“Forget Me Not”
Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, Episode 4 – Debuted Thursday, November 5, 2020
Written by Alan McElroy and Chris Silvestri & Anthony Maranville
Directed by Hanelle M. Culpepper
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
With a strong Star Trek theme, “Forget Me Not” keeps the momentum of season three going with a fine balance of intriguing mythology and plot development along with emotional character development. Actor Wilson Cruz ably carries a lot of this load, connecting the dots between the storylines.
Don’t worry, your brain is supposed to look like its being invaded by spaghetti
WARNING: Spoilers below!
“They feel lost. Disconnected”
We enter “Forget Me Not” through the medical log of Dr. Hugh Culber, who guides us (and the Discovery crew) through this episode. Hugh went through a lot being lost in the mycelial network and being reborn in season two, giving him a sort of Zen master view of things as he diagnoses the two big issues in this episode. One, the dislocated crew is going a bit cray cray after all they have gone through. Two, in order for the season’s “find the Federation” plot to move forward, the human Adira needs to figure out how to tap into the memories of her disconnected Trill symbiont.
Dr. Culber’s prescriptions—and theme for the episode—is all about connection: The crew needs to find a way to stop feeling so alone and vulnerable. He leaves Captain Saru in charge of working that out. As for Adira, he advises she see a specialist… on Trill. And noticing that Michael has been going through some changes for the better in her one extra year in the future, the good doctor wisely taps her as Adira’s guide to what is a strange new world for all of them.
I may not be able to commune with my symbiont but I can tell you’re all staring at me
“Welcome to Trill”
Star Trek’s return to an idyllic-looking Trill complete with cool alien flying fish starts off nicely. Due to “The Burn,” the locals are no longer part of The Federation, but they are far more welcoming to a visit from Starfleet than the people of Earth were last week. They are especially excited about a symbiont returning, but things take a turn when they find out the little guy is inside a human, ick.
While Trill appears tranquil, like with Earth, the Discovery’s arrival exposes the cracks in the façade. The Burn has decimated the population, leaving not enough compatible hosts. While Guardian Xi is excited about the prospect of non-Trill being able to be hosts, the hardline Commissioner Vos sees it as an “abomination” and suggests forceful removal, showing some have lost their Federation values, big time. Trill Leader Pav’s solution is to send Michael and Adira packing but that sneaky Vos ambushes them. Thankfully, Michael 3.0 summarily dispatches him and his Trill goons who inexplicably brought energy spears to a phaser fight.
This gives Guardian Xi his chance, taking Team Disco to the Sacred Caves of Mak’ala to get Adira in touch with her inner squid… it’s okay, that’s what she calls it. The hope is that the symbionts in their pools can help make that vital connection, even with a human, so Adira goes in for a dip sending her into a trance. Just as the bad guys show up to put a stop to all of this, Adira goes under and Michael—for some reason—is sent in after her. She finds a terrified Adira in some kind of Trill ethereal plane, fending off swarms of tendrils. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Rub a dub in the Trill tub! Gonna set me free!
“You guys think you have the market cornered on pain”
With a little consultation from a growingly familiar computer, Saru settles on giving the crew a night off and hosting a big meal for his team, along with their crazy Aunt Georgiou. Nostalgic for his family’s harvest meals on Kaminar, the captain sees this as an opportunity to create a new ritual for his Starfleet family. He even tries to turn the “aye” each gave to commit to the jump to the future last season into a communal prayer.
Unfortunately for Saru, there is no Ba’ul maintaining a Great Balance here on the Disco. Like many a Thanksgiving meal, things start off pleasantly enough only to descend into the chaos of accusations, recriminations, and swearing… and it all started with Georgiou lightening things up with a haiku. Diabolical. The former Terran Emperor continues to be the proverbial fly in the ship’s ointment, deliciously played by Michelle Yeoh.
The biggest clash at the table comes from Keyla Detmer, whose simmering issues finally come to a boil. She and Stamets go at it in an epic who-can-fly-the-ship-better fight, and Tilly opens the swear jar to call them both out, revealing she also has issues with how Paul has been kind of a jerk to her all episode. Everyone bails, leaving poor Saru all alone with way too many leftovers.
Three rules: don’t talk politics, religion, or starship piloting at Thanksgiving
“This is our story”
Back in the Trill caves it doesn’t take Michael long to figure out the tendrils are Tal trying to connect with Adira, if only she could let go of some painful suppressed memories. The backstory of how Tal was joined with her turns out to be quite tragic, with Adira’s Trill ex-boyfriend Gray dying as their generational starship was destroyed, leaving her as the only safe place for his symbiont. The flashbacks beautifully weave together this week’s theme of connection, with Blu del Barrio carrying almost all of the emotional weight and newcomer Ian Alexander ’along for the ride as Gray.
And through all this shared trust, Tal accepts Adira into “the circle” as the new host, with each past host revealed, including Starfleet Admiral Senna Tal (played by Kenneth Welsh of Twin Peaks fame). Coming out of the pool, Adira Tal can now speak the names of her past selves, and is welcomed as a potential savior to the Trill. Even Commissioner McGrumpy is impressed. But Adira decides for now she will stick with the Disco, and spread the good news of the Trill to the galaxy. And Michel can add Trill as a notch on her utility belt of new friends for the rebuilding of the Federation.
So adding a symbiont makes us a thruple… kinky
Back on the ship people are sobering up and having some regrets over the dinner disaster. Suru reveals he has some Captain Pike envy over Christopher’s easy way with the crew, but Tilly—in a fun yet poignant moment—reminds the Kelpien captain he has his own ways of leadership. Paul and Sylvia remember they have the best chemistry on the show and bury the hatchet into some weird science about dark matter (that stuff from season two) being the key to finding a non-Stamets interface to the spore drive. And Detmer finally admits to both herself and Dr. Culber that she needs to stop being so muy macho and get some help.
Saru comes up with Morale Boost Plan B, taking the Sphere-data-infused ship’s very specific advice for movie night with an ancient Buster Keaton film. The crew shows how messed up they are by laughing maniacally at it. Sure, these classics are amusing, but not that funny. Dr. Culber is impressed with Saru’s therapy on the crew, but these crazy kids are not out of the woods yet. Now the newly-minted memory-having Adira Tal—who secretly still has visions of her ex Gray—has their next destination worked out… Starfleet HQ, here we come!
I don’t always drink ale, but when I do…
ANALYSIS
Making a connection
“Forget Me Not” is just the kind of solid mid-season Discovery episode you want to have. It’s rich in mythology, holds a strong Star Trek theme, moves the season arc plot forward, and weaves in strong character development. You can feel the love throughout: a love of Star Trek shown by the writers, a love between the characters that we know for each other, and a whole new kind of love between Adira and her ghost boyfriend Gray. And even though there was some hugging, these quiet character beats were well played by director Hanelle Culpepper, without descending into the indulgent melodrama Discovery too often leans on.
The glue that holds this all together is Wilson Cruz. We are finally seeing his Doctor Culber do some doctoring, but this crew isn’t suffering from broken bones as much as they are suffering from broken hearts. The actor shows he is quite capable of conveying Hugh’s unique perspective as he tends to this entire crew. The performances of the always reliable Doug Jones and Mary Wiseman are also noteworthy for this outing.
You put what in your Terran Empire Suprise Casserole?
It’s the power of myth, people!
Showrunner Michelle Paradise promised that this season would delve into Trill mythology and this episode certainly dove right in. Writers Alan McElroy, Chris Silvestri, and Anthony Maranville clearly did their homework as “Forget Me Not” honored and meshed with the Trill/Dax episodes from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, including creating a curious twist on the taboo of Reassociation with Adira keeping her continued visions of Grey on the down low. Although we did posit a theory on how we may see Dax, Tal is already an interesting character. There was also quite a bit of expanding what we know about the fascinating symbiotic race. Not only did they add bits of Trill tech and technobabble, but also a sense of their spirituality and even our first taste of their native language.
The location shooting and production design for Trill was beautiful, including a welcome return to the symbiont caves. The virtual world of Trill symbiosis was also fascinating and exquisitely realized, although things got a big hand-wavy as to how Adira was able to overcome millennia of no non-Trills as hosts.
We can also start seeing more of a pattern for the post-Burn galaxy. Perhaps core worlds like Earth and Trill were able to survive and even thrive to an extent, albeit with internal struggles and lack of connection, while frontier worlds may have suffered more lawlessness, like Hima and “The Colony.” It is again a nice twist to use the conceit of the new future allow for established planets to become the strange new worlds of the week for our heroes to spread the long-lost Federation gospel.
This episode also built Star Trek: Discovery’s own mythology and potential connection to Short Treks, with the Sphere-influenced version of the ship’s computer voiced by Annabelle Wallis, who also voiced Zora in “Calypso.” We will have to delve more into that later on.
Wait, you don’t have spots? Gross.
Keep it up
“Forget Me Not” feels like another classic Star Trek outing, in terms of both mythology and themes. Even though we are four episodes in, it doesn’t seem like they are dragging out the mysteries of The Burn and finding the future Federation, unlike last year with the dragged-out search for Spock and the Red Angel.
The strong ensemble cast once again shows each can step up when needed. Jeff Russo’s music also continues to impress as he and his musicians lean more and more into classic Star Trek scoring, helping tell the story.
Season three of Star Trek: Discovery continues to take shape as its best yet.
Saru just realizes he can’t put his hand completely down on the armrest or he’ll fire the photons
Random extra bits
- Suru says without Stamets the Discovery would be as limited as other ships in the 32nd century. So, did they leave their dilithium behind back on Earth or with Book to avoid being a target?
- Speaking of Book, Michael showed no signs of missing him, but he is still missed.
- One of the skills Adira picked up through joining with Tal is how to make Bajoran hasperat.
- Michael has built a database of connected clues to The Burn, which we will probably see more of later on in the season.
- It’s unclear why Michael and Adira took a shuttle down to Trill, except to allow for the later ambush.
- Linus is a fan of droog-beetle pie
- Tilly once puked on a Tellarite ambassador on Thanksgiving.
- The 32nd-century medical drones on Adira’s generation ship were capable of complicated surgery and reminiscent of Star Wars midwife droids.
- Before Adira, Tal has had six hosts: Kasha, Jovar, Madela, Cara, Senna, and Gray.
- In addition to Admiral Senna Tal, two previous Tal hosts were Starfleet officers. One also wore the new 32nd-century Starfleet badge and one (a captain) wore a badge like those seen in the late 24th century. It’s possible Tal spent some time in the pools between hosts.
- Is there something going on between Georgiou and Linus?
- Quote of the week [Computer to Saru]: “The crew would benefit from exercise, medication, limited dairy… yoga, hyperbaric chamber, therapeutic coloring books, interstellar shopping.”
My name is Gray and your name is Blu, but my hair is blue, wait, is that right?
More to come
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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.
Grey isn’t her “ex-boyriend.” That would imply they’d broken up. He’s her deceased boyfriend. There’s a big difference.
What? you’re on to something!
Yes: correcting an error in the article.
Gray is the boo.
I don’t know a lot about Trill but this episode I liked more than “People of Earth”. I need to watch Deep Space Nine more to get a better understanding of Trill and everything else going on.
Georgiou and Linus are dating… whatever that is
I think it’s probably best not to dwell on what Linus and Georgiou get up to…. LOL.
Tastes like chicken…….let your imaginations soar!
When I was watching the dinner scene, I was thinking “So say we all.”
I’m surprised “space hitler” didn’t say something about preferring to eat Kelpian. Was totally expecting it.
I think it was never more clear so far into the third season how out of place and pointless the Georgiou character feels right now than in this dinner scene (now offense to Michelle Yeoh–it’s not her fault).
Yeah. Space Hitler really shouldn’t be in this Universe at all. Writers, please let her sacrifice herself out of some macho need to “win” as well as protect Burnham. Michael can mourn her for 2 seconds, and then we can move on. PLEASE????
I think David Cronenberg’s character will have missions for Georgiou.
Surely, 32nd century MU baddies will be able to identify agents from other universes (as 25th century Starfleet could by checking differences in quantum resonance).
Georgiou can carry out missions in the MU that Prime Universe agents cannot.
Good call. How’d you know that Cronenberg’s character would lock horns with Georgiou in this week’s episode?
That was a good episode.
A few points:
Yup that didn’t make sense. But it’s still the Burnham show
Control was just creepy talking to Saru…
It wasn’t Control, it was a bourgeoning consciousness that came about as a result of the Sphere data merging with Discovery’s computer. We first met her as “Zora” in the Short Trek called “Calypso”.
Regardless, the scene played out as something foreboding. Like something weird was happening to the computer just as something weird was happening to the implant chick. (again have no idea what her name is)
This is playing out like it is something they are going to have to deal with before the season ends.
But I completely forgot about Calypso. If this is supposed to evolve into that then it’s not being handled very well.
Since Calypso has been on my mind since the beginning of the season (given its time period and the reference to the V’draysh two episodes ago), and that it wasn’t on yours, I think that’s why that scene was very different to us. That didn’t feel foreboding at all to me, but instead exciting and revelatory, like an “oh shit, it’s happening!” kind of feeling you get at the end-credits scene of an MCU film. It felt whatever the positive version of ominous is. As such, I’d been worried that they wouldn’t handle it very gracefully and am actually surprised how smooth and riveting that moment was with the longer game they’re playing with Zora and the V’draysh.
I feel like if you checked out Calypso again and then rewatched the first four season three episodes, you’d get a very different feel from it.
It was the only good one of the 4 opening Short Treks. But so far none of the new Trek has been worth watching again.
But ominous is the right word. It felt like that was something they were going to have to deal with. If felt dangerous. And I also think Saru handled it weirdly. As if it was just another Tuesday on the ship. That was something he should have immediately had his crew investigate. Even given it might be a lead in to the Calypso thing. It would be the logical move on his part.
Control’s dead. That was Zora.
And I’m so glad that Zora’s emergence wasn’t mediated through Detmer’s implant…although there’s still the possibility that Zora picked up some sense of the crew’s distress from Detmer.
Was Detmer’s break down with the haiku the end of her PTSD arc do you think? I wouldn’t be surprised if Zora – or Control – using Detmer’s implant is a plot point still.
Yeah I think we were all dreading that spin. Goog job it’s good old PTSD eh?
PTSD is enough on its own, and it’s one of the things that’s been glossed over in episodic Trek for the most part.
DS9 handled it better (Sisko, Nog) so I’m glad that Discovery is giving it respect after the way Tyler’s PTSD was used as a red herring in S1.
I dont of course know what is going on, but could this unexpectedly early emergence mean that the crew will indeed abandon the ship (along with the sphere data) sometime in the not so far future (maybe even send it back 1000 years into the past to keep the Calypso timeframe and we may see a new, 32nd century Discovery? Then the transition from prequel to sequel would truly be complete!
I really like this idea. Send Discovery back and when we see her again in the 32nd century she will be as advanced as the other ships thanks to Zora. Never thought of it that way but yeah that can work.
I actively enjoyed this episode, after actively looking forward to it. Could this be the third-season stride-hitting? Or am I just going soft?
I think it is too. Very strong run of episodes so far. The show seems to be finally trusting its ensemble, the characters and their relationships, more and not relying on over-plotting as much to keep things moving. Really enjoying how it’s finally feeling like a real crew, which they’ve earned over time. I think that’s part of it too .
I was so happy that a non-main character got a “moment” in Keyla’s losing it with Stamets. Kind of that quiet background employee that nobody talks to just got allowed to get pissy for a bit. And we’ve never really had to come to terms with the stress of piloting a starship. It’s got to be a burden and previously it was something a blind man, a day player or noncommissioned teenager could do with little effort. I never really thought of the responsibility but it must be like a schoolbus driver times 100. Lots of lives in your hands. Her breakdown was very human and not forced, which is new ground for this series. Definitely moving in the right direction with some of the characters.
I’m not feeling their “bonding” in any significant way. But I will say that I think the show has less “hit their stride” and more decided this is the tone they want to take. Good for viewers who are satisfied with it. Bad for the ones who hoped for something more substantial.
I don’t know if I entirely buy the “bonding” yet either, but my point is the foundation feels like it’s there finally, and that may be partially (or mostly) about the time they’ve had together. And I’m not sure what “substantial” means in this context, but I’d be inclined to agree that if the show is only about interpersonal drama, then I’m not going to be terribly engaged either. But I think it’s important that Trek adventures in particular feel connected to a *full* ensemble we feel more thoroughly familiar with and invested in, as in the glory days of TNG and DS9 (I’m not comparing them, just noting that having that deep ensemble is not everything by any means, but still so important). Trusting the characters and their interactions is a more substantive grounding for my continued investment in the larger narratives they are telling than the empty calorie gimmicks of cliffhangers, absurd plot twists, and ridiculous mystery boxes which undercut the promise of the first two seasons, imo.
I think it might be more than that; it might be the entire series hitting its stride. Fingers crossed!
Oh yes, that’s totally what I meant. Like, Next Generation was kind of wobbly until Season 3. DS9 was kind of the same as I recall. Enterprise just started getting good in the 4th season, I think, but the beancounters axed it. Just takes a couple years of shakedown, I guess. I’m glad it came.
I would say that Enterprise started out OK but got better in their 3rd. TOS took only a few episodes.
But I would say this is more like TNG. Except TNG took over 50 episodes before they started getting better. This show took 26 before they decided what they wanted to be. But in both cases the main characters are not very interesting, bordering on boring to be honest. And like TNG Discovery could only be good if they start dealing with Trek-like sci fi concepts and less on the interpersonal relationships. But TNG did have the advantage of having an extremely charismatic lead actor who was capable of making a dull character watchable. Something Discovery severely lacks.
I agree, and I also think that Hanelle Culpepper was the right choice of director for this episode.
Her opening episodes of Picard were slower paced, and character driven and they were among the best of the season.
I’m wondering whether part of making the series work is knowing which directors are the right fit for the kind of story.
3 episodes on the trot that felt like a Star Trek episode when only one episode in the last 2 seasons felt like Star Trek. I’m comfortable thinking that ST:D has found its stride as a Star Trek series. It just needs tweaks here and there from season to season is now to fine tune it. I’d just about written it off as a total failure. Glad it turned around.
Did anyone else catch the Eddie Van Halen themed shuttle??? Obviously filmed before he passed, but still, the influence is there. Great episode and probably the best of the season. This felt like traditional Trek more so than most other episodes.
I did not think that when watching it but knew exactly what you were referring to because it really does appear that way! RIP EVH!!
The only thing I noticed about STD shuttlecraft is that they look more like the TNG shuttles than the TOS ones. Weird considering that if this truly was set that close to TOS how they would be so radically different. But then, that goes right on with the PD of the entire ship. Which is STILL an issue no matter what century they moved the to. They cannot undo that mistake.
It looks more in keeping with some of the TAS shuttles, and Jeffries had a whole ton of concepts too.
The shuttle we saw in TOS just happened to be the only one they could make a full-size set for within budget. I don’t think limiting what your tech should look like based on a 60 year old budgetary issue should be the main concern – especially when TAS broke free of that immediately when it could.
The Discovery shuttles also have a lot of nice touchstones with the TMP-era shuttles, such as the docking hatch door.
It’s also relatively well-known that Roddenberry had wanted audiences to retcon TOS into looking the same as TMP (in fact, TWOK also had a cut line from Khan about the Reliant bridge looking just how he remembers the Enterprise’s bridge – making that so-called plot hole of “where did Khan get that badge from?” just another part of the retcon instead).
Obviously later shows messed with that concept, especially Trials and Tribble-ations and In a Mirror, Darkly, which showed it to look literally like that, before being radically altered for TMP. But, certainly the intention when the movies were being made, was simply that we were finally able to see how it “really” looked, with an increased budget. And TNG’s aesthetic flows inexorably from TMP’s. Enterprise also fits in better with the TMP mould.
Don’t get me wrong, I think TOS has its charms. Generations and Kassidy’s ship also have set designs reminiscent of TOS, and I like those little touches. But I just don’t understand where this idea that Discovery should look exactly like TOS Enterprise comes from. Voyager looked very different to the Enterprise-D, the E looked very different to the D, so did the Defiant. They all had radically different shuttle designs, as well. None of them shared even the same design of nacelle, the only unifying factor was LCARS but even that changed quite strongly, and they were all made within 20 years of each other in-universe.
And now, with SNW, we’ve seen this reboot of the Enterprise which looks way more like TOS. They’ve got the three-way screen in the meeting rooms, the chunky black tablets and tricorders, waaay more blinkenlights, and so on. The ship itself is also highly recognisable, even though of course some fans nitpick it just as they do with the TMP refit. The decks don’t line up, the neck isn’t quite the same, etc etc. (Of course, we even had that problem with the various models for the Ent-D, and there was nothing in-universe to explain that.)
I suppose this is a very long-winded way for me to say.. I’ve never found the literalist argument to hold much water, especially not when those involved in creating the shows, even the big man himself, didn’t put stock in that viewpoint. I don’t really see why the literalist fans have problems with stuff like this, but are happy to ignore continuity errors. Surely, if one can overlook continuity errors, or the occasional floppy prop in shows, without being taken out of the fiction entirely; why does set design responding to budget create continuity issues for people?
And, of course, even within a literalist reading, Starfleet never had a single unified aesthetic for their fleet. Every ship class has quite a different character in appearance, colours, angles, lighting. To me, Discovery is like Voyager. They both have a big bridge that’s designed primarily to give interesting camera angles. While the Enterprises (OG and -D) have more utilitarian bridges where you can see everything at once. Of course, the Defiant bridge has a lot of similarities to the OG Enterprise too, notably being smaller and most consoles being on the wall in a circle around the captain. And every single one has different shapes and styles of doors, different colour schemes, and so forth.
But yes, I find the literalist reading rather strange, as it seems to me to selectively pick and choose which things to ignore for IRL production reasons, and which things to latch onto as being deal-breakers of difference. And it’s worth pointing out that many fans did not accept that TMP was in the same continuity as TOS when it first came out. There were very familiar-sounding contortions about it having to be in a parallel universe because of this or that piece of set design, or the Klingon makeup changing. But, eventually, people accepted it.
I think you misread things. The problem isn’t with the redesign itself. The problem is that the redesign looks like the show lies in the TNG time frame rather than the TOS one. But that has been a huge problem with the show.
I’ve said for years that if you are going to set a Trek show in the TOS era you need to evoke the feel of the era. Of course the ships and sets will not be 100% identical. There will be updates. But those updates need to feel like they belong. If the show is before TOS then they need to look like they will evolve into what we saw on TOS. Enterprise did this pretty darn well, but then they had a 100 year gap. Not a 10 year one. But these shuttles look like they fit perfectly in the TNG era. 100 years later. Hence the problem.
Also, I checked out TAS shuttles. There was one funky design they called the “Aqua-shuttle”. But the rest pretty much looked like the ones we saw on TOS. It doesn’t matter that the chosen design was one they could easily create as a full size mock up. It was the one they went with and that is the design of shuttlecraft in that universe in that era. So if one is to make a show that is set before it, it NEEDS to give one the impression that it is going to evolve into what we saw.
Not a bad episode overall.
Why would the burn decimate the population of Trill? Was a large percentage of Trill off planet at the time and thus cut off?
The Trill council reminded me of TOS in how they dressed and acted. Also it reminded me of all those 70s sci fi tv shows where people would all be in robes.
When the dinner scene started, I was hoping to see more about the bridge crew characters because they are sort of just anonymous. The arguments seemed to come out of left field. Did Detmer and Stamets have a previous run in or a history of tension? The relationships on this show seem rushed and underdeveloped. Both the friendships and the disagreements.
The 20th century must be a golden age in the 23rd and 24th centuries because of the many cultural references they use in Star Trek. Buster Keaton? Also Discovery must have a pretty deep streaming video vault to pull that one out.
I have Excel spreadsheets with more info than Burnham has on the burn. I wonder if they downloaded any info from the databanks on Earth while they were there? Also I wonder if they bought a few history books from Amazon while they were on Earth, also checked out ancestry.com. Saru did mention 932 years of advancement so maybe they did update the databases. Maybe they will show some of the effects of that.
I’m glad the show addressed the mental condition of the crew regarding the time displacement. It should be a bigger issue. Not all the crew will be stable. Some may go rouge. Some might want to leave Discovery. Who knows?
Adira is a good addition to the show. More personality and backstory already than most of the bridge crew. Who are those people?
This season’s version of Burnham is a better character than in the first two seasons, I think. But the show would be better suited as an ensemble.
I think it was less the population of Trill and more the population of Symbiotes. They had a habit of sending them out into the universe to get new experiences and memories to pass on whether they were Starfleet or not. Even Dax’s host that was a dancer or gymnast was a famous dancer/gymnast I think.
I think it is that a lot of Federation member worlds had become interdependent over 700-ish years and when The Burn isolated them, they were crippled. Some worlds were able to adapt and be self-sufficient (like Earth). Trill was not.
Huh? There’s been no evidence of the Federation falling apart before the burn?
700 years becoming interdependent, then The Burn isolated everyone.
I don’t think you’ve been paying attention this season. Detmer has had ‘issues’ since the first ep. I was waiting for her to explode and it finally happened. This season’s version of Burnham is dreadful; she’s lost her edge.
Yeah but specifically I didn’t know she had a problem with Stamets. And it must have started in previous seasons with him and the spore drive.
Yeah. Maybe symbionts had dilithium in their system and all who were joined at the time of the burn blew up?
I rather think the Federation’s miraculous post-scarcity “free energy” society is all based on M/AM – not just the starships, but most planetary power generation too, similiar to the First World’s prosperity being based on cheap oil.
So dilithium failing and all M/AM reactors blowing up like hundreds of Fukushimas happening planetwide, on all planets.
I’d rather have them delve more definitely into these details rather than contradicting themselves on it in every new episode, but you see were more concerned about emotions than engineerong on this show ;)
Before this there never really was a need to dive into the specifics of the A/AM energy reactions. But here we are….
To be fair, the shows have always preferred story over engineering. In the TNG era the writers would put “[TECH]” in their scripts and let the technical supervisors put something in. What it actually was had no bearing on the story, as made evident by how they didn’t bother to specify what it was. And TOS and TNG era shows regularly contradicted themselves on the engineering too. Sometimes the ship is powered by dilithium, sometimes the ship is powered by antimatter, sometimes the ship is powered by fusion and only the warp drive uses antimatter. Sometimes the holodecks were basically replicators, sometimes they were just “photons and force fields” – even into Voyager, the episode with Harry Kim being Beowulf calls the holodecks “an outgrowth of transporter technology” and even outright says “what’s photonic energy doing in the holodeck?” at one point. In short, the engineering has always been secondary to whatever story they wanted to tell that week. If the engineering would get in the way, they altered the engineering, they didn’t alter the story. This attitude was explicit in the series bibles – don’t give absolute figures, don’t give units, just say “power is at 50%”. Let the story move at its natural pace, don’t get bogged down in details. Now, fans like you and me, and the writers of the Technical Manuals, and so on, may try to find some way to reconcile all of the contradictory statements… but that’s a deliberate action, a contortion, on our part, it’s not something the writers explicitly put into the show. Because the writers didn’t give a damn about the technology, because they just wrote “[TECH]”! The writers were busy writing their stories, their challenges, their fables, their struggles of the week. And often, what seems to tie everything together neatly for one fan doesn’t work at all for another – I’ve gotten into many discussions due to Discovery about what the dilithium is actually for. I’ve always taken it as granted that the dilithium in the plasma is what creates the warp field, but plenty of others have thought it was solely due to the warp coils being energised, and that the warp coil’s material is actually the magic juice. Ultimately, many different and contradictory explanations have been offered over the years, and there is no absolute right answer because it’s fiction. Dilithium doesn’t exist, subspace doesn’t exist, there is no bearing to the real world. It’s just a made up story. Hell, I don’t remember if dilithium was even mentioned in Enterprise; I only recall warp coils, antimatter, plasma injectors. They call the warp core a graviton displacement manifold, suggesting the core itself makes the warp field, instead of the coils. Yet another contradictory explanation. Now, to that end, I actually have found the Discovery and Picard writers seem to be trying to establish things more concretely going on into the future. Such as in the conversation Reno had with Stamets about dilithium and antimatter being reliable. And they’re dropping in existing made-up compounds when relevant, instead of always making up new ones. (Eg, Seven of Nine gave three different contradictory names for the Borg transceiver implant over the course of Voyager. They could’ve been consistent about that, but they weren’t.) But no matter how they decide to go, and even if they’re consulting Memory Alpha, they’re going to inevitably contradict about half of the episodes that have previously discussed operation of these systems. Because these episodes have already contradicted each other. And, I state again, all stories are about characters and challenges, not about engineering. The engineering is just worldbuilding, it’s not actually the story itself. No story is about the minutiae of the engineering, the engineering is merely invoked to create new challenges or, in Voyager especially, to solve the problem. And many, many writers heavily criticised Voyager for creating a problem through fictional jargon and then solving it through other fictional jargon, instead of actually using the problem to create interesting drama. (An example of Voyager doing it right would be in the episode “Dreadnought”.) Perhaps you found stories, where characters do diagnostics off screen, come back, and say they need to recalibrate the flange, to be emotionally satisfying. Maybe you live up to your username and think emotional satisfaction isn’t the point of a story. (Though Tuvok, when talking about the Vulcan edicts of storytelling, says actions in a story must flow inexorably from characters and their established traits.) But I do find it rather strange that you’re complaining about stories caring too much about their characters – famously Michael Piller saved Trek by giving it a character focus in season 3 of TNG, and you can really feel his lack of presence after he leaves Voyager. Piller famously responded to any high-concept pitch… Read more »
Excellent! The writing, the flow, is getting much better. Congratulations to Discovery. I like the two stories, the change from scenes was smooth, connecting different elements at the end of the episode. Season 3 is being polished, compared to Season 1 and 2. Now thinking back, Episode 1 felt like Season 2. This season began on Episode 2.
Detmer, I thought it was something deeper, more problematic. Hope this story will develop in upcoming episodes. Glad was not control again, taking over Detmer.
The new Burnham is cool. More calm, but ready to rumble. So exciting to see Trill, reminded me Berman era planets, but visually better due to current technology!
I was really waiting to see the Old Men. Really. We know Adira is Tal, but I was wishing very bad to see Jadzia or Ezri when we saw that scene with previous hosts. I know is too much to ask, Discovery need their own new characters, create/develop new stories.
They did a great job developing the Trill/Symbiotic. Adding Adira’s story with Grey, the relationship, was brilliant.
Still have faith to see Jadzia and Ezri, if Adira meet/connect with a Future Dax, that’ll be amazing.
The swimming pool, Adira and Michael, their eyes all white reminded me The Minority Report movie. =D
Jadzia will be difficult because Terry Farrell is 20+ years older than when Jadzia died. Ezri should be easy.
Technology my dear Thorny. After 17-18 years, Brent Spinner did a great performance as Data on Picard Season 1. It’s possible. Especially in Star Trek!
It’s unlikely the Dax symbiote would still be alive after 900 years, although maybe after a certain age they stop taking hosts and return to the pools. I don’t think a definite lifespan was ever specified for Trill
True. But based on what we learned about Trill there is little to support they live even as long as Vulcans. And we only saw what, 6 other hosts? This suggests this slug probably doesn’t go back more than 650 years at best. Assuming no more than the one premature host death.
I’m not sure Jadzia is a prominent enough character to warrant that much work. Data was a landmark character. Jadzia was not. No way would they spend that much money to CGI Terry Farrell (no offense to Terry Farrell, who still looks good, by the way.)
The weird thing about that is that it seems that over time the symbiont trill relationship seems to have become even more spiritual/religious than it ever was shown with Jadzia/Ezri Dax.
Do not think of this comment as a complaint or nit pick. It is very possible societies change over 800 years. That is one place the new setting does lend the show more freedoms. Societies over 800 years can be different than what we saw of them on TOS or TNG.
Jadzia/Ezri Dax were not living there, on Trill. Could be the time or the fact that they are on a brink to collapse, to disappear.
“It is very possible societies change over 800 years. That is one place the new setting does lend the show more freedoms. Societies over 800 years can be different than what we saw of them on TOS or TNG.”
As always the question with this show is: are these clever intentional changes or just sloppy writing (as always)?
That is a very good observation. Was this change reasoned and considered or was it just bad writing? Good point that pretty much applies to everything Trek related SH has produced thus far.
Certainly a much better episode. Nice to see the rest of the crew being addressed, though I feel like some of that tension needs to stay for a while. Stamets and Tilly have had conflicts before, and so their conflict in this episode felt natural enough, but the conflict between Detmer and Stamets was out of left field. I honestly don’t even recall them ever interacting before that. So if tension is needed to explore these characters and their interactions then so be it. But if it’s all just swept under the rug now that Detmer is seeking therapy and Stamets apologized to Tilly, then I’ll be pretty disappointed.
As for Adira, I didn’t think I’d care much about her, but surprisingly I do. Even though they might be taking some liberties with the Trill stuff, I think that it was all done pretty well. I even got teary! I just wish Burnham wasn’t there. And that’s not a dig at Burnham, I wouldn’t have wanted anybody else in there with Adira. There wasn’t any need for it. It was a big deal for Adira to go in the pool, but having them let Burnham in too made all their previous resistance seem pointless.
It was Detmer’s PTSD bubbling up in response to the stress of being put on the spot of having to compose a Haiku in front of everyone, combined with the low level resentment any A-type pilot might carry if a non-pilot was getting the credit for “moving” the ship. If it wasn’t Stamets at the dinner, someone else would have taken the brunt of the eventual outburst when her emotional barriers finally broke.
>Nice to see the rest of the crew being addressed
Yes I noticed that too.. The first time we see them as people!
Liked 95% of this episode, and to me this episode felt more akin to the style of a TNG episode or a TOS episode. How? It felt (as the author of the article said) very “_____” of the week-ish. And it felt a little low budget like TOS and early TNG episodes. All good. I liked it.
What got me jazzed, however, was the ships computer. I LOVED that it is now showing evidence of the emergent A.I. from the sphere data.
I have been waiting to see how the writers connect Season 3 with the amazing Calypso Short Trek episode. So this was a nice lead in.
What bummed me (a little) was that Saru did not do the logical thing after ordering the computer to do a self diagnostic… that next step being to call DISCO’s equivalent of Data or Geordi to tell them to explain why the computer is psychotically speaking American English and British for no reason, while simultaneously flipping from answering questions with facts and affirmatives versus answering with higher reasoning and traces of sentient personality. He should be worried that the ship’s computer might be infected or in some other way impacted by the recent drama … just like the crew.
It is a ship full of scientists, so one would expect that a computer farting “nascent A.I. talk” after having dealt with Control would have raised a littler more of a red flag in the captain with the former ganglia we used to love.
I am shocked (not really) that they did not apply the Science Bros or Science Sisters on this one. But the EP was about the crew and healing and connecting. I get it. And I am ok with it.
It makes me look forward to the EP when they do freak out about a full manifestation of the British A.I. in DISCO’s computer. That will be a fun episode I hope. It will be cool to have the ship’s A.I. be fully considered to be a trusted member of the crew.
One more thing: Saru had senior officers and bridge crew at his dinner. Dr. Culber was the only medical officer there, implying he is the Chief Medical Officer on DISCO. To look at the other doctors’ uniforms, I can’t distinguish ranks between them. So if Culber is the CMO, should the shoulders of his uniform have more silver stripes like Saru’s captain’s uniform?
Saru mentioned at the end that he’s aware of it – and seems oddly unbothered for now.
It’s not clear that a CMO came forward with the ship.
As a Lieutenant Commander (two solid and one empty pips), Culber outranks Lieutenant Pollard (two pips).
So perhaps Culber will transition from Medical Officer to Chief Medical Officer as Saru formalized things.
I thought that other doctor was the CMO they used in season 2. Is it not the same actress?
Also there was no chief engineer at the table. It’s been made plain that Stammets is not that. I would have loved to see Reno at that table. She probably could have been the star of that whole scene. I think she is underused but there is the possibility that with Reno maybe less is more?
Hello All –
So far, the DISCO is doing better which is hardly surprising now it can branch out in its own direction and doesn’t need to show reverence for canon. However, I feel that we are heading for the some convolusion and fake emototional resonance that other Kurtzman Trek shows suffer from.
Let me explain…
In Season 1 we had far too much going on. The Klingon War would have been enough, but in just 10 episodes they had Burnham’s past, a story arc in the Mirror Universe, Capt. Georgiou’s return and the Culber/Stamets/Mushroom universe…etc. It resulted in polt threads going nowhere and things happening that didn’t make sense and characters not behaving consistently.
In Season 2 it wasn’t enough to have a compelling mystery about red lights appearing in the Galaxy. We had to have Time Travel, Spock, Red Angel, Burnham’s Mother, Saru’s homecoming (aliens and sister associated)…etc… which required the ‘Sphere Data’ magic box to try and tie things together and again, it came off as messy and disjointed by the end.
In Picard Season 1 it wasn’t enough to have Romulan’s sun exploding. We had to have a terrorist event which destroyed a fleet of ships…. we had to have a terrorist event that destroyed a fleet of ships perpetrated by andrioids… we had to have a terrorist event that destroyed a fleet of ships perpetrated by Romulan agents controlling the Androids… we had to have a terrorist event tgat destroyed a fleet of ships perperated by Romulan agents controlling Androids because of some strange threat from another dimension….then we tossed in the Borg…a love affair…a trator at the heart of the federation…a scrappy crew of rogues with their own back stories. Again, so much of it went no where and just muddied the waters.
In Season 3 we had a compelling mystery…the destruction of the Federation because something happened to the Dilithium. But thats not enough… we have to add another layer (a) Dilithium running out (b) All dilithium exploding at the same time which is impossible unless SOMETHING ELSE was going on at the same time…. and now we have the start of another mystery to get our heads around. Not to mention an issue with the helmsman.
Layer upon layer upon layer of story…with layer upon layer upon layer of emotional stakes not earned.
For each of these series if they just kept with 1 or 2 writers and 1 or 2 executive producers who can tell simple stories or clear arcs then perhaps we would have a good show
You just put my mind to words. 100% in agreement.
You nailed it.
“which is hardly surprising now it can branch out in its own direction and doesn’t need to show reverence for canon”
Completely wrong.
The reason S3 is better has nothing to do with that. It’s better writing, character changes, pace of story changes, focusing on bridge crew, holding on to Star Trek’s values, better ship shot, less silly “go team” rubbish.
If anything, it’s actually embraced canon more than any other season.
“less silly “go team” rubbish” – are we watching the same show? its laid on thicker than ever!
I agree though that the writing quality and overall coherence of the show is improved. But I worry that once again they are introducing far too many arcs that it just won’t make a lot of sense by the end and old men on youtube will make money by complaining about it (I’m middle age and make no money and have no youtube channel…haha).
DS9 struck the right balance in Season 6. They had ONE story arc (the Dominion War) and then throughout the season they had little self-contained stories which gently fleshed out characters. The Arc was used to tie these stories together. Instead we have arcs tying/tieing (I don’t know) themselves in knots.
“In Season 1 we had far too much going on. The Klingon War would have been enough, but in just 10 episodes…” Problem with that statement is that Season 1 had 15 episodes, not 10.
Really? I miss the 26 episode per season days…. haha Anyway, thank you for the correction sir
His point is still valid. Yours is irrelevant.
Well I think I may be the only one here who did not really enjoy this episode.
What are they doing to this show ?
please stop trying to have all of these side trips and emotional stories turning it into yet another space Opera.
Most of season one and two were awesome with real villains and mysteries and action.
So far this season has been a mixed up mess and I don’t like where it is going so far.
Wait a few episodes and then we’ll all be really confused…
I didn’t actively “not like” the episode but I wasn’t impressed with it either. Hence my “meh” review of it.
But I do agree that they are really trying to grab at unearned emotional audience responses. Which seems to be working for a number of people here at least.
Yep… “unearned” is the perfect descriptive term.
You have articulated, here far better than I ever could, exactly what is wrong with Discovery and Picard.
Thank you…
🤯 Ok, my mind is blown by the fact that David Cronenberg appears as a significant character in the trailer for next week’s episode 305.
Won’t get to see this until it’s broadcast later in Canada, but just had to say it.
So cool!
I thought that looked like him! Guess he’s more into acting lately.
He’s a Toronto guy, in his late 70s and doing different kinds of things in his own work.
Taking acting opportunities locally sounds like an amusing way to keep his hand in — and the story in the episode may line up with some of his long-held thought on humanity and technology.
In any event, it’s a real coup for Discovery to have him join for an episode (or more).
Long live the new flesh!
I recently watched his acting in the film Last Night. He was very good.
“In any event, it’s a real coup for Discovery to have him join for an episode (or more).”
Right!
Now, if only they could also have some real scifi WRITERS join for an episode (or more) ;)
I really enjoyed S3. E4, especially the dinner scene with the main crew.
Great episode.
Still way too blue and orange.
Huh??? You might be color blind.
Actually, if you look at screencaps there are a number of warm reddish toned scenes.
I’m wondering if that’s a preference of Hanelle Culpepper given her choices in the early episodes of Picard S1.
What about the Trill offer at the end – to discuss ‘a different kind of bond’ with Burnham when she came back? What do we make of that?
I thought they were talking about making her a host for a split second, but then I realized they were talking about rejoining the Federation.
A different kind of joining would be the Trill home world / people / planet / sector / whatever rejoining the Federation … if Burnham and The DISCO Crew are able to make the Fed viable again.
I didn’t take the Trill leader’s statement to be the Trill offering to join Michael to a Symbee.
Maybe as they have figured out how to give symbiotes to non-trill, she will be offered one…
I made it to mean rejoining a resurgent Federation, if Discovery was successful and Michael wound up being representative of the quality of being serving it.
Likely talking about rejoining the Federation but it would be interesting if they float the idea of her becoming a host as well. No doubt the symbionts would have developed a trust for her and seen for themselves how she helped adira.
I was surprised to see a shuttle on this episode as I thought they left all shuttles behind in the previous season finale. If they had this shuttle on-board, why did they not use it in Episode 2 for its Comms system and phasers (to blast that parasitic ice)?
Also wondered why they spore-jumped right above the planet. Is it not a secret that they have this special ftl drive that is far superior than anything in the future?
The Shuttle(s) were probably damaged and repairing Discovery herself took priority.
It’s like USS Voyager, they can make shuttles whenever the plot requires it :)
They’ve already taken sections of bulkhead for the materials to make the time suit.
We have seen that they can repurpose and fabricate as long as they have the base materials (which they did not in the case of the transtator).
Making a new shuttle or rebuilding a damaged one seems in line with that, especially if they were able to get some materials from the colony in 302 that built starships.
Discovery is from a decade before TOS.
We’ve never seen any tech like this in the TOS series or TOS movies. Not even on TNG set almost a century later
I was wondering why they didn’t just beam down, myself. But if they did that when asked to leave they would be expected to ask to be beamed back instead of physically walking to a shuttle where they then could veer off and head for the symbiont caves. So again, an illogical plot decision made so the desired story could happen.
Losing hope that Discovery will catch its stride in season 3. It’s become clear the producers have no interest in appealing to a broader audience
Hmm. This sure smells as if somebody wants to express some bigotry and can’t bring himself to actually do it.
No it doesn’t. What it speaks to is the dystopian version of Kurtzman Trek that has long alienated long time fans. Nowhere in my comment did I address specifics.
I wouldn’t really call anything in this episode dystopian. The Trills were a bit more isolated than they used to be, but mostly they were the same as ever. Overall, this episode had a very positive message about hope and self discovery.
I was speaking of season 3 in general. The state of the Federation, being turned away from earth, etc. The Trill freaking out over a human host. Picard also features a very dystopian future. Just not a fan of taking Star Trek in that direction
The Trill power structure was rather reactionary in their DS9 appearances and references, especially where the Holy Worms are concerned. The handful of Trill in the episode really weren’t out of character.
Yeah, I could totally see the Trill freaking out over a human host in the DS9 era. The galaxy may not be the utopia that it was in the 23rd-24th centuries, but it isn’t really a dystopia. Some places are doing well, and some are doing poorly. And, I’m sure that the situation will improve once Discovery helps the Federation to rebuild.
Your contention is that dystopian sci-fi doesn’t sell to the masses? Are you serious?
Well, it’s better than what I assumed you meant, at least.
Dystopian sci-fi does sell, but Star Trek was specifically designed to be NOT THAT. Time travel stuff sells too, but not in Star Wars. It just doesn’t fit the mold. I love cursing, and I like gore. They just rub me wrong with a Star Trek sticker slapped on them. I mean, I’ll still watch it, but my mind always goes back to Kirk trying to explain the concept of profanity to Spock because he’s a history buff and that stuff was supposed to be long behind us as a society. It doesn’t jive.
Where are you getting your definition of “a broader audience?”
The ratings suggest it has quite broad appeal for a streaming drama series.
Discovery has been sitting in the middle of the top ten original streaming series on Parrot Analytics television demand ratings since S3 premiered.
It’s Nielsen US streaming ratings look good too, although those only count streaming to television sets.
In Canada, Discovery S3 has cracked the top 30 of all shows for both broadcast and cable – including reality series, news and sports.
By the way, please don’t speak for all long time fans. I saw TOS and TAS in first-run as a child and there are a number of us on this board who did. My touch-stone though is my mum-in-law – who has watched every Trek series since TOS when she was already a mum with young kids. She has caught up with Discovery and is enthusiastically watching.
Personally, I actually hope these actors and their portrayals and the portrayed relationship teaches me something. Holding up a mirror and being challenged is what Star Trek is about. (Uncharacteristic praise from me for Discovery, I know. But it’s true.)
I am usually pretty critical of DSC but this seems a very out of place if not off-putting after watching what the producers were able to do with DSC 304.
Does anyone else get the feeling that the crew will find a way back to their time and leave discovery behind?
I think that’s certainly a possibility. We already know the crew regrets going into the future, and that they feel trapped there. Many lives were lost because of the burn, and the Federation falling apart is a very big problem to solve. That’s a lot to deal with. If this were Trek of old, I’d say they’d just reset things in the end. And going by that, I’d guess that maybe the crew caused the burn by not being a part of history. Keeping Discovery in the future, protected by Zora, the sphere data would be safe, and the spore drive would still be out of the picture. Then with the crew in the past, they’d solve the rest of the problems.
However, if that’s the case, I don’t know why Craft would be fighting against the V’Draysh. If going back in time fixes things, then the term (probably) shouldn’t exist. Also, having the crew in the past again goes counter to the idea that they were going ahead so the writers would have more creative freedom. But we do know that the crew eventually abandons Discovery, and that Georgiou is going to be in a Section 31 series, but we don’t know if it’s in the past or not. So maybe some people go back? Maybe they’re setting up Detmer to be responsible for going back and preventing the burn? So maybe Detmer and Georgiou go back, or them and anyone else that misses home? That would still leave whoever stays in the future without a ship, unless they get a new one… That’s just a lot of speculation though. I actually hope that there won’t be a time-travel reset, if it wipes out any character progression.
In the second episode this season Zareh and his men were already calling the Federation the V’Draysh. So the term is already out there. As for Georgiou I think she will stay and rebuild S31. The preview with her and David Cronenberg looks very interesting.
No more time travel! At least for awhile. And why I think they will definitely be staying in the 32nd century since they made it clear all time travel tech was destroyed after TCW and because Burnham got rid of her own suit 5 minutes after landing in the new century. They are there to stay!
I really want them to join this version of Starfleet and become a new beacon of a revamped Federation. That story just sounds amazing and you can go anywhere with it. They should’ve done this in the first season but it is what it is.
the leave discovery behind but they not travel back in time i think. Instead the crew get a brand new discovery.
Doug Jones said in an interview last week the crew is staying in the 32nd century permanently. But yes they could send the ship back for a thousand years and rejoin it. But I still don’t see the point of sending it back when the ENTIRE was to bring it to the future to avoid Control in the first place.
Plus it would be a waste to return to the 23rd century because of all the reasons they left it in first place. That’s SNW territory now as well. Keep them in the 32nd, clearly its a much better fit for this show.
Or send the ship back to wait in a nebula a thousand years so Zora can become completely sentient to be able to navigate the mycelium network without Stamets. Maybe say the trip could be fatal to the crew so Phillipa could make the sacrifice for Micheal. She survives and is in the Section 31 show with the time travel technology possibly Temporal Cold War tech. Calypso happens before the crew rejoins the ship.
I’ve wondered the same thing for a while T. Boyle.
Georgiou as a member of S31, and any of the Discovery crew who join her, may have access to banned time travel tech.
Taking Discovery back and hiding her might be essential to avoid another peril that we have not yet seen.
No.
And Doug Jones has confirmed that they are in the era where they will stay.
I had wondered if Georgiou would be traveling back in time, but now suspect her S31 missions will be taking her across the multiverse and time to protect the Federation.
Yeah Discovery (at least the crew) is here to stay in the 32nd century and it’s for the better! I’m way more excited about all the NEW stuff we are getting in this era instead of just a ‘remix’ of the 23rd century. Zzzzzz. But still excited for SNW, but that’s also just being back on the ‘original’ Enterprise and seeing what Pike and Spock was up to.
Would be cool if the Section 31 show was a multiverse type of premise. I admit I would love something like that. Just too bad Space Hitler is the one doing it, but she sort of have the most experience with that. ;)
One of the biggest things I’ve noticed this season (at least thus far) is that the writers are doing a good job of balancing story-of-the-week style stories with the overall serialized nature of Disco. While I really do enjoy heavily serialized stories, they aren’t very conducive to shows that are released on a weekly basis vs. the binge-watch nature of Netflix, etc. It can be very frustrating for a story to essentially end midway through and then you have to wait a week to see the rest of it. Thus far that has NOT been the case of Disco this season.
Obviously the search for the Federation and the mystery of the Burn are essential to this season, and are a constant undercurrent to each episode, but at the same time, each episode has told it’s own story with an obvious beginning, middle and end.
All in all, I’m really enjoying this season. Despite the rather dire circumstances the crew has found themselves in, there is actually a lighter tone to the storytelling, something which is desperately needed given the state of the world right now.
Another thing that strikes me upon reading this. There’s no HURRY. Have you felt that? In previous seasons everything happened so fast and at once and we have to do this ASAP or ALL LIFE WILL END! AAAAAAAGH!
But now, they’re just unraveling a mystery. And they’re doing so not in a rushed way. The stakes aren’t universe-ending stakes. They just want to know and they just want to help. The show can BREATHE a bit. And I really appreciate that. I don’t want to have to pop a Xanax just to watch Star Trek. Just wanna kick back an enjoy an hour of Trek. It’s like comfort food, where the last two seasons have been “Eat this entire $75, 8-pound hamburger, and you get it for free”.
Except we didn’t get it for free and a lot of us couldn’t finish it. Literally.
I thought the line about in 2000 years not having a successful joining with a “non-Trill” species (plural) was an attempt to explain why the Trill in TNG’s “The Host” looked different than the Trill seen subsequently… It would have been nice to have taken it a bit further and show one or two of the Trills with a head bump and finally explain that visual inconsistency but I suppose that would have confused new fans.
Well, remember Odan had to pass that little glowy thing over his tummy every now and then. He could well have been a non-Trill alien that had to take his race’s equivalent of immunosupressants for the joining to “work”. And I seem to recall he couldn’t use the transporter either, while Dax was in that sucker on a weekly basis with no ill effects. And Riker outright rejected the implant after a while. SO by “successful” joining, they may mean a joining without any external assistance, transporter-related side effects or rejection.
Granted, the Trill were a one-off species in The Host, and the spots were a simpler makeup job for a regular character in real life, but this can easily be explained away with a little theoretical canon.
Didn’t Adira transport into the Discovery Engineering sector last episode when the rest of the Earth forces suddenly arrived?
There are test photos for Dax with the forehead makeup and took away from her beauty so they came up with the spots.
No basis for the beauty story.
I read an interview with Terry Farrell when the series premiered that said that she had trouble with the prosthetics and was stuffed up all the time. Not everyone was able to handle all the materials and adhesives in the old prosthetics.
There is basis for the beauty aspect. You simply stating so doesn’t make you right.
“After only two days the producers decided they didn’t want her makeup to cover up so much of her face, had it redesigned, and sent her back to reshoot all her scenes.” -from page 16 of THE MAKING OF STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE
There’s your basis for the beauty story.
While the word beauty is not mentioned it’s clearly what they were thinking. I think they even mention it in the DVD bonus features.
Those sort of production issues don’t bother me at all. There was no explanation why Worf’s forehead changed. It was just a production decision. The look of the Trill changed a bit. It happens. Not a big deal.
It’s the same reason I did not like the Enterprise episodes where they decided they needed to “explain” the change of the Klingon look from TOS to the features. Honestly, I don’t really care but maybe it’s fun to have some fans talking about it. I never did, however. But I did like how Worf just acknowledged it but gave no info in Trials and Tribble-ations.
Star Trek: Discovery, thank you so much for the hour that I didn’t spend worrying about the US election! Seriously. It’s been an awful couple of days, and I SO needed that break from it all.
I loved Wilson Cruz in this; I hope we’ll see a lot more of Dr. Culber’s attending to the crew’s emotional needs. I also loved the otherworldly weirdness of the Trill cave scenes; it made the flashbacks seem even more interesting than they already were.
I am surprised that the USS Discovery can communicate or interact with anything almost 1,000yrs later. Think about trying to integrate 1000yr old tech with our current tech. It’s not possible. It would be like a sail boat from the year 1020 suddenly sailing up to a Modern Destroyer and trying to communicate. Our Computers from even a few decades ago are not even able to communicate with with our modern ones and tech would have changed way beyond Discovery in almost 1,000yrs. The tech now shown in the show would be more like 100yrs beyond Picard not hundreds of years beyond what he have seen in Star Trek in general.
When it comes to the burn, people talk as if it happened a few years past. On earth they said all their lives changed, but it was centuries past. It would be like saying the American Revolution changed my life. Now why is the dilithium crystals so valuable? Yes they are rare but extremely unstable, unusable for warp and may blow you up.
Did the burn effect the Borg? Did they not use a different form of transportation like warm holes and not warp drives?
Correction: Worm holes not warm holes. Sorry.
They used transwarp conduits, which is similar to a wormhole I suppose.
Omg best typo ever!
In Trek, they’ve always been able to communicate with computers that are entirely alien. Voyager, especially, shouldn’t have been able to communicate with anyone. Its just one of those willing suspension of disbelief things.
The Burn has, so far, been a one time thing. Dilithium is rare, but it still works for warp. There is always the risk of a second Burn, but they haven’t been able to find a suitable alternative.
“but they haven’t been able to find a suitable alternative.”
Which is probably the most unbuyable story element of the season. I just cannot accept that no one in the entire known galaxy that didn’t come up with an effective substitute in over 800 years. Afterall, dilithium was a non renewable resource. It just makes sense for science to find alternatives.
“. It just makes sense for science to find alternatives.”
Especially since “Drive of the Week” was a major criticism of Voyager (they only even mentioned one on Discovery). Its funny how this turned into the complete opposite just because it’s convenient for their plot.
VS, Book has said his ship has a quantum slipstream drive but bedamite (which it requires) is also unavailable.
They didn’t ignore this issue. They just don’t have to answer every question and cover off every alternative right away.
Book’s impatient rant on FTL constraints in the first episode was enough to make the point. There is a trade off between technobabble lists of exposition and leaving unanswered questions. I’m ok with the choice in this case.
I suspect that we may find out more of what’s going on when the Discovery reaches Federation headquarters.
A little patience please.
“Book has said his ship has a quantum slipstream drive but bedamite (which it requires) is also unavailable.”
Yeah, that was the one drive I acknowledged they mentioned. My point was not forcing a complete list being rattled off on screen but rather the credibility issues that on Voyager warp-alternatives were a dime in a dozen (even if often incompatible) while now even the alternatives we know about dont work. They couldnt make ANY of them work in 120 years? Let alone 900…
VS, many of the other species encountered by Voyager in the Delta Quadrant had a variant of the slipstream drive, such that it became clear that it was the next big step after warpdrive.
The Borg used transwarp as a workaround to go beyond warp 10, but that involves building, maintaining and protecting a network of transwarp corridors. It’s not a way to explore.
The plot thus far looks to be a mess but it is fair to let the story play out and see what they have in mind.
That said, SH has a history of either ignoring these kinds of issues or doing something amazingly silly. So that’s not looking all that promising.
The Trill’s acceptance, especially the murder-y guy, happened a little too quickly.
Also, if Grey Tal (and the host before him, I’m guessing) was on a generation ship looking for the Federation, did he tell them where they could find it?
Were they on the way there? Although, I guess if they couldn’t warp – or had limited warp – it would take a while.
It sounds as though Tal left Earth on a generation ship when he knew it carried Trill.
Given how xenophobic Earth is it seems like there should be a story to explain how he was able to communicate with and join the company.
This is may be the best Discovery episode to date. Checked all the boxes for me, yes we have seen the caves before but getting to see the “strange new world” that was the surface of The Trill homeworld was pretty cool. We are getting more personal stories and interaction (not always free of conflict or stress and trauma – but with cautious optimism), nods to previous series like Enterprise’s movie night and other Easter Eggs BUT most importantly IMO this was a science fiction story – expanding our understanding of the Trill and perhaps giving us a glimpse of their next level of existence (we shall see).
A couple of writing nits like why they didn’t use the transporter to go to Trill and why Burnham quickly figured out the purpose of the tendrills, but these were minor issues.
Up here north of the border, CTV Sci-Fi network had the perfect epilogue. When the show ended with Discovery flying off, the network quickly ran its 5 second Classic Trek promo showing all the ships and ends with Leonard Nimoy’s Spock saying “FASCINATING!”
Btw I read today that CTV’s streaming service Crave now lists Discovery as its most popular downloaded show, even ahead of The Undoing which apparently is a big hit on HBO in the U.S. I guess people are liking what they see from Star Trek Discovery S3 – at least north of the border.
To our U.S. friends, good luck on the election and LLAP.
“A couple of writing nits like why they didn’t use the transporter to go to Trill and why Burnham quickly figured out the purpose of the tendrills, but these were minor issues.”
I surmised that the plot would not work if they beamed down. And when watching when trill girl said the tendrils keep trying to touch her my very first thought before Burnham said a word was “let them”. It was kinda obvious what was going on there.
I’m also envious that you get to see the show without streaming north of the border. I still get glitches. It’s irritating.
Tech glitches aside, the one downside to watching on cable is that we have to wait until 9:00 p.m. on Thursday to watch while you guys get to stream it first thing in the morning, with or without commercials.
Good point on the plot and the use of the shuttle, although I am sure they could have easily written a script where Burnham and Adira were ambushed walking back to the beam down site rather than to the shuttle.
I would happily wait until Thursday at 9pm (midnight eastern) to see this show if I could watch it glitch free. I would just record it on my DVR and start watching around 9:20 or so just to avoid the commercials. I’d trade having the show on cable without glitches and waiting till 9 giving you the glitch packed streaming you can watch first thing in the morning in a heartbeat.
It’s actually 9:00 pm Eastern, 6:00 pm Pacific.
Central Canada (Ontario & Quebec) is the basis for most Canadian scheduling.
Right… Forgot it was on cable rather than over the air. Still.. That much better.
How are the Trill almost extinct? Were there billions of them on starships at warp when The Burn happened? This plot point makes no sense.
If like Grey’s family they were distributed around the galaxy, the issue may be more that the Trill population is cut off from the home planet.
Or a lot of them got stuck out in space at different planets when it happened.
I wasn’t a big fan of the first two seasons but this third one is far, far better than its predecessors. Burnham’s character has taken a small step back so everyone else can come forward into the light and the ensemble seems stronger for it. Culber has steadier, more wizened tone, Saru is proving to be a good leader and the entire project seems much more mature.
Good job, show runners!
What a delightfully weird episode. How very Trekkie. :)
I’m all for them leaning into trippy-Trek on occasion. ;)
So, Discovery has their own version of Wesley Crusher with Adira Tal.
I wouldn’t make that distinction. Burnham actually has a lot more in common with Wesley than Tal.
Nah… Tilly was always fem-Wesley. Adira is more the watered down Disco-Ezri.
I like the new girl – a lot! This was a satisfying and interesting episode. And, as a long-time fan of Buster Keaton, I was delighted by his inclusion into the episode! Georgiou is becoming annoying.
Interesting how people seem to be responding to the newer characters over the original ones. Reno. Pike. Trill-girl….
On top of that I wonder if there’s ever gonna be “classic men” on the show, even just one character like the one they promised and fooled us with Lorca. Not just the super emotional super empathetic kind. It just confirms the suspicion they believe only one side is in the wrong and only one side needs to be reformed which is…. alternate facts of course :)
So much about the Adira Dax theory which was posted in an article here
Many fans wanted the return of Dax, including myself, my love for DS9.
IDK if I am an outlier here but I found all the crew dialogue in this episode to be juvenile and soapy. No one asks questions. No one challenges the person they are talking to and expects a response. Beyond the funny haikus everything said is “This is who i am! This is what I think!” It’s weird! Snarky then straightforward dialogue feels unnatural like a Hallmark TV movie. I didn’t buy the tut-tut tamping down response that Detmer’s haiku elicited from the rest of the crew. Why wasn’t that acceptable? It makes them all seem less relatable. Yet, I knew that the story the producers were trying to tell was worthy of telling. Frustrating for me!
Arriving at Trill, for this crew, should have been more like a first contact and filled with some trepidation. Saru cancelling Yellow Alert seems like they let go a chance to build an atmosphere of logical worry. I also miss the true TOS phaser which is slow rather than pop-pop, which assigns a moral imperative to the choice of shooting someone, using the degree of phaser power as signifier. There was zero subtlety in the Trill’s needs and their POV. No reason for Kirk or Picard or Michael to try to convince them to do the right thing. So, phasers.
OTOH everything Adira was character oriented, eschewing intriguing/weird for deeply felt emotions, and that’s what this Trek is. Certainly, each moment with Adira and Grey felt unique to Trek and the special sauce of this very beautiful episode. I just hope they don’t go full “Inside Herman’s Head.”
Maybe this episode will grow on me. While still too fast within each scene, the episode as a whole certainly had a decent pace and many of the good things people here have mentioned.
That whole dinner scene felt awkward and weird to me. Not in a funny “The Office” kind of way. But in a weird completely out of place kind of way.
The Trill stuff felt overdone just to achieve an emotional ending. I just felt like they were going out of their way for this rather than a more organic reaction. Which works much better. Perhaps if the show didn’t have 26 episodes of baggage it would have worked a little better? No way to know. But it was a good choice to do this with a new character rather than an established one. Better chance of the scene working.
It was supposed to be awkward and weird.
Lancing an abcess is never pleasant, but the bridge crew’s trauma was heading to toxicity.
Saru’s attempt to bring everyone together ended up instead bringing on a crisis. However, it forced them all to recognize that they weren’t ok, especially Detmer (whose bloody haiku was a classic trauma-inspired dive into the pit).
I commented negatively on the clip from from the dinner scenes on an earlier thread, but I also said that it might work in the context of the episode. And it did.
Well if it was supposed to be that then mission accomplished. But in the context of the show it was really out of place and didn’t work at all. The entire B story on the ship felt like filler. But then most B stories feel that way.
Overall I give this episode a “meh” rating.
Once again they focus on the touchy feely aspects of characters we don’t really know or even really care to. I applaud them for trying but it just doesn’t work with this group. The show would really be better off if they stick to dealing with Star Trek like sci-fi things and “no good option” kind of issues. But this show has NEVER done that and I guess they aren’t about to start now.
Right up front I felt it was weird that the doctor didn’t go down there with what’s her name. The human Trill. My first thought was this was either because Burnham was the lead so she HAD to do for more screen time or whatever was going to happen down there required Burnham for the story to work. If the doctor really felt Burnham’s presence would help then perhaps they BOTH should have gone? Makes more sense. But then they couldn’t have him at the dinner table for that weirdly placed dinner scene.
And since we are talking about Culber, his status continues to be mysterious. They have shown that he is not the CMO. Yet here he is reporting information directly to the captain. And when they had the high officers meeting at the dinner we still had no CMO or Chief engineer. But we did get both Stammets and Culber.
I also completely forgot they had the sphere data with them. That is something they really should destroy, I think. But that’s another matter.
Anyway, my assessment that this is what the show has decided it is has not changed. This is what they want to be. And even though we did get a “Lethe” in the first season I’m doubting we will ever get anything that good ever again. The show is going to focus on the feels and ignore logical plotting in order to achieve it. Unfortunate but, oh well. This is like being about 1/3 of the way through my ball club’s season but it is pretty obvious the current 4th place position isn’t likely to change. We keep watching and following and hoping but deep down we know the season is over.
The whole reason that they went to the future is that they can’t destroy the sphere data. They tried, but it protects itself.
It just feels amazingly dangerous. They really need to work at a way to get rid of it. Beam down to some planet and discuss it. There has got to be a way. Especially in the 32nd century.
Maybe they get rid of it by abandoning the pizza cutter and thats how we end up with Calypso? And the crew gets a new 32nd century ship named Discovery (hopefully not designed by John Eaves). It’s win-win!
“Overall I give this episode a “meh” rating.
Once again they focus on the touchy feely aspects of characters we don’t really know or even really care to”
Thanks! So my intuition from what I read and seen on pictures is not proven wrong. My impression was this is gonna be another designed-by-committee episode with just the right amount of ‘splosions and emotions (for the proles) but lacking any deeper discussion of interesting ideas. Forgettable, so not regretting not watching!
Now, next week’ s Federation episode does pique my interest from the preview even though they kept details close at chest. The interior designer does get an A from me at least, but the costume designer another F!
I love the synchronicity. A man who espouses hatred and bigotry is two steps out the door in Washington, D.C., while Star Trek is embracing love and open-mindedness head-on.
And about to be replaced by a man who REALLY is a racist rather than someone people like to pretend is. You don’t make the slip ups like he does without actually believing those things deep down.
Biden makes the occasional micro-aggression, and he apologizes for it. Trump is just openly a racist.
He has NEVER apologized because no one on his side ever acknowledges it. Trump has his character flaws. But being a racist is not one of them. Only those who go out of their way to twist things around see him as bigoted. Biden on a regular basis utters overt racist comments. Not “microagressions”. And his past associations sure don’t help things either. If one thinks Trump is racist it’s is deeply dishonest to not apply it to Biden when there is more concrete evidence of it.
Sorry dude, I’m going to believe Trump’s actual family member who has been around the family her entire life:
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/17/mary-trump-donald-trump-niece-slurs/112288578/
He’s a racist. Just because he never slipped saying the N word on FOX news doesn’t mean much when so many people around him has said he has said many raciest things for years. He’s a real POS!
OK. I choose to believe my eyes and ears. I’m not going to go on the word of a family member who has personal issues. That is not a credible source. I go with actions and words. The last time Trump uttered something that could be viewed as racist was 31 years ago. Biden says racist things every week it seems. Plus there are those he associated with in his younger days. The fact is you don’t make slip ups of that nature that many times unless it is what you feel in your heart.
Trump is a disgusting racist. It’s sickening he was there as long as he was. Thank god he’s on his way out. I hope he gets indicted soon.
@ML31 No. Come on.
If one doesn’t see racism in Biden then one will never see it anywhere. “Come on, man!”
Don’t be so cruel, man, let them enjoy their phyrric victory – for a few days at least ;)
Im super pleased with the outcome btw! Somebody can fix your pandemic now since 45 was obviously not gonna do it, while the result has ALSO made it clear that Beltway fringe extremism was NOT voted into office and four years later things could royally backfire if the Trojan Horse veers off too far from majority consensus, especially if someone smarter and more polished takes over the reigns of populism ;)
Smartness of the voting masses, after all?
They are enjoying this, that is for sure. It really isn’t SUPER important to me. The President doesn’t really affect individual lives all that much. But Biden has some advantages and disadvantages. He is facing an amazingly divided country that he and his party have contributed mightily to. And he has shown zero desire to unite anyone. His entire campaign (the few times he chose to campaign) was based 100% on hate and fear. (Hate the orange man, be afraid of a virus that has a 99+% recovery rate) Kind of a dour thing. I’m actually a little surprised it worked. But when you have the main stream media on your side and a pandemic that no leader on Earth was able to deal with effectively it sure does help. The plus is he gets the pandemic when it will naturally wane off and reap the benefits of any potential vaccine that was pushed by his predecessor. So he will get to claim it was his doing when it was just nature. And he inherits an economy that was already coming back… Unless he does something to stymie that advancement. Which in all honesty is very possible if he listens to certain elements within his party.
But in the end, I’m fortunate I still have a job and apart from Covid restrictions my life goes on as usual no matter the result of Presidential elections. For the vast majority of Americans this is true.
Don’t derail things into partisan fight.
CLOSED.
This is a repeat of the review I offered on the All Access Podcast page:
More please.
Well I’m really enjoying this season. It seems that it’s back to the TNG DS9 pattern of taking a few seasons to hit it’s stride. These episodes are feeling like proper Star Trek episodes.
I’m glad that we’re finally getting more of the crew, it feels like we barely know them at the moment.
I was dreading them making the symbiont Dax but when it didn’t happen I was a bit disappointed, glad they didn’t on reflection.
Finally I wish that instead of Adira calling the Symbiont a squid they’d had her call it a worm. That would have been a nice throwback to Far Beyond the Stars.
Wow! Really an awesome episode. The most Trek-ish DISCO ep. to date. Yeah, it’s strange, VERY STRANGE (TM), that I seem to like episodes best that remind me of the good old days.
At this point, DSC feels like a near-perfect hybrid of DS9’s dark-but-still-Trek-at-heart feeling, NuBSG style and AND story line done right. It took them like… what… 20 years getting from there to here :-)
I agree it’s really coming together.
I’m glad that Michelle Paradise’s influence has been to tone down the “Discovery as a bullet” pacing.
Yeah, DIS seems to be hitting a really nice sweet spot. It’s bringing in elements of TNG era of Trek while still being in its own era and can do practically anything it wants. It’s a little ‘darker’ with the Federation gone, but at least the optimism is back now. There is a feeling of hopefulness in every episode. And it’s just nice not every episode is just making big explosions like so much of season one and a lot of season two. This episode was mostly about, dare I say it, discovery. In this case it was with Adira and the beginning of their journey. It was nice to just have a character piece story with A and B plots, just like classic Trek again.
It’s feeling like I’m back home, only instead of the 24th century it’s the 32nd! :)
I’ve pretty much hated this season so far. Same over-written hearty nonsense BUT….
…I actually quite enjoyed this episode. Felt like a Star Trek story for the first time this season.
I’m kind of confused. I’m sort of stuck in binary thinking but trying to understand. Are the 2 subjects of this episode played by women? Is one playing a male? Are they supposed to be hetero? Are the 2 actors questioning their sexuality and is it supposed to effect the characters they are playing? Great special effects. I need some guidance to figure this out and be respectful of it all.
Iconian, it’s probably best to let the actors and showrunners message on this.
There are some interviews available that help explain some of the choices in representation.
This show is getting weaker by the episode. I’m about done with it.
I’ve been around since TOS had it’s original run on TV. This episode bored the sh*t out of me. The whole Trill storyline wasn’t worth the time invested to watch it. This season started off on a positive note, but this episode proved how mediocre the series can still be. Yawn.
Not every episode needs to be at the same pace.
In fact, many of the folks on this board have complained that too many Discovery episodes are too fast and leave plot and character threads unresolved over the season. More, in that criticism, many fans have looked back to the variety in pace and style within the episodic 90s series.
Many of us welcomed the slower pace of this one.
I found it very well done.
TG47, thanks for the reasonable and measured response, I appreciate it. I know it’s all subjective, but, for me, it was like watching wet paint dry.
Really really enjoyed this episode. It felt like real Star Trek.
Sure did!
This episode was weird and boring. Jesus, so tired of PC statements with this pathetic show. Picard and Orville blows this crap out of the water.
There is still no way for the european audience to watch short treks like Calypso. And btw, still no way to watch Lower Decks. America first. Thought that ended to day. We will see.
Federal politics has zip to do with foreign distribution issues. It just sounds like they haven’t been able to get any international buyers for this other stuff so far outside of DIS and PIC. Maybe they are asking for too much?
I suspect that this is more about Netflix’s ideas about what it’s business is than anything on ViacomCBS side.
The Short Treks are an issue first because Netflix doesn’t do shorts as a general rule and because they were originally linked to Discovery, but became their own series in season two.
Netflix dumped Short Treks season one into the “Trailer” section of their platform: a clear indication that they don’t value them.
I suspect that CBS had hoped that Netflix would buy and post season two as an anthology package, but clearly not. Perhaps now that Discovery season three is topping their charts for new series they might reconsider. But ViacomCBS won’t let new licenses be “exclusive” so that could be a stumbling block as well.
Lower Decks is in a weird situation. ViacomCBS had to release it early because of the impact of Covid on post for Discovery. It was the right move in terms of their own streaming subscriptions and it’s a hit. However, they are now selling a show that’s already premiered and they are insisting on it being nonexclusive (Paramount+ will have it wherever in the world they launch). Not surprisingly, the negotiations are lengthy.
OMG that episode was so sloowwwww. Boring! The first time in Discovery where I thought that – I’ve been a Discover fan since S1/E1. The previous week was slow in the beginning and in the end, and wa poorly written, but had a good middle. The Adira-Grey scenes reminded me of TNG whenever Troi had a big scene she sucked all the oxygen out of the room. The 3rd season started so well in the first two weeks and it’s gone downhill unbelievably fast. Another episode or two like this and … I don’t know. Wait for Picard or Strange New Worlds or something.
I don’t think that Adira not telling Michael about Grey isn’t about the taboo of Reassociation, but trying to explain that she sees “dead people.” (Sorry for the bad attempt at humor).
I think what Adira and Grey is going through is a twist on the Rite of Emergence. It is similar to what Ezri Dax and Joran Dax went through when trying to find a murderer on DS9.
My nerds, Discovery just became sentient. That’s pretty frikkin cool.
–
Concerning Kurtzman-Trek I will soon reach the highest level of “I don’t care”.
Star Trek was a show about ideas. Discovery is a show about emotions. Very emo emotions, with nonstop repetitive emo music from a composer with a limited emo repertoire. I think this episode might be the closest thing I’ve seen to a sci-fi soap opera. As The Spores Turn. Sure, there is a conceptual aspect to the Trill, but little that wasn’t explored throughly in Deep Space Nine, other than the fact that the Trill are grumpy now because of… THE BURNING. So Discovery is a sign of the times, in an age when emotional reactions regularly trump dispassionate reason.