Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x09 - "Into the Forest I Go"

[Guy Gardener]

If Tyler is Voq what we were seeing, the torture not the sex, was the reconstructive surgery, changing Voq's species.

 

[Nerys Myk]

After Trek was pretty fun and featured a Tribble fight. It also show the scenes for the latter half of the season.

 

[MvRojo]

I thought it was a great action episode. The spaceship battle is one of the more unique ones we have ever seen and at the moment I can only think of the Mutara Nebula battle in "Wrath of Khan" and the retake of Ds9 in season 6 or the Klingon attack of Ds9 in"Way of the Warrior" as being more interesting. It got my juices going. The hand fight was not as thrilling but it was better than most that you see in Trek. Not sure I like everyone being happy to see the ship blow up because that doesn't feel very "Starfleet" of them but then again I think my main objection wasn't that people liked seeing it so much as we didn't see at least one person where they kind of point out the fact that watching a ship blow up and people die shouldn't be something to be happy about. Seems like something Saru might make in that moment.
Jason

I don't think it's necessarily un-Starfleet to celebrate success.

Data cheered and pumped his fist when the BoP was destroyed in Generations, and the Starfleet Officer behind him pumped his fist as well.

Red Squad super-cheered when they thought they blew up the Dominion ship in "Valiant." Maybe not the best example since those cadets were stupid.

 

[Amaris]

And to give Troi something to do. Other than becoming Will's wife she had little story value in the film and was largely a glorified secondary character who was there just to fill the requirement of all seven of the TNG leads being on the Enterprise.

Yep, which was stupid, because Troi has several roles on the ship. They couldn't have her competently addressing one of them the whole time?

 

[Guy Gardener]

What if Deanna was a much stronger telepath than the reeman?

"Hey Will... I think someone is trying to r### me?"

I don't think it's necessarily un-Starfleet to celebrate success.

Data cheered and pumped his fist when the BoP was destroyed in Generations, and the Starfleet Officer behind him pumped his fist as well.

Red Squad super-cheered when they thought they blew up the Dominion ship in "Valiant." Maybe not the best example since those cadets were stupid.

Data was full of inappropriate over-reactions due to his recently installed emotion chip.

 

[Mel Tenorio]

I think Discovery was in a star fleet alternate universe and I don't mean the mirror universe. At the end of the episode they could have jumped into the Star Trek canon universe.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Huh...

Alternate episode title: "When Shit Gets Real"

 

[Mechanoid1]

Thank you, finally the 9th episode got a solid 9/10. Looks like Disco has gone Sliders/Quantum leap on us. I like the new possibilities. I'm starting to see the light.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Thank you, finally the 9th episode got a solid 9/10. Looks like Disco has gone Sliders/Quantum leap on us. I like the new possibilities. I'm starting to see the light.

Lorca doesn't share his eyedrops.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Now we have a male's trauma flashback-nightmare to go with the Nemesis business. For whatever that's worth to anyone.

Yeah, but in this case it's not the cringe-inducing "Jesus... really?" that Nemesis was. It's more of a brow raising "Jesus, I can take a hint!" Beyond that, though, there's the strong implication that L'Rell did something to Tyler's brain that is going to have far more interesting consequences later on. I'm almost 100% certain at this point that he's not actually Voq, but she probably "programmed" him somehow.

 

[XCV330]

It's interesting how much use they've gotten from the shuttle bay in just one half of a season. It's a huge set and makes for some impressive views.

 

[Push The Button]

If we were being realistic, there is no way a woman who looked like SMG would defeat any human male in hand-to-hand combat the size of Kenneth Mitchell, let alone a Klingon, as they are canonically much stronger than humans.

Of course, that never stopped Trek from having humans win hand-to-hand combat with Klingons in the past, and those scenes were usually terribly choreographed.

Bruce Lee was 5 foot 8 and weighed 140 pounds. With proper Vulcan and Starfleet self-defense training, Burnham certainly could have held her own against a Klingon.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I thought it was a great action episode. The spaceship battle is one of the more unique ones we have ever seen and at the moment I can only think of the Mutara Nebula battle in "Wrath of Khan" and the retake of Ds9 in season 6 or the Klingon attack of Ds9 in"Way of the Warrior" as being more interesting. It got my juices going. The hand fight was not as thrilling but it was better than most that you see in Trek. Not sure I like everyone being happy to see the ship blow up because that doesn't feel very "Starfleet" of them but then again I think my main objection wasn't that people liked seeing it so much as we didn't see at least one person where they kind of point out the fact that watching a ship blow up and people die shouldn't be something to be happy about. Seems like something Saru might make in that moment.

They're, like, eight and a half months into a big fucking war. This is far from the FIRST Klingon ship they've destroyed in battle, but considering the significance of this ship, I would bet good money it's the first time they've had a real good reason to celebrate.

I also think the scene were Tyler talks about his experience of being tortured was very powerful as was Stamets going into the Spore drive even though his boyfriend doesn't want him to.

Yup.

Also look forward to exploring alternate universe.

I kind of doubt that's where they're going with this. Discovery might have moved very far into the future, or very far into the past; it might be on the other side of the galaxy way off in the Gamma Quadrant or it might be in another galaxy altogether. But from the pattern Discovery has taken so far, I'm thinking the writers are somehow using the Iliad/Odyssey as a template for this story. First the war and its (pretty much) conclusion, and now the long struggle to make their way past monsters, sirens, vengeful gods and implacable enemies to try and get back home. Just a guess at this point, but I'm thinking that most of their conflicts from here on will be a mixture of internal (Stamets being crazy, Tyler coming to terms with his deep programming and/or being L'Rell's bitch) and external (weird aliens stalking them, Ripper coming back for revenge, maybe some Gorn?)

 

[Amaris]

Bruce Lee was 5 foot 8 and weighed 140 pounds. With proper Vulcan and Starfleet self-defense training, Burnham certainly could have held her own against a Klingon.

Indeed. She could have beaten him handily, given the chance. As it was, she was only providing distraction.

 

[Fateor]

Bruce Lee was 5 foot 8 and weighed 140 pounds. With proper Vulcan and Starfleet self-defense training, Burnham certainly could have held her own against a Klingon.

But she shouldn't have been able to block an overhead strike without breaking her arms given how much stronger then a Human Klingon's are supposed to be.

 

[wayoung]

But she shouldn't have been able to block an overhead strike without breaking her arms given how much stronger then a Human Klingon's are supposed to be.

She was raised on Vulcan. She's stronger than most humans due to living in its higher gravity.

Now, how Dax and Kira were blocking similar blows....

 

[Crazy Eddie]

But she shouldn't have been able to block an overhead strike without breaking her arms given how much stronger then a Human Klingon's are supposed to be.

What are you on about? The whole point of martial arts is learning efficient blocking and deflection techniques so that you don't actually HAVE to be stronger than your opponent. If Burnham was challenging Kol to an arm-wrestling contest, then yes, she'd be kind of screwed. But in an actual fight -- especially with an edged weapon, as in this case -- it makes exactly ZERO sense to try and out-muscle your opponent, even (or especially) if you're bigger and stronger than he is.

There's also the fact that, technically, Burnham didn't WIN the fight with Kol and WELL on her way to the Klingon meat locker before Discovery beamed her back. Sus Manah was good enough to keep her alive for a few minutes, but there's no way she was going to defeat Kol in single combat.

 

[Worf2DS9]

Really enjoyed this episode a lot! Lots of good character stuff, action and tension.

The surgery had glimpses of Tyler with what looked like a Klingon face - it didn't look like torture but a surgery, changing him from Klingon to Human, with his responses to L'Rell and his PTSD flashbacks giving the impression that he is Voq with a surpressed memory, IMO.

This was my impression too. I've never really fallen in with the Tyler-is-Voq theory, but I'm leaning more towards it now. Those flashbacks could certainly just be what Tyler appears to be remembering, or it could very well be images of some extremely painful surgery transforming Voq into Tyler. I do recall seeing quick flashes of a Klingon that looked like Voq. And L'Rell telling him she wouldn't let them hurt him, seemed like she was talking to Voq.

Or maybe that's what the writers want us to think!

 

[Guy Gardener]

What are you on about? The whole point of martial arts is learning efficient blocking and deflection techniques so that you don't actually HAVE to be stronger than your opponent. If Burnham was challenging Kol to an arm-wrestling contest, then yes, she'd be kind of screwed. But in an actual fight -- especially with an edged weapon, as in this case -- it makes exactly ZERO sense to try and out-muscle your opponent, even (or especially) if you're bigger and stronger than he is.

There's also the fact that, technically, Burnham didn't WIN the fight with Kol and WELL on her way to the Klingon meat locker before Discovery beamed her back. Sus Manah was good enough to keep her alive for a few minutes, but there's no way she was going to defeat Kol in single combat.

Burnham was stalling.

Winning or losing would end the stall.

If Michael had an easy quick victory available to her, she was not going to take it, since the only thing stopping the other 30 klingons on the bridge from at the very least "shooting her" from 15 feet away, or the only thing affording Lorca enough time to break the cloak, was the continuing fight which Kol thought that he was winning, dragging on.

It may have been difficult for Michael Burnham not to knock Kol on his ass with her first punch.

 

[Worf2DS9]

After Trek was pretty fun and featured a Tribble fight. It also show the scenes for the latter half of the season.

I PVR'd After Trek this week so I didn't have to sit through the plethora of commercial breaks, but I missed the end, even with the additional 3 minutes that are tacked on to each recording. Oh well, I'll catch it online at some point.

It was nice to finally get SMG on the show, and she seemed to have a good time. The Skyping with writers sure was a mess though!