[Episode review starts at 15:30]
Tony and Laurie talk about Star Trek’s nominations in the new Critics Choice Super Awards, production plans for Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, ViacomCBS’s sale of Simon & Schuster, and the late great Herb Solow. In their review of Star Trek: Discovery‘s “Unification III,” they appreciate the nods to Star Trek’s legacy and speculate about what it means to be an “acting” first officer. Tony also recommends a video that proves Burnham isn’t the only Starfleet officer who has a problem with the chain of command.
Links to topics discussed in the pod
Star Trek Universe TV Shows Nominated For 7 Critics Choice Super Awards
Herbert F. Solow, A Founding Father Of Star Trek, Dies At 89
Other mentions:
Inside Star Trek: The Real Story on YouTube, read by Herb Solow and Bob Justman
TrekMovie’s extremely popular posts for Oded Fehr’s birthday on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
Listen: Jett Reno Has Some Thoughts On The USS Discovery Refit; Reveals An Important Upgrade
Trekbits:
Tony: Does Star Trek Actually Believe in the Chain of Command? by Steve Shives
Laurie: Kirsten Beyer on location at Kelso Conservation Area in Ontario for the Discovery first season episode “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum“:
From my first day on location and the first day I worked with Sonequa and Shazad. Sonequa offered, very kindly, to take a photo of me with the falls in the background. Shazad said he wanted to be in it too, which I was all for. And then he struck this pose as if he had something terribly important to say to me. Or as if, perhaps, he had never seen a writer in the wild. It is so strange, but is one of my favorite memories from the shoot.
Let us know what you think of the episode in the comments.
Subscribe to our podcasts
The All Access Star Trek podcast joins the long-running Shuttle Pod as part of the new TrekMovie.com Podcast Network. If you already subscribe to The Shuttle Pod, your subscription will now include both shows from Network. If you prefer, you can also sign up for only The Shuttle Pod or All Access Star Trek using the links below.
| TrekMovie.com Podcast Network of Shows | ||
|---|---|---|
| TrekMovie.com Podcast Network | All TrekMovie.com podcasts | Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Stitcher |
| The Shuttle Pod Podcast | The original TrekMovie.com podcast | Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Stitcher |
| All Access Star Trek Podcast | All about the Star Trek Universe | Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Stitcher |
Keep up with everything to do with the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com
Romulcans?
Vomulans.
Volcromulans. Volcroms… Oh that’s a Transformer, isn’t he?
Vulvans.
That’s it! Vulvans! Got to be Vulvans.
Vomulcans.
I really enjoy this podcast but can somebody please level out the volume?
Anthony Pascale has a really nice radio announcer voice but it sounds like he’s whispering compared to Laurie who sounds like her volume is 3 times as loud as Anthony’s voice. It’s very jarring. It’s as if he’s far away from the microphone and she’s an inch away from it. I tried to use speakers to listen so as not to have to wear headphones. I like to walk around doing things as I listen but I have to boost the volume to hear Tony and run to lower it when Laurie speaks lest I get noise complaints from neighboring apartments.
Hey, we’re sorry about that! There’s already a replacement version up. The wrong version was initially uploaded without the levels adjusted.
The episode was pretty decent but you were right about some issues. The “unveiling” of the mother was dumb. Not exactly “absolute candor”… But I think it was okay to make Gabrielle a Qovat Milat. Nice parallel development: Michael was raised by Vulcans, mother was saved and adopted by a Romulan faction.
My main issue with all of it, and that is NOT the episode’s fault, is the 32nd century setting. 900 years – 750 from PIC – is far, far too much time that has passed since the days of Spock to remember him and his achievements that vividly.
If George Washington’s or Napoleon’s long-lost sister got into a time machine, travelling to the present, only about 250 years would have passed and still she’d feel like very ancient, irrelevant history from today’s POV.
Michael is closer to Richard Lionheart’s lost sister arguing against Brexit.
I think they overshot with Discovery being sent to the 32nd century. This season should be set in the 26th or 27th century. That would have given enough potential for technological progress to impress us all but wouldn’t feel like an eternity, a void that simply cannot be filled with meaningful historical development.
They wanted to go beyond Enterprise temporal cold war and a new start.
They could have just forgotten the TCW. It’s hardly mandatory to have seen every episode of ST.
But it’s canon unless that gets retconed from the timeline.
They way it ended, I don’t see why you couldn’t retroactively shrug the whole thing off like they did. And that’s if I cared about canon.
But if they just ignored it then some fans would’ve just accused the show of not taking place in the Prime Universe but somewhere else. I don’t think the writers wants that headache, especially after hearing it constantly when they were in the 23rd century.
And I give them a lot of credit handling canon so well between all the shows. It’s ironic, it now takes place 800 years beyond anything we know and yet there is probably more canon referenced in this season so far than the two first seasons combined; this episode being a big example. Now they can play in ALL the former shows’ sandbox and not just Enterprise and TOS like they were mostly doing before.
Temporal cold war is canon.
Talk about Surak or Jesus. Foundational figures endure. Spock is for 32nd century Ni’Var what Surak was for Vulcan in the 23rd century. He is the Founding Father of Ni’Var, so to speak.
Sound was very unbalanced in this podcast episode. Maybe some mic placement issues?
It was a mixing issue! Sorry about that. New version is available.
I enjoyed the podcast episode on Spotify. Good job Tony and Laurie.
The Vulcan Romulan dynamic was the only interesting thing from the episode. Unification is possible and Vulcan has a new name.
Michael Burnham is doing her thing. I don’t care about her mom. That was unnecessary.
but it clears her off of the chess board. remember that rumor that folks were just positive that “they” were going to say that Mama Burnham caused “the Burn”. Time to get a new pet theory
She still could’ve!
I like Michael, I’ve been enjoying her this season, but NOT HER MOM. That was very Red Angel-y and completely unnecessary.
Laurie, while on one hand I’m glad to have the Mama Burnham situation resolved, the thing that really bugs me is that it was done at the expense of getting closure on Michael’s relationship with her foster parents.
More Gabrielle’s view that Michael is completely human not Vulcan could come across as the denial by a birth parent that foster or adoptive parents influence or contribute to a child’s formation. While it’s a reasonable view from Gabrielle’s perspective, she’s not an unbiased advocate/assessor.
It also goes against the underlying theme in Star Trek that families are made in different ways – which the episode otherwise underscored with Burnham’s influence on Spock, Michael’s searching for a family in Starfleet, or the crew’s relationship with Tilly such that they would accept her temporary leadership.
I totally agree. And it takes away from that really intense and well executed scene in season 1 where Michael tells Ash about the day her parents were killed. It was so harrowing… but now we know Mom escaped, which should make Michael both happy and angry at the same time, and definitely conflicted for a long time to come. If I were Amanda I’d go kick Gabrielle Burnham’s ass (except that Amanda isn’t around anymore). At least the Ni’Varians recognize that Michael is technically a citizen of their planet. I liked that bit.
That was fun. Glad you really discussed the mom issue.