KimberStormer

It does make me wonder what the Enterprise-Z is up to, in this new century.

Haven't seen that one either! Maybe that's what she was talking about?

I was talking to my sister about this, and she said well that's how it was in one of the recent movies, too. It seems that this season of Discovery has made an effort to connect with all other Star Treks to an extent even more than Lower Decks, with references I didn't catch because I never watched Enterprise, Picard, or most of the JJ Abrams movies. She also had a possible explanation for the truly baffling Replacement Replacement Airiam: apparently the actress who played Season 1 Airiam and then Replacement Airiam was in a Lifetime Original Movie, so maybe she was off filming that when these past two episodes were made. Still very strange IMO to put another actress in, instead of just having her be absent in the same mystery space that Reno disappears to (perhaps in these bizarre cyberspace cityscapes the turbolifts fly around in?)

Oh my god this was terrible. I was so lost. Why call the Ni'Var and not have Momma Burnham appear? Why did Michael blast Stamets out the airlock to stop Osyraa having Discovery but then stop the Admiral and the Ni'Var from stopping their escape? Why was pesticide so scary to her? Why do the turbolifts fly around in some kind of cyberpunk cityscape? Why is there a replacement Replacement Airiam? Why did the sphere data do fuck-all? Why did Osyraa think pusing Michael into the wall was going to kill her? What the hell was that wall? Why didn't Grudge even appear, when I thought she was going to save the day when she called upon her subjects to show up as a deus ex machina? Why did they immediately accept the scientist guy? Where was Reno this whole time? (And Original Replacement Airiam, who was there at the very end?) Why oh why oh why can't we ever have anyone not give speeches about how great Michael is? And why did anyone think after building up "what will Saru's catch phrase be" that Michael's lame-o "Let's fly!" was going to be cool? I am glad that at least Michael didn't really give up when Book was being tortured. I continue to think Georgiou would have had these completely useless, unthreatening villains for breakfast, literally, before they had the chance ot say boo. The Main Villain has gotten worse every season so far. I would never have thought that Zombie Leland would look like an effective threat in comparison to anyone. They made the slightest effort to make Osyraa a bit less boring and lame last episode, and immediately abandoned it, and now that she's gone the whole Emerald Chain is just gone? Ridiculous. All the stuff on the Dilithium Planet was good, very Star Trekky, although the fact that the ship just happened to be falling apart the moment Discovery got there was pretty weak. Otherwise it was a breath of fresh air from the rest of the action-movie nonsense in totally illogical space. Aw, it was sort of nostalgic to me. That Discovery Season One vibe. I can't think of a more complete failure of a plot point, in anything ever. Amazing. The hell of it is, I liked this season. The setting was fresh and interesting. A lot of good episodes. I just think this need to end every season with an action movie is misguided and always results in a crappy ending that leaves me unhappy. I'm looking forward to next season, even though I am sure it will also end terribly -- it's not the destination, after all, it's the journey. Plenty of interesting stories to explore before the inevitable stupid action.

It's pretty amazing that they have holo-lie-detector guy (bizarre idea even if he isn't, as it sure seemed, only lie-detecting one side of the negotiations) but no lawyers/diplomats to read over the treaty, just one guy who does everything.

Oy I dunno I'm not super feeling it, although it may just be that this has been a kind of bad day for me and not a great way to start the new year so I'm in kind of a mood. The Die Hard reference was too on the nose for me, I can't take Tilly bossing people around seriously, etc etc. There was just too much going on all at once. This last minute attempt to make Osyraa (or however it's spelled) "complex" was weird, the Admiral's deciding her going to jail was more important than peace was weird, the fact that this negotiation is going on while everything is going bananas back on the ship was weird. Weirdest of all is that there's a replacement Replacement Airiam! WTF! Andorian dude was indeed the dead man he's always seemed to be -- idk if it's the actor or just the way they wrote him, but it was written all over his face. Sudden sympathetic scientist should have been introduced a long time ago, unless he was and I just didn't notice. I did think Anthony Rapp did great work here. Someone will have to explain to me why the fuck Michael (who was like "WE HAVE TO GET BACK TO THEM!" last episode) thinks they have to blow Stamets out the airlock instead of jumping to the nebula to save the day, leaving Osyraa at Starfleet's mercy and just a handful of sorry clowns on Discovery...I continue to think the reason they had to have the Goodbye Georgiou episode before these is because she would have made mincemeat of these fools. The whole thing made no sense and I think, against all of you guys apparently, Stamets was totally right here. Even if somehow she thinks Osyraa will DESTROY THE FEDERATION or whatever the fuck, that kid on the planet there is about to make another Burn, right? Surely that outranks the Federation in the game of "There's a Bigger Picture"? But then, I am in a very bad mood. But they literally did. It was a transparent ploy to get them all into this season but the plan was originally to send just Michael into the future in the Red Angel suit and an empty Discovery. They just were like "we won't leave you Michael!" because, as everyone in the Disco Universe knows, Michael is the most important person in the world.

Omg yes this exactly.

Finally saw this, it was the usual mix of a lot of fun and strange, strange choices. God it's weird that they took Saru out of the makeup. It's SO FREAKIN WEIRD. And god love her but SMG sure was emoting during her little sit-down with Tilly. I want everyone to take it down a notch and be competent professionals like a good Star Trek crew. Other than the bizarre "species swap!" thing I like the scenario, I like Book being Han Solo (with Grudge-bacca), I like the crew that's assembled on the planet (Saru, Cubler, Adira), I like the set-up for next episode. Saru telling Michael that she had to be the one to stay behind to convince Su'Kal had me about to throw my television out the window but for once in my life someone realized that actually, Michael was not the right girl for the job here -- even if it had to be Michael herself who realized it, it was such a breath of fresh air! And really so was Michael actually showing some quick thinking and doing something, when she pretended to be another program, although she couldn't keep it up for long. I kind of think the writers put the Georgiou goodbye episode where they did just because they realized that if she was around this episode's whole plot wouldn't work -- this Orion chick is just no match. I'm glad that Tilly didn't overperform in the captain role, it's more plausible that way. Her banter was just awful to me, what Star Trek captain has ever showed their leadership capabilities by snarking? Yet how naturally did it seem like the Disco writers would think that would be how it worked for Tilly? But since it didn't work, I can at least hope that it was meant to be her insecurity talking, which is what it sure sounded like, "I'm not owned! I'm not owned!" style. I did like Book being on hand as an unofficial advisor she could consult without undermining her own authority, or something. Going back to my Elderly Nerd comparison of this season with Star Control 2, I now feel I must reach even further back into the deepest lore of Ancient Nerdery and say it's actually looking more like the original, Starflight. It was the Dilithium Planet which reminded me. It seems, unfortunately, that the reason for The Burn of this show is nowhere near as interesting as that game's version of it -- but then, that was probably the best sci-fi plot twist I've ever seen outside of the Philip K Dick-level literary masters. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.

They also did the "mirror credits" (upside down and inverted colors) in Season 1, right? That's fun. I think "Georgiou slowly realizing that Mirror Michael actually sucks" was a really good plot and I can't accuse them of not taking enough time over it, but still, Mirror Michael sucked so bad that it wasn't very powerful or anything. Like, she was never convincing at all in her contrite act, to the point that I was disappointed Georgiou didn't go, like "well, I implanted a bomb in your body while you were asleep and now you blow up" or something when she finally tried to kill her in the brig. Not having been totally fooled and having a Secret Saru in her back pocket was good but still, not as badass as I would have liked -- just like in the first episode when she was facing that dude and her plan was "survive getting shot". As often on this show, the idea of Empress Georgiou's whole arc was good, but the execution left something to be desired. At least she got a better send-off than Admiral Cornwall did. I do wish she could have told Saru that he does not suck in any universe. And I do wish that someone could ever leave the show without first telling Michael how amazing she is. Enjoyed the Stamets/Adira/Reno/Book scene. Book the token straight friend! And he actually read the manuals! Would have been nice if Reno got to do something, but at least we got to tease her about not being in several episodes. With this team on the case, we'll solve the extremely uninteresting Mystery of The Burn in no time.

I see I forgot to post about this episode....I do love the Disco Mirror (Ball?) Universe, and I enjoy seeing Georgiou in her natural habitat, as it were, while she's also a bit of a fish out of water at the same time. Since she has been dying (I think this is a surprisingly good character choice by the writers) she has been extra Mirror-villainous, out of fear/desperation and rage and nostalgia for her life, so it's kind of great to have her go back and realize she's been remembering with rose-colored glasses. It is an interesting contrast how much of a...relief, maybe? hugely refreshing change? it was when we got to the Mirror Universe in Season 1, whereas this time I do find the "real world" interesting and fun so it's not such a big difference. Costumes are on point (I also love Michael's lip and Killy's eye shadow, and personally think that fucking crown is AMAZING and wish Michelle Yeoh could have worn it to the Met Ball when they did that Catholic fashion exhibit) though I do think Mirror Michael is too much ham, and I also was disappointed with Mirror Stamets, who I remember being excellently devious in Season 1. And like everyone, I really thought we'd get a bit of Lorca, at least, after all the talk...maybe even just something like "I blew him out an airlock two hours ago" kind of scene. I think with all the timey-wimey it's hard to keep track, but this is now a completely different Mirror timeline (which may or may not exist depending on Carl, who is very TOS although I think he would have been, like, broadly Irish or something back then) because Georgiou is not repeating her actions. But what I really wonder is where this San person comes in, which surely will be soon, but if so, it must not be a memory after all, but a premonition?? To be honest it's hard to remember what did Georgiou know and when did she know it in the Season 1 timeline, but in any case I look forward to her team-up with Mirror Saru. Speaking of timelines I guess this means Spock travelling to the past and living the rest of his days in the Kelvin timeline is canon? (Or does he go back home at some point? I only saw the first Abrams movie, it sucked so bad I didn't bother with the rest.) I wonder if Michael will find that out.

All I'm saying is that if it's the Enterprise I am going to throw my TV out the window.

"To see this content please enable targeting cookies." Amazing.

Did Book not get a shirtless scene this time? I guess his Disney Princess powers make up for it. It's a little strange they are talking about "empaths" as something Starfleet doesn't know about, where are the Betazoids? (Of all the alien species represented on the various crews, I feel like Betazoids have been the worst-served.) More Star Wars dogfighting action, and to go along with it, more endlessly dragged out filler scenes that I would take an editor's knife to if I were in charge. Adira asleep scene -- adorable, but endless. Also Book and his brother's repetitive reconciliations, etc. But at least for once in our lives someone got to do the hero thing and it wasn't Michael for no reason! Go Detmer, save the day!

Now that it's been suggested I think actually something like @huahaha's idea could work, and actually work well in the serialized Discovery style. I think Tilly saying she wants the job is a good first step. But it would have been great if she had been sort of thrown into a command role, of any kind, and thrived in it or anyway did a good job such that Saru could see her in the role. Then some episodes later Michael gets 'demoted' or whatever and Saru goes for it. That would be a multi-episode (really multi-season!) arc that would work for me. It could help explain why the bridge crew would accept it, too. Like they did a great job, actually, setting up Tilly as a good ambassador or diplomat type person when Saru took her along on his away mission in the second episode this season. If he made her first contact specialist or something I would be totally fine with it because of that. So something like that, except where she shows leadership. Oh well. It's true we don't know where this is going. But we don't need to know the outcome to know there's no real reason for Saru to have picked her or for the rest of the crew to be totally cool with her being promoted over their heads.

I definitely do not dislike Michael at all. I think she's a great character. I agree with you, I think it's the writers. Their main failing with Michael, to my mind, is that they know they want to make her the protagonist, but they don't really understand how that works. Protagonist literally means something like "first mover", but so often how they make Michael important is not by her being the first mover but by someone else making her important. And we can easily see through this as being the writers making her important by having someone else say so. In fact, they did the same with Pike once, when Admiral Cornwell was like "STARFLEET HAD TO SAVE YOU FROM THE WAR CHRIS BECAUSE YOU'RE THE BEST OF US." But mostly, although I haaaaaaaaaaaate Pike, they did it right with him: it wasn't Pike who was getting messages from heaven and who was related to Star Trek royalty and who was told "it's always been about you" by dying cyborgs. They didn't think they had to do those things because they already had a protagonist for the show. So he was just doing stuff, acting, making choices, etc., the stuff a main character is supposed to do.