Star Trek: Discovery premiere ends with shock cliffhanger

Well, that escalated quickly.

The first new Star Trek TV series in 12 years opened with a shocking plot twist as the new show’s hero, First Officer Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), became the first Starfleet officer in history to commit mutiny.

After accidentally killing a Klingon while investigating a mysterious anomaly, Burnham became convinced the enemy ships were going to destroy her vessel, the USS Shenzhou. So Burham took out her beloved Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) — via Vulcan nerve pinch! — and attempted to order her crew to open fire on a Klingon ship (like a Star Trek version of “Han shot first). Except Georgiou recovered just in time to override her order and put her First Officer under arrest.

The Discovery producers had warned us that characters in this newer and bolder Trek iteration would be free to make mistakes and significantly conflict with each other. “We’re trying to do stories that are complicated, with characters with strong points of view and strong passions,” showrunner Aaron Harberts told EW previously. “People have to make mistakes — mistakes are still going to be made in the future. We’re still going to argue in the future … The thing we’re taking from [creator Gene Roddenberry] is how we solve those conflicts. So we do have our characters in conflict, we do have them struggling with each other, but it’s about how they find a solution and work through their problems.”

But was Burnham’s move a mistake? Check out our executive producer Alex Kurtzman taking our burning questions about the first two episodes. For instance: Did Burnham’s decision really change anything, or would the Klingons have attacked anyway? We’ll also discuss the rather dramatic events in the show’s second episode, which is streaming exclusively now on CBS All Access. But for now, let’s look at some of the reactions fans are having to the episode: