By. Production Design by. Art Direction by. Set Decoration by. Costume Design by. Makeup Department.
Sep 25, 2017 · Star Trek: Discovery episode 1 review – The Vulcan Hello. Exciting! Star Trek: Discovery gets off to an enjoyable, satisfying start. Here's our spoilery review and geeky spots...
Apr 5, 2024 · "The Vulcan Hello" StarTrek.com. In Star Trek: Discovery 's premiere episode, "The Vulcan Hello," First Officer Michael Burnham's insubordination towards Captain Phillipa Georgiou stemmed from the Vulcans' history with the Klingons.
