Star Trek: Discovery (1-5)

Star Trek Discovery
Episodes 1-5
(SPOILERS)
Well, I will finally be watching Star Trek Discover Season One. Binge style. Probably 5 episode per day for 3 days. I know nothing about this show and have managed to avoid any talk of it whatsoever. Here we go...

Episode One: The Vulcan Hello
Is The Vulcan Hello like the Bronx Cheer? Who knows. Anyway, first impression was that the show looks amazing. Visually it's very appealing.The main character is Michael Burnham (a woman), and at first I thought her acting was terrible, so stiff. Then I realized why. Although she is a Human, she grew up as a Vulcan under the care of Sarek. This will certainly mess someone up. So in reality, her acting is great. I love the actor that plays Sarek, he is good in everything; The Tudors, True Blood, White Queen, Gotham. The episode revolves around the Klingons getting all riled up and angry towards Starfleet. (yet again, they look totally different. Even more grotesque than usual.) Michael, serving aboard the Shenzhou, wants to attack the Klingons but Lt. Commander Saru disagrees (he is the "Data" of the show..but sort of looks like Odo). Captain Georgiou agrees with Saru, this for some reason causes Michael to lose it, knock the Captain out and try to take over the ship. Nevertheless she ends up in the brig. Also, I believe they chose the name Michael as a nod to Bret Michaels, but I could be wrong.
Grade: B

Episode Two: Battle at the Binary Stars
Battle at the Binary Stars ... like Battle of the Network Stars? The beginning shows a quick origin of Michael and how she joins the Shenzhou crew. Captain Georgiou (who is named after George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher, singer for Cannibal Corpse) takes Michael under her wing. Flash forward to present and after a peace attempt fails, a large force of Starfleet ships begin to battle a fleet of Klingon ships. This entire battle scene is great. Michael is stuck in the brig the entire time and things are just getting insane. The best scene is when there is a hull breach and the only thing seperating Michael from space is the force field in her cell. After the Klingons turn a peace attempt into a sneak attack (killing the Admiral), Michael escapes and joins the fight. Her and the Captain board a Klingon ship and destroy the Klingon leader. Captain Georgiou is killed however and Michael is sentenced to life in prison.
Grade: A-

Episode Three: Context is for Kings
Michael is now aboard a prison transport. Something goes wrong with the transport and they are saved by the Discovery, under the command of Captain Lorca. We get to see that he is an interesting character, serious but not rigid. A military man, but with a real oddness to him. Lorca eventually asks Michael to joing his crew, he needs her brilliance in order to help build a new warp drive. The crew basically hates her because she is a criminal. You get too meet a few new characters like her quirky roommate (don't remember the character's name, but the actress was good on the last season of Longmire), and the Engineer Stamets who is gay and really caddy. Anthony Rapp is so awesome in this show. Also, Saru is serving on the ship, and he clearly still hates Michael. The episode was average until the end, then it gets great. Michael joins an away team with Stamets and Roommate, they go to the Starship Glenn (named after Glenn Danzig). The entire crew is mangled, like dead and contorted. It's really gross. Then they encounter a monster and fight it off before returning to the ship. At the end we see that Captain Lorca has taken the monster captive.
Grade B

Episode Four: The Butcher's Knife
What's interesting so far about Captain Lorca is that he seemingly orchestrates everything. Like, he seemed to plan the disabling of the transport in order to get Michael and then he sort of knew that he would need that monster for something important. Not to say that he killed the crew of the Glenn, but...who knows? He orders Michael to study the monster in order to use it as a weapon against the Klingons. They name the monster Ripper, as an ode the song The Ripper by Judas Priest. She ends up taming the monster and discovers that it likes the spores. In fact it can control the spores. This brings about the equation Ripper + Spores = New Drive. Meanwhile a power struggle is seen within the Klingon ranks, and the Discovery rushes to a Dilithium mining colony to ward off a Klingon attack. They use the new spore drive with success.
Grade B -

Episode Five: Choose Your Path
This is when we first see a glimpse of the relationship between Dr. Culbert and Stamets. Culbert is a very likeable character, down to Earth and super chill. This is in contrast to Stamets, who is just a total bitch. So, Michael and Culbert realize that using Ripper as an energy source is killing him. Meanwhile Captain Lorca is captured and tortured by the Klingons. While imprisoned he meets another captured Starfleet Officer named Tyler and also a young Harry Mudd (played by Rain Wilson). I was hoping to enjoy Harry Mudd more in this episode, but he just didn't have the same flare. Eventually Tyler and Lorca escape... Back on the ship, Stamets decides to use himself to power the spores instead of Ripper. The unintentional side effect of this is frightening. (Correction: I have recently read that the name Ripper was actually chosen as a nod to Jesse and the Rippers and not Judas Priest.)
Grade A-