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

Tangential thought... has anything in this show actually established that scream as the Klingon death ritual? Or are viewers simply expected to be familiar with previous Trek series (and their very different Klingons) in order to make sense of it?

 

When they mounted their hood ornament in episode one I think

 

Fairly sure Voq did it after T'kuvma died.

 

He did. It's the same Klingon death howl we saw (or will see) in TNG and DS9. Only the makeup and costumes are different.

 

I think we will see Voq and Ash emerge as a combined being.

 

She collaborated and brainstormed with Stamets as scientists usually do, she presented an argument to Saru about why she's qualified to help Stamets (and he had every right not to accept her reasoning), and she had to pretend to be a Captain to stay undercover, which is not exactly a promotion by any means (and as soon as there weren't any Terran ships in range, she reverted to reporting to Saru as normal). She's not become magically unqualified to do scientific work just because she's not a commissioned officer yet; it's more likely than not that she already holds a university degree in her field.

 

You can come up with within-show explanations for all of this. But it comes down to the show having only six main cast members, the other actors having very well-defined roles, and thus needing Tilly to do something to justify being featured as more than an extra in a given week.

 

I will confess.

I do not even know Tilly’s name.

We are x number of episodes in, and she has only one name in my head. I mean I am sure it’s written down somewhere, but....

Last time this happened in Trek it was Mayweather. We all know how that turned out.

 

She did have a defined role when she was introduced, mainly as a contrast to Burnham and the other half of a mentor-pupil relationship with her. With Burnham off ship, she needed something else to do, and that something is incidentally her speciality. The cast may be small at the moment but I can't make a prediction on the course the show would take with not even Season 1 finished. In the next season she might be commissioned as an Ensign and assigned as a science officer, especially if Burnham becomes first officer, or she might be written out of the show completely to go finish the Academy. That being said, I didn't see her working with Stamets on the spore drive and helping him as disconnected from what was established as her particular field. And we also saw her become more confident, which might not be the most original of character arcs, but it's been way more than Travis Mayweather's weekly mandatory single lines.

 

That’s his name. Thanks for that.

 

IIRC, so far she's only done things with in her areas of expertise: the spores and engineering. She's never actually been in command yet, she just had to pretend she was.
Makes more sense than say, sending Chekov to the Science Station, instead of calling an actual member of science department to bridge.

 

The problem is that Episode 3 clearly showed that other people worked in the lab with Stamets. Given Tilly is just a cadet, some of them had to outrank her and have greater experience. But since that episode, you'd think that the drive was a two-person workplace from the way it's depicted.

 

And to add insult to injury, Chekov was laughably bad when trying to pass himself off as a Captain (and he didn't even change his Commander rank pip... but then again, TFF is only watchable as its own parody in the first place).

 

Next episode: Prime Sarek and Mirror Georgiou meet, and Burnham tries to figure out how to get her mommy and daddy to hook up.

 

We don't even know what they were working on though. Making the drive operational on the long term and working out the solution for a human navigator was the work of Stamets, Burnham and herself. Those three are the most qualified to answer any questions related to the spore drive, no matter who else might have been to that lab.

 

They do. The child is Caitlin Dar. Hides as a Romulan. Just after Burnham is in Star Trek IV and obviously MU Sato is pleased to be a great grandma.

 

They are in danger of making her the next Wesley. I wish they'd stop it.

 

Citations please for Prime Tilly.

As for mirror Killy, we have no idea how long it took Burnham to become a Captain. She may have just been given a ship by the Emperor. We do know Killy became a Captain because she assassinated her previous Captain while he was recovering from a case of the flu. Which as we all know in the MU is a prefectly acceptable means of advancement.

 

I know it's not just you doing this, but I really wish people wouldn't respond to pointing out flaws in the writing by coming up with in-universe explanations.

The fact of the matter is, Mary Wiseman needed to do something every week in order for her character to be relevant. So Tilly's role changes from episode to episode. Sometimes she's so awkward that she seems ASD. Sometimes she's the flirty party girl. Sometimes she just shoots off technobabble.

I'm not saying Wiseman is doing a bad job with her. And I'm not saying that - for the most part - they haven't developed her personality into something consistent. I'm just saying that the small cast and the need to keep her character busy has made her way more important to the running of a ship then a cadet would otherwise be. A great example was Episode 11. Stamets was in a coma, Burnham, Lorca, and Tyler were off on the ISS Shenzhou. Saru and Tilly were literally the only main cast members left. So all the Discovery scenes are Saru and Tilly talking in rooms together, rather than - oh I don't know - Saru talking to whoever the ranking lieutenant is onboard.

Don't get me wrong, past Trek could be bad about this. I don't remember Wesley being invited into the ready room much, but certainly based upon rank there was no reason Harry Kim should have been in there over some random ensign. But it's more obvious on Discovery because the cast is so small.