#discovery rewatch

[thewomancallednova]

Also, everytime I rewatch Tig Notaro's first appearance as Commander Reno I think back to that time I told my partner about Notaro being in Star Trek. I said something along the lines of "Oh yeah, she plays a lesbian in Star Trek: Discovery." and that led my partner to believe for a little while that "lesbian" was like a distinct species on Star Trek. They were disappointed when I had to tell them the truth

[biblioflyer]

I don’t know how to properly explain this, but the most Roddenberry thing ever is Tilly and Detmer sitting with Tyler as if he was a different person than Voq and the consciousness that controlled the hands that murdered Culber belonged to someone else,

[isagrimorie]

Okay why did they let the writers for Magic that makes the sanest man go Mad go, because the two episodes they’ve done was really good.

It has more ensemble feel to it even as Michael Burnham is still the center of the story. It also feels the most Trek because of its potential, since the pilot episodes at least.

Also, I really miss having people just around pre-COVID days when extras are just casually around.

Look at all those extras milling about in the background. Also, LOOK AT HOW THE DIMENSION OF THE CORRIDOR FITS. It's not ultra-large like it is in SNW!Enterprise. The dimensions make sense. It fits visually.

Also, look at how beautiful the color grading is in season 1. I haven't even touched it with Photoshop. The colors are just right, they pop, and they don't have the constant weird blue filter that Disco will have in season 4.

Also, were they dating? Or going to? Cause I would've been down for that unfortunately this is the most character he's shown in all 4 seasons of Discovery.

It's the casualness of it -- the way everyone in the crew is just relaxing.

Pulling a con against a con man was really fun too-- I particularly love when Stella showed she's no mark:

And Burnham's impressed look was great:

Again, no coloring or brightening, the scene didn't need it.

Also while I do love Burnham and Booker together, I really did like Burnham and Tyler.

Look, another extra! Just randomly walking around! Pre-Covid productions really were different.

The blue uniform is still my favorite Disco uniform and I miss it.

[chillychive]

Episode 1 {SEASON TWO BABY!!}

SPOCK

"I expect you to be friends." -Sarek, oddest dad of the year.

Tilly yelling LMAO

yet again, being a transporter guy is awkward lmaoooo

Do not covet thy neighbor's star ship. LMAO

he's hilarious omg.

think of all the syllables that wasted their lives im dying.

his interaction with Tilly I'm dying

He's such a good Captain

poor paull

OH!! The engine room is the spore drive room but they moved it at the beginning of season two and they're converting the room back to a standard engineering room! Thanks Tilly for explaining! lmao.

poor paulll :(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

that was sweet until the last thing he said and now im sad. poor tilly. They need to stop telling her to be quiet. :(

"I was expecting a red thing. Where's my damn red thing?" LMAO

Nhan's so pretty.

I feel like I should stop writing down every funny thing Pike says... I'm not trying to become a transcription lmao.

Also Connolly... dude. Just stop.

I wish there was a closed captions mode that only captioned dialogue, not sound. The sound captions can be rather annoying if you are hearing and don't need them, but you also can't delete them for the people who are hard of hearing or deaf.

Connolly you idiot. and he jeopardized everyone else's lives as well.

The "we have him, right ladies?" and Owo and Detmer looking at each other like ????? before saying "absolutely"

I love Nhan

The fact that Pike didn't die here is truly remarkable.

Poor Saru was so worried. oof.

Eww Tellerites have purple blood.

why did the main screen on the bridge crack when the asteroid hit it?? Are you telling me they made a bridge where a single pane of glass is all that protects from space.

OWWWW. i love that they let her scream at the pain and all of that. like points.

oh my gosh nerdssssssssssssssssssssssssss i love them alll

not them catching an asteroid. I love them.

yes pike :) i love him

I love a lot of these people, as I'm sure you can't tell lmao

I love Tilly <3

DID YOU SEE THAT {ofc ik you didn't im the one watching it but like ahh} The fortune cookie Pike was holding said "Not every cage is a prison, nor every loss eternal." They knew exactly what they were doing when they zoomed in on that. POINTS!

ahhh I love this episode.

How does she have clearance to be there???

And to listen to his personal log?????

the signals.

That's why it's called brother!

[aromantictendi]

One random thing I really love about Discovery is how different all the female characters look. Drawn media gets a lot of criticism for making all their female characters look the same, but you see it in live action too. Some casting directors specifically cast women of a certain look, especially body type and it’s really obvious once you notice it (Desperate Housewives is a really good example where they’re all that same tall/really skinny body type).

All the women in Discovery have really distinctive body types and faces and it’s just nice to see that diversity.

[s-trip-tease]

Rewatching Discovery season 1 and Landry delaying bringing Michael to Lorca just so she could watch Michael beat up two people with her bare hands and a cafeteria tray? 

Iconic

[biblioflyer]

Burnham is not "always right": The Vulcan Hello (Rewatch)

Just a snap reaction. I'm struck by the sense that yes, in some sense, this first episode is headed to deconstruction. Starfleet is definitely depicted as extremely decent. To the point where Burnham and Georgiou are on a mission to discreetly dig a well that is beyond the capabilities of the local species. Its very much a setup for an innocence lost, but ultimately regained - at least in part story.

More to the point, and this is going out on a limb here, without having rewatched the next episode, my gut is telling me I've been right for a long time. Namely that this is an example of a situation where Burnham was objectively wrong and narratively wrong. Which also undermines one of the most prolific critiques of the series.

Had she backed Saru and persuaded Georgiou to withdraw the Shenzou there is a good chance they lose track of the coffin ship if it decides to cloak again which is a very serious risk, but - and Burnham doesn't know this yet - it will probably undermine T'Kuvma. Had T'Kuvma lit the beacon and the Klingon armada met empty space, there's a strong possibility that the other House Leaders grouse about him screwing around with ancient artifacts, if not outright blaspheming to try and assert moral authority over the other Houses. Maybe he gets a chance to bribe them with his cloaking technology and maybe he doesn't, but the way I remember it, its the fleet battle and his subsequent martyrdom that unites the Klingons.

On the other hand, if Burnham got her way, there's two scenarios. One is that she gets the shot off before Voq departs to light the beacon. The chronology is a bit ambiguous but I don't even think T'Kuvma decloaks until Voq is away. But lets say that T'Kuvma decloaks because he needs to for Voq to depart or as a distraction to buy Voq time. So IF Shenzou's sucker punch works, the bridge neck is hit, the ship is crippled or destroyed and the beacon isn't lit, then its all sunshine and roses. Mission accomplished.

Maybe.

I still think there's a good chance that maybe someone comes along later, discovers that T'Kuvma got himself killed messing with the Federation, and it provokes a Klingon blood debt or something something honor. We're led to believe T'Kuvma is a savvy operator in politics and religion. We have no earthly idea why he's lighting the beacon now as opposed to years ago (maybe it was lost, due to the whole scattering field thing) but perhaps it has to do with internal Klingon dynamics. Maybe he's spotted a Gordian Knot in Klingon society and has decided never to let a good crisis go to waste, so he's going to start a war with the Federation because his instincts tell him that if he plays his cards right, this is a doable thing.

The second scenario is that Shenzou gets her sucker punch in only after Voq lights the beacon or Voq is able to light the beacon after T'Kuvma gets himself blown up. Maybe the other Houses arrive and decide T'Kuvma was a mad lad and he got what he had coming to him. On the other hand - and maybe something will come to me a few episodes later - I'm not aware of anything at this juncture that alters the fundamentals of T'Kuvma being martyred. I'm not at all sure why it matters if it was from giving Shenzou taking him out or from a Starfleet boarding team offing him in a rescue attempt that turns into an accidental assassination. Clearly while T'Kuvma is some sort of outsider type, his death at the hands of the Federation is hugely significant - if not to the House Leaders, then to their constituents who must have a fair number of devotees and sympathizers in their ranks.

Given that by the end of the season, Burnham will have disavowed preemptive violence and doubled down on Starfleet's original mission and ethos, I feel very confident in saying Episode One Burnham is wrong and she's not just wrong from a Watsonian standpoint, we are supposed to understand from the narrative that she's wrong. She will spend the entire season and maybe the next three seasons even trying to live down this mistake because I think its rather critical to understanding the character and her trajectory that had she taken Saru's side, Shenzou and her crewmates may have lived and a war might have been avoided.

That it might take three years and saving the Federation three times and the galaxy twice to get herself to a place where she really thinks she deserves to be in Starfleet, let alone as a Captain, really puts things into context. A context that the comment sections of the usual places are content to ignore because they are stuck on the idea that Burnham is right because of narrative fiat.

Also Sarek is a terrible, terrible father and this is one retcon that I think doesn't work. Maybe it will improve. Spock and Sarek had their differences yes, but prior to Discovery, I think it would be fair to read it that they were deeply principled individuals that clashed at the level of application of those principles. Like a PHD whose profoundly gifted child decides to join the military rather than joining a think tank to draft policy. This version of Sarek and his obsession with making a human into a Vulcan is difficult to watch and kind of less interesting, personally.

On the subject of retcons, if the idea is that an aggressive response to T’Kuvma’s ship prowling inside the extreme edge of Federation space and potentially menacing colonists is supposed to be objectively correct or at least more narratively ambiguous, this is where the TOS setting conceits actually would work way better. Namely that Starfleet is spread “age of sail” thin and comms with the nearest higher authority take hours or longer.

This is actually really reminiscent of the scenario in Master and Commander which I rewatched over the weekend with Shenzou as HMS Surprise and T’Kuvma’s ship as the French heavy frigate Acheron. What compels “Lucky Jack” to hunt a ship that’s faster, more resilient, outguns, and out ranges Surprise is that Surprise really is the only one who can conceivably run down Acheron before she takes more British merchants. Even though it’s suicidal, there’s no backup coming it’s just Surprise trying to pull off a desperate win or choosing life but condemning every civilian in Acheron’s path.

Shenzou being in real time contact with Starfleet and half a Wolf 359’s worth of ships being two hours away makes the idea of a preemptive strike against a game changing major threat noble, assuming it doesn’t start a war or war is inevitable unless this incursion is decisively defeated before it can get going, but ultimately undermines the whole idea that Shenzou must be decisive in order not to show weakness. Taking a big risk and staying to monitor this new cloaking dreadnought or regrouping with the fleet to rapidly deploy to at risk colonies are both very sensible with the information Georgiou has. For the conventional Starfleet thinker, Burnham’s historical analogy doesn’t seem to map to a Federation that has spent the last century having the luxury of trying to unravel the cultural ambiguities that can lead to conflict because apparently it can whistle up a task force pretty darn fast.

The weird bullying of Saru on the bridge also doesn't sit well with me. If he's that timid, how did he advance in Starfleet? He must be extremely competent and deserve his position, so why set everyone up to act like he's a coward? I really think they would have done him more justice by making him a stronger and more articulate advocate for deescalation. If the narrative needs to prove him wrong, then the narrative proves him wrong, but at least give him a good argument. I suppose he got stuck being the weenie because Georgiou needed to be the cooler head mediating between him and Burnham, but I think it could have been handled better.

[biblioflyer]

The Discovery S1 finale: the good, bad, and uncomfortable

The revelation that Sarek played a role in authorizing the bomb plot on Qonos was bleak. Hardly shocking from Mr Vulcan Hello, but bleak. However, the season does end with Sarek being more introspective about how the war may have skewed his reasoning. It’s more thinkable now to bridge the Discovery version of Sarek with the strident peace maker if we assume Burnham’s monologue is right and the war inflicted deep moral injuries on everyone involved.

Moral injury in this instance refers to a concept that war is such an aberrant experience that it makes people lose sight of their values. Which can actually lead them into losing sight of why in normal times violence is disfavored for a problem solving tool and thus being less conscious in war of what precise immoral acts are necessary and useful and which ones are self defeating. The risk is that the greater the desperation and the greater the desensitization the more the finer distinctions between different acts of immorality blur.

The parallels between Burnham’s unrighteous stance in the beginning and her righteous stance now with the crew behind her are decently executed and feel good. However, this feels a bit like Picard in that the righteous stance feels good but authorial fiat is justifying it much more than the world building. It’s unclear at all how destroying Qonos would save the Federation. If their hand was detected, it seems extremely likely that the Klingons wouldn’t stop at making satraps out of Federation worlds, they’d actively become genocidal.

Also it seems unlikely that the Klingons could effectively wage a civil war if Qonos is their main industrial base. Which, considering this isn’t the first time that the threat of losing the home world might cripple the Klingon Empire so maybe it really is the case that Qonos is essential and there’s some sort of taboo or understanding that you don’t fight on the homeworld itself, or take any action against its infrastructure. If that’s the case, that taboo clearly was not in place during the Duras uprising.

While the world building doesn’t really seem to make a whole lot of sense, it is an okay moral parable about standing up for what’s right and not losing track of decency. Especially if we are intended to read this as the Federation’s plan was desperate and it really did make no sense, then crew of the Discovery was saving the Federation from itself not just morally, but also practically.

I love a good story about conscience and decency and Burnham‘s line about giving into the temptation to abandon the rules that keep our worst selves in check was very strong. I just wish that the world building in storytelling around that courageous stand made more sense the problem ultimately seems to be that People very understandably want to understand the stories in a more traditional way as if they are documentaries and I do too therefore, when the world building doesn’t seem to justify the actions of the characters, it undermines the value of the moral lesson itself.

Sat still is that this was a 15 episode season and we will never ever again get that amount of space to explore the characters and the universe so in some sense this is probably as good as the world building can get which is not great. It wasn’t terrible but you can fly the Terran Palace through some of the plot holes.