This was definitely the best one so far. Had its own story, had all lot of satisfying character arcs that started and ended within the episode, had some action that wasn’t a frantic nightmare, and had some nice surprises. I really liked Mudd.
Saru was great in this one. I love this character and I want more of him. I love how measured and diplomatic and warm he is. When the core cast is Saru, the engineer, Tilly, and the captain, this show works.
Action shlock on the klingon ship was fun, I though. I generally appreciate any neck-crackin’ alien-blastin’ scene they can stick in to something like this.
Tardigrate plotline fizzled out a lot sooner than I expected. I guess that’s that? Got some good discussion about the water bear’s biology being linked to fungus, and how our own is similarly linked, which was interesting. The “subspace network” they mentioned is believable enough for the spore drive, but I’ll admit I was hoping this would have more to do with multiple universes and multiple possible divergent paths than with some subspace technobabble.
Beyond that, gonna echo everything Sleazy said. I was a little surprised to find the doctor and the engineer were together, since I’d thought the engineer had been in a relationship with the engineer from their sister ship, who died horribly. I thought they’d gotten split between ships because both were too good at their jobs to be on the same ship.
Also expected Detmer to be a character by now, but yeah, nothing. She’s the only one physically scarred by the Battle at the Binary Stars, so you’d expect she’d have a slight problem with Michael just walking around free as a bird.
Tilly said something like “I love having an emotion reaction!” or something weird like that around when she dropped the F bomb. Anyone remember what the line was?
So the Klingons now have public torture sessions for entertainment? Fuck. I mean I keep expecting them to pull back on the ultragrim of the Klingons but…that’s crazy. They’re like all the most horrible parts of the Cardassians cranked up to a whole 'nother level.
It’s also frustrating as so much of this show is for me that the Klingon ship’s interior actually looked nothing like any of the Klingon art direction on Discovery thus far, but did look like a big budget re-imagining of Klingon ships from the TNG era.
That guy future badmiral Lorca rescued is apparently a main character according to the cast list? I’m kind of curious what’s going to happen with that.
I’m really struggling with all the stuff I dislike about this show, because it really does have more solid pacing and storytelling than anything remotely like it on TV. Every episode had SOMETHING happen, and that’s pretty cool.
nu-Trek can murder-gore a redshirt (navyshirt??) and drop a few Fuckwords, but a private tender moment between partners after a stressful day gets no kiss?
i always thought Rainn Wilson would make a great voice actor. had a great caidence when shouting his “I’ll get you next time, Gadget!” speech at the end
Should have invented some phantom prior work, with small movies nobody has ever heard of, relationships with other actors nobody has heard of, a bio that sounds like his mother wrote it.
Same here. I would love for them to focus some more on the bridge crew in general. I know in the modern style of television there is no room for a chill day of just hanging around the ship as everything is gotta be part of an arc but boy would I love to have a chill day the get Detmer some screen time and maybe one more bridge officer.
Saru is great. I am enjoying the show even though I do not like what they are doing with Klignons at all.
Enjoyed this last ep of Discovery quite a bit. Feel like this show’s out of weeds now.
Couldn’t help but notice the engineer’s dropping a lot of "groovy"s and "far out"s now that he’s beheld the unified consciousness of all living things. Would be cool if they used 60’s terms in this, as if the 60’s era of the original series was canon culturally for the Federation. They had this throwaway line in the DS9 ep with the tribbles, where Dax commented on how colorful everything was, and Sisko was like, “it was an experimental time” and sorta waxed nostalgic about the 60’s.
It’s very interesting to have this show be so wildly psychadelic in general. I mean exploring the notion that spores and mind melds all have this big secret tapestry throughout the universe in a show where subspace is already established as a thing is some real hippie dippy stuff which I do like. Michael’s soul kaleidoscoping across The Soul Zone was definitely a neat goofy modern version of some neat goofy 60s effect they would do.
Casting Spock’s decision to join Stafleet against Sarek’s choice for Micheal actually does the good prequel thing of adding emotional texture and depth to Sarek’s future appearances and his relationship with Spock.
ACTUALLY AS LONG AS THEY’RE DOUBLING DOWN ON SAREK THEY SHOULD TOTALLY FUCKIN INTRODUCE MICHAEL’S WEIRD BROTHER SYBOK AS THE EMOTIONAL VULCAN COUNTERPOINT TO HER LOGIC WORSHIPPING HUMAN
It’s weird to see a holodeck treadmill system so clearly displayed with modern motion graphics also weird to see a holodeck at all although they did basically have them on The Animated Series. I guess the Bynars on TNG invented the ones with good stories and AI interactions and hot jazz or whatever until the writers change their minds again
I enjoy that the admirals seem to be recurring characters and also…the sane ones which is interesting
Cornwall especially like…an older female counselor/psychologist who is an admiral but also has this weird relationship with Lorca like she’s very specifically interesting in a way that I think speaks to how Fuller or the current showrunners doing a good job of hiring a diverse creative crew? maybe? (same with the higher racial diversity of vulcan in general)
The unremarked upon DISCO shirts were extremely good
I think there are things that I will always fundamentally dislike about this show but a lot fewer than there were on Enterprise and I watched that whole thing so
I think that Discovery’s problems and benefits so far both come from what seems like an almost sketch comedy like hungry desire to keep the audience constantly off balance?
What the hell. Episode seven was a really traditional, really solidly put together episode of Star Trek.
The party at the beginning really calls back to the off duty goofiness I love about DS9 and TNG, and was a really nice antidote to the seriousness of the show so far.
I also love what they’re doing with Mudd! He’s a really fun bad guy. He feels like a much more successful version of what they tried to do with the Ferengi during TNG in a lot of ways.
I really hope this is the new normal, because this was great.
The on-the-noseness “We Trying To Stay Alive” being the “I Got You Babe” of Stamets’ Groundhog Day was offset by the fact that I was very effectively nostalgically pandered to by hearing The Fugees
Star Trek Party Rankings:
This one
Dax’s Bachelorette Party
A tie between Q2 turning Voyager’s engineering into a nightclub and the actual nightclub on Risa from Enterprise
But yeah this was basically just a regular standalone episode of Star Trek, except with the deeper emotional stakes that serialization allows for. Even a tiny moment like Lorca’s reaction to the animal was enhanced by knowing he’s on thin ice with the feds. Also it’s…hilarious(?) to see a Trek captain not even come close to giving a shit about the wonders of space and having to do science because they have to. What a weird show this is.
The Tyler/Burnham relationship, as mild as it is, does not feel earned to me. Again, I’m saying it every week, but a lot of stuff this show does really just feels like checklists they had to do without putting in the character work to get there. On the other hand, this is way more natural than like Worf/Troi or Chakotay/Seven so perhaps it’s a generally good sign that I’m grading this on a higher curve.
I’m torn about Mudd. As fun as he was, I feel like making him a constant murderer, even in a do-over context is maybe a step too far? And having his wild reign of terror end on a kind of similar wacky note to his TOS appearances sort of deflated things too far, maybe. Really appreciated Stella’s and her dad’s 1960s TOS style outfits, though. A great look. Also neat to give a tiny bit of depth to what was essentially a corny old Lockhorns cartoon of a nagging wife
It’s neat to see that whatever Tilly’s…non neurotypical…thing is, that she’s social and fun and has an active sex life. They could have done a generic big bang theory pseudo-autism kinda thing and she’s more realistic and nuanced than that. Still wish they’d just say it for my own health so I would stop trying to guess-diagnose this fictional character like an idiot every week. Maybe ADHD? Maybe it makes more narrative sense that she’s not just dropping it randomly but it still feels kinda weird? I dunno
Even if I don’t think this show is always great I do feel like there’s a lot to chew on at least