How much you enjoy “Terra Firma, Part 1” (and, I’m guessing, it’s follow up next week) will depend largely on your affection for the Mirror Universe. It takes a while, and we have to have a Godlike Being and a mysterious door to get there, but the last twenty minutes or so of “Firma” follows Georgiou as she relives one of the most important days of her life: the day she executed her adopted daughter, Michael Burnham, for conspiring with Lorca to assassinate her and take over the empire. Up until that point, “Firma” is your usual Discovery episode, jumping between characters, giving us a bit more info about the Burn mystery, and checking in to see where everyone is before we move into the season’s end game. But once Georgiou steps through that door, everything in the Prime universe disappears, and we’re back in the land of gaudy gold uniforms, sneers, and Agony Booths.
I honestly thought the show had put all that nonsense behind it back in the first season. We did a bunch of Mirror Universe shit, had a few good twists, and left with a replacement Michelle Yeoh, and that was more than enough. Georgiou has been snarling and sniping ever since, and while it always seems a bit weird that a fascist dictator who most definitely murdered people is hanging out with what are basically Science Care Bears, Yeoh is clearly enjoying herself, and it at least offered some tonal variation from the usual hugs-and-crying approach.
Only now Dr. Cronenberg has figured out that Georgiou is dying from temporal dislocation, due to her being from another universe and jumping forward in time, and the Sphere consciousness (I don’t think you can really call it “data” anymore) has found a possible cure. There’s only a five percent chance of it working, sure, but it’s still better than nothing. So Discovery heads to Dannus V, where Georgiou and Michael beam down, meet a man named Carl wearing a bowler hat and find a mysterious door that leads Georgiou into her old life.
This was not a direction I was expecting the season to go, so points for that. It’s difficult to assess it critically because it’s unclear how this new twist is going to resolve; it’s so unmoored from everything else we’ve seen in season 3 that there’s nothing to set it against. Still, it’s at least possible to try and judge it on its own terms, and while I can sort of see the appeal here, I’m having a hard time seeing the point.
At the end of the episode, Georgiou spares the Terran version of Michael’s life instead of executing her on the spot for treason; whether this is because Georgiou is trying to alter the future, or else a sign of her developing humanity, or a mixture of both, remains to be seen. But while that’s a concept that could’ve been interesting for a standalone earlier in the season, it’s a bizarre choice for right now. As far as we know, this has nothing to do with the Burn, or with Michael et al’s efforts to return the Federation to its former glories, or the Emerald Chain. It’s ostensibly about saving Georgiou’s life, but it’s not as though Georgiou is a central character for the series. If anything, this season has seen her role reduced even more than usual, and if this turns out to be the way they decide to send her off for good, well, it’s still a weird way to go about it.
I really can’t stress this enough: the last act is literally just more Mirror Universe nonsense. It’s the same trick they always pull: remember those people you like? What if they were meaner and dressed like extras in a C&C Music Factory video, and also wore a lot of eye shadow. There’s nominal suspense in seeing how the slightly-less-evil Georgiou will handle a reality that expects her to be a monster, but in no way does this justify multiple scenes of everybody putting their meany faces on and glowering at each other. It’s goofy, and I guess I could see enjoying it on that level, but there’s no reason for there to be this much of it, and no reason to spend this much time on a character this disconnected from nearly everything else on the show.
There are some nice moments before this as well. I liked Vance telling Saru that it’s worth putting in the effort to save a dying crewmember even if it means putting the needs of the one ahead of the needs of the many; it’s both revealing that Saru would have erred on the side of caution after Michael’s earlier adventures, and edifying to see that Vance remains a by and large stand up guy. (There’s obviously still time for a twist, but as of right now, I appreciate that the future Federation isn’t corrupt or stupid.) Adira manages to translate most of the algorithm, and we learn that it’s from a Kelpian ship; the Kelpians were stranded and waiting for a Federation ship to rescue them. The message is from several years before the Burn, but it feels like the mystery is getting closer to a solution.
Which is why it’s so frustrating to spend so much time watching characters who will never be relevant again sneering and getting stabbed in the neck. The contrast between the “evil” and “normal” versions of, say, Detmer or Michael or anybody else is nowhere near as interesting as Trek writers seem to think it is; once the novelty is gone, there’s no depth no matter how much they try to create it. The Terrans are boring. They don’t even have the novelty of Klingon face ridges. They’re comically selfish and comically sadistic, like if the legions of Cobra (or S.P.H.I.N.X.) suddenly went live action and flew space missions. And much as I like Yeoh, Georgiou is just not that compelling on her own to justify this.
I’m holding out hope that this is all going to come together before the end; that somehow, we’ll learn the Terrans were responsible for the Burn, or that Carl will be anything more than an obvious construct. While far from perfect, Discovery’s third season has done a good job in more fully embracing the self it clearly wants to be, developing its ensemble and leaving behind the forced continuity of the past. To see it fumble so strangely as it heads into the finale, especially with such an unforced error, is disappointing. Fingers crossed that I’m even more wrong than usual on this one.
Stray observations
- I don’t love all of Georgiou’s insults, but “Saru’s walking command blunder,” re: Tilly, was pretty good.
- I don’t really get Dr. Cronenberg’s deal, but I am enjoying him. Also, the Temporal Wars sound amazing.
- A lot of the emotional core of the back half of the episode comes from Georgiou’s conflicted relationship with the Terran version of Michael; but given that this is the first we’ve seen of that Michael (she was already dead by the time Discovery met Lorca, I think), and given that this version of Michael doesn’t really have a lot in common with the real Michael, the emotions don’t land. It’s not inspiring or moving that Georgiou chooses not to execute her surrogate daughter. It’s predictable, and disappointing in that it signals we’re going to be stuck in this storyline for a while yet.
- Oh, Adira is still stressed about Gray not talking to them. In case you were wondering.
103 Comments
So the musical Star Fleet Message they haven’t yet responded to ,is 100 years old . In reality it Is not from a Star Fleet Ship but from a Kelpian Science vessel the Star Fleet ship was going to help .Now because they decoded the Emergency message , [ ITS AN EMERGENCY MESSAGE WHY IS IT IN NEED OF DECODING ??} they can tap into the ship’s internal sensors to find out what is going on inside it …….Some really great sensors there ! 900 years really improved them ….Seriously W T F ??? Why don’t they just Beam aboard the ship already ? Hey it is 900 years they should be beaming across solar systems
I was wondering about the encoded message too, BUT then I remembered I’m a huge nerd and if you’ll recall… in Star Trek II, when Kirk communicates to Spock from the Genesis station, and Spock seems to act against the orders, Spock mentions that it’s Starfleet procedure to use coded messages when communicating through unsecured channels. So I guess the Kelpians, who were part of the Federation, followed that when sending a distress signal? I think Stamets mentioned that last ep, just sort of mentioning in passing that since it was a distress signal, there would be an encoded message, like it was a given.
As for all your other points… beats the crap outta me?!
That is an excellent point .
But if your calling for help why would you not want the clostest no matter who it was.
….Maybe you encode emergency messages because you only want certain people to respond to your emergency??Disco ,…the more you think about it …it melts the brain !
We were wondering about coding an emergency message too. And even if you were encoding it so hostile ships couldn’t decipher it, shouldn’t it at least be easily decoded by friendlies, i.e. Star Fleet?
the Temporal Wars sound amazing.*cries bitterly in Enterprise*
I’ve seen temporal wars you wouldn’t believe. A future man who was both Archer and Not Archer until you observed him and the wave function collapsed. I watched a nerdy guy in a hose outfit from the future die several times but end up ok unless that was him at an earlier point in the timeline. I remember some Female Changelings from a white void convince gullible aliens to 9/11 Earth based on scant evidence, because they’ll lose an invasion 500 years later. I’ve witnessed Nazi Nosferatus take the White House, outlaw Billie Holiday, and get blown up.
All those moments lost in time, like a reset button on Voyager.
(Seriously though, I rewatched Enterprise to try and give it the benefit of the doubt and it was excruciating.)
Everything about Daniels works much better when you think of him as a Thermian.
Thermians have way better dress sense.
who is daniels?
All those things sound like amazing plot points from the Galaxy Quest sequel.
Take your like you magnificent bastard you.
That was truly exquisite verbosity! Rutger Hauer would have been proud!
I mean, it was all just a holodeck sim….
Mu wild guess is this is the stealth pilot for the Section 31 show, and just to mess with us, it’s going to be a mirror-universe version of the agency lead by Georgiou working against the Terran Empire to bring about an egalitarian future.Which is, of course doomed to failure because the Empire is still there by the time of TOS and falls after Spock becomes Emperor, but it might still be fun?Also, the alien in the TNG uniform that David Cronenberg showed Culber was from the Kelvin universe, that was pretty cool
I think you’re definitely right about this two-parter being the setup for the spinoff, but I’ve suspected for a long time that the “Section 31″ angle might just be a smokescreen.They announced the spinoff way back before season two had even started airing, so it would have been pretty spoilery to say Yeoh’s spinoff would be about anything other than Section 31 – they had to conceal the time jump and whatever else they have in store.
Kiiiiiinda sounds like the spinoff might actually be centered around the Temporal Wars? I mean, that DOES sound awesome.
A “spinoff” that sounds like it “might actually be centered around the Temporal Wars” likely does sound “awesome” to the whittled-down audience that sustains Discovery by paying for an entire TV-on-demand service monthly to watch it. And don’t get me wrong: I agree it makes financial sense as a luxury ultra-fan item completely inaccessible to the average viewer. I can’t see any possible audience for it otherwise.
It does look like a backdoor pilot. These usually cause the overall storylines of a show to come to a screeching halt in order to tell this story and it can be annoying. I hope part 2 isn’t all about the Mirror Universe. The Discovery still has things to address.
That’s a cosmically bad idea for a TV show, so, yeah, I could buy it.
After resisting for quite awhile, the offer of a free month of CBS All Access got me finally to do a binge.
And all that accomplished was to make me happy to anticipate the upcoming Capt. Pike series.
So, Michael had this long character arc that turned her from a reckless, unreliable SF officer, she spent one season reliable, and now she’s back to being reckless and untrustworthy. Meh.
Gimme those old-time ST characters who put the good of others ahead of their own selfish desires.
The way I see it, she’s done everything with the notion it was for the greater good. Her problem seems to stem from the fact she doesn’t trust Starfleet all the time to do the correct thing, when it appears counter to their protocol. The perfect example of this was her decision to attack the Klingons as they only responded to a show of strength, which the Vulcans had to learn the hard way. While she may be a terrible Starfleet officer, she does believe in their mission statement, but not necessarily the methods used.
I generally think Zack has been too hard on this season, but I agree here. The mirror universe has appeared in about a dozen Star Trek episodes and was only interesting in three, maaaaybe four of them. This makes even less sense because Georgiou is also going back in time (is this actual time travel? imaginary? what?).
The Mirror Universe is significantly handicapped by almost nobody over there being anywhere close to a three-dimensional character. Everyone’s a sexy maniac, the logistics of their society don’t hold up to even the gentlest of scrutiny, and nothing that happens there ultimately matters to the larger story. It’s pretty much only fun when you go for camp insanity, and that has diminishing returns.
I’ll repeat it here since I can’t get out of the grays at io9
This “time sickness” has a TOS precedent.
Mr. Atoz had to “prepare” the people of Sarpedon to go into their own past to escape the supernova. Spock wasn’t prepared and started to go feral.I would hazard a guess that a couple hundred years would be no biggie, but more than a thousand might be.
I have the same grey issue here on AVClub.
But anyway, I suppose the dimension AND time jumping producing a sickness could be plausible. But why a Q-like entity would take an interest certainly needs an explanation.
And I don’t think Georgiou will remain in the Mirror Universe for long. She supposedly has that Section 31 show coming up? BUT, if we get a Mirror Pike showing up before she leaves, that could be cool.
Squire of Gothos, anyone? Trelane (the OG Q) took an interest, so why not
I had to create a whole new profile to get out of the grays. I had been on the AV Club since… literally it started online, was out of the greys when it switched to Kinja, then somewhere along the line I don’t know who I pissed off, but I found myself in the grays. Finally created a new profile and was out of the grays in like a week. Which is annoying because my old profile was out of the grays on other sites, like the Takeout. Meanwhile I see people posting vile shit all the time who are not gray. I don’t get this site at all.Also, as others have said, I think the Section 31 thing was kind of a fakeout for Georgiou’s show. Or maybe they decided it wasn’t as interesting as the Temporal Wars stuff. Or it’s both. But I think the show will be focused on the Temporal Wars, and Cronenberg will have a recurring role.
I think Benedict Cumber-Khan should bop on over from the Kelvin timeline and hook up with Georgiou for some conquering fun somewhere, maybe even figure out the early Borg in one or both the Kelvin and the Mirror Universes.
yeah, I had a bunch of comments on trek reviews under my old profile, SonOfSonofSpock. Anyway, I’m a punk fan, and I always hated the AV reviews of punk albums cause they were basically all “this sucks because punk sucks”. So did a bit on one of those comments sections where I was acting like the apparently stereotypical person they think likes that sort of music.
Anyway, instead of just deleting those comments, or giving me a warning or something, they just deleted my account and all my comments. Which seemed like an amazing over reaction because plenty of other folks did bit characters, and it was pretty clear that’s what I was doing. With kinja I was able to make a new account but yeah, I just saw this comment and thought i’d take the opportunity to bitch about having everything i ever wrote on the AV club deleted because of one bit on one article that someone didnt like or didnt get was a bit without a warning or any chance to appeal.
Now back to our regularly scheduled comments- I like this show and while I see the validity of Zack’s criticisms, his dislike of this shoe really does color everything he writes about. It seems most commenters are assuming this is a standalone deal that sets up a Geirgiuo spin-off and has nothing to do with the main Disco plot.
That’s certainly possible, but we just don’t know yet. I think it’s pretty clear this season is going to end without resolving the burn and having our characters back in their own time, and everybody’s guess that the distress signal was from the sentient Disco we saw in Short Treks seems wrong now. so we generally don’t know where this is going.
By this point, people have should have some idea of what this show is, and it’s clearly based on twisty crazy plot stuff that runs through seasons and isnt afraid to take on history as we know it.
If that’s not your thing, fine, but it’s clear that’s what this crew likes to do.
I still think the Georgiou part will tie-in with the main arc of this season, somehow. Mostly because the idea to go to this planet was from the Sphere data, and I don’t know about you, but pretty sure any “helpful” AI in any sci-fi show ever ended up being malevolent. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sphere whatever caused the burn somehow as Discovery jumped forward in time. We’ve already seen that Michael, Michael’s mom, and Discovery all ended up at different points in time from the initial jump. Not crazy that the sphere or Control or whatever I can’t keep it straight would sneak something in a hundred years earlier or so.
Haha, Kinja: it’s garbage.
Voyager had Captain Braxton suffering from “temporal psychosis,” as well.
it’s like getting “the bends” but from time, not pressure.
I just re-watched ‘All or Yesterdays’ last night, it was the first thing I thought of when the episode was over, the second thing was The Guardian of Forever but that one seemed like a bit of a stretch.
So I’m pretty sure the Carl “construct” is supposed to be a manifestation of the Guardian of Forever? It actually isn’t 100% clear.
I assumed he was a Q.
Aren’t all Q named Q?
If Carl were a Q, it would stand to reason that Carl would also be named Q.
I mean, sure, TNG started with Q putting humanity on trial, so you didn’t see a lot of Q. But when Q was stripped of his Q powers, by the other Q, he was visited by Q who gave him his Q powers back. And then later you had Q leave the continuum and ask to die, but Q tried to stop him. And then you had the Q Civil War when Q and the Q opted for an armistice, and Q and Q decided to have a Q. Of course, later Q returned to ask for help with his new son Q, because Q just needed some parenting advice.
I contend that Carl is a Carl.
They are not all named Q, no. Amanda Rogers still goes by Amanda and the Q that was on trial was named Quinn.
Amanda was the child of Qs and did not realize that until she was a teenager – she had lived all of her life believing she was a human named Amanda.Quinn was a former Q who became human and gave himself the name Quinn.All actual Qs are named “Q”.
We don’t know what they do in this new future.
Based on past experience with them, there’s no reason to think that suddenly they’ve chosen names besides “Q”. Every full-blown Q that we’ve seen is called “Q”.
Amanda is a full blown Q.
She’s the daughter of 2 Q that left the continuum who took on human form in order to conceive a child (all other Qs are not conceived/born in this manner). She was raised as a human until she learned of her nature.In one of the post-TNG novels, it’s revealed that Amanda didn’t count as a true child of the Q since she was conceived/born as humans are.So no, Amanda is not a full blown Q.
I had the closed captioning on, and I half expected his name to be spelled “Qarl.” Maybe the sphere data knew it was like the Q home world or something.
Me too!
Carl has all the trappings of a Q and this is Geogiou’s version of TNG “Tapestry”
He speaks in riddles, and shows newspaper headlines that indicate possible future events. Similar to the Guardian, for sure. (Oh, and it also said “good soup!” On his newspaper. Edith Keeler ran a soup kitchen. That’s a stretch, I know).
This was the backdoor pilot for the new series – Star Trek: Early Edition
It may be a misdirect, but his newspaper has quite a few “City on the Edge of Forever” references.
They may have done this because the Harlan Ellison estate might have gotten pissy about it. I know Ellison had gotten the lawyers alerted any time there was even a hint that NuTrek would revive the Guardian.
There are so many multi-dimensional / temporal beings just hanging around the universe(s), it could be anyone’s guess. There were some recent Gary Seven shenanigans in the current Year Five comics, too…
This is the sort of question that’s at the top of concerns of existing Discovery fans, that’s for sure. “What thing that we’ve already seen on another Star Trek show is the thing we’re seeing in this episode?” They just gotta know!
“Also, the Temporal Wars sound amazing.”This is one of those ‘Why was THIS not the show?’ things like the stinger at the end of the last season of Iron Fist, isn’t it?
I’m holding out hope that this WILL be the Georgiou spinoff show, and Cronenberg will drop in occasionally as well. And maybe Scott Bakula.
That I’d watch.
I liked how the walk in the snowy landscape mirrored the walk on the desert planet from the first episode of the show.
I was pleasantly surprised that there wasn’t a line where Michael flat-out said, “Hey, this reminds me of a walk I took with MY Philipa, but the EXACT MIRROR OPPOSITE.” nice work, Discovery writers!
Did anyone check that it wasn’t spelled Qarl?
It was Carl according to the closed caption
I don’t understand how any of the characters can stand Mirror Georgiou. She casually jokes about all the horrific things she’s done and she delights in her own sadism, and everyone kind of just brushes it off. It makes everyone look like hypocrites whenever they give their speeches about high minded Federation values. They have no moral authority to lecture anyone else when they not only tolerate a mass murdering cannibalistic genocidal dictator but regularly give her power and authority, and lets her loose to do what she wants.
It’s actually moronic but I guess the writers and producers think it’s cool
I like Michelle Yeoh in general, but the schtick is getting reallly old. We get it, you’re a badass. The only good thing about this ep/arc of hers is that it’s finally giving her some depth and some new character beats to explore instead of throwing axes at Michael or throwing soup at Tilly.
My suspicion is that the writers think she’s a “fun snarky” character like Spike with the chip in his head on Buffy. The main differences are:1. Spike was actually harmless, which made all this grandiose threats ridiculous. Georgiu at no points stops being a real threat to everyone on board.2. The other characters mocked Spike mercilessly in return. If Georgiou had been the ship butt-monkey liken her character deserves, I’d find her borderline tolerable.3. Spike actually had layers and vulnerabilities. Georgiou is all surface. 4. Spike was actually funny.
Spike was a Billy Idol parody. I kept expecting him to break out singing Dancing With Myself.
The “ time warrior” guy that Cronenberg mentioned dying in agony? Came from an alternate universe created by a temporal incursion on a Romulan mining ship , which means the Star Trek reboot movieverse (aka the Kelvinverse) just did a very small crossover with the the ‘Prime’ Trek Universe.
I recognize this as English, but I have no clue what you just said
The Terrans are boring.Yep. Been saying that. Georgiou is boring and now she’s off to her boring universe and we get dragged along for at least two boring episodes.
At least it’s a sexier universe, right? I like how everyone is sorta dressed like Ozymandias from Watchmen.
Zack made a reference to S.P.H.I.N.X. in this review, only reminding us that among the things 2020 took from us was the Venture Bros, despite its season 8 already being in production :(Adultswim also cancelled all of its stream shows, which varied in quality but had some really great stuff like Dril’s “Truthpoint.”
When it was airing, Venture Bros was one of the best damned shows on. Their writing was unbelievably tight, even though you know they’re shooting from the hip each new season as to where to take the characters. I pray that HBO resurrects the show for a suitable finale.
This show is so fucking stupid
Based on the review and some of the comments it seems like people are tiring of the mirror universe and I can’t disagree. It’s a good gimmick but shouldn’t be overplayed. I was ok with it in the first season because it gelled with the overall plot. However, now it seems like a backdoor Pilot to her Section 31 show that has been planned so now the S3 storylines have to come to an almost crashing halt so we can have this story told.
Mirror universe episodes seem to be a lot more fun for the actors than they are for the audience. I’ve never really understood the point — Nature vs. nature? Only a thin veneer of civilization keeps us all from murdering each other? Hey guys, Kira and Ezri should totally make out? Something, something, choices? — other than letting the talent binge on the scenery.
“it’s not as though Georgiou is a central character for the series”
“Georgiou is just not that compelling on her own to justify this”
Only someone from the mirror universe could say such twisted things as these.
Mirror Georgiou is one dimensional comic relief. But not funny. Her character is contrived. I cringe when she says her lines because they seem more like self parody than the character she’s supposed to be. I just had to get that off my chest.I think Carl could be Q. At least I would like him to be. It would be a fun addition to the show. I haven’t worked out the details exactly but my gut tells me that if Georgiou wants to live, she will have to die, as it is foretold in the newspaper. I think Mirror Michael will have to kill her or perhaps Michael and Georgiou will die together fighting the Terrans and that bond will somehow solidify Georgiio’s non mirror physical self. Why? How? I don’t know. Maybe because she can’t exist in the non Mirror Universe with the knowledge that she killed Burnham? Maybe it’s all just some sort of crazy Q game to teach Georgiou a lesson about the value of true friendship and trust… Something one-dimensional like that. Hope I’m wrong and it’s something more interesting. Stay tuned Trekkies!
And much as I like Yeoh, Georgiou is just not that compelling on her own to justify this.
She is. Because she is the ONLY compelling character in
this series. Clearly Michael isn’t one as 2 1/2 seasons have shown
where absolutely nothing she’s done was surprising or couldn’t have done by different characters if this was a real ensemble show. In that case it would have even mattered how bad their mirror personas are.
ST-DS9’s mirror episodes worked because they also cared for the
supporting roles. Saru’s scene with Georgiou is effective – we know him
better than any of the others on the bridge (“Killy” is treated as a joke).
It doesn’t work with Stamets because he is underwritten as a neurotic vacillator. And
mirror Michael fails because she is now just one-dimensional bad instead
of good.
I’m holding out hope that this is all going to come together before the
end; that somehow, we’ll learn the Terrans were responsible for the Burn(…)It would be a twist if it’s NOT Burn(ham or her mother). Sometimes Star Trek is that simple – you remember V’ger…?
The whole thing with this episode in the Mirror Universe was odd to me because of the characters. Like… I thought that Michael did die in the shuttle explosion because Georgiou killed her but told the story she was hunting down Lorca…Similarly, if Stamets was in on the plot then, then how was he alive later to work on Mirror-Spore drive?
Not to compound confusion, but now i think we’re in an ALTERNATE timeline of the Mirror Universe we saw in season 1. Georgiou already knows what’s going to happen so she’s acting differently. The fact that she found out about Michael’s betrayal probably made Michael up the timetable, so she had Stamets try to go for the kill.I DO hope we get to see Lorca at some point though.
Yeah, the whole thing is unclear though because Mirror-Michael was clearly already on the way there and Georgiou knew that was the day that Lorca was starting his coup (and Captain Killy told Georgiou about Michael that day too).I know that none of this is likely to continue to be “true” (more akin to a “Tapestry” situation) but the whole thing is confusing still at the moment! lol…
I like Yeoh, and she can be good, but I don’t think the writing is doing her any favors. The fact that two out of every three lines she says has to be a pithy “i’m a badass and will kill you” line is wearing very, very thin. Like, we get it. You were an evil mofo from an evil universe. You don’t have to spill soup on Tilly.
Spandex-era early-tng ranks pretty low in my personal Trek pantheon, but damn if it wasn’t nice to see a (slightly modified) unitard again.
I thought so too. Maybe it was just seeing it in HD?Also, whenever anyone complains about the early eps of a new Trek series, I always point out the first 50 eps of TNG, almost all of wish were trash. By “normal” show standards, Discovery has about as many hours of TV as one season of TNG
Q Who was right in the middle of the spandex era, so it definitely wasn’t all bad.The spandex is just so colorful, and it looked so different from what we’re used to now. As much as DS9 is *my* trek, it marked the end of the gaudy outfits.Although it was also always a thrill whenever the red, khan-era tunics made an appearance in TNG. (and also the first contact outfits at the end of Lower Decks)
I think Trek uniforms peaked with the First Contact outfits. Those were really simple, kinda understated, but still really sharp. I think they were toying with the concepts with Picard’s later-years TNG garb- the suede jacket and black/grey undershirt etc, but they really nailed it.I will say the flashback unis in Picard that they also wear on Lower Decks are also pretty good. I like the detail shown in Lower Decks that the bottom of the shoes have the Starfleet insignia. It’s a nice touch.
I dream that someday CBS will do a Rogue-One-style retro series set in the movie era with the red tunics, and with Mirandas and Constitutions everywhere, along with an occasional Excelsior.But of all the jumpsuit uniforms the First Contact one is definitely the best by far.Kirk had a bunch of alternate looks in TOS, which made sense because he was Kirk. But Picard’s velour look never made sense to me, because looking snazzy (or standing out from the crowd in any way) seems so far away from everything we know about him.
I assumed the suede jacket had less to do with Picard and more to do with Patrick Steward getting tired tugging at the too-short shirt every time he stood up.
Patrick Stewart literally asked the TNG producers to give him a new/alternate outfit because he was tired of how his existing one fit.
I guess you could say he asked the producers tell the wardrobe department to… “Make it sew…”
This show is stupid and violent and badly written. At least when they’re in the Mirror Universe, this tone actually fits and doesn’t do any damage to the Star Trek people know and love.
I hate this show, and this was my favorite episode of the season. It ditched the stupid Burn plot. Characters actually had scenes with each other that developed character. Side characters who are nearly anonymous in the main show actually gain personalities here.
When a diversion like this is so much more engaging than the main show, what does that say? This is clearly the show these people actually want to create. I wish they would just grow some storyballs and do it already.
To use a now-outdated phrase, I turned the channel when Georgiou walked through that door. I have zero interest in the alternate universe story line, and I never quite understood the of alternate Georgiou existing in this timeline beyond the one-liners and the bad attitude.
The new version of “I turned the channel” has to be, “I crossed the streams”? Right?
How much you enjoy “Terra Firma, Part 1” (and, I’m guessing, it’s follow
up next week) will depend largely on your affection for the Mirror
Universe.
How much you enjoy this article (and, I’m guessing, its follow
up next week) will depend largely on your affection for grammar and professionalism.
😉
Well, if you’re going to take on the complex task of writing Georgiou out of the corner she was written into, I’m not sure you can do that without referencing her past which means a return to the mirror universe. I’m pretty much ok with that as the vamping that goes on is a hoot, YMMV, but then again I’m not convinced this is an actual mirror universe story, it feels more like a Christmas story, with this being ‘the ghosts of Christmas past’ segment. Whether this is better or worse than a mirror universe story depends on your tolerance for redemption arcs shoehorned into that particular form, but I’ll reserve judgement on that until next weeks wrap up… Overall I rather enjoyed the setup. Not ‘great’, but fun enough to watch Michelle Yeoh finally get a chance to stretch out a little. Stretching out a little also is the emerging consciousness of the ship, it will be interesting to see if they’ll attempt to bridge the ‘calypso’ episode back into main continuity. My guess is that would involve ‘curing’ Georgiou by sending her back to her own time in Discovery, and having the ship ‘wait’ it’s way back to the current timeline. How that will tie into the burn is anybody’s guess…
“How much you enjoy “Terra Firma, Part 1” (and, I’m guessing, it’s follow
up next week) will depend largely on your affection for the Mirror
Universe.”One thing I’ve absolutely loved about almost every incarnation of the Mirror Universe is how it is clearly the horniest universe. Everyone’s having sex, the uniforms are all tight leather/rubber suits, everyone has dark eye makeup and lipstick. Plus, authoritarians always have the BEST uniforms. Which is really a shame. But every time i watch an Indiana Jones movie, or something like Valkyrie, I can never get over how sharp those evil assholes look.
Anyway, I guess I didn’t realize until just now that my favorite Star Trek character ever is Mirror Ezri Dax.
Mirror Adira may fill that bill. And a few other things, if I’m lucky homina homina homina
Carl’s either the Guardian Of Forever, or an Organian. He could be a Q, but he’s not enough of an asshole by far, though he could be a kinder, gentler Q testing Georgiou’s development.Of course,this could also relate to TNG’s “The Continental” and the door leads to a construct, not the real MU.As far as I’m concerned the MU was tapped out with “Dark Mirror” on ENT, if not before.
Enough Mirror Universe. It was enough once. Bearded Spock should have been the end.Although evil Burnham is very sexy. Owesekun looks good evil as well. Maybe someday we will actually learn something about her prime character.I agree this is setting up the spin off. However, I think I saw something saying that Yeoh was in Toronto filming season 4
Ah-ha! But you see, even in the mirror universe, Michael Burnham’s life is the key to everything!
No offense to Mr. Handlen (and I mean that, as these are some of the few TV reviews left on this site to treat their purview as more than a breathless report on the writer’s current opinions of their imaginary friends) but I’m curious why actors seem above reproach in current popular TV/movie criticism.Michelle Yeoh works well in the right context, sure, but one of the problems with Georgiou as a character is that it’s a bad performance by Yeoh, stilted and robotic. Now that she’s a villain, Yeoh’s vamp-to-max-setting version of that comes across as absurd for a character who’s supposed to have been, not the decadent figurehead of an empire, but its genuine day-to-day ruler. If the show absolutely has to drag the franchise back through the tired “mirror universe” stuff as some sort of dramatic long-form story instead of a fun little overacted side-dish, it has to at least try to match the story’s elements with that decision.I don’t see the point in projecting the issue onto the character as a separate entity when Yeoh’s a big part of why the character doesn’t work.
What’s happened to this show? This season is dire and this episode in particular is abysmal. The “bad” Michael acting was toe-curlingly awful.
who the fuck is dr cronenburg?