Shuttle Pod At the Disco Spore Jumps Into A Pleasing Mid-Season Finale In ‘Star Trek Discovery’ Episode 9

Join Brian, Jared, and Matt as they talk about episode 9 of Discovery, and since this is the Fall finale, we discuss our overall feelings about the show so far.

Subscribe to Shuttle Pod: The TrekMovie.com Podcast on iTunesGoogle Play Music and Pocket Casts! Like what you hear? Please feel free to leave us a glowing review on iTunes.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 1, Episode 9 – Debuted Sunday November 12th

Written by Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt
Directed by Chris Byrne

At The Disco 8: “Into the Forest I Go”

“Into the Forest I Go” had some very pleasing story lines come full circle, with Burnham returning to the Klingon “Ship of the Dead” and getting Captain Georgiou’s badge back, and looking like a badass taunting and fighting the Klingon leader Kol.

Shazad Latif delivers a compelling performance as the tortured and sexually abused Tyler. L’Rell’s actions continue to intrigue us and Mary Chiefo continues to deliver the most dimensional Klingon character in the series. We all agreed that the Klingon war arc so far has been a little unsatisfying, and that the show needs to do more “showing” and less “telling.” Stamets makes a huge sacrifice to make 133 spore drive jumps in rapid succession, and Lorca continues to surprise us and manipulate not just his crew, but also us the viewer.

And of course we talk about that last fateful jump, what it means for the crew, and just where they might be now, as we anxiously await for the return of Star Trek Discovery in January. 

Listen in to hear our thoughts on the mid-way point of the newest installment of the Star Trek franchise!

19 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Well, I didn’t dislike it as much as other episodes, at least… (Maybe they just ended up in the REAL prime timeline lol) Btw… FIRST!

Mirror Universe for sure.

You know Strength isn’t everything in fights. Burnham is lighter and faster and was also using her Vulcan training to delay. If you notice however she kept getting pushed back and would have eventually lost. The only reason she won was because she was transported away.

Can I ask a question. Where in Canon was it ever stated Only the Romulans developed Cloak? Where in Canon was it stated the Romulan’s gave the Klingon’s cloak? All it ever was is conjecture.

Good question. I’m sure it’s out there (or maybe not), but the Feds figuring out how to detect this more “primitive” version of the Klingon cloak doesn’t mess with anything to me. It would allow everyone moving forward to still be surprised at the “newer” cloaking technology, and not having a line like “this is better tech than the last time we saw it” doesn’t matter to me. Personal preference.

It could be the reason why the Enterprise could detect the Bird of Prey in Balance of terror.

It’s really astonishing how much of Trek canon isn’t really canon, stuff fans have assumed and stated as fact when in reality it was never mentioned on screen. Like Spock being the first Vulcan in starfleet.

A lot of things are derived from books, comics, rpgs, and other non canon sources. Some of what people take as canon is simply inferences that were accepted as fact through osmosis in the fandom.

Off the top of my head i think it was the episode “the Enterprise incident”. It was to explain why the Romulans were using D7s.

Stamets’ became this eps Shuttle Pilot. (He was piloting the ship)

Human interaction, it’s complicated. Even when you think you know someone or how they should react in situations they can still surprise you. Also Berham has been part of the crew for what 2 maybe 3 months? I think the crew just got used to her being there now. Everyone of the crew seemed to be a misfit in some way.

About the Mirror Universe being ridiculous and not plausible…within the theory of infinite divergent universes, there will be an infinity of universes with the Terran Empire, and within that set of universes a (smaller) infinity of universes where the whole TOS crew is alive and on the Enterprise. In fact, the concept of infinite divergent universes basically requires that there be a universe exactly like the Mirror Universe one. Now the problem comes when they revisit that universe later in DS9 (provided it isn’t in fact a different parallel universe that is similar to but different from the one in TOS) where it wouldn’t be logical that all the people would be alive (except Jake) and on Terok Nor.

I’ve said before, TOS got the Klingons right on the first try. John Colicos looked at the script and played it like “The Grand Illusion.” He sat down for a chat with an equal opponent, Kirk, talking about the superior class (kinda). THAT was interesting. Kang was also interesting, but in a different, less 3D way. While I love Worf, I just don’t see TNG-era Klingons as a plausible race. They’re all warriors. How does that get you to the stars?? Enterprise tried to address that with dialogue about how we just don’t see the other parts of Klingon society. Better, but not fully realized. I’d like to see Klingon society… do they like being a military junta? Are there other kinds of Klingons?

Yeah exactly. What are Klingon scientists like? Is there such a thing as a Klingon pacifist? I suppose Gorkon came close. Anyway, it would be nice to see something other than warriors and the odd politician.

I once came up with a story about a trio of Klingon pacifists who were despised by their fellows, but also distrusted by the Enterprise-D crew. Tough place for a Klingon to be, when the ‘savior’ of your race is all-in on the warrior virtues.

I like it!

Klingons are NOT all warriors in the 24th century. We’ve met many who aren’t. There are scientists, merchants, politicians, and so on.

Everytime they don’t adhere to TOS canon (TNG canon be damned)I feel it hurts the series. For instance the cloak.. Discovery should have had no cloak and bringing in cloak made the mid series finale a poorer version of Star Trek VI. Why doesn’t Lorca just fire some torpedoes/phasers on proximity (anyone remember the far cooler Balance of Terror?), the Klingon flagship is just sitting there. Easily could have been solved by saying the Klingons have developed “phase shields” that are making their weapons ineffective/unable to hit targets, absolutely nothing would have changed except it would have made sense. The bridge too big, now Lorca has to walk around aimlessly to talk to his crew… Episode is saved by Michael’s boarding action (cool, boarding parties which totally make sense, why not beam over with raids/explosives when shields are done, etc), Ash’s PTSD with the Admiral was super powerful (her yelling at him felt real, something never seen before in Trek).

They were looking for a way to defeat the cloak not destroy the ship of the dead out right. I’m honestly surprised how many missed that plot point.

I can understand how some of the key aspects of Discovery can hurt your view of the series but honestly there was no consistency in TOS canon. Even if you were going to include TNG canon, which i’m assuming is all the post TOS series, ST:ENT had holodecks, cloaks on non Romulan ships and faster than warp travel.

Great job as always! During the Disco hiatus, it’d be great if you guys did a Shuttlepod podcast with a deep dive on Season 1 of The Orville (after it’s complete) about it’s strengths, weaknesses, similarities, and dissimilarities with Star Trek. LLAP!