#the angel appeared to baby Spock and Michael

[bigassbowlingballhead]

Is Spock… is Spock the red angel?

[captainpikeachu]

weekly next episode teaser analysis continues!!!!!!

after going outside in this week’s episode and actually not nearly die (though the planet did shake immediately when he arrived so CHRIS STOP GOING OUTSIDE EVEN THE PLANET IS TELLING YOU THAT!), Captain Pike is safely back on his ship and giving us some helpful information about a new signal!

Pike: “this new signal is the 4th of 7, it appeared over the Klingon planet of Boreth”

we finally got to the 4th signal, but 3 are still left, and we only have Episodes 12, 13, and 14 left, and if Episode 12 is gonna be about the 4th signal, then we are running out of episode real estate to deal with the other signals, unless they all start appearing together in one of these episodes?

the mission this whole season was suppose to be finding out what these signals mean, that was Pike’s mission when he came aboard - we’ve assumed all season that it was brought about by the Red Angel but we now know that’s not true so we’re back to square one - what are these signals and why?

first the asteroid field where we find the Hiawatha, then Terralysium, Kaminar, and now Boreth...

here in the two images, we see the planet of Boreth and a bridge to what I’m guessing is the monastery - we know that this is a sacred place for the Klingons, and we last saw L’Rell and Voq’s baby being sent there to live with the monks

Burnham: “whatever it is that you’re not telling us about Boreth, I need to know”

so we see Michael and Ash having a conversation about Ash hiding something about Boreth, we of course know it’s where he sent his son. i assume that Ash does tell Michael about the baby he gave up and that is why we see Michael and Ash hug in the image above

L’Rell and Ash reunites, my guess is that in this scene, they are both looking at their baby - this is not a flashback as we see Ash is in his Discovery uniform, though it still looks like he’s got the black badge - I’m not sure if Control might be able to track those black badges? maybe it’s best to get rid of it hmmmm

LOOK AT THIS CUTE PRECIOUS BABY, sorry i just love babies

we see some sort of shuttle traveling, I’m not entirely sure, it looks like a vulcan ship, but it looks to be traveling towards red lights in space, so maybe it’s going to the signals?

we see this shot of Discovery over Boreth, but they are joined by another ship, my guess is that this is L’Rell’s ship perhaps arriving over Boreth? we may see the D-7?

Spock: “these signals have invested in Discovery, but you must not dismiss the importance in defeating Control”

so Spock is traveling somewhere, it’s possible the image we saw of the ship/shuttle that was traveling may be carrying Spock, and my guess is that he is speaking to Michael who is traveling with him - this may be another split-up sort of mission/episode much like “If Memory Serves” when Michael/Spock had their own story on Talos while everyone else was dealing with something else - so this could be Michael/Spock dealing with Section 31 while Pike and the rest of the Discovery crew deal with the situation of the signal over Boreth

we see dead people floating in space, there is a light from a shuttle that’s going past

the wide shots show all these dead people frozen in space with the Section 31 ship warping away, my guess here is that Control, having taken over, decided to eject all the people into space to kill them because they were no longer of any use to it?

Detmer: “that’s a Section 31 ship”

Pike looks very concerned, Section 31 is giving him a huge headache, he’ll probably get a few more gray hairs because of this

Spock: “they are all Section 31 ships”

so from Spock’s dialogue, it looks like the crew at some point in the episode does all deal with Section 31 together, but i am not sure if this is all Section 31 ships here ready for attack, or all Section 31 ships who have their crew ejected out into space and Control has somehow just been able to run them all on its own?

i assume that having had 54% (i think?) of the Sphere data means that it could somehow learn more abilities to taking over all the Section 31 ships is something I could believe it could be able to end up doing

Burnham: “they’re coming for us”

this is rather vague, I’m not sure who is “they” and who is “us” that Michael is necessarily referring to as there could be multiple answers to that depending on whatever scenario is happening

maybe she is talking about Control’s Section 31 ships coming for Discovery? maybe it wants the rest of the Sphere data?

Michael looks like she’s on an empty Section 31 ship?

Pike: “the signal brought us here for a reason”

so this brings up a question i was asking in another separate post, who is sending these signals and why Discovery? Pike is right, the signal keeps bringing them to places, they thought it was the Red Angel but it clearly wasn’t, and it’s not Control...so who is behind the signals and why?

could it be that the signals are appearing over places where changes in time were made?

here we see Spock, likely in the same place as Michael, since they are dressed the same - he’s trying to pry open some doors, and can I just say, ummmm LOOK AT THOSE ARMS??????

OH MY MUSCLES !!!!

Burnham: “the future hasn’t been written yet”

so here is Michael expressing the sentiments that Spock told her the episode before, but my guess is this is her coming face to face with Control, who is likely still using Leland’s body, probably taunted Michael about how the future can’t be changed or something which caused Michael to say this

so it looks like the Klingons make a return next week along with L’Rell and her baby, this will be interesting to see how the Klingons will play into the end of this season and what is going on with these signals

Control and Section 31 issues are still being dealt with, though I’m starting to think Section 31 gets decimated by Control, which is why Mirror Georgiou will get her own show, likely rebuilding Section 31 from the ground up the way she wants to which is how Section 31 morphs into the even worse sort of organization that we see in DS9

again, a lot of the scenes are likely shown out of order, so I can’t be sure how the plot will be structured, but it looks like Michael and Spock will be off on their own little mission again

more questions are answered this week but more questions are raised for next week!!!!!!!

[lorcaswhisky]

He who learns must suffer

In which I read way too much into the end of The Sound of Thunder.

(Caveats: it has been about eight years since I finished my Classical Studies degree, I was always more into Greek comedies than tragedies, and of the tragedians Aeschylus was always my least favourite...)

At the end of The Sound of Thunder, Michael and Saru quote a line from a translation of Agamemnon by Aeschylus (the words that actually appear in the show are in bold):

God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

It's presented in Discovery as a hopeful line, about coming out on the other side of struggle and finding yourself stronger, mirroring the journeys of Saru (and, I guess, Michael herself as well as, presumably, given time, Culber).

But to put the words in context - in Agamemnon, they are spoken by a chorus of elders, recounting the events of the Trojan War and its aftermath. Specifically, it's about the awful truth that Agamemnon comes to realise, which is that he must sacrifice his daughter to appease the gods and ensure his soldiers' safe return to Greece.

Agamemnon sacrifices Iphigenia, and - long story short, it doesn’t end well. He makes it safely home only to be brutally murdered in the bathtub by his wife, Clytemnestra, who is less than thrilled that he murdered their daughter (plus, she's also found a new boyfriend in his absence - to be fair, Agamemnon's been away for 10 years - and would quite like to be queen with him instead).

Agamemnon is, amongst other things, about the toll of war and the price of peace, and deals with morally ambiguous decisions, hubris and fate, justice and revenge, with cycles of violence and revenge that extend even beyond the story of the play itself.

It's ... not particularly hopeful.

But the writing team must know all that. And it's not the only Greek reference so far - we basically went to the underworld in An Obol For Charon, and Mary Chieffo has described L'Rell and Voq's storyline as being "Greek/Shakespearean kitchen-sink drama". One of the upcoming episode titles is reported to be Project Daedalus. 

There’s definitely a theme there. Which is why I'm intrigued about the fact that they chose to use that line.

So. Some initial, off the cuff thoughts and wild speculation about its relevance for Discovery:

Michael Michael started and ended a war. She has already faced justice for her mutiny, and suffered, and gained wisdom. But the effects of the war itself are still yet to be fully addressed this season.

She's also announced a homecoming of her own, with her intention to return to Vulcan. We still don't know what happened between her and Spock, only that it was seismic - and we also know from the attack on Sarek in season 1 that the Logic Extremists are still active and will presumably not be all that pleased to have her back.

The Red Angel The Red Angel has already taken on a kind of godlike role, guiding Discovery and changing the fate of entire planets. It's also seems to be heralded by the red flares, like the omens and beacons in the Agamemmnon. Its motivation isn't yet known - is it trying to prevent violence, as Pike believes, or cause it, like Section 31 fear?

L'Rell and Ash/Voq L'Rell, over in her Greek/Shakespearean kitchen-sink drama, has already had to 'sacrifice' Voq and their child to maintain her control of the Klingon Empire. Peace, such as it is, has come at a cost for her. The fact that neither Voq nor the baby are really dead means that there will probably be some difficult reunions and homecomings on the horizon.

And as for Ash - he's at war with himself, and has returned to a ship where he is no longer welcome, and where he'll need to address the murder he committed as Voq. He now works for an organisation that operates in the space between right and wrong. He's got a lot on, is what I'm saying.

Stamets and Culber Culber's miraculous return from the fungal underworld is already proving to be hard for him. He died, then suffered every single day in the network, and now he's back - and with Ash on the ship there is a lot of unfinished business to attend to. Culber still has a lot to understand about what has happened to him, and that knowledge is likely to be painfully earned.

Meanwhile, Stamets may have overreached himself with his experiments into the mycelial network. Discovery has already unwittingly caused damage, and mirror!Stamets’ work on the ISS Charon was tearing it apart. We know that the spore drive doesn’t become a mainstay of the fleet (sorry, Janeway), so at some point it’s due for a fall. 

Saru Saru and the Kelpiens have seemingly managed to break the cycle of violence on their planet. But it is unlikely to be an easy road - they need to understand what it is that they have learned about themselves, and what they have lost in doing so. Will all of the Kelpiens be happy about the idea of peace with the Ba’ul, or the decision to force their evolution? Will playing god have repercussions?

Admiral Cornwell She made the impossible decision to sacrifice her ideals (and, y'know, an entire planet) in an attempt to end the war. The genocide was averted, but she must be feeling the effects of what she almost did in the name of peace. Added to that the fact that she seems to have some pretty close dealings with Section 31, and it feels like there's a complicated story for her ahead.

Emperor Georgiou While it doesn't seem likely that she'll get to go home, given that we know she has a Section 31 spin off series in the making, she's done her fair share of murdering to stay in power, and morally questionable decisions are now basically her entire job description. She's lost an empire, and a daughter, and her interest in Spock could easily be motivated by revenge against Michael for trapping her in this universe.

Prime!Lorca The perpetual elephant in the room/targ in the cargo bay. We know from the tie-in novel (and the official line seems to be that the tie-ins are canon, at least until they're not) that Prime!Lorca survived, at least for a while, imprisoned in what we can only presume is the mirrorverse. His return home to his own universe would be traumatic, not just for the crew, but for him - he's lost his ship, his crew, his reputation, everything. He'll undoubtedly have been fighting a war of his own in the mirrorverse, and he'll undoubtedly have to make sacrifices to get back.

TL;DR - assuming that someone didn't just Google 'quotes about learning' and think that it sounded good, this line seems to be fairly significant and foreshadows a lot of twisty turns before the season is out. And it's probably best for all concerned to watch their back in the shower. Just in case.

[douxreviews]

Star Trek: Discovery - ‘Point of Light’ Review

Burnham: "Show me a teenage girl who's never cried. You can't. I should know, I'm a xenoanthropologist."

By nature I love brevity: After last week's primarily standalone 'New Eden,' 'Point of Light' jumps right back into the season's arcs, developing some stories and beginning others. Most of it works, but a few slight issues remain. All in all, a strong episode.

The Klingons last season were very divisive. Though some appreciated the differences because they helped the Klingons feel alien again, others hated the very different general look of a race that has been a Star Trek staple since TOS. Specifically, a few things bothered fans. The Klingons' lack of hair was one; likewise the differently designed ships (especially one that was called the D7 but looked nothing like the TOS design) were hard to get over. The sequences that took place entirely in Klingon with subtitles got very tedious after a little while, as well; it's much easier to follow when you're able to understand what they're saying.

The Klingon portions of 'Point of Light' felt like an extremely overt attempt at correcting these issues. From the very beginning with the D7 to the deliberate switch from Klingon to English in the final scene, the whole thing appeared to be designed for the purpose of showing fans that the show would be doing something different. And each change, such as the hair on the Klingons' heads, was pointed out deliberately to the audience through lines like 'So the Klingons are growing their hair again post-war?' While I appreciate the modifications, and the explanations mostly make sense, it was at times a little too on-the-nose. I like that they're going out of their way to fix the problems of Season One, but every time they point to their solutions and say, 'See? We know you didn't like it and it's all better now!' it somehow feels both cheap and heavy-handed at the same time.

As far as the other half of the episode goes, three of this season's primary storylines progressed, some of them substantially. The first story that got some progress here is that of the red bursts and the Red Angel. The only thing that we really learned here is that Spock really has been seeing the Red Angel since childhood, and that it helped him save Michael. At first glance, this seems like more of the same, but when you think about it it's actually quite revealing. The fact that Spock saw visions of the Angel that were clear enough for him to get a message is interesting enough, but the fact that that message resulted in Burnham's life being saved is remarkable. This means two things. First, it reinforces that the Angel is not some vague presence, but that it actually intervenes actively in people's lives. Secondly, and I think more importantly, this is the second time that an appearance of the Angel has coincided with the rescue of Michael Burnham. The first was in the pilot, when Pike saved her, and here it was Spock saving her. It says to me that the Angel has a specific interest in Burnham and her life, which may be very interesting to watch considering Burnham's reservations about believing in a sort of higher power.

The appearance of Amanda also led to revelations about the Spock storyline. We learned that his condition has developed to the extent that Starfleet is keeping it classified at the highest level. It's telling that Pike tries to follow the rules, but is all too happy to break them when the need arises. This simply further cements him as a classic starship Captain, perhaps even too classic. One thing you could never say about Lorca is that we've seen Captains like him before. He was new and different; Pike is not. While this may not necessarily be a bad thing for the show at this point, I hope Pike is given distinguishing traits that will give his character more depth. The other tidbit of information we learned was that Burnham hurt Spock intentionally and for his safety. One can very easily see a young Spock, curious about humanity and unsatisfied by the intentionally reserved side of his mother, following Burnham around and wanting to be involved in her life. It would be appropriately devastating to have a childhood idol such as that hurt you deeply and intentionally. I only hope the final reveal of what Burnham did to him measure up to what they've built. The other thing is that the Federation believes Spock murdered three of his doctors. Burnham and Amanda aren't certain, which is pretty scary.

The last storyline that gets developed, and this one much more than the others combined, is Tilly's Seeing Dead People plot. Over the course of this single episode, we learn that May's appearance is connected to the green spore that landed on Tilly's shoulder at the end of last season, discover that May is a parasite who needs Tilly for something and calls Stamets the Captain, and pull the parasite off of Tilly in a bit of a cliffhanger ending. While it does feel a tiny bit rushed, I'm glad they aren't dragging this out. There are a limited number of episodes this season, and if they have to drag out a storyline to fill some time, they definitely don't have enough story to write for it. The other thing is that the way it would be dragged out would be more scenes where Tilly looks crazy to everyone around her when she talks to someone they can't see. Scenes like this are very hard to watch, and they get progressively more annoying the more of them there are. Moving on right to fighting the parasite means that we have less of these scenes to sit through. I have to applaud Bahia Watson for her great performance here; after playing 'unsettling, but not aggressively so' last episode, Watson suddenly turns the creep factor up to eleven in a way that both shocks me with its suddenness and at the same time feels like a natural and not-at-all rushed progression of the character. It will be interesting to see what I can only assume to be the finale of this storyline next episode.

All in all, I liked this episode a great deal. Several of the reveals surprised me (L'Rell and TyVoq's baby; the new information about the Red Angel), and I liked the way that Mirror Georgiou is being used to bring TyVoq back into the story. Though some of the Klingon bits made me roll my eyes at their blatant 'we're fixing what you didn't like' tone, on the whole this was a good episode. It's a bit hard to judge the developments of the ongoing stories until they come to full fruition, but 'Point of Light' seems like a good arc progression.

Strange New Worlds: Q'o'nos doesn't count as a new planet, so we didn't go anywhere new this time.

New Life and New Civilizations: We learned this week that May is a new type of life form that we haven't seen before.

Pensees:

-I really liked Burnham and Tilly's relationship in this one. It really felt like a strong, healthy friendship, and the way Burnham solved the problem made sense.

-One of my friends is really turned off by the invasions of Spock's privacy this season. First Burnham entered his quarters, and now they're breaking into his medical files.

-Another director's credit for Olatunde Osunsamni. She did a fine job with this one.

-They're calling Lt. Owosekun 'Owo' now. Was that an intentional cultural reference? I bet it was.

-The reveal of Amanda worked well. If I hadn't known she'd be in the episode, I would have been surprised.

-I like the idea of using the D7 as a way to unite the Klingon houses. If we go with the Season One idea that the houses have been split and in disarray, which explains the vastly different ships we saw that season, the one standardized design works well.

-Kolsha, Kol's father, was played by Kenneth Mitchell. He played his own character's father, which works, I guess.

-Spock's been taking EQ tests. It's good to see EQ being used as an accepted practice in the future, even if it is a fictional future.

-I liked the use of the split-screen effect when Burnham and Tyler were talking. It helped sell their emotional distance.

-It appears Tilly is prone to both giving up and making rash decisions when she's stressed or embarrassed. That's a good trait to give a character.

-Why the heck does Georgiou need the holographic face disguiser AND the Black Manta mask?

-Severed heads, especially severed baby heads, even if they are fake, is darker than Star Trek's been before.

-The new Section 31 starship looks kinda neat. I like the multi-level bridge.

-Tyler sent the baby to Boreth, which is the only connection to this episode's title. The legend believed by the monks of Boreth relates Kahless' promise that he will return 'on one of those points of light,' referring to the stars.

-So, uh... I know why Tyler isn't shocked by Georgiou, but wasn't she, well, dinner last time L'Rell saw her? Just sayin'.

-I don't think Javid Iqbal Shazad Latif quite got the memo about the less stilted, more natural dialogue this season.

Quotes:

Burnham: "You didn't betray your friend, Captain. You followed protocol." Pike: "That's easier to say than to believe."

L'Rell, to TyVoq: "You should not care what everyone sees when they look at you."

Georgiou: "The freaks are more fun."

4.5 out of 6 unnecessary Black Manta masks.

CoramDeo is climbing a mountain. Why is he climbing a mountain?

[sigmastolen]

dsc 2.03 “point of light”

Hm.

spoilers.

i love amanda but i officially Do Not Like this new chapter of spock’s backstory.  like.  the spock we know is, though outwardly unemotional, such a caring and compassionate individual; i reblogged a post last week about how an “emotionally compromised” spock is full not of anger but love, grief, and regret, but see also (off the top of my head) “The Devil in the Dark” for more evidence of spock’s empathy and compassion.  maybe it truly is the red angel that “changed him” or maybe sometime this season spock and michael will reconcile and he’ll be able to become the spock we know but for now, well, i Don’t Buy It and i’m not convinced it’s good writing and frankly i also don’t need whatever woobified spock will inevitably emerge from the fandom consciousness 

relatedly, amanda’s “i didn’t love him enough” speech was Exhausting, not because of the actor or the character but because that idea is so damn tired and i just... don’t need to see another iteration of the Mommy Issues story play out, thx

holy shit may is a mirror spore? holy shit i Do Not Trust her but i am definitely invested in this storyline.  what does she want with stamets? what was she grooming tilly for? to become killy? to extract culber from the network?

can we please develop that dark matter suction technology to remove a fungal infection bc our current treatment course of ointments &c. is Not Very Effective

klingon storyline off to a rocky start; also, i am bothered by the contradiction of their hair growing so fucking fast and also alexander rozhenko reaching his late teens in ~8 years, but the voq/l’rell child is still a tiny preemie?  idk, whatever, we’re never gonna see it again.

frankly i’m not super invested in the politics of klingon unification right now, beyond the basic desire to get the empire into a more familiar configuration to enable the rest of prime!canon, but okay, show

the l’rell/tyler relationship actually is pretty compelling, too bad they compressed the whole potential journey into tyler’s “i saw the child and magically felt feelings!” bullshit (my Childless By Choice feelings are very ugh, breeders today, sorry not sorry) and then separated the characters, likely for the long term

i’m Very Into l’rell taking “mother” as her ~fiercer title~, it’s very daenerys targaryen, and it makes sense in a culture that sees women as powerful authority figures in a family but that does not allow them equal participation in politics.

not very interested in section 31 either tbh, but i am still glad to see michelle yeoh.  i enjoyed the way she smiled at the baby and then pretended she didn’t.

“i’ve heard rumors about black badges” uh no actually, isn’t one of the key points of the section 31 mythos that literally nobody outside of section 31 knows about section 31????

anyway.  tentatively excited for the love of my life, number one, to appear next episode!  significantly less excited for the kelpien illness storyline, which looks like it’s going to be an emotionally manipulative waste of screentime!  yay!

[aion-rsa]

Why Star Trek: Discovery Needed to Write Out Its Klingons

https://ift.tt/3rEA2Tp

The third season of Star Trek: Discovery was many things, including a trip into an uncharted future that released the series from concerns about pesky things like existing franchise canon and a soft reboot that allowed a show that had often struggled to determine its identity to find its voice at last. It was also the first Discovery season that didn’t feature one particular Star Trek staple: The Klingon race. Are those things connected to one another? Signs definitely point to yes.

To be fair, few fans were probably that surprised by this particular narrative. The Klingons are essentially Discovery’s white whale, the one part of the show’s universe that it can never quite get right and whose appeal it can never capture, no matter how it tries or what twists it pulls. Virtually every subplot involving Klingon characters has been nothing short of a disaster, whether we’re either talking about the galaxy’s dullest war story or that time Michael Burnham ended up falling in love with a Klingon sleeper agent essentially wearing a human suit. (Season 1 was a journey, folks.) By the time Season 3 started, many viewers were probably more than happy to bid these characters farewell.

The show’s first season focused heavily on the fallout from the Battle at the Binary Stars, the opening salvo in the supposedly epic Federation-Klingon War that turned out to involve a lot more longwinded talking than exciting space battles. Discovery Season 1 went all-in on showing us the intricacies of Klingon politics, complete with multiple, extended scenes spoken only in Klingon (with subtitles) that derailed the momentum of any episode they happened to be in. There were weird tribal prophecies and a potentially intriguing conflict between various Klingon houses that unfortunately never really went anywhere.

Season 2 of Discovery, perhaps realizing that most viewers weren’t particularly interested in watching the Klingon version of C-SPAN, turned its focus to the arrival of Captain Christopher Pike and the mystery surrounding Spock and the Red Angel. Klingons, as such, weren’t a particularly large part of the story anymore, outside of Mary Chieffo’s High Chancellor L’Rell. And though her arc, which centered on her fight to claim her own power in a society that doesn’t particularly value its female members, was interesting on paper, it eventually got derailed by a truly ridiculous subplot involving her having a baby with the aforementioned Klingon sleeper agent. (There’s a whole bunch of other stuff about consent, sexual assault, and which “mind” was in control of Ash Tyler’s body that, really, we’re all better off forgetting ever happened. Big yikes.)

So, in many ways, it’s perfectly understandable that, when the series was offered a fresh start in the form of a third season set nearly over nine hundred years in the future, Discovery jumped at the opportunity to shed the alien race that gave the show so many problems in its first two outings. Granted, the series wasn’t particularly graceful about its decision to essentially delete the Klingons from its narrative, spending most of its third season dropping in nostalgic Easter eggs for fans even as it moved its own story forward. It’s just the Klingons weren’t one of them.

Season 3 saw Burnham and friends revisit several planets familiar to Star Trek fans like Trill and Ni’Var, the world that was formerly known as Vulcan. Its world feels more expansive than ever before, with new characters of varied races throughout. Ryn the Andorian – a member of an iconic Star Trek alien race that had previously appeared in just a single episode of Discovery – suddenly played a pivotal role in Season 3’s story. Even Linus the Saurian had more to do.

Yet, we never see a single Klingon. Not even in a random crowd shot. Not once. In fact, the only time Klingons are even mentioned is in the Terran Mirror Universe two-parter, which technically takes place in the past. We have no idea what happened to the Klingon Empire in the wake of The Burn, or what their society is like now. That’s some pretty hardcore ghosting, particularly when it would have been so easy to just drop a few vague hints about things like their Federation status, the ways that a largely warrior race adapted to a world with (a whole lot) less dilithium in it, or how they feel about the infamous Michael Burnham’s return from the proverbial grave. Yet, Discovery deliberately bypasses all those stories without looking back. And, in the end, it’s difficult to argue with that choice.

Read more

TV

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Doesn’t Need Captain Kirk

By Lacy Baugher

TV

Star Trek: Discovery: How Book and Burnham Have Quietly Become TV’s Healthiest Romance

By Lacy Baugher

Season 3 is the series’ strongest and most complete outing yet, a return to the first principles of Star Trek with a generally brighter and more hopeful feel, despite the occasionally dystopian vibe of the 32nd century. (The big takeaway from the season finale is a lesson in empathy, after all.) The third season was focused not just on solving the mystery of The Burn and rebuilding the Federation, but on reasserting the idea that such a thing as a good or helpful institution was still possible. Klingons were never likely to have much of a place in that kind of story, so basically ignoring their existence was a win-win for everyone.

And at this point, so many viewers probably had Klingon-related Discovery PTSD, that the clearest, easiest path was to simply remove the piece of the show that had caused it the most problems in the past. Which is fine, there are plenty of other stories to tell in this universe, and maybe the series will figure out a way to reintroduce the Klingons in a way that doesn’t derail all the other good work the show has done since the last time we saw them. (Sure, I’m not hopeful, but this is Star Trek. Anything is possible.)

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Perhaps the Klingons as characters will find a more forgiving home on Strange New Worlds, set at the interesting narrative juncture in which both the Klingon Empire and Federation will have to try and iron out something that looks like peace. But maybe it’s time for the world of Discovery to do a little more seeking out of new life for its future stories, and not try to return to a narrative well that’s never really worked for the show.

The post Why Star Trek: Discovery Needed to Write Out Its Klingons appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/39ywITN

[aion-rsa]

Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Episode 7 Easter Eggs & References

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Star Trek: Discovery article contains spoilers for “Unification III.”

It’s Spock time! In “Unification III,” Star Trek: Discovery has continued a story that The Next Generation began in 1991. And, in doing so, the series has created an episode of Trek that is both nostalgic as hell and also forward-facing and new. Back before we even knew what Discovery would be like, we were told Michael Burnham was Spock’s adoptive sister. And now, Spock’s sister has come home! 

From TNG vibes to sweet nods to the reboot films, to a lot of references to Spock, here’s all the Easter eggs and shout-outs we caught in Star Trek: Discovery, Season 3, Episode 7, “Unification III.”

New Starfleet Logo on USS Discovery

During the opening moments of the episode, we see that a newer, more rounded Starfleet insignia adorns the shuttle bay of the Discovery. This feels commensurate with the upgrade we saw the ship get last week.

USS Yelchin 

One of the “black boxes” Burnham recovered is from an “old” Federation starship called the USS Yelchin. This feels like a huge tribute to actor Anton Yelchin, who played Chekov in the Star Trek reboot films. Tragically, Yelchin died just before the release of Star Trek Beyond. 

Two-Dimensional Thinking 

Tilly tells Burnham that mapping all the Burn data works fine in two-dimensions, but not in three-dimensional space. This could be a slight nod to Spock in The Wrath of Khan. In that film, Spock points out to Kirk that Khan’s strategies indicated “two-dimensional thinking.” 

Vulcan becomes “Ni’Var”

The new name for the planet Vulcan — Ni’Var — comes from OG Star Trek fan culture. In the 1968 fanzine called Spockanalia, fan writer Dorothy Jones came-up with the word “ni var,” which she claimed was a Vulcan word that referred to “two forms.” This is not the first time this word has made it into canon though; in the 2002 Enterprise episode “Shadows of P’Jem,” the NX-01 encountered a Vulcan ship named Ni’Var.

Saru and Burnham have no idea that Romulans have pointed ears

When Saru learns the Romulans are sharing the planet formerly known as Vulcan, he says: “The Romulans were considered enemies in our time.” Vance points out that “history forgot this in your time, but Romulans and Vulcans were two tribes of the same race…” All of this is true, but the funny thing is that because DISCO’s point of origin happens in 2258, that’s a full eight years before the events of “Balance of Terror,” in 2266, in which Kirk, Spock and pretty much everybody in Starfleet, learned that Romulans looked a lot like Vulcans.

Spock and “Unification III”

The title of this episode is a reference to the two-part episode in The Next Generation, “Unification Part 1” and “Unification Part 2.” However, in the TNG days, some of the multi-part episodes were styled this way; meaning the onscreen text read “Unification II” not “Unification Part 2.” This was also true of episodes like “Redemption II.” It was not the case with “The Best of Both Worlds,” “Time’s Arrow,” or “Descent.” It’s also not the case with the title of Discovery’s first episode of Season 3, “That Hope Is You, Part 1,” which very clearly spells-out the “Part 1.” That said, Discovery is the first Trek series to not actually show the episode titles during the opening credits, a tradition that continued with Picard. (Although Lower Decks used the TNG style and has the titles spelled-out in the credits.) That said, “Unification III” is the very first time an episode title in one Trek series directly posits itself as a sequel to an episode title from a totally separate show. 

Spock’s “death”

Vance mentions that the reunification of the Vulcans and Romulans “took centuries after [Spock’s] death.” To be clear, this is a presumed death. Starfleet’s records would show that Spock fell into a black hole in 2387, right around the time of the Romulan Supernova. They have no idea he actually went back in time to 2258, and also slid sideways into the J.J. Abrams universe in Star Trek 2009. Then, he eventually died in an alternate version of the year 2263 (Star Trek Beyond), which, in the parallel Prime Universe is like two years before Kirk and Spock even meet. 

So, Spock “died” in 2387, according to Starfleet records, but really went back in time to an alternate 2258, which in the Prime Universe, is the same year from which Michael Burnham went into the future. If you count Spock’s “presumed” death established here in Discovery, and his temporary death in The Wrath of Khan, and his “actual” offscreen death in Beyond, Spock has died three times. Starfleet’s recorded death of Spock being false when time travel was really involved also echoes Starfleet’s incorrect records of Spock’s bestie James T. Kirk, who everyone thought died in 2293 on the Enterprise-B (Generations) but, really, time-traveled via the Nexus and died with Picard in 2371. (It’s like space-poetry. It rhymes.)

Finally, it should be noted that all of Sarek’s children end-up as time travelers, except for Sybok, who, in The Final Frontier, touched the face of an evil space god, and got esploded. 

Multiple Spocks! 

The flashbacks we see of Michael talking to Spock (Ethan Peck), as well as kid Spock (Liam Hughes), come from the Discovery Season 2 finale, “Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2.” Combined with the archive footage of Spock (Leonard Nimoy) from TNG, this is the only episode of Star Trek, ever, in which Spock appears three times, played by three different actors and in none of the scenes is the character “alive” in the present. This is also the only time Ethan Peck and Leonard Nimoy appear as young and old Spock in the same Star Trek thing. That said, there are oddly several precedents for Trek episodes or films in which multiple Spock actors appear in the same story. 

In the TAS episode “Yesteryear” Spock (Leonard Nimoy) meets himself as a young child (Billy Simpson.)

In The Search For Spock, Leonard Nimoy appears in the same movie with four other Spock actors, Carl Steven, Vadia Potenza, Stephen Manley, and Joe W. Davis. All of these other Spocks played Spock in his various stages of hyper-aging on the Genesis planet. But, don’t get it twisted, like Billy Simpson and Liam Hughes, these Spocks are canon!

In The Final Frontier, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is in the same scene with an infant version of Spock. We don’t know who that baby was, but it’s a good bet that it wasn’t archive footage of Nimoy’s actual birth.

In Star Trek 2009, Leonard Nimoy obviously appears alongside Zachary Quinto, but you also have a third, child Spock played by Jacob Kogan. 

In Star Trek Into Darkness, obviously, both Quinto and Nimoy appear.

In Star Trek Beyond, two still photos of Nimoy exist in the same story as Zachary Quinto as Spock.

In the Star Trek: Discovery episodes “Light and Shadow,” and “If Memory Serves,” Liam Hughes plays child Spock in the same episode that Ethan Peck plays an adult Spock.

Anyway. That’s a lot of Spocks! Does any other Trek character come close to having this many people play them? Second place seems to be a tie between Jean-Luc Picard and Christopher Pike, who have each been played by four distinct actors. Oh, and don’t even get me started on Molly O’Brien. 

The Spock flashback!

By now, it’s obvious, but just in case you missed it, the scene in which Michael views archive footage of Spock comes from two different scenes in “Unification II.” One scene, where Spock alludes to “closed minds” happens fairly early in the episode. The rest of the speech, however, happens at the end of the episode. In both instances, Spock was talking to Jean-Luc Picard. 

I never finished the command training program

Tilly mentions that she never completed her command training. This was a major plot point in Discovery Season 2, specifically the episode “Point of Light,” when we saw Tilly win the Command Training Program half-marathon. 

Graduate of the Vulcan Science Academy

Burnham mentions she is a “graduate of the Vulcan Science Academy.” This is something her brother did not complete. We saw Burnham’s graduation day in the Discovery Season 1 episode, “Lethe.” 

“Since the time of Surak”

Burnham mentions Surak, the founder of Vulcan logic. The first canonical reference to Surak was in the TOS episode “The Savage Curtain,” in which Surak fought with Kirk and Spock, alongside Abraham Lincoln. 

Qowat Milat and “absolute candor”

We learn that Burnham’s biological mother, Gabrielle Burnham, has become a member of the Qowat Milat. This references the Romulan warrior nuns, introduced in the Picard episode “Absolute Candor.” Like Elnor, Gabrielle Burnham has a sword on her back. This episode was written by Kirsten Beyer, who, along with Michael Chabon, Akiva Goldsman, and Alex Kurtzman, co-created Star Trek: Picard.

The Temporal Accords

The Vulcan president, T’Rina (Tara Rosling) tells Saru: “Your jump to the future is not widely known, even within Starfleet.” Saru tells her that’s because they don’t want to be “polarizing, given the Temporal Accords.” This references Enterprise, in which Daniels told Archer that the Temporal Accords prevented time-travel from being used illegally. But, it also seems to indicate that Vance hasn’t told all of Starfleet where Discovery is actually from. 

Essof IV

Burnham’s mom mentions that she landed “right back on Essof IV.” This references the planet on which the Discovery crew tried to “capture” the Red Angel. Presumably, Dr. Burnham didn’t land “right” back on Essof IV. She also, clearly, journeyed into the future. How long has she been living on Ni’Var? We don’t know. Long enough to become a warrior nun! 

Needs of the many

Saru and T’Rina briefly debate about the maxim: “The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few.” This originates in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That said, in The Voyage Home, Spock’s mom, Amanda, pointed out that Spock’s friends believed that “the need of the one” — specifically Spock — was “more important to them” than the needs of the many. Amanda raised Michael Burnham, too! 

Vulcan gongs and fire reference “Amok Time,” and The Search For Spock

When Burnham invokes the T’Kal-in-ket, some very retro Vulcan-ceremony vibes. The gongs and fire are not only evocative of Spock’s “wedding” in the TOS episode “Amok Time,” but also the ceremony in The Search For Spock, in which Spock’s Katra was put back in his body.

Tilly and Burnham still share a room!

After much speculation, it seems very clear now that Tilly and Burnham still share a room. This is because Burnham makes a joke about Tilly asking her to “switch my bed to the other side of the room.” This means that they have been roommates since “Context Is For Kings” in Season 1 of Discovery. Is there just not that much room on the ship? Or do they just like it? 

“Live long and prosper”

Somebody doing the “Live long and prosper,” thing isn’t exactly an Easter egg, but it is the first time we’ve seen Saru give the famous Vulcan salute. Saru joins several other non-Vulcan Starfleet captains who have flashed the famous hand gesture, including Captain Picard and Captain Archer. Is Saru the first non-human and non-Vulcan to do it? It seems so.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Star Trek: Discovery is streaming now on CBS All Access.

The post Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Episode 7 Easter Eggs & References appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2KIGUj4