One of the themes of the second season of Discovery is fixing what was broken—or at least off-kilter—in the first season. Some of these are carried a bit too far. Honestly, I don’t need Pike not liking holographic communicators to “justify” why they didn’t have them in “The Cage” in 1964. (I also don’t need them to explain why the Enterprise used printouts in that failed pilot episode.)
But with this episode, they address one of the biggest fuckups of season one, the death of Hugh Culber in “Despite Yourself.”
First of all, full disclosure, this episode was written by Kirsten Beyer, who is an old friend of your humble reviewer.
Second of all, let’s address the elephant that has been taking up a lot of space in the room since “Despite Yourself” aired thirteen months ago. The solution to how Culber has been brought back from the dead is, on the one hand, pretty crazy; but on the other hand, it’s no weirder than, say, having his memories infused into a corpse that was reanimated by a science project gone awry. Seriously, if you have an issue with Culber being resurrected by Stamets’s connection to the mycelial network, but you’re totally okay with the equally ridiculous events of The Search for Spock, then I question your sincerity.
And it’s all wrapped in a story that is pure Star Trek. The Culber that we saw in “Vaulting Ambition” wasn’t just a mycelial hallucination, it was a copy of Culber that Stamets somehow created in the network.
But, as we’ve seen through “May,” the jahSepp who bonded with Tilly, the network is a thriving ecosystem. According to May, there’s a monster that has been destroying the network, and she kidnapped Tilly at the end of “An Obol for Charon” in order to enlist Tilly’s assistance to destroy this monster.
Buy the Book
A Memory Called Empire
Meanwhile, back on Discovery, they catch up to Spock’s shuttle only to find that the only occupant is Georgiou. Section 31 is also looking for Spock, and they caught up to the shuttle only to find he was long gone.
The execution of this plotline was beautifully handled by writer Beyer, director David Barrett, and especially Anson Mount, Sonequa Martin-Green, Alan van Sprang, and Michelle Yeoh. The tension between Burnham and Georgiou is magnificently played by Martin-Green, as we see the anger, the betrayal, and the guilt all etched on Burnham’s pores. Georgiou calls her on the fact that it was Burnham who dragged the ex-emperor’s ass across universes back in “The Past is Prologue,” so if Georgiou is now a person of authority within Starfleet’s black ops organization, Burnham has nobody to blame but herself. But now Georgiou is looking for Spock, and that probably isn’t a good thing for her brother.
On top of that, Georgiou’s true identity is classified, and Burnham isn’t allowed to discuss it with Pike. Pike, though, knows something’s up, as he went to the Academy with Georgiou, and she seems way off. (“The war changed her,” is Burnham’s bland response, later promising to tell Pike everything at an appropriate time. Pike urges her not to make him chase her for it.) Pike and Leland, Georgiou’s CO, last seen in “Point of Light,” is also an old friend of Pike’s, and their friendship is strained by their current duties. Pike works in the light, Leland in the shadows.
This comes to a head when Discovery goes almost literally half-in-half-out of the mycelial network to rescue Tilly. When the ship is in danger of falling in, it turns out that the S31 ship has been shadowing them all along, and has made absolutely no move to help Discovery until they’re specifically asked for help. The livid outrage from Mount is palpable and dangerous, and it’s clear he’s very much not happy with S31 playing games with his crew’s lives. His “We’ll talk about that later—at length” to Leland is intense. Mount is simply killing it this season, transforming Pike from the sullen man of action Jeffrey Hunter gave us into a charming, charismatic, compassionate captain.
Unfortunately, while the execution is, as I said, beautifully done—culminating in a great conversation among Leland, Pike, and Admiral Cornwell (always good to see Jayne Brook again) as the admiral tells the pair to work together to find Spock—the actual structure is problematic. When Section 31 was introduced in Deep Space Nine’s “Inquisition,” an episode that takes place a good century-plus after this episode, it was established as being so sooper-seekrit that nobody had ever heard of it. That’s very much at odds with S31 being a known black-ops division of Starfleet, complete with combadges and ships with holographic camouflage 117 years prior.
Besides the continuity issue is that Section 31 is a really terrible idea, a cheap writer’s crutch, enabling people to do dirty-tricks plots rather than actually do stories that follow Star Trek‘s optimistic mission statement.
It’s especially hilarious to see S31 in an episode that highlights Trek’s trademark compassion. Just like the conclusion of the Grover-narrated children’s book The Monster at the End of This Book gives us the revelation that Grover himself is the titular monster, we find out that the monster May is so concerned about is Culber—who is, in fact, also in danger in the network, forced to use matter from the network to armor himself. Both Culber and the jahSepp have been damaging each other, and the solution is to bring Culber back with them. It takes some technobabble to make it work, of course, but it does.
What’s great about that plot is that it’s a classic Trek tale of a monster not being a monster, of things not being the worst-case scenario that we assume, and the solution coming from a place of compassion. May kidnapped Tilly because the jahSepp need her help. Discovery did the batshit-crazy thing of acting as a doorstop holding open the way to the network (Pike’s apt analogy) because they needed to rescue Tilly. And May, Tilly, Burnham, and Stamets work together to find a way to bring Culber home so everyone can live.
This whole episode is really a triumph of execution over idea. The entire notion of S31 as we see it on Discovery is terrible, but it works here. Georgiou’s having dirt on Leland is perfect, showing that the emperor is doing what she does best in this universe, too, and Pike and Leland’s friendship puts an interesting twist on the Starfleet/S31 rivalry that will obviously be playing out going forward. (It’s a rerun of the Tal Shiar/Romulan military conflict seen in The Next Generation‘s “Face of the Enemy” and the Central Command/Obsidian Order conflict seen throughout DS9, but those are totalitarian states where you expect that sort of thing.) And the entire Tilly-in-the-network subplot is just there so they can bring Culber back. You can see the strings, but since it’s righting a serious wrong from last season, I’m willing to accept it. Especially since it’s done in a way that shows our heroes being just that: heroes.
And we still haven’t seen Spock yet. Last weekend, the Shore Leave convention announced that Ethan Peck will be one of their headline guests in July, and yet we still haven’t seen him. Every single advertisement for Discovery season two has emphasized the presence of Spock on the show this year, the image on CBS.com for Discovery is a shot of Burnham and Spock, yet we still haven’t seen him. And next week it looks like we’re doing a sequel to “The Brightest Star” as Saru gets to bring his revelation from last week to his people, so probably still no Spock. We’re approaching the halfway point, guys, can we please get on with this?
All this, and I haven’t yet mentioned the return of Shazad Latif as Ash Tyler. He’s sticking around as the S31 liaison on Discovery, and it’s already clear that Pike doesn’t want him there given that he murdered a Starfleet officer. Stamets’s one scene with him is brief, and Stamets is too busy detailing his crazy-ass plan to rescue Tilly to do more than shoot him a pained look. But this is going to create some serious tension, as Stamets has to serve with the guy who killed his lover and, better still, the guy he killed gets to serve with him too! That won’t be awkward at all!
Latif is doing some fine work here, as this version of Tyler has different body language from either Voq or the old Tyler. He’s more wary, combining both his human half’s past as a security chief (and now as a black ops agent) and his Klingon past as a torch-bearer to be on edge and observing everything. It’s gonna be interesting to see how this plays out.
Keith R.A. DeCandido‘s latest novel is A Furnace Sealed, the debut of his new Bronx-based urban fantasy series “The Adventures of Bram Gold.” Ordering information and an excerpt can be found here.
I wonder if what they’re perhaps angling towards is at the end of this season S31 gets publicly disbanded as having been a very, very bad thing and something Star Fleet should never ever do again and if THAT might be something that squares away the discord between this and DS9.
I liked this episode, it wasn’t perfect, but I liked it. I could do without S31 being an actual official branch of Starfleet Intelligence, and characters knowing about it. I guess that, just like with the mycellial network, we’ll get some sort of plot device through which it will be disavowed (at least officially) and go completely off the books, with knowledge about it among outsiders somehow very limited.
While I’m happy that Culber is back, and I like how they brought him back, I’m not that convinced about the way how he survived being killed by Voq in the first place. Still, as krad says, there’s been equally ridiculous or worse things in Star Trek. But yes, I’m happy Culber’s back (although it was kind of obvious after a certain point that he was the monster).
I did like how the jahSepp thought Culber was attacking them, when in fact, it was they (because of their very nature and how the network functions) who were preying on him and he was just defending himself (rather ingenuosly, too). The episode’s tension was well-handled, it kept you on the edge of your seat.
While I’m still uncomfortable about a possible romantic relationship between Michael and Tyler, I do love having him back on the ship. He doesn’t get many lines or things to do, but his facial and body language when he sulks in the background of the bridge are gold. Shazad Latif is great.
Another good episode in a series of them, but I find myself almost wishing for a stop to the sprint this season is on. I could use just a random “The Discovery has to do a science mission” episode instead of being so emotionally charged. Just let everything BREATHE. Ceru thought he was going to die, and he didn’t. Culber is back from the dead. Tilly just got kidnapped. Michael’s brother is missing, she almost died at the Hiawatha, and 83 other things. Its been good episode after good episode, but I’m worried about the pacing of the season, and if the emotional punches that will come are going to land due to viewer exhaustion.
As far as S31 goes, I wonder if they’re due to reset at some point as well- we’re a century or so away from DS9- it’s possible that whatever they’re doing this season ends with them “officially banned” but really just means the shackles are set free from mainstream Starfleet Intelligence. Somewhere between Enterprise and now they’ve become a marginally accepted super-organization but by the time DS9 arrives they’re fully underground. I’m trying to be more patient this season to see how the writers will fit this into existing universe before screaming “CANON” at the top of my lungs. After all a completely in the shadows organization is a fairly standard trope- think IMF from the Mission: Impossible series (also a CBS show) or the MiB, it could be that if CBS wants to make a S31 show, they need to first demonstrate how super awesome they are before driving them into the shadows.
Oh, there are lots of ways to reconcile the semi-open S31 here with the sooper-seekrit rogue organization of the 24th century, but I hate that the can of worms was ever even opened in the first place. As I feared back when “Inquisition” first aired, subsequent show-runners haven’t been able to resist using them. Enterprise did it with Harris, Star Trek Into Darkness did it with Admiral Marcus, and Discovery‘s doing it now. It’s, as I said in the review, a lazy writer’s crutch that doesn’t fit at all with the Trek universe.
So yeah, they can retcon it easily into becoming secret, but they also never needed to bloody well introduce it in the first place.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I generally liked this episode, but several things struck me as weird:
1. Exactly what DOES Pike know about Captain Lorca and the Mirror Universe? In the opening episode, he says he’s “fully briefed” on what happened with regard to Captain Lorca. If that is true, he was either told one hell of a lie or Starfleet completely omitted the part of the story about who Lorca was out to get in the Mirror Universe.
2. I find it somewhat interesting that we seem to see Georgiou growing a bit of a conscience at the end.
3. Time travel? Red signals and unusual matter? Hmmmm … this feels like it could tie in to another Alex Kurtzman Trek production – maybe 2 since apparently the Picard show will deal with the aftermath of the destruction of Romulus.
4. Am I the only one who noticed that Nhan’s uniform seemed to consist of a skirt and leggings? Has this variant been seen before?
5. So the Spore Drive doesn’t work anymore? Mae seemed to indicate that no one could access the mycelial network again, but they didn’t do a terrific job of explaining why not. We’re there indications that momentary access was causing trouble?
6. Apparently, there are no ErgoTrons in the future. An ErgoTron is a “sit/stand” adjustable workstation that is common in a lot of office spaces. In this episode, Burnham runs past two crewmen and one is working at a console that is so low that he is bent way lower than would be comfortable to operate it.
7. Where the hell was Jett Reno? Wouldn’t it have been helpful to have her around given that she was there when Tilly was taken? Wouldn’t her skills have come in handy?
With regards to trying to mentally resolve Section 31’s apparent status in the 2250s timeframe of Discovery versus the 2370s timeframe of DS9, I’m taking a ‘Batman’ view of the whole thing. In various media (comics, TV, etc.), it’s been shown that Batman can more or less be a public figure in the (relative) present, but at some point, Batman goes away–he’s killed, he retires, whatever. As time goes by, Batman becomes less of a public figure and more of an urban legend. Eventually, a few generations later, people question whether Batman ever truly existed. A few know the truth, but they’re not exactly shouting the truth from the rooftops. The public at large forgets about Batman.
Section 31 could do the same, and probably not accidentally, either. Presumably, as others have already mentioned, there’s probably a disavowal or “banning” forthcoming. As S31 officially ceases to exist in public, people stop talking about it. People who knew about S31 personally eventually die off. People with second- or third-hand knowledge of S31 wonder if the group ever existed. Computer databases’ knowledge of S31 is either purged or classified, possibly by S31 itself. And then 120 years later, few if any people are around who personally remember S31, so the likes of Bashir, Sisko, etc. can reasonably have no idea such an organization existed. And that period’s version of S31 can pursue its agenda quietly, without flashy badges or official Starfleet sanction, the way it always should have been.
@3/MikeKelm: “After all a completely in the shadows organization is a fairly standard trope- think IMF from the Mission: Impossible series (also a CBS show) or the MiB”
The MiB in the movies wasn’t a government agency; it was made clear that the government didn’t even know about them. Which does make them similar to what Section 31 was intended to be in DS9 and clearly isn’t in DSC.
As for the IMF, if you read between the lines in the earliest episodes of Mission: Impossible, it seems pretty clear that it’s an off-book operation under the unofficial sanction of “the Secretary.” That’s why they have to do self-destructing message drops and why the team members are talented amateurs recruited from all walks of life (e.g. a magician, a supermodel, an electronics company owner, and a circus strongman) rather than career spies. The pilot episode’s tape message established that Dan Briggs (Jim Phelps’s predecessor) had only just come back into the spy game after being retired, so the impression I got was that the Secretary recruited a retired agent to run an off-book, garage-band black ops group that could undertake especially sensitive or illegal missions on foreign soil. That’s why the “Secretary will disavow” line was in there — because they were totally unofficial, in order to give the US government deniability if they were caught or killed.
Unfortunately, this idea wasn’t really followed up on in the show, with the IMF often having the assistance of government agencies, especially in the final two seasons where they openly cooperated with law enforcement to bring down stateside mobsters (rendering the whole business of the self-destructing message drops completely pointless). Then the ’88 revival made the IMF a bigger agency with multiple teams and computer records of their disavowed agents (which contradicts the whole point of disavowing them), and then the movies took it all the way and made the IMF a subset of the CIA and a piece of a huge government bureaucracy. And the recent movies even nonsensically applied the title “Secretary” to the head of the IMF, rather than a cabinet secretary (probably Defense or State) as implied originally.
Dear Sir, I am truly pleased that you were able to spell F##kups but managed to not spell “seriously” correctically . Sometimes you just have to trust auto correct. Sincerely , Steven Stockbarger
I’m really enjoying this season so far and this episode was no exception. Even the weakest episode (02.03) was still pretty enjoyable. The only problem I have is the same as many others. The openness in which Section 31 (S31) operates. I don’t hate the concept of the organization like Keith does and I fully acknowledge that it is relatively easy to reconcile their Sooper-Seekrit (TM) status for the later timeline, I just don’t think it was necessary to have them operate in the open like this. It could have been easily avoided. Hopefully it doesn’t last and S31 is shut down by the end of this season and knowledge of them purged so that in the upcoming S31 series, they can be underground as they should have been from the beginning.
@@.-@ – krad: I don’t know, I liked how it was used in DS9, with Bashir; and then in David Mack’s books. But using it here and in Enterprise is a bit too much.
@5 – twels: If he was told about the Mirror Universe, then he could suspect Georgiou. And speaking of her, I don’t know if she’s developing a conscience, she’s just playing a long game, or she wants Michael alive because she reminds her of her Burnham.
@8 Using the word “correctically” in a post to correct spelling in a rather rude way – ironic post is ironic.
Steven Stockbarger: GAH! Stupid typos. It’s been fixed. (Yay, edit function!) Thanks for the catch of my fuckup. ;)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Even worse, the official Star Trek website is selling S31 merch. But hey, Star Wars made space fascism cool for kids too. Whatever. [shrugs]
Spike: I’m not really going to complain about Trek merchandise because we live in a capitalist society and that’s how this crap works. Besides, Gene Roddenberry himself asked that an IDIC pendant be inserted into the story of “Is There In Truth No Beauty?” not because he wanted to promote the Vulcan philosophy of infinite diversity in infinite combinations, but because he wanted to make money selling IDIC pendants to fans. So yeah….
—-Keith R.A. DeCandido
15. krad This is why I find it hilarious when I hear people complain about CBS All Access by invoking Gene and how he would be rolling in his grave if he knew they put Trek behind a paywall. Yeah, he was idealistic, but he wanted to make money just like the next guy.
@7 CLB… I try not to think of the movies for any number of reasons.
But I think that IMF is exactly what S31 was in DS9. Admiral Ross is certainly aware of S31 and seems to work with them on occasion as we saw in Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges. He says he isn’t part of S31 but that their goals alliance in a temporary alliance that he doesn’t like. Maybe they’re more like IMF than MIB (inasmuch that at least a few officials are aware of their existence as opposed to entirely anonymous) but that they’re supposed to be off-the-book. But you’re right, that’s not what we’re seeing here.
S31 at this point has it’s own powerful starships (not just conveyances from one place to another) and is an open secret. I’d vaguely buy that if we were talking Starfleet Intelligence but not the rogue off shoot. In fact I think if we replaced “section 31” with “Starfleet Intelligence” or we’d all just go with it. I think we can all write them into secrecy between now and then, but at this point there’s no reason for them to be involved.
@16/Jason: I don’t understand why people get so upset about paywalls for streaming TV when they already have to pay for cable TV service, not to mention if they want to see a movie in the theater, or own a book, or for that matter pay the rent and buy food and clothes. Paying money in exchange for services is something we take for granted in most contexts.
@17/MikeKelm: If you mean the Mission: Impossible movies, the first two were lame, but every one from III onward has been excellent, despite having very little in common with the namesake TV series (though Ghost Protocol came the closest). It’s come to be regarded as one of the best action movie franchises around, having outgrown its early missteps.
#15
The money made from them is the same color, yes, but don’t you think there’s just a teensy bit difference in what IDIC stands for and what S31 stands for? At least Roddenberry’s hucksterism had some minute degree of Star Trek positivity.
#16
So we’re free to criticize what S31 stands for in-universe, but when it’s crassly being slapped on T-shirts in the real world such criticism is suddenly hilarious? Now it’s on the same level as complaining about streaming services? Okay.
There’s a difference between Imperial/First order merchandise and S31 stuff. Those bad guys in Star Wars are part of a straight up fascist, genocidal government (which is bad, and I do have a Darth Vader shirt and action figures); while S31 is an organization that exists solely to protect a larger organization (The Federation) that is supposed to stand for positive values.
I understand that this is a capitalist society, and Star Trek is a business franchise, but still… And while I’m not crying out against it, I do find the idea of a S31 show to be a bad one. Even if they’re shown to be evil and morally compromising, making a whole show around the organization feels too much like tacitly approving their ways. I will, however, withhold judgment until the show actually airs.
#21
I wasn’t suggesting S31 and the Empire are the same, but they do both love them some dark outfits. ;-)
I know it sounds absurd to get upset about merch and whatnot. I just don’t like seeing Star Trek going down this particular dark path, no matter how great Michelle Yeoh looks in black leather. And to see S31 T-shirts and black badges being sold at a time when real fascism and police states are a concern is a little disturbing. But, like you, I will withhold further judgment until the show airs.
Keith, Discovery’s showrunner, Kurtzman, has addressed the Section 31 apparent continuity error. He’s said:
“If you know Section 31, you know that by the time Deep Space Nine comes around they’ve gone underground and they are this mysterious organization—but there’s nothing official about it. In the promos [for season 2] that you’ve seen so far, Section 31 has a badge. There’s a ship and all these different things, so the question is: how do they get from here to there? What happened in that window of time between those two pivot points in Section 31’s evolution?”
Which is probably why we’re going to have a Section 31 show. To see that “evolution”.
And while I do get your thinking Section 31 is an unnecessary plot point, I gotta disagree they’ve been overused. Section 31 has appeared or has been mentioned in a grand total of 10 occasions in Trek so far, one of these being in Into Darkness (which takes place in an alternative universe) and other in a deleted scene from Discovery‘s final episode of S1.
And it’s worth noting that we still know very little about the organisation. So there’s still space for World-building, in my opinion.
But I also happen to love them as a plot device and also love Mirror (and Prime) Georgiou and Michelle Yeoh, so yeah, I suppose I’m biased. XD
@krad: since you know Ms. Beyer, would it be possible to ask how much, if any, of the S31 stuff is influenced by Iain Banks’ Special Circumstances? The Culture was influenced by the Federation, but I think Banks figured out that there were some missions that couldn’t be handled openly by an officially utopian society. Almost every Culture novel isn’t directly about the Culture, but operates at the edges, where it grinds against other stellar societies. Why we need S31 to handle a murder investigation is an open question, Red Angel hovering in the background notwithstanding…
side note: Is Leland in any prior lore or a whole cloth invention of an old friendship (shorthand)?
You refer to the execution of the plot as “beautiful,” but as @MikeKelm and the AV Club review mention (for example), the pacing is just off. It’s like running in top gear and only at full revs. There’s isn’t a balance. From AVC:
“In its desperate need to constantly press forward, the show rushes to the high points without ever bothering to build up the connective tissue that makes those points matter. The result is like watching a perpetual trailer for a story that never quite arrives.”
Realities collide
It’s almost too much happening, with little room for the story to breathe. Which in some aspects may be a good thing…
This episode heightened the spore nonsense even more for me. If it was just a sub-dimension that could be accessed with a particular ecosystem, that’d be fine. But as a travel highway… ugh. The way the ship gets stuck, and the amount of matter (pseudo-matter?) on the other side, shows the amount of resistance to anything passing thru. This entire notion needs to just go away. Yet they are doubling down on it (and adding magical resurrection (yes, yes, Genesis and Spock)) and holding out a future appearance by Mold May.
Btw, did anyone get the sense that Tilly may be attracted to women? I may have mis-radared that.
It was a Valentine’s Day (coinciding) episode with emotions piled on top of each other. Stamets gets Culber back, but so far, I haven’t found anything about their relationship to be special. The recounting of their date, with added high-culture namedrops, (every museum in the world has rooms dedicated to a single artist… and Stamets is fascinated by this…) was, to (mis)use krad’s words, “a cheap writer’s crutch.” They don’t yet “live” as a couple. But then, the bridge crew barely had names or personalities last season, so there’s room for improvement.
Finally, agreed that the Spock misdirects are getting tedious.
I’m really torn about this episode..
I am happy they fixed the death of Culber. Just not sure this was the right way to do it. My assumption going in, and the way I still think it should have been played is that Discovery was the monster, causing immense damage every time they hopped into SporeSpace and thus why its not used anymore. If they also wanted to bring Culber back, why not have him come back and give visions to Tilly instead of May (how good could THAT have been) and technobabble him back at the end still.
Same with Section 31 – why did it have to be 31. Why not call it Section 13, have it end up being disbanded then go underground to the later section 31. That would make sense on several levels (and allow for some great plots).
And finally, the one that really bugged me.. Well, I’ll let another reviewer speak to that: “And speaking of Tyler, he openly strolls around the ship and sits in the mess hall to chat with Burnham. I guess we’re all supposed to forget that he is not supposed to be alive. Remember, the Klingon Empire thinks that he’s been beheaded. Why would he take the risk that word of his strolling around Federation ships wouldn’t leak out? It would surely destabilize Qo’noS.” More importantly, why does NONE of the crew even react in the mess hall to the man who KILLED one of their crewmates.
The episode was still generally good, but also felt like a fairly hamfisted attempt to resolve some plot holes and threads, where it might have made sense to stretch out a few more.
Finally, and not criticisms yet because I am not sure on the logistics of these. Did the Section 31 ship have a cloaking device or something or are they just that good to hide from a ship with the best sensors in the fleet? Is there some other faster than warp travel to get people around? Has the Admiral been on the Sec 31 ship the whole time, or were they a lot closer to earth? It’s been some time yes, but we know it was in Klingon space recently to get Tyler? What about Number One? I may have missed it, but did they go back to where enterprise is now presumably undergoing repairs, or at least close enough for her to take time to deliver mail? How much fuel/power/food/water did Spocks shuttle have anyway?
On the kudos count, yay for tractor beams that actually have physical connectors (one thing that always bugged me more than the ability of transporters just to beam anyway was an energy beam that could somehow just grab onto whatever mass happened to be there…
@25: We’ve not gotten too much of a hint of what Tilly is attracted to – save that she said her “soldier thing is back” after Tyler gives the stirring speech during the Harry Mudd episode (musicians being the other category she was attracted to). There were other folks who suggested that Tilly was attracted to the Orion woman in last season’s finale, but to me it just seemed like she was flustered at being in the middle of Georgiou’s transaction.
Well as far as Section31is concerned, at least they invoked Article 14 of the charter as established on Enterprise. Perhaps the Klingon war was the “extreme threat” necessary to initially invoke section 31, followed immediately by the Red Angels. At least I imagine that’s how Cornwell is justifying her actions. Who knows? Perhaps she’s acting unilaterally herself. Her association with Section 31 would also explain her willingness to blow up the Klingon homeworld in season 1.
It’s not a perfect continuity patch, especially given that no mention was made of Article 14 in the discussions between Dr. Bashir and Admiral Ross, which would seem to be a natural reply to Bashir’s accusations.
Perhaps there are reasons down the line that will be revealed that causes Article 14 to be revoked, which would truly make Section 31 a rogue agency by DS9’s time.
Given that section 31 was never seen until the Dominion war on Deep Space 9, perhaps that’s how section 31 justified its actions during that era. I don’t recall exactly how well that would line up with a section 31 episodes on the show, but I’ll soon find out. I’m in the middle of a Deep Space nine rewatch and just started season 4.
As for Culber, that’s as plausible a Sci-Fi Resurrection as any. Is energy transfer to the mycelial network and then restored to natural state in the real universe any more “out there” than being restored by a device that can transform a nebula into a functioning star system, even for just a short time?
I have to admit, that right when Culber tried to leave the network, I had a last-minute premonition that he wasn’t going to be able to leave. I am glad that that turned out to be a fake out, but I sincerely hope that this isn’t the end of the story. One cannot experience the things that Culber has experienced and come out the same person.
And consider this, remember how fast Starfleet clamped down on any information on the mirror Universe because it might compel people to try and travel there to find duplicates of lost loved ones? Imagine how they would react once they found out that there was a way to actually bring back your loved ones?
Hmm. Starfleet banned Genesis technology as well. Apparently they don’t want to find themselves in the resurrection business.
One thing which intrigued me was that Netflix had a warning that this episode contained sex. Unless they’re generically referring to relationships, I did not see any sex.
Not a fan of S31 in Discovery. Like you have said, they seem to have gone from something which a few admirals know about to something which an entire shipload of people know about? With special combadges? That people recognise? DS9-era S31 would have hit Discovery with photon torpedoes rather than tractor beams. Couldn’t they just have called it Starfleet Intelligence?
Also @krad, didn’t you say just the other week that explaining TOS’s lack of holocomms was a good thing?
@29– the warning was probably in regard to naked Culber.
The Empress and Tyler are back. Why? Culber is back. Good but why did he have to die in the first place?
Jeff Linder @26 “an energy beam that could somehow just grab onto whatever mass happened to be there…”
If they can make artificial gravity they can probably make that. Gravity couples equally to all mass-energy. It’s actually more plausible than ‘energy ropes’ and also would not disrupt the tractored object by pulling only on certain locations.
Matt: yes, I did say that. One problem with reviewing the show this way is that you’re getting my initial impressions without much time to cogitate heavily. My initial take was that it was cute, but the more I think about it, the less I like it.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Hi I rarely comment, tho I really appreciate these reviews KRAD!
I just wanted to say with regards to Section 31’s presence here and what many people are saying is its disruption of the known history of the ST universe, that I think it speaks to something that I thought DISCO season 1 was doing really well (I was a fan, and found it a great complexifier of the OG Star Trek template).
Which is to emphasise that history doesn’t happen as two points connecting as straight line. History winds around, and everything that seems so jarring here with Section 31, likely explains why no one knows of it in DS9.
I really like this aspect of how DISCO is developing the Star Trek mythos – we didn’t get to the noble, ordered Starlet without fucking up a bunch. It gives me hope in these hell times.
@34/olaf78: “History winds around, and everything that seems so jarring here with Section 31, likely explains why no one knows of it in DS9.”
Except that history is, well, history. It’s the documentation of the past. If Section 31 had been an openly known entity in the 23rd century and had then seemingly dissolved and gone underground, that would explain why people in the 24th century wouldn’t know it was still active, but it wouldn’t explain why they’ve never even heard of it. After all, people in the 24th century have a good education and learn about history. If they can rattle off the details of James T. Kirk’s missions or World War III or the Alamo, then they should recognize “Section 31” as the name of a spy agency that was known to exist in the mid-23rd century. So, no, I’m afraid it doesn’t explain it at all.
S31 must develop the MiB neuralyzer at some point.
@35: I’m not sure that the whole “going underground” theory explains why our heroes don’t know about Section 31 in DS9’s time, but it’s probably the best reconciliation we are likely to get.
I’ve never been a huge fan of the way some Deep Space Nine stories characterized the Federation as a utopia that was only held up by dirty deeds behind the scenes. It’s hard to reconcile that with the more optimistic POV of TOS and TNG. Unfortunately, once that toy box was opened, it seems like the writers were unable to resist going there any chance they got. Hence the Section 31 stuff that shows up in the subsequent movies and tv shows.
@37/twels: I think you’re being unfair to DS9. Yes, it depicted characters like Sloane and Admiral Ross who believed that dirty tricks were necessary for the greater good, but it did not show them to be correct in that belief. On the contrary, it ultimately proved them wrong, because it was by working against Section 31’s genocidal plans, curing the Founders that S31 wanted to exterminate, that the heroes ultimately ended the war.
By the same token, in ENT: “Affliction” and “Divergence,” Section 31’s Harris believed that colluding with the Klingon Admiral Krell to abduct Phlox would help cure the Ku’vat plague and avoid the destabilization of the Empire, but Krell betrayed him and almost destroyed the colony before the Starfleet heroes saved the day. The attempt to “do good” by dirty tricks failed, and it was more conventional heroism that succeeded. Granted, Harris’s help was useful in “Demons” and “Terra Prime,” but only to a limited extent, and the crew ultimately solved things without needing S31.
So Star Trek up to now has never actually shown that Section 31 genuinely was needed for the greater good. Maybe it was left ambiguous in “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” and “Demons”/”Terra Prime,” but the rest of the time, S31’s methods tended to do more harm than good, and it was the rejection of their methods that saved the day.
@39: I suppose it would be more accurate to say some DS9 CHARACTERS rather than STORIES stated that the Utopian Federation was held up by dirty deeds behind the scenes. Nevertheless, the revelation that the Federation/Starfleet had essentially an assassination bureau. – and that it was built in from the very start – does quite a bit to tarnish the organization our heroes work for. Yes, it’s more morally complex, but it’s less aspirational.
That said, it’s also the fact that most Section 31 stories after the first one generally weren’t that good that contributes to my dislike …
@39/twels: Again, just because the Section 31 characters claimed that a dirty-tricks bureau was “built in from the start” doesn’t mean their claim was true. It’s more like they exploited the ambiguous phrasing of a poorly written line in the charter about “extreme measures” and decided that it meant what they wanted it to mean. As we’ve seen in various debates such as the interpretation of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, it’s possible to twist ambiguous language to mean something completely different from what the framers of the document had in mind.
It really would make more sense if they simply called them Starfleet Intelligence instead of Section 31 and kept the latter in the shadows. But I guess S31 has brand recognition with fans? Is that the reason they’re pushing the name so hard?
This kind of reminds me of the 2009 movie where they used “Delta Vega” as the planet where Kirk and Spock Prime are marooned. Sure, it’s a cute Easter egg to use that name, but the people in the audience who will get the reference will also know why it doesn’t fit within that particular situation. I mean, of course, there can be more than one Delta Vega, but references work best when you don’t confuse or annoy people. Kill your darlings and call it something else.
@41/WorkerBee: Yeah, I thought of that — people seem to find names with numbers in them cool for some reason. A name like “Section 31” probably resonates with “Area 51” and its associated mythology, all that woo-woo conspiracy-theory stuff. And then there are the various real and fictional spy agencies with numbers in their names, like MI-6 and Alias‘s SD-6 and so on. So “Section 31” probably just sounds cooler than “Starfleet Intelligence,” I guess.
42. – Right, I hadn’t thought of the Area 51connection before. I guess they could call Starfleet Intelligence S.I. or some other catchy shortened form. But then that’s awfully close to CSI. Gee, this really is a CBS show!
How about…
S-Tel
StarSpies
I know…
StarFleetigence!
Haha
I keep trying to come up with ways to make this work with what’s was established on Deep Space nine, but they all seem forced and unnecessary. The best I can come up with is that somehow Section 31 manages to suppress any information about itself through a computer worm of some sort? The way Section 31 is being portrayed is my first major issue with Discovery. Ultimately, I feel as if they’re just developing it as a vehicle to keep Michelle Yeoh around, and I certainly have no objection to that, but a better way would have been not to kill off her prime universe character in the first place.
One possibility they won’t use, but that I would kind of enjoy, is that the 23rd century section 31 was/will be shut down successfully. The one in the 24th century is a very young rogue organization. Its claims that they’ve secretly been around forever and are written into the charter are just lies to make them look scary and unstoppable
(They’re a ruthless black ops organization that doesn’t play by your rules. Why would they need to be telling the truth about anything?)
Or maybe they do believe it, same as some Freemasons believe they have a continuous history back to Solomon’s Temple. They’re just fooling themselves, possibly helped by a manufactured connection to a real sanctioned but misapplied intelligence op from the last century, so they can cosplay hard men/women/others doing the hard things in the general panic of the Dominion War.
I avoid spoilers and trailers for this show as much as possible, and I’m glad they didn’t show my friend Hugh Culber in the preview for this week’s episode, so I had no knowledge of what was going to happen in this episode. It was a wonderful and heartbreaking moment to see a distressed but very much alive Hugh Culber. The show righted a terrible fuckup from last season, and, to coin a phrase, KRAD, I don’t give a good goddamn how they did it.
I also still don’t give a damn about Section 31. It’s a lazy non-seguitur in this universe that just doesn’t fit. But at least they were somewhat interesting here, although the always-reliable Captain Pike did most of the heavy lifting there. Pike’s reaction to “Captain” Georgiou and his interactions with Leland made for great viewing. (Can we just keep Anson Mount forever on this show? I know, we can’t because Pike needs to get back to the Enterprise. I’ll just enjoy the ride then.)
Great performances by all, and that’s what sells this story for me. I’m always thrilled to see Michelle Yeoh, not so much Emperor Georgiou, as now seeing her means more Section 31 jibber-jabber. Also, I’m torn on Tyler. On the one hand Shazad Latif is always compelling; on the other Tyler is another piece that doesn’t fit, as Tyler staying on Qo’nos was doomed to fail, and he probably should have been sent to a Federation prison for Culber’s murder (or voluntarily went, as a way to make amends for what he’d done).
A good episode, one that fixes the sins of the show’s past, dragged down only by Section 31, but still made better by the surprise return of Admiral Cornwell (it’s really good to see her again).
Sadly though, they’re still dragging this Spock thing out. Can we please stop this, please?!
Oooh, this episode is a doozy. Simply put, I think there’s far, far, far too much going on in this episode. I’m relatively sure that this ‘cram it all in’ mentality is half the problem.
I still don’t like the use of S31. If they’d made it Starfleet Intelligence it would be fine (and why are we even calling it Starfleet Intelligence? Do the army call it Army Intelligence? No. It’s just called Intelligence, which is far more ominous a moniker IMHO), they’re still allowed to be a bit on the dodgy side and live in the grey areas, but are far more suitable given the story so far.
And commbadges? 150 years early? No Thank You! I’d accept them housing trackers or emergency beacons, but 2-way comms? That said, I did like Pike’s shock at it.
And regardless of even if it’s very short range, how the hell did Disco not notice the asteroid keeping pace with it? At any range.
And the forced rush of the Tilly-kidnap/Culber-rescue plot line that really needed a whole episode to itself.
And the comparitively incongruous slow-mo scene bookending the show, that would have been fine if they just had that last one to deal with. I know they’re tight for time in this season, but the whole S31 schtick was the ruin of this episode and would have been better dealt with on it own next episode, on the way to Kelpia at this era’s snail-like warp speeds.
Sure, have “somebody” turn up to help Disco, even have Georgiou on board already as part of the tiringly ongoing ‘Search for Spock’, but deal with Tyler and the other the consequences properly, and let Culber, Tilly and Mae have the time to tell theirs.
Also: Netflix. A confused, naked gay man that looks like he’s suffering from shock, being held and comforted by his fully clothed and combat armoured husband DOES NOT EQUATE SEX!
Eugh.
Otherwise, the episode was okay, but it’s grasping at former glories, as opposed to being glorious itself. The S2:E01-E02 baton is well and truly dropped; floundering in the mud whilst the writers and directors struggle over it instead of letting the actors run away with it. Yet, to continue that metaphor, those same actors are still winning each and every race they are loosed on. They are a dream and a delight to watch, even with a moving finish line.
@47/Berthulf: Unfortunately, the US TV content ratings system uses “S” for both sexual content and nudity, instead of having a separate “N” label for just nudity. It’s weird, since it has separate labels for “D – suggestive dialogue” and “L – coarse language,” which is a lot more granular. But then, Americans tend to have trouble perceiving nudity as non-sexual regardless of context.
US TV content ratings are alien indeed… so I suppose that makes sense, but watching it in the UK, and seeing the direct translatuon of S to sexually explicit references, when we have a nudity rating… that’s frustrating. Probably a little over sensitive to it in this case, as a gay man, watching a story trying to rectify a bury-your-gays episode, but then, Netflix UK obviously didn’t think there’d be a problem with the connotations so…
@47, I get the impression of a crowded and confused episode from many of these reviews. There always seems to be so much happening all at once. But it’s difficult for me to judge since the only episode I’ve actually seen is Brother and that was relatively straight forward.
I hated it when 24th c. stuff showed up in Enterprise and they’re doing the same thing here.
47. – We call it Starfleet Intelligence because Star Trek does. Has called it that since TNG or DS9, I think. And since Starfleet is essentially the space Navy, there is a real Naval Intelligence. So it fits.
Was very happy to see Culber back, but the method of his return left me with a question that maybe someone here has understood from the episode and can explain.
If I understand properly, his energy was transferred to the mycelium network by Stamet. But as that energy was materialized in the network using their matter he could not move back to Discovery. The solution was to have him transported using the cocoon so that his energy could be converted to matter using matter from our normal dimension.
Assuming that my understanding of these events is correct then how was Tilly able to step back to Discovery? She was transported to the network through the cocoon. Wouldn’t she be rematerialized using the matter from the mycelium network?
Really liked this episode however I agree with Kaboom and most reviewers do as well that Culbers return was a bit ridiculous – since its science fiction, many are willing to suspend disbelief and are just happy he is back – though I think they could have done it better, ie they could have had a mirror Culber or they could have had his death in season 1 be more ambiguous like Lorca’s , disintegrating into a space anomaly versus snapped neck
Overall I am a huge fan of Discovery but like many shows I feel the plot points move way too slow – the ridiculous delay in seeing Spock, the lack of Number One apart from a few minutes and the resolution of any plot points in general. I liked when Enterprise (the series) had short arcs, but resolved it within 3 episodes or so. I was really hoping Michael would tell Pike about Georgiou at the end of this episode but of course we have to wait for that too. And this week’s seems like its going to be a filler episode with no real plot development, focused on Saru’s homeworld
I do think Mount makes a great Pike , will miss him
I wish some iteration of the new Star Treks included a cameo for Shatner but he is getting to old to play Kirk – I can see them have a cameo for a Kirk (different actor) appearance though I dont think he should be incorporated into a story , maybe just a run in at Starfleet or something (he graduated Starfleet academy in 2254 and we are suppose to be in 2255 or 2256 in Discovery)
I also predict season 3 or possibly 4 (if it gets renewed) sees this universe’s Lorca rescued and somehow become captain
And here it is, the apotheosis of one of the worst creations in Trek lore history- that deranged “mycelial” daftness. This might be the stupidest hour of Star Trek since the first season of Enterprise in 2001- probably the one in which they’re trapped in a cave, hallucinating… because spores (the poetry of fate). The only way this hot mess has any redeemable value- if the kingdom of mushroom magic is never mentioned again. But we shouldn’t be so lucky. And Sonequa, please, when they make you record pretentious narration, you don’t make it any better by affecting a voice that sounds like someone reading a storybook to a classroom of children. (Not her fault really, she isn’t directing herself.)
Fave scene from this ep: “Spock?” “Spock.” “Spocka Spock?” “Spocka Spock Spock Spock!”
@52- WorkerBee: oh, I get that, but we always call it Starfleet Intelligence. And so do the characters. Do people in the Navy only ever call it Navy Intelligence? Does everybody you interact with only ever call you by your full name? No, and it would be incongruous of anyone to do that. It’s not what people generally do, is my point, and it strikes me as odd that we do it with this (fictional) organisation.
Another incongruity: @53-jmsnyc: it’s no more ridiculous than most implausible things in trek and a lot less than some. As I said above @47, I reckon it’s rushed and that the speed we’ve gone from “oh look, it’s Culber” to “look who’s back” makes it jarring, which can make even sensible things come across as ridiculous.
@52-Kaboom: #PlotHole! But actually, I’m not sure… she was brought across through the cocoon, but the cocoons seemed intact, whereas when Culber went back, the cocoon’s matter was specifically used to make him. So Tilly’s matter, whilst reassembled in the network, was actually from ours, whereas Culber’s matter from our universe was probably cremated/buried in space. TBH, I think it was just used as a way to amp the tension, which is actually ridiculous, because there was already enough tension and it was so blatantly obvious my TV groaned. So, #UnnecessaryPlotTwists and #TropeBingo. Things that have plagued Disco since S01:E01.
@53 I didn’t say I thought his return was ridiculous, just that it left me with a question that I was hopping someone would be able to explain. Which @55 might have. Good point about the cocoon not disintegrating when Tilly was transported.
@54 & @55, perhaps ridiculous was a poor choice of words – however I do think they could have done it in a better way in terms of science fiction. Again, comparable to Spock’s mind meld with McCoy to transfer his katra or whatever at end of Wrath of Khan – not sure if that was planned in advance of Search for Spock (ST3)
Everywhere online, people are complaining that S31 doesn’t fit with what we know… But we don’t know anything yet.
We are currently learning about Section 31 in Discovery. It is a section of Starfleet Intelligence that carries out the less than savory missions Starfleet deems necessary. The latest episode flat out says it.
100 years before this (Enterprise) it was something different. 100 years (or so) later (DS9) it will be something different.
Why don’t people know about it later? What did OSS division x2 do? What was Army Unit 267? What’s MI4? MI13? Office of Collection and Dissemination? Task Force X? OSI?
These are defunct intelligence divisions that are not in common knowledge now, if they even were 100 (and less) years ago in our world. And you can research them now, but there isn’t an agency that could be erasing their traces through history and records, as there could be in Ds9.
There could be no connection between Ds9 and Disco S31… It could be like the Maquis, just using the name of a historical division of SFI that was active for a few years before being subsumed in an organizational reshuffle to a larger group that has been renamed and reclassified 43 times before the organization was completely reworked following the Khitomer Accords. And again, that’s not even taking into account active suppression of information.
@58. Todd: Absolutely. It’s a spy organization that practices tricks, deception, disinformation… Of all the things that don’t line up with canon (hello, the Unbearable Wrongness of a Mycelium Travel Network), this is the sticking point for some people?
The problem I have with Star Trek focusing so much on a dastardly spy organization, besides going for the typical grimdark tone and mustache twirling, is that Section 31 really isn’t needed to tell peacetime spy stories. We’ve already seen on several occasions our heroes going on secret missions, disguised as Romulans and other aliens, pretending to be space pirates, stealing a cloaking device, etc.
Star Trek doesn’t need to go DARK™ to be shadowy.
@60: One thing that bothered me on a partial rewatch of this one is the fact that apparently Leland botched a mission and did “something” to the wrong ambassador on Deneva, lied to his superiors about it and then KEPT A RECORD OF IT. How conveeeenient for Georgiou. Leland makes a threat to out Georgiou as the evil empress from another universe, but that seems like kind of a hollow threat. Firstly, even if it was incontrovertibly proven true, it’s not like there are people looking for her in THIS universe. Would the Klingons or anyone else come after her for crimes against people who don’t exist in this universe?
@22 – Spike: I was agreeing with you, in that they’re not the same, just adding that it’s worse to sell S31 merch.
@25 – Sunspear: I didn’t get that impression from Tilly, if you are referring to her attachment to May, it didn’t sound like anything romantic or sexual.
@26 – Jeff: We didn’t see how the crew in the mess hall reacted to Tyler when he arrived, but we do know that the chief of security (and quite possibly a couple of guards) is keeping an eye on him, right in front of them. But yes, it would have been better to have him wait in a conference room and not the mess hall. In any case, I’m not sure everybody knows who killed Culber.
28 – Steven: Unlike finding a loved one’s duplicate in the mirror universe, the mycelial network is not a resurrection device, because in order for this to happen again, you need someone lost in the network after hundreds of microjumps (like Stamets), who then has to interact with a just-dead person in order to transfer their energy into the network, and then you need a jahSepp to use a cocoon to make them a new body, etc.
@53 – jmsnyc: I sure hope they get prime Lorca back at some point. I wonder if he’s the captain waiting for them on Vulcan, where he was undergoing some kind of treatment.
@61 – twels: Maybe someone else above Leland is also implied in the Deneva incident, and he keeps records of it in case he goes down, to take them down as well.
While Star Trek has occasional resurrections with and without explanation from Leslie to Spock, I’d really prefer that most characters who die stay dead even when it’s narratively inconvenient. The alternative is to risk making death as much a joke as it’s become in the superhero genre, which makes it significantly harder to have much in the way of narrative stakes.
(Granted, I’d probably make an exception for contriving a return of original Georgiou, who I’d really prefer having to the Emperor. But even there I’d probably be wiser to just accept the situation and move on.)
McCoy : C’mon, Spock, it’s me, McCoy. You really have gone where no man’s gone before. Can’t you tell me what it felt like?
Spock : It would be impossible to discuss the subject without a common frame-of-reference.
McCoy : You’re joking!
Spock : A joke
[pause]
Spock : is a story with a humorous climax.
McCoy : You mean I have to die to discuss your insights on death?
Ignoring the fact that McCoy died in Shore Leave.
So McCoy did have a common frame of reference already. Lucky for him, it was just a mild case of death.
Same with Scotty in The Changeling.
By the time we got to Spock coming back, nobody should really be surprised. Culber coming back is just more of the same. Death really doesn’t matter, at least as long as you’re listed in the credits. The only thing worse than the death of Culber is the way they brought him back. Almost as bad as Khan’s magic blood in Into Darkness. Kirk is saved because McCoy randomly injects blood into dead animals he just has hanging around?
@64. kkozoriz: McCoy was only mostly dead:
Mostly dead all day
I have the exact same problem with this story as with “The Search for Spock”. So they are equally cheap and bad solutions to bring back the dead. On top of this, this episode had no sense how much drama is too much in a regular tv series episode – this was definitely just too much shaking and long discussions when in theory every minute was important. And the speeches by Burnham at the beginning and the end? oh my…
the story otherwise would have been a nice Star Trek story, i agree, but it could have been kept on a normal level of problems, excitements, drama and especially camera shakings…
“I need you to make it make sense!”
– Captain Pike, explaining the difference between Fantasy and Science Fiction.
No, fantasy has to make sense too, internal consistency.
I wish I could offer more praise for an episode by my good friend Kirsten Beyer, but I found this one okay at best, with some aspects I didn’t care for. The character drama with Burnham, Pike, Georgiou, and Tyler and with Stamets and Culber and with Tilly and May was fine, it all worked well enough… but the problem with modern serialized TV is that all the stories have to revolve insularly around the same group of people, and it keeps the stories from having the scope that a work of galaxy-spanning space opera is capable of having. Even Leland has to be an old friend of Pike’s. And the visit to the mycelial network didn’t get to be about the wonder of exploration since it was ultimately just about bringing back a lost member of the cast.
Not that what we saw made much sense to me. The mycelial network is supposed to be a network of transdimensional fungi existing in an exotic subspace domain that transcends our normal understandings of time and space. So why does it have a ground and trees and air? It comes off more as a mystical fairyland than an alternative physical continuum. It’d be one thing if they went the Q route and claimed this was just an interpretation that would be comprehensible to visitors’ senses, but it was presented as the real thing. And it didn’t help that Discovery‘s “half-in” entry was presented as being literally half-submerged beneath some kind of magic ocean surface. Come on, FX people, at least make it look like some kind of energy field instead of literal rippling water. It looked ridiculous.
And while we’re at it, where does the name “jahSepp” come from? They’re spores. They don’t have mouths and larynxes. So how can they have a phonetically pronounceable name? I hate it when sci-fi does that. (“It calls itself the Horta.” How can it call itself anything except a rock-grinding sound?? Or was that Spock’s attempt at onomatopoeia?) There should be a rule that the only aliens that get to have pronounceable, spellable names in “their own language” are the ones that actually have the anatomy to pronounce them. If they don’t, then give them a name in English (like “Changeling”) or a humanoid species’ language (like, maybe “Horta” is the Vulcan translation of their rock-grinding name sound).
The metaphysics of how Culber’s “energy” got transferred into the network is really sketchy too, but I guess there’s Trek precedent going back to at least “Return to Tomorrow” for human consciousness being something that can exist as an energy pattern independent of the physical brain and (per VGR: “Coda”) can be captured and preserved at the moment of death. Still, how it can also store the information for recreating the person’s body is questionable.
On Section 31, I can’t add anything to what’s already been said. We don’t need to keep going back to the well of requiring Trek characters to justify their idealism to supposed allies who embrace a darker path. It was enough to do it once, in DS9. Just let them demonstrate their values through their actions rather than constantly putting them on the defensive about them.
@69 – “And while we’re at it, where does the name “jahSepp” come from? “
Much like how telepaths can not only understand alien though patterns, they can also translate them into perfect English.
Or the Nomad probe knew it’s name was Nomad.
Or a smell could make Kirk deduce that the vampire cloud was going home to spawn.
@69,
Until your comment I hadn’t been able to express to myself what Discovery feels like to me: a theater group practicing rehearsals together, sometimes performing better, sometimes worse, generally enjoying each other’s company, but still waiting for opening night for any of it to be real.
@krad (33). I just started watching these a few days ago (subbed up to CBS All Access for a month now that I finally have the time to watch season two) and I just finished watching this one. Personally, I feel like you did on your first impression. I like the throw away line.
“Fix it quick, don’t make a big deal about it, and then carry on with the story at hand” is often my preference in a lot of cases like this (another similar one that I like is the Deep Space Nine “Trials and Tribble-ations” acknowledgment that Klingons used to look different back during the TOS days by Worf’s saying, “They are Klingons, and it is a long story… We do not discuss it with outsiders.”) I prefer that to the “simply ignore it” alternative.
I’m sorry, but this article strikes me as hard to accept. There was nothing in Season 1 that needed “fixing” to me. In fact, I find it superior to Season 2 with it’s shameless use of the nostalgia factor. And yes, I’m referring to the overuse of Pike and Spock, whose presence were NOT needed throughout most of that season. Sending the ship into the future wasn’t needed as well.
Not needed pretty much describes Discovery plotting for both seasons.