“That Hope is You, Part 1”
Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, Episode 1 – Debuted Thursday, October 15, 2020
Written by Michelle Paradise & Jenny Lumet & Alex Kurtzman
Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
Discovery returns in a big way, delivering a different kind of episode, in a different place, but with familiar themes. Even though “That Hope is You, Part 1” is fast-paced and action-packed, it somehow feels more relaxed, settling the series into a new rhythm, especially for its focal character of Michael Burnham. Sonequa Martin-Green steps up to the challenge to carry this episode, ably assisted by new cast member David Ajala.
No, tricorders don’t come in other colors.
WARNING: Spoilers below!
“You have reached the year 3188”
After a brief teaser, which we will pick up on later, season three drops us right back into the action of the season two finale. Michael Burnham emerges from the chaos of the battle with Control on one end of a time-traveling wormhole only to find herself in the middle of an exciting quip-laced space chase on the other, slamming her red angel suit smack damn into the chasee ship, flown by one Cleveland “Book” Solo Booker, sending his freighter and her time suit crashing to the planet below. Welcome to the future, Michael.
After barely surviving the crash landing, the versatile and talkative suit delivers some good news. The mission was successful, the year is 3188 and there are “multiple life signs detected,” so Suity is ordered back through the wormhole to send brother Spock the promised final “red burst” signal in the 23rd century. This bit of business nicely ties up some loose ends from season two and literally puts the Red Angel and all that stuff behind Michael, but also nails down how it was a one-way trip.
After her brief, infectious moment of triumph, Michael finds herself truly alone and it doesn’t look like we’re on the intended target of Terralysium (where mom holed up in the future), but in the magnificent desolation of some other alien planet, beautifully shot on location in Iceland. With Discovery nowhere to be found, all she has to hold on to now is a sparse field kit, and a mantra… name, rank, and Starfleet serial number.
With no better options, she heads to the ship she smacked into, only to run smack into the angry captain who wants nothing to do with her. After some fun flirty fighting, the pair comes to an accord. She needs a way to communicate with the Disco and he needs dilithium to get his ship off the ground but he is space broke—yes he really said: “I’m space broke.” Should we trust this guy? For that reason alone, almost certainly not, but it’s all she can do, so off they head to the space market to trade her space antiques to get him some space rocks.
Some space women just want to watch the world burn.
“You believe in ghosts”
As the pair travel to an impressive alien “Mercantile,” Sonequa Martin-Green and David Ajala quickly fall into some promising chemistry as Book starts with the exposition we have all been waiting for, delivered impressively by someone new to all this technobabble. Turns out the Federation collapsed about a century before, not long after something called “The Burn.” In the late 31st century most of the dilithium in the galaxy exploded, and thus warp travel became very difficult, but not entirely eliminated.
Now only “true believers” talk of the good old days of the Federation. And that’s all it takes to light the torch in this season’s Michael Burnham. She started a war with the Klingons, which she then ended. She took on and defeated an evil AI hell-bent on wiping out the galaxy. Telling this woman technological and societal collapse has taken down the interstellar institution at the core of her being only gives her a new to-do list.
Oh, and by the way, Book waves his hand over that one-way trip to the future, informing us that all time travel technology was destroyed and outlawed after the “Temporal Wars.” Michael has no time to regret giving up what may be the only hope for ever returning home to the 23rd century, she now has a whole new century to save. It’s convenient, it’s a bit cheesy, but Sonequa Martin-Green sells it. Give us a ticket to the Save the Federation ride.
Oh, hello there.
“I haven’t been shot in a while”
The bulk of the episode plays out as half space buddy cop movie / half space heist movie, with this unlikely pair finagling their way into the high-security market to pull off their trade. To drive home the point that things are different in the 32nd century, this place is run by an alliance of Orions and Andorians, something you wouldn’t find back in the 23rd.
Book is a regular in this nicely detailed future-yet-familiar hologragram-filled auction house, revealing himself to be a courier delivering the goods sold here in return for barely enough dilithium for the next job. And he fits in with all unsavory characters, so to no one’s surprise, Cleveland double-crosses Michael to take all her “antiques,” leaving her under arrest and interrogated by an Andorian/Orion comedy duo-turned tough guys.
This all leads to the funniest and fastest bit of character development Burnham has ever experienced, all thanks to a mind-altering drug they gave her to spill the beans on Book, which she promptly did. She also used this trip to get in some much-needed reflection, with the epiphany, “I’m so supportive! I am overcompensating!” and “I am done being reflexively supportive.” But her bragging “I saved all the things” shows Michael still needs some more time on the space couch. Okay, I’ll stop, but they started it.
It’s not too long until everyone is pointing cool guns at each other, including that Cosmo guy from that chase scene. Turns out Book stole Cosmo’s cargo, which he stole from someone else, so that makes it okay then, right? After some more fun subtle chemistry, Ajala and Martin-Green adroitly switch to action mode, taking out lots of thugs and pulling off a dilithium heist while they are at it, escaping with fancy 32nd-century personal transporters. Oops, bad guys have those too, so we get an extended fight-transport-fight again sequence masterfully shot by director Osunsanmi through a sequence of breathtaking locations.
Eventually, the gaggle of alien goons catch up with our heroes and demand the cargo be returned, which turns out to be a giant “trance worm” that begins to mesmerize and eat its way through the bad guys. It even swallows Burnham until Book shows he speaks worm and convinces it to spit her out. She is just having the weirdest day… and it’s a lot of fun watching it all happen to her.
I’m still high, is that a weapon or does he want to take a selfie with me?
“That hope is you, Commander Burnham.”
So this Book fella isn’t just a roguish freighter pilot. He’s got history; he’s an exile from a planet of poachers. He has some embedded tech and also some kind of genetic makeup that gives him special abilities, including being able to commune with plants and animals. Oh, and he has a big, fat cat named Grudge, who he says is “a queen.”
And with all the running and shooting together, this pair has finally bonded. Without the Federation around to protect those in need, Book’s brand of saving the space worms will do in a pinch. He also wins some points for recognizing all she has given up to save the future, the future he lives in. He first takes her to Sanctuary 4, a sort of refuge for trance worms and like-minded alien animal lovers. So we can see there are still people out there, ready for a new Federation.
Speaking of which, it’s time to return to that brief teaser where we saw a sole figure dutifully manning some kind of facility like a lonely Maytag repairman of what’s left of Federation. Turns out Book knows about this abandoned relay station and they visit to meet Federation Liaison Aditya Sahil, where the feels well up as he greets them with “Welcome to Starfleet, may I help you?” and she can only choke out her mantra: name, rank, and serial number.
Veteran Indian actor Adil Hussain really kills it as this tragic and yet delightful man tells his story of waiting decades for someone from Starfleet to finally come to this station he was born on, protecting a Federation flag handed down from generation to generation. We learn that communications and sensor range is limited, with only two Federation ships detected within a 600 light-year radius, and neither is the Discovery. And the realization that the Disco may be too far away to detect, or even worse, may not arrive for years—maybe centuries—is a gut punch.
Clearly, Michael and Book and the Discovery crew (who are bound to show up at some point) are going to have their work cut out for them, so it’s a good thing she nabbed all that dilithium. There’s not a dry eye in the house as Burnham commissions Sahil into Starfleet to join their cause—her little band of true believers. Buoyed by a powerful score, this episode has earned it as the newly-minted acting Communications Chief declares, “Our numbers are few, our spirit is undiminished.”
Now, about my back pay…
ANALYSIS
Risk is the business
Like any good Star Trek show, Discovery is all about the family. Yet after waiting for over a year, showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise decided to limit us to just one member of the Disco clan, leaving fans of Saru, Tilly, Stamets, Linus, and the rest wanting. This was a bold strategy, but for the most part, it paid off. Yes, Michael Burnham is the lead character of Discovery, but setting up an episode as a two-person movie set in an entirely alien locale works to reset the show, with none of the trappings to ground us in the familiar. We are not in Kansas anymore; in fact, we aren’t even sure there IS a Kansas anymore.
This plan only worked because Sonequa Martin-Green can carry an episode almost entirely on her own. She continues to show great range, and Burnham also appears to evolve and is even starting to have a little fun, something sorely lacking in this Vulcan-raised guilt-ridden science officer. Maybe she needs to get high more often. And David Ajala showed he is as good as advertised, keeping up with her along the way and quickly developing good chemistry that is going to be critical for season three to even work. Jason Isaacs and Anson Mount may have left big shoes to fill, but Ajala is doing just fine wearing his own boots.
The Burn has brought steam power back.
Even though Burnham is taking on the weight of the galaxy yet again, they’re dialing back the inclination to turn her into a superhero, which was done to excess in the season two opener. In fact, in this episode she’s mostly doing her best to hang on for the ride, with Book doing all the clever parts. However, while the episode was good at reaching for the hopeful ideals of Star Trek as a goal, it did lean too heavily on finding violent ends for most of the obstacles put in their path.
Giving us a whole new episode set on a strange new world—two strange new worlds actually—definitely upped the Star Trek quotient. This was enhanced by taking full advantage of the location shooting in Iceland, something classic Trek shows could only dream of doing. What we have seen so far of the 32nd century is unique and intriguing, with some curious technology and curiouser people. The props, costumes, effects, makeup, and production design teams are all in top form. CBS (and Netflix) are still sparing no expense for Discovery, and it shows.
Transporters are now portable, but rust remains a challenge in the 32nd
Slow burn
With Control and the seven red signals behind us, the big mystery of season three is The Burn, the cataclysm that led to the collapse of the Federation. For those keeping score, TrekMovie theorized The Burn was related to warp travel and communications being wiped out due to the destruction of subspace via an Omega explosion. So we were in the ballpark, sort of… although Book also made mention of the Gorn destroying a bit of subspace, so there is that.
Warp travel has been dramatically reduced, due to the severely limited availability of dilithium. And apparently there are only a few subspace channels of communication available. While it would have been nice to see something tied into Trek history at the core of this mystery, perhaps there is a theme here related to the scarcity of this precious commodity.
There are many questions remaining to be answered throughout the season, starting with why most dilithium suddenly exploded over a century prior to Michael’s arrival. There was a tiny bit of handwaving (that will hopefully not be the extent of explaining) why other forms of faster-than-light travel are also not stepping in to replace dilithium-fueled warp drives. The biggest thing will be the search for a way to undo The Burn. This will likely lead to finding out who was behind it, as they will almost certainly try to stop Burnham and the Discovery on their quest to restore the Federation.
There is also the issue with time travel. As we noted recently, temporal tech was common in the 31st century. Book made mention of this tech being destroyed and outlawed after the “Temporal Wars,” which likely refers to Enterprise’s Temporal Cold War, which may have flared up again in the 31st century. Hopefully, we get a bit more detail beyond that. And even if the tech doesn’t exist, shouldn’t the fundamental science still work? If going home is just a slingshot around the sun away (in a ship without sphere data onboard), hopefully, the answer to the question as to why the Discovery crew stays in the 32nd will be satisfactorily answered at some point.
And now there are a number of intriguing new mysteries to unravel, like what exactly is the deal with Book and his glowing forehead? And what’s up with his cat?
You’d think after nine centuries there would be less walking.
Let’s get this party restarted
This return of Star Trek: Discovery should come as a delight and relief for fans of the show, who have been waiting for eighteen months. Even though this was a “Part 1,” with next week’s episode promising us a look in on how Saru and the gang are doing, it delivered a solid self-contained story. You can almost feel the weight of the 23rd century lift off the writers’ room as Michelle Paradise, Jenny Lumet, and Alex Kurtzman have a little fun penning this outing, as well as indulging in some cheesy dialog. And director Olatunde Osunsanmi also relaxes a bit, settling in to bring us a nicely-paced episode that finds time for some quiet moments. Even with all the action, he tones down some of the extraneous frenzy (and crazy camera moves) seen in season two.
And kudos to composer Jeff Russo, his musicians, and especially his engineers, who put together an impressive score for a different kind of episode. And they did it all without ever leaving their homes, which is even more impressive.
Star Trek: Discovery is in a whole new place right now, in many ways. Last season also started with a promising opener, only to see mixed results as season two progressed, so there are no guarantees. But season three has all the right components to be the best one yet. It will be the first with the same showrunners throughout. It is set in its own unique era, with “fresh snow” to plow. It is now part of a larger family of Star Trek shows, taking some of the pressure off of carrying the franchise on its own. For now, it is a time for optimism. “Hope is a powerful thing”… indeed.
We’re not a prequel anymore!
Random bits
- Runtime is 51:16 (without promo)
- The planet Burnham lands on initially is called Hima
- Cosmo was a Betelgeusian (a species invented for Star Trek: The Motion Picture) and he was played by David Benjamin Tomlinson (Linus)
- The Andorian makeup has been unnecessarily updated with some extraneous bits
- The thugs employed by the Andorians and Orions included a Tellarite and a Lurian (like Morn), and some cool new aliens
- Programmable matter is going to be a big thing this season, so get used to that ‘forming’ effect
- Tilly should never be given that truth drug
- Grudge is a queen
Will that Lurian please shut up?
More to come
Every Friday the new TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek Podcast covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe and discusses the latest episode. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery premiere on Thursdays on CBS All Access in the U.S. and on CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada, where it’s also available to stream on Crave. Episodes are available on Fridays internationally on Netflix.
Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.
The irony of shooting in a location used as massive, gigantic, time travel machine in 12 Monkeys…
What location is that?
I meant to reply to Nacham instead of Michael Sacal in posting that the location shooting took place in Iceland. I’m still getting the hang of these replies.
The Hearn Generating Station used as the setting of the Mercantile. It was also used in 12 Monkeys.
The location shooting took place in Iceland.
The outer edge of the Federation emblem reminded me of the Romulan one. So I looked for more- does that inner edge look Borg? Do the stars half-look Klingon? Am I imagining things?
There are definitely those similarities. However, I’d say it looks more like a deteriorating Federation flag. The outer arcs used to be olive branches. Now it’s streamlined with most leaves missing. The inner arcs used to be the circle around the stars, but it’s faded into two arcs. The stars have dark centers, showing they are going out. I’d say it’s to recognize the devastation that The Burn wrought.
The episode was fun and enjoyable. I will watch it a second time.
Michael Burnham and Book have interesting chemistry together on screen. They seem to be the perfect couple.
Seeing Andorians and Orions again was cool.
I want to know what the burn is.
What caused the dilithium to explode? How did it explode?
Book has superpowers. He can talk to animals somehow. I’m really getting into it.
Grudge gives baby Yoda a run for his money. Cats are the queen!
Star Trek: Discovery and The Mandalorian.
Star Trek and Star Wars in one month. What can a fan ask for.
Well, it’s the 31st century. I think it had something to do with Mom and Professor Farnsworth putting two dodecahedral crystals together… quantum physics, you know.
lol as Cubert would say ‘nothing is impossible!’
There was a conspicuous lack of suicide booths in that episode though.
Behold the savior of the universe.. again.. and again.. she is the best hope for all..
And yet, ppl still hate the character, no matter how much they try to sell it, they FAIL.
Episode was action package, nothing more to said..
Athus maybe you should take a truth drug
lol
Sigh…!
“People still hate the character.”
No. You speak only for yourself, no one else. A lot of people LOVE the character. The failure is all yours. I will never understand why some delusional, dysfunctional fans seem to think that just because they like or dislike something, that means everyone does. It’s such a bizarre way of thinking.
Warning for trolling.
CLOSED
That Han Solo joke would have worked better if Book were actually like Han Solo, which he isn’t.
Please elaborate.
What Han Solo joke?
Stop being so edgy Rios. It’s getting stale.
It might have been because the trance worms were essentially this show’s version of rathtars.
Doesn’t shoot first? Wrong color?
Yawn.
Why is this episode called That Hope Is You (Part 1), next episode is called Far From Home. There is no Part 2…
I bet it is because the last episode will be Part 2 to bookend the whole season.
The last episode of the season is called Outside.
My bad. Lost the bet then (so much for not looking up the info) :)
Part 2 will be the first episode of Seaon 4.
That’s an interesting theory.
There’s a secret 14th episode that they haven’t told us about yet :-)
Fascinating! That is curious.
loved it. SMG is a joy. humor. action. heart… with both the federation values and the saving endangered species. A+
I’m intrigued and amused.
I also appreciated the choice to let Burnham’s separate path appear in a separate episode rather than alternating with events on Discovery as was done in many season two episodes.
I thought that different choices could have been made by the director for her initial emotions.
She could have been expected to be on the ragged edge by the time she came out in the future, but as a test pilot I would have expected her to lock into hypercalm mode coming out of the collision with Book’s ship. We saw that when she escaped the brig in The Battle of the Binary Stars, as well as in Brother in the asteroid field.
Once on the ground, I found her emotions more credible for the personality type and training.
I know what you mean. The rattling off of her name, rank, and Starfleet registry number seemed a little off the wall. It felt like a bit of a call back to Spock in TOS’ “Naked Time” stating his duty to regain emotional control, and maybe a subtle reference to her Vulcan upbringing. I suppose maybe crashing into a planet head first and surviving might leave one a bit unhinged.
I rewatched the last episode before watching this one and though emotion was warranted, but agree it was over the top
Absolutely! Finally this is feeling like Star Trek! After the Picard travesty, and hit and miss with previous Discovery seasons, this is feeling right. Please, please let the whole season be this good!!! Star Trek is back, baby!
OK.
Well, CBSAA still is glitchy. I went to start this episode and the season finale from S2 started! I had to forward all they way to the end to get that damn thing to run this episode. This streaming service is crap, technically.
Be warned… I’m going into this show with a terrible attitude because the first two seasons were so amazingly bad. So I expect this one to be bad as well. So to be fair, I very well may be actively looking for flaws.
The first thing I noticed is that the 32nd century doesn’t look much different from the 23rd century as presented in STD’s season 1 & 2. This is a flaw with the production designers and the producers. But again this sort of thing is not expected.
Why would she send the suit back? That made ZERO sense. That suit very much seemed like something she would REALLY need. Knowing nothing about where she was would mean she absolutely should have kept it. Also, for something they put together in like a couple of hours it sure had a whole lot of features one would think they wouldn’t need. All the more reason to keep it.
The other big issue I had was why would Michael suddenly trust Book after he just betrayed her moments earlier? They gave each other a look and that told both that they would work together to escape? Are you kidding me?
I’m really hoping we get a good reason why they don’t have a dilithium replacement or for why they cannot scan beyond such a tiny radius. Even with this so-called “burn” it seems unreasonable.
That final scene had potential to be heart warming and perhaps even an emotional one. But it didn’t work because the show hasn’t earned it.
That’s it for now. I’m sure there are a lot of other flaws others will bring up. It’s only the first episode so to be fair the jury is still out. As I said before for this season to work the story HAS to be really good. The characters are monumentally weak so anything that relies on them will result in failure.
I have not seen the episode but the thing with the suit is just a glaring example that the writers probably still are not not taking the time to think things thru. I get that you want to get rid of the suit because it can easily become another magic ocarina, but if you want to send a message back thru time to someone who, from your new perspective, has now been dead for over 800 years, there’s really no need to do it right away. She could do it 10 or 50 years later and the result would be the same.
It made a lot of sense to me. She’s in an unknown and potentially hostile environment.
She needs to activate it’s self destruct as soon as possible, and as a commissioned officer who has served in wartime she would do that ahead of any consideration for her own life.
Burnham can’t take the chance that the time suit might fall into enemy or uninformed hands. She has know way to know that temporal technology was commonplace and then banned in the intervening centuries.
The 23rd century survival kit is the kind of bug-out kit a trained pilot would take with them in hostile territory.
This. ^^ The suit was badly damaged, and a liability if it fell into the wrong hands. Also, just because there are lifeforms around doesn’t necessarily mean they are even technologically capable. For all she knew, people were back to stone age times. If that was the case, the suit is already damaged and might be about to brick up on her without a way to fix it. She wanted to send the signal and destroy it before anything untoward happened to her or the suit. That meant much more to her than her own life.
No, I disagree. It was a foolish decision. She very much needed that suit. She was in the far future. That suit would be a relic. But one that she very much could have used. Sending the final signal was not important in any way shape or form. The idea that it might fall into enemy hands makes zero sense. Why would an enemy even WANT 900 year old tech except to sell to a collector and make money?
Not unless that suit went back in time and caused “the Burn”. ;-)
Which is a pretty good reason to NOT do it.
Why would that even have been a consideration for Michael? She didn’t know about the Burn at this point, and beyond that, she specifically instructs the suit to self-destruct after sending the final signal.
Didn’t matter. She had no idea what was going on. That suit was a vital piece of tech she very well might have a need to use. Going back and stopping the burn ended up being a good reason to keep it.
“Why would she send the suit back?“
Because the suit is needed to make the 7th signal that Spock is waiting for (end of S2). Burnham promised her brother she would make the 7th signal to fulfill the vision.
That is a foolish thing to do. There was no reason she needed to do it right then. She could have held onto the suit and done it when she was on her death bed or if she died willed someone else to do it. Further, she didn’t HAVE to do it at all. The “vision” didn’t need to be accurate. The universe wouldn’t explode had she not done it. It was monumentally stupid to willingly give up such a tremendously useful tool without any knowledge of where she was and what the circumstances were.
The time crystal was burned out. She had to send the suit back before the wormhole closed.
^^^ This.
It still seemed to be working. Even if it could no longer time travel it still worked for all that other stuff that seemed to be added to it. Seems like it still very well could be a very useful thing and why could she not maybe find another *sigh* time crystal?
All that “other” stuff had nothing to do with the time crystal. The suit obviously had a power source for its regular functions independent of the time crystal. Beyond that, it was hard enough to get the first time crystal, there’s no guarantee she’d find another one – especially 930 some years in the future.
You missed the point. The other functions are why it was a good idea to keep the suit. Yes, it was hard in her day. But maybe not 900 years later? She has no idea. It’s hardly a bad risk to take. Kinda pessimistic to just assume she would never find not just a *sigh* “time crystal” but perhaps something else that would work.
Good point!
Well, I think it had more to do with letting Spock know she had made it than arbitrarily fulfilling his vision.
exactly
Which is a very unimportant thing.
Its just humane !
How is it humane to fulfil a vision that does not help anyone in any way? If it was just to give Spock closure he is striving to be fully Vulcan and doesn’t need it. And doing so only has the potential to make her life more difficult. The “humane” thing to do is keep the suit. The hell with the last signal.
It doesn’t make sense to send it back just because she promised her brother. I’m sure he wouldn’t want her to be stranded on what could have been a barren world with nothing but a field kit. Doesn’t even make sense for the mission. If Discovery had the data, she would have needed to confirm Discovery’s location at least, or the mission was not complete. To do that, she needed the suit, not hope.
The other thing that bothers me is, what if she hadn’t run into Book? What was the plan for when she came out of the wormhole? Eject herself into space to return the suit?
The plan was that she came out of the wormhole over Teralysium. She had to send the signal to close the time loop, they learned of 7 signals in season 2, not 6. All the plot points and data is there, you just need to follow, and not forge things. Everything else is just actively searching for flaws to make something intentionally bad.
Boom, you got it
It sounds like you are saying she had to do it because the writers didn’t think things through.
To me it sounds like you don’t know how the writing process looks and under what kind of pressure the writers are to deliver something on time for us to scrutinize. Also, if you want to write a season full of interesting and challenging storylines for a character/show, you can’t let the main character with a deus ex machina device which can solve every problem. Like the writers on TNG heated the replicator, did you know? If not you are not a trek fan and should spend a little more time on BTS footage of old and new trek.
Now it sounds like you didn’t like having someone point out a potential mistake and took it personally. The deadlines streamers are under are NOTHING compared to traditional television seasons with actual strict deadlines and lengthy seasons. If a streaming product gets delayed it really isn’t all that big a deal.
True, the time suit does create a problem. But it was those writers who came up with the ridiculous concept to begin with. And they just slapped this thing together in a couple of hours. Seems like something they could VERY easily duplicate pretty much at any time. Which is your deus ex machina right there. I realize its a fantastic device that could help but that is the problem. She got rid of it. They could have found some way to lose it that made more sense. But instead they had her WILLINGLY get rid of it just to fulfill some worthless vision that wasn’t needed or necessary. It shows a failure of the writers.
I am aware of the shortcomings of the TNG writers. But BTS info doesn’t excuse foolish writing.
I get what the actual plan overall is. You’re missing my point. If Book hadn’t run into her, she would have been floating in space, presumably waiting for Discovery to emerge behind her. She’d be running scans, trying to figure out where she was, etc. But then the wormhole would start closing… What was she supposed to do then? Eject from the suit in the middle of space just to send it back and ‘close the loop’? I understand she had to do it because it happened, but it happened because things were written to play out this way. We’re supposed to accept that from our vantage point as the audience, but from her perspective it still doesn’t make sense to abandon what could have been her only resource when the mission wasn’t complete. It makes it seem like in-universe she’s just going on faith that things will work out, while outside of the story, it just seems like things are being written to follow a certain path without any other consideration. I didn’t have to look for that flaw, it found me, as I was watching it. I’m sorry if you just accept what you’re watching without consideration. I actually care if things make sense and follow an internal logic.
That are a lot of Ifs. It actually makes sense the way it happened. Maybe read my reply to ML31 above it makes perfect sense for the writers and the story to get rid of the suit. And yes I can consider a storyline and scrutinize, but when you write a story and want there to be a challenge for your main character and crew, you don’t let them have a deus ex machina device, or do you want that?
Obviously I don’t want that, I’ve been outspoken about deus ex machina plot devices before. It’s why I’ve been wary about the notion of going forward in time because it will take some good writing and some thought to make it both believable and to not use such devices to escape situations like TNG and VOY were increasingly guilty of.
I don’t think you’re getting my point though. From our perspective, it all ‘makes sense’ (arguable) that things work out because we can see everything that happens, but that’s just because the writers need to make things happen a certain way to make everything work together. That doesn’t mean that from the character’s perspective that everything makes sense. And while I enjoyed S2 more than S1 and thought that it was at least more tonally consistent, I thought the plot was overly complicated. Did the writers have to include that last signal to begin with? No. They probably thought it added more mystery and a nice little moment for Spock. But as a consequence, they were stuck with trying to make it work.
Also, the suit didn’t have to be a significant plot device by that point. The suit, like the rest of her tech, was ancient. The time crystal was burnt out so it couldn’t be used for time-travel. There really wasn’t anything significant about it anymore. BUT, it had the ability to to get her around, it had sensors, and it had comms. Things she needed not only for her survival, but to complete the mission. WE know she couldn’t have these things because she had to meet Book. But MICHAEL didn’t know what she was going to find, and so left a LOT up to chance. Just because the writers had to write themselves out of the corner they wrote themselves into, doesn’t justify or excuse the fact that they put themselves in that position to begin with. But this is what happens when you throw a bunch of ‘cool ideas’ together and THEN string them together into a plot.
“The time crystal was burnt out so it couldn’t be used for time-travel. There really wasn’t anything significant about it anymore. BUT, it had the ability to to get her around, it had sensors, and it had comms. Things she needed not only for her survival, but to complete the mission. “
Yes. That was my point, too. Also, since it is the far future there could also be the very real possibility (even though the writers could just say they are gone or destroyed or whatnot) that she might find *sigh* time crystals or some alternative. Destroying the suit willingly was just plain foolish.
She just gave up her entire life for the mission, to get the spore data embedded in Discovery out of the 23rd century.
Destroying the suit and it’s records was essential to the success of the mission and was paramount.
Her own personal survival was never the priority, and if she died in space due to a low probability collision near her target exit time and place, she’d already accepted the risk.
I just don’t get why people keep asking why she wouldn’t take a risk that could sabotage everything she and the Discovery had sacrificed for.
Except it wasn’t. The super AI was gone. It wasn’t coming back. And it WASN’T in the 23rd century anymore. That was the point. Move it so far to the future that the evil AI couldn’t get it. So again, there was no reason to destroy the suit. Watching the scene I was completely perplexed as to why she would do it and it still doesn’t make sense. Sure, she was ready to lose her life over this if need be. But when it became apparent she was not going to why destroy a piece of tech that could be extremely helpful to her survival? If she wanted to die then send the suit back and phaser herself.
You have a lot of questions ML31. I’m not as harsh like you are. You gotta have a little faith.
The ships can still go warp to a degree without a typical warp drive. Obviously you are a hater.
ML is not a ‘hater,’ Faze, but simply wants a better show. And I agree. DSC was so bad in the first two seasons in my opinion, I’ll need to read A LOT of good reviews to watch any more of it. That doesn’t make me a ‘hater,’ it means I’m demanding a better product of my favorite franchise. Having an opinion that differs from yours doesn’t make someone a ‘hater.’ Please, stop blindly using current buzz words. Suggestion: devote your other 65 posts here a day to something other than name-calling.
Forgive me but I think after 26 episodes with a lengthy break after 13 they have used up their allotment of fans having “faith” in them. Plus, the fact that they are behind a pay wall means they really shouldn’t have been given any “faith” to begin with. You charge customers for this like you charge for a movie then it’s reasonable to treat the show like you would treat a movie. One doesn’t say, ‘wait for the sequel… It will get better.’ No, You pay your money you have the right to expect it to be good right away.
I suspect the reason they don’t have traditional warp drive is just the reason to make the Discovery with their spore drive a very valuable asset indeed.
And no, this does not make me a “hater”. I just want a good product. The fact that we have different takes on the show does not make one a “hater”.
The same production gave you Lower Decks. Kurtzman also stated like 1000 times now they want to make different shows for different fans/tests. If Discovery is not for you, go watch Lower Decks, if Lower Decks is not for you wait for the Pike show,… I bet you will find something you like. And if you as a “Terek” fan don’t like Lower Decks you are dead inside.
Holding up Lower Decks as evidence that SH is capable of doing a good Trek show is a mistake. That show failed miserably to hit its target. Yes, we all know about the different tones. But even different tones need to be watchable for what they are. And I am indeed looking forward to the Pike show but given the track record the odds are high it will not be good. Even knowing it is a different tone from the other shows. Even though more than half the producing staff is involved with at least two other Trek shows.
Strong words in your final sentence. I don’t know what “Terek” is but perhaps one of them might love LDX. I, as a Trek fan, was not pleased with the final product because I was expecting comedy in this self described comedy show. Just dishing out fan-gasms over 10 episodes doesn’t make it funny. Some were clever, yes. Funny? No. But if you find Trek references a riot then that show is definitely for you. But not for someone looking for comedy.
OK had a typo there sorry I’m human. Your argument is so insane I laughed almost falling from my chair. First when Lowed decks aired everyone was like (I bet you too) “They are ripping off the Orville because people liked it”. Then Lower Decks evolved from a pure comedy show to a great Star Trek show and you come back with this? So you can’t handle a bit of comedy in your drama and vice versa, are you so close minded. Every outside observer reading your comment’s can see right through you.
??? No… I never got the impression that anyone thought they were ripping off The Orville. I’d also question how popular The Orville really is considering it got shoved off the major network and relegated to Hulu. But since you brought it up, The Orville had more laughs their 2nd season, the season where they all but completely abandoned the comedy aspect of their show, than LDX (a self proclaimed comedy) had in their entire 10 episode run. But I have a question… When was Lower Decks ever a “pure comedy” show? When it was first pitched? Maybe.
Who says I can’t handle comedy in my drama? Or vice versa? That came out of nowhere. Comedy can work quite well in drama. It can work vice versa but it’s more difficult. But here, we are talking about a full on comedy.
Outside observers would understand exactly the point I’m making. Anything less is an insult to them.
He’s not a hater. What he tends to be is objective. When something doesn’t work it doesn’t work and this episode fell into some of the traps of seasons 1 and 2 of conveniently explaining away things that don’t quite fit the narrative. There was no hate in his post, just observations.
Nah, I think you guys missed the cohesion of the storyline connecting season 2 and 3. The signals, the suit, everything Burnham did makes perfect sense for the situation and what came before. Also did everyone forget that the suit is tethered to the Wormhole and is being pulled back in before it closes, like Burnham’s moms was? You are not objective f you turn a blind eye for everything that works and concentrate on the flaws, quite the opposite.
Yeah, it’s all a bit convoluted and convenient for the story’s purposes, but I think it all hangs together (if only just barely).
no its not convoluted. She HAD to send the suit back to finish the time loop
If there was nothing that would pull the suit back then there really was no reason she HAD to send the suit back. So the 7th signal never comes. So what?
In the other timeline where the writers would make the decision not to send the 7th signal, you would rip them apart that the time loop was not closed and now all of season 2 makes no sense ;)
What other timeline? And season 2 made no logical sense to begin with.
If that is the case then it is an example flawed writing. They were relying on the audience remembering something very small that was mentioned on a show they saw over a year ago. The smart move would be to have the computer in the suit say something to remind the audience that the suit was going back to the wormhole with her in it or not. And then somehow get the point across that she would not survive if she went back it with for some reason. That would explain the need to set the suit to destruct and get out as quick as possible. But NONE of that was made clear in this episode.
I take your word for it that was the case. I don’t recall it and honestly I don’t want to re-watch the episode, even that portion of it, to find out.
Yes I agree they could have written it in a better way, but I don’t expect the majority of Star Trek episodes to be perfect, none of them in the history of Trek are, but a few excellent perfect exceptions ;)
No they don’t need to be perfect and I do not expect them to be. If the show can deliver an overall quality product small plot holes or writing mistakes can be forgiven. But if the show is not well done overall those same mistakes and flubs go from small to huge.
The CBS All Access site works fine for me, maybe user error.
This is not the first time CBS has started playing the episode from BEFORE the episode of the show I selected.
It very well could be that CBSAA is not using very good tech. But even Netflix fails to load a show from time to time. But the fact is I have had way more issues with CBS than Netflix. Only had Disney+ for a week and never had an issue with them over that week.
Personally, I haven’t had a single streaming issue with anything on AA since Ep 1.5 of DSC.
In regards to sending the suit back there are two main reasons. One, as some have stated before, she needs to send the suit back so it set of the 7th and final signal. As for why she had to send it immediately and not just wait for another time, remember that the time crystal only had enough power for one more wormhole – so the minute this wormhole closes that’s the end of it; if she doesn’t send the signal now she never will be able to. Second, and this is more speculation on my part, when she sends the suit back she specifically instructs it to send the 7th signal and then self-destruct. My guess is that Michael is concerned with the power of the suit, and doesn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands in the past (i.e. Control).
Now, could Michael have sent the 7th signal through the wormhole without sending the suit back? Maybe? But from a narrative perspective it’s better to just get rid of the suit at this point as it is far too overpowered (which was indeed a problem with the writing from last season), and led to too many instances of deus ex machina last season.
I think that’s a perfect summary of the reasons for the suit going back, including the narrative need to just get rid of the damn thing.
But why does there need to be a 7th signal? The universe won’t cease to be if it never comes. If she had enough power for one more time jump, why not use it for herself to go back? Getting rid of the suit because it was too powerful from a narrative standpoint is just dumb. It was those same writers that dreamed the thing up to begin with. They should be forced to live with their mistake. Not come up with some illogical reason to get rid of it. She should have kept it. It makes ZERO sense for her to dump it unless, as was said earlier, it was indeed tied into the wormhole and was going to get sucked back into it no matter what. But then the next logical question would be… Why not just go back with it? She no longer needed to worry about *sigh* control. In fact, its destruction removed any reason for them to jump to the future in the first place. If she was worried about how powerful it is then she could go back, get picked up, then destroy it. But then, if they made it in a hour or two, there is no reason someone else could do the same thing the very next day. So why it really makes no sense to destroy it in the first place.
All of this, quite frankly, is the result of bad plotting. Which is an issue that has plagued SH from the very beginning.
For me the basic problem is not even nitpicking basic plot logic and science anymore but the formula is not Star Trek to me, it’s lightweight generic scifi, looking like a movie blockbuster but script-wise one of those cheap forgettable 90s tv productions. And dont get me started on Burnham (again) – the woman is on drugs (gee, literally)! The pain of watching this endless grimacing is approaching Picardian eyeballs for me.
As for you, the final scene was also the only part that should be a saving grace but really couldn’t because this house is build on a quicksand of emotions and explosions.
No, I’m not going to rewatch.
@Vulcan Soul: If you dislike the show so much then why are you even watching and commenting? Do something more constructive with your time
I want it to be better of course! Less than one hour per week for a few weeks is a sensible time investment (Im not watching anything else). Just no rewatches for me.
There’s got to be something else that will hold your interest, somewhere.
Her grimacing isn’t as annoying as Stammets’ persistent “hurt puppy”-face. (And that’s coming from someone who enjoys DISCO.)
I know what you mean, but I gotta say its not just about quality of annoyance but also quantity :D That puppy face showed up exactly ZERO times in the reviewed episode. Burnham Antics, however….
Exactly this.
When the episode ended, the first thing that came to my mind was that this episode didn’t feel anything like a Star Trek episode. It’s just a series of (often violent) action scenes strung together in an apocalyptic setting. Indeed, very reminiscent of those generic 90’s tv shows, but now with a much larger budget.
Second big problem with this show, at least for me, is that they continue to make Burnham the central focus but Sonequa Martin-Green just does not have what it takes to carry a show.
This 3rd season just feels like more of the same: Burnham (with a little help of the Discovery crew) has to save the universe/Federation. It’s clear that the producers of this show have settled on this formula and they are intent on continuing with it no matter what. The only thing they have changed is the century the show is set in, so that those pesky fans can’t complain about canon violations anymore.
here we go again with glitchy. It isn’t CBSAA, it is your internet connection
And yet other streaming services work much better. If it was my internet why would everything else work except CBSAA?
It’s CBSAA. It’s substandard, just like Showtime, another CBS product.
And there is no excuse for that, either. I had Disney for a week with no problems. It feels like CBS launched WAY before they were ready.
Good episode. I’m hoping the writers continue to tone down Burnham’s excessive sass and know it all behavior. I re-watched the last episode of season 2 last night. Oh my goodness. I didn’t remember just how much every moment was baked in Burnham knowing everything and every time something didn’t go her way, she just told someone to eff off the assembly or give a massive eye roll when she couldn’t break the laws of physics. I like how she is a fish out of water and she has to chill out and just take things in and gain new perspective, rather than being a know it all. Her character was great in this episode. I actually wanted to go on the journey with her.
This very nicely says what I’ve been trying to formulate in my brain. Thank you for saving me the excess mental RAM. I wouldn’t classify myself as a “Burnham hater”, but it is QUITE overdue for her to be humanized to some degree. I did actually like her in this episode, and yes, I very much wanted to tag along, rather than be dragged along.
And I’ll just chime in with the chorus. Stoned Burnham is probably the best thing that’s happened to this character in three years, and my personal highlight of this episode.
The way she overpronounced “BOOK”. BWAHAHAHA!!!!
Excellent start to an intriguing season. Looking forward to it!
What they are doing is not humanizing Burnham. For much of human civilization, probably outside America and Western Europe, this gross and loud behaviour is not human. If they want to humanize her, they should turn her into the competent women officers we have seen in Janeway, Kira, Torres or Jadzia Dax, who didn’t spew around their raw unfiltered emotions at every turn!
Torres didn’t “spew raw unfiltered emotions at every turn”? Her whole character was about trying to repress Klingon rage. Kira? Pretty much the same; she hated Cardassians and Kai Winn, and could easily fly off the handle if provoked (see “Duet” and “Shakaar,” for starters, but really there are dozens other examples.
This is before we get to whether Burnham really “spews raw unfiltered emotions at every turn,” which I don’t particularly see; she’s a human raised in the Vulcan way, a human who has *repressed* her emotions. We’ve seen Vulcans — who are telepaths with strong mental acuity that spend a lifetime repressing emotions — absolutely “lose it” (“Sarek,” “This Side of Paradise”), so it’s unsurprising a human raised as a Vulcan would do so from time to time.
Look, for me the main problem is in the expression / delivery, not so much in the writing intense scenes or conflicted characters (of course, it doesn’t help that since the latter part of season 2 the writers specifically write scenes to invite SMG to “let it all out”, such as the drugging here) . Which is why I cited Torres and Kira specifically, the way their actresses *delivered* their rage in, say, Faces or the DS9 pilot, had so much more class, nuance and was more believable than this flagrant, crude overacting. It’s like after season 1 and fan feedback that Burnham is too much, too in the face, they decided to do double down and dial it up, and after season 2 now, likewise. You will find many comments here regarding this, even from otherwise pro-Discovery people, so I don’t think I’m imaging it.
No, I am pro-DISCO and tend to agree. There is something a little too hyperbolic about her character. I thought Dax and Kira were very well executed characters—probably the best female characters Star Trek had to offer. I’m also a big fan of Dr. Pulaski.
Funny you mention Pulaski. I remember watching her back in 1988 and not liking her. She felt too much like McCoy for my taste. But upon my first rewatch of the show last year, I liked her a TON better the 2nd time around and found myself wishing she remained on board. She was a much better and more interesting character than Crusher.
I thought Pulaski has been reborn in a cartoon cat now? :)
LOL. Good call.
Kira never spew her unfiltered emotions? Lol. Have you seen DS9?
I did. Whole different ballpark :p
Haven’t seen it yet. That said….
So it seems the red suit, like Data and the Genesis device before (after??), are amazing bits of technology that no one in Starfleet or the Federation ever kept manufacturing instructions on.
Data was destroyed! Oh, no!.
No problem, lets build another one.
We can’t.
Why?
Well, we lost the blueprints….and never ran a scan.
….and if all knowledge of these technological marvels was destroyed, does that mean the scientists, engineers, and everyone involved in their manufacture were all executed?
Did you see Picard? They made a whole bunch of new Datas.
Soong did.
Starfleet didn’t.
This was all settled waaaaaaaaay back in Measure of a Man. The problem was no one understood Data’s positronic brain enough to even MAKE another Data. That’s literally why Maddox wanted to have Data so he can figure it out how it worked and build more of them. When Starfleet ruled Data was an individual then that idea ended and Maddox would have to figure out how it was done on his own.
Picard suggests he ultimately DID figure it out but once the synth attack on Mars happened, his research was halted. That’s when he went on to another planet and built them illegally outside of Starfleet’s reach. I mean this was all well explained long ago.
Yeah, Data is still a construct. A collection of parts. Geordi backed him up on more then a few occasions. I get they offered up an explanation, but when the crew shows up at a mystery somewhere in the universe and can reconstruct an event by scanning a few subatomic particles floating around in the air, believing that Enterprise’s scanners can’t figure out Data is a bit of a stretch.
But why? Data is unique, there was only one of his kind in Starfleet. We never saw ANY advanced Androids like him in Star Trek at all on any planets or societies, which I personally thought was odd; but it made the point stronger as well and androids that sophisticated were still very rare in the galaxy. We did have Lore and Data’s ‘mother’ who both had positronic brains but his mother never knew the truth and Lore was taken off line in Descent but the Enterprise didn’t take him. Now you can certainly say that was a cop out but either way they didn’t have him to study him.
And they explained in Picard they extrapolated a lot from B4, but he was an older cruder model and why it shut down. But my guess is they learned quite a bit from it.
And again, what’s odd about this argument is Maddox DID eventually figure it out, did he not? But not everything in Star Trek is going to take an hour to figure out. Maybe some things can take years or even decades to figure out. But they clearly made a bunch of Data’s and then went even further with it by making them practically human. I guess it just didn’t happen fast enough for you, but it did happen.
I, too, found it to be an AMAZING stretch that NO ONE could reverse engineer Data. The ought to be able to do it with just scans to be honest. No disassembly would seem to be necessary. And even if it was, there was no reason they couldn’t disassemble, study, and put back together. Geordi did it plenty of times.
I know Data is a popular character but I never thought the concept was a good one and it just felt like an excuse to put in a Spock-like character without it being a Vulcan.
Data was not Spock. They were completely different characters in every sense of the word. Spock had no problems understanding humans since he was half human himself, nor did he want to be one completely. Spock was an alien with an entire society and customs. Data was an android with no family or culture but came from one person who happened to be human and wanted Data to be as close to human as possible. Spock was a little unique in terms of being the only alien on the Enterprise (and most likely the only alien in Starfleet, at least in TOS at the time) but Vulcans themselves shared a close relationship to humans in general and of course founded the Federation together.
Data was unique to pretty much everything. The only android in Starfleet. The most advanced android they ever encountered. He wanted to be human because he wanted to belong to something. Outside of them not having emotions (which obviously Vulcans have) they couldn’t be anymore different. That’s the only element that made them similar and even then Data pursued being human and what it was like to have emotions. Spock never did.
To say he wasn’t a good concept is odd since he was one of the most developed in Star Trek and explored a lot of issues with him.
Those are superfluous differences. They are far more alike than they are different. If you ask casual viewers who have seen both characters I doubt many would say they were “completely different”. They both spoke in similar ways. They both embraced logic. They both had comedic moments where they didn’t fully understand sayings. They were both the “outsider” characters who were trying to “fit in” or learn about humanity.
Even “The Admiral” in the pilot was reminded of a Vulcan when talking to Data. The better move would have been to find a way to do this without being so reminiscent of a previous character.
And honestly, I never really saw any kind of character development from Data. He learned things but he never grew as a being. The Doctor on Voyager crew more than Data ever did. And he was a computer too! It really made no sense that he, or data, would do any kind of character “growth” anyway.
Other than the fact they don’t display emotions much, how else are they similar? And how did you see NO character development? Did you watch the show? Data’s Day, The Offspring, Descent, Datalore, Measure of a Man, Brothers, In theory! Data grew a lot. Sometimes it’s just tedious to have these discussions with you so I’ll end it now.
I just gave a bunch of similarities in my above post. Sure, data learned things but that’s a lot different from growth. He never changed as an entity. He just learned to process things better. The Doctor, on the other hand, DID seem to grow and if he were an actual flesh and blood person would have been a very good character. If data were a “real boy” the same could not be said.
Only took them twenty years to figure it out?
“Well, we lost the blueprints….and never ran a scan.”
You also just alluded to another glaring inconsistency. With all these issues, how again did they built the PERFECT android body for Picard thar is much more human than any Soong android? Just the “software” makes the difference?
If they had personal transporters, why did Book and Burnham have to walk all the way to the city?
Exposition Time!!
For that matter, why fire torpedo’s when you can transport them into an enemy ships engineering section? Wait, what??!?? R2D2 can fly?? Different franchise, same problem. Dux ex machina.
They could have used more interesting, convincing, reasonable techniques for exposition: dinner time, breakfast time, waiting time (waiting in line for the bouncers at the city), playing cards in Riker’s quarters, drinking at ten forward during off duty… It is done often and in enjoyable and believable ways. This one was not.
The point of science fiction make-believe technology (as opposed to magic fantasy or science fantasy) is that just like in the real world there is usually tradeoffs to take into consideration. If there isn’t, then it makes no sense in world. The personal transporter here has a tradeoff (doesn’t track underwater) so Book+Burnham could use it to escape the pursuers. Fine, it’s understandable. Walking all the way to the city when you have that tech is not very understandable (unless there is a tradeoff reason–it could be as simple as Book didn’t want to use up the fuel/energy unless it is for emergencies). Plot exposition is not an in-world tradeoff, so it isn’t believable.
Transporting torpedoes: because you can’t transport through shields (launching ship and target ship). Have to choose.
Edit: another example of silly plot device that makes no sense. In ST Into Darkness, hiding the ship underwater so the primitive natives don’t get culturally contaminated is not logical in-world when the thing is a spaceship that could be in orbit… It was only a plot point to allow for a spectacular shot and acrobatic stunt jump from Kirk and Bones. Those kind of considerations, the ones to be showy to the audience (like lens flares), if there are too many, makes the whole carefully constructed fictional house-of-cards story fall apart. A few ok, but don’t do too much.
Anyway. Not a critique, I enjoyed the episode mostly!
Edited: I see you got the response from someone else.
“The point of science fiction make-believe technology (as opposed to magic fantasy or science fantasy) is that just like in the real world there is usually tradeoffs to take into consideration.”
Thats an interesting take, but beyond it I think what separates technology from magic and scifi from fantasy that the former is supposed to be based on a somewhat self-consistent sytem of science for the entire canon. And past TOS, people like Sternbach and Okuda had developed just that and even written books about it. Kurtz & Gang dont even need to hire expensive advisors (tatooed or not) for figuring this out, they just meed to read the damn books!
For example, dilithium is not necessary for warp propulsion but for M/AM power generation. There are other ways of generating the vast amount of power for warp bubbles (like Romulan quantum singularity), as established. So they had all the chance to create consistency here, such as by using Omega molecules having disrupted subspace etc. but I can see by the fantasy use of “time crystals” last season, dilithium crystals likewise are just “magic potions that make ships go FTL” for these deeply unscientific people….
First rule for writing good scifi: hire writers who believe in sound science!
I think you missed the detail that Book grabbed it from the Andorian.
Ah. Thanks. Will rewatch it. But that would explain it.
Sure did, as I’d mentioned in a previous post I’d not seen the episode yet….
Walking is a good way to suss out what someone know or doesn’t, especially given that Book actually knows where there is an remnant of a Federation outpost.
Given temporal tech is banned, Burnham is exceptional and there is a possibility that she’s the real deal and not a nostalgic Federation wannabe.
The Starfleet pin that isn’t a communicator is either incredibly old or a fake.
So, Book needed time away from other people to assess Burnham, and to divert Burnham from her demands for immediate access to a subspace communications array.
Book stole the personal transporter from the Andorian. He grabbed Burnham each time so it would take her too.
IDT he had the personal transporter until he got one in the city?
One more thing, Book is already my favorite character of this season. He’s an interesting guy and I want to know more about his backstory.
ML31 and the haters might think Discovery is a bad show but I digress. Season 3 has the potential, I can see it. This episode leaves behind more questions than answers. Give it a shot.
You’re being very rude calling ML31 a hater just because he expressed concerns about the show. He did mention in his post that he may be negatively influenced by the previous seasons. A hater doesnt do that. It’s clear ML31 is giving this show a chance, which I am not yet willing to do. Having an opinion of disliking something doesn’t make one a hater. Sorry you can’t handle opinions different than yours.
Silvereyes, I agree ML31 isn’t a hater and has argued here that if we don’t constructively criticize, we can’t expect the shows to get better, particularly Discovery.
That said, ML31 has been intervening so relentlessly on every LDs subthread lately that Ninja should be forgiven for his assessment, especially as Ninja is generally one of the most upbeat young voices on this board.
Yes point taken. I have nothing against Ninja. I don’t like unsubstantiated assertions, especially personal ones. I happen to dislike Discovery adamantly for reasons I won’t go into here and now (stated them in the past), but that doesn’t make me a hater either. The word “hater” actually is an insult that never makes sense and is the product of a closed mind. Just because someone expresses a negative opinion on something doesn’t mean it’s because they hate everything. That is just dismissing someone’s right to express themselves and what they think. People can like Discovery all they want and they are as right to do so as people who dislike it, and this site is to share and express opinions. Those opinions don’t always have to be positive, which debunks the other nonsensical question “If you don’t like it why are you here?” I’m here to read other people’s point of vue, not only because I like a particular ST show but because I like Star Trek in general. I can still hate this or that about ST and write about it…
This said TG47, I find your posts very positive and inclusive. The voice of tempered wisdom… But of course you’re Canadian and aren’t we all like that?
Snort Silvereyes.
Ironic Canadian humour indeed ;)
Sez you. There are other people who incessantly inject non related material into multiple threads on multiple occasions. Yet I don’t see you complaining about THAT. You seem to be very selective in what you consider to be “incessant.”
I normally let that stuff go but perhaps, just perhaps because I (very politely I thought) mentioned to you that you often bring up a certain subject (that to be fair I haven’t seen you do for a while) maybe I struck a chord with you that causes you to look at my comments differently from others. Which is fine, to be honest. This is a (mostly free and open) exchange of ideas and thoughts. But I just find it disingenuous to be selective about certain pet peeves without admitting it. No worries. I’m sure I myself might even do it without even thinking about it. But I do try to avoid it.
I’ll say it again: ML31 is not a hater. Read some of ML’s posts. You’re overgeneralizing based on his observations on this episode.
Not super impressed, personally; but it was alright. Book is cool, Grudge is cool, the space slug is cool. SMG is great in the scenes where Burnham is tripping. But as soon as it became likely that it’s going to be a season long mystery as to what the Burn is/was, I gave up a little, because these writers do not have the ability to do that sort of that well. It’s probably going to be something lame like it being called “the Burn” because it’s somehow related to Burnham, who caused it accidentally or something doofy like that.
I will say, though, that Adira has a lot of potential, based on the one little bit they’ve got in the season sneak-peek at the end. So I’m looking forward to that, I guess.
Like V’Ger? They found the Red angel suit in the past, not exploded, and it had the mom’s name stenciled on it, and the last half of the surname was scrubbed off? Entirely possible and wouldn’t put it past them. It’d be REAAAALLY coincidental if there wasn’t a connection. Literally thousands of other words they could have chosen to name a cataclysm.
They really played on that assumption at the start by Michael wanting to tell her name and Book not wanting to hear it…Just like the Khan thing on ST 12, only reversed.
The Burnham show.
Yes. The Burnham show. That’s why it’s great. Remember that “Kirk show”. Or the new “Picard” show. I’ve yet to see people complain that Picard or Kirk saved the universe every other episode. Is it because they are men and thats what men are “supposed” to do? I smell incels ;)
I tend to agree. Every iteration of Trek has a captain that does this or an episode where the crew comes upon a civilization with a dilemma they couldn’t solve over x amount of years or wars and our intrepid crew comes along and solves it in minutes. And people just suspend their disbelief. I think it’s just because they never wanted to like Discovery in the first place. I loved season one and two. Thoroughly enjoyed them and season 3 looks to be more of the same.
I don’t much care for Burnham in the grand scheme of things, but I agree that it would be super weird if the show for which she was the main character wasn’t about her. It would also be nice if the writers figured out a graceful and interesting way to do that at some point.
Marvelous opener. Played sort of a cross between “Dune,” “Farscape,” and “Star Wars.” Impressive.
Some really fantastic performances from all around, particularly Martin-Green and Ajala.
If Dilithium is now a precious, rationed resource, then obviously research into Dilithium replacements or non-Dilithium dependant FTL drives is going to be a big priority. Where are the Romulans in this future? Their warp cores used artificial black holes.
I think the most obvious non-dilithium dependent FTL technology that they will look into will be the spore drive.
OMG not that idiocy again…
“Played sort of a cross between “Dune,” “Farscape,” and “Star Wars.”
So, no Star Trek………
I was getting a touch of Farscape in the production design too. I see the Dune and SW elements, and even some Blade Runner in the market.
I think it’s cool that they are getting out of the 90s Trek “everything looks like American southwest design no matter where in the galaxy” sameness.
The Federation space has ethos of classic Starfleet design and that’s where it should be.
agree. i thought blade runner as well
Romulus blew up. oh wait, that was…
Grudge will turn out to be more than a cat and will save the day at some point. Great season opener. Well done, Discovery cast/crew.
She’s a queen. And she’s huge. Like, maybe pregnant huge. And soon she will spawn and her space-kittens will be the new Borg. Their ships will be gigantic balls of yarn.
“Captain! They’re coming about to spray us!”
“Evasive Action!”
Crossover event: Dr. T’Ana shows up via the Guardian of Forever to talk them down and cuss them out.
Perhaps Gary 7 will pop in and the cat will momentarily appear as a human female?
yep. I thought Gary 7 too when I saw the cat :-)
I would like to take a moment to praise the sound quality of this show. The music and effects are fantastic.
Also, can we get a round of applause for Adil Hussain, for the audible and visible emotion he put into his scenes as a man who has basically been a lighthouse keeper for 40 years finally sees a return on the time he’s invested in it?
Agreed.
Anil Hussain gave a very poignant and credible performance. Great to see an established South Asian actor featured on Star Trek.
I liked that scene at the beginning and the end. Great actor, great character, great content.
Sadly, it’s the only part I care for in here!
Absolutely. This episode was well-acted all around (save perhaps the Orion), but Adil Hussain absolutely stole the show.
That might be because Adil Hussain employed something SMG as an actress just does not grasp: emotional NUANCE (he’d make a more believable Science officer, or Starfleet officer, even without commission…)
Yeah… I sorta think that the reason she often gets outshined by other actors is maybe because she just isn’t that good an actor. I mean, she often is out done by other regulars in the main cast.
And if I’m not mistaken (and I could be) this is the first Indian Hindu character in over 50 years of Star Trek.
There were two Indian Sikh characters in 50 years of ST. One was killed off 15 minutes into an episode and replaced by a mop and a wig (true strory), the other was retconned into a Caucasian British man.
Ah…IDIC.
What about the admiral Kirk reports to in Beyond?
That actress, Shohreh Aghdashloo is Persian. But have no idea what the character she was paying was supposed to be.
I loath to bring up TVH but the captain of one of the disabled star ships in the beginning was played by Vijay Amritraj. Although I have no idea if he was Hindu or not.
Very cinematic sound quality….whatever a cinema is :-/
La primera temporada una maravilla,la segunda deje de mirarla.todo gira en torno a “michael” cuando hay personajes e historias mas interesantes para ver pero insisten en lo mismo una y otra vez y eso volvio a la serie tediosa por eso deje de verla.
English translation:
The first season was wonderful, the second season I stopped looking at it. Everything revolves around “Michael” when there are more interesting characters and stories to see but they insist on the same thing over and over again and that made the series tedious so I stopped watching it .
Of course it revolves around Michael. She’s the star. It’s crazy that I don’t see complaints that Picard revolves around Picard or TOS revolved around Kirk. Hmmmm…. Sexism?
It’s not sexism, it’s that they’ve created a character who they have determined that the galaxy and starfleet could not have survived without and thus Star Trek’s very existence. So, no, it’s not the character, it was the development of the character.
It’s sexism. Some folks are telling on themselves. They had no problem with other crews saving civilization as we know it.
I’m female and a lesbian, and I don’t like Burnham either. So don’t even bother pulling the sexism card dude. I agree with a lot of points that people are making about her. And starting with this episode, I think I’ve come to realize I don’t even like the actress. And don’t even bother shuffling your deck looking for the racism card.. I just don’t like her acting, and I think her character is poorly written, along with other poorly written elements of the show. And as for Picard, I like him a heck of a lot more than Burnham and I still haven’t bothered finishing The Picard Show. Again, bad writing in my opinion. And I wasn’t too crazy about the idea of focusing just on Picard to begin with.
Not liking the character or not liking the actor are both reasonable opinions for anyone to hold, but complaining about Burnham saving the universe is the problem. Like the other posters said, it’s like complaining that Picard saves the universe in Picard or Kirk in TOS.
What those who complain about Burnham saving the universe are really saying is “I don’t like this character/actor” but for whatever reason they are unwilling to face that truth and instead hide their dislike behind contrived “logic-based” arguments. It reads like they dislike her not for their stated position but rather some unstated biases they hold against her.
The complaints about the character mostly seem to come from her being a Mary Sue. It’s more than just being too competent. It’s always being the right person for the situation without any logical reason for them to be. There was a video made that used the phrase, “Because she is awesome” as the reason for much of why the character is able to do the things they do. These kinds of characters often turn off fans. Maybe some don’t think she truly is a Mary Sue but I think even if she is not 100% one there are a lot of Mary Sue elements there.
Unsolicited rants about “sexism and racism cards” is a poor way to convince people you’re guilty of neither.
So people are guilty of these things until they somehow prove otherwise? Great mindset. I don’t need to make an entire case, I made my point. As for my comments being unsolicited, I wasn’t the one calling people sexist on a public forum because people disagree with my opinions. YOUR comment not only made the implication that it’s men hating on a woman and nothing more, but also that women must automatically support Burnham because she’s a woman. Otherwise, why bring sex into this at all?
I have no problem taking your claims at face value and giving you the benefit of the doubt. I intended my reply to come off as friendly advice. I have clearly failed to make my tone clear, and I apologize.
Just because your dislike for the character does not stem from sexist reasons, doesn’t mean other people’s do not. Both can be true. You can stand by your opinion without giving cover to the sexism and double standards of others. I’m simply pointing out no one singled you out, so there’s no reason for you to enter the discussion on the defensive.
Accusing a person of “playing the card” when they speak about bigotry is intended to silence, threaten or shame someone into not mentioning the obvious bigotry they’re being subjected to. It’s not helpful and hurts your argument when you blow the dog whistle, perhaps unintentionally. It puts you on the wrong foot.
“I have no problem taking your claims at face value and giving you the benefit of the doubt.” Me specifically, or as a rule? Because your initial post suggested otherwise. And dude, don’t tell me what to think or feel. Whether you meant to or not, you did target me because I happen to agree with a lot of the people that you’re claiming are sexist. So am I sexist too or are you giving me a pass because I’m a woman? Criticisms of Michael Burnhams character or even SMG’s acting are completely valid without necessarily being sexist. And like I said, there’s also the flipside and unintentional consequence of using a blanket statement like that. You may not have meant it this way, but by assuming that any negative opinion against Burnham is just men hating women, there’s an implication there that women either can’t dislike her as a rule, or their dissenting opinions are somehow more valid and not sexist. Because if you say women can be sexist too (and of course they can be), well then why make this a sexist issue to begin with? If you’re going to start throwing the term around and accusing people, be specific, and back up your claims.
I bent over backwards to give you the benefit of the doubt so I could explain how you used victim blaming vernacular with your “race card” comments, undermining whatever point you were trying to make. You doubled down and continued to attribute things to me I have not said.
I can only do so much without exhausting myself. Have a good day.
Racism card? Lol. Could you possibly be more obvious?
Perhaps a poor choice of words, but I knew if claiming sexism wasn’t going to work for them then surely racism would logically follow next, because their minds were already made up and apparently you can’t have a differing opinion without being some kind of ___-ist. If the card analogy is offensive, so be it, I was wrong. Either way, they’re just pulling out these terms because they don’t agree.
“you can’t have a differing opinion without being some kind of ___-ist”.
That’s it! Traditionally independent thinkers like us are caught between enemy fire of “both sides” these days, because as they say, surely if we are not for them, we must be against them?
There was a key opinion piece about this recently by the pet conservative of the certainly not independent NYT which I nevertheless very much agree with, which argued (the gist) that the truly politically incorrect piss of both sides. That’s certainly where I find myself time and again, being both a communist and a fascist depending on who you are asking ;)
Why do you watch Star Trek? Also, as a woman and a lesbian you don’t get to gatekeep Burnham’s character. My daughter is also a lesbian and she likes Burnham. People have different tastes and gender and sexual preference should have no bearing on whose opinion is correct. This site should be called trekhatermovie.com. Ugh.
Why I watch Star Trek is none of your concern and has no bearing on this conversation if you bothered to read it. As for gatekeeping.. really? Try putting MY words into MY context and not your own, because you entirely missed the point. I don’t give a shit if people like or dislike Burnham. What I do care about is people throwing around terms like sexist because of a differing opinion. I only even bothered to point out that I’m a woman and lesbian as a way to say ‘I’m not a man, and I like women, but I share many of the same opinions as the men that you label sexist’. I’m sorry if you can’t understand the points I’m making, but don’t make shit up about me.
I liked this episode a lot. A great launch to the new season. But there are a couple of things that bother me.
If she was able to send the suit back to Spock’s time to deliver her message, why couldn’t she return there too? Wasn’t the whole premise of moving the show (with Discovery) to the far future because it was an absolutely one-way trip?
A couple of times I thought Burnham’s extreme reverence and devotion to the Federation was unearned. Why didn’t she ask “did anything replace the Federation,” when told it was gone? There could have been a quick line that dealt with that and further fleshed out the situation. Surely she knows everything eventually ends, and the Federation was relatively new when she left (about 100 years?), so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that she was so shocked the Federation was gone. Her extreme reaction also wasn’t really necessary. She could be motivated to want to find the remnants of the Federation and rebuild it simply from observing the chaos and injustice going on around her in the new world.
Nothing I couldn’t overlook, though — really enjoyed the episode. One of the best Trek season openers.
Yeah… On the plus side this episode was decently assembled. Burnham herself was not her typical annoying self. While their actions did not make logical sense there was some chemistry between her and Book. And the director seemed to do a better job than in past Trek efforts.
And that is a VERY good question. Why couldn’t she just go back in the suit? Perhaps the same reason that once the threat was gone that Discovery and Burnham still had to head into the wormhole/time vortex/whatever…..
Michael has knowledge of the advanced programming code that Control needed, the suit doesn’t. Michael going back to the 23rd Century would give any residual copies of Control an opportunity to regroup and restart its plan to wipe out carbon based life. The suit, even if the self-destruct failed wouldn’t and without a time crystal wouldn’t provide Control with any other tactical advantages either.
That’s a big stretch… also, I don’t recall Burnham’s knowledge of anything being a factor in this particular situation. She wouldn’t be the only one if that were the case, and so anybody else with any knowledge of it would HAVE to go into the future with her. But it was all voluntary anyway… The database was the problem, and it wouldn’t let itself be destroyed. That was literally the only issue. But I think the whole sphere data/Control crap was poorly thought out anyway…
100% agree with you Ashley.
I don’t think that her response to the Federation being gone was meant to be rational. It was more like refusing to believe something she didn’t want to be true. An anthropologist ought to know that empires fall.
Yeah, it would have been nice to have had a few episodes where Burnham and co investigate if the galaxy is actually better off without the Federation, and explore what to do if they no longer have a cause to serve. Then perhaps 3-4 episodes in realize that only a strong Federation can solve the issues they have discovered in the future.
She HAD to send the suit back to finish the time loop just like in the last episode she had to go to all the locations and emit her red space pee
As I recall, she had to go only to the places that led Discovery to them. The final one was merely something to tell Spock she was fine. That was one she absolutely did not HAVE to do.
Definitely a strange new world and I’m impressed by some of the tech ideas and designs they’ve come up with. The writing in this episode is still pretty terrible, dense with unnatural exposition that I found myself rewinding with subtitles. SMG is…ernest…but she could use some more subtlety, I still get some cringe from her performance here and there, usually in the smaller moments when she acts too much with her expressions. I’m sad to say I don’t think her character is working for me and it’s more noticeable when she has to carry the episode on her own. Too many emotional moments are just unearned and manipulative. This is hard, I give them that, I certainly can’t do it.
They’ve setup some interesting mysteries for the season, but I’m not entirely confident in how this will unfold. More to the point, I’m not sure I want to spend time in this…time…it looks dreadful. But Book is a great character, the VFX have really stepped up a few grades, and the designers are doing some thoughtful things that also look beautiful. Hoping for more to come.
You have a point about the writing and SMG. Burnham is not my favorite character either but at least she tried her best at acting.
Hoping the season improves over time.
I watched it a 2nd time and enjoy it more. It’s more fun for me than it was on first viewing when I felt unprepared for the new tone and random weirdness. I neglected to mention that I was genuinely moved by SMG’s emotional moments in the episode. The moment she closed the wormhole, you instantly felt the tragedy of her situation and I’m glad they had that in there. The Federation mourning was a little unmotivated, but nonetheless I felt that loss too.
“smaller moments when she acts too much with her expressions. “
Are you calling her too expressive? That’s a very strange critique if so.
OMG space travel is made difficult, rare and exciting again.
The universe is again filled with the unknown.
No more 100000 starships everywhere, every starship counts.
LOVE IT.
Cmd. Bremmon perhaps you’ve finally got your new Trek show in the menu.
Great to hear your joy.
I’m staying cautiously optimistic.
SMG over-acting to the extreme as usual, looking forward to next episode more.
The episode without SMG? You and me, both (I believe it when I see it!) :D
Exactly
Is this the first Trek episode with no featured white-skinned actors (other than those under makeup)?
Nerds to be shouted about more in this climate. Very bold. And awesome.
*needs
Spotted too late to edit! 😕
Stupid autocorrect and my lack of proofing!
Excellent point nonetheless.
Maybe The Girl Who Made the Stars?
Wow, didn’t notice that until you brought it up. Pretty cool! And before people start typing, not suggesting its something I want or care to see in general. I even doubt it was done that way on purpose, it just showed how many aliens were actually in this episode.
Sorry, looks like there’s a white guy with the group on the Sanctuary planet. I do hope that they keep up the higher alien count though. It makes more sense this far ahead.
I looked at it again, and I believe they all were POC.
I mean, I see a guy in the wide shot that looks white to me. *shrugs* Doesn’t really matter though, he’s a non-speaking background character. Personally, I think it’s kind of ridiculous for the OP to exclude the actors that had make-up or prosthetics because that’s only counting what we see on screen, and says nothing about equal hiring practices. Surely real-world concerns are more important than hiding white people under make-up, no? And would this be as significant if it were all white actors in the episode, but they were all done up as non-white aliens? Come to think of it, what if the aliens are white? I’m just going to guess that the OP was concerned about white human representation though.
“Is this the first Trek episode with no featured white-skinned actors (other than those under makeup)?”
So in your opinion marginalizing the majority is a feat to be celebrated? For what, retribution? Vigilant justice? Twisted ethics, there.
(Goes to show this never was about “representation” or “equality”, but domination)
I bet if this was an African show with NO black actors, reception of it would be… explosive.
Seriously?
I’m a true egalitarian, Tiger. That means no “swinging to the other side”. As I mentioned recently, that will most certainly invite an even more vicious backslash. And so the division continues…
It was one episode out of how many again?
VS, you know I like you but you also know this side of you I just try to ignore. You have the right to believe what you want, but I just don’t understand why people like you think this is all just to slight you or your race? Is it just not ok to highlight other people on the planet who may not look like you but who you but still exist with from time to time?
I’m not trying to get into with you, but believe it or not I grew up watching mostly white people on my TV screens and movies all my life. Was I upset about it, no, its just the way it is. Do I want them all erased from my screen, of course not. But why can’t we just see people NOT white from time to time without people feeling offended or slighted about it? Do you really think it’s going to go the other way and white characters will be mostly in the background as so many others for a very long time? Again, you believe what you want of course.
I just think its grossly wrong to say ‘I’m glad there are no white people in this episode” same as its wrong to say “I’m glad there are no blacks in this episode”. To treat ethnicities equally – that’s egalitarianism to ME (and I believe MLK was all about racial inclusion, not playing off against each other).
The best I can say about this disturbing trend we get instead (it’s not unintentional – or I’m asking again – if this is about representation and diversity, there are the East Asians in modern Trek? The Iranians? The Russians? And so on) is that Star Trek is wrong and there ARE very different human value systems in different parts of the world. But then again, this is what aliens in Trek were meant to express in allegorical terms – before the current garde revoked this concept.
Where did he/she SAY that?? All they said was it’s nice to see an episode with all people of color because it’s rarely, if ever, been done before. You seem to twist something that wasn’t trying to deintegrate white people, simply show that we come farther where its OK to have shows and movies WITHOUT white people and no one cares…well clearly someone cares lol.
VS, I don’t get this weird hang up you and some others have and I never will. I don’t know where you’re from if you’re American, Canadian, European, etc but I can assure you white people are not being dropped out of Hollywood anytime soon. Nor straight people. Nor men. None of them are going anywhere.
The irony is for all the ‘progress’ Star Trek has achieved for its multiculturalism in front of the camera behind the camera every iteration of it has been run by mostly straight white males from Gene Roddenberry to Rick Berman to now Alex Kurtzman and everyone in between. In fact most of the writers and producers were straight white guys 90% of the time from TOS through ENT. You may have had a few women on the old shows like D.C. Fontana or Jeri Taylor but it was still mostly a boys club by a huge margin. And in terms of blacks, Asians, etc having any power in the franchise, forget about it.
Now that’s changing a bit with Discovery and the others as you have more diversity in the writers room in terms of race and gender but the majority are still white. And none of them are actively trying to limit their own race in this franchise or Hollywood in general. They simply accept that diversity IS important and that they want to acknowledge that, especially in something like Star Trek. This is a good thing. But that said, all the new shows are STILL being run by white guys, are they not?
And last I checked there were still plenty of white people on the show. Season 2 of Discovery EVERY new main character was white. That’s right every.single.one, from Pike to Leland, so what’s the problem???? And out of that, it was only two women and just one of them was gay. Is that just too many or something?
And besides, the episode HAD white people acting in the episode, they were simply in makeup. But we agree, more diversity can and should be part of these shows and we are. We have transgendered people joining the show and you balked at that IIRC.
This bizarre chip on your shoulder is yours to have but it’s just so odd to me. White people are going nowhere. The next two shows coming up, SNW and Prodigy stars Pike and Janeway as the leads. SNW top leads are all white in fact. Great, I have no issues with it. Seriously, it will be OK.
Tiger, I’ll try to keep if brief since we are all very drained of this topic, which again I did not start, but I promised you a reply.
Apart from what I wrote already about lacking real multiculturalism, TG47 and you made me understand this is about “balancing out the backlog”. And I can indeed see such a thing going on beyond Trek in all Western media. I strongly disagree with this concept as a way to achieve justice, as even the ancient Romans knew present standards should not be applied to judge the past (Nulla poena sine lege). The current generation was not involved in past atrocities, nor can current minorities claim to be victims of slavery… This is just the wrong focus. Groups less focused on representation and avenging the past, but improving their lives as individuals instead are doing just fine, even outside the spotlight (Asian Americans, Jews). But it is just unfair to them to leave them out in favor of those “who complain loudest”.
Finally, we need to get off this train of lumping all white people together, of stereotyping. It’s just a skin color, and it happens to be the vast majority in America and especially Europe, same as black is in Africa. There is really nothing wrong with that and nothing needs to be “corrected”. The idea that homogenity in appearances is a defect that needs to be eliminated is not science, it’s a moral belief that is not founded in any fact. Visually homogenous socieities like the Chinese and Japanese are very successful and you know why? Because they are still a vastly diverse people, beneath and beyond the superficialities.
Likewise, these “white people” in front and behind the camera of current and past Trek are all vastly different people with different characters, personalities, ideas and backgrounds. That is what we should be talking about and seeking diversity in, not surface attributes.
VS, we don’t expect every episode to be balanced, rather a season or series or franchise as a whole.
From that perspective, Trek has ground to make up.
I’ll bring it up again, my mum-in-law is a loyal sci-fi fan, but she was watching and reading stuff where women were nonexistent or marginalized until she was in midlife.
That’s half the population VS, but it’s only now when my mum-in-law is late in life that she sees herself represented on balance. It will take a lot more series with female leads before even the library of Trek content is balanced male/female.
Having a season premiere featuring almost exclusively people of colour seems balancing in that context.
(And I will just drop a line that Indigenous representation is something Trek is very far behind on, and it’s an issue given the choice to produce in Canada.)
TG47, like I outlined I disagree with the idea of “making up’ for the past by tilting scales into the other direction, especially when it comes to experiences that are merely read history to our generation (slavery etc.) This is creating new injustices and resentment among people which are really not at fault for past injustices, and the division merely gets worse, putting oil into the fire. There’s a thing as going too far, and then the revolution eats it children.
So as for Trek, I’m not looking at the past but what in the present we can do to have more balanced episodes, what’s on the screen NOW. How many viewers are watching or even aware of a 50 years backlog of Trek? So I do think each episode should be balanced in ethnicities (men & women too) because mere skin color has no bearing on the intellectual quality and diversity in personality and character brought to the table (as the black-and-white skin TOS episode demonstrated).
Second, as I have pointed out, if diversity and representation is the point, Kurtzman’s efforts are half-baked at best and disingenuous at worst. They are merely directed at one racial minority, and all these sexual minorities. He does not grasp Trek as a United Earth concept with many nationalities and ethnicities far greater than both black and white (how many Indians and East Asians in 50 years of Trek?) From my POV he sees it firmly routed in domestic American politics and not looking beyond. And that’s where there’s much room for improvement.
So if he just throws in straight white guys, that’s fine for you right? ANYTHING else then you question it? No offense, but I don’t know why some of you are Star Trek fans?
My point to TG47 was that it’s not *really* about United Earth diversity to the producers or they’d do more than “throw in black people”, to use this parlance, which is exactly what they are doing. This is pure surface diversity served on the altar of PC. I want to see some rich national, ethnic and cultural backgrounds and biographies (such as near-absent non-western white people, and Asian cultures in particular) and not just people reduced to their skin color, as the bridge crew of Discovery was for most of its existence. Somehow TNG did a better job at this even 30 years ago with even minor characters like Keiko O’Brien which were allowed to showcase a distinct and non-American background.
And I’m still replying to your comment, Tiger, it was just a tad long for me to do so right away (as nearly no one bothered with my actual review comment below in which I did not mention any such issues at all – but I cant let this kind of glee as expressed by the OP, as if minorities are at war against whites, stand unchallenged)
Cosmo is apparently a Betelgeusian from way back in The Motion Picture. They dove deep for that one.
The review at Polygon says it gets even more Star Warsy in upcoming episodes. I get it, Alex is a guy in charge of Star Trek who would prefer not to be making Star Trek. (Granted, he threw some snacks at Trekkies with Mike McMahan’s Reference Decks. Huzzah.)
I’m not sure if my comment is “gatekeeping” or watchtowering, I’m quoting a professional critic who just called the new season Star Wars, no hopefully that mitigates the toxicity.
But other reviewers called the first four episodes the most classically Trek of the new live-action series.
So, let’s not overweight one reviewer in a dozen.
We should indeed not overweigh reviewer’s opinions. In the end they are just an opinion like any other. But did you seriously find “That Hope Is You” to be classical Trek?
“Reference Decks”. LOL.
It’s funny because it’s true!
For the humor, sure… the stories were really good though. Dunno if it’s better than Discovery, but better than Picard, and certainly better than Voyager or ENT.
A couple, perhaps. But it’s really hard to get past the lack of laughs in a show that was designed to produce laughs.
This episode is definitely the most that a Trek episode has ever looked and felt like a Star Wars episode. It felt like Trek aliens had simply been taken and put into Star Wars. One reason is likely because we are now nearly a millennium into the future so naturally feel much less grounded in a future that was only a few hundred years from now and so still felt like a natural evolution from the present rather than a radical jump much more extreme. Even when they released the opening clip a few weeks ago, in just that 2 minute clip my first thought about 10 seconds in was “Wow, this feels just like Star Wars.”
“ why other forms of faster-than-light travel are also not stepping in to replace dilithium-fueled warp drives”
Iirc, the traditional gravimetric field displacement manifold isn’t fuelled by dilithium. The dilithium simply regulates the reaction between the actual fuel (deuterium and antimatter), which creates high energy warp plasma that is sent to the nacelles, which generates the subspace field that propels the ship faster than light.
Yup. I’m that guy.
Something something soliton wave.
I’m that guy, too. Excellent post.
Book mentions that his ship can’t do slipstream.
So, there are other technologies in existence, but the technological infrastructure was built on dilithium.
Not to mention that subspace is messed up, and the destructive impact of temporal wormholes were a known issue even before The Burn.
“Not to mention that subspace is messed up,”
They havent really explained this one yet apart from two obscure hints (the timesuit destroying 2 ly of subspace and few subspace comms channels remaining). Things seem to be scarce, but still existing.
Btw, I can recommend the Polygon review to you, it includes some more hints that this season will be more like Voyager but with more focus on scarcity than we got there.
Alright, starting off I enjoyed the episode. I kind of LIKE the fact they’re ALMOST re-starting the concept of the show with this season! It reminded me of the very first and second episodes of the series, where it focused on Michael (with a little Saru and Giorgiou)…by “re-introducing” us to Michael and the choices she ended up making to save the Federation (and all of space, as she says, lol) it gives us a chance to see how a Star Trek show set almost a thousand years later would be with characters we are now kinda familiar with (i’m actually mostly curious to see how talkative Tilly gets when we see her again…). I liked David Ajala’s character and if they introduce more “odd couples” like those Orion and Andorian Mercantile characters…maybe a weird Klingon/Ferengi team up? lol Could be fun. PLUS, the future IS still hopeful (slightly) after all…why would ONE guy continue his daily ritual to be in that office just WAITING for someone to come through that door…..so hope does exist in the galaxy still (albeit starting out small), but I am looking forward to seeing how the crew of the Disco can actually DO something about this. How valuable CAN the ship and it’s 900+ year old tech BE? I mean the only thing I can think of is Stamets and the Spore drive….that’s probably still unusual….but I mean EVERY ship that’s remaining out this far in the future should probably have better shields or better hull materials for shipbuilding….as well as other tech (that portable transporter is a cool idea though). Anyhoo, enough of this, i’m looking forward to this season as a new start (and hey…if Mirror-Giorgiou is on board Disco, she’s actually a fun character to watch and see how much chaos she can spread).
p.s. Does anyone else think that “The Burn” might have something to do with “Burnham”, lol might be too on the nose, but the thought came to me (i dont know how she COULD be involved seeing the time that he said it happened)…..ah well. Fun thoughts.
This might also explain Book’s repeated reluctance to exchange names early on.
That was a very enjoyable episodes, and a great start to not only the season but to what is essentially a soft reboot of the show. With a serialized show it can be difficult to judge each episode individually, as a lot of ideas and storytelling elements in this episode won’t pay off for many episodes to come. With that being said, I really appreciated how quickly Book mentioned the Burn and explained what it was (albeit with a lot of mystery still behind it). I was worried the writers were going to string us along with the mystery of the Burn. Obviously, we still don’t know why dilithium just suddenly exploded, but we at least know why the Federation essentially collapsed.
My biggest complaint about this episode was the amount of straight up killing by both Book and Michael. And not just killing, but vaporizing! I can understand Book being hardened and being okay with killing, but definitely not Michael, even if the killing is somewhat was justified (which it honestly wasn’t – stun can be very effective, unless the weapons they had didn’t have a stun setting, but still, I feel like Michael would not have been okay with just vaporizing people, and would’ve at least questioned it it.)
Yeah they did kill a lot of people lol. I was a little surprised by that too. And I don’t think they were even bad people, just doing their jobs. But it’s also black market kind of stuff so they are on the shady side but I was a little taken back how easily Burnham killed people without questioning it. That said it was all in self defense obviously.
She’s a trained officer who served in the was with the Klingons and was hardened by her time in the Mirror Universe.
So, we should expect her to function well in the moment. What remorse there may be later is unknown. We already know that she hasn’t been able to find the appropriate medium between Vulcan repression and human over-the-top emotions.
That bothered me a bit, but what was even worse for me was the stormtrooper aim that the bad guys had. You have a bunch of them at reasonably close range and all they do is graze Michael’s arm… Meanwhile, they’re running away but still manage to vaporize quite a few of them.. That was hard to just gloss over.
That. Was. Great
LOOOOOOOOOVED IT!!!!
It was a nice and simple introduction to the 32nd century but done so well. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Every time Book said a word I focused like a hawik lol. You just want to hear about everything.
I’m also glad they didn’t take five episodes to explain what the Burn was. We know it’s basically losing dilithium while we still have no clue how it happened, so there is still a big mystery behind it. I still like the Omega particle as a better reason. It just makes a lot more sense. Maybe it will still be?
I was so giddy when they mentioned the Temporal wars. It sound like the Temporal cold war finally got real and why they banned time travel. I really want to hear more about it!
The future tech stuff is fun. We know it’s going to be a lot of holo tech stuff but I love they now have portable transporters. That’s basically what STID had, just a MUCH bigger one (funny how things always get smaller in tech ;)). And now it’s standard. Loved Book’s strange tactile console too. It’s going to be fun to see all the craziness they come up for this century but I’m glad everything is not regressed.
Can’t wait to see how the alien dynamics plays out from we know between the 22nd-24th century. I like how shocked Burnham was seeing Andorians and Orions together. I just can’t wait until we see other known species, especially the Trill!
Book is great. Already loving that dude. Can’t wait to see more of him and where his story goes.
The last scene was great. It came back to hope and optimism. And we are going to be traveling to strange new worlds again but maybe some strange old worlds too!! Can.not.wait! This looks like it’s going to be a fun season.
I just love we are in the future beyond anything we know!!!! FINALLY, what I been wanting for years to see now! And it sounds like they still have sandwiches too!
I thought the dilithium thing was ridiculous. I’m not at all confident that they can deliver a satisfying reason for it that will make sense. As much as I didn’t want them to go with Omega particles, I kind of wish they had now. Also, if all this was because of dilithium exploding, I don’t see how subspace would have been damaged like this. I don’t recall the Klingons having this problem when Praxis exploded…So I’m hoping there’s more to it than that.
Also, why reference STID for transporter tech when Nemesis literally pioneered the portable transporter? I always thought that was too advanced for TNG-era but feels just fine here.
I like Book too, but my ONLY issue with him is that they made him a good guy too quick. I half expect him to be in a uniform by the end of the season…
“I thought the dilithium thing was ridiculous. I’m not at all confident that they can deliver a satisfying reason for it that will make sense. As much as I didn’t want them to go with Omega particles, I kind of wish they had now. Also, if all this was because of dilithium exploding, I don’t see how subspace would have been damaged like this. ”
That was my observation too. They had a host of options from canon to pick from, and they picked the most unbelievable/fantasy one. It seems they don’t realize able people like Sternbach have spent decades building a consistent self-consistent science behind Trek and dilithium is not just “magic crystals” from the comic books…
I’m not big on the dilirhium thing either. Of course I’m hoping its a lot more to it than that too. And I’ll be honest, I’m not that much of a Trek nerd as I thought because I didn’t realize dlithium was still such a big deal past the 23rd century. I know it still exists but there is not nearly the same type of emphasis on it post TOS. I always assumed other power sources were driving these ships. I’m shocked it would still be so important by the 31st century. I just assumed they moved on it completely by then.
As for Nemesis and the portable transporter tech, you’re right, I just forgot about it (but I ALWAYS try to forget that movie lol). And its odd I forgot about it since I’ve probably seen about 50 video clips of it since Picard premiered showing the Data death scene over and over again.
But yes combined with that and STID, then the tech doesn’t seem that crazy seeing it as regular use centuries later. I still have to imagine it’s not something EVERYONE has but hey it’s the 32nd century, maybe it’s just like owning a car for us at this point in time. ;)
Yeah, it really bothers me that dilithium was still in widespread use unless this is supposed to be an allegory for fossil fuel use… But there should have been plenty of viable alternatives even by the time of The Burn, because there were already alternatives by the 24th century.
And speaking of alternatives, Book mentioned benamite crystals, which if I recall correctly was what Voyager used for their cobbled together quantum slipstream drive. And since Book made it seem like either it was even more rare than dilithium or didn’t exist anymore, and since he seems to use QSD, I feel like benamite would have been the better choice to go with. Especially because we don’t know much about benamite, but we do know it decays quickly. To say it was also very unstable wouldn’t have been a stretch. But dilithium? Sure, Praxis exploded, so we know there’s a certain level of instability in mining naturally occurring deposits, but this stuff literally moderates matter/antimatter reactions, so I can’t even begin to speculate how it’d blow up inside of starships. But honestly, I don’t even care about that as much as how it would all explode simultaneously everywhere… and how subspace would be affected.
Haha, thx for the review Tiger2. It was not my most favorite episode, but everything you said has a lot of merit and as per the suggestion somewhere below, I will go back to watching the last 2 episodes of S2 and rewatch the season premiere.
Intro of the Book character was really great, looking forward to seeing more and loved the future tech. Need more on The Burn and warp drive.
Just a couple of small annoying nits for me, didn’t like the alien insect scene near the start of the episode – reminded me of needless costly FX like the ones we saw I think in ROTJ Special Edition that were designed to amuse children. Someone should remind the FX guys and gals, this isn’t a kids show. I like the message of hope a lot, but the writers could have come up with some better lines, this one sounded a lot like a scene from the Shawshank Redemption.
Besides that, I liked the premiere, but want to see Discovery and her crew very soon. Everything I have read says that will happen next week, so looking forward to E2 – and that is really the most important thing – to make us come back for more.
Happy Friday everyone and LLAP.
I don’t think that the alien insect moment was a waste at all.
We want to believe that these are different planets and ecologies. We really need different scenery and different lifeforms.
We shouldn’t only see that when it’s an action scene with an attacking creature.
Personally, I’m beyond done with the Vasquez rocks and other SoCal geography and ecology.
I want to be seeing strange worlds and other civilizations. The effort and resources put into realizing that are very important to making Trek credible.
I thought the insect scene was fine. As TG47 said, they just want to show planets with different biology so I was fine with it. And its not my favorite episode either, but it’s up there (but I don’t have that many favorite episodes if I’m being honest ;)).
But no it definitely wasn’t perfect. But what I find funny is how divided people are on it. It’s Discovery, so division and bitter hatred is not exactly new lol. But the people who really liked it, like me, seems to think it captures the essence of Star Trek, with some few flaws. But the people who didn’t seems to feel the opposite and it wasn’t Star Trek at all save the last scene. It’s just amazing how different people see things I guess.
And I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the crew as well. For me, it’s really exciting. I always liked the rebuilding the Federation idea. And I’m happy they didn’t go a more cynical way like stagnation, civil war, etc. It’s sound like something more ecologically based which is intriguing. I think the dilithium blowing up sounds a bit out there but I’m not going to judge it until we see what actually happened.
Anyway, a good start for me overall. It’s just nice DIS won’t be in TOS shadow anymore, that alone must feel nice to the people making it.
You know what they probably have in the 32nd century? Cameras that don’t shake. I know this because we have them in the 21st century. WHY IS SHAKY CAM A THING?
I had mixed feelings. I’m just struck at how emotional every scene with SMG is, it’s kind of annoying and just slows down the whole episode. I mean Troi is an empath and keeps it together way better than Michael who is supposed to have some sort of vulcan training with her emotions. I just wish they would lessen the stakes a bit so she can be really emotional when it matters. And for being so emotional she doesn’t seem to have any issues killing literally dozens of random guys doing their jobs lol.
I do like Book, the visuals are amazing. I did like that this episode kept very focused on just Michael and Book and helped introduce this new world and time from the perspective of an outsider. I really do hope the Omega theory ends up being true, because I like that better than all the Dilithium in the galaxy just exploding one day… but perhaps they will dive into that, maybe it’s sabotage or something i’m curious to know more.
One thing that continues to drive me nuts is the writing. The first few scenes are a great example. Michael is standing and moving fine and punching orders into the red angel outfit and then it flies off. And then she can barely stand up because she was in pain? I mean she seemed fine kicking Book’s butt in the very next scene lol. Then shes so excited that there is life on the planet (literally screaming with job) and then a minute later she has to basically force herself to walk? I mean she sounded motivated just a second ago lol. It’s just bad writing. Hopefully they can keep focused on the burn mystery as the main plot this season and not go in a million directions. I really want this show to be good, so i’m rooting that season 3 will finally get it on course.
Totally agree. I’m still watching for now, hoping it gets better, but I’m already critical of a lot of things… I don’t have much confidence in the writers and producers, so I’m keeping my expectations low.
I watched the last two season 2 episodes into this one, which made it very enjoyable. An hour or two later, it echoes, somehow “The Paradise Syndrome” – but maybe that’s just me.
LOL I did the same. I purposely waited to watch the last two episodes of season 2 yesterday and this one was up right after I was done. It worked really well and I liked the season finale a little more now than I did originally.
This time, I paid more attention to Po’s interest in the dilithium crystals – so I think that her knowledge will play a big part in this season. Clearly they do have a plan: Mirror Universe, Spock, Future and then what? There are upcoming episodes called “Terra Firma” – are we going back to the Terran Empire so soon?
They could just be going back to Earth.
I agree with this. Terra Firma usually is referred to Earth in a lot of stories and that it’s latin name. So will probably see a 32nd century Earth. If so, WOW!
“We’re not a prequel anymore!”
Best part of the season for me! :)
Discovery may change a lot of naysayers minds who hated it for being one and now is doing something completely original and different. In fact what’s really refreshing about all these new shows is that they are all post-Nemesis based (and beyond) with the exception of SNW….which is probably the best way of going about doing a TOS prequel in the first place. I was shocked that Prodigy would also be a post-Nemesis show and starring Janeway herself. Pretty exciting times.
Technically they still are a prequel.
And I still think Enterprise was a good way to to a prequel and still waiting for a show set post TUC and before Encounter at Farpoint.
Yeah but when you have CENTURIES between stories, its not a real one. Enterprise started off bad but yes at the end it did feel like a truer prequel. Certainly better than Discovery.
This was alright. Tropes and a bit dopey but the implications could lead to some true intrigue if followed through upon.
Things I liked specifically?
1. Any Andorians always. Curmudgeons always. My favorite Trek alien.
2. That Orion guy was big. They didn’t focus on it extensively but like, freeze frame and check it out. That’s a huge guy!
3. Orion female was quite tall as well actually.
4. A Morn (Liriano)! Hell yeah!
5. The concepts might all be borrowed but at least they more or less fit together in that Scarcity Future environment.
Things I specifically didn’t like:
1. That color-grading pallet. Come on Hollywood, hire non-videogame computerists who aren’t afraid of REAL use of color.
Everything else falls in the “I know what this show has been/Maybe 1000 year jump frees up a narrative/I do like the cast/I don’t adore Nu-Trek” generalities. That hasn’t changed but it’s still probably the best overall episode of Disco with the best non-Pike scenes. Still eagerly awaiting Strange New Worlds more than any all else.
Cheers.
Decent episode. Book’s ship from the outside looked like the much smaller Jellyfish ship from Star Trek 2009. The comment about the Gorn seemed random…also naturally Burnham seems to know who they are despite first contact with the Federation not happening until the 2260s. By the way, I think the Temporal Wars is referring to the events of “Storm Front” as Vosk had turned the Temporal Cold War hot at that point. It seems bit of a stretch that all time travel tech would be destroyed…You would think that some would be left to safeguard against unscrupulous characters developing tech in secret and messing with the timeline.
Well, if any still exists then it is probably in the hands of Section 31, or a similar super secret organization.
I suspect that Georgiou will be catching up with the S31 types who remain soon enough.
And as we know, she never has been part of an organization that she doesn’t want to take over.
It still bothers me what they did with Section 31…they literally wear special 24th century style combadges that call attention to themselves. I guess Director Sloan should have worn a name tag that said ‘Hello my name is Sloan and I’m a Secret Agent’ :p
The CIA has uniforms. They mostly don’t wear them, but they exist.
Would that apply to senior officials, administrators and analysts or something? Because it wouldn’t make sense if it was an agent out in the field, especially if they are in involved in covert ops.
So does Book warning Burnham to close her eyes mean that the creature is the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal?
What a mess….
Ever since enterprise ended I’ve been wishing for a new star trek show. Now there are 3 STD, STP, STLD. I realize that I screwed up my wish. I assumed the new shows would be positive, well written, with thought out story and plot arcs. For screwing up my wish I apologize to the world.
You don’t like any of the new shows? I have been mixed on most of them but I LOVED Lower Decks. Best Trek show since Voyager to me but my opinion only.
He said he wanted a “well written show with a thought out story and plot arcs.” That is not Lower Decks, which is about how many people can recall the combination to Kirk’s safe.
Well that’s LDS to me. Every episode they have a fun A and B (and sometimes C) story and involve the characters in a meaningful way. And how does it not have thought out plot arcs? Literally every character got some kind of change by the finale minus Tendi.
Now of course if you just don’t feel that way, OK, but for me LDS was consistent from start to finish. And because it was more episodic and not serialized like the other shows, it didn’t feel convoluted like Discovery did or just incomplete like so much of what Picard felt. All the arcs were tied up well IMO.
I’m on your side on this one, River. The show was indeed all about how many references they can cram into every episode and hope that people would smile and laugh at them and then the real crime… Call it a comedy. Who are they kidding?
The third time was the charm for Discovery. This felt like the pilot for a cool, exciting, and potentially thoughtful show that I was hoping for in 2017. The creative powers of the show finally gave SMG a whole character to play instead of a basket of malfunctioning plot devices, and Burnham was delightful and interesting.
Like Gary Seven’s cat, Grudge is clearly something much more interesting in disguise. Book is a swashbuckling hippy.
Hopefully the show can live up to the creative promise seeded in this episode.
My review in one word: Sigh!
While substantially different from the openers of both previous seasons, this episode was also the same in delivering – maybe more “perfect” than ever – the trademark Discovery formula of “explosions and emotions”. And safe for the unexpected, previously unrevealed opening scene and book-ending closing scene, there was just not much more to it. The plot (alleged criminal is saving poor creatures from being hunted – more Picardian vigilant justice I suppose) was so simple it could easily have been the B-plot of a 20 minutes LDS episode. And apart from the mentioned short Federation scenes, the rest just felt like generic scifi action/romance to me – 10% Star Trek, 90% filler, if you will.
The “emotion” part doesnt weigh lightly for me either. Somehow they took overemoting annoying Burnham from the latter part of season 2 and cranked up the volume by factor 10! SMG was acting like on drugs for the entire episode, and conveniently, for part of it she was written as actually being. This is just no joy, watching a Starfleet officer who acts like no other (male or female) in 50 years of canon and some 700 episodes yet somehow embodies the spirit of Starfleet, a “science officer”. Suspension of disbelief! It also doesnt serve their political purposes well to make the lead woman act hysterical all the time rather than level-headed, rational, professional.
Those points are even more consequential for me for the verdict than the (also typical for Discovery) very shoddy relationship with science and established treknology canon which I would otherwise have highlighted more. Out of all possible explanations from previous Trek on the table, they chose “dilithium somehow went boom”! Really? Afaik it’s only relevant for the M/AM reaction and that is only needed for power generation, not propulsion (the warp field). So Romulans, employing singularities for power generation, should be fine then？Yet somehow also subspace was destroyed for 2ly by Burnham’s time jump, long range sensors stopped working and so on. Its really more a hodgepodge of hocuspocus than any hint of a grand overarching theory,and I really really hope its just their misguided mystery box at work here and there’s still going to be a more consistent and believable explanation later on. Unlike the other parts, at least this part is still salvagable.
So all in all, so far sadly I have to repeat: for Discovery, the more things change, the more they stay the same!
Yep. Agree with much of this. Especially the bookends that had potential to work but in this show the rug is just pulled out from under those scenes. They can’t work because they weren’t earned over the previous 26 episodes.
I’m among those that loved the bookends.
I’d like to see a Short Trek that expands this.
TG47, you dont think they may super-bookend this at the end of the season? With Mr. Sahil getting his own fully stuffed liaison office for example. Reflect the progress of Project Rebuild Federation in the small and personal, thats always more relatable. At least that’s what I think good writing should look like (curiously That Hope is You Part 2 does not follow next week – is it the season finale?) I COULD see them pulll this off UNLESS they pivot to another theme mid season again like Mirror Universe or AI threat before. By Surak, I hope not!
There’s a problem when the alternatives they keep teasing us with on Discovery – starting with the adventures of Captain Georgiou on the USS Shenzhou – are more enticing than the fare they serve us instead as the “better, cooler, more contemporary deal”! Oh, and how I’d love them to scrap Section 31 and spin off the Shenzhou preqhel instead! Give Michelle Yeoh a respectable role and not insult her (and us) with Space Hitler!
Honestly I’m not all that interested in Prime Georgeau but if they gave her THAT show instead of the 31 show… I’d prefer it.
And I’m not too keen on a Section 31 show either but if they were to do one putting Space Stalin on it just doesn’t work in any way shape or form.
I liked the set up for the season…. You can totally tell where this season is going to go
Why must Burnham always cry? If I imagine Kirk, Picard, Janeway or every other character from different series. I am not able to imagine that they would cry in that situations.
On the other hand Burnham is crying in almost every episode. I think this should stop regarding her character.
Haha, I was wondering the same and I also wondered how many are annoyed by that. As a man I grew up “old school” where any such demonstration was considered to be a sign of weakness (don’t cry like a baby or “there’s no crying in baseball”), whereas a violent angry emotional outburst was considered by some to be a sign of strength. Today, I think it is pretty obvious that neither opinion has merit, as long as you channel those emotions into something positive.
As for Burnham, the writers have obviously decided that for her character, crying is a way for her to express emotion. Coincidently at this very moment, the sports radio talk show I am listening to in the background is discussing the fact the Montreal Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin was crying in a press conference yesterday after he re-signed a big Montreal fan favorite Brendan Gallagher. There may not be crying in baseball, but I guess there is crying in hockey haha. LLAP.
“Today, I think it is pretty obvious that neither opinion has merit’
Dean, I dont think Western society has reached the point (again) where overemotional behavior and emotional abuse in particular are shunned and seen just as negative as sexual harrassment. What it needs for that is a “reverse Me Too” moment but I doubt its going to happen any time soon seeing who is in firm control of the cultural sphere. What we need is a second Enlightenment that promotes logic and reason over emotion and false ’empathy’. Sape Audere!
Gretzky sobbed when he announced his retirement. So did Mike Schmidt.
Its not just the crying, Mark. Every emotional expression of her is a crude exaggerated cartoon of the actual human emotion. I think the range of the actress is just that limited given we have seen actresses like Roxanne Dawson excel in “conflicted passionate female lead character”!
Agreed. You’d think with everything she learned on Vulcan, she’d have learned to have better lid on her emotions, but she comes across as having the emotional range and maturity of a child or teenager. And I found her reaction after she crashed to be very unusual and out of place. Very over-the-top. I can’t imagine any other Starfleet officer acting this way in this situation, and what makes it even harder to believe is that she not only grew up on Vulcan but is a scientist. So I expect her to be more analytical and reserved. Not emotionless, but reserved. And focused.
And that is a thing that they mentioned when the show started but NEVER used. It is potentially a VERY interesting characteristic. But such matters were completely ignored pretty much from day one. It was as if she was raised in a typical 23rd century human household.
My only explanation is that she doesn’t yet have the capacity to be moderate.
She’s either full on Vulcan/pilot chill or letting her emotions rip. I guess being fostered on Vulcan gave her little opportunity to develop more nuanced regulation.
But I’m finding that the writers aren’t letting her revert to Vulcan/pilot self-control when she should.
Her reactions (e.g. yelling at her interface when her suit was crashing after the collision) don’t fit with either her test pilot or her Vulcan training. In both cases, the default training install is to lockdown emotions in high adrenaline situations.
We’ve seen her manage it in other crisis situations (escaping the brig on the Shenzhou, rescuing Pike in the asteroid field). SMG really conveyed the focused, crazy chill of an adrenaline-loving, risk taking pilot in both those incidents.
Yes, in this episode she’s just escaped a battle, traversed a wormhole and more, but I just didn’t expect all that desperate yelling. But it’s all of a piece of the inappropriate emotional spinning out and self-absorption Burnham has been written to show since Project Daedulus.
I’m hoping that with Book and a new focus, the writers might let her evolve into a better regulated set of human emotions.
“But it’s all of a piece of the inappropriate emotional spinning out and self-absorption Burnham has been written to show since Project Daedulus.”
You are right, the moment they turned up the volume from loud to unbearable was the moment she found her mother, this was pure unscripted soap opera! (It also coincides with the arrival of Michael Paradise as major writer and showrunner, who wrote the tearjerker season 2 finale)
Unlike you I don’t hace the coincidence they want to rein in anything, on the contrary, i think this is the journey they scripted for Burnham, according to interviews, from that reasonably controlled Vulcan in Vulcan Hello to an “unimpeded emotional being”. And it seems they hired MSG specifically for that “emotional ranfge” (i would say, soap opera qualities). As I and others have noted her expression and acting differs considerably from similiar female professional officers like BElanna Torres/Roxann Dawson.
Finally I will add, since we and they talk about “overcoming stereotypes” so much, they are doing their cause a disservice by insisting the lead female professional scientist character must have such a lacking impulse control and hysterical behaviour.
At the risk of stirring up a tempest here, I’m going to make a politicalish comment.
I’m wondering if after the strong emotions in public life of the past couple of decades (from 9/11, through guillets jaunes, Brexit, the orange one etc. not to mention extreme weather events and the pandemic), that there might not be a greater interest in entertainment that is not only aspirational as opposed to grimdark, but also more emotionally moderate and regulated.
I didnt see the tempest here, TG47 :D
My suspicion about the growing emotionalism, division and extremism on all sides is that social media is to blame. Things really went south since about the time of it starting to have a proper impact and disrupting society about a decade ago.
Of course there is already a backslash against the “old” social media going on (especially Facebook) but the new generation (Snapchat, Tiktok) hardly fosters more rationality.
So for all our sakes I hope you are correct and there would be a counter movement eventually, Enlightenment 2.0 if you will, but seeing no signs of it I suppose it’s a good way out and things will get worse before they get better :/
Autor wrote!
“If going home is just a slingshot around the sun away (in a ship without sphere data onboard)”
I think!
The can’t do this because they don’t know the slingshot trick at this point, Kirk first time Slingshot was an acciden’t years after Discovery!
That episode was an absolute bloody ripper! Couldn’t give a rats arse what some are saying / great start, can’t wait for the next one.
“That episode was an absolute bloody ripper”
Actually you are right. The number of living breathing people ripped to bloody pieces during that very lengthy action shootout was astounding for Trek! (that’s why Roddenberry invented phasers on stun….)
I guess it’s alright because the worms got saved! Admiral, we have worms again!
I get it, militant environmentalism is en vogue now ;)
My favorite Line of your review: “ The Andorian makeup has been unnecessarily updated.”
That’s how I feel about the production design of this show: the unnecessarily updated stuff. It’s like they have the money, so they just continue to add extra junk onto everything for no good reason other than they can. The Klingons from season one were a prime example, but I agree about the Andorians here as well. It is not good at all.
But in fairness, TNG also added extra junk to the Romulans makeup as well, but it was nowhere close to The Disco over-design concept.
Less is more. Restraint in design can do wonders
My problem with the Andorians is that between the darkish turquoise coloration and the protheses the faces look mask-like, cartoonish and fake / not like a living being.
It’s always a question of how to add more without making it look non-living.
It’s a problem when the CGI rendered thrall worm looks more like it’s made of living tissue than the Andorians’ faces.
“My problem with the Andorians is that between the darkish turquoise coloration and the protheses the faces look mask-like, cartoonish and fake / not like a living being”
Yes, like Disco’s Klingons.
Yes… I think there was no reason to give them such pointy faces. What they did on Enterprise… Move their antenna, was a GREAT move. I didn’t see any antenna movement on this episode. I actually watched for it. The idea was the antenna movement was meant to display their emotional state.
I don’t think we hav have seen any animatronics in the Discovery Andorians at all.
It’s a daft choice to put so much into protheses, but then ignore what was the most successful innovation in the Enterprise Andorians.
Unlike the season 2 opener, the start of Season 3 didn’t bother me. On the one hand, this was because the episode was entirely Burnham-heavy. The Discovery didn’t happen at all, which made the story start somehow bumpy.
In general, STD’s visual style is more reminiscent of Star Wars than Star Trek. Even if the effects are generally good and beautiful, this optical fusion bothers me. Space fights act like X-Wing Dogfights etc.
Burnham himself continues her journey of implorability with emotional outbursts from the start. The character is exhausting, does not act like a Starfleet officer. The fact that she is in the future seems to overwhelm her. Starfleet officers are confronted with the unknown every day. One would like to think that they are trained to master such situations rationally.
Book is a strange mix of Han Solo and intergalactic Greenpeace activist who talks to animals and plants. Here the creators copy themselves again, because Book is basically a Rios slap from ST Picard.
Visually, the 32nd century seems implausible. I don’t know what has changed technically, visually, etc. since the 23rd century, except for the number-turner. Very lame in creativity so far.
In terms of action, we are again confronted with a flat mixture of inconsistently inserted action sequences interrupted with boring sometimes pathetic dialogue scenes. I don’t want to spoil, but the relationship between Burnham and Book seems very constructed.
Iceland as a filming location is beautiful – those who have been there can quickly recognize the tourist hotspots that they have muddled in the scenes. It’s a pity that the authors still can’t write better scripts.
I’m coming to recognize that level of emotionalism is just another of the different tones for different market niches that Kurtzman has laid out strategically.
Looking across the professional reviewers, one noted that “Discovery has no chill” in an otherwise positive review. Another praised the show for not having the emotional stiffness of earlier series.
As long as there will be other new shows that are less emotionally exhausting, I can accept this.
“As long as there will be other new shows that are less emotionally exhausting, I can accept this.”
But are there? Picard no doubt is more “introverted emotional”, but emotional nonetheless. From what I’ve seen and read the LDS lead is similiarly unrestrained as Burnham, though more likeable and having the appropriate rank for her unprofessional behaviour (Ensign, not Commander-aspiring-Captain).
I think more than the audience, they are serving the zeitgeist, so there may be little reprieve for now.
To play the devil’s advocate…
“The fact that she is in the future seems to overwhelm her.”
In The Voyage Home all of our original crew acted like blithering idiots who had no idea where and when they were. Yet a lot of people loved that.
Interesting and definitely raises some questions, would like to know a lot of backstory on what the state of the known galaxy is. I also enjoyed the chemistry between Burnham and Book, so much so that I wouldn’t mind if the show was just them travelling around the galaxy, when I saw the rest of the Discovery crew in the preview it was like ‘oh yeah we have to follow those people too, meh’.
However, I have to say whenever Discovery tries to tug at your heartstrings (like the part at the end with the Federation liaison and the Federation flag), it just makes my wife and I laugh. It comes off to us as too earnest and try-hard. I know earlier iterations of Star Trek had this problem (though I don’t remember a time when we laughed out loud at something that was trying to be serious), they could very much be ‘bonk bonk on the head’ as they like to say on Mission Log. I just feel like Discovery takes itself so seriously and those moments just don’t feel ‘earned’ to me – like it’s super transparent that they are trying to make you feel something (i.e. the Airiam episode last season). Honestly that is why we really liked Lower Decks, it didn’t take itself too seriously.
Overall a decent season-opener and we’ll keep watching, but Discovery is definitely more of a ‘meh’ from us and there’s a none-zero chance we might stop watching if it falls flat again.
EDIT: Also as a side note I’ve been to that waterfall they briefly jumped to in the chase sequence. You can walk all the way behind and it’s best at sunset (which it looks like is when they filmed) because it faces west. It was just super-exciting to see a place I had been before in a Star Trek episode!
Lucky you.
I once had a brief stop for refuelling in Iceland. It was just enough to make one feel that you really needed to come back for a real stay.
You do. Went there twice. I need to make it a third time. Stunning!
It was incredible. Just rent a car with AWD and drive around the country. The F-roads are incredible.
That Orion guy looked like Bruce Campbells’ deranged plastic surgeon character from Escape From LA.
My biggest gripe with this episode is that 23rd century tech (i.e. holographic interface that shouldn’t exist from Red Angel suit) still looks like late 24th century tech that we see in Star Trek: Picard. The tech in both shows look so similar to each other that it makes it hard to differentiate that these 2 shows take place in different time periods that are more than 100 years apart. It’s good that DIS now takes place in the 32nd century but the time period it initially started out from needs to look less advanced than TNG / PIC.
To be fair, previous ‘Treks had a problem with this too. Look at the Relativity bridge from VOY. That was a 29th century timeship, and aesthetically was barely any different than anything from the 24th century. Looked more like maybe 25th century. I feel that was more due to budget and time constraints though. The exterior of the timeship at least looked very different from what we know. But DSC doesn’t have those same problems, so there isn’t much excuse.
I was going to mention this, but you know, so much to mention! Voyager and Enterprise provided bad precedents for how such a far future should look like, not just for us, but regular Trek too. And not just tech, but social norms, culture, language, religion. Discovery looks to make that same mistake too of reducing future progress to tech and maybe some political change. I suppose they think the viewers can’t relate (a problem that already made them dial back many of the smart choices of Roddenberry in TNG season 1 regarding future societal change like no animal meat etc.)
I’m afraid that ship has sailed. They set that ridiculous standard back in Season 1. DSC Never looked like it belonged pre-TOS. At least it’s in the far future now…
Did the season premiere end with a preview for Episode 2 for anyone? Mine (Apple TV) went to end credits and then nothing. No “Next Week” preview.