Saw all the live action Short Treks for season 2.
Very much enjoyed the Spock-Number One focused "Q&A."
Thought "The Trouble with Edward" was over the top. Don't mind playing some story lines for laughs but that was too much to take.
The Pike and Cadet test of character in "Ask Not" was wonderful in such a short package.
"Children of Mars" was a very moving story within the story of the Synth attack of Mars that is part of the backstory for Picard.
Will eventually get around to seeing the two animated ones.
Meanwhile, have seen episodes 1-2-3 of Picard.
Very different approach than Discovery. Discovery's non-stop action is in contrast to the slower paced Picard. It is true to Picard in his near the end of his days situation. He is not doing action hero stunts at his age! But his conviction to stand up and do something remains strong: the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak...
We have been treated to some short dream sequence bits with Brent Spiner's Data. Wonderful stuff.
Jonathan Del Arco appears as Hugh in episode 3 and will be seeing more of him in the episode ahead I'm sure!
Of the new cast members, too bad we probably won't be seeing much more of Picard's fiercely loyal Romulan winery-house-body guard staffers Laris and Zhaban. Really enjoyed them and their humor and drama.
Bit by bit, we have been introduced to Picard's new team. Jurati was first up as the expert on synthetic life forms. Musiker is Picard's estranged top aide from his days as an admiral. Loved the call back to Vasquez Rock. They even simply call the place by its real name! In episode 3, we meet the pilot Rios. Each character has been sketched out with their "issues" and strengths that will be filled out in the episodes to come. Thus, far they are well acted and will be interested to see how they develop in the remaining episodes.
Meanwhile, we have met the deliciously (perhaps a bit over the top) wicked bad guys: Narek, Rizzo, and Oh. You would think Star Fleet would be better at counter-intelligence! On the other hand, maybe the more things change the more they stay the same. Check out Malcolm Gladwell's podcast episode of how a Cuban spy operated in Washington DC for years! Rooting out the mole isn't always so easy.
And of course, at the center of the story is Dahj/Soji. It is unfolding out as a mystery: what is she looking for? are there more of her kind? why is it that both don't seem to know their true origins?
One plot nitpick: Jurati explains that Maddox had the idea that one could clone a neuron from Data's positronic brain to make the organic android Dahj/Soji and presumably others. However, I don't seem to recall that Data had any biological components? Cloning, in the sense we know it today, involves taking something biological (cells or DNA) and replicating it. I was under the impression that Data was entirely mechanical and wouldn't have any biological cells or DNA chromosomes to clone!
I suppose the closest thing to what Dahj/Soji are in other science fiction are the Blade Runner replicants. They were biological constructs and by implanting memories they can behave more human like and by genetic engineering they could have incredible physical strength.
Showing posts with label Star Trek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Trek. Show all posts
Short post on Short Treks Season 2
Enjoyed "Q & A" and "Ask Not."
Those two were delightful little character sketches that fit nicely into Star Trek lore. Will see if the fans are able to lobby for an Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, and Ethan Peck centered show. They have been wonderful.
I think Discovery might have been better served building around Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, and Michelle Yeoh. Instead, they wrote themselves into a corner with massive story arcs in the two seasons that were resolved in not entirely satisfying ways.
But back to the Short Treks, season two; though, I like the idea of a lighter touch and plots involving "origin stories," I thought "The Trouble with Edward" was over-the-top.
Those two were delightful little character sketches that fit nicely into Star Trek lore. Will see if the fans are able to lobby for an Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, and Ethan Peck centered show. They have been wonderful.
I think Discovery might have been better served building around Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, and Michelle Yeoh. Instead, they wrote themselves into a corner with massive story arcs in the two seasons that were resolved in not entirely satisfying ways.
But back to the Short Treks, season two; though, I like the idea of a lighter touch and plots involving "origin stories," I thought "The Trouble with Edward" was over-the-top.
Star Trek Discovery Season Two Episodes 13 and 14 - Season Finale Two-parter
"Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow"
From Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare
***
Beware
Spoilers
Ahead
***
And so the Disco Season Two two parter was named, "Such Sweet Sorrow" as there were many partings in the season finale.
The Disco crew records emotional farewell messages to their loved ones as they prepare to take their ship to the future.
Fans say good-bye to Pike, Spock, Number One, and NCC-1701.
Burnham is separated from Spock, Amanda, Sarek, and Tyler, perhaps forever.
Additionally, Cornwell sacrifices herself to save the Enterprise. And as the show takes a new direction, Chancellor La'Rell will no longer be bringing her unique flair to the proceedings.
As I've been saying all along, the acting and character development has been solid as has the production design. In this two-parter, we get all the character moments of the rah-rah variety as well as the tear-jerker ones in good measure.
Some observations and complaints in no particular order follow .....
It was a delight to see the Klingons and the Baul ships riding to the rescue when things looked bleak. My "canon complaint" is that the Klingons in Disco season one and season two seem vastly more powerful than the more evenly matched "Cold War" analog foe we saw in ST-TOS.
As for the Baul Fleet, let's hope that Saru's people didn't wipe out the Baul in an uprising and that the Baul fleet led by Saru's sister Saranah was a Joint Mission that united the two long time enemies of Kanimar.
Though the writers did toss in the line that munitions engineers were all busy when the photon torpedo got lodged in the Enterprise, it is rather strange to have Admiral Cornwell and the First Officer Number One play unexploded bomb technicians for so many minutes only to be followed by the Captain Pike joining Cornwell in trying to figure out "which wire to cut" in the torpedo. Of course, all of this was to set up the send off of Cornwell in a blaze of self-sacrifice and for Pike to reflect on his own future as he could have been the one to sacrifice himself.
Pike does have an interesting problem "knowing his fate." When faced with a dangerous decision, does he take the view that he will survive because he knows his fate that leads to death lay elsewhere? Or will he be more cautious? It was an interesting plot move to "lock his fate" as the price of obtaining the time crystal. But as a matter of story telling, the writers backed off this idea rapidly as everyone else who touched the time crystal saw much more limited views of the future and the perspective of those visions was that they represent only one possible future.
Some quibbles about the Control AI residing in Leland. The whole point of artificial intelligence is that it can reside in a dispersed fashion; thus, the shut down of the section 31 attack fleet when Leland died was a little too easy.
The biggest story hole though is the 7 red bursts and the 7 red signals. At the beginning, when Pike is authorized to take charge of Discovery, he talks about observing 7 red bursts that could not be accurately located. Eventually, there are 7 red signals seen one by one through the season that can be located that are consistent with the locations of the red bursts.
We find out the red signals are generated by Burnham as she uses the time suit. After each jump, she sends out the signals as a spatial-temporal bread crumb trail.
But what about the red bursts?
What are those?
Are the red bursts the wormhole openings?
If so, Mama Burnham made HUNDREDS of jumps so there should have been hundreds of red bursts!
And of course, as I noted in the very first episode, are these red bursts-red signals light based phenomena? If so, the writers failed to recognize that the distances of galactic space are hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of light years. The writers treated the red bursts and red signals as largely instantaneous events, a major science boo-boo.
Overall the Disco writer's room sending Discovery and crew 950 years into the future was the easiest way to free the show from "canon constraints." One wonders what the show would have been like if they made that choice up front in season one? Did they feel they needed to link themselves to the TOS timeline to collect fans for the first two seasons? And after doing so, they then felt free to move to their own world building?
There have been nice "easter egg" moments a TOS fan like myself enjoyed. I think the most effective use was things in and around Captain Pike. Anson Mount was fantastic as Captain Pike. Would the Star Trek franchise have been better served if the series was based on Pike-Spock-Number One? During season one of Disco, I thought the show might have been better served being based on Georgiou-Burnham-Saru.
Besides a Pike based show, how would a Georgiou led show have been received? Instead, what we have is the noble prime Georgiou killed off in season 1 episode 2 and the Terran-evil with a some good Emperor Georgiou transferred over to the Prime universe. Perhaps the latter character would be more interesting to write for in some ways but look at how much fan support there has been for Captain Pike's unambiguously good role model captain! Wouldn't there have been great stories to mine for the noble prime Georgiou?
Instead, the show runners opted for the long arc of season one's convoluted war with the Klingons which had the Mirror Universe diversion! It felt a bit like the show 24 where the main arc of the threat that Jack Bauer had to deal with gets "padded" out with some sometimes silly side tracks to get the show out to the full 24 episodes.
In this regard, season 2 was better managed where some what at first glance appeared to be "side tracks" turned out to be part of the bigger arc. Indeed, even the "short Trek" preseason episodes plugged in some narrative points picked up in the season.
Overall, I think season two was better than season one. Will see how they take the show in season three untethered from any timeline of prior Trek!
Live long and prosper!
#StarTrekDiscovery
From Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare
***
Beware
Spoilers
Ahead
***
And so the Disco Season Two two parter was named, "Such Sweet Sorrow" as there were many partings in the season finale.
The Disco crew records emotional farewell messages to their loved ones as they prepare to take their ship to the future.
Fans say good-bye to Pike, Spock, Number One, and NCC-1701.
Burnham is separated from Spock, Amanda, Sarek, and Tyler, perhaps forever.
Additionally, Cornwell sacrifices herself to save the Enterprise. And as the show takes a new direction, Chancellor La'Rell will no longer be bringing her unique flair to the proceedings.
As I've been saying all along, the acting and character development has been solid as has the production design. In this two-parter, we get all the character moments of the rah-rah variety as well as the tear-jerker ones in good measure.
Some observations and complaints in no particular order follow .....
It was a delight to see the Klingons and the Baul ships riding to the rescue when things looked bleak. My "canon complaint" is that the Klingons in Disco season one and season two seem vastly more powerful than the more evenly matched "Cold War" analog foe we saw in ST-TOS.
As for the Baul Fleet, let's hope that Saru's people didn't wipe out the Baul in an uprising and that the Baul fleet led by Saru's sister Saranah was a Joint Mission that united the two long time enemies of Kanimar.
Though the writers did toss in the line that munitions engineers were all busy when the photon torpedo got lodged in the Enterprise, it is rather strange to have Admiral Cornwell and the First Officer Number One play unexploded bomb technicians for so many minutes only to be followed by the Captain Pike joining Cornwell in trying to figure out "which wire to cut" in the torpedo. Of course, all of this was to set up the send off of Cornwell in a blaze of self-sacrifice and for Pike to reflect on his own future as he could have been the one to sacrifice himself.
Pike does have an interesting problem "knowing his fate." When faced with a dangerous decision, does he take the view that he will survive because he knows his fate that leads to death lay elsewhere? Or will he be more cautious? It was an interesting plot move to "lock his fate" as the price of obtaining the time crystal. But as a matter of story telling, the writers backed off this idea rapidly as everyone else who touched the time crystal saw much more limited views of the future and the perspective of those visions was that they represent only one possible future.
Some quibbles about the Control AI residing in Leland. The whole point of artificial intelligence is that it can reside in a dispersed fashion; thus, the shut down of the section 31 attack fleet when Leland died was a little too easy.
The biggest story hole though is the 7 red bursts and the 7 red signals. At the beginning, when Pike is authorized to take charge of Discovery, he talks about observing 7 red bursts that could not be accurately located. Eventually, there are 7 red signals seen one by one through the season that can be located that are consistent with the locations of the red bursts.
We find out the red signals are generated by Burnham as she uses the time suit. After each jump, she sends out the signals as a spatial-temporal bread crumb trail.
But what about the red bursts?
What are those?
Are the red bursts the wormhole openings?
If so, Mama Burnham made HUNDREDS of jumps so there should have been hundreds of red bursts!
And of course, as I noted in the very first episode, are these red bursts-red signals light based phenomena? If so, the writers failed to recognize that the distances of galactic space are hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of light years. The writers treated the red bursts and red signals as largely instantaneous events, a major science boo-boo.
Overall the Disco writer's room sending Discovery and crew 950 years into the future was the easiest way to free the show from "canon constraints." One wonders what the show would have been like if they made that choice up front in season one? Did they feel they needed to link themselves to the TOS timeline to collect fans for the first two seasons? And after doing so, they then felt free to move to their own world building?
There have been nice "easter egg" moments a TOS fan like myself enjoyed. I think the most effective use was things in and around Captain Pike. Anson Mount was fantastic as Captain Pike. Would the Star Trek franchise have been better served if the series was based on Pike-Spock-Number One? During season one of Disco, I thought the show might have been better served being based on Georgiou-Burnham-Saru.
Besides a Pike based show, how would a Georgiou led show have been received? Instead, what we have is the noble prime Georgiou killed off in season 1 episode 2 and the Terran-evil with a some good Emperor Georgiou transferred over to the Prime universe. Perhaps the latter character would be more interesting to write for in some ways but look at how much fan support there has been for Captain Pike's unambiguously good role model captain! Wouldn't there have been great stories to mine for the noble prime Georgiou?
Instead, the show runners opted for the long arc of season one's convoluted war with the Klingons which had the Mirror Universe diversion! It felt a bit like the show 24 where the main arc of the threat that Jack Bauer had to deal with gets "padded" out with some sometimes silly side tracks to get the show out to the full 24 episodes.
In this regard, season 2 was better managed where some what at first glance appeared to be "side tracks" turned out to be part of the bigger arc. Indeed, even the "short Trek" preseason episodes plugged in some narrative points picked up in the season.
Overall, I think season two was better than season one. Will see how they take the show in season three untethered from any timeline of prior Trek!
Live long and prosper!
#StarTrekDiscovery
Star Trek Discovery Episode 2.12
The second season is over with the two-part finale but I’m still playing catch up having seen episode 12 the set-up for the finale .....
*** Beware ***
*** Spoilers ***
*** Ahead ***
Two arcs in latest episode and as always the acting and production values are superb but story line a bit muddled. In arc A, we follow Pike’s visit to Klingon monastic planet Boreth and Anson Mount knocks it out of the park. He chooses his fate willingly consistent with his character. But the premise of a sealed fate for him is opposite of “open destiny” that was the emotional finish to episode 11. Also whole time crystals idea seems haphazard to me and allows for “deus ex machina” options for the writer’s room.
Meanwhile in arc B, Spock and Michael face Control that looks a lot like the Star Gate SG-1 adversary The Replicators! We all could guess it was a trap and was just waiting for how it would be sprung. As for the story line, what is Control’s obsession with Michael? Does Control have time travel knowledge independent of Red Angel? And red burst thing remains confusing. Will see how it all resolved in the final two episodes?!
#StarTrekDiscovery
*** Beware ***
*** Spoilers ***
*** Ahead ***
Two arcs in latest episode and as always the acting and production values are superb but story line a bit muddled. In arc A, we follow Pike’s visit to Klingon monastic planet Boreth and Anson Mount knocks it out of the park. He chooses his fate willingly consistent with his character. But the premise of a sealed fate for him is opposite of “open destiny” that was the emotional finish to episode 11. Also whole time crystals idea seems haphazard to me and allows for “deus ex machina” options for the writer’s room.
Meanwhile in arc B, Spock and Michael face Control that looks a lot like the Star Gate SG-1 adversary The Replicators! We all could guess it was a trap and was just waiting for how it would be sprung. As for the story line, what is Control’s obsession with Michael? Does Control have time travel knowledge independent of Red Angel? And red burst thing remains confusing. Will see how it all resolved in the final two episodes?!
#StarTrekDiscovery
Star Trek Discovery Episode 2.11
I’m still catching up so don’t tell me about 2.12 yet and I’ve only just digested 2.11!
*** Beware ***
*** Spoilers ***
*** Below ***
Hmmmm…… am not sure I’m okay with where the writer’s room is going …..
Leland has been taken over by the Control AI and it sure looks Borg-ish! Don’t think they really need to go there. Maybe they will pull back from it but the visual style sure looks Borg-ey!
Techno-boo-boo alert: In the previous episode, Leland had to LEAVE the bridge to over-ride the computer so they can get more power to close the wormhole???
That would be very poor starship design. Have never seen any other crew member leave the bridge to over-ride the computer! Of course, the scriptwriters had to get him off the bridge so the Control AI could poke him in the eye!
Dr. Burnham (Sonja Son) was well acted. Her half-defeated, half-defiant demeanor would make a lot of sense for someone who has been time traveling to fix the impending disaster only to find whatever she does actually doesn’t change the outcome. Playing time-line whack-a-mole is something Sisyphus would understand.
This ground was well trodden in the Terminator series of movies. In the original, machines send Arnold, the Terminator, back to the past to kill Sarah Conner to prevent the eventual rise of human rebel leader John Conner. The terminator fails. The timeline is not altered.
In Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the machines send a T-1000 (Robert Patrick) to kill Sarah and John Conner (still a youth at this point). John from the future sends Arnold, the Terminator, this time a good guy to protect John, the youth. The T-1000 is defeated. Additionally, Sarah and the team destroy the technology behind Skynet to prevent the rise of the technology thus “changing the timeline.” “No fate but what you make” is one memorable line from the film.
However, in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the machines send a female terminator to kill John Conner and future wife Kate Brewster. Once again Arnold, the Terminator, as a good guy once again is sent back in time to protect them. But in this case after defeating the female terminator and before being destroyed himself, he gets John and Kate into a nuclear fallout bunker because Skynet goes live and nuclear destruction ensues. Skynet happened but it just took a few more years.
I have seen ads for additional Terminator films but haven’t seen them and have no idea what they are about.
All of which to say, Dr. Burnham is trying to stop Control for ever happening and found she can’t seem to stop it much like how Skynet can only be delayed but eventually causes the near destruction of humanity. All of which to say again, her performance was fantastic.
At the end of 2.11, Dr. Burnham is sucked back to the future along with the Red Angel suit but since the Red Angel suit is damaged, there will be no more time travels for her. Spock tells Michael at the end of the episode it is now up to them to stop Control in their timeline with no help from the future. The emotional wrap up is nice.
However, I think the scriptwriters made a techno-boo-boo: Mama Burnham reports seeing Michael at many key moments in her life. We are told that in her many travels in the Red Angel suit, she saw Michael many times. However, when she travels in the Red Angel time suit, a wormhole opens up and she enters the timeline. From the end of the last episode, it is pretty hard to miss the appearance of a wormhole and the arrival of the Red Angel! She has many hundreds of mission logs and NOBODY ever saw the wormhole appearance? Nobody ever saw the Red Angel arrive (with the exception of Spock apparently and those whisked off to New Eden in Ep2.2) or moving through space - shown dramatically at the end of episode 2.10? And of course, the wormhole re-appears and sucks the Red Angel back 950 years into the future and again that was pretty hard to miss! Thus, with every time jump, there are at least 2 times the wormhole appears -- and nobody ever saw it?
Anyway, 3 episodes left to wrap up season 2.
#StarTrekDiscovery
*** Beware ***
*** Spoilers ***
*** Below ***
Hmmmm…… am not sure I’m okay with where the writer’s room is going …..
Leland has been taken over by the Control AI and it sure looks Borg-ish! Don’t think they really need to go there. Maybe they will pull back from it but the visual style sure looks Borg-ey!
Techno-boo-boo alert: In the previous episode, Leland had to LEAVE the bridge to over-ride the computer so they can get more power to close the wormhole???
That would be very poor starship design. Have never seen any other crew member leave the bridge to over-ride the computer! Of course, the scriptwriters had to get him off the bridge so the Control AI could poke him in the eye!
Dr. Burnham (Sonja Son) was well acted. Her half-defeated, half-defiant demeanor would make a lot of sense for someone who has been time traveling to fix the impending disaster only to find whatever she does actually doesn’t change the outcome. Playing time-line whack-a-mole is something Sisyphus would understand.
This ground was well trodden in the Terminator series of movies. In the original, machines send Arnold, the Terminator, back to the past to kill Sarah Conner to prevent the eventual rise of human rebel leader John Conner. The terminator fails. The timeline is not altered.
In Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the machines send a T-1000 (Robert Patrick) to kill Sarah and John Conner (still a youth at this point). John from the future sends Arnold, the Terminator, this time a good guy to protect John, the youth. The T-1000 is defeated. Additionally, Sarah and the team destroy the technology behind Skynet to prevent the rise of the technology thus “changing the timeline.” “No fate but what you make” is one memorable line from the film.
However, in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the machines send a female terminator to kill John Conner and future wife Kate Brewster. Once again Arnold, the Terminator, as a good guy once again is sent back in time to protect them. But in this case after defeating the female terminator and before being destroyed himself, he gets John and Kate into a nuclear fallout bunker because Skynet goes live and nuclear destruction ensues. Skynet happened but it just took a few more years.
I have seen ads for additional Terminator films but haven’t seen them and have no idea what they are about.
All of which to say, Dr. Burnham is trying to stop Control for ever happening and found she can’t seem to stop it much like how Skynet can only be delayed but eventually causes the near destruction of humanity. All of which to say again, her performance was fantastic.
At the end of 2.11, Dr. Burnham is sucked back to the future along with the Red Angel suit but since the Red Angel suit is damaged, there will be no more time travels for her. Spock tells Michael at the end of the episode it is now up to them to stop Control in their timeline with no help from the future. The emotional wrap up is nice.
However, I think the scriptwriters made a techno-boo-boo: Mama Burnham reports seeing Michael at many key moments in her life. We are told that in her many travels in the Red Angel suit, she saw Michael many times. However, when she travels in the Red Angel time suit, a wormhole opens up and she enters the timeline. From the end of the last episode, it is pretty hard to miss the appearance of a wormhole and the arrival of the Red Angel! She has many hundreds of mission logs and NOBODY ever saw the wormhole appearance? Nobody ever saw the Red Angel arrive (with the exception of Spock apparently and those whisked off to New Eden in Ep2.2) or moving through space - shown dramatically at the end of episode 2.10? And of course, the wormhole re-appears and sucks the Red Angel back 950 years into the future and again that was pretty hard to miss! Thus, with every time jump, there are at least 2 times the wormhole appears -- and nobody ever saw it?
Anyway, 3 episodes left to wrap up season 2.
#StarTrekDiscovery
Star Trek Discovery Ep 2.10
Star Trek Discovery Ep 2.10 - the Red Angel
With the season coming toward a close, the scriptwriters are going to try to write themselves out of the corner they painted themselves into.
*** Spoilers ahead ***
The opening was the farewell to Airiam who was lost at the end of the last episode. The cast and crew shared their feelings in their remembrances of her. Nicely done.
The story then took the first twist when Tilly barged into a meeting with the information she found about Project Daedalus and the identity of the Red Angel …… Michael Burnham. Dr. Culber than reports the bio-neural signature was a 100% match. Of course, all of this sets the audience up for the second twist at the end when the Disco team spring their mousetrap for the Red Angel and Burnham shouts in recognition, “Mom?”
Argh.
Would Burnham’s “bio-neural” signature be a 100% match to her mom’s?
Children have 50% of their DNA from each parent, so would that apply to their “bio-neural” signature? Somewhat dishonest by the scriptwriters to have the Disco science nerds speak so confidently of the “bio-neural” signature without giving any hint they could be completely wrong!
The episode pacing was a welcome break from the usual headlong action set-pieces allowing for more character interactions. One good moment was Nahn talking with Burnham about their final moments with Airiam. Still another was the conversation between Dr. Culber and Admiral Cornwell. And still another was the thaw of hostility between Spock and Burnham. And lastly, Mirror-Georgiou continues to beautifully deliver wicked lines.
On the whole, I think the Disco scriptwriters have done pretty well on characterizations in both season 1 and season 2. I do question placing so much of the story telling burden on one character. Although there are other characters in Disco, their roles are much smaller compared to Burnham. TOS had the big three and their interactions. TNG had strong leads and a solid ensemble cast as did other flavors of ST.
My main problem has been the scriptwriters very uneven track record on the big plot points. Last season there was the twist of the Mirror Universe and the way the Klingon war ended. This season the twists are that the Red Angel is technology from a Federation Section 31 secret project and the enemy in/from the future is the “Control” AI also developed by the Federation.
Time travel stories can work very well as in the movies Star Trek – The Voyage Home and in Star Trek – First Contact and various TV episodes like City on the Edge of Forever (TOS), Cause and Effect (TNG), All Good Things (TNG) and a number of others.
It remains to be seen how this season cashes out.
My immediate reaction to the whole Red Angel time travel suit and time crystal just didn’t work all that well for me. One would have to assume time travel would require a tremendous amount of energy transmitted from some fixed but distant power source through the micro worm hole into the Red Angel suit channeled through the time crystal. This would mean the Red Angel would have very little flexibility in its forays into various time points. But hand wave all of that aside, the biggest problem is the Red Angel is not omniscient. How would Mom know from whatever point in time she is inhabiting that Michael is in danger? She would have to be constantly checking the timeline!
Anyway, we are as always asked to suspend disbelief in sci-fi but I was left a bit dissatisfied with this plot development.
To end on a positive note, Jeff Russo’s soundtrack work remains top notch: ratcheting up the tension when needed and hauntingly beautiful at other moments.
#StarTrekDiscovery
With the season coming toward a close, the scriptwriters are going to try to write themselves out of the corner they painted themselves into.
*** Spoilers ahead ***
The opening was the farewell to Airiam who was lost at the end of the last episode. The cast and crew shared their feelings in their remembrances of her. Nicely done.
The story then took the first twist when Tilly barged into a meeting with the information she found about Project Daedalus and the identity of the Red Angel …… Michael Burnham. Dr. Culber than reports the bio-neural signature was a 100% match. Of course, all of this sets the audience up for the second twist at the end when the Disco team spring their mousetrap for the Red Angel and Burnham shouts in recognition, “Mom?”
Argh.
Would Burnham’s “bio-neural” signature be a 100% match to her mom’s?
Children have 50% of their DNA from each parent, so would that apply to their “bio-neural” signature? Somewhat dishonest by the scriptwriters to have the Disco science nerds speak so confidently of the “bio-neural” signature without giving any hint they could be completely wrong!
The episode pacing was a welcome break from the usual headlong action set-pieces allowing for more character interactions. One good moment was Nahn talking with Burnham about their final moments with Airiam. Still another was the conversation between Dr. Culber and Admiral Cornwell. And still another was the thaw of hostility between Spock and Burnham. And lastly, Mirror-Georgiou continues to beautifully deliver wicked lines.
On the whole, I think the Disco scriptwriters have done pretty well on characterizations in both season 1 and season 2. I do question placing so much of the story telling burden on one character. Although there are other characters in Disco, their roles are much smaller compared to Burnham. TOS had the big three and their interactions. TNG had strong leads and a solid ensemble cast as did other flavors of ST.
My main problem has been the scriptwriters very uneven track record on the big plot points. Last season there was the twist of the Mirror Universe and the way the Klingon war ended. This season the twists are that the Red Angel is technology from a Federation Section 31 secret project and the enemy in/from the future is the “Control” AI also developed by the Federation.
Time travel stories can work very well as in the movies Star Trek – The Voyage Home and in Star Trek – First Contact and various TV episodes like City on the Edge of Forever (TOS), Cause and Effect (TNG), All Good Things (TNG) and a number of others.
It remains to be seen how this season cashes out.
My immediate reaction to the whole Red Angel time travel suit and time crystal just didn’t work all that well for me. One would have to assume time travel would require a tremendous amount of energy transmitted from some fixed but distant power source through the micro worm hole into the Red Angel suit channeled through the time crystal. This would mean the Red Angel would have very little flexibility in its forays into various time points. But hand wave all of that aside, the biggest problem is the Red Angel is not omniscient. How would Mom know from whatever point in time she is inhabiting that Michael is in danger? She would have to be constantly checking the timeline!
Anyway, we are as always asked to suspend disbelief in sci-fi but I was left a bit dissatisfied with this plot development.
To end on a positive note, Jeff Russo’s soundtrack work remains top notch: ratcheting up the tension when needed and hauntingly beautiful at other moments.
#StarTrekDiscovery
Star Trek Discovery 2.8
Hats off to the script writers for how they integrated the oldest part of Star Trek with this current flavor of the show.
What I wonder about is how well do ST fans who do NOT know the story of The Cage (first pilot) and TOS The Menagerie (2-parter that recycled The Cage) feel about the latest episode? Was the “previously” enough to get them up to speed along with some of the exposition within the episode?
Anyway, some quick observations about the latest story. The “canon police” will note that the shuttle craft computer (voiced by Julianne Grossman) provided more information about Talos IV than you would think for a forbidden world. Perhaps, the writers felt that factoid would help those not familiar with Talos IV. On the issue of nitpicks, Starbase 11 is said to be 2 light years from Talos IV? Is there anyone in the writer’s room that knows even a little about astronomical distances?
The black hole visualization seemed to be a visual homage to the film Interstellar. On the planet, we got the same sound of the singing plants as was in The Cage. The make-up work on the Talosians takes advantage of the extra $$ The Cage didn’t have. The landscape above ground and the setting below ground is likewise a step up in quality yet still consistent with the feel of the old story. Double hats off to the actors’ work in the scenes between Vina (Melissa George) and Pike (Anson Mount). They really captured the emotions that felt true and honoring of the experience they shared in The Cage and how it would have affected them in the intervening years.
As for the exploration of Spock’s youth, they have drawn upon and expanded upon the animated series episode Yesteryear that established his difficulties as a child. This difficulty was also touched briefly and effectively in one scene in Kelvin-verse Star Trek (2009).
Will be interesting to see how the arc proceeds concurrent with the resolution of the Red Angel plotline. At this point have know idea how that is going to resolve!
#StarTrekDiscovery
What I wonder about is how well do ST fans who do NOT know the story of The Cage (first pilot) and TOS The Menagerie (2-parter that recycled The Cage) feel about the latest episode? Was the “previously” enough to get them up to speed along with some of the exposition within the episode?
Anyway, some quick observations about the latest story. The “canon police” will note that the shuttle craft computer (voiced by Julianne Grossman) provided more information about Talos IV than you would think for a forbidden world. Perhaps, the writers felt that factoid would help those not familiar with Talos IV. On the issue of nitpicks, Starbase 11 is said to be 2 light years from Talos IV? Is there anyone in the writer’s room that knows even a little about astronomical distances?
The black hole visualization seemed to be a visual homage to the film Interstellar. On the planet, we got the same sound of the singing plants as was in The Cage. The make-up work on the Talosians takes advantage of the extra $$ The Cage didn’t have. The landscape above ground and the setting below ground is likewise a step up in quality yet still consistent with the feel of the old story. Double hats off to the actors’ work in the scenes between Vina (Melissa George) and Pike (Anson Mount). They really captured the emotions that felt true and honoring of the experience they shared in The Cage and how it would have affected them in the intervening years.
As for the exploration of Spock’s youth, they have drawn upon and expanded upon the animated series episode Yesteryear that established his difficulties as a child. This difficulty was also touched briefly and effectively in one scene in Kelvin-verse Star Trek (2009).
Will be interesting to see how the arc proceeds concurrent with the resolution of the Red Angel plotline. At this point have know idea how that is going to resolve!
#StarTrekDiscovery
Star Trek Discovery 2.9
At a micro or personal level, I thought this episode was top notch. At a macro or conceptual level, I have some lingering concerns.
*** Spoilers ***
*** Below ***
Will start with the micro/personal level and give a huge hat tip to Hannah Cheesman (Airiam), scriptwriter (Michelle Paradise), and director (Jonathan Frakes). One story motif in Star Trek history is the death of anonymous Red Shirt personnel. Disco turned that one upside down with a nearly anonymous Blue Shirt crashing into an asteroid in the season two opener. In this episode, we get a moving backstory that setup the poignant demise of one of the bridge crew members. The performance by the entire cast highlighted the sadness of Lt. Cmdr. Airiam’s death as we got to know more about her in this episode only to see her killed in the climatic act of this episode where her passage was in the tradition of Star Trek’s high ideals. The end credits rolled with the sound of ocean waves made me think of how 24 would honor the loss of a key character with the silent clock.
On the larger story arc level, it remains to be seen how it will pan out. It appears that the Red Angel is in a battle against some cybernetic entity (those destruction bots seem a bit like a reference to the Matrix movies?) in the far future. It also appears that both are raiding the past to help with their battle for the future. How it will shake out is unclear and it is clear that the writers room likes plot twists.
The key twist in this episode is that Section 31 that had been pitched as the hidden hand behind what ails the Federations turns out to be just a pawn of an AI run amok that the future entity is trying to co-opt. Section 31 in all other flavors of Star Trek was very shadowy and barely known by Star Fleet personnel. Will see how thing shake out so perhaps there will be some way in which Section 31 gets reined in by the end of the season. The inconsistencies are that Cornwell knew something was fishy about Admiral Patar being part of the logic extremists and yet Patar appeared to be a high ranking official without any questions asked. One would think Sarek and others would have blocked her rise. How big will Section 31 continue to be in the final episodes? And of course, how the AI in its current form connects to the future entity opposed by the Red Angel is to be revealed?
The big plot line of the destruction of all sentient life in the galaxy will also get wrapped up in the next 5 episodes. In my view, the writers have generally been making better choices this season. On the other hand, by raising the stakes so much (destruction of all sentient life in the galaxy is about as high as you can get) they may write themselves into a corner that isn’t going to be easy to get out of without some ridiculous plot moves. This was my major quibble with season 1.
Another quibble I have is the direction hinted by the final words of Airiam about Project Daedalus and how Michael is the center of the whole conspiracy. Am guessing we will get some exposition on Project Daedalus in episode 10. That part I’m looking forward to.
As for Michael’s role in the whole thing, it will get worked out over the last third of the season but I just hope it doesn’t get ridiculous! After essentially pinning the entire Klingon war on Michael, the scriptwriters seem to be again making her the center of all history by placing “the end of all sentient life in the galaxy” on her shoulders. As much as we all like the “great person” theory of history, as a plot device, the great escape by the end could involve wild plot twists that severely tests the “suspension of belief.” As for the writing of the conflict between Spock and Michael, it does provide some emotionally resonant moments that I’m sure many viewers can feel deep inside and is a tribute to the actors. However, if that tension only serves only as a prop for Michael’s character, then I feel that is a rather cheap use of Spock as a plot point given how beloved Spock is as a character in his own right. We shall see.
Writing some backstory for Captain Pike this season has been just fine to me as he is a fairly blank slate in Star Trek lore with only the general knowledge that he was one of the greatest in the field captains in history. On this front, they (the writers and actor Anson Mount) have done an excellent job.
#StarTrekDiscovery
How about a little “fan fiction?”
What would Captain Pike write in a letter to Airiam’s next of kin?
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Airiam,
It is with deep regret that I am informing you of the death of your fine and courageous daughter, Lieutenant Commander Airiam. I share your grief in your loss and know that no words can lessen your sorrow. Our shipboard family grieves as does your family. Our solace is the sweet memories of her kind friendship. I hope what I share with you about her would bring some warm feelings about the life of exploration she choose amidst the anguish you feel. On board Discovery, she was a vital member of the senior staff. She carried out her duties with excellence under the most difficult of circumstances. And in ordinary times, she enjoyed her crew mates and was beloved and now deeply missed.
I feel you should know that her death occurred in the line of duty while on an away mission. The situation was critical and her last thoughts were of the safety of her comrades aboard Discovery. She willingly faced her death to protect our lives. Though your current sorrow of her loss will be overwhelming, you should be proud of what she did with her life in Star Fleet and the courage she exhibited in the final moments of her beautiful life.
Please extend my condolences and regards to other family members and friends saddened by her loss.
Sincerely,
Christopher Pike, Captain, USS Discovery
*** Spoilers ***
*** Below ***
Will start with the micro/personal level and give a huge hat tip to Hannah Cheesman (Airiam), scriptwriter (Michelle Paradise), and director (Jonathan Frakes). One story motif in Star Trek history is the death of anonymous Red Shirt personnel. Disco turned that one upside down with a nearly anonymous Blue Shirt crashing into an asteroid in the season two opener. In this episode, we get a moving backstory that setup the poignant demise of one of the bridge crew members. The performance by the entire cast highlighted the sadness of Lt. Cmdr. Airiam’s death as we got to know more about her in this episode only to see her killed in the climatic act of this episode where her passage was in the tradition of Star Trek’s high ideals. The end credits rolled with the sound of ocean waves made me think of how 24 would honor the loss of a key character with the silent clock.
On the larger story arc level, it remains to be seen how it will pan out. It appears that the Red Angel is in a battle against some cybernetic entity (those destruction bots seem a bit like a reference to the Matrix movies?) in the far future. It also appears that both are raiding the past to help with their battle for the future. How it will shake out is unclear and it is clear that the writers room likes plot twists.
The key twist in this episode is that Section 31 that had been pitched as the hidden hand behind what ails the Federations turns out to be just a pawn of an AI run amok that the future entity is trying to co-opt. Section 31 in all other flavors of Star Trek was very shadowy and barely known by Star Fleet personnel. Will see how thing shake out so perhaps there will be some way in which Section 31 gets reined in by the end of the season. The inconsistencies are that Cornwell knew something was fishy about Admiral Patar being part of the logic extremists and yet Patar appeared to be a high ranking official without any questions asked. One would think Sarek and others would have blocked her rise. How big will Section 31 continue to be in the final episodes? And of course, how the AI in its current form connects to the future entity opposed by the Red Angel is to be revealed?
The big plot line of the destruction of all sentient life in the galaxy will also get wrapped up in the next 5 episodes. In my view, the writers have generally been making better choices this season. On the other hand, by raising the stakes so much (destruction of all sentient life in the galaxy is about as high as you can get) they may write themselves into a corner that isn’t going to be easy to get out of without some ridiculous plot moves. This was my major quibble with season 1.
Another quibble I have is the direction hinted by the final words of Airiam about Project Daedalus and how Michael is the center of the whole conspiracy. Am guessing we will get some exposition on Project Daedalus in episode 10. That part I’m looking forward to.
As for Michael’s role in the whole thing, it will get worked out over the last third of the season but I just hope it doesn’t get ridiculous! After essentially pinning the entire Klingon war on Michael, the scriptwriters seem to be again making her the center of all history by placing “the end of all sentient life in the galaxy” on her shoulders. As much as we all like the “great person” theory of history, as a plot device, the great escape by the end could involve wild plot twists that severely tests the “suspension of belief.” As for the writing of the conflict between Spock and Michael, it does provide some emotionally resonant moments that I’m sure many viewers can feel deep inside and is a tribute to the actors. However, if that tension only serves only as a prop for Michael’s character, then I feel that is a rather cheap use of Spock as a plot point given how beloved Spock is as a character in his own right. We shall see.
Writing some backstory for Captain Pike this season has been just fine to me as he is a fairly blank slate in Star Trek lore with only the general knowledge that he was one of the greatest in the field captains in history. On this front, they (the writers and actor Anson Mount) have done an excellent job.
#StarTrekDiscovery
How about a little “fan fiction?”
What would Captain Pike write in a letter to Airiam’s next of kin?
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Airiam,
It is with deep regret that I am informing you of the death of your fine and courageous daughter, Lieutenant Commander Airiam. I share your grief in your loss and know that no words can lessen your sorrow. Our shipboard family grieves as does your family. Our solace is the sweet memories of her kind friendship. I hope what I share with you about her would bring some warm feelings about the life of exploration she choose amidst the anguish you feel. On board Discovery, she was a vital member of the senior staff. She carried out her duties with excellence under the most difficult of circumstances. And in ordinary times, she enjoyed her crew mates and was beloved and now deeply missed.
I feel you should know that her death occurred in the line of duty while on an away mission. The situation was critical and her last thoughts were of the safety of her comrades aboard Discovery. She willingly faced her death to protect our lives. Though your current sorrow of her loss will be overwhelming, you should be proud of what she did with her life in Star Fleet and the courage she exhibited in the final moments of her beautiful life.
Please extend my condolences and regards to other family members and friends saddened by her loss.
Sincerely,
Christopher Pike, Captain, USS Discovery
Star Trek Discovery 2.7
It was a transitional and expositional episode. The scriptwriters had to advance the story line about the Red Bursts and the Red Angel on one hand. And on the other hand, they had to finally get Spock onto the screen. Both were accomplished but as a result the episode as a stand-alone entity didn’t feel like much happened. It serves as a bridge to the latter half of season 2 but that was about it.
*** spoilers ahead ***
Okay, so we have had hints the Red Angel might be a time-traveler and this episode seems to go headlong in that direction when Tyler and Pike take the shuttle into the spatial-temporal anomaly. The igniting of the plasma on the shuttle was an easter egg for TOS fans who remember that same move in “The Galileo Seven.”
We shall see how the writers room works out the Red Angel story. It is still not clear whether the actions of the Red Angel are good or bad for Disco and the inhabitants of their timeline. The whole idea of altering the past to change the future is well trodden territory in Star Trek. The TNG film “First Contact” had the Borg travel to the past to block humanity’s entry into the community of civilizations by sabotaging Cochran’s historic FTL (faster than light) spaceflight. This intervention prevents the formation of the Federation allowing the Borg to assimilate the Alpha Quadrant including Earth.
The Xindi arc in ST-Enterprise was about a future race making incursions into the ST-Enterprise timeline to prevent their defeat at the hands of the Federation in the distant future. Archer and company eventually figure out what is going on and manage to convince enough of the Xindi leadership to turn against their shadowy benefactors from the future.
Will the Red Angel motivations prove to be evil? Or is the Red Angel good and in its own battle in the future having to draw upon the past to assist in its battle in the future? The Disco timeline initially saw 7 red bursts and was able to only visit one of them (season opener). Thus, there are six other incursions into the timeline by the Red Angel we know nothing about as of yet. Since the initial 7 there have been two more that resulted in the rescue of the people of New Eden and the revolution of Kaminar. Where will the writers take us going forward?
As for Spock, we get some more backstory about his life and the cliffhanger moment is when Michael figures out that Spock’s numerical recitation is the spatial coordinates for Talos IV! For TOS fans, we know that Talos IV was in the first pilot episode “The Cage” that NBC didn’t like. Roddenberry and company retooled and made a second pilot “Where No Man Has Gone Before” that green lighted Star Trek for its three year run on NBC. The material in “The Cage” got repurposed to very good effect in the TOS two-parter “The Menagerie.”
Will be interesting to see how the Disco writer’s room use Talos IV. Will there be a discussion of General Order 7 that says no one shall visit Talos IV, a policy advised by Captain Pike and Science Officer Spock?
The reliance on TOS ideas is a delicate balance. On one hand, it is fun to fill in details and use details from TOS to guide the show story lines. ST-Enterprise used this device in some story lines in season four. However, it could become too constraining and stifle efforts to world build on its own merits. ST-TNG, ST-DS9, and ST-VOY were set in the future and free to introduce newer story ideas effectively. The ST Kelvin-verse film “Into Darkness” had good moments but it was constrained in many ways by having to have touch points with ST-The Wrath of Khan. Disco’s creative team could run into such problems if they are not careful.
*** spoilers ahead ***
Okay, so we have had hints the Red Angel might be a time-traveler and this episode seems to go headlong in that direction when Tyler and Pike take the shuttle into the spatial-temporal anomaly. The igniting of the plasma on the shuttle was an easter egg for TOS fans who remember that same move in “The Galileo Seven.”
We shall see how the writers room works out the Red Angel story. It is still not clear whether the actions of the Red Angel are good or bad for Disco and the inhabitants of their timeline. The whole idea of altering the past to change the future is well trodden territory in Star Trek. The TNG film “First Contact” had the Borg travel to the past to block humanity’s entry into the community of civilizations by sabotaging Cochran’s historic FTL (faster than light) spaceflight. This intervention prevents the formation of the Federation allowing the Borg to assimilate the Alpha Quadrant including Earth.
The Xindi arc in ST-Enterprise was about a future race making incursions into the ST-Enterprise timeline to prevent their defeat at the hands of the Federation in the distant future. Archer and company eventually figure out what is going on and manage to convince enough of the Xindi leadership to turn against their shadowy benefactors from the future.
Will the Red Angel motivations prove to be evil? Or is the Red Angel good and in its own battle in the future having to draw upon the past to assist in its battle in the future? The Disco timeline initially saw 7 red bursts and was able to only visit one of them (season opener). Thus, there are six other incursions into the timeline by the Red Angel we know nothing about as of yet. Since the initial 7 there have been two more that resulted in the rescue of the people of New Eden and the revolution of Kaminar. Where will the writers take us going forward?
As for Spock, we get some more backstory about his life and the cliffhanger moment is when Michael figures out that Spock’s numerical recitation is the spatial coordinates for Talos IV! For TOS fans, we know that Talos IV was in the first pilot episode “The Cage” that NBC didn’t like. Roddenberry and company retooled and made a second pilot “Where No Man Has Gone Before” that green lighted Star Trek for its three year run on NBC. The material in “The Cage” got repurposed to very good effect in the TOS two-parter “The Menagerie.”
Will be interesting to see how the Disco writer’s room use Talos IV. Will there be a discussion of General Order 7 that says no one shall visit Talos IV, a policy advised by Captain Pike and Science Officer Spock?
The reliance on TOS ideas is a delicate balance. On one hand, it is fun to fill in details and use details from TOS to guide the show story lines. ST-Enterprise used this device in some story lines in season four. However, it could become too constraining and stifle efforts to world build on its own merits. ST-TNG, ST-DS9, and ST-VOY were set in the future and free to introduce newer story ideas effectively. The ST Kelvin-verse film “Into Darkness” had good moments but it was constrained in many ways by having to have touch points with ST-The Wrath of Khan. Disco’s creative team could run into such problems if they are not careful.
Star Trek Discovery Tangent - Philosophy of Mind and Dr. Culber's Return
I wonder what philosophy of mind people make of Culber’s return?
However, I suppose a dualist would say the fact that he feels in his mind something has changed is a reflection of the persistence of his mind from his previous body?
For an academic discussion of the entire Star Trek canon in light of the "Mind-Body" problem in philosophy, check out this item published in the Science Fiction Research Association.
How long does someone have to be brain dead for the physicalist to say the mind is dead?
Is the restoration of Culber’s body being inexact from his prior state the cause for his mind to feel not fully himself?
At the moment, the physicalist model could fit the story.However, I suppose a dualist would say the fact that he feels in his mind something has changed is a reflection of the persistence of his mind from his previous body?
For an academic discussion of the entire Star Trek canon in light of the "Mind-Body" problem in philosophy, check out this item published in the Science Fiction Research Association.
Star Trek Discovery Episode 2.6 - good moments but muddleheaded on some plot points
Am finally all caught up.
Episode 2.6 was a frantic story with some good moments (Doug Jones and company are fantastic actors) but overall it left me feeling unsatisfied due to some of the plot points.
As I have mentioned on many previous occasions that I accept that “suspension of disbelief” is a part of story telling and in particular science fiction story telling. On this occasion, I believe the scriptwriters tried to stuff too many things into this story and though individual moments work the whole thing falls down.
*** Spoilers ahead ***
Once again the red bursts and the red angel lead the Disco team on another errand of mercy. However, on this occasion, it is less clear that a positive outcome was assured. To recap, the first time they went to a signal, they found a crashed Star Fleet ship and rescued that crew before the asteroid crushed it. In the second signal, they went to a planet that was going to get wiped out by radioactive rocks dislodged from its ring system. In both cases, the way the Disco crew can help was clear: get the people off the ship in case one and stop the rocks in case two.
In this third scenario, it is much less clear that things will turn out right. There was the obligatory discussion about the prime directive and whether it was the time and place to interfere with the current order on the planet Kaminar. Some Trek fans will object to the blatant violation of the Prime Directive. However, there is in the history of Star Trek story telling many occasions where the Prime Directive was ignored so that doesn’t bother me too much.
One near parallel story from the Original Series was “A Taste of Armageddon” where the society the Enterprise visited was at war with its planetary neighbor. The two sides settled into a “balance” of death based on mathematically launched attacks. To preserve their society, instead of real bombs inflecting real damage and deaths, they skipped the damage part and retained the death part by having the calculated casualties of war die in painless death booths. Captain Kirk determines that the society is stuck and destroys the computers running the war and challenges the two sides to truly deal with their conflict.
Another near parallel from Star Trek Enterprise was “Dear Doctor” when Dr. Phlox and Captain Archer discover a planet where the dominant species is dying of a disease while the subservient species is evolving to greater ability. Archer has to decide whether Phlox should give them the cure and thus interfere with the development of the planet. Ultimately, Archer decides against providing the cure and sets the groundwork for what eventually would be formalized in the Prime Directive of non-interference.
Captain Pike’s decision to interfere in the Kaminar balance could probably be defended on the grounds that the Red Burst and Red Angel entity was interfering and Disco wasn’t in the position to stop that interference. That could be debated - what would the Red Angel have done if the Disco squad left Kaminar the minute the Baul asked them to leave? Could the Red Angel have disrupted the balance of Kaminar without the cast and crew of Disco? It seems not hence the red bat signal for Discovery to go there.
Another possibility would be the defense on moral grounds that one society was oppressing another society and it was within the power of Pike and company to do something about it. That could be debated as the Baul were about to kill all the Kelpiens as a result of Disco’s intervention and it was the Red Angel’s intervention that saved the Kelpiens. Pike could not have been sure the Red Angel would intervene although it was a possibility given their past experience with the red burst signals and red angel actions.
In terms of suspension of disbelief, Pike opting to set aside the Prime Directive I can accept.
However, there were three other big suspension of disbeliefs that sunk the story.
#1 The Baul who claimed to truly understand the dangers of the evolved Kelpien species sure acted very non-chalantly when they captured Saru! If he was so dangerous, why didn’t they kill him right away? If he was so dangerous, why didn’t they have much more aggressive restraints and technology to prevent him from doing his deeds of sabotage?
#2 The sabotage that Saru was able to accomplish was not believable. How could he just whack some of the electronics in his prison cell and hack the Baul communications system and send the vahar’ai signal that transforms Kelpien society? Way. Too. Easy.
#3 The transformation happened so fast! In the previous episode, Saru had a long and agonizing process before his transformation was complete. I suppose you could say the Baul communications network amplified the signal much more than the thing-a-blob from last week.
#StarTrekDiscovery
Episode 2.6 was a frantic story with some good moments (Doug Jones and company are fantastic actors) but overall it left me feeling unsatisfied due to some of the plot points.
As I have mentioned on many previous occasions that I accept that “suspension of disbelief” is a part of story telling and in particular science fiction story telling. On this occasion, I believe the scriptwriters tried to stuff too many things into this story and though individual moments work the whole thing falls down.
*** Spoilers ahead ***
Once again the red bursts and the red angel lead the Disco team on another errand of mercy. However, on this occasion, it is less clear that a positive outcome was assured. To recap, the first time they went to a signal, they found a crashed Star Fleet ship and rescued that crew before the asteroid crushed it. In the second signal, they went to a planet that was going to get wiped out by radioactive rocks dislodged from its ring system. In both cases, the way the Disco crew can help was clear: get the people off the ship in case one and stop the rocks in case two.
In this third scenario, it is much less clear that things will turn out right. There was the obligatory discussion about the prime directive and whether it was the time and place to interfere with the current order on the planet Kaminar. Some Trek fans will object to the blatant violation of the Prime Directive. However, there is in the history of Star Trek story telling many occasions where the Prime Directive was ignored so that doesn’t bother me too much.
One near parallel story from the Original Series was “A Taste of Armageddon” where the society the Enterprise visited was at war with its planetary neighbor. The two sides settled into a “balance” of death based on mathematically launched attacks. To preserve their society, instead of real bombs inflecting real damage and deaths, they skipped the damage part and retained the death part by having the calculated casualties of war die in painless death booths. Captain Kirk determines that the society is stuck and destroys the computers running the war and challenges the two sides to truly deal with their conflict.
Another near parallel from Star Trek Enterprise was “Dear Doctor” when Dr. Phlox and Captain Archer discover a planet where the dominant species is dying of a disease while the subservient species is evolving to greater ability. Archer has to decide whether Phlox should give them the cure and thus interfere with the development of the planet. Ultimately, Archer decides against providing the cure and sets the groundwork for what eventually would be formalized in the Prime Directive of non-interference.
Captain Pike’s decision to interfere in the Kaminar balance could probably be defended on the grounds that the Red Burst and Red Angel entity was interfering and Disco wasn’t in the position to stop that interference. That could be debated - what would the Red Angel have done if the Disco squad left Kaminar the minute the Baul asked them to leave? Could the Red Angel have disrupted the balance of Kaminar without the cast and crew of Disco? It seems not hence the red bat signal for Discovery to go there.
Another possibility would be the defense on moral grounds that one society was oppressing another society and it was within the power of Pike and company to do something about it. That could be debated as the Baul were about to kill all the Kelpiens as a result of Disco’s intervention and it was the Red Angel’s intervention that saved the Kelpiens. Pike could not have been sure the Red Angel would intervene although it was a possibility given their past experience with the red burst signals and red angel actions.
In terms of suspension of disbelief, Pike opting to set aside the Prime Directive I can accept.
However, there were three other big suspension of disbeliefs that sunk the story.
#1 The Baul who claimed to truly understand the dangers of the evolved Kelpien species sure acted very non-chalantly when they captured Saru! If he was so dangerous, why didn’t they kill him right away? If he was so dangerous, why didn’t they have much more aggressive restraints and technology to prevent him from doing his deeds of sabotage?
#2 The sabotage that Saru was able to accomplish was not believable. How could he just whack some of the electronics in his prison cell and hack the Baul communications system and send the vahar’ai signal that transforms Kelpien society? Way. Too. Easy.
#3 The transformation happened so fast! In the previous episode, Saru had a long and agonizing process before his transformation was complete. I suppose you could say the Baul communications network amplified the signal much more than the thing-a-blob from last week.
#StarTrekDiscovery
Star Trek 2.4-2.5 "Things are not always what they seem"
I think you could call the various story lines in episodes 4 and 5 as variations on the theme: “things are not always what they seem.”
*** Beware spoilers ahead ***
In these two episodes there are various situations where it appears one way at first and as the story unfolds, it turns out to be something else: the giant alien globe that snags the Discovery out of warp, Saru entering into the phase of death when Kelpiens either get culled by the aliens that dominate his home world or go mad, “May the ghost” that only Tilly can see, and the species May belongs to are fighting “a monster” that is wrecking the portion of the mycelial network they inhabit.
I think this message of “things are not always what they seem” is a good message as a life lesson. As for how well they work in the respective story threads that is more of a mixed bag. Certainly, the actors play it out extremely well and so as aways I’m a fan of how well they work things out even if sometimes the material they get to work with is a bit convoluted.
As I’ve mentioned before, I think Star Trek is at its best with “seek out new life and new civilizations” stories. The alien globe story line merges with Saru’s story line very nicely and I continue to view Doug Jones as clearly having the most interesting character to work with. We find out the alien globe is dying and wants to impart its knowledge to somebody - anybody - and in this case the computer banks of Discovery. Saru is dying and eventually he realizes it is because he is empathically linked to the death of the giant globe alien. Eventually, the penny drops in his mind and he makes the connection. He and Burnham scramble to the bridge to convince Pike to lower the shields and receive the message thus fulfilling the final wishes of the dying alien giant-thing-a-blob. As Michael helps Saru off the bridge to head to his death, the entire bridge crew silently stand in honor of their comrade, a truly beautiful moment.
No, they can’t write Saru out of the show!
Well, not to fear, after some more dramatic moments, Saru with Michael’s help discovers that by weathering the death syndrome, his threat ganglia fall off and he is restored to health minus the gripping fear that dominated his life! He also realizes that the whole natural order of his home world is a sham. Things are not as they appear to be!
The same thing happens in the other story lines. “May the ghost” is actually trying to get help to save her world and she knows Tilly can help her do so. Eventually, Tilly, Stamets, Burnham, and May figure out that the “monster” is Dr. Culber who was doing everything he could to survive in the mycelial network.
I wonder if the return of Dr. Culber was always in the plans from day one or a result of the uproar from fans when he was shockingly killed off in the middle of season one?
Anyway, this is science fiction and the scriptwriters brought him back through some convoluted intermix of Stamets and the mycelial network. It reminded me a bit of Star Trek III-TSFS when Spock's katra (soul) was download into Dr. McCoy’s mind and Spock’s body was reconfigured when it crashed on the Genesis planet and the his body and soul was reconnected by a Vulcan mystical process back on his home world. Thus, it would appear that TSFS held to “substance dualism.”
I’m not sure if ST-Disco’s Return of Dr. Culber falls into “substance dualism?”
Dr. Culber would up in mycelial network because Stamets had existence in both the ST-Disco world and the mycelial network concurrently. Somehow, he became the gateway for Dr. Culber (dead in the ST-Disco world) to be reanimated in the mycelial network world. However, for some reason, he doesn’t fully belong there, hence his scrambling about wrecking havoc in the mycelial network. And yet, when he tried to cross back into the ST-Disco world, he couldn’t cross over so he doesn’t really belong there either. But somehow, when “May the ghost” uses here pod transportation gadget he is fully restored. Did you get all that?
In terms of the acting, it is all well done but the whole concept is so confusing that it doesn’t really make sense within the “rules of the game” set up by the writers.
In ST-Disco, on three occasions they really pushed the “suspend disbelief” button so hard that it was annoying to me: the Tyler/Voq character, the concept of accessing the mycelial network and using it as a transportation highway, and now the return of Dr. Culber.
Suspending disbelief is part of any work of fiction and in particular science fiction so I grant it but if you push that button so hard that it starts cracking or breaking some viewers will throw up their hands and give up. Net-net though I still remain a viewer of ST-Disco. Perhaps, I’m just in too deep: I did go pay actual money to see Star Trek V - TFF, Star Trek - Insurrection, and Star Trek - Nemesis, in arguably the worst of the three movie versions of the Star Trek canon.
Final thought: they have been teasing the appearance of Spock since episode one and still nothing. I guess they are stringing us along as long as they can before he shows up!
#StarTrekDiscovery
*** Beware spoilers ahead ***
In these two episodes there are various situations where it appears one way at first and as the story unfolds, it turns out to be something else: the giant alien globe that snags the Discovery out of warp, Saru entering into the phase of death when Kelpiens either get culled by the aliens that dominate his home world or go mad, “May the ghost” that only Tilly can see, and the species May belongs to are fighting “a monster” that is wrecking the portion of the mycelial network they inhabit.
I think this message of “things are not always what they seem” is a good message as a life lesson. As for how well they work in the respective story threads that is more of a mixed bag. Certainly, the actors play it out extremely well and so as aways I’m a fan of how well they work things out even if sometimes the material they get to work with is a bit convoluted.
As I’ve mentioned before, I think Star Trek is at its best with “seek out new life and new civilizations” stories. The alien globe story line merges with Saru’s story line very nicely and I continue to view Doug Jones as clearly having the most interesting character to work with. We find out the alien globe is dying and wants to impart its knowledge to somebody - anybody - and in this case the computer banks of Discovery. Saru is dying and eventually he realizes it is because he is empathically linked to the death of the giant globe alien. Eventually, the penny drops in his mind and he makes the connection. He and Burnham scramble to the bridge to convince Pike to lower the shields and receive the message thus fulfilling the final wishes of the dying alien giant-thing-a-blob. As Michael helps Saru off the bridge to head to his death, the entire bridge crew silently stand in honor of their comrade, a truly beautiful moment.
No, they can’t write Saru out of the show!
Well, not to fear, after some more dramatic moments, Saru with Michael’s help discovers that by weathering the death syndrome, his threat ganglia fall off and he is restored to health minus the gripping fear that dominated his life! He also realizes that the whole natural order of his home world is a sham. Things are not as they appear to be!
The same thing happens in the other story lines. “May the ghost” is actually trying to get help to save her world and she knows Tilly can help her do so. Eventually, Tilly, Stamets, Burnham, and May figure out that the “monster” is Dr. Culber who was doing everything he could to survive in the mycelial network.
I wonder if the return of Dr. Culber was always in the plans from day one or a result of the uproar from fans when he was shockingly killed off in the middle of season one?
Anyway, this is science fiction and the scriptwriters brought him back through some convoluted intermix of Stamets and the mycelial network. It reminded me a bit of Star Trek III-TSFS when Spock's katra (soul) was download into Dr. McCoy’s mind and Spock’s body was reconfigured when it crashed on the Genesis planet and the his body and soul was reconnected by a Vulcan mystical process back on his home world. Thus, it would appear that TSFS held to “substance dualism.”
I’m not sure if ST-Disco’s Return of Dr. Culber falls into “substance dualism?”
Dr. Culber would up in mycelial network because Stamets had existence in both the ST-Disco world and the mycelial network concurrently. Somehow, he became the gateway for Dr. Culber (dead in the ST-Disco world) to be reanimated in the mycelial network world. However, for some reason, he doesn’t fully belong there, hence his scrambling about wrecking havoc in the mycelial network. And yet, when he tried to cross back into the ST-Disco world, he couldn’t cross over so he doesn’t really belong there either. But somehow, when “May the ghost” uses here pod transportation gadget he is fully restored. Did you get all that?
In terms of the acting, it is all well done but the whole concept is so confusing that it doesn’t really make sense within the “rules of the game” set up by the writers.
In ST-Disco, on three occasions they really pushed the “suspend disbelief” button so hard that it was annoying to me: the Tyler/Voq character, the concept of accessing the mycelial network and using it as a transportation highway, and now the return of Dr. Culber.
Suspending disbelief is part of any work of fiction and in particular science fiction so I grant it but if you push that button so hard that it starts cracking or breaking some viewers will throw up their hands and give up. Net-net though I still remain a viewer of ST-Disco. Perhaps, I’m just in too deep: I did go pay actual money to see Star Trek V - TFF, Star Trek - Insurrection, and Star Trek - Nemesis, in arguably the worst of the three movie versions of the Star Trek canon.
Final thought: they have been teasing the appearance of Spock since episode one and still nothing. I guess they are stringing us along as long as they can before he shows up!
#StarTrekDiscovery
Star Trek Discovery 2.3 - a mom's life & a pro-life message?
Good Disco.
Bad Disco.
Good ST-Discovery is the characters and the actors bringing them to life.
Bad ST-Discovery is the multiple story arcs on the assumption more is better.
Story line 1 - the red bursts/red angel
Story line 2 - the complicated lives of Sarek/Amanda/Michael/Spock (he is some how connected to the red burst/red angel)
Story line 3 - Tilly and the alien entity
Story line 4 - Klingon royal palace intrigue
Story line 5 - Michelle Yeoh's character is now part of Section 31
I would hope the writer's room will not be giving equal weight to all five balls they have juggled into the air! Will they all get mashed together into a mass of confusion and dis-satisfaction?
In this episode, in brief, the complex lives and hard times of being a mom in the far away future yet having age old challenges.
Amanda, Spock's mother and wife of Sarek, hasn't had much to do in previous flavors of Star Trek and so it is great to see her life get filled in a bit. Everyone can relate to her dilemma of feeling regrets and responsibility for how her children turned out. Mia Kirshner has done a wonderful job bringing to life Amanda Grayson. Her name seemed familiar and a quick check on the interwebs say I have seen her as the ruthless killer Mandy in 24. I wouldn't have made the connection as the two characters are as different as can be and it is a tribute to Kirshner's range as an actor.
Meanwhile, on the Klingon home world, it is not surprising that L'Rell is having trouble keeping things under control. She came to power under the threat of global annihilation that is not the best foundation for a stable government. And, of course, as a woman in a male-dominated society things are even more difficult for her. And we find out she had a son with Voq while all of this was going on further complicating things.
I've never been a fan of the whole Voq/Tyler plot device. It is such a mess but it is what it is and it looks like Tyler will be spun off into the Section 31 spin-off Star Trek with Michelle Yeoh's Mirror Georgiou and will probably appear a few more times in Disco season 2. Shazad Latif is a fine actor but the character he plays was just too much for me. In science fiction you have to “suspend disbelief” sometimes but some concepts are just way too nutty.
Anyway, after episodes 1 and 2 with tight stories, episode 3 was a mixed bag to me. As usual, high marks for the actors for their performances but the episode just threw too many balls in the air.
Lastly, did anyone notice the Pro-Life message in L'Rell's actions pertaining to her pregnancy? The child was very "inconvenient" for her, yet she had the child brought to full term by ex-utero technology!
#StarTrekDiscovery
Bad Disco.
Good ST-Discovery is the characters and the actors bringing them to life.
Bad ST-Discovery is the multiple story arcs on the assumption more is better.
Story line 1 - the red bursts/red angel
Story line 2 - the complicated lives of Sarek/Amanda/Michael/Spock (he is some how connected to the red burst/red angel)
Story line 3 - Tilly and the alien entity
Story line 4 - Klingon royal palace intrigue
Story line 5 - Michelle Yeoh's character is now part of Section 31
I would hope the writer's room will not be giving equal weight to all five balls they have juggled into the air! Will they all get mashed together into a mass of confusion and dis-satisfaction?
In this episode, in brief, the complex lives and hard times of being a mom in the far away future yet having age old challenges.
Amanda, Spock's mother and wife of Sarek, hasn't had much to do in previous flavors of Star Trek and so it is great to see her life get filled in a bit. Everyone can relate to her dilemma of feeling regrets and responsibility for how her children turned out. Mia Kirshner has done a wonderful job bringing to life Amanda Grayson. Her name seemed familiar and a quick check on the interwebs say I have seen her as the ruthless killer Mandy in 24. I wouldn't have made the connection as the two characters are as different as can be and it is a tribute to Kirshner's range as an actor.
Meanwhile, on the Klingon home world, it is not surprising that L'Rell is having trouble keeping things under control. She came to power under the threat of global annihilation that is not the best foundation for a stable government. And, of course, as a woman in a male-dominated society things are even more difficult for her. And we find out she had a son with Voq while all of this was going on further complicating things.
I've never been a fan of the whole Voq/Tyler plot device. It is such a mess but it is what it is and it looks like Tyler will be spun off into the Section 31 spin-off Star Trek with Michelle Yeoh's Mirror Georgiou and will probably appear a few more times in Disco season 2. Shazad Latif is a fine actor but the character he plays was just too much for me. In science fiction you have to “suspend disbelief” sometimes but some concepts are just way too nutty.
Anyway, after episodes 1 and 2 with tight stories, episode 3 was a mixed bag to me. As usual, high marks for the actors for their performances but the episode just threw too many balls in the air.
Lastly, did anyone notice the Pro-Life message in L'Rell's actions pertaining to her pregnancy? The child was very "inconvenient" for her, yet she had the child brought to full term by ex-utero technology!
#StarTrekDiscovery
Star Trek Discovery 2.2 - science and religious faith in this episode
I think Star Trek is at its best when they lean into the “explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations.” This happens on the “away missions” and especially on ones when the question of whether the “prime directive” applies. Thus, the episode “New Eden” had both elements going for it and I enjoyed it very much.
In the story, the scriptwriters advance the “Red Burst” signal story line some more and raise questions about the role of faith in society.
First, a quick science inquiry about the “Red Burst” signals: are these light based phenomena?
Certainly, it seems so from the way they are described. Science nerds will know that light travels fast. Science nerds will also know that in the scale of the galaxy and interstellar space the distances are vast even at light speed! Thus, if the latest “Red Burst” signal was determined to be ~ 50,000 light years away in the Beta Quadrant, and the Burst is a light based phenomena (like observing a supernova - an exploding star) then the burst was initiated 50,000 years earlier! This “Bat Signal” to come help these people living on “New Eden” would have taken place 49,800 years before the “Red Angel” whisked them away from Earth to park them on Terralisia. Have the scriptwriters worked this into their story arc?
If the signals are intentional from some intelligence, then that intelligence would have to have a completely different perception of linear time. This is not new to Star Trek as this idea was leaned upon heavily in Deep Space Nine where the “wormhole aliens” or the “Prophets of Bajor” were not constrained by linear time.
The other interesting feature of the story was its discussion of religious faith. There are two points that could serve as a springboard for conversation.
One question could be: what is god?
There was a quick conversation by the cast and crew about how a sufficiently advanced technological race would be viewed by a less advanced race as god. This theme has appeared in a number of stories throughout Star Trek’s history. In any case, it is expected that god would be very powerful and capable and in those Star Trek stories those societies become dependent upon and often grossly distorted by that powerful god-like entity.
In addition to “power” and “might,” our understanding of god would also include goodness of character. The mythic Greek pantheon of gods had powers of various type but in the end they also had the foibles of humanity.
Will be interesting to see how this story arc plays out. What intelligence is behind the signals? What is the “Red Angel?” If the “Red Angel” could whisk away people from earth and park them 50,000 light years away, what is motivating them to be enlisting our Disco family in errands of mercy? We shall see how the writer’s room works out the role and nature of this “higher intelligence(s)” interacting with more ordinary species.
The other issue the episode raises is the notion of stitching together all the world’s religions into one that all the people on Terralisia can follow. Captain Pike, whose father was a science teacher and comparative religion teacher, observed that the people on New Eden has a faith that works for their society by merging all the faiths of earth. People often say: oh, aren’t all religions basically the same? They all want people to be good. And so it appears that the people on Terralisa have actualized this.
But is this somewhat simplistic story telling on the part of the script writers?
Certainly, at a superficial level, there are many similarities between the major religious faiths. However, upon closer examination, there are differences that would not be easy to paper over. To cite just one: in the non-theistic faiths of Hinduism and Buddhism, the central claim is karma. Briefly, karma is the concept that one’s current life was impacted by the sins of one’s prior life in a series of reincarnations. In the Christian faith that I hold, the central claim is that Christ died for our sins and was resurrected from the dead for our salvation.
The religion project of New Eden would only work if all the faiths merged together were pruned of their major differences prior to putting them all together.
#StarTrekDiscovery
In the story, the scriptwriters advance the “Red Burst” signal story line some more and raise questions about the role of faith in society.
First, a quick science inquiry about the “Red Burst” signals: are these light based phenomena?
Certainly, it seems so from the way they are described. Science nerds will know that light travels fast. Science nerds will also know that in the scale of the galaxy and interstellar space the distances are vast even at light speed! Thus, if the latest “Red Burst” signal was determined to be ~ 50,000 light years away in the Beta Quadrant, and the Burst is a light based phenomena (like observing a supernova - an exploding star) then the burst was initiated 50,000 years earlier! This “Bat Signal” to come help these people living on “New Eden” would have taken place 49,800 years before the “Red Angel” whisked them away from Earth to park them on Terralisia. Have the scriptwriters worked this into their story arc?
If the signals are intentional from some intelligence, then that intelligence would have to have a completely different perception of linear time. This is not new to Star Trek as this idea was leaned upon heavily in Deep Space Nine where the “wormhole aliens” or the “Prophets of Bajor” were not constrained by linear time.
The other interesting feature of the story was its discussion of religious faith. There are two points that could serve as a springboard for conversation.
One question could be: what is god?
There was a quick conversation by the cast and crew about how a sufficiently advanced technological race would be viewed by a less advanced race as god. This theme has appeared in a number of stories throughout Star Trek’s history. In any case, it is expected that god would be very powerful and capable and in those Star Trek stories those societies become dependent upon and often grossly distorted by that powerful god-like entity.
In addition to “power” and “might,” our understanding of god would also include goodness of character. The mythic Greek pantheon of gods had powers of various type but in the end they also had the foibles of humanity.
Will be interesting to see how this story arc plays out. What intelligence is behind the signals? What is the “Red Angel?” If the “Red Angel” could whisk away people from earth and park them 50,000 light years away, what is motivating them to be enlisting our Disco family in errands of mercy? We shall see how the writer’s room works out the role and nature of this “higher intelligence(s)” interacting with more ordinary species.
The other issue the episode raises is the notion of stitching together all the world’s religions into one that all the people on Terralisia can follow. Captain Pike, whose father was a science teacher and comparative religion teacher, observed that the people on New Eden has a faith that works for their society by merging all the faiths of earth. People often say: oh, aren’t all religions basically the same? They all want people to be good. And so it appears that the people on Terralisa have actualized this.
But is this somewhat simplistic story telling on the part of the script writers?
Certainly, at a superficial level, there are many similarities between the major religious faiths. However, upon closer examination, there are differences that would not be easy to paper over. To cite just one: in the non-theistic faiths of Hinduism and Buddhism, the central claim is karma. Briefly, karma is the concept that one’s current life was impacted by the sins of one’s prior life in a series of reincarnations. In the Christian faith that I hold, the central claim is that Christ died for our sins and was resurrected from the dead for our salvation.
The religion project of New Eden would only work if all the faiths merged together were pruned of their major differences prior to putting them all together.
#StarTrekDiscovery
Star Trek Discovery Season 2 Episode 1
Star Trek Discovery Season 2 Episode 1
Stylistically similar to season 1 in that the frantic pace and high production values is kept up in the season opener. But more importantly and positively, is the feeling of visiting old friends felt in season 1 continues in season 2. Saru, Tilly, Stamets, and Burnham are well played by their respective actors.
Will be interesting to see where the "red bursts" story line is going. Will be interesting to see where they are going with Spock/Burnham/Amanda/Sarek story line.
Huge hats off to Jeff Russo and the soundtrack he writes for the show. Check out the short behind the scenes videos. There are a couple focusing on the music of ST-Discovery.
Anson Mount as Captain Pike is a plus and an opportunity to explore a character we don't know much about from the Original Series (Menagerie/Cage) and two small parts in the Kelvin-verse films (Star Trek-2009, Into Darkness).
On Trek trivia, am curious to see if the "red shirt" motif will be transitioned to the "blue shirt" motif as you could see that fellow getting written out of the show the minute he started talking!
#StarTrekDiscovery
Stylistically similar to season 1 in that the frantic pace and high production values is kept up in the season opener. But more importantly and positively, is the feeling of visiting old friends felt in season 1 continues in season 2. Saru, Tilly, Stamets, and Burnham are well played by their respective actors.
Will be interesting to see where the "red bursts" story line is going. Will be interesting to see where they are going with Spock/Burnham/Amanda/Sarek story line.
Huge hats off to Jeff Russo and the soundtrack he writes for the show. Check out the short behind the scenes videos. There are a couple focusing on the music of ST-Discovery.
Anson Mount as Captain Pike is a plus and an opportunity to explore a character we don't know much about from the Original Series (Menagerie/Cage) and two small parts in the Kelvin-verse films (Star Trek-2009, Into Darkness).
On Trek trivia, am curious to see if the "red shirt" motif will be transitioned to the "blue shirt" motif as you could see that fellow getting written out of the show the minute he started talking!
#StarTrekDiscovery
Star Trek Discovery Season Two - We shall see what the scriptwriters have up their sleeves!
My feelings about the first season: good performances by the cast and high production values; on the downside a few times where the plot got very confusing or inconsistent.
As for season two, we shall see!
The episode will be released tonight and so perhaps some of the mysteries will be revealed.
One thing that strikes me as a bit odd was assigning Captain Pike to take over the Discovery.
In the Star Trek "world," the Enterprise was a Constitution class starship that was top-of-the-line for a long time in Star Fleet. So why are the powers that be transferring Pike to what was a one-of-a-kind experimental-research ship in the Discovery?
From the trailers the mystery is the Red Bursts and the Red Angel. How many ships will the Federation dedicate to solving the mystery?
You would think you want to keep the Enterprise crew together with its Captain as part of that mission?
However, it appears that Spock has taken leave of the Enterprise to deal with how the message from the phenomena has thrown him into turmoil. But even so, you would think Pike would stay with one of the flagships of the fleet.
Of course, you might say that since Burnham has some connection to Spock, the bosses figure we need her as part of the team solving the mystery. In which case it would be easy enough to transfer Burnham over to the Enterprise.
Probably the only practical reason for moving Pike over to Discovery is that the crew still shell-shocked from their adventures in season one need a seasoned Captain to help them in this new mission. Perhaps, since the Discovery was a research ship, it might be stocked with more nerd types that will be needed for the newest mission.
Anyway, then the next question is who is the interim Captain on the Enterprise? I suppose "Number One" seen in the TOS "The Cage" and in the two-part "The Menagerie" that utilized "The Cage" footage would fill that role. And indeed, the show runners have brought in Rebecca Romijn to play that character. How much the series will spend on the Enterprise and how often Romijn will appear remains to be seen.
On another trivia note, according to IMDB, Julianne Grossman supplies the voice of Discovery's computer. Apparently, she is a seasoned voice actress.
UPDATE: Well, that was a rather simply solution to why Pike had to leave the Enterprise ..... they tried to hit control-alt-delete to reboot the Enterprise and couldn't! Or in Mac OS lingo, the Enterprise saw the spinning pin-wheel of death and they had to pull the power plug and tow it back to the Star Base!
As for season two, we shall see!
The episode will be released tonight and so perhaps some of the mysteries will be revealed.
One thing that strikes me as a bit odd was assigning Captain Pike to take over the Discovery.
In the Star Trek "world," the Enterprise was a Constitution class starship that was top-of-the-line for a long time in Star Fleet. So why are the powers that be transferring Pike to what was a one-of-a-kind experimental-research ship in the Discovery?
From the trailers the mystery is the Red Bursts and the Red Angel. How many ships will the Federation dedicate to solving the mystery?
You would think you want to keep the Enterprise crew together with its Captain as part of that mission?
However, it appears that Spock has taken leave of the Enterprise to deal with how the message from the phenomena has thrown him into turmoil. But even so, you would think Pike would stay with one of the flagships of the fleet.
Of course, you might say that since Burnham has some connection to Spock, the bosses figure we need her as part of the team solving the mystery. In which case it would be easy enough to transfer Burnham over to the Enterprise.
Probably the only practical reason for moving Pike over to Discovery is that the crew still shell-shocked from their adventures in season one need a seasoned Captain to help them in this new mission. Perhaps, since the Discovery was a research ship, it might be stocked with more nerd types that will be needed for the newest mission.
Anyway, then the next question is who is the interim Captain on the Enterprise? I suppose "Number One" seen in the TOS "The Cage" and in the two-part "The Menagerie" that utilized "The Cage" footage would fill that role. And indeed, the show runners have brought in Rebecca Romijn to play that character. How much the series will spend on the Enterprise and how often Romijn will appear remains to be seen.
On another trivia note, according to IMDB, Julianne Grossman supplies the voice of Discovery's computer. Apparently, she is a seasoned voice actress.
UPDATE: Well, that was a rather simply solution to why Pike had to leave the Enterprise ..... they tried to hit control-alt-delete to reboot the Enterprise and couldn't! Or in Mac OS lingo, the Enterprise saw the spinning pin-wheel of death and they had to pull the power plug and tow it back to the Star Base!
Star Trek Discovery - Episode 15 Season Finale spoilers and opinions about season 1 overall
The breakneck pace of episode 13 was going to be hard to top and indeed episodes 14 and 15 seemed almost a let-down yielding a somewhat muddle-headed finish in episode 15, "Will You Take My Hand?"
First off, hats off to the actors.
Doug Jones and Mary Wiseman are clear fan favorites and I would second the vote to declare them the break-out stars of this flavor of Star Trek.
Anthony Rapp, Shazad Latif, Jason Isaacs and Michelle Yeoh have been very solid especially Yeoh who got to play BOTH a very admirable and good Georgiou and a deliciously very evil Georgiou.
Sonequa Martin-Green has also been very good. Thus, I hesitate to detract from her fantastic performances but unlike other editions of Star Trek, the story lines rested very heavily on the singular character of Burnham and her choices. Yes, the Original Series was mostly Captain Kirk but Spock and McCoy had their own stories that were quite substantial and Kirk's development as a character rested very heavily on his interaction with Spock and McCoy. The same could be said of TNG, DS9, VOY, and Enterprise captains. Thus, I cannot fault Sonequa Martin-Green's acting but I can fault the show runners who placed so much of the shows various plot points to develop her character arc in the season. It is those plot points that at times got them into trouble in the story telling.
Essentially, episode 15 was round two - "What will Burnham do this time?"
This time she doesn't go it alone and act unilaterally. She goes through proper channels and her stand draws the support of her crewmates. Bravo! All fine and good.
But ….. How did they get into this situation?
We knew from episode 14 that Sarek, Cornwell, and the Federation command made some "deal with the devil" with mirror-Georgiou to be revealed in episode 15. The plot holes were ginormous!
#1. Giving command over to mirror-Georgiou was an interesting move but the writers didn't have the courage of their convictions. All season long they had mirror-Lorca in command pulling off the charade being just nice enough to fool the crew but clearly showing signs of the "dark side of the mirror." Mirror-Georgiou made no effort to "blend" in. Was mirror-Lorca that much more skillful and manipulative compared to mirror-Georgiou? Tilly quickly realized what the score really was. Undoubtedly, the rest of the crew did as well. Everyone is going to be on their guard that something is fishy.
#2. Okay, so you give the volcano bomb to mirror-Georgiou, now what? She isn't going to blow herself up along with some percent of Qo'noS. What was the escape plan? Was she going to transport back to Discovery and fly the ship out and then blow up the bomb? Was she going to plant the bomb and hire the equivalent of an Orion Han Solo to escape and blow up the bomb along with the Discovery? Either way, at some point the Discovery crew will become aware of the plan and have to decide, are we going to stop it? Was Sarek/Cornwell/Federation big heads assuming the Discovery crew would not attempt to intervene once they find out what the real plan was? Or were they planning on sacrificing them in the plot?
#3. Okay, so you manage to stop Georgioiu from detonating the bomb. Now, you give control of the bomb to L'Rell? The potential for double-cross by either side is huge. Would L'Rell really trust the Federation that she is really the only one with the detonator to the bomb? Would the Federation really trust that she won't deactivate the bomb and resume the war?
#4. Okay, let's say we can trust L'Rell to make an effort to stop the war. How does it look to the leaders of the other 23 Houses? L'Rell says to them, I have a bomb that will blow up Qo'noS so you have to stop the war and put me in charge! How are the other 23 Houses going to feel after being given that kind of ultimatum? They might obey for the time being but that is not the basis of a stable government.
#5. Okay, let's say we can trust L'Rell to make an effort to stop the war. L'Rell says to them, the Federation planted a bomb on Qo'noS and gave me the detonator so you have to stop the war and put me in charge! They might obey for the time being but they are going to think L'Rell is a tool of the Federation.
Either way you slice it L'Rell's rulership is not likely to be a stable one. The writers wrote themselves into this corner and wound up having to rely on a rather drastic and implausible way out of it.
#6. After all is said and done, we get this public ceremony where the crew of the Discovery is given awards for their actions. Would the leadership of Star Fleet and the Federation really reveal publicly how the war with the Klingons actually got resolved? Wouldn't the people behind the plan to blow up Qo'noS be quietly forced to resign and the true nature of the final deal kept quiet?
Shoe-horning this episode in Federation-Klingon relations is rather problematic for "canon" freaks.
For the uninitiated, in Star Trek "canon" the Klingons remain foes of the Federation until Star Trek Six - the Undiscovered Country. It is in that movie when the Federation and Klingons sign the Khitomer peace treaty and promise aid to help the Klingons survive the disaster of Qo'noS moon Praxis blowing up. By TNG and beyond, the Klingons are allies with occasional hiccups. In none of the previous flavors of Star Trek was there the sense that the Federation-Klingon conflict ever reached an existential threat to either side as seen in ST-Disco with the exception of the alternative time line episode in ST-TNG "Yesterday's Enterprise."
But you don't have to be a Federation-Klingon canon purist to feel dis-satisfied with the resolution as the plot points to get them to the end of the war was very shaky.
The final teaser to set up season two was the appearance of NCC-1701. Let the speculation begin!
Overall season 1 ratings:
Acting grade is an all-around A and A-.
Production design in the visuals, the sets, and the music. All top-notch A+.
Story telling: on one hand A- and on the other hand C+.
The serialized story-telling can be quite addictive and the pacing of the show was generally quite brisk lending itself to binge viewing that the streaming format counts on. I usually didn't see the show immediately on the day of release but never got more than two episodes behind. However, I can see how it could be easy to knock down three or four or more episodes in a single sitting, hence the A- grade.
However, though one can say the show had a lot of "sizzle" but when digested a little bit, you do wonder if the "steak" was very good. This was most evident in episode 15. Hence the OTOH C+ grade.
First off, hats off to the actors.
Doug Jones and Mary Wiseman are clear fan favorites and I would second the vote to declare them the break-out stars of this flavor of Star Trek.
Anthony Rapp, Shazad Latif, Jason Isaacs and Michelle Yeoh have been very solid especially Yeoh who got to play BOTH a very admirable and good Georgiou and a deliciously very evil Georgiou.
Sonequa Martin-Green has also been very good. Thus, I hesitate to detract from her fantastic performances but unlike other editions of Star Trek, the story lines rested very heavily on the singular character of Burnham and her choices. Yes, the Original Series was mostly Captain Kirk but Spock and McCoy had their own stories that were quite substantial and Kirk's development as a character rested very heavily on his interaction with Spock and McCoy. The same could be said of TNG, DS9, VOY, and Enterprise captains. Thus, I cannot fault Sonequa Martin-Green's acting but I can fault the show runners who placed so much of the shows various plot points to develop her character arc in the season. It is those plot points that at times got them into trouble in the story telling.
Essentially, episode 15 was round two - "What will Burnham do this time?"
This time she doesn't go it alone and act unilaterally. She goes through proper channels and her stand draws the support of her crewmates. Bravo! All fine and good.
But ….. How did they get into this situation?
We knew from episode 14 that Sarek, Cornwell, and the Federation command made some "deal with the devil" with mirror-Georgiou to be revealed in episode 15. The plot holes were ginormous!
#1. Giving command over to mirror-Georgiou was an interesting move but the writers didn't have the courage of their convictions. All season long they had mirror-Lorca in command pulling off the charade being just nice enough to fool the crew but clearly showing signs of the "dark side of the mirror." Mirror-Georgiou made no effort to "blend" in. Was mirror-Lorca that much more skillful and manipulative compared to mirror-Georgiou? Tilly quickly realized what the score really was. Undoubtedly, the rest of the crew did as well. Everyone is going to be on their guard that something is fishy.
#2. Okay, so you give the volcano bomb to mirror-Georgiou, now what? She isn't going to blow herself up along with some percent of Qo'noS. What was the escape plan? Was she going to transport back to Discovery and fly the ship out and then blow up the bomb? Was she going to plant the bomb and hire the equivalent of an Orion Han Solo to escape and blow up the bomb along with the Discovery? Either way, at some point the Discovery crew will become aware of the plan and have to decide, are we going to stop it? Was Sarek/Cornwell/Federation big heads assuming the Discovery crew would not attempt to intervene once they find out what the real plan was? Or were they planning on sacrificing them in the plot?
#3. Okay, so you manage to stop Georgioiu from detonating the bomb. Now, you give control of the bomb to L'Rell? The potential for double-cross by either side is huge. Would L'Rell really trust the Federation that she is really the only one with the detonator to the bomb? Would the Federation really trust that she won't deactivate the bomb and resume the war?
#4. Okay, let's say we can trust L'Rell to make an effort to stop the war. How does it look to the leaders of the other 23 Houses? L'Rell says to them, I have a bomb that will blow up Qo'noS so you have to stop the war and put me in charge! How are the other 23 Houses going to feel after being given that kind of ultimatum? They might obey for the time being but that is not the basis of a stable government.
#5. Okay, let's say we can trust L'Rell to make an effort to stop the war. L'Rell says to them, the Federation planted a bomb on Qo'noS and gave me the detonator so you have to stop the war and put me in charge! They might obey for the time being but they are going to think L'Rell is a tool of the Federation.
Either way you slice it L'Rell's rulership is not likely to be a stable one. The writers wrote themselves into this corner and wound up having to rely on a rather drastic and implausible way out of it.
#6. After all is said and done, we get this public ceremony where the crew of the Discovery is given awards for their actions. Would the leadership of Star Fleet and the Federation really reveal publicly how the war with the Klingons actually got resolved? Wouldn't the people behind the plan to blow up Qo'noS be quietly forced to resign and the true nature of the final deal kept quiet?
Shoe-horning this episode in Federation-Klingon relations is rather problematic for "canon" freaks.
For the uninitiated, in Star Trek "canon" the Klingons remain foes of the Federation until Star Trek Six - the Undiscovered Country. It is in that movie when the Federation and Klingons sign the Khitomer peace treaty and promise aid to help the Klingons survive the disaster of Qo'noS moon Praxis blowing up. By TNG and beyond, the Klingons are allies with occasional hiccups. In none of the previous flavors of Star Trek was there the sense that the Federation-Klingon conflict ever reached an existential threat to either side as seen in ST-Disco with the exception of the alternative time line episode in ST-TNG "Yesterday's Enterprise."
But you don't have to be a Federation-Klingon canon purist to feel dis-satisfied with the resolution as the plot points to get them to the end of the war was very shaky.
The final teaser to set up season two was the appearance of NCC-1701. Let the speculation begin!
Overall season 1 ratings:
Acting grade is an all-around A and A-.
Production design in the visuals, the sets, and the music. All top-notch A+.
Story telling: on one hand A- and on the other hand C+.
The serialized story-telling can be quite addictive and the pacing of the show was generally quite brisk lending itself to binge viewing that the streaming format counts on. I usually didn't see the show immediately on the day of release but never got more than two episodes behind. However, I can see how it could be easy to knock down three or four or more episodes in a single sitting, hence the A- grade.
However, though one can say the show had a lot of "sizzle" but when digested a little bit, you do wonder if the "steak" was very good. This was most evident in episode 15. Hence the OTOH C+ grade.
Star Trek Discovery Episode 14 - relationship status: "Its complicated" and other things
Episode 14 was a break from the shot-em up action of episode 13 and soon to drop season finale episode 15 on Sunday that will probably have a fair amount of shot-em up.
Thus, it was a time for some heart-to-heart talks among the cast and crew.
At the center of it all was Tilly. She talks to Tyler and others join in. She talks to Burnham to get Burnham to talk to Tyler.
Meanwhile, Saru continues to grow as a character as he is now the captain of the ship and shows his blend of getting the job done in the opening when he quickly sized up the situation in the transporter room. He also exhibits compassion as she filled Burnham in on Tyler's condition. He continued to display his generosity and firmness in the sickbay conversation with Tyler.
Stamets took center stage for a scene with Tyler and his response was what you would anticipate from the character we have seen develop through the series. Well done by Rapp. He also steps in with his engineering acumen with the terraforming the dead moon to grow his beloved spores.
However, the script-writers really dropped the ball for the lines they fed Anthony Rapp when Cornwell asked him to jump to Starbase 1. Stamets says something like: Starbase 1 is 100 AU from earth and a little over a light year from our current position.
If I heard that right, the science consultant on the screen writing team should check his or her astronomy notes!
In our world, 1 light year might as well be a 100 light years as it is simply too far to travel. But in Star Trek world 1 light year is like crossing the street! If you are visiting star systems in various parts of the Alpha Quadrant, you have to be traveling hundreds of light years in a matter of hours or days. So 1 light year is nothing and the nervousness about traversing that distance doesn't make sense.
As for 1 AU, that is an astronomical unit, the distance from the sun to the earth. Thus, 100 AU is beyond the Kuiper Belt. This means Starbase 1 is not very far from earth. Discovery arrives at Starbase 1 to find it has been taken over by the Klingons. If the Klingons are that close to the earth already, that is pretty bad for the Federation! This would be like the tanks circling around Paris in World War II. This is equal to the Allied Armies closing in on Berlin. The earlier comment of having lost 20% of Federation territory is bad but to have the Klingons pounding on the front door of earth is very very very bad.
We shall see if episode 15 reveals the "deal with the devil (mirror Georgiou) that Sarak and Cornwell have made. Sarak has a wonderful scene with Burnham as he leaves ship. Well played by Frain and Martin-Green.
The premise of mounting an attack on the Qo'noS, the Klingon home world, may make for good drama, but in terms of military tactics that would be somewhat unrealistic. It would be like trying to launch an massive attack on Berlin prior to D-day. Of course, the Allied air forces were able to launch night bombing raids on Berlin and other German cities but there is a huge difference between air raids and sending in ground troops and tanks.
Discovery sneaking in there to map out Qo'noS and gain other intelligence data is fine. They can sneak via the spore drive technology. But the rest of the fleet would have to get there the old fashioned way and would(!) (should?) be detected on the way there.
One would assume the Klingons have good defenses at Qo'noS and would have robust layers of defense around it. Perhaps, the 24 Klingon houses are so divided that they don't bother to defend their home world? Perhaps, only one of the houses defend the home world? Dunno.
But the premise of attacking your opponent's home world is unrealistic unless you have some aspect of military superiority that the Federation at this point do not have.
Anyway, will see where episode 15 leaves us. I suspect there will be a cliff hanger to set up season 2 so more surprises to come.
Episode 14 ends with the delicious irony of mirror Georgiou taking the bridge with only Cornwell, Saru, and Burnham knowing the real truth. Episode 1-2's arc had Burnham taking matters into her own hands against Georgiou to the dismay of Saru. This time around Saru and Burnham may need to team up to prevent mirror-Georgiou from leading the Discovery and the Federation into a disaster.
Thus, it was a time for some heart-to-heart talks among the cast and crew.
At the center of it all was Tilly. She talks to Tyler and others join in. She talks to Burnham to get Burnham to talk to Tyler.
Meanwhile, Saru continues to grow as a character as he is now the captain of the ship and shows his blend of getting the job done in the opening when he quickly sized up the situation in the transporter room. He also exhibits compassion as she filled Burnham in on Tyler's condition. He continued to display his generosity and firmness in the sickbay conversation with Tyler.
Stamets took center stage for a scene with Tyler and his response was what you would anticipate from the character we have seen develop through the series. Well done by Rapp. He also steps in with his engineering acumen with the terraforming the dead moon to grow his beloved spores.
However, the script-writers really dropped the ball for the lines they fed Anthony Rapp when Cornwell asked him to jump to Starbase 1. Stamets says something like: Starbase 1 is 100 AU from earth and a little over a light year from our current position.
If I heard that right, the science consultant on the screen writing team should check his or her astronomy notes!
In our world, 1 light year might as well be a 100 light years as it is simply too far to travel. But in Star Trek world 1 light year is like crossing the street! If you are visiting star systems in various parts of the Alpha Quadrant, you have to be traveling hundreds of light years in a matter of hours or days. So 1 light year is nothing and the nervousness about traversing that distance doesn't make sense.
As for 1 AU, that is an astronomical unit, the distance from the sun to the earth. Thus, 100 AU is beyond the Kuiper Belt. This means Starbase 1 is not very far from earth. Discovery arrives at Starbase 1 to find it has been taken over by the Klingons. If the Klingons are that close to the earth already, that is pretty bad for the Federation! This would be like the tanks circling around Paris in World War II. This is equal to the Allied Armies closing in on Berlin. The earlier comment of having lost 20% of Federation territory is bad but to have the Klingons pounding on the front door of earth is very very very bad.
We shall see if episode 15 reveals the "deal with the devil (mirror Georgiou) that Sarak and Cornwell have made. Sarak has a wonderful scene with Burnham as he leaves ship. Well played by Frain and Martin-Green.
The premise of mounting an attack on the Qo'noS, the Klingon home world, may make for good drama, but in terms of military tactics that would be somewhat unrealistic. It would be like trying to launch an massive attack on Berlin prior to D-day. Of course, the Allied air forces were able to launch night bombing raids on Berlin and other German cities but there is a huge difference between air raids and sending in ground troops and tanks.
Discovery sneaking in there to map out Qo'noS and gain other intelligence data is fine. They can sneak via the spore drive technology. But the rest of the fleet would have to get there the old fashioned way and would(!) (should?) be detected on the way there.
One would assume the Klingons have good defenses at Qo'noS and would have robust layers of defense around it. Perhaps, the 24 Klingon houses are so divided that they don't bother to defend their home world? Perhaps, only one of the houses defend the home world? Dunno.
But the premise of attacking your opponent's home world is unrealistic unless you have some aspect of military superiority that the Federation at this point do not have.
Anyway, will see where episode 15 leaves us. I suspect there will be a cliff hanger to set up season 2 so more surprises to come.
Episode 14 ends with the delicious irony of mirror Georgiou taking the bridge with only Cornwell, Saru, and Burnham knowing the real truth. Episode 1-2's arc had Burnham taking matters into her own hands against Georgiou to the dismay of Saru. This time around Saru and Burnham may need to team up to prevent mirror-Georgiou from leading the Discovery and the Federation into a disaster.
Star Trek Discovery episode 13 - the Star Wars episode
That was an action packed episode!
Am still behind an episode as I finally saw episode 13 while episode 14 has already been released.
Anyway, all appears answered regarding Lorca.
(1) Indeed, the cross over to the Federation universe was due to a transporter accident during an ion storm just like in ST-TOS, Mirror Mirror.
(2) He was through and through an evil-hat villain purely out for his own power.
(3) He said a "Star Wars" like line to some so-and-so about that person's lack of vision much like Darth Vader did in Episode IV about finding some flunky's lack of faith disturbing.
(4) His attempt to draw Burnham over to the "dark side" was somewhat like Darth Vader trying to pull over Luke Skywalker.
(5) His falling to his death in the spore reactor looked a bit like the Emperor falling into the reaction chamber in Episode VI. The Engage - the Official Star Trek Podcast guys are speculating that maybe falling into the spore reactor might be a crazy way to keep the character alive for the future in some strange scenario. I hope not.
The giant Emperor Starship was a bit of a mash up of the Death Star and the Gigantic Imperial Star Destroyers. Also, the attack against the reactor core was straight out of the Star Wars Episode IV.
Regarding Georgiou and Burnham, they wind up teaming up to fight Lorca. The climatic hand-to-hand fight with the two of them on the same side against Lorca and Landry was just like the fight in episode 2 against Voq and T'Kuvma. This time however Georgiou survives the battle with Burnham's help. Georgiou's mirror character was certainly no saint but she did recognize her time as Emperor was up and was willing to fight for a cause other than her own. Though I suppose revenge against Lorca may have been the dominant motivation. How that will play out in the following episodes will be interest to see.
Doug Jones as Saru continues to amaze as he absorbs the news of Lorca's betrayal and responds with strong leadership for the crew. He gets to give his version of the St. Crispin's Day speech to rally the team. In that speech, he put a twist on the old Klingon proverb of "this is a good day to die."
Here is the whole speech from the UK Independent's recapper:
“It is well-known that my species has the ability to sense the coming of death. I do not sense it today. I may not have all the answers. However, I do know that I am surrounded by a team I trust. The finest a Captain could ever hope to command. Lorca abused our idealism. Make no mistake: Discovery is no longer Lorca’s. She is ours. Today will be her maiden voyage. We have a duty to perform, and we will not accept a no-win scenario. You have your orders. On your way.”
Meanwhile Stamets of the mirror universe was an evil-hat villain like Lorca and is promptly killed Federation Stamets figures out, with help from Tilly, how to get the crew home. Unfortunately, they wind up missing by 9 months and see the Klingons have nearly defeated the Federation. Out of one frying pan into another frying pan with a time-travel twist! This is a bit like Star Trek Enterprise after the horrible battles of the Xindi arc, they find themselves in a time shift in the "Storm Front" two-parter that kicked off season 4. Will see if the Disco writing team resolves this problem in two episodes or do they leave it hanging for season 2?
Many loose ends to address:
(1) What (if anything) did the ISS Discovery do while in the Federation Universe? The Engage podcast guys suspect perhaps the ISS Discovery helped the Klingons.
(2) How will the Federation recover from what appears to be a military defeat?
(3) Will L'Rell and Tyler-Voq have a role to play in helping Discovery turn the tide of defeat?
(4) What will mirror Georgiou be doing in the Federation Universe?
(5) Will there be more spore drive travel? Perhaps, using it to time travel?
(6) How will the spore drive technology be put back into the proverbial genie bottle? Will there be perhaps some intelligence behind the spore network and they will decide to shut the door to more usage of the network much like how the DS9 wormhole aliens can open or close the wormhole as they wish?
Am still behind an episode as I finally saw episode 13 while episode 14 has already been released.
Anyway, all appears answered regarding Lorca.
(1) Indeed, the cross over to the Federation universe was due to a transporter accident during an ion storm just like in ST-TOS, Mirror Mirror.
(2) He was through and through an evil-hat villain purely out for his own power.
(3) He said a "Star Wars" like line to some so-and-so about that person's lack of vision much like Darth Vader did in Episode IV about finding some flunky's lack of faith disturbing.
(4) His attempt to draw Burnham over to the "dark side" was somewhat like Darth Vader trying to pull over Luke Skywalker.
(5) His falling to his death in the spore reactor looked a bit like the Emperor falling into the reaction chamber in Episode VI. The Engage - the Official Star Trek Podcast guys are speculating that maybe falling into the spore reactor might be a crazy way to keep the character alive for the future in some strange scenario. I hope not.
The giant Emperor Starship was a bit of a mash up of the Death Star and the Gigantic Imperial Star Destroyers. Also, the attack against the reactor core was straight out of the Star Wars Episode IV.
Regarding Georgiou and Burnham, they wind up teaming up to fight Lorca. The climatic hand-to-hand fight with the two of them on the same side against Lorca and Landry was just like the fight in episode 2 against Voq and T'Kuvma. This time however Georgiou survives the battle with Burnham's help. Georgiou's mirror character was certainly no saint but she did recognize her time as Emperor was up and was willing to fight for a cause other than her own. Though I suppose revenge against Lorca may have been the dominant motivation. How that will play out in the following episodes will be interest to see.
Doug Jones as Saru continues to amaze as he absorbs the news of Lorca's betrayal and responds with strong leadership for the crew. He gets to give his version of the St. Crispin's Day speech to rally the team. In that speech, he put a twist on the old Klingon proverb of "this is a good day to die."
Here is the whole speech from the UK Independent's recapper:
“It is well-known that my species has the ability to sense the coming of death. I do not sense it today. I may not have all the answers. However, I do know that I am surrounded by a team I trust. The finest a Captain could ever hope to command. Lorca abused our idealism. Make no mistake: Discovery is no longer Lorca’s. She is ours. Today will be her maiden voyage. We have a duty to perform, and we will not accept a no-win scenario. You have your orders. On your way.”
Meanwhile Stamets of the mirror universe was an evil-hat villain like Lorca and is promptly killed Federation Stamets figures out, with help from Tilly, how to get the crew home. Unfortunately, they wind up missing by 9 months and see the Klingons have nearly defeated the Federation. Out of one frying pan into another frying pan with a time-travel twist! This is a bit like Star Trek Enterprise after the horrible battles of the Xindi arc, they find themselves in a time shift in the "Storm Front" two-parter that kicked off season 4. Will see if the Disco writing team resolves this problem in two episodes or do they leave it hanging for season 2?
Many loose ends to address:
(1) What (if anything) did the ISS Discovery do while in the Federation Universe? The Engage podcast guys suspect perhaps the ISS Discovery helped the Klingons.
(2) How will the Federation recover from what appears to be a military defeat?
(3) Will L'Rell and Tyler-Voq have a role to play in helping Discovery turn the tide of defeat?
(4) What will mirror Georgiou be doing in the Federation Universe?
(5) Will there be more spore drive travel? Perhaps, using it to time travel?
(6) How will the spore drive technology be put back into the proverbial genie bottle? Will there be perhaps some intelligence behind the spore network and they will decide to shut the door to more usage of the network much like how the DS9 wormhole aliens can open or close the wormhole as they wish?
Star Trek Discovery - episode 12 - spoilers ahead
I know I am behind schedule. Episode 13 has already dropped and I'm still catching up on episode 12!
The Engage podcast guys had guessed that Lorca might have been mirror universe Lorca and that is the big reveal in this episode. Thus, everything we have seen from him was all to get himself back into the mirror universe. There now remains two questions for the screenwriters to work out in the next few episode: (1) how did he get to the good-guy Federation universe? (2) what are his intentions in the mirror universe?
Certainly, it appears that he wants to seize power in the mirror universe. However, is it merely a power play in which he is the next one up to run the Terran Empire until someone else kills him off or is it that he turns out to be the lesser of numerous evils and becomes the catalyst for future change? Might mirror Lorca have some ties to the rebellion? Or is he purely an evil-hatted character with no redeeming values at all?
We shall see.
As for how he got to the good-guy Federation universe ...... an open question. The ST-TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror" accomplished the feat during a transporter malfunction during an ion-storm. I think DS9 did the feat by transporter as well. So perhaps Lorca had a transporter accident.
The other (perhaps more likely?) is that he has been working with mirror-Stamets and their tinkering around with the spore-network resulted in an unplanned (or perhaps planned?) transfer to the other universe? Lorca may have made the transition counting on Federation-Stamets to eventually (unintentionally) help Lorca figure out a way for Lorca to get back to he plans for the mirror universe.
We shall see.
The Burnham-Georgiou interaction was ..... grim but interesting. Burnham, out of cards to play, goes with the truth and manages to stay alive. However, the deal to hand over the spore drive technology in exchange for help to get the ship and crew back to the other universe may prove to be a deal she will have to find a way out of later on in the game of cat and mouse. Also, will Burnham back Georgiou in a power play against Lorca?
We shall see how that plays out.
Doug Jones continues to amaze with his acting even if he isn't on the screen a lot. Mary Wiseman didn't have too much to do this episode but am sure she will have some key scenes in episodes ahead.
Meanwhile, am totally confused at how the script-writers created Voq-Tyler! If I heard the dialog right, it is Voq's body surgically altered to be human, Tyler's DNA is slapped onto Voq's cells to fool the Federation doctors, and Voq's personality covered over by a fabricated Tyler personality.
What a mess! The script-writers wanted the Voq-Tyler vs. Mirror Voq moment of confrontation so much that crafted this crazy mix and match of body parts, DNA, and personality!
Lastly, we get to see the meeting of minds between Stamets and mirror-Stamets inside the spore network. He finds out the the network is dying and perhaps it is mirror-Stamets' tinkering with it that has caused problems. Of course, it is possible that Stamets using the network isn't good for the network either. After all, presumably they are both using the network because they injected themselves with some Tardegrade DNA. The Tardegrade was fully optimized to travel in the network. A human-Tardegrade hybrid might be "sub-optimal" just like the Men In Blazers duo. So perhaps Stamets guiding Discovery through the network and who knows what crazy stuff mirror-Stamets is doing with the network in combination has made the whole thing sick and wanting to vomit them out.
In terms of character development, Stamets and Culber get some good lines as Culber re-appears much like Obi-Wan Kenobi giving advice to Luke Skywalker. Culber's lines are vaguely like Kenobi, "The Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together." Substitute the Force with spores and mycelial network binding the universe(s) together. Wonder if someone is putting a TV show or movie pitch merging the Star Wars and Star Trek universes in some fusion of the force's midi-chlorians and Discovery's spore-mycelium.
Anyway, the Stamets' wake up and are able to return to their respective universes or ..... did they swap?
We shall see how that plays out. I hope the fact that Stamets runs immediately to check on the health of the spore forrest indicates it is the correct Stamets in the correct body. Meanwhile mirror-Stamets dashes out of his interface chair in search of his collaborators to explain the new information he has gathered.
Will mirror Stamets turn out to be working with Lorca? Will his brief interaction with Federation-Stamets change his ways?
We shall see how all the crazy threads play out.
Overall, the serialized story telling is an addictive approach. Each thread has had many good moments. The character development and acting has been strong. The pacing of the episodes and production design have been solid.
The weakest components have been the story devices that didn't really pass the "it sort of makes sense" perspective - not that anything in science fiction really has to make sense - but still sometimes there have been some big asks in terms of suspension of disbelief.
Examples:
(1) The Voq-Tyler set-up was the weakest and I have been harping on that from the start.
(2) The technological premise of the spore drive was also a very huge hand-wave.
(3) Various occasions when things happen that don't seem plausible: leaving valuable technology onboard the Shenzou, the stupid way Landry was killed off, Lorca getting kidnapped, Cornwall walking into a trap, Cornwall being left for dead but not being dead, L'Rell being left for dead but not being dead, failure of the medical teams to really check over Tyler until it is too late, failure of the medical team to really check over Stamets until it is almost too late.
The Engage podcast guys had guessed that Lorca might have been mirror universe Lorca and that is the big reveal in this episode. Thus, everything we have seen from him was all to get himself back into the mirror universe. There now remains two questions for the screenwriters to work out in the next few episode: (1) how did he get to the good-guy Federation universe? (2) what are his intentions in the mirror universe?
Certainly, it appears that he wants to seize power in the mirror universe. However, is it merely a power play in which he is the next one up to run the Terran Empire until someone else kills him off or is it that he turns out to be the lesser of numerous evils and becomes the catalyst for future change? Might mirror Lorca have some ties to the rebellion? Or is he purely an evil-hatted character with no redeeming values at all?
We shall see.
As for how he got to the good-guy Federation universe ...... an open question. The ST-TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror" accomplished the feat during a transporter malfunction during an ion-storm. I think DS9 did the feat by transporter as well. So perhaps Lorca had a transporter accident.
The other (perhaps more likely?) is that he has been working with mirror-Stamets and their tinkering around with the spore-network resulted in an unplanned (or perhaps planned?) transfer to the other universe? Lorca may have made the transition counting on Federation-Stamets to eventually (unintentionally) help Lorca figure out a way for Lorca to get back to he plans for the mirror universe.
We shall see.
The Burnham-Georgiou interaction was ..... grim but interesting. Burnham, out of cards to play, goes with the truth and manages to stay alive. However, the deal to hand over the spore drive technology in exchange for help to get the ship and crew back to the other universe may prove to be a deal she will have to find a way out of later on in the game of cat and mouse. Also, will Burnham back Georgiou in a power play against Lorca?
We shall see how that plays out.
Doug Jones continues to amaze with his acting even if he isn't on the screen a lot. Mary Wiseman didn't have too much to do this episode but am sure she will have some key scenes in episodes ahead.
Meanwhile, am totally confused at how the script-writers created Voq-Tyler! If I heard the dialog right, it is Voq's body surgically altered to be human, Tyler's DNA is slapped onto Voq's cells to fool the Federation doctors, and Voq's personality covered over by a fabricated Tyler personality.
What a mess! The script-writers wanted the Voq-Tyler vs. Mirror Voq moment of confrontation so much that crafted this crazy mix and match of body parts, DNA, and personality!
Lastly, we get to see the meeting of minds between Stamets and mirror-Stamets inside the spore network. He finds out the the network is dying and perhaps it is mirror-Stamets' tinkering with it that has caused problems. Of course, it is possible that Stamets using the network isn't good for the network either. After all, presumably they are both using the network because they injected themselves with some Tardegrade DNA. The Tardegrade was fully optimized to travel in the network. A human-Tardegrade hybrid might be "sub-optimal" just like the Men In Blazers duo. So perhaps Stamets guiding Discovery through the network and who knows what crazy stuff mirror-Stamets is doing with the network in combination has made the whole thing sick and wanting to vomit them out.
In terms of character development, Stamets and Culber get some good lines as Culber re-appears much like Obi-Wan Kenobi giving advice to Luke Skywalker. Culber's lines are vaguely like Kenobi, "The Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together." Substitute the Force with spores and mycelial network binding the universe(s) together. Wonder if someone is putting a TV show or movie pitch merging the Star Wars and Star Trek universes in some fusion of the force's midi-chlorians and Discovery's spore-mycelium.
Anyway, the Stamets' wake up and are able to return to their respective universes or ..... did they swap?
We shall see how that plays out. I hope the fact that Stamets runs immediately to check on the health of the spore forrest indicates it is the correct Stamets in the correct body. Meanwhile mirror-Stamets dashes out of his interface chair in search of his collaborators to explain the new information he has gathered.
Will mirror Stamets turn out to be working with Lorca? Will his brief interaction with Federation-Stamets change his ways?
We shall see how all the crazy threads play out.
Overall, the serialized story telling is an addictive approach. Each thread has had many good moments. The character development and acting has been strong. The pacing of the episodes and production design have been solid.
The weakest components have been the story devices that didn't really pass the "it sort of makes sense" perspective - not that anything in science fiction really has to make sense - but still sometimes there have been some big asks in terms of suspension of disbelief.
Examples:
(1) The Voq-Tyler set-up was the weakest and I have been harping on that from the start.
(2) The technological premise of the spore drive was also a very huge hand-wave.
(3) Various occasions when things happen that don't seem plausible: leaving valuable technology onboard the Shenzou, the stupid way Landry was killed off, Lorca getting kidnapped, Cornwall walking into a trap, Cornwall being left for dead but not being dead, L'Rell being left for dead but not being dead, failure of the medical teams to really check over Tyler until it is too late, failure of the medical team to really check over Stamets until it is almost too late.
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