Star Trek: Discovery’s third season ends on a quote from Gene Roddenberry. A cursory google search failed to yield the source, but I’ll quote it in in full in Stray Observations; suffice to say, it’s a pleasant, vague bit about how we’re all isolated, and it’s good to connect with one another. That’s a fine enough line for a bumper sticker or an inspirational poster. I’m not sure it entirely suffices as the thematic underpinning of an entire season of television, in part because it’s such an incredibly obvious thing to say. The idea of building relationships between cultures, in establishing a community that stretches beyond the boundary of your solar system, has been baked into Trek from the start, and, while it occasionally fumbled its way into something interesting, Discovery has nothing really to add to the conversation. Because Discovery isn’t about saying anything. It’s about feeling things. Mostly nice things. Because nice things? Are nice.
“The Hope That Is You, Part 2” mostly sticks to the show’s strengths. There are not a lot of surprises here; the heroes win the day, there are no real sacrifices, everyone is brave and true and the baddies are either shot or dropped from a tall height. Michael manages to get her way, which is of course the only way that matters. A lot of people get shot, and it’s very pretty to look at. This is the longest episode of the season (I think—it clocks out at 61 minutes), and that makes sense given how much narrative ground it needed to cover, but a good chunk of that time is dedicated to space battles that don’t really accomplish much of anything. There are several bad-ass one liners. Lots of pew pew zap zap, etc, and just enough technobabble to make it all seem vaguely grounded.
And honestly, it’s fun to watch. Michael isn’t a terrific character, but she tends to be at her best when she’s in motion, and the constant action movie adrenaline ride approach fits Sonequa Martin-Green’s perpetually breathless performance better than regular conversation ever did. The pacing is brisk despite the long length, never lingering too long in any one situation, and, in terms of pure eye candy, there’s a lot to appreciate. Everything looks very cool, and the action scenes have a fine zip to them. If any of this works for you emotionally, I’m sure several beats in here landed well. For myself, Su’kal seeing his mother’s dying breath (we learn that the Burn hit when a young Su’kal freaked out after his mom died) worked okay. It’s the most obvious possible solution to the “mystery” of what Su’kal was trying to protect himself from via holographic monster, but some things just work no matter how obvious they are.
It’s just… boy, is this a show that’s bad at giving answers to anything. The resolution of the Burn mystery is pretty bad—it’s just some guy. Su’kal’s genetic material was affected by radiation and the proximity of massive quantities of dilithium, and somehow that means that if he screams loud enough, everything explodes. That’s very silly; it would work if the scope of the consequences was smaller (it’s not hard to imagine a similar premise on, say, a Next Gen episode, only with the fallout being limited to a single ship or even one solar system), but as is, it’s terrifying in a way that the show never bothers to reckon with. The entire universe was thrown off its access because of a genetic fluke; there’s a story in the horror of that, in understanding how easily everything could go wrong in a way no one could possibly predict, but that’s not one Discovery is much interested in telling. Instead, our heroes fix everything, and it’s hard not to walk away with the impression that, if they’d just arrived in the future a couple hundred years ago, this whole problem could’ve been avoided.
But at least Saru having to get through to Su’kal required actual conversation. It’s the closes the episode gets to supporting its nominal thesis. Everything else is just about being determined and clever and shooting people. Remember the end of last episode, when the sphere data decided to materialize as a bunch of very cute robots? It was a silly scene, but even sillier, I assumed it would actually matter this week. It doesn’t. Oh sure, they help in the fighting, but not in a meaningful way; one of the robots saves Lt. Owosekun when she passes out after placing a bomb in one of Discovery’s nacelles, and it’s the closest we get to a heroic sacrifice, but that’s basically it.
Again and again, “Hope” shies away from doing anything remotely interesting or unexpected with its various story beats. The biggest surprise is Gray showing up to Saru and Culber when Adira arrives on the planet—it makes no sense whatsoever, but I definitely didn’t see it coming, and it at least means that turning off the holoprogram has some small cost. But not enough to really matter at all, given how clumsy and strange Adira and Gray’s storyline this season has been. Is Gray a spirit? A Force ghost? Some other, stupid third thing? The show made a feint towards a Truly, Madly, Deeply riff with Adira fixating too much on the past and Gray having to nudge them into the present, but it never cohered, and this random, utterly inexplicable attempt to wring more pathos out the relationship doesn’t help much.
Remember Stamets? Remember when he freaked out at Michael last week for throwing him off Discovery? He’s back for two scenes this week; in the first, he begs Admiral Vance to put him back on Discovery so he can rescue Culber and the others. Vance refuses, saying “Michael did the right thing.” The second scene, Stamets is part of the group welcoming Michael onto the bridge to take command of the ship. There may be other moments I missed, but there was no confrontation, no conversation where Michael and Stamets found common ground again. After he yells at Vance, Stamets is barely in the episode at all. It’s not that it’s implausible that he would’ve calmed down; it’s that we’re supposed to just assume he did. Maybe this will get picked up next season. Maybe not. But in not dealing with it now, in just trying to get drama out of conflict without bothering to consider consequences, the show renders those scenes moot in retrospect.
You aren’t supposed to think about any of this. You aren’t supposed to wonder how it fits together. You aren’t supposed to watch Michael and Osyraa battling it out, and wonder what the heck Osyraa shoves Michael into (the ship’s data drive? Something sphere related?), or wonder why Osyraa just assumes that fixed everything, giving Michael a chance to walk out and shoot her. I don’t know why it mattered so much for Michael to get Discovery out of warp, and it’s funny that she put so much effort into getting Stamets off the ship before suggesting that Booker could run the spore drive instead.
It’s also funny that the season ended with Vance telling Michael how great she is, and Michael getting promoted to captain. Sure. Why not. Discovery’s third season was probably the most consistent the show has ever been. But it’s still fundamentally itself; sloppy and big-hearted, but in a way that asks nothing of the viewer but their minimal attention. There are no challenges here, and only the most fleeting interest in making anyone uncomfortable. There’s no real friction, almost no ambiguity, no This is not a show that earns connections. It’s a show that simply assumes they exist, and then simply waits to bask in the adulation of that assumption. As escapism, it has its moments, but nothing much between them.
Stray observations:
- That Roddenberry quote: “In a very real sense, we are all aliens on a strange planet. We spend most of our lives reaching out and trying to communicate. If during our whole lifetime, we could reach out and communicate with just two people, we are indeed very fortunate.”
- I don’t really understand how that applies to a season that’s at least nominally about rebuilding the Federation. The Federation can’t be just two or even three people.
- “Beam all regulators off Discovery.” Did she just space a bunch of mercenaries here, or did Discovery’s computer just automatically know where to send them?
- Boring scientist guy learned a valuable lesson in not trusting evil people. He then didn’t do anything, but the Discovery crew let him hang out on the bridge, which was nice of them.
- “This is what’s called a no-win situation.” “I don’t believe in those.” I guess under other circumstances I’d appreciate this nod to Wrath of Khan, but noooope.
464 Comments
I hate it when I get thrown off my access. Did the universe have to call tech support to get a password reset?
Have you tried turning the universe off and on again?
I’ve unplugged the universe and I am currently waiting for the static ram to discharge before I try again.
Don’t forget to discharge the CMOS battery before it reboots.
Good, EricFate.When you do so, hit the POWER button, and Immediately press and hold the following keys: ALT, CMD, P and R. Hold on until the Universe starts to reboot again, then you can let go.That could clear out the kruft and broken program links, and and flash a new copy of the Universe’s PRAM. If it fails to do so? Arrange an Appointment with the Universe Genius Bar to have a look….
It would seem I cannot press the reset button without a toothpick or a piece of wire. Does anyone have a paperclip the size of the Kuiper belt?
That was the old Universe that used stock Intel parts. Now that the Universe has a G1 chip, you don’t need to do a hard reboot that way any longer, EricFate.
If you had just bought a Mac all you’d have to do is stick a straightened paperclip into the universe and it would sort itself out.
Does that actually work with Macs any longer? I have a 2018 MB Pro and I don’t see a reset hole for a bent paperclip….Which means that, yes, if I’d had some patience I could have gotten a M1 Mac with the vastly improved SoC — and the even more vastly improved keyboard! It’s so hard to type anything longer than a short e-mail on my flat keyboard that I need to carry a second Bluetooth keyboard with me just to get any work done….
No no no… You’re all wrong- see what you have to do is…Put the universe in a bag of rice. Check back after 24 hours. (unsure if this applies to any MirrorUniverses™️)
It’s a Netflix ‘Original’ in Australia, so no.
So Burnham will be captain in the next season?Yep, I’m out.
I’m going to keep watching because I feel like there’s still enough that doesn’t suck (that is, stuff that isn’t there entirely there to bludgeon us with how amazing Burnham is), but I fear that what is presumably going to be a significant reduction in Doug Jones’ screentime is going to result in more Burnham Worship™.
That’s my concern- I like Owo and Detmer, Stamets and Saru (especially Saru as captain). It was already the Burnham show; putting her in the big chair and watching her and Tilly constantly gush about how great each other is turns me off. I’ll be *aware* of it, as my wife will still watch and I’ll probably be in and out of the room while she does. But I’m not gonna make any effort to check it out.
That’s my concern- I like Owo and Detmer, Stamets and Saru (especially Saru as captain).This mirrors my feeling as well. Those are the four characters I went into the season really looking forward to watching. I was so goddamn happy that Owo got to do something compelling during this episode. And I think that Culber really came into his own as a character this season as well. He’s honestly become one of my favorite Star Trek doctors.Saru was, in my opinion, the perfect captain for this crew and this situation. He actually seemed invested in the idea of, like, being an actual Starfleet captain rather than someone who exists to worship and enable Burnham and her insubordinate, selfish bullshit. He was flawed, had self-doubt, but he was a leader and earnestly wanted to do his very best to serve the interests of the Federation and to be the very best captain for his crew that he could. That’s why his selfish reaction to learning that Kelpiens were on the ship in the nebula felt so out of character.
Right? I’m SO interested in Detmer, and Owo, and Saru. Hell, I’m also interested in seeing more of Bryce, now that he’s gotten a little screen time. Who knows- maybe having Burnham as captain will mean she’ll interact more with the rest of the bridge crew (and it won’t be exclusively her and Tilly chumming around) so we get to see some more character work for the others, just via proximity to Saint Burnham. I love the doctor too! There were a couple of episodes this season where he really should’ve taken the lead, but (once again) deferred to Michael.
Was there any resolution for Detmer’s PTSD/malfunctioning plot line earlier in the season?
From what I gathered, her piloting Book’s ship and shooting the hell out of Osyraa’s cruiser the first time it showed up somehow “fixed” her PTSD and she’s cool now. Yeah.
god I almost would have preferred her to be virussed by the sphere
Heaven forbid we actually got a moment of character building, where somebody actually recognizes the stress and sacrifices of combat and being cast a thousand years into the future. Nope, ol’ Detmer just needed to shoot some shit up to regain her confidence. Or something.
Indeed.
Thats how PTSD works yo. You just gotta snap out of it. Go kick some bad guy’s ass- I promise you it works EVERY time. Listen- next time you get PTSD, you just go find that local thug that everyone’s upset about and bop him right in the nose. Or jump out of an airplane on purpose (with a parachute, silly!) Voila’. Difficulty *handled*. You will be now fully buffed and any silly LOSER trauma will be GONE. Disco clearly knows the drill k??In defense of the scene I assume we’re supposed to see it as having helped her get over the worst part of her emotional baggage, thereby regaining enough of the confidence that she had lost up to that point, to where she now will be able to feel better going forward and can now address any lingering PTSD issues proactively and with a more empowered emotional state, and while it may take some time, leading to ultimately healing and recovery.but yeah none of that was really shown, instead it was all glossed over in favor of the simplified “oh thank goodness everything is fine now! All better now! Phew- that didn’t take long! Good thing we came to Kweijan huh?” feel-good attitude in the mess hall. If Disc gave more time to fleshing out it’s characters and taking a little longer between plot points, we might have seen something more similar to what I described, but since they’re always short on time (because the creators didn’t want to do a standard season for whatever reason, unfortunately we didn’t.)
Kind of. She decided to talk to Dr. Culber and it was summarily dropped. He’s a miracle worker!
Saru is the only one that has actually grown and evolved as a character. Everybody else is still the same person they were from season 1. Burnham is still putting the weight of the universe on her shoulders (despite being called out on it more than once)Tilly is still insecure and unsure of her place in Starfleet. Stamets is still arrogant (although he did soften up with Adira)(Empress) Georgiu remained sarcastic and acerbic to the very end and talked way to much shit what she would do if she was still in the Terran empire. And everyone else still gave each other puzzled looks whenever the captain did something weird. And I know nothing about Culver’s nurse. I know more about Nurse Chapel and Keiko O’Brien, though.And because these characters remained one dimensional, scenes that were supposed to evoke emotions were painful to watch as they forced us to squeeze tears from a dry eye. And i just realized that other than Detmer and Powell, i have no idea what the rest of the bridge crew does.
My god this was terrible. Even Oysraa listens to Michelle. Nothing made sense. Why are the turbolifts flying through tons of open space inside the ship? Why would Oysraa think pushing Michelle into the cube thing would stop her? Why is the entire Starfleet firepower not able to destroy Discovery? Why would Vance trust Michelle with the spore drive and the future of the Federation when he just meet her weeks ago? Why was the sphere data impossible to erase and the Regulators did it in seconds? Why did Tig Narvao’s character bring it back to life in what was apparently the last DOT, if it was so dangerous? Why do Oko and Demeter have more sexual chemistry than all the shoehorned in LGBBQ characters like Staments, Cullber, Gray and Adira? This is absolutely the worst Star Trek show ever.
Just telling you now, let your wife enjoy the show next season.You’re going to be temped, as you “be in and out of the room,” to chime in with your little observations, your snippy digs at how overly-emotional the lead characters are, your lamentations about how you wish so-and-so character were such-and-whatever instead of blah-blah they’re doing which is so dumb…But know that she will not appreciate these comments, even if she smiles or chuckles at them, or says she agrees with them.
Oh, absolutely- I never want to be THAT guy. I’ll clam up and 110% will not ruin it for her. She digs this show!
👍
I’m torn between thinking it’s a little much to have a lead character whose insubordination is always justified, whose hunches are always correct, and who’s insane gambles always pay off……and then wondering why everyone loved that exact same thing when the character was Captain Kirk.
That speaks directly to the problem the show has had from the very beginning. A maverick break-all-the-rules-but-gets-results lead character in a Trek show works when it’s Captain Kirk, because he’s the Captain. It only works when that character is the captain.Burnham isn’t the equivalent of Kirk. Burnham is Chekov, if Chekov constantly undermined Kirk’s orders yet is constantly proven right and whom Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, Bones and even Spock look to to lead them, and whom Kirk eventually steps down from captaincy in order to recommend him to command the Enterprise.
The thing is, the original premise of the show is literally “what happened before Kirk”, and I think we’re seeing what someone like Kirk would be like before being captain. And Kirk clearly was constantly proven right, given that he ended up the youngest captain in SF history.And also, Saru didn’t step down in order for Michael to take over. Saru took a leave to go back to Kaminar, and when asked who should take over the ship, undoubtedly said, “given your options are Burnham and Tilly, maybe Burnham.”
Yes but Kirk was the the youngest captain in Star Fleet history in the “Prime” Universe after: “Kirk became the first and only student at Starfleet Academy to defeat the Kobayashi Maru
test, garnering a commendation for original thinking for reprogramming
the computer to make the “no-win scenario” winnable. Kirk was granted a
field commission as an ensign and posted to advanced training aboard the
USS Republic. He was then promoted to lieutenant junior grade and returned to Starfleet Academy as a student instructor.[3] Students could either “think or sink” in his class, and Kirk himself was “a stack of books with legs”.[5] Upon graduating in the top five percent, Kirk was promoted to lieutenant and served aboard the USS Farragut.[3] While assigned to the Farragut, Kirk commanded his first planetary survey and survived a deadly attack that killed a large portion of the Farragut’s crew,[3] including his commanding officer, Captain Garrovick. He received his first command, a spaceship roughly equivalent to a destroyer, while still quite young.[6]
Kirk became Starfleet’s youngest starship captain after receiving command of the USS for a five-year mission.”In the non-nonsensical conceit of the the Kelvin Universe Kirk became the youngest captain in Star Fleet history after:Kirk enrolls in Starfleet Academy after being ‘dared’ by Captain
Christopher Pike. Kirk and Spock clash at Starfleet Academy, but Kirk focuses his “passion and obstinance and the
spectrum of emotions” and becomes captain of the Enterprise. Prime Kirk EARNED it, and Kelvin Kirk fell into it, much like Burnham. She is just right, no one else, she didn’t earn he knowlege, experience, loyalty, trust, position. It is insane.
I don’t necessarily disagree, Burnham is definitely Mary Sue’d to some extent, but tbf she was the XO on the Shenzou and then after a while ended up as the XO again on Disco. That’s only one step down from the Captain’s seat. She’s not quite Nameless Engineering Tech Three.
I see this comparison sometimes, and it makes me wonder if people ever actually watched TOS in the same way the trope that Kirk was boning aliens every other episode does. Sure, Kirk, as a typical ‘60s male television hero, was usually right, and his plans and hunches always worked out by the end of the episode.But he was still presented as flawed. He made mistakes, and he grew as a character by acknowledging them and correcting them. A whole episode (“Obsession”) was devoted to how he’d failed in the past and the trauma that caused, and the negative impacts on the mission and his crew.Burnham is presented more or less as having no flaws; the only “flaws” present are in that other people aren’t on her level of unassailable wisdom, intelligence, and logic, and therefore get in the way.And while Kirk (as Chang pointed out and Kirk himself admitted) did sometimes disobey orders, in general he operated within the chain of command and expected his officers to do the same. Can you imagine what Burnham would’ve done if faced with Kirk’s situation in “Court Martial,” for example? I guaran-damn-tee it wouldn’t have been calmly allowing the proceedings to play out while the crew tried to prove her innocence.Burnham has undermined every commanding officer she’s ever had. If Vance’s conversation with her at the end of the episode is any indication, maybe they’re going to do an end-run around that by having Vance’s attitude be “you’re soooooooo amazing, Michael, whatever you do is ok by me! XD”My point isn’t that Kirk never disobeyed orders or did things that were objectively wrong. The guy literally stole the Enterprise-A and sabotaged Excelsior, for heaven’s sake. It’s that that’s Burnham’s default position if not her raison d’être. If you do that kind of thing here and there and only in exigent circumstances, you’re a “maverick.” If it’s all you do, you shouldn’t be in Starfleet, much less celebrated for it.
If Kirk behaved this way from the time he entered Star Fleet Academy, he would never have graduated let alone move through the ranks. She is written much like the Kelvin Universe Kirk, because even though this is the Prime Universe, they write it like it’s Kelvin… Same producers, no? The people running Star Trek since the Kelvin reboot, learned the wrong lessons from prior Star Trek, and they write it like they have no idea what Star Trek is. Burnham and ST:D is essentially them continuing the Kelvin Universe.
I didn’t think about that, but yeah, there’s a lot of cross-pollination between Discovery and the Abramsverse, most notably Kurtzman.And it’s been noted before both here and on io9 that Tilly being made XO a month or two out of the academy smacks of Kirk getting command of the Enterprise the way he did in the Abramsverse. The writers have a destination they want to get to, but they don’t worry about earning it. Tilly should be a senior officer! We should like and root for Burnham! Kirk should command the Enterprise immediately and Spock, Bones, Uhura, Scotty, etc all have to be there, too!One thing that I noticed about Kelvin Kirk is that he felt like a pastiche. If you actually watch TOS, he wasn’t banging aliens left and right, for example. It happened a few times, and it became associated with the character, and in the 2009 movie sure enough, he’s a lothario at the academy. Same thing with the way he was a maverick as captain. He’s not quite as bad as Burnham, but Prime Kirk would throw that Kirk out an airlock if he had someone like that on his crew, as would Picard, Janeway, Sisko, or Archer. Prime Kirk earned the right to be the maverick he was. This Kirk didn’t, and Burnham earned it even less.
YES!
That’s interesting, because Kirk had the same (ahem) emotional control problems that Burnham seems to have. Kirk would go from zero to furious in a couple seconds, especially if you were threatening his ship or his crew. Maybe because they did show Kirk as a fallible person? I feel like everyone on the show absolutely defers to Burnham to the point where it’s embarrassing. At least Kirk had Bones around to call him out on being a jackass.
> show absolutely defers to Burnham to the point where it’s embarrassingI don’t think it’s that cut-and-dried. It seems like dismisses Burnham’s ideas are dismissed and actions are taken to task pretty often… until she saves the day and the show does a montage of how great she is. Which I absolutely agree is a bit much, but it’s not like that’s every minute of every episode. What you get every episode, is someone who comes up with an unlikely, dangerous plan that ends up working out in the end, which is basically every episode of every Star Trek show.
do you know how much acid Shatner was on? some of that’s gonna leak into the character, open a few chakras.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they all were 😂. It was the ‘60s (in LA) after all….
apparently it was basically just Shatner and Nimoy… for about a third of their time on camera 😉
I’m going to go on a whim and say ‘context’.I mean in the TOS era, the plots weren’t as muddled and pretty straight forward. When Kirk disobeys a Starfleet order because we know it’s the right thing to do. But there are times, like in ‘Wrath of Khan’, where breaking protocol cost him dearly.When Burnham goes off the rails, it’s because we’re expected to accept that she’s right with no clear set up to justify it.Also, TOS and TNG often had moral discussions in the ready room but ultimately it was the Captain’s decision. Burnham would just pull shit on the fly and as @laylowmoe pointed out, Burnham isn’t the captain. She’s a bridge crew member.
AI believe the amount of insubordination, correct hunches, and insane gambles people remember Kirk taking have been exaggerated in memory (in TOS)
I think it was a little different with Kirk, though. Kirk was the captain, so when he went off book, he was ultimately held responsible. He also usually gave the crew a “if you want out, that’s fine” option. When Burnham does her bullshit, she’s throwing Saru into the fire, so it’s not just her taking responsibility.At least, I hope that’s why she bugs me and that it’s not just unconscious sexism on my part.EDIT: I see laylowmoe already said what I wanted to, and much better.
I agree that a lot fans will be upset on seeing a lot less of Saru next season. I didn’t expect to see that development myself and I would have liked to see that part given more time in the episode than the blink-and-youll-miss-it quick passover shot of him on Kaminar. Or they could have covered it better in the next episode.Might have been nice to have this finale be a two-parter so they didn’t have to rush so fast through everything (as usual). This ep was stuffed so full of plot I felt it was one of those cartoon packages about to explode.
I fully expected him to be sidelined, but I wasn’t sure what form it would take. One of the possibilities I considered (and mentioned in at least one post) was that he’d end up staying on Kaminar. I thought it would be something related to just wanting to be back among his people and to help them reacclimatize to the Federation, but that was before Su’Kal showed up.I figured Burnham would end up being the captain of Discovery by the end of the season, and that would necessarily mean Saru getting shunted off somewhere, whether completely or partially. If he’d stayed on the ship but given her command so he could be her XO… well, that would be beyond the pale even for this show.I feel like the only reason she didn’t take over as head of Starfleet was because that would mean she wouldn’t be on-screen nearly as much, unless they made SFHQ the location where everything happened. The show’s called “Discovery,” so that’s what they put her in charge of.The series finale will probably have her either as the head of Starfleet or the Federation president. And we’ll find out that she was the Great Bird of the Galaxy all along, because of the Red Angel suit.
Fml “the great bird” 🤣Bruh…
See, every sentient creature in the universe referred to her as “The Great Burnham of the Galaxy” because her amazingness was so powerful that it promulgated throughout all of time and space, with an assist from residual temporal energy from the suit. The suit became the symbol most associated with her.Over the years, that became “The Great Bird of the Galaxy” as the name and the iconography got conflated over time.The people of the universe have been worshiping Burnham since before time began, they just didn’t realize it.
Loll. That’s good backstory bruh – There’s a “great bird” religion springing up on planets across the galaxy as we speak – or perhaps it’s existed for some time. I fully expect to find large stone timesuit-shaped stelae with the worshipful inscriptions across various worlds. 😆
Her and the Gormagander- the Space Friendship Team™️ who flies the friendly skies of space 🚀….Friendship is magic you know…
“still enough that doesn’t suck”, definitely a reason to use your leisure time to watch a TV show
Yeah, me, too.
Where’s that Capt. Pike series? I’ll watch that.
I have such high hopes for it, because Pike was absolutely the highpoint of Season 2 (which, honestly, isn’t saying much). But I’m also prepared to be disappointed, just in case.
dw it’ll be just as shite cause the same people are making it
Wasn’t she already demoted once this season? Shouldn’t becoming a captain be contingent upon being the next rank below that?
The writers just don’t seem concerned with rank and protocol. The admiral would never put someone who was just demoted for going rogue in command. He’d just get a new captain from somewhere else. But it’s like the writer’s room is like, “Who should be captain for this episode?”They need a veteran on staff. Roddenberry was a WWII veteran. Ronald D Moore was in ROTC in college so prior shows had people who understood this stuff.
Oh god, she’s now Captain Mary Sue? Gee, golly, gosh, Gloriosky!
It’s not that anyone else matters one bit in this universe, anyway.
Don’t worry, within 3 episodes she’ll piss off Vance, get demoted and replaced by Saru after he’s finished taking care of Su’Kal. The rest of the season will be Michael redeeming herself.
I do not get WTF Vance promotes her to Captain — I’ve never met a TREK character that’s less suited to a Captaincy than Michael Burnham. In fact, I have to reach back to Jack Harkness on TORCHWOOD to find a more unsuitable Commanding Officer.At least TORCHWOOD sort-of fixed it in Series 2 by having Gwen take over in Jack’s absence, and…Jack watch her command his team and just leave her there in place, using himself more as a “Free Agent Hero”. I somehow doubt ST:DISCO intends to do that, even though they certainly should, because that’s where Michael shines — as a hero, not as a CO.
Ye Gods, I hope not!If so? Then…
LOL! Even Oysraa takes orders from Michelle. LOL! Vance has know her all of 4 weeks and takes his orders from her.What a SJW Mary Sue dumpster fire. Thank god it is over.Also, you could get banned for disparaging SJWs here.
My god this was terrible. Even Oysraa listens to Michelle. Nothing made sense. Why are the turbolifts flying through tons of open space inside the ship? Why would Oysraa think pushing Michelle into the cube thing would stop her? Why is the entire Starfleet firepower not able to destroy Discovery? Why would Vance trust Michelle with the spore drive and the future of the Federation when he just meet her weeks ago? Why was the sphere data impossible to erase and the Regulators did it in seconds? Why did Tig Narvao’s character bring it back to life in what was apparently the last DOT, if it was so dangerous? Why do Oko and Demeter have more sexual chemistry than all the shoehorned in LGBBQ characters like Staments, Cullber, Gray and Adira? This is absolutely the worst Star Trek show ever.
I’m no Burnham worshipper nor a hater- I like/love everyone equally and I want everyone to have their time to shine- but in a fairness you had to know this is the direction they were headed to. It was telegraphed more or less from the beginning, but more specifically since Gieorgou said something to the effect of “you’re ready for the captain’s chair now” at the end of the last mirror universe episode.
Doug Jones (and with him one of the most compelling characters on the show) appears to have been sacrificed at the Altar of Burnham. Quelle surprise.
Doug Jones has said he’ll be back next season.
Thank God, if nothing else his performance has been one of the high points of this show.
Is he leaving the show? I didn’t hear anything about that.Granted, he’s obviously suffered a demotion.
No, he’s going to be part of the next season. I haven’t heard whether Saru’s share of screentime is going down, but it feels likely given that he’s going to be on Kaminar with Su’Kal rather than part of the Discovery crew or even working at Starfleet Headquarters.Of course, they could pull a switcheroo and bring him back on the ship to assist with whatever crisis will drive the season and he ends up playing as big a role as he has to this point, but I feel like it’s more likely we’re going to see a lot less of him.But beyond potentially reduced screentime the other part of being sacrificed at the Altar of Burnham is that we never got the opportunity to see him get truly comfortable in the position and act with the confidence that we’re used to in a Starfleet captain. I’m sure that Burnham will be brimming with confidence from the first moment she sits in the chair, however.
Great. So Saru is decreased, Reno is decreased (due to COVID). Is Book at least coming back?
I hope so! David Ajala was one of the real highlights of the season, and I would love to see an expanded role for him.How could they even decrease Reno’s screentime? She was there for like 3 minutes total all season. And that sucks, because I love the hell out of Tig Notaro and she made Reno a really, really fun character that I wanted to see a lot more of.
She’s been affected with COVID, I’m thinking it might have extended into the final episodes of this season being filmed.
Oh no! I was hoping that her not being around was due to acting not really being her primary thing and having other things going on. I hope she’s either recovered fully or is on her way there.
She was affected by Covid only in that she chose not to put herself in harm’s was by filming with ST:D for season four. She did not acquire Covid, she is staying in her social bubble, her family, and not exposing herself to possible infection… Her role was already pretty minimal this season.
I could’ve swore I read an article saying she either had it or was at very high risk of being infected due to somebody else in her proximity getting a positive…
I do not know what you have read…
As a cancer survivor, she is in a high risk group. Not staying home, away from other people, is not safe activity. Exposing oneself to groups of people in enclosed spaces (at work on set, for travel) is unsafe. She chose to be cautious and not travel to set, or be on set.
* Not directed at you, I just feel it is necessary to say the following:Even with masks, exposing oneself to groups of people in enclosed spaces should be avoided if at all possible, and, only if necessary, for short periods of time. It’s as if no matter how often reputable doctors and medical professionals re-iterate that directive, the majority of this country doesn’t get it. I know economics are important, but shopping, going to restaurants, public spaces, working in proximity to people outside one’s bubble are not safe. I know people are stir crazy, and need to work, but the continued ability for the general public to justify not staying home for anything other than absolute necessity boggles the mind. In some ways the Covid deniers have won a little bit of even the Covid believer’s headspace, and allowed many, too many, to not take the virus seriously enough, which is why the infection rate continues to get worse.
“As a cancer survivor, she is in a high risk group.”Ahhh, that’s what I was remembering. Thanks.
I couldn’t agree with you more. I have a work collaborator/friend who survived cancer just a few years back, so she’s been very strict about keeping herself away from situations which could result in getting infected. She lives alone and refuses to go to any social gatherings or to even allow any friends into her home. It’s been very lonely and her 2 dogs that she’s had for over 16 years both died this year on top of everything else. She’ll often call me to reassure her that she’s not being overly-cautious about staying safe, because her “friends” will often call her and basically try to guilt-trip her into inviting them over (she has a big house with a large back yard and it used to be where her friends would get together for parties, etc.).It’s infuriating that people can be so selfish as to actually try to convince their “friend” to put her life in danger so that they can use her house to socialize during a fucking pandemic. And her friends are not a group of right-wing COVID-deniers. Her family has been giving her grief as well because she would not travel to holiday gatherings. How do they not understand how unbelievably uncaring and horrible they are being?
I have experienced the same behaviour. I am not high risk, but considering the very real, and crippling chronic conditions that have been associated with contracting Covid, I am just as wary of the chances as someone who is. Getting even just minor symptoms of Covid is linked to long term health effects. I am protecting myself, and my mother. I made a mistake mid-summer, invited to a family gathering, with only 10 people, who I was assured would wear masks and social distance in my uncle’s back yard. I begrudgingly went because my family was pushy about it. No one wore masks, no one was sitting six feet apart… afterwards I realized that it was like being a teenager again, and sucuumbing to peer pressure. I was very worried afterward, not for myself, but my mother and her brothers and sisters all “elderly” at this point. It was STUPID behaviour, and all my family are (rabid / dedicated) Democrats, critical thinkers (a nurse, lawyers, politician, computer tech, teacher) I have repeatedly had to talk my mother out of hosting Thanksgiving, Christmas, lunches with friends and family (all planned outdoors) over the last year… I feel like (being gay) and having lived through the AIDS epidemic has made me more thoughtful and cautious, yet so many of the LGBTQI community seems to not take this seriously either on the whole.
Remember the AIDS crisis?!? ONLY abstinence (quarantining) is 100% effective against acquiring HIV. Condoms (mask wearing) are a layer of protection, but they are not 100% effective. *That has changed the last five or so years with the advent of HIV prophylactic drugs, but the point is the same.
Is that what has made us more cautious? Living through the AIDS plague? It makes a whole lot of sense to me…I’m a gay man and my co-worker is lesbian and we’re both well past 50 (which I find absurd), so we saw the horror and grief and lived with the constant undertone of dread and paranoia from the beginning when it was called GRID.
It would also explain the seeming heedless and/or careless behavior of those younger than me but still old enough to know better. Of course, the diehard science-deniers/Trumpists were never going to take precautions, because…well, you know. But the more progressive, reality-based people—maybe having had no real-life experience with seeing how quickly and mercilessly disease can take away friends and family—consider it all to theoretical and therefore unrelatable to them when they really should know better.No one can be excused, though. The fact that they have and continue to take chances and have yet to suffer consequences does not give them the right to put everyone else in danger. The reality is that at the rate that infections are increasing, if they don’t get serious about following precautions 100% of the time it’s inevitable that they will be sick before long. Which increases the likelihood that you or my friend or I will have some sort of interaction with infected people no matter how much we do to avoid it.My opinion of my “fellow” Americans began to collapse in the run-up to 2016. And nothing has happened since has done anything to shore up that opinion. We are a selfish and cruel nation of morons who get great joy from seeing and inflicting hardship on others. The lack of care I see—especially from those who claim to care about others and fight for their “righteous” causes—during this pandemic only confirms my conclusions.
I’m 52, so right there with you.
I try to explain to non-gay, or younger gay friends what it has been like to basically have lived in constant fear from the time I realized I was gay in the early 80s to the time Prep came into use, and what a HUGE relief it has been. They don’t really understand it, they have no point of reference.
Obviously one of the reasons people are having issues protecting themselves is because our governments, federal, state and local, keep flubbing the narrative. There is no consistency between them, or even from the news media. People are getting fed up with the constant changes in rules, restrictions, or lack of. As soon as eating in restaurants are allowed to open, people rush in, not understanding that because the government is allowing it, is the same as the government advising the public to go. People are not being analytical and letting their urges control thier choices. If there had been a concrete, across the board lock down, which was well documented, advocated for, and quality PR/marketing, AND well thought out and implemented financial support, we would be in a much better position. Imagine if the lockdown and restrictions had continued consistently through the entire year, and then we got vaccines. We would be in a fantastic position for a quick recovery. But TRUMP. If we had had the response to this pandemic as a nation that I imagine that the U.S. had to WWII, where everyone of all political views got behind the solution, but that is a fantasy now.
STILL, no one on the planet has figured out the right way to deal with this, look at the new, more infectious variant of Covid… Nothing was done AGAIN, and it just spread across the planet within a couple of weeks. ARGH!
I think that there is a level of basic common sense that should have made the precautions and protective behavior inarguable from the earliest days of the pandemic. But the maniacs who are fighting against doing the simplest things to keep themselves and their family/friends even slightly more safe from a disease that could kill them are beyond my ability to understand. They are rejecting facts and evidence that are irrefutable—how does a person make the conscious choice to do that?
Even if, as they keep insisting, the percentage of infected people who die is only 1 or 2%—why do they act as though they or their loved ones couldn’t fall into that category? How is their refusal to take simple precautions helpful to anyone? If there is even a smallest chance that simply by wearing a fucking mask they might not pass along a virus that could kill their child or parent, why do they refuse to do it? It’s not a burdensome thing to do, and it shows such a lack of concern, love and generosity to not only refuse to do it, but to obnoxiously flaunt their behavior while harassing people that show enough sense to put on a stupid mask.My theory is that they have decided that if they or a loved one gets sick (or dies), it would still be worth it if it means that they get to harass, annoy, troll and upset someone who takes this situation seriously. They enjoy making others miserable. People are that fucking selfish and evil.
Tig said on a Star Trek podcast hosted by Paul F Tompkins that she doesn’t want to be on the show more because she’s a writer and comedian who only acts on the side. She said she likes flying to Toronto for a week, doing Star Trek, then flying off to do other things. The interview was prior to COVID.
Yes, as is Grey.
More importantly, is Grudge coming back?! Lol.
She’s a QUEEN!!!!!!!!
I loved how what inspired Book to overcome Jake Webber and throw him out of the turbolift wasn’t the thought of Michael in danger, but was the thought of Webber hurting Grudge.
Time to find another man, Michael, Book is still in love with his cat.
A demotion THAT HE SUGGESTED! What’s wrong with the characters in this show that nobody has any career ambition??? – in this ep, at different points both Tilly and Saru stepped aside to let Burnham take command. In the Tilly situation I can almost forgive it, because she’s deeply inexperienced – but Saru’s gonna donate his own command to Burnham because he thinks she deserves it?! For comparison, can you imagine Picard giving permanent command of the Enterprise to Riker because he thought the younger man was ready to be a captain, implictly demoting himself to first officer? No, because that would be bananas and in TNG we’d established that there were other ships in the fleet, so one can recommend a colleague for a command position without tossing yourself on the slagheap.
“For comparison, can you imagine Picard giving permanent command of the Enterprise to Riker because he thought the younger man was ready to be a captain, implictly demoting himself to first officer?”To be fair, Picard probably looked at what happened most of the time when Riker takes control of the ship and would never think to make that decision. 😉
Except Saru didn’t step down so Michael should run the ship, he stepped down to help Su’kal adjust to life on Kaminar (ending the season with a nice parallel to Stamets and Culber’s de facto adoption of Adira). Saru’s spent the whole series torn between his ambition/devotion to Starfleet, and his missing Kaminar and other Kelpians, so it’s not shocking that he’s shifting his priorities from one to the other.As for career ambition, if you were flung 800 years into the future and had to adjust to a whole new world, is your first priority going to be whether you get that big promotion you were hoping for in the previous timeline?And there’s no indication that Saru is demoted. He’s still Captain Saru, he’s taking a leave of absence from the ship. There was no indication he’s going to serve as Burnhams’ #1 (I assume that’ll be Tilly, although she’s still a less likely choice than basically anyone else on the bridge crew). I suspect when he comes back, he’ll either be at Starfleet HQ, or they’ll find some reason for he and Michael to go back and forth in the captain’s chair. Realistically, do you think we’re going to go a full season without Burnham doing something rash and getting fired?
Ehhh- it will be interesting to see if they go there. As CO now she has the room to make the ultimate decisions (after HQ ofc), so unless she really, really goofs it or really ticks off Vance, I dont think she’ll end up in too much trouble, but we’ll see how it goes.Agreed re: Saru though. It made a lot of sense for him to do that I just wish they had given it more time, or cut the finale into two full parts so they could really show that, not just tell it (which makes the impact so much less). I look forward to continuing to see him throughout S4 just perhaps not as much as previously.
Michelle Paradise says he’s in season 4, so no. He’s not leaving.
My god this was terrible. Even Oysraa listens to Michelle. Nothing made sense. Why are the turbolifts flying through tons of open space inside the ship? Why would Oysraa think pushing Michelle into the cube thing would stop her? Why is the entire Starfleet firepower not able to destroy Discovery? Why would Vance trust Michelle with the spore drive and the future of the Federation when he just meet her weeks ago? Why was the sphere data impossible to erase and the Regulators did it in seconds? Why did Tig Narvao’s character bring it back to life in what was apparently the last DOT, if it was so dangerous? Why do Oko and Demeter have more sexual chemistry than all the shoehorned in LGBBQ characters like Staments, Cullber, Gray and Adira? This is absolutely the worst Star Trek show ever.
Well they botched that. After two episodes (/three seasons) of Michael’s Mass Effect Renegade run they hand her the keys to Disco, because she’s she most special and important person in the galaxy? Give me a break. I guess Saru wants to spend some time not having to spend 7 hours a day getting fitted into make up and stilts. Whatever, guess it was inevitable but I could do without the scene of all the core cast staring lovingly at Michael as she first takes her seat in the captain’s chair.I almost feel the Rodenberry quote/original TOS theme over the end credits was the editors desperately apologising. The burn happening because a mutant child screamed so loud it broke the universe was a real bummer too, was nothing learned from Lost? There’s no way that idea started with the conclusion and not the hook of ‘what if there wasn’t warp anymore?’. Severely lame, even if the setting of the holo nursery/prison was pretty cool and well done.
I feel like it will eventually be revealed that Burham falls though a crack in the ST universe, and in the next one over in the Dr. Who universe, will be revealed as the Timeless Child, progenetor of the Time Lords, and herself, Doctor Who.
Hell, Nu Trek’s ships are larger on the inside too…
No, better! She drops into the WHOverse, where we find out she’s Jack Harkness after a sex change!Because Jack’s getting all self-conscious about looking older, you know….
But Jack isn’t the center of the universe like the Doctor has become in Nu WHo, and it’s the Time Lords that havevehicles that are larger on the inside than the outside… sooo it doesn’t fit the point I was making. but sure, whatever.
Have vehicles…
the Doc or the fam?
Too bad these comments are not right below what they are directed at because I have no idea what you are asking.
Okay, whatever.
The fuck
Two problems those shows share really are making the main character into the most important thing in the universe, and blaring music to manipulate emotions.
How did you know that? Wow!
lol How did I know what?!?
Oh my shit. You deserve this terrible show. It was made for people like you.
It seemed huge, didn’t it???
The finale of season 2 made me retroactively hate that season. And given a few months I think I’ll probably look back at this one the same way.The individual episodes weren’t bad, and even this finale wasn’t terrible (not Picard-bad, anyway), but it all amounts to nothing.
I basically hated Discovery before this season, didn’t even manage to finish season 2, season 3 actually made me think it had turned things around finally (making it fun at least, if not actually like Star Trek), but the last two eps were a real mess. At least they didn’t make the starfleet admiral evil for once, and instead just a complete moron who ruins being handed lasting peace on a platter by demanding the person offering it be executed for war crimes as his one condition.
LOL! Even Oysraa takes orders from Michelle. LOL! Vance has know her all of 4 weeks and takes his orders from her.What a SJW Mary Sue dumpster fire. Thank god it is over.Also, you could get banned for disparaging SJWs here.
My god this was terrible. Even Oysraa listens to Michelle. Nothing made sense. Why are the turbolifts flying through tons of open space inside the ship? Why would Oysraa think pushing Michelle into the cube thing would stop her? Why is the entire Starfleet firepower not able to destroy Discovery? Why would Vance trust Michelle with the spore drive and the future of the Federation when he just meet her weeks ago? Why was the sphere data impossible to erase and the Regulators did it in seconds? Why did Tig Narvao’s character bring it back to life in what was apparently the last DOT, if it was so dangerous? Why do Oko and Demeter have more sexual chemistry than all the shoehorned in LGBBQ characters like Staments, Cullber, Gray and Adira? This is absolutely the worst Star Trek show ever.
I agree. While the additional info this episode regarding Su’kal helped, the whole idea of that alone being the reason for the Burn was a real letdown. I really wish they had put more thought into the reasoning regarding the Burn at the beginning of the season than that. It’s droll and all, but not very satisfying. Plus, how did Su’kal’s energy wave travel over 10,000s of light years to affect all of the Federations ships at the same moment? Because that’s the distance I assume we’re talking about here. How big is the Milky way?? 50,000 LY across??
The burn was a ludicrous idea to begin with, but I’d love to know at what point they settled on that being the origin. If they just wanted a future where the federation has waned to a point its barely functioning, there are a plenty of non puzzle box ideas they could have gone with. They could have just badly lost a war, or had an internal schism.
Indeed. They needed to do some kind of writers’ room brainstorming session to ping-pong different ideas that could account for a fractured and diminished Federation at any point in the future. Doesn’t seem that it would be that hard to come up with a good one. I was genuinely moved by the Su’kal storyline but to connect it to the Burn was a bit dumb. Also awkward and too convenient. Ehhh. I was really hoping for more but…. oKAY I guess…. Was really hoping it would be more scientific/theoretical and less “unfortunate biological coincidence”.
That’s very silly; it would work if the scope of the consequences was smaller (it’s not hard to imagine a similar premise on, say, a Next Gen episode, only with the fallout being limited to a single ship or even one solar system), but as is, it’s terrifying in a way that the show never bothers to reckon with….the show where one dude wiped out an entire spacefaring civilization with a single thought because they killed his wife?
Back in the 4th episode’s comments I said:The Burn was Kevin Uxbridge pulling a Husnock on all of the dilithium in the universe because he was sick of people visiting Rana IV unannounced.
In the years since TNG the music box for Rishon has gotten a little out of hand, and now its broadcasting a song to everyone…I love that episode, but I was joking.There’s a genuine problem with taking what would have been a 1-episode premise, and stretching it over an entire season.Picard was probably more egregious, because that whole 1st season hung on a terrible ending. This season of disco isn’t that bad all things considered, because it’s more been about the effects of the Burn. The cause of the burn is important, but it’s also been mostly on the sidelines.It would just be nice if the writers would approach these things with a nice big serialized story to tell, rather than (as it appears) starting with a solid 42 minute episode and then adding 500 minutes of filler.
Or, conversely, a premise that could have been a 3 season arc, and taking it to completion in 3 episodes. The notion that a mystery the Federation hasn’t been able to solve in over 100 years just took the Disco crew a couple of months to figure out and solve is really hard to swallow.
Yeah, that’s a good point.Although I guess that’s why right now I feel a little more charitable to this season than I did to Picard.This still feels like we accomplished something, or at least explored this world a bit. The pacing was a giant mess with too much time spent on some stuff, and not nearly enough on others. And even though they botched the ending, the end wasn’t actually that important.
In fairness to Disco, no one’s really figured out pacing for the 10-episode streaming season. (see also: the first round of Marvel shows) I imagine if you stripped all the standalone episodes out of a season of DS9 and just ran the story-arc ones end to end, the pacing there would be weird too. (and as much as I love that show, it was jarring to go from galaxy-spanning consequences and the horrors of war to a fun episode about baseball on the holodeck and back).
I actually like a lot that they spent a good amount of time just establishing the Futurama era and the effects of the burn before solving the central mystery. And the central mystery was kinda dumb, but it was kinda dumb in a very Star Trek way, so I was still on board.
Yeah, I didn’t love it, but I also don’t think I hated it.Those dozen episodes in DS9’s final season of “…and maybe this week Ezri is a detective?” before they get to the big 10-episode “ALL-OUT WAR” are mostly fun, but they definitely lack urgency.And this season had a real urgency problem too. It’s like:THE BURN! WE GOTTA SOLVE THE BURN!!!
OMG!!! WE FOUND THE SOURCE OF THE BURN!!!
La de dah. Do we know where Book is from? Let’s visit.
Fiddle dee dee. Why not spend two episodes in the mirrorverse?
THE BURN!!! WE GOTTA SOLVE THE BURN!!!I assume there was some contractual stuff with Michelle Yeo that kept Georgiou around as long as it did. Ignoring that though, it would have been nice to get rid of Georgiou in a single ep, right around when they got rid of Nhan or met the Rulcans. And that would have given a solid 5~6 episode run of futurama stuff to get us to the finale.
To be fair, it’s not as though there haven’t been great, well-paced 10(ish)-episode seasons in the past. The past 20 years, for the US. The first season of Six Feet Under, back in 2001 was a masterfully-paced 13 episodes, as was 2002’s The Wire. Rome’s first season was a great 12 episodes. Outside the US, shorter seasons have been the norm forever. 1985’s Edge of Darkness is six thrilling hour-long episodes. Admittedly none of these were originally streamed – but they may as well have been, in plot structure.
And we still dont know the significance of that song.
Ikr? That just kinda got dropped.
Yeah it doesn’t really seem plausible. What special thing did the Discovery do that everyone else in the Federation couldn’t have possibly thought of? They did have the spore drive so maybe that’s all that was necessary as all the other systems were stuck without warp ability and thus couldn’t travel too far from home (and find magic Kelpians) but still, seems like in all that time all the best minds would have been able to find a workaround for dilithium.
Yeah it doesn’t really seem plausible. What special thing did the Discovery do that everyone else in the Federation couldn’t have possibly thought of? They did have the spore drive so maybe that’s all that was necessary as all the other systems were stuck without warp ability and thus couldn’t travel too far from home (and find magic Kelpians) but still, seems like in all that time all the best minds would have been able to find a workaround for dilithium.THIS! So much THIS!Basically, the show declared “Don’t listen to those silly scientists, they can’t figure out their way out of a paper bag. Listen to the folks with 1000 year outdated knowledge.”
And the show had the chuzpe to project that message while there’s a pandemic out there. a)The notion that propulsion technology hasn’t changed over 1000 years is utter nonsense. We went from sail and oxcarts to limited space flight in a mere 300 years.b)It’s unlikely that only dilithium was the sole suitable material to accomplish the effect. There were likely others tested but abandoned because dilithium was more effective. c)Over 1000 years, it should have been possible to find out precisely WHAT it is about dilithium that has the desired effect and produce such material synthetically – much like we’re producing synthetic diamonds, alloys, ceramics, conductors and semiconductors to have precisely the properties we want them to have instead of solely relying on what nature has to offer. And if all iron in the universe suddenly vanished, (we’d be dead for lack of hemoglobin, but let’s put that aside and focus on technology), we’d come up with new aluminium or other metal alloys to fill in where metal is needed and carbon and glass fiber for other uses. It would inconvenience us, yes, but it wouldn’t be something that our scientists and engineers would throw their hands up at and yell “Big disaster! Nothing we could come up with!”e)Given the mycele network exists and the jump drive is possible, no matter how classified that knowledge might have been, not only is that time frame enough for people to decide “Ok, let’s declassify that age-old nonsense”, it’s enough for people to independently discover the network. f)Voyager had extensive data about the Borg transwarp network. And in all that time, no one was able to re-engineer that technology? Not buying it.
Wasn’t it established that Romulan ships use controlled singularities rather than dilithium for their warp drives?
all the best minds would have been able to find a workaround for dilithium.
Don’t the Romulans, and thus now the Vulcans, have Warp-capable technology that doesn’t use dilithium? They already know it’s possible, how hard can reverse-engineering something like that be – ?::Never mind, I forgot who I was dealing with. They’d be more likely to re-invent the Spore Drive or Time Travel than an alternate means of Faster-Than-Light Propulsion….
One of the components that DISCO got ahold of that let them track down the source of the Burn came from Ni’Var, who had cut off all ties with the Federation and wouldn’t talk to them. The only reason they even agreed to talk to them now was because of Michael’s connection to Sarek.So it’s reasonable to say that only Michael and DISCO could track down the source of the Burn.
So it’s reasonable to say that only Michael and DISCO could track down the source of the Burn.No, it’s not. And it’s an insult to science and scientists.
No idea how this is “an insult to science and scientists”. DISCO was only able to track down the source of the Burn with the data they got from Ni’var. Without it, they weren’t able to track it down.If the Federation (pre-DISCO arrival in the future) had been able to get this data from Ni’Var, they would have been able to track down the Burn source. But Ni’Var refused to talk to the Federation, so that was not going to happen. They *only* gave them this data because of Michael’s connection to Sarek. The Admiral said that Ni’var refused to share their data with them, or talk to them at all, and without this data they couldn’t track down the Burn source.Again, DISCO is a definitely a pro-sciene/scientist Trek show. The idea that it is insulting scientists is weird.
DISCO was only able to track down the source of the Burn with the data they got from Ni’var. Without it, they weren’t able to track it down.Which is a contrived restriction that has no impact on the fact that the entire problem posed by the Burn should never have been one. If the Federation (pre-DISCO arrival in the future) had been able to get this data from Ni’Var, they would have been able to track down the Burn source. Which is completely and utterly irrelevant for the actual issue. But the notion that only Ni’Var was in the possession of the key data is silly to begin with. The Admiral said that Ni’var refused to share their data with them, or talk to them at all, and without this data they couldn’t track down the Burn source.And of course that data was critically necessary not just to find the source of the Burn, but also to come up with any and all new technology? Again, DISCO is a definitely a pro-sciene/scientist Trek show. The idea that it is insulting scientists is weird.What’s weird is that you believe it’s a pro-science show.It postulates:a)That the propulsion technology does not fundamentally change in a millenium. We went from sailing ships and oxcarts to nuclear powered ship and limited space flight in a mere 300 years. Supposedly, by the 29th century already, effing TIME TRAVEL was possible. By the 27th century, a scientist had developed technology to halt all fusion in a star. And supposedly already in the 25th century, as established by DISCO itself, the traditional methods and material to construct starships were abandoned. Oh, but not dilithium and warp drives, no. b)That the Federation for the entire time relies on naturally occuring dilithium, instead of figuring out just what it is about dilithium that is responsible for the desired effect and coming up with synthetic alternatives. When the rapid spread of bicycles with pneumatic tyres created a significant demand for rubber in the 1890s, we developed synthetic rubber. In 1909, one solution was developed in Germany, in 1910 another one in Russia. This was long before the price of natural rubber even reached levels where people were looking for alternatives – that only happened in the early 1920s. In 1930, several studies were published independently of each other that led to the production of neoprene in 1931 produced by DuPont. At the same time, other companies such as Thiokol started offering their own commercial synthetic rubber. Over the course of the 1930s, a host of different synthetic rubbers were developed by various companies. In a matter of three decades, we went from “gee, it might be nice to have a synthetic alternative” to “Ok, what specific properties do you need from your rubber?” By mid-1942, Japan had conquered most of the sources for natural rubber. Did that cripple the Allies? Nope. Not even though all trucks needed tyres and rubber parts were included in just about any war machine. It merely made them expand development of ever cheaper and ever more diverse synthetic rubber. By the 1950s, missiles were being built using synthetic rubber as part of their solid fuel. By the 1960s, production of synthetic rubber outstripped production of natural rubber. Within 100 years, we almost obviated the need for natural rubber in favor of synthetic one.
Instead of still chewing on willow bark, we found out what it was about willow bark that helped with fever and pain, and created it synthetically. And then we went and IMPROVED that molecule so that it was not only more pure but also more effective than just chewing on willow bark. Instead of pouting that we can’t find any substance that fulfills the specs we need naturally out there, we constantly invent new materials or find ways to modulate the properties of the old to suit our needs. Hence glass fibers, carbon fibers, specialty alloys and ceramics.The notion postulated by Discovery that no one could come up with an alternative to dilithium is anti-science. Heck, the notion that in all this time, no one thought about a failsafe when something happens with the dilithium in the reaction chamber is anti-science.
c)That no one has managed to develop alternative systems despite the fact that it was known that such technology exists. Heck, DISCO again mentions Transwarp conduits, but simply declares that they are too risky to use. In all this time, nobody managed to get that technology to work, despite the fact that it was known that it was perfectly viable and could be made reliable? The notion that at the time of season three, there wasn’t a dozen alternatives or more to the use of dilithium, from synthetic alternatives to completely novel technology available is devoid of even a shred of credibility. This is not how science operates.
And I’m not even getting started about the mycelial network.
The Federation is unable to track down the source of the burn. Ni’var has data that would help them with it, but are unwilling to share it with them because they’ve left the Federation and want nothing to do with them.
Seriously – this is not that complicated. Just because a scientist doesn’t have all necessary information to solve a problem doesn’t mean they’re a bad scientist. It just means that some data is out of their reach or not obtainable.“But the notion that only Ni’Var was in the possession of the key data is silly to begin with.” How? Different planets/civilization would have access to different scans and data. Ni’var would be able to do scans that the Federation, because of their location, would not be able to do. If I’m trying to figure out how a car accident happened, and there’s a witness that saw part of the crash but they won’t tell me what they saw, I’m not going to be able to figure out the entire accident without that information.“And of course that data was critically necessary not just to find the source of the Burn, but also to come up with any and all new technology?” I have no idea what you mean here. Ni’var has a scan of the Burn. They end up sharing this with Michael, who uses it with their existing Burn scans to pinpoint the source of the Burn. What “all new technology” are you talking about?I tried reading the rest of your comment but (a) it was way too long, and (b) I couldn’t follow what you were talking about. It’s pretty ridiculous to say that any Star Trek show is anti-scientist, especially one where the title ship is a science ship whose main purpose is not exploration or battle but to do SCIENCE.
The Federation is unable to track down the source of the burn. Ni’var has data that would help them with it, but are unwilling to share it with them because they’ve left the Federation and want nothing to do with them.“The Earth is flat! The Earth is flat! If I say the Earth is flat, it doggone IS flat!”. Seriously – this is not that complicated. Just because a scientist doesn’t have all necessary information to solve a problem doesn’t mean they’re a bad scientist. It just means that some data is out of their reach or not obtainable.It just means you still don’t get the point and have no clue as to how science works. How? Different planets/civilization would have access to different scans and data.Hilarious. Ni’var would be able to do scans that the Federation, because of their location, would not be able to do. If I’m trying to figure out how a car accident happened, and there’s a witness that saw part of the crash but they won’t tell me what they saw, I’m not going to be able to figure out the entire accident without that information.Yes, you are. Because witness reports are notoriously unreliable anyway and you’re going to do your own measurements, deducing speed, trajectory and whether the driver tried to use the brakes or not from other data.And the Federation is not one singular location but many. Plus tons of spaceships at different locations. The notion that Ni’Var’s location was a lock-out factor is just as silly as the notion that they would have data that couldn’t at least be approximated via other measurements. I have no idea what you mean here. Ni’var has a scan of the Burn.Which is devoid of even the most minuscule relevance to the problem that the lack of dilithium shouldn’t have crippled the Federation.They end up sharing this with Michael, who uses it with their existing Burn scans to pinpoint the source of the Burn. What “all new technology” are you talking about?If you had read my post instead of trying to lecture me on my job, you’d know. But evidently, to you, the very notion of “research” has nothing to do with science.Cf. above – I was referring to new propulsion technologies obviating the need for natural dilithium. I tried reading the rest of your comment but (a) it was way too long, and (b) I couldn’t follow what you were talking about. It’s pretty ridiculous to say that any Star Trek show is anti-scientist, especially one where the title ship is a science ship whose main purpose is not exploration or battle but to do SCIENCE.In other words, you’re not interested in science at all, not how it works, not how it progresses, but still interested in lecturing someone with a research doctorate on what science is and how it works.What’s ridiculous is your attempt to disprove me by proving my point.You’re way out of your league. And you’d demonstrated you don’t give an F… about science yourself. All you care about is that the labels are there. What the practice of science actually looks like is nothing you are even remotely interested in. Too much bother for your desire for instant gratification. You want all the authority with none of the work.The world doesn’t work that way, alas.
“The Earth is flat! The Earth is flat! If I say the Earth is flat, it doggone IS flat!”. This makes no sense and has nothing to do with anything I said, or frankly, anything *you* said. So I guess thanks for not putting a valid argument?“It just means you still don’t get the point and have no clue as to how science works.” No, it means I understand how science actually works, not the ridiculous way you think it works.“Hilarious.” What’s hilarious is that you think the Federation HQ would have access to the same scan data as Ni’var, a planet very far away. You do realize that these types of scans aren’t for the entire galaxy? A scan done at Fed HQ would only give data close to that location. But a scan done on Ni’var would have scan of different planets, systems, etc, all far away from Fed HQ.Let me put this in terms even you can understand. If I take a picture of a building on the horizon I’ll have some, but not all, info on that building from my picture. But if someone right next to that building takes a picture of it, their picture will have info that my picture doesn’t have. Different scans in different locations give different results.“Yes, you are. Because witness reports are notoriously unreliable anyway and you’re going to do your own measurements, deducing speed, trajectory and whether the driver tried to use the brakes or not from other data.” God, you’re pedantic. Fine, replace “witnesses” with “surveillance cameras”. If you’re investigating a car accident and you only have one camera of the accident, you won’t have all the information necessary to determine how the accident happened. But if you have a camera from a different location/angle, that will give you more information that will help you solve how the accident happened.“And the Federation is not one singular location but many. Plus tons of spaceships at different locations. The notion that Ni’Var’s location was a lock-out factor is just as silly as the notion that they would have data that couldn’t at least be approximated via other measurements.” As this season told us, this version of the Federation is very isolated, with limited communication with other outposts/systems. And we are told that Ni’Var did a scan of the Burn from their planet. What is so unbelievable that a scan from their planet would give info on the Burn that wouldn’t be obtainable from scans done at other locations?Besides, everyone wasn’t doing scans when the Burn happened. The list of people that were is very short. The Fed is lucky that Ni’var was doing a scan at the time and had this data.“Which is devoid of even the most minuscule relevance to the problem that the lack of dilithium shouldn’t have crippled the Federation.” Are you serious? A lack of dilithium would definitely cripple the Federation. What do you think makes starships go? If we woke up tomorrow and all gasoline had disappeared, you don’t think civilization would grind to a halt? In this scenario we’d eventually learn to live without gas, but for awhile, transportation as we know it would cease to be.“If you had read my post instead of trying to lecture me on my job, you’d know.” LOL at you thinking that you’re doing “my job”. That’s rich.“But evidently, to you, the very notion of ‘research’ has nothing to do with science.” What are you talking about? I’ve never said research has nothing to do with science. DISCO is a ship of scientists doing research. Do you even watch this show?“In other words, you’re not interested in science at all, not how it works, not how it progresses” Yes, I care nothing about science. That’s why I watch Star Trek. (LOL)“but still interested in lecturing someone with a research doctorate on what science is and how it works.” Oh, that is rich. You having anything to do with science in real life. Based on your comments, I highly doubt that.“What’s ridiculous is your attempt to disprove me by proving my point.” Sorry that I disproved your point. It was pretty easy, since it’s obvious to everyone (except you) that DISCO is a show about science.“You’re way out of your league. And you’d demonstrated you don’t give an F… about science yourself. All you care about is that the labels are there. What the practice of science actually looks like is nothing you are even remotely interested in. Too much bother for your desire for instant gratification. You want all the authority with none of the work.” Sure, Jan. You just keep telling yourself that. Thanks for the easy victory.
huh? You are referring to TNG not STD, yes?
TNG. The “one dude causing a widespread cataclysm” trope was a part of Star Trek long before Discovery.
Are all of you incapable of reading the article you’re commenting on, where your exact whine is SPECIFICALLY addressed?
Yeah, you know as a youngster watching the Best of Both Worlds, parts I and II, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, “Or maybe they could just go back to that planet where they left that guy and ask him very nicely to do that trick one more time for them.” Or how the Genesis device could basically take a Borg cube and turn it into a nice, green moon that they could all enjoy for a few weeks before it harmlessly crumbled away.
I also thought about that guy at every time Q was putting them through their paces. In fact, I was always disappointed Trek never did an episode where the various god-like beings they encountered had a showdown. I mean, say a Q, a Douwd, and maybe a Thasian are sitting around having drinks, and an argument escalates into a fight. Who gets their non-corporeal nose bloodied, who gets knocked down, and who stays down?
You’ just made me think of a bad taste “marry, kill or f***” joke right now… 😁Or an ad for a new ‘Star Trek: Stand-up Hour’ on Comedy Central-“Three god-like beings walk into a bar- two order a Cardassion sunrise and one orders a Vulcan ale-and you’ll -never- guess what happens next! Find out next Wed at 11, after new South Park!“
Yeah, but that was one obscure episode thirty five years ago, and the idea of a single Q-like entity having already retroactively reality-warped a whole civilization out of existence was pretty interesting as a standalone story.
If Kevin came back in Discovery and decided to simultaneously wipe out all the Vulkans, it wouldn’t be any less stupid just because there was a set precedent for it.
I was never a fan of Q and Q-like species. However I did like that as a simple stand-alone episode. Also it’s a little more believable to have a being evolve over eons or whatever and become a Q then to be just some guy irradiated and become a superhero. Star Trek is straight up comic-book garbage now.
It reminded me of the climax of one of the Next Gen movies. Light on ideas, and heavy on punching. Not really my kind of Star Trek.
Wait…Jimmy Kimmel is now guest starring on ST:D?
huh?
Go watch the Stamets scenes again and look at his face. He’s definitely not okay with Burnham yet.
yeah, he’s literally glaring at her. Not sure how anyone looked at those scenes and went ‘he’s happy’.
No one said that! Read the article, dipshit!
Not only that, the voiceover goes ‘sometimes it looks like connection is impossible’. Cut to Stamets glaring.Zach constantly blasts the show for being unsubtle and too emotional and yet absolutely misses the emotional beats of the show (which I agree are as subtle as a sledgehammer).
And every episode gets a b-, even if he appears to hate it.
Our reviewer was too busy hating the show to notice that…..
It fits in with his season-long theme of “not paying attention to the episodes”, like when he spent 2-3 reviews talking about Adira being a Trill when the show tells you multiple times that they are human.
That’s one of thw things I said to my husband (who is way more into Trek than me), “thank fucking god Stamets is pissed at Michael, did you just see the sjade he threw with his eyes im between family hugs? He is so fucking done with her.”
Stamets is essentially the surrogate audience.
This comment needed lots of stars!
This has shit-all to do with the bad writing the article criticizes. The show set up a conflict and then ignored it, ending the season and said, pay up by the month and maybe we’ll resolve it, though probably not since this show doesn’t like to do that. “Look at his face as the show sucks out loud as a TV show! They really do love us!” Y’all have Stockholm syndrome.
Truf…. He’s sad, disappointed and pissed as h…ll …
Didn’t she eject him from the ship in the previous episode? I’d have daggers in my eyes too.
Oh yeah. They’re definitely going to have to address this in season 4, and I think they fully plan to.
Yeah, they literally had like 4 shots of Stamets staring daggers at Burnham. And now that they don’t need him to jump the ship, he’ll be free to wander around and be a general malcontent.
Good point. I wonder if it’ll lead to even more tension between him and Booker, especially with the latter being full-on “Team Michael”.
Well, she could always transport him into the sun. Seriously.
And yet Burnham had the gall to slightly drop her smile when Stamets glares at her. She’s like, “I saved everyone! Now I’m captain! Everyone loves me!” and Stamets’ glare threatened to wipe that smile off her face. Apparently Stamets hasn’t read the script, where the bad guy told Burnham they could’ve been friends and the admiral himself admires her. Forgive and forget, Stamets!
indeed. It was pretty obvious.
“This is what’s called a no-win situation.” “I don’t believe in those.”
We already had the exact same reference in Season 2. Already running out of references, are we?
As Cobrai Kai has proved, you can have a show entirely comprised of references filled out by brief comedic bits, and it can work. The references aren’t the problem.
This episode confirmed my suspicion that the programable matter integrated into Discovery works in 4-dimensions. Much like the time pod from the 31st (100 years aready than discovery currently is)century that Archer discovers in Enterprise. The ships interior volume is now greater than it’s exterior dimensions would suggest and is the mechanism upon which the detached nacelles are physically attached to the ship withAlso glad Aurelio switched sides in the end. It’ll be good for Ken Mitchell to still have a set role in the future. Normally ALS would be a career ender but the went out of thier way to make this roll for him so he could continue being in Star Trek ( He played several Klingons in the first 2 seasons).
Shut the fuck up
Also glad Aurelio switched sides in the end. It’ll be good for Ken Mitchell to still have a set role in the future.Agreed. I really enjoyed Ken Mitchell’s performance.
I didn’t like this episode overall, and I could tell there were going to be annoyances very early on. Like when the ENTIRE of 30th century Starfleet opened fire on a slightly upgraded 800 year ship and couldn’t even take out her warp engines. So, since Osyraa easily took over Discovery, and the entirety of the Federation couldn’t even dent Discovery’s critical systems, that tells me that Osyraa should have just wiped out the entire Federation to begin with, with her apparently massive superiority in firepower.That was just ridiculously bad writing.The second thing was, as others mention, and have in the past, the laughable scale of the turbolift channels in this ship, which are made entirely that way for the action scenes. There is NO WAY Discovery is big enough for that, as we saw her next to a Connie.The other major issue here is the convenience of Book being able to operate the spore drive, and how many remarkable coincidences had to happen for him to even be involved in this entire season. Its just SO implausible.I actually really liked the preceding episode, so this was a big downer for me. I wasn’t surprised at Michael being captain (we all knew it was heading there at some point), but the other things just really bothered me.C-minus.
This elicited a huge guffaw from me in the movie theater when they revealed this insane “inner space” in one of the Star Treks that take place in the Kelvin Universe. It is a clear marker that the same idiots are in charge of Nu Trek as were in the those awful reboots.
I mean, at least the “kelvin timeline” ships are physically much bigger than the prime universe counterparts, but this is supposed to be prime universe, right?
Prior Treks, production teams designed blueprints of the various ships so the writing and set design can line up with something that felt real. I’m not sure Discovery’s production crew has thought that through.
Its especially lacking considering that they don’t even need to build physical sets the entire time—a lot of these action scenes are pure CGI backgrounds (like the turbolift ‘chasm’).
LMAO! There are tons of things to criticize about this show, and you choose the critique that translates to you announcing your opinion doesn’t matter to anyone except a tiny sliver of neurotic ultra-fans? Why?!
HA! I am positive they haven’t!
It absolutely does not matter to why this show is bad
I mean, at least in the Abrams movies that space was at least filled with machinery. Discovery seems to be mostly empty inside.
That was not my experience, I remember big empty spaces inside the walls, with turbo lifts flying around in space. It is ridiculous. Spaceships don’t have that amount of extra space lying around. Everything is designed to fill every millimeter with usable, functional, pressurized space or mechanics and tech to keep it that way. Is this space there so the turbo lifts can just fly wherever and not be constrained by the tubes we had always been presented with previously? It’s junk production.
The funny thing about that is that we SEE cross sections of the ship on various readouts at times throughout the show, and nowhere is there that vast gaping space for the turbolift scenes. Looks mostly like a readout you would see on a TNG, DS9 or Voyager console.
STAR TREK IS NOT REAL DUDE
Yep. They did that with the short that featured Spock and Number One, right? Very silly. Turbolifts shouldn’t work that way.
I took the free-floating lifts as evidence of 900 year in the future technology, but all that open space? I mean…. Is Discovery the Death Star??
If one thing a lifetime of watching sci-fi movies has taught me, advanced technology is impossible without inexplicable gaping chasms everywhere.
Ha ha, how true. Just throw in a couple of black holes, a little exotic “dark” matter over here, a neon-colored bonus expanse over there, and voila! Totally normal future space thing which goes bewww all thru space. _ALL_ space ships in the future will use TARDIS-brand proprietary technology. Our limited and basic 21st century brains just cant fathom this level of necessary sophistication. But it’s in the rules, so we better get used to it.
The DISCOVERY is a fern bar in space, best as I can tell…It’s like that episode of SEALAB 2021 where a con man convinces Captain Murphy that the lab needs to be rebuilt along Feng Shui lines — so he has safety hatches removed because they break up the “energy flow”, and the Reactor Safety Cooler replaced with baby bamboo trees!
Fern bar in space lmfao 🤣
Its the space ship equivalent of the atom ⚛️ . Or like someone else said, it’s a Starfleet Tardis(covery)™️.
That is the dumbest possible thing to dislike about this crap show.
Moral of the story: when dealing with antagonistic groups, simply kill the leader and the second in command ASAP. It’s what it all leads to anyway, despite every attempt at doing “the right thing, the right way”. Just cut out the long and winding road and just get to the endgame.
I for one enjoyed the five kilometer shuttle trip through cyberpunk city circa 1995 to get to the data core. Also, apparently the nacelles magically repaired themselves.
Well, since they were ‘upgraded’ to not be physically attached to the ship (mentioned in the episode after they first entered Federation HQ), I’m not sure how she managed to ‘climb’ into them to plant the bomb in the first place.Also, amusingly, even the relatively giant Galaxy class would have been too small for the scenes we saw in the turbolift battle, and its roughly 3 times the size of a Connie.
Star Trek has always taken some liberties with things like consistent scale for the sake of spectacle. But Discovery has never spent enough time on the actual ship to really give the audience a sense of its size or layout.
(Not that it really matters much, since it’s they botched the design of the ship in the first place)
“ But Discovery has never spent enough time on the actual ship to really give the audience a sense of its size or layout.”I agree, but really, we have a pretty good reference point when they were parked alongside the Enterprise, a Constitution class.Since this is the Prime Universe, we know the size of the Constitution class, and its not anywheres near the size needed for the scenes that we saw, with those giant areas of open space where the lifts were traveling. Not to mention there is no part of the ship design that has a huge open ship like that—it would have to be a giant bulbous balloon. Sort of like Osyraa’s ship.I agree on the design. Discovery is one ugly ship. The funny thing is that the same people came up with the beautiful (external) modernized version of the original Enterprise.
“Prime Universe”, holy shit shut the fuck up unless you’re going to criticize the things that make this show bad AS A TV SHOW
Well, it looked to me like they had scaled up the size of the Enterprise as well.But this sort of slapdash attitude towards the internal layout is emblematic of the people making the show. They only care about spectacle and big emotional moments, rather than setting up limitations for themselves and working within those.
Personally my favourite take on a ship’s interior is the cramped Enterprise of The Undiscovered Country, with its tiny officer’s quarters, actual galley, and narrow corridors. That ship feels real.
“Well, it looked to me like they had scaled up the size of the Enterprise as well.”I mean, I guess its possible given the size of Spock’s quarters and the new bridge, but that would again be destroying established canon, since this is Prime Universe, and not Kelvin. Unless I have that last part wrong.
“Personally my favourite take on a ship’s interior is the cramped Enterprise of The Undiscovered Country, with its tiny officer’s quarters, actual galley, and narrow corridors. That ship feels real.”Not only that, but watching TUC on something more than a VHS tape and tiny CRT TV finally reveals details like the worn paint on the walls which I never saw before—-done intentionally to make the Ent-A feel like an old ship near the end of her life.Unfortunately, it also makes glaring gaffes like the way-to-wide Galaxy class corridors (seen outside the galley) and of course, the galaxy-class warp core, much more obvious.
Referring to the Discovery, I mean.
I liked the first Enterprise in ‘Enterprise’ too. Seems like what a “simple” prototypical Earth-built spaceship would look like.
The oeuvre of the show is unearned moments. Here’s point A, here’s point B, who cares what’s in the middle?
I think it’s a pretty design, but all that inner space certainly cannot be realistic…
Beauty is of course, in the eye of the beholder, but other than the top-down view, which looks nice, I can’t get past the too-small secondary hull and tiny deflector dish from frontal views.But I really like what they did with the Enterprise.
I like how the Disco’s saucer spins (although was it ever explained why it does?), but I’m not super keen on the triangular lower hull. The original TOS Enterprise will always look classic and elegant to me, in all of it’s versions.
It looks like they did a half-melding with the movie Connie refit, especially the nacelle struts.
Yeah I like them. They look sharp and sleek.
The first sane opinion in this entire nerd conversation, pointing out how this franchise constantly changes the scale of everything in it from scene to scene, and you bury it? Please don’t
From the outside at least, it looks like a pretty sleek ship
She bombed the part that attached them magnetically or whatever, she didnt blow up any physical structure.
The room they showed her in looked to be physically inside the (supposedly) unattached nacelle—-not sure how she would have gotten there by climbing.
When warp is engaged, the nacelles physically reattach to the main hull – you can see this in the very last shot of the ep. So, they were in warp, the nacelles were attached, Owo planted the bomb which blew up and detached a nacelle, knocking them out of warp.
I don’t understand—what is the point of detaching the nacelles when NOT at warp?
teh FUTURE!!
It allows them to be more maneuverable. You can move the nacelles independently of the rest of the ship so it’s easier to turn, etc.. Need to make a hard right? The Nacelles can turn that direction like a space wheel rather than having to make a huge wide turning arc. That’s what I took from it at least.
I mean, I guess—-it seems like an awful large undertaking for what amounts to some maneuverability at sublight speeds.BTW, the nacelles do not provide thrust at sublight speeds, if thats what you were getting at—they are the warp field generators, not the impulse engines.
Um, that isn’t how the ships maneuver nor, what the Nacelles are used for.
It’s Star Trek! All the technology works because (insert some line about anti-magnetic blurblegurble)! You really deserve this show if you can’t even get to “The plotting and dialog sucks,” which is step one of a rational conversation about it, not this super-embarrassing ultra-fan crap where you pretend it’s hard sci-fi.
Do we know??
Presumably so the nacelles can dance around objects or present a smaller target like Book’s ship did. However, if you’re close enough to a celestial body that you need to shift a nacelle to avoid hitting it, you’ve already fucked up catastrophically.
‘Connie’? Why don’t you just call it the starship Enterprise? What is wrong with you?
If you watch carefully, you can actually see the programmable matter connect the nacelles as it prepares to warp. They then, presumably, remain connected until they drop to impulse.
well, I think the shot of Discovery back at Federation headquarters was some time later, so presumably Discovery sent out an sos or jumped back to where the fleet was and they assisted with repairs
Please, please, please notice all the things worth criticizing about this show instead of how many whatzits the whozit has inside
It was not until this episode I learned that the nacelles aren’t attached?
LOL! Even Oysraa takes orders from Michelle. LOL! Vance has know her all of 4 weeks and takes his orders from her.What a SJW Mary Sue dumpster fire. Thank god it is over.Also, you could get banned for disparaging SJWs here.
Yes, this is the first time ever on Star Trek that a ship gets fired on way more times than is realistic and survives because our heroes are on board. Fired, blunder, etc.
There is “plot armor” and then there is “ridiculous, absolutely unbelievable plot armor that undermines the very premise of the show”.We are led to believe in that scene that Discovery, an 800 year old ship with minor upgrades, is more powerful than 50 or so Federation ships from the 30th century.Give me a break.
There is absolutely no such thing as “plot armor”. Heroes overcome staggering odds in genre fiction because otherwise the story doesn’t happen.
Yeah that was rough- very unbelievable in-universe. It was hard for me to enjoy that part due to the extreme handwaving required. Really wish they had found a way to try to offer some kind of explanation for Disco’s sudden bulletproof-ness during or before this episode- even a weak one would have helped.
I really don’t see this as a nitpick—-as somebody else said here, its the equivalent of a trireme getting some steel cladding then taking on 50 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.Even if we give the benefit of the doubt and say that Discovery was completely upgraded to be on par with a 30th century starship ——she had 50 of them firing on her at once. Makes no sense. Discovery should have been torn to pieces in 2 seconds. Especially since Vance clearly orders them all to fire everything they’ve got.
I know right- haha. Yes that was one of my thoughts during viewing too. Just too much of a stretch to believe the Discovery could stand up to all that esp given its age, even with it’s upgrades. “Whoa- this is some _hella_ strong Unobtainium-containing plot armor! Why not start mining _that_ ???” lol
Are you suggesting that the Golden Hind couldn’t go toe-to-toe with 50 modern battlecruisers? Because if not, how could Drake effortlessly solve all of today’s problems?[ok, Drake and the Hind are only around 400 years. I couldn’t think of any ships from 800 years ago. I guess it would be some sort of post-Viking longboat, or (on the Med) a rowed galley of some sort…]
Space. The effortless frontier. These are the voyages of super Captain Michael Burnham. My continuing mission: To win at everything I do forever, all the while talking about family and the bonds of the crew and whatever else I have to in order to present a level of modesty to everyone else. To seek out new situations where I just win because I’m Michael Burnham. To not-so-boldly go where everyone has gone before, but only I make it look super frickin’ easy!
Yeah, I enjoy this show quite a bit, and mostly avoid the vitriol that a lot of Trek Fans have for it… but even I’m getting sick of The Michael Burnham Show (with special guest stars – everyone else!). I’ve never seen a Trek show so mistreat its bridge crew to the point where you can replace one of them for two entire episodes (Nilsson) and it make zero difference to the plot.
I wish this show would live up to its name, and be about the adventures of the crew of the Discovery, and not bloody win-at-everything-forever Burnham.
Who cares what “Trek Fans” think if the TV show is bad as a TV show? This TV show is bad as a TV show.
The thing about Star Trek is that it’s almost always been an ensemble show. Picard is the only outlier there, but in that case the main character was a beloved actor and character that we’ve had seven seasons of TV and four feature films to come to know and respect. Both Patrick Stewart and Jean-Luc Picard have earned that.The creators of Discovery wanted to switch things up and make it revolve around one person. OK, I can roll with that. The problem is that they tried to do so with a totally unlikable lead character (to be clear, not lead actress, I’ve enjoyed Sonequa Martin-Green in other things) who is always right. Even when she does things, as I’ve said before, that are objectively wrong, she’s proven right in the end and far from suffering any real consequences for it, she’s applauded and often promoted for it. Any consequences are quickly undone – demoted as XO? She’s the fucking captain a few episodes later.No show can work like that, Trek included. Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and Archer all had flaws. They all made mistakes, and suffered consequences and trauma as a result. Look at another successful show with a character who’s basically worshipped in the way Discovery wants us to worship Burnham – NCIS. Gibbs has a lot of flaws and trauma, and exploring that has provided a lot of material to explore and flesh out the character. Yes, Gibbs always wins in the end, because he’s the show’s hero. But he’s not perfect, and that’s the key difference. Like Kirk, sometimes he goes outside the chain of command, but it’s not his default position. He’s a leader, not a selfish jerk. He genuinely cares about his team. And so on and so on.Burnham should not be a lead character. She should be a foil – the brilliant crew member who’s always causing problems but has good enough outcomes that it’s tolerated, though not celebrated.
Yeah, this episode may have done Discovery in for me. Once they did the closing of Animal House at the end and told us that Saru was taking some time off to spend more time with his family, I stopped the program, went into app settings, turned off auto-renew, and deleted it from my FireStick.
I’m not going that far—as I said, I liked the last episode a lot, but this one was a bit of a letdown.
Since you don’t have the brains to process it and just want to babble about how there aren’t enough gorkelbortz to the bopkoargle of the ‘Connie’ (meaning the starship Enterprise), let me inform you this is a bad TV show for real-life reasons that matter.
They should’ve said he was going to a farm upstate where he could run around and play in fields with other Kelpiens, but I guess they already did that on Lower Decks.
The entire fleet unable to stop discovery just reminded me of wrestling match, when you’ve got a heel turn, and suddenly the guy is unstoppable. Then when he turns back to a face, suddenly everybody is beating the shit out of him. Just lazy writing.
And yeah, I didn’t realize the turbolifts operated in some pocket dimension or subspace like that. You look at the shots where they show someone at a window and pan out, and the ship looks about… 50 meters tall? Even the fall of Ron Perlman’s character at the end of Star Trek: Nemesis was kind of ludicrous, and that was on a much bigger ship.
WWE Trek…I like it!
Also… if they were going to use the spore drive to escape the larger ship, why did they need to eject the warp core to blow up the ship? Do they need a clear path of space to use the mycelial network?
Well, that part seems to fall in line with the episode making Osyraa’s ship much more powerful than it seemed earlier in the series—-if they didn’t blow it up, I guess they concluded that it would have cut the trailing fleet to pieces.Besides, they knew where the Dilithium planet is now, meaning that regardless of whether or not Discovery was able to jump and rescue Saru + pals before Osyraa’s ship got there, the Chain would have raided the planet and dominated the entire sector.
Just say the writing is bad. Please. I’m begging just one of you shameful nerds to arrive at why this show really sucks
My god this was terrible. Even Oysraa listens to Michelle. Nothing made sense. Why are the turbolifts flying through tons of open space inside the ship? Why would Oysraa think pushing Michelle into the cube thing would stop her? Why is the entire Starfleet firepower not able to destroy Discovery? Why would Vance trust Michelle with the spore drive and the future of the Federation when he just meet her weeks ago? Why was the sphere data impossible to erase and the Regulators did it in seconds? Why did Tig Narvao’s character bring it back to life in what was apparently the last DOT, if it was so dangerous? Why do Oko and Demeter have more sexual chemistry than all the shoehorned in LGBBQ characters like Staments, Cullber, Gray and Adira? This is absolutely the worst Star Trek show ever.
I’m more surprised that they didn’t kill off Owosekun. The minute she started talking about her childhood, I thought, “yep she’s a goner. How predictable.”Also surprised that Stamets didn’t resign from Starfleet. Burnham pretty much left Saru, Culber, and Adira for dead, “for the good of the Federation” and Admiral Least Interesting Man In The Universe wasn’t any better. He should be giving them the GFY as he hops on the next ship to Earth. I know Tilly is new to this whole starship commander thing, but she sucked at it badly and wasted three good episodes because she didn’t think to jump the fuck out of there the moment they realized Osyraa was inbound (and they weren’t cloaked by the time she arrived? They had a cloaking device and didn’t think to use it until Osyraa was already there?). They knew where the away team was, they had a spore drive that can take them anywhere, they didn’t need to be sitting around waiting for her to pop up. Plus, they seemed to have forgotten that this is a 900 year old ship, analogous to the USS Constitution trying to battle an Iowa class battleship. I could rant for days about this. I had high hopes after Unification part III, but they seriously need to unfuck the writing. They should’ve been hitting their stride by now, but they’re still fumbling with poor character development and bad plotting.
“Also surprised that Stamets didn’t resign from Starfleet. Burnham pretty much left Saru, Culber, and Adira for dead, “for the good of the Federation” and Admiral Least Interesting Man In The Universe wasn’t any better. He should be giving them the GFY as he hops on the next ship to Earth.”Well, to be fair, this actually WAS the right thing for Burnham to do, although amusingly, it turned out later that Osyraa still had Book who could run the spore drive, so she really didn’t accomplish much at all by shooting him out that airlock. But, as far as she knew, by getting Stammets off the ship, she was nullifying the one thing that gave Osyraa unstoppable power. Plus, there was the real possibility that Stammets was going to jump them back to the planet in a selfish attempt to save Culber, thereby handing over the Dilithium planet to Osyraa (and probably not rescuing the stranded crew anyways!).Stammets was definitely in the wrong here.
And it’s profoundly aggravating that this is the one bit of tension they’re carrying over. If the show had killed Culver (again) or something, then you could probably justify it, but at this point, Hugh and Adira are right there to go “hey, we told her to leave, and making sure you couldn’t be used to conquer the galaxy was the exact thing we were willing to die to prevent. We’re know you were worried and scared. But we love you, we’re fine, and she did the right thing. Let it go.” All of the interesting conflicts have been resolved in favor of one where Stamets is being a catty asshole.
Well, to be fair, this actually WAS the right thing for Burnham to doIt was, and I can’t argue with that decision. Here’s the thing, though, that made it fall flat – she was potentially dooming someone who mattered to Stamets, not her. We’ve seen that she doesn’t xgive a shit about anyone except maybe Book at all, except in a very abstract way. Culber isn’t important to her, any more than “Crewman #5″ would be. There was no emotional weight to her decision.I’m projecting here, but maybe Stamets recognized that and that’s why he was so pissed, not purely because he thought he was going to lose the man he loved again.
Hmm. I don’t know. I think she loves and cares for everyone. I’m not trying to drink the Burn-aid, but I haven’t seen where she doesn’t care for the crew. I agree that it can get aggravating though when a previously more heavily team-based show focuses so much one character and veers into Mary Sue territory about that person from time to time.
I don’t mean “doesn’t care” in the sense that I think she’s a sociopath, I mean that, in the pecking order of things that are important to her, other people are well below accomplishing whatever it is that she needs to accomplish.And that’s necessary for a leader in certain circumstances – I remember Troi’s command simulation in TNG, where she had to send Geordi to his death to save the ship. Needs of the many and all that. But it seems to be her MO in every situation.
I know Tilly is new to this whole starship commander thing, but she sucked at it badlyThat whole subplot was ridiculous, and I’m sure that she’s going to be the permanent XO under her bestie. There was not a worse choice to be Saru’s XO. She’d been out of the academy what, a month? A captain – especially an inexperienced one – needs an XO who can offer alternatives and provide feedback on strategies and such. And one who has the experience to take over if and when the captain isn’t available. The last person you want in that position is a goddamn butterbar, I don’t care how smart and precocious she is.I don’t like to use the term “Mary Sue,” but I use it for her. She ticks all the boxes.
Bad show with bad plotting and dialog. Tons to criticize about it. Depends on being the only big draw for an entire monthly subscription service to stay in production, so that a shrinking ultra-fan base essentially pays a monthly fee to support it….the most popular comment on A.V. Club: “Next to a ‘Connie’, we can clearly see the forbleblurtz is a NON-canon 15.6 urglezots. I invoke my fan credentials and demand this be addressed as top priority!”…y’all really deserve this show, and it deserves you.
Turbolifts in a huge chasm in the middle of a starship? Ha!How about huge beer-brewing tanks inside the Engineering section in the middle of a starship?!There’s not enough hatred for both.Yep, this episode had too much going on, and apart from being choppy, lots of it didn’t make much sense. Pew, pew, Osyraa is down, but is she dead? Why is Aurellio hanging around the bridge? Stamets second scene is with Hugh and Adira, and they’re all hugging. Stamets was not in the bridge. Were all the DOT-23s destroyed?The action was okay, better than endless technobabble, and I appreciate it not ending in a cliffhanger.Nitpickers, proceed!
“Were all the DOT-23s destroyed?”Well, they did revive that one at the end.
Same. The Federation needing to integrate with the Chain to remain viable seemed like such a narratively rich possibility that it’s almost cruel to tease it and then just have Michael murder everybody and get everything they need in one fell swoop. Similarly, the practical and ethical ramifications of an innocent (mental) child having galaxy-fucking powers is the kind of thing that could make things awkward for a crew, but nope, turns out the solution is just to get him away from the rocks.
It’s appropriate that the ship came up in this episode because this was the exact problem Voyager kept running into: the crew is trapped without a way home in nearly impossible circumstances, but they’re breezing through it and solving theoretically difficult problems with laughable ease in 45-60 minutes.
Similarly, the practical and ethical ramifications of an innocent (mental) child having galaxy-fucking powers is the kind of thing that could make things awkward for a crew, but nope, turns out the solution is just to get him away from the rocks.And it’s something that maybe they’ll explore in the next season (LOL), but I find it difficult to believe that the only impact of moving Su’Kal from the dilithium planet is that he can’t cause another burn.He was mutated in utero to live in a high-radiation environment. So taking him to a no-radiation environment doesn’t cause any negative impacts? The two mutations we saw – being wired into subspace in a way that interacts with dilithium and being able to thrive in high radiations – weren’t small things. It beggars belief to think that those were the only two mutations.
The second thing was, as others mention, and have in the past, the laughable scale of the turbolift channels in this ship, which are made entirely that way for the action scenes.It’s like they watched that turbolift shaft scene in Star Trek V with deck numbers that couldn’t have existed and thought “yeah, that worked, let’s go with a 21st Century version of that.”
Shatner wanted to be in command of a REALLY BIG ship for his directorial debut.
“Like when the ENTIRE of 30th century Starfleet opened fire on a slightly upgraded 800 year ship and couldn’t even take out her warp engines.”After DISCO was accepted back in the Federation, we had an entire scene in the next episode where they said that DISCO had been upgraded with all the latest technology – programmable matter controls, personal transporters, etc. I can’t remember if they mentioned shield but this would have included that. So DISCO now has 31st century shields. And it probably has the best shields of any Federation ship since it would be the most recent ship that had shields installed.Also, it wasn’t the “ENTIRE” fleet. This was only the ships that were already inside Federation headquarters, not including the other ships that were away on missions.
Yes, I mentioned the upgrades in a later post—-but the frame of the ship and most of the interior was 23rd century technology. Because if they upgraded everything, they might as well just build another ship.Regardless, there were at least 20-50 ships on screen I could see, all told to fire ‘everything they had’ at 1 ship, so even if we assume the entire ship had been upgraded to par with a 30th century starship, its still 20 to 50 vs 1.
During this we also had DISCO firing all weapons at those ships, and Adira’s original ship was outside firing at HQ. DISCO wasn’t sitting motionless taking all these hits while this was happening.We’ve seen one ship fighting a large number of enemy ships in Trek many times, and through skill and guile they’ve managed to survive.
“We’ve seen one ship fighting a large number of enemy ships in Trek many times, and through skill and guile they’ve managed to survive.”Show me one instance were 20-50 starships all firing on ONE equal tech starship resulted in the one starship surviving intact. Disco moving and firing would have absolutely no impact on evening those odds unless she had significantly superior tactical systems. Even if she had the size, maneuverability of say, the Defiant, it wouldn’t make much of a difference when it is 20-50 vs. 1.The Defiant surviving that giant Negh’var was due to it being 1 ship and Defiant being relatively tiny, and flying close to the hull and in between weapons arcs. None of which matters much when there are 20-50 other ships.
“Show me one instance were 20-50 starships all firing on ONE equal tech starship resulted in the one starship surviving intact.”Again, please refer to most sci-fi shows (Trek and non-Trek) where one ship is battling a group of ships. This is a common trope and happens all the time. Hell, it may happen in *every* Star Wars film.
Star Wars is a completely different sub-section of sci-fi, where scientific knowledge is often cast aside for fantasy. Star Trek (or at least it used to be), is more scientifically based.Even in Star Wars, the times we see one ship hold out against a fleet of say, Star Destroyers, it is always because the ship in question (say, the Falcon) is far more maneuverable and can avoid direct fire. This does not apply to the large target of Discovery—she is not the Defiant.
“Star Wars is a completely different sub-section of sci-fi, where scientific knowledge is often cast aside for fantasy” Ok if you want to get technical, then change my previous comment to “any fiction where ships battle in outer space”. Again, one ship fighting a large number of ships and surviving is a common trope, even if you discount all of Star Wars. You might as well complain that in every outerspace sci-fi show/movie there should be no gravity and everyone should be floating around in their ships.
Whatever the best and newest shields the Federation has, DISCO has them. She is probably the most recent ship that the Federation has applied shields to.
“Whatever the best and newest shields the Federation has, DISCO has them. She is probably the most recent ship that the Federation has applied shields to.”I’ve already said that even IF we are to assume that Disco has been entirely upgraded to the standards of a current starship, its still 20-50 of “equal Discoveries” versus 1.
And I’ve already said that sci-fi is full of dozens of examples of one ship fighting a group of ships and surviving. Usually the one ship is the good guys and the group are the bad guys, but in this situation the roles are reversed. Seriously, this is a very common trope not just in sci-fi, but in all fiction. You might as well complain that one guy can fight off a group of people.
“And I’ve already said that sci-fi is full of dozens of examples of one ship fighting a group of ships and surviving.”So far, all you’ve given is vague examples including Star Wars, which is completely different from Star Trek. And even THEN there was a quantifiable reason for it surviving—-for example, the Falcon was small and highly maneuverable, going against much larger, much less agile ships. Nor was she the SINGULAR target of the Death Star and TIE fighters.This scene had ONE slow moving, ancient framed large starship being hit simultaneously with 20-50 other similar sized 30th century starships best weapon systems. Even if it was just 3 vs. 1, at the very least, Discovery should have been disabled before the shield was penetrated allowing them to escape.Lets draw a parallel to TNG. Yesterdays Enterprise—-in which you had 3 heavy cruiser BoPs attacking one Federation heavy cruiser and a limping away Enterprise-C, which was, for all intents and purposes, not even a threat.The Enterprise-D, despite not being the ONLY target, tried to make itself one, and took heavy damage rather quickly.That was 3 roughly equivalent ships vs 1 and the Enterprise-D was fatally damaged.This was 20-50 equivalent (or, most likely MORE powerful ships) vs 1. Discovery should have been ash within 30 seconds.
I don’t know what else to tell you. It’s a common trope in sci-fi fiction for one ship to be up against a group of ships, and either through better weapons or shields, a more talented crew, luck, etc, that one ship is able to survive against the larger group. This has been a thing for as long as there has been fiction about outer space battles. You might as well be complaining that most planets have a breathable atmosphere, or everyone speaks the same language.
“You might as well be complaining that most planets have a breathable atmosphere, or everyone speaks the same language.”We don’t actually have much proof that most planets outside of our solar system (and ones close enough to observe with our limited technology) don’t have breathable atmospheres, but that is besides the point. It has been consistent throughout all Trek series. As for the same language, we have the Universal Translator.There are reasons given, based on theoretical science as to why the above two things are possible. There was no reason given, whatsoever, how a 23rd Century starship was somehow able to be upgraded to be 20x more powerful than a 30th century one, using the same 30th century technology. Nor could there be—-it doesn’t make a lick of sense.There has never been a point in Trek I can recall where a ship outgunned 20 to 1 survived for any significant period of time of constant unavoidable fire. Never.The Scimitar in Nemesis was pulling its punches until the end because they needed Picard alive.
“We don’t actually have much proof that most planets outside of our solar system (and ones close enough to observe with our limited technology) don’t have breathable atmospheres, but that is besides the point. It has been consistent throughout all Trek series.” Except for all the episodes where they encounter a planet that’s not class M. And if *all* planets in Trek have a breathable atmosphere, then why bother classifying planets with a letter at all?“As for the same language, we have the Universal Translator.” Except when it doesn’t work. Or for episodes where non-humans are talking and they’re speaking English for no reason whatsoever except that it’s a trope that they speak English so the viewers don’t have to read sub-titles.Seriously, one ship being attacked by a group of ships and surviving is one of the most common tropes in outer space fiction. If you aren’t able to understand that, I don’t know what else to tell you.
“Except when it doesn’t work. Or for episodes where non-humans are talking and they’re speaking English for no reason whatsoever except that it’s a trope that they speak English so the viewers don’t have to read sub-titles.”That’s entirely different—-we’re to understand that they are speaking their native tongue, but is translated for us for the sake of the narrative or scene.It doesn’t directly state anywhere that everybody in the galaxy speaks Standard natively. THAT would be the equivalent of what you are arguing about 20 ships failing to damage 1.“Except for all the episodes where they encounter a planet that’s not class M.”I don’t understand what you are getting at here. Most of those episodes they have environmental equipment when outdoors.“And if *all* planets in Trek have a breathable atmosphere, then why bother classifying planets with a letter at all?”Why would they be interested in traveling to a planet without a breathable atmosphere in the first place? I can’t see too many plots developed around going to a Dilithium mining planet or a dead rock in space. Trek generally deals with relations between galactic species. Some species idea of a “breathable” atmosphere is lethal to humans. Thus the other class letters.
“That’s entirely different—-we’re to understand that they are speaking their native tongue, but is translated for us for the sake of the narrative or scene.” Oh, so you accept one common trope in sci-fi fiction, but you can’t accept another trope?“I don’t understand what you are getting at here. Most of those episodes they have environmental equipment when outdoors.” You said that it’s been consistent throughout the Trek series that planets have a breathable atmosphere. The very fact that they have a classification system for planets says this isn’t true.“Why would they be interested in traveling to a planet without a breathable atmosphere in the first place?” How about to visit another species? Look for resources? Explore? Are forced to land there because of circumstances outside of their control? You couldn’t think of any of these? Have you ever watched an episode of Star Trek before?
“Oh, so you accept one common trope in sci-fi fiction, but you can’t accept another trope?”That isn’t a standard sci-fi trope. Its a standard television and movie method and artistic choice. And it makes sense in context.There is NOTHING about 1 ancient ship surviving 20+ future ships furious direct attacks that makes any sense whatsoever. There is nothing there that the narrative would have you believe.Even IF they had said something like “Nice work on those massive proprietary upgrades, Osyraa!” it wouldn’t make sense, because that would mean that Osyraa had technology capable of dominating the Federation in the first place, thus negating the entire plot of the final story arc.And they didn’t even do THAT.
“Look for resources? Explore? Are forced to land there because of circumstances outside of their control? You couldn’t think of any of these? Have you ever watched an episode of Star Trek before?”You’ve got a lot of nerve asking me if I’ve ever seen an episode of Trek when you’re pushing this 1 starship vs 20+ as fine when that has literally never come close to happening in the entire franchise.
“ You said that it’s been consistent throughout the Trek series that planets have a breathable atmosphere. The very fact that they have a classification system for planets says this isn’t true.”No, I didn’t. YOU said that. I said, the majority of planets involved in the plots have breathable atmosphere. Because Trek has always been about conflicts and interactions between species. Not digging for Dilithium.And no, they don’t ALWAYS go to planets with breathable atmospheres.I can’t even figure out what you are trying to argue anymore.
“Seriously, one ship being attacked by a group of ships and surviving is one of the most common tropes in outer space fiction. If you aren’t able to understand that, I don’t know what else to tell you.”Again, Trek is not a standard sci-fi series, it is based more of realism or theoretical realism than most fantasy series. And it is not remotely realistic for one ship to stand up to 20 of same/superior technology.Secondly, as I keep pointing out with the Falcon vs the Imperial Fleet and Death Star, even the more fantasy-based sci-fi series like Star Wars don’t have that situation come up.
I don’t know what else to tell you. It’s a *very* common trope in ALL of sci-fi (not just Star Trek) where one ship is outnumbered by a group of ships in an outerspace battle, and they are able to survive, either through luck, skill, a better ship, etc. This has been a thing for decades. I don’t understand how you can’t understand this. Maybe sci-fi is something you’ve never read/watched before? That seems to be the only explanation.
“This has been a thing for decades. I don’t understand how you can’t understand this.”And this is why it is astonishing that you accuse ME of never watching an episode of Trek, because this is something that doesn’t happen in Trek.
“That isn’t a standard sci-fi trope.”It is. It’s been around in sci-fi fiction long before Star Trek. If you can’t understand that, there’s not much use in talking to you.
No it isn’t (the speaking english for the screen and assumed native) . It was used in just about every genre of movie. Not a sci-fi trope.Here’s a famous scene from a military drama.
LOL at Hunt for Red October being “a military drama”.I was still talking about a single ship being overwhelmed by a bunch of ships but surviving, but non-English people speaking English is just as much a trope in not just sci-fi fiction, but all fiction. You actually proved me right with that HFRO clip, so thanks for proving my point.
Regardless of which genre you classify Red October under, it isn’t Sci-Fi. Which is my point.How you claimed victory from that clip is absolutely astonishing.THE WHOLE POINT is that Trek has always used that “assumed native tongue” method of cinema. But there has NEVER been a point where 20+ equal (at best) ships fought 1 ship and that one ship was not severely damaged or destroyed like we saw with Discovery. Never happened. And that is the entire laughably bad writing for this scene.One thing has always been used in Trek, and the other has never been used. Very simple.Furthermore, I’m leaving out that Discovery wasn’t even likely ON PAR with the 20+ ships tactically, and she was running mostly 23rd century technology.Oh, and BTW—-even if you were to somehow prove that Discovery WAS as powerful as 20+ future ships by herself, then it makes the scene even more inept—-Osyraa could have just wiped out the Federation by herself since she controlled both Discovery AND her own ship which allowed her to capture “Super Duper Discovery”.
My point was that the trope that Star Trek uses where everyone speaks English, even when there aren’t any English-speaking people around, is a very common trope. It’s used in Star Trek, it’s used in sci-fi, it’s used in non-sci-fi fiction. It’s just as common a trope as one ship being attacked by a group of ships and surviving. Again, thank you for proving my point that this trope is so common it shows up in non-sci-fi drama.“But there has NEVER been a point where 20+ equal (at best) ships fought 1 ship and that one ship was not severely damaged or destroyed like we saw with Discovery. Never happened.” Wow, so I guess this DISCO episode was the first episode of Star Trek you ever watched? Or the first episode of any sci-fi show? Or any drama ever? Seriously, this is a very common trope.
“Wow, so I guess this DISCO episode was the first episode of Star Trek you ever watched? Or the first episode of any sci-fi show? Or any drama ever? Seriously, this is a very common trope.”It has NEVER HAPPENED in Star Trek. NEVER. I am not disputing that it has happened in other sci-fi series. But even given that, if I saw a similar situation where 20+ ‘at least as powerful’ ships couldn’t cause any significant damage to one ship they were all targeting, I’d call it out then, too! “It’s used in Star Trek, it’s used in sci-fi, it’s used in non-sci-fi fiction. It’s just as common a trope as one ship being attacked by a group of ships and surviving.”One is not remotely the same as the other. Firstly, the former (native language) HAS been used in Trek since its beginning. The latter has NEVER been used. And secondly, the former makes sense in context because there is an explanation for it—-the Universal Translator. There is literally NO explanation for what we saw with Discovery surviving a barrage by 20+ ships at the very least as powerful as her.
LOL at one ship being attacked by a group of ships “ has NEVER HAPPENED in Star Trek. NEVER.” I guess you skipped the entire Dominion war of DS9. Or most episodes where the Borg fights the Federation. I could go on and on with multiple examples from various Trek series, but at this point your lack of knowledge about Star Trek (and sci-fi movies/films in general) is so embarrassing, I’m now convinced you’ve never watched any Star Trek series before.Seriously, these TV/fiction tropes are well documented and are easily found online. You could read about them and discover that you’ve actually been wrong all of this time. I’m betting you won’t though.
“I guess you skipped the entire Dominion war of DS9. Or most episodes where the Borg fights the Federation. I could go on and on with multiple examples from various Trek series, but at this point your lack of knowledge about Star Trek (and sci-fi movies/films in general) is so embarrassing, I’m now convinced you’ve never watched any Star Trek series before”OMG, now you’ve moved onto a freaking BORG CUBE being tactically similar to a Federation starship? Bwahahahaha….oh man.Dude, give it up, this is getting embarrassing for you now.
I guess you missed all of the Borg episodes where there were multiple Borg ships attacking a Starfleet vessel.In fact, you obviously forgot pretty much the entire Voyager series, where Voyager was constantly in situations where they were one ship being attacked by a group of ships – Kazon, Special 8417 (?), Hirogen, the Borg. How does your “This was never a trope in any Star Trek series” deal with that?I also like how you ignored the Dominion War episodes of DS9, with multiple episodes of the Defiant being attacked by multiple Dominion ships.Oh, this is so much fun. Like I said before, it’s obvious you’ve never seen any Star Trek series. I am so embarrassed for you now, it feels like I’m beating up a child. This is so easy, please keep embarrassing yourself, I’m all ears.
“In fact, you obviously forgot pretty much the entire Voyager series, where Voyager was constantly in situations where they were one ship being attacked by a group of ships – Kazon, Special 8417 (?), Hirogen, the Borg. How does your “This was never a trope in any Star Trek series” deal with that”Once again, you’re applying situations that are not remotely similar.Voyager was a VERY maneuverable ship and was able to evade the attacks of the 5-6 Kazon ships in open space. You SAW what happened in “Basics” when her maneuverability was taken away!Secondly, Kazon have far inferior technology to the Federation—-they kept trying to capture Voyager for her technology such as transporters, which they did not have.So, basically, you had 5-6 Kazon warships with at least 100 year inferior technology to Voyager, AND she had the benefit of agility over every one of them.Contrast that with Discovery who had no room to maneuver (even if she was an especially agile ship like Voyager) in that bubble, AND was going against 20-50 ships that were SUPERIOR to her!I really wish you would actually watch some of these episodes you are referencing to see how wrong you are.
You: “There has never been a Star Trek episode where one ship was attacked by many equally powerful ships and survived!”Me: (presents evidence referring to most of Star Trek Voyager with various alien races, most Dominion war episodes of DS9, various episodes of every Star Trek series, and pretty much any non-Star Trek science fiction series)You: “Umm, well, none of those instances are what I meant.”Me: “But they exactly fit into your original claim.”You: “No they don’t!”Just admit it, you’ve never watched any Star Trek series at all. Or any non-Star Trek sci-fi movie/series. Just admit it. This is feeling sad for me, it’s like I’m beating up a 5th grader.
“You: “There has never been a Star Trek episode where one ship was attacked by many equally powerful ships and survived!”Me: (presents evidence referring to most of Star Trek Voyager with various alien races, most Dominion war episodes of DS9, various episodes of every Star Trek series, and pretty much any non-Star Trek science fiction series)“No, you didn’t provide equally powerful ships! The Kazon are not equally powerful ships!And added to your delusions—-even that Basics episode of Voyager—-she had fooled the Kazon into thinking they were fighting like 5 ships so they couldn’t focus their attacks on Voyager!OMG, this is getting comical now. You are so lost.
“No, you didn’t provide equally powerful ships! The Kazon are not equally powerful ships!” Thank you for even more proof that you’ve never watched any Star Trek, specifically Voyager. There are multiple Kazon episodes where Voyager is able to stand up against a single Kazon ship, because they’re evenly matched. That’s why we see so many scenes of multiple Kazon ships attacking Voyager – because they know Voyager is strong enough to fight off 1 Kazon ship. Seriously, try watching the TV shows first before you make crazy claims about them, you’ll embarrass yourself less.Yes, in that Basics VOY episode Janeway was able to fool the Kazon into thinking there were 5 ships instead of just the 1. This is similar to the Picard maneuver. Not sure why you bring that up because it has nothing to do with what we’re discussing. Did you … did you forget what we were talking about? Oh, how embarrassing.“OMG, this is getting comical now. You are so lost.” This got comical many messages ago, where it became apparent that you don’t understand movie/TV tropes and don’t seem to have watched any Star Trek (or sci-fi) at all. It’s pretty laughable how sure you are when you proved yourself wrong many comments ago. I guess at this point you can’t admit that you were wrong so you think you’ll just continue this forever. I’d feel bad for you if you weren’t so proud of your ignorance.
Also, once again you ignore all of the examples of various Star Trek series that prove my point. Good job – why bother trying to explain how the Dominion war, Borg episodes, etc fit your claim when it’s obvious they prove you’re wrong? Better to just pretend you didn’t read that and stay laser-focused on your ignorance. Keep reaching for that rainbow!
“ Thank you for even more proof that you’ve never watched any Star Trek, specifically Voyager. There are multiple Kazon episodes where Voyager is able to stand up against a single Kazon ship, because they’re evenly matched. That’s why we see so many scenes of multiple Kazon ships attacking Voyager – because they know Voyager is strong enough to fight off 1 Kazon ship. Seriously, try watching the TV shows first before you make crazy claims about them, you’ll embarrass yourself less.”LMAO, you’re STILL trying to keep this going?And NO, the Kazon do not have a ship as powerful as Voyager.They SAID AS MUCH in the NEXT EPISODE!:Seska: “Its not a woman. Its a ship. The most powerful ship in the quadrant….” (yelling at Maje Culluh for playing with his new toy, the captured Voyager)Just give it up, man, you lost this argument 40 ways to sunday.I’m getting real tired of having to completely destroy you in every post.
Sorry but the Kazon have different types of ships. We see Kazon ships that are just as powerful as Voyager. If you actually watched the show at all, you’d know this. But as you’ve proven multiple times here, you’ve likley never watched any Star Trek episode at all.It’s hilarious how I’ve destroyed your argument multiple times and yet you continue to flounder, refusing to admit that you made an incorrect claim and are too ignorant to admit that you were wrong.Again, the Borg, the Kazon, the Dominion – I love how you can’t refute any of my examples that prove you wrong, except for the Kazon, and even that one you got wrong in your rebuttal.Seriously, watch some sci-fi. It doesn’t have to be Star Trek. You’ll see that this is a very common trope, used everywhere. I’m really amazed that you think this is something new and can’t understand it.Or don’t. I’m loving watching you continue to embarrass yourself. It’s really very fun.
“Sorry but the Kazon have different types of ships. We see Kazon ships that are just as powerful as Voyager.”No, we didn’t see that once in the entire run. If you had watched the show at all, you would know that. Even their massive ships were no match for Voyager 1 on 1, which is why they send 5 to capture her in “Basics”. And even THEN, the reason they won is because their spy on board blew up a plasma conduit, cutting off power to half the ship!I’m getting really tired of proving you 100% wrong in every single post. Aren’t you getting tired of being humiliated?
Oh wow, you’re really obsessed over this, aren’t you?“No, we didn’t see that once in the entire run. If you had watched the show at all, you would know that.” You just keep proving that either you didn’t pay attention to Voyager (or *any* Trek show) when you watched it, or that you didn’t watch it at all. The Kazon era show many different type of ships, some of which are equally strong (or stronger) than Voyager.Yes, when the Kazon first appear the ships Voygager encounters are less powerful, which is why they send 5 after her. Then in later episodes we see more powerful Kazon ships because the Kazon have learned how powerful Voyager is. Also, I love how you’re focusing solely on the Kazon here because you know you can’t come up with a defense for the many other examples I’ve given that prove your argument wrong. Keep at it! You can’t win at 99% of my examples, so just keep fighting for that 1%!“I’m getting really tired of proving you 100% wrong in every single post. Aren’t you getting tired of being humiliated?” I love how you’re basically winning my own argument for me and providing me things to say to you. You’ve been proven wrong with every comment, and yet you keep coming back for more.Seriously, you’re embarrassing yourself. Just admit you’ve never watched any Trek show (or any sci-fi show where this trope is used) and slink away. Or keep coming back for more – it’s fun for me to continue to point out how you don’t know what you’re talking about.
I’m obsessed over this? You’re literally replying to a post that was made a MONTH AGO in an argument you started with wrong information.“Yes, when the Kazon first appear the ships Voygager encounters are less powerful, which is why they send 5 after her. Then in later episodes we see more powerful Kazon ships because the Kazon have learned how powerful Voyager is.”No, we don’t. As a matter of fact, the Kazon disappear entirely because Voyager has left their space. Then they deal with the likes of species with actual tactical parity like the Hirogen, who DO have ships capable of taking on Voyager without a squadron. Please show me a single example of the Kazon appearing past Season 3. I’ll wait!“I love how you’re basically winning my own argument for me and providing me things to say to you. You’ve been proven wrong with every comment, and yet you keep coming back for more.”You literally haven’t been right 0nce, and are claiming victory over and over again, even after I’ve debunked your points with ACTUAL SCRIPTS from the show. And then, you disappear for a month, thinking maybe the proof of your humiliation just somehow was erased and you can salvage some dignity. Welp, didn’t work, LMAO.“Seriously, you’re embarrassing yourself. Just admit you’ve never watched any Trek show (or any sci-fi show where this trope is used) and slink away. Or keep coming back for more – it’s fun for me to continue to point out how you don’t know what you’re talking about.”Considering I’ve proved you wrong over and over again that means you know even less than somebody who “never watched Trek”. Nice self ownage on your part.
Wow, you are *really* obsessed over this, are you? You’re literally replying to a post that was made a MONTH AGO in an argument you started with wrong information.“the Kazon disappear entirely because Voyager has left their space.” Wow, you finally say something correct about Voyager. I guess you finally found the Memory Alpha summaries, since you’ve already proved that you never actually watched the show.Yes, the Kazon stop appearing when Voyager leaves Kazon space. The Kazon are protecting their space – once Voyager is gone, they don’t care about them. This fact doesn’t support your argument at all, so not sure why you would mention it. Maybe you were just tired or saying things that you yourself knew were wrong?“Please show me a single example of the Kazon appearing past Season 3. “ They don’t. You do realize that Voyager was a show about a ship starting at point A and travelling back to Earth. There is no reason for them to stay in Kazon space. This is not TNG where they are always in the same area of space. I know you have never seen any Trek shows, but you have to know this much.
“even after I’ve debunked your points with ACTUAL SCRIPTS from the show.” Nope, wrong again.“And then, you disappear for a month, thinking maybe the proof of your humiliation just somehow was erased and you can salvage some dignity.” Sorry, you’re just not that important to me. Every so often I check my updates and laugh at your incorrect responses and have to respond. But you’re just not that important.It’s ok, you’ve proven to me (and anyone else reading this) that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Next time you get in an argument about a TV show, make sure you’ve actually watched an episode of it. Othewise you’ll just embarrass yourself as you’ve done here many times.For my benefit alone, please keep this going. I love watching you embarrassing yourself and continuing to prove you don’t know what you’re talking about. I hope this goes on forever.
“They don’t. You do realize that Voyager was a show about a ship starting at point A and travelling back to Earth. There is no reason for them to stay in Kazon space. This is not TNG where they are always in the same area of space. I know you have never seen any Trek shows, but you have to know this much.”Congrats, you figured out my entire point. We KNOW Voyager doesn’t remain in their space. My point was that we didn’t see the Kazon after season 3, so you had no unmentioned examples of the situation you CLAIM happened. Since, you know, we are arguing about the S2 cliffhanger into Season 3. Which I have already proven you wrong with actual SCRIPTS of dialogue from the show about.
See, this is what happens when you only post a reply once every 3 weeks—-you forget the context of the statement, and go claim victory when you actually proved me right.“” Sorry, you’re just not that important to me. Every so often I check my updates and laugh at your incorrect responses and have to respond. But you’re just not that important.”Untrue. First off, before your monthly hiatus tactic, you were replying to me multiple times a day. So, that is also an easily disproved lie.And if you try to claim that you don’t even log into Kinja often, I actually replied to you on a post about Jimmy Kimmel just last week, so obviously you were posting on Kinja then.
“It’s ok, you’ve proven to me (and anyone else reading this) that you don’t know what you’re talking about”You remind me of a Trump supporter. Get your idiotic statements proven completely wrong and claim massive victory over and over again.Anybody who reads this thread is likely feeling sorry for you getting whooped so thoroughly and lost in your delusion.
Oh man, you’re still at this! Wow, you must not have much of a life, huh?Thank you for agreeing with me in saying that Voyager was a show where the ship was always moving towards Earth so it never stayed in the same place. They were in Kazon territory for awhile, but eventually they left that area of space. I proved that too you long ago, so I don’t know why you’re now saying that you were always saying that, when you clearly weren’t.“before your monthly hiatus tactic, you were replying to me multiple times a day. So, that is also an easily disproved lie.” Well, it’s not a tactic. There’s this thing that people have called “a job” where they have to do actual work instead of surfing the net and replying to comments all day. You should try it, it may improve your social skills.“And if you try to claim that you don’t even log into Kinja often, I actually replied to you on a post about Jimmy Kimmel just last week, so obviously you were posting on Kinja then.” Are you stalking me? Is this really that important to you? Man, that is just … sad. Anyway, I go onto Kinja occasionally to respond to comments I deem worthy. But this particular conversation – I won this argument long ago, I only check your latest comment when I’m really, really bored. Plus it’s good for a laugh.“You remind me of a Trump supporter. Get your idiotic statements proven completely wrong and claim massive victory over and over again.” It’s obvious that you’re the Q’anon person in this debate. I’m the one saying facts, and you’re yelling at your computer.“Anybody who reads this thread is likely feeling sorry for you getting whooped so thoroughly and lost in your delusion.” Actually (and this never happens) I have heard from other commenters thanking me for not backing down to your bullying and incorrect comments. Who knew that kind of thing happened? So thanks for making me a hero to other people who don’t like to suffer fools – fools like you.Keep this going – I’ll check in on you in a few weeks when I’m bored and need a laugh.
“Thank you for agreeing with me in saying that Voyager was a show where the ship was always moving towards Earth so it never stayed in the same place. They were in Kazon territory for awhile, but eventually they left that area of space. I proved that too you long ago, so I don’t know why you’re now saying that you were always saying that, when you clearly weren’t.”It was literally the ENTIRE point of me asking you to point out any other appearances of the Kazon past season 3. Its a shame that your reaction to it, like every other point you have tried to make, was completely devoid of thought.BTW, its also spectacularly hilarious that you say I have no life, when you desperately are trying to salvage some credibility by dredging up this thread every month with your latest uninformed and ridiculous analyses.Mission failed, yet again. See you in a month when you think you have a recovery from your humiliation ready to go!
I had hoped that after a few months you would have something new, but obviously you realized long ago that you were wrong so you’re just going in circles, repeating things I already proved were wrong.Anyway, thanks for agreeing with me (again) that Voyager was a show where the ship was always moving towards Earth so it never stayed in the same place. This is a small victory, but at least you’re able to admit that.“It was literally the ENTIRE point of me asking you to point out any other appearances of the Kazon past season 3.” If you had actually watched Voyager you’d know that after season 3 they do not encounter the Kazon again BECAUSE THEY LEAVE THEIR TERRITORY. Yes, the Kazon appear once each season in seasons 4-7 but those are either flashbacks, time travel, or holodecks – not actual Kazon interactions. Again, if you had watched the show, you’d know this.It’s hilarious how little of a life you have, as the timestamps show that you instantly come on here and reply to my comments as soon as I post them. I laugh thinking of you sitting at your computer, hitting “refresh” and hoping to see a reply from me. As I have repeatedly told you, this exchange means nothing to me – as soon as I hit Publish I forget all about you. But apparently for you, this is the most important thing you have going for you. Sad, but funny.Please keep replying – when I get bored in a few months and look at my notifications it will bring me so much joy to remember this exchange and how inept you are about Star Trek and sci-fi in general.
Why on earth are you still posting replies after months have lapsed since your last one?I’ll tell you why, because deep down, you know you’re wrong, and I’ve proven it over and over. You’re desperately trying to regain a toehold of respectability after being thoroughly humiliated.So, rather than going through this nonsense you’ve posted yet again, here is the short of it:30 equal ships + a spacedock throwing everything they have at 1 ship on an even technological playing field should end up at the very least with the 1 ship suffering critical damage. Which did not happen. BADLY WRITTEN SCENE.Stop posting; you are making your humiliation a monthly embarrassment.You lost. Get over it.Edit: If you had actually watched Voyager you’d know that after season 3 they do not encounter the Kazon again BECAUSE THEY LEAVE THEIR TERRITORY. Yes, the Kazon appear once each season in seasons 4-7 but those are either flashbacks, time travel, or holodecks – not actual Kazon interactions. Again, if you had watched the show, you’d know this.I already addressed this MULTIPLE TIMES. Nowhere did I ever say that it didn’t make sense that the Kazon didn’t appear after Season 3! The point was that I couldn’t figure out which battle you were trying to reference as a parallel to Discovery, having watched ALL the battles with the Kazon up to Season 3!Literally the WHOLE POINT of that statement was that you have no instance of Kazon battles with Voyager to use as a reference point in your insane “30 vs 1 with 1 surviving without critical damage is beliveable” narrative.So congrats, you just proved me right YET AGAIN.LMFAO
“Why on earth are you still posting replies after months have lapsed since your last one?” Because you’re wrong and it’s fun continuously pointing it out?“because deep down, you know you’re wrong, and I’ve proven it over and over.” Nope, wrong again. I easily proved your original opinion wrong very early in this exchange, so everything since then has just been the cherry on the sundae.It’s hilarious how you refuse to accept that one ship being attacked by a large number of equally powerful ships is a trope in not just Star Trek but in all of science fiction. It is a device used to show the superior abilities of the crew on that one ship – they are able to survive the onslaught when a lesser crew would immediately be destroyed. But for whatever reason (at this point I’m guessing … stupidity) you just can’t understand that. It’s both sad and hilarious.I read and reread you edit to your previous comment, but it makes no sense. Voyager is going in a (relatively) straight line) to the Alpha Quadrant. So once they leave Kazon space, they Kazon are no longer going to appear in the show. I still don’t understand why you can’t understand this, it’s really simple.Please don’t ever stop this. It’s hilarious how much this means to you, where I just randomly check my replies every few weeks and remember this exchange that I forget about each time after clicking Publish. Then I remember how I proved you wrong multiple times and you just won’t admit it, and continue to prove that you don’t understand Star Trek, sci-fi, or fiction in general. It’s hilarious watching you stumble through your inaccurate arguments, showing again and again that you lost this argument and refuse to admit it. Again, please don’t stop – this makes me laugh every time I come back here.
“Nope, wrong again. I easily proved your original opinion wrong very early in this exchange, so everything since then has just been the cherry on the sundae.”No you didn’t. But you did prove yourself wrong over and over again.The best part is that this thread remains viewable for everybody to see how you’ve utterly owned yourself for 6 months now.And nobody can take that away other than a moderator.Gotta be rather frustrating, now?LOL
I’d tell you to reread my previous comments to see how I (easily) disproved your points, but you obviously didn’t read them in the first place, so why should I expect you to read them now?“The best part is that this thread remains viewable for everybody to see”Yes, you’re right. I’m laughing right now imagining people reading these comments years from now for the first time thinking “Man, that blpppt guy didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. It sounds like he never saw any episodes of a Star Trek series.”So you’re wrong about that too. Man, you must be getting tired about being wrong about everything in this exchange. Especially since this means so much to you, and for me it’s something I forget all about after I click “Publish”.I hope these comments stay here forever. A monument to your overarching wrongness.
“I’d tell you to reread my previous comments to see how I (easily) disproved your points, but you obviously didn’t read them in the first place, so why should I expect you to read them now?”I mean, you are starting to sound like a Trumper, given you have done this throughout this thread. When you have no ground to stand on, accuse the other side before they accuse you.So now we’re back to more frequently humiliating ourselves, are we? Mad that our credibility is near zero with this thread continuing to exist?
Oh, and to your last point—-it will stay here forever, and you will keep trying desperately to recover your respectability after being thoroughly destroyed.I look forward to your next reply, in a guess, a week now? Or maybe sooner, as your frustration to deliver any kind of a salient point festers?
Oh man, you’re still going on about this? Thanks, I need a laugh today.“I mean, you are starting to sound like a Trumper” Come on, it’s obvious that from this exchange, *you* are the Trump fan.“So now we’re back to more frequently humiliating ourselves, are we? Mad that our credibility is near zero with this thread continuing to exist?” LOL. You’re the one humiliating yourself here, I’m the one laughing at how incompetent you are. And my credibility is sky high, while you have proved that you’ve never watched any Trek show.
“it will stay here forever, and you will keep trying desperately to recover your respectability after being thoroughly destroyed.” I hope it does! I hope that years from now, someone watches Discovery and decides to read the comments, and gets a big of a laugh out of reading your inane comments and I do. I hope these comments are here forever!“I look forward to your next reply, in a guess, a week now?” Sorry, as I said, you and this exchange mean nothing to me. As soon as I click “Publish” I forget all about this. Whereas you, you have proven over and over, seem to think of nothing more than this exchange. It’s both sad and hilarious.Please keep this going – I look forward to checking my notifications in a few weeks and remembering all of this and being able to laugh and laugh at you.
I’m not even going to bother reading your nonsense. Just posting a reply to make you even more annoyed at how thoroughly you lost this argument.
Since you’re incapable of admitting that you are wrong, I guess your only exit strategy is to say the old “I’m not reading your replies or replying to you anymore.”Please reconsider. Remembering this conversation every few weeks has been a joy. Knowing that you’re just getting more and more annoyed with each response makes me laugh and laugh.Sorry you have such a fragile ego. If I had known pointing out how wrong you were would destroy you like this, maybe I wouldn’t have done it.Please keep this going. It’s so hilarious to watch you struggle with being wrong about this. It makes me laugh so much.
*continues to reply after I said I wouldn’t be reading his replies anymore—a desperate attempt to prove that he didn’t get completely owned in this thread*
Holy crap, is this all you do all day, kid? Go from post to post limply attempting to contradict everyone, and starting pointless arguments that go on forever?So lonely! So insecure!
How did you ever get out of the greys, baby troll?
Wow, how sad must your life be for you to have to insert yourself into an argument you have nothing to do with. Is your life so empty that this is how you give it meaning?Doesn’t feel so good to be on the receiving end, does it?Anyway, “contradicting” is saying the opposite of what someone else said just to argue. What I was doing was “correcting”, which is pointing out that what someone else said was wrong and telling them what is actually correct. Glad that I could clear things up for you and help you to learn something.
LOLSure… whatever makes you feel better about your life.
(But anyone who takes 10 seconds to look thru your posting history knows the truth.)
Hey, I feel great about my life, so thanks.You know what makes me feel even better about my life? When someone posts something wrong online and I easily point out how it’s wrong. That feels great.Wow, you took 10 seconds to look through my posting history? First, creepy – thanks, but I’m not looking for a stalker. I thought about taking 10 seconds to look through your posting history, but I just don’t care enough about you to do that.
I REALLY appreciate your not being a STD apologist, and telling us how great it all is when it’s really garbage. Thank you for having a critical mind. As I wrote in your sister site’s review comments:I am sad to say, I am just never going to like this show. It doesn’t matter how much idiocy I forgive, or overlook, they just keep pilling on more. Sigh…
It’s not like I have a choice in the matter, I am descerning Trekkie, and I cannot just shut it off. Just like I cannot just be a Republican, or just be religious, or just be straight. I am not ever going to be any of those things, and I am just never going to like this show. It doesn’t matter how much of a Trek fan I am, in fact it is only worse because I am a Trek fan. It does suck for me that I can’t just give every ridiculous thing they do in complete opposition to everything Trek not a thought, and enjoy the ride. If only they hadn’t stripped the ride for parts. OF COURSE BURHAM IS NOW CAPTAIN. LOLOLOLOLOL! UGH.“The entire universe was thrown off its access because of a genetic fluke.” – You dis mean to say “axis”, yes?
“You dis mean to say “axis”, yes?” I JarJar’ed that.
My god this was terrible. Even Oysraa listens to Michelle. Nothing made sense. Why are the turbolifts flying through tons of open space inside the ship? Why would Oysraa think pushing Michelle into the cube thing would stop her? Why is the entire Starfleet firepower not able to destroy Discovery? Why would Vance trust Michelle with the spore drive and the future of the Federation when he just meet her weeks ago? Why was the sphere data impossible to erase and the Regulators did it in seconds? Why did Tig Narvao’s character bring it back to life in what was apparently the last DOT, if it was so dangerous? Why do Oko and Demeter have more sexual chemistry than all the shoehorned in LGBBQ characters like Staments, Cullber, Gray and Adira? This is absolutely the worst Star Trek show ever.
I know it sounds ludicrous to say after three seasons, but… MAYBE it’ll turn into something you like? Keep in mind, the first two season of Next Gen were pretty much hot garbage, and that was 50 hours of TV. Or 50 eps anyway. Discovery hasn’t even had that many hours yet. Around this time on TNG, Joe Piscopo had a prominent guest star spot. So… who knows where Discovery will be in another season?Also, DS9, my fave of all Trek shows, was also pretty bad its first two seasons.
Anything is possible, but the cores of those shows were Trek, and needed to grow into a good show. ST:D has no core, they spit on the core. Original, and 2nd Gen Trek tried hard to make it all work, to be logical and make sense (didn’t always succeed), designed itself (ships, environments), worked hard to be part of and honor continuity even when they time traveled (especially when they traveled into it’s own episodes) and not break things, they were clever. This show has none of that. It looks good, sure, but at this point, that is the easiest bit to pull off. Even what they make look good seems to just be done for the sake of spectacle not logic, and not fitting in the ST universe. They honor nothing, they break everything, they actively open obvious plot holes, and instead of plugging the holes, they actively work to make the plot holes bigger… Almost every episode of ST:D and Picard make me seethe… Yes, there were narrative issues with early seasons of TNG, DS9, Voyager, much of it just being boring and not working as being cohesive. I didn’t (then or now) sit and watch TNG from moment to moment think of every error, leap of logic, plot hole, or moment of plain idiocy as it was happening. I just watched the show… I didn’t involuntarily critique those episodes as they were running. It is very difficult to just stay “in show” while watching ST:D, I am constantly taken out of the show as my brain notates every stupid thing that happens. It’s awful. I hate the experience. I hate that hate it. I keep watching because I am a Star Trek fan, like a moth to flame, and I am burned by every almost every episode.
How do you feel about Lower Decks? As a longtime Trek fan I love it. The writers clearly love Trek and the humor is always in a reverent tone.
I will say that I think the most “Star Trek” show of the past five years is definitely The Orville. If you took out half the jokes and just showed me the show, I would believe it was a Trek show from 1999.
I got through three or four episodes and peaced out. Way too shouty and obnoxious for me. So I guess I don’t feel good about it, at least I am not hate watching it!?! I love The Orville, I think I may need to cleanse my mental palate by watching the first two seasons again.
I think Lower Decks is fantastic and, of the most recent Star Trek products, the only one that really feels like it’s in keeping with what has come before. Irreverent and fun, but still respectful of the source material, full of Easter Eggs and deep cuts for longtime fans. It also has an extremely competent, recently demoted, african-american Starfleet officer with powerful, influential family and who loves to break all the rules and do her own thing, and still manages to make her a better character than Burnham in about 1/10th the runtime of Discovery. I think the Orville is a little too beholden to the TNG throwback aesthetic of the 90’s, but it does have a lot of soul. And I have to appreciate any captain who keeps Kermit the Frog on their desk as example of leadership.Some Orville soul, with some Lower Decks respect and some Disco production values, is that too much to ask for?
One of the low key things I really appreciated on Lower Decks, in addition to all the deep cut easter eggs, is a very small detail: whenever a character puts their feet up or kicks or something, you see the Starfleet insignia on the soles of their boots. I don’t know why that made such an impression on me, but that kind of unnecessary detail really lets you know that the creators really do have a reverence for Trek.
My favorite bit was how first officer guy ONLY used the Kirk Double-Handed punch when he fought.
“the cores of those shows were Trek”As someone who watched DS9 when it first aired, I remember the majority of Trek fans constantly saying “Deep Space Nine is *not* Star Trek! It’s not on a ship, it doesn’t have a captain, they don’t *go* anywhere, etc.” And that was before later seasons where it became (a) serialized, and (b) critical of the high ideals of the Federation.And yet now DS9 is widely recognized as one of (if not “the”) best Trek series – true to the ideals of “Star Trek” even though it goes against them the most.
Yeah, and?
And … the argument you’re using against DISCO is the same argument people used against DS9 when it aired. And history has proven those people wrong.
Not even close. Personally, I never had any issues with DS9.Nothing you have mentioned as arguments against DS9 are even remotely similar to the points I have made against ST:D…
“Personally, I never had any issues with DS9.” You (and I) were in the minority. When DS9 aired it never got the respect/ratings that TNG got, and when VOY started it got all the attention.My point is that your “DISCO isn’t true to the core beliefs of Trek” argument is the same argument levelled against DS9 when it aired. And history proved that claim wrong. So anyone who sees a new Trek show and instantly claims “this isn’t what Star Trek is!” shouldn’t be that quick to make a claim that history is likely to prove untrue.
As someone who watched DS9 when it first aired, I remember the majority of Trek fans constantly saying “Deep Space Nine is *not* Star Trek! It’s not on a ship, it doesn’t have a captain, they don’t *go* anywhere, etc.” Funny. I was around back then, I remember no such thing. I remember some people arguing it was a rip-off of Babylon 5, and I remember some people arguing that it lacked progress and proper pacing because the cast was stuck on the station – and evidently, the powers that be agreed with that and brought us the Runabout. And yet, for me, “Duet” was one of the most StarTrek-episodes in all of Star Trek. And that was before later seasons where it became (a) serialized, and (b) critical of the high ideals of the Federation.And that’s precisely where I personally tuned out, because it just became another run off the mill space opera and took the easy way out to problem-solving. Yes, some people consider it as the best, but hardly everyone.But you know what DS9 never did? Declare the most useless profession in the universe to be that of a scientist. Discovery had the audacity not just to suggest that, they had the audacity to do so smack in the middle of a pandemic. With thousands, possibly millions having gone into science and engineering inspired by Trek over the decades, Discovery just gave them the finger, declaring them useless hacks who couldn’t research their way out of a paper bag and whose job could be just as easily done by Roger Bacon or Albertus Magnus.
“Funny. I was around back then, I remember no such thing.” I guess we ran in different circles. This was something I heard all the time – from fans, other viewers, articles in magazines, etc. The Babylon 5 thing ran out of steam very quickly, but I heard a lot of complaints that “this wasn’t Star Trek”.“And yet, for me, ‘Duet’ was one of the most StarTrek-episodes in all of Star Trek.” Agreed. An A+ episode for DS9.
“And that’s precisely where I personally tuned out, because it just became another run off the mill space opera and took the easy way out to problem-solving. Yes, some people consider it as the best, but hardly everyone.” Not sure how DS9 becoming a serialized show made it “another run of the mill space opera”. At the time most TV shows were not serialized in the way DS9 became. No previous Star Trek series had. They were almost proud of the way that they could mix up the episodes in syndication and viewers could watch any random episode and it wouldn’t matter. But DS9 set up season(s) long arcs where if you missed one episode, you were lost when you came back. This was unheard of in Trek at the time.“Declare the most useless profession in the universe to be that of a scientist.” I literally have no idea what you’re referring to here. DISCO is a sciene vessel, full of scientists. Stamets is the most important person on the ship because he is the only one who can run the spore drive, and Stamets is a scientist (yes, Book can also run the spore drive, but he’s not an official member of the crew). DISCO is a very pro-scientist Trek show, so I’m not sure where your claim is coming from.
I literally have no idea what you’re referring to here. DISCO is a sciene vessel, full of scientists. Not anymore. Their grasp of science is out of date by miles. They are medieval scholars, trying to discuss with the likes of Kip Thorne. DISCO is a very pro-scientist Trek show, so I’m not sure where your claim is coming from.Cf. my other reply. I’m not sure where you get your understanding of science from, but pretty much nothing in season 3 is in any way respectful to the way science operates.
“Not anymore. Their grasp of science is out of date by miles. They are medieval scholars, trying to discuss with the likes of Kip Thorne.” Just because they’ve travelled to the future doesn’t mean they are no longer scientists. Plus, do you know what one of the main things scientists do when provided with new information? THEY LEARN IT! Otherwise, science would never progress because current scientists, when provided with new discoveries, would do nothing because it’s new information. The idea that the DISCO crew wouldn’t be learning the new technology, theories, etc is silly.“Cf. my other reply. I’m not sure where you get your understanding of science from, but pretty much nothing in season 3 is in any way respectful to the way science operates.” I don’t think you understand what “science” or a scientist is if you think DISCO season 3 is anti-science/scientist.
Just because they’ve travelled to the future doesn’t mean they are no longer scientists. Yeah, sure… Because Alcuin, transported from the court of Charlemagne to the present would immediately proceed to solve climate change AND the pandemic. Plus, do you know what one of the main things scientists do when provided with new information? THEY LEARN IT!Hilarious. You have no idea what scope of information you are talking about. Otherwise, science would never progress because current scientists, when provided with new discoveries, would do nothing because it’s new information. The idea that the DISCO crew wouldn’t be learning the new technology, theories, etc is silly.No, what’s silly is your belief that a thousand years of progress is something someone can take up in an appreciable time. I don’t think you understand what “science” or a scientist is if you think DISCO season 3 is anti-science/scientist.And I think you splendidly prove my point, given your own effort to declare a trained scientist as an incompetent hack who has no clue about his job.
“Yeah, sure… Because Alcuin, transported from the court of Charlemagne to the present would immediately proceed to solve climate change AND the pandemic.” That’s hardly a reasonable comparison, and you know it.Remember in TNG when Scotty was brought back almost 100 years later? They pointed out where his knowledge was out of date, but they also pointed out where it wasn’t. Geordi told him that the basic technology of shuttlecraft hadn’t changed since TOS.For the DISCO crew brought into the 31st century, there would be lots of technology they wouldn’t be familiar with, but it would be stuff that they could understand the basics of. It’s not like your example, or bringing a caveman to the 21st century and showing them the internet.“Hilarious. You have no idea what scope of information you are talking about.” And you obviously have no idea that when scientists are presented with new theories and technology, they have the ability to learn it. Not sure how this is hard to understand.“No, what’s silly is your belief that a thousand years of progress is something someone can take up in an appreciable time.” Based on your logic, someone could never go back to school and learn new technology because it’s impossible. That’s very silly.“And I think you splendidly prove my point, given your own effort to declare a trained scientist as an incompetent hack who has no clue about his job.” You seem to be the ones that is saying that the scientists on this show are hacks who are unable to learn new technologies that are based on technology they already know. Which makes no sense. So thanks for proving my point, or disproving your own point. Either one is fine.
“Beam all regulators off Discovery.” Ok, so then why was boring scientist guy still there after?
He wasn’t a regulator. The Disco computer is very discerning.
And they all got blown up 5 minutes after possibly being beamed into space anyway, so Zack’s question is moot.
I was answering Fungi, not Zack.
The Regulators are Osyraa’s soldiers. They are a separate group.
Gotta say that I really like the grey federation uniforms with the vertical red or yellow stripe. The admiral’s outfit and his helper’s are fine, but the color ones are snazzy.(on the other hand the motorcycle badguys are still terrible)
they looked like the Hydra soldiers from First Avenger
I keep hearing comments about “Saint Michael” and how Michael (aka, the star of the show, check the credits, she’s the lead) is always saving the day. Well, Picard always saved the day. In fact, he had achieved almot legend status towards the end of TNG among the Federation. And everyone eas OK with that. Bit now, a black woman has that mantle, and everyone loses their shit.I’m not saying her character or performance is perfect. Yes, the whispering lines are a problem. But the criticism of her around here is getting ridiculous.
And about those complaining about the ridiculousness of some of the storylines…it’s science fiction. Technically, it’s all ridiculous by definition.
Maybe Picard did save the day frequently, but there were other, fully fleshed out characters, with their own story lines on most episodes of TNG, it wasn’t solely the Picard Show.
I’d argue Picard didn’t always save the day. More often than not it was the crew working together that solved the problems they faced.
Unless you’re talking about the dogshit movies (YES, ALL OF THE TNG ONES WERE, GO ON FIGHT ME), where he was inexplicably fist-fighting dudes on scaffolding by act three…
Yeah, that is what I was pointing out, thank you for explaining my thought more fully.
Sorry, meant to reply to the previous post, not yours
I’d argue Picard didn’t always save the day. More often than not it was the crew working together that solved the problems they faced.And Picard had flaws. Michael doesn’t. The only flaws are those of the people she interacts with and get in her way, because everything she does is the right thing, even when it’s objectively wrong.In fact, he had achieved almot legend status towards the end of TNG among the Federation. And everyone eas OK with that.The character had earned that. The writers carefully built up goodwill over seven seasons of television and that was the natural progression because both they and the actor portraying the character nailed it.Here, it’s “Burnham is amazing and perfect and wonderful and always right, just roll with it” with no justification other than “we said so.”
Counterpoint: weirdly justified messiah-complex wasn’t good with Kirk or Picard or Sisko either. Those series just had lots of other good aspects in terms of universe-building, character development and interactions, and episode structure that Discovery lacks.
My god this was terrible. Even Oysraa listens to Michelle. Nothing made sense. Why are the turbolifts flying through tons of open space inside the ship? Why would Oysraa think pushing Michelle into the cube thing would stop her? Why is the entire Starfleet firepower not able to destroy Discovery? Why would Vance trust Michelle with the spore drive and the future of the Federation when he just meet her weeks ago? Why was the sphere data impossible to erase and the Regulators did it in seconds? Why did Tig Narvao’s character bring it back to life in what was apparently the last DOT, if it was so dangerous? Why do Oko and Demeter have more sexual chemistry than all the shoehorned in LGBBQ characters like Staments, Cullber, Gray and Adira? This is absolutely the worst Star Trek show ever.
Yeah, Picard totally saved the day in “Best of Both Worlds”, huh? As for TOS, there’s a reason people called Spock the Brain, Bones the Heart and Kirk the Hand of the Trinity.
By the way, regarding Picard’s “status”, I’d suggest you rewatch the pilot of DS9.Commander Benjamin Sisko:
[meeting with Captain Picard] It’s been a long time, Captain.Capt. Picard:
[puzzled] Have we met before?Commander Benjamin Sisko:
[stony-faced] Yes sir, we met in battle. I was on the Saratoga at Wolf 359.
Axis not access. Someone was dictating the article?
I think it’d be rather great if next season were _just_ them ferrying dilithium around the galaxy. Maybe there’ll be a breakdown in some mining equipment in one episode (easily fixed), maybe another episode will be set mainly on a holodeck (since the crew will be getting really bored after the 100th delivery), but no greater arc, no mysteries, no enemies, just the ultimately mundane delivery of dilithium to those who need it. And maybe the season could cover a decade-or-so (there must be hundreds of thousands of worlds and outposts to deliver to, and their ship could only transfer so much at a time). And all around them, slowly at first, the galaxy would be changing profoundly. Kind of like real life. Make a Star Trek series about that.
I did find it odd that this is the first season finale that doesn’t introduce what the next season will be about. Likely it’s just because they don’t have an idea yet for the overall arc of season 4, but I wouldn’t mind them to be dilithium deliverers for a few episodes until the overall season-arc starts.
Tracking miscellaneous bridge crew again:Lt. Bryce got a line. Good for him.Lt. Ina (who first appeared 3 episodes ago) also got a line again.Lt. Nilsson was back, but only in the smiley montage.Lt. Owosekun got a whole, actual subplot. Amazing!
And we actually learned Ina’s name!
And next season: Lt. Ina died on the way back to her home planet.
She hit the “too much backstory limit”. Very sad. Crossing fingers hard for Owo.
Every time she showed up I became Mariah Carey – “I don’t know her.”
Sara Mitich must have had another gig during the shooting of these final episodes, so Lt. Ina was born.The fact that they didn’t kill the character in the finale tells me that it was probably a last-minute swap for Lt. Nilsson, made after the scripts were finalized.
And maybe covid-travel-related, depending on the shooting schedule?
I was joking about that last week, because Ina got a few lines, which was more than characters like Bryce or Rhys got.
Not COVID-related, the season was filmed in 2019. They didn’t do any re-shoots. The actors who play minor characters are technically guest stars and are hired week-to-week, so actors are free to do other work and are not obligated by contract to prioritize Discovery’s production schedule.Naturally, if you have a role like that, you want to (for the sake of your career relationships) give deference to a production that’s giving you steady work, but sometimes you don’t know if you’re needed and it costs you opportunity (and money) to wait around for their phone call.My guess is that the production schedule changed, or something came up for Mitich that was too good to pass up, and the production adapted. Presumably she’ll be back next season no problem. These things happen.
Meanwhile, Ina was an odd addition. Her character slotted into Nilsson’s role too perfectly, even on the bridge where I might have given that moment at the Spore Drive control station to Tilly or Owo.
Even if the script couldn’t be updated, if I was directing those episodes I might have tried to make the swap a little less obvious with some on-set rewrites, and given Ina a more specific character introduction.
I certainly wouldn’t mind the character sticking around next season, though. It would be a fun consequence of a production challenge.
Ha ha, the MBCT so rarely moves, unless you count facial expressions, but it did this time! Yay! 😁Lt. Nilsson has yet to have a line I think. I was hoping he would eventually. Maybe next season. He *always* gets to be in the smiley montage though, frequently the first one. And why not?? That is one sweet and wholesome smile.He can always put Smiling Crew Member 1 on his resume.
I had to look up who Bryce is
I finally got to catch up with this show after being glued to the news for 20 hours straightMichael’s the captain now? lmao fuck off, Discovery.
If they were going to do that , it may have been better to just dig into that early in the next season. Make it a longer storyline with a little more lead up (at least two scenes?) Let us see more set-up for Sarus departure and B. taking over.It just felt too tacked on here in service for More Quick Feels (and I do like Michael- altho -if I watch next year- I will definitely miss Saru).
Saru is on leave. The Admiral doesn’t want DISCO to sit in drydock until he comes back (whenever that will be). He wants them to be delivering dilithium. So DISCO needs a captain. Tilly was acting first officer (Saru said she would have this role while he made a decision about a permanent first officer, but we never found out if he made this choice, or thought about it at all) and after this episode she decided she didn’t want to be in command. So who else was the Admiral going to make captain? He already said (I think, not sure) earlier in the season that this crew needed to stay together because they work well together, so he wouldn’t want to bring in a stranger to be the captain that the crew didn’t already know. I think Nilsson was next in line to be the FO when Saru chose Tilly, but she is barely in the show, and Saru chose Tilly over her, so they want us to think that she isn’t ready. So Michael if the obvious (and only) choice for the job.
Michael as captain is bad.But I’m not sure that it will be worse than “Michael isn’t the Captain, but inexplicably she is at the center of every single story, and also she gives everyone orders, and also she is better than everyone.”This show has had a fundamental structural problem of needing to make Random Science Officer #3 the most important person in the universe for 3 seasons. It really weakens the show, and it’s (partly) why Michael is so insufferable.Sticking her in the big chair isn’t guaranteed to fix that, but at least it means the writers can use Trek’s standard captain-first formula, and they won’t need to constantly write around her anymore.
…and if I had a wish, it’s that next season they do a bit of a timejump for Burnham like they did with Kirk in Star Trek Beyond. Because abrams-Kirk is pretty insufferable in the first movie. But the seasoned, kind of blasé Kirk from Beyond is fun. That took 3 years or whatever, but we really could start Disco Season 4 in media res 6 months later, and have a competent Burnham and crew. And that could (potentially) fix a bunch of this show’s long-standing problems.
That’s not a terrible idea.
I definitely think a bit of a time jump would help. Have Michael settle into the captain role and have enough time to pass for it to not seem crazy to have Saru back in a non-leadership role.This season still didn’t quite solve all of Discovery’s problems (and this finale definitely had some big issues), but it didn’t seem to totally ignore them either which gives me hope for a Season 4 to continue to get better.
It’s one of those things where we’ve tried “The Micheal Burnham Show: featuring Guest-Captain X” 3 times already, and it never really works. A 4th season with Captain Saru again would be pretty much doomed to have the same problems that this season had.We all know that it’s the Burnham show whether we like it or not, so it really might be time for the show to stop fighting it.
That’s pretty much how I felt. Another just OK season, so… might as well see if this works. They’ve basically been building to this since the first episode of the show, and the longer they hold of on it the more annoying it gets. So lets just see Michael as captain and see how that goes. At least we won’t get any more scenes of her trying to convince whoever’s captain to follow her crazy idea.
I definitely think a bit of a time jump would help. Have Michael settle into the captain role and have enough time to pass for it to not seem crazy to have Saru back in a non-leadership role.I agree. If they can fix Burnham and use her actually being in command to drive that, this show will be miles better. But I’m not at all confident that they’ll suddenly let her have flaws or suffer any consequences for his actions. I think the best we can hope for is that she’ll be better behaved, but even that’s not a fait accompli. She could just get a bee in her bonnet about some big crisis that she feels Starfleet Command isn’t handling correctly and the whole season is Discovery as a renegade ship fixing the crisis and also running from Starfleet.Which would suck.
They’ve already done a Burnham time jump at the beginning of the season, and the only thing it seemed to do was make her more independent and reckless. That and make her fall in love with Book, but I was down with that.
I just really don’t want season 4 to be all about the long journey of them learning to work together as a crew. This show has already done that 3 times, and it’s time to finally get to the fireworks factory.I’d love season 4 to start with everyone a little bored from the grind of months of never-ending supply missions, and realizing that starfleet are kindof taking them for granted again.And then there’s a new galaxy-spanning threat and they get a chance to show how good they are (rather than making the audience watch yet another season of everyone tripping over everyone else).
She has been the Captain for the last 4 seasons. My god this was terrible. Even Oysraa listens to Michelle. Nothing made sense. Why are the turbolifts flying through tons of open space inside the ship? Why would Oysraa think pushing Michelle into the cube thing would stop her? Why is the entire Starfleet firepower not able to destroy Discovery? Why would Vance trust Michelle with the spore drive and the future of the Federation when he just meet her weeks ago? Why was the sphere data impossible to erase and the Regulators did it in seconds? Why did Tig Narvao’s character bring it back to life in what was apparently the last DOT, if it was so dangerous? Why do Oko and Demeter have more sexual chemistry than all the shoehorned in LGBBQ characters like Staments, Cullber, Gray and Adira? This is absolutely the worst Star Trek show ever.
The show keeps trying to talk a big game but there’s no substance to anything it tries to say. They have these lofty speeches about unity and building a community but there is just no world building for any of that to take place.
They set up this galaxy that’s in chaos and the Federation is a shadow of its former self. But they haven’t done anything to actually develop these ideas. Who are the species/planets that are still part of the Federation, what do they want? Who are the members of the Emerald Chain. They said that the Andorians and Orions are the main powers in the Chain but we know nothing about their organization. Why did the Andorians leave the Federation to join the Chain?Even the characters themselves don’t seem to be curious about the galaxy. No one even thinks to look up how their homeworld is doing until it’s relevant to the plot. Burnham spends an entire year in the 32nd century and never bothers to learn what happened to Vulcan, her adoptive homeworld. Saru never bothers to learn about what happened to Kaminar and the Kelpians until other people bring it up in conversation. The Discovery crew supposedly get training to accommodate to the 32nd century and yet they consistently show a lack of even basic knowledge about the state of the galaxy.It just seems like nothing in the show is planned out. And not just in terms of an overarching story for the season, but plots, motivations, and basic logic within episodes aren’t planned out. It’s like they’re literally just writing the show as it goes along. The characters would learn something new in the story because the writers just came up with it, even though logically they should have already known it. Character motivations would be revealed even though it’s never hinted at because the writers had just come up with it and never bothered to actually develop it. The show is just a mess.
I actually googled the likes of Brannon Braga, Ira Behr etc wondering if they had given up writing or producing because this show, and Picard, are so badly done and so removed from what Star Trek should be. I guess that’s why they had a Roddenberry quote at the end.
Really well said. Thumbs up for you. Yeah, all true I’m afraid.If everything moved slower and allowed for more backstory and ran for 20+ eps I’d like to think a lot of those issues could be resolved (if the writers chose to do so, that is…)
Yeah, the whole concept of Osyrra being a Minster of something or another in the Chain was just kind of thrown in there, and even the fact that she wasn’t the head of the Chain was kind of a surprise to me.
Also, did she had the weird Princess Leia faux-british-accent-no-accent thing going on? It was weird.
I *just* realized that Trill leader Paz was Ronnie from Schitt’s Creek.
Did I miss something, or did neither of the reviews of the Su’kal episodes mention the fact that he was played by the one and only Bill Irwin?
It was mentioned in one, upon his first appearance, two episodes ago…
Here? I re-read it last night and didn’t see a mention.
io9? I read it on one of the two a couple of weeks ago, probably in the stray observations… maybe it was another commenter…
Oh wow, I had no idea. It looked nothing like him and they made… zero use of his physicality? Maybe if he continues to be a character going forward as part of Saru’s story it will make some sense to cast someone so talented.
I dunno. He had a really great moment in his first episode where he did that arm waving thing that Saru does when walking, but it was very exaggerated and erratic, and I kind of loved it.
I love that because Doug Jones swings his arms as Saru (because he has such long arms in real life) that it’s now standard that every Kelpian does this. He really has invented how this race acts and presents themself.
This was a meh end to a meh season of Star Trek. I preferred season 2, but I concede it was better than Picard.
I’m cautiously optimistic for Strange New Worlds, but I hope they get some better sci-fi writers.
What frustrates me is that they have an entire year to write 13 episodes and this is the best they come up with. The TNG, DS9 and Voyager writers had to crank out 26 episodes per season and were breaking stories only 3-4 weeks ahead of production. They only got sloppy in the back end of the seasons, which is why around episodes 15-20 of the season, things tend to get Sub Rosa.As a viewer it’s frustrating because after waiting a year for a new season, I can’t understand why plots are so rushed, threads dropped, costumes like Osyra’s bullshit black leather villain outfit are so lazy. They have time to figure this shit out.
Hey I liked Ossyraa’s ‘80s flair. (No really I did) People in the future will find that very intimidating, trust me. Nobody can fight the power of a big belt and a smartly gathered waist.Its subtle psychological warfare with few known effective countermeasures. It’s known as- when Bedazzlers Strike Back.(And YOU thought it got lost among the oft- forgotten dustpiles of the more obscure cultural touchstones of the ‘90s. Au Contraire, my friend. It merely transfers star systems and waits… for a chance to strike again.)
They do seem to have plenty of time, and they only have to do half the typical episodes. So what gives? I don’t know. Maybe they wait until the very last minute to start writing and run out of time to do proper re-drafts and critiquing.
“I concede it was better than Picard” – that’s a low fucking bar.
I only mention it because they’re both Alex Kurtzman productions.
You know what made me burst into tears? The whistle right before “captain on the bridge!”
Also Dr. Culber hugging Gray Tal. Oh.
What about the TOS theme music during the end credits?
Aside from all the other aspects of Burnham godhood, it’s awful how the solution to every big problem keeps being that a diminutive science officer is somehow the greatest martial artist in the history of the universe, much more formidable than soldiers, mercenaries, etc. who kill people for a living. Sigh.
I’m almost ashamed to say I’m torn. It was just objectively shallow. And yet the theme music at the end really had me feeling feelings (which is not something I try to do too often).
I found it VERY funny when Michael says “hey I have a plan” and Tilly goes “ok, after proving I’m competent multiple times, having a little plot where people talk about if I’m competent or not, and eventually saving the day, I’m going to completely defer to you for no reason.”Like, the plan was to eject the core and tell Michael’s boyfriend to zoom zoom, don’t know that Tilly needed to ceremonially hand over the captain’s chair for all that.
I think if I had to sum up Discovery, specifically what makes it different from older Trek, is it is so individualistic (which is basically what you say every week, but I still needed some time to get there). It’s just incredible that everything of importance needs to be done by one character. And I like her! I do! But other people can do stuff too! That’s allowed! And the fact that the Burn was the emotional outburst of ONE person, that negotiations between the Chain and the Feds fall apart because of ONE person, maybe I’ve got nostalgia glasses on, but I don’t feel like old Trek was that individualistic. I mean, besides maybe the focus on Picard.
My god this was terrible. Even Oysraa listens to Michelle. Nothing made sense. Why are the turbolifts flying through tons of open space inside the ship? Why would Oysraa think pushing Michelle into the cube thing would stop her? Why is the entire Starfleet firepower not able to destroy Discovery? Why would Vance trust Michelle with the spore drive and the future of the Federation when he just meet her weeks ago? Why was the sphere data impossible to erase and the Regulators did it in seconds? Why did Tig Narvao’s character bring it back to life in what was apparently the last DOT, if it was so dangerous? Why do Oko and Demeter have more sexual chemistry than all the shoehorned in LGBBQ characters like Staments, Cullber, Gray and Adira? This is absolutely the worst Star Trek show ever.
I look forward to RedLetterMedia excoriating this season. Assuming Mike can tie Rich Evans to a chair long enough for him to watch it.
it’s just not a good show
So are they called Regulators because even 1000 years+ into the future some people out there really really really like Young Guns? Or maybe they are Warren G / Nate Dogg fans?
“Regulatoooooors… beamed into space.”
Thank you. You’ve articulated my utter disinterest in this show other than the “Star Trek” title and confusion why it exists or what its purpose might be.
Phewww. Just got done watching and that was….. A LOT. I’m not sure how I feel right now but my goodness, my brain just needs a rest before I try to come up with any zippy reflections. I feel like it’s just been batted around in a handball court. I was slightly/a little more than slightly disappointed that Ossyraa was dispatched so quickly and without much fanfare. I had some alternate scenes in my head that I thought could have worked well and effectively about her being neutralized, captured and thrown in the brig, with her fate TBD by SF or perhaps being sprung at the last moment by one of her people (who would have to come from her main ship- I forget it’s name).She’s a great villain. There was tons of great potential there if they wanted to keep it going. Would have been good to keep her around in one form or another in the background going into S4 as someone now defeated, but as a possible threat to reappear at some point in the future, one way or another.I also felt it was a little unexpected the WALL-Es did very little this time around, just due to how they were introduced last time. Just made me thing they would more pivotal. They seemed to be very much an afterthought this time (might have been one for the writers the first time).I also was confused as to what the field of matter was that Michael was pushed into. I was expecting an internal view so I could see what was happening inside to Michael and if it was dangerous or not. But they just showed her able to push her way out, after some effort. Why would a clever criminal and determined agent like Ossyraa just assume that was enough? Does it disengrate living tissue??? We don’t know bc it wasn’t established one way or another. I really wish I knew.Who else started to get actually angry when Ossyraa put hands on the disabled scientist? I know that’s a very “her” thing to do, and that he wasn’t really harmed but damn. I got triggered for real. I can’t help it. The man cannot defend himself. A good moment I guess to show her aggressive, menacing nature and willingness to deploy ruthlessness when she sees fit.Anyone else a little disappointed Ossyraa was killed instead of merely disabled. After her being so good as a villain and menacing for so long, it just felt abrupt. I assumed she would be defeated and captured or escape to fight another day. I DO WISH they would stop wrapping everything up so perfectly and tightly at the end of every season. I know why they do it- it is satisfying and gives that emotional payoff- and I enjoy it on that level- but sometimes its okay to let a plotline or character exist into the future.Leaving a few unknowns to continue through and tease our attention into the next season is good too (like an escaped Ossyraa)… Or whoever. Or whatever. It is ok for a plot element not to end in all iterations by the end of a given season. It’s ok to have a cliffhanger. (The Klingon war for instance could have easily lasted another half season or two, in the foreground or the background, if they had chosen not to demand that it be resolved by the end of S1)..
“What’s outside?”
“I dunno. Once you’re out there, you get sick.”
“I’ll go!” said the 100% holographic person.
How did Grey survive that? Holograms can’t leave.
Didn’t we see him standing in the block of hologram cubes, looking outside? So he basically went right up to the window but didn’t go outside. So technically he was still in the “holodeck”.
they couldn’t go “outside” because of the radiation, which they were protected from “inside”…..
Right, so the non-Grey people stayed inside the hologram area where they were safe from the radiation. Grey, whom the radiation wouldn’t affect, went “outside”, although technically he didn’t leave the hologram area. He stayed inside the cube-wall and was able to look outside.
as a DM, i would not allow such shennanigans; if the cube-wall is inside enough to keep Grey from derezzing, then that same space has sufficient protection from radiation.
I mean, i hope we all remember our high school physics regarding electromagnetic fields under environmental bombardment from heavy ionized particles. With this in mind i’m sure you’ll agree with me.
Saru and Hugh knew that the planet outside the hologram was full of radiation that was harmful to them. They knew that leaving the hologram to look outside was deadly to them. But Grey knew that although he could not leave the hologram, he could walk to the edge and look outside with no harm of the radiation. This seems pretty straightforward to me – if one member of your group is immune to radiation then you send them to the area with radiation if you need something there.
i’d posit, a place good enough for a hologram, is safe enough for a life form. If the hologram can poke eyeballs through, so can a star fleet officer.
Outside of the hologram is deadly radiation. Any non-hologram that approaches the edge of the hologram is dangerous. And poking your eyeballs through the hologram edge would instantly expose you to that radiation.Think of it like a cube of air at the bottom of a swimming pool. If you approach the edge of the cube and poke your head through, you’d instantly take in lungfulls of water.
I’d give any organic life form a Saving Throw vs. Radiation modified by Wisdom, based on their experience and intuition. Grey has no experience as a hologram, he has no idea of thresholds; i’d still give him a Saving Throw, but at -2, no Wisdom mod.
Whether you loved, hated it, or otherwise, this finale REALLY should have been a two-parter. It’s like the writers have a one-up competition with each other to see how much constant wild action and rapid rate blink-of-an-eye developments they can hard pack into a given single unit of time between credits. I mean, packed is an understatement. At least a slightly longer treatment of the ship retaking and the subsequent developments would have been nice. I thought the Su’kal plot was fairly well paced and presented, but everything else felt was like it was on 3X fast-forward. This one more than any other deserved to be advanced to 90 minutes and spread over two episodes, imo. Trying to shove everything into one fat episode feels a little frantic and gives some elements unnecessary short shrift.
God no! A two parter would have been more torturous.
😂 lol. I still like DISC, and I’ll watch almost anything, but DISC STILL can’t come out of 27th gear most of the time and it just hurts my small brain. With the 20 different plot points the writers wanted to cover, I would have preferred addressing some of them more fully and slowly. A 2-part finale would have worked for me.Do you hate watch Disco? 😁
With the diehard stuff in the previous episode this actually felt like a 2-parter to me (or even a 3-parter, since all of the nebula stuff started in the episode before that)The final story here was pretty simple: nebula; radiation; combination of TNG’s Survivors & Future Imperfect; one diehard with the bridgecrew; a separate diehard with Burnham; etc.
3 episodes should have been plenty to not have it feel rushed. Although I also think the mirrorverse episodes really messed up the season’s pacing.
Fair enough, but those 61 minutes felt really packed to me. Maybe it was just the last act or so. It made for a nice epilogue/overview, but it moved really fast by just showing the bullet points, and it cut past scenes I would have liked to have seen or shown in more detail in the SP of S4 or a Part 2. But as far as the Su’kal and Ossyraa parts, yeah you’re probably right, they seemed sufficient. The Su’kal scenes in particular were really well done. I’m with everyone else, he didn’t need to be the cause of the Burn, that was clearly (Im guessing) a last minute add-on to combine those two elements inatead of allowing the first one to stand on its own (rescuing a lost Kelpian & how this affects Saru) and I seriously wish they didn’t, but I thought the acting was top notch by all and it was moving for me. I keep thinking there’s something else I wanted to see about Ossyraa and her attempt on the Disco before she went down in the data room, but I can’t put my finger on it. I wish they had written her as being captured instead of killed, and included a taut scene between her and Michael at the end with Osyrra in the brig awaiting Federation custody with some good tense dialogue between them.
There may be other moments I missed, but there was no confrontation, no conversation where Michael and Stamets found common ground again. Yes, you did miss something that was fairly obvious. During the Culmets family reunion, there was a wordless exchange between Stamets and Micheal, and the voice over in that moment makes clear that their relationship remains strained over this.I wonder how often people watch TV without watching it, you know, like in the corner of their eye, and miss important details/moments? For reviewers/recappers, I bet it’s a necessity of the job, so I’m not calling out this writer for missing it (it’s usually how I watch the Expanse), just pointing out that it was not a subtle moment.
It’s not that it’s implausible that he would’ve calmed down; it’s that
we’re supposed to just assume he did. Maybe this will get picked up next
season. Maybe not. But in not dealing with it now, in just trying to
get drama out of conflict without bothering to consider consequences,
the show renders those scenes moot in retrospect.
It’s not like the voiceover when she says ‘sometimes it looks impossible’ focuses on Stamets still being angry at her.
why Stamets is still in this ship? He is not needed anymore.
Good Lord, if they get rid of Stamets and replace him with Booker, and Tilly Sue is the XO like I assume, that would be ridiculous and completely in character for Burnham in-universe and the writers IRL.I like Booker a lot, but Stamets is one of the few characters the writers have allowed to be compelling other than Burnham. Replacing him with a character who’s totally devoted to Burnham would be terrible.
Stamets had a role in the Science Lab on DISCO before they got the spore drive. It’s not like that’s the only thing he does on the ship.
And this bad show continues to be bad and continues to exist only because it has Star Trek in its title.
I doubt it would even have a full first season without the ST fanbase.
Cause its indifferent TV, with stories we have seen so many times in so much better ways.
Plus it suffers A LOT in the casting, which with some exceptions like Doug Jones, it is very mediocre. But biggest problem is the bad writing.
It is like if all scripts come out from some computer algorithm where the main configuration is “Burnham” will always be the center of the show universe”. Which is unfortunate cause Burnham is a really badly written character and most of the times ends up being very annoying. And the rest of the boring crew doesn’t help either.
I keep reading that the first two seasons of TNG were awful.. well, they were average to say the least, but at the end of the first season you were familiar and liked and caring about its crew.
Even Picard managed its new characters better in its first season.
I really dunno if I will keep watching on season 4.
There are limitations on how much you can suffer for your Star Trek love.
p.s.
WTF was the “love” for TOS at the end of the episode?
Do they really think they are as good or they desperately trying to feel connected?
I’ll take the worst from TNG first two seasons over any Disco episode hands down and smiling. Even the abysmal “african planet” one.At least the stories were character driven and all the cast had their moments, good or bad execution notwithstanding.And someone please tell Sonequa that intense whispering does not make a scene dramatic every time!! Change register from time to time for fuck’s sake!!Cheers
For all its faults, the first two seasons were superior to the first two seasons of any prior Trek show other than TOS.
I really thought they were going to do some nonsense where Michael BURNham and her time traveling antics were responsible for THE BURN but holy hell this thing they did was actually way dumber.And was it just me or did the Su’kal costume look way more plastic and obvious than the Saru costume? Reminded me of the awkwardnes of the first season Klingons.
I really thought they were going to do some nonsense where Michael BURNham and her time traveling antics were responsible for THE BURNI lost a bet with a friend on this. Damn!Cheers
I’m glad I didn’t lay money on it because I would’ve lost too.
“Let’s fly”…..wtf??????? The straw that broke my camels back.
Actual pre-season writer’s room conversation:Gibbon #1: Okaaaay! Everyone! Let’s talk about the scene on the bridge when Michael is PROMOTED!Gibbon #2: OMG! I have tears just thinking about it. It gonna be soooo cool.Gibbon #3: Yeah, like everyone can be there, applauding. We can swell the music! It’ll really hit home. Everyone’s been waiting for Michael to be captain for, like three seasons now!Capuchin #1: Well, everyone is there but Stamets, right? I mean, she kicked him off the ship. Gibbon #2: What?!? No! Everyone is there. It shows how much they all love Michael.Capuchin #1: Why? How? How do they all love Michael? How do we reconcile Stam-Gibbon#1: No. #2 is right. He’ll be there. That’ll make it clear to everyone that they reconciled. That’ll be enough. I don’t want to spend too much time on it. It’ll just bore the audience. Who can sit thru all that small stuff?Gibbon #3: Absolutely! He’s a part of her crew. Gotta keep it MOVING!Gibbon #2: And who would believe anyone stays mad that long at Michael? It’s Michael!!!Capuchin #1: Well…I—-Gibbon #1: So, great! That’s done. Now what about the tiny robots? Gibbon #3: Oh…Do we still need those? Let’s just have them save somebody. It’ll be very Kirk-like!
Okay, so it’s a known fact that I’m not a fan of this series. However, I’ve been watching it every week and risking blindness on a weekly basis from the epic eye-rolling I find myself doing.That said…This episode was bad. Not mediocre as a lot of Discovery’s episodes have been, but just meh. There are some hilariously awful concepts at play in this episode – such as Owosekun holding her breath (and, er, talking) – but the big one is…They made the woman who behaved like a spoiled petulant brat on multiple occasions a fucking Captain.Are they seriously that short on manpower in the new Starfleet that she’s the best option for them? What about Cadet-then-First Office Mary-Sue? Seriously? What the actuality?The irritating thing is that I fucking love Sonequa Martin-Green (her performance as the eternally dislikable Michael Burnham is the only thing about the character I actually like) but, ooof. Come on. No. That’s like making Wesley Crusher an acting ensign just because of that one time he phased in and out of our space to catapult the Enterprise back to the Feder…oh shit. But, seriously, what? No. I’d also like to put out a dishonourable mention to the Dead Doctor whose name I can’t be arsed looking up now. I was literally waiting for him to shriek at Adira “LIVE YOUR TRUTH!” like the walking talking pop-psychology textbook that he is. Less I say about his prissy ginger husband the better (my boyfriend snarked a few months ago – he never watched Discovery until I made him watch it from the beginning whilst we were on Lockdown and yes, I’m amazed he’s still in love with me – that Ginger Navigator and his awful husband are the “safe gay couple stereotype” – not overly macho, not overly feminine, but just dancing in that safe Goldilocks zone so as not to offend the rabid breeders and to satiate the rampant LGBT lot. And yes, he thinks Detmer and Owosekun should be a couple.)Now, onto the good. As much as I loathe the character of Burnham, Martin-Green was pretty damned fun to watch in this episode, especially when she was ready to bitchslap Discount Elphaba in the Datacore. Doug Jones, of course, was marvellous (we really need to see more of him without the usual prosthetics – he’s a brilliantly emotive actor and he’s somewhat adorable too). Enjoyed watching Adira and Gray (Blu del Barrio is really growing on me and I hope that we get to see much, much more of them in future!) I just wished that they’d give characters like Detmer more screentime.
Not going to get into your substance, but I did that language lab thing ages ago, too, and understand your screenname. Albondigas! No te dice!
In the immortal words of Gwen Demarco, ‘This episode was badly written. Whoever wrote this episode should die.’
Why in Uxbridge’s name was Gray physically manifested? Why was Saru’s physiology affected by the “holo” program? Why do people think Enterprise is the worst Trek when this show, production value aside, argues compellingly against that 45 minutes at a time? Someone get non-binary Wesley on this immediately.
If I squint, I can see Saru being changed as making sense because it would be jarring for Su’Kal to see another Kelpien “holo” after so long seeing only the Elder.But the rest? Like, there were clearly human holos since Saru was one, why make Burnham a Trill and Culber a Bajoran? It would’ve made sense if they made them look exactly like existing holos, but they didn’t.
Ok, sure, I’ll buy that. But the holo program didn’t just change how Saru appeared, it changed the shape of his legs so that his heels touched the ground, and gave a physical body to Gray. That’s some powerful holotech that apparently the entire galaxy forgot about.
The real answer is that I’m thinking about it way harder than anyone involved in production did and the joke is squarely on me for that.
I finally got around to watching this. First of all, I generally like this show a lot more than many of the commenters here. Which is not to say there aren’t a lot of flaws, just that I enjoy the show overall, even if I do roll my eyes at the speechifying every so often (and really, Tilly when you are low on oxygen is no time to launch into a story about your B-day, it’s time to just spit out what you have to do and get on with it). I’m glad Burnham is Captain now, especially since she’s so often cast as “the rebel” as it may give her a different facet to play. Although I also worry that now she’ll just be in opposition to the Admiral. I look forward to whatever her Captain hair will be. I’m also glad Tilly isn’t captain, while I like the character, her being promoted to 1st officer was clearly based more on the actor’s place on the call sheet than anything else. An ensign getting promoted over everyone on the bridge? I’m also glad I wasn’t the only on confused by the weird expanse that the lifts seemed to exist in. Very Willy Wonka and the Great Glass Elevator. The show could really use some episodes that make better use of the bridge crew. I get that it’s different when you have a shorter season and a story arc, unlike the earlier shows (with exceptions) which had more “spare” episodes they could devote to supporting characters. But part of the fun of the older series was taking the different characters, having different pairings, and letting them exist on their own. It was great to have Detmer get her own arc this season.
I would have given this a slightly higher score personally though I agree with everything you wrote
I only watch this because it’s vaguely Trek – if this were some other sci-fi show, I would have stopped watching it a while ago
The saddest thing about this episode is that it was written by Michelle Paradise who wrote Project Daedalus, probably the best episode of the entire series, so I was expecting better.
One thing which bothered me a bit (among many other inconsistencies) was when Gray walked outside of the holodeck – he would have had no substance outside of the holodeck since he only have substance from the projectors…I just don’t understand why they don’t have better writing and hire some truly skilled writers to at least consult like Peter David (fiction/books) and the team who oversaw DS9 who know trek and know good narrative arcs and storytelling…
I’m very excited to watch The Orville again and pretend it’s cannon Star Trek. Also started watching Babylon 5 (this seriously needs a proper streaming release) and it’s filled a Star Trek shaped hole in my life.
The quote from Gene Gene the Star Trek machine didn’t
resonate with anything 3100-ish, but certainly clicked with the events
of January 6, 2021. We have to try communicating better with kindness
and caring, not incendiary tweets and death marches.What
WAS the point of Boring Scientist Guy? Did they just have Captain
Pike’s one-beep-two-beep chair left over on the back lot and wanted to
get some miles on it?And what happened to Cleveland Booker splanin’ the
mentor he’s named for? Grover? Amory? Cory? Or is a Firefly homage
coming out of this for Shepherd Book?
When did Jimmy Kimmel get on Discovery?
I’m sure someone’s beaten me to this, but… exactly how big is Discovery that they have a turbolift facility that is AT LEAST a km long? And about half again as wide? Or how the warp core seemingly dropped through about 20 decks before leaving the ship? And why would you waste that much empty space on freaking elevators?
(I did love that the drop wasn’t entirely clean, with it scraping the side. That was neat.)
I know the Abrams / Kelvin / whatever movies gave up on the ships having any sense of internal scale when engineering was suddenly the size of an Amazon warehouse, but this annoys me to no end.
“it’s hard not to walk away with the impression that, if they’d just arrived in the future a couple hundred years ago, this whole problem could’ve been avoided.”This makes no sense. The Burn happens because Su’Kal’s mother’s ship is trapped on the dilithium planet, and he is affected by all the dilithium there and reacts when his mother dies. How would DISCO arriving ~200 years early affect ANY of this?
“The second scene, Stamets is part of the group welcoming Michael onto the bridge to take command of the ship … Maybe this will get picked up next season. Maybe not.”
More proof of the running theme in this season’s reviews that you just aren’t paying attention (i.e. repeatedly saying in previous reviews that Adira is a Trill instead of a human). In that second scene, Stamets is *clearly* not happy with Michael. Every other crew member smiles at her, but Stamets is stone-faced. This is *obviously* going to be picked up on in season 4.
“You aren’t supposed to watch Michael and Osyraa battling it out, and wonder what the heck Osyraa shoves Michael into (the ship’s data drive? Something sphere related?)“
That was programmable matter. We saw that on Book’s ship during the first episode, when Michael was learning about the new technology in the future, and when DISCO got a retrofit by Starfleet, they said that all systems had been upgraded to use PM – we saw the bridge crew at their stations move their hands near their consoles and the PM react to them. Again, if you pay attention when you watch this show, you’d know this.
“I don’t know why it mattered so much for Michael to get Discovery out of warp”
Umm, maybe because the Federation ships were chasing them? If she drops DISCO out of warp then (a) the Federation ships catch up to them, and (b) DISCO doesn’t get to the dilithium planet and give Osyraa the chance to do anything to take control of all the dilithium there.
“it’s funny that she put so much effort into getting Stamets off the ship before suggesting that Booker could run the spore drive instead.”
When she gets Stamets off the ship, Osyraa is still in command. Michael *has* to get him off the ship otherwise Osyraa could use him and the spore drive to instantly go anywhere and get away from the Federation ships.Once Osyraa has been defeated and Michael has retaken the ship, then it’s safe for Michael to use the spore drive.
“but in a way that asks nothing of the viewer but their minimal attention.”Based on your reviews this season, it seems that you’ve taken that to heart.
I have no good feelings whatsoever about a series that smack in the middle of a pandemic, proceeds to tell us “Those scientists are idiots, they can’t really solve the problems of their time. Listen to the people with horribly outdated knowledge, they’ll point the way to the solution”.
Seriously? I don’t care how far they were with shooting, they should have realized this is an extremely bad idea. Star Trek used to be something that inspired people to go into science. Discovery has been one big “up yours” to science, and season three just was the icing on the cake. An insult to scientists and scientific progress as a concept, all at a time when scientists are getting death threats for doing their effing work.
There were a lot of mistakes: science guy having no idea his pesticide was used to create a famine (hello Better off Ted), shoehorning Book in as a spore driver, killing off Osyra after actually investing half an episode in her, making discovery invincible to all other federation ships; wtf are the two bridge crew ladies fucking or what?; multiple Wall-Es who do NOTHINGGGGGGBut: they kept Book without killing him, the idea of him and Michael as married throughout the rest of the show is kind of nice, that never happens; Saru got a good storyline; Oded Fehr rejecting peace to insist on a trial was one of the best things I’ve seen on the show, he knows they can kick starfleet’s ass (until Osyra is inexplicably made the only person in Emerald Chain to keep things tidy); you knew they had to make Michael a captain so it’s fine; the Gray stuff was inexplicable but that didn’t hurt it muchI was overall pretty happy. I just don’t expect a ton
What a disappointing season. Most of it was dreadful, just soap opera level writing and acting. Ugh.
Looks like I finally found the Discovery support group for people who don’t like the show but keep watching anyway. I mean most of the complaints are valid. Yes the show is largely a series of upbeats it hasn’t earned, and pretty things to look at which occasionally blow up, and many of the plot lines seem like someone randomly picking Star Trek tagged pages on tvtropes.com and stringing them together… but I find it entertaining in a “dinner of nothing but desserts” kind of way. Not something I could stomach all the time but a fun “turn of your brain” once in a while thing.I couldn’t stand the first 3 seasons of TNG or Voyager either, so maybe this will calm down and let actual character arcs develop in meaningful ways next season. Or eventually.However review lines like “Is Gray a spirit? A Force
ghost? Some other, stupid third thing?” are grating and pretty disingenuous. Like a spirit or Force ghost aren’t stupid plot devices? Or are you so jaded about the writers that you assume anything they come up with will be stupid? Or you find Gray stupid in concept so any possible explanation will be stupid by default? You gave the episode a B- then bitched about it for 1500 words. I read your review and have no idea what you think it did to justify a B other than “it’s fun to watch.” And fun to complain about apparently.
Was Su’Kal coded as having Down Syndrome? When Culber talked about his chromosomes, his behavior made a lot more sense. I get that he would naturally be child-like from a lack of interacting with sapient beings (and how long-lived are the Kelpians anyway, since Su’Kal is about 120 years old), but even still he seemed far more so than I would have expected. But if he’s got a version of Down Syndrome it makes a TON more sense.
A ship named Voyager was mentioned by name a couple times. Was it ever shown in the battle? It was hard to focus
Damn, this show gets so much hate. I don’t get it. I mean the show is not the best written thing on tv right now, but 99% of shows fall into that category. It’s not the best Star Trek show, but it’s not the worst either. It’s completely watchable and enterataining.