I like the tilly character more than less, but in what world would an ensign get promoted to first officer and remain an ensign?
Her qualifications shouldn’t be “most developed other character”.
I'm hot and cold on her to be honest, I know her character is to be the poorly adjusted nerd with poor people skills, so in what world on a 300 person ship is there not a better person to take that role. They have that no name blond officer that walks around on the bridge and sits in the Captains chair. What about her? Oh yeah, we don't know her name and she's a piece of furniture with a pony tail.
You would expect that the first officer would be someone that can take up the Captain's mantle when he gets blown up during a battle. A first officer needs to understand every aspect of the ship, and understand how to make command and fight the ship if need be. Also a good Executive offer has to offer counter points to the Captain, and be able to argue them professionally while preserving the chain of command during disagreements. I would be a crew member and be thinking, she's the Captain if the Captain goes down, God help us.
I expect that at some point in the season, we're going to get Saru injured during a battle and Tilley will have to take over and that will be her character discovery moment.
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I'm hot and cold on her to be honest, I know her character is to be the poorly adjusted nerd with poor people skills, so in what world on a 300 person ship is there not a better person to take that role. They have that no name blond officer that walks around on the bridge and sits in the Captains chair. What about her? Oh yeah, we don't know her name and she's a piece of furniture with a pony tail.
Tilly the co-op student getting the XO promotion is but the latest in a line of headscratchers from the writers. That episode with the Vulcan tribunal had a small contingent of presumably high ranking Starfleet crew. Pretty sure Ensign Ricky doesn't make the cut to attend so it's probably Lt. Commanders and up. As such pretty much anyone Starfleet attending that tribunal probably had the rank and experience to be XO.
All this on the fleet's only spore drive ship, a strategically critical ship. It's like Lower Decks, except they've put the lower decks in charge.
"Sanctuary" also fell flat for me. Again, the resolution of the sea locusts by one line of brilliance from MB seemed paper thin. The Brothers battle wasn't really spelled out either. Fantastic visuals, but as usual a rushed storyline left a lot to be desired.
Mark my words, "The Burn" - a problem that was 100 years old - will be solved in 1, maybe two episodes...
Last edited by I-Hate-Hulse; 12-06-2020 at 07:53 PM.
Honestly I like the story line of the Burn, the pretty much end of the federation, and almost like a descent of the galaxy into the equivalency of the Dark ages.
With Dilithium becoming increasingly rare we're seeing the possible end of the era of exploration in space and the end of warp travel.
Its a very cool idea to me, We saw in DS-9 at times that there were cracks in the Federation, that at times was willing to sell out their ideals for security. Now we're seeing a almost ineffective Federation living in denial that they can ascend again to relevancy.
I'm intrigued by the discovery of the cause of the Burn, but at the same time, I don't know if I trust the writers in terms of carrying it out, just based on the really awful first season, and a intriguing second season that couldn't carry it through to the end.
Look, I love Star Trek, well Voyager I didn't like, I want success for the franchise, I'm hoping they carry it off. But yeah the last couple of episodes to me have been a dip compared to the first few episodes.
I will say that compared to TOS, TNG and DS9, that this crew of actors still isn't amazingly strong. I still think that character development outside of Michael and Saru is not great. I mean in DS9 you learned about the secondary characters, and they spent time developing them, same in TNG. In this one outside of the main few characters the rest are furniture and when they do try to do something with them it feels poorly executed or they forget about it.
I keep talking about Detmer, because they could have had a really interesting storyline with her. Michael's actions caused her injuries and disfigurement, but instead of exploring that she basically forgave her in two seconds and then sat in a chair until recently where she had either PTSD or something else, and they've seemed to drop that one in a hurry.
The Burn is a story line that could be really memorable and shift the narrative of the ST Universe if they do it right.
Also because they're working so hard to develop Book, I'm assuming that he's going to die so they can angst up Burnham.
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everyone they meet keeps hinting quite strongly that the late era Federation turned into some sort of sucky conglomerate that nobody wanted to be part of anymore. whoever kicked off the burn may have wanted to uh...burn it all down and start it over again.
We've got a federation distress signal coming from the nebula where the burn originated. What if in a moment of senility Picard hit the wrong button and doomed the Federation?
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they lied to Picard about the time limit on his android body and now he's forced to live a terrible immortal existence as a synthetic decrepit senior citizen. driven mad by the centuries, he finally decided to take revenge on the galaxy once and for all.
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I keep talking about Detmer, because they could have had a really interesting storyline with her. Michael's actions caused her injuries and disfigurement, but instead of exploring that she basically forgave her in two seconds and then sat in a chair until recently where she had either PTSD or something else, and they've seemed to drop that one in a hurry.
This line is representative of Disco as a whole for me.
I actually forgot the Michael caused her injuries because it was a one and done. I barely remember the character's name is Detmer.
Even Geordi was able to get off the visor using technical advancements within his lifetime. 32nd century medical tech isn’t enough to let Detmer stop having to rock the Salt n Peppa haircut?
I was kind of enjoying the episode this week, though it was bizarre and over the top, and they have exaggerated the Evil Empire far beyond what it was shown as in previous series. Instead of a Empire, its more like a pirate society, where the purpose of it isn't as much about the application of strength and power that the other Mirror Empires displayed, but Ferengi like profitability.
The premise of going to a planet for a 5% change of saving George, was fine and I'm guessing that the hat wearing paper reading entity is a member of the Q Continuum , I guess.
The idea of Georgiou, changing the future in the mirror universe on the day that she executes her adopted daughter and sets into motion the events of Discovery, so the question is here.
By sparing Michael, does she change the future in both universes. Do the events in the normal and mirror universes shift in a unexpected fashion?
Like I said, I was enjoying the episode until bad actor Michael Burnham made a stunning re-appearance with heavy exaggerated makeup so we'd all know she was eeeevvvvil, she went back into tremendous terrible acting mode, especially on the zoom ins so that she could do such great hits as the psycho smile, the squinty side ways angry glare, and the the I'm so sneaky smug look. Frankly instead of looking evil or powerful, she just looked deranged.
I've gone easy on her acting after the first episode, because she's certainly been a lot better this year because the scripting choices seem easier. But she was so awful and over the top that it was jarring to me.
Meanwhile on the other side, they seem to really want to make Saru just seem like a poor Captain. His interaction with Book was uncomfortable in the face of a valuable volunteer wanting to lash on, and his whole speech with the Admiral about the needs of the many, and the yellow alert, led to the Admiral looking at him like he was a dissapointing son, that would be better off served as a delicious appetizer.
But we did learn that the ship stranded in the nebula where the burn started was Kelpian (sp?) and the Federation rescue ship never arrived. Is this another hint at the origins of the burn or a result of the burn? I don't know.
I kind of figure that this is a two episode arch break from serious work on the Burn, especially with Michael not on the good guy universe Discovery.
This is my first real write up on discovery. A somewhat solid storyline, that makes me wonder if this is Georgiou's exit from the series in the making as she's had a relatively small role this year. Does this have an effect on the time lines of both universes? Why did I cheer when mirror Staments took a knife to the throat? Does everyone in the mirror universe know that they look tremendously guilty and evil all at the same time?
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Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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I was kind of enjoying the episode this week, though it was bizarre and over the top, and they have exaggerated the Evil Empire far beyond what it was shown as in previous series. Instead of a Empire, its more like a pirate society, where the purpose of it isn't as much about the application of strength and power that the other Mirror Empires displayed, but Ferengi like profitability.
The premise of going to a planet for a 5% change of saving George, was fine and I'm guessing that the hat wearing paper reading entity is a member of the Q Continuum , I guess.
The idea of Georgiou, changing the future in the mirror universe on the day that she executes her adopted daughter and sets into motion the events of Discovery, so the question is here.
By sparing Michael, does she change the future in both universes. Do the events in the normal and mirror universes shift in a unexpected fashion?
Like I said, I was enjoying the episode until bad actor Michael Burnham made a stunning re-appearance with heavy exaggerated makeup so we'd all know she was eeeevvvvil, she went back into tremendous terrible acting mode, especially on the zoom ins so that she could do such great hits as the psycho smile, the squinty side ways angry glare, and the the I'm so sneaky smug look. Frankly instead of looking evil or powerful, she just looked deranged.
I've gone easy on her acting after the first episode, because she's certainly been a lot better this year because the scripting choices seem easier. But she was so awful and over the top that it was jarring to me.
Meanwhile on the other side, they seem to really want to make Saru just seem like a poor Captain. His interaction with Book was uncomfortable in the face of a valuable volunteer wanting to lash on, and his whole speech with the Admiral about the needs of the many, and the yellow alert, led to the Admiral looking at him like he was a dissapointing son, that would be better off served as a delicious appetizer.
But we did learn that the ship stranded in the nebula where the burn started was Kelpian (sp?) and the Federation rescue ship never arrived. Is this another hint at the origins of the burn or a result of the burn? I don't know.
I kind of figure that this is a two episode arch break from serious work on the Burn, especially with Michael not on the good guy universe Discovery.
This is my first real write up on discovery. A somewhat solid storyline, that makes me wonder if this is Georgiou's exit from the series in the making as she's had a relatively small role this year. Does this have an effect on the time lines of both universes? Why did I cheer when mirror Staments took a knife to the throat? Does everyone in the mirror universe know that they look tremendously guilty and evil all at the same time?
Spoiler!
I don't exactly have a high bar for what I find entertaining TV to begin with, so I think its extra damning when its become obvious to me there is no depth to this story at all. Its all just...stuff that happens, I guess. The overarching plot I thought for this season was to solve the mystery of the burn, yet there hasn't been a lot of that going on at all. Given how many episodes are left in this season we're going to likely have another cliff hanger.
I've come to realize Discovery's biggest problem is that it is not an ensemble show. While Patrick Stewart easily and rightfully got the most screen time and the best stories on TNG, by the time we're as many episodes into that show that Discovery is now we knew so much about all of the bridge crew, whereas outside of Burnham and Gorgiou, and to a minor extent Saru, we know nothing of the others, really.
Because the Captain of the ensemble is not the central thread of its story it removes one of the essential literary ingredients all the other Trek shows had that Discovery has not. The ability to explore the multiple ensemble players character depth through their combined efforts executing the Captain's orders, working together to solve their problems. Because the central character is getting so much screen time we know nothing of the other characters so there is no emotional payoff for conventional literary components. Sacrifice, saying goodbye for the last time, being lost and alone, redemption, and discovery, to name a few just all fall flat. This most recent episode saw Gorgiou return to her own world and start to have a crisis of conscience, which would of been awesome except she's spent the last season acting like an immature and petulant teenager (and its not her fault, I love Michelle Yeoh and she's obviously doing her best with some terrible writing decisions resulting in just terrible, terrible catty dialog) for the last two seasons without really showing any growth, so her redemption arc falls flat before it begins because I just don't care about her. And lets be real, those were some awful Power Rangers style space-pirate armor.
This leads me to my next point. Are they highly organized merciless conquers as the size of their empire would explain? Or are they swashbuckling space pirates that drink and duel and backstab each other? Because, I'd be down with the space pirates; actually it would be so bad ass. But they would not be conquerors. That takes the precision and discipline of something like the Roman Empire, which is not swashbuckling pirates.
I can summarize the entirety of Discovery but lets do the short version and think "do we get one emotional payoff like the other shows managed in abundance?" So far I have:
Season One: get's captain and mentor killed, starts a war, bangs a klingon that looks like a human, nobody on the ship likes each other, stuff stuff stuff, holy crap the mirror universe with the cheesiest worst twist ever, awful costumes, stiff fighting, holy eff what just happened? oh look, saru and crew with the epic flyby, #### blows up, lets go home. epic speech, hey wait? aren't you supposed to be in jail for treason and mutiny?
Oh look, the enterprise!!!
Season Two: brings in three awesome actors that instantly become the focus of the show, and are so good their getting their own fan-demanded show. evil terminator computer is going to end all life in the universe, captain pike does awesome, more awesome captain pike, and spock, and number one, shut up burnham, i miss my mom, stuff stuff stuff, bad ass red iron man suit, lets go to the future. the end.
Season Three: burnham screaming, burnham cheering, burnham crying (a lot), burnham giving a holy speech, burnham being caught guilty in acts and conscience over and over again with a borderline sociopathic ability to suddenly forgive herself for things that are actually pretty awful, mirror universe burnham that is a perverse, joker-like psychopath and the sad realization that this makes way more sense than the "good" burnham, and the whole series should of been in the mirror universe minus the laughable costumes.
In all that I cannot remember one moment that actually had an emotional chord like the heavyweight episodes like "The Inner Light", or when Data's daughter died? The awesome amount of backstory that went into building up the borg and then in First Contact the first time you hear the borg queen speaking then descend from the ceiling and slip into her body (it was 1997 and a massive fx feat at the time)? Discovery suffers from the problem is that this crew has been through so much and seemingly discovered so little about themselves. This show needs to kill off Burnham.
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I'm guessing that the hat wearing paper reading entity is a member of the Q Continuum , I guess.
Spoiler!
I think the guy reading the paper either was or is associated with The Guardian of Forever. He's reading the same paper (The Star Dispatch) that Kirk and Spock were looking at with their stone knives and bearskins in The City on the Edge of Forever, plus there is a visible ad or review of the 21st Street Mission, the homeless shelter/soup kitchen run by Edith Keeler in that episode.
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I just can't find a way to care about these characters, or the mirror universe story, at all. And this is a double header.
They warped 1000 years into the future, and instead of discovering all sorts of new ####, or seeing what the ol' Klingons are up to, we get 2 episodes dedicated to this nonsense mirror universe, where everyone is the same, but evil. So edgy! Can we move on now? Just leave Georgiou behind. She won't be missed.
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So it was the Guardian of Forver. And the whole revisiting the mirror universe was set up Georgiou with her new show. Over/under on when she ends up?
Gotta say she's got a huge advantage no matter when she does. She's read through the entire Federation history up to that 3000s. My guess she'll end up some time post Picard but pre-2600s. Not a prequel series so the writers won't be boxed in like Disco S1/S2, not running during any other ST series so won't have to worry about any other show continuity.
Well (spoilers for those that want to read my thoughts on it)
Spoiler!
Thank god that story arc is over, and hopefully ends the mirror universe story line for good.
I guess they tried to write a redemptive ending for Georgiou, but it just felt like so much padding, un necessary speeches, a lot of sneering, and basically to describe it as stuff. As we have what is literally the death allegory with redemption of her walking through the Portal minded by the GUARDIAN of FOREVER EVER EVER, I mean I didn't imagine that, it really happened. But I guess the avatar was St Peter, and the portal the gateway to heaven.
Burnham continued her horrendous overacting as EVIL, all Sneers and menacing glaring at the camera, I actually cheered when she got a sword rammed through her, until we had to live through 30 seconds of a dying scene that was only missing "I'mmmm ssoooo sssoooo cold, tell Booker that I love him".
I honestly think that the writers missed the actual point of the mirror universe, they were satisfied with just merely making it an inverse of the normal universe where everyone is diametrically opposite of their characters for no other reason but evil. Therefore we got a bunch of 2 dimensional characters walking around doing things just to be sadistic or evil. When you compare it to the Mirror Mirror universe where their conduct had a purpose, and even the DS-9 portrayal where they might have been sadistic but again, there was a purpose to the sadism.
Instead in this mirror universe we got a combination of Klingons at their worst and space pirates where the idea of their sadism and poor decisions wasn't based around anything logical. In Enterprise, their mirror universe episodes were excellent, the humans were brutal because of their determination to survive and protect their empire, and then you combine it with a brutal promotions through murder system and the desire to gain more personal power.
Instead of they took the mirror universe literally, trying to answer the question that if you look in the mirror what kind of person is the one looking back at you from the other side. The mirror universe instead as a world building exercise of complete opposites, should really be about the worst case scenario around how brutal humanity could be given the right situation.
I mean I guess part of the fun of it, is that nothing in the mirror universe matters except for the empty fun of watching Michael murder a few people, Detmer being stupid. Georgiou falling for the double blind betrayal, and Burnham eating two feet of cold steel. Its all in the end meaningless popcorn. However the problem is that its right in the middle of a series that has a progressing plot line.
The sad thing for me, is that if you look at Georgiou as a whole, she really does represent the ultimate wasted character that they desperately tried to fix as they pushed her out the door. She started as a person out of time and place with a different and brutal viewpoint of reality, the ultimate expression of the ends justify the means. Her ruthless and dismissive nature should have been a black heart in a crew of white. Instead as we progressed along she went from something interesting to a ineffectual, powerless, insult comic without a soundtrack, and the funeral scene where they called her a bad a$$ and tough and all those other things rang a bit hollow for me.
The interesting thing here, is that this thing really goes against Trek Lore in two ways, one major and one minor. They basically confirmed that no matter what you do, time cannot be changed. Michael Evil Michael still ended up dead, Lorca was not captured and the events of the first season were still likely to tick along. However on the Lore line, they did rewrite history. The rise of the Klingon, Romulan alliance was originally caused by the events of Mirror, Mirror with Spock reforming the empire and accidentally weakening it enough for those races to rise against their master. Instead we now have the events caused by Lorca and Michaels actions.
Meanwhile weirdly Booker took the Burnham role as super genius problem solver with what seems to be a nu-necessary victory lap at the end, with the "Look I was helpful" smugness. Saru got some praise from the Admiral. Snarky Engineering lady returned after months crawling around in the ship just I guess rebuilding it. We're going to get information from the ship in the bubble so they can continue to investigate the burn.
Overall, this arc seemed really uneccessary, and as a popcorn distraction, it wasn't done well, it was boring and nonsensical and was a way to get rid of a character that really hadn't done anything in a long time.
The Detmer Watch - I put this in here, because well, she deserves better in that role. This week she got lots to do, but came across as an idiot in the end. She fumbled the ambush, and in a move that we could see coming at the start of the execution of traitors, was betrayed by Michael (EVIL). But at least she got a few lines beyond aye sir. So that was good.
Captain Killy Just can't carry off evil executor torturer. She looks more like a smug child. But I guess we're supposed to see this as the mirror of second in command good Tilley or something like that.
Hopefully next week they get back onto solid ground with the burn storyline, though the last 3 episodes have seen what I think is a decline in writing, they can ramp things up on what should be an interesting story.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
The only positives out of that mess were we hopefully never have to see Georgiou or the mirror universe ever again. Though I'm sure she'll show up again at some heroic time when she is needed most. That, or they'll make her the cause of the burn, though I assume their going to find a way to make Burnham responsible for that, too.
I always hated the mirror universe. It is like the holodeck safeguards are broken episodes; an excuse to get the same actors to play other characters. The episodes have no consequences.
The call back to my favorite TOS episode was great though.
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