Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x03 - "Point of Light"

[Quinton]

Whoops, I copied that over from a TrekMovie comment and forgot to take out the “I agree with this article” but.

 

[Jesse1066]

I liked it, but not quite as much as I liked the previous two episodes. That's okay though, since I really liked those episodes.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

His original pitch for this episode ended with a two bellybuttoned Riker fucking the creature to death.

I thought the two-bellybuttoned Mariette Hartley in Rodenberry's Genesis II was hot.
Honestly, that's all I remember about it.

 

[oberth]

Very much so. It also hearkens to "mother of the nation" imagery common to female leaders throughout history. L'Rell learnt this week she can have the title 'Chancellor' taken with a thumbprint on a legal document - it is a political title. 'Mother' is an iconic title. She is forging an identity as a populist leader above the petty squabbles over the chancellership. Given how fascist the TOS Klingons appeared, a single powerful leader makes a lot of sense.

exactly, our chancellor will be out of office rather soon but she will be mutti for about forever

 

[XCV330]

His original pitch for this episode ended with a two bellybuttoned Riker fucking the creature to death.

 

[Tuskin38]

Very much so. It also hearkens to "mother of the nation" imagery common to female leaders throughout history. L'Rell learnt this week she can have the title 'Chancellor' taken with a thumbprint on a legal document - it is a political title. 'Mother' is an iconic title. She is forging an identity as a populist leader above the petty squabbles over the chancellorship. Given how fascist the TOS Klingons appeared, a single powerful leader makes a lot of sense.

That makes a lot of sense.

 

[DigificWriter]

Logically speaking, there has to be more than on Klingon albino over a period of 100+ years.

Not when it was stated in Season 1 that the condition of albinism is extremely rare (I've forgotten what the exact numbers are, but they were stated).

 

[eschaton]

Not when it was stated in Season 1 that the condition of albinism is extremely rare (I've forgotten what the exact numbers are, but they were stated).

Still, it's dumb. It's like how TNG repeatedly had the titular leader of the Klingon Empire parlay with Worf and Picard. Or how DS9 had Rom end up the Grand Negus.

If you make it so that your main characters are tied into elements of every single story within the quadrant, it makes the universe seem small, because logically speaking an area of known space with trillions/quadrillions of inhabitants (at minimum) shouldn't have the same relatively small set of characters keep popping up again and again. It totally screws up the sense of scale. And it's why TOS succeeded in impressing upon us the vastness of space in a way all of the later series failed with.

 

[Zod]

I didn't enjoy this episode at all. Did not like the pacing or the writing. Decidedly average overall 5/10.

EDIT: After a second watch I liked it slightly better- Will settle on a 6/10. Just a little above average.

I may never fully like the Klingons in this show. I do appreciate that they tried to fix some stuff. The hair, the D7. Good please keep fixing. Section 31 I don't know what to think. I'll just see what happens.

Tilly is annoying to me. How did she stop for an argument with a Ghost and yet still win a marathon when she does not look all that fit? Especially compared to her athletic running mates. I don't know what to think about the force ghost. Also a bit annoying.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

2,TILLY is a fast runner.

What the hell is wrong with that?

Well, I don't follow Mechanoid's logic that it's part of a case he's making for cancellation, and I suspect he's probably got ruder motives for his comment about Tilly, but I did laugh that Tilly stopped for almost a minute to talk to her little 'shroom friend while everyone else kept running and then she suddenly burst past them all to win at the end while setting her personal best time. She didn't even do the Road Runner blur of spinning legs or leave a puff of smoke or anything. Of course, she has the spores in her, so maybe she just spore drived it to the end. But nothing to get up at arms about, just a funny little moment.

But how do you feel about Connolly?

 

[cultcross]

Still, it's dumb. It's like how TNG repeatedly had the titular leader of the Klingon Empire parlay with Worf and Picard. Or how DS9 had Rom end up the Grand Negus.

If you make it so that your main characters are tied into elements of every single story within the quadrant, it makes the universe seem small, because logically speaking an area of known space with trillions/quadrillions of inhabitants (at minimum) shouldn't have the same relatively small set of characters keep popping up again and again. It totally screws up the sense of scale. And it's why TOS succeeded in impressing upon us the vastness of space in a way all of the later series failed with.

In this case there is some sense to it though - this particular albino is tied into the leading houses of the Empire, including the house of Kor, and it is these particular Klingons that the DS9 Albino tangled with sometime post TOS. It doesn't take much to imagine him growing up to hate Kor and other powerful Klingons. There is a more logical connection here than "oh and he happens to be Picards ancestor" type small universe stuff, which I agree, is annoying.

 

[cultcross]

I did laugh that Tilly stopped for almost a minute to talk to her little 'shroom friend while everyone else kept running and then she suddenly burst past them all to win at the end.

Yeah me too - I didn't get that. I guess we were meant to assume that the while scene played out in her head? Although that's not how the rest of the Tilly/May interactions occurred which were all real time "Baltar and HeadSix" type setups.

 

[Tuskin38]

Burnham's ringtone was tribble sounds

 

[JD]

Another great episode, they really are on a role.
I'm one of the few people who actually the Klingon stuff last season, although I'm not a fan of how different they look, and this was even better than any of that was, it really felt like something we would have seen in TNG or DS9. The Klingons definitely look a lot better with hair, Kol-Sha and L'Rell really don't look that different from the The Search For Spock - Enterprise Klingons.
The stuff with Micheal and Amanda gave us some interesting new reveals for Spock and the Red Angel. I did find it interesting that the time Spock saw the Red Angel it was telling him about Micheal, it seems like to have some kind of interest or connection to her. It was cool to spend a bit more time with Amanda, and I loved her stealing Spock's medical file. I was not expecting the reveal that Micheal did whatever she did to put distance between her and Spock on purpose.
I liked Pike trying to go through the proper channels with Spock at first, and then telling Micheal and Amanda to go ahead and break into file when that didn't work. After seeing how loyal Spock was to Pike in The Menagerie, it was nice to see that that went at least a little bit the other way too.k
I was surprised how quickly they dealt with Tilly's "friend", I thought that was going to go on a bit longer. It does look they'll be dealing with it next week to, so the storyline isn't over.

 

[Kor]

Not when it was stated in Season 1 that the condition of albinism is extremely rare (I've forgotten what the exact numbers are, but they were stated).

Perhaps the genetic condition would be passed on to children, but this almost never happens because they are harshly shunned by Klingon society, so they don't get the chance to procreate.

Kor

 

[Amaris]

Yeah me too - I didn't get that. I guess we were meant to assume that the while scene played out in her head? Although that's not how the rest of the Tilly/May interactions occurred which were all real time "Baltar and HeadSix" type setups.

True. I did recall thinking "surely they'd be much farther along than that after so many seconds?"
Ah well, it was more Tilly, so I wasn't going to complain.

 

[eschaton]

True. I did recall thinking "surely they'd be much farther along than that after so many seconds?"
Ah well, it was more Tilly, so I wasn't going to complain.

It was a weird choice too, because in terms of themes, Tilly "losing" the race due to May's interference would have been appropriate - foreshadowing the later scene where May causes her to have a breakdown on the bridge.

 

[Mr Awe]

I read somewhere that Roddenberry was trying to make a point about the hypocrisy of American censors who would have a fit over the smallest depiction of sexuality but were silent when it came to violence.

Kor

Interestingly, this is still very much alive today. The producers of The Expanse have said that they can have extremely gory scenes, and they push that, and not get a single complaint whereas a bit of sexuality and executives get all upset! Apparently, this has become a joke with them and they find ways to push the violence.

 

[Greg Cox]

It's a matter of taste, to be sure, but I read enough of that kind of thing in the real world every day, and the less I see of it (and garbage like Section 31) in the sci-fi I watch where I hope to see humanity growing more emotionally intelligent, the better.

Definitely a matter of taste. Still, that being said, it's not as though violence and horror weren't part of TOS, even if restrained by the limits of sixties TV. I just rewatched "The Galileo Seven" the other day and, sure enough, one redshirt gets impaled by a giant spear and another redshirt is apparently beaten to death by a giant caveman, albeit offscreen. And there's a whole lot of heated debate about whether it safe to bury the bodies, about how they're too heavy to be brought back to Enterprise, etc. It's fairly tame by modern standards, and would probably be gorier if filmed today, but it's not as though the Final Frontier was ever a sanitized utopia where death and brutality never happened. And, as noted, the Klingons have never been known for their delicate sensibilities and peaceful dispositions.

To my mind, sf and horror have been joined at the hip since Frankenstein at least, so I kinda expect them to overlap sometimes, as they often did on TOS. And, I admit, I've never really understood why people were so freaked-out by the ending of "Conspiracy." Had no one else seen Scanners?

And, yes, I love The Brain That Would Not Die and own it on DVD.

 

[cultcross]

It was a weird choice too, because in terms of themes, Tilly "losing" the race due to May's interference would have been appropriate - foreshadowing the later scene where May causes her to have a breakdown on the bridge.

Mary Sue!

Thought I'd get it in there