- The episode opens with slightly fuzzy, sweeping looks at the bridge and other locations aboard ship. I'm not convinced the set is THAT large, and perhaps as large as the Sovereign-class set, at best. The way they lens and light it doubtless makes it look larger, but btween the CO chair and the wall stations there's scant enough room for where the Sovvie's tactical stations would be, and that's more or less what we have here. Sure, it makes the TOS Enterprise look cramped in comparison, but a football pitch this is not.
- We KNOW the spinning saucer has something to do with the spore drive, but not exactly what yet. We do see that a graphic of the spinny bits is prominently shown in every display that has to do with its operation, including in Engineering. Later on too, we see that the upper and lower portions of each saucer ALSO spin in opposite directions, so the torque problem I'd wondered about earlier is probably resolved this way. It's also more ammunition to the argument that the spinning parts of the ship are only skin deep.
- Starfleet issue pajamas - is this a first? They even have a metallic Fleet logo on them, so people can tell what organization they're from when they're kidnapped or whatever. In any case, I can only imagine the costume-accurate slumber parties that will happen at Trek conventions the world over now. Unto the present I'm fairly certain that EVERY Starfleeter has been in whatever they want to wear while sleeping - except MAYBE the sleepwear seen on the Excelsior in TUC, which seem to be nondescript white shorts and T-shirts with no particular branding visible.
- We know at least Tilly also has some sort of off-duty wear, being dressed in off-brand blue yogawear or something at the end of a couple weeks ago.
- This is the first space-based Federation Starbase we've seen chronologically (I'm pretty certain), and it's BIG. Not mushroom-big, but still large enough to dwarf the ships seen close to it. It I can't really identify what ships are there (the largest might be the same class as the Europa), but I'm sure they've all been seen before.
- Only one seems to be docked to the station, though, and Discovery is noticably absent for plot-driven purposes only. I'd imagine you can rationalize this by NOT having Discovery anywhere she could be seen by spies or people who could be captured and have her exact position be determined, important intelligence when trying to figure out just how this ship can spore around.
- We only see the one meeting space on the Starbase. It's a fairly generic space, but look - the customized conference table is made of WOOD! Otherwise though it doesn't seem to be a re-dress of some other set that I can see. The only other hexagonal set we know of is the Tardigrade lab, and that's much larger than this.
- It looks like the senior officer at the briefing is a bald Vulcan. Naturally, he doesn't say anything.
- Discovery has been relatively busy, averaging one major military action per week in the last three. I'd guess the other two actions mentioned were also surgical strikes of the hit-and-fade variety? There's no need to actually transit anywhere via conventional warp drive and it's not clear if Discovery has had, or needs significant resupply between actions. I wonder how much of the intervening time is spent preparing for the next mission, or if there's enough down time for, among things, Burnham to get comfy with the crew.
- In the mess hall, there are two different kinds of chairs: most standard chairs you'd find anywhere, and are useful and easily replaceable if anyone would want to start a prison riot or something; but there are fancier hero chairs that Burnham and Tilly sit at here, and which Landry and her squad were at a couple weeks ago. The "classic" chairs, which wouldn't look out of place at a bar on K-7, are found at rectangular tables, while the others are around circular tables. Maybe the hero chairs are somehow specially built in case some aliens can find them more comfy? Otherwise why have more than one kind of chair in such a place?
- The doodad I'd noticed next to Lorca's ready room meal last week was in fact not a hypospray, but an actual PAINFUL NEEDLE IN THE EYE device!
- Starfleet regulation 13982 allows a Captain to conscript "virtually" anyone into service in a time of war. Mutineers are apparently included in this blanket statement, I wonder who isn't?
- This isn't the first time, but on the shuttle back to Discovery, its alert klaxon is a generic one that's been used elsewhere before. I mostly remember it as the red alert sound for the Andromeda Ascendant on one of the "other" Roddenberry shows, but the sound predates that. Listen at about 3:57 here:
- This shuttle is slightly different than the prison shuttle and Disco-1, again for plot purposes: it's inner airlock door is conveniently opaque, so it (and the hatch above) could surprise Lorca and the hapless shuttle pilot; the other shuttles had transparent inner doors. Additionally, did the top hatch open first, and then the Klingons above patiently waited for the airlock doors to open before they jumped in?
- Yeah, yeah, D-7. But it's later established as a "Klingon prison vessel", which is new for us. I'm willing to rationalize it for now that the computer isn't any more familiar with a Klingon ship of this type and glitched to think it was a D-7 by, oh, let's say, its warp engine profile. This rationalization will only last until the NEXT time someone identifies this particular ship as a D-7.
- So ARE there any Ensigns on this ship? Everyone seems to be of Lieutenant and Commander ranks. And Tilly. There was Ensign Connor on the Shenzhou, but HIS Lieutenant rank would've been posthumous.
- The CMO requested help from Dr. Culber for an *Andorian* tonsilectomy. Assuming none of the people present in that exchange was particularly racist, I'm guessing that an Andorian tonsilectomy requrires more than the average effort of a human procedure?
- For those keeping track, the USS Yeager (under Captain Steven Maranville) was also at the Battle of the BInaries (sic - another name for it!). According to Startrek.com, the Yeager was the OTHER quad-nacelled starship in that fleet besides the Europa, and was also another unique ship there.
- Assuming all the little raiders we see later come from this "D-7", the Klingons probably did a good job feeding Tyler disinformation on the ship's complement. Having at LEAST a dozen crew out of 30-40 assigned to raider ops doesn't make much sense for a prison ship, or does it? Or is Tyler lying after all..?
Next, the exposition machine finally gets a work out describing how the s-drive works!
Mark
