Latverian Diplomat

A few observations: - One of the problems with going to the "Darius gives a speech that inspires/convinces everyone" well so often is that his speeches are...not that good. I hope to God they don't introduce a plot line where Darius has to exhibit his mad beat poetry skills to save the earth. - She may be evil, but thank goodness sexy evil tea-drinker was there to get Liam to quit being such an info-withholding crybaby...he does still want to save the world, right? - Darius wanting an out of the way office that no one comes to is probably not what a person with CEO experience would do? However since he seems to have access to the President whenever he wants, and she always endorses his ideas, I guess it's not a problem? - Pretty sure a particle accelerator and a rail gun are not that similar. They both use lots of strong magnets lined up in a vacuum, I guess. I'm going to give the show the benefit of the doubt and say that we are talking linear accelerators, and that it was built in Iceland despite the seismic activity because all that cheap geothermal power? - This show does not have the budget for a major military conflict, so I'm guessing Darius has another speech coming up... :-)

RESIST did a fuel hack! It seems they can hack anything!

"I'm haunted by the fact that...Erica Luttrel has such a good agent...I mean, she came to the table read and I was like, 'girl, I thought you were dead?'" -- Grace has a fourth wall breakdown Even if the asteroid strikes, half the cast will still survive, given how death works on this show. And they'll by haunted by visions of the other half of the cast.

I gave up on this about halfway through season 1, and I thought I would check in on season 2 premiere to see how things are going. I will give the writers credit for burning through plot points at breakneck speed. Perhaps hoping motion blur will make them easier to buy? :-) Couple of things that irk just like last year: - Does Darius have to be so damn good at everything. Talking down a mob, spotting a honeypot trap over another guy's shoulder, giving a speech that wins over the American people, etc. etc. I'm guessing that by making him VP the President has doomed herself, such greatness cannot be denied the Presidency. - The Grace flashback/Claire vision thing is already super old. Please move on. - Pretty sure that ICBMs can't put their payloads into orbit. That's way more fuel than they have. And a stable orbit usually requires multiple burns, AFAIK. - Resist seems way too well organized. Most hacker groups can't order a pizza without internal bickering. These guys successfully blackmail all the world's governments and startup an elaborate project with everything they need known in advance? - Still undecided about tuning in next week, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of competition right now...

I guess as is inevitable for this sort of thing, I'm distracted by wondering how much of this is based on the real story, which is pretty crazy, and how much is "dramatization". Things that seem invented to me: 1) Jack tailing Earnest to the Satanist service and being seen spying at a dramatic moment 2) The last minute change to liquid fuel, that works surprisingly well I realize that real life does not provide the dramatic beats that TV shows thrive on, so some invention/combining/intensification is needed, but both of these seem to be somewhat cliche and also somewhat unrealistic to me. I'm on the fence about Susan's devout Catholicism, that seems like it could be invented or exaggerated for future drama, or it could be real, I'm not sure. I suppose I can look into the real story to answer these questions, but I'm holding off so until at least a few more episodes.

I have not problem with a show that tries to do both suspense/mystery and humor, but it needs to succeed at at least one of them. Most of the jokes just don't land, and the suspense parts are often rushed through (this may be the half hour format really hurting them). It's too bad, I was hoping this show would be a "fun X-Files", especially since the X-Files is relaunch was neither fun, nor the X-Files, most of the time. Maybe the next show that tries this will have better luck?

Jake Peralta having a moment would be pretty funny.

Since it's a Universal production, the best bet might be for NBC to pick them up. Counting against this is that they are already over 100 episodes, so they don't need another season to be successful in syndication. According to reports I've seen, it's in the "low ratings but critically acclaimed" category.

I'm a little confused. Adam Strange came to warn Seg about a "threat to Superman's existence" from the future. But he seems very worried about Brainiac. But I thought Brainiac was contemporary with Krypton (he's been around for a while) and that he was the threat Seg's Grandpa was worried about? So, in the unaltered timeline, didn't the conflict between Brainiac and Krypton go down how it went down, no threat to Superman's future? What's changed? Who changed it? What is the actual threat that needs Adam's intervention? It seems like they are creating a lot of artificial suspense just by making Adam inarticulate and flaky. (And also perhaps by making Seg dumb and stubborn).

Maybe I missed something, but what was the deal with the blonde on the table getting dissected? It was his contact from Jack Off, right, Alice? I mean dramatically it serves the purpose of letting Kovacs know she's dead and that she was treated like meat even in death, but what was the purpose of what they were doing in the context of the clinic Tissue and organ harvesting has to be done in a very precise way at the very time of death, not what they were doing; why can't a society that can grow humans in a vat also grow donor organs that way? and lastly why would they be doing that stuff in the interrogation room. To me, it seemed like a poorly thought out set up to help fuel Kovacs' rampage.

The "light sensitivity trait" seems unnecessary. It would have been more satisfying for Burnham to figure it out on her own, without such an obvious tell. It was strongly implied the rebels really were wiped out. I don't really like Tyler that much, so the implication that Voq/Tyler is now just Tyler again, and may therefore be a series regular, is not good news, IMHO. Is that mean? Maybe, but it's how I feel. Somehow, I suspect that the "cure" for the mycelial network will render the magic spore drive conveniently unusable (after one last trip home).

Just a pet peeve of mine, but we have another TV show conflating schizophrenia and Multiple Personality Disorder. The former of which is very common, and the latter of which is so rare that it may in fact be nonexistent (the most famous case studies having come under fire). And seems to go out of its way to conflate "evil" and mentally ill as well. I also found the mechanism of what the twins were doing to be hazy. It's hard to engage with the challenge to defeat something that doesn't make sense anyway.

One thing about the Mirror Universe that's confusing is how Vulcans can be slaves and rebels and such, but Spock is an Imperial Officer 10 years from now. Maybe it's not the same Mirror Universe of course, but here's another guess: Sarek is a double agent, and the intelligence that allowed the Emperor to track down the Fire Wolf came from him. This earns freedom/citizenship for Spock and/or all non-rebel Vulcans? It's weak, but given Discovery's penchant for twists with lots of hand-waving, maybe?

In the TOS episode, it's strongly implied that Vulcans are at least collaborators with the Terran Empire. Mirror Spock tells Mirror Sulu that in the event of Mirror Spock's death, his operatives would avenge him...and some of them are Vulcans...that last bit meant to be extra intimidating. This implies that Vulcans have enough freedom to operate effectively, and are permitted to avenge Mirror Spock's death by killing a Terran Starfleet Officer. What makes this interesting is that Spock is probably not the only Vulcan who has determined that the Empire can't last; they are "going along" with it for lack of a logical alternative. Kirk attempts to convince Mirror Spock that there is an alternative. It's really Enterprise that established the Empire as a Terrans only club where Vulcans were enslaved. Discovery is clearly following that line. You can fanwank that somehow Vulcans get a boost in status in 10 years, accept that the canon contradicts itself, or theorize that the Enterprise/Discovery mirror universe is a different universe from the mirror universe in TOS. (FWIW, the DS9 mirror universe is explicitly said to be the same one from TOS). ETA: OTOH, I have a wild ass guess on how they could fix this, in the speculation thread, if anyone is interested in that sort of thing. Then they really would have to beam someone into space. In Kirk's day, 10 years later, it is still a death penalty offense to go there. (Not that the writers of Discovery lose sleep over ignoring those sorts of details).

While I agree that Penny and Sheldon together is great, part of the magic is how platonic they are. There is no sexual tension whatsoever, but they still get things from each other they don't get from other people.

Especially since, when they introduced the concept as a way of confirming that the ships they were seeing weren't from their universe, Burnham says "all matter native to our universe resonates with the same quantum signature, nothing can change it". Sometimes it's like the writers don't even read their own scripts. And it's unnecessary for Burnham to be able to alter it later, it took Saru a while to detect that, it's clearly not part of a standard scan. Saru only checked it because he was in serious WTF mode.

The Defiant plan almost certainly won't work. It's desperation, but it's the only lead they've got. We [the audience] may know more reasons why it wouldn't work than they do...we've seen both sides of the Defiant story, they only have a fragment of one side. But it's mostly an excuse to get Burnham on the Mirror version of her old ship. The spore drive project predated the war, I thought, but was accelerated because of it. I suspect the Empire built their Discovery for a different reason, and don't have a spore drive. It's sad that the original series had a more plausible take Klingon disguise than a show fifty years later. Darvin was surgically altered to appear human, but a tricorder scan easily uncovered the scheme. Here, the "transformation" has to get past the scans or the plot won't work. So, it gets past the scans. Lazy writing, IMHO. Equally weak is that someone tortured for months was cleared for duty in a sensitive position, and kept there even though he's showing PTSD symptoms all over the place (even if that's not was he's actually suffering from, the symptoms look very similar--alarm bells should be going off). I'm already pretty sick of Tyler, having him kill the doctor was just latest thing making me eager for this plotline to be over. Small nitpick: If Tyler is there as Burnham's body, why are they ever separated. Where was Connor's bodyguard? It seems like they cooked up a reason Tyler had to go along, without bothering to stick to it.

Yes I just saw an episode where went down in flames, and left the cab.

You can find the Social Media Shoutout posts on the CashCab facebook page. At this point, you have to scroll down a fair amount to see them. I wouldn't put it past them to have a few ringers pitching in with the right answer, but it hardly seems necessary, especially when the folks at home can google for the answer if they want to.

I've been watching the celebrity episodes...and while the celebrity aren't usually much help(*), people riding with a celebrity seem to do well. I'm not sure if the questions are easier, the contestants are screened, or it's just a coincidence. But I can imagine nobody's agent wants their client sitting in the cab when the passengers are kicked out. (*) Dave Foley was a massive exception to this. He was a huge help to people who really needed it.

They are still very expeditious about cutting away before they even kiss though...

It's becoming a sitcom trope that there are loads of pervs with very specific (and nonthreatening) fetishes out there, waiting to be milked by any amateur willing to do fairly innocuous things like sweat up an article of clothing and take a picture of just her feet. And no sex industry professionals who are willing to do a lot more are camped all over it. I find this hard to believe, though I'm not really in the market for such products, so I can't say for sure. At least on Orange is the New Black they had the "women in prison" angle to work with.

Probably not. Here's a clip of him talking about his training camp experience and he mentions a few players he did meet there

Today in nerdy nitpicks. Negative reinforcement is not criticism or punishment. Instead, "a response or behavior is strengthened by stopping, removing or avoiding a negative outcome or aversive stimulus." https://www.verywell.com/what-is-negative-reinforcement-2795410 Sure, this is a common misunderstanding. OTOH, Alex is supposed to be a smart kid at an elite college, and even lowly education majors at state universities have to learn that one. It was interesting, perhaps refreshing that Haley did not have an embarrassing secret; she was actually very supportive of Phil.

Sheldon was a dick, but actually had a comeuppance? That was refreshing. I also enjoyed Leonard's "You just shut the door...I have to start writing these down..." I hear you, but in this case, Sheldon seemed extra stupid. And Penny and Leonard and Amy all gave Sheldon the same good advice at various points...get over it and work with the guy if that's what you really want to do...he didn't listen soon enough... In other notes, Howard whinging about being there for Bernadette will get old fast.