Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x04 - "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry"

Oh it died with Enterprise alright. And not a day goes by without me being grateful that they somehow managed to resurrect it after that steaming pile of poo killed it.

I'm loving Discovery so far. It's bold, intrepid, exciting, and concerned with inner exploration in a way that Star Trek has very rarely been. This episode was the best one yet. Can't wait for next week.

 

The Klingon scenes completely kill the pace of this episode, on a show with huge pacing problems as it is. Klingons are many things, but they're not boring. These Klingons need to unite under the House of Gowron's Bug Eyes or something already.

 

Next week: Tilly glues Mr. Potato Head pieces to Burnham's face.

Well, one can hope.

 

Well, this was an utterly underwhelming episode. Throughout most of the scenes I was thinking "why are we wasting time on this scene" .. the whole waterbear science concept is pretty ridiculous and the general impression of the episode is that nothing happened..

 

Oh for christ's sake, people, the critter is part of the Shroom drive. Are the crew all really too stupid to put 2 and 2 together, or do they just figure the audience is?

 

That's perfect!

 

Genuine question Ed...And this goes out all haters...At what point do you give up on this show? Are you in it for the season? Six eps? 7? Ep 5 till the 1st add break?

 

Sometimes, you need a Vulcan. Or an android. Or a Trill. Or a Hologram. Or another Vulcan. Or a Human with Vulcan foster parents.

 

I thought it was a bit strange for Discovery to pop in, destroy the attacking Klingons and then pop out without offering any medical assistance to the survivors. We even got a "Who was that masked man?" vibe from one of the surviving children.

 

I will give this episode an 8, just climbing up from 7. Most of the episode felt more like Star Trek should be, and the last episode should have kicked the series off, with this one continuing the curve upward.

It was a big mistake to have the first two episodes, and that hurt the series a good bit for me.

The rescue of the miners and dealing with the tardigrade were both very Star Trek, to me. Those had almost a TOS feel, almost.

The Klingons are still the weakest part of the series, and there simply seems no real grasp of the writers knowing how the Klingons should be. Being cannibals was very unsettling, and this kind of radical departure (especially given they are not at all like this in TOS - not the way they look, but the way they are) is really something they need to do a hell of a lot of explaining to show how they end up in TOS, save these Klingons being totally exterminated by the ones we see in TOS, assuming the rule of the Empire from these Klingons.

 

Hey, they saved Corvan 2 (I think, wasn't real clear on that) which was pretty much defenseless despite containing 40% of the Federation's dilithium. At least that's consistent. The Federation has never been big on defenses, preferring the "Big Damn Hero" approach to invasions, etc.

 

Comes with the super-secret uber classified 'we're not a military, but we play one on TV' territory.

 

Stamets wants to talk to his mushrooms.

He can practice by trying to talk to the writers.

 

But how is he going to pay the REEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNT?

 

No, it's not. Just like it wasn't necessary for them to explain the very different appearance and characterization of the Klingons in TMP and TNG.

 

Because that doesn't make any damn sense until you see the thing respond to the drive. In this case, only Burnham saw that; the security chief was too busy salivating over the thought of butchering it.

Then Burnham decides to do science to it to prove a theory about what the creature's reaction might mean. Putting that Vulcan learning to good use.

 

I enjoyed how he figured out the Superbeast was talking to the spores by just watching it for a second in the garden. Ohh yeah! I see now.

 

It wouldn't have been necessary, if it wasn't for DS9 mentioning it in the Tribble episode, and ENT making the loss of ridges canonical in its fourth season. Now at minimum they need to show ridgeless human-looking Klingons somewhere.

 

I would say, that if you're not enjoying the series at this point, this should have broken the thin ice for you. There's more of the same on the way... so I'm not sure why anyone's would hang on at this point if you continue to be disgruntled.

 

Appearance is one thing, but the characterization from TOS to the movies to TNG era seemed to elaborate and build on itself. These Klingons are nothing like what would grow into what we see in TOS.