I have been a huge fan of Oded Fehr‘s ever since he costarred as Ardeth Bay in the two Brendan Fraser Mummy movies that came out around the turn of the millennium, which were among his first roles. He’s gone on to appear in tons of things since then, from a recurring role on NCIS to the Resident Evil movies to numerous voices on various DC animated projects.
And now he’s in Star Trek, as Admiral Vance, the head of what’s left of Starfleet. Amazingly, he’s not the most interesting guest star in this latest episode.
As a fan of Fehr, I really hope that this is a recurring role. Secret Hideout has been sufficiently parsimonious with details about this season that it’s not clear whether the admiral will continue to appear. Unfortunately, the reason why I hope this is because Fehr doesn’t create much of an impression here as Vance. He’s pretty much the stereotypical hard-headed admiral acting as an impediment to our heroes, whom they have to convince to be given a chance to prove themselves.
There are a lot of ways that Discovery’s reuniting with the remnants of Starfleet and the Federation could have gone. The way they actually chose is perfectly fine in theory—Discovery is welcomed, but it’s a guarded welcome—and is far better than what I feared, which would be that Starfleet would turn out to be run by assholes in the future and our crew would be pitted against them. Hell, I was partly afraid that Tal’s information would be out of date, and they’d go to the coordinates to find nothing, and they’d spend more episodes searching, and we’ve been spared that, at least.
Buy the Book
Fugitive Telemetry
While I’m grateful that they didn’t go the full-antagonist route, I wish they hadn’t set up the artificial conflict that they did give us. The Discovery crew arrives at the coordinates provided by Tal. They find a base hidden behind a distortion field, and a whole mess of ships from different eras (including one or two that should look familiar).
Vance and his people do look on Saru and the gang with some suspicion, which is at least partly justified by something that has happened in the intervening years to outlaw time travel. (Discovery has jumped several centuries past the time period when the Federation had timeships going around messing with time travel, as seen in Voyager’s “Future’s End” and “Relativity.”) It doesn’t help that many of the records of Discovery’s missions were erased for security concerns at the end of last season. I have to admit, I found that disappointing, partly because it created more reason for Vance to distrust the crew, partly because I think it would have been far more interesting if Vance knew all about it because the whole thing was declassified some time in the 27th century or something.
The crew are questioned by various holograms (Discovery looks to be following the leads of Voyager and Picard by having as much fun with holographic characters as possible—I particularly like Brendan Beiser’s holographic doctor Eli, who has absolutely no conception of personal space), as well as by Vance, and the final result is that the admiral wants to requisition Discovery for Starfleet’s use and break up the crew.
And this is where I moan and groan, because it’s artificial conflict and artificial suspense. You know that the crew isn’t going to be broken up, and you know that they’re going to find a way to prove themselves—in this case, by using the spore drive to track down a base that contains a ton of seed samples, including one that will cure a virus that a bunch of aliens have succumbed to.
The spore drive is going to be Discovery’s greatest asset, as it enables them to travel distances that are unachievable by other vessels post-Burn. Their mission to prove themselves is pretty straightforward. The base was damaged by a coronal mass ejection, killing most of the Barzan family that was guarding it, and leaving one member alive but out of phase because he was in mid-transport when the CME happened. Nhan is part of the away team that tries to help the surviving Barzan, and she winds up staying behind to take over guarding the base. It’s a surprise move only insofar as Rachael Ancheril had been elevated to opening-credits regular this year, only to be written out five episodes in. We’ll see, I guess—maybe they’ll need more seeds this season…
Burnham leads the mission, with Saru left behind. While these words aren’t used, Saru is pretty much left back as a hostage to guarantee Discovery’s return, with Vance’s aide Lieutenant Willa (played initially as a hardhead by Vanessa Jackson, though she softens as she gets to know the crew) going along on the mission. While this is all justifiable from a story sense—for one thing, Burnham’s extra year of experience in the future gives her an edge over the rest of the gang—I hope it isn’t a preview of things to come. I really don’t want to see Saru artificially sidelined so Burnham can get to do the cool stuff.
However, the most interesting part of this episode is the other big-name guest besides Fehr: David Cronenberg, best known as the director of some delightfully bizarre films (eXistenZ, Crash, A History of Violence, Scanners, The Dead Zone, the 1986 remake of The Fly, and Naked Lunch, among many many others), who here plays the guy interrogating Georgiou. It’s not at all clear who Cronenberg’s character is, exactly, though he is very well versed in the history of the Mirror Universe. (He gleefully informs Georgiou that the Terran Empire fell, as predicted by Spock in “Mirror, Mirror,” and dramatized in the tie-in fiction primarily in The Sorrows of Empire and Rise Like Lions by David Mack.) One of the hallmarks of Emperor Georgiou’s character since she first showed up at the end of “The Wolf Inside” is that she is always in control of every conversation, of every situation. She has never once been out of her depth, not even when Burnham all but kidnapped her into the mainline universe—
—until now. Her interrogator is consistently one step ahead of her, and it very obviously disturbs her. (At the end of the episode, Burnham sees Georgiou lost in thought in a Discovery corridor, and while she covers it, the ex-emperor is very definitely distressed.) Cronenberg’s bland affect works beautifully here, and I’m real curious to see where they go with this.
My favorite part of the episode, though, is when Willa observes Stamets, Tilly, and Reno in action. The troika of Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, and Tig Notaro is turning into one of the most delightful aspects of Discovery. It’s especially fun with Willa as their straight person, and the lieutenant starts to understand the unique way these guys work.
In addition to reuniting the crew with Starfleet, and writing out Nhan, this episode introduces a new recurring motif for the season: a song. The tune that Tal was playing on the cello last week is one that Burnham then hears the Barzan family humming in a holographic recording, and Willa mentions that most folks at Starfleet HQ know the song, too. This will obviously be important later…
While “Die Trying” has a certain perfunctoriness about it, the episode is still enjoyable, mostly for the little touches. The teaser with the crew nerding out over all the ships at HQ is a delight, and I’m grateful that Sean Cochran’s teleplay (off a story by Cochran and James Duff) focuses only on that joyous aspect in the teaser, saving the less pleasant stuff for after the opening credits. Both Nhan and Saru are thrilled to learn that their homeworlds eventually joined the Federation (and there’s a fun bit with Eli commenting about how you never see a Kelpien with remnants of the vahar’ai anymore). Wilson Cruz does excellent work here as Culber continues to serve the role that Trek doctors always seem to serve: as wise counselors in addition to medical marvels. And Detmer’s PTSD is still a thing.
Still, this episode is more interesting for what it sets in motion going forward than it is as an actual episode of the show. I hope this isn’t Fehr’s only appearance, as I’d like to see an actor of his caliber in a role that makes use of his talents. There’s still plenty of opportunity to develop Vance—let’s hope they take advantage.
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be one of the author guests at the virtual Philcon this weekend. He’ll be doing a reading, a panel, and a tribute to a friend. The full schedule is on his blog.
It’s Oded Fehr Day! Not only do I talk about him here, but earlier this morning, Leah Schnelbach wrote a nifty piece on The Mummy, in which Fehr costarred as Ardeth Bey……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
The opening was lovely. I’m delighted that they didn’t go the usual route of using an apocalypse as a copout to avoid technological futurism. The 32nd century is far more advanced than the 23rd or 24th, and it’s great that they’re embracing it. The Federation base in the donut of pocket spacetime is a delightful visual and a very creative idea, and I loved seeing the crew ooh and ahh over The Future.
It’s also nice that this isn’t just another Andromeda as we expected. The Federation doesn’t need to be recreated from scratch. It’s still there, just battered and fragmented.
The rest was more uneven. The Federation is still too dominated by humans with Western names, for one thing. The stuff with Georgiou being interrogated by David Cronenberg (whom I didn’t recognize until I saw the credits, so he was just some weird guy with glasses) held little interest for me. I’m still deeply annoyed by DSC using “Terran” — a term that has always, always been used in Trek and science fiction in general to mean humans from our Earth — as if it applied exclusively to Mirror humans, which is staggeringly genre-illiterate.
It was implausibly convenient that there just happened to be a Federation seed vault ship (an oddly tiny one at that) which was already around in 2257 and somehow managed to remain in service for another 932 years. I wish they’d found another way to set that up. As for the seed ship plot, I like it that they went for a hard-science threat like a coronal mass ejection rather than some nonsense technobabble, but the problem is that a CME is such a routine, commonplace radiation hazard that 32nd-century shields should’ve easily been able to cope with it. This is one case where a more fanciful threat would’ve made more narrative sense.
Also, how could Culber be so sure the family was incurably dead? It’s the far future! They may have resurrection tech he doesn’t know about. Heck, by now anyone who dies should just be able to get their brain scanned into a hologram or android body and live forever.
Plus it’s surprising and disappointing that Rachael Ancheril is apparently leaving the show already. She just got here!
The bit about the mysterious bit of music is obviously a setup for the season arc, probably connected to the mystery of the Burn, but it doesn’t work for me at all. Why in the hell should it be a mystery that different people in different parts of the galaxy know the same piece of music? Come on. We all know “Happy Birthday.” We all know Beethoven’s 5th. The only way they can make this play as a mystery to Burnham is to make her so incredibly stupid that it never occurs to her that it could just be an old piece of music, a standard known across the galaxy since long before the Burn. It’s a totally artificial “mystery” and it fails utterly.
One other thing: I really, really wish Saru hadn’t invoked the “Dark Ages” analogy. The Dark Ages are a myth invented by Petrarch, who was a nut for classical Greece and Rome and assumed that anything after the fall of their “light” had to be “dark,” and was further embraced by secular Enlightenment-era thinkers who assumed any era of Church rule must have been backward and oppressive (when in fact the Church did a great deal to preserve and advance knowledge in that era). Furthermore, it’s a profoundly Eurocentric myth. The era of the supposed “Dark Ages” in Western Europe was a time of progress, growth, and dynamism almost everywhere else on Earth.
Oh, and Keith, I didn’t read Georgiou’s lack of reaction to Burnham in the corridor as just being distracted or upset. She was in some kind of fugue state or blackout, totally dissociated from her body and surroundings. There’s something physically or psychologically wrong with her (and the preview for next week confirms this).
@CLB
Looking forward to what you can do with the DTI at this point in the timestream.
This one was middling for me. One of the problems of a streaming show that releases episodes one a week is that I’m never fully sure how good an individual episode is until I rewatch it as a whole. This episode could be connective tissue that’s better on a full run through. It could still be middling.
I enjoyed the smoothness with which they integrated the 32nd Century tech. Star Trek‘s not always been good at just having the technology be a part of the world, they really lacked the technology or the budget to do so in the past. But this one just has it present, like the Admiral’s floating chair or the floor that grows out as the walk. I’m not a tech junkie but I do like the little touches.
I quite liked USS Voyager-J, but for me the key one was NCC-325070, USS Nog. I didn’t see it myself but once it was pointed out it made me smile.
I agree with Christopher, something else is at work with Georgiou than being lost in thought. I think glasses did something to her during their time together. In the preview for next week, we see her pass out. Section 31 perhaps?
Very first thing I noticed before they mentioned it was the Voyager-J, and there’s a USS Nog!
I’ll have to rewatch the episode again cuz I was so hung up on Voyager J and wondering which letter of the alphabet Enterprise is on in this time.
I kinda laughed when Georgiou found out about the Empire’s fall, sorry, but I did.
I love the tribute to Aron Eisenberg. Not only was Nog the first Ferengi in Starfleet, he must have gone on to be a figure of some historical importance if they’re naming starships after him.
One detail: Book said the Burn was “a hundred, a hundred twenty years ago,” but Admiral Vance said it was 120, so that probably pins it down to about 3068-9, give or take a few.
However, he also said the 30th century was the time of the Temporal Wars, but Daniels said he was from the 31st. Maybe Vance misspoke, maybe Daniels lied, or maybe there was a timeline shift as a result of those wars. Or maybe the wars were mainly a 30th-century phenomenon whose tail end extended into the early 31st, which was when Daniels came from.
Hmmmm. Regarding the song I’m going with memetics and that it is somehow tied to the burn and the adversary(?) who created it.
Other than that, I liked the 5 year mission nod.
@9/Felixscout: I hated the five-year mission reference. The idea that most starship missions in the 23rd century were 5 years long by default has zero foundation in canon and makes no sense. (TOS never once mentioned a 5-year mission outside the title narration; the only canonical basis for it at all prior to this century comes from ST:TMP and Voyager: “Q2.”) Naturally different missions would have different durations according to their needs. And even if Constitution-class ships in the 23rd century typically went on 5-year exploration/patrol tours, which seems to have been retconned in as canon now by Kelvin and Discovery, that was clearly no longer the case by the 24th, since no such missions were ever mentioned in that century’s shows (aside from that one reference to Kirk’s). So what are the odds that a 32nd-century Starfleet admiral would remember something that fell out of practice more than 800 years before his time?
I guess it was too much to ask for a happy reunion. It makes me wonder what Starfleet has been through with the new Orion Syndicate over the last century that they think they would actually pull an ancient Starfleet Vessel in pristine condition, staff it with a multispecies crew, including the host of a former Admiral’s Trill symbiont, and an Imperial of the Terran Empire, with a revolutionary-nigh era changing FTL drive and then send it to Starfleet headquarters. Then instruct them to raise every red flag in the book by admitting that they were also time travelers. That’s a bad plan. Especially since any civilization or criminal organization worth their salt would be immediately refitting ALL of their ships with Spore Drives as soon as possible.
I found the Doctor breaking down the Emperor to be quite intriguing. It’s nice that she’s the one who gets outmaneuvered for once. Though I’m terrified that this old guy is just the last vestige of Section 31. I like that Georgiou zeroed in on his glasses, which he just took off, a nice way of removing thoughts that he was in fact Terran with their light sensitivity. But it was wonderful banter, Phillipa is always fun. Her zone out at the end was disturbing. I was thinking that she was really shook by the revelation that the Empire that she was born, raised, and ascended to lead is ashes in the past of an alternate timeline and there’s nothing she can do about it. Everything she ever knew is actually gone.
Curious that they just took Adira Tal she was poof for the rest of the episode.
I’m surprised Willa didn’t know what a CME was, I guess Starfleet Academy isn’t giving as broad a science curriculum lately. On the other hand it’s good that our future Starfleet officers aren’t in fact know it alls, keeps a certain balance of power with the Discovery crew. Starfleet’s science capacity and engineering know how were always its greatest strengths; if we’ve lost that, then the Nerd Herd on Discovery are just the science heroes to get Starfleet back up to specs.
I love Nhan, so this was a surprising and disappointing development. Hopefully this will be corrected, and we’ll visit Barzan later on and reunite with her.
The case of the good doctor Addis seems to have been cut in its resolution. Did they actually take him with them or did Nhan stay with him? Burnham only said beam her back. And wouldn’t the better solution have been to beam he and his family and their cryotubes back to Discovery and turn them over to 32nd century medicine?
As for the lullaby…it had better end up being something that imprinted on every humanoid mind when whatever caused the Burn passed through. “The Devil in the Dark” teaches us that there’s at least a 50% chance that the Burn was an extra-galactic/dimensional lifeform trying to communicate with the life in the Milky Way and its mass telepathic message was so powerful and widespread that it interfered with the harmonics that Dilithium operates on shut down all dilithium that it touched. Making the Burn a massive galactic scale accident. Thus the lullaby is all that remains of the benign part the actual message, that lodged itself in the minds of all life in the galaxy. Or it was from a really big pop song from before The Burn.
Now…about that Refit…
I loved this episode: it’s my favorite of DSC so far and just an excellent episode of Star Trek in general. 5 episodes in and I feel like the show has really found its footing in its 3rd season.
I feel like us viewers were feeling the same kind of awe the Discovery crew was feeling upon entering Starfleet/Federation headquarters. I’m wondering if I was the only one thinking this is all too be good to be true and either it’s some kind of elaborate illusion or the Federation of the future would be nasty and evil to our Discovery crew. Thankfully nothing so obvious ended up happening. Loved the further exploration of Nhan and Barzan culture and great to learn Barzan and also the Kelpians joined the Federation. I believe we heard in the first act about some dangerous enemy that the Federation is currently dealing with. Detmer’s PSTD continues and I think we are seeing the beginnings of Georgiou becoming unglued. I’m guessing she will need to be returned to an earlier timeline in time for her own spin-off series!
@10/ChristopherLBennet
Well to each their own. For me, who is not as embedded in Star Trek canon as you, that nod was interesting to me because that title narration is so embedded with me it is TOS in my brain.
Enjoyed the episode. I would have preferred that the USS Nog get the direct, dialogue reference instead of Voyager, but oh well.
The music mystery sounds… interesting? It could be handled badly though.
Overall, this season is breathing a lot more than previous years. I’m thankful for that.
Does anyone else think that 350 members seems a little low for the peak of the Federation’s membership? It was 150 in the mid 24th Century reflecting the UN’s member nation number, but are we still dealing with an Alpha and Beta Quadrant power that only grew a little over the six centuries before the Burn before getting bogged down in the Temporal War, or a Galaxy wide power?
I haven’t seen the episode, but the matter of this song, leads me to immediately make a connection to BSG. While this is described as ubiquitously known, as opposed to what we found out about THAT song, through The Final Five’s recognition of it, Starbuck’s struggle to place it in the context of her earlier life (and her ultimate use of it), and Hera’s knowledge of it.
I suppose my wonder is, if this might be used in any sort of similar construct, ultimately, despite it not being a secret? Would the different ‘world views’ that define the two series, make such a connection very unlikely? Or, can one riff on the theme of a greatly diminished culture, struggling to survive or reinvigorate itself, as allowing for a plausible bridge that might have been contrived to be commented on, once more?
@15/Mr. D: I always thought 150 members sounded way too low for the 24th century. Still, growth is not a guaranteed constant. The United States hasn’t gained a single new state in 61 years. Empires try to grow forever, but as Kirk and Mirror Spock agreed, any such runaway growth can only lead to collapse. A state that gets too large has its authority stretched too thin. It would make more sense to have a loose alliance of separate multiworld governments, like how the US and the European Union are allies (or the UFP and the Klingon Empire).
Very pleased that we again had A and B plots, and scenes in which Burnham was not the focus. Saru was admirably captain-ish — firm, decisive, properly deferential to the chain of command, and kept Burnham in line.
@2/CLB:
I get the feeling that the writers, set designers and VFX artists weren’t on the same page. The USS Tikhov, when tractored by Discovery, seems small enough to fit in the docking bay (just grab the whole thing and jump back to UFP HQ, why dontcha? surely that’s a safer site than whichever corner(s) of space where it had been loitering). The cylindrical vault itself (with gratuitous spinning tiers) looks too big to fit within, yet too small to contain seeds from all the plants on all the planets in the UFP.
Maybe it was the Tikhov-J, having been replaced 10 times.
Factoid: Gavriil Adrianovich Tikhov (1875-1960) was a Soviet astronomer and pioneer in astrobiology.
Also re: VFX/dialogue inconsistency: the crew geek out at ships with free-flying warp nacelles, which they don’t do with the UEDF’s ships, two episodes ago.
Agreed. In that scene, my initial hypothesis was “something telepathic is showing each Away Team member a different vision” — a Barzan family (Nhan’s own?) for Nhan, familiar music for Burnham — so what does Culber see?
@10/CLB:
Several of the 32cen Starfleeters are cognizant of obscure 23cen details. Memory prosthetics? Wireless insta-recall via their mainframe? Maybe they just familiarized themselves when Discovery announced its approach (an unseen scene) and its era of origin (no hope of concealing that fact with this bunch). If their expertise is unusual, the script-problem is that Saru et al don’t call them on it (“you seem unusually familiar with the specifics of an era 900 years before your own”).
@15/Mr. D:
Member worlds, specifically — not systems, not species, not polities. The writers are showing their planetary chauvinism.
Also re: VFX/dialogue inconsistency: the crew geek out at ships with free-flying warp nacelles, which they didn’t do with the UEDF’s ships, two episodes ago.
Tilly notices one ship whose hull is entirely holographic forcefields. That seems more of a TNG-era tech, one she shouldn’t recognize — DSC’s holos are all of the “light, no solidity” variety. Unless a holo-forcefield is the same as a brig-forcefield?
The “let’s stick them in the atrium” sickbay with the Kili (is the huge UFP HQ that short on space?) had several hovering medical drones, no two of them alike. Like those seen on Adira’s colony ship last episode, they didn’t seem to use programmable matter. Economizing on the CGI?
(And yet, Discovery’s shuttlebay still has constant activity among its hover-forklifts. What can they possibly be rearranging? Are the artists allergic to a static background image?)
Cronenberg’s character — the human lawyer(?) who interviews Georgiou — hands over his combadge, which she’s able to break (shouldn’t it be made of some unbreakable future material?), and I feared she would attack him with the shards (but that would be insufficiently strategic).
How can she know enough about 32nd holotechnology to hack the Emergency Deposition Holograms with eyeblinks?
@18/phillip: “I get the feeling that the writers, set designers and VFX artists weren’t on the same page.”
The VFX on this show often mesh surprisingly poorly with the stories. Like having a cloaked ship just sit in the exact same place it was where it was visible before while the script has Discovery searching for it. It’s right where it was! Or putting an Earthlike planet next to a starbase that’s supposed to be 100 AU from the Sun, more than twice as far as Pluto. Or whatever the hell was going on in Discovery‘s dimensionally transcendental turbolift shaft. You’d think the producers would catch these discrepancies.
“Tilly notices one ship whose hull is entirely holographic forcefields. That seems more of a TNG-era tech, one she shouldn’t recognize — DSC’s holos are all of the “light, no solidity” variety. Unless a holo-forcefield is the same as a brig-forcefield?”
Physics is universal. Everything follows the same basic laws; it’s just a matter of application. Of course they’re the same kind of force field; a holodeck just combines shaped force fields with holo-images to give the images apparent solidity.
“they didn’t seem to use programmable matter.”
That floor that formed while the characters were walking on it must’ve been PM.
“How can she know enough about 32nd holotechnology to hack the Emergency Deposition Holograms with eyeblinks?”
Yeah, that didn’t make much sense.
The thing is that, given that the Burn was only 120 years ago, it really doesn’t seem that mysterious that two ex-Federation worlds would happen to have the same folk song. this seems like a question that could easily be answered by a cultural anthropologist, or just…5 seconds with the 32nd-century equivalent of Shazam
I’m amazed at all they packed into this episode, and so well, too!
Burnham’s year of being a free-and-easy courier has her chafing at Starfleet discipline. While that’s understandable, she was known as “the mutineer” for a couple of years, so I really think she needs to take a step back and remind herself of what it means to be a Starfleet officer.
They may all love Detmer, and she may be a great pilot normally, but it isn’t clear to me that trusting her with their lives right now is actually a good thing to do. Thank heavens for Owo!
Burnham seemed annoyed that Admiral Vance didn’t just welcome them with open arms, but I thought it was entirely reasonable that he’d need to figure out what the heck was going on before just accepting them at their word. Aren’t there any Vulcans in Starfleet anymore? Surely a mind meld or two could show that the Disco crew is telling the truth.
What’s up with Georgiou? Anything that can faze HER is some scary stuff!
Can’t wait for next week!
A perfectly normal Star Trek episode. Our crew must solve a puzzle in an allotted amount of time or people will die. I don’t hate it. I like that this season doesn’t seem to have the break neck pace of the last two where every episode is a huge step forward. Lots of paint by numbers- we know our crew isn’t getting broken up so that part fell flat, just like we knew Riker wasn’t leaving the ship for the Melbourne and that the DS9 crew would retake the station.
The approach to the starfleet HQ was the right amount of “cool” and the cast sold it beautifully. It shows that technology moved forward but obviously not at a linear pace: we get the impression that there were lots of stops and starts, and that not much has changed the last 150 years. Still I hope that they mention somewhere along the line that discovery gets updated. It’s going to be hard to accept them not getting their ass kicked repeatedly without upgrades. Just one or two throw away lines.
The music question seems to be intriguing and also borrowed from Battlestar. I imagine on a show called Discovery that the burn and mysterious universal music is going to have some connection with the season ending discovery. At this point the show has earned enough trust that I want to see how this pays out.
Lastly, the 350 worlds thing doesn’t bother me. I can head canon explain it that by worlds they mean “member worlds”. I feel like various colonies don’t count until they reach a certain threshold. So the Scottish planet with Howard women ravishing ghosts is a colony but doesn’t count as a member, versus something larger like Balor or Alpha Centauri which had reached some threshold to be its own political entity. Makes sense to me at least. Also DS9 era suggested that the near in alpha/beta quadrants had been filled by the various empires with a dwindling amounts of unaligned but contactable worlds (like Balor), and that the Federation seemed more inclined to coexist with other empires rather than mass expand it. Plus I imagine that the galaxy was not a happy place for the 700 or so years between DS9 and now. We know the burn was a huge event, but I imagine there were also problems in the 550 years before it.
Overall it creates an interesting universe to explore in. I kind of wish they had kept them in the 23rd century, but the 31st seems pretty cool too
Review for friend not watching the show:
(apologies for any redundancies with Keith’s review)
The ship finally arrives at the location of Federation HQ and it’s hidden behind a distortion field. They enter and see a bunch of ships that STO will likely sell in game for $60-120+ soon, including the USS Nog and Voyager-J. One has nacelles that aren’t physically attached. At the center is a huge device creating the pocket hidey hole, which some of the ships seem to be powering.
The crew is hugely excited and Saru, Michael, and Adira go in person. They are greeted by Admiral Vance, who initially gives off bad admiral (Badmiral) vibes. He’s suspicious and not friendly. Vance tells them that they have no record of a spore drive and Discovery was reported destroyed in the 23rd century. This is, of course, Spock’s fault. He also tells them that Discovery is in violation of the Temporal Accords which outlawed time travel after the Temporal Wars. He doesn’t trust them enough to tell them about the Burn. They could probably do a crossover with Doctor Who at this point, another meddler in Time.
The crew is then debriefed. Culber tells them he died and then got better. Tilly tells them about impersonating her Mirror double becoming a dominatrix dubbed Captain Killy. The debriefers are holograms. They also determine that Detmer is still suffering severe post-traumatic stress and that Michael’s brain is flooded with chemicals from highly emotional experiences. Given that a year has passed since she arrived in the future, you’d think she calmed down a bit, but it works as a meta joke and nod to fans who say Michael is hyper-emotional.
Meanwhile, Georgiou is being debriefed by two holograms and a man watching from nearby, played by director David Cronenberg. She blinks rapidly at the holograms, causing them to overload and fade. She then asks the man why he wears glasses. “Cause they make me look smart.” He gives off Section 31 vibes and may be setting up for the S31 spinoff. Turns out he knows who she is and tells her that her Empire fell, which we found out on DS9. Also, the two universes have been drifting apart and there’s been no incursion in 500 years. This gives Georgiou pause and she looks lost for the rest of the episode. The man deduces that she stayed on board Discovery because she loves someone on board.
The rest of the episode is a pretty standard Trek plot: they see some aliens in the Federation’s sickbay suffering from some unknown genetic deterioration. The Admiral announces that Discovery’s crew will be broken up and reassigned. He will take over Discovery and its spore tech. Michael immediately comes up with a plan to prove they should stay together and that they can be useful. They will find a seed vault ship that’s been lost, because of course they can use their magic mushroom drive to go anywhere in the blink of an eye. This is another meta joke aimed at fans (like me) who think the spore drive was a prank perpetrated by Bryan Fuller.
They find the ship in a nebula where ion storms are raging. The size scaling is way off. It’s tiny compared to Discovery. Even the actual seed vault here on Earth now is bigger than that, never mind seeds collected from the entire Federation. We find out from the admiral that the Federation was composed of 350 worlds at its peak (he doesn’t say when that was) and only 38 are left.
The away party is Culber (throwback to McCoy going on away missions?), Michael, and Nhan for security. The admiral kept Saru with him as guarantee Discovery would come back, basically a hostage. So it’s Burnham’s first official command. A Barzan family is supposed to be running the ship. We only see them in holographic form (playing a game). Turns out they are dead but in stasis and there’s a ghost on board. It’s the father, who was caught in coronal mass ejection while transporting to the vault. They bring him back in phase and convince him to accept what’s happened to his family. He then unlocks access to the vault and gets them the uncontaminated seeds they need to make a cure for the sick aliens back at Fed HQ.
Nhan, who we didn’t know that well, decides to stay behind and complete the Barzan watch on the seed ship. She and Michael have a tearful goodbye. We learned earlier that both Barzan and Kaminar, Saru’s planet, joined the Federation at some point.
The sick aliens are better and the admiral is friendlier. Saru gives a classic Trek speech about Starfleet values and the value of keeping his crew together. He’s measured and calm, not hotheaded like Michael. Which has been a weird progression for her, given that she was raised on Vulcan. The admiral has told them that Starfleet and the Federation are one now, but we see no evidence of civilian government. He seems to be it. He still won’t tell them about the Burn because they don’t know what happened. It’s all theory and guesses.
In the preview for next week, Michael can’t accept the uncertainty and decides they must know the cause of the Burn. If I speculated, it may go in the direction of a temporal attack. If they borrow from STO again, maybe it’ll be a new Krenim bad guy messing with the timeline. Which means there’s the potential for another reset. They still need a way to bridge Georgiou to her own show. It may be S31 in this new future, or they’ll need a way to get her back to her time and maybe her universe.
Bits: the SFX graphics of the tactical display when Saru and crew arrive at Fed HQ conflicts with the story idea of them being in touch with only 38 planets that they know of. We see references to Kazon Clan Forum and Talax, suggesting they know what’s happening in the Delta Q?
Bit 2: the use of the lullaby reminded me of Starbuck’s search for the meaning of her father’s tune on BSG. If it turns out to be coordinates on this show too… Also, reminded me the Final Five hearing “All Along the Watchtower” as a link between them.
I appreciate the increased focus on the crew. The scene in engineering was a lot of fun!
Has Georgiou received lessons from Kirk on how to deal with AI? It was really interesting to see Terrans being discussed as yet another species. Parallel universe are no more this mysterious thing.
I understand that Discovery contains information and technology that make them more useful than medieval knights in our time, so it makes sense that they would believe they could be of help immediately, without spending a few years learning about centuries of history, politics, scientific discovery, philosophy and meeting of new species. But more humility would be warranted. For instance, they claim that the crew would be devastated if broken apart, but how do they know the Federation isn’t capable of giving them some form of therapy that would make them well in a matter of hours? I understand that the crew would show concern, but they shouldn’t treat this as a completely unacceptable demand (the distrust with which the Federation treated Tal on the other hand is unwarranted).
@22: Regarding Vulcans, maybe the show is avoiding them so they don’t have to discuss timelines and the fate of Vulcan?
Really enjoyed this episode, classic Star Trek science/humane drama, with nice direction and acting. Really loved seeing the USS Voyager J and the USS Nog (although that was more a blink and miss it, I had to be told beforehand it was there), and the whole SF/Federation HQ. I would have liked to meet some civilian government representative, but I’m glad they were at least mentioned.
Vance and the whole Starfleet apparatus are supposed to be disliked at first, but I always understood where they were coming from. Star Trek has a history of impostors, nefarious time travellers, etc. In the end, it all worked out. Not a fan of the grey uniforms, and I would have liked to see more alien officers, particularly aliens of species we know and love.
Saru’s speech to Vance was beautiful, it almost moved me to tears.
As always, some very nice character moments for most of the crew. I did roll my eyes at Georgiou hacking holograms by blinking. That was a bit too much.
@2 – Chris: Yeah, Culber just flat out deciding the family was dead was a bit weird. And I agree that Georgiou was kind of in a state of fugue in that last scene. Cronenberg did something to her.
@22 – Athrereen: What “fate of Vulcan”?
@25/Athreeren: “Regarding Vulcans, maybe the show is avoiding them so they don’t have to discuss timelines and the fate of Vulcan?”
Vulcan is fine in the Prime timeline. It was Romulus that was destroyed there.
And the fate of Romulus was very much discussed in Picard.
So this 900-year-old ship turns up out of nowhere with a mysterious drive system that can solve so many of the problems caused by The Burn (like, hey, let’s go out and fix those subspace beacons that make long-range comms impossible, or go collect resources from places that weren’t reachable before and start building up the fleet again), and that has a massive stock of dilithium that could power the other ships in the fleet…
…and the first thing Starfleet does is to send this one unique technological solution to many of the Federation’s problems — and apparently its entire supply of what is now the rarest and most valuable substance in the galaxy — a ship which is, in every other respect, obsolete and underpowered and just waiting to have its comparatively paper-thin shields blown clean through by a single blast of a 31st-century phaser (or whatever new 31st-century thing that is better than a phaser) — back out into danger without any escort.
If I’m Admiral Vance, the very first thing I’m doing is having my scientists talk to Stamets and Tilly and see if they can retrofit every other ship in the fleet with a spore drive, or if they can just build a new spore-enabled fleet. The second thing I’m doing is taking 90% of their dilithium and putting it in the most secure vault I can find. And the third thing I’m doing is souping up that 23rd-century ship with everything available so that the single most valuable piece of technology to come along in 120 years isn’t blown away by the first Emerald Chain torpedo that hits it.
As a Star Trek Online player, I’m quite invested in New Romulus and the Romulan Republic. It’s entirely possible that the reason that we don’t have a Romulans Rule the Galaxy age here is that by the time of the burn Reunification was completed and Romulans had shifted over to M/ARA Warp Cores instead of using Singularity Cores. Alternatively, the Romulans were always insular and isolationist, so perhaps the Burn allowed them to turn inward and focus on themselves instead of having to put up with alien races that they don’t like anyway…or both. Also Romulan Singularity powered Warp Drives were traditionally far slower than Starfleet M/ARA Warp Drives. That was a plot point in both Balance of Terror and Tin Man.
@18/Phillip Thorne
Even just 350 member worlds (me personally I go for Civilizations as the best term) seems too low. 16% of the Galaxy explored at the start of TNG and that yielded a territory 8000 light years at its broadest with 150 member worlds. Though Chris Bennett is right, growth isn’t linear, nor does it have to be consistent. The Borg had catalogued over 8000 species, one would thing the Federation would’ve encountered and been attractive to something like that. If he had said something 700-ish that would’ve tracked. I wish they would’ve gone the Galactic Union route, the Federation joining a larger Galactic alliance. Oh well.
@26/MaGnUs
That’s a great point. Though it’s logical that Discovery would report to Starfleet itself, it would’ve been a better use of drama to have the Federation President there to be bubbly and thrilled to see them while the CnC is concerned and trying to tamp down his enthusiasm.
I wonder why the subspace network went down. Is subspace radio dilithium-mediated in some way we never knew about before? Did the beacons just break down because there weren’t enough starships going out to maintain them? Or was it a separate consequence of the Burn which could be diagnostic as to its nature and origin?
@30/Mr. D: Just because Romulans use singularity drives doesn’t mean they don’t use dilithium. I presume singularities are an alternative to matter/antimatter for creating a superhot plasma stream to power warp engines, but one of dilithium’s main functions is to channel that plasma power, to concentrate and direct it to where it would be useful. So a singularity drive could depend on dilithium power relays.
@31 – Chris: I’ve written a roleplaying game and comic book setting where FTL travel and communications both work with the same crystal source, and I’d assume it to be the same in some way in Star Trek, it’d make sense.
Hmmm….future episode title is Unification III, so….
@31/CLB:
That’s my favored hypothesis.
In 3.01, Book gives Burnham subspace comms no problem (although the range is ambiguous — maybe she expected Discovery to be in the immediate neighborhood?). And the Mercantile, if I interpreted Book’s explanation correctly, operates via buyers and sellers negotiating via long-range holo-communication (it wouldn’t make sense for them to be on the same planet or star system, if warp-capable Couriers are involved). So that faction, at least, has interstellar comms — but they could be selfishly maintaining their own network.
@32/MaGnUs:
I disagree. The only thing that follows is that the DSC writers might choose to tie both technologies to the same technobabble mcguffin, because (a) it’s dramatically convenient, (b) they don’t feel constrained by Sternbach/Okuda-era semi-canon technical materials, or (c) they lack imagination. Nothing in onscreen Trek has tied dilithium to anything but power and warp drive; IIRC, the hero ships don’t lose long-range comms when they lose main warp power, and DS9’s power supply was mundane fusion reactors. If subspace comm has any commonality with warp drive, it would be the exotic materials used in warp coils that create subspace distortions.
FWIW, the ST:TNG Technical Manual (1991) identifies the shape/size/number of subspace transceivers on the Enterprise-D, but not their materials. Moreover, subspace repeaters are necessary every 22 Ly, a physical limit of the layer of subspace in which the signal propagates, although 24cen tech may’ve been surpassed in that respect.
@29 – Exactly. The solution to their transportation and communications problems has just dropped into their laps and they send them off to look for a thousand year old seed vault ship that just happens to be really close to them. What was it? 5 months at impulse? That’s practically next door. And they’ve got all these ships just hanging around HQ.
Ut’s like the episode where Discovery visits Talos IV and we find out it’s one light year from a starbase. Uh, if the Enterprise was that close to a starbase, why are they going to Vega colony? It’s like the writers have no idea how big space actually is.
@27: I thought that the point of setting Discovery just before TOS was not to have to distinguish between the TV shows and the movies timelines. Do we know for sure this is not the future of the Kelvin timeline?
I’m really really struggling with the glacial pacing on this cryfest. This episode was 56 minutes and yet there was only one task accomplished, a couple of discussions (one of which is always pathetic posturing) and there is one or two mysteriy, like David Lynch’s character to solve later. Had this been a double episode of Killjoys, the federation would be back to its old glory.
Yes, we know for a fact that this is not the Kelvin timeline.
@34/phillip_thorne: “So that faction, at least, has interstellar comms — but they could be selfishly maintaining their own network.”
You don’t need relays for all subspace communication, just fast or long-range communication. Within a few dozen parsecs, you can manage without one, and you can send signals somewhat further but it could take weeks to get a reply (as we saw in TOS sometimes). The relays are boosters to make longer-range connections possible. As we’ve seen, the post-Burn galaxy is broken up into local regions that have travel and communication within themselves but are isolated from more distant parts of the galaxy.
@36/Athreeren: “I thought that the point of setting Discovery just before TOS was not to have to distinguish between the TV shows and the movies timelines.”
Not at all. Discovery‘s continuity directly contradicts Kelvin continuity on several points. It has a major Klingon war in 2256-7, while Into Darkness establishes only a handful of past skirmishes with the Klingons as of 2259. It also has the Enterprise in service by 2256 while the Kelvin version wasn’t launched until 2258. Not to mention that season 2 established unambiguously that the events of “The Menagerie” are in Pike’s future, which clearly makes him the Prime version of Pike rather than the Kelvin version.
After all, the Kelvin movies are co-productions of Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot. Bad Robot has no involvement with any current Trek television series, and Paramount was a separate company from CBS at the time Discovery was created. So there has never been any intent for Discovery or any other current Trek series to be set in anything except the Prime timeline or to have any ambiguity about their setting.
TWOK also contradicts Discovery. “Starfleet has kept the peace for a hundred years”. Uh, a starfleet officer started a war with the Klingons and was court martialed for it.
For one. Trek always contradicts itself.
@40: But Michael Burnham didn’t actually start the war with the Klingons. She was court martialed for her mutiny. She also killed the Klingon torchbearer prior to the actual space battle but she did so in self-defense. T’Kuvma always had the intention of firing the first shot and did so.
A very pleasant, fairly unremarkable episode of STAR TREK – I actually enjoyed these 32nd Century Starfleet uniforms (something about that vertical sash/slash appeals to me) and it was fun trying to make out the latest Federation vessels to cross our screens (it’s slightly intimidating to think that USS Voyager has gone through ten incarnations since the one Captain Janeway et al knew so well; I wonder how many ships have come and gone under the name Constitution?).
Also, I have an itch to learn more about the Barzans and am worried we may not get a chance to find out …
Oh, and I’m beginning to wonder if those holograms were based on technology with which the former Emperor Philippa would be familiar precisely so the Man in Glasses could gauge her resourcefulness – one also wondered for a moment or two if the ‘zoned out’ state of this character signified her replacement with some sort of ringer (A hologram or a gynoid).
@41 – The Klingon ship was in disputed space, so they had the same rights to be there as starfleet. She set things in motion as soon as she touched their hull. The Klingon ship was surrounded by asteroidal debris so thick that Burnham couldn’t even take a shuttle over. The sarcophagus ship was no threat at the time Burnham went to their ship. If a Klingon had suddenly appeared on the hull of the Shenzhou, starfleet would have also interpreted it as an attack.
Her mutiny was part of it but her other actions were as well.
BURNHAM: The kind of weapon that is explicitly forbidden by the Geneva Protocols of 1928 and 2155. And you need someone to help you. Enter, me. A mutineer who intended to wage unsanctioned war on the Klingons. A trained officer who’s been banished from Starfleet. And someone who would presumably do anything to get out of their life sentence in prison, including illicit weapons tests, like whatever went wrong on the Glenn.
Discovery – Context is for Kings
I saw Georgiou lost in thought not as some sort of nefarious replacement but rather her response to the news that the Terran Empire had fallen and was out of touch. Whereas the rest of the crew was deeply shaken by being out of time, Georgiou wasn’t because she already was out of her own universe. The idea that she COULDNT get back shook her, but I also suspect it left a seed of if she could get back she could take over.
@44/MikeKelm: I still say Georgiou wasn’t just lost in thought, she was frozen, in some kind of fugue state or mental shutdown. I mean, she’s lived her entire life in a universe where she was constantly surrounded by people who’d gladly kill her if she let her guard down for a single moment. She would never allow herself to get distracted from her surroundings in a corridor full of people. Something has to be medically wrong with her.
Reading through the transcripts and I came across this line from Context is for Kings, the third episode of the first season. Foreshadowing or coincidence? Most likely the latter but you never know.
STONE: You hear why we’re getting transferred to Tellun? Dilithium pocket went piezoelectric. Ripped apart the bottom of the mine. Bam. Fifty cons vaporised
@30. Mr D: Romulan ships also have much worse turn rates: see D’deridexes.
But I love my Kholhr Temporal Warbird:
@43: Key word: “intended”. Meaning “meant to, but didn’t actually”. Besides which, I’m not sure the whole of Starfleet can be held accountable for the actions of a rogue officer who was punished for them.
@43 – Well, seeing as the word intended is Burnham’s own, I’d say that she’s pretty clear in how she’s being perceived. And Starfleet is responsible for the actions of it’s officers, especially when they’re following the orders given them by their commanding officer.
Regardless of why Burnham was there, as soon as she touched the Klingon ship, she had taken the first action that led to the battle. Her later mutiny simply compounded the situation.
Or is it a case of “Klingons in disputed space = Bad, Starfleet in disputed space = Good”?. That, of course is what we usually see because the Klingons aren’t the ones in the opening credits all the time.
But, it’s Burnham so we’re supposed to assume she was in the right and that Starfleet is simply pinning the blame on her to make them look like they had nothing to do with it.
No picture of Oded Fehr? I pout. And they named his character ‘Vance’?? why not something in keeping with his actual ethnicity?
@50/roxana: Usually, the character names are chosen before the guest actors are cast. They’re sometimes changed later to fit the actor, sometimes not. (E.g. Leila Kalomi in “This Side of Paradise” was meant to be a Pacific-Islander love interest for Sulu, but they kept the name when they cast Jill Ireland.) It’s good that they cast inclusively regardless of character name, but I do wish the writers would make more of an effort to select more diverse names to begin with.
Anyway, they’re nearly 1200 years in our future now. After that many centuries of multicultural coexistence, names and ethnicities are probably blended into a complete jumble, the old divisions forgotten.
As a keen amateur historian, I wholeheartedly agree with ChristopherLBennett’s irritation with Saru’s misuse of the term Dark Ages and his totally inaccurate description of the mediaeval period which saw major scientific, artistic, societal and political change and progress. It’s a pet peeve, but the phrase ‘Dark Ages’ has a specific meaning. It describes (as I understand it, I did say amateur historian) the fairly short period in Western Europe following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire when no written records of what was going on survive. About the 6th to 8th centuries AD. There are subsequent histories written centuries later but these are stories that are impossible to verify. If there ever was a King Arthur, this was when he was around.
Otherwise, having been tolerant rather than enthusiastic about the first two series, I am loving this series of Discovery and hope they can keep it up.
Finally, is anyone else getting a Confederate army vibe from the admiral’s uniform? Or is that just me?
@49: But Starfleet aren’t responsible for the actions of an officer who disobeyed the orders of her commanding officer. And I’m not sure why Burnham accidentally stumbling across a Klingon ship makes her wholly responsible for the war that followed, and why you seem determined to portray a Klingon ship hiding in “disputed territory” with hostile intent as the innocent victims of Starfleet aggression.
@53 – When Discovery is talking to the Admiral in The Vulcan Hello, just after Burnham is killed the Klingon.
ADMIRAL: Next time, you might try not disturbing the property of a warrior race we’ve hardly spoken to for a hundred years. Our only choice now is to navigate this situation with as much finesse as possible.
And the Klingons were surrounded by so much debris that Burnham couldn’t take a shuttle to check them out. She had to go in a thruster suit. The Klingons were hardly in a position to immediately attack. The death of one of their own along with the presence of Discovery is what brought the situation to a simmer. Burnham’s mutiny brought it to a boil.
And it wasn’t just Burnham “stumbling across” the Klingon ship. She killed one of their people who was investigating her presence. Or does the death of a Klingon not count as provocation? They live for battle and an honourable death so it’s no biggie if you kill one of them in a fight?
The question remains, who drew first blood? And the answer is Starfleet, in the form of Michael Burnham.
@54: You seem to change your argument every time you speak. Which is it? Did Burnham “intend” to start a war? Did she start a war by discovering a Klingon ship? Was she under the orders of her superiors to start a war? Did Starfleet frame her for starting a war? Or are the Klingons allowed to kill any intruders on their ship, even accidental intruders, and if they don’t stand there and take it, then they’re the ones at fault?
Why are we still debating episodes 1×01 and 1×02 in the thread for episode 3×05?
@@@@@ 55 – I didn’t say she intended to start a war. Burnham said it herself.
Starfleet and by extension Burnham provoked the Klingons when, instead of doing the flyby as intended, Burnham landed on the sarcophagus ship.
And it’s the Klingons ship. They’re allowed to treat intruders any way they see fit.
@@@@@ 56 – And we’re discussing it because you brought up how Discovery contradicts the Kelvin universe and I mentioned that it also contradicts the “prime” universe.
@52. a-j: “is anyone else getting a Confederate army vibe from the admiral’s uniform?”
Maybe from the gray. But I got far more of a Bajoran vibe. We don’t actually know where in galactic space Fed HQ is now. Burnham raised an eyebrow when she saw the coordinates, but we have not been privileged with that info yet. Maybe there’ll be a spinoff with the Nog and Voyager-J and a new Deep Space Station. Maybe it’s where Michelle Yeoh’s new show will be anchored. Lots of possibilities.
The design has very close resemblance to Iconian ships in STO:
Burnham in command. No mutiny this time, this is the first time we see Burnham the Badass properly in command, and she kicks ass, brushing off Lieutenant Obnoxious’ comments with a curt “Anyway…”
And I don’t think for a second Captain Saru will be sidelined so XO Burnham can look cool.
I am loving this new Burnham. When the XO was understandably annoyed at Admiral Resting Bitch Face, I was like, “I feel you, Michael.” But thankfully Captain Saru was there to smooth out things, as I totally would have reacted as Michael did. Still, I really like Admiral Resting Bitch Face, probably because he’s genuinely trying to protect what’s left of the Federation and Starfleet; I want to see where Vance goes, hopefully actually warming up to the Discovery crew.
I could see all the beats for the rest of the episode, but the performances sell it. I’m really sad to see Nhan go; I was just getting used to her. And my dear friend Doctor Hugh Culber continues to be awesome, as does the trio of Stamets, Reno, and Tilly. I do hope Keyla’s PTSD is dealt with, as Detmer is still very obviously struggling. Thank goodness Joanna Owosekun was there to keep Detmer focused.
Best part of the episode, and now one of my favorite (if not my favorite) scenes in all of Trek: the flyby at Fed/Starfleet HQ. Best part of that scene: the reactions of the crew. Beautiful all around.
Finally, Georgiou being off her game, off balance in any way: definitely scary stuff. My wife speculated it was because she learned of the fall of her Empire; it could be that, but there’s something else going on.
This season actually takes a breath, slows down, and I love it. Between this and last episode, Discovery is finally not moving at a breakneck pace, and we actually spend time talking to people, finding out how they’re doing.
This series has definitely found itself.
@58: Stuff like the U.S.S Nog and Voyager-J are lovely Easter eggs for dedicated long time fans but those things aren’t going to be the basis for yet another spin-off series. Discovery is already covering the domain of all that’s transpiring in the 32nd century. If anything, the new plot thread of Georgiou acting out of sorts is most likely the set-up for her character making the leap to the already announced Section 31 spin-off which I personally believe will bring her back to the 23rd century still in the mainline universe but where that universe is more in alignment with the Mirror Universe so that her cells stabilize. Remember, Ash Tyler was made the head of Section 31 at the end of season 2 so it makes sense that his character and that of Georgiou would reunite for that spin-off.
@57: And you repeated the line in bold as though that was your big evidence that Discovery isn’t set in the same continuity as TWOK, when you could say the same thing about “Errand of Mercy” or Captain Tracey or Garth of Izar or “A Taste of Armageddon” or “Balance of Terror” or “The Enterprise Incident”. There are plenty of examples in TOS of Starfleet officers committing acts that don’t really qualify as “keeping the peace”.
And if Klingons advance on someone with a big blade intending to kill them, then that’s the intent to draw first blood right there.
@garreth: you’re probably right that they are easter eggs, hence why I said in my review upthread that they will likely appear in STO first. But speculation is part of the fun. At this point, I’m starting to think that Georgiou is staying in the 32nd century. Do we even know if Ash is slated to be in the S31 show? They just got out of the continuity tangle. Will they really send someone back there to muck around?
@63 – But that’s exactly the point. Star Trek always contradicts itself. Always has, always will. Why? Because the writers are more interested in telling the stories they want to tell, hopefully good ones, than ensuring that every bit of trivia matches up with what’s come before it. Sometimes. it fails spectacularly though.
In The Omega Glory, we’re told that Earth avoided the nuclear war that devastated Omega IV. Then along comes TNG and we find out that isn’t true at all. Does that mean that TOS and TNG are in different continuities?
In Balance of Terror, Spock says that invisibility is only theoretical yet right from the start, we have Discovery encountering Klingons with a working cloaking device.
In The Time Trap, Scotty says that the Bonaventure was the first ship with warp drive. Later contradicted.
CLB’s assertion that “Discovery‘s continuity directly contradicts Kelvin continuity on several points.” somehow proves that they’re different continuities while ignoring all the others simply proves that continuity is something that’s fluid and people pick and choose which ones are “valid”. Not just the fans but also the writers, producers and others.
I like it that the Federation is still around, even if they’re down to 38 member worlds (at least the ones in closer proximity; possibly more out there). I like it that not everything out there devolved into some form of Mad Max-esque setting. I was dreading the possibility that Vance’s Starfleet would turn out to be some Section 31-esque organization that Discovery would have to defeat. That teaser was so optimistic and filled with giddy officers that I was all but expecting that sad twist. Thankfully, they didn’t go that route.
The rest of the episode is standard Trekkian fare. Nothing we haven’t seen before, and is executed reasonably well. Loss seems to be a recurring theme this season, between Michael being alone for a full year, Adira being a person who lost her Trill love, and now the Barzan family on the freighter. Death, loneliness and letting go are very much ongoing trends at this point.
I do have a problem with the return of Saint Michael and the way the rest of the crew just idolizes her. I understand Nhan’s gratitude at being allowed to remain on the freighter to reunite with her people. But why is it that every emotional scene involving Michael has to be about someone thanking her and making grand proclamations about how great she is? It was already a tiresome trend in the previous season, and it seems to remain so here. It’s almost as if Kurtzman, Lumet and Paradise are deathly afraid of reminding us that the show began with a very dark first season in which Michael was once a reckless officer whose actions indirectly caused severe loss of life for a lot of the same people.
Also, I ADORED the Georgiou side story. Cronenberg knocked it out the park as whoever that guy is (Mirror Universe; a curious researcher; who knows?). Only a presence of that level could unsettle the Empress that way.
@64/Sunspear: Nothing has been confirmed about Ash being on the Section 31 show but from a practical standpoint, it makes more sense to bring in his character after he was built-up during the first two seasons, the major development that he’ll be in charge of the organization, plus the presumably good will the showrunners have for the actor himself. Also, I really don’t see the need in having two series taking place in the 32nd century when that setting alone would make Discovery unique. By having the Section 31 spin-off take place in the 23rd century you have the opportunity to see that agency conduct its operations among already established organizations and empires like the Orion Syndicate, Tholian Assembly, and Klingon Empire to cite some examples.
I don’t think the crew idolizes Burnham. I think they deeply respect that Burnham had a lot thrust on her slender shoulders and met the challenge head-on. Michael traveled to the distant future, was there all by herself a year before Discovery arrived and not only survived, but thrived. Now she’s in some ways a completely different person. The crew probably looks at her and thinks, If I had all that on my shoulders, could I be as grounded as Burnham seems to be? I’m not sure I would be; in fact I probably would be more broken than Keyla Detmer is at this point.
The cylindrical vault itself (with gratuitous spinning tiers) looks too big to fit within
They’re a century after the commissioning date of the ship that we saw in Future Tense — perhaps, unlike time travel, the technology for dimensional transcendence is still around.
@70/John Elliott: But the plot depended on the seed vault being the same ship that was around in Discovery‘s time, that it’s been in continuous use for over 900 years and thus a) has the intact pre-Burn genetic material they needed to cure the sick aliens and b) is known by Discovery‘s crew so they could be the ones to figure that out.
@71 Ship of the same name in continuous use.
And it’s possible to retrofit or renovate a ship. Or move the contents into a roomier ship.
@68. garreth: “opportunity to see that agency conduct its operations among already established organizations and empires like the Orion Syndicate, Tholian Assembly, and Klingon Empire”
From tidbits/comments released so far, it sounds like not even the new Pike show will deal with that overtrod ground. And many viewers/fans dislike (even hate) the concept of S31 operating in the earlier eras.
Speculation again, but I would see it as far more interesting if they find a purpose for Georgiou in the 32nd century. Maybe Man in Glasses will rebuild the agency around her. Next week we’ll have Book dealing with new enemy the Emerald Chain, which gives you the Orion connection.
At this point it would have to be some convoluted time travel shenanigans to get Georgiou back to her original era. Though that one element would line up with “Calypso.” Disembark the crew, then send Discovery back in time (through some spore mumbo jumbo nonsense) and have it wait a thousand years to catch up to her crew. Though, that would expose the Sphere data/Zora to any remnants of Control in the timestream.
It’s too convoluted, is what I’m saying…
r.e. @74. Bradon: Remember kids VAMPIRES SUCK – Be wise, be kind, be lively and just say NO to being turned into an involuntary blood donor! (Also, maybe keep some garlic, the Holy talisman of your choice and some conveniently pointy bits of hardwood on hand, just in case that neighbourhood neck-botherer won’t take NO for an answer … ).
(This message brought to you by the Watcher’s Council: Making sure life doesn’t suck you dry since 5000 BC).
I was really disappointed to see Nhan leave. When Rachael Ancheril’s name showed up in the opening credits this season, I was excited, as I thought she was one of the best additions to the show in Season Two and very much wanted to see more of her character. I wonder if there was some behind-the-scenes drama behind her leaving, or if they’re going to keep her around, but offscreen for a few episodes? I hope it’s the latter.
@71/72: According to TV Tropes, the Tikhov’s registry number is NCC-1067-M, suggesting that it’s the 14th iteration of the ship.