S01.E10: Despite Yourself

[ahisma]

15 hours ago, CanadaPhil said:

I am thinking that they will be here for a significant period of time and maybe even the entire remainder of Season 1. 

Yikes! I agree, it does look like they're settling in for a while. But I was freaked out when Burnham sat down in the captain's chair and then they warped away, knowing Lorca was in the torture chamber. When she completed her whole shift and then did the do with Tyler? I was cringing even before they did the cutaway to the brig. I don't care how shady Lorca is—that is horrifying. Don't tell me she can't access computer records from her ready room or her quarters.

(Also, is Discovery going to be able to shadow them through warp and everything, to be close enough to transport them back?)

Obviously, with Stamets' spore time/space prescience, they'll be going to the palace. Probably killing the emperor while they're at it. (In which case, for Burnham's sake, I hope it's not Georgiou.) 

 

10 hours ago, starri said:

Aaron Harbets, Gretchen Berg, and Wilson Cruz all said on Twitter last night that this isn't the end of their story.  And that they'd run the story by GLAAD before they committed to it.

I hope this is true! I was shocked on multiple levels when Culber was killed. At the very least I thought the industry was beat over the head when The 100 pulled their no-happy-endings stunt.

[LittleIggy]

Loved badass Captain Tilly. Lorca doing a Scottish accent was awesome to the max!

[dwmarch]

1 hour ago, LittleIggy said:

Loved badass Captain Tilly. Lorca doing a Scottish accent was awesome to the max!

Both of these moments were indeed awesome but that reminded me of another badass: Stamets. There's a moment where he gets all aggro and throws Culber across the room. Culber excuses it like "his adrenals are off the charts!" but that's not adrenaline, that's some "in every generation a Slayer is born" shit right there.

[MissLucas]

6 hours ago, Emily Thrace said:

It occurs to me that a simpler explanation would be that they just implanted Voq's brain pattern in Ash Tyler and the real Voq is in stasis some where. I swear it happened in Voyager at one point.

That would be simpler but Dr. Culber explicitly mentioned that Not-Tyler's whole skeleton had been altered. Radius, femur and spinal chord were shortened - so that makes him physically Voq. No idea what the Klingons did with Voq's DNA but if they can transplant personalites it's probably no stretch to imagine they developed DNA-cloaking. What happened to Tyler's body is the more burning question to me because I'm invested in Tyler's survival and it does not look good right now. Of course Burnham & Co might run across a fascist Alt-Tyler in desperate need of a personality transplant.

[marinw]

9 hours ago, paigow said:

On 1/8/2018 at 7:11 AM, marinw said:

 because the Mirror Universe may be homophobic. 

Depending on the Terran Empire pragmatism, it may end up being not homophobic at all...the rampant xenophobia may make homophobia irrelevant since any able bodied human willing to fight would be needed against overwhelming odds...

Which may be why this ISS isn't too sexist and women get to cover their stomachs.

So how does Gotee Spock get aboard the ISS Enterprise?

[paigow]

4 hours ago, marinw said:

So how does Gotee Spock get aboard the ISS Enterprise?

He killed Sarek, rebel leader....ETA but Sybok escaped

Edited January 9, 2018 by paigow

[Lebanna]

I think Ash isn't just a revamped Voq - he could be a Frankenstein's monster of both bodies - Voq's stronger Klingon bones and muscles under Ash's organs and skin so that he can pass as human. The brain is probably some weird amalgamation of the two. The plan is clearly that Voq is undetectable but has all his Klingon physical advantages ready for when he needs them. Obviously, most Klingons aren't as nutty as Voq, which is why most Klingons would rather just disguise their outsides - and the fact that the process has at least partly failed may be why they won't bother doing it again in the future, leading to easier detection of Klingon spies, but way less angst. He's a typical Starfleet sweetie who has been murdered, revived, and now is stuck walking around in skinsuit-structure with a homicidal maniac whose personality, memories and sexual predilections are totally opposed to his own. In fact, it's like one of those comedy episodes like 'Tuvix' where someone gets mixed up with someone else on the transporter pad or whatever. Only this time, it's a horror story.

This episode was everything I had hoped it would be - although I gasped at Culver's death. The emperor has to be a woman - that's why at this point women don't have to wear the belly shirt - Discovery will probably kill her and the next emperor will be a sexist bastard who will decree that there be bellies all around, again.

Lorca bashing his own head in twice was awesome. Normally, a TV character would  get someone else to hit him, but he knows Starfleet officers can't hit their captain in the face without a half-hour discussion of ethics and the command structure, followed by guilt and sadness for days. He's a sketchy guy, but he's also terrifically practical.

I liked that there was a little shout out to the 'culture of fear' of difference which makes a society want destructive fight or flight all the time. It was obvious, but damn if it doesn't need to be said. 

Edited January 9, 2018 by Lebanna

[tennisgurl]

First of all, I dont buy for a second that Culber is for really reals dead. I read some interviews, and, without giving away spoilers, there is a LOT of "dont panic, stop signing petitions, we have a plan beyond Kill The Gays" going on from the actors and writers, including Wilson Cruz himself. At least, he better not be dead. Even beyond the whole Bury Your Gays thing, I just like his character and I think he has potential. 

Anyway, I love me some mirror universe, so I am super pumped about this episode. While I would have cut out the killing of Culbert (this kind of drama can really hurt a show in the midst of a bigger story) and whatever is going on with poor Ash (I just want him to still be Ash and not that dickhead Klingon in disguise), the rest of it was golden. I love how Lorca was going on about how the crazy coincidence of people existing in multiple universes, and even being similar to each other, is prof of fate, because, yeah, when it comes to alternate universe stuff, you just need to turn your brain off a bit about the semantics and just go with it. Its like when shows try to work in tons time travel into their plot. It usually doesn't make much sense, but if the story is good, I can just go with it. 

Lorca had some great moments, especially when he did a Scotty impression to pretend to be an engineer, and his reactions to Tilly as Killy the Terran Badass. I also really liked that moment where he told Michael that he was disappointed that he wasn't a better person in this universe. He kind of smiled self deprecatingly, but he looked so sad, and Michael looked so sad for him for a second. I know that the "Lorca is actually Mirror Lorca" theory is out there, but I hope they dont go there. He works well as a conflicted person who has good intentions, but also has crossed countless moral lines, and while he doesn't like it, he keeps doing it. 

As for Ash, my current theory is that Ash really is Ash, but he was merged with Voq, so now both people live inside his head, and Voq is fighting for control. I really do think that Ash has no clue what is going on, so that makes me feel better (as I really like him) but I am worried about where this is going. I hope he gets control again, because this could possibly be interesting. Its kind of like the sleeper Cylons on Battlestar Galactica. 

[legaleagle53]

2 hours ago, Lebanna said:

The emperor has to be a woman - that's why at this point women don't have to wear the belly shirt - Discovery will probably kill her and the next emperor will be a sexist bastard who will decree that there be bellies all around, again.

Don't forget, though, that when the TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror" first aired, the sexual revolution was in full swing. Up until Barbara Eden started the trend on I Dream of Jeannie a few years earlier, bare midriffs on women that exposed the navel were a no-no.  The barely-there minis and the exposed belly buttons on TOS were actually very much in keeping with the feminist mindset of the time as a way of empowering women to demonstrate their sexuality as freely as men had always been permitted to.  As the TOS actresses themselves have repeatedly pointed out over the years, those outfits were what they wanted to wear because it meant that they could flaunt themselves to their hearts' content without being thought of as slutty for doing so.  The post-feminist standards of 2018 simply can't be retroactively applied to practices and mindsets from 50 years earlier.

Edited January 9, 2018 by legaleagle53

[Lebanna]

1 hour ago, legaleagle53 said:

Don't forget, though, that when the TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror" first aired, the sexual revolution was in full swing. Up until Barbara Eden started the trend on I Dream of Jeannie a few years earlier, bare midriffs on women that exposed the navel were a no-no.  The barely-there minis and the exposed belly buttons on TOS were actually very much in keeping with the feminist mindset of the time as a way of empowering women to demonstrate their sexuality as freely as men had always been permitted to.  As the TOS actresses themselves have repeatedly pointed out over the years, those outfits were what they wanted to wear because it meant that they could flaunt themselves to their hearts' content without being thought of as slutty for doing so.  The post-feminist standards of 2018 simply can't be retroactively applied to practices and mindsets from 50 years earlier.

Oh, yes totally. My mother watched TOS first run and has always been very clear that the minis were empowering not sexist for women at the time. In fact, as a teen I loved that Uhura would even hoik up her dress even further every now and then and the male crewmen would never act like that was distracting or about them in any way, or made her in any way less of a professional. Because if that's what she's doing that's her business. As a kid at a school which had a million rules for girls so that we 'wouldn't distract our male teachers' - because everything men thought or did was obviously our fault - that Star Trek message about healthy positive male/female relations was awesome.

But we are where we are now, and minis/belly shirts don't seem that empowering anymore in a highly professional context in our current society for women, anymore that they would be for men. See also the tight trousers on everyone, male or female, similar to our current skinny jeans, but so far the total lack of a female regular character in a tiny catsuit and/or with massive boob/butt padding and a corset as in VOY and ENT - (which frankly was never on any level, positive for women even 15 or 20 years ago. Those suits looked massively uncomfortable and society in the 1990s had not deemed anatomically exaggerated catsuits empowering. No, not even the Spice Girls.)

A show being made in 2017, about a women who is a complicated intellectual introvert just  isn't going to feature them, and one more amusing explanation would be that there's a woman in charge and she's not keen on seeing bare female flesh everywhere she goes. And a male emperor would demand it. After all, this is an evil universe.

Obviously the real reason is that the current actresses/viewers probably wouldn't find it appropriate anymore in that work/military context. Is that a retrograde step? There are probably a million arguments in both directions, but that's another story.

Edited January 9, 2018 by Lebanna

[Bort]

The original series’ dress code and the politics that go with it doesn’t have anything to do with this episode, let’s keep it on topic, please. 

[tpel]

4 hours ago, Lebanna said:

Lorca bashing his own head in twice was awesome. Normally, a TV character would  get someone else to hit him, but he knows Starfleet officers can't hit their captain in the face without a half-hour discussion of ethics and the command structure, followed by guilt and sadness for days. He's a sketchy guy, but he's also terrifically practical.

Yes, this was an awesome moment, largely because Lorca bypassed the usual discussion and took care of business himself. It's cool how clearly his character shines through in moments like this, despite the fact that his identity and agenda are still pretty unclear. To wit:

The MirrorLorca hypothesis seems the most likely at the moment. At the time of the destruction of the Buran, MirrorLorca was somehow transported to the Prime universe. This makes sense of Lorca's flexible morals and the fact that he intentionally misdirected the last spore jump--trying to get back home. But why exactly would he want to go back? He was the most wanted man in the Terran Empire, after failing to kill the emperor. Not exactly a role one would be eager to resume. And while he took the mirror universe in stride pretty well, he did seem genuinely confused at times, such as when the Cooper was hailing them.

Alternatively, he could be PrimeLorca, who wanted to go to the mirror universe, perhaps to try to rescue the Buran. I like this idea, but it is hard to square with the fact that he jumped before transmitting the Klingon shield algorithm to Starfleet. As devoted as a captain may be to his crew, it is hard to fathom him sacrificing the key to the war effort for them.

[MissLucas]

If Lorca is Mirror-Lorca then I can see why he wants to go back - to finish the job. And Burnham gives him the perfect opening. We're told that Mirror Burnham was a favorite of the emperor. Not-dead Burnham will definitely get an invite to the palace and she'll bring along her prisoner. This would also explain Lorca's mild obsession with Burnham

But I'm not entirely sold on the theory because none of the explanations for Mirror-Lorca being in the Prime universe make much sense to me. Also: nobody ever noticed his wrong quantum signature? Maybe not before when nobody was looking for it. But shouldn't Saru have noticed in this episode that there was a wrong quantum signature on board the Discovery? Or were the scanners just sweeping outer space? How do quantum signature scanners work?

What is clear though is that Lorca wanted to jump. Any doubts about this went out the window when he shot down Burnham's idea of checking the logs. Too bad Culber's gone (for now) - at least he was on to him.

[Emily Thrace]

On 1/8/2018 at 5:11 AM, marinw said:

Maybe they will recruit Mirror Culber because he's a nice guy in both Universes, and Mirror Culber will defect from the ISS  because the Mirror Universe may be homophobic. 

Considering Enterprise showed that in the Mirror Universe the Nazi's won (They redid the theme song for Enterprises Mirror episodes it showed this) that wouldn't be surprising. However The Terran's don't seem to follow any of Earth's racial hang ups (see Burnham as a black captain) it may be they've forgotten that one too.

[tennisgurl]

3 hours ago, tpel said:

Yes, this was an awesome moment, largely because Lorca bypassed the usual discussion and took care of business himself.

Yeah that was awesome, and such a classic Lorca moment. Need to look banged up? Dont ask someone else to do it, just slam your head into the wall a few times mid conversation! Ever the pragmatist, our captain. As others have said, he might be sketchy, but he gets shit done. Especially when most Starfleet people tend to be rather "lets discuss the moral and ethical situations behind blah blah blah" and Lorca is more "I just kicked several doors down and punched a few guys out, can we get moving?"

I like the Terran Empire outfits. The Terran Empire might be evil, but they're pretty sharp dressers. 

[LilJen]

On 1/8/2018 at 2:51 PM, staphdude said:

If you are about to give some very disturbing news to a sweaty, twitchy long term Klingon detainee who is definitely hiding something- stay out of reach and prepare for shields up!

 

Tilly is great. Burnham  is either epically stupid or easily swayed by some sexy time. Boo either way. Lorca is ice cold but hours in a bug zapper may change his perspective.

Yeah, the doc wasn’t being very safety conscious, was he? Poor Ricky. (Reminder to self to watch My So Called Life again.)

Dear Ms Burnham: Although we understand that you may need some comfort and pleasure in these stressful times, we strongly recommend that you avoid pursuing  such pleasure and comfort with someone who only recently returned from months of sexual torture by Klingons, someone who also recently refused treatment for the PTSD stemming from that torture. Sincerely Yours, The Predecessors to Counselor Troi

[paigow]

https://gfycat.com/gifs/search/mirrorverse

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I like the Terran Empire outfits. The Terran Empire might be evil, but they're pretty sharp dressers. 

Mirror!Kirk had a sparkly tunic that was quite flattering...

Edited January 10, 2018 by paigow

[LittleIggy]

3 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

 

I like the Terran Empire outfits. The Terran Empire might be evil, but they're pretty sharp dressers. 

So were the Nazis.

I want to see the ISS Discovery in our universe being all non-PC.

I wish Tyler would shave his neck stubble. I hate neck stubble!

Didn’t Burnam tell them not to torture Lorca? I want to see her read them the riot act for that.

[tpel]

^^^ She didn't want Lorca put in the agony booth at all, but her main argument was that they might accidentally cause his death. She settled on insisting that he be installed properly and making it clear that if he died there would be hell to pay. I thought it was ambiguous, at the end of the first scene in the brig, whether "installed properly" meant put in a regular cell or put into an agony booth with appropriate non-fatality protocols. From the final scene, it appears to be the latter. I guess demanding that an infamous prisoner not be hurt would be so far outside the standard practice that it would arouse suspicion.

[marinw]

10 hours ago, Emily Thrace said:

However The Terran's don't seem to follow any of Earth's racial hang ups (see Burnham as a black captain) it may be they've forgotten that one too.

The Terrans save their racism for the other beings they encounter. The racism is still there, it just has new categories.

Edited January 10, 2018 by marinw

[The Kings Foot]

10 hours ago, Emily Thrace said:

Considering Enterprise showed that in the Mirror Universe the Nazi's won (They redid the theme song for Enterprises Mirror episodes it showed this) that wouldn't be surprising. However The Terran's don't seem to follow any of Earth's racial hang ups (see Burnham as a black captain) it may be they've forgotten that one too.

I would say Enterprises Mirror Universe titles show the Terran Empire coming into existence in the 1930s not necessarily that the actual Nazis won.  The titles do carry the implication that MU Earth was always more warlike and aggressive than Prime Earth.

 

Also I noticed  STD's Terran Empire uses a different symbol than both Enterprise and Star Trek.  The sword is very different rather than just a refinement.

[CanadaPhil]

I have been going on about "Mirror Lorca" for ages in earlier threads, especially after the moment where Cornwell clearly does not recognize one of two distinct but very different scars on Lorca's back... remenber that?

But I am going to add one more thought to this idea- Lorca is Mirror-Lorca, but from yet ANOTHER Universe altogether!  (not the Terran one, but a third! and there are still many, many, many more)

He knew enough about being able to cause the Discovery to switch realities, but this place is still not where he was attempting to get to.

PS: These "Mirror Universe" storylines have never failed to deliver in various Trek series and I am luvvvvvin this new take on the idea.  :)

Edited January 10, 2018 by CanadaPhil

[paigow]

3 hours ago, marinw said:

The Terrans save their racism for the other beings they encounter. The racism is still there, it just has new categories.

Humanity finally united...just like Independence Day...

[MissLucas]

13 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I like the Terran Empire outfits. The Terran Empire might be evil, but they're pretty sharp dressers. 

Well I find their uniforms a tad too flashy - I take that as a sign the Shukomliov Effect (beware tv tropes link!) might kick in at one point.

[paigow]

3 hours ago, MissLucas said:

Well I find their uniforms a tad too flashy - I take that as a sign the Shukomliov Effect (beware tv tropes link!) might kick in at one point.

It did kick in - the humans became rebel scum and kept kidnapping Prime!Sisko to replace their dead one...

[marinw]

So I gather that Klingon surgeons are not into Anesthesia. Poor Ash. 

[John Potts]

Wait - Discovery didn't send the details of how to penetrate the Klingon cloak? Couldn't they have sent the specs for breaking the Klingon cloak with the Admiral? Or simply transmit the data!? Surely Starfleet has some sort of secure encryption - this is critically important information for the war effort you relay it as soon as physically possible!

Still no other Security Personnel, I guess? So when Captain Lorca said he wanted Ash as his "Chief of Security", he really meant "only Security Officer". I'd like to think somebody would at least query him releasing the prisoner. 

Nice to hear a brief bit of Jason Isaacs real voice (or close to it, that was definitely exaggerated)

So Discovery can detect brain tampering - did they lose that ability over the years, 'cause it's a Trek staple!

Guess the experience of duelling Klingons last episode improved Michael's knife fighting.

On ‎08‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 2:01 AM, marinw said:

I don’t get how everyone can have a counterpart-the parents would have to meet up at exactly the same time in both universes.

That's always been the problem with the Mirror Universe - despite how different everyone is, they all end up in the same place. It's a staple of the previous Mirror Universe episodes.

On ‎08‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 5:09 AM, Kromm said:

Butching her [Tilly] up a bit actually displayed her... assets... very well.

Also a staple of the Mirror Universe!

On ‎08‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 2:38 AM, ottoDbusdriver said:

I'm also having difficulty with the plan -- to get the USS Defiant details so they can find the soft spot between universes near the Tholian sector.  But that soft spot connected to a point 10+ years in the future in the prime STDverse to a point nearly 100 years in the past of the Mirror universe -- how exactly are they going to manipulate the time portion of the transition back to the STDverse ?

Presumably they just need the data. They know Discovery can make the jump between Universes (if they had a functioning spore drive, at any rate), they just need to know how to do it.

On ‎08‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 5:46 PM, Colorado David said:

Burnham reconfigures the original Discovery's quantum signature to match those of the alt universe's Discovery. Is a quantum signature so easy to alter?

I'd argue no, as it would seem to be a fundamental property of matter in your Universe (maybe Quarks have integer spin in the Mirror Universe, or something) - it might have been more practical to say they could mask their quantum signature using matter from that Universe. And quite frankly, why would anyone even check that? It would be like checking to see that the speed of light was 300,000 kps. (If they're already that suspicious of you to check things like that, they'd probably already have killed you, just to be sure).

But that's enough arguing about made up Treknobabble!

On ‎10‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 1:39 PM, CanadaPhil said:

These "Mirror Universe" storylines have never failed to deliver in various Trek series and I am luvvvvvin this new take on the idea.  :)

Really? You're a fan of DS9's the Emperor's New Cloak? Or Resurrection?

[marinw]

7 hours ago, John Potts said:

On 1/10/2018 at 9:39 AM, CanadaPhil said:

These "Mirror Universe" storylines have never failed to deliver in various Trek series and I am luvvvvvin this new take on the idea.  :)

Really? You're a fan of DS9's the Emperor's New Cloak? Or Resurrection?

Too bad we never had a TNG Mirror Universe episode(s). Mirror Picard would have been spectacular.

[HouseofBeck]

One of the things I loved was that it finally made sense why Stamets called Tilly “Captain,” back when he was first showing the more troubling effects from the spores. At the time, I’d just thought he was out of phase and seeing into the future—a normal future. 

[Tachi Rocinante]

The show is still keeping my interest, but they are running out of familiar tropes.

[ctlady]

Hub and I just binged watched S1 on CBS On Demand and patiently waiting for S2 to upload.  I'm in agreement that Culber may not be dead.  I want a backstory episode on Lt. Detmer's facial injuries/prosthetics from the pilot.  Most interesting character I want more of in S2 - L'Rell

And after reading various posts throughout the S1 episodes, I think I may be in the minority of finding Tilly absolutely annoying and babbles like a teenage girl.  How she every made Captain in an alternate universe is beyond me!