#the first season was a pretty solid allegory for 9/11

[brionysea]

watches an old show during the writer's strike. it gets a little weird a few seasons in. oh this was written during the last writer's strike

[ichayalovesyou]

SNW Episodes Ranked

Subjectively by me on a curve because holy shit what a great first season. With a little vignette with my thoughts for each!

1. Children of The Comet 11/10

Everything I love about Star Trek while also giving us a solid ‘up yours’ to the critical flaws in the Prime Directive. A benevolent singing comet that can see the future? That’s some peak optimistic sci-fi stuff! It also had baby Cadet Uhura getting her time to shine as a linguist and a beautiful singer. I remember saying when the show was announced the thing I wanted most was to see the origins of Spock and Uhura’s friendship/jam sessions and this episode DELIVERED. Good shit!! No notes!

2. The Elysian Kingdom 10/10

Don’t get me wrong I am absolutely in love with Discovery and darker Treks but one thing I did miss was TOS campiness and oh BOY this episode fit the bill. I will never emotionally recover from this ridiculous, beautifully costumed, heart wrenching episode! Anson Mount getting to play a snivelling coward! Christina Chong playing a pretty pretty princess! Hot wizards! Badass women with swords and bows! A beautiful message about letting go and letting your kids become who they want to be! I love it!

3. Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach 9.5/10

Sexy times and societal allegories! Nothing like a Star Trek episode that’s a hot one-night-stand one minute and then a school shootings (among other applicable faux “for the children” arguments) allegory the next. I love Star Trek episodes that give you an existential crisis and also being weirdly horny, it’s what this franchise is all about! My only gripe is that, if it weren’t for the fact there are tons of real situations that make you go “why do you have a machine that eats babies on purpose?! Is the vacation spot really that worth it? Really???” Majalis has an implausibility to it if you don’t remind yourself of things that piss you off lol.

4. A Quality of Mercy 9/10

Hoo boy I love my Captain Pike content and this episode FED meeeeeeeee! I think at least part of why I love this episode so much is that it makes me feel very smug and vindicated because I correctly predicted a lot of it lmao. I knew they wouldn’t break off into an alternate timeline and it felt like a ‘screw you, be a little patient’ to some of the more… belligerent, TOS purists. I am absolutely rabid over the pure-grade father/son Pike & Spock content from this episode. It probably would’ve been my favorite if I didn’t feel like they gave us Kirk too soon and that Ortegas filling in for Stiles dialogue felt very weird and out of place for her. Other than that it was great!!!

5. The Ghosts of Illyria 8.75/10

I love funky plague episodes! The whole light thing was really really clever and fun to watch. There were lots of little moments that I liked about this episode like Pike going full hen peck dad mode when the ghosts accidentally hurt Spock. Hemmer going full mad scientist after getting infected and promptly getting stunned and carried to sickbay by Una. You could hear queer women everywhere drop trou at that scene. SNW loves poking holes in the questionable moral declarations of older treks, and this one did so with the Illyrians and genetic manipulation! Loved it! Would’ve been a bit better if they let the dread of Una getting caught stew longer imo.

6. Memento Mori 8.5/10

The Gorn are back! In this episode they were a pretty cool unseen enemy (I only wish they’d stayed that way *sigh*), gotta love that submarine drama! The cinematography in this episode really stuck out to me, I think this and Elysian Kingdom have the best visual directing in the show to date. I am also an absolutely massive angst monger so I loved all the La’an, Spock, Una, and Pike angst we got out of this cinematic bad boy! I also loved Hemmer and Uhura in this episode, I cherish every bit of his screentime considering the fate that later befalls him.

7. The Serene Squall 8.3/10

Pirates! Pronouns! Messy relationship drama that begins to explain why Chapel is Like That (tm) in TOS! Pike wearing an apron over his tactical armor! A direct criticism of people who believe their internal version of Spock is the only one true Spock! FRICKIN SYBOK ACTUALLY MATTERS FINALLY :D! There’s a lot to love about this episode but it kinda felt like it tried to have too many tones at once and fell short on all of them in the struggle. It also raises a question about Vulcan divorce, I figure either the Skype divorce they did was crap the fiancés made up on the fly, or there’s something special about the nature of T’Pring’s adultery that leads to Kalifee. I guess we’ll see!

8. Spock Amok 8.2/10

Nothing will ever be as delightfully funny as Elysian Kingdom imo but this episode certainly had a lot of fun moments. I’m here for Spock relationship drama and him getting to punch a racist bitch as a treat. Enterprise Bingo is an absolute gold mine of fanfic opportunity and I’m super here for the cute Una and La’an friendship that feels like it runs parallel to Pike and Spock’s in some ways. It was also really nice to get Chapel confirmed as bi (and gives me hope for OTHER queer confirmations about certain legacy characters we know). The biggest reason this episode is as low as it is is simply just that other episodes had more going for them that I personally enjoy.

9. Strange New Worlds 8/10

This is probably my third favorite pilot right below DS9 and VOY’s pilots. That being said it does have trademark pilot issues, a lot of characters to set up and very little time to do it. On top of having to explain What Pike’s Deal Is to new audiences who haven’t seen Discovery. Which they did an okay job with, but it does lose some of its punch and nuance if you haven’t seen at least the clip pertaining to that vision from Through The Valley of Shadiws. It criticizes the Prime Directive’s frustrating lack of nuance the way Children of The Comet does which is a win in my book. Good episode but definitely suffers from too-many-things-to-do disease.

10. All Those Who Wander 7/10

Ah yes, the one I have the most complicated opinions about. It’s a good story, even if it borrows heavily from Alien and not in the narratively potent way LUWSCR does from Those Who Walk Away From Omelas. Horror in Star Trek is kinda hit or miss since Trek’s usual motif is to learn about the unknown rather than fear it. I don’t particularly love the Gorn babies being discount xenomorphs. But hey, if we can befriend the Borg after them being nightmarish and pretty exclusively enemies for so long there’s hope for Gorn too, even if we don’t see it in SNW. I did absolutely adore La’an’s character growth and the show not glazing over M’Benga “losing” his daughter, that was really enjoyable to see. Hemmer had a good send off even if I wish he could stay longer, but then again, we never did see a body…

[terramythos]

2019 Reading Breakdown

I had a weird year in books-- lots of rereading, and I didn’t read as much as I wanted to. I’m going to change that in 2020 and also try to diversify my selections a bit. Here's a quick break out in descending order of what I liked and disliked that I read in 2019:

10/10 - The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1)

Serious contender for best book I've ever read. The narrative style is somewhat experimental, rotating through first, second, AND third person perspectives, but it executes this flawlessly. A creative, weird fantasy/scifi mash up that I found reminiscent of stuff like Nier. Deals with very heavy themes and allegories for oppression. Great LGBT rep. Pretty much none of the main cast is white except one of the villains. And it is just brimming with interesting and genuinely unexpected twists and turns. On top of it all the voice and prose are fantastic. I spent my entire first read just amazed I was allowed to read something this good. Please for the love of god read it so I have someone else to flail at.

10/10 - The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3)

Everything comes together and it's an excellent conclusion to the trilogy. I particularly loved that my personal fave Hoa becomes tritagonist in this one and we get a lot of his backstory (and by extension, history of the world and how we got to the present). Loved it.

10/10 - The Brightest Fell (October Daye #11)

I did not expect this entry to slap so hard, but it does. Gives The Winter Long (#8) a run for its money, which is genuinely impressive. The stakes are higher in this book than in any before or since, there's a whole lot of interesting Lore developments, and a creative/devastating redemption arc for Simon. Easily one of the best, if not the best, books in the series.

9/10 - Night and Silence (October Daye #12)

Also good. It looks like it's going to be a retread of One Salt Sea (#5) then goes a totally different and unexpected direction. Also, I made an offhand prediction way back that pays off in this one, which was exciting.

9/10 - Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1)

Really good fantasy heist story. Wasn't sure where it was going at first but it all came together splendidly in the third act. YA gets a lot of (often undeserved) crap, but this is just straight up good fiction. I find books with lots of perspective characters challenging sometimes, because I will find I like some way more than others. That was true for this one at first, but the character development was so on point I started to really enjoy all of them. I can see why people like this one!

9/10 - Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows #2)

Great conclusion and continuation of character development. Ended the year and decade on this one and don't regret it. There is one spoiler thing that happens near the end that I think could have been handled better, but that's really a nitpick in the grand scheme of things.

9/10 - The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth #2)

I struggle with book 2s in trilogies as a general rule, and I didn't like this as much as the other two, but it was still a solid and well written entry with really interesting character/world development. Some memorable moments that I can't expand on here because holy god are they series spoilers.

9/10 - The Girl in the Green Silk Gown (Ghost Roads #2)

Surpasses the original (Sparrow Hill Road) in pretty much every way. I loved the enemies to grudging allies to friends arc between Rose and Laura. Paranormal Americana stuff is always fun and I liked how this expanded the series take on it.. Thought the lore stuff on Route Witches was cool, and liked how it more solidly connects this spinoff to the Incryptid books.

8/10 - Tricks for Free (Incryptid #7)

I'm glad that Antimony got an encore round, as she is definitely my favorite of the three siblings. Thought knockoff Disneyland was a fun setting for this kind of story.

7/10 - The Stepsister Scheme (Princess #1)

My sister described this series as "if the leads from Final Fantasy X-2 were fairytale princesses" and.. yeah that's pretty much it. It was entertaining enough but I wasn't sold on it. Apparently this series gets Real Good around book 3 so I'm sticking it out.

6/10 - Once Broken Faith and The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #s 10 and 13)

I'm putting these together because I had the same problems with both. They're both written to address some big Lore Thing and have a seemingly random conflict thrown in with unmemorable villains. They're still fun to read because I like the characters, but considering how good the books around them are, I found them disappointing. Both would have functioned fine as novellas and I don't think numbered entries were really needed. Resurrecting January was a big deal and that was relegated to a novella, so I think it would have been fine.

5/10 - Vengeful (Villains #2)

This feels harsh, but I can’t give this a higher score. There's just a lot of wasted potential and weird decisions. I really enjoyed Vicious (#1), which was a fairly short and character driven take on morally gray superpowered people. This unexpected followup doubles the main cast and is at least twice as long. I was initially excited for this, having loved a lot of material by this author, but ultimately I think it was too much. 

There are some things I genuinely liked, such as Eli getting more rounded character development, the found family dynamic with Sydney, Victor, and Mitch,and genuinely creative takes on certain superpowers.  But for a character-driven story, it fell flat for me. Newcomer Marcella is all over the promotional material and gets a lot of screen time, but ultimately turns into a one-dimensional villain, which is disappointing. Each of the main cast has a character arc and growth, but the ending throws it all out the window (and not even in a “Ha! dramatic irony!” way). One character’s big moment of growth comes when he realizes the unwinnable situation he’s in is his own fault, and he has to be the one to find the solution, resolving to do whatever it takes. Then his conclusion is... a deus ex machina some other, unrelated character found in a different arc magically solves the problem. Huh? And it’s pretty much that way for everyone, though that was the worst offender for me. 

I seem to be in the minority on this one, but Vengeful went from “entertaining yet flawed” to “the ending killed it for me” pretty quickly. And there’s random scenes near the end I can only describe as sequel bait, which didn’t feel justified or earned. Regardless, I don’t really have a desire to continue if there ends up being more.