tpel

I agree that he can be callous. In fact, it wasn't even Lorca who allowed Michael to free the Tardigrade, it was Saru. Saru noted that Lorca had not yet been cleared to resume command after his klingon-captivity, so Saru took advantage of that opportunity to allow Burnham to do right by the creature. I bet Lorca was not altogether pleased that his first officer permitted this, but we heard of no repercussions. To be fair to Lorca, the worst of the tardigrade's suffering only became apparent after Lorca had been captured -- that's when Michael was able to convince Culber and then Stamets to take its plight seriously, but Saru didn't want to hear about it. I thought that was an interesting narrative direction. I'm pretty sure that Lorca would have been willing to harm the tardigrade, if necessary to achieve his ends. Yet the writers chose to make Saru the "bad guy" in this instance. Perhaps watching Lorca push the painful exploitation of the creature would have made him too unlikable as a character, whereas the audience could tell that Saru's closed-mindedness on the issue was based on anxiety, and thus a bit more forgivable. Speaking of painful exploitation of wildlife, I hope the gormagander came out of all this OK -- no thanks to Mudd! Edited to add: Sorry -- there was a time lag in updating, so I didn't see CanadaPhil's explanation before I posted my now-redundant one :-)

I don't think the kelpiens are the dominant species on their planet. They may have developed enough to reach a stand-off with the species that preyed on them, such that they are no longer easy targets. But I don't get the sense that Saru's people are in charge. Worst. Cows. Ever. . . . . is my new favorite quote!

I didn't mean to slight Sisko :-) In a way, being left off the list is a compliment. Sisko wasn't my favorite Captain, but he might be the most well-balanced human being of the bunch. Upon encountering a novel creature, he would be interested in it, but how far he took this interest would depend on what else is going on. If they're not too busy, he might want to take advantage of it as a learning opportunity for Jake. During the Dominion war, he had to make tough calls, and thus took on a bit of Lorca's attitude. But I don't recall him being in serious danger of losing himself, like Lorca is. I'm fascinated by him, but am reserving judgement about whether he is ethically salvageable. I don't think I would have picked the term 'crude' to describe him, however, so I'm curious why you think he is crude.

It is hard to see a solution to the Ash/Voq situation that will satisfy most people. Make him a klingon under cover, and you tick off the people who like the character and those that want to spare Michael pain. But, if he is exactly who he says he is, then there have been some significant directing lapses, I think. Does anybody believe this guy was tortured for several months? He showed apparently genuine rage toward L'Rell when he was escaping the prison ship, and (in my opinion) a less-convincing desire to hurt the klingons in this week's episode, and nothing in between. Other characters -- Michael and Stamets -- have commented on how remarkably well-adjusted he seems. His lack of evidence of trauma is in sharp contrast with Lorca, who, even when his issues are not center stage, carries with him a palpable sense that there is something going on -- hyper-vigilance, body language, etc. Now, obviously, different people react to trauma different ways, so I wouldn't expect his reactions to be the same as Lorca's. But, to buy his story, I need to see something. The potrayal of the character seems to be non-committal, like the writers are trying to keep their options open. Thus, I hope to see the show commit one way or the other. Either go the Ash/Voq route (but hopefully let him grow beyond his initial "programming") or develop him as a plausible human character, not just a love-interest for Michael.

I am less confident about what Voq would or would not do than others seem to be. T'Kuvma was a Klingon purity zealot, and Voq took on his mantle when T'Kuvma died, but Voq was always "other" -- an albino Klingon with no family -- so I'm not sure where he stands in terms of his revulsion toward humans. Clearly, he wants to defeat the humans. The question is, would he want to defeat us enough to become one of us, if that were the price? It is possible that, while he nominally consented to the procedure, he was not made fully aware of what it entailed. Hence, he has reason to be angry at L'Rell for partially duping him. If he agreed to become human, it is not really clear why. I mean, it doesn't seem plausible that this physical transformation would benefit him as a leader; the other Klingons would be less inclined to follow a human face. What could L'Rell be getting out of this? In the short term, maybe Discovery. True, she indicated that the Klingons have spies elsewhere, but they probably don't have any on that ship -- the one that is key to the outcome of the war. So, it makes some sense to let Ash/Voq escape with Lorca, assuming that would put him where she wants him. But this seems like a moment where some bird-in-hand reasoning might be appropriate. She already had Lorca, who knows more about Discovery's special abilities than anyone except the scientists involved. Why would she let him go, after only pretty minor attempts to persuade him to talk, just to place an operative who might be useful later? I mean, for all she knew, the Federation could have a protocol of sending released prisoners of war back to Earth or a starbase for extended debriefing and care. I guess it could be valuable to have a spy on Earth, but the results would be less predictable. One possible explanation is that L'Rell planned on letting Tyler and Lorca escape later -- after she had learned everything she could from Lorca -- but they broke out on their own before she could implement this plan. In the big picture, the only reason I can think of to give a Klingon a human body and human memories is to potentially bring about peace. In fact, I'm kind of guessing that's how this will go. The writers are trying hard to make Tyler likable and build his relationship with Michael. One day, he is "triggered" and his Voq personality comes to the forefront . . . and then what? If he just becomes a bad guy, his fans will be disappointed. But maybe his connection with the Discovery crew will prevail, motivating him to try to cease hostilities between Klingons and humans. That could be a somewhat sappy "love conquers war" outcome, but given Discovery's penchant for darkness, it might be a nice contrast.

I think in some early images for the show Airiam was referred to as a robot. But this episode proves pretty conclusively that she is not a robot or android. She is a Lt. Commander who can be entrusted with the Conn. Were she a fully artificial intelligence, that would require a level of advancement on par with Lt. Data, and TNG established that Data was the first such being. Discovery may play around with established cannon "firsts", but I can't imagine they would do so for such a minor character. So, she is either a human or an alien, who has been augmented with cyborg parts. I get the sense that minor cybernetic implants are relatively common in this time period -- we see Lt. Detmer with facial equipment and an artificial or enhanced eye, and we don't know whether the replacement eyes Lorca resists getting are organic (cloned) or synthetic. Here, too, they can tread lightly around cannon. LaForge on TNG wore a banana clip on his face, not getting human-like eyes until the flash-forward at the end of the series. But he was born blind, so making him see might be more challenging than just swapping out a damaged organ (or part thereof) with something synthetic, for someone who could previously see. Even when they were speaking Klingon, they seemed to be talking at a more normal pace. Perhaps the actors are getting used to the language.

He used their names this time. In drills and non-combat situations, he tends to bark orders according to the station (e.g. "helm") rather than using proper names. In contrast, Saru, when he was in command a couple of episodes back, addressed people formally by their rank and name. It was nice to see Lorca adapting his style to the needs of the moment: in a high-stress situation, the personal address might help keep the (mostly young) crew calm and focused. Yeah, he was yelling, but it was qualitatively different than when they were doing the drill. I love watching Lorca in command mode. For it to be plausible that Starfleet would put up with his issues, the writers have to make it clear that he is an excellent tactician and battle commander. So far, I think, they've done a good job with that. Even when Discovery was not successful, Captain and crew still came off as competent. I assume we are supposed to be confused, as "deception" is practically her middle name. But I think it is true that L'Rell genuinely hates Kol -- she disparaged him even when she was alone, when she saw the bodies of her friends. So, it makes sense that she would want to get away from him. She also has an interest in Discovery; having captured Lorca, she knows there is something special about that ship. She may have an additional interest in Discovery, if that is indeed where Voq is. Thus, her plotting to team up with Cornwell to escape and hopefully rendezvous with Discovery was probably genuine. I strongly doubt that she is interested in defecting, however. But if she could get her hands on Discovery, or learn more about its propulsion system, she could use this to change the balance of power among the Klingons to her benefit and Kol's detriment.

Do we know for sure that Cornwell is dead? Seemed ambiguous to me. Yeah, Stamets was totally seeing the future Captain Tilly! With regard to some theories floating around, we got evidence that Lorca is NOT a Klingon in disguise, as we saw him with his tribble for the first time since "Choose Your Pain". The Mirror-Lorca theory is, of course, unaffected. Saru knew that Tyler was being deceptive when he talked about wanting to hurt the Klingons. But we don't know if this means Tyler was outright lying -- because he's Voq -- or if he was using the truth as a distraction technique. He wasn't super convincing when he suddenly whipped out his trauma, but I'm not sure what to make of that.

What to do with Mudd at the end? He has certainly shown himself to be a psychopath, ready to kill for fun . . . but nobody is actually dead after it's all over. They can't charge him with murder. Maybe attempted murder? And, of course, many lesser charges like assault, conspiracy, etc. Honestly, it doesn't bother me that much that Mudd was sent off to an apparently light punishment, since we know that a decade from now Stella will be the stuff of nightmares for him. Not that she is necessarily a terrible person, but, to Mudd, a monogamous relationship with her = hell. My only concern is that not locking him up in some way means he could sell information about the Discovery to the klingons -- whatever he learned about the spore drive, including the fact that it has a human component. The klingons already know that Discovery has some kind of new technology. Rough specs wouldn't fetch the same price as the ship itself, but letting this information fall into the klingons' hands would be very bad. The Mudd-hate is definitely evident in the scene near the end when Lorca has to hand over his ship to "Captain Mudd". He keeps it under wraps pretty well, but you know he's got a "Mudd Murder Montage" playing on a loop in his head all the while!

Yeah, his expressions and low key reactions are always a delight, even when he's not center stage. I liked his response to how the gormagander was so consumed with finding nourishment that it forgot to reproduce, "That's as depressing a trait as I've ever heard of." Then he was happy to delegate dealing with the creature to Burnham or Tyler . . . or anyone, really, 'cause he didn't care. One might think that Lorca would be hard to work for, given that he's at least borderline evil-and-crazy, but I bet it's not so bad most of the time. He's really clear about what he cares about and what he doesn't care about. He'll be a hard-ass about the former, but pretty mellow about the rest. Wild party below deck? No problem. Less than optimal performance on tactical drills? Problem. With regard to the gormagander, I also loved how Michael talked to it when it was first beamed aboard. She addressed it, "Alright, sweet girl . . ." Taken along with her attitude toward the tardigrade, this constitutes an endearing character trait.

Well, I suppose Burnham got used to running on Vulcan, where gravity is stronger -- hence running at earth-normal gravity feels floaty to her? I'm imagining various Captains, upon encountering an endangered species: Kirk: Gotta pretend to care for a second or two . . . nah, don't care. Picard: I'm deeply interested. Let's learn about the history and biology of this species. Janeway: Let me adopt it as a new member of my crew. Archer: I wonder if it wants to play with my beagle . . . Lorca: Can I weaponize it? If not, don't care. So, Lorca comes off looking a bit uncouth in comparison to Picard, but really, who among us doesn't? In comparison with the other captains, he's just more honest and practical about his attitude. (Yeah, I know, I skipped Sisko -- nothing funny popped to mind ;-)

I enjoyed this episode immensely. The Lorca Death Montage was hilarious, and we got confirmation that he keeps some seriously dangerous shit in his office ("Does it melt your brain?"). Stametts was wonderful -- loopy enough at the beginning that you can see why people might not immediately believe him about the time loop, then earnest and insightful as he tries to figure out a way to solve the problem. One missed opportunity: we never see Stammetts trying to convince or work with his partner, Dr. Culber. At first, that seems like a glaring omission, or a convenient oversight so the writers can concentrate on Michael. A quick line would have fixed that poignantly: "I can't watch him die any more." Kind of hoping Tyler turns out to be Voq, because I'm finding him a bit dull as himself. The hot guy with the (literally) tortured past, whom everyone seems to admire . . . meh. Oh, it's sweet how Tilly is trying to set Michael up with him, and I like Michael enough to want her to be happy. And he's not actively annoying. He's just . . . there.

Many women dye their hair lighter than their natural color as they get older, too. My Mom had brown hair in her youth, then went blondish, then blond-to-gray. I'm sure Sarek would find all this highly illogical, so Amanda just doesn't bother discussing such things with him ;-)

When I saw this title, I thought two things: (1) It's a shout-out to Lorca's past as a dark wizard :-) and (2) Do we actually have any sane men on board to test this out on? Well, I guess there's Dr. Culber -- he seems mentally OK. But the others? Stametts is permanently stoned; Tyler may have a klingon alter-ego lurking inside him; the PTSD might be only the tip of Lorca's iceberg of dysfunction. If Saru was human, he might be considered a bit neurotic. I wonder if he's considered reckless among his own species, for being willing to explore alongside us predators.

I'm confused. In the TOS episode Journey to Babel she had gray hair. How can we know what color her hair was before it went gray?

As an alternative to the MIRROR Lorca hypothesis, here is another interpretation of the fact that we are often presented with scenes of him staring out the window, with his reflection visible. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster . . . for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." He's been fighting monsters and staring at the abyss a long time, and it is staring back hard (in one of his first scenes, we see what looks like space with a scattering of stars reflected in his eyes); he is in danger of losing his humanity. Obviously, this is not counter-evidence to a mirror universe twist. I just wanted to consider how the imagery we've been shown could be making a metaphorical point about the character rather than dropping hints about his origin. Thinking about the preview, I'm a bit surprised that they are bringing Mudd back so quickly. Looks like we've got a time loop going, so that frees the writers to do some dramatic things without fear of lasting repercussions.

^^ I really hope it is not MIRROR Lorca, as I find the PTSD narrative more interesting. But I agree that some of Cornwell's lines are odd, and the writers dropping hints about a mirror universe (or some kind of brainwashing or replacement) would explain that. What I mean is, what kind of shrink complains that someone is "not the man I used to know"? Of course he is not like he used to be. He killed his entire crew and was tortured at least once. Getting back to the way he used to be is a futile goal; what we want is to create a healthy, functional "new normal". Granted, Cornwell just got grabbed by the throat and had a phaser pointed in her face, so I'll give her a pass for not really thinking like a therapist at that moment. Logistically, I can buy MIRROR Stammets better than MIRROR Lorca, because a massive personality change after getting up-close-and-personal with freaky spores seems more indicative of some kind of inter-dimensional swap than does a personality change following multiple traumas, without any obvious swapping mechanism.

I did like that. The lighting seemed designed to enhance the appearance of age and vulnerability. I think it worked well most of the time. Seeing the lines around Cornwell's eyes made her comments about how young they were back in the day feel more compelling, and she looked beautiful. The close-ups of Lorca's face were less brightly lit, maybe to emphasize that he lives in the shadows now. Though Jason Isaacs with his shirt off is definitely not a bad thing, they weren't going for sexy in that scene. His damage was being uncovered, exposed . . . yet there was something about his body language that suggested that his shields were still up. The only time when the lighting choices didn't work for me was when Cornwell was reaching out and touching the scars on Lorca's back -- the lighting magnified the texture of her hand so that it almost seemed corpse-like. I got a flash of "Wash" when Stammets said that he had always wanted to talk to his mushrooms, and I've been seeing more of him in goofy spore-stoned Stammets.

Even if the fan theory is right, that need not short-circuit his potential. Suppose Ash is Voq -- meaning something like Voq underwent genetic transformation and acquired memories and knowledge from the real Ash Tyler. Let's assume he is currently unaware of his true identity. At some point, he is "activated" and learns who he really is . . . then what? It is at least conceivable that he would rebel against his "true" identity and side with the humans he has become friends with. Or, at least, he might be seriously conflicted.

I'm not so sanguine about him murdering a friend to protect his own self interest. He didn't quite do that, but the way it read on the screen, it almost seemed that way. Unless we think he's a klingon spy, which I don't, there's no way he could have had compelling evidence that the meeting was a trap. Yet he totally knew it. The audience knew it, because we watch a lot of Star Trek ;-) Lorca knew it -- not 100%, but he would've bet his tribble on it -- because figuring out this kind of thing is like breathing to him. He's got the tactical instinct, apparently undiminished by his raging PTSD. And that's why only his ex-lover/old-friend-with-benefits is willing to call him on his crap: she's the only one that cares about him. The rest of the higher-ups in Starfleet (who we know from previous iterations of Star Trek are likely to be incompetent, evil, or both) probably realize that he is unstable, but he gets results. So they are happy to keep using him. Sure, it's a risk; he could snap in some dramatic and deadly way. But if he can keep his shit together for another few months, he might be instrumental in winning the war. Suppose Lorca told Cornwell, "Hey, I've got a bad feeling about this meeting . . ." That would have made him more likable, but it wouldn't be likely to change the outcome. She's now convinced that he's paranoid, so she would interpret his warning as more evidence of his impaired judgement. And he accurately assessed that she would be highly motivated to jump on any chance for peace. Thus, she would be almost certain to go anyway. That doesn't let him off the hook completely, as the reason he didn't say anything is because her capture is the outcome he wanted. Trying to stop her would have introduced at least some chance that he would succeed, and he didn't want that. Later, his "this-week-we-care-about-Starfleet-orders" response to going after her was chilling. Best case scenario: Starfleet gives him a quick go-ahead, Discovery rescues Cornwell, and Lorca is able to say, "Look, I just showed I can play by the book, and btw I just saved your life" and she relents about forcing him to step down from command. Pretty sure that's not going to happen. Dead Cornwell is more certain to not threaten his command than alive-and-grateful Cornwell is, so he'll do what he can to favor that outcome. Cold. So why do I still care about him? Well, as 2727 pointed out, Isaacs is mesmerizing. And when faced with an outside threat, Lorca will defend his crew ably. And then there's this . . . He was also kind of awesome when he hung up on that Vulcan :-)

This turn of events seriously disturbed me. I can't see how Lorca could have known that the klingons would nab Cornwell, but he certainly acted like he did. If so, that's unforgivable in my book. (And I regard his killing of his crew as at least potentially forgivable.) Even dragging his feet on rescuing her is pretty despicable, only slightly justified by the fact that Cornwell herself was just telling him not to go off half-cocked without clearing things with Starfleet. I kind of hate him right now, and until this episode he was my favorite character. Love spore-addled Stamets. Lorca and Burnam's reactions to him were funny too. I'm not too fussed about the holographic training program. The shoot-em-up clearly had limited parameters, a far cry from the holodeck technology we see in later Treks. Given what we can do today with virtual reality, it doesn't seem like a stretch that such a program would be available more than a century from now.

I think Lorca has a long list of moral and personality flaws . . . but cowardice is not one of them. He killed his crew to spare them death by protracted torture. That might have been a whopping error of judgement -- how could he be so sure that there was no way at least some of them could be saved later on? And it connotes a certain level of arrogance, that he thinks he can make this decision for all those under him. But a coward would have just left, telling himself he was going for back-up or something. And I don't think he was fleeing. I assume that he was already off the ship for some reason, in a shuttle, or that he needed to get off the ship in order to destroy it. His own survival was hardly guaranteed. Perhaps the Buran's explosion was enough to take out all the klingon vessels in the area. If not, Lorca would be alone in a shuttle, perhaps temporarily blinded, surrounded by pissed off klingons eager to deliver him to that fate-worse-than-death he so wanted his crew to avoid.

I was one of the early doubters on L'Rell, and I'll admit that the case is closed: it is L'Rell. A friend and I compared still images from an earlier episode with those from episode five. While the makeup is a little different, and very different lighting exaggerates the effect of makeup differences (she looks a lot more ridgey in good light), it is definitely the same actress. But I think there are open questions about Ash and Voq. I'm spoiler-free, so as far as I can tell, there are a few options on the table here: (1) Ash is really a genetically altered Voq, and he knows it. (2) Ash is really a genetically altered Voq, but he doesn't know it, and will presumably be "activated" in the future. (3) Ash is not Voq, but L'Rell's raping him was a cover for obtaining genetic material, that she will use to transform Voq. (4) There is really not much connection between Ash and Voq, though something shady was happening between L'Rell and Ash -- maybe he's an informant or spy. (5) Ash was telling the truth; he's just a prisoner of war who fell victim to L'Rell's advances. This is an awesome argument against (1) and maybe (2). Seriously, if the dude can't speak his native language at a normal rate, how is he managing English so well? But how funny would it be if his downfall was the kite little tribble in Lorca's office?

OK, assuming that the klingon woman is L'Rell, here is another twist on CanadaPhil's theory: maybe Ash was telling the truth and is not a genetically augmented Voq. But L'Rell's purpose in raping him was to obtain human genetic material to combine with her own (let's say she is a descendant of Augment klingons) to produce embryos she can experiment on with the goal of reviving the positive parts of the Augment treatment (added strength, intelligence) without the negative ones. Once perfected, she could apply this treatment to Voq, who would thus "loose everything" but become a formidable leader. Still not sure this fits with the timeline . . .

I loved that, too. He may not be a nice guy, but he is believable as a badass. The moment the klingon tractor beam snagged the shuttle, he was out of his seat and at the weapons locker, getting a big gun for himself and one for the security officer. A few times in the episode, we saw him shift to a fighting stance, though he only actually threw a punch when it would be strategically useful. There's just something about him that screams "ready for action". From the previews, I thought that him being tortured would be a big part of the episode, perhaps as a way to generate sympathy for an otherwise somewhat unlikable character. It wasn't, and I'm glad it wasn't. The klingon shined light in his eyes, and yeah it hurt, but then he went on to take care of business! My favorite line of the episode was right after the light-torture scene, when Lorca is brought back to the cell and immediately goes after Mudd, slamming him against the wall and grabbing his "bug". Mudd pleads, "Use your words!" I guess it was the delivery, but that cracked me up :-)