gdp's Comments

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery' Wrap-up / Mark Watches Wrap-up

Wed, 28 Jul 2021 18:07:49 +0000

Massive prediction fail on my part for this season. (1) The Discovery will spend the entire season in the 32nd century. Yeah, but that was a gimme. 1/1 (2) At the end of the season, the Discovery will either time-jump to a different era or cross over to a different universe. Nope. 1/2 (3) Gabrielle Burnham will be alive in the future with a functioning Red Angel suit, but she will be a version who did not arrive in a dead future, did not attempt to change the past, and thus has never met the Disconauts before or seen Michael as an adult. Nope. 1/3 (4) At some point, Gabrielle or Michael will use the Red Angel suit to go back in the past to send the seven initial signals and the final “we made it” signal from Terralysium, as well as fixing other time paradoxes, like how humans got to Terralysium or how how Michael got her Red Angel suit in a non-galactic-genocide timeline. Nope. 1/4 (5) The humans on Terralysium have built a warp-capable civilization and have made contact with Earth. Maybe they did this, but we didn’t see it. 1/5 (6) When the Disconauts arrive at Terralysium, they will find several drones waiting for them with hologram messages from Spock to Michael, sent over a period of decades during Spock’s life. Maybe Spock did this, but we didn’t see it. 1/6 (7) Burnham’s father is also still alive and is somehow living in the 32nd century. He will be revealed as either the season’s Big Bad or a minion of the Big Bad. I kept expecting him to show up in the Emerald Chain, but nope. 1/7 (8) At least three of the following characters will get an episode focus: Rhys, Bryce, Detmer, Owosekun, Nillson, Linus. (I admit that’s more a hope than a prediction.) Nope. Detmer sort of got a story, but that’s it. 1/8 (9) We will meet a character who is a descendent of an established character from one of the previous Trek series. This counts if it’s a sentient hologram/android carrying the memories and personality of Data or the Voyager EMH, even if their appearance has changed. Nope. 1/9 (10) There will be at least two episodes that act as sequels to TOS and/or TNG episodes. (A sequel to a Picard episode counts as TNG.) Unification III had the title, but it wasn’t really a sequel. We also got a fan-service appearance by the Guardian of forever, but that wasn’t a sequel to anything. So one-quarter point, maybe? 1.25/10 (11) The Borg will no longer pose a threat (they were exterminated, or stopped forcing assimilation, or are now outmatched technologically). We didn’t see or hear about them at all. 1.25/11 (12) The Discovery has not been forgotten. The Kelpians didn't cover up the wormhole. Saru has become a mythic founding hero/messianic figure among Kelpians, and his myth ends with his traveling into the wormhole on the Discovery. There are Kelpian cults built around his eventual return. Thus, the Discovery will encounter Kelpians, and Saru will then need to contend with his myth. Nope. 1.25/12 (13) The Vulcan-Romulan unification that Spock worked on in TNG has been completed, and Spock is now a legendary figure in the unified RomuVulcan society. The RomuVulcans also know of the Discovery and Michael’s presence on it. Michael will thus have instant status among RomuVulcans because of her relationship with Spock. Yes, almost entirely. 2.25/13 (14) I will enjoy the third season much more than the previous two. However, Cannibal Space Hitler will continue to annoy me through her mere presence. The second part of that was a gimme, but I’ll take the half point. 2.75/14 (15) The show will use at least one of the following ideas from Bryan Singer’s 2005 proposed 31st-century Star Trek: Federation series: • the Federation is in decline due to an exodus of most of its former members; • human leadership in the Federation has become generally arrogant and complacent, resulting in the aforementioned exodus; • Starfleet is a shadow of its former self, getting by with mostly-ancient starships spread far too thin; ***rest of the list deleted *** I said “at least one” and we did indeed see a Federation in decline, Starfleet spread thin, and Ni’Var split from the Federation. The reason wasn’t human arrogance, though. Final score: 3.75/15. Pathetic.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery' Wrap-up / Mark Watches Wrap-up

Wed, 28 Jul 2021 17:49:58 +0000

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been here on and off since Mark watched Buffy. Not quite from the beginning, but I've been here for about a decade now. I'll miss this site. It’s no secret that I haven’t enjoyed Discovery. It doesn’t really feel like Star Trek to me. It’s more like a Star Wars series with Star Trek branding. And I’m not that much of a fan of Star Wars. Discovery lacks so many of the things that first attracted me to Trek and kept me as a fan all these years. Gone is the optimistic vision of the future that inspires hope, or the positive look at humanity and human potential. Instead, we see a future constantly under siege from existential threats. In the first season, the entire Federation teeters on collapse under a relentless space-orc invasion. In the second season, a berserk AI threatens to end all life in the galaxy. In the third season, galactic civilization has collapsed due to resource scarcity – not because they collectively ignored the problems of an unsustainable system until it was too late, but because a child wizard committed an accidental act of random space magic. Science fiction is usually bleak: it creates cautionary tales of futures to be avoided, or simply acts as a flashy setting for action movies where the good guys beat the bad guys with big explosions. Star Trekwas an exception to that: it presented an optimistic future where humanity really did fix things, learned to do better, and went on to explore the universe and test the limits of possibility. Discovery gave a couple of token nods to those ideas, but the narrative itself was “the future sucks; it’s just one massive crisis after another with lots of fight scenes and violent death and explosions along the way.” Unlike the vast majority of science fiction, Star Trek showed me a future I’d want to live in. This show didn’t. As for the scripts, they were riddled with so many glaring plotholes that it constantly took me out of the story. The show was all about character arcs, mysteries, grand dramatic reveals, and action sequences: all flash and very little substance. Left on the sidelines was story logic: we watched things happen, but the reason they happened was frequently nonsensical. Characters do things because the script says they do, not because it’s a plausible human reaction to the situation. I’ve seen this sort of storytelling in action movies a lot: the creators want to make certain action scenes, and craft the entire narrative around justifying those scenes. The story is created in service of specific scenes, rather than the scenes being written to serve the story. That form of storytelling has never worked for me. One thing that’s always bugged me about previous Trek shows was when writers threw science out the window in favor of meaningless technobabble. Voyager was a notable offender in that respect, but this show ramped it up to 11. No actual science allowed here; this series is space magic all the way down. Finally, while there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with a reboot, I wanted to watch a series set in the established Star Trek universe. Regardless of any statements of intent the creators have made, there are just too many contradictions with the prime timeline for this show to be a part of it (and this comes from a guy with decades of experience in rationalizing discrepancies between the various canon series). So I found that disappointing. Basically, if someone had set out to custom-design a Trek-branded series specifically to drive me away, this is really close to what they’d get. About the only thing I liked was the casting, which was really, really good. There are more Trek-branded series to come. I’m generally neutral on Picard thus far; it had some good moments, but I didn’t find it particularly engaging (pun unintended). I haven’t watched Lower Decks yet, but I assume from the ads that it’s not intended to be taken seriously. I’ll give Strange New Worlds a fair chance, in the hope that they do something more line with previous Trek series. I have zero interest in a Cannibal Space Hitler spinoff, even though I'd normally watch Michelle Yeoh in just about anything. I know nothing of Prodigal beyond the title, so no expectations yet. I’m not a big supporter of this “throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks” approach to the Trek franchise, but I suppose it’ll eventually produce something I like.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E13 - That Hope is You, Part 2

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 16:37:36 +0000

Found it. In "Die Trying" the hologram doctor told Saru he "may be the last Kelpian who still retains biochemical traces of Vahar'ai." They weren't in contact with Kaminar, so I took that to mean Vahar'ai hadn't been a thing for Kelpians since some time before the Burn.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E13 - That Hope is You, Part 2

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 03:36:36 +0000

I assume that once the Federation knows about the obstacles, they can build sufficient shielding. Or maybe just use robots and/or holograms for the actual mining.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E13 - That Hope is You, Part 2

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 03:22:16 +0000

While I was watching, it did occur to me that the most practical solution to the Su'Kal problem was a phaser. What if he breeds? What if his mutation starts spreading through the Kelpian population? Can the galaxy risk a growing population of wizards who can violently obliterate galactic civilization if they lose their cool even for a second?

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E13 - That Hope is You, Part 2

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 03:15:36 +0000

Wasn't there dialogue in an earlier episode that said (or implied) that Kelpians didn't go through vahar'ai anymore? It may be that the Ba'ul were able to complete their selective breeding program in the intervening centuries -- possibly with Kelpian cooperation -- and finally remove varhar'ai from the Kelpian species entirely.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E13 - That Hope is You, Part 2

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 03:10:42 +0000

It's still bigger on the inside, though. The Discovery is a wide, flat outer saucer that looks like it's two or three decks thick, with a smaller, slightly thicker inner saucer that's maybe six decks thick, and a wide, flat lower hull that's basically the height of the shuttle bay. Even with miniaturization of the infrastructure, where exactly is that cavernous space supposed to be located? There's no room for it. And the fact that we saw that huge space in Season 2 just supports my point: 23rd century technology produced the TARDIS effect. This ship has always been built with technology that doesn't exist in the prime timeline.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E13 - That Hope is You, Part 2

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 01:32:21 +0000

You need to be okay with three things about the show to enjoy it.... That was a really good analysis of why this show failed for me. In particular: "everything in Discovery is in service to the emotional beats of the story.... The show is visually amazing and emotionally compelling, but you do have to tamp down on the part of your brain that demands coherency, or those emotional beats are going to land flat." That is just about my least favorite method storytelling, because I cannot tamp down the part of my brain that demands coherency. A show can't possibly be emotionally compelling for me if I don't believe the situations or the reactions of the characters to those situations. I can't get emotionally engaged when the plot keeps making my brain jump up and yell "bullshit" at the narrative. I see this kind of writing in action movies all the time, and I always hate it. The creators apparently come up with the action scenes they want to shoot first, then craft a feeble excuse for a "plot" to link them together, even if it winds up with characters doing many things that make no sense at all. It's pretty much a given that any writers who decide they need "big emotional scenes" to anchor their story, and then backfill the plot from the need to reach those scenes, will lose me. I subscribe strongly to the notion that scenes need to be in service of the story, and that you need to "kill your darlings" if necessary to make the story work. This "emotional beats uber alles" type of writing puts the story (such as it is) in service to the scenes, and I almost invariably find the final result to be extremely unsatisfying. Give me a story that makes sense, and let the emotional scenes arise organically from the reasonable reactions of the characters to the situations they face. Previous Trek series generally did that really well. (Also, in terms of whether episodes were good vs. whether the season was good, I get that you don't analyze a book by individual chapters. But looking at the seasons as a whole ... all three of them failed for me as season-long stories, again because of the near-absence of any story logic to most of the stuff that happened.)

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E13 - That Hope is You, Part 2

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 01:14:34 +0000

I agree with your point about making Michael captain. It's not a logical result of the story thus far .... but if they're going to center all stories around her anyway, they might as well just give her a position where it makes narrative sense to do that. Of course, they could have done that by simply having her promoted from the Shenzhou to command the Discovery back in season one, episode one. Narratively, she was a competent and reliable first officer prior to her inexplicable attempted mutiny.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E13 - That Hope is You, Part 2

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 01:08:21 +0000

Burnham, unsurprisingly, turns out to be a really awful captain. When she got to the bridge after saving the day, Tilly just handed command over to her. That’s actually a reasonable decision on paper: the most junior officer on board should hand command over to the most senior officer. But this is Michael Burnham, so her first order as acting captain? BRYCE: The Viridian won't just let us go. BURNHAM: I don't expect them to. Which is why we have to eject the warp core and blow our way out. ME: WTF???? YOUR SHIP HAS PHASERS AND YOU’RE INSIDE THEIR SHIELDS!!!! Burnham had no idea whether Book could actually activate the magic mushroom drive, let alone that he could instinctively guide it to the precise place in the universe they needed to be. If he could do it, they could just leave the Viridian without blowing up anything. If he couldn’t, the Emerald Chain still had nothing worth capturing even if they could re-board the ship, because the only pilot was safely back at Starfleet. But I doubt the Emerald Chain would have had time, because the Discovery’s phasers could have wrecked the Viridian from inside in seconds, cut their own way out, and let the pursuing fleet deal with what was left of the bad guys. So ejecting the warp core in that situation was just about the most reckless and nonsensical thing Burnham could have done. The most likely outcome would be to pointlessly destroy the Discovery. I wouldn’t trust Burnham with command of a survey team after this. But somehow, her recklessness and bad judgment landed her in the captain’s chair. There wasn’t any particular story reason to hand command of the single most important strategic asset in the Federation over to Captain Loose Cannon, except that Vance was apparently sentimental about his daughter, but … that’s how things go on Star Trek: Everyone Loves Michael. (That said, it was cool to see an actual silent explosion in space. You don’t need sound effects to make this sort of thing work.) Any lingering pretense this show is set in the prime timeline was destroyed by that ridiculous scene with the floating turbolifts in the cavernous interior space. There’s no place on the Discovery where that space could exist, which means the Discovery is (a) vastly larger on the inside than the outside, and (b) designed like no Federation starship ever seen in the prime timeline, any era. I assume that in the Disco timeline, Starfleet was able to reverse-engineer that time-traveling tesseract Archer’s crew encountered in “Future Tense”, and had TARDIS technology on its ships by the 23rd century. At least that helps explain all the absurdly large interior spaces on the ship.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E13 - That Hope is You, Part 2

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 00:59:39 +0000

Osyraa’s dead now, and we never found out what her real plan was. Not that I was all that interested. She was a lousy villain: a B-movie heavy who seemed to have miraculous access to knowledge and resources, but used it mostly to bully people and steal stuff. Maybe she didn’t have any kind of endgame; just “steal the next thing” or “bully the next victim”, then move on to the next one after that. Man, the Ni’Var fleet got there really fast after Burnham’s mayday. Were they already on the way there for some other reason? The “bridge crew takes on the Chain” storyline fizzled. The bad guys killed life support, and HOW ARE THERE NO SPACE SUITS ON A SPACESHIP??? There should be environmental suits stashed all over the place as a basic safety measure. And also lots of emergency oxygen that’s good for at least a few hours. Because, y’know, SPACESHIP!!! Emergency breathers should be as common as life preservers on a ship. And hey … programmable matter lets Burnham conjure a gun from a jewel on her wrist, but they didn’t build environmental suits into the uniforms? Seems like a huge oversight in a job where you’d need space suits a lot more frequently than phasers. Speaking of space suits: the warp nacelles were detached from the ship for some reason that will never make any sense to me. There was even dialogue in a previous episode about it. So how did Owo make it over there without a space suit? Or did she put on a space suit, travel to the detached nacelle, and remove it again? Anyway, Michael Burnham single-handedly saved the day. Again. But when she ordered the rebooted computer to beam all regulators off the ship, (1) how did the rebooted-from-backup computer know what a “regulator” was, since it was restored to pre-upgrade condition? (2) how did it know Aurellio wasn’t a regulator? (3) how did it know where to send them? The Burn was also resolved, and of course the explanation for it wasn’t even remotely plausible: Su’Kal caused it by screaming in anguish when his mother died, which sent out a subspace wave through all dilithium because technobabble space magic bafflegab. At least the writers were able to milk it for some melodrama. So now maybe they can eliminate the chance that it would happen again? (Will they need to keep Su’Kal away from dilithium for the rest of his life?) Putting aside the very long list of objections rooted in believability: that’s a really awful thing to lay on anyone. He’s the biggest mass murderer in all of galactic history because, as a child, he cried when his mother died. How could you deal with the weight of that, even if it wasn’t your fault because you had no idea you or anyone else could cast that spell by accident? Saru returning to Kaminar with Su’Kal is probably good for both of them. But once reintroduced to his mother's homeworld, Su’Kal will probably be better off surrounded by a community of contemporary Kelpians and Ba’ul, rather than someone from nearly a thousand years ago who knows little or nothing about the world they are both re-entering. Saru needs to get back to his ship. Gray is real, after all. And whatever form he is in, a hundred-year-old holodeck could spot him and give him a visible face and corporeal body. So any other holodeck should be able to do so as well. Give him one of those 29th century portable holoemitters like the Voyager EMH had, and he’s good to go. Starfleet finally put the Discovery to good use: rebuilding infrastructure by delivering dilithium all over the Federation. They still need to deliver repair crews to all those subspace relay stations, though, especially the remote ones. Getting Federation-wide comms back should be job number one at this point, if for no other reason than to let distant worlds and space stations know that dilithium is on the way. Sahil showing up at the end was a very nice touch. His lifelong dream is finally achieved. Burnham is now captain, because of course she is. But I liked the last scene anyway. They finally updated their uniforms, and “let’s fly” was a good closing line. If the writers are trying to make that Burnham’s catchphrase … well, it won’t be useful very often. It lacks the versatility of “make it so.”

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E13 - That Hope is You, Part 2

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 19:49:26 +0000

I'll get to my comments on the episode later, but I just wanted to offer my congratulations to Mark on moving on to life as a full-time novelist without any side gigs. Damn few people can pull that off, so I'm both happy for you and impressed as hell. I'll miss this site, but I'm looking forward to the books you write in the future. Whether or not I give any written feedback anywhere, I'll certainly be reading them. And thank you so much for the past 10 years (I’ve been following you on-and-off since Buffy here, and Sandman over on Mark Reads). I’ll see you at least once more on Patreon, since I’ve been following you through Arrow. I haven't commented on every show I followed you through, but it's been a joy to see your unspoiled reactions to so many shows I've watched and loved.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E11 - Su'Kal

Fri, 23 Jul 2021 22:05:06 +0000

but the choice to make her the center of absolutely everything feels very anti-Star Trek. Especially as even the show itself is constantly advocating unity, but then unity is not what solves anything. Michael is. That is a really good point!

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E12 - There is a Tide...

Fri, 23 Jul 2021 22:01:36 +0000

The Federation of the 22nd and 23rd centuries had replicators and virtually unlimited energy, therefore a post-scarcity economy, and who needs capitalism then? Use as much as you like to the benefit of all. But without dilithium, you're having to decide where the resources go VERY CAREFULLY Not really clear that's the case. Dilithium supports warp travel, but that's all. All planet-side power systems should still work, which means that post-scarcity economics should exist on any world that had fusion plants or 99% efficient solar collectors or whatever they used for planetary power since the 23rd century. So every Federation world should still have virtually unlimited energy and replicators for all. A dilithium shortage may limit how many starships you can deploy at once, but that would only restrict interstellar travel and maybe imports of a few luxury goods.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E12 - There is a Tide...

Fri, 23 Jul 2021 21:49:13 +0000

I don’t believe that the Federation cannot replicate the spore drive. It’s made with centuries-old technology. They have the plans. They have a working model. They have the designer. They have the technology to create all the spores they need. Literally the only thing they lack are pilots, and the only advantage the Emerald Chain would have over the Federation in that respect is the Chain’s willingness to do human experimentation, which should be a dealbreaker. (In fairness, they could also enslave Stamets and repeatedly duplicate him by transporter a la Tom Riker, and I'm sure Osyraa wouldn't hesitate to do it, but that's also completely off the table.) What is Osyraa really up to, anyway? I bet we’ll learn she can fool a verifier scan, and that the whole “armistice and alliance” thing was a diversion from whatever her real plan is. Up until this episode, I’d assumed the Emerald Chain was a powerful criminal organization built around smuggling, human trafficking, piracy and extortion. But now we learn that they are an actual government, with a Congress and a charter, and apparently Osyraa claims to hold some position that allows her to submit a charter amendment to the Congress. It also appears that the Emerald Chain and the Federation are positioned to bargain as equals. But if all of that is true, she’d be making her offer through subspace messages and emissaries, not sneaking into Federation Central in a captured ship full of hostages. She obviously has some different plan, and the meeting with Vance was part of the con. If Vance believed the deal was genuine, would he really blow it up over amnesty for one person? Or did he realize right from the start that the negotiation wasn’t real (because piracy, deception & hostages), and was just keeping Osyraa talking because he was trying to figure out what her game was? I doubt the guy who had no reservations about a mass murderer hanging out on the Discovery would genuinely care about one criminal avoiding justice, if that was the actual price of peace. Aurelio looks like he’ll switch sides. He’s clearly been manipulated into believing Osyraa is more benevolent that she appears, but now that he’s seen her literally murder someone in front of him, it’ll be hard to hold on to those delusions. Perhaps she’s decided she doesn’t particularly need him any longer, or that he's in so deep she can just control him with threats from now on. Transwarp corridors are apparently navigable but filled with wreckage that creates all kinds of navigation hazards. Maybe … clean them out and set up traffic control at each end so everyone can use them safely? The Federation and everyone else has had a century to do so.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E12 - There is a Tide...

Fri, 23 Jul 2021 21:43:39 +0000

This was a pretty good episode from the standpoint of a Die Hard hostage thriller. Well-paced with good performances all around. It didn’t make a lot of sense from a story logic standpoint, at least based on what we’ve seen so far. But there’s still one more episode to find out what Osyraa’s real agenda is. I completely forgot about Zareh. I was right that leaving him alive would come back to bite them in the ass. I’m not sure why he’s in this story, though; his role could be filled equally well by any random henchman. It was great to see the bridge crew working together beyond “aye sir” and exposition. And flooding the ship’s sensors with false life signs was a clever move. Tilly’s plan to take back the ship by shooting their way through the regulators doesn’t impress me much, though. I’m surprised that there apparently are no intruder-control measures on the ship. Don’t they have anesthezine gas or something? And how is it the 32nd century has made literally no advances in hand weapons since Disco’s time, other than how to store them? They haven’t even gotten to TOS-level prime-timeline phasers that could stun an entire crowd with one shot. The Discovery’s fire-control system involves explosive decompression while people are still in the area? That seems like really bad design from a safety standpoint. Burnham cauterizing her wound with a phaser or welder or whatever was a really badass move, but … they don’t carry around programmable matter first aid kits on their belts? Or have them stashed in lockers all over the ship like fire extinguishers? That seems like really bad design from a safety standpoint. Burnham took a moment to send a mayday message to her mother on Ni’Var, but treated it like a farewell message. I bet that comes up in the next episode, probably with Ni’Var coming to the rescue of the Federation. Hey, if transport jamming is a thing, why isn’t it standard operating procedure in every combat situation? I mean, one of those things that activates automatically when you go to red alert, to make sure nobody beams a bomb onto the ship or starts beaming the crew into space? And since the Discovery can do it, how was the Emerald Chain able to board them at all? Did every single person on the Discovery just … forget? Stamets was probably right to try to jump, because it would have stranded Osyraa, removed her hostages from the equation, and left her ship outside the force field at the mercy of Starfleet. But it looks like neither he nor Burnham could have known that Osyraa was off the ship at that point. They also didn’t know the bridge crew had turned the tables on their captors. So Michael was wrong to overpower Stamets and get him off the ship, but didn’t know it at the time. Stamets: “We came to the future for you. We followed you! We gave up everything so you wouldn't have to be here alone!” Yeah, but you knew who she was when you made that choice. Or should have known, anyway. I still don’t get how more than half the crew thinks Burnham is so amazing that they’d give up the rest of their lives to hang out with her. Nothing about the narrative really supports it.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E11 - Su'Kal

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 22:08:16 +0000

I have no idea why it would do so in this case, since it makes no logical sense for the program to turn two humans into a Bajoran and a Trill, while turning a Kelpian into a human. I'll just chalk it up to another glitch in a malfunctioning holodeck.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E11 - Su'Kal

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 21:39:01 +0000

Has any starship ever had to drop its shields when it went to warp? If that was a spore drive thing, I don't remember it.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E11 - Su'Kal

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 18:53:34 +0000

Looks like Tilly wasn’t a great choice for first officer after all. Took her just a couple of hours to lose the ship to a B-movie heavy. She could have jumped away and come back later. Since the Discovery can now cloak, shouldn’t they do so as a matter of course? I mean, they are the Federation’s secret weapon now, and the Treaty of Algeron is clearly not a consideration any more. No reason to decloak when you don’t have to. I found it highly implausible that Osyraa could get to this evidently remote position so quickly. Yeah, Book mentioned a transwarp tunnel, but if those are around, you’d think they’d be in widespread use by now. (I know, dialogue said it’s dangerous, but galactic civilization has had a century to work through that.) And how convenient was it that there was a tunnel from wherever Osyraa was to where she wanted to be? Did I miss something, or did Osyraa’s troops board the Discovery while the shields were up? If so, what’s the point of starship weaponry or those silly space dogfights? You could just beam a bomb right onto the opposing ship, or beam pieces of their ship away underneath them. Still trying to figure out what Gray is all about. He could be a hallucination, I suppose, but I’m guessing there’s more than that going on here. Burnham questions Saru’s judgment? Really? Commander Loose Cannon is the last character who should question anyone’s judgment, let alone someone as generally reliable as Saru. Besides, if Saru was really eager to see other Kelpians, he’s had the power to order the ship to Kaminar any time he wanted to literally since they arrived. In fact, “check out our old homeworlds” would have been a logical first thing to do anyway, once they reconnected with Burnham and found the Federation had collapsed.

Mark Watches : Mark Watches 'Discovery': S03E11 - Su'Kal

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 18:48:57 +0000

The story of Su’Kal is one of the few things this series has done that feels to me like a Star Trek story. A child was left on a holodeck to protect him and educate him and let him grow until rescue arrived. But rescue never came, and he grew old – more than a century old – existing alone in a world of holograms built for a child. And now his world is deteriorating, and Starfleet finally comes – but they are trapped in the holodeck and unable to leave until they can reach the old man with the child’s understanding, who no longer believes in the outside or other people. That much of the story was handled very well. I loved the bit where Burnham played the role of a new hologram in order to reach Su’Kal. This could have been a decent planet-of-the-week episode (which I’ve been missing all through this series) if it wasn’t for all the Emerald Chain and goofy space magic nonsense going on in the background. It looks like the burn might have been caused when Su’Kal, a mutant Kelpian altered by exposure to dilithium, was devastated by his mother’s death and space magic happened. If so … yeah, whatever. That would be a ridiculous explanation for the Burn, but it would be entirely in line with the rest of the "science" on this show. A whole planet full of dilithium would certainly solve the dilithium shortage. So it looks like Michael Burnham just saved the whole Federation again: she probably just solved the Burn and made it possible to bring back widespread warp travel all at once, because she checked the time stamps on some old flight recorders. This after saving the whole Federation from being wiped out in an apocalyptic war by handing an orc a doomsday bomb, then saving the whole Federation (and the rest of the galaxy) from a berserk and weirdly indestructible AI because her mom built a time machine. She’s developed quite the talent for being the right person in the right place at the right time with the right plot device. There was no reason for the Discovery to send a team to Dangerously Radioactive Dilithium Planet, jump away, and come back after they fixed the shields. Whatever they were looking for had been there for a century, and could wait a few hours more. They absolutely could have taken the time to fix the shields, then jumped close to the planet, sent down a team to investigate while the fully-shielded ship remained close, and jumped away afterward. Of course, there was no reason to do any of that, either. The crash site is “two hundred kilometers into the nebula.” That means the planet is literally on the edge of the nebula. Not only would the planet be entirely visible from outside the nebula, approaching to 200 km from the planet would likely put the Discovery in such a low orbit that it might be hard to avoid crashlanding themselves. Transporters were previously established to have a 10,000 km range on Enterprise, which means they could beam people directly to the crash site from outside the nebula. Or they could have just tracked the planet's orbit until it moved out of the nebula, or at least out of the storm.