Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x05 - "Choose Your Pain"

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

Or, they blew up the Buron with everyone aboard, after programming Lorca. The eye damage is a leftover problem from the surgical access to his cranium and the abduction was him deliberately (subconciously) allowing himself to be taken to do a checkup/renewal.

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[GeekUSACarl]

Or, they blew up the Buron with everyone aboard, after programming Lorca. The eye damage is a leftover problem from the surgical access to his cranium and the abduction was him deliberately (subconciously) allowing himself to be taken to do a checkup/renewal.

I'd only buy that if the Spore Drive wasn't functional.

if he was a Klingon, the second the spore drive worked he woulda handed it over and the Klingons woulda started their hunt for a not so microscopic tardigrade.

 

[Kemaiku]

I'd only buy that if the Spore Drive wasn't functional.

if he was a Klingon, the second the spore drive worked he woulda handed it over and the Klingons woulda started their hunt for a not so microscopic tardigrade.

Not if he doesn't know for certain Burnham and Stamets are telling the truth and they have enough successful attempts. Tyler could be a second operative, trying to let him know the Empire has captured their own tardigrade.

It would also explain how he got out of a medical checkup, maybe even encouraging Landry to go check on Kitty etc

 

[cultcross]

Everyone is a Klingon. Even the tardigrade.

 

[GeekUSACarl]

Not if he doesn't know for certain Burnham and Stamets are telling the truth and they have enough successful attempts. Tyler could be a second operative, trying to let him know the Empire has captured their own tardigrade.

It would also explain how he got out of a medical checkup, maybe even encouraging Landry to go check on Kitty etc

Acknowledging we're all positing paper thin guesses,

I still can't buy it. I just don't think that he would risk it any longer after a small handfuls of confirmation that it's been working.

 

[Mr Awe]

So were Battlestar and Breaking Bad. So is Better Call Saul. Somehow they've managed it.

I've only seen BattleStar so can only comment on it. But, it's just logic. You can't show everything at once. I know BSG didn't do that. Clearly, Michael was our introduction character and they covered her story first rather than focusing on some others.

That might not be your preferred order but it's the path they have chosen. Oh well--no biggie. I'm sure everyone has their own preferences. We'll still get to Lorca.

I agree that it is different than previous Treks that were Captain-centric. Things change. Best to just roll with it.

 

[Kemaiku]

It's more a passing thought, that he was the only survivor of an encounter like that where everyone else just ended up dead, he comes back behaving oddly with a strange "condition".

The eventual reveal (if there really is one) will still probably revolve around him being human but broken by something.

 

[Guy Gardener]

After the trip back, the bridge crew realised that some thing was wrong.

They didn't know what, but they RUSHED across the ship, found that Stamets was in trouble, opened the "cage" he was in and revived the poor bastard test dummy...

And where was Tilly while all this was happening?

Standing three feet away.

Silently.

Pondering.

Filing her nails.

Watching.

Humming.

Waiting.

Tilly is not what she seems.

Whether she is an alien spy, a serial killer or section 31, Tilly believed it was in her missions best interests at that moment to let Paul pass.

 

[137th Gebirg]

It's more a passing thought, that he was the only survivor of an encounter like that where everyone else just ended up dead, he comes back behaving oddly with a strange "condition".

The eventual reveal (if there really is one) will still probably revolve around him being human but broken by something.

Sounds interestingly like the fate that had befallen Garth of Izar. I wonder if there is a connection - and the real reason why he wasn't shown in Saru's list of "great captains".

That's a bit fucking thin on my part, though. Anorexic in fact...

 

[Noname Given]

I do think the fault here is on the writers for not filling the audience in properly on what the hell motivates this guy.

People keep comparing DSC to the Battlestar Galactica reboot, but nuBSG understood that it was important to give the audience a full picture of their characters at the start so we would understand their behavior, even though they often did some pretty awful things. In general (and this is barring the stuff that the writers themselves hadn't figured out yet and revealed in later seasons), if the showrunners knew something about the characters or the world they inhabited, they put it up on screen as soon as possible. We were shown right off the bat that Bill Adama was lying about where Earth was, and we knew that Baltar was complicit in the destruction of the Colonies and was haunted by a fantasy of the Cylon woman he loved. We understood that Kara Thrace had a thing for Lee Adama and was responsible for the death of his brother due to her own feelings. We didn't have to guess at this stuff, it was all on screen from the start. And the fact that other characters didn't know the things we knew was an asset, because it could be mined for dramatic irony.

I worry that DSC is falling victim to the modern premium cable drama impulse to surprise us with big reveals, even if it comes at the cost of properly characterizing the cast. This "wait and see" attitude trades satisfying storytelling in the moment for the promise that there's some kind of payoff down the line, and it does so in service of the least durable storytelling mode: that of shocking this audience. It's not a trade-off I feel is worth it.

Comparing ST: D to nuBSG is also unfair in that nu BSG WASN'T serialized (IE there was no over-arching story plan. RDM admitted this many a time.) It was generally episodic TV with some muiti-part stories here and there and a back-story that gave the characters motivation.

Again, I don't think ST: D is the best written thing on TV - BUT, overall, the writing isn't piss poor either. Star Trek has never been (overall) well written for the most part. Like anything yes, there are some real well done gems, balanced by a load of utter crap,

As for comparing the writing to previous Star Trek outings, for me the only show that still beats it 5 episodes in (and going by production order) is TOS. TNG wan't written anywhere near as well as ST: D in its first 5 eps. (And TNG was racked over the coals too at the start BTW.)

 

[Captain Shaw]

Just realized Ash Tyler is Clem Fandango

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[Gepard]

Comparing ST: D to nuBSG is also unfair in that nu BSG WASN'T serialized (IE there was no over-arching story plan. RDM admitted this many a time.) It was generally episodic TV with some muiti-part stories here and there and a back-story that gave the characters motivation.

What? Of course BSG was serialized. Nowhere in the definition of "serialized" is "pre-planned" a requirement. Moore himself described the format of the series as a long form story arc right on the first page of the pitch Bible.

Lost, Breaking Bad, Stargate Universe, and Better Call Saul also weren't planned out up front. Were those shows all also not serialized as well?

 

[Kor]

Best thing to do is not take any outside review seriously, because opinions are like ... well, navels--everybody has one.

I think opinions are more like toothbrushes...

Everybody has one, but you sure don't want everybody sharing theirs with you!

Kor

 

[Red Shirt]

Everyone is a Klingon. Even the tardigrade.

Oh man, from here on out I'm avoiding spoiler threads. >joking <

 

[Tim Thomason]

Everyone is a Klingon. Even the tardigrade.

It turns out that Ripper's species are native to Qo'noS, where they are called "targs" (short for tardigrades).

They're usually a little smaller.

 

[BillJ]

So were Battlestar and Breaking Bad. So is Better Call Saul. Somehow they've managed it. Leaving some story for later episodes to tell and filling us in on basic character motivations are not mutually exclusive. In fact the former requires the latter. If you hold back simple information like "the core reason one of our main characters says or does anything" for the end of your season, you only have one episode's worth of story that you've stretched out over fifteen for some goddamn reason.

Stretching story out like that is just a cover for not being creative enough to think of fifteen episodes worth of content.

I think you hit the nail on the head, at least for me. No actions have any context because we know next to nothing about the characters.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

It turns out that Ripper's species are native to Qo'noS, where they are called "targs" (short for tardigrades).

They're usually a little smaller.

"Set a course to Qo'nos. Targ 4"

 

[Agony_Boothb]

I know this is just a simple typo, but I couldn't help thinking:

"Cry havoc, and let slip the moths of war".

Cue dramatic music *moths proceed to bump into every light fixture and window instead of their actual target*

 

[Guy Gardener]

Mothra could easily hump the USS Discovery into an early grave.

 

[Pure Antiproton]

Just watched it again. May be the episode where I fell in love with this iteration of Trek.