S02.E03: Point of Light

[Bort]

Quote

A surprise visitor to the U.S.S. Discovery brings shocking news about Spock and dredges up past regrets for Burnham. Following the asteroid incident, Tilly struggles to keep a grip on her reality. L’Rell’s authority on Qo’noS is threatened.

Airdate: Thursday, January 31, 2019

[marinw]

I like Amanda’s outfit.

And that is my profound observation for this episode.

[jcin617]

I guess that’s one way to set up the Section 31 spin off.

[Starchild]

Is it just me or was that a confusing mess of an episode? Seemed a little ambitious.

My favourite part was with Tilly. 

Wasn't Stamets leaving? Not that I want him to but, did I miss something?

[jcin617]

1 minute ago, Starchild said:

Wasn't Stamets leaving? Not that I want him to but, did I miss something?

 I think he said once this “red energy” mission was over.

[Starchild]

Ah OK. 

Funny that The Orville thread is hotter than DISCO. The canon ST show clearly has some ground to make up after last season.

[Frozendiva]

So Tilly's ghost was a fungus. Who wasn't happy to leave her comfortable home.

An ep that was all over the place. Good to see Ash again and also L'Rell. The Klingons sure are bloody. Wonder who's head was actually thrown. Had no idea that there was a L'Rell offspring. Which is now on some Klingon monk planet? Half expected Spock to be the Emperor or whatever Giorgiou calls herself.

Spock has encountered the Red Angel since he was a kid?

Also found parts of the ep confusing.

[Cerulean]

It’s convenient that the space spores glow. 

Also, I noticed the spore land on Tilly, but assumed it was an artistic shot to show something fading. I did appreciate that what I thought was artsy turned out to be a plot point. 

[dwmarch]

2 hours ago, Frozendiva said:

So Tilly's ghost was a fungus. Who wasn't happy to leave her comfortable home.

An ep that was all over the place. Good to see Ash again and also L'Rell. The Klingons sure are bloody. Wonder who's head was actually thrown. Had no idea that there was a L'Rell offspring. Which is now on some Klingon monk planet? Half expected Spock to be the Emperor or whatever Giorgiou calls herself.

Spock has encountered the Red Angel since he was a kid?

Also found parts of the ep confusing.

Tilly's ghost also paves the way for the return of Culber since we have now seen that something in the mycelial network can be pulled into regular space.

The heads were replicated in unusually specific detail per Ash and Georgiou's conversation on the Section 31 ship. Another unusually specific detail was a reference to "Control" which as far as I know was born in the Star Trek novel universe (with David Mack's DS9 novel "Control" telling the story of exactly what Section 31 is and who/what is behind it). Screen to novel references are absurdly rare but not unprecedented. IIRC, Sulu and Uhura's first names came from novels.

The Klingon monk planet is Boreth, established in TNG. I was a little surprised to see the D7 as the hot new Klingon ship as that ship did appear in Enterprise at least once (although was admitted to be a VFX mistake). Still, I did appreciate the attempt at canon patching as the Disco Klingon ships don't look anything like any other Klingon ships we've ever seen and I know I am not the only person who found that annoying.

[thuganomics85]

I guess it was alright, but I continue to find the Klingons to be the weaker parts of this serious.  L'Rell could be a compelling character, but it just feels like her is always stuck in formulaic stories and none of the other Klingon characters are really all that interesting.  But I guess if anything, this episode was really about bringing Georgiou (yay!) back into the fold, and setting her up for a Section 31 spin-off.  And is Ash "Klingon Formerly Known as Voq" going also be joining or will he got back to Discovery?  Also, I recognized Alan Van Sprang as the Section 31 captain, which is cool.

Makes sense that Amanda would be more involved with finding a way to find Spock, since Sarek attempting anything would likely be more problematic.  And I guess one of the big secrets this season is going to be what Michael did to hurt Spock to the point that they don't communicate anymore.

Turns out that Tilly had a space spore this entire time!  Glad they figured it all out, but I wish she had told someone sooner: especially after she accidentally chewed out Pike on the command bridge!  Hopefully Pike is a forgiving and understanding captain!

[KimberStormer]

After giving us a completely mediocre TNG episode last week, suddenly we are back to the most outrageous OTT wackiness of Season 1.  I sort of loved it.  It's hard for me to take the show seriously when it's trying to be Dark Woke Prestige Trek, but as I said when they were in the Mirror Universe last season, I really enjoy it when it's being Captain Proton, with severed baby heads, sneering villains, sword fights, and poor Amanda having to deliver the most wooden expository dialogue imaginable.  I can even deal with the constant swoopy cam and scenes in Klingonese.

I feel like there's a thing they love to do on this show which is set up a thing which you think is going to be a season-long plot point and then end it the next episode.  (Like the tardigrade last season.)  I thought it would be a lot longer before we knew what was going on with Tilly and her Baltar/Six situation.  That's not entirely over, I know, but still, I was surprised.  Shoulda known!  Another person who shoulda known is Tilly: in the 23rd Century they believe people who are seeing things, and investigate them, they don't decide they're crazy right away.  (A minor nitpick is I think it's a little much for her to win the half-marathon after stopping to shout at her hallucination for like five minutes...)

It's so nice to have Ash back since Shazad Latif is for my money the best thing about this show.  He and Burnham's conversation was almost as baldly expositiony as Amanda's scenes, but he can sell that shit and make me feel emotional to have them talking again.  It's also nice to have Michelle Yeoh back, still having the time of her life as the arch-villainess Ming the Merciless style.  But wasn't the entire point of Section 31 that nobody had heard of them, to the point where you were never sure if they even were Starfleet or just a bunch of crazy criminals?  Why does Ash know their deal down to knowing what their insignia look like, but not Sisko?

Still do not care about Spock.  And it's amazing to what extent they are willing to flagrantly dispose of any prequel plausibility or even any kind of common sense at all when it comes to filling in all these outrageous revelations about Spock's past.  He's been seeing angels all his life!  He's on a soul-searching vision quest -- no he's voluntarily committed himself to an insane asylum -- no he's killed the guards and escaped!!  His heretofore unmentioned foster sister was horribly abusive in some mysterious way!!!  ("The fact that you don't answer shows that the damage must be irreparable!"...if I were Amanda's actress I'd be suing these people for giving me this dialogue)  At this point my Sybok Theory is the only possible way out that I can see for giving us a Spock that in any way resembles the one we know.  And it's all so unnecessary, it's just because they didn't trust their own ability to come up with new characters we might care about as much as people cared about Spock back in the 60s.

In any case, if they sustain the crazy overplotting and over the top characters and general pulpy Captain Protonness then I will be very happy to watch, whatever wacky choices they make.

[MissLucas]

Too many plots for one episode, the result was some heavy-handed writing. You could definitely hear the exposition fairy clumping through this episode in iron-clad boots,  she probably thought it wise to invest in some sturdy gear in order to fight the dizziness caused by all the swoopy camera work (somebody was having lots of fun with scene transitions that would have made more sense on the Roci).

Voq/Ash recapping his whole weird plot from S1 was hilarious (gotta keep newbies up to speed). As was Burnham's blink-and-you-miss-it explanation for the sibling estrangement which really needed a flashback given the gravitas it carries for the overall plot (we might get one later but the whole thing felt awfully clunky).

Tilly's been infected by a sentient fungi collective (I think???) yet nobody bothers to establish some sort of communication before vacuuming the thing out of her? I'm pretty sure May mentioned a planet that needed rescuing. But who has time for that?

The whole Klingon plot was okay-ish since it dealt with a couple of issues that needed to be addressed before moving on: Tyler's status among the Klingons, his relationship with L'Rell (which was actually handled pretty well) and L'Rell trying to consolidate her power. Getting emperor agent Giorgiou back into the plot was great fun. So, L'Rell was pulling an Elizabeth I at the end and Tyler is joining Section 31. I'm glad we're keeping Tyler around but leaving the Klingon baggage behind (more or less - who knows if that baby won't return). Tyler and Philippa are actually a surprisingly good team since both of them share complicated backstories and are in need to establish a new identity.

Solid outing with some issues. And while plenty of plots were dealt with at break-neck speed the main plot is hardly moving at all *sigh* 

[strippedhalo]

I don't care at all about the Klingon storyline, but Giorgiou smiling/sneering at the baby depending on whether or not someone was looking at her was amazing.

[UNOSEZ]

I enjoyed the episode... Felt weird that Tilly just wanted May out.. Without talking to her... Its obvious she's got something going on.. I guess maybe she thought it would just be a lie from May

[KimberStormer]

"I hear that, post-war, the Klingons are growing their hair again!"

I love that they decided whoops they don't want all-bald Klingons after all and instead of just not mentioning it like sensible people, they had to put this line in there.  I guess Star Trek nerds are famous for their nitpickery, but I sort of feel like nobody would have noticed the change if they didn't put this silliness in.

[strippedhalo]

50 minutes ago, UNOSEZ said:

Felt weird that Tilly just wanted May out.. Without talking to her... Its obvious she's got something going on..

It did seem like Tilly could have taken a minute to ask May what she actually wanted, but I guess if a fungus ghost had been making my life difficult for a little while, I'd just want it gone, too.

8 minutes ago, KimberStormer said:

"I hear that, post-war, the Klingons are growing their hair again!"

I love that they decided whoops they don't want all-bald Klingons after all and instead of just not mentioning it like sensible people, they had to put this line in there.  I guess Star Trek nerds are famous for their nitpickery, but I sort of feel like nobody would have noticed the change if they didn't put this silliness in.

I'm nowhere close to a Star Trek nerd, but I noticed in a kind of absent way. However, adding that line made me take way more notice and also wonder exactly how fast Klingon hair grows, considering they all suddenly had waist-length hair (but the baby was still such a little infant). So thanks, show, for making me wonder about Klingon physiology.

[MissLucas]

6 hours ago, strippedhalo said:

I don't care at all about the Klingon storyline, but Giorgiou smiling/sneering at the baby depending on whether or not someone was looking at her was amazing.

Thanks for pointing that out! I hadn't noticed and had to check back - that was hilarious! I wonder if that was an improv by Michelle Yeoh. On a sidenote: she mentioned children of her own, that was news to me, I thought Mirror Burnham had been her only (adopted) child. I loved that little exchange she had with L'Rell about using a Nanny (or whatever the Mirror equivalent was) and L'Rell's deadpan 'I will consider that advice'.

[starri]

I do think that was some A+ level skullduggery from Section 31.  Since their mission is to keep the Federation safe by any means necessary, and they need L'Rell in power in order to do that.  In no particular order, they managed to eliminate her biggest rival, spin that into helping her consolidate power, find a safe place for the baby, and recruit Ash.  That's damned efficient.

I will say their ship was butt-ugly.

[ottoDbusdriver]

I've got admit, I was a little bored.

 

And agree with @starri, that ship was ugly.  Complete with retractable nacelles a la Voyager.

[LittleIggy]

I think Giorgiou was trying to go “goo-goo” to the baby without anyone seeing. Made me laugh. She was the highlight of the episode.

[paigow]

20 hours ago, MissLucas said:

I'm pretty sure May mentioned a planet that needed rescuing. But who has time for that?

Only planets that Red Angel deems worthy need to be saved.....

[FormerMod-a1]

I could have without a return to the Klingons, or at least these Klingons.  I hope it was just to set up Section 31.

Although I can't blame her, I was still kind of surprised Tilly went right to "get rid of her right now".  I thought once she knew what was going on, she might try to communicate more.  It's obvious "May" is desperate for some kind of help.  I was also surprised at how big May ended up being.  Granted, she is an interdimensional species and probably wasn't taking up our physical space in Tilly's body, if she was that'd be even more painful. :-O

[LittleIggy]

I don’t blame Tilly at all for wanting that annoying thing out of her! That voice would drive me insane in no time flat.

[statsgirl]

I could push to understanding why Tilly wanted it out of her. But isn't making contact with new species the entire point of the Federation?

I loved Amanda stealing Spock's file when the facility wouldn't give her any information on him. You go, girl. It's nice to get more insight into who the woman is that Sarek defied tradition to marry.

I noticed that Shazad Latif is regular cast. I was glad to see Giorgiou, who is billed as a guest star, but I don't need more of Tyler than the occasional visit.

[starri]

3 minutes ago, statsgirl said:

I could push to understanding why Tilly wanted it out of her. But isn't making contact with new species the entire point of the Federation?

Well, they didn't kill it.  It looked like it was just hanging out in midair after Paul extracted it.

[statsgirl]

At the least, it's going to make it a lot harder to communicate with.  And it was freaking out which will make it even more difficult to make friends with.

[starri]

8 hours ago, statsgirl said:

At the least, it's going to make it a lot harder to communicate with.  And it was freaking out which will make it even more difficult to make friends with.

I guess, but it was HURTING Tilly.  I don't know if seeking out new life requires a Starfleet officer to host a parasite, which is more or less what May is.

[xaxat]

On 2/1/2019 at 1:02 PM, KimberStormer said:

"I hear that, post-war, the Klingons are growing their hair again!"

That actually made me laugh because I immediately thought of Worf's "We do not discuss it with outsiders." from TNG.

On 1/31/2019 at 11:15 PM, Starchild said:

Funny that The Orville thread is hotter than DISCO. The canon ST show clearly has some ground to make up after last season.

It's never going to catch up. I don't know how many people subscribe to CBS All Access, but it's probably a small fraction of Fox viewers.

I agree with those who felt that the amount of exposition and multiple plots left this episode feeling uneven. And I hope this is the last time we hear about Klingon consolidation. 

Shazad Latif does a good job with the role, but Ash/Voq has never worked for me. Going back to the "is he or isn't he" plot.

Georgiou's ship is so uncharacteristically angular for a Starfleet vessel. It looked like it was made of Legos. I suppose that was an intentional design choice, but I'm not a fan.

[marinw]

2 minutes ago, xaxat said:

I suppose that was an intentional design choice, but I'm not a fan.

OTOH, I did like the design of Amanda's shuttle. Very Classic TOS.

[paigow]

46 minutes ago, xaxat said:

Georgiou's ship is so uncharacteristically angular for a Starfleet vessel. It looked like it was made of Legos. I suppose that was an intentional design choice, but I'm not a fan.

It looks like a TOS Klingon battle cruiser with the phallic part removed......

Edited February 3, 2019 by paigow

[Latverian Diplomat]

Not a big fan of the whole Section 31 idea anyway. The idea that democracies are full of soft ignorant people who need secretive bad asses who are above the law to quietly save the day while the ordinary citizenry sleeps doesn't seem very Star Trek to me. At least DS9 tried to pretend it was a dangerous institution (though it saved the Federation there too, with the founder plague weapon). Disco seems to see it as more like James Bond, at least in this episode.

I thought the treatment of the spore creature was a bit off as well. Tilly wasn't in any immediate physical danger, and while it was in her they at least had a way to communicate with it, find out what it was trying to accomplish, and search for a peaceful solution. I mean, "Lights of Zetar" looks enlightened in comparison, and it was made fifty years ago.

[starri]

57 minutes ago, marinw said:

OTOH, I did like the design of Amanda's shuttle. Very Classic TOS.

Also reminiscent, in a good way, of the Vulcan ships from Enterprise.

I'm fairly forgiving of the there being different design aesthetics between this and previous series, particularly since they were a lot looser on that that people remember.  But I did have a hard time with the look of Qo'Nos and particularly the First City.  There weren't even small echoes of what we've seen previously, except maybe the omnipresent fire.  I mean, the difference between a TV budget in 2019 on a prestige series vs a syndicated series in 1989 are stark, but they could at least have kept the sky red.

5 minutes ago, Latverian Diplomat said:

The idea that democracies are full of soft ignorant people who need secretive bad asses who are above the law to quietly save the day while the ordinary citizenry sleeps doesn't seem very Star Trek to me.

I don't think 31 considers the bulk of the Federation to be soft and ignorant.  If anything, they seemed to admire people who get to live out their idealism.

[MissLucas]

2 hours ago, starri said:

I guess, but it was HURTING Tilly.  I don't know if seeking out new life requires a Starfleet officer to host a parasite, which is more or less what May is.

It wasn't hurting her physically but stressing her out emotionally. And it was actually helpful during last episode it was just starting to freak out since Tilly refused to listen once she had figured that it wasn't an actual human. Which is understandable - but the moment Burnham had established that it wasn't a ghost they should have tried to establish some form of first contact before starting the space Hoover. TNG's 'Imaginary Friend' handled a somewhat similar scenario better although Not-Isabella had started to issue threats.

[Latverian Diplomat]

12 minutes ago, starri said:

I don't think 31 considers the bulk of the Federation to be soft and ignorant.  If anything, they seemed to admire people who get to live out their idealism.

Frankly, that seems patronizing to me. "I wish I could be idealistic like you, but I have to do the dirty work of saving the universe so you can pretend I don't exist and you don't need me."

The parallels to Col. Jessup's speech in A Few Good Men seem pertinent to me.

Don't get me wrong, TOS and TNG both dealt with the necessity of espionage and secrecy, but it was not something compartmentalized into a phantom organization with zero accountability and a secret charter. It was part of Star Fleet's responsibility. 

[clyo22]

The whole Spock's storyline is awful. I wish we could go back and make Michael the adoptive daughter of another Vulcan. Why did they have to create all this stupid drama around their childhood? Why does she act as if she tried to murder Spock when they were children? Why does he have to be linked to those stupid signals? He isn't a character of this show! Stop talking about him and making up storied that have nothing to do with what we know of his future!

I would have prefered Ash/Voq to embrace his Voq identity. I mean he was never Ash. Ash was just a template to create a human identity and body for Voq. Or am I remembering it wrong? Now he is going to work for the federation again. And Emperor Georgiou... I'm apparently the only one to detest that character. I liked Captain Georgiou and I was disappointed that she died. Emperor Georgiou is a monster. The fact that she will get a show as a Section 31 agent is like Hitler getting a show and being glorified in it. Yuck.

On a side note Klingons have really really big heads!

[starri]

1 hour ago, clyo22 said:

I mean he was never Ash. Ash was just a template to create a human identity and body for Voq. Or am I remembering it wrong?

There was an Ash Tyler.  They grafted Voq's personality over his.

[MissLucas]

And Voq's personality is gone now - L'Rell had to basically kill him at the end of last season. This is how she explained the Tyler/Voq hybrid to Saru:

Quote

The one you call Tyler was captured in battle at the Binary Stars. We harvested his DNA, reconstructed his consciousness and rebuilt his memory. We modified Voq into a shell that appears human. We grafted his psyche into Tyler's. 

And then there's this exchange between Saru and L'Rell when the hybrid started to self-destruct:

Quote

Saru: I do not know where your Voq ends and our Tyler begins, but they are both in jeopardy.

L'Rell: Only my hands can tend to him. 

So L'Rell performed some procedure/ritual to remove Voq. Saru described it as 'An attempt to excise the Klingon in Tyler's neurological identity'. Test conducted afterwards showed that only Tyler remained but he had acess to Voq's memory.

Definitely not the show's strongest plot. Better not start to think too hard about the logistics - just go with it and enjoy the pretty *hoping Section 31 has a strict grooming protocol banning man-buns and hipster beards*

Edited February 4, 2019 by MissLucas
Clarified quotes.

[Frozendiva]

Canadians see the show on their Sci Fi Channel - Space. No CBS All Access for us.

[marinw]

5 hours ago, Frozendiva said:

Canadians see the show on their Sci Fi Channel - Space. No CBS All Access for us.

Yes, I'm would not pay extra to watch this show-my bill is too high already!

[jah1986]

I don't love it as much as I want to. My favorite part was Georgiou's smiling/sneering at the baby. I was bored with the whole Klingon storyline, probably because I was never invested in Voq/Ash and I never bought Ash as the great love of Michael's life.

I do wish they had shown us what actually happened between Michael and Spock, Michael being so vague makes me think the writer's haven't come up with a good answer yet.

My biggest take away is that I cannot watch Discovery immediately after watching The Orville because Discovery almost always comes up feeling like it's lacking in comparison.

[Sandman]

That sound you heard was a million fanboys muttering "Nope!" simultaneously when the psychiatrist on Spock's medical file/vlog entry suggested that he killed three people.

I've decided that, despite the showrunners' protestations to the contrary, this show is set in an alternate reality and not the so-called "Prime" timeline, and that it's some sort of non-Euclidean dimension where things like logic don't actually apply, or perhaps exist.  

Edited February 4, 2019 by Sandman

[Sandman]

On ‎2019‎-‎02‎-‎03 at 7:25 AM, xaxat said:

Georgiou's ship is so uncharacteristically angular for a Starfleet vessel. It looked like it was made of Legos. I suppose that was an intentional design choice, but I'm not a fan.

Black Legos! Because Section 31 is so badass! (It helps if you read the foregoing in a Lego Batman voice.)

[MissLucas]

I don't think we are supposed to believe that Spock actually killed three people. It sounded to me as if there's a lot of shady stuff going on that that TPTB want to cover up with this story. Clearly there's a lot more to the whole thing than just Spock having a mental break-down hence the stonewalling of both his next of kin and Pike. 

[Sandman]

Oh, I agree; no doubt the very idea of Spock as a demented killer was a complete fakeout by the show (though it does seem in character for Pike not to be taken in), but there was just something so "Dun Dun DUNN" about that scene, so palpably was the show waiting for me to gasp in alarm, that I couldn't help imagining a widespread, almost autonomic refusal to play along. This show is plainly, unabashedly crazy, and in love with its own loopy excesses. If The Orville is a sincere and well-meaning (but clunky and adolescent) homage to TOS, then this one is what would happen if TOS fanfic and Drunk History had a tiny, pointy-eared baby. And the baby were purple, for no real reason.

I don't consider these bald lizard people actual Klingons, though, so I'm not that invested in Ash/Voq and L'Rell, and the whole Section 31 recurring subplot just needs to die already. (I can't believe it's going to series.) I love Michelle Yeoh, but Emperor Georgiou is a monster, and I'm not interested enough in her brand of evil and crazy to put up with the "ST universe" (again, not really) version of Gotham.

Edited February 4, 2019 by Sandman

[KimberStormer]

4 hours ago, Sandman said:

This show is plainly, unabashedly crazy, and in love with its own loopy excesses.

I agree with this but to me this is the part I like.  Gonzo crazy Star Trek is something we haven't seen before, whereas last episode was a tired TNG plot that was as bland as the Enterprise D's decorating scheme the first ten times it was rehashed.  I'm mostly pretty negative on Discovery, though the first seasons of post-TOS Trek have always been pretty rubbish so it's not super surprising; but what I am positive about is when it's totally bananas and not pretending to be profound/hip/woke nor another version of a show from 30 years ago.

But I don't think the people involved actually have a vision for Discovery at all, which is why it's all over the place, and they keep changing who's in charge...

[MissLucas]

5 hours ago, Sandman said:

 If The Orville is a sincere and well-meaning (but clunky and adolescent) homage to TOS, then this one is what would happen if TOS fanfic and Drunk History had a tiny, pointy-eared baby. And the baby were purple, for no real reason.

I'm with agent G on this one: The freaks are more fun.

[ottoDbusdriver]

14 hours ago, Sandman said:

I've decided that, despite the showrunners' protestations to the contrary, this show is set in an alternate reality and not the so-called "Prime" timeline, and that it's some sort of non-Euclidean dimension where things like logic don't actually apply, or perhaps exist.  

 

Totally agree with this, no matter how hard they may try to shoehorn STD into the Prime Universe, it has strayed so far from the events of TOS that it is indeed it's own timeline.  I'm going to go with the 'Fungi Timeline'.

Edited February 5, 2019 by ottoDbusdriver

[Sandman]

On ‎2019‎-‎02‎-‎03 at 6:07 AM, starri said:

I guess, but it was HURTING Tilly.  I don't know if seeking out new life requires a Starfleet officer to host a parasite, which is more or less what May is.

I would say that's exactly what May is, and a deceptive one at that. Worse, it seemed to me that May was encouraging Tilly only insofar as she was willing to go along with the fungal agenda; it seemed like May was becoming more hostile as Tilly became less cooperative, the more she worried about her own sanity. This is not a creature whose intent is to make friends. 

Edited February 5, 2019 by Sandman

[paigow]

On 2/1/2019 at 7:40 AM, MissLucas said:

Tyler is joining Section 31.... 

At this rate, Harry Mudd will be recruited / blackmailed to join....

[Linderhill]

7 hours ago, paigow said:

At this rate, Harry Mudd will be recruited / blackmailed to join....

ugh, please no.  I am not fond of this Harry Mudd in the least.  It was all I could do to watch his short.  All thru it I kept wanting him to get killed off even tho I know he's canon in TOS.