Logline
A distress call from Lt. Noonien-Singh compels Spock to disobey orders and take the USS Enterprise and its crew into disputed space, risking renewed hostilities with the Klingons in a bid to aid their shipmate.
Written by Henry Alonso Myers & Akiva Goldsman
Directed by Chris Fisher
A note about episode discussions on startrek.website
Right now, the plan is to post the /c/startrek discussion when the episode drops on Thursdays. Once the global community has had some time to watch and digest what they’ve seen, the /c/daystrominstitute discussion will go live on Sundays for a more in-depth analysis. This is subject to change as we evaluate what works best for the community as a whole.
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- I am 100% here for the chaotic energy that Carol Kane is going to bring to this show.
- The Klingon captain had exactly the right amount of swagger and sassiness that a TOS-era Klingon captain is supposed to have. I’m glad that they’re moving on from some of the Discovery Klingon characterization while also resisting the urge to jump right to them behaving like TNG Klingons.
Hemmer was my favorite character from season one, and is very difficult to replace in my heart. But Carol Kane is one of those actors you just can’t help but love to see on screen (in any capacity). It’s going to be very hard to be upset knowing she’ll be around.
I do wish we were able to keep Hemmer around longer.
Completely agree with both points. The Klingons were altogether great - makeup and hair were perfect, and the captain at the end was the icing on the cake
Ortegas inverted her controller settings as everyone should 🎮
Honestly Inverted Stick for Flight controls makes so much more sense on controller because that’s what you would do with an actual flight stick
Being a ship already, wouldn’t the Ent already be inverted and she’s just changed it back?
As President of the Spock/Chapel fanclub and a sucker for Klingons, I feel that this episode was plucked out of my brain.
I loved it.
I’m also glad they began to explore a bit of post war PTSD through M’Benga. It’ll be interesting to see how far they go with the Gorn.
Regarding Nurse Chapel almost dying - this is one of the TV/movie tropes that I think is such a cheap and terrible device and I am tired of it. Discovery was full of these scenes where they make you believe a main character really almost died, only to survive after all, and having their crew mates weep for them (I am looking at you Burnham). There are much better ways to create good drama.
I’d normally agree with you but I don’t think they were trying to fool the audience in this case. It was more about showing Spock’s emotional reaction.
Still, there’s better ways of showing that than the almost dying trope.
spoiler
Nurse Chapel is in TOS - so there wasn’t really any risk that she was going to die here.
Yeah, putting aside that not everyone has seen TOS who is watching this show, I didn’t interpret this as some kind of attempt to make the audience think Chapel was going to die. The purpose of this happening was all about what it shows about Spock and the scenes and character development that come from that.
And I think in this case it was quite effective and I wouldn’t change it to something else. Spock was holding off the order and he was really upset because he didn’t want to give the order that kills Chapel and M’Benga (though he has more attachment to Chapel). The threat to their lives is a vital part of this story they’re telling about Spock and it wouldn’t have the same effect if they changed the situation to something else. Seeing him have to give the order, then have them be possibly alive, but then having Chapel seem to be dead and Spock himself bring her back was very powerful for me and I don’t think that could be replaced with something else or a different kind of situation and have the same impact on either Spock or the audience.
Both the scene in the transporter room and in sick bay later were excellent excellent scenes for Spock and highlights of the episode for me. Ethan Peck’s acting was really strong in those scenes too — I’m so glad to have him playing Spock.
undefined> I’d normally agree with you but I don’t think they were trying to fool the audience in this case. It was more about showing Spock’s emotional reaction.
Yep that was my take as well.
It makes even less sense on a prequel show where you know the characters are for sure around longer.
As someone who actually enjoyed Discovery, that’s one of the things I couldn’t stand about it. And it really disappoints me that they used it here. You can’t have the stakes of every damn episode be that high, so it really bothers me that we get it in the first episode of the season. I really hope it’s not a sign of things to come.
But we know Chapel isn’t going to die in this show. She was in the follow up series that’s been canon got 60 years.
I concede that point but I still hate that plot device.
@triktrek Oh, boy - Can we talk about “Picard”?! Data dies in Nemesis, a great and noble sacrifice. Which is then diminished, because we brought him back for Picard! The staff didn’t think the Nemesis sacrifice was a worthy sendoff, or perhaps *they* wanted to do the sending off. So we’ll kill him again, this time with feeling! But, season three, the old gang is all getting together again. Maybe we can resurrect him one more time? (I’m aware of the supposed differences, but really. It was Data.)
And they killed off Picard! Another great and noble sacrifice! But no, not really, let’s bring him back as an android, you’ll never notice the difference! 🙄
It’s really at the point where a character’s death is robbed of all drama, because there’s always a way to resurrect them. It was a dream, they were in the Mirror universe, the mycelium network made a copy, etc.
I agree. That’s why it would have actually been shocking if there were to really kill Chapel. I only watched Games of Thrones lately (yeah I know), and boy was I shocked at the various kills of main characters.
Don’t watch SW Episode IX then lol, I think they had like five or six fakeout deaths? jfc
Yeah, that was pretty dumb too.
In the last scene it did seem odd that m’benga was absolutly fine yet chapel was still in effectively ICU
For the love of Pete can we stop with all of the lame catch phrases and dumb jokes? Spock should have just uttered something simple suiting the Vulcan personality/character, like “proceed”. But no, we have to get a lame line one step above a fart joke…
I really don’t get why people are so upset about the warp catchphrase thing. I think its great that there’s a tradition through Trek lore. It reinforces to me that these are all people. People working hard to advance themselves to the point they daydream of sitting in the Captain’s chair. Every single Trek nerd can empathize with that daydream.
@arod48 @startrek For me, it breaks the suspension of disbelief. The whole “catchphrase” conversation was, for sure, a writer’s room thing that leaked into the scripts. It might be an interesting thing to reflect on for the writers and the fans, but it rings untrue when the characters spend so much time on it.
It reminds me of all those “Let’s put on a show!” situations in various movies and TV shows. The characters in those programs probably wouldn’t be inclined, but for the the entertainment community that produced the show, it’s second nature, and often allows them to entertain the audience by letting the actors show off their other talents (viz Picard lustily quoting Shakespearean sonnets to impress some Ferengi). Sure, it’s entertaining, but if you want to suspend disbelief and get into a story about highly trained people helming a starship, bristling with weapons and technology, it’s jarring.
IMHO, of course 😉
It made sense in Lower Decks when Freeman was coming up with “warp me” in a quiet moment, but this kind of “stop the action dead for a funny bit” is one of the worst trends in modern writing.
I find those episodes and movies in general annoying when it happens. Like it’s so transparent this entire thing is just a giant love letter to hollywood, filled with inside jokes that only people in the entertainment industry would really get. I guess I find it so annoying because it shows how out of touch many of these people are, which sheds a little light on why/how all of our favorite franchises are being systematically destroyed.
Spock should have just uttered something simple suiting the Vulcan personality/character
I would argue that that’s exactly what he did. That line was very representative of where his character is in this episode - stressed-out and awkward.
I think it would have been better as a comic moment towards the end of the episode, as they leave to come home… In the tense moment of stealing the ship and answering distress call it felt very forced.
I must say I’m already a big fan of Pelia.
Agreed! Carol Kane is always fun to watch.
@End0fLine @LibraryLass In my head, she is always in an unintelligible shouting contest with Andy Kaufman.
I was first introduced to her in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and I’ve loved her since. She has a quality that just puts a smile on your face.
To me she will always be the witch from Princess Bride.
Edit: “I’m not a witch, I’m your wife! But after what you just said, I’m not even sure I want to be that any more.”
I get a lot of shit for this in my life, but I have never actually seen that movie. But that quote makes it sound up my alley.
It’s one of the funniest, most exciting, most romantic movies ever made. I’ve met in all my life only one person who didn’t enjoy it and she was kind of awful in general. I would bet you would like it too.
I love that you’re hinting that you may be able to tell something about someone who doesn’t enjoy this move. I hope I like it!
I think that came off way more sarcastic than I intended…
Not going to give you shit but I am going to suggest you should watch it at your earliest opportunity. I suspect you will enjoy it a lot and wish you’d seen it sooner.
I wouldn’t give you shit for it, but I would hand you a well-used DVD of the movie and tell you go watch it immediately. It’s a good time.
The M’Benga-and-Chapel-are-Max-Payne sequence went on far too long: only one group aboard the ship had weapons (and Stormtrooper accuracy) of any kind? I’d have preferred a stealthier sequence: after reprogramming the transponder, they use a series of Jeffries tubes to get to the airlock with the intent of opening it to escape but the ship takes off to ruin that plan.
Other than that, it was a decent episode to get the season going. Spock’s emotional journey will be a focal point of the season, which I’m okay with.
SPECTREThe Broken Circle Gang is probably going to show up again and I wonder if we’ll eventually see some TOS villains retconned to be members. Carol Kane will be fun and with what was said of her species, I’m betting on her making at least two ENT references during the season.Interesting that the false-flag ship is Crossfield-class: the saucer is a clear match but the drive section is completely different. Were the Discovery and Glenn modified from that spec to fit the spore drive research project or was the ship we saw a wartime refit of the class?
So Die Hard on a spaceship? We did that with Starship Mine already but I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Is Starfleet’s version of the Hippocratic oath “First, do no harm, unless you have to, in which case go hard.”?
As for the Crossfield-Class, I thought it might either be that the classification of Discovery made them change the format of it for obfuscation purposes. Either that or they built that ship from salvaged parts from the war, and the saucer/transponder was from a Crossfield, and Uhura was simply reading from the transponder code the ship class.
That was my take as well on the ship. My reading was that they picked up a bunch of salvage from the war, and kit-bashed it all together to make a ship.
On a meta level, they almost certainly did just that to create the ship model. Took the Disco saucer and fiddled with the rest a bit.
Is Starfleet’s version of the Hippocratic oath “First, do no harm, unless you have to, in which case go hard.”?
LOL
One must protect oneself, too, I suppose.
Were the Discovery and Glenn modified from that spec to fit the spore drive
Yes. IIRC that was stated in of the first handful of Discovery episodes. (possibly the one where they encountered the Glenn?)
also can we please stop it with the trope “oh no, how are we going to survive this jump through space without a suit? …Oh whaddya know we’re just fine.” Just give them fucking suits, it’s lazy writing to create more suspense for no reason.
Right!?! Nobody watching is going to think their are going to kill off two of the main cast members in the first episode…
only one group aboard the ship had weapons (and Stormtrooper accuracy) of any kind?
you do remember they were trying to buy phasers from La’an? Those were the only phasers they had, it would seem.
Pelia is like “I have been alive for hundreds of years and I’m going to make that everyone else’s problem.”
Carol Kane is such a gem for this show, I can tell already.
She’s so good! Already I really like her character!
personally I find her gramma Addams act a little hamfisted, but maybe it’ll make sense as the season goes on.
You shut your whore mouth about a legend kid.
Meta: Would it be possible not to use NSFW for spoilers? I don’t really like having all the porn subs showing up in my “All” feed, but I feel like I have to keep NSFW ticked if people are using it for spoilers and not just porn.
I’ve untagged it - let me know how it looks.
Unfortunately, there’s no “spoiler” tag for posts.
Thank you so much. :)
I’m so happy to have SNW back. Whoever decided to put Carol Kane in the show needs to get a raise; she is absolutely spectacular. I’m very curious to see where her character goes.
I enjoy the idea of Spock being more emotional it really puts it into perspective that Vulcans have emotions they just try to keep them under lock and key and Spock being half human is having a harder time with that compared to most Vulcans is… relatable.
I did not like weird green super power drug that Chapel and M’Benga took to fight the the Klingons. It came from no where, the shot on the eyes right out of Dread made me think it was literally Slo-Mo from that movie. It really wasn’t necessary, they could have just grabbed phasers somewhere instead.
I’m not realy sure how I feel about them using the term false flag in Star Trek. The plot makes sense but still it’s a very charged term today.
Yes, what was up with the green stuff?? I thought maybe I missed something from last season and kept watching thinking I’d remember but… Nope. I was half expecting them to get time-accelerated like in TOST Wink of an Eye episode, so they could just zip past all the Klingons.
Yeah, the drug scene didn’t feel great to me, they literally could have just found phasers or found a cleverer way around it.
I was wondering if you could explain the issue with the term ‘false flag?’ As far as I was aware, it’s when party A carries out an action and tries to frame party B for it - which was exactly what was happening here.
I was trying to figure out how to explain it succinctly and found this link which does a way better job than I could have: https://www.adl.org/glossary/false-flag
Ah, I understand your comment better. I am still not sure it’s enough to turn it (generally) into a no-go term. Plenty of news outlets have been commenting on Russian false flags against Ukraine and that’s used more in the context of how it’s used in this episode.
Fair.
Also, doesn’t the term date back to the Age of Sail? And TOS was explicitly supposed to be Horatio Hornblower in Space. It makes sense thematically to use nautical terms.
I enjoyed her in Gotham & Kimmy Schmidt.
That green drug was basically Underdog’s super energy pill. An unnecessary ‘pocket frannistan’ solution to the problem of escaping the Klingons.
Thoughts and observations written as I watch- I’ll be putting this on both Reddit and Lemmy, since infinity diversity/infinity combinations:
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Wheeee, NCC-1701 in the Star Trek tag!
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Previously: Last season happened.
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Little ships flying!
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Wonder who the lawyer that Una and Pike have tried to reach is.
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Oh, hey, the Vulcan musical instrument whose name I can’t remember!
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“Fascinating.” “Isn’t that usually his line?”
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The fellowship on archeological medicine? Is that a reference to Dr. Korby?
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“We must steal the Enterprise.” Buddy, if I had a nickel every time someone had to steal the Enterprise, I’d have several nickels.
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Lt. Mitchell gunning for series regular next year with how much screen time she’s had early on this episode.
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Okay, having Carol Kane is already paying dividends.
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And, yeah, Carol Kane doesn’t need alien makeup to be an alien. She’s already an alien.
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I’m still not sure if the emphasis one the warp catch phrase is amazing or annoying, but this scene was funny.
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KLINGON UPDATE: RIDGES!
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So clearly La’An’s augmented ancestors were genetically engineered to drink a lot. Which, y’know what? Fair.
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Ah, the borderlands, where utopian rules go away and everyone becomes a Ferengi.
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Congratulations to Uhura on graduating from the Academy.
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Ah, the old “I have technology that I’m totally not making up that will blow you up” bluff!
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New transporter chief?
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Okay, so the angry borderlands people are trying to do some sort of false flag thing.
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Redundant Klingon organs, the old standby.
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Roided-up doctors can tell you what bones they broke as they break them.
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These are obviously Discovery sets.
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This action scene, while well-done, is way too long.
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A D7!
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“We’ve gotten out of worse.” “No, not really!”
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“This I’ve got to see!”
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I wonder if “Lanthanite” is a synonym for “El-Aurian”
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Pelia knowing that being on the Enterprise means adventure is further proof that those ships are goddamn weirdness magnets.
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Gorn. Yes, it stretches canon but fuck it the Gorn are awesome we’ll come up with an explanation later.
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“For Nichelle”
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Overall, while not one of the better episodes, it still was a good start to the season. It wrapped up one of the hanging threads of last year (La’An), we continued to see some of Young Spock’s struggles with his emotions before he became the more-Vulcan Spock that Nimoy was in the main TOS series, and we got our first look at Carol Kane as the nutty new engineer. Overall, I’ll call that a win!
“For Nichelle”
I cried. I also teared up a little bit when Celia briefly channeled Nichelle early on in the episode.
@FormerGameDev @Continuumguy me too
Yeah that got me too.
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Not a terrible start but sadly not one of my favorite episodes for sure.
I don’t really know how to describe what I didn’t like, but I think it boils down to just how disjointed and rushed the pacing feels. For something so high stakes, it all felt really easy and predictable and just a bit boring.
It also felt like they were really really aggressive about making sure you understood the message about Spock. Seriously felt like a character was going to wink at the camera whenever they said something like “you’re not a normal Vulcan!”.
If I had to describe it, I’d probably go with Saturday morning cartoon surprisingly. A lot of story crammed into not enough time, with a heavy handed message about a character.
I didn’t hate it, don’t get me wrong. It just wasn’t unique or interesting like so many episodes are.
I feel like the ‘boring’ rush from sequence to sequence is happening a lot in media right now. I remember feeling the same during a couple of episodes of the last season on Mando.
Almost like paying and rewarding writers properly, so you get their best work is important.
Best I can put it down too is that they’re keen to make the characters seem strong and powerful, but they forget to set up proper flaws, tension and stakes/the ones that used to exist have been ruined by now over a decade of magic resurrection macguffins whenever somebody dies in popular media that fans like.
As sub par as TNG Season 1 was, and regardless of the toxic behind the scenes environment that led to it, we can’t deny that them killing off a principle character was a bold move than really set the stakes that anybody could die and that it wouldn’t always be in a blaze of glory.
Yeah, same goes for me. It was good, but it felt inexplicably “off” when compared to the first season.
Did anyone else giggle uncontrollably at “we must steal the Enterprise”?
It’s such a great meta joke because we know he’s going to do this many more times, so it really does seem obvious for us.
Also unbeknownst to him, it would be most famously stolen to resurrect his genesis-revived corpse!
They need to install a lo-jack
He gets good at hot wiring that ship
Yup. Ethan Peck’s delivery was impeccable.
