Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x13 - "What's Past Is Prologue"

[Cyrus]

Interesting clip from next episode shown in After Trek:

Spoiler

Admiral Cornwell and Sarek Comandeer Discovery looking for Lorca. They figured out he is from MU? We see PU Andorians and Tellerites.

 

[GeekUSACarl]

That's just factually wrong.

This isn't a fanfic, in the USA there is nothing exotic about the name Michael, unique for a woman but not exotic. In fact unless you live in a country with no black women there is nothing exotic about her at all

I don't find her having a set of rare or implausible set of talents or gifts. She is a scientist who happens to know vulcan martial arts. In a sci-fi setting that isn't ery unique.

I doubt this is an idealized version of the author and doesn't to me seem much like wish fulfillment.

I think some of you are way overthinking this. And when the smoke clears I think it'll be this was a bit of a vocal mimority.

The show has problems but green and this magic mary-sue character is just in your imagination.

 

[XCV330]

This is demonstrably false. Isaacs himself said when he first began shooting they handed him a script for the third episode, and then immediately told him the script would be pulped and nothing in it was going to be used. The final two episodes were also tacked on late in production when the season was expanded from 13 to 15 episodes. IIRC, they didn't finish filming the last episode before the first episode premiered.

Now, it's true that they are in no way retooling the show on the fly as a result of fan response. But they certainly didn't have a solid plan before filming even started - or if they did, it was abandoned when Fuller left.

I suspect at least part of the plan was shelved, though I suspect there had to be some coherency from episode 3 on. There are facets that work pretty well leading up to the reveal. Now these last two episodes, I suspect were tacked on, maybe CBS decided (wisely) NOT to end on a cliffhanger.

 

[Akiraprise]

He is great on the nerdist but yeah on after trek, I mean.... eh....

It may not be him though. Sometimes a format just doesn't fit certain people, or the pace of it.

I tried to watch it twice, but he's just unbearable. Most people have their talents and I'm sure he has his, but hosting a talk show does not seem to be his forte.

Right. Nothing against the guy personally. Just don't think he's suited to this format of show. At least it's not just me thinking this!

 

[Top41]

Wow!! I feel like that's been my reaction to the end of the last two episodes before this one, but man--my jaw keeps dropping. I did NOT think they'd kill Lorca in this episode. I kinda figured he'd be done after this season but not dispatched so quickly in this episode. I'm going to miss him--I wish there had been an episode between the reveal and the climactic showdown so we could have gotten a little more time with Mirror Lorca knowing he was Mirror Lorca.

But I enjoyed what we got and I LOVE that Burnham got to save Mirror Georgiou. Love, love, love that, both for the story possibilities and the fact that Burnham in a mirror sort of way got to save MU Georgiou in a way she wasn't able to save her Georgiou.

I do have a bunch of questions though. So did Prime Lorca cross with MU Lorca during that ion storm transport and die on the MU ship that blew up? I'm assuming he's dead... but if he's not maybe Jason Isaacs could pop up again. Loved him on After Trek. I love how he has zero fucks to give. It's beautiful.

Another question: did the Emperor's ship get blown up when Discovery destroyed the MU spore drive (or hub--can't remember the term they used for it)? Or is Landry going to be Emperor now?

And last, where was Ash?? What's going on with his Klingon/human hybrid brain???

Excited for next week's episode. I gave this one another 10!

 

[SolarisOne]

Man, this is stupid so far. Really stupid. Lorca is mustache-twirling. Tons of expository dialogue. The absolute worst though is that the TE ship threatens "the whole of all universes." Given there are an infinite number of them, if any one act could cause the mycelial network to die, it would have happened already.

Point goes to @eschaton for pointing out the inherent shortsightedness of that particular plot point.

Meh. Despise what they did to Lorca. He could have been an interesting character in the PU but they had to turn him into a MU cartoon villain. THAT SUCKS.

I grimmaced and facepalmed my way through the episode.

I don't care if people don't like DSC, opinion will be mixed and that's part of the territory, but this complaining about "Social Justice Warriors" is getting old.

"SJW" is the new "Mary Sue". No one actually knows what it means, and they use it to describe everything they don't like.

I really wish Stamets had said, we "overshot by...150 years" as a Sovereign class came into view.

I said the same thing. Have it be the the very late 24th or 25th century, and then keep them there.

This 1,000,000 times this. Screw the 23rd century.

I mentioned on another thread earlier today that I hated what DS9 did with Dukat from Waltz on, basically destroying his complexity as a character to make him into a one-note, mustache-twirling villain.

What Discovery did to Lorca was even worse than that.

Yes. Early Dukat is the way you do a Trek antagonist well.

Eddington got far less screen time, worked better as a contrast to the main character, and had a much, much better conclusion to his arc.

Eddington has always been one of my favorite bits from DS9. One phrase I always like to use when people start into the Gene's Vision bullshit is, "Eddington was right." I've always found him to be an under-celebrated character. And a great example of a foil done right.

Eddington was a bit more clichéd than Dukat, but also a good antagonist.

Michelle Yeoh finally got to show a little of what she can do, and I could believe her kicking anyone's ass.

And you could tell she was holding back to make Jason Issacs not look bad,

I'm a sucker for intense martial arts scenes. And for intense martial artists.

The character is a bad guy therefore, is not the hero.

Everyone's the protagonist of their own story. This just didn't happen to be Lorca's story.

 

[TheMadCloner]

Picard was more of a Mary Sue than Burnham is.

A captain who defuses nearly every situation with his special brand of diplomacy? That's wish fulfillment.

 

[marsh8472]

wish they would have said they were now in the 25th century at the end

 

[GeekUSACarl]

This is demonstrably false. Isaacs himself said when he first began shooting they handed him a script for the third episode, and then immediately told him the script would be pulped and nothing in it was going to be used. The final two episodes were also tacked on late in production when the season was expanded from 13 to 15 episodes. IIRC, they didn't finish filming the last episode before the first episode premiered.

Now, it's true that they are in no way retooling the show on the fly as a result of fan response. But they certainly didn't have a solid plan before filming even started - or if they did, it was abandoned when Fuller left.

No it isn't demonstratably false.

If you're telling me the only one not done filming was the very last episode then my entire statement holds true.

They weren't giving you a sjw black woman statement week to week in spite of you conplaining on comment boards as these episodes were already filmed.

You're acting like they just kept deciding to shove it down your throats despite your best efforts to let them know how much you didnt like it.

 

[ClintDagger]

These episodes are shot in advance of them airing.

What do you think they are going to do, halfway through the season just pull 8 episodes and rewrite and reshoot them?

thats what I'm trying to tell some of you. They aren't "pushing" anything on anyone in spite of the idea that the character isn't popular. this was all written, directed, acted, shot, everything. But week to week somr people are actingnlike "here we go again, in spite of the constant complaining on the internet, they decided to give us another michael episode"

and again, I think its a very vocal group, not a large majority doing the complaining about Green and Burnam, that is of course just my opinion. Well see what the end of season ratings are but I doubt thay green or cbs have any real cause for real concern.

I don’t think anywhere did I suggest they could have changed stream in the middle of season 1. I think everyone knows that isn’t possible. I’m merely suggesting that I hope they see that Lorca largely carried the show once he was introduced and that a heavily Burnham centric series without someone like Lorca to lean on probably won’t be long lived.

Everyone I know IRL that watches the show doesn’t watch it like you and I do. They don’t post on sites like these or read much about it on the net. They all think Isaacs is the show lead and are probably going to be confused as hell after tonight. Now, that’s just the people I know so it’s anecdotal. But I bet others will chime in with similar experiences. My point is that IMO Isaacs was the only actor in the series to date to really bring a series lead type performance. If he’s gone for good, the rest of the cast will either need to really step up or a new cast member or member(s) will need to be introduced to keep this show rolling. That’s just my opinion based on the 13 eps I’ve seen.

 

[Tim Thomason]

If the ISS Discovery isn't in Prime Time, where the hell is it? Was it just kicking back on Wrigley's Pleasure Planet while Michael and the gang destroyed the Charon?

 

[GeekUSACarl]

I don’t think anywhere did I suggest they could have changed stream in the middle of season 1.

Well it was the point of the comment you replied to and part of the discussion as well.

Either way i dont know one person who thought Lorca was the show's lead.

 

[Caretaker]

Eh, canon is overrated. Give me a good story. Plus... the Vulcans were apparently conquered.

We already knew that from "The Conscience of the King". Could this be what Bryan Fuller was referring to with the "incident in the history of Starfleet that had been talked about but never fully explored" comment?

 

[eschaton]

No it isn't demonstratably false.

If you're telling me the only one not done filming was the very last episode then my entire statement holds true.

They weren't giving you a sjw black woman statement week to week in spite of you conplaining on comment boards as these episodes were already filmed.

You're acting like they just kept deciding to shove it down your throats despite your best efforts to let them know how much you didnt like it.

My point is just that your claim about the story already being written by the time that SMG and Issacs were cast is false. Large portions of the story were almost certainly incomplete, if not entirely missing, by that time. They certainly could have tweaked the scripts to account for the differing strengths of the two actors as the season wore on.

I don't like SMG's performance much, but honestly I haven't had any real structural issues with the focus on her character since the start of Act 2. They've already turned it into a semi-ensemble piece where Saru, Stamets, and even Tilly are as integral to saving the day.

My issue with this show is the writing is dumber than a bag of rocks.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Seriously they aren't trying to push her as the great one.

Once upon a time, before they cast the show, the wrote a story about these characters. The cadt and crew are simply fulfilling the story. They aren't making this up from one week to the other.

Thats the point you people keep missing. Her continuing to be the maon character isn't a thing they are "pushing" that's just the story that was conceived, casted, and shot.

Frankly I think a lot of people like green and burnham and the ones who are butthurt about her just cry the loudest and whine about SJW this and SJW that.

Yes Isaacs is a great actor. But he cannot and would never have been able to play Michael. He could never have been the lead in this show. If he was the lead it woulda been a different show. what you want, is a different show all together.

This.

Isaacs was cast for a specific reason, he's character actor who specialises in playing villains. Lorca was conceived as a villain from the outset and they got someone who had the chops to play an amazing, charismatic villain, because that is what they wanted. Jason Isaacs has been acting for almost as long as Sonequa Martin-green has been alive. I'm sure Martin-Green would probably agree that she was overshadowed by Isaacs and I'm sure she would also say that she had zero problems with it, because she got to learn from an actor with 30 years worth of experience. The notion that there is some 'SJW' conspiracy to oust a white male lead because he is overshadowing a lead woman of colour is pretty ludicrous.

The criticism toward Green isn't that different from the criticism that Kate Mulgrew received. I think there is a fair segment of the fan base that do not like seeing women front and center. It's fine for them to be Counselors or Doctors but shit hits the fan if she does stuff that boys do and orders men around and pushes some apparently threatening feminist narrative.

 

[TrekNut87]

I'm somewhat disappointed, yet OK, yet expected what happened tonight. I knew Lorca wouldn't last long, given recent events, but I was kinda hoping that they'd stretch him at least one more episode. Then again, I'm not going to rule anything out just yet as I want to know where or what happened to Prime Lorca.

Also, holy violence lol. That's not a complaint, just surprising. I know Disco as a whole has been more violent than it's predecessors, it was taken up about three notches tonight. That and I guess I've just become so used to the most violent thing in Trek being Neelix dumping a plate of spaghetti on Paris that this is a nice change.

I think I love Stamets. He's an absolute dork, but he knows what he's doing. Was really nice to see Doug Jones get to use his chops a bit and inject some confidence in Saru.

Burnham kind of annoyed me tonight. Somehow, I think bringing Georgiou with her is going to be a bad decision...

We'll see

 

[137th Gebirg]

Look, I.S.S. Buran!

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/ISS_Imperator

'Imperator' is canon now!

It actually seems to be of the same class as the USS Yeager (NCC-1437), the Cardenas-class, that was destroyed at the Binaries.

 

[Tim Thomason]

I was hoping that they would *undershoot* the destination and wind up in the 1970s. Then we can have maybe one episode of them on Earth in actual Disco gear (put Saru in a hooded sweatshirt), as they attempt to grab some Ferengi warp coil from Area 51 or something in order to get out of the solar system.

Then a few episodes of them dealing with 20th century Vulcans and Klingons (er... maybe not) while not polluting the timeline.

 

[SolarisOne]

<----- See the outraged Capuchin in my avatar? That's pretty much me right now.

I gave last episode a 10. This one got a 1. I would have given it a 0, if that had been possible. They completely fucked up Lorca. Then, they completely fucked up his exit. His dialogue was horrid this time around, too. I have to hear He Who Shall Not Be Named talk in real life more than enough. I don't need my fictional characters sounding just like said person, almost word for word, thank you. They have at least one novelist on staff and can't do better than that?!

As much as I love Michelle Yeoh's badassery, it just didn't make up for how they handled Lorca.

They really took the spore nonsense to greater heights in this episode, too.

 

[Long Syntax]

what you want, is a different show all together.

Yes, as it turns out, I do.