S04.E03: Choose to Live

[paulvdb]

Quote

Burnham and Tilly hunt the killer of a Starfleet officer as Stamets and the science team race against the clock to prevent the anomaly from killing anyone else.

Premiere date: December 2, 2021

[paigow]

For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky complete with Burnham figuring out a cryo-sleep system instantly...

[paigow]

For a guy that mind melds with mushrooms regularly, Stamets has trouble thinking outside the box. No tachyons- therefore, the anomaly is NOT a wormhole... Could it be SENTIENT????? Bruh, all the viewers are way ahead of you...

[thuganomics85]

Ah, good old third episode "Lets push the galaxy ending threat aside for now and get on a case of the week!" time!  I kid, because you obviously can focus on the main arc too much and it is fun to have the occasional mission that actually ends in the same episode.

Glad to see Gabrielle/Sonja Sohn again and exploring more of the Qowat Milat and how they operate.  I guess stealing dilithium to save an entire species is certainly an understandable reason, but I still felt like J'Vini really could have found a way to not kill that commander.  Wasn't there like three of her henchmen there?  She could have easily signaled one of them to knock him out from behind, instead of letting the fight escalate to the point where she stabs him.  Also, was the commander not told about the tracker on the dilithium?  Because you would think he'd know not to go all in if that was the case.  Just felt like all of this could have been handled better.

Heh, it's certainly a good thing Stamets isn't the one who gets sent on diplomacy missions with his whole "Dammit, Vulcans!  Quit sleeping on the job!" approach to things.

Honestly, it's starting to feel like Discovery has not one, but two therapists with both Culber and Saru having to calm everyone down.  What would the ship be without them?

Gray's transfer to his new body and seems okay after a brief scare.  But I wouldn't be surprised if it's not smooth sailing for him and Adira.

Booker seems to be in a better place now, at least.

Oded Fehr continues to get my undying love for managing to go through that entire orchestra analogy and not roll his eyes and go "Seriously, guys?" at any point.  Although the bit about the drunken cello player seemed too specific to me.  What kind of concert did you attend where that happened, Vance?! 

[Stardancer Supreme]

I was happy to see Mama Burnham and the Qowat Milat.  I did find it hard to swallow that this J’Vini couldn't have found a better solution to her lost cause than killing people for dilithium.  Michael still hates politics, but girl. Starfleet is only the military arm of The Federation. Just know that you are merely a cog in the machine and unclench.  This "butting heads with your superiors" nonsense was old in Season 1. Michael should have outgrown that tendency already.

Is Vance the only admiral left? I do love Oded Fehr and was just wondering who runs Starfleet when he sleeps?

It was not a good idea to give Tilly a sword. 

It's nice to see Stamets so protective over Book. At least now Book can grieve without seeing his nephew run around his ship.

And no one thought to suggest that maybe the DMA is sentient? 

[statsgirl]

 

6 hours ago, Stardancer Supreme said:

And no thought to suggest that maybe the DMA is sentient? 

It's starting to feel like everything in the universe is sentient.

I very much enjoyed to Qowat Milat story for all concerned. Maybe J'Vini could have found another way  but I have the feeling that the Qowat Milat are not chosen fortheir intellectual and diplomatic abilities. Even Our Hero, Michael, does not understand the formalities of diplomacy and why it was up to Ni'Var to deal with J'Vini.

I'm glad that Book was able to find some sort of peace. I  cannot imagine how devastating it must be to watch your planet and loved ones destroyed.

I was okay with their story last season but this one Adira and Grey are approaching Wesley Crusher levels of annoying for me.

[paigow]

11 hours ago, statsgirl said:

I  cannot imagine how devastating it must be to watch your planet and loved ones destroyed.

Abramsverse Spock & Nero... TOS Commodore Matt Decker - not really his home planet, but where he sent his crew...

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by paigow

[marinw]

8 hours ago, statsgirl said:

Adira and Grey are approaching Wesley Crusher levels of annoying for me.

I am a horrible person for wondering what would happen if they broke up, if Grey uses his new body to explore the universe independently. Adira and Grey are way too dependent on ech other.

[paigow]

Is Gray organic on the inside? How can he be a host?

[MissLucas]

I'm starting to understand the people complaining about Burnham's constant whispering. I liked how the President knew the names of the killed officer's children yet every time she manages to wrong-foot Burnham, I'm getting more convinced that by the end of the season she'll either turn to the dark side or will get killed.

I miss capable Tilly, maybe the side of her personality that shaped mirror Tilly is about to manifest? That might be interesting. Seeing her fumble through that sword fight scene was painful. Did the actress piss off someone in the writers room?

Completely lost with the Adira-Gray plot. Are they still carrying the Tal symbiont? And how can 3D Gray be a host? Agreed about shades of Wesley Crusher.

I guess we just figured out why Stamets should not be sent on diplomatic missions, he!

The Qowat Milat are always a welcome addition but I have to say that maybe in the name of 'absolute candor' it would have been helpful to inform the Federation why one needs dilithium instead of throwing a hissy fit after the request was denied? Or was that info lost in red tape? Still I'm pretty sure there would have been less-stabby ways to get that race to their final destination.

Man, I wish I had Book's fantastic sleep sound machine! 

[paigow]

Time to recycle The Undiscovered Country plot line. Change Cartwright to Vance, failed conspiracy to successful and next season will be President Burnham

[marinw]

I will say that Culbert is doing some solid work as Ship's Councelor, having gone through his own death/rebirth thing.I thought Tilly reached out for him for medical reasons, but clearly there is something else going on with her.

[statsgirl]

2 hours ago, marinw said:

I am a horrible person for wondering what would happen if they broke up, if Grey uses his new body to explore the universe independently.

If you are, so am I.

The problem is that right now there is no story with Adira and Grey other than teen love and angst and I'm not here for that. Adira is a good addition to the Stamets/Tilly/engineer working team or parented by Stamets and Hugh but as soon as it's about Adira and Grey's relationship, it all comes to a screeching halt.

1 hour ago, paigow said:

Is Gray organic on the inside? How can he be a host?

Do we know which is the host now? Presumably the symbiot can be in only one body.

[paigow]

Were all the Kirk!Enterprise logs destroyed? Nomad was a smaller scale example of VGer;  The vampire cloud; The giant probe looking for whales; All examples of clues for Stamets...

[MissLucas]

47 minutes ago, paigow said:

Were all the Kirk!Enterprise logs destroyed? Nomad was a smaller scale example of VGer;  The vampire cloud; The giant probe looking for whales; All examples of clues for Stamets...

Last week Culber barely knew who Picard was. They never bothered to catch up with history.

[catsitter]

7 hours ago, statsgirl said:

If you are, so am I.

The problem is that right now there is no story with Adira and Grey other than teen love and angst and I'm not here for that. Adira is a good addition to the Stamets/Tilly/engineer working team or parented by Stamets and Hugh but as soon as it's about Adira and Grey's relationship, it all comes to a screeching halt.

Do we know which is the host now? Presumably the symbiot can be in only one body.

I thought that Adira still had the symbiont, but that they had managed to extract Gray's personality from them and transfer it to the new body, using a similar process to how the various versions of Dax were (temporarily) transferred to various DS9 crew members in that one episode.

[Stardancer Supreme]

9 hours ago, marinw said:

I am a horrible person for wondering what would happen if they broke up, if Grey uses his new body to explore the universe independently. Adira and Grey are way too dependent on each other.

 

7 hours ago, statsgirl said:

If you are, so am I.

The problem is that right now there is no story with Adira and Grey other than teen love and angst and I'm not here for that. Adira is a good addition to the Stamets/Tilly/engineer working team or parented by Stamets and Hugh but as soon as it's about Adira and Grey's relationship, it all comes to a screeching halt.

Do we know which is the host now? Presumably the symbiot can be in only one body.

We are all horrible then! I'm hoping that once the novelty of actually having Grey around wears off, he will be sent to Trill.  Adira is still in possession of the symbiont, it's just that Grey's soul (as it were) was disconnected from the Tal symbiont.

[Primal Slayer]

Seeing Burnhams mom again...and the Vulcans all make me remember just how hard this show has pushed to make her so important.

Have they introduced a new chief of security? Shouldn't they be going on these types of missions with Burnham? 

Thus far out of the 3 episodes this one probably seemed the most evened out and overall enjoyable but they still dont seem to really take full advantage of the crew being so far in the future.

[TheGourmez]

On 12/2/2021 at 8:53 PM, statsgirl said:

I was okay with their story last season but this one Adira and Grey are approaching Wesley Crusher levels of annoying for me.

Yeah, I'm over it. If it weren't an every episode storyline, it'd be fine. But it's an EVERY episode storyline. That said, the actor playing Grey is great, IMHO.

I'd like to learn more about other crew members, though...and I'm frankly still a little perturbed Saru isn't captain again.

[Affogato]

On 12/3/2021 at 10:44 AM, statsgirl said:

If you are, so am I.

The problem is that right now there is no story with Adira and Grey other than teen love and angst and I'm not here for that. Adira is a good addition to the Stamets/Tilly/engineer working team or parented by Stamets and Hugh but as soon as it's about Adira and Grey's relationship, it all comes to a screeching halt.

Do we know which is the host now? Presumably the symbiot can be in only one body.

If the android body can age normally and sustain wear and tear of an organic variety and die—and this is established when we first meet the technology—it can probably sustain the symbiote short term. Humans could. If the android cells are modeled after trill cells, not too weird that the symbiote could survive. I mean it could happen and it seems possible. (Waves hand—good enough)
 

They didn’t know if grey would survive so the symbiote wouldn’t be in him, now. 
 

they are meant as meaningful representation for a group of. Viewers and this seems to me to be in line with star trek themes. Adira has some complex interactions with others and gray may have more storyline now that he is tangible. I suspect Adira will have issues sharing. 

[ajsnaves]

I think making Grey a really boy now will open them up to more stories, and the inevitable conflict as the two grow. Not gonna lie though, I got a bit teared up when Grey woke up and gripped Adira’s hand. 

[Stardancer Supreme]

10 hours ago, TheGourmez said:

I'd like to learn more about other crew members, though...and I'm frankly still a little perturbed Saru isn't captain again.

Saru is a captain; he just chose to be with his chosen family and to be Michael's Number One.  Due to his unique circumstances, he probably didn't want to lead strangers when the others who share his circumstances are still around. Being Captain of a starship isn't as glamourous and special as one might think.  Saru might be more than happy to back Michael up in her shenanigans.

[paigow]

16 minutes ago, Stardancer Supreme said:

Saru might be more than happy to back Michael up in her shenanigans.

Also, Saru knows that nobody else will stand up to Burnham when she gets reckless / martyrish...

[TheGourmez]

2 hours ago, paigow said:

Also, Saru knows that nobody else will stand up to Burnham when she gets reckless / martyrish...

This is a very fair point. I just really enjoyed Saru in charge. 

[ottoDbusdriver]

If Tilly wants new experiences, where's the holodeck ?  I would have thought they would have installed one on Discovery by now.
Discovery has received other upgrades like the detachable nacelles.

[KeithJ]

Either the producers are really playing with camera angles (which I don't think they are) or Saru's height keeps changing depending on the scene.

Sonequa Martin-Green and Mary Wiseman are pretty much the same height (Mary is 1 inch taller according to statistics online).  However, look at these two scenes:

In the first scene, Sonequa doesn't even come up to Saru's shoulders and she's in front of him in the scene (which should make her look even taller).  In the second scene Mary comes up to about his nose.  His head is tilted a bit but he doesn't seem to be slouching.

 

[cdnalor]

17 minutes ago, KeithJ said:

Either the producers are really playing with camera angles (which I don't think they are) or Saru's height keeps changing depending on the scene.

Sonequa Martin-Green and Mary Wiseman are pretty much the same height (Mary is 1 inch taller according to statistics online).  However, look at these two scenes:

In the first scene, Sonequa doesn't even come up to Saru's shoulders and she's in front of him in the scene (which should make her look even taller).  In the second scene Mary comes up to about his nose.  His head is tilted a bit but he doesn't seem to be slouching.

 

Doug may not have been wearing his "hooves" in the scene with Tilly.  Those things can't be comfortable for long.

Edited December 4, 2021 by cdnalor
Comment didn't show up

[cdnalor]

Maybe it's because I've gotten used to some actors' unnaturally whitened teeth, but I find Tilly's teeth rather dingy.  Or maybe it's just in contrast to her lighter red-head skin tone.

[Joimiaroxeu]

Burnham and mommy, united again. 🙄 (Sorry, I'm not a fan of the contrived ways they are put in interactions with each other.)

Don't touch the swamp kelp while it's in bloom. Got it.

Strong Aliens/Prometheus-ish imagery in this episode. Was Ridley Scott involved, haha?

I also got a bit teary-eyed when Gray woke up. The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.

Glad Book got some closure on the death of his family and the destruction of his home planet.

[paigow]

2 hours ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

If Tilly wants new experiences, where's the holodeck ? 

Great... she will end up releasing Moriarty... except it will be Tom Hardy looking like Shinzon but talking like Bane

Edited December 5, 2021 by paigow

[tennisgurl]

Now that its episode three, we can put the anomaly on the backburner for a little bit to focus on planets/cases of the week, which is fine with me, I would rather they space out (heh) the bigger story arc so that it doesent get boring or too convoluted. I was happy to see the Qowat Milat and Mama B again, and while saving an entire species is certainly a noble lost cause, I would think that she could have figured out a better way to explain the situation, or at least could have incapacitated the captain in some way other then killing him. I do like that they kept the situation grey, they acknowledged that she did a good thing saving those aliens but didnt forget that she did murder a person, someone with a family whose now mourning him. You would think she could have found a way to explain what was happening, isnt their whole deal being honest and straightforward? I guess she has the same diplomatic skills as Michael, just with more stabbing.

Oded Fehr does a great job in his scenes with Michael, he is one of the few people who can kind of get through to her about why politics, while annoying, are necessary if they want the Federation to keep growing. I know that Michael hates politics but she really needs to stop this "butting heads with authority" thing every single week, she just needs to deal with the fact that Starfleet is the military arm of the Federation and that means she has to deal with commanders telling her what to do. Even Kirk, who was famous for his diplomatic style of "punch" or "flirt" and had quite a few "the whole system is out of order!" moments with superiors, generally knew when to be diplomatic or when to just do the mission even if he didnt enjoy it.

I guess we see why Stamets isnt usually sent out on diplomat missions. I really like that they are continuing to build on Stamets and Book bonding, and that he got some closure about his family. Now he can properly mourn without feeling like he is missing something. 

Grey and Adira seperating could be really good for both of them as characters. Things will certainly change now that Grey can interact with the world outside of Adira. 

[CaptainE]

OMG, is Burnham’s whispering dialogue getting worse or what?  I don’t get it.

[Lady Jane]

On 12/3/2021 at 2:56 PM, catsitter said:

I thought that Adira still had the symbiont, but that they had managed to extract Gray's personality from them and transfer it to the new body, using a similar process to how the various versions of Dax were (temporarily) transferred to various DS9 crew members in that one episode.

In that scene where Adira walks in to where Gray's new body is, the Trill guy said that the "uncoupling" or whatever was successful, so out of Adira, I assume. I don't think they could have put Gray's consciousness into anyone/anything else while it was still residing in Adira via the symbiont. They can't both have Gray's consciousness in them. I don't have any idea the mechanism by which the whole  human/symbiont/trill/synthetic body works (is the symbiont in Gray? Was his consciousness put into the new body, with all the other Tal consciousnesses? I dunno. But they did mention taking it out of Adira.

On 12/4/2021 at 3:38 PM, KeithJ said:

Either the producers are really playing with camera angles (which I don't think they are) or Saru's height keeps changing depending on the scene.

Sonequa Martin-Green and Mary Wiseman are pretty much the same height (Mary is 1 inch taller according to statistics online).  However, look at these two scenes:

In the first scene, Sonequa doesn't even come up to Saru's shoulders and she's in front of him in the scene (which should make her look even taller).  In the second scene Mary comes up to about his nose.  His head is tilted a bit but he doesn't seem to be slouching.

 

It is the Tom Cruise School of Filmmaking. They always have him standing on a box in dialogue scenes, and he seems to be eye-to-eye with his scene partners. When there are longer shots though, sometimes they can't hide it and you can almost see how short he is. What I'm getting at is that if an A-lister like Cruise, who has total control over a project, can't make himself a consistent height, then I surmise a show like Discovery can't do it consistently either.

Fun fact: Tom Cruise used to have an office on the Paramount lot. He had them lower the doorknob about 6 inches so that he felt like it was proportionate to his height. 

[DrBriCa]

On 12/4/2021 at 8:21 AM, Affogato said:

If the android body can age normally and sustain wear and tear of an organic variety and die—and this is established when we first meet the technology—it can probably sustain the symbiote short term. Humans could. If the android cells are modeled after trill cells, not too weird that the symbiote could survive. I mean it could happen and it seems possible. (Waves hand—good enough)

I can see the android body being able to sustain the symbiont. I have a bit harder time understanding how the symbiote itself would be able to connect with the android's "neuro" system to perceive the outside world and attain new host memories. I suppose, thinking back to the symbiont pools on Trill and the lightning flashes within the water, that the symbionts communicate through electrical impulses, which could somehow assist them with understanding and receiving the synthetic information perceived by a positronic brain, but it still seems like a bit of a stretch. Then again, I still have issues with an android on Picard being able to mind meld, so I guess anything is possible for these synth bodies!

I am certainly hoping for there to finally be more plot purposes for keeping Gray around besides just his impact on Adira. Adira already has enough potential for their own storylines and character growth without the teen love story aspect, but Gray is still largely a mystery for what the character will bring to the crew and the show.

[Affogato]

6 hours ago, DrBriCa said:

I can see the android body being able to sustain the symbiont. I have a bit harder time understanding how the symbiote itself would be able to connect with the android's "neuro" system to perceive the outside world and attain new host memories. I suppose, thinking back to the symbiont pools on Trill and the lightning flashes within the water, that the symbionts communicate through electrical impulses, which could somehow assist them with understanding and receiving the synthetic information perceived by a positronic brain, but it still seems like a bit of a stretch. Then again, I still have issues with an android on Picard being able to mind meld, so I guess anything is possible for these synth bodies!

I am certainly hoping for there to finally be more plot purposes for keeping Gray around besides just his impact on Adira. Adira already has enough potential for their own storylines and character growth without the teen love story aspect, but Gray is still largely a mystery for what the character will bring to the crew and the show.

It is a stretch.  I’m kind of hoping he can’t merge with the symbiote, for ing reevaluation and change. 

[marinw]

2 hours ago, Affogato said:

It is a stretch.  I’m kind of hoping he can’t merge with the symbiote, for ing reevaluation and change. 

Yes. Would Adira still love Grey if he got a new body in any gender? 

This is more of a Star Trek: Picard topic, but I am so curious about Picard adjusting to his andriod body. In the centuries between the STP and STD technology seems to have progressed in some areas and stagnated in others (they still need dilithium). But the Grey synth would be more advanced than the Picard's. 

[DrBriCa]

8 hours ago, marinw said:

This is more of a Star Trek: Picard topic, but I am so curious about Picard adjusting to his andriod body. In the centuries between the STP and STD technology seems to have progressed in some areas and stagnated in others (they still need dilithium). But the Grey synth would be more advanced than the Picard's. 

I imagine we'll get some comments on Picard's adjustment next year with season 2 of STP. Surely Q will tease him about it somehow. Culber did say last episode, however, that the synths weren't weren't often successful, so I imagine that's why Gray's synth is still based off of 800 year-old Soong technology . If the results were so hit or miss, they probably shelved the whole program (but clearly kept records of the attempts). 

[Noneofyourbusiness]

On 12/3/2021 at 9:22 AM, MissLucas said:

The Qowat Milat are always a welcome addition but I have to say that maybe in the name of 'absolute candor' it would have been helpful to inform the Federation why one needs dilithium instead of throwing a hissy fit after the request was denied? Or was that info lost in red tape? Still I'm pretty sure there would have been less-stabby ways to get that race to their final destination.

She didn't tell them because she didn't trust them with that information.

[Athena5217]

On 12/5/2021 at 8:29 PM, Lady Jane said:

In that scene where Adira walks in to where Gray's new body is, the Trill guy said that the "uncoupling" or whatever was successful, so out of Adira, I assume. I don't think they could have put Gray's consciousness into anyone/anything else while it was still residing in Adira via the symbiont. They can't both have Gray's consciousness in them. I don't have any idea the mechanism by which the whole  human/symbiont/trill/synthetic body works (is the symbiont in Gray? Was his consciousness put into the new body, with all the other Tal consciousnesses? I dunno. But they did mention taking it out of Adira

This was very confusing, but I think Adria still has the symbiot. The uncoupling referred to removing Gray’s soul from Adria’s body. Guardian Xi said something about Gray’s soul might not find its way into the new body without the symbiot to guide it so that is an indication Adria still has it. We have been told many times removing the symbiot from the host would kill them. This show doesn’t stick to the established rules sometimes, but the Trill said that last season about Adria.

[Quilt Fairy]

Admittedly I didn't have the close-captioning on, but I didn't understand what the flying f*ck was going on in this episode. 

And they really could jack the lighting up a bit, the whole show is so dark, which is 180 degrees from the OG Star Trek. 

[Chit Chat]

Having just watched this episode, it was a bit of a yawn for me & Mr. Chat.  Too much emotional crap going on.  However, I did like that Book got closure on his nephew's death. 

On 12/2/2021 at 4:39 PM, Stardancer Supreme said:

It was not a good idea to give Tilly a sword. 

Yeah, it's pretty stupid to give someone a weapon who has zero to little experience with said weapon.   They should've taken their phasers.  You don't let others dictate your safety.  That was stupid too.  It's not as if they were going to some kind of meeting where they'd all sit down at the negotiating table to have a discussion.  They were basically going into battle without a weapon.  

[Colorado David]

Ok is it me or is the bridge spread out further? I wonder if they widened it for covid reasons? Or maybe it's just the shooting angles.  I guess the amount of wasted space on Trek starships has always been a nitpicky point.

Also...Book is not a part of the Federation right? Or at least not a Star Fleet officer....wouldn't you think officers might resent Burnham's reliance on bouncing all her thoughts/feelings/actions off of him so heavily?  I'd quibble over her being able to separate her emotional attachment to him and being objective. 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Colorado David
added Book part

[millennium]

On 12/2/2021 at 11:53 PM, statsgirl said:

I was okay with their story last season but this one Adira and Grey are approaching Wesley Crusher levels of annoying for me.

I'm not okay with it, in large part due to the terrible acting.   Adira is the blandest, boringest shade of vanilla in the universe.  Meanwhile, Gray's constant smiley-weepy "I'm just so precious" manner grates on my every nerve.  

Guess you could say the trill is gone.

 

Edited February 13, 2022 by millennium

[Mr. R0b0t]

This show has taken a hard left turn into trauma-ville. Everything is secondary to characters processing trauma, only how much you enjoy it depends on how much you enjoy a particular character.  Where is the sense of wonder and adventure?  Are we exploring and science-vesseling anymore?