My notes on “Runaway”:
- It’s been noted in the DSC forum that the Discovery CG model appears to have been retextured, with the new aztecing fitting better to a ship this size. I tend to agree.
- Funnier still that the opening shot here is basically the same as the opening shot of the ship from 1x03, albeit in reverse – right down to a shuttle arriving / leaving. It’s like they used the same camera sweep in the program, tweaking it just a bit under the changed lighting, and hit “rewind”.
- It’s not EXACTLY the same though, as the contents of the shuttlebay are different. Smaller cargo crates, again making the ship look bigger. The shuttle is a Disco shuttle, and is oddly pitched forward as it leaves through the forcefield – inasmuch as the prison shuttle was pitched BACKWARD as it was tractored in.
- Inside we see our worker bees from the first season, but operating under both gravity and atmospheric conditions. And I hadn't noticed before, but there are two little berths for them on each side of the bay, up a deck or so from floor level (so they'd never have to be seen as a set piece when not in use). Neat - but it thus raises the question as to why the one bee we see park on the ground doesn't go back up to its empty berth? We clearly see one sans bee.
- And yet there's STILL no place for extra shuttles to disappear to, unless as I surmised previously that the huge Starfleet logo / landing pads are lifts to a lower deck storage and maintenance bay. We DO see these popup flashy hazard lights everywhere that weren't there before. When they shut the bay down, there were no other shuttles inside, and one had just left. The other two places where shuttles were often seen were cluttered with cargo pods.
- Uniform note: two of the NDs in the bay are wearing jumpsuits without any color appliques. These are the variant we see people wear under the away team armor, but ain’t no one looking like they’re away-teaming. What gives?
- The first words we hear are the ship’s computer announcing that “shift five” was over. Five? We’ve only heard about three shift rotations, and the occasional benefits of moving to a four shift. How would five work? Or is this some fancy team or group task designation instead of an actual shift?
- From the angle of the camera as the shuttlebay access doors close, you can easily see the gap in the floor and the little casters the doors roll on.
- Is Tilly still rooming with Burnham? With their respective promotions, you’d think they’d both warrant their own quarters. The not-Tilly side of her billet is almost bereft of decorations, but then again that’s pretty much Burnham anyway. A picture of the two of them together adorns her shelf (the other is bare), along with her various awards and medals, at least one of which has to be from the finale ceremony.
- I don’t blame her going to the mess hall when there’s a perfectly fine synthesizer slot in her quarters, just to literally get away from the image of her mom pacing around it. Unless the slot in her quarters is clothes only? I think we did see food come out of one once?
- Tilly's head noodle disappears and reappears between shots. It may have been part of Po as such. :P
- But as such, Po’s species has the ability to make their own clothes invisible too. We don’t know many invisible species (Jem’Haddar and..?) and I could surmise that we don’t see these guys again as they’re a monarchy and thus not likely Federation candidates, but…
- The APB on PO pretty repetitive. It says to keep her “alive and secure” twice, and then when Tilly reads that part, that text is repeated at the top of the APB for her! It also says “critical” three times. I guess they REALLY want her back.
- With all the “why the heck didn’t Tilly just report her?!” talk, in my headcanon of this consequence-less episode, Tilly just beamed her into the pattern buffer, called up security, explained everything to them, and materialized her in the brig for safe transport home, which is what Po realized she wanted to do anyway. It’s not like they beamed her to her home planet - which doesn’t know what transporters are, thus avoiding ANOTHER diplomatic incident, even if we’re already ignoring transporter ranges…
Mark
