posted
I thought this was a pretty good episode. It really gave a lot of the cast a chance to shine.
Book's still pretty out of it following the destruction of Kwejian. David Ajala does some solid acting, especially when Book finally breaks down at the end. My only complaint here was that I got really tired of seeing Leto running through Book's ship by the end of the episode.
Saru's back as Burnham's first officer. However, it does not appear that Saru has taken a rank reduction AND mention is made that he was offered command of the USS Sojourner.
T'Rina's back! I liked her character last season, especially her chemistry with Saru. It is noted that Ni'Var hasn't yet rejoined the Federation, despite last season's finale mentioning they were already in talks to rejoin.
Plans are in motion to give Gray a Soong-type android body. Picard is name-dropped as the first person to undergo such a procedure, although Culber mentions that the process was found to have a very low success rate. And before anyone even asks, nope, no mention of Ira Graves.
Disco's computer is now officially Zora. I'm still wondering where "Calypso" fits into things.
We do, in fact, get some follow-up to the Stamets storyline from the end of last season. He makes a joke about getting blown out an airlock (which everyone finds to be in poor taste), and he also takes the time to thank Book for helping rescue Adira and Culber from the dilithium planet. Anthony Rapp and David Ajala definitely have some unexpected chemistry. The two of them talking about how it feels to spore-jump Discovery was a cute conversation.
The captain's chair having a cone of silence was kinda silly.
And we find out at the end of the episode that the anomaly's path appears to be erratic. Nice zoom-out showing the entire anomaly. Props to the SFX folks; rather than looking like your typical Trek Negative Space Wedgie anomaly, it looks like a fairly "realistic" black hole with a debris disk and gravitational lensing.
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
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This was a really good episode. Focused on a specific task with limited scope (but huge stakes, of course) and using the task to explore some of the characters in the new season. I read somewhere (maybe just a fan observation) that there’s a lot more small-scope scenes so far this season, with just a few characters interacting due to Covid precautions. But that also really reinforces the feel of Star Trek, which at its best should always be about the small scale *within* the larger scale story.
Grudge hates holos because she can’t smell them. That makes perfect sense! I’m sure a cat lover wrote that line.
The programmable matter tether was a neat idea. Classic Trekkian mixture of ludicrous practicality.
It started last season, but it’s good to see Burnham and Saru have a good functioning relationship. At least, functioning when Michael isn’t in one of her super heroic moods. And she not only asked him to be XO as a friend and advisor, but she asked him for advice in this episode too! And followed it! I think we have some positive character growth for Burnham here, even if it’s of the rather obvious sort.
Of course, I nitpick because I care. And my biggest question is how the holos work. Stamets was on Discovery, and had a mostly-flawless and uninterrupted transmission to Book’s ship the whole time. But I was under the impression that they couldn’t transmit wirelessly through the debris cloud which was why they needed the tether to begin with. So when the tether was cut loose, why did Stamets’ holo stick around even when the sensor data wasn’t transmitting?
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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Shik
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More to that, why not send the data through the tether? Not everything has to be Bluetooth enabled.
This constant swapping of command reminded me of Putin & Medvedev swapping positions in Russia all the time. Imagine being a PO2 on Deck 10 & being all "Saru's back? So he's captain again, right? ...Wait, he's exec? But he's still a captain? What kind of backward ass pageantry is that?"
I thought "Cone Of Silence" too!
No more holodecks, I see. Now EVERY [s]restaurant is a Taco Bell![/s] room is a holodeck.
As for Zora/"Calypso", I bet we're supposed to think that the ship "really" looked as it does now, just as we're supposed to think that Enterprise "really" looks as it did here in TOS.
The Picard throwaway to link universes & preempt why people aren't just getting droid bodies now was hokey. That bit about "can't see blackbholes unless they're eating matter" is fucking bullsgit. You have subspace-driven sensor arrays! Gravitational detectors! You fucking well WILL know EXACTLY where singularities are, goddammit!
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
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Discovery: Lower Decks would be a hilarious companion show! Some of them get tasked with scrubbing the ludicrously-bigger-on-the-inside turboshafts, others are cleaning up mushroom spores from odd nooks and crannies, one savvy ensign predicts that Lorca is from an alternate universe long before it’s revealed but nobody will listen…
I thought they *were* sending the sensor data through the tether, and that was the point of the tether to begin with, until they had to cut it so Disco could pull back to safety. It made sense that when they cut the tether the remaining data was only on Book’s ship. I was just wondering why they could transmit the Stamets holo (and Stamets could receive feedback) but not receive the sensor data.
Of course, it could’ve all been solved by letting a less-senior science officer physically sit there and push buttons to tell the sensors to record everything, he wasn’t analyzing anything in the moment. But then we wouldn’t have the touching connection between two main characters, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, is Stamets now a classic Trekkian omnidisciplinary scientist instead of the spore drive specialist? Is he the Discovery’s science officer now? (I suppose he could’ve been a more general scientist before he started work on the spore drive.)
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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He acts more like an engineer, but I think they're trying to make him a Data-like generalist.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
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After 4 years we still don't know who the Chief Engineer and Chief Medical Officer are, no?
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
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CMO is Dr. Pollard.
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Was she? IIRC she was just a Lt. or Lt. JG. It's hard to tell with these dumb badges.
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
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I think it was implied.
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