Paramount+ Star Trek: Discovery - Official Thread (1 Viewer)

[Carabimero]

I love that Star Trek is back and that we’re here doing this. This is the TV highlight of the year for me, for sure, and all of you make it better. I’ve just been feeling that a lot lately and wanted to be sure I said it.

I feel the same way. I enjoy the civil, intelligent, courteous discussions. I love to talk about ideas. What works. What doesn't. What we hope for.

I have this dream that in a few years there will be some flavor of a new Star Trek episode available every week of every year. Then we'll really be cooking around here.

 

[Nelson Au]

Agreed guys, it’s great to be discussing new Star Trek again with some really intelligent fans here. You guys all bring a different perspective which expands my point of view.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Nelson, your enthusiasm and ability to look for the best at all times always keeps me in check and encourages me to view everything in the best possible light. I don’t say this enough, but I appreciate the positivity and inquisitive spirit that you bring to every discussion.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks a lot Josh! I appreciate that!

I’m looking forward to tonight’s new episode and to see your reactions!

 

[Sam Favate]

This was a good episode, reminiscent of the days of TOS and TNG. The probe and the problems it caused were a bit too similar to Star Trek IV and TMP, but the execution of the story was good. Nice to once again have a break from the klingon stuff, which takes the show way down.

Two things I noticed that affect my enjoyment: 1) There are too many flashing lights in every scene, either from panels or reflecting on glass. It's very distracting and takes your attention away from the actors. It makes each scene too busy, and is exhausting to watch.
2) Saru, when he has the ganglia, looks a lot like Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama. "Hooray! I'm the hero!"

 

[TJPC]

The brief appearance of Number 1 was just about the best part of this episode — another link to TOS. Gee, if Pike becomes disabled this year, wouldn’t she make a good captain for Discovery?

 

[Carabimero]

From early 1989 until his death, I was a script reader and, later, a story analyst for Roddenberry. Truth be told, I had a love/hate relationship with him by the end of his life. I mention this because in my opinion, he would have loved the heart of tonight's episode. Though it took nineteen episodes of DSC for me to say that, I think he would have considered AN OBOL FOR CHARON as true to Trek as Trek can be. He told me on my first day that his favorite episode of TOS was THE CARBOMITE MANEUVER, and I think there were strong echoes of that story in tonight's show.

I've been critical of the writers of DSC, especially last year, but this season it's clear they understand the core values of Trek as Roddenberry once explained them to me: "It's all about gaining strength from our diversity as we relentlessly explore the unknown."

I feel like that's what they're doing, to a large extent, this season on DSC. With a few quibbles here and there, I have great respect for what I am seeing on the screen. Forgetting the hiccup of the Section 31 spinoff setup last week, watching DSC is quickly becoming the highlight of my TV-watching world.

I think most who love traditional Trek would groove on tonight's show. All I can say is, bring it on. I'm a fan. Especially of Number One. I thought she was perfect. May she return soon. And stay longer.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Just finished it! So happy! I agree about shades of Corbomite, and I’m about to put that on right now. Just fantastic.

 

[Nelson Au]

Hey guys- I’m having a hard time with writing this post. An Obol for Charon was a very good episode, it was classic TOS with a lot of TNG. I didn’t love it and I didn’t hate it. I wanted to sleep on it to see how I’d feel today and I still feel the same. It has everything, all the boxes were ticked, exploration, meeting a new life form, a conflict that threatens the ship and the crew working to figure it out, and they threw in Saru’s story for good measure. Plus the B story of Tilly and her Mycelial Network friend.

It starts off great and it was great to see this new incarnation of Number One, Rebecca Romjin pulls it off well and there are some shots where she does resemble Majel Barrett a bit. I like how Pike feels how competent she is at doing what she did. But did Discovery warp back to the Space Dock after her mission on New Eden? It wasn’t clear to me where she was but it sounded like she had to have come back in order to rendezvous with Space Dock. But I know this is inconsequential as it’s the mission to chase after Spock and learn what he learns so they can solve the mystery of the 7 red stars.

The episode did invoke The Corbomite Maneuver for me as well. There was a large round object that stops them in their tracks and threatens them. But they come to understand each other and come away with new knowledge, that is great stuff. The entity dying at the end was more classic TNG/Voyager era style story.

I kept thinking there had to be a linkage with the mycelial blob and the Sphere that stops the ship, but I guess I was wrong. It’s got it’s own thing which is reminiscent of a TNG episode about warp drive damaging space. I’m feeling like it’s a solution to the question of why we never heard of the Spore drive before. The Mycelial Network is mad, maybe at Stamets and takes Tilly.

Sara’s situation to me was very predictable once we find out the Sphere has activating Saru’s instinctual symptoms at the end of life, but I figured he can’t be dying. And once the Sphere died, I figured Saru was going to recover, and when the tendril fell off, I thought I knew it! But what I didn’t expect and was the cool part is that Saru realizes his entire life cycle is a lie, brought on by the Ba’ul as a way to get them ready and willing for the end of their life. So that discussion about violating General Order One might be an interesting thing later on. Funny how this series will not say, The Prime Directive. But it will say General Order One.

Back to the Tilly story, it was fun to watch Reno and Stamets insult each other. And the business with Pike ordering holographic communications gear to be dismantled on the Enterprise was another retroactive change to bring the series back online with canon. That was funny to see them go out of their way to fix these issues.

So overall, same-old, same-old, in reference to trying to be more like TOS. It’s not meant as a negative, but maybe it wasn’t as provocative an episode. ( I really loved the reveal at the end of The Corbomite Maneuver and Arena) I fear it’s the same thing that caused the General audience to get tired of the franchise in the 2000’s. Maybe it’s OK, it’s been a while. It was refreshing in a way to see them go old school after the wild first season. It’s what all of us as fans wanted to see. The A story didn’t fully blow me away. It was a cool idea, like V’Ger downloading all that it learned before it exploded. It was a nice thing it was not malevolent. The bigger story impact was Saru’s revelation.

Next week, they look like they might resolve or further move along with the Mycelial Network resolution. Will they catch up with Spock?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I liked the little joke from Pike about whether the Enterprise would have another chief Engineer who loved his ship so much. More winking.

 

[Hanson]

I appear to be in the minority here (and more importantly, in the minority of fandom at large), but season 2 Discovery is, at its core, a rehash of TNG. Being a rehash, there's no sense of surprise or... discovery. There's no drama. Season one felt dynamic and novel. Season two feels turgid and repetitive. It was obvious the sphere was trying to communicate because I've seen this episode before. It appears Kurtzman was given the order to remold Discovery into another episodic TNG clone, which is a shame. I enjoyed TNG here and there, but my favorite Star Trek arc is the DS9 Dominion War. This is not to say I dislike the show now because I still love everything else about it, but it feels like they were trying to do something different and they had to course correct to a well traveled route.

Maybe the Georgiou series will retain more of the darker elements of season one.

 

[Carabimero]

Hopefully as more series spinoff (and emerge on their own), we'll get something for everybody. Dark Trek. Funny Trek. Traditional Trek. Maybe even radical Trek. But for me, season one of DSC was none of those things. It wasn't even bad Trek. It was...bad something else.

Roddenberry once said, "The popularity of Star Trek proves that a lot of people believe the future will always be better than the past." At its core, Star Trek is optimistic, not dark or pessimistic. The trend might be to make everything dark and brooding these days (and there's plenty of dark alternatives out there for those who enjoy such sensibilities), but that's not what I expect when I turn on Star Trek. I hope Star Trek continues to be a light in that darkness, a light that points the way toward a more harmonious vision of diversity and exploration.

 

[Josh Dial]

I enjoyed episode four a lot. I was honestly convinced that Saru was going to die in a surprise Game of Thrones-esque twist. The actors sold the scene so well, and the sadness was supported by the music without it feeling intrusive or manipulative.

I really liked the scenes between Reno and Stamets. This is a ship of scientists, and so it's believable that there would be some professional rivalry between the practitioners of various disciplines (without ever rising to the level of conflict prohibited under Roddenberry's rule). The admiration/relationship between Stamets and Tilly is sweet and believable.

Mary Wiseman continues to bring emotion and vulnerability to the role. This episode, both SMG and Doug Jones demonstrated equal levels of vulnerability.

Number One had an old school PADD!

Though not at all definitive, the sphere alien could fit in with my theory that the red pulses are from Iconians (and that the Iconians used the mycelial network). Again, look back to TNG's contagion. We know the Iconians would use a spherical probe (shown on screen as a blue sphere surrounded by a few lightning bolts) to upload an "operating system" to an "enemy's" computer. It's possible that--as cautioned by Picard--the weapon was not a weapon at all, and was a form of communication not unlike the sphere alien's death rattle. The Iconians may have used some sort of "invasive" technology to upload a way communicating with other races. Similarly, just before their departure to places (or times) unknown, they could have left behind a probe that uses similar invasive technology to data dump their entire history. That probe could even be some sort of sentient ship--not unlike Tin Man.

Spock doesn't act at random. He was traveling through that region of space for a reason. The sphere alien is not a coincidence.

Oh--one last thing I noticed on a (third) rewatch of episode 3: Michael has a tribble "ringtone" for Ash Tyler

 

[Carabimero]

Michael has a tribble "ringtone" for Ash Tyler

Thank you! My wife and I kept wondering why we would hear a tribble every now and then (when none were present).

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I was also sold on Saru’s death which made the reveal that followed that much more impactful.

I always loved bottle episodes of Trek shows and this was no exception to that.

 

[Nelson Au]

I must confess, they did have me thinking that Saru just might really die. Thinking back, I guess the business of going mad from not being killed was the lie. I wondered if it was just a sort of Kelpian menopause he actually went through.

I’ll be watching the episode again this weekend.

Josh, yes, I was noticing the PADD as well. though it’s a bit more high tech then the ones Kirk has used.

 

[Josh Dial]

I wonder if the Ba'ul are actually Kelpians who have "matured." Perhaps the Kelpians have two phases of maturation. First they go through adolescence, moving from child to adult, and capable of reproduction. They later move from adult Kelpian to Ba'ul, shedding their primal fears. Perhaps the Ba'ul aren't actually harvesting the Kelpian: they are freeing those who have successfully reached full maturity (which isn't necessarily tied to age) and bringing them into "elevated" existence.

 

[Tino]

My wife was crying near the end of the episode convinced they were going to kill Saru. I almost bought into it too.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’m normally not a fan of fake outs like that when it comes to regular cast member deaths on episodic television...but this was a good example of how to do that trope well. Saru really believed he was dying, which made the drama real for him as well as us. And that he didn’t die ended up being a stunning new reveal about his species, suggesting a very rich source of future storytelling, instead of it being a consequence-free fix that was forgotten by the end of the episode.

 

[John*Wells]

with everything I have seen so far and Captain Pike being there, I'm wondering if a time will come when Discovery is Ditched and its Crew transitions to the Enterprise.

 

[Tino]

with everything I have seen so far and Captain Pike being there, I'm wondering if a time will come when Discovery is Ditched and its Crew transitions to the Enterprise.

Nope. Will never happen.