Discovery S2 E8-14
Nov. 1st, 2020 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightofdayeSo I wrote full episode reactions as I went. They are a bit stream of consciousness and often contain things that were subsequently addressed/
2x8
Huh. Hadn’t realised we were between ‘Cage’ and ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ timeline-wise. That suggests there is limited time for the spin off show to occur in.
Now, I appreciate Culber’s plotline in that resurrection should not be cheap so his actions make sense, but they just let him brawl with Tyler? Okay, to the show’s credit, it had Pike say ‘what the hell’ to Saru afterwards and ties it into his own development, which is good, to be honest while Saru was evidently more angry in the Kaminar episode I was worried it wasn't going to have a long term affect. So kudos for that.
Oh course the meat of the episode is Michael and Spock and man, have Amanda and Spock been harsh to Michael and we finally see exactly what the terrible things she said to him were. I guess I’m predisposed to take Michael’s side her being the protagonist but she was really young then and Amanda’s harshness at least seems OTT. Of course Spock was younger still and the initial harsh words were presumably reinforced repeatedly later. He manages to acknowledge her repentance while still the scars still show and he’s kind of a dick to her.
Also something that’s actually in my line of work: “Multiple SQL Injections” hehehehe. Not how that works but nice use of buzzwords.
This I think was the strongest episode of the season to date, certainly left me eager for more.
2x9
Well that was a traumatising episode. Airiam was a cyborg human and not an alien? Did anyone realise that? It’s a waste of a good character with potential, they could have shown more of her before now instead of doing the ‘death in the limelight’ thing.
Given the whole Starfleet is a promise shtick, they got pretty ruthless killing her for the greater good. It feels like with transporters and stun mode phasers they should have been able to non-lethally handle her.
The security chief is bit useless as well, but I was annoyed no-one seemed to care about her choking to death off screen until she re-appeared at the end. Still she was clearly suspicious of Airiam but did nothing to prevent her causing damage.
2x10
Why tell S31 about Michael? Why are you still trusting them?
Also why involve Burnham if your plan is to capture future Burnham? Depending on rules of time travel that are in play, that’s always nebulous, you’ll be telling future Burnham exactly what she needs to thwart you.
I appreciate the scenes between The security chief and Burnham, and the one between Burnham and Spock, the reaction to Leland…. eh. Understandable but not my preferred characterisation.
That is a terrible plan. If you plan not to let her die then it shouldn’t work.
I can not get a handle on Mirror Georgiou’s character at all.
Okay they did address both of my complaints, through Spock enforcing it be a lethal danger and it not being Michael in the suit… though the characters didn’t know that.
Episode ended on a high note I thought.
2x11
Well that was an emotionally fraught episode. First with Michael’s mother just trying to avoid all contact with her until the mission is done.
Time-travel though is difficult to write well and this is no exception. Burnham Snr seems to have multiple do over, many chances to change, so she knows nothing works. But she’s also made multiple incursions into this same timeline. It’s hard to wrap the head around both of those together, at least me. Either each should be a one-off attempt, or she should be falling over herself continually? Does that make any sense?
Spock gradually thawing out and being nicer to Michael is greatly appreciated.
2x12
Huh, are they still using the spore drive? I thought they’d given that up given the damage it was doing to spore space?
Time crystals is a good name that makes me thing of the old Timesplitter games. I don’t buy the klingons having this at all.
Accepting the future of The Menagerie so quickly is a positive mark for Pike but I don’t like the implication it’s a future the Time Crystal is forcing on him as punishment. (Also given Airiam the plausibility of him ending up like that with their medical tech is… difficult to accept but they are stuck with it, so may that’s why they are implying it’s fixed by magic)
Jett Reno is such a very different kind of character. Very nice scene of her with Culber. Though my issues with Discovery’s hierarchy are complicated by they seem to have surplus of commanders. She’s a commander, Stamets is a commander, Nhan is security is a commander. Saru and Burnham are commanders. The hypothetical chief engineer must be a commander as well to boss Reno and Stamets.
Contrasting Picard that comes later, the killer AI thing here seems familiar territory. I don’t think they’re going to settle it as compassionate as Picard did.
Blowing up Disco does seem the obvious solution but given the continuation of the show, and the Short Trek Calypso it doesn’t seem like they’ll manage it.
2x13
Disco is huge compared to the Constitution class Enterprise.
Okay I’m going all the nostalgia feels for the Enterprise bridge ala Discovery.
There’s something very Galaxy Quest about Burnham’s flash forwards.
Spock saying Michael sent the signals was something we all figured out a couple of episodes ago.
Ah, acknowledgement of the Short Trek episode, that’s intriguing. Po is a laugh though and puts one over Georgiou. (I still don’t get her deal. She just seems like basically on their side with no ulterior motive that just does not scan)
This one-way trip plan isn’t taking into account that they just realised Burnham sends the Seven signals, how she going to do that if it’s a one way trip?
Did Amanda and Sarek just randomly appear for a heart to heart and then warp off again?
Spock literally can’t stay on Discovery. But all the other named characters are, lol.
Lots of Heartfelt goodbyes and we’ve armed the shuttles. So now Star Trek is Star Wars… sigh.
2x14
They must have saved their effects budget all season for this. Don’t see how this battle can last the entire episode either.
Hmm. The suit up sequence. I guess Burnham is Iron Man. She is travelling through time to save mankind after all.
Okay Admiral Cornwall, counsellor and bomb disposal expert?
Ah, they finally realise, they actually need to trigger the past signals! Well done.
Aww. Culber/Stamets resolution. I hope Stamets lives or that would be a pretty ironic speech.
Oh man, Spock and Michael’s goodbye. Hmm, person most opposite to him, are we thinking Kirk or Bones?
Okay Discovery’s going to the future… with control in their spore drive room. Doesn’t that defeat the point? Huh, I didn’t realise the magnets were supposed to kill rather than just trap the nanobots that make him up.
...nobody talks about Discovery by regulation, is a very interesting way to try and fix continuity.
Wow, so they really let everyone hanging for third Season to see what happened to Discovery? Maybe so they had leeway to figure it out themselves between seasons?
2x8
Huh. Hadn’t realised we were between ‘Cage’ and ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ timeline-wise. That suggests there is limited time for the spin off show to occur in.
Now, I appreciate Culber’s plotline in that resurrection should not be cheap so his actions make sense, but they just let him brawl with Tyler? Okay, to the show’s credit, it had Pike say ‘what the hell’ to Saru afterwards and ties it into his own development, which is good, to be honest while Saru was evidently more angry in the Kaminar episode I was worried it wasn't going to have a long term affect. So kudos for that.
Oh course the meat of the episode is Michael and Spock and man, have Amanda and Spock been harsh to Michael and we finally see exactly what the terrible things she said to him were. I guess I’m predisposed to take Michael’s side her being the protagonist but she was really young then and Amanda’s harshness at least seems OTT. Of course Spock was younger still and the initial harsh words were presumably reinforced repeatedly later. He manages to acknowledge her repentance while still the scars still show and he’s kind of a dick to her.
Also something that’s actually in my line of work: “Multiple SQL Injections” hehehehe. Not how that works but nice use of buzzwords.
This I think was the strongest episode of the season to date, certainly left me eager for more.
2x9
Well that was a traumatising episode. Airiam was a cyborg human and not an alien? Did anyone realise that? It’s a waste of a good character with potential, they could have shown more of her before now instead of doing the ‘death in the limelight’ thing.
Given the whole Starfleet is a promise shtick, they got pretty ruthless killing her for the greater good. It feels like with transporters and stun mode phasers they should have been able to non-lethally handle her.
The security chief is bit useless as well, but I was annoyed no-one seemed to care about her choking to death off screen until she re-appeared at the end. Still she was clearly suspicious of Airiam but did nothing to prevent her causing damage.
2x10
Why tell S31 about Michael? Why are you still trusting them?
Also why involve Burnham if your plan is to capture future Burnham? Depending on rules of time travel that are in play, that’s always nebulous, you’ll be telling future Burnham exactly what she needs to thwart you.
I appreciate the scenes between The security chief and Burnham, and the one between Burnham and Spock, the reaction to Leland…. eh. Understandable but not my preferred characterisation.
That is a terrible plan. If you plan not to let her die then it shouldn’t work.
I can not get a handle on Mirror Georgiou’s character at all.
Okay they did address both of my complaints, through Spock enforcing it be a lethal danger and it not being Michael in the suit… though the characters didn’t know that.
Episode ended on a high note I thought.
2x11
Well that was an emotionally fraught episode. First with Michael’s mother just trying to avoid all contact with her until the mission is done.
Time-travel though is difficult to write well and this is no exception. Burnham Snr seems to have multiple do over, many chances to change, so she knows nothing works. But she’s also made multiple incursions into this same timeline. It’s hard to wrap the head around both of those together, at least me. Either each should be a one-off attempt, or she should be falling over herself continually? Does that make any sense?
Spock gradually thawing out and being nicer to Michael is greatly appreciated.
2x12
Huh, are they still using the spore drive? I thought they’d given that up given the damage it was doing to spore space?
Time crystals is a good name that makes me thing of the old Timesplitter games. I don’t buy the klingons having this at all.
Accepting the future of The Menagerie so quickly is a positive mark for Pike but I don’t like the implication it’s a future the Time Crystal is forcing on him as punishment. (Also given Airiam the plausibility of him ending up like that with their medical tech is… difficult to accept but they are stuck with it, so may that’s why they are implying it’s fixed by magic)
Jett Reno is such a very different kind of character. Very nice scene of her with Culber. Though my issues with Discovery’s hierarchy are complicated by they seem to have surplus of commanders. She’s a commander, Stamets is a commander, Nhan is security is a commander. Saru and Burnham are commanders. The hypothetical chief engineer must be a commander as well to boss Reno and Stamets.
Contrasting Picard that comes later, the killer AI thing here seems familiar territory. I don’t think they’re going to settle it as compassionate as Picard did.
Blowing up Disco does seem the obvious solution but given the continuation of the show, and the Short Trek Calypso it doesn’t seem like they’ll manage it.
2x13
Disco is huge compared to the Constitution class Enterprise.
Okay I’m going all the nostalgia feels for the Enterprise bridge ala Discovery.
There’s something very Galaxy Quest about Burnham’s flash forwards.
Spock saying Michael sent the signals was something we all figured out a couple of episodes ago.
Ah, acknowledgement of the Short Trek episode, that’s intriguing. Po is a laugh though and puts one over Georgiou. (I still don’t get her deal. She just seems like basically on their side with no ulterior motive that just does not scan)
This one-way trip plan isn’t taking into account that they just realised Burnham sends the Seven signals, how she going to do that if it’s a one way trip?
Did Amanda and Sarek just randomly appear for a heart to heart and then warp off again?
Spock literally can’t stay on Discovery. But all the other named characters are, lol.
Lots of Heartfelt goodbyes and we’ve armed the shuttles. So now Star Trek is Star Wars… sigh.
2x14
They must have saved their effects budget all season for this. Don’t see how this battle can last the entire episode either.
Hmm. The suit up sequence. I guess Burnham is Iron Man. She is travelling through time to save mankind after all.
Okay Admiral Cornwall, counsellor and bomb disposal expert?
Ah, they finally realise, they actually need to trigger the past signals! Well done.
Aww. Culber/Stamets resolution. I hope Stamets lives or that would be a pretty ironic speech.
Oh man, Spock and Michael’s goodbye. Hmm, person most opposite to him, are we thinking Kirk or Bones?
Okay Discovery’s going to the future… with control in their spore drive room. Doesn’t that defeat the point? Huh, I didn’t realise the magnets were supposed to kill rather than just trap the nanobots that make him up.
...nobody talks about Discovery by regulation, is a very interesting way to try and fix continuity.
Wow, so they really let everyone hanging for third Season to see what happened to Discovery? Maybe so they had leeway to figure it out themselves between seasons?
no subject
Date: 2020-11-02 02:08 pm (UTC)My take on Mirror Georgiou is that losing Mirror Michael was an enormous blow to her—they were basically mother and daughter—so she's become obsessive about protecting Prime Michael so she won't lose her daughter "again". You might say it's a mirror image (ha ha) of Prime Michael's guilt over the death of Prime Georgiou.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-03 10:20 pm (UTC)That's an interesting take on Georgiou, I think you're right. What threw me a little was she seemed to have her own agenda in early episodes, like she was vying with Leland for a specific reason or purpose, later she seems all about Michael.