Not gonna lie, I felt like this was a major step down from last episode.
First, I'm already getting tired of hearing about Pike's vision of the future. Anson Mount is awesome as Pike; don't waste him angsting about his fate every freaking episode.
Second, I'm sure I'm not the first person to compare this episode to Enterprise's second episode "Fight or Flight". You could easily swap out Uhura for Hoshi and nothing would change. And let's face it, comparisons to early Enterprise are... not good.
La'an really needs to check the attitude.
I am loving Hemmer, though. He's a snarky bastard and I am here for every moment of it.
Lots of beauty shots of Enterprise.
All in all, I think this is the first sign that New Trek going episodic isn't some magic band-aid for its writing woes.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I quite enjoyed it, while occasionally feeling oddly like I shouldn’t be.
The problem of course is, back in DSC s2 they made what in retrospect feels like an unusual decision to give Pike foreknowledge of his fate. Which of course they now have to address. It can’t just be hand-waved away. It is knowledge he possesses that would change anybody.
But it’s not like Trek hasn’t had characters confront such knowledge before.
In “Time’s Arrow” Data found the fact of his severed head from the past comforting, to know that like a real human being he would have an end (granted, this was not an emotional decision as he lacked that faculty at the time and by the time he got it the danger in question was long past).
In Generations, the death of Picard’s brother and nephew forced him to confront his own mortality and legacy. Ultimately by helping Kirk to confront similar issues, he accepts that how you live matters more than (heh) what you leave behind.
DSC s2 feels like a LONG time ago now, so I can’t recall how I felt at the time about Pike’s small-d discovery. Possibly that it was bold but in the end meaningless, as we wouldn’t be seeing Pike again. Now though - the writers must be kicking themselves - it has wider implications. But it does make me wonder more why they did it. To represent the sacrifice Pike made to get a time crystal? It also however feels emblematic of recurrent problems in New Trek: everything has to be really important, everybody knows everyone else, too many callbacks. Pike’s was a Big Damn Hero even before he risked (and ruined) his life to save those cadets: his sacrifice made him more so. Does he really need to be made an Even Bigger Damn Hero by knowing what’s going to happen when he makes that risk?
Space is dangerous. People’s luck runs out. Not all deaths are heroic and meaningful. But Trek has always been reluctant to let it happen to main players, unless for contractual reasons - Yar, Jadzia. Or, it happens but doesn’t stick - Harry Kim gets sucked out a hull breach, but they get another one. Why couldn’t Pike’s fate be left alone?
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Great post, Lee, but I can't imagine how you forgot poor Chief O'Brien, poisoned to death by time travel ... so DS9 got another one.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
It wasn’t intended to be a comprehensive list!
Plus - thinking about it - it’s not really quite the same as the other, sudden deaths I mentioned. It (in “Visionary”) is the whole culmination of an O’Brien Torture Episode and is the end result of a linear progression of events.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:It wasn’t intended to be a comprehensive list!
...!
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Turn in your Flare card, young man! ;-)
From what I gather, didn't Jurati suggest to the Queen in her "let's be friends" speech that the Queen knows she dies in every timeline? That could make an interesting juxtaposition.
As for Discovery, many noted at the time how Pike letting the Admiral sacrifice herself in the room of death made no sense if he believed he knew when he would die. This show just puts exclamation marks on that. If you truly believe your vision, the options for what some would view as insane courage open up tremendously.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
As a wise young Centauri once said, "Prophecy is just a dream that comes true. If it doesn't, the dream is just a metaphor."
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
So, Uhura was retconned to be a linguistic wunderkind (like Hoshi Sato). She needed dictionaries for Klingon and had a hard time with the pronunciation in TUC. And like so many other main characters she's an orphan.
Pike's quarters are very spacious (even bigger than Picard's on the Enterprise-D I would guess). Must've downsized them when crew complement went up from 200 to 400 by the time Kirk took command.
I would've prefered Admiral April's to be the dress uniform. Uhura's looks anachronistic; like something out of STO. Although the hazing and Pike's reaction was comedy gold.
[ May 16, 2022, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: Spike ]
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Until TUC, Uhura was always considered to speak several languages. She was in communcations, after all. TUC is the fucked-up exception.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I agree. I suppose you could at a stretch suggest she just didn’t speak Klingon, but that seems like exactly the sort of language she would learn. And even hand-waving that away, as someone who’s meant to have a knack for languages, you’d think she’d do a better job of not mangling the grammar and syntax.
Klingon: What's this then? "We am thy freighter Ursva"? Uhura: I... I said “This is the freighter Ursva.” Klingon: No you didn’t. … Klingon: Now write it out a hundred times.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
The only explanation I'd accept–& it's a long shot–is that Border Dude spoke this obscure dialect of Klingon that she had no clue what it was about. Like how someone from Hong Kong & someone from Anhui would be difficult to understand for each other. Or, someone from HK having to speak with a drunk Glaswegian. It ties in with an idea I had about the nature of so-called "Imperial" Klingon.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
Maybe Nomad didn‘t just wipe her memory but also affect her linguistic skills?
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Maybe the simplest explanation is the best - there are a number of Klingon languages, and those languages have a variety of different dialects, and Uhura isn't familiar with all of them.
I do think it's pretty great that Federation starships apparently have printed reference libraries.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :