Discovery S3 E8 (spoilers)

[lightofdaye]

I don't have a lot to say about this episode.


The main plot felt a little flat, like Book's return home and a face off with the big bad Emerald Chain with it at stake feels like it should have a bigger impact.

It had to share room with a few different subplots; Georgiou's illness, Adira's coming out as nonbinary and weirdest of all Saru trying to find a catchphrase(?), which felt both a little too cute and meta and appropriate for an entirely different episode, not mixed in with what should be a high-stakes main plot.

To the list of subplots you could add Detmer's deal but it was only very tangentially dealt with so... I hope that's not the end of it?

I don't have much place to talk about Adira's plotline. Seemed fine to me, with the scene at the end with Stamets and Culber very definitely using the correct pronouns for them. The initial scene seemed to frame it as a big deal but then it isn't. Which it shouldn't be but it's oddly presented? There doesn't seem to be much reason they couldn't have had this scene in their first appearance? Or just have the Disco's crew pick up Adira's preferred pronoun from conversations with their Earthforce colleagues.


I guess i had about the normal amount of thoughts after all.

Comments

[pauraque]

Agreed that the catchphrase thing was out of place and might have worked better in another episode. The other weird thing about it was that they used the exact same gag on Lower Decks! I remember it because it was one of the few jokes I actually thought was funny in the episodes I saw. (One of the catchphrases the captain considers is "It's warp time!" and her delivery made me laugh.)

[lightofdaye]

Weird. We never did get Lower Decks in the UK. Is there much crossover in the production/writing staff of the shows I wonder?

[pauraque]

I don't think so, beyond Alex Kurtzman as executive producer. Given the timing of the shows' production, it's probably a case of independent invention.

[walgesang]

Agreed on a lot of these points! It would seem that this far in the future that non-binary people would be the norm and it wouldn't be such a big deal.

[lightofdaye]

Indeed! To their credit the characters didn't make it a big deal but the framing of the episode, did seem to want to say 'look at us, we're not making a big deal' lol.