Star Trek Discovery: The Bryan Fuller TV reboot

yeah

doug jones really sells that swinging-his-arms-behind-his-back thing

I agree that the character bits in this episode was nice, but the whole Time Crystal thing with the mystical test of a character etc. was just too much Doctor Who style science fantasy. It may work in Who, but Trek is still supposed to be sci-fi with some grounding in the reality, so magical minerals with an apparent mind of their own felt way out of place.

Also, for this supposedly super-advanced AI, Control was far too eager to give Burnham and Spock a proper Bond villain monologue, explaining its internations and giving them time to defeat it. If it only intended to kill and assimilate Burnham, why didn't it do so back when they were on the Discovery shuttle, were both of them were within striking distance and unarmed?

also how would it have crossed the room in 0.8 seconds and broken all the metacarpal bones in burnham's hand when it had no such special powers in leland's body?

also does ethan peck sculpt his beard to look more vulcan or does it just grow like that?

Thought that was a decent setup episode. Burnham is just a lot more interesting when she has Spock to play off. Trek has always been full of mystical magic nonsense, imo.

Trek has always been full of mystical magic nonsense, imo.]

Dilithium.

love to destroy all sentient life in the universe

Failing at basic Dr Who level time travel here. The signals can still be the red angel, who could have made them in your future, her past, Pike.

Pike's assumption is based on Dr. Burnham saying she wasn't responsible for the signals, and the timesuit seemingly being lost, which would mean she can't do them in her future, his past either. Of course we know that someone, either Dr. Burnham or Michael or someone else, will probably locate the suit against all odds and create the signals. But you can blame a character making assumptions based on real-life probabilities instead of the logic of fiction.

I am so very here for the Enterprise bridge

I feel like they have successfully sold trends in interaction! It doesn’t seem retro, it’s like a transition from maximalism into semi-austerity with a red-tinged mid-century modern vibe. So the enterprise seems contemporary but of a trend, something to emulate philosophically

so is the sphere data -- and by extension, discovery -- sentient now? i mean if it can prevent self-destruct and raise shields and everything . . .

I hope the season ends well, as this show is legit fun and good right now, playing into the "it's like TNG, it just needed to warm up" narrative.

Perhaps they'll reassert the status quo, but would be interesting to see the show move into the post-DS9 era.

My current theory - Control really is a borg origin story. And somehow, they will prevent it from obtaining the sphere , but in retaliation Control decides going aorund assimilating all places/knowledge by brute force is the next best way to achieve perfection, if they cant get it from the sphere.

That last epsisode had WAY too much red-herring goodbyes and crying and Sombre Gazes and then no ones leaving anyway arrrrgh get on with it.

I didn’t mind all the sombre goodbyes this time, as opposed to the Saru dying-not-dying episode, which went on forever. Writing seemed better too this time, maybe?

Theory seems pretty legit

the borg origin story angle seems a little too on the nose, but maybe!

there’s a serious causality glitch if Burnham fails to make it through, now that we know with a high level of certainty that it was her in the suit creating the beacons that the discovery has been investigating

control seems pretty conscious already tbh

I didn't expect the show to move towards the "Calpyso" storyline, at least not so quickly.

I am just catching up with episodes now. I got so excited at the start of the Talosian one because I thought it was going to be some cool mashup thing, but it was not good at all. I think every new Star Trek iteration tries to recreate the magic of the Wrath of Khan by revisiting old enemies and scenarios, and that's just not an easy thing to do.

But the Control episode after it was superb. Funny that Tuomas mentions Doctor Who upthread. I thought it had a real Who vibe about it, but without the messianic histrionics.

I am also warming to Spockolas. Jokes help.

i hope tig doesn't get killed off

People Turing up on discovery like they popped round from next door whilst it’s taking 57 more minute for the baddies to turn up is getting really old.

That last episode was pretty good! Little confusing in places (if control got subdued by Philipa with the magnet whyd they even need to do what they did?) but yeah lots of action and tension.

Yeah, that was some v good Trek there! Plot holes aplenty around death of Control but that aside, yes. I wonder how it is going down with the Trekkers.

have we had fighters/drones like that before in trek?

endless plot holes but it sure looked nice. spock should have kept the beard

he will... consider it
https://s.put.re/hiDQWpdj.jpg

Loved the moire screen detail

#startrekdiscovery Some details go back to my childhood. I always loved Spock's science station on the Enterprise bridge. Thank to Alex Kurtzman and Olatunde Osunsanmi for letting me animate Spock's moiré. Such an iconic screen! pic.twitter.com/W1tXwRoYpZ

— Timothy Peel (@timothypeel1) April 20, 2019

things we didn't learn:

• how burnham created the Signals
• how burnham crashed the oksana baiul technology
• how the suit/time crystal, which was supposed to only have enough power for one jump into the future, was able to make all the Signal-making jumps
• why the suit/time crystal compelled burnham to perform the Signal-making jumps at that moment, when they could have been done at/from any time
• why the enterprise has no robots able to close a blast door from the inside, requiring an admiral to do it instead
• why control, which was evidently running the entire section 31 fleet by itself, chose to put all of itself into leland
• fuckin magnets, why do they work
• why ash, who is supposed to be dead, is able to hang out in public with klingons
• why starfleet would subsequently ban spore-drive technology
• why we even bothered with that whole hugh-is-pissy arc
• why vulcans are unable to use contractions

also, why did the signals appear briefly at the start of the season? why did burnham bother with saru's backwards shithole planet instead of getting someone like the vulcans to help out?

yes, i could deal with a few of these, but all together they come across as sloppy writing.

"have we had fighters/drones like that before in trek?"

star trek beyond had lots of little ships. I did find the action sequences genuinely thrilling, which I hadn't felt before with Discovery. (If the budget overrun on the season premiere was spent on the X-Wing asteroid field sequence, they wasted their money.)

Also it’s seems like poor starfleet management practice not to nominate a captain from the legions of commanders on discovery before they disappeared into the future.

I did like Number 1s very 60s hairstyle and overall looks. The 23rd century is about to enter a very retro phase.

• why vulcans are unable to use contractions

contractions are illogical

somehow

Spock used contractions! He might be Vulcan, but he's no Soong-type android.

I really liked this for its pure spectacle! There's a million things that don't make sense this season (yes, the current writing regime continues the proud Trek tradition of not being able to do cool, well-considered sci-fi concepts*), but they hit enough beats that made up for it: Burnham's flight in the suit; the SFX for all of her jumps; Lrell and Ash with the requisite "TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE" (I seriously got choked up when they said it).

* Like they literally didn't need Burnham to send an additional signal! She appeared to Spock as a child, which should've been proof enough that she made it through the wormhole.

have we had fighters/drones like that before in trek?

I'm pretty sure we saw some in some of the big space battles in DS9.

xp i think that was mrs burnham who appeared to spock as a child

ugh this was garbage

so confusing, maybe i misheard but at one point they say they can't get through to the rest of starfleet, then 5 minutes later "we have 200 ships to [leland's] 30". huh?

why didn't they just use the spore drive to jump to the delta quadrant and launch michael from there?

so much awful technobabble but the enterprise bridge officer asks the discovery one to "speak english" because she doesn't know what an arc second is :(

pretty sure they could have tied a string to that blast door handle. also, blast door was pretty strong, maybe they should build the whole ship out of them.

spock: did u ever knooo that ur my heeeerooooo

"section 31 requires more transparency"

that went well, no-one's heard of it in ds9.

i thouht the signal she was going to send to spock was the one from his childhood... so when did that one get sent?

we have 200 ships to [leland's] 30

i think this was a reference to all their lil fighters and drones (and then leland launched his own)

That blast door scene made me cross. No way he could have stood directly on the other side of the glass and not been impacted somehow. WTF.

spock's childhood meeting was with mike's mom. how the vision included the signals when mom didn't know anything about signals is a plot hole.

There are dozens of star treks, not just 6 or 7, and if trek is a feeling then everyone has a different one. But i keep thinking of The Measure of a Man; it might not even be my favourite episode but in the writing, the problem posed and the solution offered, it was something of a peak. Nothing in Discovery was remotely of that calibre - in season 2 certainly. Season 1 had some things going for it, e.g. Tilly pushed the boundaries of what a starfleet officer could be, while staying true to or even exemplifying trek values; by season 2 she was mostly reduced to comic relief.

I missed some of the wtf-ness that Jason Isaacs provided last season, but I really enjoyed this one. Shame the last episode was a Marvel movie climax laser fight though.

Hells yeah that massive pew pew scene hurt my head, I couldnt tell who was shooting what at some points.

logic extremists

lol

Anyone else been watching the new Short Treks?

They seem to have annoyed all the hardcore Trekkies (not difficult) but I've enjoyed them.

Assume the last one will tie into Picard somehow?

The last one is indeed a Picard teaser.

I only watched the cartoon one and really liked it, it was equal parts Looney Tunes and Disney.

Oh and I watched the Picard one as well, it was ok.

The Trouble with Edward one is a blast although apparently Star Trek isn't allowed to be funny.